#you end up loaning her a month worth of salary

[cherrystrawberrie]

Horrible horrible "how do you get paid what you get paid and not save your money?" Do you realize there's only 2 people working full time in my house filled with 8 people and a dog

[transittanq]

Software Solution: Off-campus students struggle with the overflow of commuters

For students living off-campus, commuting can be a nightmare. Commuters face problems like increased costs, high rent, and a lack of social interaction with faculty and staff. They also need time management help, making it harder to attend classes. Efficient transit can help manage their time and provide superb accessibility to attend classes.

Some examples of how off-campus students deal with the influx of commuters

Costs of living are higher for student commuters

Costs of living are higher for commuter households in the US. While most commuter households earn above-average salaries, they must spend more on transportation than the average American. In 2018, the average commute in the US added $13,095 to the average household budget, and that's a lot of money, especially if you live in a metropolitan area. However, it may be worth it if you're willing to spend the extra money on transportation. Especially for students who are non-salaried, this issue creates a double impact.

The average cost of commuting is different based on where you live. In New York City, for example, the average commute costs $1,290 - more than seven per cent higher than the national average. Next in line is Rochester, New York, with a median commute cost of $3,984 a year. This figure doesn't include the rising cost of gas and auto insurance. Other areas of the country with rising commute costs include Jacksonville and Orlando, which have a 40% or greater increase in commuting costs. The percentage increase for Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Phoenix is also higher than average. In the United States, commuting costs are primarily driven by the distance between a home and a school/ university.

Parking is a problem

Parking is an issue for both on-campus and off-campus students. It's a problem causing students a lot of anxiety and frustration. Fortunately, there are some solutions. One idea is to sell residential parking passes, with the cost being based on the number of spots available in a given zone. This way, students will have a guaranteed place near their dorms.

While parking is one of the biggest problems for off-campus students, the issue extends beyond finding a spot to park your car. Undergraduate senator Kathy Pham has proposed a bill to offer free bicycles to students who do not have a car. The bill has passed the undergraduate senate almost unanimously, but the administration has yet to implement the program. 

Rents are higher for commuters

Students often face financial issues when living off-campus. It can cause students to delay their graduation and put their studies on hold. Historically, colleges have expected that students' families will support them while they attend school. Increasing off-campus rents are pushing college students into debt and threatening to keep some students out of higher education. 

Jolynn Kelly, a senior at the University of Wisconsin, rented a tiny loft apartment for three months and ended up racking up $16,800 in debt. To help her pay her rent and eat meals, she had to take out a student loan. Although she lives off-campus, she commutes to campus when traffic is not too bad.

Commuters have fewer opportunities to interact with faculty and staff

Commuter students typically have limited opportunities to interact with faculty and staff off-site. This often results in a feeling of disconnect from the academic system and the opportunity to build relationships with faculty and administrators. Luckily, there are ways to overcome these problems.

Many professors are considering the advantages of synchronous teaching, which allows students to interact in a virtual classroom. This type of teaching is a great way to create a sense of community and interaction. But there are also significant challenges for commuters. In addition to limited time, commuter students may share bandwidth with other students and care for younger siblings.

Commuters have lower retention rates

One of the problems facing many universities and colleges today is retention. Statistics show that more than one in four students will not complete their education in six years and that commuting students of color have higher dropout rates than their off-campus counterparts. These findings suggest that universities and colleges must work harder to keep their students in the classroom.

One reason for this difference is that commuter students have less contact with other students and faculty outside the classroom. Because commuter students have limited campus time, they need more opportunities to build meaningful relationships with peers. Because of this, they are more likely to drop out or transfer to colleges. In Nutshell With Ridesharing programs being implemented to student’s transit, these problems can be solved efficiently.. 

[pickalilywrites]

a mikahisu au inspired by one of my favorite shows~ please enjoy ^^

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Do You Still Dream of Me?

MikaHisu. Hotel Del Luna AU.

Like the Moon Loves the Ocean Series: Chapter 1

13252 words.

Read on Ao3!

Armin Arlert hunches over a stack of documents, nibbling on the end of his fountain pen. The pen costs more than his entire outfit — an oversized suit that Armin had fished out of a bin at his local thrift store when he was trying to find a respectable ensemble to wear for the interview that snagged him his current job. Even now, Armin isn’t sure how he managed to get a job as a finance manager at one of the most expensive hotels he’s ever seen in his life. Actually, this might be one of the most extravagant places Armin has ever stepped foot in. He still feels out of place when he arrives in the morning, his polyester suit looking even cheaper against the marble floors and gilded staircase, but nobody ever seems to pay him any mind when he sneaks through the door and scurries away to his office at the far end of the lobby.

His brow furrows as he looks at a particularly confusing set of numbers, numbers that don’t add up the way that they should. Or, well, they’re not adding up in a way that will be satisfying to the hotel owner when he reports the new estimated budget for next month. They’ll have to cut spending once again. At the very least, they need to stop splurging on unnecessary decorations for the hotel and personal luxury expenditures. It’s the same report he’s made every month since he’s been here, but always surprises the hotel manager nonetheless. And she’s never happy to hear it. Armin highly suspects that it’s a major reason why he’s her least favorite hotel staff member even though he’s really just the bearer of bad news.

Ah, how do I break this to her? Armin wonders, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his face tiredly. He lets his arms fall to his sides and sits in his chair, his head tipped back and his eyes closed as he contemplates his next move. On one hand, the woman can’t possibly fire him because her assets would be entirely in the negatives if he weren’t here to keep her in check. On the other hand, the glare she shoots him as he delivers the bad news is enough for him to wish an abyss would appear and swallow him up on the spot. He briefly wonders if he can lie his way out of it - maybe fudge the numbers so that the woman can live as extravagantly as she desires - but that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen. There really isn’t any way out of it.

Armin sighs once more before opening his eyes ... only to see a set of cold, dead eyes staring back at him.

He’s not sure what kind of noise comes out of his throat as he jumps out of his chair, knocking over the stack of papers he’s been working on and tripping over his chair. He’s still shrieking as the thing approaches him, its hand outstretched as it walks toward him even as he crawls backward up against the wall. Armin can hardly look at it - this ghost of a person, a bloody wound across its neck where it had been decapitated before its untimely death - and he shrinks against the wall as it comes closer and closer.

The door opens just then and the sound of footsteps alerts the ghost, making it turn its head to see who has just entered.

“Excuse me, miss,” a voice says. A woman appears, completely calm even though Armin still sits huddled in the corner screaming. She ignores him, her focus entirely on the ghost, to which she offers a warm smile. The woman gestures towards the opened door. “I’m afraid you’ve stumbled into the office of our financial advisor. If you can step into the lobby, our receptionist can assist you in checking into a room at the front desk.”

The ghost looks slowly from the woman and then to Armin. After a long pause, the ghost woman slowly bows to Armin — her form of an apology, Armin supposes — before departing, the door swinging shut behind her.

The woman stares at the closed door for a moment before shifting her attention to Armin. Gone is her professional smile; it’s replaced with an amused expression, laughter stifled behind lips closed in a thin line. She offers a slender hand to Armin to help him up. “I thought you’d be used to our clients by now. Hasn’t it been almost a year since you started working here?”

“Er, yeah,” Armin says sheepishly, the tips of his ears turning pink in embarrassment. He drags his feet to his desk, collecting his papers and dropping them into a messy stack on his desk before collapsing in his chair. Face in hand, he says, “I probably should, but it’s still weird. I can probably see a million ghosts for the next few years, but they’ll always make me jump in my seat. Maybe if they didn’t stop phasing through the walls of my office and sneaking up on me …”

The woman only laughs, and Armin feels a little more relaxed. Mikasa Ackerman, the assistant manager of the hotel, is one of the only hotel staff members Armin feels comfortable around. While the other staff members either roll their eyes or laugh when Armin encounters their ghostly clientele, Mikasa has always been patient with him.

“The next few years,” Mikasa muses, a lopsided smile on her face. She takes a seat in a chair across from him. She leans her elbow on the armrest, her cheek pressed up against her hand. Eyebrow raised, the manager asks, “You really think you’ll be working here for a few more years? Do we not pay you well enough?”

“You’re really underestimating the cost of student loans these days,” Armin sighs, slumping lower in his chair. He reaches for the mug on his desk, bringing it to his lips, and takes a long sip of coffee. It’s cold as it hits his tongue and slides down his throat, and he shudders when it hits his stomach. On second thought, caffeine probably isn’t the best decision considering the fact that he was almost scared shitless only a minute ago. He returns the mug to its coaster, an unsatisfied frown on his face.

“Poor, poor you,” Mikasa coos, eyes crinkling as her smile widens. She sits back, legs crossed and hands placed on her knees. She looks so comfortable here, so much like she belongs in her wool suit, the golden badge that lists her name and title pinned against her breast. If she weren’t so nice, maybe Armin would feel inferior. “It’s kind of your fault for going for a Ph.D. What do you need a doctorate in finance for anyway?”

“I don’t really know what I was thinking, to be honest. I thought maybe I could teach at a university somewhere down the line. Hoped the salary I earned down the line would make the investment worth it, but obviously I didn’t learn anything in my undergrad.” Armin waves his hand around the room. “Anyway, here I am now working at a ghost hotel so that I can pay off my student loans.” It’s probably the biggest mistake of his life next to taking a job at this hotel. Obtaining a Ph.D didn’t give him the salary bump he hoped it would and this was the only place that paid him nearly enough for his years at school.

“Could be worse,” Mikasa says with a shrug. “At least you don’t age while you’re here.”

“Ah, right,” Armin says. That was mentioned as an added perk when he had started to work here, but he hadn’t really believed it at first. Sure, some of his coworkers claim to have been working at this hotel for decades, although most of them look well under the age they say they are. Armin’s not even sure how that’s possible considering the demanding boss they work under. He supposes he’ll find out if it’s true in a few years, assuming he’s still paying off his student loans by then. Armin sits up a bit, eyebrow raised. “How long have you been working here again?”

Mikasa grins. “A little over twenty years.”

The answer isn’t anything new, but it’s always a punch in the gut whenever Armin hears it because it never makes sense to him. Mikasa can’t be older than twenty-seven — and that was pushing it. If she really were working for twenty years, she would have been a child when she had first been employed. Armin thinks she must be joking with him just like the other employees are, but Armin finds that strange too. Mikasa is always friendly with him, but she’s not the type to tell strange jokes.

“Right,” Armin says. He looks at Mikasa cautiously, but her expression tells him nothing.

“Don’t worry. It’s not so bad after a while,” Mikasa says. She leans back, staring back at Armin. Even though she doesn’t look at him threateningly, Armin still shrinks under her gaze.

“How’s your work going, by the way? Any good news for the boss?” Mikasa reaches over, a finger tapping on Armin’s stack of papers.

Armin groans, burying his head in his hands, although it’s more because of the mention of their boss rather than the work itself.

Historia Reiss is the hotelier of the Blutmond, the phantom hotel which Armin finds himself unfortunately employed. Her appearance is anything but intimidating. She wasn’t even close to being five feet tall. With hair of spun gold and aquamarine eyes, the petite woman could be mistaken for a life-sized doll if it weren’t for the terrible scowl on her face. In all of Armin’s time at the Blutmond, he doesn’t think he’s seen her smile once. She glowered the entire time during his interview, never opening her mouth except to ask whether or not he’d be able to balance her account in time for her to buy the latest model Porsche. The woman didn’t even congratulate him when she and Mikasa came to visit him with the news of his new job, only telling him that she expected him to come to work on time and not to make any mistakes with her finances or she’d have his head. He completely believed her and has always double-checked his work at least three times before finalizing his spreadsheets. His other coworkers have insisted that the woman isn’t nearly as frightening as Armin believes her to be, but the way they cower and scurry to put everything in place whenever she steps into the room doesn’t fool him. He’s also heard a curious rumor about her. His coworkers always mention that she’s been here the longest — over a thousand years — although he’s not sure if it’s just a way of them calling her an old hag because the woman doesn’t look a day over twenty-five.

“It’s really not going so great,” Armin says with a pained expression. He flips through some of his papers, pulling out a small stack that documents Historia’s personal expenses. Most of the page is highlighted in bright red. Armin thought the severe color would help convince their boss about his budgeting suggestions at the end of the week. Handing the papers to Mikasa, Armin says, “It’s only been half the month, but Miss Reiss is spending way too much on her credit card already. At this rate, she won’t have enough to buy that caviar that she likes so much.”

“It’s fine. Historia doesn’t actually like caviar that much. She just likes how rich she feels when she eats it,” the manager says absentmindedly. Mikasa flips through the papers, an eyebrow raised, but she doesn’t seem surprised as she reviews Armin’s findings. Once through with them, she straightens them out on the desk. “Maybe I can convince her to get sashimi next time.”

“I’m serious. She really needs to cut down on her spending habits.” He hates how whiny he sounds, but it’s difficult for him not to whine when he’s imagining how infuriated his employer will be when he timidly suggests that she not buy anymore jewelry for the rest of the month. “I mean, does she really need to have twelve different sports cars lining her garage? Where is she even going?”

Mikasa sits with her fingers steepled, a pout on her lips as she looks down at the papers again. She reaches over to thumb through the papers once more before sitting back again. “I guess I can talk to her about it.”

Armin sits up, his mouth shaped in a perfect “O.” “Would you really?” His mind is already going a million miles a minute, thinking about everything he has to review with Mikasa before she presents the information to their boss. Maybe he can show her the presentation slides he prepared in advance. He thought having his notes on an elegant Powerpoint would be much better than him stuttering through his notes while Historia glared at him. A little more energized now, Armin is already clicking through his computer, pulling up the presentation slides for Mikasa to look at. “If you’re really serious, I have some materials that can help you-”

“I’m not,” Mikasa says, an amused smile on her face. She laughs when Armin visibly deflates. “Ah, I feel a bit bad seeing you so disappointed, though. Are you really that scared of her?”

Armin thinks about the little woman, the blue flames that ignite in her eyes whenever he so much as hints at the fact that her shopping sprees should have a cap on them. He shudders. “I’m terrified.”

The woman nods sympathetically. “Alright, I’ll try to talk to her. No promises, though. You know how she feels about these things.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Armin breathes, collapsing against the back of his chair with relief. He knows that most of Historia’s ire will be directed towards him, but he hopes that having Mikasa deliver the news will somehow soften the blow.

“Mhm. You’re going to get used to being in her line of fire though. It’s unfortunate, but it comes with the job of being her finance manager. She’ll always be bad with money no matter how much you tell her not to spend,” Mikasa tells him with a wry smile. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, the sound making Armin jump in his seat. She looks at him, snickering, and pulls her phone out. Mikasa glances at her phone before turning it so that Armin could see the name flashing across the screen - Historia. “Unless you’d like to practice right now.”

Armin, eyes wide and throat closing shut at just the sight of the hotelier’s name, shakes his head.

“Alright, alright,” Mikasa laughs. She stands up, straightening out her blazer. “I’ll stop teasing you and leave you to your work then. And don’t worry about Historia; I’ll take care of her for you.” The manager returns to her phone, swiping across the screen and taking the call.

“Thanks, Mikasa,” Armin says. He didn’t mean for his voice to come out as a squeak, but he finds that he can’t speak knowing that his employer might hear his voice on the other end.

Mikasa simply waves at him, walking towards the door. “Yeah, I’m free, but I’m surprised you’re not calling Levi for something like this,” she’s saying. She pulls open the door, her voice fading as she’s walking out. “No, the work is fine. It’s perfect, actually. I was hoping we could talk about your finances. I just talked to Armin …”

Armin winces at the mention of his name and, as much as he knows he shouldn’t because it’ll only make him feel worse, strains to listen in on the conversation but the wooden door proves too thick of a barrier to let him eavesdrop. Just as well, he thinks as he rests his forehead against the cool surface of his desk. He’ll just get back to work estimating next month’s budget. And, he thinks as he squeezes his eyes shut, praying that he won’t have any more unexpected paranormal visitors today.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

Historia sits in the passenger seat of a slick blue Bentley, one of the many luxury cars that line her parking garage. Mikasa has tried to convince the hotelier that one car should be enough, has even tried selling them behind her back only for Historia to buy twice as many cars to replace them. Looking at Historia now, Mikasa understands why the blonde gravitates so naturally to high-end sports cars. In the passenger seat with her golden hair falling behind her back in waves, Historia looks like she could be a model for the luxury brand. Her pastel dress, one that Mikasa is fairly certain has been flaunted on a runway at some point in the past year, is probably worth just as much as the Bentley if not more. Mikasa doesn’t even want to think about how much jewelry that adorns the woman’s neck is worth, although she knows she should probably ask.

“What took you so long?” Historia asks, her scowl breaking the illusion of her pixie-like appearance. She sits up, holding her matching clutch purse in her lap. Her bottom lip sticks out, making her plush pink lips look even more like a doll’s. She looks cute, Mikasa could even say, but she knows the words would only cause Historia to narrow her blue eyes in an irritated glare.

Mikasa slips into the driver’s seat, fishing the car keys from the inside of her breast pocket. “My apologies. I was speaking with Armin before I came here,” she tells Historia. She turns the ignition, the engine purring as the car starts up. “He had some interesting things to say about your finances.”

At the mention of the man’s name, Historia hisses, tossing her hair over her shoulder. It seems to be a common reaction whenever the finance manager is mentioned in the hotelier’s presence. “I don’t want to hear anything he has to say,” Historia sniffs, as if not speaking about it will somehow help her avoid her financial issues. She reaches for the remote, clicking the garage door open so that they can make their exit. “He never has anything good to say to me. All he ever does is bring me bad news. I don’t even know why we hired him.”

“Because you’re terrible at budgeting,” Mikasa answers easily, ignoring the glare that she receives. After working at the hotel for decades, she’s quite used to being at the receiving end of Historia’s scathing looks. She doesn’t take her eyes off the road as she drives, maneuvering out of the parking spot and onto the driveway easily. “He mentioned that you might not even have enough money for an ounce of caviar at the end of the month.”

Historia whips her head so quickly that her neck might have snapped if she were a normal person. Mikasa doesn’t have to look at the woman’s expression to see that she’s horrified at the thought of not eating the overpriced salt-cured fish eggs. “Should I just fire him?” Historia murmurs, sitting with her back against her seat. She shakes her head, her brows furrowed as she considers letting go of her financial manager. “Or maybe we can cut his pay. I’ll have more money if I cut his pay, right?”

“If you cut his pay, he’ll be working here for longer to pay off his student loans,” Mikasa reminds her employer. “You could try hiring someone else, but he was the best in his class. Harvard.”

Historia’s bottom lip wobbles and, for a moment, it looks like she might even cry. Instead, she lets out a frustrated shriek like a spoiled child. “Ah, that kid! I hate him, you know. Out of everyone here, he’s probably my least favorite.”

“I know,” Mikasa says with a sympathetic nod, trying her best to keep her face stoic even though all she wants to do now is burst into laughter at the childish outburst.

These words aren’t new to Mikasa. In fact, she’s heard different variations of the same words over the years that she’s been here. Sometimes it’s Levi, the current general manager of the hotel. Other times it will be Pixis, the elderly but sweet bartender, or Colt, the receptionist at the front desk who looks barely out of his teens. Quite a number of times it has been Connie, the room manager, for swiping too many snacks from the kitchen in between mealtimes. Mikasa’s even been the least favorite every once in a while, although Armin has been given the title these past few months because he’s come in the way of Historia and the thing she loves the most - a luxurious lifestyle.

The funny thing is that Historia has not always been rich. It’s something that the woman likes to remind everyone, Mikasa included, every now and again. Mikasa doesn’t doubt that, but she does find it amusing that Historia turned her back on her past lifestyle so much so that she doesn’t have an ounce of frugality in her body.

“Who’s the client today?” Mikasa asks just as they’re about to hit the main road.

“Some man named Reiner Braun,” Historia says with a click of her tongue. She flips idly through her phone before inserting coordinates in the device. “His grand-niece reached out to us, but she couldn't tell me how rich he was. Don’t you think that’s ridiculous? You’d think someone so close to him would have a sense of how much money he has.” Historia frowns as she inspects her pearly pink nails.

“Children these days,” Mikasa tsks wryly, but Historia doesn’t seem to pick up on her sarcasm.

“They’re terrible. Terrible, terrible. Stupid and spoiled, all of them.” Historia clicks her tongue disapprovingly. The irony of calling someone else “spoiled” while she’s wearing a diamond choker around her neck hasn’t yet reached Historia.

