#for the price!!!’ and ‘expensive trash. shitty. bad. do not buy. ‘

[dagasinfilo]

does anybody have recommendations for decent headphones that’d work for music production but are still relatively cheap

[aam-loves]

I really don’t know how I managed to turn supposedly spooky event in a piece of Halloween fluff, but here it is with graphics for Tricks and Treats of Riverdale, Theme 3: Seasonal Celebrations 🙈 I hope you enjoy it🖤

Save us on Halloween

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

It’s Sunday late afternoon, Betty is relaxing on her couch watching TV and combing her daughter’s hair. Rosie is 7 and she resembles her father too much. Red hair and freckles immediately show her relation to Archie Andrews. And who would have thought that Archie, with his golden heart, puppy brown eyes and all kind nature, turned out to be the biggest asshole. He abandoned his then yet unborn daughter pursuing career of a music star and following a raven haired heiress of Lodge empire. At least his father stayed by Betty’s side and Fred adored his granddaughter.

Since then Betty moved to a small but cozy apartment for not wanting to stay with her parents and worked in a Bookstore, again, to be further from her parents’ influence. She’s had enough of those and look where it got her.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Betty furrowed her brows and came to their door. On the other side stood her neighbor , Jughead Jones, holding his son’s hand.

“Betty, hi, save us, please”

———————————————————————

Sunday afternoon Jughead Jones is sitting frustrated at his kitchen table, his laptop in front of him and the rest of the table piled with essays to grade. Oh, he wishes he had an office, but he only could get a small apartment with the wage of an English teacher and being a single father. He turned his eyes to Ethan, his 7 year old son sat with colorful books. Well, at least here he took after father. Unlike Jughead, his eyes were brown and skin a bit darker. When Toni said she was pregnant, he was nervous, but excited. Despite being raised in a shitty family he always wanted one of his own. He and Toni were just hooking up from time to time, so her decision probably was expected, but it wasn’t welcomed. When Toni informed him that she didn’t plan to keep the baby and she thought she met someone to settle with, a girl, he begged to keep the child at least until birth. She gave them up pretty easy, not looking back or contacting them right after Jughead walked out of the hospital with his son. He changed busy New York for small quiet upstate town and gave up his editing job for being an English teacher at Riverdale High and writing his novel when he had time.

He loved fatherhood and thought he did pretty good job, at least he wasn’t an alcoholic trying to involve his son into gang like his own father. But the school Costume contest for Halloween caused him headache. He looked through Halloween costumes online and was shocked by its price, he certainly couldn’t afford it for a one time occasion. Then he started looking through ideas for Halloween costumes but they were either complete trash or too difficult to create for him. So he sat there at his kitchen table, a frustrated sigh escaped his mouth. It seems his last resort was to go asking for help from Ethan classmate’s mother, Betty Cooper.

———————————————————————

“What’s wrong?” Betty is instantly worried, at least they look healthy, so they are not injured or sick. “Come in, guys” she ushers them inside her apartment.

“Ethan!” Rosie yells, happy to see her friend.

“Ethan, why don’t you join Rosie and watch TV, while me and you dad solve the problem”

“Okay, great” Ethan smiles and sits besides Rosie on the couch.

Betty turns back to Jughead “So...”

“Yeah... uh... sorry, I came unannounced, but this costume contest drives me crazy” Jughead mumbles sheepishly.

“Costume contest....oh my god! I totally forgot!” Betty realizes.

“So you don’t have a costume too...?”

“Jesus, no! And where do I get one? They are so expensive!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Jughead agrees “and I searched for ideas for handmade costumes and they either look like crap or are too difficult create. I may be good with words, but crafting is not my theme”

“Well... crafting is not a bad idea, maybe we can make something work together?” Betty smiles and blushes a little. And Jughead smiles in response.

After a couple hours of brainstorming and looking through various diy tutorial they agree on Woody and Jessie from Toy story, Ethan and Rosie seem to be perfect for impersonating cartoon’s heroes. Then they hurry for some late shopping at dollar store and thrift shop. They returned to Betty’s apartment by dinner and decided to order pizza and have a sleepover for children. When Ethan and Rosie were tucked in bed Betty and Jughead started to work.

Jughead watched fascinated how Betty were sewing yellow lapels on a white shirt for Rosie’s costume. Her bottom lip between her teeth, brows slightly furrowed, concentrated on her work. He always thought she was an angel, beautiful, smart, she got his sarcastic humor, was a perfect mother and her cooking skills... mmmm that was something else. But he never tried anything, as much as he wanted it, she was too good for him and if no one from all the bachelors fighting for her attention caught her eye, he obviously could hope for nothing here. But at least he could look and be her friend, that was better than nothing.

They finished costumes by midnight, Betty walked Jughead to the door, he will come in the morning to pick Ethan and they will walk them to school together.

“Goodnight, Juggie” she hugged him and lingered a little longer.

“Night, Betts. See you in the morning” he leaned to kiss her cheek.

She wanted so desperately to turn her head and feel his soft lips on hers, but couldn’t find the courage once again.

Betty’s crush on Jughead started after about a week they knew each other. She admired him for such a brave decision to raise a child by himself, he was smart and so interesting to talk to. Always kind and attentive, and so, so handsome. Men shouldn’t be so handsome. She melted under his blue eyes and her hands always itches to tuck the lock of midnight hair constantly falling over his eyes. She liked to care about him and Ethan like about her own family, often inviting them for dinners, knowing that two men would probably live on burgers and takeout without her. But Archie leaving gave her so much self doubt that she didn’t dare to ask Jughead if he felt something more for her. Sometimes it seemed so, but he never made a move and she was afraid of getting her heart broken again.

———————————————————————

Rosie and Ethan didn’t win the contest, but they happy without that, going for trick or treat with their friends. They had sleepover at Betty’s again, children exhausted from a busy evening were sleeping soundly on Rosie’s room, while Betty and Jughead sat with almost finished pizza and beer in front of the tv. It was probably two beers that gave her courage to do something, or may be it was just the sight of him, dressed in all black, his shirt clinging to his lean defined body, Holy hell, English teachers shouldn’t be so good-looking and sexy, she couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Juggie, I think I forgot to show you my costume!” she blurts.

“Huh? Why didn’t you wear for trick or treat with children?”

“Oh... I... it wasn’t appropriate”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll just show you” she murmurs and retreats to her room.

Jughead is waiting for her on the couch, still a little confused, but when he sees her coming down the hall all the air escapes his lungs.

