#lawn prints with price

[twstedreamweaver]

Missing Magazines

Octavinelle with a Fashion Model Reader

How would the Octavinelle boys react to you being a model? Based on the premise that you, the reader, are a model and are featured in a popular fashion magazine that Sam sells at the school - except when you go to buy one, you realize that someone bought out almost all the magazines. Who could it be?

Things to mention: Azul never stopped signing contracts with people and the Octotrio are still shady. Reader is slightly different from canon Yuu. Also, this is my first fanfic, so I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies with POV! Twisted Boys featured: Azul, Jade, Floyd

The warm sun was a welcome surprise after several dreary weeks of intermittent rains and grey skies. Throngs of students were happily milling about on the central lawn, some boys from Savanaclaw were throwing a Spelldrive Disc like a frisbee, and you spotted some Ignihyde students actually touching grass for once.

With the passing of the Spring rains, Night Raven College seemed to spring back to life with the touch of a little sunshine.

And just in time for the release of the summer edition of one of the top magazines in Twisted Wonderland, Fleurs de la mode. However, this edition was special - it was your first official modeling gig for a fashion magazine.

Admittedly, when you were first scouted by a modeling agent at the NRC's Song and Dance Championship, you were hesitant (I mean, after dealing with the outrageous amount of con artists at NRC, who wouldn't be skeptical), but the Fleur City Associates modeling agency turned out to be legitimate. After some back and forth with your agent, and several gigs later, you got the opportunity to model for a popular fashion magazine on account of your unique "otherworldly'" flair, which you assumed was a weird compliment from one of your managers. Regardless, your nerves had long since worn off with the first paycheck (thaumarks are hard to come by) and now you were excited to see your hard work in print.

"Welcome back, my little imp." Sam waved from behind the counter. "What can I conjure for you today?"

"Good morning, Sam!" You smiled, "I heard that you just got in the newest edition of Fleurs, could I buy one off you?"

Sam gave you a peculiar look, before smiling - wait, was that a trace of a smirk?

"I do apologize little imp, but I am fresh out of stock. Those magazines flew off the shelves this morning."

"Wait, but didn't you just open like thirty minutes ago?"

You were a bit disappointed. On one hand, you didn't really need the magazine, but on the other hand, it would've been nice to have at least some proof of your accomplishment in this strange world. At a school where magic was the highest priority, it was nice to finally be known for something that wasn't just your lack of magic ability.

"Yes but, eh hee hee, it seems the magazine was quite popular this time around." Sam snickered. You sighed.

"However," Sam continued, "You've lucked out this time little imp, For the same price as a magazine, I can tell you who bought out half my stock. I'm certain that you can get one from him for free!"

"Thanks Sam, for the, uh, considerate offer, but I think I'll pass!" You remarked, trying to think of who might have bought out such a large stock of magazines.

"Are you certain, my little imp?" Sam leaned over the counter, smiling, a bit too maliciously for your liking. "Don't you want to see your magazine debut firsthand?" Huh?

You were only featured on a few pages, so how did he even know you were in there? Did he actually read the fashion magazine? Looking at his attire, you find that highly doubtful.

"How'd you know about that?" You inquired, trying not to sound overtly suspicious.

"Why else would so many imps be standing in line outside my shop at seven in the morning?" Sam, for sure, was smirking this time.

No way. How did this get around? You felt your face go hot, suddenly embarrassed. Hold on, you reasoned with yourself. Vil is a model too, along with some other Pomefiore students, so students modeling shouldn't be a shock to anyone!

But if the reason the magazines sold out so quickly was - that is, if Sam's not tricking you - because of your shoot, then why would anyone buy half of the entire stock? Especially at Sam's ridiculous prices.

You sighed; you'll figure this out later.

"I'm good, Sam. Thanks for the offer, but I've got to get going to my next class." You quickly backed away from Sam and ducked out the front door before he could cut you off with another suspicious offer.

"Come back anytime little imp!" The door swinging shut behind you as Sam big you goodbye.

God, was there a single good person in this school??

Wait, a realization suddenly hit you. The guy who bought half the magazines, was it-

——-

You practically stomped across the school, through the mirror room, and into the Octavinelle dorm.

You didn't lie to Sam earlier; you really did have to go to class. And then after four classes and nearly eight hours, you had to go to club. So, now it was practically late afternoon, and you were only now on your mission to hunt down the buyer of some 60+ magazines.

The moment you stepped inside Mostro Lounge, two tall, ominous figures seemed to materialize directly beside you.

"Hello Jade. Hey Floyd."

"Shrimpy!" Floyd exclaimed, before wrapping his long arms around your torso and squeezing tightly.

"Now now, Floyd," Jade smirked, "Let's not squeeze the life out of our little Prefect."

"I'm here to discuss some things with Azul." You told the two 6-foot-tall eels.

You must have sounded agitated because Floyd and Jade quickly took the hit and grabbed onto each of your arms respectively and dragged walked me to the VIP room.

"Now then, who are we to interfere with your business affairs?" Jade let go of your left arm to open the large, ornate VIP room doors.

"Only VIP access for our Shrimpy!" Floyd exclaimed, striding into the VIP room where some student was groveling on his hands and knees, begging Azul for something. I noticed that he had a small anemone sprouting from his head, looks like Azul got another freshman. Grinning, Floyd roughly grabbed the poor student by his shirt collar and unceremoniously threw him out the door.

Jade sinisterly smiled at the boy, before bending down to say something in a hushed tone, causing the boy to squeal and shuffle away frantically. Jade smirked, stood, and walked over to stand beside the seated and slightly flustered Azul, as Floyd slammed the doors.

For once, and to my astonishment, Azul, usually the pristine image of a savvy businessman, looked a little nervous.

You were surprised that he didn't even object to Floyd tossing his client (more likely his victim, given the anemone) out.

Azul pursued his lips and tented his fingers on the table, before taking a breath and seeming to regain his composure.

"Why, (Y/N), to what do I owe the pleasure of your company this evening?"

Azul typically spoke formally and eloquently, but given your and his relationship as friends, his behavior was a little, unusual. Something smelled fishy, and it wasn't the fish swimming outside or the mermen in the room.

You chalked it up to your own misunderstanding of the situation, or to Azul already going into business mode to prepare for what was coming.

"I'm here about the Fleur magazines you bought."

For a brief second, the three (well, more like two, Floyd just seemed slightly humored) seemed to go pale. Azul gave you a blank stare, mouth slightly open, and Jade turned away to focus intently on the wall with a trace of a grimace on his face. Floyd chuckled and looked at Azul.

Weirdos. What is up with them today?

"You're reselling those Fleur magazines for a profit, aren't you?" You continued on.

A brief moment passed. Jade turned back to look at you and Azul quickly snapped back to reality with a small laugh and a smirk.

"Yes! Why, you deduce correctly, Prefect, I did buy the remaining stock in order to resell them. They're quite in high demand, given your popularity amongst the student body."

"I apologize if you wanted to buy one, but I couldn't miss such a lucrative and perfectly legal business opportunity!" Azul cloyingly apologized, gesturing with his hands in a show of mock apology.

Floyd and Jade nodded along in fake sincerity. Seems you guessed right after all.

"Okay, seeing that you're admitting it, I'm not really that mad. But, also, seeing that you're going to profit off my face, I have a proposal."

The three leaned forward. "Do go on," Azul nodded.

"I can sign my picture in one of the magazines, so you can ramp up the price, and, in return, I can get a free magazine."

"Done!" Azul exclaimed, magically flying over a contract to you. You have no idea how he managed to write one so fast, because it seemingly materialized out of thin air.

The contract wasn't wordy and there were no terms and conditions. You suppose it makes sense given how simple the agreement is, but it still seemed quite hasty.

Regardless, after reading it over twice - it is Azul after all - you signed, and Azul magically lifted the contract and pen into his hands and swiftly slid them into some drawer.

While you were reading the contract, Jade quietly ducked out before returning with two magazines in hand. He hovered over your shoulder, before flipping one magazine open to reveal one of your swimsuit model pictures and setting it on the table for you to sign.

You signed, although it felt a little weird autographing something, but it was best 'business' proposal you could come up with.

Jade handed you the other magazine and Azul stood up. You still find the height difference between him and Tweels humorous, although Azul was still taller than you, so you didn't have much room to judge.

"It's a pleasure doing business with you, (Y/N), as always." Azul smiled, fumbling with something out of view in his desk drawer. "Have a good night."

"Want a drink Shrimpy?" Floyd inquired, placing an arm on your shoulder, turning you away from Azul.

"I would be more than happy to make something to your liking." Jade agreed, leading me out of the room. "On the house." He quickly added.

"As much as I'd love to, I have a tutoring session with Riddle. He saw my grade on last week's midterm and almost exploded on the spot."

"Aah, I haven't seen Goldfishy in a while." Floyd wondered aloud. "Hey, Shrimpy," He smiled, "Let me come with ya."

"Absolutely not," Jade remarked with a cold smile that did not reach his eyes, "You have a shift to work Floyd." You have always found the difference between their personalities amusing.

Remembering your appointment, you whipped out your phone to look at the time. Oh no. You had five minutes.

"Shit, I got to go, see you guys later!" You waved and ran off, terrified that you might actually witness Riddle explode this time.

"Goodbye, (Y/N)." "See ya, Shrimpy!"

Two sets of mismatched eyes intently followed you out the door.

------

"JADE." Azul practically screeched, slamming his hands on the table. "Do you know how BADLY that could have gone? Are you insane? You're lucky the prefect thought I was trying to resell them!"

"We're lucky." Jade corrected, carefully and meticulously removing pages from a Fleur magazine at a Mostro Lounge table. Azul threw his hands up in frustration.

"Hey, Azul, I never heard you objecting." Floyd rolled his eyes. "And why are you so embarrassed anyway; you're puffing up like a pufferfish."

"Well now, we have to sell the magazines." Azul huffed to himself and sat down besides Jade and the stack of magazines. "So, stop tearing the merchandise!"

"No." Jade snapped angrily. Realizing, Jade quickly collected himself and returned to his typical collected attitude, resuming his carefully removal of magazine pages, "There is a clear solution - we sell the magazines, just without certain pages featuring the prefect."

Azul stared, deadpan at Jade, clearly exasperated. "And just what are you going to do with half a hundred pictures of the prefect?"

"Remind me, who took one of the magazines after I bought them for 'personal use'?" Jade sneered, meeting Azul's stare, causing Azul to blush and begin stuttering excuses.

"I still don't get why we can't just tell Shrimpy." Floyd shrugged, leaning back in his chair, holding up one of the torn-out magazine pages of (Y/N) standing on a beach, hair blowing in the (fake) wind, dressed in a one-piece swimsuit, with a chic cover-up.

"Absolutely not!" Jade and Azul shouted in unison.

Thankfully, the Mostro Lounge was closed, and no one could hear the three mermen squabbling late into the night.

[d0youc0py]

“Her and Soap would make a good couple, no?” Alejandro smirked, watching as you and the Scot took turns drowning each other in the pool.

“No they wouldn’t.” Ghost said quickly. A little too quick. Price chuckled knowing exactly what was running through his head.

“Why not? I don’t think I’ve seen Soap laugh so much and they seem pretty affectionate with each other.” Alejandro continued. It’s true, you and Soap were a bit touchy touchy but in a headlock and kick each other type of way.

“They’re friends- nothin’ more.” Ghost was growing annoyed of this conversation. He couldn’t blame Alejandro though. From outside eyes you and Soap could be seen as a good pair. Simon hated the thought of anyone thinking you were with anyone but him- yet he did almost nothing to make it seem like you were with him. Only the most observant people- such as Price- noticed the little things Ghost did for you. The way he always carried extra of your ammo in case you ran out. The way he always made extra of his breakfast for you to have some too. The way he would put up a fight when Price wanted to send you on a mission without him.

