#-ray's community service thing and probably bonding over it

[dreamedofyou]

Me watching the scene where Ray asked Sand to join him for his community service:

[nad-zeta]

ikevamp please~?\ (•◡•) /

i realised i never requested an actual ikevamp match-up, so imma throw this in here if you don’t mind, please and thank you~.

heterosexual gemini female, isfp, slytherin & chaotic neutral. my style is edgy, but leaning towards casual, too. i like interesting details and aesthetics!

many people say that my initial vibe is pretty intimidating, or at least reserved and mysterious. though, around my friends i am more relaxed and chill, and love to laugh and crack jokes! i also tease a lot~.

but i am, in fact, a reserved person — it takes me a lot of time to open up about my honest feelings and to trust someone. that makes me quite a hermit; i’m on good or neutral terms with many people, but i have just a handful of friends i consider close.

i can be lazy and uninterested, but when something piques my interest or when i’m challenged, i can be a very, very stubborn one! i’m opinionated, but i always try to see a bigger picture and imagine the story from different angles — in that way, i consider myself a very realistic person. i used to be more confrontational in the past, and these days i’m more passive. i try to be tolerant, but i can also get annoyed and irritated easily. i am a ‘forgive but don’t forget’ type of person.

i’m extremely curious and have wide palette of interests, some of which are medicine, botany, arts, astronomy, astrology, and such. i love to explore and learn, and i like activities like hiking. spiritual topics are also my thing, and i simply love to think and wonder. i may like to bake, but the domestic jobs in general aren’t my jam. i also get bored very easily!

i like to be helpful, and my self-worth is defined by being useful or making other smile, so i like giving gifts to my friends, even if it’s just buying them their favourite chocolate bar or so. that ‘giving’ trait of mine is not quite well known, though, and i suppose that it is because of my initial personality that people consider me rather selfish and self-centred instead.

my love language is definitely physical touch, along with giving gifts or acts of service. i’m pretty much touch starved — i will kiss, hug, even bite someone shamelessly and out of endearment ( i can be the tough love kind ). i can also have a bit darker tendencies, but generally i simply crave intimacy. in those terms, i’m more of a 'actions speak louder than words’ person, as i find it embarrassing and shallow to say 'i love you’ often or too soon. i will be poetically affectionate, though.

i do not act affectionate in front of people, though, so if you ask most of my classmates, you’ll probably hear about how they think that i must despise anything to do with contact and lovey stuff.

in terms of romantic interests and relationships, i’m someone who appreciates communication, trust and intellectual bond along with the physical one. i’m also not a fan of people who are uncertain in terms of their feelings or are unstable or unreliable as partners.

Hi hi, dear! Thank you so much for the request! ❤❤🌻Sorry for taking sooooooo long with this!😳❤ I hope you enjoy this love and I hope you have the best day!😊🔥 Hehe TBH I was between 2 of the vampy bios, but then I finally made up my mind and decided on…… 

So I match you with……..Vincent

The first time this angel sees you, he took an instant liking to you, he could see past that cold, intimidating exterior of yours and straight into the depths of your soul and boy did he want to befriend you. He was the first one to break the ice among the men to introduce himself to you. You were super reserved, so you didn’t say very much that first night with all the vampy bois. When you had left to retire for the night, Theo couldn’t help but loudly state what everyone was thinking, and that was that you were crazy intimidating. Vincent stared up at his brother confused he definitely didn’t get any intimidating vibes from you, if anything he found himself drawn to your mysterious reserved vibe.

The next morning you made your way to the dining room to help with breakfast. You loved to bake, so when Sabastian tasked you with making the van Gogh’s pancakes you were over the moon. You made a hefty stack of pancakes placed it down in front of the two Dutch brothers. They eagerly loaded up their plated munching down on the stack, to say Vincent was in love would be an understatement. Those were truly the best pancakes he had ever eaten in his whole life. The blond man stuffed his face with the light and airy pancakes. He low key looked like a cute chipmunk with the way he eagerly chomped down every last pancake on his plate. You sat down beside them and smiled at a job well down. Once the stack vanished, Vincent beamed his sunshine smile at you and asked if you would make him pancakes again sometime, cause they were honestly just so good. Even Theo chimed in giving you a compliment in his own way.

You helped Sabastian out with the housework, but honestly, you were getting bored you never really liked doing too many domestic work type tasks. As you cleaned,  you wandered into a bright room filled to the brim with painting and art supplies. You couldn’t help but marvel at the gorgeous painting hung on the wall. It was just filled with so much emotion and seemed to come, alive telling a story of wonder and hidden beauty. You were awakened out of your reverie by a soft voice, “are you also a fellow lover of the arts.” You gave Vincent a small smile and nod. Vincent then told you that he was on his way with Napoleon to give an Art class to his students and invited you along with him.

You spent the afternoon with Vincent painting and honestly having the best time with the children. It wasn’t an art class as much as a fun time painting and letting your imagination flow onto the canvas. 

You honestly loved helping out at this little makeshift school that Napoleon had started. Since that first day, you had been going with Vincent more and more, to help out and teach the children some cool new skills. You loved helping people and making them happy, and to say that the children loved you would be an understatement. They loved coming to you for help with their work, and would always thank you and give you the biggest hug whenever they finally manage to grasp the concept that they had been struggling to understand. Honestly you loved to make people happy and teaching at this street school was way better than doing housework so it was honestly a win win. Plus you got to spend even more time with Vincent which was always filled with smiles and laughter.

Often after teaching the children, you and Vincent would wander around the streets of Paris just taking in the sights. The two of you actually bonded over your mutual love for aesthetics and whenever the two of you would come across and art exhibition, you wouldn't hesitate to enter. The two of you would spend hours looking at the beautiful pieces, appreciating all the interesting details and emotions the artist managed to convey into the art together. You loved spending time with the ray of sunshine, and you couldn’t help but show your true personality with him. As the two of you would wander around town, you found yourself opening up more and more to Vincent and letting him in. 

You felt like you could be yourself with him and Vincent absolutely adored you. He loved the jokes you would crack as the two of you would walk around. He found them hilarious, and whenever the two of you were together, Vincent would always be left in a fit of laughter from some or other the joke that you would crack. 

Vincent, of course, is used to being teased by Theo, so it is definitely not uncommon for the angel to tease you a little in return as well. Whenever the two of you are together, the room is always filled with smiles and laughter. It has even gotten to that point where you and the angel have inside jokes and whenever someone in the mansion does or says something, both of you lock eyes and burst out laughing

Vincent loved it when you would help him and Theo set up art exhibitions. Not that you complained you loved being helpful and honestly you would do anything the help Vincent, especially if it meant getting to see that radiant smile of his. The more Vincent spent time with you to more utterly and entirely in love, he fell with you. 

He loved that you would occasionally give him small, thoughtful little gifts. Every-time, you presented him with a tiny hand made gift his heart melted into a puddle of goo. Of course, don’t think that Vincent has forgotten about you, as often this angel surprises you with tiny trinkets of his own. You seem to have occupied this sweet angels mind, so he cant help but buy you small little gifts that he sees in the shop windows, especially if they remind him of you. He would legit go to the ends of the earth and back just to see that excited glimmer in your eyes whenever he gives you the smallest of gifts. One of you favorite gifts so far was when he presented you with a single flower of your favorite flower, with a small ribbon and note wrapped around its stem to read, “a flower to remind you of how wonderful you are.” 

Since finding out that you have in interest in astronomy and astrology, he actually had Isaac make you your very own telescope. He loves to listen to you go on for hours and hours, explaining the difference between the two and teaching him everything you know about astrology and astronomy. He finds it incredibly fascinating. Since learning that you seem to love the night sky, it is not uncommon for him to lead you out into the garden to an awaiting blanket spread out on the floor, so the two of you can stargaze together. He will definitely in these moments ask you more about astronomy as you watch the glimmering universe above you.

You and Vincent love love love to hike and explore different places together. Its always super fun to explore and find a new beautiful scenery to paint and appreciate. Recently the two of you had discovered a field filled with every type of flower imaginable. You would usually stand beside Vincent and paint. But that day you were not really in the mood to do something artsy, so you just sat on a rock in between the beautiful flowers and just wondered and thought, getting wholly and utterly lost in a daydream. Vincent who had turned around to ask you something, saw you staring off into the distance thinking and he just got completely inspired. He turned his easel around and placed a new blank canvas on the stand and started to paint the blinding scene of you sitting among the flowers and butterflies. 

When Vincent was done for the day he covered the painting before gently tapping you on the shoulder so that the two of you could make your way back home. You were incredibly curious about the new painting that Vincent had created, more so when Vincent said that you couldn’t see it yet as it was a surprise.

Finally, Vincent had finished the painting of you. With each stroke of the brush painting you among the beautiful scenery, his feelings for you grew stronger and stronger. Vincent invited you to his room that night to give you the painting, and you were overjoyed when you had read what was inscribes at the bottom, “To my dearest sunflower, I love you with all my heart, forever yours Vincent.” Vincent knew that with you, action always spoke louder than words so, in an attempt to make his feeling painfully clear he walked up close to you, until the two of you were nose to nose. He brought his hands to gently cradle your face, and then slowly leaned down to place a tender kiss on your lips.  

Vincent loves you with all his heart. He loves that you have a wide variety of interest and will gladly listen to you talk about them for hours and hours. He will even surprise you with a book on the topic of your newest interest. Love it when you sit in his room and read while he paints. Sometimes when he is done painting for the day, he will sit down behind you and wrap his arms around your waist and rest his chin on your shoulder as you continue to get lost in your studies and thirst for knowledge. Sometimes he will read along with you, and then discuss what he had learned with you when you have had enough of reading for the day. He loves to listen to all your opinions and the new thing you had learned, he is especially intrigued when you talk about spiritual topics and will hang onto every word as you tell him everything you learned

He took you to meet his dear friend Shakespeare once and right off the bat you could tell he was up to no good. You tried to be tolerable and passive, however after spending an hour at his mansion you started getting annoyed and irritated. You were a stubborn realistic person who never judged a book by its cover and always strived to see the bigger picture, so you decided not to judge Shakespeare on face value. However, when the day came for the door to open to send you back home, Shakespeare appeared and decided to dictate his own romantic tragedy between you and Vincent. 

You could see the story from his angle and perspective and you could also see where he was coming from, but you were definitely not going to passively sit back and let him tear you apart from Vincent.

You had never seen Vincent angry before until that day. Vincent managed to take down Shakespeare and disarm him from the gun he was pointing at you, however, in the tussle, Vincent had been shot twice. Theo had managed to restrain Shakespeare, and you were never more thankful in your life for medical knowledge than at that moment. You and Arthur managed to patch Vincent up and thanks to his vampiric abilities he was recovering quickly. 

You had to laugh as during the whole saga between you and Shakespeare, Shakespeare had accused you of not loving his friend as during the whole visit you weren’t acting even the slighted bit affectionate towards Vincent. In fact, at first, Theo accused you of the same thing, however soon Theo realized that you were more private with your display of affection and welcomed you to his family with open arms.

You and Vincent both share the love language of physical touch and act of service. The two of you have an incredibly open, honest relationships based on communication and trust. It isn’t uncommon for you to sit on Vincent’s lap as the two of you talk about all sorts of random topics for hours and hours as he strokes your hair.

Vincent loves to shower you in sweet kisses and warm, comforting hugs. He can’t imagine anything better in the world than to just have you in his arms while he kisses you breathless for hours and hours. Beware as this angel like you, will bite. 

Vincent’s favourite is to just shower your face in sweet little kisses. He will legit start by kissing the top of your head and then make his way down to your forehead, then both your eyelids, your nose and then finally your lips. 

It’s through these sweet kisses that the two of you often communicate just how much you love each other, no words needed just action.

Other potential matches………….. Shakespeare

I hope you enjoyed this love! And I hope you have the best day! 🌻❤😊🔥@oikame

[shaekingshitup]

Grindin

A/N: EEEPP. This is my first attempt at a reader insert. Reader is always gonna be black. I missed a many of days. Here is the day 3 prompt because I liked this idea! Kind of based off my favorite coffee shop. Maybe I’ll do more for this lil story? 💁🏿 The chime for the door is literally from this song here. 

Summary: Reader goes back home to open a coffee shop and meets a man that stirs some things in her. 

“I love the concept,” you commented, “ I know we were only interested in black and blue originally. But can you do a mock up with gold lettering as well?”

“YAS! THAT! I like THAT! exclaimed Ray

“Already done,” Lulu noted and pulled out a secondary growler mock up from behind the print that you were assessing.

“You know me so well,” you smiled.

“Yeah, your ass is kinda predictable” she smiled back which earned her a tongue out.

This was your first meeting of the month and so far everything was going great. You loved that you could live out your dreams with the two people you trusted more than anyone in the world. Lulu had been by your side since you both realized you were the only two Spelman freshmen who were both from Cali in your class.  By your second semester y’all were so inseparable that everyone thought you were sisters. And by year 2 you were already living together. Thank God y’all had separate interests which kept your friendship and now your business in a healthy and ever growing state. You were engrossed in the world of science. You had been a bio major who often volunteered at the local greenhouse. That helped you establish your small but busy coffee shop a year and a half ago. Lulu was a graphic artist whom also was in charge of all Grindin social media and the unofficial pastry taste tester. Ray had come along when the ladies were rooming together off campus. He was a community college to 4- year transplant at Clark Atlanta but the boy was born and raised in Macon, Georgia and he’d never let you forget it. It was evident that once he met the girls at a mixer in his first week, the friendship was a wrap. That spawned regular visits back to his parents’ homes on the weekends and even some holidays spent in the south. After graduation, the bond never broke. You and Lulu returned to Cali with Ray in tow so that he could use his business degree to help birth Grindin.

You glanced over to Sherell. The Brewista Lead for the morning shift. You knew that Sherell had been strugglin to keep up a healthy sleeping schedule with finals right around the corner and the nerves of her impending graduation from Lincoln. She was a sweet girl and you couldn’t stand to see her bare any more stress. You were so caught up in your thoughts about Sherell that you had missed the very clear topic change amongst your friends.

“Okay, but that nigga’s arms? They biggg. You know what that mean!” sad Ray pointedly at Lulu

“HA” she cackled, “ that don’t mean nothin’. My guy has really soft eyes and you know Y/N loves a guy who is easy on the eyes,” Lu quips

“Bitch, you see the caterpillar above those eyes? We don’t nee her birthin the next Helga Pataki in these streets”

“Ugh” you groaned as you rubbed your temple. “I don’t know how many times we have to have to do this but I do not under any circumstances want you two meddling in my love life,”

“But” they chorused.

“BUT NOTHING! Every human with an assumed penis and who looks like they got more than $150 in the bank becomes a contestant for your little game of ‘Win a Date with Y/N’! I run a coffee shop! Not a dating service. I’m done explaining shit to y’all. Stop harassing my customers and let my ass worry about who I am with! I mean that shit.”

“I told you we should have started addin females to the list,” whispers Ray as you walk over to the counter.

“Raymond Johnson the IV and Eyeluta Nicole Hathaway, if I hear one more word from either of y’all you both gone be banned from any pastries for the rest  of the month” you spat feeling like the unofficial mother of your group yet again. You took a deep breath and continued toward the counter. 

“Sherell, how’s it going?” you asked a you approached the register.

She sighed heavily.

“You know what? You need a break. Go in the back and relax your eyes a bit. I’ll man the front”

“Oh no. It’s really-“

You cut her off. “Get back there and relax a little. I think I know how to run a register,” you winked.

You were on the register and Antwon was pouring at the bar. You two were in a good rhythm. It was either bustling or there was one customer to tend to today. There didn’t seem to be any in between this morning. 

GRINDIN rang out as the next patron entered.