“And I suppose you know what being spoiled looks like?”

It takes a moment for Historia to realize what Mikasa is saying. She sits up, clearly insulted. “I worked for this!” Historia says indignantly, smoothing out her skirt to prevent wrinkles. “I’ll have you know that I worked for every single cent that pays for my lifestyle. I earned all of this.”

“Of course,” Mikasa says with a nod. Beside her, Historia begins to settle down in her seat. “I’m sure the exorbitant prices you charge your clients also helps.”

Historia gives Mikasa a scathing side glare, one that would have made Mikasa flinch in her early days but now it’s like watching a kitten get angry after hiding its toy. She tosses her head, her golden tresses flying back in the wind. “I should have just brought Levi with me,” she mutters under her breath.

Mikasa remains unbothered. “You probably should have,” she replies in a sing-song voice.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

“You know,” Mikasa says as they stand on the doorstep of a sprawling mansion fit for a lord, “you would think his grand-niece would have mentioned that he was loaded.” She reaches over to ring the door, frowning when she’s unable to hear its chime through the thick mahogany door.

“This?” Historia asks, gesturing around the estate. She shrugs, unimpressed. “This is nothing.”

Earlier, they had been stopped at the gate and asked for their identification. Mikasa had thought they would have been stopped there after Historia had gotten into a shouting match with the guard over the intercom until someone else popped on the screen — a young woman with thick dark hair tied half-up in a messy bun — and said they were cleared to come through, pressing open the button for the visitors despite the guard’s protests. As Mikasa drives up the road to the house, Historia hardly looks up at the sprawling green lawn, the freshly trimmed topiaries, or the sparkling fountain. The petite woman doesn’t even blink when Mikasa parks at the front of the house, throwing open the door and stepping out of the car without glancing back even as a valet hurries forward and asks Mikasa for the keys. Although not a fan of letting other people drive around in Historia’s cars, Mikasa grudgingly left the keys in the valet’s hand, chasing after the blonde woman because Mikasa knew Historia never likes to wait for anyone.

“I suppose since he’s living so shabbily we shouldn’t take any commission from him,” Mikasa says dryly. She doesn’t flinch when Historia smacks her sharply on the arm. “Or at the very least offer him a discount. I’m not sure he can afford our services otherwise.”

“Don’t joke like that,” Historia snaps. She reaches up to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Money is money, so we’ll take what we can get.”

The door opens just then, the same young girl who was on the intercom with a bright smile waiting behind it breathlessly. She looks to be just thirteen or fourteen. Her hair is falling out from its little bun and her clothes — a ratty t-shirt and some cutoff denim shorts — look out of place in the mansion. Historia is no doubt looking at the girl’s outfit in disapproval, but the girl doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she sticks out a hand towards the pair. “Hi, I’m Gabi! I spoke to you on the phone,” the girl says, oblivious to the maids and servants panting behind her that are trying to pull her back. “You’re Mikasa and Historia, right? From the Blutmond?”

“Miss Braun,” a butler hisses, grabbing at Gabi’s arm. “The guests haven’t been properly screened. You can’t just allow anyone to enter the Braun estate.”

“Relax. Uncle Braun said I could invite my friends over whenever I want,” Gabi snaps. She shakes the man off, scowling at him before turning back to Mikasa and Historia. “And these two are my friends, right?” She looks at them expectantly, silently begging them to play along.

Historia and Mikasa exchange a look, not confirming or denying anything. After a moment, Historia sighs, her arms folded across her chest. “For the duration of this visit, yes, we are Miss Gabi Braun’s … friends.” She looks as if the word leaves a sour taste in her mouth, but Gabi looks smug, happy that she’s managed to dupe the mansion’s staff members even though the majority of them look unconvinced. Of course, none of this bothers Historia, who just charges forward, looking around and not hiding the fact that she’s inspecting every inch of this place.

“Oh, um, let me show you around a bit,” Gabi says, shutting the door behind Mikasa and hurrying after Historia. “It’s easy to get lost here because it’s so big.”

“It’s not that big,” Historia snorts.

“Excuse me,” Mikasa mumbles as she pushes past the staff. It seems that they’ve either given up or just don’t want to bother with the Braun girl anymore because most of them just sigh before returning to their assigned tasks.

Although Gabi is supposed to be giving the tour, Historia is the one that leads the way while Gabi and Mikasa follow behind. Historia hardly says anything as she closely inspects the many statues and paintings that decorate the corners and walls of the various rooms they visit, but Gabi fills the silence with needless chatter of the art pieces. Every now and again Mikasa expresses some admiration for all the historical and artistic knowledge Gabi displays and the praise has the girl puff her chest out in pride, but Historia will sigh under her breath or roll her eyes at times. It really may be that nothing in this mansion really interests her because she never lingers on a painting for longer than a second or two before moving onto the next art piece.

“So, Gabi,” Mikasa says after a moment, making sure that the group was out of earshot of any eavesdropping maids or busboys that might have followed them. She makes sure to keep close to Gabi, her voice low as she speaks. “You called about your great uncle, is that correct? Can you tell us a little bit more about him before we meet him?”

Gabi bites on her lip and fiddles on a loose thread on her faded shirt. She nods before looking over at Historia, who’s halfway across the room frowning at a grand piano. “Er, yeah,” the girl mumbles. “I can … I can tell you about him.”

“You can talk from there,” Historia says without looking up. She presses a finger to an ivory key and a note rings out, echoing across the room. It seems that the note is unsatisfactory though because her frown deepens after hearing it. “I have impeccable hearing.”

Gabi looks unsure, but Mikasa puts a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder and smiles. “Go ahead, Gabi.”

“Okay,” Gabi says. She takes a deep breath, but she’s already shaking. Tears already forming in her eyes, she looks up, swallowing hard. “Uncle Reiner … he’s been strange for a while now. Maybe a few months. My parents say it’s just dementia because he’s so old but … I don’t think that’s it.” Tears roll down her cheeks and she’s looking down now, stubbornly wiping them away with the back of her hand.

“Take your time,” Mikasa says gently, rubbing soothing circles on the young girl’s back.

Historia is a little less sympathetic. She strides over, taking a seat on a nearby chaise lounge and sitting back like it’s an appropriate time to relax. “And what makes you think we can help? I don’t typically enjoy doing business with doddering old men.”

“Ignore her,” Mikasa tells Gabi, shooting a look at Historia. Historia simply sticks her tongue out in reply.

“N-no,” Gabi says with a shake of her head, sniffling. “I h-heard you could h-help people. That you h-have a special business. My uncle … I don’t think the th-things he’s seeing are hallucinations. I th-think what he’s seeing … they’re ghosts.”

Historia looks a little more intrigued now, sitting up on the chaise with her legs crossed instead of lounging back. “What makes you think that they’re ghosts?”

Gabi hesitates. “Well … he mentions these names sometimes… Bertholdt, Porco, Marcel…,” she says, brow furrowed. “He hardly ever talked to me about them, but sometimes their names would slip. Whenever I asked about them back then, he would just tell me that they used to be friends back when he was younger. He always looked so … sad whenever he talked about them like … like he couldn’t see them anymore.”

This story is enough for Mikasa to offer their services or at least give Gabi an offer to look at her great uncle, but Historia simply lets out a huff, pushing herself off the chaise and making her way out the door.

“An old man haunted by his old, dead friends,” Historia says with a toss of her head. She beckons for Mikasa to follow her, ignoring the horrified look on Gabi’s face. When the young girl runs forward, barring Historia from leaving, the haughty woman only sighs once more. “Look, if you’re worried he’s getting haunted by ghosts, why don’t you just run over to a church and get some holy water to splash on him? Or just buy some salt to sprinkle around his bed.” She waves her hand, gesturing for Gabi to move out of her way, but the girl refuses.

“I’ll pay you!” Gabi says. She stands resolute, her arms spread wide even as her lower lip trembles.

Historia raises an eyebrow. She steps back, a hand on her hip. “You’ll pay me?” she repeats. “You’re thirteen. What could you possibly offer me?”

“I could give you … my inheritance,” Gabi says. She sticks out her bottom lip, jutting her chin out and lifting her head. Her eyes are still red from crying, but tears have stopped falling down her cheeks. She clears her throat and continues, “Uncle Reiner hasn’t told anyone … but he’s made me the sole heir of his estate … among other things. I can … give you this mansion and everything in here if you just please help me.”

Mikasa wants to tell Gabi that it’s not necessary. Their services aren’t nearly worth that much and, even if it were, it’s illegal to make such a transaction with a minor.

Historia, of course, doesn’t care. She’s looking at Gabi with more interest now, her blue eyes shining as she looks at the girl. The woman isn’t even thinking about the logic of such a promise — when she would be able to collect the inheritance or what she would do with it. Her mind is occupied with calculating the worth of the estate and the many statues and paintings that decorate it. “I hope you know,” Historia says, her eyes glittering, “that any contract you make with me is binding.”

“You really don’t have to do this,” Mikasa begins to say, but Historia cuts her off with a snarl.

“No, I’ll do it,” Gabi says with a shake of her head. “All of this stuff … it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve never been very materialistic. All I really want … is for my uncle to be okay.” She lowers her arms, looking at Historia with uncertainty.

“How very noble of you,” Historia says, but she isn’t really listening. She’s busy fishing something out of her clutch purse, reaching in and pulling out a document filled out in the tiniest font. Even though the contract could have never fit perfectly in Historia’s purse without being folded up, there isn’t a wrinkle in sight when the woman presents the document to Gabi. The woman fishes out an expensive-looking fountain pen, one that Mikasa is only half-sure had originally been in the hotelier’s purse although it might be more likely she had snatched it off of a desk from the mansion when nobody was looking. Historia holds up the contract with a lipsticked smile, a perfectly manicured nail tapping at against the line where Gabi should sign. “Just sign your name here, darling.”

Gingerly, Gabi takes the pen from Historia, staring at the document with uncertainty. The pen sits uncapped in her hand, hovering over the dotted line where her signature should be. Her eyes scan the document, but the words begin to blur and she begins to gnaw at her lip.

Mikasa steps forward, lowering the document from Gabi’s face. “You don’t have to sign it.”

“Mikasa,” Historia hisses. An angry glare flashes across her face for half a second before switching to a more composed, reassuring smile directed at Gabi. “Don’t listen to her. Just sign it, sweetie. It’s harmless.”

Gabi looks from Mikasa to Historia, her expression uncertain, but she glances once more at the document and grips the pen in her hand with more conviction. The tip of the pen hits the paper and Gabi scrawls her full name — Gabrielle Mariella Braun — in an illegible, childish print before handing the fountain pen back to Historia.

“Perfect, perfect,” Historia says in a sing-song voice, squinting as she inspect’s Gabi’s signature. She turns her head slightly to Mikasa, lowering her voice a bit but not enough as she asks, “They don’t teach children cursive these days, do they? This girl’s signature is terrible. It’s like a toddler let their crayon wander across the page.” Historia takes another look at it before rolling up the contract and stuffing it into her purse.

“Cursive?” Gabi repeats with a knitted brow.

“It’s just connecting all the letters with a line, really,” Mikasa tells the girl, patting her on the shoulder to show that it’s not that big of an issue. A small part of her regrets not talking Gabi against signing the document, but she figures Gabi’s at more of an advantage than Historia is since the former is a minor and any contract she signs could be deemed void. She’ll just leave the problem for later, preferably when Armin is at her side so he can drive Historia mad enough to leave the poor girl and her inheritance alone.

“Right then!” Historia says, a lot more lively than she was a few minutes ago now. She flicks a lock of golden hair away from her face and smiles brightly at Gabi. “Be a dear and show us where your grandfather is. We’ll help him in any way we can.” It’s become quite obvious to Mikasa that Historia has long forgotten Gabi’s name despite being introduced to the girl a little while ago and having just seen her name written on a document not a minute before. Gabi doesn’t seem to have noticed. She’s more taken aback by Historia’s change in character. Mikasa can’t really blame her. The hotel manager had seen the woman do a complete 180 after being offered a yacht for her services once and thought new yacht-owner Historia was a completely different person from the usually crotchety hotelier.

“Er, yes. If you follow me, right around here …,” Gabi says, her voice trailing as she leads them out of the room and into the hallway.

Mikasa and Historia follow the girl, Historia with a new spring in her step as she lets her fingers trail against every vase and statue that they pass by with renewed appreciation for the artwork. As they walk, Historia hums a song that Mikasa almost knows by heart, but she knows it’s a song that hasn’t been sung in centuries.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

Gabi leads them to a room at the end of the east wing. The room is much smaller than Historia and Mikasa anticipated. Historia had almost walked ahead and yanked open the largest double doors in the hallway before Gabi hurriedly pulled the woman away and rushed them over to her great uncle’s quarters. The door was considerably less extravagant — a single mahogany door with simple square panels and a gilded doorknob — and Mikasa could see the frown returning on Historia’s face.

The girl opened the door just a crack, leaning in to whisper, “Uncle Reiner? I brought some visitors for you. They’re … friends of mine. They said they might be able to help you.” She waits a bit for an answer. Even when Mikasa strains her ears to hear, she can’t hear a thing. It seems that Gabi does, however, because after a pause, she finally opens the door, allowing Historia and Mikasa to enter before her.

Mikasa isn’t quite sure where to look when she steps into the room. The bedroom is every bit as lavish as the rest of the house, the furniture all in deep reds and browns with highlights of gold here and there. There’s a noticeable lack of decoration, the walls instead adorned with photos of an elderly man with a wide jaw, snowy white hair, and milky white eyes. In most of the photos he stands alone — many times posing next to some art piece that he has lying around the house — but other times he’s seen with other members of his family including his grand niece. Mikasa is so busy looking at the pictures that she almost doesn’t see the man himself buried under a mountain of pillows and blankets in his bed. He looks so still that there isn’t much difference between his real self and the version of him in pictures. The ghosts that stand beside his bed look livelier than he does, Mikasa thinks.

“Uncle Reiner,” Gabi says, her voice quiet so as to not disturb her great uncle too much. She approaches his bed, Mikasa near her side while Historia wanders around the room unbothered. “This is Miss Historia and Miss Mikasa. They come from a special place … the Blutmond Hotel. They help people like you … people who can see ghosts.”

The man’s eyes flutter open but he struggles to keep them open. He sits up and his head turns towards Gabi, following the sound of her voice, but his gaze is fixated on something past her. It’s not a ghost, Mikasa knows, because there are only three in the room right now. One is currently hovering around the old man, unsure of what to do with his ghostly hands even as his face is filled with worry as Gabi’s great uncle sits up. The other two stand on the other side of the man’s bed eyeing Historia warily as she carefully inspects the room for any valuables.

“Ghosts? Have your parents been talking about me again?” the old man asks before coughing violently into his hand. He hunches over, his whole body heaving with every cough. He pounds his chest pitifully with his other hand as he wheezes. He shakes his head when Gabi runs over with a tissue box from his nightstand. One hand is clutched to his chest, but he’s still breathing heavily when he tells Gabi unconvincingly, “I’m fine. They just worry about me because of my old age.”

The man at Reiner’s side kneels down next to the old man. His ghostly blue hand reaches out to touch Reiner’s, his taut young skin such a stark contrast from the old man’s thin, veiny hands. All of the ghosts are significantly younger than Reiner, Mikasa notices. If she has to guess, they were probably in their late twenties when they passed. Judging from their military garb and the bloodstains that bloom across their chest, they died in a war. She wonders about their relationship to the old man, why they’ve stayed with him so long when it must have been decades since their death.

“Your names are Historia and Mikasa?” the old man asks, a tired but polite smile as he looks from the two women. He sits up in the bed, his back resting against the headrest and his hands folded in his lap. Unbeknownst to him, the ghost who had held his hand earlier sits beside him, gazing cautiously at both Mikasa and Historia. “I’m sorry to say that my relatives have a habit of spreading unnecessary rumors. They seem to have worried my grand niece.”

“They’re not untrue,” Gabi insists. She tugs on the elbow of Mikasa’s suit, her lower lip trembling dangerously. Her eyes are moist as tears begin to form and she sniffs loudly before turning to her great uncle. “I’ve seen you talking to … them. I’ve heard you call their names. Bertholdt, Porco, Marcel… You’re always talking to them when you think I’m not listening, but you always tell me it’s nothing when I ask you about them.”

At the names, the ghosts stiffen, but they don’t move from their positions. They look at Mikasa, wondering if she’ll give away their existence. She tries her best not to look at them.

“Because it’s nothing,” the man says, laughing it off weakly. He gets into another coughing fit, banging against his chest. The ghost at his side, eyes wide with worry, can only look at him helplessly.

Historia’s voice pops up, the hotelier speaking for the first time since stepping into the room. “Were you in the Second Great War, Mr. Braun?” She observes a glass case with different medals, leaning forward as she inspects the engraving on all of them. Historia hums, “I didn’t realize you were a veteran.”

“Ah, yes,” the old man says belatedly, surprised at the sudden jump in topic.

“You have quite a lot of medals and honors.” Historia’s finger traces the glass edge of the case. “You fought well.” The words should be congratulatory, but Historia says this almost coldly.

The old man must feel it too because he begins to fidget under the young woman’s gaze, his silken sheets tangled in his fists as he begins to stammer a “yes” under his breath.

The ghosts must dislike Historia’s tone because the two that had stood at the side of Reiner’s bed stand up, walking over to Historia and staring down at her petite frame. They tower above her, identical expressions of repressed fury on their faces, and Mikasa wonders for the first time if they’re brothers. With only a slight difference in height and hair color, the two could be identical. Despite the two spirits that are glowering down at her, Historia doesn’t waver, not even sparing them a passing glance as she continues to peruse the other items around Reiner’s room.

“You’ll have to forgive my partner. She’s quite interested in … history,” Mikasa lies. She wrinkles her nose as she says it — partly because she’s a terrible liar and partly because the thought of Historia being interested in anything other than money is ridiculous — but Gabi nor her great uncle seem to take notice. Mikasa fishes for the little business card in her breast pocket before presenting it to Mr. Braun, making sure to hold it at an angle for the nearby ghost to see as she hands it over. She clears her throat, glancing back at the other two ghosts to make sure they were paying attention before saying, “Miss Historia and I are from the Blutmond Hotel. We provide services for those who have passed.”

All the ghosts look at her, their necks turning so fast that they might have cracked if they were alive.

“For those that have passed?” Reiner repeats, eyebrow raised as he takes the business card gingerly between his fingers. He frowns and is about to toss the card on his nightstand before seeing the upset expression on his great niece’s face. He drops the card in his lap instead before running a tired hand through his thinning hair. “I’m hoping that won’t be until a few more years yet,” he jokes, but he’s the only one that laughs. It sounds strange echoing alone in the quiet room.

“Uncle Reiner,” Gabi says, her voice rising into a whine that Mikasa knows will make Historia grate her teeth.

Mikasa puts a hand on the young girl’s shoulder, giving her a quick squeeze and reassuring smile. “It’s fine,” she whispers before turning once more to Mr. Braun. To the ailing man, she says with a soft voice, “Mr. Braun, how many ghosts do you see in this room right now?”

His eyes flicker for a bit, roaming around the room but never resting on the ghost that sits beside him nor on the ghosts that stand near Historia. His gaze finally stops somewhere above Mikasa’s shoulder, eyes watering as he whispers, “Three.”

Gabi’s grip on Mikasa’s arm is vice-like and the hotel manager has to pry the girl from her arm for her blood circulation to return. “It’s alright, it’s fine,” she says to Gabi again, brushing her off gently. Mikasa looks at the ghost beside Reiner and watches as the young man shakes his head ever so slightly, his eyes begging her not to tell the old man of his existence. She opens her mouth, but Historia speaks first.

“Those aren’t ghosts,” Historia says, finally strolling across the room to stand beside Mikasa. She ignores Mikasa’s eye roll and instead bounces about on the balls of her feet, speaking casually as if talking about the weather. “Ah, I should clarify. Those things that are haunting you … I guess you would say they’re your own memories. There are ghosts here too, but it looks like they’re only here to keep you company.” She waves her hand as she explains, trying to find the right words. Historia looks quite proud when she’s done, but everyone (with the exception of Mikasa) looks at her with a bewildered expression.

“You mean there are ghosts here?” Gabi asks with wide eyes.

