#like i want that married by 30 kids and a house by 35 big family reunions at christmas kind of life

[brrbrina]

the moment i knew

pairing: joe burrow x reader

warnings: ANGST!

Ever since you were a kid, your birthday was the most anticipated day of the year, counting down each day, gathering your friends and close family members for your typical birthday dinner which this time around was being held in her new house, the first house she ever bought with her big girl money,

"Honey I ordered the strawberry cheesecake you like, your brother will pick it up and bring it later today" your mom stated in the phone screen in front of where while she did her makeup, sadly your parents wouldn´t be able to make it to your birthday this year, they were on a trip to Europe and you were genuinely happy for them, you don´t turn 30 years of marriage every year.

"It´s okay mom, don't worry" you said smiling "By the way thank you for the flowers, they are the prettiest flowers I've gotten in the whole day" you said and sighed "What about Joe? Did he bring you the daises you love?" your mom said excitedly

"Um" you gulped "No, I haven´t heard from him since yesterday, he has been at practice the whole day, don't worry" you said scrathing your neck "I don´t want to hold you back anymore, I love you guys have fun" you said smiling as you heard your dad mumble "Happy birthday honey, we love you, you don´t turn 25 every day!" he said as you smiled and hung up.

Finishing doing your make-up, the door ranged "Coming" you called from the 2nd floor hoping to see your boyfriend on the other side of the door "Happy birthday bubbs I love you" best friend slash sister-in-law Molly said as your brother walked in with balloons and a bouquet of flowers. "Happy birthday kiddo" your older brother Nick said as he gave you a hug.

Molly and you have been best friends since high school, and eventually, your brother and her started dating when she was a sophomore in college and Nick was a senior, they got married last year and while you were happy for them you were a little bit saddened that they got married first, you and Joe had been dating since you were a freshman and he was a junior, you had talked about marriage before and you both knew you wanted to settle down together, plus after all you kind of understood why he hadn´t popped the question, he was in his second year in the NFL and he was concentrated on getting that ring, you hated to admit it but sometimes it haunted you in the middle of the night that maybe he wouldn't give you a ring until he got his, however before the season started and you were looking for a house Joe suggested you moved in with him, and while that was a topic you had in mind before, he never brought it up anymore.

“Look babe" you sat beside him in his living room with the computer in your lap.

"I think this painting would be cute in the hall before the stair what do you think?" you said smiling "Oh, it´s cute," he told side-eyeing it, and as much as you loved hearing his opinions on different things, you were mad he didn't stop you from buying it because that meant the thought of you moving in with him had left his mind.

"I´m going to miss being your roommate," you said while packing the stuff you had in his house in the 5 weeks you lived with him, it wasn´t the wisest decision to pay another month of rent if you were going to move into your new place in a few weeks so you moved temporarily into his house, hoping he would say something about you permanently living with him "Yeah, it was fun," he said looking at his iPad as he re-watched a play on Sunday, his O-line was letting the other team sack him and even though the Bengals won 37-35 due to a 2 point conversion play he was still bitter that the Saints got so close to winning the game.

"I'm going to put this in the trunk" you said going downstairs to pack the last few things needed to move to the new place and your phone rang.

"I´ve been calling you for the last hour, where were you," Noah said on the other line "Um," you said while accommodating the box on your hip to grab her phone and put it on speaker "I´ve been loading up mom´s truck with the stuff I need to move, you wouldn´t believe how many steps I've gotten today," you said chuckling "By the way," you said as you grabbed your phone making your way outside "Are you free tonight? I would really use some help to put a few things up like the TV and accommodate my bed" "Yeah I can give you a hand" your brother said on the other line "Great! I´m on my way there I´ll send you my location so you can come by. You´re the best bye!" as you hangs up and make your way back to Joe´s entrance, to grab your purse and the last box you needed to fully leave his house and go live on your own again,

"I´m going to my place, I´ll be back later" you yelled so Joe could hear her "OK!" he yelled back, closing the door you felt her stomach drop, it would be lies saying that his indifference hadn´t been bothering you lately, more than bothering it hurt, having no idea what was going on in your boyfriend's mine was a painful engraved thought in your mind,

After arriving at the new house and sending your brother the location, you began to arrange the things that were left in boxes so that when Noah arrived they would get everything done and he could head back home quicker, it had been heavy weeks, and as much as this big step was something you had done in the past, this time felt scarier and you didn't like that feeling.

Noah arrived shortly after a few things got done and as he was helping move the heavier stuff around he asked

"Where´s Joe? I assumed he would be here when I arrived and he wasn't so I thought he would get here later but clearly, he isn´t here" your brother said sitting at her new dining table as they both ate pizza that was ordered 30 minutes ago,

"Well you know, he´s busy," you said after taking a bite of your slice "Has he helped you at all?" he said in a tone you didn´t like, it was a tone of a mad slash worried big brother, you heard it for the first time when you were 15 and stood up on a date, you felt embarrassed for having to call your brother but after all, you always had a great relationship, he was her best friend and she was his, surely there were things you didn't tell each other but there was no use in trying to hide your sadness from him,

"No, I have no idea what has gotten to him, he has been so distant since before I moved to his house temporarily, he has been so concentrated on football and I get that, there are times I feel like maybe I´m just, I don´t know" tears started to form in your eyes stuttering "Maybe Im a distraction and it´s fine, I´m happy with him besides my birthday is coming up and I´m sensing he planned something for my special day," you said while feeling Noah hug her.

And your birthday, in fact, came around, it was around 8 pm when friends from college started to roll around, even Sam and Jamarr were stopping by, you invited the closest friend of Joe from the team, and as much as she loved the other ones you were really happy only both of them came to your birthday they were also your friends and you enjoyed being in their presence.

"I have no idea why he isn´t here, he left early from practice and we assumed it was because of her birthday" You overheard Sam talking to your brother before you entered the rest room, "Look, I´ll call him and see what´s up, maybe he is stuck in traffic," Jamarr said and Noah replied "Yes but make it quick because we need to sing happy birthday to her" and after what felt forever Molly made her way to her best friend with a cake on her hands and pink candles waiting to be blown, to your left it was Sydney, your best friend since the womb, your moms had been forever best friends and got pregnant at the same time without planning and she knew you like the back of her hand, "Make a wish G!" Sydney said looking at Gracie with her big green orbits, " I wish you were here to celebrate my birthday with me," you thought, blowing the candles, thinking of Joe.

You felt like the prettiest woman that had ever walked on earth, but what´s the point of feeling pretty if the person you thought while looking for this dress wasn´t there to twirl you around and tell you how pretty you looked, it was the most worrying thought but we have all felt that way sometimes. What do you do when the one who means the most to you is the one that didn´t show?

Tears streamed down your face, it was now 11:59 and you hadn´t heard from Joe in the whole day. When you started dating you told him this was the day you were most excited about "I will always be there to celebrate with you, I will make every day your birthday if I need to" he said before giving your face kisses.

Remembering that know, hurt, it hurt in ways you never knew could hurt, you were scared this day would come, it was this irrational fear of abandonment you felt since you were a kid, you told Joe the thing that haunted you in the middle of the night and this was one of them.

But as the hours ticked by and everyone went home, Joe still hadn't shown up. Your hurting became worrying. You tried calling him, but he didn't answer. You sent him text after text, but he didn't respond. As the night wore on, you started to feel more and more anxious. Was he okay? Had something happened to him? There was no way he would forget her girlfriend's birthday right? He was in love with her and he would never hurt her, right?

You cried her way to sleep and woke up to a few texts

Amore: Happy birthday!!

Amore: I´m sorry I didn´t make it last night I came home and fell asleep and woke up about 10 minutes ago. I´m leaving for an away home at 3pm, I promise you we will celebrate when I come back. Love you!

You didn´t reply, your brain was empty and having a headache due to the tears, it was the worst birthday ever. As the morning went by and you scrolled on TikTok you came across a video that broke your heart. It was Joe sitting in your favorite restaurant, sitting in a booth across from a woman you had never seen before, it looked like they were having a great time and you hadn't seen Joe smile like that in forever. Was this it? Should you confront him?

He should´ve been there, with the "Baby, I'm here smile" with the biggest bouquet of flowers and telling you how pretty you were the whole night, looking at you with loving eyes but he wasn´t there, he was with someone else and that made your heart sank, how could you be so sure he would be the father of your kids and the one you would grow old with if he didn't felt the same?

Y/N: I'm sorry too you didn´t make it, have a safe flight.

[call-me-a-simp]

Heal My Wounds

Full Of Surprises (part 35)

Rhea Ripley x (fem) Reader

You are in a toxic relationship with an abusive man but manage to run away. A tall, black haired woman picks you up from the streets just in time so your ex doesn't get you. But who is she and why does she seem so familiar to you? As you get to know each other you start to notice weird feelings you never had before whenever she's around.

Two weeks later you're back at home. Rhea took a few more days off to spend even more time with you, saying she had some special things planned.

"So, what is that special thing you have planned, love" you ask your wife while putting the dishes from breakfast away. "you'll see" Rhea smirks and pecks your cheek. You smile and shake your head. "See you in the car in five" you tell her and walk away to get ready.

After driving for around 15 minutes you arrive at a pretty big, modern house. Almost like a villa. You didn't even want to imagine what it cost. "woah, who are we visiting, who's living here?" you ask. "Maybe we soon" Rhea smirks at you.

You didn't even realise what she meant until you're standing face to face with the real estate agent. "Are you Mrs. Bennett?" he asks. "Yes" you both say simultaneously.

You look a little confused and embarrassed but Rhea notices and takes over the situation. You thank her internally and take a small step behind her, taking her hand in yours.

"I am the one you talked to on the phone, this is my wife y/n." she explains. "We're here for the house tour, remember?" "Oh, yes sure. Follow me ladies" the agent says and gestures towards the house.

He walks off and starts explaining stuff. You follow close behind Rhea and whisper to her, asking how she expects to pay for such a mansion, but she calms you down by saying you have nothing to worry about and to leave the financial stuff to her.

The man shows you around the big house, starting with a huge garden that has a pool in the backyard. "Moving on to the inside, we have this beautiful kitchen here on the left. It's got lot's of storage as you can see here" he opens some drawers and cupboards.

Moving on you get to see a huge living room with one of the biggest flat screen TVs you ever saw. The couch was also quite comfortable and so big that three, if not four people could sleep on it.

"Upstairs we have three major bedrooms, plus two guestrooms. Each

including their own bathroom and walk-in closet." the real estate agent proceeds to explain.

After the tour he gives you another 20-30 minutes to go around the house again on your own.

"Rhea I- I have no words.." you stutter and look at her with big eyes. "You don't need to say anything love" she says and kisses you. "I just thought, now that we're married, we could move into a bigger house. Maybe even start our own family, that's why I picked one with more than one major bedroom" she smiles at you.

You take a moment to process everything she said, not breaking eye contact for a second. "I- This is perfect. Of course I want to have my own family with you, I always wanted to have kids" you beam at her.

You stand on your tip toes to wrap you arms around her neck and burry your head in her shoulder. "Thank you baby" you mutter against her skin.

You take a last look around the house before returning to the real estate agent, telling him you decided to buy the house and asking when you can move in.

Only a week later you finally got all you stuff moved from Rhea's old flat to your new home. It's not even far from your friends, only ten more minutes.

Since Rhea put in so much effort for you over the past couple month you decided to throw her a big appreciation party and fullfil one of her biggest dreams. An own dog. You went to the local animal shelter and picked a small bull terrier puppy named Barry.

"You're gonna be perfect!" you whisper to him as you take him out to the car. Back at home the surprise party was fully set up and the guests were waiting. You even reached out to her family, asking if they could come.

"Alright guys, don't freak out about this baby here and keep it quiet!" you dare them jokingly as you reveal the puppy. "Quick, she's coming!" Calista, Rhea's younger sister, warns you.

Everyone gathers themselves in the living room and a few seconds later Rhea walks through the front door. "Babe? Why are there so many cars in the driveway?" she shouts but suddenly stops once she reaches the doorframe to the living room.

She's speechless for a moment, just taking in everything she sees. "Surprise baby" you say fairly quiet and show her Barry. "You- a dog! OMG I didn't think could love you just the tiniest bit more but I can! Thank you so muchhh!" Rhea squeals and hugs you. "All of you!" she adds after letting go of you.

"What's your name sweetie?" she then asks the puppy in a baby voice. "That's Barry, our first baby if you wanna say so" you smile and watch them cuddle.

You spend the rest of the day with your friends and family, eating cake and partying and of course simping over Barry.

---------------------------------------------------

The last part of this now fr haha

Idea came from @wiccanpriestess

Taglist: @babybatlover @legit9thlunaticwarrior @thatonepansexual2000 @nox-fire

[sessakag]

Ask Part 2

Get to know my Shipping Preferences & Ships!

Made an ask meme ^ ^

Send me a number!

1. List 3 shipping tropes you love

2. List 3 shipping tropes you don't love

3. One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you

4. One physical aspect of a ship that always gets you

5. Multiship or Monoship?

6. Rare pairs or Mainstream?

7. Polyamory or Monogamy?

8. If the ship is physical, reversible or not?

9. Do you always have romantic ships for fandoms?

10. How important is the sexual part (if any) of your ship?

11. Opinion on platonic ships?

12. List 3 ships you currently love

13. List 5 OTPs from past fandoms

14. Opinion on the importance of marriage?

15. Opinion on kids?

NOW, about ONE ship (ships I’ll answer for in the tags!):

16. One thing one character likes about their partner(s).

17. Now one thing that the other character(s) likes about the first chara.

18. Who confessed?

19. How long did they know each other before getting together?

20. Who's the ship's biggest in-universe supporter?

21. Any rivals for the ship?

22. Any mutual friends?

23. Have they met each other's families?

24. What's ONE conflict they've had.

25. What’s ONE way they’ve resolved a conflict?

26. What's ONE location that's important to them?

27. What's ONE object that's important to them?

28. What's ONE food/beverage that's important to them?

29. What's ONE thing they do in their free time together?

30. What's ONE thing they do in their free time APART?

31. What's ONE thing character A might gift their partner?

32. What's ONE thing character A's partner(s) might gift back?

33. How would they react to long distance?

34. How would they react to an ex showing up?

35. Describe one date.

36. Describe one example of comforting after a bad day.

37. Describe one reunion after time apart.

38. Describe their ideal home.

39. Describe their first kiss (if any).

40. Describe their first time (if any).

41. Would they have any pets? If so, describe.

42. Would they get married? If so, describe their wedding.

43. Would they have any kids? If so, describe.

44. Give each character a color.

45. Give each character an element.

46. Give each character a Pokemon.

47. Give each character a Hogwarts house.

48. Give each character a super power.

49. Give each character an rpg class.

50. Imagine each character as an animal.

CHALLENGE: 

Try to send a number before reblogging for yourself!

Let’s try to break that cycle of only reblogging memes but never sending ^ ^;

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35. Naruto flips the whole table during dinner. Wanting to take Hinata to a fancy restaurant, Naruto puts on a suit that makes him uncomfortable, is tense in the fancy eatery and makes a complete ass of himself trying to read the menu, knocks his wine glass over somehow, then flips the table standing up too quick to catch it, lol.

36. Hugging! Naruto simply wrapping his arms around Hina and resting on her boobs for a while, lol. Or Naruto cuddling Hina and making her laugh with his antics.

37. Naruto picking Hina up and swinging her around. He's really affectionate like that and she's so short and cute, lol, how can he not?

38. Cute 2 story. One with a big yard for the kids and a garden, and more than one bathroom so mofos don't have to go outside, 😂like why in the world did they only have on bathroom? That's too many people for one toilet. Your the Hokage, I know you getting paid good, upgrade sir!

39. Magical! Up in the air, right in front of the big, beautiful full moon, soooooooo romantic and sweet, still squealing that Naruto initiated it, but that goes to show, he goes right for what he wants, no hesitation!

40. Secrets-Chapter One. Monster-Chapter Eleven 😤I go into great detail.

41. Meh, nothing jumps out to me besides Kurama. I think he would take too kindly as being referred to as a pet though 😂

42. Yep. Monster-Chapter Fifty-Nine.

43. Lots! NaruHina Month 2022 collection- Chapter Six, Chapter Ten.

44. Orange and Lavender.

45. Fire for Naruto. Earth for Hinata. Trying this out in A Cure For Love. Love it so far!

46. I'll be honest, not a Pokemon fan. From the little I know, Charzard for Naruto. Mewtwo for Hinata. I like her having something strange and unique.

47. Can't answer this one, lol. I am definitely not a Harry Potter fan, I have not watched more than 15 minutes of one of the movies(don't know which) and have not read anything from the series.

48. Naruto: Super strength. Hinata: Invisibility at will.

49. Naruto: Fighter. Hinata: Necromancer.

50. Fox and bunny! That was easy!

All answered! @asriah! And don't worry, I don't hate ya! This was actually fun! Hope you get a kick out of some of these answers, lol.

[underfellz]

whichever 3 questions u wanna answer for maude, AND 28, 17, and 11 for whoever u want

for miss maude absence:

12. how long have they been around? do you know their birthday? is their birthday the day you made them or another day? what do they think of celebrating birthdays?

maude theresa absence (concept) has been around for two slutty slutty years. her actual age is like 35 though. her bday is june 12th but i think she was like. Conceptualized around december?? i honestly don’t remember at all LOL! she’s relatively impartial to celebrating her own (like she wouldn’t get mad if a party was thrown but she doesn’t run around going ^-^ im the birthday girl) but she LOVES celebrating others birthdays. it’s mostly because she likes giving other people gifts

15. how big or small is their family? who did they live with growing up? do they live with anyone now?

she was an only child growing up & lived with her mom and dad but her mom was out of the house half the time because she was a #partyanimal. her and her dad were kind of close but was busy w work a lot of the time so she was left to fend for herself as a kid. as an adult she used 2 live w her husband before he died because she killed him so now she lives alone

20. if applicable, can they drive? if they have their own, what color is their vehicle? is the inside neat and tidy, or a mess?

i imagine that she technically could like has a drivers license and everything but is a very shit driver. also i think she just prefers to walk places if/when she leaves the house at all. her car would be like. grey but with a purple tint? if that makes sense? and it would b clean on the inside w a little air freshener and a rosary hanging from the rear view mirror etc etc

ok im gonna do these ones for my boy fritz bc ive been thinking about him lately and he is a near and dear friend to me

11. what do they have in common with you? how are they different? would you get along with them?

HMMM to be honest hes like a vague concept of who i aim to be in like 30 years (butch icon steady job married with a kid and all that). hes definitely more like. level headed than i am in terms of personality. he likes to take the lead, delegate tasks etc and i cant really say the same ab myself i kind of just go w the flow. in terms of getting along i think we totally would! hes like my cool uncle who gives me life changing advice when i see him every 8 years at a family function

17. how did they spend their summers/free time as a child?

as a kid he lived in this big palace (because space prince) and would keep to himself a lot of the time. he never actively caused a ruckus so his parents just kind of let him do fuckall but he would usually be in the library, or garden during the summer, and read about the ocean/fish for hours on end. he would also listen to music on a walkman and just wander around the palace and make up like. scavenger hunts and shit

28. how do they show that they care about someone? how do they express that they don't like someone?

if he cares about you You Will Know he does not keep it a secret. he will protect you, defend you, give you words of advice + gifts etc etc hes very constructive about care but he wants people to know when hes in their corner so he’ll try to make it as obvious as possible w his actions

as for disliking someone he gets very fucking passive aggressive and irritable. again he will make it known but hes kind of subtle about it because he has to keep his composure + uphold his self image of like. Calm Cool Collected leader. very “as per my last email” energies. he isnt afraid to confront people though he just prefers to do so in private so both members of the argument get to keep their dignity LOL

[stonewallsposts]

What (some) women want from life and relationships

This is taken from Courtney Ryan's video about Male Income. It will be kind of a longer, rambling post. I listened to this video while I was doing some brainless work, and was interested in the topic of the way these girls looked at life; their expectations; and the reactions to the statistics.  

