#retail or service job though I’ve worked those and the people who do are gods strongest soldiers

[madigoround]

Kitten I fear the world is fucked and will never get better and life may not be worth living

[fromstarstuff]

Please for the love of god how do u get a job at the library (also is your url stormblessed as in Kaladin bc FUCK YEAH)

First of all: YES Kaladin is thee character of all time he is my everything and Brandon Sanderson actually personally told me that he is aroace. So.

Second of all: OKAY I’ve got you friend. So getting a job at the library is largely going to depend on what kind of job you’re looking for. Unfortunately the more higher-paying full time jobs are going to require some degrees (usually a Masters in library science aka MLS) BUT there are way more options if that’s not feasible for you.

The easiest job to get at your local library is probably going to be a page position, though they’re sometimes called other names. These are your employees who check in books, organize them, and re-shelve them, as well as pulling holds and doing other odd jobs around the library (every library has a slightly different structure, so some duties may be distributed differently in your area!) Sadly it pays basically nothing, less than most fast food jobs, but literally anyone over the age of 16 can get hired and you need no experience or anything like that. It’s a great position if you’re not a people person (there’s very limited interaction with actual patrons!) Plus lots of people start from here and work their way up the proverbial food chain in their library. You’ll find lots of these positions open basically all the time because the turnover rate is so high, and it’s great if you’re looking for an easy, relaxing, low-stress part time gig that gets you real experience working in a library.

If you want a step up from pages that still doesn’t require a degree, your next option is a circulation assistant. These are the people who work the front desk (in adult or children’s sections), answer phones, help out customers, and deal with collection stuff that’s above the pages’ access/pay grade. Most of these positions are part time but some are full time! It pays more than pages- still not that much but depending on how many hours you work and which library system you’re in it can all depend. If you’re more open to customer service but don’t want to deal with food or retail it’s a good option, and it’s another stepping stone to higher positions with the added experience!

I would also recommend seeing if your local library has any special programs it houses that are hiring. Mine for example has a Makerspace area that has a 3D printer and cool machines galore, and those programs sometimes have full-time jobs available that don’t require a degree. Plus it’s a lot of fun.

(I will say that sometimes “””networking””” can be the key to getting hired in a library system. If you’ve been around the library a lot, whether it be volunteering or interning or working as a page or just being a memorable patron, if you know everyone’s name and are familiar with how the system works, it gives you a HUGE boost in the eyes of librarians. They also have a tendency to hire people just based on vibes, so if you’re just a super nice courteous cool person chances are you’ll get the job.)

Full time, higher paying jobs like reference librarians usually require an MLS but sometimes you only need a bachelor’s degree. It all depends on your library system. There are also soooo many different departments in the library that I’m not quite as familiar with (IT! Maintenance! Technical & collection services! Local history! Outreach! ILL! Children’s! Programming!) So if any of those are what really floats your boat I’d suggest doing a little research and seeing if it sounds like you!

Above all, the first step you can take is to just go to your local library’s website and check their job postings. It will (hopefully) give you way more accurate information than I’ve just rambled on about and give you a good place to start!

I wish you lots of luck, my friend. If you have any other questions about libraries I will do my best to answer them.

[jiminrings]

umm maybe this is me projecting bc i am messaging you during my break but for a drabble request, yoongi in a retail setting???? 😐😐😐😐 oc could either be a co-worker or a regular customer who asks too many questions 😔😌

retail-type beat

drabble week: day three

drabble week masterlist

pairing: customer!yoongi x retail worker!reader

wordcount: 3k

glimpse: "hi! almost thought you were hiding from me for a second. anyways, is this sweater wool or cotton?"

feedback + support mean the world to me!!

the last time you checked, work doesn’t start until nine

you kNEW it doesn’t start until 9 in the morning, so clearly that’s why you’re just wearing slides instead of your sneakers

the company uniform is either black or purple (it has to be from what the store is selling though so you can get to choose) with of course!!!! a lanyard!!!!

and you know this, because you’re still wearing your slides from home because it isn’t opening time yet

“goddamn it, i forgot to bring my slippers,” jin moans the moment he walks to see you, looking down on your feet that only reminds him he’d be stuck in his cool yet painfully uncomfy sneakers

he’s probably the only co-worker that you’re truly close with, not feeling the urge to sell him just to get a free day

“i told you to get the sneakers that nurses use!!”

hands-down one of the best purchases you’ve ever made

retail’s hard and it’s not exactly the best-paying job!!! thankfully the franchise owner is a bit more generous so that’s why you get slightly-higher hourly pay

“i would if they looked a little more seasoned,” jin snorts and stubbornly crosses his arms, “i might sacrifice my pride and buy some compression socks.”

OOOOOH THOSE ARE GOOD TOO

makes you feel like ur walking on air

but lol no seokjin isn’t ready to buy those just yet

he’ll settle on some blisters and putting salonpas patches because they look cooler that way, thank u very much <3

jin yawns, talking about finding a steam iron somewhere to replace a blowdryer so he could break in his shoes

“you wipe the glass this time.”

oh right he absolutely hates wiping down the glass — even before opening!!! even when there aren’t any grubby kids that would soil it instantly with their equally as grubby hands

you don’t mind it honestly

you might honestly like it

you prefer wiping the glass a hundred times over than steaming clothes

there is nOT a single thought in your head when you spray on the solution to the glass, rag and squeegee tucked between your fingers when-

maybe you should’ve hOLY FUCKING SHIT

it’s not opening!!!! it is nOT nine o’clock in the morning!!!!

you know that the shop you’re working in is pretty fucking famous and it’s located on one of the most populated streets ever BUT THERE’S ALREADY SOMEONE

although the bucket hat seems familiar from a distance and-

oh it’s just yoongi

yoongi?

yoongi’s already here????

:O

yoongi, the guy in question, is an always customer!!

no, not a regular customer — an always customer

he comes every week and maybe even twice within that period

he’s a nice talkative customer who likes asking questions and even occasionally guides the other customers on what to buy and where to find it

he’s yoongi!!! of course that’s expected of him

he’s been going here long since you ever started working here, and jin keeps iNSISTING that he’s been here more frequently since you started like a year ago

but doesn’t he come at eleven in the morning?

“woah, yoongi’s already here? — doesn’t he come at eleven in the morning?”

?!!?!!

“i was just thinking the exact same thing.”

jin bangs the glass with his fist and you automatically wince and frown

you dO like cleaning the glass panes!! you didn’t say you liked cleaning them a second time :(

“YOONGI!”

“YES??”

you push jin’s fist away to wipe at the smudge his hand left

“IT’S NOT OPENING YET!”

“I KNOW!!”

wow they’re uh

they’re really loud

sometimes you forget how seokjin could be since it’s been awhile since you heard him yell

lol no one’s been shoplifting recently so you haven’t been hearing him

a mind-blowing idea is for jin to come outside and talk to him in a normal talking voice, so your ears would stop ringing

“HEY! WHAT IF YOU JUST ENTER EARLY IN?”

“REALLY? IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED??”

"YOONGI, EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR KNOWS YOUR NAME. NAMJOON EVEN GAVE YOU A CUSTOMARY BIRTHDAY GIFT, AND WE DON'T GIVE CUSTOMARY BIRTHDAY GIFTS TO ANY OTHER CUSTOMER!!"

namjoon, who technically should be called mr. kim because no one really thinks to call the franchise owner with their government first name, is actually pretty cool

but he's too busy these days and haven't been visiting because he's too busy tending to his newly-opened coffee shop

as if the money he earns from opening his franchise in a day alone isn’t enough :0

"IF YOU SAY SO?"

you’re the one who hikes up the roll-up door in the slightest, enough for only yoongi to enter and not encourage anyone else to nOT enter when it’s still not opening time!!!!

he only has to crouch a little but he still has to dust his thousand-dollar pants as if he crawled through mud

his cream-colored slacks with a large black hoodie that has a giant bear embroidered on the middle of it and mules

... you don't hate his outfits

pretty cute, actually

it's yoongi!!

you'd never catch him lacking!!!

you don't even have to envision him rocking the shit out a paper bag

one time, he came in the store wearing the WRINKLIEST brown linen jumpsuit that no iron could possibly fix and he still pulled it off

toon-teen-ten!

oh god that’s the sound of the intercom

and the sound of the intercom equates to jungkook

... as in jeon jungkook who’s the floor manager and his constant top one goal for every month is to endearingly annoy seokjin

he’s young and mischievous!! but if you were to ask him, only you and jungkook are the people in this floor he’d actually get drinks with outside the shop

“seokjin come to the lingerie department right now, please.”

you see the thing is :D

“now this is just funny

there’s walkie-talkies for everyone here!! jungkook likes intercoms, and seokjin like yelling!!

“WHY ME AGAIN?? I’VE ALREADY FOLDED-“

“there’s a literal rat and i need yOU to catch it!! you know that i hate rodents!!”

him and jungkook are forever gonna be on this eldest-youngest brother dynamic and while jungkook pouts and shared the extras that he gets, jin is the one who kills the bugs :D

10/10 totally fair

fine then!! he’ll catch that goddamn rat

that leaves you and yoongi. alone.

“why did you come so early this time?”

you ask out of courtesy, genuinely baffled too because you know that yoongi’s a creature of habit

yoongi’s eyes pop out, head fervently shaking no

“i’m typically not the type to do that, no.”

???

is he-

are you-

are you both talking about the same thing

yoongi’s face flushes in embarrassment, his mind just then registering what you were actually saying

“o-oh! it’s because last night, i dreamt of the sweater i saw here last week!!"

oh right

typical :D

"need me to find it for you or do you already know the aisle?"

you align the folded shirts by the corners as you pass, looking at yoongi briefly while he trails behind yoh

“not unless you pulled it out already."

he's hoping that dear god you haven't

the black sweater with the moon aND buildings on it and when you turn on the flash, the windows of said building reflect it right back???

he SHUDDERS just by thinking about it

it’s gonna go with everything!!! an instant boost of serotonin every time he sees it

"for you, yoongi?" you shake your head, a small smile on your face that he only sees every once in a while, "i'd comb through the entire stock room."

wait

that’s sweet :((

“i’ll hold you to that.”

you know what??? you're less cranky when it's only him, and a couple of hundred people less

your smiles aren't for customer-service and you don't have misplaced clothes hanging from your shoulders and your walkie-talkie isn't talking in latin

or when no one’s asking you to reach something from the top shelf

or when you’re on the way to the intercom because a kid got separated from their mother

or when someone’s approaching for a refund for a shirt who has a stain that’s 100% no doubt customer error

his feet immediately move on its own because he’s memorized the outline of this too many times

there it is!!!

the sweater he’s dreamt about is already on his hands, only a handful few left

the piece is considerably more expensive than majority of the items here, so that’s why they’re all spaced-out instead of being clustered altogether

yoongi rarely goes to the dressing room, regardless if it's a full-house or not!!

he could just look at an item and immediately tell that it’s made for him ta know

he's beyond sure that this sweater fits him perfectly, but he may want to be here a little longer

yoongi may have say inside one of the fitting rooms and spent a little time in it just to sit on the chair inside, not fitting the sweater at all

he's gotten his item SO quick and he wished he could've just walked slower or pretended to not know where it was!!!

he wants to spend a little more time here

you don't hate yoongi!!! but sometimes he could just be... yoongi

he's quite talkative and strikes it whenever, making you unguarded

he could be overbearing but like an overbearing kind of nice

yoongi’s nice!! he’s the type to ask a lot of questions sure, but he’s also the type that would point the other customers what to buy and where to find it

he’s the type to find an obvious faulty stitch on a shirt, but he’d just quietly exchange it instead of asking for the manager

he’s the type you wouldn’t want to stand behind in line because it would take a long time for him to finish, but he’s also the same one who buys giftcards with generous amounts for family and friends

yoongi’s kind of cool and that’s cemented on your mind

"what do you got for me?"

he materializes out of nowhere, spooked because you thought he already ringed up and was out of the store already

it just happens to be ten minutes before opening and you’re doing last-minute arrangements on a new spread

well, yoongi most certainly is still here and his attention’s piqued

“we have... a new collection."

you clear your theory, awkwardly gesturing because you’re more than aware that yoongi hasn’t seen this either

“yeah, i know that. but like, what's going on??" he gestures to the displays and racks, squinting his eyes, "what's the theme? what's the material?"

:O

uhm you haven't read the brief about this

you aren't even sURE if there is one!!

doesn't everyone make up something on the spot in retail

or atleast that’s what seokjin tells you

“the theme," you clear your throat, scratching your temple before gesturing towards the full rack, "is everything."

“everything?

yoongi’s eyebrow is raised, not expecting that answer at all

you look back to the new feature, and nOW that you think about it,, there's no cohesion at all

“y-yes. the shop was going for the theme of uhm, everything... all at once — yeah, that's it. everything all at once."

it’s a nice way to put it when not one bit of the new collection goes together

“hmmmm. i like it,” yoongi nods solemnly and tilts his head, “and the material?"

"the material?"

you repeat, eyesight not the best so you can’t really tell anything off the bat or uh aNYTHING really

"t-the material is shirt."

they're all shirts!!! that’s it

yoongi grimaces in disgust, the first time you’ve seen of it

“what?? you can't say that.”

he outsretches his hand to the nearest article, holding it up by the hanger

"this, right here, is satin. see how it shines like silk, but doesn't feel like silk?"

uhm yes

you have a gist of what he’s saying but yes

yoongi picks up a pink button shirt this time, flipping it inside out

"this, is silk charmeuse. look at the inside, is it smooth?"

okay where is he going with this

he urges you to put your hand on the fabric and uhhh you didn't sign up for this???

it looks smooth, sure!! end of discussion

"yea-..."

“it's not. it's rough. it is smooth, but it's dull. silk charmeuse is still silk, but the backing it has is different from the lustrous part."

okay yoongi

you’re starting to feel uncomfortable and it has to do something with the tone he’s using on you

“can't believe you didn't know that!! how about this," he plucks out a shirt with a tiny print at the middle of it, "cotton or polyester and rayon?"

"i don't-"

there’s an itch in your neck that you want to scratch, a tell-tale sign that you just wANT to remove yourself from this situation

“come on!! it's a dead giveaway!!"

:((

why is he being like this?

toon-teen-ten!

“y/n, panty section please. jin almost got bit by a mouse and he needs comforting. two minutes until opening, people!!"

jungkook speaks at the right moment, and jin’s little incident is enough of a reason for you to bolt

yoongi's still looking at you but you can't afford to embarrass yourself further

“bye. happy shopping."

huh?

yoongi’s face falls when you leave as cold as that!! typically when you were going to show him out (when it’s regular shop hours), there’d be a smile :((

there's not even a customer service smile :(((

yoongi goes to the only cashier that's open so far and it happens to be far away from you and a teary seokjin

seokjin's fine he didn't even get bit!! that much he could say

but are you okay? uhhh you kinda went cold on him by the end and he thought he started on a good note

yoongi doesn't visit for another week and you don't find yourself counting the days until you meet him again

you did not have a devil wears prada moment where anne hathaway has an epiphany for fashion knowledge

you just felt belittled at a job that isn’t exactly what you wanted anyways

needed, yes. but wanted? not exactly

you know that basic knowledge about clothes is required in a retail job like this and you have it!! you do!!!!

you’d know more if only there were actual available resources for employees to know!!! nobody besides yoongi asks anyways

you’d know if you have time to yourself and aren’t working two jobs trying to make ends meet and tHEN you could pull up a book or something!!!

you’d know if your life is as lax as yoongi’s and could have the budget to buy new things for yourself every single week

“jin, i need to ask you something.”

he hums as called, looking at you briefly until you get on with it

“do you know the difference between silk and silk charmeuse?"

he shrugs casually while you're sitting inside one of the closed-off fitting rooms to catch a break, sharing a burger because the store’s packed-packed

why did you ask him? it’s too easy

“one's made by worms, and the other's a pokémon."

that,.,., could not possibly be righti* it brings you a laugh and you honestly don’t even try to correct him

it’s 11:15 and you kNOW it’s time to resume your shift, straightening your shirt because atleast one (1) person would hound you when they see a familiar red lanyard

oh you’re hounded alright

“hi! almost thought you were hiding from me for a second.”

yoongi????

oh

you haven’t seen him for a week and you don’t know what to feel in all honesty

"anyways, is this sweater wool or cotton?"

wow

you're quite speechless as he holds up the item

really?

this thing all over again???

why are you even surprised

the only thing that yoongi gets your customer service smile, fishing your hand from inside the sweater to show him

“70% wool."

that's it???

