#also we have a ton of employees so everyone gets a 4 day work week

[oorevitcejda]

im going to trick my city (nearest,largest, off-rez city) into supporting an LGBTQIA+ furry restaurant disguised as a college friendly arcade

[thecoolerlucky]

Chapter 1: The Happy Pizzeria

Contents (Warnings/Mild spoilers): Lynette meets an average employee from the Happy Pizzeria!

Wordcount: 4,200+

Side note: This will contain experimental writing, first person (Lynette's view) will be implemented alongside third person for the two other essential characters, (mostly) Alexander and (occasionally) Drake. For those third person moments all their text will be italicized and their thoughts in Bold. There will be other characters I write in third person for in the future using this method too. Thank you and enjoy!

'Do giants work here?'

__________________________________________

Day 0 - (Sept. 7th, Wednesday)

Lynette

"Shoot, I used the wrong spell!" 

I scrolled through the list desperately. I needed to find the right one to kill the Banshee. 

I ran in circles frantically to avoid its wails. "Wait, please," I whispered. 

My phone’s ring startled me. I swiftly paused my game and fumbled to stop “livin’ la vida loca” from blowing up in the break room. 

I answered, "Hey, what's up, Charletta?"

Her cheer echoed through the receiver. "Lyn, are you off today?"

I pinched my phone between my ear and neck to resume my game.

"Nope, Tuesday and Thursday are my days off, so I can think about starting school.” My enthusiasm dropped. Can I handle going back to school again? 

"Oh! I should have called yesterday. Sorry, Lyn!"

"You're fine!" I said. "I'm on break for at least another five minutes. We can chat."

"Chatting with you? That's a rarity.” She joked sarcastically. I sank into the plastic seat, weighed down by guilt. I really should have called more. 

"I’m sorry, I had tons of homework over the summer for my GED and I've been working double shifts at this job.”

"It wasn’t a knock at you," she replied. "Wicks has kept me up to date with your diligent work." She sympathetically sighed. “I’m glad I can hear your voice, at least.” It was evident from her tone that she frowned. “I worry for you guys. You and Wicks have a knack for finding trouble.” 

"Don't I know it." I said chuckling, partly because of what I said and partly because I beat the Banshee.

"I called for another reason to…” Her voice erupted in excitement, "My wedding is two months away!"

I jumped in my seat, "right." I paused my game again and put the console into sleep mode. "I gotta request that day off."

"DAY!" She exclaimed. "You're the maid of honor. You need to be here for at least 4 days. If not the whole week!" 

I felt a lecture coming on. 

"You know work won't let me do that." I looked around at the few people in the small breakroom. Everyone was either on their phone or eating lunch, filling the few tables we had. "I was already out for a week with food poisoning." I glanced over at the T.V. playing a food-related jingle to mock me. I smirked, "I mean, how was I supposed to know eating out of a dumpster would be a bad idea?"

"Are you crazy?" She said followed by a fast fluster of incomprehensible Spanish. Although I learned a lot from Madre and them, I was unable to utilize it as quickly as they did.  

"I'm kidding, Charletta. It was that small restaurant called "Ducky's Dining". I’m sure Wicks told you." I grumbled under my breath, "Their food made me super sick."

She was quiet for quite a while.

"Charletta? Hello?"

"Still here!" Did I say something wrong? Then, she said, "You're going to have to convince your work. You have to be here for the rehearsal and the bachelorette party. You also have to meet my fiancé and his family. Plus, Mom and Dad really want to see you-" She cut herself off. "Basically, you'll have to be here, maid of honor rules."

I smiled, shrugged, and moved the phone to face me as if we were on a video call. "Wicks could pull off the maid of honor position."

She laughed, "Lyn, I can't have him looking better in that dress than I do in mine!"

I laughed too. "Okay, fine. I'll ask and see what they tell me, promise."

Her ecstatic chirps returned, "if you can only get the day…I guess I can go over rehearsal with you, but I expect you to materialize as soon as the clock strikes 12:00 a.m. that Friday!"

I talked with my sister a little longer before saying goodbye, and I hung up. I figured they’d make me jump through hoops to get there. I hadn't been here for more than two months.

After putting away my portable console, I made sure I looked presentable and smiled as best as I could. You got this, as long as I work hard, it'll be fine.

…

Alexander

He had no choice but to enter the populated place he dreaded, the store.

His recent birthday present chewed through most of his cables while he was in the shower, and to keep himself and the few guests entertained tonight he needed a new HDMI cable.

Upon entering, the influx of pleasant smells attempted to sway him to pursue them. I’m so glad I ate earlier, he thought. He considered himself lucky that he did, otherwise his instincts would be impossible to ignore.

Dismissing the few tempting people he passed, he made his way to the electronic section. "I have a party soon, can't you be quieter." He grumbled audibly at his body, he avoided this place unless he was full for this reason.  

He held his breath, not that it mattered, because his stomach immediately tightened. It felt like something clutched his insides and twisted them. The hunger pains came back faster than ever before. 

His gaze focused intensely on the red-headed worker assisting a customer. His slower stride moved toward her. Sneaking up, as he had to, until he heard the older man she was helping laugh aloud.

It took a tremendous amount of willpower to yank his body to the next aisle. He crouched down as much as he could. He wanted to stay below the short aisle separators.

He pressed his hand into his growling abdomen. What the hell is going on?!!

Through trembling breaths, he reluctantly inhaled her sweet scent. He closed his eyes to calm down—it only worsened his problem.

Alexander reopened his eyes and strove to focus on the headphones locked behind the glass panels. He even pushed up his black-rim glasses to read the labels better.

Though, his ears were keenly attuned to her friendly chatter with the older gentlemen in the next aisle over. 

Ignoring his begging stomach didn't soothe it either. Thankfully, its persistent cries were quiet enough that only he could hear them.

Despite knowing better, he waited until the customer left. He stood up and walked to the aisle. Although he expected her to leave as well. Her rolling cart was stopped in the section he needed to go, and she was stocking at the HDMI cables.

He crouched down and maintained a small distance between him and her. He searched the cords she stocked, about to ask her for one, but his eyes slowly drifted to her body.

He didn't take in any of her delicate features, his mind fixated on her size. She’s so small.

He swallowed hard.

Her obnoxious and vexing aroma made him desperately want to know what she tasted like and gave him hope that she'd end his hunger.

"Do you need this?"

Her voice snapped him back to reality.

He flinched and sprang up.

She followed his rise and stood up too. She held up the cheapest HDMI cable to him. He briefly looked her up and down. Don't do it. His body trembled as he gulped back his temptation to grab and consume her.

He adjusted his glasses nervously, and spoke. “Yeah. I didn’t want to interrupt your flow.”

He reached out to get the cable and his fingers lightly touched hers.

"You're fine, sir. I'm stocking them anyway," she flashed him a cheery smile. He ignored it. “Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Uh..." The urge to satisfy his craving overran his thoughts, so he couldn't coherently answer her.

FUCK.

He fought to jerk his stare away. He refused to do it right now. He was busy—no matter how much his body told him to. 

He struggled against himself and caught the logo on her uniform. It reminded him of the clause at his workplace. I don't need that.

His body thought otherwise. 

In desperation, to assure itself that he'd see her again, he asked, "Do you like your job?"

Her eagerness for his response melted into confusion. It stunned her long enough for Alexander to regain his composure while towering over the girl that barely came up to his sternum.

“It's work," she said, gathering more thoughts. "Most of the employees are friendly, there are good and bad days like anywhere else, and though more pay would be nice, I can't complain." Her smile restored. "Were you asking because you wanted to work here too?"

Alexander dug into his front pants pocket and got his wallet. “No.” He picked through it to find the company card he received years ago. What should I say? He internally groaned. What does that flirty bastard tell them? “My work would benefit from having someone cheerful and friendly to help run the registers," he offered her the partially creased card. “It’s a pizzeria not that far from here.”

She smirked at the cartoon pizza slice that had a speech bubble with, “Happy Pizzeria” on it. He was glad the writing was still legible. If you're doing this, keep going.

He looked over her head to temporarily control his domineering thoughts. “It pays $100 an hour, offers medical the day you’re hired, plenty of va-”

"$100 AN HOUR!" Her voice squeaked. She tilted back to the card, embarrassingly, "S-Sorry. Continue."

The two of them fiddled with their respective objects, her with the card and him with the HDMI cable. 

"Plenty of vacation time, dental, and vision." He finished.

She looked up. "They’d pay me that much to run a register, why?"

"The owner's a retired multi-millionaire, who one day decided his passion was making pizza." Alexander muttered, "He doesn't care much about money anymore."

"And there are spots open?"

"He only accepts interviews from employee recommendations."

In awe, she pointed to herself, “and you’re recommending me?”

I am, aren’t I? His eyes fell back on her and he lurched slightly. Stupidly, "yes."

"I’ll definitely look into it, thank you!”

Alexander ran his hand through his short, still relatively damp, blonde hair, to keep his hand from reaching out. "y-yeah. Call the number on the card later this afternoon. I'll put in a recommendation for, um......"

"Lynette," she responded.

He nodded. "Got it." His legs didn't want to move unless it was closer. He sheepishly chuckled, "I'm Alexander." He haplessly put out a hand to shake. Don't pull her in.

Her soft small one met his larger one. His nearly encompassed hers. I have the party in an hour, body please.

He quickly shook her hand, successfully pulled back, and made himself turn around. "Hope to see you hired soon, Lynette."

He clutched the HDMI cord to his chest and got as far as he could. His painfully aching body harshly reminded him of how unbearable it was to be so close to them. 

It was the longest and most arduous conversation he had with a human by himself in years. He talked to customers at the pizzeria but that didn't require thinking.

And, for some reason, among all the humans he had ever met, she was by far the worst for him to be around.

...

Lynette

Once I got home, I studied the card. That was such a weird interaction. She threw herself back on her couch. What are the odds that some stranger invited me to join a job like that as soon as I'm struggling to start school ? I got out my laptop, and checked over the site. It looked legit with a 4.7 star rating from thousands of reviews. Those pizza’s look so good! 

I looked over the number on the card again, then pulled my phone out. My finger hovered over the number pad. I'll get Wicks’s opinion first. I hoped he'd answer while away on his business trip.

He did with a few huffs. “What's up?”

"Is it a bad time?" I asked. 

"NO, no—they had me getting everyone coffee, so I was running around doing that.”

I didn't let my mind wander and tried to disregard his exasperated breaths and harsh construction like noises in the background.

"Okay. Well, when I was at work today, I got offered a better job at a pizzeria. The pay the guy was telling me about seems outrageous! It's-"

There was another bang from his side of the phone.

"Wicks! Are you sure this isn't a bad time, where are you?"

"Don't worry, just-." His voice strained. "Trying to carry some boxes!"

I pursed my lips. I could hear the lie hidden behind his nervous chuckle. 

I sucked it up and spoke back fast, "nevermind, tell you later. I LOVE YOU. PLEASE BE SAFE!"

"LENTILS!"

I hung up the phone to let him deal with his business.

I clutched it with one hand and looked at the card. This could be my perfect opportunity, don't squander it. 

I called the number, feeling the vultures known as anxiety picking at my fears. 

As it rang and rang, a female finally answered.

"Hello, this is Sandra with the Happy Pizzeria office line. How can I help you?"

"Hi, my name is Lynette Wayland. I'm calling because I talked to one of your employees earlier today, Alexander-" I don't know his last name, shoot.

She interjected, "Ah, yes. Alexander didn't have your last name when we spoke about your possible call." She cleared her throat. "We're currently hiring for a cashier position. Have you worked at a pizzeria or any fast food establishment before?"

"I'm currently working in the electronics area at a store, which requires me to occasionally work the register…." I corrected my fumble. "Food experience, no." I didn't think to mention my month working at Mickey D's in high school.

She was quiet for a moment, then continued, "any cashiering experience is better than none. Plus, you'll learn everything else you need on the job. And sorry if I go silent, I'm writing down your information for our owner."

I gave her my date of birth, spelled out my name, and a few other things, not my address or social security. It was quicker than expected.

"So, how soon can you be here?"

"Huh?"

"Apologies if you're not busy at the moment; Mr. Clemente is still in, and he can see you for a face-to-face interview."

I looked down at my dirty work clothes and patted my curly hair that needed a wash.

"Miss Wayland?"

"Yes, I can come in for an interview in the next hour!” I hope I don't sound too desperate.

"Great!" She said, "I hope to see you soon, have a pleasant drive here!" She hung up.

I hurried off the phone to the shower, brushed my teeth, and sent the address to Wicks in case. I was glad it was a twenty-minute drive from our apartment. 

I soon recognized it, it was hard to miss the giant smiling pizza icon inviting people in. 

I'm surprised Wicks has never recommended this place, he loves the weird ones. I thought. 

When I parked, it was lively, and probably one of the biggest pizzerias or restaurants in general that I had ever seen. It was the size of a two story grocery store. I wonder if it has an arcade.

I got to the door, and the lovely cheesy and meaty smells blessed me. If I get this job, it's gonna suck, smelling like pizza all day. I got hungry the further inside I went. Whether I get this job or not I should get one of their pizzas. 

The floor was a warm, inviting mix of wood and stone, with benches and tables offering cozy nooks and crannies to sit and chat. Somehow, it was cleaner than I expected, as each place to rest looked as inviting as the next. I held a giddy glee seeing them. 

My vision drifted to the walls while I waited in line. They were adorned with vibrant paintings and photographs of ingredients, and pizza-themed landscapes. Their soft jazz playing overhead helped sell me even more. This is such a nice place. I swayed back and forth. I have to get this job. I ran hypothetical questions in my head, specifically what might be asked during the interview. Oh, interview! I’m so dumb I didn’t bring my resume! 

"Ma'am?" The cashier's voice called. 

I perked up, "oh gosh, sorry. I'm Lynette here for an interview?"

He raised a brow, then nodded, "Yes. Right back here." He gestured to the space to slide behind the counter. He pointed down the hall through the kitchen. "Down that way, it'll be the hallway past the kitchen on your left. There is an office at the end marked "Mr. Clemente.""

"Thank you," I said with a bow of my head.

"No problem, and good luck." He said to me as I passed. The kitchen looked as clean as the front and was HUGE. Do giants work here? I sighed. Then again, most people are giants to me.

I briefly saw another person who looked my age rushing back with an older woman in the kitchen. 

I got to the hall he mentioned, then went down toward the office. I passed two other doors on the way across from each other. One said infirmary, and the other said record keeping.

It's good for them to have an infirmary. 

I exhaled outside the door to the office and calmed my jittering nerves. I knocked and heard a male voice beckon me inside. 

I expected a grand giant office to match the very expensive appearing Pizzeria interior. But, I was greeted with an average one. It had a bookshelf, a desk with a comfy-looking head chair, a computer, a framed picture that faced him, and two equally nice chairs across from him.

"Lynette Wayland?" He stood up and walked over to meet me. .

He looks wealthy. He had a very flawless complexion and his clothes were neatly tucked. He wore an all-black, freshly pressed business suit with a red cloth in his pocket and white gloves over his hands. I shook the hand he offered me. He’s about the same height as Wicks…and looks maybe around the same age as Charletta? 

"My name is Edgar Clemente. You may call me Edgar. It's nice to make your acquaintance." A firm handshake followed. However, what caught my eye was his oddly colored ones. They looked a little redder than a normal brown hue. Almost with a tint of purple. "Is something the matter?"

I shook my head and moved to the seat he offered across his desk, "you have nice eyes." I made this weird! 