She interviews a group of her friends about their thoughts on what they want from life, and what they want in partners. 

Questions:  1. Ideal age for guy you are looking to be with?  Mercia is 27- looking for a guy around 32  Maria is 27- looking for an age range between 28-35  Gab (30)- 30  Erica (24)- 28-36, not 40's  Tressa- 29-38  Stella (23)- 27  Avi (28)- 32-43 

2. what percent of the family income to you want to contribute? Do you want to be the breadwinner? 50/50? Stay-at-home wife/mom?  Avi- 40%, would be ok with 50% Gab- 50%  Mercia- no more than 70%  Maria- stay at home, so 0% Erica- 0% necessary. May work, but wants 100% capability to live on husband  Tressa- 50%  Stella- stay at home ideal.  

3. Ideal lifestyle: home-how many bedrooms? How much square footage?, how many kids?, car? Vacations?  Stella- "nothing crazy, but enough for individual space". 3-4 bed, 2 bath, at least 5 acres. 4-5k sq ft.   2-3 kids  Car- dream? Pagani BC (1.5m), more realistic- Ferrari f12 (300-500k) International travel, but not huge priority 

Maria- 3 kids,   bigger house- 3k sq ft. 4 bed.   Mazda car, no big deal  International travel, very important 

Mercia- minimum 2300 sq ft house  No kids, but could be 4  Nice car, that stays nice. SUV, like an Escalade,   International travel, tropical areas 

Gab- 3 kids  4 bedroom house  Jeep  Travel, but not specific 

Erica- doesn't care about sq ft. 4 bedrooms for kids, doesn't need to be luxury.  2 kids  Luxury car, but no need to struggle over car. No need for a lamborghini, but a bmw or mercedes  Travel important.   Wants husband to have self-sustaining business that doesn't require working. 

Tressa- 2100-2200 sq ft 5 bedrooms,   2 kids  Not ok with regular car. Wants luxury car. Mercedes or volkswagen  International travel extremely important.  

Avi- already has 1 kid, not looking for more, but open to 3 total if partner requires it.  5 bedrooms  Practical with cars. Day to day car, but secondary car would be luxury.   Travel is very important, for both her and daughter 

4. What income range should your husband have?  Maria- 300k  Gab- 70-100k  Mercia- 127k as long as they have longevity and 3-5% raises yearly  Erica- 500k  Tressa- 150-250k  Stella- 150-250k  Avi- 650k 

5. What do you think the median income is for age 31?  (real number is 41k for a 27 yo)  (real numbers at 32: Top 25%- 70k ;  top 10%- 111k ; top 1%- 252k ; over 70% of men never make 100k even once in their lives) 

Mercia- 50k  Stella- 80k  Gab-   Maria- 80k  Erica- 70k  Tressa- 85k  Avi- 250k 

6. After hearing the real median statistics for your chosen age group, do you think your expectations are realistic?  

Avi- doesn't know how to process 

7. What is causing women to want the 1%? 

Stella- social media hype and high expectations. That lifestyle IS attainable but you gotta work for it. It's not bad to want it but you need to surround yourself with those types of people. For a long time you're gonna be in the 25% but that's how you strive and get better. 

Mercia- The guys making that kind of money are in STEM, industry, or entertainment, and they're the lucky ones 

Tressa- when she finds out that only one age group (70's) makes 200k in the top 10%, she says she'd rather be single. 

Maria- says she has met plenty of guys in her desired age/income, but when pressed, only mentions 4 total. 

8. Would you marry a guy that makes less than you?  Gab- yes, for sure.  Maria- yes. At the end of the day, it isn't really about money. Being in the ideal financial scenario with the wrong person would be miserable.  Erica- IF she has enough passive income to support her dreams, then she would be ok with husband making less, but only if she was making 500k herself. But then she says no, she couldn't marry someone making less.  Avi- she would be willing to marry the right person for less money.  Stella- yes, as long as he doesn't have more debt than her. 

9. What do the men you desire want in a woman? If they make that much money, why would they pick you? 

Tressa- a wallflower. Wifes that make dinner and are draped in lingerie. They want an unrealistic wife. Someone who does the house stuff and doesn't complain, and I'm not that. 

Stella- hopefully honesty and loyalty, but probably a fake butt and big tits. They probably aren't realistic, but they'd say the same about us. But given that they're the 1%, they can also be more choosy. Clearly women have unrealistic expectations in the money category too. 

Avi- that’s the catch with someone who can provide the lifestyle I want. But they have access to so much more than the average person, that I might not be enough for them. If I was making significantly less than my partner, I'd feel insecure, as if I wasn't on the same level as them. These men would want someone with no opinion, but I'll never be that woman. I'll always argue. They would want a woman they could be dominant over. 

Erica- as of now, doesn't want to compromise on any of her goals. She thinks it's achievable. She would settle for 300k 

Gab- not too fixated on the salary. Wants to be comfortable and have some of the things. 

Mercia- was really surprised and shocked by actual statistics. Thinks back to high school and how everyone thought by 30 they'd have it made and be living the life. Courtney mentions that you have an idea of what you want, but don't really realize what you're asking for. 

Maria- surprised by actual statistics 

Stella- shocked by actual statistics. Courtney mentions that when you're a woman making a good amount, you don't ever imagine that men would be making less. Stella still insists it's about figuring out "what type of people to be around, invest and turn money into more money.... and things of that nature...", but she finds it sad to know that lots of people will work really hard and never "get there". 

Stella asks Courtney: do you think a lot of women demand these things? Courtney says yes, and it probably comes from social media painting an unrealistic picture of what they ought to be looking for in a partner.  

Tressa- I'm gonna have to accept a man that makes 60k. And it might be better because they won't come home and cheat on you.  

Avi- these questions concern what we really want, and our expectations.... or whether we're going to settle. Maybe, if I want to change things, I need to change what rooms I’m showing up in.  

Dave's Thoughts

So, this was an interesting video to me. My first impression was that these women were all pretty ignorant of reality. Clearly they all, except for maybe Mercia and Gab, have unrealistic expectations for lifestyle and potential husbands earnings. That was my first impression. 

I do know that Courtney, the host of the show, lives in Cleveland, OH, so my guess is all these girls are from the Cleveland area. While Cleveland isn't maybe as expensive as Manhattan or West LA, I would assume it's still relatively expensive, especially if they are living downtown.  

That would mean that sure, while the median salaries quoted are true, that includes rural areas, and smaller towns too. What are the median salaries in a larger city? Presumably a fair amount higher. Maybe not 500 or 650k.... but still higher than a median that includes rural areas. 

Another factor in the girls favor is that clearly a few were just ignorant of house square footage. Thinking of starting at 4-5 thousand sq ft.... and getting bigger if needed, is nuts. But then again, I live in LA where that size house is multi-millions. Maybe in Cleveland, it's not, but from what they said, I think they just don't understand square footage. 

To the girls credit, they each seemed relatively based in that they were willing to adjust their expectations given the realities the host quoted. None of them seem like the quintessential gold-digger, and one in particular, Gab, seemed perfectly reasonable.  

Also to their credit, each of these girls is young, and very pretty. I checked several of their Instagram pages and if I were to place them, I'd guess they are probably in the top 5% of beauty. They are each well-spoken and clearly intelligent. So, would each of these girls be able to land top-earning men? I would think so.  

To be further fair to them, they were asked about their "ideal" lifestyle, not their minimum. So while some of the dreams were probably unrealistic, hey, whose dreams are down-to-earth? 

Now for some other notes. 

Each of them seemed to think that so-called 1% men, just wanted pretty, but empty vessels. I'm clearly not a 1% guy, so I'm not speaking from personal experience here, but I don't know why that should be true. I would think a man that driven would want someone who could keep up with him. Good looking, sure, but not only good looking. 

I'm also relatively certain that men at the top of the earnings standings are most likely the most driven, most ambitious men out there. That kind of earning power comes with a trade-off: he is undoubtedly going to be the kind of person looking for the best in everything, which would tend to lend itself to being the kind of guy who will also trade up on women, especially since there is a never-ending stream of girls willing to try their luck with such a guy for the opportunity to live that 1% lifestyle. So will those girls be happy? Maybe if they’re only in it for the material. If they are looking for more, probably not, and it's their own perceived needs that will do that. 

Are these women just too materialistic?  

It's hard to say. They each seem to recognize the role social media plays in warping perspectives, and since the original question talked about 'ideal' lifestyle, maybe they could be forgiven for appearing to want so much, even while recognizing their own perspectives might be warped. 

But it's hard not to notice that each of these is young, and yet they have VERY high expectations for life..... right now. The way life has almost always worked is- you start off young and struggling, then slowly work your way up as you gain more experience, stability, and earning power. Listening to these girls and their expectations shows they want everything now. Some will be able to do it, most won't. I think I would have to classify them as materialistic. One, Gab in particular, seemed unconcerned with the material side of things. She did her best to answer the questions, but when pushed was unconcerned. Most were willing to compromise in important areas; one, Erica, wasn't willing to compromise, at least right now. She said if she got to 30 without finding the guy, she'd be ready to rethink things. 

Also, to my mind, most of the girls are way overestimating what it takes to be happy in life. If you need a guy who is making half a mil... per year... then you not only want everything, you want it all in the first year! 

I make way less than this and live a perfectly happy life. We travel, we eat out at nice places regularly, we have a comfortable home. We don't have Ferraris, or 5k sqft homes, but if that's what you need, then you're definitely materialistic, especially if you aren't willing to wait for some years to build that kind of life. But I can personally vouch for the fact that you can lead a perfectly satisfying life without needing all the things these girls seem to think are so necessary.  

To finish up though, in all my experience as a human being, I have known relatively few women like this. Maybe that's due to the demographic I run in. I'm sure there are plenty of materialistic men and women out there, but I'm also sure there are plenty more who aren't near the level these girls are. I would like to believe that most of the girls out there aren't looking for a list of qualifications to get married to, they are looking for a person.  

For myself, I had no such list. At all. I meet people and I like them or don't based on who they are, not what they can bring to the table. I get that men and women, on average, are different this way. Men are expected to earn their own way, so they don't tend to think in terms of earning potential of their mates. But sometimes I do wonder if some people are looking more for a list of qualifications than an actual person. You meet someone, you like them, you fall in love based on who they are... but maybe my view is less common than I think. 

Oh, this brings me to another point: several of the ladies trotted out the idea, "men are intimidated by a woman who earns a lot". 

I don't know that I buy that, but I'm just speaking from my own experience. I find men to be generally intimidated by one thing: beauty. Men will sometimes turn ga-ga in the presence of a beautiful woman. But that's about it. Just like men mistake their own good looks as being the prime thing women like, because that's what men like; women, it seems, can sometimes mistake their job as the thing that intimidates men. Women appreciate a strong man that earns a lot, so they seem to think that's what would impress men. It doesn't. Most men don't care about a woman's earning potential. They care about looks. That's not all... we also love a woman who can banter, who is intelligent and fun. The thing in any category though isn't the level of that thing in male and female, it's how the other person makes you feel. No one likes to feel small. It doesn't bother me that a woman is smarter or makes more than me. But if she starts to assert herself for dominance and make me feel small because of those things, then, like anyone else... I'm not going to appreciate that. 

I would guess this is the same for women.  

For sure, men like to feel like they are in charge. It makes us feel more masculine. So when a woman starts to assert herself over us, it is more off-putting than anything else. Men, in general, would rather not deal with the constant challenges. It's not so much intimidating, it's just not worth the trouble. Maybe. That's my sense of it, but I acknowledge, I'm only one guy, looking from my particular perspective.   I should also add that any woman I would bother to be with, would obviously be someone I respect. I would clearly value their opinion and judgment, and any decisions to be made would be with her opinions in mind. It does neither the man nor the woman any favors if one is running over the other's desires in a show of dominance. I would want to be respected, and I fully expect that my partner would want the same thing. I think love means respect as well, so if I'm with someone, I certainly am going to respect them. Again, maybe I'm a smaller minority than I think, but this seems reasonable to me. So I'm not intimidated by a woman being smarter or earning more than I do. As long as she doesn't throw it in my face, this is a non-issue. In fact, I think I've only ever been with women who are smarter than me, so that's clearly not an issue.

Overall, I don’t want to throw shade on these girls. 1) If anyone could do it, it's probably them. 2) I'm relatively convinced that they're not as materialistic as they come off. 3) I don't think that most women, or probably even these ladies themselves are really that bad.  

I was just kind of interested in the thinking, so I've written down some wandering, convoluted thoughts on it. Might even do some more on specific points, but this is enough for now.

[tendercoretroglodyke]

is anyone else like. simultaneously so happy to be gay and happy to be focusing on your career and cool w being single for now but also lowkey reeeeally just longs to be married with kids in a house with a white picket fence and a big "normal" family that all gets together on holidays and nothing is complicated ever bc you're living exactly as society expects you to

[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | Chapter ten

chapter ten

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Chapter Warnings: immense amounts of fluff, discussion of bad dreams death and past trauma at the end all related to canon

word count: 5.3K

from the beginning <3

Dreaming wasn’t something that came easily to Spencer. When he did dream they never made any sense, dark and twisting basements, endless staircases, treading a deep dark sea for hours as the waves swallowed him whole. Wind chimes that he couldn’t find wouldn’t stop twinkling as he aimlessly ran around a trailer park. It was never peaceful.

Then his mind found the park and couldn’t stop re-creating it, over and over again in his mind every single night when he closed his eyes.

He was in the middle of the most perfect dreamscape, his girls reading under the sun as Y/N’s head rested on his shoulder…

Then his phone started to ring, opening his eyes to the sun barely waking up as well. He answered the phone before Y/N could wake up beside him, “hello?”

“Spence, I’m so sorry to wake you,” JJ’s voice slipped into his mind and woke up right up, she wouldn’t call unless she needed to. “We have a really bad case, we have to leave like right now and the babysitter can’t take the boys and Henry is still too little to make sure Michael eats during the day and he’s still so little—“

“Hey it’s fine,” he cut her off as he sat up, waking Y/N in the process. “I’m only 12 minutes from Quantico, leave them with Anderson and I’ll be right over.”

“Thank you so much, Spence, oh and they need breakfast, I’ll leave some money with Henry, can you make sure they eat?”

“Absolutely, don’t worry, good luck and be safe,” he reminded her, feeling weird that he didn’t have to go as well.

“Thanks again Spence,” he could hear her smile before hanging up, leaving him to stretch and finally get out of the bed.

“Was that JJ?” Y/N asks, getting out of bed and putting on her housecoat to follow him to the bathroom.

“Yeah, the boys need someone to watch them if you don’t mind?”

“They’re family,” she reminded him with a sleepy smile.

“They need lunches for today, I can drive Amoreena to school with them too?” He’s splashing water on his face so he can wake up enough to drive safely to Quantico, wiping the water from his eyes as he hears Y/N laughing softly.

“It’s Saturday silly, and Monday is their last day anyway if they need to stay that long,” Y/N reminds him, “I’ll try and have breakfast ready when you get back.”

“Tomorrows the 14th, shit,” he remembers his calendar. “I have to take my mom to get her yearly scan and cognitive test done tomorrow morning, I won't be able to send her off on her last day.”

“That’s okay, as long as you’re there for the little graduation and the all about me display ceremony it’ll be fine, it starts at 1:30,” she didn’t mind him missing it but everything in him felt like the worst person ever if he did.

He never wanted to miss anything ever again.

“You’re sure that’s fine?”

She nodded again, wrapping her arms around him and looking up into his beautiful, tired eyes. “Family comes first, that means Diana was in the calendar longer so you go with her. Amoreena just wants to come home with you from school, for the next 10 years of school she’ll be coming home to you.”

“Why don’t we wake Amoreena and go get breakfast with the boys? I’d like to get to know my god kids too…” her voice cooing as she soothed his morning anxiety, blessing him with more time with her, he nodded.

“You go get the boys and come back and pick us up, I’m sure she’ll take a few minutes to contemplate feeding chickens or breakfast,” Y/N smiled, leaning in to kiss his cheek softly.

She pulled away but he pulled her right back in, pressing his lips right against hers again and again until they were both laughing, teeth bumping into each other in their early morning delirium. She finally pulled away from his grasp, rushing to the bedroom door so he couldn’t follow her.

“Go get the boys!”

He fake huffed, “fine!”

Slipping into his jeans and a sweater, placing her grandpa’s hat back on his head once more. He made sure he had his wallet and identification, the guards knew him it’s not like he wouldn’t be allowed into the building with a visitors pass.

And then he was out the door and driving down the road. Pulling into Quantico with a strange feeling in his gut, he didn’t realize how much he hated it here until he didn’t need to be there all the time. He was granted a visitors pass, parking in the garage and taking the elevator right up to the BAU.

He walked into the briefing room to find Henry on his phone and Michael sound asleep again on the couch.

“Hey, uncle Spencer!” Henry cheered, not waking Michael in the process somehow.

“Hey buddy,” he said, scooping the now 13-year-old Henry into his arms for a quick hug. He was still cuddly and sensitive and quiet, much like Spencer at that same age.

It was almost like JJ picked him as the godfather knowing he would need him. Choosing to text or call Spencer about cute girls and chess games and new star wars movies, instead of going to his dad for chats about football and beer… or whatever Will was into. Spencer really didn’t give him a chance to get to know him over the last 15 years, harbouring a hatred for him that he didn’t really understand until he met Y/N.

Now will was the jealous one in a sense, wondering what he could do to get his own son to come to him for advice and support. But he understood it, Henry was exactly like Spencer and he needed to see that being awkward and quiet doesn’t last forever.

“So, I’m not sure if your mom and dad told you, but I got married and my wife has a daughter and we’re going to take you boys out to breakfast, okay?”

“She said you’re Nini’s dad, like for real?” Once again someone from the LaMontagne called Amoreena Nini and he had no idea why.

“I donated sperm when your mom got pregnant with you, I didn’t think I’d get to have a family,” he was honest with him. He was old enough to know how it worked and mature enough to hear the word sperm without freaking out.

“Cool, Nini and Mike are normally friends.”

“Why do you guys call her Nini?”

“Michael couldn’t say Amoreena when he was 4 so he called her Nini, and then Dad would call her that when he teased Mike about his crush on her,” it made complete sense for a kid to not be able to pronounce it.

But his brain got stuck on the crush part, turning to Michael who was still sound asleep with his face pressed into his backpack, drooling slightly. JJ’s kid had a crush on his, a weird fantasy he had coming true where he and JJ can be friends forever as in-laws.

It was too bad Amoreena really didn’t like boys, not even in the 8-year-old ‘ew cooties’ way either. She was raised around women and she was comfortable with them, and she had no problem punching Michael in the face if he ever pissed her off. It was going to be interesting seeing them interact today.

“Okay, well let’s get your things and bring them back to our house and then we’ll go get breakfast with my girls,” Spencer smiled, seeing Henry’s face light up at the day he gets to spend with Spencer. “You’re going to love Y/N.”

And he did… walking into Spencer’s new house to drop off his backpack, dropping his jaw when he saw Y/N instead. He was so much like Spencer it made him laugh, patting Henry on the shoulder, “I know,” he teased him.

