#custom hamburger boxes

[kirarifutari]

enhypen as fast food workers (enhypen ot7.)

GENRE .. !? enhypen ot7 headcanons i guess... pureee crack, comedy

WARNINGS .. !? not proof read, swearing, for shits and giggles don't take anything to heart lol

WC ..?! approx 852

NOTES.. ?! okay pls blame @dazed-hee for putting this thought into my head and helping me w this... i cannot believe i sat my ass down and wrote this,, yes i just got off work ... anyway i hope u enjoy this goofy little piece pls like + reblog to support!!

heeseung

actually does his job properly LOLLL

he's so good at it asw he is never ever stressed 😭😭 he never complains either he just gets shit done ?? like you'll be on shift w him and magically you don't have to do anything ever bc somehow he has it under control…?

all the customers love him asw LMAO he's the type to remember regulars 🙏

god sent everyone needs a heeseung to work with, he's even nice to the rude customers but is not afraid to be a little passive aggressive bitch 🤧

he never talks badly about anyone so no one ever shit talks him?? but if you ask him ab drama he'd be like “not naming any names but…” 😭

jay

he is exactly like heeseung except when is jay ever NOT stressed

he is internally crying every five seconds over something and every time a customer complains about something you can see the light in his eyes die little by little 💀💀

he doesn't even care what anyone else is doing he's just so caught up in doing his job he doesn't realise that he's doing everything himself…  more utc!

if you catch him on a good day tho you can hear him make fun of customer orders 😭 “who the fuck orders 3 hamburgers past the age of three years old…”

let's you do whatever you want bc hes too busy dealing w the emerging grey hairs 🙏

jake

the best person to work your shift w for a good time hands downnn

he's so funny he will make you cackle every five seconds,, you'll be taking a drive thru order and you'd be trying so fucking hard not to laugh into the mic 😭 he will fr start SINGING in ur ear goodbye

super friendly w customers and will literally start a conversation ab the most random things ?? “bro did you just order this family box?? you eating that yourself? that's crazy, mad respect” 💀

dawg does everything all at once, making burgers, taking orders, handing out food, changing the bins ??? yet somehow he's the one goofing off the most ? 

sunghoon

doesn't know how he landed the job tbh… everyone expected him to be unemployed the rest of his life 🔥

HE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO COUNT CHANGE W CASH 😭 bro tries his hardest but is always fumbling around fr,, our maths legend

the type to be like “hm? i can't hear you” “what did you say? “yeah just gimme a minute” he is TOO CHILL he's so unserious ab this job he clocks on and does nothing half the time 🙏 he'll say he'll do what you ask him too but... you both know he won't xoxox

somehow he's still one of the managers favourites and gets good shifts every week… 

if a customer yells at him he'd be like “yeah give me a second” and then just gets someone else to deal with it LMFAO 💀

sunoo

THE BIGGEST SHIT TALKER having a shift w him is so good, he somehow knows everything that's going on w everyone ??? fills you in w all the gossip fr.

he's rly bubbly w all the nice customers and is one of the nicer employees to work with but if ur on his bad side … 💀💀💀

like if you annoy him as a customer he will hand you order wordlessly and look you up and down HE DOESNT CAREEE BROOO 😭

if anyone ever blames him for doing something wrong on shift he literally will just be like “that wasn't me tho 😄😄” biggest liar and everyone knows it but no one cares cus we all love him 🫶

sunoo will definitely be the type to buy you food on his break or give you free stuff when you clock off 😭

jungwon

would be the biggest gas lighter LMFAO

“oh you ordered a double big mac and not a regular? yeah on our register it's gone through as regular so i don't know what you want me to do, you can pay for another one tho!” 💀💀💀💀

bro gives so much sass to rude customers he does NOT gaf, he does it all w a smile on his face too like “sorry about that but we can't do anything to fix it 😊” 

he’d be so chill w his co workers asw, he would really care if everyone's messing around but somehow w him on shift everything goes oddly smoothly… 

working w him is so fucking funny cus he will never take no for an answer w a customer he will keep pushing until they LEAVE 😭

niki

LMFAOOO okay this kid fucking hates his job LOL

will spit in a customers drink because he can 🙏 he will not take shit from anyone and he knows no one will fire him bc they're understaffed 😚

plays the best music and always has kitchen speaker aux !!!

if you ask him to remake a burger or help you with something he'll either give you a blank stare or a “no, i won't.” and then do it for you anyway 👊👊 he is such a little menace but he doesn't care 

w annoying ass customers he will literally start arguing w them STOP

would go viral on tiktok cus some customer was filming him being rude but everyone would be siding w him bc niki is always in the right godbless.

[octuscle]

Hotel room - Blue

Frederik hated Berlin. Chaotic. Dirty. Politically far left. Sexually promiscuous. And now it was Christopher Street Day. The city overflowed with fags running half-naked and some even completely naked through the city. Frederik couldn't wait until he was back in Munich. He was looking forward to the comfort of first class on the ICE train he was about to board. The platform at Berlin's main train station was crowded. It was Friday evening. Crowds of people were leaving, crowds of people were flooding the city. Thank God his train was leaving in ten minutes.

"Dear passengers, due to a technical defect in two signal boxes, rail traffic at Berlin Central Station is suspended for a short time. Trains in the direction of Hanover will run today only from and to Berlin Spandau. Train services in the direction of Hamburg and Munich will be completely suspended until further notice. We ask for your understanding."

There was a second of shock on the platform. Then crowds of people started moving frantically, storming rental car counters and the cab stand. People made phone calls or frantically tried to book flights on their cell phones. Frederik traveled a lot on business. He stayed in at least three different beds during the week. He knew what this situation meant: Find a hotel bed! Now! Because you won't get out of this juggernaut before morning. He had quickly phoned his regular hotels. No chance. All that was left were the hotel chains where he had gold or platinum status. After fifteen minutes, he had called all the four- and five-star hotels that came into consideration. Finally, he was recommended a hotel where, according to the internal system, there was still a room available. That would have been blocked for him. A three-star hotel near KaDeWe and Kurfürstendamm. Okay, better than nothing. There were no more cabs.

Frederik hated public transportation. His mood was correspondingly bad as he stood in the lobby of the hotel. Everything was decorated in rainbow colors. In front of him, a group of beefcakes in leather gear were just checking in. Behind him stood a skinhead, under whose bomber jacket a latex shirt shiny emphasized his six-pack. Frederik felt uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable. And when he was told that the room was wrongly blocked for him, his collar burst. He demanded this room, after all he was a Platinum customer and had a right to a room. The receptionist tried to explain to him that the guest who had been staying in the room had actually moved out. However, it was only because he had obviously ended up in the hospital with a bit much alcohol in his blood. A friend had just picked up the clothes and paid the bill, but housekeeping hadn't had a chance to do the room yet. And there would be no one else in the house at that time of day. However, given his status, they would fix it up first thing in the morning, and he could move into it at 08:00.

From behind the skinhead came forward. He had quite a suit fetish, Frederik was very welcome to spend the night with him. "Listen," Frederik pleaded with the gentleman at the front desk. "I don't care about the condition of the room. I just want my own bed and my own bathroom." After promising not to complain about anything, he got the door card. And Frederik hurried to get out of this den of iniquity.

The bed was not made. There were knotted condoms and tissues on the floor. There were still clothes in the closet that had been overlooked. Shower gel was still in the shower and there was still a razor. It smelled of sweat and sweetish perfume. Frederik didn't care about anything. He looked again after the status of the German Rail. Supposedly, trains should start running again at 07:00 in the morning. He set the alarm clock in his cell phone to 06:00, undressed and hung his clothes neatly in the closet. With a used towel, he wiped the shower, toilet and washstand. And fortunately, there was still a clean towel left for him to use. He lay down on the bed. The pillow smelled of the sweetish perfume. Slowly, he calmed down. And fell asleep.

At 04:00 his cell phone woke him up. He had received a new message. "Sweetie, how are you". And there were at least two dozen more messages and missed calls. What the hell!!! Darn it! Had he been drinking yesterday? Actually, no. But somehow he had a hangover. A glass of water might help. He went into the bathroom and ran the cold water and drank straight from the tap. Yes, that felt good. He washed his face with cold water and looked in the mirror.

FUUUCK! Frederik was 42 years old. He had once been athletic, but lately he had let himself go quite a bit. As a self-employed management consultant, he earned a lot of money and made a point of maintaining a well-groomed, discreet and conservative appearance. But what was that in the mirror!?!?!?!?