"Thank you, they’re a gift from my parents." He chuckled as he sat back in his. "Before I start the classic interview questions, Lynette, I need to ask, how do you feel about pizza?"

"Pizza? I think it's good." Do some people here hate it?

He put a hand to his chest, "I started this place as a passion project. I don't know why, but the impulse to make pizza was too great to ignore. There's something I find so relaxing when I make them." His grin made it hard to tell whether or not he was joking, "and it's kind of become a ritual of passage for me to ask those interested in being hired what it means for them" He folded his hands one over the other, and leaned forward in his seat. His face dropped, holding a serious note, " how do you feel about pizza?" 

Should I lie? I asked myself. I could say something like, “I’ve always had a passion for pizza too!” and yet my mouth wouldn’t let me.

"Honestly, sir, I don't have a passion for making pizza. I find it good, don't get me wrong, but not in the same way. I heard what you pay your employee’s and I’d love to save up as much money as possible to pursue another passion. That way, I won’t have to worry about not being successful…in it." I said and lowered my head after.. "It's probably not the answer you wanted."

Chin up. I nudged myself and adjusted my posture in my seat. No moping, you’re not out yet. "However, if I’m hired, I will work to the best of my ability to bring the cheer your customers need when they come inside this pizzeria."

I maintained eye contact, intimidated by his silence. He moved a gloved hand to his mouth and I saw a smile peak on his lips. 

"Most people tell me what I want to hear. A time when pizza sparked their "hearts."" He placed air quotes over the word. "I’m glad you don’t look ashamed that you answered with sincerity. I would be after the money in your position too." He chuckled and sat back, "though, unlike you, I would have lied."

He opened his desk and placed down a packet of papers labeled "Happy Pizzeria Contract." 

"As you are in it for the money, Lynette, how about I offer you a proposition." He flipped to the second page and wrote on the bottom of it. He turned it back to me. "The pay is $100 an hour, you are allowed up to a month of vacation paid after your first week, and as a bonus, if you stay here for six months, you'll receive $500,000."

My eyes widened, "wh-what-" I was too stunned to say anything else. 

He raised a pointer finger, "and if you stay loyal to this pizzeria for a year, working hard, following our rules, I'll raise that bonus to four million dollars."

My heart felt like it skipped a beat. I leaned back in my chair and held it.

He bent over his desk and his lips parted with worry. "Are you alright, dear?"

“I-yeah, just…four million…” I uttered to myself. "A year? That's it."

"If you can last, yes. And I'm sure that'd help with your money problems? On top of your $100 an hour." He handed me a pen, "oh, and we offer some of the best medical coverage around, as well as dental and vision once you start."

I pulled myself up and looked at the contract, "am I selling my soul or something?"

He snickered and gave a shake of his head, "no, I simply have more than enough money for my family, not including how much my wife makes."

I took the pen he held out. "How many hours and days would I work a week?"

"Five days a week, two days off a week, given that your recommendation was Alexander, he'll be training you. And you'd have Tuesday and Wednesday off." He held a finger up, "If possible, you'll start tomorrow."

"That works great." I replied, "what about lunch break and-"

"You receive two fifteen-minute breaks and an hour lunch break. A break after two hours, a lunch break after two more hours, then another fifteen before your last two. Your work hours will also be the night shift. 2 p.m. to 11p.m. is that alright with you?"

"Yes," I said. 

I couldn't find anything to disagree with. I skimmed the contract. I was in too much shock to analyze every word. After a few more small questions, I signed it, and Edgar took it back. He walked me into the hall and to the infirmary for the rest of the information. He left me inside while he got the nurse. 

The infirmary itself had beds of various sizes. I didn't understand why they would have ones that looked to fit at least six people or more.

I sat at the seat in the far corner and waited. I glanced over the books lying around and then to the medical supplies. A woman walking in drew my attention. 

She introduced herself as Sandra, the woman I spoke to earlier. 

She had a pale yet beautiful complexion, and her ears were sharper than most people's. It actually reminded me of Wicks and our family. I think Alexander had them with a small point too?

She escorted me to a scale and height machine. Took that down, gave me a small physical, questioned how I had been feeling lately, asked about my medical history, and informed me that she would be contacting my doctor soon.

Her voice during all of it sounded very rehearsed as if she had done it at least a hundred times. 

She gave me a uniform from a cabinet full of them. It came with a hat, name badge, red shirt with black trim, and black jean pants. Then stacked me up with a second pair of everything. The fabric felt stretchy and thin yet sturdy.

An image of the mascot pizza slice was on the hat, next to the words Happy Pizzeria. The mascot was also on the shirt's breast pocket.

Sandra warned me how dirty they would get throughout the day, precisely at Lunch. Probably because everyone eats the pizza here. 

Later I returned to the apartment teetering on excitement and unease. This is way too good to be true! I sank back on the couch, looked at a video of kittens on my phone, and sipped some tea to relax.

I got five minutes into the video and jerked up with a gasp, “wait! Dang it,” I fumbled not to spill my drink. “I didn't even buy one of their pizzas!” 

…

Thank you for reading! :D Have a Gouda Day!

Next Chapter

Catch up or check for release dates down below ↓

What I’d do for a Livable Income - Master-List!

[nukenai]

My job is a little boring and they could pay me more I guess, and we've been insanely slammed with work since like, last July, and it hasn't let up at all.

But idk. I've been there for I think 6 years now. And I just think about things like how the manager of our department keeps making sure we know she's paying attention to how hard we're working. And has told us a million times not to break ourselves with getting more work done than usual, and to just do what we can every day, because "we know you are not robots and I will not entertain any expectation that implies otherwise" (cool actual quote)

And then I think about how the morning Oma died, I texted my supervisor, and she replied in regards to bereavement stuff, "I will handle everything, please don't worry about it". And then a few days later I received a care package from upper management with a personalized card expressing condolences for the loss of my grandmother, along with a candle, some hand lotions, and a stuffed dog. Apparently this was because my supervisor told upper management about it, and they decided to do that.

I hear so many horror stories of jobs that are awful about shit like that. And it's like, I tell my supervisor "I have to leave early today because xyz thing with animal" and she'll be like "hope everything's alright, just let me know whenever you're back!" with no further questions. Could I find a job that pays more? Probably. But would it be a job where I can work from home with my animals all day, and I really feel treated like and appreciated as a human being that means something? Probably not.

In one meeting when I expressed slight frustration over being called into a meeting because my production metric slipped, my supervisor immediately went off on a tirade about how much she appreciates me, how good of an employee I am, how I always show up and never call out and I'm extremely reliable and good at my job, and how she loves seeing pictures of Sammie in the Teams chat and I'm a joy to the team...

And I was like damn Amy I'm not quitting I was slightly annoyed LOL. But it was nice to hear, yknow?

Sorry I just saw an awful instagram reel where a woman's boss was terrible to her after her mother in law died and it hit me hard. I'm forever sending everyone I love (that's you if you're reading this) the best vibes ever and I hope you can find a job where you get stability and feel appreciated. Even if it's a little frustrating sometimes.

oh also they let me switch to a 4 day work week so I have an entire day off on Wednesday and also we have like infinite overtime available and I'm not doing anything else but making tons of extra money! lmao (the overtime is not remotely pushed. it's just like. hey who wants it. and like, i'm gonna sit on my ass at a computer anyways!)

[bitchesgetriches]

hey bitches,

so i started a new job recently (about 5 weeks ago) and as much as i hate to give up so soon, im really considering quitting? for one, the management is terrible, theres no store manager and only the district manager who is never happy with our work, even though he didnt train us very well so we are doing the best we can with what we have. also i have a ton of concerns about security, and we dont have a fire alarm or extinguisher!! our vault is kept in an unlocked drawer and every employee (all 5 of us) has keys to open and close the store. i also often open and work alone for up to 6 hours by myself, which isnt great for my health issues or anxiety. it all seems like huge liability issues, but im afraid quiting so soon will cause problems for everyone else, and also im trying to pay for my college so i need a job. should i stick it out or get out while i can? it only pays $9.50 an hour, but i can work 4 hour shifts which are better for my disabilities. what should i do?!?!? do you have any tips for questionable jobs??

I thought you were going to say "quitting so soon will cause problems for MY RESUME." But you're worried about causing problems for your coworkers. You sweet, kindhearted little mountain goat... while I admire your selflessness, when it comes to employment, YOU GOT TO LOOK OUT FOR #1!

So start job searching, honey. This sounds like an unsafe environment and you've got us all worried about you. There are other jobs out there. Making you feel like you're obligated to stay for other people or your own career is an intentional move to keep you trapped.

Season 3, Episode 12: "I’m Done With Evil Bosses and Toxic Workplaces. Can I Stand Up Without Being Hammered Down?" 

Bonus Episode: “I Can’t Stand Another Day at My Toxic Workplace! Can I Walk Away Without a New Job Lined Up?” 

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace 

[sockeye-run]

Are you guys ready for another massive life update post??

Oy vey, where to begin lol. I think it's only been a week since I've last checked in, but I'm exhausted. In a good way, though, honestly. I've really fallen in love with the bee farm. I'm busier THAN a bee right now lol, but it's not just tedious tasks or some stressful two-step negotiation dance that gets me nowhere, thankfully. I'm just learning, helping, building, and changing my environment where I can. And it's been very fulfilling.

Pictures 1, 3, and 4 illustrate the work I've been putting towards the farm's kitchen. The kitchen was someone's brain child, but unfortunately, no one already had the knowledge, skills, or experience to launch it in a professional way, until they found me. So it has been running haphazardly since 2021. This isn't a slam post, they've been doing their best and honestly, they've been doing great for what all they have. But for someone like me who can walk into an under-functioning kitchen and immediately fix 20 things without a hard thought about it, there's so much improvement to be made. We're working on structuring the environment in a professional, safe, and healthy way, as well as developing new, sustainable, delicious recipes, formulating a permanent and comprehensive menu, as well as providing structured and consistent training to all employees who may have to step into that kitchen. I have the know how, and they have the willpower and the workforce, so we're bringing the kitchen into it's modern form for success and stability. Currently, the farm has contracts with multiple food truck owners, who come out on weekends to provide a fresh food option to patrons enjoying the campus or staying overnight. We hope to move towards being completely self-sustaining and able to provide a full day's worth of meals straight from our own means, which all highlight our most precious resource, our honey. It's been a monumental task, especially since I'm still working full time retail in the shop and bee keeping warehouse, but it's been an exciting project that is rapidly improving every day. We've bought an espresso machine as well as a commercial drip brewer, and soon I'll be training everyone on coffee and craft drinks! Can't wait. I've already made everyone's day by making them their own hand crafted, honey based lattes, and they all seem very excited to start learning.

Picture 2 is our most esteemed bee keepers, Roosevelt, working in the Learning Yard. He's been with the farm for 57 years!!!!!! He's incredibly knowledgeable, talented, and kind. I hope to do more work with him when I begin my hands-on bee keeping education. For now, I'm learning the history and functionality of the farm so that I can give history tours to customers, as well as cementing my basic bee keeping and bee tool/resource knowledge for retail, so that I can most efficiently help our customers find exactly what they are looking for according to their wants and needs, such as a whole beginner's bee keeping set up with brood boxes and bee packages, or answering more advanced bee keeping questions and offering insightful options to unique situations. I also know a butt-ton about the properties, uses, and unique flavor profiles of all our different honeys, and really enjoy giving honey tastings and recommendations in our shop. I already know quite a bit about the many kitchen uses for honey, thanks to my culinary curiosity, and I'm enjoying learning all the uses and applications of other bee related products.

Pictures 5, 7, and 10 are just some slice of life shots: a pop of spring with early wisteria on the farm, the owner's sweet puppy, Chewy, and some customers enjoying the lawn in the afternoon warmth. The weather has been up and down like crazy lately, but we're expecting to get very busy soon as the temperature evens out and rises.

Picture 6 shows me and Kate out and about in town, running errands and being 'go fers' for the needs of the crew. We're about 30 minutes outside of the main area of the local town, so it's kind of a haul to go shopping, but someone's gotta do it. Picture 8 is another queen cage, with one of our first bred queens of the season! You can see her because she has a tiny little sticker on her back for identification and inspection purposes. Picture 9 is inside of our meadery, Wildflyer. I tried some of our mead for the first time last night, just a sip. It was delicious 😋

On a health note, I'm very active all day; lifting and moving heavy objects, running back and forth across the farm, basic working and cleaning duties, etc. I've been blasting past my step goal each day and then some lol. Unfortunately, that means I'm exhausted every day when I get home, and can't fathom running or working out. I do miss running regularly and feel terrible for not properly contributing to the Fitblr Games, but I'm hoping my body will adjust to the new normal soon, and I'll be able to increase my activity level again.

[stockholdingsposts]

How Does an Online Document Management System Improve Your Business?

 Every organization needs documents, and you can't afford to compromise on them. And as a business grows, stacks of documents become a norm, which leads to numerous problems, such as storing them, keeping them organized and secure, and whatnot. These problems can decrease your business’s overall performance. Nevertheless, you don't need to fret anymore now, as technology has enabled us to save and secure our documents in an online document management system. The document management system is far more than an online ‘file-storing cabinet’ for a company. Having said that, you can make your business efficient with its various features onboard. So let’s see how a DMS can improve your business. 

1.Real-time Collaborations 

With an online document management system, you can easily collaborate with your peers and employees. Not to mention, real-time communication, sharing, and feedback can boost productivity.And as you can control all the activities with a document management system, the collaborations become highly secured as well. 

2.Chosen Access

Your documents contain zillions of sensitive and confidential information about your company. Plus, you also want to keep your customer’s information confidential. Therefore, it's clear that you can't handle this situation with anyone and everyone. Isn't it? That’s when an online document management system comes to your rescue! With a DMS, you’re free to give access to only entrusted persons. Moreover, you can track all their activities. 

3.24*7 Availability

Businesses remained remote during the pandemic while many of them returned to work after the pandemic, some remained remote even afterwards. Moreover, we cannot predict when a new Covid variant could come. Hence, it’s prudent to move essential documents to a document management system. It’s so because you can get access to all your documents at any time of the day, sitting anywhere in the world. As a result, you have access to your documents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

4.Reduced Costs 

Many businesses and organizations hire workers to handle their documents safely. These workers charge an excessive amount of money. What’s more, businesses may need to pay hefty rents for the space too. But the good news is that you can reduce these extra costs with the aid of a document management system. Not to mention, you can use the funds for your dream projects. 

5.Boosted Productivity

It will be easier for your workers to be productive since they will not have to spend hours looking for a document. In addition, your files will be protected by the most advanced technology. They will focus on more valuable tasks, such as developing business strategies, sales, ads, and many more. As a result, it will bring better results to your business.

6.No Effect of Situations

As opposed to manual storage, an online document management system allows you to keep your files in the cloud-based cabinets indefinitely. That means, you won’t lose any of your files in any situation, and that includes catastrophic events as well.  

7. Eco-friendly Way

It takes 24 trees to produce a ton of paper. Just think how many trees are cut down every year. So if you want to give back to the environment, this is the time! You can switch to paperless mode i.e electronic document storage. 

What is StockHolding DMS & How it can Help You?

StockHolding DMS is a franchise of Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited, a solitary window provider to the financial services sector in India. In 2006, StockHold DMS paved its way into the financial services industry with the aim of providing solutions. Our primary goal is to provide Document Digitization & Record Management services to our clients

Why StockHolding DMS? 

Because we provide end-to-end services in DMS.

Our services are carried out in an ethical manner and can be trusted.

We thrive on innovation and thus provide our clients with the latest technology.

