#they save so much money by having the students do it instead of hiring professionals

[starpros-sunshine]

sebby i am putting them in ur head

You put your liphiyos in my head and I put my wataeis in yours and then we're both going to frolick across a field of flowers in nice temperatures

[sajidamit]

Lecture on Upskill by Sajid Amit- Cost Management for Startups

Planning, regulating, and reducing costs in order to optimize earnings and meet financial goals is the process of cost management. To guarantee profitability and sustainability, companies, particularly startups, must effectively manage expenses.

A business can cut costs by finding and getting rid of wasteful spending. For instance, a company may lower office costs by downsizing or by adopting a remote work strategy, which lowers rent and utility costs.

Small Business Startup Costs

Many start-up companies, enthused by their grand ideas, overlook the precise planning and bookkeeping required to control costs. Instead, they depend on an anticipated influx of customers to keep operations afloat—sometimes with appalling outcomes, going by data on small-business survival.

There are three startup categories:

Brick-and-mortar businesses

Online businesses

Service providers

Depending on the type of business you have, there will be different startup costs. However, the majority of businesses will require some equipment and supplies, communications and collaboration technologies, licenses and permits, professional services like legal counsel and for-hire bookkeeping or accounting, advertising and marketing, and a website to reach customers.

By calculating both one-time and recurring expenses, you can make sure that your company has enough funding to operate for a while without entirely depending on sales.

Sajid Amit’s View on Cost Management

Sajid Amit says cost management is a very integrating part of fund raising as we incur cost from a fund. The important information he wants the founders to know is the tech cost we think about, in most cases we see that young entrepreneurs try to save as much as possible on the app they are creating.

Those who have a tech based product such as app based or website based, also try to make an app which will cost them less. Like they create the app through some IT freelancer of course. The app crashes if it is not made properly. From the experience of successful startups, he sees that it is actually a bad idea. Because if your product or service is an app or a website or based upon them, then that’s the last thing you want to compromise on is the quality of the product.

We basically underestimate the money that gets spent on tech because we think that just by creating the structure of a basic website or an app, a few lacs expenditure will get us through. But the reality is quite different. What if you have an app which is based on users like it needs a user’s sign up etc? Then you also have to think about the extra money spent on debugging. Then there is money spent on the structure of the backend of the website or the app.

Ultimately it is suggested to budget wisely for the tech portion of the app and not to think about saving too much to the point you compromise the app.

Then he comes up with marketing. Many people think that marketing is an area where you have to spend a ton of money. It is usually true but not always. In business school it is taught that marketing in bigger companies such as Unilever, pepsi etc spend their one third of the money in marketing.

Yes, spending on marketing is good if you have the ability to do so. But if you are a beginner level startup which does not have access to that sort of fund yet, then it will be better for you to think wisely and strategically about marketing. Because in a densely populated country like Bangladesh, the ‘word of mouth’ strategy is very useful and won’t cost you at all if possible.

For example, if we look at pathao we will see they actually did not spend a lot of money on ads. The riders would just stand in front of the universities and then offer the students rides. And we all know that university students talk with each other and they will tell each other about pathao. This is the ‘WOM’ strategy. Bkash also followed the WOM strategy. This literally helps you save cost. You can activate through people much more easily than other options.

Tips on Cost Management in Startups

Every company should have adequate expenditure monitoring and reconciliation procedures in place because every business has expenses. However, when it comes to expenditure management, companies frequently only consider their monthly total outlays. As a result, the company may end up spending more than it can afford, computing the cash on hand balance and cash zero date wrong, and failing to keep audit-ready financial records.

● Budgeting

A budget may be developed by a business to plan and manage spending. A company might, for instance, set aside money for marketing costs, which might cover SEO, social media marketing, and other advertising-related expenditures.

● Negotiating With Vendors

A business can bargain with suppliers to get the price of goods and products lower. In order to lower the cost of products offered, a company might, for instance, bargain with a seller for a lower price on basic materials.

● Outsourcing

A business may outsource work to cut the expense of recruiting and teaching new workers. For instance, a startup may contract with a third party supplier for bookkeeping, IT, or customer support, which lowers overhead costs.

● Lean Management

Lean management techniques can be implemented by a business to cut wastage and boost productivity. For instance, a startup might use just-in-time inventory management to save money on the expense of extra inventory storage.

● Automation

A business may automate processes to cut personnel expenses and boost productivity. To save money on recruiting and teaching an accounting team, a company might, for instance, adopt an automatic accounting system.

Even if this means simply keeping a record of transactions in an Excel document, startup founders should start keeping track of expenditures as soon as the company is established. Spending the time up front in expenditure management will save time and trouble later on as your company expands and it becomes more difficult and time-consuming to organize your expenses for previous months or years.

[cambridgeenglishacdemy]

Best English Speaking Course in Laxmi Nagar, Delhi

Are you looking for the best English speaking course in Laxmi Nagar? Look no further! Learning how to speak English fluently can be a daunting task, but with the right course and guidance, it can become an enjoyable experience. In this blog post, we will be exploring the top English speaking courses available in Laxmi Nagar and what makes them stand out from the rest. Whether you are a student or working professional, improving your spoken English skills can have a significant impact on your personal and professional life. So let's dive into the world of English learning and find the perfect course for you!

Which English speaking course is best?

Choosing the best English speaking course in Laxmi Nagar can be overwhelming with so many options available. However, the ideal course for you will depend on your individual goals and learning style. Some courses may focus more on grammar and vocabulary, while others may prioritize conversation skills. It's important to consider what areas of English you want to improve before selecting a course. Another factor to consider is the teaching methodology used by each course provider. Some courses may use immersive techniques such as role-plays or group discussions, while others may rely more on traditional classroom lectures. It's also essential to research the qualifications and experience of instructors before enrolling in a course. Look for certified trainers who have experience teaching English as a second language. In summary, there is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to choosing the best English speaking course in Laxmi Nagar. Take some time to assess your own needs and preferences before making a decision that aligns with your goals!

What is the fees of English speaking course in Delhi?

The fees for an English speaking course in Delhi can vary depending on the institute or organization offering it. Typically, the fees range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of rupees. Some institutes may offer short-term courses that are more affordable, while others may charge higher fees for longer and more comprehensive programs. It's important to do your research and compare different options before enrolling in any course. Additionally, some institutes may have additional fees for materials such as textbooks or workbooks. Make sure you factor these costs into your budget when considering different courses. While cost is certainly a factor to consider when choosing an English speaking course, it shouldn't be the only one. Look for courses that offer quality instruction and opportunities to practice speaking with others in a supportive environment. After all, the goal is not just to save money but also to improve your language skills effectively.

How do I start speaking English course?

Starting an English speaking course can be overwhelming, especially if you're not sure where to begin. The good news is that there are several ways to start your journey towards better spoken English skills. Firstly, consider finding a reputable English language school in Laxmi Nagar. Look for institutions with experienced teachers and proven track records of producing successful students. You can also check online reviews or ask for recommendations from friends or family members who have undergone similar courses. Another option is hiring a personal tutor who specializes in teaching spoken English. Private tutors offer personalized lessons tailored specifically to your needs and learning style, making it easier for you to grasp the concepts quickly. If attending formal classes isn't possible due to time constraints or other reasons, you may consider enrolling in online classes instead. There are many websites and apps available that offer comprehensive courses on spoken English at affordable rates. Whichever method you choose, ensure that you practice regularly by speaking with native speakers of the language as much as possible. Consistent practice will help improve your fluency and confidence levels over time!

Is English speaking course helpful?

If you are looking to improve your English speaking skills and fluency, enrolling in an English speaking course can be incredibly helpful. Not only will it provide you with the opportunity to practice speaking with others in a supportive environment, but it can also help you improve your grammar, vocabulary, and overall communication skills. When searching for the best English speaking course in Laxmi Nagar or any other part of Delhi, be sure to consider factors such as reputation, curriculum content, teaching style and fees. With careful research and consideration of these factors we have mentioned above before making a final decision on which course is right for you. Remember that learning a new language takes time and dedication. It may not happen overnight but with consistent effort and practice through regular attendance at classes , one day soon enough everyone around you will notice how much more confident and fluent your spoken English has become!

For More Details - https://cambridgeenglishacademy.com/spoken-english-classes-in-laxmi-nagar/

[whentherewerebicycles]

god okay I feel like I am on firm ground at last. welcome to my public diary where I must process everything aloud! but I will put it behind the cut.

here’s where my head is at re: the job…

I feel WAY better about the work after the second interview and follow-up conversation. the first interview left me with the impression that it was going to be kinda dull training work, whereas the second one made it clear that it’s actually a lot of fairly high-level design work that I think I am going to find very interesting. seems like it’ll be 1/3rd independent research and learning module design assignments, 1/3 direct one-on-one coaching or group facilitation work, and 1/3 higher-level planning & design work to build out learning and development infrastructure for a new government organization. they are also in the middle of a major restructuring/launch of a new org and they kept saying they really wanted me to feel like I could propose ideas and have a lot of room to create new stuff and establish priorities for the role, which is nice to hear.

they really liked me!!! and seemed to value my skillset. this is not crucial to the decision-making calculus lol but I feel like one thing that is frustrating about working at the same place where you were a grad student is that you are sort of forever a grad student in everyone’s eyes, no matter how long you’ve been out of grad school. I am excited to get to work in a different field with people who will only have known me as a professional.

they made it clear that they are willing and eager to spend $$$ on any professional development trainings or certifications I want to pursue. I am making a LIST!!!! like I badly want to get official training/certification in coaching and I want the agile project management certificate and and and.

it’s for sure not the kind of thing I want to do forever but I think a year in this role would help me build some practical skills and save money. I also feel way better about working for the government than doing this kind of work in the corporate world? nothing wrong with corporate work I just think that public sector work will keep me closer to where I want to be long term.

they are going to pay me an amount of money that seems insane to me and I could kinda tell they expected me to negotiate for higher in the phone call where they offered me the job. I’m going to look at the full offer letter and then ask for a little bit more just to get practice lol but regardless: it’s going to let me save so much and that is a RELIEF because I have so little in savings.

so I think I am going to take it for sure.

BUT THEN… if we get approval to use the extra $ from the foundation, I think I am going to try to negotiate a part-time role with my current job. that would mean staying in Texas longer, but it would give me the chance to finish out my lease, save a LOT of money, enjoy what is usually a glorious Texas winter, help secure long-term funding for our program, and then hire/train a new manager so the program doesn’t die when I leave. most importantly it would let me keep doing values-aligned teaching & mentoring work during this bridge year, so if I decide I don’t like working outside of a university I can make a fairly seamless transition back into that kind of work.

my university might not approve this plan but I honestly can’t see why they wouldn’t… they have plenty of money to pay a part-time salary and I’m basically offering to do this work as a service to the program. and if they don’t, then I’ll just decide what I want to do about the move at that point. I thought about it a lot after reading everyone’s comments on the option A vs. option B post and I think it’s going to be a lot to handle a major (and very abrupt) cross-country move to an unfamiliar city while also getting up to speed on a new job. I’d rather navigate those gigantic life upheavals one at a time instead of all at once.

the best part is that now instead of this summer feeling aimless and endless, I have a clear start date for new job, which means that suddenly the next three weeks are actually VACATION TIME before the next thing begins! so I can absolutely luxuriate in them instead of feeling like I am drowning in unstructured time. whoohoo!!! maybe I will even visit seattle in this time lol who can say!

[exeggcute]

Hi I haven’t been following you for very long so sorry if you’ve talked about it before but how did you get into technical writing? Like, professionally? Every job listing I’ve ever seen for anything in that field has required like 5+ years experience and a Master’s degree so I have no idea how to get started (save for going to grad school which I do not have the money for lol)

unfortunately you're not gonna like this answer but I got into technical writing 100% by accident lol. when I was in college (for undergrad. not grad school. I did not go to grad school) I got cc'd on an email to the entire literature department saying that a local clinical psychologist needed a student writer to help write some reports, and I had an essay due the next day, so instead of writing my essay I decided to procrastinate by writing a resume and applied and somehow got the job. did that for a couple years (as a part-time gig, mind you) and then managed to weasel my way into the software industry, partly by leveraging that experience and partly by telling some strategic truths (e.g., lying). might also be worth mentioning that the first software company I worked for went under about a year later when the CEO got arrested for securities fraud but experience is experience, right?

that said:

(1) I promise you do not need to go to grad school, lol. if you happened to have an advanced degree in a relevant area then that would be super helpful in certain industries (like, idk, biotech?) but at least in software that would be the exception and not the rule. (if anything, you could look into a cert or a code bootcamp or something, but a master's degree is def not necessary.) part of the problem here is that most job descriptions are written by hiring managers, and very few people know shit about technical writing but hiring managers especially don't know shit about technical writing, so they all just copy/paste each other's shitty job listings with the same bogus requirements over and over.

(2) in a similar vein, you can usually subtract about a year or two from the listed experience for almost any job listing. as much as they'd like to hire someone with five years' experience, most places would settle for three years from a solid candidate. (thanks in part to the fact that people who DO have five years of experience are probably gonna be applying to places that are asking for six to ten!) so if you're, like, entry level, any "associate" level position asking for 1-2 years of experience would be within your reach.

(2a) things are a LITTLE funky right now with this "stock market" shit happening and alleged layoffs, but overall it's still very much a job seekers' market. every time I look at the job boards there's like five thousand technical writer listings (with very few applicants to each), which means people are desperate, which means you can get away with meeting a lot fewer requirements than you otherwise might. there's really nothing to lose by applying!

(3) for more detailed information about Getting Experience and whatnot, I'd highly recommend /r/technicalwriting—with the caveat that you read the pinned posts, top posts, and search around for stuff before you submit anything. you may not actually need to submit your own post, since this is a pretty good source of knowledge, but every day there's at least a couple people who ask some oblivious question that makes it obvious they didn't read the sidebar/pinned/other similar posts asking the same question and they occasionally get torn to shreds, lol. I don't think this is a reddit thing so much as a "part of technical writing is finding information independently so if you come to a subreddit and don't even read the pinned post we're gonna be annoyed" thing. other than that the community's pretty nice, though.

anyway I wish I could offer more concrete help but uhh... good luck! and feel free to DM me off anon if you have any specific/personal questions that would better suit a 1:1 format!

[itsuki-minamy]

PROFILE: HIRASAKA DOUHAN

Translation: Naru-kun Raws: Ridia

Real name: Hirasaka Douhan

Terms of address: Hirasaka, Douhan, Kuroko (Nickname in Jungle)

[PROFILE]

Birthday: October 29, Scorpio

Blood type: A

Age: 28 years. (At the beginning of the second season.)

[APPEARANCE]

Physique: 1.65 cm in height. A slim body. The abdominal muscles are slightly cracked.

Face, hair: Beautiful face with droopy eyes. Blonde. Glasses.

Attire: When she was on duty, she wore a power suit, her head was completely covered with a ninja hood, and her voice was changed by a voice changer, so there is almost no clue to identify an individual from the outside.

Personal effects: Two ninja blades, like a giant shuriken. Kunai.

[HABITS, SKILLS]

· Complete business-type division. She has a calm judgment.

· She can take full advantage of the modifiability to go through the wall.

[IMPRESSION, OTHER NOTES]

· The color of the image is "dark green", which looks like a blob of green on black.

