#i'm about 50 min into this one and honestly?

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

[baphofemme]

anti-lgbt lgbt ppl will always baffle me to no end...

[chiriwritesstuff]

The Girl in IT - 1. The Night Shift

A Boss! Joel Miller x IT Specialist F! Reader AU

Chapter Rating: E (18+, MDNI)

Chapter Preview: "Well, it was a virus, and as I looked into the problem, I had to explore every avenue to ensure I pinpointed the issue, you know, for my report to Tess. I went into your history to see if it might have been a site that caused you to have the virus. I may have casually peeked into a few files to ensure they weren’t corrupted…” you admit, “…and I might have stumbled upon-" your eyebrows raise in embarrassment, "Something personal." “Something personal?” He questions, his brows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t have anything personal… oh, shit.” His eyes widen as the realization dawns on him, hands covering his face as he groans in embarrassment. "Look, about my internet history... and the list-" You slowly nod and bite your lip, mostly to hide your own embarrassment. “… yeah. Um, it was quite... informative about your... sexual preferences.”

Chapter Warnings and Tags: No Outbreak! Joel Miller, Mentions of intended smut towards the reader, Boss x Employee Relationship, Virgin Reader, All of the yearning, Joel Miller is a silly flirt, A small-ish age gap, Joel is too forward for his own good, Tess is a boss (and should not be fucked with - or you get the horns).

Word Count: 5.6K

A/N: Well, hello there!

I honestly have no idea where this idea of a (somewhat crack) fic came from, but I had an idea and I ran with it! A lot of the character development came from my own anxieties of feeling behind in life, and if you feel that way too, I feel you! Don't worry, I promise it won't always feel like this. Time is just that- time, and it's never too late to follow your dreams! I believe in you!

To: IT@millerconstructiongroup.com

Fr: J.Miller@millerconstructiongroup.com

Subject: I think I have a Virus?

12:50 AM (10 min ago)

Hey Sugar,

I know it's late, but my computer fritzed out an hour ago (a shit ton of pop-ups) and I have that presentation with The H Hotel tomorrow morning. Well, do you think you could do me a solid and help me... not have any more of those darn pop-ups? I called the number that popped up asking if I needed assistance with the virus and they asked for my credit card information but they haven't replied back.

Shit, was that a scam? Fuck. I should call Amex.  

Anyway, do you think you can help me get out of this bind, Sugar? I'll be forever and eternally grateful. If you don't, well... I'm sure Tess will rip me a new one, and I would like to not have a Servopoulos-level meltdown at 9 in the morning. Not after last time. Sorry about having to be a part of that, Sugar. At least Maria was able to pay for your dry cleaning and get you a new shirt? You should have let me check your chest for burns, I sure as hell wouldn't want scalding hot coffee being thrown in my direction either. Shit. Not check your chest as in checking out your... breasts, just the burn site. Yeah. That's what I meant. 

(Also, sorry for emailing you last minute. Shit. I'm desperate, baby.)

Thanks,

Joel Miller 

Owner and CEO, Miller Construction Group

(512) 123-4567

To:J.Miller@millerconstructiongroup.com

Fr: IT@millerconstructiongroup.com 

Subject: RE: I think I have a Virus?

1 AM (0 seconds ago)

Good Evening Mr. Miller,

I got your request and will work on it shortly. I can't make any promises, but I will try to get you out of your "bind".  

Don't worry about that thing with Tess. She was rightfully upset, and I just so happened to be caught in the line of fire. If it had to be one of us, I am glad it was me being pelted with boiling hot coffee, and not you in front of your clients. You didn't have to have Maria buy me a blouse from Neiman Marcus, nothing a little tide-to-go can't fix, right? Also, I knew what you meant about my chest, and I didn't think you wanted to look at my... breasts. Let's not refer to any of my body parts moving forward.

Also, I am not completely comfortable with the terms of endearment that you continuously call me, Sir. Please refer to me by my actual name, these emails are monitored by Tess and I would not like to be scalded with hot coffee again for a little misunderstanding.  

Please let me know if you have any other pressing questions or concerns.

Goodnight!

IT Specialist 0926,

IT Department, Miller Construction Group

(512) 765-4321

"Ok Bubbles, let's see what mess Mr. Miller got himself into this time."

Settling by your coffee table, you access your remote portal and insert your portable SSD, initiating various programs to gain entry into your boss's laptop. Securing your hair in a messy top bun with a claw clip, you find yourself biting your bottom lip in concentration. Simultaneously, you switch on your TV, finding solace in the ambient noise that fills your dimly lit apartment—a space shared with Sir Bubbles, your British Shorthair companion since your college days. There's a marathon of Criminal Minds airing on TBS, Spencer Reid's adorable face on screen as he rattles off another theory for why the unsub was an abuse victim by his prostitute mother. You turn the volume down a bit, drowning out his voice.

It's near silent in the little shoebox you call home, the only decent place you were able to afford with your meager savings- after slaving away as a Geek Squad IT Specialist for the majority of your twenties at the Best Buy down the road from your parent's house. Despite graduating with your MIS at the University of Texas - Dallas, finding a decent job in your industry was brutal, and, honestly, quite embarrassing after receiving 30-plus rejection emails in a span of a year. Downtrodden and desperate for a job, you settled on working at Best Buy temporarily, but by the time you hit your mid-30s, it's been eight years working for barely minimum wage, and absolutely nothing to show for it. 

"Do you remember those sweet Miller boys who fixed our roof ten years ago?" your mother asks during a Sunday dinner six months ago, sliding a boat of gravy your way as you absentmindedly drizzle it over your mashed potatoes. "I ran into the older one... Joeseph? James? He owns his own company now with his brother, quite the feat, right? They're working on that hotel down the road... anyway, Josh-"

"Joel," you correct her, nudging the over-steamed carrots around your plate. "I think his name was Joel, Mama."

"Yes, Joel," your mother dismissively waves her hands. "Well, I told him about how you were on the job hunt, you know, with your master's and all. Oh, remember when you used to have that silly little crush on him? He's grown to be quite the looker, you know? Anyway, he told me that they were looking for someone to replace their old IT person—apparently, they retired—"

"Mom," you groan, "get to the point."

"Well," she grins conspiratorially, "he wants you to apply, baby. He remembers you and your little crush, and he said he could never forget someone as cute as you. If you're as good as I claimed you were, well... the job's practically yours!"

Your fork slips from your grasp, the metallic clang against porcelain causing Bubbles to leap in surprise, hissing at you in irritation. "Wait, what?" you blurt out, your eyes wide with a mix of shock and confusion.

Your mother beams at your reaction, seemingly pleased with the bombshell she just dropped. "I told him all about your IT skills and how you practically run the technology world from your bedroom. He seemed really interested, sweetie. And, well, it wouldn't hurt to at least consider it, right?"

You sit there, a swirl of thoughts and emotions whirling in your mind. The unexpected twist of Joel Miller, the older Miller boy you once had a crush on, remembering you and possibly offering you a job—it's surreal. Bubbles, having recovered from the earlier disturbance, casually resumes licking his paw, completely uninterested in the familial drama.

"I... I don't know, Mom," you stammer, trying to process this unexpected turn of events. "I mean, working for the Millers? It's a bit... complicated."

She leans in, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. "Sweetheart, this could be a fantastic opportunity. And who knows, maybe that little crush of yours could turn into something more... professional, of course." She cuts into her meatloaf, humming in contentment as she chews. "Oh, and Sweetie? Wear the red sweater with your pleated skirt, with something other than those sneakers. You're turning thirty-six in September; you can at least do yourself a favor and start dressing your age for once! I'm sure Joel would appreciate it!" she winks at you as your father grunts in displeasure, rolling his eyes, muttering "meddler" under his breath.

"Mom, it was just a crush from a decade ago. Besides, mixing work and personal feelings is never a good idea."

She chuckles, reaching across the table to pat your hand. "Well, think about it, okay? Joel seemed genuinely interested in having you on the team. It's worth exploring, don't you think?"

A wink, a handshake, and six months later, you find yourself on-call indefinitely, catering to Mr. Miller's every technological whim and folly. It's not a bad job, you reason — getting paid triple what you made at Best Buy, monitoring everyone's browsing history in the office, and fielding the incessant IT requests Mr. Miller sends your way- which was often.  Way too often.

[My laptop won't turn on.]  Did you charge it? Try doing that first.

[Why does the volume not work on my Zoom calls?]  Did you make sure that you're not on mute or that your computer volume is up? Check that first.

[Since when did we put a parental blocker on the internet?]  It was per Tess, who said that employees should be working instead of looking up anti-feminist manifestos on Reddit. I apologize for the inconvenience, Mr. Miller. [Oh, well shit. Do you think you could unblock it for me? I am... having a hard time accessing my... bank account.] I mean- I could, but I would have to run it by Tess first. [Do you think you could... for me? It'll be our little secret, Sugar. Don't worry about Tess, I'll handle her.]  Sure, Mr. Miller... Right. Our little secret.  [Sugar, for the last time, it's Joel. Besides, I thought we were past having a silly little crush on me, you've grown into a... rather nice young woman. Please, call me Joel.]  Uh, sure Mr. Miller.

You are broken from your silent reverie by the unmistakable ding, ding, ding of the pop-ups Joel- Mr. Miller - you correct yourself, mentioned in his email. You scoff, biting into a piece of beef jerky. Typing in a command, the pop-ups halt, the black screen granting you developer access popping up as you run diagnostic after diagnostic trying to catch the little sucker - a virus, as Mr. Miller claimed - in the act of corrupting your poor boss' laptop once again.  There you are, you little shit, you mutter under your breath as you furiously type in more commands, eradicating Mr. Miller's bane of existence for good (or so you hope).

After running what felt like the tenth diagnostic of the night and downing three cups of coffee for the last three hours, the dawn of a new day streaks through the sheer curtains against your window. With bated breath, you restart Joel's system once more, closing your eyes until the familiar chime of Windows 11 booting up reaches your ears.

Please, please, please for fucks sake... no more pop-ups...

Joel's home screen pops up in an instant, the photo of him and his two girls smiling back at you as you breathe in a sigh of relief. "Fuck yes! Finally!" you silently exclaim, a drawn-out yawn and a deep stretch escaping your body as you settle your laptop on your couch. "Okay, let's just run a few programs and check a few documents to make sure they're not corrupted and then I can finally hit the sack..." you squint at the digital clock of your microwave, "and sleep for an hour before I have to get ready for work," you groan, eyeing the jar of Cafe Bustelo in the distance. Yep. No sleep for me, you think bitterly.  Another night, another one of Mr. Miller's computer meltdowns... 

Your eyes scan his desktop, opening up the PowerPoint file he needs for his presentation. It opens up with a slight lag, something you can optimize later but you breathe out another sigh of relief anyway. You check his internet browsing history, his late-night extensive porn viewing not a surprise to you anymore as you snort at the ridiculousness of it all.  At least it's not as bad and kinky as Tommy's browsing history, you tell yourself, because you'll never quite get used to all of the roleplay porn he watches religiously, you think. Closing out of Google Chrome, You scan his desktop for a random Word doc for you to open, not checking its title as you double-click on the first one that you see, slightly hidden by the Recycle Bin icon to the bottom right.  Wants? What kind of a file name is that?

The Word doc pops open, and it seems to be a running list of random things. You blearily scan the line items, your eyes widening in shock as you read on.  

Fuck her against my office door as I cover her mouth to muffle her screams.

Spoil her with a shopping spree at Neiman's with my Amex black card.

