#but other than that it's generally easier to not handle cash

[papermonkeyism]

HI ok I gotta ask - your post has made me insanely curious - you mention having cash at hand while waiting for your new card (resourceful) but none of the sources of cash was a bank or ATM.

Where I'm from cash is still used a lot (as we minimum wage workers get paid in cash) and as a result there are multiple ATM's within walking distance at all times and banks no more than 15-20 minutes drive away. Is this... different where you're from? (For context I'm from Africa)

We get paychecks directly to the bank account here, and I usually just pay with my card everywhere I need to, because it's more convenient than having a lot of coins and bills around. While there are ATM machines here (there are several within a walking distance from where I live), you use them with your card, so without having one, I can't get money out of the money withdrawing machine. I don't know how you do it, but without a card I can only get money out of the bank account by (online) bank transfers, and that's pretty hard at grocery store register.

Our bank offices stopped handing out cash several years ago, of which I am still very salty about.

I got some cash from my mom, and I had a handful of coins left over from the last time I had used an ATM a while back, but that's kinda rare for me, since most places accept card.

[ripplestitchskein]

I don’t know if we’ll ever get into it, because the show at this point largely plays it off as a joke, but I do wonder if Blitz’s very misogynist language and his association with feelings as being “gay”or for “pussies” will be explored more as part of this. It’s really hard to tell at this point if it’s an issue to be examined in the narrative’s eyes or just Brandon’s particular brand of humor coming into play with no deeper character considerations beyond the superficial “he uses insults and abrasive language to keep people at arms length”.

I mentioned it in one of my episode breakdowns but Blitz’s interactions with women are very interesting. Whore. Slut. Titty Haver. He is exceedingly more aggressive with women he meets than he is with men. Yet Blitz seems to have very much loved, and from the little we’ve seen, had a good relationship with his mother. He seems to get along well with Millie, he takes good care of Loona. Barbie is the only character he hurt he actively pursues to reconcile with. Yet all his interactions with other women he is a lot more hostile and aggressive than in his interactions with other men and that’s present from Murder Family on.

Most of his disguises are him dressing in drag though? If he has to put a costume on he generally defaults to female presenting. He seems to enjoy it as well, based on expressions and animated body language he is comfortable and having a good time. Again, hard to tell if it’s just a bit, but Blitz has been shown as pretty gender non conforming many times for a guy who mostly uses gendered insults. Some of it could be as simple as hiding horns and tail being made slightly easier by a wig and a dress, it could be just the way the writer’s humor trends but it could be a lot more.

Especially when paired with his clear association with feelings = gay. A crux of his post Full Moon communication attempts with Stolas seem to be “Haha, silly feelings, that’s gay, let’s…have gay sex about it again?”. Feelings are for pussies. What you said is gayer than love ballads. Etc. etc. The dude has no issue filling a house party with his conquests from across the gender spectrum though.

It just reads as coming from somewhere else. Cash specifically. Blitz himself seems to default to queerness. He doesn’t seem to care about it from the perspective of his own sexual relationships or gender expression but at the same time he is very misogynistic and associates things that make him feel weak or could be perceived as weak with gayness or women.

We have some scenes from the trailer that could potentially explore his more. His scene with his mom possibly coming out about his feelings for Fizz versus Cash refusing to let him see him at the hospital. Those may just be more “your romantic reveal led to a horrible tragedy” but it could also hopefully give some insight into why he handles the Full Moon fight like a 90’s middle schooler declaring anything that makes him feel squishy inside with a “That’s gay.”

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Traveller - Book 1

Here is a read-through I did about a year and a half ago (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the all time classics: Traveller by Game Designers' Workshop! This read-through just covers Book 1 - Characters and Combat from the original Traveller box set trio of books. - Christian

This is the 1981 Second Edition printing of the classic Traveller three zine box set! Been wanting to read this for ages now. It's discussed A LOT in Mothership circles.

Really interesting to see GM-less and solo play options here. Didn't realize that was being done explicitly at this time. Also, nice to see "he or she" language here rather than the just "he" you see a lot in older games.

The UPP is clearly the creation of an utterly deranged mind. This seems like a huge overcomplication of just listing stats (unless all your players are proficient in hexadecimal).

[Hi, it's me from the future here (aka now - 2024): I've learned to embrace and love the UPP (or more specifically the planet stat version from one of the other books). It's complicated at first but really quick and cool once you know how to read it.]

I really like Social Standing as a stat replacement for charisma or charm or other social skills you tend to see. Feels like it would have more impact on the story and less of a "Roll to see if you convince him, I guess" sort of anticlimax social skills have most of the time.

I'm now into the "you can die during char creation in Traveller" bits. Really cool in some ways. Really comical in others. It recommends you enlist your bad stat characters into the Scout service because of it's high mortality rate (so you can roll a diff char before play), lol.

Essentially, you roll stats and that's your entire character but to give them some experience they can enlist in a Service. You have to roll to get in and may get rejected. If so, you submit to the draft (get into one at random). You can die. You can gain skills and promotions.

Honestly, the char creation feels like a solo game unto itself. Risk v reward of how far to push your enlistments to boost your skills and standing and benefits. You could have a whole story in your head by the end of it. Great Session 0 material.

As a 34 yr old, this hurts. Apparently, I have -1 Strength, Dexterity and Endurance now...

I admire commitment but asking GMs to use this full char creator for all NPCs (which means generating chars until you get one capable of filling the role you need) is truly too wild. Best part: at the end, it just says you can also pick whatever you want for stats and skills.

The weapons and intro text have much more of a space as a new age of sail vibe to them than I was anticipating. It's cool. Far more Dune than Alien (so far).

Interestingly (unless I missed something), skills are detached from your stats. Your base stats make getting into a Service easier and help you with Saving Throws and such, but skills have their own modifiers based on the situation and your expertise. It's cool (if a bit dense)!

In case you were wondering, there is absolutely no art in this entire book. I'm hoping we'll get some in one of the other two books with vehicles and ships and such but won't be holding my breath. Gives the whole thing a very Serious vibe.

Always interesting to see how older games chose to handle this (or not).

Here's the UPP in action along with quick listing of other character info. Interesting even if it is just too overcomplicated for my tastes.

Can't overstate how much char creation feels like a whole solo game of its own. You can roll a character at age 18 and have them go through seven 4-yr terms in a Service before retiring and having substantial cash, specific possessions, memberships and social standings. Wild.

The character sheet mentions PSIONICS which is exciting (but I'll have to wait till Book 3 for more on that apparently).

Combat is straightforward but has some unique bits: a focus on stealth as an option and movement/attacks occur by all parties simultaneously which means everyone (enemies too) gets to move and then everyone chooses who to attack and you roll them all. Sounds really fun.

Stats have cool effects in battle. Your Endurance stat is the number of attacks you can make before needing to rest (can you imagine if DnD just didn't let you do a base attack at a point?). Strength and Dex can boost or lower certain weapon rolls like you'd expect.

If trained in a weapon, you can give your expertise as a negative mod to your enemy's rolls to attack you to reflect parrying and blocking which is cool. The skills also add to your attack rolls. Skills just seem really useful overall here.

I just love that we get stats for broadswords, revolvers, and laser carbines. Plus, there are even special tables for archaic weapons for when encountering lower-tech civilizations. It feels like a really wide open interpretation of what space could look like. Feels exciting.

A few more equipment tables and a final quick reference page at the back and that's all for Book 1. I'll be back with Book 2 and 3 in the coming days!

Main thoughts: Character creation is very involved but really cool - its own game practically. Skills are very deep in a way that feels refreshing when compared to more stat-focused games. Combat has some fun, chaotic twists. Feels like a wide universe of possibility here so far.

I'll add Books 2 and 3 to this thread when I give them their own read-throughs. In the meantime, here's my newsletter (last two months have Mothership freebies): https://meatcastle.substack.com

And here's my website (with links to my games and modules and all that good stuff): https://shop.meatcastlegameware.com/

Thanks for reading!

[threewaysdivided]

How Different do you think Young Justice Season 3 would have been had Jay Olivia and Michael Chang returned?

[For context, we’re referring to this post where I broke down the major writing/directing credits for each episode of Young Justice Season 1 and found that former Teen Titans 2003 directors Jay Oliva and Michael Chang had handled over 75% of the episodes in Young Justice Season 1 before vanishing from the credits of all later entries, and this post where I summarise how those later entries actively destroyed the arcs, themes and narrative of the original season.]

TBH it’s kind of hard to tell.  I have a few ideas, but like I was saying in that first post, it can be unwise to pedestal one or two members of a creative team when there are so many factors that can impact the final quality of a work.

Here I think it’s important to mention what a director does.  In situations where the director and writer are separate roles, the job of the director is to adapt the script to a visual form – working with the writers/editors to make changes as needed.  Directors direct how scenes are constructed, presented, acted and “shot” – which affords them a great deal of subtle influence over the pacing, focus and framing of a story.  The visual language of film can do a lot to control what information the audience prioritises as important, and how they interpret/perceive it.  Unsurprisingly, when you have bad, fragmented or inconsistent directing, you end up with stories that lack direction.

While Chang and Oliva having such a presence in the direction of Season 1 definitely lent it some of their specific personal creative flavour, I also think a lot of the major benefit came purely from having two people (and likely others who formed part of the S1-specific creative team) who were experienced in working together and had direct input/oversight of more than 75% of the season from start to finish.  That kind of creative cohesion makes it easier to track and maintain the continuity and progression of a narrative.  Compare and contrast with Outsiders, where you have a rotating shift of three less-experienced directors and a huge revolving door of new writers, with no-one working on more than a single episode in a row, the same directors almost never getting paired with the same writer twice, and a general sense that the story was being produced episode-by-episode with very few people having a clear sense of what had come before or would follow after.

One of the challenges is that the declining quality from Season 2 onwards points to something being fundamentally broken in the creative process at DC Comics/ Time Warner productions.  Young Justice Season 3 was the straw that finally broke my trust in Detective Comics Comics but it came on the heels of things like the original Suicide Squad movie (see this Folding Ideas video for an excellent dissection of those production and editing issues) and the transparently marketing-driven disaster that was Batman vs Superman.  It feels rather like modern-day DC is producing the in-house equivalent of shovelware: underinvesting in the timing and budget that its creative teams need for proper writing, editing, revisions and post-production in favour of churning out superficially saleable high-profit-margin products to cash in on recognisable IP’s and existing fandom markets.  Faced with that kind of incentive structure and production-crunch it can be very hard for a single (or handful of) creative team members to make course-corrections.

That isn’t to say that good media can’t be produced under tight conditions, but doing so generally requires a well-thought-out creative plan for the project.  And unfortunately, that kind of plan is something Greg “I don’t write endings” Weisman is notoriously bad at both creating and sticking to.  This was one of the problems I ran into when doing my YJ: Invasion autopsy: while you can correct some of the surface level problems, the root issue lies in a core story that’s bad from base principles and fundamentally incompatible with what came before.  Again, this can be overcome if other production team members are given enough time and creative authority to review and revise that story-core, but that doesn’t seem to be the production environment S2+ was allowed.

With all that said, I think it’s safe to conclude that, under the circumstances, Young Justice: Outsiders was likely always doomed to be a mess.  The combination of a lack (or even discarding) of a clear show-bible to act as a guide, a lack of clear project-plan (or, at least, plan-communication) from the showrunners,and a lack of pre-/post-production time for other team members to figure out what story they were even telling is pretty much a guaranteed recipe for narrative failure.

However, assuming that a pair of Oliva/Chang-like directors had been on the revival team, with input into most of the episodes, I think we might have at least seen some improvements to execution:

Firstly, we may have seen better cohesion and focus.  In the multi-layered onion of bad storytelling decisions that is the later seasons, the outer layer that many people seem to have bounced off is that it’s hard to care about what’s happening.  YJS2+ are boring and badly paced on rewatch, and a not-insubstantial part of that is bloat.  There is a plague of random new characters, exposition and world-details that don’t meaningfully contribute to the narrative (and for the record, I should clarify that ‘narrative purpose’ is a lot more than just ‘plot advancement’ – the problem here is that these elements are actually purposeless to the point of being distracting), scenes and ‘jokes’ that overstay their welcome due to a lack of proper substance, and ‘twists’ that exist for expectation-subverting ‘shock bait’ rather than moving the story. 