“Welcome!” Antwon called out as you were assessing the stock supply up in the floor.

When you turned around you were met with... Well, you weren’t quite sure how to describe him. Fine was an understatement. Standing six feet tall was a milk chocolate wonder with a physique that his dark turtleneck and three piece suit couldn’t hide.

Keep it professional y/n

Before you could even get a breath out he growled “Y’all really got Clipse playin every time the damn door open?” He said this with his eyes glued to his screen as if looking up was such a difficult feat to conquer at 7:32 a.m.

“Yeah. It’s a signature touch,” you responded to the stranger. At your voice, he looked up and offered a smirk that probably made most women collapse at first sight. You still hadn’t made up your mind though.

“I’m feelin it.”

“Is this your first time here? I’m more than welcome to answer any questions you have about the menu or the store in general” you offered.

“Nah. I’ve been in a time or two before. Never seen you before,” he very openly eyed you up and down, “I normally let my assistant handle this shit though, you know Miss… “

“Y/N. Well, since you’ve been here before then you’re familiar with our unique take on the menu.” you supplied.

“Yeah, y’all rotate teas and coffees quarterly. You seem to keep a few staples- which I ‘preciate and y’all got some corny ass names for these drinks too.”

You bristled a bit at that last part. “There’s nothing wrong with a little creativity.”

“Never said there was, Y/N” At this point you couldn’t tell if you wanted to serve this man or show him the door. You chose the professional route.

“So, what does your assistant normally bring you Mr…?” you trailed off

“Just Erik is fine. My favorite is the single origin. Black.  It’s always the best way to start my day.”

“Mine too.” you smiled. Maybe he isn’t so bad after all

“If you’re into the single origin and you love that bold, black, taste something similar with just a little more sweetness is Brew Thang.”

He chuckled. “See what I be saying about these names? How you expect a grown ass man to order a drink called ‘Brew Thang’?”

“It’s good. Once you have a taste, you won’t have a hard time getting it to roll of your tongue.” you sassed.

Oh fuck . I didn’t mean it like that. I gotta keep this professional. I don’t need a bad review from this guy.

He raised an eyebrow at you. “Oh really? Then lemme get a taste,” he said licking his lips. Your eyes widened slightly but he caught it. 

“Size?” you asked looking down at the tablet screen. 

“Large” he said with a bld and dark stare, “How much I owe you?”

“This one will be on the house. I want to make sure you’re satisfied.”

OH MY GAWD GIRL? WHO ARE YOU? WHAT IS COMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH. PLEASE LEAD WITH YOUR HEAD AND LESS OF THE PUSSY

“Antwon, let’s switch. I’ll take the bar. You take the register!” You yelled out and quckly you two transitioned so that he could help the growing line of customer and you could bang out the drinks. Erik followed as you moved to the bar where he watched you work your magic. Once you were done pouring his drink you gave it to him. You got started not the next orders not the board but made sure to keep an eye on him as he took the first sip.  

“Fuck ma. This shit good” It was your turn to smirk. 

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. So now you’re hooked on the Brew Thang?”

“Oh yeah, I’m definitely satisfied.” You failed to hide your giggle as you called out that Ricky’s order was ready. Erik stuck around for a little after that inquiring about other menu items that you told him not be too quick to judge based on their names. The initial tension had dissolved and you two were in a comfortable rhythm of commenting on both the menu and the changes you’d seen in Oakland during the last few years. Thankfully there wasn’t a rush at the moment and it was fine for your to be off to the side of the bar answering any questions he could put forth. He was attentive to your passion regarding the menu and all that went into the shop as a whole.

“Hol up. You ain’t a barista. This is yo shit?”

“I prefer Brewista and yes. I do co-own this shop with my best friend Ray and we have a great Graphic Artist, Lulu, on deck too” The more he learned about you. The more he wanted to know.

“Okay Miss Entrepreneur. I see you. Damn, does that mean that you tha one that come up with these corny ass names then?”

You scowled playfully. “You keep talkin on my name and you gone catch these hands. I’m a professional. But I grew up on these streets. I can throw blows Erik,”

“My bad baby girl. I respect your grind.”

“Okay. So who really is the corny one here?”

“Whatever,” he smiled. A genuine smile with teeth and this made you want to melt right there. “Anyways, speaking of Brew Thangs, you got  a ni-“

His phone rang and he glanced down cursing. He put up his index finger and gestured that he just need one moment. You nodded your consent.

“What up T?”

In that time that he took his call, you looked up and saw that you had a line out the door. Sherrell came back out to the floor and your two were in a great rhythm getting through the 16 drink orders that had come up. When you looked up again, Erik was no where to be found. Now that the shop was stable you let Sherell do her thang and went into the back to re-convene with Lu & Ray.

“Y/N we need to get you an award for best employer. You really be out here goin the extra mile for your staff,” Lu said. You lifted the corner of your mouth in a weak attempt at a smile.

“Uh uh. Hoe what’s wrong?” Ray said noting your dejected spirt.

“Now? Now you listen to me?!” you yelled. “ALLL the time, I tell yo asses not to intervene in my love life and the one time it may have actually been beneficial y’all were no where to be seen!”

“I know she didn’t” Ray said.

“Yeah. She did” Lu, retorted. “I’m gonna ignore your funky attitude because I can see you’re going through something sis. What’s the deal?”

“I was talking to this guy. This man. And y’all he was so charming and sexy as hell and he wasn’t afraid to talk about shit that matters and I just turned away to make some drinks and he disappeared! I really thought he was gonna make a move. Or at the very least that you two would move in on him and make me sit through another awkward date. But nooooooo, you two finally decided to respect my wishes for once and now Imma die alone!” you monologued.

“You done?” Lu asked.

“Yes” you pouted.

“Aww come here baby,” Ray said with his arms outstretched, “I’m sure he’ll be back.” He hugged your frame tightly and rubbed some circles into your back. “Especially if you turned around when you were in front of him, cuz BABY GOT BACK!!” He yelled.

You and Lu laughed as he started smackin your ass and shakin his own. Soon enough you were all in the back twerkin like it was the first night y’all meet all over again. Hopefully he’d be back.

I’m sorry I forgot who to tag! Soooo if you got tagged and didn’t wanna be I’m sorry. The inverse is the same 😁

@twistedcharismaaa @raysunshine78

@ghostfacekill-monger @yoursoulstea 

@shewrites02 @sarcastic-sunshines

@thadelightfulone

[astroluve]

Venus in the houses

Venus in the 1st house

❤️- this placement will make someone charming, attractive, alluring etc. This will make the person usually very open in the sense they carry their feelings on their sleeves. They have a magnetic personality, people just can’t seem to deny them. People want to grow close to people with Venus in their first house because they aren’t usually aggressive, they are fair for the most part and loves love. They want to enjoy the beauty life has made for them instead of focusing on the negative aspects, they look for the shining sun rays rather than the dark shadows and that’s simply because they belong in the bright colors of the sun. They easily win arguments because they can easily win people over. They don’t really have to try hard, and people are more inclined to give up because of just how attractive their energy and physical traits are.

Venus in the 2nd house

🧡- this placement makes the person in love with pleasing sights, it gives them the gift of interpreting physical beauty. They have usually great tastes and loves value over quantity. They find the quality in everything they touch and they love to give gifts. They are usually good at giving them too, something very special to their heart like you. Their voices are usually very soft, sensual just unusually attractive. They don’t usually rush into things with people and are hard to win over but once you have them they will probably never let you go. They love you with everything that they have and will treasure you as their own. Just very soft and approachable looking. You have to show these people that you value them the most, that they are the only ones that is the greatest quality in your heart. Their most attractive places would be neck and upper chest.

Venus in the 3rd house

💛- this placement will give these people, beautiful voices, diplomatic attitudes, easy, fast words. They are verbally tactful and know how to keep a conversation going, ready and open to mostly anything. They can be very expressive, mischievous and work to usually keep things going. They try to give every side and point of view a chance. They consider everyone’s thoughts and can mediate pretty well between people and arguments. They usually value mentality, intellectual stimulation, they don’t look at the person as much as they do the persons brain. They need someone who can snap back, offer them banter and tease them as much as they tease you. Their beauty is language so they are going to uphold communication the most and may have an attractive quality about the way they talk or phrase everything.

Venus in the 4th house

💚- this placement makes people, need comfortability, safety, warmth, domestic home life. They accept and give love through nurturing and caring. Everything they touch and do has their own personal loving mark. They don’t give their heart out easily and freely, they need to know that they are being taken seriously. They have so much sympathy and need to take care of people and they want their partner to need that from them. They want someone who can share their sensitivity or at least understand it, and not judge them for it. They’ll be slow to show just how much they care about a person. They want luxury, balance and harmony and will try their very best to offer that to everyone they come into contact with. They are people who will attract others easily because they look so sweet, and approachable like they would never hurt a fly.

Venus in the 5th house

💙- this placement makes them charmers, in love with love and usually always have a love interest or a crush. These people attract people easily as they come off playful, fun loving, easy going and romantic. They enjoy the idea of flirting and sharing fun moments with people. They want to have a good time and will make sure that they are spending their time creatively. They like to surround themselves with music, art, aesthetics and theatrical people. They want a good time and will offer that in return. There will be a lot of romantic gestures, bright smiles, eccentric dates and ideal loving actions. They are usually loyal, and needs loyalty back. They want to just explore and have fun, enjoy the road life is taking them on and they want people to be part of that and enjoy it with them. They are vibrant, wanting and can offer a very charismatic persona which helps attract people to them.

Venus in the 6th house

💜- this placement makes people want to help and be of service to others in love and expression. They want to fix and observe as many people as they can and find out the best plan of action that they can for this person. They will go very far and high for their partners. Of course they aren’t the most obvious about affection and expressing their love in physical way like PDA but will show love in other ways. They will help you in other ways as a form of affection, do the little things their partner needs, will give and help them with anything they can’t accomplish alone. They appreciate and focus a lot on detail and design so they may be very good at bringing things together and setting up harmony between systems. They attract people with their stoic expressions and observant eyes that can read mostly anyone.

Venus in the 7th house

🖤- this placement makes someone who simply is in love with love. They can’t live without it and they don’t want to. They want harmony and affection and admiration in relationships. They want the stereotypical movie kind of love, the love that is between soulmates and will not accept anything less. They will do usually anything for their partners, they would break their backs bending over for them. They uphold equality, balance and harmony in their relationships so they expect some fairness. They will usually attract people for their symmetrical features. They are very charming, agreeable and willing. which people find to be great attributes. They might feel completely lost without a partner most of the time. Your hips and lower back may be special or sensitive places for them.

Venus in the 8th house

💕- this placement makes people desire deeper connections, soul bonding, sensual encounters. They can’t usually do hookups as they tend to want to focus on one partner and make them theirs, learn everything about them and grow from them. There might be a lot that they hide when it comes to Love and emotions as they feel a lot. They hold some sort of fear being vulnerable and honest when in love which can cause them a lot of grief and tiredness. They are attracted to the unknown, the different, the deep taboo forces and that’s where their attractiveness lies. They heal with love, they heal others and help them regenerate which induces their own regeneration. They hold a lot of intensity and passion which can also attract people. They will either pull you into their dark shadows and show you some parts of them or they will never let you know a thing about them.

Venus in the 9th

💓- this placement makes people attracted to different kinds of people from different cultural backgrounds and forms of living. They want to grow from the individual and learn from them but also demand freedom and independence. They love adventure, they need adventurous partners. Their hips and thighs may be very attractive or appealing. They may usually choose fast love, crushes and sensualities when it comes to deep love. They can’t be confined, they are someone who won’t be held back or down. When they do find someone they truly love then they know that that person will only encourage and support their need for space and solidarity. They have the need to explore and search for the better side of things. They will always look for something, search, find and learn in love, life and death.

Venus in the 10th house

💗- these people have a powerful charm, that is entrancing and strong yet at the same time forlorn and distant. People are attracted to the power they exude and the serious atmospheric aura they give off. They have a lot they want to accomplish and achieve but they also want to be admired for their hard work and time. They have a loving heart that not a lot of people get to see as they usually only give off a cold kind of beauty and expression. They can sometimes get too concerned about what others might think of them and that can make them act or do certain things in a different way just to get approval of some sorts from the ones they fancy or admire for their power. They are good at connecting people and organizations, really just a hard worker in all aspects.

Venus in the 11th house

💖- this placement makes people curious and interested in people who have unique qualities and quirks. They are usually the first to friendzone just about everyone and that’s not purposefully, they just see people genuinely as a friend before anything most of the time. They need to have a quality friendship before they feel any romantic feelings for someone for the relationship to work. The person or relationship needs to be different or unlikely. It needs to hold their interest so they usually go for odd or different people. The calves or ankles are usually attractive or sensitive places for them. They might always usually meet their partners or lover through friends or group outings or social gatherings. They might even jump into almost anything and anyone who is offering friendship.

Venus in the 12th house

💘- this placement will make someone a big romantic, they live and breathe love. They are able to love all forms and types of people. They can get hurt easily in love as they are very compassionate and sensitive. They feel their partners in a way no one else can and they tend to give too much of themselves and feel drained afterwards. They are attracted to everyone, unique, quirky, people from all walks of life. They tend to hold back before they feel safe in a relationship but then they will love deeply and affectionately. They need an emotional and spiritual connection to their partners. They can reflect all of their partners needs and usually adapt pretty easily, getting lost in the relationship. They may be attracted to deep rooted souls and feel the need to help and heal their partners soul. Their most attractive part of their body may be their feet or they may be very sensitive.

[douxreviews]

Legends of Tomorrow - ‘Hey, World!’ Review

"Yeah, this innocent moment where kids aren’t afraid? It’s resonating with people."

I'm not crying. You're crying.

Apologies, this is a long one. I had a lot to process.

So, that was season four of Legends of Tomorrow, that was.

I've been wrestling with how I feel about this one for a few days longer than I wanted to due to an internet outage, and I'm still not entirely sure, outside of the fact that it absolutely made me cry at least twice.

I think, ultimately, the season four finale felt much less focused and more sprawling that last year's 'The Good, The Bad, and The Cuddly.'  That's not necessarily a bad thing. 'I'm not sure where they're going with this' is one of the holy grails as far as audience responses go, but only if you're also communicating the impression that you, the showrunner, do.

It might be useful to compare this year's finale with last year's in terms of one specific aspect. Specifically, how they both used the various plot coupons from the earlier episodes of the season as plot elements in the season's resolution. In season three, the main 'phlebotinums' of the season were the six totems, and of course Beebo. The season was structured around introducing those seven items, and then showing us how they could be combined correctly to resolve the season's villain. And it involved a giant stuffed animal on demon ninja fight, which was awesome.

The fact that it was the combination of those earlier plot coupons that resolved the issue made that resolution feel nicely focused and the natural ending for the season. And further, because they had the solid structural underpinning they also could also bring back Helen of Troy, and Blackbeard, and a random Viking or two for a fun callback. They had already demonstrated that the callback references to previous episodes were there for a justifiable purpose, which meant that they could throw a few frivolous ones in without hurting anything.

This season's callbacks felt much less structured and integral to the final resolution, and so they felt a little more gratuitous.

This kind of dovetails into the real problem this episode has, and it's one that you might have heard me mention before. Sing along in the back if you know the words; This should have been three episodes.

Because what the show was clearly interested in getting to was the big final showdown between the abstract power of fear and the abstract power of love. Which is great, and once they got there was fabulous. I swear I'll get around to saying positive things in a minute or two. Everything after Nate creates the circus using the book from 'Tagumo Attacks!!!' is paced perfectly. The eventual sacrifices were both foreshadowed to the exact right degree and were staggered with precision, the onset of Zari's tragedy coming right where it should at the moment we'd begun to exhale after Nate's resurrection. However, that good pacing comes in at about halfway through the episode's runtime, prior to which we'd been sprinting flat out to get all of the pieces in place for the final confrontation as quickly as we possibly can.

