#I need a full time job with a good salary and job hunting sucks

[ganseybois]

It’s taking every ounce of my self control to not reread a little life

[darknessisafriend]

Charlie Sisters x Reader

Here is for @forensic-aep​

Where the reader has been teamed up with the brothers to go kill Herman and during the journey Charlie and the reader develop feelings for each other but never admitting it. Then the reader gets mad and ignores him after he got drunk and slept with many girls at Mayfield’s brothel and after a while they make up and tell each other, FLUFF and SMUT

Your only chance for happiness

Eli stood outside on his horse; his little brother Charlie was inside the villa, talking with the commodore to report on their past mission and maybe get another one. How he wished he could go home, hug his mother, and his lady, he was tired of all this violence, but not his little brother, and what else could he do to help him other than be there for him?

Suddenly Eli was pushed out of his thoughts by Charlie knocking at the glass of the window, gesturing for him to come inside; was the governor so disappointed in their performance?  

“Eli, it’s good to see you, please sit.” Invited the governor, Eli looked at his brother who made a face, showing that he also didn’t have any idea of what all this about. The governor sat at his desk, leaning forward on his forearm.

“Listen, you are one of the best henchmen in the country but lately you’ve been…disappointing and I believe it is because your team lacks a leader. Charlie, you’re the smartest, I want you to become the leader…” declared the commodore, Charlie seemed pleasantly surprised, a grin forming on his face. As for Eli, he didn’t mind as long as he was still paid.

“But that’s not the only thing I wanted to tell you, your team needs a third member, someone to balance your…impulsions.”

“What? Governor we don’t need someone to babysit us” argued Charlie frowning.

“And how can we trust this person?” retorted Eli, he didn’t want to be shot in the back while he slept.

“Do not worry, you can trust this person, she is an excellent but lonely bounty hunter who could use a team too…”

“Did you just say ‘she’?” exclaimed Charlie confused, at this moment the governor gestured to his men to introduce the third member of the team.  

You; you had heard the whole conversation, you weren’t happy to be teamed-up but the job paid well, and they’ll end up with a bullet in the skull if they started to pissed you off. So, you entered, the both of them turning to look at you, the big one seemed to only realize that you were a woman, he had a shocked expression on his face, was it because you wore a pants and boots like a man? whereas the younger one, had his mouth agape and seemed insulted, then he chuckled.

“Is this a joke? A woman!” he jested laughing. You came to stand next to the governor, ignoring his childish reaction.

“She is a very competent man hunter.” added your employer.

“Well, I don’t know about man hunting but she could certainly be useful for other activities…” suggested the younger man with a smirk, looking at you from head to toes.

“Charlie!” reprimanded his brother.  

“If you want to become a eunuch that can be arranged” you replied with a sly smile, Charlie chuckled.

“I’d like to see that.” he defied, now you were itching to take out your gun to teach him a lesson.

“Charlie, I won’t change my mind, and you will accept it or she takes lead of the mission and your salary as well.” threatened the governor, his patience starting to wear off, this seemed to make the man react and he swallowed back his pride, clenching his jaw.

“Alright but don’t expect any favors woman, you’ll live just like us.” he warned you.

“Don’t worry, I can handle myself.” you replied annoyed, you were perfectly able to live this way, you had been for the past two years.  

The commodore finally released you and your team quickly afterwards. The tension was present especially between you and the younger man.

“What’s your name miss? I’m Eli” said the older one as he introduced himself, handing his hand for you to shake, his brother sucked his teeth in disapproval.

“Pleasure to meet you, you can call me Y/N” you replied with a polite smile as you shook his hand, his grip was gentle, seems like he was true gentleman. Charlie was watching the two of you interact, annoyed by how his brother was to you.  

“So, what did the commodore said? And what about the horses?” asked Eli, Charlie sighed as he climbed on his horse.

“Come on, let’s get a drink” he prompted tiredly, did they want to talk privately or should you join? “well don’t just stand there” added Charlie over his shoulder, to this you quickly jumped on your horse and followed them to the Saloon.

“So, you know about the leadership problem…” started Charlie has he rolled a cigarette.

“What does it mean for the money?” asked his brother.

“It means more for me”

“No, for me I mean, is it like before?” clarified Eli, you blinked a few times, perhaps he was a nice guy but not very clever.

“Of course not, less necessarily.” replied Charlie on a casual tone, Eli sighed annoyed.

“If the Commodore wants to pay a leader it’s his own problem, it’s not a good thing to swipe on the small staff.”

“Don’t wanna know what we have to do?” asked the younger one as he changed the topic of the conversation.

“No.”

“What? You sulking?” he lighted his cigarette, while Eli took a sip of his drink, you did the same, patiently waiting for the conversation to come to the real important matters. At this moment, a guy entered the Saloon, you turned your head, he better stays out, Charlie looked like the kind of guy to draw his gun at the slightest annoyance.  

“Hey move! We’re not finished.” warned Eli, the barman gestured to the man to stay out, Eli was truly pissed off about his salary apparently; it wasn’t necessary to mention you were paid as much as Charlie.

“I’m still telling you; we have to find Morris in the south road.”  

“The John Morris of the Commodore?” Charlie hummed in confirmation.

“Why do we have to find Morris?” asked Eli dumbfounded; Charlie exhaled.

“He’s tracking a prospector, some Herman Kermit Warm” you intervened.

“Perfect, he finds him, shoots him, end of the story”

“Morris is a detective, ain’t a killer” pointed out Charlie with an annoyed tone.

“The job is Morris finds the guy, keeps him close to him, he tells us, we arrive, we finish the job, that’s the job” well summarized you thought, clearly Charlie was a man of action, going straight to the point, at least it’s something you had in common with him.

“And what about the horses?” asked again Eli fully shifting in his sit to face his brother.

“But damn what’s your problem with horses?!” badgered Charlie, losing his patience.

“The commodore said he’ll give us new horses Charlie” argued his brother.

“That’s not what he did?”

“No. You, he gave you a new horse, for me he freed some space in his stable and gave me an old horse” Charlie soundly sighed annoyed by the insistence of his brother.

“Don’t you think we could talk about this later?”

“No, it’s for this job, now, that I need a horse, not for later” insisted Eli.  

“Your horse is great, stop acting like a child.” the tone of Charlie was without appeal.

“It’s the word share that bothers you right?” now you clearly understand what the problem was, as brothers they couldn’t stop annoying each for small things, no wonder their last mission failed.

“What about you? You know how to shoot?” asked you Charlie his tone clearly showing he didn’t like your presence in the team.

“Of course, you’re far from being my first job you know, last time I took down the Wilsons” you disclosed as you took another sip of your drink.

“What? you’re the one who got the Wilsons? All six of them? By yourself?” exclaimed Eli in disbelief, a smirk formed on your lips, you were quite proud of this mission.

“Sure, didn’t you hear the commodore? I’m one of the best around here.” you added; throwing a challenging look at Charlie, he raised an eyebrow in return, pleasantly surprised.

“Interesting…I guess you’re gonna be useful after all.” he commented, getting up to get out, Eli followed him finishing his drink.  

“It’s the boss who pays, with his boss salary.” you told the barman, making Eli laugh and Charlie give you a provocative smile, you realized the bastard was pretty good looking with his perfect smirk and his icy green orbs. You followed them outside.

“So, when do we leave?” you asked impatient.

“We’ll meet here, tomorrow at dawn, don’t be late sweetheart.” Charlie said over his shoulders, and now he gave you a nickname, you huffed amused, you knew that sooner or later you’ll have to teach him a lesson if he takes too many liberties with you.

In the morning you were actually the first one up, you had trouble sleeping anyway, you always did on the eve of a mission, turning over and over in your bed as you thought about your target, and this night was added the thought about your two partners, Eli didn’t seem a threat, but you didn’t know if you could sleep with both eyes closed with Charlie, he looked clever and didn’t like you, maybe he was capable of killing you in your sleep just to get rid of you…

“Good morning.” you saluted the two brothers as you saw them approach on their horses. Eli answered you while Charlie simply tipped his hat at you.

“Alright, let’s go.” declared Charlie as he gave a sharp heel kick to the horse and galloped, you and Eli did the same. You rode the whole day until night, your bottom and your legs were starting to ache after a full day on a horse, you even ate lunch on it, you could tell Charlie was eager to get to his target, why? Money? Something else? You didn’t know, you will probably learn to know him and his brother during your travel. Most of the day they had stayed silent, focused on their horses and on the way to go.

You finally found a place to camp that night, tying the horse to trees, Eli started to make a fire while you and Charlie took off the horse’s saddles. You were throwing quick glances at Charlie, observing his behavior.

“How come a woman like you, a beautiful woman I must had, ended up bounty hunter?” he asked you genuinely curious. You were slightly taken aback at his question; you didn’t expect him to be interested in knowing you.

“Well, I always had a taste for adventure, let’s put it this way, didn’t see myself stay in town my whole life, getting married to some drunkard, have his kids and that’s it. No, not for me, I like my freedom.” you explained sincerely, you were proud of your choice of life, and you had proved to countless people that a woman didn’t need extra care or privacy, and that she wasn’t more fragile or sensitive than any other man.

“I see…as long as you do a good job, I don’t care that you’re a woman.” he replied on a casual tone.

“Good…what about you Charlie?” you returned the question.

“I’m just good at killing.” he answered coldly, his tone indicating he didn’t want to talk about that, he brought his saddle around the fire to use it as a pillow. You were intrigued, he seemed to have a lot of anger in him or something like that, he was constantly on the defensive. You joined them by the fire, the food was already warm, Eli gave you your plate with a friendly smile.  

“Thanks.”  

“Y/N if you don’t mind me asking, are you truly lonely in your life? I mean don’t you have a fiancé or someone waiting for you at home?” asked you Eli politely.

“No, who would want an improper, kinda tomboy woman as their wife.” you answered on a humorous tone, wearing a smile on your lips to mask how you really felt, you actually wished you had someone who would love you for who you were.

“What about your family then?” you sighed; he meant no harm but that was a complicated subject for you to talk about.

“I… huh…prefer not to talk about it Eli. Sorry.” Charlie’s eyes met yours briefly as he heard your answer, like he was suddenly intrigued or as if he understood how you felt.

“Oh Eli, now you’ve upset the lady!” accused Charlie on a teasing tone.

“I didn’t…”

“Don’t call me ‘lady’” you told Charlie, annoyed.

“What do you want me to call you? Oh, I know! You didn’t mind ‘sweetheart’ yesterday” he teased you with a mischievous smile; your mouth opened in a ‘o’ shape, you were outraged, god he was infatuating, you were so close to punch him in… his beautiful face.

“I’m sor-….” started the older brother, interrupting your trail of thoughts.  

“No, don’t apologize Eli, I’m perfectly fine, okay?” and now Charlie was laughing his ass off at the scene, you looked at him in disbelief, before a laugh started to build in your chest, until you couldn’t resist and let it out, you realized you could relax a bit, it was harmless teasing. Your eyes wandered on the face of Charlie who was still laughing, the warm light of the fire was highlighting his tanned skin, his dark hair were smoothed back neatly, he had some kind of elegance, the one you liked at least. When the laughs died down, the conversation went back to seriousness. Charlie was laying down on his back, legs crossed, looking at the fire

“So, what did he do this Herman Warm?” asked Eli while finishing to eat his plate.

“He stole something from the commodore” you answered.

“Don’t you find this weird, all these people stupid enough to steal from such a dangerous man? How can they rob him in the first place? We know the commodore is a prudent man”  

“Prudence has nothing to do with it, he’s man doing business all over the country, even overseas, he can’t be everywhere at the same time, it’s logical that he gets persecuted” explained Charlie, you arched an eyebrow, ‘persecuted’ was a bit of a strong word for that.

“Persecuted?” repeated Eli

“Yeah…persecuted.”

“The commodore persecuted…” Eli was thinking, it didn’t seem right to use this word.

“How do you call that huh? When a man is forced to protect his fortune with people like us, how do you call that?” retorted Charlie as he sat back.

“Not persecuted” replied Eli

“Wait, you’re not going to start catching me with every word now, what’s the matter? You’re vexed? You’re vexed because I’m the one leading the operations huh? If it’s that just tell me but stop niggling” Charlie was starting to lose patience, he was so quick to anger.  

“I’m not niggling, you’re just using a strange word and I’m tellin’ you” answered Eli on a calm tone, unphased.

“Oh, c’mon boys, are you really gonna fight over a word!?” you grumbled exasperated. Charlie groaned in return and went to lie down on his side, like a pouting child. You shook your head; they could be truly insufferable sometimes, you lied down too, putting your covers up to your chin, hiding a knife under your saddle that used as a pillow; your eyes traveled to Eli, he had a piece of red clothing in his hands, it looked like a scarf, he brought it to his face, inhaling its scent, you smiled soften, probably a gift from the woman he loved; then he lied down putting his hand on his gun which was shining under the light of the fire; was he always doing that? Or was it because of your presence? Nonetheless, the both of you were armed in case someone decided to go crazy…but quickly exhaustion took over and you fell asleep.

The next day you rode again, although the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed, the three of you were talking, making the road seem less long.

“Tell me, isn’t it Emilia Partridge?” asked Charlie with interest, his brother looked at him clueless.

“What are you talking about?” he asked

“Isn’t it the teacher who gave this ridiculous scarf? The one you spend your time folding and unfolding secretly every night.” you rolled your eyes at this; did he really have to bother him like that?

“It’s called a stole… can’t we have some privacy for 5 minutes?”

“Leave him alone Charlie; Eli I think it’s very romantic of her…” you commented, trying to avoid another argument.

“Thank you Y/N”

“Oh, come it’s just a little teasing sweetheart… do you have a plan with her?” asked Charlie, this time he was serious, no joke was intended.

“A plan?”

“Start a family, have children, marry her, something like that.” Charlie clarified.

“Don’t know, why are you so interested in it now?”

“I was just wondering about family…do you remember how dad was with mom?” well you didn’t expect to hear a private conversation like this, you looked in the opposite direction, pretending not to hear anything.  

“Yeah Charlie, I remember”

“It makes you think… aren’t you afraid to reproduce yourself? you aware that our father was crazy and that his rotten blood runs in our veins” you frowned, it was a very dark thing to say.

“Our father was drinking Charlie.”

“Touché. It’s the gift he left us, this rotten blood, that’s why we’re good at what we do.” he finished, going ahead, to be alone for a bit, it seemed he had been very affected by his father’s behavior.

“Is he alright?” you couldn’t help but ask to his brother who sighed in return.

“It’s complicated but since…he has never been the same.” briefly explained Eli, he didn’t want to say too much and you understood, just like your relationship with your family, none of you were ready to share the full story; when you’ll know each other better perhaps.

In the afternoon you finally reached the next town, it was small but it had everything necessary, with your companions you headed to the post office in the shop.

“Sisters. S.I.S.T.E.R.S like sisters” spelled Charlie, the man seemed to recognize them, suddenly aware to whom he was talking to.

“No, nothing, I would remember.”

“Alright, no news is good news. What’s the next hamlet on the road?” asked Charlie

“Myrtle Creek…”

“How far is it?” you asked, then.

“Two days, at least” you sighed there was still a long way to go, you didn’t like riding for days like that.

“Alright then, we’ll stay here for the night.” declared Charlie.

The three of you decided to do a little bit of shopping in this shop, you went to look for a bottle of Cologne, your current bottle was almost empty. You were never wearing makeup, except for special occasions, however, perfume is something you loved. Nearby was Eli, he was looking through the shelves for something interesting to buy, until it stopped in front of  a tooth brush, he looked at the object curiously, he probably didn’t know what it was, it was relatively a new body care item, which reminded you that you should buy another box of powder before it gets empty.

“What is it?” he wondered out loud.

“A tooth brush, with it, your mouth smells good and you have less risk to lose your teeth, I use it all the time! You use this powder too; you should buy one…” you explained to him with a smile.

“Hey, do you have boots?” you heard Charlie ask to the seller, you turned your head to see him wearing a white shirt, seemed like he really like elegant clothes, you quickly turned your head back as he caught you staring at him.

“And for your brother as well.” you advised Eli, before heading to the clothes too, this summer was really hot, you needed new shirts and underwear too. You picked a dark red shirt and two black, should be enough for the whole travel, then you went to the lady’s part for underwear, you took a couple of short panties, easier to wear when riding a horse and even more as you constantly wore pants. Then, your eyes traveled to the bras, here you could enjoy a bit of fantasy, there was even some French lingerie available, they were really good at making pretty things for women; now which one to pick? You wondered.  

“You should take this one.” you jumped at the voice of Charlie; he had approached you silently, he had a small smile and his eyes were mischievous.

“What are you doing here? I don’t remember asking for your opinion.” you retorted annoyed; he chuckled and left without a word, you looked at him leaving, he was so clingy! You looked back at the lingerie, your eyes landing on the one he had suggested, you felt blush coming to your cheeks.

Afterwards, you went to get a room by yourself, the town was small there was no risk of losing the two brothers. You sighed happily as let yourself fall on the mattress, there was nothing like the soft comfort and warmth of a real bed. Your mind traveled to Charlie, he was such a mysterious guy and what happened with his father for him to have such negative view of life as a couple? You took a short nap and after eating at the hotel, you weren´t tired, you felt like staying out for a bit, so you decided to go for a drink at the saloon even if at this time night you might encounter more drunk people than anyone else, worst case scenarios it will end up in a fist fight and you didn’t want to brag but you were good at it. As you entered the saloon, you noticed Charlie drinking at the bar with some men, you headed to an empty table to have your drink peacefully.

“Thanks” you said to the waitress as she gave you a glass of whiskey, you settled your feet on another chair, took a book out of your vest, it was one you had brought from home, Moby Dick, you knew it by heart after reading it over and over and still you always enjoyed it as much.

“Hey…” you raised your eyes from the page you were reading, Charlie had just sat at your table, the way he leaned on his arms indicated he was already very drunk.

“You should go to bed Charlie.” you advised him, going back to your reading.

“Nah I’m not tired…”  

“Hmmm” you hummed doubtfully, if he wasn’t hangover tomorrow either he had a very good tolerance to alcohol or he was lucky.

“Y/N” you ignored him trying to focus on your book “Y/N I want to tell you something…” you sighed, closing your book in frustration, it seems he won’t let you alone tonight.

“What Charlie?” you asked irritatingly.  

“Don’t be angry at me…I don’t like it…” he muttered on a pleading tone like a child. You couldn’t help but release a smile, he was really cute like that.  

“I wanted to tell you…you are a very beautiful lady and…”

“Good evening miss, can I buy you a drink?” interrupted a man as he came accompanied by some of his friend, they were all looking at you with lust in their eyes, shit, this wasn’t going to end well…

“Thanks, but I’m not interested.”  you replied annoyed by those constant interruptions.

“Then, maybe you want to get to the most interesting part?” flirted another guy, you rolled your eyes.

“Wait, what did you say asshole?” growled Charlie on a deadly tone, lifting his head to look at the guys in the eyes, he had fire in his, rage even.

“Charlie stay out of this; I don’t need your h-….”  

“Don’t you dare lay your hands on her!” he exploded, suddenly getting up, the tension quickly rising up between the men.

“Come one man…” tried to calm one of the guys, until Charlie drew out his gun and loudly putting it on the table, everyone started to run out in fear, Charlie Sisters was known to be a very good shooter; trying not to stumble, he followed them outside and once outside he started to shoot “Where are you going!?” he yelled.

“Godamnit….” you grumbled; did he really have to that?!  

“C’mon nobody wants to fight Charlie Sisters?! You won’t have her unless you get me first!” you had heard enough, you got out of your chair angrily, you arrived behind him, “nobody really?” he turned as if he was going to shoot until he recognized you.

“Oh, it’s you…I…” you didn’t let him finish and slapped him in the face, he had drunk so much alcohol that he fell heavily on the floor.

“Don’t you dare do that again! I can handle myself; I don’t need your protection and I certainly do not belong to you Charlie Sisters!” you fumed, crouching down next to him. He had lifted his hand on the cheek you had slapped, he wore an expression of hurt on his face. Which had for effect to instantly dissipate your fury.  

“Come on let’s get you back to your room” you sighed, feeling pity for him, you helped him back up, putting his arm over your shoulder while you put yours around his waist. The worst part was probably climbing the stairs, he always fell down, his full weight making you fall too. You finally managed to arrive at his and Eli’s bedroom, as you opened the door you realized that Eli was awake, probably due to the gunshots. You lied down Charlie on the mattress.

“I’m sorry…Y/N forgive me…” he started to apologize, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“It’s okay Charlie, sleep now.” you replied on a soft tone to sooth him, he tried to catch your hand but missed it as his head was spinning.  

“Stay with me…” he asked you, you did your best to hide your surprise.

“Goodnight Charlie, goodnight Eli” you saluted them both before heading to your room. You were not as tired as you expected to be but there was nothing else to do here, an empty saloon without music and people chatting was uninteresting to you. And Charlie’s behavior had you thinking, the way he had flirted with you, how possessive he got a few minutes ago, was it only because you were a woman? was there any risk he tried something while you slept? Or was it his usual way of acting around women? And he was so inclined to anger and violence, what happened to him? This question was more present in your mind each day. You sighed as you finished washing your body, the trip to get to Morris was going to be interesting.  

The next morning

“Can he hold the saddle?” you asked Eli as you watched Charlie struggling to get on his horse.

“Yes. I. Can.” grumbled Charlie as he finally managed to get on his horse. You sighed; you had several hours of lateness due to Charlie’s state, if it kept going like this, you were going to have several days of lateness. Today, the ride was silent, Charlie was half asleep while Eli seemed truly fed up by his brother attitude, you speed a bit your horse to arrive next to Eli.

“Hey, is he always drinking this much?” you asked with a hint of worry, Eli sighed.

“Yeah…Charlie has a drinking problem…” he admitted, looking down at his hands.

“Is it because of your father?”

“In a sense I guess; he started drinking after…what happened. To forget or…I don’t know…”

“I understand.” you answered, you knew the family could wound deeply.

“You do?”

“Opium for a bit. I… was addicted to it because of my bad situation with my family; until I realized it wouldn’t make my life any better.” you confessed, embarrassment surging back.

“I’m sorry to hear that Y/N…Charlie doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t fight it, he just let it happen as if he didn’t care about dying” explained Eli in a low voice with a hint of sadness ‘probably because there’s nothing worth of interest in his life, not even his brother’ you thought sadly. You were pushed out of your thoughts by the sound of something falling, both you and Eli turned your head to realize Charlie had fell of his horse.  

“Oh Charlie…” you stopped your horse and got off to help the man back up, Eli followed you.

“Shit, make an effort.” grumbled Eli annoyed.

“Wait…” started Charlie before bending down to throw up, you turned your face away, feeling a bit of anger at his state, he shouldn’t drink this much, he was going to kill himself or it could also lead to failure of the job.

“Come on man, hold on to us” you instructed him as got back up, Eli went to support his other side, then his brother pushed him on the saddle.

“Don’t judge me please sweetheart, there are days where we are stronger than others…” Charlie muttered as he leaned forward on his horse, you took his foot and placed it in the stirrup while Eli did the same on the other and went back to his horse. You stayed a bit longer and placed your hand on his thigh as an encouragement, you couldn’t help but feel bad for him. To this, he turned a bit his head to meet your eyes, he was exhausted, emotionally, you hoped he saw that you understood how he could feel.  

Two days after, you had arrived in Myrtle Creek, you simply rested a few hours there, just the time to wash yourselves and Charlie didn’t need to get drunk again. You and Charlie grew accustomed to each other, he wasn’t on the defensive anymore with you. You had 4 days lateness behind them now, and if you were going fast enough, you could get to this Herman in Jacksonville. The locals indicated you a shorter path through the mountains, making you gain 2 days, the way was hard, and the weather wasn’t helping, there was mist and it was humid. So, you were glad when you settled in for the night, a nice fire could only help, but first you had to change your shirt, it was damp and you needed to put a warmer one for the night in those mountains. So, you got up, staying close to the fire so you wouldn’t get too cold and took off your shirt.

“Oh, sorry! I’m going to give you some privacy.” Eli exclaimed as he turned his back to you, you chuckled amused at how prudish he was.

“No worries Eli, it’s just underwear nothing shocking.” you commented with a grin.

“Perhaps not to you but for a man like me…”

“Shshhhhhh let her Eli!” scolded Charlie throwing a cloth at his brother, he wasn’t going to complain, on the contrary, he was looking at you, shamelessly detailing your curves, it was a very pleasant sight for him apparently.

“Oh, you bought the one I recommended you in the end.” he grinned; you looked down at your bra, ‘shit’ you had forgotten about that.

“Yes, I did, you have good taste” you played as if you didn’t care about his comment, however you could hide the blush coming to your cheeks.  

“Indeed…suits you veryyy well…” he purred, his eyes caressing the curves of your body, he could feel heat coming to the lower part of his body; you actually felt flattered he was so interested in you, although it might just be carnal, at least that’s what you told yourself. You put your new shirt on and gave him an annoyed look. His eyes didn’t leave you for the rest of the evening, you simply ignored him, as long as he wasn’t touching you, you were fine with it.

That night you were the last one to go to sleep, you were on guard, it was the mountains there could be a bear or puma around. Suddenly you heard the sounds of crying, you frowned, who was crying? Eli who was trying to sleep, straighten up and looked at you, which meant Charlie crying, you gave him a confused look with a hint of worry, so he got up went to his little brother to comfort him, it seems he was crying while sleeping.  

“Charlie, Charlie…” he said softly, caressing his brother’s forehead.

“Booo!” exclaimed Charlie, you rolled your eyes, it was a prank.

“You idiot…” cursed Eli.

“I thought you were gonna kiss me!” joked Charlie between laughers then he made kissing noises and you lost it, that was a funny one.  

“Fuck you, the both of you.” grumbled Eli as he got back under covers.

“Good one Charlie.” you complimented as you laughed.

“Thank you, my lady!” replied Charlie on exaggeratedly courteous tone. Eli finished by joining your giggles. This moment made you fall asleep with a smile on your face, you were truly starting to appreciate your partners.

“Eli, wake up” you called the man as you packed your belongings.

“I don’t feel so good…” he murmured, you quickly came to his side and saw that his face was swollen.

“Charlie…” you called as worry grew in your chest.

“What? Oh shit, you should see your face, what happened?” asked Charlie trying to hide his worry.

“He probably got stung by something, a spider maybe” you deduced.

“It’s all swollen, your neck too…you look like, you know those big mutts, the Mastiffs.” he joked, chuckling a bit, you pinched your lips together trying not to laugh.

“Fuck off I’m sick.” your fun instantly stopped; it was a serious matter.

“Here sit up” instructed Charlie as he gave his brother his flask of water, Eli was shaking like a leaf.

“Can you ride your horse?” asked the younger one as he got up to continue preparing the horses.

“It’s freezing…” muttered Eli shaking, laying down once again to warm up under the covers. Worry grew even more in your chest, either it was going to pass or it was going to get worse. You went to talk to Charlie about it.

“Hey, Charlie.”

“What?”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea, he should rest…” you tried but he cut you off.

“We can’t afford that, we’re already late.” you sighed frustrated you wanted to tell him that if he didn’t get drunk, you wouldn’t be so late, but you knew this would only make him pissed and on the defensive, that would only hurt the already fragile team cohesion. You were pushed out of your thoughts by Charlie’s hand on your arm, it was the first time he touched you, you didn’t know why but it made you feel strange, it wasn’t unpleasant, it just sent tingles all over your body.

“Hey, don’t worry for him sweetheart, he’s strong.” he reassured you before heading to his brother and help him up.  

To make things worse, the weather got terrible, it was raining heavily the whole day and there was thunder too, the terrain was getting dangerous and slippery, and the horses were very nervous, you often looked behind you at Eli, he could barely ride his horse, from times to times you called him to make sure he was still responding. After several hours, the horses were getting tired of climbing the mountain in such conditions, you suggested Charlie to stop for the night, and thankfully he agreed. Under the rain you helped him build a shelter with a tarp while Eli was leaning against a tree, struggling not to fall. Then his brother came to help him lie down under the shelter, putting covers on him.  