· Seen from the edge, she is completely a ninja, but she is not particularly aware of that.

[POSITION, OBJECTIVES]

She is U-rank in the Green clan, “Jungle”.

Originally, she has accumulated “Jungle” points so that she can become a J-Rank, but instead of becoming an executive and difficult to take free action, she can stay in the U-rank and exchange points earned by doing only her mission. Choose a position. She sees the "Jungle" mission as a "business" rather than a game. She has no interest in Nagare's purpose and ambitions and has no sense of clan membership. In addition to the mission of “Jungle”, there are many companies that host Hirasaka's own route, and the reason why Hirasaka is a “Jungle” rancher is that it is possible to use these talents to carry out those endeavors efficiently big.

[PERSONALITY, CONDUCT]

She demands "power", "money", "security" and "perfect business".

She is a professional who does not like clumsiness and uncertainties, such as in-laws, personality, and ties.

[FATE, ENDING]

After being arrested by Fushimi in the first attack on the Mihashira Tower, she was placed in the "Scepter 4" camp, but then Fushimi and Munakata hired her respectively to complete his business.

[ABILITIES, TACTICS]

She uses a trick that can transform the target and dive there. Making good use of that technique, she is good at surprise attack tactics that launch attacks from unexpected places. Because she doesn't like danger, she basically prefers a "one-sided attack from a strong position", and when she gets close to him, she draws as much as she can, or punches away from her.

On the other hand, she isn’t good at hitting at close range, but if necessary, she will also carry a hand-to-hand combat with a ninja sword on her back.

[POWER]

B (Lower than business class.)

[LIKES]

Strength, money, security, loneliness, credit, give and take, sushi pizza, sake, hot springs.

[DISLIKE]

Risks / restrictions / less balance / trust / concession (whether done or not)

[HOBBIES]

A board game where you can play solitaire, Tsume shogi, Tsumego, etc.

[FASHION]

Basically a ninja-like power suit. When she acts like an ordinary person, she wears various clothes depending on the situation.

[BODY]

She has been strengthened as a member of the clan.

The lightness is selling, and the power is almost the same as the ordinary clansman. If she competes with the executives, she will lose.

[INTELLIGENCE]

High. She has a high degree of head rotation and ability to calculate the situation, and she constantly determines when to shoot and when to attack.

She has her own information network of hers and, in particular, does not neglect the force analysis of the main characters of each clan.

[BELIEFS]

She values ​​power, money, and loneliness above all else.

She acts alone and hates being forced by something. Basically no one trusts her, and she is wary of having multiple hiding places around the world.

A perfectionist who does not hesitate to engage in any illegal activity as long as she is satisfied with the "business" she received.

[RELATIONSHIPS]

[EARLY YEARS]

Although she grew up in a common family, her family relationship was cold and she grew up alone.

When she was a high school student, her brother was born, who was her father's stepson, and the family got even worse. The two live as close siblings, but the younger brother has an accident in front of Hirasaka and has a difficult body to survive. Hirasaka works to save her brother and earns money, but her brother died. She loses her purpose of making money and laughs, but eventually the media will supersede her purpose, and the "business" of making money will be Hirasaka's sole purpose.

[TIMELINE]

· 1985, Hirasaka Douhan is born.

· 2013, Hirasaka participates in the first raid operation on the Mihashira tower and is captured by "Scepter 4".

[ATTITUDE AND THOUGHTS TOWARDS OTHERS]

[TERMS OF THE ADDRESS FOR HIMSELF]

The first person is "Watashi" and the second person is "O omo (Mr.)".

She speaks in ordinary masculine language. Don't use honorifics.

[TOWARDS HISUI NAGARE]

She calls him "O omo (Mr.)".

Formally they are the "Green King" and the member of the green clan, but for Hirasaka, Nagare is just one of the clients.

However, since she knows that his power can be wielded by the three dimensions of Nagare's chest, she treats him with the attitude that she will not lose her courtesy. She treated him as "President of the client".

He thinks that he can "do what he cannot do" or "can cause disaster for all mankind", but believes that he has no choice but to make such a dangerous bet. He can be said to be desperate for "the salvation of mankind by ordinary means".

[TOWARDS MISHAKUJI YUKARI]

She calls him "O omo (Mr.)".

After all, he is a customer. She has no feelings, but sometimes he is indispensable.

However, she is less polite than with Nagare.

She treated him as a "point of contact for business partners".

[TOWARDS GOJOU SUKUNA]

She has known him since he was a lower rank than her, so she has a bad attitude towards Yukari.

However, they will be treated as equal business partners during joint missions.

She doesn't want to give emotions just because he's a boy, but she can't deny that her judgment is a bit awkward.

[TOWARDS OTHERS]

She basically ignores the red clan and the blue clan. Fighting the incompetent is too risky unless it is a clear obstacle to achieving the goal.

The same applies to other ordinary people, and those who don't need to get involved will pass completely.

[the-writing-mill]

assassin au with the "making a deal to save the other" and jangobi?

Okay, this one’s actually even a bit longer than the other one, so it’s going under a read more lol

Jango is a merc/bounty hunter/assassin guy, Obi-Wan is an information broker with an editing cover job and a “rental property” to embezzle money

These two have never met, and have no idea about each other’s identities beyond knowing their underground reputations, until Jango is hired to assassinate Obi-Wan’s little brother, Anakin

Obi-Wan is visiting Anakin for the weekend on the day of the planned assassination, and notices things are a little off, setting off all of his learned criminal world/underground alarms

(Anakin, btw, is a part time mechanic, part time engineering student. Obi-Wan has very carefully kept the boy out of his world since becoming Anakin’s official guardian after their adoptive father, Qui-Gon Jinn, died in an accident)

Obi-Wan gets paranoid enough after spending an evening with Anakin that he fakes a pillow body in the guest room and sets himself up in the living room to guard

This is somewhat fortunate for him when an apparent burglar (who moves much too professionally and dangerously) breaks in through a window near silently

Jango barely has half a second of realizing something’s up before being side tackled

The fight is pretty intense, if odd for being so quiet, since they both coincidentally don’t want Anakin to wake up (at some point Obi-Wan manages to get Jango’s ski mask off)

In the end, Obi-Wan ends up pinned under Jango, hands restrained above his head, knife against his throat, straddled

Jango grumbles sardonically about how Obi-Wan couldn’t make Jango’s job easier and just sleep through the night and call the police in the morning, tipping Obi-Wan off to the man being there for Anakin instead of him

Obi-Wan is, of course, a self-sacrificing idiot and gets Jango’s attention by wondering out loud about what a small-time mechanic going through school could have done to get a high-level assassin sent after him

(Jango’s plan, as Obi-Wan has figured out, was to stage a break in/burglary and wake Anakin up and kill him in the resulting “fight” to make it look like the burglar had killed Anakin in the heat of the moment)

With the man under him clearly having figured out too much, Jango decides he’ll have to kill him too, but first thinks it’s worth learning what gave him away

There’s a bit of back and forth until Obi-Wan is able to piece together who exactly Jango is (should his assassin name be Mythosaur? I think that would be fun and the “myth” bit can refer to his work being so subtle and Jango being such an unknown outside of his assassin rep)

Now, someone figuring out exactly who Jango is an even bigger no-no, so Jango goes right for the kill

Jango doesn’t manage to kill Obi-Wan before Obi-Wan offers a deal (didn’t think I’d take “making a deal to save the other” this way, did you?)

Jango’s pressing a blade into Obi-Wan’s neck enough to draw blood but finds himself intrigued enough to let the man talk for another few seconds (Obi-Wan really is quite the negotiator)

Obi-Wan offers free information for life, basically, and to be support for a set number of missions a year. In exchange, Jango won’t kill Anakin and will let Obi-Wan find Jango’s client and kill the client to nullify the contract (and prevent Jango’s rep from being tarnished)

It’s an utterly absurd proposal but also clearly made with knowledge of the underground, so Jango of course asks who Obi-Wan thinks he is to make that kind of offer

Jango finds himself reluctantly impressed by Obi-Wan’s identity (I have no idea what his underworld identity is, but I don’t it to be “The Negotiator”) and finds himself considering the deal, which Obi-Wan catches onto and he manages to convince Jango

(Part of the final deal includes the fact that Jango technically has two more months per his contract to carry out the hit. If Obi-Wan can’t find the client by then, Jango will kill Anakin anyways. Obi-Wan is desperately confident that he can do it, despite Jango having basically zero info beyond the contract and a clearly shell company in Hong Kong to wire the money to)

Jango gets Obi-Wan to give him a glut of information over the next few weeks, to the point of them spending a few hours in a private booth/room in a very private club so Obi-Wan can safely give it all to him. Obi-Wan is both desperate to meet expectations and tries his best; and is also very annoyed at getting pulled away from hunting down who’s trying to kill Anakin and therefore sasses Jango quite a bit.

Obi-Wan is really having trouble figuring out who wants to kill Anakin, finally giving in and starting from the other end, Anakin himself. Why would someone want to kill Anakin? Specifically why would the sort of person who can find and hire Jango want to kill Anakin? This is in some ways even harder to figure out, but Obi-Wan has many more leads and information to access

After a few weeks of this dynamic, the first change is when Jango and Obi-Wan end up complaining about a mutual acquaintance during an info drop off, which leads to more mutual bitching

Then Jango drags Obi-Wan across the country (we’re just going to assume we were in like… NYC or Chicago before) to assist him in another assassination in LA

Obi-Wan is somewhat tempted to get Jango caught, since that would be an easy way to save Anakin, but decides against it for multiple reasons (including a few that he will not yet acknowledge, including developing fondness for Jango and, even worse, the first few seeds of trust)

So instead of going to prison, Jango returns from a smooth assassination to an already half-drunk Obi-Wan, shirt very scandalously unbuttoned halfway down

The have a nice night of just drinking and relaxing and then wake up the next morning curled around each other in bed (they didn’t have sex, as the lack of certain types of soreness and their clean, still on, pants from the night before prove. But they still have the knowledge and a few sensations of sleeping together with their guards down)

When they get back, things are a little awkward, but it’s fine, they’re professionals, so they’ll keep meeting to keep up their deal. Obi-Wan keeps giving Jango any info he wants, and they keep accidentally falling back into their habits of doing things like complaining about mutual acquaintances who annoy them

Obi-Wan is also making some headway with investigating who wants to kill Anakin, finding many questionable decisions on Anakin’s part, especially regarding friends/social circle, but not anyone who would be able to hire Jango that would dislike Anakin

With about a week and a half left, and leads running out, Obi-Wan starts to freak out a little, which Jango notices, which in turn makes Jango realize that he doesn’t like Obi-Wan being stressed out and afraid and tense and looking at Jango like he’s a cat about to pounce on a wounded canary

But Jango also puts work before all else so when he has another job (coincidentally in the same city), Jango drags Obi-Wan with him, unfortunately making the mistake to literally bring Obi-Wan with him

When Jango starts cursing about the job going to hell part way through a shoot-out, Obi-Wan casually comments that it’s not even that bad, prompting a sass battle between the two of them while they’re still fighting their actual opponents where Jango realizes that Obi-Wan, as brilliant as he is, has the worst on-the-ground luck ever

In the end, they win, with a very damaged, limping vehicle that they, for handwavey reasons, need to get to some spot that the car won’t make it to as is. Thus, they have to go slide into the mechanic shop Anakin’s working the graveyard shift for

Obi-Wan really does hate, in many ways, finally having his two worlds collide, bringing Jango and the shot-out car directly to Anakin, and is almost distracted from how bad he feels about it when Jango tries to comfort him

Jango is, thankfully, a very good actor, and Anakin is a bit oblivious. He very easily starts clumsily probing Jango about what Obi-Wan and Jango quickly figure out Anakin thinks is a romantic relationship between them (and, to be fair, Obi-Wan has been acting strange, and spending much more time “with a friend” in the past two months or so)

At some point, Obi-Wan gets so uncomfortable with the idea that he and Jango are in a romantic relationship that he makes what is, to him and Jango, a mistake, and draws attention to the bullet holes again

Jango vaguely looks like he wants to kill Obi-Wan while Anakin casually explains it’s not that big of a deal, although he might have to find a better patch if this sort of thing keeps happening

This stops any murder plans Jango was making, and any counter plans Obi-Wan was making in favor of carefully probing Anakin to figure out when else he had fixed a bullet ridden car

Anakin reveals pretty easily that his engineering school’s dean, Sidney Palpatine (Sidney=Sid-=Sidious lol) had dropped in about two and a half months ago with a car in similar condition. As well as a few other people that Anakin describes well enough for Jango and Obi-Wan to identify as members of a local crime organization and a private army (like Blackwater/Academi), as well as mention a weird package in the trunk

This is clearly the who and why for Jango getting hired to assassinate Anakin, but they both play it cool until Anakin’s done and they can go on their way to drop off the vehicle

Cue Obi-Wan having a panic attack, which freaks Jango out quite a bit, since he’s so used to Obi-Wan being very calm and controlled and not showing vulnerability. Obi-Wan even gets outwardly angry

Cue Jango’s “oh. Oh.” moment

Jango basically drags a near catatonic Obi-Wan back to the apartment he’s been staying in and drugs him to sleep (in Jango’s mind, if Obi-Wan was too out of it to notice a drugged drink, then he clearly had no more business staying awake)

By the time Obi-Wan wakes up and starts panicking, less than yesterday (thanks to a good night’s sleep), Jango has some basic information on the legal and illegal lives of Palpatine, and a few half-formed assassination plans

Jango also has toast. Which he makes Obi-Wan eat. Obi-Wan grumps about not having been forced to eat breakfast since he was a teen. Cue a small sassy back and forth that further calms Obi-Wan down

Jango offers to kill Palpatine for free, which startles Obi-Wan because that is not how the criminal underworld works. Jango half-heartedly puts forth some logic about how Obi-Wan succeeding with their deal means that Jango gets to keep the best information broker on his side. Obi-Wan can tell that that isn’t all, and recognizes that Jango is probably being kind, but won’t outright admit it

They eventually decide on a plan where Anakin will bring Obi-Wan with him to go visit dean Palpatine who he’s friends with, and that Obi-Wan will bring some poisoned tea in a travel to mug to share. Anakin will refuse the tea, being Anakin, and Obi-Wan and Palpatine will both drink the poison. Obi-Wan will have the antidote (either disguised as something innocuous or to be taken during a bathroom break) and cure himself before there are any symptoms, leaving Palpatine to die of what will look like a natural heart attack

The plan goes awry, due to Kenobi luck, when Anakin accidentally has them barge in while Palpatine is meeting with another criminal. Cue a fight in the office, a secret passage, and more criminals to fight while Jango scrambles to get to the new location to help

Obi-Wan manages to actually word his way into delaying their defeats and deaths until Jango gets there. Jango manages to take out about half of the enemies before he gets defeated/captured as well

At this point Obi-Wan tries to make a deal again, to save Anakin and Jango. It seems to work/Palpatine seems interested, only for him to pull the rug out and basically say he’ll be either killing all three or making them wish they were dead, including some conjecture about Obi-Wan’s looks (aka sexual slavery)

Cue Jango getting incensed enough to break free again and start fighting again. He gets to Obi-Wan, frees him, and thus ensues a battle couple take down from the cheesiest of action flicks

In the end, Palpatine is the last one standing. Before either of them (or Anakin, who is beginning to get over his shock) can kill Palpatine, he runs away. Jango, Obi-Wan, and a confused Anakin give chase, stopping at the end of an alley as they realize that Palpatine has been hit by a bus

Jango and Obi-Wan drag Anakin through a convoluted path back to Obi-Wan’s apartment and confirm that, yes, Palpatine died. Jango and Obi-Wan quickly confirm that there’s nothing linking them to the crime scene (Palpatine had told his secretary that Anakin and Obi-Wan had left out the back when he realized he was going to have to kill them, giving them an alibi)

Obi-Wan and Jango tell Anakin a mostly true story and prod Anakin to decide to go back to [insert some place here] and live with some half-distant bio relatives (the Lars family), maybe finish his degree online

Cut to a few months later, Obi-Wan is reading an update text from Anakin before Jango comes into the room. Obi-Wan gives him a good luck kiss before sending Jango out to his job, reminding him that “I’ve always got your back”, Jango responds in kind, Obi-Wan accepts this/informs Jango that he knows before letting Jango drag him into another kiss

[nuttygalaxysims]

The Goth Family Curse

The Goths have been my favorite family since Sims 1, back when it was just “The Sims” and I’d go grab an afterschool snack while it was reticulating splines. It’s no surprise that I spent a LOT of time with them in the Sims 2 era, including going down the rabbit hole of Bella mythology and doing unnatural things with SimPE to try to reunite the family. 