If Gabi grabs onto Mikasa’s suit any tighter she’ll tear the fabric. Mikasa doesn’t particularly mind, but she knows Historia would be infuriated if Gabi ripped such expensive clothing in her presence and the hotel manager carefully pries the girl off her arm.

“The supernatural world is quite complicated,” Mikasa says gently. She’s worked in the supernatural business for years and she still hasn’t grasped it entirely, so she can only imagine the confusion that Gabi and her great uncle feel right now. Mikasa sucks in her cheek as she tries to think of how to explain the situation in layman’s terms. “There is a myriad of things that can haunt a person, not just ghosts. Spirits, demons … even deities if they’re angry enough.”

“And next you’ll be telling me werewolves and vampires exist,” Mr. Braun scoffs, but his eyes still roam aimlessly around the room for something they can’t see.

“Don’t be silly. Werewolves and vampires are another thing entirely,” Historia snorts with a roll of her eyes, although she doesn’t confirm or deny the existence of either. She points a painted finger at the old man. “What you have haunting you are your own memories, Mr. Braun, although I imagine they’ve grown horribly distorted over time.”

Mr. Braun’s mouth is tightened into a thin line, all laughter gone from his eyes. He fixes Historia with a steely glare, but she doesn’t waver. He doesn’t speak, not even to ask her to clarify. Perhaps it’s because he already knows what memories she’s alluding to.

“What’s she talking about?” Gabi hisses in Mikasa’s ear.

“Mr. Braun, how old were you when you were drafted for the war?” Historia asks, stepping closer to the bed. She ignores that ghost closest to Reiner’s side even when he stands in front of her. She stares right past him as if she can’t see him at all and continues her questioning of Mr. Braun. “Perhaps in your twenties, judging from the looks of your companions. Mid- to late twenties, even. Life was just beginning for you. Being caught up in a war you had nothing to do with must have been frustrating to you.”

“No, it was an honor to fight for my country,” Reiner murmurs, but his eyes begin to cloud over and his expression grows grimmer.

“Did your friends share the same sentiment?” Historia continues to inquire. The ghost brothers from before each put a hand on her shoulders, their expressions just as dark and dangerous as Mr. Braun’s. Still, Historia presses on. “Were they just as brave as you when they camped in those trenches with corpses of other soldiers? Did they die with honor, their bodies rotting in those holes for weeks before whatever remains of them are shipped back to their loved ones? And were you honored to be one of the ones that made it out alive, standing tall even though the guilt was slowly killing you all these years?”

The ghosts are hostile now, their hands rough as they pull Historia back from Reiner. With a flick of her wrist, Historia sends them flying against the wall, their presence only detected by the way the portraits on the wall shake slightly. It’s enough to make Mikasa flinch, but Gabi and Reiner are too distracted to notice.

It’s the last ghost, though, that has Mikasa the most worried. He stands in a protective stance, his eyes flickering with a dangerous blue flame. On his face is a terrible glower, a stark contrast from the worried look he had worn earlier. His fists are clenched against his sides, shaking slightly with suppressed rage. Historia has faced her fair share of ghosts over the years. Mikasa doubts that this one is any more powerful than the malicious spirits that Historia has gone up against, but a ghost powered by violent anger is not something to be underestimated.

“Historia,” Mikasa warns, her voice low.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Mr. Braun whispers in a hoarse voice. He seems to shrink into his bed, his silken sheets pulled tight around his body as if trying to protect himself from something. His wild eyes continue to wander above his head, looking at things that don’t exist to anyone else but him. The old man pulls the sheets over his head, but the tremble in his voice can still be heard as he whimpers, “Every day they’ve plagued me, haunted me, but they never leave.”

“Uncle Braun-“ Gabi begins, but Mikasa holds her back after Historia gives her a subtle gesture to restrain the girl.

“Mr. Braun,” Historia says, stepping through the ghost easily. She reaches over and pulls the sheets from the man’s hands, letting them fall carelessly to the floor. She grasps the man’s face in her hand, lifting his chin up, and forces him to look at her and only her. “You said it yourself that it’s not your fault. Why have you gone so long doubting your own words?”

It’s the first time the man’s gaze was fixed on something, his eyes no longer wandering aimlessly at things unseen. He licks his chapped lips as he struggles to find the answer to Historia’s question. “Because I lived while they died,” he tells her in a voice dripping with grief. His eyes grow glassy, moist with tears. “I believe that warrants some guilt, don’t you?”

Historia is silent, holding his gaze. Even when the man’s tears begin to fall, dripping down his cheeks and spilling onto her hand, she still holds on. After a moment, she finally lets go a little too roughly, throwing Mr. Braun’s head back with unnecessary force. The movement earns an indignant squawk from Gabi, who struggles to break free from Mikasa’s grip, but the hotel manager manages to hold the girl. The ghosts move towards the hotelier too, their faces alight with anger, but she waves her hand again and all three are pinned against the wall with much greater force than last time.

“What if I told you that you could see your friends one last time, Mr. Braun?” Historia asks as casually as if she were asking about the weather. She digs through her purse, humming that little tune as she does so. She pulls out a little silver pistol, her slender fingers wrapped against the gilded grip, and loads a single bullet into its chamber. She speaks again, her words light and honey-sweet as she points the barrel at the old man’s forehead. “Mr. Braun, would you like to see your friends again?”

“Historia,” Mikasa growls with narrow eyes.

“What’s she doing? Why does she have a gun?” Gabi asks, voice rising. Her head whips back to Mikasa, eyes wide with horror. She tries to break free from Mikasa’s grip, but the woman holds the girl back tightly. With more urgency, Gabi thrashes more violently, trying to lunge towards Historia’s gun. “Let me go! She’s going to shoot him!”

The ghosts have broken free, all of them clambering for Historia with arms outstretched, but the blonde stands there with her gun aimed as if she and the old man are the only two in the room. Historia ignores the ghosts even as they grab at her, her arm remaining steady even as they try to pull the gun from her fingers. She keeps her gaze fixed on the old man who only stares back at her. While Gabi screams and Mikasa struggles to keep the young girl out of the line of fire, the old man appears calm, a look of resignation on his face.

“What do you say, Mr. Braun?” Historia asks quietly.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he rests his head against the headboard, eyes closed as if he’s about to fall asleep. His answer is adequate enough for Historia to fire the gun.

A piercing shriek cuts across the room just as Historia pulls the trigger, but it’s the only sound that can be heard. There is no whistling bullet. There is no bang as the bullet makes its mark upon the target’s skull. There is no dull thud as a corpse falls to the floor. There is only Gabi screaming for her great uncle as she finally manages to pull away from Mikasa’s hold, her screams only halting when she reaches for the wound on Mr. Braun’s head only to find him fully intact and unmistakably alive as he blinks back at her.

“What …?” Gabi asks, turning slowly to look at Historia and Mikasa.

“It’s a special gun, sweetheart,” Historia explains as she blows at the tip of the barrel. It’s for show, really, because the gun isn’t smoking at all. She drops the gun in her bag, patting it happily before looking back at Gabi and noticing the girl’s stunned expression. Historia frowns, leaning over to Mikasa to ask, “Did I not make that clear?”

“Not at all,” Mikasa replies. Her employer is many things, but clear is not one of them.

“Ah, it’s so troublesome to explain though,” Historia grumbles. She looks at Gabi, watching as the girl slowly loses her mind trying to comprehend everything unfolding in front of her. Her lower lip sticks out in a pout and Mikasa can already see the wheels turning in her mind as she tries to find a way out of dealing with the young girl. If there’s something Historia dislikes almost as much being told how to handle her money, it’s dealing with people on the verge of a mental breakdown. Historia looks over to Mikasa, her face hopeful as she waits for her employee to step in and take the lead, but Mikasa shoots her down with a dirty look and Historia sighs. “Look, Gabi,” Historia says impatiently, hands folded across her chest and foot tapping already. “It’s really not that difficult to understand. You see, the bullet I shot your Great Uncle Braun with allows people to see ghosts. Now, Mr. Braun can finally interact with the ghosts that have been watching over him for so long, all thanks to yours truly!” She waves a gracious hand and waits expectantly for the praise that she believes is deserved of her, but it never comes. Gabi is too busy staring at the empty air around them to give Historia any sort of thanks.

“What do you mean?” Gabi asks, her voice reaching a terrible whine that makes Historia sniff disdainfully. She looks at Mikasa, her expression making it quite clear that she thinks that Historia is speaking nonsense, but the woman offers her no further explanation. Her eyes land once more on her Great Uncle Braun and she notices that his eyes no longer roam. Instead, they are fixed on something in front of him, something that she cannot see. Horrified, she turns to Mikasa, gripping the woman’s wrists so hard that her knuckles turn white. “What’s wrong with Uncle Reiner? Why is he like that? He’s even worse than before!”

“He’s fine,” Mikasa says soothingly. She breaks one hand free from Gabi’s grasp and pats the young girl’s head gently.

“We could make this a lot more simple, you know,” Historia says. She pulls out the gun from her purse once more, twirling it carelessly in her hand. “Shall I shoot her too?”

Mikasa shoots Historia a hard glare. “You are not shooting a child.”

Her employer rolls her eyes, grumbling under her breath about how she was simply suggesting an easier solution, but she puts the gun away.

The ghosts are speechless as they cautiously approach Mr. Braun. The two brothers keep their distance but the other ghost — the tall one that had looked so murderously down at Historia when she had pulled the trigger — is the only one to stand right in front of his old friend. Both the ghost and Mr. Braun stare at each other as if they are the only two in the room. The soldier holds up a hand, reaching for the old man but too afraid to touch.

“Bertholdt.” It’s not a question that comes from Reiner, but a statement of disbelief. As he gazes at the ghost, the old man looks more awake than he has been this entire visit. He sits up, reaching for Bertholdt’s outstretched hand. Their fingetipsrs touch, then their palms, and then their fingers lace together. Ever since he had first laid eyes on Bertholdt, the real Bertholdt, Reiner hasn’t looked away once. “It really is you.”

“It’s true, then? He can see me now? He can really see me?” Bertholdt asks, staring in awe at his fingers interlaced with Reiner’s. He looks to Historia, eyes begging her to tell her that this is all real and not some cruel trick.

It’s a heartwarming scene, but Historia stands there with her arms folded across her chest. She gives him a curt nod before looking away disinterestedly, an inaudible sigh slipping from her lips.

Mikasa gestures for the ghost and his companions to get closer. “Go on,” she says with an encouraging smile. “He hasn’t seen you in so long. It must be overwhelming to reunite with you after all this time. Tell him everything and banish the nightmares that have been plaguing him for so long.”

Reiner continues to converse with Bertholdt as if nobody else is in the room. “But have you been here all this time?” He looks behind Bertholdt, a genuine smile now on his face. Although he has aged, his grin is as youthful as a young boy’s. He gestures with his free hand, waving his friend’s over. “Marcel and Porco, too? After everything I’ve done, you’re still here?” Tears are beginning to well up in his eyes once more but Bertholdt hastily wipes them away with a tender thumb.

“We were worried about you,” Marcel says. He takes a seat on the edge of Reiner’s bed. His expression is much softer now, filled with affection as he gazes down at his old friend, and rests a gentle hand on Reiner’s arm. “After the war … we were sorry we abandoned you. We couldn’t find it in ourselves to leave you again until we knew you were alright.”

It must have been torture for them to stay by Reiner’s side all those years, observing him helplessly as he screamed at distorted visions of them that blamed him for their deaths. It takes a certain type of strength — a certain type of love, Mikasa thought — to stay for someone for all those years. It had already been over half a century and still they had never left him. It must have been a similar pain for Mr. Braun too, Mikasa thinks, to have been tortured by the memory of his fallen for all those years. All those years he had suffered alone. Not anymore.

“What’s going on?” Gabi whispers, eyes wide as she tries to take in a scene she can’t understand.

“We’ll explain outside,” Mikasa whispers back. She places a hand on Gabi’s back and leads the girl towards the door, Historia dragging her feet as she follows behind. In the background, Reiner and his old comrades continue to talk.

“We were so worried,” Porco is saying, voice quiet as he takes a seat beside his brother Marcel. “You blamed yourself for things that weren’t your fault. It didn’t feel right to just leave you when you were suffering so much without us.”

“Did I worry you? I’m sorry. You stayed because of me instead of moving on like you should have,” Reiner says with a wry smile. He gazes down at the hand that holds Bertholdt. “But I’m glad I could see you all one last time… I missed you.”

Bertholdt gives Reiner’s hand a quick squeeze. “We missed you too.” His eyes crinkle when he smiles. It fades a little bit, affection replaced with concern as he asks, “But the things you were seeing … are they still here?”

Reiner doesn’t even look around to check, keeping his eyes on Bertholdt instead. “No,” he says with a shake of his head. His smile is spread so wide, wrinkles appearing at the corners of his mouth and eyes. “I only see you.”

Mikasa shuts the door gently behind her, a small smile on her face.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

“So let me get this straight,” Gabi says slowly. She holds up a fist, bringing up a finger every time she brings up each new topic she’s had to process. “There were no ghosts haunting Uncle Reiner. The things he was seeing were just hallucinations that were conjured up in his mind due to his own guilt. But there were ghosts — the ghosts of his old friends — that were watching over him all these years because they were worried about him. And I can’t see them because I wasn’t shot with a magic bullet?” She looks at her three fingers with a frown and then at the two women beside her.

“That’s pretty much it,” Mikasa hums. She’s only had to explain it a handful of times to the girl, so she’s quite pleased that Gabi’s grasped it so quickly even if the young girl’s expression grows more and more troubled with each repetition.

“Please don’t make us go through it again,” Historia says with a grown, knocking her head back against the wall. She bangs the back of her head against the wall a few times in frustration, her expression one of tired impatience, before letting out another exaggerated sigh. Although Mikasa has been patient throughout, Historia has been growing more and more impatient, only offering a few words here and there while Mikasa took care of most of the explanation.

“Well, it’s hard to believe you when I can’t see anything! How can I even trust you guys? I might have signed over my entire inheritance to a bunch of frauds!” Gabi points out, her gaze more suspicious of them than it was when they first met. “For all I know, you might have just made things worse bringing up his past!”

Historia stiffens at the young girl’s words and for a moment Mikasa thinks she’s going to get up and leave, but the woman opens her mouth to say quietly, “Darling, would you have rather he been haunted by his past until his last breath?” Gabi doesn’t respond and Historia continues, her eyes a little less icy now as she leans against the armrest. “You don’t understand because you’re so young. You don’t have things that you regret or lost things you can’t live without, not the way your uncle has. You should be thanking me, really, for allowing him the ability to reunite one last time with his old friends. Some people aren’t so lucky.”

The young girl’s cheeks blaze a bright red and she looks down at the floor, her eyes bright as they begin to fill with tears. “I’m sorry. I’m just scared,” she mumbles, lower lip trembling dangerously. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like this before. So sad, but at the same time … so happy.” The tears begin to roll down her cheeks one by one, her shoulders shaking as the girl tries to suppress her crying. Mikasa is about to reach out and offer Gabi a shoulder to lean on but, surprisingly, Historia beats her to it.

Gently, the blonde wraps an arm around the child’s shoulders before guiding her onto her shoulder. It’s a rare sign of sympathy, one that Mikasa usually doesn’t see Historia display, especially towards clients. It’s even more surprising when Historia begins to stroke the girl’s hair, brushing stray locks away from the child’s face as she hums that song that Mikasa still can’t fully recall. “Farewells are like that,” Historia murmurs, looking into the distance as if remembering something. “They’re always sad, but they’re not entirely sad. Never entirely sad.” There’s something wistful in the way she says this and Mikasa almost opens her mouth to ask why, but now isn’t the time. Maybe another day when they’re alone and there isn’t a child between them that needs comforting.

The three of them stay that way for a while, silent save for Gabi’s sobs and the muffled conversation on the other side of the while. As Mikasa rubs circles on the young girl’s back, she focuses her gaze on Historia, who has that faraway look in her eye that she sometimes gets when she isn’t thinking. It’s not one that Historia wears freely around others, but she’s gotten more careless around Mikasa over the years. Mikasa notices that such a distracted gaze tends to appear during businesses such as these where a client with ghosts that should have left a long time ago. There’s no ghost that haunts Historia now, at least none that Mikasa can see, but she has a feeling she already knows the memory that keeps Historia up at night. Why Mikasa never asks the woman herself, she doesn’t know.

The door to Mr. Braun’s room finally creaks open and the ghosts — Porco, Marcel, and Bertholdt, who is still holding onto Reiner’s hand as the old man follows them to the hall — trail out. They look much calmer now, their expressions serene and no longer hostile as they look first at Mikasa and Historia.

“Did you have a nice talk?” Historia says, getting up to meet them. She looks over at Mikasa and Gabi. Although the young girl is still crying, Historia beckons her forward, a twinge of annoyance on her face that’s replaced with a polite smile as she looks at Mr. Braun. “I hope you’ve had enough time to say your goodbyes. Goodness knows you’ve probably had a lot you wanted to say to Mr. Braun for the past half a century, but you’ve stayed here far too long, don’t you think?”

They nod in agreement, but they all look reluctant to go, Bertholdt especially. Still, Marcel steps forward with a gracious smile and says, “We have to thank you, Miss Historia, for allowing us to meet with Reiner one last time before we pass.”

Historia waves away his thanks with a wave of her hand, although her smile grows into a smirk after hearing the praise. “Not at all. It’s the least I could do.” She turns to Mr. Braun, her gaze more patient than it was when she was dealing with the elderly man’s great-niece. “Are you ready to say goodbye, Mr. Braun?”

He doesn’t look at Historia, his gaze lingering on Bertholdt whose hand he still holds. His withered hands cling to the spirit, eyes wistful like he never wants to let go. “Will I ever see you again?” he asks.

“If there’s ever a way, then I’m sure we’ll find our way back to each other,” Bertholdt replies. Mikasa can’t see the ghost’s face, but she knows he means it. She doesn’t know if it’s possible — to meet someone again after death or if reuniting in another life is feasible — but she believes his words now. If anyone can make it happen, it will be him.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

Mikasa and Historia drop the ghosts off at the hotel, leaving Connie and Levi to assist them and introduce the ghosts to the hotel’s rooms and various facilities. Mikasa had taken a few minutes to assure the ghostly trio that all of their accommodations (within reason, she added) would be met to the best of the staff’s ability. She would see them all again soon, the manager assured them even as Historia impatiently dragged her away to meet their reservation at the dim sum restaurant Mikasa had placed earlier today.

“So,” Mikasa asks, watching fondly as Historia shoves an entire BBQ pork bun into her mouth, “how is the food?”

“Incredible,” Historia answers with her mouth full of food. Despite how elegant the woman might appear on the outside, Historia — much to Mikasa’s amusement — always eats as if she’s starving. It doesn’t matter if they had eaten hours ago or thirty minutes ago; Historia will shovel food into her mouth until her cheeks are filled and doesn’t stop until every dish is licked clean. While others have found the woman’s table manners atrocious and even frightening at times, Mikasa can’t help but be entranced whenever she watches Historia eat.

“Come, eat more. The shrimp dumplings are absolutely divine.” Historia plucks a beautifully wrapped shrimp dumpling with her chopsticks and offers it to Mikasa.

“Thank you,” Mikasa says, holding out her plate to accept the dumpling. She takes the extra time to admire the delicate pleats in the translucent skin and the gorgeous pink of the plump shrimp sitting inside. When she takes a bite, the delicate wrapper breaks apart and her teeth dig into the shrimp with a delightful crunch, her mouth filling with the shellfish’s sweet flavor. Mikasa easily finishes the dumpling in another bite, savoring the taste of it as the starch wrapper melts on her tongue and mingles with the savory-sweet filling. When she’s done, she looks up to see Historia looking at her with a smug smile on her face.

“Delicious?”

“Very.”

“You’re very welcome,” Historia says, her chest puffed out proudly as if she was the one to suggest they eat here tonight. She goes back to inspecting the dim sum dishes laid out in front of them, her eyes latching onto a plate of chicken feet. She nibbles on one, spitting the bones out onto a napkin. When she’s done, she gets another, her lips shining pink from the grease. “It’s lovely, but it would have been better if you had let me change like I had asked.”

After dropping the ghosts off at the hotel, Historia had thrown the door open and rushed out to go change before Mikasa had caught her by the wrist. The woman needs to have a wardrobe change almost every hour of the day. It’s another one of Historia’s eccentricities that Mikasa lets slide half the time, but she had made reservations earlier and changing it would have been inconvenient.

