#let alone something with DECENT wages

[kelpeigh]

The need to get a better job that pays a livable wage

versus

The instant tailspin into cataclysmic despair into which I’m thrown upon merely opening job listing sites

[sitp-recs]

Hi Liv! This might be a bit of an odd ask/sos hehe

My younger brother (huge hp fan - has never read ffs before) recently asked me for fic recs that have canon-divergence/time travel and I'd love to ease him into ffs (without freaking him out forever) but am desperately in need of ideas. He's particular about characterization and would prefer gen fics (tho he says he's open to any pairing if well-written). As someone who reads mostly drarry, I was hoping you or your followers would have some other suggestions. Ik it's v different from your usual recs, so pls don't be pressured to replyy!! Thank you so much 🤗

Hi anon! Not an odd ask at all, I’m excited to see you gently guiding him into Drarry lands 😂 one of my personal favorites in terms of characterization is WWPWCS but that one is quite romantic, so I’m listing below fics that could be a great entry point if you’re looking for Gen, plot-focused fics. I also have a rec list with G and T works and a Drarry for beginners list (although this is quite shippy so maybe something to explore later on!). I hope you find them helpful and pls let me know how the Drarry agenda goes 🌝

Turn From Stone by harryromper (M, 45k)

Harry knows there’s nothing he can do to stop Hermione (war hero, historian, author of the reissued “Hogwarts: A History”) once she sets her mind to something. Even an extremely risky last-ditch effort to restore the ancient castle and lay its newest ghosts to rest. What he wasn’t counting on was her insistence that Draco Malfoy be part of the plan.

Heal Thyself by astolat (T, 47k)

"Are you going for the course?" Lovegood asked. "You have the NEWTs.” “What course?” Draco said, then, “No, don’t be ridiculous,” when he realized she meant the notice pinned up on the board he’d been staring at: Applicants To The Introductory Mediwizard Course For The Coming Term Shall Present Themselves In The Chief Mediwizard’s Office By August 24th.

The Pure and Simple Truth by lettered (G, 65k)

Harry, Draco, and Hermione go to a pub. Harry, Draco, and Pansy go to a pub. Harry, Draco, Pansy, and Hermione go to a pub. Harry, Draco, Hermione and Ron go to a pub. Harry, Draco, Hermione, Ron, and Pansy―you guessed it―go to a pub. I could go on. In fact, I did. Harry, Draco, Hermione, Pansy, Ron, Blaise, Luna, Goyle, Neville, and Theodore Nott go to a pub. In various combinations.

A Young Radical's Guide to Love by blamebrampton (T, 66k)

Memories of the war are still fresh, which is all the excuse Decent People need to do appalling things. In this quietly waged conflict, Draco Malfoy is happy to be on the right side of things for once, and even happier to find he’s not alone.

Timecode by Rasborealis (M, 73k)

Harry Potter has been dead for two years, and Draco would laugh in the face of anyone claiming differently. Well, anyone but Hermione Granger.

Hermione Granger's Hogwarts Crammer for Delinquents on the Run by waspabi (T, 93k)

'You're a wizard, Harry' is easier to hear from a half-giant when you're eleven, rather than from some kids on a tube platform when you're seventeen and late for work.

The Secret Keeper by fools_errand (M, 225k)

On Halloween 1981, Albus Dumbledore made a decision that would change the course of history, concealing Harry Potter’s survival at the hands of Lord Voldemort underneath a Fidelius Charm. But when Harry comes of age in the Muggle world, Dumbledore realises too late that the fate of the world may depend on a boy who has never held a wand.

Eclipse by Mijan (T, 287k)

Draco swore his revenge on Harry for Lucius's imprisonment, and Harry all but laughed at him. But Draco is planning more than schoolyard pranks this time. The old rivalry turns deadly when Draco abducts Harry for Voldemort. It's the perfect plan, guaranteeing revenge, power, and prestige, all in one blow. But when Draco's world turns upside down, the fight to save himself and Harry begins, and the battle will take them both through hell and back. If they come back.

[somanyfuckedupiftruebooks]

Mag 62

Mary Mary quite cuntrary.

Confirmation that Gertrude stopped recording statments to tape, other than the occasional live statement. Must have been one of many ways she kept herself as free from Beholding's grip as possible.

Mary's relationship with the Institute is interesting. It seems like it's been on the periphery of her entire life, but never something she was directly involved in. Maybe that's supposed to parallel her relationship with the Eye? It's something she interacts with regularly, but doesn't directly serve.

Also very amused by her claim that 'big things are coming'. She's about to skin herself alive so she can become a ghost that haunts a book. Revolutionary.

Confirmation that Leitner had nothing to do with the creation of the books! They pre-date him and people who know what they are doing were aware of them; he just collected them all. Feels like this should be news to Jon, but he doesn't comment on it.

Get rekt Leitner. Crusty old man.

Gertrude (lying about the man she is keeping hidden in her basement of many tunnels): ~I~ ~can't~ ~say~ ~we~ ~ever~ ~crossed~ ~paths~

Cool that she can also outright lie in statments. So far I think we only know for sure that Elias and the NotThem have been able to do this.

Love Mary and Gertrude subtly dragging each other.

Mary: All you do is sit here and take statements.

Gertrude: Only when idiots like you show up.

Desspite her open disdain for the Institute, Mary views them as being on the same side. I guess I interpret this as Mary considering herself allied to the Eye? But of course Elias would look down on that. He probably discounts everyone who even interacts with the Eye without being entirely under his thumb.

Here Mary says her father got himself killed, later she says he killed himself. I wonder what happened to him; I'm betting the full story is complicated.

I've always assumed the Institute paid their workers a decent wage. Mostly because Martin is able to afford to support his mother and also rent an apartment without a roommate. In fact, everyone in the Archives seems to be living alone, which I figure would be expensive in London?

Interesting that Mary was brought up with an education about the Entites and managed to spend her entire life without committing to any of them as a clear patron. She obviously favours the Eye, but she never truly dedicated herself to serving it (she has more in common with Gertrude than she thinks). Seems like she chose this path in spite of her mother's teachings, but Gerry probably followed in her footsteps.

Haha, get fucked. The spooky stuff in Aretefact Storage must be true crap if Mary thinks it's mediocre compared to her terrible skin and bone books. Also, when did she get into Artefact Storage? Shouldn't that be a restricted area? Did Eric let her in?

Cannot stress enough that the super cool and special dark arefact she eventually found was a disgusting skin book full of ghosts. Mary is insane, and she has terrible taste.

[decisivelyindecisivelibra]

Character Playlists: BAU Edition:

Not what they’d listen to necessarily, but songs that I think apply to them.  BLANKET STATEMENT: I assigned what I did and regret some nothing.

First of An Untold Number: Reid

Cringe by Matt Maeson

Initial Inspiration: I said I’m just tired/she said “you’re just high”. .  ./ Do I make you cringe?  

Explanation: Tied for 1st place for Prompted Me To Do This.  I couldn’t get over how well the questions encapsulated the entire BAU’s reactions/non-reactions every time drugs, addiction, or Reid’s squirrelly behavior came up in late S2/early S3. 

King by Years & Years

Initial Inspiration: Don’t wanna have to lose/all that I compromised to feel another high. . . I was the king under your control/I wanna feel like you let me go, so let me go

Explanation: Tied for 1st place in what kickstarted this.  If Cringe was the BAU’s outsider reaction, this was Reid’s insider reaction.  

30/90 from Tick Tick Boom! (Andrew Garfield)

Initial Inspiration: This was almost Quarter Life Crisis by Taylor Bickett; no specific line so much as Vibes.  

Explanation: True Genius had a significant hand in this.

Dear Reader by Taylor Swift

Initial Inspiration: Can I just say the entire chorus?  “Bend when you can/snap when you have to.”  Sure, definitely.  “The greatest of luxuries is your secrets” I’m dying over here.  “When you aim at the devil make sure you don’t miss.”  Ah.  

Explanation:  Even the title sounds like it’s addressed to Reid, I don’t know what more you want.

Never Love An Anchor by The Crane Wives  {Actually about Diana and William Reid)

Initial Inspiration: On some level, I think I always understood/That these hands of mine were clumsy, not clever.   And I tried to do the best that I could/But try as I might I couldn’t bring myself to hold you.  

Explanation:  This is Diana and William regarding Reid, with admittedly a more sympathetic reading of William.  I love complicated family dynamics & these three more than fit the bill.

We Are the Champions by Queen

Initial Inspiration:  I’ve paid my dues/Time after Time. I’ve done my sentence/But committed no crime.  

Explanation:  Needed something not wholly depressing, and this really includes the whole BAU when you think about it, just. . . Some more than others.

I Miss You by Blink-182

Initial Inspiration:  Don’t waste your time on me/You’re already the voice inside my head (I miss you)

Explanation:  Do I really need to enumerate the revolving door of more-or-less important people in Reid’s life?  