NO GOOD MORNING????

you're mad at him, aren't you?

he knew it :((

he knew something was wrong but he just didn’t know what

he’s gonna fix this!! he will

which is why the very next day, he takes the day off from his work and comes to the store at a time he knows you’d surely be there

you're on cashier duty and you like it actually :D

you have an option to sit and the way you’re just gonna scan pricetags (and occasionally enter the code if it doesn’t work) is really appealing

“good morning!"

you’re about to grab the items from the basket laid on the counter and your eyes could only see the very familiar hand

the same one you’ve seen go through racks and racks

yoongi??

he sets his items one by one, buying himself more time

the first one is the same exact sweater he came to wait for before opening

“you already bought this."

you tell him even before you could hold it back, looking back at him briefly before you scan the tag

“i know. i just wanted to see you."

oh

oh

yoongi threw a bunch of other items (individually) so it would be a longer talk, but you scan each item quickly that he’s grabbing things from the counter

hand sanitizer!!! hair ties!!! keychains!!!! yeah he needs them

“i'm sorry that i tend to spring shit on you most of the time. you don't need to know the difference between silk and silk charmeuse."

you only chuckle then, a meek smile on your face

"it's okay, yoongi.”

“it's not."

... it’s not?

yoongi fidgets, opening and closing his mouth like he’s nervous!!! he’s never had his credit card cancelled but he could only feel that this type of jitterness is more than the former

“can i make it up to you? no lanyards, no baskets, no customer service?? i don't wanna fuck things up with you."

“don't feel obligated-"

“i know i could be a condescending ass who expects people to automatically know fabric and whatnot, but i wanna make it up to you."

alright yoongi’s a really good apology-maker

you mIGHT be even flustered a little

“you're holding the line, yoongi.”

“i cleared my schedule."

“i haven’t!!!!!” - guy in the back

“dinner at my place at 8. i-i promise to make your hard-earned break after your shift worthwhile!!!"

hmmm

maybe that wouldn’t hurt

“okay. just because you're holding the line."

“fine by me."

:))

yoongi transfers all the items he bought, all but one, to his tote bag

he hands back the paper bag to you, scribbling his address on the back of the receipt before he does

he lingers a little while at the counter, the people behind him ALREADY switching lanes to the one seokjin’s just opened beside you

it's the sweater that he has too

yoongi scratches the back of his head, this time being the meek one

“what? m-matching sweaters for our first date. s'cute."

[itsclydebitches]

We run an inconvenience store. It's not the worst job in the world. 

Like the Alanis Morissette song, I tell people. They normally wander in with their mouths hanging down around their knees, sometimes brandishing pepper spray. Rain on your wedding day. Spoons when you just need a knife. Most of these things aren't real irony, they're just annoying coincidences. Inconveniences. That's what we sell here! 

Usually the sales pitch generates more skepticism, or the occasional gasp of delight. One guy stuck his meaty finger in my face and yelled, Are you threatening me? but then, that's retail. 

It's not the sort of place that gets repeat customers so I spend most of my days keeping track of the inventory, or playing Pokémon Go. I don't know what it is about the area but it's a straight up hot spot for shinies. Read a book. Paint your nails. It's a bit like being a security guard except you're protecting people from the place rather than the place from the people. Inconveniences can turn into tragedies real fast, so you've got to make sure customers know exactly what they're buying. Liability waivers and all that. Like, I had this one kid who came in off the highway—they all come in off highways—who accused me of being a shroom hallucination until I shot a rubber band in his face. 

Turns out he was on his way to Grandma's house. An honest to god visit to Grandma's with an honest to god teen who'd rather be doing literally anything else, including talking to me. If I didn't work precisely where I do I might have questioned the chances of it. Still, here he was, all sour expression and oversized headphones. Few know what they’re looking for when they wander in, so I suggested a flat tire. Simple. Classic. The sort of inconvenience that could ruin an unwanted trip but still let you cache in on the rest of the day. He was eager, in the way a puppy is eager because you're excited, so they're excited, though they don't actually know what they're excited about. All that tail-wagging stopped when I showed him the forms. 

Does your family keep a spare tire in their vehicle? We do not offer refunds for any inconveniences that are unexpectedly solved. 

Does your family have access to a service such as AAA, AT&T Roadside Assistance, or Better World Club? 

Do you or someone currently with you have access to a charged cellphone with reliable service? 

Has the driver of the vehicle ever been in an accident? 

Is the driver of the vehicle prone to panicking when confronted with an inconvenience? 

Does anyone in the vehicle suffer from conditions that may require time-sensitive medical assistance? 

Do you intend to use this inconvenience within the next 24 hours? 

And so on and so forth. People don’t really get what all they're agreeing to, but then, most inconveniences stay as they are. There's the occasional rain shower that leads to a slip and fall, or a ripped shirt that loses a job offer, but who's to say those wouldn't have come about anyhow? Perhaps there's a rock to trip over and the interviewer never liked your style. We're not in the business of fate, just making sure no one comes back after filing a lawsuit. 

Not that they're likely to find us again, but still. 

So the kid bought one flat tire and a mild cold to give to his dad. Got any snacks? he asked, handing over a credit card. The register screen was always too garbled to read the price. I'm supposed to be picking up snacks. 

We've got Abba-Zabas. 

The fuck is a Abba-Zaba? 

He left with three bars and an oath not to share them with anyone other than family. Secrets always make candy taste better. 

Encounters like that are the norm. That's really the long and the short of it, boring as it sounds. Our training video, if you will. People come in, they make purchases, sometimes for what they want, more often for what they need, I wrack up enough for a minimum wage-based apartment and we both leave  satisfied-ish. It's like any other store that way. Minus the liminal location and the risk of sales going south. Don't ever let a customer purchase more than one injury inconvenience at a time. I once had a grad student looking to get out of her midterms. She bought two broken wrists and I caught absolute hell from the manager. I mean, my uncle broke his wrist mopping up Arby’s. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, yeah? Not to PR though.

Hmm. There is something to be said for immaterial merchandise. It definitely helps keep the store clean! 

But I've prattled on long enough. I know there's only so much gold you can get from this pile of straw, though I'll be honest in saying there really are worse places to work. Take it from someone who's lost track of how long she's been here. 

So, interested in a job? 

Oh yeah, sorry the application isn't attached. Rather inconvenient. I think one of your friends was in here recently? Might want to check in with them. 

[chartedrights]

Golden Age AU Masterpost

For everyone lacking context, the Golden Age AU is just me riffing on every piece of comic book media I’ve ever consumed. Here are some single-paragraph rundowns I’ve made to keep track of things as I start to write!

The Board of Directors is analogous to the Justice League- they’re pretty much entirely people with superpowers (with the exception of Carol, at first), they’re very prestigious, and they come together to ward off larger threats like the impressive super powered task force they are. Or they used to. Membership’s sort of dropped, and people with powers are getting harder to find and recruit, and the big headliner who ran it left it in the hands of some nurse, which is like. So not sexy.

PEIP is PEIP- they fit right in where they were. In the shadows, in the dark, fighting the threats that the “special people” won’t, protecting people on a lower level than “oh god, the apocalypse,” because apparently the superheroes aren’t concerned with espionage or alien meteors anymore. The pricks. Mostly run by people without superpowers- as far as they know- and deeply concerned with keeping heroes responsible for their own actions. They would be oversight, if they were allowed to be.

CCRP Technical is an interesting place. Charlotte and Ted work there, for Sam, though neither of them is quite sure what it actually does. Paul was recruited in hopes he’d grow into upper management, but he didn’t have the ambition for it. Bill has been there for a decade or two now, ever since he started attending those meetings with Becky and Mrs. Davidson. Melissa... Melissa is their rising star. Mr. Davidson isn’t sure what they found in her, but he’s glad to see her succeed! Good for her! Four for you Melissa, you go Melissa!

Hatchetfield.... is Hatchetfield. It’s small, it’s insular, it’s full of gossip and weirdness and people with eccentric ideas of morality. It might be easier to admit that superheroes and supervillains exist, but let nobody say that the citizens of Hatchetfield ever took the easy road. They will walk uphill, in the snow, denying the supernatural both ways.

Paul is a real sweetheart. He’s autistic, he’s quiet, he likes his routine and the simple pleasures in life... and he just happens to be unkillable and he maybe possibly sort of has the ability to fly. He could be an excellent addition to either team, but he refuses to be a proper superhero, making him Hatchetfield’s most obvious target. Which in turn means that he often ends up acting like a proper superhero against his own will. He thinks Emma is perfectly lovely and still hasn’t noticed her committing crimes.

Emma is Hidgens’ Lab Assistant, which is code for “committing crimes for college credit,” and she does a lot of the footwork for him. Being a henchman definitely tops food service, lets put it that way. She also gets to follow in the family business- a long line of Perkins supervillains ended when Jane broke free and became a real hero for Tom’s sake. She always wanted to be a good person, but Emma is not as opposed to violence. She also cannot wait for Hidgens to level Hatchetfield, which is made complicated by the fact that she likes Paul rather a lot, and he likes Hatchetfield.

Hidgens is a supervillain. He never leaves his house, orchestrates incidents of immense damage to the civic infrastructure, and refuses to acknowledge that just maybe putting children into the path of radioactive chemicals is not a valid scientific experiment. He’s not necessarily a bad person, it’s just that his morals refute even the idea of black and white. More like blue and red. Orange and green. He is of the opinion that world peace can only be achieved by world domination, and therefore has begun a track to world domination. He and Sam have a blood feud of indeterminate origin.

Becky Barnes, low-level healer and walking anesthetic, somehow ended up in charge of the Board of Directors. The last leader disappeared three days after handing off control, and Becky is still looking for them. Becky is very conspicuously not looking for her ex-husband, however. It makes some people suspicious, and nobody more than Sam, who is Stanley’s most obnoxious cousin. Apparently, ruining Becky’s life runs in the family. Despite these troubling events, Becky does her best to keep the city standing and the world turning- she and Bill manage what they can, Carol and PEIP manage what they can’t. She’s still in a precarious place, however, and she’s looking for help.

Frank Pricely supplies everyone with gadgets. Hero and villain alike, everyone pays. Not always the same price, but everyone pays. He’s a neutral party, and he acts the part, but everybody likes to debate his loyalties. There’s no such thing as truly neutral, right? Everyone has their price- even him. It’s just a matter of what that price is.

Lex is his cashier, which means that she learned early on in her career in retail that the panic button is not half as good a first resort as the paralysis darts Frank keeps in the cash drawer. She has the ability to manifest objects, as long as she knows where they are. She needs a concrete location to pull them away from, which means that she snoops in every house she visits, checks the staff rooms of every store she enters. She can, on command, find you just about anything you need. For a price. She’s learning a lot lately, though, and what she learns about her powers might put her at risk.

Bill is one of the few members of the Board of Directors still standing. He and Becky get coffee all the time, and commiserate about the lack of help in Hatchetfield. He has telepathy, and certain illusionary abilities, which come in especially handy when he’s talking people down or trying to sneak hostages out of hostage situations. A gentle, well-intentioned man, Bill is not outwardly very intimidating, but he’s strong. Much stronger than most people would like to think. Becky keeps trying to hand off leadership to him, and he gently hands it back every time- he’s got other problems to deal with right now.

Formerly married to the infamous Perkins family heiress, Tom tries to live a nice, quiet life. He used to be a hero- and a damn good one- but Jane defected for him, and then died for it, and he carries more guilt than he probably should. Tom never thought of himself as special, really, and he still doesn’t. He can warp matter- twist it into shape, turn it from one thing to another, and he’s a fine craftsman when he wants to be. But it’s a dangerous thing to have on hand when you’re angry or frightened, and Tom still has an awful case of PTSD hanging around his neck. He’s doing his best to wrangle with it, but he’s going to need some help.

Ethan is just a teenager. Really, he promises. He absolutely swears. Nothing special about him! He’s just real intuitive! He and Lex have been looking into that whole “experimentation” thing they did at CCRP back when they were babies and it wasn’t even interesting! He’s just a mechanic, honestly. He’s a straight C student! He hasn’t even joined the cult off the coast on that houseboat!! He’s a good kid. No reason to be concerned at all.

Ted is also Hidgens’ henchman, but definitely the lower-ranked of the two. He applied hoping he’d make some friends, but thus far all he’s managed to do is fall in love with Charlotte, who is Sam’s henchman. It’s not going badly for him, but it’s not going well, either. He and Paul still work together. Every time Hidgens asks, Ted is like “Paul? Nah. He’s totally normal.”

Gary is a mob lawyer. He used to work for Emma’s family, but now he works for Sherman and Linda. They’re technically competition, and if they ever find out that he’s playing both sides he’ll absolutely die, but in the meantime he is racking up that cash. He is so rich. He is capable of great evil, and occasionally does terrible things, but overall he’s an affable guy. He and Charlotte had an unfortunate tryst once that ended with her tying him to the Welcome to Hatchetfield sign with his own scarf, but he still pines for her. She’s the one that got away. And continues to get away. cops hate her: local woman refuses to go to jail.

MacNamara still works for PEIP, which is only slightly a different job, on account of there being very public superheroes in this world. He and Xander have been married for ten years, but they are both under the (mistaken) impression that it wasn’t a real marriage because it was done undercover. He thinks about that and is very sad about it sometimes. But they’re partners, and that’s good enough that he can be content with it. For now. He has the ability to intensify or nullify other people’s superpowers, and he does his best to keep it quiet. He thinks there’s something noble about living without superpowers, and vaguely wishes that he and Chad’s roles were swapped- until he remembers that Chad has one (1) brain cell to his name.

Xander has the ability to speak to computers. It’s not flashy, at first glance. It doesn’t have the pizzazz of Paul’s gifts or the subtle mind fuckery of John and Bill’s. But he can know whatever he wants, can hear anything, tap any phone call, look through any webcam. He doesn’t, because he’s not a fucking creep, but he can. PEIP was lucky to find him before CCRP- and so was everyone else in the world. Xander’s not flashy in general- he keeps a lot to himself. He and John have been partners for a long time, and they still haven’t said they love each other. He still hasn’t told John that he’s a member of the Board. He still hasn’t told John that he and Paul are in the same book club.

Schaffer doesn’t need powers. You think she needs powers? Her power is that she breathes and death turns away. PEIP was built by good people like Schaffer, people with principles and strong hearts and ice cold spines of steel. Normal, human people, unremarkable except that they chose to be better. She’s fourth-generation PEIP, born and raised to believe in the service they do, the protection they provide. Some of the more bitter agents will say that Schaffer benefitted from nepotism. They will never say this in front of her, because deep down they know she did not and they know that she will prove it by kicking their asses. She and Carol used to date, but the strain of crossing enemy lines in what was, essentially, a Cold War between PEIP and the Board got to them both. Schaffer is the person Hidgens called after he got struck by lightning.

Charlotte is Sam’s henchman and quietly in the running for longest con ever pulled. One day she is going to off him and take his place as the leading supervillain in Hatchetfield, but that day is not today. She likes Ted, but Sam keeps telling her to kill him, so their relationship amounts to “the inherent eroticism of trying to murder each other”. Nobody is entirely certain how she does what she does, but she’s very, very good at her job. Emma looks up to her just a little. She had a therapist once. He tried to sleep with her. She no longer has a therapist. She does have a very lovely goldfish, however.

Mr. Davidson is MacNamara’s twin brother and Hidgens’ ex. His wife is a genuine bona fide Batman-level hero in a bigger city, so he occasionally gets kidnapped or tortured. Hidgens still writes him bitter and mildly threatening love ballads that he genuinely treasures and sends very heartfelt thank you notes for. His life is so messy. There’s so much drama. He’s also completely powerless and cheerful about it. (Re: the Working Boys.... he’s Chad. Chad MacNamara Davidson.)

Alice is developing absolutely no superpowers and she’s really really annoyed about it. She used to take this out on Lex, as teenagers will, but after Lex dropped out she began to regret that. Too little and much too late, but regret is regret. She keeps trying to mend that bridge, but it’s not working. Unfortunately for her, she’s still been seen with Lex and Ethan, and that’s enough. Imminent danger perceives no difference between friend and foe. Alice is full of a very different kind of potential, however, and sooner or later all that bottled-up anger and stress will lash out.

Deb, on the other hand, is an intern at the Board of Directors’ headquarters, which is now St. Damien’s given that Becky is in charge. Interns for heroes are much less common than henchmen working for villains, but Deb has a keen interest in coordination and overseeing operations. Bill hates having her on comms for missions, but she’s just... so good at her job. She can brew a pot of Red Bull twice-steeped coffee, arrange a date with Alice, avoid an international incident, redirect PEIP and talk Bill through defusing a bomb in the same ten-minute stretch. Lesbians can do anything. This is a fact. They are the backbone of our society.

Hot Chocolate Boy is full of secrets. And hot chocolate.

And speaking of St. Damien’s, do you recall poor Bridgette, who lost her eyesight in a horrible accident? I’m not saying Hatchetfield is going to have it’s very own Matt Murdock expy, but I am saying that. She’s blind, she’s Catholic, and she’s coming for your kneecaps.

Linda is a very low-level villain who operates out of her husband’s office and sics her Boating Club on people. Gerald should technically be a threat, given that it’s the Monroe family prerogative to slaughter rising heroes with an alacrity that distinguished them from all the other families in Hatchetfield. He is not. He’s barely even a henchman. Linda got all the bloodlust between the two of them, and she is out for blood from the start. Though initially quickly defeated, she grows in seriousness over the course of time and ends up a formidable threat with a weighty grudge against Becky and Lex. She’s not much in a physical fight, Linda, but she is deeply, deeply vindictive, and she’s willing to make any deals she has to to bring Becky down. Any deals. With anyone. Anything.