To Conclude

Every business should utilize an online document management system because it offers so many benefits. Document management systems can help businesses improve themselves, as we have explained in this blog. 

[mercur1e]

Helllooooo

Soo I just saw you're headcannons are literally 💞💞

It's lowkey the only thing keeping me safe and alive ✋😌......soooooo can I request Gom + kuroko and kagami (if it's to much you can just doo Aomine, Kise and Midorima and akashi)where they accidentally hurt their s/o feelings pleaaseeeeee..... I need some angst but please end it in fluff (cuz i lowkey cannot handle it)

Please take care of yourself, your health always comes first, I love youuuu ❤❤❤

Ofc love! I hope you're doing well and I love you too :) <333

Akashi

He disregarded your hard work :(

You're trying to start your own small business and you're having a little trouble, which is not unusual that happens sometimes!

You were having trouble hiring employees and you were talking to him about it, and he was in a bad mood prior to you approaching him

"You're not going anywhere with this. It would just be better to give up on it. You're not going to make it that far even if you do succeed. And can you leave? I'm busy and all you're doing is acting as a distraction."

You just froze, you couldn't believe what he had just said

Not only did he know how much work you were putting in, he also knew how excited you were for the future of your shop too

You didn't even say anything, you just froze with shock, hurt, and surprise and stomped out of his office

You left the house, you needed some time to cool off and cry

It took Akashi a second to realize what he had said and how hurtful his words were, so he started looking all over for you in the house. He goes into the garage to see your car is gone and he assumes the worst.

You don't pick up the phone when he calls you or answer his texts, opting to turn it off after the fifth call.

You stay by your best friend for the night and they comforted you and told you he probably didn't mean it, and that you can stay as long as you need

After you leave from by your friends place you go to your favorite cafe for some breakfast

And guess who's there, Akashi.

You turn around and walk out because you were honestly not ready to deal with him just yet and it was too early in the morning for all that

He catches you on the way out and apologizes :)

"Love, I apologize for what I said yesterday. It was inconsiderate, hurtful, and wrong. You've been working so hard on your business and you're doing your best to make it happen. I was in a bad mood yesterday and I dont know what came over me. Will you forgive me?"

Looking you in the eye as he spoke every word, holding your hands and rubbing them, you know he was truly sorry and wants to fix what he did.

"I forgive you Sei, but what you said was really hurtful. You know how much this means to me and how much work I've been putting in. But I do forgive you."

He takes you out to eat at your favorite restaurant and watch a movie afterwards back at home, kisses you tons and holds you in his arms when you fall asleep.

He also puts in a good word with his work associates about your business and you gain more employees and popularity! But unless you want to do it completely on your own he's there supporting you every step of the way and giving you advice :)

Midorima

He acts like your affection is kryptonite, even though you're not a clingy or overly-affectionate person

You guys had been together for about 3-4 months

He always brushes you off even at the most simplest acts of affections, you're starting to really question if he even wants to be together.

Well this particular time he embarrassed you in front of the team :/

There was a break in between practice and you went to give him his water bottle and give him a hug

"Hey Shin he's your water bottle, don't work yourself too hard okay?"

After that you went in for a quick hug but he held a hand against your chest and glared at you

"Why are you always so clingy? You're always on me and its annoying. Can you just leave me alone or leave?"

He said that right in the middle of the court, everyone's eyes were on you and you felt embarrassed.

"...alright."

That's all you after said you shoved the water bottle into his hand and walked out of the gym.

Takao was the one to call him out on his behavior and tell him that he was being rude and that he should apologize

Midorima took that advice and after practice, he went to find you and apologize, except you weren't anywhere he checked or thought you would be

You avoided him for 3 days straight until he arrived at your house unannounced

Your lucky item in his hand, he gives you a well deserved apology

"Y/N I- I'm sorry that I was being rude to you. There was no reason for me to act like that and I haven't been appreciating you like I should. That was rude of me and I hope you except my apology. Also- this is your uh lucky item."

He hands you a plushie :)

He gives you hugs and reassures you that he appreciates your affections despite him not being used to it!

He also got an extra lap at practice from Miyaji lol but he decided not to tell you that part

Kise

Is very busy and it's sometimes hard to make time for you :(

And you also couldn't show him affection in public or be around him because his fangirls would throw a hissy fit

He hasn't been answering his phone and he can't really get that close to you at school so you've been feeling left behind

When you finally managed to catch him, you said you wanted to go out and just catch up because you two haven't spent much time together and he agreed

However Kise forgot about the plans and you were waiting at the restaurant, alone.

You went home that night upset, tired, and wondering if you even want to be in a relationship anymore

You stopped texting him and talking to talk to him at school, not that you even had that much time to talk to him and school anyway

Kise had realised a whole day later that he had forgotten about the plans you two had made together

He took off from work the whole week, even though his manager was mad about it and went off to find you

He found you at a park after school and approached you with flowers in his hand

"Y/N baby I'm so sorry I forgot about our date. I can't imagine how you must've felt and to make up for it I called the whole week off! I'm really, really sorry that I havent had time for you. Do you forgive me?"

"Yeah, I forgive you Kise I'm just really hurt that you stood me up. You knew we hadn't spent alot of time together and I was really hoping to catch up with you that night. But I'm just happy you're here."

He takes you to a concert! Your favorite artist was in town and he bought tickets for the two of you!

The whole week was filled with fun, love, and lots of conversations :)

He promises to make more time for you and be there for you whenever he can!

He also posts you on his socials and shows you affection at school, showing his fangirls that he's not for them, but for you and they can go away of they don't like that

Aomine

You feel like he doesn't put any effort into the relationship

It's always you doing everything, it just gets tiring

He doesn't really make an effort to do anything, like plan dates, hang out, or just spend time together

He also uses basketball as an excuse to not hang out with you when you already know he's not at practice

Like if you want alone time man just say that

So you had planned a date for you two, nothing big just going to the movie theaters yk

He cancelled last minute, saying Imayoshi was forcing him to come to practice

It was a sunday, they don't have practice in sunday

You talked to Momoi as she is a close friend of yours too, about how you feel like you're the only one making an effort and that you feel like he doesn't want to spend time with you

She tells you to confront him about it, so you do

The next time Daiki comes to your house you ask him about it

"It just feels like I'm the only one putting work into the relationship and I feel like you're avoiding me. You make up excuses to not be with me and bail on me last minute...do you even want to be with me? And if you do want alone time just be upfront about it, don't give me terrible excuses or flake out on me."

Aomine honestly didn't know you felt that way

Now that he looks back at it, it has been mainly you doing most of the stuff in the relationship, and he can see why you feel like it's only you trying

"You're right, it has been mainly you doing stuff for both of us. I'm gonna start putting in more effort because it's time I do. I'm sorry that I've been making shitty excuses to not hang out with you, and cancelling all of a sudden. I'll be honest when I don't feel like going out and I'll spend more time with you."

He makes it up to you by taking you to a festival and going to see a movie with you

True to his word, he starts putting more effort into y'alls relationship and you two take turns planning dates

And if he doesn't feel like going out you guys have at home dates instead :)

I know this took a little longer than usual, I'm sorry for the little setback. Hopefully you like them! Thank you for requesting and feedback is appreciated! Love you <333

[tomwambsmilk]

Okay, I’ve been trying to construct a Succession timeline, and this is what I have so far:

S1E1 takes place at some nebulous time before the holidays, but not too far because Kendall is worried holidays will make it difficult to gather the board

S1E5 takes place on Thanksgiving. So I would wager that the first five episodes take place over the time span of about a month

S1E6 takes place shortly after, I would say a week tops, maybe less, because we see Kendall moving very fast on the vote of no confidence

S1E7 has more space in between it and E6, because it would take time to get those rumours about Kendall rolling. I’d place it somewhere in the new year, maybe late January

We know the wedding is in March, so S1E8 is probably February. Obviously, then the last two wedding episodes happen in March

(Side note - Tom’s email spam to Greg happened on March 12, which means it happened right around the wedding. Idk what to do with that info, I just think it’s neat).

S2E1 happens on Tom and Shiv’s honeymoon, so I’d say probably no more than a week after the wedding. Probably late March.

The next few episodes are tough to place. S2E4 Roman starts the management training program, which lasts six weeks. That means there are 6 weeks between that episode and S2E5, the one at Tern Haven.

The next hard timeline we’re given is S2E9, DC. Karl says there are two and a half weeks until the shareholder meeting (which means, insanely, everything from S2E9-S3E5 happens in the space of two and a half weeks). Additionally, Gil refers to the document boxes being full “in August”; since they were shredded the previous Thanksgiving, this means it’s not yet August, otherwise Gil would have to specify which August to avoid confusion.

So, at the very earliest, the events of the back of season 2 happen late April. Since everyone shows up at Tern Haven wearing jackets, I’m inclined to say that the events of the first four episodes of season happen very quickly, so that Roman’s management training started in early April and ended in mid-May.

The yacht episode, though, I think has to happen in the summer. It’s possible they sailed south, but that seems like a lot of effort for essentially a two-day death cruise.

Another clue is that Connor and Willa move to New York to start staging Willa’s play in S2E2, and are holding previews in S2E8. Typically, plays with actors working full-time take about 6-8 weeks to get on their feet, so we can reasonably assume a 2 month window between those two episodes. There’s also likely not a ton of time between E8 and E9, I’m going to wager that E2 is late March, and E8 is late May. That places the events of S2E9-S3E5 comfortably in June.

So know we reach the last 4 episodes of season 3. These are the hardest to place, bc there are so few context clues. We know episodes 8 and 9 happen over the space of two or three days, and happen in the summer (so likely no later than August, or early in a hot September). But it’s tough to track how much time passes between the shareholder meeting and the political conference in episode 6, or between the conference and Kendall’s birthday in episode 7.

But - at the beginning of episode 6, we see the DOJ has progressed significantly in its investigation. Lisa mentions that Waystar has offered up billions of documents, organized employee interviews, etc. I have a tiny bit of experience in these things, and NONE of those are fast processes. So, tbh, I’d stake a full two months passing between E5 and E6. (Which is still unrealistically fast btw - really, it should have taken more like 6 months - but is the only way to make the wedding work).

For the DOJ to be far enough that they know what the outcome is going to be… well, that SHOULD take a year, but that fucks up our whole timeline, so I’m going to peg it at another month. So, E6 takes place in early August, and E7 in late August. (Or maybe mid-July and mid-August). That means the wedding episodes have to be in September to make the wedding work.

So there you have it, folks! It’s been a little less than a year since the events of Succession started. Which frankly just drives home how nuts this entire family is.

[meltwonu]

| 🍒 CH-CH-CHERRY BOMB! 🍒 |     [CHAPTER 4]

pairing; dom!seungcheol x camgirl!reader

this chapter’s notes; masturbation, usage of toys, dirty talkin’, a bit of a filler chapter after last weeks hehe🍒 as always, thank you again for your continued support for cherry bomb 🥺💕 I'm actually not sure if next week’s chapter will go up on time due to my work schedule for next week but I'll be sure to keep y’all updated! if anything it’ll probably go up on saturday instead of friday... 😭😭 But anyway, have a good weekend yall! 💕💕💕 stay hydrated!! 

chapters; 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - ?

The weekend ends quicker than Seungcheol even notices and while he wakes up Monday morning already thinking about you and your show later in the evening; his face falters when he reads the message on your cam homepage.

‘Sorry everyone :( I think I caught a cold so I won’t be doing a show tonight… I promise I’ll make it up to you on Friday! In the meantime, I’ve uploaded some new pics in our members only room~ I hope it’ll tide you all over ‘til then! xx Cherry 🍒 ’

His first reaction is to immediately panic; reaching for his phone and texting you to get as much rest and sleep as possible. He makes a mental note to check in with you again later, finding that he’s already running late to get to work when he gets out of bed.

“Hey! Seungcheol-hyung!”

The said male turns around, placing the set of roller skates on the ground. “Yeah, what’s up?”

Jeongguk sits next to him on the wooden bench, legs stretched out as he passes Seungcheol an energy drink. “Nothin’, just wanted to say thanks for coming over on Saturday! We should try to do that again, except maybe we can go out for drinks or something? We can give it the good ‘ol college try, maybe bring home a girl, if you know what I mean~” Jeongguk wiggles his eyebrows at Seungcheol who rolls his eyes.

“Uh, I’m down for the drinking part but I think I’ll have to pass on the hookups.”

“Really? Why? Are you dating someone and you haven’t told me?”

Seungcheol thanks the gods that the roller rink is dimmed; neon lights and disco balls the only things keeping the entire place dimly lit when he blushes a deep crimson, face hot as he avoids the younger male’s gaze. “Nah, it’s just, I--I don’t think that’s really for me. I’m more of a, uh, relationship type of guy, y’know?” Also, I’m devoting my time and energy to someone already who isn’t really my girlfriend.

“Mm, makes sense!”

Jeongguk keeps Seungcheol company even on his break, the two chatting about various topics before he lets Seungcheol know his break is almost over.

“Hey, wait! Before you go…” Seungcheol is nervous for some reason, fingers gripping the suede of the rollerskate’s boot as he avoids eye contact again. “Um, this is gonna sound really weird but… Who’s ‘j__min’? I feel like I’ve seen that username before and it’s, uh, I’m just curious how you know them? Sorry if that’s weird, I just--I’ve been seeing them around pretty often.”

“Oh, that’s Jimin-hyung. He’s a friend of mine that games with me sometimes! I’ve never really met the dude in person before, but he seems nice.” Jeongguk nods, staring off into space. “He seems really busy all the time too. And he’s super active on social media, that’s probably where you’ve seen him.”

Seungcheol nods; the guy didn’t seem like any sort of immediate threat so he logs the information mentally for now. He’d just have to do some internet sleuthing himself when he got home.

“Oh, cool, okay! Thanks ‘Guk!” 

Seungcheol groans after the seventh pair of skates he’s cleaned, standing up to stretch and reach for his phone in his pocket. He checks the notifications, noting that you hadn’t texted back or read his messages yet.

A frown paints his features knowing that you were sick, but he makes another mental note to finally buy you that sybian now that his most recent paycheck had come in with it’s overtime bonuses. There were only a few more days until Namjoon came back which meant his extra pays would be over, a sad sigh escaping his lips at the thought. 

The day gruels on; Mondays were always the slowest days for the roller rink which meant Seungcheol spent most of the time cleaning skates and bumming snacks from the concession stand usually. He tries to not pry deeper into Jeongguk’s friends but the curiosity eats him alive so he makes an effort to stay away from the younger male for the rest of the day, this time.

Instead, he spends the day hiding in the employee break room any time he gets; only leaving when Yoongi decides to hide in there himself.

Your head feels like it’s going to spin off of your shoulders once you sit up in bed. The sun sits low in the horizon from what you can see through your bedroom window; noting that it must’ve been the late afternoon already.

You’d woken up with chills, head fuzzy when you’d sat up earlier in the morning. Knowing that you were at least somewhat sick, you quickly wrote up a little memo on your homepage letting your viewers know that there wouldn’t be a show later in the evening. Afterwards, you had quickly downed medicine before curling up under your sheets and going back to sleep. You’d vaguely been aware of your phone ringing on the nightstand next to your bed, but you prioritized sleeping instead, knowing that you had to get better before the weekend came.

You groan once you ease yourself off of your bed, dragging your feet as you make your way to the bathroom in hopes of a warm bath to make yourself feel better.

It’s almost 5PM which means it’s almost time for Seungcheol to finally go home. He checks his phone one more time before he pockets the device, putting away the last few pairs of rollerskates before he starts making his way towards the backroom. 