“I’d have to agree with Ghost on this one.” Captain sighed, standing up from his chair. He patted Ghost on the shoulder. “I’m gonna get started on lunch.”

“I’ll go with you!” Alejandro and Rudy were quick to stand up.

“What you don’t trust me?” Price raised a brow.

“Well I don’t know if you brits are very well known for you food.” Alejandro chuckled, wrapping an arm around Prices shoulder.

“You kiddin’? You know how many cooking show take place in England?”

Ghost sunk down in his seat and tugged at his balaclava. The heat was getting to him. Plus the way you, Soap and Gaz splashed around in the pool looked so refreshing.

“Hey Lieu?” You swam up to the side of the pool, resting your arms on the hot surface. “You sure you don’t want to come in the pool? I could use some back up in here.” God how he loved your smile. It was almost enough for him to rip his clothes off and hop in. It wasn’t that you hadn’t seen his face before. You were a jack of all trades- one of the trades being medicine. You had treated him for a head injury a while back and the way you accidentally called him handsome made it easy for him to take his mask off in front of you. It was the rest of him he was worried about. The bullet wounds on his abdomen. The burn mark across his chest. The deep angry scars all over his back- and all over him really. He wasn’t ready for you to know how fucked up he really was. He didn’t- couldn’t scare you off. So here he was. Sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a bourbon, in a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt.

“Lieu?” You repeated. He knocked himself out of his trance.

“No, I’m alright.” He took another swig of his drink trying to drown out your pouty lip.

“Alright.” You sighed. “I was hoping we could’ve formed an alliance. I’m getting tired of Bubble Boy and his attitude!” You yelled the last part, causing Soap to shoot you in the head with a water gun.

“You’re just mad cause I’m winning!” Soap yelled.

“She’s kicking your arse.” Ghost shouted. His comment caused a whole new wave of competitiveness between you and the Scot- so much so that Gaz stepped out not wanting to get a black eye.

“I feel like we should be filming this.” Gaz chuckled, pulling out his phone. It was quite entertaining watching two highly trained soldier go after each other with water guns.

About an hour later Alejandro announced lunch.

“Thank god! I’m starving!” You groaned, pulling yourself out of the pool. Ghost suddenly decided the sky was much more interesting to look at than your dripping body. When he looked back down, he had to stop a groan from leaving his lips. There you were- wearing his shirt. His shirt. It was plain black- but had L.T Ghost printed on the back. His insides were swarming, and he barely had any time to process as you ran inside to start eating. He needed to stay there for a moment. He needed to calm down. He wasn’t use to this. Such little things completely throwing him off. He looked down, noticing how his bag and your bag were so close, that’s when he noticed another black clothing item. He grabbed it, holding it up. It was another entirely too big for you black shirt. The one that was probably suppose to be your cover up. So it was a mistake. You meant to grab yours but instead you grabbed his extra shirt. That helped ease the tension in his eyes. He should’ve known you were too good of a girl to be such a tease.

••••••••

The sun had finally started to set. All of you were still coming out of your food coma, and spread all over the house to digest. Times like this were your favorite. Eating delicious food. Hearing and sharing stories with your almost chosen family. Now here you were sprawled out on the tile, your feet dangling in the water as you stared at the pink sky.

“You against company?” Simon asked. You lifted your head to see him sticking his head out the door. You quickly shook your head, giving him a smile. He grabbed a chair and sat down next to you. He followed your gaze and looked up at the sky. Your eyes left the sky in favor of his jawline. He had taken off his mask to eat and couldn’t be bothered to put it back on.

Feeling your eyes on him he looked down to meet your gaze. The mask wasn’t able to hide his emotions anymore- not that you caught the obvious adoration across his face. Your eyes traced over the scar that extended from his cheekbone down to the corner of his lip. He watched you watch him- knowing exactly what you were looking at. Yet he didn’t feel insecure. You had a glint in your eye, it wasn’t judgement or pity. The closest thing he could compare it to was understanding. You didn’t feel sorry for him. You didn’t look at him with any disgust. You just admired it. Like people would a painting that they couldn’t quite understand but enjoyed the feeling it gave them nonetheless. You enjoyed the feelings he gave you. The security you felt with him. You knew instinctually that he would always be there. Guiding you. Watching you. Protecting you. Making your day better- even in the smallest ways. His scars were assurance of that. He’d always fight his way out to be there.

The look in your eyes made it possible for him to say something he’d wanted to all day.

“Wanna go for a swim?” He asked.

[lokisremainingsanity]

soappup

This was inspired by this post by @sunshine-and-moonshine

content: John "Soap" Mactavish x reader, reader is his superior, crushes and feelings, fluff and some horniness, he lick the kitty hehe

~ava!🍓

The men at the 141 base got glimpses of a new womanly figure around, but never a full picture. They had questions as to who this new mysterious person on their base was, but they never got answers, until Price finally formally introduced you.

You stood with perfect posture and a serious expression with a hint of a smirk as you observed all the men.

"This is your new superior, who was our former arms weaponry trader and military tech researcher, Major Y/N Quest."

"Good morning, boys, it's a treat to be working with you."

You operated the base smoothly, and your reputation demanded respect. You had a few young rebels that were always needed to put straight, whether it be mowing the front base lawn with scissors, with every grass blade cut at a specific angle and height, or using buckets to empty the pool while it was raining. But beyond that, you also noticed someone who was always on top of each task you gave him. Ghost also noticed Soap's infatuation with you, and teased him about it the next time they were together.

"You got a crush, Johnny?" he interrupted his staring session at you.

"Wh-what?"

"You fancy Major over there don'tcha?"

"Oi, you feeling funny now, you boggin gowk? I ain't got no crush" he defensively crossed his arms.

"I'm simply stating a fact."

"Shut yer trap, Ghost."

Truth is, he was the first person to be at your service whenever you needed one, just because he liked you. A knock at your office door made your head turn up from your paperwork.

"Come in"

Soap came strolling in with some files in his hands.

"uh Major.. I got the intel ye' wanted printed out, I can send a digital copy as well if that-"

"The autospy records? You already got a hold of them?

"Yes"

"Goodness, Soap how'd you do it?" You got up and walked towards him, and he let you take a look at them."

Soap stood silently, enjoying your satisfaction.

"That's a job well done, thank you darling." As he bashfully looks down, you absentmindedly ruffled his hair as well.

"Ah thank you, ts nothin'" He felt like a schoolgirl having a crush on his teacher.

When he left your office, he went straight to the mess hall and started rambling to Ghost about his interaction with you. At this point, there was no denying the crush he had on you.

"She did that alright. I felt like a schoolgirl Ghost, oh my gosh. She called me darling. I'm her darling ya hear?!"

Ghost stared at the Scottish man who was no longer the Scottish man he knew.

"You know what that means, Ghost?!"

".. What?"

"I fucking won. I shall die a happy man."

Ghost didn't understand what he was saying but that didn't matter to Soap anyway.

A few months of Soap's undying affection for you passed and at this point, EVERYONE on base knew he was your favorite. The touches, eye contact, and smiles between you were strictly for him. On one mission where you all were at a safe house, you decided to sleep on the couch in the living room rather than share a room with the men. You woke up from your slumber when you heard lazy footsteps and a looming shadow over you. You slowly blinked your eyes and saw Soap with sad tired eyes looking down at you.

"Johnny? Darling what are you doing here?" you squinted your eyes at him in confusion.

"I got cold :( "

"... that woke you up?"

"mhmm"

*sighh* "C'mere then darling, can't have you freezing up tonight can we?"

You rolled over onto your back and he plopped his body right on top of yours, with his face snuggled into the warmth of breasts.

"sanks youu mmm" he was out like a baby.

The rest of the guys woke up to an interesting sight that shouldn't have surprised them anyway. There you lay with your hands holding Soap's head while he snored on the cushion of your chest. His hands wrapped firmly around your waist as if you were a Teddy.

"You gonna wake up him?" Gaz spoke up first.

"Not a chance." Ghost replied. The two glanced towards Price next.

"Now don't look at me. Get him up somehow, Captain's order." And he walked out.

~

nOW things were getting interesting. You didn't know when the lines of professionalism blurred as Soap kept bringing it intel or files you needed, but somehow it's gone from pets of affection to Soap kneeled in between your legs-

"Ah fuckkk that's it, good pup you are. Holy shiiiit Johnny do that again AHH" His tongue was lapping at your wet cunt without any pattern or rhythm. You let him grind against your boot to relieve himself a little, but he was still going feral. Tight wet circles were made by his tongue on your clit and your legs started to shake.

"ohhh ohh my god I'm close, yessss ugh just like that honey- OHH"

One of your hands left the armchair and went to grab at his mohawk as you grinded against his tongue through your orgasm.

You slumped on your chair and your face faced upwards to the ceiling as you caught your breath. He stopped licking but his face was still next to your cunt and he was panting like a dog. You opened your eyes and looked down at him, he literally looked like he had his tail wagging and was waiting for your praise like you would for a dog after doing a trick.

"Did.. did I do good?" He asked when you said nothing for a little too long for him.

"Oh you idiot." You laughed and rubbed your hands over his head once more.

"Darling you did wonderful, you never cease to fail me."

He laid his chin on your lap and smiled up at you as you kept petting him.

"Anything for you m'lady"

~

Now one thing you did not consider before continuing this little secret ya'll had going on behind your office doors was the possibility of literally training Soap to get turned on. Petting him in public was not out of the ordinary to anyone else. But what slowly happened is that you've now conditioned him into getting hard whenever you pet his head. You have literally classically conditioned Johnny to have a reaction every time you stimulated him by touching his head.

Holy shit

That's your reaction when you realize what you've done. Now you stand in front of a flustered and hard Johnny that can't seem to explain what's going on.

"m'sorryyy, im really sorry I don't know wh-"

"Shhh calm down Darling." you stood chest to chest with him to help him hide his erection. To anyone else, you looked like you were chatting about a secretive mission. You looked around and saw an escape for both of you.

"Just follow me, m'kay? You're alright."

You two manage to get to the bathroom at the end of a hall where no soul is present. You quickly pushed him in and you followed right behind. The sigh you let out from relief stressed him out even more.

"Please don't be mad at me, I didn't mean to, swear it! I-"

"I'm not mad at you Johnny." You looked at him sternly to shut him up. "If anything, it would be my fault..." your eyes softened as you looked at the poor man.

"Let's get you relieved, yeah?" Your voice lowered with your hand that left his shoulders to unbuckle his pants. He said nothing and watched as you pulled down his garments to free his leaking hard cock. "Please ma'am, I'm going insane now" He whined when you stared a little too long.

"Sorry, sorry"

Your hands gripped his cock and you pumped him from tip to base, and when you got back up your thumbs swirled at his leaking opening. "Ah shite-"

His hips started thrusting up into your hands unapologetically, and you let him. You rotated your hands and tightened them around his length to pleasure him more.

"Fuckkkk 'm close... Oh gosh Bonnie that's pe'fect... ughhh"

He groaned and tilted his head to the crook of your neck and you could hear his panting against your ear get more strained and whiney.

"Ah fuck 'm comingg, im coming im, ohhh yess"

His cock twitched as ropes of cum shot out and painted your uniform. You let him take his time and he held you waist and stayed in the crook of your neck while you slowly caressed his head.

"Feeling okay there, darling?"

"Mmmhmmm"

You chuckled at his childish response and you tried to gently coax him away to clean up.

"don' wanna move yet."