Betty is wearing a fucking cheerleader uniform and she looks damn good in it. The skirt probably didn’t look so short in her high school days, but her legs are stunning, so he doesn’t complain. She’s foregone the thermal and wears only a top, which sits tighter than on a teenage girl. The look complete with knee high socks has him speechless.

Betty is blushing and biting her lip. She is approaching him slowly and almost regrets her decision when she sees his shocked face.

“Oh crap, I spoiled everything, didn’t I? Shit, I shouldn’t have... I’m so sorry, Jug... I ...” she starts babbling nervously.

But then his hand is on her hip, his thumb rubbing slowly on a strip of bare skin above her skirt.

He clears his throat “wow...” and looks up in her eyes. And when she sees his irises blown with desire she can’t help but smile slyly.

“Mr. Jones, I think I skipped a little too much English lessons because of cheer practice, is there a way how I can make up for it?”

“I can think about couple of ways...” he plays along.

———————————————————————

“Mom, dad, let’s dress as Adams family this year!”

“Oh, Ethan, that’s a great idea” Jughead encourages his son.

“Mom, what do you say?” Ethan turns his eyes to Betty, it’s almost 3 years by now that Ethan calls her “mom”, he got used very fast as did Rosie with Jughead, but her heart still skips a bit and fills with warmth every time.

“Oh, honey, but Morticia has black hair”

“We’ll buy you a wig!” Rosie supports her brother

“Come on, Betts, that’ll look great, family costumes, we’ll crash them all” Jughead is excited as his children by now.

“But Morticia is so tiny and I’m fat, it’ll look hilarious” Betty pouts.

Jughead then envelopes her in a hug “Baby, you are not fat, you are pregnant, and I dare say you are the most beautiful pregnant woman in the world, and I also think that Morticia was pregnant once or twice herself, she got her children some way” he smirks.

“All right, you win guys” she rolls her eyes

“Halloween shopping!” Rosie and Ethan cry in unison.

[sillybitchynerd]

The Pet Store Myth

A super annoying trend I tend to see is people lying about big chain pet stores and some of the things that go on in them. 

Now you can make any kind of argument you want about the places pet store get their animals from and the breeding conditions in those places. Granted that’s not a pet stores call and they need to find animals that do not cost them 500 bucks a pop as well as shipping, and are also able to supply them with healthy movable animals at a decent rate. For example the store I work in sells Bearded Dragons at least once a week, so getting a shipment of 6 babies still only last us about 5-6 weeks, a lot of smaller breeders want 200-400 per dragon not including shipping fee’s. At the price of 50 a dragon we can’t keep up. Go after the breeders, not the minimum wage workers over THOSE conditions.

Now I’m all for judging a store by the conditions of the animals, there are rules in place at my store that demand a level of cleanliness and even ‘display’ that can get management fired if they are not met. Every hour if you stand in a Petco long enough you will hear an animal sound go off over the loud speaker, this lets an manager know they need to do an hourly animal walk. This means misting any reptiles that need it, checking water and food dishes in all cages and scooping any dead feeder fish. In the morning all reps and small animals get greens, fruits and veggies and their water is swapped out. All animals are normally handled or checked over for any signs of illness or injury and everyone is fed. Night time is the same thing, dirty and empty bowls are swapped, everyone is checked and night lights go on.  

Small animal bedding is changed twice a week with all items and the tank itself scrubbed down, animals that need dust baths or baths in general get them. Reps are once a week with spot cleaning done in between and soaks are done during this time and normally snake feeds as well. Fish water is tested twice a week, and all filtration and carbon pillows are changed monthly or as needed depending if it’s salt or fresh water. There is at least one full time aquatics worker on staff who’s sole job it is to tend to all things fish, it’s that hefty and complex. 

A lot of people think that animals are just killed or shoved in a freezer if they are sick or hurt. Not at all, we could be ARRESTED for doing that in some states. At the first sign of illness or injury the animal is put into the wellness room in the back, if it’s something minor like a scrape or wet tail we keep them quarantined until they are better but anything at all that we are unsure about there is a vet visit set up in 24 hours. Snakes have feeding and weight charts to keep them on track and believe me when they say ANY ANIMAL. We have had feed mice go to the vet after injury in a tank fight. Fish are tricky, we can’t always safely take a fish to the vet and unless there is one willing to drive out we often take pictures and send them to the proper vet who will recommend treatment. Due to tank cycling issues we normally quarantine the tank on the wall and allow the fish to heal on the floor. So if you ever see things like ick which can come in shipments from the breeders please don’t flip a tit. 99% of the time they know and are currently treating the whole tank system just in case. 

There are check lists on check lists on check lists of when things get done and how. If an animal is beyond saving WE don’t make that call, a vet does. And WE don’t put them down, a vet does. And it’s often only in very extreme cases will we ever put a treatable animal down and that normally has to do with quality of life and expense. If an animal need $900 meds daily it’s not possible for us to keep up with that and if the animal can not be rescued out it’s up to the vet. If the animal ends up as special needs it’s adopted out to a knowledgeable family or rescue (we have had a few ferrets with diabetes) if an animal has been in our care for too long (fuckin iguanas...) we also lower their price until they are free, if they are still not picked up we add free supplies and if THAT doesn't work we are in touch with reptile rescues and sanctuary’s. Often times the animals that can not be homed are just taken in by staff members. 3 of my pets currently are returned / surrendered / adoptions. We also cycle animals to different stores. Perhaps someone in a different town is looking or able to take in an animal we have, they just don’t know about it so giving it to another store gives that animal a higher chance of adoption.

In the case of cage size all animal habitats are step up as TEMPORARY housing, we don’t expect most of our animals to be in these tanks for more than a month in the best case and as stated above if they do out grow their cages we adopt them out as quickly as possible OR if we need to we shelf pull tanks and supplies to set up enclosures in the back room or on the floor for them. If it looks like we have to many, chances are we do but it’s not the staffs fault. In my stores case someone dropped off 4 large adult GPs the day we got our shipment of babies in. In the morning we only had two, we ordered enough to fill the large end cap cage big enough to house 3 ferrets, one empty long tank big enough for 3-4 babies and one more to add to the tank with the last two babies. We know based on sales trend that our pigs tend to go in days if not by the end of the week..but having 4 large adult males show up out of the blue and us having to take them in for their own safety we ended up putting 2 in each long tank leaving only the last empty end cap tank for literally all our other babies. Which is okay, the pen is big and they live in large groups, the 4 females were pulled and put together in a 40g in the back so we were left with 10 males in the end cap. That’s too many, we know. They all have room to move around and stretch out, no one is cram packed in and they are so small they can fit in your palm no problem but it’s still to many. We are fully aware, we did not plan on this, we HAD the room until about an hour before the babies got there. 2 females in with the 2 we still have 3 boys in the long and the last few in the big tank. Perfect. 