Cough Syrup by Young the Giant

Initial Inspiration:  I’m losing my mind, losing my mind, losing control

Explanation:  Although accurate for Dilaudid Reasons, considering the prevalence of mental illness and emotional turmoil Reid has, it also fits those.

Magic by B.O.B. 

Initial Inspiration:  No specific verse per se, but how could i pass up the title?  

Explanation: This list was too depressing and despite everything, Reid is pretty cheerful.  At least, when nothing’s happening.  Besides, he’s Mister Magic Tricks, and Intellect-Wrought Pseudo Miracles, it seemed appropriate.

Still Breathing by Mayday Parade

Initial Inspiration: “Cause I’m standing here alone/Trying to make this life my own

Explanation: I feel like this is reasonably accurate throughout many of Reid’s early endeavors.  Going to Caltech?  Sure.  The FBI?  Absolutely.  The way he comes into his own over the course of things?  Yeah.  

Migraine by Twenty One Pilots 

Initial Inspiration: Waging my wars behind my face and above my throat/ . . But I know we’ve made it this far, kid.

Explanation:  Like Magic, the title says a lot, but also, the words my god.  The chorus obviously fits, and a decent amount of the rest, but the vibe and the fact “Kid” is still one of Reid’s nicknames from the BAU, even towards the end.  I can’t.

That’s all for now folks, we’ll see when the rest come together. Feel free to do as you will, criticism will be received and ignored.

[captainkurosolaire]

Update / Valentiones

Just wanna throw-down some appreciation and update on some stuff still plan on tackling this year. Although early this still implies for Valentiones. “Love ye all, have a terrific hearty day.  Should you feel cast aside, leave that t’ me to debunk it. Cause I’ll polish and give you a reason to rewrite that by finding you, picking you up, dusting it off. – You’re f*cking valuable, every single passing Sun t’ Moon, not even I can determinate it, no scale could justifiably do it. Don’t let any foul scallywags tell you otherwise. I’ll handle em’ You focus on shining eruptive, dazzle chaotically! I see you and I am thanking you fer existing, otherwise, I’d be out of business as a pirate, what’s the point of being one if I can’t discover my treasures cross these bland planes?” - CKS

Achieved a decent-chunk of chapters already with my goal this year to be like 60, think I'm almost at 20 this early-in. More than I expected. Thanks for all the energy and power, from low to high. Still got probably 800-1000 chapters I need to realistically create, I get why One-Piece how it is. Once you get real passion for your art, there's an overabundance of stories to further write. xD I most certainly will be around chipping at pieces. In my case, I've always continued for the company that's been on this crazy voyage with me, for always welcoming or being there after long-breaks to RP partners who's integrated or pre-established stuff with me to join in. To my Best Friend/Roomie for always shooting inspiring ideas, always been able to easily click from being nerds who made so many D&D and Tabletop sessions we went to make our own whole world-building and tabletop game. Was pretty dope, but now I'm taking all that same, rich-passion and throwing it to world-build here. I got all the people to credit, I started from here on the community with too that matured and nurtured my character who allowed a very vanilla starting character, to morph into something that I could eventually give deep respect to continue. There's ton's of people and fellows who came from Tumblr as well, that were either forced to give up, or brought down by anon's, all those who suddenly disappeared, couldn't because time-commitments, or became distant, I've kept ingrained in me and I stay ever vigilantly passion in their stead. I overflow like a flowing fountain and multiply for all their sake to continue onward, and the lurkers, all the people who came to me saying they got inspired to join this fandom, all that you've made a impact, difference on me, and make no mistake about it, you matter. I carry your spirit, energy all with everything I endeavor. It's meant a life-changing amount to me have a place to just unleash myself. No better way to say it but -- I LIVE for this shit. So even no matter how infested this site becomes, or when the p*rnbots take over and I have to somehow try to convince them to start up a brothel and least take up RP, I'll still wage on. I may and most definitely die alone at the end. But baby I didn't live like that one-bit or felt like that at-all, I've lived millions.--- Update --- I'm determined to be more regular about this stuff yearly, I've collected so It can get done. I literally think I'll be at this point writing for the next two FF MMO's at this point if I don't start now. For now though, got about two-chapters left in me to do hopefully before February ends. Then I'll probably take a mini-break. I'm thinking about having or seeing if people will send a single, -word- to me in my submission box, and create my own prompt's judged upon that way. Overall, I never-mind getting anything asked or submitted anytime either while, I'm throwing it out. But this way lets people get involved, and I can use my over abundance of characters and try to create-weave a story within the mood or perimeter I need to tell, but I don't have to follow my story-path. Words submitted can be just about anything. Either I can mention you when I do a post with your submission, or you can go on anon for it. Even if no one's down for that stuff, It's all chill. Cause I'm dedicated and determined to do this stuff regardless, whenever I'm around. xD I eventually will take the XIVWrite again too, but I want to do that after a lot of progression or absolutely, my last-rodeo, or its. I've got to establish a lot of Captain's Crewmates, NPCS, I'm even doing slow-burn and building up other antagonists, I got relics, cultures, isle world building, continue thinking of just a mountain of arcs. I really want to get to my sport-arc. After these next two-chapters or so, I'm going to start timeline jumping all over the place. When I'm energized. Anyways that's it, also If need a Valentione's I got ye my hearty, I take no issue in being a rebound. 😎💛

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

what do you want to be in the future?

A psychologist?

Feel free to ignore if you don't feel like it 💌

No it's totally cool! I like asks I just feel bad because sometimes I let them sit a long time... trying to work on uh. Not doing that. Hehe

Uhh, tbh I'm at a bit of an impasse right now with what I want to do. I'm going to be getting a part-time job while I think it over. There's lots of things I could feasibly go into with my knowledge, but honestly I've been more than a little disillusioned with the way things are approached in the fields I've spent the last few years studying in. But I'm taking it one day at a time. I think that's the best way to do it.

I love research and investigating, which is the equivalent of free candy to me, and I have a lot of interest in the genetic and biological basis of psychiatric disorders, especially the less common ones that don't receive an awful lot of literature focus, and therefore are more heavily stigmatized. I'd like to improve understanding and help create better and more targeted treatments, etc. Truthfully, I just want to do something that actually helps people out in the here and now. Psych field's bad rn, if you ask me. Needs to change, like a lot of things in my country, and in the world in general.

Oof, this is a lot. Probably too much; sorry!

(As an addendum, if I thought I could make a decent wage off of writing alone, I might just be an author.)

[backmaskcd]

(Nat Wolff) [THE PRETENDER]. Please welcome [LAWRENCE 'LONNIE' DIAMOND (HE/HIM)] to Huntsville, WV. They are an [28]-year-old [VISITOR] who lives in [THE COMMUNE]. You may see them around working as a [DISPATCHER AT THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE]. Poor unfortunate soul. We’ll see if they survive.

Full Name: Lawrence 'Lonnie' Joseph Diamond Birthday: December 17 Age: 28 Hunter or Gatherer: Gatherer Sexuality: pansexual Height: 6'1 Relationship Status: taken (dating Sam Ahn)

The oldest of two, Lonnie was constantly overshadowed by his younger brother. He didn't mind, necessarily - he preferred to have no pressure or expectations, all of that falling on his brother's plate while he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. The biggest downside, though he often acted like it wasn't a problem, was that it left him with a nearly non existent self esteem. While the lack of expectations let him do whatever he wanted, it also left him feeling like no matter what he did, he wasn't seen or praised for it because his brother did it better.

School wasn't something Lonnie excelled in or even really liked, so he was able to skate by; there was no point in putting in more effort than he needed to pass, so why bother? He skipped a lot of classes and just barely managed to graduate, but it was clear that he wasn't going to pursue higher education (not that his parents even bothered to save up a college fund for him anyway).

He worked an array of minimum wage jobs just to stay afloat, opting to move out shortly after his 20th birthday. He loved his brother so much and did miss spending time with him, but his self worth was declining rapidly while living with his parents because he spent a lot of time sleeping or in chat rooms when he wasn't at work, and that wasn't something that was seen as productive or even useful.

Spending so much time on the internet and different chat boards was how he met Narcissa - a spitfire journalist who was researching different abnormal phenomena. She seemed to fixate on conspiracy theories and alien contact, but disappearing towns were also on her radar. Since Lonnie lived two states over from the famed Huntsville, the pair decided to meet up and travel there together, just so that they didn't have to do it alone.

Clearly, that was a mistake, as they suddenly found themselves trapped, and that's when the self doubt really slammed into Lonnie like a ton of bricks. He had told his brother about going on this trip, but no one else - and he hoped that his brother missed him, but the chances of anyone else even noticing were pretty slim. The lack of self worth made Lonnie decide to throw all caution to the wind and was more than willing to take off his clothes for anyone who even suggested that he was a little cute.

The last three years have been an adjustment, but Lonnie's pretty used to the way things work by now. Still deeply convinced he has no other use than being funny and being decent in bed, he will jump at any opportunity to prove himself useful or to get praise, even if he's not particularly qualified, because all he wants to do before the monsters get him (and he's sure they will eventually) is be thought of as someone who useful and had merit.