You were sitting down not far away, looking around, watching over the camp. Charlie came to sit down next you.  

“I’m tired Charlie…” you heard Eli.

“I know.” his brother answered, this time his tone was gentle, caring.

“Very tired…”

“You can sleep, I’m here.” added Charlie softly; this seemed to instantly relax his brother who fell asleep within a few seconds, you were alone with Charlie now, not that you minded, you enjoyed his company, his goofiness when he was in the mood for it.

“If you need to rest, I can watch other the camp.” you offered to Charlie.

“It’s fine, I’m not tired for now.” he replied on the same tone. You didn’t speak for the following hour, busy with your own thoughts. However, after one more hour, you started to feel cold, the humidity was so high, you felt like you were soaked to the bones, it started with shivers and then you couldn’t hide your chattering teeth and sniffles. Charlie turned his head to look at you.

“Are you okay?” he asked you, a slight frown forming on his face.

“Just…fucking cold…” you confessed your voice trembling.

“Come here.” offered Charlie lifting his cover up and putting his arm around your shoulder

“What are you doing?” you demanded, suddenly feeling suspicious, he rolled his eyes at your reaction.

“Listen sweetheart, if you wanna freeze to death that’s your own problem, I���m just offering you to get warmer” he explained in an annoyed tone; to be honest you weren’t against a bit of warmth, so you scooted closer to him, your shoulder against his, he rearranged the cover you had around the both of you.

“Here that’s better.” he said out loud, and it felt nice, the warmth was gently starting to wrap around you, it was so agreeable that your eyelids started to feel heavy, your head falling forward, you were struggling to stay awake.

“You can sleep, I’ll watch over you.” offered Charlie, his voice was soft almost caring. You didn’t need to hear more and under the fatigue, without thinking, you laid your head on his collarbone, his arm around your shoulder could only encourage you to lean against him. As you fell asleep you didn’t notice him turning his head to look at you asleep against him, he could fully admire the delicate features of your face, gently he stroked your arm with his thumb. It felt very nice to hold you, he actually wished he could do it more, he liked your presence, it was soothing…

What was that noise? You wondered in the middle of the night, you groggily opened your eyes, it was still the night but the horses were agitated, feeling more awake you realized something was wrong, Charlie had fallen asleep too, his head resting against yours; then you heard grunts ‘shit a bear’ you realized. You had to wake up Charlie too, you could hear the animal getting closer, it probably wanted to eat the horses. As silently as possible you tried to wake him up. You lifted your head and your hand went to his cheek, gently tapping it.

“Charlie wake up, wake up!” you murmured a few inches from his face, his eyes finally shot open, you quickly put your hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t talk too loud, he looked at you expectantly, he was surprised to have his face so close to yours, you mouthed ‘bear’ to him and he instantly understood and nodded at you, you took off your hand from his face and reached for your gun, just like him. Silently you both got up and tried to distinguish in the dark where was the animal, until you heard one of the horses scream, it was attacking them, you both ran towards the horses and saw its shape, Charlie shot first, wounding the animal in the shoulder then the side, you briefly saw the giant teeth of the animal and shot, the animal fell down, lifeless, you had managed to aim for the head. You and Charlie were panting, the adrenaline pumping through your veins, you went to calm down the horse, the one of Eli was wounded at the face, the animal was probably going to lose the use of its left eye and maybe its life if the wound gets infected. Once you had cleaned the wound, you went back to where you had been sleeping, you realized that Eli didn’t even react, he was in a very deep sleep. However, you knew you will stay awake until daylight, just like Charlie.

The atmosphere got suddenly awkward as you met Charlie’s eyes, you were both aware you had slept snuggled against the other, and you wanted to go back in his warm embrace but it would be…weird. So, you got back to your place, leaving a few inches between you and Charlie, wrapping your own cover around you, he did the same, staying silent.

“You okay?” you still asked him without looking at him, ‘he could have been wounded by the animal’ you thought.

“Hm? Oh yeah…yeah, fine.” he replied awkwardly, and that was it, you stayed this way until the morning, you had convinced Charlie to wait a bit to wake up Eli, until he couldn’t wait more, and he was right, you had to leave. As you prepared breakfast, from the corner of your eyes, you saw Charlie take off his shirt, laying it down on a tree branch to make it dry a bit under the rays of the Sun, you redirected your attention to the meal, it was just a torso, why did it distract you?  

“It’s ready.” you announced out loud, serving the food in Charlie’s plate, he came to stand in front of you, of course he was still shirtless, you stared at him, detailing his torso, he was well built, especially his arms, and he had a little tummy, which honestly kinda made you fall for him.

“It’s just a torso, nothing shocking.” he teased you with a smirk, making you realize you had been staring, pronouncing the exact words you had used before; blush creeped on your cheeks as you gave him his plate, why where were you so distracted by anything he did or said suddenly?!  

“Thanks…for waking me up.” he spoke, you finally looked at him in the eyes, they were glowing with…affection? No, he was merely being thankful, fatigue was playing with your mind. Thankfully, Eli broke out the awkwardness by waking up, coughing blood, his face wasn’t swollen anymore, you were relieved he felt better.  

“Feeling better?” asked his brother, Eli he got up and noticed, the giant bear.

“What happened?” he asked dumbfounded.

“Well, this guy came into our camp during the night, your horse got wounded, it rushed on your horse.” Eli rushed to check on his horse.

“It’s Y/N who woke me up.” added Charlie as he ate his plate.

“I heard the horses getting scared, trying to break free.” you explained, feeling sorry for his horse.

“Shitty night…” muttered Charlie, it was true, you didn’t get much sleep, but the beginning of the night was nice, at least for you…snuggled against him…

“I dreamt about dad last night…” said Eli with a tired voice.

“Damnit that’s the icing on the cake! I’m tired of this place.” growled Charlie suddenly angry. “It smells like death, everything is soaked, fuck…let’s go”.

You quickly left the place, eager to reach Jacksonville and sleep in a dry and warm place. Of course, when you reached the city, there was no time to rest, the priority was to get to Morris and Herman.

“So, how do we operate for Warm?” asked Eli

“As usual, Morris give us Warm and we finish the job” replied Charlie as he loaded his gun.

“Ready?” he asked looking at his brother, then at you, you nodded fastening your belt around your hips.

“Watch the back, and you Y/N you wait the main entrance in case he tries to run away.” he instructed, you want to place yourself at the entrance, looking all around for any suspects, your hand on your gun, ready to shoot.

“They’re not here!” you heard Charlie scream; your eyes widened at the news.

“What!?” you exclaimed, how’s that possible!

“They left the town 4 days ago! Fuck!” fumed Charlie. You joined him upstairs, Morris had left a note, which Charlie asked you to read, as he didn’t how to read.

“He’s lying” you commented, this all story of he ran away from me was too easy.

“Who the hell is he kidding!? This asshole, who the hell is he kidding!?” exploded Charlie, passing a hand through his hair. He headed to the bar downstairs.

“We should continue until Mayfield, that’s part of the contract” you advised determined to do your job.

“She’s right and fuck, the job is to kill Warm wherever he is!” answered Charlie frustrated, he was right, otherwise none of you would get paid.

“Don’t speak so loud” warned his brother and he was right, who knows if they had partners here in the bar.

“I don’t give a fuck where they are, we find him and shoot him” insisted Charlie as he drank his whisky.

“When are we gonna go home?” asked Eli, he was tired of running after Herman, it left you a bit confused, it was part of the job, why was he undedicated to his job?  

“We will go home, once the job is finished Eli” replied Charlie irritated

“Charlie´s right, it´s a matter of reputation, we have to finish the job whatever it takes.” you supported him.  

“I feel like they’re getting farther and farther from us…how much time did we stay in the forest?” wondered Eli out loud.

“Between your notorious bad luck and your illness, we didn’t save time, that for sure.” you almost choked on your drink and went to sip your drink a few feet from them, you knew they were going to argue.

“What? Say that again? You’re saying it’s my fault!?” started the older brother.

“Yeah kinda, no?” asked innocentely Charlie, was he actually serious or did he just pretend?

“Want me to talk about how you got drunk over and over!? Huh? That doesn’t waste time huh! the days when you can’t even hold your saddle anymore or the other morning where you vomited on yourself! My bad luck, fuck you Charlie!” denounced Eli, that was a nasty shot, but the truth nonetheless, the two brothers separate, leaving you alone in the saloon. You finished your drink and decided to go after the younger brother, you found him in a back alley nearby, smoking a cigarette.  

“Hey Charlie.”

“What!” he snapped when his eyes landed on you, he seemed to calm down a bit.

“I know how it feels…” you started softly, he scoffed, exhaling the smoke in his lungs.

“When we drown ourselves in alcohol or drugs because of our families…”

“I doubt you know anything about it” he sneered.

“I became addicted to opium because of them. But then I realize it won´t change what happened and stopping this shit helped me to feel better.” you explained truthfully, hoping to make him react.

“What just because you wanted to live like a man?” this comment hurt you more than you expected, he didn´t have the right to say that, he didn´t what they did to you. You clenched your jaw, swallowing back tears that had formed in your eyes and turned on your heels to leave, you needed another drink after all.  

“Fuck, Y/N I’m sorry” he called you softly, you turned your head and gave him a sad smile, shaking your head, he will never learn to let himself be vulnerable.

“Forget it.” you told him as you left him, it will make him think.

The very same day you left for Mayfield, you ‘ll only spend one night camping and the day after you should arrive in Mayfield. The ride was silent, you and Eli were angry at Charlie for his condescending attitude. Eventually in the evening the two brothers started to talk to each other again, but you didn´t speak to Charlie, he had hurt your feelings when you thought you could open up to him and in return, he would accept your help. Still, Charlie tried to talk to you several times to break the ice. But it didn´t work you were decided to make him think about it the whole night.

As the morning came. Charlie was the first awake, he had had a shitty night, turning over and over in his bunk. He didn´t like when you didn’t pay attention to him, when you refused to talk to him; he had thought about it and had realized he had assumed what you had been through, now he wanted to make it up to you. So, he started to make breakfast, to the smell Eli started to wake up, as for you, you were still asleep. So slowly, he approached you to wake you up, he picked a long herb on the floor, crouching down in front of you and started to tickle your nose with the herb, he had a playful grin. Eli smiled because he knew his brother was starting to have feelings for you, still he warned him:  

“Charlie…don’t be silly, remember what she…”

You wake up startled and out of reflex punch him in the face, you didn’t expect to find a man so close to you while you were sleeping.

“Ow fuck!” he growled in pain, you realized too late you had strongly punched him in the nose, even though he kinda deserved it after yesterday.

“What were you doing so close to me Charlie!? I warned you Charlie, since the first day!” you panicked, now you were feeling more sorry than angry, you had punched him without thinking, and now his nose was bleeding.

“I was waking you up gently!” he explained as if his feelings were hurt;  did he really?  

“Apologize to Y/N, Charlie” said Eli to his brother, Charlie looked at his brother with wide eyes, a funny betrayed expression on his face.

“What? I’m the one with a bleeding nose here! I was being nice!” he protested.

“It will teach me to want to be nice to you! Fuck.” he mumbled, angrily leaving to go to the river, to clean away the blood from his face.  

His brother gave you a look like ‘you should go see him’, you rolled your eyes and went after Charlie. You found him crouched down on the bank of the river, trying to wash away the blood but he hissed as his fingers touched a bit to roughly his nose. He didn´t look at you as you crouched down next to him, you took out of your pocket a handkerchief you had, dampening it in the cool water, then gently you took his chin between your fingers, making him turn his head to look at you, his eyes didn´t meet yours, he was embarrassed about yesterday; very gently you started to clean away the blood from his face, your thumb sometimes brushing against his lips, under the pretext of getting rid of the blood, you could shamelessly look at his face, there was no point in denying that he was a beautiful man and you knew that in there somewhere, there was also a sweet and caring man, you had briefly seen if before.

“I´m sorry, about yesterday…I spoke without thinking” he apologized softly.

“I know, but it still hurt.” you replied focusing yourself on cleaning away the blood.

“Sometimes I wish I didn´t drink, but…it feels good you know?” he finally confessed; he was looking at you in the eyes now, he had this look, just like a child wanting to be understood.    

“I know, but you also know that each time it is a brief relief and that´s why you start again and again but trust me there are some things in this world that could bring you peace.” you had finished cleaning the blood away but your hand remained on his cheek, your thumb gently stroking it, Charlie swallowed down, his eyes traveling to your lips.

“Like what?” his question barely coming out as a whisper as brought his face closer to yours. You wanted to kiss him, you realized just now that you had fallen in love with him; so, you leaned in, his lips were now only a few inches from yours…  

“Hey! We should go!” you both jumped at the calling of Eli, now you were blaming him for interrupting you, you turned to Charlie but he was already up.

“He´s right we´re already late enough.”  he said like nothing had happened, avoiding your gaze once again, you wished he said something like ´I care about you’ or ´we´ll take about this later´ or just a simple touch on your arm, but nothing, he headed back to the camp without looking back at you.  

“Well done, Eli…” you muttered as you passed next to him.

��What did I do?” he asked dumbfounded, then he saw the look on your face, how you looked at Charlie “Oh, I interrupted something didn´t I?” you lowered your looking at the reigns of your horse.

“Sorry” he apologized, you lifted your hand in the air, indicating him that he didn’t do it on purpose.

You finally arrived in Mayfield at the end of the day, the ride had been better than you had thought, the Sun was warm and a cool breeze was blowing.  

“You think this guy came here because it’s called Mayfield? Or is it called Mayfield since he’s here?” asked Eli impressed by how, the name was on every door.

“I think this guy is so arrogant that he named the city after himself” you commented looking around.

“Yeah, maybe everything here belongs to him” added Charlie.

“Yeah we can see his name everywhere” observed his brother.

The three of you entered the bar, you leaned your back against the counter, your elbows resting on it as you looked at the people around.  

“Hi, we’re looking for a guy named Warm, small, tanned skin, he might have come here a few days ago” inquired the older brother.

“I don’t know sir” answered shyly the barman.

“Oh really, and a man, tall, dark hair, in his forty’s?” insisted Charlie.

“I don’t know sir; I don’t want to be involved in this…” replied the man with fear in his eyes.

“Oh, you don’t wanna be involved in this…give us whisky” snarled Charlie irritated.  

“Regular or Mayfield?” you turned your head, arching an eyebrow at the barman.

“Really?” you asked, boy this Mayfield was narcissistic.

“Regular. A bottle, three glasses.” clarified Charlie. From the corner of your eyes you saw a very tall woman approach.

“I heard you’re looking for someone, usually people come to me to know what’s going on” Charlie laughed in disbelief at the tall women before him.

“And you are?” you asked intrigued taking a sip of your drink.

“Mayfield” you fully turned to the woman; Eli took his hat off.

“Hey sweetheart, looks like you have another female living like you” replied Charlie sarcastically, you threw him an annoyed look.

“My partners and I are looking for Herman Warm, a small man, tanned skin, we think he came here 5 o 6 days ago” repeated Charlie, the woman seemed to think for a bit.  

“Warm? No, never seen him” you sighed, they have to be somewhere, they didn’t disappear like that.

“Is he a friend of yours?” she asked, you and Charlie scoffed.

“He owes our employer, the commodore, in Oregon city…we’re the Sisters brothers and Y/N.” he bragged, you rolled your eyes, he should be more careful, you didn’t who’s this Mayfield, maybe a very powerful woman with hundreds of henchmen at her service.

“Delighted gentlemen, how much time are you staying here?” you squinted your eyes at this question, she was very curious, even if she was the one in charge of the town.

“Well it depends…” started Charlie, you were already late enough, didn’t need to stay here for more time.  

“We leave tomorrow, at dawn” Eli took the words right out of your mouth.

“It depends.” repeated Charlie as he saluted the prostitutes upstairs. You frowned, was he really considering their services after your almost-kiss a few hours ago?! You followed them upstairs, you were probably overreacting.  

“What’s wrong with you? Telling every about your life, the commodore, the Sisters brothers.” scolded Eli

“Oh, come on, didn’t you see how the lady was honored to see us? And I like to see if our reputation precedes us. Unlike you brother, I’m proud of what I do.” you sighed soundly; Charlie was starting to seriously annoy you.

“Pffff”  

“Pfffff what does that mean?” asked Charlie to his brother ready to fight back.

“It means I know what’s gonna happen tonight, you’re gonna drink like crazy and tomorrow you’ll hella sick” Eli was right, you should be already on your horses.

“You forget one small detail, I’m gonna fuck like a rabbit!” declared excitedly Charlie before continuing his way up, Eli didn´t say anything but he looked at you confused. You clenched your jaw when you heard this.

“Another damn day…” you muttered irritatingly, unless he had been speaking about you which you were pretty sure he wasn´t…  

“Don’t pay attention to him lady’s, he’s old and boring!” flirted Charlie with the prostitutes, god you were so furious at him.

As you expected, it was barely dark outside that Charlie was already drinking, surrounded by a bunch of women. You sighed, leaning against the counter next to Eli.

“I don’t trust this Mayfield, there’s something weird” you spoke, she had a weird attitude.

“You think? What I think is that Charlie better not mess up cause they’re all armed in here.” answered Eli, you scoffed before taking a sip of your drink.  

“I couldn’t care less right now…” you muttered, anger in your voice.

“I thought you liked h-…oh, is it because of the girls?” you didn’t answer but you clenched your jaw at the thought of him with these women.

“He’s an idiot.” you released a smile, that he was…

You refused to go near Charlie in the following hours, you were angry at him, you thought there was something between the two of you, bullshit.  

“Hey bro! Joining the party? Where are you going?” you could tell by his voice that Charlie state of drunkenness was already quite advanced, from the corner of your eyes you saw Eli go to a woman, then away upstairs; now you were all by yourself, like you had been your whole life…

Then, you saw Charlie, go upstairs with two girls, you couldn’t hold it anymore and angrily left the saloon, you needed some fresh air, you were having trouble to breath, angry tears were now running down your cheeks. You decided to go for a walk in the town, you needed to clear your mind. You settled on the stairs of the house, and plunged into your mind for several minutes, an hour maybe. Until your eyes got distracted by several man, they were heading to the saloon, they didn’t look like they were here to party, they were armed, something was wrong, and you felt like it had to do with your job, you had to go tell the brothers. But several of them were posted at the entrance of the saloon, you couldn’t take them all by yourself, you needed to help the brothers to get out if they realize what’s happening, you went to hide in a back alley, a fired a shot in the direction, the distraction was working, half of them came in your direction, you could handle that, and you hoped the two brothers would get out safely.  

You hid in the dark as you heard the men approach, you took them down one after the other with your hunting knife, the others couldn’t hear the gun shots. At the same moment you jumped as you heard gunshots being fired, a full fight was happening, you had to join them and help them, as you reached the place, you saw one man running out which you instantly shot dead, at the same moment came out the two brothers, you sighed in relief, they were alive.

“Only arriving now? Where were you?” asked Charlie condescending.  

“Fuck you Charlie.” you snapped, you were not in the mood for his goofiness or whatever that was.

“Woa, woa! You better have a good reason to speak to me this way” he threatened, taking a few steps towards you.

“I will when you’ll stop being a drunkard and an asshole!” you snapped back, he made an insulted face.

“Now what?! What did I do to piss you off?”

“Don´t pretend you don´t know what happened, sweetheart” you sneered, imitating his flirty tone.

“Oh, come one, get a room you two!” interrupted Eli, starting to be really annoyed by your fight.

“Stop saying bullshit Eli!” snapped back Charlie, pointing his finger at him.

“Yeah, who would want to sleep with you anyway, apart from prostitutes… I’m out of this, you can keep my salary” you let out, you were fed up by his attitude.

Charlie watched you go away; he blinked a few times no fully realizing what was happening.  

“Good riddance” he grumbled as he struggled to keep his balance.    

“Charlie, go talk to her.” advised his brother.

“But…” Charlie started to protest.

“Come on, stop acting like a child, I see how you look at her and you know very well it’s mutual; you have a wonderful woman ready to love you and you’re letting her go…she might be your only chance of happiness, don’t miss it Charlie…”

Charlie passed a hand through his hair, he was having a hard time to think, he wanted to continue his job and do whatever he wanted, but you had been so different from the women he met, you had appeased his soul better than any harlot or alcohol…he had to get you back, keep you close to him. He gave one last look to his brother “get Mayfield and wait for us” he instructed before heading in the direction you had went.

You didn´t go far, you had entered in a barn and were sitting on a bunch of straw, you were angry, close to tears, why did you think he could ever feel something for you? You shook your head; you should have never…

“Y/N?” you looked at Charlie, he had managed to find you, why was he coming after you anyway?

“What do you want?” you asked meeting his eyes, he looked less drunk right now.  

“I came to apologize…” he started, you scoffed

“You ´ll have to do more than that this time Charlie.” you got up angrily, you came closer to him, honestly you were so close to beat his ass right now.  

“You want to flirt with me? Fine but don´t pretend to care about me.” admitting openly how you felt. He blinked, not expecting to hear those words; you could bear to look at him right now, you had to go away but he caught you by the arm.

“I do care about you” he admitted, this revelation struck you, but you didn’t want to believe it, surely, he was joking again.  

“Let go of me” you threatened

“Or what?” he challenged suddenly yanking your arm and pinning you to the wall, his arms on each side of your face to block you, your heartbeat increased.

“Careful Charlie, you don´t know what you´re dealing with…” you warned him, reading to fight him

“But I want to!” he replied, you opened and close your mouth several times.

“What?” you asked him confused.

“I want to… I want you to be with me, I want to take care of you just like you do for me.” he clarified; you were still wary but hope started to again to build in your chest.

“Then why did you go to these women?” he sighed, shaking his head, looking away.

“Because… despite how I feel about you, I have my father´s blood running through my veins, he…he was a monster Y/N…”  

“But you have also your mother´s and from what I´ve heard she´s a good person” you rested your hand on his chest.

“Yes, she´s a saint…but it doesn’t mean I´m a good man” he said seriously as if it was a warning, his eyes finally went back to you, you chuckled, your hand coming to the back of his neck.

“Who said I wanted a good man.” you replied with a smirk, forcefully grabbing his hair before crashing your lips on his, he growled at the contact, one of his hands grabbing your back, his tongue quickly came to tease yours, meeting yours in a passionate battle, he tasted like whisky. Then, his mouth started to trail kisses down your jaw then your neck, sucking, nibbling the most sensitive areas which made you moan, how you had longed for this…

“Fuck me” you breathed in his ear, you didn’t have the patience tonight, you wanted him. Right now. He chuckled against your throat.  

“Your wish is my command sweetheart.” he purred, sending shivers down your spine, increasing the heat between your legs. Your hand went to unbutton his shirt, you were finally touching his warm skin, the one you had longed for during the past days.  

Then, you slid your hand between his skin and his shirt until they arrived on his back, where your fingers slowly went down, sliding under the fabric of his pants and undergarment, grabbing his ass, you smirked as he groaned under your touch.  He captured your mouth once again, you lifted one leg, trying not to fall as you took off your boots, Charlie helping you, his mouth never leaving yours, then his hand traveled to your lower belly, caressing your spot through the clothes, your arched your body under this teasing touch, you wanted so much more, apparently he wasn´t the only one who couldn´t hold any longer. His fingers were busy unbuttoning your pants, with a gesture of his hand he let your pants and panties slide along your legs, you freed your ankles from them, you quickly unbuttoned his pants, you fingers shaking with arousal, then your hand finding his hard manhood, eagerly stroking it, a needy moan escaped his lips, he couldn´t take it anymore, he grabbed the back of your thighs, encouraging you to wrap your legs around his hips, which you did, holding tight on his shoulders, your back pressed against the wall, then in one sharp thrust he entered you, making you whimper with hunger, his thrust quickly became faster and faster, you were moaning scratching his back as you hold tighter under his rough thrusts, and he groaned pleased at the sounds of pleasure he was getting out of you, until you came, his seed filling your inside.  

He rested his forehead against your collarbone, you placed tender kisses on his temple and his hair then slowly pushed himself out of you, then let go of your legs, you still had to hold onto him, your legs were shaking; Charlie was panting, he lifted his head, resting his left hand on the wall to support himself, his other hand came up to cup your jaw, he made eye contact with you, closing the gap between your lips in a passionate kiss, you closed your eyes at the sweet sensation. You wanted to stay right here, in his arms, but you knew important matters needed to be takin care of.

“Your brother is going to wonder where we are…and we have to make Mayfield pay” you murmured against his ear, gently biting his lobe, you felt teasing, reading for a second round, he chuckled, then his eyes met yours, danger in his eyes, he was thirsty for revenge.  

“Yeah, let’s kick her ass, sweetheart.”

Thanks for reading

I hope you liked it! And tell me if you’d like a part 2!!

Tag list: @lyoongx​ @weirdflecksbutok​ @skaravile​ @niniitah-ah @welcometomyhiddlesfandom​

[unpack-my-heart]

Sometimes I Have Everything (Yet I Wish I Felt Something)

Eddie Kaspbrak, pick-pocket turned international art thief and self-diagnosed lone wolf meets Richie Tozier, eager amateur, who just can't seem to catch a break

Read on AO3 HERE

@constantreaderfool @xandertheundead @eds-trashmouth @tinyarmedtrex @violetreddie @moonlightrichie @fuzzylogik

“You’ve got exactly four minutes before security will be able to get the camera back online, Eddie”

“Got it”

“Are you sure? Because it certainly doesn’t seem like you’ve got it. You should have been out of there five minutes –”

“I said I’ve fuckin’ got it, so I’ve fuckin’ got it, lay off”

The painting was heavier than he’d anticipated. He had done all the calculations, had sat up well into the night, eyelids drooping, plugging numbers into his dusty calculator, making sure that he would be able to wrench Ophelia from her golden frame without the need for anyone else to enter the gallery.

But he was wrong. The painting was at least two kilograms heavier than his calculations had suggested, and he knew that the excess weight would throw his balance off when Mike finally set the crankshaft off, and he and the painting would begin to ascend through the skylight attached to nothing but two snaking cables.

Not that he’d admit it to Stan, who was now gnashing his teeth in Eddie’s ear, hissing something about how four minutes had now become three minutes which was now two minutes, and Jesus Christ, Eddie, hurry the fuck up, but he had started to panic. His knife was too blunt to cut through the thick material of the canvas on the first try, and it whined and squeaked as he jabbed it into the matte material. A rookie mistake. He resorted to sawing instead of slicing, jerky aborted movements instead of one elegant flick of the wrist. His heart hammered against his ribcage, a brutal thumping that echoed in his ears, drowning out the suspicious silence of the gallery. Suddenly, half way through a particularly aggressive sawing motion, Eddie’s knife slipped, and instead of letting it gore a hole in the flesh of the painting, Eddie instinctively jammed his thumb in the way. The blade bit into the soft flesh, and blood immediately started oozing out of the neat gash.

"Motherfucker!"

He’d only ever sliced through one painting before. It was a Seurat. La Mer à Grandcamp, Bill had told him, The Sea at Grandcamp. Eddie remembers the tiny little sea-boats bobbing on the murky water, masts reaching out towards the sky, disappearing into the cloud, and he’d sliced right through the center of one of them when Stan had made him jump, voice static in his earpiece. In his panic, he’d wrenched the painting from its frame, turning the small slash into a gaping open wound, before he shoved the injured painting into his bag, crumpled and unsellable. Bill had yelled at him, and Eddie had stood and taken it, tail between his legs.

“Eddie, Eddie seriously, you gotta move, you really gotta move, Mike’s gonna start the winch in 30 seconds whether you’ve got the damn painting or not,” Stan demanded, voice cutting through the silence, dragging Eddie out of his introspection and back into the present.

One cautious tug later, and the canvas came away from the frame. Eddie screwed up his face in anticipation of the alarm that never rings but always could. It didn't ring. He held the painting at arm’s length, eyes dancing along the swooping lines, following the flow of the river, before finally landing on Ophelia’s face.