“But why didn’t you just put the big ones in the back?!” Because they would never be seen or adopted out, they would sit back there alone for days until we had the tank space for them and adopting out grown adult pigs is hard enough without having to tell everyone we happen to have them. It worked, they went home in about a week and the babies are all nice and spread out....but boy for that week did literally everyone get yelled at.

In the most cynical way possible our top branch looks at animals like product. Just like frozen food it needs to be housed and handled carefully or it’s worthless. If your product is damaged (sick or hurt) it can’t be sold and if it looks like it’s kept in shitty conditions no one is going to buy it in case it’s been spoiled. If we don’t take care of the animals it cuts into their profit. No one is harming or hurting these animals out of hate. All of our animals are counted and accounted for INCLUDING FISH. If more than a normal natural amount of animals die we get a visit from a specialist team and people could lose their jobs. An a normal amount is often one or two hamsters a month IF that. They ask questions, they look into shit. They don’t mess around. We can’t throw Iguanas away in the trash, we would get a call next count asking were the hell over 1000 bucks in animals went over night and if it’s just over a month they will ask why our otherwise healthy animals are suddenly dying.

That being said if you do see something that is CLEARLY not okay say something. A tank filled with dead fish, a dead mouse or animal in a tank. When you handle and deal with animals things happen, we don’t know the health of every single feeder mouse. One that looks fine and acts fine could be riddled with cancer and die suddenly between walks. We could have gotten a 6 year old hamster from the breeder without knowing and it passes in it’s sleep. We might not notice a nipped fin on a Blood Parrot fish and a bird might have gotten a toe stuck in a toy. 

It can vary from store to store. I’ve been brought in to help understaffed and under trained stores get their shit together which is why talking to an employee and understanding what’s going on is important. If you see a hamster breathing a bit heavy say something, let us know. Chances are it just started. If you see poor conditions don’t write a bad review on yelp, CALL THE CORP LINE and they will send someone out. Call out bad stores but don’t shame the whole company because there are people who really care and really take amazing care of their animals. Our store has names for every single beta fish, we know all our animals down to their personalities in most cases and we are obsessive about their health and well being. Telling people on facebook to never trust a pet store EVER because you went to a shitty one spreads a fear and distrust when there shouldn’t be. Spread that about SPECIFIC stores. Not all of us. Shop around at your local store and get to know the employees. If you see the same faces every month or year and the animal care is always amazing spread the word and make sure people know they care. 

I’ve been screamed at by would be activists who saw a bad post on facebook about a petco once and made it their mission to come in a harass every petco they could find within diving distance. Don’t be that person, and don’t be the person that started it. 

[dearchuchu]

Long version.

I'm going to assume anyone who wants the long version is going to read the short version. So I'll skip what was covered there and go into the details.

I had mini bottles, but I drank them all by dinner time with the idea I would just pick up some more for the long flight in San Fransisco. The closest liquor store was about a mile and a half away from our hotel out by the airport, and Mandy, who didn't know my plan didn't like my plan. She also didn't like that I drank my mini bottles that were for the big flight. I always planned on this, but neglected to tell her.

An Uber to the liquor store was 7 dollars one way. Man San Fransisco is expensive. I told Mandy, who was not happy with the idea of spending 14 dollars to go buy mini bottles that I already had (and drank), to go spend MORE money on MORE mini bottles. I, however disagreed.

I decided, it's only a mile and a half, I'll walk. 50 minutes or so, no big deal. Mandy wasn't keen on that idea, but it was much cheaper than Uber. Then I remembered, "Wait, didn't bird start here?" Yes the scooter company bird is in San Fransisco. I said, "I'll just scoot up there!" Alas, no bird scooters out by the airport hotels. Then I remembered I have lime on my phone too! So I loaded up the lime app, and sure enough, there was a lime scooter on my way!

I located the lime, and it's a bike. I think, "that's fine, biking will still cut off at least half the time!" I unlock it, and the lights don't work. It's night time now, so it's dark. I thought, "Wow, this isn't very safe. You'd think lime would have lights on their bikes." I ride up to the liquor store, which ended up being in a nice section of suburban San Francisco. Once in the well lit area I noticed the bike said "ebike" on it, and I saw the motor for pedal assist. It turns out the lime I got was a lemon. It did have lights, the bike was just broken.

I get my WAY overpriced mini bottles, and then look for another bike, this one, hopefully not broken. I find one quickly, and it works great, lights and everything. Let me just say this, pedal assist bikes are super fun! I flew on the way back to the hotel! If you get a chance, ride one, the motor does all the work for you! I even made Mandy try it when I got back to the hotel. She had to admit, even as someone that doesn't enjoy riding bikes, it was pretty cool.

We both get a crappy night sleep, then eat a pretty good hotel breakfast, then off to the airport. Customs was stressful, as it always is, but the agents were in good spirits, because the TSA in San Fransisco is ran by a private company, so they are still getting paid despite the government shutdown. We find our gate, and get the last few things that we need to do online done before leaving the country for a while. Mandy doing work, me looking at cat memes.

Finally we board our plane, we're all set to go, and we sit. Then we sit. We sit some more, then we sit. Then Mandy points out it's been an hour and we haven't moved. No word from the captain, no word from the crew. Just an hour straight of sitting in a tarmac. The guy next to us, which was clearly flying internationally for the first time asked a passing stewardess, "Hey, what's going on? When are we taking off?" And she said "10 minute." Which is obviously bullshit.

We have a friend who works for Delta, and since we're still on the ground in America, we could still contact her, so we gave her the old "What's going on?" text. She looked into it, bad wind off the coast, Delta flights are delayed by 45 minutes. We watched several planes from several other providers take off, or taxi right behind us. We just sat. It was an hour and fifty minutes before we started moving. The FAA says that after 2 hours they have to provide you with a meal. They got in JUST under the buzzer.

I have no idea why we sat there. There was no work being done, no repairs. Delta got all their flights out in 45 minutes. There we sat. The captain never said a word. The staff said nothing. The only reason we knew anything is we have a friend in the industry. We flew China Eastern, for the record. This was strike one.

We get up in the air, and about two hours later they served our meal, 4 hours after getting on the plane. I could tell the service was going to suck, so I asked for a glass of wine, and a beer, and the flight attendant looked like I just kicked his dog. TWO drinks at the same time? Impossible. He did it, but you could tell it bothered him. I'm personally super glad I did.

