#they are already selling me gas why do they need more money selling ad space?

[berf-a-smurf]

Aggressive marketing is indeed wasteful but a lil bit to get names out is good; how else do we know things exist? I mean I guess we search for what we want and need nowadays but an ad here or there for new competition with better prices kinda helps. Idk, I’m a huge fence rider so I don’t really know where I fall lol

honestly advertising is so fukcing wasteful not even just in the convincing you to buy shit you never actually wanted but like

how much electricity is wasted displaying ads that could've gone to keeping houses warm. How much paper is produced just to be turned into pamphlets and ads that will just be thrown away. how much internet bandwith is wasted just on the amount of ads that are on the internet nowadays. How many hours worth of labor went into producing ads that are going directly into my adblocker or my waste bin that could've been time spent doing literally ANYTHING useful?

[serendipitous-magic]

Why Don’t We Read: An Impromptu Essay By Me Because I’m Mad

You know how everyone is always saying “oh, I was such a big reader when I was a kid but I just don’t read books anymore, I don’t know what happened”? And how old people are always griping about “This is called a BOOK, it has no commercials and no loading screens, hardy har har har snorf har”?

What if it’s because we just don’t have time anymore?

Think about it. More and more and more of our time on earth is eaten up at our jobs just trying to survive in an economy where “minimum wage” covers maybe 1/3 of bare minimum expenses. And not only that, but we’re expected to juggle more and more and more things every single day. Long, uninterrupted hours simply... do not exist anymore.

Every day you have to not only commute to work, and then work, and then commute back, plus all the little chores and mundanities that make up every day life, cooking food and then eating food and folding laundry and cleaning and putting gas in the car and don’t forget that dentist appointment and better call Mom and if you have a lawn you have to water it and weed it and you have to figure out if you have enough to pay rent this month and you still have to call FedEx about that missing package and now you have to cook again and now there’s more laundry and so many emails to respond to and it’s been months since you washed your sheets hasn’t it and

BUT THEN

You are expected to do and be and keep up with so many things.

You’re supposed to work out, or jog, or do yoga, and you’re supposed to meditate or do a breathing exercise daily because it’s good for you, and while you’re at it, make sure that your living space looks like a magazine or an Instagram post, you need X minutes of sunshine a day to be healthy and Y minutes of exercise and Z number of steps, and you need to be an environmentalist and make sure you’re doing your part to save the planet, and you need to be constantly self improving, you need to be learning a language on Duolingo and doing projects like crocheting or writing or antiquing, you have to be completely unproblematic and constantly monitor everything you do and say and post because one tiny little thing can have the internet jumping down your throat, you’re supposed to be a nutritionist and a fitness nut and an expert on everything you talk about because society has become so black and white that saying “I don’t know” or “I didn’t know that before” is looked on as unacceptable,  you’re supposed to know what’s in your coffee and where it came from, you’re supposed to be a son a daughter a sibling a parent a student a mentor but also you’re supposed to be an interior designer, a small business owner (if you do any kind of Etsy or commission thing), a revolutionary (you’d better care about every overwhelming, exhausting injustice in the world and you’d better take action against it - see below), a curator (if only of your own blog), a rhetor (you’d better damn well know how to argue or you’re screwed in this society), a teacher (because school districts don’t teach anyone shit), a negotiation expert because it is car salesmen and insurance agencies’ job to fuck you over as hard as they possibly can.

Oh and don’t forget, you’re supposed to simplify your life and live in the moment. That one’s very important.

All of this is most likely while you’re already working anywhere from 20-40+ hours per week.

Keep up with your friends on Facebook, spend time to see what they’ve been up to, spend time posting your own pictures, catch up with your Instagram and Twitter and Tumblr feed, and for fuck’s sake you’d better make sure you’re reblogging all the right things about current social events, and you’d better also be caught up on the news, which all happens and changes so fast now that communication is instantaneous, keep up with all the politics, know every new outrage and be outraged about it, keep up with the politicians, the scientists begging us to listen, the latest news about the celebrity outed as a bigot, the latest shooting, the latest bombing, the latest protest, you’d better keep up with all of that and know what’s happening in the world, every minute of every day, and oh don’t worry about having to seek the news out, it comes to you. Every little ping on your phone is a new piece of news.

And you’d better care about it all. You’d better have enough energy in your body and mind to care about all the politics and all the injustice, and be rightly outraged every single day by the state of the world and every new horror, but you’d better also care about the dying planet and the burning rainforests, the oil spill, the glacial melt, you’d better be outraged about that too and you’d better be able to act on that outrage because those are all so important, and they are, but then you also have to care about insurance companies ruining people’s lives by making it impossible to afford healthcare, and you have to care about how agricultural companies have made cruel and byzantine webs of laws to drive farms out of business and make food, a basic necessity of life, a business, and one that’s designed not to feed and nurture people but to make money. And then while we’re on the topic of money you’d better care that the top 10 richest companies in the world create 70% of the world’s pollution, and you’d better care about how billionaires could fix most of the world’s biggest problems and they simply choose not to, and how Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and everyone like them have an amount of money and resources that no single person could ever come close to earning, and how if that wealth was fairly redistributed and recirculated into the economy then maybe minimum wage would actually earn you a living and that’s not even to mention the other systems of brutality and cruelty and injustice in society, the racism, the homophobia, the ableism, the ageism, the sexism, the -ism -ism -ism on for infinity

So you’d better buy and use reusable straws and reusable coffee cups, you’d better cut down on your CO2 emissions, you’d better take shorter showers, you’d better recycle your plastics and spend time at the store thinking about how you can buy things with less plastic wrapping, while you’re also thinking about those big agriculture companies, oh and by the way your eggs? The chickens they came from live in cages, barely being allowed to move for their entire lives, and you’d better be outraged about that too. Where do you think that milk came from? What does that cow look like? How about those peas, were they picked by someone being paid $1 an hour? Every single item on the shelf has some deep horror woven into its backstory. 

You’d better sign every petition you can and you’d better reblog the right things about taking action against injustice and you’d better be vocal about it, you’d better buy your soap and your clothes from small businesses instead of supporting the big evil ones that are much easier to access and much, much cheaper (because somebody suffered, somewhere along the line, to make it that cheap), you’d better remember to save your pasta water to water your plants with instead of wasting it, you’d better make your gifts by hand (if you have the time, which you don’t), and 

And then there’s the beauty industry.

You cannot go a single day without seeing something about “lose weight fast!” or “The Skinny Girl Cookbook!” or “This Weird Thing Burns Belly Fat!”, and everyone you see on screen is twig-thin or muscled, and don’t forget that you’re supposed to take the time to love yourself and practice body positivity too, oh wait no it’s too late, now body neutrality is the right thing to say and think. Every part of your face and body has some malady and you can buy a cure! Spend this much to get rid of acne, spend this much to wax your legs, buy this for wrinkles and that for stretch marks, this cream smooths out your skin to look like an eggshell instead of human flesh, that cream “fixes” those bumps on your arms that apparently aren’t allowed to exist, a basic face of makeup is at least 5 products if not 10, there are countless tutorials on how to make yourself better, because you aren’t okay as you are and you never will be as long as somebody can sell  you something to “fix” yourself. 

Oh, and that’s more time spent, too. Take the time to shave, to moisturize, to do your 3-step skincare routine, to slather all different kinds of goops and goos on various parts of you, take the time to pluck your eyebrows and exfoliate your feet and

Everything wants your attention, every second of every day. Because attention is money. Netflix Hulu Youtube watch this ad look at this ad Twitter Disney+ Twitter again Facebook more ads look at this ad sign up for this subscription package watch this new season of this show, watch this new movie, watch this watch this watch this watch look at this this watch this watch this look at this look at this look at this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this look over here look at this look at this look over here watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this watch this look at this

And then at the end of the day you still have to reserve time for the people in your life that are important to you, and leave time for those long conversations with your sister or time to bond with your kid or time to go on dates with your S.O.

And then you’re supposed to take time for yourself. Self care. Like social media is always saying to do. Take a bath, drink some tea, relax. If you have time.

And all of that. ALL of that. Most likely happens in the small slivers of time before and after your work day, or on the weekend in the small sliver of time before or after you fold that laundry and cook dinner and attend to your personal matters and maybe hang out with a friend if you’re lucky.

And I just described a fairly privileged, not-on-the-brink-of-poverty, not-in-and-out-of-the-hospital, not-constantly-targeted-by-violence-or-oppression life. I just described a cushy life.

Is it any fucking wonder that we all feel shattered? Like our time, even on free days with absolutely nothing scheduled, is made up of tiny pieces? Is it any wonder that it seems like nobody can sit down with a book anymore?

I’m so fucking tired.

[orangeoctopi7]

Stupid Teen Emotions

@forduary Week three is travel/trapped. In this story, Stan and Ford TRAVEL back to the past, where they become TRAPPED! It fits!

Chapter 1:  Back in My Day

They didn’t sleep well, that first night. Ford stayed up late, because of course he would have stayed up into the wee hours of the night working on his perpetual motion machine in the original timeline. But he barely touched the project. With the knowledge he had now, he could probably build the whole thing tonight, but that would, of course, be changing the timeline. A younger Ford had learned a lot, working so hard and so long on this machine, and future Ford didn’t want to deprive his past self of that important lesson. So instead, he began writing, racking his brain for anything he could remember of January, 1969.

Stan tried to sleep at first, but he just couldn't. He was too anxious and excited, all rolled into one. So he instead dug out a few of his old comic books that never got thrown away.

They both must have fallen asleep at some point, because come morning, there was a rapping at the door that woke them both with a start.

“Get up, you two! You’re gonna be late for school!” A woman with a thick Jersey accent yelled through the door.

“M-mom?” Ford’s head lifted blearily off his desk.

“Wow, you are really taking the whole ‘stick to the timeline’ thing seriously.” Stan mused from his bottom bunk.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep at my desk…” Ford groaned.

“You never do, Sixer, you never do.”

They marched downstairs and into the kitchen, where their mother had a breakfast of hot cinnamon and apple oatmeal waiting for them. Stan was so happy to see her, he ran over and hugged her, pecking a swift kiss on her cheek.

"Aww, sweetie!" She planted a kiss on his forehead. "I'm still not paying your parking ticket." She added flatly.

"What parking ticket?" Stan asked, confused. "Oh, um, I mean, drat."

Ford was too tired to even work up the energy to be happy to see his mother. As he sat down, he automatically reached for the coffee pot. But a rolled up newspaper smacked his hand away.

“What d’you think you’re doin’?” Caryn asked, eyebrow raised.

“... getting my morning coffee?” Ford answered, addled.

“How many times do I have to tell you, honey? No coffee ‘til you’re 18. It’ll stunt your growth!”

Ford looked like he was about to have a fit.

“Wait, are we not 18?” Stan asked quickly. Luckily, his parents ignored his out-of-place comment.

“Ya don’t need coffee, ya need more sleep!” Filbrick grunted from behind his newspaper.

“You both drink ten cups a day!” Ford argued, his voice cracking again.

“That’s cuz we’re adults.” Filbrick growled, “Once you’re old an’ decrepit, you can drink all the coffee ya want.”

“Trust me, he will.” Stan said flatly.

Ford kicked him under the table. Hard. Stan cried out.

“Can it, you two!” Caryn scolded them, “You’ll wake up Shermie. I don’t wanna have to deal with three crying babies.”

The brothers finished their breakfast sullenly but quietly, and grabbed their backpacks before heading out the door.

“Think we should leave Shermie a note warning him to watch out for time travelers?” Stan asked as he fished out his keys to the STNLYMBL. “Y’know, for when he’s older?”

“Then Dipper and Mabel will be born later than 2000.” Ford reminded him irritably.

“Right.” Stan smacked himself. “Man, this sucks! Why time travel if we can’t make things better?”

Ford’s only reply was a surly sigh as he turned to the cafe next door.

“Hey, where’re you goin’?” Stan asked.

“To get some coffee!”

“Seriously, Sixer? Hot Belgian Waffles is next door, Mrs. DuBios will rat you out to Ma for sure!”

Ford heaved an even more enraged sigh that bordered on a growl, and turned on his heal to get into Stan’s car, slamming the door shut.

“Whoa, easy, we’ll just stop by the donut place on the boardwalk.” Stan reassured him as he started the car. “What’s gotten into you?”

The scientist groaned and pulled his fingers through his curly brown hair. “I don’t know! Normally it’s simple to just focus on my intellect and control my emotions, but it just isn’t working now for some reason!”

“‘Control’ your emotions, or bottle them up?” Stan muttered. Ford shot him a withering glare. “Shoot, I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. Why do I keep doin’ that?”

“And the only reason I’m so mad in the first place is because I’m so tired!” Ford continued to rant, “I got at least four hours of sleep last night, it doesn’t make any sense!”

“Heh, guess teen Ford isn’t used to old man Ford’s space-sleep schedule. Or lack of sleep schedule, anyway.”

Ford’s face brightened into his ‘a-ha!’ expression. “Stanley, that’s it!”

“What?” 

“The reason I’m having such a hard time regulating my emotions, and the reason you can’t keep your mouth shut even more than usual! We may still have our minds from 2013, but our bodies are teenagers in the middle of puberty. Our hormone levels are magnitudes higher than what we’ve become accustomed to.”

“Great. Goin’ through puberty again. Just what everyone wants outta time travel.”

They pulled up to the donut shop on the boardwalk. Stan poked around in his seat and found a quarter, which he handed to Ford. Suddenly, his brother looked unsure.

“Stan, maybe you should hang onto this. You’re going to need all the money you can get, come summer.”

“It’s a freaking quarter, Poindexter.”

“Yeah, but a quarter is worth a lot more in 1969 than it will be in 2013! This is almost a whole gallon of gas!”

Stan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ten minutes ago you were about to have a meltdown because you couldn't get your morning coffee, just buy it, Ford!”

“Fine, but I’ll pay for it myself.”

“With what money, genius? You didn’t have a job in high school because you were too busy with your academic science nerd stuff! Now go buy yourself a cup of coffee, or I’ll make you walk the rest of the way to school.”

Ford frowned, but took the quarter. He couldn’t help but feel guilty as he got his cup of coffee. How could he or anyone else have ever said that Stan was the lazy one, when Stan was the only one who’d ever had a ‘real’ job? Even to this day, Ford had never had what anyone would call a normal job, barring that one summer he’d been a lifeguard at a waterpark in a dolphin-dominant dimension. He’d always relied on scholarships and grants and accademia, which was hard work, in its own way, but still.  It certainly wasn’t what his father would have called a real job. While traveling across dimensions, he’d relied on trading information and knowledge, building and selling inventions, and even, occasionally, stealing.

Stan was the one who’d gotten a minimum wage, part-time job selling popsicles on the beach. Stan was the one who’d entered local semi-pro boxing matches and brought home winnings. Stan was the one who’d saved up for his own car. 

“Ar-are you crying!?” Stan exclaimed when Ford climbed back into the car, cup of coffee in hand.  Ford reached up to wipe his eyes, surprised as his brother to find tears there.

“Oh geez, Stanford, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be so harsh, I just--” Stan began to babble.

“N-no, it’s not you.” Ford found his voice wavering as soon as he tried to speak. “It’s just-- gah, I’m so stupid! Stupid hormonal chemical imbalance!”

Ford tried to keep himself from crying anymore by taking a big gulp of coffee. It wasn’t very good, and it was just this side of warm, but it instantly improved his mood.

“Ah, there’s that good dopamine.”

“Better?”

“Much. Let’s go. I think we’re already late.”

Despite the fact that they were ten minutes late, there were still several students milling about when they arrived at the school. The twins felt like they should stick out like a sore thumb, but nobody paid them any mind. 

“Ugh, never thought I’d come back here.” Stan grumbled.

“Well, look on the bright side!” Ford reassured him, “Now that you’ve studied quantum physics and run your own business for thirty years, Math and Science classes should be a breeze!”

“Hey, yeah! I can’t wait to see the look on Mr. Grauberger’s face when I can tell him exactly how much interest $300 will accumulate over 20 years!” But he paused. “Wait, what about changin’ the timeline? Pretty sure I never answered questions in class.”

“Oh, it wouldn’t make that much of a difference.” Ford scoffed. “Even if you get 100% on every quiz while we’re here, I don’t think it’d be enough to bring your grade up past a C, and you’ll be dropping out before graduation anyway.”

“Oh yeah….” Stan’s good mood quickly washed away.

Ford rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We know it all works out in the end.”

“Yeah…” Stan agreed, “but there was still a lot of heartache gettin’ there.”

[acedesigns]

Wish Upon a Star: Part 2 [Good Omens: Aziraphale X Reader]

Part 1

Word Count: 2951

A/N: So...I’m getting super close to 100K words for Good Omens fanfic...I’m a bit sad. I’ve enjoyed writing these and I don’t want to stop. But I told myself I’d work on my original fiction once I’ve hit 100K.

--

Money had started to pour into the nonprofit after the gala. The treasurer called you early the next morning. It sounded like they were crying. After she told you what was going on, you nearly started crying as well. It meant that the nonprofit could make a bigger impact and help more people. Everything was going to be alright.

After you got off the phone, you pulled out your laptop and checked your e-mail. You were in a dire state of needing an actual paid job. While it was great volunteering for the non-profit, volunteering didn’t pay the bills. A shudder ran through your spine at the thought have how little money you currently possessed. Then, you felt your heart drop. There wasn’t a single response to the dozens of jobs you sent your resume to.

“Everything will be alright,” you repeated to yourself quietly. “It’ll be okay,” you felt your voice shake as you tried to not cry. “Just get ready and you’ll get a reply soon.”

That’s exactly what you did. You peeled off your pajamas and hopped into the shower. You were too tired from last night to shower then, and you were sure you were a sweaty mess after all of the dancing you were forced into.

The water was cold and pelted your skin harshly. You would have turned up the temperature, but you had to save money. Instead, you quickly scrubbed your hair and skin before jumping out. Your hands groped around for the fluffy towel before you started to pat yourself dry. Just as you were about to put on your clothes, your phone started to vibrate against the bathroom counter.

It was a number you hadn’t seen before. For a split second, you were going to ignore it. It could have just been spam. But then you remembered the gentleman who you gave your number to. You felt your heart skip a beat and your body warm at the thought of him calling you. Quickly, you swiped to answer.

“Hello?”

“Yes, is [Y/N] there? This is Aziraphale calling.”

“Hi, Aziraphale,” you said just barely containing your excitement. “This is [Y/N]. How are you?”

“Doing just well!” By the sound of his chipper voice, you could tell he was smiling. “And how are you, my dear?”

“I’m alright.”

“Just alright?”

“Yeah,” you sighed and rested your phone against your shoulder as you started to pull on some clothes. “Looking for a job right now, so it’s a bit stressful.”

“Well, if it’s a job you’re looking for, why don’t you come and work for me?”

The pant leg got caught on your feet. You fell forward. The phone clattered a distance away from you on the bathroom tile. Groaning, you grabbed the phone and held it against your ear.

“—you alright?!” Aziraphale was nearly shouting into the phone.

“Yeah, just tripped. I’m fine.”

“Goodness, did you get hurt?”

“No, no, I’m good.” You shook your head. “Did you just offer me a job?”

“Well, yes. I was just going to put out an ad to hire, but why not just hire you? That’d make it so much easier!”

“You’re an angel, Aziraphale,” you laughed. It was either that or cry. “Really. Thank you so much.”

Aziraphale chuckled, “It’s my pleasure, dear.”

Yes, everything was going to be okay.

--

There was a heatwave going through England and the rest of Europe. You found that customers were starting to try and seek the fans blowing in the bookshop. Your stress levels increased significantly, especially when they started to ask about the books. If they sold, Aziraphale would get upset. You couldn’t allow yourself to be the reason for him being upset.

“Get out!” you seethed as someone asked how much a book cost.

“I beg your pardon?” the man asked with a stuffy voice.

“I said get out! We are now closed! We have been for quite a while,” you nearly screamed while flipping the store’s sign to closed.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” The man placed the book back where he found it. “I didn’t realize!”