Sherman Young is a mob boss, and you know it. He’s a real creep and he’s got some sick hobbies, even for a man in his line of work, but somehow the 80s jacket and the comb-over mullet make it all worse. He’s the richest man in town, and that’s saying something, but if Linda has a say in things he won’t be for long. The Youngs, the Monroes, and the Perkins have been at war since the founding of the town, and Sherman is cutting down his competition. He might have even arranged for Jane’s accident to happen, but nobody is sure. Nobody living, anyway.

Sam is a villain. He’s not super or anything. He’s just a villain. He’s top-tier Joker-level normie, but he still goes toe-to-toe with all kinds of heroes. Notable for being pretty much exactly the same as his show counterpart in regards to his proclivity for threats and violence. He once told Paul to “talk to his fucking gun” only to find that Paul is, despite all outward appearances, fucking immortal. He is still very embarrassed about it. He’s up and coming in the Hatchetfield Villain circuit, but he’s definitely a threat. To who? Who can say. Somebody, somewhere.

Papa Ed is a PEIP informant, and he has the ability to speak to animals. He’s raising Peanuts to be a very small, very enthusiastic little squirrel spy.

Man in a Hurry is a former speedster who lost his powers and compensates for it by Being In A Hurry at all times.

Homeless Man is a CCRP agent. He specializes in camouflage and compassion. He doesn’t remember what came before, but he knows something did, and finding out what it was is all he has left to hope for.

Howard Goodman does not have superpowers, but he’s got gumption. Okay, I lied. He doesn’t have gumption. But he’s a very nice man.

[annarosewriting]

Eat Your Vegetables and the Rich

I recently read an article that quoted a woman who’s a CEO of some company based in LA. I don’t remember the name of this individual nor the company but I do remember what she said when asked how she got to where she was:

“If you’re strategic about when you sleep, when you shower and how often you go to the bathroom, anyone can do it.”

Motherfucker, what.

I’m sorry, is this person REALLY telling us, the working class of America who are just trying to get by and pay our bills, that to become rich and successful in this incredibly broken system, that we have to LIMIT HOW OFTEN WE GO TO THE BATHROOM? AND PERFORM OTHER ESSENTIAL TASKS THAT KEEP US ALIVE AND WELL?

WE HAVE TO SUFFER, BE SLEEP DEPRIVED AND SMELLY TO MAYBE MOVE UP A LITTLE BIT IN A COMPANY WE DON’T EVEN LIKE THAT MUCH?

I fucking hate this culture.

This overly ambitious, hustle every day, rise and grind (fucking kill me for just typing that phrase) culture that we have created.

Society’s the one to blame for all this lunacy though. This glorification of overworking arose from the ashes of late-stage capitalism.

We’re not getting paid enough but the cost of living keeps rising because companies love money more than they love people. Pinterest, Influencers, the ultra-rich, they’ve all sold us this idea (tied up in pithy statements you can buy on coffee mugs) that we too can be as wealthy as they are if we just work. 

All the time. 

And never stop. 

We have to hustle harder, we have to be on top of our game 24/7, we can’t ever have a down moment. We always have to think of ways we can monetize the things we do for enjoyment or relaxation. Because what is the POINT of doing ANYTHING if we can’t make money off of it to survive in this inherently broken system that will destroy us all in about 20 years if we don’t get our heads out of our asses???

I fall prey to this ideology all the time. Whenever I lay down to just watch TV I have massive guilt. 

I’m actively doing things that are meant to help me relax and yet, I still get an urge to maximize this time so I can prove to whatever imaginary audience is watching me at all times that I’m always productive. Even if it’s just reblogging another photoset of Ben Hardy flexing. 

Which, in my defense, is hustling to get him to hang out with me on Thursday when I am free. Ben, if you’re reading this, I’m free on Thursday to hang out.

Working in the retail/food service/customer service world made me realize early on that companies do not give a shit about their employees. Even the Cool Hip Companies that have gyms and bring food to the office, they do not give a shit about their employees. Sorry tech bro that works 40 plus hour weeks but thinks that because the office lets you dress however you want that’s enough to make up for the fact they don’t pay you a livable wage!! Even THAT company doesn’t care about you as a person!! 

Companies only care about how little they can pay us to work ourselves to death so the three people who are making all of the money at the top can make even more.

This idea that we should always be working is so damaging and toxic. 

As Ari says, “imma need space, imma-imma need space.”

How am I expected to do my best work when I don’t ever get a break?

I had a whole day at work where I did nothing (nobody snitch on me I swear to god) but it was in that time when I was able to relax and be still that I realized where I want my career to go next.

It’s those idle moments that push me to try that barre/boxing/yoga class/personal training sessions. It’s during that time that I add to the long list of books that I want to read. It’s during those moments of relaxation that I’m able to truly appreciate how good all of Queen’s albums are.

It’s moments when I’m not doing work that I do my best work.

And work is only one part of my life. What makes me interesting is me, my personality, the activities I do outside of my job. 

Because really, who wants to hear about social media marketing. Our lives are one big social media marketing campaign so who gives a shit. 

My job isn’t the most interesting thing about me.

Nor should it be! We’ve been indoctrinated with this idea that our work is what defines us. That our productivity is what gives us purpose in this life and I’m over it. 

Quite frankly, what gives my life purpose is having dinner with my family every night, seeing my friends, planning trips, reading, dancing, running, yoga, going to museums, watching Mamma Mia (1 AND 2 obviously), volunteering, writing, trying to keep a succulent alive, pouring love into my small corner of the world and guess what? None of these things have to do with my job.

The things that make life worth living, that shine a light into the drudgery of every day work life are the things that happen outside of work. 

I’m not lazy, don’t get it twisted. I work hard but holy fuck we all just need to C H I L L. 

Go pet a dog, take a day to not set your alarm, go eat some ice cream, watch all of Chris Fleming’s videos, talk to your parents about what they were interested in growing up, I know this all sounds like hippy dippy bullshit but GOD, I refuse to let work and “hustling” be the defining features of my time here on this earth. 

I think about death a lot, my own mainly, though I do think about Donald and all the men and women who signed the heartbeat bill’s deaths and boy does that make me happy. But when I think about my funeral, I really don’t want people to just talk about my job or my work. I want people to remember how I made them feel. I want people to talk about my spirit, how kind I was, my sense of humor, I want to make sure that I’ve left the people I love with good memories. Because in the end, it doesn’t matter how much you work. What matters is how much love and kindness you poured into the world. That’s what’s important and that’s what will always be important.

So what’s the main takeaway from all this? Well, one, I think about dying a lot which probably isn’t GREAT and two, work isn’t everything. It’s only a small part of who we are. 

Just remember: value your time, the work you’re doing is never that important that it can’t be put off till tomorrow, don’t let your job take precedence over your life, seize the means of production, let love be the main motivating factor in your life, call your mom and remember to eat your vegetables and also the rich.

[dine-on-nervine]

Have you _____ during this pandemic?

Worn a mask? Of course. I work in retail.

got tested for coronavirus? I haven’t been tested ever. Just temperature scans all over the place.

known someone who died from the virus? I haven’t lost anyone to my knowledge.

gotten the COVID vaccine? I did that a few days ago, with the followup on May 19.

started a new hobby? Not really, just been working on the ones I already have.

hated being stuck at home? I hated the thrifts being closed. I was never “stuck at home”.

worn a mask someone made for you? Yes, my girlfriend sewed me three.

sewn your own mask? Nah, I have a girlfriend for that. :-D

purchased masks at the store? I did that awhile ago and as of today (since I lost the mask I pulled out for the rest of the week somehow) I need to buy more.

purchased a KN95 or N95 mask? Nope. My store sells KN95 masks, but I use the blue paper ones.

complimented someone on their mask? I have done that. And I’ve seen some absolute idiot masks too, like the other day it was “This mask is as useless as the governor” (Inslee’s saving our lives so fuck you, dude!) and the transwoman in a “Trump 2020 - Fuck Your Feelings” mask.

protested mask-wearing? Nope, but I pull mine down a lot when I’m not within sight of anyone.

complained on Facebook? You know it. But mostly about other people. What fucknuts you find in Florida and Kentucky and Texas running things.

read a book? Nope.

had an event canceled you had been looking forward to? I’m sure of it. This will be two RAGS rummage sales and two UPS flea markets and one Packwood citywide rummage sale (going on two?) that didn’t happen.

stocked up on toilet paper? Well, it’s just my ass so when I had the chance to buy some I did, but I think I have 4 left from what I bought about a year ago.

been to the store when it was crowded? It happens.

been to the store when the toilet paper aisle was empty? LOL, yes. Target was wiped out, NOTHING on the shelves. WinCo was okay for nose tissue and paper towels but the toilet paper was catch-as-catch-can for a month or so.

lost your job? Actually I was hired to my job two weeks after the shit hit the fan.

worked from home? Nope.

still had to go to work? Yes. Because someone’s gotta stock those shelves.

went to a protest at your state’s capital building? Nah, that’s for losers.

watched the news for updates on the virus? I read the news and there are always updates, I don’t look for them specifically.

wondered if you had covid? It’s happened. I’ve never run a fever but various other symptoms have shown up. Every time someone asks if I’ve had this or that symptom, I lie and say no because every other malady in the world which causes those symptoms STILL EXIST.

not left the house for a week? Nope. Even when I wasn’t working right after the nation started taking this shit seriously, I was still going to the park at least 3 times a week.

watched YouTube videos? Not really.

spent a whole day watching movies? This has never interested me.

cleaned your house from top to bottom? Nope, too busy and pretty apathetic about it.

ordered something online? Yeah, that happened a few times. :)

ordered a pizza? Me personally, no. I’ve been where pizza was ordered. My girlfriend has much better taste than that so I ate pretty well from various restaurants by delivery.

prayed to God? I conversed with the universe a few times, not usually to beg for anything but to be gracious for what I have and express what I’d like to have happen or want to see come my way. And I’m happy to say that a lot of that did in some way happen.

completely forgotten a holiday that you normally celebrate? Don’t think so.

voted in an election? Definitely voted in the national election. It was the most important one in US history.

gotten to know your neighbors? Nope. A wave and a hello, and I have a new neighbor to the right, but nothing that qualifies as “getting to know them”.

sanitized everything in your home? Nope.

wrote someone a letter? I really should have, just for typing practice.

wished this pandemic were over? Name one person who does not.

been surprised this pandemic has lasted so long? Nope. We have the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic as an example of how these things work out globally and nationally, so any talk in March 2020 about this being over in a couple weeks was unrealistic -- especially when you have millions of fucknuts who don’t take it seriously, thus spread it far and wide before any serious measures to control it happen... and then, millions of fucknuts who STILL don’t take it seriously and bitch about the control measures and refuse to do them, continuing to spread it far and wide in the name of “personal freedom”.

worried about catching the virus? It’s a reasonable fear, I work in retail! Two of my coworkers caught it and deity-only-knows how many of my customers were exposed/exposiing others.

stayed home because you didn’t want to catch the virus? This was never an option. And it was never anything I chose to do.

been to church? I can’t think of any reason why I’d go to one, other than sightseeing.

watched an online church service? I can’t think of any reason why I’d do that either. One of the people I follow (and like a lot, so this is by no means a slant on her or her beliefs) said something in a survey about singing along with the hymns in the online church service she tunes into. I had a mental image of singing hymns alone at home while watching YouTube...

been stopped by a police officer? This is not something a lot of people want to do, even if it was just a tail light out, at the present time, especially if one is not Caucasian, because racists in blue have not gotten the message to straighten up or get back into the woodwork.

seen a lot of police cars patrolling the area? Nope, though the other day I did see a higher-than-usual number of cops around when I was out driving and it wasn’t even the end-of-month ticket quota.

had someone cough on you out in public? Nope, but someone would probably get laid out flat if they did that to me.

has someone stand less than six feet away from you while waiting in line? Yeah, and there were a couple times I was at the market maintaining the proper distance at the checkstand line and some fuck stepped in front of me.

had to use an inhaler? Never needed one.

been to the doctor? Dentist, a few times in the last month, but I haven’t seen the doctor in about a year and a half.

had increased asthma and/or allergy symptoms? Nope, but since in the last year I’ve started investing in product meant to improve my indoor air quality (Air Cop doesn’t work because there’s no circulation to get the bad air to it, so get an actual ionic system that moves the air) that 5ppb of O₃ that it produces does give me a little bit of a cough.

felt like you were fighting a virus? Not really, just dealing with the usual colds.

been diagnosed with the coronavirus? No.

felt lonely? Hmm, not really. My friends have always been remote, my beloved is nearby, I like being alone when I walk at the park, and I work retail so there’s no lack of human contact (whether I want it or not).

went somewhere with a friend? I do that some some regularity.

attended an online event? I can’t place one.

had a business in your area close down? Yeah, we’ve lost a bunch of them.

received a stimulus check? All three of them.

received food stamps? Nope, I’ve never collected on that. Long been in a position where if I am short on budget I can tighten my belt when it comes to food expenses and have things come out right. Someone asked me a few years ago why I don’t get food stamps since financially I qualified (my monthly expenses definitely exceeded my income by about $100 most months) and I said, “pride?”

applied for disability? Nope, not disabled.

applied for food assistance? Nope.

visited a food pantry? Nope.

had a fever? No idea.

believed a conspiracy theory about the virus? Nope, since if you have several brain cells to rub together you see how stupid a lot of them are. And yet they still keep coming because some people are idiots.

had to take online classes? Nope. That’s my girlfriend’s daughter, a freshman at a state college, though. Going off to college was a big source of dismay for her mother because those two are really close, and then with the pandemic... well, if you aren’t going into classes and must do the work and the lectures online, there’s no reason why you can’t do that at home and at your leisure. So after all these goodbyes about her leaving, she’d come home for a month at a time.

ate at a restaurant? Yes, I still do that. Capacity is at a fraction but I still do that.

walked through a drive-thru? Around here they demand that you drive. Funny that one place had bikes or mopeds on their drive-thru sign and I was like, yeah, no, you don’t really accept that. The building is open so I’m going in, even if it’s for take-out.

had your mask fog up your glasses? The struggle is real!

had to go to the hospital because of covid? Nope. Thankfully.

had to go to the hospital for a different reason? Nope.

used hand sanitizer? It happens out of necessity and my girlfriend sprays my hands every time we get back into the car after being in a store but I don’t believe in using them in regular life.

felt encouraged, joyful, or blessed? I am, I am, and I definitely am.

[maximumtragedypoetry]

Expressing Gratitude When You Don't Feel That Grateful

Gratitude has always been such a funny term to me.

I remember growing up my mom would always tell me and my siblings to "be grateful" for things - birthday presents, lunch money, family trips, as well as the basic necessities of having food in our bellies and a roof over our head - but gratitude felt more like an expectation than something sincere. Not to say that I wasn't grateful for those things (as a Taurean, I love me some material possessions and lavish experiences), but when the anticipated response is to be grateful, the idea of "gratitude" kind of loses its meaning and power.

To be grateful for something (at least the way that I see it), you have to be willingly to fully and openly embrace something, whether it be an object, a person, or a situation, without condition. It has to be genuine. It's not enough to just be grateful. You should feel grateful.

Of course, when you've spent the majority of your life taking most everything around you for granted, feeling grateful about anything particular is no easy task. And it can seem difficult to feel grateful about something that maybe isn't entirely positive right now. For example, my job isn't perfect. I manage a retail store and it can be time consuming, overwhelming, and frantic.

When my sales associates are bored on the floor due to slower traffic, I'm running around behind the scenes doing up schedules, approving payroll, dealing with customer complaints, dealing with upper management, scheduling interviews, calling candidates back, having meetings, answering the phones, replying to emails, ensuring that stock is received on time and put away, and that all of our stock transfers to other stores are packaged properly and sent away within strict timeframes (to name a few things I do).

Even my days off are plagued with work. My employees call me to ask questions or get approvals for returns/exchanges, people call in sick or ask to get shifts covered, or Head Office is sending me emails looking for speedy replies when I'm sitting in my living room in my PJs re-watching The Office on Netflix for the 7th time. That's all in the day of the life of a Store Manger - it is (to an extent) just part of the job I signed up for.

And I love my job. Honestly, I do. There's a lot that I'd like to be improved upon; it's not a perfect job by any sense, but it's one of the best jobs that I've ever had. It pays well, I make my own schedule within reason, I get to call the shots and I pride myself on being an empathetic manager who takes her employee's concerns into consideration. I get along well with my co-workers and I've managed to keep a store that was in danger of imploding before I signed on to a top 5 store in sales across the country on a relatively consistent basis. And I've done it all at the ripe age of 24.

Do I want to be in retail forever? Definitely not. I've been in retail for the past 8 years and while I'm in no particular rush to get away from it all, I would certainly enjoy a change in scenery.