Finding the family all together again in Sims 4 warmed my cold little heart, and I got a LOT of enjoyment out of watching them interact as a happy family... for a little while.

Then it got weird... 

Bella & Mortimer were very excited to welcome twin daughters, Nada Goth and Visi Goth. As busy professionals and doting parents, they hired a nanny to keep the girls safe during the day. To be honest, she did a lot of overnights there too - money can’t buy happiness, but it CAN buy a night nanny, and sleeping through the night is practically the same thing!

I never saw exactly what happened, but somehow Mortimer, poor misguided Mortimer, wound up making a pass at the nanny. Bella overheard and was rather unimpressed, so the nanny was sent packing. Keeping up with all the kids plus their jobs was quite a strain for the Goth household; both parents often wound up utterly exhausted by the time they got home from work each day. 

Still, relationships were mending and I thought everything was going well. The kids were thriving (and toddlers can climb stairs now!?) They even put in a modest pool, at Bella’s request, so she could unwind by swimming laps without having to get a sitter.

Then one fateful evening, Mortimer returned from work very close to passing out from exhaustion. Between the monster under Alexander’s bed and two toddlers in a sleep regression, he’d been up most of the night. I’m a kind and merciful simmer, so I nudged him towards his bed as soon as he got home, before getting distracted by Alexander aging up to a teen, the toddlers getting into adorable trouble (did I mention they can climb stairs now?!), and all the other general evening chaos of homework, dinner time, and uninvited guests. Then I got THE POPUP.

Dear Old Morty had apparently decided that he knew better than me, and had chosen to unwind in the pool instead of going to bed as instructed. Did you know sims can pass out in the pool? Did you know that if sims pass out in the pool, they drown? I didn’t, but now I do. 😬😥 Level-headed Cassandra tried to plead for his life as everyone else panic-flailed, but she was ultimately unsuccessful. 

So much for the Goths being back together as a happy family...

I know I could have exited without saving to spare him, but I’ve always enjoyed rolling with the game’s surprises. Also, I TOLD him to go to bed. He’s a grown adult with four kids. Love you, Mort, but make better choices!

(Also, I still have no idea why Mortimer & the nanny started smooching - at this point, I was still playing a completely vanilla game with no mods, cc, or expansions, just the base game; he’d never rolled any sort of romantic whims for anyone besides Bella, and it wasn’t something I initiated! To me, these are the most interesting bits of the game: when these little pixel people who you theoretically control from creation to death still find a way to get up to mischief!)

I still have that saved game, minus Mort of course. Bella got over him fairly quickly and switched to a less dangerous career so she could be there for the kids. The girls are delightful, Cassandra is a surprisingly savvy business woman who spends her nights playing piano, and Alexander is a star student with a steady girlfriend. I’ll check back in with them at some point - Nada & Visi are REALLY cute, even if Nada’s preference for pastels stands out like a sore thumb in that house - but I started a new saved game here to install & test City Living.

***

Fast forward a month or two of playing the new game, and I noticed Cassandra waddling around the neighborhood visibly pregnant - SURPRISE! By this point I’d added Deaderpool’s MCCC so that the townies could find love and grow families and all that fun stuff, but I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of all the settings yet. It turns out Cassandra had a chance encounter with none other than James T. Kirk and was left with quite a surprising souvenir (but that’s another story...)

Anyway, I pop in to the as-yet-unplayed Goth family home to see what was going on, and the very first thing that happened was Mort’s bunny slippers catching on fire while he was standing a little too close to the fireplace. What did I say about making better choices, Mort?? Cassandra once again came to his rescue, extinguishing the flames relatively calmly while Bella got as far away as possible.

 A few days later, Cassandra, now a proud mom to a bouncing baby girl, caught on fire herself while making a grilled cheese sandwich. Bella reacted yet again by sprinting out of the house and abandoning everyone - way to keep it real, Bella! Everyone is alive for now, but I’m a little scared to see what happens next...

[crowgale]

Resident Evil 2 AU

Claire Redfield x Elza Walker

Generally the characters are the same, but with a kick of real so they aren't blank slates. Elza herself is a street-smart, confident young woman with a troubled past.

Born Elizibeth Walker in Anchorage, Alaska to parents separated before she was born, her father was an fortuitous yet endearing construction worker who took custody of her until he went missing during the construction of an Umbrella Research Facility in the Rockies during her early teens and was then sent to Connecticut to live with her mother, who was an abusive drug addict.

In her teens she developed a keen interest in motorcycles while overstudying in a library to avoid her mother and further strengthed it with part-time jobs in various mechanics. Eventually she lost hope in her father being found and her increasingly hostile mother drove her to runaway from home, using connections she developed through gangs and mechanics to move to Florida and join an amatuer racing contest in Daytona under the alias 'Elza' (Her father's nickname for her)... where she broke the track record 4 times (The first was the previous fastest lap time, she then broke her own fastest laps 3 times).

By her 18th birthday she had left her criminal ties behind and became a minor celebrity on the fast track to becoming a professional bike racer. She had sponsers ready to pay her into any university she wanted, emancipation from her mother and enough money saved up from work and victories to let her live as an independant young woman.

Elizabeth was gone. She was Elza now, and she had found her path to happiness.

~

By 1996 Claire had enrolled in the University of Houstan, Texas. Chris hoped she would enrol in Kansas City so she'd be closer to him but she wasn't going to be his little sister forever. She had grown up quick after their parents died... they both did.

Elza and Claire first met the week before classes started, Claire having just moved into the dorms a day before; Elza arriving like a perfect storm the next day on an customised kawasaki sports bike and a trailer full of her belongings.

Claire recognised her of course, her debut into the racing world made national headlines. So like a dork Claire was shy and tried to avoid Elza as she rode in on her Harley Davidson, after running an errand off campus.

Elza however, heard the sound of a Harley and wanted to know who owned it. She took one look at Claire in her red leather shorts, that 'Made in Heaven' jacket tied around her waist and that tight black bodysuit she had no business looking so sexy in, decided 'Yeah, I'm chilling with you!" and was having none of it.

There was, what a native of Northern Ireland like myself would call, a fresher's fair that night and like a hawk Elza seeked out the introverted Claire and started asking about her bike.

By the end of the night, Claire's shyness vanished upon realising that the seemingly untouchable queen of bikers, whose body was covered in tattoos and whose hair was as wild and untamed as the wind, was actually a massive dork. Elza however found someone who had quickly seen her and not the racing queen. The dealbreaker came when Elza asked what made her get a bike to begin with.

"Well... my brother owned a Suzuki before but... I guess I saw the film 'Akira' and that's what made me do it"

"Oh my god bitch me too!!!"

The two would then become firm friends. Elza being the misadventurous one who managed to talk Claire into actually leaving the library and give herself a break from studying; Claire being the one to get them out of trouble and keep Elza grounded. The two became a power-couple without realising, defending the other from rude people who mocked Elza for daring to be a woman racer or harassed Claire for her looks or for trying to latch onto a celebrity. It went without saying no one could harass these women if they wanted their hearing and face intact.

Things would eventually become more personal between the two. The week after New Years, Elza received news that her mother had died from a drug overdose. Although she didn't need to, Claire bought a side-car for her bike and rode her to New London for the funeral.

The service itself was tense. Elza being uncharacteristically silent and the lack of relatives worried Claire as the service ended. She never saw Elza's eyes look so cold as she gave her eulogy, which she soon realised was a stock eulogy the minister gave to those who didn't write one.

A while after she was buried in the a man approached Elza in the cemetary, introduced himself as her mother's dealer and decided that since she was a famous racer her mother's debt would pass on to Elza and that she would pay him else there would be cpnsequences; it goes without saying she refused to pay off the debt and apathetically asked him to leave.

Claire was on him like a wolf the moment he slapped her and was ready to kill him when he started to threaten her with a knife.

She very nearly did.

They left New London that evening amidst a police BOLO for a woman with auburn hair seen kicking the living shit out of a man in a graveyard. They made it to Kent Island before a blizzard rolled in and they had to say at an inn along the Chesepeake Bay.

That night Claire meant to apologise for her actions, stating she saw her get hit and just... reacted. But Elza pulled her into a tight hug and finally released her pent up emotions. She told Claire about her fathers disappearance, about the years of torment at her mothers hands, that this wasn't the first time something like this happened, that she doesn't understand why she's crying if she hated her mother so much and how much it hurt to remember all those terrrible things and have someone make her feel like that scared little girl again.

Claire, feeling her best friend shake in her arms, doesn't know what to say. She's silent for a time as Elza holds onto her like a lifeline, as if letting go would make her fall off the Earth itself. She finally tells Elza that she isn't that little girl anymore.

"You are Elza Walker! Yhe Woman who can never be slowed! You're unreachable! Unstoppable! And no one will ever hurt you again!... I... don't want to see you hurt again"

Elza didn't speak for a while after that... but eventually she did and what she said broke Claire.

"I've wished for someone like you my whole life Claire"

~

Life returned to normal soon after that. One tournament race was enough to bring Elza Walker roaring back to life and with a vengeance. She was faster, she was braver, her smile after each weekly victory able to light up the world... or at least Claire's, who now made it a point to go to every race, or at least watch it on TV if the race was in a city too far out of reach.

Elza knew Claire was watching her... she figured that's why she was doing better now.

~

Spring came and went, the summer exams now already a fading memory to the pair, but foreshadowed by Claire losing her part-time job and being unable to find another one. With no means to pay for her student fees it looked like she would be forced to drop-out.

But Elza wouldn't have any of it.

"I know how you can pay off your fees. A guy in my pit crew retired a month ago and I've been short two hands ever since. It's hard work but the pays good and if I make pro next month it'll be even better"; she said idly at a bar one evening.

"You... you want me in your pit crew?"; Claire asked incredulously.

"No, I want you as my personal pitbabe so I can drool at you in a tight spandex jumpsuit looking all cute with dirt on your face"; Elza said with a lop-sided smile.

"Ha!"

"Hm... seriously Claire, I want you there with me. I can't imagine anyone better to look after me on the track"; Elza said confidently.

"...You do take way too many risks"; Claire mused, before Elza held her cheek in her hands.

"You told me once that I am the woman who can never be slowed... well Redfield, I'd slow down for you!"

~

Elza's manager might have called her decision to hire Claire personally driven and entirely unprofessional. However, Claire proved herself highly compotent within a week of employment, being able to keep up with the repairs, adjustments and tyre changes her job demanded.

It was also found that Elza actually listened to Claire whenever she was pushing her luck, which turned out to be a blessing in the final race of the season in San Francesco. Her main rival who was tied for 1st with Elza didn't want to lose to a woman, and in the final 3 laps had begun making poor judgement calls to try and keep up with her. Risky overtakes, tight cornering and high speed was equally met, and soon Elza found herself in a dogfight she refused to lose.

If Claire hadn't screamed at her to brake before the last corner, she would have been thrown off her bike with her rival after an attemped inside lane overtake resulted in them losing control of the bike and wiping out.

Elza won of course, making it into the professional league. It was a dream come true. At no point after she took off her helmet and locked teary eyes with Claire could she make any expression that wasn't a bashful smile or tears of joy. It also seemed like she couldn't stop looking at Claire during the victory reception or later that night on the train ride home... where she had too much to drink, leaving Claire having to help Elza meander into the sleeping car after the 8th Buttery Nipple.

She helped her move herself onto the bed, but Elza didn't let go of her hand. Instead she brought her hand to her lips and kissed her knuckles and held it to her cheek as she openly wept.

[lilibetts]

Sometimes A Girl Just Wants Some...

Falling in love with Riverdale, Theme 2: Spicy

Part 1/3

The 14th of February. A fraught time for the serially single in New Haven, to hear Veronica describe it.

“The end of Cuffing Season is nigh!” she proclaimed, holding an enormous dildo aloft.

(“That’s Colt,” their boss, Zelda Spellman, had explained when she hired Betty, upon seeing the younger woman’s wide-eyed fascination. “He’s a replica of a porn star’s penis. A very popular order, but also a very popular return.”)

In true Veronica Lodge fashion, she didn’t seem the least bit put out by this development. Next to her, Kevin Keller seemed markedly somber, but that was because his own casual boyfriend had ditched him on the very last day of January.

Betty, however, was indifferent in opinion to it all.

From her seat next to their workstation, she held up her pink mug with the penis-shaped handle in a toast. “Cheers, I deleted Findr from my phone,” she announced before taking a gulp of lukewarm coffee.

“Betty!” 

“Betty!” 

Both Veronica and Kevin were aghast.

“It’s barely February. What happened to TwentyTwenty being ‘The Year of Horny Betty’?” asked Kevin.

In her defense, she’d made that New Year’s Resolution last December, after one of those ‘look at your life, look at your choices’ epiphanies that left her life seeming very lacking. The reality of putting herself out there on a matchmaking app and meeting with the rare specimen who didn’t seem completely terrible and who seemed to have an actual body that was not 100% an ugly penis, however, had been nowhere near as exciting as she’d expected.

She was saved by Kevin’s computer chiming. “Sorry, satisfaction waits for no gossip.” He tapped a few keys and answered the incoming call. “Good afternoon and welcome to the Toyz R Us Customer Support Helpline. My name is Kevin. How may I help you today?”

Veronica’s computer chimed too and she pointed an expensively manicured, accusative finger in Betty’s direction. “Don’t think you’re getting away with this!” She hissed before taking the call.

Toyz R Us only had two brick-and-mortar stores, but it did fairly well with online sales in New England. Betty had only taken the job because she needed some extra spending money around the holidays, and she’d stuck with it into the following semester because she liked the new friends she’d made and found the atmosphere surprisingly enjoyable. At least she got to put her writing skills to good use, even if it was for composing informative, yet enticing descriptions of sex toys.

Of course, her parents had no idea she worked here, and if she was careful enough, they never would.

Veronica’s call ended much more quickly once the man on the other end realized she wasn’t Cheryl. Unfortunately, Cheryl Blossom’s brusque and insulting phoneside manner was such a turn-on to a specific subset of men that she really could’ve started her own side hustle and made bank. Ridiculous bank.

