#and leaves some footprint on the internet even if no one actually reads it

[arispensieve]

Was thinking on the way home (would have made a tape about it if I didn’t think that would fuck with my mental state more than was optimal) about this blog, and about loneliness, and about the purpose it serves outside of em/what it was before her, namely being more or less a way of fixing the is anyone listening?? please? that I can’t seem to shake 

I just really like the perfect balance of “it’s there if people look for it or know it exists to find it, but people have to, you know. actually look for it, so if they don’t like it they can just leave and never look for it again” 

strangers, old friends, who the fuck ever 

Will probably take the password off sometime soon, for my own sake. I know I’ll never write here with it on. And writing here is, for all of it, a help. 

#could use what help i can get. and if help is having a personal blog that exists #and leaves some footprint on the internet even if no one actually reads it #hell it's probably for the best that no one actually reads it but. the fact that someone someday could #i'll fucking take it

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Moriarty 8 - 11 (FINAL) | HypMic 12 - 13 (FINAL) | Taiso Samurai 7 - 9 | Akudama 9 - 12 (FINAL)

Hopefully I’ll be able to get on to all that backlog soon, because...I don’t want it to keep accumulating and Skate-Leading Stars (first winter 2021 anime) already has an advance 1st ep. up...

Moriarty 8

(Moriarty 8 notes deleted accidentally…)

Moriarty 9

If you want a modern equivalent to the Baker Street Irregulars, then I’d suggest you look this way *jabs finger at Odd Jobs Yamada (from HypMic)*.

These CGI background horse and carriages are…kind of distracting…

I’m guessing back in those days, the Irregulars were better than Google at finding info…because Google didn’t exist until the internet did.

Moriarty 10

Just this ep and one more until the end…at least, until spring 2021.

Wow, the use of colour here is really striking!

White lilies mean…purity/chastity…?

I’ve never heard of “bending someone’s ear” until now. It means to talk to someone, especially to ask a favour or to talk at length.

Probatio diabolica: the devil’s proof. I didn’t even know that was a concept until now…(I never once studied law, as you can tell.)

“William” isn’t normally shortened to “Liam”…It’s normally “Will”…also, notice all the footprints on the floor…

Moriarty 11 (FINAL)

Last ep. before spring 2021.

LOL, kabedon.

The fishy thing about Brits is that they’ve named things across the world names from Britain. I know there’s a Doncaster which isn’t anywhere near Britain, for one thing…

Observe the weird finger-like marking made by one of the bloodstains and the scratches on the suitcase. The latter was probably forced open.

Considering the number of signs the killer left, he was clearly in a hurry…

Well, based on that shoeprint we can find the killer if we can find traces of blood on his shoe.

“Duram” (sic).

Ah! If it was raining in Durham, then there would be traces of mud on the killer’s shoes. I remember early on in Detective Conan Shinichi, then newly shrunk, deduced Agasa was running in the rain based on the mud on his pants…this is similar.

Chloral (hydrate…?).

The “washroom” (apparently a Canadian term, the British term is “water closet”) has privacy and a place to get rid of the evidence, to some extent.

What about the rest of Eddie’s clothes?

Considering there are still 5 minutes of the ep. left…there’s going to be some kind of stinger for the next season. I can feel it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait…Director Holmes??? Y’mean, Mycroft?! That is a good stinger! See you next time.

HypMic 12

“Ever since I was born, there was never a time I’d felt I’d accomplished something.” – Aw, Doppo, sweetpea (<- this blogger calls people “sweetpea” when they’re feeling lots of moe feels for them). Please don’t say that. You’ve accomplished more than enough in your life!

…Oh, almost didn’t notice it until Hifumi hid behind Doppo and the angle changed to confirm the jacket was on the bed, but Hifumi doesn’t have his jacket on.

I think I saw a tweet that said something about a wall being wrecked (specifically “Wall: Ow…”) but I wasn’t sure of the context, so I saved it in my bookmarks…LOL, so that’s what it means?

Samatoki, I know you don’t like Ichiro…but please stop trying to preach what his 2nd character song says in the title…(i.e. Break the Wall, LOL)

Jyuto’s very much a “I’ll leave this problem to the other guy” guy.

When the Funi subs say “dame”, I think Samatoki is just referring to an “onna” (woman). It’s a bit of an odd choice, really…although I can’t go and interrogate whoever was responsible for it. I don’t have the authority or the contacts that will allow me to.

This is not the time for fighting one another!!!

Notably, in the manga, Jakurai was going to chaffeur Hifumi and Doppo to their place, but then he had to go to work and so they rode the train with their prize money. This “run from Special Forces” ending is better, I think, since people got grumpy at Jakurai for having to abandon them with the money.

“…permission to cover a story.” - Permission from…who?

*screams* I was thinking Tom, Rex and Iris worked for a foreign government! They work for Ichijiku – why didn’t I think of that?!

LOL, I couldn’t even tell what Tom was saying until I played it back…it’s English, just…said in a spot where you don’t expect it.

“…that scares me.” – This may be nitpicky of me, but osoreru is actually a derivative of osore (fear), so “it strikes fear in me”…? “It strikes fear in my heart”? What would sound right…?

Go, host mode Hifumi! (...but does that imply host mode Hifumi is the only “version” of Hifumi able to rap? Certainly, he was able to do Wrap and Rap without his jacket, right…?)

You can tell Tom still respects Jakurai after all this time because he (the former) calls him (the latter) “Sensei”. Also, this’ll be interesting, we haven’t seen many mics and speakers beyond the standard bad guy ones (depicted in both the anime and the manga).

My gosh! All I knew of this song was that m-flo, also responsible for Human Lost’s theme song (and notably they’re a hip hop group with techno influences), was responsible for this song. Man, this s*** slaps! It’s great! (Sorry, I’ve just never really had the chance to capitalise on all the info I gathered on EDM DJs when talking in terms of things from Japan…m-flo is basically the only act I know which does that, so I’m really excited…can’t you tell from how verbose I’m getting in this note?)

That’s interesting that Matenrou won and Tom still took the gold chair symbolism to represent him and the Secret Aliens as the victor instead.

Iris’s parts are awesome. M-flo has a female vocalist and so I’d assume Iris takes on Lisa’s (m-flo’s vocalist’s) parts.

…Hmm, Gentaro’s made a reference to the track “Me Against the World”, has he?...Maybe.

I’m not quite sure, but I think Ramuda said “majo” (witch) when he was referring to Beauty and the Beast in the English subs.

…gosh, what is up with that airhorn…? Still, next time is the last time. See you on Christmas…no, Boxing Day.

HypMic 13 (FINAL)

This is the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning…y’know, considering how stuff trended on Twitter, I’d say this anime’s gonna get a 2nd season, but you can’t really say that until it actually happens. I mean, Boueibu is much less popular than HypMic and that got a 2nd season…

This is the 1st episode where I woke up early enough to watch without spoilers and had no obligations to place over it, so…this is exciting, in its own sense, but in a sense, it could also be called “profoundly disappointing” because this experience is only available to me as of the final episode.

One of the tweets I saw a few weeks back came to mind – someone became interested in sakuga houkai (terrible animation, literally “animation collapse”) because of HypMic…I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing…

…Dude, you probably shouldn’t answer a call from someone who just revealed themselves to be a traitor last episode…*sweatdrops*

(Spoiler for rest of franchise) Hmm…Dice’s face is pretty straight. Assuming at this point we knew Dice was Otome’s son, this is a good poker face from him…!

This thing about gangs was mentioned in their profiles (although the words used implies they “went delinquent”), so it actually doesn’t surprise me.

I wonder if this subway exists in the mainline story…?

According to the next ep. preview I saw on Twitter, TDD will reform to take down the Secret Aliens. I’m not sure if that was a guess or whether that’s true, so I’m waiting for the shoe to drop on it.

Samatoki-san, not -sama. Hmm…

There was definitely the word “team” in Dice’s line, so it’s “what the legendary team was made of”.

…oh gosh…they’re still using that airhorn…?

Again with the play on “lonely thunder”. It’s a really fun pun, but one I’d like to see in the rest of the series more.

Notably, Iris’s rap in English missed the word “charisma” where it could have fit (unless I missed reading it the first time).

Note Samatoki does actually use the word “shinsensa” (freshness), so there’s no lie there.

I still love how much they went in on Rex’s theme, even in his raps.

Huh, that’s new. Never seen a tag team like this before.

It seems Tom’s signature is using a lot of English, which makes it easy for us English/Japanese pair translators.

Saburo didn’t actually say “Ichi-nii”, did he…?

…based on the rock intro, this is Rhyme Anima, the OP, or something that sounds similar. What I’d need to confirm this is the “nautilus” line and the “ends corruption” line, which are the OP’s two biggest tells for AMQ.

“rainmaking” – Hmm, another link from Gentaro to Rei. This might be a different part of Rhyme Anima (OP) that wasn’t used as the OP proper.

“this white light invites and heals” (<- paraphrased) – Sounds like Sensei, alright!

…now that (rainbow bit). That’s sakuga!

*a silhouette appears* - Oh nooooooooooooooo! Now they‘ve done it! They’ve included Rei! That’s more than enough spoilers to last a lifetime for y’all anime-onlys!

I wish someone would work on this collaboration between Saburo and Riou…

Hmm…what is the series endgame? Putting in Dice as the new ruler??? I mean, Dice is the worst possible politician ever. He’s far too lax about things.

*Nemu enters* - No! Nemu!

Not only is Iris a “ramen shop owner”, it’s Tom’s favourite food…No wonder ramen has significance to her.

…ooh! A new song! Update: I don’t know what this song’s name is, although it probably will become clear what its name is on the 13th. I’ll keep my eye on Twitter in case the answer is there.

…I knew it was far too early to say if there was an s2 – the DVD’s live events go until September 5th and the 2nd DRB finishes in March. That almost felt like a stinger right there. Oh well, I’m more than happy to call this anime a success, even if I would call it the worst of the arms of the franchise. All HypMic’s anime had to do was deliver fun, before anything else, and it delivered on that front. See you around!

Taiso Samurai 7

Anime burnout means I’m coming back to the anime after the day it finishes.

This dancing scene is kind of like the one at the start of ep. 2 of IWGP, except it has the owl to represent the setting as well as the dance stage.

Leo doesn’t seem to know kanji or katakana, only hiragana.

Even though this part of the anime is set in London, the characters are still speaking Japanese (lel…?).

LOL, Edward Scissorhands much?

LOL, these background gossips are like the Plastics from Mean Girls…haha.