Fulfill my breeding fantasy by convincing her to get off of her Birth Control (do you think she's on one?)

Fuck her from behind against Tess' desk (serves her right)

You quickly exit out of the document, pushing your laptop away as if it were cursed. You look at the document title once more.  

Wants.

What the fuck was this? Who is he talking about? you ponder, the guilt of your negligence weighing on you like a weight tied to your ankles as you sink into the depths of the Atlantic. You shut your laptop for good measure, covering it up with your quilt as you shake your head in disbelief.  

What the fuck did I just read?

“Mr. Miller? Do you have a moment?”

You knock on the office door once more for good measure, standing timidly as you try to occupy yourself by smoothing out your dress - sensible, a decent length, work appropriate, you think to yourself. You try to not occupy the idle time of waiting for your boss, Joel Miller, one half of Miller Construction- and the thing you found while remote logging onto his computer last night - I think I have a virus, his email stated - only to stumble upon something rather telling and personal - but he was your boss, and you were a professional, and you weren’t going to think about the list… 

Kiss her in the rain.

Make love in my truck as she rides me. 

Bend her over my desk and take her from behind.

Marathon sex

Eat her out as she works at her desk.

No, Joel was unequivocally your boss—older than you by at least a decade (and maybe a few more years, give or take), and the document titled "Wants" was clearly personal, likely intended for someone else, and certainly not meant to be seen by anyone, especially not an overly curious IT specialist like you. No, you reckon that this list was meant for someone else in the office - someone beautiful, sexy, and confident— someone decidedly who isn't you. Certainly not for someone who dresses like she’s still in college, who only recently began living on her own in a shoebox of an apartment (if you can call it that) after living with her parents for the majority of her adult life, and who barely has her life together. It’s pathetic, being a woman of a certain age and with nothing to show for it, still painfully single, nothing substantial to your name, only getting your life together now while everyone around you has done everything right.  I feel so behind in life, you think to yourself.  Who would want someone so pathetic as me?

It’s not like it’s a crime to have wants, you think to yourself. Everyone has them, including you, you reason. So what if you just so happen to stumble upon your boss's deepest (and somewhat depraved) desires? Doesn’t everyone have a bucket list of their desires written somewhere? So what if your older, attractive boss with his Gen X tendencies has it typed out on his work computer? It’s not like he meant for you to open up the Word doc, right?

You knew he was single. You also knew that he had kids, at least two—Sarah, his eldest, was the head of HR, and Ellie, his adoptive younger daughter, an apprentice working under Tommy, the other half of Miller Construction—a serial flirt who asked you about your dating life in your interview a few months back. No, you didn’t think about your boss and the sheer mass of man that he was, that he smelled like cedar and sandalwood, that he winks when he tells you good morning as you pass him in the parking lot while stumbling out of your less-than-impressive shitty Corolla. You also didn’t take note that he drinks his coffee black with a sprinkle of sugar—the one in the brown packet—or that he eats in his office instead of the employee lounge because he’s a messy eater. The deep red blush trailing down his neck as Tommy scolded him about his lack of table manners during a company-mandated team-building day wasn't proof enough of that.

There wasn’t a ring on that tell-tale finger, not even a tan line, no photographs of another woman on his desk—besides his daughters, of course. Not that you were looking. Tommy had his wife Maria come down to the office often enough; wouldn’t Joel be the same with his own?

Miller Construction prided itself on being a family-run company, with Joel and Tommy at the helm and their best friend Tess as VP—more the boss than the actual Miller brothers. While Joel and Tommy preferred the hands-on work on-site, Tess ruled over the office with an iron fist. No one dared to cross her.

"You've got one job, and one job only," she declared during your office tour. "Make sure no one spends the majority of their shift watching porn, and keep Joel from messing up his computer with his boomer-isms. We can't afford to keep replacing a laptop every six months."

"Isn't he in Gen X?" you ask. "... at 56 years old, he's still considered to be in that generation, right?"

"Technically, yes," Tess replies with an exasperated sigh. "But you know what I mean. Sometimes it feels like Joel is stuck in a time warp with his 'boomer-isms.' Just keep things running smoothly here, alright?"

As the days pass, you notice an unusual trend in Joel's computer issues. It seems that every time his laptop malfunctions, it coincides with a spike in suspicious internet activity. It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots, and you can't help but shake your head at the irony of it all.

After a particularly eventful morning filled with more than the usual technical hiccups, you decide it's time to address the elephant in the room. You knock on Joel's office door, half-expecting him to be engrossed in some spreadsheet or construction plans.

It's not like you have to tell him about your snooping - he would be none the wiser judging by the way he was so technologically inept - you weren't about to tell him that the reason for the virus on the computer was because he was looking at some rather specific porn - boss fucks unsuspecting secretary from behind- his internet history had listed, nor did he probably think that his computer is being monitored, including his internet browsing history- company policy, as stated on the employee handbook that every employee of Miller Construction signs on the day of their official hiring- nor does he think that it sends reports to her at the end of the day.

You don't think about how the sudden uptick of his secretary porn viewing increased since a week after your hiring.  It's just a coincidence, right?

“Mr. Miller?” You call out once more. “It’s about your IT request last night? I have an update?”

“Yeah? Sorry! Come on in!” you hear from behind the door, accompanied by the frantic shuffle of papers and a silent curse. You take a deep breath as your hand turns the doorknob. Silently, you shut the door behind you, offering a small smile as you smooth out the skirt of your dress once more.

You fidget in place in front of the door as Joel—Mr. Miller—in his green flannel and dark jeans slung just right—it really should be criminal, looking this ruggedly handsome for someone his age, you think—as he ungraciously flops onto his desk chair, motioning for you to take the seat in front of him as he clears his throat nervously. “Take a seat.”

You situate yourself in front of him, refusing to meet his eyes as you fiddle with your hands on your lap, wondering why he, out of all people, would be nervous. It's not like he stumbled upon something so... intimate. You are a professional, and you were only doing your job, you tell yourself like a mantra, trying to ground yourself. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like he would fire you over your accidental snooping, right? You nod to yourself. “So…”

“So…” he replies, Adam’s apple bobbing as he takes a drink of his coffee. “Thank you for taking a look at my computer last night.” He begins, smiling at you. “I know that it was late, and I’m willing to compensate your time by giving you time and a half…”

“Oh,” you nervously reply, shifting in your seat. “No, Mr. Miller—”

“Joel.”

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Please. We’re all family here. Call me Joel. Mr. Miller is my father for fuck's sake—”

“Right,” you chuckle. “Sure. Joel. Listen, you don’t need to compensate me for last night, let alone give me the overtime rate—”

“I emailed you at midnight; surely you were already busy, or I probably irritated your husband—”

“No.”

“No?” 

“No,” you mumble solemnly, “there’s no husband, just me and my cat-“

He barks at that, the laugh so loud it makes you jump in your seat. He gives you a look, almost as if he was relieved with that bit of information. “Well, disturbing your cat, then-“

"Oh," you reply casually, waving your hands in dismissal. "I'm sure Sir Bubbles didn't mind... and I don't sleep much, really—"

"Oh?" He straightens himself, his face serious. "Is it because of all of my requests? Shit. My girls give me such a hard time about not being with the times, I'm not really interested in technology— So no husband? Boyfriend, then?"

"Uh, no," you reply quickly, not eager to delve into the details of your lackluster love life. You clear your throat, adopting a professional demeanor. "Joel, as you're aware—or maybe not," you chuckle nervously, "I receive reports of all employee internet histories at the end of the day. Being the sole IT specialist on your payroll—perks of the job, outlined in my duties—I keep an eye out for any... irregularities."

"Irregularities?" he replies, his demeanor shifting into something resembling guilt. "What are you trying to get at?" he presses.

"Well, I monitor employee computer usage to make sure that they're not... distracted from their work," you reply. "Tess was explicit about not having any employees using company time for any unnecessary personal... dalliances."

Joel gives you a hard look. "Dalliances?"

"Yes, dalliances. Tess told me it was an issue before, with employees browsing social media and visiting questionable Reddit threads?"

"I don't follow," Joel replies. "You gotta spell it out for me, Sugar. What does that have to do with my request last night? I had a late night at the office, and after... checking my emails," he gulps, "I suddenly get bombarded with these pop-up things, so much that I just... unplugged my laptop... and, well-"

How is he so oblivious about this? You bite your cheek in frustration, not knowing how to get to the point without having to spell it out for him that you caught him browsing porn last night, secretary porn at that, and although it's highly inappropriate, you hardly think he was watching it because of Gladys, his actual secretary, who is old enough to be his mother.  Not unless he has some weird mommy kink...

Unable to endure the suspense any longer, you decide to rip the bandaid off as soon as possible. “I’m sorry!” You exclaim, “I didn't mean to look at your browsing history, I mean, I had to, but only because I had to find the reason why a virus got on your computer, but that is not the point! I had to open a file to make sure it wasn't corrupted, and I swear, I didn't mean to open it!"

“Open what, sweetheart?” he smiles at you, leaning forward towards you.  

"Well, it was a virus, and as I looked into the problem, I had to explore every avenue to ensure I pinpointed the issue, you know, for my report to Tess. I went into your history to see if it might have been a site that caused you to have the virus. I may have casually peeked into a few files to ensure they weren’t corrupted…” you admit, “…and I might have stumbled upon-" your eyebrows raise in embarrassment, "Something personal."

“Something personal?” He questions, his brows furrowed in confusion. “I don’t have anything personal… oh, shit.” His eyes widen as the realization dawns on him, hands covering his face as he groans in embarrassment. "Look, about my internet history... and the list-"

You slowly nod and bite your lip, mostly to hide your own embarrassment. “… yeah. Um, it was quite... informative about your... sexual preferences.”

Joel visibly pales at your confession. He adjusts his collar, unbuttoning the second button as if he were being strangled by your scrutiny. “I just want to let you know", he starts, looking you in the eye with an unreadable expression. "I respect you as a woman, and Tommy, fuck, he wouldn’t let it go, with all that teasing about you being exactly my type and all, and well, your mother did remind me about your little crush on me back then-“ he rubs his hands through his hair as he rambles on, “… and I know that this looks bad, with you being my employee and all-“

“Wait, what?” You cut him off, a confused look on your face. “What do you mean? I mean, they're your personal preferences, and the list, well, I'm sure whoever you're writing about must be some woman, not that it's any of my business-”

“Fuck. You didn’t read all of it?”

“No!” You exclaim, practically jumping out of your seat. “I quickly closed it once I realized the nature of the document…”

“Well.” He stands up suddenly, pacing behind his desk. “I wrote that drunkenly one night after the company dinner, you know, the one when you wore that dress… do you remember?”

“Yes,” you reply breathily, “… the night where-“

You vividly recall that night. It was a dinner at the recently completed new hotel project. After a few glasses of wine and an impulsive, rather expensive purchase at Nordstrom.com a week prior, you endured most of the evening in an uncomfortably tight and overly revealing dress—a poor choice for a company party, for fucks sake. You believed Joel approached you at the end of the night out of sheer pity, not because—

“Well… after seeing you in that dress, and how stunning you looked in it, sitting by yourself, biting your lip in a way that makes me-“ he stops himself, giving you a small smile. “I was drunk, and I was thinking… I was contemplating how, if I were to have you, if you, by some miracle of fate… were interested, that I would do things right, you know? That if I had a second chance at… I would do it right. Treat you right.”

“You do know I’m not a secretary, let alone your secretary,” you roll your eyes. “I’m in IT… the only person in IT actually, and you’re not the first person I caught looking at questionable porn…”

Joel bristles at that. “Shit. Let me guess… Tommy?”