[toointojoelmiller]

please don’t go: a last of us fic

chapter 12

----

after David / Silver Lake / post-episode 8

angst, Joel & Ellie bonding, 99% canon compliant

rating: mature - content warnings re: s/a, violence, more

I'm no longer copying this over to tumblr because it got way too long and it's too much!!!! Read on ao3 for the updated chapters

ch 1 | ch 2 | ch 3 | ch 4 | ch 5 | ch 6 | ch 7 | ch 8 | ch 9 | ch 10 | ch 11 | ch 12

----

The few fleeting years that he got with Sarah were spent spread thin. Time, energy, money, sleep – never enough of any of it.

On the first night that it was just the two of them – along with some newly blank walls, empty dresser drawers, and a bathroom counter that looked alien without brushes and sponges and bottles scattered across it – he had the first panic attack of his life. In the middle of warming up a bottle, he realized couldn’t get any air into his chest - and then he was on the floor, back pressed against the cabinet under the sink - formula spilled, bottle needing to be sanitized again. When the pounding in his ears softened and the world started to leak back in, he heard what he’d been missing for however long he’d spent shrinking into ground - Sarah’s hungry little wail from the living room - calling out for him, helpless and alone in her bassinet. It felt like the start of a lifetime of letting her down.

She was colicky her first year - the sleep deprivation felt like it was breaking him apart - sometimes so exhausted he didn’t trust himself to hold her out of fear he would drop her, so she’d suffer then too, crying for comfort he was too afraid to give. There were life-giving, blissful moments that made him whole - little coos and finger grasps, the feeling of holding and snuggling and breathing her smell in - all perfect and warm - but in between he thought the impossibility of it all would smother him. When she would finally sleep he’d lay on his bed with his heart racing, palms sweating, panting his way through sheer terror - and then she’d wake, and he’d swallow it down - try to hold himself together again.

Tommy helped out where he could, but he was just a kid himself - and then he was overseas - and on minimum wage full-time didn’t even come close to cutting it so Joel needed to work more than full-time hours just to keep her fed with a roof overhead - which meant paying for more than full-time child care - and he hated that he was working for money to spend on leaving her with strangers all day - hated that so much of the time he got to be with her was spent asleep. Most nights he’d stay up too late just to have more time to look at her, watch her breathe - and, always, work away at the never ending list - laundry, dishes - look for better jobs, more jobs - decide which bills to short that month.

The hardest to live with were the weeks, in those early years before he got into some decent paying work, where an unexpected expense would pop up and he’d find - doing the math at the kitchen table at night - that they didn’t have enough money to feed them through to his next pay day. Sarah never went hungry, of course - he did sometimes - but the shame of nearly not being able to provide his baby the bare minimum she needed to grow, to live – felt like it stained him.

It felt a bit like now. He’s craning his neck and squinting to try to sharpen his vision, even though he already knows – it’s obvious from a fair distance that there’s nothing in the traps. It’s not a surprise - probably twice in 20 years has he caught something in a snare that’d been set for less than a day - but he still sags with disappointment. Hates that he went out to look in the first place - something might have been scared off by the sight or smell of him – and Jesus Christ does he smell.

And now he’s walking back empty handed – Ellie will be hungry for another night, tiny body wasting away, eating itself up to keep her going.

He starts heading back to the little building, his brain wandering on its own - he’s wishing he’d never watched those TV specials about eating disorders in girls. He hadn’t actually worried about Sarah that way - girl would clean out the whole fridge in one night if he’d let her - but the perils of teenage-hood had seemed like a terrifying threat on their horizon sometimes.

If only he fucking knew .

All any of that was good for, turns out, was the nagging worry he’s been feeling all day, unable to ignore just how thin Ellie’s become. Unable to stop imagining her little heart suddenly giving out on her.

She’s up and on her feet now - he can see the pale blur of her face peeking out the window in his direction as he makes his way back - raises a hand at her in a little wave.

Most of the day had passed by in a slow daze - Ellie curled up, sometimes sleeping but mostly uncomfortable, repositioning and shuffling with groans - Joel staying at her side, repeating their ice-pack routine a few more times when she’d ask him to.

When she was sleeping, he’d nodded off a few times - struggling to keep himself up, foggy and drained - the warmth built up under the thick sleeping bag-blanket and the sun streaming in the window making it all too easy to relax. He was getting too weak to fight it.

A bonus that he hadn’t expected - the sun was so warm he’d tried putting the first aid kit - half-slush half-water - up on the shelf to bask in it, and when he checked it after a few hours, only water remained - slightly less than absolutely freezing cold to the touch – enough to refill her thermos, and half of his, too. He’d been able to get a good amount of water into her here and there, and got her to crunch up another two glucose-tubes - but she stubbornly refused to have the other, insisting that it was for him.

She’s a bright kid, but if she thinks that he’s going to be having their last one, well -

When he opens the door, kicking the snow off his boots before he steps back in, she’s standing next to window, leaning over a bit, supporting herself with an arm braced on the shelf.

“Nothing?” She asks, not really a question.

He grunts in confirmation, then says - “Oughta get somethin’ tomorrow - mornin’, hopefully. You should lay d-”

“I know - just needed to get off my ass. Feels like it’s gonna fall off.”

He rolls his eyes at her, mainly for her amusement, as he slips the rifle off and sets it against the wall again. Shrugs out his shoulder, trying to loosen up the twinge pinching in his neck.

“I hate just sitting around,” she mumbles.

He snorts a bit at that - “No kiddin’ - think I figured that out about you on day one,” he says. When she doesn’t say anything he adds, “S’just temporary, kiddo. Won’t be for long." 

An anxious look passes over her face as she asks, “When can we leave?”

He sighs. Knows he needs to answer this carefully - not sure if she’s ready to hear what he’s going to say. No clue how much of the logistics of the situation they are in she’s really thought through yet - doesn’t want to distress her.

“Well,” he starts – trying to be cautious but feeling clumsy as he talks through it - “you gotta be able to walk, for - for a few miles, so… And - we’re both - if we run into, uh,  trouble - we need to be able to handle it. Need to get some food in us, first, before we can do much.”

He doesn’t need to say anything further - her face crumples in disappointment - there’s no way around the truth. Still, with the way she’s looking so defeated - he wishes he could take the words back.

“Hope we fucking catch something,” she mutters. She looks down at her feet.

“Yeah,” he says, “Me too.” Still too scared to ask how long it’s been since she’s eaten.

“You warm enough?” he says instead. “Want the jacket for a bit? I’m fine without.”

“Nah. I gotta sit back down in a minute. My fucking head … when astronauts are in training they go in these big spinny things – called a centrifuge -”

Joel feels a small smile tug at his lips - “Centri-fuge,” he corrects her gently - she’d said it with a hard “g”. The sound of her voice, talking in full sentences – talking about the usual shit she loves to talk about - has him feeling a bit lighter.

“Really? ‘Centrifuge’ - anyway, they practice so they don’t like, hurl and pass out when they launch for real — it kinda feels like my head is in one of those.”

Dizzy, nauseated - not unexpected - she’s still only somewhere between 12-24 hours out from whenever her head was hit – “lots”, she had said. The sad little line she’s drawn connecting her space fascination and this hell she’s living through makes the almost-smile drop from his face immediately.

She turns a little to look at the shelf under the window, and he notices for the first time that she’s got the map out spread open in front of her. “Look,” she says, and he steps over to see her finger pointing south of where they are, near Denver - a little red square, next to ‘Dinosaur Ridge’. “And - ” she slides her finger over to the left a bit, until she lands on ‘Dinosaur Journey Museum’ - “was Denver the dino-capital of the country or something?”

He hasn’t let himself think about those days in so long – Sarah always in the lead and pulling him along behind her, chattering away – had something to say in front of what seemed like nearly every exhibit, knowing things she had no business knowing - “Nerd alert,” he’d tease in a stage whisper, and she’d stick her tongue out at him over her shoulder, quipping back “Well somebody has to bring the Miller family IQ up from the depths and it sure ain’t gonna be you or Uncle Tommy” -

The list of things that Ellie deserves and will never get is endless, and this doesn’t compare to the fundamentals she’s been robbed of — family, safety, peace — but he feels a surge of anger at the cruelty of it anyway. It should be about an hour’s drive - they should be climbing in the truck on a weekend morning for a drive-thru breakfast and a fight over the radio station - he should spend way too much money on crap at an overpriced gift shop, a stupid dinosaur hat she won't take off for weeks – instead she gets to look at the names of long gone places on an old, bloody map, daydreaming about what she’ll never have.

“Earth to Joel,” Ellie’s saying in a voice that makes it clear it’s not the first time she’s tried to get his attention.

“Sorry - just thinkin’ –”

She’s looking at him expectantly. He has to work hard to keep his voice sounding light.

“I got no idea what ‘Dinosaur Ridge’ is, but – Denver’s not all that special – I’d guess there’re more than, ah – I dunno – a dozen museums about dinosaurs – nah, more. Maybe one in every state.”