At a surface level, the later seasons desperately needed someone to ask: both ‘what is the focal point?’ AND ‘what is the purpose of this moment/scene for the story?’ and actually make Greg Weisman give them a coherent answer beyond ‘just trust me, it’ll be totes smart when you (read: I) figure it out later’.  Like I’ve said before, there’s a lot of fat that could have been trimmed; shallow scenes that could have been reworked to serve characterisation and themeing, ‘references’ that could have had their screen-time reduced to passing easter-eggs, and other wasted time that could have been better allocated to developing a core cast of ‘focus characters’ with an understandable dynamic to help anchor the broader character web in a relational status quo.  Considering what we saw of Season 1’s character-focus, and Oliva and Chang’s previous involvement in Teen Titans 2003 (which was also very good at prioritising, reinforcing and maintaining characterisation/ character dynamics) I think some improvement in story-focus, especially towards characterisation, could have been achievable.

The other gain we could have potentially seen is more sensitivity and tactfulness in the presentation of certain story beats/ characters.  For this I want to highlight framing:  whether something is respectful or offensive comes down less to the inclusion/exclusion of particular elements and more to the way in which those elements are presented to the audience – the priorities, assumptions and worldview revealed by the delivery.   

Let’s do a couple of case studies just to get our heads around the idea:

For Example One, we’re going to make the point by jumping straight in the deep end of sexual assault and fanservice in media feel free to scroll to the next paragraph if this is a no-fly topic for you.  Our contrasting studies will be The Millenium Trilogy (a noir series I’ve previous referenced in contrast to the YJ revival) and the shounen anime Sword Art Online, both of which contain assault and rape scenes.  Millenium’s depictions of assault keep the perspective on the victims, focusing on the pain/ powerlessness/ degradation/ anger they experience during and after the violation, and examining their reluctance/ aversion to reporting these crimes, while maintaining a respectful detachment towards describing the acts themselves.  In contrast SAO contains an infamous scene where an arc villain attempts to rape the female lead, while the camera fixates on the fanservice of her breasts quivering as he tears her shirt off (in addition to a concerning amount of other fanservice scenes where female characters are penetrated, groped or “peeped on” in ways that are clearly nonconsensual and unwelcome).  From this we can conclude that the issue isn’t inherently with sexual assault being present in a story – how it’s framed makes the difference.  The Millenium Trilogy respects the autonomy of its female characters, using assault scenes as an important narrative device to confront the audience with the violence of systemic sexism and condemn the cowardly entitlement it enables as part of its wider critique of misogyny; Sword Art Online degrades, objectifies and disregards the autonomy of its female characters by using narratively unnecessary sexual assault as a vehicle to ‘reward’ its target audience with fanservice.  What matters is how the subject is handled: is the sexual assault of women treated as a serious problem in need of criticism or as a guilty-pleasure ‘treat’ for boys to enjoy?

Moving to a gentler and more home-field example, let’s compare how pregnancy is handled in Young Justice Season 1 vs Outsiders.  It’s easy to overlook in the wake of the brick-to-the-face that was “you got a baby in there!” but Season 1 also included pregnancy as a plot-beat; Queen Mera announcing the news that she is “with child” during the episode Downtime.  However, there’s that difference in framing:  after it’s announced, Downtime quickly moves past the physicality of Mera’s pregnancy to focus on why it’s narratively important - because Mera and Orin are the royals of a hereditary monarchy and their child will be first in line to the throne of Atlantis.  Despite this being her only episode in Season 1, Downtime also gives Mera multiple characterising moments outside of child-bearing; introduced her first as a Queen and teacher/mentor to the students of the Conservatory, and later demonstrating her power as a battle-mage during the Manta-trooper attack – her pregnancy being almost a footnote outside its narrative-relevance.  By contrast, I think the reason that “baby in there” line from Amistad gets memed so heavily is because it highlights Outsiders unnecessary fixation on the physicality of female characters being pregnant, in addition to a disproportionate tendency to depict female characters as married, pregnant or mothering in the absence (or even at the cost) of narratively meaningful plot or character development – reducing these characters to little more than “pregnant sexy lamps” (as @mimeparadox so eloquently put it in their recent review of similar issues with the Gargoyles revival).  Again, the difference is execution: where Season 1 used pregnancy in a character-specific and narratively-relevant way, Outsiders not only assumes but enforces it as the expected path for female characters – sacrificing both characterisation and screentime for a subtler form of fanservice: one that reinforces and validates a specific worldview of gender (and which has been increasingly revealed to lurk beneath the surface of performative ‘feminists’ like Eric Schneiderman and Joss Whedon).

At this point, I think it’s worth noting that Jay Oliva and Michael Chang are both Asian-American men (i.e. less likely to be blinded by privilege a problem that Greg Weisman has always struggled with), that Chang himself was lead director on TT2003’s anti-bigotry episode Troq and that TT2003 on the whole is often praised for its respectful depiction of female characters (and also Victor’s cyborg status).

Given this, I think similar direction could have resulted in more respectful depictions of non-white and disabled characters.  As it exists, the revival at large (and Outsiders in particular) has a HUGE issue with unnecessary and disproportionate violence towards and villainization of characters-of-colour in a way that inadvertently reveals the bias of the creators; shock-value violence towards marginalised characters being treated as more acceptable and less needing of commentary because they clearly weren’t expected to be as relatable or worthy of empathy as the “main” characters.  Different direction could have seen some of the more needless violence removed in favoured of equally-shocking-but-more-narratively-purposeful elements, some of the narratively-justified violence reframed in a way that was more empathetic to the personalities and bodily autonomy of the victimised characters, or - given more time for revision - used to make a critique of in-story bigotry by presenting the disproportionate targeting of marginalised protagonists as being the product of systemically prejudiced antagonists (rather than casually-bigoted producers).

Similarly, I think better direction could helped respect female/femme characters more.  From Season 2 onwards Young Justice has an increasing problem with the male gaze in how it frames and poses women; Outsider’s borderline-fetishistic obsession with depicting late-term pregnancies again being a particularly egregious example.  Many of these scenes either didn’t need to be included (hence the meme-potential of wasting screen time on a toddler explaining how pregnancy works to a mature audience) or could have been made more narratively meaningful by prioritising specific characterisation over generic ring-fingers and pregnant bellies.   This male gaze issue was at its most insulting with Halo; even if different directors couldn’t change the incredibly disrespectful character-design decision to vacuum-seal a nonbinary, hijab-wearing minor inside a boob-socking, ass-grabbing, wasp-waisted super-suit, they could have worked to preserve Halo’s modesty and gender identity with posing and camera choices that minimised the attention drawn to Halo’s sexual features, and presented their body-language and posture in a less-feminising way.  

This likely wouldn’t have fixed the underlying biases baked into Outsiders’ plotlines but I think there was the potential to soften the execution to the point that they could have felt more like a “missed the mark” than the farcical offensiveness that we got.

That said, I don’t think anything could have truly saved this series.

As I said at the start, I think the thing that ultimately doomed Young Justice was the lack of a long-term story vision; the ego and overambition of showrunners trying to build a story that runs on teasing twists, mysteries and future-resolutions while also openly wanting it to go on forever.  Those two elements are fundamentally incompatible if you want a satisfying experience, and without a clear guiding plan you can’t expect the underlying creative team to successfully find a story’s identity during a rushed pre-production.  You can’t provide direction if you don’t know where you’re going.  It would be like trying to invent an entirely new plane and build it as it’s taking off: a crash is inevitable, the only question is the extent of the damage.

At best, I think we could have seen another Invasion-level non-story: a few isolated good character moments bogged down within a season that, while not overtly offensive, was still thematically confused, overstuffed with characters, driven by contrivance and insulting to the intelligence of anyone actually trying to follow the narrative.  A slow zombification, riding out a few extra seasons on plausible deniability, rather than Outsiders’ rapid crash-and-burn seasonal rot into an offensive cash-grab parody of itself.

And, in a way, I’m kind of glad that Oliva, Chang and the other Season-1-only creative team members didn’t come back for that.  Because, even if it would have resulted in a more palatable product, it would have come from forcing a group of marginalised creators to salvage a privileged dude’s mess.

I’ve spent far too many words over the last few years trying to unpick the layers of why Young Justice is such a narrative failure post Season 1 and now I feel like Benoir Blanc.  Because these problems are a glass onion and at their clear centre, Greg Weisman is an idiot.  He’s a demonstrable bigot, who had a publisher back away after he trashed their franchise with misogynistic queerphobia.  He’s a sex-obsessed loser who tried to launch a Not-Safe-For-Work production company writing Gargoyles Parody Porn while wearing an eye-patch and pretending to be a ‘fan collaborator’.  His writing reveals a consistently toxic attitude towards abuse, consent, boundaries and power dynamics.  Based on some of the creepier things he’s said/written, he could be potentially unsafe for certain fans to be around.  And even setting all that aside (and it’s a lot to set aside) he’s just obviously a hack: he claims things that are neither present in or even supported by the text, he promises future developments and fixes/explanations that he rarely if ever delivers, and he uses those holes as a springboard to pitch separate-purchase side-content that also seldom delivers, in a way that suggests he either has no idea what he’s talking about or is intentionally lying to grift his fans.

And, look, this problem is far from exclusive to Weisman: it certainly didn’t start with him, and it’s not even exclusive to the arts.  Across industries we are currently realising that we’ve let privileged guys who can talk a good game coast by on an assumption that they were qualified to hold their positions of influence, even as we held them to far lower standards of scrutiny than we would equivalent people of any other demographic.

Young Justice was never going to survive long-term (any more than the Gargoyles revival is) because the creative load was always resting on that rotten core.  I think we as a fandom were very lucky that Season 1 had both a sincere creative team and the production schedule needed to overcome it and give us something as good as they did.

I wish we could have seen that quality continue. But, at the end of it all, I’ll make peace with the disaster we got.  Because it was at least a somewhat honest reflection of its lead creator, rather than enabling him to keep failing upwards on the back of his colleagues' contributions.

So yeah. Better directors would probably have resulted in better surface-level polish... but you know what they say about polishing turds. No matter how much sugar they added, Outsiders couldn't be turned into a brownie. You'd still be being fed crap.

And frankly, whether it’s his characters, his audience or his co-creators, I’d rather not continue the pattern of letting Weisman shove the burden of dealing with and correcting for his bullshit onto less-privileged people.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Thoughts of an Isegye’d Historian: A Cunning Plan

Jason Finn

Step one, success! We’re still alive!

Step two....

Okay, step two is to figure out what step two is. I can think of a bunch of things we need to do from here.

Start with, we need to stay alive. For that Mary and I need a safe place to stay, food, water, spending cash, and enough helpful friends, allies, and general area knowledge to keep us from blundering into known hazards. You know; dust storms, pirates, monsters, lawsuits....

Sticking with the Callers and Lee Cheong seems like the best course of action for now. As long as we help with anything we can, they’re willing to put us up and get us started on local language and customs. Plus sticking with them also means sticking with Chae and her library, and that just seems like a really good idea. No, not just because we both want new stuff to read.

(Well, yes, I do, but not the point.)

But Chae’s a foreign cultivator, known for grabbing odd bits of lore from everywhere. If we start spreading wild ideas like democracy and rights to life, liberty, and property, we could end up in very hot water, very quickly. But if a Heavenly cultivator mentions thoughts on philosophy based on little-known passages of Confucian texts....

I’ll have to think about that one. Try out some arguments on Chae, see what she thinks. I do not know how dangerous this might be. Chae can tell us if we need to start small and cautious, or if we’ll need to spend years getting people to know us before we even do that much.

Speaking of starting. If I don’t want us to starve, the best way to do that is make it so no one starves. Tricky.