Henry turned to him with wide eyes, “I’ve never met Nini’s mom, that’s her mom?” He whispered that same anxious boy Spencer used to be staring right back at him.

He nodded with a smile, “yeah, she’s really nice don’t worry.”

“Henry! It’s so nice to meet you,” she says as she walks into the main room.

Henry turns around to see her when she’s pulling him into a big hug, Spencer can see his eyes are closed as he takes a moment to hug a pretty girl. Spencer couldn’t help but bite his tongue, not wanting to laugh and embarrass the poor boy now that he was noticing pretty girls. Even if that girl happened to be his wife, it was inevitable for Henry to crush on one of Spencer’s girlfriends with how much he copied him.

She pulled back softly, Henry’s arms still around her waist, she brushed his beautiful blond hair behind his ears. “You look so much like your mom, you’re so handsome!”

Henry forgot how to breathe, trying to stutter out a thank you as he backed up out of her space and turned to Spencer, “he’s always looked like JJ, you should have seen how tiny he was originally,” Spencer jumped in to save him. “Where is Amoreena?”

“She’s trying to pick between 2 different dresses, I’ll go make sure she’s in one by now,” she smiled at them before leaving the room, heading up the stairs to Amoreena’s room.

“You good?” Spencer nudged Henry, laughing lightly. “She’s your aunt now, she’s not going to think you’re a dork so you can calm down around her, I promise.”

Henry released a deep shaky breath, “you’re right, sorry.”

“It’s fine, I was like that around your mom before you were born, you should have seen me,” he tried to sympathize with the boy, only making a disgusted face arise on him.

“Ew, that’s completely different she’s my mom!”

Spencer wrapped his arm around him, “and Y/N is my wife!” He whispered as loud as he could so that it wouldn’t be heard by her.

Henry sighed, “and she’s like what 50?”

“35,” Spencer looked at him and laughed as he shook his head, “how old do you think I am?”

“Mentally? 6-years-old,” Henry bullied him right back for all the brotherly teasing, “but physically you look 79.”

“Thanks,” Spencer said, tucking the boy under his arm and messing up his hair, “now you look like a dork.”

He loved Henry more than he could express, unlike Amoreena he knew he wasn’t his kid, it wasn’t fatherly at all. Henry was his best friend's kid, his godson and his little brother, and as he got older he was becoming more of a best friend than he thought he would.

—

After breakfast when everyone was awake and happily full, Y/N took them all into town to visit the farmer’s market. Letting the kids look around and see if there was anything they wanted to all make for dinner, she was the best mom and aunt in the whole wide world and Spencer kept falling more and more in love every second he spent with her.

She was glowing in the sunlight, walking through the booths looking at all the fresh vegetables and fruit, Spencer followed her with Michael’s hand in his and Henry not far behind. Amoreena was off talking to her favourite vendor, an older woman who reminded her of her great-grandma, it was sweet.

Spencer thought about how their future would be much of the same, Y/N and him with a couple of kids while the rest of them did their own thing. He couldn’t wait to see all the little faces they’d create together, to get to know all the personalities and raise them into being just as wonderful as their sister and cousins.

“Ugh,” Y/N stopped dead in her tracks then, they were heading towards the butcher’s booth when she turned around, almost green as she reacted to the smell. “Nope, not going down there.”

Spencer couldn’t stop smiling at her as she tried to not throw up in the middle of the market, people watching her dry heave as she walked away. Spencer knew JJ was pregnant with Michael before she even told Will because she was the exact same way very early on. Living on ginger ale and baby cookies to stay sane, Y/N was going to need that hack.

He didn’t say anything, just profiling her in his mind as he followed her again.

Henry and Michael used the money JJ left them to buy some homemade candies from the market, Y/N picked up some donuts to bring home to her parents, and Amoreena only wanted fresh strawberries. Spencer however snuck away from the group really quickly to get something they passed earlier, something he wanted to get for Amoreena.

There was a vendor with homemade shirts and dresses, knitted hats and all sorts of collectables. If he was going to miss her last morning before kindergarten, he wanted to get her something to wear that morning so he’d be there in spirit.

There was a beautiful handmade purple dress hanging on the wall behind the vendor, the same kind old woman that reminded Amoreena of her GG. “Hello, how can I help you today?”

“We haven’t met, but I’m Amoreena’s father,” he introduced himself with a smile, and the old woman face beamed.

“Yes you are,” she smiled. “She has your nose, it’s lovely to finally meet you!”

“you too, um, I was interested in that purple dress,” he points behind her, “it looks like the one from tangled, I’m sure she’d love it.”

“that’s exactly how she described it when she saw it today,” the woman explains as she takes it down from the wall for him. “It’s $35, but I’ll do $20 for my favourite little friend.”

“That’s very kind, but I don’t mind,” he says, taking $35 dollars out of his wallet and laying it beside the cash box. “Thank you for always making my girl smile.”

“Thank you,” she smiled again, folding the dress nicely and placing it in a white bag, “would you like some tissue paper so she can’t see what it is?”

“That would be great, thank you,” Spencer smiled too, incredibly happy that this was his life now.

She handed him the bag then, stuffed to the brim with purple and pink paper, Amoreena was going to love it. He said his goodbyes and met the rest of his family at the car, hiding the present between his legs in the passenger seat as they drove home.

—

Henry and Michael did end up having to stay the night, switching into their PJs after dinner and joining them all in the living room for a movie night. They let the kids stay up later to watch the whole movie, watching Michael fall asleep once again on the carpet, he had been so well behaved all day it was like he was afraid of Amoreena now.

Michael was perfectly happy sleeping on the couch all night, Henry, on the other hand, slept in Y/N’s old room to have some privacy and so he could sleep in on Sunday.

By the time JJ and Will got home on Sunday night, Y/N and Spencer were just putting some burgers on the grill, they had enough for the whole team and so sure enough, the crew made a short trip from Quantico to Heaven.

Matt called his wife, she drove their handful of children over, Luke of course let Penelope know, the two of them still happily seeing each other now that she wasn’t on the team, it was cute to see them together. Then Penelope, of course, invited Derek and Hank. Emily, Rossi and Tara coming along just to witness Spencer being happy.

It was the best summer party they’ve ever had. Bob and Linda were beyond excited to have so many new faces in their yard, throwing on 2 more packages of burgers, feeding a whole army like normal.

The kids were all running around together in the field, playing with the cats and the goats, rolling down the big hill towards the cows, chasing fireflies as the sunset.

It was all of their last day of school on Monday, a weird day to end on but they were excited nonetheless. Y/N’s father lit up a bonfire in celebration, setting up every lawn chair and log they had to make sure everyone had a seat, they all gathered with marshmallows on sticks and drinks in their hands, smiles on their faces and love in their hearts.

Spencer made a happy life for himself that he was no sharing with them, and they call understood perfectly why he chose this one. It was peaceful, perfect and the most loving environment he’s ever been in. They were beyond proud of him.

“This place is amazing,” Tara leaned towards Spencer, “your family is wonderful.”

“Thank you,” Spencer smiled at her, raising his voice then as he looked at the rest of the team, “I just want to thank all of you actually, you’re all my family and it’s been so surreal introducing you all, I’ve never been happier.”

He was swarmed with hugs then, everyone also using it as their queue to gather their kids and hit the road. They watched everyone get in their cars one by one, Penelope did everything in her power not to leave with at least 3 cats, Matts's kids asked if they could come back, often, with Y/N reminding everyone that the gates are always open.

It was everything he ever wanted.

Amoreena jumped into his arms then, he held her against his side as they both waved at everyone, saying goodbye to all her new aunts and uncles and cousins. Her family kept getting bigger and bigger by the day and she was so incredibly happy about it. She’d take in a million more family members if they let her, her heart didn’t have a capacity level for love.

He carried her up the porch stairs then, bringing her into the kitchen where the white bag with purple tissue paper was waiting for her. Her eyes lit up as she saw it, “is that for me?”

“You bet it is,” he enthused, “I’m not going to be here in the morning, grandma Diana has a doctor's appointment, so I got you something for tomorrow morning.”

He set her down on the floor, handing her the bag and watching her carefully remove all the tissue paper. She laid it on the table softly to keep it for later, saying it was good to make barbie dresses with. When she finally saw the dress her jaw dropped.

Y/N was there too now, watching in awe as he surprised both of them.

“Did you buy this from Candace?” She asks softly as she takes it out of the bag. Holding it to her chest as she twirls around lightly.

“I did, I thought you’d like to have something to remind you of me there, I’m sorry I’m going to miss sending you to the bus on your last day,” he tried not to cry as he crouched down to her level, taking her into his arms and giving her a soft hug.

“That’s okay, you’re always in here,” she took his pointer finger in her hand and poked her own chest with it, “I love you, dad.”

“I love you more, Amoreena,” he smiled through the tears, scrunching his nose so they wouldn’t roll down his cheeks, giving her another hug before Y/N started her bedtime routine.

—

For the past two weeks, his dreams have been filled with lush fields of green draped in the most beautiful golden glow. Both his girls sitting beside him as they read, each of them has a book and it’s silent. It’s serene, the dictionary definition of peace.

However, it took him a while to fall asleep tonight, he was too anxious for Amoreena’s last day of kindergarten in the morning and the fact he wouldn’t be there for the drop-off.

Y/N was sound asleep on the pillow beside him as he stared at her, for what felt like hours, brushing her hair off her face lightly and making sure the blankets were still covering her. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room just enough that he could see her face twitch into a smile as she fell deeper into her slumber.

Seeing her happy relaxed him enough to follow her. Blinking into his dream realm and finding a few new faces waiting for him by the tree…

“Dad!” Another little girl he’s never seen before was running towards him, wrapping herself around him as he held her.

Suddenly, 7 other children he doesn’t know are surrounding him in hugs, tacking him to the ground in a fit of giggles and tickles, “we missed you! Why were you gone for so long?”

He’s so confused, he knows he’s dreaming but he chooses to stay, to wander the world and ask the questions his mind was so obviously trying to answer. “I’m sorry,” is all he can reply, taking Amoreena’s hand and following her towards Y/N as she sat on the picnic blanket.

She was older, which meant he should be too, looking in the pond quickly for his reflection to see’s his wrinkled face, the white in his hair and beard. Their kids had all grown up but where was he for it?

“Welcome home,” she smiled as he sat down. “it’s about time you met the girls.”

“Where was I?”

“You don’t remember?”

He shakes his head, “I was supposed to be here.”

“Amoreena got into Yale, did you hear that, cutie? Elly, Junie and Theo are in high school now, look how beautiful they are…”

He watched his children frolic in the field, running around without a care in the world that he missed everything. Why did he miss everything? How could he miss everything?

“It’s too bad you missed Cordelia and the other twins, can you believe we had 3 sets of twins, Spence?” She laughed like it was funny, “how could you leave me alone with 9 babies?” Still smiling, staring into his soul as he died a little inside.

He started to panic then, breathing heavily as he tried to remember where he was to miss everything, “I was supposed to be there for them!?”

Suddenly he’s ripped awake by Y/N shaking him and pulling him against her skin, “hey, shhh, it’s okay.”

He was crying and shaking in his sleep, sweating as he tried to fight off the dream, his anxiety in full swing for absolutely no reason, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for leaving you.”

“You didn’t go anywhere, Spencer, you’ve been there the whole time,” she reminded him, rubbing her hand over his back as he settled into her arms. “You were mumbling and then yelling.”

“I got to the park and you told me I missed all of them growing up,” he whispered the painful words into the open, freeing them from his mind and letting them exist somewhere else.

“Them?” She coo’s, holding his head against her chest as she rests her cheek against it, holding him as close as humanly possible.

“We had like 9 girls, they were all so beautiful as you and Amoreena, they all had my nose and your lips and the curliest blowing hair in the whole world, and I missed everything, again,”

“I won't let that happen, do you have any handcuffs leftover? Because I can keep you here for good?” She teased him in a hushed whisper, playful and happy to prove that he was fine, they were fine.

“I’m sorry for waking you up,” he whispered again shimmying down lower to lay his head on her lower stomach, kissing her stomach softly. “I’m not leaving you all, never.”

“I had a bad dream too, that’s what woke me up first,” she replies softly. “Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of Stephen’s death, and the first time I never visited him.”

Spencer felt the need to sit up then, making eye contact with her to see her true feelings. “I don’t want you to stop loving him because you also love me. He’s special to you, you should go see him soon.”

“Spencer,” she smiles at the concern in his voice, “I will, I only didn’t because I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant, I was bleeding a little yesterday and then it stopped, that probably means the implantation worked and I don’t want to tell him yet. And I tell him everything.”

“Everything?” He asks in a way that she hears; “even about me?” inside his thoughts.

She nods softly, “I went on that first Monday after I dropped you off at your apartment, I needed him to know I was finally ready and I thanked him for sending you to me.”

“What was he like?”

“He was from Boston, accent and everything,” she smiled with sad eyes as she recalled him to her mind. “He was in theatre school, I met him in the summer at a music festival in Chicago, he was playing guitar and we had too many beers and I lost my virginity to him in a tent in some field.”

She recalled it like it was a fond memory, missing him but not enough to be sad about it now. “I ran into him again when I went to college in Boston and we were talking outside before the rain hit, like one of those classic movie scenes, and my apartment was closer, the rest is history.”

“Hey Stephen is the one song you always skip, I never wanted to ask why but I don’t think you’ll mind telling me?” He wonders out loud, still a little delirious from the lack of sleep.

“He looked like an angel when I first saw him, he was standing under a street light reading his music sheets and the light was glowing perfectly, it was amazing I wish I had a picture of it. But then the Fearless album came out for the first time and it was my favourite song because it was like she wrote it for us. He was my perfect angel, my superstar, he was going to be on Broadway one day and we were going to move to a cottage in England, we had lots of plans and that song just makes me think of the life me and him must be living in the universe where it all worked out.”

It’s long-winded and she doesn’t seem to be over-emotional by the end, in a shocking turn of event’s it seems like she feels freer after getting it off her chest.

“I haven’t always been this happy and cheerful Spencer,” she adds, “I had a really dark spot after he died, it was horrible for me. I was so angry, I was reckless and mean and hurtful, and in that time I wasted precious moments I could have spent being happy with my grandma, and so my dream tonight was just the fight I had with Evan and my grandma dying and the cops saying Stephen was dead and placing that stupid fucking flower on his coffin thinking it made up for the fact I couldn’t even look at him in there.”

“How you respond to trauma isn’t really up to you, that’s why it’s trauma. Your brain can’t really cope and so it does typically the stuff you’ll regret the most in that time of grief, it’s not your fault and I’m sure everyone understood. You had every right to be mad, hell, I’m mad you lost him because I know how much you hurt in silence for so long,” Spencer can’t help but wish he could have been there for her.

“What happened to you after Maeve died?”

It was only fair that he shared too, “I locked myself in my apartment and didn’t take care of myself, I didn’t talk to anyone, I just sat in my living room and almost died reading every book I had because I didn’t feel like I was worthy of being taken care of so if I starved to death, so be it.”

“You still haven’t told me what happened with her and the kidnapping,” she reminds him of their little chat a few weeks ago at the school. “I get it if you’re not ready, I’m sure it’s a lot.”

“I was getting headaches, really bad ones, and so I reached out to a geneticist to see if she could help me. I sent her my brain scans and some blood tests and she helped me find supplements and natural ways to help my body rest from the stress of my work,” he explained it easily like the feelings didn’t hurt anymore.

“We talked on the phone a lot and I finally asked her why she was so afraid to meet me or have me know anything about her. She had me call her from a payphone, always a different one each time, I was to call and let it ring once, then hang up then she’d call me back. She thought she had a stalker, she was getting weird messages and threats and she felt genuinely unsafe, and she had every right to,”

“10 months went by and we thought she was safe, but her ex-fiancé got a private investigator to find her and in return found me instead. It turns out that Maeve had a student who felt wronged by her and wanted to outdo her, so she dated her fiancé and scared her underground but then she wanted me.”

Y/N’s face is full of concern like she’s listening to a true-crime thriller where she knows the ending won't be good.

“I tried to talk her stalker down, I almost had her and then she kissed me and I keep looking at Maeve, she saw right through me. She threatened to kill Maeve, she had a gun to her head but at the last minute she killed herself, but Maeve’s head was too close to hers,” the words hurt on the way out.

“And someone also had you sent to prison?” She asks, wanting all the trauma in one night to save him the trouble.

“Yeah, she was an assassin, I tricked her into thinking I found her dad and I was so smart she thought I was her soulmate, it was all an elaborate plan to bring me down to her level.”

“Did you kill someone?”

“I’ve killed too many people,” he answers with complete honesty once again. “I’ve killed mostly murderers and rapists, I typically don’t have to. I really try not to, but I’ve also killed people to keep myself safe. And I’d probably kill someone to keep you or Amoreena safe too.”

“Get in line,” she laughs, able to make every single conversation easy even when they shouldn’t be.

“I uh,” he wants to tell her more but he doesn’t know-how. “I was also sexually assaulted in prison, and I was kidnapped and drugged in 2007, I OD’d and died but then I was resuscitated, I wasn’t kidding when I said it was a lot.”

“I am so sorry Spencer,” she rests her hands on his cheeks, looking into his eyes as best as she could in the dark, still seeing the goodness in there. “You’re safe here with me, forever and always, I can promise you that.”

“Thank you,” he’s never going to stop thanking her.

Settling down on the bed once more, he cuddles back into her side. She brushes his hair behind his ear softly, humming a soft melody as she soothes him back to sleep. He snuggled right against her, holding her gently as he fell back to sleep on her, dreamless as she was everything he needed.

love you all for all the support thank you x100 <3

tag list: @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187

[partnersatfazbear]

Fazbear Frights: What We Found Analysis

Here’s my analysis for What We Found, the third story in Gumdrop Angel. I wrote this as I read so it may be a little different than my previous analysis where I read the story first and went back.

If you’re a Michael Afton fan I highly recommend this. Also, there’s possibly some insight into William Afton, Mrs. Afton, and Henry too, so it’s worth a skim.

Pg 144 '...a place thirty-some years forgotten' Just reconfirming FNAF 3 is 30 years past *one* of the FNAF closings, presumably FNAF 2 location.

Pg 145 "The whole building was giving him [Hudson] a headache." FIX THE VENTILATION BRUH

Pg 148 '...they were able to use salvaged derelict equiptment original to the old pizzerias.' Another confirmation of something we heard from Phone Guy.

Pg 147 "How old are you?" "Twenty-three, same as you." I think this gives us Michael's age during FNAF 3.

EDIT: This kept me awake last night. Obviously this is impossible because he has to be alive for at least 10 years before 1983, BUT maybe its just reconfirming FNAF 3′s year? 2023?

Pg 149 "Hudsan's dad died and his mom married Lewis, a ridiculous balding man who wore plaid vests and smoked a pipe" Did... Did this book just seriously imply Mrs. Afton left William for Henry? Really? (Yes, there's differences; the husband is dead and the man wears plaid 'vests' but it seems very odd to include that detail. This could just have been the writer's own imagination, though.) I have seen this as a fan theory and 100% explains the jealousy aspect of William, but I can't help but kinda hate it. I think this is very important, though, and probably Scott's intention. "This horrible little man [Lewis]... would make Hudson's next ten years a living Hell" This REALLY intrigues me given the context I just went over. The text implies Lewis was fairly neglectful to our main character / Michael stand-in Hudson. Maybe I'm wrong and for some reason Mrs. Emily left and went to William? XD Haha, I'm reading too much into this page. Maybe I'll come back to this later. I figure it's more of Scott possibly including double-details (contradicting stuff with the same character that really applies to two, which has been something I heavily pointed out in previous anaylsis on this blog) Having said that, I'm going w/the former because I can't imagine Henry being abusive (neglectful yes, abusive no) and he's never been portrayed that way in official works like William has in the novels.