In retail, I have been cussed out by people two to three times my age. I have received death threats, been called a "racist" in a Google Review by an entitled white man of all people (dude walked into the store very hostile, first words out of his mouth were a threat, and when I asked him to please leave he told me to "f*** off" and so I threatened to call security which he clearly didn't appreciate, and claimed that I was discriminating against his Irish accent - which... no, just no. I happen to love the accent. He was just being an asshole), I've been called literally every name in the book because entitled people can't be bothered to read signs or because they don't get their way on something. It's not been a fantastic experience by any means.

Despite all the crap that I deal with on a semi-regular basis, I still like my job. The people I work with make it all the more bearable, which certainly helps, but under different circumstances I may not have stayed. Yet, I'm incredibly grateful for my job because it allows me to enrich my life in other ways - the bullshit is just part of the "Shit Sandwich" that I have to deal with for the time being (read Elizabeth Gilberts, Big Magic if you don't understand the reference - highly recommended for creatives).

Because of my job I've been able to move out on my own, get my own apartment by myself without any roommates, afford a car, afford a nicer phone with a good phone plan, afford a new laptop, buy the food that I want to buy, and ultimately start taking care of myself again. I have great medical benefits and the company I work for offers really good mental health services. I'm able to invest some extra money in myself towards things that I've always wanted to do like learn music production, or start up new hobbies like painting, as well as use some money towards my spiritual ventures (candles and herbs may be cheap but the costs rack up). I've met some really lovely people through my job - both employees and customers - and being a Store Manager at 24 is something that I'm really proud of. My job has allowed me to do so much and it's because of that that I'm grateful for it.

I'm even grateful for the bad stuff because I've come to learn that all life really is is a learning experience. There is no value or judgement placed on our journey. All that ever happens to us is neither good nor bad - it's neutral. "Good" and "Bad" are terms that we place on an experience or situation to give it value. We judge our experiences all the time and we fail to see that maybe there's a little good in the bad, or a little bad in the good. And our perception of events change over time. What once was a bad experience has now been transformed into a good experience through time and learning.

As an example of this, imagine you're going through a break-up. It hurts like hell and everything sucks right now. You can't imagine ever getting over this person and being happy again. This is ultimately deemed a "Bad Thing". Then, after some time has passed, maybe a year or so, you look back on that break up with clarity, wisdom, and a sense of relief.

Thank God that ended, you think to yourself, or else I wouldn't be where I'm at in my life right now.

Maybe the break-up is actually a "Good Thing" even though you can't see it now. Maybe the break-up is going to teach you necessary skills to navigate in the world and emerge and stronger, more balanced individual. Maybe it will help you understand what you do or don't want out of a relationship and so when the next person comes along, you don't have to waste years of your life trying to figure out how (and if) this person fits into your space. You'll just know. Maybe it'll help you realize that romantic relationships aren't the be-all-end-all, nor are they the goal in life. The goal is to just be you and to live authentically and to learn as much as you possibly can in this lifetime to take forward with you into the next one.

People come and go. Bad Things come and go, and so do Good Things. Knowing this can make it a little easier to feel gratitude for all of it because even if you don't feel so grateful for it now, you likely will later when the storm has passed and you've healed. Hitting rock bottom isn't the end that we think it is - it's merely a rest and reset. The main thing to remember is that everything is temporary - even you - so you need to make the most of it.

[aprillikesthings]

time for a meme

I was tagged by @homosociallyyours​ 😘

Rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you would like to know better

nicknames: April is not an easily-nicknamed name. What few nicknames I have are from people I care about a lot and nobody else is allowed to call me by those names?? So I always feel weird sharing them.

gender: cis lady. I also heard the phrase “tomboy femme” recently which I like. I wanna wear the frilliest clothes but I also like doing my own bicycle repairs and fixing things around the house. When I was a little girl I always wanted to wear my prettiest dress, but with shorts underneath so I could still go upside-down on the monkey bars, and that’s a pretty good summation of it.

star sign: Scorpio. Aquarius rising, Moon in Cancer, Mercury and Venus in Sagittarius, Mars in Leo. Pretty sure I don’t believe in astrology but some of that shit is pretty accurate.

height: 5′2″

time: 11:05pm

birthday: November 8, 1979

favourite bands: Radiohead always and forever god damn, Kula Shaker, XTC, The Beatles, MGMT (but only their first album), Arctic Monkeys (but only A.M.), Talking Heads.....damn that’s a lot of (mostly British) white dudes, shit

favourite solo artists: Björk always and forever, Joanna Newsom, Fiona Apple, Hayley Kiyoko, Blitz the Ambassador, Nicki Minaj

song stuck in my head: Juju Girl by Blitz the Ambassador after answering that last question

last movie I watched: Finally saw The Last Jedi last night, yesssss (now I need to see The Shape of Water)

when did I create my blog: June 2012--the same as both @marsdaydream and @homosociallyyours​!!

what do I post: fuck-tons of Steven Universe, a smattering of other fandoms, bicycles, clothes, portland shit, a lot of personal stuff, dumb memes, pet rats

last thing I googled: I have no idea

do I have other blogs: hoooo boy. I have an ancient LiveJournal that I started in 2003 and was still posting to a few times a year but I’ve moved it all to DreamWidth. I used to keep up on a blog about bicycling called aprillikesbikes on wordpress--my last post there was probably 2011. On tumblr I run @smuttyamedot​  and I post nekkid selfies to @assmethyst

do I get asks?: Sometimes. I’ll admit that when the notification pops up my initial reaction is “oh shit” unless I’ve just posted an ask meme, lol. I haven’t gotten any actual harassment or anything, though.

why did I choose my URL: Honestly I just wanted something that wasn’t too similar to my old LJ name and left room for me to post about anything I was into. Plus I was thinking about my bicycling blog, I guess?

following blogs: 751, though a lot of them aren’t active

followers: 1,195 (holy shit), but it’s the same two dozen or so people who are at least half my notes on any given day

favourite colours: purple and green, and that was true even before I got into SU.

average hours of sleep: this varies wildly. Or at least it used to?? Now that I’m working overnights and passing out around 8 or 9am every day I seem to be getting an average of seven to nine hours. Though I slept for eleven the other day.

lucky numbers: 42. Not very creative. (Wait, how many of y’all get that reference anymore?)

what am i wearing: My work uniform, which is an ill-fitting skirt suit. Also smartwool tights that are black and purple, and lilac ballet flats.

how many blankets do i sleep with: three, this time of year.

dream job: not having to fucking work. I hate working. I’ve always hated working. There’s not a single thing I do for fun that I’m willing to monetize enough to live on. My life goal is getting a tolerably dull full-time job with regular hours that pays enough to live on with some left over for funsies, and that doesn’t mentally or physically drain me too much. I accept that I have to work to get money which can be exchanged for goods and services....but I fucking hate it. (Honestly, if being a bike mechanic didn’t pay shit (like, they make entry-level retail most places) and require me to do the most work when I’d like to be doing the least work, I’d try to do that.)

dream trip: Bicycle touring Glacier National Park and the Icefields Parkway again. But with a bicycle that fits me better and less worry about money. That and and I want to see Iceland again. And Japan (for the first time), but only if I have the cash to buy some clothes. Also I’d love to take a trip to Greece and Croatia where all I do is walk around ruins and stuff, stuff my face with vegan food, and then alternate between swimming and reading on the beach under a big umbrella. I’ll bring a bikini and a hat and like....five tubes of high-spf sunblock.

favourite food: PASTA. Oh my god pasta. Almost any kind of pasta.

nationality: American. Family history is mostly Polish on one side (my last name is Polish) and mostly German and English on the other.

favourite song right now: oh god, probably a Hayley Kiyoko song. Gravel to Tempo or Feelings or Curious. Though as I ranted about last night, I’m still capable of listening to Electric Feel by MGMT every single day. Also Do I Wanna Know by Arctic Monkeys.

TAGGING I am not tagging that many people. Also it took waaaay too long for me to write this anyway, considering that like...ten people are gonna see it, lol. If you read this: you’re tagged!!

[fuck-customers]

Frequently Asked Questions FAQ

FAQ

I decided to get around to making a full FAQ to add to the sidebar. If I’ve missed anything, let us know.

Why can’t I tell you why you are wrong in the comments?

Because this is a blog that is designed to be a safe space for retail employees to come and vent about their frustrations and asshole customers. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s a petty reason or not. We do not need more customers coming into the comments and giving us more grief. If you come to this blog and act like a customer you will be permanently removed from the blog.

Do you accept fuck coworker and manager submissions?

Yes we do! A while back we tried running a couple of separate blogs on the subjects but they weren’t successful because we continued getting asks and submissions here about coworkers and managers. Instead of just rejecting these we decided to accept them because they are a part of why customer service sucks. Changing the name of the blog isn’t necessary and would hinder the ability of our old and even new followers to find us if we suddenly just changed. We’ve been Fuck Customers for years, and it’s going to stay that way no matter how the blog evolves.

Why is the inbox/submission box closed?

We need to catch up because we’re neck deep in back log.

Can I use fan mail to submit my stories since the inbox is closed?

For the love of God no! This clogs the inbox up so bad and makes the process of catching up so much harder! Please be patient! We can’t reopen in a timely manner if we have to sift through and delete fan mail submissions that had no place being submitted in the first place in that format. Even when the inbox is open we delete those. The faster we can reopen the better. That all depends on our inbox remaining closed and uncluttered by fan mail. I may seem rude saying this, but it has become a serious problem and is hindering progress a LOT.

Why hasn’t my submission posted yet?

See here.

Who are the mods?

Rodney.

Can you tag (insert thing)?

We used to, but with how big the blog has become it is unrealistic to be able to tag absolutely every single thing. We’re going to have to trust that our followers will be able to put trigger warnings before their own asks and submissions. We get up to 100 new asks and submissions a day on top of our personal and professional lives, so keeping up with posting/queuing is top priority.

Do you need anymore mods? Can I be one?

Ultimately this is up to Rodney, but at the moment the answer is no. There is more than enough for the blogs size. You know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen.

What don’t you post?

Anything racist, transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. for starters. Anything not on topic to customer service is a big one too. We also don’t accept customers whining about employees. There is a line where it might be acceptable, though, like a case where a customer may see a manager or coworker abusing an employee. But if you’re bitching because someone smashed your bread then you are in the wrong place. Go to yelp. Fan mail is not the proper course of submitting your questions or stories. Use the ask or submission options and if the inbox is closed then check back later. Finally, hate mail. We get a lot of it and it’s a waste of space. Now, sometimes we do post one of any of these simply to drag your ass through the coals. Catch us on a bad day and expect to get roasted. Don’t be an asshole and you’re fine. We also try not to post anything that includes real store names, so try to use a fake one.

Why have I been blocked?

If you said anything offensive in a note towards us or another follower then you will be blocked. That could be death threats, telling someone to kill themselves, racism, homophobia, basically being an asshole. If you’re dumb enough to send hate mail without being anon, whether it’s to us or another follower, you’ll also get blocked. We do not tolerate that shit.

I requested my submission be posted anonymous! Why did it get posted or why wasn’t it posted?

It is your responsibility to submit anon. We post what is given to us in a format that tumblr allows(why we don’t post fan mail btw). If we were to post your submission anonymous we would have to cut and paste. Multiply that by 100 per day and we’d be swamped. If it accidentally gets posted that is on you, but most of the time we just delete it. (To post anon, if it’s short use the ask and check the box to make anon. If it’s too long for an ask you can submit a story anon by signing out of tumblr, using incognito, or a different browser that you are not logged into.)

I found something on here offensive! I’m sending hate mail right now!

You know that is the equivalent of asking to see the manager, right? Just skip the post and move on, you’re holding up the line.

*This does not include reporting posts that were accidentally posted that we would definitely remove. If you’re polite about it that is fine, but if you’re going to yell at us and tell us you’re unfollowing then that’s customer like territory. We get a lot of hate mail when all you need to do is point it out nicely. We also don’t condone sending hate mail to other followers. Maybe what they said was offensive, but sometimes good people don’t realize that their wording wasn’t that great. Sending hate mail isn’t the proper way to get your point across and help them learn from the situation.*

Why can’t I use a company name?

It is a decision that we have made at the blog that protects both you and us. Companies have people whose job it is to scour social media and look for people bad mouthing their store.  and they will either fire or harass the employee (if they can determine their identity.) or in the blogs case sue us for libel. As they have a team of lawyers and we do not we would have little chance to win in a court fight. So it is our choice to not publish company names. 

If I’ve missed any questions that need to be added let us know. These are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Why hasn’t my submission posted?

We get this question a lot so I thought I’d compile a list:

1.) You sent it through fan mail. We do not post anything sent that way since it does not include an option to queue or post it, just reply. We stopped copy pasting submissions a long time ago.

2.) You included a store name. Some of these slip through, but for the most part these get deleted for the safety of your job and this blog. There are actually people whose job it is is to hunt down stories like these and punish those who tell them.

3.) You requested to be anonymous without actually submitting on anon. Again, we do not copy paste submissions.

4.) You said something extremely offensive. Such as racist, ablest, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. Sometimes you might find we will call you out on it, but for the most part these posts are deleted.

5.) You sent hate mail. We will sometimes destroy you in response, but we delete 99% of these.

6.) The subject matter has been talked about to death. After a while we stop beating the dead horse with a stick.

7.) You posted a customer complaint. Yes, we will post good experiences praising an employee, but if you’re here to complain about an employee from a customer point of view then you’re in the wrong place.

8.) Rarely tumblr will eat the post. If your submission hasn’t posted in a month and it does not fit the rules above then resend it.

9.) Also extremely rare we might have accidentally deleted it. Again, if it hasn’t posted in a month and doesn’t fit the first 6 rules resend it. I think this has only happened twice to me personally though.

10.) It’s already queued or still in our inbox waiting to be queued or posted. We get a lot of submissions and asks, so you’ll need to be patient.

11.) Also, if you send a long submission through several asks instead of the submission link then we’ll delete them all. It is difficult to find all the parts.

12.) It isn’t on topic for the blog or any conversation happening on the blog.

13.) Asking to become a mod. We’re not accepting new mods.

14.) Complaints about what has been posted that does not fit the criteria on this list. This is rare, but it happens.

15.) Anything that seems like it’s an advertisement.

16.) Your post did not seem like it was related to customer service in any way. If you did experience at work then you need to make it clear.

17.) We will no longer post any submissions that talk about adding or switching items in people’s food. If you tamper with peoples food you could cause an allergic reaction up to and including death. You have no idea what people are or are not allergic to and if you put in regular milk when they ask for soy because they were rude you could put them in the hospital OR KILL THEM! Don’t do it. If you submit an ask or story that has food tampering in it, it will be deleted immediately.

18.) If we feel you need to be called out for being unreasonable or for just being a dick, don’t be surprised that we do. Sometimes we just want to impart knowledge to help people grow as a person. Sometimes we just want you to know you’re being an asshole. This may be a venting space, but if you’re acting like a customer we’re going to let you know.

[burmecianblackmage]

Goodbye 2017 - Hello 2018

[[EDIT: tumblr did mess it up. Urgh. So this is now two hours late... sorry guys -.-]]

If tumblr doesn’t mess things up (and it hasn’t during the advent calendar, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it won’t), then this post should hit the dash exactly when the clock strikes midnight over here in Switzerland, and the new year begins. And that means it’s the perfect time to say...

Happy 2018 guys!

I hope you all will have a wonderful new year, one that will make you forget all the bad things that happened in 2017, and leave you a happy and content little human by the time 2019 rolls around in 365 days.

May your year be full of moments that make you smile, moments of love and friendship, moments of success and accomplishment, and above all, full of health and happiness. I am very happy to have met all of you, and to have interacted with you, whether it be by playing, by talking, or even just by reading some of each other’s works. You lot have been a big part in what kept me going this year, and I want you to know I’m really thankful for that. I hope we can enjoy much of the next year together as well, and that no matter where the year will lead you, you will be happy. I love you all.

As a little extra, I’ll put a little review of my and Sceada’s year under the cut - at least I hope it will remain somewhat little. But you know me... Anyhow. I’m placing it under the cut so as not to spam you, and also because I will address some stuff regarding my health and Sceada’s sexuality as well, and I know not everyone is comfortable with that. I’ll mark them with a small header so you can skip them, but I just wanted to warn you beforehand~

With that out of the way, here we go! And for those who don’t wanna read it: Happy 2018!!

The Mun’s Year in Review

Well, you all know that this year hasn’t been an easy one, and I daresay it was a rough one for everyone. Still, I do feel like I should talk a little bit about the hardships I’ve had to face, and the struggles that’ll accompany me for much of the year to come, if not the entire one. So... here goes.

Health

As many of you know, I had a tumor in December 2016, namely an Ependymom that was lodged in my spinal marrow, at about the tenth to twelfth thoracic vertebrae. It had caused me stiffness and loss of sensitivity in my legs, and once we found it, there had been little choice but to remove it asap.

Ever since then, I’ve been needing a wheelchair. And I started 2017 at rehab in the Swiss Paraplegic Center in Nottwil. Mind you, it’s probably the best facility in the world for such a situation, and I learned a ton of stuff, including how to walk again with the help of crutches - still, spending half a year stuck at rehab ain’t exactly fun.