So, in the space of the first few minutes we go from Neron wanting to rule Hell as his motive to Neron wanting to collect fear, which kind of undercuts the clever terms of service reveal last week, but whatever. Then he apparently overthrows the Triumvirate anyway during the commercial break, as John speaks of it to Astra as a fait accompli. Then he doesn't want the fear itself, per se, but wants to use it to open a gateway to Hell so that they can come here for him to rule.

That feels like three solid end of episode reveals that we could have been wowed by over the course of three individual episodes. Because the evolution of his plan doesn't not make sense, if you follow me, it just evolves way, way too quickly to track well, and clearly only matters to get that final pit opening scene in the circus properly set up.

And hey, on that note, one of those three episodes could have been the 'Mick stealing the book of Brigid back from the Time Bureau' story that we were robbed of here. Honestly, they literally cut from Ava saying 'That will be super hard to steal' to Mick walking in holding the book saying, 'No, I totes already stole it, lets move on with the plotline.' That's just profoundly lazy plotting, and I get that it wasn't their fault, and that they didn't have any choice because the reduced episode count was never going to allow time for 'Mick-sion Impossible,' but it jars badly in context. And damn it, I totally just gave them the perfect episode title for it. I demand that they film it and include it as a DVD extra.

It honestly feels like they zipped through the first half of plot mechanics at least partially because they wanted to invest a lot of time setting up season five and it came at the expense of the season four wrap up. I specifically refer to the whole thing with the soul token/coin thing. As the episode was unfolding it felt like they were spending a lot of screen time setting up the mechanics of Hell's soul exchange which could have been time better spent telling the story at hand. At the conclusion, of course, we get the reveal of Astra and her menagerie of stolen coins, setting her and them up as the villains of next season. Which is, to be fair, a cool premise. Notice that we only saw a handful of the names on those coins, which means they can still turn out to be just about anyone. Dare I hope that the name Damien Darhk turns out to be on one of them?

Okay. We've danced around it long enough. Let's talk about Zari. First off, a big acknowledgement of how wrong I was in my review of the last episode where I mentioned that they were probably never going to get around to addressing the whole future dystopia thing. No, turns out that they were going to use its resolution as one of the foundations of season five. I should have had more faith. Second, a big shout out to percysowner, who opined in the comments thread last week that perhaps Zari would imprint on the dragon and that would undo the future dystopia. If you're reading this, percysowner, I publicly acknowledge that you read that situation much better than I did.

I genuinely thought they were killing off both Zari and Nate, I honestly did. I clocked the Nate/Constantine swap exactly when the show wanted me to, which was a satisfying and heartbreaking payoff to the Neron situation. It worked because Nate sacrificing himself and John telling Nate about the deal so that he would make the choice to do so is just so entirely on brand for both of them.

Also on brand; Zari leaving the safety of the ship to be with Nate when he died. Their final embrace before she faded away was a truly heartbreaking moment. I totally take back my earlier misgivings about their relationship. Similarly touching, Nate's farewell conversation with Hank in the rafters. I'm on record as not being a huge fan of Hank, but setting that aside, the callback to his James Taylor moment was well judged here, and I'm happy for Nate that he got that little bit of closure. Oh, and that he gets to still be alive.

So, Zari is out there somewhere living her life never having met the Legends, and in her place we have her brother Berhad, which explains why they went to such extraordinary lengths to get rid of the necklace earlier and turn it into a manly fitbit of power.

One parting thought on this change, as heartbreaking as it feels right now. Zari as we know her has left the show, but Tala Ashe has not. Apparently the Zari they find next season is going to be very different. And let's not forget that we're only a few months away from Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which all of reality is going to be put through a meat grinder and reformed on the other side. I have to believe we haven't seen the last of Zari.

Caity Lotz' impression of Melissa Benoist - Hysterical, and just a little bit mean.

Everybody remember where we parked.

This week we were all about Washington D.C in 2019 and Hell. Assuming that those are in fact two different places.

Insert drum snare.

Quotes:

Ogre: "Ha ha! Ogre wins again!" Mick: "Cheating bastard!"

Calibraxis: "Who the hell are you?" Nora: "Really? The dress doesn’t sell it?"

Nate: "I would have said ‘Zari, Zari, you smell like calamari’. … Bullying is bad."

Astra: "Nice sparkles." Nora: "Nice shoulderpads."

Ne-Ray: "We will make Earth Hell again." Subtle, show.

Mona: "Stay calm, they smell fear." Gary: "What if fear is my natural scent?"

Mick: "Give it back when you’re done. Buck and Garima’s sexual odyssey is far from over."

Zari: "Guys, I feel like that would have worked a little bit better with the real trinity." Sara: "Yeah, well, I asked and they said hard pass." Nate: "We should have done the crossover."

Vandal Savage: "Oh, I love those groovy guys."

Bits and Pieces:

-- It's a little hard to believe that all the magical creatures are down with behaving themselves now. Mike the Spike inside the puppet Stein was a serial killer, after all.

-- Also, is it just me or did the Legends just let all of the magical creatures just sort of wander off between the show and the dragon battle? Are we just not worried about them anymore?

-- It makes sense idiomatically in the US, but John Constantine wouldn't have phrased Nora using her fairy powers to get into the demon vault as 'poofing her way in.' That would mean something very different in the UK, and kind of implies that she'd somehow be getting into the vault through the magic of gay sex. Which is magical, sure, but not in a way that would be helpful in this situation. I don't know, maybe he was just going for an oblique 'fairy' joke.

-- It was fun seeing Vandal Savage and Ray bonding over Jenga, but again I kind of wonder if that wouldn't have been time better spent elsewhere.

-- It was a bad idea to bait and switch people into coming to Heyworld thinking it would be all about superheroes. I wish they'd handled that a little better.

-- Why did Mithra the dragon, who sadly never got to know the name Wixstable, turn back into a baby after eating Tabitha?

-- Nora and Gary now have the same kind of power symbiosis that Jax and Stein had, when you think about it.

-- I like them, I enjoy Wolfie, and I've enjoyed most of their plotlines this year, but it wouldn't break my heart if Mona and Gary had transferred to the Cleveland branch before the beginning of next season. We just have too many people. That's one of the reasons I believed they'd killed Nate.

-- We're all on the same page that only Mick, Sara, and Ray are non-negotiable members of the team, right? Like, I'd miss Nate, but I'd get over it.

-- How famous is Ray Palmer, exactly? Last year he was obscure enough to be working at Upswipes, and now he's working senate sub-committee hearings.

-- Lovely little cameo by The Monitor, just chilling back and eating popcorn at Heyworld.  That's a little less momentous than his other finale appearances, but it was a nice reminder that the Crisis is looming.  Also, it was funny.

Magical creatures?  Oh, I'm sure they'll be fine.

A big, sprawling season finale with lots of good bits and a little less focus and time to breath than it could have used. That kind of sums up season four as a whole, actually.

Three out of four James Taylor sing-a-longs.

And that brings us to the end of another Legends season. It's been a blast as always, see you all in the fall, when I hopefully will not have two other shows also running at the same time that the Waverider takes off.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[saccityscuba]

4 Things You'll Learn About Other People When You Scuba Dive With Them

Diving is one of those adventure sports that are best experienced with others. Going 40–60 feet underwater is always more relaxing when you have someone with you in case something goes wrong.

And because scuba diving is usually a group sport, you’re sure to learn a couple of things when you’re underwater with someone. Here are just a few of them:

1. Personality

Every diver has a unique personality. As you prepare for the dive, you’ll probably notice how they handle their emotions in the moments prior to your dive. You’ll see how patient, prepared, and serious they are about what’s to come (or the opposite).

Over time, you’ll instinctively be able to identify who has a calming energy about them and avoid those that make you anxious and nervous. If your energy matches, you can become lifelong dive partners.

2. Luck

Some divers will have endless stories about the marine life they’ve seen on their trips, and others will talk endlessly of diving horror stories. The sort of marine creatures you see underwater depends predominantly on the water body and time of year, but some people are also just lucky.

If you’re lucky, you can spot everything from pygmy seahorses to an eagle ray. Divers with bad juju may not see much, though, aside from regular schools of fish.

Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to change your luck. What you can do is plan diving trips to specific destinations that are known to be excellent for diving.

You can also identify what you’re doing to scare fish away—and even what your partner is doing in that vein.

3. Stories

When you go diving with a group of people, you’re trusting them with your life. Divers go through scuba diving training sessions where they prepare for possible challenges they could face when underwater. This involves sharing scuba tank, communicating with other divers, signaling to them in times of danger, etc.

You can create great bonds with the people you dive with. On diving trips with strangers, you’re sure to hear fascinating stories. Regardless of differences in race, nationality, and religion, you’ll bond with all the divers in the group because everyone is the same when you’re 60 ft underwater.

4. Sense of Self

One of the most alluring aspects of diving is the fact that it urges you to live in the moment by focusing on the breaths you take.

No matter how experienced a diver you are, scuba diving has a way of humbling you. Divers learn to be confident in their own skin and aren’t afraid to ask for help when they need it.

If you’re ready to take the plunge and try scuba diving, consider getting a PADI scuba diving certificate from Sac City Scuba.

Sac City Scuba is the only PADI dive center in Sacramento. It offers scuba diving training for beginners and can help you get a PADI Open Water certification. It also arranges scuba diving trips around the world along with providing repair & service scuba gear in Sacramento.

We repair and service scuba gear from nearly every manufacturer.

Contact them for more information at (916) 772 - DIVE (3483).

[evanvanness]

Annotated edition for Week in Ethereum News Feb 9

There’s too much going on in Ethereum for Substack!

This edition was so massive that I found out that Substack (my email provider) has a character limit, because it started giving me warnings when I wasn’t even done.  So to make space, I cut out some of the default language in the bottom sections that few people read.  Probably should switch some of that language up anyway.

Link for standard version of Week in Ethereum News without my commentary.

Eth1

Latest core devs call. Beiko’s notes

EIP1962 generalized elliptic curve and pairing engine implementation in Go

Nethermind v1.6.1 – better tip of the chain tracking and reorg handling, JSON RPC bugfixes

Parity v2.7.2 and the next steps for Parity client maintenance under GPL3 (though reportedly most participants preferred a more permissive license)

Slockit’s Incubed ultralight client server setup wizard

On the core devs call, they’re going over what makes sense to include in the next fork.  The second EIP1962 implementation is the link in here, important because it’s the alternative to the MatterLabs implementation for the generalized precompile.

Nethermind continues to improve with constant releases.   Parity kicked off their “OpenEthereum” transition of the client to the community.  Apparently the DAO idea is on the backburner - if reports on Twitter are to be believed, they would have held the majority of the tokens.  That’s crazy, presumably the idea was that they’d be giving them out over time to the contributors.  It would have been nice to have a better writeup somewhere

Headsup: at some point there is going to be (another) fight over ProgPoW.  It’s an odd beast where both sides are convinced that they have already won - meaning that anger and disgruntled ragequits are almost guaranteed.  

If you’re the sort of person who ragequits because you didn’t get your way, then there’s a reason why forks of Ethereum exist.

Eth2

Danny Ryan’s quick eth2 update – it’s optimization time

What’s New in Eth2

Latest eth2 call. Notes from Mamy and Ben.

Jim McDonald: defining eth2 network metrics

A look at Rocketpool’s GUI

Nimbus’ first mobile testnet on Android. Plus part 2 of building Nimbus on Android.

Eth2 research team ask me anything on Reddit

Rocketpool is currently the 3rd most clicked of this week’s issue.  I’ve been of the opinion that CLI is fine for staking - most people who are willing to stake their ETH at the start can handle a CLI, I think.  Rocketpool is conservatively estimating to go live in Q4 - I imagine that the staking rewards will be substantially higher in q3 pre-rocketpool, and then will go down again around q1 2021 when exchanges/custody services start staking for their customers.

Nimbus mobile testnet is neat.  The idea has always been that you can run a validator on a mobile phone.  It’s happening!

Layer2

Batch Deposits for [op/zk] rollup / mixers / MACI

Matic explains advantages and limitations of Plasma and rollups

A relatively straightforward section this week. 

Stuff for developers

Kendrick Tan’s practical guide to building zk dapps

Kimi Wu’s hands on your first zk dapp

OpenZeppelin contracts v2.5 – with CREATE2, enumerableset and big NFT gas savings

Remix v0.9.3 – you can now test the functionality of receive & fallback functions

ABDK adds a number converter to its online toolkit

ethers.js and Google’s Bigquery

Alethio adds API endpoints for Rinkeby, Kovan and Ropsten testnets, as well as webhooks

MythX, Quantstamp, Runtime Verification, Sooho, SmartDec and ConsenSys Diligence starting Ethereum Trust Alliance, a security rating system for deployed Eth code

Time travel queries using a subgraph from The Graph

Brownie now supports Vyper

Microsoft’s Azure Eth development kit is now generally available

A write up of the bug that Sam Sun found in three of Kyber’s bridge reserves

EthVigil’s interactive tutorials for devs new to Ethereum concepts

3Box Comments and Chatbox plugins now have emojis, likes, and votes

I like to highlight the zk stuff as it’s clearly the future.  

Sam Sun just keeps finding bugs.   

Checkout the EthVigil tutorials.  They look pretty slick!

Though it’s still early days (the standard thing to say on every panel at every crypto conference), a sign of maturity is that things like Microsoft’s Eth dev kit being generally available isn’t an earth shattering headline anymore.  Everyone now knows that all the world’s biggest companies are experimenting with this technology, almost always on Ethereum, yet they’re also often quiet about it.  

It’s usually safe to just replace “blockchain” with “Ethereum” in most MSM headlines.

Ecosystem

Why ENS uses Ethereum and not a new basechain. (Also: ENS’ registry migration is complete)

How Whisper-fork Waku does DNS based discovery

ConsenSys lays off 14% as part of strategic transformation

Matt Leising says he knows who the DAO hacker is

SHPLONK, an explainer of last week’s paper from Boneh, Drake, Fisch, and Gabizon

Matt Leising has identified...the best way to sell a book by claiming that he has  identified the DAO hacker.  He’s been teasing it for a bit.  I sure hope this holds up better than the Newsweek “scoop” identifying Dorian Nakamoto as Satoshi.  After it was clearly debunked, the Newsweek authors kept claiming that their “forensic analysis” was correct.  Embarrassing.  Let’s see the evidence.

The zk naming schemes are great.  Zero knowledge is one of those things that is exploding because of blockchain.

ConsenSys had a round of layoffs this week, though as you see below, it also acquired a municipal bond broker-dealer.  Coverage was actually reasonable - it’s another sign that perhaps this industry is (sometimes) growing up a bit.

Enterprise

ConsenSys acquires Heritage Financial Systems, a municipal bond broker-dealer, to tokenize them on Codefi

Governance and standards

Two articles on DigixDAO dissolution: as an example of DAOs working (though just 58 addresses voted out of 11,000+) and Coinfund looks at the Digix voting power

Why ragequit is game changing

Live on mainnet

Colony is in public beta live on mainnet

First 10,000 zkDai is on Aztec

Mattereum’s asset passports are live on mainnet

District0x’s District Registry is live on mainnet, a TCR for its community

Coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang is memorialized on mainnet

AirSwap Delegates is live on mainnet. Configure automated trading rules, onchain limit orders, liquidity integration with Kyber, and ability to add new tokens

I love the idea of Colony and want to get a chance to test it.

I had to break up the app layer section this week because there were just too many things.  Obviously a DeFi heavy list, and many of the things in the next “application layer” section are also on mainnet.  Things are shipping!  The distinction between the two sections was a bit arbitrary, as is always the case.