Shit, Freddy had really drunk a lot after arriving in Berlin yesterday. For a short time he had gone black before his eyes. But now it worked again. And in the name of Cher, Bette Midler and Zarah Leander: He wasn't here to sleep it off. Freddy put on his one-million-dollar smile and answered the last message with a selfie. And the subtext: "Honey Bear, I had to freshen up for a minute. Where are you?"

He quickly swapped the baggy shorts go his pink glitter hot pants, put on matching sneakers and pink chest harness and left the room. He didn't get far. In the elevator he met a skinhead whose upper body was in a shiny latex shirt. He was no longer completely sober. But he obviously thought Freddy was hot. And somehow the latex made Freddy horny. One blowjob more or less didn't matter anymore. His friends could wait a few more minutes for him.

[incorrectbatfam]

Hey, do you have any headcannons with the batfamily celebrating a birthday? I hope you have a great day and thank you if you would actually do it.

For Dick's birthday, they threw a classic surprise party where they kept from away from the Manor for the day so everyone can work. Except the one tasked with distracting him is Damian, who broke into his apartment at 5 AM saying, "Wake up, I'm here to distract you from your surprise party"

Jason's birthday included hamburgers for breakfast, Shakespeare in the park, joyriding in a stolen Batmobile, a piñata full of free ammo, beating his siblings in paintball, and a bookshelf that Bruce spent all night building

When Bruce asked Tim what he wanted for his birthday, Tim sarcastically said a ball pit. Fast forward 2 weeks when Tim went downstairs and found the living room turned into a ball pit that Kon picked him up and threw him in

And when Bruce asked Damian what he wanted for his birthday, Damian said "nothing." So he went to school like normal and got ice cream with Jon, and afterwards Bruce took him to see Nothing, the 2003 Canadian philosophical dramedy that got 40% on Rotten Tomatoes

Duke's birthday was a whole mapped quest that took him and his friends to all his favorite places, including a shawarma stand, a science lab, and a local League of Legends tournament before ending at an open mic where his siblings each dedicated a poem to him

For Cullen's birthday, Jason snuck him out to do all of the things that were "too unsafe" because Cullen wasn't a vigilante. That means axe-throwing, swordfighting lessons, flaming archery with villain-shaped targets, and caffeine after 5 PM

Steph's birthday started with waffles (obviously) before Bruce flew her to his island, Dick took her ziplining, Cass and Tim showed her the best scuba diving spots, Babs got her a new outfit, Jason and Duke made dinner and cake, and Damian gave her a random baby quokka he found

Cass's birthday fell right in the middle of a mission abroad, so they had a Zoom party with movies, Jackbox games, and a drone bringing her Alfred's cake and cookies, and they hyped up each and every tiny victory she had that day

The morning of Barbara's birthday, she went to breakfast with Dick and her dad, where Dick pretended to give the Commissioner the same shovel talk he gave him. After that, they went to an app developer convention where she pitched her her half-joking idea of a dating site that matched people based on the coffee shops they go to

Harper's birthday was the same day as the bot-fighting tournament, so the batfam all showed up in brightly colored custom fan merch and Tim found a loophole in the rules that let her add even more spinning blades

Carrie's birthday came after a really rough week and all she wanted to do was smash something with a hockey stick. So that's exactly what happened—the batfam and Maggie took her to a scrapyard where they played floor hockey surrounded by junk cars

For Kate's birthday, she flew them out to Italy where they spent the day sightseeing and in the evening, they went to one of those "local gems" restaurants followed by box seats for The Phantom of the Opera

To Alfred's relief, Bruce didn't try to bake a birthday cake this year—he opted for a fancy bakery one instead. Meanwhile, Damian followed him around all day as a personal assistant while everyone else cleaned the house so spotlessly that you could make soup in the toilet

Selina's birthday included getting "stolen" by Harley and Ivy and going to a resort where they got drinks, watched dolphins, and tried to use a water jetpack (they all failed epically). Then, Bruce "stole" her back for an evening dinner date and dancing

And for Bruce's birthday, all he asked for was a roast. So Alfred made pot roast with roasted potatoes and dark roast coffee, Clark started a backyard bonfire to roast marshmallows, and his kids passed around a mic to roast him in the best way possible

[irinaseverinka]

Update Mod "Realistic Cooking" Version 3.0

DOWNLOAD HERE

Literally, we had to rebuild the entire mod from scratch🤪 and change a lot of settings to add more compatibility with other mods, as well as make it simpler and easier to use. It took longer than we expected, but it was worth it! We strongly recommend everyone to upgrade to this version, as it is more stable and convenient! If you still only thought to try our mod- it's time to do it😜!

What was added:

🌟 New products for the store - ketchup, mustard and ready-made sauces

🌟 A new recipe for making dough at home (find in the refrigerator menu "Homemade" - "Ingredients" if you have EP "Get to Work", since you need level 3 baking skills)

🌟 New recipes from the EP "The High School Years" - Hamburger Slider, Meatball Tamale Bites, Tortilla Wrapped Dog, Churros, Rainbow Brownies and Acai Bowl

🌟 The new recipe "Crackers with caviar" from the EP"Get Famous" is now available in the restaurant and refrigerator menu, and not only for stars from level 3 in the bar

🌟 All our custom recipes are now in the refrigerator menu

🌟A download with the 2nd version for products from the mod has been added to all our custom recipes, where you can use both all our products and products of other authors

What has been fixed:

🔨Food packages are now stacked in a pile to take up less space in your Sim's luggage and refrigerator

🔨All products for sale have different carrying animation

🔨The products in the sim's luggage are now sorted correctly for drinks and food

🔨All product names have been changed for easier search and sorting. Now boxes, packages, bottles will be indicated AFTER the name of the product itself after the comma. And new descriptions have also been added to more clearly reflect for which recipes they can be used, whether they contain small portions, how much and what quality

🔨Sims will no longer take foods such as chocolates, chips, crackers or bread as leftovers (while a plate of bread can be taken in the Quick Snacks section). They will still take yogurt, cottage cheese and sausage, but it will not have such a high priority over other food as before. Sims will prefer cooked food over snacks again! It's time for them to start eating more properly😜!

🔨The reaction to lactose for recipes corresponds to whether the dairy product is included there or not. And you will also see more accurate hints in the description of the recipes

🔨Delivery will not be available if there is no internet at the lot

🔨Cheeses can now be bought individually, not just in packages

🔨The mod is assembled in such a way that you can combine it with any other mod without any conflicts when installing only part of the files

🔨Files in folders now have not only the extension number, but also its name, so that it is easier for you to determine which packages to install and which to remove

Additionally📔:

🔑 If you install the Littlemssam "Transfer Inventory" mod, you will be able to put all the products from your luggage into the refrigerator and back with one button

🔑 Our mod is compatible with the SCCO mod, and is also assembled in such a way that you can install only our products and delivery without using any overrides of EA files and combine it with any other mod

Separate information for those who want to use RCM with SCCO at the same time:

At the moment, this only works one way - you can install any SCCO functions and any of our files, except what is in the "EA Override" folder (that is, not our version of EA recipes, prices for vegetables-fruits-fish EA, as well as the test recipe), if you decide to use both mods are together.

Or you can wait for an update from the author of Srslysims (as far as I know, it will be soon) in order to use them together fully and get the opportunity to choose to install any functions from different mods. We will write the installation instructions as soon as it comes out.

At the same time, all our products now contain SCCO tags, which means you can use products from both mods for recipes. As well as products of other authors that include these tags, for example, products of authors Brazenlotus, Oni and others

DOWNLOAD HERE

[hannahmanderr]

DP Shiptember Day 1 - Catching Feelings... Again ~ "Quick, kiss me!" ~ Gray Ghost

Summary: She didn’t even bother to look up from her work. “Who’d you tick off this time?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” He pressed his back flush against the counter. “She started it!”

Her eyebrow hitched upward. “Who started it?” (takes place after my oneshot Glow)

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

If there was ever one benefit of working a grimy minimum wage job in a town like Amity Park, it definitely had to be the opportunity to see some wild situations. At a place like the Nasty Burger, these situations seemed even more prevalent. 

Kat would swear up and down that a portal had decided to open itself smack dab in the middle of the grill one night during the dinner rush, resulting in half a dozen hamburger patties falling into the void of the Ghost Zone, a backup in the drive-through, and one strongly worded Yelp review from a visiting tourist. 

