#and i need my spreadsheets for them!!! i need to be able to buy shipping labels for them!!! i am so fucked!!!

[jattendschaton]

my laptop is dead dead dead 😞

[just-ornstein]

[JK]  My first job was as an Assistant Producer for a video game company called Interplay in Irvine, CA. I had recently graduated from Boston University's School of Fine Arts with an MFA in Directing (I started out as a theatre nerd), but also had some limited coding experience and a passion for computers. It didn't look like I'd be able to make a living directing plays, so I decided to combine entertainment and technology (before it was cool!) and pitched myself to Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO. He gave me my first break. I packed up and moved out west, and I've been producing games ever since.

[JK] I loved my time at EA. I was there for almost a full decade, and learned a tremendous amount about game-making, and met the most talented and driven people, who I remain in touch with today. EA gave me many opportunities, and never stopped betting on me. I worked on The Sims for nearly 5 years, and then afterwards, I worked on console action games as part of the Visceral studio. I was the Creative Director for the 2007 game "The Simpsons", and was the Executive Producer and Creative Director for the 2009 game "Dante's Inferno".

[JK] I haven't played in a long while, but I do recall that after the game shipped, my wife and I played the retail version for some time -- we created ourselves, and experimented with having a baby ahead of the actual birth of our son (in 2007). Even though I'd been part of the development team, and understood deeply how the simulation worked, I was still continually surprised at how "real" our Sims felt, and how accurate their responses were to having a baby in the house. It really felt like "us"!

Now for some of the development and lore related questions:

[JK] So I ended up in the incredibly fortunate position of creating the shipping neighborhoods for The Sims 2, and recruiting a few teammates to help me as we went along. 

Around the same time, we started using the Buy/Build tools to make houses we could save, and also bring them into each new build of the game (correcting for any bugs and incompatibilities). With the import tool, we could load Sims into these houses. In time, this "vanguard QA" process turned into a creative endeavor to define the "saved state" of the neighborhoods we would actually end up shipping with the game.

On playtesting & the leftover sims data on various lots:

Basically, we were in the late stages of development, and the Save Game functionality wasn't quite working. In order to test the game properly, you really needed to have a lot of assets, and a lot of Sims with histories (as if you'd been playing them for weeks) to test out everything the game had to offer. So I started defining a set of characters in a spreadsheet, with all their tuning variables, and worked with engineering to create an importer, so that with each new build, I could essentially "load" a kind of massive saved game, and quickly start playing and testing. 

It was fairly organic, and as the game's functionality improved, so did our starter houses and families. 

The thought process behind the creation of the iconic three neighborhoods:

I would not say it was particularly planned out ahead of time. We knew we needed a few saved houses to ship with the game; Sims 1, after all, had the Goth house, and Bob Newbie's house. But there wasn't necessarily a clear direction for what the neighborhood would be for Sims 2. We needed the game to be far enough along, so that the neighborhood could be a proper showcase for all the features in the game. With each new feature that turned alpha, I had a new tool in my toolbox, and I could expand the houses and families I was working on. Once we had the multi-neighborhood functionality, I decided we would not just have 1 starter neighborhood, but 3. With the Aging feature, Memories, a few wacky objects, plus a huge catalog of architectural and decorative content, I felt we had enough material for 3 truly distinct neighborhoods. And we added a couple of people to what became the "Neighborhood Team" around that time.

Later, when we created Strangetown, and eventually Veronaville, I believe we went back and changed Pleasantville to Pleasantview... because I liked the alliteration of "Verona-Ville", and there was no sense in having two "villes". (To this day, by the way, I still don't know whether to capitalize the "V" -- this was hotly debated at the time!)

Pleasantview:

Anyway, to answer your question, we of course started with Pleasantview. As I recall, we were not quite committed to multiple neighborhoods at first, and I think it was called Pleasantville initially, which was kind of a nod to Simsville... but without calling it Simsville, which was a little too on the nose. (There had also been an ill-fated game in development at Maxis at the time, called SimsVille, which was cancelled.) It's been suggested that Pleasantville referred to the movie, but I don't think I ever saw that movie, and we just felt that Pleasantville kind of captured the feeling of the game, and the relaxing, simple, idyllic world of the Sims.

Pleasantview started as a place to capture the aging feature, which was all new to The Sims 2. We knew we had toddlers, teens, and elders to play with, so we started making families that reflected the various stages of family life: the single mom with 3 young kids, the parents with two teens, the old rich guy with two young gold-diggers, etc. We also had a much greater variety of ethnicity to play with than Sims 1, and we had all new variables like sexual orientation and memories. All these things made for rich fodder for a great diversity of families. Then, once we had family trees, and tombstones that carried the actual data for the dead Sims, the doors really blew open. We started asking ourselves, "What if Bella and Mortimer Goth could be characters in Sims 2, but aged 25 years? And what if Cassandra is grown up? And what if Bella is actually missing, and that could be a fun mystery hanging over the whole game?" And then finally the "Big Life Moments" went into the game -- like weddings and birthdays -- and we could sort of tee these up in the Save Game, so that they would happen within the first few minutes of playing the families. This served both as a tutorial for the features, but also a great story-telling device.

Anyway, it all just flowed from there, as we started creating connections between families, relationships, histories, family trees, and stories that we could weave into the game, using only the simulation features that were available to us. It was a really fun and creative time, and we wrote all of the lore of Sims 2 within a couple of months, and then just brought it to life in the game.

Strangetown:

Strangetown was kind of a no-brainer. We needed an alternate neighborhood for all the paranormal stuff the Sims was known for: alien abduction, male pregnancy, science experiments, ghosts, etc. We had the desert terrain, which created a nice contrast to the lush Pleasantville, and gave it an obvious Area 51 vibe.

The fact that Veronaville is the oldest file probably reflects the fact that it was finished first, not that it was started first. That's my guess anyway. It was the simplest neighborhood, in many ways, and didn't have as much complexity in terms of features like staged big life moments, getting the abduction timing right, the alien DNA thing (which I think was somewhat buggy up until the end), etc.  So it's possible that we simply had Veronaville "in the can", while we put the last polish on Pleasantville (which was the first and most important neighborhood, in terms of making a good impression) and Strangeville (which was tricky technically).

Veronaville:

But my personal favorite was Veronaville. We had this cool Tudor style collection in the Build mode catalog, and I wanted to ship some houses that showed off those assets. We also had the teen thing going on in the aging game, plus a lot of romance features, as well as enemies. I have always been a Shakespeare buff since graduate school, so putting all that together, I got the idea that our third neighborhood should be a modern-day telling of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was Montys and Capps (instead of Montagues and Capulets), and it just kind of wrote itself. We had fun creating the past family trees, where everyone had died young because they kept killing each other off in the ongoing vendetta.

[JK] You know, I have never seen The Lone Gunmen, and I don't remember making any kind of direct references with the Strangetown Sims, other than the general Area 51 theme, as you point out. Charles London helped out a lot with naming Sims, and I'm pretty sure we owe "Vidcund" and "Lazlo" to him ... though many team members pitched in creatively. He may have had something in mind, but for me, I largely went off of very generic and stereotypical ideas when crafting these neighborhoods. I kind of wanted them to be almost "groaners" ... they were meant to be tropes in every sense of the word. And then we snuck in some easter eggs. But largely, we were trying to create a completely original lore.

[JK] Well, I think we kind of pushed it with The Sims 2, to be honest, and I remember getting a little blow-back about Bunny Broke, for example. Bunny Broke was the original name for Brandi Broke. Not everyone found that funny, as I recall, and I can understand that. It must have been changed before we shipped.

We also almost shipped the first outwardly gay Sims in those neighborhoods, which was bold for EA back in 2004. My recollection was that we had set up the Dreamers to be gay (Dirk and Darren), but I'm looking back now and see that's not the case. So I'm either remembering incorrectly (probably) or something changed during development.

In general we just did things that we found funny and clever, and we just pulled from all the tropes of American life.

[JK] The alien abduction started in Sims 1, with a telescope object that was introduced in the "Livin' Large" expansion pack. That's when some of the wackier ideas got introduced into the Sims lore. That pack shipped just before I joined Maxis in 2001; when I got there, the team had shipped "House Party" and was underway on "Hot Date". So I couldn't tell you how the original idea came about, but The Sims had this 50's Americana vibe from the beginning, and UFOs kind of played right into that. So the alien abduction telescope was a no-brainer to bring back in Sims 2. The male pregnancy was a new twist on the Sims 1 telescope thing. It must have been that the new version (Sims 2) gave us the tech and flexibility to have male Sims become pregnant, so while this was turned "off" for the core game, we decided to take advantage of this and make a storyline out of it. I think this really grew out of the fact that we had aliens, and alien DNA, and so it was not complicated to pre-bake a baby that would come out as an alien when born. The idea of a bunch of guys living together, and then one gets abducted, impregnated, and then gives birth to an alien baby ... I mean, I think we just all thought that was hilarious, in a sit-com kind of way. Not sure there was much more to it than that. Everything usually came from the designers discovering ways to tweak and play with the tech, to get to funny outcomes.

[JK] Possibly we were just testing the functionality of the Wants/Fears and Memories systems throughout development, and some stuff got left over.

[JK] I can't remember, but that sounds like something we would have done! I'm pretty sure we laid the groundwork for more stories that we ended up delivering :) But The Sims 2 was a great foundation for a lot of continued lore that followed.

--

I once again want to thank Jonathan Knight for granting me this opportunity and taking the time from his busy schedule to answer my questions.

[seat-safety-switch]

Tires cost a fortune. You can buy a car for $200, or at least you used to be able to, and easily spend double that on a set of rock-hard ditch-finders from the local tire shop. When I asked a tire company executive about it, they weasel-worded some mouth grease about tires being “expensive to ship.” Obviously, the only way I was going to get through this was to open a tire factory of my own.

This isn’t unusual. Tire factories used to dot this proud nation in a time before AliExpress and Amazon Secondus. Folks just like you and I would go to work and eke out a reasonable, middle-class existence – with a pension – putting high-quality tires under our neighbours’ cars, for cheap. Eventually, some spreadsheet said this was no longer cost-effective, and now we have to order our tires from another country.

I’m sure they have lots of good reasons for this. Tires are a lot better since the sixties and seventies: for instance, when it starts to snow, not everyone within a 50 mile radius of your car is instantly killed. You can brake harder into corners and also take them at greater speed, without them getting all greasy and knobbly as they heat up. You would expect this improved technology to cost more money, which means that the big tire executives needed to outsource it in order to make the final price more affordable.

Of course, this is patented bullshit. If you’re not interested in profit, you can make inexpensive, good tires all day long. Switch Tire Company, being technically a subsidiary of Switch Investment Corporation, is run entirely at a loss. We simply bet against ourselves every day, shorting our stock on the open market. People take the other side of it, maybe because we keep renaming our company to things like “Switch Blockchain Expressions” or “Switch Artificially Intelligent Hookerbots,” the sort of names that make the casual Wall Street Tier 1 investment bank think that we’re up-and-comers. Then we pour the money we made off their backs into running off a new set of race tires.

Sure, I could have used this kind of business acumen to do something other than lose money making tires for shit-box cars. How else was I going to be able to find 13-inch tires that are 10 inches wide?

[your-not-invisible-to-me]

Pages Toward Your Future (Matt Murdock x Reader)

A/N: *whispers* Guess who isn't dead? Long story short: this fic was supposed to be written for @pastafossa's birthday so many months ago. Since then, my laptop broke, and my apartment flooded twice. Alas, it is now here.

Happy late birthday pasta I adore you<3

Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Summary:

When you wake up one morning sick, Matt makes sure you still get to celebrate your birthday. or The time you can't go to the bookstore, so Matt brings the bookstore to you.

Word Count: 1,684

Warnings for Chapter: None! :) just some birthday fluff

Read me on Ao3 as Aaron gets his shit together.

Matt knew something was wrong the moment he woke up that morning. On a normal day, you were always up before him, rushing around your shared apartment getting your things ready for your day as an elementary school teacher. Even on weekends you would be up early – spending your mornings grading and catching up on lesson plans so that you could spend the rest of the day with him. You always made your plans around the both of you to make sure you had time together, and he loved you even more for it every time.  

So, color him surprised when his alarm started going off at ten on a Saturday, and you were still asleep next to him.  

“Sweetheart?” he called out, softly. He ran his hand through the knots in your hair. Immediately he could feel the tenseness in your shoulders. You were stiff as a board. “Are you alright?”  

You let out a groan as you attempted to bury your head deeper into the pillows.  

“Head.” you said so softly that no one else would have been able to hear it if it had not been for his senses. He caught on immediately. Sometimes you would get massive migraines, so bad it would leave you incapable of anything.  

Usually, you would pop some Tylenol and force your way through them. Luckily, you would not have to do that today.  

Matt slowly slipped out of bed, making his way to the kitchen. He grabbed a glass of water as well as his “comically large bottle of pain meds” – your words, not his – and made his way back to the bedroom. He placed them on your nightstand.  

“I have some medicine for you, sweetheart. Can you take some for me?” asked Matt. He kept his words soft. If anyone knew the need for quiet on days of pain, it would be him.  

He felt you nod before feeling you sit up, grabbing the glass and swallowing the pills. He couldn’t help but chuckle as you fell right back into his chest.  

“I have to get some work done, but it should only take me a few hours. Try to get some sleep, alright?” He tucked you right back into bed and headed back towards the kitchen, ready to make his own breakfast and get some work done.  

As Matt opened the fridge, a slip of paper that had been stuck to it fell off, sliding across the floor. Confused, he went to go pick it up, wondering what it could have been.  

Of course .  

Your birthday was next weekend, and while he had his own plan for a celebration with you, he had forgotten your own tradition that you did for yourself every year.  

Your bookstore trip.  

Every year you would spend weeks compiling a list of books from your TBR list that you wanted. You rated them, scored them, and made a list of books you would buy yourself for your birthday. It was something your parents had started for you when you were a kid, a way to keep their wallets safe when all their kid wanted for their birthday was more books to read.  

It was important to you. He clearly hadn’t seen them before, but there were spreadsheets involved.  

It was the one day of the year that he knew you allowed yourself to splurge on you.  

It was also what you had planned to do for the day – hence the list on the fridge.  

He also knew that with how busy you were, you weren’t going to get another free day for a while.  

Suddenly, he knew his plans were changing for the day. He dug his phone out of his pocket.  

“Foggy? Yeah, change of plans. I need your help today.”  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You know, when you said we needed to make a quick shopping trip, this isn’t exactly what I thought you meant.”  

Matt and Foggy stood inside Barnes and Noble, having taken the train down to Union Square so they could shop at the biggest one. Currently Foggy’s hands were full as he balanced a stack of books under his chin. Matt, on the other hand, was making his way down the list as best he could.  

“We’re almost done, Fogs, I promise.”  

“You said that an hour ago.”  

“Well, that was before I found out they had a lot of the books in brail.” When Matt had originally given one of the workers your detailed list of books, they had assumed it was for him, leading him over to the small brail section that the store had. While he had since corrected them, he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to be able to read some of your books along with you, or even be able to read to you.  

Since the image came to his mind, he had never wanted anything more. Reading was your thing, you devoured books so quickly, always excited about getting into the storylines and into the characters. While he was always happy to listen as you went on and on, the idea that he could read along with you and be able to know more about what exactly was going through your mind just brought him pure joy.  

Then there was the idea that he could be the one to read to you. It wasn’t something you had ever voiced before – hell it wasn’t something he had ever thought of before, usually it was other people reading to him – he knew he wanted to be able to give you this too. On days just like today when your head hurt too much to open your eyes, on days where your work was too stressful, where life was too stressful – he wanted to have a chance to give you something like peace.  

It was in conveying all this to Foggy, however, that his friend’s silence suddenly had him second guessing himself.  

“What is it, Fogs?”  

“Nothing.”  

“Not nothing, your being weird.”  

“I’m not being weird. You’re being weird.”  

“Foggy-.”  

“Really, Matt. It’s nothing bad. It’s just, I’ve never seen you like this before is all.”  

“Like what?”  

“Hopeful.”  

Matt paused, stunned a bit by his best friends' words. Maybe he was putting too much weight on a couple dozen books, but a bigger part of him knew Foggy was right.  

The scenes he was seeing in his head of times together with you reading were scenes of a future, your future together. With him.  

Maybe he had more thinking to do about what lied ahead. More planning. Books were okay for now, but he wanted more, and he wanted that badly.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn’t until a week later that you learned what exactly Matt had done. He had decided to save the actual surprise for your real birthday, wanting to add it to your list of presents.  

He had everything prepared when you woke up, excited for your reaction as you slid open the bedroom door.  

“Matt?” you asked, the clunk of the door echoing behind you. You looked around the living room, your mind filled with confusion.  

In front of you, scattered across the living room, were stacks of books in different places. There was a stack on the coffee table, a few across the kitchen counter, and more filled across the room.  