Especially when you also have to relearn stuff like bladder management, using the toilet and what not. Do you want to take a wild guess at how helpless you feel when you can’t even go to the toilet on your own, when you can’t help but soiling yourself because you have yet to regain control over your lower body functions? If you don’t know, you don’t ever want to find out. Gods was I relieved when it all turned out to be functioning properly after all...

And it’s not like it’s been the only health thing that affected me. I needed another eye surgery, for the Keratoconus developing in my right eye after we already had to do the left one last year, and I’ve been struggling to get used to it since then. First with my old glasses, now with the new ones I still cannot wear for more than like two hours at a time... - Oh, did I mention that insurance didn’t cover the 1700.- surgery by the way? Goodbye my savings I had been clinging onto...

And let us not forget that due to my immune system having gotten weaker, I also have this amazing pleasure of falling sick faster! Stomach flu? Come right in and stay three weeks! Dizziness? Hello darkness my old friend! Regular cold? Knock me out for four days, feel free to! Urgh -.-

Add to that a heap of spasms in my left leg that have been present all along, but got considerably worse now that winter rolled around. We know by not it’s not due to the tumor resurfacing (because it can do that, they couldn’t remove it entirely after all without cutting my nerves!) but can you imagine how nervous you get while waiting for the answer? And it’s not like the spasms are any help walking either, rendering me less mobile again after I had improved so much beforehand...

But enough of that. I could sadly go on and on here (I haven’t even brushed my mental stuff yet, oh boy...), but I’ll spare you that. It’s gotten long enough as it is anyhow... Let’s move on to other topics.

Work and Finances

Look, it’s not as though I had a job really when they found the tumor - or actually, yes it is. I may have been in an internship of sorts organized by disability services, but I had a job lined up where I could have started in January - Alas, it never happened. And seeing how I can no longer work my original job in retail (no electronics store will hire someone in a wheelchair. You can’t do the cleaning jobs, can’t fill the shelves and are slow to get around. Plus, how the fuck are you gonna fetch a 55′’ TV from the storage when a customer wants to buy it?), I am now actually trying to find a new purpose for myself. Gladly, disability services will help me with that... though it won’t be easy, and I dunno if I’ll be ready to start a new apprenticeship in summer like they hope. Cause it’s unlikely any spots will still be available...

Still, they are hopeful, and in order to get me back in the swing, they placed me in the same internship/training thing again, starting with just two hours daily. By now I’m in the office the entire morning on weekdays, and it’s going good so far. I’ll be there at least three more months.

And then, who knows? Maybe they’ll send me into finances and banking, or perhaps communal administration? We’ll see.

What is upsetting is the financial situation though. Due to being at rehab, I had to file for social aid - and the money they give me is very, very little for swiss measures. While I was at rehab, it was about 240, now it’s roughly 760 I get - even though I do actually get almost 3500 per month for the internship form disability services. But all that goes to social services to “pay off the debt”... Urgh >.>

For reference, an average 42 hours per week job in retail would pay between 3900 and 4200 per month. So yeah... Granted, they cover my health insurrance (which is 55o-ish per month, mind you!), but it’s still rough... The price levels here in Switzerland are just so damn high...

Social Life

Which leads me to this... I barely ever go out anymore these days. I can’t afford doing much, and what little I do afford is a pain to do due to the wheelchair. I can no longer just spontaneously go somewhere, or attend an event, I always need someone to drive me or even join me - and that inevitably leads to you not doing much anymore, you know?

I barely have any real contact with my rl friends anymore, I at most attend a MTG event every 3 months (PreReleases, nothing more sadly...), my DnD group also fell apart (though that was unrelated)... - Honestly, if it weren’t for you guys here online, especially those who talk to me on Discord and such, I’d be completely socially isolated, and that sucks. It sucks big time...

Gladly my girlfriend sticks with me, believes in me and loves me. Even if I can’t see her as much anymore, as we both can’t really afford the flights to visit each other, which is rather lonely too... We only managed to afford a few weeks in August together, when she visited me here with my room still unfinished. If the paraplegic foundation didn’t have the kindness to pay for her flights and hotel in March while I was still at rehab, that’d have been the only time I’d seen her this entire year....

So yeah. Things aren’t easy right now. Which is why I hope... next year will see improvements. It just has to...

Sceada’s Year in Review

When the last year ended, Sceada was a heartbroken virgin longing for affection and deeply missing the woman he loved, Leonora. He knew who he was though, a talented mage and a scholar of old languages who found work here and there, traveling wherever he pleased and slowly but surely building friendships with more and more people.

If you look at him now, he is instead riddled by insecurities, questions pretty much everything about himself to the point he is neglecting work at times in order to investigate his origins and maybe find his father. And the answers he longs for. Oh, he’s also entered a relationship with Maria and become - and here I quote Locke who was very, very pissed about this a few days ago - an accomplished lover.

But let’s look at things a bit more step by step, shall we?

A brief overview

Following Leonorâ’s prolonged absence, Sceada begins looking for other sources of affection, becoming rather flirty and sometimes even bold with Fran and Selphie, while deepening his friendship with Maria during their trip and afterwards

Sceada and Maria get rather close following him finding her having a nightmare, and staying with her to offer comfort

Leila captures the mage and, after tying him to her bed and appealing to his curiosity, takes his virginity. Later a second encounter occurs, where he they both are drunk at a Festival, before parting ways again.

Upon having spent Valentine’s Day with his friend Maria, Sceada discovers he has developed feelings for her. However, when voicing them, he finds them to be unrequited, and he tries to distance himself from her for a while.

Leonora finally returns, and during the initial happiness the two share a passionate night before the Sage encourages Sceada to follow his heart and pursue Maria, suggesting he could be or become polyamorous.

Sceada spends more time together with Maria, becoming closer again, but is content with just being friends. This changes when the pair are attacked by Coeurls, and Sceada nearly sacrifices himself to protect her, causing Maria to realize her feelings. When he recovers, the two become a pair, and slowly, over time, grow closer and closer.

Conflicted by his feelings for both Maria and Leonora (and to an extent, Leila as well...), Sceada seeks out a Goddess of Love, looking for advice. His silent hopes for reassurance in loving both women are however aptly crushed when the deity questions his motives for loving them, leading him to realize how much suppressed doubt and insecurity he has carried with himself.

Upon trying to tell Leonora more about Maria, Sceada’s motives are once again questioned, leading to an unfortunate argument that exposes a lack of trust on his end that Sceada had not been aware of. Unwilling to let herself be hurt by this any longer, Leonora suggests they part ways - they have not seen each other nor communicated in any way since then.

Sceada tries to forget about it all, hoping he could overcome it all with Maria’s love. However, when she wishes to take their relationship to the next step, he feels guilty over not having told her, and in the subsequent conversation many an uncomfortable truth and emotion are laid bare. Still, the pair reconcile, staying together and eventually consummate on their relationship.

Knowing that he will not be able to ignore the burning questions in his heart and mind any longer, Sceada begins to prepare to leave on a journey, just as the Goddess had suggested. He arranges for the eventuality that he might not return with his old rival Seshat Khnum, but before he can leave, Maria implores him to stay with her until the new year.

Making the most of this opportunity, Sceada holds his advent calendar again, and at the end of the year, attends the Garden Festival organized by Selphie.

Of course, there have been plenty of other plays as well, and I wouldn’t miss any of them. For example, Sceada finally opening up to Freya, or adventuring together with Jack in order to grab a certain book from the library of Burmecia, and all the shenanigans with little Stabby McStabstab Vani the Helfling Rogue - There was so much I adore, and not enough room here to mention them all. Just know that I loved all of our interactions!

A little note about the Smut

Yes, you read that right. I already mentioned stuff further up, but I still wanna note it here too, and add what’s missing up there.

We’ve already seen that he slept with Leila twice and Leonora once before he then got together with Maria, and well... let’s just say that those two may have taken a long time to get started, but haven’t been exactly innocent since - Sindays ahoy, is all I’ll say ;) But there have also been others, which I am not yet exactly certain whether to consider them canon to his main story, or separate cases - there’s merit in both, mind you, and I’ll probably ask the ladies involved eventually too. But who were they?

There is an as of yet unfinished thread with Fran, where the two engage in intimacies in a spring in the woods, after Sceada followed her and her enticing scent. One could argue that this is mainly heat relief, but it is not as though Sceada is exactly unwilling or that he is uninterested in the beautiful Viera...

The few encounters he’s had with Selphie were things got frisky somehow all share a similar pattern: Be it a playful argument, a bet they had or simply because sharing a bed leads to some “friction”, there is always something triggering the situation getting a bit more intimate and well... no one can deny that Selphie is a person you can have much fun with...

I also want to mention Aria, though the way our plays so far have played out, I kinda headcanon it as the two of them having been willing to get more physical three times so far, and Sceada stopping it each time because he noticed Aria wasn’t certain about it, and quite nervous, even afraid at times. And if there’s one thing he wants more than to avoid hurting her, it’s for her to enjoy this decision and not regret it... Perhaps the moment will still come, should we resume playing and point them in that direction.

There are two more ladies I played with, where things are rather kinky. One of them is on Discord and a fellow Black Mage, who’s been tons of tun to write with - the other a blog dedicated to sinful threads. I’ll refrain from naming either for now, as these two are likely to remain their own verses.

Final notes

Finally, I’d like to mention that there is also one more I play with on Discord after she left tumblr, and that her muse Anima is a pleasure to write with in all three verses we came up with. Also, I just wanna thank everyone who played with me this year, and I look forward to continue doing so - as well as meet new people!

Sceada will soon leave on his journey, and that means there is plenty of room for new friendships to be forged, and acquaintances to be made - or rivalries and enmities! I’m open for anything!

With that said, if you’re still reading this, I apologize for rambling for so long. I wish you a very, very good new year and thank you for putting up with me! Have fun tonight, have fun the entire next year, and I hope to interact with you again in 2018!!

Thanks for everything,

Patrick~

[crissle]

transcript of the speech i gave at Vassar’s black baccalaureate service

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, honored guests, and the Vassar class of 2017. Just saying that aloud made me feel old. Class of 2017? Most of y'all were born after dark-skinned Aunt Viv left the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. That’s wild.

I want to first thank you for allowing me to be a part of such a special moment in your lives. I am honored, privileged, and a bit in disbelief that you asked me of all people to give this address. I try not to have feelings, and I’m going to do my best not to cry today, but no promises.

I’m here to stand in the gap between you and your parents and guardians and any other elders in your lives that you stopped listening to because you thought they were wack and out of touch. I remember being in your shoes not TOO long ago, and it is my fervent prayer that something that I say here today will help you avoid some of the mess I went through. To be honest I’m a little nervous, but I figured there was no way could this be worse than when Betsy DeVos went down to Bethune-Cookman, so let’s get started. As you transition to life after Vassar the changes will be both inevitable and swift, so I’d like to begin by giving you some well-intentioned advice and warning you about the continued process of becoming an adult.

It means I frequently feel simultaneously overwhelmed and very bored. It means forcing myself to go to work even when I’m depressed or my anxiety is through the roof because I’m the grown up now, and the bills don’t get paid unless I do it.

It means sometimes sitting in my room alone and feeling like I’ve done nothing significant with myself.

It means going through bouts of just being unhappy and not having any option but deal with it.

So no, adulthood is not the “I can do what I want” paradise that it may have appeared to be when we were young, and I’m sure you can all see that clearly now, but there is even more growth ahead. Sorry if you thought the hard parts were over.

Many of you have likely never worked a full time job or completely supported yourselves before, so as you prepare to enter the professional workforce please understand that as a young person of color your biggest asset will likely not be your intelligence, work ethic, or creativity. It will be your ability to make the white people around you feel at ease. You’ve probably already been honing this skill during your time at Vassar. No shade. Lord knows my years in college in Oklahoma prepared me in the same way to deal with my bosses and coworkers. You will be tested the first time a colleague complains to your supervisor about your “unfriendliness”, when really you were just trying to meet a deadline and didn’t care to hear about Susan’s cat and its vomit. Or the time you collaborate with a group and when the work is presented to your boss, your contributions have been conveniently erased or “mistakenly” attributed to someone else.

There have been many times that I had to sit back at work and bite my tongue while a white male coworker skated by with few responsibilities and even fewer repercussions. This is what it’s like for most of us playing the corporate game. Keep the white people at work comfortable in your presence, and things are magically easier. Force them to see the blackness in your humanity, and watch the complaints to HR pile up.

If you feel like you are being unfairly targeted or punished at work, put those in feelings in writing and back it up with some proof before emailing it to the people who need to know. That’s right - I’m telling you to go full White Woman in the workplace. Learn now to trust your gut. Know that if something FEELS off, it probably IS off.

When things were getting rough at a previous job of mine and I suspected something shady was going on, I started carrying my iPhone all over the office and using the Voice Memo app to record what was being said when I wasn’t in the room.

I kept my own meticulous records of what was going on and those files ended up saving me in a major way. I’m thankful every day that I didn’t ignore my intuition about that job. Sometimes we get those sneaky feelings and think we’re being paranoid when it’s really God (or the universe, or your personal higher power, whatever you believe in) trying to warn us about the dangers ahead. There have also been plenty of times that I didn’t listen to that intuition at all and paid the price dearly. Please learn from my mistakes.

I dated a girl back in 2008 or 2009 (the years all start to run together after a certain point) that we’ll call Ashley. Ashley was fine, played basketball, had a nice car, great job, and most importantly - was taller than me. But there were lots of things about her that didn’t add up. Like how she claimed to be an engineer for Apple, but we lived in Oklahoma City which had only just gotten an Apple retail store at all the year before. Or how she claimed to be my age, but her driver’s license said she was born three years before I was. (She claimed it was a mistake at the DMV that she never got fixed). Or how she constantly gave away fancy things like Louis Vuitton purses and Gucci and bought an SUV back when gas was like $5.32/gallon and not even rich white people were buying SUVs. The list goes on and on.

There was a lot about Ashley that should have been a red flag, but I didn’t care. She was fine! She took me out all the time and seemed head over heels for me and opened doors and held my umbrella so I looked past the sketchy job thing and the fact that she was blatantly lying about her age and everything else. The universe gave me so many chances to walk away from that situation, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. If I am honest with you now, it’s because I never thought someone who looked that good could be attracted to me. If I lost her, I’d never get anybody that fine again. When she got a new job as an “engineer” at a bank, she asked me to come there one day and open an account so she could deposit a check into it. Now don’t get me wrong, I was definitely a fool back then, but that just felt like it should be a no. And so for the first time in our relationship, I told her no.

She let it drop, and I pretended that nothing was wrong and kept dating Ashley despite the millions of warnings the universe was tossing in my direction until I couldn’t ignore them anymore.

A few weeks later, I was home asleep when she pulled up at my house at 3 AM (problem number one) and told me she’d been arrested for embezzlement and her dad had just bailed her out. She claimed that it was all a big misunderstanding, but when I put two and two together I realized that she’d asked me to come to the bank that day so that she could pull off her little stunt and blame me if she ever got caught. To say that I was hurt by that betrayal would be a massive understatement. I couldn’t believe someone I loved and trusted so much could have treated me that way. Had I been even just 2% dumber I’d probably have a record right now because of that girl. I let the idea of loneliness and solitude keep me in a situation that I should have left months earlier, and it almost ruined me in a permanent way.

I tell you that story because my friend Kid Fury and I give out a lot of advice on our podcast, The Read. Most of it is about relationships and I get a lot of feedback from younger women who say things like “Wow, I wish I was as reasonable as you are about relationships” or “I wish I was okay with being single like you guys seem to be”. But I didn’t always make smart decisions when it came to love. I wasn’t always okay with being by myself and I didn’t get to this place overnight.

What I DID do was learn from all the ways that I messed up and spent time alone after every relationship to work on myself. From Ashley in particular I learned to always trust my instincts, and these days I spend a lot more time vetting people before I decide to date them. That’s not foolproof either, because love is always a gamble. You never know how things will turn out. The difference now is that I listen to the warnings the first time I hear them.

Since we’re already on the subject of relationships, I want you to know that sometimes you will have to un-break your own heart. Sometimes what you thought was the perfect relationship ends and you don’t get any real answers or resolution or closure. Sometimes you will have to sit alone in your heartbreak and just feel every bit of that misery. Sometimes you will have to know when it’s over and be brave enough to end things before they can get worse.

I want you to know that because if you decide to not feel those feelings… if you decide to throw yourself into sex or dating or selling laxatives on Instagram instead of processing the entirety of what you are going through… all you are doing is delaying the inevitable. Your future relationships will crumble under the weight of your unresolved emotions. You are not doing yourself a favor by pretending that you aren’t bleeding. It is fine and good to develop hobbies to distract yourself from the pain and loneliness of a relationship ending, but make sure you take the time to really get through your breakup.

Remember that never getting married isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you, but marrying the wrong person could be.