…LOL, that’s not one of those dismounting moves, is it? It’s just kind of…jumping off the bar.

Lookit how Leo’s sticker is 90 deg. sideways from what it should be, haha.

I don’t think it’s true that Olympic gymnasts have never failed. Like other people at the top of their game, they’re probably failed millions of times, but only outside the view of most of the world. Persistence and passion are what’s key to becoming the best at what you are, no matter what field you’re in.

Now Aragaki’s what I call a “determinator” (see TV Tropes on what that is).

Taiso Samurai 8

Notably, the word used for “clothes” is specifically for Western clothing, like dresses.

Well, now we know why Leo can do those stretches…

They’ve clearly sped up the dance here, but…it’s basically the same sort of movements Yuri on Ice used to suck me in. I’m here for it!

Leo seems to be the type who tries to push away his worries by distracting people (including himself) with other things…I see. I didn’t have much of a grasp of his character beforehand.

Britney! F*** you, Britney!

Ah, that must be the (a?) fabled owl of Ikebukuro. I’ve never actually been to Ikebukuro…the closest I got was Akihabara (to memory) and even then, that was for electronics, not anime…so I’ve never seen the owl statue I’ve been talking about close up.

Rei does kind of look like her mother like this.

Ah! Rei and Kitty have a pair look now! “Twinsies”, they call it.

Amakusa’s head is located right next to Leo’s butt, so I end up staring at it…LOL.

The Hoover mission.

“I <3 Ninja”, LOL.

LOL, “Nyapoo!”

*sighs* The problem with being multi-talented is that you’re going to be told to one day put one passion above the others, even if you don’t want that.

LOL, you can be a ninja with this WikiHow article. (I was looking for Kitty’s quote, but found that instead. It seems to be a quote from one of Tomoyo’s movies.) Update: I was right.

There’s a movie in the back where the title is “Black Rainmaker”. (Tomoyo, I presume) Mifune is the 1st person credited.

Considering this is 2003…you won’t be on Mars in 2013, Kitty.

Wow, a tape! That brings me back to 2003, indeed.

Charlie’s Angels…so that’s what the tape was.

LOL, a shoebill.

“blade in your heart” – That would refer to the character for “ninja”, which has a blade over a heart. Y’know Kiss Shot Acerola Heart-Under-Blade (from Monogatari), yeah? Like that.

…you might think emails were out of place in 2003, but a virus from an email caused me to be an avid reader and that virus was unleashed around the late 90s – early 2000s.

LOL, Kitty’s cat belt buckle.

You said it, Rei. You said it.

Taiso Samurai 9

Lausanne, Switzerland.

I noticed one of the boxes at the start of the OP says “Horizontal Bars”, rather than some random name to make the boxes look like they were discarded.

Someone encoded the video funny…

LOL, BB’s getting possessive of his territory.

Fuku-chan the fukurou (owl) in Ikebukuro…LOL.

LOL, randomly there’s a skeleton with a hat in the background of Britney’s clinic.

Notably, one of the wall hangings says “heart” on it – alternatively, “soul”.

Notably, Atlanta was the 1996 Summer Olympics…there is no 1997 Lausanne Olympics, as far as I know.

Akudama 9

I watched the part where it glitches twice and I can’t quite figure out what that circular symbol is…maybe it’s Hacker’s symbol…?

Ah! Only now they properly confirm Swindler used to work in the Seal centre.

“Life that never dies is defective.” – Doctor

Does that mean Doctor is actually older than she looks, due to plastic surgery…?

Marker? What marker?

Apparently that flower is a cherry blossom…according to Detective Conan.

…I know this anime wasn’t made in America (it wouldn’t be “anime” otherwise), but Anime Feminist is going to have a field day with this one…if they haven’t abandoned it already due to their idea of morals.

…now I can even see parallels between HypMic’s authorities and Akudama’s. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Why did this have to happen when I’m chief?” – Sounds like…basically every authority during COVID and BLM, to be honest.

See? Akudama likes the S word. I told you.

I haven’t watched The Shining, but reading the synopsis, you can figure out why Cutthroat is the way he is…sort of.

How does the iconic quote go? “Heeeeeeeeeeeere’s Danny!” (or something…?)

They even copied the iconic eye shot! There you go!

Way to take a guy out (with the door, LOL).

…with all this killing, I can see why Akudama Drive was only in one magazine now. (Then again, HypMic was in basically all of them and that also has a tonne of problems…)

Akudama 10

万死 literally means “10000 deaths”.

Babel.

That police chief is such a mood, LOL.

I can see why people didn’t recognise Swindler, but Courier never changes his look, so…uh…

You can’t become a police chief without a sense of justice, no?

“Since when did you know that I’m not-“ - *facepalms*

Is this what they call an “ass-kickin’ Christmas”? (LOL)

Y’know, Sister, you could just do the whole “wherever you are, I’m also seeing the same sky as you” thing some other anime do.

Notably, there are shide (the paper strips) and a rope over the vault…they really do treat the shinkansen and its immortal children as a single god, huh?

Hmm? They don’t care about Sister anymore? Just Brother? (Somewhere along the way, the priorities must have shifted.)

In the end, the best ship is Brawler and Hoodlum (lel).

Akudama 11

One more ep after this. I’m gonna miss this anime, even if it was crazy over-the-top and I didn’t finish it until after the day it ended.

I think the scariest scene in all of Akudama Drive is the one where the “cleaner” tosses the girl aside.

“This nowhere place!” – Around this time, the bunny and shark’s shirts say “morning”/”afternoon” (shark) and “evening” (bunny).

The blue bird of happiness…literally. That character on the birds is the one for “happy”.

…LOL, that one glitched Courier looks more like Cutthroat.

Hacker’s drone matches Courier’s head angles, LOL.

I guess if you think you’re falling in Kanto, you’re falling in Kanto and if you think you’re floating (like Courier did), you float. I always liked that concept.

War Games. Now the title makes sense!

…but they can be together if they stay here in Kanto as vessels for the citizens? (That sounds mighty antagonistic of me, but…that logic does compute.)

Maybe swindlers play games with the truth…? (What an interesting concept.)

“Just fine.” – I think Hacker needs a “This is fine” meme.

“We can hear your heart talking.” – It means something like “We can hear you spouting your true intentions.”

“…worth every last penny…” – That’s a weird thing to say for someone whose life got changed by 500 yen…Just goes to tell you how American the subbers can be sometimes.

Swindler’s smug face is so good, LOL.

Akudama 12 (FINAL)

This episode isn’t named after a movie. It’s named after the anime itself.

The TV says “Please watch away from the TV”, i.e. stand back from the TV while you watch.

“They came and stole the offerings…” – At this point, bunny’s shirt says “freedom” and shark’s says honpou, meaning “wild, uninhibited, rampant, extravagant”.

…where did Shikoku come from? Is that where Swindler and Sister landed after they tried going to the moon?

Ohh! That Christian imagery! That’s scary!

Is Akudama Drive a tragedy? No, I think…on the contrary, it’s a story of hope.

LOL, “s*** guy”.

I thought the girl had a bomb. Turns out she has a gun, which is…far worse, come to think of it.

Instead of red characters which say things about the situation, now Shark and Bunny have Hacker’s symbol on them.

There’s no way anyone who wasn’t immortal would survive the attack Courier took…

…why is it that falling over represents vulnerability in children in all of these stores where a war has happened and/or there’s a chase? Hmm?

Wow, Sister did everything with heels on…?!

Anyways, that was a fun time. See you next time!

#simulcast commentary #akudama drive #Chesarka watches Akudama Drive #taiso samurai #Gymnastics Samurai #HypMic #Hypnosis Mic #Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle - Rhyme Anima #moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #Chesarka watches Yuukoku no Moriarty #Chesarka watches HypMic #Chesarka watches Taiso Samurai

[nimblermortal]

Some Further Old Guard Liveblogging

#OH MAN BOOKER'S SMIRK WHEN MERRICK REFUSES TO COME CLOSER TO ANDROMACHE#THAT IS THE SMIRK OF 'I see Yusuf headbutted you already'

#also also I cannot deal with Merrick's suits with hoodies on them#they're so terrible#what a fantastic piece of villain costuming I hate him for that alone

#OH MAN THAT POOR DOCTOR#STUCK IN A ROOM WITH FOUR BICKERING IMMORTALS#FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE#man if Nile hadn't come along her life woulda suuuuuuuucked#Nicoló was trying his best at that anyway#apparently Merrick Pharmaceuticals comes equipped with semi-automatic rifles but not gags

man their card readers work really well and fast. I am impressed. I have... not had this luck with card readers. They usually blink a few times and take a few tries. (Also, nobody uses card readers anymore? I’m not even in that critical of an industry and we have the beepy key fob things. That respond to badges.)

As Nile enters the lab... Yusuf: what the heck where did this come from Nicoló: eh? I do not know that this is a good turn of events Andy: breathlessly happy to see her Booker: oh how my sins have revisited me

It continues to bother me how Nile breaks into the lab and goes straight for the one who’s not immortal and who has the least ability to cope with the situation, given that she’s already injured; and then stands there and talks to her when she could be letting someone else loose to deal with the four shooters at the door that she just mentioned. Just. Free one hand on each of them and then get on to releasing all the bonds on your favorite!

Yeah, keep standing there with your motivational speeches and your NOT RELEASING PEOPLE WHO WILL ACTUALLY HELP YOU, I TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN

Andy, who is not an absolute idiot, releases one of Nicoló’s arms as her first action and then moves on. Nicoló, who is also not an idiot, immediately rolls over and begins releasing the rest of himself, which is the SANE THING TO DO, NILE, YOU’RE AN IDIOT

Booker: No, you should just leave me here Andy: This is an intervention.

Andy, heading for the door: Let’s get this motherfucker Everyone else, aware she is now mortal: <suddenly falls in ahead of her and does not let her take point as she is prone to doing>

Andy’s labrys is such a prop weapon, it looks weirdly light and also fiberglass. I could be wrong! I don’t know about these things! but I think it’s a functional reproduction, not something she’s had for a while.

Andy is Mom Friend, looking after her little gang. Yusuf is Dad Friend, worrying too much.

Nile: Andy! It is I, meat shield! Nicoló: Oh, that’s a good idea.

You know, they really oughtn’t be speaking English in combat situations. This would be a great time to be using a dead language, effectively enabling you to say exactly where you’re going without your enemy understanding it. (Or Nile. But they’ve got Nile.)