Pg 150 "Hudson began to screw up in class...a product of spending the night in fear that his stepfather [Lewis]... [would] beat him just for the fun of it." Ooof. Big confirm on William actually being abusive. Unless we stick with the Henry theory for Lewis (combined with Midnight Motorist Henry theory / alcoholic). "...near-daily beatings..." "his mom started taking pills to get through the day..." So, whoever Mrs. Afton is, she was definetly not paying attention. But then, most people married to serial killers either don't notice because of denial (like this) or because the killer is so manipulative / careful they can't notice.

"Barry, who had red hair and freckles..." Yo?! Is that a description of Fritz?! These friends in the story could be the other kids Michael knew's stand-in's, aka the two gravestones with names he used (Fritz and Jeremy), as shown in the checks for the games and FNAF 6. I've long figured Michael was probably friends with the victims--it makes them easier, although riskier, targets [for William]. The two friends are male, too, like Fritz and Jeremy. If you're curious about Duane's description (our stand in for Jeremy), it's "tight black shirt... muscles... black hair long enough for a glossy ponytail..." I'm not sure if this matches anything found in the novels or contradicts them, though. (The novels = TSE trilogy)

"And so it went... until the night of the fire." For context, this is before FF burns down. We're learning of Hudson's life from his close friends in childhood, his father's death, his mother remarrying, to his abusive stepfather, to his grades slipping to this line. This would be a new fire not seen/mentioned in the games...

Pg 151 "...go to Charlie's for a sundae..." Really. Really Scott. Just gonna use this name again. OK. I'm not even gonna discuss this because it's probably irrelevant. *This is confirmed on pg 158 to be an ice cream shop. No lore relevance aside the annoying name coincidences Scott loves to troll with.

"This is not... an advance into enemy territory, a fight with demons, or a descent into Hell..." Uh, what? What is Hudson talking about? XD I'm only noting it because it seems so out of place. He's probably talking about video games or something.

Another note, although I don't have a specific reference since it is mentioned off-hand many times, is that Hudson keeps referring to his "history" which is implied to have kept him from getting a well-paying job and a girl he's crushing on doesn't know this "history" which is good for him. Seems good old "Michael Stand-In" has done some jail time or something. Edit: On pg 154/155 the girl asks Hudson, "Did you do it?" Seems he may have killed his stepfather or been involved with something else just as bad. Edit 2: No, I was thinking too deep into it. This probably refers to Evan's death at Fredbear's. DUH.

Pg 156 describes an actual "prize corner" in FF! What am I even reading? IIRC this is in FNAF 3, too. So they just hand out these scary gift boxes to people that complete the attraction? (Hudson says he *would* have fun handing out the scary toys to kids when this location opens--kind of a bully thing to do, eh?)

"[Hudson] avoid[ed] glancing in any of the mirrors..." I'm only pointing this out because it could be reference to one of two things. 1) We know because of one of UCN's music tracks, William has a fear of his reflection. Michael probably shares this trait, especially since 2) after Ennard and all... and later on pg 157 it also says, "he never wanted to face: himself" Sounds like guilt, my guy.

Pg 157 "blonde hair... blue eyes..." Hudson shares an eye color with Michael. It's possible Michael had blonde hair as a child and it changed to brown (it's common, something I personally went through being technically blonde/ blue eyed myself)

"He [Hudson] knew from personal experience that toys could turn from fun...to torture ina heart-beat" Fairly self explanatory. Either Hudson's worked at a creepy location before or he doesn't like remembering Fredbear's.

*checks how much is left.* There's still 35 pages (not counting back/front) left of this... This is gonna be a lot of notes.

Pg 158 Hudson doesn't have a car. Poor Mike, probably having to walk everywhere. Especially as a corpse.

Pg 160 This page describes many physical issues Hudson has that prevents him from entering the Navy, all from the abuse of Lewis. Obvious paralell to Michael becoming an undead [because his father sent him to CBPR indirectly causing his condition]

Pg 161 "How's your granny, Hud?... ...Is she still alive?" "I don't think she can die." Does anyone in the Afton family really 'die'? XD

Pg 162 These few pages discuss Hudson's grandmother. She's described as "a seer who claimed to know the future... ...wore big men's plaid flannel shirts with baggy jeans" Um, more plaid / flannel? AGH. STAHP. Lowkey, I would totally headcanon my Aunt Jen like this, though.

Pg 163 "Hudson's mom... the way she was before Hudson's dad had died... never... particularly warm and fuzzy... but... effiencient and responsible..." More about Mrs. Afton, so that's kinda neat.

"Hudson's dad was fun and attentive." There's a good Dad in this series?

"Unfortunetly, he also struggled with mental illness." "invisible low points" (Pg 164) Kinda reminds me of how Henry is described after Charlotte's death in the books.

Pg 164 "When Steven got himself into a bad deal that cost him his small business... he'd taken his life." Oh, it is Henry! SMH. Way to use confusing paralells. So, from our understanding thus far, Hudson's real father, Steven, is our Henry stand-in. His step-father despite being described similar to Henry, is actually our William stand-in. Fair game, Scott.

Pg 164 "...he [Hudson] was locked into a supply closet..." Oh shit, you guys. So, let me go on a tangent here, because this IS important! I just watched a retrospective on Sister Location and FNAF 6 earlier and one theory for Midnight Motorist was the person in the chair was the mother and the kid was Michael. I think this little line may confirm that. In fact, the story may be the key to figuring things out. Obviously, the line is a paralell to FNAF 4's scene in which Crying Child was locked in the supply closet of Fredbear's. I know some people, including Matpat, believe[d] CC was Michael, and in this book's context, it sort of works. This does contradict Step Closer and 1000 other things that make Michael the older brother, but maybe it's hinting at MM? Abusive stepdad (possibly Henry... maybe William is gone at this point), checked out Mom (hey, grey couch lady with Foxybro's font). IDK, but its definetly something to think about.

Pg 165 Lewis is mentioned as calling Hudson "nothing" and saying "you're nothing" on several occasions on this page. Just more abuse, for those accurate fanfic writers like me. Also I kinda wanna watch Morel Orel again. Yall know my fav character is Clay. Yall know.

"You're smoke." <-- Lewis / The text later reads, "...there was some irony, given what eventually happened." BRUH. Why did your stepdad die in a fire? :V TELL ME.

"When his family's house burned down at the end of his senior year..." Huh. Is there a fire we don't know about in the game-verse? Could this explain what happened to the FNAF 4 house before MM house?!

"...it purged Hudson of Lewis and his mother." MRS. AFTON BURNED ALIVE, TOO? Bruh. I can't with this story.

The text later describes the fire is concluded to be man-made and Hudson was blamed for it. Can't say if this ties to Michael, but it IS interesting... TBF, there is a small paralell to draw between Henry in FNAF 6 and his history of suicide in the books, too.

Pg 166 "...this place's [FF] busted thermostat.." I just find this line funny.

Pg 167 "...after three weeks of keeping an eye on the place" Some more timeline context for FNAF 3. We know that Michael worked there a little while before we start playing the game thanks to one of the phone calls, IIRC, so this makes sense. If Michael was accused of [something] and also wanting to hunt down his father, then it makes perfect sense why he's working a dead end job at Freddy's over and over and over. Fun fun fun.

Pg 169 "He hated to think about a functional character [Foxy]" This line is in regards to Hudson not liking the set up of Pirate's Cove and Foxy's hook to scare people. Sounds familiar, don't it? (For Michael anyway.)

Pg 173 "Some big find is arriving tomorrow." SPRINGY BOI! COME ON BOOK, get on with the show?

Pg 176 "Granny was wearing a red-and-green plaid shirt and her baggy jeans." Nothing special, but it was specifically brought up twice. I'm kind of racking my brain trying to understand what the point of this character is outside of "woooo everything is haunted don't you know that" kind of character.

Pg 180 "...dropped the crate on the linoleum with a resounding thud." HEY. Poor Springtrap, just gettin' tossed around like the trash he is.

Pg 186 "If you weren't so stupid, I'd tell you more about it." Springtrap bringing the burn. =:)

"A voice with a burr-like rasp...hint of a Southern accent" I'm going to assume this is because it's Lewis probably in the suit in this story and not our old British lad.

"It's was Mr. Atkin's voice." THE MATH TEACHER? *goes back to check* 'The algebra teacher'. Okay...

Pg 190 Okay, so Hudson hear's Lewis' voice this time. Okay, I get it now. Springtrap in this kind of imbodies all of Hudson's old bullies, including the teacher. He also has PTSD, just FYI. IDK if anyone finds that important, but it's fairly obvious by the line "He wasn't in his bedroom. Lewis didn't just slam his head into a desk; his head had been slammed into the [arcade] game."

"Why did he hallucinate a scene from his childhood?" Oh, it's not PTSD, then. It's just the VENTILATION ERROR. lol Okay.

Just a note, as I'm reading through the more action-based stuff, I kind of feel bad for Michael if he had flashbacks like this guy. They're intense.

So, Lewis' voice finally comes out of Springtrap on Pg 213. There's that.

Pg 220 "You can just stay there [in his room]" Kind of a paralell to Midnight Motorist. Lewis is saying it to Hudson. I really feel like the kid in the MM game is Michael because of this story...

Pg 223 "Heat purges. Fire heals." I'm sure that's Henry's life motto.

The ending was stupid, but most in these stories are. Hudson is hallucinating and is implied to have burned himself alive in FF's oven. Meh? The first half of this one is A TRIP and a little insight into what I 100% believe is Michael's childhood. I think the saddest part of it all is that we never got Springtrap speaking to Michael in FNAF 3--and if it's ever remade I hope we get more of them interacting.

[trashbinbackyard]

jack/mirad & kai/helvi

I woke up at 8 and went like eeeh i can sleep another half an hour and them boom, 1pm

1. Who's the one who's reckless and always getting into trouble while the other gotta pull em out

Mirad has grown past his most reckless tendencies, Jack however hasn't, but he's more at danger to himself than to others

Kai is very careful when he's out hunting and he's never alone. Helvi however has a habit of going into the woods alone

2. Who's the one to send the other "I love my gf/bf" memes

I don't feel like either?

If they had phones it'd be Helvi

4. Which one spoils the other more and do they ever get competitive to show the other more love

Mirad spoils Jack, lets be real, it doesn't turn into a competition bc it's in moderation, and mostly Mirad treating Jack to some of his skincare products

Kai miiiiight spoil Helvi juuuuust a bit, he doesn't mind getting up way earlier to fix her breakfast and help her tie her hair and acquiring many fur blankets

5. How many years did it take to get married or was it just not for them

A few years for sure, when they both were sure about it. Probably talked about it too before Mirad proposed

Few years, if wasn't for Kai's role in the village they would've gotten married later, as neither really saw marriage as That important and just something they one day would like to do.

6. What was their wedding like

Small, just closest family and couple friends, nothing extravagant for the middle aged men

Whole day event basically with everyone from the village and surrounding area invited (against Kai's best wishes), Weddings, and especially high profile weddings like that are few and far between and they're quite the event. Small ceremony but then a huge feast with dancing singing and general revelry

7. Is their friends/family supportive

Ellen is very happy for them both, Mirad's parents were wary but approve later on, Marda is still sus about Jack

Very much so, Kory pretty much pushed them to get married already, Kat when she finds out is very happy for them both. Helvi's parents are so proud and treat Kai like close family

8. How does one comfort the other when the other is in distress/having a panic attack/crying

Mirad talks to Jack gently, checks if he hasn't hurt himself, bring him a snack and drink. When Mirad's distressed Jack will ask if he can do anything and keep him company if he lets him

If Kai's in distress he tends to shut down and all Helvi can really do is keep him company and hold him. If Helvi's upset Kai will call a timeout and just go somewhere with her where she can calm down and talk things through

9. Which one dissociates

Jack mostly

-

10. Which one stares at the other's booty like "damn" and how does the other react when catching them

Both. Mirad would be more cheeky (hehe) in his reaction while Jack is like "my booty?? :0"

Helvi. Kai blushes

11. When they live together what kinda place do they live in? What does their home look like?

Both had their separate places, where Mirad's was very neat and organized and Jack's was a whole mess. Jack would still keep his place as a workshop while he pretty much now lives with Mirad, where he learns to respect the house rules

They share a two-story chief's house with Kory and a garm, they have the whole lower level to themselves pretty much, and it's quite big, it's very cozy and bit cabin'y even if it's larger

13. How does each act when getting drunk

Jack's a sad drunk, first thing Mirad knew about him tbh. Mirad doesn't drink if I remember correct

Neither of them want to get Drunk drunk, just tipsy. Kai loosens up and gets chattier. Helvi gets giggly and cuddly

14. Which one rolls over in the morning to wake up the other one just to give kiss them

Beware the morning breath. Mirad wakes up before Jack

Kai doesn't wake Helvi up when he leaves the bed to go prepare breakfast, but when that's done he will kiss her goodmorning

16. Does one have an interest the other think is weird but wants to listen to it regardless

Jack likes welding for fun too, he's made some little "art" pieces for Mirad with textures he knows he likes, and Mirad appreciates it. Mirad's big into working out and Jack will be out of breath in two minutes if he joins but it's a pleasant experience

Helvi loves making potions and instruments and while Kai knows little about either he's up for helping her if she asks, she also sings. I know this seems kinda random bc I just know thought of it, but Kai's into drawing with charcoals, it would be fitting for his "quiet kid with not many friends" character (it hits a little too close home lmao)

17. Which one uses cropped hentai as reaction images

That's very much up Jack's alley

If they had phones, Helvi

18. Does one of them kinkshame the other

Not kinkshame, more like kink-concern on Mirad's part like "Jack, honey, WHY do you wanna be choked that hard"

Neither of them have really out there kinks, though Helvi would be up to do it in the woods. Just have to be extra careful they're far enough from any civilization

19. Is one of them self conscious about their body? If so how does the other comfort them

Jack, he's pudgy and wrinkly. Mirad doesn't mind it one bit and calling Jack a sexy beast on the regular makes Jack happy and less ashamed of his body

Helvi used to, before trans-your-gender spell hit, (and bc she basically got to decide what her body would look like of course she has no regrets) Kai is very body-neutral about himself, yeah that's a body, nothing special but ain't nothing wrong with it either

21. What is their song? Like the song that gives them overwhelming feelings?

Well I have listed Silent storm for them once and you know what, I stand by it

From Heilung Traust and Krigsgaldr (first half of it anyway), both were big inspirations for Helvi's character in general and Maria Franz is her voiceclaim too lol (also the guy on krigsgaldr second verse for Kai's voiceclaim (before 4.40 mark))

28. Are either of them mentally ill, if so how do they help one another cope

Jack is a recovering addict, also depressed, and alcoholic (recovering when they get together). Mirad is also an ex-addict and while he's much further into his recovery he's not immune to the shitty stuff that still might happen, they're each other's peer support

Helvi used to have bad dysphoria

29. Does one have a spot on them where they would melt when the other kisses them there

Head, forehead for Jack (and lips of course) he's not that big into getting kisses on his body. Mirad is sensitive everwhere but IIRC neck and sides are big

Helvi's wrists and neck just below her ears. Kai's throat and forehead

30. Do they dance together

Mirad poledances, Jack enjoys the view

At their wedding sure, both lil tipsy and letting loose, both lost their flower crowns that evening

31. Do they sing together

More like hum if they feel like it

Helvi's the one signing, Kai might join in on a verse or two

34. Are they a reckless couple or safe

Pretty safe with the occasional reckless on Jack's part

Safe

35. What be their kinks and do they try each other's kinks

Love and Care, and choking

They're pretty vanilla

37. Do they get into fights often? If so what do they fight over and how do they make up?

Arguments sure about Jack's self-destructive behaviors sometimes but the rule is never go to sleep angry so they both reflect on it with compassion

Not really, at least before The Incident, apologize and kiss and make up

38. Which one's top, bottom, verse

Mirad's a top, Jack is a pillow princess vers

Kai's top, Helvi's bottom

39. What kinda sex they be having (gentle rough whatever)

Whatever they're in the mood for, some tender lovin'? Sure! Get hot and heavy? With moderation. Break into laughter in the middle of it? Silly is also a mood!

It starts off as hot and heavy but calms down to more gentle

40. Who would fight in honor for the other if someone would insult them

Jack would just hit them with the "don't be meeeaaan 🥺🥺" Mirad I feel like would go the verbal route as well but more stern

It's common knowledge to Not insult the village shaman (the one who has illness remedies and the one who blesses you before you travel), and you DONT insult the the chief's kid/chief. They're both capable of defending themselves but Kai will step in if he happens to hear

44. Do they want kids

Nah, who needs kids when you got nieces

Yeah, and I've finally made up my mind, they're gonna adopt a bunch (and bc you dropped out of the campaign I can tell you how: a village not that near but not that far gets attacked by a power hungry druid and leaves bunch of kids without parents and the party will escort them back to Kai's village, before they go after the druid)

[writingdotcoffee]

#153: The Uncertainty of Being a Writer

This week's post was supposed to be about Writing Analytics, but I had to delay the launch by a week. Stay tuned for next week!

One of the hardest questions that writers face, particularly in the early days is: ‘Will this thing work?’

Will the hours that I pour into this endeavour pay off? Would I be better off doing something else?

What if you spend the next ten years writing books and short stories and trying to get them published. No major publishers pick them up so you decide to self-publish and only sell a handful of copies. What then?

Luck does play a part in success – from being incredibly lucky or awfully unlucky. You may do everything right, and it may still not happen.

It sucks thinking about things like that, but that’s what’s been on my mind lately. The uncertainty is real. It will get to you eventually, so why not deal with it early?

Writing your first book is a particularly uncertain business. For a long time, you're toiling away on your own. You have never done it before, and you have no idea whether what you're doing will be good.

When you're in the book-writing trenches, it's easy to fixate on the end goal. You're doing whatever it takes to get the book over the finish line – working nights and weekends, skipping pub with mates, abandoning hobbies.

I'll finish the book, and then it'll be all good, you think. But what if it isn't?

Tim Ferriss – a best-selling author and famous podcast host – has an exercise called fear setting. Years ago, he did a TED talk about it which blew up. The idea is to spend time with your fears. Imagine that what you fear the most does happen. What then?

Let's say you're 35. You look about 45 because, over the past 10 years, you've spent every free moment outside your job pursuing writing. You're always twitchy, particularly when around other people.

You can no longer log in to Instagram because all your friends have kids, big houses, flashy cars. You're nowhere near repaying your student loans.

You signed with an agent for the fourth full manuscript that you've completed, but no publisher would buy it. Now she's writing to you to terminate your contract in 30 days. Ouch.

So what can you do to prevent this from happening?

1. The Journey, Not the Destination

As cliché as that sounds, you should do whatever you can to enjoy the time when you're working on your book. The journey might be all that you get, what can you do to enjoy the ride?

Are you learning skills that you could apply elsewhere? Maybe you can connect with like-minded writers and start a writing group? Could switching genre make writing more enjoyable?

Write for fun, first and foremost.

2. Practice Healthy Detachment

Notice what happens when you go to an interview for a job that would be nice versus a job that you desperately need. The anxieties that we have shape our behaviours and performance. Worrying about being successful might just be what makes you miss the mark.

If you make wanting to be an author a part of your identity, it will be hard to deal with all the rejections that come along the way.