“It’s fine, just please go so I can close up.”

“Right, sorry again!” He left so quickly you almost felt bad about treating him so poorly.

With a sigh, you locked the shop’s doors and wiped away a bead of sweat that had started to form. Even with the fans blowing it was unbearably hot. With a heavy sigh, you made your way to the back of the shop and plopped yourself onto the couch. You tried to spread your body out as much as possible to get rid of the excess heat.

“This sucks!” you groaned. “Damn climate change.”

The bell to the front of the door chimed. You sat up in confusion, you had locked the shop up. Then, it donned on you.

“[Y/N], are you here, my dear?”

“Back here,” you called out to him. He walked in. His jacket was draped over his arm and his cheeks were ever so red. “Heat getting to you, too?”

He stared at you with a soft smile before blinking and shaking his head. “Sorry? Heat?”

"Yeah, the heatwave?”

“Oh, oh yes. That’s what it is,” Aziraphale coughed slightly and hung his jacket up. “Is that why you closed up shop?”

“Yeah, it’s driving customers in. I swear big oil wants you to sell your books.” You laughed awkwardly and sat up. “Is it okay that I closed it?”

“Of course, my dear. I don’t really care either way, just as long as the books don’t sell.” He took a look at your overheated figure. “Would you like me to fetch you a damp towel?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Nonsense.” Aziraphale was already making his way to the restroom. He grabbed a towel from the linen rack and ran cool water over it. The man quickly made his way back and gently placed it on the back of your neck. His fingers lingered for a moment or two before he pulled away. “There you are, my dear.”

You groaned happily, as it was already starting to cool you off. “Thank you, Aziraphale.”

--

The next morning, you had turned on the television to watch the local news while you were eating breakfast.

“The top executives of the world’s leading oil and gas companies have all announced a plan to start moving towards clean and renewable resources to try and combat the effects of what they are calling man-caused climate change. Leading climate scientists have agreed that this new step could help to slow down, if not completely stop rising global temperatures.”

“Holy Hell,” you mumbled and dropped your spoon into your cereal. “What the…” You were flabbergasted. Never before did you think you’d live to see the day where these people would actually try to do something good.

Maybe everything would turn out okay.

--

It was another day at the bookshop. This time, it wasn’t unbearably hot. The customers were few and far between, giving you the perfect opportunity to talk to Aziraphale while he was shelving books. Just after he went to the back to grab some more books he had acquired earlier that week, the bell to the shop chimed.

You glanced up and you felt your blood run cold. There were two men who entered in business suits. One had violet eyes, something you’ve never actually seen before. He was tall and muscular. Everything about him screamed authority. The other man was balding. When he gave you a polite smile, you saw a golden cross plastered on to his teeth.

“Hello, how may I help you?”

“Oh, so you’re a bookshop helper now? He couldn’t manage it all by himself, could he?” the man with violet eyes spoke in a condescending tone.

“I-I’m sorry?” you stammered.

“Look, we’re here for Aziraphale. Now you just go and be on your way, alright? This shop is now closed.”

“Excuse me?” Now you were growing angry. “I don’t think you have any right to tell me that this shop is closed. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The balding man snapped his fingers. Instantly, you felt an incredible pain course through your veins. It felt as if your insides were on fire and bursting. A scream managed to strangle itself from your throat as you fell to the ground withering in pain.

Footsteps came storming out quickly. “[Y/N]?” you heard Aziraphale cry out desperately. His eyes landed on your body. Quickly, he fell to the ground near you and he placed his hands on your shoulders to try and see what was wrong.

“Hello, Aziraphale,” the violet man stated to gather Aziraphale’s attention.

Aziraphale’s eyes shot up. A look of complete anger and horror filled his face. “You did this to them! Stop this at once, Gabriel!”

“Only if you agree to talk to us. In private.”

"Yes, yes, fine. Anything, just stop hurting them!” You started to sob as you clawed desperately at Aziraphale.

"Sandalphon,” Gabriel said.

Sandalphon snapped his fingers once more and instantly the pain stopped. Though, you continued to sob at what had just happened.

“It’s okay, my dear,” Aziraphale soothed. “It’s going to be okay.” He ran a hand through your hair in an attempt to calm you down.

“Aziraphale, now. You can be with your pet later.”

“Please don’t leave,” you cried desperately.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale whispered before standing and following the two men out.

You sobbed on the floor while trying to comprehend what had just happened. It was almost as if the pain was still there, but you knew it wasn’t. You also had no idea if Aziraphale was going to be okay. The thought of him getting hurt only made you cry all that much harder.

Hours had passed, and your tears had eventually dried up. You still hadn’t moved from where you were lying. You stared blankly into space, trapped in your thoughts of Aziraphale getting hurt or killed by those two men who had entered the shop. You didn’t even budge when you heard the bell chime.

Feet quickly made their way over and someone knelt down on the ground. A hand gently caressed your cheek. It was far softer than the pain you had experienced. Slowly, you moved your eyes up to see who was there.

“Aziraphale?” you croaked.

He gave you a gentle smile and nodded his head. With some effort, you pushed yourself off the floor so you were in a seating position. You stared at him with a frown. “Are you hurt?”

“I should be asking you that, my dear,” he said softly.

You felt your bottom lip tremble before you threw yourself into him. He wrapped his arms around you tightly and rocked you back and forth while shushing you. His hand ran through your hair while he whispered sweet words of reassurance.

“I-I was so scared,” you wailed. “I thought they were going to hurt you.”

“I know, it’s alright. I’m okay.” He held you tighter against him. “They were upset with me over something I did. I’m so sorry you got caught up in that. They shouldn’t have hurt you like that.”

“How did they?” Your hands gripped onto the front of his vest while you buried your face in his chest.

Aziraphale sighed and remained silent for a moment or two. “It’s difficult to explain. They’re not exactly human.”

You pulled away and looked up at him with swollen, red eyes. “Are they demons?”

“I’m afraid not,” Aziraphale said with melancholy. “They’re angels. Bad ones, I assure you.”

You sniffled and wiped away your tears. A part of you wanted to reject what he had just said, but after what had happened you believed him. “Why would angels be bad at you?”

“Well,” Aziraphale took a deep breath. “I’m an angel myself.” You looked at him in shock. “Now, I assure you, I would never hurt you like they did. But…” He paused and felt tears building up in his own eyes. “But I understand if you don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

You quickly pulled him into a hug. “Don’t say that.”

Aziraphale felt himself relax and a single tear run down his face. Despite the harsh words he received and the near smiting of you, if you were there in his arms, everything would be okay.

--

It took you a while to get used to the fact that Aziraphale wasn’t actually a man, but an angel. Still, you didn’t let it impact your friendship. However, what did start to wear you down was the memories of the intense pain you suffered. You’d wake up in a fit of screams in the middle of the night. Everything made you jump. Finally, Aziraphale had enough.

“[Y/N],” he spoke softly in an attempt to not scare you. Still, you leapt where you were standing and turned to him with wide eyes. “Sorry. Come here, come sit with me.” You looked at him for a moment before you followed him to the back. You took a seat on the couch, expecting him to sit in his chair. However, he sat down right next to you. “I need you to rest, alright?”

“Rest?”

“Yes,” he hummed. “I’m going to try and help you. I know you haven’t been sleeping and everything scares you. Let me try to help.” You stared at him, barely processing what he was saying with your sleep-deprived mind. Still, you slowly nodded your head. He smiled gently and guided you to rest your head on his lap. “Just fall asleep, my dear.” He ran his fingers through your hair while he started to hum a melody. There was a soft glow coming from his hands and almost immediately, you fell into the realm of unconsciousness.

You weren’t quite sure when you woke up, but it was dark outside. Aziraphale’s lap was cushioning your head. A blush formed on your cheeks as you quickly sat up. He looked at you with a smile of his own.

“How are you feeling, my dear?”

“Fine,” you said with some confusion. You were better than fine. In fact, you actually felt like you got some sleep. There wasn’t the sensation of fear eating away at your heart either. “What happened?”

“Performed a bit of a miracle,” Aziraphale informed you. “I healed the part of your mind that was struggling.”

“Oh.”

“Now, everything will be okay.”

--

You weren’t entirely sure when it happened, but you were sure of it now. Whenever you saw the angel, you would feel your heart beat a little faster. It wasn’t out of fear, not it was more the opposite. Then, there were the times where he’d smile at you. You felt yourself soar higher than Heaven itself. You were desperately in love with him.

"It’ll be okay,” you muttered to yourself while trying to work with the overwhelming emotions you felt for him. Though, your mind was racing while trying to figure out how it was going to be okay. Aziraphale was simply perfect. There was no possible way he could return your feelings. You felt your heart breaking into pieces at just the thought.

A part of you wondered if it’d be better for you to just quit and never see him again. That idea was more painful than him rejecting you. You couldn’t do that and just throw away your friendship. No, you knew you needed to at least say something. And if he rejected you, you could move on.

With a new determination, you left your home and made your way to the flower shop. Flowers were nice, and he was nice, and you hoped it would just be nice. You shook your head at your thoughts and stepped foot in the store. You immediately made your way to the sunflowers, Aziraphale’s favorite flower. You grabbed a bouquet and then paused when you heard someone talking.

"Oh, I hope they like these,” your ears twitched at the familiar voice.

“I’m sure they will, Angel. Just buy them and go to their place.”

“But what if I read it wrong?” he asked. You slowly peeked through the aisle and saw Aziraphale standing there with your favorite flowers in his arms. “What if they don’t actually love me and I was just projecting? I’ve felt this way about them since the first night I’ve met them.”

“Then, you’ll have tried,” the man Aziraphale was standing with replied. Crowley was his name, you remembered. He has stopped by the shop on multiple occasions. He looked up and you could have sworn he saw you, but it was hard to tell with his sunglasses. “Would you look at that?” He nodded his head in your direction.

You froze on the spot as Aziraphale turned. His eyes landed on the sunflowers in your arms and he glanced back up at you. A rosy blush was painted beautifully on his cheeks. And his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water.

“H-hey,” you stuttered and slowly approached the angel. “Fancy seeing you here, huh?”

“Y-yes,” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “I was just going to…” He looked down at the flowers in his arms. “I was going to purchase these for you. D-do you like them?”

You felt a heat instantly rush up to your face. You didn’t trust yourself to say anything, so you silently nodded your head.

“Good! I…Well, I wanted to get these for you and well, tell you that…That I’m in love with you.” He nervously looked up from the flowers and at your face for your reaction.

Everything was going to be okay.

[lifesasickjoke]

The Dirt

The Dirt - part 10

part 9

Pairing: Douglas!Nikki x Reader

Word count: 2710

Chapter summary: Today is the day where Nikki was planning on confessing to (Y/N), but he loses his chance when a certain British drummer interferes with his plans. 

Warning: Swearing, drugs, the usual

Authors note: I'm alive

‘Sixx here?’ Nikki finally answered his phone. I've been trying to call him for minutes now. He told me he had gotten a new phone, meaning a new number, so I wasn't even sure I was ringing him.

‘Oh, good, right number. Hey, Nik I need to ask you a favour.’ I breathed airily into my phone, walking around with it through my room, gathering together all my clothes and matching them into different outfits.

‘Uh, who is this?’ Nikki asked uncertainty.

I sighed, ‘it's me, Nik, your best friend, (Y/N)?’

‘Oh, (Y/N/N). Sorry new phone, I didn't recognize your number.’

‘No problem Niks, but  seriously need your help.’

‘Are you in trouble? Do you need help? Are- are you ok?’ suddenly Nikki sounded panicked. I laughed at him (in a nice way).

‘No no I'm not in that kind of trouble. I just need a ride to Vince's. Do you think you can pick me up?’

Nikki, unlike Mick and Tommy I have also asked, actually agreed to drive all the way out to Los Angeles to come to get me. I got ready for Vince's party in the hour that it took Nikki to drive down to our once shared apartment.

He moved out a couple of weeks ago to the new fancy mansion he had bought with the money he had made from being part of Mötley Crüe.

Everyone bought a new house, car and pool with their money, but being only an assistant to the manager didn't give me so many options with what I earned. Besides, I wanted to save the money I made for later on in life. I lied to Nikki when I told him I was thinking about buying a new apartment or house somewhere closer to the city centre, or on his suggestion, closer to him.

I squeezed my body into the dark red leather bombshell dress that stopped at my mid thigh. I just bought that last week to make myself feel better. I had to admit, I missed living with Nikki more than anything. I missed it that he would stumble in through the window at three in the morning (he and the guys nailed down to prevent the cops always busting in) and I missed out early morning convenience store raid for little snacks to get us through the day where we would just parole the city.

I then did my hair and makeup flawlessly and dug through my closet for some shoes.

Then I heard three loud honks from outside, it was Nikki signalling his arrival. I threw on the nearest jacket I could find and ran to the window and climbed out.

Nikki had pulled up in his Jeep, the door to my side was already open. I ran down the stairs and slid into the passenger seat.

‘Good evening my fair lady. Where could I take you for the fair price of a lunch date later on this week?’ Nikki mocked a cab driver, adding on a thick New York accent.

‘Redondo Beach please kind sir.’ I replied in a flawless French accent and stuck my tongue out at him.

Nikki and I gazed lovingly into each other's eyes for what seemed like ever with kind smiles plaster smack upon our faces.

‘I've missed you.’ I admitted, speaking first. Nikki’s smile grew even wider.

‘You’re right. It's been too long.’ he agreed, finally stepping onto the gas pedal and carefully driving towards Vince's party.

I scoffed in fake offence, even bringing a hand up to my heart to and clutching it to sell it more to him more, ‘it's been two weeks! Besides, I have even invited you over multiple times since then!’

‘I know, I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't find the time.’ he apologized, eyes briefly lifting from the road in front of him and onto me.

They seemed to quickly flicker over my figure.

‘Hey, you look really nice, but touch my jacket again and I'm burning all your makeup.’ Nikki complimented.

I couldn't help but smile.

‘Common Nik, admit it, this jacket looks so much better on me than on you.’

He side glanced at me again, the red traffic lights casting onto his face almost making it seem like he was beet red blushing.

‘You're not wrong.’

As soon as Nikki pulled up to Vince's house, (Y/N) had already been dragged away from him by Razzle who enthusiastically greeted her and the pressed multiple drinks into her hand and dragged her to the dancefloor by the waist.

Nikki blamed Vince for suggesting that they finally introduce Razzle to (Y/N). The crew was out in the town, lounging about and waiting for the next opportunity to cause trouble, excluding (Y/N) of course. She tried to prevent everyone from doing something they might regret when sober.

Tommy was hungry, so he and (Y/N) went to pick up some hot dogs from the stand across the road for everyone when Vince suddenly saw the frizzy hair that belonged to their British friend and invited him over to join them in their day out.

They came onto the topic of (Y/N) when Vince finally offered to introduce her to Razzle. Everyone agreed although Nikki was a bit reluctant.

He thought ‘what's the worst that could happen’, it's not like (Y/N) would fall for Razzle. Him and his British accent.

(Y/N) wasn't like the crowd of girls that were drawn like ducks to bread to Mötley Crüe when they were. Nikki thought Razzle would have no effect on her.

After five minutes of the acquaintance of (Y/N) and Razzle, Nikki could tell he was wrong.

Razzle upped his usual charm. It wasn't like (Y/N) fell right into his arms, it was just that she sort of did.

Nikki was in a bad mood that whole day, having to listen to Razzle tell cheesy pickup lines and terrible jokes and (Y/N) laughing her lungs out.

Dropping cheesy pickup lines and cracking terrible jokes to get (Y/N)s attention was Nikki's job. Now he had to sit beside her, watching the foam of his beer slowly disappear, in silence.

Ever since then, (Y/N) would ask if Razzle were coming every time she went out with the guys.

Today, she was whisked away by him again, and Nikki fell to the sidelines not being particularly happy, but also trying not to care too much. He honestly tried to distract himself. Why should he care about who she's seeing anyways? It's not like he was in love with her.

But he knew that was a big lie.

He snorted another line of cocaine before looking back up to the living room where Razzle was dancing with (Y/N) to a song his band, Hanoi Rocks, had written.

He guessed that Razzle had probably made up a lie for a pick up line, probably one that went along the lines of ‘this song was inspired by you’, but ever since (Y/N) had first heard this song, Nikki was forced to frequently listen to it because it was on all of her cassette and record playlists.

The song finally ended, and Nikki watched as Razzle tried to get (Y/N) to dance to the next one, but she politely refused and walked towards the couch where Nikki was sitting.

She caught his gaze, and her smile lit up. Nikkis breathe was honestly caught in his throat.

He hated this. He hated the butterflies in his stomach whenever (Y/N) teased him jokingly, he hated the rush of blood he got whenever (Y/N) wrapped two arms around him and snuggled into his side when they were both curled up on a couch, he hated it that he wanted (Y/N) to be more to him than a friend.

And especially now. He couldn't help feeling all sorts of things when (Y/N) was walking towards him. Her hips were slightly swaying (probably because of all the drinks she had or to the bass lines of the song playing) and the bombshell dress accented everything.

Her hair was slightly falling out of place and the lipstick was fading from her lips.

Mick beat her to the couch though, sighing deeply as he slowly sat down next to Nikki.

‘Goddamn.’ he cursed with a grunt.

That was when (Y/N) and Razzle dropped themselves on the couch as well.

(Y/N) let out a content sigh and Nikki's heart skipped a beat.

‘You okay there, Mick?’ Tommy asked. He was probably having the most fun out of all the people here at the party. He was pissed drunk, high, and had two beautiful girls hanging on his arms.

‘Yeah,’ Mick answered, ‘my back hurts from carrying this band all tour.’

(Y/N) scoffed and under her breathe replied with ‘yeah, right.’

‘Don't you love this guy?’ Tommy laughed.

Another girl from the dance floor came over for Tommy and squeezed herself into the last available space on the couch next to (Y/N), who politely moved to make more space.

Unfortunately, now (Y/N) was practically half sitting on top of Nikki who really couldn't stand it anymore.

Right then and there he made up his mind. Today was the day he was going to tell her what he had wanted to tell her for her all these years.

He could picture it already.

Nikki would pull (Y/N) away from the dance floor after having asked her to dance with him to one of the slower songs he knew where going to be played by Vince tonight (because Nikki begged him to include them just so he could have (Y/N) a fraction close to him that she would usually be) to the balcony that overlooked Vince’s garden, pool, and private beach section of the house. He would wait for a moment, maybe after he and (Y/N) had a lovely, deep and meaningful conversation about something, and then confess his feelings under the starlight. She would, hopefully, let him love her, and then Nikki would pull her into the best kiss he had ever given as the music and background chatter for the party slowly drowns away and just becomes a blur of the moment.  

That was exactly what Nikki was going to do, and he suddenly felt at ease again after the last couple of years.

He had a plan and he was going to go through with it no matter what.

All that was left for him to do now was to let Vince know that he needed the slow music and that he needed it right this moment.

To seem inconspicuous, Nikki bent down and did one more line of cocaine, then as he scanned the room. He spotted Vince standing in a more secluded hallway of his house with another girl. Nikki suddenly got an idea to slightly win (Y/N) back right at this moment.

He elbowed Mick, also successfully catching (Y/N)s attention, and began running his own hands all over his chest and mimicked a woman's voice.

‘Hey, are you in the band?’

Mick followed to where Nikki was looking.

‘What do you fucking think?’ he mimicked Vince’s voice.

(Y/N) laughed at their exchange along with Nikki and Mick.

Tom Zutaut wanted to add something to this conversation as well.

‘Have you met my wife, Sharise? Do you wanna have a threesome?’ he also mimicked Vince’s tone.

Nikki stopped laughing as soon as the words that left Toms mouth made (Y/N) stiffen up just slightly. The comment even made Mick raises an eyebrow.

‘Tom, what the fuck is wrong with you, man?’ Nikki scowled. ‘She’s fucking pregnant, man.’

(Y/N) cleared her throat and sat up a little bit straighter. ‘Yeah, that is fucked up.’ she agreed.

Nikki watched her face carefully, knowing that she was offended by Tom’s comment but was too proud to show it.