“No sir, I can’t tell you how much thicker it will make your penis. We do recommend that if you use a penis pump, you do so regularly and continually,” Kevin advised before tapping a few keys and removing his headset. To Veronica and Betty, he exclaimed. “That idiot just asked me how much bigger the penis pump would make his dick...my god, how would he think we’d know?”

Betty snorted as she stood, penis-mug in hand. 

“Hey!” Kevin called after her. “We weren’t finished!”

“My break time’s over!”

There actually were a few minutes left of her break, but she had a good reason for being sneaky. You see, it might be Valentine’s Day, but it was also a Friday, and Fridays at Toyz R Us meant freebies in the Friday Reject Box. Due to the sheer volume of products that got moved between Christmas and Valentine’s Day, management had provided them with *two* Friday Reject Boxes.

Betty was a college student at heart—if she was going to support her newfound lingerie and sex toy habit, she had to avail herself of cheap and free products whenever possible. 

Carefully sticking her head out around hallway corners, Betty tiptoed around the building like Nancy Drew herself, on the lookout for her coworkers. 

It had taken her about a month of working here before she stopped feeling embarrassed by the products, although she tried to always approach it as any other job...with professionalism.  Still, there was something illicitly thrilling about being twenty years-old and working at Toyz R Us that made Betty feel like a truly independent woman, more so than moving 350 miles away from her hometown.

Betty wasn’t inexperienced, exactly, but she’d been raised a very straitlaced 'good-girl-next-door' and while college had done wonders for her independence and self-affirmation, she still struggled with the idea of discussing sex with her friends/coworkers.

Luckily, she made it to the table holding the Friday Reject Boxes without running into anyone, and Betty wasted no time starting to rifle through them. Hurry, hurry, before anybody else comes and sees you.

In the first one, there was a Fingo Nubby finger vibrator, a very intimidating looking Booty Camp Training Kit that featured three sizes of anal plugs. She didn’t care for the pink crotchless tights but she grabbed the package with the lavender babydoll that had small slits for the nipples and a matching set of panties with an open crotch. That went on the table, and, after assessing the toys in the first box, the Sweetheart Choker and finger vibrator was added to the small but growing pile of goodies. Just the thought of playing with those was already turning her on. With hot cheeks, she turned to the second box.

Since she started working at Toyz R Us, Betty had been exploring her own sexuality, giving more consideration to what actually turned her on and put aside the time to make herself feel good.

She was distracted from the quick nature of her mission when she noticed a stack of dvd cases towards the bottom. “Ooh,” she cooed, intrigued. “The Seduction of Heidi.” That was added to her pile. She skipped The Best of Ron Jeremy and picked up 49 Positions for Lovers, whose cover promised better sex for couples. Well, the way her sex life had been going lately, Betty needed all the help she could get. 

Deciding she had enough, and that she really should be nice enough to leave some things for her coworkers, Betty gathered up her loot and spun around, only to collide with the hard body of the man who had been standing behind her. She yelped and felt a few of her selections spill out of her arms as she nearly stumbled backwards into the table.

Strong arms grabbed ahold of her, righting her, and Betty’s eyes widened when she realized who it was.

“Jughead,” she croaked. “Have you come to look through the Reject Boxes?” 

Jughead Jones was more or less her mentor on the Content team, in some ways her boss. It was him to whom she showed her first product descriptions for approval, him who she worked hard to please. Over the months, they’d gotten to chatting from time to time, and that had been how she found out he was working on writing his first novel.  

Over the weeks, they had shared their personal work—chapters and articles—for the other to comment on. Jughead encouraged her, Betty cheerleaded him. She came to admire him...his intelligence, soul, personality...and she liked to believe he did so for her, as well. He was thoughtful, too, in a way that threw her because none of her boyfriends had been this attentive...it had always been her that listened and took care of people. Jughead turned the temperature up in their office and kept it relatively higher than he was comfortable with because Betty had kept shivering and working with thick cardigans and hoodies on. He remembered how she liked her coffee and made sure their room had a steady supply of scrap paper and colored pens so she could work out word choice and technical phrasing before typing anything up.

One thing was for certain: she was ponytail over heels in lust with him.

She wanted him to do things to her. Things.

Jughead stood there and adjusted his crown beanie ever so slightly. “Uh, yeah, I’ll just…” he trailed off and, to her horror, he bent down to pick up the things she’d just dropped. All she could do was watch as he straightened up and glanced at the educational dvd and the choker before handing them back to her. “Here, Betty.” 

She couldn’t even look him in the eye, so she stood there, intensely aware of the flush climbing up her chest and into her cheeks.

Betty wanted to die.

“Thanks. Uh...I better go get back to work. I’ll see you when your break’s over. Bye!” She couldn’t get away fast enough.

Once she turned the corner, however, Betty did not head back to the Content room. Instead, she slowly craned her head around the corner, just enough to see Jughead as he bent over one of the Friday Reject Boxes. Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched as he quickly grabbed two dvds. Squinting, she recognized them. Scooby-Doo: A XXX Parody, and The Twenty: Self Pleasuring, which featured a bunch of solo female masturbation scenes.

Well.

She knew what tonight’s masturbatory fantasy was going to be about.

[my-miraculous-headcanons]

Kim Possible AU

In which Marinette is in gymnastics, is childhood friends with Adrien, and somehow became an agent-for-hire when someone accidentally dialed her number to call for help instead of actual, professionally trained agents. That’s right, they called a preteen for help, didn’t have the time to call anyone else, and rolled with it.

Also Adrien is a total goofball with a hairless cat. He still has both his parents, who start out overprotective but gradually loosen the reigns when it becomes clear that his friend will keep him safe.

(The reason I put gymnastics and not cheerleading is because I’m pretty sure that’s an exclusively American thing? Besides, gymnastics kind of makes more sense, skillset-wise.)

Origins

     • Marinette took gymnastics since she was seven, mainly because her clumsiness had been turning into a bit of a problem. (Parents start to get worried when their child’s having genuine physical difficulty in not hurting themselves. They thought gymnastics would help her learn balance, and also allow her to burn off some of her natural childlike energy.) By the age of eleven, Marinette is the best in her class, and is thinking about entering competitions.

     • Adrien is Marinette’s childhood best friend. Along with gymnastics, Marinette also started taking ballet, which is where the two met. Adrien was taking ballet because both his parents had taken it, and also because he thought it would be fun. Since he’d been taking it longer than Marinette, he helped her out in class, and the two have been inseparable ever since.

     • Adrien helped Marinette build a website to help get her name out there when they were eleven. They took videos of her doing a couple moves, and added a contact number. Unfortunately, (or, rather fortunately, actually,) Marinette’s number is very similar to a number for a group of agents who do pretty dangerous, life-saving jobs. 

     • Marinette’s first call is from a man requesting for help at a rather big bank in Paris, not far from her house. Being eleven, she doesn’t really understand that this is probably something she should inform the police, rather than handle herself. So, she and Adrien (who she sneaks out of his house) rush over, and save the day themselves.

     • Adrien had videotaped the impressive gymnastics Marinette had pulled off in order to safely get through the security lasers and shut them off. After that video was posted, she started getting calls on a much more regular basis, all from people in need of help. It wasn’t the sort of attention she was looking for when making the website, but she can’t deny she doesn’t love her new job.

The Present

     • By the ages of 16, Marinette and Adrien have travelled all over the world, gaining favors from a bunch of grateful individuals, and are pretty dang famous. They aren’t necessarily given special privileges at school, but if things are urgent, then they’re allowed to leave and makeup missing work online. 

     • Adrien is still a model, still plays piano, still takes Chinese, and still does a lot of different sports. On his own, he’s actually pretty famous. However, in this world, it’s pretty much impossible for him to display the ‘perfect, gentlemanly son’ persona when most of the world has seen videos of him screaming at the top of his lungs, running around in his underwear because somehow his pants got pulled off again. Yeah, he’s a straight A student with the classic, rich people training, but he’s still an utter dork and everyone knows it.

     • Marinette, while still taking gymnastics, has lost interest in making it a life career when she already sort of does it already. She’s picked up other interests, one of them being fashion design when Adrien had introduced her to what goes on behind the scenes in his workplace. She’s good at designing stylish, yet very practical outfits, and made uniforms for herself and Adrien for their ‘side jobs’ as agents-for-hire. 

     • While Adrien isn’t necessarily incompetent, he’s more of the ‘do first, think later’ type of guy when it comes to their dynamic, which often leaves Marinette to do the planning and problem-solving. At this point, it’s kind of abundantly obvious that, while Adrien is academically more profound, Marinette is vastly more analytical, and probably has a ridiculously high IQ if they ever bothered to check. 

     • There isn’t a main villain. Papillion doesn’t exist because Gabriel is completely aware of what his son is doing, still has his darling wife, and has literally no reason to waste his money on illegal activities. He’s a big name in the fashion world, it’s not like he’s looking for world domination or something stupid like that.

     • (I’m sure you’re wondering why the fuck Gabriel Agreste would let his only son go off on dangerous adventures like that on a daily. Well, he didn’t at first, but over time Marinette proved to be a more effective bodyguard than Adrien’s actual bodyguard, so he became more chill. Also, Adrien’s the face of his company, and with all the brave and daring things he’s done alongside Marinette, his popularity ratings are through the roof. Son has fun, is well-taken care of, still performs exceptionally in all his extracurriculars, and does well by the family business? It’s a win-win on all sides.)

     • I would make Lila Shego, except Shego is an actually likeable villain who’s genuinely smart, badass, and fun to watch. So, idk who Shego is, definitely not any of the catty girl rivals Marinette has to put up with, but you can’t have a Kim Possible AU without Shego, so she’s definitely in there. 

     • Max is probably Wade. Honestly makes the most sense, but here’s a suggestion: Max and Kim are the ones who contact Marinette when she has a mission. Max is great with numbers, technology, etc, but Kim’s expertise in completely random shit like sports, terrain, and necessary gear needed for specific situations makes him a valuable asset to the team.

     • We all know who Chloé is going to be, I don’t even need to say it but I will anyways. Say hello to our Bonnie, everyone. She was probably in that ballet class with Marinette and Adrien too, years ago. 

     • While Tom Dupain is still a baker, in this AU Sabine Cheng went on to pursue her dream as a literal rocket scientist, and succeeded. So, Sabine is basically Dr. James Timothy Possible. 

     • Adrien has a hairless cat named Plagg. His father is allergic to fur, and Adrien’s allergic to feathers, so he was sort of limited to pets like fish or lizards, neither of which he really wanted. He found Plagg outside gorging himself on camembert by a dumpster. Having been previously a street cat, Plagg’s growth was stunted, so he stayed pretty small.

     • Luka is obviously Josh Mankey. Marinette and Luka date for a while, but eventually break up on mutual terms due to him not being able to handle some of the dangerous things that pop up in her life often. While he doesn’t panic when things go south, he’s not really physically equipped to protect himself... He’s a musician, not a fighter.

     • Listen, y’all can fight me, Marinette’s longest relationship before finally getting together with Adrien is going to be with Kagami. Kagami handles the dangerous things that go on in Marinette’s life perfectly well, and they date for several months. Eventually, they do break up, but still remain good friends. (This is the period in which Adrien realises he’s jealous of Kagami, and has feelings for Marinette.)

Get Together

     • For those of you who haven’t watched Kim Possible, (and honestly what the hell are you even doing with your life if you haven’t,) Kim and Ron get together at a school dance (prom, but I don’t think prom exists in France,) and share a slow dance with each other. Uhhh so basically think Despair Bear, except Adrien and Marinette are wearing fancy clothes, just got together, and share a kiss in the end.

     • Marinette had recently broken up with Kagami before the dance, and is a little upset over not having a date when she already made herself a dress. Adrien is dealing with his realisation that he likes Marinette romantically, but keeps quiet about it and gives her a shoulder to cry on because she’s hurt, and he’s not going to take advantage of that. He suggests they go to the dance together as friends.

     • Kagami is there, and Adrien confronts her as to why she had broken up with the most amazing girl in Paris. She tells him that she came to the conclusion that, though she loved Marinette with all her heart, Marinette clearly had someone else as her #1. Kagami was sick of having to compete for that position when the other person didn’t even need to try. Adrien is left baffled by this.

     • Marinette overhears this as she’s walking over to ask Adrien for a dance. Kagami looked past Adrien’s shoulder, directly into Marinette’s eyes, and smiled knowingly. Then she walked away, sipping at her drink. 

     • Adrien turns around, pretty green eyes latching onto hers, and Marinette immediately understands what Kagami had meant. A slow song comes on, and she asks him to dance. Things fall in place from there.

     • (Of course, after they’ve kissed and become a couple, some dumb villain is going to inevitably crash the party and try to kill Marinette, as usual, but they deal with it like they always do.)

Alright that’s the end! This was an almost completed draft of mine I had, and since I’ve been lacking on content recently, I thought I’d quickly polish this up a bit and post it. I also have some other completed things I could polish up on, but eh, don’t feel like it right now. Enjoy!

(And maybe tell me how you’d imagine your favourite KP episode would go with Marinette and Adrien as the protagonists instead!)

[tisfan]

Lucky Buck’s Magical Coffee

Chapter Two - Working for a Living

Fantasy Bingo: Square Magical Exhaustion

link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24743212/chapters/60835351

Jarvis flapped Tony’s coat at him as he was ready to leave. “I have insider information that the weather ifrit’s had a fight with his spouse. It may rain later today.” It didn’t look like rain according to the screens that Tony had open that showed the outside world. It looked sunny and peaceful and lovely. But Jarvis was seldom wrong about these things.

The spirit of technology was still relatively young, compared with his brothers and sisters -- spirits of air, earth, fire, water, and void -- having only started coming into being about the mid seventeenth century, or so.

Jarvis himself had been formed in 1835, fathered, one might say, by the invention of the Analytical Engine, in the workshop of Charles Babbage. For a spirit, he was practically a baby. To Tony, he was impossibly old and wise. But then, Tony was a technomage, and spirits of the “natural world” didn’t tend to speak with him.

“Right, so I’ll want an umbrella,” Tony said, digging through the closet for one, “and to bump personal force fields up on my to-do list. And not to suggest a walk in the park for my date. Or maybe I should; Bucky’s a Natural Witch, maybe he’d enjoy getting caught in the rain.”

Tony was on his way to Buck’s Lucky Coffee as soon as he found a functional umbrella, to meet up for their third date, as soon as Bucky turned the afternoon shift over to Clint. He was somewhat unreasonably giddy about it; three was an important number in both the physical and magical worlds, and so three dates seemed... significant, somehow.

He wondered if, after three dates, he could call Bucky his boyfriend, instead of “this guy I’ve gone out with a couple of times.” And why in Turing’s name did he have a pink umbrella with flouncy little ruffles all around its edges? They looked like they’d hold onto water and dump it on you at exactly the wrong moment.

The line wasn’t quite out the door, but only until Tony got there. The next person would, in fact, be out the door. Although that might have been because Bucky had an actual troll as a customer, and he both took up a lot of space and people didn’t want to stand near him. Tony was pretty sure all the nonsense about trolls was just racist bullshit. They did a really good job building bridges, so what, exactly, was everyone’s problem? There hadn't been an incident involving trolls and children in at least a century. (well, sensationalist magazines and abusive parents dragged that story out all the time.)