"We can't stay here all day Johnny"

"but Bonnieee"

"Johnnyyy" you equally whined.

"Tell you what, I'll reward you later at my office if you help me get cleaned up right now. That sound like a fair deal?"

"Yes ma'am." and he jumped at the tissues.

Classical conditioning and now more positive reinforcement? You're sure you fucked up but you could now care less

╚══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╝

hehehehehe (￢‿￢ )

we can make out in the dark if you reblog luv youu 🥰

[chiefdirector]

Looking | Tim Bradford | The Rookie

Act One | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21

“Sargent Grey,” Lopez called, trying to catch up with the watch commander, “I had a look at the footage from the main lobby. No I.D. Just seemed like some kid doing an errand, paper boy maybe.”

He stopped in the corridor, brushing his hand over his face in frustration. “Right, okay. Go tell Detective Bradford, liaise with her. See if you can help in any way.”

“Already have. She said that she’s on the phone with a handwriting analysis. Run it through the database and records corresponding to anyone with the initials R.D.”

“That’ll take forever,” 

Angela hummed. “Not exactly. This analysis guy said the writing was female. Already cuts the search in half. It was also in cursive, so we can make the initial assumption that the sender has some form of formal education, if not they are highly intelligent. That’s not too many ‘R.D’’s left to determine. (Y/N)’s also sent it out for prints, see if we can get a hit that way.”

“Good work Lopez,” Grey said, starting to move towards his office again. “Let me know if you find anything. And tell Detective Bradford to stop leaving her damn coffee cups in my office.”

Angela laughed, turning to go back to the detective's bullpen. “Yes, sir.”

----------

Tim and Lucy go back to his house to try to find the location of the picture taker. And any info. Lucy questions tim on their relationship 

Lucy looked intently out of the shop window as Tim drove towards his home. He had been so strict on keeping his personal life out of his professional one, but there was something about this boot in particular that seemed to worm her way in everytime. There was something about Chen that made Tim feel comfortable sharing details, no matter how minute they were. Perhaps it was her forever optimistic nature, or the fact that if it weren’t for her, he probably never would have found (Y/N).

 At one point, he had thought about thanking her but he also knew that Chen was well aware of his gratefulness; and that she would never let him live it down if he did thank her. She was like him in that way, he saw a lot of himself in her. Tim knew that she would go far, she just needed a little guidance to get there.

“So this is where you live, hm?” Chen said, breaking the silence that had resided in the shop for the last ten minutes. “Nice neighbourhood. Seems a little out of a cops price range though…”

“Are you really judging my financial status right now, boot?” Tim snapped, although the sting in his voice was barely there. She was right, it was far too pricey for his, or (Y/N)’s, salary. Even if they were combined they would have no chance of getting a mortgage for this area of L.A. 

“No, no. It’s just that this area is nice. Like nice nice. Not Kardashian nice but like you know.”

“Someone was murdered in our house, three actually.” Tim smiled, deciding to ease up on Chen somewhat, afterall, he knew that Lucy would ask his wife and (Y/N) never spared any detail in this particular story. “We both worked the scene together. Managed to get the price lowered somewhat. Only had to change the floorboards and get a couple drywall boards replaced. Drenched in blood.”

Lucy swallowed at the information, nodding along. She turned to look out at the surroundings again as Tim pulled over to the side of the road. “All these houses have a driveway?” She pointed out.”

“And?” He said, turning the engine off and getting out of the car. Slamming the door behind him, he opened his phone, pulling up the copy of the photo (Y/N) had sent him and moving to the approximate place the photo was taken. 

He ended up halfway into his neighbour’s front lawn. The exact spot would have been covered by shrubbery lining the edge of the grass, it would explain why they didn’t catch a glimpse of their paparazzo this morning. 

“Chen,” Tim moved from his position on his neighbour’s lawn crossing the road towards his home. Calling back towards Chen as he moved, knowing that she would be following him, “Come on, we’re going inside. I need to call Grey, let him know that there’s nothing here.”

“Inside? Like inside your home? I get to see where you live.” Lucy babbled on with excitement. If someone had told her on her first day that she would be invited into Officer Bradford’s home, she would have laughed in their face. “Oh my god. I get to see how you decorate, this is so cool! I need to tell Jackson.”

“I can leave you outside if you carry on.” Tim unlocked the door, letting himself in. He held it from the inside letting Chen make her choice. 

“Shutting up.”

----------

(Y/N) hung the phone up, moving to continue typing up the current additions to the case report. Her fingers practically slammed into the keys as she typed, annoyance flowing through her. Since she left Grey’s office, she had gotten nowhere. No matter who she called, nobody seemed to know anything about who was after her. 

It was infuriating, to be so powerless. Knowing that her life hung in The hands of some mad man that she didn’t even know the name of would cause most anyone to spiral but she knew that she couldn’t afford to lose focus now, not after how far she had come. 

Holding back a sigh, she saved the file and reached for her phone. Quickly, she pressed Tim’s contact and held it up to her ear, listening as it rang and rang and rang until she reached his voicemail. She hung up before she could leave a message and went back to typing. Only stopping when she heard something placed down beside her. 

“Your coffee.” 

(Y/N) looked up, seeing Chen standing beside her. She smiled, picking up the travel mug and taking a sip. 

“Tim asked me to drop it off. He made it when we went to see if there was anything to see back at your place.” Chen leaned against the desk to the right hand side of (Y/N)’s. “He also said to tell you that his phone was nearly dead. He’s charging it now.”

“Ah okay cool.” (Y/N) took another sip, relishing in the warm vanilla taste. Tim always made the coffee in the mornings, recently he had begun making her lattes with flavoured syrups. Vanilla was her favourite, despite how often Tim said it was the most basic option. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah, actually. There is. I wanted to ask you something…”

“Shoot.” 

“I want to do some UC work after my rookie year. I think that’s where I could really thrive and I wanted to know…”

(Y/N) nodded, finishing Chen’s sentence. “If it would be a good fit. Well as someone who has done it, I think it takes a certain kind of person to be able to do it. Personally, I would never do any more long term assignments. I don’t think I’m that person anymore. I lost everything, and I’m still fighting to get it back.” She sighed, placing her coffee down on the desk. 

(Y/N) gestured for Chen to pull up a chair before she continued. “Obviously you’re still a rookie, and I haven’t seen much of you in action. You have got some way to go. But you have that spark and if it’s what you want, I could see if I could take you one day. Show you the ropes, go through some old cases of mine. Let you get the feel for it.”

“Really? That would be great.” Lucy beamed at Bradford’s words. 

“But you will have to consider if it will be worth it. Look at the mess we’re all in because of me. If I hadn’t gone on that assignment than-”

“Then it would be someone else that Regina would have gotten revenge on.” Tim interrupted, walking over to the two women. He quickly reached for the coffee on the desk, not allowing (Y/N) the time to slap his hand away before he got a sip. “But the theory was right. It definitely wasn’t Regina.”

(Y/N) looked up inquisitively at her husband as he spoke. 

“The handwriting analyst made a match throughout the system. I don’t know who but Lopez is getting the report now. She’ll be here soon. Grey wants us all in the conference room.”

Chapter 21 | Chapter 23

Series Masterlist | Masterlist

Tags: @xceafh @kmc1989 @buba424 @salty0cracker @iamasimpingh0e @malindacath @agentred27 @hufflepuffwhore13 @tessalynni @anaferreira-4

Tags are open :)

[angel-egg-egl]

i would love to see the cost breakdown for producing a handmade item!

well if you insist (infodump voice)

so it does depend a lot on the item itself-- at least in my case. Tiered skirts use up more fabric than a standard gathered skirt. in my case, the body fabrics i buy usually have a width of around 100cm (give or take 5cm-10cm), and so i can do easier math. if i wanted to do a basic 50cm long skirt, that would take about 120cm of fabric or so. something like the dear rose skirt with a double tier and tucks (note: tucks can use up a lot of fabric!) is more like 350cm. a lot of print fabrics i buy are sold by the metre, but most of the solids (and laces) i use are actually sold by the yard (~90cm), so that's also something to keep in mind.

another thing to keep in mind is wholesale vs consumer pricing-- for small brands like mine, you can't always get wholesale pricing or justify purchasing the minimum lot size of a fabric, so fabric can end up more expensive than if you were a brand producing larger product runs. for example, the burberry fabric i use is around $17/y, but is $4/m if i purchased wholesale (50m or so), but then I would have to count on being able to sell that many items and store the extra fabric while i made them. the my dear rose fabric is about $10/m (not counting fees, shipping, and customs) consumer level, but wholesale it's $5-$7USD (under current conversion rates) depending on the lot size i buy (6m minimum, up to 18m). some fabrics are more expensive (gobelin, velveteen, silk, and corduroy, as well as discontinued fabrics i purchase secondhand) can run $20-$35/m, while the lawn fabric i buy is extra wide (150cm) and runs as low as $5/y for 5y(for reference, i can get 6-7 liners out of each 5y pack).

so you'd be looking at around $25 in fabric for something simple (ie, a Burberry Basics skirt, which i'm using as my baseline for a cheap to produce item), but as much as $105 for a tiered velveteen or discontinued print skirt. for something like my (as yet unreleased) rose petal tiered skirt (the red velveteen one with cotton lace in my first post, which i'm using as an example of my most expensive to produce item), which uses more like 6m of fabric, it can get up to $180 for the body fabric alone (i did make a version out of inexpensive linen for ~$60 though)

this is just the body material though. (liners come out to, say, about $5 each?)

trims are where things get really complicated and at times really pricy! a lot of laces I get come out to something like $1-$4/y (and come of packs of 10y to 50m) but that can get pricy quick when you're using a lot of it-- i need at least 200cm of lace for an ungathered lace hem on a standard skirt, but sometimes as much as 400-800 if I wanted to add lace to the hem of a tiered skirt (my record is 16m of lace on one item). i won't get into braids and ribbon trims right now because they're not used as often and the prices are way more wildly variable.

so you're probably looking at anywhere from $15 of lace (200cm x 3 rows = 600cm or just under 7 yards) for something like the burberry basics skirts, or as much as $30 in lace for something like the aforementioned rose skirt.

elastic is negligible, thank god-- i get 20m rolls for around $10 which adds up to less than a dollar per skirt. i also won't include thread, since I can't really calculate how far a spool goes.

so to recap, that adds up to around

$45 in raw materials for a burberry basics

but more like $215 in raw materials for the rose tiered skirt (velveteen version).

so depending on your fabric and lace choices, you end up either saving a pretty good amount of money, or getting to where you understand why Burando is so expensive (lol)

but this is all before labour! (note: cost of labour is kind of only relevant if you're selling your work-- if it's for yourself, there's no need to bother with this step)

if i go for quick and dirty techniques (result looks fine, but won't be machine washable and will need touch ups on the future) i can get a basic skirt pumped out in 2 hours if I'm in the zone, but 4-8 hours is often more realistic if i'm doing french seams and rolled hems, a ton of gathering (ie, tiers), or adding a ton of trims, tucks, or other special details. some items like OPs may take me several "workdays" to get through.

the min wage in my area is $16, but most jobs start at $20. since i consider myself an amateur, i use that as my starting rate, and go up if I'm doing anything especially fancy. so that's as little as $40 in labour, or as much as $160. $80 is about average. (I do sometimes lowball my own labour costs, though, because I would prefer to keep items relatively affordable and this is all extra disposable income for me rather than smth i do to survive.)

which brings us to $125 or so for a burberry basics (materials + labour-- though I'm currently selling them for $100 because in the future I should be able to buy the fabric at wholesale amounts, which will reduce the cost of production by quite a bit-- but for the average person $125 is more realistic) or as much as $375 for my most complex design. ofc, for a person hand making something at home, the cost of labour isn't actually money you pay, you're just paying your own time-- i just added cost of labour for posterity here. factories and production lines can probably cause this number to vary, because professionally trained seamstresses or groups doing different levels of assembly may be able to work faster than I, one person doing every step myself, can, and likely don't follow californian minimum wage laws.

that's not to say handmade is INHERENTLY expensive-- the cheapest option I covered here is still cheaper than a branded item, and there are cheaper ways to go about things (for example, if you found a fabric you liked on sale, that $45 material cost could go down a bit-- or like I mentioned, the material cost for the rose skirt going down from 180 to 60 by simply swapping the fabric type. likewise, if wholesale fabric is an option, prices can be reduced even further).