“Would the chef’s cooking be any different if you were wearing a different outfit?” Mikasa asks. She takes a gentle bite into a soup dumpling, making sure not to slurp the broth too noisily. It almost burns her mouth, but the tender pork filling inside more than makes up for it.

Historia frowns, discarding the bones from her third chicken foot onto the table. She licks the sticky sweet black bean sauce from her fingers before wiping them on the napkin that sits across her lap. “It would taste better if I were wearing a different outfit,” Historia replies before plucking a fried crab ball from its plate. She digs her teeth into its crispy exterior with a loud crunch and swallows before continuing. “Things taste better when you’re dressed for the occasion. You should know this by now, Mikasa. We’ve been together for over twenty years, you know.”

She doesn’t need the reminder. Mikasa has been counting the days just like her cousin has been counting down the days. He’s been with Historia for almost an entire century. Mikasa wonders what it’s like to know someone for one hundred years. She can’t fathom it.

“And what would you wear instead?” Mikasa asks.

“Mmm.” Historia brings her chopstick to her mouth to nibble at thoughtfully. The woman has entire rooms filled with clothes — all organized by color, season, and style — and yet she’s still able to remember and assemble entire outfits complete with shoes and accessories. She grins when she’s finally thought of the perfect outfit, pointing her chopsticks at Mikasa with a grin on her face. “The Majorica pearls. They look like little dumplings. And the blue tulle dress, the one with the trailing skirt.”

Mikasa knows exactly which ensemble Historia is referring to, although it’s admittedly been a while since she’s seen the blonde hotelier wear the fairy-like tulle. With its shimmering skirt that seems to be a different shade of blue every time Historia moves and its long billowing sleeves that hang off Historia’s shoulders, it’s a piece that’s far more suited for a runway or an elegant wedding than a casual outing to a dim sum restaurant, but Historia wears such extravagant pieces with such confidence that it would seem out-of-place if she were to wear anything less luxurious.

“I think you look beautiful right now,” Mikasa replies.

Historia hardly bats an eyelash. “Of course I do. I’m always beautiful,” Historia says, brushing off the compliment as easily as she always does. It used to bother Mikasa, but she’s used to it now. “That blue dress would really suit the atmosphere of this restaurant better though.”

Mikasa only hums in response.

The two continue eating — Mikasa in delicate bites while Historia gorges herself with buns stuffed with succulent meats and crispy deep-fried shrimp balls but somehow never dropping a crumb. Mikasa doesn’t even eat much. She’s never had much of an appetite, but Historia cleans every plate. By the time Historia cleans off their last plate, there’s a mountain of dirty dishes stacked high on the side of the table, and yet Historia is still hungry enough to call over a nearby waitress and order nearly every dessert on her cart.

Mikasa doesn’t touch any of the pastries that are laid out in front of them, but Historia plucks a crispy durian cake and breaks it in two, the flaky crust crumbling underneath her fingers and spilling onto the table. The intoxicatingly sweet scent of the durian custard is fragrant enough to fill the whole room. Historia stuffs one half into her mouth, savoring the delicate taste of the durian custard as she chews and swallows. She follows with the other half before wiping her fingers on the cloth napkin in her lap.

“Do you still dream of me?” Historia asks nonchalantly. The question comes out of the blue, making Mikasa look up from where she was staring at Historia’s fingers.

I do, Mikasa wants to say. I dream of you every night. But she doesn’t say it. She never does. Instead, the manager replies with a simple, “Yes.”

“Hm,” is all Historia says.

≿————-　❈　————-≾

That night, Mikasa dreams of Historia in a garden. She wears clothing from a different time, the material like that from a rough burlap that has been bleached white from the sun and stitched into a plain dress. She’s younger in this dream, her face a little rounder and her blue eyes less guarded. Historia lays in the garden, staring up at the starry sky. She doesn’t stir even as another girl joins her.

“Historia,” the girl says, freckles sprinkled across her olive skin. Her hair is chopped unevenly in a short cut that frames her thin face, but Historia still smiles when the girl leans over her. It’s not the first time Mikasa has seen this girl in her dreams. “I dreamed of you again.”

“Did you?” Historia asks. Her mouth always curls upward whenever she sees the girl. She’s probably not even aware of it.

“I always dream of you,” the other girl replies.

“Was I beautiful?” Historia asks.

“Of course, you were,” the other girl replies. She lies down beside Historia and the blonde curls up against her, Historia’s blonde head resting against the other girl’s shoulder while their fingers intertwine. “You’re always beautiful.”

It’s painfully intimate. The two look so happy together, curled up against each other as they stare up at the sky. Mikasa doesn’t think she’s ever seen Historia smile like that. It makes her heart ache.

[miazeklos]

I have no problem with (American) celebrities talking about politics, mostly because I don't think it's my place to tell anyone what they should talk about. What I take issue with is the condescending tone some liberal celebrities use when talking about voters from the other side. And the reason for that is, they don't know what they're talking about. A celebrity who is worth millions can't understand what a single mother who lives in a trailer park is going through. Or what a 20-year-old going to community college is going through. So why do celebrities get on TV and start shaming those who voted differently from them? Most of the time it doesn't even matter since the problems of us normies don't affect them. And the proof of that is that they've been travelling like crazy during this pandemic while we're supposed to feel ashamed for wanting to go see grandma after almost a year. This shaming of conservative/republican voters by celebrities like Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Elliot (previously Ellen) Page and so on needs to stop.

(Warning in advance: this kind of struck my blue collar nerve, so apologies for the essay you got as a result. TLDR is you’re right and you should say it, and this is a damaging stereotype that has grown particularly dangerous during the pandemic.)

100% agree. And this is universal internationally, imo, or at least in North America/Europe, from what I’ve seen - even if places outside of the USA aren’t quite as divided politically, the pandemic and everything to go with it has just elevated the tension everywhere. People in general are going to vote for the person that promises them the slightest bit of relief of the absolute nightmare that the last year had been and shaming them for that is definitely a case of misplaced self-righteousness.

One thing that really has been making me increasingly irritated about this is the ‘wEaR a MaSk’ celebrity gang (coincidentally almost always the same people who cried in their mansions about how bored they were and decided to encourage people by singing Imagine of all things - no, I haven’t forgotten) when the majority of people didn’t actually protest masks - they protested lockdowns, when they stretched out for months and it was clear that governments would offer no relief to small business owners. At this point, ‘conservative’ and ‘anti-mask’ had become somewhat of a synonym, and everyone seemed to forget that it was barely about the masks to begin with.

I’m bringing this up because it was exactly the condescension that you’re talking about being displayed from everywhere when people started getting angry. 'Just stay home, how bad can it be’, ‘don’t be selfish’, ‘wear your mask, that’s all that’s asked of you’ became the main leading point of liberalism and it was extensively successful in reducing people’s very genuine fears to some petty protesting over masks. Not saying that didn’t happen - there were definitely people flat out refusing to wear those - but it was never about the masks. What about the people who would not have a home to stay in by the end of the month when the last salary they’d had before being sent on who knows how long unpaid leave ran out? If the preventive measures had been limited to wearing masks and standing 2m away from each other, we would be in a better place as a species than we currently are.

And this isn’t even coming only from proper-rich people (last week I saw a tweet that went along the lines of, ‘I haven’t been living in fear, I’ve been staying in the comfort of my own home for months’ and I swear I nearly saw red because it’s just! good for you! last march I had to open a ko-fi page because my salary wouldn’t come in and I had to scrap together food for three people out of spare change while the multibillion dollar company I worked for decided whether they’d deign us with money we’d worked for during a pandemic! glad you’re having a good time, though!) but it’s even worse specifically from them. I distinctly remember Katherine McNamara’s whole ‘teehee just stay home I know it’s boring but you can do it’ shtick, occasionally interrupted by her taking photos on yachts and the realisation that I couldn’t stand it a moment longer before I unfollowed her, and that was so prevalent when it came to - largely liberal - celebrities that I can see why it straight up radicalised a lot of people.

Obviously all politicians lie for their own gain. I’m not saying that the conservative ones were in any way better than their liberal counterparts, but they have rarely been much worse, internationally speaking. And let me tell you - when you don’t know if you’re going to eat tomorrow, when you’re not sure if you’ll even have a job next month because of the measures tightening further, when you’re looking for literally any port in a storm, you’re going to latch on to the people who offer the way out.

Open up [insert country here] in the name of freedom resonated with people because it meant getting their jobs and their security and, again, in some much harsher cases, their homes, back. A family-owned business going under knocks your entire life off-balance - trust me, I would know, because it happened to my family. It was two years ago, nothing to do with covid, but it was largely due to much bigger chain stores in the vicinity. This happens constantly to people all over the world because while small businesses were closed and fined to hell and back for daring to open up shop, the Walmarts and Lidls and Tescos and Billas of the world profited off of people’s desperation for goods that, at the beginning of the pandemic and the delays in international transports, were scarce. The regional managers at my workplace (it was H&M, I’m no longer under contract so I don’t give a shit) fought tooth and nail to open every street location store (such as the one I worked in) while small clothing shops stayed closed for at least two more months, or were open under severe restrictions about how many people could come in at a time, which, obviously, affected them tremendously.

About two weeks ago, a friend told me about a bakery near his place that he really loves. Everyone loved it - up to and including the kids in the nearby school, who would come in during recess - and understandably, people were worried when all sorts of eating-related places were closed, because this was a family business and the family’s only income. Eventually, the schools opened for a bit last year and so did restaurants, but the bakery didn’t, so my friend called the owner to check up on them and the woman just burst into tears on the other side of the line and told him that they hadn’t made it. He asked her if there was still a chance they’d pull through - with a loan or something, at first - and she told him, ‘No, we’re in too deep.’

I barely remember being as angry as I was then. That’s one entire family’s livelihood, destroyed. In this country alone, she’s one of thousands. Worldwide, she’s one of millions. And, just... I’ve been poor all my life. I feel no shame in saying that. For my entire childhood, everything we had or didn’t have depended on how much money my parents’s shop had made on any given day. I started working as soon as I could; I put myself through university. I’ve struggled all the way through. I still struggle now, every month, whenever bills come into the equation, but we manage. We were one of the lucky ones. Stories of people who weren’t are countless, and they break my heart. The notion of some dumbass celebrity talking about how frivolous and ridiculous and uninformed it is to want to open up countries just because it’s mainly conservative politicians tooting that horn fills me with a rare amount of rage.

So, yeah. Elections are coming in my country. Both parliamentary and presidential. And this year I don’t feel like voting for anyone conservative or liberal; I’m just going to vote for whoever either gives people money or allows them to work for it. It feels like at this point, we’ve all been boiled down to that.

[wlw-lovestruck-fiction]

I loved that Onyx prompt about meeting MC's mom! Can you please do something similar with Yvette? Something extra fluffy because Yvette hasn't been part of a family before and MC's mom welcomes her with open arms and treats her like another daughter

Written by @jadetea-writing

“I loved that Onyx prompt about meeting MC’s mom! Can you please do something similar with Yvette? Something extra fluffy because Yvette hasn’t been part of a family before and MC’s mom welcomes her with open arms and treats her like another daughter”

“Yvette!” MC runs around the counter to hug her girlfriend, “You’re early! Excited for dumpling night?”

“Hello, darling,” Yvette gives MC a quick kiss, “I couldn’t wait to see you.”

“Even though I’m covered in grease?” MC notices the bag in Yvette’s hand, “What’s that?”

“Some gifts for your mother and a bottle of wine for dinner,” Yvette pauses, “I believe it’s customary to bring a gift when invited for dinner.”

MC rolls her eyes, “You don’t need to be so formal–although I’ll admit you’re probably going to score points with Mom for that. She’s upstairs right now, give me a few minutes to close up the shop and I’ll introduce you.”

MC locks the front door and turns the sign outside off. It takes her a few minutes to tidy up the shelves, and a little longer to balance the register. When she finally finishes, she looks at Yvette with a raised eyebrow.

“I thought I mentioned you should wear clothes that you don’t mind getting messy.”

Yvette shrugs, “Clothes are replaceable. In any case, this one of my more casual outfits.”

It’s moments like these that remind MC how filthy rich her girlfriend is—Yvette’s dress looks like it costs at least a month’s salary.

“…you can borrow some of my clothes,” MC shakes her head, “I’d hate for that dress to get covered in flour.”

MC leads Yvette upstairs, and the two are quickly greeted by her mom.

“MC! And you must be Yvette!” Joyce gushes, “MC has told me so much about you!”

“Moooooom!” MC whines.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Ms. Jiang,” Yvette offers her hand, then squeaks when she’s pulled into a quick hug.

“No need to be so formal! Call me Joyce!”

“Oh. Um, my apologies,” Yvette looks confused, then clears her throat, “Ah, these are for you. Homemade teas from my garden.”

She awkwardly holds the bag out for Joyce.

“For me? Thank you!” Joyce nudges MC, “Your girlfriend is so polite. You should be more like her!”

“Moooom!” MC just groans into her hands, “We’ll be right back. I’m going to change and loan Yvette something less…nice.”

Joyce puts a hand on her hip, “No funny business! I’m not making all these dumplings on my own!”

MC just tugs Yvette away faster.

MC convinces Yvette to change into something more casual. She’s really happy Yvette agreed—MC rarely gets to see her girlfriend look so soft and unguarded. They sneak in a few kisses before heading towards the kitchen.

Joyce already has a neat pile of dumplings on the table, and she smiles at the couple as they enter, “Wash your hands and come join me!”

They wash up together, and when they return, Yvette looks at the whole set up nervously. MC ushers her girlfriend into a chair, then sits beside her.

“Hey,” MC nudges Yvette gently, “Don’t worry. I made the ugliest dumplings when I was a kid, but they tasted great anyways. Mom did the hard part already.”

MC points at the bowl of filling with a smile.

Yvette relaxes slightly, “There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.”

“Nerd,” MC rolls her eyes fondly, “Now watch and learn.”

MC starts with the easiest shape—a rosebud.

“–and then you just bring the ends together, like this,” MC pinches around the edges to make sure everything is sealed, “Ta-dah! Your turn!”

Yvette’s first few attempts are slow—she spends time double checking her seals and gently shaping each dumpling so that they’re perfectly round. MC giggles at Yvette’s focus, then shows Yvette her own work.

“They don’t need to be perfect, babe,” MC holds up one of her overstuffed monstrosities, “These ones get boiled anyways, so they don’t look great.”

“You’re just lazy,” Joyce pokes her daughter’s cheek, leaving a little flour behind, “Yvette, your dumplings are very nice. Don’t mind her–she’s always been so messy.”

“Hey!” MC pouts, “Mine aren’t that bad!”

“Now that you don’t try to stuff as much meat as possible, yes,” Joyce laughs, “We used to end up with so many meatballs!”

MC grumbles under her breath, but she smiles when she notices Yvette has finally shaken off her nerves. The two of them—Yvette and Joyce—start trading stories about MC as they work. They’re all rather embarrassing, and MC is pretty sure she has a permanent blush, but Yvette connecting with her mom is more than worth it.

“–used to be so afraid of heights,” Joyce laughs, “She spent weeks begging for us to take her to the stunt park, but the first time she got up on the half-pipe–”

MC groans and hides her face in Yvette’s shoulder.

“–she got stuck and wouldn’t come down. Her father had to throw her over his shoulder and carry her down.”

The mood at the table drops for a moment at the mention of MC’s dad. MC hasn’t really talked to Yvette about him, and her girlfriend hasn’t pried. Yvette is perceptive, though, and silently comforts MC with a kiss to the top of her head.

“It was one time!” MC grumbles, “And it’s because I saw a kid wipe out right before my turn!”

Yvette chuckles, “And yet you went up there anyways. Brave girl.”

Yvette’s tone is perfectly even, but the meaning behind her words sends a pleasant shiver down MC’s spine.

“I suppose you’ve always been a brave one, then,” Yvette looks at Joyce, “Has MC ever told you about how she caught my attention?”

“She mentioned going to one of your shows, but nothing beyond that,” Joyce pokes her daughter again, “Why don’t you ever tell me these things?”

MC sighs—this is going to be a long night.

“Take some more!” Joyce packs dumplings into freezer bags before handing them off to Yvette, “And some cookies too!”

“This is very generous, Joyce,” Yvette says shyly, “It’s too much.”

“Nonsense! You’re family now,” Joyce smiles.

Yvette blinks, “Oh…”

Her eyes start to water and she sets the food down carefully. MC is already at her side, giving Yvette’s hand a gentle squeeze.

“Oh, this is embarrassing, I apologize,” Yvette tries to wipe her tears discreetly, but ends up smudging her make-up, “I haven't–I can’t convey how much that means to me. Thank you, Joyce.”

“You’re always welcome,” Joyce replies, “I’m more than happy to have our little family include you.”

“Group hug!” MC cheers. Yvette doesn’t protest when MC pulls her into the embrace.

When they separate, Joyce turns on her daughter with a stern look, “What have you been feeding her? She’s too thin!”

Joyce marches back into the kitchen.

“Oh no.”

Yvette gives MC a puzzled look, “What’s wrong?”

MC just hides her face in her hands as Joyce returns with a large freezer bag full of frozen pasta, “Here! I know running a show like yours keeps you busy, but you need to make time to eat!”

Yvette isn’t sure if she should be offended. Thankfully, MC explains as she shoos her mother away, “You’re fine–it’s just a way to show she cares.”

“…oh,” Yvette takes a moment to process the burst of feelings the situation is giving her, “Please make sure she knows I appreciate the gesture.”

“Of course,” MC grins, “I’m guessing you enjoyed dumpling night?”

Yvette smiles—warm and genuine, “Yes, I very much enjoyed tonight.”

MC squeaks when Yvette uses her free arm to pull her close.

“I would love to demonstrate how much,” Yvette’s voice drops low, “If you’d like to come with me?”

MC bolts out of Yvette’s grasp to call out to her mother, “Mom! I’m staying at Yvette’s tonight!”

Yvette smirks when MC returns with a bright, eager grin.

“Okay honey, be safe!” Joyce calls back, “Use protection!”

Yvette and MC wear matching blushes.

“Mom!” MC shouts back indignantly, “Not cool!”

Yvette gently tugs MC towards the exit—MC and Joyce have a tendency to drag out conversations with banter, and while it’s usually quite entertaining, Yvette has plans for MC’s mouth that don’t involve talking at all.

[irarelypostanything]

Software engineers make a lot of money, but…

The average annual salary for an American software engineer is $86,000; the average annual salary for an American is $48,000.  The above figure may be seriously skewed by Techlead, who makes a million dollars every time he comments on YouTube, and Silicon Valley, where it costs $3000 a week to live in a broom closet...but those are the statistics.  So, compared to the average, software engineers make a lot of money.

Is that a lot, when you account for the amount of money it costs to become a software engineer?  This is where things get interesting.  Coding bootcamps are springing up, and some are good and some are borderline scams.  Colleges themselves tend to be incredibly expensive, so the argument becomes more of a “computer science pays better than most majors” than a “computer science is worth it,” in my opinion...though actually, if you work out the math, student loans might be worth it if you major in computer science, MAYBE.  Another interesting thing is comparing it to other majors, in a cost-benefit sort of way.  Do doctors make more than software engineers?  On average, definitely.  Do you have to pay more for school to be a doctor?  Probably...maybe…

This post wasn’t supposed to be strictly economic, but I still think about this from time to time.  College for me is over - the question isn’t “Should I have majored in computer science?”, but “should we keep encouraging anyone and everyone to major in computer science?”  There’s been a massive push to get more people into computer science.  Anyone who’s watched “What most schools don’t teach” knows exactly what I’m talking about.

And it’s probably good, but what I take issue with is when money becomes the opening statement.  I saw some people burn out of computer science in college - not that many, I’ll be honest (some of our classes weren’t tough, but we were Davis...not Berkeley), but some.  One commenter on Piazza/Facebook complained that people come into computer science thinking it’s an easy route to money, when in reality it’s as rigorous as other fields of engineering and math.  I think Cal Newport said it best: If you know in your heart that you’re in this major because YOU CHOSE IT, yourself, you’ll find the motivation to keep going.  If someone chose it for you, then you might burn out.

Actually, I don’t even remember if he was talking about computer science.  Maybe it was a general statement, or something crazy like astrophysics.  