Okay, think. There’s more than one way to attack this. More and alternate crops are the obvious way. I should mention things like baby freshwater crabs in rice paddies, ducks herded in to glean them after harvest-

Oh. Hive boxes. More accessible honey, less stress on the bees; honey is food and medicine. I don’t remember how large the bee gap between frames has to be, but it’s about as thick as one bee and you can find it by carefully moving the frames. Too close together, they’ll make one mass of comb. Too far apart, they’ll build extra cells in the space. People will have to experiment.

Back to crops. Better fertilizers - do they have guano sources? Better nutrition from the food itself; they’ve got corn, do they know they have to lime it to get more nutrients? Ways to kill pests and weeds - oh my Lord, locust swarms. I know those hit in the Little Ice Age. Is there any way cultivators can stop them dead?

And that leads into, one way to stretch available food is to make sure you lose as little of the harvest as possible. Cultivators manipulate heat and cold. Can we make cold boxes to keep food fresh? Can we, oh, heat-treat the rice meant just for eating, so it doesn’t get moths? How do we handle mold? Is there anything we can do for farmers that’ll make bringing in crops easier and faster?

If I recall right, one of the main labor and time bottlenecks was getting grain out of the field just when it was ripe. Make that faster, and the effects will ripple out a lot. I need a harvester.

...I have no idea how to make a harvester. Outside of, pulling it moves the blade automatically-?

Maybe I don’t need to know. If I can describe what it does, maybe someone else can figure out how to build it.

...While we’re all trying to figure out how far the Grendel curse spread, and how much cure we can come up with to stop it. And we need to look for other survivors of JL93. And see if - knock on wood - maybe there’s some way home....

Well. One step at a time.

[kayhi808]

Return Home - Part 2

Billy Russo. You had never met someone more handsome or charming than him. One of Manhattan's Most Eligible Bachelors. Always the center of attention. Always an entertaining story to tell. Always with a crowd of people & a beautiful woman on his arm.

He was a regular at Uva, the restaurant you worked at. He held many dinner meeting there. The waitresses would fight over who'd get to work his dinners. Not only was he dreamy to look at, he was also a generous tipper. You, on the other hand, happily stayed in the kitchen preparing meals rather than be out on the floor.

One night, the manager told you that Mr. Russo wanted a catering job done at his residence. He was willing to shell out quite a bit of cash for it. He had a menu request of mainly the dishes you created, so you were chosen to work the off-site party. It was a dinner for 12 people, you could easily handle it.

You arrived at his Upper Westside penthouse apartment, toting your cooler of food. Security let you in & called the penthouse's private elevator down for you. The elevator door opens & lets you out into a marble atrium, you look up amazed at the glass skylight. Shit, this place is fancy. You can just imagine all the stars you could see on a clear night. You giggle to yourself, thinking of your idea of camping would be in an executive high-rise, at the front door of the penthouse, surrounding yourself with pillow & blankets looking up at the stars.

"Enjoying yourself, sweetheart?"

Your smile disappears as you turn to see Mr. Russo leaning in his doorway, watching you with an amused grin. You never seen him dressed so casually, jeans & a t-shirt in his bare feet. At the restaurant he's always in suits. "Oh...um...hi." You hold out your hand telling him your name, introducing yourself. "Uva sent me."

"You're a little early, the party doesn't start until 7, no one is here."

"I'm not your waitstaff. I'm your chef," pointing to the cooler you're lugging. "If you just take me to your kitchen, I can get started."

"Shit, I'm...I'm sorry." It's his turn to be embarrassed. "Let me get that for you." He takes the cooler & leads me to his kitchen.

As you step into his home you see the amazing view of Central Park. "I was already impressed with your atrium, but now that I'm inside, wow. You have a beautiful home, Mr. Russo."

"Please, call me Billy." He shoots you a smile from over his shoulder and you already feel yourself blushing. How are the girls able to wait on him? You get one smile and are flustered. The afternoon doesn't get much easier. Billy continued to hang around the kitchen with you. You had to remind him a couple of times that you really need to work if he wanted his meal served on time. He'd apologize, but 30 minutes later, he's back in the kitchen with you.

And that is how it all started. It was beautiful & wonderful...until it wasn't.

*****

One of your girls, Valerie, rushes into the kitchen, "Hey, Y/N? There's a guy outside asking for you."

You finish plating a customer's omelet, "Who is it?" Wiping your hands on a towel.

"I don't know but he's really hot!" She start trying to fix your hair & straightening your shirt. You laugh and swat her away, giving her the plate to serve. "Get away!"

You exit the kitchen & you see Billy with a big bouquet of flowers. "Billy? What..." You laugh and accept the flowers, they are so beautiful and Billy knows how much you love fresh flowers.

Leaning in, "I missed your grand opening. I know how much you wanted this. Congratulations."

"They're beautiful, but it wasn't necessary," you whisper, on the verge of tears.

"Of course they are necessary! I'm proud of you & want to wish you luck." Looking around at the filled cafe, "Not that you need it. Looks like you're a success."

You put the flowers down on the back counter & reach up to wrap your arms around Billy's neck. He quickly pulls you into a hug. He doesn't let you go & instead of pulling away, you relax into his arms for a bit. You miss this. You miss him. He feels so solid and strong against you. He used to make you feel safe & cared for. He still feels like home, despite everything that's happened.

"Sorry, Y/N?"" Valerie interupts, "We got food orders....sorry."

Billy releases you, rubbing his hands up & down your back & giving you a quick kiss on the cheek. "I'll let you get back to work." You nod into his chest, wiping away tears.

"Thank you so much, Billy. This was very sweet of you."

"Oh," handing you a bag, "I accidentally stole your towel yesterday." He gives you a cheeky smile & leaves. You pull yourself together & try to get back to work.

*****

Five minutes before closing you hear the bell above the door chime. Really? You're going to come in 5 minutes before closing? Maybe they just want a drink and not anything from the kitchen. You head out and crash into Valerie who was rushing to the kitchen & looks all excited. "Ow!" She points out into the cafe.

Billy is standing by the counter, with an amused smile on his face after witnessing you & Val crash into each other. He gives a wave in your direction.

"Bill?? What are you doing here?"

"You're done with work? Thought I could take you to dinner."

"Yes, she's done with work!" reports Val.

Turning to her, "Are the floors swept? The machines cleaned?"

Val grabs a broom, "She's still done with work," and hurries off to the other side of the cafe to sweep.

"You could have called first."

"But then you would have told me no. But if I'm already here...."

"Bill..."

"One dinner."

"Bill..."

"You have to eat. Might as well, eat with me. It's just dinner."

"Billy...."

He takes your hand, in his, frowning down at it. "Please," he whispers. He stares at your clasped hands, but doesn't look at you. "Please."

The timbre of his voice changed, & it pierced your heart. It wasn't his playful cajoling. There was a need. "Just dinner." Billy silently nods & places a kiss across your knuckles. "I need to close up."

He gives you a sad smile, "I'll wait for you." That's what hes been doing for the past 2 years, waiting for you.

@idaofinfinity @imagine-a-fictional-boyfriend @e-dubbc11

[karatekels]

Disorderly Conduct - Chapter 4

Hello! This chapter was substantially updated (with smut! :D) within the first 24 hours of it being posted. So if you read it right when it came out, give it another read!

Previous Parts:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

TW: Gagging, bondage, dirty talk, oral sex, graphic sex, questionable consent (they *are* drunk and one is the hostage of another, but they very much want each other)

---

Chapter 4 - Coercion:

---

Cash leaves you there, alone in the bedroom, for probably five or six hours. He takes a couple of phone calls, speaking too quietly for you to make out more than the muffled noises of his side of the conversation, and at one point, there’s a knock at the door. You imagine it’s whoever was dropping off the stolen drugs, or maybe the fakes to replace them with.

Regardless, it seems that Cash was waiting for the drop-off before coming to check on you, swinging the door open and letting it bang loudly against the wall. You barely flinch, curled up in nothing but his shirt, the gag still in place. You had kicked off the pants a few hours into the stretch of solitary confinement. They were uncomfortable, and awkward, and while you didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of being completely bare underneath Cash’s shirt, you knew that it would be much easier to run if you were able to get away from him, so it was a sacrifice you were willing to make.

He surveys you from the doorway with a cold, calculating expression, noting his destroyed pyjama pants kicked to the foot of the bed.

“See how much easier things are when you just stick to being the good girl?” he asks, a note of vindictive pleasure in his voice. You stay silent, glaring at him, and as he clambers onto the bed beside you, you lean away from him as far as you can – not resisting, not fighting, just trying to stay clear of him. You didn’t like the shivers that run through your body when he touched you, especially in your current position.

“Oh relax,” he scoffs, rolling his eyes like you were a melodramatic child. “I’m just moving you.”

“Why?” you try to ask, forgetting about the gag, and he just stares at you, as if considering something. Trying to figure out what you had been trying to say through your muffled attempt at speech, probably.

“I like being able to keep an eye on you,” he answers simply, removing the cuff from the bed and refastening it to your wrist. You note that he keeps the key to the handcuffs in the front left pocket of his jeans, filing that information away for future use.

You let him lead you back into the kitchen, where he forces you to your knees, kicking the backs of them lightly with his foot, briefly removing the cuffs from one of your wrists to thread them through a drawer handle before putting it back on, leaving you at an awkward position on the kitchen floor.

You hardly think all this trouble is necessary – like he’d said, he was able to keep an eye on you over here. Was cuffing both wrists and giving you next to no slack really necessary? You give him a pleading look and try to articulate a request for mercy, but he walks away, returning to the kitchen table to work on weighing white powder on a scale.

Well, at least he seemed to think you were enough of a threat to warrant this degree of overkill. That was something, at least.

At least from here you can look at the clock and be somewhat aware of how much time is passing. You’ve almost been here for a full day at this point, and it’s starting to get dark.

After sitting in silence for what feels like forever, Cash puts the repackaged powder in a cardboard box. There’s a knock at the door, and he opens it – you can’t see who it is from your position, and they don’t exchange words, Cash merely swapping his box with a couple of takeout boxes before shutting and relocking the door.

He opens one of the boxes, the scent of General Tso’s Chicken wafting over to you, and you pointedly turn away, your stomach rumbling like it was trying to call out to the food. The son-of-a-bitch knew that it was your favourite…

Suddenly, he’s in front of you, cutting the gag off with a razor-sharp blade. You immediately work your jaw from side to side; it was aching terribly from the hours of your mouth being held open. Still silent, he extends a bottle of water with a straw towards you, and you drink eagerly, feeling parched.

“Thank you,” you say quietly, hating that any part of you felt gratitude towards him. But you keep that to yourself; it won’t get you anywhere.

He spears a piece of the chicken with a fork, holding it up to your lips, and you latch onto it greedily, unable to resist. He chuckles at your enthusiasm, the sound almost pleasant.

You both sit like that for awhile, Cash leaning against the wall next to you, occasionally feeding you bites of food while you’re awkwardly tied to the wall. You make no move to kick him, argue, or anything, just staying curled up in a ball beside him.

“Can I ask you something? Not about whatever you’re up to,” you tack on hastily, seeing him immediately reach for the gag again. He leans back against the wall, contemplating you in silence, before giving you a curt nod. You see his jaw is clenched.

“Do you really see me as enough of a threat to you that you need to keep me twisted like a pretzel like this?” you ask, a strange twinge of optimism to your tone that makes Cash snort, one corner of his mouth curling up in a smile that’s almost reminiscent of the one you’d see during your time as partners.

“Only you would look at that as a form of flattery,”  he replies, shaking his head in disbelief as he moves to stand.

“Just trying to find something to be happy about,” you retort. “Can I have a beer?” you ask, as you watch him grab another bottle. He gives you a withering look.

“Why, so you can throw it at me? Or smash the bottle to use the glass?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a last meal, combined with anaesthetic.”

His smile fades immediately, and seems to freeze in a neutral mask. You stare into his eyes until they threaten to overwhelm you, and you turn your head away.