These are all for main pieces, too. accessories can be made on the cheap (i can usually get 2-3 rectangle headdresses out of 1/4 yard of fabric, ie like $5 a pop. wrist cuffs are even cheaper to produce).

all this to say:

but also if you just want to make something for yourself and not like, producing items for commercial sale, it's definitely more affordable than big name brand, and i honestly recommend trying it at least once, bc then you get to decide things like fabric quality, construction type, and sizing all for yourself AND you get the massive dopamine hit of making something yourself.

as an aside to close on: yes i do have plans to post some of my original patterns for public use. and yes i am willing to share sources for some of my materials if they're available on a consumer level.

i hope everyone got something out of this because it was kind of fun to write about!

[sitp-recs]

hi love! how's your day? do you have some pics where draco is a seer? thank you

Hello anon! Sure, I do know a few fics with seer!Draco. Hope you like these:

Love has left a printed trace by @maesterchill (M, 1k)

In France, in bed, they are one.

Phoenix by @iero0 (T, 2k)

It’s salvation, it’s redemption. It's what it takes for Harry and Malfoy to be reborn.

The Seer's Flat by @vaysh11 (M, 3k)

A Seer in love is a dangerous thing.

suburbia by @iero0 (M, 3k)

A street full of houses. All look the same. Red brick, white frames, dark roof. House after house, front lawn after front lawn. Suspicious peeks through curtains, ill-disguised. Dogs bark and cats roam. Draco's ability, the Sight, is the worst in areas like that, where what’s on display is so disgustingly different from what’s hidden behind closed doors and minds.

A Malfoy Always Pays His Debts by Candamira (E, 9k)

I owe Potter and a Malfoy always pays his debts. Even when doing so comes at a high price.

Déjà Vu by @maesterchill (E, 11k)

After being released from Azkaban, Draco Malfoy begins having peculiar visions, which turn out to be premonitions. Gradually, with the help of his unusual gift, Draco becomes a rather useful member of society. He also has dirty fantasies about Harry Potter, but that's nothing new.

embrace the deception by swoons (M, 13k)

Draco Malfoy shouldn’t feel like the stable one, not when he spends his days pretending to have clairvoyant powers and solving mysteries with Neville Longbottom. Harry Potter, however, seems to be on the edge of a breakdown, and he’s growing increasingly obsessed with his former rival.

Visions No. 33 to 35 by Ischa (E, 17k)

In which Draco is a Seer and artist, living with Pansy and Luna in a secluded house, working on occasion with the Ministry of Magic (not that he's thrilled but solving crimes from afar seems like a worthy cause on some days) until Vision No. 33 brings Potter to his doorstep.

Peeking behind the Curtain by @wellhalesbells (M, 23k)

Draco sees things he really, really wishes he didn't. If only to get out of all the homework that comes with it.

tissue of silver by fearlessdiva (M, 76k)

A love story concerning possessed furniture, black silk pyjamas, courtroom drama, premonitions of doom, assassination attempts, Death Eater yoga, absinthe, bare feet and a sensible werewolf.

all the western stars by @oflights (E, 78k)

Draco is a Seer who has been struck with terrible, uncontrollable visions of the deaths of everyone around him, triggered by touch. He retreats to an Unplottable Black family cottage to research his condition and fix it. Things are going relatively well until Harry Potter shows up at the cottage with a furry condition of his own.

Bonus: fake seer Draco 👌🏼

i demand to dig my own grave by @bonesliketambourines (M, 21k)

Draco finds himself in hot water with the Aurors, and in a burst of panicked inspiration manages to wiggle out of it by claiming to be a Seer. There's just one little problem– Senior Auror Harry Potter, the Prat Who Lived, who's known him for a decade, knows full well Draco doesn't have a single psychic bone in his body and seems determined to pull him up for it.

[siliconcat]

Holy shit I finally have like more than 3 seconds of downtime to talk about Touhoufest lol. Honestly one of the best if not the best convention experience of my life and was a perfect heaven for any touhou fan of any kind

It’s always a treat to see another touhou fan in the wild so when you gather 1300+ in the same area there is just so hype and energy and everyone has this insane amount of passion that you really don’t see with other popular series

As a vendor it was a treat to see all kinds of people light up seeing their specific characters for sale and being able to take breaks and experience the con and a few panels myself (not to mention making a very good amount of money for next year’s stock lol). Next year I’ll make sure to stock up on comics (and write some more) because it seems everyone was looking for original works which was really really cool and encouraging!

It really was a touhou paradise, in the gaming hall there were a bunch of computers with every touhou game on them and a lot of rhythm games, another gaming hall with fan games, signings from huge names in touhou music circles, people giving out free stuff, etc. just describing it makes it sound like a 2013 tumblr touhou con concept. It feels unreal.

And the concert was literally worth the entire full price of the weekend badge just on its own. So much energy in one room, so many people cheering about something and for people they rarely get the chance to express interest for, it was definitely the highlight of the event and so much fun.

The only part of the con that really sucks is having to wait a year and 2 months to do it again, but at least that’s even more time to write, draw, and print new things.

Also it’s gotten so big, at the rate it’s growing it will spill out of its current venue lol. They have got to take over the lawn in front too or else the crowds will somehow get even more dense

Next year it will be at the same location on June 13 and 14! See you then!

[dailyanarchistposts]

Chapter Five. Persecution

JOE:…Does it make any difference? That I might be one thing deep within, no matter how wrong or ugly that thing is, so long as I have fought, with everything I have, to kill it. What do you want from me? What do you want from me, Harper? More than that? For God’s sake, there’s nothing left, I’m a shell. There’s nothing left to kill. As long as my behavior is what I know it has to be. Decent. Correct. That alone in the eyes of God. —Tony Kushner, Angels in America[105]

Flakes of snow fall gently over the ponds, statues and lawns sloping down from the gold-domed Massachusetts State House. A cluster of several dozen young men and women walk along the edge of the Boston Common on Tremont Street. They chant, “Hate is curable and preventable!” “Jesus, cleanse this temple!” and “Conversion Therapy kills gay teens!” It is 7:30 in the morning. Many in the group carry rainbow-colored posters that say, “We’re God’s Children Too” and “God Loves Gays.” Some peel away from the procession to dart into a Dunkin’ Donuts. They emerge a few minutes later cradling a cup of coffee or hot chocolate.

When they reach the Tremont Temple Church, they form a half-circle outside the front doors. Boston police are standing out front to block people without registration papers from entering the building. The protesters have converged on the church to demonstrate against a Love Won Out conference, sponsored by Dobson’s Focus on the Family, being held inside. Love Won Out officials, already nervous, have ordered lunch from Subway for the nearly 800 people attending their conference so no one will have to leave the church. Love Won Out volunteers meet everyone coming through the front doors.

“Are you registered?” a woman asks new arrivals politely.

If so, people are directed upstairs, where their bags are searched for tape recorders and cameras. Wrists are stamped and wrapped in bright orange-red bands. Only those wearing wristbands are allowed to file into the sanctuary. The church has long, dark, wooden pews. It is surrounded on three sides by a balcony and has towering stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes.

The crowd takes several minutes to move through the swinging doors and settle into the pews. There are mothers and nervous teenage sons. Husbands and wives, their heads bent over the conference forms, circle on printed schedules the breakout sessions they plan to attend. Single men and women sit alone, thumbing through the conference notes. In a small media section at the back of the sanctuary, only a couple of seats are occupied. The event does not welcome the “secular” media, which it accuses of promoting an anti-Christian agenda. Love Won Out volunteers walk up and down the aisles looking for potential infiltrators or anyone holding a tape recorder or a camera. Those who attempt to tape or photograph the conference will be ejected.

Love Won Out was founded, its brochure says, to help families, men and women, and especially those plagued by what the movement calls “same-sex attraction,” recover traditional male and female roles. The organization, led by many who identify themselves as “ex-gays,” brands homosexuality as a disease and condemns it as a threat to the family, the health of the nation and Christianity. The movement’s professed goal is to “cure” those who have “same-sex attraction.” But it has also declared war against gays and lesbians who are unrepentant, those they brand as “militant” and who actively promote “the gay agenda.” Although they speak the language of compassion toward those willing to be healed, they also say there should be no tolerance or acceptance of gays and lesbians who refuse to seek help. And America will soon pay a price, they warn, for permitting gays and lesbians to live openly in defiance of God.

The legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts has helped mobilize the Christian Right, including many in the state who see the move as morally polluting their schools and communities. Christian activists in Massachusetts are frequent guests at Christian conferences, where they speak of their persecution by “homosexual radicals.” This cultivated sense of persecution—cultivated by those doing the persecuting—allows the Christian Right to promote bigotry and attack any outcry as part of the war against the Christian faith. A group trying to curtail the civil rights of gays and lesbians portrays itself, in this rhetorical twist, as victims of an effort to curtail the civil rights of Christians. One of the most vocal is Tom Crouse, a pastor in Holland, Massachusetts, who hosts a show titled Engaging Your World broadcast on local Christian radio station WVNE-AM 760 in Worcester. He features antigay guests and has held a “Mr. Hetero” contest in Wooster. The contest included “ex-gays.” Crouse says the contest was a way of promoting “God’s design” in response to a “Mr. Gay 2005” competition held in San Diego. He refuses to use the word “gay” on his talk show, saying he uses the word only “in its proper context, which means ‘happy.’”

“People will call in to my show and say, ‘You’re gay,’ to me on the air, and I’ll say, ‘I’m gay, you’re gay.’” He lashes out at “homosexual activists” who he says “are well financed, well organized, and small in numbers.

“They’re rabid and they’re active, and they have no problem telling you they’re going to kill you,” he has said, “no problem telling you they’re going to burn you to death, no problem telling you anything, all in the name of tolerance.

“If you listen to how Jesus is proclaimed today, you’d think Jesus is some tie-dye-shirt-wearing, pot-smoking hippie. That’s not who Jesus is. You know, Jesus was a man who spoke the truth. He said, ‘You’re of your father, the devil.’ He walked away from those who could have stoned him and killed him. Jesus said, ‘I am God, you are not. I am the living truth and the life. No one knows what God knows but me’—I say Jesus was the most intolerant person in the world. Jesus would not be accepted in many churches today.”

Mike Haley, director of gender issues at Focus on the Family, and himself an “ex-gay,” walks up and stands behind the pulpit in the Boston church. His collared shirt is pressed and tucked into his khaki pants. His sandy blond hair is combed neatly to the side. He welcomes the crowd to the first Love Won Out conference in Boston, the organization’s 36th event since its founding in1998. Trinity Temple, he reminds those in the sanctuary, has hosted every president since John F. Kennedy and now, Love Won Out. He raises his fist in the air as the crowd claps and says, “Amen.” The successful staging of the event in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriages were first legalized, is, he assures the crowd, a victory for Christians.

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist, is president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, an organization known as NARTH. He says he has treated more than 1,000 men who came to him with “unwanted homosexuality.” He has written three books on the subject, including his most recent, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, co-authored with his wife, Linda Ames Nicolosi.