‘Don't be a fucking dick, okay? Look at her, she's fucking pregnant.’ Nikki seriously warned Tom.

‘Don't be a fucking dick, Zutaut.’ Mick added as he leaned back on the couch.

‘All right. I'm sorry.’ Tom apologized, now seeing how offensive he was.

Nikki inwardly cursed when he noticed that Razzle was walking back towards the couch. He had left a moment ago with Vince for more drinks. Nikki liked Razzle and all, of course. What's not to like? He was a fun outgoing energetic person. It was just that he was getting too friendly with (Y/N).

‘Come with me and Vince to get more drinks, love.’ Razzle asked, taking (Y/N)s hand and trying to lift her off the couch.

(Y/N) groaned and weakly tried to fight him off.

‘Nah, I have no more energy left. The dancing really tired me out.’ she whined trying to shake Razzle off.

‘We can buy more drinks at the store, that will give you energy.’ Razzle insisted, managing to lift her off the couch.

‘No seriously, Razz, my feet hurt.’

‘Then I'll carry you!’ he offered optimistically. In one swift motion, he scooped (Y/N) up into his arms.

(Y/N) did not like this sudden act, and Nikki noticed.

‘Hey, man, leave her alone, alright? She said she didn't want to go so fuck off.’ Nikki snapped.

Razzles jaw clenched as he considered the ‘’threat’’ and then he gently sat (Y/N) back down.

The silent tension between Razzle and Nikki could have been cut with a cheese knife. I was awkwardly standing next to Razzle, who is a nice guy and only meant well when he asked if I want to come with him. His hand was still sort off resting on my waist from having sat me down. Nikki's gaze momentarily flickered down to his hand and I could see the glaze that he usually got when he was about to start a fight pass over his eyes.

I heard Razzle chuckle wearily as he saw Nikki's hard set burning gaze bore into his hand.

‘Alright, alright, I meant no offence.’ he told Nikki, slowly, as to prevent any provocation, lifting his hand off my side.

I could sense the fight Nikki would initiate.

God, I love him, but sometimes? He can be a real dick. Especially now! Every time I get close to a guy Nikki does something to drive them.

At first, I always thought that he just had a very good sense of which guy is a jerk and which guy is a good potential choice. But now I knew Nikki was making a terrible judgment. There was nothing wrong with razzle as far as I was aware.

Nik was about to say something too, but I shot him the worst look I could master and he closed his mouth.

I needed to leave this room. Nikki was actually killing me.

I’ve waited my whole life for him to give me a sign that he wanted to be more than ‘best friends’ but he never even indicated that he was even remotely attracted to me and rather than sitting around like a dumbass I have actually decided that I needed to eventually get over him. He's had his chance (although I never told him that I was giving him one).

Razzel was the most perfect guy to help me get over Nikki, but I couldn't stand being close to either of them at the moment.

With one last glance at Nik, I turned on my heel and left the seating area.

Such a big house like this I'm bound to find myself an empty room where there were no pairs of people who are making out.

I ended up in a small bathroom on the second floor, furthest away from the party, thankfully by myself. The occasional giggle from a passing couple and their loud echoing footsteps could be heard from the other side of the door.

There was a sudden knock. I lifted my head out of my hands.

‘Occupied.’ I answered.

‘I know. I'm here for you. We need to talk.’ The voice replied.

I raised an eyebrow and slid off the rim of the bathtub to open the door.

Tag list: @getthefckouttahere @kingbouji3 @fandomshit6000 @spookyfrances @kwyloz @triplehaitches @myheadisinvaded @wonderboygenius @kawennote09@inthebackofmycarlaytheirbodies @the-dopemusiccoffee @versaceismehoe @glitter-rian @miss-ncthing@flizaa @evanpeters3826 @divaanya @extremesadnerding@oskea93 @technicallyvirtualmilkshake @thatbandchick39@virtualsheepeat @sighsophiia @thexbasketcase @anon-1112@heavymetalprincessa @normanreedus5150 @prettysureimgayxo @candystoregirl @yoinks-i-don’t-feel-so-good @mother-fronker @animalsgal @supernaturalvikingwhore@tamedhearts @discodeacygotmorerhythm @16cxndles@kellinplayingbagpipes @abaldboi@scarecrowmax @vintageratdoctor @raversam @nessa-030201@nassauartist @cierrasixx19 @shamelessobsessions @redhotvinyl@hi-my-name-is-Riley @snatchedbylele @lighthousefromthesea@tarahell @fatheadthefirst @my-names-blurryfvce @mixer3818@toadspleen @kwyloz @shannonwardski @gofficialm @oskea93@allieburakovsky @lovesick-heart0 @erosbabygirl @ironicterm00 @emmaelizabeth2014 @k--i--a @sharon6713 @mazzello-lee-jones-malek @disrogbitch @calumstuffs @rebeccaphillips14 @tiktokviralsensation @wheresmyvodkabitch @captainloki1 @nikkisixxterr 

The tag list is always open :)

Right well this one is terribly written I mean it's got no real plot no pictures and horrible dialogue but @discodeakygotmorerhythm made it all worth it.

But I promise as soon as my other laptop works again ill make all the gifs for this part and add those divider lines (apparently that's not an option on this computer)

[cosmosbv]

Cosmos Market

Hi All

I meant to do this last week, but things came up that had to be dealt with.

Some of you might have noticed that I have set up a new GoFundMe. Rather then wait for things to go wrong again, and keep doing what I am doing, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, I am going to try something new.

I am going to crowdfund to open a small store. It will be a combination of a second hand and indie bookstore, farm market, and artisan crafts store. I already have a few farm market and artisans individuals ready to work out contracts for spacing to sell their wares, a great many boxes of books, and several boxes of crafts.

Why a store?

Back before the car accident I wanted to open a bookstore. Then the accident occurred, and that was not an option any longer because of health problems. I didn’t stop collecting books for that purpose though, with the thought that someday I would get to open that second hand bookstore like I wanted. I literally have more then a thousand books already to go.

Now I write books to publish and thought: wait, what if instead of just a second hand bookstore, I make it an indie bookstore and secondhand store? Perfect idea! I can sell mine, and other indie authors books.

Why a book store and artisan market?

As I was looking around my area, I realized, there really isn’t a lot of place, or any for that matter, besides the farm market, to sell handmade items that are not paintings. At that point I decided to add that to the plan. I would sell books, but I would also sell handmade crafts as well.

So far I have spoken with several different artisan’s and they are more then willing to sell their product through my store. What does that mean I will be selling beyond books so far: candles, melting waxes, sewn and knitted projects, decorative pins, homemade cards, masks, and picture frames.

I will be talking to other artisans as well, to see if they would be interested.

Why both GoFundMe and Kickstarter?

GoFundMe - I am familiar with it, there is no time limit, and goals can be adjusted as needed. Beyond that, the GoFundMe is for individuals who would like to give to the project now, because they don’t know that they will have the money later. All money from it will go towards the goal of opening the store in some form, whether in advertising, product, or bills.

Kickstarter - it is an all or nothing funding. If I hit the goal, I have to open the store. Which if I hit the goal, I will definitely open the store because I will buy my building to do so.

There was some confusion with an individual earlier about how I would give the money back if the store failed. They didn’t seem to comprehend that is not how Kickstarter works. With Kickstarter, if I hit the goal, and I open the store, I have done as promised, no refund needed. If I hit the goal but don’t open the store, that’s when I have to issue a refund.

What if you are unable to get the building in the image?

Valid question, that’s when I move on to plans B or C. In other words, that’s when I buy one of the other buildings I have picked out, those that might not be as great for the goal but would work over all.

What makes building one better then two or three?

Location! It’s in a great spot for my needs.

Size, it is three times bigger then building two and four times bigger then building three.

Apartments in the upstairs. That means I can update them sooner then later with any extra money after stocking the store and rent them out. Renting just one of them out would make the buildings monthly mortgage with the amount of money I have planned to put down, renting out both would also pay the electric, gas, and trash removal. 

Extra rooms beyond the store that can be rented to artisans who might wish to have a new space or bigger space to work in. 

Three and Four are part of Five: renting out the spaces would make it so all the stores profits go into further stock and employees. Insuring that there is plenty to sell and that it continue on.

There might be others but those were the ones I focused on when making my choice. 

Then why have plans B and C if A is so good?

Someone else might buy A. In that case it’s a good idea to have a plan B and C. There aren’t a lot of buildings for sale in the area, and I would rather not rent or lease, as I want control over the building, that only happens if I own it. 

Do you have a business plan?

Yep, though it’s hand written because that’s how I roll. Actually, I have several, because I kept redrafting it as I considered new details and points. It evolved!

Do you have a budget?

Why yes I do! Checked multiple times, to make sure the math isn’t off. It is based on building costs, bills (gas, electric, trash, accounting), employee pay, advertising prices, permits, equipment, and stock. 

A basic form of it can be found at the bottom of my Kickstarter.

You have several disabilities, how are you going to do this?

With help. That’s why there is employee pay as part of the costs. I know I physically can’t do it alone, so I will pay someone to help me. I’ve already spoken to that person, we have an agreement set out and a pay schedule. 

Why should we back you? 

At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what to do, nor would I. What I can tell you is this: 

I managed to get my family from 50k in debt to 10k in debt in 4 years (love the parents, not the best at finances, plus there was that entire stroke that just added to the mess) - so I know how to balance a book and raise money. 

That does not count the times I asked for help for myself, only the family as whole’s situation. After all, hard to balance my own books with no money coming in during those months I did not have any commissions or ghost writing.

I was trained as a store manager

I have a bachelor's degree in business administration

I’m a fast study

If you are an indie author, I’ll sell your books. That means I buy several copies to sell, so you automatically get paid, and then if they do well, I buy more copies to sell. 

You’ll be helping a small business get started

You get a personalized signed copies of my book, yes they are digital copies but I will still be making the signing for each personal, scanning them in, adding them to the file and sending them off. 

You help a disabled writer stop living with the constant worry of how to pay the bills and when will the next need to ask for help happen. Thus I stop needing to ask for donations every time life goes sideways because I barely have enough to live before that happens.

You’ll get updates on the business, what the current specials are, and even coupons for online purchases from time to time. 

For those who do more then the twenty five dollar pledge, they will get signed copies of more then just my first two books. Every five past twenty-five will get one more book, unless told to stop. So If you do fifty dollars, you get the initial two plus five more personalized signature books. 

For those that indulge in the season: it is the season of giving. 

I can’t think of any other reasons at this time. 

Over all, it is simple, either you are able to share the GoFundMe or Kickstarter, willing risk a dollar at minimum to help an disabled indie author break the cycle of needing help a lot, or you are not. Personally I hope you are able and willing, but I can understand if not. 

If anyone would like to discuss becoming a more traditional type of investor, see the About Me & Contact Information Page.

Thank you all for reading this,

Jaimi 

[constastan]

kusanagi+totsuka, ~5k, AU where mikoto doesn’t exist, or is a lion in savannah somewhere like God intended, or in jail

The card is the first thing Izumo sees after returning from his day off, for once properly used. Tucked into the door handle, yellow and gaudy, it stands out against the dark wood, relegating everything around it to a background. Turning it over, Izumo doesn’t find any name signed, but the combination of intricate handiwork and cheap materials is telling enough. Bouncy letters on the back read, Happy housewarming!

Not what one would expect after nearly nine months, but then, one generally stops expecting anything about six months in.

“Idiot,” he says later that day, when Totsuka appears at the door with a single tinkle of the doorbell and an expectant smile. “Housewarming’s for when you invite people to your new place. ‘s the opposite of that.”

“But you changed a lot around here,” Totsuka returns. “It’s kinda new!”

“Wonder how you’d figure it from the outside. Peeked through the windows?”

Totsuka laughs. He looks pretty different himself, a couple of inches taller and a certain way that makes Izumo suddenly aware he’s not going to remain a shiftless kid for the entire lifespan, however well he fills the part. His jacket has to be too light, though the bulkiness creates an illusion of warmth. His hair is nearly too long, some of the strands catching on the black cord around his neck that holds a small metallic pendant. That’s a new one: Totsuka accessorizing.

Still, when he says, "Let’s see" and starts admiring all the renovations clockwise, his priorities turn out to be unchanged. He scarcely notices anything about the woodwork but admires the print on curtains, points out the new cushions but misses the tablecloths - Izumo’s particular point of pride — and nearly loses his mind once he reaches the music machine.

"It’s like a stereo system!" he declares when the second song begins, interrupting his singalong for a moment.

"What’d you think it is? A jukebox?"

"Not fair, Kusanagi-san. You know, I learned to play guitar from a busker in Iwaki, she was very good. I thought, ‘when I’m in Shizume I’ll play for Kusanagi-san’s patrons for free’. But I can’t beat this!"

With a smile, Izumo leans on the counter to see what he’s picking for the next turn.

"Why, go ahead and audition anyway. Live music is a whole another tier."

Totsuka beams directly at him before narrowing his eyes at the screen.

"Really? Well, I’ll give it my best. Oh, If I Fell In Love With You, I can play that! Does Mizuomi-san like rock or ballads more, Kusanagi-san?"

"Rock," says Izumo. He thinks his reply sounded easy and even as usual and came without any unnatural delay or strain. Yet Totsuka suddenly lifts his head as if catching a distant sound of something unfamiliar and ominous. He pauses before continuing. "He’d probably appreciate the Beatles. But he’s gone now."

For several long moments Totsuka is silent and looks taken aback. His hand is still hovering over the buttons; slowly, he brings it back to his side, and gives the interior another once-over, maybe trying to tie all the changes together.

Izumo reaches into his pocket for cigarettes.

"He was sick for a long time."

"I’m sorry," Totsuka says a little haltingly, then seems to remember something that brings about an odd flash of animation. "Ah, occhan died too. Last year, in the spring."

"Are you-" Izumo stops, unsure what exactly he meant to ask, gives himself a moment to focus. "Have you moved in with your… with his family?"

Totsuka shakes his head and finally comes over to take a seat at the bar, every motion careful and deliberate, like slipping between the dead they brought in there.

*

He went away right after the funeral. No reason, he was just thinking about occhan and the wind that always seemed to nudge occhan in the back wherever he went, and realized how little of the world he had seen, himself. It’s weird he had never thought to ask to tag along. His second — or was it third? — cousin is helping to rent out the apartment and they split the money. And now he has been to Saitama, Iwaki and Niigata - Saitama is the best, but the others are fun too. There’s always some kind of job if you aren’t too picky. Now he’s back to Shizume though, to pick up the rent money now that tenants moved out and because he felt like coming back. Who knows for how long. Who knows? That’s the only answer he is willing to give for anything that has to do with future plans, so eventually Izumo has to throw his hands up and stop asking.

Despite Izumo’s reservations on that point, the rent does come through. It’s instantly obvious when Totsuka walks in a couple of days later, all languid airs and exaggerated swagger.

"Well, the deed is done, Kusanagi-san. I’m a rich man now. Bring us the best you have to celebrate, on me!"

Two can play the game, so Izumo makes a show of examining the menu at length with a pondering frown before looking back at him, unimpressed.

"The best I have, huh. Well, that would be an Arizona Sunset for those of us who are underage. As for me, I’ll go for a Blue Arrow, and thanks for the treat."

"Geez," Totsuka says, not quite managing a proper pout. "At least let me watch how you make it. Because, see, I was in fact reflecting on things and I’m not satisfied with my career. I wanna do something creative."

"Following the recipe isn’t exactly an art form," Izumo points out, and comes to regret this warning very soon because Totsuka apparently has an outpour of creativity that garnishes anything he touches. He manages to keep his own cocktail safe, if mildly minted, but the Arizona Sunset goes supernova with fruit and syrups.

"It’s delicious," Totsuka assures him as soon as his lips touch the rim of the glass. He doesn’t return to the customer’s side of the bar. Izumo can see his eyes trailing along the shelves, sliding smoothly over the rows of bottles, sparkling with interest over the equipment. For several sips they savor their respective drinks in silence.

"What kind of job were you thinking?" Izumo asks eventually.

Totsuka hums and twirls his glass. His eyes are half-lidded; in the dim light they look warm, sweet and amber like honey.

"Mhm… a bakery? You know, an old-timey one, ran by some elderly couple. With family recipes and… rustic interior, is it what it’s called?" his voice is sing-song, also honey-textured. "And the same customers come every day for breakfast or lunch, so you make small talk…"

"Totsuka," says Izumo, in an undertone despite himself. "I’m talking prospects. not daydreams."

"Or a food truck. Going around the country, selling street food. Always on the move and everybody’s glad to see you when you come!”

"Food trucks don’t have routes throughout the entire country, idiot." Izumo sighs and goes to rinse off his glass. Totsuka trails after him. "It’s pointless, and nobody has that much gas to waste."

"But carnivals do, don’t they? If I sell street food and also busk, it’ll be like a mini-carnival."

The next day, they make a Kit-Kat milkshake, a Derby and some spicy nuts and bolts for snacking. The day later, it’s mozzarella sticks and plain soda. The food truck comes up occasionally, every time Izumo tries to gauge anything out about Totsuka’s cooking pursuits. After a certain, very early, point it’s all a game, but the kind that gets more amusing as new details come up. The truck is supposed to be orange, medium-sized, with a grill, candy floss machine and some space for the futon, guitar, keepsakes and Totsuka himself. Izumo eyeballs the price for him, just to be mean.

"I’ll put some ads on," Totsuka decides after a brief awestricken pause at the numbers. "Don’t you want to advertise your bar all over Japan, Kusanagi-san?"

"Depends. How much’d you even charge if you hope to cover the costs?"

Totsuka slumps onto the table, half-defeated, half-overdramatic and says:

"Maybe I’ll just sell the apartment."

It takes Izumo a surprising amount of self-restraint to stop himself from childishly retaliating, Well, maybe I’ll just sell the bar.

*

Not that he actually would, at the present moment. He has given himself until the end of college, so the time isn’t exactly running out yet — though the day when it starts to is already an impending dot on the horizon. It’s like the mid-August of summer holidays, is he’s still allowed to think in high school terms.

Then again, Izumo thinks, as he mops the floors late at night, meticulously studies the damage to the coveted tablecloths and moves expertly through the maze of tables without as much as brushing a chair once, nobody allows or disallows him anything. His family isn’t rushing him, and the money has never been an issue. No, it’s all self-imposed. He knows the bar will have to go eventually, better sooner than later. Better before he has a real reputation in the business world to worry about.

Izumo straightens out, propping the mop against the wall and looks around, taking in the interior, somewhat mismatched from the patchy renovating, a bit too fancy for the people who come there. Ever since his uncle died, it seems to enter deeper and deeper into transitory state. Izumo wouldn’t be able to explain why on earth he decided to upscale it. The theme he should have stuck with is neutrality, a complete lack of anything suggesting affiliations, or even non-basic standards. That’s how the place gained traction, after all. Neutral grounds ruled by a person who is on pleasant, distant terms with every group in your tier. Somewhere to have a drink without any fights erupting and maybe, when the floor grows emptier, take the bartender aside and wheedle a favor out of him. Izumo agrees just often enough to keep the rumor that it’s doable alive without appearing to take sides.

After a week or so and no fewer than twenty cocktail recipes Totsuka unearths the live music plan and proclaims he needs to know his audience.

"Guys who don’t know half a thing about music," Izumo reassures him. "And I don’t permit bottle throwing here, so you’ll do fine with anything."

Naturally, Totsuka is as offended as he hoped.

"I need to know what kind of people they are! You don’t get tips if you play against the grain, Kusanagi-san. And nobody sings or claps along, and it’s just depressing."

"No singalongs is what you should be aiming for, thanks," Izumo says, but Totsuka’s mind is clearly made up. To save him the trouble of climbing through the bathroom windows or trying any other wacky kidbook schemes, Izumo eventually deposits him on a far-end seat at the bar one Thursday night with a Coke and instructions to attract as little attention as possible. To hold out until he’s in the spotlight, guitar and everything.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take a guitar to make someone high-school aged stand out in a half-empty bar. For the first hour nearly everybody who enters greets Izumo with "Oh, and that’s…?". They provide their own helpful suggestions, too. Izumo shoots down ‘little brother’ right away, but accepts ‘cousin’ a couple of times. When Totsuka manages to cut in first, it’s usually ‘intern’.

