#so i played that for like 200-300 hours? then set it down for a bit

[wwraithsart]

terraria player jumpscare

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

lil bit of a insanely long rant about Everskies lol [even if u don't know the game, if you like hearing about crazy game economics/game drama, you might like this]

if Everskies seriously gets rid of the currency exchange system I might have to stop using the site for real. I mean I hate to say it but there's literally no other way to get stars without spending real money,,, and with how many shop items are limited and cost a shit ton of stars, why the fuck keep playing if I can't afford the shit in the shop?

and like, I understand that they've been struggling because their userbase has always been 90% jackasses. but the fact that they still won't bring back the forums (which were shut down after people wanted to address racist admins and they wanted people to stop talking about it, I haven't forgotten) has been baffling for a long time, and if they keep taking away core features of the game while simultaneously neglecting to fix broken shit, why even play?

the only thing Everskies has going for it is the constant updates to the clothing and even then, the releases recently have been absolutely awfully planned. like, it's hard to keep up when they go days to weeks without updating the shops, and then suddenly drop thousands of items at once.

and if you're unfamiliar with the game, idk why you read this but I'll explain the currency issue: Everskies boasts having a "realistic" currency and exchange system. There's Stardust and there's Stars. Stars being worth more. You could exchange them, but there's a fluctuating exchange rate based on what players are exchanging, so for a long time one Star was worth 150 Stardust, but these days a Star is worth 273. So, why the inflation?

The problem is that you primarily make money on Everskies by doing things like playing games, but the games give next to nothing as a payout! Usually under 200 Stardust, barely enough for one cheap shop item. Which would be fine, similar games have similar payouts— Virtual Popstar, for example, gives $150 & 150 Fans per game played/won. But Virtual Popstar also has weekly leaderboards for each game where users compete to be in the Top 10 and win unique limited clothing sets... Everskies only has leaderboards for the Top 3 of each game, every day and every week, the #1 only receives 300 Stars for a day, and 1000 for a week.

300 stars is absolutely nothing compared to the costs of items in high quality sets these days. People will price parts of their backgrounds at 100 stars, and make you buy multiple parts to have the full background... The Everskies economy is bad. EVERYTHING has gotten too expensive, and the only way players can keep up is by watching ads (1 ad = 1000 Stardust and 1 Star; You can watch 1 ad roughly every 5 minutes; Limited to 10 ads per hours.) and then exchanging the Stardust for Stars.

So recently they shut the exchanges down, but are still releasing shop items that are limited edition and that cost a lot of stars, even though there's no realistic way to afford those items. And I understand that people aren't entitled to these items! The problem is that they are literally impossible to get now unless you're spending real fucking money on this dress-up game. I mean, they've released 90. Ninety. Limited sets since Feb 14th alone, all of which are extremely expensive and unaffordable. The vast majority of which cost over 100 stars, some of which cost over 700 Stars. And these will all become unavailable after a month. (You can even see that a lot of them are already "on sale" because nobody can fucking afford them.)

Because the motto of Everskies seems to be: Fuck your playerbase, they don't need to have a good time!

[shockinglysubmissive]

One Day Down

WARNINGS: Stripping, Fingering (Reader receiving), Squirting

This is my piece for @missuga Love and Lockdown Collab

WC: 2K

“One day down, 13 more to go. Care to play a game to kill some time?” Your boyfriend asks, looking through your closest of board games. The pandemic had shut everything down, and Kuroo was unable to take the bus back to his apartment, so you two were trapped together for the next two weeks. He doesn’t wait for your response, finding a box and tugging it out of the stack carefully. “How about this one? It will kill at least two hours.” He holds out Monopoly, a smirk spread across his face.

“No way Tetsu! You get way too competitive! We still have nearly two weeks together. We can’t start hating each other already.” Despite your disagreeing words, you start to clear off the coffee table in front of you for the board. He sits down across from you, using a pillow to make the hardwood floor more comfortable.

“Oh. You are so mistaken. It won’t be a normal game of monopoly. Oh no no no Kitten, this will be so much more.” His eyes narrow, sliding a piece of paper over to you. You unfold it and scan over it quickly.

Shoes: $50

Socks or Tights: $50

Sweater or Jacket: $50

Shirt or Top: $100

Pants or Skirt: $100

Dress: $200

Bra: $300

Underwear: $500

“Are… are you serious? Strip monopoly?” You can’t help but giggle as he starts sorting cards. You don’t notice when he slips a stack of cards from his pocket, mixing them into the stack until they are mixed in fully. “If you wanted to see me naked you could have just asked to join me in the shower.” You add.

“ But this will be so much more fun. Seeing you all angry, your pretty tits pushed together with crossed arms because you realize you have to sell your panties and lose the game.” He sets the chance cards on their spot and sets the player pieces out on the board for you to pick.

Your fingers trace the ship, smirking as you pick it up and hand it to him. “Here you can be the ship because you’re going down.” You flash him an innocent smile as he picks up the dog.

“Fine, but you’ll be this one because I’m going to make you my bitch.” He says simply, eyes shining with joking excitement. You distribute the money, rolling your eyes as you start the game.

After a few turns, you had to sell your shirt for money to buy a property, and Kuroo sold his pants to pay for landing on your space. On your next turn, you land on a Chance space. You read it and blush bright red, having drawn one of the cards he had slipped in.

“Money is tight. Give another player a lapdance to steal an item of clothing from them.” Not giving him the chance to tease you for blushing, you move to his side of the table, straddling his lap and give him a half hearted dance. Tugging on the bottom of his shirt, you pull it over his head and put it on yourself. “Thank you for your shirt. Looks like I am fully dressed again.” You take your seat on the other side of the table again. He blinks at you slightly taken aback. “What? I never said that I would make this easy on you.“ You look at him innocently, Adjusting his shirt, which is too big for you.

A growl rumbles in his chest. He knows that you are winning, that doesn't stop him from being competitive. “The game's not over yet. I said I would make you my bitch, and I still intend to do that. I'm just letting you win for the moment because you look so cute when you smile.” Although he is smiling, there is a bit of anger in his words. You have known him for years, and Tetsu can be very competitive. He enjoys being the cunning one who wins. He hates when you are able to beat him without even trying to.

“ Mm.. Ok whatever makes you happy. I’ll let you believe that you will win.” You count your money, and organize the properties that you have collected so far. Unaware of the anger filling your boyfriend, his dick hardens seeing his shirt slide down your shoulder some.

The game continues for many more turns, clothes being sold, but chance cards giving clothes back. In the final few turns, Kuroo buys hotels for his blue properties, and you land on them. One having $50, and your panties left, you had to give up, letting your boyfriend win. Despite getting exactly what he wanted, he didn’t look happy. Your arms are crossed over your chest, a small pout settling on your face wanting him to look at you. Instead he just packs up the game.

“What’s wrong with you? You won! You get to see me naked and you’re still huffing and pouting like a child. What more do you want?” You demand, knowing that this game would end poorly. He glances up at you, his expression is unreadable. He stays silent, still refusing to acknowledge you, a slight scowl on his face. “Kuroo! I knew this game was a bad idea. I’m just going to bed. You can sleep on the couch if you want to keep acting like this.”

“You’ve been teasing me this whole game.” He says simply. You look shocked. Of all the reasons for him to be mad, it was because you teased him. Your boyfriend is known for being a giant tease, and he can’t handle receiving any.

“Hate to break it to you, but you were taunting me way more than I was with you. You get too competitive.” You mumble, grabbing your clothes to get dressed again. “I played the game that you wanted! You always tease me, so I thought I could do the same. Guess I was wrong. I will give you your space.” Houses and hotels are scattered as he drops them to grab your wrist, pulling you to make you sit on your knees so that you can see how his boxers have a large spot of precum soaking through. You swear that you can see him throbbing, even though the fabric.

His grip tightens as he begins to speak. “Biting your lip while thinking, letting your tits bounce when you get excited, slowly sliding off every piece of clothing. Oh and let's not forget the way that your fingertips would absent-mindedly drift to your exposed nipples. You would play it off like you were playing with your hair, but I saw the way your breathing changed.” He leans his face closer to yours, letting his warm breath fan against your ear. “We have 13 days let before we can leave this apartment, and I intend to fuck you so good you can’t walk right until then, understood?” He whispers in your ear. You swallow hard and nod, knowing that he will do just that.

Even when the sex between you both is slow and full of love and passion, he never fails to leave you so fucked out that you lose all ability to think. Seeing the look in his eyes from wanting you so bad, you knew that you were in for a lot of aches tomorrow.

He shoves the remaining game pieces on the floor, setting you on the coffee table. Using the fact that you lost, and were fully undressed to his advantage, he settles himself on his knees between your legs. “Think you can take me, or do you need me to stretch you out?” His voice is gentle as his fingers trace along your already slick folds. Unable to wait for you to answer, he slips his long middle finger into you. A soft moan leaves his lips as you lift your hips to feel his finger deeper. His own need is overshadowed by the desire to make you cum.

“Want more. Please Tetsu. I want you to stretch me out.” Your voice comes out a bit whinier than you hoped, desperate to feel the deep feelings that only he can give you. Taking mercy on you, he slides his ring finger in, curling both until he finds your g-spot. He quickens his ministrations, savoring in the way you react to him. His cock twitches, but he ignores it, too lost in the moans coming from your mouth.

When his thumb starts to circle your clit, you instinctively try to pull away, feeling pressure building in your core. “Ah. No moving.” He presses down just above your pelvic bone, creating more stimulation against your sweet spot. You squirm even more, feeling as if you may explode if the pressure builds any more. “Let go baby. Stop holding back. Relax.” His lips graze down your inner thigh.

At his words, the pressure releases, and you soak his hand with your cum. Your vision blurs and your hands roam to find something to hold on to. Settling for gripping your chest, your hips grind weakly against his hand until you become too sensitive.

He finally removes his hand, fingers dripping with your cum. Popping his fingers in his mouth, he lets out a soft moan. “Fuck I will never get tired of how good you taste.” He leans down and laps at your cum soaked folds. His delicate kitten licks move to your clit and you try to pull away.

“Tetsu… I want you to fuck me. I want you to feel good too.” You tug his hair to pull him up to look at you, eyes begging him to stuff you full. He hesitates for a moment, wanting to continue tasting you, but also wanting to fuck you so hard that neither one of you can think straight anymore. “Baby.” Your voice snaps him out of his thoughts, and he is hovering over you.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you attach your lips to his, opening your mouth just enough that his tongue slips into your mouth. His tongue tastes faintly like your cum, and you can’t help but blush. You slide your hands down his chest, clumsily tugging his boxers down. Pumping his cock to smear the precum, you move to line him up with your entrance.

“My needy girl. Don’t worry. I’m going to make you feel so good. I’m gonna make you cum all over me.” He pushes into you with one fluid snap of his hips. Your walls clamp down around him, already trying to milk him for all the cum he has. “If you aren’t… fuck… if you don’t stop I won’t be able… oh god… to move.” He half begs, trying to keep control as he rocks against you.

“Can’t help it. You just feel so good in me. I want to cum around you already.” Your voice comes out as needy, body already teetering on the edge just from his tip kissing your cervix as he rocks against it. Still sensitive from your first intense orgasm, then his tongue teasing every inch of your pussy, you feel as if you could cum again.

“Not yet baby. Just hold off for a little longer. I want you to cum with me.” He grits his teeth as he builds up to a steady pace. Tears start to well in your eyes as it becomes almost painful to not cum. “It’s okay. Just breathe. It’s going to be okay. A little longer. It will feel so good when you finally cum with me.” He tries to calm your nerves, kissing away the tear that slipped down your cheek.

You cling to his shoulders, mind going numb, and only being able to think about how good his dick is making you feel. “Cum for me. Fuck.” His voice tugs you back to reality just enough to realize you no longer have to hold back. Creaming all over him, you moan his name against his neck, trembling in his arms as he fucks his cum into you.

It takes you both a few moments to come back down from your highs, suddenly aware of the discomfort you feel from the coffee table. “Game night was fun, but can we fuck somewhere more comfortable tomorrow?” You ask softly, giggling softly against his shoulder.

@bummie @izukine @writesmcgee

[hskrealm]

innocence (m.)

pairing: drag racer yoongi x reader                     

genre: fluff, smutsmutsmut. (this post took a turn i swear)

word count: 3.2k

warnings: overstimulation, PET NAMES SO MANY PET NAMES WHAT WAS I THINKING, fingering, oral (f receiving), cute shit, virgin!reader, yoongi is a bit persuasive, etc.

summary: your best friend wants to take your innocence in every possible way.  

a/n: i wrote this MONTHS ago, and i literally forgot about it up until yesterday, or sometime before that? i was sad because I deleted it, but my bby @bitchyaus reblogged it after i posted it, and i have NEEEEVEEER been happier.

You hummed as you sat on your couch while scrolling through your social media feed and taking small bites of your favorite snack every now and then.

It was only 7:09. You’d usually find something to occupy yourself every day until 8:00 on the dot (although he’d come early sometimes, but that wasn’t often), which was when Yoongi would come knocking on your door with a new story to tell and to raid your fridge of whatever he could find.

If necessary, you’d tend to the few bruises his beautiful face would sport.

Once he was comfortable enough to tell you what his occupation was, you cringed the moment you imagined him sitting behind the wheel of a vehicle, pushing 200 to nearly 300 miles on a daily basis.

You begged him to consider something safer, to which he responded with a small smirk,

“I’ve been doing this years before I even met you. If I’ve managed to keep myself in good condition for this long, then I’m sure that you have nothing to worry about.”

This had become a repetitive cycle in the short year that you had known him. He’d shoot you a text before he went out for the day, and come speeding back to your place once he was let off of work.

Or–when he let himself off, rather. He never really was the type to follow rules anyway.

You smiled fondly at the thought of seeing his gummy smile sometime in the next hour.

You checked your phone again.

7:14.

Well, 46 minutes to be exact.

You sighed and tossed your head back against the couch cushions as you tried to register what about this man had you so whipped for him.

Could be the fact that he was a sweetheart when it came to you,

Or it could also be the fact that he looked so fucking hot driving those cars despite how much you hated seeing him behind the wheel.

Or, it could be that he had really, really pretty hands–

There was a loud knock at your door. It carried the same loudness that Yoongi’s carried.

Okay, you have really got to find yourself a hobby.

The person knocked twice, and then there was a three second pause before the last and final knock came.

You grinned as you rushed over toward the door.

There was his signature knock that he had given himself sometime a few weeks ago.

He suggested that he should have a special knock so you knew it was him, although you told him multiple times that no one other than him or your best friend came to visit.

He still wouldn’t let up even then, muttering something about how it would be the safest measure. You then (jokingly) proceeded to tell him he knew nothing about safety, which led him to tell you about all of the safety precautions people in his profession must take before even considering driving one of those high speed  cars.

He couldn’t take a joke, but that was alright. You loved him anyway.

You took a quick glance through the peephole just to make sure it was him before you unlocked the door.

As usual, he rushed in and threw his bag to the ground before making a beeline to your kitchen.

“Nice to see you too.” You smiled a bit, closing the door back and locking it behind yourself.

“I shouldn’t have to greet you anymore when I enter.” He spoke, although his voice was a bit muffled since he was bent over as he shuffled through your fridge.

“It’d be nice, though.” You sighed dramatically as you walked back over to your couch and flopped onto it.

“Sure.” He shrugged, returning from the kitchen to take his spot next to you on the couch as he always did.

“Hello, Princess.” He smirked, laughing at the way you rolled your eyes and looked away from him.

He’d called you that for forever now, and you’d be a terrible fucking liar if you were to say that it didn’t make your pussy clench.

He knew that it did, too, which was why he said it.

“Did you do something productive today?” He asked, as he took a bite out of one of the strawberries out of the bowl that he quickly prepared for himself.

“I did some school work earlier.” You shrugged, gesturing toward your closed laptop that sat on the arm of the couch closest to you.

He hummed, nodding approvingly.

“Good girl,” He noticed the way that your body shivered at his praise. He always talked like this, but for some reason it was really having an impact on you right now. 

“Have you eaten something filling today?” You bit your lip. 

You hadn’t had a ‘meal’, but you had some pretty filling snacks. You just weren’t in the mood to cook anything, or even order something.

There was no point in lying to him either, because he could see right through you.

“Depends on what the word filling means.” You responded, as if this wasn’t a question that he asked you everyday. 

Yoongi narrowed his eyes at you and set the bowl of strawberries down on your coffee table before quickly reaching over your thighs to grab the bag of chips that you had been snacking on before his arrival.

His hand brushed over the exposed skin of your legs, causing you to gulp. He was always a forward person, but never this forward.

“This isn’t a meal, ____ . “ He scolded, and you rolled your eyes.

“I know, but I can promise you that I am satiated.” Yoongi shook his head in disbelief.

“You hungry?” He asked, cocking his head to the side as he stared into your eyes with his arms crossed.

“Nope.” As if on cue, your stomach growled.

“Mhm.” He mocked, handing you the bowl of strawberries before standing up.

“What are you doing?” You asked, confused as to why he was suddenly up on his feet.

“I’m about to cook you something, little girl.” He rolled his eyes as he walked into the kitchen.

“Yoongiiii-“

“In the mood for pasta? You’ve got all of the ingredients I’d need to make you some alfredo.” You groaned.

“My stomach growls all the time! I’m not hungry, I swear.” He was already pulling out pots and pans from your cupboards as your voice went through one ear and out of the other.

“Suck on those strawberries with those pretty lips of yours while I cook this, hm?” He said, leaning against the kitchen counter with his elbows resting against it.

“I don’t want the straw–”

“I already put the noodles in the pot, so you’re shit out of luck.”

———

Yoongi had been in the kitchen for half an hour while you caught up on your favorite Netflix series.

You should’ve just lied and said yes. He was going through way too much trouble for you.

“Alright,”  He began, as he finally left the kitchen.

“Should be good to eat in a few minutes.” He slid back onto the couch.