Nicolosi says that all men are “born to be heterosexual.” He calls heterosexual orientation that which corresponds to man’s “true nature.” Homosexuality, he says, “is a masculine inferiority.” He speaks of “the gender identity phase” when the boy begins to realize that the world is divided into male and female. Children who cannot disconnect from their mothers and identify with their fathers, he explains, become homosexuals. He says the male child is biologically “trying to fulfill his natural masculine strivings. He is wired to be masculine. His body is designed for a woman.” The job of the child is “to dis-identify with the mother and bond with the father.”

The boy, he says, “begins to realize that he’s like this father image that he never really paid attention to before. He becomes interested in the father. And if he reaches out to the father, and if the mother supports him in making this transition, and if the father is welcoming and encouraging, the boy will make the transition. He’ll bond emotionally with his father, make that male identification, and that becomes the foundation of his sexual preference, what he finds sexually attractive.”

But if the father is distant, detached, unavailable, in short a “negative figure in the boy’s eye,” the boy will reach out to the father and be hurt.

“He will be made to feel ashamed of his masculine ambition,” Nicolosi says. “The father’s nonresponsiveness will make him feel bad about that effort, and he will basically shut down. And he will be shamed for his masculine strivings, and basically what he says is, ‘If you make me unimportant, I make you unimportant. If you’re not interested in me, I’m not interested in you.’ And you know, if you know any homosexual men, they do not have a good relationship with their fathers. Their fathers are just not that important in their lives, period.”

Nicolosi warns against fathers who are “weak and unmasculine, and perhaps beaten down by the mother.” He says that boys need a “strong, masculine father who is worthy of imitation, of modeling, worthy of disconnecting from the mother.” He also cautions against an “overemotionally involved mother” who is a “dominant, strong personality.”

He argues that mothers who do not cede authority to the father, who do not represent to the boy that dad is the leader of the family, contribute to their child’s homosexuality. In proper development, he says, the nurturing of women becomes less important as the boy grows older. The rougher play of the father is required if the boy is to develop into a man.

“You know, the young father tossing the son up in the air and catching him,” Nicolosi says. “And, you know, the father is laughing and the kid is petrified, you know? And the mother is watching this ritual and she has no idea, she’s getting a heart attack watching this. But as the father is tossing the kid up and down, because the father is laughing, the son starts laughing. And a very important lesson has just been taught, one that men teach boys: danger can be fun. Even if the father drops the kid and cracks his head a little bit, at least he will be straight. A small price to pay, I tell ya.”

And when males are brought up by masculine fathers, when they become fully developed men, they are, he says, “a little dull, you know what I mean? We don’t see colors as vividly. Have you noticed? We don’t seem to remember show tunes, I don’t know why. Anyway, more importantly than ‘Danger can be fun,’ the boy is caught by the father, ‘And I can trust dad.’ And men with a homosexual problem do not trust other men.”

Those who fail to achieve their masculinity, however, become mama’s boys. They seek to please the mother. They are the kind of boys, he says, who leave for school with their hair in place and wearing neat, clean clothes and come home from school in the same, perfect condition.

“And you can see how in adulthood, the gay man desires to break that good little boy mold,” Nicolosi says. “He is angry and wants to rebel. He’s aggressive. He’s shocking. He’s offensive. He’s provocative because he wants to break out of that good little boy mold that he was in. While all the other boys were being bad, he was sitting with mommy in the kitchen; now he wants to be bad. Have you ever seen a gay pride parade? That’s exactly right. If you walk into a gay bar, it looks like a bunch of men who want to be bad little boys. You walk into a straight bar, and all these straight guys are sitting there, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ because they got it out of their system a long time ago. They’re exhausted. Their wives exhausted them.”

He throws out that gay men gravitate toward theater to “escape into fantasy” because “fantasy is a big part of the gay identity.”

A woman in a pew leans toward her husband and whispers that this is a description of their son.

The cure for what he terms the “male gender deficit,” for those who suffer from “same-sex attraction,” is “reparative therapy.” It can come about through a close connection with a strong, heterosexual man who is comfortable in his male role. When homosexuals “make an emotional connection with a straight man, their homosexuality disappears,” he says. They no longer have trouble being assertive, and these “heterosexual men with a homosexual problem” are cured.

It is left to Mike Haley, who identifies himself as an ex-gay, to back up Nicolosi’s assertions with personal testimony. He tells the group that his father was cold and distant, refusing to initiate him into the world of men, and taunted him because of his lack of athletic ability as “Michelle” or “my third daughter.” He describes his close relationship as an 11-year-old boy with a man who eventually began to have sex with him.

Eventually Haley went to see a counselor who told him he was born gay. He frequented the gay bars and discos at Laguna Beach in California, not far from his home. He felt, he says, as if he had “come home.” His lifestyle, however, conflicted with the views of his church. And his pastor, when he confessed, told him he had to reform. The conflict between his desires and what he thought was right in the eyes of God began to haunt him.

“So what do you think I did as a 17-year-old junior in high school that didn’t want to be gay?” Haley says. “I read my Bible and I read my Bible and I read my Bible and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I remember kneeling next to my bed and saying, ‘Lord, I’m not going to stop praying until I feel different,’ only to fall asleep, waking up to feel just the same as I had when I had started to pray.”

He finally turned his back on the church. He tells the group that at this juncture he believed Christianity was “a lie” and “hated Christians.”

“I wanted to be moral within my homosexuality,” he says. “I wanted to have that long-term monogamous relationship. But when I didn’t find it in this city, I’d move to the next.” He lived, he says, on the “gay treadmill.”

“It’s not a whole lot different than the treadmill that I see some heterosexual women buy in to,” Haley says. “When they believe they have to be a certain size, look a certain way, dress a certain way, to be acceptable to the heterosexual male population. Well, you take that same phenomenon and put it into the gay community, and it seems overexaggerated. To be the accepted commodity, you need to look a certain way, act a certain way, drive a certain car, talk a certain way. So I was working out three to four hours a day, I was doing injectable steroids. I was bulimic because I wanted to eat, but I didn’t want to gain weight because I had to have that perfect physique because that physique was what defined my value and my worth during my time and involvement in the gay community.”

He says he became a gay activist in Dallas. He marched in Gay Pride parades.

And then one night Haley picked up a man at a gay gym, but as they progressed the man stopped and told Haley he could not have sex. Haley recalls him saying: “I’m sorry that I’ve led you on, but I’m a Christian, and I’m trying to walk away from this.”

The two men spoke most of the night. Haley was introduced through the man to a counselor named Jeff Conrad, who promised to help cure him of his homosexuality. Haley started what he says was “a godly, Christian mentoring relationship.”

“He sent me birthday cards: ‘I don’t even know if you’re getting this card, but I want to let you know that I love you, that God loves you, that change is possible,’” Haley says. “I’d write him back the nastiest, ugly letters about his faith, about his God: ‘Leave me alone, I was born this way.’ He’d write me back: ‘Mike, I want you to go to the library. I want you to find me a study that will prove to me that you were born gay. And if you can do that, then I will change the way that I believe.’”

Haley says he left his “homosexual lifestyle” in December 1989 after his sessions with Conrad. He omits the details of his “cure.” He got married. He returned to the church and became a youth pastor. He started working for Dobson.

Dobson’s attacks on gays are relentless and brutal. He likens the proponents of gay marriage to the Nazis.[106] He warns in his book Marriage Under Fire that sanctioning gay marriage is the first salvo by the gay movement to destroy the American family. “This is an issue America has got to wake up to,” Dobson writes. “The homosexual agenda is a beast. It wants our kids….”[107] And he goes on to ask, “How about group marriage? Or marriage between daddies and little girls? How about marriage between a man and his donkey?[108]

“Moms and dads, are you listening? This movement is THE greatest threat to your children,” Dobson warns. “It is of particular danger to your wide-eyed boys, who have no idea what demoralization is planned for them.”[109]

This conference is one of many Dobson and his associates mount throughout the country every year. Bill Maier, vice president and psychologist in residence for Focus on the Family, rises to speak. He attacks the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts, which he calls “the most radical social experiment ever proposed in our country that’s redefining the institution of marriage.” He defines the ruling as one made by “four rogue judges on the Supreme Judicial Court who basically forced their will on the people and the legislature of Massachusetts.” The ruling, he says, is “a radical redefinition of the human family.” At issue is “whether men and women are unique and different and whether the two genders complete each other in their differences. It’s about whether mother and father are both essential in the process of healthy child development, and it’s about whether there are compelling societal reasons to define marriage as one thing and not define it as something else.

“When we follow God’s blueprint for how we’re supposed to live, things usually work out the way they’re supposed to,” Maier says. “But when we defy God, when we live in ways that are contrary to God’s design for us, we often reap a harvest of pain and suffering in our lives.” He warns that “if we redefine marriage in one way, there is no logical reason for us to not redefine it in other ways,” leading to the legalization of “polygamy or group marriage.” This opens up the possibility, he says, of fathers marrying their daughters. “They say, ‘Well, if marriage can be redefined to include two men or two women, what’s to stop us from redefining it to allow marriage between a man and four women, or a group of six or seven adults and their various children?’”

The danger of same-sex marriage is that it “will also teach our children that the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ and ‘mother’ and ‘father’ are simply meaningless social constructs.”

Melissa Fryrear, who says she used to be a lesbian, blames abusive parental relationships for “same-sex attraction.”

“For those who have been abused by a male, oftentimes that tremendous rage, that hurt, can go underground, if you will, and it can begin to emerge later in life, perhaps in rejecting your female identity or the fact that you look like a woman,” she says. “When I lived homosexually, I was very butch and very mannish. I still have some work to do”—a comment that elicits laughter—“but I’ve covered some bases, too. I looked mannish and I looked masculine because it was a liability to be a woman. Because it meant that I could be hurt, it meant that I could be victimized, and it was my suit of armor to keep me safe. So [it was a] rejection of that female identity. It can be a fleeing from men.”

Many in the church take notes in the space provided in their conference booklets. Many cry softly when speakers mention giving up their lives to God and being cured of “same-sex attraction.” And periodically, especially during the testimonies, there are shouts of “amen.”

The speakers accuse gays of controlling television, radio and Hollywood. The gay movement, they say, is more politically active and powerful than other movements. Gays are attacked as diseased and part of the criminal class. But the bedrock of the attack is that homosexuality is against God’s ordained natural order, that what gay men and women do is perverted and pathological. They are not only a threat to children, but a threat to Christians. Gays, those at tonight’s conference are told, hate them and want to destroy them.

“Religion is treated as irrelevant or downright evil,” Robert H. Knight writes in The Homosexual Agenda in Schools, distributed by Dobson’s Family Research Council. “Homosexual books, magazines and newspapers are filled with bitter and often obscene denunciations of religion in general and Christianity in particular. One activist calls for the outlawing of churches that disapprove of homosexual conduct. Another carefully outlines an advertising campaign that equates Christian clergy with Nazis and Klansmen. Homosexual stage performers dress up in clerical garb and commit obscene acts. A gay-rights cartoonist depicts Christ having anal intercourse with His cross. These are not isolated examples from an otherwise gentle and loving literature. The attitude pervades the homosexual movement.”[110]

Gays and lesbians within the church, seeking desperately to deny their sexuality and remain in the Christian collective, suffer severe depression and blows to their self-esteem. The U.S. Surgeon General’s office has published data indicating those who are young and gay are two to three times more likely to commit suicide.[111] Those who are able to conform, no matter what the personal cost, will find acceptance. Those who remain militant, who stand up for another way of being, are condemned. The tactics that will finally disenfranchise them and their supporters from a future Christian America are left unmentioned, but the rhetoric makes it plain that there will not be a place for them. And these preachers warn that if America does not act soon to repress the lifestyles of gays and lesbians, God will punish the nation.