And even as Tony was putting that together, three more people got into line behind him. The date was not going to start on time, because there was no way Bucky was walking away and dumping a rush like this on Clint to handle alone.

Which was fine, it actually, absolutely was, because Tony was a little overloaded with work, himself, so he could get his coffee and go stake out a table in the corner and knock out a little work on his tablet while he waited. They both worked in customer service; it was a thing you planned around.

Tony squinted up at the ceiling and huffed over the patchiness of the shop’s wards. Bucky was going to have another imp in his espresso machine if the building super didn’t get some fresh protections up soon.

The line inched forward. The troll spoke actual trollish, which Tony didn’t understand. Neither, apparently, did Bucky, but Bucky gestured to Clint, who made a few gestures. SSL -- Supernatural Sign Language, which was left over from when trolls and witches and dwarves all worked together on some of the city projects, and had to learn to effectively communicate. These days, almost everyone spoke English, which seemed very human-centric, come to think of it. Maybe Tony could get some mileage out of a translation app.

“Get me a bucket,” Clint said. “He wants a venti-venti-venti.” Clint signed again, and the troll dropped a gold coin on the counter about the size of a jar lid.

 A triple-venti was going to take a while to pull. Tony fished out his phone and started making notes. Translation app, personal force fields, the somewhat sticky problem of a cursed laptop that a college student had brought him that held the student’s only copy of their master’s thesis -- bad idea, that, always have multiple backups -- and thus couldn’t be de-cursed the quick and easy way, which had a tendency to leave a few memory sectors fragged.

The line kept growing behind Tony. But he’d finally gotten up to the second in line when the door pushed open and a tall, willowy woman came in with strawberry blond hair that was soaking wet and stuck to her face. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “It was sunny. The weather report said sunny all day--” She gasped a few times for breath -- if Tony had been running in those shoes, he’d have broken an ankle -- and gazed at the line in horror.

“Ifrit domestic trouble,” Tony volunteered. “Or so I heard.”

“You think I can send him my dry-cleaning bill?” She wrung out her hair and then took off her jacket, flapping water toward the door. Her shell top was sticking to her. “I’m soaking wet, I’m going to be late, I’ve been working the worst hours.”

“Hi Miss Potts,” Bucky yelled from the counter.

“Mr. Barnes,” she said. “Tell me you can save me.”

“I can save you.”

The troll collected his drink -- the repurposed ice-cream bucket still looked like an espresso cup in his huge hand -- and headed out into the weather. The door yawned and stretched around him to make room. That was a neat trick. Tony hadn’t seen it before; tech wizards said it was too hard, and so trolls and giants and some of the taller elven tribes complained about lack of access.

“Huh. I wonder when he had that installed,” Tony mused, eyeing the door, and then his attention snapped back to -- Miss Potts, apparently. “Does he save you on a regular basis? What’s your standard?”

“I’m probably only alive because of Mr. Barnes’ shop,” Miss Potts said. “Have you been here before? I love this place. I would live here, if they’d let me. Working for A Living. I think I might either die falling down the stairs in exhaustion, or actually push my boss down an elevator shaft without it.”

Tony let the two or three people between them skip ahead of him in the line -- he wasn’t going anywhere until the rush died down, anyway -- to make it easier to chat. “I only discovered it a couple of weeks ago,” Tony admitted. “Came in to exorcise the espresso machine -- it’s fine now, don’t worry -- and well, like you -- didn’t want to leave again.” He grinned. “Sounds like your boss needs to pause and have a cup, too. What do you do?”

“Personal Assistant,” Miss Potts said. “Pretty much whatever my boss says to do, all the way from taking notes at meetings to fetching his dry cleaning. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except they’re in the middle of a hostile takeover, and between angry dwarves and multiple on-site labor disputes, I’ve been putting in sixteen hours a day, six days a week, for almost a month.” She did look on the brink of falling over with exhaustion, her hands shaking.

“Yike,” Tony sympathized. “Is this his first hostile? I mean, someone with experience would have known to hire a temp for the duration or something.”

Up at the counter, Bucky was making two Money for Nothings, keeping up an easy patter with the customers about lottery tickets and checking their pockets. 

“He seems to think that I’m the only one who can keep this company going,” she muttered. She pulled a magical compact out of her purse and opened it. The compact spouted a few uplifting and cheerful advertising-disguised-as-pep-talk phrases, and then-- “damn.” The purple smoke drifted out of the back and pooled around their feet. “It got wet. I am going to complain to the weather guild about this.”

“Nah,” Tony said. “I mean, go ahead and do that, sure, but here, let me see--” He plucked the compact out of her hand and peered into it. It wasn’t very sophisticated tech, but it only took a little for Tony to be able to manipulate it. A locking clasp, a tiny speaker and some wires connected to a button battery for amplification, and boom, tech.

Tony balanced the little thing on the palm of his hand and let energy flow into his witchmarks, making them glow a bright blue. There were some who said it looked spooky, but Tony had always found the light comforting. He coaxed little wisps of magic up into the compact and swept out the water, reversing some corrosion and a little bit of normal wear-and-tear, and reinstalling the sprite software that had drifted loose.

He popped the lid open again.

“Oh, honey, that shirt with that jacket, really? We’ve got some work to do.”

Tony rolled his eyes at it and handed it back to Miss Potts. “Here you go, good as new.” Well, it might be a little bit sassier than it had been before. Semi-autonomous sprite technology seemed to do that whenever Tony put his hands on it. 

“How did you-- thank you,” Miss Potts said. “My name’s Pepper Potts, it’s nice to meet you.” She held out a hand for a professional shake, but when her fingertips touched Tony’s, he felt the brief surge of Empathic Magic. No wonder her boss wanted her on site all the time. Empaths could affect the moods and compliance of people around them with a simple touch.

“Tony Stark,” he said. He considered her briefly. “Want to quit your horrible job and come work for me?”

“Are you joking?”

The woman in front of Tony in line took so long deciding what pastry she wanted with her coffee, Tony was almost certain that her coffee was going to be cold by the time she actually took a sip. 

“Here,” Bucky said. “I got yours already, doll. And Miss Potts, I’ll have your life affirming moment ready in just two minutes.”

Bucky put a mug, rather than a to-go cup on the counter in front of Tony. The heart in the steamed milk on top was glittering red and gold at him.

Tony shot Bucky a warm smile and a thanks, and stepped aside with his mug so Pepper wouldn’t have to reach past him when Bucky finished hers. He turned the mug until the point of the heart was pointing straight at his chest -- sympathetic magics always worked better if you gave them a bit of a push -- and then tipped the froth into his mouth. Like it had the previous times he’d had Bucky’s Lucky in Love brew, everything felt extra-warm for a moment, and a little bit sparkly, and behind the counter, Bucky seemed glow, just the tiniest bit.

“I wasn’t joking,” he told Pepper, when he’d finished savoring that first sip. “My dad died a couple of years ago and failed to leave the business to me free and clear, and last year, almost on the anniversary of his death, his old business partner split the company and walked off with about two-thirds of the staff for his branch. I’ve been scrambling to keep up and looking for good people.”

Obie had done a little more than simply splitting the company, but the sob story wasn’t something Tony liked to wave around. Maybe, if she took him up on it, he’d tell her about it sometime.

Bucky, perhaps feeling something going on -- he seemed to have that sense -- put Pepper’s drink in a tall glass, complete with a bamboo recycled straw instead of in the to-go cup. “On the house,” he added, pushing an actual brownie-crafted brownie on a plate at her. “With a little extra daydreams.”

“I would live here,” Pepper repeated, taking a sip of the drink. “So, job. Details. Would you like to do an interview, I could do an interview. Right here. I even have my resume up to date.”

Tony glanced at the line behind the ordering counter, then shrugged. He wasn’t going anywhere soon. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s do that.” He pointed at a table.

It took barely a minute of scanning Pepper’s resume to know that she was vastly overqualified, and probably not getting paid anything like she was worth. She’d successfully negotiated a dozen contracts, as a personal assistant.

A little nudging and she didn’t quite admit to being sexually harassed by her boss, but Tony could sense that maybe that had happened, too.

When Bucky finally came out from behind the counter, leaving Clint to finish out his shift, Pepper was smiling, cheerful, and enthusiastic, and it probably wasn’t all entirely due to Bucky’s coffee.

“Hey, snowflake!” Tony greeted him cheerfully. “I’m going to steal Pepper from her obnoxious boss. I’d offer to pay her what she’s worth, but frankly, I’m not sure I can afford that, so I’ll have to settle for merely doubling her current salary.”

Bucky tapped the plate in front of her, where she’d eaten the entire brownie except for a few crumbs. “Opportunity Knocks brownie. Glad you enjoyed it.” He gave Pepper a wink. “But now, I am going to steal my boyfriend from you, since we have a date as soon as I’m off shift.”

Tony pulled just a little magic out of his phone and flipped it at Pepper’s. “That’s my number,” he told her. “I’ll call tomorrow, and we’re going to do this. Start writing your resignation letter. Hire some clowns to see you out. Or strippers. Stripper clowns?”

Bucky rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I know a clown dominatrix,” he volunteered. “She could always use extra work.”

“Perfect,” Tony declared. “Talk to you tomorrow, Pep!” He tucked his arm through Bucky’s and turned them toward the door.

Guess he could start calling Bucky his boyfriend, now. That was easier than he’d thought.

On the way through the door, Bucky offered his hand to the doorframe, cupping what looked like a thimbleful of honey and a tiny piece of bread. “Wood fairies,” he said. “She deserved a bonus after that trick with our Troll earlier.” He glanced up at the sky, which was still pouring rain, and the occasional spates of hail, in anger. “I don’t know if you had anything in mind, specifically, but there’s a traveling mystical petting zoo in the park. They probably have wind sprites to keep the weather off. I always wanted to see a unicorn up close.”

“I’m more of a wyvern man, myself,” Tony said, feeling the happy buzz of Bucky’s potion fizzing through him at Bucky’s closeness. “Yeah, let’s go to the zoo.” He held up the pink umbrella. “I can even keep us dry on the way, if you don’t mind walking close.”

[arcticdementor]

Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.

DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.

He argues that every word of it is a lie. American education isn't getting worse by absolute standards: students match or outperform their peers from 20 or 50 years ago. It's not getting worse by international standards: America's PISA rankings are mediocre, but the country has always scored near the bottom of international rankings, even back in the 50s and 60s when we were kicking Soviet ass and landing men on the moon. Race and gender gaps are stable or decreasing. American education is doing much as it's always done - about as well as possible, given the crushing poverty, single parent-families, violence, and racism holding back the kids it's charged with shepherding to adulthood.

…

For decades, politicians of both parties have thought of education as "the great leveller" and the key to solving poverty. If people are stuck in boring McJobs, it's because they're not well-educated enough to be surgeons and rocket scientists. Give them the education they need, and they can join the knowledge economy and rise into the upper-middle class. For lack of any better politically-palatable way to solve poverty, this has kind of become a totem: get better schools, and all those unemployed Appalachian coal miners can move to Silicon Valley and start tech companies. But you can't do that. Not everyone is intellectually capable of doing a high-paying knowledge economy job. Schools can change your intellectual potential a limited amount. Ending child hunger, removing lead from the environment, and similar humanitarian programs can do a little more, but only a little. In the end, a lot of people aren't going to make it.

So what can you do? DeBoer doesn't think there's an answer within the existing system. Instead, we need to dismantle meritocracy.

DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent. DeBoer agrees conservatives can be satisfied with this, but thinks leftists shouldn't be. Natural talent is just as unearned as class, race, or any other unfair advantage.

One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough education can solve any problem. But more fundamentally it's also the troubling belief that after we jettison unfair theories of superiority based on skin color, sex, and whatever else, we're finally left with what really determines your value as a human being - how smart you are. DeBoer recalls hearing an immigrant mother proudly describe her older kid's achievements in math, science, etc, "and then her younger son ran by, and she said, offhand, 'This one, he is maybe not so smart.'" DeBoer was originally shocked to hear someone describe her own son that way, then realized that he wouldn't have thought twice if she'd dismissed him as unathletic, or bad at music. Intelligence is considered such a basic measure of human worth that to dismiss someone as unintelligent seems like consigning them into the outer darkness. So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized by the insistence on genetic differences in intelligence - isn't this denying the equality of Man, declaring some people inherently superior to others? Only if you conflate intelligence with worth, which DeBoer argues our society does constantly. It starts with parents buying Baby Einstein tapes and trying to send their kids to the best preschool, continues through the "meat grinder" of the college admissions process when everyone knows that whoever gets into Harvard is better than whoever gets into State U, and continues when the meritocracy rewards the straight-A Harvard student with a high-paying powerful job and the high school dropout with drudgery or unemployment. Even the phrase "high school dropout" has an aura of personal failure about it, in a way totally absent from "kid who always lost at Little League".

DeBoer isn't convinced this is an honest mistake. He draws attention to a sort of meta-class-war - a war among class warriors over whether the true enemy is the top 1% (this is the majority position) or the top 20% (this is DeBoer's position; if you've read Staying Classy, you'll immediately recognize this disagreement as the same one that divided the Church and UR models of class). The 1% are the Buffetts and Bezoses of the world; the 20% are the "managerial" class of well-off urban professionals, bureaucrats, creative types, and other mandarins. Opposition to the 20% is usually right-coded; describe them as "woke coastal elites who dominate academia and the media", and the Trump campaign ad almost writes itself. But some Marxists flirt with it too; the book references Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's Theory Of The Aspirational Class, and you can hear echoes of this every time Twitter socialists criticize "Vox liberals" or something. Access to the 20% is gated by college degree, and their legitimizing myth is that their education makes them more qualified and humane than the rest of us. DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good serves their class interest; "equality of opportunity" means we should ignore all other human distinctions in favor of the one that our ruling class happens to excel at.

So maybe equality of opportunity is a stupid goal. DeBoer argues for equality of results. This is a pretty extreme demand, but he's a Marxist and he means what he says. He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth.

…

I'm Freddie's ideological enemy, which means I have to respect him. And there's a lot to like about this book. I think its two major theses - that intelligence is mostly innate, and that this is incompatible with equating it to human value - are true, important, and poorly appreciated by the general population. I tried to make a somewhat similar argument in my Parable Of The Talents, which DeBoer graciously quotes in his introduction. Some of the book's peripheral theses - that a lot of education science is based on fraud, that US schools are not declining in quality, etc - are also true, fascinating, and worth spreading. Overall, I think this book does more good than harm.

It's also rambling, self-contradictory in places, and contains a lot of arguments I think are misguided or bizarre.

…

At the time, I noted that meritocracy has nothing to do with this. The intuition behind meritocracy is: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The above does away with any notions of "desert", but I worry it's still accepting too many of DeBoer's assumptions. A better description might be: Your life depends on a difficult surgery. You can hire whatever surgeon you want to perform it. You are willing to pay more money for a surgeon who aced medical school than for a surgeon who failed it. So higher intelligence leads to more money.

This not only does away with "desert", but also with reified Society deciding who should prosper. More meritorious surgeons get richer not because "Society" has selected them to get rich as a reward for virtue, but because individuals pursuing their incentives prefer, all else equal, not to die of botched surgeries. Meritocracy isn't an -ocracy like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen.