Application layer

DeFi hit $1 billion USD equivalent locked up

Maker Dai Stability Fee 8%; DSR 7.5%

Data viz on Maker’s Sai to Dai migration success

A spreadsheet of admin keys in DeFi

Etherisc’s flight insurance app returns on Rinkeby testnet using Chainlink

Idle Finance v2 (an autobalancer similar to Staked’s RAY)

Collateral Swap – swap between Maker collateral (eg, ETH<>BAT) with Aave + Uniswap

List of DeFiZaps – one click to do a bunch of DeFi actions

Gelato, a no code bot to automate your Ethereum tasks. Tutorial

Gauntlet’s analysis of why Uniswap is a good oracle

Credentify, an API to issue standard European education credentials stacked into ECTS

Circles’s universal basic income is live on Kovan testnet

Maple Loans undercollateralized loans through communities with the option to slice up the risk CDO-style

Zero Collateral loans with cDai, live on mainnet (but unaudited alpha software)

Dharma’s dtokens – wrappers around Compound tokens, a la rDai, but for services to take profits. In this case, 10% of interest to Dharma

DeFi hitting $1b USD is definitely the story of the week.  Of course there are criticisms you can make (it’s risky, the risks are cascading, there will likely be some kind of crisis at some point, oracles are centralized, etc etc) but as Josh Stark and I wrote in our Year in Ethereum 2019 piece, DeFi is an alternative financial system and in many ways a remarkably better one.   Way less paperwork, much less settlement times, better transparency, not to count the various improvements on censorship-resistance, trustlessness, permissionlessness, etc.

I liked Avichal’s tweet:

Imagine a Fintech startup tweeted: "We launched two years ago. Today we have $1 Billion in collateral and have given out a cumulative of $1B in loans!" Every VC in the world would want to know what the hell the startup does and how it works. 2020 is going to be wild for crypto. pic.twitter.com/yb8gfISSoX

— Avichal Garg (Electric Capital) ⚡ (@avichal)

February 7, 2020

One thing we linked in the Year in Eth piece was a story about a Turkish football star who is now driving for Uber because Erdogan froze his bank accounts in Turkey.  I take the story with a small grain of salt, but it’s a reminder than any wealth you save is...sometimes not really yours if it resides in a bank. 

Unsecured/undercollateralized loans is definitely becoming an area of experimentation, with multiple projects on Ethereum.  

Tokens/Business/Regulation

Hester Peirce speech proposing an SEC safe harbor for tokens

Op-ed: America falling behind the world in blockchain

Viewing GDPR from a blockchain lens

6 central banks to talk digital currency in April

Ethereum needs more entrepreneurs and product people just as much as more devs

Are stablecoins parasites on ETH?

Why ETH will sustain a monetary premium

The SEC should have figured out some kind of safe harbor in 2016, and then we wouldn’t have had the mania and fraud and misallocation of capital that occurred in 2017 that set the space back.   But still, better late than never - though certainly some things have happened outside of the US because of the SEC.  Decentralization in action!

Kames’s article calling for more entrepreneurs is an interesting one.  Is more devs the bottleneck or is it better entrepreneurs?  

I’ve never liked the “monetary premium” angle.    What I do find amusing is how many Bitcoiners point to something written at the peak of BTC’s 2017 bubble where a legacy finance guy tries to get his friends to buy BTC (I hope they ignored him then!) and not ETH with the argument that ETH is intrinsically valuable, but BTC is not, therefore all the value will accrue to BTC.

Only in crypto, folks.

General

Dispelling Bitcoin maximalist myths about Ethereum

a visual introduction to Merkle trees

Accelerating powers-of-tau ceremonies with optimistic pipelining

How does cryptocurrency have value, part 2 of Maker’s intro series

It’s impressive how much fake news is created about Ethereum by Bitcoin maximalists.  I’m convinced that a decent chunk of Bitcoin holders actually think that Ethereum runs on Infura, and another chunk think that an Eth full node needs 10 TB.  A bunch of the crypto clickbait media feeds these falsehoods because they can get cheap clicks from Bitcoiners.   

If you don’t know what a Merkle tree is, check out the intro.  

See you next week.  Somehow I’ll try to get an issue out in the midst of EthDenver.

[pacificbigbangblog]

Big Bang Story Summaries

Artists, please take today to review the following story descriptions and select the top three for which you would like to create art. Then sleep on it. Then email us your preferences at pacificbigbang@gmail.com. Art claims will open June 9 and close June 11.

We’ll do our best to accommodate everyone’s first pick whenever possible, but keep in mind we’re working on a first come, first serve basis - that is to say, if more than one artist picks the same story, it’ll go to whoever submitted their claim first. Author/artist pairings will be announced on June 12!

STORY 1

Rating: Mature (some sports violence, possible off-screen death)

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Andrew 'Ack-Ack' Haldane/ Edward "Hillbilly' Jones & Eugene Sledge/Merriell ‘Snafu’ Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: There may be some other HBO War cameos, but The Pacific will be the main POV.  

Summary: Captain Haldane's team clinching the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs had almost been a given. Staying in the race was a whole 'nother matter .

Additional Details: Dealing with hyper-masculinity, ambitions & expectations, & queer themes within sports. It'll be mainly realistic, but this is fictionalized NHL, and through the eyes of an experienced vet hockey player.

STORY 2

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Wilbur “Runner” Conley /Lew “Chuckler” Juergens

Side Pairings/Characters: Robert “Lucky” Leckie/Bill “Hoosier” Smith, Lew “Chuckler” Juergens, Sidney Phillips, Ronnie "Kid" Gibson

Summary: Runner is home for the summer after his junior year of college. He’s not excited to go back to his sleepy, tiny town. So far, in the first few weeks, his best friend has been ditching him for this new guy, his parents don’t care about him and haven’t spoken more than two words to him since he came home, and he feels like his life is a dead end. More alone than he’s ever been, he ends up meeting this weird guy from the woods.

Additional Details: Summer Vibes - it's got the "home for the summer" feel, going out into the woods exploring, summer love kinda feel; Loneliness - Runner is a lonely guy and there's areas of the story that are sad and down because the story focuses on him; Fantasy - Chuckler is not entirely human (still deciding on what mythical creature he is)

STORY 3 

Rating: General or Teen and Up

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Bob Leckie/Vera Keller, John Basilone/Lena Riggi, Ray Person/Brad Colbert, and Josh Lyman/Donna Moss

Side Pairings/Characters:

Summary: Robert Leckie is a reporter with the White House Press Pool. There's no such thing as a normal day, but today is a particular challenge as Leckie bounces around in an attempt to get an inside scoop--to put a personal face on working in the White House. Will that personal face be his old friend and current Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, grumpy but coffee-addicted special assistant Hoosier Smith, rival pool reporter David Webster, pissed-off mad genius Deputy Communications Director Ray Person, energetic and impossible-to-locate Deputy Press Secretary Chuckler Juergens, the new IT guy known only as Lurch, or the Holy Grail of interviews, Secretary of Defense Lena Basilone and her husband, Head of Secret Service John Basilone? Who knows? In the end, it could be any one of them. Probably not Webster, though. [A crossover with The West Wing.]

Additional Details: Mood is realistic, quick-moving, and snarky, as close to the tone of The West Wing as I can get.

STORY 4 

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Andrew 'Ack-Ack' Haldane/ Edward "Hillbilly' Jones 

Side Pairings/Characters: Snafu Shelton, Burgie, and various other cameos

Summary: Andy Haldane leaves his home and job in Boston to help his Aunt Mae run her country store in a small town on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. He loves his Aunt Mae, her store, and the town he used to spend all his summers in before school and work got in the way. Being back brings up all kinds of memories and sees Andy making quite a few reunions, especially with the Jones family, and particularly the eldest son, Eddie. They're not kids anymore, but Andy already knows he could fall in love with Eddie Jones all over again. 

Additional Details: Pretty much a romance novel, with hardly any angst. Lots of nostalgia as both Andy and Eddie reminiscence about their childhood summers together. Country music is definitely a favorite of the entire Jones family and features in the fic. Many scenes of family and friends bonding. Just a general happy, calm little fic. 

STORY 5

Rating: At most, Mature

Warnings: Possibility of some violence. Horror.

Main Pairings/Characters: John Basilone, JP Morgan, Manny Rodriguez

Side Pairings/Characters: John/Lena Riggi, other characters by mention

Summary: The crew of the rebel fighter craftship take refuge on a Class I planet in an effort to escape the Dictatorship hunting party. They need to recoup and repair, patch up some injuries, and send word for help before they’re discovered. The Alliance depends on the plans they’ve stolen. But the planet is Class I for a reason. The ghosts that inhabit are ancient and angry, and the crew are faced with the decision of exposing themselves for help, or dying.

Additional Details: Very mild crossover with Changi, though it's not necessary to have watched the series, and it's not a huge aspect of the story. I'm happy to answer any questions regarding this aspect. 

STORY 6

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Prostitution/Sex work, Period-typical Language and Attitudes, Mention of Childhood Abuse (physical), Possible Mentions of Drug Use (OC’s), Off-Screen Death of OC

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Sid Phillips, RV Burgin, Bill Leyden, Jay De L’Eau

Summary: After the war, Eugene gets dragged to a brothel during Sid's raucous New Orleans bachelor party. While there, he runs into a familiar but wholly unexpected face.

Additional Details: Featuring prostitute!Snafu, jaded post-war!Eugene, misunderstandings, love letters, road trips, a wedding or two, family drama, learning to love yourself and learning to accept the one you love.

STORY 7

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Issues of Consent, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Homophobia, Religious Themes

Main Pairings/Characters: Merriell “Snafu” Shelton/Eugene Sledge

Side Pairings/Characters: Merriell “Snafu” Shelton/Orginial Male Characters

Summary: After the war, a dispirited Shelton returns to the life he left behind to find a man looking to take what Shelton owes him. In the chaos of trying to settle debts, Eugene shows up at his door to confront him about how they parted ways and comes face to face with the men threatening Shelton's life. Through quick thinking, Eugene earns them some time to make an escape but also complicates everything further. On the run with Eugene, Shelton is forced to deal with his feelings for him while they both try to stay alive.

Additional Details: Dark tone and Ominous mood. Aesthetic? Southern Gothic meets Drive.

STORY 8

Rating: Teen and Up 

Warnings: Symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, very vague mentions of sex

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Sidney Phillips

Summary: Eugene Sledge and Merriell Shelton board a train, both headed to homes they haven't seen in years. In a last effort to bring some familiarity with him, Eugene asks Merriell to come with him to Mobile- at least until he's settled in. Despite his instincts telling him to leave every part of the war behind him, Merriell does. 

Additional Details: This work would best be described as melancholy, reflective, and cautiously hopeful. 

STORY 9

Rating: Mature (for language and non-explicit sexual content)

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Andy Haldane/Eddie Jones, Robert Leckie/Hoosier Smith, Sidney Phillips, Bill Leyden, R.V. Burgin, Jay De L'eau, Chuckler Juergens, Runner Conley

Summary: When the Earth’s Sun began to die, most people decided to get the hell out of dodge. But others stayed, determined to stick with their only home until the very end. Thousands of years later, when the Sun had gone and taken most of Earth’s life with it, five men were sent on a mission to go back and study the home mankind left behind. But upon arrival, they were faced with the impossible: a boy in overalls.

Additional Details: Rural Science Fiction, Finding Beauty in Science, Some Rural Fantasy Elements, Space, Themes of Existentialism and Humanity, Soft and Colorful Characters/Settings

STORY 10

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Period-Typical Attitudes, Canon-Typical Violence 

Main Pairings/Characters: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge

Side Pairings/Characters: Sidney Phillips, others probably 

Summary: AU where Sledge and Snafu meet as teenagers in Alabama and grow closer in spite of themselves. War looms, but in the heat of summer 1941 it still feels as distant and inconsequential as thunderstorm, the kind that blows up in the afternoon and spins out by dinnertime. Eugene gets this feeling when he looks at Merriell and that...feels like a bigger fish to fry.

Additional Details: Magical Realism, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Canon

STORY 11

Rating: Teen and Up (for language and canon-levels of violence)

Warnings: While there won't be anything sexual in this story, I will warn that the actual werewolf biting is non-consensual (the other guys have zero knowledge or warning before the event, and the results of that drive some of the plot), just in case that turns anybody off.

Main Pairings/Characters: No pairings, but a lot of homosocial behavior.

Side Pairings/Characters: Leckie, Chuckler, Runner, and Sid

Summary: Hoosier has never had any interest in turning someone else into a werewolf. He has also never been in a war zone before. When faced with the option of giving his friends a better chance at survival, he barely thinks about it before taking action. He should have given it more thought though, because now they’re all tied to each other forever, through instincts and injury, war and separation, and whatever comes next. Together, they’re all going to learn what it means to be a pack – whether they like it or not.

Additional Details: Team Leckie canon-era werewolf AU. Story will closely follow the events of the miniseries through a werewolf lens. The narration will follow Hoosier (other pack members are Leckie, Chuckler, Runner, and Sid). 

STORY 12

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Edward "Hillbilly' Jones/Andrew 'Ack-Ack' Haldane

Side Pairings/Characters: Bob Leckie/ Bill “Hoosier” Smith (plus possibly references to extremely minor other pairings)

Summary: It's Eddie's last months of high school and all he wants is to have a good time with his friends on the soccer team and maybe win the trophy at the end of the season. However, changes in how players are grouped shake up the team as five new guys take the spots of old teammates. Instead of being a distraction from Eddie's other major problem in life - does he tell Andy about his feelings or would that be a waste of time since they'll be going to different colleges soon anyway and Eddie might 'get over it' then? - it makes it even worse, because you can't bond with your team without spending time with its captain, which means that if Eddie's crush was bad before, it's now beginning to reach epic proportions.

Additional Details:

STORY 13

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Snafu Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: OC’s for both Snafu and Sledge but they will be minor

Summary: After Snafu misses Burgie’s wedding, Sledge gets concerned. He visits New Orleans but he finds a very different Snafu. Distant and basically a wreck. Sledge will come to understand his feelings for Snafu as he tries to help him, even though Snafu really doesn't want to accept any kind of help.

Additional Details:

STORY 14

Rating: General

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Dr Edward Sledge, Mrs Sledge, Edward Sledge, Jr, possibly Eugene Roe

Summary: There are approximately 144 miles between New Orleans and Mobile, and Merriell Shelton will drive every single goddamned one of them if he has to. There’s nothing left for him in Louisiana, no place for him at his mother’s dinner table, not after everything he’s seen, everything he’s done. And hell, so what if Eugene’s parents act as if he’s come down to Alabama to dirty their baby boy’s perfect little soul? So what if Eugene’s squeaky-clean, god fearing neighbors look at him like he’s trash? Well, according to Sledge, it means one helluva lot. So two weeks after Merriell shows up at Eugene Sledge’s door like the lost mutt he is, the two of them pack their bags and drive to California. No, they don’t know anybody in California. No, they haven’t got any jobs waiting for them in California. But Eugene says it’ll work out, and, well, Merriell has always been so ready to trust Eugene with everything he’s got.

Additional Details:

STORY 15

Rating: Teen and Up 

Warnings: Off-screen character death of OC’s

Main Pairings/Characters: Andrew 'Ack-Ack' Haldane/Edward "Hillbilly' Jones 

Side Pairings/Characters: None

Summary: Andy/Eddie Modern AU. Andy is a first semester biology student with flatmates who like to party every night. Trying to find a quiet place to study Andy stumbles upon a diner around the corner where Eddie is working as a waiter. They become friends over the following weeks and when he realizes that Eddie’s life is more troubled than he lets on Andy makes it his mission to help him. 