Her eyes widen at that, and keeping up the trend of making her promises he’s afraid he won’t be able to keep  -

“Tell you what - we’ll go someday, find one somewhere still standin’. They have these, ah – sign things all around museums, tellin’ you about the stuff – can finally fact check you, see how much you’re just makin’ up.”

“Shut up,” she says - but her eyes are soft, and she could almost be smiling when she follows up with a quiet, “That’d be cool.”

The nice moment doesn’t last long – she sighs, looks out the window a bit forlornly, and then mumbles, “I have to pee again. Your fault for making me drink all day.”

He puts an arm across her back to help her outside. When the door opens she cringes, hard, scrunching up her face, hissing “Ugh, fuck.”

“Y’alright?” He asks, looking down at her in concern.

She nods, putting a hand up to partially cover her eyes for a few seconds. “Too bright - hurts.”

Even though it’s clearly painful for her to do so, as he helps her get down the steps he catches the way she’s glancing around them in every direction - looking for threats on the horizon.

It’s a repeat of the night before - he shouldn’t have expected anything else. She’s limping, wincing with every step - ends up just tucking around the corner of the building again - so unbalanced he wonders how she didn’t fall over standing up on her own inside. He gives her some space for a few minutes, wandering around aimlessly on the other side of the building, never going far.

When she reappears after a few minutes, steadying herself on the building with her hands, her face has gone completely flat. She looks like a different kid than the one he’d been talking to inside, minutes ago. His heart sinks.

“You alright?” he asks, knowing she’s not. She doesn’t answer – doesn’t seem to hear him at all - looking ahead, eyes distant in that wounded way he’s too familiar with.

“C’mon, you’re ok,” he says - arm back around her to hold her up, hurrying her back up to the door. It seems like she’s barely picking her boots up off the ground – toes dragging each time she steps. Back inside, he takes her straight across the room to her sleeping bag again. She doesn’t fight him on it when he helps her lower back down to the ground, sitting against his pack again.

When she’s tucked back in the sleeping bag, she tugs it up so it’s almost fully covering her head, and turns to her side. Facing the wall, her back to him.

“Ellie?” He tries softly. Feeling helpless.

She’s not asleep, but she doesn’t respond.

Doesn’t move again at all until they hear the gunshot.

----

link to whole story (work in progress) on AO3

[fitgothgirl]

I feel like my blog is becoming more so random stuff than fitness/health stuff. I used to try to keep it strictly about health, but in recent years I’ve let it get some random stuff in. It partially started because when I say “health,” I include mental health stuff in that, and basically everything about life can affect mental health lol. Plus just all the fun/weird/interesting stuff you want to reblog just to reblog. And I’m not against all that for my blog but it’s just gotten a wee bit too much for what I want here. So I’m going to try to rein the randomness in a little, and/or try to have more health/fitness stuff in between.

This may include a few more body posts, but I’ll start tagging those with “body” for anyone who wants to block it. For me, it’s not that I want my body to look exactly like someone else’s, it’s just the image of health/strength that’s motivating- someone else being (or at least appearing) their healthiest/strongest makes me want to be my best, whatever that may be. But of course grain of salt with all that - someone’s body doesn’t tell you their health or happiness.

Been so blah since vacation. I’ve also been having insomnia problems as I mentioned a few days ago and it’s taking some effort to get back to normal. But just got wrung out from the lake house overall - I’m not 21 anymore, as they say. But after that vacation and also feeling crappy most of June, I really want to get some healthy habits going again. I went for a walk on Friday evening at least, which was very pleasant and refreshing. I’m still feeling blah today but at this point I know I need movement more than rest. (And caffeine would help too...)

-

I’ve been thinking about money stuff lately too. Of course I need to budget better and control my spending better and all that, but I’ve also been thinking about how I eventually just need to make more money... Even if I wasn’t in debt, I don’t think I can chill around this wage for too much longer if I want to ever be able to retire or just live comfortably. I’m painfully paycheck-to-paycheck right now (hence the ever increasing debt). So last night I was starting to look into what path I could go down next in life where I could make a good 50-75% more at least (and obviously something I enjoy doing for the most part). Right now I proofread medico-legal reports, but I don’t think I want to get into editing, and there’s not really any sort of growth here. I was looking into medical coding and healthcare data analysis and even healthcare recruiting. I feel like these things have too much dealing with other people though lmao. 😂 I really just want to be left alone, by both any sort of customer/patient and other employees. I know I can’t have it super easy though if I want a decent pay bump.

I feel like whatever I land on, if it’s significantly more money then it’s probably going to take at least some sort of certificate program before I can pursue it, if not a master’s... We’ll see about the master’s though lol. Obviously this is a big decision and needs to be thought through. It’s funny though, I got my bachelor’s 6 years ago and was so done with school at that time lol. When I was asked by others about a master’s or whatever, I was like “I can’t speak for the more distant future, but for now, NO MORE SCHOOL.” And here I am, over half a decade later, where I would consider “the more distant future” to be in that regard. Time is crazy...

Obviously I want to stop making my debt worse and *gasp* even get out of debt eventually. But the stuff I would do after that is even more important and has been getting to me lately. Like at this point, I feel like I’m holding my bf back from travelling. He makes decent money and can budget himself unlike me, so it’s always been a thing about whenever I could plan to get together the money for anything. And I recently realized that after over 11 years together, we’ve haven’t done any of the travelling we want to do (as in like, more than a road trip or a quick flight to SoCal or something lol). And I can’t make any of the more “adult” purchases, like I’m sure I won’t be able to drive the same car forever... Or even fun purchases that you think DINKs can make, like my bf and I have always really wanted a hot tub and even somehow have the perfect spot for it in our small backyard haha. But the DINK lifestyle is only as good as the couple’s earning/spending habits allow. (I don’t even put purchasing a house on this list since that’s just laughable no matter what for me IMO.)

Aight I’m going to cut off the money rambles. 🙃

[cannibalisticskittles]

@amphyn

fully, fully willing to be the internet's reader insert clippy in this regard if it means it's stop fuckin happening, please

@crytalstellar

there's like, a SPECIFIC way that third-person fics can work, and that's when there's a character thinking about 'you' but tbh it's damn tricky to do and i haven't seen it done very often, let alone done effectively. but first person? never. never ever.

@wasserplane

OKAY SO the thing about writing advice for reader insert stories is that the vast majority of advice falls under general writing advice. if you are a good writer, you will probably write decent-to-good reader inserts. if you are not a good writer (yet! we all start somewhere), then reader insert tips will help you write more accurate reader insert stories, but not necessarily good ones. but! that's obvious. actual tips would be.... hmm...........

this is not an exhaustive list and it's very rambly so i'm gonna put this under a cut, but --

don't feel like you have to make your reader insert character a total blank slate. it Can Be Done, but it is tricky, and personally i find it less fun! i'm sure some people prefer blank slate protagonists/reader inserts, but i think reader insert stories are best when there are (at least) some establishing details abt what 'you' DO and who 'you' ARE.

now, don't make things hyper-specific! don't talk about the color of your hair or eyes or even abt the style of your clothes, unless that serves a purpose (another character provided 'you' with a change of clothes, you're in disguise or in uniform, etc). but -- give 'you' a job! or mention the possibility of one! some friends, even if obliquely! it's great for character-building! scene-setting! plot devices! why not! you can do it in a way that's vague enough to be relatable to a bunch of people, and also not be so specific that it's offputtingly unrelatable to the rest of your readers! just maybe don't insist that 'you' work as the world's premier parakeet trainer instead of, like, working in the zoo gift shop or at a mall kiosk. or, as i most often find myself writing, at some unspecified-but-probablly-minimum-wage-job since swapping shifts was mentioned at one point.

also, remember that not everyone looks like you/a certain way! kind of obvious, right? and a lot of this is very easy to avoid. but you'd be surprised -- i've seen people write a description that mentions 'your pale skin' like 3 or 4 times in fics????? not that much, i guess, but still odd to realize the specific way an author is visualizing 'you.' and that's just in fics that i, personally, have stumbled across and read. all you gotta do to avoid that one is...... not do that. not assume all your readers have light skin. easy-peasy. (and this is kind of a dumb example, but similarly, while everyone can blush, not everyone blushes so visibly with their skin tone. 'you redden/your cheeks turn pink' may not be the most relatable way of conveying embarrassment or being flustered -- tho it's also not 100% definitely gonna be alienating -- but, like. even so. 'your face warms' and other such phrasings are options.)

other things are a touch less obvious, but still not all that hard to do, you just have to consider what may or may not be relatable to people. if a character "runs a hand through your hair" then 'you' must have hair long enough to run a hand through... and that you are willing to let someone touch like that. if 'you' duck to get through a doorway, 'you' must be pretty tall (or the doorway is particularly shirt!) and if 'you' have to climb onto something to reach an object, 'you' must be short enough to justify it.