…

I think DeBoer would argue he's not against improving schools. He just thinks all attempts to do it so far have been crooks and liars pillaging the commons, so much so that we need a moratorium on this kind of thing until we can figure out what's going on. But I'm worried that his arguments against existing school reform are in some cases kind of weak.

DeBoer does make things hard for himself by focusing on two of the most successful charter school experiments. If he'd been a little less honest, he could have passed over these and instead mentioned the many charter schools that fail, or just sort of plod onward doing about as well as public schools do. I think the closest thing to a consensus right now is that most charter schools do about the same as public schools for white/advantaged students, and slightly better than public schools for minority/disadvantaged students. But DeBoer very virtuously thinks it's important to confront his opponents' strongest cases, so these are the ones I'll focus on here.

…

These are good points, and I would accept them from anyone other than DeBoer, who will go on to say in a few chapters that the solution to our education issues is a Marxist revolution that overthrows capitalism and dispenses with the very concept of economic value. If he's willing to accept a massive overhaul of everything, that's failed every time it's tried, why not accept a much smaller overhaul-of-everything, that's succeeded at least once? There are plenty of billionaires willing to pour fortunes into reforming various cities - DeBoer will go on to criticize them as deluded do-gooders a few chapters later. If billions of dollars plus a serious commitment to ground-up reform are what we need, let's just spend billions of dollars and have a serious commitment to ground-up reform! If more hurricanes is what it takes to fix education, I'm willing to do my part by leaving my air conditioner on 'high' all the time.

…

DeBoer spends several impassioned sections explaining how opposed he is to scientific racism, and arguing that the belief that individual-level IQ differences are partly genetic doesn't imply a belief that group-level IQ differences are partly genetic. Some reviewers of this book are still suspicious, wondering if he might be hiding his real position. I can assure you he is not. Seriously, he talks about how much he hates belief in genetic group-level IQ differences about thirty times per page. Also, sometimes when I write posts about race, he sends me angry emails ranting about how much he hates that some people believe in genetic group-level IQ differences - totally private emails nobody else will ever see. I have no reason to doubt that his hatred of this is as deep as he claims.

But I understand why some reviewers aren't convinced. This book can't stop tripping over itself when it tries to discuss these topics. DeBoer grants X, he grants X -> Y, then goes on ten-page rants about how absolutely loathsome and abominable anyone who believes Y is.

Remember, one of the theses of this book is that individual differences in intelligence are mostly genetic. But DeBoer spends only a little time citing the studies that prove this is true. He (correctly) decides that most of his readers will object not on the scientific ground that they haven't seen enough studies, but on the moral ground that this seems to challenge the basic equality of humankind. He (correctly) points out that this is balderdash, that innate differences in intelligence don't imply differences in moral value, any more than innate differences in height or athletic ability or anything like that imply differences in moral value. His goal is not just to convince you about the science, but to convince you that you can believe the science and still be an okay person who respects everyone and wants them to be happy.

He could have written a chapter about race that reinforced this message. He could have reviewed studies about whether racial differences in intelligence are genetic or environmental, come to some conclusion or not, but emphasized that it doesn't matter, and even if it's 100% genetic it has no bearing at all on the need for racial equality and racial justice, that one race having a slightly higher IQ than another doesn't make them "superior" any more than Pygmies' genetic short stature makes them "inferior".

Instead he - well, I'm not really sure what he's doing. He starts by says racial differences must be environmental. Then he says that studies have shown that racial IQ gaps are not due to differences in income/poverty, because the gaps remain even after controlling for these. But, he says, there could be other environmental factors aside from poverty that cause racial IQ gaps. After tossing out some possibilities, he concludes that he doesn't really need to be able to identify a plausible mechanism, because "white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it's irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it", no matter how many studies we do or how many confounders we eliminate. His argument, as far as I can tell, is that it's always possible that racial IQ differences are environmental, therefore they must be environmental. Then he goes on to, at great length, denounce as loathsome and villainous anyone who might suspect these gaps of being genetic. Such people are "noxious", "bigoted", "ugly", "pseudoscientific" "bad people" who peddle "propaganda" to "advance their racist and sexist agenda". (But tell us what you really think!)

…

This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray's thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can't find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I'd be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I'm misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn't be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I've vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is "I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away". And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolveable biases on this question: one, I'm a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I'm far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.

…

That last sentence about the basic principle is the thesis of The Cult Of Smart, so it would have been a reasonable position for DeBoer to take too. DeBoer doesn't take it. He acknowledges the existence of expert scientists who believe the differences are genetic (he names Linda Gottfredson in particular), but only to condemn them as morally flawed for asserting this.

But this is exactly the worldview he is, at this very moment, trying to write a book arguing against! His thesis is that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among individuals, because that would make some people fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - but those voices are wrong, because differences in intelligence don't affect moral equality. Then he adds that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, because that would make some groups fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - and those voices are right; we must deny the differences lest we accept the morally repugnant thing.

Normally I would cut DeBoer some slack and assume this was some kind of Straussian manuever he needed to do to get the book published, or to prevent giving ammunition to bad people. But no, he has definitely believed this for years, consistently, even while being willing to offend basically anybody about basically anything else at any time. So I'm convinced this is his true belief. I'm just not sure how he squares it with the rest of his book.

…

"Smart" equivocates over two concepts - high-IQ and successful-at-formal-education. These concepts are related; in general, high-IQ people get better grades, graduate from better colleges, etc. But they're not exactly the same.

There is a cult of successful-at-formal-education. Society obsesses over how important formal education is, how it can do anything, how it's going to save the world. If you get gold stars on your homework, become the teacher's pet, earn good grades in high school, and get into an Ivy League, the world will love you for it.

But the opposite is true of high-IQ. Society obsessively denies that IQ can possibly matter. Admit to being a member of Mensa, and you'll get a fusillade of "IQ is just a number!" and "people who care about their IQ are just overcompensating for never succeeding at anything real!" and "IQ doesn't matter, what about emotional IQ or grit or whatever else, huh? Bet you didn't think of that!" Science writers and Psychology Today columnists vomit out a steady stream of bizarre attempts to deny the statistical validity of IQ.

These are two sides of the same phenomenon. Some people are smarter than others as adults, and the more you deny innate ability, the more weight you have to put on education. Society wants to put a lot of weight on formal education, and compensates by denying innate ability a lot. DeBoer is aware of this and his book argues against it adeptly.

Still, I worry that the title - The Cult Of Smart - might lead people to think there is a cult surrounding intelligence, when exactly the opposite is true. But I guess The Cult Of Successful At Formal Education sounds less snappy, so whatever.

…

I try to review books in an unbiased way, without letting myself succumb to fits of emotion. So be warned: I'm going to fail with this one. I am going to get angry and write whole sentences in capital letters. This is one of the most enraging passages I've ever read.

School is child prison. It's forcing kids to spend their childhood - a happy time! a time of natural curiosity and exploration and wonder - sitting in un-air-conditioned blocky buildings, cramped into identical desks, listening to someone drone on about the difference between alliteration and assonance, desperate to even be able to fidget but knowing that if they do their teacher will yell at them, and maybe they'll get a detention that extends their sentence even longer without parole. The anti-psychiatric-abuse community has invented the "Burrito Test" - if a place won't let you microwave a burrito without asking permission, it's an institution. Doesn't matter if the name is "Center For Flourishing" or whatever and the aides are social workers in street clothes instead of nurses in scrubs - if it doesn't pass the Burrito Test, it's an institution. There is no way school will let you microwave a burrito without permission. THEY WILL NOT EVEN LET YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR SOMETHING CALLED "THE BATHROOM PASS" IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE CLASS, AND IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, SHE CAN JUST SAY NO.

I don't like actual prisons, the ones for criminals, but I will say this for them - people keep them around because they honestly believe they prevent crime. If someone found proof-positive that prisons didn't prevent any crimes at all, but still suggested that we should keep sending people there, because it means we'd have "fewer middle-aged people on the streets" and "fewer adults forced to go home to empty apartments and houses", then MAYBE YOU WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT SENDING PEOPLE TO SCHOOL FOR THE SAME REASON.

I sometimes sit in on child psychiatrists' case conferences, and I want to scream at them. There's the kid who locks herself in the bathroom every morning so her parents can't drag her to child prison, and her parents stand outside the bathroom door to yell at her for hours until she finally gives in and goes, and everyone is trying to medicate her or figure out how to remove the bathroom locks, and THEY ARE SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM. There are all the kids who had bedwetting or awful depression or constant panic attacks, and then as soon as the coronavirus caused the child prisons to shut down the kids mysteriously became instantly better. I have heard stories of kids bullied to the point where it would be unfair not to call it torture, and the child prisons respond according to Procedures which look very good on paper and hit all the right We-Are-Taking-This-Seriously buzzwords but somehow never result in the kids not being tortured every day, and if the kids' parents were to stop bringing them to child prison every day to get tortured anew the cops would haul those parents to jail, and sometimes the only solution is the parents to switch them to the charter schools THAT FREDDIE DEBOER WANTS TO SHUT DOWN.

I see people on Twitter and Reddit post their stories from child prison, all of which they treat like it's perfectly normal. The district that wanted to save money, so it banned teachers from turning the heat above 50 degrees in the depths of winter. The district that decided running was an unsafe activity, and so any child who ran or jumped or played other-than-sedately during recess would get sent to detention - yeah, that's fine, let's just make all our children spent the first 18 years of their life somewhere they're not allowed to run, that'll be totally normal child development. You might object that they can run at home, but of course teachers assign three hours of homework a day despite ample evidence that homework does not help learning. Preventing children from having any free time, or the ability to do any of the things they want to do seems to just be an end in itself. Every single doctor and psychologist in the world has pointed out that children and teens naturally follow a different sleep pattern than adults, probably closer to 12 PM to 9 AM than the average adult's 10 - 7. Child prisons usually start around 7 or 8 AM, meaning any child who shows up on time is necessarily sleep-deprived in ways that probably harm their health and development.

School forces children to be confined in an uninhabitable environment, restrained from moving, and psychologically tortured in a state of profound sleep deprivation, under pain of imprisoning their parents if they refuse. The only possible justification for this is that it achieves some kind of vital social benefit like eliminating poverty. If it doesn't, you might as well replace it with something less traumatizing, like child labor. The kid will still have to spend eight hours of their day toiling in a terrible environment, but at least they’ll get some pocket money! At least their boss can't tell them to keep working off the clock under the guise of "homework"! I have worked as a medical resident, widely considered one of the most horrifying and abusive jobs it is possible to take in a First World country. I can say with absolute confidence that I would gladly do another four years of residency if the only alternative was another four years of high school.

If I have children, I hope to be able to homeschool them. But if I can't homeschool them, I am incredibly grateful that the option exists to send them to a charter school that might not have all of these problems. I'm not as impressed with Montessori schools as some of my friends are, but at least as far as I can tell they let kids wander around free-range, and don't make them use bathroom passes. DeBoer not only wants to keep the whole prison-cum-meat-grinder alive and running, even after having proven it has no utility, he also wants to shut the only possible escape my future children will ever get unless I'm rich enough to quit work and care for them full time.

When I try to keep a cooler head about all of this, I understand that Freddie DeBoer doesn't want this. He is not a fan of freezing-cold classrooms or sleep deprivation or bullying or bathroom passes. In fact, he will probably blame all of these on the "neoliberal reformers" (although I went to school before most of the neoliberal reforms started, and I saw it all). He will say that his own utopian schooling system has none of this stuff. In fact, he does say that. He sketches what a future Marxist school system might look like, and it looks pretty much like a Montessori school looks now. That just makes it really weird that he wants to shut down all the schools that resemble his ideal today (or make them only available to the wealthy) in favor of forcing kids into schools about as different from it as it's possible for anything to be.

I am so, so tired of socialists who admit that the current system is a helltopian torturescape, then argue that we must prevent anyone from ever being able to escape it. Who promise that once the last alternative is closed off, once the last nice green place where a few people manage to hold off the miseries of the world is crushed, why then the helltopian torturescape will become a lovely utopia full of rainbows and unicorns. If you can make your system less miserable, make your system less miserable! Do it before forcing everyone else to participate in it under pain of imprisonment if they refuse! Forcing everyone to participate in your system and then making your system something other than a meat-grinder that takes in happy children and spits out dead-eyed traumatized eighteen-year-olds who have written 10,000 pages on symbolism in To Kill A Mockingbird and had zero normal happy experiences - is doing things super, super backwards!

[rakessingh1]

Ph.D. Plagiarism Editing Service

One service that is increasing in popularity is that of Plagiarism Editing Service. Thesis and dissertation editing services are being outsourced by numerous companies across the country to save time and money. Many universities and colleges seek the services of such companies during the writing of an original thesis or dissertation. It is not unusual for a professor to spend several months writing a thesis that has been submitted to a school or university for review and eventually to have it approved for publication. With the advent of the internet and a growing requirement for online courses, the time taken to have a dissertation proofread and edited have become faster than ever before.

If your university or college demands the submission of a thesis to ascertain your originality, the chances are that the professor will require a copy of your thesis in order to verify your work. If you are required to submit a thesis then you will most likely receive an email with a link to a PDF file that needs to be downloaded. Once you have downloaded the file, you may also be asked to download a Word document that contains all the formatting instructions that are necessary to format the document for submission. Your thesis is basically copied word for word from the original paper that you have written, modified or copied verbatim. This means that the words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs have all been changed without your knowledge.

The best way to avoid being accused of plagiarism is to ensure that all changes are made at the end of the writing process. Most thesis writers and editing services have programs and software that can quickly detect plagiarized passages and offer correction services. The majority of these programs are capable of finding all types of plagiarized passages. The majority of these programs offer a simple solution to the problem. If the writing has been spiced up with statements or phrases that sound similar to another author's work then you can easily change these passages out so that they are totally unique.

In the age of software, there is no longer a need to hire a professional writer to proofread your writing. You can simply make sure that the changes to your written work are made directly after the writing has been completed. If you have any questions about how to make these changes then it would be advisable to talk to a plagiarism removal service. If you decide to do this on your own then you may become the prime target of a rewriting service or professor. Most of these services will warn you about entering false information, so you should keep this in mind.

Most professors and writers consider that the only people who should worry about plagiarism are students who plagiarize. However, if you have written a scholarly research paper then it is highly possible that your thesis paper could contain some elements of plagiarism. This will greatly affect your grade and may even cause you to lose your job. Having this type of issue solved quickly will ensure that you can focus on your career instead of having to worry about being fired from a job because you were found plagiarizing.

Many people think that the only way to get rid of plagiarism from a Ph.D. thesis is to have an expert rewrite the entire thing. Unfortunately, if you want a truly thorough solution then you will want to choose a rewriting company for this purpose. A good way to find a reputable company to help with your Ph.D. rewriting is to contact The Association of Independent Publishers. This organization will help you find the right professional to help you remove plagiarism from your Ph.D. thesis paper. These professionals will provide you with many different options to help you with your problem.

Many people feel that rewriting their Ph.D. thesis is a complete waste of time. They also feel that they cannot afford it since it would cost them much too much money. It is true that Ph.D. students can sometimes be forced to spend extra time learning what to avoid plagiarized sections in their dissertation when they are required to submit their thesis papers for consideration. However, it will still be worth it to hire a Ph.D. rewriting company to remove plagiarized sections from your thesis paper. They will provide you with different solutions including proofreading, editing, and providing fresh new content to make your paper look as if it was written by you.