For young women in particular, I want you to learn to put yourselves first. Learn to prioritize your needs. There is so much to be accomplished in your personal life when you are happy with yourself alone. As a wise woman once said, there is an essential part of who you are that only becomes alive in the place where romance ends. Women are so conditioned in this society to take care of others that choosing yourself can feel unnatural. It can be isolating, because believe it or not lots of people don’t think women have the right to see themselves as truly equal to men. Weak partners will not know how to handle a woman who puts her happiness above anyone else’s but choose yourself anyway, and never compromise just for the sake of not being single.

When I was around your age, LiveJournal was a big deal on the internet. If you aren’t familiar, LiveJournal was a site for keeping personal blogs and participating in communities with like-minded people and I loved it. I blogged on LJ for years and made internet friends that I still keep up with on Twitter today, and when I take the time to go back and read what I was going through in my mid-twenties I am always blown away.

An excerpt from September 6, 2004: “I figure, why break up with him for being a liar (and probably a cheater) when everyone I’ve EVER dated has been a liar/cheater. Obviously I am destined to be either alone or with a liar/cheater. No sense in breaking up with this one when all I’ll be doing is waiting for the next one to come around.”

YIKES! I read that now and see a person whose self-esteem was so low that she should’ve been single and in therapy. It’s hard for me to reconcile that girl with who I am today, but I got here. The things that felt fresh and dangerous and new back then are old roads to me now. You will get there too. But you gotta keep going.

Another quote from my journal, this one dated November 5, 2008: “I don’t even try, anymore, even though I want things to be better. I want to do and be better. But I don’t put forth the effort that I know is required of me and I don’t know why. I just let things get worse and worse and worse and one of two things happen: It’ll get so bad that I’m forced to do something to change it or it’ll blow up completely in my face. If I do eventually change, I never manage to keep it up so either way it goes my life is a constant cycle of fail. I wish I knew why I couldn’t be one of those people who learns to make it right.

P.S. What is up with Rihanna having all these good songs lately?”

I remember feeling that way A LOT - sometimes for days and weeks at time. But it’s funny to me now that I remember those feelings but not the daily work it took to get out of it. I just know that I kept moving. I talked to my friends about what was going on and faithfully asked the church to pray for me every Sunday and Wednesday. When that didn’t fix it alone, I broke down and found a psychiatrist. (Which I highly recommend, by the way. Mine have saved my life twice. #NoShame.) If you’ve never been in therapy before, it might surprise you how helpful a stranger can be when you feel stuck dealing with life.  And of course, I kept my journal. I kept writing. When my depression drove me to the point of feeling suicidal, I wrote my way out. But my journal wasn’t all tears and desperation and sadness. I laugh a lot too when I look back at who I used to be and what the world was like then.

Like this post from September 3, 2005: “Kanye West just got on TV and said ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people’. Kanye West is officially my baby daddy.”

Or this one, from August of that same year: “I bought two fish, one male and one female. I named them Brad and Angelina. And I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they hump constantly.”

I encourage you to keep a journal and write in it as much as possible. I read a story on Humans of New York last year about a woman who has kept a journal every day since she started it as a class assignment in elementary school. Y’all, I would spend Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to 1996 and read my thoughts on being in 7th grade and what the Oklahoma City bombing was like for us living 90 miles away. I would spend VIP Beyoncé ticket money to be able to go back to high school and read the daily thoughts of a girl who was struggling with bisexuality and living with a very religious family in the middle of the Bible belt. So yes, please keep a written record of your life. One day it will be invaluable to you.

Take a lot of pictures of yourself and of everything around you, even when you think you look terrible. I don’t mean that you have to post them on Instagram or Tumblr every day, but no one ever grew older and thought “Damn, there’s too many photos of me lying around from when I was young.” The moments you are experiencing now will layer themselves into the person you grow to be. It’s a lot of fun to look back on trips that my best friends and I took in our mid-twenties and cackle together over the memories. When I was your age, camera phones were only just starting to become mainstream and it was a bit of a pain to hold onto lots of photos. So take advantage of the times we are in now. Save all those snaps to your camera roll. Record videos when you and your friends are just hanging out being goofy. Take those selfies, even if you think they’re ugly, and know that one day you’ll look back and touch the pixels of your 23 year old face and wonder where the time went.

One day, if it hasn’t come already, it will really hit you that you’re not one of the kids anymore. One day you will look around at your family and you will now be in the position that was always previously occupied by your parents, aunts, and uncles. Those kids that your siblings and cousins have? They get old fast! It is a cruel trick of life that childhood seems to drag on forever while adulthood flies past. Nothing prepares you for the realization that your parents are whole, complete people who had entire lives that existed before you were ever considered.

You will know in a way that young people are not capable of knowing that time continues to move and the world keeps turning no matter what. Children cannot quite understand that the games and technology and places and people they build their memories out of will all change one day. When I was your age, MySpace and BlackPlanet were more popular than Facebook and George W. Bush was the dumbest president America ever had. So yeah, the world will change in ways you cannot begin to imagine. You will realize that if you are fortunate you will be old one day, but also that growing older means learning different ways to say goodbye. One day it will be you turning up the brightness on your phone and increasing the font size on your MacBook and looking confused at whatever new app or machine the children of the future have invented.

Everyone won’t leave Vassar this weekend with a great job lined up in the career they’ve always dreamed of and go on to live happily ever after. If you’re like most of us, you will spend a significant amount of time being overworked, undervalued, underpaid, stressed, and tired. I want to encourage you today to hold on through the times when life will frustrate you the most. Understand that you WILL mess up, and the way you respond to making mistakes shows your true maturity. Hold on to the friendships you’ve had for years. Take the time to figure out who you are and how that person is different from who you want to be. Learn when to cut people off and how to genuinely apologize.

Ages 22 to 32 were by far the hardest I’ve gone through in my life. Imma just be real with y’all about that. I had a lot of terrible relationships. I had knockdown drag-out fights with roommates and best friends. I had terrible jobs and even worse bosses. My health wasn’t always great and I stopped trying to take care of myself. Depression and anxiety seemed to rule my days more often than not.

But if I hadn’t held on, I never would have worked up the nerve to move from Oklahoma to Harlem. I never would have started doing The Read with Kid Fury, which changed my life completely. I never would have been able to travel the world doing the work I love. I never would have found the real happiness and true peace that come with both loving and liking yourself.

Understand that your next steps into adulthood begin now, and that you cannot get to the rewards life has in store for you without walking the journey. (Unless you were born a cis-straight white man, and then the world is your oyster.) When I look back over the past decade of my life, I see a lot of struggle and heartache and days that I had to collect coins from the bottom of my glove compartment to scrape up enough money to find dinner. And now that I’m on the other side of that mountain I see how every last one of those days I spent hurting and miserable led me to being right here. I had to learn to trust the process laid out for me. I had to learn to let my dreams shift into my destiny. Like Oprah says, I learned to lean in with the universe instead of fighting it. So as you prepare to tackle the changes heading your way, do your best to hold your head high and remain true to yourself. Remember to hold onto your values, your ethics, and your purpose. It is these qualities that will successfully guide you through life.

I’ll leave you with one last excerpt from my journal, dated January 20, 2007: “My ex-boyfriend just moved to Harlem and he gets on my nerves talking about how great the east coast is. I really don’t give a damn about the east coast. I would never move to NYC, but maybe that’s just me.”10 years later, I can tell you that 24 year old me couldn’t have been more wrong about what she would or would not do and how her life was going to turn out. So have your dreams and goals, but don’t be so attached to them that you miss out on your purpose.

Congratulations to you, the Vassar class of 2017, and to the parents, family and friends who have helped you arrive. Good luck to you and thank you for listening.

[mademoisellesarcasme]

Okay I already wrote 11 questions and now I’ve been tagged in 2 more and should go to sleep but am going to answer them instead.

tagged by @and-back-to-normal-life

1. Describe your “aesthetic”. Ideally, punk-rock 50s housewife. @catefrankie says Im well on my way. :3

2. If you were to decorate a bedroom with Christmas lights, what kind would you use? Um, warm whites. Probably the long strings of warm white incandescent bulbs, with a few warm white LED stars thrown in (I love the stars so much). And if I could find a true purple, I’d use those, but I have no idea where to find True Purple lights... they’re all always just so pink. (maybe a Halloween sale...)

3. What is your favorite medium of art? Pen and ink is fastest for me (or graphite, I’ve got a good grasp on that), but I really do love working with fabrics. I just don’t really see them as art, I guess. Not in the same way. They’re never Art Pieces... just fun things.

4. What is something odd that you always seem to notice in people or yourself? Handedness! Always notice fellow lefties. Also whether or not people have rings or religious medals.

5. Tell me 5 things about you that make you YOU. Uhhhh. 1. Exceedingly enthusiastic and passionate. About EVERYTHING. 2. Opinionated. So much. Again, about everything. 3. Huge fuckin nerd. In the past three days, I have recommended Miraculous Ladybug to a coworker, recommended Sesame Street to a francophone lady learning English, and told another coworker about Claire Temple the Night Nurse and the context in which Claire Temple exists (a gloss, but still). Also, on my desk are many pieces of paper containing made-up language and alphabet things for my oldest friend’s book. Which I developed. For funzies. 4. Slightly obsessed with communication. I think that’s why I want to learn so many languages. 5. *~* a e s t h e t i c *~*

6. Your preferred color palette? Cool colours, with pops of red/pink. Also silver.

7. Who was the main person who taught you how to drive? Did they do a good job? My mom did lots of the groundwork, and @coruscanttojerusalem has taken on the lion’s share of actual driving time lately. Mom did pretty okay; he’s also doing pretty okay. He is much more patient.

8. How many different places have you lived? Which place do you identify with the most? What is a place you aspire to live in one day and why? I have lived in 4 places, now: North Carolina, 2 cities in upstate NY, and DC. I identify the most with the place where my parents live because that’s where I go when I say “I’m going home for [event].” I aspire to live on a cliff overlooking one of the Great Lakes... some day. SOME DAY.

9. What is something from your childhood imagination that you still get occasional deja vu about? Um... deja vu might not be the word, but I still believe in magic. It’s just way lower-key than my childhood obsession with fairies. (the Artemis Fowl series absolutely fueled that obsession.)

10. Tell me about a conversation you’ve had with God recently. How was it? How do you feel about it? Cella dear I have told you all the good ones lately, and they’re not worth publishing publicly. <3

11. What is your favorite kind of music to dance to, or jam out to? Anything I know how to dance to, which is almost any kind of music in a few set tempo ranges! Lately work has been playing lots of old jazz and swing numbers, and I get excited and miss dancing when I hear them.

---- and now the set from @theoneman-army

1. Are you tired right now? Why or why not? Yes. It’s 2am. 2. Is there someone who you can be a total fool around and you don’t have to worry about it? Oh absolutely. 3. What is something bothering you right now? How are you working to solve the problem? I am house-hunting AND job-hunting at the same time and it’s awful. I’m... doing whatever I can? Looking up houses? reaching out to people? following up on leads? etc etc? 4. Do you like cooking? What is your favorite thing to cook? Do people think you are a good cook? Yeah, when I have the time! I make a lot of fried rice or quasi-Asian meals because they’re pretty easy and involve lots of eggs, but I think I most like making dinners for guests. Doesn’t really matter what. Most people do think I am a good cook, I guess? 5. Are you allergic to anything? Um, I think mineral oil. 6. Who is someone you can go to to talk about anything going on in your life? How has this person changed you? Well, @coruscanttojerusalem and I have had a really close spiritual friendship for the past couple years, and the changes we’ve made on each other are kinda... drastic? I guess? in a positive way. He kinda kicked me in the butt and made me actually develop a spiritual life. I remind him of this, and of all the things I’ve learned along the way, constantly. 7. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Which do you want to be? When are you the most productive? Night owl; I’m perfectly happy with it, honestly. I’m most productive between 9 or 10pm and 3am. 8. Do you like road trips? when was the last time you went on vacation? Where was it to? Oh yeah, but only with the right people! I guess Texas was my last vacation, in January... I’m not sure I’ve had a real “vacation” in ... years, by now... 9. What are some of your favorite tv shows? Any reasons why they are your favorites? Definitely Avatar: the Last Airbender. It’s clever and heartwarming and has wonderful characters. Also Brooklyn 99, despite recently punching my heart in the face, because it also has amazing characters. Pushing Daisies is excellent... I dunno. Yeah. 10. Write something nice to an 8-year old you. Dear little E, Keep writing! Keep drawing! Keep being you! You’re awesome! You should believe that forever! Love, Big E 11. When was the last time you did something nice for someone, even if it was a small gesture? What was the reaction? Why do you think this reaction happened?  So you see, I work in retail. I often have opportunities to do something nice for people. Today I brought a regular her coffee even though she was planning on getting up and getting it herself. She looked very pleasantly surprised and told me she could come get it and I said it was no issue, did she see how dead it was? Which was true. It was pretty dead today. It’s not normal Starbucks service (bringing coffee to people) but it’s less uncommon than you think around my particular store (which specialises in hospitality as well as fancy-ass coffee). I do stuff like this a LOT because I realise I have one chance to make someone’s day better. I often give out compliments on outfits! That’s my favourite and easiest trick. Tell a girl her [outfit/aesthetic/ensemble/piece] looks nice, and she just lights right up.

I am so not doing eleven more questions I’m showering and going to sleep good night fellas

[encchantress]

so this guide is going to be a very very basic overview of what it’s like to WORK AT DISNEY WORLD (pt. 1)! i have a somewhat in depth knowledge of the process and what it’s actually like to be working there because i worked there doing the college program for 5 months. this will be a v v basic overview though and maybe if i feel like it, i’ll do a college program version as well, but here it is!! please like or reblog if you found this helpful!!

AFTER YOU’RE HIRED!

i only know about how you get hired via the disney college program so i’m going to gloss over that, though i will say that for the dcp you apply online, have a web interview, then a phone interview and then you find out whether or not you join the cast!!

CASTING!!!! i know for the dcp we didn’t know what role we had and what location we were going to be at until we got there, but i can’t speak for normal disney cast members. all i know is that no matter what you’ll end up at the casting building at downtown disney to get your assignment and scan fingerprints and all that!!

TRADITIONS!!!! god i’m so lit just thinking about it. traditions is the day that you’re called in to learn all about the history of disney and hear a bunch of stories about how disney has touched the lives of so many. it’s business casual, and disney is VERY strict about this. i watched a girl take off her lipstick bc a cast member told her it was too bright. basically you go to disney university and you get told a bunch of heart-warming stuff, you do some trivia and earn some figurines if you answer correctly, and there’s a box sitting in the middle of your table the whole time which you aren’t allowed to open until the end. they take you to magic kingdom and they have you wear these headsets that don’t rly work and they take you backstage through the tunnels and up into some part of magic and you just like observe what’s going on and you learn about some of the neato things you only get to learn as a cast member. then you go back to Disney University and mickey mouse himself comes to give you your name tag. of course, at the end, you get to open the box and there’s your very own pair of mickey ears waiting inside. it’s honestly life changing. 

okay, so after you have to go through this thing called operations. basically you go to DU and you’re split up into groups based on your role. your roles include:

food and beverage (quick service or full service)

retail (bibbidi bobbidi boutique/floral/merchandise/vacation planner)

entertainment (character performer/character attendant/costuming)

lodging (bell services/front desk/housekeeper)

recreation (children’s activities/lifeguard/recreation attractions)

operations (attractions/custodial/photopass)

and basically what you do in ops is you spend a full day taking a bunch of internet quizzes about personal safety, osha standards, and how to handle situations like unattended suspicious bags and lost children (although at disney they don’t say they’re lost children they say they have lost parents)

i’m gonna be honest, it’s real boring. like 90% of my day was spent trying not to fall asleep. but something else important to disney that you learn during ops are THE FOUR KEYS! The Four Keys are how Disney moderates how they’re doing as a business. The Four Keys are as followed:

SAFETY

COURTESY

EFFICIENCY

SHOW

you will get tested on these often. 

**quick note about safety. disney’s slogan for being safe while on property is “SAFE-D BEGINS WITH ME!” every cast member makes so many dick jokes using that phrase. please do it it’s so funny.**

then once you’re done with ops you’re typically sent for costuming which i’ll get into a little bit later probably bc there’s not rly that much to say on it right now other than like, just do a quick google to find out what your character will be wearing for wherever they work.

STARTING WORK!

so depending on which park you’re assigned to work (note: you will not park hop unless you’re deployed or you pick up shifts. pick one park and stick to it.) you have an orientation day. each park has a cutesy name for it 

DAKlimation (disney’s animal kingdom)

once upon a time (magic kingdom)

discovery day (epcot)

on with the show (hollywood studios)

this is basically a full day of walking around the parks, learning some of the secrets behind the theming and getting accustomed to the backstage areas. you also might ride a ride if you’re lucky (we rode kilimanjaro safaris at DAK). then you’ll start your on the job training. this can range from a week to two weeks depending and at the end of training you are tested on your knowledge of all the skills you learned during training. ((if anyone is interested in lifeguarding or quick service specifically pls don’t hesitate to ask!)) and through all this training you get to wear a cute little “earning my ears” sticker on your name tag!!