Irving Burns allegedly had to pull Nasty Sauce from the public after rumors began to swirl around town that Phantom had blown up a ghost with a single packet and teenagers came in droves to take handfuls of sauce packets for the so-called “Nasty Sauce challenge” (Mr. Lancer himself had confiscated dozens of packets on school grounds). 

One day, the Nasty Ned mascot costume simply got up and walked itself out the door and into Lake Eerie. That story had made headlines on Channels 4, 6, and 7. The costume was never recovered. 

And of course, the family of blob ghosts living in the dumpsters out back loved to cause problems of their own, namely swooping in and stealing customers’ fries like swarms of seagulls.

Valerie became used to these strange events long before her coworkers did. She probably ended up stopping a fair number of shenanigans before the public became aware of them. Even after her father forbade her from bringing her trackers to work, even after she learned the true identity of her number one target and stopped hunting him, the drive to keep the city from devolving into too much chaos was strong. 

Still though, if she had to learn to accept one thing, it was that chaos loved Amity Park and Amity Park loved chaos. No one could go long without encountering at least a little bit. That had been a lesson she’d learned a few days ago, when Danny Fenton, her rival turned crush turned ex turned enemy turned crush again, took her behind the Nasty Burger itself (because where else would it be?) and shown her something wild enough only for Amity Park. Something strange. Something beautiful.

In just those past few days, she began to expect the unexpected. She’d nearly expected the horde of ghost squirrels raiding the cafeteria storage the other day to turn rabid on her, but then memories of the soft, cool touch that blob ghosts had left on her fingers and arms crossed her mind. And she, Valerie Gray, the self-proclaimed huntress of Amity Park, retracted her guns and set to help the squirrels find the industrial size canister of peanut butter they’d been looking for.

The squirrels had shown up outside her window the next day offering a trash-covered everything bagel from the bakery a couple roads down. It had been such an endearing display that she made a show of “eating” it in front of them. They’d enjoyed it.

And the day after that, she’d been chasing down the Box Ghost when they passed over an intersection and a tiny boy escaped his mother’s hand-hold and toddled into the street to follow them. She hadn’t been fast enough to get there before the next speeding car got there, but the Box Ghost had dropped the stack of boxes he’d insisted on maintaining throughout the chase to grab the little boy and turned them both intangible before depositing the boy safely back on the sidewalk.

Valerie had stopped short of sucking him into her thermos to ask him why abandon the boxes. Why go against everything he was supposed to be?

“My kid is about his age,” he’d told her shyly. “I just did what any other parent would do.” That answer had been so stunning she’d simply lowered the thermos and told him to get the boxes home to his kid. But in retrospect, it made sense, didn’t it? Ignoring the complexities of how ghosts had kids in the first place, who was to say parental instincts didn’t transcend the line between life and death?

So no, perhaps she couldn’t put a stop to all the chaos that plagued Amity Park. Perhaps some of it still made no sense. But maybe, just maybe, if she could keep her eyes peeled and watch for the unexpected…

Maybe the chaos could begin to form itself into a wild, beautifully intricate harmony.

Apparently, not even all the anticipation in the world could prepare her for Danny Fenton to come barreling into the Nasty Burger during the afternoon lull and launch himself through the counter to cower by her feet.

To her credit, she barely reacted. She didn’t even bother to look up from her work. “Who’d you tick off this time?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” He pressed his back flush against the counter. “She started it!”

Her eyebrow hitched upward. “Who started it?”

Before he could answer, the front doors exploded inward.

Instincts kicked in, and Valerie dropped behind the counter beside Danny to avoid the flying shrapnel. A gust of hot wind blew over them. Despite the heat, a chill crept up her spine. She didn’t need her tracker or to see Danny’s breath fog to know a ghost had decided to make itself known.

“ Where is he? ” a shrill voice screeched. Valerie glanced over at Danny, who had gone pale at the sound of the voice.

With a glare, she silently jerked her head towards the front. Seriously?

He responded with a helpless shrug and a shake of his head. I swear it’s not my fault!

“I know you’re in here, my darling!” the voice called in an angry sing-song. “You can’t run from love!”

This time, both of Valerie’s eyebrows hitched upward. “ My darling? ” she hissed as quietly as she could.

Danny flailed his arms wildly. He at least had the sense to keep them from flailing past the edge of the counter. “ She’s crazy! ” he hissed back.

By that point, the few other employees on shift had emerged from the kitchen to see the commotion. Out of the corner of her eye, Valerie could see Tatiana, the sweetheart dishwasher, peering from around the corner, whispering furiously into her cell phone. No doubt to the city’s emergency ghost line. 

Taylor, the shift supervisor, wasn’t anywhere near as timid. “Can I help you with something?” they drawled with a voice Valerie knew they only reserved for the most frustrating of customers.

“Where are you hiding him?” the ghost said, her voice sickeningly sweet. “I know he’s in here, I can smell him!”

If possible, Danny turned paler.

“I have no clue who you’re talking about, ma’am,” Taylor said. “If you wanna buy something, that’s fine, otherwise I’m gonna have to ask you to leave. You’re disturbing other customers.”

Valerie nearly snorted. Not that there were other customers at the moment, but if there had been, “disturbing” probably would have been an understatement. 

She stole another glance at Danny, who had screwed his eyes shut and seemed to be concentrating on… something. She couldn’t tell. Still though, seeing him so oddly terrified…

Without thinking, she laid a hand over one of his clenched fists. One of his eyes popped open, first flicking down to look at their hands then back up to peer at her. She offered a tiny smile, and his shoulders relaxed marginally.

“All I want is my sweetheart!” the ghost was saying, her voice still dripping with a faux sweetness. “He thinks he can hide from me, but he’s mine !”

Taylor frowned and rolled their eyes. “Of course. Of course . The one time I get the afternoon shift I ask for, and some crazy ghost decides to show up.”

Another gust of hot, dry air blew over Valerie’s head. She and Danny cringed in sync. Taylor was a perfectly chill person and all, but they had a habit of being a little too blunt. And bluntness did not exactly work well when ghosts were involved.

“He’s mine !” the ghost screeched. “If you won’t tell me where he is, then maybe I should persuade you through… other means . I’ll gladly rip you apart limb by limb until you talk.”

Taylor’s frown melted into concern. “Wait, wait, I didn’t -”

Several things seemed to happen at once.

Valerie caught sight of Danny’s other eye popping open, and she instantly recognized the determined twinkle in his eye - the same one that Phantom got when he was about to dive headfirst into a situation he probably shouldn’t. Under her hand, she felt his muscles tense, ready to spring into action.

At the same time, Taylor’s eyes widened until they nearly popped out of their head. Valerie felt it as the ghost surged forward, her fury following her in a cloud of heat and debris from the destroyed entrance. 

In that moment, Valerie had a number of thoughts. The first of which was simply that Danny Fenton needed to stop getting himself into these situations.

The second of which was that none of them, Danny included, probably got paid enough to deal with these sorts of things.

The third of which was that there was no way she was about to let some possessive ghost steal away the boy who had single handedly changed her world more than once, the boy who had waited for her with such patience and such kindness, the boy who had kissed her a few nights ago and shown just how much he cared for her through the golden light of a dozen blob ghosts.

And so before Danny could jump up on his own, she seized his wrist and pulled him up herself.

“Ex-cuse me?” she shouted, jamming her free hand onto her hip. 

And just like that, Valerie Gray found herself staring down a cheerleader.

The sheer surprise from the ghost being a cheerleader of all things nearly caused her to falter, but she managed to catch herself in the nick of time. Granted, it was truly a ghostly cheerleader, with pom-poms and hair of fire, fangs protruding from her perfectly red lips, and arms almost twice the normal length, but it was still a cheerleader nonetheless.

The ghost did not do as well at hiding her surprise. She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned her fiery red eyes towards the pair. Her eyes landed on Valerie first, then…

“There you are!” she exclaimed, and Danny squeaked, gripping onto Valerie’s hand for his half-life. “Why did you run, my love? I was only going to make our relationship official . Just a little bite! It wouldn’t even hurt!”

Something snapped in Valerie, and she pulled Danny closer to her. “What are you talking about, your relationship? He’s already taken, thank you very much.” Even as she spoke the words, her heart pounded.

This was so not how she would’ve liked to go about this.

Danny whipped around, his blue eyes boring into hers and his mouth gaping wordlessly. “I’m what ?” 

“Who’s this now?” the cheerleader asked. She bared her fangs and narrowed her eyes in Valerie’s direction.