“She’s beautiful”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s a real peach. Mike’s gonna start the winch, are you ready?”

“Ready”

Silently, like a heron taking flight, Eddie’s feet floated up off the floor. The canvas sat leaden and heavy in the vice-grip of his arms, and, as predicted, Mike’s voice filtered through his ear-piece.

“There’s too much weight”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say, Mikey”

“The painting, I mean. It’s too heavy, your calculations must have been wrong. I don’t know if this configuration is gonna hold you”

“We’ll soon find out”

A metallic whining sound filtered down from the skylight, and Eddie braced himself for a fifty foot fall.

The fall never came. What came instead were strong arms, the tell-tale sound of the winch clicking off, and Eddie and the canvas were dragged onto the roof by a vaguely sweaty and very panicked looking Mike.

“I honestly thought I’d be scraping you off the gallery floor,” Mike laughed, but his voice was laced with something serious.

He’d only done a few runs with Mike. He normally worked with Bill, who took risks and was almost always on the receiving end of Stan’s wrath for something or other. Mike didn’t take risks. Mike was methodical, Mike was reliable. Mike never left Eddie stranded in the middle of a strangers house in Iceland, two paintings under each arm and unable to open the door to escape, whilst he pillaged the wine cellar for a particular vintage red he’d been hankering for. Eddie much preferred working with Mike.

“Bev’s already sent over the details of the next job. It’s in a small downtown gallery, and you’re going in through the door and not the ceiling so it should be an easier run than this one,” Mike said, busying himself with dismantling the winch.

Eddie sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face, before pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes hard enough that he saw constellations whirling in the dark behind his eyelids.

“When?”

“Tuesday”

“Today is Monday”

“… So tomorrow, then”

“For fucks sake!”

Everything Eddie Kaspbrak knew about art, he’d learnt from stealing it. He knew how to recognise where the layers of paint were the thinnest, how to cut into thick, chalky canvas, how he could slough the painting from its frame without damaging either, and how he should store a painting properly, so that it didn’t get marked by the sun or covered in a thin layer of dust. His own artistic talent extended to stick figures and no further, but he was now able to identify a Monet from a mile away, and he was able to pick a genuine Pollock from a pile of fakes.

He’d been head-hunted for this job. A petty thief from downtown New York, Eddie hadn’t expected to ascend to the lofty heights of international art thief before the age of thirty, but when he’d run into Stan on the corner of Canal Street, pocket bulging, full of stolen wallets, Stan had taken one look at him and dragged him into his jeep. Eddie had put up a fight, punching and kicking and swearing at the stern faced man he’d assumed was a cop, but Stan had locked the car doors and turned in his seat to face Eddie.

“You stole five wallets in less than ten minutes”

“No I didn’t”

“You did. I was watching you. You practically took that last one out of that man’s hand and he didn’t see you. You were right in front of his face, and he all but let you take it,” Stan had said, voice almost reverent, impressed.

“What can I say, I’m an artist,” Eddie had spat, hackles up and snarling.

“Do you just steal wallets, then?” Stan had said, voice light, light enough to almost be a laugh and it nurtured rage in Eddie’s stomach.

“Look, I haven’t got time for this cat and mouse shit. Either arrest me, charge me, take me downtown or whatever the fuck it is you need to do, or let me go. I’m not gonna suck your dick or anything”

“Feisty little street urchin aren’t we. I’m not a cop. Far from it, actually. I’m … I relieve art galleries and private collectors of their surplus inventory,” Stan had announced, smiling as if he’d told a joke that he expected Eddie to understand.

“So you’re an art thief?” Eddie supplied after a long pause. Stan nodded, raising his eyebrows at Eddie, almost impressed.

“Sort of. I don’t do the stealing. We have a guy for that, but he’s no good. He makes too many mistakes, and he’s not quick enough. We need someone else”

“… Me?”

“I hope so”

“So lemme get this straight, I’ve just been headhunted for a formidable career as an art thief?” Eddie said, incredulous.

“You could put it like that. We offer a great salary and some truly excellent perks”

“Do art thieves get a pension?” Eddie asked sardonically, but Stan didn’t take the bait.

“But of course!”

“This is fucking insane. I don’t even know your name and you’re asking me to steal art for you. How can I be sure you’re not a cop?”

“I’ve got a Picasso in the trunk of my car,” Stan said, grinning knowingly as if that’d explain everything. It explained nothing.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

Stan sighed, and waved dismissively at Eddie, “it should mean something to you. It will mean something to you, soon. That is, if you take me up on my very lucrative offer. You’ve got thirty seconds before I turf you out of my car and send you back to your sad little life stealing pocket-change from people no richer than yourself”

Eddie stared at Stan, holding eye-contact for longer than necessary, challenging him to look away, to look towards the ceiling or the floor, but he didn’t. Stan held Eddie’s gaze steadily, and bared his teeth in a wolfish grin.

“Fine, but I know fuckin’ nothing about art”

The Tuesday job certainly seems easier than the Monday job, at least on paper. The gallery was small, much smaller than the ones they usually hit. It only had one entrance, which also doubled up as its only exit. There was a fire-escape, and several wall to ceiling windows, but other than that, the building was entirely secure with no other entry points. Ben composed a digital blueprint of the building, and managed to take control of the security system without much effort. He watched the security tapes of the night before every morning for a week, and plotted out the lone security guards monitoring route. The guard seemed follow the same route, like clock-work, each night, which made their job a whole lot easier. Bill reasoned that it shouldn’t be too hard to evade him, and began plotting their route through the gallery to the object of their desires.

The painting they’re going after was called Ignis. It’s a mass of orange and red, different hues and shades bleeding into each other, an abstract mess that gave Eddie a headache. Bev seemed to like it, though, and she told them all with a smug smile that the artist, a young German man, was anticipated to become one of the best-selling artists of the decade.

They made a plan. Stan, Ben and Bev were to stay behind, as usual. They were useless on the floor, and readily admit as much. Ben stayed behind to remotely monitor the security system, and Stan stayed behind to act as surveillance, to stay connected to Eddie constantly through his earpiece. Eddie, Bill and Mike set off in the blacked out van, arriving at the gallery at ten minutes past three in the morning. There was another van in the parking lot, white and unmarked. They all clambered out of the van, and wordlessly split up. Ben had remotely deactivated the security shutters on the fire escape, so Eddie managed to slip through the door silently and undetected. He went in alone, as he always did, having refused from day one to work with anyone else, despite Stan's initial protests. Bill stayed with the van, and Mike hovered around the exit, connected to Eddie via their earpieces. He’d be ready to rush in if he had to, if Eddie found himself in trouble, but thus far, he'd never had to.

The gallery was silent, and security lights flashed red and foreboding in the darkness. Pulling his balaclava over his face, Eddie began to tip-toe towards the rear exhibition suite.

He had taken three cautious steps into the room before he spotted the other person in the room.

There was a figure, clad in dark green camouflage, tugging hopelessly at the very painting that Eddie had come to liberate (Stan’s word). The figure didn't hear Eddie stalk into the room, didn't hear Eddie as he strafed along the wall, didn't hear Eddie sidle up next to him. It took a full forty-five seconds for the stranger to notice Eddie standing next to him, and when he did, he screamed.

“FUCK!”

Eddie slammed a palm over the mouth of the screaming stranger.

“Shut the fuck up or you’ll get us both caught,” Eddie hissed, hand still clamped over the strangers mouth.

The stranger looked up at him with eyes as wide as dinner plates from behind thick rimmed red glasses. Once Eddie’s sure that they won't make any more noise, he let the stranger go.

“Dude, that fuckin’ hurt,” The stranger moaned, and rubbed a hand over his chin. Eddie rolled his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Stealing the painting,” Eddie says, plainly.

“Not just a pretty face then,” the stranger drawled, and it takes every bit of Eddie’s self-control not to sock him in the arm.

Eddie sighed instead. “You can’t see my face”

“Naw, but I can see your eyes”

Stupidly, Eddie chokes on his tongue, caught off-guard. He splutters, just wordless noise, and the stranger laughs at him.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Fuck off. Why are you stealing this painting?”

The stranger shrugged, “I was told to. Boss wants it, and what the boss wants the boss gets”

“Who’s your boss?” Eddie asked, as he pushed past the stranger before he stepped over the velvet rope cordoning off the painting from the rest of the room. The stranger followed, forcing himself between Eddie and the painting.

“No can do. That information’s classified. What are you doing here? You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Do I look like a cop?” Eddie deadpanned, gesturing to himself. He was wearing his black neoprene bodysuit, the very same bodysuit that Bev affectionately called his catsuit.

“No, you look like you’re going surfing, what is that? A wetsuit? It doesn’t leave much to the imagination, if you know what I’m saying”

“Fuck off, at least I blend into the darkness. Camouflage doesn’t work when you’re not in the jungle, moron”

The strangers face turned pink under Eddie’s scrutiny, and he turned around, and continued trying to wrench the painting off the wall without another word. Eddie tried to grab his bicep, but the stranger shrugged him off.

“Stop, fucking stop! You’re pulling at it too hard, you’re going to set off the –”

As if on cue, the alarm roared to life, screaming into the silence.

“… fucking SHIT!” Eddie yelled, not tempering his voice, before he scrambled straight towards the back window, the one that Ben had identified as his emergency escape route. He’d never had to use his pre-planned emergency escape route before, and he internally cursed this stranger for breaking his streak of good fortune.

Before he could throw himself through the window, glass be damned, Eddie glanced back over his shoulder. The stranger hadn’t moved. He was still standing with his hands on the painting, face white as a sheet of marble. He was shaking so violently that Eddie could see his knees knock together, a sight that would have been funny if Eddie hadn't have been sure that any second now the police would have charged through the door to arrest them both. He made the decision instantly, almost passively.

“YOU!”

The stranger looked up at him, wide eyed and terrified.

“Fucking follow me, MOVE!”

The stranger sprung into action instantly, abandoning the painting that was now hanging onto the wall by only one corner, and scrambled over to the window where Eddie was standing.

“Cover your face,” Eddie demanded, before he kicked the window with all of his might, sending shards of glass raining down on them like snowflakes, twinkling in the moonlight.

Eddie crawled through the window, wincing as a jagged piece of glass caught his hand, and briefly debated sprinting off in the direction of the van, before extending an arm back through the window.

“Take my hand!”

The stranger grabbed Eddie’s hand, pulling himself through the shallow tunnel of jagged glass. They both took off in a sprint, Eddie’s heart beating a brutal rhythm in his ear. Eddie lead them in the direction of the alleyway that they had previously agreed Bill would move the van to if any alarms sounded, and as soon as they had rounded the corner, Mike threw the backdoor open, and both Eddie and the stranger all but fell into the back of the van.

“DRIVE!” Mike yelled, and, with Bill at the wheel, the van skidded out of the alleyway, tires screeching violently.

For the first time in over an hour, Eddie closed his eyes, and let himself breathe. The illusion of calm only lasted for three seconds, however, because Mike almost immediately jabbed him in the shoulder.

“Eddie, who the fuck is this?!” Mike said, gesturing wildly at the stranger, who was sat hunched in the corner of the van, head between his hands. Eddie watched him, vaguely concerned that he was going to be sick everywhere. He nudged a discarded bucket closer with his foot, as discretely as he could manage.

“It’s a crazy fuckin’ story, Mikey, you ready?”

“Just tell me, Eddie, Jesus”

“He was trying to steal Ignis”

“… No way”

“Yes way. I walked in, stealthy as a fuckin’ cat, and there he was, all dressed up in camo like he’s off hunting or something, trying to haul the canvas out of the frame without having cut it first”

“Who does he work for?” Mike asked, sending the stranger a concerned look. The stranger either didn't notice or didn't care, head still between his hands, face still suspiciously pale.

“He won’t tell me. Says he’s got a boss, though, so we know it isn’t just him.”

Mike shifted in the van, clambering over the center console to sit shotgun next to Bill, who was practically red in the face. Eddie carefully decided not to engage him in conversation, and instead crawled across the van so he was sat next to the stranger.

“What’s your name? I’m Eddie, that’s Mike and Bill’s driving”

“Richie,” the stranger – Richie – supplied, in a voice that was much steadier and more even than Eddie had anticipated.

“So, Richie, where are we dropping you?”

“52 Portland Street. Do you know it?”

“I’m sure Bill can get us there, right Bill?”

“Sure,” Bill supplied in a curt, snippy tone but Eddie counted it as a win that he spoke at all.

“I can’t believe I almost got caught” Richie said, and Eddie laughed.

“Yeah, you were giving that frame a real good tug. Have you done this before?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

“No”

Richie doesn’t say anything, but he looks up at Eddie and winks.

Now they’re not in the gallery, and Richie’s face is bathed in the soft glow of the torch they rigged up in the van to serve as a light source, Eddie felt something mimicking attraction stir in the pit of his stomach. Richie’s face was angular, sharp lines and pointed tips, and his hair was swept off his face with a bandana that should have looked absurd but somehow didn't. Eddie thought idly that he’d seen this face before, in a portrait perhaps, or painted in the sunset when the sun hung heavy and bloated just above the horizon.

Richie’s looked back at him, eyes softer than they’d been before, and maybe they were also a little damp, because they were shining in the torchlight, and Eddie forced himself to look away.

Richie huffed, an annoyed little noise that Eddie is sure he wasn’t supposed to hear, but he did. He realised three beats too late that his body was entirely angled towards Richie, toes to shoulders. He tried not to think about what that might mean.

Then they were pulling into Portland Street, and it was too soon, Eddie told himself that it’s because he wants to quiz Richie about his boss, but he knew it was a lie.

“I have actually done this before, you know. I’m just – that one threw me off. I’ve never done paintings before, I’ve always been on sculptures and small paraphernalia, you know. Jugs and vases and shit. The painting guy got … well, he quit. So that’s me now. The new painting guy”

“He quit?” Eddie parrots back, shooting Richie a sceptical look, but Richie just shrugs.

“S’what I was told. So are you guys a team or something?”

“Or something,” Bill said before Eddie can speak, and then he’s pulling the van into park, and switching off the engine. “Portland street”

“Thanks, Big Bill!” Richie beamed, earning a scowl from Bill for his trouble.

Swinging the door of the van open, Richie hopped out. “Care to walk me to my door, Eddie?”

“Naw, too comfy,” Eddie joked, but he hopped out of the van anyway.

They walked slowly up the path to Richie’s door, in a bizarrely comfortable silence.

“Are you really not going to tell me who your boss is?” Eddie asks, pushing his luck.

“Nope. I would, but I can’t. Don’t wanna wake up with a horse’s head in my bed or some shit”

“You are joking, right?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. Wouldn’t put it past him, I suppose”

“Richie … are you safe?” Eddie faltered, after several seconds of silence.

“Safe? Uh... How safe are any of us, Eds? You do realise that we break the law on a regular fuckin’ basis right?”

“You know what I mean, jack-ass. Serves me right for giving a damn about you, I suppose”

“You give a damn about me?”

“About as much as someone can give a damn about a dumbass stranger,” Eddie shot back, but he was smiling, and Richie was smiling too, a dorky sort of grin that reminded Eddie of the sun.

“I’m touched, Eddie, truly. I’m safe. I’m safe enough. I won’t be doing this forever, anyway. Not exactly a career with long-term progression goals,” Richie said, as he leant against his front door with one shoulder.

“I’m gonna head off, then," Eddie said, and gestured to the van over his shoulder with his thumb, "next time, use a damn knife and cut the canvas out of the frame”

“You got it, chief!”

“Eddie! Hurry the fuck up” Bill yelled from the van, and Eddie groaned.

“See you, Richie. Stay out of trouble!”

Eddie jogged back to the van, hopping inside the open back door.

“So who’s your new best friend?” Bill asked bluntly.

“It’s not like that, I was just trying to get information about his boss,” Eddie replied, defensively, “and anyway, I didn’t manage to convince him to tell me anything so it doesn’t matter now”

“You were looking awful chummy walking up to his house is all I’m saying”

“Well maybe your visions clouded with all the steam rising from your very red face”

“Stop being so fucking childish –”

“Look, we’re all pissed that tonight didn’t work out,” Mike interjected, “but shall we try and not bite each other’s heads off before we arrive back at base?”

Bill put the van in gear, and drove away from Richie’s house without another word.

[eclecticpatrolsweets]

Fog strange talk Season 3 ——Jinjiang City 2020 Top15

(Language: English;Shooting: American group;Released in: USA, worldwide)

preface

The city was swept by high temperature, and there were two pairs of mandarin ducks, who migrated for a long time to build their nests and settle down in a warm place. One was unable to bear the high temperature and fell, dying on the concrete floor. One opened its wings to block the hot sun for his partner. The male struggled and died soon. It was a long way and a spare dream. The mandarin ducks did not eat or drink, and rested beside their husband.

Mandarin ducks are amorous, not to mention people in the city.

TOP15 to rely on After a night of heavy rain, I woke up to see the streets covered in mud. The water column on the hillside pours into the river at the foot of the sewer. "There's a city where it doesn't rain!" Rose said to himself. Rose to xiao Yang's residence, he lived in his childhood not far from the place, Xiao Yang opened the door, his home filled with a smell of rose flowers, make people feel intoxicated. "Do you miss me?" Xiao Yang spoke with an air of ambiguity. The two of them are sitting on the sofa. "I don't know why, there are no capitalists in this city, and I can't find a job." Sheng cut to the chase. "I think it's normal that you're running the white bar, but it doesn't make any money. As special people, we don't need to have relationships with capitalists at all. We can all be capitalists ourselves. The graveyard across your window is full of the undead, and they are your wealth. I don't think I'll ever be able to afford the things I want to buy if I really want to become rich through work and salary. You may have to walk a long way to get to where I live." "The trouble is I can't live without capitalists and entrepreneurs." "I understand you. You don't have power here. There's a city against you. Think about it. They don't end well against the Sun gods." "What shall I do now? Stay in this poor city." "I have contacted a group of people and they are coming by boat. You'd think it was strange, the people on the shore were cheering, they didn't think their property and money would be in my hands." "A cursed city is certainly cursed for a reason." "I think you should rest now. You have problems with your neck and chest, and you need rest to heal yourself. Maybe when you get better, you'll get a job. This is not the seaside, nor was it so many years ago that a man who hunted two or three whales became a hero or settled in that town. Jinjiang city has many benefits that you just haven't discovered yet. A city abandoned by God, these people have no support, they can only rely on themselves. I'm sure you're getting a lot of information, too. More than a decade ago, there were a lot of capitalists and entrepreneurs. They may have moved away, they may have gone bankrupt, they no longer exist anyway." Xiao Yang said to the point. "I also find that people here have nothing to fall back on. They migrate to other places to earn money and then return to feed their children at home. Where is their future? Are they going back and forth all the time? Too many people live in sorrow. I have to contact a lot of enterprises to mail them to me. Do you know? I've had so many packages in just a few months, and there's nothing here! ' "No one looks for clothes in a pigsty." "It will be all right in time. After a while some businesses will come along, and to make it more fun for you, I'll set up some businesses and you'll work there." "Sometimes I envy living like you." "I just spent more time building my strength, and you spent more time thinking about the past. The city's disrespect has angered God, and their lives have been bartered with the devil. You don't need to think about their past, like lightning jinjiang city's past will no longer exist, now is the key point jinjiang city has no past. Tonight we can go hunting together, farther afield." "Very good! I don't have to be as kind now!" "Last night, old woman told me that there would be a big snake in the river tonight. The water would rise and the snake would go to other places by water. We need to leave the river tonight." Afternoon, the high temperature ground appeared a mirage, what a surprise scene. Alma and her classmates in the villa, Alma took the students to see the new piano, Alma said: "this piano, full of pleasure!" The classmate dismissive: "this has what great!" They had a good time together and Alma played a song for her. She listened and said, "It's very good!" When her classmates weren't looking, Alma jumped at her and inhaled the delicious food flowing down her neck. The woman with the baby in her arms was more shocked than ever when she saw this in the living room. She did not speak. Ascended to the villa, also saw Alma eating scene. "If Alma had eaten all her classmates," sheng said, "she would have been a target!" The woman watched, helpless, and said, "No one will ever know that the child is here as a corpse." "Tonight, her parents will be looking." "I will contact the officials and this matter is completely closed." At night, Sheng and Xiao Yang meet and they go farther. Xiao Yang led the way to a deserted place, where several servants met him. There were several men and women tied up in the secret basement. Xiao Yang said: "this will be our heaven!" Then he strangled the man by the head, biting the flesh with his sharp teeth. Sheng took off his braces, he enjoyed the fear of the prey, also sucked up. "Delicious! I hate to kill him while I suck his beautiful soul!" After 6 a.m., they saw a body floating in the river. Xiao Yang joked: "Tomorrow's video will be a boy taking a bath at the river in the early morning and accidentally falling into the river." "Jingangseong people are artistic, so the drink flowing through their body is very sweet." They laughed. Xiao Yang said: "We have met a new force, your force has come?" "They are reluctant to give up their established dominion and remain where they are." "Maybe they can turn the place into a pigsty." "That's what they think." Sheng said with a sneer. "If they can depend on themselves, why do they need you?" "Xiao Yang asked. Rise means sound long looked at xiao Yang, xiao Yang still smile, he took the hand of rise, toward the dawn.

[samkat10423]

Rules for sims living in the samkat universe (or Life sucks and then you die!)

So, for those of you who are following my LTW Challenge posts, you may be wondering what Sofia is talking about, when she talks about repairs and taxes. Or, for that matter, anything simoleon-related.

In all of my worlds, I have a general rule, to not allow my sims to have skill items - like computers, easels, alchemy stations, etc - in their homes until they are at least level 5 in their career. And they really have to need them to advance any further. Even then, they have to buy the cheap one that always breaks. The only items exempt from this rule, are the 3 skill books that come with all bookcases. I did this, initially, to force sims to get off their lazy duffs and use my community lots. I spend a lot of time, putting said skill items all around my town, so they can at least get out there and use the junk. Ditto, with swimming pools. Unless they are stinking rich - like the Landgraabs and Goths - they are expected to use the town pool.

I also charge the sims that I play for everything. Sofia mentioned that she can't afford the taxi. Well, that's because the average short ride in the taxi costs $5. And if she wanted to take it back home, another $5. If she had wanted to go to the library - on the other side of the island - it would have cost $25 to get there. Then another $25 to get back home. So yes, it does add up. Ditto with the gym. Gym memberships aren't free. Not in RL and certainly not in the samkat universe. A basic one averages about $50. If you want to pay-as-you-go, it’ll be about $5 to $10 each time. Using of the sauna and massage table is extra - for both the one-time fee and the daily one. Nor is using the pool free. And that includes the town pool. (Someone has to pay those lifeguard salaries!) About the only "free" lots in town are the library and the park. And the park charges, if the festival is in swing. Ditto, with fishing in lakes and the ocean. You need to pay for a permit. And when picking stuff in community gardens, the sim is charged an initial $5, then has to pay extra for the stuff they pick. (Those I usually take to the grocery, see how much the sim could make selling them, then charge that amount).

Since I have played this challenge several times before - well, 4 - I knew keeping Sofia poor was going to be a chore. So, again, more rules.

After she moved out of her house in Twinbrooks, she had over $200,000 in her wallet. So, I knew that had to go. (The kid was bankrupt after all!) So, I plunked down that EA "Now and Then Mansion" in a remade Barnyard Bay, moved her in, then robbed her blind, using Twallan's Master Controller. Then, I looked around the lot and started getting rid of a lot of junk. (The house was supposedly abandoned while her mother's great-great-whatever aunt's executor hunted down an heir. So looters "liberated" the more valuable items). Apart from a lot of the furniture and the more valuable artwork, I deleted the fog emitters and tombstones. Mostly because they cause lag. And I didn't want to play a lot full of annoying ghosts. I figured poor Sofia has enough to deal with, adjusting to being poor, getting a new job, learning life isn’t free, and eventually fixing up a run-down dump of a house. Later on, I'll be having her plant a garden (since I’m thinking of having her go into the science career) - once her gardening skill gets high enough to tackle cleaning up that yard.

According to the laws of the samkat universe, she must have at least a level 5 to do most repairs. Currently she has almost no skills. And the ones she does have - charisma - aren't worth diddly-squat. In order to nail some shingles on her roof - the first thing she'll be repairing on her house, since you do need a good roof to keep out the elements, and winter is coming! (So wanted to say that. GOTs fan here!) - she’s going to need at least 3 handiness points. I've help roof my own house - actually helped build it - and as long as you can use a hammer, and keep your shingles in a straight line, you're pretty much good-to-go. So 3 points will get her a roof. Ditto with pulling out the weeds (aka: brambles and small plants) in her yard. (Again, in RL, I love to garden, and pulling out weeds takes very little skill. What skill it does require, is knowing which plants to pull and which to keep. Hence the 3 points needed). Removing those dead trees will take at least a 8 in both handiness and gardening. Got to know how to use a chain saw! Plus, she'll have to have the funds to cover the cost of removal - which is whatever the silly game gives you, when you delete an item.

So, here is how I figure the cost of a job. When I delete something - like the roof - the game automatically returns those funds into my sim's account. I use that as the cost for the job. So, whatever money the game awards Sofia, using MC, I delete that amount from her household funds, upfront.Then I use what remains in her account, to replace what I deleted - in this case, the roof.

I already replaced the EA doors inside this house with ones made by Eric, over at b5Studio, from his Grant Park set. (I love that set and use it all the time). Currently, the doors are all grungy and nasty-looking from mold and whatnot. So, when her handiness and painting skills get to level 5, Sofia will be able to "refinish" the door. Not replace it. Just sand it down and paint it. But in order to do it, she'll have to have whatever the cost of the door is in the catalog, to cover the costs of refinishing. So, let's say the door cost $50 new. That's what she'll need to refinish it. 

Now, when she starts replacing the windows, it'll cost more. Since replacing windows is a bit beyond the average homeowner, Sofia will "hire" professionals to do it for her. So in the library, the windows give you around $150 when you delete them. That money now becomes the cost that the crew charged for labor - taking the old window out and putting the new one in. Then Sofia will have to also come up with the cost of the actual window. A new one costs $250. So to replace each window, she will need $400. And she'll have to replace the window or door - with the same kind that was there, since this house is on the Sims' National Historic Registry. There will be no buying cheaper stuff, just to save money. And if she tries, the sim who works on said registry will sock her with a hefty fine, then make her pay to do it right.

Also, before each job, she'll have to file for a building permit (cost is dependent on the total cost of the job) before she can proceed. If she doesn't, again with the hefty fines.The only exception to this is basic gardening - pulling weeds - and refinishing doors and such. In RL you don’t have to, so I won’t charge her either. Now, if she decides later that she just has to have a greenhouse on her lot, or a garden gazebo, say, then yes, she’ll have to file for a permit.

I do plan on using more of Eric's doors for exterior doors on this house. Mostly because I love his stuff. But Sofia will be charged the higher rate that EA charged for their stuff. So, if an exterior door of Eric's costs $100, and EA's costs $200, Sofia will still have to come up with the $200.

Anyway, those are my basic charges for now. When I move her to a new town, she'll be socked with moving costs, the cost for a passport, and whatever else I can think of. Maybe, if she's in a profession, I'll make her pay a licensing fee. As a cook, I'm already charging her union dues. But with professions, you always have those yearly CEU fees. (I always had to have at least 100 points worth of continuing education, in order to keep my nursing license up-to-date, and those classes were expensive. My advanced life support one, was about $400. And that was just one class.) Plus license renewal fees and malpractice insurance. Anyway, that gives you a bit of an insight in how I torment my sims.

[darthwindows]

It happened.