there was a comment on a fic of mine once in regards to a scene where 'you' sat on someone's lap, and it was something like 'aw, i wish i could do that, but i'm fat, so i'd probably crush him, lol.' and that's stuck with me!! i failed that reader of mine by relying on skinny bitch privilege and that made my writing less effective and less fun for someone! jolting someone out of a scene they would otherwise enjoy is not something i wanted to do!!!

ever since that, i've really tried to consider the physicality of the actions i write -- to make sure that whatever 'you' do, it's written in such a way that it's believable for all my readers, whatever their height or weight or build might be. and you'd better fuckin believe that the next time i had 'you' sit on that character's lap, i tried to make it happen in a way that that original commenter would've been able to see themselves in.

and, like, listen. implying/maybe even outright stating that the reader insert character has hair that someone can run a hand through, or is kinda short or whatever, is not inherently bad.

you are not going to be able to create a reader insert that 100% of readers relate to 100% of the time -- at least, not for longer stories. it's easier for drabbles, lmao. but for longer stories or for a series, there will almost certainly be something that doesn't grok with someone, whether that's 'i wouldn't do that' or 'i wouldn't say that' or 'i wouldn't react like that' or any number of other points that are dissonant to someone reading. and aiming to be 100% relatable, 100% of the time is not only futile, it also tends to result in.... characters who are so firmly middle-of-the-road and blank that the stories are no fun to read.

but. as with anything else, people are willing to suspend their disbelief. give them enough things that they can relate to that if/when you slip up, they're willing to keep going anyway.

on that note, returning to the not-a-blank-slate idea, you can -- and i think you should -- give 'you' some personality!

i struggle to describe how i view this, but like......... you can justify most types of personalities. you can make it make sense. you can make it feel natural. you write the story, and if you want the reader insert character to be anxious, add moments in the story where that makes sense, where people nod along and say 'oh, yeah, for sure, i would react anxiously too if that happened.' bam! however you want the reader insert character to act, just keep weaving in justifications, scenarios that would draw out the desired behavior from a lot of people.

also maybe this is a cheat, but heaping on more personality in the narration than in the dialogue is a possibility! people are often more open in their thoughts and impulses than in the things they say! so then you can write weird shit and have people still relate!

"Oh, I'd love to chat, but I..." You readjust your bag and shuffle back a half-step, using the motion to buy yourself time to think of another excuse. "I really can't stay, sorry; my coworker needs me to cover her shift." It's not a lie, exactly. More like... two unrelated pieces of information. You really do have to go -- if you spend one more minute being ogled by some chucklefuck with no concept of personal space, you are really, truly, going to burst. And your phone has been pinging all day with frantic requests to please, please, please cover this shift, just this once, she thought she'd requested it off ages ago, honest, and the tickets were so expensive and they're nonrefundable, and you're the only one not already on the schedule, so please? He doesn't need to know that the shift isn't until Saturday.

not the best example, but you get the idea.

above all, all else, make it fun. seriously!

i got... a lot of comments about the reader insert character in my saeran fic. positive ones! really positive ones! some could relate to the reader insert, but others just liked them. thought of the reader insert as a well-developed character. does that mean i failed at writing a good reader insert? .........................well, maybe? or... maybe not? people had fun reading it and i had fun writing it, in the end. and a lot of people mentioned that the reader insert character did a lot of things they wished they could do RE: the plot or a character, so it still scratched that itch of wish fulfillment that reader inserts are designed to do, lmao. so maybe it didn't end up being The World's Most Relatable Reader Insert. but would it have been as fun for everyone if it was?

.........yknow what, maybe a lot of this is not actually the most helpful for writing reader inserts, actually. uh, if you want advice on fitting a reader insert into the world they're dropped in/among the characters they're now interacting with, or. like. any other coherent, salient writing advice, lemme know and i'll babble abt that another time but i've been rambling for an hour and i still have homework i need to do, oh my god

[headofocs-inklesspen]

This is mostly just my honest opinion but attitudes of entitlement begin so fucking early. Like 12-16 years old, especially when reaching the threshold of economic upperclass. I call them the “I’ve never been seriously told no or have had to/will have: to clean toilets, work minimum wage/customer service, worry about money and the cost of living or put my wants on hold just to afford basic necessities” kids. Their parents/guardians Have Money and unless they are unexpectedly cut off they will never fear things like having one bad week/month/accident (car crash, hospitalization, loss of income, home/apartment damage repair or loss, etc) and losing it all.

For context I work for a corporate coffee company (not naming names, but one with recent unionizations/backlash regarding corporate’s (very bad) reactions to unionizations). My store is located in Johnson County, Kansas. For those unfamiliar with Kansas and it’s socio-economic trends, Johnson County is the wealthiest county in the state predominately due to disproportionate wealth distribution. We’re the wealthiest county not because the overall average household income is higher across the board but because the three wealthiest areas in the county are also extremely high up on the list of overall wealthiest areas in the state. Those being Leawood, Praire Village, and Mission Hills which is The Wealthiest of them all (we’re talking the Elite of the Kansas/Kansas City Elite. Billionaires and NFL players and old money families with whole patches of college and university buildings and secondary campuses named after them.)

My store is located on the edge of what’s probably a decent chuck of the State Population’s total net wealth. My high school kids have classmates who make comments 100% serious about shit like “well it’s only $2000, that seems almost cheap really.” One had a classmate tell him that they couldn’t believe he had an after school job because working while in school, high school OR college, was “only for poor people.”

I deal with self-important “I’m better than you and my parents’ McMansion and the 2023 Lexus I got for my 16th birthday proves it” types on a regular basis.

They are the most entitled people I have ever met. Hell, there are literal elementary schoolers who come in more polite and better behaved.

I had a girl today try to order a drink that doesn’t actually exist and when I asked her questions to clarify what she was looking for and explaining what the different options that I could be were, because I needed to know if she just wanted me to add a different syrup or if it was some TikTok speciality “secret menu item”, got all pissed off and sped off because “well clearly you don’t want to do it”

Kid, I’ve seen drink orders out of the literal depths of hell, we’re talking stuff so far out of comprehension I’m not even sure they can still be safely consumed let alone should be, I could not care less about whatever make believe holiday concoction you’re trying to achieve. I asked you “is this a special recipe you’re looking for or are you wanting some of the sugar cookie syrup added to the regular cold foam” not to be bitchy and over complicated but because it’s an honest actual question to make sure you get the drink you’re expecting. Plus, our sweet vanilla cold foam is SWEET as the name implies and it’s a premade mix, I don’t pour all the syrups and milk together for each order I just have a pitcher of it on hand that just needs to blended up into foam, adding additional syrup is going to make it even sweeter and if that’s not what you want it’s going to be a potentially unpleasant surprise.

And these same kids make these weepy, “I’m the victim here” statements and complaints and TikToks about stuff that, in my overwhelming personal experience, is usually literally just “you asked a corporate coffee shop employee for something that doesn’t actually exist so they tried to work with you and you’re made I didn’t immediately know what, of the literal 100’s of 1000’s of fake “official secret menu drinks”, you were trying to actually order” or “you were told ‘no’ or ‘hey you can’t do that’ by a minimum wage working class employee and you don’t like that”

(Additional fun fact, not only does Mission Hills, Kansas have the Highest Median Household Income in the entire state, it also has one of the Highest Median Household Incomes in the country (according to Forbes it’s the third wealthiest municipality in the county and holds a median household income of roughly $250,000 annually as of 2020 with only a .225% poverty rate. In comparison, I live in Overland Park all of 5 minutes away which sits at approx $87,000 annually with a 4.31% poverty rate and the town I grew up in 1/2 an hour south sits at approx $70,000 with a similar poverty rate to OP. The Kansas total is approx $61,000 annually and 11.4% poverty rate)

[runawaycats]

diary entry — graduation.

***

recently I graduated from university. I think it was one of the more enjoyable parts of my life, since I’ve been actively working on trying to enjoy the present and allow myself to feel positive emotions. but, even as I was standing there waiting to be lined up, and watching everyone else get their diploma, I still felt alone. everyone was talking about what their plans were after graduation. some were moving away elsewhere for grad school, some had internships lined up — they had aspirations, a family to take care of, a husband/boyfriend and children. they connected so easily, I wondered if there was something truly wrong with me. esp after my psychiatrist suspected that I may have autism, it further emphasized that I’m just inherently different and experiencing life much more difficult than my peers. I should be happy, but I also feel like no matter what I accomplish, I’m still expected to keep going and achieve a mile more, and I wonder if life, in the end, is even worth it all.

I don’t really know what I want. I know I like to write — but I am scared of getting burnt out if I work creatively, and I don’t see the appeal in working under marketing or something even if it might pay the bills. I know I like to draw — but rarely do artists even get paid a decent living wage, plus I have no idea how to market myself (nor do I want to), and am deeply insecure in my skills. maybe I’m being selfish by being picky. but I really don’t want to suffer more than I already am.