Despite the new wave of intense heat that blasted her, Valerie remained resolute. “I’m the girl who’s about to kick your sorry butt if you don’t leave my Danny alone!” 

Her words hit her a second too late. She could only pray her blush would be written away as redness from the heat and not embarrassment.

“ Your Danny?” the ghost hissed, her voice an ominous growl. “Some pitiful, silly human thinks she can take my love away from me? From me ?” She began to laugh hysterically. “You have no idea who you’re messing with, girlie. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, after all.”

“Come any closer and I’ll show you the fury of a woman scorned.”

The cheerleader’s face melted into a sinister grin. “I was gonna tear this one’s arms off and use them for toothpicks,” she said, nodding towards a terrified Taylor, “but I’ll gladly start with you instead!”

Valerie had no idea what possessed her the moment the ghost lunged towards her and Danny. Maybe it was the sheer mental exhaustion from having her world turned upside down over the past few days. Maybe it was little more than a moment of panic. Maybe it was the burning drive to prove herself to this she-demon and show that no one would come between her and the people she loved.

(She’d dwell on that last bit later.)

She turned to Danny. “Quick, kiss me!”

Danny tore his eyes away from the cheerleader. “Wait, what ?”

And because she didn’t have time to try and convince him or tell him her plan (not that she had one), Valerie flung her arms around his neck and pulled him in close.

The moment their lips touched, something akin to a spark erupted between them, creating an audible crackle in the air. 

Or maybe that was just the ghostly edge to the cheerleader’s shriek of pure rage.

Valerie liked to believe it was the former. 

Whatever it was, the effects were instantaneous. She had her eyes closed tightly as she kissed Danny, but she could feel as the heat that had been flooding the two of them stopped abruptly, almost as if Danny’s naturally cool presence had been amplified to create a barrier around them. The change in temperature was soothing against her irritated skin. Judging by the way Danny relaxed into her embrace, the change felt just as nice to him.

“Whoa, whoa!” Taylor shouted from behind them. “Keep it PG, jeez .”

Behind her closed eyelids, Valerie rolled her eyes. Overdramatic much?

At some point, the cheerleader’s incessant shriek became too much for her ears to handle, and she broke the kiss. Still leaned in close, she put her lips next to Danny’s ear. “Thermos?” she whispered.

For a moment, Danny just wavered in place, staring with a dreamy, unfocused look in his eyes. “Huh?”

She thwacked him on the shoulder. “Focus, Fenton!”

“Oh!” He shook his head. “Right! Uh, thermos! Yes! Not, uh… I’m just - um…” He peered past Valerie’s shoulder to where Taylor stood. “Just… don’t let them see, I - er…”

She watched in amusement as he clumsily patted his pockets, then reached beside him. His hand disappeared into thin air for a moment before reappearing with a Fenton Thermos.

“A literal pocket dimension,” he whispered with a goofy grin. The thermos nearly slipped from his grip, and he flailed to catch it. 

Valerie was faster. She snatched the thermos out of his loose hold. “Yeah, no pocket dimension can make you any less of a dork.”

“Maybe, but I’m still your dork.”

Her face burned red, but she still managed to point the thermos at the still-shrieking cheerleader and suck her in. “A dork who let one kiss distract him that badly,” she threw back, handing the full thermos to him. “And put that back in your ‘pocket’ before you drop it.”

“I’m not gonna drop it!” In spite of his protest, he slipped the thermos back into the empty space. “See?”

“Wow, congratulations on doing something your average toddler can do and not drop something.”

“Aw, you noticed?” He flashed her a wide, impish smile. “Do I get another kiss for that?” he asked with a wink.

Valerie hummed and turned back to the cash register. “I don’t know. Do you have a decent explanation as to why there’s some ghost girl chasing after you?”

Danny opened his mouth and froze with a finger in midair. “Uh… Okay, wait, listen! There’s a perfectly good explanation for this. I didn’t start it, I swear! She saw me fly- er, walking around and just pounced on me!”

“Mhmm.” She struggled to hide her laugh as she put on her best disinterested face. How was it that Danny Phantom, who had managed to elude her for years and fend off powerful ghost after powerful ghost, could end up struggling this much?

And how on earth did it manage to be the cutest thing ever?

“Valeriieee,” he whined, tugging at her shirt sleeve. “Please! I promise! I’m not cheating on you!”

“I didn’t know you two were together.”

Both of their heads whipped around to see Taylor leaning against the counter and shaking their head. “Or that a ghost that hot could be that terrifying.”

Valerie paused. “Wait, hot like, hot ? Or, like…”

Taylor shot her a glare. “Not. Another. Word. You do you, and I’ll do me. I could say plenty about your choice in partner.”

“My…?” She turned to Danny, matching blushes painting their faces. His endless blue eyes stared back at her helplessly. Something in her chest throbbed faster and faster, and she couldn’t help the smile that grew on her face.

“Yeah,” she said. She took his hand and squeezed it. “He’s definitely mine.”

The look on his face shone even brighter than it had a few nights ago under the light of the blob ghosts.

Taylor’s eyes bounced between the two of them. “Good for you, then, I guess. He can’t stay behind the counter, though.”

[trivialbob]

Over the lunch hour (not saying I actually ate any food) Sheila and I walked around "downtown" Birchwood.

The first store we visited was a consignment/gift/candy place called Treasures and Treats. It had all sorts of sweets I don't see at grocery stores these days, things we bought as kids. I got a package of Lemonhead candy. It was just like childhood times, but instead of $0.20 a box it was $2.00 and smaller that it was in 1976.

Then we ambled over to check out the two bars & grills on the main street. Bear Tracks Bar & Grill had more mounted animals and a different gun raffle. This one was for a Henry .17 HMR lever action rifle. That didn't interest me so I saved my money.

Sheila watched a couple at the end of the bar pour a lot of $$$ into pull tabs. When they cried uncle (without being able to buy the bar a round) Sheila dove in, because those winners were still in the jar, right? Sheila too did not walk away being able to buy the bar a round. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time there talking to bartender Mark and other customers. Another patron also played pulltabs, with the unusual order of six at a time. He too went home empty handed.

Eventually we walked across the street to Mary's Bluegill Bar & Grill. A mother-daughter duo, Jess and Jordan, covered the bar. Very friendly people there, on each side of the bar. In some large cities you can't pay cash at some establishments. In some Birchwood businesses you can only pay with cash. On Thursdays the Bluegill has $2 taps. I may have to come back next week for that. Think of how much money I'll save!

The bar tabs were once again pleasantly small. After day drinking (we are in Wisconsin!) ended we stopped by the local grocery store. It's convenient to not have to drive to Walmart miles away. You do pay for that convenience in small towns. Hamburger buns, for example, were well over double the price of my hometown grocery store. But I wasn't going to drive to Walmart.

Yes, Sheila is actually here with me. Here she is this morning in the trailer.

[nickgerlich]

Surging Forward

When it comes to the Four Ps of Marketing, there is one that affects us the most. It raises eyebrows. It may cause mental anguish. And it hits where it hurts the most, the pocketbook. I can only be talking about one thing: Price.

As I was telling my undergrads yesterday, they have now lived through—and survived—a period of inflation. This hasn’t happened for 40 years, which I remember all too well from my university days. It’s the kind of thing you tend to remember forever.

While inflation is now more or less within a reasonable range (about 3.1% last month), our grocery bills are up about 25% in the last four years. You can thank the compounding effect for that. Some manufacturers have responded by reducing the size of the package, so they can try to maintain price points. Labeled as “shrinkflation” by President Biden and others, it gives the illusion that prices haven’t gone up, even though the unit price definitely has.

Given that we have all now become hyper-sensitized to price since COVID, it should come as no surprise that Wendy’s plans to test surge pricing for its hamburgers is drawing the ire of many. It’s bad enough that the price of fast food has skyrocketed, but now they want to charge even more during hours of peak demand, as well as at locations that are typically busier than others.

Surge pricing, which also goes by the moniker dynamic pricing, has been in use for decades. It’s what explains the matinee price at movie theatres, a time of day in which far fewer people are likely to see a movie. Airlines have done it for years, with peak demand times seeing fares much higher than off-peak. Add hotels to the mix, too. Business hotels are often weekend bargains for families, because all the people with expense accounts have gone home. And we all know how expensive food and beverages are at airports and stadiums, while not far away they are much lower.

Uber is another company leaning on this model, with the price of a ride reflecting the demand. If a stadium is emptying out, the price just went up. Many other retailers, from Amazon to Target, Kroger, Best Buy, and others have done it. The advent of digital price tags makes it all too easy to reset prices within a store, or even systemwide. Heck, I even saw it in Germany some years ago, with gas stations raising prices at peak commuting times, and lowering them during others. Shame on you for not refueling at a better time!