That gets a small smile out of you. “I can neither confirm nor deny, but… he’s partial towards a certain porn actress, and let’s just say he is really in love with women who looks like his wife.”

He smiles. "Shit, I thought I was being obvious enough, being that Tommy has teased me about it enough... I thought you knew. I know you work with computers, Sugar. I’m not completely senile, and I know Tess has been on a warpath about people getting their rocks off at work, I figured you would look at all of my… perusing.”

You're left stunned, your mind racing to process what Joel just revealed. It's not the revelation about his desires that leaves you speechless, but the unexpected admission of his feelings toward you. Your mind flashes back to the list, the desires that seemed so out of reach for someone like you. You never thought Joel would be harboring any feelings for you, let alone express them so openly.

"I... I had no idea," you stammer, still grappling with the revelation. "I thought that list was for someone else, someone... not me."

Joel walks around the desk, his eyes never leaving yours. "You thought wrong, sweetheart. I've been trying to drop hints, but I guess I've been subtler than I thought."

A myriad of emotions wash over you — confusion, surprise, and a hint of something you can't quite place. The professional boundary between boss and employee seems to blur, and you find yourself in uncharted territory.

"But," he continues, "I get it. I'm your boss, and this is complicated. I didn't want to put you in an awkward position. I should've been more direct."

You take a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. "Joel, it's not about being direct or indirect. This is just... unexpected. I never thought someone like you would... feel that way about someone like me."

He reaches out, gently lifting your chin so you meet his gaze. "Someone like me? What does that even mean, darlin'? You're intelligent and beautiful, and I've seen the way you handle your work. I've noticed you, and I can't help how I feel."

A mixture of vulnerability and sincerity in his eyes makes it hard to doubt his words. You start to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your insecurities have clouded your perception.

"I don't want to pressure you, and I understand if you're not comfortable with this. I just needed you to know. The last thing I want is for things to be awkward at work," he says, his thumb gently caressing your cheek.

You take a moment to absorb everything. Joel's revelation, your preconceptions, and the unexpected turn of events. The office, once a familiar space, now feels like uncharted territory.

"I need time to process this," you finally say. "It's a lot to take in, Joel. I never expected... any of this."

He nods understandingly, his hand dropping to his side. "Take all the time you need. I'll respect whatever decision you make. And hey, if you're not interested, we can go back to being boss and employee, like nothing happened."

You manage a small smile, appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood. "I'll... let you know. Just give me some time, okay?"

"Of course," he says, moving back toward his desk. "And, for what it's worth, I meant every word on that list. Whether it's a rain kiss or making love in my truck, I want it all with you."

You nod, silently acknowledging his sincerity. As you leave his office, you can't help but wonder how a routine IT request led to such a revelation. The office dynamics have shifted, and you find yourself navigating uncharted waters, unsure of where this unexpected revelation will lead.

As you walk away from Joel's office, a whirlwind of conflicting thoughts consumes your mind. The revelation about Joel's feelings for you is a shock, but it's not the only thing echoing in your head. The list of desires he had penned down only magnifies your own insecurities. The voice in your mind grows louder, whispering that you're not the woman he deserves—too much of a mess, too behind in life, and certainly not beautiful enough for someone like him. The echoes of your perceived inadequacies replay like a broken record, drowning out the possibility that someone could genuinely see something valuable in you. You glance at your reflection in the office window, critiquing every imperfection, every perceived flaw. The dress that seemed sensible before now feels like a sad attempt to disguise what you believe is a lack of style or grace. The weight of self-doubt becomes an invisible burden, and you can't shake the feeling that you're not enough, that you may never be enough for someone like Joel.

As you grapple with your internal struggles, a small spark of defiance begins to flicker within you. Perhaps it's time to challenge those self-limiting beliefs, to be bolder than your insecurities allow. Joel's admission has opened a door you never expected, and you find yourself at a crossroads. Despite the echoes of doubt, a newfound courage whispers that maybe, just maybe, you can be more than what you perceive.

Embracing this sudden surge of determination, you make a decision. Instead of letting fear dictate your actions, you choose to confront the uncertainties head-on. Swallowing the apprehension that threatens to hold you back, you turn on your heel and head back to Joel's office. The faint thud of your own heartbeat echoes in your ears as you push open the door.

"Joel," you say, your voice steadier than you anticipated. "I've been thinking about what you said, and I need you to clarify something for me."

He looks up from his desk, curiosity etched across his features. "Sure, what's on your mind?"

You take a deep breath, suppressing the self-doubt that still lingers. "Is that list something you genuinely desire with me, or was it just a drunken fantasy?"

Joel's eyes lock onto yours, a mix of surprise and sincerity in his gaze. "Every word of it is something I want with you. Why?"

A daring smile plays on your lips as you respond, "Then let's not leave it as a list, Joel. Let's see how many of those desires we can turn into reality."

The room seems to hold its breath for a moment as Joel's expression shifts from surprise to a slow, understanding smile. The air thickens with anticipation, leaving the next steps uncertain but filled with the promise of something new and exhilarating. As you stand on the precipice of this unexpected journey, the uncharted waters of possibilities lie ahead, and you find yourself ready to take the plunge.

Taglist: @gwendibleywrites, @joeldjarin, @brittmb115

For more updates on all of my fics, please follow @chiriwritesstuffnotifs

All dividers by @saradika-graphics

[monkey-wrench-series]

In a post you reblogged, it said "we could lose Monkey Wrench already if not enough eyeballs get on it."

Does that mean you would halt production on the show entirely if views don't pick up? Or would you just have to release episodes at a slower pace?

There are two contingency plans I have set up in case things still don't pick up;

1 - We release eps over a much longer period. Like with Ep 2, I only had money for our voice actors, sfx and music. I did about 95% of the animation (with Greg and Wright pitching in because they're great folks) that 18 min ep took around 7-8 months solo (on top of doing NDA freelance work). The only reason ep 3 is coming out so fast after 2 is that we actually had the money saved up from merch sales and new patreon pledges to be able to hire 50+ people to be able to make it.

2 - We go the animatic route. And honestly I'm really favoring this one as I'd only have to animate the really fun parts and everything else can be keyframes, similar to those simpson/MW shit post vids I posted a while ago. It also harkens back to my old OCT days. Mmm the nostalgia~ This method is much more affordable (we'd still have voices and music), I can tell this story faster and move onto the other two stories I'm working with on the side.

Indie animation is brutally expensive and it really does suck that fans have to foot the bill with either patreon, merch purchases or just showing it around. Youtube ad rev is dirt nowadays and I'm not resorting to sponsorships as that'd completely deflate and devalue what we're trying to do. I have been considering doing a kickstarter type thing for ep 4, like what the good folks at Lackadaisy did, though I'm doubtful we could raise the $150k needed for one 25-30 minute episode. Could be worth the risk, though, we'll see.

This stupid story will be told one way or another! Either way, at the end of the day this IS just a cartoon show. We're not curing cancer or anything, it ain't that serious.

[milesandcorysupermacy]

"I Know Someone Who Can"

(Part 4)

1610!Miles x Confused-Black-Fem!Reader

Genre: Friends-to-lovers, Fluff

Warnings: Cursing, Use of N-word, Google Translated Spanish, That's it I think lemme know if I missed sum 🤷🏾‍♀️

Songs that it's based on: 'Awkward' By SZA, 'WILSHIRE' By Tyler, the Creator, 'Love' By Keiysha Cole

Summary: You and Miles are confused about your relationship, you're frustrated, and just need to talk it out.

Prev: You sighed, putting your airpod back into it's case and placing your phone onto the charger. You put your bonnet on and grabbed your remote, turning on SpongeBob. You let the cartoon be a quiet lullaby as you laid down, dozing off into sleep. While you were laying down, one question plagued your mind...Are you and Miles dating?

---------------------x-o-x-o---------------------

You woke up the next morning with a fresh mind. You were still thinking about you and Miles but decided not to worry until you actually see him. You hopped in the shower and cleansed your body, also doing skincare and brushing your teeth. You were in such a hurry since your mom woke you up late this morning. Once you came back into your room, you decided on wearing some black flare leggings with an Aaliyah hoodie, and some AF1's.

Suddenly, as you were walking down the hallway to grab a Naked Strawberry Banana Smoothie, your phone vibrated. You furrowed your brows in confusion, wondering who was texting you at 7 in the morning. You felt butterflies when you saw who it was.

_______________________________________

Milesey-poo 😝

Good Morning, Princesa.

7:00 am

Good Morning, Miles 😁

7:01 am

I'll see you at school, right? I got a suprise, mami.

7:02 am

Yes, you will. And I'm excited 😝😝

7:03 am

Ok, perfect. I'll see you 💞

7:04 am. Read.

_______________________________________

You smirked as you grabbed your backpack, staring at your phone. Your mom cocked her eyebrow at you and questioned your sudden happiness.

"What are you smiling at? You're never this happy during the morning?"

"Oh, it's nothing....nothing."

You say, still smirking at the message.

"It better not be Jaleel trying to flirt his way back to you. Y/n, I don't like him."

You playfully roll your eyes.

"Mom, since you wanna know so bad....It's Miles"

Your mom smiled, grabbing her keys and rushing out the door.

"Well, let's hurry up and get you to your boyfriend!"

You laugh as your mom hurriedly opens the door and walks to the car. You close the door behind you as you walk out. You were about to protest her calling him your boyfriend, but you honestly didn't know. I mean, there were signs like the good morning text, and the kisses, but you wanted certainty. That's why you're going to school, I guess.

----------Timeskip to your arrival at school------------

You walked into homeroom, immediately spotting your best friend, K'Nyah.

"Hey, girl."

She said as you sat down in your designated seat next to her. You immediately smiled and replied gleefully.

"Hey!"

"So, how's the situation from last night?"

"The same, except for a minor detail"

"Which is.....?"

"He texted me Good Morning."

K'Nyah gasped, receiving looks from the classroom. She waved them off and turned all her attention back to you.

"That's not minor, that's something that a boyfriend does! He clearly has something with you."

"Yea, well I guess I'll find that out in 1st period."

You say, and as if on cue, the bell rings. You stand up, grabbing your backpack. You open the door and walk through the Visions hallway. You feel a little queasy as you walk into history class. You know that Miles is gonna be there and just pray that it's not awkward. You walk in as someone else holds the door open, you give a pleasant smile and soft 'thank you', sitting next to Miles. He turns to you and gives a flirtatious smile.

"Hey, mam-"

"SETTLE DOWN, CLASS!"

Your history teacher shouts, interrupting his attempt to talk to you. She announces that there's a pop quiz today and class has to be quiet for the next 50 mins. That was the whole period! You absolutely couldn't talk to Miles today and this was one of the only class periods you had with him! Today was gonna be tough.

---------------Timeskip to 3rd period------------------

Ok, this was it. The last period of the day that you had with Miles. After this, you have lunch and then you have 2 more periods with people who aren't important because they aren't Miles! God, you hope that you can talk to him in Spanish. You repeat this in your head as you walk into the class, sitting next to Miles again. This time, you start the conversation.

"Hey, Miles. Maybe this time we can actually talk."

You both chuckled.

"Yea, I've been missing you, Mami. How did you sleep last night?"

"Eh, it was alright. Thank you for asking though, you're really sweet."

You say, punching his shoulder playfully. Just as Miles opened his mouth to reply, your Spanish teacher spoke. Making Miles roll his eyes. She said that you all were doing partner work and SHE picked the partners. And if course, she paired you with the one person you dreaded seeing, Jaleel.