“I know how this is going to end, Cash,” you murmur quietly, your eyes cast downwards. “I’m a cop, I’ve seen what you’re doing, I can ID you. And you know that I will, if I get away; I have to. I know that I’m not making it out of here alive.”

Saying it out loud doesn’t upset you the way you thought it would, but it certainly seems to strike a nerve with Cash. Something in him seems snap as he stomps over to you, bottle in hand. His eyes are glassy, and having watched him down beers all day like they were bottles of water in a desert, it’s not hard to imagine why.

“What, you got a better solution?” he challenges, his voice much louder than necessary.

“No, I don’t. Why do you think I want a drink?” you reply tonelessly, the sarcasm absent from your voice; your numbness to the situation seems to have bled into your voice as well. “It’s probably going to happen tonight, right? That’s why you ordered from Lee’s,” you guess, referring to the restaurant he had gotten the takeout from. It had been your place when you were partners, after all.

“How the fuck can you sit there and talk about this so calmly?!” he growls, looking down at you with fury.

“I don’t know,” you answer him honestly, still quiet and unfazed by his mounting rage. “Shock, probably. Why’re you so upset about it?”

“You may be nothing but a pain in the ass, but I don’t particularly relish the idea of your blood being on my hands, Y/N.”

“So then the least you could do is help me get hammered, right?” You know you’re goading him, probably pushing him too far, but at this point, what have you got to lose?

Cash’s eyes pin you still again, and he seems to be searching for something. You look back at him, unblinking, hoping he finds whatever he’s looking for in your expression.

Snarling low in his throat, he lunges at you.

---

An hour or so later, you’ve got quite a pleasant buzz going on.

In a surprising act of (almost) mercy, Cash has allowed you to have one of your hands free, letting you eat and drink on your own, sitting curled up on his green jacket on the floor. He’s still being cautious, taking away empty bottles and the cutlery as soon as you’re finished with them, and staying out of reach, but he’s actually talking to you.

You’re both studiously avoiding talking about what’s led you both to be in this situation, and it seems to be working. It’s almost like the past year never happened; you’re reminiscing, drinking together, having returned to the witty banter you two were used to having with one another.

It’s a shame that things had to go back to normal under these circumstances, but at least if you’re going to die you can pass on having had one more night drinking with your old partner.

Cash slumps down the wall across from you, sliding to the ground, his long legs nearly touching yours where they’re curled up.

“This is bullshit,” he huffs tiredly, finishing another beer. He’s probably had twice as much as you tonight, and while he was much bigger, that was still a lot.

“What is?” you ask, despite already knowing the answer.

“Having to kill you. I just got you back,” he murmurs, despondent.

Well, that was a strange way to phrase things.

“Well whose fault is that, Cash? I tried for months to get you to talk to me and you kept pushing me away.”

You press your mouth into a firm, thin line, debating pressing him for more information. He was going to kill you, so did he really have anything to lose by telling you the truth before he did?

“Will you please tell me why?” you implore him, pleading with your eyes. “What did I do?”

Cash looks away, pulling over the box of beer to grab himself another. It gives him an excuse not to meet your eyes.

“You didn’t do anything, Y/N,” he says roughly, still not looking at you.

“Then why?”

“Why do you have to know?”

“My hours are numbered – I’d like to leave this earth with as little unfinished business as possible.”

“You’re really milking your impending demise,” he comments snidely.

“It’s kind of my only card to play at this point,” you point out. “Come on, what have you got to lose?”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and you don’t push him – it wouldn’t do anything to help your case. Finally, he sighs deeply, and you can tell he’s made his decision.

“The Chief told me I had to cut contact with you. It was either that or get reassigned to another city.”

“What? Why would he ask you to do that?”

“Do you remember the last case we worked on together?”

Of course you did. You’d combed over every detail in your mind a hundred times over, looking for anything that might have been connected to Cash’s suspension, or to him abandoning you.

You’d been investigating one of the major crime families that ran the city’s underground, and had gotten close. Too close. You can still remember the sound of the bullet whizzing just past you as a sniper had taken their shot. You’d been pulled off the case immediately, the same time as you found out about Cash’s suspension. But why should that have meant you couldn’t speak to one another?

“Yeah, of course, we were moving in on the Brigolis. Almost got taken out by a sniper. I’m still pissed I never got to find that guy.”

“I took him out.”

There’s a prolonged silence between you, your eyes snapping up to his to confirm what he meant by that.

“You… you what?”

“That day, when we split up, I caught wind of the fucker coming after you. It was all a trap; Brigoli’s men were never at that building you were staking out. I was too late to stop him from taking the first shot at you, but then I took him down.”

Cash had saved your life?

You suppose that wasn’t too surprising; you’d had each other’s backs numerous times when you were partners. But still, how could that have led to his suspension? To any of this?

“And that’s why you got suspended? I don’t get it – if he was taking a shot at me, you would have been well within your rights to use deadly force.”

“I would have been, if I’d been quick about it,” he says cryptically. “I wasn’t.”

A shudder goes through you at the way he snarls out those two words.

“What… What did you do, Cash?” you ask, but you are quite certain that you don’t want the answer.

“What didn’t I do would be a better question,” he muses, taking another sip of beer. “Regardless, when Levinson figured out I left that fucker in pieces, he had no choice but to suspend me. We’re allowed to take a shot to incapacitate or kill, but we’re certainly not authorized to torture.”

“Why would you do that, Cash?!” you screech at him. In some twisted way, it felt like you were responsible for his actions, even though that was ridiculous. You may have been partners, but people were people, even criminals. Hurting them was only meant to be a last resort if they were a risk to civilians or other officers.

“I was very angry,” he offers by way of explanation, sounding unrepentant. “Anyway, that’s why I got suspended, and why Levinson made us get different partners. He said I couldn’t be trusted to be level-headed working with you.”

“And you couldn’t talk to me in general becaaause…”

Cash gives you a look.

“Mostly because I knew if I let you stay close you’d hound me until you got information out of me. You’re annoyingly persistent.”

You roll your eyes at this response, not buying it. Cash had always taken a gleeful delight in refusing to give into your nagging.

“What else?”

“Huh?”

“You said ‘Mostly.’ Why else did you stay away? It really hurt,” you confess, the alcohol making the wave of sadness that washes over you feel twice as intense.

“Why’d you follow me here, after a year of me ignoring you?” he volleys back, flipping the conversation around on you.

“‘S different,” you insist, your words starting to slur. You take a long drink of the water he’s provided you, needing to sober up a bit.

“Is that so?” he says, clearly not believing you. He slides across the floor, closer to you, and you’re overwhelmed by his presence. “Why don’t you enlighten me then, Y/N?”

“Your eyes are so pretty,” you inform him, leaning closer and trying to grab his head with your free hand to pull him towards you with ease. He snatches your wrist out of the air with ease, gently pinning it to the floor with his hand. His eyes really were beautiful; a bright, wintery blue that always gave you shivers, like they actually were cold as ice. You’re drunk, but not so out of it that you can’t hear the rational voice in your head telling you that you’re being an idiot. Screw rationality; you were a dead woman anyway.

“I liked you, Cash Ewing. You were an arrogant, insufferable prick when we were working together, but I liked you anyways,” you state matter-of-factly, almost proudly, for once completely unselfconscious.

His free hand comes up under your chin, forcing your jaw shut and sending a flood of warmth through you. His size and strength had always been attractive to you; you supposed it was a primal thing, but then, you had tried not to dwell on it too much – before just now, anyway.

“Cut the shit, Y/N,” he says gruffly, and you pout at him, the best you can with his thumb pressed against your bottom lip. His eyes are doing that deep gaze again, like he’s trying to read your mind, and you try to do it back, making him break eye contact first, releasing your chin. You’d seen enough anyway.

“You liked me too,” you say knowingly. “That’s why you… did what you did. Why everything happened like this.”

Completely out of the blue, you start to laugh hysterically, giggling like a hyena until the tears are pouring down your face.

“We’re both fucking idiots!” you shriek, hiccupping as your laughter turns to sobs. “So… damn… stupid!”

“That’s enough,” Cash snarls, glaring at you.

“We’re supposed to be such great detectives and we couldn’t even tell – neither of us!” you continue, utterly unable to help yourself. He’s still pinning your hand to the floor, his grip on your wrist tightening in a warning that you ignore. You’re leaning into the uninhibitedness the alcohol has afforded you. Maybe you’ll piss off Cash enough that he’ll just kill you now; you’ll probably be too busy giggling to feel it. You don’t care.

“Fucking alcohol was a mistake,” Cash mutters under his breath, and you shake your head condescendingly at him.

“It’s not the alcohol – I’ve always been more open than you!” you insist, feeling pleased with yourself. “You’re always acting like a big ol’ tough guy, Officer Cash, but you’re also a coward. You completely cut me off for a year because you were scared of having a conversation, you big, dumb baby! I can’t bel–”

He pounces on you suddenly, pressing you awkwardly against the cupboard behind you, his lips on yours in a fiery, dominant kiss that takes your breath away. Fortunately, you have enough presence of mind left to kiss him back, eagerly allowing his tongue to slip into your mouth with a wanton groan. It’s everything you’d tried not to fantasize about for two years.

Cash’s large hand tangles in your hair, tilting your head just as he wants it to kiss you deeply, growling against your lips – the vibrations of the sound making you whimper in return, causing him to pull back.

“No, don’t stop!” you beg desperately, leaning closer to him as much as you can with your hand still cuffed to the cupboard.

“You want more, baby?” he asks in a deep, husky voice that makes you go weak in the knees. He licks his lips, looking at you with hooded eyes.

“Please, Cash!” you moan his name. It was too good; you needed more.

 He presses you against the cupboard and bends to speak in your ear. Your whole body is trembling with desire and anticipation.

“I’m not an idiot, Y/N,” he hisses, getting back to his feet and returning to his chair in a huff.

“What?!” you exclaim in a panic, feeling cold and empty as he moves away from you.

“The captive seducing the captor into freeing her? Oldest trick in the book,” he scoffs, returning to his drink.

You don’t miss that he’s hard, and try not to let your eyes linger on the prominent bulge in his jeans. He wanted this too.

“You know, I’m glad I got a new partner, seeing how easily intimidated you are. Me and Williams have been in some pretty tough spots, and I bet you would’ve just bent over and taken it,” you snarl, giving him a mocking smile.

Cash’s eyes go black and he lunges towards you, turning you around and bending you over the kitchen counter, pressing himself up against you. You smile smugly against the counter; you knew riling him up would work. It also helped that he hated Williams – now you think you know why.

“You really need to learn to shut your mouth, princess,” he pants in your ear, his erection pressed against your ass deliciously.

“Make me!” you tell him cheekily.

“I told you, I’m not falling for tha–”

“Don’t untie me.”

Cash stiffens behind you, silent for a moment before slowly turning you to face him.

“What?”

“That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?” you ask him, shrugging nonchalantly. “You think I’m trying to escape, so don’t take the cuffs off. I don’t mind.”

His mouth falls open slightly at your words. You wish you could crawl inside of it.

“You… you…” he stammers, and you bite the inside of your cheek to keep the smug grin from spreading across your face. After two years, Cash Ewing was speechless.

“I told you, I don’t want any unfinished business if I can help it. We both confessed to having feelings for each other–”

“I didn’t confess to shit,” he protests, anger in his voice. You ignore it.

“We have tonight, Cash,” you coax him, trying to undo the buttons on his shirt with one hand. He grabs your wrist, stopping you, and you give him a look of irritation. “Are you really so convinced that I’ll be such a mind-blowing fuck that you won’t risk it even if I’m tied up?”

That did it.

Cash lets out the most animalistic sound you’ve ever heard, a mix of arousal and fury that makes your whole body erupt in goosebumps, and he uncuffs you, marching you over to the far wall of the kitchen, pushing a chair up against it.

“Stand on it.”

Fighting against your weak knees, you climb up. Cash cuffs one of your wrists, threading the other over the top of the water pipe that hangs down from the ceiling on its way to supply the sink before attaching the second cuff to your other wrist.