One of the more interesting aspects of dynamic, or surge, pricing is that used on Dallas-area toll roads and express lanes. Essentially, the price is set based on traffic volume. As congestion increases, the price for diverting to the express lane goes up. The thinking is that it might just be worth your added dollars to be able to zoom by the unlucky proletariat stuck in traffic. Be sure to wave as you go by. These lanes are the sky boxes of the highway system. At peak times, a person driving solo can pay up to $0.90 per mile for the privilege.

The weeks ahead will be interesting to see how the market reacts to Wendy’s move, and whether they stick to their guns or back down. If customers swallow surge pricing, it opens the flood gates for all fast food restaurants to do the same. It could then spill over into all restaurants, and everywhere else. Consumers will be left at wit’s end trying to keep up with what amounts to a wide array of possible prices for the things they buy. I suspect that apps and websites will arrive that allow for crowdsourced updates on all of it.

It’s the price we pay for being alive today. Inflation is one thing, but having to endure exorbitant temporary price hikes is quite another. Even staying home and being a hermit does not make you immune, because you still have to buy things. As for me, I’m staying in the slow lane just as a matter of principle, and because I’m still waiting for my salary to go up commensurately to account for the last four years.

Dr “Not Getting Inflated Expectations” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[mintymemesandrpshop]

Tips from a grocery worker/foodsafe certified waiter!

The temperature 'danger zone' for food and drink is 40-140F, with 2 hours being the limit without refrigeration/cooking.

Open container, Public Intoxication, and Driving Under Influence are all separate broken laws. Establishments that serve alcohol in the US are required to cut you off the moment you are visibly drunk. 'Open container' can also be a misnomer and vary by state- bottles and cans in anything less than a glued blox may need to be in a bag.

Raw flour has E. Coli bacteria, factory farmed eggs will have salmonella due to poor hygiene (sitting in their own shit).

Speaking of eggs, grocery eggs are 2 weeks old due to needing to properly settle to a baking standard. Eggs from a local farmer may be safer, but will also be somewhat different and not have enough air for baking until they are also that age.

Steak is safe to eat rare due to its thickness and proximity away to any nasties in the body waste; hamburger is not. Burger is ground up with various cuts and intestines so needs to be cooked properly well done. Chickens are too small to have this effect, so salmonella is a risk no matter what. Pork is somewhat in between, as there is a risk for trichinosis, but the larvae are much easier to spot, making this start to go extinct in domestic pigs.

Dogs and Cats in general cannot have spices or seasonings, grapes, chocolate, or milk.

Most creatures are lactose intolerant due to the fact that they will not grow up into 1000 lb animals. Goats however, are closer to human size so their milk and cheese is more digestible. Smaller animals will need dilluted goat's milk, into a custom formula. (your grocery store may have this in a can, powdered.)

Pasta noodles mainly exist to hold sauce flavor in proportion; thicker noodles like rotini are usually recommended for thicker sauces such as tomato/marinara.

It is safer for pizza chefs to not wear gloves, actually! Gloves cannot be washed, only changed, and they are trained anyways to not touch someone's food once cooked. Cooking trays/pans, industrial sized knives, spatulas, and boxes all make this possible.

Humans are very dense and weighty creatures proportionally, that they can essentially tank a lot of poison damage that other animals cannot. This is one of many reasons we are not picky eaters as a whole!

Kids instinctively dislike bitter foods due to not having grown up into this said tankiness; vegetables and things that may be good for them can taste like poison, and they cannot tell the difference yet.

Electric Kettles are more efficient at boiling water than stovetops. I'll let the video guy speak for himself, but they boil water directly rather then heating a pot/pan which then heats the water. This is great for things such as small meals, partially unclogging drains, or heating bathwater.

Keurig or similar machines do not boil the water for your coffee! They heat to 100 degrees, so if your town has a boil order up, do not pour unboiled water into their tanks!

Large packs of water and soda often have bar codes on the top- you may not have to lift them if a laser-gun can get involved!

chicken nuggets from the golden arches are beer battered, the way fish are. They're fish-fried chicken.

Grocery Register Belts can have some really dumb design- with the computer /register itself taking up half the width of the goddamn belt. Keep your food safer by loading the belt heavy to light if you can- or light to heavy. Also, putting your food in a straight line towards the checker. You cannot trust the infared camera to stop the belt unless your items are opaque- your beer will crush your bananas in front of them unless they can slide over the scanner zone. You will prefer a fixable scan error until we can perform alchemy.

Fruits and Vegetables have 4 digit international trade codes! unless you know what breed your apple is or are bad with numbers, these are probably easier to input if you happen to be ringing these up yourself. It is perfectly possible for a self-check system to sell you the wrong kind. Same thing with the numbers on a bar code- they also work, if your code is faded or corrupted. (or, for whatever fucking reason a brand decides, light colors like silver, or cute shapes. those suck. looking at you, bud fucking weiser with your fucking ribbon.) The laser guns are a bit more accurate than the belt as a second resort.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Schroedinger's streaming service just died

When you buy a vinyl record, cassette or CD, you own it, thanks to copyright law’s “first sale” principle. I have real criticisms of copyright law, but at least it’s a law, created by a democratically accountable legislature. When you buy a digital download of a song, your use of it is governed by private terms of service, not copyright law.

These terms of service are outrageous. Not only are they incredibly long and dull, but they confiscate all the rights that Congress reserved to the public when they crafted copyright law. You can donate your old CDs to a library, you can leave your mix-tapes to your kid, you can divide your CDs in a divorce, but none of that stuff is on the table with digital media.

Virtually no one has ever read these terms of service. That makes sense — not only are they written to be impenetrably soporific, but they’re also so manifestly unfair that just trying to parse them risks an aneurysm. Perhaps the only way to read the Itunes ToS with your sanity intact is via R Sikoryak’s incredible graphic novel (!) adaptation:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/03/03/terms-and-conditions-the-bloviating-cruft-of-the-itunes-eula-combined-with-extraordinary-comic-book-mashups/

The confiscation of your rights to your digital media depends on the fiction that you are licensing the music, not buying it. The fact that there’s a giant “buy now” button on the interface notwithstanding, tech and entertainment companies maintain that you are engaged in a licensing deal, like an advertiser buying synch rights for a hamburger commercial.

The digital media industry wants to eat its cake and have it, too. Even as they tell you that you’ve just bought a “license” and therefore have no rights under copyright, they tell their workforce — the creative laborers who composed, arranged and performed the music — that you’re buying your music, not licensing it.

That’s because all the record deals from the prehistory of digital music have two different royalty rates: when a musician’s work is sold, they get a low royalty rate (12%-22%). When that same work is licensed, they get a 50% royalty.

When the digital music industry was getting started, they invented a new form of quantum indeterminacy. When a customer paid $0.99 for an Itunes track, they were engaged in a license. When that transaction was recorded on the artist’s royalty statement, it was a sale. Like Schroedinger’s alive/dead cat, digital music was in superposition, caught in a zone between a sale and a license.

Because only music executives were allowed to open the box and collapse the wave, they could ensure that it always collapsed into a state favorable to the record label and its tech partners. If a listener was involved, the wave collapsed into a license transaction, and the listener was deprived of the rights the legislature promised them. If a musician was involved, the wave collapsed into a sale transaction, and the musician was deprived of majority the money their contracts guaranteed them.

Now, a musician has managed to drag digital music into the realm of classical physics, ending its quantum indeterminacy. Electronica pioneer Four Tet has successfully wrung a settlement out of his label, Domino, who will now be forced to treat his digital recordings as licenses and pay a 50% royalty, rather than the 13.5% they’d insisted on.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61871547

Four Tet will get £56,921.08 and 5% interest compounded over all the years the label was screwing him: “I really hope that my own course of action encourages anyone who might feel intimidated by challenging a record label with substantial means.”

It’s great to see Four Tet get some fundamental justice. One way that heritage acts can get some justice of their without going to court is through copyright termination. In the US, artists can terminate their copyright deals after 35 years and get their rights back:

https://doctorow.medium.com/take-it-back-e3689628f4f0

This has enabled many creative workers to cut through legal messes; for example, George Clinton was was able to terminate copyright assignments to 1,413 of his works, comprehensively ending the otherwise endless litigation against an unscrupulous manager whom Clinton accused of stealing his catalog:

https://celebrityaccess.com/caarchive/george-clinton-regains-possession-of-funkadelic-masters/

[Image ID: An Apple Itunes license agreement window with a Buy on Itunes button superimposed on it.]