When Pat Robertson was asked by Jerry Falwell if God had allowed the attacks on September 11, both the question and its answer stoked this fear of divine wrath and apocalyptic judgment:

I believe that the protection, the covering of God that has been on this great land of ours for so many years, had lifted on September 11, and allowed this thing to happen. God apparently had good reasons for exposing the U.S.A. to such destruction, given the many sins that Americans have committed ever since the Roe versus Wade court case and the Supreme Court’s decision to keep God out of the schools. In fact, American infidelity goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, to situational ethics and notions of cultural relativity, along with a flirtation with communism at the highest levels of government. The point is not just that Americans have been bad and forfeited their entitlements. It is that unless they reform themselves in a hurry, something far worse may happen to them.[112]

Should another catastrophic attack occur, what will prevent these preachers from calling for the punishment, detention and quarantining of gays and lesbians—as well as abortionists, Muslims and other nonbelievers—to safeguard the nation? What will stanch the hate crimes and physical attacks against those deemed immoral by fearful and angry Christians, those condemned by these preachers as responsible for the nation’s abandonment by God? How will the nation function rationally if homeland security depends on an elusive piety as interpreted by the Christian Right? And most ominously, the fringe groups of the Christian Right believe they have been mandated by God to carry out Christian terrorism, annointed to murder doctors who perform abortions and godless Muslims in Iraq. In a time of anxiety and chaos, of overwhelming fear and uncertainty, how many more will be prodded by this talk of divine vengeance to join the ranks of these Christian extremists?

The drive to ban same-sex marriages in the 2004 election was just one step in a campaign to strip gays and lesbians of civil rights. A 1996 federal law already defines marriage as a union occurring between a man and a woman. Currently 19 states have written prohibitions on same-sex marriage into their state constitutions. As of this writing the latest were passed in Kansas and Texas in 2005; 13 states adopted constitutional bans on gay marriage in 2004, while four had previous bans. At least seven states will hold statewide votes on same-sex marriage bans in2006.[113] These referendums fan the fires of fear and hatred. Bans have to be passed, believers are told, so “activist judges” will not overturn the laws forbidding same-sex marriages. The Christian Right, with its constant need for scapegoats and satanic enemies to be defeated, use the state referendums to mobilize and energize followers, even as the most pressing social ills of the country are ignored.

Any relationships outside the rigid, traditional model of male and female threaten the hierarchical male power structure vital to the movement. Women who do not depend on men for their identity and their sexuality, who live outside a male power relationship, challenge the cult of masculinity, as do men who find tenderness and love with men as equals. The lifestyle of gays and lesbians is intolerable to the Christian Right because their existence is a threat to the movement’s chain of command, one its leaders insist was ordained by God.

The Reverend Dr. Mel White, who produced films and worked with most of the prominent leaders within the Christian Right, came out as a gay man in 1993 in his installation as dean at the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches Cathedral of Hope church in Dallas. Like many gay men in the church, he struggled until late in life with his homosexuality, condemning himself for feelings and inclinations he could not control.

“Conservative Christians shaped the very core of my faith and passed on to me my love for Jesus, the Bible, and the church,” White wrote in his autobiography, Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America. “But all through those wonderful days of childhood and early adolescence, a heavy layer of clouds floated between me and the heavens. In spite of their many gifts to me, those same conservative Christians remained silent about the secret longings of my heart. And though I was surrounded by their loving presence, that same silence left me feeling increasingly isolated and lonely. In the days of my gay childhood, there was no one who even tried to help clear up my growing confusion, guilt, and fear.”[114]

White’s grandmother was a tent revival preacher, traveling around the country on trains to preach and set up storefront churches. When White was 12 years old, she told him that she had given up sex with her husband to “work for the Kingdom.” “Jesus is coming soon,” she told White. “Don’t be distracted by anything.”[115]

White was a model Christian youth. He worked to save the souls of his friends and classmates. He was the student body president at his high school.

“In those early years, I thought for certain that my secret longings were a sign that my Creator had abandoned me,” White wrote.[116]

White would lie awake, “begging God to heal me, to take away the feelings I could not understand, to make me like the rest of them once and for all. It was a prayer I had prayed hundreds of times before. I prayed it in my junior high gym when we showered together and I was terrified by my involuntary physical response to the other naked boys. I prayed it at the beach when I lay with my fellow surfers in the sand and was aroused by their bodies. I prayed it when I was alone in my room at night, cutting out ads from bodybuilding magazines and hiding them under my bed.”[117]

In high school, White began to date Lyla Lee Loehr, whom he had known since seventh grade. White took Loehr, for their first date, to a Youth for Christ rally. He knew he could never bring her home to his parents—she wasn’t saved. But after a few weeks of spending time together at White’s church, she accepted Christ into her life.

White struggled to conform to a “heterosexual lifestyle.” His new girlfriend was the ticket out of sin.

“By then I had memorized the Old Testament lines from Leviticus that say a man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be killed,” he wrote. “Although I thought that God still loved me, I wasn’t certain how far God’s love would go if I ever ‘gave in’ to my ‘evil passions.’”[118]

White married Loehr and raised two children. He had a successful career in the church. He watched passively, however, as colleagues in the church struggled with homosexuality, suffered mental breakdowns or committed suicide. One such troubled man cut off his testicles.

When White’s younger brother was struck and killed by a car while riding his bicycle, White wondered if this was a message from God.

“There were desperate, irrational times when I thought maybe God was punishing me for my homosexual thoughts by letting my brother die,” he wrote.[119]

White, like many in the church, saw a series of Christian psychologists and psychiatrists. The first told him he needed to tell his wife. He did. Lyla agreed to help. White wanted to keep his family and career. He wanted to conquer his homosexuality.

“For the next years, I read and memorized biblical texts on faith. I fasted and prayed for healing. I believed that God had ‘healed me’ or was ‘in the process of healing me.’ But over the long haul, my sexual orientation didn’t change. My natural attraction to other men never lessened. After months of trying, my psychiatrist implied that I wasn’t really cooperating with the Spirit of God. After that, my guilt and fear just escalated.”[120]

In 1977, White began his first relationship with another homosexual man. The relationship lasted for a year, but the secrecy caused emotional strain. At the same time, he began ghostwriting for Francis Schaeffer, Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy, Pat Robertson and other Christian Right leaders.

“I wasn’t wise enough to anticipate where all this talk of ‘cleansing the nation’ might lead. I didn’t foresee that one day those same religious media personalities and the political groups they would organize could become a dangerous threat to me, to my gay brothers and lesbian sisters, and to all persons who might disagree with their political, religious and social agenda for our country.”[121]

He contemplated suicide while scuba diving in Hawaii and later atop a bridge. He saw more Christian counselors, and in despair slashed his wrists with a coat hanger as his wife screamed at him to stop. It was the end of their marriage. White met his partner, Gary Nixon, who sang in the church choir. He walked away from one world and into another. It became his mission to document the hate talk of his former employers and organize gay and lesbian Christians to denounce the bigotry of the Christian Right.

“This is a black and white world,” White says. “It is between good and evil. It is not a natural political conflict where people of good will can disagree, and they’re playing the political game beautifully. They pretend that it’s a political game, whereas in fact it’s a fight between God and Satan. They don’t ever say that. So they have taken the political process, and used it fairly against us. They’ve won the Congress and the presidency, and they’re about to win the courts because of their Congress and the president. They’ve won state houses across the country and precincts everywhere by the political process. So they have done what we didn’t do. They have a system to throw democracy out the window.

“They want to end homosexuality in America,” he says, “…one step at a time, first the federal marriage amendment, and then comes no adoption, no service in the military, the reinstatement of the sodomy laws and driving us back into our closets, or worse. They do not want to compromise, but they begin with compromise after compromise after compromise.”

The advance, White says, is demoralizing the gay community, which he warns “is losing the will to fight.

“It’s safer back in the closet anyway, and since we can pass, or the gay leaders can pass, the ones who wear suits and have good jobs and have plenty of money, they will go underground,” he says. “It is the gay people out there in the hinterlands who have no options. They are being rejected by their families, discarded by their parents, kicked out of their jobs, harassed, outed and killed. The gay leaders don’t have a clue about this suffering.

“There are no fountains or cafeterias or bus stations we can integrate,” White says. “There are no symbols that we can attack. Marriage, the one great act of defiance, in San Francisco and Massachusetts showed to the country gay couples lined up to get married. This is something they didn’t like. The faces looked normal. They had children. These pictures were killing the caricatures. That, for me, is one of the great things we’ve done, just go to get married no matter what.

“What frightens me most are gay people who don’t understand what’s happening and who are unwilling to take a stand,” he says. “Once they take away our rights they’re going to start wanting to register us because we’re the ones who have the most sexually transmitted diseases. They’re going to say, ‘We want to register you so we can give you special medical attention.’ Quarantine comes next, along with taking away our children, the children we’ve adopted. They will take away the partnership rights the corporations put in place, because they can put pressure on the corporations. My bleakest description is that we’ll not only be driven back into our closets, but we’ll have to leave the country. Right now, we have to leave the state of Virginia, because of the law that says we can’t have any agreements, or any contracts, or any powers of attorney that represent marriage. So every gay person who has a business here lives in fear.”

The attack against gays and lesbians seeks to paint homosexual behavior as a form of barbarity, one step above bestiality. Gays and lesbians, like other enemies of Christ, are not fully human; they are “unnatural.” And in this assault there is often lurid fascination with the grittier details of homosexual encounters. Peter LaBarbera is the executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, based in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and a speaker who uses this rhetoric to depict gays as depraved. He denies the possibility of loving, committed relationships between gays and lesbians. He brands the lifestyle as one of “extreme promiscuity,” saying that “when homosexuals call it monogamy, it’s not real monogamy.” And sexual relations itself between gays and lesbians is, he insists, “gross, unnatural and dangerous behavior.”

He warns about what he calls “the totalitarian impulse of a gay man.” He viciously attacks National Gay and Lesbian Task Force director Matt Foreman, who has criticized ex-gay therapies and the role some members of the clergy play in pushing gay men to these ex-gay groups.

LaBarbera calls on the crowd to “stop backing up in the face of homosexual cultural aggression.” It is time to fight, he insists. And then he hints ominously at what he would like to see happen, how he would like to see Christians battle in ways, perhaps outside the law, that are no longer “nice,” how he would like to take this war to the streets.

“We need a good cop, bad cop strategy….” he says. “We’ve been too nice. We need to have some people go over and do the tough things, like the other side does.”

[catoi-calamari]

I’m dying out here, the gradual enshittification of all products is killing me. Could you please share your knowledge of brands that actually make good, durable clothing items? Tsym!!!

The Big One v3.0:More Boots!

>Blundstone

>Thursday Boot Co

This version is focused mainly on work/masc clothing . If anyone has recommendations for more decorative/femme clothing, please share them with me so I can update the post :)

Make sure to check the version number if you see this in the wild, it may have updated!

Recommendations marked with an asterisk (*) means I have no personal experience with them, but I've heard enough good things that I added them to the list.

1. Shirts/Tops

First of all, I'm a huge whore for 100% cotton, but in theory polyester will last longer. On the other hand, polyester will last forever, seeping into fish and local blood streams for millenia to come. Second of all, if you want cool graphics then I'd highly recommend doing it yourself. I'd say the easiest options for getting reliable, long lasting graphic tees are screen printing, tie dye and vinyl decals, but this depends on what resources you have access to. Keep in mind this is for shirts that you'll (hopefully) be able to wear for over a decade since really any decent cotton tee will last a decent amount of time.