3. Don't Abandon Everything Else

Every once in a while, someone talks about how not having a plan B was what gave them the motivation to hustle. I don't buy it. It might have worked for them, but there are dozens, hundreds and thousands of others who also didn't have a plan B and failed, and exceptionally shitty times ensued.

Keep your friends. Keep your hobbies. Keep your job. You can always abandon them when you're rich later.

So do I think it's worth pursuing a career as a writer? Absolutely yes.

In an alternate universe, you're 35, married with kids, living in a modest house that you own. You've been writing for 10 years, and while no publisher ever bought your book, you've had a blast writing them.

Every Thursday night, you meet your writing group downtown. They're like your second family. Your jaw hurts from laughing every time when you come home.

Juggling your work, family and writing isn't easy, but you're not in a rush. You're working on a novella in a series that you've been publishing on your blog. The deal is that if it makes more than $100 in profit, you're buying drinks for everyone.

And in another universe, in a galaxy far, far away, you're on your way back home from a successful book tour that coincides with the release of a brand-new Netflix film which is an adaptation of your most famous novel. You're looking at the lights outside as the plane takes off. The PR round was exhausting. It's about time to start thinking about what will you write next...

Thanks for reading ❤️.

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Past Editions

#152: Working with Creative Constraints, July 2020

#151: My Favourite Writing Podcasts, July 2020

#150: The Business of Making Art, July 2020

#149: All That Matters Is What You Leave on the Page, July 2020

#148: Keeping a Victory Log, June 2020

[orangepanic]

I saw this “100 OTP questions” by @the-moon-dust-writings and figured I'd procrastinate:

1. Who loves flower crowns more?

Neither of them really, but Asami might make Iroh wear one just to laugh at him.

2. Who is the one who likes to cuddle?

Iroh. Asami likes it, too, but he usually initiates.

3. Who has awful taste in music?

Honestly, both of them. Asami likes terrible dance music and Iroh likes obscure combinations of horns and bells and stuff from different cultures.

4. Who is the meme lover?

Asami thinks they’re funny. Iroh doesn’t quite understand.

5. How did their second date go?

Iroh tried to take Asami somewhere very fancy, but the wait was too long. They ended up making out in a shadowy doorway down the street and missing their reservation entirely. Iroh was mortified, but Asami dragged him around the corner to a low-key noodle shop that has since become their favorite restaurant.

6. How many children do they want/have?

Asami thinks about three. Iroh, as many as Asami will agree to.

7. Who hides the weapons?

Iroh hides weapons for Asami around the house so she’ll always have something on hand. In a drawer in the kitchen, on her nightstand, etc. He knows she can take care of herself… and he stashes weapons for her anyway. Asami rolls her eyes but secretly thinks it’s sweet.

8. Who is the better dancer?

Asami. She likes dancing, and learned formal dancing in school. Iroh can’t dance at all, having skipped out on all his lessons as a child after bribing his instructor. He thought dancing is boring, but likes dancing with Asami and lets her lead.

9. Do/Did they have a theme wedding?

No. They quite deliberately have a very normal wedding, including cutting out a lot of the more stuffy Fire Nation customs because Iroh doesn’t want Asami to feel out of place not having any family present.

10. What do their parents think of them dating?

Hiroshi Sato is livid, and actually tried to have Iroh assassinated from prison. His little girl, marry a firebender? A prince of the firebenders? Iroh’s parents are more accepting. Izumi initially thinks Asami is too young and gives Iroh a hard time about how quickly he got serious, but quickly comes around when it’s clear Asami is very mature for her age. Within a year Iroh’s parents are both hounding him on when he’ll make it official.

11. Are they a super sappy couple?

They are that couple everybody hates.

12. How did they get together?

They meet during the Equalist revolution, but don’t get together until long after. Iroh has a crush on Asami almost immediately, but spends forever sitting on it thinking it wasn’t the right time and trying to be friends until one day he just kind of slips up and kisses her. She kisses him back. It turns out Asami liked him, too, but she isn’t great at reading people and had no idea he was interested.

13. Who asked the other to get married?

Iroh just kind of blurts it out one day.

14. Who stays up too late and makes stupid jokes?

Asami is the night owl. Iroh makes the bad jokes.

15. Who is the nerd?

Oh my god, both of them. Asami is more of the classic nerd. Iroh is more of a dork.

16. Who knows the most obscure facts?

Iroh.

17. Who makes the other a flower crown?

Two questions about flower crowns out of 100?? Changing this to who is more dominant in bed. Asami.

18. Who likes to read?

Iroh. They both do, but he’s much more into it.

19. Who bothers the other person while the other person reads?

Asami. She has the shorter attention span.

20. Who tutors the other?

They both would in different subjects. Asami is better at math, physics, etc. Iroh is better at philosophy and languages.

21. Do they have similar taste in movies?

No. Asami likes gory slasher films and lots of action. Iroh scoffs and thinks they’re dumb. Asami, in turn, thinks his period dramas can be kind of boring, and refuses to count documentaries as movies. But there’s a healthy overlap in things like Vikings and Game of Thrones.

22. How do their personalities complement each other?

Asami helps Iroh lighten up a bit, drawing him out of his shell, and gives him an anchor and a sense of home. She’s more social than he is, and a lot of her friends eventually become his. But she’s also quiet enough and serious enough that she doesn’t tire him out and can feed his need for downtime. Iroh, in turn, loves seldom but deeply, and gives Asami the kind of fierce, unconditional love and stability she needs. He’s also genuinely interested in her projects, is smart enough to follow most of it, and is one of the only people who can occasionally beat her in Pai Sho. They have a lot of fun together just being nerds.

23. How do they tell everyone that they are going to be having a kid/adopting a child soon?

They don’t have to tell anybody. It’s all over Iroh’s face like a big neon sign.

24. Who has better fashion sense?

Asami, but not by much. She’s more up to date with trends, while Iroh’s style is clean and classic.

25. Who will punch someone out if they are rude to their partner?

Hoo boy, both of them. Do not go there.

26. What songs do they sing together in the vehicle?

Neither of them sing in the satomobile. Iroh has a decent voice, but he’s a bit private about it. Asami mostly hums.

27. What other couple would your otp get along with?

Iroh quickly becomes BFFs with Bolin. Asami and Opal aren’t quite as close, but they like each other’s company and have fun as a foursome. They also get along quite well with Pema and Tenzin.

28. Who likes to prank the other?

Iroh tries more often. Asami’s pranks are more successful.

29. Who is the one who loves to take pictures?

Iroh, though generally Korra is the picture taker in the group.

30. How would they react if they found out they were soul mates?

Iroh raises an eyebrow. “Hmm.” Asami only shrugs. They both already knew that.

31. Where would they live?

They like Republic City and decide to stay downtown, first in an apartment and eventually a larger townhouse.

32. What type of dragon would they own, if they could have one?

Whichever one Iroh made friends with. Asami is a bit wary of animals and would need him to convince her it was safe.

33. If they were both vampires, what type of vampires would they be?

The kind that live in a beautiful house with perfect collections that took hundreds of years to make. Iroh has first editions of everything in a giant library, arranged in a complex system only he understands. He’s working on his 14th language. Asami has invented artificial blood and doesn’t miss sunburns. Occasionally she’ll throw one of those big fancy vampire balls just so they can both get dressed up. They’re pretty happy.

34. What would they dress up as, for Halloween?

They once went as Lady Tienhai and the last king of Mo Ce because picking something obscure and historical was the only way to get Iroh into a costume.

35. Can they name each other’s favourite food?

Kind of. They are both really into food, so picking a favorite is hard. But if the question is can they order for one another, absolutely.

36. Do they have pet names for one another?

Asami sometimes calls Iroh “General Hotstuff” when she’s teasing. Iroh sometimes calls Asami “sex pretzel” when he’s 1000% sure they are alone.

37. How do they cheer each other up?

Asami is more of a gift giver. She’ll show up with Iroh’s favorite take-out or make him something in her workshop—anything to make him feel special and valued. Iroh is all about quality time, and will swing by Asami’s office to haul her out on surprise dates. He also gives great hugs.

38. Do they show a lot of PDA?

No. Iroh is very uncomfortable with PDA, especially when he’s in uniform. Asami follows his lead.

39. How old were they when they got together?

Asami was 19-20, Iroh 24-25.

40. Who is the one that would bring the puppy home?

Iroh, 100%. He’s such a sucker.

41. Can they do yoga couple’s poses?

Yes, though Asami is the only one who really tries.

42. What is their song?

They don’t really have one.

43. What does their room look like?

Asami moved in with Iroh, so it’s very basic. White walls, perfectly made bed, a neatly organized desk in the far corner by the window. He’s a total minimalist, having spent most of his adult life on a ship. Asami added a very fluffy comforter in *gasp* a color and lots of pillows.

44. Who would be the one to kill zombies while the other keeps them grounded?

They’d take turns, and at some point Asami would turn it into a contest.

45. Who makes the other breakfast in bed?

Iroh. Asami is a terrible cook.

46. Who loves kids more?

Iroh.

47. Do either of them have a crazy ex?

Not crazy, but Iroh and his ex are not on good terms. He doesn’t like to talk about it.

48. What are their favourite colours?

Asami, purple. Iroh, black. He gets annoyed when people get him so much red stuff.

49. Who likes to cook?

Iroh. He fired Asami from the kitchen, something they are both grateful for.

50. Who is the forgetful one?

Asami.

51. Does either of them know how to fight?

Have you met these people?

52. What do they do for Valentines Day?

Iroh would probably plan something elaborate for them to go out. Asami would plan something sexy for when they got home.

53. Who swears more?

Asami, at least out loud. Iroh mostly swears under his breath.

54. Who has the better comebacks?

Asami. It’s not even close.

55. Who would start a fight with another parent at a bake sale?

Probably Asami, unless it was about the kids. If anyone comes for Iroh’s kids, they’d better hide.

56. Who reads buzzfeed?

Asami.

57. Who is the hopeless romantic?

Iroh, hands down.

58. Do either of them know how to do a handstand?

Asami can manage it.

59. Who can rap better?

Asami, though Iroh is the only one who actually listens to rap.

60. Do either of them want to go sky diving?

Asami would love to. Iroh laughs. “Been there.”

61. What do they usually text about?

Some version of “I miss you” or random pictures of stuff. They generally only text when Iroh is away as they’re both busy during the day.

62. Who is the dramatic one?

Asami has a shorter fuse. Iroh is more ridiculous when he loses his shit.

63. Is either one confrontational?

Not really.

64. What is their favourite cuddle position?

Asami will lay on top of Iroh on the couch like a sandwich. It’s the only position she seems to be able to nap in.

65. Who are their favourite musical artist(s)?”

See above about terrible taste in music.

66. What are their parenting styles?

Iroh covers a lot of the basics. He sets a schedule, makes lunches, tells bedtime stories, is more likely to help with the homework. Asami is the one who gets them around and does most of the interacting with teachers, other parents, etc. They share things fairly equally.

67. Who would be the more laid back one?

Iroh.

68. Who listens to more vulgar music?

Asami.

69. Do either of them have secrets even the other doesn’t know?

Yes. Asami can be secretive about some of her projects, both out of an abundance of caution but also because she likes a big reveal. Iroh keeps some past relationship stuff close, and will occasionally read a steamy romance novel for “tips.”

70. Who is their go to couple for a double date?

Bolin and Opal

71. Do they tip the waiter/waitress on their date?

Iroh tips very well.

72. How do they work out a fight?

Asami yells. Iroh yells back. One of them storms off. The other one waits about half an hour then goes to find them, usually with an offering of food. There are hugs. Somebody cries. Then they finally talk it out before falling asleep together.

73. Who brings home an illegal pet?

Asami. She is less likely to have a pet, but if she does, it’s going to be a weird one.

74. What side of the bed do each of them sleep on?

Iroh is on the side by the window because he likes to get up with the sun.

75. What is their favorite photo of them two together?

There’s a photo Korra took at the beach where Iroh has Asami thrown over his shoulder right before dunking her in the water. This is the picture he takes with him when he’s deployed.

76. Who takes longer in the bathroom?

Asami.

77. Who has more songs on their ipod?

Iroh. If you can call them songs.

78. What movie did they first see together?

Iroh took her to Last Days of the Sun Warriors. She fell asleep. He said the book was better.

79. What do they like to see each other in?

Asami thinks Iroh’s butt looks great in jeans. Iroh got Asami a red silk robe from the Fire Nation and likes to see it fall off.

80. Who makes jokes during inappropriate times?

Iroh.

81. At what age do they discuss the possibility of children?

Mid-20s, though they don’t have them until a little later.

82. What do they love about each other the most?

Iroh likes that Asami is tough and smart and a problem-solver. Asami likes that Iroh is kind and brave and has a strong moral compass.

83. Who is the one that sees the big picture, while the other focus’s on the small details?

They are both big picture people, which is sometimes a problem. Of the two, Asami is probably better at details, but she’s also forgetful.

84. What would they write on their partner’s social media’s for their anniversary?

Asami would probably put up a picture of them and say something brief but sweet. Iroh doesn’t really understand social media and would just paste a heart-eyes emoji.

85. Who is bad at math?

Iroh. He’s not bad, per se, but Asami is very, very good.

86. Who googles everything?

Asami.

87. Who does stuff on impulse?

Both of them in different ways. Asami is generally more flexible. Iroh usually has a plan but makes big decisions completely off the cuff.

88. How do they comfort each other when they are helpless to do anything about the situation?

Lots of physical touch. Iroh will kind of just wrap himself around her in one giant, whole body hug. Asami will spend some time cursing out whomever is causing the issue, then let him lay his head in her lap and give Iroh a good head scratch or massage.

89. What is an inside joke they have?

There was one time they had sex in Asami’s office at Future Industries, so occasionally she’ll drop things like, “feel like coming by the office?” with a suggestive eyebrow waggle. Iroh is, predictably, very embarrassed. Also interested.

90. Who makes the other smile with almost no effort at all?

Asami: *exists* Iroh: *smiles*

91. What is their favourite holiday?

New Years is a big deal in the Fire Nation. Iroh loves his family and likes going home, and Asami has grown to love it almost as much.

92. Who is the one that is calm and collected while the other is angry and destructive?

They take turns. Both of them can have quite a temper when pushed too hard.

93. What is their favourite board game to play?

They’re both big Pai Sho fans, but can get into any kind of strategy game. Nobody really likes to play them though, they're too good.

94. Who accidentally sets something on fire?

Asami. Iroh hasn’t had a fire accident since he was four.

95. Who has the car ready while the other is robbing the store?

Asami. She’d rob the store, too, but no way is she letting Iroh drive.

96. What artist/group did they go to for their first concert?

Iroh booked a private box at the Republic City Opera, thinking that was an impressive thing he should do on a date. It turns out neither of them like opera, and by the end they were both making fun of it.

97. Who sleep talks?

Asami. Iroh thinks it’s funny.

98. Who is the more social one?

Asami, by a long shot.

99. What are their karaoke songs?

Neither of them would really sing karaoke, but Iroh cannot hold his liquor like at all so if he ever got really plastered Asami might be able to drag him up there. By which point he’d be too far gone to have an opinion on the song and would sing just about anything.

100. Who would get up on stage and make a fool of themselves just to make the other laugh?

Asami.

[kpoprp-multi]

the plot/au list

The following list of Genres shows you what kind of things I rp usually:

✔️= What I can do with you as an rp

❌= What I’m uncomfortable to rp as

➖= I would like to test it out on rare occasions

Credit: @thisisnoteuropeanstyle and the other writing prompt people I’ve copied and pasted from… thanks for that and the fact that it’s made publicly available for everyone to see, you’re the best!

(1)Al Invasion AU [❌]

(2)Al Human AU [ ➖ ]

(3)Alp/Beta/Omega AU [✔️]

(4)Andro AU [➖]

(5)Angel/Demon AU [✔️]

(6)Arranged Marriage AU [ ➖ ]

(7)Baby AU [ ❌ ]

(8)Bakery AU [✔️]

(9)Badboy(girl) meets Social awkward girl(boy) with a roasting problem AU[❌]

(10)Bookstore AU [✔️]

(11)Business AU [✔️]

(12)Coffee Shop AU [✔️]

(13)Crime AU [✔️]

(14)Darkside AU [✔️]

(15)Desert island AU [ ➖ ]

(16)Dystopian AU [✔️]

(17)Fairy Tail AU[✔️]

(18)Fantasy AU [✔️]

(19)Flower Shop AU [✔️]

(20)Genderswap AU [✔️]

(21)Hanahaki Disease AU [➖]

(22)Harem AU – Or Reverse Harem AU [❌]

(23)Haunted House AU [✔️]

(24)High School/College AU [hs ❌ /cl ✔️]

(25)Hogwarts AU [✔️]

(26)Hospital AU [➖]

(27)Hooker AU [➖]

(28)Hunger Games AU [ ➖ ]

(29) Hybrid AU[✔️]

(30)Ice Cream Shop AU [✔️]

(31)Law Enforcement/Military AU [❌]

(32)Mafia AU [✔️]

(33)Magic AU [✔️]

(34)Marriage Law AU [✔️]

(35)Master/Slave AU (Only if you’re over 18+) [➖]

(36)Merpeople AU/ Undersea AU[ ➖ ]

(37)Percy Jackson AU[✔️]

(38)The Red String/Soulmate AU [✔️]

(39)Anime AU [ ➖ ]

(40)Walking with my significant other and you but accidentally grabbed the wrong hand AU [✔️]

(41)Platonic living together AU[✔️]

(42)I hit you with my car and was the only one to visit you in the hospital AU[✔️]

(43)We met each other on a Sunday morning, both doing our walk of shame AU[✔️]

(44)My new dealer has friended me on Facebook and I’m unsure of how to react to that AU[✔️]

(45)A hopeless romantic and a horny beast are set up on a blind date AU[✔️]

(46)Painter/Writer au[✔️]

(47)Fake Dating AU[✔️]

(48)We hate each other but we both have a mutual friend so we have to put up with each other AU[✔️]

(49)Don’t tell anyone you saw me crying AU[✔️]

(50)You’ve been sleeping at mine because your house is being renovated and we aren’t even dating, yet every time you wake up to the baby crying and sigh, “I’ll go” I feel like we might as well be married for real AU[ ➖ ]

(51)We are the only two parents who agreed to attend the school trip (bonus: “So I guess we share this hotel room?”)[ ➖ ]

(52)Single parents AU[❌]

(53)We’re at a concert and I can’t see a thing let me sit on your shoulders, maybe? AU[❌]

(54)You’re afraid that you’ll lose me in big crowds so you always hold my hand but now you just hold my hand when there’s only, like, five people around and I’m getting very suspicious AU[✔️]

(55)So I know we haven’t talked in like, two years, and that things ended pretty badly between us but WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN you’re engaged to be married AU[✔️]

(56)Look, I know we agreed to be friends and everything but that’s what everyone says when they break up. I can’t take you asking me for advice on how to ask out the new person you’re interested in, okay? it’s killing me AU[✔️]

(57)It´s my [insert family relation here]´s wedding and seeing all these happy couples is killing me and all I can think about is how this was almost us AU[ ➖ ]

(58)My current partner is a huge asshole and I need a reason to break up with them so will you pretend to be my possessive and violent ex AU[ ➖ ]

(59)One Night Stand before the first of your new job and oops that was your new boss you were sleeping with AU[ ➖ ]

(60)Pen pals who vent at each other every week AU[❌]

(61)Oops friend looks like the only place to sleep in this house is this small, twin-sized bed, guess we’ll have to share AU[✔️]

(62)We sat next to each other during a really sad film and now we’re sharing tissues silently whilst we cry at the cinema AU[❌]

(63)We take a dance class together and our next routine calls for partnerwork, and we got put togeth-STop standing on my foot! AU[✔️]

(64)We’re literally the only two kids who ride this school bus maybe we should carpool or make out or something AU[✔️]

(65)Date auction for charity AU[❌]

(66)Strangers who end up on the kiss cam at a sporting event AU[❌]

(67)Bored single parents at a [Insert band] concert” AU[❌]

(68)Parents signed them up for the same shitty art program AU[❌]

(69)Look I’m glad you have a healthy sex life and all but will you please try not to pierce a whole through my ceiling with your bed, thanks. AU[✔️]

(70)My cat and your dog are totally in love, and I think it’s so cute until I realise that it’s your pet, because we kind of hate each other AU[✔️]

(71)Your mail keeps coming to my address which is really weird since they’re nothing alike, but it turns out our mutual friend who wants to set us up keeps switching the mail on purpose AU[✔️]

(72)I’m a waiter/waitress and you always sit in my section. I really like you and i thought you liked me back until you walked in here with a date, WHOOPS would you look at that I keep spilling stuff on them AU[✔️]

(73)That one asshole costumer that always comes in 5 minutes before the store is about to close AU[ ❌ ]

(74)We’re sitting next to each other on this plane and and I was eating gummies, but I left all the yellow and orange ones cause they’re absolute shit and now you’re asking if you can have them AU[✔️]

(75)My significant other just broke up with me and I impulse bought like 5 pizzas and a 3 floor cake. Can you help me eat them and make me feel less like shit? AU[✔️]

(76)We both got dragged to this concert for this shitty band by our significant others and we met in the crowd and spend the entire gig talking about better music and making fun of the shitty band AU[✔️]

(77)We’re both at this restaurant to meet blind dates, but we meet each other thinking that the other person is the blind date we were supposed to be meeting AU[✔️]

(78)You’re famous and I was hired by your management to date you for public appearances, but now I’m kinda into you cause you’re actually a really cool person, but you don’t give a shit about me AU[ ✔️ ]

(79)You’ve locked yourself outside of your apartment and there’s a storm rolling in and I pity you so I’ll let you into mine AU[✔️]

(80)Your grandma is really forward even though I swear we’re just friends AU[❌]

(81)I got the fake number from your friend and started texting you, thinking it was them but you’re too sweet to me that you continue on with this lie just to make me happy[✔️]

Note: You can use up to 4 AUs in our private chat, nothing more and as long as they fit in well together.