ROLES!!

honestly you can do a quick google about any of the roles above, but pls feel free to ask me questions too bc i know a lot about qsfb, lifeguarding, merch and character performer especially. i’m just going to highlight some common misconceptions (imo) below.

character performer: OKAY SO THIS IS WHERE I GET REAL NITPICKY!!! this paragraph is gonna be long so settle in. to be a character performer YOU HAVE TO GO TO AN AUDITION. and let me tell you, it is not easy. it is very likely that if you are a character performer you have auditioned a very good number of times bc disney is so specific in what they’re looking for. and character performer isn’t just someone in a costume or a lookalike. it extends to parades, shows, and even street performers like the citizens of hollywood in hollywood studios. 

there are a few different types of auditions too. they have character performer auditions where they are just generally looking for performers, but they can pull you aside for lookalikes. in character performer auditions you do a parade dance that increases in difficulty the further you go along if you haven’t been cut. in lookalike auditions you literally go into a room in groups of 50 and smile at a man for like 5 seconds and then they cut based off of that. ((if anyone wants a more detailed guide on this i can do it bc i have auditioned for disney 5 times doing both kinds of auditions))

height ranges!!!! this is also a huge thing for me bc some of yall stay trying to play like a 5′7″ bitch as tinkerbell. disney is usually pretty good about sticking to particular height rangers for costumed and face characters. 

most princesses are within the 5′4″-5′7″ range. alice and wendy are usually between 4′10″-5′2″. most costumed characters with the exclusion of most villains and goofy are between 4′11″-5′4″. 5′4″ is definitely at the v top of the height range though and might be pushing it tbh. these are all based on what i know to be true myself having met a shit ton of princesses and character performers, but there are deviants for sure. basically don’t use taylor swift as an fc for alice. cool??? cool.

quick service food and beverage: once you’re in a restaurant you typically stay there. although qsfb can also extend to outdoor vending (odv) in which case you would rotate from cart to cart (they’re the ones that sell the mickey bars and pretzels n shit), but if you work in a restaurant you typically don’t switch between that and odv. 

WORLD SHOWCASE @ EPCOT: if you’re in the world showcase, the people that work in the different countries are usually authentically from there. it would be very, very rare to have a white/european person working at one of the restaurants in mexico. i’ve honestly never met someone who wasn’t from their assigned country that worked there. i’m speaking specifically about the world showcase and not any other part of epcot. many world showcase cast members are part of the cultural representative program which means they come for 12 months and they work in either the world showcase in epcot, animal kingdom, animal kingdom lodge, or international guest relations/greeter roles. basically, if you’re gonna have your character work in a world showcase pavilion, make them from that country pls. 

attractions: if you work attractions, you are most likely not just working at one ride for your entire life. for example: in adventureland in magic kingdom, those attractions workers work aladdin’s magic carpet ride, the enchanted tiki room, swiss family robinson treehouse and anything else in the area. basically if a land or a certain area within the park has the same costume, you’re working all of it so i’d familiarize yourself with just how many attractions your character might be working. 

**quick note again: not every job is within a disney park. you may get a job at disney springs, water parks, or resorts!!!**

WORK THINGS!!!

when you’re working, disney has you on a strict points system. if you’re late to work, they dock you half a point. if you miss your shift/call out, they dock you a point. if you get 3 points within 30 days you get what’s called a reprimand. and this is not good my friends. you get 3 reprimands within 3 months and you’re out. like out out. like turn in your blue card and get out. you can get authorized days off or (ADO’s) but you have to request off like crazy early or get someone to take your shift. 

ahh!!! blue cards!!!! your blue card, or blue ID, is what identifies you as a cast member at disney. it’s also what you flash to bypass paying for parking, and it’s what gets you through the gates to get you backstage at disney. you don’t have it, you’re fucked basically. blue IDs also get you discounts on merchandise and food at some QSFB restaurants.

MAIN GATES!!!! your key to the kingdom!!! your maingate is your entry pass to all the parks. it serves as a park hopper. you also get 3 guest passes which, depending on if you’re a cp, part time or full time has so many passes on it for whomever you wish to bring with you into the parks. 

you answer to two people while you work at disney. your coordinators and your leaders. your coordinators are out on stage with you and there’s usually like 2-4 of them depending on how large your location is. they’re who you ask for help in a pinch. your leaders are like your managers. they give you a briefing in the morning before you open, they make tough calls, and they have to ability to smooth over almost any situation effortlessly. if you have a reeeeally angry guest, you better call ur leader. 

when you’re not on stage, you are backstage. i literally cannot stress this enough. if you’re on break you should not be seen or heard. there are break rooms for every section of each park and if you’re not on your feet, you’re back there. they’re not nice. they’re small, crowded, and usually smell. there are larger cafeterias within every park though (at DAK ours was called PRIDE ROCK) but they’re usually quite a walk depending on where you work.

BREAKS!!! if you’re working at disney that means you’re typically spending 6+ hours on your feet and however long your shift is is how long your break is. 6 hour shift?? you’ve probably got one 15 min break. 8 hours?? prolly one 30 min. break. 10 hours??? that’s when you get the hour long break.  oh also that 10 hour shift you were scheduled for?? it just turned into a 13 hour shift thanks to a force extend. you’re welcome. but you’re in luck!!! sometimes you get an early release or an ER!!! that’s when they don’t need you so they’re like fuck it go home. 

oh also everything is in military time.

GLOSSARY (terms cast members use a lot)

cast members - if you work for the walt disney company you are a cast member, not an employee 

DU - disney university (yes it exists and it’s fuckin baller on the inside)

company d - this is a store inside disney university. it’s where you can get exclusive cast merch and also you can buy your discounted party tickets there

cast connections - ok this is honestly disney’s best kept secret. cast connections is this huge store where u can buy so much shit for like 75% off. they even have a small grocery section where everything is hella cheap. you have to be cast to buy shit.

costuming - where you go to get your costumes duh. there’s one at every park, but magic kingdom’s is at west clock.

west clock - ok so basically not all mk cast is allowed to park in the parking lot like at other parks so there’s this thing called west clock that has a huge parking lot and it’s where disney university and magic king costuming is. you go to west clock and then take a bus to get to magic.

tunnels/utilidor - backstage at MK consists of the utilidors or tunnels as they’re often called. MK is the only park with tunnels and they’re fuckin extensive. there are colored lines on the walls that can direct you to where you need to go, but it’s still confusing as hell.

qsfb/fsfb - quick service/full service food and beverage

merch - merchandise

odv - outdoor vending

stands west/stands east - a variation of working merchandise in the parks. you work at the small stands instead of the shops

four keys card - if a fellow cast member or guest thinks you’ve successfully exemplified the four keys, they give you a four keys card. this is for recognition and it also takes a point off of your record.

MK - magic kingdom

DAK - disney’s animal kingdom

DHS - disney’s hollywood studios

CP - college program

ER - early release

force extend - when they fucking extend your shift without asking u

ADO - authorized day off

deployed - sometimes you get asked to work in a different park for a few days or weeks, they call this being deployed.

on stage - when you’re on the job in front of guests

backstage - the areas where you can’t be seen by guests

guests - not customers, guests.

honestly there’s probably so much more i need to cover, but that’s just a lil taste of what it’s like to work at disney. i might add onto this later or just make a second guide. if you have any questions about anything specific, the disney college program, qsfb or animal kingdom rly let me know bc i know the most about those things, but i’m knowledgeable in A LOT of other stuff too. 

[lovelesswiki]

Analysis- Agatsuma Soubi’s terrible, not so good, very bad life (an analysis about Soubi and jobs, ambition, and identity)

 I promise that you can actually take me seriously. I swear to god. (I promise that I get serious later on, too)

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about my favorite topic. Myself. Agatsuma Soubi. This dude has gotten the short end of the stick in every fucking way possible. He’s also a pretty shitty person, but let’s not get into that right now.

I want to talk about Soubi and the way Soubi views himself in a particular way. I don’t know if this will be a series, but knowing me, it probably will. I discuss this a lot with my friends, but one of the things that continuously baffles me about Loveless is how Soubi lives his life as a semi-legitimate adult. Like, okay, he’s not an actual adult. But the fact of the matter is that he has an apartment house flat LIVING PLACE that up until volume three, he lives in completely alone. Also the place he lives doesn’t even have a separate room for a bathroom and is made entirely out of wood (and has someone who is notoriously associated with fire living in it) but that’s something for a different post at a different time (jesus christ Soubi can you at least get a place with a real bathroom? Love yourself a little, dude.)

It’s no real secret that I’ve theorized for years that Ritsu probably has some sort of hand in this in one way or another. Soubi and Ritsu are intricately connected, as much as Soubi is shown over and over again to want nothing to do with him ever, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Ritsu might have a hand in paying whatever rent Soubi has at the actual shithole he lives in. Also, it does fit in with Ritsu’s power-control persona, which is a big part of his storyline and who he is as a person. Ritsu is completely a morally ambguous power/control freak in every sense of every word, and I don’t doubt for a second that he would jump at the chance to hold one more thing over Soubi’s head, especially as an adult. 

I mean, it’s pretty obvious that Ritsu also doesn’t think of Soubi as an adult at all. Ritsu still considers Soubi a child, and he still constantly refers to him as such and talks down to him in every scene they’re in together in the manga. Everything in those scenes with Ritsu and adult Soubi is a power gimmick on Ritsu’s part, from calling Soubi cute to grabbing him in the hallway at Seven Voices to even the way he describes Soubi to Ritsuka when Ritsu is blind and in the hospital. I could write literal essays on Soubi and Ritsu and I will write literal essays on them, but I’m getting a tiny bit off topic here. 

Soubi and his psyche have a very weird relationship with the prospect of having a job and by extension, of handling money. If you don’t believe me, there’s extras that state that Soubi has the equivalent of $80,000 USD in some bank account and there’s an extra where he lists off about five really fucking weird  jobs that he’s had, with it raging from everything from a traffic surveyor (I challenge you to imagine that) to a design drafter. 

Furthermore, in the beginnings of Loveless, Kio mentions that Soubi was an art teacher for a whole day before getting fired. As someone who works, you have to try really fucking hard to get fired after one day of working. 

Also as someone who works, Soubi’s job history is very weird. Understandably, a lot of his jobs seem to have been solitary jobs, with the exception of the teaching job that he had for an entire day.  It’s stated in less than explicit terms that Soubi is absolutely not a people-person. I’m 100% sure that if Soubi was given the chance to live in a world where he would never, ever have to interact with another person and could paint his goddamn butterflies all day, he would take it in an instant. That would be the easiest decision this asshole would ever have to make. 

Anyways, Soubi’s job history is weird. Usually, when you start working, you do try to sort of concentrate in one area after your first job, which is usually something retail related. Before I go on, I’d like to state that I am very American and not Japanese at all and I don’t really know what the workforce is like in Japan, so bare with my rudimentary and very American-based analysis of this. I specialized in tech after my initial retail job. Another person I know specialized in books. Someone else I know really loved food service and stuck around there. Point being, if you find a job or something you like, you usually try to get other jobs in the same area! This is part of what I don’t see at all with Soubi. Looking at his history and his known work ethic (bad) and just him in general (also bad), it becomes incredibly apparent that he literally does not care.

Soubi is a very weird person. That much goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyways. He is not normal at all. He’s like someone who’s trying to fit in with normal people but is failing in every way possible. Someone who’s trying to do normal-people things, but just is unable to make it work at all. That’s sort of where I think all this is coming from. Soubi is a college student and has exposure to normal people, including but not limited to Kio, and he’s trying to fit in and the norm is some sort of part-time work. 

That brings me to my next point- part of the reason Soubi fails so miserably at every normal-person thing he tries to do, including working a part-time job, is because of what his entire identity is based around.

Because there is a specific time that Soubi mentions working in the series, and it’s very important and often looked-over. Or, more, he mentions a solid career.

Before I go into this, I need to remind everyone of something in complete seriousness. Agatsuma Soubi is someone who is without any sort of ambition. He has no dreams or anything. He does not try in school and is actually notoriously terrible at being a university student. He’s seemingly lost every job that he’s ever had. Up until about the third volume of the manga, he had no sort of family, biological or found, and lived completely alone in almost total isolation. Soubi has no ambitions or dreams or anything. He does not want anything. He just is. He exists, and that’s it.

Despite this, there is one time in the entire series where Soubi mentions a career.

There is exactly one thing that Soubi is good at and that’s being a Fighter. He’s described as an alright artist (though Ritsuka says he’s a good artist, but he’s also 12 years old), but even in this, Soubi has absolutely no drive. The only thing he is good at or has ever been good at is fighting.

And Soubi is described as the best at that. 

Let’s take some stuff into consideration--Soubi left Seven Voices at seventeen because he graduated a year early. He was the top student in the entire school. He seems to be even notorious in the school. Ai knows who he is when they talk at Seven Voices and so does the receptionist at the school. When Ritsu is told about Soubi’s arrival, the receptionist name-drops him as if he’s a significant alumni. Ritsu even mentions while giving Soubi away that Soubi was the top and smartest student at Seven Voices. Soubi was the top student in the entire school, and it was no mistake that he was given to Seimei, either. Soubi was specifically given to Seimei because he was the best student. Seimei held the first seat on the Septimal Moon council. Despite being a little shit, he was incredibly important and despite ALSO being a little shit, Ritsu gave Soubi to someone important because he knew that Soubi was the best at what he does.

Let’s also take into consideration that the only time Soubi has ever displayed any sort of pride is when talking about fighting and his achievements as a Fighter. For years, I’ve seen people describe the way Soubi was at Seven Voices in the beginning when actually arriving at the school as ‘weird’ and even slightly out of character, but the fact of the matter is that this, when Soubi was describing the school and how this is where he comes from to Ritsuka, is one of the only times Soubi has displayed any amount of pride towards himself.

Which brings me back to earlier. It’s during this scene (specifically, when he’s talking to Ai) that he refers to his career, and it’s without a doubt that he’s referring to fighting as his career.

He’s translated as saying to Ai, “Maybe you don’t like the way I’ve handled my career.” and he does expand on this later, when he runs into Ritsu. He does discuss things with him, though he is extremely cold and distant, and alludes to retiring from fighting, something that Ritsu doesn’t seem to like hearing. The fact that Soubi has any sort of a future plan or even thinks about the future is huge, because he is never shown to do that. Like I stated, in everything else, Soubi has no drive or ambition at all. Fighting is all he is, and all he views himself as. Without fighting, Soubi has no identity. He is nothing. 

This also goes to show just how life-changing Ritsu’s teachings were. Before coming into his care, Soubi seemed to be an actual normal child. He looked normal and acted normal and this is maybe the first and only time that I can say that Soubi was actually normal. But that very clearly changed when Ritsu took Soubi in. Ritsu did a lot to Soubi. He not only abused him in every single way possible and manipulated him, but Ritsu also entirely isolated Soubi from everyone and everything, and that’s something that I think people skip over and miss a lot. Soubi was a normal six year-old kid reacting normally to losing his parents and fourteen years later he’s this psuedo-adult who can’t even function in a normal, human society. Ritsu took whatever sort of world-view or self-worth that this kid had and completely destroyed and shattered it until there was absolutely nothing left.

As a result, at the start of the series, Soubi has no other identity but a Fighter. He is a lot of other things--a student, apparently some sort of home owner, a worker in at least 5 instances, a friend to Kio--but none of those things are things that he actually identifies with. He’s nothing without his identity as a Fighter and because of that, he’s nothing without his Sacrifice. He’s nothing in general, because he can’t function without these identities. And that’s the reason that he’s been so weird with his job history and by extension, also with his school history. He can’t function in those aspects because he has no idea how to. They’re not part of his identity. He has no drive to function in those aspects and because of that, he just doesn’t.

Now, I do specifically mention ‘at the start of the series’. 

Recently, a friend said to me something along the lines of she’d love to see Soubi actually want to do something. Like, she wants to see Soubi have some sort of ambition over something that’s not fighting. And I agree and moreover, I think that Soubi has changed over the course of the manga. I think he’s become something that he wasn’t before. I think he’s adopted new identities.

Soubi is still really lacking in areas like school and actual, legitimate work, but socially, he’s getting there. He actually does seem to put some sort of value to his friendship with Kio and does go completely out of his way to save him after Kio was kidnapped, even willingly giving up Nisei (Soubi’s absolute enemy) to get him back. And even though he throws them out at multiple times, Soubi does seem to place some value on living with Natsuo and Youji, as well. Admittedly, he might not be very good at it, but there is some sort of parental relationship between them developing, enough so that the two of them willingly chose to go back with Soubi after what happened at Seven Voices. Soubi seems to like being some sort of a carer, as Kio does comment during the hallucination/fantasy Soubi had at one point during the Moonless battle when Kio said something along the lines of, “You seem to like this.” Soubi states in the same chapter that ‘living together would be nice’. 