I knew a math major in my dorm.  She loved math as both a hobby and a career - that alone should give you pause, and I don’t know why she never saw the campus therapist, but let me continue - and she decided to take on a little coding for a possible minor.  I wrote out a study guide (admittedly irrelevant because the class changed) for her and tried to make sure she stayed motivated.  For her, as it turned out, this was all a non-issue.  She told me she loved it.  It was her first time coding, coding was hard, and frustrating, and took forever, and she absolutely loved it.

In the actual field, we had an intern whom I shall leave unnamed.  To be honest, working with him was pretty frustrating in some respects, or at least stressful.  We planned out his task and vision.  We knew his experience level, or his supposed experience level, and so we plotted out exactly when we expected each milestone to be completed.  I was prepared to give him a better experience than what I had - just empathy, and motivation, and making sure he had the resources he needed.  

Then he started, he came up to speed in a day, and he blew each task out of the water within days.  Half-way through his internship and he was done with everything we thought he would complete, and then some.  He apparently hadn’t worked with any of our various technologies before, but he picked up on each one, excelled, asked tons of questions, and then dominated.  After learning our system through some walkthroughs on day one, he barely needed any sort of help at all.  I think the best parting gift I gave him was leetcode frequencies, because God forbid a software engineer of that potential ever pay $14 a month for Leetcode premium.

So...for some people...there’s no need to motivate.  They’d probably be engineers even if engineers were paid average salaries, and they’d probably do this even if it were just a hobby.  Is software engineering for everyone, though?  What about people like me, who have brains that were probably better suited to major in something like English, or history?

Well...they can be, I believe.  I think we get wrapped up in this idea that software engineers, like my insane dorm mate, have to love coding so much that they relish the opportunity to sort names in C.  But there’s a lot more in coding than just sorting names in C.  There’s also C++, and then there’s this thing called Java, and then there’s that one language everyone swears will be the future.

We start people with C, and a lot of normal people like myself look at it and think, “Wow, this is confusing and boring as hell.”  Then it kind of grows on them when they realize how far they’ve come, but for some people it doesn’t.  They stick around for C++, maybe for the intellectual challenge, and they learn data structures.  Then comes all the extraordinarily useful theory, and algorithms that will definitely come up in extremely relevant interviews, and if you get to the very end of your college career without failing (since it’s a ladder) you might just get to take the boring stuff like hacking, graphics, AI, bioinformatics, and that one class where you actually build an app for a real company or campus client.

And we sure as hell don’t start people off with frontend, where they can reap the benefits of their efforts in days instead of weeks.  I actually see why this part makes more sense, but...there’s a lot of coding out there.  Even if you realize you despise most coding, there’s a whole world of UI/UX that...I admittedly have not seen in a while because we’re back in middleware.

But then in middleware, there’s that whole world of stock trading, where every nanosecond matters, and books explaining why every nanosecond matters, and infrastructure with applications that...that…

...there’s a lot to coding, and there’s also money.  But you can make money doing anything.

[arcanemoody]

Gotham Secret Santa

Title: Songbook

Author: arcanemoody Tags: Season 5, post-S05E07: Ace Chemicals, Bickering Like an Old Married Couple, Referenced Past Trauma, Pre-Slash, Developing Relationship, 78prm, Happy Ending Summary: Whatever Ed needs, he can have. Oswald isn’t sure how he can make that any clearer.

For @ckatattack for the @gotham-secret-santa. I hope you like it!

--

Oswald sorted bolts at his ally’s behest. He helped push the tables together in the library, cleared the combined space so that his partner could work on the engine of the submarine while maintaining a clear view of each schematic. All while humming to himself and emptying boxes of scrap on the side table designated for his work; filing bolts, screws, and other detritus into separate piles and compartments for easy retrieval.

Contrary to the accusations Edward liked to throw at him, he hadn’t intended for his old friend and enemy to be doing the majority of the work -- conceptualizing, working from schematics, redesigning schematics. Oswald himself found none of this intuitive, and had hoped by making himself scarce, Ed's progress could continue uninterrupted. His 10th-grade shop teacher had said once, with a screwdriver in his hand, Oswald Cobblepot was essentially a gremlin. He couldn’t even wire a lamp from a kit; couldn’t sand or carve the blocks used to make a simple standing clock. And his lack of technical acumen was matched only by his inability to commit to physical labor. A submarine was seriously outside his expertise. Seeing to their cargo and procuring the niceties and basic needs his colleague eschewed in favor of managing his labor was much more his speed. He checked on (and added to) their pile of treasure. He made sure Ed had decent food and untainted water. He sorted bolts. He worked very, very hard to tamp down any indignity he felt in each task.

"Are you humming Dinah Shore?"

It took a moment for him to realize that Ed was addressing him. "What?"

"That song. What are you humming?"

Oswald shook his head, slightly dazed. "I-I don't know. It's just something I remembered… maybe from one of my mother’s records? Put it in a box, tie it with a ribbon—'

“...would surely fill the deep blue sea,” Ed finished in his gentle tenor. “That's Dinah Shore.”

“Is it?” Oswald shrugged. “Huh. Well, if you're that desperate for me to not sing it, I think I must have the actual record somewhere.” Ed’s brow furrowed.

“78RPM? Red label? Columbia logo?”

“I think so.”

“That‘s my record, Oswald!” he shouted, taking a large step forward.

His brain froze up in the way it tended to do nowadays any time Ed leveled an accusation at him, grappling with whether it was warranted and whether the vehemence required a match in tone. This did not. He took a deep breath.

“Technically speaking, it’s my record. I bought it.”

“Yeah, along with the rest of my records, my books and my clothes,” Ed shot back. “Well, excuse me for wanting you to feel at home when you got out of Arkham!”

The lot at the police auction had been purchased through an intermediary -- the same intermediary that made a hefty donation to the policemen's union under the name of the Van Dahl living trust. Oswald had known that if the GCPD had felt free enough to use his name to trap Edward into a confession, they would probably be vindictive enough to refuse his name on a purchase order. 

"And anyway, since you left them all at the manor, I'd say that still makes them mine.”

“Technically speaking,” he replied, mimicking Oswald’s earlier tone. “I didn't leave.” “You certainly weren't living there when I got back!” The air in the house had been stale the day he and Fries forced the front door open. Only the kitchen had maintained its normal, spotless, lived-in atmosphere, due to Olga’s continued employment, salary operating on an automatic deposit. The rest had fallen into a cluttered disrepair that illustrated the descent of Riddler’s madness.

“I wasn't not living there.”

“Of course not. You were on the run. Well, you were 'not living there' just enough that I gave Ivy your room.'

“No you didn’t.” Ed’s statement was dismissive rather than outraged. Not an accusation; a fact. Confirming that he had evidence to back up his claim. 

“How do you know?” Oswald asked, curious. 

“Because when I went there in March, my room was as I left it.”

March. 

Two months before Sofia had been taken out for good.

When Riddler had broken him out of Arkham, the purple panel coat with the fur trimmed collar  (flattened now and in desperate need of dry cleaning) had been slung across the passenger seat of the truck. The coat he had left in Ed’s apartment after Galavan’s murder, the coat he’d subsequently gotten back after the GCPD delivered the lot from the auction. He had been too preoccupied at the time to question its presence or how Ed might have retrieved it when Oswald himself had changed the locks a year earlier. 

“You broke into my house!” “It was hardly breaking in — the windows weren’t even locked,” he paused at Oswald’s shocked expression. “I never did it when you were home. Just after you were arrested and, later, when you were squatting at Falcone’s place.”

“Right, because that makes it better! What were you even doing there?”’

“Looking for my things, mainly. I wore the same suit for months and it wasn’t like I had a lot of loose change to throw around, even with Lee’s help.” “So you turned to house breaking. How clever of you.”

“One house. And I didn’t take anything that wasn’t already mine.”

‘Just as before.’ Oswald flinched at the thought, turned away. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, refrained from upturning the table with all of the bolts he’d sorted. One could afford to pick one’s battles during a long-form escape attempt. .

“Well you can go back for your precious record collection any time you like! If the front door is still on the hinges, I’ll even loan you my key.”

Said key disappeared from his keyring two days later, around the time Oswald found the library work space empty.

-- He did not turn up to sort bolts, shuffle schematics or retrieve provisions for Edward the next day. 

Or the next day. 

He arranged trades. He drank wine on Barbara’s sofa, listening to her talk through the physical transformations of her second trimester and Lee Thompkins’ warnings about high heels being a fall risk and, therefore, a risk to the fetus. 

“As if I would ever fall,” she scoffed. 

He refrained from stating the obvious, pouring himself another glass to avoid grinding his teeth.

On the third day, he turned up to an empty room. He sat waiting in the empty library long into the evening. The sun was setting, filling the room with an orange glow when a member of his security team turned up, an anxious expression on their face. 

“Boss.”

“Where is he?”

-- First Bank of Gotham. A historic granite and lime building measuring half a city block on the edge of the industrial sector on the north side.

The Court of Owls had done a good job of hiding their centuries-worth of dirty work in plain sight. Post-No Man’s Land “restructuring,“ the alley where he and Edward had made their bloody escape two years earlier was on the edge of Firefly’s territory, frequently disputed by Fries’ minions staking a claim. The odds had been in Firefly’s favor recently and Bridgit, to Oswald’s surprise, allowed him to pass through with barely a nod of encouragement. 

“String Bean entered through the southwest staircase. My scouts say he’s been there a while,” she lifted her mask, giving him a pointed stare. “You’ve got an hour, Pengy.”

Oswald nodded, leaving his guards under his former housemate’s watchful eye (and flamethrower). This was Firefly being sentimental. He knew it wouldn’t last long if they overstayed their welcome. 

There were more stairs than he remembered. Each floor opened onto a circular hall of doors with the door knobs either broken or missing, papers and files scattered, the mundane facade of an centuries-old evil organization that still needed three floors of pencil pushers to move their assets and occasionally serve as cannon fodder. Oswald remembered their holding cells being on the sixth floor, close to the roof. The trip to the ground level had been a whirlwind of improvised carnage -- guards, personnel, people in uniforms, people in office wear, he and Ed and tore through everyone on their way out, before crashing onto the pavement outside, covered in the blood of violent rebirth.

He found Edward on the fourth floor, door ajar on what had once been a holding area, dilapidated desks and disabled security gates, loose wires where key panel locks had once been. Long legs folded into a too small office chair, eyes downcast, his friend’s visage brought a lump to his throat.

“Reliving old memories?” Oswald asked, annoyed even as the fear and agony he’d been holding in check all day melted from him.

Ed didn’t look up.

“Edward?”

Another long moment passed before he finally spoke. 

“I found my overcoat,” he said, gesturing at the pile of green plaid slung over the crook of one arm and draped over his lap. Nearly two years in dark storage, no doubt covered in mildew, dust mites, and other unspeakable things. 

“Were you looking for that recently?”

“No,” he shook his head. “I hadn’t even thought about it, or this place in quite some time. I was looking for scrap steel for the outer panels, maybe some extra supplies... I took a notion once I realized where I was. Have I been gone long?”

“Six hours.” Eight, though Ed didn’t need to know just how early Oswald had turned up to the library.

“I couldn’t find any of your stuff. Or anything that looked like it might be yours. Sorry.”

Oswald did his best to contain his reaction, that Ed had done something thoughtful. For his sake. He winced against the ripple of familiar warmth, butterflies. Things he could not afford in the midst of a long-form escape attempt.

“It doesn’t matter. Are you ready to go now?” 

Ed nodded, walking half a step behind as they descended back down the stairs.

--

“How long were you their prisoner?” He asked, after they had crossed the perimeter, doubling back twice to avoid whatever shadows Ed seemed positive were following them. The sun had long since set and what little light they had was from the security teams flanking them, throwing long shadows on the broken pavement.

“Before you arrived?” Ed shrugged. “A few weeks maybe? I was interrogated before they put me in the cage. It was difficult to keep track but not impossible. It wasn’t like Arkham -- their  objectives involved keeping me alive. Though what keeping me alive meant in a city they wanted to destroy is anybody’s guess.”

Probably holding his sage intellect in storage for future endeavors, as Barbara had. Oswald felt angry on his old friend’s behalf as well as himself. He hadn’t been interrogated -- just sedated, stripped, and thrown in a cell. For the formerly missing mayor of the city, it was beyond insulting. 

Ed wasn’t finished.

“They gave me haloperidol so they could question me. That was bad. I was still detoxing at first -- that was worse.”

“From what?”

“Amphetamines, mostly. And whatever psychotropics Tabitha gave me. Withdrawal symptoms ideally shouldn’t last as long as those did. I tapered off to avoid complications with my heart muscle, adrenal glands...”

Oswald held his breath.

Following Riddler’s progress after his death had been difficult from the distance of Ivy’s greenhouse hideaway in Bludhaven. Even after returning home, tracking headlines and articles stopped at a certain date, bleeding into coverage of the mayor’s disappearance. One of those articles included a grainy shot of Ed leaving a press conference at city hall, face a mask of composure, but for the downward cast of distressed brown eyes in rubbed gray newsprint.

He knew Ed had tripled his original kill count in less than two months. And that he’d kept the authorities on the run right up until Jim Gordon decided handing him over to a cabal with designs on child abduction and mass murder was a charming notion. That Ed himself had crossed that threshold virtually without a fight.

“...why?”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Uppers tends to do that--”

“I didn’t want to sleep,” his tone took on a sharp edge and he was glaring at Oswald again. “I don’t even know why you’re asking me. You know exactly how long I was there. You went to Jim first. You always go to him first.”

That jab… felt oddly personal. Oswald wondered what he was missing in that accusation— the narrowed gaze and the resentful pinch to his mouth. Never mind that Jim Gordon was the one who arrested and subsequently reported the “Riddler’s” escape and Ed, a forensic investigator, should have known the importance of following clues.

“If I could gauge what Jim knew, I had a bead on what the rest of the GCPD knew and I could plan accordingly. So, yes, I went to him. And he lied to me and I knew it -- just like I always know when he lies to me. The man has a terrible poker face.”

“So do you.”

“So stop playing with me,” he said, choking up. Having his own methods questioned was galling. And it wasn’t as though his talent for shallow subterfuge hadn’t fooled him once— back when Ed cared about him and a blind spot was established. Memories that brought a salty weighty to the back of his throat and behind his eyes. “Did you even find out ‘who runs Gotham?’”

The question was flippant, almost cruel. Ed’s answer was not.

“That and more,” he replied, somber, almost pensive; enough to deflate Oswald’s ire. 

“Well. Good for you, then.”

“There are things they told me,” he said, serious now, neither chiding nor angry. “...I can’t talk about it. Not yet.”

Oswald kept his eyes on the dark path ahead, tried not to think about what could be worse to talk about than his anguish over the deaths at Haven or the almost blissful oblivion of his first murders. A distant part of his brain reminded him that it could be still another play, but he had seen Ed devastated enough over time to recognize truth from fiction.

“Okay,” he nodded. 

“Things that involve you.”

“I understand. Save it if you want, Ed. You can tell me whenever you want to or hang onto it forever. I don’t care.”

The walk back to the library seemed longer than before. Oswald was surprised that Ed continued to shadow him even as the streets (what had once been streets) diverged and he headed in the direction of city hall.

“Don’t disappear again.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You’re not capable of scaring me!” he said. Patently untrue and Ed knew it, too. “Anyway, I thought you might have gone to the manor.”

“I tried that first,” he replied, producing his keyring from the pocket on his boilersuit. “Yesterday.”

“And?”

“I want to say the front door is still on the hinges, but I couldn’t get more than a few yards away to look. Nature seems to have taken back a good portion of your father’’s estate and... some of it was not happy to find me there.”

“Ivy. Well, it’s good to hear that she's kept up her hobbies,” he laughed, breathlessly. Guilt was rare and pulsed dully in the same pained spot in his stomach where heartbreak loved to dwell. The teenage plant maven had kept Oswald company when he had wanted no one near him and he’d rewarded her generosity of spirit with contempt and vitriol. Forgiveness was, as ever, too high a price to ask for. He’d have to settle for just knowing she was alive. 

“Hang on to the key, anyway. We may need it eventually.”

If they ever went back (and if Ivy killed him on sight), Ed would still need to get inside the house.

—

After the bolts and the sonar, after Penn’s arrival and subsequent dispatch, aborted departures and new arrivals and scrambling to recover what they could from the bottom of the river, they managed to fight through the vegetation and rehome the manor.

Oswald arrived with lunch one afternoon and found a 78rpm in a battered paper sleeve on the dining room table. He reached out to touch it, wondering briefly if it was a trick of his remaining eye.

“Ed?” he called out. 

“I found your record,” Ed said, closer than he’d initially guessed, initially in his blind spot and then moving over to his left side. No longer disputing ownership. “Not here. It turns out the library’s music archives weren’t completely depleted.”

Oswald smiled, turning the record over, noting the red label, the Columbia logo.

“Do we still have a working turntable?”

Ed smiled, amused, offered an arm to guide him.

“Back here.”

It took more than a few breaths to blow the dust off both record and player, more than a few minutes to turn the crank on his father’s old gramophone without overwinding, and finding the appropriate place to drop the needle. The voice that warbled out was familiar in a way that conjured images of his mother’s living room, frying onions in the kitchen, the sharp bite of paprika and heavy salt in the air… none of which echoed Ed’s place in his mind. 

“This isn’t Dinah Shore.”

“No, it’s Doris Day,” he replied, a hint of amusement breaking through what, no doubt, had to be a heavy sense of injustice (Ed’s impeccable brain turning on him yet again). “I got the song and the label right but the vocalist wrong. Such an obvious detail to miss.”

Oswald shook his head, reaching out to take his partner’s other arm, squeezing lightly.

“It’s an easy mistake,” he replied, his non-bandaged eye focused on his dearest friend’s shifting expression; dark eyes misty, a hint of a smile. “No worries, my friend.”

Oswald watched Ed swallow, feeling an answering squeeze on his arm. The two of them leaned against each other, swaying, almost in a dance. Oswald hummed. -- A/N: The song Oswald sings is “Put ‘Em in a Box, Tie ‘Em With a Ribbon,” sung by Doris Day. Ed’s thinking of “Love That Boy” sung by Dinah Shore (and actually misremembers it with a lyric from “Mad About Him, Sad Without Him”). Both were released by Columbia in 1947, Doris is singing about taking romance and chucking it in the river, while Dinah is still in the bloom of loving someone from afar, alternately delighted and miserable.

[shannonsearson]

May 7 2020

For someone who reads a lot of personal finance blogs I can’t seem to remember if they start every post with a “hey guys what’s up” or if they just get straight down to business.

My name is Shan, I’m 23 and I like talking about money! I also enjoy photography, travelling and hanging out with my friends and family. I guess this is my intro, and we’ll see what I come up with next time!

Why am I writing this? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​I found myself in a scenario that none of my close friends were yet dealing with – paying off student loans. It is the first time that I’m on a completely different page than my friends. You get used to being in the same boat as everyone else, so when I was on my own I felt a little lonely!