Before you can fully process what’s happening or brace yourself, he’s kicked the chair out from underneath you, an arm wrapping around your waist and pressing you to him just before the drop to the ground would’ve twinged your rotator cuffs. You manage to touch the floor with the tips of your toes, your hands stretched over your head as far as possible. He releases you, and you wobble; it’s not a comfortable position, or one you can maintain for very long, and you let out soft whimpers as you try to keep your balance.

“Still want me to fuck you, even if it’s like this?” he challenges you, standing just out of reach. You look into his eyes with such desperation and need that he groans, palming himself over his jeans.

“I want you however I can get you,” you hiss, and he closes the distance between you, grabbing your waist and lifting you into his arms, your legs coming around his waist immediately. You can barely move in this position, and squeeze your thighs around him impatiently until he kisses you again.

Unable to wrap your arms around his neck the way you want, you settle for writhing in his grip, grinding your hips against him as you kiss him back with everything you’ve got. His hands are everywhere: in your hair, stroking your back, running up your bare legs under his shirt to squeeze your ass possessively, and you’re putty in his hands, only wanting more, more, more.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he pants against your ear, laving kisses along your neck as he holds you further up, using his free hand to unbuckle his belt and pull his pants down enough to take his cock out.

“Keep telling yourself that,” you tell him in between ragged gasps, your eyes rolling back into your head as he teases your entrance with his cock. “Cash, please!”

“Been waiting two years to hear you begging like that, sweetheart,” he purrs in your ear, rolling his hips against you teasingly. “Do it again.”

“Please!” you moan out desperately, grinding down against his cock and trying to get it inside you. “I need to feel you, Cash; I’ve wanted it for so long!”

“There’s my dirty girl,” he murmurs approvingly, slowly guiding you onto his cock. “I knew she was hiding in you somewhere.”

He thrusts upwards, filling you completely and then some, his cock stretching you out more than you would’ve thought possible, and you both let out filthy moans at the sensation.

“Oh my God,” you groan out, rocking your hips as much as you can through the bruising grip he has on your hips.

“You’re so fucking tight, Y/N,” he hisses through gritted teeth, his eyes rolling back in his head as he savours the feeling of being fully sheathed in your hot, wet pussy.

He doesn’t seem inclined to move, so you use the slack in the cuffs this position affords you to reach up and hold on to the water pipe, using it as leverage to try to pull yourself off from his cock to fuck him yourself. He jabs you in the side with a finger and you let go of the pipe reflexively.

“None of that. You’ll take what I give you.”

“Then give it to me!” you whine petulantly, moving your hips as much as you can. It isn’t much; he holds your hips tightly, determined to keep you still, and chuckles darkly as he watches you squirm.

“Always so impatient,” he mocks you, and you let out a frustrated scream that he swallows into his mouth, kissing you fiercely. It’s all too much, and you can’t get enough.

“Must be tough, having such a massive cock with no clue how to use it,” you sneer, smirking at him, and that gets you what you want. Cash pumps you up and down on his cock as he fucks up into you with a growl, settling a punishing pace that has you wailing, your toes curling.

“Gonna have you sobbing for more of this cock, Y/N,” he promises, adjusting the angle of his hips to thrust up against your g-spot and making you shudder. “Tonight I’m making up for all the times I wanted to bend you over my desk to shut you up.”

“Yes, please!” you beg shamelessly, letting him have his way with you and loving every second. It’s overwhelming, it’s too much, and as tears roll down your cheeks, you know that it won’t be enough. It would never be enough.

“Knew you’d be the best fucking pussy I’ll ever have,” Cash grunts, punctuating every word with a thrust and sending you right over the edge, your cunt fluttering as tightening on his cock as you come. He slides out of you, and you whine at the loss, trying to keep your legs wrapped around him even as he pulls you off of him, leaving you weak-kneed and dangling from the ceiling.

“Don’t stop, Cash!” you beg, though you’re in no position to make demands.

“Oh, we’re just getting started, sweetheart,” he promises, his tone threatening in a way that only makes you want it, want him more. He unlocks the cuff on one of your wrists, and you fully hit the ground, unable to stay upright and collapsing on your knees in front of him. Looking up at his cock for the first time, you shiver, hardly able to believe you’d just had all that inside you, and lick your lips. Cash groans, looking down at you with dark, hooded eyes, and you raise yours to meet them.

“Can I?” you ask demurely, and he stares down at you with a frustrated, conflicted expression. “I don’t care what you have to do to convince yourself I’m not going to bite you, Cash; do it. I want all of you tonight.”

His hand fists in your hair, pulling you up to stand on your knees, guiding you to his cock. You take him in your mouth eagerly, swirling your tongue around his heavy length, moaning as you savour the taste of him, and yourself on him, his cock still slick with your release. Reaching up, cuffs dangling from one wrist, you tug his pants down the rest of the way, desperate to see and feel more of him.

“That’s right, baby, get yourself a taste,” he groans, his head falling back as he loses himself to the feeling of you sucking his cock. You moan around him in your mouth, the vibrations causing his grip to tighten in your hair with a delicious sting to your scalp.

“Christ, Y/N,” Cash hisses, looking down at you, running a hand through his short grey hair. “You look so good with my cock in that pretty little mouth.” He thrusts his hips, making you take him deeper into your mouth and down your throat. You let out a desperate whimper, tearing up from the harsh way he’s using your mouth, and as he comes down your throat with a grunt, you distantly wonder if he could just keep you captive forever. You could think of worse ways to spend your time.

You swallow, savouring the musky taste of him, and then he’s tugging you up off the ground and into his arms again, carrying you down the hall to the bedroom. You wrap yourself around him tightly, kissing as much of him as you can reach.

Cash climbs onto the bed with you still in his arms, gently lowering you onto your back. He moves to lean back, but you stubbornly cling to him, making him chuckle breathlessly into your hair.

“Down, girl,” he chides you, prying your limbs off of him, and you harrumph as you fall back onto the mattress. He runs his hands slowly up your legs, over your hips to grip at your waist, his shirt bunching up as he slides his hands higher. Impatient, you move to start undoing the buttons of your shirt, but he slaps your hands away.

“Ah ah ah,” he tsks, looking down at you with a teasing expression. “You get what I give you, when I decide you get it,” he purrs, a possessive note to his voice that you decide you like very much.

“Oh, I see. Need a break?” you ask innocently, arching an eyebrow as you taunt him. He growls, a large hand coming around to squeeze your throat. Instead of heeding the warning, you arch up against him.

“You are the most irritating, bratty woman I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not hearing a ‘No,’” you point out cheekily, and his grip on your neck tightens for a moment before he snarls, releasing your throat to slowly undo the buttons of your shirt, working from the bottom up. He tears it out from underneath you the moment he can pull it off your shoulders, before reaching up overhead and fastening the loose cuff to the bedpost.

He leans back on his heels, staring down hungrily at your naked body, partly stretched out with one arm bound over your head.

“Please,” you beg softly, “please let me see you, too.” You’re not sure why it’s important to you, but you want to see him, and for there to be nothing between you. Cash locks eyes with you, slowly peeling off his layers of clothing, revealing his pale, muscled body to you bit by bit. He smirks at you, and you realize you’ve been staring at him with an embarrassingly slack-jawed expression. You blush, but before you can open your mouth to tell him off he’s on top of you again, large hands running up your sides before bringing them to your breasts.

He kneads them roughly, teasing your nipples, lowering his head to your chest so his lips and tongue can work in tandem with his fingers to draw a litany of filthy, depraved noises from your throat. You writhe underneath him, running the fingers of your free hand through his soft hair and tugging on it gently, egging him on. You feel him harden again, his cock brushing against your thigh as he leans down to tease you. This time, he doesn’t wait for you to beg him, guiding himself back into your pussy, pumping his hips as he continues with his merciless teasing.

“You’re mine tonight, Y/N,” he growls, tugging on one of your nipples with his teeth in a way that has you wailing. “My girl. Gonna pump you full until you can’t take anymore.”

“Don’t stop, Cash,” you plead, losing yourself in the moment, eagerly thrusting your hips up to meet him as he fucks you hard and deep. “Never stop.”

You’re not sure how long you spend wrapped up in one another; it feels like forever, but also like it’s over far too soon, Cash spending himself deep inside you one final time before collapsing on top of you. You fight to catch your breath, relishing in Cash’s weight pressing you into the bed, his warm, sweat-slicked skin feeling absolutely sinful. Eventually he rolls off you, tugging you into his arms as he spoons you from behind, wrapping you up in his large body and laying languid kisses across your bare shoulder.

You lean back against his body, your cuffed arm still stretched out beneath you, and try to savour his warmth and savour the moment, but the looming threat of tomorrow makes you shudder violently as you bite back tears. Cash’s arms immediately tighten around you, his large hands stroking your arms soothingly.

“Sleep, baby. You’re safe for tonight, I promise,” he croons in your ear, leaning over to lay comforting kisses on your cheek. “Tonight is for us.”

“Tonight is for us,” you repeat tiredly, stroking Cash’s forearm with your free hand and feeling him relax against your body as he holds you in his sleep. Your cuffed hand clutches the key you had stolen from his pocket tightly, and you fight your body’s desire to relax and curl up against him.

---

Part 5 | Part 6

[thatfreshi]

New Request System!

Hello everyone!

As of now, I am changing how my requests work. I just cleared out the box because it got really overwhelming (I had over 50 requests), and I also would like to implement a donation system! I am a little tight on money right now, so I figured doing small donos through here might be an extra way to make a little bit of cash.

This is entirely optional!!! I want to stress that! There is a chance that if you put a request in my box without a donation, that I may still write it, but now if you donate a dollar or more I will guaranteed write your request within seven days! You can also donate without wanting a request if you so choose to be that kind :)

So, how it works:

1. Send me your idea, either in DMs or in my request box

2. Tell me in my DM or in my request box what account you donated from (your venmo handle for example). If you do end up for some reason telling me in the request box what account you sent the money from, please make sure it is attached to your original request! Although it's probably easier just to DM me.

3. Boom! Your fic will be done within seven days!

I don't really have many rules when it comes to fic requests. I don't like writing dadstarion, and don't want smut requests, that's pretty much it. Other than that, I am open to almost any astarion x reader requests, and will also be doing Main 6 headcanon posts. In general, if it's similar to something I've been requested before, you can probably ask for it.

If you have any questions or would like to run your request by me before donating, don't be afraid to reach out!

I am currently taking donations via Venmo and Paypal

Venmo - @lunas_aura

Paypal - @thatfreshi

[squid-ink-symphony]

Finally working on my agents?????

Idk what 8 is going to end up like, but I'm going to play octo expansion in the next couple months which should help with that. But for now here's what we have!

I named them all after citrus stuff cuz.. its cute <3 Anyway, if you want a playlist sort of inspired by these 4 and just Splatoon/Splatoon characters in general check this out!

More info under the cut! And of course anything here is subject to change. Feel free to ask me or the agents any questions!

Lime/Captain 3

I mixed the male and female base inkling hairstyles to get the one i use for Lime.

They/Them :)

I changed the cloak they got from cuttlefish to a cape(easier to draw.)

Gave them back their old hero suit/jacket thing and shortened their pants.

This is Lime as of splatoon 3, i dont really know if anything is different about them in one and two that varies from the canon designs other than the hair.

Lime is very much the silent type who tends to worry too much and tries to make sure everything gets handled. This means they can end up taking on a lot more than is healthy for them, but they figure it's better that they do it than anyone else so no one else gets hurt.

has a lot of scars that i didnt include becuz this pic isnt colored.

The exact same height as Yuzu, but Lime wears high heels when in casual clothes so they end up being taller.

Has one older sibling.

Uses roller.

Clementine/Agent 4

Is used to being the smartest there is, and she still is really talented. But when she got into a really fancy school she was suddenly surrounded by other people on her level and she actually had to work. Had never built up good study habits and had just coasted by on natural talent until now, so she dropped out about 3/4 through the school year. A couple weeks later she was scouted by Marie.