Recommendations

-ASCOLOR

These are the best blank t shirts I've found, period. Stitching is great, the fabric is thick, and from what I can tell they're slightly more inclined to ethical production than your average mass produced T-shirts. They also sell nice jackets and coats as well!

I might try out a couple of pairs of pants from them to see what's up.

Band Tees

For some reason these tend to be really solid, depending on how big the artist in question is. Usually printed on Gildan, which ain't bad. They are expensive though, which means they may not be as great of a deal

This would be the section where I talked about stuff that isn't just t shirts but idk any brands that make consistently durable examples for a good price.

2. Pants

I would recommend a maximum of 1-2% elastane if you're getting skinny jeans, otherwise it's 100% cotton denim baby. Durability decrease exponentially the higher percentage of non-denim there is.

Also, I highly recommend selvage jeans if you can afford them. They use a tighter knit and are made to be worn in.

For cargo pants, get something that's thick and has ripstip material.

Recommendations

-Levi's

The lowest in price I would go tbh. I recommend the 502s since they're 100% cotton but 511s have been a staple of the street fashion world for a while. They're skinnier jeans ain't bad either, but I feel like they're starting to hit the edge of being too thin.

-The Unbranded Brand

Focused solely on getting the price of selvage jeans down to affordable levels. Fair warning, I bought a pair of black jeans (with 1% elastane) and the formaldehyde smell still hasn't gone away. I have an indigo pair that smell fine though, and besides that they're my favorite pairs of jeans.

5.11

Now most """Tactical Apparel""" stores tend to be a bit...off, but since this is a post about durable clothing, I gotta mention the probably undiagnosed autistic guys with a special interest in manly man pants. I have a pair of 5.11 Canvas Cargo Pants and I've taken these things camping, through outdoor airsoft fields, and underground deathcore moshpits. The bastards still looked mint when I finally handed them off to my partner because my ass got too juicy to wear them and gave me a blister when I spent all morning working for a landscaper. (That job was the final straw in my anti-lawn radicalization arc btw.)

To reiterate, I would look for anything that's ripstip and not paper thin. Nylon also works but the texture sucks.

Duluth Trading Co.*

Carhartt if they didn't sell out, from what I've heard

Insert Mid Level Selvage Jean brand that's about $150-$250 a pair*

3. Shoes

Always invest in whatever goes between you and the ground. This goes for mattresses and chairs as well. And for fucks sake get something that can be resoled, and find a cobbler near you. Also look up the Sam Vines Boot Theory of Economics.

Recommendations

Vans

Unlike converse, I've only ever bought one pair. The problem with Vans is the lack of impact absorption, something that can be fixed with aftermarket inserts in theory. Old-Skools take insoles fairly well. Their ComfyCush line is aimed at fixing this problem but I haven't tried any of them. I did get a pair of Ultraranges recently and they seem decently durable, but I've yet to really start wearing into them.

Any skate shoes in general*

Theyre made to be dragged across concrete at relatively high speeds. Try to go for suede.

Solovair*

Now, I have beef with Doc Martens since they sold out, but they're still cheap, comfortable, and made out of leather, which is all you need. Anything lower and I would argue that it's too cheap. However, they can't be resoled, they're leather is kind of thin, and they definitely have a fast fashion mindset.

Solovair is a company that uses the original factories in England to make their own line of lookalikes, for a slightly higher price and slightly higher quality. I've heard their customer service is shit.

Redwing*

I have heard nothing but praise for these. I'm going to buy a pair of Supersole 2.0s once my current pair (which didn't make the list since they kinda went downhill) finally bite it.

Danner*

Another popular recommendation for leather boots.

There is a queer owned boot brand that has canvas and leather boots that are relatively cheap and have cool art but I forgot the name

3. Socks

Blundstones*

Chelsea boots but austrialian

Basically either get Darn Tough* or Point6 some decent socks from whatever brand works for you. I highly recommend merino wool hiking socks, and I just wear cotton socks during the summer.

4. Underwear

You do wear underwear, right?

Recommendations

TomboyX

Queer-owned business catered towards gnc people. Their stuff is dope, high quality, and made in the US with livable wages for their employees. Highly recommend.

5. Specialty

From cold weather gear to military surplus, this section covers everything else.

Recommendations

Patagonia*

I'm still amazed they're this popular and have this much of a focus on sustainability and longevity. Their sibling, North Face, definitely fell into the consumerism pit years ago but Patagonia has still been chugging along.

Military Surplus

I feel a bit guilty for gatekeeping the specific companies I like, but if you go to the right places (eBay) you can get durable clothing for SUPER cheap. It's usually not the highest quality, but it's better than the same thing from an outlet mall.

Chrome

Mainly a bicycling brand, their bags are the kind of things that last a stupidly long time. The internals of them aren't amazing, mainly just an empty main cavity with a laptop sleeve and a smaller separate pocket, but all of their stuff is rock solid. They also have a solid warranty as well.

Swiss Army

Yes, the knife guys. They haven't changed their looks since the late 90s but their backpacks are designed amazingly well. They also have a limited lifetime warranty. I've noticed some cosmetic wear on mine after a few months of using it pretty roughly, thankfully it's just skin-deep stuff but it's also different to older examples I've seen. Definitely more suited towards carrying books and folders.

[sidrial]

What is money?

simple... normal barter ... I mowe your lawn so you give me a dozen eggs from your chicken

But what if I don't want eggs?

What if I know what I want?

What if the thing I want is made by our neighbor?

If there are 3 or more of us we pick something that that can be found or made somewhat cheaply

(Coin, printed $, digital currency, shaped chocolate, etc)

We start to assign it value.

30 minutes of mowing the lawn = 10 chocolates

2 eggs = 5 chocolates

(Or whatever)

Over time pricing becomes more consistent and this helps improve its usefulness

[macwantspeace]

I will probably walk to the polling place. Early vote is a mile west. November 5 is a mile east. If the weather sucks, I will Uber. If disabled, I will hire medical transport. Mail vote is available [becuz I'm ancient] but that sucks space vacuum. Got to get an online fillable application form, print it, then schlep that thing a mile down the road to mail it. Wait weeks. Fill the ballot, very freaking carefully sign the envelope exactly matching some signature from thirty years ago, and schlep that a mile down the road. No tracking. In Australia they fine you for not voting. Then they dump you in the Outback without a big knife. As they say way up the chain here, Clangus is going to vote. He may also burn a cross on your lawn. Biden has done a pretty good job. Recovered from the shitstorm of the mismanaged pandemic. Inflation lower than Europe. Jobs up, wages up. New infrastructure creating jobs, and fewer potholes. {oh, you shout, but what about prices? yeah, I reply, record profits with buybacks and exec bonuses.}

Saying "voting doesn't matter" might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn't reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn't missed a one.

[aarizaan]

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[reelocator2024]

7 Tips for Holding a Successful Pre-Move Garage Sale

If there’s one thing that’s always true about Packers and Movers Kolkata to Hyderabad, it’s that it is the perfect opportunity to get rid of things you no longer want or need. And while you could easily just trash, recycle, or donate those items (and if you do want to donate, here’s a guide on where to do it), hosting a pre-move garage sale is an excellent way to both get rid of things and make a couple extra bucks to cover those moving expenses.

There are even more benefits to a pre-move garage sale than just making some easy money. The less stuff you have to load on the moving truck, the lighter the truckload and the cheaper your move will be. Plus, you’ll spend a lot less time packing and unpacking items that you don’t have much use for anyway. And if you have a sentimental tie to the items, it may feel better to see them going to a new owner than just getting them out of sight.

Hosting a successful pre-move garage sale takes a bit more work than simply arranging your things on your front lawn and sticking up a sign. If you want to get rid of the most items possible and for the best price possible, follow these 11 tips for doing your garage sale right.

Set a date and time

Be smart about the date and time you choose. A weekend day is best, preferably a Saturday. Spring is usually the ideal time for hosting a garage sale, since the weather is finally turning and people are eager to be outside. Avoid hosting a pre-move garage sale on a holiday or a day when something big is going on in your town, like a major sporting event. Timing wise, aim to start in the morning and go through the afternoon. And be prepared for early birds who may show up a little bit before the set start time.

Check with the local authorities

You’re probably not going to encounter any trouble hosting a garage sale, but just to be safe, call your local city hall and inquire about whether you need a special permit or if there are any rules or regulations you need to be aware of. Do this about three or four weeks out, so that if you do have to get a permit or make other preparations you have time to get it all figured out.

Make an inventory

Just like a real store, you’ll want to keep an inventory of the items you’re offering. It will help you stay organized both in the set up and when things get rolling. To start, go around your home noting the items you’d like to sell. Be judicious in your choices – if something doesn’t serve a purpose in your life but may in someone else’s, there’s no reason to hold onto it. If you want, you can start organizing the items in one place so they’re ready for you when it’s time to set up. The inventory will help you see exactly what’s going to go, and will also come in handy on garage sale day itself, when you may get a question about whether you’re offering a certain thing.

The more (good) items, the better

Don’t just search the obvious spots for garage sale items, like closets and cabinets. Also check out your basement, attic, shed, and garage, which have likely accrued many items you haven’t looked at or needed in years. We all know the saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If an item is useful and in good condition, it’s worth putting out. That being said, if an item is broken, dirty, or in otherwise poor condition, you’re probably better off just getting rid of it. Focus on items that generally do well at garage sales, like tools and vintage glassware.

Get creative with your advertising

A sign on the side of the road is the most common way to advertise a garage sale, but it’s not necessarily the most effective. Expand your marketing efforts on to social media, where you’ll have a bigger reach. You may also want to consider printing off flyers and asking local businesses if they wouldn’t mind posting them in their windows. The more you can get the word out, the more likely you are to draw a decent crowd. Be sure to list a few details about what kinds of thing you’ll be selling so that people know what to expect.

Ask your neighbors if they’re interested in joining in

Bigger garage sales will garner more attention. If you don’t have a ton of items to sell (or, if you just want to make the sale as big as possible), ask one or more neighbors if they’d like to host garage sales at the same time as you and then all agree on a date and time together. Doing this will enable you to advertise to more people, and it will probably also make the day itself more enjoyable.

Set fair prices

One of the main objectives of a pre-move sale is to make money, but if you set your prices too high, you’re going to have less buyers. People go to garage sales expecting a good deal, so you likely won’t be able to get away with charging the true value of an item, or even the price that a secondhand store may charge for it. If you think an item is worth more than you can sell it for at your garage sale, bring it to a consignment shop instead.

If you can, check out a couple garage sales in your neighborhood that are taking place before yours so you can see what kind of prices are being set. If that’s not possible, just err on the side of pricing things where they’re most likely to sell – $1 for a book or record, $2 for clothes, $3 for kitchenware, etc. Write your prices clearly with a marker on a neon sticker and affix it to the item. This will make it easy for shoppers to read them.

[painlessmoves2024]

7 Tips for Holding a Successful Pre-Move Garage Sale

If there’s one thing that’s always true about Packers and Movers Kolkata to Hyderabad, it’s that it is the perfect opportunity to get rid of things you no longer want or need. And while you could easily just trash, recycle, or donate those items (and if you do want to donate, here’s a guide on where to do it), hosting a pre-move garage sale is an excellent way to both get rid of things and make a couple extra bucks to cover those moving expenses.

There are even more benefits to a pre-move garage sale than just making some easy money. The less stuff you have to load on the moving truck, the lighter the truckload and the cheaper your move will be. Plus, you’ll spend a lot less time packing and unpacking items that you don’t have much use for anyway. And if you have a sentimental tie to the items, it may feel better to see them going to a new owner than just getting them out of sight.