Additional Details: The story is pretty light and humorous mostly, but will deal with sad themes at times. It's meant to be a hopeful story with the focus on helping someone in need, so it's not going to be too dark. 

[killmongerthiskoochie]

Sense8 Friend Group

hey, guys!  this request is really spur of the moment but i couldn’t resist because i love my little sensate babies so fucking much!!  they’re family regardless of having no blood ties to one another.  the show only has two seasons, therefor the sensates have only been friends for a short while, but this group will have known each other for at least 5 years to make their bond a little more realistic.

your characters don’t have be carbon copies of the sense8 crew, but they must be heavily influenced by them!  this means that their personalities should be as close to spot-on as possible but things like career, romantic relationships, and gender can be changed.  yes, gender swapping is allowed, BUT there must still be equal parts male and female.  and i’d prefer it if we still had two non-hetero characters and i’m hoping for at least two people of color.  i won’t be a pit bull about this because i don’t like to put a muzzle on people’s creativity, but i don’t want to perpetuate a disgusting trend.

below will be small blurbs to go along with each character, just in case some of you haven’t seen the show.  p.s. if you haven’t, you should totally check it out!! taken characters will be denoted by a full name and their character inspiration/face claim in parentheses beside it.  these guys should all be 30 + and they’ll all have been in miami for at least the last five years.

*** please don’t use the original faces for your character’s face claim or keep their names!!!  you can message me here on tumblr or my discord is nikki007#3925. first come, first served.

joanna hirsch (riley blue / fc tbd):  joanna is the “mother” of the group.  she’s battled depression her whole life and has been an addict for probably the last 7 years of her life.  some years have been better than others but she always seems to fall off the wagon.  since childhood she’s believed she’s cursed and said curse (in her mind) is the reason everyone she seems to love is ripped away from her at the hands of the grim reaper himself (her mother, husband, and infant).  she can’t keep a job to save her life and she’s always in need of support from the friends.  no, she may not have many useful skills, but she’s empathetic to a fault and has been known to calm the more aggressive members in the group.

will:  will has lived most of his life trying to live up to the expectations of his police officer father.  he doesn’t necessarily want to be a cop like his dad but it’s kind of like a family tradition and he doesn’t want to be the one to break that cycle.  despite his disinterest in dawning a badge, he’s really good at his job.  he’s clean-cut, fair, gentle, kind, and sensitive to the plights of others.  will is super observant and he can always tell when something is up with each of the friends.  he’s smart and protective of everyone in the group - most of all joanna.

sun (originially a poc / e. asian):  sun is the daughter of a very wealthy business tycoon.  she’s smart, athletic, aloof, and hella responsible - especially when it comes to her bratty little brother.  she’s the type that would fall on a blade for the people she loves, so long as they don’t cross her.  it’s hard for her to forgive and forget, especially if you’re not in their circle of friends.  you definitely don’t want to be on her bad side. her father has always favored his prodigal brat of a son over his tough-as-nails, loyal daughter.  unlike the wolfgang (who she’s similar to and has a special quiet connection with), sun doesn’t have a problem asking for help when she needs it.  she’s comfortable in her skin and confident to a fault. she’s a kickboxing master.

lito (originially a poc / hispanic & homosexual):  lito does something in the entertainment industry.  he plays the macho-man part very well but he’s dramatic (is always crying about something) and terribly sensitive to how others perceive him.  next to capheus, lito is the biggest cinnamon roll in the group.  he can’t fight worth a damn but the wolfgang makes sure to fight any battles poor little lito can’t.  lying is something he’s learned to excel at and he’ll cover for any of his friends and be convincing about it.  originally, he’s closeted on the show but you can have him be open about his sexuality or not.

nomi (originially transgender & homosexual):  nomi is the group’s tech genius.  she was a problem child growing up and has had her hand in hacking since she was a teen.  she comes from a very conservative family that doesn’t agree with several aspects her lifestyle - especially her sexuality.  she’s self-absorbed and despite her problematic youth, she was raised in a middle to upper-middle class family.  she’s a very “screw the rules, i have money” type person.  she actually took the fall for a crime in her past because her folks are loaded and she knew she’d get off with a slap on the wrist (community service and probation).  she isn’t known for being the most reliable, but she’s working on it.

capheus (originially a poc / african):  capheus is the sweetest guy you’ll ever meet.  even when greeted with stony glares and silence, he’s still happy and greets people with a smile.  he works as a bus driver (or city worker?  garbage man, etc.) and puts in long hours to help his ailing mother who has a terminal illness.  positive, motivating, and empathetic - capheus will never turn a blind-eye to anyone in need.  but don’t mistake his kindness for weakness.  capheus has a voice and a very strong one at that.  he may believe in peace and community, but when there’s a wrong to be righted, he’ll do his part to fix it - even if it means getting physical.  it wouldn’t be unlikely for him to volunteer somewhere on top of working a regular job.

kala (originially a poc / s. asian):  kala is terribly confused.  she’s one of the smartest people in the group but she’s having difficulty figuring out her love life.  she doesn’t understand how she can love her husband, yet be so drawn to the wolfgang - sexually and emotionally.  she’s a competent scientist and despite her logic and good girl ways, she’s drawn to bad boys.  her husband is a good man and he treats her well, but that’s not enough for kala.  she’s probably the most pure and wholesome (besides capheus) of all the friends (lost her virginity to her husband people, i mean come on!).  she doesn’t believe in violence and is the most diplomatic in the group.  definitely an emotional cheater.

wolfgang:  wolfgang is the group’s resident bad boy.  he’s a criminal with little to no emotion (on the outside).  he was a loner growing up, raised in a house full of criminals.  the only ray of sunshine he had was his mother. wolfgang doesn’t have any immediate family (or if he does they’re all probably estranged) - the group is his family.  even when he needs it, he never asks any of the friends for help.  they have to practically force their way into his life half the time and wriggle information out of him.  he’s contemplative and brooding - definitely has daddy issues.  papa wolfgang was physically and emotionally abusive, which has made lil wolfgang super aggressive and violence prone in turn.  he viewed his family as monsters, so naturally wolfgang thinks he’s one too.  he’s attracted to the kala but knows she too good for him, so he’ll tease her about their sexual attraction but urges her to not leave her husband.

[legit-scam-review]

Even If It Fails, Dash Could Have a Lasting Impact on Crypto Adoption

It’s easy to see why Zimbabwean entrepreneur James Saruchera wants to use cryptocurrency to circumnavigate inflation.

As a university student in South Africa, Saruchera dropped classes and worked multiple jobs when inflation in his homeland made it impossible to remit school fees. His parents later lost their savings and pension investments after another bout of hyperinflation.

Yet when Saruchera founded his payments startup in February 2017, after years of researching different blockchain networks, he made what many in the crypto community might consider a surprising choice. He picked dash to be the backbone of the business.

Founded in 2014 as darkcoin before adopting a more regulator-friendly brand, dash is best known for its optional privacy features and boasts a market capitalization in the lower half of the top 20 cryptos. It’s drawn a fair bit of criticism for its cryptography practices and the way the core team has been run as a for-profit venture from day one.

But dash has at least one thing going for it: Its team has figured out how to win over entrepreneurs in the developing world like Saruchera.

His startup, Kuvacash, was seeded with a grant for roughly $550,000 worth of the cryptocurrency from the Dash Treasury DAO, a pool of mining rewards that allows dash fans worldwide to submit proposals and vote on which ideas get funding.

Saruchera said:

“It’s as close as you can get to a perfectly decentralized, democratic organization.”

Now, he’s getting ready to pilot Kuvacash’s mobile payments app with 100 users in October and negotiating with the government of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, to build a dash-powered transit app for an upcoming tram line.

While cryptocurrency adherents have been evangelizing the technology in poorer countries since the early days of bitcoin, few projects if any have done so as aggressively as dash.

The Dash Treasury DAO alone has granted over $33 million worth of dash since 2015, $2.3 million of which went to projects in developing countries such as Zimbabwe, Ghana and Kenya. That number is clearly ramping up as the community shifts strategies. Out of 27 grants in the developing world, 20 of those proposals received funding over the past 12 months. The August 2018 payout alone is expected to give around $920,273 worth of dash, including grants for programs in Venezuela and Brazil.

In addition to providing this startup capital, the project has set it itself apart in these markets by offering support for entrepreneurs, starting with their first transaction and wallet all the way to launching a dash-oriented business. Protocol developers also improve the underlying software based on feedback from such diverse users.

And despite the lingering controversies over dash’s technical infrastructure, these efforts to serve marginalized communities are starting to gain notice.

“I have heard about and admire their outreach,” said Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful, a bitcoin exchange that focuses on emerging markets.

Boots on the ground

The Dash Core startup, which stewards the dash network, learned people in the developing world can drive adoption on their own when given free capital and technical support.

“In the same way that you have a credit card that might say JPMorgan Chase on it, and its powered by Visa, it’s their own brand of services and its powered by dash,” Dash Core Group CEO Ryan Taylor told CoinDesk.

According to Taylor, dash is seeing the fastest adoption rates in places with high inflation and easy access to mobile phones. So, to maximize growth, the company will focus on hiring more local staff in emerging markets.

“We’re going to be putting a lot more resources into that corridor of countries that exhibit those attributes,” Taylor said.

Beyond funding, grant recipients also engage with Dash Core developers to provide feedback and get support on infrastructure development.

“We have the ability to effect improvements, feedback on certain use cases and how those [insights] can be adjusted at the core platform level,” Saruchera said, adding:

“On-the-ground insight has led to them [Dash Core Group] modeling zero confirmation instant send, increasing the speed and capacity of InstantSend on the network. These high-performance protocol adjustments help lay the foundation to improve dash’s speed even further.”

Meanwhile, Dash Core Group employees often give away small amounts of crypto to users in places like Venezuela.

To be sure, other blockchain projects have used similar tactics in developing countries. Some have rewarded locals for recruiting new users, such as the South African startup Wala, or worked with crypto exchanges to increase access, like the startup behind Zcash did by partnering with AirTM exchange in Latin America. The Ethereum Foundation funds one-off research projects. Some bitcoin projects are donating crypto to groups in the developing world.

But dash is doing all of the above, and starting to get some results. Take, for example, Venezuela, where according to the Dash Core Group, hundreds of merchants are now transacting with dash thanks to local advocacy programs. These ambassadors literally walk up to Venezuelan businessmen and convince them to start using dash.

“We’re going to be rolling out a plan for Latin America more broadly,” Taylor said. “Venezuela has become our second largest market.”

Yet these Venezuelan users aren’t necessarily joining the broader crypto community. One such merchant in Caracas, food truck entrepreneur Alejandro Valderrama, told CoinDesk he hasn’t learned about any other blockchain technologies or engaged with the dash community beyond his own customers and dash ambassadors.

To be fair, a dash saleswoman introduced Valderrama to digital wallets this July, so he’s quite new to the scene. Now four or five customers a day now buy Valderrama’s food with dash, worth up to $7 per transaction, adding around three percent to his overall revenue. He hodls without converting into fiat or seeking any significant funding from dash organizations.

Valderrama described dash as a “strong currency,” the best way to hedge against the devalued bolivar.

Critics and converts

Funding and infrastructure model aside, some still question Dash Core Group’s tactics and sustainability.

Critics say the dash model artificially restricts supply with misaligned incentives since node operators and miners share fractional profits. Plus, it is far more expensive to operate a dash node than a bitcoin node, which some say hinders the network’s decentralization.

Blockchain consultant Tone Vays told CoinDesk he’s concerned the dash governance model isn’t sustainable and the community’s evangelizing tactics may confuse less tech-savvy consumers, adding:

“If people convert their dash into something that has a higher probability of lasting for a longer time, that’s great. But if they don’t, they will be scammed or lose all their value and hate all crypto going forward.”

Bitcoin is more secure and decentralized than dash’s experiments, Vays said. Bitcoin may not accommodate low-value transactions yet, but onboarding merchants with a dash-only digital wallet troubles Vays.

When asked about the risks of promoting an altcoin to unsophisticated consumers, Venezuelan business development lead Alejandro Echeverría, head of the Dash Merchant program, pointed to dash’s educational efforts. These include monthly events drawing 500 attendees in Caracas and “Dash Youth” lectures at high schools and universities.

“We are focused in Dash exclusively and we want people really use it as a daily currency,” Echeverría said.

On the other hand, Tricia Martinez, CEO of the ethereum-powered Wala, told CoinDesk hiring local ambassadors to promote a single digital asset is the norm in emerging markets. Gathering feedback from novices is also invaluable to developers abroad, as is hands-on cooperation from sophisticated users like Saruchera in Zimbabwe.

“These consumers need to be on our team,” Martinez said. “They need to be building.”

As for the criticism about expensive nodes, dash node operator Eric Sammons wrote a blog post that running such software is simply a job that requires collateral as a prerequisite. And in response to criticisms of mining and other technical aspects, the Dash Core Group published a statement that dash is a work in progress able to “deliver innovations” without venture capital or a token sale because investors and users decide for themselves whether to support the project.

Crypto rails

Since there’s no substitute for giving people tools to help themselves, dash adoption may deliver the most impact in places where entrepreneurs run their own experiments with support from technical experts.

Starting in October, Kuvacash will run a pilot with roughly 100 users to test the mobile app’s remittance, merchant payments, and peer-to-peer money transfers.

“Not just in stores, but also in informal trading settings like a person selling tomatoes or bananas at a market,” Saruchera said. “If the person that they are sending funds to doesn’t have a smartphone, just a feature phone, we can allow them to get a reference number so they can go to our agents and cash out that way.”

Following the hyperinflation cycles over the past decade, most Zimbabweans use imported U.S. dollars because they no longer trust local bonds or banks. So, Kuvacash got a license to import dollars and is now deploying local agents who can help users cash out in person for fiat bills as needed.

By 2019, Kuvacash aims to offer both peer-to-peer payments and crypto-powered transit accounts through the same wallet app to anyone in Harare who wants to use dash. Representatives from the municipality of Harare confirmed they are negotiating a transit deal with Kuvacash, although it is not yet finalized.

If all goes according to plan, commuters will use the mobile app pay for tram rides with dash, which Kuvacash will promptly convert back into U.S. dollars for the tax collector.

At the moment, it’s difficult to regulate public transit in Zimbabwe, in terms of price gouging, safety, and taxation, because vehicles are mostly operated by individual drivers and owners. Transparent blockchain records of tax revenue could be especially useful for establishing trust in a country fraught with accusations of bureaucratic corruption.

“Poor people, they can spend as much as 50 percent of their income on travel,” Saruchera said, adding the new metro would offer reliable transportation for less than $0.50. “If we can help fix this, then we can exponentially increase their quality of life.”

Image via Dash Foundation

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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[corinecabiades-blog]

Articles with Summary, Paraphrase and Direct Quote

Article # 1: Mental health biggest issue for youth

Jo Earp • Dec. 7, 2017, at 4:00 p.m.

Mental health is now the number one national concern for young people in Australia, according to Mission Australia’s annual Youth Survey – the first time in its 16 year history. Coping with stress, body image and depression also take out three of the top four spots in the list of personal concerns.

Just over 24 000 young people aged 15 to 19 took part in the 2017 survey. One-third (33.7 percent) considered mental health the most important issue in Australia today, up from 20.6 percent last year and 14.9 percent in 2015. Alcohol and drugs (32 per cent), equity and discrimination (27.3 per cent), international relations (13.6 per cent) and education (13 per cent) completed the top five in this year’s survey.

When asked about issues of personal concern, 45.3 percent said they were ‘extremely concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about coping with stress. School or study problems came in second spot (35.6 percent were ‘extremely concerned’ or ‘very concerned’), followed by body image (31.1 percent), depression (23.7 percent) and family conflict (20 percent). Other results for this question include 15.3 percent being ‘extremely concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about bullying and emotional abuse, and 12.9 percent about suicide.