“Hey! ‘Cheol-hyung, can you come over here!?” Jeongguk yells over the music, arms waving him down frantically before he clocks out.

Seungcheol walks over, noting an unknown male standing with him. “Yes? Did you need help?”

“This guy, sorry I forgot your name?” The male laughs, eyes forming crescents when he smiles brightly at Jeongguk. “It’s Seokmin.”

“Right, right. Seokmin is asking if we’re hiring?” Jeongguk ends with a head tilt, unsure of the answer himself.

Seungcheol bites the inside of his cheek. Technically yes, they were understaffed even with Namjoon around. But Namjoon was also technically the one in charge of overseeing hiring positions. And while they technically should’ve hired more staff, that also meant Seungcheol’s overtime bonuses would be cut anytime they actually had the appropriate amount of staff.

“Uhhhh… I--I don’t think so? I’m not the one in charge. Our manager that decides staff and hiring positions is out of town indefinitely so…” Seungcheol trails off, hoping Seokmin gets the hint.

“Ahh… Should I come back another time then?” Seungcheol nods, frowning slightly. “Sorry ‘bout that man. But hey, why don’t you leave your contact info so we can call you? So you don’t have to keep coming back.”

Seokmin nods, beaming at the older male.

“Sure, that’d be great! Thanks!”

Seungcheol only feels slightly bad when he gets home that night, praying karma doesn’t kick his ass later for lying.

On days when you cancel your show are the days Seungcheol realizes he needs more hobbies than watching your cam shows and gaming all night.

Not that it’s a bad thing, he thinks, just that he could supplement his life with more.

He places an order for a few cookbooks alongside the order for the sybian, soft chuckles spilling from his lips when he realizes what an odd array of things he’s ordered.

Seungcheol manages to fill his night with meaningless tasks; finally cleaning his PC and settling in to watch a movie while he polishes off an entire pizza. He checks his phone a few more times, noting no new messages and he wonders if you’re really okay. A lightbulb goes off in his head, power walking back to his PC as he opens a new browser.

He bites his lip, typing in ‘j__min’ in the search bar to see what comes up. By nature, the username is unfortunately a lot more common than he anticipates and he ends up rifling through a lot of dead ends before he comes upon the profile on the same camming website you used and an instagram that seemed to be updated fairly regularly.

“Let’s see…”

Your body feels hot all over. Pin pricks on your fingertips as a bead of sweat trickles down your temple.

Now, you didn’t feel sick, you just felt incredibly insatiable. Again.

You weren’t sure if it was because your body had adjusted to a certain schedule, but you can’t help the way you toss and turn in bed; thighs rubbing together in hopes of alleviating the growing wetness between them.

Checking the clock, you note it’s already 10PM, close to when you’d normally be doing your show. You sigh, pushing your sweaty hair out of your face as you reach for your phone on the nightstand. You immediately notice a few text messages from Seungcheol; frowning when you notice the text messages were from the morning.

cheollie ✨: hey, baby :( saw your note, i hope you’re okay.

cheollie ✨: make sure to drink a lot of water and take medicine!

cheollie ✨: don’t push yourself too hard either okay?

The messages end there and you pout, unsure what to even say now that it had been hours since he’d texted.

babygirl 🍒 : cheollie… i only saw ur msgs now 🥺

babygirl 🍒 : im sorryyyyy i was sleeping so long but i feel better now!!

Seungcheol closes all his browser tabs before he realizes it, a smile on his face when he sees you’ve responded.

‘That’s okay, I’m just glad you’re okay and feeling better. Promise me you drank tons of water?’

He feels giddy, palms sweaty as he grips his phone.

babygirl: mmhmm! i did… i don’t even feel sick anymore 🥺 but…

babygirl: dunno… i’m feeling needy again… i think my body is used to my usual schedule...

Seungcheol’s body thrums with newfound energy and arousal at your leading comments. He’s unsure of what to say next, fearing he was going to say too much. But his phone pings again, eyes quickly flitting over your messages.

babygirl 🍒 : if ur busy its okay but

babygirl 🍒 : do u think we could cam? just u and me?

babygirl 🍒 : only if ur free tho!!

His fingers are tingling when he sends his reply, making it short and sweet before he places his phone down and makes sure his PC is running smoothly.

‘Of course, you know I’m always here when you need me. :)’

It takes a few minutes for you and Seungcheol to set up your respective spaces and in the meantime, you grab your laptop, propping it open on the bed next to you as you lay in front of it. You had debated on using your better camera which you used for camming, but you didn’t want it to be set up like a cam show.

Instead, you wanted a more intimate and casual video call with Seungcheol, so you made sure your webcam worked fine as you placed it on the sheets.

‘Video Call Incoming…’

You can’t help the blush that coats your skin nor the lust that fills your body as soon as you accept his call; his somewhat blurry figure coming into view.

“Hey, sweetheart!” Seungcheol beams at you through the grainy camera and you already feel yourself clenching around emptiness, words caught in your throat at how handsome he was and how truly enticing his voice was. “H-hi!” Rubbing your thighs together, you peer at the camera shyly. “I--wow, the pictures really… You’re so much more handsome on v-video.” You giggle slightly, leaning in closer to your laptop to get a better view of the silvery-blue haired male.

Seungcheol’s deep laugh filters through the speakers and your toes curl against the sheets.

“You should see me in person, maybe I’ll look even better then.”

You don’t deny that one bit; your own hands already itching to touch yourself. “Oh? Is that an invitation~?”

Seungcheol’s eyes pierce the camera, licking his own lips as you watch him  snake a hand down into his sweats.

“If you want it to be, sweetheart. But tell me about you, how are you feeling? Have you eaten already?”

Gulping, you watch as his hand seems to work slowly and out of view. “I--um, I feel b-better just… Dunno, guess my body’s just used to, um, y’know… A-and I haven’t really had much of an appetite...” You trail off, head still fuzzy from the cold medicines and now, Seungcheol.

In a roundabout way, it almost feels like you’re watching him do a show for you as you watch him slowly get off.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, baby. But you know you should try to eat, okay? I don’t want you to get even sicker.” You nod, fingertips already at the edge of your sleep shorts. 

“I--c-can I touch myself too?” Seungcheol laughs lightly, nodding as he tilts his head back. “Of course, you don’t need to ask me for permission, baby.”

You grin at him, sitting up as you reposition the laptop. Your hand slides underneath a pillow, grabbing the small bullet vibrator you kept there. “Do you always keep a toy handy?” His voice is airy, teasing in the way he asks.

“Mmhmm~ You never know when you’ll need it~” You sing-song, shimmying your sleep shorts and panties off before you spread your legs in front of the camera.

The air gets knocked out of Seungcheol the second you spread your legs for him and him alone and he can’t help but imagine all the things he wanted to do with you. He watches as you tease yourself, fingertips only grazing across the areas he knew you wanted to be touched the most. 

“I can’t wait for us to finally fuckin’ meet.” He grits out.

A moan floats through the speakers of Seungcheol’s gaming PC, your saccharine voice music to his ears. “M-me too, wanna know what you’d do to me~” You giggle afterwards, pressing the vibrator to your clit as you spread your legs wider for him to see. Seungcheol’s hand around his cock tightens as he watches, an appreciative smirk on his face.

“Oh sweetheart, what wouldn’t I do to you.” You can’t help but slide your fingers through your wet folds listening to Seungcheol’s voice, whimpering when you finally slide a finger in. “Yeah? What would be the first thing? Tell me, ‘Cheollie~”

Even through the webcam quality, you can see the way Seungcheol’s eyes glaze over in complete pleasure. He licks his lips once, leaning in close so that you can hear him clearly.

“I know you probably think I’d get straight to the filthy shit, huh? Pin you to your bed and fuck you until you forget your own name or tie you up to the bedposts and make you beg for me to fuck you. But I wouldn’t. Because I wanna worship your fuckin’ body. I’d take it nice and slow with you, give you as many orgasms as you want.”

“F-fuck, Seungcheol, I–”

“You could use me for your pleasure, y’know? You deserve it. You’re such a good girl. I’d give you anything you fuckin’ want if you’d let me.”

Your choked moans have Seungcheol working his cock faster; nothing on his mind except for you and his impending orgasm. “Oh g-god, Seungcheol, I--fuck, yes, I want that~ I want you to--to make me cum as many times as I w-want!” You mewl, easily working in another finger as you pump the digits inside your pussy.

He smirks when he sees your grip on the vibrator loosening, knowing that you were already too lost in the pleasure to keep the toy on. “And I’d let you. Maybe I’d make you cum on my tongue first. Or would you want my fingers?”

“B-both! Puh--please…” You whine, legs threatening to clamp shut. You curl and scissor your fingers, thrusting them knuckle deep inside yourself as you chase the pleasure that overtakes your senses. “Please, ‘Cheol, tell me more~”

You watch through the camera as Seungcheol pushes his sweats down enough to get his cock into view; mouth watering as you watch it curve up to his lower abdomen.

“I know how much you love being doted on and being taken care of… So after I make you cum all fuckin’ night, you know I’d take care of you. Make sure you’re comfortable and cuddle with you when you’re tired.” His hips cant up into his closed palm, a soft groan on his lips. “And then when we wake up, I’ll eat you out. Nice and slow so you know it’d be worth it.” 

Seungcheol smirks, smearing the precum all over his shaft. “But I also know you like it rough and you like being punished like a bad girl. You like the idea of being tied up and teased and being fucked nice and hard too. I could take it nice and slow, build up the pleasure for you. Or I can take it nice and slow and tease you, I’d make you sit on my cock ‘n make you wait for it ‘til you’re begging me. Or maybe you would want an audience? Let them see you fall apart on my cock when you’re desperate to cum.” 

You press the vibrator against your clit again, Seungcheol’s name falling out of your mouth in a blubbering mess. “Oh--I--!!”

Your legs clamp shut, fingers halting their movements as you cum hard around your fingers. Seungcheol watches as your legs shake, his own hand running up and down his cock in quick motions as he chases his high too. You vaguely hear him groaning your name; the ringing in your ears overbearing as your orgasm continues to wash over you.

The sound of your quick and shallow breaths mix with Seungcheol’s over the speakers as the two of you catch your breath. You slip your fingers from inside of you, wincing when you turn off the toy and toss it to the side.

“Fuck, baby, I--”

“Y-yeah…” You quietly lick your fingers clean, knowing that Seungcheol’s watching. “I… that was the first time I… did that with s-someone…” You giggle tiredly, wiping the rest of your sticky fingers on your shirt.

“Really? Never?” Seungcheol’s surprised expression makes you giggle; his eyes round and mouth wide open as he leans closer to his webcam.

“Mmhmm! Just, y’know, it’s--it’s hard to get close to people sometimes…”

You had mentioned it off-handedly once while the two of you had been texting, that most of the dates you’d been on hated the fact that you cammed. There was always a possessive aura that was present and while Seungcheol would sometimes get a little jealous himself, he also knew it was your livelihood and how you supported yourself.

“Ah, yeah, I can understand.”

The two of you sit in a content silence, Seungcheol reaching for a few tissues to clean off the drying cum on his abdomen.

“Hey, ‘Cheol?”

“Yeah?” He peers up at the camera through his lashes, blinking rapidly as he watches you lay back down in front of your laptop.

“About what you said… earlier…” You pause, shyness overtaking once again. “I--Would you want to meet up? Like, for real? I mean--not--not like tomorrow or something but... Y’know, we can start planning?” 

Any words that come after that turn into radio static in Seungcheol’s head and he can feel his pupils shaking, nervousness already bubbling up inside of him at the prospect of actually finally maybe getting to meet you. 

“Seungcheol? ‘Cheollie? You okay?” 

Fuck.

“Huh? Yeah, yeah! I’m cool, I’m good, sorry, that--that caught me off guard.”

He watches as you talk animatedly, mind already going a mile a minute as he thinks over everything that needed to be done before then. 

“I’m really excited to meet you, ‘Cheollie!” 

[jackdawyt]

Your bird is back with another Dragon Age 4 News Update!  🐦

For the first time this year, I’m doing a massive monthly news recap of everything we learned about Dragon Age 4 going forward (JUST) in the month of March, because slap my arse and call me Andraste, this month was huge for Dragon Age 4 updates, we’ve got a lot of exciting info to get into!

(Romance Tweets)

Calling all romance fans, you can bank on Dragon Age 4 to fulfil all of your intimate desires, perhaps even more so than the previous games. Jon Renish, Foundation Programming Area Director working on the next Dragon Age had a few things to say whilst watching a romance scene script read through:  

“Don't want to alarm anyone, but I'm starting to think 'Dragon Age' games might be a bit randy.” (March 3rd)

‘Randy’, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means ‘sexually arousing’ and ‘exciting.’ So, we can prepare for that, whatever that is! Jon continues his tweet thread with:

“Well now it's all sad and sweet and emotional. I was not prepared for this rollercoaster.”

In true BioWare fashion, we’re going to have a lot of sexy times, however, brought together with moving and character developing moments – y’know, the ups and downs of the romance as the relationship builds and grows throughout the entire game experience.  

“Oh, nothing like that.  Just watching a script read through.”

Jon confirms that this was indeed a script read through, as we can tell reviewing a potential romance scene. As a romance advocate myself, I am very interested in the direction romances will be going in for Dragon Age 4. That is something that I will especially be keeping my eyes on. 

(E3/EA Play 2020 Update)

EA Play and E3 2020 are generally the most expected places to see a new Dragon Age 4 reveal trailer.

E3 2020 has been cancelled due to the current outbreak, however, we’ve yet to be updated on the status of EA Play 2020. Of course, it is most certainly cancelled since the tickets for the show were supposed to drop this March. But, we still don’t know what will replace the show.  

The teams behind E3 2020 are supposedly working on a digital showcase to display new announcements that would’ve been revealed on stage. We can only assume that EA will follow suite and do the same for EA Play, making it a digital show, like Nintendo’s Direct conferences.  

Regardless, this is something that we’re going to have to wait and see until EA speak out, and when they do, I’ll be sure to cover that in a news update. I feel we could have a Dragon Age 4 reveal, with an expected release of 2022/2023, but with everyone hectic right now, I’m unsure.  

(C Virus Update)

Speaking of hectic... with the current outbreak, EA have spoken and shared a statement about health and safety during these times:  

(March 13th) “These are challenging times for everyone.  We’re working to look after our employees and their families, and make sure we’re doing the right and responsible things to fight this pandemic illness.”

Thankfully, everyone working at BioWare have been asked to work from home. Justin Masse, Experience Designer working on the next Dragon Age tweeted he’s “working from home until April 1st", confirming the length of this situation.

According to Crystal McCord, Associate Producer of Performance Capture and VO, working at home has been very productive for the team at BioWare as they have “exceeded all expectations.” 

So, it’s great knowing that despite the crazy situation in the world right now, BioWare developers are staying safe, working from home and progressing hugely on the next Dragon Age title!  

(Slack Server)

(March 13th) While Mark Darrah was working from home, he tweeted a picture regarding his tiling progression, as he’s currently redesigning aspects of his home. However, in the very corner of Darrah’s picture lies a laptop screen with a Slack Server revealing many Dragon Age development secrets!  

The server shows plenty of channels for the BioWare developers regarding specific work notes on all aspects of progression. A large amount of the channels are abbreviated to “MOR_” - which is most certainly shortened from ‘Morrison’, Dragon Age 4’s current project title as we know.