I don’t know what specific career I desire, because I feel I’ll just get burnt out no matter what. there’s a lot of things I’m still unsatisfied with about myself (lack of friendship/relationship experience, living closeted, lacking independence, dealing w/ trauma from being socially ostracized/father’s abuse) and a lot of things I struggle with doing (taking care of myself, forcing myself to go outside my house/speaking to friends, making my own decisions…) I wonder if I truly will ever gain experiences other people have. and I suppose while a nice thing for having “made it” this far, graduating with a 4.0 GPA and Honors, just confirms that my life is not like everyone else. I will always be lost amongst everyone.

life is unfair. my therapist tells me that it is something I really have to grieve — I have to grieve that I have lost opportunities and a freer life that I could’ve maybe had if I had taken more risks, let myself fail, interview/volunteer/try new things… maybe I’m just too stubborn to face that yet. maybe I just am holding onto this belief that I’m too special that God wouldn’t just make me suffer to just end up nowhere.

but I am possibly disabled. I am mentally ill. I am tired and I am not as competent as I delude myself to be. I have to be kinder to myself. I have to accept that my journey will be different than my high school friends. in many ways, I am privileged. and in many other ways, I am inferior and struggling. and to truly move forward, I have to accept it, even if it makes me want to claw myself apart. I live in hopes that I will be content with my life one day, learning how to soothe my feelings of worthlessness and ease the physical pain of envy and resentment.

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Gecko

I live in California where our governor decided to hike the minimum wage for fast food workers from the statewide sixteen dollars an hour, to twenty. There are stipulations which need to be met, of course, the biggest of which is a chain would need more than sixty locations nationwide to qualify for this hike. That means, for the most part, only the nigger restaurants were hit with this increase. I’[m talking your McDonalds and your Jack in the Boxes, joints like that. Applebees and Dennys got a past because they aren’t considered fast foot, even though they are all supplied by a Sysco truck. Now, I’m not here to condemn California for making this move. To be perfectly honest, I think it doesn’t go far enough. This wage increase is only for a specific section of the overall workforce. Most people still make the sixteen an hour wage. I think that twenty should be available to everyone, not just burger-flippers but, at the same time, it’s not their fault that legislation has been hobbled politically for almost a decade. My personal beef aside, I’ve been seeing a TON of vitriol for these workers finally getting enough money in their check to pay bills AND buy groceries in the same pay period, because forty of their chicken nuggies cost twenty-six dollars. That sh*t boggles my mind, man.

Seriously, you’re mad these legitimate food service workers are making a decent wage, just because you’re fetid baboon butt cheek burgers are costing more than you want? Someone showed me a price grab of a McDonald’s Big Mac meal costing something like eighteen dollars and the outrage was palpable. You’re telling me the value of that food you want isn’t worth eighteen dollars, and you’re right. That sh*t is trash in every way possible. The aforementioned chicken nuggets aren’t even made of real meat. They’re made from chicken slurry, which is exactly what that sh*t sounds like. No fast food is worth the money you pay for it, and you should absolutely feel some kind of way about it, but that ire is misdirected at the sixteen year old trying to save money for prom, that twenty-two year old working their way through college, or that single mother just trying to make ends meet. You should be mad at the major corporations passing on that way overdue pay increase to you, when their CEOs are making millions a year. I mean, there is a certain societal stigma when it comes to fast food worker, I literally just referred to them as burger flippers, which sees that profession as less than.

We have been conditioned to believe that these fry cooked don’t deserve money to live, because they work a fryer and not a backhoe. I’ve worked at a McDonalds before. I know what goes into that sh*t. I lasted a day. Too much work, too little pay. I, personally, feel like they still don’t make enough with how many hats those cats have to wear, but this new wage is a strong step in the right direction. Those cats, the people on the ground serving you, more than earn that twenty an hour and then some. You know who doesn’t deserve their salaries? Corporate. Corporate doesn’t deserve that loot and they’re the reason your QPC is forty-three dollar, not that twenty an hour California is forcing them to pay their workers. McDonald’s made fourteen and half, BILLION dollars last year. Their CEO made nineteen million last year, alone, and eight percent increase year-over-year. At twenty dollars and hour, that roughly translates thirty eight thousand a year. Let’s say that CEO takes half that nineteen, which is still nine million and change in his pocket, and divide that by said newly minted minimum wage and you get three thousand, four hundred and twenty. Let me throw those numeric in there so I can be very clear, that’s 3,420 people HALF the McDonalds’ CEO can fund for a year. Half of that man’s paycheck, could pay the full years’ worth of wages, for 3,420 of his employees. And that’s just the CEO. That’s not the CFO, the COO, or any of the upper executives who are probably making six figures themselves. The reason your Filet-o-Fish is so goddamn expensive, is corporate greed and I can prove it. In-n-Out exists.

I’ve been seeing so many of these articles and sh*t on Right wing sites (the MSN at my job seems to think that I’m some sort of MAGA cultists but whatever), and they’re claiming the In-n-Out CEO is “standing up” to the draconian Gavin Newsom over his egregious, anti-business, wage increase. And, just on a personal note, f*ck yes we should be anti-business! Being anti-business is why monopolies and child labor are “illegal”, the f*ck? Anyway, the thing is, In-n-Out has always been ahead of the curve in regards to their employee pay. Way back when I worked for McDonald’s in the early Aughts, I was making the freshly minted sever and a quarter an hour. Animal Style was giving their guys two dollars more than what I was making back then. Right after the pandemic, there was one close to me shelling out nineteen an hour. They were paying that post-pandemic, when inflation was starting to ramp up crazy (Thanks. Trump), so I know for a fact why weren’t too far off the twenty. And guess how much they increased their menu? A quarter. Twenty-five f*cking cents. Your Double-Double is a whole ass quarter more than it was in March, and that kid pounding out fresh fries in that wall mounted Veg-o-Matic, made from real potatoes, sourced right here in the good ol’ US of A, can make a substantial wage to maybe impress his crush with a little movie date, followed by put-put, with a enough left over for some ice cream. All on a menu increase of actual chump change.

How is that possible, you might ask? The likes of McDonalds, by far the largest fat food conglomerate in the world with billions served. And billions made, can’t do it, but lowly, California based In-n-Out can while serving actual beef and potatoes in their burgers, can? It’s because In-n-Out is privately owned company. It helps, tremendously, that their CEO is only forty-one, my age, and took the big chair at twenty-seven after literally working her way up through the company. Ma is the legit In-n-Out heiress but made the decision to work on the ground to better understand what her workers were going through. That experience informs her decisions and, fifteen years later, she’s able to pay her workers fairly while treating the customer’s pockets with just as much care. There are no shareholders to appease, no buybacks for and stock packages for executives. Sure, she makes millions, but it’s organic in a way that McDs, and a lot of these other places, don’t. I cannot, for the life of me, find anything on what she makes, but most of her top executives only make in the mid hundred thousand. A comfortable six figures, not seven or right. SO I ask you, if In-n-Out can keep their workers happy, rein in executive pay bloat, and still pull in nearly two billion last year, all in California, why the f*ck can’t anyone else do it? In-n-Out is the blueprint. The only difference is the fact that those Corpos are greedy and there isn’t a check to balance them. Just ;like the In-n-Out thing, I got receipts to prove that sh*t.

You see, in Europe, where unions are strong and Labor has proper representation, workers are supported and the wage reflects that. They have contracts which put stipulations in on where, how long, and what age employees can work. There are night shift differential and increased pay for weekends. There is still traditional overtime but most companies try to avoid that as it taxes pockets hard. As it should. They are able to do all of this, while charging prices comparable to what we pay stateside, and no one complains. No one is standing against the work force, demanding cheaper prices for food that legally has to meet a certain nutritional standard that just doesn’t exists here in the States. Places like McDs are basically just like In-n-Out in terms of overall food quality, because the EU makes them be. That’s because there is regulation over yonder. There are unions. There is basically a worker’s bill of right and all corporations must follow them or they face consequences. Just ask Elon about that when he tried to export Sweden over a Tesla plant. Sh*t did not go the way he wanted and no one cared. In fact, the neighboring countries refused to receive the material to build his cars, in their ports, out of solidarity. And their Big Macs are, like, nineteen dollars apiece. They also have universal healthcare, universal day care, can take a month of paid vacation, and drink from the holy grail whenever they feel like it. That last bit is an exaggeration but the other stuff isn’t. It’s wild seeing so many people here, across the country, licking the f*ck out of that corporate boot, advocating for a system that is telling you they do not want you to have enough money to live, that if they must pay that wage, they’ll get it back by charging you a premium for food it costs them pennies on the dollar to provide. Don’t be mad at the worker for finally getting their due, be made at the corporation for making you pay for it.