I graduated after just two years, whereas my friends are still students right now going into their 5th or 6th year! Plus my sister has already paid her student loan off. I’m kind of on my own here. It’s my first time paying back debt, and fully understanding how interest works and budgeting and all that good stuff. Basically when I get an idea in my head, I’m a very stubborn and determined person who also likes to talk out loud. And since I don’t have a lot of people to relate to, I started reading personal finance blogs online. It made me feel understood, recognized and gave me inspiration!​​​​​​​​​​​

When I was a Youngin’

I was raised in a mid-income family, one older sister with both of my parents (and a lot of pets). My mom is a PSW and my Dad is a car parts salesman. I think they were always pretty balanced between knowing what was worth paying for, and what was worth finding a sale on. If I heard how much they paid for a couch or a new garage door, being a little kid, I would think they were crazy! But they’d always justify their reasoning; “well it’s a need, it will last a long time, and we can, so we did!” ​​​

Shopping for new school clothes, we almost always went to Value Village before going to the mall. We enjoy going to yard sales, and just finding bargains in general. My parents like change, and watching HGTV shows. I think they moved 8-9 times together, and that I’ve technically lived in 6 different homes (5 all in the same town). I can’t count the number of different vehicles and camping trailers they’ve owned. None of these things were new by any means, but my parents simply liked to change it up. It was my normal, and I really liked it. They never stressed out about money in front of me, and never made me feel stressed about my own money either.​​​​​​​

When I was little I would count the change in my piggy bank over and over and over again, even though I knew what the total amount was, just because I liked counting money. Which is ironic because I am now a bank teller. I wanted a Tamagotchi toy, which was around $20. My mom told me to save up my pennies, and she would take me to the store to buy one for myself. When I’d finally saved up enough money, I showed my mom and she was so proud of me for saving for something I wanted that she bought it for me, and let me keep my $20. ​​​​​​​​​

I got a babysitting gig when I was in Grade 7 that was every Friday evening. I missed some birthday parties and things like that, that I was bummed out about. It taught me responsibility and commitment for sure! I got $25/night, just for playing with the kid for an hour or two and then watching America’s Next Top Model while he was asleep for the rest of the night. I managed to save enough money for my first iPod Touch, and an amp for my electric guitar. That was the first time I saved for a “big purchase” and I was super proud of myself!​​​​​​​​​

Around the age of 15 or so, I got a paper route job. I had to bag and deliver 96 papers once a week. I live beside an overpass you have to go up, to get into town, and my wagon didn’t hold that many papers. So it took me 3-4 hours to finish the job, making trips back and forth to my house! The only thing that made this better was listening to my iPod touch on the way ;) Now get this; for my grade 8 graduation gift my mom gave me a Blackberry. It was $50/month. My paper route paid me just $64/month. So after I paid my mom for my cell phone bill, I had a whole $14 left over! Looking back at it, what a humbling experience that taught me the value of money!!​​​​​​

In high school I had summer jobs at a day care center and worked at an arena booth for one hockey season, all minimum wage jobs. My parents never made me work during the school year, and I was too busy hanging out with my friends and enjoying my down-time to really think about or care about making money.

But at the end of high school, when the big question came of “what will you do with the rest of your life?!” Came around...1. I had no idea and 2. All I cared about when it came to picking a career was how much money I’d be earning. If I was researching a career, the first thing I’d ask is what’s the average salary? If it wasn’t up to par I would look no further. It was an unhealthy obsession! Which really didn’t do me any favours, let alone get me rich.

Any who, now you have some background on me while you read future posts. I have lots of topics in mind to come and I’m really looking forward to it! Would it be totally cheesy to insert an inspirational quote here? I think I’m gonna do it.

-Until next time,

Shan :)

[crystalppm]

colorado springs houses to rent

Rental home land putting resources into Colorado Springs is energizing and can be very productive in case you're willing to face a few challenges and accomplish some work.

Aside from putting your cash into your investment property, you will be taking on the situation of proprietor and this implies obligation regarding the general property support and upkeep – and the sky is the limit from there.

A Landlord Has Many Responsibilities

You'll likewise be liable for finding qualified inhabitants to lease the property just as the specialized end which incorporates composing a rent, colorado springs houses to rent  doing credit reports and significantly more. This can be work and, for an amateur, can be overpowering or even awful in the event that any basic slip-ups were made in the occupant determination process.

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Rental Real Estate – It's A Business

You should have a similar outlook as an entrepreneur as opposed to a home purchaser or a mortgage holder on the off chance that you've decided to lease a property.

Do exhaustive research on the rental market for lodging in the particular zone you're thinking about purchasing. Make certain to assess the property and the neighborhood where you need to purchase – only so there are no curve balls before you buy.

Know each cost before you purchase. As in any business, there must be a benefit for that business to really endure – and flourish. The rental land industry is no special case. Despite the fact that the remaining estimation of the property (which will vacillate) will be there as the years progressed, you should be compensated with positive income as a motivator to put your well deserved cash in rental land.

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Amy SchellerAmy Scheller, a top Colorado Springs property director, tries doing she proposes for others to do by owning and dealing with her own investment properties for a considerable length of time. Amy would then be able to utilize that experience to deal with your property, yet to assist you with transforming it into an extraordinary speculation that makes you a constant flow of pay while holding its incentive in the market.

Coming up next are the main 5 reasons you ought to think about putting resources into rental land.

Influence

Influence is the specialty of utilizing next to no of your money and utilizing the banks' cash. Speculatively, on the off chance that you just have $30,000.00 of your own and purchase an investment property for $300,000.00, you will at that point possess an advantage that is worth $300,000 – multiple times your underlying venture.

Obviously you will have a home loan on the property yet we've discovered that the arrival on the underlying speculation when figuring in the rental salary is generally much more than enthusiasm for an investment account or a moderate stock portfolio.

This is a streamlined clarification – however you get the image!

Inhabitants Pay The Mortgage

Your inhabitants will help buy the property for you with their month to month lease installments. While they pay you their lease, you're for the most part taking care of your specific home loan with the cash. Truly, what else would you need?

To be completely forthright: You should pay the home loan in the event that you have no inhabitant. That is one of the dangers of rental land contributing. A decent property administrator can regularly get a certified inhabitant into the home rapidly – along these lines keeping away from a misfortune.

Assessments

Any acquired expenses on your underlying speculation can be subtracted straightforwardly from the particular earnings that it produces. Deterioration is a piece of these expenses. Deterioration is estimated as the measure of cash that your property is lessening in an incentive after some time.

Unquestionably, we as a whole expectation that the estimation of the structure will rise, and on the off chance that it does, there most likely will be assessments to pay. In any case, in case you're bringing in cash, paying the taxman shouldn't be simpler.

Should your property estimation decay, you could set aside on charge cash each other year with devaluation.

Note: We are not charge bookkeepers nor do we offer duty and direct budgetary guidance. It would be ideal if you make certain to counsel with a certified CPA on any expense matters including rental land.

Income

By joining income, charge arranging, and influence, you can make an extremely decent business in purchasing and leasing land.

In spite of the fact that your income may at first be negative or impartial, it should get positive in a brief timeframe on the off chance that you have done your exploration and have settled on some great choices.

Positive income after some time may be sufficient to assist you with putting resources into another investment property.

5. Capital Gains. You can likewise take or influence capital increases after some time. In spite of the fact that it doesn't generally occur (land has a decent long haul thankfulness rate), it very well may be a huge bonus when it does.

In case you're looking for a perfect method to think of positive month to month income and make riches, putting resources into rental land might be the best alternative.

Not exclusively would you be able to win extraordinary pay, however you can likewise assemble your total assets with land rentals. It's certainly difficult and there are numerous traps en route. Be that as it may, the awards for the individuals who can remain for the long haul can be generally excellent in fact!

Contact Us

Crystal Pines Property Management KWCC

1283 Kelly Johnson Boulevard

Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920

Phone: (719) 470-2777

Email: amy@crystalppm.com

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[nicosroom]

My Money Snapshot

[Inspired by Corporette]

Location: Ohio, small college town

Age: 29

Occupation: PhD candidate (English)/half-time instructor

Income: $16,000 before deductions

Net worth: $588 (I’m crying)

Current Debt: $12,844

Living situation: Renting with a roommate

Money Philosophy:

I grew up in the “working poor” category. My parents are divorced and my father never contributed much financially. Mom made around $21,000 per year at work and she cleaned houses “under the table” to supplement that. Somehow, we never went hungry, what we ate was relatively fresh and healthy, and she managed to put two of us through Catholic schools for a total of 14 years. I know now that mom is still paying some of those loans and credit card debts and that part of her strategy included not contributing more than the 3% that her employer matched in her 401k. Every time I complain about the financial stress I feel at my salary level, I have to remind myself how comparatively unstressful my financial life is.

I’ve always been poor and I always knew that graduate school/academia is not a lucrative career. I tell myself that if I can make things work at this pay grade, then I’m ready for just about anything. My main strategy is to have a budget, stay in the budget, and save every bit that I can.

Monthly budget

$1000-1100 for the necessities each month. Monthly spending on eating out, entertainment, shopping and other categories varies widely. I also won’t lie... dating someone who makes 4x more money than me helps... I’m fairly frugal on all of these fronts: I buy most of my clothes second hand and I tend to shop seasonally. Spikes in spending occur around the winter holidays when I’m buying gifts and when I am doing traveling. And I also have totally weak, impulsive moments - like the $3 soap sales at Bath & Body works, or that time I spent $110 on bras and underwear on a whim. Anyway:

Rent: $272.50/month

Other living expenses: $130-170/month (electric, internet, phone, renter’s insurance - lower in summer, higher in winter)

Transportation: $332/month (gas, insurance, car payment)

Healthcare: $162/month (health+dental insurance, no vision coverage)

Groceries: $120-150/month ($30/week)

Debt Picture

Student loan: $2000

Car loan: $10,488

I’m a career student & my motto for all the years I’ve been in school has been “follow the money.” I went to college on very hefty scholarships and I only had to take out the $2000 loan to cover housing costs during my first year. For the subsequent three years, I was an RA, so I never had to take loans again. I applied to graduate programs based on the research fit, and when I got my offers, money weighed heavily in the decision. I would have loved to live in Boston as a wee 22-year old, but I wasn’t about to take out loans for a year’s worth of tuition and the living expenses. And to get a PhD while living in Minneapolis, my very favorite city in the US? It would have been such a dream, but for the quite steep difference in stipends and the significant disparity in cost of living compared with Ohio. My only regret on this front is that I haven’t started paying back my tiny student loan. I’ve been able to defer it since I’m in graduate school, which was a great idea when I was a master’s student who didn’t know the first thing about budgeting. But if I had just paid $25/month from the start of grad school the balance would be $0 about the same time I graduate from this PhD program this August. Instead, I’ll be scrambling to pay off the whole balance before my 6 month grace period ends. 

The car loan is less than a year old. I finally broke down and bought a new (by which I mean used) car last summer after really pushing it with the car my parents had bought me in high school. Repairing that car put me into credit card debt more than once and I was getting so stressed about it. It was time. I have a very good credit score, so I qualified for a nice loan rate with my credit union, and to get a better rate I got my mom to co-sign my loan. It’s a popular rental fleet model so there were tons of them on the market, but average miles were high - so when I saw one that was two years old with only a years worth of miles on it at $1000 less than the average price for that make, model, and year, I jumped on it. My payments are $231/month on the 5-year plan. Currently, I’m paying that minimum, but I plan to escalate my payments as my income goes up (I’m on the academic job market now, pray for me). I folded this car payment into my existing budget by giving up solo-living and finding a roommate. When I had my own apartment, very spacious with a huge kitchen and tons of windows/natural light, I was paying about $585 for monthly rent. I hate living with people, but I hated the idea of being trapped in this college town without a car even more - one of my other mantras is “you can do anything for a year.” 

A note on credit cards: I love them. I’m one of those responsible people that charges everything and pays the balance like clockwork every month. This is the only way to make sure you’re actually taking advantage of the cash back/reward perks! Currently, I’m using Capital One’s Venture card and stockpiling airline miles for travel (it has a 40,000 mile sign-on bonus). If you’re good for it, I also recommend one card with a great balance transfer program. For me, when I get into an emergency situation, it makes me feel like I have options. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve had to use my balance transfer card to cover costs ($1400 in car repairs, summer 2015), but at my level, I can’t afford to not have back up plans. 

Savings and Investments

$5,517 Cash

$7,861 Roth IRA + employer mandated retirement account

Retirement: The biggest financial mistake I've made in grad school is that I did not opt into the retirement account offered by the university when I started my M.A. in 2012. When they ask me that “what I wish I had known before I went to grad school” question, this is near the top of the list. I did, eventually, open a Roth IRA and slowly I started to build something. This year, when my graduate funding dried up and they made me a “half-time instructor” the retirement account for public school teachers was mandatory and the contributions are high: 14% of every pay check (annoying, yes, but on the flipside, there is an equally high employer match). While I’m contributing to this, I’ve paused my contributions to the IRA. I’ll roll this money over, either into the IRA or into another state/employer retirement fund when I move on from here. 

Personal savings: I strive for a minimum of $100 per month and frequently do a little more, but each month is different and I consider it a win if I break even. Through most of grad school, I’ve taken on “second jobs” to bolster what I can save (and boost my resume). Both jobs have been through the university, so they limit me to five hours a week. When I max them out, this can be an extra $200-250 each month. 

I took up a new savings challenge this academic year to build on my “play money” savings account (a high yield savings account which my bank labels a “goal setter” account). The challenge involves tallying the “total savings” printed on my receipts each month (i.e. when the grocery store is like “you saved $6″ because of sales and coupons). So, At the end of the month, I put that running total into my goal setter account. Sometimes the total savings are like $26, but others its as much as $171. It’s an interesting challenge because it encourages me to do tedious things, like scroll through all the digital coupons on the grocery store app; but at the same time, I know that the higher that number is usually coincides with a lot of shopping which encourages some self-regulation. 

I initially set my goal at $2500 when I opened the goal setter account in 2014. When I had to dip into the account in April 2018 to pay $930 in car repairs, I finally set plans in motion to buy my car. Since I bought used, I only put 10% down on the car (just over $1200). When I sold my old car for $1000, I put that money right back into the account to start saving for new things...

What I’m saving for now:

travel: to celebrate finally finishing this PhD, I’m hoping to pull off a trip to Europe. Later this year, I’m also turning 30 around the same time that one of my regular professional conferences is meeting in Hawaii. If I can do one or both in the next year, that’d be grand. (As I mentioned, I'm saving up airline miles with my credit card program, too!)

a multicooker: think InstantPot...but more expensive because my dreams all revolve around small appliances that match my stand mixer. 

What I do to be frugal... 

I’ve been frugal my whole life, but a couple of major habits I’ve formed include:

Meal planning and home cooking (read my guide to meal prep here). The money part of that means planning what I eat around maximizing the ingredients I have to buy. I plan meals that use the same ingredients so I’m not spending on an entire bunch of celery and then throwing out 75% of it. Routinization also helps, so my grocery lists stay about the same week to week and the bill relatively predictable - for example, I eat avocado egg salad almost every day for lunch. I know, avocados are not cheap, but I also believe in spending on the things that nourish you––literally and “spiritually.” Roxane Gay once said that she never bought avocados or blueberries when she was a “poor grad student.” Once she started making money, she realized she would buy them because she could afford them, but she also threw them out all the time because she didn’t plan her meals right to actually eat them. The point is, buy the foods that you like/feel good about and build habits around them. It’s not wasted money. That said, I won’t pay more than $1.25 for an avocado!

Second hand clothes shopping, especially for my business casual (it’s amazing what people donate to the Goodwill, barely worn!)

[glennspringsminers-blog]

How Can I Achieve Financial Independence

We all know the feeling—the panic that sets into your stomach when you see the bill for an unexpected car repair. How are we going to pay for that?  But what if a car repair was just an inconvenience? Instead of worrying, you pay the bill without thinking twice. A week later you’ve forgotten that it even happened! That’s how little it affects your financial situation. It’s not an emergency. It’s barely a hiccup!

Do you feel that sense of relief? That’s what financial freedom feels like.  

Paying for a car repair without stress is just a small part of the picture. It’s more than just being able to afford emergencies. It’s knowing you don’t have to worry about retirement because you’ve worked with your financial advisor to invest consistently for decades. It’s the freedom to quit your J-O-B to do something you love, even if means getting paid less.

Financial freedom means that you get to make life decisions without being overly stressed about the financial impact because you are prepared. You control your finances instead of being controlled by them.

The path to financial independence isn’t a get-rich-quick strategy. And financial freedom doesn’t mean that you’re “free” of the responsibility of handling your money well. Quite the opposite. Having complete control over your finances is the fruit of hard work, sacrifice and time. And all of that effort is worth it!

Ready to learn how to build a life of financial independence for you and your family? Start by defining what financial independence looks like for you. What Does Financial Freedom Mean to You?

Financial freedom has to be personal. Dream big and get specific about your goal.

What does financial independence look like for you? Maybe it looks something like this:

   Freedom to choose a career you love without worrying about money    Freedom to take an international trip every year without it straining on your budget    Freedom to pay cash for a new ski boat    Freedom to respond to the needs of others with outrageous generosity    Freedom to retire a whole decade early

When you are financially independent, you have options. You don’t have to wonder if your bank account can handle replacing your hot water heater or buying groceries for a single mom who just lost her job. See how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth in my new book, Everyday Millionaires.

   "When you are financially independent, you have options. You don’t have to wonder if your bank account can handle replacing your hot water heater or buying groceries for a single mom who just lost her job." —Chris Hogan

That may sound too good to be true, but you can do this! Here’s how to begin your own journey to financial freedom! Step #1: Learn How to Manage Money

You won’t get ahead if you don’t have a plan for your money. Instead, you’ll find yourself wondering where your money went at the end of every month! That’s not financial independence; that’s a recipe for financial disaster. If you’re married, get on the same page with your spouse about your budget. If you’re single, find an accountability partner.

Building wealth is impossible if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Give every dollar a name before the month begins, and track your spending throughout the month. If you consistently overspend or underspend in certain areas, you can always adjust the amount in each category.

   "Building wealth is impossible if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Give every dollar a name before the month begins, and track your spending throughout the month." —Chris Hogan

Budgeting is important to get your finances on the right track, but it doesn’t end there. Even once you achieve financial freedom, you’ll still complete a unique budget every month. No matter how much money you have, you need a plan.

You won’t get to financial independence on accident. Budgeting is the first step to building wealth on purpose. Step #2: Clean Up Your Finances

Once you start learning how to manage money, you may realize you’ve made some mistakes with your finances in the past. That’s okay! But if you want to be financially independent, you have to clean up the mess before you can start building wealth.

That means if you have debt like credit cards, student loans or car loans, it’s time to get serious about kicking it to the curb.

Why? Because while you owe money, your paychecks have someone else’s name on them. If you want to reach your goal, you need your full income at your disposal, not bits and pieces that are left over after paying credit card bills and student loan payments.

Paying off your debt helps you lay a foundation to build wealth that will last. Make sure you have $1,000 saved before you start tackling your debt. You don’t want an unexpected expense to derail your progress!

Most people feel like they got a raise when they start budgeting, so that’s good news for you. Throw all of that extra at your smallest debt until it’s gone. Then keep the snowball rolling! Paying off debt is hard work, but there’s nothing like the feeling of actually keeping the money you bring in every month!

Once you’re debt-free, stay there. For good. Having debt undermines your ability to build wealth and puts your financial plan at risk. It’s simple. Steer clear of debt! Step #3: Be Smart About Your Career Choice

Your biggest wealth-building tool is your income. So when it comes to choosing a career, there are a lot of things at stake. There’s no reason to stay stuck at a dead-end job, especially if it’s making you miserable. Finding a job that you enjoy that also supports your goals of financial security will help you enjoy the journey.

So what should you look for? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

   Where do you want to be in 10 years? Start with the end in mind. Does this job make sense with your overall goals?

   Is there income-earning potential? Even if you’re not making your dream salary from the start, make sure there is opportunity for your income to increase as your value increases.

   Can you grow? Are there opportunities for you to move up and grow personally and professionally?

   Do you enjoy the work? Don’t spend a career at a job you hate. Find something you’re passionate about that allows you to use your gifts and skills.

   Do the benefits support your goals of financial freedom? Your options for retirement savings and health insurance can dramatically affect your ability to build wealth.

Your choice of career can have a big impact on your long-term financial plan, so take it seriously! Step #4: Create a Strategy for Short-Term Savings

Imagine if you had to pull money out of your 401(k) when your home’s A/C unit needed to be replaced. What if you had to open a credit card to pay for groceries after losing your job? How would you ever get ahead if you kept borrowing money from your future? You wouldn’t.

If your goal is financial freedom, you need a buffer for the unexpected life events that happen to all of us, like car repairs, broken appliances and medical deductibles. That’s why you should increase your emergency fund to cover three to six months of expenses once you’re out of debt.

Having the cash on hand to cover an unexpected life event gives you peace of mind and is a critical part of your overall financial plan. Once you have that fully funded savings account, you’ll start to feel more flexibility in your budget. You’ll be able to say yes to shopping splurges and specialty lattes with no guilt at all!  

Since you’re not taking on debt, you’ll also need a savings plan for big purchases that aren’t emergencies. Let’s take summer vacation for example. It’s simple! Create a line item in your monthly budget and divide the total amount by the months you have to save. You’re not living in debt anymore, and that means you can enjoy your vacation instead of having a credit card bill follow you home.