“Mind if I use your laptop to check my stats? I’m sure they’ve gone up.” He bragged. You playfully rolled your eyes and handed him your laptop, before directing your attention back to your TV.

Yoongi began typing away for a few minutes, until his fingers paused, his eyes grew wide, and he choked on air.

“What? Those stats not what you expected them to be?” You laughed, Yoongi turning his head to look at you before clicking on a tab at the top of the screen and pushing the laptop in your direction.

“What– Oh my God, give me that!” You yelled, Yoongi easily fighting off your efforts to grab the laptop away from him by shoving his arm against your chest.

“Are these your nudes?” He asked, although it was painfully clear that they were.

Yoongi smirked at the way you began to blush profusely.

Holy shit, you were going to die of embarrassment. 

‘Play it cool.’ You thought to yourself.

“Yeah? So what if they are?” You used this opportunity to snatch the laptop away from him and close the tab, before shutting the laptop off and setting it on the coffee table where the empty strawberry bowl was.

Yoongi raised an eyebrow, taken aback by your response.

“Clearly you don’t seem to mind.” You smirked, gesturing to the bulge forming in his pants.

He dropped the smirk on his face as he inched closer to you. You reflexively backed away from him.

“You talk pretty big for a virgin, sweetheart.” He growled. Your stomach fell to the bottom of your ass at his words.

You weren’t sure of what to say.

“Uh, I never told���“

“You’d be surprised of what you tell me when you’re drunk.” He reached forward to twirl a strand of your hair around his pointer finger before tucking it behind your ear, as if he had done this to you before.

“Since we’re letting secrets go, you should know that I’ve thought about fucking you plenty of times.” He hummed, as he traced your jawline with his fingers.

“You haven’t got any idea of what thinking about stripping you of your innocence does to me, sweetheart.”

Your chest began to rise and fall rapidly.

“I know that you’d let me, too.” He slowly pushed you backward until your back hit the couch.

“You would let me, wouldn’t you?” He looked into your eyes, waiting for your approval before he took anything further.

You thought about it.

Did you really want to lose your virginity to this sexy drag racer that you’ve grown to become best friends with over the past year?

Hell yes.

“Yes, yes I’d let you.” You stuttered, causing him to groan at your admittance. 

He was going to corrupt you more and more day by day before you even realized it.

And fuck, he couldn’t wait.

“Hmm.” He hummed against your skin, as he nudged your head to the side so he could expose the skin of your neck.

He quickly began to suck love bites against the skin, eager to cut straight to the chase in order to get a taste of that perfect cunt that was spread wide in that picture.

“How far have you gone, baby?” He asked, as he tugged your shirt up over your chest and kissed his way around your breasts.

“I–I’ve, fuck,” You moaned, as he sucked one of your nipples into his mouth.

“I’m sorry, you’ve done what?” He mumbled against your hardening bud. You whimpered.

“I-I’ve masturbated with a toy.” Yoongi detached his mouth from your nipple.

“That’s all?” You nodded shyly.

“Fuck, you’re going to be the death of me.” He hungrily kissed down the rest of your body, stopping right above the band of your shorts.

“I’ve got to taste you to get you prepared to take me. Is that alright?” He wasn’t lying. It would help you adjust to his size a bit easier, but it was mostly for his own personal pleasure.

You nodded, and he wasted no time in tugging down your shorts and panties in one swift motion. 

“Oh my God.” He nearly whimpered at the sight of your untouched pussy. You began to close your legs as he stared down at your most intimate areas, which prompted him to roughly throw one of your legs over the back of the couch so you were forced to keep yourself spread for him.

“Don’t ever do that again.” He warned. You nodded, murmuring an apology as he laid himself flat against the couch and pulled your hips closer to his face.

He breathed shakily against your core. You began to writhe in his hold as his cool breath hit your exposed pussy lips.

“Are you sure about this, baby? We could stop this at any moment.” He asked for the final time. It made you smile that he continued to ask you if this was really what you wanted.

“I’m sure. Please–oh, shit!” You yelped. Yoongi hadn’t even let you finish your sentence before he had his lips wrapped around your clit.

Your hands hesitantly tangled in his hair, as you were uncertain if he was okay with you touching him or not.

He sensed your hesitation and moaned in approval as you testingly tugged at his blonde locks.

His moan vibrated against your core, causing you to buck your hips up toward his face.

He grunted at this, using one of his arms to pin you down to the couch by your stomach, while his other arm pushed your flailing leg away from his face so he had more access to his meal.

“So good, baby. So fucking good,” He growled into you, his cock growing harder underneath him as more of your juices began to gush onto his face.

You didn’t know how it was possible, but he managed to pull you even closer to him as he licked a long stripe from your dripping hole back up to your clit, before he dipped his tongue inside of your clenching cunt and (quite literally) fucked you with his tongue.

You were a mess above him, your hair matted and stuck to your sweaty forehead as you relished in the feeling of his tongue collecting every drop of your arousal.

“‘M gonna cum, so fucking close, please please–” You begged him with your eyes closed. He took a glance up at you, wanting to watch you come undone on his tongue.

“SHIT!” You screamed, the euphoric bliss of your first orgasm knocking the wind out of you.

Yoongi hummed and pulled his tongue out of you, slipping two of his fingers into his mouth before lining them up with your cunt.

“You with me, babygirl?” He asked. You opened your eyes so you could see him, but you immediately closed them again ad he slid his digits into your wet hole.

“Ughh, oh my fucking God!” You let out a broken moan, tears welling in your eyes from the overstimulation.

“Hey, you’re okay, hm? I need to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible if you’re still willing to take my cock.” His words were caring, although there was a bit of cockiness behind them, almost as if he knew that you still would be in at least some pain from the stretch.

The thought alone excited him.

“Just a little bit more, okay? Hold out for me.” You were about to protest, when he pressed his hand against your lower stomach and began to piston his fingers in and out of you like a machine. 

He curled them perfectly against that little spot inside of you that had your eyes rolling toward the back of your head, and your toes curling in pleasure.

Your mouth fell open in a silent scream as you came for the second time within a five minute span.

Yoongi left you to yourself for a moment as he hastily tugged his jeans down, not wanting to waste time to pull them off completely. 

He was so eager to have your little cunt pulsing around him.

He fished around in his back pocket for a condom. He was thanking himself mentally for forgetting to take it out the last time he wore those jeans a few weeks ago.

“Could you be a doll and roll this on for me, baby?” He tore the wrapper open with his teeth and quickly tossed it aside as he handed you the slippery thing.

You took it with shaky hands, still not completely over your last two orgasms as you gently grabbed his cock and spread the condom over it.

“Oh, fuck.” He growled, the feeling of your little hand spreading over his throbbing dick enough to make him cum right there.

He desperately needed to be inside of you.

He grabbed his cock and began to rub circles around your clit, the small action making you gasp for air because of how sensitive you already were.

“Think you can still handle me?” You looked up at him. He wasn’t smirking, but you could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Mhm, j-just please, be gentle.” You whimpered, and Yoongi nodded as he lined himself up with your entrance.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

For now.

He pushed just the tip into you, instantly catching your lips with his to prevent any sound of discomfort from leaving your mouth.

“Ready for some more?” He asked sweetly, as he pressed his forehead against yours. You winced, but nodded anyway.

He pushed the rest of his cock into you inch by inch, attempting to nullify the pain a bit by leaving kisses along the side of your neck and jaw.

“You’re taking me so well, ____.” He sat still for a moment, letting you adjust before he rocked his hips slightly.

He looked at you for approval, and when you nodded once he began to set a slow, steady rhythm with the pace of his thrusts.

“‘M not gonna last long, baby. You’re squeezing me so tight, I can barely fit my cock through.” You weren’t sure what it was about the way that he was talking to you, but it just made you clench around him even harder as he began to pick up speed.

“I need you to cum with me, Princess. Can you do that for me?” You nodded eagerly, already on the brink of insanity.

He licked his thumb and brought it down to your clit. You squeaked, and he grunted above you as he tried to ease himself inside of you without hurting you.

“Now, cum now.” He ordered, his arms shaking as he held himself up above you to prevent from collapsing on top of your chest.

You came with your mouth held open in a silent moan, your legs spasming around Yoongi’s waist as he slowly pulled out of you.

The corruption was only beginning.

“Hungry? I’m sure the food is plenty cool now.” You laughed breathlessly at his lame joke, as you covered your face with your hands while trying to catch your breath.

“I’ll go grab some for you, but I’ve got a question for you first.” He paused. “No, wait, two actually.” You glanced at him.

“Go for it.” You said, voice hoarse.

“Would you let me take you out sometime? I mean, on a real date?” You scoffed.

“I thought you were going to ask me to be your girlfriend or something.” You laughed. He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly.

“I was.” You froze.

“I backed out, though.”

“I mean, I would’ve said yes.” He snapped his head toward you.

“You would have?” You nodded, a small smile on your face.

“In that case, will you be my girlfriend, then?” You giggled at his shy demeanor, a complete 180 from how he handled you just a few minutes ago.

“Yes, I will.” He leaned down to peck your cheek.

“My last question...”

“Yeeeees?” You encouraged him to continue.

“Why are your nudes on your laptop anyway?”

“I hate you.”

tag list! let me know if you want to be on it. (you could send me a message, an ask, or just comment under this fic)

@bitchyaus @dontaskshhhhh @taesluttt @1-in-abillion @designjet @peachy-bhun @patpus @koracynthia120 @safi4x @lcnycto @someonewhowannadielol @dreamingsmile @rinastylesworld @fan-ati--c @sincemalik @bts-bay-bee @cestlaviecia @jeonjungkookiiee @bunny-kix03

[pixiedurango]

actual HELPFUL Skyrim mods

I’ve been wanting to post about modding my Skyrim experience for a while now. Only the sheer amount of installed and running mods made it an overwhelming endeavor which I couldn’t handle as we speak of 200+ mods as of today. Now I decided to break it down a bit to make it a reasonable post (or a bunch of) that might provide something helpful for the ones that - like me - love the casual game and attempt to find things that help me focusing on the story experience. (If any of you considers those to come cheating, probably it is but I do I and you do you and I wish you all the best. Bye.) I’m going to link to the nexus so everyone can find everything easily. (Also: Power and happiness to all the modders out there. You guys are awesome! 1. LockpickPro just as simple and functional as it sounds. Never want a game without it. I simply lack any patience of the vanilla lockpick system. Also saves a lot of perks you simply won’t have to invest into the lockpicking skills-tree.

2. Simply knock Have you ever known the struggle coming to a house at night, where the guy who sent you on a quest is sleeping and you have to wait for them to wake up? Or being a righteous character who has to get something from somewhere and the door is locked all the fucking time and you have to lockpick the door to get in do fulfill your quest? Worry no more. Simply knock and any friendly npc is most likely to get up and open the door for you whenever.

3. Barenziah Quest Markers Really Bethesda? 24 stones without a single clue? It’s like the equivalent to the dreaded shard search in Inquisition and it sucks just as much. I refuse to go without that markers anymore.

4. Convenient Horses I rarely do horse riding in Skyrim but when I do, I just don’t want my horsey to follow me everywhere through fast travel. Hence I use this handy mod to switch off that annoying feature.

5. Valuable merchants Simply rises the amount of gold to trade for up to 10.000 gold for every merchant in Skyrim.

6. soulgem crafting No link here because I obviously use a mod that is not to find anymore on the nexus and I can’t recommend any of the many current mods because I don’t know about how they work because they do different things than mine which basically just lets you upgrade soul gems at a forge y the ratio 2:1 -  BUT I can highly recommend the Acquisitive Soul Gems Multithreaded mod that will prevent lesser/tinier souls to jump into your valuable grand/black soul gems. Each soul will only go into a fitting soul gem and I find this is very neat of them.

7. Run for your lives is a handy mod that makes civilians flee into their houses or seek shelter anywhere in case of a dragon attack instead of running into the way, getting themselves killed and involuntarily raising your dragonborn’s bounty.

8. Enchanters Merchant Sets up a merchant stand in Whiterun where you can buy every vanilla enchantment via random items. This is probably really close to cheating but getting started with enchanting early in the game is always essential for me so I know I can buy the “carry weight” and “fortify sneak” enchantment (and anything else that comes in handy) early on. Of course you’ll need some (a lot) gold so its not THAT easy peasy anyway.

9. Ars Metallica Smithing mod. I actually use one called smithing 2.0 which I can’t find on the nexus anymore (it seems to be available on the steam workshop though) but it does basically the same things so I think I might link this one here.

10. Armored mage robes I fairly often play mages and it always bugged me that their robes are not armored at all. So this mod fixed that. In the same light I love to use JS Armored Circlets because no matter what I play, warrior or mage, I HATE helmets... I mean I spend 5 hours in the CC what do you expect? Hiding my pretty baby under an ugly helmet? Nope, don’t think so.

11. Glowing Ore Veins 300 - Is a life (and time) saver for me. I think the ore’s glowing is super helpful without being too bright. But I remember before running this mod even in mines I had difficulties to find the ores to mine. 

12. Arrow Conversion Spell - Is this cheating already? Maybe, but its actually super convenient to simply use a spell to upgrade all your arrows into the highest arrow class you have in your inventory. At some point you’ll end up with way too many arrows to ever use and you can go and sell them to make easy gold. I think most of them mods are pretty common and well known but maybe there are peeps out there who are still new to modding and can make some use of this. Also, if people have more recommendations in that light of usefulness, be my guest, reblog and ad.

Also check out my post about my favorite armor mods

[supercasey]

Dumb thoughts on the Child Avatars AU

I dunno, just some dumb ideas I’ve had since I started talking about the AU online/brainstorming about it. (Putting it under a readmore for everyone’s sake)

The “Daisy kidnaps Jon” situation in this AU is Daisy riding her bike to Simon Fairchild’s mansion, holding a water-gun up to both Mike and Jon’s heads, and ordering them to ride with her to the grocery store to buy soda and hang out at a nearby playground for the day. Cue Elias flipping tf out when Jon isn’t at Simon’s place when he goes to pick him up later, Simon being half asleep because he was napping while the kids hung out, and Mike getting soaked by Daisy before he agrees to go with her, and since this happens in, like, late fall or early winter, he gets pneumonia afterwards and can’t hang out for awhile, leading to the kids jokingly saying he’s dead. Btw the only reason the trio was found is because Basira was invited after they made it to the park, and she convinced Daisy to let the boys go home. Daisy literally only kidnapped them because she wanted to play with someone.

Also the Buried!Daisy arc is Daisy getting eaten by a Buried controlled sandbox and Jon jumping in after her. The rest of the kids, who thankfully witnessed this, spent the next three hours digging for them, with Breekon & Hope eventually joining in to help since they were in the area. Daisy and Jon form a trauma bond afterwards and are now best friends.

Jon keeps getting marked by shit and it’s stressing Elias out because hE’S NOT READY FOR THE WATCHER’S CROWN YET!!! He needs more time to prepare, but his son is literally getting marked faster than fucking Sonic.

Speaking of Sonic, seeing as the “Console Wars” (Sega vs Nintendo) are happening during this time period, the kids take the rivalry Very Seriously. The biggest arguments are had between Sasha, Daisy, Julia, and Mike, who are all on Team Sega, and Jon, Martin, Tim, and Danny, who are all on Team Nintendo.

Sasha, close to tears she’s so angry: “Sega DO what NintenDON’T, Tim!!!”

When Martin was born, he only had one thick clump of curly hair that was white, but as he’s grown older and entered the Lonely multiple times, more of his hair has begun to turn white. As of the time of the AU “starting” (so when he’s 8 years old), he looks like he has white highlights in his hair.

Trevor isn’t a fully-fledged Hunt avatar yet, but the girls more or less are, so if you’ve ever watched Wolf Children, that’s pretty much the situation Trevor is currently trapped in. His daughters keeping changing into wolf pups and running wild as he frantically tries to hide their powers from anyone who isn’t Gerry.

(All of the kids secretly know already, even Basira.)

Basira is pretty much the only “normal” kid of the avatar children, save MAYBE for Tim, but he’s been deeply marked by the circus and has a few tiny powers (think S3 Jon as he was figuring out some of his powers, but wasn’t a full-on Archivist just yet).

The season 1 gang (including Danny) are the closest group of friends in the AU, save for Daisy and Basira’s friendship, and they hang out a lot at each other’s homes on the weekends.

Adelard usually brings Jane with him for his “trips” away from the institute, so it’s not unusual for her to be gone for long periods of time. But she always sends postcards and gifts to the institute for everyone!

Helen is three years old, so theoretically she should be able to talk, but she rarely does so, preferring to communicate via giggles and laughter. Only Jon, the Stoker brothers, and Michael can understand her, and they take turns translating for everyone else.

Whenever she’s brought to the institute, Helen takes to toddling around after Jon and Martin, giggling up a storm the whole time. Jon finds it a bit annoying while Martin is endlessly amused by her antics.

A list of the guardian’s/adult’s ages before I fucking forget (as of when the AU “starts” in 1994): Gertrude Robinson - 62, Elias Bouchard “Jonah Magnus” - 51 (200+), Peter Lukas - 55, Simon Fairchild - 83 (300+), Gerard “Gerry” Keay - 30, Michael Shelley - 32, Alfred Grifter - Unknown, Adelard Dekker - 48, Nikola Orsinov - 30ish (100+), Annabelle Cane - 34 (Unknown), Trevor Herbert - 47, Agnes Montague - 25ish (60+), Jude Perry - 35, Jared Hopworth - 29, The Admiral - 10.

The “good” parents all keep trying to set up some kind of PTA meeting so they can actually talk about how to raise these supernatural kids properly, but it keeps going horribly wrong; last time they tried, Alfred Grifter and his band showed up and nearly made Simon go deaf, so no one wants to initiate the next attempt at a meeting.

Tbh, at this point the Fear rituals are more successful than Elias’s shitty attempts at forming a PTA.

At some point in the AU Gerry, Michael, and Trevor all pitch in to buy a decently big house together, which leads to some serious Shenanigans now that Melanie is around Michael and Trevor’s kids/wards... let’s just say there’s gonna be a lot of knife related accidents.