"Intern?" Izumo asks him via a raised eyebrow after the first time. Totsuka mutters back, “Cause I’m learning cocktails from you,” burying the back part of the sentence in his drink. Izumo only shrugs.

At long last, the novelty of Totsuka starts to wear off. Tables are getting fuller, and by ten Izumo can say with certainty that Totsuka should have been able to collect an accurate sample of the local public already. He’s in no hurry to leave though, glancing around with gleaming eyes and a half-smile. The local public is indeed a sight, especially for those who don’t hang out in certain parts of the town too often. Mohawks, bleached-out do’s, even a couple of pompadours. Leather jackets, clunky jewelry, bandanas. Tattoos and scars, sometimes overlapping. Each gang brought in their own style, contributing to a wild mess of clashing key pieces. It took Izumo some time to get used to that visual cacophony; Totsuka, however, seems to be taking it in stride, like most things.

When Izumo has to go to the back room for a minute, he slips off the chair to follow him and whispers.

"Are they really terrible people, Kusanagi-san? Who do really terrible things?"

"Really terrible people go to the dive bars in another district." Izumo loads off several bags of readymade snacks into his arms. "These are at moderate levels."

"So, they just fight among themselves?"

"Why’d you say that?"

Totsuka ponders a little, then says, "The leather jackets and the punk-style guys definitely fight". Izumo stops for a beat to glance at him because that’s true. This untimely pause must encourage Totsuka and he probes further: "Is there a reason?"

Izumo sighs and goes over the options in his head while his hands collect the utensils and supplies semi-mechanically.

"Look," he says at last. "The reason they come here, drink, chat with me is because it’s comparatively safe. They know I’m not gonna tip anyone off on their business. And so I don’t."

Turning back, he runs smack into Totsuka’s pout, this time full-fledged, and decides to rectify it a bit. Even at this point he knows that decision is more on a wrong side. Too bad there’s no way to predict the scale of wrong sometimes.

"Some smuggle, some have gambling rings, some do bodyguarding. Sort ‘em on your own if you are so curious."

Before heading out he catches a glimpse of Totsuka’s eyes lighting up and a grin beginning to form. Figures: now he’s gone and turned what could be a simple curiosity bone-throw or a flat rejection into a game. If Totsuka doesn’t figure it out, he can’t blame Izumo, and if he somehow does, the subjects of their discussion can’t blame Izumo either.

It appears like a win-win.

*

The next afternoon sees Totsuka parked on a sturdier chair with a guitar, facing the still-empty room. That’s as good of a stage as the bar can provide, but he seems to be perfectly content.

"It’s a nice observation point," he informs Izumo.

"Weren’t you complaining about the lighting and whatnot earlier?" asks Izumo. "What happened to that?"

He knows perfectly well what happened to that though: the endless circulation of ideas and plans in Totsuka’s world. Technically, he deposed the busking to old news himself, with that espionage schtick. Now Totsuka’s fully ready to lurk in the shadows and sniff out secrets, even if it takes some guitar-playing on the side. His gaze is glued to the door.

The first person to come is Gonzo, the leader of so-called ‘leather jackets’ that Izumo just labels as ‘the north-east one’ in his head, even though that’s also not their proper name. He isn’t entirely sure whether they’re really a biker gang or just dress the part. Gonzo is generally a boisterously good-natured guy, twice as much today, but that doesn’t stop Izumo from taking notice of how uncharacteristically early he is.

And sure enough, Gonzo is barely halfway through his first drink when he suggests Izumo to step out for a smoke while it’s not busy yet. Outside they listen to the buzz of passing trains, watch the sky go a darker shade of pink little by little in what could be called a companiable silence if there were any companions involved. Gonzo’s eyes lazily drift from the cotton-candy clouds to the dark windows way below.

"You keep anything up there?" he asks, nodding at them.

Here it comes, Izumo thinks. Unlike Totsuka he knows pretty well how the north-east gang makes money and what issues come with this kind of business.

"Odds and ends."

"Could they make space for a bit?"

"Should they?"

Gonzo laughs and leans sideways, not quite bumping shoulders. The underworld custom of talking in circles and vague hints clearly isn’t his strong suit. Charisma-laced candor, however, is. The wisps of his cigarette smoke now curl in the air next to Izumo’s own, merging together as they float up.

"They could make you some money, is what I’m saying. There’ll be a shipment in Chiba tonight, and we’re all booked out. Will take it off your hands in twenty hours tops."

"Pretty risky for my business and for yours."

"It’ll pay off, for both," says Gonzo. Through the half-closed door Izumo can hear the doorbell ring and Totsuka greet someone cheerfully. Someone who could be from the central district, or criminal outskirts, or rival dealers and probably expected the presumed neutrality of their go-to for decompressing to span both floors.

He gives a careless shrug.

"Sorry."

*

Coincidentally, the newly arrived bloke turns out to also be one of the north-east guys. When Izumo and Gonzo reenter, the bar is already tingling with bits and pieces of music. Totsuka is not playing yet, just running his hands against the strings to make them hum, fingers plucking at one or another occasionally. The patron sits at the table nearby with a beer. They seem to be talking about some band; Totsuka breaks off to mouth, "On the counter," at Izumo. He glances there and swipes the coins, an appropriate number of them surprisingly, off into his pocket, making a mental note to teach Totsuka operate the cash register.

"Wait a sec, you got a show on?" says Gonzo, paradoxically less single-minded now that he’s been rejected. "And I have a first row seat, too."

Over the course of the next half an hour he backs up Izumo’s assessment of his good-naturedness, laughing and calling out song titles and occasionally going as far as to clap along. The music now fills the space properly, ringing off the glass edges, oozing into the back room. Customers flow in steadily, and so do drinks. The north-easterners trickle over to where their leader is parked in Totsuka’s corner; the circle gets denser until he starts looking like booked personal entertainment.

Izumo is too busy to really do anything along the lines of watching over, but the music makes it easy enough to keep tabs. It runs on steadily and smoothly for a while, interspersed with claps and shout-outs, starts stumbling a little when Totsuka gets ambitious enough to follow those suggestions; then grows sparser, laxer, gradually making more and more room for the background noise.

He turns his head to get a good look at that point. Totsuka is still at his original spot, but now leaning onto the counter, guitar tossed across his lap carelessly. His cheeks and eyes are overly bright and the grin when he catches Izumo’s eye is positively dazzling. Izumo, a bartender, inadvertently glances at the glass with soda sat near the improvized stage and wonders who dumped their shot in there, also when and for what exact reason. As soon as his look drifts back, Totsuka flings the guitar down and himself off his seat in one motion that has a certain drunken grace to it. To be fair, it barely stretches to see him all the way to Izumo’s end of the counter.

"It’s going really well," he reports blissfully and, before Izumo has the chance to take a jab at some of his riffs, specifies: "The intel gathering. I’ve very nearly figured it out."

"Well?"

"Not yet. Still gotta check. Say, Kusanagi-san, we should bet on it!"

Izumo raises an eyebrow at him.

"Can’t win gamblin’ with a rich man like you. I don’t deal in trucks, and what else can you want? A pudding cup?"

Tosuka is all too happy to use that as an excuse to laugh out, all tipsy merriment. The protests that follow are also fairly stereotypical, if Izumo’s experience counts for something,

"Nope! A drink, a drink! You still haven’t served me your best one. I don’t buy the Arizona Sunset!" And here he leans in to mock-whisper: "Is that Blue Arrow after a-"

They both look up simultaneously as Totsuka’s cut off by something falling over him, something that for a split second looks like a tangible shadow to Izumo. Then he recognizes it for what it is - a high-grade leather jacket — and becomes aware of a smiling Gonzo at the eye level, the likely source of this windfall.

"Sorry ‘bout that. Some of my guys were being funny, overdid it a little. Better get some air outside, that will help with clearing his head."

Totsuka partially scrambles out from under the jacket, letting it fall back onto his shoulders, and in that half-buried state looks between them like a bewildered chipmunk. Izumo takes a moment to pass through the haze of half-formed thoughts of dragging him upstairs, throwing down a blanket and having him sleep it off for a while. But the night air is also good, as he, a bartender, can attest. He stifles a sigh.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks."

Gonzo nods and Totsuka, who’s still in the process of getting the tousled hair out of his face, is pulled to his feet. Before leaving he turns to wink conspiratorially at Izumo through the remaining flyaway strands, and Izumo says to himself, since there’s nobody else, So, not that drunk after all, huh.

*

They come back in twenty minutes or so. Totsuka does seem more even-keeled, less sparkle and more glow. The leather jacket is sitting on his frame properly now, though it’s hard to say who gets the credit for that. He takes a seat at one of the corner tables this time, smiling absently at Izumo as he motions at the discarded guitar. One of “the guys" picks it up and eventually it finds its way back into the case. Izumo is rather sure he catches a glimpse of it cased at some point between then and the midnight.

Still, the fact remains: they've come back. It’s a good hour, if not more, of partying for the north-easterners that night. They drink and tip remarkably well and Izumo is waiting for his chance to tell Totsuka, See what I told you about the live music. Totsuka, however, seems to be moving with the tidal waves of people around him, never approaching alone. Whenever their eyes meet, he smiles in the same conspiratory way and gesticulates something inarticulate. Izumo only wonders if the night air really worked like they hoped.

It’s after midnight that the people start trickling out. A little early, Izumo thinks, but then recalls they have an overnight job lined up. Two by three, three by four, the group makes its way to the entrance and then outside. From the corner of Izumo’s distracted eye they blend into clusters of black spots against the light-colored walls, then transform into firefly-like tiny bursts of vivid color as each one stops to light a cigarette just out of the doors. The hum of departing slowly fades away to near silence, and when Izumo finally turns away from a desolated customer with a large tab, the bar looks lopsided — the right side is now barren.

Izumo leans against the counter, putting his weight onto it for several seconds: that late-shift feeling, something between lightheadedness and fatigue, starts to settle in. Making use of the downtime, he sorts out the tips, wipes the counter, prepares the trays for dirty glasses and tries to remember what he wanted in the back room. It comes to him like a jolt: the blanket. Only at that point he realizes.

The bar is half-barren and locked in what feels like a unnatural hush: the music is long gone — soaked into the walls, splashed out into the street — and no inane chatter has come to replace it. Belatedly, Izumo remembers Totsuka never swapped from Gonzo’s jacket back to his own bulky excuse of it, and wonders if he, a black dot at the edge of vision, gave Izumo’s back a mischievous smile on his way out.

*

Twelve hours in, Izumo thinks of all the ways to bastardize Blue Arrow while still retaining the right to call it that and entertains himself by looking up substitutions.

Two days in, he skims the local news column closely and starts straining his ear for any noteworthy gossip during the shifts; there’s none, which is reassuring.

Three days in, he suddenly reaches to turn on the portable radio mid-afternoon while prepping the bar alone.

Five days in, he tries to recall the address even though he knows Totsuka never mentioned it. Nor his cousin’s name, for that matter.

A week in, Gonzo shows up at his usual time.

*

Just like the last time, he’s alone, but in stark contrast from the last time he isn’t the one determined to have a word. Izumo bids his time and eventually Gonzo catches that prompting undercurrent in his persistent lingering glances. He goes through the trouble of coming over to answer it with a roll of shoulders and a lazy smile.

"The last week’s gig turned out good, by the way. The trouble paid off in full, like I said. Think it over for the future."

Izumo keeps the frustration off his face as he rummages through his memory trying to pinpoint what on earth he could be on about. Eventually, their smoke outside backdropped by cotton candy sky and the upstairs windows floats up to the surface.

"Ah," he says. "Well, looks like you’re making do without me."

Gonzo winks.

"The kid sure came in handy, so thanks for that, too. But we gotta have something more permanent."

"The kid," Izumo repeats slowly.

"Your cousin, was it? His place was perfect for the job. You know, a tiny block, on the outskirts... all warehouse-like, even. Could have fit twice as many crates in. Does he live with your family?"

Izumo, listening as if through the thick layer of something muffling, says, "No".

"Ah. Well, figures, since… Anyway, transporting the stuff was a piece of cake back then. I was gonna chat him up about a couple more shipments I had an eye on, but now that he’s cleared off…"

This time Izumo stops himself from dumbly echoing, "cleared off…", but something of the sentiment must be seeping through on his face anyway as Gonzo’s eyes flicker away. Still keeping them off, he rubs his cheek, the picture of someone’s who’s wondering if they're getting dragged into family drama.

"I mean, he joined us here and there while we were finishing up that business — no harm in that, keeping company. He loves to be on the move, no? Left him in Sendai last, he asked to pick him up Sunday. Said he’ll be staying for some open air schtick. But…"

"I see," says Izumo and somewhat hastily serves him his usual. They talk a bit about the current climate in the city and how the rent’s on the rise and, what movies are on, for Pete’s sake, before Hiroki and some others finally show up. The minutes swell, break off and sink  slowly like heavy droplets from a leaking pipe. Izumo goes through the routine with an odd sense of distance, as if his hands move three paces ahead of his consciousness. 

Hours later, Gonzo approaches him before calling it a night — half-cautiously, or so it looks to Izumo’s currently lagging mind.

"Can’t promise you anything," he says in a hurried attempt to redirect. "Don’t even know how long this place’s gonna stay in the business."

Gonzo blinks, then just looks at him for a moment — tall, solid and steady on his feet. Not the kind of person you can just hip-check off their chosen track. No knocking the subject out of his hands until he’s ready to drop it, Izumo thinks, and waits for him to keep going.

"Right, just thought I’d mention… Me and some guys, we’re going back to Sendai next week."

"Good luck, but don’t bother," Izumo hands seem to be picking up speed uncontrollably. It’s five paces ahead of the rest now, no less. "He’ll be in Nagasaki by then, or maybe in Europe. There’s no keeping up with him for us who have things to do."

Having blurted that out, he stops for a second – completely, hands and all – mesmerized by the satisfying finality of the words. That didn't just sound like it's over, he thinks, that sounded like it's been over for a week. Like it possibly never even started.

*

Several days later he re-discovers the card in the pile of mail where he first put it, and feels grateful to have something he can- not dispose of but physically set aside, literally put on the shelf. A gesture like this is the only thing his perfect wrap-up speech was missing.

He pauses for a second, surveying his options, then opens the drawer that holds a purchase agreement and other non-trivial papers. The yellowness and gaudiness of Totsuka’s inverted welcome seems to show through the top sheet, so he buries it deeper in the stack.

In the end of the winter when he starts getting things ready for the deal, it’s still there, unfaded.

[kindabraveandlittlestupid]

Fantasy Vacations

I took some time to think about the fictional places I love to visit; either to go to school, drink, dance, party, read books, swing a sword or simply just explore the local culture. Below you will find 47 of the best must-visit fictional locations (according to me) and some reasons why I would love to go there. Don’t take this to serious it's all written for shits and giggles. Let me know if I made any mistakes or if you have any late additions and thanks for reading.

Regards, Michael California

Alpha The City of a Thousand Planets

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets did not do well in the theaters, to say the least, it was poor casting choices that sunk it. However, the opening of the movie with ‘Alpha’ growing in mass starting off as the original International Space Station and adding alien visitors over time before becoming a massive city in space was a pretty cool concept and scene to watch to the music of David Bowie. With 3,236 unique species on board, there is a real chance you could live there your whole life and still not meet every kind of alien life form. Who wouldn't want to live in a hub of alien cross-cultural?

Arrakis

The “Spice Must Flow” and “Fear Is The Mind Killer”. Arrakis and the book Dune, which is celebrated in Scifi much the same way Tolkien is celebrated in Fantasy, is a sand world with giant worms, a scarcity in water and a world in the center of political conflict all in the name of Spice, a mind/body-altering drug that extends life and allows space travel. Arakis is hardly a place you would want to go on holiday but you go to a place like this for cultural depth of the Fremen people and if you’re lucky, ride on the back of a Sandworm. Which frankly is good enough for me. Please note consumption of spice may turn your eyes blue.

Asgard

A city of gold floating in the heavens and home to literal gods? Asgard has a lot to offer in the way Norse Culture and would be my kind of place to visit. It’s one of a few vacation spots on this list that might be considered a utopia even if you're under a Mythical Monarchy; a balance between a combat culture, art, music, literature, rowdy partying and it also happens to be the center of the Nine Realms giving you access to the other worlds to explore. I suppose the greatest feature (despite the golden architecture) is the flat slab that holds itself in space and defying science and reason. This is about the only place Flat-Earthers would be correct (save the Disc World which is another flat earth on the backs of elephants on the back of a planet-sized turtle which makes about as much sense as Flat-Earth Science). 

Atlantis

I had to make a tough choice between the DC Atlantis and the Stargate Atlantis. Considering I can't breathe underwater and I already have the Themyscira from Wonder Woman and Rapture from Bioshock I opted for Atlantis from Stargate. This vacation spot is at best a weekend trip with mostly the same alien architecture to see but with the Stargate being in the middle of the facility it perhaps opens THE most options for day trips to various alien worlds across the universe, even more so then Asgard with the nine realms. So it makes it onto my list.

Bay City

Only once I started writing this list did I find that there is a lot of sci-fi love for New York City and San Francisco (I imagine Tokyo would also make the top 5). The show Altered Carbon takes place in a city called Bay City which is San Francisco unless someone else built another Golden Gate Bridge and covered it with shipping container apartments (cool concept). This city is all about vice and digital pleasures much the same way Future LA is in Blade Runner. Despite having its gritty side this place no doubt has a lot to offer in regards to a nightlife and what I hope is a great selection of food. Just let me pull on my long black leather trench coat with neon trim.

Canto Bight

A clever ‘twist’ the Tattooine trope from Star Wars is Canto Bight. Basically suggesting crime doesn't always start from the bottom up but sometimes the top down. While this whole part of the story was literally pointless to plot and outcome of the Last Jedi, I can appreciate another location being added to the vast universe (had it not been cut back by the idiots at Disney). Point is it’s a lavish location with gambling and ritzy living so long as you don't peel back the finish and realize it is basically built on slave labor. Oh, Capitalism.

Castle Black

While Castle Black is basically filled with bastards, volunteers, and criminals it makes a pretty good metaphor for aimless people joining the military. Only your enlistment is forever, you're stationed next to an ice wall and on the other side of that wall is ice hillbillies and nightmares. I do actually like some seclusion for some holidays and this works well if I take a bunch of books and mead and spend 3 months reading by a fire while doing some sword practice in the yard with the Crows. Sounds kind of peaceful and I might get to pee off the wall.

Citadel

Yet another superstructure in space shared by multiple species. The Citadel caught many gamers imagination both being a massive space city but also the seat of power between the various sentient species in Mass Effect. The Citadel (like most future cities) has its extreme highs (wealth and luxury) and deep lows (poverty and criminal underworlds). Granted its criminal world is nowhere near Omega’s level of corruption but if Canto Bight showed us anything is corruption can start from the top. The real reason to go here is to party the nights away and drink a bunch, kind of like Singapore and like Singapore, after a week you pretty much hit all the hot spots and ready to move on.

Cloud City

Cloud City for me isn't THAT exciting to go by myself but with my significant other for either honeymoon or weekend getaway? It perhaps can a nice place to relax, stay in a comfortable room, go on long walks, enjoy nice meals and take cloud tours flying around the gas giant and seeing the massive vapor plumes. That doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Columbia

Columbia is a proper steampunk sky city which is nothing short of elegant, beautiful and a marvel in itself. I always wondered how people breathed so high up but that's far from the only concern if you visit a city like this. Behind the vale of beauty is a hyper-religious society, fascism, and racism all hanging in the heavens like some sort of GOP paradise where anyone non-white is kinda screwed. If we managed to cut out the lingering problems of Conservatism in Columbia, this place would be a paradise! Just watch your step its a long way down and railings are only hip high.