Right in the center of the apartment, there was Matt, a nervous smile spread across his beautiful face. 

“What’s going on, Matty?” you asked.  

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” said Matt, softly. He took steps toward you, bringing you to a spot in front of one of the books. It was then you realized that the stacks of books were arranged in a sort of line, clumped together waiting for someone to follow the path.  

“What’s all this?”  

“Well, I know you weren’t feeling well last week.” You nodded. “Well, I also know that because of that, you missed your day out to the bookstore.”  

You thought back to the previous week, remembering the details. You had almost forgotten your original plans for the day, yourself, too distracted by the pounding in your brain. When you woke up hours later, all you could be was annoyed at the idea of having to reschedule.  

Matt must have noticed your contemplation, as he continued.  

“I know you were upset at missing it, so I thought I would just bring the bookstore to you.”  

You let out a gasp, looking around the room at the specific books that were laid out. It was only then that you noticed the titles of the books, recognizing them off the list that you had spent just a detailed amount of time creating.  

All the books you had chosen, and all of them Matt had bought for you to read.  

“Oh, Matt...”  

Matt wrung his hands nervously. A myriad of thoughts went through his head. What if he had made a mistake? What if this was something you had wanted to save for yourself? What if he had picked the wrong books, made the wrong choices? 

“Is this, is it alright?”  

Even with his senses, he couldn’t predict the speed at which you threw yourself against his body, engrossing him in a hug. He felt the breath you took. He felt the drop of tears against his shoulder.  

“It’s absolutely perfect, Matt.”  

He felt you telling the truth.  

Later, after Matt had led you around the apartment on your own little book spree, after the birthday breakfast he made was eaten and wishes were given, Matt couldn’t express how happy he felt as you curled up against him with one of the new books he had gotten you. You had wanted to read some passages to him, and he was more than happy to listen.  

He couldn’t help, however, thinking about the new plan he was forming. The stack of his copies of the books, hidden in his trunk. Soon, he thought. Soon the night would come when he’d make you dinner, where he would spend time getting to read to you, and he’d ask you the question about your future and hope you would want forever.  

[jennawynn]

Starfield

I think I finally got rid of the "have to play as much as possible" brainworms, which is good. It's a Bethesda title. You basically know if you'll like it or not based on that one fact. It is solidly Bethesda. It is Skyrim/Fallout in Space. I like Bethesda games. I still play Fallout and Skyrim sometimes...

HOWEVER...

Things I wish it had... because where else can I shout this into the universe? You think I'm gonna go do it on Twitter? Ha. I don't think any of these are THAT egregious, either.

I love that I can be a space trucker or a miner and don't have to go be a hero somewhere. I don't love that you HAVE to kill people to get there. Like even just to get off the moon. Give me the potential for pacifist playthroughs, Todd! Or at least the option to skip the opening once you've done it. Or an alternate start where you have to earn a ship or SOMETHING. (Sometimes in Skyrim I'll just make an NPC who picks flowers and does alchemy to afford nights at the inn and food to eat, no killing, no nothing... so seeing that I can set up a mining outpost and take jobs to be a delivery driver/passenger vehicle or to sell to starports is A+ in my book.)

Tag for trash/sale in inventory. Sometimes I know I want to keep a thing. Sometimes I know it's just junk. I wish I could tag for trash/sale and then a) be able to see those in a sortable list to determine what I'm getting rid of first when I go over weight and b) sell it all at once at participating vendors.

Speaking of, SORT BY WEIGHT/VALUE. I *think* it's available on PC, but I'm on xbox and the UI is (necessarily) different. But I still think it should be an option. You KNOW how we play, TODD. You know we sit there to determine which junk is the best value for the weight while we're getting under max capacity mid-dungeon. Make it easy on us.

Land vehicles. Some of those POIs are _so far away_ and a) you make it so we can't sprint constantly and b) you space things out really far. It makes it a chore to explore and get those juicy surveys done. I almost _always_ max out a biome's survey options before I get to the first trait. Give us a speedier travel option, please?

Less suicidal companions. I can't tell you how many times I've sat there shooting at a pirate when my companion comes over and stands RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME and then complains when I accidentally shoot them. Maybe don't stand where my bullets are!

This is a much less common complaint than the others, probs, but when you have a chameleon spacesuit and you try to shoot... you can't see your ironsights/reflex scope. You have to go to third person or a scoped weapon to be able to see where you're shooting. So like... maybe just DON'T hide the sights? Or put a reticle up just so we can actually use the armor?

I suck at space combat and I'm not sure why. So I don't have a solid suggestion here, but that does seem to be the consensus- people don't know how to space combat because the system is either not good or not explained.

Oh that reminds me- BETTER TUTORIALS. I was EIGHTEEN hours in before I realized I completely misunderstood the lockpick minigame (which is a huge improvement fwiw).

Level ranges on the mission boards so you don't end up in a level 15 starfighter combat when you're level 5.

Current inventory counts on crafting/vendor screens. I need to know if I have 400 of a thing in my cargo bay before I buy/build another 30, please, without needing to back all the way out, check my inventory, then come back in. Or do an inventory spreadsheet. Which I totally didn't do. Promise.

[snowyjinsoul-sales]

hi, welcome to my kpop sale-trade-grouporder blog!

‼️ this is a work in progress‼️

my name is Lily, or @snowyjinsoul here on tumblr, as well as instagram and twitter! i’m a member of the kpop buy-sell-trade community on instagram, with over a year of experience in hosting photocard and album group orders mainly for loona (+ loossemble, odd eye circle, artms and chuu).

keep reading under the cut for general info, sales/trades/GO info, post directory, and more!

ABOUT ME

🔹 Lily (she/her), 23 years old, Graphic Designer, based in Germany

🔹 ult: LOONA, ARTMS, LOOSSEMBLE, CHUU, Lee Chaeyeon

🔹 stan: STAYC, tripleS, FiftyFifty, LeSserafim, IVE, Minseo, Kwon Eunbi, Yena, Idle

🔹 dni if you’re racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, younger than 14, …

🔹 if you’re a minor please make sure you have permission from your guardians to be active in the bst community, and if there’s anything i need to be aware of when packing your items please let me know!

🔹 I work Monday to Friday 8-6 so I might not respond immediately, but I will always get back to you asap 💖 Feel free to bump messages if i haven’t answered in longer than a day!

IMPORTANT LINKS

tba

GENERAL INFO

🔹 Items will be packed in order of: Penny sleeve > Toploader > Folded card > Envelope (+ everything secured with washi tape & sticky tape)

🔹 I always put a return address on my letters

🔹 For larger items I will use bubble wrap and/or cardboard

🔹 I will send address checks via DM

🔹 I only offer shipping through my local postal services Deutsche Post and DHL

🔹 Items will usually be dropped off on the weekend, I drop them off at a public mailbox or packstation

🔹 I don’t write usernames on envelopes, instead I will put a sticker or symbol on the envelope, & I will send a drop-off video via DM

⚠️ Once the letter is dropped off I’m no longer responsible for any damages or lost mail! ⚠️

GROUP ORDERS

I’m an established GOM with one year of experience and I always strive to improve my workflow and services, so if there‘s any questions, critiques or concerns please do let me know! :>

Please do not join my GOs if you cannot foresee yourself being able to cover all required payments.

GO Terms and Conditions

No backouts once I have requested payment unless you have found someone to replace you.

⚠️ If you go AWOL (away without leave) on me you will be blocked and blacklisted from my account. Timewaster and/or DWAYOR posts may also be made if I see it as necessary.

⚠️ If you do not pay initials by the deadline mentioned in the respective groupchat you will be removed from the GO. Repeat offenders will be blocked and blacklisted from my account. I only send payment reminders if there’s been no activity in the groupchat for several days before, it is your own responsibility to pay on time.

⚠️ I am happy to cater for extensions and payment plans but you must tell me at least 24 hours before the payment deadline. Extensions after this point will only be given for extreme circumstances and will only be given at my discretion.

⚠️ No refunds once I have received the first payment.

No strict deadline for doms payments if I am collecting them separately as I will hold items until I receive payment. However if I receive no response after 2 weeks I reserve the right to put your items back up for sale/trade.

GOs General Info

🔹 There’s usually 2 to 4 payments and I will provide price breakdowns on the respective GO Notion page / GO spreadsheets

🔹 If there’s a tracking link or number I check up on it’s progress regularly and send updates if there’s anything of importance

🔹 I will collect everyone’s addresses and info through google forms

🔹 When packing I will confirm your claims and address via DM

⚠️ For cheap photocard GOs I usually do not check the condition of the pcs extremely thoroughly. If there‘s any major scratches, bends, etc. I will of course notice and disclose it, but I will not check them under light for minor scratches, indents, or misprints

🔹 Once I’m able to send out I will post a video in my instagram story of me dropping the letters off at a public mailbox (with the addresses covered up, of course)

🔹 Packing info and costs will be calculated depending on the type of item and its size. I aim to make it inexpensive, and I am transparent about the costs and how I pack it.

SALES

🔹 i am operating all sales through a sales enquiry form, the link to the sales form is available via the “important links” section of this post or in every sales post

🔹 WW for photocards and other small items, European Union only for albums and other bigger items

🔹Prices listed in Euros € unless stated otherwise.

🔹 Payment only per Paypal F&F!

🔹 If you pay per G&S I will refund you immediately and block & blacklist you from my accounts

🔹 You have 24 hours to provide proof of payment or the item will be released for sale again! i can however hold items for up to 72 hours, just ask ^^

🔹 Addresses shared via my sales form will be deleted once you either receive your items, or if a sale does not go through / the items you were interested in were already sold

TRADES

🔹 Trading only within EU (European Union)

🔹 Not trading with non-kpop-related accounts and/or accounts with less than 10 proofs (unless i know you from instagram or we’ve traded before)

🔹 When dming me for a trade, please include exactly which of my items you are interested in and what you are offering to trade! Any dms that only say “I’m interested in trading” without specifications will be ignored

⚠️ You and I both have the right to back out of a sale/trade if either party feels uncomfortable, as long as addresses haven’t been shared or money has been exchanged. ⚠️

SHIPPING INFO

This is a list of (most) countries that I sell / ship to. Additionally I will sell to any other countries that can send money via PayPal F&F (friends and family). Under no circumstances ever will I accept payments via PayPal G&S (goods and services). Please make sure you can pay via PayPal F&F before contacting me.

🔹 Albania, Andorra, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembuorg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States

SHIPPING PRICES

tba

[shandian-go]

Announcement: Shandian GO Membership

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm excited to announce the launch of the monthly membership program to give joiners access to additional benefits! The membership is a bit like a Patreon system, where you can choose when and how much you want to commit, and the benefits will be available to you during your membership period :D

Before I get into it, I just wanted to clarify that you do not need to become a member to join current and future group orders. Pre-Orders, Ongoing Orders, Special Orders and In Stock items will be available to everyone and will carry on as usual!

Basics

Duration: max 1 month (until the last day of the calendar month)

Commitment: 1 calendar month, no automatic renewal

Price per month: $6 CAD

Benefit Highlights

1) Early Access - As some of you might know, I often buy extras for the GO's I host or grab rare/limited quantity merch and then make them available to joiners later on a first come, first served basis. One of the membership benefits is early access to these kinds of goodies, which means you'll have a better chance of getting something special :)

The items available for Early Access will vary month to month, but I'm always on the lookout for goodies that I think joiners will like, so will try my best to post something special each month!

2) Admin Support - For the more meticulous joiners, I'll be offering admin support relating to package contents as well as order history.

Members that receive a second payment e-mail from me can ask for a list of the items included in their package. Members can also ask me to run a report on their order history in a spreadsheet format to help with their own tracking!

3) Freebie Market - Sometimes sellers will include little gifts as part of orders, which will be available for members to claim for free! If I end up with full-sized items that aren't in tiptop condition and can't be resold, I'll also offer them to members for the cost of shipping only.

Like Early Access, the available freebies will vary month to month but hopefully those of you that like free stuff will be able to find something nice to take home~

4) Personal Orders - I often get asked about individual requests and re-opening past group orders, and after a lot of deliberation, I've decided to make this available on a smaller scale.

Personal Orders will be most helpful for those of you that:

missed out on a previous group order

really wanted something that I didn't open a group order for

need help hunting for out-of-stock or limited edition merch

want something and want it as soon as possible

As a member, you can request a Personal Order for up to 2 unique items per month. I'll then assess if your request is doable, and if it is, I'll help you manage the order start to finish!

Since Personal Orders do take extra time for me to organize and track, there'll be an additional handling fee for each Personal Order based on the complexity (see Membership FAQ for more details).

Ever since becoming a GOM in 2020, I've spent thousands of hours immersed in the world of Chinese merch so I'm able to go the extra mile for the Personal Orders I manage, such as:

check authenticity for official merch,

check that fanmade merch was produced with the artist's authorization,

give background about brands and availability,

research special order instructions or tracking information,

communicate with agents/sellers to resolve issues that arise, and so forth!

How to become a member

The Membership main page has a listing called 'Membership Fee', which you can add to your Cart and purchase at any time. The process is the same as any regular merch item and you'll get a confirmation e-mail when your order goes through.

After you've submitted the order and sent the payment, please reply to your confirmation e-mail with your payment confirmation attached to request the password to the member-only website.

Keep in mind that membership is based on calendar month and not the number of days, so the earlier you submit, the longer you can access the member benefits for the month!

Links

Membership main page: https://www.shandiango.ca/more/membership

Membership FAQ: https://www.shandiango.ca/more/membership-faq

Questions

If you have additional questions about membership that isn't answered in the FAQ, feel free to use the Askbox or e-mail me directly!

[glowyjellyfish]

I got so weary of endless testing that always seemed to take longer and longer that the next time my game passed the test, I went back in for some medieval makeovers. (The repositoried Celtic Bed set is 100% the culprit of the moment. I am now replacing it with the original and will then have to test for the next problem CC.) No lot builds, because I am missing a lot of stuff I want in, and I don’t fully trust Buy/Build Mode not to crash yet.

The Jacquet family:

Gilbert Jacquet

and Denise! They wound up slightly bland for Yeomen, but I don’t think either of them cares that much about style and fashion. Currently, I’m planning to have them run the local Hedge Tavern--although I recently realized that the idea is for Yeomen to be farmers, not Peasants, and am debating whether I need to have a hedge tavern in every subhood. Bluewater Village can support both a tavern AND a yeoman farmer, though, with two Yeoman families.

The Tinker family:

Stephen

Wanda

And Melody! I’m particularly pleased with Melody’s unladylike outfit, which I feel matches her original look pretty well, but they all turned out nice. They’re the Merchant family of Bluewater Village, and will probably own a Food Market like most of my starting Merchants. Might reevaluate that once I see how things go.

Finally, Florence Delarosa, the Gentry of Bluewater Village and my last sim of tonight! I’m not sure I noticed before her unique face shape, which is very cute when styled well, and I like how she turned out! Have not decided yet what her occupation should be, but her top priority is gonna be finding a husband with no inheritance of his own, so she can keep her title and position.

So, a very small update. Next sims to makeover are the Ramirez family, followed by Strangetown which I’m looking forward to. Strangetown, then Riverblossom Hills, then Veronaville, then Sim State University, then La Fiesta Tech, and finally Academie le Tour. That’ll be all the playables, and I’ll snag townies as they appear. I won’t be ready to play until I finish remodeling or rebuilding all the homes and businesses I need in Belladonna Cove, though, but makeovers are fun. I’m probably also going to do extremely light remodels on the other buildings in BDC, just enough so they look reasonably medieval from neighboring lots. Full remodels will be saved for after they are purchased and put into play.

I’m also pretty much out of stuff I can add to my spreadsheet or obsess over while I can’t play the game yet, which is a bummer, but for those unaware I am very proud of the calendar I worked out and the ages and birthdates I calculated for everyone. I also made up rules for ships and war and came up with some ROS events... I really need to be able to play! All I have left is assigning traits, secondary aspirations, and hobbies, all of which are better done in game anyway. Oh, and I also realized that some of the houses I have built might be too big, and LOTS of the premade houses coming up are going to be too big for the class of the inhabitants, so I’m gonna calculate a land value based on the size of the lot x 100, and sims living on a lot which has a value exceeding their social class-based rent will have to pay an additional 10% of the land value as part of the rent. This will encourage sims to move to a more appropriately sized lot if they can’t afford the one they came with.

[yournewapartment]

Wedding Planning

It is impossible to write an entire post on all of the intricacies of wedding planning, because it would just be too long and frankly exhausting. But here are some of the highlights that I think will help people in need! There are also extensive sources on the internet that are way more in-depth, but here’s an overview for you…

The Venue

The first thing you should do when planning a wedding is to pick your venue. Picking your venue will likely inform what date you set to be your wedding date. Most venues have limited availability, and if you want a specific venue for your dream wedding, best get that locked down ASAP. You may already have something in mind! If you don’t, my recommendation is to look for venues that host weddings year-round.