Mission Australia CEO James Toomey says important work is already taking place to destigmatize mental health issues, but the survey data suggest much more needs to be done. ‘Young people need a coordinated, comprehensive and cohesive national response to ensure they can access the right mental health supports when they need them. It makes sense to invest in universal mental health programs in schools, as well as community-based mental health services, and to design services for young people to ensure they are youth-friendly.’

The survey asked young people where they would go for help in dealing with issues in their life. The top three answers were friends, parents, and a relative or family friend (84.4 percent, 77.7 percent, and 61.3 percent, respectively). Half of those surveyed said they would look for help on the internet, four in 10 said they would seek support from a teacher and one-third said they would go to a school counselor.

Discussing these findings, the Mission Australia Youth Survey Report 2017 says: ‘Young people need to feel confident seeking help and know where to turn. Equally, those who young people turn to for support must be equipped with the information and resources to effectively help young people in times of need. In light of rising concerns about mental health, young people’s tendency to turn to friends should be recognized as an opportunity to educate young people about “mental health first aid” and provide peer support networks.’

The report says females reported higher levels of concern in relation to personal issues like coping with stress, body images, and depression, were more likely to choose mental health as a national concern and, according to previous Mission Australia research, were around twice as likely to meet the criteria for having a probable serious mental illness. ‘A gendered approach to the mental health of young people is therefore required that takes into account help-seeking preferences, as well as other social pressures such as gender-based discrimination and ideals of appearance.’

It adds ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people have access to culturally sensitive and age-appropriate mental health services is essential. ‘Intergenerational disadvantage must also be addressed as a priority, with efforts led by Aboriginal elders and communities.’ In the 2017 survey, coping with stress also came out as the top personal concern for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants and one in five (20.1 percent) said they were ‘extremely concerned’ or ‘very concerned’ about suicide.

Summary:

Mental health is one of the most national concerns for teenagers nowadays. Coping with stress, body image and depression also take out three of the top four spots in the list of personal concerns. It is stated that there are a lot of reasons as to why these teenagers are mentally stressed. Some experts say important work is already taking place to decrease the number of mental health issues with that being said taking surveys and studying the causes of these causes might not help those teenagers who are mentally stressed, some actions are needed too.

Paraphrasing:

There are a lot of different aspects as to why teenagers are being mentally exhausted. Survey says that there are different reasons as to why depression is taking place although experts are studying this cases, it is important that action should take place too to help these teenagers who are in need of proper caring not physically, but mentally

Direct quote:

   James Toomey (2017, para. 4) says that “Important work is already taking place to destigmatize mental health issues, but the survey data suggest much more needs to be done.”

Article # 2: True Friendship

Bunty Rane • Oct. 12, 2014

Friends bind people in a bond of love, mutual trust, understanding, and loyalty.

Friendship is a relationship which involves mutual self-respect, trust, loyalty, and affection. Good friends enjoy each others company, share the same interests and are loyal to each other.

A friend is someone, who stands by our side, even during difficult times. It requires honesty and mutual understanding and has to be nurtured with devotion and patience.

Just as it takes patience to grow a garden, in friendship, too, first a seed is planted and then it has to be taken care of, nourished and watered, daily. One has to tend it with love and care.

Friendship is Man’s emotional and psychological necessity. You can share your feelings, frustrations, and happiness with your friend. You can also depend on your friend for keeping your trust.

A true friend never lets up down even under most threatening circumstances. He/she will never jet ray you even under pressure.

The importance of friendship cannot be undermined because we cannot survive without good friends. It is a very important relationship in the emotional life of every human being. A friend, who supports him only when it is convenient, is called a “Fair-weather-Friend”.

The one, who supports his friends, through emotional difficulties, is a “True Friend”. He is ready to make sacrifices in order to help his friend. A true friend is someone, whom you [know will be there for you, whenever you need him.

Friendship is a necessary part of every human’s life as none of us is self-sufficient. A friend is a trust-worthy companion who cherishes special moments and memories of life with another person.

A good friend plays an active part in his friend’s life. He is happy when his friend is happy. He feels achieved with his friend’s accomplishments. They share affection, which fills them with positive energy, they spend time thinking of their friends, or who is important for them and how to find ways to help them.

Friendship requires devoting time and patience. There can be disagreements and quarrels also, which is natural, but one must have patience to deal with such frustrations. Being reasonable, a forgiving nature! Willingness to compromise when one can and persistence to rebuild friends are needed for a true and lasting relationship.

True friendship cannot flourish! Without a give and take attitude the more the efforts put into it, the morel will lead towards everlasting happiness and trust. Friendship also helps in molding the kind of person you are.

Never rush to make friends because friendship needs a good foundation. We must accept our friend as he is. The essence of friendship is sincerity and giving one’s self to your friend without thinking of getting anything in return. At times, when we meet new and interesting people,! Our loyalty changes and old friends are forgotten. A lesson to be learned, “Do not forget old friends while making new ones.”

Summary: 

Friendship is Man’s emotional and psychological necessity. Friendship requires mutual self-respect, trust, loyalty, and affection without with your relationship means nothing and it can be easily wrecked it always requires a good foundation. Making friends is easy but it’s not that simple it may sound confusing but there are different qualities you should have when you are ought to make friends. Most importantly you should let yourselves grow and accomplish things and support each other no matter what, but keep in mind that you can correct your friend/s too and point out their mistakes in a nice way  

Paraphrase:

Friendship is a necessary part of every human’s life as none of us is self-sufficient. A friend is a trust-worthy companion who cherishes special moments and memories of life with another person. A friend must able to understand one's mistakes and forgive them, but considering their mistakes is not a part of it. Friendship takes time, nobody said it was easy.

Direct quote:

Bunty Rane (2014, para. 12) says that “Do not forget old friends while making new ones.”

Article # 3: How Music Affects Teens

Mariam S • June 12, 2009

  Music is something that every person has his or her own specific opinion about. Different people have different taste, and various types of music have many ways of leaving an impact on someone. It can be relaxing, angering, soothing, energizing, and many more.   There are so many types of music out there today. Rap, pop, rock, country, indie, alternative, hardcore are some of the abundant types in the world. Music sends out either good or bad message that have big impacts on how people act. People usually become friends with others who have the same taste in music as the rest of the people they hang out with, or it can be vice versa. People may not want to associate with people who have different tastes in music because they’ll argue about what they think is better but it's just their own opinions.   Rap and Rock music are two very important types of music in the world. They both send out different messages and help kids. The lyrics are sung or rapped by the artists can be things going on in their own personal lives, and people with the same types of problems can listen to them so they know their hope and their people like this out there in the world. Music can also serve as a catalyst for new ideas. When people listen to the new things out there, they learn different things going on in the world and they become more open-minded because they’re exposed to different people like the artists.   A lot of people come to the conclusion that rap music has a very big impact on the world. Listening to the lyrics, they usually revolve around sex and drugs and those are topics many parents don’t want their kids being involved in. Many of the music videos made by rap artists in the world show these topics in them. Studies show that people who are more into rap music do drugs one time in their lives.   People can use music to express themselves, in ways it can’t be expressed through behavior or art. You can usually tell how someone’s feeling by the type of music he or she is listening to at the time. It’s a tool used by many. Groups of people around the world can come together and gather at concerts, shows, and venues to show what their interests and likings are and you see how many people have similar likings as you.   I can personally relate to the effects that music has on its listeners and users because it’s a big part of my life. Every day I listen to the words and sounds of different singers/bands with contrasting ideas and opinions. The music I listen makes me who I am.

Summary:

There are a lot of different genres of music we listen to. It can sometimes fit our mood in different ways. Sometimes music can send positive or negative message/s depending on what the artist motives. Sometimes music can be a bridge when it comes to making friends especially when you have the same taste in music.And some people turn to music when they are stressed or sad or happy, in short music is a big part us. Sometimes artists express their feelings or their personal lives through their songs. Some people may relate to that song and somehow it can give them hope and reassurance that they're not alone with their problems. People can use music to express themselves, it can be behavior or art and sometimes the music you listen makes who you are as a person.

Paraphrase:

We have different genres or types when it comes to music. It can sometimes fit our mood in different ways. Sometimes music can send positive or negative message/s depending on what the artist motives. Sometimes music can be a bridge when it comes to making friends especially when you have the same taste in music. Sometimes artists express their feelings or their personal lives through their songs. Some people may relate to that song and somehow it can give them hope and reassurance that they're not alone with their problems. People can use music to express themselves, it can be behavior or art and sometimes the music you listen makes who you are as a person.

Direct quote:

Mariam S (2009, para. 6) says that “ I can personally relate to the effects that music has on its listeners and users because it’s a big part of my life. Every day I listen to the words and sounds of different singers/bands with contrasting ideas and opinions. The music I listen makes me who I am.”

[clibbornjessica]

Think You\re An Expert In paving contractors? Take This Quiz Now To Find Out.

Use These Three Problems and Alternate Strategies that can assist you craft a better method to your online business and switch “hate relationships” into love affairs. Drawback: Traditional General Contracting promotes an imbalance of power that lacks respect for the client. The contractor is perceived to be calling all the shots. Strategy: The client turns into an Owner Builder and the Builder becomes the Coach. This serves to degree the playing discipline, put extra power within the hands of the consumer and the relationship has an “even keel” really feel. Downside: There’s typically little or no effective communication between the builder and the clients.

4 Seasons Landscapers Inexperienced Queens Landscape Firm

Select A neighborhood Firm With A Repute

Flexibility in Design

Paver Driveway – #1 – Most Expensive

1 = Your finances

Analysis Local Asphalt Pavers

Trust me, if you are getting an superior deal, you might be getting ripped off and the chances are when it is time to complain, you won’t ever hear from them again. Use the phonebook, internet, or speak to pals and neighbors when on the lookout for a contractor to do the work. Choose a contractor that focuses on driveway maintenance, not a paving company who does it on the facet or anyone else who does it right here and there. Learn the way the contractor applies the sealer. A brushed on utility is best, squeegee is okay, spray is the worst.

These centres can give you some brilliant concepts and sensible advices with regard to dam paving tasks. They usually have an excellent vary and stock of materials. A few of these supplies are imported from exotic areas of the world. Some common materials are granites, porphyry, marbles, travertines, limestones, slates, gabbro and diorite. Recently, there has been a rise in supply of Indian Sandstone that sells underneath many different names like “Modak Brown” or “Raj Green”. So as to maintain from needing an asphalt driveway repair, you must take care to keep it in good condition so it would final you for a number of years. One thing to contemplate is that on a very hot day, the asphalt shall be heated by the sun and can be a bit softer once more. Parking your automobile in the same place throughout the hot weather can cause divots and tire-monitoring in the asphalt that may take time to fade out, if they do.

I’ve seen related structural issues with cuts made for ductwork.

Problem: Collateral harm. In my expertise, many subs have a sort of tunnel imaginative and prescient. They focus on their work and don’t essentially see what else is round them. Persian carpet, and another plumber who reduce giant notches within the flooring joists throughout the center of a room, nearly collapsing the flooring. In that case, I had to call in a structural engineer to undo the damage. I’ve seen similar structural issues with cuts made for ductwork. Additionally, I’ve seen mechanical subs run pipes or ducts by a living space when they were imagined to be buried within the wall or ceiling.

Tips to Hire Paving Contractors http://bit.ly/1RQOM9A

— East Rand Paving (@eastrandpaving) April 12, 2016

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsListed below are a number of questions you may ask that can shine a gentle on whether or not a selected contractor is an efficient fit in your facility. Earlier than you interview a paving contractor, be sure you perceive the terminology and details of the work you need them to do. The lowest bid isn’t always and even usually an important factor when selecting a competent contractor. Integrity, experience and a popularity for doing high quality work are sometimes more essential. Moreover, except for trying into the magnificence that may be accentuated by driveway pavers, you will need to look into different concerns as nicely. Besides, magnificence is not every thing. You should consider your funds. It is best to look into the driveway maintenance. You need to know what are the elements that can hamper the nice situation of your pavers and it’s best to do measures to prevent those issues from happening. An example would be the impact of water into the pavers.

When you utilize a automobile delivery company you can see that there are numerous advantages you can take full advantage of. This can be a service that’s becoming extra reasonably priced for all consumers. There are some issues you will want to do to make sure that you are working with a reputable car transport firm. You do not wish to base your resolution solely on the worth alone. This may permit you to really examine companies to really be certain that you’re retaining your car secure on this long journey. If this happens to you, name the police. It’s a scam. Reputable contractors calculate the supplies they need very carefully, and any small quantity left over from a job would never be sufficient to complete a whole new job. If these con artists do any work in any respect before taking off together with your money, it’s going to most undoubtedly be shoddy. It’s best to deal with registered, bonded, adequately insured and licensed (where companies. Many reputable paving contractors also belong to trade associations, such as the Nationwide Asphalt Pavement Affiliation (NAPA), the Nationwide Pavement Contractors Association (NPCA), or numerous state-particular associations. When hiring a contractor to resurface or install a new asphalt driveway, all the time get an inventory of references and check them. Ask references about the quality of the contractor’s work, their attention to particulars, and if the work was competed on time.

Likewise, if there are areas which have depressions or mounds, they needs to be completely reconstructed from the bottom. You probably have several of those areas, a brand new driveway may make sense. Though a correctly installed asphalt driveway can last 15 to 20, even 25 years if correctly maintained, excessive weather conditions, additional-heavy masses and shortcuts taken throughout building can all trigger premature put on and failure. Beware of any asphalt paving contractor who rings your doorbell and claims to have some “leftover materials” from another job, and in case you conform to the work “right now,” you’ll get a tremendous discount. You may even go and inspect previous work. Make clear who’s accountable for re-hanging gates or other doorways, if wanted, due to raised pavement ranges. Who will raise any water valves or sewer inlets to satisfy the asphalt around them – you, a plumber, or someone else? Specify that the surface should be graded to supply proper drainage. For new installations, specify that the sub grade shall be compacted earlier than the base layer is utilized.

Asphalt driveways do not remain clean and black without end. You can take steps to take care of your driveway by sealing and protecting it, but often the consequences of heat, extremely-violet rays, and substances such as salt, oil, fuel and grease take their toll. And if these don’t get you, then cracking and water penetration ultimately will. Your driveway may be corroded, worn out, or have cracks, which could all warrant a resurfacing job if the situation is extreme enough. You’re looking at your asphalt driveway and it seems to be in tough form. What do you have to do? Will some restore work do the trick? Should the driveway be resurfaced, or does the whole thing should be ripped up and redone from scratch? CITYPAVING Maybe the neatest thing to do is to seek the advice of a couple of asphalt paving contractors and get their opinions, and (typically free) estimates. This article can give you a common idea of what’s occurring, what to look for in an asphalt paving contractor, and what to incorporate in your contract.

If you adored this short article and you would certainly such as to get additional info concerning driveway maintenance dublin (look at here citypaving.ie) kindly browse through our website.

from https://ultralandscaping.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/think-youre-an-expert-in-paving-contractors-take-this-quiz-now-to-find-out/

from   Supreme Driveways - Blog http://supremedriveways.weebly.com/blog/think-youre-an-expert-in-paving-contractors-take-this-quiz-now-to-find-out

[nyastuding]

The Ten Secrets About paving contractors Only A Handful Of People Know.

Use These Three Issues and Alternate Strategies to help you craft a better approach to your corporation and switch “hate relationships” into love affairs. Downside: Conventional Normal Contracting promotes an imbalance of energy that lacks respect for the consumer. The contractor is perceived to be calling all of the pictures. Technique: The client turns into an Owner Builder and the Builder becomes the Coach. This serves to level the enjoying subject, put extra power in the arms of the consumer and the connection has an “even keel” feel. Problem: There’s often little or no efficient communication between the builder and the purchasers.