Coruscant Jedi Temple

The Jedi Temple, Hogwarts, Highland Mountain, and Kamar Taj all represent a kind of school/academy. An I might make another list of fictional educational institutes we all wish we could sign up for later but as of right now we are on vacation and the Coruscant Jedi Temple has much the same appeal as Castle Black with books to read and swordplay in the afternoon and peeing off one of the spires (preferably off the middle one where the Jedi Council convenes). Naturally, I have also the whole planet to explore but spending time with mystical philosophical laser sword wielding space mages sounds like a pretty unforgettable encounter.

Diagon Alley

Presently the shortest visit on the list, Diagon Alley is pretty much a long street of shops for people to get their magic on. I do enjoy some window shopping and strange old things but really we are here to get spells and wands no? I can't imagine being here more than a few hours but I can see Diagon needing multiple visits because you are bound to miss something and need to make a second trip to fucking find it. 

Diamond City

I was split between Diamond City and Megaton as two fallout locations to add to my list. Ultimately living next to a nuclear bomb drove me away from Megaton and living in a baseball field turned fortress appealed to me. I love the care put into the creation of this city by Bethesda, I know I give them a hard time for their multiplayer and money grabbing for mods but the effort put into Diamond City makes it seem like a viable and logical settlement in the Fallout Universe... hell I am thinking about playing that game now after writing this. Oh, what is there to do here? Not much save eat and drink and pee off one of the front walls on some Super Mutants.

L.A. 2049

Where Bay City was full of sexy holograms, L.A. 2049 is full of sexy synthetics. Really though this setting really established the idea of Cyberpunk for a lot of people and have one of the early images of vast American cities being pushed closer together and then reaching towards the sky. Like so many other settings it's overcrowded and has its dark side but dark sided cities tend to have some interesting nightlife and like Bay City you can probably do a lot with your time and money assuming you have a lot of both.

Gotham City

You can probably get more out of Future LA or Bay City then you could from Gotham which is why I won't be trying to sell you on the city. I hear they have a big crime problem and lots of people dressing up as bats. Don’t get me started on this Police zeppelins humming around and shining a spotlight through your window at 2 AM. No, you went to go to the Ice Berg Lounge for some late night Jazz, catch Haly’s Circus when it comes through town, and visit the various museums across the city. Just don’t take any shortcuts and if at all possible pay for a driver to take you around the city, the locals know which areas are safe.

Highland Mountain

I imagine many of you are thinking “What is Highland Mountain?” and I am glad you asked inquisitive Tumblrs. Highland Mountian is the secret location for the Spartan-II program on the Planet Reach. In other words, this is where Master Chief had his survival training and general training to become a Spartan. If you’re still not with me it's from the video game Halo. Like the Jedi Temple it is more fun to be trained here but as a vacation option, I like camping with some Spartans and roughing it on the frosty mountains in some power armor playing war games. It’s like paintball with soldiers if the soldiers were 7 feet tall and flip over a tank with their bare hands.

Hogsmeade

A cozy little-frozen town in Britain called Hogsmeade is basically the main settlement of non-muggles beyond Hogwarts or so Wikipedia tells me. It’s a magical town and has lots to offer in the way of shopping much like Diagon Alley. The benefit of this community is that it is a community; bars, library, shops, restaurants, and more can be found here. Good for a romantic getaway or even raising your kids and making Snowmen during the winter. What else is there to say?

Hogwarts

Say what you will but I imagine Hogwarts might take one of the top 5 places people would love to see. It’s magical, hidden, filled with secrets and a rich history to get emerged into. Despite being just the right age when these books first came out (I was like 12 or 13), I still have not read them (I know... I deserve your ire). Truth is we all kinda wish we could go to school there, personally, I can see myself just reading all the time and experimenting with magic 24/7. I can only imagine how much trouble I might get in with spells/potions going wrong.

Jurassic Park

Not exactly a good track record for Jurassic Park but quite honestly the people overseeing this parks (in regards to the movies) despite being the most brilliant minds in their fields appear to be inept over and over again, as bad as the Sticky Bandits from Home Alone. Beyond that point, a day vacation with the family to Jurassic Park would be amazing and perhaps something we would indulge in every couple of years. Easy to imagine the kids losing their fucking mind over Dinosaurs but then again so would I.

Kaer Morhen

Hard stretch to call Kaer Morhen a school mostly because the students are all old men already trained to kill monsters. This is less about vacationing at this castle and more about living there and fixing up the place. Really, I feel like its the perfect little slice of Scandinavian land to build a long-term residence at. If I was to stay here as vacation spot pretty much reach Castle Black again and repeat without the wall and white walkers.

Kamar Taj

Another school of magic where Dr. Strange learned his abilities along with many other students of magic. I appreciate the seclusion of it. Kind of a Castle Black feels with a pinch of Hogwarts. Like the Jedi Academy, the ‘students’ here are very much adults and there is an appeal to that considering I am 32 now.

King’s Landing

Really though King’s Landing pretty much only works as a vacation spot if you are A) staying at the Red Keep and B) having a bachelor party to enjoy the brothels. Not that any of us would do that sort of thing...

Labyrinth

You can either assume this trip will take a few days or a few months. I like the Labyrinth for the same reasons I love Myst and Wonderland. A strange world and I love a good puzzle. Not sure how I feel about the Goblin King and his junk in spandex... I mean I don’t want to rain on his parade but I think I might do the maze in reverse instead of seeing him do his “Dance Magic Dance” in his castle with his junk in my face. No issues here if you’re a gay guy or straight girl that would love King Bowie to do that to you.

Mother’s Cradle

In a world where machines have taken over and humanity had been regressed to primitive tribes, Mother’s Cradle is a secluded valley of protection and nature. If you ever played Horizon Zero Dawn, you can see how peaceful that place is and could easily imagine building a home there and living off the land. I enjoy city living the most but even I can't resist Mother’s Cradle and the community that lives there.

Myst

Who doesn't love a good puzzle? Like the Labyrinth, this place is all about sharpening your wits and solving the puzzles in the world of Myst. I would suggest above all other things take a notebook with you because some things need to be written down. Did I mention it has multiple words you teleport too by opening a book.

New New York

I always wondered why the waterline in New New York in the Fifth Element is so low, really wish someone would explain that to me. Anyways it's better than Waterworld and its good to see the big apple become so large that it absorbed New Jersey. Like most big cities the nightlife would be awesome but why I really want to go here is for the fast food and flights to other planets. I won't lie the uniforms in the future are all about dressing to impress the customers and that's kinda hot. Looking at you McDonalds Girls from 2263AD

New Vegas

It’s like the Wild West with gambling, mutants, robots, and atomic weapons. You already know Fallout from Diamond city but New Vegas brings its own charm with the gambling scene. I imagine the Sin City is still very sinful and perhaps more violent. You can get into a lot of fun trouble here and who wouldn't want too. It’s Vegas!

Omega

If you were to combine the Citadel with New Vegas then Omega would be the outcome. This mining colony/way station is where crime comes to make a name for itself. The various Mass Effect species can be found within and most of them fight for territories inside its walls. It’s the sins you come from for like gambling, drinking, dancing, fucking, and fighting that make Omega so great. Don’t worry do you don't need to indulge in them all.

Pandora

Camping may not be an option in Pandora for humans but with some extra suspension of belief that you can either breath the air without it being toxic or perhaps have a Na’vi body waiting for you. The wildness of Pandora appeals to the hiker in me. I would want to climb the trees and the floating mountains, fly a wild beast or ride a wild horse in this world. The bioluminescence of the world draws me to explore it at night even with the predators lurking about.

Rapture

From my understanding, Rapture throws a hell of a New Years party. Such a crazy party that it turned into a revolution but that's a different issue altogether. The city under the sea makes my list as a more desirable alternative to that of Atlantis with me lacking gill and all that. Like Tomorrowland, this city is driven by progress and is a libertarians wet dream that is until you realize there are always people looking to take power and that being a Libertarian Society is a fantasy.

Risa

This might be the #1 vacation spot on this list because the whole damn world is about fulfilling desires and vacationing. Want to hide away and read a book? Go for it. Massages all day? No problem. Walk out into the ocean and find a boat serving sushi? Apparently, that's a thing from a Star Trek episode. It’s paradise and with their weather controls, there is never a cloudy day at their beaches. Doesn't hurt Risa women are all basically supermodels.

Rivendell

Rivendell, yet another peaceful refuge away from the harsh world. I can imagine this place having comfortable rooms and library somewhere to read. Granted I can't read elvish so I hope they have some proper English books among their shelves. If I do get bored I imagine hiking/climbing the surrounding cliffs and forest might be an option. I am sure I will piss of some elves exploring their hideaway.

San Fransokyo

Not the first movie to combine cities into something new. I admit I do love the like the new look of San Francisco and how it makes the world of big hero six feel. I think what makes me want to see this city so much is their altered architecture and more importantly the food that comes with this deep blend of Western/Asian culture. The sushi, the Kobe burgers, and literally everything else is gonna be leaps and bounds better then either city did on their own.

Skellige

There is no party like Skellige Party! Not true Asgard might throw down hard with this Nordic Pirate/Fishing community of the northern islands. Basically, the number one reason to go here is to drink or go to a royal party where you feast, fight, fuck, and drink some more. Don’t think that men have a run at the place, Skellige woman can fuck you up if you don't treat them right. Consider this a helpful PSA.

Skyrim

Truth be told if Skyrim (was to scale) of the real world, it's not a very big province or even plot of land. Think about how fast you can run from one side of the map to the other? What 15? 20 minutes at the most? That's why I kept this location as a broad vacation spot because the keeps aren't THAT big but each one has enough charm that it justifies you visiting them all and get a taste for each unique area. Like Kaer Morhen this place is all about settling down and making a life for yourself. Hell, you could pick flowers all day and sell that to shop and make that your living. Not saying you should make that your career but you could.

Starfleet

The third and final nod to San Francisco on this list (told you they got a lot of love). I always found it interesting that Gene Roddenberry would establish the federation in San Francisco. I might look that up but with the options of London, New York, Washington, and other locations making just as much since he still settled on SF as the home base for Star Fleet. Anyways I wanna go to school here because you know... space travel, alien babes, seeing new worlds and all that jazz.

Stark Tower

There is no doubt the Stark Tower has a stocked fridge, great food, killer view of the city, and a fully automated AI to improve your day (even if she is watching you shower). The fun of Stark Tower requires one thing and that is for you to invite people to come to a killer party on these top floors. I think we can all agree once you have the party rolling that it will likely go to the break of dawn.

Stormwind

I have no strong Allegiance Alliance or Horde one way or the other. Truth be told I play Warcraft 3 and then stopped never getting into WoW. I suppose the draw of fantasy species pulls me here much the same way it pulls me towards Lord of the Rings. I imagine if you find the might pub you can have a good time but the places of magic will have good books. I suppose I could wander into the forest and bath in a Moonwell and hope for a chance encounter with the Night Elves.

The Shire

It doesn't take much to imagine that food-based holidays are a big hit with hobbits. So if I was to vacation here Thanksgiving (assuming they celebrated it) or something like it would be the time to visit. Eating, dancing, drinking, and fireworks. Yes, I realize I would be a giant among them and hit my head but I am ok all the same staying in their small community.

Themyscira

Clearly, a theme in some of these hypothetical visits is to meet hot girls. On one hand, I should know better than to post such things because admitting anything like that on Tumblr is slightly sacrilege but you know what fuck that I want to go to an island full of beautiful strong independent women dammit. I don’t mind strong woman, I don't mind a matriarchy society and I don't mind admitting that I like looking at a beautiful woman and I wouldn't mind making love to Amazonian beauties on their beaches. So sue me! I fucking love women.

Thessia

Read the Themyscira post above. Same thing. Only they are a blue alien woman named Asari and apparently they can do something like a “Vulcan Mind Meld” in the bedroom. Sexy.

Tomorrowland

As someone who’s always wondered what society MIGHT be like without religion and uninhibited society focused on knowledge over profit and power, Tomorrowland is an expression of that or at least what I hope it would be like. This is the sort of place you to be impressed by the technology and the marvels of invention. I can imagine flying around a jetpack, experiencing new depths to virtual reality, zero gravity chambers, teleportation and pretty much every other sci-fi invention you can dream up will likely be found here. Hell, I don’t want to visit the world of Tomorrow I want to live there.

New Tristram

Probably the worst place to visit on my list with all the undead and demons and all that. I can't help but find Tristram a little enchanting with the Gothic Ruins and struggle that is found there. Diablo (the game) has a habit of having building look small on the outside big on the inside which is fine. I personally would like to wander into the layers below and crawl through those dungeons and collect loot. I am not sure if this is still a vacation or some sort of video game fantasy I like to live out.

Tron City

Tron City pretty much feels like nighttime 24/7 but with the arena combat, the races, and the high rise clubs. Its hard not admit there is something exciting about being on the grid. I personally love to derezz myself and spend a few weeks in the world of Tron and maybe bring back Siren or two.

Wakanda

Birnin Zana is the capital of Wakanda and that is what you see in the picture just in case you didn't know that fun fact. The city itself draws me with lots of things; food, music, culture, technology, and architecture. I medium of all things I imagine my stay could be a week or two before I seen everything I care to see. I can imagine (while not really suggested in the movie) that there is a great nightlife here and very engaged community.

Winterfell

Yet another getaway to swing swords, practice archery, read books and ride horses. Winterfell (despite being apparently the middle of nowhere) is the kind of keep I would love to live in. Not by myself mind you but with a community of people upkeeping the keep. Its a good balance of community and seclusion to read my books. Sansa Stark can keep me company under the animal skins. 

Wonderland

Wonderland, you go for the Tea Parties and you stay for the Mushrooms. Pretty much a long acid trip, Wonderland gives you the excuse to bend your mind and alter your perception on reality while encountering a variety of strange and wonderful... um... people. I wouldn't mind making this trip with Alice herself (or the White Queen) but I can make do with going with my friends and ‘feed’ our heads.

[chuckepisodes]

Chuck vs. The DeLorean Part 3

"Hey, honey, why is there $2, 500 missing from our account?" Ellie asked Devon as he walked back into the house from a bike ride. " I forgot to tell you, I lent it to Morgan." Ellie looked up at him in shock. " I can only assume that you met some other Morgan at work, because the thought of you giving away a hunk of our nest egg is just too horrific to consider." " I didn't give it away. I lent it to him so he can get an apartment with Anna." You and Chuck then came walking in, both ready to go to your jobs. " Uh, Chuck, how much does Morgan make at the Buy More?" Ellie asked him. "Uh, about 12 bucks an hour. Not including his always appreciating comic book collection which I would value in the $500 area." "Oh my God yeah. It's ridiculous." you commented. Ellie then turned back to Devon. "Devon..." "It was an investment in his future. You know, so he could become an adult." You all then heard a car honking. " That would probably be Morgan." you said. " He's giving us a ride to work." Chuck said. "On what, his handlebars? How would he fit the both of you?" " No, uh, uh, Morgan, Morgan bought a barely functioning '81 DeLorean that... only goes 22 miles an hour, so we better get going. See ya." Chuck said, grabbing your hand. "Bye!" you shouted. After you and Chuck walked out the door, Ellie looked at Devon. " You don't have to say it, babe. I'll get our money back."

"There is no reason to walk away now. You know, I think we could get the sheik to pay a three percent deposit. Market value is over $300 million... " Sarah said, trying to convince her dad to go along with this con since Beckman ordered to do so since she had a plan. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's a lot of dough. Remember darling, pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered." "Well, the bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe. We can do this." " I guess, uh, 5 mill each ain't too bad." "Two point five. You want my help, you have to use my team." "What team?"

Sarah brought her dad to Orange Orange, where they would meet up with you, Chuck and Casey. "He's got a cop face." her dad pointed out to Casey. Casey grunted. " No offense." Sarah pulled her dad over for a second. "Look, either he's in, or none of us are." "Fine. But he's your problem." Sarah's dad then turned to all of you again. " All right, Sarah and I will handle the deal. Cop Face, you're security." " We can switch names if you'd like. I can be Cop Face and you can be Schnook." Chuck told Casey. He just looked at Chuck and walked away. "Okay Y/N how about you? I'll be sweetheart and you can be Schnook?" You just looked at him and laughed a little. "We'll use our account number for the wire transfer. Don't trust you. No offense." Casey told Sarah's dad. "Uh, question- what about us?" Chuck asked pointing between you and him." I mean, I'm familiar with Hogan's Heroes and Castle Wolfenstein, but beyond that my German is a little rusty." "And mine would be watching Indiana Jones." "Schnook, Sweetheart, your jobs are going to be toughest of all. You need to sit there and not say a word." Sarah winked at the both of you. "All right, everybody gather around. First, we need to evacuate the current building management."

You were all now at the Namagachi building. You, Chuck, Sarah and her dad were all dressed as exterminators, with gas masks on. "Can I have your attention please?" Chuck called out." We need everyone out of this office immediately." "This floor is being fumigated. We have already released toxic fumes." Sarah informed. "That can lead to infertility and low sperm count." The man looked at the sheet you gave him. "Everyone out. Let's go, people. Quickly. Quickly." The man called out as everyone cleared the floor.

Next, we need to redecorate Lichtenstein Enterprises.

You, Chuck, Sarah and her dad were now quick at work, replacing the signs that said Lichtenstein Enterprises.

Cop Face, you're going to use the gifts God gave you-  your cop face.

Casey was down in the lobby, dressed as security at the front desk. Casey looked over and saw Amad and his men walking into the building. "They're here. Showtime." he told you all into the comms.

You, Chuck, Sarah and her dad all shed your exterminator uniforms, where underneath, Chuck and Sarah's dad were wearing suits, you were wearing a dress, and Sarah was looking like a secretary, wearing a nice sweater and pencil skirt.

Your dress:

Most importantly, we need to convince him that we don't want to sell the building. He's the one getting the deal, not us.

Amad and his men exited the elevator and were now on your floor, approaching Sarah.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lichtenstein and his wife will be in Prague on Friday. No, Monday he's in Moscow." Sarah said, playing the part.

"Wendy, I don't want to be interrupted. I don't care if Mr. Trump calls. Tell him the building is no longer for sale. I'll see him next week in New York." Sarah's dad called out, playing his role as well. "Gentlemen, welcome." " We'll have to call you back next week. Bye-bye. Mr. Lichtenstein will see you now." Sarah said finishing her fake phone call and telling the men.

You looked over at Chuck and noticed him fiddling with the buttons, trying to button up his suit before they came in. "Here...Let me babe." You quickly walked over, fixed his suit, straightened his tie and patted his suit. "Thanks Y/NN." You smiled at him and gave him a quick kiss. "We got this." you told him. "Of course we do. It's us." You winked at him and he smiled. He then looked over and saw the N was crooked on the Lichtenstein sign. "Uhhh..." Chuck was about to fix it when he heard Sarah walking in.

"Gentlemen, may I present to you Mr. Hans Lichtenstein and his wife, Hilda Lichtenstein."   You and Chuck turned around to look at the men and then Chuck gave Sarah a look, nodding his head toward the sign and Sarah quickly walked over and when none of the men were looking, fixed the N. "Well, I'm sure you're very busy, so we'll make this as painless as possible- after your lawyers examine the contracts and the inspections are done, we can have a more formal meeting." Sarah's dad started. "For now, we only require a three percent deposit to take the property off the market." Sarah continued. " And that would be... $10 million." "First, I would like to have a word with Mr. Lichtenstein." Amad started. "Of course. I'll translate." Sarah told them. She turned to Chuck and began to talk in German. "I'm sorry. I don't trust you. I brought my own translator." A man then stepped up and began to talk in German. You and Chuck just stood there, staying quiet. Then Chuck gave in. "That is the worst German accent I have ever heard." Chuck said, putting on a German accent. "You... you butcher my language." "Honestly, it is quite the insult." you added, putting on an accent as well. "The deal is off." Chuck said.

" Sounds like Colonel Klink." Casey commented through the comms.