This is going to be a REALLY long, mushy, gushy, positive post. So, if your into that sort of thing read on.On June 14th 2016, two days after signing the lease on the townhome I live in right now, I was fired from a job that I actually liked. This happened because I was stupid and angry and did not appreciate what I had. I had to take a job at a company that I knew from the start was a bad, bad idea. And I was right. From June 15th 2016 to March 2nd 2018 I suffered. I lost who I was as a person for a while. I did my very best to keep it together the best I could. But it was hard as fuck. My boss sexually harassed me constantly. The people I worked with were insane. The job was impossible and I was never trained well. I learned that being paid salary is bullshit. I learned that when you have no HR department shit can go south and you have no one to turn to. I learned that working for a small company blew ass, especially when run by a narcissistic man child. But let me tell you what good came out of it. I met Molly. My current therapist. I would never have gone to see her if I never would have gotten fired from that job. I would have kept on being angry. I would have kept seeing the same therapist every month and not getting better. But when I got fired I couldn't see that therapist anymore and I started see Molly. Weekly. I almost committed suicide before I went to see her it got so bad. But because of her I got better. I learned from getting fired how to control my temper and put of a face for work. To let go of things. I learned that I need to put myself first because I NEVER do that. I still have trouble, but I'm getting there. I was strong enough to cut ties from my mother, who was an abusive asshole. Nothing makes you learn like fear, and being fired from a job and terrified to lose the next one is quite the crash course. But I learned to change that fear into fire. I used that fire in 2017 to find myself and work as hard as I could to do what I loved when I wasn't at work. I knew I would be gone to the abyss without this preemptive strike. So in 2017 I made a herculean effort to not give up. To rage against the darkness. I started job hunting, writing three different writing projects, a podcast, and I started playing music again. Sexual Harassment Panda was not going to defeat this girl. It was so hard, I never let myself rest, I went to battle every single day. The first week of February of 2018 I got the best news. They were laying me off. My job hunt had not been going well, filled with fear of being found out I was job hunting hurt me so much. But being laid off meant I could look for work full-time, work on my projects full-time and get paid to do so. But most importantly. I could take a fucking breath. I could breathe again. 12 weeks into my unemployment and working for that company seems like it happened in another life. Like it almost never happened at all. I intend to heal but never to forget what that job taught me. To never ever give up. And yesterday afternoon I got the best news I could have ever gotten. I was offered a job at Washington University in their Optical Radiology Department. I have dreamed of working for a University since I left college. I honestly never thought it could happen. Never. I never believed I was good enough. Just like I believe my writing will never be published. Pie in the sky nonsense. And yet, I never stopped applying. Because that's me. I accept I am not good enough, but that never stopped me from trying, because to me there is no other option. Since June of 2016 I have applied to 524 jobs. I have had 17 interviews. 4 of them at Wash U. I have applied to 176 Wash U jobs. I signed a job offer with them this morning and I start working there on June 11th. I will never claim to be the smartest, most well-read, most witty, most in touch, the most thoughtful, the kindest, or the best at anything really. But my best attribute is that I never give up. No matter what. Even when it's not in my best interest. I never give up. To me, it's simply not an option. I will rage against the darkness until it swallows me for good. And I don't see that happening anytime soon. I tell you this because I have a lot of friends out there working really fucking hard to get things they want. And the road is long and hard and stupid. But take it from someone who is always griping about how it never gets better. You can do it. You can. It's gonna suck. You're gonna wanna give up. But like...don't. We need you out here. Today is my day, tomorrow just might be yours. :)

[dual-of-the-sexes]

SEX INSTRUCTOR

Glenda Prey said:

How do you seduce a woman?

  It could seem presumptuous to remind men how to do their job, but they seem to have lost their seductive abilities. I am sincere when I say that I would like to be indoctrinated by someone that like me is determined to explore the mysteries of seduction in order to improve sexual relations. In my opinion, men are confused about gender roles. Yes, we should be equal in front of the law.  We should have equal jobs opportunities and equal salaries; but sexually we are opposites. The law of attraction rules our romantic and sexual lives. In fact, attraction is essential if we are on a hunt. In physics, attraction is the electric/magnetic force that acts between oppositely charged bodies and draws them together. Most of the time, sexual attraction is so strong that cannot be fought.

The best seduction strategy wins the girl. Of course, the best strategy is “to be yourself at your best.” In fact, no strategy is needed if you sincerely like someone. Let’s say that you are dying to talk to a beautiful girl seated next to you in a bar. First thing first, come up with original pick-up lines. Be funny but don’t forget to be a gentleman. Once you have made her smile it will be easier. Impress her making brilliant conversation, but please, avoid monologues. Do not laugh at her; make fun of yourself instead. Find out what her interests are and talk about it in a constructive way. After you have charmed her up she will be curious and will start asking questions.

 How do you make her horny?

 “Kiss her mind and her body will follow!” I remember reading this phrase somewhere. Excite her mind and she will want to get naked with you. Be playful, tease her a bit, stroke her face gently; be romantic. Just remember not to touch her or kiss her on the lips unless she has given to you the right of way. Be alert to read her signs. Instead of being slapped for sticking your hands under her skirt, make her wonder why you haven’t tried to touch her until now. She will reflect: “Is he not into sex? Is he gay or is he a real gentleman?” Now she feels challenged. You have just gained the leading role in her sexual fantasies.  

 How do you satisfy her sexually?

 To please a woman sexually, you need dedication and endurance. If you want to experience amazing sexual pleasure, take your time to fully enjoy the present moment. Sure, passionate quickies can be wonderful sometimes; but generally is better to go slow. Start creating a comfortable love-nest.  Buy perfumed candles or use aroma therapy.  Keep the room at the right temperature and put on sensual music. Dirty genitals are a huge turn off; make sure to wash your intimate parts before sex. Don’t be clumsy. Pay attention to her movements; it should be a harmonious dance.  When you kiss her, keep your tongue soft and agile.  Don’t stiffen it. Also, refrain from sucking on her tongue because it hurts. Massage her neck or her feet. Or, plan to give each other a 15-minute full-body massage.

 Massaging your mate is important because it relaxes the muscles; it enhances energy exchange and favours blood circulation while sexually exciting the receiver as much as the giver. Caress her breasts and play with them gently. Lick her nipples and gradually travel down to her vagina to perform cunnilingus.  Identify the clitoris and work it with dedication. Gradually increase the speed of your tongue until she reaches the orgasm! If she doesn’t come, don’t worry.  After going down on her for 15 minutes she will be very horny and ready for the drilling. Penetration should be slow-paced with faster speed variations.  Every now and then, change positions. Make love standing up, on the floor, on the table, surprise her while she is doing the dishes, or just have a good bonk in front of a mirror. Keeping a slow rhythm will help delaying your orgasm and will give her a chance to have one as well. Remember that women are multi-orgasmic; therefore, get down on it.

 Sexual Mistakes: Men are Not Alone in Their Errors.  Listen Up, Women!

 Markus Hunter said:

When we hear about sexual difficulties, society tends to automatically assume that the man is to blame.  Perhaps he can't “get it up” or he lacks the romance that the woman requires in order to be turned on.  In truth, men can be idiots on occasion and there is no excuse for not paying attention to the needs of the woman.  However, the door swings both ways.  What are some of the mistakes that woman can make and why should these be recognised in order to improve relations between a couple?  Let's take a closer look.

 Not Just Your Time

 One of the most common misconceptions espoused by some women is that it is up to them when sex will occur.  This is actually deeply engrained within modern society; partially stemming from the feminist movement and partially as a result of certain women playing the victim card.  In other words, they feel that since they were oppressed for so long that they presently have the right to dictate when sex can and cannot occur.  Sorry, girls.  It takes two to tango.  There is no worse of a turn-off than a woman who tried to dictate when intercourse occurs.

 Foreplay Goes BOTH Ways

 It is not only for the man to turn the woman on.  The woman likewise should please the man.  The act of sex or “making love” is an exchange of enemies.  Any woman who feels that the man is there to please will be severely disappointed.  This can occur for two reasons.  First, the man could feel pressured into performing; resulting in performance anxiety.  Secondly, the man might simply feel that she is being too demanding while he gets little in return.

 Shave It

 This is not 1975.  If your pubic hair resembles the beard of Fidel Castro or Lionel Messi, it is time to take a step back and travel into the 21st century.  Very few men like to feel as if they are kissing a Neanderthal when going down on a girl.  Grab a razor, go for a biking waxing or at the very least, keep it trim.  

 Becoming Too Comfortable

 This is actually a mistake that men make as well and yet, it still needs to be mentioned here. Many women wonder why the “spark” was extinguished a few months after the relationship began.  Some of these are the very same women who dolled themselves up to meet a man only to let themselves go afterwards.  When a man wants to have sex, he wants to have sex with the woman that he first met. Now, there is nothing wrong with bodies changing over time.  There IS something wrong when the girl gains 10 kilos within a fortnight.

 Setting the Mood

 Women need to set the mood before sex in the very same way that men do.  Believe it or not, most men (note that I did not say boys here, but MEN) enjoy a bit of romance to get into the mood.  Whether this equates to cooking him a nice meal or giving him a back rub after a long day at work, a touch of sympathy can go a long way.

 Knowing his Tastes

 Does he like to be bit during sex?  Does he enjoy nails digging into has back or does he instead prefer to be in control? Women need to appreciate what sexually turns a man on.  Of course, there are limits here.  If he becomes aroused by lowering a girl into a well or keeping her locked in a basement for weeks at a time, it is best to walk away.  However, women need to be aware (and if necessary, to ask) what his likes are.  There are many relationships when females fail to perform this simple task.  As a result, the man will look elsewhere for satisfaction.

 Speaking of Taste

 Yeah..clean yourself up down there.  While there are some men who enjoy the “au naturale” smell, these are a small majority. This is not only cordial to the parter, but it is simply good female hygiene.  While this might be a sensitive subject for some, these tend to be the very same women who have never heard of douche.  You cannot expect a man to enjoy his dining experience if he is gagging the entire time.

 Sex is a two-way street.  There will always be aspects between partners which are somewhat at odds. The fact of the matter is that the majority can be overcome with a bit of foresight and by understanding the needs of the other party involved.  Women who believe otherwise should be used to living a lonely life and they are best to invest in cats now to keep them company in the future. After all, beauty fades.

 My Advice

 First of all, just be yourself.  Real men (notice how I said REAL men) who are truly attracted to you will not care if you look bad in the morning.  They don't care about the bags under your eyes or hair out of place.  They will just as soon cause you to spasm with orgasmic quivers regardless of your physical appearance.  Having said this, try to appreciate those subtle moves and touches which get him excited.  Perhaps it is a hot breath on his neck or a soft lick behind his ear.  Each person is different.  Part of the sexual journey is discovering what turns the other partner on and this journey should never truly end.  Don't be demanding if he is stressed or otherwise tired.  It does NOT mean that he is not attracted.  Don't make the mistake of demanding sex simply because you feel that it is your prerogative; this is a sure way to lose someone special over time.  If you feel that the “flame” has gone out, ask yourself why before assuming that he is looking elsewhere.  Ultimately, sex is just as much of a brave new world as it is a destination.  Be sure to drink up every moment.

[elleleuthold]

Exit Arc (6k short story, sci-fi)

This is a sci-fi story I wrote last year, submitted around, edited over and over, etc. I learned a lot writing it, and editing it, and I think the best thing to do now is share it! Many thanks to @laireshi for holding my hand and being a terrific beta through my first shaky steps into original fiction. Comments and critique are welcome, and I hope you enjoy reading! If you don’t want to read it on tumblr, it’s available on wordpress here.

Up on a spire, hanging by her pilot line and magboots, Skip could pick out a delicate spray of starlight above the lurid glow of the sunset. With the solar arrays stretching out to the south and east, wind towers soaring above them and dew catchments spiraling away to every corner of the city, it was easy to feel like she had the whole world at her feet. Like she was already up in the black, watching the city fade away like a bad dream.

Just one more night. Get the bounty, get her ticket, get out.

She toggled her comm.

“Fell, you coming or am I doing this skate by myself?”

“Got cut off by a parade and had to detour around the whole club district,” he reported. “ETA, two minutes. You got our target?”

“Did a flyby an hour ago,” she told him. “Been charging on First Spire since with no sign of trouble. Should be good to go.” She hauled herself up level with her seat and hooked herself in, starting pre-flight checks. The Phoenix’s solar batteries blinked green, the propellers cycled smoothly, and the wing joints clicked through their tests without snags or jams. It was a tiny rebellion, getting her charge for free up here, but it still gave her a fierce sort of satisfaction. One last act of defiance.

The navcom flashed percentages at her: balance ratios, weight and capacity, wind speed, altitude. All systems ready for launch. She locked her boots to the runners and transferred the navigator feed straight to her visor. Fell would be coming up from the southeast, pushing too fast if she had to guess. He always pushed his bird too fast if it’d been a while since their last flight, and it’d been months this time. Long, dreary months of drudging through cheap engines in second-hand light and scraping together every credit she could come by. A proper flight was just the send-off she needed.

“I’ll meet you at the border,” she told him, and disengaged the parking lock.

The glider fell away from the spire smoothly, and Skip let the momentum build for a moment. This was the best part, really. The biggest thrill she got anymore. That little frisson down her spine as the city rose up before her, sparks grounding in her elbows, her wrists, the joints of her fingers. She leaned to the left and fed the engines more power, pushing the nose down and around for the right angle with one hand and easing the wingtips out with the other. A clean sweep-and-roll maneuver and she was soaring back toward the rising moon, the bulk of New Tarel sprawling beneath her.

Fell caught her in the ribbon of airspace between First Spire’s reach and the legally convoluted domain above the commercial district, his own bird a blue-and-white flicker in her peripheral vision.

“Ready when you are,” he reported, slowing a little to match her. “So, where we going?”

“Darbinian solar arrays” she said, “They’re well ripe for harvest.”

Fell whistled, high and sharp enough to make the mic crackle on the edge of the sound.

“Darbinian? You got a premonition I should know about? Someone give you a lucky charm with your lunch today?”

“We can do it,” Skip insisted. “Low and fast, like the old days.”

“I ain’t saying we can’t do it, Skip, but you know that’s Karga territory. They catch us, it won’t matter what we did four years ago. Those punks don’t care who’s in their airspace, they make ‘em all dead.”

“So we won’t let them catch us then,” she squeezed the controls and flipped into a tight spiral, then snapped her wings out broad again: let ‘em try.

“You’re a regular thrill-chaser tonight, aren’t you,” Fell grumbled, but he dipped his wings in agreement.

“I learned from the best.”

They came up on the sky fields quickly. The panels gleamed in the twilight, each one steadily and efficiently collecting power for the busy offices, shops and homes below. Or they would be, once she and Fell cleared out the leeches.

They’d been beneficial, once. Fist-sized artificial mechanics to make sure the supports stayed stable, the power lines stayed undamaged and the arrays stayed free of any debris that made it up this high. The Coalition had made millions of the things. But a machine needed power, didn’t it? And some clever programmer or engineer, or maybe some not-so clever budget balancer, had looked at the little things and said, “Well, why don’t we power them from the array? They’re up there anyway, aren’t they?”

A year later, half the city was living in rolling brownouts and two districts barely had power at all. A good-size leech could drain a fully charged private grid in a day, suck up a speeder’s reserves in less than an hour, and stars help you if they latched onto your glider. Dead propellers and the weight of a few leeches in the wrong place could take an unwary pilot all the way down to real dirt-and-sand ground. But the Coalition bounty was a powerful lure. If you were fast enough, smart enough, lucky enough, you could make a salary-plugger’s monthly pay in a night. More, if you hit the right places.

She and Fell were careful; tempered glass storage pods, protective paneling, armored flight jackets. And they used the old hooks, wide, curving blades on the end of a meter-long stick. You could go faster with one of the new sticky-net scoops, but the overhead was higher, and Fell was afraid the leeches would adapt to the things in another month or three. Better to be slow and careful than fast and dead, he said. Taking things slow wasn’t one of Skip’s talents, but life under the Coalition’s strictures had taught her a deliberate wariness that worked well enough for circumstance.

“You sure this is what you want to do tonight?” Fell asked as they lined up on the narrow corridors between two arrays. “Poach Karga hunting grounds?”

Skip slid her hook out of its holster. The computer highlighted the closest targets, little bundles of pulsing energy in corner struts or clinging tight in the middle of a panel.

“You got a better way to get green-fresh credits before morning? Besides, I’m quicker than lightning, remember?” She couldn’t keep her grin out of her voice. “Just try to keep up.”

Fell sighed, low and long-suffering, but he didn’t argue.

The first leech came easy: sting, scrape, scoop. A rattle of metal on glass and a swipe of her glove and the capture pod sealed shut. The second settled beside it, then a third. At the end of the row was a stubborn one, larger than average and scrunched in on itself, rooted securely to the array

Skip took a few breaths, resettling her grip. It was no good stunning the thing if she couldn’t get it off its perch; any leech that fell would just latch on somewhere else, maybe somewhere that didn’t get its power renewed every day, or every week. And the Coalition only paid for whole leeches delivered in person.

She jabbed, missed and jabbed again. The leech hung on, waving a sparking bundle of wires at her and she twisted her hook, arm aching with the motion. She had to bob down a breath to catch it when it finally popped free, but she managed to get the seal on just before the leech reached the lip. She gave it a good glare to match its malevolent scrabbling and nestled it with the others. The next two were simpler, and she fell back into the rhythm of the job, moving from corridor to corridor methodically. Every filled pod was another handful of trapped sunlight pushing her name higher and higher on the waiting list.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” The corridor ahead was just as full as the previous one, and Skip leaned back to check her supply of storage pods. The horizon looked clear.

“That.” Fell angled his bird away and flashed his wingtips, pointing deeper into the solar fields. Skip looked closer, prodding her visor to magnify.

Movement, she could make out that much. Vague shapes her navcom gradually identified as other flyers, moving with purpose.

“We should—”

“Yeah,” Skip agreed, but it was too late. The Karga crashed over the arrays in a wave of orange and violet neon, the scream of tortured engines riding with them. Their gliders ranged from top-market single-jets and faux-flash kites to older bike-bird combos like Skip’s own. Some pilots didn’t even have helmets, just gas masks and the sort of manic keenness that spelled ruin for anyone else in their airspace.

“Go, go!” Fell shouted, making the radio crackle and spit in Skip’s ear. She turned and dove, folding the wings in close to minimize visibility. The glint of starlight off glider wings was a dead giveaway, and that wasn’t an exaggeration with New Tarel’s gangs. If they were lucky, they hadn’t actually been seen. She risked a glance back for Fell, but if he was there he was doing a good job of hiding.

Two orange-lit riders had broken off from the pack. They were gaining on her.

Thrice-crashed sons of a cud-chewer. She changed course, weaving through arrays as closely as she dared. No luck. Her pursuers were close enough for the navcom to pick up now, and from the look of it their gliders were fresh-charged and flash-modded. She’d be lucky to make it to the edge of the field.

What was down below over here? Offices? Apartments? Shops? She prayed for shops. They had the best parking balconies, and she was going to need one.

One of the riders was almost above her now. Nothing else for it.

The wings strained as she plummeted into sharp dive, and she cinched them even closer. Speed, that was the key. Get just enough of a lead to slip out of navcom range.

She eased the wings back out as late as she dared and skidded to a stop under a penthouse garden overhang. A moment later the Karga enforcers streamed past with a roar of over-juiced jets. She counted back from a hundred in her head, listening hard. When she reached 25 without seeing or hearing any more flyers, she ducked into open air again and jinked between buildings, dropping levels and merging with traffic where she could. After 5 full minutes with no signs of pursuit, she picked out a more deliberate course.

Fell was waiting for her at the bounty drop-off, polishing a wingtip and trying to look as if he hadn’t been tracking her approach.

“Worrying over me again?” she teased as she gathered her packs. Fifty-two leeches. Enough to put her in the running, maybe enough to push into the top percentages.

“Just wondering how long you were going to keep me waiting in the cold,” he shot back, hefting his own haul. “My bones aren’t as young as they used to be, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, suck it up old man,” she grinned at him. “Come on, let’s get you into the warm.”

The Coalition reps didn’t talk much, which suited Skip fine. She was always on edge at the drop-off, jittery in the presence of those green uniforms, sure someone would call her out even after the pardon. She pulled up the colony lottery feeds to distract herself. Fell settled beside her.

“You’re really going up.” His voice was tight and low, a reminder of the days when he’d still been her sergeant and she’d still thought New Tarel held a future she wanted.

“You know I am.”

“They could kill you, up there in the black.”

“They got no reason to. Not anymore.”

He hunkered lower, pressing their shoulders together.

“You’re the best thing here, you know? Without you, I might as well pack up the kid and Nadine and move in with her parents like they’re always asking. Get some corporate net-spider job down in the lower levels and forget I ever touched real sky.”

“You could come with me,” Skip said. “All three of you could. They like families. You’d be a sure thing.”

“No such animal,” he said. “Not in this lifetime. You and me, we know how fast that sure thing turns to vapor, don’t we.”

“Not this time,” she said. She grabbed his arm, staring intently at the numbers on her visor. Their pods must’ve been processed; there were new credits in her account. Shiny green energy credits, straight from the Coalition coffers, buoying up the pale, recycled ranks of her savings. On the passenger list her name flickered, then flashed green and started moving. Up and up, higher and higher, pushing right to the top of the waiting list. Giddy hope swelled in her chest.

And there it was. An actual ticket with her name and reservation number. Boarding time: 0600. All she had to do was grab her bag from the spaceport storage locker and show up. She tried not to hug herself too obviously. Months of planning, paperwork and interviews and she was finally, finally getting out. Away from crowded airspace and choking power restrictions. Away from shadows and smog, away from stale, recycled water, away from everything that’d been dragging like weights on her neck these last four years.

“It’s really happening,” she whispered. “Fell, I really—”

A flicker at the corner of her vision. Orange and violet lights, sweeping the byways above them. Getting closer.

Shit.

“Eyes on us,” she muttered. Fell squeezed her shoulder and stepped away. Go to ground, he signed, and she nodded. If they dropped a few more levels they’d be in Duster territory: risky enough, but safer than trying to dodge a dozen Karga at once. She slipped into the Phoenix in the half-focused state she’d run most of her old missions in. The tremble of the engine between her knees matched the buzz under her skin, the wings stretching out restlessly like extensions of her fingers.

She took the first gap in traffic she saw and didn’t look back, let her instincts take over. A left turn here, right turn there, down two levels and left again, some part of her brain tracking the flashes of orange and blue in her peripherals, flying by sight alone because the navcom made too much digital noise to go unnoticed forever. Fell would catch up, or he’d find her after. Take a few days to lie low in one of their old haunts and—

She didn’t have a few days, the glowing dream of the future reminded her. She had to be at the spaceport in a few hours.

She snapped back to full awareness. Karga lights were closing in on her left. She dodged away, climbed a few levels, dodged again and broke out of the old byways into a corridor she’d never seen before. Streamers and neon danced on every side, gang-signs scrawled over building after building.

She’d been herded into Karga territory. Idiot. She should’ve never let herself go on automatic. An orange glow off to her right was getting closer. She switched on the navcom, swept through a side corridor and banked up and left at the intersection, heartbeat loud in her ears. The navcom beeped: eight flyers, and Fell running before them.

She’d never shake them all down here. They knew the byways, they probably had traps at every corner. She needed proper sky. She gunned the engines and pushed straight up. Nine more levels to open airspace.

She made it four levels before they caught up, mocking whoops and roaring jets announcing them. Skip dodged around a modified Falcon and ducked as its rider swiped a hook over her head. Still she climbed, eyes fixed on the faint glow of moonlight ahead. Another glider swept towards her, a collision course, and she gritted her teeth and swept to the side, her climb slowing. The rider hefted a storage pod, grinned, and threw it just as she swept past. Glass shattered, and she caught a whip of wires and clinking aluminum plates in the corner of her eye.

No, nonono.

She toggled to autopilot and reached for her hook. The leech was the largest she’d ever seen, at least as long as her forearm and as wide as her splayed hand. It scrabbled over the wings, knocking out p-v panels and jamming up joints as it moved toward the power hubs. She jabbed at it, missed, took the hook in both hands and jabbed again.

“Use your damn eyes, Skip,” Fell growled down the line. She jerked around as he blew over the space above her, two Karga in his wake.

They’d stretched a sticky-net up ahead, a leech trap for the windfields but just as deadly to the average glider. And unlikely to show up on the navcom as an obstacle. She swept the stunned leech off her wing hurriedly and grabbed the controls, twisting into a spiral and pulling the wings in close. Just a little further…

Clear.

The power display dipped, red flashing across her visor. The leech, it had to be. The navigator flickered and went dark, the wing joints stiff and unresponsive; she was falling, uncontrolled, the glider little more than weight pulling her down. She toggled the controls, reached under the front cover and flipped the hard reset switch. Nothing. No power left at all.

“Skip!” Fell swooped back, circling toward her. “Try to steer for the apartments.”

“You always did have shit plans,” Skip retorted, but she was already shrugging out of her harness. No navigator. None of the delicate magnetic arrays that controlled the wings would respond. She reached down to pop her boot locks. The only way to right a falling bird without power was weight dispersal and manual control.

“Give me a heading?” she asked, pulling herself up behind the seat.

“2 points south, southwest, try to keep the Spire in sight.”

“Wind-blessed miracles, that’s what you’re asking for,” she muttered and pushed herself back over the storage pods. Her feet found the right positions and she stomped hard on the elevator pedal. The nose soared up. A little too high, but she’d drop again when she adjusted the wings. Her fingers curled over the wing-joint switches. She extended the tips and tugged on the flaps, fighting for every hint of drift and lift. The Karga were closing in again, a spiral of blurred masks and streaming lights.

She missed the first platform.

“Hold on Skip, I’m coming!”

She flexed her hands, breath hissing between her lips. She had to make the next one. She could see the warning lights of an abandoned landing pad. It was lower than she’d hoped, but if she kept falling she was definitely dead. Better a climb than nothing.

It wasn’t graceful. Even with the lift she’d bought and further slowing by snagged wing panels, the impact still flung her across the platform, screaming metal echoing in her ears and the coppery taste of blood on her tongue.

For a moment she just lay there, curled around her middle and running mental checks: toes still wiggled, fingers still waggled. Her whole right side hurt with the kind of deep, aching pain that stuck around for weeks in big dark bruises, but she could breathe. She leaned on her elbow to lever herself up and fell back as stars exploded behind her eyes. Her right shoulder was definitely in trouble. She took a few breaths and tried again, using her left hand instead, and made it to what could technically be called a sitting position against the guardrail.

Her hook lay just in front of her feet. She tried to clamp it under her boot and drag it closer on the vague idea of using it as a crutch, but had to give up when the attempt left her breathless and light-headed, sweat dripping down the side of her face as white-lightning pain crawled down her side. Stars and frostwinds, she was definitely in trouble now. If they came after her again…

A whirr of engines, broken messages streaming over her cracked visor. She held as still as she could, eyes half-open and unfocused. Her jacket should block most scanners. If she was lucky, an unmoving target would satisfy them.

A blur of orange and blue hovered at the edge of her vision. Her visor buzzed again, fragments of a freeze warning, but she held still, not looking, not blinking.

A shout, and what sounded like laughter, and the glider lifted away. She kept her breaths slow and shallow until she was sure they’d moved out of visual range.

She took stock again, widening her range of focus to include her Phoenix. The initial inspection was not promising. Both wings stuck out at strange angles, the photo-voltaic bands hanging loose or scattered over the floor. The armor plating was half-peeled off the nose and one of the propellers dangled from the tail shaft, cracked to reveal the wiring inside.

Something clinked. There was a screech of metal-on-metal and Skip realized something was moving. She scrabbled for the hook, heedless of the pain in her shoulder. The leech. It couldn’t be anything else.

A sparking wire snaked out of the wreck, closely followed by more clinking taps of metal legs and the dull glow of the main body itself.

Skip braced the hook against the corner where wall met floor and hauled herself to her feet. Her visor still had power, broken as it was. Her jacket had a battery. Her boots, too. And there were stories. Bodies found with a leech hooked into skin and bone. Unlucky mechanics and stupid kids taking stupid risks with bad equipment.

That wasn’t going to happen to her. She had her ticket. She was getting out.