[inkymoon16]

Chapter 2 - Dusk

Chapter 2 of my fic "Dusk Til Dawn" which can be found on AO3!

Native New Yorker - Odyssey

It was an ordinary day. Nothing out of the unusual. I woke up on time, which I always did, drank my tea, ate my toast, applied my makeup, threw my work uniform on, and was out the door in about forty-five minutes. I lugged my tote bag over my shoulder, which kept slipping off my coat - a ridiculously expensive purchase I had bought one night during a cocaine bender. I quit drugs the next day when I woke up to a fur coat perched on the edge of my bed, a half naked man snoring beside me, and a cat I had never seen before meowing at my door. 

This fur coat was a natural tan color and had cost me a hundred and fifty dollars, of which I certainly could not afford. I walked the four blocks to the diner where I worked, a cigarette perched between my fingers. My work uniform was simple - skin color stockings, and a stupid powder blue collared dress that came to my mid-thighs. I guess the owner wanted the “pretty girls to attract customers” but the only thing it attracted was unwanted comments. 

“Mornin’ Arthur.” I hollered when I sauntered through the door into the mercifully warm diner.��

My manager appeared from the back, carrying boxes from a new shipment, a cigarette hanging from his lips. “Mornin’ Aurora. You can start by sortin’ silverware and filling up those damn ketchup bottles. Closers neglected yet again.”

I rolled my eyes and huffed. The closers could never do anything fucking right. I worked mornings during the week and Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday was my only day off. I put a few quarters into the jukebox and soon David Bowie was serenading me as I rolled silverware into their respective paper napkins. 

As customers started to trickle in this Thursday morning, I abandoned my side work to serve them. The day passed as normal. I got off shift around 5:15 and after a hamburger, I slipped on my fur coat and headed back towards my apartment. These four blocks were often filled with annoying teenagers shouting things out at me. 

Complaints aside, I actually didn’t mind the walk. I relished the crisp air in the colder months and the soft breeze in the warmer months. This walk was a time for thinking. I zoned out and allowed any thoughts in my head to turn over and salivate. It usually took me approximately one cigarette to get home. Sometimes two if it was the summer and I was in a good mood. 

Greenpoint, Brooklyn, of which I called home, was nice enough. I thought back to the expensive brownstone that my aunt, whom I used to live with, owned in Williamsburg. She kicked me out when I was nineteen after she found me passed out in the bathtub the morning after a bender. I ashed my cigarette and walked up my steps to a brownstone that had been split into four different apartments. The flight of stairs up to my second floor residence was always littered with cigarette butts but at least it was safe. 

Once I took off my coat, I brewed a pot of tea. My aunt always had the most disgusting coffee brewing so I never got into that harsh black liquid. I shuddered just thinking about it. I wondered how she was doing. After I moved out, we called each other every now and then for a few months but that slowly trickled to nothing. It’s been two years since I talked to her. 

Our relationship was never that close and that was fine with the both of us. We were more like roommates than relatives. She had her life, I had mine. The only rule we had was to keep the noise down. I moved in with my aunt at ten years old when my mother was murdered. My father was so distraught over her death he fled the country and started a new life for himself. I never really cared too much to contact him. 

Only once when I was 17 did I try to find him but it led to too many dead ends. And that was the end of my curiosity. I found out during this research that my mother was shot during a gang fight when she got caught in the misfire. Sometimes I had nightmares about her mangled body on the street, cold and lifeless. The funeral was stuffy and quiet. I don’t recall much else.

I attended a public school in Brooklyn that I can’t quite recall. Could have been PS 144 or PS 81. I can’t say I learned too much. I had my first job waitressing at 16 and subsequently stopped caring about school. However, my aunt disagreed with this belief. She held education to a high regard and wouldn’t let me drop out. The only time she showed real parenting. I walked across the graduation stage alone and came home to my aunt who was two bottles of wine deep, passed out on the couch watching “Jeopardy” alone. 

We were both addicts and I guess that’s why we didn’t work out as “roommates”. Our front door was a revolving portal for men, booze, and bad decisions. I guess that’s where all my bad influence comes from, but I probably would have ended up the same way either way. 

I sipped my tea and stuffed my hand into a bag of chips. My apartment was small, more like a studio if anything. If you opened the door too fast, it would swing right into the kitchen, which then banged loudly against the counters, a clear design flaw. The kitchen was on the right, a living room/dining room straight ahead. A bedroom with an attached bathroom was on the left. 

All of my furniture and decorations I had bought second hand or taken for free off the street. I saved my money for things I actually cared about, like clothes, coats, shoes, makeup, and handbags. All the second hand stuff made the apartment eclectic and cozy. There was a large window that faced the west, so the setting sun would bring golden light and warmth in the afternoon. My brown tabby cat, whom I had named Stella, was currently in her small bed, sleeping next to the radiator. 

I went to the bathroom to take off my makeup, a sweet relief which could only be closely followed by taking off the entrapments of a bra. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and couldn’t help but to pick at my skin imperfections. Squeezing pimples was a nasty habit that I developed during my early tween years and found that I could never drop it.

My green eyes looked back at me. My lips and my eyes were always my favorite features of my face. I loved decorating my face with makeup. I always just got the cheap shit from the drugstore. Once a year I would splurge on a fancy perfume, usually around Christmas or my birthday. 

I ran a brush through my ginger hair which was slightly wavy, but not curly. I had bleached it once at sixteen but had let it fade since. I was debating cutting bangs now. I went back to the living area and grabbed a pack of Parliaments. 

I stepped out onto the fire escape, lighting a cigarette. I rubbed my shoulders, forgetting the chill. The city ambience washed over my body while I inhaled the nicotine. I had dreams once of being a journalist, imagining myself chasing down stories and criminals. That was quickly buried by the time I turned fifteen. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. 

I flicked my cigarette off the balcony and stepped back through the window. I grabbed a knit blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge, put a record on, and sat behind my typewriter. Even though my dreams of being a journalist disappeared, my love for writing never did. When I felt as though I was lost in life, aimless and depressed, I turned to writing. This meant I had dozens of unfinished stories scattered throughout the apartment. 

Most nights I would open a beer and sit in front of the television, watching whatever was on. Sleep would lull my eyes shut after a while and I would stumble to my bed, slip my pajamas on and flop onto my queen size bed which miraculously I had found on the side of the street. I had snatched it up, lugging it all the way home, cursing and crying under its tremendous weight. I saved up to buy a bed frame second hand for it. I did a thorough inspection of the mattress but two years later and I haven’t gotten bugs or itches from it. Being broke makes a person desperate. 

Once my beer reached the bottom of the bottle and my paper ran out of room on the typewriter, I decided to call it a night. I took a hot shower, and got into bed. After a few minutes I felt Stella jump up, meowing her presence to me.

[xgothixsx]

How original (Chris Redfield x reader)  Winter wonderland part. 1 ❄️

Hey! A little Christmas fic to start out with; a little early but I thought it would be a great idea to start up on it !! So enjoy please !! Also this is the start of my winter wonderland for this year!! 

word count; 1,735

pairing; Chris Redfield x reader 

The store was really busy, it was a few weeks before Christmas and everyone was running around looking for gifts, or food for their fancy Christmas dinner and even decorations. (Y/n) was in one isle, a hand in her (f/c) hoodie and the other holding onto a box as she read the directions, seeing if it was something that she could cook easily, she normally cooked homemade meals since one her boyfriend normally doesn’t get to have those since his job tends to pull him out to where either some military ‘food in a bag’ or even fast food is his only option, and two it’s really cute when he tries to help and is completely confused by certain things. Her boyfriend had run off to get some gifts for his family, and coworkers while she was tasked to get something for dinner that night. Of course Chris was always on top of things and already had everything for Christmas dinner and small decorations for the house the two of them share before the end of November. 

“Sweetheart” rang through (y/n)’s ears looking toward the direction that the oh so familiar voice was coming from to see Chris with a basket full of random gifts, she even saw an air fryer in there. He really does think of everything. 

“You done?” She joked as she watched him roll his eyes at her walking over, standing behind her, wrapping his muscled arms around her waist, and resting his head on her shoulder as he looked at the box. It was some hamburger helping that could be thrown together in fifteen minutes. He knew his girlfriend loved to cook, but tonight he wanted to wrap gifts so there wasn’t a need for something big to be cooked, though he knew this would upset her for some odd reason he would have assumed she would have loved a break from cooking him food. 