Choosing your venue will determine how “hands on” you’ll have to be in regards to planning your wedding. Venues that specialize in weddings and similar events will come with an entire staff of vendors ready to go for your wedding. If you’re doing a DIY wedding (like I did) you’ll have to find your own vendors. On that note- choosing a reliable and trustworthy vendor is SUPER important. There are so many options, it can be overwhelming to choose which will be right for your wedding.

If you choose a venue that is specifically used for weddings throughout the year, you will have the EASIEST time planning the resources part of your wedding. The venue will provide contact information for trusted vendors including (but not limited to): caterers they trust (or they may even have an in-house chef), photographers, make up artists, flower arrangers, DJs or musicians, etc. Simply choose which vendors you would like at your wedding, and of course, if you find a different vendor you like better, you’ll be able to use them. The venue will also assign you a key person who will manage all of the comings and goings of vendors and employees at your wedding itself. This is different than a wedding planner who you hire, this is just specifically a point person for you to go to with any issues during the wedding planning process.

If you choose a venue that may not specifically be made for weddings but is allowing you to get married there, they may or may not have contact numbers of trusted vendors. You may or may not have a point person, and I recommend that you at least consult with a wedding planner to make sure that you have everything under control.

If you’re creating your own venue (that’s what I did) you’re completely on your own and will have to find vendors your own way! See “DIY Vendors”.

Wedding Planning

Setting the right deadlines and expectations for your wedding will help the process be as smooth as possible. The easiest way to do this is to use an app specifically made for wedding planning. There are many good options out there, but I personally used The Knot.

These apps will create timelines for you based on when your wedding needs. They’re easy to personalize and disregard tasks and plans that are not relevant to your wedding. For example, I didn’t have bridesmaids, so I removed all the bridesmaid-related notifications from my timeline so I wouldn’t get notifications about those tasks.

You’ll receive notifications on your phone, reminding you to accomplish specific tasks. You’ll know which tasks are overdue and the order of which you should accomplish specific things. You’ll also learn how much contact you’ll have with specific vendors before locking them down.

My favorite part of using The Knot was the fact that it gave me a realistic expectation of when I should accomplish specific tasks. Which things would take more time, how many meetings I would need to set with specific vendors, etc. As a newbie, having all of these deadlines already created for me was wonderful.

The Knot doesn’t just stop there. It helps you set up your honeymoon, rehearsals dinner, as well as writing thank-you cards.

DIY Vendors

Because my husband manages a restaurant that also does catering, he had lots of networking connections he used to secure reputable vendors for us. While you may not have that direct of a connection, someone you know does have that connection! I recommend reaching out to friends, families, co-workers for recommendations. People LOVE giving recommendations.

If you went to a friend or family member’s wedding that was local, ask them for any recommendations. Ask them what worked and what didn’t work.

If a friend or family member has a wedding-related side hustle, consider working out a deal with them. For example, my parents own a garden, and one of their workers moonlights as a wedding photographer. We hired her, and she turned out to be AMAZING. Of course, always verify someone is legit before hiring them by checking their references and/or website.

If you find a trustworthy vendor, ask them for recommendations on other vendors. For example, our caterer recommended an ice cream truck company that we ended up using.

Use your network! You can always make a post on social media if no one in your immediate circle can help.

Creating “Save the Dates”, “RSVPs”, announcements … etc

We used Vistaprint for all of our paper goods. But there are SO many websites out there to explore! These websites have many different formatting options and always allow you to create your own formats. Make sure you have high quality photos saved on your computer that you can use to create cute mailings.

If you use a website like Vistaprint to create your mailings, they’ll have templates specifically labeled for weddings.

Also simply searching “wedding RSVP” on Google will give you millions of ideas.

Shop around on all the sites and create a dummy program and or mailing to see which site is the cheapest.

Search online for discount codes! A lot of websites will give you a discount for signing up for their email list

ALWAYS order more copies than you think you need. You’ll find yourself adding people to the guest list last minute and will be glad you’ll have extra. You also want to have extra copies of everything for your wedding scrapbook.

RSVPs

Shocking thing that I learned about weddings- most people DO NOT RSVP! If they’re coming, they’ll assume that you know that they’re coming. Even if you haven’t talked to them in two years. They may even be insulted that you’re asking them to RSVP. It’s bananas. I invited just under two hundred people to my wedding, and only fifty five RSVP’d. I’m not kidding.

There are lots of ways to track the mail you send to your guests, but from my experience, none are foolproof. In all likelihood you’ll find yourself contacting friends and family and asking them outright. This wasn’t an issue for me, because I didn’t have a formal dinner. If you do have a formal dinner planned and need people to make reservations for food, you may have to send out multiple reminders to RSVP and set a firm deadline.

There are ways to track the mail you send using an app, such as The Knot. But they only work if you have every single person’s email address. That may work if you have a smaller wedding, but asking two hundred people for their email is a time waste and not something I was willing to do. However, my friend got married, and communicated with people exclusively using Knot emails. The Knot even offers to bug people who haven’t RSVP’d for you, which is a nice feature. The Knot also allows you to go on and RSVP for people, which they can later go back in and edit, which is what I used.

There’s always the old fashioned way of tracking RSVPs… track of who responds via a spreadsheet or written document. Utter madness.

Registries

Online registries are so common, that most major retailors or stores have their own. For example- Amazon, Target, Etsy, all have their own registries. You can set these registries up so that the items are shipped directly to an address of your choosing. There are also apps that allow you to make “wedding fund” registries where people can send you money that is then deposited directly into your bank account.

If you don’t want to use The Knot for anything else, consider using them for your registry. The Knot registry is easy to use and connects to literally every website. You can literally find something obscure on some weird corner of the internet, and link it to your registry on The Knot for people to buy for you.

ALL of these registries keep track of who bought what for you, which is super helpful for after the wedding when you’re feverishly trying to complete your hundreds of thank you notes.

“Wedding fund” registries are great. Usually you’re asked to set a goaled monetary amount and to explain what you’re using the money for. People who donate are charged a small amount for sending you money, but that is something they pay on top of what they’re sending you.

Make sure to include items from a variety of different price points!

Don’t put an overwhelming amount of things on your registry. I don’t recommend putting more than forty things. You can always replenish if needed (I did that once).

Many people won’t buy anything from your registry until the week before your wedding. It sucks.

People with either buy you exactly what you want from your registry, will give you cash or a check at your wedding (make sure you have a box for these), or will just give you something random that you don’t want. We had a beautiful set of bowls and dinner ware on Etsy requested on our registry, most of which was purchased for us. And my husband’s one aunt went on to the artist’s profile on Etsy, and ordered us something random that did not fit our color scheme AT ALL. So now everything matches, except these random ugly bowls that she bought us.

General Tips/Tricks

The “wedding surcharge” is real fam! Vendors will charge you more for your wedding then they will for a regular party. Avoid using wedding terminology when speaking to specific vendors, if you can.

Some people will simply not give you anything for your wedding. It’s mind boggling and never who you would expect. Try not to take it personally.

If you do not grant every single guest a “plus one”, it’s likely that at least a few people will text you angrily and demand that you give them a plus one. So may even just show up with a “plus one” without talking to you.

Your family WILL get super offended that you didn’t invite an obscure person you haven’t spoken to in over a decade. Deal with it in the way you feel is best.

Speaking of your family, wedding guests will likely reach out to your parents before reaching out to you. So make sure to keep your close family updated on all of the wedding details.

People are OPINIONATED and it SUCKS. Bless her heart, but my Bubbie spent the months leading up to my wedding predicting every choice we made would blow up in our faces. She helped bankroll the wedding, so we had to sit there and take it. Nothing blew up in our faces, the wedding literally went off without a single hitch, and Bubbie even apologized afterwards and said it was the best wedding she ever went to. That hoe was trying to tell us that an ice cream truck instead of a cake was a bad idea! What nonsense.

In conclusion- You do YOU! Weddings are super stressful and EVERYBODY is judgmental and has an opinion, even if they aren’t married. Even if they have no direct relation to you and haven’t spoken to you since you were a child. Be willing to hear other suggestions, but stick to your guns. LIE LIE LIE if you have to. It’s your wedding! Your friends and family may seem upset in the moment, even though that’s dumb because it isn’t their wedding, but in the end they will love your wedding for what it is, and will forget they ever complained.

[catbatart]

Hey guys!  Got most of the way through printing out shipping labels for inktobers and sketchbook page commissions when suddenly, my Very Old Printer just...gave up. Right in the middle of printing.

I’ve been prolonging the inevitable with this but I’m the kind of person who delays buying something new until the last possible second when I am forced to.

This time is apparently no different.

So, long story short, I’m opening a few flash commissions to try to alleviate the costs of getting this bad boy.  I’ve had this particular printer in my amazon wishlist for about a year now, mainly because I could do some of my prints for conventions from home...which would be amazing.

I’m taking as many as I need to get to the cost of the printer, and plan to do them all by the end of tomorrow if possible. If possible, I’d like to even shoot for the ink bundle, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Typical commission rules apply (So please read them if you’re not familiar with them!)

Differences are- -I will not be applying Patreon discounts for these, as I need to get the money quickly and adding big discounts is counter to that! Sorry guys!  -I’m only doing figures! Not character sheets! This is for sake of speed!  -I don’t have a set number of slots! I’m filling up an auto calculating spreadsheet with commissions until the cost of the printer is hit!  -I will likely not be sending many WIPs if I send any at all for the sake of expediency!  If interested, please email me at catbatstudios (at) gmail (dot) com! 

I apologize for everyone’s commissions that I’m temporarily putting on hold while I do these! I just need to be able to print shipping labels again to mail out physical commissions! Thank you so much for your understanding! 

[kyoko0001]

私に薬の主人を呼んではいけない Chapter 01

SMUT ALERT!! 

Fai doesn't think the term 'drug lord' is an accurate description for his line of work. Of course, it's hard to explain exactly what it is you do when you find out that your Tinder crush is a officer at the Tokyo police department. Modern Day AU. KuroFai. Mentions of other CLAMP ships here and there. Full list of warnings at the beginning of each chapter.

Chapter 01 available here or click the read more link! 

Fai Fluorite was on his third large, triple chocolate caramel latte with 2 shots of expresso, and he wasn't even half way though his night yet. He had two more clubs to visit and a meeting with his Guatemalan importer to get though before he had to head to the Neko no me Café and start the ovens.

It took every ounce of his self-motivation to eat the grilled cheese his assistant, Syaoran, had so kindly acquired for him. It was easy to ignore the food while he balanced the books of Fenikkusu though. The once familiar task took frustratingly long…

Normally this particular establishment ran smoothly, but with Oruha out on maternity leave he had to spend a maddening amount of time keeping things moving. Don't get him wrong, he was happy for her—she had been trying for a child for so long after all—and he wanted her to have as much time off as she needed.

But—

He would be much happier with her back in her office where she belonged. There was just no substitute for someone who had been running this club for him for the last 8 years. She knew this place better then him naturally.

"Please eat a few more bites Fai-sama." Syaoran was frowning at him from the other side of the ornate cherry wood desk and the blond tugged his cheeks into a too cheery smile as he looked up from his work.

"I swear I'll finish it." His tone was purposefully cheerful, but he didn't quite manage to bring the smile to his eyes.

His assistant didn't look as though he was buying it today, and he wasn't sure if he currently had the energy to tug the muscles in his face any tighter.

Syaoran gave a defeated sigh—He could be such a smart kid sometimes.

Fai had every intention of sticking to his usual diet of pure sugar, caffeine and various other stimulants for the rest of the night. He would probably eat some blueberries at the café… Toyo had mentioned that the last shipment was deliciously ripe.

Keeping his body running when he couldn't sleep more than three or four hours a night was a delicate balancing act. Carbs and fat would make him sluggish and he couldn't afford that so early in the night. He had probably already hit his calorie goal anyways with the sugar packed lattes.

A greasy grilled cheese wasn't going to do him any good. Even if it was from the little dinner across the street and one of his favorite foods.

"Can you go run to the backroom and grab the inventory list for me?" Fai looked back down at the spreadsheet he was updating. Better to keep Syaoran busy then letting him fret over silly things like his lunch.

The teen nodded and pulled the door open just wide enough to slip through. After a year of working as the blonde's assistant he knew when to take a hint, and left quickly to give his boss some space.

The loud sound of the music rushed into the quite office like a tsunami despite his efforts, causing the blond to scowl. As soon as the door swung closed again the noise faded back down to a more tolerable level and Fai stood while grabbing the now cold sandwich off the plate. He had a hot minute before Syaoran would return—but better safe than sorry… Fai headed towards the employee restroom for some extra privacy.

Locking the door, he tore sizable chunks of the sandwich off and tossed them in the toilet. Flushing away the evidence, he sighed and washed the greasy residue off his fingers and dried his hands quickly.

Now to the next line of business.

If he was going to get though the rest of this night, he was going to need a pick me up.

It had been that kind of week unfortunately.

Or rather… That kind of month…

Year?

The blond wasn't entirely sure.

Fai pulled his cell phone out of the inner pocket of his dark blue Brioni suit jacket and set it on the sink. Digging a little deeper he found what he was looking for—a dime bag with just enough 'help' to get him though the rest of the night.

Lazily, he tapped some of the powder onto the shining porcelain of the sink. With practiced grace he shaped two identical lines with his visa. The only cash he carried was for the soul purpose snorting his snow, and he made quick work of twirling up his lucky ¥10,000 note.

Two deep breaths later and Fai was tilting his head back and closed his eyes while he sucked in a few deep breaths. What little discomfort he felt was quickly forgotten and the blonde used a damp paper towel to wipe down the side of the sink and slid the baggie back into his inner breast pocket.

He would need to do a lot more to get any sort of rush—but those lines would serve to make him feel a little more human.

He had been doing this on and off for years—and though he was sure his body would thank him for a brake form the illicit substances—he couldn't deal with it now. There were too many things that needed his attention. This shit was way better then caffeine that was for sure.

Once he was feeling a little more like himself, he leaned against the porcelain counter top and unlocked his phone.

The second line of break business was making sure there was nothing urgent that needed his attention. His people had his cell and knew that he was available at all hours should they need him.

No urgent texts, so there was nothing that needed his immediate attention. One of his bouncers had needed a few stiches after breaking up a bar brawl and Fai set a reminder to take care of the doctor bills and send him a card.

Emails for this week's accounting were coming in and he would add them to the books while he waited for Yuukito and Touya to show up for their opening shift this morning…

He added that to his calendar as well and sighed before hitting the home button. Between meeting with the troublesome supplier, one of his managers being out, and trying to get the months end accounting done he was going to lose his mind.

Absentmindedly he opened Tinder and started looking though the messages he had been ignoring for the last few hours. Maybe a good lay would help relax him enough to actually be able to sleep tonight…

Fai didn't have high standards and he had probably slept with half the men in Tokyo by now. Well… Half the gay ones at least. The blonde didn't care what line of work they were in—what they were majoring in—if they were vegan—liked beer or whatever else hipsters drank these days—what exotic vacations they took.

He just wanted them tall, with a strong shoulders, a killer body, and big cock. He didn't do clingy, long term, or batshit ether.

Fai already had money, nice cars, and a big house. He didn't need someone to take care of him—just get him off. As long as their kinks weren't anything too crazy, Fai was usually down to party.

It was nearing 10. Not too late to arrange something if he moved his schedule around. The blond scrolled though his open chats with a frown…

To clingy—To skinny—to short—to nosey…

Honestly with over nine million people in Tokyo the options were pretty shitty.

Back to the drawing board…

Backing out he started to sift through pictures of singles.

He never bothered to read anyone's profile and he sent the same messages to all of his matches.

Currently out on the town.

Would love to meet for a drink if you're not busy?

He made sure to include a few kissy faces and heart eye emojis and switched back to his email. It was Friday night so chances were good someone might take him up on his offer. If he didn't get a response soon, he was going to have to keep an eye out in the next club for a tipsy Mr. Tall dark and handsome that wasn't too far gone to keep his cock up.

He preferred his partners to be sober. They were usually better at actually getting the job done when they weren't too drunk to see strait.

Fai sighed rather loudly as the first responses started trickling in and read though them with disinterest. A few busy—a few too-forward responses including images of rather unimpressive genitalia—and hello!

My shift ends in two hours.

Still going to be out?

What were his chances that the hot one worked late? Fai smirked and sent back a thumbs up.

Where we meeting?

The blonde checked his calendar. He would be at Kyuden.

This club was on the tamer side—it had only opened two years ago and had surprisingly attracted an older crowed. Business men and single 30 something's who had money frequented the joint.

To cater to the more mature taste they usually had live local bands, or comedians preforming. It suited a more distinguished crowed better than thumping music and flashing lights the university students enjoyed. Fai rather liked Kyuden for that reason. Yuto kept it well managed so he didn't have to visit often—but they were looking to remodel the VIP area and Fai needed to approve the budget.