She’d wounded it, at least, in their first scrabble. It was half-dragging itself along, not as fast as before. She jabbed with the stinger and it curled away, but a hook couldn’t kill a leech. She’d have to smash it. There were enough broken bits of Plastech and metal around, she’d find something. Something heavy enough to pin it down, or sharp-edged, for preference. Something she could wield one-handed. The running board. It was solid steel, as long as her arm. It had torn half off its mounting, held only by the last screw.

It took three more stinging jabs for her to cross the platform, and another before she could claw her multitool out of its compartment. She got the screw out just as the last sting wore off, and as the leech lunged she batted at it, knocked it skittering to the side and flipped it onto its stomach. She chased, bringing the bar down again and again, ignoring the twinges in her side until all the little parts were scattered and there was nothing but crushed rubber and spattered slime left.

Then she threw off her visor and toggled her wrist radio, rubbing at the gritty feeling behind her eyes.

“Fell?” she whispered, as if that would keep the transmission off monitors. “Fell, you out there?”

Silence.

She dragged herself back to her Phoenix and slumped against the fuselage.

“Fell, you better not be dead, you hear me? You are not dying on me now. Not today.”

She closed her eyes and waited, listening for anything but the sound of her own breath rattling in her throat and faint buzz of static. Nothing.

The medkit in her pocket was bare-bones basic but it had painkillers and antibiotics, and she needed both. The pain in her shoulder spiked when she reached for it, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through.

The timer display blinked as she peeled two doses of each off the squat blue and green stacks. 0400. Two hours to get herself to the shuttle launch on the other side of First Spire. The Phoenix was trashed. She wouldn’t be flying anywhere. She probably had an hour of leeway, maybe two before they gave her ticket away, but with miles of stairs and bridges to cross she’d still be walking then.

And she couldn’t leave without making sure Fell was okay.

She dragged herself to the navcom, the meds bitter on her tongue. If he wasn’t on comms, maybe she could still track him down.

“Perks of colony life, Fell, listen close. One, there ain’t no Karga there. Next best thing to getting disappeared for hiding, a whole new planet. Two, they got jobs with benefits. Retirement plans and that. They got me a shop all ready to go. Get to set my own hours, too, long as the work gets done.”

She took the back off the navigator and wired her boot batteries into it. It wouldn’t last long, but she didn’t need it to. She set the search grid to 1000 meters and settled in to wait.

“Three, the summer’s warm and lasts seven whole months. None of this snap-change weather like we got to deal with.”

Nothing. Not even a blip. Maybe the oncoming freeze was fritzing out the signal.

“Four—” she coughed over the crack in her voice, wincing against the throbbing in her side. “Four,” she repeated. “Four is, is I’ll be there, Fell, and I know it’d be better with you, okay, so you better answer me before I track you down in whatever mess you’ve—”

A crash, something heavy hitting something fragile, and the guide-lights on the landing pad blinked out all at once. The door at the other end of the pad shivered, then popped open.

“Skip? That you?”

Fell’s dimly lit face peered at her from the corridor. His jacket was torn and his boots scuffed, but it was definitely him and he was definitely alive. If anything, he looked better off than she was.

“Still kicking,” Skip said, the words half-strangled by the tightness in her throat.

“Sorry for the wait,” he said, tossing aside what looked like a piece of rebar. “I busted my radio, couldn’t get it to pick up more’n static. You alright?”

Skip nodded, swiping at her eyes surreptitiously. “Just waiting for you to get over yourself so’s I don’t have to be getting any angry comms from Nadine when I’m finally free of this place.”

She could see him chewing the inside of his cheek, nothing but friendly concern in his eyes.

“Skip…”

“I’m going,” she insisted. “I’m going if I have to walk the whole way and carry you besides, I am.”

“Okay,” he said. He sighed and dragged his hand over his scalp. “Okay. Well, staying here’s a no-go anyway. Temperature’s dropping fast; in a few hours we might not be able to fly at all. How’s your bird?”

She gave him a look. As if he had to ask, the way she’d crashed. He sighed again.

“You got any good propellers left? A few wing panels? Your navcom alright? I wrecked pretty good but we might be able to get her limping if you’ve got the parts.”

“I got…” she scanned the wreck again, looking for anything that might still be whole this time. “Yeah, I think I got all that.” She didn’t mention that trying to scavenge anything useful in the near-dark was going to be frustrating at best. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d made do with so little.

“Where’d you crash?” she asked instead.

“Old shopfront one bridge over. I had to scrape a wing and blow the nav to make it convincing, but they didn’t stick around too long after.”

She nodded. With a solid freeze on the way even the Karga would get in the warm. “Guess we better get started then.”

She wedged her helmet back on for light and started dismantling the navcom while Fell wrenched at the propellers. It was slow work, and the creeping chill slowed them further. The third time her tool slipped and she was left cursing at cold-numbed fingers, Fell took over that task, too.

“You’re just gonna hurt yourself worse,” he said, waving her away. “Tell me how you got on all this. What’s up there you’re so eager to get to?”

Skip grudgingly took a seat on a broken chunk of concrete.

“Ren sent me a message, said she’d drop my name. Must’ve been a good drop too, ‘cause it didn’t take them more than a week to process my forms. Part time security, part time mechanic. And she found me a little place to stay. It’s got real trees and a real river and she says there’s glider access less than a klick up the road.” She’d even had a permit for the Phoenix, but that was hardly important now.

Fell’s forehead scrunched up. “Well, it certainly sounds nice,” he said.

“But?” Skip prompted.

His hands waved denial. “You don’t need to hear it.”

“What else am I gonna do? You got something to say, tell me.” She squeezed her multitool tight against her palm, the edges hard even through her glove.

“Just keep talking, Skip,” he said. “You already know what I want to say.”

She did. He was going to say it sounded too good to be true. Her own personal idea of paradise, specially packaged to catch her eye. Too good. Too perfect. Nothing that nice ever happened in New Tarel. Not anymore. Not for people like them.

“They took Ren,” she pointed out. “She says no one up there cares what you did in the war. Just what you do now.”

Fell just shook his head and pulled the memory bank from its slot.

“Carry this,” he said, holding the jumble of computer bits out to her. “I’ll get the rest.”

He kept her talking all the way through the dim corridors, trudging onward with a stack of wing panels under one arm and two propellers slung over his shoulder while she did her best to paint the icy air with her words, giving all her hopes color. The shop, the open sky, the spread of farmland instead of skyscrapers.

“You really should come with me,” she tried as he shouldered the last door open, revealing his own crashed bird. It wasn’t as bad off as her Phoenix, but it wasn’t pretty. If they got her off the ground it’d be a wobbly flight at best.

Fell set down his load and stretched, rolling his shoulders.

“I got responsibilities to think of,” he said.

“Think on ‘em then,” she insisted. She dumped her tangle of parts into his pilot’s seat. “Think hard. If you see a future for little Eri here, you tell me, ‘cause I’ve been trying for four years and all I can see anymore is walls closing in. And I need to breathe, Fell, I need sky.”

He shook his head and didn’t answer for a while, slotting the propellers and p-v panels into place with half-muttered curses. Skip set to work on the shattered navcom, keeping her silence. Sometimes Fell needed time to stew over a thing, and opening her mouth too early never made him think any faster.

“The world won’t change if you run away from it,” he said finally, and for a moment Skip was plunged into memory: her old shop, five years ago, their roles reversed as he tried to convince her the future was worth fighting for.

She’d learned a lot since then. She’d learned nothing would bring back lost soldiers, or lost ideals, or a way of life that had died choking on dust and blood and the burning bile of betrayal. The world had changed.

“My life might be better,” she said, half whisper. Then, stronger, “How long do you want to spend pretending you don’t see the cage? We tried to change things. I don’t remember that going so well for us.”

Fell grunted, clamping the last panel into position.

“I’m tired of beating myself bloody against this place,” she tried again. “Maybe it’s time we changed something else.”

The engine cranked, sputtered, then settled into a low, familiar hum.

“You’re the only thing I got left here,” she said. “I need this.”

“You need your head checked.” Fell pulled on his helmet and started system checks. “Strap in,” he ordered. “We better get on, if you’re gonna make that shuttle.”

“You’ll take me to the shuttle port?”

“If I don’t you’ll just rag on me forever, won’t you?”

“Thank you.”

Skip settled her helmet for a better seal and clambered up behind him, making room for herself among the storage packs. Her boots wouldn’t get a solid lock, but she strapped her legs down and wound her arms though the tether loops.

“Ready,” she told him, nudging his elbow with her toe in case he couldn’t hear, and his head bobbed in acknowledgment.

The flight was a tenuous one, the wings vibrating through turns and the propellers buzzing. Fell was careful, dropping down layers at any hint of a nearby flyer and taking the warmer squirrelly corridors with grim determination while Skip tried not to flinch when the tethers dragged on her shoulder, tried to keep herself still and her weight well-balanced.

They reached the shuttle port approach just as dawn broke over the horizon, a muzzy glow through the clouds highlighting busses and larger hovercars ahead. The admissions area teemed with travelers and well-wishers, all moving in the complicated Brownian motion of farewells and checkpoints.

Fell slowed to a stop in the drop-off zone, engine still running, and Skip half-climbed half-slid to the slick pavement. She pushed up her visor and the wind stung her eyes with grit and cold. Frost-sharp air stuck in her lungs.

“So I guess…” she bit her lip. There was a jagged snag of guilt and fear in her belly, like an open wound. She hadn’t thought about this part, in all her planning. Somehow she’d forgotten that leaving meant saying goodbye.

After a moment Fell shut off the engine and shrugged out of his harness. The solid hand on her shoulder, she was almost expecting. The rough hug he pulled her into, his helmet bumping hers and the bitter smells of grease and sweat and charred rubber in his jacket, she wasn’t.

“You take care of yourself,” he said, eyes bright, and she nodded, wound her arms around his back and held on a moment longer.

“You too.” She took a long breath and stepped back. “I expect to see pictures of Eri’s birthdays,” she said. “And your bird, you gotta show me how you fix her up, alright? Take whatever you want from the Phoenix. And I still got some credit at the junkyard, if you need parts.”

He nodded, jaw tight, and she took another step back, and another, and finally stepped toward the storage lockers.

“Skip.”

She swiveled back.

“I’ll talk to Nadine. You get up there alright, you tell me there’s something worth doing there, I’ll try.”

It’d be two years in the black at least before she could start of offer any assurances, and another year after that before the next recruitment, but she clung to the chance anyway.

“I’ll see you there,” she said, trying for a smile. It probably didn’t look like much, but Fell smiled back anyway.

“Go on then,” he said, and she turned her back on New Tarel, nothing but glittering possibilities lining the path ahead.

[chimerabal]

I think this is session 12?

We open the session in a small huddle talking about The Plan. We realize that Cassiel knowing all of this is probably a problem. We ask him to leave and he... doesn’t want to. I have “shenanigans at Aurelia” written here and I can’t for the life of me remember what exactly he said or did. Fox is pretty sure she had to flirt at him to get him to leave though so- yea. He eventually agrees to get outta here for a little bit and we PLAN.

Uriel tries to argue against The PLAN. It’s crazy, we can’t actually trust these people, life in Thraben is actually GOOD between missions... she’s pretty thoroughly shot down. Mikaela says that the church isn’t going to let this go, and that we can’t trust the church any more really- others agree. Sibyl says she has faith in the scientists (well... the necro-alchemists at least) and what they are working towards. She also gives us a rundown of the necro-alchemist’s side of their mission and all- building better tech and doing research to help protect everyone. Some doubt shows through in Sibyl’s expression though :eyes: :eyes: :eyes emojis:

Sibyl goes and relay’s our plan to Cleofe and is given the go ahead. She does mention that, although she cannot force Uriel to do anything, that without leaving a body for the skaaberens she cannot guarantee the party’s safety. This makes us all very nervous but Uriel is a piss and says she’s prepared for whatever. Shes not. She gets a look at the group’s monsters (one skaab with a design we fought before, Cleofe’s puppet nightmare, and the last skaap has a gross tentacle cape thats probably hiding weapons.... Margret kept her monster hidden... ⊃゜Д゜;;;)) just to see what we’re up against should the worst happen... it ain’t good. Sibyl and Cleofe also discuss what Romana had shared, Sibyl is intentionally secretive, though I wish I had written down what was said because it was slightly more than what we usually get outta her. When asked about codes she plays dumb successfully. 

Aurelia takes a moment to speak with Uriel. She says she cannot STAND Cassiel any longer, and that if forced to she’ll probably stab him. Cass offered to pay to ruin some guys that were making Aurelia’s life hard, and that’s way WAY too important to just... not deal with. IF Uriel could pay these people off- its the same money source right?- then no older brothers have to get stabbed. Well... stab was the Wrong Word to use, and Uriel is instantly pissed off by the whole convo. Uriel counters with her own deal, which is ‘how about you DON’T stab my family, accept Cassiel’s generosity, and I WON’T stitch all your fucking fingers together’. They go back and forth a bit. ‘We’re FRIENDS aren’t we???’ (I see what you did there- using the F word against Uriel- yoU TRIED) ‘Well I would LIKE to be your friend, you seem fun, but here you go threatening to STAB MY FAMILY’ ‘you KNOW he deserves it’ ‘>:(’. Mikaela intercepts and tells Aurelia to stop heckling her girlfriend- which is an interesting word choice being that in game time the kiss stuff happened probably two hours ago- tops. Uriel fails a wisdom save and has to end the argument b/c shes an emotional blushing mess ag a i n. Uriel tells Aurelia that they’re going to revisit the subject. 

The party, sans Sibyl, she wanted to stay behind and learn more about her colleagues, return to the Bleyhall estate with Cassiel. Cassiel brings up The Plan and how he doesn’t like that we’re faking deaths- ESPECIALLY his beloved’s. We try to just get him to drop the whole damn thing and let us handle it, and fail. Aurelia and Cassiel come up with an arrangement where Aurelia will use her experience in faking her own death and making a new identity to get a job in the Bleyhall estate as a maid- so they “won’t have to be apart” (a part of Aurelia died trying to plan this :’) it’s so fun to watch). She also get’s him to agree that the job is really only in writing and salary- and that she won’t actually be working. Not done being a nuisance, Cassiel starts asking about Uriel and Mikaela’s status. He thinks it would be hilarious to tell the parents; both highly disagree. Mikaela stresses that for now the relationship is a secret, the parents and more importantly the church doesn’t have to know, and that he should really just pretend nothing even happened- Uriel readily agrees. 

At the estate the party is greeted by a long time servant of the Bleyhall’s, Sigmund, who is introduced to us as ‘more of a father to Uriel and her brothers than their own’ :’). Sigmund is very emotional to see both Cassiel and Uriel, and uncharacteristic hugs are had between them all. Aurelia, while we’re all happy and reuniting, is making obscene hand gestures behind Uriel’s back and pointing to Mikaela. We don’t catch her. One day we will though- you’ve got it coming to you, you piss. He tries to insist we see Uriel’s parents Right Away, and, between the lines, tips us off that if we don’t see them right now we’re missing out on a Lot Of Cash Money. We are able to convince him into letting us see Michael first.

We find Michael in his room with this CRAZY ELABORATE C.S.I. style photo/string web set up detailing the skaaberen group and it’s members- although mostly Cleofe lmao. He had held onto one of Uriel’s journals and was getting all kinds of descriptors from it and he had... a stupidly large amount of info. He even did some illustrations, the ones of Cleofe were ‘very accurate, however like... 10% angrier than she usually looks”. In the mess of papers and string and all, he also had set aside some shiny new weaponry and animal traps for the ~hunt~ he had been planning. The whole damn party OOC is like, fuckin’ enamored with Michael. In character Aurelia is like, head over heels, super into this though. Uriel and Mikaela express their gratitude (Uriel also gives him a shot about Continuing To Take And Read Her Journals) but tell him that this really really isn’t necessary- please don’t go hunting them down Cassiel is FINE- we want them alive for a while. At some point their budding relationship is brought up again, Uriel gets teased about suspected necrophilia from her bros, it is stressed that we are keeping shit secret from the church please stop talking about it. Michael also mentions that the reaction the parents would have would be Fun- especially seeing that Mikaela is a church member... I didn’t mention it in game, but HOO MAN Uriel is not nearly as ballsy as her brothers are with prodding the parents (it’s not so much in fear of a bad reaction- which isn’t Great but she can deal with that- it’s that she’s SO SURE they won’t react at all and that kind of... nothingness just crushes her so she rarely even risks it any more). We go to return the weapons we borrowed, he lets us keep whatever we really feel like keeping.

But oh my god ok the important part: AURELIA. She goes into Full Flirt Overdrive at Michael. She compliment’s his “art”, how sophisticated the setup he has going is, his array of weaponry (again). She mentions that she probably has a new job lined up at the manor and that she cannot wait to ‘polish his weapons’ (I can’t even fuckin type this I’m dyin x’D). The flirts WO R K, which is a big deal considering the rolls she usually gets, and Michael is into it in his... own weird way, ‘I’d like to get them a bit... messy before polishing them’. I’m pretty sure the heir thing was mentioned again, which wasn’t enough to totally repel Aurelia this time so???

As a note: my character is deeply disturbed over Aurelia’s thing for Michael’s gleeful willingness to kill shit. She’s uncomfortable with how murder-y Michael is too, but like that’s just him, she’s accepted it by now. Sometimes he brings back nice dead things to stitch up. It’s Fine. The fact that Aurelia finds that trait desirable (a turn on even???) really REALLY makes Uriel question What The Fuck kind of person Aurelia is.

All of this happened right in front of Cassiel, who is just like... pissed and mortified and so fucking confused??? He snaps at Michael, asking why the only time he’s ever been interested in a living- breathing- actual woman is when it’s cUCKING HIM? He tries, and fails, to get Uriel to take his side on this (hell no I’m not touching this shit lm fa o). The brother’s argue for a bit, Cassiel tries to suck Aurelia in briefly which also fails. Picking up on Aurelia’s total disinterest in Cass, Michael asks if their ‘relationship’ is an actual thing Both of them agreed upon. Cassiel fumbles and gives some shitty non-answer- Aurelia is like... sweatin. Uriel calls Cass out on his crap answer and asks where he met her- he says it would be inappropriate to talk about that. Aurelia is fed up with all of this and tells some her tragic backstory as a poor stripper, that Cassiel is just gross and obessed with her stage persona, and that Cassiel was bribing her with funds to pay off/revenge on one of the noble families she is indebted to. She storms out of the room, Michael scolds Cassiel and follows, Uriel and Mikaela ALSO scold Cassiel (LMAO) and go watch Aurelia and Michael from the doorway all sneaky (but no so sneaky) like. 

Michael sorta half/not really apologizes for Cassiel’s behavior, and the two just McFuckin continue flirting. THIS IS WHERE THE HEIR THING WAS MENTIONED what bad timing, c’mon Aurelia that’s such a red flag. Pretty sure Michael offered a different kind of revenge, more... active... than the type is brother is experienced with, on the family Aurelia’s indebted to. Swoons. Uriel and Mikaela decide they’ve seen enough and take Cassiel down to speak to the crone and the deadman.

While bringing Cassiel down to the office, he shares with Uriel and Mikaela that he’s been doing some deep thinking about what just happened between him, Aurelia, and his brother. He has come to the conclusion that monogamy and romance are a scam, the absolute idiot. Uriel tells him that, it’s good he’s been soul searching, but that his conclusion needs some work. Cassiel in response tells Uriel not to make the same mistakes he did, and to get out of the thing with Mikaela before it’s too late, incredible. 

Uriel takes the lead to speak with their parents. It’s awkward, per usual. Uriel is prodded into actually asking for the money which... worked but still doesn’t feel too great. The party gets a couple thousand for bringing Cassiel back, and more money is on the table for the info we can provide. They ask for whatever we can give, who did the kidnapping, where they are, how long they will be there etc etc... Not wanting to give up the science camp’s deets, we say that because it was a part of a ‘church investigation’ our hands are tied for the time being. I... had also told something to Sigmund and also here that.... I don’t remember. I think it was that the kidnappers were skaaberens who we didn’t recognize and that they seemed mobile and are probably un-trackable? That doesn’t feel right? Whatever. Uriel tells her parents that, as soon as the info cleared, she will return and tell them everything, and that the families reputation is one of her primary interests here. They tell her she did well (!!!) and the party is excused with 2500gp. 625 gold PER PERSON. hhhhwow.

Off-camera, Aurelia and Michael had ironed out some details about Aurelia’s fake employment at the estate and her secret-identity-to-be. When Uriel and Mikaela go to get Aurelia, all serious talk is over with the two are drawing portraits of all the people at the clearing. The likenesses are spot on, and Aurelia is telling who can be stabbed and who cannot (for now), and are just generally having a great time making battle plans (xD). She also had drawn the skaabs at the camp; Michael was able to add what the probable functions of the monsters were as well, and circled some weak points- very useful. We wait until we’re outside and on the way back to the training grounds to give Aurelia her 625gp, she fuckin’ BOLTS with it to go find her family.

Back at the clearing with all the scientists, Sibyl has a talk with Prof. Ebner about the status of her old colleagues. I apologize Ollie, I had spaced out some, but what I got was: None are dead. Yay. Blair is excited to be doing science again. Otto is more somber than he was b/c of EVENTS but is still good for morale. Elodie did... something that didn’t sound too great. Something about ego and competition getting in the way of work? Ebner is super worried about Romana. He says she seems like she’s changed- which might just be a symptom of the church persecution and shitty-traveling-woods-camp living conditions- but still. She’s been super paranoid and very stressed and her plans are going slowly.... plans I think Sibyl knows but I don’t... Gathering forces was mentioned, the church being a pain in the ass was mentioned; apparently there is something that is a Bigger Concern than church persecution right now too and???????????? HHHHHHHHH??????

((I spend all this time excited to learn Sibyl backstory and just- zone the fuck out when it happens? I’m mad at me. >:( ))

At the training grounds, Mikaela and Uriel are really, REALLY GAY. Mikaela has to know if her feelings are mutual, and if the two of them are a couple or not- Well... yes. But before giving a proper yes/no Uriel has Mikaela confirm that she isn’t just using the kissing and feelings to manipulate her- Of course not. Mikaela’s anger with the church is mentioned (Uriel almost makes a lewd comment about that) and she say’s she’s not letting anyone make decisions for her any more and also makes it very clear that she is willing to dive head first into this ship like- right away. Despite this they agree that the church should probably not know; workplace/personal life conflicts and all... we’re pretty sure that the Lunarch will NOT like one of his clerics being involved with a criminal she was supposed to keep in check. The two make out for an undetermined amount of time, but DM implies that is was a long while b/c of some above average chr dice rolls... so long in fact that Aurelia had made it all the way back from giving her family the cash and walked in on the two. 

Aurelia, being herself, made a comment that set Mikaela off (which, isn’t too hard to do) and she gets chased out of the room. The two decide to just sit and talk and snuggle a bit after having the mood thoroughly ruined, and Uriel goes all 20 questions on Mikaela. The most important take away from the questions is that Mikaela feels SUPER betrayed by the church, she put in so much of her time and work and life and got what? Assigned to something she never wanted to do and then LIED TO? Whack. Mikaela asked 1 (one) question, which was why Uriel makes her ‘sculptures’ and got.... a less than noble answer; basically just because she likes doing it. Mikaela said that it’s cool Uriel does what she wants, and that she hasn’t done anything for herself in a really long time, which, set Uriel off a bit... Uriel asks what is something that Mikaela has been wanting to do- Mikaela said that a nice sounding day would be to take a walk and visit a bakery or smthn... so now they’re at a bakery and its like... midnight... and Uriel is bribing the baker to just.... let us sit here and give us whatever things he already has made. Note: The whole cuddle session was being watched by Aurelia who had decided to be a fuckin’ voyeur and peep through the window. She blew her cover by pointing out an accidental innuendo (what do you want to do- ‘YOU OBVS’) then bailed again; lbr she probably followed Uriel and Mikaela to the bakery...

Uriel is going to tip that baker like... an entire gold coin... next session.

[cyberdelusionphilosopher-blog]

What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?

"What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?

What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?    What type of education is needed for both?

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://insureinfo.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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I am an 18 year old looking to buy a car, so i need car insurance.. I live in Indiana. I have never recieved any tickets or warnings. Last year someone hit me, but it was her fault. Both insurances involved in that and the police have said it wasn;t my fault. The lady passed out while driving and hit me. Will that have an impact on me? What would be the cheapest place for me to get car insurance? For basic coverage and full coverage?""

What insurance companies will insure you if you have had a claim denied because of fraud?

Please help! I am not a thief and have never been one although my current insurance company think I am. My car was stolen from my house in March this year and NRMA have denied the claim stating that i was untruthful in my claim. (basically that I did it to do a insurance job) I have many valid reasons why I couldn't have stolen the car.... I had a one year old asleep in the house, I only just bought the car, Would have lost a lot of money if I did receive the insurance money as I over paid for th car and it was only insurance for 12k. I have no criminal record and a clean driving record. I have had 2 cars and and home and contents insurance for 7 years and never made a claim in my life. etc etc etc. They are saying the a correctly coded key was used to drive the car away and there is no possibility that someone other then me would have a key for it. Basically, its all a load of crap. I have tried appealling it with the insurance company but once again been denied. The case is now with the insurance obundsman and I will will be taking them to court if the claim is not finalised in my favour by the obundsman. The policy for my husbands car is due and NRMA are not renewing and I have tried gaining other insurance with different companies but as soon as I explain the story, no one will touch me. I know I have to be honest in case we have a claim in future and if we lie they wont approve the claim. I cannot be without insurance for my house or cars but i have been totally blacklisted from NRMA. So I am asking, are there any insurance companies that will cover us under these circumstances? Or has anyone had a similar situation that could help with some advise. In addition, the police who investigated the theft (after receiving the forensic information) told me they couldn't charge me with lying to the police because they had no proof... So how can nrma not approve that claim when they have the same proof? Thanks in advance""

I am 18 years old. I want to improve my credit score by buying a vehicle. INSURANCE PROBLEMS!!!!!?

I know ican get approved for a vehicle but insurance for a teenage male is un-godly cheapest is 650 a month, is it possible to buy a vehicle in my name, but have insurance over it under my fathers insurance policy?""

Where to get cheap cars in the UK?

I'm talking 500 maximum spend here, just something that will have very cheap insurance.""

Which auto insurance companies use Equifax?

My credit score is highest on Equifax. Does anyone know which auto insurance companies use Equifax to provide quotes?

What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?

What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?    What type of education is needed for both?

Why are my insurance quotes higher when I list an accident I was not at fault for?

I've been getting online insurance quotes lately because I am getting a new car that will be more expensive to insure and I think my insurance now is already too high. So as part ...show more

Insurance for 17 year old female?

Hello, I wanted to know what the price would be ranging between for a car that probably would have been made in the year 2000. I haven't started lessons yet but i will be by october and wanted to get a rough idea. Also i heard that there is a insurance that you can get that is cheap but you're not allowed to go out after 11pm at night or something. Is this true? if so what would the price be roughly?""

Homeowner's and Auto Insurance?

We've been with Allstate for home and auto insurance for over 30 years, and they have recently starting screwing with us about renewing out Homeowner's insurance. We're pretty sure they are nitpicking about things because they are not writing new policies for Californians, but are keeping existing customers for now. Anyway, I went to the Auto Club this morning and got quotes from them for Home and Auto Insurance and their prices are much better than Allstate's. What I want to know is anyone's experience with AAA insurance. Are they a good company to insure with, any problems, etc? Thank you for any information you can provide.""

What is the best rated and least expensive car insurance for a female age 19 with a clean driving record ?t?

The car is an SUV 94 ford astro van in California.Know that only need collision coverage...Thanks for helping

Permit and Insurance please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?

i am getting my permit like in two months if im going to be in my parents policy how much will the insurance go up if im going to be a driver only!!!!!!!IM GOING TO DRIVE MY DADS CAR

What are the best Car Insurance Websites online?

There are tons of car insurance websites, how do I know which will give me the lowest insurance?""

Why are insurance quotes on comparison sites so high?