"Hey, long time no see. Haven't heard from you since your little friend answered my phone call."

"Jaleel, can we please just work on our assignment?"

You say, opening your chromebook and going to Google classroom.

"Sí, podemos si me perdonas. Cariño, no quise criticarte así. Te amo y quiero que me aceptes de regreso."

(Yes, we can if you just forgive me. Baby, I didn’t mean to snap on you like that. I love you and want you to take me back.)

"No, I don't want to get back with you. Jaleel, you broke my trust and that's not just something you can sweet-talk back. We're done, and we need to finish this assignment."

"Do you really think he's better than me?"

He says motioning to Miles and his partner.

"He's never broken my trust so, if the shoe fits...."

You say, trailing off. Which leaves the two of you in an awkward silence for a few mins.

"L-let's just finish our assignment, aight?"

You nod.

----------------Timeskip to Lunch----------------------

You sigh as you sit down at your lunch table with your friends, K'Nyah notices that you were looking a little upset.

"What's wrong? You look like a lost puppy."

"I haven't talked to Miles like all day...and I just feel like I miss him even though he's right in front of me."

Your eyes start watering and K'Nyah stands up from your guys' table and leads you to the bathroom. She hugs you, and you start to speak. Stopping yourself from crying too much.

"I feel like it's just been different, you know? I think I was right, I thought that the kiss would ruin our friendship and it did. I feel like I made it awkward."

"Well, the only advice I got is to talk to him."

"Yea, I gu-"

Your phone vibrated, interrupting your conversation. It was a text from Miles telling you to 'Meet me by the water fountain downstairs, we gotta talk'.

"It's Miles, I gotta go."

You walked out of the bathroom, applying lipgloss to your lips. You walk down the stairs and see Miles with some type of box in his hands. As you get closer, you see that it's a box of your favorite candy.

"Hey."

He turns around with a smile handing you the box.

"Hey."

"Thank you!"

You smile from his sweet gesture.

"So, I feel like we've been kind of distant. I just wanted to make sure that you know I didn't mean to make anything weird. I really like you, and think you're just about the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. So, I guess what I'm trying to ask is...are we ok?"

You feel fluttering in your stomach from the compliments you received. You were so happy that he still felt the same way about you.

"Yea, I want us to be. I just want you to know that I don't regret anything from our whole....situation. it showed me that you were there for me."

He smirked.

"So, are you up for the next step? Y/n, I like you and my family likes you. You're basically the perfect girl and I wanna know, will you be my girlfriend?"

You smile from the news you received. It felt like you were walking on clouds and it was a never-ending road.

"Yes, of course!"

He smiles and pulled you into a warm embrace. He placed his hands on your waist and you wrapped your hands on his neck. He pecked your cheek before wrapping an arm around your shoulder and walking back to lunch.

"So, you remember when you didn't have your jacket yesterday?"

"Yea."

"Where is it?"

"When I walked out on Jaleel, I guess I was so mad that I left it. Which kinda sucks, because I liked it."

"Oh..."

Miles said with a dim tone, like he was disappointed.

"Well, don't worry. You gave me a new one."

You kissed his cheek and smiled at him. You two made it to the lunch room and let each other go, happily before walking to your two separate lunch tables.

Miles walks away from the you, smirking slightly from the exciting news he received. But, there was still something plaguing his mind. He couldn't have his girl's jacket at another man's house! You wanted the jacket back, and with God as his witness, he was gonna get you everything you wanted.

''I guess I'm paying Jaleel a visit"

-----------☆--------☆--------☆----------------

Taglist:

@we-loveebony

@im-miss-simp

@ilovespiderverseee

[featureenvyproductions]

my thoughts on how to do Basically Kinda cel animation but cheap as fuck. strap in this is a long post and there are many swears PART 1

Really long intro

ok so I was animating my thing the other month right, and I was going to infodump on how I do cel animation without the right training from the comfort of my chaotic mess of an office. But I got into it and I was like "my god, I'm going to have surgery in a few months and my gofundme has accumulated dust, I can't be buying fucking $1/each cels and more paint". that got me thinking like....MOST people are probably like "wow I'm broke as shit I can't do this" even if they want to, but I think you can, so I took a couple weekends to hurl myself face first into seeing if I could do this - the version for if you're broke as fuck or don't want to spend money.

Obviously if you want something good quality AND you don't want to make this a struggle, splurge on good supplies like real cels and paint if you have the money. But if you don't or you just want to fuck around, this info dump is for you.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional (if you can't already tell lol 👀👀👀) and I have no idea if this is what cal arts would approve of or whatever the shit but to be brutally honest, I also don't give a fuck, they're too busy fulfilling their role as the gatekeepers of the human-expression-to-corporate-tax-write-off pipeline to watch your heartfelt if low res artistic expression so come join me in this pit and let's just do whatever the fuck we want with whatever we got.

My goal is to give you ideas so you too can do the fucking thing. It's not gonna be Snow White. It's not gonna even be Steamboat Willie. That's fine. The point is to do the thing anyway and make some shit you wouldn't have tried otherwise. (And share it with me here on the internet bc I'm bored and depressed. If you feel like it) because sure you can go and pull up your 2d animation software and rig some shit up and blow anything I can do by hand out of the water in about 3 min flat but THATS NOT THE POINT IS IT THE POINT IS THAT YOU TOO WANT TO EXPERIENCE ART AS SUFFERING AND MAYBE ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT SOFTWARE DOESNT MAKE ART FORMS OBSOLETE.

Anyway let me just stow this soap box under the counter real quick.

There.

K So I'm gonna go through how I tackled this challenge - cheap ass cel animation - starting with prep, then the drawing steps, then getting the shit into some form where you can put all the frames together.

Prerequisite suggestion

This ramble assumes that you at least vaguely understand how drawing works and understand the basic idea of how animation works. How to animate overall - like the principals of animation- is a wee bit outside the scope of this post, in no small part because I know there are a BILLION people out there who understand those principles and execute them better than I do. I think I followed some of Aaron Blaise's videos to learn, but there are also other tutorials on YouTube. I also just learned from watching pencil tests and filming references of my long suffering friend in which i gave her instructions like "ok NOW put your hands on your hips dramatically in the direction of that rock". But yeah like I said the principals of animation themselves are better off taught by someone who isn't me (and I'm honestly still practicing).

Alright that's enough intro. Let's start with setup

FINALLY THE INGREDIENTS LIST

Most of the stuff in this ?tutorial? is really probably honestly laying around your house right now, especially if you live with any 50+ people who have ever had an office job. But I will talk about costs anyway in case you're starting from scratch. I found pretty much all of the stuff at Dollar Tree, and yeah, it's not an ideal place to go, but also this is a tutorial for if you're broke. And also unlike things that you have to repeatedly buy that cost you more per unit in the long run, most things you are using here are one time necessities, so you really are saving money. ....Now I'm in the US. If you're not in the US, I think there are also similar stores in other places....It'll be similar to something like if there's a shop that sells stuff for 1-2 euro or whatever. Things at dollar tree range from about 1-5 bucks, but I managed this with the $1.25 items (some were actually less than that but I lost track of my receipt).

You will need the following shit for part 1 of this vaguely educational series:

The smallest cheapest strand of fairy lights you can get. Mine were battery powered, doesn't really matter either way. If you can get white ones get white ones. (I could Not find white ones :/)*

Batteries if they need batteries *

An 8.5x11 drawing pad (at the dollar store I got the 64 pg one)

A translucent container with a flat bottom. I got a little 8x12 storage basket for this. You probably can't get anything big at the dollar store but try to get something with a bottom as close to the drawing pad size as possible (it's ok if it's a little smaller) *

Scissors (or a knife/craft knife you don't mind destroying. You may want safety goggles if you don't have them. These also exist in dollar tree)**

Clear tape**

Something small and tube like. Maybe plastic straws. I actually used flagpoles from those tiny flags, you know the ones (ok these in the picture are NOT from dollar tree and i will provide excuses later on in this document. You could also use straws i think)

Hole punch

Super glue (or the strongest adhesive you can otherwise get if this isn't available to you)**

pencils (I don't know why I didn't take a picture of them but you're on the gay art website I feel like you've probably seen a pencil in your life)

sharpie (you'll use it more later but you might as well get it now)

A pack of sheet protectors (you may or may not need more depending on how many frames you're doing but for now one will do but for this first part you only need one)

* this is part of an optional component but you WANT TO HAVE IT TRUST ME

**if you are REALLY not in the mood to buy these things and you don't need the tape/scissors for the above optional item, you can technically just go to FedEx and like make a cheap b/w self serve photocopy of something to avoid the employees yelling at you and then quickly go use their choppy thing and the tape and scissors they have laying around in the self serve area. They may have a hole punch too idk

And now FOR THE MAKING PART

First thing to make: substitute peg bar

Some things I'm doing here are optional, but the one that really isn't is the peg bar. That's the thing that keeps all your stuff lined up. Without this your frames are going to be moving all over the place and movements won't register the right way. It's got (if you couldn't guess) pegs on it. And these match up with the holes in your paper or cels.

This is a real peg bar

I think this is like 16-20 bucks if you buy it on Amazon, maybe a smidge cheaper if you go through someone else (I will discuss traditional animation supplies for when you're NOT broke as shit in another post). The problem is that this is for acme punched paper (notice how two of the holes are long). Yes it helps things register better, but we're going to be punching our own paper and a 700 dollar acme punch is NOT in our budget today.

There is a version of a peg bar you can get that fits normal hole punch holes. But this isn't the buy things the easy way tutorial, this is the broke as fuck tutorial. So we're going to be making this shit.

Steps to make the thing (I'm sorry about this list not being numbered apparently even when you fuck with the html directly you can't put images in a numbered list on this webbed site):

Ok first we need some cardboard or cardstock. Something sturdier than regular paper. OH GUESS WHAT WE HAVE THAT. If you don't have other stuff to use laying around, take all the backing cardstock off the drawing pad. Be careful to keep as much of the adhesive stuff left on the actual paper as possible.

We're going to cut that into strips. Keep them as straight as possible. They should be like 1/2-3/4 in wide.

(You may want to skip ahead in the steps a bit to see how we're using this so when we use tape in this step you can avoid putting it where the pegs go. You don't have to but things will stick better) Stack them and tape them together as tightly as possible. This will be the bar part of the bar.

Take one of your page protectors and place it on the bar and try to center the middle hole on the bar. Trace that hole onto the bar and pick two others to trace (pick circle ones that fit entirely onto the bar).

Now we make the pegs. You will use the flags for this (or straws, see flags and note in the Ingredients TM list) So I actually had these pride flags from Walmart (please remember we are trying to stay dirt fucking cheap here, I promise I don't usually go to Walmart at all.) Bc my dollar tree doesn't have them yet, HOWEVER I KNOW THEY WILL BECAUSE IVE GOTTEN THEM BEFORE so technically by the time I finish writing this you will be able to get them there most likely. Now the great thing about cheap flags is they're cheap. That means they use shitty hollow plastic tubes as poles. That's great for us because we are going to snip off the ends and use them as pegs. You want to measure up a 1/2 inch from the bottom and cut them. Do this on 3 SEPARATE flags, because you want at least one perfectly flat end for each (that's likely the factory end, so keep track of which end that is). You can also use plastic straws for this probably, or paper sticks for thick lolly pops. The idea is whatever you use needs to fit the page protector holes.