Furthermore, the conversation between Soubi and Ritsu shows some sort of desire to end his life as a Fighter and be something else. Soubi throws out the idea of retiring during this conversation, something that Ritsu doesn’t seem to enjoy hearing, and it shows that to some extent, the idea of retiring has been something that Soubi has entertained. In my personal opinion, I see this as a positive end-goal for Soubi--retiring from being a Fighter, putting shit behind him, getting some incredibly intensive therapy, and trying to settle into being some version of a normal person again. 

I do agree with my friend. I would love to see Soubi have some sort of ambition or drive, or even a future outside of spell-battles and pretty words. Ritsu truly did a very good job of destroying a perfectly good child through means of horrid abuse and total isolation, and it’s had a horrible effect on the rest of Soubi’s life, resulting in how we see him in canon- as a man-child who knows no boundaries and cannot function in any sort of everyday life.

[slamncram]

The Falcon Café and Bakery does good business. They have a lot of regular customers. It just, well, when you think about it, the place could be marketed as a coping mechanism for people who have seen more than their fair share of shit - and that goes for both the staff and customers.

PART 1: When ex-con Grant Ward needs a job, the best strategy feels like throwing everything at the wall and waiting to see what sticks. Of all the places he applied, he least expected the bakery across the street to call him in for an interview. It might just be the exact thing he was looking for, though.

Also on ao3

“So. You’re an ex-con.”

It wasn’t the best start to a job interview, and Grant knew that, but he didn’t know what else he should’ve expected. It was something that had needed to come up when he was applying for jobs. If he wasn’t upfront about it, they would find out eventually, and then things would really go sideways. It hadn’t done him any favours, and that wasn’t surprising in the least. People didn’t generally want someone with his past on their staff, even if he had a report from a psychologist saying that he was unlikely to relapse and would be an asset at any job.

It hadn’t made things easy, since he got out. He’d gotten lucky that his odd jobs paid, and that his sister was willing – had even needled away at him until he’d accepted – to help foot the bill for his apartment. He had some money saved, but that wasn’t the problem. Eventually, that money would go away, and he wouldn’t be able to pay for his basic needs.

Not his, nor the basic needs of the chocolate lab Andrew had helped him get. Buddy was supposed to be good for therapy, and Grant supposed that, as far as animal companions went, you couldn’t go wrong with a dog. There was a definite upside to having him around. With Buddy in his life, Grant never left lonely.

At least, not for company. Human companionship was something he still felt sorely lacking in his life. He could do with having coworkers, at the very least.

And a job would give him something to do, something to focus on, that wasn’t his therapy appointments, or parole check-ins, or twice weekly phone calls with Charlotte and Thomas. Not that he didn’t like talking to his brother and sister, but the fact of the matter was that the content of the calls rarely changed, and it was getting to the point where even Thomas had some concerns. Concerns that he was voicing.

That meant it was time to throw everything at the wall and hope to God something stuck.

That was why Grant was sitting in the back room of this bakery, now, trying not to feel out of place. He’d gone through retail, and customer service, through industrial, and manufacturing, and manual labour, and, yes, food service. Right now, he was waiting to hear back from most of those places. When this bakery – the Falcon Café – had called and asked him to come in for an interview, there was no way he was turning it down. No, it wouldn’t be the best pay, but it was right across the street from his apartment building, and Grant liked baking. It had been one of the things he’d taken up since getting out, to occupy himself during his downtime. Baking, cooking, and taking Buddy for long, winding walks where he ended up lost in his own head much of the time. Getting the call to interview here was almost too good to be true, and when the bakery owner, a guy named Sam Wilson, opened by asking that question? Grant couldn’t help but assume this was little more than a courtesy interview.

“Um, yeah. I’ve been out about a year now.”

Sam nodded. He was pretty young, for such a successful entrepreneur. When Grant had walked in for the interview, he had been a little shocked at how many people there were, sitting in the café portion of the place. There were even more perusing the shelves of baked goods and glass cases with gourmet offerings. The position he’d applied for was a full-time cashier, essentially. There had been some mention in the ad about an ability to bake being an asset, but for the most part, it seemed like Grant, should he get the job, would be working on the till and at the front counter.

Which was probably not a position that Sam wanted filled with an ex-con.

“A year, huh? Damn. What’ve you been doing with yourself?”

That hadn’t been a question that Grant was prepared for. That was mostly because, when Sam had opened with the first one, he hadn’t been prepared for much past ‘thanks for your time, we’ll call you if we have a position’. Sam taking an interest in him was far from what he’d expected, and Grant told himself that, because of that, it was fair that he hesitated a second.

“Well. I’ve been picking up odd jobs where I can. A friend of mine had a moving company, so I’ve been taking work with him when he needs bodies. Another friend has a shop, and if he had a lot going on, he’d ask me to come in on the weekends to help get jobs finished up.”

Sam nodded, flipping over Grant’s application in his hands, and reading the second page. “So, odd jobs.”

“Yeah.” Grant answered. He was beginning to regret his choice of clothing. It was a job interview, so a nice pair of pants, button up shirt, and tie were a good idea. It was just that, the longer Sam lingered on his past, before just pulling the trigger and ending it, the tighter Grant’s tie felt. “That’s been about it.”

Another nod. Another few seconds ticking by in silence. In contrast to Grant’s professional dress, Sam was wearing a pair of black slacks and a maroon long-sleeve with the sleeves pushed up around his elbows. His dark hair hair and beard were both trimmed and groomed immaculately, and despite the fact that he must work with his hands a lot, there wasn’t a trace of flour on his skin or clothes. The guy had to run a pretty tight ship, or he was out, customer-facing. Either way, he looked put-together, at ease, and in control. This was the kind of guy you wanted to work for.

And also the kind of guy who probably didn’t want to chance being robbed blind by an employee if he could help it. Sam had worked for what he had. It would be ridiculous to expect him to jeopardize it for an ex-con.

“You have a letter of recommendation here, from a Doctor… Andrew Garner.” Sam said, finally, flipping to the page in the application that included Andrew’s letter. Grant had submitted it with his resume. It had just seemed like the smartest thing for him to do. If they were going to reject him, at least they could take the time to consider that he might not be a violent, thieving mess of a person.

That world was long behind him, his gateway to it locked up in a maximum security facility.

Not knowing what to say to fill the silence that followed Sam’s statement, Grant nodded. It stretched on for another minute, the pressure bearing down on him. The back room was pretty far away from the main area of the bakery, but Grant could swear that he heard what sounded like six dozen people carrying on conversation only feet away from the door. That was his nerves, and he knew that, but it didn’t stop him from focusing on it.

He needed a job. He couldn’t keep taking Charlotte’s charity. Yes, she was making a lot of money. She had hit the literary big time, early on, with her first young adult novel, and had kept on cashing in, year after year, novel after novel, building a series that was renowned across the country. They’d even had a copy of the first one in the prison where Grant had been kept. That had to be a sign of how well she was doing, and when Grant had read it, he’d seen a lot of where her inspiration had come from.

He didn’t begrudge her, using their lives, and a few of his bad choices, as a jumping off point for some of the plot points. Writing what you knew was a good way to start doing things. Grant was just happy to see her succeeding. Charlotte, on the other hand, felt a little like she’d taken advantage of what her older brother had gone through, and, as a consequence, insisted that Grant was deserving of at least part of her royalties. At least until he got on his feet.

As much as Grant appreciated it, he knew that he needed to get himself consistent, paying, steady work, so that he didn’t need to live off of checks from his baby sister. It was a point of pride, and he was at the point where he felt like he could get past the ‘ex-con’ thing, if people were willing to take his – and Andrew’s – word for it.

It was just uncertain if Falcon Café was going to be the place that did it. Grant could understand Sam not wanting him here. Grant had noticed he was fairly young, maybe only a little older than Grant, if not the same age as him. He owned and operated a successful bakery and cafe, with a staff that was probably loyal to him, without records of which to speak, who were trained to bake the great creations that were on display in the glass cases up front.

And Grant was an ex-con with a GED and a piece of paper from his therapist that said he was a ‘very low’ risk as an employee.

He wasn’t exactly the kind of person people fought to hire.

“All right, Grant. Can I call you Grant? Forgot to ask when I shook your hand.”

“Grant’s a lot better than Mr. Ward.” He answered, truthfully. Sam smiled, a potential good sign, and set down Grant’s resume, application, and letter of recommendation.

“Grant, then. All right, so, I’ll be honest? Man, when I got your application, I was saying to myself ‘why the hell does an ex-con want to work here?’ And I’ll be honest with you. I’m still kind of wondering. I mean, you’re a pretty big dude, and from what you’re telling me, you’ve been doing a lot of the manual labour kind of thing. That’s got to be an industry where people don’t look at your kind of history and wonder about it. So, I gotta know. Why here?”

It was a fair question, and Sam had every right to pose it. Grant didn’t look like what people pictured when they thought of a baker, and Sam knew his business better than Grant. There was a seriously good chance that, should his history get out, he would be something of a sore spot on the staff, for both coworkers and customers.

“I’m going to be honest with you, because lying hasn’t gotten me anywhere good in the past.” Grant started, finally, after taking a few seconds to get his thoughts together. “I need money, and, yeah, that’s kind of why I’ve been throwing my resume at any place that’ll take it. Since I got out, I’ve been living off my odd jobs, and my sister’s help, and I don’t want to keep doing that. Getting out of prison meant that I really could go after a fresh start, and relying on other people to get me there isn’t doing anyone any favours. I’ve put out… A lot of applications. You’re the first who have called back in a week, and I wasn’t going to turn you down, if you were willing to consider me.

I know I’m not… I’m not trained in baking, and I’m not a graduate of any kind of cake decorating class. But, I do like to do it, and since getting out, I’ve been doing it a lot more. It’s a good time-passing hobby. And something like this seems pretty steady, in terms of pace. It would keep me busy, and help with the, uh…”

Grant pointed at the pile of sheets that Sam had set down. “The ‘melancholy’ that Dr. Garner mentions in there. He’s right. I do need something to do, something to give me focus and routine, but it’s best if it’s something I enjoy. Not that I don’t enjoy helping with moving and repairs, but I feel like here I could actually begin to learn new things, and take new steps forward.”

Sam had been quiet through Grant’s explanation, only nodding here and there as Grant spoke. He was quiet and respectful of what Grant had to say, not speaking over him, nor making any move or sound to interrupt or bring him to a halt. It was something that Grant appreciated immensely, but he knew that to say it might sound odd.

“I like your honesty. I like that you just came right out and said ‘I need money’. I do a lot of interviews, Grant, and I get a lot of people in here who have no experience and who think that this will just be a cushy job where they sit around and sell muffins here and there, and they’ll get paid at the end of the day and they’ll have barely done any work. That’s not how it is, and that’s not the kind of people I hire. I hire people who are expecting to work for the money that they take home, who come in here every day ready to do the job, to make the customers smile, to keep up a good, positive vibe for everyone else who works here. I need people who are going to carry their weight and have a damn good reason to do it. Not because they need drinking money.”

Grant nodded, hesitant to do much more. Sam was with something, here, an important point to him, and Grant interrupting could shatter the flimsy bridge he felt they may be building.

“Now, you’re saying you bake as a hobby. You know, if you work here, that hobby is going to become your job, and I’m going to need you to step up and learn good and fast, right?”

Hardly daring to believe what it sounded like Sam was saying, Grant nodded. “Of course. Wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

Sam nodded, a hint of a smile on his face. “Dr. Garner says that you’re a hard worker, loyal, and becoming more openly honest as you put distance between yourself and the prison. You’d say that’s a good description of you?”

“I think so, yeah. I didn’t always apply it in the best way in the past, but yeah.”

“You planning on relapsing on that any time, Grant?”

The question was direct, no beating around the bush. Grant liked that.

“No. The whole reason I ended up where I was was because I had a really… Really bad mentor, during a bad time in my life. I didn’t really think about the right and wrong a whole lot, so long as it kept him happy and getting what he wanted. I think about right and wrong now. A lot.”

“I would think so, considering where you’ve been. You’ve seen the shit that comes from not thinking about that kind of thing. All right...” Sam picked up the sheets again, flipping through them before he looked over the top at Grant, and smiled.

“Andrew’s an old friend of mine. He said that you would probably put in an application, and I should at least give you a shot and interview you. It’s not like you’re the first guy with a record that I’ve had in this place.”

To say that Grant was taken aback would have been an understatement, and he knew that it was showing on his face by the way Sam laughed.

“I’m sorry. Yeah, I should have been honest with you at the jump, but I wanted to see how you would be with me before I let you in on the truth.” Sam reached across the desk, hand outstretched for Grant’s once more. Grant took it, shaking firmly, still a bit dazed.

“You knew…?”

“Oh, yeah, I knew. Thing about this place… Grant, I don’t know if you read up on me, but I’m a vet. I got honorable discharge a while back. Long while back. Decided to do something constructive with my newfound free time, and I started this place.” He smiled, crossing his arms and leaning forward on the desk while he spoke. “Everyone who works here, almost all of them? We’ve all got some kind of baggage. Something that keeps us up at night, or makes us look over our shoulders, or wonder what people see when they look at us. It’s not always slow-paced, no. But you said you took up baking as a hobby, and you’d be surprised how many other people have done that kind of thing.

“I want to bring you on board, Grant. You seem like you’re genuinely trying to make some kind of turnaround from what you did before. No, I don’t know the details. Andrew didn’t share them, and you don’t have to give me the nitty-gritty. Once we’ve worked together a while, if you want to grab a scone and sit back here with me and tell me your shit, I will listen. I’ve gotten good at that. But I’m going to take you on this impression, and on Doc Garner’s word, and take a chance on you.”

“That’s… I mean, thank you, really, thank you.”

Grant felt a little like he might be dreaming. He’d walked in here, this afternoon, mostly expecting this to be a bust. A place like this couldn’t possibly be the kind of place that was going to hire an ex-con. Now, he was sitting across from the grinning owner, with a job offer in front of him, and the assurance that Sam Wilson didn’t think he was making a mistake, and he was going to give Grant the chance to prove to him that the case was truly that.

“Hey, just don’t give me a reason to ruin my perfect run of being right about people.” Sam said, then stood up. He left Grant’s papers on the desk as he walked around it, waving for Grant to follow him. “I’m going to have to get you to come in tomorrow and do some paperwork. You know, legal stuff. You probably have some people you need to inform too, right?”

“Yeah, I need to tell my parole officer, and Andrew. Probably my sister.” Grant answered, mentally making a list, knowing he would need to prepare an argument for Charlotte. She might not give up helping him so easily.

“Great. So, tomorrow morning, why don’t you come by around 10, and we can get some paperwork done? For now, how about I introduce you to some of the people you’ll be working with.”

Sam didn’t wait for Grant’s agreement or otherwise, leading him down a short hallway and into a bustling kitchen.

“Hey, guys.”

Even if they were in the middle of working on something – and most of the staff was – they gave their attention to Sam when they heard his voice. That wasn’t a fear thing. Grant had seen how people reacted when it was a fear thing. That was respect, plain and simple. Most of them kept working, but it was obvious that they were listening to the boss. In some cases, they were watching him, even while their hands kept moving.

“This is Grant Ward. He’ll be joining the team later this week, so… You all know the drill.”

A guy definitely older than Grant, whose brown hair was threaded with grey, spoke up. “Welcome to the team. I’m Bruce.”

“Scott.” Chimed in the guy next to him who was wearing a hair net over his dark brown hair.

“You and Scott have something in common.” Sam said, quietly, before raising his voice and pointing. “Then that’s Will, and Lincoln. Elena, Clint and the girl out front was Callie, and the guys were Donnie and Seth.”

Will, Lincoln, Elena and Clint all waved, a few of them welcoming him to the team. It was a full kitchen, and obviously a tight-knit group. That was daunting, to say the least, but Grant wasn’t going to let that get to him. He had the opportunity to actually do something with his life, now, and to turn around the bad choices and paths he’d followed. He wasn’t letting something like the fact that he would have to build relationships and trust, here, that wasn’t founded on someone who held all the power forcing them to get along, stop him.

“The people who aren’t in today are Mike and Raina. Mike had an appointment for his kid, Ace. You’ll probably get to know him, kid’s in here a lot. Today’s Raina’s regular day off. You’ll meet both of them tomorrow.” Sam waved for Grant to follow him again, and they made their way back into the back room.

Grant had to admit, to himself, at least, that things felt significantly less pressing, now. He had a job, and it was at a bakery, which, comparatively, was pretty low stress, for him. He was going to get to move on with his life, and start putting some real distance between himself and everything that he’d done under John Garrett’s tutelage.

All in all, the afternoon had gone better than he had expected.

“So, tomorrow morning, 10. Bring your ID, and be ready to fill out a ton of forms. Oh, and, uh… Void check? You got something like that?”

Grant jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I can go to the bank now, get a direct deposit form.”

Sam grinned. “Even better. That’s good… All right, that said.” He held his hand out again, and this time when Grant took it, he felt much sturdier on his own two feet, and much more sure of where the rest of his week was going. That was good. That was really good.

“Like I said, Grant, I want to take the chance on you. Don’t prove me wrong, and ruin my perfect streak.”

With a grin, Grant shook his head. He had a good feeling about this, and, for the first time in a long time, a good feeling about himself. “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”