AU= Alternative Universe

This is for you guys who sometimes don’t know what you wanna do for a rp! 💖

[notebooknebula]

Chad McCall  on Finding the Deals! - Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner

https://www.jayconner.com/chad-mccall-on-finding-the-deals-real-estate-investing-with-jay-conner/

Chad McCall was only 14 years old when h purchased his first property.

You can never be too young or too old to start investing, all you need is the right plan and a system to follow. He created the system for anyone looking to build wealth in real estate all you need is the drive to get started!

https://chadmccall.com/ https://www.restrategylab.com/podcast

Real Estate Cashflow Conference: 

https://www.jayconner.com/learnrealestate/

Free Webinar: 

http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.

#RealEstate #PrivateMoney #FlipYourHouse

————————————————————–

Jay Conner (00:00): Well, hello there. And welcome to another episode of Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner. I’m Jay Conner, your host also known as The Private Money Authority. And I’m so excited, the guests that I have on today’s show, we’re going to be talking about finding deals. You know, that’s the two, one of the two most popular questions that I get as I train and coach other real estate investors. The first question is how do I get money for my deals? The other question is, is how do I find the deals? Well, I’ll be introducing my guest here in just a moment. So you want to be sure to stick around for the entire show, because we’re going to be diving deep on what’s working today on finding the best and most deeply discounted deals. So if you’re new to the show, a very special welcome to you here on the show, we talk about all things that relate to real estate investing.

Jay Conner (01:01): As I said, finding deals, funding deals how to sell houses fast, how to automate the business. So you’re running it, It’s not running you. So we love your feedback. If you haven’t subscribed to our show yet, be sure to like share and subscribe and leave us a five star review if you can. And so, as I said, we talk all things real estate investing. Now, if you’re new to the show, you may not know why it is that I’m known as The Private Money Authority. Well, from 2003 to 2009, I was investing in single family houses here in Eastern North Carolina, January 2009, I got cut off with no notice from the local banks. Well, very quickly I learned about what private money is, and I’m not talking hard money or hard money brokers. I’m talking about doing business with individuals who loan us money from their investment capital or their retirement accounts.

Jay Conner (01:57): That’s a whole another subject right there. So I learned about private money. I was able to attract over $2 million in less than 90 days. And since that time I have not missed out on a deal for not having funding for my deals. Well, if you’re a brand new real estate investor, never done a deal before, or you are a seasoned real estate investor, my guess is you can use some more funding. That’s got nothing to do with your credit, your experience, nothing to do with what you know, it’s got nothing to do with traditional banks or mortgage mortgages or lenders. This is all a different kind of funding. And so I’m got a gift for everybody right here on today’s show. And that is I’m going to give you 33 days of access into The Private Money Academy membership. So, here’s the way this works.

Jay Conner (02:48): I’m live training twice a month, all the Academy members on how to get funding for your deals and all kinds of education is in the membership side as well. So here’s how can take advantage of getting three free days, 30 days for free at www.JayConner.com/Trial. You go on over to that website after the show and sign up for your free access. And I’ll be looking to having you on the next Zoom coaching call. Well, on today’s show, I’ve got a very, very good friend to join me here. And he’s got over 20 years experience on all different kinds of methods on finding deeply discounted houses. Well, he started his real estate investing career all the way back when he was only 14 years old, and he’s also a fellow North Carolinian.

Jay Conner (03:47): I’m here in Eastern North Carolina. He’s from the Western part of the state. Well, he’s been doing real estate full time since 1998. He’s been involved in over 3000 house transactions all across the country. And he has been speaking on stages and five countries with audiences sometimes over 7,000 people. Well, he’s way too young for me to say this next statement, but he’s been retired down in Arizona, all this year. He’s married with two kids, got a 15 year old and a 9 year old. Well, he’s not retired, he’s staying busy. Well, let’s bring him on out of the green room. My good friend, welcome to the show, Mr. Chad McCall. Hello Chad.

Chad McCall (04:33): Hey, Mr. Jay, how are you buddy?

Jay Conner (04:35): Man, I am doing fantastic. And mercy. I see a great big smile on your face does that got anything to do with you just like working whenever you want to these days?

Chad McCall (04:46): Oh my gosh. I think I’ve gotten busier since I was joking around saying, Hey, I’m retiring down to Arizona because of the land of Arizona, from where I came from, I was like, it’s retirement country, but I’ve gotten busier this year. And I’ve only been here since January and Man, 2020. It’s nuts, but it’s gotten busier for me. As you can see, my hair keeps getting more and more gray. Yeah, I’ve got more gray hair than you do, Jay.

Jay Conner (05:09): Hey look, that’s not great. That’s like some beautiful white hair you got going on there Chad. Well hey look, I want everybody to go ahead and know right now. So they stick around to the end of the show. You have got a book. In fact, show them the book that you put together. It’s like a great big coaching manual. It’s a real estate playbook. You got 101 ways to find discounted houses. And we’re going to let everybody know how they can get that book at the end of the show. But in the meantime, I’ve asked you before you came on here to share with us, what are some of the top ways that’s working right here today, this year on finding deeply discounted houses. So I’m going to let you roll with it, Chad, and you know, talk about the different strategies that you want to, and I’ll interrupt when I think it’s the right time to interrupt you.

Chad McCall (06:02): Great, no problem. Well, it kind of started out like years ago, Jay it’s, you know, like you, you talk about money lending and the importance of funding. Well, I started realizing that if I go out there and I start trying to find money to do deals, the guys that had the money, when I started out as a kid, I didn’t have the money. So I was thinking what’s going to really make them want to give me money because who am I? I’m a kid at the time, right? I’m young. I have no it’s really experience. I wasn’t seasoned enough. I wasn’t old enough. I didn’t have this gray hair that gave me instant credibility with these lenders. I was saying, Hey, what’s it going to make that the ability for them to give me money to do a deal? And I kept hearing that they want a better deal.

Chad McCall (06:50): Hey, Chad, we gotta have a good deal. We got to have a really, really good deal. That deal doesn’t look as good. And I was like, well, donor, I need to find good deals. How can I find good deals? I started really thinking about ways to eliminate the middleman, eliminate realtors, a lot of times eliminating other wholesalers, you know, getting down to the, really the bottom of the deal, where you’re talking with homeowners a lot of times, and as I’m going through this journey, that’s where this playbook was really created. So being involved with thousands of transactions with my partner, we scoured the country. We were looking at every possible State, County, City, whatever we could do to find really good deals. And all the strategies came from just experience of doing something, you know, actually applying it. And we started thinking of, do we need the internet?

Chad McCall (07:43): Do we need softwares? Do we need all of these other tools and resources that are out there? Those are all great, but it kept coming back for me to think, as I was doing it, I did it as a kid. I did my first house at 14 years old, the internet wasn’t available back in 1991, you know, there wasn’t Google to go out there and search for a deal to try to find a motivated seller and all these other things you can do online. It was different back then, but the population was still hundreds of millions of people. You’re still talking about 350, some million people probably back then. And so deals were always being done. People were buying and selling and building and rehabbing and doing all that before the internet. So I started thinking about it. I want to put everything I’m doing into a manual or a playbook is what I call it.

Chad McCall (08:30): We’re actually gonna do step by step and try to really understand real estate at its core, which when you start out real estate investigates all about finding a good deal, because I was always going ahead looking for money first sometimes, but then they were like, well, Chad, go get a good deal. I was like, okay. So how would you find the good deals? And then the money started coming. It was a lot easier for me to have conversations with the lenders. And the lenders really started liking me, Jay. And that’s why you’re expert in funding. That’s why I love you so much and get along so well with you and your strategy because you are the money guy for all the cool things that I find in real estate. When I find deals.

Jay Conner (09:06): Before you get into some specific strategies, I’m just really curious. And I know our audiences as well. How do you do a deal when you’re 14 years old? So let’s hear the 14 year old first real estate deal story.

Chad McCall (09:21): Oh, okay. So you guys might. Oh, well, okay. I’ll tell you. So 1991, I was in a car accident. Like you said, Jay I’m from Western, North Carolina, small town, way up there in the mountains. Nowhere between Lenoir and Morganton little town called Gamewell, but it’s pretty much known by Lenoir, North Carolina. And I was in a car accident and long story short, I was in the hospital for a few months. Really, really severe car accident. And I don’t come from a very wealthy family. I come from just a basic family in North Carolina and I got an insurance settlement from the car accident. And my mom and dad got divorced right around that same time. And I took the money from the insurance settlement and I bought my mama house. So a lot of times you hear the stories from people in the South, you know, when their sons are doing something or someone comes across money, it’s just one of those things.

Chad McCall (10:17): What do you do? You buy momma house? It’s kind of a common thing. I’ve got a lot of friends that are athletes and, you know, professional sports players and different things. And they always come to me. They always say I bought momma house. So you know what? I followed right along with it. And I bought momma house, Jay, when I was 14 years old with the money that I got from the insurance. So when I wasn’t old enough to sign on the contract, so my mom was the co-signer for that house. I remember Gamo Heights. A lot of my friends you’ll have people watching this. They’ll remember that same house that I purchased. And it was a HUD home that I ended up buying back then. And that was when I started talking about my first real estate deals where HUD properties.

Jay Conner (10:52): That’s awesome. Okay. Well, I didn’t want to slow down the momentum there, but I just know people want to know how you buying a house at 14 years old. So all right. Back to you.

Chad McCall (11:03): All right. Got it. So I got back to the strategies and saying, how can we break it down to the most basic form of how to get started on the deal? And the strategy started out like 10, 15, 20, then over time, Jay, these are the numbers of ways that we found properties caught up to 101, and this is the revised version of the playbook was at 90 for the longest time. And then we found a little bit more, but I call it Grassroots Real Estate Investing for some reason, it’s kind of a little nickname that I got to because if you can’t go out there and you can’t find a deal with out a computer, then it’s going to be just as hard sometimes to find it with the computer. You don’t know, it’s almost like talking to, you know, having conversations with people too, a lot of strategies are gonna involve human interactions.

Chad McCall (11:49): Some won’t, some are gonna involve computers. Some won’t, some will involve marketing. Some don’t some involve, you know, investments of money into marketing and your business. Some don’t that’s the beauty of it is there’s so many ways you can find deals and it doesn’t matter where you live. Doesn’t matter if you’re on the ocean like Jay, right by the water, right next door to it. Some of the most expensive real estate in the country is by water. Like where you’re at Jay, or you can be in the rural mountains, up in a cabin somewhere. It doesn’t matter where you are, you can do deals. And if you can find a great property, money’s easy and actually profiting in your real estate, investing business, hitting six and seven figures is very easy too if you find the right deals. So I spent my time really honing in on the strategies and the ones that I like.

Chad McCall (12:35): But what’s really interesting is you start to really see the markets shift. You start, when you’re looking and you’re talking to sellers. It’s very interesting when you’re on the ground looking at deals or you’re doing this business virtually. So there’s different strategies, depending on if you’re remote or if it’s in your backyard, but there’s always a strategy for any person, regardless of your money, regardless of your credit, regardless of your location. We have a lot of people, Jay, that are international investors that take the playbook and they’re investing here in the United States and they don’t, they’re never here. They do it all virtually they pick a few strategies and they just stick to it and they use those strategies over and over and over again to do their deals.

Jay Conner (13:16): That’s awesome. You know, there was a popular book, I don’t know, 25 years ago, maybe 30 years ago. You remember when the book Guerrilla Marketing came out?

Chad McCall (13:26): Yeah. Oh yeah. I think I’ve gotten it somewhere. Yeah. It’s over here. It’s all camouflage book. It’s around here in my desk somewhere.

Jay Conner (13:32): Yep. And and I remember that book, and as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, when you used the phrase, grassroots. So, you know, some of the best ways to find deals in my experience has, does not take a lot of money. Right.

Chad McCall (13:50): that’s right.

Jay Conner (13:50): May take some time of your own or time from a team member to do it. But I was just curious and we’re going to find out here, you know, what, you know, what percentage of your hundred and one different ways of finding deals would you say are actually a Grassroots or a Guerilla marketing kind of thing?

Chad McCall (14:10): Oh, a majority of the margin where they don’t really require a lot of money. And I want to take, let me tell you the difference, what I say, money free equals work. Okay. If you’re not going to put money out there into like a marketing budget, which a lot of investors are new, they don’t have marketing budgets, which is okay. But if you’re going to do it that route, it’s going to take a little bit of time and going to take a little bit of work, which if you’re , if you don’t want to work, then you know what, get together a little bit of a budget now, budget, meaning a majority of the strategies, you know, you’re talking $10, $20, $50, $75 or so a month, or over several months, I had a person spend $70 over 90 days in marketing, Jay. And she closed three transactions on $70 of spent.

Chad McCall (14:59): And here only one of them deals that she did, or the three came from the $70 that she spent. So, yeah.

Jay Conner (15:06): I love it.

Chad McCall (15:06): So it doesn’t really matter. One thing, Jay is in the playbook here. I break down the cost of each strategy. I give you how much it’s going to cost you. I tell you affordability and if you can pick the best strategies for you based on your budget. So I’ve taken 101 ways, and I’ve put those all down into 10 different categories. So you can focus on the category and then get inside the specifics of each category and find the right strategy for you.

Jay Conner (15:33): What’s an example of a category?

Chad McCall (15:36): For example, one of the categories here is I call it The Judicial Strategy. Then I have niche strategies as one. So I have retail strategies as one. I have B2B, which is another strategy, you know, a category. So these are categories. And then inside of those categories have detailed strategies and how to apply the strategy in your market. So it’s not just, Hey, go put out some signs. That’s not really a strategy. It’s if you’re going to do that, how do you do it? How cheaply can you do it? Like, there’s so many things. It isn’t just about putting out a sign. If you’re going to drive for dollars or doing those types of things, there’s a way that you do it to where you can get the best results you just don’t want to get in the car and drive around, or use an app on a phone out there.

Chad McCall (16:18): Like that’s really common nowadays, you see an app on a phone and people say, Oh, I’m driving for dollars. I’m going to send postcards. And this, well, just doing those things randomly, you don’t have really a purpose. So what I really like to let people know is in real estate investing, you have to have a purpose for the actions of what you’re doing. So if you’re going to go drive across, where are you driving? Why are you driving there? Who are you going to see? Why is that a good market? Is that an area that’s going to be good if you do get a deal from it? Cause a lot of times, Jay, I’ve been in markets where I can find an amazing deal, but there’s no buyers for it. And if there’s no buyers for it, why would a funder want to fund me on that deal? If they think it’s too risky.

Jay Conner (16:55): Exactly. As you’re talking, one word comes to my mind and then I want, then I want you to, I know our audience is biting at the bit that they hear the first strategy that you’re going to talk about. But one thing that comes to mind is a word that is critical when we are in real estate investing and we are locating deals to do. And that’s the word, consistency and measurability. And when I say consistent, it’s like, you know, if you’re like, okay, I get up today. Well, what am I going to do to go find a deal today? That’s not how it works. In my world, you got you get the education, right? You gotta, you gotta, you need to hang around somebody that has already learned how to do it and implement, you know, put the plan together. Okay, what strategies am I going to start testing? What’s my budget and consistency. You know, activities going on every day of bringing in, you know, some are leads. And along with that, we can’t set it and forget it. We got to continue to measure it. And we got to have a mechanism on measuring. What kind of return are we getting in our investment of dollars and investment of time, you agree?

Chad McCall (18:13): Oh, you have to measure what you’re doing. And that’s when I tell people, it was like a lot of people, Jay, that I run into say, Chad, I’m so glad I found this playbook. You know, I did direct mail though. And it didn’t work. How long did you do it? Well, I did it for two months. I was like, well, if you pay attention to the strategy, it’s going to last a lot longer than that. You know? They’re like, well, I sent out postcards, you know, not versus my yellow letters. And well, how long did you do it? And some people, they just, they jumped around from strategy to strategy. They ever get the consistency out their day, like you’re talking about. And I always tell people, if you do something consistently, just like you said, you can get a predictable result if you can measure.

Chad McCall (18:52): So you gotta be consistent. So you have the ability to measure. Then that’ll give you a predictable outcome, you know? And I learned from you Jay, you guys. I went in the field with Jay. Jay, probably that’s about that. I came out, went around Jay, show me what he’s doing. We talked like, this is what people do that are in this field. The experts I learned from Jay too, of how to be better on my side of finding deals, because I know that I’ve got to go to people like Jay and say, Hey, I need more money for deals. And if he knows what I know, and I know what he knows, it makes that so much easier to have that conversation with a funding person or to help me line up funding or referrals to other funders to do deals. So that’s the relationship that you want. You want to understand your market. You want to understand things and then give yourself time to be consistent enough. So you can measure. Then you can get a predictable result. Cause Jay will know that Chad gets this type of deal. Chad’s doing this type of size houses, this location, they get very, very comfortable with you. Then they start doing a lot more for you. Then they start giving you a little bit better rates sometimes. All of those things work out when you’re consistent with business for them. Right, Jay,

Jay Conner (20:01): You got it. All right. Let’s talk about a strategy. That’s one of your favorites.