Take your super glue or other adhesive and put a little on the "pegs" and attach them (factory side down) to the bar where you marked the holes in step 4. (note that the pic shows that I taped both this and the thing you're making next to the leftover cardstock to keep it all together, which is an option but you don't have to if you like to suffer)

Let this dry while we work on the next part.

Second thing to make: "light box" (I use this term COMICALLY loosely. Optional but you will have an easier life if you have one)

This is the LED Light pad I use for animating. If you can afford like 30 bucks, just splurge and get one. It helps you cheat and see your previous pencil drawings under the current one so you can better draw the current frame. (And before you ask yes I know it looks like I dug it out of apocalypse aftermath rubble I will not be taking criticism at this time,,,,)

If you can't afford that, we're going to MacGyver together a little apparatus that works basically the same way. The "we have LED light box at home" if you will.

(I mean you can also just tape a peg bar to a window and go at it which is free but your arms are going to hurt drawing like that. You can also just get really good at page flipping while drawing. I am NOT good at that )

Steps to make the thing:

Remember how I made you get a plastic container with as flat of a bottom as possible? (It can be flat on the inside or outside bottom doesn't matter) We're going to mutilate that. Put on your safety glasses if you have them and you're scissor-cutting something that tends to crack rather than bend because the occasional plastic shard will fly off. Cut the sides off the container. It's probably easier with a knife but I was all about suffering. Try to get as much of the sides off as possible. It's ok to leave some of them if that's the side you'll have facing down. (For me my container had an annoying hard to cut rim on the bottom so I just decided to cut the sides off entirely and have that side down).

Take your fairy lights out and unwind them. If you have battery powered ones... Pry the cheap little battery compartment open (you can see there's a screw driver there so use one if you have it but this plastic is so cheap you'll probably be able to just bend the cover and pry it open and rotate it out of the way tbh) and stick the batteries in. We do this first to make sure the lights work before we waste time using them.

Cut a little notch in the side of your plastic piece where the wires can go.

Flip your plastic piece so that the side facing you is the side you want facing down the rest of the time when you're actually drawing on this thing.

Feed the wire from the battery box (or coming off the plug if no battery box) through the little notch , with the battery box OUTSIDE the plastic area, and tape the wire in place.

Now arrange the strand so you have as even as possible a distribution of lights all over the plastic, and tape the wires down to hold the arrangement in place.

Flip it back over and switch it on. Voila shitty light box. Now you can't put a lot of PRESSURE on this but it'll do the job. You can see like 1-2 previous images through it too believe it or not. And this is with these horrible yellow lights I found, if you have brighter ones it should be more effective. (Now switch it off so you don't eat battery life)

Now let's get the paper ready

Now that the first part of your setup is done you need shit to do your pencil tests/preliminary animation on. (The thing you'll eventually trace onto the cel)

Take the paper you removed the backing from. We're going to mark and punch it. We'll be punching from the ADHESIVE/PERFORATED SIDE. This is important because it will help keep the pages and therefore holes aligned when we take the hole punch after it.

Here's how you go about it for the best result in my humble opinion:

If you made your peg bar as above, you've already removed the cardstock cover of your cheap drawing pad so go to step 2. If you haven't, then remove the cardstock cover/backing from your pad now. Try to keep the adhesive intact as much as you possibly can (basically you want to keep the pages from slipping when you eventually punch them so they need to stay in a neat little stack. If you're having trouble or you're having to use a different type of paper such as ink jet paper, you can probably also achieve this with binder clips in a pinch- is that what they're called? the black things? look like 90s butterfly hair things if you squint? Just make sure the paper is stacked evenly and the stack is held firmly together. )

Still trying to keep the adhesive holding the stack together as much as possible, carefully separate the paper into 2 or 3 smaller stacks. (ignore the hole markings in this picture I took it after I realized I needed to demonstrate this step)

Take one stack and put one of the sheet protectors over it, lining the side with the holes up so that that edge is along the perforation in the drawing paper (if you're using a different type of paper than the dollar store pad, line the edge of the sheet protector up with the edge of the paper, but move it about 1/8th to 1/4th inch away from the edge. basically you don't want the holes right on the edge of the paper). Trace the holes onto the paper with a pen or pencil. (Note: if you're using a manufactured peg bar, use that to determine the hole placement instead of a sheet protector - it'll be easier to modify the holes in sheet protectors if necessary later).

Carefully, keeping the stack of paper all lined up and together, punch each of your three holes with the hole punch. (The reason you made stacks is that do you really want to do this with each individual page? I didn't think so)

Ok Let's Try It Out!!

Alright here's a shot of me using this to draw some frames from my animation about some creepy deer (coming soon to a feature envy productions official tumblr near you). You take some paper and carefully place it on the pegs, sketch a key frame, and then place another sheet over that on the pegs, switch on the "light box" and sketch the next key frame, referencing the first one. (Oh and of course make sure you're drawing on the smooth side - not the side you taped the lights to). Like I said, this is definitely like. If you have no other options you might as well try it - You generally can see through about 3 sheets of paper in a dark room. At least the key areas. So you should be able to in between with this setup as well. Not great but hey! If you're on a strict budget, you can still do this, and it beats buying a bunch of expensive shit on Amazon. I'm pretty confident that most people have almost all of these items laying around their house like I said, but let's break it down - If you're like me and you animate at 24 fps but on 3s, that's an average of 8 frames per second. So for each pad of dollar store paper, you're getting about 8 seconds of animation (maybe more, maybe less). You can factor that in when deciding how many drawing pads to purchase (keep in mind if your backgrounds are very simple, you may be able to use the additional cardstock for this purpose as well instead of using up sheets of paper).

Stay tuned because we're not done yet!

Part 2 will be Inking and painting. (Note: on the day I'm writing this I have a placeholder post there, but if it's still a placeholder when you look, please keep checking, I will add the second part, I just didn't want someone to have to HUNT for it if you're looking at this from like a year from now) Yes ink and paint. You didn't think I was getting you all excited for a vine's worth of pencil tests were you? no we're doing the whole expensive process from pencils to final product. And I'm going to show you the cheapest way I could figure out.

[while-i-procrastinate]

Moving Ep 16-17

I was very pessimistic last week about the direction that the drama was going to take, but I was pleasantly surprised this week.

Ep 16 was just filler and a lot of what was shown there could have been wrapped up in earlier episodes or in a very different. Seeing nearly 50 year old Cha Tae Hyun play a high schooler was very funny to me But overall I'm glad they've used the same actors across timelines, it promotes consistency in the characters and avoids confusion. But idk what he's doing with the bus for 2 episodes without ANY progress (I'm SO glad his boss is still nice to him though!). He hasn't even found Bongseok's power bank yet! I also feel like Choi Ilhwan's story could have been better used to show how he tried (and maybe failed) to protect Gyedo and Naju's daughter. The latter randomly dying of cancer just made no sense to me. I did really his transition from a fake teacher to a real teacher.

But Ep 17. What a banger! I'm not really into Moving for the action scenes, but this episode was really good! I'm just surprised that at this crucial juncture they are reducing the length of episodes. The initial episodes were nearly 60 mins long, and this one was barely over 30 mins.

Mihyun! What a badass. I was shocked when she shot the cleaner. A good reminder why she was the youngest agent ever and graduated with top marks in her class. The oil can silencer! Oof! Can't wait to see her in action!

It was kinda painful to see Bongseok and Heesoo being essentially played with by the NK Flying Guy, but I'm glad they went that way, and did not suddenly make these kids good at fighting. One thing I'm happy with overall is how they show that there is innocence in these children and it must be protected. And the onus of protecting is on the adults, not on these poor kids.

Juwon getting beaten to a pulp (Frank flashback *gulp*) was horrific to watch, but I have faith in him and his regenerative abilities.

Honestly, I was not sad to see Sungwook (the substitute teacher) being gotten out of the way like the rat he was.

But my TOP moment was Choi Ilhwan protecting Bang Kisoo. I think for the first time in his life an adult has taken responsibility for Kisoo (grrr at that rat Sungwook) and it was heartwarming to watch. I'm here for the Bang Kisoo redemption arc (not that he needs to be redeemed exactly, but you know what I mean)!

(also, Jo in Sung better be sitting in the trunk of that car, and not, you know, in North Korea).

I'm far more optimistic this week than I was last week about the ending of the show. One more week to go, so many stories to wrap up!!!

[hunysckle]

1, 7, 19, 22,, 33, 36, 50

@zoeythegoodgirl

yay thank you!!!

1. What is your most tame kink, and why do you like it?

hmm, probably praise? i like it because i crave validation hfjdhjfkd and it's also really hot to hear about how someone likes my body or how i make them feel.

7. A genie has granted you 3 nsfw wishes, what are you wishing for and why?

okay number one is just izzy. that's it that's my answer. why? because izzy. number two is immediate lactation. i have a breast pump now but i know it's gonna take a while and i do NOT want to wait....and number three is....um if they could invent a pregnancy that doesn't cause any health risks to me that would be great thank you. genuinely that is one of two things holding me back from seriously considering having a kid someday.

19. What is the funniest sexual thing that has happened to you or someone you know?

i wish i had a better answer for this!!! i can't really think of anything unfortch...maybe when i was jerking off for barely ten mins and my toy died. so i tried another one and that one died too. and i didn't have any spare batteries to put in my third so i spent the rest of my day very frustrated sjdfhdkjg

22. Do you have something sexual that you are really proud of? What is it?

very good question...i think i'm proud of how far i've come? (very brief mention of sexual trauma incoming) my first real life sex experience was really bad and i was slowly working through it but something happened in 2018 and it triggered my trauma so i completely repressed myself. i didn't touch myself or even think about sex and i cried whenever my partner tried to initiate. and now!!! now i find sex and sexual intimacy fulfilling again and i crave it and i love seeing myself as a sexual being and i have a newfound appreciation for my body.

33. Describe your ideal romantic evening.

i have so many ways to answer this but i'm gonna pick a simple one. getting dinner to-go (preferably sandwiches or something else portable) and sitting somewhere outside like the beach or a park and listening to soft music while we talk and talk and talk. cuddling after the sun sets and kissing a little until it gets too cold so we get in the car to leave but one thing leads to another and....hdfjdhgjdfg...but i also LOVE dressing up and going somewhere fancy-ish. haven't done that in a very long time but i love feeling special like that.

36. Describe the ideal nude that someone could send you.

honestly their favorite body part and/or posing in a way that makes them feel good about their body. or like...post cumming hfdjgdjg

50. Describe your body as positively as you can.

serious answer: my body loves me and takes care of me, and it's soft and squishy because i love it back =3

silly answer: i have a body that makes girls wanna get me pregnant

send me a nsfw ask? <3

[mrsaguapapi]

Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3

Chapter 4

Sexual Healing

It's 1:30 pm, 7:30 pm in London, I'm almost ready for my 'date' with my 3-in-1 special. Tonight I wanted to wear something breathtakingly sexy; something that screams fuck me in the car because you can't wait til we're home.

That dream earlier honestly got me so riled up I almost took care of it in the shower but thought I'd save up this pent-up energy for the boys later. I'm wearing a backless mini dress with long flowy sleeves and a low-cut front, as well as a pair of silver heels.

When I say mini, I mean it's well above the knee and the top barely conceals my breasts. This is also the kind of dress where you can't really wear a bra so underneath I'm only wearing a thong. The dress is a thin material covered in iridescent sequins that contrasted well with my dark skin and platinum braids. 

Reference:  

Artwork By Me

While finishing the last touches of my make up I decided I should probably call Shuri to fill her in on the 'Sexy Fish Man' Situation.