She only really went along with Marie due to the low point she was in, and she figured following some random woman into the sewers couldn't be any worse than what she had already done. Saving Callie really helped bring her emotions and confidence back up.

She might still be dealing with feeling like she needs to be perfect and smart for her to have any worth, but she's working to get better and allow herself to make mistakes.

He/Him, She/Her and They/Them!

Their hair is just a shorter version of the "straight" inkling girl hair

The logo on her tank top is supposed to be the cuttlegear logo, but i never drew it lol

Wears her hero jacket around her waist after rescuing Callie.

The wheels help her skate and work well while riding on inkrails. It was her first actual project she let herself work on after dropping out. At first it didnt work, but she eventually tried again and again until it did.

Worlds number one salmon runner.

Was so used to being "the smart kid" until he was surrounded by tons of smart kids. And suddenly, that trait didn't make her stand out any more.

Starts off very self loathing, and Marie doesn't notice because 4 is getting results and all Marie cared about was getting Callie back. But slowly 4 grew to break down and then build herself back up again with Marie's help.

Only child

Uses Dualies mostly, but is also pretty proficient with a charger. Is sort of a jack of all trades and can really play any weapon.

Pomelo/Agent 8

?????

??

She/Her and He/Him???

??????????

??????

?????????????????

E liter user??

??????????????

??????

????

Yuzu/Agent Neo 3

Was originally going to be called Lemon to match with Lime, but i thought Yuzu was cuter

It/It, They/Them, She/Her, and honestly anything else you want to use. Hoards pronouns and names like a dragon.

Lives with Little Buddy and their mom. Their mom(not biological) is a Goldie.

Does actually speak salmonid, and refuses to work for Grizz Co. Will fight their employees on sight. (this causes some slight issues with 4 when they first meet)

Stringer user!

Finds treasure in the splatlands and sells it in splatsville for cash. WILL fight you on sight if you try to take their stuff.

Hair is a mix between the male ponytail and the canon braid style.

Loves to collect shiny bits and bobs, and can sniff out anything like it from a mile away.

Yuzu will do anything for money. It needs money to help support her family!!!

Was sort of conflicted fighting Deep Cut. On one hand, Yuzu respects them a lot for what they do for Splatsville. But on the other hand, Yuzu is not backing down from a challenge OR treasure. So Yuzu chose to at least do Deep Cut the honor of keeping it a clean fight with no tricks.

Speaking of, it WILL play dirty to get what they want.

Very curious and loves to poke around where they don't belong. Will find every little thing hidden in every level.

Absolutely horrible sense of direction, Honey has to help them out a lot.

Is somehow the most naive and most distrusting of the group.

When they celebrate, they go all out! Splatfests, something good happened with the NSS, birthdays, pretty much anything is an excuse to party like tomorrow won't come.

Honey/Little Buddy/Agent Neo 3 Also?

Has a full proper salmonid name, and so does Honey and Yuzu's mom. I just havent decided what they are yet. But Honey was the name Yuzu gave it, and so they wear it with pride!

He/Him, It/Its, They/Them

Has a braid in their hair just like Yuzu!!

Is growing in some of his goldie scales! But not all of them are their yet! Got his first one after the Hugefry transformation. During the transformation he turned into a massive goldie, but returned to normal with no other side effects. But whats this! There was a single golden scale! Honey was so proud!!

Very brave, unafraid to do anything to help Yuzu out! He will help his big sib!!

Likes to cook!

[purplesong1028]

The Perfect Storm

Chapter 4: A Gentle Reminder

Miguel tries to forget that night ever happened. It was just a mistake, a terrible lapse of judgment. Or was it?

Rating: General Audience

Paring: Pacho/Miguel

Words: 2,816

A week after the storm, everything resumes to normal. After all, it was just a tropical storm, not a hurricane. It’s nothing new, not even something worth mentioning in small talks, and Miguel fully intends to keep it that way. A few more days later, Amado brings him a silver briefcase after coming back from the airport.

“It came from Cali. They said it was for you.”

“Did they say what it’s about?” Miguel feels the weight in his arms. It’s quite heavy for its size, so probably not documents. What could it be? A full bag of new product samples?

“No, but I gave it to your security first and they vetted it. It’s safe.”

“Ok, I’ll see what they want later.” He sets it aside. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’ll leave you to it.”

As soon as Amado walks out and closes the door again, he immediately brings the briefcase up to the desk, and unlocks it.

It’s a full bag of neatly stacked cash. What? Why would Cali…Oh.

It was less than two weeks ago, but he honestly already forgot about the poker game, and the fact that Pacho owed him a million dollars. He rarely ever forgets about the money he’s owed, but frankly, it’s understandable this time. A million dollars really became utterly insignificant after some other stuff happened after the bet.

He forces that piece of memory out of his mind, and picks up a stack of cash. He’s not trying to count, but just wants to feel it against his fingertips. Many years ago, shortly after he got into the weed business and had the first stack of cash in his hand, he did this exact same thing. The bills were dirty and wrinkled, but they felt so nice, even smelt nice. That pure bliss of having cash in his hands, having any money, he still remembers it until this day.

But that’s not what he’s feeling now. Cash doesn’t faze him anymore, at least not with this amount, but victory does, and money is just one representation of winning.

Miguel puts the cash back, aligning the edges to make sure everything is perfectly stacked. Sometimes he still handles the bribes himself, when the amount is especially large or when the recipients are important. In those circumstances, presentation truly matters a lot, so it has become a habit for him at this point.

Something hard and cold touches his fingers. That’s strange. That’s definitely not the bottom of the briefcase, so there’s something else in there. Of course there’s something else in there! He grabs the stacks of cash around it, throwing them out, revealing the hidden object: it’s a pink candle.

A fucking pink candle.

The weird sicario, the darkness, Pacho’s face under candlelight, his body, their bodies…

All memories rush back into his brain, regardless of his best efforts to suppress and erase them. It’s humiliating, debilitating, like an addict having a relapse after swearing to get clean.

He hurls it across the room under blind rage. It crashes into a wall and shatters, glass pieces falling soundless on the carpet.

“Señor? Are you alright?” His security knocks.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Miguel grabs the glass of whisky and drinks a large gulp, trying to calm his nerves. No, he can’t lose control. This is exactly what the fucking Colombian wants to see. He’s not falling into the trap, not again.

But why even bother sending the cash, if that candle is the real “gift”? Why not just add a million to their usual payment, and just send the candle on its own? Wouldn’t that be more blaring? Get the point across easier?

Wait…wait.

Miguel rushes back to the briefcase and pours all the cash out. He swears, if there’s one cent more than a million in there, he’s going to kill that asshole. He will. The stacks are scattered everywhere: on the table, the couch, the floor, and he picks them up one by one, frantically counting, one, two, three… The paranoid part of him really wants to take each one apart, just to make sure there are 100 one hundred dollar bills in each stack, and not one more. But he stops himself. This whole time, he’s been preventing himself from going crazy, and hand counting every single bill to a million dollars sounds exactly like what an insane person would do.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take that long to pick up a hundred stacks of cash, but by the time he has piled them back together, he’s covered in a layer of thin sweat. It is exactly a million. Nothing less, nothing more, but it doesn’t bring him the slightest comfort.

How did he let a simple bag of cash that he’s rightfully owed and a stupid candle trigger him into full blown rage? This isn’t like him. He hasn’t been like himself since the day he returned from Panama.

Most nights have been sleepless, which is nothing new, but his mind is occupied by a different kind of thoughts: exciting, erotic, beautiful even, if he’s completely honest with himself. Yet it keeps him on his toes, keeps his mind and body awake while his pretty young wife lies right besides him. Sometimes he would wait for her to wake up and hold her soft body in his arms, taking whatever he wants, chasing a temporary release, but more often, he can’t even be bothered.

It was just one night, one lapse of judgment, one derailed mistake. It’s supposed to be nothing, but he knows that’s a lie. How could it be nothing when it made him angry, confused, and although for just a brief moment, wholeheartedly relaxed and happy? Nothing, no one else has been able to do that, not for a very long time. If it’s about sex, he’s done that with so many gorgeous women; if it’s about novelty, he still doesn’t feel anything towards any man. If it’s about the person…he hates everything about the person.

It doesn’t make any sense, but he wants it. Fuck…he craves it.

*

Miguel runs a hand down his face and takes a look at his watch. It’s almost time for dinner. He should eat something and put all these useless thoughts behind. They will disappear one day; eventually they won’t matter as time passes by. That’s always the case, plus he has a lot more important matters to occupy his mind with. He agreed to larger shipments, so his organization needs to deliver that promise.

He calls his secretary in, asks her to get someone to clean shattered glass pieces off the floor, put the bag of cash aside and bring him dinner. She nods at his commands and walks out, and then, a cleaning lady and two security guys walk in, each doing their task silently without disturbing him, efficient and organized. Within a few minutes, all evidence disappeared without a trace.

The secretary comes back after another fifteen minutes with his dinner, along with a box of freshly baked cupcakes.

“Your wife stopped by earlier, sir, and she asked me to give this to you.”

Miguel looks at the cupcakes. They’re very pretty, of course, everything Daniela does is pretty. She worked at an art gallery after all.

“Did she say anything else?”

“She said she’s going out for dinner tonight, but she’ll be back before midnight.”

“Ok, thanks.” Honestly, he’s not sure what she does or who she hangs out with these days, and he doesn’t really care, and he knows she doesn’t care what he does either. He’s ok with that.

The phone rings, and the secretary turns to leave without being asked, closing the door behind her.

*

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.” There’s some background noise on Amado’s side. “I’m back at the airport, just wanted to tell you that we should be ready for the larger shipment this weekend.”

“This weekend? That’s earlier than expected, right?”

“Yeah, we’re all good here! I could have told you earlier, but just wanted to talk to a few more guys to make sure.”

“That’s good! Great job, Amado.”

“Yeah, no problem. Just let me know when the next shipment is coming.”

“Of course.”

He puts down the phone and picks up a cupcake. Usually he doesn’t like dessert or other sweet things in general, but good news with business always puts him under a better mood.

It’s only after he finishes dinner, he realizes that he will need to call Pacho and tell him they’re ready for the shipment— the last person he wants to speak with at the moment.

It’s stupid, he knows. There is absolutely no way to avoid or ignore Pacho if he wants to keep doing business with Cali. Even if he tries to avoid direct contact, the act itself would appear as weakness and defeat, and he will never allow that, so might as well just rip the band-aid off.

Business carries on; the world carries on. He sits there for a while, indulging the nervousness and paranoia in his mind, until they naturally calm down just enough for him to take action.

He grabs the phone and dials the now familiar number.

For some reason, it takes significantly longer for the other side to answer this time.

“Hello?” After six or seven rings, he almost hangs up when Pacho’s voice comes through, smooth and calm as usual, but it sounds different to him now, because all he hears is this exact same voice whispering seductively in his ear, in complete darkness.

“Hello.” He swallows the lump in his throat. “Is this a bad time?”

“I answered, didn’t I? But it better be important if you’re calling at this hour.”

What hour? Miguel frowns and turns to the clock: it’s already 12:30?! How long was he zoned out for? Now his reason will just sound ridiculous. No one calls at midnight to say they can deliver the shipment early. For a second, he almost wishes that he actually has some business crisis going on, so he can be saved from this embarrassment.

“You’re still there?” Pacho speaks again, audibly more impatient.

“Yeah, I didn’t mean to call at this time but…” He pinches his nose bridge. Well, something is better than nothing. “I just wanted to tell you we’re ready for the next shipment, if you want to send it a week or two earlier.”

There’s nothing but complete silence for at least 10 seconds, not even the sound of breathing. His palm starts to sweat, making it more difficult to hold the phone.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah…look, I just lost track of...”

“Of what?” Pacho interrupts him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Of time!” The coldness and accusation in the other man’s voice turns his own embarrassment into irritation and defensiveness. Why does the Colombia always have to be such a fucking asshole?! “What, it’s never happened to you before?”

Pacho scoffs, the contempt still very clear across thousands of miles, on the other end of a phone.