The food comes after the drinks and the same guy starts handing us food, and we are like, "Woah buddy, what are the options?" This is when it becomes clear none of the staff speaks English. I mean enough for one to two words here or there, but clearly no real grasp of English. Strike two. He responds "Pork fried rice." Now if any of you are unaware, I haven't been eating pork. It's actually been well over a year, almost two now. I've made one or two exceptions, but those were always my decision.

Mandy says, "What about chicken?" He says "No. Pork fried rice." Luckily for me, I already decided I was going to eat pork on this trip, because the Philippines LOVE pork. In fact, in the first hour of being here we already saw a whole pig roasting on a pit in someone's back yard. What's important here is that I had already decided I could eat pork. I didn't want to on the plane, but with a 12 hour flight (14 with the delay), I had no options. Literally. Now the vegetarian behind me... He had quite a bit less options. I think he just didn't eat. Strike three.

It's important to note when we asked for our wine, he used the small cup, and poured a half pour. He also just had a sour expression on his face when he delt with us. I say "he" because we only delt with one guy for the whole flight. He then turned to the Chinese people across the row from us chatted them up enthusiastically, got out a big cup, and filled it up with wine. To the top. Mandy and I looked at each other like, "Are you seeing this shit?" First overt sign of racism, and that's a strike four.

After lunch, they got our trash, and no staff was to be seen or heard of again for four hours. No water. No snacks. Nothing. So in the 8 hours we were on the plane so far we got one shitty meal (did I mention it was horrible?) One glass of wine each, and one can of beer. At the 8 hour mark they came around with water, and we got yet again, the small glass, and a half pour... Of water. The Chinese people got full pours in big glasses. Strike five.

Two hours after our water (which after that first water, they came by on the hour with water) they brought out no doubt the shittiest sandwich I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exaggerating. This sandwich was, a half a piece of bread, with a meat we couldn't identify, no sauce, another half price of bread, then a wilted piece of lettuce the size of a half dollar, that I would have definitely thrown away in my kitchen, no sauce, then another half piece of bread. We were pretty sure this was going to be our last meal on the plane, and we debated eating it or not... But decided we would risk food poisoning because WE HAD NO OTHER OPTIONS. Strike six.

Two hours after that, about an hour from landing they come around with another meal, much to our surprise. Our dude comes up to us and just started to put a food tray on Mandy's lap (I was in the bathroom) she had to ask, "what is this?" And he said "pork" and she said, "Do I not get any options? Is that all there is? Just fried rice pork?" I'm walking up as he goes, "omelet." She says in her SUPER sweet "Fuck you" voice, "Yeah I'll have the omelet then." As I sit down I say, "Yeah I'll have the same. Also can I get a beer?" He just says "No." And pushed the cart away. Ok. Strike seven.

The omelette was covered with greasy soggy bacon. I thought to myself, "good thing I'm ok with this. Poor vegetarian behind me." My guess is, he just didn't eat. For 14 hours. Also, they made Mandy and myself raise our seats to upright while we ate, not the people in front of us, or any other other Chinese people. Outright racism. When they were breaking down the trash, our guy walks by me with an empty beer can from a couple rows up of, you guessed it, Chinese people. It dawned on me he never said, "No, we're out of beer" which is what I assumed. He just said "No." Blatant racism. Strike eight.

Had I not brought mini bottles, I would have been provided with one beer, and one half of a small cup of wine (about a quarter of a glass) for a 14 hour plane ride. Fucking ridiculous. Unacceptable. I will never in my life ride on China Eastern. I will tell everyone who will listen to me to never ride on China Eastern. Don't ride on China Eastern. Don't give them money. Their staff is racist towards white people. It's understandable if you have a domestic Chinese flight to have your staff not speak English, but if the flight originated in the USA, they should at least be able to answer simple questions.

If for some reason this should end up in front of someone at China Eastern, I don't want free rides, just fix your shit.

So we land, we're at the back of the plane, and our bags are no where near us. This is because the plane is full of people that are carrying 3 to 4 carry on "bags" and cramming shit in the overhead that doesn't belong. We decided to just wait it out and keep an eye on our bags until everyone gets done. The Chinese in my experience push and shove, and don't make lines. This is exactly what happened. They push and shove to be the first to get off the plane, to push and shove to be the first on a bus to take us to the terminal. Mandy and I calmly collect our belongings, and get on the bus patiently, and then the doors close, and we head to the terminal. Golf clap for the Chinese. Well played.

Even though we aren't leaving the terminal, we still have to go through customs in China, which consists of 1 getting your finger prints scanned. 2 scanning your ticket and passport, and 3 going to the terminal. There are self finger print scanners at the beginning of the airport, but literally no one uses them. I say "hey Mandy, shouldn't we scan our fingerprints?" She says, "nobody else is, there's probably more further on." There weren't. I said, "Just because everyone is passing it up doesn't mean they are all right." We debated for a second, then just went on with everyone else. Not ideal.

Meanwhile there are passport control people running through the crowd shouting "MANILA MANILA 10 MINUTES THEY SHUT GATE MANILA MANILA!" See, since our plane was 2 hours late, everyone going to Manila was going to miss their flight. This led to the unorganized shit show we expected in China. People NOT going to Manila started running behind these people. Everyone followed into the self serve line, none of them had their fingerprint scans. You can't use self checkout without the receipt from your fingerprint scans. Manila was being let through without it, because they were literally missing their flight. Quickly the agent figured out the entire line eventually was just people blindly running after them, none of them had the correct information, and none of them could go through.

One by one, after waiting through about 30 minutes in self check out, people were sent back to the back of the line to check in with an officer. The fingerprint scanner was in a section that once you left, you couldn't go back in there. It seems logical if you don't think about it.

The check out by a person line takes about an hour. They were randomly letting people skip the fingerprint just to keep the line moving at self check out, that line was shorter, so we tried to see if maybe they would randomly let us through. They did not. They scanned our face, scanned our passport, scanned our ticket, then pointed to the back of the line.

At no point did anyone try to explain what was going on, in English, or Chinese. This could have saved people (read us) at least an hour. "If you have fingerprint, line here, no fingerprint, line here" is that hard? When we finally get to customs (again) they... Wait for it.. take my picture, scan my ticket, scan my passport, and then tell me to go in to the terminal. They did NOT get my fingerprints. They did NOT stamp my passport. Seriously. You can't make this shit up. They made me wait in line for an hour to do the thing they already did, but then just wouldn't let me in.