More privet rooms were needed—and more discreet seating.

Fai not only made sure that they had the largest selection of top shelf liquor in all of Tokyo, but at this joint he also staffed an impressive array of ladies to cater to the single gentlemen's needs.

So—like most of his establishments—it was walking the line of not quite legal.

It was far from a gay bar—but it didn't chase that crowd off ether. The could fuck quick in dirty in one of the more privet booths—and Fai could see firsthand the issues with the current layout.

Kyuden?

He received a response almost immediately.

See you then.

Perfect.

Fai slipped his phone in his pocket and turned to look in the mirror. He splashed his face with cold water and toweled his hands dry before heading back out to the office. Syaoran—the sweet thing that he was—had returned with not only the ledgers but also what looked to be another coffee for him.

"Thanks, Syao." Fai winked at him and accepted the folder as well as the warm paper cup that smelled like heaven.

"No problem."

Hiring this kid was honestly one of the best decisions he had ever made. Syaoran had started out as one of Fai's 'boys.'

Syaoran was not cut out for moving goods though— but he had needed a job. Fai had taken pity on him and hired the kid as his assistant. It turned out that he was a hard worker and had good taste in coffee, so it worked out for both of them.

He always seemed to know when Fai needed a refill on his latte, a Redbull, or shot of tequila.

The blonde had been though a lot of assistants over the years—that particular skill was a rare talent that Fai greatly appreciated.

Poor thing had made the unfortunate mistake of getting his girlfriend pregnant when they were still in high school, and regrettably, he had been forced to drop out to support them. There little son Tsubasa was too cute and Fai had a soft spot for kids. Syaoran was an honorable little knuckle head—so Fai had also hired his honey to work at his café during the day as a server.

Sakura was ditzy and clumsy, but she made up for that with her kind heart.

The blond sat back down in front of his macbook to focus on what he was supposed to be doing in the first place. His little hit early was doing its job and he powered though the last of the book keeping faster than originally planned.

They had made a profit. He always did—but the numbers were still lower than they had been before Oruha had left a month ago. It wasn't as though the staff had forgotten how to do their jobs—they were simply slacking since there manager was not there to ride them on their duties.

It peeved him… But made him appreciate the hard work of his managers. He wouldn't be able to run his business if it wasn't for their hard work… He couldn't do this for each one of his 22 clubs. Even if he never slept, he wouldn't have enough time to oversee all of the little details.

The blonde made a note to give each one of the managers a bonus. Keeping them happy and right where they were was paramount to making sure no additional responsibilities feel onto his plate.

Fai felt his eyes getting heavy again, his concentration didn't last long. He managed to discreetly excuse himself to the bathroom again and took another bump before he and Syaoran headed out to meet the distributer.

His McLaren 570s was in the parking garage across the street in his reserved spot. Syaoran rode shot gun and Fai put the top down as they pulled out onto the busy street.

Tokyo always had traffic—and after navigating those packed streets for 18 years—he knew the quickest ways to get around town.

They were meeting at one of his warehouses in the industrial district. As soon as they exited downtown, the traffic thankfully died down enough to actually feel some wind in their hair as he cruised the artificially lit streets in a comfortable silence. He pulled up with time to spare and double parked in front of the building.

During the day this place served as a clothing Wearhouse. Fai owned the property and rented it out to some exporter who sold cheap clothing online to rich foreigners. They got the space for cheap and Fai used it after hours for his own needs.

It worked out perfectly as a place to transfer goods, and as far as his intel went, the police had no idea. He switched it up every few weeks whether they were suspicious or not though. He hadn't had a meeting in this particular building in a little over a year.

Two of his enforcers were already waiting for him. Syaoran followed close behind him as they got out of the car and slowly approached Kusanagi and Seshiro. Both were dressed in their usual uniform. Black skin-tight tee and black jeans that served to make their muscles look even more impressive.

Too bad both men were spoken for. Seshiro was currently engaged to one of Fai's managers and Kusanagi had himself a cute little wife at home.

"Evening Sir." The men said in unison and Fai grinned at them.

"Have our guests arrived?"

He didn't expect any trouble. Even outside of Japan the exporters he worked with knew what happened when you crossed him.

If they tried it? Well the night would be a little interesting then now wouldn't it?

"No sir. Fuuma is with them in rout. Traffic." Seshiro returned his smile before opening the door to the Wearhouse.

That was all good and well. Fai could live without being the one fashionably late this time.

The blonde entered with his assistant following close behind him. They made themselves comfortable in one of the offices and waited. Syaoran made some tea and Fai checked his phone.

Kanoe, the manager of Kurōbā had texted him to inform him that one of the bartenders had quite mid shift. They were handling it for now but were going to need to get a decent replacement asap to handle the 4th floor bar.

He had a few promising resumes waiting for a spot, so Fai sent back a text that she needed to set up a meeting with him to go over them to find a suitable replacement. He accepted the meeting request that came in moments later.

Tomorrow at 5pm was early for him… but if she was short staffed, he could do it. Okoku brought in a good amount of money for him and if they had to shut down an entire floor, his pocket book would notice.

Now that that was settled Fai moved on to the next line of business… He opened a text from his step dad praying that it wasn't bad news.

It wasn't that he didn't get along with Taishukuten—not now that he was an adult at least. They just didn't talk unless it was about Ashura. If his stepdad hadn't married Fai's adoptive father, and had simply remained his law partner? Fai would probably avoid him.

After stepping in as a step parent and being put though the ringer by both he and his twin from the time they were first going through the emotional, hormonal, train wreck that was middle school? The feeling of polite annoyance was mutual.

Needless to say—the only time he got a message from the man was when something was wrong.

A picture of his father and… a cat?

Awe.

They had gone out.

How sweet.

Fai sent back a few hearts. He couldn't tell where they were from the background, but he was glad that Taishakuten had gotten Ashura out of the house. Since the accident his adoptive father had a tendency to stay cooped up in doors more often than not.

Fai saved the photo to his phone and set it as his wall paper. There were too few happy moments in his life recently. He like to have reminders of why he did all of this garbage to begin with.

Tapping the home button, he smiled at the new photo one more time before checking his tinder messages. Nothing else from—oh what was his name?

Kurogane?

Well at least his name matched his serious profile picture.

Fai looked through the few photo's the man had attached to his profile and smirked. He hoped Kurogane was as handsome in person as he was in these pictures.

One of him wearing a traditional Hakama was particularly charming. He must be into some sort of martial art—which hopefully meant he was in wonderful shape.

Fai smirked thinking about taking body shots off a well-toned stomach… Maybe this Kuro would be up for some less traditional fun tonight. It might not be the best idea seeing as he would still have work to finish tonight… but it was tempting.

If they clicked Fai thought he might chance an evening off to have some much-needed naughty relaxation in an actual bed. Maybe a ritzy hotel with a jacuzzi and bottle service in the room?

He could tie Kuro-hottie to the headboard and lick whip cream off his most sensitive areas?

"Is something wrong Fai-sama?" Syaoran came back into the office carrying a small tray with two cups of steaming tea—green tea of course—and pulled him out of his fantasies.

"No. I decided to meet someone tonight at Kyuden for a drink." Fai turned the phone so that Syaoran could see the photo of Kuro in his sexy hakama. "Cute ne?"

"If you say so Fai-sama." Syaoran laughed awkwardly and the blonde found himself chuckling.

This poor kid knew way too much about his sex life… Fai was severely allergic to long term commitment but had an obnoxious need for human contact. This caused and interesting predicament that played out in a near constant steam of short flings and one-night stands.

In the last 10 years his longest relationship had lasted a whopping 4 months and ended with him leaving his date at fancy eatery in Paris when they had dropped the L-bomb.

"If you wanted to call it an early night, I wouldn't be mad. I'll have Kusanagi give you a ride home after we finish up here?" The blonde offered with an innocent smile.

As much as he loved having his assistant to vet his phone calls and get him lattes, he didn't need the poor thing waiting around while he got plowed in a semi-privet booth by his date.

He paid him handsomely—but not enough for that.

"Yeah. The baby has a cold and I know Sakura-chan is exhausted from staying up with him." Fai frowned at that. It was that time of year he supposed… But why hadn't Syaoran mentioned it earlier?

"Why don't you have Sakura take the day off tomorrow too? I'll toss her an extra vacation day, so you guys can all take a day to rest." Fai was always lenient when it came to things like this. Surely Syaoran knew all he needed to do was ask and his boss would send him home?

"Are you sure that's ok Fai-sama?" the brunet didn't like to accept charity—the fact that he didn't out right refuse showed just how stressful having sick baby really was. He couldn't relate—probably would never have children—but he had spent enough time around their little tot at the café to know he was a handful when he felt under the weather.

"Yes." Fai confirmed.

Before his assistant had a chance to say anything further Seshiro knocked on the door of the office. Fai sipped his tea as he entered into the cramped room and closed the door behind himself.

Looking out the large window that overlooked the main floor Fai could see that the new distributer was waiting very patiently for them. He had brought a man and a woman with him—it wasn't unusual—normally distributers were accompanied by bodyguards like Fai's enforcers—but not always.

It was ether a show of faith.

Or over confidence.

Only time would tell.

"Are you ready Sir?" Seshiro didn't seem overly concerned.

Must not have found anything alarming on them during the pat down.

Wordlessly Fai stood, and they made their way out of the office. Fai had pulled a serene, emotionless mask onto his face and walked with Syaoran and Seshiro behind him, head held high, eyes blasé.

This was a well-choreographed dance. He had a reputation to maintain after all. It had taken a few years to prefect this particular act, but it had served him well so far.

He wasn't Fai Fluorite—the friendly neighborhood drug ring leader. He was Fai Fluorite—the slightly off his rocker, smiley psychopath that wouldn't think twice about ordering a hit on you or your entire family if you crossed him.

Once he was just close enough to see the individual hairs on the man's head, he offered a pleasant smile. "Its nice to meet you in person Mr. Reed."

Fei Wang Reed did not seem pleased to see Fai. This meeting was to set boundaries after all—and no one liked to be scolded.

"The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Fluorite." Fai could tell that he was forcing a calm tone as he spoke—he could see the anger in his eyes.

Good.

He may have just climbed to the top of the food chain in South America—but he was in Fai's house now.

His guests had to play by the rules.

His rules.

Tokyo was a big market after all. Sure—finding a new supplier for coke would be annoying. The stuff he had gotten from Fei Wang Reed's predecessor had been top grade, and Fai's boys had been able to cut and move the stuff faster than he could import it.

This last shipment? Low quality and full of cheap and slightly hazardous additives.

Since Cocaine was the drug of choice of his most wealthy clientele—he was not happy.

He was a drug lord sure—but he wasn't going to lower his standards and start selling low quality, possibly harmful shit to his customers just because he had gotten ripped off. He had built his business on his integrity after all.

"I'm trust you received my return shipment?" Fai made sure that his face was a perfect expression of disinterest. His tone apathetic.

Fai had sent the cheap shit back, along with an invitation to discuss their future business relationship.

"I apologize for the misunderstanding." Reed offered. He didn't shift under Fai's gaze.

He was a ballsy one alright.

Ballsy enough to send a response stating that they had tried to provide him with a service by sending him 'precut' product so that he would be able to get it to his customers sooner.

Right.

"And I trust that you have ensured this shipment is what were accustomed to receiving form your office?" If it wasn't, Fai was going to have to teach him a lesson… He would very much prefer that Fei Wang Reed followed his warnings.

"See for yourself." Reed tilted his head to Kusanagi who held out a small sample baggy to Fai.

He had been doing this a long time—and had picked up a few tricks over the years. The first rule of dealing with someone like Fei Wang Reed was assuming they were trying to off you.

It was pretty much the ultimate goal in the business he was in. Currently Fai was the ring leader of the drug trade in the Tokyo metropolitan aria—taking him out would be a big step up for someone like Reed. The respect he would earn from accomplishing such a task would be more them enough to ensure at least a few years of control.

"Syaoran. Please bring that table over here." The blonde motioned to one of the folding tables that was set up against the far wall. Reeds eyes narrowed—no doubt offended—but the blonde didn't care.

His assistant complied quickly. Fai dumped half the powder on to the table and used his Palladium Visa to slide it into one long line. Fai fished out his lucky ¥10,000 note and made quick work of rolling it up and handing it to Fei Wang Reed.

"Cheers!" Fai chimed.

Reed was glaring daggers at him as he accepted the note. Fai didn't buy for one second that this man didn't sample his own products—so he was ether seriously offended—or about to snort his own poison.

He bent, and Fai watched him finish the line in one go before straitening and tipping his head back—snuffing his nose loudly.

So that was a no on the poison then…

Fai pinched the edges of the dime bag between his index finger and thumb forcing the plastic to pucker open. It smelled fine… looked good… apparently not laced with poison…

Fei Wang Reed had apparently come here in the hopes of saving a client. For now, at least.

"Much better than the last shipment." Fai offered, but Reed continued scowling at him.

He would buy enough from the man to smooth his ego over the next year no doubt. Business was business after all. Nothing soothed a bruised ego like regular orders totaling over 50 thousand dollars.

"I am glad that it is up to your standards." Fei Wang Reed managed to keep his tone even, but the blonde could tell that he was seething.

"Yes. Sorry to drag you all the way out to Tokyo for this meeting. I'm sure you understand the importance that were on the same page however." Fai turned and started to walk towards the entrance of the warehouse. "Fuuma will take you to your hotel room. We should grab dinner before you head home."

Reed didn't answer, and Fai didn't look back to see his look of annoyance as he strolled casually out of the building. Seshiro and Fuuma would be keeping a close eye on him for the remainder of his stay.

Kusanagi and Syaoran followed after him. As soon as the door closed Fai heard his assistant let out the breath he had been holding. Even after 6 months he still wasn't used to the tense situations that came with negotiating price and purity.

Poor kid.

Kusanagi had joined him after he had left the military and was not so easily shaken. He placed a reassuring hand on the teens shoulder as soon as they were out of the building. "Once Fai gets outta here I'll take ya home. Give your nerves a brake."

Fai smiled kindly at both of them and checked the time. "Have a good night you two. I'll see you both soon ok?"

"You heading straight to Kyuden then?" Syaoran grabbed his bag out of the passenger seat of his boss's car. He dug out a small can that he offered to the blond.

Just what he needed—more caffeine.

Fai accepted the red bull. He opened the can and sipped it before answering. "Then to Akai Shiro and finally Neko no me Café."

"Please make sure to go home and rest Fai-sama." Syaoran's face was worried as Fai finished off the last of the energy drink and crumpled the can in between his hands before tossing it in a nearby garbage bin.

"I will."

He wouldn't.

Fai wasn't jittery—he existed in a state of perpetual exhaustion these days. His insomnia didn't seem to think he needed any sleep between working 18-20 hours at a time though. He would probably just go home and toss and turn between short naps.

He refused to admit that his poor diet, lack of exercise, coke habit, and the excessive amounts of caffeine he consumed on a regular basis had anything to do with it.

Hopefully Kuro-handsome would tire him out though.

Fai got into his car and backed out of the parking lot slowly. It was almost midnight and the lateness of the hour did nothing to unclog the constantly overcrowded streets.

The drive was tedious, but Fai didn't mind. He did his best thinking when he was stuck in traffic anyways. He ended up putting the top back up on the Mclaren and blasting the music.

There was a lot for him to think about. The café was doing well for only being open for a year—and a food critic was going to by tomorrow to write an article about them. He had to do the prep work for Toya so he could really wow him or her.

The good press might bring in enough new clients to fund the opening of a second café… Yuuko, his personal attorney and impromptu life coach, had warned him to keep the funds for the Neko no me Café completely separate from the rest of his affairs, as it was the only joint that had nothing shady going on.

He was building his safety net should things go south with his more lucrative clubs.

In reality he was hoping that he could eventually manage his expenses with the café's profits alone and sell off the riskier side of his business to be done with the madness of it all. The novelty had worn off years ago and he was getting to old to deal with the constant power struggles, and import/distribution issues anymore.

It was affecting his mental health drastically.

His family was starting to notice… Ask questions… it was all becoming so terribly complicated.

When he had first dropped out of college to deal, he had resigned himself to the fact that he would probably end up this way. Even the best of them did. It was a hard field to be in… But he couldn't help hoping that maybe there could be more to his life then working 100-hour weeks.

Fai sighed loudly as he pulled in front of Kyuden and tossed the key fob at the bouncer. There was no line outside the door like most of the clubs he owned—Kyuden was slower. There VIP tables were booked up most nights though and even with less foot traffic, Yuto pulled in a nice profit for him.

They sold more skin then booze here.

The blonde pushed the heavy wooden door open and smiled kindly at the hostess who greeted him. She knew who he was. They all did.

"I have someone important meeting me here for a drink soon. His name is Kurogane. I'll be at my usual table." Fai flashed her the profile picture and she gave him a knowing smile and nodded—making a note of his name on her list.