Chad McCall (20:05): Oh man. I got so many, you know, I don’t know. Well, I’ll tell you one right now. That’s really hot. And some people are going to say no way, but Airbnb is a really hot strategy for motivated sellers.

Jay Conner (20:20): Okay. First of all, why is Airbnb so hot right now?

Chad McCall (20:27): Okay. I own Airbnbs in several States. I love the Airbnbs, but don’t get me wrong. But Airbnbs for motivated sellers because rules, regulations, you know, things are going on out there in the world. The reason why I say this is I filtered phone calls from at least 30 to 40 owners of Airbnbs, because they’re worried about what’s going to happen. Okay. And I’ll give you an example. What’s the most common conversation I’ve had with them is Chad, am I going to get sued? If someone catches Corona virus from one of my properties? Well, no one knows, right? But there’s a fear factor that could possibly happen. We haven’t seen a court case yet of that. Jay, we don’t know, and we can’t prove it. And we don’t know contact tracing and all the other things that can be involved with it. So homeowners, if they did get sued for that, what are the chances that they’re going to be able to weather a storm of a financial crisis like that the average person can’t. So that good investment now may turn into a longer term investment.

Chad McCall (21:25): They don’t want to deal with the management or the maintenance or anything that they’re going to have to do because cleaning costs. A lot of the cleaning company with Airbnbs are increasing their prices. Instead of that $75 to clean your unit or a hundred dollars after each visit, you’re going to have to spend 2 to $300, get a certified person. They got to use the right chemicals materials. And therefore that costs is going to increase on to your sellers, and to your rates and things. Right? So now if you have turnover in your property, we’re used to get two nights a month and then, or three night minimum stays. You’re gonna see a lot longer. Minimum stays with Airbnb week, two weeks because they don’t want to have to keep paying these costs of cleaning fees and everything else. Then you’re going to also see in certain areas like condos, town homes, the HOA’s are going to start changing rules due to what’s happening for traffic and people coming from out of the country.

Chad McCall (22:14): If you have a resort or a destination location, Airbnb. So I’ve noticed that you can get a lot of great deals on Airbnb’s right now, furnished and have great conversations with Airbnb owners that are just, you know what, yeah, I’m interested in doing that or taking over some of their properties subject too, because we’re not just out there finding deals to get funded. Jay, I know you love to fund all my deals for me, but I just, I find deals and I figured out ways to structure deals that aren’t necessarily the best for funding too. I may end up working on a short sale with someone taking over a subject too, working on a, you know, at least option something more creative as well when you have that motivated seller, because not all my deals are going to have the largest amounts of equity, but the ones that don’t, there’s still a way to work those deals.

Chad McCall (23:00): And there’s ones that do, always wait to wholesale and get them funded and rehab, et cetera. So Airbnb’s are great right now. And it’s very easy to find those and look at them because checking on the calendar, seeing which calendars have been booked out, which you know, locations are, I mean, there’s so many out there across the world and there are so many things going on with Airbnb and vacation rentals being up in the air right now. And again, it’s not every one of them, but you can have a very targeted, very qualified list. If you get the right message to those owners and you let them know that you’re interested in buying their property or putting a long-term rent in place as well, Jay, where you can rent it for two years at a thousand a month, and then you rent it out, you know, and you were on the Airbnb business on that charge 14, 15, 16, $1,800 a month, renting it out two or three times a month is all, where you can create your own little amazing cashflow business just from going out there and having the right conversations with Airbnb owners.

Chad McCall (23:53): But there’s a way to do that. There’s a right way to have that conversation. So that’s a great strategy right now with what we’re facing,

Jay Conner (24:00): Right? How do you initially communicate with the owners of Airbnb’s to you know, sift and sort those that might be interested in selling?

Chad McCall (24:12): Okay. So I do a lot of this myself. I designed my business where I can do everything in my business on my own before delegating it. But with Airbnb’s, I always have my VA go out there and start searching for my properties that are having no bookings. So on the calendar dates, when they’re not booked up and they always have availability or they have the lowest rates on their rental nights, that shows me they’re very motivated. So then I look for the lowest rates and the most calendar vacancies. That’s two things. So you can almost start to calculate, is this owner going to be making any money anytime soon or not? And then a third motivation indicator that I look for Jay is the ones that have really bad furniture. So if it’s really cheap, really bad furniture and old calendar invites, how are they going to pay to do all the cleaning up and things that they’re going to have to do?

Chad McCall (25:01): And it’s more of a burden for them sometimes again, not every one of them, but what we’re looking for, you can easily find a 20 to 30% conversion rate talking to those. And that’s a great conversion rate when you find the right type of motivated sellers, motivated landlords that have had those properties. And then I go a step further, Jay, I check and see how long those individuals have on those properties. So I look at the deed dates and if I can have a deed date, that’s so long, 10 years or more , then I know there’s some equity in there in that situation to have a good conversation, to write them a check for that housing from Jay Conner. When I say, Jay, I got a great deal, give me 50 grand, that’s worth a hundred. And you say, sure, Chad, I know, you know what you’re doing. And then we’d go out there and I sell it. I pay your money and I’ll walk with a profit. There you go.

Jay Conner (25:48): These properties that you’re buying that are currently being marketed as Airbnb. When you acquire the property, what is typically your plan of this you know, disposition? You know, what are you going to do with it?

Chad McCall (26:01): Oh, resell. Totally. Unless they don’t want to sell it to me yet. I can get a longer term lease. Do I like a lease option? If I’m a limited financially, then I can work more of a creative deal with them, Jay, but I’d love to just take those properties. They already have traffic. It’s usually in a nicer area. That’s why they’ve held the properties for such a long time. So it’s very easy to resell. Plus the homeowners. Usually aren’t going to want to do any of the work that it takes to get those properties up to market standards because they haven’t made any money with their Airbnb. So they need to come out of pocket with 20 grand. They’ve not made the 20 grand that they were thinking they were going to make with the Airbnb. And so there you go. You have an upside.

Chad McCall (26:42): Now, one, the things that most people don’t realize is Airbnb. A lot of these properties after this year, there’s so many properties it’s estimated to over 40% of Airbnb owners are defaulting on their mortgages right now on those properties. So with the high increase of that, that’s a lot of homeowners, insurance policies are going to be going in saying, what’s going on here. All it takes is for the homeowner insurance policies to know that they weren’t getting the right type of policy for a vacation rental or short term rental policy. And you’re gonna have a lot of owners that are gonna be freaking out about that too. So you’re going to catch some motivation from some of these sellers at the right point, and you can make a full time business on Airbnb from motivated sellers. If you want.

Jay Conner (27:27): Now in your playbook, you got 101 different ways to find discounted real estate in today’s market. If someone is like really, really tight on a budget, don’t have much money to invest. What’s one of your top one or two strategies in your playbook for people that are short on budget?

Chad McCall (27:45): Well, the easiest thing, Jay is the most public information that you can have out there is going to be a delinquent tax properties and code violations. I love both of those strategies because it’s free and you can always find some type of motivation. Now let’s just take code violations, for example, this strategy it’s public. I was just looking today, yesterday, and one location Jay, one city. And I’ll just give you an example. So Pennsylvania, so we’re talking Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh do you have any idea of how many code violations have been filed in the last five years in Pittsburgh? Jay like, would you have a guess? Let’s just talk about like code violations. Like what would you do.

Jay Conner (28:28): I don’t have a guess, but before you answer, before you let everybody know, give everybody some examples of what a code violation is.

Chad McCall (28:35): Okay. Code violations or anything that you’re going to be in trouble for, from the exterior of your property, primarily, unless there’s a complaint on interior. Now, the interior complaints come from vacant properties, obviously a complaint from the city, meaning you’re not uphold into the building and standards, arrangement, or agreement that you have with the city. And that’s a big deal. Okay. They have the, it’s like the police that drives around and looks for reasons to, like, for me in North Carolina, Jay, you know, we’re out in front of the Western, North Carolina. It’s not very uncommon to have a couch sitting on your front porch or a car that’s been broken down in the front yard for 20 years. And hasn’t been moved. Okay, very common where I’m from, but that’s a code violation. You’re going to have to move it. They’re going to find you, they’re going to charge you for it.

Chad McCall (29:23): Busted out windows garbage, debris, grass is a very common one. A lot of those things, you know buildings without permits. This is a really good one too Jay that so when you’re looking at code violations, so I’ll give an example. One of this is the last five years there was 15,000 code violations filed the last five years now in the last year, there was 4,500 of those in the last year of the 4,500, this one city, okay. 900 were major code violations. And this, when I say major, this is over 7, 8, $9,000 to me based on this area. So now those aren’t legal complaints. They’re filed. People have to fix it. In other words, it’s a fix it ticket. It’s like, Hey, if you don’t fix this, you know, we’re going to not give you an occupancy permit to be able to live or rent in this property.

Chad McCall (30:21): So now that’s a major deal for a lot of people. Now, I will say that what we’ve seen is an unprecedented times right now in the pandemic, there’s a lot of major cities that have had some vandalism has had problems, things going out there, and guess what? That’s not going to stop the landlords and the code violations and everone’s not having to fix some of these problems, but they’re going to make sure they’re a very aware in certain areas of vacant properties. Now you’re gonna have a lot of people out looking for damage. They’re going to be looking at vacant properties, they’re going to be finding just because of the circumstances they’re going to be catching on to other landlords that had vacant properties sitting there. Other landlords that have think there got away with problems before they’ve been letting it sit there.

Chad McCall (31:03): And just the problem didn’t fix itself. It’s going to be doubling up. So you’re gonna have a lot of court cases coming up here. The first of the year that are going to be happening in the code violation world that are going to be thousands and thousands of dollars. And this is a legal proceeding that’s filed. And so one of the categories like the Judicial Category, it’s going to be a legal proceeding that’s filed. Legal proceedings, they’re going to be assigned the case number., they’re going to be assigned a court date, all public information. So if you don’t have a big marketing budget or brie, you just go to the date that they have, the court cases there, you can look up, who’s going to be having you look up what violations that they have. If you really want, if you can point and click on Google, you can easily find them.

Chad McCall (31:41): And then there’s your conversation. You know, the problem that they have with the house, you can easily find out if it’s an owner occupied property or a non-owner occupied property. Jay, very simple. It just takes a little bit of rolling up your sleeves. Get back to Grassroots Real Estate code violations has been around forever. I didn’t invent them. Jay didn’t invent them. They’ve been around hundreds of years. So easy to find those it’s legal. It’s all public information. You can roll your sleeves up. You’ll have more leads and you’ll know what to do with them. Just like that. One city over 900. All you need is one seller to say yes. Right Jay? Just one.

Jay Conner (32:18): You got it. Now you mentioned another strategy along with code violations. And what was it that you said

Chad McCall (32:25): You know, I have kind of run out a good strategy today. I think I gave too much.

Jay Conner (32:32): That’s awesome.

Chad McCall (32:33): Other one, Okay. So let’s talk about your delinquent taxes. Okay. A lot of.

Jay Conner (32:38): That’s what we said, delinquent taxes.

Chad McCall (32:41): Yes. A lot of times now this isn’t going to be the same in every single City and County and State it’s different. Okay. But if you’re limited on budget, Jay, this is what I was thinking of. You know, that’s a situation where properties that are delinquent on tax. I’m not talking about chasing at the tax sale or anything like that. Right now. I’m going to give you an easier way to talk about it. Is you have, what’s called land banks, repository lists. You have struck off lists in North Carolina. Jay, I mean, you know, you have the upset bids in North Carolina, right? I mean, that’s a really big one where upset bid. So let’s just talk about North Carolina, my home state. I love North Carolina go Blue Devils and Tarheels both. Okay. you’ve got struck off. So you actually get to see the properties that go to auction.

Chad McCall (33:27): You get to see what the highest bid is. Look at those properties. If you liked the property better, you’ve been a little bit more. As soon as you bid a little bit more, you’ve got several days where you’re the highest bidder, it’s like eBay for real estate. And it’s very easy because a lot of properties on the upset bid list, where if you like one of those, pick it up. It’s very easy. You say, Hey, Jay, I’ve got a property. I’m the bidder on this. I’m going to close in the next week. It’s worth 120,000. I’m going to pick it up for 60 to 70. Will you lend me money on it? You’re going to be like, that sounds like good. I think if the ARV numbers will workout, I think we’re good on that. That’s an easy way to do it.

Chad McCall (34:06): And it all started with unpaid taxes. Now I’m talking about, you can chase them there, or you can get them later in the process after they’ve already been a couple steps further in the process for delinquent taxes and over to this struck off list. So you can easily do things like that and find properties that are available. If you’re in a state with a land bank, they’ve got properties that are sitting there right now for you to pick up and purchase and you can rehab. Maybe you can cashflow some of them. If you’re in a repository state like Pennsylvania, you don’t, that’s another area there’s properties readily available for you if you want. So there’s areas you can find properties right now that most investors don’t look, they don’t think of looking that you can make a decision on right now, if you have access to someone like Jay Conner for all your money needs, he’s right there, right? You’re you’re the man they’d asking when they find a good deal, Jay. But those are easy ways that are really free and really cheap. And they don’t require any budget for someone Jay that’s free.

Jay Conner (35:04): That’s awesome. So we mentioned the beginning of the show, your playbook. Let’s go ahead and tell everybody how they can get a copy of your 101 ways to find these deeply discounted houses.

Chad McCall (35:18): So if you want to get a copy, go to www.REStrategyLab.com/Podcast. Okay. So www.REStrategyLab.com/Podcast for a special offer for Jay. Now, if you don’t go there, you’re not gonna be able get that offer. Okay. You’re, it’s what it really is, is www.REStrategyLab.com/Podcast. You’re going to be able to get this for a dollar, a strategy, pretty much Jay. And I don’t think there’s anything else like it out there. I know there’s nothing else like it, but I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to carry the value of a dollar, a strategy for your real estate investing business. So again, here’s what it looks like. It’s 175 pages of what to do, how you get involved, what you’re doing, doing it. And I’ve even got some of my best marketing things in the back here as well, Jay, like some of the scripts and things that I’ve used, some of the, I mean, certain letters and mail and you know, you name it, they’re all in here.

Chad McCall (36:15): Like what I’ve done response rates, how I do it. There’s ways I even talk about how to get free postcards, you know if you’re ever going to do marketing and things. So there are ways you can do it. So affordable and cheap and zero, if you really want, you don’t have to have these huge marketing budgets with a playbook like this. You can compete with anyone out there in the real estate investing business, no matter how big or small your company is, you can do it. And if you’re a seasoned investor, this is the best thing for you. It’s like your Bible for real estate. If you want to scale or grow. And if you’re new at real estate, you can pretty much need this. So you don’t make a big mistake and go out there and do something wrong and not get a return on your investor.

Jay Conner (36:53): Well, there you have it. Folks get on over to www.REStrategyLab.com/Podcast. Chad, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today, to share your experience with our audience and a parting comments.

Chad McCall (37:11): Thanks for having me, man. And you were awesome on my podcast too. I mean, and just your nuggets and knowledge of money and lending in 2020. I’m glad that people that are here listening, pay attention to Jay. He knows what he’s doing. He’s been doing this for so long and your experience that you have. I’m just glad I can be part of the Jay. And I appreciate all you do. And thanks for helping me in my business too.

Jay Conner (37:34): You got it, Chad. Well, there you have it folks. There’s another episode of Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner and here is to taking your business to the next level. We’ll see you on the next show.

[100dad]

100 things that made me America’s Dad

#1 I had Sex. It is tough to be a Dad when you do not have a kid. Full credit due for invitro dads, for adoption dads, and stepdads. I am not trying to bash on anybody’s parade. I just did it the old-fashioned way. Had a lot of fun. It is a natural talent.

#2 I got my priorities in the right order.  It is not about me anymore. Faith. Wife. Kids. Then me. My hobbies take a back seat. The gym became less important.

#3 I made my marriage a priority.

#4 I made sure I could financially provide. Check income. Track expenses. Budget.

#5 Financially prepared for the future. College. Retirement. Big Purchases. House. Cars. Etc.

#6 I made sure I had a Will.

#7 I made sure I had Life Insurance.

#8 I recognized that I am now a role model. I should at least act like it.

#9 I stayed optimistic about everything. Because pessimism sucks.

#10 Made sure Mom and Dad are on the same team.

#11 My discipline game was on point. Strong, Firm, Reasonable.

#12 I protected my family.  From physical harm, spiritual harm, emotional harm, evil.

#13 I am thankful for everything. Where I was born. The people I have met. That guy that gave me an idea. The guy that said I couldn’t. The ones that said I could. To authors. To haters. To supporters. Everything. Everyone.

#14 I provide. A roof, food, and water. Stable home. Education. Unconditional love. Discipline. Consequences.

#15 Not rigid. I stay flexible. Not only in the sack. I’m not going to be rigid in my parenting. Times change. Kids have different personalities. I adjust accordingly.

#16 I shouldered the responsibility. And the blame.  All of it. I can handle it.

#17 I set the tone at home. It’s what a leader does.

#18 Made sure our family name means something in our community. How we carry ourselves and how we treat others.

#19 A good home life was more important than faking it on social media.

#20 I made sure our house was a home.

#21 I kicked ass at work. I tried to be the best. Because that is how you succeed.

#22 I prepare my kids for the real world. Age appropriately, of course.

#23 My values and morals are firm. I do not compromise on those.

#24 I put in the effort. Because this is too important to wing it.

#25 I became good at relationships. It’s amazing what being nice, reliable, and offering help will do for your reputation.

#26   Humbled myself because I realized my ego will be my downfall.

#27   Perspective was everything. I learned to put myself in other people’s shoes.

#28 Taught my kids about guns. If I am going to have them, we might as well make sure safety is taught and they do not become forbidden fruit.

#29 I reassessed who I hung out with. I wanted to elevate myself not be held back.

#30 This is who I took advice from. People who actually did what I wanted to do. Good Dads. Good businessmen who built from scratch.

#31 Time. Quality and quantity. I recognized its importance in raising a family. Time is everything.

#32 Let my kids be them. Not what I wish I had been. My Values and morals are firm but I let their personalities and talents bloom.

#33 I read books to my kids. Good bonding. Good teaching moments.

#34 I Play with my kids. Both when it was fun as they get older and when it was boring when they just laid there.

#35 I remain Calm under pressure. Cool heads prevail over emotional drama queens.

#36 I build up my kids’ confidence. Because self-esteem does not result from being crushed all the time.

#37 I give them frequent reality checks. If I’m going to be humbled…so will they. This isn’t a fairy tale.

#38 Created a stable home environment. Rules, routine, predictability.

#39 Realized how much these kids see and absorb…..and modified my behavior.

#40 I hated negativity. Still do.

#41 Vices – not for me. I can say no. I can handle stress. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, porn, tobacco….I make sure my mind is more powerful than temptation.

#42 My secret formula. Hard work + Good Decisions + Faith =Success

#43 Failing does not bother me. In fact, it oddly is fun for me.

#44 Plowed thru fears. Pushed forward. No, what-ifs.

#45 Live without regret. I do not want to be 90 wishing I had been a better dad or tried to make something of myself.

#46 Not afraid to make the unpopular decision because I know it is the right decision.

#47 I do not get painted into corners. If A and B are the only options. I find or create an option C.

#48 I am not afraid to get weird and step outside my comfort zone.

#49 I did not say the things I wanted to say when I was angry. Because I knew I would regret it and once those things are said they never really get taken back.

#50 Loved taking those scary leaps toward opportunities.

#51 Gave my kids independence and freedom as they earned it.