Now for security. First, we notice no one is taking their shoes off, and Mandy asks me, "Do we have to take our shoes off?" And I go, "I don't think so" and when we get up she asks, "Do we have to take our shoes off?" And the lady said "Yes. Shoes off." Literally a Chinese couple in front of us is going through the metal detector with shoes on. Mandy goes, "They're wearing shoes" and this woman from the people's republic of China looks Mandy in the eyes and says, "No they aren't."

"No they aren't." Let that sink in.

So we take off our shoes. I have 2 of my 6 mini bottles left, which they pull out, say something to the other people in Chinese, and then laugh. I think it was good hearted, but, I don't know the language. We make it through, or so I think, until one guy goes, "Take out power pack." I'm like "Oh, yeah I forgot that in my pack. Sure here." He looks it over, flips it around, and says, "No. You can not take." I'm like "Seriously? Why not? I flew here with that. I've flown all over the world with that!" And he says "I can't tell how strong it is, it's not printed." Which is true, because it's been rubbed off from use. The technical info isn't on there. I used that battery 5 days a week for work. It's been on 4 continents. I've flown with it countless times. Now it's stuck in China.

Mandy got super pissed and started to go off, and I stopped her and said, "It's not worth it. We'll have to get another one." China is not a free state. They don't have freedom of speech. The last thing I want is for this to escalate at all. I just said, "Keep it." And we left it. There was no reason for him to confiscate it. At all. I've never had anyone ever even glance at it. Ever. In any country. Ever. Except racist ass China.

At this point, we just wanted to get the fuck out of China. So this is my final point about China.. I kinda wanted to go at some point, Mandy kind of didn't want to go. Traveling with the Chinese, they are rude, pushy, inconsiderate, don't follow any local customs, they let their kids piss and shit in the street (I've seen it multiple times), and they just suck in general. These are my observations from traveling with the Chinese abroad. Traveling with them on their home turf, turns out they are racist against me as well. That being said, thanks but no thanks. China is officially off my list of countries I will visit. I now have absolutely no desire to go to China. We will never ride any Chinese airline ever again, no matter how good the ticket price. I'll never pay someone to treat me like a piece of shit.

Anywho, we have a bit of a panic getting on our last flight to the Philippines because our gate had only our flight on it, and they randomly closed it. We didn't know what time it was in China, and there were no clocks in the airport (which is insane). We went to get a drink, and our flight was a 9:20. At the restaurant we went to they said, "No food, just drinks" we said, "Ok we will do drinks." She said ok, the we ordered two Johnny Walker blacks, the lady then said, "No. Only beer." And I'm looking at the bottle with my eyes, and we're like, "uhhhh" she then said, we "We close at 9. Only beer." Which were 6 dollars for VERY blah Chinese beers. No thanks.

Well, now we're thinking it's like 5 till or something, then we see our gate is closed, and they're people going dowm an escalator towards our gate, towards our plane. We panic a little, then a bilingual girl comes up, and she straight up goes into full panic. "The gates are closed!" Then some Chinese. She takes off, we follow, she finds someone who works at the airport, hurried Chinese speech, then she takes off, we follow her. She's trying to find a way to that escalator, we are too. She gets us pretty worked up... Finally I'm like, "I'm just going to turn on my phone for a second for it to update to Shang Hai time." it connects... It's 8:18. After running around.

Yet again, we close at 9, so we can't serve you anything but beer... At our restaurant. Racist bullshit.

We get on the plane, no TV on this one, so 4 hours of silence. Everyone tried to sleep anyways. Everyone on this flight was on a similar ordeal as we were. Everyone used China as a layover, so they are all as exhausted as we are. When we land the plane erupts in laughter and applause. We made it. We fucking made it.

Well, to the Philippines. We still had a bit to go to get to our island... For sure. I'll post the rest of the long version later.

[flatsuke]

KBTBB Cell Phone Headcanons

a/n: these memelords, i swear

@maidofstars @bolt8826 @tsundere-eevee @themysticaldaydreamer @alolan-lillie lolol

Eisuke:

You betcha this guy owns the most expensive phone in the market. Practicality aside, he prioritizes prestige when it comes to using cell phones.

Uses this as a phone case. It’s luxurious, yet classy at the same time and hella pricey, too, this rich twat

He has MC on speed dial. On average, he probably calls her about 15 times a day. He claims to do it because he wants to give her errands, but, really, he just wants to hear her voice. Not that he’ll ever admit it out loud, this weenie.

His most used app is probably Gmail or some email app. This guy gets thousands of emails, and he has to skim through all of them in a day.

He has way too much paid apps. He’s the guy that buys his way through a game. 200,000 gold coins cost $59.99? No problem. He’ll buy 10 sets of those.

He never buys bootleg chargers or phone accessories. Why settle for the shitty ones when you can afford the original ones?

Because he’s a predictable weenie, his phone passcode is 0101.

His phone lock screen is a picture of some fancy wine he drank on a business trip, but his home screen is a picture he took of the coffee MC made for him.

He takes an unholy amount of selfies when he thinks no one is looking.

The photos on his phone are password-protected because he doesn’t want anyone to see the album full of secretly-taken candid shots of MC. They’re only for his viewing pleasure.

Soryu: 

He doesn’t really care much for the price or popularity of the phone model. Durability and functionality are what matter to him.

Has this as a phone case. Since his job involves a lot of physical activity and occasional violence, his phone case has to be shock-proof, drop-proof—everything-proof, basically.

He has a ton of ebooks saved on his phone, but he still prefers reading physical copies of the book.

He always accidentally drops his phone on his face because of how bulky his phone is. Ouch.

He blocked Baba and Mamoru as contacts. Baba kept spamming him with memes, and Mamoru’s name alone just pissed Soryu off.

He doesn’t really take pictures, but his phone album contains a few. Namely, a few pics of the Ice Dragons lined up, the penthouse crew messing around, and MC making omelettes, of course.

He has virtually no social media apps on his phone except  the app for the bidders group chat which he can’t seem to delete no matter how much he tries. Looks like someone hacked into it lol

He has Inui and Samejima on speed dial. Samejima’s always quick to answer his calls, but Inui has this annoying ass voice mail that Soryu hates listening to.

He mostly uses the generic settings of his phone. Generic wallpaper, ringtone, brightness, etc. One time, Ota snagged Soryu’s phone and messed with the settings. His wallpaper was a picture of Ota dabbing, and his ringtone was a recording of Mamoru’s sneezing. Soryu was pissed.

There was this one time MC wore a cheongsam, and Baba (before Soryu blocked him) sent him a pic of her wearing it. Needless to say, it was his phone home screen for weeks. 