This list of the channels are endless, and I could spend forever looking into what exactly they all refer to regarding the production of the next Dragon Age game. We have one channel called ‘mor_announcement’ - does this hint at a new trailer to soon be showed off, or is it an old channel since The Dread Wolf Rises teaser? Are they planning an upcoming announcement? Surely, they would be right? Is that anytime soon?  

Another channel is called ‘mor_da_week’ which from what I can assume stands for Dragon Age week? We have a Dragon Age Day created by the fans and made offical by BioWare, but a Dragon Age week, that’s something I’ve never heard of...  

And there’s just plenty of channels referring to Dragon Age 4’s current development, there’s even a bad design ideas thread, an ask Mark anything chat, approvals on key aspects of the game, marketing assets, and so on!  

It’s a gold mine of tidbits, orchestrated by none other than Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer on Dragon Age. He has once more tweeted a cheeky little tease that may appear mundane, passing a blind eye to it, however, when you take some time and actually look at what he’s posted, it reveals a nug-ton of info we can speculate on.

(New Associate Producer / Jobs)

Illustrator and Creative Professional “Mad Bee” has returned to work at BioWare, they previously worked on Anthem as an Art Quality Analyst. However, this time around, they are an Associate Producer, most likely working on Dragon Age 4. 

And, following that, BioWare are currently hiring! I’ve seen this news piece get quite the few news articles, but I figured I could break this one down better, rest in peace PC Gamer.

So, indeed BioWare are hiring for many roles at the company, the most prominent role is a ‘Technical Director’ for ‘the next major title in one of BioWare’s most prestigious franchises.’  

Considering Mike Gamble, the new project lead for the next Mass Effect game tweeted this hiring out, I’d assume this position is needed for the Mass Effect team who are also in Edmonton, opposite the Dragon Age team.  

What’s most concerning about this job listing relating to the future of Mass Effect is that, according to the job requirements, the applicant needs to have experience ‘developing, debugging and optimizing AAA multiplayer games on PC or console.’  

To throw away my suspicion that Mass Effect or Dragon Age are going to have a heavy multiplayer experience, I looked at the other job listings located at Edmonton’s studio and I discovered other job listings, like an Engine Programmer which require the same experience of developing and debugging games, however, without the multiplayer element.  

So, perhaps BioWare have two teams, one working on the main single player element and the other working on the much smaller multiplayer aspect? I’d be naive to not reiterate the fact that future BioWare games are going to be live service, however, we still don’t know to what extent that will look like.  

(Tevinter Nights)

Patrick Weekes teased that Dragon Age 4 is most certainly in Tevinter following there Tevinter Nights Book plug, however, Patrick still calls the next Dragon Age game an unannounced project? Which I don’t understand because The Dread Wolf Rises teaser trailer at The Game Awards 2018 most certainly confirmed that a new Dragon Age game is currently in production and has been announced.

Unless Patrick is calling it ‘still-unannounced' because they’re planning an announcement soon...

I feel like Patrick is just joking at the fact that the next game is most certainly set in Tevinter, considering PC Gamer made an article a while back stating that Dragon Age 4 is set in Tevinter based on the Tevinter Nights book reveal, it made plenty of the BioWare staff and community laugh at their credulous Journalism. So, it could just be that.  

Anyhow, March has actually been an amazing month to be a Dragon Age fan! We had the final issue of Blue Wraith and the release of the anthological Tevinter Nights!

Tevinter Nights dropped plenty of story hints for the future of Dragon Age. I was lucky enough to receive an early copy, as of which, I’ve created plenty of content regarding all of the story threads uncovered in the novel that you should check out once you’ve read the book for yourself, I’ve still got more to content to come from Tevinter Nights too!  

However, if you have not read it and very much care about the future of Dragon Age, which if you’re watching this video, you most likely do. So, you should go and read this book because we learn A LOT going forward for the future narrative of Dragon Age. The book is a huge spring board for the next game, so go and read it!  

(Blue Wraith)

The final issue of Blue Wraith launched and as much as I enjoyed it, the comic ended on a cliff-hanger!

The lead writers Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir are hopeful for another comic to come, stating:

The two also spoke in a comic-centred interview by Deconstructing Comics about the direction of their entire Dragon Age comics. That since Knight Errant, their comics are created to prepare for a hypothetical Dragon Age 4, but not as a prologue or a plot for the next game. Nunzio suggested that fans should instead look at Tevinter Nights.

Nunzio shared on BSN Forums that hopefully the wait for the next comic won’t be as long as last time. Dragon Age: Deception came out through October – December of 2018, whereas Blue Wraith came out through January – March of 2020. So, perhaps the next comic run could come mid-2021.

(Future Books/Comics)

Speaking of future books and comics, just after I finished Blue Wraith and Tevinter Nights, I was asking myself what’s next to look forward to regarding Dragon Age content. However, on March 23rd we got not one, but two book announcements coming later this year.

Dropping on the 13th of October, BioWare are revealing a new development book, charting the legendary game studio's first 25 years in a massive retrospective hardcover book at $39.99. Perhaps we’ll learn more about Dragon Age 4’s previous iteration, project Joplin?  

Following that, on October 27th, the five Dragon Age graphic novels are being put into a massive collection for $29.99.

This book collects Dragon Age: The Silent Grove #1-6, Dragon Age: Those Who Speak #1-3, Dragon Age: Until We Sleep #1-3, Dragon Age: Magekiller #1-5, and Dragon Age: Knight Errant #1-5.

But not Deception & Blue Wraith? Potentially they’ve left these two out because Dark Horse wish to progress with these comics, foreshadowing more comics in the future to come?  

(Reddit Leak)

Moving on to a slightly weird, and most certainly fake-but-take-it-as-you-will-update... we have a reddit leak showing many upcoming games release dates, with some actually being accurate. Dragon Age 4 is listed here, and according to this leak, it’s releasing the 15th of November, 2020. Again, most certainly fake, but take it as you will.  

Speaking of fake leaks, a 2018 leak for Dragon Age 4’s contents has resurfaced, and oh boy is this thing fake. I feel like dissecting this thing as a separate video just for a laugh, but tell me down below if that’s a good idea or not.  

With that, that’s all the updates we had in March! We’re three, almost four months into 2020, as crazy as this year has been so far. I’ve already created plenty previous news updates, so if you need to be caught up to date, or you’ve missed an update, or you’re just stuck inside and need something to put your mind at ease - I have a news playlist with every single major update regarding Dragon Age 4’s development, so be sure to check that out. 

I hope you all are holding up okay and staying safe, distract yourself by telling me some of your own hopes for the next Dragon Age game, it can be anything you'd like to see! Personally, I'd love to see Vaea make any appearance in DA4!

[refinedbuffoonery]

Flawless (4)

masterlist. 

Content Warning: swearing, violence, sex, PTSD

Short update this week! I just started a new semester, and I’m taking a maximum credit load, so it’s very possible that a) there won’t be an update next weekend b) updates will be every other weekend instead of every weekend for a while. We’ll see how it goes. Thank you so much for all your love and support!

*****

Riley woke to Kalei’s lips on the back of her neck. “Good morning,” she hummed. 

“Morning, gorgeous.” Kalei’s hands explored Riley’s body as he spooned her, slowly waking her nerves with each touch. Eventually touching turned to kissing, kissing to making out, and making out to bodies writhing between the sheets and loud moans echoing throughout the apartment. 

Riley couldn’t remember the last time she had a one night stand this good. Maybe never. 

When they finally parted, Riley pulled on a black silk robe and headed to the kitchen to make coffee for them both while Kalei showered. 

She nearly had a heart attack when she realized she wasn’t alone. Desi sat on one of the barstools looking pissed as hell, and Riley instantly regretted ever giving that woman a key. “How long have you been here?” she demanded. 

“Too long.” 

“Pervert.” Riley turned her back on her unwelcome guest and resumed her coffee mission. 

“I take it you had fun last night,” Desi said coolly. “Considering you brought it home with you.” 

“I did.” Riley smirked. “Coffee?” Desi shook her head. 

Before she could say anything else, Riley’s fun entered the kitchen. “Oh,” Kalei said, noticing Desi. “Am I interrupting something?” 

“Nope,” Riley said sweetly at the same time Desi growled, “Yes.” 

Kalei’s gaze flicked between the two women, clearly confused about where to go from here. “Uhh—” 

“Why don’t you give us a minute.” Desi gave him an icy smile. 

Riley whirled on her friend, glaring. “You don’t tell him what to do. He is my guest. You, on the other hand, are not.” 

Hands raised in surrender, Kalei backed off anyway, stuttering, “I’m gonna go.” He made a beeline for the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. 

“You didn’t have to be so rude.”  

“You know why I’m here?” Desi snapped. 

Riley sighed, crossing her arms. “Why?” 

“Because I got home from work at three in the morning and found Nikki in my bed, with my girlfriend. And then I got in trouble for waking them up because apparently, Nikki had just calmed down from her rage fit because you ditched everyone during your little girls’ night!” 

Taking a sip of her coffee to hide her annoyance, Riley replied, “Nikki literally watched me buy a new box of condoms when we went shopping the other day. She shouldn’t be surprised.” 

Desi rolled her eyes. “She’s not mad about you hooking up with some guy, you idiot. She’s mad because you were supposed to be showing the new girl the ropes and then you just left. I suggest you put on your big girl pants and apologize before Nikki decides to replace you.” 

“She can’t.” Riley leaned back against the counter. “The Five Eyes are my team.” 

Desi raised an eyebrow. “With that attitude? Not for much longer.” 

“So what, you’re here just to scold me like you’re my mom?” 

“No. I’m here because I’m your friend, and because everyone else thinks you need to be knocked off your high horse.” 

A beat. “And you? What do you think?” 

“I think you need help. I think prison affected you way more than you’re letting on, and I think you still hold a grudge against Nikki for getting you arrested in the first place, whether you realize it or not.” 

Riley was silent. If those words had come from anyone else, she would’ve been seeing red, but it was different coming from Desi. There was more...weight to them. More truth. Desi wasn’t the most forthcoming person in the world, but she also wasn’t a liar. 

“Okay,” Riley said slowly. “What do you suggest I do about it?” 

“Talk to someone. Preferably a therapist.” Desi sighed. “But if that’s too scary, you can start by talking to me. I’ve been where you are.” 

“What are you talking about? You’ve never been convicted for any of your crimes.” 

“I’m talking about PTSD, Riley. I have it, and I’m willing to bet you do too.” 

Riley caught her shoulders caving in and quickly straightened up. Don’t show weakness, she reminded herself. “You don’t talk about it.” 

“I talk about it with Sam.” 

It was Riley’s turn to roll her eyes. “Whatever,” she snarked.  

“It’s not whatever, and you know it.” 

Riley was over this conversation. “Can I get back to the very hot man in my bed now?” 

Desi almost looked sad as she stood. “Please, just...think about what I said.” She walked out the door without another word, leaving Riley with nothing but Desi’s echoing words as company.

*****

Riley sat across from Jill on her couch, laptop mirroring the schematics of the Louvre onto the T.V. Slouched into the black leather cushions, Riley’s casual posture didn't match the way her eyes narrowed as she studied the screen. It looked like she was pouting, but Riley didn’t care. Beside her, Jill did the opposite—sitting up straight, eyes calmly taking in the information on the screen. 

"How would you do it?" Riley asked. 

"Huh?"

Riley turned her attention to Jill. "If you were planning to rob the most secure museum in the world, how would you do it?" 

Jill pursed her lips, thinking. She stood, stepping closer to the T.V. "I would do it on a crowded day for more cover. The bigger the crowd, the better. And I wouldn't take something crazy famous that people would immediately realize was missing.” I wouldn’t take the French Crown Jewels, she clearly meant. Riley ignored the implied questioning of her judgement, giving Jill a free pass, but only because she was new. 

“Go on,” Riley urged. 

“The way I see it, there’s two ways we could do this. The first way, we do it in broad daylight, disguised as employees. Make up some documentation that the item needs to be moved for some reason. By the time someone figures us out, we’ll be long gone.” 

Not bad, Riley thought. But she knew firsthand that Jill’s plan wasn’t as easy as she made it sound. “And the other way?”

“Cut the power, create chaos, grab it and run.” 

A small grin curved Riley’s lips. “I like your style.” A plan started to form in her mind. Cutting the power would not only provide darkness as a cover, but it would also disable all of the security systems in place. All they’d have to do is get out unseen before the power was restored. 

“So how do we put the jewels on the black market?” Jill asked, sitting back down. “It seems to me that we might as well just tattoo ‘I did it’ onto our foreheads if we’re going to be that obvious.” 

Riley smirked. “Don’t worry about that. I can keep us completely anonymous. We’ll get our money with no one the wiser.” 

Crossing one leg under her, Jill said, “So you really don’t have an ulterior motive, do you? This is just plain old doing crime for money.” She fidgeted with the hem of her jeans as she spoke. 

“Yep. I like it that way. All I have to lose is a shit ton of money I don’t need.” 

“But if you’re the insanely talented hacker Nikki said you are, then why don’t you work for the government or something?” She pushed up her oversized glasses. “Why not use your skills for good?” 

“I have no interest in wasting my life behind a desk.” 

Pressing on, she said, “Then become a spy or something. I’m pretty sure the CIA hires nerds like you.” Eyes widening, Jill realized her mistake as soon as the words left her lips. 

“Nerds like me, huh?” Riley toyed, enjoying Jill’s discomfort. The blonde’s confidence was always so short-lived. “I’m just a common criminal,” Riley said in a low, confident tone. “I get my rush from stealing stuff. Do you know where the CIA gets it’s rush?” Jill shook her head. “From toppling foreign governments and premeditated murder.” A pause. “I’m a lot of things, Jill Morgan, but a murderer is not one of them.” 

Jill seemed to think it over for a few seconds before murmuring, “You might not be a murderer, but you are anything but a common criminal, Riley Davis.” 

Silence. 

The moment passed, and Jill looked more confused than ever. Riley fed her empty answer after empty answer, but it seemed the new recruit saw right through her facade to the impenetrable wall between the real Riley and the world. For a long time, that wall was her only source of safety, and Riley wasn’t too keen on taking it down. Especially not with someone new.

Clearly Jill hadn’t figured that out yet. “What am I missing?” she probed. Jill studied Riley like she could see right through the wall if she just looked hard enough. Riley didn’t like it. “I know why I’m here. You’re still trying to decide whether to trust me.” She paused. “But what you haven’t done is give me a reason to trust you.” 

“You trust Nikki,” Riley said matter of factly. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.” 

“That’s true. But Nikki isn’t the one walking around like the living embodiment of a loaded gun.” Riley arched a brow in challenge, and surprisingly, Jill didn’t back down this time. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you’ve been gone for a while, and I bet your friend leaving the team had something to do with that. So tell me, what am I missing?” 

Sucking her teeth, Riley shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

With way more authority than she actually had, Jill said, “I’m going to refill my water bottle, and when I get back I expect an explanation.” 

“And when you don’t get said explanation?” 

“Then I will walk out that door and rat you all out to my friends at LAPD.” Taken aback by the threat, Riley said nothing. The coldness in Jill’s eyes and the set of her jaw made Riley think she wasn’t bluffing. Riley managed to school her face into neutrality, but her hand twitched, and Jill saw it. And suddenly they both knew Riley was backed into a corner she couldn’t get out of—not without this becoming very messy, anyway. 

Perhaps she had misjudged Jill completely. 

The thirty seconds it took Jill to fill her water wasn’t enough time for Riley to improvise her escape. Begrudgingly, she settled for the truth. “You want to know where I’ve been? Fine. I was in prison for the last two years. I’ve been out for almost a week.” 