With a full emergency fund and a plan to cover big purchases in place, you’ll have the financial foundation to start investing. Step #5: Learn About Your Investment Options

Now that you have a plan for short-term savings, you’re ready to partner with a financial advisor who can help you make the most of your long-term investment options. The good news is the sooner you start investing, the more time your money has to grow. That’s the power of compound interest at work. Here’s how to get started: Retirement Savings

Start by working with your financial advisor to take advantage of the tax-favored retirement accounts that are available to you at work, like your 401(k) or 403(b). How much should you invest toward retirement? Shoot for 15% of your income. And if your employer offers a match on contributions to your 401(k), take it! Don’t say no to free money.

If you have access to a Roth 401(k) at work with good mutual fund options, great! You can invest your full 15% there. But if you have a traditional 401(k), invest up to the match then invest what’s left of your 15% in a Roth IRA. If you still have part of your 15% left after maxing out a Roth IRA, go back to your 401(k).

Why is a Roth a good idea? When you invest in a Roth 401(k) or Roth IRA, the money you invest grows tax-free. That means you don’t have to pay taxes on it when you withdraw money in retirement. That’s a big benefit you don’t want to miss out on. College Savings

If you’re already contributing 15% of your income to retirement and you want to start saving for your kids’ college fund, you can start by investing in an Education Savings Account (ESA). Like a Roth IRA, the money you contribute to an ESA grows tax-free, which means you won’t pay taxes on it when it’s used to cover college expenses. Currently you can contribute up to $2,000 per year for each child in an ESA. Income limits do apply, and your investing pro can help you know if those impact you.(1)

If you want to save beyond an ESA, talk to your financial advisor about a 529 plan. These plans also grow tax-free! Just be aware that there are some 529 plans you should avoid. Steer clear of pre-paid tuition plans and fixed investment options.(2)

The great thing about saving for your kids’ college is that by helping them avoid student debt, you’re setting them up for financial freedom too! Real Estate Investments

Your home should be part of your plan for financial freedom, not something holding you back from achieving it. That’s why it’s so important to make wise decisions about the kind of home you purchase and how you choose to finance it. If you buy a home that is a good investment, it will continue to grow in value as the years go by.

Once you’re investing 15% of your income into retirement accounts, you should use any extra money coming in to pay off your house. Attack it with a vengeance! Getting rid of your mortgage is a huge milestone in your journey to financial independence.

Don’t even think about owning rental properties until your house is paid for. And even then, you should only invest in rental properties if you can afford to pay cash for the property and you’re willing to deal with any hassle involved in the rental process. Taxable Investments

When your house is paid for, you can contribute more than 15% of your income to investments. But before you jump to taxable investing, make sure you’re taking advantage of all the tax-favored accounts you can—like your workplace 401(k) and IRAs.

If you’re ready to move into taxable accounts, stick with a simple investing approach and work with your financial advisor to choose good growth stock mutual funds with a long history of above-average performance.

When you invest outside of tax-favored retirement accounts, you’ll pay taxes on the money you invest. You should also be prepared to pay taxes on capital gains and qualified dividends. But choosing mutual funds with a low turnover rate can help you minimize the tax impact. Step #6: Be Active in Your Journey to Financial Independence

Making the right investment decisions is the first step, but staying in tune with your fund performance is crucial to getting the most out of your investments. Setting your investments on autopilot is not an investment strategy.

But the idea of actively making decisions about your investments may feel overwhelming. If it feels that way to you, you’re not alone. According to a Fidelity study of their NetBenefits participants, 77% of Do-It-Yourself investors said they didn’t have the time or investment knowledge to be confident in their investment decisions.(3)

You’ve worked hard to lay the right foundation, so don’t leave this crucial step up to chance! You need the expertise of a financial advisor to help you navigate your investment options and brave the ups and downs of the stock market.

A financial advisor can help you:

   Make decisions about your investment strategy    Rebalance your funds regularly so you minimize your risk    Create a realistic plan for what financial independence looks like for you    Know what investment options you have beyond retirement accounts    Set up a withdrawal plan for your specific situation

With our SmartVestor program, you can find investing professionals to help you achieve your financial goals. Remember, the journey to financial independence is a marathon, not a sprint. An expert financial advisor is the perfect partner for the journey.

Ready to get started? You can connect with a pro today! Reaching Financial Freedom

Financial freedom is about more than just being able to cover unexpected emergencies—like a car repair—without breaking a sweat. The fun really starts when you realize you can meet the needs of others. Imagine being able to bless a struggling family by paying for their car repair! It’s not just about you anymore; it’s about leaving a legacy!

If you live like no one else, later you can live and give like no one else. It’s worth all the hard work it takes to get there. You’ve got this! About Chris Hogan

[wizelywizeup]

10 Smart Financial Planning Rules for First-Time Earners

Starting as a first-time earner, what you need first is a plan for your finances.

Financial planning is a step-by-step approach to meet your financial goals. It helps you to manage, organize and control your finances and guide you throughout your financial journey.

For example, if you need Rs 5 lakhs for your wedding next year, then you must plan your finances in a way so that you can save up for it in a systematic and organized way. This is where financial planning becomes essential.

So let's understand the 10 golden financial planning rules that can help first-time earners like you to smartly manage your money:

Money Management: Managing money is not rocket science, and it is not necessary to have a financial background for it. Some daily commitments are all you need. Deciding how to save is the first step towards money management. Saving money can help you towards greater financial independence. Everyone has financial goals in their mind, like buying a vehicle, the latest smartphone, or a house. But where will it come from? Savings! You can achieve your financial goals promptly if you save in a systematic approach, and the best way to start doing it keeping a part of your salary devoted to Investments, mutual funds, stocks and

Keep a Check on Your Expenses: If you live from paycheck to paycheck, you will find yourself struggling for money before the month ends. Why? Unplanned expenses! But there's always a way out. Make a budget. Unless you have a budget in place, you won't control your costs. A budget shows you how much money you have coming in and how it is spent. You can also create a hierarchy of needs and decide which expense to address first. It's all about prioritizing. The sooner you act on it, the better you can control your impulse purchases and avoid extra expenditures. Read more: Fundamentals of Budgeting

Maintain a Sheet: Having a balance sheet helps you know what you own and what you owe! With this practice, you can jot down your assets and liabilities, and the difference between them shows your personal Net Worth. Take a sum of all the assets and liabilities like the car loan, home loan, credit card balances, and other remaining debt. The sum of all the liabilities shows the money you owe, and the asset sum shows the money you own. It is wise to be aware of what you use and what you can get rid of, and by making this sheet, you can simplify that.

Manage & Build Your Surplus Cash - How you deal with your surplus cash determines your future. When you don't have a plan, you indulge in impulse buying. If you do not invest, your money won't grow. Investing can be a great way to manage the extra cash, which can boost wealth and achieve your goals. The sooner you start, the better. Start with identifying and categorize those goals into short-term and long-term, and mid-term goals. Post this, analyze which investment options work best, and help you achieve the timeline set for it. Ask for financial advisor help if you are unable to decide.

Create a Portfolio: This is your first step towards building your wealth. Building a portfolio consists of dividing your investment amongst asset classes like equity, debt, and cash, also known as asset allocation. However, one should not put all his money in equity, and we do not recommend it as a suggestive move. Diversify and classify each asset class as per your investment goals. Once you have made a portfolio, you will need to re-evaluate it frequently to keep the risk within expected limits. You can do it once or twice a year.

Retirement Planning: Planning for retirement has become more critical than it was a few years ago. Healthcare costs are rapidly increasing with each passing year, and with an absence of a social security net, one needs to have his/her funds to tackle all these issues. Unstructured retirement planning can never let you retire peacefully. The sooner you start, the richer you retire. How? The 'Magic of Compounding'. Decide an age when you want to retire and estimate how much money you need every month to meet your expenses post-retirement.

Manage Your Debt - Lack of debt management can eat a significant part of your paycheck. You may end up borrowing more loans to pay off older ones. Your critical life goals can get sidelined, and your retirement will get delayed. Thus, strategizing your debt payment is essential. It would help if you were informed about how much you owe to whom and then plan a schedule to pay them off. Start by paying off the most expensive ones. Use a credit card only in case of emergencies. Always keep debt as a last resort.

Protect Yourself Against Risks: Realize that your life and properties are vulnerable to threats. Insuring is essential for wealth preservation. People buy ULIP and think that is it and then end up paying more and remain insured. Instead, buy a term insurance plan which provides you higher risk coverage at a reasonable price. Before purchasing any insurance, always compare policies online to select which satisfies your requirement at affordable prices.

Estate Planning: Whether it's your vehicle or your home, everyone has some estate with them. Our responsibility is to decide what happens to these after you leave this world. In comparison, most of us have never thought of doing estate planning. Some of us might be delaying it. But this is a wrong approach. Create a list of beneficiaries & the proportion of assets you want to allocate to your family. Make a will and ensure that the beneficiaries do not have to face challenges to get ownership of it. Consult an experienced lawyer.

Tax Planning: Even though tax planning is legitimate, see that you don't indulge in tax evasion or avoidance. The most efficient way to take advantage of Section 80C is to invest in Equity Linked Savings Scheme. It is a diversified equity fund that helps you achieve your financial goals via investment in the equity market. Read more: 10 Income Tax Planning Tips for Salaried Employees

Financial planning is the first step in wealth management. So if you have just started earning then now is the time to invest your time in it and save money for the future. Source: https://wizely.in/wizeup/financial-rules-first-time-earners-millennials.

[mo-torious-mo-blog]

Twitter.com/motorious_cafe

[CHANGING MY NAME TO: Mo (first name) Torious (last name)] i asked my parents if I could come up to westchester to have dinner with them, or to briefly stay while I looked for an apartment. They said no. It’s funny, Dr Tabar at Belkvue Hospital (Dr Mounir, intake), told me that I should cut off my relationship with my mother. The only reason my father asked me to attend her 80th birthday party, was to keep up appearances. Before the night was over, and after my speech (unmmmzm....I got you a car), he told me in no uncertain terms that I am no longer welcome in his house. I dove get it. His brother Ladipo Fayemi is a caseworker at HRA HASA, who never once intervened for me, and who nobody in that agency thought to refer my case to. Mr. McCoy, used to make fun of the name. No matter, I no longer want to be called that. I told them that since my father still continues to lie about not having received a copy of the doctored IRS Filings which Lucy Ostrofsky (acting in house counsel) had filed, directly ignoring my instructions, before I was forced out of the company and off the corporate bank account (it takes 3 members of management: myself, Richard McGinnis (Kurt Salmon Associates), President of Motorious Retail Stores (m&m/Mars Family: sponsor of Kyle Bush’s Toyota at NASXAR), patent holder, casino slot machine algorithms) and Philip Munger (who once, unbeknownst to me, withdrew $5,000 in cash from his personal Citibank account, and deposited it into my (the corporate) account, triggering FBI Money Laundering Red Flag: I have never even seen $5,000.00 in cash in one place in my entire life. I spent $500 to $10,000/month on my AMEX PLATINUM: and repaid it within 30 days. Beginning in 1992. Until I didn’t and went bankrupt for $60,000. Bottom line: I don’t trust the man, and he and I no longer have a relationship. All he and my mother have done is agree with the psychiatrists who keep diagnosing me with paranoid delusions that I run a company. All this, I believe, because the only company he ever ran, ended up in trouble with the IRS. I’m beginning to be really suspect about his book selling and his AIDS Charity for orphans in Africa. Before he kicked me out of the house, he asked me if I wanted to help him with his Foundation, and I said « no » I want German citizenship. A look at my brief work history shows I never stay in 1 place very long. What’s wrong with having wanted a change and to seek opportunities abroad? Science Advisers, led by Norman Heyman, Jean Robert Le Shufy, and Kevin DeVito (New Capital Horizons, the US arm of New Capital AG in Switzerland: COPE Holdings (XTERA DAX | NASDAQ) Zuggero, CEO | lent ICV, llc (Integrated Concepts Vehicles, llc, Flipboard.com/@ICV_llc, the first $137,000 after I had lent the corporation $60,000. MOTORIOUS MONEY GRID: says $100,000.00 loan am was made by Phil Munger on November 1, 1999. If that had been the case, why were none of the vendors at the show paid, and why did I receive a phone message on December 31, 1999 from Philip Munger: joe@planetvida.com.br, the DAY AFTER I received a message from Wayne Irving of Spin Records that he had secured $25 Million from ING Barings? My only Full Time Employee: John Goodwin, who I met at Pump No 8 at the Mobil Gas Station in Rancho Palos Verdea, took a salary of $80,000.00 + benefits + expense reimbursement, where on July 2, 1999 he secured an LOI with the Make A Wish charity for a proposed October 31, 2000 Charity Rade at Texas Motor Speedway. He had 9 months to secure a deal with Ford to provide NASCAR vehicles for the event, which was supposed to commemorate 100 Years of Motorsports in America, and also commemorate both Ford and Harley Davidson’s 100th Anniversary. Moose returned saying that the sponsors (especially the protected sponsor, Coke, will not let the drivers out of their contests to drive the event) Autoweek Magazine, the same issue it quoted several drivers as wanting to participate, reported that My Apple Laptop « had ears ». Motor Trend Magazine wrote an article entitled « The Automotive Analyst », a « fictitious story about a Wall Street analyst having problems with his wife, while talking to his shrink. The concluding sentence: « Build The Car » My only contribution to Ford would have been when I called the $3 million monstrosity (Focus) built by John Colletti and Motor Trend: Ian Cartabiano has penned a sick Mis-Engined Ford Focus Rally Car, which was to have shared a platform with the Renault R5 (Nissan: where Doi had previously worked after NCIS). That, and the referral from Mark Stehrenberger to Scott Sharpe Racing, to [Ford Tuner: I ferget] , who wrote a proposal for tuning the 4.0 liter Jaguar V8 for the Motorious Show Stand, as a potential BMW M5 competitor. Of the $137,000.00 loan, $50,000 went to Mark Stehrenberger Design, who was to generate 3 proposals for the Deusenberg PHAETON: Mercedes Benz Ocean 4 door convertible concept...to. E build at the DRESDEN Factory in Germany), the other $50,000 went to Robert Marianich in Huntington Beach, who was to have converted his studio, and built a « clay resurfaced » proposal of the RIVOLUZIONW: 1999 LA Auto Show, next to Shelby Series One (I met Carroll at Jay Leno’s, where he asked me to contact his assistant, Pearlita Shelby, about helping him with production of the OLDSMOBILE AURORA Engined SERIES ONE: autopsia.wordpress.com, slated to return to INDYCAR, to replace the Honda unit, now that they created Touring Car. I wanted to get the rights to MG ROVER (BBC: BMW’s English Patient), known as Rover Sterling 825 in America (Acura Legend): ARCONA | After the misérable failure of Phoenix Holdings, which paid Queen Elizabeth the nominal sum of £10, and then before becoming the four most overpaid executives in the UK Auto Industry. I even went so far as to ask Lakshmi Mittal (Arcelor Mittal and Harris’s) if he would help me to purchase Land Rover from TATA. CAR AND DRIVER MAGAZINE (Hearst Publications: Vladimir Putin) April Fool’s | Toyota buys Oldsmobile Trademark for $5,000. FIAT acquire the right to the Oldsmobile Aurora Engine through my partnership with Carroll Shelby, Gets the Oldsmobile Dealerships (10 year warrante on the engine), Change the nage to Alfa Romeo, and modify the engine for use in US Alfa’s, like the GT-V8, Spider Véloce (Duetto V8: BMWfilms.com Béat the Devil). Unfortunately, John Goodwin went bankrupt, my ex-wife had a hidden camera in our bedroom vent (Waiting to Exhale, Bernadine’s Rage: 6624 Oceancrest Drive, RPV, CA, 90275). And all of our personal and my corporate accounts were closed on August 14, 2001, due to malfeasance on her part: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwNcNOTVzY [The Private Bank: Union Bank of California (Mitsubishi Sumitomo: KIRETSU): Peggy Fahnestock, Gloria Marquez: who refinanced my BMW Financial Loan from JP Morgan Chase, because it was higher interest rate than a similarly situated white nan, all other things being equal. The VENDETTA (redesigned Rivoluzione: 200 LA Auto Show, was in an accident THE FIRST DAY I DROVE IT. I didn’t even make it to the highway. There was at least $100,000? In customization (hand hammered and rolled Aluminum body parts riveted and bonded to the steel: Robin Officer, Captain Metal, Magic Mountain, CA (A Kiwi). who I believe, was interviewed on the Jay Leno show dresses in drag. By keeping all the receipts to every modification, the insurance company: GEICO, had to first restore the vehicle to its original condition, THEN, cover all the replacement customization which they did, before canceling my policy the sane day the lease on my 328i was repossed, with $5,000.00 worth of renderings and sketches by Ian Cartabiano, which actually appeared in Bimmer Magazine in 1998. My mother refuses to give me my birth certificate. Whats wrong with this picture? mo torious On Oct 14, 30 Heisei, at 2:25 AM, mo torious wrote: David Ebersman, Will you be the part time CFO on my private placement? except for the fact that Angel List is formerly Google, and I found it impossible to do due diligence on who people claimed to be. since I came from Wall Street, and have helped raise over $500 Million for companies during my career, even though it is many years later, I still know many of the same people. The first person who made a referral for me, was Paul Howard of HQH: Hambrecht & Quist Healthcare, in NYC, when he introduced me to his MIT Sloan School Claasmate, Douglas A Doi (founder of Doi Golf). I see his name on many research publication footnotes, such as the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE ARTICLE: The Beginning is the End of AIDS. The second referral came from Barney Hallibgby, who introduced me to Doug Casey at Gates Capital at 200 Park Avenue, New York, NY, who floats Government Bonds and Municipal Bonds for manufacturing, such as at the March Global Port, which was a former military base turned into a commercial port. As part of the 3Q/2001 earnings report, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal, William Clay Ford, III made two announcements: 1. We are no longer pursuing our aftermarket strategy. (usurped and mismanaged by Jacques Naaser) 2 We can no longer afford to spend 11.1% of sales, on Marketing/Advertising. Bad news for Ogilvy/Mather. Possible 11.1% increase in margins. William Clay Ford: Uber is losing hundreds of millions to billions every year. If All the risks are borne by the driver, why can’t they turn a profit? The following article on the same page of the WSJ, was that The Blackstone Group « was looking for its next big deal ». Instinct tells me to defer from inviting them, or Goldman Sachs or any of its clients (like Facebook and Twitter) to participate in this private placement. http://fortune.com/2012/02/01/meet-the-man-behind-the-facebook-ipo/ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B5gQoZEZn04 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8PM_EybRdo https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/facebook-not-feeling-friendly-with-nasdaq/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/09/04/facebook-sets-another-new-low-nyt-rips-cfo-ebersman/ mo torious On Oct 13, 30 Heisei, at 10:56 PM, mo torious wrote: M_DriversLicense (@onyx_project) 2/6/28 H, 12:51 PM i-am-motorious.tumblr.com/post/129742049… ⁦‪@AngelList‬⁩ ⁦‪@UBSf1‬⁩ ⁦‪@UBS‬⁩ frontinalispartners.com ⁦‪@Ford‬⁩ @LapoElkann_LE ⁦‪@Zurich‬⁩ ⁦‪@CreditSuisse‬⁩ pic.twitter.com/2pZqP9LAin

[newblogdandan22]

How to Apply for SSS Unemployment Benefits / Guide Ph.

The SSS Unemployment Benefit is a wonderful help to those who have actually shed their tasks so that they do not come under their arm or legs. If you are a qualified SSS member, you are qualified to get this take advantage of the government as you gradually cope up and find a brand-new job.

Unemployment due to involuntary separation or termination is one of the worries of employees whose only source of income is their work. Especially if you are a breadwinner in your household and do not know where you are going to get the money to pay for the significant costs as well as bills that keep lining up if you are one of those unlucky employees that have been laid off.

Thankfully, with the arrangements of the Republic Act 11199 or additionally called the Social Security of 2018, the SSS Unemployment Benefit would certainly provide the Filipino workers a short-lived income as assistance while trying to find a brand-new job.

WHAT IS THE SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS PROGRAM?

The Social Security System (SSS) Unemployment Benefits Program is just one of the key features of the Republic Act 11199 or the Social Security Act of 2018 that enables certified SSS members that allows qualified SSS members who are involuntarily separated or terminated from job to claim for a cash allowance that is equivalent to two (2) times of their half average monthly salary credit (AMSC)

This provision has worked last March 5, 2019. means that Filipino employees who lost their jobs on March 5, 2019, onwards are covered in the SSS unemployment benefits program as long as they meet the qualifications and requirements.