Baba:

He’s not picky with his phones, so long as they have a decent amount of memory. He saves a ton of pics, videos, apps, etc.

Chose this phone case. He saw it at the mall and thought it looked really cool, so he bought it on a whim. Plus, it moves!

He definitely has almost every dating app on his phone. Tinder, OkCupid, Match.com—no wonder he’s always “busy.”

His photo album is full of juicy blackmail material of the other bidders (except MC, of course). No one tries to piss Baba off because only god knows what kind of secrets lie in his phone...

He has contact photos and names for everybody!

Everyone hates hearing his voice mail because he always adds a kissy sound effect at the end.

He’s extremely active on social media! He’s the guy who comments/likes the posts of all the other bidders. Too bad some of them blocked him lolol

No one can figure out what the hell his phone passcode is. The other bidders tried every conceivable combination that made sense, but they still haven’t figured it out yet. Baba can only shrug at them. Hint: it’s the day MC first met the bidders lol

His phone lock screen is a corny love quote, while his home screen is an even cornier love quote.

His phone rings every 0.001 seconds because of the obscene amount of notifications he gets.

Ota:

He usually has the latest model of whatever phone is on the market. Gotta stay young and fresh, right?

Has this phone case, which he designed himself. Of course, most of Ota’s accessories are DIY. 

His most used app is Instagram! He posts pictures of doggos, art, and MC. According to him, she’s aesthetic.

He always has to delete apps every now and then to make space in his phone because he always has too much pics saved. He probably has more than 10,000 photos saved.

He always spams the group chat with memes. He has a folder just for memes and reaction photos.

His phone lock screen is a puppy, while his home screen is a picture of the blue bird painting he made.

He has a ton of songs saved on his phone for inspiration. Since doesn’t take care of his earphones, they always do the thing where one ear has music, while the other doesn’t. Ota freaks out when that happens.

He has a drawing app for sudden strikes of inspiration. 

He always runs out of battery because he uses his phone too much, so he usually mooches off the other bidders’ chargers and portable batteries.

His ring tone is a nightcore version of Numa Numa. He purposely set it that way to annoy the others.

Mamoru:

He uses a relatively older model smartphone because he’s too lazy to buy a new one.

He’s dropped his phone so many times that the screen has cracks and scratches all over the place. He put tape on his phone in an attempt to fix it. It’s a miracle his phone still works.

He doesn’t own a phone case. Too much of a hassle to buy.

He doesn’t organize his apps, so they’re all mixed up. He probably has about five pages of unsorted apps, 98% of which he barely uses anymore.

He has waaaay too many unread messages, emails, missed calls, and notifications. He ignores people he doesn’t want to talk to.

He forgets to delete the spam texts, so whenever he checks his messages, it’s full of “YOU HAVE WON 1,000,000!!!”

He uses bootleg chargers, so he always has to replace them after a month or so, depending on how shitty the charger is. “Get a legit charger, dummy.” “Nah.”

He sets five alarms every day, but he never wakes up to any of them.

His phone lock screen is the generic preset wallpaper, but his home screen is a picture of him and Minami celebrating after they first cracked a case together.

He doesn’t usually call people, but when he does, he always hangs up first. 

Shuichi:

He originally had the same phone model as Eisuke, so when Shuichi found out about it, he immediately changed his phone out of spite.

Uses this phone case. It’s simple, not too flashy, and nice to look at.

All his apps are organized painstakingly, each in their own specific folders. Hell, he even has a ‘delete later’ folder for apps he doesn’t like.

He hates it when people try to look through his phone, so he never leaves it lying around. He doesn’t want anyone seeing pictures of him as Shu. Only Hikaru and MC have the privilege of looking through his phone.

He uses the touch ID/fingerprint ID as a phone lock, so no idiot can invade his privacy.

His phone has been in vibrate mode for as long as he can remember.

He’s always stressed, so he loves using those calming, stress-relief apps. One of those apps is a punching bag app where you get to put a pic of a person on a punching bag and hit it repeatedly. Shuichi put Eisuke’s face on it, and since then, his stress levels have reduced significantly.

His phone lock screen is a pic of a tranquil landscape, while his home screen his a pic of the cactus he’s taking care of.

He made a separate group chat just for himself, Hikaru, and MC. The chat’s name is called “vent”, and they mostly trash-talk a certain brunette CEO.

He has a chess app on his phone that he uses all the time. He plays with other players around the world, but he has yet to lose to any of them.

Luke:

He really doesn’t care about phones or owning one, but because of Eisuke’s insistence, he had to get a smartphone.

He’s not used to texting with a touchscreen, so most of his texts are full of typos. No one dares to make fun of him for it because MC will chew them out if they do.

He doesn’t use much apps, but he immensely enjoys Neko Atsume

He has never used social media until the other bidders forced him to.

His only contacts are the bidders, but even then, he still blocked them all (except for Eisuke and MC).

His phone is on airplane mode 90% of the time.

He originally didn’t want a phone case, but when MC gave him a cat phone case for his birthday, he loved it. Since then, he has never taken the case off.

He sets an everyday alarm for his precious tea time. God forbid he miss it.

His phone lock screen is a pic of a kitty he found, while his home screen is a pic of MC (with her collarbones showing, of course) cuddling that same kitten.

He doesn’t really reply to people when they text him. Even Eisuke has a hard time reaching Luke. The only time Luke replies fast is when MC texts him.

Hikaru:

This guy jailbroke, cracked, and modded his phone and all the apps in it. He messed with it so much that the interface doesn’t even look the same anymore.

He’s the prick that can get all the in-app purchases for free. The only reason he gets high scores in most of the apps is because he cheats lmao.

He has the loudest, most obnoxious-sounding ringtone so that when he loses his phone, he’ll be able to hear it right away when he calls it.

He purposely uses an unusual phone case so people will be less inclined to steal his phone.

His lock screen is pitch black, but his home screen is a pic of himself, Shuichi, and MC hanging out together.

He screencaps some moments from the group chat to use as receipts later on.

His passcode is 6969 just because.

He always tries to distract MC by flooding her with memes and badly-edited photos of the other guys.

He prefers texting to calling because he hates having to use his fake voice even on the phone.

Whenever he calls MC, they always argue about who should hang up first.

Bonus - MC:

She prefers using a smaller smartphone because of its portability and practicality.

She uses this phone case. There was something about the Alice in Wonderland design that attracted her to it...

Her phone is usually burning hot because the bidders spam her and the group chat with notifications all the damn time.

She tried blocking them all, but Hikaru hacked into her phone, and now she’s forever stuck with those pricks. She’s currently saving for a new phone.