“Why.” It was more of a demand than a question.

“During our last job, Nikki and Leanna—who you’re replacing—got caught. I bailed them out. Everyone else made it out just fine, and I got arrested.” 

Jill’s expression softened. “You sacrificed yourself for them,” she said, almost in awe. “Do you regret it?” 

Riley swallowed. Her pre-prison self would’ve rescued her friends—her family—every time, without a second thought. But after prison...she would rather die than go back. Jill looked at her expectantly, awaiting an answer. 

Telling Jill wasn’t the same as telling the others. She’s practically a stranger. But the others...telling them would make it all real. So in a rare moment of honesty, Riley finally admitted, “Sometimes.” 

A beat. “Thank you for telling me.” 

The air was thick with the murky truth Riley had revealed—and the implications that went with it. Confessing didn’t make her feel any better. Mostly Riley just felt like she’d lost something she could never get back. 

“So in a big crowd, huh?” Riley said to break the tension. 

The unreadable expression lingered for a moment before Jill finally looked away with a muttered “Uh, yeah.” She mindlessly pushed up her glasses with her middle finger. A nervous habit, Riley realized. Jill babbled, “I heard that some designer is renting the Louvre for an afterparty during Fashion Week. Apparently they’re unveiling some diamond and sapphire jewelry set at the party, in the same room that holds the French Crown Jewels. I think that it’s super tacky comparing something new to something so old and beautiful, but supposedly the new jewels are worth millions.” 

A thought began forming in Riley’s head. “How many million?” 

“Hundreds.” 

Nodding her approval, Riley said, “That’s not a bad idea, Blondie.” 

Jill seemed almost comically lost. “Idea?” she questioned. “What idea?” 

“Since you all hated my crown jewels plan, why don’t we get the next best thing?” 

Her eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.” 

Riley asked, “Where did you hear about the party anyway?” Jill chewed her lower lip, hesitating, but Riley didn’t have much patience these days. “Well?” she demanded. 

“Nikki.” 

Of course that’s who she heard it from. Nikki kept up with the fashion industry like her life depended on it. “I see,” Riley said. So much for escaping awkward conversations. 

“You should talk to her,” Jill blurted. “I know things are weird between you right now, but they won’t get better by doing nothing.” 

Riley hated how small her voice sounded when she whispered, “I know.”

~ Tag List ~ (let me know if you’d like to be added!) 

@macrileyedits / @hellishrose / @incorret-macgyver-quotes / @mylifequotesshowallofthem / @thecarrieonokay 

[hyunsracha]

for your entertainment — han jisung

word count: 2.3k

summary: jisung panics when he sees cute people. he also stares at them.

so you work at an entertainment store right

where ppl can buy like uhhh movies and albums n merch n stuff!!

u like ur job.. it’s one of the least popular stores in the mall so u spend most of ur time organizing and reorganizing with one earbud in listening to music

u have to wear a boring grey t-shirt as uniform so u spice things up by making the rest of u look good

everyone else does the same thing i mean … ur manager lia wears purple eyeshadow ok

ur other manager chris doesn’t even try to look good! and it’s so fucking annoying u wanna knock his fuck 24/7

random girl: hehe<3 can i have ur number?

chris: only if u sign up for our rewards program<3

u, angry bc u haven’t sold any rewards programs in a week: >:(

ur other two co-workers are hyunjin and jeongin.

hyunjin has a pretty popular youtube dancer cover channel, but for Copyright Reasons it’s not paying the bills

and jeongin is a senior in high school and this is his first job and u just wanna pinch his little cheeks every time u work together

“y/n i swear to god i’m gonna punch u and get fired rn stop POKING MY CHEEKS-”

“he’s just a little baby…*to passing customer* LOOK AT THE BABY!”

“>:(((“

so it’s a tuesday night.

tuesday nights are the fucking best (worst if u love talking to ppl) bc u’ll get like … 2 customers in 4 hours?

it’s 8pm and the mall closes at 9

usually u start vacuuming at 8:30 but at like 7:50 chris was like “GET THE FUCKING VACUUM WE’RE CLOSING RN !!”

jeongin: u do it.

u: no u do it bitch.

jeongin: *sticks out his fist*

u sigh and do rock paper scissors like the baby wants.

and u lose

u fucking lose

and jeongin just cackles, sitting down on the stool behind the registers

so u trudge to the back room and the vacuum, grumbling about how ur older so jeongin should be doing this!!

but it’s fine!

so you’re vacuuming right.

and in storms Han Jisung

yes han jisung is the kinda dude to come to the mall right before closing and go on a shopping spree

he’s got his best friend lee minho in tow, who does Not look happy to be here.

“come on minho!! i need to get season 4 of naruto to finish my collection!!” jisung whines, pulling on his friend’s arm as he stands on his tiptoes to look for the anime section.

“can you keep your voice down?? i have an image, yanno.”

“minho you’re literally here to buy a kelly clarkson album.”

minho grumbles and waddles off towards the cds, where you are...vacuuming...loudly

and minho’s like -____- why are u so fucking loud

like u don’t MEAN to be loud?? but it’s a VACUUM??

so minho’s looking for his beloved kelly clarkson album right,

and jisung comes around the corner, season 4 of naruto in tow.

and he sees you

and nearly drops it

jisung gets crushes very easily okay..

he can’t help it! the boy loves to love (◕‿◕)♡

and u look so cute in ur lil t-shirt!! like a little retail angel!!

so he grabs minho’s arm and DRAGS HIM TO where the movies are

and he panics!

“THEY’RE SO CUTE AAH I WANNA GIVE THEM A BIG FAT HUG-”

“do you mean the person vacuuming -__- loud as hell”

“minho it’s a vacuum.”

so you stop vacuuming and return the vacuum to the back room (and wash ur hands in the bathroom bc the soap smells like lemons and sunshine) and come back to the floor

u have a ton of time until closing so u just. sit.. and start reorganizing the heavy metal albums.

after a while u feel … weird … like ur being watched

so u turn around and. there they are. staring like (・_・)

and ur like “HELLO?!?!” but u don’t say anything

u just give them a Customer Service Smile and a, “can i help you with anything?”

jisung just giggles and shakes his head and minho keeps fuckign staring

mr lee i will knock ur fuck is that what u want

so u shrug and go back to ur sorting, keeping an eye on the CREEPS in ur store.

at 8:55 chris is like “jeongin go close the gate.” n jeongin’s like “FUCK YEAH” bc he gets to hold a big stick

so he’s walking towards the front of the store with his Big Stick when he sees jisung and minho

“what da hell are y’all doing?” is what he thinks but he says, “(: hi! the store closes in five minutes and i’m about to close the front gate. i’m so sorry, but you have to leave now! :)”

so jisung pouts and minho rolls his eyes, dragging his friend out of the store.

jeongin uses his Big Stick to pull the gate down and he locks it at about mid calf level so y’all can get out.

so that night, u go home and do some homework, but ur still thinking about those weirdos.

but! u’ll probably never see them again!

right?

Wrong.

u see them the next day!

they’re still watching u, but they’re closer

and minho looks more irritated.

towards the end of the night, ur Upset and Confused so u go over to them like o_o. What do u want.

and jisung goes JISJSJHTIE

and minho goes, “jisung thinks you’re cute.”

u start to blush, but jisung squeaks, “NO ahah- uh- he likes to talk in third person! he’s jisung ahaha.”

“my name is not jisung i would Hate to be named jisung.”

“WH- why? there’s a soccer player named jisung. and an idol! multiple idols!”

“yeah the guy in nct is 2 years younger than you and has the same name. and what have You done successfully? Quickly-”

“HEY-”

the two boys in front of u bicker while u start zoning out at the wall behind them.

you knew that the boy with blue hair was jisung, but you didn’t know the one with brown hair. and you assumed that they were friends, judging by the .. bonding activity that is staring at an employee.

and jisung wasn’t …. ugly

like he was really … really cute

but staring at people is fucking weird, jisung!!

when u finally snap out of it, u huff, “okay losers. we are closing soon. so you have to leave. but you’re welcome to come back tomorrow if you’re going to actually talk to me and not just stand in the corner! okay?”

the boys nod, grinning at each other before dashing out of the store.

so, like u said, they’re back the next day!

and this time they actually talk to u! Wow!

you’re sitting on the floor in the back of the store, organizing the funko pops for the 70th time when you feel A Presence.

two, actually.

it’s the two boys, sitting on either side of u.

“hi,” jisung says, playing with his fingers in his lap.

“you’re jisung, right? the cute one..” u reply absentmindedly

u hear a choking sound and then Silence

miss jisung ? miss JISUNG ?

he’s alive, but jfc BARELY

u just called him the CUTE ONE?!?!?

paying no mind, u turn to the boy on ur right, “and you are?”

“lee minho. don’t worry, you won’t forget it.”

“was that supposed to be a pick-up line?”

“did it work?”

“no.”

“HAH!” and jisung’s alive again.

u spend the rest of ur shift talking to the boys, telling them all about ur life while they told u about theirs

u learned that minho was a dancer just like hyunjin! but he went to the nearby university to study.

and that’s where he met jisung, who’s a music composition major

...and a soundcloud rapper…

u could help the laugh that pushed past ur lips at his words

“WHY ARE U LAUGHING.”

“a SoundCloud rapper. really, sung?”

“IT’S COOL ヾ(`ヘ´)ﾉﾞ”

u couldn’t imagine him as a ‘cool’ rapper dude

he just looked so fluffy :(

at 8:55, the boys got kicked out by jeongin again, but they stood outside the gate, waiting for u

“What do y’all want.”

“i wanna walk u to ur car:(“

“i don’t.”

“ok minho then Leave.”

“NO DON’T he’s my ride don’t say that to him.”

it’s dark outside, and a warm wind blows through ur hair.

it’s late spring, with summer (and finals) fast approaching.

“walking me to my car...what a gentleman…”

“yeah that’s why you should totally go on a date with me haha.”

“what?”

“what?”

“you said-”

“i didn’t say anything.”

minho sighs from behind u, not understanding why his best friend has to be so damn stupid all the time

u lean on ur driver’s side door, not making eye contact with the boy

u didn’t know how to say bye..no one’s ever walked u to ur car before??

“so…” jisung speaks for u, “can i … have your number? so i don’t show up at the store when you’re not working.” he holds his phone out for u to take, a sheepish smile barely visible due to the lights in the parking lot.

“oh! totally.” you take the phone from him, jolting when ur fingers graze his. u set ur contact as ‘the person sungie likes to stare at~” before giving it back to him.

he chuckles at the name, and u feel something inside of u go DOKIDOKI

when he says goodnight and walks away, minho giving u a quick nod, u lock urself in ur car so u can PANIC

u barely know this boy. he’s a weirdo. why is ur heart going dokidoki

heart STOP IT!!

it only gets worse when u hear the text notification sound from ur phone:

[ unknown ]: do u work tmrw? (^_−)☆ i already miss u

…. frick …. he texts cute

dammit jisung why couldn’t u send the laughing emoji

[ y/n ]: i do ! ^.^ i’ll see u then?

[ creeper ]: wouldn’t miss it~ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ goodnight!

u nearly slam ur head on the steering wheel.

true to his word, jisung was back the next day

and the day after that

and the day after that

the day after That, u were off, so u didn’t see him

but u guys texted nearly all day!

jisung was just … really easy to talk to :/

and really funny :/

and every time he giggled u just wanted to cry a little bit :/

and u feel like a CLOWN bc u have a CRUSH on this dude that hangs out with u at WORK

one day, ur at work, and jisung isn't there:((

u feel a little dumb being upset about it, but u were starting to get used to the little guy

“somebody looks like a sad clown.”

“hyunjin~” u whine.

“oh no. that’s the boy problems whine. uhhh suddenly i’m on break!” he tries to stand and walk away, but u pull him back down next to u.

see, u and hyunjin were pretty close.

u two are the same age and watch the same dramas.

and ur both super dramatic

which is WHY when u got ur heart broken by lee donghyuck a few months after u started working there, he was ur shoulder to cry - and complain - on.

“stop :( there was this boy who came in every day and talked to me and he’s super cute but he’s not here today and i miss him :(“

hyunjin just …. stared at u like …. wtf are u talking about

“do you have his number?”

“yes.”

“have you texted him to ask why he’s not here today?”

“...no…”

“(；￣Д￣) Y/N U FUCKIN FOOL!!! U ABSOLUTE IMBECILE!!!”

“STOP YELLING AT ME HWANG HYUNJIN I’LL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU LOVE!”

a customer standing in front of the register, trying to buy some headphones: uh.. should i go?

u make hyunjin deal with the customer while u sneak out ur phone to text jisung

[ y/n ]: where are u . no one is here 2 annoy me today (except hyunjin but he doesn’t count)

u wait 5 minutes … no reply

10 minutes … no reply

an hour … no reply

“WAAAAA ｡･ﾟﾟ*(>д<)*ﾟﾟ･｡ HYUNJIN ｡･ﾟﾟ*(>д<)*ﾟﾟ･｡”

hyunjin, handing a poor lady her receipt: jesus fucking christ

ur sulking as u leave the store that night

u still feel dumb, but now ur too Sad to feel dumb

u press the lock button on ur car keys so the lights would come on and the horn would sound, telling u where ur car was

“OH FUCK- jesus...stupid car…”

….that’s not what ur car horn sounds like.

u slowly approach, holding ur keys in between ur fingers

ur not afraid to stab a bitch with ur mail key and that’s on wolverine.

u breathe a sigh of Relief when u see it’s just jisung leaning against ur door

wait

jisung

“jisung?” u voice ur thoughts

his hand comes up to rub the back of his neck, “yeah..hi..sorry i didn’t text you back. i nearly backed out of doing this and i didn’t wanna look stupid.”

“you look stupid all the time.”

“jeez, thanks.”

u cross ur arms, stepping closer to the boy, “back out of what?”

“well i uh- do you remember how minho said i think you’re cute on the first day we talked?”

you nod.

“well...that hasn’t changed. i think you’re cute...really cute, actually.”

you blush again, just like the first time, “what does me being cute have to do with you standing in front of my car?”

“well, i don’t have a car, so i’m hoping...you can drive when we go on our first date?”

your heart nearly stops, but you start to smile.

“han jisung, are you asking me out?”

“are you saying yes?”

“yes.”

“then yeah. i am.”

your smile only gets wider as you close the gap between you two, wrapping your arms around his middle. he pats your head, a chuckle vibrating under your ear.

“also i need a ride home. minho dropped me off.”

“*sigh* jisung…”

[aspenflower17]

Alright. I need to scream into the void because it is 5 AM and the anxiety is eating me alive.

So, in the tradition that is going on now, I am not happy at my job. My boss has done a lot of really messed up stuff, even before her staff all left. Here's some of them. Note: I am the assistant manager, with no manager above me.

1. When I started, we had monthly morning meetings to make sure everyone was on the same page (I started November 2019). Because of the pandemic, I understand why we stopped. So, 2021 rolls around and I was extremely excited to start those back up. Everytime I would tell her to schedule one (because I'm not in charge of the schedule), she would find some excuse not to do it. It is now September 2021, and we have had 1 (one) meeting, which she wouldn't really let me direct.

2. She won't come into her own store unless something huge is happening. She has told me on multiple occasions that she has to have employees to run the store because she can't always be there. Note, this is a small business. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked if I'm the owner because she. Does. Not. Come. In. She (hopefully) comes in once a week to bring us money and then bails.