Gerry taught Melanie how to fight when he took her in and it is the single worst decision he’s ever made in his short, goth life, even if he’ll never admit it. Melanie can now beat the shit out of everyone but Julia and Daisy, and it’s pure chaos every time. Tim puts up a decent fight, but he’s been spoiled on easy wins over his brother all his life. Jon tries and fails to so much as push her. Martin runs away crying before Melanie even throws the first punch. Needless to say, the other kids are very cautious about playing with Melanie now.

None of the kids have an education of any kind except for Mike. I’m serious; the only kid who’s decently educated is being raised by Foxy Grandpa Off His Shits McGee! Julia and Daisy have had some public education but not much, Elias refuses to do anything but home-school Jon yet he sucks shit at math, Tim and Danny don’t even know what a school fucking looks like, Melanie and Jane were too young to go to school when they became avatars, Martin has only recently been allowed near other kids so fuck public school (Peter can do math but Nothing Else), Annabelle fucking forgot to give Sasha any kind of an education outside of Web stuff, and Helen is still a very small child. None of these kids have gone to school for more than a few years at most and dear g-d is that gonna suck for them later down the line.

As a result of this, Basira has taught the other kids a few things when she’s come over and insisted on playing “school” with everyone, but she’s still just a kid and can’t always get them to pay attention during her lessons.

Because of this Rosie, Gerry, Michael, and Gertrude have all started making an effort to more or less home-school all of the kids, which has gone... well enough, I suppose. However, things have recently taken a weird turn since Jon keeps giving everyone the answers to assignments/tests via telepathy.

Jon: Whoa, you can make tea all by yourself, Martin!? Martin: Yeah, I’ve been doing it by myself since I was a toddler. I can also do laundry, mop floors, vacuum, and cook a few things, too! Tim: Wow, that’s really cool, Martin! I wish I could do stuff like that. Gertrude, off to the side: *Gives Peter a horrified look* I’m sorry, but did Martin just say he’s been making tea on his own since he was a toddler? Peter:  ╮(╯ _╰ )╭  Unfortunately, I’m severely depressed.

Yeeeeeeeah, Martin’s in a similar childhood situation to his canon one, but at least there are people actually willing to help him out of it in this universe. Also, Peter will clean himself up at some point here, he’s just still dealing with more or less disowning himself from his family and learning hoe to not be so lonely.

Speaking Of Which, the Lukas family are pretty big antagonists in this AU, primarily through Peter’s mother (I’ll come up with a name for her later if I can’t find it on the wiki), who is trying to kidnap Martin and more or less feed him to the Lonely so Peter will get over his “childish feelings” and return to being her favorite child.

And yes, she DOES accidentally kidnap Jon instead at some point... this kid can literally not avoid getting kidnapped.

I like to think Mike and Julia are really good friends in this AU, being the closest in age and all. They hang out a lot since their dads are both so chill and won’t get upset about it, the two of them mostly just playing video games, watching movies, and biking around their respective neighborhoods together.

(Also they may or may not be responsible for a statement that involves a woman seeing a “flying wolf” passing over London... they’ve yet to confess to it, but Elias is dead certain they’re behind the incident.)

The worms incident is 100% Jane’s secret worm collection getting fucking loose... she was keeping them in the walls “for safe keeping” and No One Fucking Knew, not even Elias, until Jon saw a spider, punched the wall, and Revealed them.

Jon and Tim got their scars because Jane lost control of the worms and they burrowed into the kids. Cue a very panicked 999 call from someone in the institute and Child Services almost getting involved, but Elias managed to cover it up.

Afterwards, Jon is incredibly self-conscious about his worm scars, but Martin tells him “now we both have freckles!” and it honestly makes him feel a little better about the whole thing.

Also Adelard makes an effort to track down a child psychologist/counselor with institute ties so he can get Jane some therapy/help controlling her powers. He loves her to the moon and back, and he’s terrified of her getting traumatized by what she accidentally did.

During the incident, a Notthem gets loose from Artifact Storage and attacks Sasha, but seeing as Sasha is of the Web and the Notthem is connected to a Web artifact, it only manages to really hurt her, but thankfully not kill her. She ends up hospitalized for a few weeks, but comes out fine later on. The table mysteriously disappears afterwards, and no one knows if it was Gertrude or Annabelle’s doing, but either way, the kids never have to deal with a Notthem again.

At some point I wanna get into Jon’s paranoia in season 2 for this AU, but I’m considering changing it from being because of the Jane Prentiss issue to be because of Mr. Spider almost killing him. I dunno how exactly it’ll play out, but I think it has a lot of potential!

Okay, before I end this post full of weird rambling ideas for the AU, I wanna make a list of the powers that the kids have at the time of the story “starting”/the ones they develop down the line because Jonny Sims himself said that all avatars have different powers, and I really wanna infodump on my thoughts for the kids!

Current powers of Jonathan Sims-Bouchard: Can simply know things whenever he wants to (so long as the Eye lets him, but the Eye sometimes keeps him from knowing anything he isn’t mature enough to handle), can compel people to tell him things (the other kids are better at resisting it, and so are other people touched by the Eye), can survive on very little food if he’s fed mostly statements/other people’s trauma, can non-consensually feel the pain and emotions of the people around him, has some weak telepathy powers, and he can subconsciously summon tape recorders.

Future powers of Jonathan Sims-Bouchard: Increased healing abilities, can know most anything if he tries, ability to resist other Eye avatars’ compulsions, can survive purely off of statements/other people’s trauma, can choose whether or not to feel the pain and emotions of the people around him, has much stronger telepathy powers than before, can force himself into people’s minds and read their thoughts, and he can summon tape recorders at will (though some still show up without his knowledge sometimes).

Current powers of Martin Blackwood-Lukas: Can disappear into the Fog for several hours at a time (he cannot be seen by anyone but other Lonely avatars while in the fog), can summon clouds of fog that he can momentarily hide things in (including people), can “banish” most anyone into the fog, and has “Sea Captain Eyes” (he knows where the Tundra is at all times, and can lead someone to it without a map or compass).

Future powers of Martin Blackwood-Lukas: Can change his hair color at will (only to red, white, and a mix of the two colors), can see much better in the Fog and can find anyone he’s pushed into it, can more or less teleport using the Fog, and he has what’s more or less a pocket dimension of fog for storage/hiding his friends from danger (think the inside of Gems in Steven Universe).

Current powers of Tim Stoker-Orsinov: Can make small bipedal toys “come to life” for a few minutes at a time (they can’t talk or communicate; only move around and perform small tasks/dances), can tell when a Notthem is masquerading as someone else, is supernaturally talented at gymnastics, and can dance alongside the creatures of the Stranger without being fully corrupted by them.

Future powers of Tim Stoker-Orsinov: Better control over the powers he already has as well as a high tolerance for the Spiral.

Current powers of Danny Stoker-Orsinov: Can order around creatures of the Stranger against their will, can tell when a Notthem is masquerading as someone else, can dance alongside the creatures of the Stranger without being fully corrupted by them, is supernaturally talented at gymnastics, and can change his voice to anything he likes (not always intentionally, though).

Future powers of Danny Stoker-Orsinov: Can more or less “teleport” to other circus locations by walking into theaters, can now change his voice to whatever he likes with his knowledge and consent, can take over as the Stranger’s ringmaster if necessary, can trigger a mesmerizing dance whenever he’d like, and has a high tolerance for the Spiral.

Current powers of Sasha James-Cane: Can communicate with spiders and have them send messages to other Web avatars, can read minds if she tries really hard, can “trap“ other entities in large webs that she can summon (takes a lot of energy), and she has Spider-Man-like abilities (can walk on walls and ceilings, can carry much more than her weight should allow, etc).

Future powers of Sasha James-Cane: Can now read minds without too much effort, can navigate almost any area that’s being controlled/influenced by the Web, can create webs without nearly as much effort as before, can transform her body to have more arms, legs, and eyes, and she now has venomous fangs (which can thankfully be controlled and/or hidden).

Current powers of Alice “Daisy” Tonner: Can turn into a wolf at will/when she’s especially emotional, can smell blood from several miles away, and has supernatural senses/physical abilities.

Future powers of Alice “Daisy” Tonner: Can now track most any monster she’s hunting once she gets at least one good look at them, can communicate with other Hunters via howling, and can navigate the Buried if needed (though this is very triggering for her and will cause her to pass out afterwards).

Current powers of Julia Montauk: Can turn into a wolf at will/when she’s especially emotional, can smell blood from several miles away, has supernatural senses/physical abilities, can track most any monster if she knows their name, can communicate with other Hunters via howling, and she can shift into a bipedal werewolf when she feels like she’s in danger.

Future powers of Julia Montauk: All of her previous powers have drastically improved, plus she has better control of them now.

Current powers of Basira Hussain: She has common fucking sense, something almost none of the other children have.

Future powers of Basira Hussain: She common sense AND she has a werewolf GF now. :) ((No dating for the babies, not until they’re at least teenagers))

Current powers of Melanie King-Grifter: Can listen to Grifter’s Bone without being damaged in any way, the music of Grifter’s Bone makes her powers exemplified for a period of time after she listens to it, the smell of blood triggers her to become violent, she can summon sharp weapons (knives, swords, etc) from thin air, and she can see a red aura around other people who have been marked by the Slaughter.

Future powers of Melanie King-Grifter: She has much better control of her abilities now, she can perform Grifter’s Bone songs for people and keep them from dying/going feral, and she can now also summon other weapons from thin air (guns, baseball bats, etc).

Current powers of Oliver Banks: Can see people’s deaths a week in advance via his dreams, he sees dark tentacles around people who are going to die soon, can see but not talk to ghosts, and he can smell death on anyone who’s undead/controlling other people’s bodies.

Future powers of Oliver Banks: Can raise the dead and control them to do his bidding (takes a lot of energy), can speak cat (not End related; Admiral related), and he can cause people to die within the week if he touches them in his dreams.

Current powers of Georgie Barker: Can see a “death countdown” over people who are going to die within the next thirty days, doesn’t feel any fear whatsoever, can see but not talk to ghosts, and she sees a dark sludge staining the clothes of people who have been marked by the End.

Future powers of Georgie Barker: Can bring people back to life for a minute or so by touching them (think Pushing Daisies type powers), can speak cat (not End related; Admiral is best cat dad), and she can communicate with ghosts much better now.

Current powers of Jane Prentiss-Dekker: Can summon bugs of most kinds from her mouth and under her fingernails, can communicate with bugs, and can fight off most diseases without any trouble.

Future powers of Jane Prentiss-Dekker: Can now completely control bugs via a hive mind effect, can summon bugs from anywhere on her body, has much stronger healing abilities than Jon, and she can see invisible bugs crawling on the skin of those who the Corruption wants her to get rid of (it’s hard for her not to give in to it’s desires).

Current powers of Mike Crew-Fairchild: Can levitate/fly at will, can summon clouds of any kind (rain, thunder, snow, etc) in any conditions, has much higher resistance to the weather/temperature, and he can “banish” people into the Vast at will.

Future powers of Mike Crew-Fairchild: Same as before, but with slightly better control than he had as a teenager.

Current powers for Helen Richardson-Shelley: Can change the world around her to be more like the Spiral (adding more doors, changing the colors of things, causing hallucinations, etc), can change any door into a doorway into the Spiral, and she can amplify her voice (very hard to control as a baby).

Future powers for Helen Richardson-Shelley: Can now summon doors that lead to the Spiral from thin air, has much better control over her powers and abilities than before, can morph her body to be longer and sharper at will, and she can “banish” people into the endless hallways of the Spiral.

((Holy shit, that took awhile))

Anyways, here’s a playlist I made for the AU, feel free to scream at me for my very weird taste in music: Pinky Swear That You Won’t Go Changing

[businessplanningsolutions]

The Authority of Money



During my recent trip to the U.S., I decided to play tourist and visit a few places that I had never been. One of the more interesting destinations was the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, Illinois.

    No matter how much it’s talked about in the news and politics, I really had no idea exactly what the Federal Reserve Bank does. I know its name is printed at the top of all of my Benjamin, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. With the help of a friend I’ve had for 40 years, I signed up to take the tour and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the place that money calls home. Knowing the amount of money that passes through the place and seeing the turn of the century style conjured up images of caper stories the whole time I was there. I couldn’t help but think  

“okay, if I was going to rob this place, how would I do it?”

 

The Guided Tour

While it was interesting to learn what the Federal Reserve Bank does, the real beauty of the visit was a special tour through some of the innards with a guide who knows trivia that spans centuries and literally trillions of dollars. Jerry, our tour guide, was a fascinating man who returned from the boredom of retirement to be a tour guide, talking guests through the museum.

    He wore a light green and white suit, looking like he too had been minted by the U.S. government decades ago. Over the course of the next hour or so, he shared background on the Fed, stories and more numbers than anyone should be able to recall.

In the main museum, we got to see a number of displays about the history of currency in the United States, including a couple of displays of One Million Dollars:

We also got to learn a bit about what the Federal Reserve Bank does in a video that was put together in-house – nice, but a bit dry. I’m sharing what I took away from it, which may be entirely inaccurate, due to my failing memory.

The Fed’s charter is to “oversee how monetary policy is implemented.” It comes down to three primary functions:

they oversee how payment systems work, so the way checks are cashed, the way credit card and online transactions take place;

 they are the regulators of banks in the U.S., so they’re the ones who go in and audit banks to make sure they’re not breaking any laws and

The most visible function is that they’re responsible for moving cash around.

    For most of us, that’s the fascinating part of what they do. Every day of the week, shipments of currency come from the United States mints to the Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed then ships that currency out to the banks that need it. While the larger bills are transported by armored car every day, the $1 bills are packed into unmarked semi-trailers and driven to the building to prepare them for distribution.

I guess it’s not much different from shipping a truckload of iPhones to a warehouse, but somehow it SEEMS riskier that they do that.

On the flip side of things, the Fed gets deliveries of cash from the banks, which is counted and bundled for re-distribution. This is also the step that includes pulling old and worn bills out of circulation. One of the most surprising things I saw was how little wear a bill needs for it to be taken out of circulation. Most of the bills in your wallet are probably not going to pass.

About $17 Million in currency is destroyed every day at the Chicago Fed, which is one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The Money Museum even gives you a small bag of shredded money as a souvenir, which contains the remnants of currency equal to about $370. One of the more interesting facts about this shredded currency is that until the mid 20th century, the shredded bills were burned, but because of the toxic chemicals used in the ink, they had to stop doing that.

 It’s now shipped off to special landfills for toxic materials. Kind of makes you worry about handling it every day, doesn’t it?

A Personal Tour

I had the pleasure of getting a more personal tour, including a trip to see the money sorting and counting machines (through a thick glass window, of course), but sadly the machines weren’t operating that day.

    Those functions are visible from an additional section of the Museum that was closed off in 2001, so not many people get to visit it.

    My other favorite part was looking at the high denomination currency that’s no longer in circulation. One display has a $10,000 bill in it, along with several other bills from the 200-ish years of American money printing. The 10k bills were printed until the 1940s and discontinued when it became apparent that virtually all bills above $1000 in denomination were being used for criminal purposes.

 Just over 300 of the bills survive, most of which are in the hands of collectors. About 9 years ago, one of them actually arrived at the Fed through normal banking channels! Someone had gotten hold of it (perhaps stored in a box in an attic somewhere), taken it to their local bank and deposited it. With a quick bit of research, they’d have discovered it was worth close to 10 times that to a collector.

    

I’d love to make a few suggestions to the guys at the Money Museum as improvements, but since this is solely for PR (admission is free), I’m sure they are limited in how much they invest in the tour. Although considering the constant saber-rattling in Congress about the Fed, maybe they could use a bit stronger PR push.

One of my biggest pet peeves with 90% of museums is that no one really thinks about photos. Placement of light fixtures to minimize glare, setting up obstruction free angles and allowing guests the chance to pose without impeding traffic are critical factors for any museum and most of them don’t think that through.

Re-open the closed section of the tour. Money counting and shredding is one of the more fascinating things that happens at the Fed and no one gets to see it. I get it. 9/11 happened. But the security checks and procedures keep out bank robbers, so I’m sure they can be effective for other people, too.

Tell some stories. Interactive displays are all well and good, but you’ve got an asset like Jerry who has hundreds of stories in his arsenal. I’m the only one who heard any of them. Everyone else just heard him introduce the video and rattle off a lot of facts and figures.

    

Stories = excitement. Spend a little money and create a new video to share some of these stories in the context of explaining what the Fed does.

All unsolicited advice, of course, but I found the place fascinating and woefully under-utilized. As an average tourist, there just wouldn’t be a lot to hold my interest without some upgrades.

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[hashtagartistlife]

and then there were none

Ichigo Kurosaki, college student, gets roped into a dorm game with a long tradition and finds it a little more than he bargained for. Kuchiki Rukia, college student, has never done anything by halves-- and that includes stupid traditional dorm welcoming games. The r.a.s regret the day they placed her knife in his hands.

There was a tumblr post going around that I can no longer find about a welcoming game at an American college dormitory. The basic idea behind it was that everyone in the dorms get a plastic knife with someone else's name on it, and they had to find that person and 'stab' them with the knife (just a simple touch was counted as valid) to 'murder' them. The 'victim' is then out of the game, and they had to hand over their own plastic knife to their 'murderer'. Whoever is on the 'victim's plastic knife was the new victim for the 'murderer'.

My first instinct upon seeing anything vaguely amusing is always 'make it ichiruki'. So here's the fic about it.

(There's two chapters planned, and please don't ask me when the next chapter will be up, it's not high on my priority list. But it WILL come, some day. I don't make it a habit to abandon fic, even though sometimes it seems like I have. Promise.)

___________________________________________________________

So, college dorms were pretty wild. 