With that taken care of Fai headed in through to the main bar and headed straight up the stairs to the balconied VIP section. Yuto had been behind the bar mixing drinks for an older couple but nodded his acknowledgement before continuing what he was doing.

The most privet booth had been reserved for him when he had announced that he would be stopping by to talk budgets tonight. It worked well for a privet conversation about finances, as well as some hot and haughty alone time with his date.

Hopefully he wasn't shy.

Fai took out his phone and sent a quick message to Kuro-muscles.

I got us a booth.

Let the hostess know you're here to meet me.

she will bring you back.

While he waited Fai ordered a black coffee and stood to refamiliarize himself with the layout of the upper level of the club. There wasn't much unused space to work with… but they could probably move some things around to suit the guests needs better.

As it was—most of the tables had a wonderful view of the stage down below—but no view of the other patrons. That seating was rather limited however… only so much room.

The blond rubbed his temples and checked his phone again.

Be there in 5.

Fai finished of his coffee and double checked his appearance in front facing camera of his phone. The waitress swung by and collected the empty mug and left two drink menus in its place—and he was left watching the entrance of the club impatiently.

True to his word. Kuro-sexy arrived in five-ish minutes.

Dear god was he tall.

Kurogane towered over the hostess who had been just a few inches shorten then himself in her heels. He looked uninterested as she flashed him a flirtatious smile and Fai was left smirking as he followed her though the main bar and up the stairs.

He made himself look busy by checking his phone as they made the rest of the trip to the far end of the VIP section. He could hear his heavy footfalls as they approached but didn't look up from what he was doing just yet.

He didn't want to look thirsty—even if he was.

Kuro-hunk didn't need to know how desperate he was. It would probably be a huge turn off.

"Here you are sir. The waitress will be by shortly to take your order." As they were trained to do, the hostess bowed deeply and Kurogane thanked her before sliding into the circular booth next to the blond, Leaving a respectful amount of space between them.

She left them be, and only then did Fai look up from his phone to flash his most dazzling smile. "Thanks for agreeing to meet me on such short notice."

"Yeah." Kurogane was looking him over carefully and Fai just continued to smile. He knew he was exotic looking compared to your average person here. He had been born overseas after all.

Maybe Kuro-broad had a fetish for blondes?

"Something wrong?" He kept his voice purposefully sweet and tilted his head slightly to the side.

"Not really. You normally dress like that?" The raven-haired man's voice was deep. Wonderfully deep.

Fai glanced down at his outfit. Yes—yes, he did. He was almost always dressed in a three-piece suit.

"Work cloths." He confirmed and Kurogane nodded. Still watching him with piecing crimson eyes.

Fai hadn't noticed his eyes in his profile picture, but they were stunning.

There was another long silence between them and Fai was starting to wonder if something was amiss? Something in his teeth?

He was hot, but for Christ sake. You would think he had sprouted a second head with the way Kurogane was scrutinizing him.

"I don't mean to be rude—" the tanned man finally spoke. "—and don't get me wrong I think you're… You're fucking beautiful. But why the fuck are you, of all people on a hookup app?"

Oh?

Fai smiled. That was not the first time he had been asked this on a date before. Especially if they saw him pull up in one of his expensive cars—or when he ordered the most expensive menu items.

He made a point not to allude to being well off financially before he met someone the first time. It attracted the wrong crowd.

"Trying to find out what's wrong with me?" the blond gave a mischievous smirk, his nose wrinkling with amusement at the younger man's words.

"Tch. Pretty fucking much." Kurogane finally glanced over the menu and Fai shook his head slowly.

Such a potty mouth.

"I'm an emotional wreck who works 80+ hour weeks and I'm in desperate need of a good orgasm for my sanity." Fai deadpanned, and those crimson eyes locked with his own.

He saw the younger man's ears tinge red at his directness.

Ugh. How freaking cute.

"What about you Kuro-handsome… Why is someone so—" Fai gestured vaguely in the man's general direction and smirked. "—surely you must have gentlemen such as myself—well you know." The blond winked, and the blush spread to the taller man's cheeks.

Oh god. Why was he so cute?

"Same, minus the emotional wreck part. I moved here and I'm working late shifts so it's hard to meet people… And my name is Kurogane." Kuro-proper set the menu aside and the waitress took that as her que to interrupt them for their order.

"Let Yuto know I'll have his recommended scotch. Neat please—" Fai looked at his companion and cooed. "And this handsome gentleman here will have—?"

The red spread further on his cheeks still and he swore he saw Kurogane's eyebrow twitch. "Masumi sake."

The woman nodded politely—used to Fai's flirtatious behavior with his 'guests.' She retreated to retrieve their drinks leaving him to continue to smile at the seemingly grumpy man if front of him.

"So, you just moved to Tokyo?" Fai said to break the silence.

Normally there was a hand down his pants by now and a few hikies on his neck. It seemed as though his companion was ether shy, or unhappy about something.

That was ok—he knew he had a tendency to intimidate people—younger men especially. They could chitchat till Kuro-cutie was comfortable.

"I moved here about a month ago from a smaller town just outside of Tokyo." Kurogane seemed to settle from his earlier embarrassment. He was still handsome even when he wasn't trying to hide his awkwardness, so Fai wouldn't complain.

"I see. And how do you like it so far?" Fai had met more than a few new arrivals to Tokyo since had started whoring his way through Tinder almost two years ago. A few university students—some art enthusiasts—young business man—they all had their reasons.

"I hate it. The rents expensive and there are way too many people. Its dirty and its always loud." Fai blinked a few times.

He wasn't wrong.

The blonde chuckled at that answer though. Kurogane really was no nonsense and Fai liked it.

"So, what brought you to Tokyo then if you dislike it so much?" The blonde had lived here his entire life, so he was used to the hustle and bustle of big city life—he knew it was off putting to some.

"Work. I'm hoping I don't have to stay for long." Well that was that Fai supposed—Tokyo wasn't for everyone—and it meant that Kuro-cranky wasn't looking for love.

Excellent.

"You have an accent. Were you born here?" Kurogane asked when Fai didn't immediately respond to his earlier statement. He was staring at his body again—the blonde's suit was well tailored but in the darkness of the room it would be hard to tell what he had going on under the layers of fabric.

"No. I was born overseas. My father adopted me when I was little. This has been my home for the last 29 years."

A lot had happened in 29 years…

"Shit. How old are you?"

Fai was sure that out of the sparse information that he had included on his profile he had at least provided the fact that he was into boys and his age… that's all the information there was about him…

"I'm 33."

"Damn. I thought that was a typo. You sure as hell don't look 33." It was Fai's turn to laugh uncomfortably.

He was fine with an age gap for something like this. They were both consenting adults—and seemingly attracted to each other. Anyway, he actually preferred his partners younger then himself. He would rather play the roll of sugar daddy vs. sugar baby with the people he dated.

No matter how casual the relationship, or who toped whom.

"I'll take that as a compliment I suppose."

Kurogane's checks flushed again and he scrubbed at his face roughly with both of his hands.

"—I didn't mean— you're fine. I didn't mean to make you think there was anything wrong with that. It ah—just surprised me is all." Those crimson eyes fell to stare at his tanned hands and Fai tried not to grin too widely.

Kuro-shy was adorable. He shouldn't tease him too badly else he may scare him off.

"You've never done anything like this before have you?" the blonde chanced reaching his hand out to place it over the younger mans in an attempt to comfort him.

He didn't flinch at the platonic touch. That was good right?

"This is the first time I've actually met someone off tinder in person." Kurogane admitted.

No wonder he was so nervous.

"Well there is a first time for everything. We aren't going to do anything you don't 100% agree to. We can just have a drink and talk if you want?" Fai really wanted to get his clothes off and ride his dick until he saw stars. But only if Kurogane wanted to pound him till he couldn't walk right.

Fai had enough people trying to get in his pants without having to pressure his date into sex.

"Its not… Fuck. It's not like that ok?" the raven-haired man seemed to get even more flustered and Fai's amusement tuned to confusion.

What the hell was it then?

Tonight was not supposed to be this complicated.

"I'm not some sniffling virgin-" Kurogane locked eyes with Fai and glared hard. "You're just… not what I'm used to. That's not a bad thing I just don't… want to do the wrong thing."

"Oh." Fai said.

Not what he was expecting? What was he expecting then?

"Are you pleasantly surprised or moderately disappointed Kuro-muscle?" Fai offered in a teasing tone as the waitress brought there drinks back to them. Fai thanked her for the both of them and took a nice log sip of his scotch.

"Both. You're hot as fuck but annoying as hell. And my name is Kurogane." His companion sipped his sake and watched Fai with sharp eyes.

"Whaa? Kuro-meanie thinks I'm annoying? I was only concerned for your feelings…" he said a little too loudly in a whining pout.

"Are you some kind of idiot or something? Ku-ro-ga-ne." those red eyes were glaring sharper still and Fai chuckled. They were almost sharp enough to cut paper.

It shouldn't be so much fun to get a rise out of him.

"Kuro-tan?"

"Kuro-gane. It's not that hard." His eyebrow was twitching now, and Fai had to bite the inside of his cheek to hold back his grin.

"Kuro-pii?" the blond said innocently and sipped his drink again.

"Jesus Christ…" the younger man rubbed at his temple. "Say it with me. Kuro—"

"Kuro—" Fai chimed happily.

"—Gane." He repeated the second half of his name slowly. "Kuro—gane." Spoken with extra emphasis on the 'gane' part.

"Kuro-myuu?" Fai offered. He swore he could see a bit of his dates soul die as those words left his lips.

"Fuck me…." Kurogane was looking at him in disbelief. The blond wasn't sure if he actually thought him incapable of speaking his name properly, or if he knew the older man was pushing his buttons on purpose.

The fact that it was hard to tell was gloriously amusing.

Had no one ever teased this poor guy in his life? Fai was having far too much fun doing it now.

"Gladly." He made sure to keep his expression as neutral as possible while the younger man's face flushed beat red.

"Shut up!" Kuro-bashful huffed and looked away and Fai raised a single, impeccably manicured eyebrow at him. "You're a fucking weirdo you know that! That's what's wrong with you!"

Fai simply sipped his scotch and swished the earthy liquid around in his mouth, before swallowing it.

There was way more wrong with him then they had time to discuss—so he settled for continuing to tease his new friend mercilessly.

"I think I know what you meant by me not being what you expected."

Those red eyes flashed back to look over at him again and the blond gave a devilish smirk.

He thought about what he was going to say next carefully. He wanted to see those tanned cheeks blush dark enough that Kurogane looked like a delectably embarrassed tomato.

"You saw my picture and imagined a shy little blonde foreigner clinging onto you and blushing like a meek little bottom didn't know?" Fai always attracted that type.

He could play innocent if he was feeling it—but he had done things that would make your mother roll in her grave.

Kurogane seemed suddenly petrified by Fai's words as he continued to speak in a singsong tone. "Then you met me and realized I'm older then you and more experienced. I'm definitely not meek—I am not the one who has been blushing tonight—and you start to wonder how things would work out if we had sex right?"

Kurogane remained silent and Fai leaned in close enough to whisper hotly in his ear. "You're totally freaked out that your aroused right now—even though it might mean taking it up the ass from a pretty blond foreigner. Right Kuro-honey?"

"Shut—Shut up." Kuro-manly pushed Fai roughly away and the blond burst into a fit of giggles.

It was so much fun teasing Kurogane that it should be illegal…

"I don't see what's so fucking funny here blondie." The look of pure shame induced hatred was just too much and Fai covered his mouth with one of his hands in an attempt to get himself under control.

"I'm right aren't I?"

"I swear to god blondie if you don't shut the fuck up right now, I'm going to make you regret it."

Fai took another sip of his liquor. The distinct harsh taste helped distract him as he tried to think of what could put his potential lover at ease. When the last of the giggles had wiggled free of his throat, he slid closer to Kuro-baby again, so that their thighs were touching.

"I'm flattered that you think I'm so attractive you would let me fuck you Kuro-sexy." Fai drew out his words seductively and nipped at his junior's neck playfully. "But I have never had any desire to top anyone—definitely not someone as—" Fai sucked slowly on his neck this time. "—impressively tall and broad as yourself."

Kurogane shivered. Fai didn't know if was from sheer arousal or relief at knowing he wouldn't being trying anything too different tonight. Both were likely seeing the massive hard on bulging rather obviously in the man's jeans.

"I could perhaps be convinced to bend you the table and make you my bitch—But only if you beg me of course." Fai added as he looked up at Kurogane though heavy lashes.

"You're a fucking bastard you know what?" Fai yelped as he felt a muscular arm slide around his waist and pulled him close so that he was pressed firmly against Kurogane's hot body.

God he was big.

"You're not the first to tell me. It's not a secret." Fai sighed as his date ran a hand all the way up his side—applying just enough pressure to tickle through the layers of fabric—right to his neck, callused fingers brushing the sensitive skin in a surprisingly gentle manner.

Kurogane used his free hand to sip his sake and Fai was suddenly aware of just how horny he really was from just those chaste touches.

He hoped he didn't embarrass himself…

The waitress returned with a tray carrying another neat scotch and Masumi sake. She set both of them on the table—along with a suspicious number of napkins—and pulled the curtain that covered the entrance of the booth closed.

Kurogane looked confused and Fai used the opportunity to crawl into his lap—swinging his leg into position so that he and his date were nose to nose.

Fai didn't want to explain to him why there were privacy curtains on the booths—or that the waitress had closed the curtain because there flirting was probably catching other patron's attention. That would just ruin the mood.

Instead he closed the distance between their lips and kissed him sweetly. Fai would let Kurogane take the lead for how he wanted this to go. If that would make his lover more comfortable, Fai would roll with it. he relaxed into the taller man's chest and simply enjoyed as his senses as took his partner in.

Kuro-koi was warm. His skin felt hot against Fai's chilly fingers as he trailed them up and down his strong arms. He smelled clean—like aftershave and fresh laundry—and his lips were flavored with the sake he had been sipping.

All in all, he was intoxicating.

Kurogane seemed to get the picture and brought one hand up to tangle in the blonde's soft hair and used the other to lift his ass and scooch their bodies even closer, so that the smaller of the two had to crane his neck to keep their lips connected in the heated smooch.

Fai couldn't help the soft sighs he was making as Kuro-chi massaged his scalp and ran his fingers though his short locks while they kissed. The younger seemed to notice his fondness for that particular action and so continued to so even after their kiss broke.

The hand that had previously been on his ass started to loosen Fai's tie and the smaller man was biting his bottom lip while he watched Kurogane pull the decorative fabric fee and let it hang around his shoulders loosely. Next was the vest—but this required two hands—and Fai gave a disappointed whine as the he worked the layers of his clothing free.

Fai shivered from a combination of cool air of the room touching his previously covered skin, and his lover's hot hands ghosting over the sensitive flesh as he slowly worked the buttons of his dress shirt free.

His gaze had stayed transfixed on Kurogane's hands while they finished their task. The blonde considered what those hands would look like rubbing up and down his chest, and over the sensitive skin if his thighs.

An involuntary soft moan escaped his lips and he closed his eyes to picture it further as the younger continued to carefully undo each and every button with care. Fai didn't know it was because his hands were so big that he had a hard time with the little buttons—or if he was savoring the moment.

He didn't care ether way. He was enjoying himself.

Eventually the last button came free and Fai heard Kurogane growl as all three layers of his clothing were push off his small frame at once. Suit coat, vest, and dress shirt sliding to the floor underneath the table, forgotten.

"Shit." Kurogane leaned back and looked down at him. Fai was panting as he was observed though half lidded, hungry crimson eyes.

"Shit." he repeated as those hot hands were hesitantly placed on either side of the blonde's torso—just above the hem of his pants—and Kurogane bit his lip as he slowly ran them up and his naked skin, leaving goose flesh in his wake.

"Thank you?" Fai smiled at him and Kuro-swear at least had the decency to look slightly embarrassed at his language.

"Beautiful." He corrected, and it was Fai's turn to flush.

He had been called beautiful before—usually by woman with perhaps a handful of men offering those words to him—but never in the middle of sex with a Greek god of a man looking at his body like he was thanksgiving dinner.

Fai shuttered and closed his eyes. His entire body was feeling hot—he wasn't used to his skin being this sensitive but the raven haired man's feather light touches were driving him crazy.

He couldn't remember the last time he had had sex this good—and they hadn't even gotten to the actual fucking part yet.

This was not his usual quick and dirty hook up he got off tinder, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or not. Normal there was a few minutes of sloppy kissing before Fai got pushed against a wall, or bent over a table, and fucked hard and fast. Occasionally it ended with him getting sucked off if he needed a little extra help to finish…

No one had ever freaking worshiped his body with hungry eyes like Kurogane was currently doing. He had bent forward and was currently swirling his tongue around one of Fai's nipples while his finger gently massaged the other, alternating between rubbing the areola and pinching the tender skin between his thumb and index finger.