[smokeybrand]

Gecko

I live in California where our governor decided to hike the minimum wage for fast food workers from the statewide sixteen dollars an hour, to twenty. There are stipulations which need to be met, of course, the biggest of which is a chain would need more than sixty locations nationwide to qualify for this hike. That means, for the most part, only the nigger restaurants were hit with this increase. I’[m talking your McDonalds and your Jack in the Boxes, joints like that. Applebees and Dennys got a past because they aren’t considered fast foot, even though they are all supplied by a Sysco truck. Now, I’m not here to condemn California for making this move. To be perfectly honest, I think it doesn’t go far enough. This wage increase is only for a specific section of the overall workforce. Most people still make the sixteen an hour wage. I think that twenty should be available to everyone, not just burger-flippers but, at the same time, it’s not their fault that legislation has been hobbled politically for almost a decade. My personal beef aside, I’ve been seeing a TON of vitriol for these workers finally getting enough money in their check to pay bills AND buy groceries in the same pay period, because forty of their chicken nuggies cost twenty-six dollars. That sh*t boggles my mind, man.

Seriously, you’re mad these legitimate food service workers are making a decent wage, just because you’re fetid baboon butt cheek burgers are costing more than you want? Someone showed me a price grab of a McDonald’s Big Mac meal costing something like eighteen dollars and the outrage was palpable. You’re telling me the value of that food you want isn’t worth eighteen dollars, and you’re right. That sh*t is trash in every way possible. The aforementioned chicken nuggets aren’t even made of real meat. They’re made from chicken slurry, which is exactly what that sh*t sounds like. No fast food is worth the money you pay for it, and you should absolutely feel some kind of way about it, but that ire is misdirected at the sixteen year old trying to save money for prom, that twenty-two year old working their way through college, or that single mother just trying to make ends meet. You should be mad at the major corporations passing on that way overdue pay increase to you, when their CEOs are making millions a year. I mean, there is a certain societal stigma when it comes to fast food worker, I literally just referred to them as burger flippers, which sees that profession as less than.

We have been conditioned to believe that these fry cooked don’t deserve money to live, because they work a fryer and not a backhoe. I’ve worked at a McDonalds before. I know what goes into that sh*t. I lasted a day. Too much work, too little pay. I, personally, feel like they still don’t make enough with how many hats those cats have to wear, but this new wage is a strong step in the right direction. Those cats, the people on the ground serving you, more than earn that twenty an hour and then some. You know who doesn’t deserve their salaries? Corporate. Corporate doesn’t deserve that loot and they’re the reason your QPC is forty-three dollar, not that twenty an hour California is forcing them to pay their workers. McDonald’s made fourteen and half, BILLION dollars last year. Their CEO made nineteen million last year, alone, and eight percent increase year-over-year. At twenty dollars and hour, that roughly translates thirty eight thousand a year. Let’s say that CEO takes half that nineteen, which is still nine million and change in his pocket, and divide that by said newly minted minimum wage and you get three thousand, four hundred and twenty. Let me throw those numeric in there so I can be very clear, that’s 3,420 people HALF the McDonalds’ CEO can fund for a year. Half of that man’s paycheck, could pay the full years’ worth of wages, for 3,420 of his employees. And that’s just the CEO. That’s not the CFO, the COO, or any of the upper executives who are probably making six figures themselves. The reason your Filet-o-Fish is so goddamn expensive, is corporate greed and I can prove it. In-n-Out exists.

I’ve been seeing so many of these articles and sh*t on Right wing sites (the MSN at my job seems to think that I’m some sort of MAGA cultists but whatever), and they’re claiming the In-n-Out CEO is “standing up” to the draconian Gavin Newsom over his egregious, anti-business, wage increase. And, just on a personal note, f*ck yes we should be anti-business! Being anti-business is why monopolies and child labor are “illegal”, the f*ck? Anyway, the thing is, In-n-Out has always been ahead of the curve in regards to their employee pay. Way back when I worked for McDonald’s in the early Aughts, I was making the freshly minted sever and a quarter an hour. Animal Style was giving their guys two dollars more than what I was making back then. Right after the pandemic, there was one close to me shelling out nineteen an hour. They were paying that post-pandemic, when inflation was starting to ramp up crazy (Thanks. Trump), so I know for a fact why weren’t too far off the twenty. And guess how much they increased their menu? A quarter. Twenty-five f*cking cents. Your Double-Double is a whole ass quarter more than it was in March, and that kid pounding out fresh fries in that wall mounted Veg-o-Matic, made from real potatoes, sourced right here in the good ol’ US of A, can make a substantial wage to maybe impress his crush with a little movie date, followed by put-put, with a enough left over for some ice cream. All on a menu increase of actual chump change.

How is that possible, you might ask? The likes of McDonalds, by far the largest fat food conglomerate in the world with billions served. And billions made, can’t do it, but lowly, California based In-n-Out can while serving actual beef and potatoes in their burgers, can? It’s because In-n-Out is privately owned company. It helps, tremendously, that their CEO is only forty-one, my age, and took the big chair at twenty-seven after literally working her way up through the company. Ma is the legit In-n-Out heiress but made the decision to work on the ground to better understand what her workers were going through. That experience informs her decisions and, fifteen years later, she’s able to pay her workers fairly while treating the customer’s pockets with just as much care. There are no shareholders to appease, no buybacks for and stock packages for executives. Sure, she makes millions, but it’s organic in a way that McDs, and a lot of these other places, don’t. I cannot, for the life of me, find anything on what she makes, but most of her top executives only make in the mid hundred thousand. A comfortable six figures, not seven or right. SO I ask you, if In-n-Out can keep their workers happy, rein in executive pay bloat, and still pull in nearly two billion last year, all in California, why the f*ck can’t anyone else do it? In-n-Out is the blueprint. The only difference is the fact that those Corpos are greedy and there isn’t a check to balance them. Just ;like the In-n-Out thing, I got receipts to prove that sh*t.

You see, in Europe, where unions are strong and Labor has proper representation, workers are supported and the wage reflects that. They have contracts which put stipulations in on where, how long, and what age employees can work. There are night shift differential and increased pay for weekends. There is still traditional overtime but most companies try to avoid that as it taxes pockets hard. As it should. They are able to do all of this, while charging prices comparable to what we pay stateside, and no one complains. No one is standing against the work force, demanding cheaper prices for food that legally has to meet a certain nutritional standard that just doesn’t exists here in the States. Places like McDs are basically just like In-n-Out in terms of overall food quality, because the EU makes them be. That’s because there is regulation over yonder. There are unions. There is basically a worker’s bill of right and all corporations must follow them or they face consequences. Just ask Elon about that when he tried to export Sweden over a Tesla plant. Sh*t did not go the way he wanted and no one cared. In fact, the neighboring countries refused to receive the material to build his cars, in their ports, out of solidarity. And their Big Macs are, like, nineteen dollars apiece. They also have universal healthcare, universal day care, can take a month of paid vacation, and drink from the holy grail whenever they feel like it. That last bit is an exaggeration but the other stuff isn’t. It’s wild seeing so many people here, across the country, licking the f*ck out of that corporate boot, advocating for a system that is telling you they do not want you to have enough money to live, that if they must pay that wage, they’ll get it back by charging you a premium for food it costs them pennies on the dollar to provide. Don’t be mad at the worker for finally getting their due, be made at the corporation for making you pay for it.

[nomorerww]

To make matters worse for people who just want to buy a decent sweater, Islam said that few checks and balances exist to ensure that knitwear marketed as, say, pure cashmere or merino wool actually is, unless a brand voluntarily adheres to a high standard of traceability. Retailers rarely face penalties for driving materials costs as low as possible, even if it means that sweaters don’t look and feel quite as nice as they once did. And they don’t need to. When almost all of your competitors are using the same sad plastic blends, no one is going to single your company out for being particularly miserly with the materials. This race to the bottom had been going on for years, but it accelerated considerably in 2005, Sofi Thanhauser, the author of Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, told me. That year was the end of the Multifiber Arrangement, a trade agreement that had for three decades capped imports of textile products and yarn into the United States, Canada, and the European Union from developing countries. Once Western retailers no longer had meaningful restrictions on where they could source their garments from, many of them went shopping for the cheapest inventory possible. They found it largely in Asian and Latin American countries with few protections for garment workers or environmental regulations on the textile industry, which allowed them to slash wages and use more synthetics. That changed the unit economics of mass-market fashion—and of sweaters—in profound ways. According to Islam, if you push down retail prices with cheap labor, they’ll no longer bear the use of quality materials. If you push down retail prices with cheap materials, they’ll no longer bear the wages of garment workers with more skill and experience. If you push down both as much as possible, you stand a pretty good chance of gaining market share. Either way, the conditions of the industry and the products on the shelf degrade in tandem. Knitting, in particular, is highly skilled labor, even at its cheapest. For genuinely impressive detailing and finishing, Islam said, manufacturers need to pay up for highly experienced workers. When manufacturers forgo those costs, designs get simpler—they get boring. And when demand for that kind of skilled labor craters, those skills aren’t passed to new workers, and they eventually wash out of the labor force. The same thing happens in production of the raw materials necessary to make a better-quality garment. Eventually, even if your company wants to produce something nice, durable, and well-made, your ability to do so at all—let alone at a price that anyone will pay—is greatly reduced.