3. Because of that, I have basically been running the store. I have had former co-workers tell people that stayed past them, "There's only so much responsibility [the owner] can put on [AspenFlower17] without just handing her the keys to the store." I have essentially gone gray enough at this point that people have suggested I just dye my hair gray. I'm going to be 26 next month... That's messed up.

4. I almost hit my breaking point a LONG time ago. After having a shift with her that left me in tears, I was ready to turn in my two weeks but then I found CBD for my anxiety. I stuck it out. When it got bad again, we hired a lovey, lovey girl who has turned into a friend for me. Because of her, I stayed a whole other year because I didn't hate work anymore. CBD doesn't help me anymore at work I'm so stressed. I no longer get to work with this coworker.

She also promoted me to assistant manager while we already had one and told me not to say anything to the current assistant manager because she would talk to her. A month or two later, we all had a meeting together, and THAT'S WHEN SHE TOLD HER!!! So, she left shortly thereafter because she felt like we were sneaking around behind her back, and I honestly don't blame her.

She also did not come in and work during covid even though we were open the whole time.

5. She has just, straight up lied about me to my staff. So, we had a lengthy discussion about what we could go for the staff to help combat burnout. I suggested we do a breakfast that wasn't a meeting just so everyone had time to hang out together. She agreed and when I mentioned going to a local restaurant, she then countered by essentially saying that we need to keep it cheap and to get stuff from the grocery store. So, I told her what day I was going to do it and then that we would have a meeting the next week. She said, "Okay. Well, mornings don't work well for me, so you just do it, and the store will just pay you back for it." Because she has a communication issue I had run into before, I verified the date and that I was okay to do it. She said yes, do it.

So day of the breakfast rolls around. It... Didn't go like I thought it would (partially because I was SUPER tired) but it happened. Whatever. The owner then spoke with one of the employees about how she was thinking about doing a breakfast for all of us. Said employee (who quit fairly soon there after) tells her we had already done it. The onelwer then tells her, "No... We had talked about it, but we never set anything up," and then proceeds to ask for details about it, and tells the employee we were all going to go to a restaurant and blah, blah, blah.

The staff then tells me, to which I obviously told them what actually happened, but it really kind of broke their trust with me and her because it wasn't a very good breakfast (we never had that nice one she told us about btw). I caught her in a point blank our again to me about another staff member later on, so I know they weren't lying (plus she seemed upset with me afterward for awhile). We did have the meeting though (the one we've had that I mentioned above, so... Obviously we decided on something... 👀

6. The back room is out of control and it's not my fault. So, we had a meeting with a higher up in the company (it's a franchise company, so no corporate but there is oversight) and he ran the numbers for us and told us that we need to buy more product to make our store a success (won't go into details, bit we buy products from people and then resale them). So I did. I pushed the staff to buy more stuff and low and behold, we had one of the best years we've EVER had, since the owner opened.

But, with more product comes more back stocking. And when I tell you our back room absolutely EXPLODED. It became a stressful place to be and I told the owner we needed more bins (which is what we put back stock in) when it started getting bad. She told me, "No. You need to make sure the bins we have are full and you need to stock more."

Well, about this time, we physically were not able to stock more because she didn't tell me it was clearance time and we were out if hangers, which I also communicated to her, and she brought us like 2 boxes (which doesn't do much). But I did everything I could to make that happen. I spent a ton of time combining bins and just trying to make it work in general and it wasn't working.

So, she comes into the back one day and just... Panics and reads me the right act for not telling her sooner that we needed bins... So I tell her, "But I did, back before it got this bad. You told me to just combine bins and put stuff out, but I can't do that because I can't because I'm out of hangers," and she says, "But I didn't know it was this bad..." But then later redacted that to say I never told her. So, she brings bins (BECAUSE SHE HAD SONE THE ENTIRE TIME), we... Kind of get the backroom manageable, and she tells me, "Now, if it ever gets bad again, you have to let me know. This is why communication is so important."

So, we use all the bins and are BARELY able to keep that okay. So, fast forward a couple months. The backroom is still messy and we've had... 4 people leave at this point (many because of the backroom). I have my lovely coworker come out of the back and tell me point blank, "[AspenFlower17], that backroom is stressing me out. I don't care if I have to buy them. We HAVE to get bins," so I go, "Cool. Let me text [the owner]," and so I text and tell her, "We need more bins. The staff is getting stressed out," and she texts back, "Well, I need a list if everything you have back there first," ... So I do. She then comes in and instead of working in the back, she's upfront BUYING MORE PRODUCT (she always buys a TON). Then, when I get there, she pulls me around the store, tells me everything that's wrong (note I haven't left behind the counter in we weeks because of buys), and then pulls me to the back, brings out a ton of bins for everyone to stock, and then leaves... That was the ultimate breaking point. I started enacting the exit plan I had come up with since I was already planning on leaving. We still don't have new bins btw.

7. Okay. So. I hired 3 new people. I knew one of them wasn't going to be great, bit figured the other two would be a good fit (this is around the time that everyone was leaving their jobs).

One girl, my favorite actually of the three, completely no showed on me and sent me a text quitting about it 40 mins before her shift though I didn't get it until 5 mins after she was supposed to show up because I DON'T CHECK MY PHONE AT WORK? I told the owner and said I could stay the extra two hours. She says, "Glad you're there."

Next day, I was able to spend some time in the back because, well, I needed to, and didn't get super far, but got some stuff done. I offered to stay longer but was told it was fine, even though one of my coworkers have herself dry socket and was in pain. We were short staffed because that girl quit.

So I go to my friend's house, glad the weeks over because I had the next day off. I then get a text from the coworker with dry socket asking was I actually did in the back. I tell her, getting really pissed at this point, and then she tells me something is leaking back there. So, I head BACK over after a 7 hour shift. She's freaking out and crying. My other coworker is trying to figure out the leak. In the meantime, product is getting wet. So, I stay back there and organize. We send the one with dry socket home and the other coworker is pretty pissed, says she's not staying past 8 and that I shouldn't either; the owner needs to if she wants the store to stay open. So, she texts the owner asking what to do, and doesn't get a reply. I text her, and get a reply 20 minutes later saying the earliest she can come in is 8...

So, this coworker tells me I need to leave because she's taking advantage of me and everything. I ended up staying another 4 hours. The owner was not there right at 8 (did I mention she's also late to almost EVERYTHING?) and seems put out because she had to scramble to find a baby sitter... Ummm... This is your store? And we could have closed early?

8. She's given me tons of shifts with BRAND new people and expected the store to run just fine. She won't even come into help with that.

9. So, I finally put in my two weeks on September 3rd. Work was so bad, I was starting to have suicidal thoughts. Everyone had just reached their breaking point and I was just done. I did not get a reply from her about it (I texted because of my anxiety). The next Tuesday she talked to me about it. I told her I was having suicidal thoughts and I wasn't happy. The next day we talk again, she and convinced me to stay if she made me the backstock manager, so I would only really deal with the back room and the stuff I actually enjoy (and no customers). She also told me she would handle staffing and front end stuff. I figured that would be a good thing, since that's what I've wanted since I started and it would be a full time position. The first week went fine. The second week I had time off, WHICH I REQUESTED BACK IN APRIL, and things just fell apart (partially because if another no show) and she did try to guikt trip me into coming in, which I refused.

It is the 22nd and I am not backstock manager. She has scheduled me 6 days this week and has scheduled it so she is only on the schedule twice. I still have to do staffing things. I'm still doing front end stuff, and she actually got snippy with me on Monday because she left for two hours and a new girl was whining about breaks and asking if she was coming back WHILE I WAS BUSY, so she asked if she could text the owner when she was coming back and I told her sure, whatever. The owner then calls me asking all these questions about why she had texted her and that she shouldn't have her phone on her and blah blah blah WHILE I AM LITERALLY TRYING TO HELP A CUSTOMER WHO DOESN'T SPEAK VERY GOOD ENGLISH!!! and then said, "Well, technically, I'm not on the schedule. I just came in to help you guys, so you're going to have to figure out breaks."

... What happened to you being in charge of the front?

She says I'll be in my new position in a matter of WEEKS, but won't show me anything new with it and with how this is going, I'm pretty sure, even if I do get in this new position, she's going to make me do shift leader stuff when she's short staffed again. She has had she entire staff quit on her before, so it's not like this is a new thing with her.

She doesn't complete all the tasks she's supposed to during the day and just leaves it for night crew, or if she's closing, for the next morning (because she does often open) but then doesn't get it done, again pushing it onto night crew. If we don't get done though, she'll reprimand us.

The problem is, I would just leave, but I feel really guilty about it. We are extremely short staffed and I feel like if I leave now, the store will fail and I've put so much into it, it just feels like a waste.

Everyone is telling me to get out and just leave... But... Anxiety... Plus I feel bad because I told her I'd stay.

Honestly, at this point I'm just looking for some validation that I should leave.

Oh, I also get paid $14... For an assistant manager position. Minimum wage in my state is $7.25 for reference. I also have a seasonal job that ends in October that doesn't pay well, but I enjoy.

Please... Thoughts?

[halethestilinskis]

Life is not great rn

Just another text note about how my life has imploded over the past 2 weeks. Read if you would like!

Not sure if I put it in past notes, but I work at an optometrist office, with an optical shoppe attached to it, and we actually make cut and make the glasses in house at the Foxboro location, where I primarily am. I used to be a tech, where I would get all your readings before you went in to see the doctor, until we hired some more people and I ended up getting "promoted" to front desk, where I was for about 6 weeks. The new techs, that everyone loves and does a great job, I trained by the way. I got a raise about 3 months ago, I was told by every doctor that I was improving, and look more comfortable and confident in the office. Which I did. Then it all blew up in my face.

The girl training me was named Kelly, and she should never train anyone ever. The way she answers my questions, makes it sound like the dumbest question in the world, made me feel like an absolute fucking idiot every time I was at work. She would point out every LITTLE mistake I would make. For instance, they had a portion or their chart that asked if they had any other eye problems, like amblyopia (lazy eye) or if they had LASIK or something like that, and in a lot of the patients charts, it had "other" in there, when it should be "negative" because there's nothing in there. I get it, and most of the time I fixed it, but if I didn't she would point it out and get real pissy about it. Then I would go through the chart to make sure it was done before the doctor took it, and she made the same fucking mistake, but I couldn't say anything about it. ALSO, they would put their hobbies in there, and even if the hobbies were the same, but the wording was different, she would  yell at me to change it, which I thought was a waste of time.. Ya know… because it is, and again, she would make the same mistakes. She was the one reporting to my boss how I was doing, and no one else was, so every little thing I did, she would make it out to be the end of the world. For instance, I overcharged someone for their contact lens evaluation, the father, who always buys contacts through us, was a doctor and Kelly flipped out, telling me I was going to call him and tell him I messed up and see if wanted a refund, which in return cost our office money. When I could've put it as a credit, and when he came to buy contacts through us, we would take it off that order. She goes, "they're doctors" and I was like okay?? Tell me which doctor knows anything about insurance. Guess what, he wanted a refund, and it cost our office money (:

Anyway, anytime I went to work I was stressed out, walking into that building made my blood pressure rise, and any time she wasn't there, it was a great day. So on Wednesday, July 27th, I was told by the doctor that she was moving me to the Milford office, which I hate, but it's away from Kelly so I was all for it, and ready to show that I didn't need her to do my job well. Dr. M, told me she wanted to move me up there so I can take some pressure from the new girl and she can train a little bit more, and she was moving Sam down to Foxboro, because the new girl in Milford sucks and so does her attitude. I noticed I was opening, and told her I didn't have a key to the office, she happily gave me one and I was ready for the week to end. 

The next day, I was up front by myself training a new girl that is usually in pretest, but she needs to learn how to work the front as well. Everything was fine, it got a little weird and busy in the middle, but I worked through it, and everything was fine. Around 3, the contacts I had in were REALLY dry and basically about to come out of my eye just by blinking. I decided to take them out and get the glasses I kept in my car for this exact reason. These were my shitty glasses I got from Zenni when I didn't work there, so I didn't ruin my expensive lenses I got from them, again not while working there. They don't have a visible logo, and a patient never asked me about them. The only person to ask me about them, were the guys in the lab that cut the lenses for glasses, because they obviously weren't my normal pair. I told them they were shitty glasses from Zenni, and no patients were in the back while I said that. I wore them at the front for about 2 hours, again, only glasses I had on me, and Dr. D, never said anything to me about them, nor was I planning on wearing them there ever again. Friday, I had the day off, and rested and recharged for my Saturday shift on the 31st. I was excited for one, because Kelly wasn't on with me, the next day was Eric and I's 5th wedding anniversary and we had plans to stay in Boston and have a really expensive and delicious dinner, so I was ready to get the day over with and celebrate with my man. At the end of the day, I was looking through money, and remember that guy I overcharged earlier, well, the optician overcharged him again for his sons evaluation, and guess what, no one yelled at her. Anyway, she fucked up money and me and someone else were trying to figure it out, when Dr. D called me back. Now I messed up in the middle of the day, just a very small mess up and I was prepared for hi, to basically tell me to get my shit together and do better, and I would, especially if I wasn't going to be in this office anymore. Do you know how difficult and stressful it is to do your job effectively, with no mistakes, while someone is literally breathing down your neck? Anyway, he told me that they hired a lot of new people and because of that, my position became really competitive, and even though I was improving and I always take what the doctors say to heart and fix my problems, I was just not where they needed me to be, and that day was my last day.

I was COMPLETELY blindsided, like you literally gave me a key and said I was doing great 4 DAYS AGO, what changed from then to now. So, I was like, "okay" backed my shit, called Eric, crying, telling him what happened, asked the optician to move her car so I could leave and cried literally all day, not understanding why this happened.

So now I'm on unemployment, looking for another job trying to find one that makes good money or at least somewhere in the range of what I was making and trust me, it's extremely difficult.

Eric and I decided maybe we shouldn't stay in Boston because now were not going to make the 1K we planned on spending, back like we thought. My mom was nice enough to get us a hotel, and my family was having a party on that day, so we decided to stop by there and say hi, have some food, and then head to Boston and get some dinner. It was delicious and less than half of what we would have spent, although we plan on going there when I get another job. We went back to the hotel and I took a shower and as I was getting out I heard him on the phone with someone and it ended with "sir". I got out and asked him what was going on, and he said he just got a forced shift for in the morning 8-4. He's a cop, and he can't say no to those. We decided to pack it up and go home so he could get some sleep, I wasn't leaving Boston at 6 AM, but it really screwed our plans. I went to my moms the next day and gave her half the money back, because we couldn't use the room. He went to work, then it was my moms birthday. So I got her flowers and a cake and went over to give it to her. I had plans to go to Brockton to get Eric and I dinner at Sarku, since that was our original plan on the way back from Boston, and we had a nice dinner. I was sent a snapchat from my brothers girlfriend and they were singing happy birthday to my mom with a cake that no one ever told me about. So I got dressed and went to my moms, she lives, literally right around the corner.