The most important thing to remember when hiring a Ph.D. rewriting company is to choose one that has experience. Many of the smaller companies will not have a lot of experience or knowledge in dealing with plagiarism. As a result, it could take them more time to fix plagiarism errors than it would to get it done the first time around. Also, make sure that you ask plenty of questions before hiring the company. You should be able to get all of the answers that you need to know about the Ph.D. plagiarism editing service that you will be using. know more

[genuflectx]

Robot Butler/Reader CH 1

Ch 1 Length: 4,748 words

Full Story Length: 8,029 words

Main Kinks: Robots, risk of being seen/heard, public sex, creampie, fingering,

Other Warnings: Mentions of university, arguing with parents, former sex work,

1/30/2020: REPOST

(all images in aesthetic board are labeled for reuse with modification or are mine)

You took a bite of your chicken Marsala and cringed. It had been your mother's turn to make dinner, but she had never been a five star chef. You supposed she made up for that in her extensive mechanical skill sets. Where mother couldn't sauté, she could solder; where she couldn't bake, she could debug. And that was all well and good, but it did your family no favors at meal time, especially as you nearly choked. That was why, she declared, she and your father were going to be hiring someone else to do the cooking.

“You mean like... a personal chef?” asked your younger sister Lilly, on the brink of exploding with glee.

Mom smirked and tried to withhold her excitement. “A little more than that.”

“She means a new robot. That's what she means,” came your smug father.

Embarrassed, your mom's face reddened. Because she worked in a field that repaired damaged bots, she was greatly fond of them. Dad always teased her about her affinity with machines. Your three-story house already had two non-sentient cleaning bots, which sucked up dirt and debris on the floor. Mom had even named them: Debra and Deloris, the dust bunnies.

Your sibling was vibrating in her chair, eyes sparkling and grin ear-to-ear. It was obvious how she felt, but you were unsure. You were a college student, and felt that money was already spread far too thin to be hiring house staff willy-nilly, let alone one that needed a battery charge. The fact that your sister was to graduate high school in two years, before also heading to university, didn't help either.

You prudently let the fork rest, making no noise. “Can we afford a robot?”

At this, mom sat back and rose a brow. She wriggled a bit, as if smoothing a napkin in her lap. “Well. That's not the only announcement I have to make,” she glanced around the table, upping suspense. “I got a raise! An extra dollar an hour!” Then she added quickly, in a sing-song voice. “Plus he's discount, 'cause he's refurbished.”

“That's wonderful mom! But- he?” you squinted.

Lilly clapped softly. “A sentient robot!”

Through a full mouth, your dad nodded with a mumbled. “Eeeyup!”

The majority of household robots were considered non-thinkers, unable to form original thoughts or have emotions more complex than a slug. They were the robots in your phones, your appliances, the robots that could generate artwork or manufacturer small objects. You and Lilly had only interacted with free, complex-thought-driven robots a handful of times.

Sentient bots were more for the extremely rich, as typically only the rich could afford to hire and maintain them. They were stronger, more humanoid, and sometimes nearly indistinguishable from people. You loved bots, but you had to admit it. The idea of having a thinking one in your home frightened you just a little.

When time came for him to move in, you'd still been on the fence. You'd been expecting a thin, sharp-edged thing with a long, snooty face and cutting eyes. Instead, your mom led in a robot totally the opposite of the image of a butler.

He followed after her clumsily, turning sideways and ducking inside, and you could not help but see him as a sturdy Clydesdale trying to be somewhere he should not. He was in no way the delicate models designed to take up as little space as possible. Perhaps that is why your parents wanted to give him a chance, as who in their right mind would hire such a hulking thing to be their quiet, orderly butler? You found yourself blatantly staring.

You didn't think you'd ever seen a humanoid robot so big before. You wondered if his previous function had been in construction, or something equally as hefty. Everything about him was built for strength; with strong legs to move and strong arms to grasp.

He was tall and rotund. His shoulders were wide, not built for shimmying into the small door frames of your house. The arms were hard and stiff, perfect for lifting. Hands smooth and soft, square and flat, jointed together by middle mechanisms hidden in soft, flexible silicon. And his legs were thick and round, with built in shoes for feet.

The face was broad, with a strong brow line, and cheeks highlighted with sliced matte, the colors neon pink, yellow, green, and blue. There was no nose, ears, or lips. Instead there were five vertical slits in place of a mouth, where the speaker was located under the plates of his face. His eyes were big and just as neon as his cheeks, black pupils constantly dilated. Unlike the humanoid bots made now, he did not have a pseudo-skin scalp, and thus would need to wear wigs were he to want hair. Modernly, he was hairless, save for long, fake eyelashes. He was certainly a few years behind, as far as facial features went.

“And this is [Y/N], my apparently very quiet offspring. Can you say hi, [Y/N]?” Laughed your mom with good humor.

Lilly elbowed you in the side to grab your attention and you grunted, glaring at her. She smiled innocently as you craned your neck to answer.

“...Hi. Your name is?”

The bulky robot blinked his lavish eyelashes down at the two of you. “Designation: Ezra. I am enchanted.”

“Howdy enchanted, I'm Lilly! So, how much is mom paying you?”

Glare number two was shot her way, this time via your mom. Before she could scold her, your dad popped out of his study.

“Whoooops, forgot the robot was starting today. I wondered what all that hubbub was!”

You were increasingly embarrassed to be standing among these people who were, apparently, your family. As you and your parents showed Ezra around the house (Lilly tailing behind), you couldn't help but let your eyes wander.

Ezra wore a freshly ironed dark gray suit, with white underneath and a black tie. It was tailored perfectly, but looked humorous covering his wide shoulders. He was not a bot meant to wear clothes, but this get up was likely more appropriate for his new occupation. Nervous eyes snapped up when you realized you'd been checking out his butt.

He had his own room, which had previously been used for excessive storage. Now it was a carpeted resting room for him to recharge and enjoy his free time. It had a small book self, a comfortable loveseat, and a small television hooked into the wall. In one corner, near the loveseat, was an upright charging station with several thick, neatly organized chords. Sparse, but cozy.

He hadn't brought much to unpack; just a few books, a suitcase of professional clothing, and a small box full of extra parts for repairs, if job injury occurred.

Everyone left him to unpack in peace, but you were curious. You knocked at the door frame. “Knock knock! Just me, the 'very quiet offspring,'” you laughed.

Ezra's movements were jerky as he froze in the midst of setting down a book upon the self. “Yes? What may I help you with?”

You leaned against the frame, arms crossed and lips pursed. “Just wanted to say... welcome to the family, Ezra.”

He would smile if he had the means. “Thank you, I appreciate the warmth.”

After a moment of hesitation and a twirl of your hair, you shifted weight and went on. “I was wondering... mom said you were refurbished, right?”

He was keeping steady eye contact, hand still frozen inches from the bookshelf. “Yes, that's correct.”

“What did you used to be? You look like construction, or maybe someone who moves boxes,” you mused, head cocked and lips pursed.

Ezra finally set the book down and turned his body fully towards you. He was surprised by the question. His bright, ringed eyes stared forward, unblinking. “...Your mother hasn't told you?”

You shook your head.

Immediately, like ripping off a band-aid, he replied. “I was a sex worker.”

You stared, blank. He stared, blank. Really, it was terribly awkward. You felt blood rise to your skin and heat radiate from it in turn. A slight sense of panic set in.

“Oh. Okay. Well... goodnight!”

You shut his door and rushed, as quietly as possible, to your own room. You didn't even know why you felt so embarrassed, but you did. As you leaned back against your door, you realized that you'd perhaps been rude to pry. No need to drag up the past if he wanted to avoid it- not that he gave any indication one way or the other.

On the other hand... were you overreacting? It was just one little question, and he hadn't seemed bothered. Maybe you were just embarrassed about it because now you were thinking about him bending someone over and- you slumped to the floor. Holy shit. You just met him a few hours ago! Weren't you supposed to be nervous around sentient robots? But how could you be with those curves, and those eyelashes, and all those bright colors and, you sighed.

Clammy hands drug down your damp face. Deciding you needed to get your mind off of things, you settled in bed and pushed the thoughts away with a cute movie about dogs. After, you went promptly to sleep.

The next day Ezra got to work. Your parents left him a list of things to do, but told him not to fret about finishing them all since it was his first day. And, with Lilly locked in her room with her video games, you were the one who had to keep the robot in line. For example, if he needed to find a specific soap, or if he needed to know where certain dishes went, you were there to inform him. Luckily since it was summer, you or Lilly would always be around to help him adjust.

You idly watched some streaming while he tidied the living room around you. He was interesting. Very quiet; Ezra tended to do his work silently. He dusted the top of a high shelf with ease, not even needing to stand on tippy-toes to reach. You watched from the corner of your eye, secretly admiring the dip in his back and his tall stature.

He was the thickest sex bot you'd ever seen. As the thought unwillingly slipped into mind, you snapped your eyes back to the tablet screen in bashfulness. It was wrong of you to feel so attracted to someone who was obviously finished with that line of work. No doubt, he was made this way on purpose. Every straight edge, every curve, every flashy color had to be decided upon by a human. So perhaps even if you did feel some guilt, it was only natural to be at least a little attracted to him. It meant the designers did their job right.

Suddenly his pink-tinged frame was in front of you, and you jumped.

“I've finished the dusting. What's next on the list?”

You squinted at the paper in hand. “Mmm. Laundry. Know where the washer is?”

He nodded, and left the room without another word. After a few moments, he came tromping back up to you, a drooping pile of clothes in hand.

“Are these in need of washing?”

That was the pile of dirty clothes you'd had in a corner of your bedroom. A piece loosened as he adjusted, falling to the floor with a gentle whoosh. He squatted to pick it back up, and you blushed when you realized it was panties. You tried not to look embarrassed.

“Oh, yeah... Those are dirty.”

He noted your stare, and then he was gone again.

Ezra had actually been able to complete all the tasks on the list by the time your parents had come home. He'd even begun cooking a solid hour before hand. They were impressed with his ambition and praised him to high Heaven, giving all smiles.

As everyone doted on his cooking skills, your mom asked. “So, how did you feel your first day went Ezra? Did the kids give you Hell?” she joked, referring to you and your younger sister.

He was sitting at the table, though he didn't eat. Your mom had insisted. “Very well, mam. [Y/N] was a great help to me.”

“Were they now?” your dad's brow rose.

“I just read from the list, that's all,” you shrugged. “If you could call that a help.”

The robot continued. “Yes, and it sped up completion by exactly five minutes. Dinner would have been a little late, otherwise.” Sounding very genuine, he punctuated softly with “Thank you.”

You leaned on your hand and smirked, feeling fuzzy. It made you feel silly to be so happy that he'd openly appreciate you in front of your family, but that was how you felt. It was nice. You twirled the fork in your pasta, then nibbled quietly.

“What about me?” groused Lilly.

Like an expert salesman, he soothed her irritation. “You kept to yourself, which gave me much room to work. Thank you too, Lilly.”

She nodded and continued to eat sloppily, appeased.

After dinner you offered to help Ezra clean up. He'd rejected the idea at first, considering this was what he was being paid for. But you suggested he could take up cleaning the kitchen, and you would take the dining room. He reluctantly allowed this.

As you wiped off the table, removing any trace of being eaten on, he side stepped behind you a little too close. His pelvis gently brushed against your rear. You squeaked and your face went red.

“Is something the matter?” He asked innocently, stopping in his tracks.

Unable to face him, you shook your head no. “I just- I thought I saw a mouse! That's all.”

He hummed beside you, leaning with one palm flat to the clean table's surface. “I see. Then I shall put 'mouse traps' down on the grocery list.”

You swallowed and nodded, scolding your body inwardly. Ezra seemed satisfied, slowly sliding his hand off the table and walking to the kitchen with half the dishes. He returned soon to get the rest, leaning over you to gingerly grab them. He could have walked around, but no. At the very least he was tall enough to do this without pressing against your back.

“What are you doing?” you stammered, twisting around to glance up at him nervously.

He stacked the plates in one hand. “Getting the dishes. [Y/N], if I may... you've looked like you've been burning up all day.” The back of his hand felt your forehead, then your cheek. “Shall I fetch a thermometer?”

You were too stunned to speak, your poor body reacting from the close quarters and his gentle touch. The silicone of his hands were warm. For a moment you stared up at him, brows furrowed and floundering for words. It didn't help that you were pretty much being forced to press against the table to keep the distance. But would it be so bad if the distance closed?

Your throat found words on its own, without your brain. You turned back around, slumping somewhat with hands to the table, tense. “N-n-no, not necessary, I'm fine!”

He processed your reaction. The plates were set down fastidiously, so as not to clink. Then he placed a palm to your back, in the location of your heart. You tensed in further, breath nearly stopping as he went on.

“Are you certain? Your heart rate has picked up significantly, as well,” he said smoothly.

Deep breath. You let it go shakily. “...You know what you're doing, don't you?” you asked, barely above a whisper.

He chuckled.

You let that response sink in. Of course he knew, he'd been in a line of work that required him to comprehensively understand human physical reactions.

“I'm sorry. I'm embarrassed.”

His hand slid down a few inches, towards your side. You shivered involuntarily and dropped your head, ashamed of yourself.

Ezra chuckled again. “That's alright. Did you want this?”

You took another breath, glad he could not see how your face and ears and hands were burning. You gave a nod and arched, ass bumping against his body. With that confirmation to yourself, you could feel the blood rushing low.

“Did you want this?” you parroted back, unsure. Worry gnawed at you.

He hummed, bringing hands to lightly grasp your hips. He enjoyed the way his fingers wrapped around your body. With a slight buck, grinding against your ass, he replied. “You're very interesting.”

“Ha. That's what I've been thinking about you. Funny. U-um, we should go upstairs.”

“Why?”

You peeked over your shoulder to give him a pointed look. “Cause someone could walk in?”

He ground against you harder, using the grip on your hips. You couldn't help but bite your lip and breathe hard, already getting worked up. Suddenly he was pushing a palm against your shoulder, forcing your elbows to buckle and your head to lower against the table. You grumbled, and struggled a bit. The hand didn't budge.

“Come on, I don't want my parents to see!” then you shuddered with disgust. “Or Lilly. Eugh.”

“Be still. They won't.”

You sighed, but found yourself complying. Something about the depravity of the situation was riling you up, and you could feel the dampness of your panties growing every time he spoke.

“Ju-just... try and be quiet,” you pleaded.

He nodded, lifting the hand that had been pinning you. Gray butler's pants were unfastened, and then feet were nudging yours apart. You pressed your forehead to the table, arms wrapped around your head to hide yourself away. But when something thick rubbed up between your still covered legs you jolted. Lifting from the table and glancing under yourself, you could vaguely make out the round tip of his dick.

“Oh,” you breathed, excited but a little nervous. “You're big... and pretty. It's a rainbow, like your cheeks!”

“And my arms. And my legs. I must show you my body, sometime.”

The implications burned you up. He was pulling down your shorts and panties with care, now. Spreading your cheeks and nudging your legs apart even further, he hummed with satisfaction.

“Beautiful,” his flat fingers went to your already sticky folds. “Wet.”

You shoved your head back into your arms and wiggled. “We don't have time for foreplay, someone could walk in at any minute Ezra! Just... put it in already. Please,” you sounded desperate.