[aibh]

A Letter From My Mother: Mother's Day Special

You will find a story about mother and daughter in A Mother's Day Gift.

This is a tale about a 14-year-old young girl named Lily, who becomes an orphan child after her own mom passes away from disease. She faces difficulties and battles, but you will see how a letter will change her path. Lily strives to help herself, never neglecting to focus on her fantasies. Also, you will see how she rises out of her battles-serious areas of strength for a young girl-prepared to take on whatever the future holds. A Letter From My Mother: Mother's Day Special This is a tale about a 14-year-old young girl named Lily, who becomes an orphan child after her own mom passes away from disease. She faces difficulties and battles, but you will see how a letter will change her path.

It was a typical Monday morning when everything changed for Sophie and her 14-year-old little girl, Lily. Sophie was a single parent who had been raising Lily partly alone since her better half left them when Lily was a single child. Notwithstanding the difficulties, she is not entirely settled to give her daughter a decent living place. In any case, everything changed when she was determined to have malignant growth.

Sophie had been feeling unwell for some time, however, she put it down to pressure and fatigue from maintaining two sources of emolument to benefit from a living wage. Notwithstanding, on one occasion she fell while working and was rushed to the clinic. After various tests and outputs, the specialists informed her that she had stage four disease and that it had spread to her lungs.

Sophie was crushed. She had forever been a warrior, yet this was the sort of thing she didn't have the foggiest idea how to battle. She was informed that she had a half-year to live and that there was no way to fix her. Nothing remained at that point but to resolve her chemotherapy to draw out her vitality and make her as agreeable as could really be expected.

Sophie realized she needed to tell Lily, yet she didn't have any idea how. Lily was her reality, and she would have rather not let her be. That evening, when Lily got back to her place from school, Sophie grabbed her hand, hugged her, and told her the news. Lily's face fell, and tears spilled down her face.

Sophie held her little girl and assured her that they would overcome this together. Lily was terrified, yet she realized she must have areas of strength to be her mother.

Throughout the following couple of weeks, Sophie began chemotherapy, which made her frail and tired. She needed to renounce her place of employment, and the hospital expenses were stacking up. Lily attempted to help however much she could by taking on unspecialized temp jobs, but it wasn't sufficient. They were scarcely making a decent living, and Sophie was getting more fragile continuously.

Lily looked as her mother went from being a grave area of strength for a released lady to somebody who required assistance with even the least difficult of errands. It was shocking for her, yet she wouldn't surrender. not entirely settled to show up for her mother, come what may.

At some point, Sophie fell asleep, and Lily realized something was patent-based. She required an emergency vehicle, and Sophie was raced to the clinic. The specialists said that the disease had spread to her cerebrum and that there was nothing more they could do.

Sophie was allowed a couple of days to live, and Lily was close to herself with melancholy. She sat by her mother's bedside, holding her hand and telling her how much she cherished her. Sophie was frail, yet she figured out how to grin at her girl and tell her how pleased she was with her.

Lily realized she was going to be bereaved of her mother, and it was the hardest thing she had ever confronted. She didn't have any idea how she planned to adapt without her. Sophie knew this and attempted to provide her with certain useful tidbits before she died.

"Recollect that I will constantly cherish you," she said feebly. "Furthermore, regardless, I will constantly accompany you." You are solid, and you can persevere through anything. "Simply have faith in yourself."

Sophie passed away a few hours later, and Lily was left alone. She was devastated, but she realized she had areas of strength. She had to be strong. She didn't want her mom's death to be in vain. She was determined to make something of her existence, just like her mom had wanted.

However much Lily attempted to keep an uplifting outlook and push ahead, the deficiency of her mom was a significant weight to bear. Consistently, it was a battle. Her grades started to slip, and she pulled away from her companions. She lost interest in everything that she used to appreciate. As the weeks turned into months and months turned into years, she frequently ended up suffocating in an ocean of feelings.

Lily discovered herself feeling lost and alone, with nobody to go to. She missed her mother more than anything and frequently found herself yearning for her mom's hug. The world appeared to be a dull and frightening place without her mother, and Lily didn't have any idea how to explore it alone. Lily's aggravation and despondency just heightened. She started to disconnect herself from the world, preferring to remain inside and stay away from any tokens of her mother.

Lily's aunt became increasingly concerned. She could see that Lily was battling and realized that she really wanted assistance. At some point, she sat down with Lily and had a genuine discussion with her. Lily listened to her aunt and started going to a therapist. Slowly, Lily started recovering.

One day Lilly wakes up from her bed early in the morning and checks her smartphone, and tears well up in her eyes because that day was May 14th, everyone would be celebrating Mother's Day at their homes, and she feels alone again. She tries to move forward, but the memory of her mother does not let her. She angrily gets out of bed, and Lily starts packing her mother's belongings and memories into a box. Then, in a little box, Lily finds a letter written by her mother. Lily is so angry that she doesn't even want to read the letter, and she sits there crying with the letter in her hand.

A LETTER FROM LILY'S MOTHER

Dear Lily,

As I write this letter to you, my sweet girl, I want you to know how proud I am of you. You have faced more challenges than anyone your age should ever have to face, and yet you have persevered.

I know that losing me was the hardest thing you've ever had to go through. I also know that life has felt dark and empty since I've been gone. But I want you to know that I am still with you. My love to you transcends existence and death, and I will always be watching over you.

I want you to remember that you are strong. You have a resilience in you that has carried you through some of the toughest times. You have faced challenges head-on and have not backed down. I know that there will be more challenges ahead, but I believe in you. You are capable of numerous things, my love.

I want you to keep moving forward. It's okay to take a step back and grieve, but don't let your grief consume you. You have so much potential, and I know that you will do remarkable things in this world. You have a kind heart, a sharp mind, and a spirit that shines bright.

I also want you to remember that you are not alone. You have a family that loves you and friends who care about you. Don't be afraid to lean on them when you need to. It takes strength to ask for help, and I know that you have that strength in you.

Finally, I want you to know how much I love you. You were the light of my existence, and I will always hold you close to my heart. Even though I am no longer with you physically, my love for you will not fade. I want you to know that I am so proud of the young woman you are becoming. I may not be able to be there to watch you grow up, but I know that you will do remarkable things. You have a bright future ahead of you, and I can't wait to see everything that you will accomplish.

Remember to be kind to yourself. It's easy to get caught up in negative thoughts and feelings, but it's important to take care of yourself. You are worthy of love and happiness, and I know that you will find both.

Life may be tough at times, but always remember that you are tougher. You are resilient, brave, and strong. Keep fighting, my love.

I'll always be watching over you.

Love,

Mom

Lily was reading the letter, and tears were flowing slowly from her eyes, yet shortly there was a light all over; it appeared that her face was gleaming. Shortly, Lily realizes that she expected to make a move to help herself and push ahead. She chose to begin searching for a job in spite of her young age. not entirely set in stone to assume command over her life and make a big deal about herself, very much like her mom would have needed.

After half a month of looking, Lily got some work at a nearby café. It wasn't the most captivating position, but she was appreciative of the juncture to bring in a few bucks and gain some independence.

From the get-go, it was difficult for Lily to adjust between work and school. She frequently felt tired and overpowered, but she wouldn't surrender. She realized that her mom wouldn't believe she should abandon her fantasies, so she continued to push forward. As time went on, Lily started to succeed at her specific job. She appreciated visiting with the regulars and making them their number-one beverage. She found that working at the café provided her with a sense of motivation and pride.

At some point, a normal customer saw that Lily was battling to stay aware of her homework and plan for getting work done. The customer, a more established lady named Mrs. Jenkins, proposed to coach Lily and help her with her studies. Lily really buckled down, adjusting her position at the bistro with her homework and coaching meetings with Mrs. Jenkins. With the backing of her loved ones, she started to see the good reasons to have hope.

At some point, Lily had a thought. She chose to apply for graduation, notwithstanding being a year younger than the majority of her colleagues. It was a striking move, yet Lily realized that she was prepared to make the next stride in her life. When Lily got the news that she had been acknowledged to graduate, she was thrilled. She had endeavored to arrive at this point, and she realized that her mom would have been proud of her.

Upon the arrival of graduation, Lily was apprehensive but energized. She wore a miraculous dress that her auntie had gotten her and strolled across the stage with her head held high. Her loved ones supported her, and Lily felt a sense of achievement that she had never felt.

As she strolled off the stage, Lily understood that her mom had been with her constantly. She realized that her mom was proud of her and that she had been looking after her this entire time. With her confirmation close by, Lily felt like she could do anything.

She had defeated so much, and she realized that she was fit to accomplish anything she put her energy into. Lily had confronted the absolute hardest difficulties life could toss her way, yet she had ended up the winner. She was a survivor, a warrior, and a good example for any individual who had at any point confronted misfortune.

As Lily looked towards the future, she realized that there would be more difficulties to come, yet she also realized that she was sufficiently able to deal with them directly. She was prepared to take on the world slowly and deliberately.

BEST AMAZON GIFT IDEAS FOR OUR AMAZING MOTHER

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