“Are you still mad at me?” He whispered into her ear before kissing her cheek, seeing her smile a little at him, which gave him his answer, she was never actually mad at him. He had bought an extra special gift for (y/n) this year, it was already paid for and in a bag hopefully out of sight, that’s why he had grabbed the air fryer, it’s not exactly for anyone it’s more of a cover up that he also knows his girl has wanted for a while of course he’ll cover that up saying it’s for his sister or it’s for Jill. 

“Got a long list? That’s a lot of stuff?” She giggled as she turned her head a little giving the man a small peck as she put the box into the cart, she was a little upset that she wouldn’t be cooking tonight and she wouldn’t be able to see that cute frustration mixed with hard concentration look on Chris’s face when he tries to do what she had written down for him; or even the nice dance they do when they cook together waiting for it to actually cook so they can eat it; but helping him do the one thing he always loved doing apparently as she heard from his sister that wrapping gifts was the one thing they would always do with their parents so she couldn’t complain too much. 

“Of course! We can’t forget anybody!” He said happily as he grabbed her hand and grabbed the basket moving it along. Since everything he needed was grabbed he was pretty much following her around watching her grab a few extra things; something small for her mom and dad, along with a few extra things for Jill and them on top of what he had already grabbed. 

“Now close your eyes” She exclaimed as she was getting ready to grab his gift, he chuckled as he moved his hand up to cover his eyes as she ran away to the sporting goods area, which wasn’t too far from him, and picked up the custom pocket knife she had ordered for him. It had his name engraved on the handle and on the other side was the nickname she would normally call him, she paid for it and then brought it to the cart hiding it under some shirt that was in there. 

“Ready?” He asked raising his eyebrow at the woman in front of him watching her smile and nod; the two of them went to the checkout, (y/n) immediately grabbing the knife and hiding it behind her back as Chris turned away to put things on the belt, and as he assumed she wasn’t paying attention to the cart when all it had was one little bag at the back of it while he was waiting for everything to be rung up, the two paid for it and went out to the car. Chris walked her over to her side opening the door for her and watched her climb in, giving her a kiss before closing the door and going to load the cart and then off they went, driving home. (Y/n) had helped carry in a few boxes while Chris handled the rest of them. As he was ‘fixing’ them in the living room, though really he was looking for a place to hide his special gift for her, though it wasn’t her only one. (y/n) went to the bedroom to change into a comfy set of pajamas with cute little puppies all of it, she loved this set specifically since it was the first gift Chris has ever given her. 

“Look at you. All cute and warm” Chris chuckled looking over his girl’s form in the nice kind of fluffy set, before moving closer wrapping his arms around her smaller body with a smile as she giggled a little wrapping her arms around his neck giving him a small gentle kiss. 

“Obviously- I can’t wrap gifts otherwise!!” She said cheerfully as she turned around grabbing his matching pants and whatever t-shirt he normally would wear making him roll his eyes grabbing them, watching her cutely skip out of the room to get dinner cooking, the little hamburger helping that they just bought. Soon dinner was done and the couple was watching some action movie that Chris had put on for them as they ate, sitting close together with a blanket over them , (y/n) was leaning against his big shoulder clearly the two were at peace. 

“You done sweetheart?” Chris whispered as he noticed that her plate was empty, he watched her move a little stretching out, before nodding at him. He chuckled as he took her plate as he got up as he watched her tip over and fall onto her side onto the couch laughing as she did her little ‘hmph’ as he left to put the plates in the kitchen grabbing two glasses of whiskey. When he returned she had already pulled most of the gifts out to the middle of the living room and grabbed one of the wrapping paper rolls that they had. 

“Excited aren’t we?” He chuckled, walking over to her, placing his hand on the small of her back giving her a gentle kiss on her nice soft lips hearing her giggle a little before the two of them sat on the floor. He pulled their cups down as they split the pile in half to make it fair on the both of them. After thirty minutes, over half of the piles were done and the whiskey was gone.

“Wait here I’ll get some coffee” He said, squeezing her thigh a little before getting up quickly and moving to the kitchen. She took this time to look for the present he got her, she was always curious but could never find her gift and she always went looking before Christmas. She moved very little stuff to see if it was in his pile, but couldn’t find anything and quickly started searching the living room before she came across a box. She’s never seen it before, did she finally find one? Should she open it, should she pretend like she didn’t see it? Now that she’s actually found her gift she doesn’t know what to do. She's never gotten this far, though now her curiosity is killing her. So she grabbed the box, it was soft and velvety. It was so small that for someone like Chris it would be so easy for him to hide it in his hand. She slowly opened it to see a beautiful silver and diamond ring, it was beautiful; but he knows that this kind of thing is only for engagements? There’s no way he was planning on it though, maybe he saw it and thought she would love it. 

Chris had walked back with both mugs in his hands before he saw him opening the box to the ring, he didn’t hide well enough but now she’s seen it, maybe he could lie and say it’s for something else, or he should take his opportunity now? It’s how he would have done it when she opened it on Christmas eve, might as well do it now. He put the coffee mugs down walking up behind her and knelt down on his right knee, as he watched her turn around. 

“(y/n)” He said softly as he took her free hand into his eyes looking up at her (e/c) eyes seeing her tear up a little, was she ready for this, should he try to say it was a prank to get out of it? No he had to do it now, or he would never have another chance. 

“(y/n) (y/m/n) (y/l/n) I’ve loved you for a long time… would you please… please marry me and spend the rest of our lives together” He finished proposing to her as he watched her tear up even more, before nodding her head, having a huge wave of relief wash over him. He took the box and the ring out, slipping it over her finger before standing up and giving her a huge and passionate kiss. 

After they separated and a rather long hug following lose behind. “Proposing during Christmas? How original” She snorted as Chris rolled his eyes, she said yes anyway; this years Christmas was definitely going to be a good one.  

[madamlaydebug]

365 Days of Black History...

Eugene Jacques Bullard is considered to be the first African-American military pilot to fly in combat, and the only African-American pilot in World War I. Ironically, he never flew for the United States.

Born October 9, 1895, in Columbus, Georgia, to the formally enslaved William Bullard, and Josephine Bullard, Eugene’s early youth was unhappy. He made several unsuccessful attempts to run away from home, one of which resulted in his being returned home and beaten by his father. In 1906, at the age of 11, Bullard ran away for good, and for the next six years, he wandered the South in search of freedom.

In 1912 he stowed away on the Marta Russ, a German freighter bound for Hamburg, and ended up in Aberdeen, Scotland. From there he made his way to London, where he worked as a boxer and slapstick performer. In 1913, Bullard went to France for a boxing match. Settling in Paris, he became so comfortable with French customs that he decided to make a home there. He later wrote, “… it seemed to me that French democracy influenced the minds of both black and white Americans there and helped us all act like brothers.”

After World War I had begun in the summer of 1914, Bullard enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. While serving with the 170th Infantry Regiment, Bullard fought in the the Battle of Verdun where he was wounded seriously. He was taken from the battlefield and sent to Lyon to recuperate. While on leave in Paris, Bullard bet a friend $2,000 that despite his color he could enlist in the French flying service. Bullard’s determination paid off, and in November 1916 he entered the Aéronautique Militaire.

Bullard began flight training at Tours in 1916 and received his wings in May 1917. During his flying days, Bullard is said to have had an insignia on his Spad 7 C.1 that portrayed a heart with a dagger running through it and the slogan “All Blood Runs Red.”

After the war Bullard remained in France, where he worked in a nightclub called Zelli’s in the Montmartre district of Paris, owned a nightclub Le Grand Ducand an American-style bar, and operated an athletic club. During this time Bullard rubbed elbows with notables like Langston Hughes, and Josephine Baker.

[xacheri]

Brower Electric - Commit #1/1.5 - navbar

This commit, I built the navbar. I used Bootstrap 5 tools and flexbox to make it responsive.

The HTML

The head tag is basic. We've got our title and we've imported 2 stylesheets from the web. These give us our framework and the Noto Sans font. We also have our personal stylesheet.

The body tag has a basic Bootstrap Nav setup. The nav tag has the navbar and navbar-expand-lg classes since those are the two breakpoints I will use in the nav. On lg, we justify-content: space-around so that the items place themselves evenly across the top.

The logo is actually just a div with an h1 tag (for the browser/SE) with a background image. The positioning on that was fun, I decided to use a flexbox to make it.