For small-town Karakura boy Kurosaki Ichigo, living in a co-ed dorm at a university in America has been nothing short of an eye-opening experience. There are people walking around barefeet in only a towel. Some girl set off the smoke alarm because she was cooking cup noodles in the bathroom at 2am. He’s pretty sure he’s heard his dormmates having sex through the walls on more than one occasion, and the food served at the cafeteria is only edible about half the time. All in all, it’s a little bemusing, but not at all unpleasant, and by the third week of his move he thinks he’s settling in ok. His room is mostly in order, and he’s made at least passing acquaintances with the people on his floor. His English is improving at a frankly astonishing speed, and classes don’t start till next week. He’s figured out which stall in the bathroom spits out the most reliable hot water, and he really thinks he’s got a good handle on this whole ‘dorm living’ thing—

that is, until he gets back to his dorm room one night to find a plastic knife shoved under his door. 

“The fuck…?” he mutters, trying to figure out if this was an American befriending ritual, or maybe someone was just attempting to threaten him (badly)? Did his room look like a trashcan? Did Chad (he thinks that was his name) from room 209 remember what he said about not having a grasp on American cutlery yet and decide to help him in a subtle way? 

He raps on the door next to his, and a muffled voice yells ‘who is it?’

“It’s Kurosaki from 206,” he replies, and the door cracks open to reveal a single brown eye and a strand of auburn hair. 

“Oh, hi, Kurosaki-kun!” Inoue Orihime from 207 was…. an odd girl. She liked putting parsley in her coffee and read astrophysics textbooks for fun. But Ichigo doesn’t remember her ever being this defensive— she’d always been enthusiastic about greeting people, so the way that she refuses to open her door more than an inch is uncharacteristic of her. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, I just got back from the library and there was this knife shoved under my door—”

At this, Inoue screams and slams her door shut; Ichigo is left more than a little bemused. “Inoue? What the hell— it’s only a plastic knife!” 

“I know that, Kurosaki-kun! As if I’m just going to let you win this— but by the way, this is terrible strategy, now I know to avoid you like the plague—”

“Strategy?! Inoue, what the fuck— wait, is this plastic knife meant to mean something? Is this some American etiquette thing? I have no idea what’s going on. Please explain to me what this knife means—”

Inoue opens her door a crack again, and looks at him suspiciously. 

“Wait, so you didn’t hear the murder announcement at breakfast today?” 

“Murder announcement?! Jesus FUCK, who died—”

“Nobody died, Kurosaki-kun, don’t be overdramatic—”

“AS FAR AS MY ENGLISH SKILLS GO, INOUE, MURDER MEANS SOMEBODY DIED—”

“Wow, you really don’t listen to the breakfast announcements at all, do you?” Inoue sounds supremely unimpressed, but at least she opens the door a bit further; except what the hell is she only wearing a towel—?!

“Inoue why the fuck are you only wearing a towel—”

Inoue waves her hand like that’s a negligible detail. “Just got out of the shower, but also murder strategy. You’re immune if you’re naked, and some of the second years recommended this. I’m in this to win, Kurosaki-kun, there’s a whole year’s supply of cup noodles in this for me—”

“Wait, what? Cup noodles?” That got his attention. Anything that scored him a whole year’s supply of free cup noodles was okay in his book. Questionable towel-wearing included. “Now you really gotta explain what’s going on.” 

“I should leave you to rot, one less person to compete against for me.” Inoue purses her lips. “But you were the first one to pour a bucket of water on that fire I started last week, so fine, I’ll let you in on the murder details.” 

“Not a sentence I thought I’d ever hear in my life, but cheers, America,” Ichigo mutters. 

“So basically, murder’s a game that the whole dorm plays every year,” Inoue starts explaining, and Ichigo’s still trying to get over the weirdness of the word murder being used so casually— “and everyone gets these plastic knives with someone’s name written on them, and the idea is you have to stab that person with the knife and ‘’’kill’’’ them. Then you get their knife, and you just keep killing people and collecting knives until you’re the last person left! Hmm, there were a couple of rules, you can’t kill someone in the dining room or their own rooms, and you’re immune if you’re naked, but I think that was it? Anyway. So yeah! That’s what’s going on here!” 

Ichigo squints at his knife in the half-dark of the corridor that, for some reason, has had all its lights screwed out. “Ok, that’s…. Great, I suppose? What happens if I don’t know who the person on my knife is?”

“Then you find out, Kurosaki-kun! This game was ostensibly devised so that we make friends, you know.”

“There are no friends when it comes to a year’s free supply of cup noodles,” Ichigo says, and Inoue claps her hands. 

“Precisely! You’re getting the hang of it now. Ergo, for the next week, I don’t know you, ok? Good luck!” 

Inoue slams her door shut, and Ichigo shuffles back to his room, feeling slightly more enlightened than before. 

But still— 

“Who the hell is Rukia Kuchiki?”

__________________________________________________________

By the second week of Murder, Ichigo’s seen enough naked butts to last him a lifetime. It seems that voluntary nakedness is a vastly preferable fate for many than losing a shot at a year’s supply of free cup noodles, and honestly if that doesn’t sum up the average college student mindset Ichigo doesn’t know what does. (He’d probably be a lot more judgemental about it, though, if he hadn’t spent at least a few hours earnestly contemplating the strategy himself.) 

Thankfully, he and Chad have an alliance of sorts that makes him wearing a towel round the place redundant. He’d enlisted the giant’s help in identifying his would-be target, and after ascertaining that he wasn’t the name on Chad’s knife either (Chad had one Asano Keigo as his victim, Ichigo only knows him as that guy who swallowed a whole tablespoon of cinnamon powder on a dare), the two of them had agreed to watch the other’s back. Chad was set to pull off his first attack tomorrow, but Ichigo still had no clue who or where Rukia Kuchiki was. 

Part of the problem was that the dorm was so friggin’ huge; there were four wings, each with five floors, and each floor had ten rooms. That was 200 potential students he had to parse through to find his victim, and it wasn’t exactly like he could go around asking people if they knew her. Murder had amped hostility on campus up by 300%, and almost nobody stopped for idle chatter anymore.

Whoever had devised this as a way of promoting friendliness and unity on campus was a giant fuckin’ moron. 

“Still no word on Kuchiki?” Chad asks, after another day of paranoia and stalking Asano to make sure the plan goes off without a hitch, and Ichigo shakes his head. 

“Are they even real at this stage? Are we sure I haven’t been given someone who doesn’t exist?” 

“Ghost student?” 

“Fuckin’ potentially? Who the fuck knows with America.”

Chad hides a smile behind his rickety old guitar and starts tuning. “I’ll ask around my bandmates tomorrow, if you’d like.” 

“Naw, s’alright. I don’t want word to get out that I’m looking for them. What kinda giant flashing beacon that says HEY, I’M YOUR POTENTIAL MURDERER, right?” 

“If you say so.” 

“I do.” Because dammit all, Ichigo’s serious about this thing. A whole year’s supply of cup noodles is no joking matter. Speaking of which, he wonders how Inoue is doing with her murders…

_______________________________________________________________

Inoue, as it turns out, is doing swimmingly. While Ichigo has done little more than sit around and twiddle his thumbs, Inoue has already racked up an impressive collection of plastic knives— three, she informs him that night, while cheerfully throwing him a celebratory can of leek soda (Ichigo gingerly sets it down behind her sofa when she's not looking). She was making good headway on her next victim, as well, and if all went according to plan she'd have her fourth knife tomorrow morning—

“But, you know, Kurosaki-kun,” she muses, sipping on her own can of beetroot soda (where did she get these concoctions from!?), “You're awfully cavalier about this whole thing. For all you know, you could be my next victim,but here you are, sitting on my couch. Or do you just not care about cup noodles?”

He snorts. “If you ever got ahold of my knife, I'm pretty sure I'd be dead before we even got to have this conversation.”

“True,” she concedes— credit where credit is due. “So nobody’s popped up to try to kill you yet?”

“Nope,” he replies, popping the p a little. Honestly, that was the only thing making him feel better about his complete inability to murder anyone— the fact that whoever had his knife was having just as much difficulty tracking him down. One week in, and he'd not seen hide nor hair of this Rukia Kuchiki person, and, big dorm or not, her (her? Ichigo assumes it's a girl, though Rukia is very unusual for a Japanese name) elusiveness is getting to be extremely impressive. “But Chad is watching my back for me anyway. I'm covered.”

“Hmm.” Inoue purses her lips. “That's a lot of faith in someone you've only known, for, what, three weeks?”

“Chad is trustworthy,” Ichigo says firmly. He stands and stretches up to the ceiling, stifling a yawn. “And speaking of Chad, I better get to bed. He's ambushing Asano tomorrow, I told him I'd be there for backup.”

Inoue waves. “Good luck to Sado-kun, then. I’m gonna stay up a bit to refine my own dastardly plans.”

He shakes his head and opens the door, peering out into the corridor to make sure the coast was clear. He and Inoue were literally next door neighbours, but you couldn't be too careful these days. “When you win this thing I'm gonna be expecting free noodles from you occasionally. Remember I stopped you from burning down the whole dorms last week.”

“I'll consider it.”

“‘Night, then.”

“Goodnight, Kurosaki-kun. Dream of Rukia Kuchiki tonight!”

“At this stage,” Ichigo mutters, as he slips back into his room, “anything to help me find out who the hell she is.”

_______________________________________________________

Drastic times call for drastic measures. The next morning, after a successful ambush on Asano (Chad is now +1 plastic knife; his new victim is called Yammy Llargo), Ichigo tracks down someone he'd been avoiding ever since his move to America and claps a hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey.” 

Arisawa Tatsuki whirls around and body-slams him into the ground. “Who the fuck do you think you— Ichigo?”

He winces. “Hi.”

Tatsuki puts her hands on her hips and does not offer him any help getting up. “Oh, so you're talking to me now?”

“I just said hi, didn't I?”

“You know, you're such a fucking asshole, did it ever occur in your pathetic little brain to apologise—”

“I'm sorry,” Ichigo mutters sullenly. “Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was also going to college in America, I'm sorry you found out only when you bumped into me at the dorm welcoming party, it's just that we had that whole farewell party for you and we had that touching goodbye and, look it's just awkward that I got a second round admissions letter the very next day, it's like saying bye to a friend and then finding out you're walking the same way to the carpark, ok, it’s embarrassing—”

“Oh my god, you drama queen. Were you ever planning on telling me? Ever? Your best friend since childhood?”

“... I might’ve planned to tell you at the beginning of the next semester by pretending I was on exchange,” he admits. Tatsuki throws her hands up in the air. 

“You were going to avoid me for a whole semester?!”

“Look, I didn't know I’d end up in the same dorm as you, ok? It's a big campus!”

“Un-be-lievable,” she says, turning on a heel and walking away from him. “You know what, keep ignoring me. Don’t hang out around here. I don’t want your incredible loser vibes accidentally rubbing off—” 

“I said sorry, didn’t I? Wait, wait, I had something to ask you!” 

“Sorry doesn’t pay my bills, Ichigo!” 

Ichigo catches up to her and falls into stride. “You don’t even pay bills! You’re on a full scholarship!”

Tatsuki manages a smug smile. “If you’re so jealous, maybe you should have kept up with karate.”

Ichigo grumbles. “Yeah, right, like I had a chance at a physical education scholarship with you in the same dojo.” 

“I’m glad you’re finally acknowledging my superiority—!”

“You beat my ass continuously from when we were six to sixteen, I threw away any pride I had a long damn time ago.” He makes a face at the memory, then shakes his head to refocus. “Anyway, this isn’t why I was here. Listen, have you heard of anyone around here called Rukia Kuchiki—?”

Tatsuki cocks her head to the side at that, a thoughtful expression on her face. “Kuchiki…? Name sounds familiar. Why?”

Ichigo feels his heart speed up in his chest. “What, really? Where did you hear it? Do you know her?” 

And now she was grinning again and— oh, no, Ichigo does not like the look of that smile. “Why do you want to know?” she asks, and the question is laden with suggestion. Ichigo flushes. 

“None of your damn busi— look, it’s not what you think—”

“Aw, my little mama’s boy Ichigo is all grown up, I remember when you used to go crying to your mom for a scraped knee and now you’re chasing after women—” 

“It’s for murder, you absolute pain in the butt! She’s my target!”

Tatsuki bursts out laughing, hearty peals of laughter bouncing off the courtyard walls. “Alright, alright, I get you. I was just teasing, Ichigo, geez. Anyway, the name sounds familiar, but that doesn’t mean I know her. I can’t remember where I’ve heard it before.”

Ichigo deflates as quickly as he’d been riled up. “Are you serious right now—?”

“Hey, you can talk, mister ‘I’m-really-bad-at-remembering-names-and-faces! And yeah, I’m serious. I don’t have a stake in murder anymore. I got killed two days in.”

Ok, that surprises him. He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “What, really? Who the hell did you in?”

“Some girl named Orihime Inoue,” she grumbles, kicking a nearby rock. “Tae-kwon-do black belt, apparently??? She doesn’t even look the type!” 

Ichigo makes a noise of sympathy and understanding. He should have guessed.

“Anyway, now I’m roped into helping her. So I don’t think I’d be able to tell you about Rukia Kuchiki, even if I’d known any more about her. Victims who are murdered have to help their murderer, and all.”

Ichigo frowns. “Wait, those are the rules?”

“That’s what Inoue said.” 

“............ I am about 95% sure that those were not part of murder rules.”

There’s a short silence between the two as they process this.

“...... scary girl,” Tatsuki finally says, in a grudgingly admiring tone.

“I’ll say.” 

The two of them stop their brisk walk in front of a huge pair of doors emblazoned with the words GYM, and Tatsuki waves him off. “Anyway, I gotta go train now. Any further questions before I go?”

Ichigo thinks a bit. “Yeah, why drama queen? Since I’m a guy, shouldn’t it be drama king?”

“Do I look like a linguist? You always scored better than I did at this stupid language. Take it up with whoever your hero was, Willy Shakealot or something?”

“Shakespeare,” he says sharply. “And Shakespeare wasn’t a linguist. In fact, I’m pretty sure linguists really hate him. He made up a lot of weird words and shit.”

“He did? Huh. Didn’t know you were allowed to do that.” 

“You’re not, Shakespeare just gave zero fucks.” Ichigo shrugs and takes a half-step back, raising his hand in a goodbye salute. “Why else do you think he was my hero?”

Tatsuki rolls her eyes. “Whatever. You’re still a loser.” 

“And you’re a bitch. Let me know if you remember anything about Kuchiki.”

“Only if we get to go halves on the cup noodles.” 

“I’ll think about it.”

“Then I’ll think about it, too.” 

That was probably the best he was going to get out of her. “Later, then.”

“If you can bear the embarrassment of us meeting again despite already having said goodbye, then sure.”

Ichigo shakes his head and lets her have that parting riposte. He hadn’t won a single match, verbal or physical, against Tatsuki since they’d been in diapers; he figures, what with the way his luck was going lately, that he wasn’t about to start now. 

__________________________________________________________

Just as Ichigo walks away, a tiny girl brushes past him on her way to the gym. Her black hair falls short and sleek, tickling her jawline and the nape of her neck, and the clean scent of cucumber and mint follows in her wake. She jostles him a little, bumping into his elbow, but Ichigo hardly notices the slight press of her body against his, small and light as she is. She mutters a hasty apology, and disappears into the building before he can formulate a reply. 

Ichigo shrugs and goes on his merry way. 

_______________________________________________________

The third week of murder brings about a calamitous change in the game as Ichigo knows it, due to several factors:

Orihime Inoue kills not one, not two, but three people in quick succession;

Someone finally stages an attack on him, but runs away without having completed the deed, and

Chad dies.

Not literally, of course, but Ichigo has to admit, the figurative loss still hits him pretty damn hard. Chad takes it as stoically as ever, with a shrug and twitch of his eyebrow, and goes back to working on music for his band. 

“Does anything faze you?” Ichigo wonders, after Chad hands his knife over to Inoue (because of course it was Inoue who took him out. Of course). 

“Puppies.”

“Fair enough.” 

“Kittens, too.” 

“... Right.”

“And birds. And rabbits. And small children—”

“So basically, you’re a sucker for anything cute?”

Chad shrugs again, which Ichigo takes as a yes. He crumples up his soda can and lobs it into the bin. 

“You were attacked today, too. Aren’t you worried?”

Ichigo considers it. “A bit, yeah. Sucks that you got taken out of the game. But you can still watch my back when you can, right? I’ll go halves on the noodles with you.” 

Chad nods. “When I can. I might be busier with my band soon, though.” 

“Understandable. I’ll try and keep myself alive in the meantime. At least I know who’s aiming for me, now. Neru? Nel?”

“Neliel Tu Odelschwancke.” 

Ichigo stares. “How the hell do you remember that?”

“She’s in my music theory class. And she has green hair. She’s not hard to miss.”

“Well, good. Should make it easier to see her coming.”

Chad smiles. “Your hair isn’t exactly hard to miss, either.” 

“Aw, shut up. I take back what I said about the noodles.” 

They sit in companionable silence for a while, the sounds of Chad tuning his guitar the only thing between them. Eventually, Chad breaks the ice. 

“And Kuchiki?”

Ichigo huffs a dry laugh. “No fuckin’ clue who or where she is. I’ve even been asking around, now that a lot of people have been dropped from the game by dying. But nobody seems to know who she is, even though everyone says her name sounds familiar. It’s driving me up the goddamn wall.”

“When I first heard the name, I thought that too.”

“What, that it sounds like a name that’s going to drive me up the wall?”

“No, that it sounds familiar.”

At this point, Ichigo is more tired than exasperated. “Yeah, s’what everyone says. Whatever. I’ll either find her or I won’t, right? No point getting annoyed over it. Better just focus on staying alive, because I swear to god if I die before finding out who she is I’ll be pissed.”

“You better hope,” Chad says gravely, “that Inoue doesn’t get her hands on your knife, then.” 

“You, me, and the entire dorm population, mate.” 

________________________________________________________

Ichigo drops by Inoue’s room that evening, just to check he isn’t next on her list. He’s lucky— he’s not. But some poor fucker by the name of Uryuu Ishida is.