As you all were trying to work things out with Amad and his men, Casey came through again. "We got company. Time to wrap it up." He warned you all. "I'm sorry, Mr. Amad. It looks like the deal is off, but if I could have your account number, I'd be happy to wire you the $700, 000 that you gave to Mr. Burton." Sarah said. " Wait, wait, wait, wait. Now, there's no reason to panic. Everyone, calm down. We can work this out."  Sarah's dad told them. Chuck looked over and saw one of Amad's men leaning against the sign, where there was still fresh white paint. "Nein, nein! Out of my building. The deal is off." Chuck said, running over to him and putting his coat on the cover his paint coated sleeve. "You have all offended my husband!" you shouted. "Mr. Lichtenstein has been offended. Everyone out of the building." Sarah informed. "There's no reason to panic. Uh, we're all businessmen here. Let's just sit down and finish... " Sarah's dad started. "Enough! You're all crazy. No more games. This is my building. We had a deal. " Amad shouted. "Uh, well, Sheik, would you care to, uh, type in your account number for security purposes? " Sarah asked as Amad stepped over to the laptop to access his bank account. "Uh, just go ahead and do the typey type." Chuck said as he stood against the wall. You looked over at him and smirked.

" Feel free to look over the space. We'll, uh, give you a moment." Sarah's dad told the men as you were all in an elevator now, getting ready to leave before everyone gets there.

You were all back at Sarah's apartment now, celebrating. "To the Lichtensteins." Sarah's dad shouted as he poured you all a glass of champagne. "Well, you pulled it off, kids. You made me a believer." "Well, my German is a little rusty, but..." " No, no, that you are all really in this together." He then walked over to Casey and gave him a cigar." For later, Cop Face." " Oh, victory smoke. Thanks. " "You did good, baby." He then told Sarah. "So did you." Sarah said back and giving her dad a kiss on the cheek. "I'm gonna get some ice." Sarah's dad told you all before leaving. "Well, I'm not one to say I told you so, but I think that worked out pretty good, now, didn't it?" you told Sarah. "I guess he pulled through for me... this one time." "Yes, General?" Casey began, answering his phone." Mission accomplished. The money was transferred to the CIA account about an hour ago." he then paused." Beckman never got the money." he told you guys. Sarah ran out and saw the bucket dropped on the floor. "The laptop is gone." Chuck said, checking the case. "So is my cigar." Casey added.

Yep, Sarah's dad took off on them, pulling off yet again, another con.

[evanvanness]

Annotated edition for the June 7, 2020, Week in Ethereum News

Here’s the most clicked for the week:

Here’s the things I’ll highlight for Eth holders who want to keep up to date without getting too far down into the weeds.

Danny Ryan: the state of Eth2

Loopring Pay is live. Free, instant Eth/token transfers on Loopring’s zk rollup

Deversifi went live on mainnet using StarkEx’s engine and offchain data (kept by a consortia) for 18000 transactions per second

Defi will do to banks what the web did to newspapers

Certainly the must read of the week is Danny Ryan’s attempt to communicate the bigger Eth2 picture by writing it down in one place.  It’s a great read, though perhaps on the long side if you’re not a hardcore enthusiast - as it also addresses side issues like how Stateless Ethereum fits into Eth2. 

As a community, Ethereum needs to improve on communication: one tiny thing we could do is break it up into bite-size chunks and spoonfeed it via Twitter in order for people absorb it all.  

[Sidenote: I often think this about podcasts as well.  People always say things like “how do I get involved?”  One thing to do is simply to listen to podcasts, write down everything you learn into a blog post, and then make a tweet storm out of that blog post.]

Meanwhile, Loopring made it free to transfer on their rollup.   Right now, this means you go into their dex and click transfer in order to send it to someone else who is on Loopring’s dex.  This was relatively easy for them to do (or so I say from my armchair) because a transfer is just half of a dex trade.   For now, the feature is free - so if you have ETH or tokens on Loopring’s rollup, you can transfer back and forth for free as much as you want.

Deversifi went live with “18000 transactions per second” or “9k trades per second” because of the same reason: a trade is 2 transactions.   This off-chain data proven with zero knowledge proofs had been called various things (Plasma, rollup, ZK plasma, rollup with offchain data, etc) but now it seems like folks are using the Validium term.   

Validium or “Offchain data” means that Deversifi and StarkWare don’t publish any data to the chain, but they also have a committee holding the same data which can publish the STARK proof to the chain if necessary.   It’s a big upgrade on a traditional centralized exchange, even though Loopring and Deversifi feel the same as a centralized exchange.   It’s important to understand some of the attack models (see layer2 section below) though the attack vectors look much harder than in a centralized exchange.

Finally, DeFi will do to banks what the web did to newspapers.  In some number of years, everyone will look back on this as obvious.   

I remember reading Gannett’s annual report in the mid 90s, as I was considering investing my meager lawnmowing money ($30 a trade I had to pay for my ~$200 stonk investments.  Teenage me was clearly not as good at math and finance as he thought).  Gannett seemed like a great business (and it was!), but the fact that newspapers were already for free online just kept me from ever putting money in.

Things start out looking like toys.  They’re hard to use, they’re risky, they don’t have many users.  Then the next thing you know it, they’re the incumbents.

Eth1

Expectations and limitations of upcoming Turbogeth release

Compilation of the history of account abstraction work

YOLO testnet is live – an ephemeral testnet to try to break EIPs for the upcoming hardfork

Since publication, the Turbogeth post has been updated with some pretty graphs.    tldr stats: syncing with Turbogeth should sync in a few days and use just 700 GB of disk space for an archive node.

Account abstraction is the idea of making Ethereum smart contract wallet addresses and “normal” addresses essentially be the same thing.  It’s been talked about since the early days, though stuff has always gotten in the way.

Eth2

Danny Ryan: the state of Eth2

Latest Prysmatic client update. Syncing to spec, adding eth1 clients, relaunch testnet plans

Teku: an Eth2 client for enterprise

Stats from crawling Eth2 testnets

More eth2 validator agent based simulations in CadCAD

A guide to testnet staking with Nethermind and Lighthouse

I expect there to be lots more step-by-step guides to staking on testnets as we continue to get closer to launch.

As Danny called out in his post

if there is more than one viable and secure client, it is your duty to run minority client software to promote a healthy distribution of client software on the network.

So test a few clients.  Read the audit reports.  

Layer2

Deversifi went live on mainnet using StarkEx’s engine and offchain data (kept by a consortia) for 18000 transactions per second

Offchain data with zk proofs is now being called Validium

What is the difference between zk rollup (data onchain) and Deversifi’s Validium (data offchain)?

An attack illustrating Validium trust assumptions

StarkWare demo of onboarding 1.3m Reddit accounts onto Eth using Validium

OMG goes live with their More Viable Plasma implementation (running POA for now); Bitfinex integrated USDT on OMG

Loopring Pay is live. Free, instant Eth/token transfers on Loopring’s zk rollup

As mentioned above, Layer2 was the thrust of the week, and there is more coming soon.

Just in time!  Those gas fees continue to be absurd.  For the last few weeks, they’d been coming down a bit on Friday and Saturday night (Texas time, of course), but this weekend they did not.   Fees go through the roof when demand outstrips supply even by a little bit, so there is some glimmer of hope now that a popular Russian ponzi has apparently died.  But still, at the time of writing, you’re looking at a 30gwei fee to get your fee confirmed in the next few minutes.

I’d be up for temporarily bumping the gaslimit.  It seems like a reasonable thing to do.

The first layer2 which gets significant liquidity will be a big deal in reducing tx volume.  The tech now works, now it’s time to make it happen.

This newsletter is made possible by Celer!

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Stuff for developers

Solidity v0.6.9 adds SMT-checking to solc-js, allows calldata for all variables and provides a mechanism to specify an import directory.

Testing the effects of a call in Waffle

Buidler v1.3.6 adds Solidity v0.6.x

Sourcify decentralized automated contract verifying service

Covalent’s DeFi SDK for historical data

VS Code extension to write DeFi applications in NodeJS

Using Dapphero for your frontend

How Aragon minimized gas costs for Aragon Court

Loredana’s Taylor lisp-like language is on four testnets

Austin Griffith’s tutorial on building a simple decentralized exchange

Tornado Cash integrates Chainlink gas price oracles for TOR users

Verifying merkle multiproofs in Solidity

Trail of Bits found 20 bugs fuzzing the Solidity compiler

I thought it was pretty neat to use of Chainlink oracles to get around the fact that prices wouldn’t update through TOR

i just realized I spelled it “buidling a simple decentralized exchange” in the original publication.  Freudian slip?  I fixed it now.

EthPM and Sourcify are both things that should be getting more adoption in our ecosystem but as of yet have not.  Coordination problems are real.

Ecosystem

ETHGlobal’s HackMoney finalists and all sponsor prize winners

Receive email notifications to renew your .eth names

1inch releases Chi, an optimized gastoken

If you bought ENS domains when they came out, remember that they expire soon.  Go sign up to get an email.  

Lots of neat things came out of HackMoney.  My judging panel didn’t have any make the final 10, and yet I was very impressed with all the projects that presented to me.

To go with the enterprise section immediately below, I was having a conversation today about how big businesses often can’t hold ETH, much less tokens.  Thus what enterprise needs to use mainnet is a relayer that has predictable transaction prices.   

Basically someone buys a bunch of 1inch’s Chi gastoken and then can sell an enterprise-friendly relayer so that enterprises can buy $1000 worth of “cloud subscription fees” (ahem, ETH) and then get their transactions relayed at any gas price.  

Something like this would probably use any.sender as well to make sure that it got transactions included in the specified timeframe at the lowest cost.

Enterprise

Newly updated client specs for Enterprise Ethereum from the EEA

Federal Reserve Chairman says AMERIBOR (built on a private Eth chain) meets the benchmarks for a reference rate, though “it may not be a natural fit”

There was a boomlet around Chairman Powell mentioning AMERIBOR, but if you actually read the letter, it was a bit less sanguine.  

Lots of the crypto media will breathlessly run anything at full hype level. 

DAOs and Standards

Democracy Mars: a DAO to fund Mars-related projects

ERC2696: JavaScript ‘request’ method RPC transport

ERC2700: JavaScript Provider Event Emitter

Application layer

Synthetix adds liquidations

Maker adds TUSD and USDC-B (a second set of collateralization parameters for USDC aimed at emergency situations)

Satellite – sign data with your Eth address, with data distribution on IPFS and BitTorrent

Simplified pricing for Nexus Mutual

View keys for Tornado Cash to show origin of funds

Abritrary what % is DeFi?  I get 3/5.

A couple people pointed out that I counted wrong last week.  A ha!  That’s why I always say it’s arbitrary - I could certainly count Tornado Cash as DeFi, but this time I didn’t.   

And also because if I count incorrectly then I can just say it was arbitrary.

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Defi will do to banks what the web did to newspapers

Opyn put options as a trading strategy

Kaiko launches historical tick-by-tick order book data for Coinbase, Bitfinex, and Bitstamp

Better backtesting is pretty neat.

General

MyCrypto’s mnemonic phrase explainer

Bobbinthreadbare’s STARK-based VM has more instructions

Multi-scalar multiplication ZK study club video

Haseeb Qureshi’s latest installment of his intro to crypto class

Matic Network is now live

Brave hits 15 million monthly active users and 5m daily

Respect to folks who continue to push out great educational materials like MyCrypto’s mnemonic explainer and Haseeb’s class.

Brave got a bunch of pushback this week when someone discovered that they were adding an affiliate code when you typed binance.us into the url box.  They quickly corrected.  Despite that, it was impressive how riled up people got over basically nothing.  

It was a mistake, they quickly admitted it.  Doesn’t make sense to add it into the URL, but it literally costs you nothing as a user.  If you lived through the meteoric rise and fall of Netscape in the mid90′s, you know that browsers aren’t a super easy business.  People should probably relax a little - and Eth folks should be especially understanding of one of the most mainstream uses of a crypto token.

People often talk about privacy being Brave’s biggest selling point.  But by blocking so much JavaScript and autoupgrading you to https, I consider security to be a more important selling point than privacy.   And saving me on bandwidth, battery use, CPU cycles, etc etc.  I love that.

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I’m going to be announcing a bunch of things soon.  Paid annotated version with two tiers, podcast, probably some things in this newsletter as well.  Stay tuned.

-------

Housekeeping

Follow me on Twitter @evan_van_ness to get the annotated edition of this newsletter on Monday or Tuesday. Plus I tweet most of what makes it into the newsletter.

Did you get forwarded this newsletter?  Sign up to receive it weekly

Permalink: https://weekinethereumnews.com/week-in-ethereum-news-june-7-2020/

Dates of Note

Upcoming dates of note (new/changes in bold):

June 15 – Gitcoin CLR matching grants begins

June 16 – deadline to apply for Gitcoin’s Kernel incubator

Oct 2-Oct 30 – EthOnline hackathon

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, mid-January 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across since the December report, although some may be older than that. Since this was a busy time of year, I cut back a bit on the commentary. 

Now that I am mostly caught up, I hope to publish this report 2-4 times each month, with other more-detailed updates on specific issues as needed. (I’m expecting Etsy to roll out some new stuff soon, but I cold be wrong.) Let’s aim for 2 times a month to start 😀

Have any suggestions or feedback?  Leave a comment below, email me through my website, or send me a message on Twitter.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

If you find yourself making a lot of graphics and images for social media, website etc., but you aren’t a designer, check out this infographic explaining the simplest basics of good design. Yes, it is overly simplistic, but if you don’t really know much about this area, you probably should be familiar with these ideas. 

California’s new privacy law kicked in January 1 (although they won’t enforce it until July 1); here’s a good overview. “users will, as of today, be able to see what data companies have gathered about them, have that data deleted, and opt out of those companies selling it to third parties from now on.” They explain how this will work on their own site: “we track your behavior—what articles you read, for how long, etc.—on WIRED.com using cookies. We use that data internally for research and site improvements, but the information can also go to a third-party vendor, like Google AdSense, which combines it with similar data from other sites to create user profiles that advertisers can target. The infamous shoe ad that follows you across the internet long after you close out your Zappos tab? That’s how it works—and advertisers pay extra for the privilege of this personalized ad targeting. If you ask WIRED.com to stop “selling” your data, you won’t get those types of ads from us anymore, and your browsing history on our site won’t factor into the types of ads you see elsewhere.”

A lot of you have asked me for more info on how to use Google Analytics for Etsy shops. Until I get around to posting more details, here is a not bad set of instructions, including how to set it up to track Etsy search (site search). 

ETSY NEWS 

Interview with “staff product manager of search ranking and platform at Etsy”, Andrew Stanton. [podcast & transcript] This is very technical and not particularly revealing, IMO. I’m posting it because we do have a few people with a technical background reading here. (Plus, the transcript has typos - 16 million results is actually 60+ million, for example.) Also, around the 24 minute mark he admits they do “need to expose [new sellers] artificially higher in the rankings” for the long term success of the marketplace. 

In case you missed it being splashed all over your dashboard, Etsy’s early 2020 trend report is here. Take a quick browse through for the popular keywords & themes for each topic/holiday. Also of note:

“2019 Valentine’s Day shoppers planned to spend 42% of their budget on gifts for people other than romantic partners”

“Passover (Apr 8) and Easter (Apr 12) fall more than a week earlier than last year.”

They included a craft category this time, with tips on promoting specific supplies at specific times. “Fabrics & Notions are the most popular subcategory, followed by Jewelry-Making Supplies.”

They followed up with a specific Valentine article, here, with ideas for buyers. 

An interesting article covering Etsy’s beginning and first 5 years, including some early videos and interviews. And for those of you who didn’t know where the name came from: “The name "Etsy" comes from a phrase Kalin hears while watching the movie 8½. "I wanted a nonsense word because I wanted to build the brand from scratch. I was watching Fellini’s 8½ and writing down what I was hearing. In Italian, you say 'etsi' a lot. It means 'oh, yes.' And in Latin, it means 'and if,'" Kalin tells Reader's Digest in 2010.”

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google’s John Mueller answers [video] some of the most common SEO questions his department receives, including a few coding ones to start. 

Google rankings dropping doesn’t necessarily mean you got a penalty. Ranking well on Google isn’t just about the content - it’s about the whole website. What can you control in regards to Google ranking? On-page SEO: what it is, & the 10 most important factors. 

If you are confused about when to use H1, H2, H3 etc. on your website or blog, you will be happy to know that Google says they aren’t as crucial to ranking as many people think, and you should use them to organize your content logically. 

Hackers are now inserting links on blogs & websites to get backlinks to game Google. Many of the affected sites run the open source version of WordPress. “The award-winning Canadian urban magazine Spacing ... identified several articles where unauthorized links had been added long after publication. One post was even hacked during the course of the magazine’s email conversations with BuzzFeed News”

Medium seems to have lost a lot of Google search visibility in the past 1-2 months; no one is sure why. Here’s one theory [tl:dr - they suck at SEO; a few of the reasons are technical]. 

Here’s a good article on the current state of voice search, why it is developing more slowly than expected, and what you can do to optimize now and for the future. 

The most recent Google update rumour was Jan. 7; I’m not seeing much change at the moment. And just in case you missed anything, here are the top Google search updates and changes from 2019.

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

Updated for 2020: the complete guide to content marketing. (There are some good tips here, even if you are only marketing product and not content)

Did you know there are ideal lengths (and sometimes character limits) for social media & blog posts? Here’s the research, but obviously if you don’t have more to say, don’t pad it just to fill space. If you think you need to run a bit longer than ideal, look carefully for places you can cut a few words. Some good tips on that here.

Mailchimp is still the leader in email tools, with over 60% of all people using email list services. They sent over 340 billion emails in 2019. [disclosure: I use them for my blog email list and customer email newsletters.]

If you are looking for more social media post ideas, this infographic is a sample social media content calendar for one month.

Canva introduced a bunch of new tools, including video editing. 

Pinterest introduced Pinterest trends, which gives you the top searches over the past 12 months. (The article also links to Pinterest’s annual trend report.)

Instagram isn’t just about the images: writing great captions is an important way to get people’s attention. 

How to get verified on Facebook & Instagram. 

It’s no longer possible to have a Messenger account without a Facebook account.

Looking for something on Twitter, including one of your own tweets? Do an advanced search. 

Unlike a lot of social media sites in their infancy, TikTok is actually making money early on. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

To get the most out of your advertising dollars, make sure your SEO & PPC campaigns work together. 

Pop-up ads work - if you offer something people want. The article has a few ideas of things to offer, and things you shouldn’t do. 

You can run your own Google Shopping ads from your website; here’s how to get started. 

Microsoft has extended the life of text-only ads until the end of March, so if you are still running them, it’s time to update. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

Tips for making Google Analytics for your website more accurate. The first part is super technical, and even the last part requires some knowledge of what GA can do, so skip this unless you already use GA & now a bit about it. 

Here’s another list of things you should do to set up Google Analytics properly, also with lots of technical details, although other parts are very straightforward. 

If you have a website or blog, learning the Google Search Console is really useful. [video with print links in the comments]

Twitter is removing the Audience Insights part of its Analytics as of January 30.

  ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

Ruby Lane cuts its new buyer fee but increases seller fees to compensate. 

You can’t use Amazon ads to offer a free shipping minimum any more, which is frustrating some sellers. You’ve probably already seen this article in the Atlantic about how shipping isn’t really free and how it can harm small business; here’s an interview with the author [audiofile & transcript]. “It wasn’t always like this in America, and it’s not like this in most other countries—standard European shipping and return policies would probably seem downright hostile here. That’s because U.S. shoppers are used to being coaxed into purchases by retailers who can and will bend over backwards to land a sale—another extreme of capitalism, American-style. The main reason small businesses can’t keep up with the behemoths is economies of scale.” [emphasis added]

Amazon now delivers over half of its own packages in the US, meaning it will soon be a larger courier service than either FedEx or UPS. 

Canada Post got hit with double the expected volume around Black Friday and got way behind, harming businesses who rely on them. (It seems they forgot that warning users about the strike issues last year reduced last year’s volume. That, along with Cyber Week being late this year, should have been factored into projections.)