I'm almost 17 and I'm hoping to learn to drive and get a car. I was looking online to see what the insurance might be on some possible cars (ford KA, fiat sciento, nothing too fancy) but the insurance quotes were ridiculously high. The cheapest was around 6000 for third party which is really high because so many of my friends have cars and their insurance ranges from 1800-3000. Why is it so high and will it actually be this amount when I come to buy the insurance?""

Need a car with cheap insurance...and ideas?!?

hello im currently doing driving lessons and once passed need to get a car (obviously..lol) we are currently unemployed so only have 100 max to spend monthly on car insurance & petrol (although we shouldn't need to put much petrol in tbh..or could sacrifice some every now and again!) but we need the car to find a job - catch 22! once we have jobs we obvioulsy be able to afford more. wondered if anybody could suggest any cars? we have a 10 month old son so would prefer back doors... thankyou in advance :)

How will i know which insurance group my car belongs to in UK?

is there a website to find car insurance group?

Affordable Care Act - Will I have to buy insurance?

I'm young and just starting out. I'm only going to make like 12-15K per year... Will I have to purchase insurance or pay the tax penalty?

Is it bad to cancel new car insurance after just 1 month?

ok i bought a bad car from a dealer that scammed me and im a new driver and it was the first time i had a car and the first time i put on car insurance the reason why im asking is because ive bought the car and after 10 min of driving the car it died on me and there was no warranty dumb of me not to buy a warranty plus it was an old car anyways i got new car insurance and i sold the car and people was telling me that because im a new driver if i cancel my insurance early that i wont be able to open up a new one or it will be harder to open one up in future is that true?

Auto insurance in florida?

okay heard a rumor that as of october 2007 NO auto insurance is required in the state of florida.... anyone else heard of this ?

Car Insurance In Virginia?

I'm 19, First time driver, 1 Child, Car paid in full, Live in the 22031 area (fairfax), Had a seatbelt ticket before I obtained my license, Female. I want to know which insurance would be best suited for me, I dont need the quotes, I just want advice (from expierience) on where to get quotes from first. I have my permit, and will have my license in 25 days. I'm looking into cars right now, and should have one chosen in the next 2 weeks. I know the car will change what the insurance is, but I have not chosen it. I know I want an automatic 4 door sedan Used. Not sure on mileage yet. Leaning towards Nissan Altima. Any advice???""

Once you have insurance can you drive any car that you own?

Ok lets say you owned like a 90 honda accord or something, and you had cheap insurance for it. since its also an economic car, you use it most of the time you drive. but if you owned two other cars, such as a big v8 4x4 or a sports car v6 would you need to have separate insurance for those? or are you able to drive anything you own since you have insurance? does it matter as long as you dont get into any accidents?""

Best place for car insurance? (uk)?

I passed my driving test a couple of days ago and i need to insure my car. I realise the insurance is going to be 'through the roof', but can anybody reccomend places worth trying where i might get the best quote? thankoooooou""

Where can i get fish tank insurance?

My landlord wants me to get a liability insurance for my fish tank. What can I do? Thanks

What does insurance car mean?

I'm trying to purchase a car on craigslist and the add said it had to go through state patrol. I asked the seller what he meant, and he said insurance car . I still don't know what that means!""

Help with car insurance.?

I'm 18 and I've had my licence for less than a week and I'm trying to get insurance on my car but I can't find a company that will even quote me. My car is a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28. Does anyone know of any company that will insure me? I live in the UK. Thanks in advance.

Im a 29 single mother of 4 I was wondering should I get whole life insurance or term?

I dont know which one is the better choice at my age

Ive been looking into pet insurance and Im a bit confused.?

Ive been looking into pet insurance and Im a bit confused. When it says: wellness exam (split between two visits per year) $40 vaccinations $30 heartworm test $25 fecal test $15 deworming $20 microchip $20 flea and/or heartworm preventive $50 blood screen or x-ray or EKG $50 Is the dollar amount the price the insurance pays all year or per visit?

I'm on my moms car insurance and I'm getting older?

I'm really trying to get myself on my own two feet and we have everything together, phone bill (sprint) , car insurance she receives my bank statements monitors my purchases, views and manages my credit ...everything I'm just trying to move and not be under my moms wing... How can I go about moving my car insurance, and /or picking car insurance.... Help?""

Is there a published list of average car insurance rates for all insurers?

Is there a published list where all auto insurers report their average rates? Basically a comparison chart or similar type information? If not, are insurers required to list their average rates somewhere? Basically I'm trying to compile a list of insurance rates, hopefully based on the different criteria used by the insurance companies themselves. I'm trying to find a way other than calling each individual insurer to get a ballpark figure on their rates for different types of drivers.""

Question about car insurance?

if someone gets a car and payes it to the owner in monthly rates, and he gets a insurance for that car. but th car is not signed over to you yet, so legally it is not yours yet. and before you make the first payment you get in an accident. you pay the car off with the insurance money, but the insurance gives you more money than the owner wanted for it, who gets the rest of that money????? you?""

""NY plates & registration, but Connecticut Insurance?""

My car has NY plates and was registered in NY. I moved to CT, and have CT auto insurance. Is it okay to have auto insurance in the state you live but the car is registered and plated in another?""

What is a good but cheap small business insurance company for liability only? I'm in Southern California.?

I would love to hear from people who have experience with these companies...

What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?

What is the average annual salary of a real estate and insurance agent?    What type of education is needed for both?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/accident-caused-person-without-insurance-do-i-pay-out-austin-watkins/"

[fadingpersoncollectorstuff-blog]

Can other people drive my car with my insurance?

"Can other people drive my car with my insurance?

I am going on a road trip with a friend but I don't want to drive the whole way. I have AAA insurance, will it cover my friend if she drives my car part of the way? She has state farm insurance if that makes any difference.

BEST ANSWER:  Try this site where you can compare quotes: : http://averageinsurancecosts.xyz/index.html?src=tumblr 

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How much does my auto insurance go up after my first ticket?

I got my Drivers License a month back. Today I rented a car (and fortunately with a full insurance cover) and ran into another car and got a ticket that says Inability to control car or something like that. I am planning to buy a car pretty soon. Could any of you give me an idea as to how much my insurance will be effected as a result of this mishap? I would appreciate any replies.

Ex-friend was using my car insurance for 2 years without consent?

While looking for a new car and insurance (I am on my mothers insurance) i discovered that an ex-boyfriend has been using my last name and claiming i was his husband to get car insurance. The policy was expired last year but he had multiple car accidents. Now my name is somehow connected to his in the car insurance world and I cant get insurance at a decent price. Can I charge him with a crime? How do I get him off my records? Any suggestions?

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Do I qualify for low cost Health Insurance?

I'm under 21 & still living at home. I live at home with my mother & sibling. My mother can't afford insurance through her work beings it'll be almost 1/3 of her paycheck a month. I work part time as a waitress making under 5,000 a year for now as I look for a full time job. So my question is: Do I qualify for any type of low cost health insurance to cover just myself? I've tried looking on sites like health .gov but because my mom has insurance available through her work it's basically saying i'm screwed out of insurance of my own. I need all 4 wisdom teeth pulled asap, as well as basic medical check ups & such that I can't afford on my waitressing salary. I really need all the help I can get. Please answer. & no, my job doesn't provide any insurance.""

A question about car insurance....?

Anyone know where top get cheap car insurance for a 17 year old in the U.K

How insurance did you pay for your insurance and how old where you?

I am 17 now, and i want to buy a 125, on average what do you think i would have to pay""

Can insurance and credit card?

i want to pay monthly to the car insurance company> interest for monthly payments is 8.5% people said go and get a credit card and pay that back 0% but am i best just to pay the car insurance company? i dont know if i would get a credit card as ive not applied for one before and dont know about my credit rating it would only be 4-5 extra monthly to pay the insurance co with interest? is it worth the hassle? as i want to book insurance now. help?

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What is procedure on obtaining Auto Insurance when you buy a new vehicle and have no present insurance account setup? Does dealer offer temporary insurance until you can get quotes from a few companies?

Getting a check from both insurance companies?

I recently got in a car accident, and both insurance companies (mine & the other party's) sent me a check to cover the damages, each check is enough to cover the full damage. What should I do? a. Use check from other party's insurance, and return the one from my insurance company. b. Use check from my insurance company, and return the one from the other party's. c. Keep both checks""

TSC Direct Car Insurance?

Does anyone have any experience with this insurance? I have seen lots of ads for it on the subway. Got a quote today from the website and it is waaaayyy less than what my boyfriend is paying with Geico. Good reviews? Bad reviews?

Whats cheaper honda or toyota insurance?

honda civic or toyota corolla

How can I get my insurance cheaper?

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Battle of the car insurance companies?

There has been TONS of commercials of car insurance, its practically a car insurance battle lol. Who will win?  Progressive  State Farm  Nationwide  Allstate  General  Geico  21st century who are you rooting for? Lmao! xD""

Can I own a car and not have insurance? ?

I just got a car and still paying on the loan for it. I just got a job offer in another country that I plan to take (I will be there about a year or two). I don't want to sell my car and be left paying the rest of the loan balance. I wanted to know if in the state of Virginia if I can cancel my insurance and park my car in the garage until I get back a year or two from now. It will not be driven. My sis says that if it is still registered in my name I will have to have insurance whether I drive it or not. Im not sure so could anyone please clarify? Thanks!

How much is car insurance for a 19 year old? Average estimate..?

How much for a 19 who had one accident?

Where can a recent college grad find affordable short-term health insurance?

I am not sure what to do about health insurance after I graduate from college (in a few months). I know that I am going to need some time to job hunt (my field is very competitive) and I would also like to do some volunteer work before I start my career. Problem is, if I am not a full-time student, my parents' health insurance won't cover me, and if I don't or can't find a job with benefits right away, I will be left uninsured. Any ideas where I can get affordable health insurance for short-term (no more than a year and a half) ??? Thanks!""

Im losing all my teeth & I cant get insurance anywhere!!!!?

I am only 22 years old & I noticed all of my back teeth slowly breaking away about 6 months ago. I went to a clinic & found out I have a bad infection, next to no enamel & serious gum disease. They gave me prescription & that's when I found out I had no medical insurance. I never got the meds. because I could not afford them. Since than it has gotten so much worse. I am a single mom of 2 young boys. I pay my own Rent phone electric & everything else with a next to nothing paycheck. So at the end of the month I am left with Nothing. I went to the welfare office & was turned down because I make more than 400$ a month. My job doesn't provide dental but this infection has spread so fast that I don't have 1 tooth that's not infected & the only ones that can even still be saved are the top 4 in the front. I don't even remember what it feels like to eat solid food & I have tried everything to get health insurance..but I have no $ left over @ the end of the mouth. I feel lost. Does any1 know of anything I can do? This is painful in every way.& I think it is crazy that I can not have dental insurance because I have a job. I cant quit my job to save my teeth. My fronts probably have less than a month b4 they start to chip away from the gum line...& I am out of options.""

How much would motorcycle insurance cost for a 17 year old boy?

How much would motorcycle insurance cost for a 17 year old boy?

Does insurance go up if I buy a car?

I'm 16 and I just got my license in California. My parents won't buy me a car because they think that if I get a car, my insurance rate will go up. Is this true? Or does insurance rate remain the same if i buy a car? THANKS""

If i were to drop my car insurance for a few months can i get it back when i want?

basically my car sucks in the winter (i.e. the snow lol) so i havent been driving it for like 3 months now, and it will prolly be another 2 months till i begin driving it again, and im paying my car insurance on it but really im not using it lol, and moneys a little tight, so i was wondering if i were to drop it for a few months, can i jus call back up or w/e and get my insurance back on it with no problems, or fees or anything, or should i jus continue paying the remaining months, im 19 so my rates arent cheap lol (even tho ive had no accidents)""

Car insurance problem?

yesterday crashed my car into the back of a young man in an old Y reg ford escort no damage to his car just a loose exhaust which i am giving him money to get fixed. But my car Y reg Peugeot 206 1.4 quicksilver, the bonnet has gone so will have to buy a new one. if i go through insurance to get my bonnet done will it affect my annual insurance cost? at the moment it is 800 how much do you think it will go up by. by the way i am only 18 this is my first year of driving under my mothers policy.""

What cars would be cheap to buy and on insurance for a 16 y/o driver?

my years i like are 1995-2004 and i dont want to spend more than 2000-3000 and more than 100-150 on insurance

Affordable health insurance?

What are some affordable Health Insurance Options in NYC for Latin American father and his child to be? My friend doesn't have health insurance and is planning on putting his new baby (born around Oct.) on his policy with him. He's Latin American and has his permanent residence card, but is not yet a citizen. Anyone know of any affordable plans for him to look into in the Manhattan area?""

Why does car insurance never get cheaper?

I'm getting older, my car is worth less each year, I have accrued 9 years plus NCB and have never caused an accident in 15 years, yet each year my insurance goes up, and those things that used to be included ( hire car, accident insurance etc) you have to pay extra for.""

Can other people drive my car with my insurance?

I am going on a road trip with a friend but I don't want to drive the whole way. I have AAA insurance, will it cover my friend if she drives my car part of the way? She has state farm insurance if that makes any difference.

""Is it legal to drive in California without insurance? (insurance on the person, not the car)?""

Hi, my car is insured, but I just got my license today and I am not insured. The car is under my parents' name and my dad told me it was legal to drive without insurance... but I am unsure of whether this is true or not. Can someone please clarify? Thanks in advance, Liz.""

Teenager boy Car insurance?

i am 17 years old and I just got my license. I try to get some quotes under my moms name and it came out to be around 3000 to 5000, in other words, 2 to 4 grand every six month just for me. How much is normal teenager boy insurance rate it NY State? One of my friends(they are twins) and they pay 20 total under their parents insurance. They own really creppy car costs like 1700 but still I thought guys under 30 pay the most expensive rate in car insurance. What exactly is the average rate for teenager boy? I DO NOT Want any recommendation to go get a quote in insurace companies or wutever.""

Is it worth paying over $100+ car insurance?

I'm currently a college commuter and I drive a 1997 Toyota Corolla DX sedan with over 180k miles on it. My insurance company is GEICO and they put me on a 6 month payment plan where my premium is $839. Now the thing is that I pay about $140 a month for 6 months until that total is paid off, but is it worth paying $140 car insurance for a car that was manufactured in 1997 with over 180k miles and doesn't run or look to good at all. Should i try to finance a preowned or used car? If so how should i do it? I know there are many options in paying for a new car, but I'm 19, in college, working at Walmart part-time, and own a online business. Tips are appreciated.""

What cheap but reliable family car is best to buy must be auto cheap insurance?

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Should we keep health insurance or get rid of it?

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Is it legal to use foreign car insurance in the UK?

I'm a 17 year old male and I've just passed my driving test, I'm trying to think of every and any way possible to get car insurance as cheap as possible. I was wondering whether it's possible to purchase and use car insurance from a foreign company in the UK and if it is possible whether you could have a policy on an English car or whether i'd have to purchase an import. Thanks in advance.""

Car Insurance when selling Car?

Ok the situation is as follows: I am selling my car for a new one. I have asked my current insurer to transfer my policy to the new car which is fine. However I then questioned about temporarily insuring my old car under the policy and they wanted a ridiculous amount of money for a week - I also do not know how long it will take to sell the car. I questioned the amount and asked what customers generally do when they wish to keep an old car insured. I was told that I could drive my old car on a 3rd party basis as my policy going forward covers me fully comprehensive. I thought fantastic - but then I was shocked when I was told that if I drive the car it is insured 3rd party only but as soon as I park it up somewhere it is uninsured and could be towed away by the police. I have since read my policy document which claim that I can drive any other car 3rd party providing I do not own the car and that there is already insurance in place? Can anyone clarify the above or provide advice. I am so confused and unfortunately are unable to call my insurer back now or over the next couple days? Thanks in advance

What would my allstate car insurance be?

im a 16 year old female. i went through driver's ed (so you're suppose to get a discount) and my mom had been a member of allstate for at least 10 years with no accidents or anything. so im wondering, about how much would MY car insurance be? if it matters about the car i would be driving, we're getting a red 87 toyota celica coupe thanks!""

Do I need to change my Car Insurance? What do i need to do?

I am a foreign student in United States. I stayed at California for 2 years. Now, I moved to Indiana State. I have a car Insurance with California address. My License plate is still California's. Do I need to do anything with my insurance? When I tried to do a trial quote for changing address at Geico, the quote for new address is almost 2 times more expensive than the old one. I don't know what to do. I believe Indiana Auto insurance must be cheaper than that of California. Should I just cancel it and start a new one? Do I still need to do anything with DMV?""

Typically Cheapest Auto Insurance Company in Massachusetts?

Suggestions anyone? Anyone shopped around and found a company that is better overall?

Where to find cheap insurance when I have a teenager that lost her license for three months?

My daughter received three tickets and her license was suspended, She is able to get it back now but the insurance company wants to charge me $500 a month just for her. Are they kinding who can afford that.""

How much will my car insurance cost monthly?

I'm 20 years old, female, college student, never been in an accident, 0 tickets, i've had my license since i was 18, my occupation: customer service. i'm self supporting, my insurance will not be under parents. it will be under my name. i'm looking to just get basic liability coverage. the car i'm considering to get is a white 2003 toyota celica gt coupe. with about 95kmiles. what insurance do you recommend and how much do you think it will cost for me monthly?""

Any idea how much motorcycle insurance for a 19 yer old Female in Texas would cost?

i been driving for at least 13 years (since i was 7 i was driving a 150cc) at 15 i started driving a 1600cc yamaha royal star :D (so dont say i dont know) i had a mexican motorcycle license for about 4-5 years (i am verly gonna get tx Licence) And i am planning on getting maybe a 600cc sportbike to use in TX

Can i get a bought car with someone elses insurance?

So i bought a car but it needs to be fixed so i need to tow it to my house. I dont have insurance on it yet until i fix it. My parents have triple A and are real good customers. Can triple a tow the vehicle to my house even of its not insured yet?

First time vehicle owner..need cheap car insurance?

18..my first car and i need some extremely cheap car insurance

Typically how much does it cost to have renters insurance?

Typically how much does it cost to have renters insurance?

Which auto insurance carrier is best?

I want to find a reliable company. I've looked into Geico and Allstate... just don't know how they handle claims and things. Any input?

How much will insurance go up with 2 points on drivers license in CA?

Im from California. So I have 2 points on my driving record how much will the insurance go up? I work for a company as a driver. They have The Hartford car insurance. Thanks.

Car insurance question?

My boyfriend doesn't have a car therefore he doesn't have car insurance... If he were to get into an accident driving my car or get a ticket, would my insurance go up? I have full coverage and the insurance company said he and I would be covered. But I was wondering if my insurance would go up if he were to get pulled over or get into an accident.""

Are car insurance companies having a laugh?

Me and a friend were taking out some car insurance quotes the other day - entering his information in he got 1700 a year on an old '95 (i think) cincequento, which frankly was hilarious. Then, all we changed was the address so that he lived at my house. It pushed the insurance up to something like 2700. Now I dont get this - he lives in a pretty rough area in my town, right near where all the boy racers live and such. I however live in a small village about 2 miles away and just outside of the town. In my area, the population is about 90% seniors and it is very quiet. I thought insurance companies were supposed to weigh the risks of location against their policy? Why has mine come out a grand more?""

""If i have no income will obamacare subsidies 100% of my health insurance, and co pay?""

If i have no income will obamacare subsidies 100% of my health insurance, and co pay?""

Well for my first car what should it be? thats affordable and wont kill me in insurance.?

I love mustangs as i said before in my last question and i would like to know any suggestions to get other than that (that's a sporty stylish car) with leather seats and tiny (something like a mustang).

Car insurance question! help?

Ok so I'm 17 years old. I have had my license for 5 months. I have never gotten a ticket, been in an accident or pulled over. My parents are buying me a car.. and well I'm a teenage guy so I want a sports car. My parents said I can't have a car with a v8 engine or any kind of GT because it will raise the insurance cost. I found a nissan 300zx online for around 4,500. It isn't a gt, its automatic and its a v6. I told my dad about it and he said no. When I asked why he said because nissans are different and the insurance will be high if I buy that car, but he says its fine if I get a different car make that has a v6. Is what he said true? Will the insurance go higher because its a nissan sports car? (We have gieco)""

How much would insurance group 7 be?

would just like an estimate how much insurance group 7 is

What type of car would have the cheapest insurance? Over 25 but 2 dui's... I know... stupid...?

I just got my release for my license back and am looking for a new used car. I'm also trying to keep the insurance price down (I'm sure like everyone). Any suggestions on a type of car or insurance company that would be good to use please let me know. thnx

Can other people drive my car with my insurance?

I am going on a road trip with a friend but I don't want to drive the whole way. I have AAA insurance, will it cover my friend if she drives my car part of the way? She has state farm insurance if that makes any difference.

Can I insure a vehicle I don't legally own? ?

Can I insure a vehicle I don't legally own? ?

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My daughter is covered under medicaid. She can't get insurance because she has a pre consisting condition. I am wondering how long I can have medicaid for? Is it wrong for me to ...show more

What is the average cost of mobile home insurance in California?

What is the average cost of mobile home insurance in California?

""What does Flood Insurance cost in Houston, Texas? We are moving there in a few months. Thx!?

Friend of ours told us it can be expensive in Houston. Is that true?

Denied car insurance?

what happens if all the major car insurance companies deny you insurance if your a first time driver and have bad credit. geico and allstate denied me already. what can i do if they ALL deny me?

What are california's car insurance laws?

Im a new driver and was wondering if its a type of insurance i need. I only have Liability on my car nothing else am i ok if i get pulled over and asked for proof of insurance??

How much is insurance on a 125cc?

WhAts a average insurance price for a geared 125

How much would motorcycle insurance cost?

Hello, i'm 20 about to be 21 in december, but i'm gonna be going for my motorcycle license in a week, an planning on buying a kawasaki ninja 250R since it has good reviews, but i'm wondering how much it would be for insurance i'm just going for motorcycle license cause i don't like cars, trucks etc. but yeah so i don't have a normal license so i have no driving record of crashes etc. i'm in indianapolis, IN cause i know states vary. Rob""

How can I get the cheapest car insurance in the UK?

I am 29 and have had a driving licence for 11 years but in another country (non EU). I just got my UK licence and am looking for a cheap insurance. the cheapest quote I have found is over 2000 which is too much. I have a 1.6 automatic Golf. Is there any company that accepts my previous licence as my experience? I also tried to get my No Claim Bonus letter from my Insurance company but they simply don't answer me as the system is different in my country so no chance of getting that. thanks

No car insurance california get fine reduced?

I bought a used car from the highway patrol (crown victoria) and i gor pulled over on the way home for no license plate. I got a ticket for no insurance how can i get it reduced or get out of it? I did get insurance the same day with Allstate when i got home. And dont leave a hole answers please

Female car insurance companies?

does any1 know any good cheap female car insurers?

Average amount of settle payouts from substandard insurance companies?

Average amount of settle payouts from substandard insurance companies?

""How much, on average, would it cost to get a Thyroid Function Test? (No insurance) Info on Hypothyroidism?""

I was told that I might have Hypothyroidism because of my constant low blood pressure & low body temp. I was reading the symptoms and seem to have the following. Poor muscle tone (muscle hypotonia) Fatigue Cold intolerance, increased sensitivity to cold Depression Constipation Muscle cramps and joint pain Arthritis Thin, brittle fingernails Brittle hair Paleness Dry, itchy skin Weight gain Thinning of the outer third of the eyebrows Low basal body temperature Impaired memory Impaired cognitive function (brain fog) and inattentiveness <-all the time now Migraine headache Sluggish reflexes Anxiety/panic attacks <All the time now Increased need for sleep <All the time now Irritability and mood instability <All the time now Decreased sense of taste and smell Depression (Had <that for years and years now) Could it be the depression & Borderline Personality Disorder causing this or thyroid problems causing the Mental issues? Thanks for any info!""

What is auto insurance ?

can anybody explain what is auto insurance ?

Proof of insurance before transferring title and registering car?

After buying a used car from a private party, how do i purchase insurance if the title has not been transferred yet? I'm planning on switching to Geico. But, before i can purhase their policy, the title has to be under my name. For the title to be under my name, i need to transfer it to me; however, i need proof of insurance for this. HELP please. I need some answers.""

How much do you pay for you're car insurance 17+ ? & names of insurers!?

Hey, I'd like to know some of you're insurance quotes and where from? Looking around to find some places! Cheers in advance 10points for someone who helps!""

""New to real estate, question about auto insurance?""

I drive my parents car but i am not insured, now that i've joined a real estate firm, they want me to have them as an additional insured. So what can I do now? Do I have to get insurance under my name? And how much would it cost to get the firm as an additional insured?""

What is the average cost for insurance for a 16 yr old?

i just got my license like 2 weeks ago and im wondering about how much would it cost for insurance also i live in San Leandro CA if needed if car/s needed: honda pilot 2008 honda accord lx 2001 i didn't want to check quotes online cause i'd need my address and i don't really wanna put all that info

Car insurance cost monthly?

Hi, I'm a newbie at this and maybe I should call my dad and just get the answer but he's kinda busy atm. How much does car insurance cost monthly or during a 6 month ...show more""

AXA Equitable Life Insurance?

anyone have Equitable as their insurance company? Comments? Also, can anyone tell me about the Flexible Premium Universal Life Insurance Plan? THANKS!""

18 year-old female in Florida (Manatee/Sarasota area) looking for car insurance.?

I am looking for inexpensive car insurance for a 2007 Scion tC. I have had no tickets nor accidents in the two years that I have had my license. Oh and I will be 19 in two months. Any help will be appreciated.

How much does it cost to insure a madza rx7 ?

I am only 18 and i really want an rx7, but i want the veilside widebody kit for it, my dad says i cant get one cause no one will insure me! This is my dream car if somebody from experiance or present owner could tell me what there insurance is so i can get a rough idea??""

Staying on my mother's health insurance?

I'm 19 years old, in good health, and moving out. My mother has been laid off and is getting a job out of state which is forcing me to move out (i'm not complaining just informing). She will be on cobra health insurance until the new job's health insurance kicks in but I was wondering if I'd still be able to be covered under her new job's insurance if we aren't living together. The only reason I ask this is because I am currently working part time at a job that offers health insurance but it is $70 per month. If it were up to me I'd go without health insurance but she informed me that it is required by law now (yay). I've read in some places that I would be able to stay covered by my mother's insurance until age 26 but I've also read in other places that if my job offers health insurance I cannot be covered on someone else's as a dependent. I live in Georgia if that matters! Any tips/suggestions welcomed, thanks!""

Can I drive an insured car without insurance?

I got my G2 a week ago and I was wondering if I can drive my parent's insured car without being listed as a driver. I drive very safely and I've never received any ticket but my insurance quotes are insanely high, especially because I am a guy. I really can't afford it and neither can my parents. Some people say I can still drive and some say no and I'm very confused. Please answer if you know for sure. Thanks in advance""

What should my average house insurance cost?

I'm buying an older house (1920's-1930's) in a working class neighborhood in California for about $200K. What should I expect to pay for my standard homeowner's insurance?

Can other people drive my car with my insurance?

I am going on a road trip with a friend but I don't want to drive the whole way. I have AAA insurance, will it cover my friend if she drives my car part of the way? She has state farm insurance if that makes any difference.

""Difference in insurance price between 2007 4DR Chevy Cobalt, and 2008 Pontiac G6 GT 4DR?""

I currently have a 2007 Cobalt LT 4DR 2.2. I'm fairly happy with the car but I want a car with a little bit more room, that's still a GM or Ford and has a little bit better get up and go. I love my low insurance rates with the cobalt how much do you think i'd go up with the g6?""

What's the best car insurance company? Your experience?

I just purchased a new car and my family and I have about 4 cars currently under farmers insurance and pays way over $200 on car insurance...the dealer at the agency mentioned that he bought the same car and has 4 other cars with Nationwide and pays under $200 full coverage. In your experience and in your opinion from what you know or have experienced which insurance companys over the best service for your buck or offer great options. I think we are paying a lot and the options aren't that great. Thanks

Whats happens if I don't get car insurance?