She uses to-do list apps all the time. Most of the things on her list are strange requests from the other guys.

She purposely answers Eisuke’s calls after five rings just to piss him off.

Her lock screen is a picture of money to motivate herself to keep going to the penthouse. Her home screen is a group selfie she took during her birthday with the other bidders.

None of the bidders are aware, but she has a folder full of blackmail material, too.

She has dating sims on her phone to relieve her stress, much to the others’ jealousy.

Just like Baba, she has personalized contact names for the others. She even set personalized ringtones for them:

Eisuke: The Imperial March

Soryu: Guile’s Theme (SNES)

Baba: Careless Whisper

Ota: Dogsong

Mamoru: Mii Channel Music

Shuichi: Ironside (Kill Bill Sirens)

Luke: Spooky Scary Skeletons

Hikaru: Windows Gourmet Race

[earlyninja]

RE: Some thoughts (and advice) for EarlyNinja

Here is our message regarding the points highlighted by Mike Bithell (http://mikebithell.tumblr.com/post/156352150437/some-thoughts-and-advice-for-earlyninja). At this point, we believe that the last thing we can do to end this witch hunt is to be blunt and give the clearest answers possible.

You’re overestimating your service’s value to a dev. 15%. Really? You advertise this as half of competitor platforms. Let’s put aside that these platforms provide clients and hardware (your roadmap lists Q4 2017 as a hopeful date for a client, which seems optimistic, and will presumably not be as feature rich as GOG or Steam at launch). On a purely marketing level, do you honestly think you can bring a game on your service even 1% of the eyeballs of such a competitor?

Steam is not a competitor. Perhaps this wasn’t clear in the Kickstater campaign page. Developers will have both (or even more) streams of revenue, as we do not impose exclusivity. Do you really think that we’re arrogant enough to come up and stand against a giant like Steam? Steam is not our competitor, it is instead a driving force to strive for better. In this light, us charging 15% for the service is not an overestimation. Why would a developer discard an additional stream of revenue (with higher overall income) when they can also prove to the gaming community that they can abide to their own milestones? There is no need for us to mention developers that have not followed their own milestones... and it’s the consumer who pay that price. 

I know, the sensei are where your value lies this is where, and I don’t wish to be rude, I worry that your team is unfamiliar with the existing games business. You’re describing someone who looks after a project and gives feedback to the team on how things are going externally. So a publisher side producer meets community manager. There’s a number of issues with that. First, experience. If I work with a publisher, I expect my producer to have experience and wisdom, having shipped a number of products. That’s an expensive person for you to hire (spoilers, you might get two for a year on this kickstarter amount, if you pay them very badly). Second, That producer is not someone I pay for, they are the publisher’s insurance on their investment in my game, and part of their running costs. Selling a producer to a game company as added value is like charging me for the plate in a restaurant: I accept that at least part of my bill goes towards crockery maintenance, but I sort of expect a plate regardless of if its being used as a selling point. 

Senseis are not figures that replace a publisher. They have never been that. They are consultants that report information, mediate the conversation between EarlyNinja and the dev and provide project management consultancy when needed. Their formation is not covered in the Kickstarter and will not be until (if) successful funding, but rest assured that Senseis will be individuals highly proficient in project management and communication (there are people that actually hire people of this sort, we include this in our “absurd” 15%). 

You’re using copyrighted materials and other people’s stuff to promote yourselves without permission you have grabbed a bunch of art from games you don’t own, and are using it in an attempt to get paid. I’d think you were being nefarious and picking on defenseless indies if I didn’t see Ubisoft IP on your mockups. That shows a lack of understanding on your part. No amount of caveats and small print about voting is going to make that legally or creatively ok. Stop it. I’ve seen devs tweeting you requests to stop using their stuff, your business will require good, trusting relationships with devs, this isn’t a good start.

We already released a blog post on this and we have nothing else to state in this regard. The only thing we can say is that all we wanted to do was to gather feedback from gamers, that’s it.

Ditto on youtubers you’re citing some pretty big names there… did you get permission? It’s considered a little rude to even use review quotes to sell a game without an OK first, but here you’re grabbing soundbites from two or three years back which on the surface look like endorsements. Youtubers are going to be a big part of your business, hell, they’re a big part of all our businesses now. Using their likenesses / avatars and logos without permission might not be a great idea.

We reported the quotes from YouTubers because they served as insipration for EarlyNinja's model. As above, we never wanted to hint that they endorse our model, rather the fact that early access is broken. 

Holding milestone payments is one of those ideas that makes a lot of sense to a fan of games who’s never made one, and I suspect is the idea this was built around. Except it doesn’t achieve the outcomes you state. Crucially, milestone payments are front loaded, because in real game dev, the most important thing in the world (besides making something awesome) is steady cash flow. Even a month with no cash coming in can kill a team *gestures to every story about a studio shut down ever*.

Here is a passage from our internal documentation:

If a developer misses the delivery of a milestone that is equal to the double of the time set for the delivery of the same or if a developer does not meet two milestones (from the previous one, taking into account time shift requests), then players will be eligible for a refund.

The communication between developer and platform (Sensei): Our Sensei will periodically try to communicate with the developers to monitor their progress with the development. If developers are unavailable to communicate and do not reach back to the Sensei in a brief period of time (we are not talking about days…but not months either), then the Sensei can choose to put the game into “Zombie” 

Games in Zombie Mode will be refundable and will be highlighted in the store for the inactivity of their developers.  The refundable state is not reversible. The refundable state is therefore not automatically triggered and users can choose to keep the game in their library even it is in refundable state.

We did not think this level of detail was necessary in the Kickstarter page (which is long enough as it is), but apparently it is. This is not ransom. This is a system build to protect the consumer in case something goes wrong with the development, and we all know that gamers were scammed by early access developers. Sorry if a few messed up the whole. This simply prevents it and the same time allows a hard-working developer to stand out from the clutter of the market (can you do this in greenlight without any marketing activity?).

The point is that an individual developing a game is also an entrepreneur. It is true that EarlyNinja’s team does not have specific background in game development, but we can boast great successes in digital and media marketing (and a very vast knowledge as gamers). For this reason, we believe one of the reasons why EA has its issues is because there is great coding knowledge but limited resources and time. And this is where management skills can come in hand.

Milestones work pre-release and in private because there is room for both parties to work together, adjusting plans, so that a game actually comes out the other end. Publishers don’t generally use milestones as ransoms, because it’s in their best interest to get a game out at the budget planned for. Your system doesn’t encourage that, you are genuinely asking a studio to hand you the power to shut down their production immediately.