“Shit! Jammed!” is where Nicoló needs to be there to mutter in baleful Ligurian about combat teams and palises.

They really shoulda killed that guy on the ground... nobody needs to know they  exist, or what they can do.

I should tell Hyacinth about the throw at 1:44.

Nile has such a nice face.

“I think you showed up when I lost my immortality” well you’re wrong. You been stabbed and healed since then. Also puts paid to my theory that it gave out when you said you were done and not interested in trying to help people anymore. It just is what it is; humans try to assign meaning and stories to thinks, but at the end of the day, it’s all quantum.

NILE IS SO SHORT BUT NICOLÓ IS THE ONE SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BACK SEAT (if anyone cares for fic: Yusuf has shotgun, Nicoló in the back seat middle, Andy is driving, Nile behind Yusuf and Booker behind Andy. Is there any advantage to this? None that I see. Except that Yusuf was in front so he had the opportunity to claim shotgun, and Booker is a filthy traitor who doesn’t deserve the front seat. Nile is new and I don’t know what Nicoló’s excuse is except that it’s easiest to reach the front seat from the middle of the back seat, and everyone assumes Andy will get to sit in the front, so this puts Nicoló in position to get hands on either of them as needed.)

I have no idea why we are expected to care about the pewter-topped bars at the pub they choose to go to.

“There’s not much to decide, it’s not like they can kill me.” Yusuf stares through the window as if he is contemplating exactly that; Booker can’t find an acceptable face to make back at him.

“You’re a good kid” is such a patronizing thing to say to someone, it really emphasizes both how young Nile is and how much younger she is than the rest of them. Also, I will never understand how Booker’s being a bad parent means no one should go see their family while they’re still alive.

Yeah, Yusuf is not satisfied with this arrangement, Nicoló considers it the right thing to do whether it is satisfying or not, and Nile hates hurting people.

Also, given that I headcanon that Andy is cursed to be an atheist surrounded by stubbornly faithful people, “Have a little faith, Book” is a great line. Like. Andy has made her position on religion clear, but at least Nicoló has at one point in his life been committed to religious ideals. The other two - well, I have my own thoughts about how Yusuf interacts with his faith, but it’s just hilarious if Booker is also stubbornly Catholic, for his own journey and so that Andy can be all, “Every time we get a new immortal I explain to them how we are cursed, there is no god, our existence is proof of the whims of the world triumphing over any sort of divine plan, and every time they just hold out! Nicoló is laughing at me!” and she tries doing this to Nile and none of the others are quite laughing out loud, but Nicoló has very expressive smirks, okay? And then you take that background and apply it to Booker saying he’ll never see her again and Andy choosing the last thing she says to him to be, “Have a little faith“ - this thing she has been denying, giving him this as a recognition, he’s spent all movie starving for her recognition as she just gives him tasks, so she recognizes him and this thing they don’t share but that she’s now offering value to, and hey, as long as he’s believing in illogic, he might as well have some in her, right? or in technology and medicine? it’s not all that important how it plays out, but for her to grant this concession to him is... magnanimous in a satisfying way, if you headcanon all of the aforesaid.

Aww, Yusuf is the unsatisfied one but he’s also the one who stays watching Booker for the longest. And he’s the only one who looks back.

:( the German is too blurred for me to read this passport, but I really want to see if there’s any justifying Yusuf being named Joseph Jones and nationality (?) Deutsch. But even if that’s so - which is conceivable - I want to know why both Hamburg and Frankfurt are on his passport. Mine doesn’t have any cities on it at all - but then again, I’ve had friends ask me to get my passport out just to demonstrate how funny American passports are. (Most countries are like “ah yes, we need blank pages to stamp visas and entries/exits on. The US of A goes, “what if our blank pages had dramatic pictures of the biomes of the continental US and inspirational quotes across the tops?” Make your own arguments about American exceptionalism, patriotism, conspicuous consumption...)

THEY WERE AT THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL GOOD FOR THEM also just a weird place for them to be, that incident was. So much a mistake. So much spontaneous. And it’s a weird time to be smuggling people across the wall (and very difficult to do, and. There are better things for immortal soldiers to do with their time at this point). So like. Good for them, I bet that was an endorphin surge, but weird that they were there.

Awwww, Nicoló’s little “I knew we were trying to do good, it is nice to have confirmation that it works sometimes” smirk

It’s a nice speech, Andy, but what you’re actually saying to Copley is, “Booker was our computer/intel guy and we kicked him out, so we need you to do his job and possibly train Nile in it”

I know by “ether” she means like. Internets. But. I love imagining them as just old sometimes, and not always keeping up with all the right things. And having her mean, “When we leave a footprint in the luminiferous aether” because she honestly still believes that light needs a medium to travel in and it’s just never come up as relevant to correct that assumption, she’s proud of being well-read in science a hundred years ago - well, that’s wonderful.

Aww, Copley got a Nicoló smirk. And I think Yusuf sensed it, though he could not possibly have seen it.

Aaaaand scene with Booker drunk and unhappy in Paris, so what else is new to Paris. Spray your glass all over public spaces, it’ll improve the general cleanliness of the surfaces. And Quynh is probably going to show up in Nile’s room shortly, I bet she’s just tired of dreaming of them. I... honestly don’t know that I like the idea of a sequel. Franchises leave a lot of room for making things worse. There’s a lot of open space in this movie, but that’s where I like to put my fanfiction.

#the old guard #Nimblermortal liveblogs #Nimblermortal tags TOO LITTLE AND TOO LATE #this post will update until I get to the end of the movie #which is not much further now #let me just rewind and see each of their expressions as Nile comes in

[ckret2]

How to Stalk Your Ex on Social Media When He Doesn’t Even Know What the Internet Is

Sir Pentious-centric post-breakup Radiosnake angst fic.

Set immediately after the pilot episode. Technically a sequel to Cold Day In Hell but if you don’t want to read it all you need to know is that Sir Pent & Alastor were allies/friends/almost-boyfriends half a century ago, until Alastor declared he’d just been screwing around with Sir Pent’s head, destroyed all his airships, and ran.

Written to this prompt for @atomicmuffin:

maybe Pen, after the attack on the hotel, kinda lingering around, hiding, while he regenerates a bit since he's too weak to safely leave without his airship or most of his eggbois, and ends up peeking in through a window watching Al and the others, and kinda delving into his angsty feelings about that? 

I posted the first scene of this last night but now both scenes are done! Yaaay.

###

Sir Pentious could smell Alastor's cooking.

There was a breeze curling around the building near the crater that held Sir Pentious's most recently crushed airship, carrying the scents of meat and spices through the purpling twilight.

Oh, how he hated that. He hated the smell of Alastor's cooking.

He missed Alastor's cooking.

Sir Pentious shifted himself stiffly, muscles aching. He'd been flopped face down halfway out of the pit that had swallowed his latest greatest airship, his long tail noodled up in a fissure along the wall to keep him from slipping back down. His upper chest ached from being pressed to the edge of the pit for so long. He'd been half-unconscious for the past... oh... according to his pocket watch, an hour. He tucked his watch back into an inner jacket pocket, slowly dragged himself back on solid ground, turned, and sat on the edge of the pit, staring down into the darkness.

He supposed that wasn't quite the worst curb-stomping he'd received in the last fifty years, but it was probably going to rank in as the most humiliating. And from Alastor, of all people. Over half a century Sir Pentious had gotten by without getting wrangled into a fight with him! And the one time they crossed paths when Sir Pentious was already on the warpath and would have looked a coward and a fool if he'd turned and slinked away, it had to be when his airship was already damaged!

Would it have turned out any differently if his airship hadn't been damaged?

Maybe if he'd been able to power up his plasma cannon just a couple of seconds faster...

No. No, Alastor melted  into the shadows far too easily for that. Even if Sir Pentious's airship had been fresh out of the shipyard, he would never have landed a blow. He knew that.

If anyone asked, though—if anyone asked, he only lost because the prior damage made his ship malfunction.

What was Alastor cooking? Sir Pentious could smell onions and garlic. That did nothing to narrow it down. He'd probably been cooking since he'd dragged Sir Pentious's airship in the ground, hadn't he. One of those Cajun things that took half a day to cook. He didn't have any better ways to fill his time, Sir Pentious was sure.

The ground trembled slightly as Alastor's abyss began to close from the bottom up. Sir Pentious scooted back from the edge. So much for recycling the remains of his airship. He wondered if he could trick Alastor into giving him access to whatever dimension he'd sealed the wreck away in? Come challenge him again with a throwaway ship, have another one hiding nearby, wait until Alastor had trashed the junker and then use the reserve ship to tow away the remains of the first two... No, no. Too risky. Too labor-intensive. He'd just have to call this ship a loss. Alas, and it was the one with his new pipe organ.

If he didn't know better, he would almost suspect Alastor had something against organs.

The abyss sealed, leaving behind nothing but a jagged crack in the golden cobblestone road.

Okay. Time to take stock. What did he have. He had himself. He had his hat—good, he'd rather cut off his tail than lose his hat. He had a mess of Egg Bois in various states of disarray, from "visibly cracked" to "gently frying on the sidewalk." Only a single Egg Boi was conscious and up, toddling about checking on the other eggs—"Any other ssurvivors?" "Not looking good, Mr. Bossman." He'd lost his best airship, but he'd only lost one this time. Right after an extermination—good—anyone who might want to take advantage of his current setback would be distracted recouping their own losses. And he was... where was he.

He turned and gave the building he'd been threatening a proper once over for the first time since he'd approached it. Ten stories tall and its architecture included a train, an ocean liner, a carousel, and more bas-relief apples than actual windows. That was Luciferian architecture if Sir Pentious had ever seen it. And a hotel, no less? Had Alastor at last gotten sick of crashing on his friends' couches? Had he finally burned his last few bridges?

How long had he been staying here?

And why hadn't Sir Pentious heard about it before?

Frowning to himself, he pulled his pocket watch back out.

Sir Pentious liked to think he was a man of many sins but few vices. The only addictive poison he permitted himself was jealously stalking his exes. (And tea.) Alastor, despised though he was, was no exception. If anything, it was all the more essential for Sir Pentious to keep close tabs on the actions of the Radio Demon, chief among the threats to his eventual rise to power. His haunts, his habits, his friends, his foes—Sir Pentious knew every significant move Alastor had made in the last fifty years.

He didn't know a thing about this hotel.

He tapped on his pocket watch to unlock the screen, glided his fingertip around the edge until he highlighted the map application, and zoomed in on the spot in front of him. There was a little black box outlining the footprint of the building, but no identifying name attached. Either someone had been paid and/or threatened handsomely to conceal this location, or it was too new to show up on the map.