Applying just enough pressure to make Fai squirm his hips in the younger man's lap. He was acutely aware that this was not the most privet of setting and the blond mentally kicked himself for not finding them a better place to continue.

Fai wanted his lover very naked right now. Naked and on top of him—inside of him.

He didn't want to focus all of his attention on being quite—he wanted to scream in pleasure and curse his lover for making him feel so undone.

Not in the middle of his club though—definitely not in front of his employees. To ensure he didn't draw too much attention to himself, Fai was coving his mouth with one of his hands—his other fisting into Kuro-tease's tee-shirt.

All of these sensations were too much but in a wonderfully, overwhelmingly, delicious way that made him want to crawl out of his own skin.

Kind of like when you went to chiropractor—and their adjustments just hurt so fucking right.

Fai tugged particularly hard at Kurogane's tee and the younger stopped his intoxicating little nips and kisses to look at Fai.

"Do you uh… really wanna…?" Kurogane ground his erection against Fai's ass as if to finish the unspoken question and Fai whimpered and nodded his head quickly.

He was sure he was going to die after all of that teasing. He needed release.

"You wanna do it… here? I don't have any lube or a condo—" Fai silenced him with a sloppy kiss.

"Fuck the lube just use spit." Fai ground their hips together and Kurogane growled at the contact.

"And the condom?"

Fai would defiantly prefer it if they didn't use one—but now was not the time to push that issue. While he only ever used protection when his partner requested, he always came prepared.

"Wallet." His words came out in a breathy sigh while he shifted to regain the black leather Dunhill wallet. He retrieved the shiny metal wrapper and handed it to Kurogane before tossing his wallet back on the table.

To his surprise—the taller man set it aside and those hot hands run up his sides again and pulled Fai forward and the taller man kissed his way down the blonde's neck. Every move he made was smooth, paced, thoroughly deliberate, and it was intoxicating.

Kurogane ran those hot hands back down his sides, dragging his nails lightly across the smooth pail skin, then up his back. Massaging small circles in the tight muscles as he went. Fai was left again gripping uselessly onto his cloths and shifting his hips back and forth to create an enticing friction.

Eventually with enough quite whines Kurogane kissed his lips a little more roughly and reached for the blonde's belt. The buckle came loose with a little work and Fai shifted onto his knees so that he was eye level with his lover.

Their position was unfortunately awkward considering their tight quarters and the inconvenience of clothing. Fai didn't want to get completely naked in public like this… that wasn't a good call.

Again, he mentally kicked himself for not planning this better.

Kuro-crafty seemed to be content to make it work and Fai didn't question him when he was presented with three very large fingers. The blonde gave his best sultry look as sucked them with a little more force then needed.

Kurogane watched him with famished eyes—Fai hoped that he was thinking about what it would be like to have him sucking someplace a little more pleasant. His mind wondered back to his earlier musings about whip cream and a little rope and he moaned a little too loudly.

It was a much more—vivid—picture from the taller man's lap.

There was no need for fantasies when he had the real thing in front of him right now though.

Once he had meticulously coated Kurogane's fingers with saliva he closed his eyes and tried to relax as he felt that same hand slide down the back of his slacks. Kurogane probed at his entrance while nipping and kissing his way down Fai's neck and the overwhelming sensation of the hot breath puffing against his skin, and the gentle pressure of those slick fingers made him squirm.

The feeling of wanting to crawl out of his skin was back and his own breath of coming out in airy gasps before there had even been any penetration at all. At this rate he was going to cum—and that was embarrassing.

He wasn't used to someone being able to make his body react this way.

The first finger entered his body smoothly and Fai leaned forward to burry his face in the crook of Kurogane's neck to muffle his moan when he crooked it just right. The blonde swore he could hear a satisfied smirk in the younger man's next low growl.

Fai could only assume what he looked like right now. On his knees hovering above Kurogane's lap—ass out—leaning forward with arms wrapped around strong shoulders.

Sure, he could ruin the picture that his lover seemed so pleased with if he wanted to. That didn't sound like very much fun—so Fai let Kurogane continue to lead their little dance for now and closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling of strong fingers slowly stretching him.

A second finger was added and the taller mans free hand moved to tug down the front of Fai's boxers to free his arousal. His entire body shivered as Kurogane touched his cock just like he had been touching the rest of him.

Who would have thought him such a fucking tease?

Fai loved it.

A little more pressure was applied as Kurogane was smoothly running a closed fist up and down his length while the third finger was added. Fai had taken to kissing and sucking at Kuro-koi's thick neck and bit him rather roughly as he hit that bundle of nerves that threatened to put Fai over the edge.

"I take it—" Kurogane brushed it again while swiping his thumb over the head of the blonde's cock. "—that's the spot?"

"If you keep that up, I'm going to—"

"Do it." Kurogane massaged his prostate with a little more pressure and quickened the pace of his other hand and Fai unwrapped his arms and leaned his weight back so that he could kiss his lover.

"What about?" his eyes flickered down to the painfully obvious hard on in the younger man's jeans.

"Don't worry about that right now. I want to see you cum." Kurogane's voice came out in a low growl that caused Fai to shudder again.

"And is Kuro-sama usually such a gracious lover or do you just like to watch?" Fai leaned back into the raven haired man's touches, encouraging him to increase the pressure a smidge more.

He didn't answer—but Fai could assume from the way those eyes were watched the smaller man's hips moving provocatively—that he may have found a cute kink.

He could defiantly get into this.

Fai sucking in a deep breath though his nose and held it for a moment, in an attempt to get better control of the tingling in his cock. Not yet—this was too good to end yet.

The blonde made a show of using a single finger to tilt Kurogane's chin up, forcing their eyes to meet, before using the other hand to drag up his own torso. As he had expected—those crimson eyes locked in on what he was doing to himself.

Fai left a frustrated pout on his face while he closed his eyes and tiled his head back. With his own hand he traced up his sensitive side, traced over his protruding collar bones, ran them over his own erect nipples.

It felt nice—almost as nice as when Kurogane had done it for him earlier.

It must have looked nice too because he felt the younger man shift below him and sigh. The grip on the blonde's dick was firmer, and he was jerking him off faster now—matching the way he was moving his fingers.

Fai was bracing himself against the tanned man with a hand on his very warm, very broad chest. Said hand fisted in to the fabric, nails digging into his skin as Fai was hit with a sudden waive of pleasure that he wasn't expecting.

He came hard, back arching in an impressive show of flexibility as he covered his breathy gasps with his hand. Streams of sticky, hot cum shot out of him as he felt his member jolt.

Kurogane didn't seem to mind the mess that had spattered his clothing and continued to move his hands as his lover orgasmed.

When the last of pleasurable spasms washed over Fai's body the raven-haired man withdrew his fingers and reached for the napkins the waitress had so kindly provided them and started to wipe away the mess.

The blonde tugged his slacks up a little higher, so he wasn't as exposed, and shifted to sit next to him. Fai sipped his scotch and tried to think just how he was going to pay this little scamp back for that.

He hadn't expected this to take as long as it was—but this wasn't an unpleasant surprise by any means.

Slowly he leaned down to grab his clothing that was currently rumpled by Kurogane's feet and tossed them to the other side of the booth before sliding down to take their place.

"Hey, you don't have to—" Kurogane gave him a surprised look.

"I want to." Fai cut him off and placed his delicate hands on the man's belt buckle—pausing for permission.

Kurogane gave a nod and watched with wrapped interest as Fai turned his attention to the pesky cloths that was hiding his prize. He had popped more than a few belts in his day—and Fai was marveling and the younger man's impressive manhood within seconds.

The blonde licked at the impressive amount of precum that had collected at the head of his dates cock and concluded that Kuro-myuu had been enjoying himself with his earlier teasing. It was the blondes turn to make his partner squirm now though—and given their sizable age difference—he had a lot more experience doing just that.

Swirling his tongue around the head he slid both of his hands up under the hem of the dark shirt that was marring his perfect view of Kuro-love's no doubt impressive stomach.

And what a sight it was.

He was definitely going to need a night to admire this body in all its glory.

Fai took more of his lover into his mouth and sucked hard. Smirking around his cock, the blonde's blue eyes flickered up to see Kurogane's face, and he was not disappointed. Those red eyes were still watching him—only instead of being heavy with hunger—they were half lidded with need.

Good.

Fai closed his eyes and relaxed his throat and impressed himself by taking the entirety of his date manhood. Humming softly, he opened his eyes again and felt Kuro-wan twitch when their gaze met again.

Fai felt heat rushing back down between his own legs and he reached a hand down to slide inside of his own boxers.

Leaning his head back the blond applied just enough pressure with his lips to get his first moan. Kurogane raised a hand to tangle into his short locks and watched as Fai swished his tongue over the tip.

"Kuro-chan tastes good." He purred and felt the fingers in his hair tighten uncomfortably.

"It's Kurogane damm—Fuck…" Fai cut him off by sucking hard on the head of his penis and giving him an innocent look before closing his eyes and bobbing his head up and down.

It continued on like that. The older man earned quite a few moans and curses from the younger any time he would glace up or make a show of what he was doing. Fai could feel Kurogane getting close a few times—his cock was twitching with need—and he made sure to switch things up enough to keep this little game going for as long as he could.

He had been in the middle of deep throating his lover when he felt a tug at his hair. His eyes flickered up to see the taller man motion for him to come up with his free hand.

Slightly disappointed at not getting to show off the rest of his oral skills with the big finally, he climbed up from under the table.

He was letting Kuro-handsome be the boss. He had to remember.

Fai settled in the booth next to the raven-haired man and relished in the feeling off Kurogane's hands on his cool cheeks as he kissed him roughly.

"Not that that wasn't fucking amazing…" he let his words trail off and he kissed Fai more insistently. "I just really wanted to fuck you."

"By all means Kuro-chan." Fai cooed.

That had been the ultimate go of all of this hadn't it?

The blonde could tell that his date was much more excited now then he had been at the beginning of their little necking session. His hands moved with fervor as he tugged him into position and Fai found himself on his knees—hands gripping the top of the high back booth while his partner wracked hands over his body and kissed his neck.

He had already cum once tonight, but he was more than ready for round two.

He could here Kurogane opening the condom and adjusted his own clothing so that his lover would have better access to where he needed to be.

Fai held his breath as Kurogane slowly entered him—one of those hot hands on his left hip—the other on his right shoulder.

The blonde winced a little—Kurogane was definitely well endowed and prelubricated condom or no—it would unquestionably be more comfortable if they had come a little better equipped.

His discomfort was quickly forgotten when Kurogane reached around and grabbed his throbbing cock, however. After a few seconds of adjustment time—he set a brutally brilliant rhythm for them that had Fai breathless.

Was it possible to be addicted to a sensation? Because Fai was sure no other feeling in the world was quite like the feeling of Kurogane fucking him in this booth.

They were both exceedingly careful to stay quite—for Fai that meant again covering his mouth with one hand while he tried to hang onto the back of the booth with the other. Between his own muffles sighs and whimpers he could here Kurogane legitimately growling as he thrusted into him and it was honestly the most erotic thing that had ever happened to him.

Fai came shockingly fast and was sure his eyes were rolling into the back of his head from the hot waves of pleaser that were slamming into him with every thrust. Kurgoane followed not long after and the blonde found himself grinning as he came with a stream of curse words whispered under his breath.

Oh yes… this had been just what Fai needed.

Kurogane pulled out carefully and handed Fai a few of the napkins before cleaning himself up. Fai hadn't expected to be pulled back into his dates lap after they had finished—and he especially didn't expect to get a soft kiss on the neck and his drink handed to him.

"You're awfully sweet Kuro-puu." Normally Fai wouldn't tolerate such affections after a hookup—but he was starting to get tired and Kurogane was really very comfortable.

Besides they still had drinks to finish.

"Not really. What do you expect me to do? Zip my jeans and ditch after I just fucked you?" Kurogane sipped his sake and Fai rolled his eyes.

Yes. That is usually how these things went.

"That's normally close to how it goes. If I didn't know any better, I would think you had a crush on me." Fai leaned his head on his dates strong shoulders and yawned.

He was going to need to find somewhere privet to refresh soon.

"Fuck that. You're hot but I can tell your fucking insane."

Fai snorted. Good observation kid.

"You're not wrong there Kuro-woof." Fai tipped his head back and finished off the rest of his drink. He could vaguely here his stepfather scolding him in the back of his mind for not savoring the flavor of such an expensive scotch – but Fai only drank the stuff because he liked how it smelled. Besides the sooner they finished there drinks the sooner he could go top up.

"It's Kurogane you freak." The taller man fallowed suit and knocked back the rest of his drink. "Hey, you know where the bathroom is here? I gotta clean up a bit."

The blonde's eyes flickered to his soiled clothing and frowned. Yeah—that would be for the best.

"Sure. Just a sec ok?" Fai grabbed his own clothing and quickly buttoned up his dress shirt, tucking it in and fixing his belt in an attempt to look a little less sex rumpled. He didn't think he was pulling it off, and draped his vest, tie, and jacket over his arm and stood.

Kurogane watched him lazily and followed him out of the booth. Fai was reminded of his date's glorious height and smirked as he led them though the winding booths, back down the stairs, and past the door that very clearly read 'employees only.'

"Hey, is it ok if were back here?" Kurogane looked around curiously as Fai led him past the store room, back past the brake room, and into the employee bathroom.

"I work here silly." Fai winked at him, holding the door open for the younger man.

"You seriously screwed someone at your job? Your boss is cool with that?" Kurogane entered the room and looked at himself in the mirror. The dried cum on his shirt and pants stood out against his black clothing.

Whoops.

Fai didn't answer as he followed him in and started to fix his own clothing. The lighting was dim enough in the club that no one would notice. The light provided from the street lamps weren't much better, so it wasn't the end of the world.

"What are you doing after this?" Kurogane asked as he used a damp paper towel to try and get some of the evidence washed away.

"Going back to work." Fai made quick work of redressing. This wasn't the first time he had had to salvage a wrinkled outfit—wouldn't be the last.

"Fuck. Good luck with that." Kurogane gave up and tossed the paper towel in the trash and turned to lean against the sink and watch him.

"I take it your nightly excursions are over Kuro-tan?" Fai tightened his tie and pulled out his cell phone.

Ugh. He was starting to regret sending Syaoran home…

"Yeah."

The blonde ignored the text messages and emails that had flooded in since his arrival at Kyuden and went to his contacts. Opening up a blank card he handed his phone to his date and smiled.

"If you don't mind Kuro-cutie." Kurogane took his phone and gingerly entered his name and number into his phone and handed it back. "Thank you sir."

The blond stepped close to the taller man and pressed his back against Kurogane's chest. Lifting his phone up above both of there heads he gave a dazzling smile and cooed. "Say Cheeses Kuro-scowl!"

Of course—Kurogane didn't comply and instead of a selfie with two gentlemen smiling happily in a post sex glow—they ended up with one man smiling in a post sex glow, and one glaring so hard one would expect the camera to shatter.

And wasn't that perfect?

"Whaa! Look how cute we are?" Fai teased as he set the photo as Kurogane's contact picture. He also sent it to the younger man, so he would have the blonde's number.

"You are such a fucking weirdo." Kurogane growled at him but checked his phone as soon as the message came though non the less.

"Yes—but I am a hot weirdo." The blonde reminded before turning to lead them both back out to the main room of the club.

Fai tossed his cc on the bar as they passed Yuto and walked Kurogane back out to the street. "I ordered you an Uber."

"you didn't need to do that or pay for the drink you know?" the raven-haired man sighed and glared daggers at him.

"What's the point of seeing and older man if they don't pick up the tab?" The blonde teased and Kurogane gave him a slightly scandalized look.

"Hey! That's not what this was about!" Fai laughed. Kurogane was practically stomping his feet in frustration.

Luckily for the younger man, the cab pulled up and Fai graciously opened the back door for him.

Once the cab had pulled away Fai went back inside—he just had to get though the rest of the night… He could do this.

[spacebrick3]

(Part 1, apparently, since writing a six-person game generates a fair bit of dialogue)

“Tonight is game night!” Kjiersten shouted, walking into the common room with a box under their arm.

“It’s what now?” Crowe asked from where he sat, typing something out on his tablet. “Game night? No,” he said, shaking his head, “I am not doing a game night. It’s stupid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” They put down the box and opened it up, putting the instructions carefully off to the side and removing the board. “You should join us, though. It would be fun, and it’d be nice to play with six people instead of five.”

He hesitated. “But it’s Monopoly,” he said at last. “Nobody likes Monopoly. Even the designer of Monopoly didn’t like Monopoly.”

Silicon stuck her - the blue badge on her collar was lit up, so it was her right now - head out from the door.  “I like Monopoly. Are we playing Monopoly right now? Come on Crowe, you should play with us. Unless you’re scared that you’re going to lose, that is. Are you - is that it? Is that why you don’t want to play?” She vanished back into the room for a second, muffled shout coming through the door. “Hey! Emil! We’re playing Monopoly! Come on!”