That wasn't something he was used to hearing. Ezra was rather fond of foreplay, and was worried you would hurt with the girth of his tip. After all, the head of his dick was much wider than the base, and it was covered in symmetrically placed bumps. Without enough foreplay, it may be difficult to squeeze it all inside. But he also aimed to please, and would obey up until you started gritting teeth.

He rubbed his smooth cock through your folds a few times, enjoying the warmth and softness. You were obviously embarrassed as Hell, but he could tell you needed it so badly. The tip pressed against your entrance, then let up, then pressed again. He was trying to be easy.

You moved back the next time he inched forward. The tip stretched and burned as it slipped just barely inside, and you gasped.

“Are you alright?” he asked, soothing with a slow swipe across your lower back.

“...Just give me a minute.”

After a rest, he was slowly, slowly, enveloping himself in you. As expected it was taking some time, you just weren't used to the width or the knots. But oh, you were determined. If you were going to lean over the dining room table, risking being caught fucking the new robot butler, then by God you were going to finish getting fucked. Assuming he would ever hilt at all. The bumps were the hardest parts to slip inside.

When he finally did hilt you were ecstatic. It felt swollen and twitched inside of you, barely able to fit. But you were just so full. So amazingly, painfully full. You'd never felt so filled up in your entire life. No greasy college kid could ever compare to this, and you got the feeling there would be no coming back from it.

“May I?”

“God yes,” you whispered.

He rotated his hips, only pulling out a few inches. The girth made you grit your teeth and hiss, your body staying deathly still. In turn Ezra leaned over your back, his arm wriggling under your belly and smoothing over your clit. His weight against your skin was electrifying.

He rubbed you off while grinding into you at a slow pace. If he were human, you were sure he'd have already become erratic with the inability to multi-task. But he kept it up perfectly. You muffled a sigh with your arm. The budding pleasure helped your muscles relax, easing the removal of his cock.

Ezra slowly pulled out in one gentle stroke, and plunged in just as quickly. He began to rock methodically. You bit your arm to keep from making any noise, drool oozed down your skin.

“So tight,” he whispered, pressing the flat pads of his fingers against your clit a little harder.

You hummed quietly in approval. Suddenly you wondered something in the back of your mind. Could he feel pleasure, too? Or was he doing this simply because he still had it programed in his coding? Releasing teeth from sore arm, you asked. “Does it feel good?”

“Yes,” he breathed, shoving in particularity hard.

You squeaked and slapped a hand to your mouth. Ezra laughed dryly and swirled his fingers before violently thrusting. Your ass smacked and clapped loudly against his pelvis, filling the room with the sounds of sex. You nearly had to suffocate yourself in your arms to keep from involuntarily moaning from the sudden, intense sensations. To make matters worse, the stacked plates at your side clattered and clinked noisily. Just as quick as he began, he slowed again.

You caught your breath, legs shaking. “Don't do that! That was so loud!”

The robot nodded. Coyly, he decided to jerk you off intensely instead. You became a gasping, shivering mess bent across the table. He listened to the beautiful sound of your heart racing, felt the way you began to sweat and buck. As you started to come around his rainbow cock he stopped fucking you, just letting you whisper harshly into your arms with the pleasure.

“Mmm. So nice,” he praised as you twitched.

You came down from the high and panted as quietly as possible. Ezra had stood back up, stroking your back sweetly with affection. He slowly removed himself from your tight wet walls, strings of slick connecting the two of you.

“What are you doing?” you asked, still rather breathless.

“You have finished.”

Looking back over your shoulder, you rose a brow and pursed your lips. “You haven't, though.”

“Correct.”

When he didn't say anything more, instead staring at you with confusion, you continued. “Don't you want to cum?”

He titled his head and blinked those long, pretty eyelashes. “Typically sex is for the enjoyment of the customer.”

You straightened and turned to face him, shorts and panties around your ankles. “I'm not a customer, and you're no longer in sex work.”

This seemed to confuse him further. “But you are my employer.”

“Listen,” you bit your lip, thinking a second. “You can feel pleasure, can't you?”

He nodded.

“And you can cum?”

He nodded again.

With a slight jump you settled your ass against the dining room table (sorry mom and dad) then leaned back against your arms, legs spread. “Then fuck me, Ezra.”

His cock leaped, and you couldn't help but notice the slight temperature rise from the space between skin and metal. “Yes,” he agreed, voice cracking.

His hands grasped the fatty part of your thighs and pushed them away even further, putting your dripping pussy more in the limelight. You should have been much more bashful at that. But after he made you orgasm so well, and after treating you so sweetly, you just wanted him to have his own fun. Poor bot probably had blue balls! Besides that... sex working robots couldn't get you pregnant, and you had never been cum inside before. The thought thrilled you.

You watched him line the tip of his round shaft up with your hole again eagerly. He was nearly shaking. Hot air was fanned out of his body as it pushed inside for a second time, slowly settling in. It slipped inside much easier this time around. You sighed, loving the fill.

“There you go,” you whispered, sliding so you were on your back and he could hold your lower body up.

He fucked you moderately, but rhythmically like a metronome, head tilted back and eyes closed. Your warm pussy was so amazingly small around his soft silicone cock. The suction was nearly unbearable. Almost no one let him fuck them to his completion during his time with sex work, outside of those who got off to sucking his thick robot dick.

Ezra pressed your feet together and set them against one shoulder, further compressing your walls against him. He groaned quietly, the first time you'd heard him give any verbal indication of pleasure.

“Where shall I cum?” He asked politely.

You gently felt yourself up and smirked naughtily. “Inside of me, Ezra. Just let go.”

“Ahhh,” sighed the robot quietly, his movements becoming small. Soon he was pushing your legs back, lifting your ass from the table, and hilting himself deeply into your folds.

You squished yourself against him the best you could to be helpful. Ezra's legs rattled as he fought to keep upright, the load he'd suppressed for months pumping generously into you at a lovely angle. As his wide legs slowly regained their stability, you noticed the hour hand upon the clock. It hung there mockingly; the only eye that had witnessed your copulation.

“It's late,” you whispered, with Ezra still holding your ankles against his shoulder and his dick pulsating inside, as if organic.

Finally, the colorful rings of his eyes were visible again. He stared down at the place where your bodies connected, happy and fulfilled.

“Did you hear me?”

Dark pupils shifted up to yours. “Yes. I apologize. Here,” he answered quietly, slipping his dick out.

Faux-cum dribbled onto the table. He helped you off like a gentleman and hastily refastened his wrinkled pants. The two of you just stood there, tense. Ezra suddenly became shy and glanced off to the side, his hands hidden behind his back.

Still shorts-less, You half-smiled and stood onto your tiptoes, where you pressed a soft kiss to the side of his pink chin.

Ezra expelled hot air, and wished he could smile back. “I will finish the dishes and wipe the table, now. You should sleep. Eight hours is generally the amount humans need.”

You nodded while clumsily shimmying your underwear and shorts back on over exposed hips. Yanked on them a bit when accidentally giving yourself a wedgie. There was still cum inside of you, and the wetness from your lovemaking was rather uncomfortable.

“I'll clean myself up, then phew-” you slumped. “I think I'm gonna pass out. Think anyone heard?”

He turned his head slightly, as if listening. A few second went by. “No. I don't hear anybody nearby. We are safe.”

A sigh of relief. “Then I'll... see you in the morning, Ezra,” you pat him on the chest gingerly.

He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but eventually lowered his head and straightened his back. “Yes. Sleep well [Y/N]. I will be here,” he picked up the stack of plates automatically.

With one last look, you padded silently out the door. A sweep of the room revealed dark emptiness; Ezra was right, no one had been around to hear. Thank goodness. So you crept on through, up the stairs, and to the bathroom for clean up. Then, once you were satisfied with the job, crawled languidly under the covers and had the best sleep of your life.

[humanemotionssuck]

Hello 2021

January 2, 2021

I should’ve put these thoughts into words on the first day of the year but then again, I felt so lazy given this bed weather we are currently having. By far, I think I experienced the coldest temperature here in my hometown (21 degrees baby) and I’m sure not liking it as I prefer warm days.

I actually do not know how to start. I feel it’s necessary to check on how I am doing lately. Write the things I experienced last year and reflect on the lessons it taught me.

I could probably kick things off by remembering how 2020 started for me. I have a bad memory but I’ll try my best to recall them.

January

Broke up with J (yes this is probably one of the major and heartbreaking events happened to me). To sum it up, I realized that the relationship does not have growth anymore, and I am slowly drifting to follow my own path, which is to focus on the plans I want. I haven’t thought deeply the lessons I learned in my past relationship yet but one thing is for sure, I changed and I want to explore more of what I can do or what I’m missing out in life. Which brings me to attend seminars on how to work/study abroad. I attended a couple (e.g Fortrust Makati) and I also realized how costly it will be and I’m probably not yet ready esp. on the financial aspect.

February – March

Highlight on these months was I got back to dating apps again. I know it was a complete dick move. I haven’t moved on yet and here I am in the pool again. I met 2 guys from this app, Coffee Meets Bagel (which btw I uninstalled few months after). The first guy was the introvert but funny type and also VERY sexual. I got along with it, tried to do the deed but failed cause the guy hasn’t moved on from the ex yet. (Sucks right). And so I met this second guy and he is decent but we really had completely different personality. I believe this guy is also rich (he came from a Chinese family and I went to his house and saw the maid and his stuff). Can you also believe he already introduced me to his mom (no dad cause broken family), uncle and grandma. Pressured si ate gurl syempre cause it was really too early to do that step since we’re just dating but March was the most difficult month because…

START OF LOCKDOWN. PH was in state of panic after the government announced a nationwide lockdown due to increased COVID-19 transmission. I immediately went on a bus to the province fearing to get stuck in Manila.

April

Nah this was just a typical month. Summer vibes all over but since we cannot go to the beach we just setup an inflatable pool in the house to get soaked. I finally posted a pic wearing a swimsuit again. My stagnant IG feed came to life lmao

May

Oh boy. This month sucks so much. I got typhoid fever. Which I thought was COVID already cause my fever just won’t stop. My mom didn’t want me to get admitted in the hospital in the fear of being infected so I was hooked in the IV here in the house. I felt I was dying. I was in huge pain both physically and mentally. Which forced me to end any communication means with the second guy. He was not there when I was sick. I didn’t feel his concern even if we’re miles apart and I felt I was begging for his attention. It just won’t work. He blocked me in his socials (which is a first for me, usually I am the one who blocks lol) but given the current state I have now, I learned to accept it and chose to move forward.

June

Explored options on work/study program abroad. We got a new car (Xpander) which my father was able to purchase after borrowing money from us. That money could’ve been used for my Japan trip on December (plot twist it was cancelled due to fucking corona) but it’s okay I guess I’ll save another again.

I also got my student permit (yes I learned how to drive months after hehe)

July

THIS WAS MY BIGGEST DOWNFALL FOR THIS YEAR. There were some modifications in the quarantine and so my employer required and FORCED us to report on site in Makati despite of high number of positive cases. All I can say is SCREW THEM and I hope karma will do its thing on their business. The management.. the bosses.. they are all inconsiderate fucks for not allowing me to work at home instead. The situation forced me to resign but they chose to terminate me instead. The unemployment took its toll on my mental health, it caused me great depression and anxiety which forced me to look for distractions.. anything that will ease my mind.

Oh and btw, I bought my first laptop from hard earned money. Oh boy, it was satisfying to give myself the things my parents couldn’t afford that time I was still in school. It’s a gaming laptop and the one I’m using to type now. I absolutely love it and I used it to find online jobs later on..

I read Looking for Alaska by John Green again after watching the TV series on Hulu. Geez, this has to be my favorite book so far. The seeking of great perhaps.. which was very timely on my mood while having nothing else to do.

Lastly, TAYLOR SWIFT RELEASED A NEW ALBUM CALLED FOLKLORE. In the middle pandemic? Awesome right and this album kept me sane during this crazy and miserable month. Oh and on December, she released folklore’s sister album.. Evermore. Miss Swift saved me again with her music. This will definitely be one of the albums I will play when I’m old and gray knitting sweaters and wearing cardigan.

August

I started and finished my driving lesson in manual. JFC, I realized driving gives me a huge anxiety. One thing is for sure, I will prefer to drive automatic. Not driving that shit again.

I was still hooked with Looking for Alaska. Also purchased Subtle Art of not Giving a F*ck on the time I bought LFA.

On the other hand, I was also actively looking for new jobs this time.

September

ON SEPT. 30 I GOT HIRED! I was super happy to start on a new job. It gave me hope once again to continue on this journey called life. After almost 3 months, we are def back to business!

I also got the chance to get this Thyroid issue checked. Unfortunately, there was no major stuff going on with my thyroid. Basically, I’m perfectly healthy. What sucks is that the doctor invalidated my previous condition and said I only have ~anxiety which is the cause of my symptoms (excessive sweating and palpitations). I will seek professional help on this anxiety stuff anytime in the future.

Lastly, I played Grand Chase again and met someone in the game. Well technically we haven’t met yet but since then, I got used to talking with this guy and he is part of my daily routine now. I won’t spoil much details but as soon as this is all over, I can’t wait to meet this person :)

*cue Grand Chase soundtrack*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoK0bAjsHoo

October

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEE! It was a typical birthday. I don’t have much realizations. If I had one, I need to think thoroughly again lol.

Busy with training on the new job and this has been the most challenging training I ever had since I started working.

NOVEMBER

WORK WORK WORK. Super stressed and my anxiety was on the roof. I thought of giving up already but then again it was too early to quit. I haven’t seen my full potential on this job yet and so I chose to keep on fighting.

I also finally got braces. Let’s get these smiles fixed.

December

WORK WORK WORK AGAIN. My work caused me a huge anxiety cause I was given high priority cases -.-But overall, I can say the holidays went great. I finally got to spend time with the family outside. Don’t worry cause we still practiced precautions and I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go out once in a while to have some fresh air. We went to the beach and pretty much that’s the highlight of this month.

Things are getting serious with this guy I’m talking about.. Seriously, he makes me happy every single day.

I also won in Christmas raffle. Oppo phone. (I have the odds in my favor when it comes to raffles lol)

Feels weird to celebrate this holiday too thinking a lot of hardships were experienced in the last few months of quarantine. I was thinking about all the lives lost by covid and hoping they are in the peaceful place now..

JANUARY (NOW)

After everything that happened, oddly the start of the year gives me a sense of hope. Sure I am still carrying the trauma 2020 gave me but I am slowly leaving all of them behind. I want a fresh start and I want to let go of the things that gave me pain. I don’t have solid resolutions just like in my teenage years. Guess I’m too old for that. Not saying it’s okay to not have plans for the future and just go with the flow but I promise to not be too hard on myself and to not pressure myself on the goals I haven’t achieved yet. It’s really a struggle to plan things ahead given the situation but as always, I will do my best. I will stop comparing my progress to somebody else’s cause everyone has their own timeline.

I will listen to my heart and my mind to determine the things I really want. I promise to reevaluate the decisions I am making each day. I will not be afraid of making mistakes because that’s how I learn.

I am embracing my anxiety of uncertainty. It’s okay to feel afraid because I am always trying on how to overcome my fear. I strive each day because I am more than just a ball of anxiety. The palpitations.. the sweating.. they don’t define me. I have the power to control them and they won’t stop me from being the better version of myself.