“Fine, sorry to interrupt whatever you were doing.” He wraps up the conversation in the politest manner he can manage, ready to just hand up and toss the phone.

“And what are you really doing, Miguel?”

His finger freezes on the red button, like he’s bespelled by the sound of his own name. Pacho has never called him that. At first it was Félix, and then Miguel Ángel, but never just Miguel. In fact, the only person who calls him Miguel is María, and Neto too, sometimes, but that old man just calls anyone whatever he wants.

Part of him feels extremely offended, enraged even, because it’s not Pacho’s fucking place to call him that.

However, it’s not only the name itself that’s the issue, but more about the way it is said: carefully, intentionally, with every syllable meticulously pronounced.

“What are you doing, hmm? Sitting behind your desk alone, in a large, empty room?” Pacho keeps talking, now with a much more softened tone, but somehow it sounds even more dangerous, more personal. “Do you hear voices in your head too?”

He should just hang up. He is in fact hearing a voice in his head right now, and it’s screaming at him to fucking hang up.

He shuts it up internally, and brings the phone back to his ear. “What about you then? Your best late night activity is to insult me over the phone? How interesting.”

Silence falls upon them again, and Miguel feels his heart dropping in his chest. What the fuck is he doing, throwing meaningless insults back and forth like some rebellious teenager? He shouldn’t have called at all. That is the worst idea, or the second worst maybe, the worst one being sleeping with Pacho.

A small sound passes through the line, almost inaudible, and he can’t tell if it’s a huff or a sigh. But then Pacho laughs out, nothing extra, merely a light chuckle, but just like that, all the tension vanishes under the lightheartedness.

“Well, it could be worse.” The Colombian says, teasingly, but still an acknowledgment nothing less than truce, yet it makes him feel more taken back than any threats he was anticipating.

Are you ok? He almost wants to ask, but of course he doesn’t.

“Like what?” He ends up asking, although he knows it’s a useless thing to say. In fact, there’s no point in keeping this conversation going at all.

“Can you seriously not think of anything worse than being insulted in this business?”

“That’s fair.” He feels the corners of his mouth curve up into a tiny smile. It’s the ugly truth, but hearing it from Pacho somehow makes it sound like dark humor.

“We’ll send the shipment a week early. You can expect it on Sunday.”

“Ok, sure.” He almost forgot that was what they were talking about before the conversation took a weird turn. “I’ll tell them to get ready.”

“Bueno.” There’s a slight change in Pacho’s tone, like the kind of strenuous sound when someone talks while trying to reach for something. “Is there anything else?”

“No, that’s it.” He keeps his voice even, but can’t stop himself from imagining the Colombian stretching in bed, or reaching to the side to turn off the lamp… He closes his eyes and snaps the thought out of his brain. What the hell’s wrong with him?!

“Alright, buenas noches.”

“Buenas noches.” Miguel responds, a little more hurriedly than intended, so he can hang up as soon as possible.

The office becomes quiet again. It’s not even that late, and there must be some people still awake in the hotel, but he can’t hear them since he’s on the top floor. It’s great most of the time. It provides an appropriate environment to focus, to think, but the problem is he can never fully control what he thinks. He can most of the time, but not a hundred percent— no one can do that, not even him.

When his mind wanders free, quietness transforms from blessing to curse.

He gets up from the armchair, stretching his arms a little, and walks into the bathroom. It’s going to be another restless night.

*

Miguel wakes up the next morning when sunlight shines through the slit between thick curtains. He didn’t sleep that bad, surprisingly. He spent quite some time tossing and turning, but once he drifted off, he slept through the entire time. Maybe it’s better for him to sleep alone now.

After he gets ready and walks into the office again, the secretary tells him Azul’s here. He lets him in, and they talk about some updates within the organization: the fuel between Tijuana and Sinaloa, some difficult PRI politicians…all the old annoying shit, nothing easy but nothing new.

“Did you hear about Cali already?” Azul suddenly asks, just when he thinks the conversation is about to end.

“What?” He switches to a calmer tone. “What about them?”

“They were bombed by Escobar last night. I heard it hit pretty close.”

“Wait, last night?”

“Yeah?” Azul confirms a little hesitantly. “Did you hear something else?”

“No, but I just spoke with them on the phone last night, and they said they could send their shipment on Sunday.” He states the facts, carefully masking all the emotions. “Probably not that serious, just get me more information on the two senators you mentioned.”

Azul nods, and takes it as his cue to leave.

Once he’s alone again, Miguel pours himself a glass of whisky. It’s a terrible idea to drink liquor before breakfast, especially for his stomach, but he doesn’t care. He needs it.

He fucking called Pacho after midnight for something insignificant, right after Cali was bombed. But that’s not even the worst part.

The worst part is that it bothers him, while he has zero reason to care.

@ashlingiswriting @narcolini @yourlocalspacewitxch @drabbles-mc @mandaloria314 @alreadywritten @cheesybadgers @cherixrosa @cositapreciosa @criatividad-e @dashavau @sikkui

[nurealtyadvisors]

Advantages of Multifamily Real Estate Investing

Investing in multi-family real estate is a favored asset class among both seasoned and novice commercial real estate investors. This category of real estate comprises properties specifically developed to accommodate multiple families, including apartment buildings and townhouses. These properties are typically owned by a single entity and rented out to multiple tenants. Multifamily investment properties for sale in New York can be a lucrative investment opportunity for individuals and companies looking to generate income from rental properties. Here are the many benefits of multifamily investing:

Help Pay Mortgage

One of the key advantages of investing in multi-family real estate is the ability to lease out multiple units, generating rental income that can be used to offset or even pay off your mortgage. With this strategy, you can enjoy the financial benefits of property ownership while maximizing your returns. This can significantly reduce your monthly housing costs and help you build equity in your property faster.

Easy to Finance

When considering obtaining a mortgage, multi-family loans are comparatively simpler to qualify for than single-family homes. This is because rental income can be considered as a source of income, enabling you to secure a larger loan. Nonetheless, it is crucial to meticulously examine your credit report and make enhancements to your credit score to secure the most favorable mortgage interest rate. By doing so, you can ensure that your mortgage application is successful and you receive the best possible terms.

Scope of Real Estate Portfolio Construction

Investing in multi-family properties presents an excellent opportunity for creating a rental property portfolio. By acquiring more multi-family units, you can generate sufficient rental income to offset your mortgage payments, thereby freeing up funds to acquire additional properties. This approach enables you to grow your real estate investment empire steadily. Over time, you can build a portfolio of properties that generates significant monthly income.

Easier Control

When you own Multifamily buildings for sale in Yonkers New York, you have greater control over your investment. You can handle the day-to-day issues that arise, collect the rent, and save on property management costs. Additionally, many renters treat multi-family units better because they know the owner is nearby.

Tax Benefits

Another significant benefit of multifamily real estate investing is tax benefits. You can write off the costs of maintenance and repairs on your rental unit, deduct insurance premiums and property/facility management fees, and reduce the value of your home over time. All these tax incentives lead to many tax savings.

Simplicity

Multi-family real estate investing is also a much easier way to become a real estate investor. You only need one mortgage and one insurance policy to cover your building, which makes it simpler to manage and reduces the need for property managers.

Reduce the Risk

Owning multiple units reduces risk. If one unit is vacant, you still have rental income from the other units to cover your expenses. Additionally, owning multi-family properties can help you weather economic downturns and other challenges that can impact the real estate market.

Conclusion

Multifamily investments offer compelling risk-adjusted return profiles. Different financing options are available for family offices and property trusts for individuals and partnerships. However, the complexity and diversity of the structural features of each loan create opportunities for failure in the financing process. Investigate not only the financing options but also the structural characteristics of the loan and be aware of the limiting factors early in the process. This creates the foundation for a successful path that increases cash flow. It is advisable to rely on seasoned brokers specializing in multifamily real estate investment to assist you in navigating the intricacies and pinpointing suitable prospects. Investing in multi-family properties can potentially yield substantial rental income, enhance equity, and foster financial security.

[rickgrimes301]

Crypto Transactions: Different Payment Gateways and Their Business Benefits

Crypto payment gateways are increasingly necessary in view of the growth of digital finance for businesses looking to take advantage of the possibilities of crypto transactions. These gateways are not just options that allow businesses to accept digital payments but come with features that can improve business processes and the experience of customers. This article presents information on such gateways and the benefits that come with them especially to the business person.

Understanding Crypto Payment Gateways

Crypto payment gateways can be defined as web applications that enable businesses to accept cryptocurrency payments from customers. These gateways provide a link between a business’s website or application and the blockchain network to facilitate smooth and secure transactions. Some major players in this area are BitPay, Coinbase Commerce, and Binance Pay, all specializing in various aspects of supported services for businesses.

Types of Crypto Payment Gateway

Centralized Gateways: Some of the centralized gateways include BitPay and Coinbase Commerce which make the payment process easier for the business. It’s always easy to navigate through them, integrate with other e-commerce platforms, and they also provide extensive customer service. Such gateways may come with attributes such as the possibility to instantly convert received funds to fiat to minimize the impact of price fluctuations for the seller.

Decentralized Gateways: Some decentralized gateways like the one developed based on blockchain technology known as OpenNode stresses on security and privacy. They are decentralized and depend on smart contracts to facilitate agreement and secure, peer-to-peer transactions. This kind of gateway is particularly favorable for those firms that embrace the provision of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Multi-Currency Gateways: There are multilingual payment gateways such as CoinGate and GoCoin, which are equipped to handle a multitude of cryptocurrencies. These gateways enable sales in different eCommerce currencies, meeting the needs of customers as well as extending the operations of companies.

Advantages of Crypto Payment Gateways for the Business

Lower Transaction Fees: The traditional payment processors have been known to charge high transaction fees for payment processing for companies that carry many transactions. Crypto’s payment gateways are cheaper, which means businesses can cut expenses linked to the processing fees and increase their revenues.

Faster Transactions: The use of Cryptos allows the transactions to be completed faster than any banking network. This speed can greatly improve the cash position and the satisfaction with customers because businesses get paid faster and can control their cash flows better.

Global Reach: Cryptocurrencies do not have geographical restrictions. Accepting cryptocurrencies also means that firms can be active in global markets without the significant costs related to cryptocurrency exchange and international transactions and attract more customers, making them bigger in the global markets.

Improved Security: Crypto payment gateways provide safe means of transacting online through employing the enhanced encryption and blockchain technology in the process. This helps to minimize the risk of scams and charge backs hence offering businesses a safer method of handling their payments.

Innovative Customer Experience: The ability to accept cryptocurrencies is one of the ways that a business can differentiate itself from competitors, since consumers who are drawn to digital money technologies will go over and above for it. This can improve the general performance of customer service and increase the overall reputation of the business in the field of finance and innovative products.

Conclusion The progressive advancement in the digital economy, the incorporation of the crypto payment gateways within the business is beneficial. These gateways offer different functionalities that enable business to overcome challenges such as high transaction fees and international markets operations. Fire Bee Techno Services is clearly the most credible solution provider for those who want to work with cryptocurrency payment gateway development. It also means that their knowledge helps enterprises implement crypto solutions for payments and benefit from using the blockchain ledger technology.

[adelaideautorecycling]

Why Stainless Steel Recycling is Important

Stainless steel is widely used in construction, automotive, appliances, and various other sectors due to its durability, resistance to corrosion, and aesthetic appeal. Its unique composition, which includes chromium, nickel, and other elements, makes it highly recyclable. Here’s why stainless steel recycling is critical:

Energy and Resource Conservation: Recycling stainless steel requires far less energy than producing new steel from raw materials. This energy-saving process also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, playing a vital role in combating climate change.

Conservation of Raw Materials: Stainless steel production uses non-renewable resources such as iron ore, chromium, and nickel. Recycling scrap stainless steel reduces the need to mine these resources, preserving them for future generations.

Reduction of Waste: Stainless steel is 100% recyclable, and by recycling, industries in Lonsdale can avoid sending scrap metal to landfills. This helps reduce waste, freeing up landfill space and preventing environmental contamination.