“I waited outside his room all day and he didn’t even exit once!” Inoue’s saying, brandishing the knife with his name on it like a conductor directing Beethoven’s Ninth. “What kind of— of social recluse does that?!”

“Damn,” Ichigo replies, ignoring the fact that he did exactly that for days on end during the summer holidays, rereading The Compleat Works of Shakespeare in English and Japanese. “Sounds like a loser.”

“Apparently he’s like— the dorm cryptid,” she says, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Nobody’s— nobody’s really seen him in the flesh. They’re not sure he even exists. They think he’s second-year pre-med and that he was valedictorian of his grade last year, but nobody knows for sure.”

“Inoue, how did you manage to find out all this in the span of a day?” 

She looks at him like he’s insane. “I, uh, talked to people?”

“I talk to people too! But nobody knows who Rukia Kuchiki is. Nobody. Zilch. Zip. Nada. At this point I’m about 98% sure she doesn’t actually exist.”

Inoue sighs pityingly. “Kurosaki-kun, you’ve been talking to students, haven’t you?”

Ichigo’s confused. “Who else would I talk to?”

Inoue just puts a finger to her lips. “Can’t tell you. Trade secret. But really, Kurosaki-kun. There are much easier ways of going about this game, you know.” 

“Fat lot of good that’s going to do me, when you won’t tell me,” he grumbles. He takes another look at the name on her knife— Uryuu Ishida, may he rest in peace— and thanks his lucky stars that it isn’t him on there. “Anyway, I better be off. Good luck with the new guy. Not that you’ll need it.” 

“Good luck with Rukia Kuchiki, because you’ll definitely need it.” 

Hell, did everyone make a secret pact today to take the mickey out of him? Ichigo’s too tired to argue, so he just leaves Inoue to her planning and calls it a night. Maybe he’ll have better luck tomorrow.

____________________________________________________________

It takes Ichigo a few seconds to remember who she is, he’s been so tired lately. 

Green hair, he thinks, absentmindedly, before he remembers his conversation with Chad yesterday and yelps, scooting back a few metres. 

“You— Neliel?”

“That’s me!” His would-be murderer is bright and vivacious, and way too perky for this hour of the morning. Aside from the curious green hair, she’s also got a scar between her eyes and a reddish— birthmark? Tattoo? Ichigo doesn’t know— across the bridge of her nose. “Morning, Ichigo!”

Ichigo’s already halfway across the courtyard by the time she stops him. “Wait! Wait! I’m not here to kill you this morning!”

“Yeah right!” he yells back. “I’m not dying before I find out who the hell Rukia Kuchiki is! Try another morning!” 

“You idiot, I’m already dead! Check the morning lists if you don’t believe me!”

Ichigo stops and whips out his smartphone. “You stay right there,” he says, glaring, and Neliel complies, holding her hands up in a gesture of surrender. He scrolls through the dorm noticeboard, and, sure enough, there is her name: one of the last people to be murdered last night. 

“See? I don’t lie,” she says, reproachful, and Ichigo shoves his phone back into his pocket and approaches her cautiously. 

“What do you want?” 

Neliel shrugs. “I just thought I’d warn you about your new potential murderer? Thought that might be good manners, and all. Normally I wouldn’t bother, but, well. Your new murderer’s…… yeah.”

“My new murderer’s… what?” 

She looks intensely uncomfortable at this. “He’s. Well. He’s…. He’s not a friend, per se, but I’ve known him since we were little and I feel a bit responsible for him— uh, he’s a bit rough sometimes, but he won’t actually kill you. I think. Look, just keep your eyes peeled, ok? Anyway, enough of this depressing talk in the morning. Who’s Rukia Kuchiki? Why are you so keen on meeting her?”

Wow, that was so transparent a topic change that Ichigo’s almost impressed. “No, no, go back to my murderer, what were you saying about him?”

“— so, Rukia Kuchiki, huh, cool name, sounds kinda familiar, wonder where I’ve heard it before—”

“Neliel. You were talking about my new murderer and actual murder in the same breath. This does not give me a lot of reassurance, you feel?”

“—no, wait, actually, Rukia Kuchiki,” she mutters, her brow furrowing. Then her expression clears, and she looks up at him with a bright smile. “Oh! You don’t possibly mean Dia—”

And just as that happens, the lockdown alarms go off. 

_______________________________________________________

The loudspeaker in the middle of the courtyard bursts into life with a crackle of static. 

“Attention all residents. This is not a drill. Please make your way to the nearest lockdown location in an orderly fashion. Attention all residents…”

By the second round of the announcement, both of them manage to unfreeze; Neliel curses and starts to turn away, but Ichigo grabs onto her wrist. 

“Oh shit— I have to go find Donddochakka and Pesche—”

“Wait— Rukia. What were you about to say about Rukia?”

She shakes his restraining hand off with ease. “I’ll tell you later! I have to go find my friends!” 

“No, goddammit! Tell me now! It won’t take you that long!” Ichigo yells, but she’s already disappeared into the throng of people. Ichigo kicks a nearby rock and consults his phone to find his nearest lockdown location— the gym, apparently. He joins the crowd moving slowly in that direction, mind still grappling with Neliel’s last words.

Rukia Kuchiki? Oh! You don’t possibly mean Dia-

Dia? Who the hell was Dia?

But he’d have to deal with that later; he walks into the gym and spots Tatsuki, waving at him from a corner with Inoue. He makes his way towards them. 

“—n’t believe that he still won’t come out of his room, who does he think he is— there are safety regulations in place—” Inoue is saying, fingers curled around the knife that still says Uryuu Ishida. Tatsuki attempts to placate her with a long-suffering expression. 

“Maybe he’d already left before you came— hi, Ichigo.”

“Hello, Kurosaki-kun! And ridiculous— I was there at 6 a.m. in the morning. What sort of self-respecting college student wakes up before then?”

“6 a.m.?! Orihime, that’s. That’s stalking—”

“Stalking’s not stalking if it’s done in the name of free cup noodles—” 

“Stalking is always stalking! God, whatever, we’re continuing this another time. Anyway, Ichigo, did you hear? Some nutjob got onto campus with an actual knife.” 

Ichigo flinches. “What? Jesus. I hope Chad’s ok. Where’d you hear that from?”

“From the r.a. over there.” Tatsuki points with a chin, and indeed, several r.a.s are in deep discussion, all of them with a serious look on their face. “They’re gonna make an announcement about it soon. Apparently it’s a scrawny dude, black hair in a ponytail, wearing a dirty white hoodie and jeans. There’s police cars arriving, shit’s crazy.” 

“I’ll say.” At least it was a knife and not a gun, Ichigo thinks, toying idly with his own plastic knife. He halfheartedly scans the crowd, looking for any unfamiliar faces— surprisingly, he finds that he knows most of them already, by sight if not by name. He wonders if any of them are Rukia Kuchiki, and finds himself hoping that, wherever she was, she was somewhere safe. 

It’d be a bit of a downer if she was actually murdered before he managed to get around to it. 

The gym doors open again to let some of the stragglers in, and Ichigo allows his attention to be turned by the motely crew that walk in: a tall, thin man who is built rather like a stick insect, a hulking guy who looks about as wide as he’s tall, and a smaller, scrawny dude who is wearing nothing but a towel as a fundoshi around his waist (goddammit, Ichigo thought that tactic had died out by the first week). And, almost buried by the mass of bodies around her, a head full of green hair. 

Ichigo blinks, and then he starts pushing through the crowd to get to her. 

“Hey. HEY! NELIEL! WE GOTTA CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION FROM EARLIER!”

Neliel looks up in his direction, and frantically starts mouthing no at him. Ichigo doesn’t give a shit. He’s going to find out who Rukia Kuchiki is, and he’s going to find out now.

“Don’t give me that crap! You said you’d tell me later! Well, it’s later now, so out with it—”

“No, I swear to god, Ichigo, not now—”

“Ichigo?” The stick insect dude suddenly looks viciously interested, and Neliel claps a hand over her mouth. “As in, Ichigo Kurosaki?”

Neliel shakes her head. Ichigo glares at stick insect dude. 

“If I am, who the fuck are you?”

Nel buries her face in her hands, and stick insect dude smiles— and shit, can people even smile that wide? Ichigo feels a chill run down his spine. 

“Your death,” stick insect dude says, and he lunges. 

Scrawny dude, black hair in a ponytail, wearing a dirty white hoodie and jeans.

Ichigo sees the glint of a knife held in his hands, and suddenly realises he’s going to die—

“No!”

That is, until a short, black-haired blur shoots out from the crowd and jumps in front of the knife meant for him. 

It sinks in to the hilt, and Ichigo watches the girl’s eyes widen in shock with a horror that robs him of his own voice. 

________________________________________________________

Both girl and assailant crumple to the ground, and Ichigo’s frantic with worry; he reaches the girl first, hoists her up onto his lap, expecting blood. She was so small; what the hell was she thinking, jumping out in front of him?! She coughs, great big hacking things that he wouldn’t expect from someone her size, and Ichigo holds her around her shoulders, worried out of his mind. 

“Are you ok? Hold on— where did he stab you? Are you bleeding—”

In response, the girl wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and lunges at the felled assailant. 

“You missed, you cowardly shitstain, I don’t know what you’re doing on a campus but you’re going to rot in jail for this—” 

“Young lady—! Enough! Back away and let the cops deal with this—”

“Nnoitra! I told you to leave that stupid knife behind, you idiot—”

“Ow! OW! Don’t just fucking watch, Nel, get this crazy woman off me, what the fuck—” 

“ENOUGH!” The r.a.’s have made their way over by now, and manage to separate the two brawling figures; stick insect dude is being held back by Nel and her two other friends, while the girl is being restrained by an r.a. Ichigo sits on the floor between them, feeling like he just missed something. 

“Wait, hang on, what’s— what just happened— didn’t you get stabbed?” he asks the girl, who is looking very un-stabbed. She glares at stick insect dude. 

“He missed,” she spits, and stick insect dude howls in indignation. 

“I did not miss!” he hisses, and throws a crumpled plastic knife onto the ground. “I had him! I would have had him straight in the gut if it hadn’t been for you jumping in for your boyfriend!!! The fuck, dude! This is sabotage! What have you got against me winning cup noodles?!”

Ichigo stares at the plastic knife bearing his name, crushed like an empty aluminium drink can, and slowly starts piecing the incident together. 

“Wait— so you're—”

“And now I've lost the element of surprise. You scrawny little bitch,” Nnoitra snaps, and Ichigo thinks, a little wildly, that he had no business going around calling anyone else scrawny. He eyes the limp black hair and dirty white hoodie of his assailant and attempts to make sense of the chaos around him. 

“You’re— you had my knife—?”

Nnoitra rolls his eyes. “What, can’t you see? You impaired or some shit?” 

“Oh my god, Nnoitra,” Neliel groans. “Can you keep your big fat mouth shut for half a second—”

“Oh,” comes a small sound from the black-haired girl, and Ichigo turns to see her slowly flushing crimson. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Nnoitra mocks, before Neliel smacks him in the head. “Ow! Nel, you bitch, she is clearly the one in the wrong here, would you knock it off—”

“Well, what the hell was I supposed to think?!” the girl demands, now completely red but with an indignant expression on her face. “You matched the description for the armed intruder perfectly! Not to mention, who plays Murder like they're actually trying to kill someone?!”

“This is why I was trying to warn you,” Nel says to Ichigo in an exasperated aside. “And those are just his last set of clean clothes.”

There's a short silence as everyone digests her words, Ichigo and the girl both eyeing Nnoitra’s hoodie like they seriously doubted Nel’s definition of ‘clean’.

The girl clears her throat and speaks for all of them. “Gross.”

Nnoitra flings himself against Nel’s restraint. “You bitch, I'll fucking cut you up—”

“Enough!” an adult finally makes their way onto the scene, and everyone looks at the harried professor with varying levels of relief. The girl, in particular, lights up at the sight of him. 

“Professor Ukitake—!”

“What’s going on here?” he asks in a tired sort of way, and the r.a.s hasten to answer him. 

“A minor altercation— you know our dorm tradition, Murder—”

“Ah, that damn game,” he mutters, looking extremely distracted. His gaze sweeps over all of them, assessing the situation. “Nobody’s actually hurt, then?”

“No sir,” the girl answers, prompt. The professor nods at her, before turning to the r.a.s for the full story. By now, the police have made it into the evacuation area as well; the three parties convene for a minute or two, discussing the details in hushed voices, before they all turn to Nnoitra and Nel.

“In any case, Mr. Gilga,” Professor Ukitake says apologetically, “although it may be coincidental, it is true that you fit the description for the armed intruder rather perfectly, I’m afraid. The police would like you to accompany them to the station, just for a little while, until the intruder situation is solved. If that’s ok with you—?” 

“Wha— the hell it is! I was just tryna murder Kurosaki over there—” 

The professor winces. “Mr. Gilga….. That’s really not helping your cause there.” 

“Oh, c’mon, it’s just a game—” 

“I told you,” Nel interrupts witheringly. “I told you to leave your damn knife behind, didn’t I? Just go with the officers for now, Nnoitra. It’s just til they catch the real intruder, and quite frankly, I don’t trust you around Ichigo right now.” 

“Don’t be a sore loser, Nel, just because I murdered you last night—” 

Two policemen place a hand each on Nnoitra’s shoulders and escort him out, Nnoitra complaining the whole time but not daring to retaliate. Nel shakes her head and makes an apologetic face in the direction of the smaller girl. “God, I told him… sorry about all this, Di. I might go with him just to make sure he doesn’t get himself arrested… you really alright? Not hurt anywhere?” 

“Who do you think I am?” the girl scoffs. “I’m fine. Never did understand why you’re friends with him, though.”

Nel grimaces. “Yeah, sometimes I wonder that, too. Anyway, I’ll see you later at the gym, we can talk about this then.” 

“Tell your stick insect friend not to lunge at people with knives in the future, whether they’re plastic or not.” 

“Will do. Bye!” with another apologetic half-wave, Neliel and her two other friends take off after Nnoitra. Ichigo, still feeling somewhat bemused by the proceedings, finally turns and manages to get a good look at his…. saviour(?), for lack of a better word. 

She’s short. That’s his first impression, the fact that she is so goddamn short and good lord, she might actually, literally be just half his size, if the way the top of her head only comes up to his chest is any indication. Aside from the height (or lack thereof), she seems fairly nondescript: short black bob, black leggings and a t-shirt with a flannel tied around her waist. She notices him staring and holds out a hand. 

“Diana. We could have met in less embarrassing circumstances, but I guess as first meetings go ‘jumped in front of a knife for you’ isn’t a bad start. You alright?” 

Ichigo takes the proffered hand and is promptly surprised by the firmness of her grip. “Fine. I feel like I should be the one asking you, though. You're the one that got stabbed.”

Diana rolls her eyes. “Please. As if anything wielded by a guy that skinny would ever be able to hurt me.” She grins, all teeth, and whoa, Ichigo may have to reconsider that first assessment of her. He’s suddenly flustered, red dusting the skin over his cheekbones as he tries to come up with a response. She has the bluest eyes he's ever seen. 

Thankfully, the professor from earlier spares him. “Miss Kuchiki!” he calls, and Diana turns— he wants to have a few words with her, it seems, and she gestures to him that she'd be over soon. She turns back to Ichigo to say goodbye. 

“Well, take care, I guess I'll see you around--"

Something clicks in his brain like lightning, and he catches her by the wrist. 

“Wait. Kuchiki—? Like, Kuchiki as in Byakuya Kuchiki Kuchiki? Kuchiki as in the Kuchiki Wing in the Main Library Kuchiki? As in one of the shareholders of our university Kuchiki? That Kuchiki?”

“Shut up, fool, not so loud—!” She snatches her wrist back and looks around worriedly, though by now people’s attentions have moved on from them. She answers him in a resigned tone. “Yes, that Kuchiki. He’s my brother. It's not something I like to advertise.” 

Ichigo’s mind is teeming like a nest of ants. “Why— no, never mind that question. Diana’s not a Japanese name, though--"

“It's my English name, obviously,” she snaps. “If you wanted my full name it is Rukia Kuchiki. Why are you so interested in my name anyway? Shouldn't you at least tell me yours first?”

A slow grin spreads over his face; the kind of grin that Tatsuki had once told him made him look like the supervillain in a bad shounen. He takes a step in closer to her, and Diana— Rukia, irritated, stands her ground. 

His hand slips into his pocket. 

“I'm Ichigo Kurosaki,” he tells her. 

In one fluid motion, he pulls out his own knife and taps her with it on the shoulder. Those blue eyes of hers widen first in disbelief, and then in outrage. 

“You— no. No, you can't possibly— you couldn't!!”

“Nice to meet you, Rukia Kuchiki,” he smirks, flipping the plastic knife over to display her name. 

Rukia closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, like she has a headache coming on. 

Then she opens her eyes, takes a deep breath, and socks him in the face. 

[canmom]

brief notes on nier reincarnation: game

as a game

Yeah, it’s a gacha. It has much, much nicer presentation than your average gacha in terms of UI, combat animations etc.; but ultimately the moment to moment “gameplay” is rather perfunctory.

Much like Warframe, the actual ‘game’ is an optimisation problem: matter of having various hurdles (fights which require a certain combination of elements and stats) to cross for a desired outcome (another piece of story), and deciding the optimal way to approach them.

The player can make their team punch a bit ‘above their weight’ (as measured by the force stat) by e.g. focusing enemies to burn down before they attack, and picking the right order to chain abilities; there is a slight amount of decision making in deciding ‘do I pop this now or hold off a few seconds to activate it in tandem with xyz’. But as far as ‘interesting decisions’ go, there are very few in the actual combat scenes, just plate-spinning.