“Fine. I’ll play,” he said. “But I want the battleship.”

“The battleship is mine!” Emil shouted, bursting through the door. Silicon followed, rolling her eyes. She sat down next to the board and picked up the dog token, turning it over in her hands before placing it on the starting position.

“What’s all this shouting?” Anise asked as she walked in. “Why’re you guys fighting? Can I join, or is it like something that’s personal between you two?” She picked up a token from the board and dropped it onto the starting position. “Deal me in.”

“If you’d just let me have the damn ship-“ Emil started.

“Like hell I’m giving you the ship!” Crowe shouted. “I got here first!”

Silicon sighed heavily, giving Anise a Look(tm). “Emil, give him the stupid ship and come sit with me. I got you the top hat, look.” She picked the token up and put it on top of her head, where it very slowly began to slide off. “Top hat.”

“How will I ever survive without the ship, though?” he asked cheerfully, tossing the ship over his shoulder (Crowe had to lunge to catch it), and grabbing the top hat just as it slid off of her head. “Don’t you know that if you have the ship, you’re guaranteed to win?”

“Unless you’re named after a bird, of course,” she added, swiping the token and throwing it onto the board. “Then you automatically lose.”

Kjiersten cleared their throat. They had managed to set up the rest of the board, doling out the money into six piles and setting out the cards. “If you’re quite finished. Before we start, do any of you know where I could find Sadie? I’d like to invite her to play as well, but-“

“She’s, um, sitting right behind you,” Emil said, pointing. They turned and saw that Sadie had managed to slip into the common room without them noticing, and was now sitting cross-legged on the floor. She was staring intently at the instructions, and a small silver token rested next to her.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” they said, turning to her. “Do you want to play Monopoly with us?” She nodded, not looking up from the paper. “Do you…know how to play Monopoly?”

She nodded again. “Now.”

“Alright then. Everybody else knows how to play, I think-?” They left the question hanging and were met with four nods from the rest of the group, who were organizing their initial stuff and seemed to busy to talk. “Good. I guess we can get started.”

——————————————————————————————————

-Turn 1- 

“Roll,” Sadie said, addressing the computer, and holographic dice tumbled in midair.

While she moved, Anise leaned back against the wall. She looked bored. “This’s taking too long. Can we play the VFM version?”

“What’s that?” asked Kjiersten. “It sounds interesting.”

“It makes the game a lot quicker,” she said. “Because you can only use money for everything - if you can’t pay with what you have right now, then you go bankrupt. Basically, you can’t sell anything you’ve bought, although the name No Sell for this version didn’t sit too well with marketers.”

Sadie handed Kjiersten a bill, who took it without comment and passed her back the title deed. She placed it carefully next to the board, aligning it with her small stack of money, then passed the dice controller to Emil. “So are we playing that way?” he asked, making the gesture to roll the dice. “Not that I have anything to sell on the first turn, of course, but are we?”

“Yeah, sure,” Silicon added from where she was very slowly beginning to fall into Emil’s lap. He was pretending not to notice and failing miserably.

“I don’t mind,” said Crowe. 

“I suggested it. Yeah, course I think we should do it.”

Kjiersten nodded. “Alright, Sadie, do you care?” She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. Not that that was unusual. “It looks like we’re playing that way, then. You bought it…you bought it, I suppose.”

“Was that really Oriental Avenue you wanted, huh?” Silicon asked, sitting up and leaning forwards to peer intently at Sadie. “Because…now…you can’t sell it back…” She hesitated, then shrugged, settling back onto Emil. “That was not a well-thought-out sentence, ignore me and get on with your lives.”

“It’s your turn, Syl,” he said, passing her the controller. “And I could never ignore you.”

“Oh, right, it is my turn,” she said, tossing the dice and waiting as the small simulation ran the numbers. “Did you buy anything? Are you the proud baron of whatever avenue was unfortunate enough to have you land on it?”

“Ha ha. Like you’re any more qualified to run, uh, Reading Railroad. Do you even know how a railroad works?”

“Of course I do. It’s like a subway, except it’s on top of the ground.” She passed the dice to Crowe. “Plus my railroad is going to be the best there is. It’s going to be one of those old velvet ones, with all the brass fixtures and purple and where there’s a special dining car - you know the ones.”

As Crowe traded them a bill for the last of the sky blue cards, Kjiersten raised a finger. “That’s actually an interesting point. Even here on the Foundation, there was still trains, because people still needed to get places over the ground. But now that instantaneous transportation between any two points exists, will there still be trains? Ships? Anything besides wormholes?”

“Well, the wormholes right now are ‘bout six feet in diameter - so they’re still not good for anything besides people, and not tall ones. And nothin’ on you, Sadie, but there’s a lot more being transported than just people. And…twelve. That puts me right on the electric company. I’ll buy it.”

“That’ll be a…hundred and fifty,” they said. “And I see what you’re saying, but now the technology’s here. And so it’s only going to get bigger, and more improved until all that cargo can be fit through a wormhole. So ships and trains might stick around for a while longer for transportation, eventually they’re going to be replaced.”

“People will still use them, though. Hell, people still use their old cars that they’ve had for a hundred years or whatever.”

They shrugged. “True. But they’re only keeping the luxury cars, not the mass-produced ones. So there still might be ships, but they’re only going to be AES-type ones, mostly. All the big IS ships will probably be scrapped, plus most of the STS. No one will need them.”

“I’m glad we’re having this discussion,” Crowe said, “but can we please get on with the game? I’d like to be able to”

——————————————————————————————————

-Turn 4-

“Roll.”

“You really going to burn through all your money like that, Sadie?” Crowe asked. She had bought a property on each square she’d landed on so far. “Or is it all part of the ‘plan’? Bankrupting us all in twenty turns?”

She ignored him, shuffling the title card and setting it out with the others. “Okay, okay, fine,” he said. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

“And yet you’re ignoring the true threat on this board,” Silicon responded, watching as Emil rolled. “You think you’re going to be the railroad baron, or whatever with your two railroads, but I am catching up. Silicon…Vanderbilt, that’s going to be me. Or Stanford, I suppose. I like Stanford better, because alliteration. Silicon Stanford, that’s me.”

“I assume you’re going to treat your workers a little better than the actual Stanford did?” Emil asked. “And yes, I’d like to buy Marvin Gardens. I don’t know why they named gardens after the most depressive robot in history.”

“I won’t have workers,” Silicon said. “I’ll run everything myself, plus an AI to get the trains running. I’ll call it…um…give me a second while I think of a pun.” Accepting the dice from Emil, she let it roll and pushed the small silver dog token forwards. “I get to pick a card…um…I advance to St. Charles, and take my 200 for passing Go. Hold on, you own St. Charles, don’t you?” she asked, pointing at Kjiersten. “How much is rent?”

They smiled. “You’re just passing through. I won’t make you pay rent.”

“That’s not how you win in Monopoly,” Crowe said. “You gotta…build your empire, like I’m doing here with…Pacific? This is Pacific?.”

“And how’s that working out? I can’t see that you have any two properties of the same color, let alone three,” they said, handing over the title card.

“No one does. It’s early days yet.”

“If you say so.”

“Ah, damn.” Anise was rolling now. “Guess who’s going to jail, bitches? Me. Evidently this square is a speed trap or whatever, and I was runnin’ this wheelbarrow too fast. See ya there.”

“The perils of a lawless economy,” Kjiersten said, rolling their own dice. “Oh. It appears I have landed on your ‘empire’, Crowe. Take my twenty-six dollars as tribute to Baron Leonid.”

“Very funny.”

Silicon sat bolt upright. “Scanford! That’s what the AI will be called! Leslie Scanford!”

Part 2 will come out on Friday, probably!

If you want to see the numbers for the whole game played out, there’s a spreadsheet here.

Since I don’t know much about who wants to be tagged (i only got one response on my ask post :/), I’ll just use my other tag list and then if you want to be added or removed, just let me know!

@lady-redshield-writes​, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @micastarsandmirrors, @thebloodstainedquill, @anip-ocs, @dreamwishing, @incandescent-creativity, @fatal-blow, @danafaithwriting, @wri-tten, @thewitchthetimeladythehuntress

[dig1710fall]

Final Game Design Document

In teams of 2-5, create a video game concept and a Game Design Document to describe the following aspects of your game.

Due December 11th as a DOCX & PDF file in the dropbox.

The document should include a cover page with the title, logo, & your names, plus a reference page with links to your sources.

30% of your grade (300 points)

Introduction (25 points)

Style Guide (25 points)

Mechanics  (50 points)

Story (25 points)

UI/UX documentation (25 points)

Systems Designs (25 points)

Technical Documentation (20 points)

Monetization Strategy (30 points)

Costing per features (25 points)

Production Guide (20 points)

Marketing Overview (30 points)

The sections below describe what is required, and will be updated.

1.Introduction

One paragraph describing the video game, think of it as a revised pitch.

This should be written last, after you’ve figured out everything else and have a good sense of what’s important to your game concept.

2. Style Guide

Create a Style Guide for your game design documentation. This plan should concentrate on visuals but also touch on other elements of Aesthetics. The primary focus should be: “What do we want our game to feel like?” Include rules for asset creation, common colors, etc. Include references from other games and if possible try to create some original art (like a main character turnaround, icon mockups, or branding). Remember visual references/examples are key here but must be supported by written justifications of your thought process (a bunch of images is not enough). .

What’s the seed?

Include 1-2 pages of concept art.

Aesthetics - What are you trying to say? All aspects of game aesthetics should drive toward what you want people to feel when playing your game. Extra Credits on Aesthetics vs Graphics

What player types will like your games?

Gamasutra Color in Games

3. Game Mechanics

Rules, player goals (realtime, each level, whole game). Actions the player can take in the world.

Camera perspective, gameplay type.

Modes (stealth, vehicle, swim, etc)

Dynamics: the emergent behaviors that arise from gameplay when Mechanics are put into use. They describe the runtime behavior of the mechanics acting on the player inputs and each others’ outputs over time.

Dynamics work to create aesthetic experiences. For example, challenge is created by elements like time pressure and opponent play.

How to we encourage emergent gameplay?

Add more basic actions

When basic actions combine there are opportunities for emergence. Be willing to discover emergent actions as you discover more about your game mechanics.

Set goals that can be achieved more than one way

Allow players to discover their way of doing things.

Have secondary behaviors in your game (side effects) that occur because of basic actions and change the constraints on a player.

4. Story

Story overview - 1 to 5 paragraphs

Character backgrounds & motivations (eg: hero, villain, party members)World overview (eg: magical crystals are power source, demons roam the land)Player choices

Story curve & Interest curves.

Typical Interest Curves for successful games rely on a pattern made up of a three tier system of interest::

Overall Interest curve -Something that grabs your interest early, followed by a series of interest peaking events and luls, ending with a major climax

Each level’s Interest Curve - New Aesthetics and/or challenges engage the player providing rising interest until the end of the level which is often finished with a final challenge like a boss battle.

Each challenge - Every challenge has a micro interest curve, high interest introduction, rising steps in the challenge, and a culminating pay off.

5. UI/UX documentation

What information we give to the player (health, score, stealth meter, etc).

Game mockup in Photoshop

UI Elements - describe which elements are on-screen all the time, part of the time, or only occasionally.

Control scheme - map out the control scheme for your game, include all systems you plan to ship to.

Localization - which parts of your game require translation? Are there symbols you will use in your game, list them (eg: warning signs, religious symbols, 

6. Systems Designs

What will need to be custom coded for your game?

Describe in-detail: 

combat systems (action or  turn-based)

simulations

weather

map unlocking

crowd AI &/or enemy AI

player content creation

7. Technical Documentation

Platform, engine requirements, graphics technology, major technical hurdles.

Figure out which game engine is the best fit for your game design, consider the release platforms, and similar existing games. List your top two choices for game engines (only 1 can be proprietary). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines

Write about any Research & Development that would need to be done, where “out of the box” solutions aren’t available and would need to be custom coded (eg: hire a multiplayer programmer to make a Battle Royale type game).

Also look at the graphics requirements, what kinds of platforms are going to be able to run your game? List the type of graphics technologies you would need (eg: pixel art, high res textures, advanced lighting).

https://www.gamesparks.com/blog/game-engine-analysis-and-comparison/

https://www.websitetooltester.com/en/blog/best-game-engine/

8. Monetization Strategy

How will we make money off this game? Put it in a box & sell it, microtransactions, in-game ads, subscription, loot boxes, donations?

How does your monetization strategy fit your target market?  Research similar titles & provide reasoning.

https://theappsolutions.com/blog/marketing/monetize-app/

9. Costing per feature

How much each the major features of your game will cost; for instance, if you’re going to use the Unreal Engine, how much does it cost to license?

Feature Costing template spreadsheet (use the Key Hires tab)

Staff: Will our game require a large number of artists, designers, or programmers? How many of each do we need to hire?

Do we need to purchase the rights to use real-world cars/guns/planes in our game?

Are we using specialized graphics technology like motion capture, photogrammetry, virtual reality? How much does it cost the company to setup?

Is there an online multiplayer component? How much do we spend to rent servers for players to game on?

After release do we keep part of the team around for bug-fixing or DLC?

10. Production Guide

Think of the iteration cycles, first we need a playable prototype.

1. Prototype - How many team members will it take to make the smallest possible version that we can playtest?

2. Demo - The second iteration needs to expand the game and add some graphics, think of this stage as Early Access games that only have parts complete, but could be sold to consumers if you needed the cash.

3. Game Development - Third iteration should include refining graphics & gameplay, and expanding the number of playable levels to make the game longer. This part is what the big studios do well, like EA, Activision-Blizzard, and Ubisoft. Lots of talented people all working on making the game bigger, prettier, and more appealing.

Once you know how many team members you’ll need at each dev stage, estimate the amount of time each stage will take & multiply that by the salaries of the required staff.

Also add the costs of technology, engines, licenses, etc.

Give me an estimate of how much each iteration will cost.

11. Marketing Overview

Who will be buying my game? What is the target audience?

Create a logo for your game to use on the cover page of your GDD.

What kinds of players does my game appeal to?

What merchandise can I sell to fans?

Where should I advertise to reach the maximum number of eyeballs for the minimum cost?

[pbandjesse]

Today was a little hard if only because I slept so poorly. After I got my post up last night I was pretty tired. James was supposed to come and help me bring things up from the basement. But he had a customer stay really late. So he didn't get to me until closer to 1.

I was half asleep by the time he got home. But as soon as he gave me a hug and told me everything would be okay. I just fell apart. At first I was just misty eyed. But soon enough I was sobbing so hard I was choking myself. I couldnt breathe and was so stuffed up and my head hurt so bad. I had to have been a scary sight. I was just so tired and so upset. Eventually I cried myself out. And I almost passed out sitting there. I wasn't as stuffy though and was able to lay down without feeling like I was drowning.

I had bad dreams but I did sleep Okay. Even if it wasn't enough sleep. I half considered calling out. But I knew I needed the distraction of work. We stayed in bed a little to long. But it was all good. James brought up more stuff for me from the studio. And he went to grt me breakfast while I went to the ship.

And it was a really fun day overall. I started the day inside. I worked on my book chapter. Everything atarted weird though because the shop girl just didnt show up for a while. So we let 5 people in for free. They would pay when they left because they were good people. And I got to talk to a lot of nice people.

I put the flag up all on my own. And I worked in my embrodiery. We have a visiting ship, La Libertad. Its from Argentina and its huge and beautiful. I enjoyed watching them polish the brasswork.

It was a beautiful day. Its the first day of fall and I just love that. There was a little breeze and everything felt good. I was still stressed in the background but I know everything will be handled.

Jess who I work with came over to look through my paintings and she decided to buy 8. 8??!! That amazing. So we talked about the art for a while. And it was fun sharing with everyone. I was very excited about the sales and worked on the spreadsheet and texted with James a out expanding it a bit. I was feeling good.

I took myself to Johnny Rocket for lunch. Haf a sit down meal. Got a salad and a sandwich and it made me feel much better. My eyes weren't as swollen and it wad good to have lettuce.

I gave the gun drill talk and it went so well. The 4 people who came were so into it and I felt so smart. It was an awesome feeling. I was still a little anxious about stuff but I had my squishy frog and was playing with that all day. I was throwing it and sqeezing it. And one of the times I threw it it landed in a hole in the hatch and I thought that was hilarious.

I talked to a lot of great people today. Including a couple from my parents old neighborhood who's kid is an artist and thinking aboit art school and wanted to ask me all the questions. I got to talk about the ship a ton. I met an old coast guard guy and he was lovely and complimented my embroidery. I had just so many positive interactions today and that was just so nice.

Frank's firing at 4 was so so big. Birds went everywhere. People were screaming and yelling fuck. It was amazing. And we closed early today so soon enough we were done.

I went and laid in a hammock for a while. Enjoyed swinging. Got changed. And went to sit at the desk for a while to wait out the clock.