Hosting a successful pre-move garage sale takes a bit more work than simply arranging your things on your front lawn and sticking up a sign. If you want to get rid of the most items possible and for the best price possible, follow these 11 tips for doing your garage sale right.

Set a date and time

Be smart about the date and time you choose. A weekend day is best, preferably a Saturday. Spring is usually the ideal time for hosting a garage sale, since the weather is finally turning and people are eager to be outside. Avoid hosting a pre-move garage sale on a holiday or a day when something big is going on in your town, like a major sporting event. Timing wise, aim to start in the morning and go through the afternoon. And be prepared for early birds who may show up a little bit before the set start time.

Check with the local authorities

You’re probably not going to encounter any trouble hosting a garage sale, but just to be safe, call your local city hall and inquire about whether you need a special permit or if there are any rules or regulations you need to be aware of. Do this about three or four weeks out, so that if you do have to get a permit or make other preparations you have time to get it all figured out.

Make an inventory

Just like a real store, you’ll want to keep an inventory of the items you’re offering. It will help you stay organized both in the set up and when things get rolling. To start, go around your home noting the items you’d like to sell. Be judicious in your choices – if something doesn’t serve a purpose in your life but may in someone else’s, there’s no reason to hold onto it. If you want, you can start organizing the items in one place so they’re ready for you when it’s time to set up. The inventory will help you see exactly what’s going to go, and will also come in handy on garage sale day itself, when you may get a question about whether you’re offering a certain thing.

The more (good) items, the better

Don’t just search the obvious spots for garage sale items, like closets and cabinets. Also check out your basement, attic, shed, and garage, which have likely accrued many items you haven’t looked at or needed in years. We all know the saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If an item is useful and in good condition, it’s worth putting out. That being said, if an item is broken, dirty, or in otherwise poor condition, you’re probably better off just getting rid of it. Focus on items that generally do well at garage sales, like tools and vintage glassware.

Get creative with your advertising

A sign on the side of the road is the most common way to advertise a garage sale, but it’s not necessarily the most effective. Expand your marketing efforts on to social media, where you’ll have a bigger reach. You may also want to consider printing off flyers and asking local businesses if they wouldn’t mind posting them in their windows. The more you can get the word out, the more likely you are to draw a decent crowd. Be sure to list a few details about what kinds of thing you’ll be selling so that people know what to expect.

Ask your neighbors if they’re interested in joining in

Bigger garage sales will garner more attention. If you don’t have a ton of items to sell (or, if you just want to make the sale as big as possible), ask one or more neighbors if they’d like to host garage sales at the same time as you and then all agree on a date and time together. Doing this will enable you to advertise to more people, and it will probably also make the day itself more enjoyable.

Set fair prices

One of the main objectives of a pre-move sale is to make money, but if you set your prices too high, you’re going to have less buyers. People go to garage sales expecting a good deal, so you likely won’t be able to get away with charging the true value of an item, or even the price that a secondhand store may charge for it. If you think an item is worth more than you can sell it for at your garage sale, bring it to a consignment shop instead.

If you can, check out a couple garage sales in your neighborhood that are taking place before yours so you can see what kind of prices are being set. If that’s not possible, just err on the side of pricing things where they’re most likely to sell – $1 for a book or record, $2 for clothes, $3 for kitchenware, etc. Write your prices clearly with a marker on a neon sticker and affix it to the item. This will make it easy for shoppers to read them.

[momentum2024]

7 Tips for Holding a Successful Pre-Move Garage Sale

If there’s one thing that’s always true about Packers and Movers Kolkata to Hyderabad, it’s that it is the perfect opportunity to get rid of things you no longer want or need. And while you could easily just trash, recycle, or donate those items (and if you do want to donate, here’s a guide on where to do it), hosting a pre-move garage sale is an excellent way to both get rid of things and make a couple extra bucks to cover those moving expenses.

There are even more benefits to a pre-move garage sale than just making some easy money. The less stuff you have to load on the moving truck, the lighter the truckload and the cheaper your move will be. Plus, you’ll spend a lot less time packing and unpacking items that you don’t have much use for anyway. And if you have a sentimental tie to the items, it may feel better to see them going to a new owner than just getting them out of sight.

Hosting a successful pre-move garage sale takes a bit more work than simply arranging your things on your front lawn and sticking up a sign. If you want to get rid of the most items possible and for the best price possible, follow these 11 tips for doing your garage sale right.

Set a date and time

Be smart about the date and time you choose. A weekend day is best, preferably a Saturday. Spring is usually the ideal time for hosting a garage sale, since the weather is finally turning and people are eager to be outside. Avoid hosting a pre-move garage sale on a holiday or a day when something big is going on in your town, like a major sporting event. Timing wise, aim to start in the morning and go through the afternoon. And be prepared for early birds who may show up a little bit before the set start time.

Check with the local authorities

You’re probably not going to encounter any trouble hosting a garage sale, but just to be safe, call your local city hall and inquire about whether you need a special permit or if there are any rules or regulations you need to be aware of. Do this about three or four weeks out, so that if you do have to get a permit or make other preparations you have time to get it all figured out.

Make an inventory

Just like a real store, you’ll want to keep an inventory of the items you’re offering. It will help you stay organized both in the set up and when things get rolling. To start, go around your home noting the items you’d like to sell. Be judicious in your choices – if something doesn’t serve a purpose in your life but may in someone else’s, there’s no reason to hold onto it. If you want, you can start organizing the items in one place so they’re ready for you when it’s time to set up. The inventory will help you see exactly what’s going to go, and will also come in handy on garage sale day itself, when you may get a question about whether you’re offering a certain thing.

The more (good) items, the better

Don’t just search the obvious spots for garage sale items, like closets and cabinets. Also check out your basement, attic, shed, and garage, which have likely accrued many items you haven’t looked at or needed in years. We all know the saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If an item is useful and in good condition, it’s worth putting out. That being said, if an item is broken, dirty, or in otherwise poor condition, you’re probably better off just getting rid of it. Focus on items that generally do well at garage sales, like tools and vintage glassware.

Get creative with your advertising

A sign on the side of the road is the most common way to advertise a garage sale, but it’s not necessarily the most effective. Expand your marketing efforts on to social media, where you’ll have a bigger reach. You may also want to consider printing off flyers and asking local businesses if they wouldn’t mind posting them in their windows. The more you can get the word out, the more likely you are to draw a decent crowd. Be sure to list a few details about what kinds of thing you’ll be selling so that people know what to expect.

Ask your neighbors if they’re interested in joining in

Bigger garage sales will garner more attention. If you don’t have a ton of items to sell (or, if you just want to make the sale as big as possible), ask one or more neighbors if they’d like to host garage sales at the same time as you and then all agree on a date and time together. Doing this will enable you to advertise to more people, and it will probably also make the day itself more enjoyable.

Set fair prices

One of the main objectives of a pre-move sale is to make money, but if you set your prices too high, you’re going to have less buyers. People go to garage sales expecting a good deal, so you likely won’t be able to get away with charging the true value of an item, or even the price that a secondhand store may charge for it. If you think an item is worth more than you can sell it for at your garage sale, bring it to a consignment shop instead.

If you can, check out a couple garage sales in your neighborhood that are taking place before yours so you can see what kind of prices are being set. If that’s not possible, just err on the side of pricing things where they’re most likely to sell – $1 for a book or record, $2 for clothes, $3 for kitchenware, etc. Write your prices clearly with a marker on a neon sticker and affix it to the item. This will make it easy for shoppers to read them.

[gigglymovers]

7 Tips for Holding a Successful Pre-Move Garage Sale

If there’s one thing that’s always true about Packers and Movers Kolkata to Hyderabad, it’s that it is the perfect opportunity to get rid of things you no longer want or need. And while you could easily just trash, recycle, or donate those items (and if you do want to donate, here’s a guide on where to do it), hosting a pre-move garage sale is an excellent way to both get rid of things and make a couple extra bucks to cover those moving expenses.

There are even more benefits to a pre-move garage sale than just making some easy money. The less stuff you have to load on the moving truck, the lighter the truckload and the cheaper your move will be. Plus, you’ll spend a lot less time packing and unpacking items that you don’t have much use for anyway. And if you have a sentimental tie to the items, it may feel better to see them going to a new owner than just getting them out of sight.

Hosting a successful pre-move garage sale takes a bit more work than simply arranging your things on your front lawn and sticking up a sign. If you want to get rid of the most items possible and for the best price possible, follow these 11 tips for doing your garage sale right.

Set a date and time

Be smart about the date and time you choose. A weekend day is best, preferably a Saturday. Spring is usually the ideal time for hosting a garage sale, since the weather is finally turning and people are eager to be outside. Avoid hosting a pre-move garage sale on a holiday or a day when something big is going on in your town, like a major sporting event. Timing wise, aim to start in the morning and go through the afternoon. And be prepared for early birds who may show up a little bit before the set start time.

Check with the local authorities

You’re probably not going to encounter any trouble hosting a garage sale, but just to be safe, call your local city hall and inquire about whether you need a special permit or if there are any rules or regulations you need to be aware of. Do this about three or four weeks out, so that if you do have to get a permit or make other preparations you have time to get it all figured out.

Make an inventory

Just like a real store, you’ll want to keep an inventory of the items you’re offering. It will help you stay organized both in the set up and when things get rolling. To start, go around your home noting the items you’d like to sell. Be judicious in your choices – if something doesn’t serve a purpose in your life but may in someone else’s, there’s no reason to hold onto it. If you want, you can start organizing the items in one place so they’re ready for you when it’s time to set up. The inventory will help you see exactly what’s going to go, and will also come in handy on garage sale day itself, when you may get a question about whether you’re offering a certain thing.

The more (good) items, the better

Don’t just search the obvious spots for garage sale items, like closets and cabinets. Also check out your basement, attic, shed, and garage, which have likely accrued many items you haven’t looked at or needed in years. We all know the saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. If an item is useful and in good condition, it’s worth putting out. That being said, if an item is broken, dirty, or in otherwise poor condition, you’re probably better off just getting rid of it. Focus on items that generally do well at garage sales, like tools and vintage glassware.

Get creative with your advertising

A sign on the side of the road is the most common way to advertise a garage sale, but it’s not necessarily the most effective. Expand your marketing efforts on to social media, where you’ll have a bigger reach. You may also want to consider printing off flyers and asking local businesses if they wouldn’t mind posting them in their windows. The more you can get the word out, the more likely you are to draw a decent crowd. Be sure to list a few details about what kinds of thing you’ll be selling so that people know what to expect.

Ask your neighbors if they’re interested in joining in

Bigger garage sales will garner more attention. If you don’t have a ton of items to sell (or, if you just want to make the sale as big as possible), ask one or more neighbors if they’d like to host garage sales at the same time as you and then all agree on a date and time together. Doing this will enable you to advertise to more people, and it will probably also make the day itself more enjoyable.

Set fair prices

One of the main objectives of a pre-move sale is to make money, but if you set your prices too high, you’re going to have less buyers. People go to garage sales expecting a good deal, so you likely won’t be able to get away with charging the true value of an item, or even the price that a secondhand store may charge for it. If you think an item is worth more than you can sell it for at your garage sale, bring it to a consignment shop instead.

If you can, check out a couple garage sales in your neighborhood that are taking place before yours so you can see what kind of prices are being set. If that’s not possible, just err on the side of pricing things where they’re most likely to sell – $1 for a book or record, $2 for clothes, $3 for kitchenware, etc. Write your prices clearly with a marker on a neon sticker and affix it to the item. This will make it easy for shoppers to read them.