"Hello, my witchy friend how are you?"

"Hey, sis! I'm great getting ready for a night out. I actually wanted to talk about something though."

"What's up?" She replies

"So long story short some voices told me to go to a beach in Yucatan and I met your pointy-eared fish friend and I may have invited him to your ceremony. Before you respond, it is only because he may know some info on my past plus as an academic, I would love to pick his brain."

That came out way too fast.

"What pointy-eared fish man, I have no idea who you're talking about" she laughs uncomfortably

"You are a TERRIBLE liar. His name is Namor, ring any bells?"

"How? How could you possibly know him? I just met him myself. You know he was a major pain in my ass I almost killed that man. "

"It's a very long story I will fill you in when I see you but I mostly wanted to give you a heads up. You also have to bring me up to speed on the attempted murder part."

"It'll probably be good for him to be there, gotta keep the peace and all now that I am the 'Queen Panther'" She laughs "Besides this makes me feel better about having to invite the 'White Wolf'"

"Oh god, Bucky is coming?"

"I know yall have a past but he's practically a Wakandan and he was close to my brother. I know it will be awkward but can you do it for me?"

Sighing I say, "Of course, Just don't expect me to do it sober for it"

Shuri laughs "I'm eternally grateful"

"Yea Yea Yea" I laugh. I look at the time, it's 7:50 pm. "Okay, hun I gotta go before I'm late."

"Alrighty have fun on your night out." we exchange goodbyes and hang up.

Okay, do I have everything?

I didn't bother packing a bag other than my purse full of essentials, specifically my birth control; Whatever else I need I'll just borrow from the boys. I did go ahead and pack a bag for Wakanda that I'll just grab it when I pick up Peter. I grab my sling ring and head to the kitchen to leave a note for Peter.

To my Spider Bro- 

I know you said you'll be good for dinner but I went ahead and prepped a lasagna for you in the fridge; all you have to do is pop it in the oven for 45 min. Be safe, Have a good night, and stay out of my weed stash. Love you!

I pin the note to our fridge and text the boys.

On my way, meet you at the ROXY in 5. *kissy face*

And with that, I open a portal and make my way to the Night Club.

------

Tonight is pretty packed. I managed to find 2 seats at the bar and saved one for the boys with my purse. They texted a few minutes ago saying they'd be here in a sec. So I go ahead and order them a Rum and Coke while I sipped on some Crown Apple and waited. The music was so loud I could barely think; everyone was talking and dancing, and I couldn't wait to join. It was dimly lit but the little light we had was shining on my dress; kinda made me feel like a disco ball.

Lost in thought I barely noticed the bartender approach me and hand me a drink.

"From the guy at the end of the bar," he says and walks away.

I look over and it's an older man holding up his drink. I politely wave back in thanks and look away praying that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, it was not, he begins to walk toward me.

He stands very close to me and says, "You look very beautiful tonight" he slyly smiles

"Thank you" I reply

He touches my shoulder and swipes some of my hair out of the way, "I've always found black women so sexy"

I shrug away from his touch in disgust, "Okay creep, don't fucking touch me. Just because you buy me a drink doesn't give you a pass to touch me. Also, stop fetishizing black women." I practically hiss.

"Another fucking cock tease I see. "

"Fuck you" I throw the rest of my drink in his face, "How's that for a cock tease?" I laugh

"Fucking bitch!" he raises his hand to hit me. I don't flinch, he will 100% break his hand once he makes contact. He didn't make it that far fortunately for him, my Mr. Knight catches his hand.

"You wanna try that again pal?" It was them and from the voice, it was Marc speaking. He begins to squeeze his hand, this close to breaking it.

The man screams out in pain, "Sorry lady! Won't happen again I swear" he replies half crying.

Marc looks at me for approval to let him go and I nod at him. Marc releases him and the man practically runs away from us.

I look at Marc "Thank you love, but I could have handled it"

"Oh that wasn't for you, I saved that poor man from breaking his hand. You monster." I laugh in pure amusement.

Marc looks so good tonight. He's wearing a simple long sleeve olive green sweater and a pair of black dress pants. His dark curly hair fell so nicely into place and his facial hair was shaved but you could see a little stubble coming out.

Holding my hand out I gesture for him to come closer, "Come here and give me a proper hello" I seductively say.

Marc makes his advance toward me and stands so close to me that I could feel the warmth coming from his body. He holds the side of my face and whispers a little hello before he closes in and kisses me. We started slow and modest; he eventually places his large hand on my lower back and begins to massage it up and down occasionally gripping my ass. 

He pulls away for a sec and begins to speak "You look stunning as ever. I don't know how long we will last before we take you home. Hell, I may bend you over this bar and take you here."

"Believe it or not I do have a good reputation that I'd like to keep, you menace" I hand him his drink "Chug this so we can dance" I smile.

He obliges rather quickly. Once done he slams the glass down on the bar and pulls me behind him. "I'm not much of a dancer. So Steven is going to swap in, okay?"

I shake my head in excitement. Steven may be a sweet awkward bean most of the time, but on the dancefloor, he is a savant. Quite literally a panty dropper.

"Heya Millie! My word you look unreal" It may be dark but I can't tell he's blushing.

He's the sweetest I swear

We make it to the dance floor; he wraps one arm around my waist, and with the other, he takes my hand and begins to lead our dance. He has his leg between mine as we begin to slowly sway our hips. The little friction from this is already driving me wild; I can feel my little heartbeat slowly grow from down below.

"Steven who taught you to slow wind like this?"

"No one, I just watched a lot of Magic Mike. You know, for research"

I laugh "HA Research; well your studies did you some good."

He suddenly dips me and places a hand on my ass. Slowly he moves his hand up to my waist, then to the side of my breast, and lightly squeezes. Steven abruptly pulls me back to him and whispers in my ear.

The Vibe: 

Make It Rain

"I can't wait to peel you out of this little dress of yours." He then pulls me so close to him that I can feel his hard-on through his pants. Just that little contact made me melt.

"We should go" I whisper in his ear.

Steven says nothing but smiles. He pays my tab and we hurriedly make our way outside and begin to walk to the nearest alleyway, so I can make a portal to his place. I take my sling ring out and open one, but before I could walk through, I was interrupted by Steven forcibly pushing me back to a wall. He began to roughly kiss me; it was so intense I could barely breathe but I definitely don't want to stop.

"Millaenyia you look so sexy tonight. I can't wait til we bury ourselves so deep inside you." Never mind, not Steven, this was definitely Jake, he's always been a little rough. The other 2 sometimes worry it's too much but I've always liked to be dominated like this. He takes my hand and puts it on his dick. They were hard as a rock, "See what you do to us?" He then practically tosses me through the portal and follows behind me; fortunately, I land on his bed. I stand and close the portal and toss my sling ring and purse to the floor.

We stand and look at each other for a minute, just taking in the scene. Eventually, I make the first move; This time it's my turn to shove him into the wall. I grab his face to savagely kiss him as I begin to successfully take his shirt off. Frustrated that he couldn't find the zipper on my dress he began to literally tear it off me. He wraps my legs around him and picks me up.

"I hope that wasn't expensive."

"It's served its purpose" I teasingly reply

He lays me on the bed and begins to slowly remove my thong exposing my soaked pussy. Without skipping a beat he drops to his knees, opens my legs, and pulls me to his face. While making eye contact Jake takes my clit to his mouth; slowly but firmly making circles with his tongue.

"Oh fuck, that feels so good." I cry out

Jakes eventually goes wild. My pussy was fueling him; he was licking and sucking every inch of me. It turned him on so much that he unbuckled his pants and began to pump his dick. Every so often he'd let out a soft moan, which drove me absolutely nuts. Jake started to tongue my entrance and suck on my juices, it was like he couldn't get enough of me.

His sheer passion brought me so close to an orgasm already. Jake could feel I was almost there, so he releases his cock and shoves his two fingers in me so abruptly, that I scream out in pain and pleasure. He slightly hooked his fingers and began to move fiercely hitting my g-spot with each pump. Thoroughly enjoying himself, Jake begins to growl into my pussy, and with that my orgasm hits me in waves. It was so overwhelmingly good I could barely breathe.

Jake kisses both my thighs and stands up to wink at me, "Your up Steven."

"Thanks, mate," Steven says. He looks at me "You look so beautiful like that, legs open and out of breath," He then without breaking eye contact licks the 2 fingers that were inside me. "You taste like honey Millie."

Stepping out of his pants he leans over me and gently places a kiss on my forehead," You ready darling?" he asks.

I smile and vigorously shake my head in excitement.

He swiftly flips me over to my stomach and begins to massage my butt. "You have a lovely tight ass" he positions himself over me and begins to slide his dick between my cheeks, slowly moving it up and down. My pussy begins to throb and I can't take it anymore, I want to feel him inside me.

"Please, fuck me, I need you" I plead

"As you wish" Steven shoves himself balls deep inside me. I can't help but moan out from the sudden filling of my pussy. Fiercely gripping my ass he begins a steady pace."Fuck you are so tight." After a while of taking it slow, he then grabs me by the shoulder and takes a handful of my hair, "I'm gonna be a little rough okay?"

I tried to respond with 'okay' but it came out unintelligible.

He chuckles lightly and begins to fuck me like an animal. He was hitting me so deeply that I swear I could feel it in my stomach. With every thrust, his balls would smack my pussy and even that feeling was so good.

"Oh god, oh fuck, don't stop" I felt another orgasm begin to build up.

"Yea you like that? You like being my whore?" He yells

"Oh god yes!" I reply

He roughly pulls my hair which jerks my head up, "Yes What?" he asks

"Yes daddy" I Scream.

Steven begins to smack my ass with every thrust: each time it grew harder and harder. The combination of pleasure and pain was too much and I couldn't hold it anymore. I moan and scream some words I couldn't even understand as my orgasm hit me.

"Fuck you're squeezing our dick so good," Steven says. After coming down from my high he slowly pulls out and helps me roll over. He kisses my chest, "Alright Marc your turn."

He gently moves a braid off of my face, "are you okay?" Marc asks.

I smile and shake my head, "Oh I'm peachy keen" I giggle.

He chuckles a bit and begins to kiss my neck and chest, "God this is what we needed" he begins to suck on my nipple.

I let out a soft moan, and pull his face to mine. "I need you"

He passionately kisses me, exploring my mouth with his tongue; I can still taste myself on him. He's done so much for me tonight It's only fair I return the favor. I flip him over and position myself on top, "Let me take care of you" I beg.

Marc smiles and nods. I grab his dick and slowly lower myself on him, as I watch how he unfolds under me. I began bouncing up and down on his hard cock and enjoying every inch of him. He grabs my ass to help to steady himself as he pumps and meets my thrusts with extra force.

"Fuck baby, you feel so good. I can't take this much longer" he says through his teeth.

"I'm close too; cum with me" I plead

I pick up my pace a bit, watching him enjoy himself was really doing it for me. I lean close to his face and begin to kiss him never slowing my pace. He pulled me closer and began to fuck me harder.

I moan out "Fuck, don't stop, I'm so close"

He began to grunt and growl under me; it was all I needed to reach my climax. My pussy tightened around him so hard that I felt him twitch inside me when he came.

"Fuck" He grunts out

We stay there for a while. Just breathing in each other's faces, coming down from our mutual high. Eventually, I roll off of him, "how was that for a pick me up?" I ask

"Eh needs improvement." He jokes

I smack him with a pillow "I can’t with you" I laugh

[raspberryconverse]

This is basically why I got married. I literally did not think anyone else was going to want to be with me and I didn't want to be alone for the rest of my life.