I showed Frank my art and read on my phone. And then it was time to go home. There was work to be done.

I spent a couple hours bringing tbings up and organzing it up here so I can feel a little more normal in my space. I movdd pretty much everuthing I could to the hallway. I dont love it but I also don't use the hall much. Its just holding James's bookcase anyway. So all my stuff is on that now. On my way home I found 2 smaller plastic bins. I cleaned those and used then to hold all my products from the downstairs bathroom and put them on the upstairs one. I got almost everything out of there. Just the closet and my 3 drawer organziers. The chairs and the table will have to wait I guess. I'm giving james the arm chair for his apartment anyway. So I wont have to worry about that once he moves on Friday.

I am still stressed but I'm trying. I took a bath. Which helped. The water was cool and perfect. After I got dressed I finished my diorama and did more organizing snd cleaning. Until my back hurt and I had to eat something.

I had pizza around 9 and now I'm laying down watching true crime. I'm very excited to sleep.

James is on an overnight right now. He's coming over after in the morning and then were going to have a spa day and nake pumpkin things. I have apprehension about pumpkin ravioli but I trust him.

Keep those good thoughts coming. I'm tryinf my best to handle everything here. But its hard.

Goodnight everyone. Sleep well.

[michaelandy101-blog]

Fulfill Untapped Buyer Calls for By Your Faceted Navigation

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/fulfill-untapped-customer-demands-through-your-faceted-navigation/

Fulfill Untapped Buyer Calls for By Your Faceted Navigation

The writer’s views are fully his or her personal (excluding the unlikely occasion of hypnosis) and should not at all times mirror the views of Moz.

Faceted navigation permits clients to slender down search outcomes primarily based on particular product attributes. They usually exist on Product Itemizing Pages (PLPs) and are a good way to assist customers intuitively uncover merchandise however managing this filtering system is a typical web optimization problem. Crawling and indexation have to be managed.

Nevertheless, if we glance past their inherent performance, sides can supply us appreciable potential. By centering your secondary navigation on long-tail key phrase alternatives, you’ll be capable to strategically make the most of shopper intent, safe further net conversions, and enhance income ranges.

Match shopper intent with long-tail search queries

Having a longtime model and a strong area backlink profile gained’t assure success. That is nice information for smaller manufacturers, as trade giants aren’t essentially going to win at this recreation.

If we search for “long sleeve wedding dresses”, we will see how David’s Bridal’s optimized aspect web page (Area Authority: 67/100, Web page Authority: 47 / 100) has obtained the highest rating place, whereas Nordstrom’s end result (Area Authority: 87/100, Web page Authority: 39/100) seems within the third place for this explicit question. We’ll check out what makes this web page so efficient later.

When how we will optimize faceted navigations, it’s necessary to acknowledge that product attributes convey shopper wants and aspirations. If, for instance, I’m searching for a marriage gown, then I could tailor my search by the colour, cloth, neckline form, and the sleeve size.

In line with the search demand curve, long-tail queries account for as much as 70% of all natural searches. They’re extremely focused queries that provide massive traffic-driving alternatives.

In the previous few years, we’ve seen a giant shift within the trade in the direction of capitalizing this intent with long-form content material. Weblog articles and magnificence guides have change into the go-to strategies for a lot of to seize these guests, as we will see from the examples taken from Marks & Spencers’ “Inspire Me” part:

Individuals usually search for inspiration once they’re procuring, and these pages present an efficient means so as to add extra inside hyperlinks to class and product pages. However counting on this strategy is one-dimensional, on condition that these deeper content material pages are likely to have decrease PageRank. An intensive quantity of effort and time will, subsequently, be required to realize the specified end result.

As compared, Product Itemizing Pages often goal broader search phrases, and faceted navigations usually exist as passive features. It is because they’re usually blocked from crawlers, making them devoid of any web optimization worth. Waterstones (a well known British bookstore) is one retailer that applies this rule for his or her on-page filters:

On this explicit instance, I’ve utilized a filter to solely present me books for five – eight yr olds, however the appended URL (https://www.waterstones.com/class/childrens-teenage/aspect/498) is blocked within the robots.txt file. That is going to stop such pages from being served within the SERPs regardless of them having the potential to satisfy particular buyer wants. This reveals that there could be a elementary disconnect in matching buyer intent to the pages we’re offering them within the natural outcomes.

From the diagram beneath, we will see how editorial content material usually focuses on the “awareness” and “interest” levels, while Product Itemizing Pages are typically extra according to the “consideration” and “purchase” phases:

Serving the proper content material to customers all through their shopping for journey is pivotal to success. For a lot of retailers, opponents are persevering with to prioritize broader, high-volume key phrases in saturated markets. They’re concentrating on the identical phrases to safe a proportion of the identical search site visitors. It is a very difficult prospect to face, and with out carving out a niche within the market, they gained’t essentially ship the outcomes they search to safe. Likewise, counting on informational guides to focus on long-tail key phrases implies that you’re lacking a big proportion of customers who’ve very particular shopping for necessities. Sure, they’re able to make a purchase order!

By shifting your focus to handle your buyer’s actual wants and expectations, you’ll be capable to ship a satisfying, frictionless expertise at each interplay and all through to that ultimate buy.

The answer

Step 1: Conduct long-tail key phrase analysis

Construct a extremely complete view of your potential clients by harnessing knowledge from quite a lot of sources, together with:

a) Key phrase analysis instruments like Moz, Google Keyword Planner, and Answer The Public.

b) The SERPs — get inspiration from the auto-suggest outcomes, Individuals Additionally Ask, and the associated search hyperlinks on the backside of the web page.

c) Competitor exercise — except for utilizing web optimization monitoring software program, you need to use a knowledge mining extension software like Scraper, which is able to extract faceted choices immediately from competitor Product Itemizing Pages. These instruments are sometimes free to obtain and will let you shortly switch product classes.

d) Your Google Search Console, Analytics, and PPC accounts to find out which key phrases and URLs are securing the very best variety of visits and net conversions. Inside search knowledge may offer you nice shopper insights.

e) Converse to your merchandising crew to grasp product calls for and achievement capabilities.

Step 2: Group into significant sub-topics

When you’ve collated all this info right into a spreadsheet, you’ll be capable to uncover long-tail, consideration-orientated key phrases. Whereas individually they might not boast enormous month-to-month search estimates, they’ll collectively spotlight the place buy intentions may be higher fulfilled.

To assist illustrate this level, we will take a look at a small subset of lingerie key phrases and the sides the searches signify:

From the desk above we will shortly see a sample rising with coloration and materials variations showing throughout the search phrases. We are able to then substantiate this info with session and income estimates with using a acknowledged CTR mannequin. This permits us to assist forecast the potential natural uplift and quantify the dimensions of the prize for quite a few completely different situations which are on supply from every new aspect mixture. This may occasionally embody estimations for securing place 10, 7, 5, three and 1 in Google.

One factor to notice right here is that it’s value excluding synonyms, as they may falsely inflate your calculations. An instance right here can be to exclude “storage drawers” (22.2k month-to-month searchers) when reviewing the efficiency for “chest of drawers” (201ok m/s). Together with each variants will trigger a false optimistic end result and can lead you to attract incorrect conclusions.

Step three: Dig deeper into broader phrases round affords, scores, and worth

These product filters are discovered within the “Sort” dropdown field and, from my expertise, these are set to “noindex” from the outset as they merely enable customers to re-order web page outcomes. Actually, content material administration techniques like Shopify and Shopware have this as a default.

This is smart since their goal is to permit guests to easily kind or slender web page content material somewhat than providing different outcomes and extra worth (which is obtainable by faceted navigation). As such, filter usually produce duplicate outcomes which shouldn’t be discoverable past the speedy second. However this hard-and-fast rule doesn’t at all times apply completely in the actual world. For this reason we have to take a look at our particular person industries and perceive what’s necessary to our distinctive set of shoppers.

If we take a look at the world of gifting, we regularly see individuals procuring with a specific funds in thoughts. Subsequently, phrases like “birthday gift under £20” (40 m/s) or “Secret Santa gift under £10” (2.9k m/s) are moderately widespread, and opening up related itemizing pages could possibly be helpful for buyers.

Step four: The technical steps

Side taxonomies are vastly complicated and the variety of attributes that may be strung collectively will increase with the dimensions of the area. We, subsequently, must rigorously handle the flood gates and mitigate towards any potential dangers together with crawl inefficiencies and hyperlink fairness dilution.

We are able to do that by:

1. Avoiding skinny/doorway pages by frequently re-assessing your product providing. For example, you might contemplate there to be little worth in creating a brand new listings web page should you’re promoting a really small vary of low worth level merchandise. On this case, you might resolve towards opening up a further Product Itemizing Web page whenever you promote as few as 10 eligible merchandise. Nevertheless, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, so it’s fairly doable that your standards could also be decrease for explicit product traces. Both means, these numbers will change over time. Take into account seasonal developments, when new collections are launched, and once they change into discontinued. Establishing a product retirement strategy to handle expired merchandise and classes at scale in parallel with this step can also be extremely beneficial.

2. Stop content material cannibalization by arranging chosen sides based on their worth and significance. “Size” is essential for some electrical items like TVs, laptops, and cameras, however is much less so for magnificence equipment or vacuum cleaners. It’s essential to additionally be sure web page content material is distinctive and displays the main target of your chosen aspect(s). Seek advice from step 5 for extra particulars.

three. Comply with the sequence through which adjectives and sides are usually chosen by your clients. This will differ relying on the place your viewers lives. So, while merchandise typically have 5 or extra distinguishable options, English vernacular determines that we use greater than 4 adjectives (e.g. measurement + coloration + materials + form) to explain one thing.

four. Management the controllables by coping with overlapping variations. This usually happens when multiples co-exist and every displays good search metrics. For example, it’s cheap for somebody to concurrently search for a number of coloration and/or cloth combos within the alternative ways beneath.

When this case happens, we should always comply with the identical linguistic guidelines as above and select a most popular sequence. On this case, it might be coloration + materials + product kind.

Compared to the noindex tag prompt for on-page filters you must canonicalize pointless sides to their dad or mum web page (remembering that that is merely a touch and never a directive). It will allow you to regulate how crawlers cope with extremely comparable end result pages and can, subsequently, assist to stop your web site from being demoted within the SERPs. Dynamic search parameters ought to proceed to be outlined with a “noindex, nofollow” meta robots tag, disallowed within the robots.txt file, and configured by Google’s URL parameter software (inside your Search Console account) to inform crawlers the aim of your parameters and the way you want to them to be handled. It is a useful guide on parameter handling for Googlebots, however keep in mind that this final tip gained’t affect how Bing or Yahoo user-agents interpret these pages.

5. Open your sides in phases and domesticate it right into a test-and-learn course of. It will allow you to establish points rather a lot sooner and implement facet-wide options in a well timed method. With out having to unravel these further layers of complexity, issues reminiscent of crawl inefficiencies, PageRank dilution, or extreme indexation may be swiftly resolved.

To point out you what this might appear like, I’ve supplied a phasing plan that was created for one in all our e-commerce purchasers. Our analysis confirmed a big web optimization alternative for opening up a number of the sides and filters: potential +£263Kpcm for the “colour + type” aspect (UK):

What’s extra, after we prolonged our forecast to incorporate different aspect combos, we calculated a further income alternative of as much as +£207Ok/pcm (earlier than filtering out combos with no merchandise providing).

Step 5: Optimize your aspect URLs

Optimize your new aspect class URLs to determine relevancy on your chosen search phrases. The important thing on-page components to give attention to embody:

David’s Bridal is an effective instance of a retailer that has accomplished this nicely. Trying again on the ‘Long Sleeve Wedding Dress’ Product Itemizing Web page, we will see that they’ve curated distinctive content material and adopted elementary optimization ways on the touchdown web page in a means that feels useful to the person.

URL: davidsbridal.com/long-sleeve-wedding-dresses

Web page Title: Lengthy Sleeve Wedding ceremony Clothes & Robes | David’s Bridal

Meta Description: Do you dream of carrying a lengthy sleeve wedding ceremony gown in your massive day? Store David’s Bridal vast number of wedding ceremony robes with sleeves in lace & different designs!

6. Present accessibility and construct web page authority

When you’ve opened up your new aspect Product Itemizing Pages, you have to start cultivating hyperlink fairness in the direction of them. It will be certain that they don’t exist as orphan URLs with no PageRank:

Guarantee they’re referenced in your product XML sitemap.

You probably have one function per aspect URL, then add them to your faceted navigation throughout CLP and Product Itemizing Web page pages.

You probably have two or extra options per aspect URL, then create a “Popular Searches” or “Related Searches” possibility inside your CLPs.

Make the most of your mega menu to showcase your new class touchdown pages. This won’t solely will let you direct a big proportion of hyperlink fairness, however it’ll additionally safe the very best click-through charge amongst your guests.

Combine your editorial technique by creating partaking content material with in-copy hyperlinks. Take into consideration how you need to use descriptive long-tail anchor textual content in regards to the Product Itemizing Web page you wish to hyperlink to somewhat than counting on “click here” or “see more”.

Connect with them through href hyperlinks so that you’re not solely counting on hyperlinks from the principle navigation or content material hyperlinks. As that is tough to do at scale, it may be accomplished by modules reminiscent of “related categories”, “other subcategories”, “related products”, and many others.

Devise strategic outreach campaigns that may safe high quality, exterior backlinks to them.

Implementing this holistic and sturdy technique will assist you to to safe exponential progress out of your new business touchdown pages.

Conclusion

There may be an excessive amount of natural alternative that exists inside your faceted navigation should you start to leverage mid- and long-tail search phrases.

Search out the chance from prolonged key phrase analysis and competitor evaluation earlier than deciding which variants fulfill shopper calls for and ship optimum natural classes and onsite conversions. Configure a single faceted URL for every alternative and open them up for crawl and indexation. Guarantee PageRank is distributed to them (each internally and externally) and develop your touchdown web page content material according to high quality optimization practices. This strategy will assist you to to keep away from having crawl inefficiencies, over indexation, cannibalization, or having skinny doorway pages. In flip, your web site might be higher suited to draw highly-targeted customers and information them down the acquisition funnel.

Maximizing UX and decreasing reliance on different marketing channels implies that your faceted navigation can actually ship natural ROI. We’ve got seen this work for our purchasers.

Source link

[shandian-go]

2021-09-07 Forwarding update

1) August 2021 arrivals

The majority of you should have received your second payment e-mails for items that arrived at my address in August 2021. Please check the Order Status spreadsheet to see if you should be expecting anything. If you are expecting something and haven't heard from me, please double check your inbox/spam folder. (FYI this is only for items that arrived before Aug 31, 2021 - I haven't gotten too far for Sept arrivals yet.)

If you haven't heard from me about August arrivals and you have items in on the small side, I'm most likely holding them for you at the moment. However, if you'd like me to forward them to you ASAP, please feel free to e-mail me and I'll pack them this coming week.

Please also double check the 'Shipped to your address' section as everything in that section should have already been forwarded to you (unless it's a group order that has been divided into parts and the latter part is still en route). If there is no 'Part' for a group order and you have NOT received your item yet, please e-mail me ASAP so that I can look into it for you.

2) Package contents

I've also tweaked the Arrivals section of the spreadsheet to try to make it more clear about what to expect in your package (as I know it's still a bit confusing). There's a lot of different group orders arriving at the same time nowadays, plus the shipping agent sometimes splits the consolidated group orders into different batches, so I've tried to break down what should definitely be in your package and what may be in your package.

The 'Regular arrivals' section are items that have all arrived and SHOULD be included in your current package, unless noted in red (items in red are delayed but will change to regular font when they arrive). If you received a package and are missing an item in the 'Regular arrivals' section that is not noted in red, please e-mail me ASAP.

The 'Early arrivals' section are items that MAY be included in your package, but given that not everything in that group order has arrived yet, it's not a guarantee. I've added this section so that it's less of a surprise for joiners that do receive these items and I'll also try to note when large/heavy early arrivals are in your package so that you're prepared for the second payment.

3) Photobooks, figurines and plush dolls

The first of the LLD photobooks have arrived at my place and given their weight and size, I won't be able to hold them for too long so just wanted to give a heads up. For Bingdi's photobook specifically, I'll also need to buy large enough boxes to accommodate the oversized slogan binder so please bear with me;;;

For those of you that joined the initial orders for photobooks (where there was no $20 CAD deposit), please do try to budget for 2x the first payment for the second payment as these photobooks really are quite heavy;;; The exact cost will vary depending on domestic shipping and if you have anything else in the same package, but it'll likely be around that range.

I've also received some of the Qing Cang Wangxian birthday figurines as well as some of the TGCF Minidoll full size plush dolls and these are Big Boys as well, in that their volume weight is 2-3x higher than their actual weight so shipping costs will be more expensive than expected. Again, please do try to budget for these ahead of time so that you're ready when you receive the second payment!