Sir Pentious squinted up at the building. It was an obvious Magne property with massive neon signs and arrows. It had dead trees, dusty windows, rust-eaten smokestacks, and missing shingles. It was neither covert nor new. What was going on, here?

For a moment, Sir Pentious was tempted to slither in the broken front door, find someone, and ask. What was the worst Alastor could do, crush a few more vertebrae? Big deal, they'd grow back. Sir Pentious had seen other people with Alastor, Sir Pentious could ask them about this place. Not the tall pink one. But one of the others.

But then, did Sir Pentious want Alastor to know he was so keen to find out about Alastor's latest distraction?

Sir Pentious clicked the crown of his pocket watch to return to the list of applications, scrolled around to the camera, and held the watch carefully by the edges of the case so he didn't cover the pink mechanical eye on the back as it focused on the mysterious building. A tap to the screen snapped a picture.

As he switched applications, he hesitated over one for a moment, considering calling for a ride share to his nearest safe house. Then he scrolled on. No. It would cost less to buy a plain black tea at the nearest coffee shop so he could wait for an Egg Boi to bring a car. Besides, too many ride share chauffeurs these days were depraved scoundrels who demanded fellatio in exchange for their services, and Sir Pentious was on the verge of being banned from using the service completely if he set one more car on fire.

He switched to one of his social media accounts, uploaded the picture of the mysterious hotel, and fished his stylus out of his watch pocket. He wove along the cobbled road toward the nearest drag of restaurants as he started scribbling out a query in the picture caption, asking for more information about the mysterious hotel. "If you're looting corpses, hurry up and grab what you want," he said distractedly. "We're leaving."

He was halfway down the hill before he escaped the scent of Alastor's cooking.

###

Sir Pentious was contemplating what was probably the worst cup of Earl Grey he'd ever had—it had cost more than a ride share, and he was still debating whether it tasted worse than a blowjob—when the Egg Boi said, "Wow, Boss! Look at this!" He held out a tablet.

Oh, where did he pick that up? Off one of the corpses, no doubt. Egg #23 knew he wasn't allowed to have Internet access, he was even more of a nuisance when he had steady access to those laser snuff films he was into. Sir Pentious snatched the tablet from him. "Give me that. You'd better not have dug up some pornographic filth—"

He fell silent as he saw his own photo of the mysterious hotel at the top of the screen—with a mind-boggling forty-one likes and nine comments. Was this his break into the social media big leagues?! He skimmed the likes to see if anyone important had noticed the post—his hopes jumped when he saw Vox's icon, before he realized it was just Vox's bot account that liked every post it could find—then read through the comments, looking for a way to take advantage of this new potential source of online infamy.

His ambition faded as he read through the comments, and had completely vanished by the time he clicked a link to a news article and watched the video.

So. The princess's pet project, was it? All the better that he hadn't destroyed it, he supposed. He didn't put too much stock in the Magne family—they were royalty, sure, and he'd grant them the due respect such a rank demanded, but they weren't his royalty, and he was angling to overthrow them—but on the other hand, he certainly didn't want to start a fight with them before he was ready to. He wasn't sure how Princess Charlotte's dear daddy would react if someone crushed her halfway house for repentant reprobates, and he wasn't eager to find out.

So much for the hotel itself. More intriguing to him was the fact that he'd found Alastor there.

Why?

Had he checked himself in some time after the princess's proclamation aired? Finally gotten sick of the pitiful little life he was living down here and decided to grovel in front of the Pearly Gates for absolution? Ha! Oh, Sir Pentious wouldn't be surprised if he was that bored.

He was always so pathetically bored.

But no—Sir Pentious was willing to bet that this was another one of his little phases. He did that, go through phrases—latch on to someone else's project for a few years in the desperate hope that it would amuse him, tie himself up in it so tightly it would come unraveled if he weren't there, and then either cut the strings and run or else tie up the person who had originally been running the project.

He held the leashes of quite a few little unwilling minions because he'd shown up to help them out, talked them into a deal they shouldn't have taken, and now he owned their very souls. (Sometimes Sir Pentious suspected that the main reason Alastor had backstabbed him so much more dramatically than his other former allies was because he'd never shook on a deal that would let Alastor control him.)

And yet, for all the minions Alastor was at liberty to command, didn't know what to do with any of them.

He never knew what he was doing.

That was just how he worked—although the word "worked" implied a basic level of functionality that Alastor lacked.

Project after project, distraction after distraction. Around the turn of the millennium, he'd spent all his time puttering between various nightclubs run by proprietors who weren't willing to admit the Roaring 20s were over. In the eighties, it had been that dotty little cannibal commune he'd tried to settle down in—hah—Alastor, trying to live a domestic life, he must have felt the ennui crawling across his flesh like roaches. Sir Pentious was pretty sure Alastor had spent most of the seventies trying to drown his boredom with bourbon. And in the sixties, his number one distraction had been... Sir Pentious. Sir Pentious and his "pet project" to take over Hell.

Just another one of Alastor's passing hobbies. Another toy to play with until it ceased to amuse him and he broke it.

And now his latest adopted project was Princess Charlotte's hotel, was it. How unfortunate for the princess. Alastor was as likely to try to enslave her as he was to simply pack up and leave in the middle of the night.

Sir Pentious had warned Alastor, hadn't he—that eternity was just going to drag on and on if he didn't start planning his future. Of course he hadn't listened. He'd probably never heeded a word Sir Pentious said, had he? What could a Victorian era has-been who's too weak to conquer Hell possibly know that was worth listening to. Hss.

Well, which one of them was throwing himself at every demon with an interesting idea that was willing to let him latch on, hm? Like a musician that hadn't produced a fresh album in decades but was still desperate to find a hot new artist who was willing to give him a "(feat. the Radio Demon)" credit on one track.

He wondered how long this distraction would last.

He rewatched the princess's proclamation, then started scrolling through the comments. He supposed it was admirable that someone was trying to do something about the annual exterminations, although he would have picked "find a way to kill the angels" as a higher priority than handholding a bunch of sinners through cleaning up their behavior. But then, she was the daughter of a fallen angel; maybe she had some sort of inborn instinct for things like redemption.

He didn't know. He'd never really fussed himself with all the theological figures wandering around Hell—sure, he could name them all, list off their ranks, their families and domains, their enemies and friends and allies and enemies and lovers and enemies, their political positions and tensions and ambitions—but their supernatural traits? Their celestial or infernal aspects? He'd never seen the point.

Most people he'd known who made a fuss over theology did so out of fear that they wouldn't meet the restrictive criteria to get into Heaven. Sir Pentious had never expected nor wanted to be anything but damned—and no matter which set of criteria you were going by, he'd been pretty much guaranteed his spot in Hell the first time he committed a murder and decided he didn't feel bad about it. There was that life goal sorted. So he'd had no good reason to obsess over the metaphysical side of the hierarchies of angels and demons. They were part of the local politics, that was all.

He wondered if a half-fallen angel could grant redemption to the already-dead damned. If so, he'd have to be careful to steer away from the princess and her hotel in the future. But he didn't know.

He wondered if Alastor knew. He might.

Sir Pentious's stomach twisted in a pained knot. He'd missed supper. Had he remembered lunch? He sipped his tea to try to stave off the hunger and wished he hadn't.

He reached the bottom of the comments, scrolled back up to reply to someone speculating on whether a porn star prostitute could really reform (Sir Pentious's opinion: some could, but he didn't think that one), and then started scribbling out a new comment mentioning that he was in possession of exclusive eyewitness evidence that the hotel's second guest apparently seeking a shortcut to heaven was no less a figure than the Radio Demon himself. Oh, he'd love to see what kind of attention that information drew.

A honk outside drew his attention. He glanced up, saw an Egg Boi waving through a limousine window, and said, "That's our ride." He posted the comment and passed Egg #23 back his tablet. "No pornography or I'm confiscating that again."

Egg #23 sighed. "Whatever you say, Mr. Bossman."

Sir Pentious uncoiled from around the legs of his chair, made direct eye contact with the barista, poured the remains of his cup on the ground—"Your tea sssuckss."—and slithered out the door.

He slid into the backseat, pulled the door handle shut with the tip of his tail, and tugged out his pocket watch again to send a message to the account that zealously posted location-flagged Radio Demon sightings (for the benefit of over ten thousand followers who were, by and large, eager to avoid him), alerting the account's anonymous manager of his latest discovery. Sir Pentious's claim wouldn't be posted without photographic evidence—that was their policy—but perhaps the tip-off would prompt them to send out someone to collect proof. The account hadn't been updated since late afternoon. It was obvious they'd lost Alastor's trail. Sir Pentious was keen to see them find it again.

With that business taken care of, he flopped his head back, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and sighed. He was tired and hungry. He only had until he got home to rest, though. As soon as he was in his safe house, he had to take inventory of his meager manpower and material resources, reorganize to shore up any new holes in his defenses, and make plans to start rebuilding.

Again.

###

If you enjoy the fic, a reblog or a comment would be deeply appreciated! Fic crossposted to AO3 here. If you’d like to drop me a tip, link’s in my description!

#sir pentious #alastor #radiosnake #hazbin hotel #fanfic #my writing

[winterune]

Do you wanna build a snowman?

A Persona 5 Fanfiction

@shuannweek​ Day 2 prompt: Rain / Snow

Rating: T | Word count: 2081

Also available on: AO3. 

~*~*~*~*~

“Oh, wow, look at all this snow!”

Ren glanced to his side, where Ann was standing with her arm linked to his, eyes sparkling in delight. It had snowed heavily last night, and by the time Ren went to her house to pick her up, a thin layer had coated every surface from the ground to the rooftops—lampposts, store awnings, parked vehicles. Ann had gone to the door to greet him, all ready with her black overcoat, red scarf, and earmuffs. Her beaming face had made his own frozen cheeks warm into a smile.

The snowfall had stopped some time before dawn and the sun had broken free from the heavy clouds, but still, the temperature had dropped significantly and snow thick enough to leave deep footprints remained on the ground. Such was the scene they witnessed as they entered Inokashira Park. A blanket of white as far as the eye could see, broken occasionally by patches of brown or black. There were fewer people than usual, mostly people his age or families with young children out and about to play in the snow.