I have a speeding ticket on my license, I'm about to go to court for another speeding ticket (19 over) and a reckless driving ticket (for burning tires). I am 18, with a Nissan 300zx (2 seater sports car) My insurance is currently $120 a month for liability (I think) , and will probably go WAY up I was thinking, what if I don't renew my insurance? Will I just get a $200 ticket when I get pulled over for it? $200 ticket >>> $300 a month for insurance More knowledge the better, cuz the 2 tickets I just got are gonna cost me out the ***, and insurance is ridiculous anyways, I have 0 wrecks, I'm considered high risk with tickets even though its just speeding and burning tires. Speeding on old highways with nobody on them, the worst thing I have to worry about is deer. Burning tires in secluded areas on roads nobody drives on really.""

How much will insurance be for a dodge charger?

How much will it cost for insurance if I get my son a 2006 dodge charger? He is 16.

Is car insurance expensive?

Im about to get my driver licence and my mom told me that car insurance is really expensive and that's the reason why she wont buy me a car.

How is the health insurance subsidies calculated?

Just wondering how the affordable care insurance tax subsidies are calculated? Is it based on last years wages or estimated wages of the year you are applying for the health insurance. Let's say I made $100,000 last year and retired this year and applied for the affordable care insurance. Say my estimated taxable income for 2014 was $40,000 with family of four, can I get government subsidies?""

Is car insurance cheaper in Delaware the PA?

I am going to be moving from Pennsylvania to Delaware in the upcoming months. I will need to change my auto insurance and was wondering for anyone else that has made this move, is it cheaper to insure in Delaware(Wilmington) then in Pennsylvania(suburbs)?""

How much is motorcycle insurance ?

How much is it if your 18 and have no accidents or tickets. Any cheap insurance companies? And it's not a sport bike or anything, just a normal starter bike that only goes about 100mph.""

Cheap car insurer for young driver?

I am a 19 year old male trying to find a cheaper car insurance quote than 1500. Does anyone know the cheapest car to insure? or a cheap insurer?

USAA Insurance on an RX8?

I am currently 19 years old and have a license with no infractions or anything like that. How much around would the insurance cost for a Mazda RX8, any of these years (2006-2010), for USAA?""

""What is the average cost of home owner insurance in Houston, Texas?

I know this varies and are based on different factors. I am just seeking an average - thanks!

Teenage insurance for 2001 Ford Escape? 2002 Jeep Liberty?

I'm thinking about purchasing this car used for my 18th birthday. I have to wait until i'm 18 so I can be on my own insurance. But I have taken drivers ed, and I will be buying this car full payment in cash. So I'm curious to know what the insurance could be! I have tried to get quotes online. You have to already be insured and own the car...I have tried so many. I also am a female, so my insurance will be a little lower. I just really need to find out what it would be! I was also thinking of purchasing a 2002 Jeep Liberty, any insurance guess on that? Ford Escape is a better car, but i'm just seeing what insurance could be for both. Thank you so much!""

Why are my insurance quotes coming to 20-40k?

Ok so i know insurance in London will be alot for a student like me who is 17, but why is it my friends are getting insurance for 2k in london and when i enter correct information on quote websites (obvisouly acting as if i am 17) that my quotes are coming to 44k, what should i do when it comes to getting my own policy? thansk""

People who cant afford health insurance are quacks?

i see the merits of having universal health care, kind of, but it seems to me that the problem is a lot of middle class citizens who just decide nto to purchase health insurance on the premise that they cannot afford it , and instead opt to buy material goods that are solely for luxury. you cant go out and buy nice cars and houses and bypass health insurance and then cry it off that the government should give free care to everryone.......i definitely agree it should be cheaper for the poor etc. bottom line: ppl need to realize health is the most important thing in there life, and satisfy that need, before thinking about personal possesions (nice cars etc)""

""Someone backed into me in a parking lot, is this insurance company lying?""

Foreigners backed into my car in the parking lot, they had insurance, I called the insurance company and they asked for an estimate on how much it would cost to fix it, I did, and they said okay and that they would mail it on Friday morning. It's now Monday and I haven't gotten it. They are in a state not far from us. Is this insurance company full of crap or do I just need to wait longer? Thanks :)""

Car insurance so unfair?

I am 18 and I know the prices are a joke, all I want is a 1.6 astra 2007 and I have to pay 10 k to get insured.Over in the US and over countries kids get massive jeeps, why is it over here, most people can't even afford a 1 litre corsa. Pisses me off that I get tied in with the same brush because of my age, surely can they charge a ridiculous price such as 5k and give you half back if you don't crash? they will still be profiting massively, as my dad pays 280 a year. If i want to suceed in life, I think i'm best leaving the UK, they just want everyone to use public transport and don't want people to have the luxury of driving a car. Anyone else agree ?""

Who pays? Auto or Health Insurance?

I was rear-ended and suffer with neck/back pain. Had hospital, ambulance and doctor's bills that my HEALTH insurance paid minus my co-pay with no questions (<$1,500. minor accident). Her AUTO insurance company has paid me a settlement that includes payment for my medical bills. I'm in Texas. (1) Will HEALTH ins. want to be re-paid? Meaning, is HEALTH primary or AUTO primary? (2) Can/Should I also file this on my PIP auto policy? Is TEXAS a state that allows double-dipping?""

The least expensive type of life insurance is _____.?

whole-life insurance term insurance endowment life insurance limited-payment life insurance

What is the best insurance?

Okay. Need the cheapest insurance for my boyfriend. He is 20, only three speeding tickets within a three years time, and wants a newer car.""

Im moving to Las Vegas. How much is car insurance in Nevada?

I am moving to Las Vegas. I am also planing to buy a car. How much is the car insurance in Nevada?

Car insurance in Nebraska?

How much would car insurance in Omaha, NE cost for a 16 y/o male?""

Car insurance and my rates?

Hi, I live in Adams County, PA and I have been with the same insurance company for about 20 years. I have a 1996 Chevy Suburban, high mileage. I have no accidents, violations, or points. I have a clean record. I walk to work and don't really drive far. I am paying over $1100 a year. This seems high to me. Is it?""

Cheapest Car Insurance - Canada?

Need a cheap car insurance... Don't spout off answers if you have no idea... I've researched: TD, RBC, CAA, AllState and Statefarm Living in Ontario!""

How much would my car insurance cost for under 25 for a multi car insurer?

i am 19 and want to start driving but insurance is a big issue and i don't have any knowledge in that department. So how much would my insurance be on the cheapest car (what car would that be?) as a multi car insurer?

How much should i insure my house for?

My house and land (combined purchase) cost $185,000.I have stainless steel appliances, (combined D/W, microwave, fridge, electric stove, central air and water heater. Furniture (contents) not purchased as yet and will be added later. How much should i insure my house for? *Note -land is not to be insured* Any suggestions on what i need to do, types of coverage and flaws to look out for? THKS for your kindness""

Can other people drive my car with my insurance?

I am going on a road trip with a friend but I don't want to drive the whole way. I have AAA insurance, will it cover my friend if she drives my car part of the way? She has state farm insurance if that makes any difference.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/need-help-auto-insurance-sibylla-henderson"

[awisekrakens]

okay, all right, I got some Emotions to get out because they’re starting to fester, honestly I thought I’d dealt with a good chunk of them years ago, but I guess not

under a cut because it’ll be Long and also very Why Does This Keep Happening to Me, which is not something I indulge in much because it leads to a spiral 9/10 times

I quit my job about a week ago, is the gist of it, but the Why Me is because they were threatening to demote me and because this is the second time this has happened to me.

so back in september when I was promoted, it was with the understanding with my immediate boss (who had more power at the time, he was effectively demoted too, it’s almost like there’s a pattern of behavior here) that I could only work three shifts a week because I’m Severely Clinically Depressed and can only work that often if I’d like to live in small piles of my own filth rather than active rotting mountains. it wasn’t enthusiastically accepted, but it was accepted, and it stood fine for four months.

in the interim, first boss was effectively demoted (was store manager, then became a Superlead, so like an Extra Special Shift Manager; moved from salaried to hourly and Yes It Was A Pay Cut) and understandably stopped giving a shit, so he was eventually fired and replaced by actually promoting from within. I like her, it was a good choice, but the whole thing still sucked.

the entire chain (11+ stores) also moved from doing schedules at the store level to having One Centralized Schedule Person, a move that none of us liked because we’d rather talk in person to a person we know about why our schedules need to be that way instead of Some Person We Send Emails To. I’m far from the only neurodivergent person who was working at my tiny forgotten store, much less the entire company, so it was like, fuck, now what do we do. the company, btw, proudly markets itself as Accepting of All Diversities and Mainly Here For The Medical Patients, Although We Like Recreational Users Too.

aside: the lady hired is married to one of the Powers That Be, a PTB who is by all accounts a pretty cool dude, but I have sincere doubts that Scheduling Lady was in any way qualified to be Scheduling Lady for Over 100 People and strongly suspect nepotism, since I don’t believe she was working for the company previously to becoming Scheduling Lady.

I quickly started feeling resistance from Scheduling Lady, mostly from sheer overwhelmed-ness of going from 0 to Handling the Schedule for 100+ people, but also because I wouldn’t cover shifts because of the aforementioned depression reasons. this is partly because the store I was at was So Goddamned Tiny that anyone unable to work a shift triggered a minor catastrophe that was generally solved by A) granting overtime or B) shuttling someone over from another store.

then the new year happens.

I notice that, for the second week of january, I’m scheduled for only two shifts instead of my usual three. they’re both shift manager shifts, which will become important later. I feel something niggling in the back of my brain, but because this is the first instance of this, I put it aside and send an email to Scheduling Lady asking to be restored to my regular three.

about 4-5 days later, I get a response from her amounting roughly to no, and that shift managers are expected to work four shifts/week. apparently the email’s been chilling in her drafts. (this is a paraphrase, I have a screenshot of said email on my phone)

at this place in the story, here’s a reminder that I’d been a shift manager for four months at this point, and that for those four months, at least two of which were during her tenure, my usual three shifts had been completely fine.

at this point I enter a depressive episode, because I feel like I’m being punished for something that was Completely Fine. I marinate in it for approximately three days, during which I receive my schedule for the week after -- I’ve been given two non-manager shifts, which feels like a Big, Hearty Fuck-You -- until the day of the store meeting, before which I tearfully ask my immediate supervisor (the Extra Special Shift Manager) and the regional manager responsible for my store if I’m being demoted.

Regional Manager doesn’t immediately say no.

Regional Manager instead says -- very nicely, he’s also a pretty cool dude, he’s one of the people who originally trained me when I first got hired Which Only Makes This Worse -- he instead repeats the thing about how shift managers are expected by the company to work four shifts/week.

I fully start crying at this point and am handed a box of tissues. 

I tell them that I’m clinically depressed and can only work three shifts, as I’ve been doing.

I’m then asked if I’d like to step down, citing the story of a coworker who decided he was too stressed to be a store manager, back when that was still a thing, and stepped down two levels to budtender, which is entry-level and the level I’d been promoted beyond four months previously. 

I say that’s cool for him, but I want to continue to be a shift manager, and I’m not going to be forced downwards, because almost this exact thing has happened to be before, only I was stupid enough to go back.

[it’s a long story, but it’s from back when I was an assistant swim coach (some of you may have known me then, I don’t remember because my memories from around then are shitty and full of holes because depression!). tldr, at the end of the summer I was paid maybe half what someone with half of my coaching experience was paid and wanted to be there so badly the next summer that I returned as a volunteer, only to quit halfway through because an entirely new coaching staff had been hired in the interim and now there was no place for me to do anything and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was the youngest, but had been there the longest.]

I just took a break to sob into my hand. I have really not dealt with that betrayal at all.

back to 2018.

Regional Manager looks like he hadn’t thought of it that way, says he wants to keep me on and move me to the store that will be opening -- eventually -- much nearer to my place. says he can’t promise anything, but he’ll bring it up on Monday (this was Thursday) at the PTB meeting and see what he can do.

I go outside to cry on Husband, who has stuck around after dropping me off because he’s a genius and knew this would probably happen. he’s reminded me that I can quit a couple of times at this point, which we are very finacially able to do, but we’re kind of. saving up to buy a house. so that guilt is fun.

I dry my face off and go back inside to work my closing shift.

over the weekend, the depressive episode deepens. I keep cycling back to things like “it was fine for four months”, “why does this matter”, “why is this the hill they want to die on”, “if they want me to take four shifts why was I moved down to two”, and the old standby “do they all secretly hate me”, helped along by the fact that I HAD TO START THE CONVERSATION. no email, no nothing from Regional Manager. I had to notice on my own through how I was being scheduled.

by Monday, things have gotten so bad in the brain case that I’m sporting a brand new set of stress acne and do my best not to curl up into a ball whenever the thought of the store crosses my mind.

Regional Manager pulls it off in the meeting, and says I can come back to the way things were before. I take a day to compose my reply, but encouraged by Husband, I quit because “the stress surrounding this whole affair has negatively affected my health” because it has. I’m still crying as I write this, btw. still have painful stress acne.

now I’m dealing with lingering guilt and stress and depressive episodes and super fun job-hunting stress which is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD and everything’s flipped so hard that I actually miss it there.

this, this is why I went back to the swim team.

I fucking hate everything.

I call out sick twice in six months, don’t cover shifts because of a medical reason, have exactly zero discipline marks on my record, and this is how I leave.

fuck everything.

[topicprinter]

Hi! I want to be as transparent as possible here. I picked this text (2500 words) from our software house's blog to show you. Talking with our startup clients, we often hear how difficult it is to hire good developers. I hope this will be helpful to you in solving your recruitment pains. It's a text I wrote based on my conversation with our Head of Service Delivery, Wojciech Lichota. He has 10 years of experience hunting for developers on our competitive market.As per the subreddit rules, the full body of the blog post is below - minus some CTAs and links so that it reads better. Hope you find it useful!The Ultimate Guide to Hiring High-Impact Software Developers, Part OneWho doesn’t need software developers these days? Startups are always looking for fresh talent to get their idea off the ground.But before you can start working on your software project, you need the people who can actually do the coding. You need skilled programmers who can bring real value. And those are notoriously hard to get.Read on for an inside look at the challenges of hiring software developers - and how you can meet those challenges head on using outbound tactics like LinkedIn, workshops and hackathons.Why is it hard to find software developers?The Number One Problem with hiring software developers is competition. The bigger the city you’re in, the fiercer the fight to hire the best. You might think that a larger market could provide a more healthy stream of devs, but in reality it’s almost impossible to hire good developers in places such as London or the Silicon Valley. Top talent gets sucked up by the major players in the blink of an eye, leaving you straining to find anyone to work on your project.Hiring software engineers is especially tricky for companies without a well established, prestigious brand. If you fall under this category, you may find that developers either don’t want to join you or will leave you as soon as the project stops exciting them.The market is very much skewed towards the developers themselves, who can pick and choose the companies that will provide the best benefits and compensation.All is not lost, however.While the competition may be fierce and high-impact developers are ever harder to recruit, the task is not impossible. I know this because I recently sat down with Wojciech Lichota, Head of Service Delivery at the Gdańsk branch of STX Next. I asked him to share his process for finding developers you can be proud of. Here’s what you need to know to start hiring great software engineers.What are your options?When you set out on the search for software developers, you have two main courses of attack.Option One: Hire a headhunting agencyA potentially effective solution, albeit a costly one. If you decide to hire a headhunting agency to fulfill your recruitment needs, you’re looking at paying the equivalent of 1 or 2 monthly paychecks of the new hire as remuneration for the agency. This amounts to around 15,000 PLN in Poland.In the UK or US, on the other hand, you may pay as much as 25% of the hire’s yearly salary. On average, that’s £30,651 in the UK and $69,083 in the US.Investing such amounts in new hires may pay off in the future, but the initial cost will delay the moment when you start seeing a return on your investment.Option Two: Recruit by yourselfThe alternative to headhunters is to take the recruitment effort upon yourself, which is a significant challenge. However, depending on the size of your company, this solution may prove more cost-effective.One of the obstacles with ‘insourcing’ your software engineer recruitment is that you may not have the right skillset onboard to find good hires. For example, your HR department may find it challenging to identify and entice quality candidates.On the other hand, your project managers may try to tackle the task themselves; they may know their way around software development, but are they comfortable enough in the recruiter role to get the job done?Such challenges were the inspiration for our series of articles. We’re here to share the best practices that, in our experiences, lead to valuable software development hires.Let’s see what you can do to give yourself a fighting chance in this competitive market.Outbound recruiting methodsThis article will focus on outbound methods of recruitment. Using the outbound approach, your strategy is to find viable candidates for your software engineering positions and entice them to apply for a job at your company. (This stands in contrast to developers finding you, which is the inbound approach. More on that in another post.)A tall order to be sure, but there are proven tactics you can use to increase your odds of swaying developers to your side, ranging from classic LinkedIn messages to more creative methods such as workshops and hackathons.Direct search via LinkedIn and other portalsThe classic way of reaching potential software development hires is to send them a message through LinkedIn or a similar medium. This method is classic for a reason - it’s fundamental to your recruitment success. In our case, it’s still the number one channel for finding new developers.The key difference between success and failure here is the way you compose your first message, or your ‘outreach’. A good first contact message reflects the best practices found in the best sales emails. It must be interesting and effective. Ask yourself: what can I include in the message to make it impossible to ignore?Outreach tips:You must include the salary range in your message. This has become an industry standard by now.Include the location of your job posting. Keep in mind that most developers aren’t looking to relocate and you will have to make your deal even sweeter to get them to do it.Tell the candidate about the technologies they’ll be working with. Any bleeding edge technologies you may be using could entice the developer to choose you.The message should end with one, crystal-clear call to action. This could be either ‘email us’ or ‘visit our website’ or ‘schedule a call’. Again, the next step should be clear as day; don’t force the candidate to think.If there are other aspects of your offer you’d like to highlight in the outreach, here’s one simple rule to follow: choose the benefits that separate you from the competition. Those are your key selling points and you should point them out first. If your company has great employee benefits, you can add a few words about them. If it’s a modern and exciting project, make sure the candidates know about that.However, make sure that the content of your outreach is all killer and no filler. The purpose of this message is to impress the candidate, not inform them of all the details. That comes later.Recruitment via knowledge sharing: conferences, workshops and hackathonsA less straightforward but nonetheless effective recruitment method is sharing your organization’s tech knowledge at conferences, workshops and hackathons. It’s a win-win situation: you give the event attendants a chance to educate themselves while at the same time gaining an opportunity to grow your network and expose new people to your organization.The first issue to take into account here is location, location, location. Think small and local. You have a much higher chance of success if you address a more focused, more motivated group of candidates during a smaller event. Attending larger events may raise awareness and prestige, but the audience may be from all over the continent. There’s not a lot of hope that you will find someone that fits your location.Second, keep in mind that this recruitment tactic requires technical knowledge. You may turn to your CTO to help you here. Their combination of technical and business savvy gives them the right skillset to ensure an interesting conference presentation or practical workshop content.Whenever you organize or participate in an event, you should think in terms of a recruitment funnel. You need enough people attending the event to sift out those that will be either uninterested or unqualified, and get the gems that you can hire.Let’s dig a little deeper into how you can ensure success for each type of event.2 tips for effective conference presentationsWhen it comes to making an impact during a conference presentation, Wojciech shared with me two key nuggets of knowledge.His first piece of advice is simple: don’t be selfish! When preparing your content, you should ask yourself: how will my audience benefit from attending my presentation?Keep in mind that this is very different from looking into how you will benefit from making the presentation. That goal should not be your main focus; the attendants will catch on to it.Wojciech’s second tip is much more specific and relates to live coding at conferences. Again, his answer is blunt: just don’t do it. Live demos during a presentation create a lot of problems for little to no benefit. Even if it’s smooth, it takes up way too much of your precious time. The audience is just watching you type!Additionally, it’s incredibly easy to make a mistake in your code and then waste even more time on debugging, hunting for that one mistyped line as your authority falters.For those reasons, it’s much better to show ready-made code snippets and keep the show going smoothly.Depending on the target audience you choose, you should also choose appropriate content. Juniors seek basic knowledge. They don’t want lectures or speeches; they’re mostly looking for knowledge akin to a programming course. Advanced attendants will be more interested in case studies of interesting projects. Make sure to present something concrete and focused.The matter of junior vs advanced attendants also comes into play when you’re looking to organize a workshop.Workshops: junior or advanced?Organizing a practical workshop yourself can be even more effective than attending a conference with your presentation. The downside, of course, is that it requires much more work and preparation involving many people in your organization. You are the host here, after all.The most pivotal decision to make here is whether to gear your event towards juniors or more advanced developers.It’s easier to conduct workshops for junior attendees - but do you want to recruit junior developers? Ask yourself this question in advance before you end up with an unproductive event.On the other hand, you can conduct advanced workshops. Keep in mind, however, that they are much more time-consuming to organize. You could spend many hours of work - even a whole month - preparing to pull of just one short event. Moreover, you’ll need to bring in experienced speakers and the audience will be harder to convince - both to attend and to take interest in your job offers.Filtering: when your workshop is a little too successfulAnother issue to tackle with junior workshops is how you filter potential attendants. Usually your workshops will require at least a minimum of starting knowledge, even if they’re geared towards relative beginners.To process the influx of submissions and get worthwhile attendants, you need to establish an automatic skills test. Anything else will create too much work to process the event smoothly.As an example, our Has Power workshops include a short, 4-question quiz. Attendants are invited based on their quiz answers and their LinkedIn profile. The need for careful selection is very real for us, since we usually have 2-3 people for each spot at workshops such as Python Has Power.Hackathons: managing expectationsAnother idea that has been gaining prominence among software houses and tech companies is organizing hackathons to attract programming talent.The idea of a hackathon is quite simple. You book a venue. You order food and beverages for your attendants (beer is absolutely fine!). You invite potential candidates to participate in a fun coding project. Finally, you try to hire the ones that stand out the most.Hackathons work especially great if you’re a startup. You can even establish a theme for your hackathon such as VR, IoT, Big Data, AI - anything that’s exciting and fits your startup profile. Invite developers to come, code something, show off their idea and get prizes for the best projects. This way you can pre-select devs who have useful skills for your purposes.You should keep in mind, however, that while hackathons can be easier to organize than workshops, they are also more expensive. Without an appropriate budget for food, drinks and prizes, you might fail to meet expectations.Remember: your hackathon must be fun! This type of event is all about creativity, so leave a lot of room for the attendants to run with their ideas. Don’t impose stiff limitations.Oh, and one last thing. Don’t expect that people will come and create amazing software you can sell. The event shouldn’t support your product; it should bolster your recruitment. We’ve seen hackathons that were all about ‘cheap coding labor’ and rest assured, they are the very opposite of fun.SummaryOne thing I can say for sure after my meeting with Wojciech is that recruiting developers is a deep subject. So deep, in fact, that it couldn’t possibly fit into one post. Which is why you can look forward to more in the near future!And just because I know how busy you might be today, here’s a short recap of what we’ve covered so far:LinkedIn:Your best bet to find good developers is probably still via direct LinkedIn outreach.A good outreach should be impressive and interesting. Put emphasis on your key advantages over the competition.Information such as salary, location, tech stack and the next action to take are a must.Conference presentations:Prepare basic, course-like knowledge for junior attendants and case studies for advanced guestsThink first about how the audience will benefit from seeing your presentation, not how you will benefit.Don’t do live coding - the risk of wasting your audience’s time is too great.Workshops:Keep in mind that a good workshop can take up to a month to organize properly.You should organize junior workshops only if you want junior developers.Make sure to pre-filter your attendants using an automatic skills test.Hackathons:Make sure you have a budget that can support food, drinks and prizes for the attendants.Feel free to give your hackathon a theme fitting your profile to attract the right programmers.Don’t treat the hackathon as a source of free labor to build your product!Wow, even the recap got pretty long. All the more reason to revisit the subject very soon.And that's the full body of the blog post (minus the obvious calls-to-action at the end). Hope you found it helpful. We ended up publishing a Part Two some time later, going into inbound recruitment methods. You can find a link in the original blog post here.

[micecream]

35 Ways to Get Paid While Traveling the World

In many parts of the world, you can live comfortably for very little money—substantially less than you spend in your home country.

Between cheap flights, living in hostels, or CouchSurfing, and finding ways to earn money, food, and/or accommodation while abroad, travel can be shockingly affordable, even profitable. I’ve now been to 21 countries by pursuing #1, #8, and a few others.

Without further ado, here are 35 ways to partially or entirely finance a trip abroad:

1. Teach English

I taught English in South Korea for one year through the EPIK Program and managed to pay off my student loan debt and save ~$10,000. English is, in many ways, becoming a universal language. There are job opportunities in countless locations all over the world, and often you only need to be a native speaker and/or take an online certification course (you may also need a college degree, but in some countries you don’t). Many programs will pay for your airfare and housing on top of a healthy salary. Google and Dave’s ESL Cafe are good resources to begin discovering your options.

Posing with my sixth graders in South Korea in 2014.

2. WWOOF

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. Through the World Wide Organization of Organic Farms (WWOOF), you can travel to many different countries and work on organic farms. Basically, you work for 4-6 hours per day in exchange for food and housing with a host family. This leaves the majority of your day open for exploring and other activities. With the necessities covered, you only need to pay for travel expenses. I have friends who “WWOOFed” for 6 months in Japan, and some friends of a friend did the same for about 6 months in South America.

3. Peace Corps

Peace Corps is another option I’ve strongly considered and may still do. Corps members make a two-year commitment to live and work in a developing country. Members work in the sectors of education, youth and community development, health, business, agriculture, environment, and HIV/AIDS, among others. In exchange, you receive a housing and living allowance, student loan assistance, a re-adjustment stipend of $7,425 upon completion, full medical and dental coverage, plus a few other things. I know the Peace Corps would be a profoundly life-changing experience.

4. Housesitting and petsitting

Watch someone’s house and/or pets for them and get a free place to say. Some people bounce around the world housesitting for years at at time.

5. Sell art in unconventional ways

My favorite rapper-artist-novelist KOOL A.D. has made thousands of dollars selling his original artwork on Instagram. Others use services/tools such as Redbubble, Teespring, Gooten, and/or Shopify to sell their art or print/sell their original artwork on t-shirts, posters, and more.

HighExistence team members Jordan Lejuwaan, Jon Brooks, and I at a festival in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 2016.

6. Bartending

One of the easiest and most popular options for travelers. I’ll never forget the island of Koh Rong, Cambodia, where all of the bartenders I talked to were just travelers who had arrived on the paradisiacal island and decided they wanted to stay a while. I have friends who’ve bartended in Australia, Cambodia, South Korea, and probably a bunch of other places.

7. Work at a Hostel or Resort

Resort positions are among the most common forms of employment that can be easily acquired by people from foreign countries. And, there are resorts all over the planet. You could potentially work as a front desk attendant, in a restaurant, or in the activity/entertainment department. You could save money, and in your downtime, experience a tropical locale.

8. Start an online business.

It’s becoming more feasible all the time to work from a remote location, and people are capitalizing on this state of affairs to become digital nomads.

Make no mistake: online business is not a get-rich-quick scheme, but there are countless people who have found a way to earn a living online through diligent effort. If you’re curious to learn more about this possibility, read this guide I wrote.

9. Become a yoga instructor

Get certified and find yoga jobs all over the world and/or start your own classes or personal training business wherever you go.

I saw many of the best sunsets of my life on the Mediterranean Sea in Durrës, Albania in 2016.

10. Become a scuba instructor

Similar to yoga, you can get a scuba certification most anywhere in the world then get positions all over the world.

11. Do something through Workaway

Workaway is like WWOOF but broader. Workaway shares opportunities around the world to volunteer a few hours per day in exchange for food and board.

12. Tutor kids online

Many companies offer the opportunity to tutor a variety of subjects from the comfort of your home. Job websites such as Craigslist and Indeed are good places to start searching for such positions.