4 Seasons Landscapers Inexperienced Queens Panorama Company

Select A local Company With A Repute

Flexibility in Design

Paver Driveway - #1 - Most Costly

1 = Your funds

Analysis Native Asphalt Pavers

Trust me, in case you are getting an awesome deal, you might be getting ripped off and the chances are high when it is time to complain, you won’t ever hear from them again. Use the phonebook, internet, or discuss to mates and neighbors when looking for a contractor to do the work. Select a contractor that specializes in driveway upkeep, not a paving firm who does it on the aspect or anybody else who does it here and there. Find out how the contractor applies the sealer. A brushed on utility is finest, squeegee is okay, spray is the worst. These centres can give you some bright ideas and practical advices with regard to dam paving projects. They usually have an excellent range and stock of supplies. Some of these supplies are imported from exotic areas of the world. Some frequent materials are granites, porphyry, marbles, travertines, limestones, slates, gabbro and diorite. These days, there was a rise in supply of Indian Sandstone that sells underneath many alternative names like “Modak Brown” or “Raj Inexperienced”. So as to keep from needing an asphalt driveway restore, you should take care to maintain it in fine condition so it would final you for several years. One thing to consider is that on a very popular day, the asphalt will probably be heated by the sun and is usually a bit softer again. Parking your automobile in the identical place during the recent weather may cause divots and tire-tracking in the asphalt that can take time to fade out, if they do. I’ve seen comparable structural issues with cuts made for ductwork. Problem: Collateral damage. In my experience, many subs have a kind of tunnel imaginative and prescient. They deal with their work and don’t necessarily see what else is round them. Persian carpet, and another plumber who minimize large notches within the floor joists throughout the center of a room, nearly collapsing the floor. In that case, I needed to call in a structural engineer to undo the harm. I’ve seen related structural issues with cuts made for ductwork. Additionally, I’ve seen mechanical subs run pipes or ducts via a dwelling area after they had been speculated to be buried in the wall or ceiling.

Tips to Hire Paving Contractors http://bit.ly/1RQOM9A — East Rand Paving (@eastrandpaving) April 12, 2016

Listed here are several questions you may ask that can shine a light on whether or not a specific contractor is a good fit to your facility. Before you interview a paving contractor, ensure you understand the terminology and details of the work you want them to do. The bottom bid just isn’t always and even often the most important issue when choosing a competent contractor. Integrity, expertise and a reputation for doing high quality work are often extra vital. Furthermore, aside from wanting into the beauty that may be accentuated by driveway pavers, you need to look into different concerns as well. Moreover, magnificence isn’t everything. You should consider your funds. You must look into the driveway upkeep. It’s best to know what are the components that may hamper the nice condition of your pavers and it is best to do measures to stop those issues from taking place. An instance could be the effect of water into the pavers. When you utilize a automobile shipping company you can find that there are various advantages you could take full advantage of. This can be a service that’s turning into more reasonably priced for all customers. There are some issues you’ll want to do to ensure that you are working with a official car delivery firm. You don’t want to base your choice only on the value alone. This may allow you to really evaluate companies to essentially make sure that that you’re maintaining your car secure on this lengthy journey. If this happens to you, call the police. It’s a rip-off. Reputable contractors calculate the materials they need very fastidiously, and any small quantity left over from a job would never be enough to finish a whole new job. If these con artists do any work at all before taking off with your cash, it’s going to most undoubtedly be shoddy. It is best to deal with registered, bonded, adequately insured and licensed (the place companies. Many respected paving contractors also belong to trade associations, such as the National Asphalt Pavement Affiliation (NAPA), the National Pavement Contractors Affiliation (NPCA), or various state-specific associations. When hiring a contractor to resurface or set up a new asphalt driveway, at all times get a listing of references and test them. Ask references about the standard of the contractor’s work, their consideration to details, and if the work was competed on time. Likewise, if there are areas which have depressions or mounds, they must be fully reconstructed from the base. When you’ve got several of these areas, a new driveway might make sense. Though a correctly installed asphalt driveway can last 15 to 20, even 25 years if correctly maintained, extreme weather circumstances, additional-heavy masses and shortcuts taken throughout development can all trigger premature wear and failure. Beware of any asphalt paving contractor who rings your doorbell and claims to have some “leftover materials” from another job, and should you conform to the work “proper now,” you may get an amazing discount. You may even go and examine earlier work. Make clear who is liable for re-hanging gates or different doors, if needed, attributable to raised pavement ranges. Who will raise any water valves or sewer inlets to fulfill the asphalt around them - you, a plumber, or another person? Specify that the floor should be graded to provide correct drainage. For brand spanking new installations, specify that the sub grade will be compacted earlier than the bottom layer is applied.

Asphalt driveways don’t remain clean and black perpetually. You may take steps to keep up your driveway by sealing and protecting it, however typically the consequences of heat, ultra-violet rays, and substances comparable to salt, oil, gasoline and grease take their toll. see page And if those don’t get you, then cracking and water penetration finally will. Your driveway could also be corroded, worn out, or have cracks, which could all warrant a resurfacing job if the condition is extreme enough. You’re looking at your asphalt driveway and it appears to be in tough shape. What should you do? Will some repair work do the trick? Ought to the driveway be resurfaced, or does the entire thing must be ripped up and redone from scratch? Perhaps the smartest thing to do is to seek the advice of a number of asphalt paving contractors and get their opinions, and (typically free) estimates. This text can offer you a basic thought of what is going on, what to search for in an asphalt paving contractor, and what to include in your contract. If you enjoyed this write-up and you would certainly like to obtain additional info concerning driveway maintenance dublin (look at here citypaving.ie) kindly go to our internet site.

[supremedriveways]

Think You\’re An Expert In paving contractors? Take This Quiz Now To Find Out.

Use These Three Problems and Alternate Strategies that can assist you craft a better method to your online business and switch “hate relationships” into love affairs. Drawback: Traditional General Contracting promotes an imbalance of power that lacks respect for the client. The contractor is perceived to be calling all the shots. Strategy: The client turns into an Owner Builder and the Builder becomes the Coach. This serves to degree the playing discipline, put extra power within the hands of the consumer and the relationship has an “even keel” really feel. Downside: There’s typically little or no effective communication between the builder and the clients.

4 Seasons Landscapers Inexperienced Queens Landscape Firm

Select A neighborhood Firm With A Repute

Flexibility in Design

Paver Driveway – #1 – Most Expensive

1 = Your finances

Analysis Local Asphalt Pavers

Trust me, if you are getting an superior deal, you might be getting ripped off and the chances are when it is time to complain, you won’t ever hear from them again. Use the phonebook, internet, or speak to pals and neighbors when on the lookout for a contractor to do the work. Choose a contractor that focuses on driveway maintenance, not a paving company who does it on the facet or anyone else who does it right here and there. Learn the way the contractor applies the sealer. A brushed on utility is best, squeegee is okay, spray is the worst.

These centres can give you some brilliant concepts and sensible advices with regard to dam paving tasks. They usually have an excellent vary and stock of materials. A few of these supplies are imported from exotic areas of the world. Some common materials are granites, porphyry, marbles, travertines, limestones, slates, gabbro and diorite. Recently, there has been a rise in supply of Indian Sandstone that sells underneath many different names like “Modak Brown” or “Raj Green”. So as to maintain from needing an asphalt driveway repair, you must take care to keep it in good condition so it would final you for a number of years. One thing to contemplate is that on a very hot day, the asphalt shall be heated by the sun and can be a bit softer once more. Parking your automobile in the same place throughout the hot weather can cause divots and tire-monitoring in the asphalt that may take time to fade out, if they do.

I’ve seen related structural issues with cuts made for ductwork.

Problem: Collateral harm. In my expertise, many subs have a sort of tunnel imaginative and prescient. They focus on their work and don’t essentially see what else is round them. Persian carpet, and another plumber who reduce giant notches within the flooring joists throughout the center of a room, nearly collapsing the flooring. In that case, I had to call in a structural engineer to undo the damage. I’ve seen similar structural issues with cuts made for ductwork. Additionally, I’ve seen mechanical subs run pipes or ducts by a living space when they were imagined to be buried within the wall or ceiling.

Tips to Hire Paving Contractors http://bit.ly/1RQOM9A

— East Rand Paving (@eastrandpaving) April 12, 2016

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsListed below are a number of questions you may ask that can shine a gentle on whether or not a selected contractor is an efficient fit in your facility. Earlier than you interview a paving contractor, be sure you perceive the terminology and details of the work you need them to do. The lowest bid isn’t always and even usually an important factor when selecting a competent contractor. Integrity, experience and a popularity for doing high quality work are sometimes more essential. Moreover, except for trying into the magnificence that may be accentuated by driveway pavers, you will need to look into different concerns as nicely. Besides, magnificence is not every thing. You should consider your funds. It is best to look into the driveway maintenance. You need to know what are the elements that can hamper the nice situation of your pavers and it’s best to do measures to prevent those issues from happening. An example would be the impact of water into the pavers.

When you utilize a automobile delivery company you can see that there are numerous advantages you can take full advantage of. This can be a service that’s becoming extra reasonably priced for all consumers. There are some issues you will want to do to make sure that you are working with a reputable car transport firm. You do not wish to base your resolution solely on the worth alone. This may permit you to really examine companies to really be certain that you’re retaining your car secure on this long journey. If this happens to you, name the police. It’s a scam. Reputable contractors calculate the supplies they need very carefully, and any small quantity left over from a job would never be sufficient to complete a whole new job. If these con artists do any work in any respect before taking off together with your money, it’s going to most undoubtedly be shoddy. It’s best to deal with registered, bonded, adequately insured and licensed (where companies. Many reputable paving contractors also belong to trade associations, such as the Nationwide Asphalt Pavement Affiliation (NAPA), the Nationwide Pavement Contractors Association (NPCA), or numerous state-particular associations. When hiring a contractor to resurface or install a new asphalt driveway, all the time get an inventory of references and check them. Ask references about the quality of the contractor’s work, their attention to particulars, and if the work was competed on time.

Likewise, if there are areas which have depressions or mounds, they needs to be completely reconstructed from the bottom. You probably have several of those areas, a brand new driveway may make sense. Though a correctly installed asphalt driveway can last 15 to 20, even 25 years if correctly maintained, excessive weather conditions, additional-heavy masses and shortcuts taken throughout building can all trigger premature put on and failure. Beware of any asphalt paving contractor who rings your doorbell and claims to have some “leftover materials” from another job, and in case you conform to the work “right now,” you’ll get a tremendous discount. You may even go and inspect previous work. Make clear who’s accountable for re-hanging gates or other doorways, if wanted, due to raised pavement ranges. Who will raise any water valves or sewer inlets to satisfy the asphalt around them – you, a plumber, or someone else? Specify that the surface should be graded to supply proper drainage. For new installations, specify that the sub grade shall be compacted earlier than the base layer is utilized.

Asphalt driveways do not remain clean and black without end. You can take steps to take care of your driveway by sealing and protecting it, but often the consequences of heat, extremely-violet rays, and substances such as salt, oil, fuel and grease take their toll. And if these don’t get you, then cracking and water penetration ultimately will. Your driveway may be corroded, worn out, or have cracks, which could all warrant a resurfacing job if the situation is extreme enough. You’re looking at your asphalt driveway and it seems to be in tough form. What do you have to do? Will some restore work do the trick? Should the driveway be resurfaced, or does the whole thing should be ripped up and redone from scratch? CITYPAVING Maybe the neatest thing to do is to seek the advice of a couple of asphalt paving contractors and get their opinions, and (typically free) estimates. This article can give you a common idea of what’s occurring, what to look for in an asphalt paving contractor, and what to incorporate in your contract.

If you adored this short article and you would certainly such as to get additional info concerning driveway maintenance dublin (look at here citypaving.ie) kindly browse through our website.

from Ultra Landscaping https://ultralandscaping.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/think-youre-an-expert-in-paving-contractors-take-this-quiz-now-to-find-out/

[lifeaslamar]

The Ten Secrets About paving contractors Only A Handful Of People Know.

Use These Three Issues and Alternate Strategies to help you craft a better approach to your corporation and switch "hate relationships" into love affairs. Downside: Conventional Normal Contracting promotes an imbalance of energy that lacks respect for the consumer. The contractor is perceived to be calling all of the pictures. Technique: The client turns into an Owner Builder and the Builder becomes the Coach. This serves to level the enjoying subject, put extra power in the arms of the consumer and the connection has an "even keel" feel. Problem: There's often little or no efficient communication between the builder and the purchasers.

4 Seasons Landscapers Inexperienced Queens Panorama Company

Select A local Company With A Repute

Flexibility in Design

Paver Driveway - #1 - Most Costly

1 = Your funds

Analysis Native Asphalt Pavers

Trust me, in case you are getting an awesome deal, you might be getting ripped off and the chances are high when it is time to complain, you won't ever hear from them again. Use the phonebook, internet, or discuss to mates and neighbors when looking for a contractor to do the work. Select a contractor that specializes in driveway upkeep, not a paving firm who does it on the aspect or anybody else who does it here and there. Find out how the contractor applies the sealer. A brushed on utility is finest, squeegee is okay, spray is the worst. These centres can give you some bright ideas and practical advices with regard to dam paving projects. They usually have an excellent range and stock of supplies. Some of these supplies are imported from exotic areas of the world. Some frequent materials are granites, porphyry, marbles, travertines, limestones, slates, gabbro and diorite. These days, there was a rise in supply of Indian Sandstone that sells underneath many alternative names like "Modak Brown" or "Raj Inexperienced". So as to keep from needing an asphalt driveway restore, you should take care to maintain it in fine condition so it would final you for several years. One thing to consider is that on a very popular day, the asphalt will probably be heated by the sun and is usually a bit softer again. Parking your automobile in the identical place during the recent weather may cause divots and tire-tracking in the asphalt that can take time to fade out, if they do. I’ve seen comparable structural issues with cuts made for ductwork. Problem: Collateral damage. In my experience, many subs have a kind of tunnel imaginative and prescient. They deal with their work and don’t necessarily see what else is round them. Persian carpet, and another plumber who minimize large notches within the floor joists throughout the center of a room, nearly collapsing the floor. In that case, I needed to call in a structural engineer to undo the harm. I’ve seen related structural issues with cuts made for ductwork. Additionally, I’ve seen mechanical subs run pipes or ducts via a dwelling area after they had been speculated to be buried in the wall or ceiling.