On Tuesday, I had a normal day, definitely still dwelling about getting fired, but getting over it, regardless of the reason. Sam texts me during the day, and Dr. D, the one who fired me, is telling another employee that I was fired because I was promoting Zenni, which made me LIVID. I never once promoted them, and I actually always bash them because their glasses SUCK and the only reason I had them is because I wanted a blue light filter for gaming and I didn't want them on my everyday, or pay $300 of them at my office. We tell every patient they suck, and they should get nice glasses for everyday, especially people with a high RX, high cyl, or progressives. So now I'm thinking he got that impression from me wearing my Zenni glasses for 2 hours in the office, again with no visible logo, and I'm still livid, because if he did, he should've said something to me about it, instead of firing me. Now I'm mad and want to get to the bottom of this. I email Dr. M, to hear her side and she stuck with what was originally said, and said at the end that I was laid off, not fired, and I could collect unemployment. I made a Tiktok making fun of what she said with the Stewie voice over of "Oh hold on Louis just texted you, do you want meatballs or burgers for dinner… I'll text back for you, same thing bitch, just different shapes" with the caption of "When your boss says you weren't fired, you were laid off". Which by the way, I do know the difference, but either way, I no longer had a job. AND GUESS WHO FOUND IT, you guess it, my fucking former boss, and she emailed me about, super. She didn't take offense, she just explained the difference to me, but either way, still embarrassing. My dad also texted me about it, which I did not answer, because he didn't hasn’t apologized to me.

I filed for unemployment, and it has yet to be approved 2 weeks later. I told Eric not to worry about household chores because I don't have a job and I can handle it while he works. My mom has been BEGGING me to come down to the Cape with my family, I said won't because, A.) there's no where for me to sleep. B.) I don't have a job, therefore can't spent a ton of money, C.) my mom likes to push every button of mine when she's drunk and then wonder why I'm being a bitch, and D.) there's nothing up there that I haven't done already. My whole family went though, and now that my brother is up there, my house is like straight up haunted. I woke up to the sound of something hitting my bed twice at 4:23 AM, and it definitely was not in my dream, it didn't match up to my dream. Then yesterday, I was sitting in the living room and I heard the fire alarm in the basement go off, and as soon as I opened the basement door, it just stopped. Nothing was wrong down there in the first place, and I constantly hear creaks upstairs like someone is walking when they only have their 5 pound cat up there. It's been 2 weeks since I applied for unemployment and I still haven't gotten paid, so I called yesterday and they said that my employer had to finish paperwork, so I emailed her and let her know. She said there's nothing on her end to do, so I called again today. They said that there is an overdue form and she needs to call this number. Told her, and she called and they said there's nothing for her to fill out and my name isn't even popping up under her employer unemployment, so something went wrong down the line, that we're both not sure of.

And the cherry on top…. Eric made an arrest yesterday, and everything was fine and dandy until his LT called this morning, and he had to go into the station. He was told it was a "bad arrest", and I want to clarify, that he arrested a dude for assault and battery that violated a restraining order, BUT, it wasn't in our city, where he works to it was a bad arrest, ONLY because of that. So, now he had to write a letter to the chief and to the union lawyer, along with the other officer at the scene and the LT that approved his report, and we're a little unsure of what's going to happen next and we've both been stressed all day about it. He's doing better now and hanging out, but I can't destress ever.

So these last two weeks have been absolutely horrible and I want to just have ONE GOOD DAY in my time off from not having a job!!

[genuflectx]

Just wanna rant about my job a bit, will probably delete this later. But I think I may quit my job within the next month or so u_u’

Originally when I joined this job last year it was under originations- I helped people apply and get approved for loans, or offered general tech support when they needed help with the process online. I felt like I was helping these nice old people, they were rarely mean (save for the occasional grouchy old man after he gets rejected), and the work load was decent. Not too heavy, not too boring. 

Then the pandemic hit. My entire team, which had been hired only a few months before, were rushed in for “accelerated training” on the credit card support department. I believe it was just like 4 weeks of training for a tooootally different workflow. We worked in the servicing department for what, maybe a month? Then they furloughed a ton of people and managers and moved us AGAIN, this time to collections. So calling to collect debts on our credit card product. When I joined this company it was under the understanding I did NOT want to do collections because it makes me sad and feel shitty. But they promised us we would be transferred back to originations after a bit, so whatever.

Slowly things have gone downhill since. Just tiny things adding up. They implemented a internet speed minimum requirement, which is understandable working from home, but we lost another good chunk of people who got fired for that, some who I’d made friends with. Hell, I got THREATENED with firing due to this, forcing us to run an Ethernet cable through 2 stories of our house. And I was PISSED because I was the only one on the team making a 100% average on QA scores. Then a few people quit, leaving only 3 people from my original originations team. They hired a new manager to oversee work force management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) around this point and I’m CONVINCED it got worse because of her changes...

They changed our outbound dialing system to a cheaper one, promising all these improvements, and who woulda guessed... the quality of work life barely improved with this piece of crap tech but hey, it cut costs. Next they dismantled the debt management company department (DMC) and trained us in it so we’re technically trained for and work in two departments. On top of the promise that in the far future that they will cross-train us with the loan department too, a totally different product. We also have to do the emails for our department as well.

Then things got bad. Non stop calls for a months. Likely related to the unfortunate weather disasters in our outsourced locations. The outbound dialer, which is an autodialer that WFM loads up with late people to auto-call, starting filling up with impossible amounts of people to call for our agent count. We started going from 5000 to call every few hours to 10,000. And it doesn’t matter if we don’t clear the queue, they will load more in at certain times of the day. So we’d get 10,000 at 1pm, we’d get it down to 3,000 by 5pm, and they’d just load it back up to 10,000 again. 

Then they added on the mandatory overtime. Everyone in our department either has to do a half shift extra on either saturday or sunday- with mine being on saturday. Another person quit (down to 2 from my original team). We’re understaffed as hell and they tell us that they’re FINALLY training a new class. And know what? They ONLY enacted the OT and got a new class because their service levels were down. Service levels are a mandatory legal level of how many agents per how many customers we have, they get in legal trouble when it drops too far for too long. They didn’t give a shit about our stress until their damn legal agreement dropped and then forced the OT on us. Wow. We feel so appreciated. 

And THEN the OT was supposed to go until Feb 14th- today. THEY EXTENDED IT ANOTHER WEEK. 

And and and a few days after they told us it was extended these dudes LAY OFF 3 managers, including our team’s manager, who I REALLY liked, and stuck us into the team of a manager who is notorious for giving out incorrect policy info! Why! >:( 

Some other small things they’ve done that have added up slowly: They sent me a “nice” alluminum mug for my high QA score. Stuck it in the washer once and the pretty gold lettering on the front melted. It also leaks. They do these “thank you” videos some time where the upper management (never faces you recognize save for 2 or 3). BUT they made us watch this 10 minute long “thank you” Christmas video BETWEEN CALLS instead of scheduling time for us to do it like usual. Due to the short staffing, they changed how our weekly meetings with our manager/team go. Instead of having the whole team go into a meeting with her twice per week, they made her split this into 3 smaller meetings once per week, so that 2 or 3 team members meet with her at a time (more people on the floor to take calls). It spread her thin- before they laid her off of course. After they enacted the OT a week or so into it one of the upper management people sent us all an email telling us we basically weren’t doing good enough because our collections numbers weren’t high enough.. KNOWING we’re under staffed, she still emailed that. Come on.

So ya know what? My fiance and friends have encouraged me to just move on. This company isn’t what it was when I started a year ago, and idk if it’s legit just due to covid or if this WFM/QA overseer that they hired near the end of 2020 is fully to blame. I hate hearing customers tell me day in day out about their family dying, about being homeless/evicted. I hate old ladies screaming at me because they can’t comprehend that WE ARE IN A PANDEMIC and the MAIL WILL BE LATE, so their damn paper checks need to be mailed out at least 2-3 weeks in advanced- OR THEY COULD JUST CALL AND PAY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE. Tired of people insulting me and calling me names because THEY’RE late and THEY missed a payment and they can’t accept responsibility- because they think screaming at someone making a few bucks over min wage will do anyone any good or make their shitty credit score any better.

All this mandatory OT and my nice manager being fired has put a lot of stress on me, if the other crap wasn’t enough. We’re really financially stable in this household even if I did quit, even if I’d feel guilty af. And it could be months before I found another job as safe and well-paying as this one, but at least my mental health would recover.

So I have about a day of sick time and 80 hours of PTO. My plan is to hopefully schedule out all 80 hours, or at least 85% of my PTO if I can, then when I come back to put in a 1 week notice. By then the new agents will be in full swing. I can get the money from the PTO I earned at this shit collections job and then try and move on to bigger and better things. And in the mean time while looking, I can work on art/writing and I can also possibly get a new car with all the money we’ve saved up. My mama and granny might end up disapproving and judge me but 2020 was such a shit year and I’m tired of this. I feel like this job is taking advantage of us and legit just doesn’t give a crap about their employees.

Okay! Well that’s outta my system! Bleck

[duskdragon39]

dust can’t settle: Commentary

I thought you were done with credits and notes and commentaries, I hear you say. You had an entire chapter dedicated to credits and notes. Why do you have more notes?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, @stellarfoam​ and I wrote a thing for @pod-together, got a whole ton of talented people to help us read it, and created the first ao3 relationship for the tag “Original Fear Entity Avatar Characters & Original Fear Entity Avatar Characters (The Magnus Archives)” except the tag was too long so the “the” got dropped. You can find that here. If, however, you have already read/listened to/somehow otherwise experienced our oc/self-insert-heavy original statement fic, welcome! I assume you’re here because you wanted to listen to me ramble on for yet another thousand words. If you’re not looking for that, well, here it is.

Under the cut, anyways

The World of DCS:

This is, very technically, the Magnus Archives fanfic.

I say technically, because nowhere in this does canon appear. It appears in the inspiration and base worldbuilding, but other than that... yeah no.

So this started when Kai and I looked at the worldbuilding TMA has for the U.S. and went “yeah there’s got to be more than one institute.” Thus the San Francisco Institute for the Unusual and Paranormal was born, along with its satellite offices in Denver and Chicago. Those same satellite offices also serve The Usher Foundation in DC. The branch offices collect statement, both written and recorded, and other research on the paranormal. Every five years, SFIUP sends along a couple of archival assistants to go and transfer those files to long-term storage in San Francisco or DC. The relationship between the branch offices and SFIUP can be best summed up as follows:

Chicago & Denver: Bigger archives are always bossing us around :( San Fran & DC: Alright but can you like, actually store your statements Chicago & Denver: No.... San Fran & DC: Okay, so...? Chicago & Denver: DON’T TELL US WHAT TO DO

Also, we said screw you to Smirke’s 14. There’s every chance that by defining and putting boundaries on the 14 he actually helped shape them into those roles, and we figured that different places would have different mergers and interpretations of those 14. Most of our statements merge or ignore the defined fears- Something There is Dark/Hunt/Eye, Hung is Vast/Buried, Beauty is Eye/Vast, Shasta Lake is just a weirdly big fish, Dragon’s Cauldron might be Hunt? It’s more just a “alright but wouldn’t it be COOL if...”

We also have another giant document about how the fears might manifest in different parts of America.

Because there is never an end to the worldbuilding.

The Car:

Some random facts about the car for your enjoyment: - It woke up because something something knowledge = power and Lee and Dusk (LD) kept reading it statements - So now the equation knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass applies, which is to say that the trunk is a transdimensional space that LD primarily use for storage of random things. - Also a flesh monster. - It’s just back there. - It tried to kill them at one point while crossing through Minnesota. They shoved it in the trunk. It just sort of. Remains there. For awhile. - The car did not approve. - In case your wondering, the car is more or less a traveling archive, and LD are its archivists. - However LD did not sign up for this, and so their road trip culminates eventually with them killing the car. It is a long and terrible battle, and the two of them nearly die. - I have, somewhere on this computer, right now, a recording of the Car’s lovely voice actor Lynx doing a variety of absolutely terrible voices, including petulant teenager and valley girl.

Statements:

We have two pages worth of statement ideas still that we’ll get around to writing someday. If we stop adding to them. Here’s the stories behind some of the ones that made it into the fic, and some other general things I wanted to talk about.

Chapter 1: Archivist’s Note, San Francisco, Shasta Lake:

The recording classification system does not have much thought put into it, but follows the following format

[Media type];[Supernatural Classification].[Year].[Month]:[Employee(s) responsible for the case]

So in the case of [S;F15.2015.06-09:LD)], it’s: Statement(s);Multiple fears.2015.June-September:Lee & Dusk

Is this a perfect system? Hell no. Did this get as deep into archive classification systems as I wanted to go for a 15k fic? Yes. 

The Shasta Lake statement pulled heavily from several sources, including the Shasta Lake fishing website, Wikipedia, and an actual news story about a couple of guys who saved a sturgeon from choking on a catfish. It’s kinda an amazing story, especially since the fish was actually about 8 feet long.

Things I don’t want to run into, thank you.

Chapter 4: Empty City, Gas

Empty city was, as mentioned in the fic, inspired by a statement @laurenbrightwing​ gave to us. And yes, LD absolutely have gone and explored graveyards and abandoned buildings for the Aesthetic of it. 

Gas, however, came from The Car, an absolutely beautiful TAU fic by Feneris. Don’t ask what it runs on. You don’t want to know. Chapter 6: Greenway

Fic-Dusk used to work for the Denver Branch Office before going to San Fran. The branch office never forgave them for their treachery.

Chapter 7: Hung

Eastman Chemical Company is an actual company stationed in Tennessee, and this statement was very heavily modeled after Mag 124: Left Hanging, except with more buried vibes.

Needs more buried should be a motto.

Chapter 9: The Dragon’s Cauldron

Guess who went down a research hole? It me. 

Research notes for this statement can be found here. 

Sources: Debunking the Myth, Fear of Yellowstone (U.S. National Park Service) Native Americans and Yellowstone National Park: Hot Springs, Legends and Sacred Places Explore the Fort Yellowstone Historic District (U.S. National Park Service) Whittesly Yellowstone Myths.pdf Timeline of Human History in Yellowstone - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service) Legend of the Sheepeater Indian Tribe in Yellowstone - My Yellowstone Park The History of our Local Tribe: The Sheep Eater Indians - Bitterroot Ranch Dragons in Yellowstone - Yellowstone National Park (U.S. National Park Service)

Chapter 10: Something There, Archivist’s Note 2

RIGHT. This is a fun chain of events that have taken about three years to mature into this story. 

Something There started off with a nightmare about something stalking me through my house. I was thoroughly creeped out, and then promptly forgot about it for the next day until I went to walk through my house at night and thought I heard something moving behind me. 

About a year later, my composition teacher told us to write a speech. I think the prompt was truth? 

So I went off about the thing supposedly living in my house, how no one would believe me if I told them, and implying that I absolutely was lying about the entire thing. My teacher loved it, and I got the highest grade I’d gotten that year for that assignment. (“They lauded me for that, did you know?”)

If that sort of vaguely existential crisis sounds like something you’d have fun reading, the full speech can be found here. 

A bit later, I read the same speech for an open mic. One of my friends there yelled out that she believed me- something that did make it into the final version. (“One of my friends told me she believed me, once. I… I just shrugged and told her that there wasn’t actually anything there.”)

It eventually made its way into this project via me trying to figure out what the hell to use for a more spooky statement and stumbling across the speech sitting in my google drive. 

I managed to scare myself to the point of not being able to go upstairs in the dark for about a week with the updated version.

 I wrote it. 

This seems counterintuitive.

Does this make this a self insert story? No. Statement giver here does not in any way respond like I would have in this situation, and they’ve since drifted even farther into full OC territory.

The “they can’t hurt you if you’re watching/if you see them comes from the lovely tma time travel fic “Strangers in the Dark” by Mayarene Rose. 

MouseK also gave us the closing line for the fic! It wraps it up so nicely, and I’ve already squeed about this in the fic itself, but they deserve more because the line’s amazing and I love it. Conclusion:

Thanks to everyone who gave us statements, inspired us, and helped us with the project. It’s been an excellent time, and there have already been discussions of either statements collected on this journey or short stories set in the same universe being written. 

Thanks for reading!

- Dusk