#52 I am not a helicopter dad. But I do verify the trust and freedoms I have allowed are worthy.

#53 Comparison was motivation, not depression. I was never envious, just inspired.

#54 Our house had RULES. Because structure is important.

#55 I refused to sacrifice my family to excel in my career.

#56 I let my kids fail…. a lot.

#57 Became okay with asking for help…. letting go of that ego thing.

#58 Actions were more important than words…. anybody can say the words.

#59 I didn’t make excuses, I just got things done.

#60 Willingness to do what others would not. I found there is much value in doing the things others find demeaning or too hard.

$61 I found the best balance is balancing over longer periods of time. Not day to day or even weekly. More seasonal.

#62 I gave myself reality checks. Check that ego.

#63 I realized how good I have it. And I did my best to soak in that contentment.

#64 Recognized my kids’ genetics and focused on their talents, skills, and personalities.

#65 Respect is important. Earning it & Giving it.

#66 Bravery is important. Super important. Stand up for what I genuinely believe in.

#67 Raising my kids to be fully functional adults.

#68 I used short-term tactics with long-term visions.

#69 Pushed my kids to be better, braver, stronger.

#70 Teach my kids everything I can about life, so they are prepared when they enter the real world without me.

#71 Recognized how important dads’ role is in the family.

#72 I document a lot. It’s great for memories. Reflection. Appreciation.

#73 I controlled my kids' influences. What they see, experience, hear.

#74 Strong man- Kind heart.

#75 The secret to a good life is simply being happy.

#76 I do my best. Give my best. Because effort is huge!

#77 Realized my wife was insanely important to our life.

#78 I drive our family value home repeatedly. No one and done. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

#79 Started my own businesses giving us control of our lifestyle.

#80 Worked close to home because I hated the idea of traffic instead of family.

#81 Made big efforts to be incredibly involved in my kids’ lives. Even the not so fun things.

#82 We switched to homeschooling. More time. More freedom. More control of influences.

#83 Knew my priorities in life. Faith. Family. Work. Friends.

#84 Budgeting was a huge deal. Both of us stayed involved and adhered to it. Neither of us wasted our hard-earned money.

#85 I did not borrow money. No partners. No inheritance. All on my own. No scapegoats. No crutches.

#86 Willing to do unpopular things and go against the grain. Because going along with crowds seems so…. basic.

#87 Cared more about building a net worth than impressing people.

#88 Despite mediocre grammar skills I enjoy writing out my thoughts. Creates clarity and conviction!

#89 Never traveled as a kid, Limited travel as an adult= Strong desire to travel!

#90 Sold a valuable business to the right company at the right time. Luck helps. Luck seems to happen to people who work really hard and do the right things.

#91 Realized having cash and no debt gives you options and freedom and tremendous peace of mind.

#92 Set huge, big goals. Never achieved them totally. But when I came up short, I still did great!

#93 Never afraid of work…even hard work, willing to outwork everyone.

#94 My hobby was my family and work. I excelled at the 2 things I focused most on.

#95 Leaned heavily on my Faith. Put my worries, struggles, anxieties on shoulders bigger than mine.

#96 I knew I did not want to replicate the bad parts of my father …but I did want to replicate the good parts.

#97 Married a girl with the same values and morals as me. With similar goals. With similar ethics. With the same determination to work through bad times and build a good life.

#98 Looked at my ancestry and wanted to become a legend in my family. I wanted our name to really mean something.

#99 Lived a life that if someone wants to dig into it there is nothing to find. Squeaky clean.

#100 Wrote down our family values. This became our compass and roadmap.

100% Dad is currently on tour traveling the country promoting the 100% Dad brand. Townsend Russell is the Founder and Personality for 100% Dad. Townsend has been on the tour for over 15 months with his family with plans to continue until January 2023. Townsend sold his businesses and retired in 2019 and has been building 100% Dad and creating insane memories with his family along the way.

Find out more about 100% Dad on the website 100dad.com

Rep the brand on 100dad.com/shop

Follow on Insta @100Dad

Youtube channel 100% Dad

[happyweddingblogs]

120+ Questions to Ask a Boy Before Marriage

Source: Happy Wedding App

Your marriage is a serious affair; hence, you must gather all the boy’s right details before the event. There is nothing wrong with asking the right questions to the boy before getting married to the guy. Know that marriage is one such affair that changes everything, from your status to your state of mind. Taking things casually is not a great idea. You should always be ready with the right sets of questions to ask a boy before marriage. In many cultures and countries, including India, the boy is finalized by the bride’s family. And the bride’s family makes sure that they gather every detail about the guy, from his family background to his monthly income.

This process is not to humiliate somebody, but just to make sure that there are no issues after marriage. If you are also planning to tie the knot soon, here are 120 questions to ask a boy before marriage. Take a look……

Questions About Relationship and Marriage

The first and foremost topic that you can pick while asking questions is about relationships and marriage. This will help you know his point of view about marriage and relationships.

Q. 1. What is your idea of marriage?

Q. 2. What, according to you, is more important in a marriage, love or respect?

Q. 3. How, according to you, will our life change if we got married?

Q. 4. What would you do if we fell out of love?

Q. 5. What are your long term family plans?

Q. 6. What are you looking for in a girl?

Q. 7. What, according to you, is the best thing about marriage?

Q. 8. What, according to you, is the worst thing about marriage?

Q. 9. What are your career aspirations?

Q. 10. What would you like to be doing five years from now?

Q. 11. What do you think a couple should do to keep the love alive in a marriage?

Q. 12. How do you spend your weekends?

Q. 13. What is your idea of the best date?

Q. 14. How important are events like wedding anniversaries to you?

Q. 15. How would you like to spend special days?

Q. 16. How would you like to spend your time with your family?

Q. 17. Is there anything that you would despise your wife doing?

Q. 18. How would you take it when your wife gets a better promotion at work?

Q. 19. What kind of parent do you want to be someday?

Q. 20. What excites you about marriage?

Q. 21. What kind of house do you want to live in?

Q. 22. Is there anything that I should know?

Q. 23. Do you have any fear of marriage?

Q. 24. What does a wedding mean to you?

Q. 25. Name one thing that you would want to change about our relationship?

Q. 26. Do you think we can have a happy married life?

Q. 27. Do you believe in love?

Q. 28. Is there anything you don’t trust about me?

Also See: 46 Questions to Ask a Girl Before Marriage

Questions about Future Children

It is always good to discuss future children in advance. There are chances that you may want to have kids after marriage, but the boy would be against it. Knowing it in advance will help you design your life after marriage accordingly. Here are the questions:

Q. 29. Do you love kids?

Q. 30. How good are you with kids?

Q. 31. Are you comfortable around children?

Q. 32. How many kids would you want to have in the future?

Q. 33. What values would you want to inculcate in your future children?

Q. 34. How would you discipline your kids?

Q. 35. How would you react if our future kid misbehaves in public?

Q. 36. What would you do if our future kid goes on the wrong track?

Q. 37. What would you do if our children didn’t want to attend college?

Q. 38. How would you react if our future children do not perform well in the class?

Q. 39. What would you do if our future child said he was homosexual or gay or lesbian?

Q. 40. How much say should kids have in a family?

Q. 41. What would you prefer: putting our future children in a private school or in a public school?

Q. 42. What do you think about homeschooling?

Q. 43. What if I cannot conceive? Would you opt for adoption?

Q. 44. In the case of any medical issue, would you be ready to take medical help?

Q. 45. How far apart from the marriage do you want kids?

Q. 46. Would it be okay if our kids stay in daycare? Or would you want one of us to stay home with the kids?

Q. 47. Would you want me to leave my job after we have our babies?

Q. 48. Do you believe that grandparents are needed for good parenting?

Q. 49. Do you think I would make a good mother?

Q. 50. Would you include me while handling parental decisions?

Q. 51. What do you think about how important is the role of parents in parenting a child?

Related: 14 Common Marriage Proposal Mistakes

Questions About Work

It is important to know about the job and the boy’s plan to know about his career and professional life. Here are the questions that you must ask:

Q. 52. Do you love what you do?

Q. 53. Where do you see yourself five years down the line from now?

Q. 54. Are you happy with your present company?

Q. 55. Is there any plan to switch your job in the near future?

Q. 56. What are your long term goals?

Q. 57. Would you mind if I have to travel for my job?

Q. 58. How often do you travel for your job?

Q. 59. Does your work involve night shifts?

Q. 60. Would it be okay if I have night shifts or late meetings?

Q. 61. Would you rather be rich and miserable or poor and happy?

Questions About Family Conflicts

More often than not, people avoid asking these questions, which I trust are the most important ones. Of course, you should know how the boy you are meeting handles conflicts or disagreements in life. Here are the questions that you may add to your list:

Q. 62. Do you believe that disagreements are a part of a relationship?

Q. 63. Would you give enough space to your partner?

Q. 64. How well do you handle disagreements?

Q. 65. What would you do if there are disagreements between your family and me? Whose side would you choose in such a situation?

Q. 66. Would you consider taking marriage counseling if we were having marital problems?

Q. 67. Do you have temperamental issues?

Q. 68. Would you ever go for a divorce?

Q. 69. What do you do when there are immense disagreements?

Q. 70. Do you like discussing things when there are issues or just suppressing your emotions until they get bigger?

Q. 71. What, according to you, is the best way to handle disagreements in a relationship?

Also Read: What is The Best Age To Get Married?

Questions About Sexual Relationship?

Again, this is an important part of a marital relationship. So, make sure you put up some questions related to a sexual relationship. Here are some of them:

Q. 72. What is your idea of romance?

Q. 73. How would you tell that you aren’t satisfied sexually?

Q. 74. How would you deal with the sexual stress?

Q. 75. What are your views on infidelity?

Q. 76. What do you think about birth control?

Questions about Family Values and Religious Beliefs

It is important to know the family values and the religious beliefs of the guy. Here are the questions to ask a boy before marriage:

Q. 77. What is your view on religion?

Q. 78. What kind of marriage would you prefer, a simple religious ceremony or a big fat wedding?

Q. 79. What is more important for you, work or family?

Q. 80. To what extent should a woman intervene in a family’s matter?

Q. 81. Who, according to you, should make the decisions of the household?

Q. 82. What would you do if your relative or somebody else says something bad about me?

Q. 83. Would you only be following the advice of your family? Or would you want to discuss things with your spouse before making any decision?

Q. 84. How important my role would be in your family?

Q. 85. Who do you think should do household chores?

Q. 86. What would be your role as a husband?

Q. 87. Do you believe in sharing responsibilities?

Q. 88. Do you think sharing responsibilities make a marriage better and stronger?

Related Post: 9 Things to Discuss Before Marriage in India

Questions about Extended Family

There will hundreds of things that you would want to know about your extended family; however, here are some of the most important questions that you can consider asking the boy:

Q. 89. How often would you want to visit your family in a month/year?

Q. 90. How often will your family be visiting us?

Q. 91. How often do you think my family should visit us?

Q. 92. How often will you visit my family?

Q. 93. How often will you let me visit my family?

Q. 94. Do you celebrate all the festivals and special occasions with your family?

Q. 95. Would you take your parents in, in case they become ill?

Q. 96. Would you mind taking my parents in, in case they become ill?

Q. 97. What you do if your family doesn’t like me?

Q. 98. Who are you more close, to your mother or father?

Q. 99. What would you prefer spending Holidays and special occasions in some other destination or with your family at your home?

Questions about Medical History

Don’t hesitate to ask questions related to medical history. Here are the questions:

Q. 100. Is there any history of diseases or genetic abnormalities in your family?

Q. 101. Is there anyone in your family suffering from alcoholism or drug addiction?

Q. 102. Is there anyone in your family with mental issues?

Q. 103. Would you oppose mental health treatment?

Q. 104. How careful are you about your health and about your family’s health?

Q. 105. Do you love to do exercise?

Q. 106. Do you eat healthy to stay healthy, or you simply eat anything?

Q. 107. How important is it to have a healthy routine for you?

Questions about Money & Finances

Money, debt, and finances are the most important things to discuss before marriage. Here are the questions that you shall ask a boy before marriage?

Q. 108. Do you have any loans or debt?

Q. 109. What is better, a luxurious life with too much debt or a simple life without any debt?

Q. 110. Do you save money?

Q. 111. Do you plan for your future, or you just spend everything that you earn in the present?

Q. 112. Would you like to share your money with your spouse or split the money into different accounts?

Q. 113. How well are you at spending money?

Q.114. Do you like budgeting?

Q. 115. How good are you at dealing with financial problems?

Q. 116. What would you do if we have financial problems in the future?

Q. 117. Do you save your life after retirement?

Q. 118. Would you be seeking additional income sources if we had financial problems?

Q. 119. What would you do if a family member asks for a large sum of money?

Q. 120. Who will be taking care of the matters related to household finances?

Questions about Fun and Entertainment

Fun and entertainment are an important part of life. So you must ask the boy’s opinion on these two major aspects as well. Here are the questions:

Q. 121. Do you like traveling?

Q. 122. How often do you travel in a year?

Q. 123. Where would you like to for the honeymoon?

Q. 124. How would you like to spend your time with your partner?

Q. 125. Would you mind if I go for a girl (only) trip with my friends?

Q. 126. How would you like to spend your weekends?

Extra Questions

Then, there are some extra questions other than any particular topics, which include:

Q. 127. How would you like your partner, in traditional wear or modern attire?

Q. 128. Do you like pets?

Q. 129. Would you ever prefer to settle abroad?

Q. 130. What is your retirement plan?

Q. 131. How do you like to spend your mornings?

So these are the 120+ questions to ask a boy before marriage. Know that these questions are to help you know the person before the wedding and not to humiliate anyone. So, be kind and polite while asking these questions. Also, do not ask all your questions in one go. Take your time, and in each meeting, you can get to know the person better.

Happy Wedding……

[misdre]

turns out that there’s MORE questions to this meme! (here’s the first part!) so i’m gonna fill the rest with.....themst

16. One thing one character likes about their partner just one thing! that's silly! i'll consider this in the sense of the FIRST thing they like about each other. max's cheerfulness is already charming of course but i'd imagine what really gets rei is how smart and observant he actually is under that bubbly surface.

17. Now one thing that the other character likes about the first chara the first thing max notices is that rei has beautiful hair is STRONK

18. Who confessed? i don't think i have one definite headcanon about that. depends on my mood how it turns out but in canonverse i'm rather fond of the hc that neither actually confesses because it's not needed

19. How long did they know each other before getting together? again canonically speaking, i'd want them to be a little older so maybe four years or so. but i have fics that go way faster

20. Who's the ship's biggest in-universe supporter? i have this headcanon that kai is like a silent supporter who always knows What Up before the others even know themselves. and then max's dad tbh

21. Any rivals for the ship? well. i mean. considering that rei/mao is a canon ship that exists, that's just the setting it inevitably comes down to although i just consider it a separate reality of my own canonverse headcanons. it's also something i use in fics sometimes like anyone reading 4kingdoms knows, although i'm not even a fan of love triangles but i mean, can't skip the delicious drama tbh. in the music fic i'm writing rn there's also a kind of a rick/max thing going on that rei's not happy about

22. Any mutual friends? HMM!

23. Have they met each other's families? well we know rei has met max's in canon.. but then... well yes i'd think max would meet rei's parents since he'd inevitably want to visit rei's home village at some point

24. What's one conflict they've had? i honestly don't remember rn if they've had any conflict in canon. neither is really the type to get worked up easily. even when they fought each other they just had fun with it. love these dumbasses. anyway their main source of conflict is how max wants to pour mayo on every food rei makes

25. What's one way they've resolved a conflict? probably a bey battle tbh

26. What's one location that's important to them? i've actually written a fic about the training room they meet at to leave together in the beginning of g-revolution

27. What's one object that's important to them? dunno if i care about this question much. naming an object for both feels silly

28. What's one food/beverage that's important to them? can definitely imagine they like stuffing themselves together but i don't have any specific food headcanon, their tastes probably clash tbh

29. What's one thing they do in their free time together? blading--- i think they'd enjoy anything sports-related in general. maybe they go hiking and swimming together. that cute

30. What's one thing they do in their free time apart? they both meditate but prefer to do it apart. i drew a comic about that once. that was more like it's just rei who wants to do it apart though because max gets too touchy feely

31. Whats one thing character A might gift their partner? going with rei first again. i'd imagine max is incredibly easy to get gifts for, he's the kind to be excited about anything as long as it's a surprise. usually rei gives him something food-related because he on the other hand is not very imaginative

32. What's one thing character A's partner might gift back? max likes creating things with his own hands and giving those as gifts. sometimes they're ugly af but rei pretends they're great

33. How would they react to long distance? it's harder for max but ultimately they probably react pretty well since they've been spending time apart before as well without it affecting their friendship

34. How would they react to an ex showing up? TOO YOUNG FOR EXES!!! but in the scenario that they date other people before actually getting together: max is a bit clingy in general so he might actually have some jealousy issues about it. rei is very calm but he's also very sensitive so maybe he'd be the same but with the difference that max has no issues expressing his feelings freely while rei tries to act mature and like things don't bother him when they actually do.

35. Describe one date i feel like their dates wouldn't be very date-like in the traditional sense. it's just they go do stuff together. especially in that favourite scenario of mine where there's never even really a confession and they just sort of smoothly slide from being friends to being together, they'd go on "dates" that neither actually realises are dates

36. Describe one example of comforting after a bad day well that would require a whole fic. considering how often rei loses in canon, he probably has a whole lot more of bad days and max is probably the best person in the world at comforting others. like one big hug from him and nobody can remain depressed. actually i like exploring the opposite more since max also falls harder when he's having dark moments and rei can be king of awkward sometimes. i'm not even answering these questions i'm just sort of brainstorming things somewhat related to them

37. Describe one reunion after time apart there are enough reunions in canon (even though they don't focus on the boys' feelings about it whatsoever) also pretty sure the fic i already linked above was about a reunion

38. Describe their ideal home in their case i gotta say they probably are Stereotypical Guys in the sense that i can't imagine them caring much about making a home. neither even has a static concept of home so i think they'd actually travel around together and live here and there (just that max is a whole lot more picky about the quality of these places than rei who can probably sleep anywhere)

39. Describe their first kiss an unfair question! one of my favourite passtimes is constantly coming up with new scenarios of their first kiss. just read some fic of mine for one version

40. Describe their first time likewise but this i haven't written into a fic yet. too bad. basically my two constants are that either a) things just sort of escalate after some sort of emotional high like them winning a tournament or whatever (even better if they don't even make it out of the tournament area. so swept by the moment) or b) max is the one who initiates things (also first kiss) because rei is an awkward mess

41. Would they have any pets? probably not for the same no static home reason, though max would probably want a dog (but rei probably doesn't like dogs since. he's. a cat)

42. Would they get married? nah that's really hard for me to imagine. don't even know which country they could get married in, the US??

43. Would they have any kids? no. let's not talk about the fact that i have designed a kid for them

44. Give each character a colour max orange, rei purple lmao

45. Give each character an element they literally are water and metal

46. Give each character a Pokemon shuckle for max, mienfoo/mienshao for rei

47. Give each character a Hogwarts house ravenclaw for max and gryffindor for rei

48. Give each character a super power i have given them! magic powers in 4kingdoms. max basically has waterbending abilities and can turn invisible and create a shield around himself. rei is gonna have all sorts of powers later on but his base power is being able to sense other people's auras

49. Give each character an rpg class rei would be either a warrior or maybe a monk in the martial arts sense, and max would be a mage with shield magic like he has in my 4kingdoms (maybe healing magic also and stuff)

50. Imagine each as an animal that's not very difficult