“It’s rare to see so much collecting on the ground,” Ann went on, breath clouding over, as she led him to the pile of snow under a tall leafless tree, its bare branches reaching up to the sky. When Ann left his arm to crouch on the ground and pick up a handful of snow, the warmth he had come to appreciate on his side was immediately replaced by the cold that pierced his bone, even through his layers of clothing, making him shiver.

The day felt colder than usual. He didn’t particularly hate it. He was just not fond of it. He would rather stay indoors and have a hot chocolate with a book to read or a movie to watch. But Ann had wanted to see the snow, so here they were.

“Hey,” Ann called, looking up at him. “Do you wanna build a snowman?”

“Snowman?”

Ann nodded enthusiastically. “But not like the normal ones. I wanna make that creature. That…have you seen that movie? That old anime movie. With the big, round, fluffy creature thing.”

Ren cocked his head to the side. He wasn’t following.

“I forgot its name…” Ann went on. “You know, the one where a little girl goes into the forest and meets the thing?”

“I’m still not following.”

“Ah, right, the one by Ghibli! The—the one with the…cat…bus?” She paused, then looked to the ground, brows furrowed. “That sounded weird.”

Cat bus? Ghibli? An image started forming in his mind. He had seen it when he was a kid. The movie with the small family moving to the countryside where they met a huge spirit in the neighboring forest.

“Totoro?” Ren offered.

“Right!” Ann exclaimed, head whipping up with stars in her eyes. “Totoro! God, I forgot that name for a moment there.”

“Yeah, that was a cute movie,” he agreed. He had only seen it once, on one of those days when his father wasn’t home and he had been alone with his mother. She would play a movie on the TV at night, and he would sit with her with a glass of chocolate or some midnight snack his mother cooked up. My Neighbor Totoro had been one of those movies.

But the joy of discovering the name was only short-lived as Ann’s meaning finally dawned on him. “You want to make a Totoro snowman?”

He had probably expected her to shake her head or to shrug, saying something like, “Nah, I was just thinking it’d be cute.” But Ann was nodding aggressively, as though her life depended on this. She rose to her feet, with that bright smile on her face, and said, “Come on, it’ll be fun!”

There were no rooms for arguments. Not that he wanted to argue if it meant seeing her smile like that again.

***

“So,” Ann said, from her spot by the pile, patting it down into form, “how do you make a Totoro snowman exactly?”

Ren, who had been gathering more snow into his arms, looked up from his task and found her staring expectantly up at him. He laughed. “What’re you looking at me for? It was your idea.”

“Yeah, I know, but,”—Ann turned her attention back to her work—“I’ve never actually seen a Totoro snowman.”

“Then where did you get the idea?”

Ann shrugged. “Just wanted to try something different, I guess?”

“Well, why not look it up on the internet?”

Ann’s eyes widened as though the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. She quickly brushed her hands against her coat before fishing for her phone in her pocket. “Let’s see…Totoro…snowman…”

Through the corner of his eyes, Ren watched as Ann began typing furiously on her phone. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Looking at her having fun always put him in a good mood, and it made him want to tease her a bit. 

Having gathered enough snow, he rose to his feet and went over to their makeshift snowman.

“Here it is!” Ann said, still looking at her phone. “Oh, wow, look at all of these. They’re so good! How do they even make these? Look, Ren—”

She looked up just in time as Ren reached their pile and opened his arms wide, dumping all the snow right above her head.

“Ah—!”

Her scream was cut short. Ann immediately jumped to her feet, brushing the snow away from her face in surprised, angry swipes. “Ren!” she shouted, indignant.

“Sorry.” He tried and failed to stifle his laughter. It wasn’t until she glared at him that he immediately covered his bout of laughter with a cough and a clearing of his throat.

But Ann was still frowning, and she crouched down on the ground and gathered snow into her hands.

“Hey, wait a—”

“You asked for this, Ren,” she said, and before he could prepare himself, she had risen to her feet and thrown the makeshift snowball at his face.

Oof!

He looked away just in time and felt little shards of ice stinging the side of his face. He groaned. Ann immediately exploded in a fit of laughter.

He blinked once, twice, wiping his face then finding his fingers covered in a thick layer of ice. He stared at her, lips set in a deep scowl. “Well, that does it.” He quickly reached down for more snow.

“Wait, are we seriously doing this?” Ann said, already backing away one step at a time.

“You started it.” Ren carefully padded his snowball between his hands.

“You started it!”

She ran just in time as the ball left Ren’s hand. It flew past her by several inches, landing with a thud back on the snow pile behind her. She squealed in delight and triumph at Ren’s missed attack.

As he watched her moving farther and farther away from him, he felt his feet moving on his own, and before he knew it, he was chasing after her. “Come back here!” he yelled.

But Ann’s feet quickly dashed through the white landscape when she realized he was hot on her trails. “No!” she screamed back. She was laughing and squealing every time she felt his snowballs zoomed past her or when his fingers were just inches away from her arm or her coat. When his attacks found their marks on her back or shoulder or leg, she would occasionally bend down to pick handfuls of snow to throw at him.

Snow sprayed everywhere. Neither of them cared anymore about creating balls and were just throwing whatever snow and ice they could get their hands on. It was then that he felt it—the laughter bubbling from inside him, bursting out uncontrollably as though a dam had broken free. 

When was the last time he felt like this? A carefree feeling with nothing weighting his shoulders and mind. No thoughts of his family, his school, or his life. Just him and himself, a seventeen-year-old boy, who was laughing his heart out with the girl he loved.

When he looked at her, Ann was smiling so wide, so bright, so free. Her laughter was like music to his ears. And when she met his gaze, time seemed to stand still and Ren forgot how to breathe.

It happened instinctively—his arm snaking around her waist, pulling her close. One hand brushed against her cheek to rest at the back of her head and in one smooth motion, he brought his lips down to hers.

She tasted of ice and salt with a hint of strawberry underneath. He felt her jerk in surprise, her body stiffening for a split second, before she relaxed into his arms. Her fingers splayed over his chest pulled at the lapels of his coat to deepen the kiss. 

A moment passed, then another, and another, before they finally broke the kiss with a gasp and a sigh and Ren rested his forehead on hers as they looked at each other and smiled.

“What was that?” she asked softly.

“A kiss,” he replied, nonchalant, interlacing his fingers behind her waist and drawing her close. “Don’t you know what a kiss is?”

Ann laughed under her breath. “Jerk.” She playfully hit his chest and he laughed.

Then something caught her eye, far above, in the sky. She looked up, and he noticed it—the wonder in her eyes and that beautiful smile that Ren had silently vowed to protect, no matter the cost.

“It’s snowing again.”

It was, indeed. Soft white flakes rained down from clouds he hadn’t realized had gathered again in the short time they had their snowball fight. They landed on her hair, and her coat, and she reached up to touch one but it melted on her skin. Still, she was grinning gleefully like a child on her birthday.

Ren had never liked winter. Not very much. The cold never agreed with him. A draft through the cracks in the windows or the ceiling would make him shiver to the bones. Yet whenever he was spending his time with Ann, it was as though all the cold had melted away, replaced by this sort of inherent warmth only she could give.

Ann noticed his stare and looked questioningly at him.

Ren smiled a small smile as he quietly said, “I love you.” The touch of pink on her cheeks made his eyes crinkle with happiness.

“I love you, too,” she replied.

Ren’s smile widened at that, and he drew her closer still and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. She wrapped her arms around his back and snuggled against his neck.

“Do you wanna continue building the snowman?” he asked, eyeing their half-done Totoro snowman a ways away.

Ann followed his line of sight, before snuggling deeper into him. “Let me stay like this for a while.”

He tightened his arms around her in reply, pressing his temple against the top of her head.

The tightness in his chest he hadn’t realized had been there was released, and it was as though he could finally breathe again. It had crossed his mind sometimes—the thought of how suffocating his life had been—but with all the things going on in his life this past year, he hadn’t let it dwell for too long. It had never helped. But then there were these days, when the cold settled in and he would remember the life in his parents’ house, living under his father’s strict rule, hearing them fight day in and day out. It would make the cold even more unbearable than usual.

“Hm?” Ann looked up at him, finding him staring far off into space. He met her gaze and saw the concern in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

It had never occurred to him that he might be lonely. Even now, the word seemed foreign to him. He liked being alone, but that didn’t mean that he was lonely. At least, that was what he had been telling himself. And yet, when he met Ann and all those people who, for once, actually saw him for himself and accepted him for who he was, it was as though a wall he had never known existed broke apart, and all he had wanted to do was to cry.

“Nothing.” He tightened his hold on her. “I’m just glad that you’re here with me right now.”

~ END ~

#ShuannWeek2k20 #shuann #ren amamiya #ann takamaki #persona 5 #persona #fanfiction #my fanfiction #my story #persona fanfic #p5 fanfic

[pramila]

Data Science in Digital Marketing

What is Marketing?

 Selling the Right product

To the Right customer

At the Right time

For the Right Price

Through the Right Channel

You may be wondering now how do we get to know who is the right customer, what do they want and how to follow up with them. If the same thing goes on to your mind Sit back and enjoy the blog while we shed light on the below points.

· Where did it all begin? When the organizations started to emphasize on customer wants and needs?

· Traditional Marketing Vs Digital Marketing

· Marketing Funnel? Funnels?_ yeah Even if you have n number of prospects it all narrows down to a quite handful of customers. It’s more like filtering. For extra info please read further.

· What are the components of Marketing?

· What is integrated Marketing? Is it really needed?

· For further study, please check the external resource section

Marketing — Abstraction:

Should Consumer given priority while making organization decision? Are they Important? Where did it all started actually?

Marketing is vast subject. We have been using it since ages in all areas of life. To understand we need to examine why marketing is important and why organizations are paying special attention to customer’s needs. Long story short we can understand the importance of customer in below points. To get the abstract of this idea we can divide time period before industrial revolution to till date into three segments.

Product Era, Selling Era and Marketing Era.

PRODUCT ERA:

The Product Era was dominant before the Industrial Revolution and continued till 1920. This holds that the organization knows its product better than anyone.

Since the organization has the great knowledge and skill in making the product, the organization also assumes it knows what is best for the consumer. The products manufactured were in such short supply . So the company didn’t have any need to consult with customer about product’s design. It simply means before industrial revolution production was slow and demand was high. They don’t have any need for marketing.

SELLING ERA:

This is a short lived era. It was dominant around 1930 and stayed up to 1950. The reason for this era emerged due to the Industrial Revolution. During the Revolution the production of goods increased. With increased supply of good the competition also entered the production game. This led to the production of surpluses. The value of this Era is that an organization can sell anything using its marketing skills such as advertising and personal selling.