The ‘barrier for entry’ to the main story is generally reasonably accessible even as free to play, but the various kinds of additional story, and the most recent chapter, are raising the stat threshold to a point where it’s getting much harder to clear without four star characters. There is about a 1.5% chance of pulling one of the six main four star characters per pull; there is also a pity mechanic that lets you buy a specific one every 200 pulls. Pulls are best done in batches of 10 since the probability is better for the 10th pull if you do this. All in all pretty standard.

You pull for weapons, which sometimes come with a character attached. Pulling the same character twice gives you character specific upgrade materials which you can use to raise their stats.

Pulls are bought with “gems”; as usual for the genre, they hand out bucketloads at the beginning and then slowly close the tap. The prices for buying gems for real money are extortionate and not worth considering. (If you are lucky enough to have that much money to throw away, i invite you to go to e.g. canmom.tumblr.com/tagged/signal-boost and give it away to someone who actually needs it.) You get gems for completing missions and for doing various ‘challenges’.

The game can be set to play itself in ‘auto’ mode; you just put your phone down and it dims the screen and plays itself for up to 10 runs, then buzzes once it’s done to give you the rewards. This is frankly completely absurd and evil. There is no reason electricity should be wasted simulating identical battles which no human being is actually watching, or that it should monopolise the phone if it’s supposed to be time-gating them somehow. Given the ‘auto’ battles are completely deterministic with no capacity for player intervention, and actions are primarily limited by ‘stamina’ it could run them all in one go in a fraction of a second and give you the rewards.

Stamina can be recovered every eight hours by doing a little shmup minigame, which to its credit is actually pretty fun. Targeting is automated, leaving the player free to dodge some pretty complex bullet patterns. The next update promises to add an alternative in the form of a Flappy Bird clone.

As a f2p player, I have been able to accumulate gems for about 300 pulls so far (which adds up to about 900k gems). I got exactly one four-star character from these pulls; unfortunately it was the same character I’d already bought with pity coins. This puts something of a hard ceiling on how strong my team can be. in this state, I’ve been able to clear all of the main story so far (by the skin of my teeth), and unlock most of the “Dark Memories” by completing the story fights on Hard. I’ve also done hundreds of runs of the Automata event to clean out the event specific characters and weapons. however, the second parts of the “Dark Memories” remain out of reach. I have also been able to make some progress on Very Hard mode.

My team has a strength of about 44k; with favourable element matchups and some luck, I can take on fights up to almost 60k. This seems to be a fairly common level of force going by other players I see. 2P (my four-star) is the most damaging by far, but something of a glass cannon. I have one character functioning as a healer, but her ability to do this is very limited since the healing ability has a long cooldown; I can usually pop it only once or maybe twice per run, which occasionally proves decisive. I’ve not yet found any way to control aggro.

Character optimisation is performed by equipping weapons (a primary weapon which determines the character’s element type, and two secondary that just boost stats and provide passive buffs), a companion (a one-time cast and stat boost), and a set of ‘Memoirs’ which provide small stat boosts. Memoirs have up to 5 different boosts, and they’re more or less random. You can farm for more memoir drops and sell them if you so wish. It’s whatever.

All of these items have their own upgrade tracks, and little bits of story attached. In the case of the weapons, these stories come in four parts, unlocked sequentially, in the ongoing Drakenier/Sinoalice tradition.

The good bit of the game is the story chapters, which I’ll get into in a sec. The protagonist Levania goes into the world of weapon stories, presented in a kind of gorgeous paper-cutout theatre, and listens to an almost invariably tragic story in four parts, unlocking a new character in the process. In between, you explore Ico-like environments (which occasionally have small puzzles), and get to enjoy character interactions, which are generally well written and voice-acted. There’s a few mixups of the format - at one point I fought a ‘Dark God’ that looked like a giant moose in the overworld of the Cage in a battle that’s unwinnable at this point in the game - but mostly it hits a pretty regular rhythm.

Unfortunately, in the later stages of the game, the two-star characters it gives you in each chapter are often too weak to be useful (even though it helpfully levels them for you). But almost all the fights are non-diegetic to the weapon stories anyway, so I don’t feel I’m missing out too much by not using them.

So, what about that story? Stay tuned for a post on that.

[abalonetea]

Hi again Katie! I was wondering if you could shed some light on just HOW you manage to write the multiple thousands of words you write everyday? How do you cope if you're struggling with just WHAT to write? Does it all boil down to years of practice and dedication? Do you have any hacks/tips for those of us trying to push through to a bit of a higher daily wordcount?

Hi! 

A large part of the word count I hit each day is actually paid-work! I’m a freelance writer, and I treat it as a 9-5 sort of job, where I have set counts to reach each day. But I try to get some personal work done each day, too!  

With work, I’m told what to write, how to write it - plot, pov, genre, etc - so I don’t have to worry too much about trying to pick a topic or struggle with coming up what to write for it. 

With my own work, I like to have multiple wips at a time - that way, if one idea isn’t inspiring me at the moment, I can hop to another story. Word count accumulates - 300 words for GHD, 200 words for SIS, and 300 words for JKB all add up. That’s 1k words! 

But if we’re talking broad tips and tricks

break your word count up. Your daily goal is 5k? Not anymore. Your goal is 500 words. You meet it, you get a treat. Ten minutes scrolling, a quick walk, some time to just post silly things on line. Then your goal resets to 500 words. Because you’re constantly encouraging yourself and meeting goals, you’ll find it’s more fun to try and hit a large word count!

get a drink and something to eat. I can’t tell you how often this totally gives you a new energy boost. Water, tea, soda, juice - get some fluid and a snack in you!

stepping outside can go a long way, too. If you’re stalled out in writing...struggling and trying to make the words come...often won’t work. So go take a ten minute walk outside. Sit in the grass and listen to a few of your favorite songs. Check the mail. Something that will boost your mood and put your mind back in a good, happy place. Then try writing again.

Practice does matter! Two years ago, it would take me three days to do a 10k word job. Last year, it became a one day job - as long as I worked really hard at it! The more you write, the easier it is to pick up speed, and to find your own personal tricks.

The back button doesn’t exist. Spelled a word wrong? Doesn’t matter. When you hit your word count goal, you can use the spell check function to correct mistakes. But as you type, that doesn’t matter. If the name of the game is hitting a high word count, expect it to be messy. The spell check tool on the program I use (libreoffice) comes into play every hour or two, to help clean up my work, and I never delete sentences. Start a new paragraph and just keep moving.

Sit somewhere comfortable!!! You’ll be in one spot for a while, so get it comfy before hand! Bring a drink with you, set up a nice place to sit so it’s stress free chilling!

Your goal doesn’t have to be the same each day. Sometimes I get up, and I can set a 16k goal, because I’m in a good mood, and I know I can reach it. Sometimes I get up and I go “if I can hit 8k words, I’ll be happy” and it’s a struggle to reach even that much. Some days really just aren’t good writing days, and you should pick a goal that reflects it. If you’re goal on a good day is 5k, then make it 1.5k on a bad day. 

Talk about it! Post about it! It’s the biggest motivator of all, sharing my word counts! Even when it’s writing work (i ghostwrite, mostly) so I can’t share the writing itself, sharing the word count with you all is a thrill and makes me happy! Look, I’m making progress and the whole world can see it!

[trantrumsfromthevoid]

O hai derr fran, it's me ur hooman.

Anyway, this is probably definitely going to be long bc I have no self-control. But basically this isn't the first time I've looked for a buddy and it probably won't be the last, either. I've been role-playing since 2008 and have been on every imaginable server. I've hoped on every "trendy" site and played just about every kind of character. Well, I've played a lot of characters, anyway. In 2017 I decided to take a hiatus because I was dealing with some traumatic things at the time, as well as growing tired of the sites that were being offered. In the years since I haven't been able to fully get back into the swing of things (RP wise) and I haven't joined a site in awhile.

Because of the stuff that was going on in my personal life, I kinda grew out of the RPC. The sites that I see today all look similar and there seems to be a very specific order to become a "successful" member of a site. It's almost like you have to follow a formula or something? I don't mean to offend, that's just how I see it. I grew tired of doing the same thing again and again and again, and not being able to find fulfillment. At the same time, in order to appease my need to write and have a creative outlet, I created a site on Jcink (it's nothing fancy, especially given today's RP standards) where I write and do ... a bunch of whatever, I suppose. It's nothing fancy, but it achieves its purpose of providing a place for me to write online. Hopefully that makes sense to you? I'm not really sure how to explain it.

That all being said, occasionally I'll pop my head into various resource sites and see if anyone wants to join me on my wild and crazy ride. I get lonely and crave interaction, and would love to find a true "RP buddy"/friend. Now, if you've stuck with me and you're still reading (congrats first and foremost), here's a little bit about me, RP-wise.

x Real life/slice-of-life plots are probably my number one trope/source of inspiration. I love having a plot set in some cute little Mayberry-like town and that sort of thing. xx I love exploring the dynamics of older couples (35 and older), couples who've been together for many years, and/or couples who've been together for awhile and have older children. x Supernatural (vampires, werewolves, mermaids, etc) comes in at a close second. Vampires have a very special place in my heart, as the first character I ever created for an online RP was a vampire. xx While small towns are great, I also really enjoy the whole "Welcome to Night Vale"/"Twin Peaks" vibe. Not necessarily those fandoms specifically, but a town that's kinda odd; maybe has a little bit of a creepy vibe. A town where everyone and everything is odd and everyone accepts it. x I love familial plots, as well as friendship plots. Or anything that's non-romantic. "Found families" are awesome and deserve a lot more love. xx I think angels x demons, aliens, and mermaids are vastly under-served in the RPC and would definitely be down for doing something with said creatures. x I have a 60-40 male-to-female ratio (meaning I plan males more than females). My characters are usually heterosexual, but if a plot is interesting (or I get inspired), I have no qualms playing a LGBTQ+ character. xx Ages for my characters range between between 21 - 65. Anyone younger than 18 is treated as an NPC. I always use real life face claims. x As far as "triggers" go, the only thing for me is that I don't RP smut, as it makes me uncomfortable. I simply fade to black or skip to the next morning. I don't mind the "build up" (kissing, flirting, maybe a little dirty talk) but the actual deed itself is a no-go. Otherwise, I don't mind exploring the dynamics of other "taboo" topics, so long as it's discussed and agreed upon by both parties. xx WC is usually in the 300 - 500 range. Sometimes I can write more, it all depends on my muse and what I'm given to work with. x I love character development via pinterest, gifs, quotes, wardrobes, pictures of their home/vehicles, little blurbs, that sorta thing. Applications are evil in my humble opinion. xx I don't like to RP to many fandoms, but the ones that I have are near and dear to my heart. I love a good, dark HP plot; something set in the Marauder's Era or before. Or something set directly after the Battle of Hogwarts and/or Harry's death. Give me all the HP angst, bby. FYI, I'd love to do a dark!Durmstrang plot and I have a few ideas for such. Just saying. Other fandoms would include Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Twilight Saga, and maybe a live action Avatar: The Last Airbender.

As far as me personally, I'm a thirty-four-year-old female who lives on the east coast USA. I would prefer that my partner be at least 25, or 21 at the absolute youngest. If nothing else, at least be an adult. I'd love for my partner to be on the east coast as well. This isn't a complete deal-breaker but it's definitely something I take into consideration if we're several time zones apart. I'm not willing to stay up all hours of the night (or day) in order to RP. Been there, done that. Plus, as someone who has to "adult" in the real world, I can't pull all-nighters anymore. Most nights I'm off the internet by about 8:30 pm and I'm not on my laptop (where I role-play) everyday. I am on my laptop about five days a week. I'm not exactly the most talkative person and I don't like having to discuss everything in minor, minute detail with my partner. As long as we're in agreement about "triggers", the plot, and we both have a basic sense of our characters, that's all I need to know. After that I'd prefer that our plots and/or other forms of character development do the talking. I realize I may sound a bit harsh, but I'm one of those "conceal, don't feel" types, ngl. But with time, consistency, and patience, I do open up.

Last thing, I promise. I would love to see some sort of writing sample from you. It doesn't have to be a post, I'd just like to see how you write; how you make words and ideas "flow." Is English your first language or is that something you need to disclose? Have you been writing for awhile or is this your first go 'round? Is it coherent? Like I said, you can submit whatever you like, as long as it allows me to get a clear sense of you and your writing. Whatever you submit, please make sure that it's at least 200 words. If you'd like a writing sample from me, that's fine, but ... I mean ... I've written like 97 pages for you. Hopefully you have a sense of my writing style already. But if not, I'm happy to give you something.

Ok, wow! That was so! many! words!!! I do apologize for the multitude of paragraphs but hopefully this will help you and I both in our search for a buddy. Feel free to PM me here, respond to this thread, or PM me for my discord. Thanks for reading and I hope you find what you're looking for. Live long and prosper.

[selfmademen]

Top Surgery Experience

Okay, so I said I would do a write up of my top surgery experience and I’ve finally gotten around to it. Uni started right after so I’ve been fairly frazzled.

Please feel free to ask any questions you may have! I’ll do my best to answer them.

To start with, I currently live in NSW, Australia. There are a few Australian top surgeons, but as a NSW resident my best bet was Dr Steven Merten, with Pure Aesthetics in Sydney. Because Australia has a public healthcare system I was able to get my top surgery under that scheme. As far as I’m aware Dr Merten is the only top surgeon who offers this surgery through the public system. He works in partnership with Concord Hospital in Sydney, and that’s where I had my surgery. If you go privately there are other options for the hospital you stay at. There are pros and cons to the public system, which I’ll detail below.

Pros:

I paid $500~ out of pocket instead of between $5k and $10k (if you have private health insurance it may cover some)

Since he’s in my state I didn’t have to travel far

He’s one of the most experienced top surgeons in the state

there’s two places for appointments, either at his clinic or at the Macquarie uni rooms

Cons:

because I went publicly he didn’t perform the surgery personally, rather a registrar did. However, he was in the room the entire time overseeing the operation.

because he’s so popular I had to wait a full year from the first consultation to the actual surgery date

 it was extremely hard to get onto the wait list due to how popular he is.

the public system is only available to NSW residents over 18

I was lucky in that my GP at the time knew him professionally and called in a favour so that I knew the moment his books were open, and I am forever grateful for that. It is MUCH easier to get an appointment with him through the private system, but that’s a lot more expensive. For me, the pros far outweighed the cons here, and I decided I could wait a year for my surgery. I had also intended to lose weight beforehand, but that didn’t happen. Woops.

Prior to my first consultation I needed a referral both from my GP, and a registered psychologist or psychiatrist detailing my transition and documented dysphoria surrounding my breasts. The first consultation was $300 iirc, and I paid a $100 deposit, so only paid $200 on the day. Medicare also gave me a $100-something rebate.

The first consultation was fairly quick. He asked some questions about my transition, what my expectations were regarding surgery, detailed my options, and explained the procedures. He measured my breasts, but never touched me (I kinda just picked them up and moved them where he asked). He also took a photo of my chest, with my consent.

I didn’t actually hear from them until about three months before my surgery because my details got lost, but USUALLY the hospital will get in contact with you regarding your surgery date, what you should expect, and when your pre-op consultation is. I also had to fill out a pre-op health questionnaire and personal details. Due to my high level of haemoglobin as a side effect of T, I was required to provide them with more recent blood test results, but you may not have to do this. Usually there is also a pre-op appointment with the nurses and anethetist at the hospital, but the nurse I spoke to said that I didn’t need to go if I didn’t have any pressing concerns.

My pre-op consult with Dr Merten was a couple of weeks before my surgery, however, it’s usually around the same time. This one was $100, and I also had to pay $130 for a medical compression vest which I have to wear for up to three weeks post-op. Again, Medicare partially reimbursed my consultation fee, but not the vest.

During this consultation we basically covered the same things, and I also saw a nurse who told me what medications to avoid, and briefed me on post op care. She also gave me my medical vest, wound tape, and some pamphlets.

Some things she covered:

smokers should stop smoking 12 weeks before surgery

 you should limit your alcohol intake the week before surgery, and don’t drink alcohol AT ALL during the two days immediately prior to surgery

no herbal medications, asparin, ibuprofen, or other blood thinners for two weeks prior to surgery. IF YOU ARE ON BLOOD THINNERS FOR MEDICAL REASONS THIS MAY BE DIFFERENT FOR YOU.

do not eat or drink anything from midnight the night before your surgery. Morning medication (antidepressants in my case) can be taken with a sip of water.

 the night before and morning of surgery I had to shower with a special soap that was provided in order to kill bacteria on my skin.

I did have to call the admissions centre the day before my surgery to confirm my appointment time. For me it was 8:30. Before going in I had a brief interview with a nurse, who took down my details and checked me for allergies and medical conditions. I was given my wrist bands (red, since I have a codeine allergy), and directed up to where I would meet the nurses. There I changed into the operating gown (you can keep your undies on) and compression socks due to my weight.

I was taken to a prep room before the operating theatre where Dr Merten marked my chest. Basically where things would be cut, lipo’d, etc. I was feeling nervous so the anethetist also came in, did my canula and gave me something to relax (don’t know what it was). He was extremely kind and friendly, and said he was honoured to be included in this part of my journey, which I honestly thought was an incredibly sweet thing to say, and I’m very grateful for how he looked after me.

The relaxation shit kinda made me dopey, and pretty much immediately I was wheeled into the theatre. They had me wriggle from the bed onto the table, I nearly fell off, but it was all good. I don’t really remember much from here, but there was some music playing, and the nurses and registrar were setting up.

At this point the anethetist put the mask on and told me to take some deep breaths. I remember it tasting and smelling really weird, and the next thing I know I was waking up in recovery.

I’m not sure how long I was in recovery for because I kept drifting in and out, but they gave me something for the pain and then wheeled me to the ward. I started waking up properly around this time, had a chat with the people transporting me, and by the time I was in the ward I was fully alert (and really needed to pee).

Because of my size and the way the surgery worked out, I did have a few staples at the ends of my incisions, and I also had to put the compression vest on. I also had drains, with bags that needed to be changed every twelve hours. Nurses would also come and take my blood pressure and check that everything was okay and that I wasn’t in too much pain. They were all extremely welcoming and accepting, never misgendered me once, and even double checked my name and pronouns to ensure that everyone knew. My mate was also allowed to stay with me pretty much the whole day until dinner, which really helped me cos I’m bad with hospitals.