The CSS:

First, we add in the font we use for the logo. A lot of the custom css is related to margins, padding, and colors. The logo is a flex box (direction: row) with a predetermined minimum width that we justify-content to the right on. This keeps our text to the right. Then the text aligns itself to the bottom. Luckily we only had one flex-child in the container so the nonexistence of justify-self is not an issue.

Initially, I had used some relative positioning to do things (specifically the logo) before seeing that it made the width of the page wider than the viewport. At this point, I purged all relative positioning from my page and praised flex-box.

To make it attractive for mobile devices, it collapses to 2 top items on the bar: a hamburger menu and our logo. Our menu then displays the nav items and call button in a list below when clicked on. This kind of interactivity takes no time to build with Bootstrap 5 Collapse.

Next commit, I will add in a custom hamburger menu for the mobile version. I will also build the testimonial carousel and the services grid/tree.

You can visit the site's github repository here: https://github.com/Xacheri/BrowerElectric

[forwantofacalling]

hi bestie, i want to know your opinions for that lab partner/elevator/employee trainer ask game! you don't have to answer all/any of these but. i am so curious hehe

jing yuan, fu xuan, qinque

march 7th, dan heng, stelle/caelus

aak, hung, waai fu

furina, neuvillette, arlecchino

oh this is so funny okay

fuck/marry/kill except its get them randomly assigned as your lab partner for a whole semester, get trapped with them on a broken elevator for ten hours, or they’re your employee trainer for your new job at McDonalds

jing yuan/fu xuan/qingque:

first order of business i dont trust qingque in the lab OR in a kitchen so into the elevator she goes. I'd love to say jing yuan for that one because then i could probably just take a nap for the full ten hours but hey she can teach me how to play celestial jade or something. at least there's nothing to set on fire.

fu xuan and jing yuan is honestly a toss-up based on how much fu xuan cares about the task. she would be so very insufferable but i trust her to get the job done when it matters...that probably means I'd perfer her as a lab partner. honestly not a bad option ive probably had worse partners than her. at least she'd do her half of the report.

that leaves jing yuan to teach me how to work a frier. sure, i'd let him do that. he'd probably teach me the ropes and then come to work like 30 minutes late and once in a blue moon. i wouldnt be killing myself with any of the machinery though so i think thats a win.

march 7th/dan heng/stelle

i would let dan heng do any of these things. so the real question is with the other two.

...I'm not letting stelle in the kitchen. im also not letting march in the lab. she would drink the chemicals and i would be responsible. come to think of it i shouldn't let stelle in the lab either. shit. that leaves me with her in the elevator.

that's probably fine. its a closed metal box. i trust my ability to deal with stelle more when its not around dangerous tools or chemicals.

dan heng would get me an A in every lab no questions asked. he'd be the guy i never talk to outside of class and we'd speak in like five word sentences max but i'm not failing unless hell freezes over. he's probably actaully interested in the material too. 10/10 please introduce me an archiving job pleeeeeaseee

i want march to be able to cook. i think that would be cute. let her teach me how to stack a hamburger in the most aesthetic way i would absolutely let her do that. i would pose for her instagram stories. I would listen to her gossip. this job would never get boring.

aak/hung/waai fu

easy. hung mcdonalds, waai fu elevator, aak lab partner. now hear me out.

hung can cook so fucking well that if hes in somewhere as close as a mcdonalds im sure as HELL jumping for the chance to learn from him. also hes so goddamn nice. and strong. he can do handiwork and also beat the shit out of assholes i dont see any issue with this. 10/10.

waai fu is just friend shaped have you heard that girl talk i wanna be her friend. we would be so chill in that elevator yessss tell me all about your deadbeat dad and your found family i hope you kick that man's ass one day. good for you!!!! also she would let me take a nap without disturbing me. hung would too. honestly she and hung are interchangable i just worry that waai fu would end up being sued for punching someone during customer service.

okay look being lab partners with aak sounds like a terrible idea this boy is a genius pharm student who acts like a litearl child and would absolutely stab me in my sleep with a concoction from his mad scientist lab. BUT. he's a genius pharm student. as long as i DO ALL THE WORK and he agrees to answer my questions we're fine. we're fine. also i have his entire family on speed dial if that syringe gun gets anywhere near me waai fu would have him in headlock in two seconds flat sir i am calling your DAD.

furina/neuvilette/arlecchino

i feel like im being called out for not playign the fontaine quests yet 😭😭😭i only have a vague impression of what these guys are like pleaseee

furina i do NOT want to be stuck in an elevator with. i dont want to be in a closed space with arlecchino either. i feel like theres a good chance i would be fucking dead in the first two hours. or incredibly annoyed. ill take neuvilettte. this guy is fine. talk to me about water for 10 hours id listen.

now the question is who's mentee do i want to be. I feel like i should refuse arlecchino just on principle of whatever shes got going on with the siblings. she can be my lab partner. as long as we dont talk about anything except the work and she doesnt freaking kill me for messing anything up i think i'd survive. once the semester is over i can book it out of there. if furina was my lab partner i think the teacher would HATE us and i'd be dead by glitterbomb explosion by the second week.

that leaves furina at mcdonalds. i would not enjoy this and i would also not learn anything but its the lesser of three evils. i love furina but if i had to deal with her in real life i don't think there would be any way to win. i would just have to have her dragon on speed dial.

[burgerdudes]

🍔 Review № 577 ━ 📍 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘅 𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗼. ★★★☆☆ • Uptown Night Market is held under a bridge in Harlem, New York, and is a celebration of all things food and culture. We were really hungry when we arrived, and were of course happy to find a food stall serving hamburgers. The Bronx Burger Co. is mainly a ghost kitchen serving food for delivery, but since they were on-site we felt that they deserved a review. Their menu consisted of a handful different burgers, and we ordered The Maple Bacon Cheeseburger with cheddar, maple glazed bacon and a Bx sauce for 9 USD. Despite a rather long queue we didn’t have to wait for long before we were handed a box with our food. • The burger looked decent enough, with nicely melted cheese and some crunchy looking bacon. But when we took our first bite we noticed several shortcomings. The beef was quite lean, and the low fat content made it a bit chewy. We also would have liked more sauce, as everything got a bit dry. The potato bun had been toasted nicely, and could easily have handled more sauces and beef juices if they’d just tried a little harder. Taste-wise the flavours worked well together, and we appreciated the bacon’s mix of savoury sweetness. So it was a bit of a shame that they hadn’t thought all decisions through. • The Bronx Burger Co. serve a decent burger, but we got the feeling that they’re aiming for customers who want an alright burger delivered to their front door than an amazing burger experience. ━ @thebronxburgerco #burger #burgers #burgertime #burgerporn #burgerdudes #burgerlovers #food #foodie #hamburger #hamburgare #newyork #newyorkburgers #🍔 #🍟 #🇺🇸 (at New York City, N.Y.) https://www.instagram.com/p/CiHULlojQ0j/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[modapraxau]

Wooden Calm: Makeover Your Area with Do-It-Yourself Timber Gazebo Kits

Timber gazebo kits might have crossed your mind if you're thinking about having a gazebo built and weighing all of your possibilities. When they speak with customers, they frequently want to know what distinguishes their gazebos from the gazebo kits found in big box stores or specialty shops. To address the benefits and drawbacks of these kits, they decided to publish this essay.

Provides More Room for Plants Along with Seclusion and Shade

The shade pergola has an open structure, but you can use curtains made of all-weather textiles over the top or sides to create a secluded, shaded area. A professional can also assist you in evaluating the amount of shade or sun that your pergola will provide based on the size, direction, and spacing of the rafters when choosing the placement and design of your pergola.

You may add more flowers and foliage to your outdoor area with a pergola. To create a lovely natural ceiling, you can integrate climbing plants like grapevines, wisteria, honeysuckle, and ivy that will entwine themselves over the vertical supports and beams or hang potted plants from the rafters.

Compensates the Lack of a Deck, Patio, or Veranda

People enjoy being outside when the weather is pleasant, whether they are grilling hamburgers, playing yard games, or interacting with friends and family. For this reason, every home needs to include an outdoor entertainment area.

One of the nicest things about having a pergola is that it allows you to create a fun spot to hang out, even if your yard is too tiny for a patio or deck. Pergolas provide shade from the sun and ease the burden of outdoor cooking by serving as a grilling space.

You may design a pergola that complements your home's style, taste, and budget, whether it's a stand-alone building or an addition that covers a patio area.

Source