Here came a big problem the era was working on the idea that a well-designed Marketing team can sell anything. But eventually they realized that it is easier to sell the product customer wants than the product customer does not want.

So the Consumer needs must meet the organization goals.

MARKETING ERA:

The failure of the Selling era led to the Marketing Era. This dominated since 1950 and continued to till date. This era proves that even a good sales team cannot sell every product that does not meet customer needs.

The customer has many choices to choose and has all the information they need.

So this mean the company has to align it organization goals towards customer satisfaction.

As one thing lead to another, the customer got the leverage of choosing what they want than being stuffed what they do not want.

Digital Marketing Vs Traditional Marketing:

Again reiterating Marketing’s been with us for very long. But the medium differs. Yet marketing thrives. Back in 90’s we had no cellular phones or internet. Our entertainment and infotainment we mostly dependent on televisions, radio, newspapers. So the marketing strategies were targeted only through those mediums. But after the internet evolution everyone started to migrate towards digital world. Actually not everyone migrated. Even today some population in India is untouched by the invisible internet’s hands. So choose your medium of Marketing based on where your customer is on.

Traditional Marketing is any marketing that is not online. Print, broadcast, direct mail, phone, radio, newspaper and outdoor advertising like billboards all comes under traditional marketing. Even when some of the marketing method goes out of touch other proves its hold.

For example Due to the high Television watching population in India TV advertisements are proven to be successful.

When everything goes digital, Marketing also goes digital. After the internet evolution people started to show interest in online shopping eventually the online transactions become secure. That’s how the digital marketing started to flourish. It is important for your business to be online as half the population live online.

The difference between traditional and Digital Marketing is in Traditional Marketing your ads are too generalized whereas in Digital Marketing you can scintillate your customer with tailor made ads and you can track them but in traditional marketing it is impossible.

Now we are moving to the second part of our agenda – Data Science..

Drumroll please!

This digital marketing gives us a new perspective of new perspective of how we can utilise the data for growth of the company. The dumb data became the fuel for almost all industries.

The dawn of digital age created heap of data. Data! Data!! .. Data is everywhere.. From your ecommerce website to your social media accounts down to your search engine. wherever you go you leave your digital footprints. Even for a small transaction involves you sharing your personal data. It’s being tracked with cookies, internet activities, your social media accounts and many more (more on this topic I’ll save it for my later blog).

 What do we do with the gigantic data? Do we dispose them or use them for better? When life throws at you lemon make a lemonade. Yes!! You heard it right! Make use of your data. It will help you unlock you company’s full potential. If you still think why data matters please read further.

Is your Data matters?

 Of course it matters. You wouldn’t dare asking this question if u know how your Internet service providers make revenue with you data. Sometimes providing data makes life easier such as giving you personalized and  make you connected.

 If you could see your favourite post in the social media, or your shopping items in the shopping cart following you or any personalized ads or any recommendations. You have to thank your data for it.

 Data plays a humongous role in shaping customer experience. The better the customer experience the better will be the growth of the company. And this will give them the leverage to adopt new technologies easily. And this age is for those who make better use of the technologies.

The application of data science in Marketing includes,

Helps determine market opportunities

Tailor-made marketing initiatives

Product development and design insights

Pricing model insights

Data Science gives us the power to communicate with your customer based on real time data. This helps marketers improve their customers’ experience by further personalizing content.

my blog is www.thedataartist.com

[maddiviner]

Hi! I just found some people saying that they wish they lived in the “og” witchcraft era, that this shouldn’t be for everyone and that the way information is so easy to get from tumblr and everywhere else somehow makes those who take it less valid then natural witches. And also that you ~need~ a mentor. I’m a beginner and I get where they come from, but it was said in such a negative way that it made me question if I’m really not worthy of this. What do you think of that?

First off, let’s be clear here. There’s no such thing as a “natural witch” any more than there’s such a thing as a “natural painter” or “natural carpenter.” There are people with psychic abilities such as clairs, but they’re not witches unless they also study/practice witchcraft. 

I realize there is/were a few people on Tumblr talking about how they felt unique like “real special witch people,” but trust me, regardless of how they feel about it and themselves, they had to learn the Craft just like everyone else. Witches are self-made, not born. This is true now, and was always true, even in times past.

I’m not quite sure what is meant in this ask by the OG (old guard) witchcraft era. I’m going to just guess that it refers to witchcraft prior to the advent of the internet and the widespread availability of occult information for most people.

I cannot speak to what it was like to be a witch in the 1970s, 1980s, 1950s or the heckin’ Middle Ages. And, I’m not sure what time period in particular these folks wish they could return to.

I don’t know if people on Tumblr realize this, but I’m probably at the older end of the Tumblr witch spectrum. I know I’ve got the really dubious honor of being the oldest person in a couple of Tumblr-related witchcraft Discord servers (small servers, but still). I’m in my early thirties, and I’ve been studying the occult since about 1999, which was the year I got my first deck of Tarot cards.

I remember a little bit about what learning witchcraft was like at the tail-end of the 20th century and into the new millennium. It was really very different. If you were interested in a particular path (besides Wicca), you were often quite out of luck - even well-stocked urban occult bookstores didn’t have much information outside of Wicca, and occasionally Satanism or Thelema.

This assumes you were lucky enough to have access to an occult bookstore - plenty of us (myself included at times) had to make do with what we could find at Borders, Barnes and Noble, or Hastings. At the time, that was, well… mostly books about Wicca, New Age paths, and with a few occult “classics” (like The Satanic Bible) smooshed in, too.

The witchcraft-related books were almost all exclusively geared towards Wicca. Some of them, like Cunningham’s work, went on to become occult classics in their own right. 

Others were full of pretty poor scholarship, things like D. J. Conway writing about “Norse” and “Celtic” magick that was just Wicca with some deity names changed. And Edain McCoy writing about an “ancient Irish potato goddess.” And Silver Ravenwolf. Of course.

A lot of these books were pretty preachy, too - insisting that only Wiccans were witches, that no “true witch” ever did black magick (or a million other things), etc. Plenty pushed (heavily) the “paleolithic” origin story for Wicca. Few mentioned Gardner even existing, let alone his role in founding Wicca and his contributions to the Work.

Nowadays, I can go online after (or even before!) buying such books and learn where the author got their information (or didn’t get it, as the case may be…) I can simply google and find out all about Gardner’s life, or Crowley. I can read sites by actual Romany people explaining what occult traditions are (and aren’t) part of their culture. It does really make things easier!

I couldn’t do that back then. No one had access to such a vast repository of information.

I’m not sure how the idea of mandatory mentors got started. It is true that in some occult/witchcraft traditions (like the A.’.A.’. and certain covens) mentors are important and required. That’s not true for witchcraft or the occult as a whole, however. 

Finding a mentor, even in an established tradition, is always going to be hit or miss. I’ve had some really horrible experiences with people trying to mentor me, including the sordid situation with my ex-A.’.A.’. mentor. I’ve had friends who had similarly horrible experiences. I also have friends who found wonderful mentors. Again, hit or miss. 

The thing is, even back then, it was hit-or-miss finding a good mentor, too. Heck, especially back then, before the internet. Nowadays I can google someone’s name and see what former/current students say about them, what they’ve written, and what kind of footprint they’ve made on the world. 

Back then, I couldn’t. If someone said they were a Gardnerian initiate (for example), it would’ve been much more difficult to prove or disprove that than it is nowadays, too.

I also couldn’t research what I was actually being taught to see if it was even true. If I ended up studying with someone who (for example) believed the paleolithic Wicca founding myth, I’d be stuck with that. 

Heck, if you ended up with a mentor who taught that he was the 4,000 year old King of Vampire Witches and that you had to drink blood or something like that, you were stuck with that, too. The most you could do would be to walk away if it was overly-ridiculous or just felt “off.”

I read a study recently (I can dig it up later if people are interested) that said younger, internet-savvy generations are less-likely to buy into wild claims without proof. Apparently, we’re more skeptical. Food for thought.

There are certainly some folks who would rather this weren’t the case, and wish they could control the flow of occult/other information more easily themselves.

They want to be able to tell whoppers without people checking into it and calling them on it. I’ve not seen such people on Tumblr, but on sites like Facebook, I’ve definitely encountered people trying it.

To sum this all up, I think those people claiming pre-Internet witches were more devoted, more “natural,” or otherwise superior are overly-nostalgic and misinformed about the past. 

It’s true that it was harder to get information back then, and becoming a decent willworker would’ve taken more legwork. That doesn’t mean much, though, except that yes, more people choose magick nowadays due to the surplus of information.

If you’re one of those types who treats the occult like it’s some kind of special club and want to keep the “normies” out or whatever, I can see why this would be troublesome. For me, though? I think more interest in magick is a good thing. More people studying magick and witchcraft? Excellent.

Think of it this way: in any given field, you’re going to have a lot of different types of people. Some will be pretty good and innovative at what they’re doing. Others, maybe not - they might end up leaving it for something else, too.

The more people you have researching, working, experimenting, the more likely you will end up with someone really innovative who breaks new ground and changes things for the better. This is a common way of seeing things in academia, but I think it’s true in witchcraft and the occult as well.

#magick #witchblr #witch #witchcraft #occult #eliza.txt #elitism #history #Anonymous

[lavenderprose]

Here’s the beginning of a fic I’ve been sitting on for a few months?? Hopefully getting a little feedback will jumpstart my stupid lizard brain into doing something

--

On a blustery morning in mid-September, a dog shows up on Yuuri’s front porch.

Yuuri, who’s in a bit of a hurry to get to town because he promised Phichit that he would help at the shop today, is struck momentarily motionless at the sight of a large silver-beige poodle sitting on his front porch, grinning up a storm and panting large plooms of condensation into the chilly morning air.

When his limbs recall their functions after several long beats, Yuuri steps down off the doorway ledge and onto the porch, cautious even though the dog looks like nothing would please them more than Yuuri coming closer. He glances up and down the road, looking for an owner. Yuuri’s house is set back about a hundred yards from the road, but he can still see it through the branches of the trees. There is nothing and nobody on the road. It’s just Yuuri and a poodle, alone in the cold air and odd stillness of a northern Michigan autumn morning.

Until Vicchan nudges up against the back of Yuuri’s legs and sets to whining, either at the sight of the other dog or at the fact that Yuuri is blocking his access to the yard.

“Shush,” he says to Vicchan, who subsides. He turns back to the other dog, still panting and still regarding Yuuri with large, friendly black eyes. Yuuri steps a little closer.