After surgery I was stiff and ached a little, but there wasn’t too much pain. I was able to go to the toilet myself, although wiping was very difficult for the first week.

I stayed overnight, and was discharged the next day. They gave me anti-inflammatories, antibiotics, and some opiates to help the pain. I should note here that I do have an extremely high pain tolerance, so outside of days where I pushed myself a bit too far, I generally didn’t need to use them.

I’m unsure if my experience is unusual, as I was able to do pretty much everything immediately post-op. Of course, I’ve been taking it easy, but dressing, sleeping, cooking, moving, has all so far been generally okay. I have had some pain on days where I moved about too much, or sat up too much, but that’s also partially chronic pain flaring up due to my bad back.

I was discharged with my drains still in, as I’m a bleeder. Usually with Dr Merten they’re removed before discharge, but I was sent home with some bags and instructed to change them every 24 hours and keep a record of how much had drained. I think I wound up keeping my drains in for around a week before they were removed.

I went to the medical centre twice to have my dressings changed and drains checked (and eventually removed), and was sent home with a sterile staple remover for my GP to remove my staples with. They’ll be coming out at the end of the week. The drains didn’t hurt when removed, it just felt like an odd tugging sensation. The stitches Dr Merten used are dissolving ones, so no need to get them taken out.

I do have to change my nipple dressings every three days, and the tape on my incisions can stay on for up to a week. The stuff I use is extremely strong and has glue on it, so I’m a bit hesitant to change it on my own (nearly ripped a staple out last time I changed my dressings).

I’m roughly three weeks post-op now, and I have pretty much all my mobility back. Showering is difficult, as is bending over or reaching to one side (tugs on my incisions). There is pain when I do things, but unless something actively tugs at, touches, or puts pressure on my wounds I’m not in any pain. Mostly its just an annoyance at this stage.

I’m still sleeping on my back, although I can lie on my side for short periods of time. There’s some bruising around my armpits where I had liposuction, and there is a small numb patch on my left side. I can’t feel my nipples, but I also couldn’t feel them prior to this so it’s not a huge loss.

I’ve seen some people say that they felt depressed post-op because of a hormone fluctuation, but personally when I saw my chest it felt natural and right. I didn’t cry (not a big crier) and I wasn’t surprised or shocked or… overwhelmed. To me it was my outer body finally reflecting my inner self. I already looked like this in my own mind, so it was just natural that it looks the way it does post-op.

Unfortunately some dysmorphia and self-esteem issues surrounding my weight have resurfaced, but that’s not really related to the top surgery, and it’s something I’m able to work on as I recover.

If there’s something I haven’t covered that you’re curious about, please send an ask! I’ve tried to be as thorough as possible, but its been a few weeks and some details are fuzzy.

[bigprincess-energy]

Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me

Y’all on this site there is a beautiful, incredible, intelligent, talented, practically perfect in every way woman who runs the phenomenal blog @waitformereprise . She really does it all. Gifs? She makes them. Art? She draws that. Fics? She writes them. And she’s also like a professional lady???? Who is killing it????? I am in shock, I am in awe, I am inspired daily. She has been working real hard and I wanted to make her a lil treat of some Orphydice Fluff so here is this! I hope you enjoy it Anna!! 

---

For the most part, Eurydice adored her employment at Hermes Bar. During quiet lulls, Hermes would indulge her with a wild story from his younger days. When Persephone was in town, she would herself at home on her favorite bar stool and the duo would chat about anything and everything for hours at a time between Eurydice mixing drinks. Best of all, she could watch her poet hard at work. Nothing enamored the young girl more than watching his fingers tighten around a pencil as he crafted lyrics or the intricate dance they did each night as he played the lyre. Technically, he was playing for the patrons of the bar, but it always felt as though his songs were just for her. 

However, there was one element of the job she hated: inventory day. Of course, taking inventory was fundamental to the success of the bar, but there was nothing worse to Eurydice than being stuck counting inventory in the cellar. During the summer months, one might suffocate from the heat and humidity that trapped itself in the windowless space, while in the winter she would bundle up in her outer coat and a pair of gloves to avoid freezing. Not to mention, every time whoever was manning the bar used the sink it was guaranteed the pipes would drip.

Orpheus could easily sense that today was inventory day as he watched his wife drag out her normally concise morning routine. Eurydice was a clever one when it came to avoiding tasks she didn’t want to do, to the point of it being comedic. Often the couple left their breakfast dishes in the sink, but on inventory days she insisted it was incredibly important all the dishes be cleaned before they headed to work. Same went for laundry, each shirt and pair of trousers had to be pressed and folded, despite the fact that the next morning all the hard work would be undone in a rush to get ready. 

Eurydice’s newfound dedication to chores, of course, paled in comparison to her attempts to seduce Orpheus to skip work and spend the day in bed with her. There was nothing she wouldn’t try. Hot, heavy kisses along his neck and collarbone paired with her delicate fingers running along his chest first thing in the morning, earning her an additional five minutes. Next, she would try walking around in her undergarments, bringing him their morning tea to drink in bed rather than at the kitchen table as a traditional morning would have. Finally, when all else failed and the couple was nearly out the door she would grab her lover by his suspenders and pull him down to her, whispering pleases between kisses. As much as the poet longed to indulge her, his fingers always found their way around the doorknob, the first step to getting the couple to work. 

As much as she despised these days, there was one perk to inventory, Eurydice could drag Orpheus into the cellar with him for company and assistance. The two of them created little games to make the work more entertaining, from estimating how many bottles of wine they went through in the previous month to competing who could make a taller tower of toilet paper the fastest. Whoever lost the previous month would be on counting duty this month. Hermes would often pop his head down and find the couple in a fit of giggles. The elder god would simply roll his eyes and return to the bar. Orpheus would also hum songs as he counted, and every once and a while he would pull her into the center of the cellar, wrap his arms around her waist and dance to his tune under the dim lighting. 

Today, Eurydice crouched above the floor, rocking gently on her heels as she took stock of the remaining cocktail napkins. “200...250….300,” she mumbled to herself, attempting to avoid losing count. 

“‘Rydice,” her lover’s voice called out from several shelves away. “You want a snack?” 

“300!” She blurted out as a response, her mind hanging on to the number so she wouldn’t have to recount. “Uh- yeah, why not, what did you find?” Eurydice asked as she stuck a paper marker between the last set of recorded napkins. 

“Well, I don’t have 300 snacks, just one,” Orpheus laughed softly, striding over with an apple in hand. 

“Here, I hope it’s enough,” he smiled as he tossed the apple down to her. With grace, Eurydice caught it between her two hands and raised it to her mouth for a bite. The fruit was perfect, a crisp crunch followed by a subtle sweetness. Audibly, Eurydice’s stomach growled. 

“How long have we been down here?” She questioned, standing up and dusting off her lap before making her way over to Orpheus. 

“Couple of hours is my guess. Mister Hermes only came down once, but I’m almost done in the back. How much is left up here?” He asked as he bent down to take a bite of the apple. 

“Not much just - ah, ah, ah! This is my snack, did I say you could have some?” Eurydice teased, feigning defensiveness as she pulled her arm back so the apple was out of his reach. 

“May I have a bite of your apple?” He asked politely, his voice no louder than a whisper. With his wide, puppy dog hazel eyes and soft-spoken tone how could she say no to him? 

“Since you asked so nicely,” the young girl said with a smirk, handing the fruit over to her husband. “Did you know in Ancient Greece, if someone tossed an apple at you it was a confession of love?” She mused at him as he crunched. 

“Wait, Orpheus did you just confess your love for me? Aww, do you have a crush on me?” Eurydice teased, her nimble fingers taking the apple back from the blushing boy. 

“I-I’m your husband! Of course, I love you!!” Orpheus stammered, trying to figure out how and why she always managed to make him feel so bashful. Eurydice sank her teeth into the flesh of the fruit, eyes glinting wickedly. 

“Still, having a crush? That’s embarrassing,” she smirked as she shook her head slightly, expressing a falsified disgust. 

“You’re my wife, ‘Rydice. We, we’re married!” He exclaimed, his visible confusion of trying to understand her logic spurring her on further. 

“I just, it’s very sweet but I don’t know,” Eurydice said as she looked her poet over from head to toe. “You are very tall and gods, those hazel eyes are pretty,” she admired him, her hand coming up to cup his flushed cheek. Her eyes lingered there for a moment, lost in the beauty of him. 

“I write pretty songs too,” Orpheus responded, tilting his head into the curve of her palm. “About a very pretty girl.”

It was Eurydice’s turn to blush. Normally she was able to brush off Orpheus’ compliments as just Orpheus being his lovestruck, romantic self, but when she allowed his words to sink in, butterflies made a home in her stomach and fluttered their wings. 

“Sing for me?” The girl asked softly, pressing her body into his as she wrapped her arms around Orpheus’ neck. 

As his hands found their way to rest on her waist, Orpheus smiled lovingly down at his wife before beginning to sing. “La, la, la, la, la-“ 

His last note was cut off as Eurydice stood on her tiptoes so she could press her lips against his. “I guess I have a little bit of a crush on you too,” she admitted, grinning up at her husband before pulling him down into another kiss. The remaining inventory could wait, the count couldn’t change that much in 20 minutes.

[ikevampeventarchive]

[Event Info - SE] Once Again, I Will Fall In Love With You ~ Pt. 1

Event Overview:

This is part 1 of the two-part anniversary story events that IkeVamp has a tradition of doing for their anniversaries, on top of election events! Part 1 features Napoleon, Arthur, and Isaac in Japan, while Part 2 will include Mozart, Leonardo, and Vincent in France.

Announcement: Jun. 28.19 | Duration: Jul. 1 (4:00 PM) - Jul. 13 (9:00 PM)

For this year’s event, the premise is that MC passed away after living the rest of her life in the 19th C, and then made a promise to the suitors wherein if there is such thing as reincarnation, they will search for her again, and they will fall in love again. This post is Really Long so everything is under a cut!

Prologue:

—Unknown memories, a forgotten promise. Led by fate that transcends time, once again I fall in love with “you”….—

(..Ah, this dream again.)

—Ever since I was a child, I’ve seen this dream countless times. In a mansion hidden deep within the forest, a place that I do not know, I spent my days with “those men”….—

**(Napoleon): (yawning)….’Morning, MC. You prepared breakfast for me? Thank you.

(—….You’re calling my name in such a familiar way. Who are you?)

(Mozart): While I was gazing at the sunrise this morning, a new melody formed in my mind. 

(Jeanne): It’s a good song. When I listen to your piano, it calms my heart like magic. MC, you think the same, right?

(Mozart): Ha…My first audience will be you and MC. Make sure to stay and listen ‘till the end. 

(Even though this scenery should all be unknown to me, but somehow, they feel painfully familiar…)

(Dazai): How about it, Miss Toshiko? Won’t you partake in an apple as well? 

(Isaac): I’ve told you already, stop mentioning apples!

(Arthur): This again? It seems like you never learn— You agree of course, MC?

(Even though this is a dream, it feels just like reality—)

(Theo): Hey, MC. Why is he here?

(Shakespeare): My, “he” is a bit cruel, isn’t it. I am here because your older brother invited me so. 

(Vincent): I wanted to have tea with everyone, so I invited Will, but… MC, did I mess up?

(Theo): That’s not….you didn’t do anything wrong! C’mon join in, Mutt!

(…Every day was lively and fun, repeating over and over.)

(Comte): …Hm, it has a lovely scent. The coffee you served was amazing. 

(Leonardo): Making something that even we would praise, cara mia, you’re quite talented, aren’t you? Or is it due to being under the tutelage of a genius butler? 

(Sebastian): I would disagree. MC has been extremely quick in picking up everything and assisted me greatly. 

(I want to stay here. And I came to wish for it desperately. But…. Dreams will always have an end — it is the inescapable truth of parting.) 

???: I love you…MC. …If there is such a thing as being reborn, I will search for you. No matter how long it takes. 

(…I’ll wait for you. I will wait for you no matter how long it takes.)

Embracing my beloved’s words in the final moments, I slept for a long, long time…—

Opening my eyes to my ordinary bedroom, I let out a small sigh. 

MC: ….What in the world was that dream….?

(The place…was an old, foreign country, and I lived with someone in a large mansion….That’s it. I can’t remember anything else.)

The dream that was so vivid in my mind becomes obscured by mist the moment I open my eyes. But even so, my heartbeat races, and overwhelming feelings of happiness and pain remain. 

(In my dreams, I feel like I made an extremely important promise. An important promise, with an important person….who was that person…?)

It was merely a dream, and I’m not sure if there was any meaning held within. But deep down, I had a feeling our meeting was seared into my heart.

** - The nameplate is blank but there are sprites that appear to signal who is talking.

Event Info:

If you’ve been playing other IkeSeries games, Secret Endings are nothing new. For this event, players must first clear the same character’s Sweet End and Premium End consecutively (it doesn’t matter which End is chosen first), and only upon completion of both Ends, will they unlock the Secret End. 

There is a Secret End for each route, with the amount of points needed to clear One route, all Ends, is 28,396.

Upon completion of the first end for each route, players will be prompted to buy the Epilogue, with the Epilogue bonus being the speech bubble accessory item shown below. 

Visit the links below for ERS (Event Route Summary) of each event route.  

Routes: Napoleon | Arthur | Isaac

Event Rewards/Promotions:

Shown above is the full event outfit from both the Ranking, ECB/Completion, and Epilogue bonuses.

Early Clear Bonus Gold: Clear 2 Premium Ends within 24 hours of entering the event.

Get [Juicy Pink Glitter Makeup] (Beauty: 200)

Early Clear Bonus Silver: Clear 3 (All) Premium Ends within 48 hours of entering the event.

Get [Voluminous Curly Ponytail] (Beauty: 200)

Ranking Bonuses:

Ranks 1 - 100 

Shining on the Moon Brilliant Celebration Dress (Beauty: 280)

Shining on the Moon 2nd Anniversary Celebration Clothes (Beauty: 260)

Frilled Gorgeous Bow (Beauty: 180)

Diamonds x 50 

—

Ranks 101 - 300

Shining on the Moon 2nd Anniversary Celebration Clothes (Beauty: 260)

Frilled Gorgeous Bow (Beauty: 180)

Diamonds x 50

—

Ranks 301 - 800

Frilled Gorgeous Bow (Beauty: 180)

Diamonds x 50

—

Ranks 801 - 1500

Diamonds x 50

—

Ranking within the shown borders will also grant you an extra accessory item! 

Shown above is the event outfit consisting of ECB (Early Clear Bonus) and route completion items. 

[Glittering Butterfly] and [Shining Shower] (the sparkles) are Love Point Bonuses. 

All Clear Gold Bonus: Clear all Secret Ends by 7/11 at 11:59 PM (Event started on 7/1 at 4 PM). 

Get [Hourglass Shining Under The Moonlight] (Beauty: 200) 

All Clear Silver Bonus: Clear a total of 6 Sweet and Premium Ends by 7/6 at 11:59 PM. 

Get [Romantic Rose Curtain] (Beauty: 200)

All Clear Bonus: Clear all Ends.

Get [Rendezvous At A Moonlit Lake Background] (Beauty: 220)

All Premium Clear Bonus: Clear all 3 Premium Ends.

Get [2nd Anniversary Stuffed Bunny] (Beauty: 200)

Set Purchase Bonus Present: Purchase the [Event Specialty] Set within 7/1 at 4:00 PM to 7/6 at 11:59 PM and receive [2nd Anniversary Celebration Chibi]. 

Love Points Bonuses:

10,000 Points - Closet Space x 2

20,000 Points - Gacha Token x 1

30,000 Points - Closet Space x 2

40,000 Points - Gacha Token x 1

50,000 Points - Closet Space x 2

60,000 Points - Gacha Token x 2

70,000 Points - Closet Space x 4 and [Glittering Butterfly] (Beauty: 80)

80,000 Points - Gacha Token x 2

90,000 Points - Closet Space x 5 and [Shining Shower] (Beauty: 100)

100,000 Points - Gacha Token x 4 

—

And that’s it for the Event Info for Part 1 of the [Once Again, I Will Fall In Love With You] event! 

Cybird certainly went all out for IkeVamp anniversary, with all the sales and bonuses and events they’re throwing left and right, which keeps all of us running this blog very busy bees. 

[hms-chill]

The Dewey Decimal System, and Other Love Languages

Alternate Title: Love in the Time of Midterms

Summary: A few weeks into his job at the library, a patron asks Henry where to find “the gay books”, kicking off half a semester of pining.

Henry is finishing shelving a cart of large print books when his life changes forever.

"Excuse me, hi. Do you have any gay books?" The boy asking is around Henry's age. He's short, and he's dressed casually in a polo and jeans, dress shoes and backpack categorizing him as a student at the local college. Henry's brain notes that he's attractive, though Henry refuses to acknowledge that thought.

"Of course! Fiction or nonfiction?"

"Oh. I... I guess either one? I wasn't sure I'd get to pick." Henry isn't offended that this handsome college student wouldn't think there were queer books in the library. He isn't, not in the slightest, offended that he seems to think the library is stuck in the 1940s. He refuses to let the other boy see how not offended he is, and he certainly doesn't use the excuse to show off a bit and display just how many queer books the library has.

"Alright, well, for nonfiction, you're going to want the early 300s for books on gender and sexuality. I believe it's somewhere between 303 and 307, and I want to say 306, but I've only been here a couple weeks and don't know the Dewey decimal system as well as I'd like to. I don't get to shelve much nonfic. If you're looking for fiction, we don't exactly have a queer section, but I could direct you to some that I've enjoyed or heard about."

"That would be good."