Google is slowly making is Google Images pages more “shoppable” by including “in stock” & “out of stock” tags, in green and red respectively. This works not only for Etsy but also for private websites as well, if they are coded correctly; the items on my Squarespace site have this change in Images. [and yes, for those who have been following me for a long time, I do realize I will now have to stop saying “Google Images isn’t really a shopping engine” LOL!]

If you care about your data privacy, you might want to delete all retail apps from your devices (and the non-retail apps aren't much better); the vast majority leak your info. 

The basics of cross selling online (something I need to do more on my website!)

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Interesting study on how US consumers reacted to online ads for Black Friday sales. The majority said they did engage with ads and almost 1 in 4 people who responded said they became a customer. 

Have some set scripts (snippets?) for common customer service issues; here are some great examples. 

Dos and don’ts of handwritten thank you notes. 

Millennials and Generation Z are not the same, and you shouldn’t market to them in the same way. Check out some important differences, and suggested approaches, here. 

Activism is on the rise, and many people want companies to follow. 

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour) 

Google has become the competition for many industries, instead of just a tool to find those industries. I could have put this in the SEO section, but it isn’t as relevant to those of us who sell physical products. 

The latest version of Firefox will attempt to block “browser fingerprinting”, which many sites use to identify you even if you have your privacy settings as tight as can be. 

Does your website have a cookie consent pop-up/banner? Here are some things to cover. 

Remember the Peloton bike ad controversy? In case you missed it, here is the sequel. [article with video link; humour, although it is, as they say, a great advertising case study as well.]

[tepid-tea]

Hello Drama; its been a while..

I don’t think I’ve posted personal drama in a while but I feel like I need to get this off my chest. Cause this didn’t just effect me but it has pretty much torn up my little group of friends which was not the intent.

Heres some background before we start…

Emerald City Comic Con for those who have followed my little slice of tumblr knows is a yearly nerd pilgrimage my friends and I do every year. We all arrange rides and drive down from Vancouver, BC to Seattle, WA for a 4-5 day where we eat, drink and buy way too much stuff at the convention.  We’ve all gone pretty much as a group for the last… shit 4 or five years? Possibly more? Now last year I spent waaaay to much money as the Canadian Dollar was in the tank ( still is pretty much lol)  and I went a little over board. Now Hotel prices have steadily been going up  etc etc so even without the spending I was already over budget. Now early on this year I had decided that I wasn’t going to go to ECCC in 2018 due to how much hotel and such costs. The tickets themselves aren’t so bad but if you’re not a local in Seattle or don’t have a friends couch to sleep on we’re talking close to $1000 CAD for 4 nights in a hotel even with the Convention discount.  That includes parking but still…. Yikes right? I went to Disneyland (flight & Hotel) for only like $30 more than that. That’ $1000 doesn’t even include my convention pass! So needless to say I wasn’t going since my family is planning on doing like  a week plus in Disneyland next summer so that was what I was going to save up for instead. It bummed me out because ALL of my friends were going to this (except maybe one but we will get to that shortly) and it was my first time not going to be able to join them. But it was my decision and I was going to stick with it. Now fast forward too maybe a week or so ago right before the tickets went on sale everyone was excited and stuff and I was pretty much over it at this point when  my friend who hadn’t planned on going either cause he kept saying how much it sucked, (we’ll call him R) texted me and asked if I wanted to just go for the Saturday. Now a part of me was unsure because we would have to get up at the crack ass of dawn to drive the 2 and a half hours to Seattle, find expensive Downtown parking and get our passes, walk around all day only to have to drive the 3 and a half ours back. Now my friend R doesn’t drive. Doesn’t know how; takes transit or bums rides from our friends who drive all the time.  So I would have to do all of this driving.  I’m unsure but he ramps it and says he’ll split gas and parking so without really thinking it through ( probably out of desperation of wanting to go even at a small scale) I agree. Everyone I tell that we’re going for just the day say I’m fucking looney cause I’m pretty much doing all the work here.  It’s not like if I get tired I can trade off with someone to drive. 2 and a half hours isn’t really long but… I mean when you’re that tired it can feel like a super long time. Also I’d have to drive him home, which he lives like a half an hour the opposite direction of my house so that’s adding another hour onto my drive time.  But I’m like cool sure. Then we never talk about it again. Until yesterday morning. 

My friend K texts me and says she’s accidentally ordered 1 too many Vendor passes. She got her table this year in Artist alley and wanted to know if I could come with and help her and her boyfriend ( who happens to be my best friend) run her booth. Now I’ve helped run her booth for conventions off and on for the past couple years. At Local ones and for the three years at ECCC ( except 2017’s convention, she didn’t get chosen and thus didn’t come with us) so I’ve got experience in how she likes to run shit. At first I tell her no, I’m doing the one day thing and I can’t afford the hotel alone plus everything's probably all booked by now even if I could find someone.  But then she says to ask our friend J as she and like 3 of our other friends are sharing a room ( Like every year) and could possible have space for me too? 

 She said to let her know by Friday so if I don’t go she can try and e-mail the convention ppl to try and get a refund ( tickets like $125 usd) because she can’t sell it like a normal ticket. So I go to work and not really think about it again till like later in the evening. I’m having dinner with C ( K’s bf and my best friend ANNND R’s best friend)  and the ticket offer comes up during our conversation. He says to give our friend J a text about their hotel situation, prices and what not because if it’s cheap, why not? He knew I was pretty bummed about not going the full weekend and wasn’t too stoked about driving so much ( he wasn’t too happy about it on my behalf it seemed either. he’s an overprotective puppy). So I ask J and their  5th person they were going to have in their room bailed and they had space. I’d get a blow up mattress and  it would be $150 USD for  3 nights for my half of the hotel ( roughly as taxes/hotel parking etc). So thats $275.00 USD  AND they offered to drive me there and back, provide the air mattress etc.  I tell C and its like how can you say no to that? He says do it. Now first thing I worry is how R is going to take it. He gets upset easy and yeah I’m being kind of a dick on bailing on him.  The Con is in 4 months as in that time we could figure out a way for him to either get there without me driving him or help him sell the tickets. However even without committing to it 100% at the time I feel bad, I hate bailing on people like that.  

So this morning I send this huge text to R explaining the situation and apologise for the whole thing but offer to help him work out how to either sell them or figure a way there and back.  R loses his absolute shit, says I’m the worst friend ever. Says this is the worst possible thing I could ever do to him and this is basically ending our friendship.  I then ask him how could something like this be a friendship ender  ( I’ve forgiven him him for FAR worse offences on shit he’s pulled on me but THAT'S a whole other traumatizing thing that we don’t talk about anymore because it almost gives me a panic attack thinking of it) then offer again to help make other arrangements for him to either come along or sell the tickets. He then accuses me of going behind his back and plotting with our other friends to screw him over ( not true like wtf?) then proceeds to block my phone number and blocks me on all social media before we can work anything out. ( there are 6 texts in total, two from me and the rest are him freaking at me) In the end he ends up blocking 5 different friends of ours ( though he’s re-added K I later find out) and proceeds to shit talk me on FB where I can’t see and blocks anyone who tries to stick up for me ( Thus the 4 friends still blocked). I mean I understand he’s upset but we are in our mid 30’s for fuck sakes! We’re fucking adults! Why can’t we have a fucking adult conversation and work something out? I admit it was shitty to bail on him however I offered to help him find another solution to get there, to help sell them both and even offer to just straight pay for my half to compensate. However none of these offers were taken because he didn’t get his own way and would rather flip his shit. 

Needless to say my whole day was fucked.  I felt horrible but the more nasty shit he posted on FB that I got told about and shit he’s been pulling on everyone else, I started to feel less bad for the whole thing. There was no grand plot to screw him over; I simply took advantage of an opportunity only for it to fuck everything up.  I tried to keep it just between the two of us to keep damage to a minimum cause we share best friends and it's not fair to drag C into the middle of this or any of our other friends for that matter but he insisted on it. So about an hour after I started this text rant K texted and asked if she could call me; which of course I say yes.  After an hour and a half talk  I go over my side on what's happened and what we can do to fix it and keep C out of it.  K and I both love C ( in very different ways mind you LOL) and her and I are going to do our hardest to keep him out of it.  Her and I have both agreed not to talk about the situation in front of him and try to keep the others from doing so as well ( god knows what R has sent him).  C doesn’t take conflict really well (Neither does myself and K to be honest but C more so) and I told K I really don’t want C to be dragged into it…. 

Like fuck I didn’t want anyone to get dragged into it but R is a drama queen and I’m the villain.

SO YA! Fuck my life!

Anyone want to go see the New Star Wars Movie with me? Cause R is selling off my first showing ticket for that. Anyone want to see a movie with a shitty villainous person?

[cosmosbv]

Cosmos Market

Hi All

It has been a little over a month since I started this project. 

The first Kickstarter was unsuccessful. I will be setting up a new one next week after I sit down to talk with the investor and after my meeting with the realtor. It took a while, mostly because phones and I are not friends, along with my dyslexia screwing things up, but I got through. 

I am leaving the GoFundMe up and running, because I am going to open a bookstore. I feel one step closer now then last week. 

Goal

I am going to crowdfund to open a small store. It will be a combination of a second hand and indie bookstore, farm market, and artisan crafts store. I already have seven farm market and artisans ready to work out contracts for spacing to sell their wares, more then a thousand used books boxed up and ready to go, plus several boxes of crafts.

Why a bookstore?

Prior to the car accident I wanted to open a bookstore. Then the accident occurred, and that was not an option at the time because of health problems. I didn’t stop collecting books for that purpose, with the thought that someday I would return to that goal in order to open that second hand bookstore like I wanted.

Now I write books to publish and thought: wait, what if instead of just a second hand bookstore, I make it an indie bookstore and secondhand store? Perfect idea! I can sell mine, and other indie authors books.

Why a farm and artisan market?

The idea of the market has two different sources.

The first is when I studied our community and realized there is nowhere besides the farm market to sell handmade crafts that are not paintings. That gave me the idea to combined my bookstore with an artisan craft store.

The second is when I was speaking to a vendor at the farm market, one who makes both artisan crafts and farm market foods. She made a comment about wishing to have somewhere she could rent a space for a reasonable price. that gave me the idea to work with the farm market vendors.

Thus far all but two have committed. Those two stated that they would consider it if I successfully acquire the building. There are still more to be spoken with.

Why both GoFundMe and Kickstarter?

GoFundMe - I am familiar with it, there is no time limit, and goals can be adjusted as needed. Beyond that, the GoFundMe is for individuals who would like to give to the project now, because they don’t know that they will have the money later. All money from it will go towards the goal of opening the store in some form, whether in advertising, product, or bills.

Kickstarter - it is an all or nothing funding. If I hit the goal, I have to open the store. Which if I hit the goal, I will definitely open the store because I will buy my building to do so. Yes, the time is getting close for the first one, perhaps I will change programs or goals.

There was some confusion with an individual earlier about how I would give the money back if the store failed. They didn’t seem to comprehend that is not how Kickstarter works. With Kickstarter, if I hit the goal, and I open the store, I have done as promised, no refund needed. If I hit the goal but don’t open the store, that’s when I have to issue a refund.

What if you are unable to get the building in the image?

That’s when I move on to plans B or C. In other words, that’s when I buy one of the other buildings I have picked out, those that might not be as great for the goal but would work over all.

What makes building one better then two or three?

Location! It’s in a great spot for my needs.

Size, it is three times bigger then building two and four times bigger then building three.

Apartments in the upstairs. That means I can update them sooner then later with any extra money after stocking the store and rent them out. Renting just one of them out would make the buildings monthly mortgage with the amount of money I have planned to put down, renting out both would also pay the electric, gas, and trash removal.

Extra rooms beyond the store that can be rented to artisans who might wish to have a new space or bigger space to work in.

Some of the extra rooms can also be used to host various classes, either by artisans, tutors, or even myself for creative writing.

Three to Five are part of Six: renting out the spaces and offering classes will make it so all the stores profits go into further stock and employees. Insuring that there is plenty to sell and that it continue on.

Then why have plans B and C if A is so good?

Someone else might buy A. In that case it’s a good idea to have a plan B and C. There aren’t a lot of buildings for sale in the area, and I would rather not rent or lease, as I want control over the building, that only happens if I own it.

Plans B and C are also for if the first doesn’t work out for a different reason. For instance, perhaps I have a investor who is willing to back purchasing a smaller building.

Investors

I am reaching out to various angel investors as well. Yet another way to try and fund this. There is a long list of individuals for me to contact who help small businesses get off the ground.

Depending on investors, I may change building plans if one is willing to work with of the smaller ones. Would it be as profitable as the larger building? No. However, I would be able to build up the smaller store, then either try again to get my plan A building if it is still on the market, or find a different bigger building. After all, the real estate market is always changing.

If you would like to be an investor, even a small one such as fifty dollars, please use my Contact Me form. It’s primary purpose is for commissions, but it also covers other questions and communications off this website.

Loans

Why don’t I try getting a business loan? That requires a decent credit score, which I would need a job to get. It is the lack of job due to my disabilities that has caused me to take this route.

Do you have a business plan?

Yes, though it’s hand written because that’s how I roll. Actually, I have several, because I kept redrafting it as I considered new details and points. It evolved!

I keep each to make sure details that are needed are not lost in the rewrites.

Do you have a budget?

Why yes I do! Checked multiple times, to make sure the math isn’t off. It is based on building costs, bills (gas, electric, trash, accounting), employee pay, advertising prices, permits, equipment, and stock.

A basic form of it can be found at the bottom of my first Kickstarter. If you’d like to discuss it, I am open to doing so. I have a projected finances excel, I will be creating a google sheets version as well, and will be updating it as I receive new information.

You have several disabilities, how are you going to do this?

With help. That’s why there is employee pay as part of the costs. I know I physically can’t do it alone, so I will pay someone to help me. I’ve already spoken to that person, we have an agreement set out and a pay schedule.

Why should we back you?

At the end of the day, I can’t tell you what to do, nor would I. What I can tell you is this:

I managed to get my family from 50k in debt to 10k in debt in 4 years (love the parents, they’re not the best at finances, plus there was that entire stroke that just added to the mess of bills) - so I know how to balance a book and raise money.

That does not count the times I asked for help for myself, only the family as whole’s situation. After all, hard to balance my own books with no money coming in during those months I did not have any commissions or ghost writing.

I was trained as a store manager

I have a bachelor’s degree in business administration

I’m a fast study

If you are an indie author, I’ll sell your books. That means I buy several copies to sell, so you automatically get paid, and then if they do well, I buy more copies to sell. 

You’ll be helping a small business get started You get a personalized signed copies of my book, yes they are digital copies but I will still be making the signing for each personal, scanning them in, adding them to the file and sending them off. 

You help a disabled writer stop living with the constant worry of how to pay the bills and when will the next need to ask for help happen. Thus I stop needing to ask for donations every time life goes sideways because I barely have enough to live before that happens.

I am also a firm believer in paying it forward, so once I am no longer stuck in the cycle of I have no money, I am barely paying the bills, and I have to ask for help, I will be able to help others who may need it. 

You’ll get updates on the business, what the current specials are, and even coupons for online purchases from time to time. 

For those who do more then the twenty five dollar pledge, they will get signed copies of more then just my first two books. Every five past twenty-five will get one more book, unless told to stop. Example: If you do fifty dollars, you get the initial two plus five more personalized signature books. 

I have done a lot of research, this isn’t just a whim, it’s not a lark, while most my notes are hand written, they are repeatedly checked as I wish to make sure that I am successful. Once it is open I do not want to have to ask a second time for help with it. 

It’s a New Year, if you are feeling generous, consider helping someone start it differently then years past.

All I can ask is you take a chance. Money is important, as it funds everything. Sharing the GoFundMe is just important as it shows it to new people. All I ask is you take a few moments to share this, or the GoFundMe. I understand however, if you are not willing or able to.

Thank you all for reading this,

Jaimi

1/5/19

[shannrussell-blog1]

We camped in a small clearing at the top of the mountain we had trudged up with our heavy packs. It was just on dusk, so after absorbing the panoramic view we set up camp in the dark, alone with the stars and the small creatures of the night.

The next morning the sunrise was glorious – we felt like lonely kings on top of the world. We ate breakfast, packed up the tent, and started our hike down the other side of the mountain. Within minutes our serenity was shattered. A four-wheel-drive stuffed with parents and noisy kids growled its way up the side of the mountain on a dirt track we didn’t know was there.

Reminiscing over this trip gets me thinking about how my camping style has changed over the years. From carrying everything I need in a pack on my back to camping out of a 4WD, my style has necessarily evolved over time. (Check out how our very own Ben Collaton’s kit has evolved over time too.) I still want to go to the same places but look for comfort when I get there.

Comfort to me means less effort in setting up camp and a comfy bed to sleep in at night. So, for me, as my body degrades with age, that means a camper trailer.

Camper trailers aren’t as bulky as they seem. Here, the Oztrail Camper 7 has as big a footprint as a similar sized touring tent. 

What I wanted from my set up

I wanted an uncomplicated rig that could be set up easily, had as small a footprint as was feasible, was lightweight for comfortable towing, and capable of being expanded on in the future. Lightweight in camper trailers means a soft floor so that narrowed my choices a bit.

I planned on spending weeks at a time in my camper trailer so ‘liveability’ was a priority. I’m not going to attempt to define livability but I am content to say my wife and I wish to stay married! It had to have ample space to keep us both comfortable and from living on top of each other.

And, after much consideration, I chose an Oztrail Camper 7. Let me tell you a bit about it and highlight some things you should consider when buying your camper trailer.

Bed

In my Camper 7 I have a double size bed but it seems larger than is standard – it’s 195cm long instead of 178cm and 143cm wide instead of your usual 138cm. A little extra room in bed is always a good thing.

Most campers come with an open-cell foam mattress. I have augmented ours with a ‘waffle top’ for added comfort. You could do this or add a really comfy self-inflating style mat, like a .

Space

My tent has a floor area of 2×2.6m which is not huge but is a decent size for two people with a small table and two chairs. The area under the awning is a good, usable size at 2.5×3.1m. With detachable walls and floor, it seems as large as a circus tent!

Inside the Camper 7. The author even carries a small step ladder to make getting in and out of bed easy.

Many camper trailers allow you to add on rooms. If your family is growing check to see whether the camper you have your eye on will accommodate this.

Trailer

I didn’t want a full off-road trailer. I’m not into rock-hopping, chassis-twisting activities. I’m more of a ‘rough track’ explorer so I settled for a trailer with sound construction that could be easily improved.

I have strengthened the springs and replaced the slipper system with a rear shackle. It’s been raised an inch and I replaced the ball coupling with a TREG hitch. The power cables have been led inside the frame from underneath and I have installed a stone guard. I did this all myself for a shade under $500. The trailer already had carriers for a spare water jerry can, gas bottle, and tool box.

Whether you buy an all-in-one camper trailer as I did, or buy the tent and trailer separately, keep in mind you can do a lot of these alternations yourself. This will save you a lot of money rather than buying a more expensive rig.

Lighting

Some camper trailers come with inbuilt lighting, some don’t. Mine didn’t. My wife and I embrace the KIS – Keep It Simple motto when it comes to camping anyway. I have both an old gas light and a pressure lantern.  The lantern gives a warm, welcoming, comfortable light that is perfect for reading under or playing cards. The lantern is so bright you could see it from the moon. Add a headlamp each and we’re happy. Perhaps I’ll add LED lights and a battery coupled into the car’s charging system (three batteries to charge then) but that’s an option for down the track.

The great thing about a lighting set-up like this is that it isn’t tied to your camper. You can use the same lights in a blackout at home (yep, I live in SA so know all about those), camping in a tent, or for that backyard barbeque.

Kitchen

A lot of camper trailers feature kitchens as their major selling point and some have brilliant configurations. I opted for a trailer without the proverbial kitchen sink! If I want to, I can add one later.

I have a permanent kitchen set-up in the back of my LandCruiser which means I can take off at short notice with a tent on my own or hook up the camper trailer. The kitchen is always ready to go, just add water.