13. HelpX

Similar to WWOOF and Workaway, HelpX offers interesting volunteering opportunities one can work in exchange for free food and accomodation.

14. Online poker

I’m hesitant to include this one because this could easily become a black hole that sucks up thousands of dollars of your hard-earned money. It’s true, however, that Texas Hold’em and other poker games are not like most gambling games. You play against other people, and skill is a huge factor.

The best poker players win substantial amounts of money over time. If you know a lot about poker, this is an option to consider, though it’s highly advisable to read a number of poker books before starting and to begin at playing at the lowest stakes. Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book: Lessons and Teachings in No Limit Texas Hold’em is a solid book to start with. I’ve most recently played online poker at Ignition Casino, though I personally have only ever lost small amounts of money pursuing this pastime.

With my lovely girlfriend Jacki in Athens, Greece in 2016.

15. Start an Etsy or eBay business

This is another path of online entrepreneurship in which many people find success. Some people create crafts or other things and sell them on Etsy. Others hunt for undervalued items at antique shops or garage sales and sell them for much more money on Etsy or eBay. Still others start businesses helping other people sell their old, unwanted stuff on eBay.

16. Become a tour guide

With little to no experience, you can get tour guide jobs in various countries worldwide. Get paid to show people amazing places.

17. Become a flight attendant

Help people have good flight experiences and see the world in the process. Layovers for flight attendants are typically only a few hours but can be as long as a week. If you take maximum advantage of your layovers, you could get out an explore countless cities in a matter of months.

18. Use credit cards very effectively

This another item that I hesitate to include, considering credit cards are very easy to misuse, and millions of people currently find themselves in credit card debt, paying ridiculous interest rates as they try to dig themselves out of proverbial quicksand. With that being said, if you’re financially savvy, you can use credit cards to earn large sums of reward points/money, and use this to finance world travel. This article/blog is a good place to start. I’ve been simply using a couple Capital One credit cards with 1-1.5% cash-back rewards for the last few years and have probably received ~$1,000+ in rewards; others hack the system to get far more.

19. Create music and sell it digitally

It’s easier than ever for anyone to start creating and selling their own music. Get a program like Fruity Loops or Ableton and start making your own electronic music, or buy a good, cheap microphone and start recording. Sell your music independently on Bandcamp or use a service like CD Baby to get your music on Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play Music, iTunes, and more. I’ve made nearly $1000 in revenue making unusual rap music purely as a passion project over the last few years.

20. Become a massage therapist

Similar to being a scuba diving or yoga instructor, people get certified and then take their skills on the road, offering a valuable service while traveling and earning enough to live on.

21. Sell timeshares

Selling people shared vacation homes can be pretty easy and profitable compared to other jobs you can work abroad. Worth looking into.

22. Work remotely

This is one of your best options. There are now millions of jobs that you can work from your computer, in your pajamas. Here’s a nice guide to the best remote job sites. Also, an incredibly useful trick is to use SearchCraigslist.com, which lets you search all of Craigslist at once. Just search for “remote,” “telecommuting,” “remote writing,” “remote social media,” etc. For more details on how to pursue this path, see this guide I wrote.

23. Fruit-picking

Fruit-picking jobs can be found worldwide and are a good option for travelers.

Athens, Greece, as seen from the top of the Acropolis, 2016.

24. Day-trading

I’ve recently begun to dabble in cryptocurrency investing. I don’t know much about stocks or investing yet, but if you’re motivated to learn, day-trading could be a great option, and in the long-run investing in low-risk stocks (index funds, mutual funds, etc.) is one of the best financial decisions you can make.

25. Work on a Cruise Ship

A few years ago, I went on an extraordinary Alaskan cruise with my family. While on the ship, I met a woman from London who encouraged me to check out working for a cruise line if I was interested in traveling abroad while earning money. She said she makes $1,800 per month, and her housing and food are completely covered. She also told me she was on a 6-month contract, so the job wasn’t an overly large commitment. Find cruise ship jobs here.

26. Be an Au Pair

When I was in Spain last summer, I met a girl who was working as an au pair for the summer. She was spending time in Germany, Italy, and Spain looking after different families’ children during the workday. She was then able to spend her evenings as she liked and travel on weekends. It seemed like a pretty sweet gig. Find au pair jobs here.

27. Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO)

VSO‘s vision is a world without poverty. VSO volunteers work in the areas of animals and natural resources, communications and fundraising, communities and social development, engineering and technical, health, business, education, and more. VSO covers the travel expenses, insurance, and day-to-day living expenses for their volunteers. Additionally, keep in mind that VSO and Peace Corps are two among many volunteer organizations around the world that will finance your travels to volunteer abroad. Don’t be afraid to do some digging and check out others.

28. Give haircuts

Another skill you can take on the road, if you possess it.

29. Create online content and monetize it

YouTube channels, podcasts, webcomics, blogs, vlogs, games, animations, video game streaming, social media, and on and on and on. The web is bursting with mountains of multimedia content, and many of the creators of this content are making good money through advertising, affiliate marketing, or accepting donations from fans through sites like Patreon.

30. Give music lessons

Yet another skill you can take on the road. You can give music lessons anywhere or play your instrument outdoors for tips.

Jacki and I in Amsterdam, 2016.

31. Be a surfing instructor

Surf’s up, dude! Surfing lessons are popular at beach destinations worldwide.

32. Travel photography

This is a classic dream of many people. Here’s what it takes.

33. Corporate work

Many of the largest companies in the world are not in your home country. Many more have offices overseas and offer exchange programs. Here’s a good list to get started thinking in this direction.

34. Work on a yacht

Yacht jobs: they’re a real thing. Join the crew of a yacht and sail the world.

35. Be creative and entrepreneurial

This is the ultimate advice when it comes to finding ways to earn or save money while traveling abroad. In truth there are countless ways you can make this work. The limiting factors are your imagination and determination. If you are dead set on making this work, you really can do it. Think outside the box, don’t take “no” for an answer, and get out there.

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Penguins Controversy, New Stats Galore, and a Terrible Hype Vid

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Whatever this is. The KHL is weird, man.

The second star: Angry (former) Olympians. Passive-aggressive hockey stars are my favorite hockey stars.

The first star: Jack Eichel gets some pointers. Yeah, it's these guys again. Honestly, it was kind of slim pickings this week and I didn't feel like seeing who the Golden Knights' Twitter was murdering this week, so let's just go with this.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: On Sunday morning, as the sports world reacted to President Donald Trump attacking Steph Curry and the Warriors while urging NFL owners to fire "son of a bitch" players for protesting, the Penguins announced that they would still be making the White House visit.

The outrage: You have very strong feelings about whether they should go or not.

Is it justified: There have been plenty of takes about the issue—like this and this and this—and you've probably read them all. Or you haven't read any, because you're in the "stick to sports" camp, in which case you've already scrolled past this section. I have my views on Donald Trump and what's left of the political discourse in the United States right now, and if you care about them then you're free to ask. But you probably don't. You're here for hockey talk and jokes and YouTube clips of awkwardly lip-synching players. I get it. Ideally, we could skip the politics altogether. Except that, thanks to the Penguins, doing that this week would also mean skipping the biggest story in the league.

It's hard not to have at least a little sympathy for the team here. They know what a trip to the White House means these days, and they realize that by going they'll be used as a prop in smiling photo ops with a president many see as an embarrassment. They also understand that by not going, they'd be making a statement that would get them sucked into the never-ending culture wars, applauded by the left for a few days and then forgotten while the right harbors a grudge forever. They tried to find a middle ground, but there isn't one. It's a yes-or-no question, and so the team defaulted to doing what every other team before them has done. But right now, the things we always used to do don't feel like they matter much anymore.

The Penguins didn't ask for any of this, and it's fair to assume that they're profoundly uncomfortable with the entire situation. That's how hockey people work. With few exceptions, they don't want to be front and center when it comes to politics because they don't want to be front and center for anything at all. Show up, do your job, mumble about getting pucks in deep, and go home. Hockey players barely want to be on ESPN, let alone CNN or Fox News.

So the Penguins were stuck, knowing they'd be attacked no matter what they said, and there didn't seem to be a right answer available to them. Except that there was.

What they should have said was nothing.

That's it. Just nothing at all. We didn't need to hear from the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday morning.

Yes, that would have meant ignoring questions they were no doubt already fielding from the media. Sure, it goes against the old P.R. rule about getting out ahead of the story instead of letting someone else control it for you. And yeah, it would have just delayed the inevitable for a few days, because eventually you're going to have to answer the question.

But there's a time and a place for that. And Sunday morning wasn't it.

All across the country, NFL players were getting ready to make a statement. They have been protesting racial inequality—not against the anthem, or the flag, or Trump, and certainly not for "unity," despite the league's best efforts to rebrand it that way. That's a topic that doesn't touch the NHL as much as it does other leagues, for obvious reasons, and that's a big part of why the Penguins' response bothered so many people. This wasn't their fight. They didn't need to be the kid in the front row, frantically waving his arm to make sure everyone knew he handed in the assignment.

The Penguins gave us a teachable moment on Sunday, and the lesson is this: Sometimes it's OK to let somebody else have the floor. Especially these days, if you see that somebody else is angry, or hurting, or asking for change, and they're willing to stand up—or take a knee—to make themselves heard, and you can't fully understand exactly why because maybe it's an issue that doesn't impact you in the same way it does them, then maybe you don't need to jump right into the conversation. You don't have to add your voice to the mix right away, and you certainly don't need to make it about you. Sometimes the best choice is to just step back and listen.

It's quite literally the least you can do. It's basic courtesy. And that's the test the Penguins failed on Sunday.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

A few weeks ago, we made a passing reference to Lee Fogolin being obscure. That seems like it should be enough to earn a guy Obscure Player honors, so here we are.

Fogolin was the Sabres' first-round pick, 11th overall, in 1974. That draft wasn't very good, and is probably best known for A) the Islanders setting themselves up for a dynasty by finding Clark Gillies and Bryan Trottier while the rest of the league basically found nobody at all, and B) the Sabres getting annoyed at how long it was taking and drafting a fictional player just to mess with everyone.

Still, Fogolin was a decent pick. The son of Original Six era defenseman Lee Fogolin Sr., he was a stay-at-home blue-liner in an era when that was still a valuable thing to be and could also play a bit of forward on the penalty kill. He cracked the Sabres lineup pretty much right away, and spent five seasons in Buffalo. While he scored only eight goals that entire time, he became a fan favorite with his defensive play and willingness to stick up for his teammates.

The Oilers claimed him in the 1979 quasi-expansion draft held when four WHA teams were absorbed into the league. He had some of his best years as an Oiler, including a 13-goal season in 1980-81, and was the team's captain until Wayne Gretzky took over the duties in 1983. Fogolin won two Cups as an Oiler and was picked as an All-Star by Edmonton coach Glen Sather in 1986, before being traded back to Buffalo at the 1987 deadline. He played the last few games of his career there before retiring.

Here's my favorite Lee Fogolin fact: In the 1970s, the Sabres gave out a Most Improved Player award, and Fogolin won it…twice. In a three-year span. That seems like it shouldn't be possible, but he took home the honors in 1976 and 1978. I don't know if he just regressed really badly in 1977 or if voters figured they'd stick with the familiar, but it's fair to say that not many NHL players can lay claim to being multi-time Most Improved Player winners.

The NHL Actually Got Something Right

On Wednesday, the NHL put out what at first glance seemed like a pretty boring press release: they'd added updated information dating back to 1917 to the stats section of their website.

This announcement didn't seem all that new; the league told us it was working on this back in 2015, and the full project had been going on for years before that. Previous rollouts were largely met with a shrug. This one seems to have been, too. The announcement of the offside review change being finalized, which came out 15 minutes later, overshadowed the stats announcement easily, and most of the reactions I saw were some variation on the same jokes about how poorly the league's stats site works in the first place.

That's fair—the site is still a mess. It's clunky and slow, and seems to have been put together by somebody who doesn't really understand what kind of information hockey fans would be looking for. Virtually nobody in the media seems to use it, which is why you always hear so much complaining when one of the amateur sites goes dark.

But take a closer look at this week's news, and it's clear that this is a big deal. The NHL didn't just revamp its stats, or get around to uploading information that was already available somewhere else. They literally just dropped a ton of new numbers on us, stuff that we've never seen before. They've updated and corrected the numbers on several players, giving us new tidbits like Wayne Gretzky now joining Bobby Orr and Larry Robinson as the only +100 players in league history. (For the last three decades, he'd been incorrectly listed at +98.) More important, they've now filled out the history of stats like shooting and save percentage that had been tracked in some form for years but weren't widely available.

This is huge. Until now, you couldn't look up Ken Dryden's save percentage on a site like Hockey-Reference. Now we have it on the NHL site. Mix in the detailed box scores for individual games and game logs for players, and this is a gold mine for stats geeks.

The site itself is still a pain to use, and it's hard not to hope that Hockey-Reference or whoever else just grabs all the data and drops it into their far more user-friendly interface. But even if that happens, the NHL deserves plenty of credit here. This couldn't have been a small project. And it's not one that's ever going to put any cash directly into the league's pocket.

But they did it anyway, because for once they seem to have remembered that there's value in making fans happy. It's a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but kudos to the league for making it happen.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

The regular season is almost here, which is good news for just about everyone other than the Colorado Avalanche. On the heels of one of the worst seasons of the salary cap era, the Avs are expected to struggle again, and virtually nobody thinks they'll even get close to the playoff hunt. What's worse, they managed to somehow make the whole Matt Duchene situation even more volatile. A bad team, an unhappy star, and little in the way of hope. That's not a great package.

Could it get any worse? Yes. Yes it could. At least nobody is singing shirtless.

It's March 2014, and times are good in Colorado. After missing the playoffs for three straight years, the Avalanche are good again, and well on their way to what will turn out to be a 112-point season. New coach Patrick Roy has turned the team around, and all that losing is clearly a thing of the past. It feels like it's time for a song.

Wait, we're not ready yet. Gabriel Landeskog is still sleeping. Rest up, little cowboy, you've got a big day ahead of you.

We get a few more dramatic shots of players, including Nathan MacKinnon walking down the street and nodding. We can't hear what's being said to him, but it's safe to assume it's "Is this a terrible idea?"

We also get a look at Matt Duchene, who is WAY TOO CLOSE TO US RIGHT NOW. Seriously Matt, back up a few steps and try again. Is this how you ask Joe Sakic for a trade? Because if so, I think I might understand why he's not listening to you.

We're 30 seconds in and I already feel like I need a shower. Oh, cool, thanks Paul Stastny, perfect timing.

Oh look, Landeskog is awake. At, uh, 3 PM. He's either just had his game-day nap, or he's doing an impression of me in college.

I'll be honest, I spent a little too much time trying to figure out which player was lip-synching next to the big drum. That is, of course, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, whose song this is. Apparently we're going to get a few shots from the real video, which is, believe it or not, even weirder than this version. Really. There's muppet cage-fighting and everything.

Meanwhile, we get Avalanche players lip-synching lyrics like "checking out on the prison bus" and "this is it, the apocalypse." Um, are we sure this video isn't from this year?

We get some shots of game action, mixed in with angry Paul, shirtless Gabe, and Matt Duchene's tonsils. I feel like MacKinnon got off easy in all this. All he has to do is stand on a bridge and look like he's thinking of jumping, which doesn't even really count as acting at this point.

"We'll paint it red, to fit right in." I'm guessing that "it" is Semyon Varlamov's goal light.

Can we just point out that Landeskog looks roughly 37 years old? Are we sure the NHL isn't a bad TV series about high school kids and they just cast a bunch of middle-aged actors to play Landeskog and Aaron Ekblad?

Hey Gabe, how are you feeling about the 2017-18 season?

We make it two minutes in before our first shot of Roy. Seriously, you couldn't have got a giant drum and let him beat on it for a while? You could put a Red Wing goalie's face on it and just let him do what comes naturally.

At 2:20 we get a quick cameo from George Parros. Hey George, congrats on the new job, do you have the power to retroactively suspend marketing departments?

We conclude with Landeskog turning to the camera and dramatically asking "Why not us?" The follow-up video, in which a bunch of shirtless analytics geeks lip-synch the words "because your success is driven by PDO and is completely unsustainable," did not prove as popular.

It won't shock you to learn that this video wasn't exactly well received; it was called "bizarre" and "dumb" and "the ickiest thing ever." To this day, the team hasn't been allowed to forget it.

Oh, and the 2013-14 Avalanche were upset in the first round by the Minnesota Wild. Stastny left as a free agent that summer, Roy quit on the team last summer, Duchene wants out, and they haven't been back to the playoffs since. At this point, the whole franchise seems like it's...contaminated? Toxic? I feel like there's a better word here, but I can't quite find it. I'm going to strip down and go sing into my mirror until it comes to me.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Penguins Controversy, New Stats Galore, and a Terrible Hype Vid published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

DGB Grab Bag: Penguins Controversy, New Stats Galore, and a Terrible Hype Vid

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: Whatever this is. The KHL is weird, man.

The second star: Angry (former) Olympians. Passive-aggressive hockey stars are my favorite hockey stars.

The first star: Jack Eichel gets some pointers. Yeah, it’s these guys again. Honestly, it was kind of slim pickings this week and I didn’t feel like seeing who the Golden Knights’ Twitter was murdering this week, so let’s just go with this.

Outrage of the Week

The issue: On Sunday morning, as the sports world reacted to President Donald Trump attacking Steph Curry and the Warriors while urging NFL owners to fire “son of a bitch” players for protesting, the Penguins announced that they would still be making the White House visit.

The outrage: You have very strong feelings about whether they should go or not.

Is it justified: There have been plenty of takes about the issue—like this and this and this—and you’ve probably read them all. Or you haven’t read any, because you’re in the “stick to sports” camp, in which case you’ve already scrolled past this section. I have my views on Donald Trump and what’s left of the political discourse in the United States right now, and if you care about them then you’re free to ask. But you probably don’t. You’re here for hockey talk and jokes and YouTube clips of awkwardly lip-synching players. I get it. Ideally, we could skip the politics altogether. Except that, thanks to the Penguins, doing that this week would also mean skipping the biggest story in the league.

It’s hard not to have at least a little sympathy for the team here. They know what a trip to the White House means these days, and they realize that by going they’ll be used as a prop in smiling photo ops with a president many see as an embarrassment. They also understand that by not going, they’d be making a statement that would get them sucked into the never-ending culture wars, applauded by the left for a few days and then forgotten while the right harbors a grudge forever. They tried to find a middle ground, but there isn’t one. It’s a yes-or-no question, and so the team defaulted to doing what every other team before them has done. But right now, the things we always used to do don’t feel like they matter much anymore.

The Penguins didn’t ask for any of this, and it’s fair to assume that they’re profoundly uncomfortable with the entire situation. That’s how hockey people work. With few exceptions, they don’t want to be front and center when it comes to politics because they don’t want to be front and center for anything at all. Show up, do your job, mumble about getting pucks in deep, and go home. Hockey players barely want to be on ESPN, let alone CNN or Fox News.

So the Penguins were stuck, knowing they’d be attacked no matter what they said, and there didn’t seem to be a right answer available to them. Except that there was.

What they should have said was nothing.

That’s it. Just nothing at all. We didn’t need to hear from the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday morning.

Yes, that would have meant ignoring questions they were no doubt already fielding from the media. Sure, it goes against the old P.R. rule about getting out ahead of the story instead of letting someone else control it for you. And yeah, it would have just delayed the inevitable for a few days, because eventually you’re going to have to answer the question.

But there’s a time and a place for that. And Sunday morning wasn’t it.

All across the country, NFL players were getting ready to make a statement. They have been protesting racial inequality—not against the anthem, or the flag, or Trump, and certainly not for “unity,” despite the league’s best efforts to rebrand it that way. That’s a topic that doesn’t touch the NHL as much as it does other leagues, for obvious reasons, and that’s a big part of why the Penguins’ response bothered so many people. This wasn’t their fight. They didn’t need to be the kid in the front row, frantically waving his arm to make sure everyone knew he handed in the assignment.

The Penguins gave us a teachable moment on Sunday, and the lesson is this: Sometimes it’s OK to let somebody else have the floor. Especially these days, if you see that somebody else is angry, or hurting, or asking for change, and they’re willing to stand up—or take a knee—to make themselves heard, and you can’t fully understand exactly why because maybe it’s an issue that doesn’t impact you in the same way it does them, then maybe you don’t need to jump right into the conversation. You don’t have to add your voice to the mix right away, and you certainly don’t need to make it about you. Sometimes the best choice is to just step back and listen.

It’s quite literally the least you can do. It’s basic courtesy. And that’s the test the Penguins failed on Sunday.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

A few weeks ago, we made a passing reference to Lee Fogolin being obscure. That seems like it should be enough to earn a guy Obscure Player honors, so here we are.

Fogolin was the Sabres’ first-round pick, 11th overall, in 1974. That draft wasn’t very good, and is probably best known for A) the Islanders setting themselves up for a dynasty by finding Clark Gillies and Bryan Trottier while the rest of the league basically found nobody at all, and B) the Sabres getting annoyed at how long it was taking and drafting a fictional player just to mess with everyone.

Still, Fogolin was a decent pick. The son of Original Six era defenseman Lee Fogolin Sr., he was a stay-at-home blue-liner in an era when that was still a valuable thing to be and could also play a bit of forward on the penalty kill. He cracked the Sabres lineup pretty much right away, and spent five seasons in Buffalo. While he scored only eight goals that entire time, he became a fan favorite with his defensive play and willingness to stick up for his teammates.

The Oilers claimed him in the 1979 quasi-expansion draft held when four WHA teams were absorbed into the league. He had some of his best years as an Oiler, including a 13-goal season in 1980-81, and was the team’s captain until Wayne Gretzky took over the duties in 1983. Fogolin won two Cups as an Oiler and was picked as an All-Star by Edmonton coach Glen Sather in 1986, before being traded back to Buffalo at the 1987 deadline. He played the last few games of his career there before retiring.

Here’s my favorite Lee Fogolin fact: In the 1970s, the Sabres gave out a Most Improved Player award, and Fogolin won it…twice. In a three-year span. That seems like it shouldn’t be possible, but he took home the honors in 1976 and 1978. I don’t know if he just regressed really badly in 1977 or if voters figured they’d stick with the familiar, but it’s fair to say that not many NHL players can lay claim to being multi-time Most Improved Player winners.

The NHL Actually Got Something Right

On Wednesday, the NHL put out what at first glance seemed like a pretty boring press release: they’d added updated information dating back to 1917 to the stats section of their website.

This announcement didn’t seem all that new; the league told us it was working on this back in 2015, and the full project had been going on for years before that. Previous rollouts were largely met with a shrug. This one seems to have been, too. The announcement of the offside review change being finalized, which came out 15 minutes later, overshadowed the stats announcement easily, and most of the reactions I saw were some variation on the same jokes about how poorly the league’s stats site works in the first place.

That’s fair—the site is still a mess. It’s clunky and slow, and seems to have been put together by somebody who doesn’t really understand what kind of information hockey fans would be looking for. Virtually nobody in the media seems to use it, which is why you always hear so much complaining when one of the amateur sites goes dark.

But take a closer look at this week’s news, and it’s clear that this is a big deal. The NHL didn’t just revamp its stats, or get around to uploading information that was already available somewhere else. They literally just dropped a ton of new numbers on us, stuff that we’ve never seen before. They’ve updated and corrected the numbers on several players, giving us new tidbits like Wayne Gretzky now joining Bobby Orr and Larry Robinson as the only +100 players in league history. (For the last three decades, he’d been incorrectly listed at +98.) More important, they’ve now filled out the history of stats like shooting and save percentage that had been tracked in some form for years but weren’t widely available.

This is huge. Until now, you couldn’t look up Ken Dryden’s save percentage on a site like Hockey-Reference. Now we have it on the NHL site. Mix in the detailed box scores for individual games and game logs for players, and this is a gold mine for stats geeks.

The site itself is still a pain to use, and it’s hard not to hope that Hockey-Reference or whoever else just grabs all the data and drops it into their far more user-friendly interface. But even if that happens, the NHL deserves plenty of credit here. This couldn’t have been a small project. And it’s not one that’s ever going to put any cash directly into the league’s pocket.

But they did it anyway, because for once they seem to have remembered that there’s value in making fans happy. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but kudos to the league for making it happen.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

The regular season is almost here, which is good news for just about everyone other than the Colorado Avalanche. On the heels of one of the worst seasons of the salary cap era, the Avs are expected to struggle again, and virtually nobody thinks they’ll even get close to the playoff hunt. What’s worse, they managed to somehow make the whole Matt Duchene situation even more volatile. A bad team, an unhappy star, and little in the way of hope. That’s not a great package.

Could it get any worse? Yes. Yes it could. At least nobody is singing shirtless.

It’s March 2014, and times are good in Colorado. After missing the playoffs for three straight years, the Avalanche are good again, and well on their way to what will turn out to be a 112-point season. New coach Patrick Roy has turned the team around, and all that losing is clearly a thing of the past. It feels like it’s time for a song.

Wait, we’re not ready yet. Gabriel Landeskog is still sleeping. Rest up, little cowboy, you’ve got a big day ahead of you.

We get a few more dramatic shots of players, including Nathan MacKinnon walking down the street and nodding. We can’t hear what’s being said to him, but it’s safe to assume it’s “Is this a terrible idea?”

We also get a look at Matt Duchene, who is WAY TOO CLOSE TO US RIGHT NOW. Seriously Matt, back up a few steps and try again. Is this how you ask Joe Sakic for a trade? Because if so, I think I might understand why he’s not listening to you.

We’re 30 seconds in and I already feel like I need a shower. Oh, cool, thanks Paul Stastny, perfect timing.

Oh look, Landeskog is awake. At, uh, 3 PM. He’s either just had his game-day nap, or he’s doing an impression of me in college.

I’ll be honest, I spent a little too much time trying to figure out which player was lip-synching next to the big drum. That is, of course, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, whose song this is. Apparently we’re going to get a few shots from the real video, which is, believe it or not, even weirder than this version. Really. There’s muppet cage-fighting and everything.

Meanwhile, we get Avalanche players lip-synching lyrics like “checking out on the prison bus” and “this is it, the apocalypse.” Um, are we sure this video isn’t from this year?

We get some shots of game action, mixed in with angry Paul, shirtless Gabe, and Matt Duchene’s tonsils. I feel like MacKinnon got off easy in all this. All he has to do is stand on a bridge and look like he’s thinking of jumping, which doesn’t even really count as acting at this point.

“We’ll paint it red, to fit right in.” I’m guessing that “it” is Semyon Varlamov’s goal light.

Can we just point out that Landeskog looks roughly 37 years old? Are we sure the NHL isn’t a bad TV series about high school kids and they just cast a bunch of middle-aged actors to play Landeskog and Aaron Ekblad?

Hey Gabe, how are you feeling about the 2017-18 season?

We make it two minutes in before our first shot of Roy. Seriously, you couldn’t have got a giant drum and let him beat on it for a while? You could put a Red Wing goalie’s face on it and just let him do what comes naturally.

At 2:20 we get a quick cameo from George Parros. Hey George, congrats on the new job, do you have the power to retroactively suspend marketing departments?

We conclude with Landeskog turning to the camera and dramatically asking “Why not us?” The follow-up video, in which a bunch of shirtless analytics geeks lip-synch the words “because your success is driven by PDO and is completely unsustainable,” did not prove as popular.

It won’t shock you to learn that this video wasn’t exactly well received; it was called “bizarre” and “dumb” and “the ickiest thing ever.” To this day, the team hasn’t been allowed to forget it.

Oh, and the 2013-14 Avalanche were upset in the first round by the Minnesota Wild. Stastny left as a free agent that summer, Roy quit on the team last summer, Duchene wants out, and they haven’t been back to the playoffs since. At this point, the whole franchise seems like it’s…contaminated? Toxic? I feel like there’s a better word here, but I can’t quite find it. I’m going to strip down and go sing into my mirror until it comes to me.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com .

DGB Grab Bag: Penguins Controversy, New Stats Galore, and a Terrible Hype Vid syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6