According to SSS, unemployment Benefit is not a loan that SSS members have to pay. Rather, it is a fringe benefit provided by the SSS to sustain the Filipino workers along with the maternity, sickness, disability, retirement, funeral, and death benefits.

WHO CAN AVAIL THE SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS?

The SSS unemployment benefit is applicable to employees as long as they meet the following qualifications:

1. Members that are 60 years of ages as well as listed below at the time of sudden unemployment.

2. Participants who have paid a minimum of 3 years' worth of month-to-month contributions, twelve month of which must've been paid within the last 18 months before the separation.

3. Members with no settled SSS unemployment benefit within the last 3 years before the date of unemployment.

4. Members that have actually been involuntarily separated or laid off due to a valid reason.

Authorized reasons under the posts 298 as well as 299 of P.D. No. 442 of the Labor Code of the Philippines:

● Installation of labor-saving devices;

● Redundancy;

● Retrenchment or downsizing;

● Closure or cessation of procedure; or.

● Disease/illness of the employee whose ongoing employment is prohibited by law or is biased to his or her co-employees' health and wellness.

Authorized causes under Post 300 of P.D. No. 442 of the Labor Code of the Philippines:

● Serious insult by the employer or his representative on the honor as well as person of the staff member.

● The inhuman and unbearable treatment accorded the staff member by the company or his/her representative.

● Commission of acrime or offense by the employer or his/her rep against the individual of the employee or any of the immediate members of his/ her family members.

Other causes of involuntary separation:

● Economic downturn

● Natural or human-induced calamities/disasters.

● Various other situations as established by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and SSS

WHO CANNOT AVAIL THE SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS?

Nevertheless, not all staff members that were given up or ended involuntarily can apply for gain from SSS. According to the legislation, the workers can not use the welfare if the basis of termination is several of the reasons stated under Write-up 297 (282) of P.D. No. 442 (Labor Code of the Philippines), as changed. These are:

● Serious misconduct;

● Willful disobedience to lawful orders;

● Gross and habitual neglect of obligations;

● Fraud or unyielding breach of trust or loss of confidence;

● Commission of a crime or offense; or

● Similar cases like abandonment, gross inefficiency, disloyalty/conflict of interest/dishonesty.

SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS REQUIREMENTS

1. Original and photocopy of at least one valid ID

● Unified Multi-purpose ID (UMID) Card.

● SSS card

● Driver’s License

● Alien Certificate of Registration

● Passport

● NBI Clearance

● Firearm Registration

● License to Own and Possess Firearms

● Allow to Bring Firearms Outside of Home

● Postal ID.

● Voter's ID.

Seafarer's Identification and Record Book.

You can bring original copies or photocopies of any two (2) IDs if you don't have any of the valid IDs stated over as long as it has your signature as well as a picture.

2. Certification from DOLE of the nature and day of involuntary separation.

To get a DOLE Accreditation, you will certainly need the following:

● Certification form (offered by the DOLE).

● Your Affidavit of Termination of Work or the Notice of Discontinuation of Employment.

● Original as well as xerox of your valid ID.

As soon as you completed your needs, go to the DOLE office to file your application for DOLE certification. Anticipate to get your accreditation within the day.

3. Notification of Discontinuation or Affidavit of Termination of Employment.

This is additionally called the "Termination Contract" which will certainly be provided by your company. Make certain to bring the original copy and also the photocopy of this paper.

4. UMID-ATM Card or a Union Bank of the Philippines Quick Card.

● Your unemployment will be attributed on your account if your application has been accepted.

SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT APPLICATION: STEP-BY-STEP PROCEDURE

STEP 1: COMPLETE ALL THE SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT REQUIREMENTS

Make certain to finish all your SSS Unemployment benefits before applying to avoid any kind of delays on your application. Describe the qualifications as well as demands pointed out above so you can understand if you are eligible to apply on this benefit so you won't waste your effort, time, and cash in using and also get dissatisfied in the end if you're not certified.

STEP 2: FILING YOUR SSS UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

Go to any type of SSS branch or office to apply for your insurance claim after you finished all your requirements.

The SSS will suggest you on when you will receive your SSS unemployment benefits as soon as your application has been accepted.

( TAKE NOTE: You must sue within a year prior to the day of your involuntary separation).

STEP 3: RECEIVE THE CASH BENEFIT

When your application is accepted, expect your unemployment insurance to be attributed on your UMID ATM Card or to your UBP Quick Card Account.

Added Info:

● Currently, on the internet filing system is not yet available because of the national health situation brought by the pandemic. This crisis has actually caused SSS employees to be on a minimal number.

● Involuntarily ended employees can just claim the SSS unemployment insurance once every three (3) years prior to the date of their separation.

[aion-rsa]

Scarlett Johansson and Disney Legal Battle Is About More Than Black Widow

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

It was the shot heard around the internet: Scarlett Johansson, the star of eight Marvel Studios movies and the face of Disney’s biggest summer release, Black Widow, filed suit against Disney over an alleged breach in her contract. The immediate firestorm in the media—and more tellingly on social media—was intense.

Some have likened Johansson’s lawsuit to actors standing up to studios’ viselike control over contracts during Hollywood’s Golden Age (more on that in a bit); others have treated it as tantamount to betrayal of their favorite purveyor of superhero content. But perhaps no reaction was larger than that of Disney itself. While Johansson alleged she extracted “a promise from Marvel that the release of the picture would be a theatrical release”—thereby acting as the bulk of her salary due to the star having a profit participation clause—“[Disney] nonetheless directed Marvel to violate its pledge and instead release the picture on the Disney+ streaming service the very same day it was released in theaters.”

In addition to Disney’s public response being shockingly scathing, it also largely seemed to evade Johansson’s legal assertions. Instead the studio aggressively targeted Johansson’s character, seemingly shaming her for daring to bring up profits during such troubled times.

“The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote the company which reopened its theme parks in July 2020. The response also went on to note Johansson already earned $20 million in upfront salary on the film.

The intended effects of these criticisms were clearly to vilify a star who headlined Disney’s biggest franchise of the last decade and cast a cloud of suspicion around her in the courtroom of public opinion. Any perusal of Twitter these days will show its effectiveness. Or as a statement from Women in Film, Los Angeles, Reframe, and Time’s Up accurately noted, “[Those criticisms attempt] to characterize Johansson as insensitive or selfish for defending her contractual business rights. This gendered character attack has no place in a business dispute and contributes to an environment in which women and girls are perceived as less able than men to protect their own interests without facing ad hominem criticism.”

The fact that those criticisms have been so effective at swaying public opinion, particularly in the fan community who is largely most concerned with the accessibility of the next Marvel movie, is as disheartening as it is distracting. Because what’s at stake here is more than Johansson’s ability to receive any sort of percentage on the revenue Disney is generating from its $30 “Premier Access” paywall; rather it’s the entire talent pool of the moviemaking industry trying to find out where they stand in a marketplace that is increasingly transitioning to streaming, come hell or high water.

The full ramifications are only starting to become apparent. Or as THR editor Matt Belloni broke in his newsletter over the weekend, after Johansson’s lawsuit, and after Cruella became the first live-action 2021 film that Disney unceremoniously put on Disney+, star Emma Stone is “currently weighing her options” in terms of suing the House Mouse. According to the same source, Emily Blunt might also be considering similar action depending on the current rollout of Jungle Cruise. Meanwhile Dwayne Johnson was conspicuously enthusiastic on social media about Jungle Cruise’s box office performance this morning.

These early cracks in what could quickly become a PR nightmare for Disney signal a battleground that’s been approaching the industry ever since WarnerMedia announced Wonder Woman 1984 would be released in theaters and on HBO Max last Christmas. At the time, Warner Bros. allegedly paid both Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins undisclosed eight-figure sums to offset the loss of theatrical profit participation they would’ve earned had Wonder Woman 1984 opened under normal circumstances. However, when WarnerMedia in the same month shocked the industry with the unilateral decision to release their entire 2021 film slate in the day-and-date format simultaneously, the blowback was fearsome.

That’s because in addition to damaging filmmakers’ artistic vision for movies designed specifically for the big screen—Dune director Denis Villeneuve even wrote a passionate op-ed about it—the decision completely upended the way talent earns money off studio films. Yes, this includes stars with $20 million upfront paychecks, but it also affects below-the-line people too.

“It creates a financial nightmare,” Judd Apatow told Variety last year about the now quaint seeming WB/HBO Max deal. “Most people are paid residuals—they’re paid back-end points. What they get out of it for years and years of hard work is usually based on the success of their films. And so now what does it mean to have a movie go straight to streaming? How do they decide what to pay you? Do you have a contract that allows you to negotiate, or is it really just up to them at this point? It raises thousands of questions, which I’m sure are very complicated.”

We’re now seeing those complicated questions spill over into the courtroom. For all the tumult WarnerMedia unleashed by blindsiding their talent with last December, the company has spent months trying to untangle the damage for at least A-list talent, signing undisclosed and fiscally hefty deals with stars and filmmakers ranging from The Suicide Squad to The Little Things. Apparently the studio is still in negotiations with Legendary Pictures for all the money the production company could stand to lose from a muted theatrical release of Dune in October.

But Disney, according to Johansson and her talent representation at CAA, has strikingly not made any such overtures to their A-list talent being blindsided by Disney+ reshuffles. Which in turn raises the question if that’s how they treat Oscar winners like Stone, and longtime franchise stars of billion-dollar Disney franchises like Johansson, how do they treat the below the line people who can’t afford to publicly take this to court?

What we are seeing is a debate over what role the actual creative talent behind the films you love has in profit-making in the 21st century. Disney has been at the forefront among Hollywood studios in cultivating a direct-to-consumer model via Disney+, and yet even when they add a luxurious surcharge like $30 on top of that subscription model, they are treating it as separate from the older system of how talent along all tiers is paid.

So Johansson stars in Black Widow, which has the biggest box office opening since the pandemic began with $80.4 million. But as Disney crowed that same weekend, the studio made another $60 million on Disney+ surcharge fees, which is likely worth more than the $80.4 million box office bow after theaters get their cut—and that $60 million came at the expense of theatrical tickets, particularly when easy access to HD pirated copies of Black Widow are factored in. Hence how even though the Marvel movie opened bigger than F9, the theatrical-only Vin Diesel movie has earned about double what Black Widow did at the global box office.

Currently, Disney is saying Johansson—and by extension anyone else with a residual deal—should not be able to dip into that $60 million revenue from the opening weekend…. even though at least in Johansson’s case she was contractually promised an exclusive theatrical window.

In many ways, this mirrors the 1980s and ‘90s home media boom from first VHS and then DVD. It created a whole new revenue stream for Hollywood in the home media market. As Matthew Belloni has also noted in his latest newsletter, talent agencies like CAA are all too aware of how stars were shut out of the home media market which, for a time, doubled or even tripled studios’ profits. Now the streaming revolution has come, and talent is not keen to see that happen again.

Johansson being a big enough star to actually be the first to refuse to rollover on this is, indeed, reminiscent of Olivia de Havilland in Hollywood’s Golden Age. In 1943, de Havilland was at the end of her seven-year contract with Warner Bros. and a contentious relationship with WB head Jack Warner. Despite becoming a star under the WB system, de Havilland’s biggest successes were when she was loaned out to other studios—as WB controlled her career under an ironclad contract, as was pro forma at the time. Meanwhile in WB movies, de Havilland was often cast as a thankless love interest. As her star stature rose, her willingness to turn down many of these roles grew. As a consequence, Jack Warner suspended de Havilland for six months and, at the end of her contract, revealed the studio expected her to stay on the WB lot for another six months to make up for lost time and revenue.

De Havilland sued Warner Bros. in the same Los Angeles County superior court Johansson has now filed suit against Disney, and after a successful litigation and WB’s subsequent appeal failing, “the De Havilland Law” essentially ended a studio’s ability to control stars’ lives and careers like they were pampered indentured servants. In response WB attempted and failed to blacklist de Havilland.

It appears that once again, Hollywood is on the precipice of a turning point.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3loG0Zh

[mo-torious-mo-blog]

[CHANGING MY NAME TO: Mo (first name) Torious (last name)]

i asked my parents if I could come up to westchester to have dinner with them, or to briefly stay while I looked for an apartment.

They said no. It’s funny, Dr Tabar at Belkvue Hospital (Dr Mounir, intake), told me that I should cut off my relationship with my mother. The only reason my father asked me to attend her 80th birthday party, was to keep up appearances. Before the night was over, and after my speech (unmmmzm....I got you a car), he told me in no uncertain terms that I am no longer welcome in his house. I dove get it. His brother Ladipo Fayemi is a caseworker at HRA HASA, who never once intervened for me, and who nobody in that agency thought to refer my case to. Mr. McCoy, used to make fun of the name. No matter, I no longer want to be called that.

I told them that since my father still continues to lie about not having received a copy of the doctored IRS Filings which Lucy Ostrofsky (acting in house counsel) had filed, directly ignoring my instructions, before I was forced out of the company and off the corporate bank account (it takes 3 members of management: myself, Richard McGinnis (Kurt Salmon Associates), President of Motorious Retail Stores (m&m/Mars Family: sponsor of Kyle Bush’s Toyota at NASXAR), patent holder, casino slot machine algorithms) and Philip Munger (who once, unbeknownst to me, withdrew $5,000 in cash from his personal Citibank account, and deposited it into my (the corporate) account, triggering FBI Money Laundering Red Flag: I have never even seen $5,000.00 in cash in one place in my entire life. I spent $500 to $10,000/month on my AMEX PLATINUM: and repaid it within 30 days. Beginning in 1992. Until I didn’t and went bankrupt for $60,000.

Bottom line: I don’t trust the man, and he and I no longer have a relationship. All he and my mother have done is agree with the psychiatrists who keep diagnosing me with paranoid delusions that I run a company. All this, I believe, because the only company he ever ran, ended up in trouble with the IRS. I’m beginning to be really suspect about his book selling and his AIDS Charity for orphans in Africa. Before he kicked me out of the house, he asked me if I wanted to help him with his Foundation, and I said « no » I want German citizenship.

A look at my brief work history shows I never stay in 1 place very long. What’s wrong with having wanted a change and to seek opportunities abroad?

Science Advisers, led by Norman Heyman, Jean Robert Le Shufy, and Kevin DeVito (New Capital Horizons, the US arm of New Capital AG in Switzerland: COPE Holdings (XTERA DAX | NASDAQ) Zuggero, CEO | lent ICV, llc (Integrated Concepts Vehicles, llc, Flipboard.com/@ICV_llc, the first $137,000 after I had lent the corporation $60,000.

MOTORIOUS MONEY GRID: says $100,000.00 loan am was made by Phil Munger on November 1, 1999. If that had been the case, why were none of the vendors at the show paid, and why did I receive a phone message on December 31, 1999 from Philip Munger: joe@planetvida.com.br, the DAY AFTER I received a message from Wayne Irving of Spin Records that he had secured $25 Million from ING Barings?

My only Full Time Employee: John Goodwin, who I met at Pump No 8 at the Mobil Gas Station in Rancho Palos Verdea, took a salary of $80,000.00 + benefits + expense reimbursement, where on July 2, 1999 he secured an LOI with the Make A Wish charity for a proposed October 31, 2000 Charity Rade at Texas Motor Speedway.

He had 9 months to secure a deal with Ford to provide NASCAR vehicles for the event, which was supposed to commemorate 100 Years of Motorsports in America, and also commemorate both Ford and Harley Davidson’s 100th Anniversary. Moose returned saying that the sponsors (especially the protected sponsor, Coke, will not let the drivers out of their contests to drive the event)

Autoweek Magazine, the same issue it quoted several drivers as wanting to participate, reported that My Apple Laptop « had ears ». Motor Trend Magazine wrote an article entitled « The Automotive Analyst », a « fictitious story about a Wall Street analyst having problems with his wife, while talking to his shrink. The concluding sentence: « Build The Car »

My only contribution to Ford would have been when I called the $3 million monstrosity (Focus) built by John Colletti and Motor Trend: Ian Cartabiano has penned a sick Mis-Engined Ford Focus Rally Car, which was to have shared a platform with the Renault R5 (Nissan: where Doi had previously worked after NCIS).

That, and the referral from Mark Stehrenberger to Scott Sharpe Racing, to [Ford Tuner: I ferget] , who wrote a proposal for tuning the 4.0 liter Jaguar V8 for the Motorious Show Stand, as a potential BMW M5 competitor.

Of the $137,000.00 loan, $50,000 went to Mark Stehrenberger Design, who was to generate 3 proposals for the Deusenberg PHAETON: Mercedes Benz Ocean 4 door convertible concept...to. E build at the DRESDEN Factory in Germany), the other $50,000 went to Robert Marianich in Huntington Beach, who was to have converted his studio, and built a « clay resurfaced » proposal of the RIVOLUZIONW: 1999 LA Auto Show, next to Shelby Series One (I met Carroll at Jay Leno’s, where he asked me to contact his assistant, Pearlita Shelby, about helping him with production of the OLDSMOBILE AURORA Engined SERIES ONE: autopsia.wordpress.com, slated to return to INDYCAR, to replace the Honda unit, now that they created Touring Car.  

I wanted to get the rights to MG ROVER (BBC: BMW’s English Patient), known as Rover Sterling 825 in America (Acura Legend): ARCONA | After the misérable failure of Phoenix Holdings, which paid Queen Elizabeth the nominal sum of £10, and then before becoming the four most overpaid executives in the UK Auto Industry. I even went so far as to ask Lakshmi Mittal (Arcelor Mittal and Harris’s) if he would help me to purchase Land Rover from TATA.

CAR AND DRIVER MAGAZINE (Hearst Publications: Vladimir Putin) April Fool’s | Toyota buys Oldsmobile Trademark for $5,000.  

FIAT acquire the right to the Oldsmobile Aurora Engine through my partnership with Carroll Shelby, Gets the Oldsmobile Dealerships (10 year warrante on the engine), Change the nage to Alfa Romeo, and modify the engine for use in US Alfa’s, like the GT-V8, Spider Véloce (Duetto V8: BMWfilms.com Béat the Devil).

Unfortunately, John Goodwin went bankrupt, my ex-wife had a hidden camera in our bedroom vent (Waiting to Exhale, Bernadine’s Rage: 6624 Oceancrest Drive, RPV, CA, 90275). And all of our personal and my corporate accounts were closed on August 14, 2001, due to malfeasance on her part:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vwNcNOTVzY

[The Private Bank: Union Bank of California (Mitsubishi Sumitomo: KIRETSU): Peggy Fahnestock, Gloria Marquez: who refinanced my BMW Financial Loan from JP Morgan Chase, because it was higher interest rate than a similarly situated white nan, all other things being equal.

The VENDETTA (redesigned Rivoluzione: 200 LA Auto Show, was in an accident THE FIRST DAY I DROVE IT. I didn’t even make it to the highway. There was at least $100,000? In customization (hand hammered and rolled Aluminum body parts riveted and bonded to the steel: Robin Officer, Captain Metal, Magic Mountain, CA (A Kiwi). who I believe, was interviewed on the Jay Leno show dresses in drag. By keeping all the receipts to every modification, the insurance company: GEICO, had to first restore the vehicle to its original condition, THEN, cover all the replacement customization which they did, before canceling my policy the sane day the lease on my 328i was repossed, with $5,000.00 worth of renderings and sketches by Ian Cartabiano, which actually appeared in Bimmer Magazine in 1998.

My mother refuses to give me my birth certificate. Whats wrong with this picture?

mo torious

On Oct 14, 30 Heisei, at 2:25 AM, mo torious <1.mo.torious.mo.1@gmail.com> wrote:

On Oct 13, 30 Heisei, at 10:56 PM, mo torious <1.mo.torious.mo.1@gmail.com> wrote:

M_DriversLicense (@onyx_project) 2/6/28 H, 12:51 PMi-am-motorious.tumblr.com/post/129742049… ⁦‪@AngelList‬⁩ ⁦‪@UBSf1‬⁩ ⁦‪@UBS‬⁩ frontinalispartners.com ⁦‪@Ford‬⁩ @LapoElkann_LE ⁦‪@Zurich‬⁩ ⁦‪@CreditSuisse‬⁩ pic.twitter.com/2pZqP9LAin Download the Twitter app mo torious