Tips to Hire Paving Contractors http://bit.ly/1RQOM9A — East Rand Paving (@eastrandpaving) April 12, 2016

Listed here are several questions you may ask that can shine a light on whether or not a specific contractor is a good fit to your facility. Before you interview a paving contractor, ensure you understand the terminology and details of the work you want them to do. The bottom bid just isn't always and even often the most important issue when choosing a competent contractor. Integrity, expertise and a reputation for doing high quality work are often extra vital. Furthermore, aside from wanting into the beauty that may be accentuated by driveway pavers, you need to look into different concerns as well. Moreover, magnificence isn't everything. You should consider your funds. You must look into the driveway upkeep. It's best to know what are the components that may hamper the nice condition of your pavers and it is best to do measures to stop those issues from taking place. An instance could be the effect of water into the pavers. When you utilize a automobile shipping company you can find that there are various advantages you could take full advantage of. This can be a service that's turning into more reasonably priced for all customers. There are some issues you'll want to do to ensure that you are working with a official car delivery firm. You don't want to base your choice only on the value alone. This may allow you to really evaluate companies to essentially make sure that that you're maintaining your car secure on this lengthy journey. If this happens to you, call the police. It's a rip-off. Reputable contractors calculate the materials they need very fastidiously, and any small quantity left over from a job would never be enough to finish a whole new job. If these con artists do any work at all before taking off with your cash, it's going to most undoubtedly be shoddy. It is best to deal with registered, bonded, adequately insured and licensed (the place companies. Many respected paving contractors also belong to trade associations, such as the National Asphalt Pavement Affiliation (NAPA), the National Pavement Contractors Affiliation (NPCA), or various state-specific associations. When hiring a contractor to resurface or set up a new asphalt driveway, at all times get a listing of references and test them. Ask references about the standard of the contractor's work, their consideration to details, and if the work was competed on time. Likewise, if there are areas which have depressions or mounds, they must be fully reconstructed from the base. When you've got several of these areas, a new driveway might make sense. Though a correctly installed asphalt driveway can last 15 to 20, even 25 years if correctly maintained, extreme weather circumstances, additional-heavy masses and shortcuts taken throughout development can all trigger premature wear and failure. Beware of any asphalt paving contractor who rings your doorbell and claims to have some "leftover materials" from another job, and should you conform to the work "proper now," you may get an amazing discount. You may even go and examine earlier work. Make clear who is liable for re-hanging gates or different doors, if needed, attributable to raised pavement ranges. Who will raise any water valves or sewer inlets to fulfill the asphalt around them - you, a plumber, or another person? Specify that the floor should be graded to provide correct drainage. For brand spanking new installations, specify that the sub grade will be compacted earlier than the bottom layer is applied.

Asphalt driveways don't remain clean and black perpetually. You may take steps to keep up your driveway by sealing and protecting it, however typically the consequences of heat, ultra-violet rays, and substances comparable to salt, oil, gasoline and grease take their toll. see page And if those don't get you, then cracking and water penetration finally will. Your driveway could also be corroded, worn out, or have cracks, which could all warrant a resurfacing job if the condition is extreme enough. You're looking at your asphalt driveway and it appears to be in tough shape. What should you do? Will some repair work do the trick? Ought to the driveway be resurfaced, or does the entire thing must be ripped up and redone from scratch? Perhaps the smartest thing to do is to seek the advice of a number of asphalt paving contractors and get their opinions, and (typically free) estimates. This text can offer you a basic thought of what is going on, what to search for in an asphalt paving contractor, and what to include in your contract. If you enjoyed this write-up and you would certainly like to obtain additional info concerning driveway maintenance dublin (look at here citypaving.ie) kindly go to our internet site.

[pacificbigbangblog]

Writer/Artist Pairings!

All right guys, the time has finally come to announce the writer/artist pairs for the Pacific Big Bang 2017! If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at pacificbigbang@gmail.com or just shoot us an ask!

After each story summary we have included the tumblr url for that story’s writer and artist. (There is an artist who has bravely taken on two stories, due to a drop out. This is not a typo.) Please find your writer/artist and introduce yourself if you don’t already know each other! If you’d rather communicate with your author or artist via email, let us know and we’ll put you guys in touch that way. As the challenge continues, we hope that you’ll become a source of inspiration, motivation and support for one another.

One more thing! Now that claims are over, you can post as much about what you’re working on as you want! Writers, please feel free to post snippets from your stories as you write! Artists, give us glimpses of what you’re working on as your pieces take shape! We’re a small fandom, so the more excitement we can generate about this, the better!

Good luck to everyone, and thank you again for participating! We are really looking forward to sharing this experience with you all!

STORY 1

Writer:  @acesparson

Artist:  @irr-fullmetalheart 

Rating: Mature (some sports violence, possible off-screen death)

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Andrew ‘Ack-Ack’ Haldane/ Edward “Hillbilly’ Jones & Eugene Sledge/Merriell ‘Snafu’ Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: There may be some other HBO War cameos, but The Pacific will be the main POV.  

Summary: Captain Haldane’s team clinching the 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs had almost been a given. Staying in the race was a whole 'nother matter .

Additional Details: Dealing with hyper-masculinity, ambitions & expectations, & queer themes within sports. It’ll be mainly realistic, but this is fictionalized NHL, and through the eyes of an experienced vet hockey player.

STORY 2

Writer:  @waterdeer

Artist:  @baksun-n

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Wilbur “Runner” Conley /Lew “Chuckler” Juergens

Side Pairings/Characters: Robert “Lucky” Leckie/Bill “Hoosier” Smith, Lew “Chuckler” Juergens, Sidney Phillips, Ronnie "Kid” Gibson

Summary: Runner is home for the summer after his junior year of college. He’s not excited to go back to his sleepy, tiny town. So far, in the first few weeks, his best friend has been ditching him for this new guy, his parents don’t care about him and haven’t spoken more than two words to him since he came home, and he feels like his life is a dead end. More alone than he’s ever been, he ends up meeting this weird guy from the woods.

Additional Details: Summer Vibes - it’s got the “home for the summer” feel, going out into the woods exploring, summer love kinda feel; Loneliness - Runner is a lonely guy and there’s areas of the story that are sad and down because the story focuses on him; Fantasy - Chuckler is not entirely human (still deciding on what mythical creature he is)

STORY 3

Writer:  @warriorgays

Artist:  @hoosiersblanket

Rating: General or Teen and Up

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Bob Leckie/Vera Keller, John Basilone/Lena Riggi, Ray Person/Brad Colbert, and Josh Lyman/Donna Moss

Side Pairings/Characters:

Summary: Robert Leckie is a reporter with the White House Press Pool. There’s no such thing as a normal day, but today is a particular challenge as Leckie bounces around in an attempt to get an inside scoop–to put a personal face on working in the White House. Will that personal face be his old friend and current Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, grumpy but coffee-addicted special assistant Hoosier Smith, rival pool reporter David Webster, pissed-off mad genius Deputy Communications Director Ray Person, energetic and impossible-to-locate Deputy Press Secretary Chuckler Juergens, the new IT guy known only as Lurch, or the Holy Grail of interviews, Secretary of Defense Lena Basilone and her husband, Head of Secret Service John Basilone? Who knows? In the end, it could be any one of them. Probably not Webster, though. [A crossover with The West Wing.]

Additional Details: Mood is realistic, quick-moving, and snarky, as close to the tone of The West Wing as I can get.

STORY 4

Writer:  @antiquecompass

Artist:  @charlesanthonybruno

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Andrew 'Ack-Ack’ Haldane/ Edward “Hillbilly’ Jones

Side Pairings/Characters: Snafu Shelton, Burgie, and various other cameos

Summary: Andy Haldane leaves his home and job in Boston to help his Aunt Mae run her country store in a small town on the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. He loves his Aunt Mae, her store, and the town he used to spend all his summers in before school and work got in the way. Being back brings up all kinds of memories and sees Andy making quite a few reunions, especially with the Jones family, and particularly the eldest son, Eddie. They’re not kids anymore, but Andy already knows he could fall in love with Eddie Jones all over again.

Additional Details: Pretty much a romance novel, with hardly any angst. Lots of nostalgia as both Andy and Eddie reminiscence about their childhood summers together. Country music is definitely a favorite of the entire Jones family and features in the fic. Many scenes of family and friends bonding. Just a general happy, calm little fic.

STORY 5

Writer:  @bullrandleman

Artist:  @scramjets

Rating: At most, Mature

Warnings: Possibility of some violence. Horror.

Main Pairings/Characters: John Basilone, JP Morgan, Manny Rodriguez

Side Pairings/Characters: John/Lena Riggi, other characters by mention

Summary: The crew of the rebel fighter craftship take refuge on a Class I planet in an effort to escape the Dictatorship hunting party. They need to recoup and repair, patch up some injuries, and send word for help before they’re discovered. The Alliance depends on the plans they’ve stolen. But the planet is Class I for a reason. The ghosts that inhabit are ancient and angry, and the crew are faced with the decision of exposing themselves for help, or dying.

Additional Details: Very mild crossover with Changi, though it’s not necessary to have watched the series, and it’s not a huge aspect of the story. I’m happy to answer any questions regarding this aspect.

STORY 6

Writer:  @spoondragon

Artist:  @ramimalekeyes

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Prostitution/Sex work, Period-typical Language and Attitudes, Mention of Childhood Abuse (physical), Possible Mentions of Drug Use (OC’s), Off-Screen Death of OC

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Sid Phillips, RV Burgin, Bill Leyden, Jay De L’Eau, Sledge family

Summary: After the war, Eugene gets dragged to a brothel during Sid’s raucous New Orleans bachelor party. While there, he runs into a familiar but wholly unexpected face.

Additional Details: Featuring prostitute!Snafu, jaded post-war!Eugene, misunderstandings, love letters, road trips, a wedding or two, family drama, learning to love yourself and learning to accept the one you love.

STORY 7

Writer:  @ramimalekeyes

Artist:  @generoes

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Issues of Consent, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Homophobia, Religious Themes

Main Pairings/Characters: Merriell “Snafu” Shelton/Eugene Sledge

Side Pairings/Characters: Merriell “Snafu” Shelton/Orginial Male Characters

Summary: After the war, a dispirited Shelton returns to the life he left behind to find a man looking to take what Shelton owes him. In the chaos of trying to settle debts, Eugene shows up at his door to confront him about how they parted ways and comes face to face with the men threatening Shelton’s life. Through quick thinking, Eugene earns them some time to make an escape but also complicates everything further. On the run with Eugene, Shelton is forced to deal with his feelings for him while they both try to stay alive.

Additional Details: Dark tone and Ominous mood. Aesthetic? Southern Gothic meets Drive.

STORY 8

Writer: @bornearliernix

Artist:  @joeliebgottmyheart

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: Symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, very vague mentions of sex

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Sidney Phillips

Summary: Eugene Sledge and Merriell Shelton board a train, both headed to homes they haven’t seen in years. In a last effort to bring some familiarity with him, Eugene asks Merriell to come with him to Mobile- at least until he’s settled in. Despite his instincts telling him to leave every part of the war behind him, Merriell does.

Additional Details: This work would best be described as melancholy, reflective, and cautiously hopeful.

STORY 9

Writer:  @ackackh

Artist: @muminbarn

Rating: Mature (for language and non-explicit sexual content)

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Andy Haldane/Eddie Jones, Robert Leckie/Hoosier Smith, Sidney Phillips, Bill Leyden, R.V. Burgin, Jay De L'eau, Chuckler Juergens, Runner Conley

Summary: When the Earth’s Sun began to die, most people decided to get the hell out of dodge. But others stayed, determined to stick with their only home until the very end. Thousands of years later, when the Sun had gone and taken most of Earth’s life with it, five men were sent on a mission to go back and study the home mankind left behind. But upon arrival, they were faced with the impossible: a boy in overalls.

Additional Details: Rural Science Fiction, Finding Beauty in Science, Some Rural Fantasy Elements, Space, Themes of Existentialism and Humanity, Soft and Colorful Characters/Settings

STORY 10

Writer:  @moontowers

Artist:  @red-hot-moon

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Period-Typical Attitudes, Canon-Typical Violence

Main Pairings/Characters: Merriell "Snafu” Shelton/Eugene Sledge

Side Pairings/Characters: Sidney Phillips, others probably

Summary: AU where Sledge and Snafu meet as teenagers in Alabama and grow closer in spite of themselves. War looms, but in the heat of summer 1941 it still feels as distant and inconsequential as thunderstorm, the kind that blows up in the afternoon and spins out by dinnertime. Eugene gets this feeling when he looks at Merriell and that…feels like a bigger fish to fry.

Additional Details: Magical Realism, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Canon

STORY 11

Writer:  @armypeaches

Artist:  @irr-fullmetalheart

Rating: Teen and Up (for language and canon-levels of violence)

Warnings: While there won’t be anything sexual in this story, I will warn that the actual werewolf biting is non-consensual (the other guys have zero knowledge or warning before the event, and the results of that drive some of the plot), just in case that turns anybody off.

Main Pairings/Characters: No pairings, but a lot of homosocial behavior.

Side Pairings/Characters: Leckie, Chuckler, Runner, and Sid

Summary: Hoosier has never had any interest in turning someone else into a werewolf. He has also never been in a war zone before. When faced with the option of giving his friends a better chance at survival, he barely thinks about it before taking action. He should have given it more thought though, because now they’re all tied to each other forever, through instincts and injury, war and separation, and whatever comes next. Together, they’re all going to learn what it means to be a pack – whether they like it or not.

Additional Details: Team Leckie canon-era werewolf AU. Story will closely follow the events of the miniseries through a werewolf lens. The narration will follow Hoosier (other pack members are Leckie, Chuckler, Runner, and Sid).

STORY 12

Writer: @wolfandwildling 

Artist:  @liebgotts

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Edward “Hillbilly’ Jones/Andrew 'Ack-Ack’ Haldane

Side Pairings/Characters: Bob Leckie/ Bill “Hoosier” Smith (plus possibly references to extremely minor other pairings)

Summary: It’s Eddie’s last months of high school and all he wants is to have a good time with his friends on the soccer team and maybe win the trophy at the end of the season. However, changes in how players are grouped shake up the team as five new guys take the spots of old teammates. Instead of being a distraction from Eddie’s other major problem in life - does he tell Andy about his feelings or would that be a waste of time since they’ll be going to different colleges soon anyway and Eddie might 'get over it’ then? - it makes it even worse, because you can’t bond with your team without spending time with its captain, which means that if Eddie’s crush was bad before, it’s now beginning to reach epic proportions.

Additional Details:

STORY 13

Writer:  @snafu-is-dying-sledge

Artist:  @all-of-the-ships-are-sailing 

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Snafu Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: OC’s for both Snafu and Sledge but they will be minor

Summary: After Snafu misses Burgie’s wedding, Sledge gets concerned. He visits New Orleans but he finds a very different Snafu. Distant and basically a wreck. Sledge will come to understand his feelings for Snafu as he tries to help him, even though Snafu really doesn’t want to accept any kind of help.

Additional Details:

STORY 14

Writer:  @gettingthatyellowjaundice

Artist:  @everbodyhateselliot

Rating: General

Warnings: No archive warnings anticipated to apply.

Main Pairings/Characters: Eugene Sledge/Merriell “Snafu” Shelton

Side Pairings/Characters: Dr Edward Sledge, Mrs Sledge, Edward Sledge, Jr, possibly Eugene Roe

Summary: There are approximately 144 miles between New Orleans and Mobile, and Merriell Shelton will drive every single goddamned one of them if he has to. There’s nothing left for him in Louisiana, no place for him at his mother’s dinner table, not after everything he’s seen, everything he’s done. And hell, so what if Eugene’s parents act as if he’s come down to Alabama to dirty their baby boy’s perfect little soul? So what if Eugene’s squeaky-clean, god fearing neighbors look at him like he’s trash? Well, according to Sledge, it means one helluva lot. So two weeks after Merriell shows up at Eugene Sledge’s door like the lost mutt he is, the two of them pack their bags and drive to California. No, they don’t know anybody in California. No, they haven’t got any jobs waiting for them in California. But Eugene says it’ll work out, and, well, Merriell has always been so ready to trust Eugene with everything he’s got.

Additional Details:

STORY 15

Writer:  @ailendolin

Artist:  @alexpenkala

Rating: Teen and Up

Warnings: Off-screen character death of OC’s

Main Pairings/Characters: Andrew 'Ack-Ack’ Haldane/Edward "Hillbilly’ Jones

Side Pairings/Characters: None

Summary: Andy/Eddie Modern AU. Andy is a first semester biology student with flatmates who like to party every night. Trying to find a quiet place to study Andy stumbles upon a diner around the corner where Eddie is working as a waiter. They become friends over the following weeks and when he realizes that Eddie’s life is more troubled than he lets on Andy makes it his mission to help him.

Additional Details: The story is pretty light and humorous mostly, but will deal with sad themes at times. It’s meant to be a hopeful story with the focus on helping someone in need, so it’s not going to be too dark.