I joked about this all the time. "Nobody else was going to want to put up with me, so of course I wanted to marry [spouse]." But it was true.

I'm just realizing now how fucking sad that is because it wasn't a joke.

I think one of the most freeing things about polyamory for me is realizing this isn't true. For so long, I felt I had little to offer and nobody else was going to want to be with me, so I clung to my relationship with my spouse. This is as good as it's going to get, I'd tell myself. When I was complaining about my sad, boring sex life to my therapist and how I felt like I just settled, she said that everyone settles.

But I don't. As of today, I have 675 people who like me on Feeld (not including my 19 matches and who knows how many people I've swiped no on, because that decreases the number of likes you have). I have 3 wonderful beaus who like me for me (and a 4th who used to, but I honestly have no idea what's going on with him anymore and it's probably over with beau #2 if we're being honest). And they tell me so.

I haven't written about this yet, but my spouse and I decided to deescalate. And yeah, it kinda sucks after 2 years of marriage and 6.5 of being together, but it's for the best. We still love each other very much. We're still each other's family. And we still have sex sometimes. But the sex has never been great. And opening our marriage made us realize that. I mean, I knew it, but I resigned myself to thinking there was enough there to be happy. But there isn't.

We're not getting divorced. It's expensive and not really necessary at this point (and with all the shit that's been going down with my company, we want the benefit of having a spouse that if either of us loses our jobs, we can still have health insurance). It's really just a piece of paper. We're not selling the house because it's not a good time for it and we definitely wouldn't get back what we've put into it the last 2 years right now. And neither of us can afford to buy on our own and neither of us want to rent either (I think the only place I'd want to rent would be one of the units in beau #1's building because he'd be my landlord and then we'd be in the same building and could fuck a lot more often because I'd just be downstairs). We've been working on creating our own separate suites in the house. This turns our 3 bedroom into a 4 bedroom with a primary suite with an ensuite bathroom. Huge for resale value.

I'm having fun decorating my spaces. I just spent over $400 at Ikea on furniture and accessories and I honestly cannot wait to host. Being able to host is going to be a game changer for my relationship with beau #1, seeing as we always run into the problem of coordinating with his wife's boyfriend's inconsistent work schedule. It'll also be nice for beau #3 to come to me because he lives almost an hour away. And sleepovers! I used to not be "allowed" to have sleepovers because my spouse liked waking up in the morning to me being there, but now that we've deescalated, we're sleeping separately. Beau #3 can sleepover when he comes to visit or vice versa, so no more 50 min drives home at 2am. I actually slept over at beau #4's place last week and it was pretty nice (minus the not having my trazodone and having to get up at 6 because he had to go to work 😕).

It's still really sad. We're both still mourning what we thought we had, but it's really for the best. I honestly feel a huge sense of relief. I've felt like I've been failing my spouse when it comes to their varied gender states and now that I don't have to try and figure out how to make them feel more comfortable, I'm just relieved. I think that was one of the most crushing things I've been trying to deal with the last few months. And now that I don't have to worry about it, I feel a lot better. I can focus on what I'm good at with my other partners and not feel like a failure. That's huge for me.

We're going to be ok. I'm going to be ok. Life is moving in a good direction for us, all thanks to polyamory.

[amaiguri]

Wanna see the business side of story-based games?

Me! I want to! 👋 Hi, I'm Amaiguri. I'm a full time gamedev and I've released two games before and correctly predicted how much money I would make each time! Wow!

I've been considering converting the webfic I write into a story game of some kind -- a visual novel or a RPGmaker game or maybe even a walking sim? But I didn't know what I wanted to make!

This story has been THE STORY of my early adult life here -- it is SO important to me. So, while I'm a huge advocate of making whatever you want, I wanted to ensure whatever I put my effort into would be VAGUELY marketable. (Because, lemme tell you, webnovels are not marketable XD)

Before I dive in too deeply, **BIG DISCLAIMER**:

I am not a business person. I am using big, wide guestimates to make non-essential business decisions with myself. BUT I want to share my learnings with you. So, take everything I say with a grain of salt and JOIN ME on this journey:

Earlier this month, I made a post about wanting to make a visual novel. Specifically, a kinetic visual novel where you don't make choices and you just read basically. SO I've now done research into how well they sold. I used THIS website to determine how much money each of these games made (VERY loosely):

Juniper's Knot: ~$4k USD

Higurashi (The Whole Series): ~$300k USD (Averaging like 400 reviews per game and $50 for the whole bundle)

House in Fata Morgana: ~$1 million USD

I picked these out mostly because these are the small handful of kinetic novels I have actually heard about. I'm not saying there aren't other, more successful ones I haven't heard about but I figure, if I'm supposed to be representative of my target audience, I'm as good of a sample as any for this wild estimation.

Besides, Higurashi has a whole anime -- it is definitely fair to use that as an upper end -- and Juniper's Knot -- a tiny game no one has heard of -- as the lower end. (I mean, $0 is the lower end, but... you know...)

This paints a pretty stark picture, honestly. Like, this is looking at 6 to 8 years of work for... maybe a couple thousand for me? Realistically? Maybe up to $300k if I'm super lucky and go viral? And I'm not saying that isn't LIFE CHANGING money but like in the MOST MIRACULOUS scenario here, I am compensated less than my current salary for my current magnum opus. But realistically, I'm looking at maybe $1-4k if I get lucky. I'm not a horror-writer and I'm not a romance writer -- I will not have THAT feral of a fanbase XD And on top of all of that, I don't even play that many kinetic visual novels. I'm barely in my own target demo here!

Now, compare that to the numbers I ran on RPGmaker games where you just do narrative and there is very minimal gameplay:

Rakuen: 4000+ Reviews, over $100k in profits estimated

To the Moon: $8 Million in profit

A Bird Story: Definitely sold worse than To the Moon, was cheaper to make and cheaper to buy -- estimated at $397k

Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea: Dunno cuz it's free BUT its manga adaptation has 267 reviews on Amazon -- so the creator COULD have made bank on the actual game

See how much higher those are? Even when they're not as well known? And sure, the bottom is still $0 ultimately but the upper limit, with the most successful of these titles (and incidentally, the video game that convinced me to get into Game Design) is much much higher.

"BUT BELLE! Laura Shigihara did the music on a lot of those! You don't have Laura Shigihara!"

Ok BET! I'll hire her! The base industry rate for music per minute is $100/min. Let's suppose now she charge 10x that, cuz she's famous -- $1k/minute of music. I get her to compose a 3 minute song for $3k BUT she also brings over... say... 5% of her audience to check out my game.

That's admittedly, a high conversion rate so we'll just take 5% of Rakuen. Now, I'm imagining I'd charge like $25/copy of my game because it's gonna be like 300k words -- people pay $25 for a book of that length, so if I have art and programming also, I can do that. With just her 5% of Rakuen reviewers (21 reviewers of her 4.3k), that's like $7k USD. So, she'd probably just pay for herself and then some.

And to top all this off: I'm back in the target demo. I am ABSOLUTELY the kind of person who will play a solodev's RPGmaker game and forgive all jank and flaws and lack of gameplay if the story, art, and music are good.

That is, of course, making the assumption that I'll make good music and art 🥺🥺🥺

Now obviously, all this is WILD guestimates so like. You shouldn't make business decisions off this. I'm barely making "business" decisions -- I'm making hobby decisions. I have a full time job and I intend to keep it. BUT I think it's pretty clear where the potential money might be for me -- RPGmaker games.

Eris (Blinking): Thank you for reading!

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

Mapping Madrid: Week 8

I KNOW it's been a while and i'm so so sorry. but look. Carabanchel! peace and love on planet earth <3. so... i had to get a book from carabanchel's public library and i was like... hey let's do a mapping madrid while we're at it! coincidentally the roulette has now twice in a row landed on carabanchel so. i had no other option. as you can see, however, the station featured in this post is Carabanchel Alto ('High Carabanchel'), which was the result of me walking around not really knowing where i was going and realising i was 50 mins away from Carabanchel and only 30 from Carabanchel Alto once i wanted to go back home. the bad thing is... Carabanchel is in my beloved line 5, whereas carabanchel alto is in the dreaded line 11. let me talk about line 11 for a minute, cause it made my trip back home twice as long (it almost took me 2 hours lol) and it's now my archnemesis. it is the shortest metro line in the city (with the exception of Ramal i guess. also they're now expanding it i think but still) and it only has one entry point through line 6, so it's basically a bottleneck. i hate it so much. en fin. Carabanchel is one of the 21 districts of Madrid, and it used to be an independent town back in the day before being annexed by Madrid. In fact, it was two towns, Carabanchel and Carabanchel Alto, that's why there's that distinction. It is a very working class area of the city, with lots of immigrants and diversity, and for me Carabanchel is the beating heart of Madrid, as here is where the biggest festivities and traditions take place, and the people here are the proudest and the bestest honestly <3 As I said previously, I mainly wandered around after going to the library (which didn't have the book I wanted rip) listening to a new podcast I just found (I really recommend it, it's called 'No hay negros en el Tíbet') and sitting for a bit to read some Catullus (<3). Most of the time I was in this kinda new-ish area, it reminded me a lot of Loranca, part of Fuenlabrada which is one of the big southern cities (here's a post about Madrid's peripheria I made a few years ago in case you wanna know more about that), where my cousin and uncles live. Only at the end I got to the traditional 'old town', but by then my phone was dying so i didn't take many pictures unfortunately. Also I am pretty sure I passed by possibly the most important place in Carabanchel, the old Carabanchel Prison, which was established during the Francoist era and was the largest and harshest prison in the country, torturing thousands political prisoners (NEVERMIND I JUST READ ON WIKIPEDIA THAT IT WAS DEMOLISHED IN 2008. NO IDEA WHAT I SAW THEN).

[wearesorcerer]

Re: Best 3rd-Level Buff

We came in at 68 votes. BE ASHAMED, PEOPLE! WE MISSED THE SEX NUMBER!

Anyway, beacon of hope came in at 27.9% (19 votes) and was the only one to make it to double digits in votes. In second was good hope/heroism at 13.2% (9 votes), followed by rage at 10.3% (7 votes). Nothing else got into the double digits in percentages. I'm not surprised: had I put haste on here, it would have won.

Beacon of Hope: concentration, up to one minute; any number of targets designated at time of casting within 30 ft. gain advantage on Wis saves and saves against Death effects as well as maximum healing from heal spells.

5e's concentration rules confuse me. In 3.5, if you have to concentrate on a spell, you cannot cast any other spell period and it requires a "standard action" (5e speak: action) each round to maintain, so you're basically only able to concentrate and move. This makes sense to me. In 5e, you can do anything except cast another spell that requires concentration. What gives? HOW IS THAT CONCENTRATION?!

I will note that this spell takes over what 3.5's death ward did, so that's nice. I guess. The bonus on Wis saves is also good. But I'm pretty sure you want this for the healing buff mostly.

Crusader's Mantle: concentration, up to 1 minute; +1d4 radiant damage with weapon attacks to all non-hostile creatures within 30 ft. of caster (including caster).

I'm underwhelmed by this, honestly, but I bet there aren't many things that resist radiant damage, so that's nice. And since I'm going to feel the same about elemental weapon, flame arrow(s), keen edge, and lightning arrow, I'm going to skip those, as well.

Good Hope: 1 min./level (so 7 min. minimum), one living creature/level within 30 ft. of each other get +2 on basically all rolls (inverse of sickened condition); can also counter and dispel crushing despair.