"If you like Greek mythology, Madeline Miller's A Song of Achilles is very queer. So are most of Rick Riordan's books, especially his later series. If you like travel novels or adventure books, Mackenzie Lee's The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue has a bi lead, and the sequel focuses on his aro/ace sister. If you're into fantasy or fantastic realism, Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Cycle has queer characters, and Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows is a heist story with a bunch of queer characters. There's also How to Fix a Mechanical Heart, Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit, and Kiss Number 8 in YA, though I haven't read those. In sci-fi, I haven't gotten around to them, but the Welcome to Night Vale novels under Fink would almost certainly have queer representation. The main character of the podcast is gay. He wrote an Alice Isn't Dead novel, too, and that podcast is about a woman looking for her wife, so I can't imagine the book would be... Sorry; this is probably more than you want." The other boy is typing furiously on his phone, brow furrowed just a bit as he tries to get everything down. The way his tongue pokes out the side of his mouth most certainly isn't the cutest thing Henry has seen all day. He has a dog, after all. David is, objectively, much cuter than a handsome boy seriously taking notes on queer fiction that Henry likes.

"This is good. It's perfect. Thank you," the boy says, still looking at his phone. He looks up a moment later, suddenly quieter, to ask, "Um, another question; do you have any books on mental health?"

"Mid or late 100s I think. They're before mythology in the 200s, but I'm not entirely sure where, sorry."

"No, don't be sorry. You're new. That's perfect. Thank you. Have a nice ga-- day. Have a nice day."

"You, too. If you need anything else, I'm working until six, and I spend a lot of time shelving in the kids room. I'd be happy to help."

"Okay. Yeah, thanks. Have a good one." With that, the boy turns to leave, and Henry finishes shelving his cart, trying to forget the other boy's smile and the way he'd furiously typed every book Henry recommended. He tries to forget the other boy's hesitation to ask about mental health books, the endearing shyness that most definitely did not tug at Henry's heartstrings. After all, there really isn't a point pining over a patron he'll never see again.

-

As it turns out, Henry does see the patron again. He's back a few days later, and Henry looks up just in time to see him dump a massive stack of books into the return slot. He smiles at Henry, making a beeline over to where he's shelving.

"Hi again, um, do you have any cookbooks?"

"Upstairs; 641."

"What the fuck. Hod do you do that?"

"We have a lot of cookbooks, and they're popular. I reshelve them a lot." It's really not that impressive of a thing to know. Some of Henry's coworkers know the Dewey decimal system forwards and backwards, but the other boy is looking at him like he's just done something incredible."

"What else do you have memorized?"

"Um, let's see. World War II is in the 940s. Current politics are in the 900s; The Meuller Report is in the 990s I think. I shelved that a lot. Mythology is in the 200s, folklore and fairy tales and stuff the late 300s. UFOs, cryptids, that kind of thing in the 90s, and computer stuff before that. Hobbies are in the 690s or 790s. Animals are 590s; sharks in particular are... 597? No. 587. I think. Airplanes 626. 808 is short stories, poems are after that and then by 811 you're into plays. Workout and health stuff is before cookbooks, so 639 or 640. Queer and gender stuff 306. Biography 900s is princess books, and 400s are foreign language. Travel is the late 800s or early 900s I think; they're in the back somewhere."

"That's incredible. I thought you said you were new. How long have you been here?" He's so impressed, and Henry isn't sure he's ever felt so proud of something so simple. The fact that this random patron is one of two people in the city to actually compliment him recently certainly doesn't help with the crush he's working hard not to develop.

"About three weeks."

"Holy sh-- cow. You're so smart. How are you this smart?"

Henry feels his face start to go red. "It's just one of those things you pick up."

"Still, it's incredible."

"Thank you. But you needed a cookbook? Any type in particular? We have a pretty large collection, so I can show you the online catalog if you want. It can give you more exact information than I can."

"Yeah, but if you teach me to use the catalogue, I won't have an excuse to come bother you." He winks, leaning against a shelf, and he really doesn't have any business looking so carefree and handsome. He came here to check things out, not get checked out. Not that Henry is doing any checking out.

"Well, I wouldn't mind if you still come bother me. It's a nice break from the monotony. The catalogue could just help for when I'm wrong or not here."

"Alright, fine. I'm not sure how much help a search is going to be, though. I doubt there's a book called What to Make When You Invite Your Family to Your College Apartment to Tell Them You're Bi." He freezes for a second, and Henry knows all too well the sudden nerves, the tense moment of waiting for a reaction.

"If you find one, let me know. I'm sure I could adapt it for being gay," he says, and the other boy relaxes. When he looks up, his smile is back, and he follows Henry to a computer catalogue.

He comes down from the cookbook section nearly an hour later, three cookbooks in his arms. He's headed for the checkout, but he turns when he sees Henry with an empty cart.

"Hey, hi. I, um, well, I found a rainbow cookbook. I'll have to change the colors and things, but I thought maybe I could do something from that? Like a layer cake with a pride flag or something? I mean, I know they'll be okay with it. At least I think they will. My... my dad's pretty catholic, but we have a family friend who's gay and my dad's done a ton to look after and fight for him. We all love him. And my best friend is bi, and they've practically adopted her so it should be okay. I don't... I don't think it'll go badly, but... sorry. This isn't part of your job."

"I don't mind. You're making a cake with a pride flag; what else are you going to make? Would it help to talk it through?"

"Sure. Yeah. I'm thinking elote, since we made that a lot growing up, and one of these has a recipe for doing it on a stovetop instead of a grill. And then I was thinking ribs, but I don't have a grill, so I thought instead I'd make some pulled pork? It's got that barbecue thing that'll go well with the elote, and it's really easy to make a lot, so I can just tell everyone at once and get it over with. And if there's extra I can freeze it."

"I think it sounds good, and it sounds like they'll be happy to support you. I can tell they mean a lot to you; you're lucky to have them. You'll have to let me know how it goes if we bump into each other again."

"I will, yeah. Thank you. You've been wonderful."

"Good luck."

The other boy smiles and goes to check out, and Henry takes his cart back to the staff room, hoping he'll get an update soon.

-

On Monday, the other boy is back, and he comes up to Henry with a giant grin.

"It went well! It was so good. My mom got a bunch of brochures about staying safe, which was awkward but it's how she shows love, and my dad didn't care, and my sister won't stop trying to get me to join tinder so she can set me up with someone. They... they love me, and they don't care that I'm bi. It doesn't matter."

Henry grins. "I'm so happy for you. That's huge."

"Thank you so much for everything. Seriously, talking to you helped a lot."

"It was the least I could do."

"No, it-- I'm trying to say thank you; just let me."

"Alright."

"Thank you for letting me talk to you about coming out. Was that so hard? You're more important to people than you give yourself credit for. Anyway, I've got to run to a thing, but I wanted to stop in and see you. And update you. And thank you. You helped."

He's gone before Henry can respond, but he's surprised to realize he can't stop smiling for the rest of his shift.

-

Over the next few weeks, Henry sees and hears a lot of the things that happen in the library. He hears a little boy complain that there's loud noises in the library, and he hears the woman with that little boy explain that by yelling, he is the loud noise in the library. Henry sees a little girl falling asleep on a parent's lap as they read to her. He sees the handsome boy from before help a fourth grader through her math homework in a tutoring session and hears him talking to a little boy about Nancy Drew. He doesn't see everything, though. He doesn't see the mystery patron re-shelve some of the books that are out of order, making Henry's job easier. He doesn't hear the other boy call his sister on his way out to gush about the cute librarian he just saw teach a mom how to find Percy Jackson books so she could teach her son. What he does get used to seeing, though, is the same cute boy, settled at a table that Henry walks past regularly.

By the time midterms roll around, Henry's gotten used to seeing the other boy in the library. On the first day of midterms week, he's already there when Henry's shift starts. Henry, who has three essays due soon and only one started, plans to stay in the library when he gets off work. If he can't find any open tables, well, it must be due to midterms. He certainly didn't avoid looking in a few less popular places in order to justify going up to the table where his mystery patron is sitting. The other boy looks up with a smile.

"Do you mind if I sit? It's full everywhere else. I swear I'll be quiet; I've just got to draft an essay."

"Not at all. Here; let me slide some stuff over. What's your essay on?"

"Identity and fluidity in Virginia Woolf's Orlando. What are you working on?"

"A study guide for the politics of international economics."

"Sounds thrilling."

"What are you writing on? A book about Florida?" and god, Henry has to fight not to laugh just a bit.

"A book about Virginia Woolf's girlfriend."

"No way. Wasn't she like... old?"

"The 1920s aren't that old; we have examples of queer folks going back to the 400s BCE. Sappho's poetry would be in either the 200s or 808 if we have any, and tons of queer folks from Julie d'Aubigny to Alexander Hamilton are in biographies."

"Maybe later. Tell me about your essay; I can't study anymore."

"Okay, so, this book is a fake biography of a person named Orlando who, halfway through, changes from a man to a woman. I'm arguing that by using water to symbolize major change, Woolf signals to readers that their sex change isn't actually a big deal in their identity. Basically, every time Orlando gets a new opportunity or something else major happens, there's water involved somehow. But when their sex changes, which at first glance is the most drastic thing that happens to them, there's no water anywhere. In fact, there's fire, and that fire is mentioned a few different times. So I'm arguing that this shows readers that gender doesn't actually have that much impact on who someone is, but it's instead just how we present to the world. Therefore, it shouldn't matter if Virginia's in love with a woman, because Vita's just another human, and this whole thing is just a massive love letter to Vita and also a screw you to everyone else, because they all knew it was about Vita and Virginia didn't care."

"Wait, people knew? People knew they were lesbians."

"Well, they were probably both bi, and Virginia was probably demi-romantic, but it's not fair to put labels on them because all of those terms are more modern than these women. But yes, people knew they were dating. Vita's mom complained that Virginia stole her daughter."

"That's incredible,"

"Portrait of a Marriage by Nigel nicholson, Vita's son, is probably upstairs in biographies. Chapter five especially goes into detail on their open relationships."

The other boy laughs at that, throwing his whole body back as he does. He has the weight of five midterms on his shoulders, but for the duration of that laugh, he is happy and free and light as a feather.

"You're amazing. I'll let you write your essay, but just know. You're incredible."

Henry pulls out his laptop and opens the file for his essay, but it's a good five minutes before he can start to actually write anything. When he's finished, he nearly asks the other boy to get dinner with him. He doesn't; he can't. He's not confident enough. Instead, he just wishes the other boy good luck on his test as he says goodbye.

-

When Henry gets to work on Wednesday, it doesn't look like his patron has moved. When Henry gets a bit of a break, he texts Pez, who responds immediately with a series of emojis. The man is an enigma, but fifteen minutes later, he's arrived with two of the cookies Henry made them the night before. Henry takes them to the table where his favorite patron sits, the eye of a storm of notes, highlighters, empty coffee cups, and granola bar wrappers.

"Hello. Sorry to bother you, but you look like you could use these," Henry says, setting the cookies on the table as he passes.

"What... thank you! Thanks."

Henry is gone before the other boy can say more, his face going red. He doesn't see the little smile that spreads across the other boy's face or the way his whole body relaxes as he bites into the first cookie. When he passes the table again, though, he does see an empty bag and a somewhat refreshed patron.

-

As midterms pass and life settles down a bit, the table where his patron sits starts to be empty occasionally. Henry tries not to miss the boy who used to sit there, surrounded by clutter and wearing adorable glasses. He must have other things happening, a life outside of class work and study sessions. Still, it's a bright spot in Henry's day to see the familiar backpack in a chair, even without his patron at the table.

He finds his patron a few minutes later, or more accurately, his patron finds him.

"Excuse me, hi. Do you happen to have any books about how to ask out the hot librarian who's super smart and puts up with my constant nagging and helped me come out to my family and brought me cookies during midterms?"

Henry freezes, then says, "If we did, I would assume the first suggestion would be to tell this person your name." He's doing his best to stay calm, but the other boy isn't making it easy. He's leaning against a bookshelf, casually, like asking to date another boy in a public place is the easiest thing in the world.

"Did I not... fuck, I-- I'm Alex. Alexander Claremont-Diaz. Sorry. Shit. Yours is on your nametag and I just kinda assumed we... sorry."

"Alex, it's nice to meet you. I'm Henry. Back to your question, if we had such a book, I would assume it would also suggest waiting until the person you want to ask out is off work. But, when he's not on the clock and can be his own person, you shouldn't have any problem. You're smart, and you're nice, and you're good looking."

"You think?"

"I do. And you didn't ask, but I get off at six, and I don't have dinner plans."

With that, Henry finishes sorting his cart and walks away to shelve it, leaving Alexander Claremont-Diaz, mystery patron, grinning behind him.

On AO3

Notes: 

To my knowledge as someone who's worked at a library for a month, the Dewey decimal numbers in this are accurate. 306 is definitely gay books, and that'll be the case at any library that uses this system. Also, the fiction books mentioned are all real and queer. Especially Orlando. - Speaking of Orlando, read it! It's so good! I'm working on the play (adapted by Sarah Ruhl, who's incredible) and I'm in love with it.

[businessconsultingservices]

The Authority of Money



During my recent trip to the U.S., I decided to play tourist and visit a few places that I had never been. One of the more interesting destinations was the Money Museum at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago, Illinois.

    No matter how much it’s talked about in the news and politics, I really had no idea exactly what the Federal Reserve Bank does. I know its name is printed at the top of all of my Benjamin, but that was about the extent of my knowledge. With the help of a friend I’ve had for 40 years, I signed up to take the tour and get a glimpse behind the scenes of the place that money calls home. Knowing the amount of money that passes through the place and seeing the turn of the century style conjured up images of caper stories the whole time I was there. I couldn’t help but think  

“okay, if I was going to rob this place, how would I do it?”

 

The Guided Tour

While it was interesting to learn what the Federal Reserve Bank does, the real beauty of the visit was a special tour through some of the innards with a guide who knows trivia that spans centuries and literally trillions of dollars. Jerry, our tour guide, was a fascinating man who returned from the boredom of retirement to be a tour guide, talking guests through the museum.

    He wore a light green and white suit, looking like he too had been minted by the U.S. government decades ago. Over the course of the next hour or so, he shared background on the Fed, stories and more numbers than anyone should be able to recall.

In the main museum, we got to see a number of displays about the history of currency in the United States, including a couple of displays of One Million Dollars:

We also got to learn a bit about what the Federal Reserve Bank does in a video that was put together in-house – nice, but a bit dry. I’m sharing what I took away from it, which may be entirely inaccurate, due to my failing memory.

The Fed’s charter is to “oversee how monetary policy is implemented.” It comes down to three primary functions:

they oversee how payment systems work, so the way checks are cashed, the way credit card and online transactions take place;

 they are the regulators of banks in the U.S., so they’re the ones who go in and audit banks to make sure they’re not breaking any laws and

The most visible function is that they’re responsible for moving cash around.

    For most of us, that’s the fascinating part of what they do. Every day of the week, shipments of currency come from the United States mints to the Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed then ships that currency out to the banks that need it. While the larger bills are transported by armored car every day, the $1 bills are packed into unmarked semi-trailers and driven to the building to prepare them for distribution.

I guess it’s not much different from shipping a truckload of iPhones to a warehouse, but somehow it SEEMS riskier that they do that.

On the flip side of things, the Fed gets deliveries of cash from the banks, which is counted and bundled for re-distribution. This is also the step that includes pulling old and worn bills out of circulation. One of the most surprising things I saw was how little wear a bill needs for it to be taken out of circulation. Most of the bills in your wallet are probably not going to pass.

About $17 Million in currency is destroyed every day at the Chicago Fed, which is one of 12 Federal Reserve Banks. The Money Museum even gives you a small bag of shredded money as a souvenir, which contains the remnants of currency equal to about $370. One of the more interesting facts about this shredded currency is that until the mid 20th century, the shredded bills were burned, but because of the toxic chemicals used in the ink, they had to stop doing that.

 It’s now shipped off to special landfills for toxic materials. Kind of makes you worry about handling it every day, doesn’t it?

A Personal Tour

I had the pleasure of getting a more personal tour, including a trip to see the money sorting and counting machines (through a thick glass window, of course), but sadly the machines weren’t operating that day.

    Those functions are visible from an additional section of the Museum that was closed off in 2001, so not many people get to visit it.

    My other favorite part was looking at the high denomination currency that’s no longer in circulation. One display has a $10,000 bill in it, along with several other bills from the 200-ish years of American money printing. The 10k bills were printed until the 1940s and discontinued when it became apparent that virtually all bills above $1000 in denomination were being used for criminal purposes.

 Just over 300 of the bills survive, most of which are in the hands of collectors. About 9 years ago, one of them actually arrived at the Fed through normal banking channels! Someone had gotten hold of it (perhaps stored in a box in an attic somewhere), taken it to their local bank and deposited it. With a quick bit of research, they’d have discovered it was worth close to 10 times that to a collector.

    

I’d love to make a few suggestions to the guys at the Money Museum as improvements, but since this is solely for PR (admission is free), I’m sure they are limited in how much they invest in the tour. Although considering the constant saber-rattling in Congress about the Fed, maybe they could use a bit stronger PR push.

One of my biggest pet peeves with 90% of museums is that no one really thinks about photos. Placement of light fixtures to minimize glare, setting up obstruction free angles and allowing guests the chance to pose without impeding traffic are critical factors for any museum and most of them don’t think that through.

Re-open the closed section of the tour. Money counting and shredding is one of the more fascinating things that happens at the Fed and no one gets to see it. I get it. 9/11 happened. But the security checks and procedures keep out bank robbers, so I’m sure they can be effective for other people, too.

Tell some stories. Interactive displays are all well and good, but you’ve got an asset like Jerry who has hundreds of stories in his arsenal. I’m the only one who heard any of them. Everyone else just heard him introduce the video and rattle off a lot of facts and figures.

    

Stories = excitement. Spend a little money and create a new video to share some of these stories in the context of explaining what the Fed does.

All unsolicited advice, of course, but I found the place fascinating and woefully under-utilized. As an average tourist, there just wouldn’t be a lot to hold my interest without some upgrades.

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