We are no publishers, but we aim to work closely to developers to ensure that their product has the maximum potential at launch. How do we do this? Through the Sensei.

Have you spoken to a lawyer about the contracts? No really, this is a big one. Your milestones are going to have to be maddeningly specific if you want to cut a project off from their cash, or you’re going to have to make the contract favor you so much as to be genuinely predatory. Assuming good faith and a genuine desire to treat devs well, you’re going to have to put together some massive contracts, and each dev is going to have to get quite a bit of legal aid to parse and commit to what you’re asking for. That’s going to cost them. Good news for industry lawyers though ;) … also consider the complexity of international deals.

All of our documentation is perfectly fine from the legal standpoint and we have dev contracts ready to be signed if you are interested. EDIT: to be clear, we are referring to the contracts that we would be signed from developers in case they’d want to join EN.

Is your price going up once you have a client? So, it’s 15% right now, and I give you steam keys. A bad deal for me, but let’s say I do it.. I think you’re worth that cost. I give 15% to you. Once you have your own client, your value to me goes up, because now you’re providing all those awesome services. Willing to commit to keeping at that price point?

Steam key integration is work in progress and there’s nothing to speak about, as it does not even pertain to our current funding goal. The price charged from EN will never vary in this respect. 

None of this makes early access games better. Not even a little bit. Right now, shitty early access games are caught and mocked very, very quickly. They die on the vine because the PC community is a beautifully communicative lot. That’s good for consumers, because it’s genuinely tough to buy something without knowing it’s bad (and refunds can be sought if a game sucks.. a fact you kinda don’t mention anywhere). Projects fail or succeed quickly, and everyone moves on.

Yes, trash EA games are mocked and taken care of quite quickly, but that doesn’t mean gamers won’t be throwing their money in the toilet during their selling time. About the refund policy, EN’s refund policy is explained in the reply regarding milestones. The only way a user will ever get a full refund is when he requests it during the first 15 days from purchase. Out of curiosity... what are Steam’s refund policies?

I don’t think you’re bad people, you all look lovely in your team photo, but this idea seems riddled with misunderstandings about game production, and some ill thought out choices in terms of promotion. I’d encourage you to step back, readdress some of the core ideas that got you here, and relaunch with something badass that the development community and gamers can really get behind. Those of us who work hard to make great games (and occasionally succeed) will never shy away from a service that genuinely helps us to do so :)

Thank you for your kind words. We are looking for constructive feedback to help this project come to life. We believe in it and we’ve worked hard for it and we remain open to all suggestions. Feel free to reach out to us if you are interested in conversating with us. 

[crikeyitsbrewah]

#MillennialLife

We're entitled, self interested, spoiled brats. We expect all things in life to be handed to us, whether it be new jobs, our education, or healthcare. We are obsessed with documenting our life through selfies, and need instant gratification for everything. Right? ....Right?

Every time I see a post about how shitty my generation is, I have a cocktail of emotions that bubbles up from my stomach, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth and my head spinning. This may seem dramatic to most, and like I am being the stereotypical "special snowflake offended at everything," but if you stepped into my shoes you would see why. 

A day in my life is waking up exhausted from stressing about bills and work while I am meant to be alseep, wondering how I am going to make all of my payments on a $900 paycheck. My rent takes up half, my student loans a quarter, my car another quarter. Then, I have to eat. Well, it looks like ramen for two weeks because I have to put at least $10 in my gas tank, and then I've got $50 to last me until next paycheck. If I really need stuff I can put it on a credit card because thats what it's for right? This is what I go through, first week of every month. Then I play catch-up on check number two. You see, I didn't learn about finances from school, and my parents had a hard time teaching me. So I got a few credit cards, $500 will be easy to pay off, no problem. Wrong. Random expense turns $500 into $1000. Well, I can set up automatic payments and it will be gone in no time. Wrong. You weren't paying attention at the grocery store and bought too much. Overdraft Fee. Another credit card will help. As soon as it's payed off I can just close it. Wrong. Too much interest, and an unexpected expense. You're fucked. Roommate has to move out? HA. You thought you were already fucked? Rent goes from $400 to $650. And National Grid raised their energy prices for the winter. Get a new roommate.

 And the circle goes round and round. 

The joke is that all of us are going through the same struggle.Does this sound familiar?It is the life of many of my friends. The millennials you love to shit all over? This is their life. Why would you share the crap and the stress on social media? You don't want everyone to know that you are drowning in stress... That you are giving into stress and depression... that wanting to go and get $0.35 wings is a source of financial anxiety and you say "FUCK IT I’M GONNA GET WINGS ANYWAY" because you work hard and want to enjoy a bit of life and spend $20 on dinner with friends. And then you post a selfie because you are happy for an hour, and doing something you enjoy with people you love.You are spoiled. You are self absorbed. Why aren't you responsible.

They wonder why you don't ask for help when you are struggling.... You don't want handouts.... you don’t want to ask for money.... you want to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and fix it because that’s what you are told to do... but it doesn't work. You got yourself into this mess, you have to fix it. Why don't you just work in the field you got your degree in? Because entry level positions require three years experience and college doesn't count. Freelance work doesn't count. No one likes to pay for art. This thirty-hour job isn't worth the money you want to charge me for, I will find someone cheaper. They always told me to go out and be who I want to be. That's what I am doing. My wallet and my stomach do not appreciate this decision. Oh well. I will just bite my tongue and get back to the grind. That's all I can do. Maybe someone will see my hard work if I share how great I feel about it online? Wrong. 

Self absorbed. Selfie Culture. Millennial Snowflake.

By making a small mistake because of inexperience, your financial situation becomes so unbearable you are thinking of moving back home, just to catch up and feel in control. But there is shame, and stigma. You are 25 living in your parent's house? What a loser. You are a failure. You should get your own place. $1225 per month. 550 sq. ft. No utilities. What a deal. It's two bedroom so you can have a roommate. Why do you and your boyfriend have a roommate? Isn't that awkward? No. It's essential. "Why aren't you guys married? You have been together for so long!" We can't afford to live without a roommate. My finances are so bad, the idea of a joined bank account terrifies me. Don't even get me started on children. Maybe if we work hard we can get a small condo. But wait. My mistakes have trashed my credit, and his is good. I don't want to ruin his too. I can fix this. If I just work in retail for a little longer.... if I take out a loan on my 401k.... If I don't leave my house or buy food from the food court when I forget my lunch... maybe my debt will go away in a year.... maybe... Why aren't you responsible.... Millennials just want everything handed to them.... why don't you ask for help... 

This letter isn't looking for sympathy. This is asking for understanding.