“Hi, puppy,” he says, kneeling slowly down to eye-level with the poodle. “Who’re you?” The dog lunges forward to try and lick Yuuri’s face; Yuuri laughs and fends him off, gets hold of his collar and reads the tags. Vicchan steps onto the porch and busily sets about sniffing the other dog’s butt.

“Makkachin, huh?” he says, turning the simple bone-shaped nametag in his hands. The reverse side of the tag gives an address, which is only one number off from Yuuri’s on the same road. Yuuri, who had sort of anticipated the dog belonging to a neighbor, isn’t surprised. He pats Makkachin’s head and then, because the name doesn’t really indicate a gender, at least not one that Yuuri can discern, he takes a glance underneath the dog. Makkachin stays still for the indignity, and Vicchan prances back and forth through the open door, unsure what to do with himself.

Makkachin, it turns out, is a girl.

“Alright, let’s get you back home.” Yuuri stands up and clicks his tongue, mostly to attract the attention of Vicchan. He comes barreling back out onto the porch, and Yuuri closes and locks the door. Vicchan rampages towards the car, barking his joy. Makkachin stays put and gazes up at Yuuri, tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. Yuuri, who’s noticing now the amount of gray that Makkachin has on her muzzle, takes a step towards the porch steps and pats his leg. With that visual cue, Makkachin hops to it, following along behind Yuuri and Vicchan down the driveway.

Yuuri’s car is a pickup, which is one of only a few types of cars that one can drive with any sense of security through northern Michigan winters. Yuuri spent one awful, terrifying winter after college driving his ’05 Toyota Corolla through foot-high snowdrifts, white knuckling the steering wheel the whole way. In March of that year, he got on the internet and googled best cars for snow, clicked the first result, and went and bought himself a black standard cab pickup. It’s not the kind of car he ever really saw himself driving, and he thinks it might lean a little too far into the whole rural archetype, but he supposes that archetypes become archetypes for a reason—the image of a pickup truck driving down a country road has been in the cultural zeitgeist for practically as long as there have been cars.

Although Yuuri anticipates that Makkachin might need help getting up into the cab, she only really has trouble clamoring into the back to sit on the jumpseat with Vicchan, and she manages it even with Yuuri telling her that she doesn’t need to sit in the back. Once both dogs are settled, Yuuri hops in and turns on the car, backing out along the driveway.

Yuuri’s property doesn’t extend very far, but his neighbor’s property is big enough that the drive up to their front door takes about five minutes. Makkachin is looking out the window and, although she must recognize all of the landmarks they’re passing, doesn’t kick up a fuss.

The house of Makkachin’s owner is relatively large, but only in that it has a slightly bigger footprint than Yuuri’s, coupled with what appears to be a half second floor. It’s nowhere near as extravagant as the McMansions that dot this same road closer to town, where they can be hooked up to the city water and it isn’t a half-hour drive to anywhere worth being. It’s a nice house, though, and might have some history behind it—it has a look of a house that probably wasn’t built this century. The land surrounding the house is well-kept. Further back, the property fades into woods, but you’d be hard pressed to find someone who didn’t have at least some woodland on their property out this way, unless that person was a farmer.

There are two other cars parked in the driveway—a pickup and a jeep that Yuuri (with his only tangential knowledge of cars which are not the car he currently owns) thinks is a Wrangler. The jeep is a common choice in this area, mostly because it’s essentially a street-legal tank, so Yuuri isn’t surprised to see it. The pickup truck is old though—like, seventies or eighties old, and it’s a strange creamy salmon color that Yuuri has never seen before.

It might be, Yuuri thinks, one of those cars that people buy their sixteen-year-olds to learn to drive in, unafraid to see it damaged since they only spent 700 dollars buying it. It could, on the other hand, be someone’s prized antique. It’s hard to tell in this area.

Yuuri dismounts from the car and pats the seat for Makkachin. She comes clamoring out, and Yuuri does help her this time—mostly because he doesn’t want her trying to jump down herself, old as she might be. Vicchan tries to sneak out after her, but Yuuri presses him back into the car.

“You’ll get to run around all day at the shop,” Yuuri tells him, when his ears droop. “Be good.”

Vicchan settles back onto the seat so that Yuuri can close the door, but Yuuri sees his little head pop up over the steering wheel a moment later. Yuuri laughs, seeing it.

The front door opens almost immediately after Yuuri knocks, disorientating him slightly. The man standing in front of Yuuri looks like he’s just about to head out the door as well—he’s wearing a gray parka and black scarf, knit hat pulled down over what looks to be platinum hair, and thick leather gloves on his hands. He and Yuuri, surprised to see each other, blink and say nothing for a moment.

“Is that my dog?” says Makkachin’s owner at last, having seen Makkachin lurking behind Yuuri’s knees.

“Um, yes.” Yuuri glances back at Makkachin, who snorts happily at her owner and trots into the house, blissfully dismissive of the two men still on the porch, who now have to slog through social niceties. Yuuri doesn’t necessarily think that Makkachin’s owner will be difficult to deal with—but he is, Yuuri can’t help but notice, deeply attractive, so it’ll probably be fun for Yuuri’s seven AM brain to deal with that.

“How did she get out?” Makkachin’s owner follows hers fluffy retreating butt with a bewildered gaze. “I just—she’s only been out of the house for twenty minutes. How far did she get?”

“She was on my front porch,” Yuuri says, pointing in the direction he lives. “I live down the road about a mile. Our properties adjoin.”

“She’s not supposed to—” Makkachin’s owner sighs, shakes his head and switches his gaze from Makkachin’s retreat into the house to Yuuri, who he smiles at. “I’m sorry. She’s trained not to leave the property line, so I just let her wander most mornings. She’s getting old, though, so maybe she just…got lost.”

“It’s no problem,” Yuuri says, shaking his head. “She’s a sweetheart.”

Makkachin’s owner smiles as though Yuuri has just complimented him, and not his dog. “She really is! I’m Viktor, by the way. Probably rude of me that I’ve never introduced myself, seeing as we’re neighbors.”

Viktor has a very slight accent that becomes more prominent the longer Yuuri hears him talk. He at first thinks it might be Scottish, but eventually his ear adjusts and he realizes it’s something Slavic. It’s a melodic baritone voice and the inflection that he uses is Pure Michigan. First generation in America, maybe, or naturalized as a child as Yuuri himself was. Yuuri realizes he’s been musing on all of this, instead of responding to what Viktor’s actually said, when that welcoming smile slips into confusion.

“It’s fine!” Yuuri rushes to assure, shaking his hands. “It’s just—I don’t really know any? Of my neighbors? I just—there’s so much distance between—I think people are happier just—y’know, not?”

“Right, of course.” Viktor nods, smile still benevolent, but a little more shut off. “Yeah, I guess…people move out here to be…away.”

“Right.” Yuuri clears his throat, hands slipping into pockets. “Yeah, that’s—” It’s definitely why Yuuri moved here, although he’s trying desperately not to anxiously overshare with this man whose only relationship to him is a lost dog. He chooses not to mention it, for obvious reasons. “That’s right.”

There is a staircase visible behind Viktor’s back, down which a blond-haired youth now stomps. He isn’t initially looking at the door, only at Viktor’s back, and when he reaches the floor says, “Viktor, what are you doing—” then sees Yuuri.

“Yuri!” Viktor says, and Yuuri wonders how Viktor knows his name without him ever saying it, before he realizes that the blond is also Yuri. “This man found Makkachin!”

“Makkachin was missing?” Yuri asks, dripping teenaged ambivalence. He looks at Yuuri, his face contracts into something unpleasant, and he barks, “Thanks I guess!” before sweeping away, to parts of the house unseen.

“He’s shy,” Viktor says, watching him go, then turns back to Yuuri.

“His name is Yuri?”

“Yes, although he usually goes by Yura.” Viktor’s eyes widen at the end of that statement, and he’s quick to assure, “He’s my brother, not my son. I’m not old enough to have a sixteen-year-old.”

“Oh, no, yeah, I can tell. I was just asking because that’s—Yuuri, that’s my name.” He clears his throat, feeling awkward. “The Japanese one, not the—uh—Ukrain..ian…?”

“Russian.”

“Right, Russian. It’s not the Russian spelling. Um…” He clears his throat, glances back towards his car. “I’m gonna—go.”

Viktor smiles again. “Sure. Have a nice day! Thanks for bringing Makkachin back.”

Yuuri, inexplicably, gives Viktor a thumbs up, and stumbles backwards off the porch into a rose bush.

By the time he climbs back into the car, his face is red and his jeans are torn.

“We can never come back here,” he tells Vicchan, as he rapidly reverses out of Viktor-Makkachin’s-Owner’s driveway.

Vicchan wuffs at him balefully from under his own ears.

(“What happened to you?” Phichit demands from behind the ice cream counter, when Yuuri rolls into the shop toting Vicchan, half an hour late and still showing evidence of his mauling by rose bush.

“A very attractive man’s very cute dog was on my porch this morning,” says Yuuri, depositing Vicchan in his dog bed (<3 VICCHAN <3 on the side because Phichit spoils him) and grabbing an apron off the peg behind the counter.

“Oh Yuuri,” says Phichit in a pitying tone. “Oh honey. Oh no.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” says Yuuri, miserably, and conks his head onto a cooling table, where it stays until a customer comes in and, tentatively, asks Phichit if the guy over by the fudge is, uh, ok?)

#Maggie's Fic #Victuuri #YOI #Viktor Nikiforov #Yuuri Katsuki

[welllpthisishappening]

Confirmed Reports

They expected her to freak out. 

And, well, that was kind of reasonable. But there wasn’t really any way to hide it anymore and Emma had other things to worry about and maybe they could all use some kind of media training rehash. 

Plus it was kind of nice. It was absurdly nice and even more sentimental and just a hint romantic, but she wouldn’t ever say that out loud. 

Probably. She wasn’t the one going on the record. 

Word Count: 9.6 K and I don’t remember writing that many words. Rating: There is kissing. Obvs. AN: I wrote this a million and two years ago (read, several months) because I wanted to write more about the second Cup run and an absurdly overprotective hockey team. And then I sent it to @distant-rose​ who has recently been dubbed my “enabler” by the internet, but is actually just a goddamn delight of a human and the biggest fan of this story and the aforementioned absurdly overprotective hockey team. Someday I really will write them telling the Vankalds about Matthew Jones. And anything else you guys send because I hoard all of those prompts and flail at every single one of your messages. 

Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll. 