Speaking of water, I carry four 20L jerry cans on the car and trailer depending on the trip. I’m thinking of fitting a tank to the trailer but I’m not sure about the placement underneath – I’m worried about weight distribution, stone damage, and accessibility.

Thank goodness for the stone guard! Image: Kirsty McNeill.

How do you decide which camper trailer is right for you?

It’s amazing how many varieties of camper trailers there is on the market. At one end there’s the Taj Mahals that have slide-out kitchens with sinks, stoves, fridges, and pantries with the obligatory recipe book. Instant hot water showers that drain the gas bottle and water tank (see my previous blog on showering when camping), flick a switch or turn a handle and it sets itself up, automatic TV aerials – why leave home at all?

At the other end, there’s the basic trailer with a tent that’s even simpler than ours. The determining factors when buying a new camper trailer will generally be money, weight, what sort of car you’re going to tow with, where you’re going to tow it, and how comfortable you want to be when you get there.

For us, the enjoyment of camping is not having to worry about all the technology at home – apart from, maybe, lighting and refrigeration. It’s about improvising and doing more with less. Remember my motto from before – KIS. The simpler your set-up, the less there is to stress about.

Now, where’s that hiking tent?

What other considerations do you think should be included here for those in the market for a new camper trailer?

Thanks for allowing us to use your image for the cover graphic, Ezytrail Camper Trailers.

The post Things to Consider before Buying a Camper Trailer appeared first on Snowys Blog.

[caveartfair]

What Sold at Dallas Art Fair

Dallas Art Fair Preview, 2019. Photo by Exploredinary. Courtesy of the Dallas Art Fair.

On Thursday afternoon during the Dallas Art Fair, a man in a 10-gallon hat walked into a hotel bar in downtown Dallas, ordered a glass of $300-a-bottle scotch with “one rock” (a single ice cube), and lifted his cell phone to his ear.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, honey,” I heard him say. “I’ll just send the plane to get ’ya.”

This casual encounter with a man with a private jet underlines why, despite a glut of art-world events, people still make room for the best little art fair in Texas. Artists don’t have the inventory to fill another dozen fair booths from Dubai to Madrid to Mexico City, not to mention biennales in Venice, Gwangju, São Paulo, and beyond. Galleries are so cash-strapped that increasingly expensive fairs had to lower booth costs not to lose them.

So if collectors, curators, dealers, and journalists are all cutting down on the number of stops they make on the intercontinental picture-buying hajj, why, then, does the art world keep coming to the Dallas Art Fair? Simply put, there’s still oil to be struck here in Texas.

Dallas Art Fair Preview, 2019. Photo by Exploredinary. Courtesy of the Dallas Art Fair.

“There are so many businesses coming to Dallas, it’s relatively recession-proof,” Kelly Cornell, the fair’s director, told me in an interview in her office. “We have huge technology companies; we’ve got Toyota now, and a giant AT&T complex that’s happening just down the street. Accordingly, there’s the mega-collectors that they really want to connect with and have the opportunity to meet. We’re very fortunate that the big collectors in Dallas are really supportive of the fair, and they show up—and come every day, most of them. That’s huge.”

We live in a world where people need gas and cell phones, and two of their biggest suppliers—ExxonMobile and AT&T, respectively—are headquartered in the Dallas area. Texas is responsible for 20 percent of all U.S. exports, more than any other state in the union, and Dallas–Fort Worth International is the state’s most trafficked airport. In 2014, Dallas was named the country’s top city for millionaire growth, and once Texans get that money in the bank, they tend to keep it: The famously self-assured land of spurs and swagger has no state income tax. The world’s most valuable sports franchise is the $5-billion Dallas Cowboys, and its stadium is studded with works by Ellsworth Kelly, Jenny Holzer, Mel Bochner, and Wolfgang Tillmans.

VIERUNDZWANZIGSTERJUNIZWEITAUSENDUNDDREI, 2003. Ugo Rondinone Sadie Coles HQ

The state of Texas, where billions of barrels of oil still lay drillable beneath the earth, has a network of art collectors that galleries can ignore at their own peril. And along with the annual charity auction TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art, the Dallas Art Fair is its biggest art event of the year. It brings together the local collectors who have built world-class collections that fill private museums here—the Power Station, the Pump House, the Warehouse, the Karpidas Collection, etc.—as well as those who sit on the boards of the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), the Nasher Sculpture Center, and Dallas Contemporary.

The DMA has been promised the collections of Marguerite and Robert Hoffman, Cindy and Howard Rachofsky, and Deedie and Rusty Rose, meaning it will soon have one of the country’s most enviable holdings of post-war and contemporary art. The Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Fund allowed the DMA to purchase eight works from eight galleries ahead of the fair, meaning nearly 10 percent of the exhibitors saw one of their works go immediately into the collection of a world-class museum. Dealers said there was a lot of interest in works from the museum’s trustees, who could donate them as promised gifts. Knowing all this, dealers will travel across the country for the chance to have the DMA acquire their artists’ work.

“Obviously the Dallas Museum has large, large gifts coming to it, and people are buying works that are immediately gifted, as well, so that type of relationship between the museum and the fair is very important,” Cornell said. “We’re very close with the board members at all the museums. Dallas is a tight-knit community, and we work with them on a year-round basis.”

Londoners in the Lone Star State

Untitled, 2019. Jordan Wolfson Sadie Coles HQ

Untitled, 2019. Jordan Wolfson Sadie Coles HQ

Sure enough, some of the European galleries that came to Dallas for the first time this year achieved six-figure sales. One gallery that found success in Texas was Sadie Coles HQ, the London outfit with a deep artist roster that participates in many of the biggest fairs—the Art Basels, the Friezes, and West Bund in Hong Kong—but was doing Dallas for the first time. Things went well, as the gallery sold works for as much as $250,000 by artists including Laura Owens, Ugo Rondinone, Jim Lambie, and Jordan Wolfson, who had flown in for the occasion, having never before been to the state.

“It’s a much smaller fair than what we usually do, and it’s much more local, but that’s very nice, actually—it works in its favor,” Liselotte Seaton, a director at Sadie Coles, said in the booth. She added that while several local collectors had come by specifically to see them, they also met several new clients, all from the area. Asked whether the gallery would do the fair again, Seaton was noncommittal, saying they could only do so many Dallas-sized fairs per year, as their artists simply don’t have the bandwidth to create that much work.

Another Dallas newcomer this year was Lisson Gallery, which has been one of the most vital galleries in London for more than five decades, and in recent years, it has added a pair of spaces in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. It, too, is a perennial fixture on the fair circuit, and the presence of works by its artists—including Anish Kapoor, Ryan Gander, and Cory Arcangel—lent the proceedings some international flair. Lisson came in swinging—gallery artist Pedro Reyes was in town for the weekend, and another of its artists, Haroon Mirza, has gotten a lot of attention in Texas for Stone Circle (2018), an installation in the art mecca of Marfa consisting of a druidic arrangement of boulders that emit light and sound.

Cory Arcangel, Jeans / Lakes, 2016. © Cory Arcangel. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.

Pedro Reyes, Protester III, 2018. © Pedro Reyes. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.

“We’re hitting Texas hard,” said Caroline Mattis, a sales associate at the gallery. “There’s a lot of important collectors here, and we wanted to show off our program.”

The collectors here seemed to be biting, as Lisson sold Arcangel’s Jeans / Lakes (2016) for $60,000, Reyes’s Protester III (2018) for $50,000, and three Stanley Whitney gouaches for $18,000 each.

When asked why the gallery added Dallas to the long list of fairs it pays for a booth at, Mattis said, “Lisson’s only been in New York for three years, so there are a lot of people in America we haven’t reached yet. It’s important to do the smaller American fairs, the more regional fairs.”

As for why the gallery specifically chose Dallas for its first regional American fair, Mattis cited the usual reasons: It has a critical mass of collectors the gallery already knew, and, given its economic profile, a whole lot more they would like to know better.

Unquiet Grave, 2019. Alex Da Corte Karma

Another Dallas Art Fair exhibitor from London was the difficult-to-Google Mayfair gallery State. The gallery brought a $950,000 George Condo painting and a $775,000 Robert Rauschenberg painting, both of which went unsold. Director Jamie Gourlay admitted it might have been “a little too ambitious for Dallas, perhaps a little too expensive.”

And yet, by the end of the third day of the fair, State had closed on a deal to sell a Kapoor work for $650,000. It was among the biggest sales reported at Dallas Art Fair this year, which also included a 1979 Richard Diebenkorn gouache-on-paper, purchased by a Dallas collector for a figure between $200,000 and $250,000 from the booth of Van Doren Waxter.

Two galleries found success with works by artists who will be in the central exhibition of the Venice Biennale next month: New York’s Karma gallery sold the magnificent Alex Da Corte neon work Unquiet Grave (2018), and Los Angeles’s Ghebaly Gallery found a buyer for a work by Neïl Beloufa.

Putting down roots

Bottles and Cans on Red, 2019. Neïl Beloufa François Ghebaly

Can on Red, 2019. Neïl Beloufa François Ghebaly

It should be pointed out here that even if Dallas is “recession-proof,” its nearly 100-gallery art fair may not be the most objective indicator of the health of the global markets—it is just a small piece of a larger puzzle. The money spent here is dwarfed by a juggernaut like Art Basel in Hong Kong, where some 240 galleries fill a sprawling convention center that plays host to an entire continent of collectors. At the upcoming auctions in New York, more than $1 billion worth of art will be up for grabs.

But it’s an attractive fair for those who have shored up connections with the state’s collector-lined hamlets, like Preston Hollow (home to Howard Rachofsky and the up-and-coming collecting couple Joe and Kristen Cole, not to mention Mark Cuban, T. Boone Pickens, and former U.S. president George W. Bush). Simon Lee Gallery, which has outposts in New York, London, and Hong Kong, has done the fair many times before, and director James Shaeffer comes down to the city as many as four times per year—not unusual for dealers and advisors in New York and Los Angeles, both about a three-hour flight away. Accordingly, the gallery sold several works by Clare Woods in the range of £12,000 to £42,000 ($15,700 to $54,900). Not only was the artist present in the booth for much of the fair, she has 13 tile works permanently installed at River Bend in the city’s Design District, an initiative spearheaded by fair chairman John Sughre, which plays host to 214 Projects, a permanent exhibition space for the fair. Dallas Art Fair stalwarts Canada and Moran Moran staged a joint booth to show work by an artist they both represent, RJ Messineo, and sold paintings to collectors from Dallas and New York.

The First and the Last, ca. 2018. Clare Woods Simon Lee Gallery

Paris’s Frank Elbaz has committed to the city in a different way: In 2016, 14 years after opening his first space in the Marais, Elbaz opened a second gallery in Dallas. The connection appears to have paid off: Before the fair even opened, the DMA, through the Dallas Art Fair Acquisitions Program, acquired a yarn work by Sheila Hicks, the Paris-based American textile artist whose solo show at the Nasher opens in May.

Another beneficiary of the DMA’s largess was Rachel Uffner Gallery: A year after the museum acquired a work by Shara Hughes from Uffner’s booth, it bought a dazzling portrait by Arcmanoro Niles, the young Brooklyn-based artist who currently has a show up at Uffner’s Lower East Side gallery.

“I don’t think they want to give the acquisitions prize to the same gallery two years in a row, but also, I kind of brought this painting specifically for the DMA,” Uffner said in her booth.

, 2018. Bianca Beck Rachel Uffner Gallery

Weeping Blur, 2018. Shara Hughes Rachel Uffner Gallery

She added that the museum currently has the Hughes painting it acquired last year up in the permanent collection galleries. “The collectors like when the DMA buys a work because it stays in the city,” she said.

Prices in Uffner’s booth were as high as $45,000, and nearly everything sold, she said; two new works by Hughes went to Dallas collectors. She was also showcasing new sculptures by Bianca Beck, and added that Rachofsky, the local collector, had acquired a much larger work by Beck that wouldn’t fit into the booth. By Friday, it was installed in Rachofsky’s office.

As the fair went into the weekend, collectors kept streaming in, and on Sunday, visitors stuck around until the final hours. Some also swung by the Eye Ball, an annual party that takes place under Tony Tasset’s gigantic sculpture of a human eye. And then, the collectors packed it in, some heading home by car to places such as Preston Hollow, while others got in “the plane” and went somewhere deeper in the heart of Texas.

from Artsy News

[paulckrueger]

16 Tips to Find a Cheap Car Rental

Renting a car is usually expensive, finding a great deal gets confusing.

The last time I rented a car, one of the car rental companies tried to charge me $1,800 for 4 days. While another company only charged me $700 for a similar car.

By doing my homework, I saved myself over $1,000 on a single trip.

Fortunately for you, I compiled a list of tips and tricks that will help you find the cheapest rental.

Let’s jump right into it.

1. Ask Yourself: Do I Really Need One?

The golden rule while saving money is only to spend when required. It seems simple, but we often end up buying stuff that we don’t really need.

The best way to know if you should get a car rental is to calculate how much and where you would be commuting. If public transportation or booking local cabs are cheaper and more efficient, then you don’t really need to rent a car.

This is why I typically book hotels in the center of the city. Are they a bit more expensive? Yes. Do I save a boatload of cash by being able to walk everywhere? Definitely. If I can walk 90% of the time, an Uber easily covers the rest at a fraction of the cost for a rental.

Also, check if BlaBlaCar, ZipCar, and CarShare can be useful to you.

2. Avoid Renting at Airports

Think about how EVERYTHING is CRAZY expensive at airports. You are charged a premium because you are in a confined space with no alternatives. The same is true for renting a car from an airport. It can cost you around 30% more.

Before renting a car from the airport, call up the rental agency and ask for the nearest pickup point from the airport. Calculate how much a cab or public transport will cost you to get there and only then decide if it still makes sense to rent a car from the airport.

Check a few different pickup and dropoff points when looking at rentals online to see if you get a different quote.

3. Use Aggregators

Checking every rental car company can become a real pain. Car rental aggregators speed things up a lot. They also give you a good range of what to expect, then you’ll know when you find a good deal or not.

I use Expedia, Kayak, and Hotwire.

4. Check Prices Directly on Car Rental Websites

Aggregator websites are superb for a comparison and getting ballpark estimates. Once I know the cheapest options, I go to those company’s websites directly and check the rental prices on it.

I have often found that the rental company’s website has a lower quote because of an in-house promotion or coupon code.

Pro Tip: Honey is a free chrome extension that searches for coupon codes. Once you have selected the cheapest car rental, Honey will look for all applicable coupon codes and allow you to use them at checkout.

5. Consider Smaller Companies

I always recommend looking beyond the big-name car rental companies like Enterprise, Avis, Budget, and Hertz. Some smaller companies might not have a big brand name, fancy websites, and extensive coverage. But that’s why they don’t charge you a premium, making them great places to hunt for discounts.

CarRentals.com is a useful aggregator of smaller car rental websites. You should know that a smaller brand doesn’t always mean a better deal. But checking them out wouldn’t take more than a minute, and it can help you save hundreds of dollars.

6. Say Hello to The Sharing Economy

Companies like Turo and Getaround are like the Airbnb of car rentals. I love them as renting from them can result in up to 35% savings. With them, you rent a car directly from the owner. I have felt like I am borrowing a car from a friend every time I have used peer to peer car rentals like Turo.

You can pick up the car yourself from the owner or have it delivered to you at a fee. Similarly, you can drop it off at the owner’s place or a remote location.

Pro Tip: Look closely at the fees of peer to peer car rental companies as they may charge you for all kinds of stuff.

7. Bundle Discounts

If you are using websites like Expedia, Kayak, or Booking.com to book your flight tickets and hotels, you can book a car rental at the same time. It often opens up exclusive offers and discounts.

I have saved more than $100 per week by booking everything together. If you have forgotten to book a car rental at the time you booked a flight or hotel, keep an eye out on for an email from the booking company that offers bundle discounts. You can also call them up and check if they can give you a special offer for car rentals.

Additionally, check the difference between the daily and weekly charges. At times, you can get a sweet deal if you go for the weekly option.

8. Use Statement Credits or Points

Some travel credit cards give you travel statement credits which include car rentals. This gives you a refund for part of your rental.

If cash is tight and you have a bunch of credit cards banked up, you could use the points to book a rental. Check the travel portal for your credit card rewards program. I wouldn’t expect this to be the best use of your points though, you’ll typically get more value from international flights.

9. Employee Discount

A lot of companies offer discounts on various stuff to their employees. Simply call someone at your company’s HR and ask them about the perks and discounts available to you. They might have a tie-up with a car rental company, which will significantly lower your rental cost.

Being a government employee and veteran can also give you significant discounts.

Pro Tip: CorporateShopping.com is a handy tool to get an idea of all the discounts you are eligible for through your employer.

10. Leverage Memberships

You should always know all the benefits you get by being a member of different organizations.

For example, a Costco membership will almost always give you a better deal than the one you find on aggregator websites. An AAA membership can reduce your rental price by around 20%. The American Airlines AAdvantage program gives a 35% discount off Avis and Budget. The only catch here is that you have to book them from an airport (check the real-time quotes as sometimes you can get a great deal from an airport with AA).

You can also leverage your AARP and USAA memberships and Frequent Flyer and Hotel Loyalty programs to get discounts on car rentals. Some airline programs also give status at rental car programs, giving you free upgrades and perks.

11. Say No to Rental Car Insurance

The rental company salesperson will try to hard-sell rental insurance to you. As long as you have the right credit card, you don’t need it. Check your credit card perks. Once you have a card with that perk, always use that card when booking a car rental.

And you will already be covered through your car insurance. Just call your insurance company once to confirm.

12. Use the Pay Now Option

30% of people who book a car don’t pick it up. They can afford a no-show because they haven’t paid upfront. To overcome this problem, car rentals incentivize paying upfront. Avis offers a 30% discount while Budget gives a 35% discount if you pay when you book instead of paying while you pick up the car.

The only drawback of the Pay Now option is that it is non-refundable in most cases.

13. Register for One Driver Only

A lot of rental companies will charge you an additional fee per day for having a second driver.

There are two ways to get past it. First, some companies waive the additional driver fee for your partner if you have the same address on the driving license.

Second, the fee could also be waived off if you are a member of AAA, USAA, AARP, or Costco.

Be careful with having a second driver without paying the fee. Coverage from credit cards is usually void if a second driver hasn’t been officially added. In an attempt to dodge the fee, you could be liable for any damage.

14. Pay for Gas Yourself

Gas can be the most expensive part of renting a car. You will also have the option of prepaying for gas. In most cases, that’s a bad idea. Prepaid gas only makes sense when you are crunched for time.

Refilling the tank before you return the car will almost always be a better deal. I’d only agree to one of the prepaid gas options at the rental company if I was extremely tight on time and wouldn’t have the chance to refill the tank.

Pay for gas at the car rental company to save time, don’t do it to save money.

15. Upgrades Are Your Enemies

The car rental company’s salesperson will try to upsell a lot of fancy stuff. You don’t need any of it. Some stuff may not seem expensive, but it can quickly add up to a more significant amount.

Say NO to all the following:

GPS: You can use your smartphone’s GPS. It will be cheaper, and the navigation app on it will be prettier.

Flyer Miles: Getting flyer miles may seem like a great deal. But you’re almost always charged $1 or $2 per day to get them.

Satellite Radio: Once again, use your smartphone. You can even carry your Bluetooth speakers or AUX cable to play music out loud.

16. Economy Cars

Unless I have a strong reason to go for ‘fancier’ cars, I always select the ‘Economy’ option. It solves my purpose of going from one place to the other.

I have gotten a free upgrade a lot of times because economy cars were not available. Even if I don’t get an upgrade, I know I am saving a lot of money by not spending on an unnecessary luxury that I don’t really need.

Spend 10 Minutes to Save Hundreds

Just 10 minutes of research can help you save hundreds of dollars on a car rental. The best way to find the lowest price is by knowing what you want and paying for exactly that and nothing more.

By checking a few car rental companies, I saved $1,000 the last time I got a car rental. And I always expect to save a few hundred dollars by using the tips above.

16 Tips to Find a Cheap Car Rental is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-find-cheap-car-rental/