The size of the bonus may be underwhelming at this level, but there's not many ways to get it on all rolls at once, let alone as a mass spell. Not even Bardic Music can accomplish that. The downside is that this is a morale effect, as are several bits of Bardic Music, so the two don't stack. As such, this is more of a baseline buff the Bard lays down before picking a more specific buff to apply via performance.

Greater Magic Weapon: 1 hour/level, grant one weapon (or 50 units of ammunition) +1 enhancement bonus/four caster levels. Aside from the duration, it's nice that this scales, but you can manufacture magic weaponry with a higher bonus than what this gives you. It can be handy, especially in a pinch, but...eh?

Heroism: By contrast with good hope, this is a 2nd-level Bard spell (3rd for Sorcerers and Wizards) that only affects one target (range: touch) that doesn't affect ability checks or weapon damage rolls but does last 10 min./level. I thought it gave some of the benefits of bless/aid, but that's greater heroism, so really the only issue is duration (and, for Bard, spell level).

Invoke the Amaranthine: People seem to be sleeping on this, as it is tantamount to the Diviner Wizard's ability to swap dice around. That's pretty neat, I have to say!

Motivational Speech: This...this is what 3.5's aid did, just as a mass effect. Eh.

Prayer: In theory, this is a great spell -- it's the sort of thing you'd expect a priest to do before battle. It's what happens when you take good hope and make it offensive and defensive, which is a great idea. The only problem is that in 3.5 a bonus of +1 to anything is pitiful. Like, almost everything available at 1st level is +2/-2. When you're at 5th/6th character level, -1 will not hamper anything you aren't already bad at. Some of that is down to the devs being bad at math and not playtesting well enough to discover just how bad 3.5's power curve is; some of it is probably intentional. Regardless, this is a dud that should be a good spell.

Rage: I'm glad that people picked this. Suddenly, your allies are Barbarians. That's really good! If they aren't casters, sneaky, or Dex-based (and you wouldn't cast this on such types anyway), they're suddenly better at everything they need to be good at in combat. If they're already Barbarians, this won't stack, but it conserves their uses of rage per day (or, if using Pathfinder, rounds per day), which is not at all a bad idea. The main drawback is that the Barbarian is more focused on absorbing hits than avoiding it,¹ so this might not be the best buff you could give your Fighter or Pally, depending.

¹ Since we're talking about a third-edition spell, I'll talk about the third edition classes.

Fighters are all about AC -- from items. They want to wear the heaviest armor possible while using a shield, hence why they get those proficiencies. While they don't care about having a high Dex (and don't benefit from it, early money issues aside), having a penalty is bad. The same is true with spells: rage confers a penalty to AC that lasts for several rounds, which could be a drawback.

Barbarians, by contrast, don't care about AC all that much. They're designed to shrug off damage via their ludicrous HD type and DR. Their class features and lack of armor proficiencies push them to use two-handed weapons over shields and to lower their AC through raging and charging. They have Uncanny Dodge and Trap Sense specifically so that their AC doesn't go too low.

You could (in theory) make a Dex-based Fighter or Barbarian, but you'd be better off with Barbarian, as it at least has class features that work with Dexterity. The Fighter does not. I know this from experience, both in watching a bareknuckle boxer build crumble and then trying to find ways around it. Fighters wants armor and they don't want anything else.

[rainytowns]

nine people you'd like to get to know better!! ty for the tag @catras-smoothie ! i don't usually get to do these things and sometimes even when i am tagged in them i just completely forget to do them ^^;

1. three ships: tbh i'm kind of at a point where i mostly just ship my own ocs that no one else even knows anything about bc i can never actually manage to write or draw anything for them, lol

2. first ship: honestly hard to remember but i know i was really into harry potter and ouran high school host club when i was like 11-12 so probably something from there? but i almost kind of feel like i was more into those silly little x reader fics and quizzes than any actual ship though 😅

3. last song: also in a big middle school nostalgia moment, listening to stuff like mcr and evanescence again! i've been trying to assemble ~80 min playlists to burn onto cds but it is turning into quite a lengthy process. the only one i have done so far is a halloween playlist cd, so my actual last song is probably monster mash or something since i've been listening to it in the car

4. last movie: in the theater, barbie! otherwise, maybe i, robot? really need to start getting into the halloween movie rotation though

5. currently reading: still reading the lost city of z by david grann! i probably only have like 50 pages left but i just got out of the habit of reading for the past few weeks so it's just been sitting by my bed 😬

6. currently watching: community! kind of waiting for new seasons to come out for most other shows at the moment

7. currently consuming: candy stolen from the halloween candy bowl 🙊

8. currently craving: i'm starting to really miss all the summer fruits that are getting to be out of season... what i wouldn't give to be able to have a perfectly ripe peach or plum all year long 😔

tagging: @prettycynicist @glisteringlord @raphaelsboudoir @plu-viophilia @devianta (hope it's ok to tag you guys! feel free to just ignore if you want <3)

[rynris]

This year is about manifesting strength and courage. CNY is over, but I hoped the reflection about the dragon year would continue with me and guide me through whatever is in store for next. May we all find the fire within us to continue to fight for what's right and protect our worth.

I wanted to give up this drawing because Chinese New Year is technically over. But I'm glad I persevered. I learned a lot but also wrestled with this one a lot mentally. This fear of this drawing not being accepted, not able to post this when everyone else is, and just having so many doubts on whether it's "good". But honestly, screw those fears, just create what makes you happy and move onto the next! I did learn some things about motivation, about what works for me and what doesn't so I believe I am just a smidge more in-tune with my process. But man yea... over 50 hours just to finish this... is kind of insane.

I'm also never going to record a timelapse within clip studio again. Thing took like 5 min every time to save, and I had autosave on too. But the tool is nifty and I enjoy watching the video and looking at my thought process!

Thanks for reading!

[lovecolibri]

SaL anon here friend and I don't know about you but I'm so, so tired. Amazing how the rush of excitement I got at seeing the promo pics for an actual dramatic emergency could instantly be taken out by a 7 second promo. I feel like KR got the news well before the official announcement and said "I'm going to turn this finale into everything I want", and basically decided to push everyone but Buck to the sidelines and make them observers while pairing him with her failed self-insert. And ugh, the only thing equally as bad as the prospect of L being involved in saving everyone is the prospect of the emergency just being like a quarter of the episode and us wasting the rest of the time on wrapping up Buck's many, many, many storylines. I know we don't know for sure this is what would happen, but KR has given us no reason to think it won't. Frankly I think we should let ABC know that should they, in taking over 911, choose to retcon anything (or everything) from the last two seasons we're okay with that, and no questions will be asked.

And yeah, I can definitely agree that while Buck taking over during a crisis would be a nice way to get closure on his doubts from episode 1, the path there (if one can call it a path, which implies it goes somewhere) makes absolutely no sense. I don't even want to think about how they are going to shove Natalia (I think she's around next episode?...still) and a baby into the whole mess. I honestly would have easily taken 50% less Buck this season if they had just taken the time do the leadership arc well and have this grand emergency to show that off.

So while I'm kind of resigned on the finale for OG, I have a bit more hope for the LS one, though I too am hard side-eyeing the "earn the wedding" comments. Who exactly has to earn this wedding? The audience? They make the effort to tune in regularly despite some pretty shitty writing choices, I think they're owed a debt. The characters? Not sure how two people being in an long-term relationship and seeing each other through hardships hasn't earned them a wedding. We'll see what happens, but at this point its the odds are 50/50 that this "tragedy" will involve either a hospital or a crime scene (or both)

Hi my friend! I have been under the weather this week and ended up being out of town all day today so I am *literally* tired, but also I am WITH you on my excitement for the finale getting sucked away by half that promo being of L and her once again butchering line delivery on something as minimal as "mayday" 🙄 I already got my hopes up for a good firefam feels focused episode and got let down by 6x11 SO HARD, so I'm just going to operate under the worst assumptions that way I can, hopefully, end the episode with a "could have been worse I guess". Although I went into 6x17 with zero expectations and the show still managed to let me down anyway soooo 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm sure KR knew something was up, the negotiations were *rough* last year so I'm sure they were all told to prepare. And since it's something the show usually does, wrapping up nicely each season, it won't feel out of place, however I'm also worried the emergency won't be that long. Seasons 2-4 all had a cliffhanger in the penultimate episode to get people to tune in to the finale but 6x17 did NOT give people a lot of reason to HAVE to tune in. At least s5 made the effort of showing that firetruck crash like 8000 times over the week and making it look like Bobby was in danger, even if it was just a 5 min emergency that ultimately didn't do anything at all or affect anyone. They couldn't even be bothered to give a promo until Friday and without a cliffhanger, what's the hook to draw everyone in for the finale? Because you know those casual viewers are scouring the internet for news about the show, hell, most of them probably figured with no promo that 6x17 WAS the finale! Madney got engaged which is usually a season finale thing so I wonder how many of them though that was it!

"I honestly would have easily taken 50% less Buck this season if they had just taken the time do the leadership arc well and have this grand emergency to show that off." 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 SAAAAAAAME. They should have spent less time trying to turn everything about his storylines into a joke and actually delved into HIS emotions more. Instead we got the whole sperm baby now being about some rando characters we don't even know or care about's emotions for some reason?! His death being turned into "haha funny math skills for ONE episode only!" And this whole death doula thing where we haven't even heard them actually really talking about anything and what we did see was her being DEEPLY insensitive and unempathetic for her line of work, and then a parade of Buck's awful choices to remind everyone of them for??? What reason exactly? To give her a reason to leave? When after what we've seen we....didn't even need her in the first place? Like, WHAT has she actually said or done that has actually been meaningful or addressed Buck's death? We saw some of the aftermath in his talk with Eddie at the cemetery but what purpose besides giving Buck another LI he met on a call is she actually serving? Anything important could have been imparted by a victim at a call, and that triggered Buck to talk to someone in his firefam (OR HIS THERAPIST FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!), and given us a peek into Buck's head about it. Instead we have wasted all this time on what? An excuse to bring two of the most audience hated characters back? WHAT?! Like, literally, who allowed this to happen? WHOMST in that production team looked at this absolute mess that KR presented as an idea and said "yeah, that works!" ?!?!?!?! Sorry, I'm too grouchy to try and make sense of this, it's just SO stupid and such a waste of time, the ONE thing KR is good at.

As for LS, I still haven't gotten to watch last week's episode. I'm hoping to watch it tomorrow but at this point I'm just watching that show with an "eh. This might as well happen I guess" because I'm out of energy for much more than that. I've seen some of the spec floating around but mostly I'm just excited that we were all right and Paul is officiating. Bobby is gonna be sooooo jealous. But for real, WHAT is this idea on shows that characters have to "earn" happiness and that always meaning that someone like, dies, or they have to be miserable in 98% of the episodes to get one or two happy scenes before the next tragedy strikes? Because I think the WRITING should have to earn the payoff and neither show has managed to do that this season.

Here's expecting the worst so we aren't TOO disappointed, while holding space to be happy if Andrew manages to get around the nonsense KR insisted on to give us a decent emergency because I doubt we'll get a satisfying wrap up for anything else on the Buck or Eddie front. Maybe we'll get extra lucky and the backlash after this week (and on that TVLine article, seriously what did they expect with that question?) will get L's scenes cut as much as possible again. For old times sake. Pretty much every article comment space, review space, and SM space I've seen has been pretty clear about KR needing to be gone so here's hoping ABC is taking notes! At the very least, their promo team can't possible be worse, right?