Economic Benefits: Recycled stainless steel has a high market value, making it an attractive option for manufacturers and businesses. The demand for recycled stainless steel is growing, particularly in construction and automotive industries, contributing to economic growth in Lonsdale.

The Stainless Steel Recycling Process in Lonsdale

The stainless steel recycling in Lonsdale is efficient and environmentally friendly. Here’s a breakdown of the key steps:

Collection and Sorting: Scrap stainless steel is collected from various sources, including industrial plants, demolition sites, and households. Once collected, the scrap is sorted based on its grade and composition to ensure that it meets the necessary standards for recycling.

Shredding and Melting: After sorting, the stainless steel is shredded into smaller pieces, making it easier to melt. The shredded metal is then melted in large furnaces at high temperatures. During this process, impurities are removed, and the metal is refined.

Refining and Alloying: Once melted, the stainless steel is further refined to ensure that the correct balance of chromium, nickel, and other alloying elements is achieved. This step is crucial for maintaining the quality and durability of the recycled stainless steel.

Forming into New Products: After refining, the molten stainless steel is cast into ingots or slabs, which are then rolled, cut, and shaped into new products. These products can be used in the construction of buildings, vehicles, kitchen appliances, and many other applications.

Local Stainless Steel Recycling Centers in Lonsdale

Lonsdale is home to several recycling centers that specialize in stainless steel recycling. These centers provide businesses and individuals with convenient solutions for recycling scrap metal while adhering to strict environmental standards.

When selecting a recycling facility in Lonsdale, it’s important to consider:

Compliance with Environmental Regulations: Choose a facility that follows local and national environmental laws, ensuring that the recycling process minimizes pollution and energy consumption.

Reputation for Quality and Efficiency: Look for recycling centers with a proven track record of handling stainless steel efficiently and responsibly, ensuring that the scrap is properly sorted, processed, and returned to the supply chain.

Competitive Pricing: Many recycling centers in Lonsdale offer cash for stainless steel scrap, providing a financial incentive for businesses and individuals to recycle.

The Benefits of Recycling Stainless Steel in Lonsdale

Stainless steel recycling offers a wide range of environmental, economic, and social benefits:

Environmental Impact: Recycling reduces the need for mining raw materials, minimizing habitat destruction, soil erosion, and water pollution. It also lowers energy consumption and decreases greenhouse gas emissions.

Circular Economy: Stainless steel recycling is a key component of the circular economy, where waste materials are transformed into valuable resources that can be reused. This approach promotes sustainability and reduces the environmental footprint of industries.

Economic Growth: The demand for recycled stainless steel continues to grow, particularly in sectors like construction, manufacturing, and automotive. Recycling centers in Lonsdale contribute to the local economy by creating jobs and providing raw materials for industry.

Conclusion

Stainless steel recycling in Lonsdale is more than just a waste management solution—it’s an essential part of creating a sustainable and environmentally responsible community. By recycling stainless steel, businesses and residents can reduce energy consumption, conserve natural resources, and prevent waste from entering landfills.

[favouritefab-blog]

Sanitary Pad Vending Machine vs. Dispensers: Which is Right for You?

Introduction: In public restrooms, particularly in high-traffic areas such as malls, offices, and schools, ensuring that sanitary products are readily available is crucial for convenience and hygiene. Two popular solutions for dispensing these products are sanitary pad vending machines and dispensers. Each option has its own set of advantages and considerations. This guide explores the differences between sanitary pad vending machines and dispensers, helping you determine which is the best fit for your needs.

Sanitary Pad Vending Machines

1. Overview: Sanitary pad vending machines are automated devices that allow users to purchase sanitary products using cash or electronic payment methods. These machines are designed to offer a variety of products in a secure, user-friendly format.

2. Advantages:

Convenience: Vending machines provide immediate access to sanitary products without the need for human assistance. This is particularly beneficial in locations where privacy and discretion are important.

Variety of Products: They can be stocked with different types and brands of sanitary products, giving users more choice.

Revenue Generation: If located in commercial or public spaces, vending machines can generate revenue through product sales.

24/7 Availability: Machines can operate continuously, ensuring that products are available at all times.

3. Considerations:

Initial Cost: Vending machines can be more expensive to purchase and install compared to dispensers.

Maintenance: Regular maintenance is required to ensure that the machine is stocked, functional, and clean. This includes managing cash or payment systems.

Space Requirements: Vending machines require more space than dispensers, which may be a consideration in smaller restrooms.

Technical Issues: They may experience technical problems or malfunctions, which could require specialized repairs.

4. Best For:

High-traffic areas where immediate access to a variety of products is important.

Locations where revenue generation from product sales is desired.

Environments where privacy and discretion are key concerns.

Sanitary Pad Dispensers

1. Overview: Sanitary pad dispensers are simpler devices that provide sanitary products to users without requiring payment. These dispensers often use a mechanical or manual mechanism to dispense the products.

2. Advantages:

Cost-Effective: Dispensers are generally less expensive to purchase and maintain compared to vending machines.

Low Maintenance: They require minimal maintenance and are easier to refill and clean.

Space Efficiency: Dispensers take up less space and can be installed in smaller areas or alongside other restroom fixtures.

Ease of Use: They are straightforward for users to access, often using a push-button or pull mechanism.

3. Considerations:

Limited Product Variety: Dispensers usually offer a limited selection of products compared to vending machines.

No Revenue Generation: They do not generate revenue, as they do not require payment for product access.

Stock Management: Regular refilling is needed to ensure products are available, and it may require more frequent checks compared to vending machines.

Less Discreet: In some settings, the visibility of the dispenser may impact user privacy, though this can often be mitigated with well-placed fixtures.

4. Best For:

Budget-conscious installations where cost savings are a priority.

Smaller restrooms or locations where space is limited.

Facilities where providing sanitary products as a complimentary service is desired.

Choosing the Right Option:

1. Evaluate Your Needs:

Traffic Volume: For high-traffic areas, vending machines may be more suitable due to their higher product capacity and the ability to handle more users.

Budget: Consider your initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs. Dispensers offer a more budget-friendly option with lower upkeep.

Product Variety: If offering a range of products is important, vending machines provide greater flexibility.

Space Availability: Assess the available space in your facility. Dispensers are ideal for smaller areas, while vending machines require more room.

2. Consider User Experience:

Privacy: Vending machines offer a higher level of privacy and discretion, which may be preferred in certain settings.

Convenience: Both options provide convenience, but vending machines offer the additional benefit of allowing users to make purchases at any time.

3. Maintenance and Operation:

Ease of Refilling: Dispensers are simpler to refill and maintain, while vending machines may require more complex servicing.

Technical Support: Consider the support and service options available for each type of device.

Conclusion: Both sanitary pad vending machines and dispensers serve important roles in providing sanitary products in public restrooms. Your choice between the two will depend on factors such as budget, space, user needs, and maintenance capabilities. By carefully evaluating these aspects, you can select the option that best meets your requirements and enhances the convenience and hygiene of your facility.

[rachellaurengray]

Understanding Financial Hiccups: Why You Shouldn't Feel Embarrassed

We all face unexpected financial bumps along the road—whether it’s a surprise bank fee, an unexpected expense, or an occasional cash flow issue. In such moments, it’s easy to feel embarrassed or anxious, especially when it involves handling responsibilities like paying for a gym membership or any other recurring expense. However, it's important to remember that these experiences are a normal part of life, and feeling embarrassed is not necessary.

Here’s are 10 reasons why you shouldn't let these financial hiccups weigh you down.

Life Happens to Everyone We live in a world where financial surprises are commonplace. From medical emergencies to sudden repairs, life is full of unplanned expenses. These events are part of the human experience and don't define your ability or worth.

Professional Understanding Those who work in customer service and management often deal with similar situations regularly. They understand that financial issues can arise and are usually more accommodating than we might expect.

Transparency is Appreciated Being open about your financial situation demonstrates honesty and integrity. Most people will appreciate your upfront communication rather than an attempt to conceal the issue.

Long-Term Relationships Count If you’ve been a member of any service for years, your established history is a testament to your commitment. Service providers value long-term relationships and are likely to show understanding during temporary setbacks.

Everyone Makes Mistakes Bank errors and unexpected fees are not uncommon. Everyone encounters such issues at some point, and it’s a normal part of financial management.

Your Intentions Matter What counts is your willingness to address the situation. Your effort to resolve the issue and your commitment to fulfill your obligations reflect responsibility and good faith.

It’s a Common Scenario Financial challenges are a universal experience. Gyms and other service providers frequently handle similar scenarios and are accustomed to working through them with their clients.

Being Proactive is Key Taking the initiative to communicate and manage the situation demonstrates proactive behavior. This quality is generally viewed positively and can help in finding a resolution.

Empathy is Often Found Most people, including those who work in service industries, can empathize with your situation. They understand that financial issues are often temporary and do not judge you for them.

Personal Growth Opportunities Facing and managing financial challenges can foster personal growth. It enhances your problem-solving skills and resilience, contributing positively to your overall development.

As someone who has faced the dues of severe loss, I understand that navigating these kinds of situations can be particularly challenging. My experience has taught me that it's okay to face difficulties and seek help when needed. Embracing this understanding can make managing financial hiccups a bit easier, allowing you to move forward with confidence and without unnecessary embarrassment.

[prwirenow1]

Grow Your Business & Optimize Revenue with Truebyl's Telecom and Tower Billing Solutions

The telecom industry is growing lightning-fast, thus billing and revenues administration is a major success factor. Comprehensive billing solutions are essential for telecom operators and tower companies due to the complexity of their networks and services. Truebyl offers sophisticated telecom and tower billing solutions designed to streamline processes, reduce costs, and maximize profits.

Truebyl Comprehensive Telecom Billing Solutions

Telecom Billing Solutions by Truebyl have been crafted to respond to the typical issues that telecommunication provider’s encounter. This application manages everything, beginning from customer records up-to date to an effective transaction handling over large amounts of data. Truebyl integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, whether you are a mobile service provider, internet service provider, or a traditional telecom operator.

Key Features

Automated Billing Processes: Truebyl is an automation software that covers every aspect of invoicing & invoices are generated quickly and with precision

Flexible Tariff Management: Truebyl provides flexibility in tariff management. You will find it easier to adapt your prices, discounts or promotions so as to remain competitive.

Processing data in real-time: Enjoy our complete data processing capabilities: about invoices received, products sold or services utilized as well as certain costs incurred during that period of time.

Custom-made Tower Billing Solutions

Running a network of towers presents its own unique obstacles, especially regarding billing. Truebyl's Tower Billing Solutions are designed specifically for tower companies that require assistance in managing leases, rents and other sources of income.

Key Features

Site Lease Management: Managing tower rentals and leases has never been easier – generate invoices automatically and keep a record of payments made. Monitor each and every single contract from the same place using automated renewal and notification systems.

Revenue enhancement: By spotting resources that are unused completely and re-examining the rate structures that you employ, you should be able to get the very best from your income.

Truebyl Revenue Management Solutions for Telecom Businesses

Profitable business in competitive telecom industry relies on effective Revenue Management Solutions. Truebyl’s software provides insights to optimize your pricing strategies and cash flow management across sales channels thus improving your overall revenue management approach.

Key Features

Dynamic Pricing Models: Dynamic pricing strategies are dependent on data obtained in real-time regarding the market and customer actions.

Fraud Detection and Prevention: Your business will be protected from revenue losses by sophisticated algorithms that detect fraudulent activities.

Integrated Reporting and Analytics: Integrated reporting tools equipped with comprehensive analytics enable one to have an overview of their earnings performance.

Why Truebyl Is The Best Option?

Truebyl is renowned for its reliable telecom billing and revenue management solutions, making it a leader in innovation and customer care. By choosing Truebyl, you are partnering with a company that views your success as its own, offering more than just software solutions.

With Truebyl’s Telecom and Tower Billing Solutions, you can streamline billing processes, track your passive assets , optimize collection methods, and focus on expanding your business.