“This is ridiculous.” “You’re supposed to be sitting.” “You’re only saying that because Killian thinks I’m supposed to be sitting. I am fine.” Merida flushed, making it difficult to see where her hair ended and the rest of her face actually began and Emma grinned like she’d won...well, the Stanley Cup. Again. Maybe. No, definitely.

For sure.

Absolutely.

She was certain and confident and they could clinch that night, but she was so goddamn exhausted that she wasn’t entirely sure she’d locked the apartment door when she left, so, really, she didn’t have a metaphorical leg to stand on.

If she was standing.

Which she wasn’t. And not because Killian was an overprotective weirdo – and she’d lost control of her vocabulary at some point too, delving into middle-school insults over text message and FaceTime throughout this entire playoff run – but because her ankles had swollen to the size of the grapefruit that Matt Jones, apparently, was.

And her back hurt like hell.

Her office chair was not helping much at all, even with that memory foam pillow thing that had just appeared before the playoffs started. She had a few suspicions as to where it came from.

“Boss,” Merida sighed, but Emma was already standing up, wincing slightly when it felt like every single one of her muscles somehow expanded and contracted at the same time. “C’mon, it’s not like that at all.” “How many times has Killian texted you?” “Today? Or just like...in the last hour?” Emma rolled her eyes, sinking back into her chair, a wave of exhaustion and emotion and, maybe, just a bit of frustration rolling over her. Hormones were, easily, the worst thing ever invented. Did that make sense? No, right?

Hormones were just a product of biology and she hadn’t taken a biology class since her junior year of high school and junior year of high school had happened in two different states because the first house she’d been living in had been shut down just before December and…

“Boss,” Merida repeated, snapping the title slightly like it wasn’t the first time she’d said it. It probably wasn’t.

Emma didn’t remember closing her eyes. She shook her head quickly, licking her lips and glancing at the phone on the corner of her desk, flashing like it was masquerading as some sort of Times Square billboard and she had so much to do before puck drop, it was enough to make her head spin.

God, she slept like garbage when Killian wasn’t there. And when Matthew Jones seemed intent on leaving a permanent footprint on her gallbladder.

They’d found out, officially, a few weeks before – in between the second round and the Eastern Conference finals and Killian had absolutely gotten fined because Arthur might have been alright with him missing practice, but the league didn’t really care about things like sonograms and confirming the existence of Matthew Jones when there were media requests and media requirements and something about getting mic’ed up for some special on MSG that already had Ruby pulling her hair out.

Metaphorically.

He’d skipped anyway, shaking his head when Emma tried to argue and it really hadn’t been much of an argument because she wanted him there. She knew he kept that sonogram photo in his equipment bag.

It made her heart swell just thinking about it and she had absolutely lost control of her hormones, however she’d gotten them, because it left her brushing away tears that were decidedly out of place in the middle of her office with a slightly frazzled assistant staring at her and a Stanley Cup just a few hours out of reach.

She wished she was in St. Louis.

She couldn’t be in St. Louis because she had an event to run in Bryant Park – a huge, important event and everyone else was in St. Louis except Merida and Mary Margaret and David and Killian was going to get fined again if he keep trying to text message all of them at once when he was supposed to be at a pregame scrum.

Ruby was going to kill him.

Or at least shake him. Forcefully. She was still on that whole protect Matt Jones at all cost kick.

“How many times?” Emma asked and Merida’s eyebrows nearly flew up her forehead.

“I don’t understand the question,” she admitted. Her phone buzzed – loudly – in her pocket and Emma just widened her eyes, nodding towards the noise as Merida did her best to bore a hole into the carpet.

“How many times has he texted you? We’ll include that one.”

Merida pursed her lips, sighing as if she were battling some kind of immovable force and she might have been because Emma was nothing if not stubborn and, at last count, she’d been texted somewhere in the realm of several dozen times that day.

It wasn’t even five o’clock yet.

And David had wanted to follow her around all day to make sure she ate at some sort of hourly interval. She didn’t even bother asking where he got those instructions from.

It would have been frustrating if it weren’t so goddamn adorable.

“Uh….that’s not Cap,” Merida said, nodding towards the phone in her hand. Her eyes widened and Emma was momentarily concerned, something about faces and them sticking that way, but it only lasted as long as the relative silence in her office.

And the silence didn’t last long.

Her desk phone rang shrilly, shaking like it was trying to tell her something, and her cell phone rang and vibrated at the same time, an impressive feat she didn’t entirely know was possible, but she’d been calling her fiancé an overprotective weirdo and trying to figure out the origins of hormones for most of the day, so, all things considered, the technology of her phone was last on a the list of things she was willing to spend much time thinking about.

“Jeez, it’s like we’re under attack,” Emma mumbled, grabbing the desk phone and Merida made some kind of noise in the back of her throat, like that was, somehow, surprising. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ruby said, not even letting Emma get a greeting out before delving into apologies that didn’t make sense.

Her cell phone was still ringing. Merida was talking to someone else.

Ruby took a deep breath, ignoring whatever noise of protest Emma made and Matthew Jones kicked, what felt like, both of her kidneys at the same time. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...wait, did you just gasp? What’s going on? Are you ok?” “I have no idea what’s going on,” Emma said, leaning forward to press the heel of her hand into the bottom of her spine. “Except that we’re supposed to be getting some kind of balloon arch thing for the game tonight. Mer, did that arch thing come yet?” Merida nodded distractedly and Emma got the distinct impression she was being placated. She sighed again, but it sounded a bit more like a growl and Ruby hissed in more air from St. Louis, the sound of a very lively locker room barely audible on the other end.

“Em, the arch is going to get there,” Ruby said, but there was a hint of desperation in her voice and it sounded like she was jogging. Or running. It sounded like she was running somewhere, the sounds behind her quickly fading out until Emma could barely hear the shouting.

“Yuh huh,” Emma muttered, resting the phone against her shoulder and reaching up to toy with the ring around her neck. Merida’s eyes were absolutely going to get stuck that way.

And her cell phone was going to vibrate off her desk.

She glanced down at the screen, not sure if she actually wanted to see who was so desperately trying to contact her when she had balloon arches and security issues and signed merch that was, probably, somewhere on 6th Avenue, to worry about.

Ah, damn, she’d left her lunch on the counter at home.

“Mer,” Emma called, ignoring Ruby’s continued apologies for whatever, and sitting up straighter in some vaguely desperate way to realign her spine.

Merida nodded, mumbling a few words to whoever she was talking to. “You want Pret again?” “What?” “Pret. I mean that salad with the cranberries has been like...your life force all postseason.” “How do you know that?” Merida blinked, holding up both of her hands like it was obvious and it kind of was because Emma had actually lost track of the number of times she’d ordered that one salad with cranberries from Pret in the last month and a half. She was fairly certain the teenage kid behind the counter thought she was stalking him.

Killian thought it was hysterical.

And kept bags of dried cranberries in a jar on their kitchen counter. Next to the Conn-Smythe they’d never given back.

“Emma,” Ruby shouted and she’d entirely forgotten there was still a person on the phone. Mary Margaret was texting her. There was barely any time between one message and the next and her cell phone had only stopped ringing long enough to start again and David was probably breaking some kind of police rule by calling her when he was absolutely supposed to be on duty.

“Still here,” Emma said, but she was, admittedly, distracted by thoughts of cranberries and a little annoyed that Merida wasn’t on her way to get cranberries, especially when Merida started muttering names under her breath.

“Well, just tell him that it’s just The Daily News,” Merida said quickly, still waving her hands through the air and pacing a tiny circle into the carpet. “They don’t even have a celebrity section. I know, I know he’s not a celebrity, Scarlet. It’ll probably just end up in the corner of the sports. If you guys win, it’ll be a blip on the radar.” “Scarlet,” Emma echoed, nearly screeching out the word and Ruby made some kind of strangled noise in St. Louis. “Oh my God,” she sighed, a quiet thump on the other end of the phone that might have just been her entire body collapsing on the floor.

The office chair, somehow, felt even more uncomfortable than before. And her spleen was going to be bruised if her kid didn’t stop kicking her.

Killian had told her the website claimed Matthew Jones could hear things at this point, was vaguely aware of the outside world and needed nurturing sounds and classical music and the general breakdown of the New York Rangers front office just a few hours removed from Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, in goddamn St. Louis, did not seem to fall into either one of those categories.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ruby chanted again, the sound of her heel scraping on the floor in whatever hallway she was in sounding like nails on some kind of metaphorical chalkboard.

Will was still talking to Merida.

And Emma still didn’t have any dried cranberries.

Or whatever dressing they used on that salad. She was incredibly hungry.

“Rubes, you’re not actually telling me what is going on,” Emma said, doing her best to keep her voice even. It didn’t really work.

Ruby sighed, sounding as if she were trying to monopolize the oxygen in the entire city of St. Louis. Emma wasn’t sure where to look. She groaned when her phone let out another long string of vibrations, certain her inbox was just a few messages away from combusting, and grabbed the stupid thing, slamming her thumb into the screen until it felt like she’d actually strained a muscle.

Mary Margaret had texted her forty-seven times. In the last five minutes.

The last few just seemed like a string of consciousness that didn’t really make much sense, but it had been that kind of day and Emma still hadn’t gotten confirmation about the goddamn, fucking balloon arch.

Ok, so just take deep breaths.

And maybe get Merida to find you some sort of Bach or Beethoven or something. Because that’s supposed to be calming, just generally, and good for the baby. All the websites say that.

Not that I’m reading websites.

I mean, that’d be weird, right? I’m just...you know, me.

David says I should tell you that I’m totally reading websites. He claims it’s breaking the rules otherwise, but I think he’s just making those rules up now and absolutely downloaded some symphony onto his phone so he could play them for Mattie the next time you guys come over.

Post-Cup, obviously. He made me type that too.

Emma, this is David now. I did not make her type that. I suggested she type that and also told her you wouldn’t even be remotely surprised that she was looking at websites because that is, easily, the most Mary Margaret thing that has ever happened.

She wants to ask you and Killian about what color you’re going to paint Matt’s room, but she’s too nervous

Also. Answer your phone.

As if to prove his point, Emma’s phone rang in her hand. It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise, but there was a metaphorical grapefruit sitting on several different internal organs and she still had no idea what was going on and Merida was still trying to get Will to calm down.

At least that’s what it sounded like.

“What?” Emma snapped, lifting her cell phone to her other ear and Ruby started answering the question. “No, no, not you, Rubes,” she said quickly. Her head was starting to spin. She was going to pop every single balloon in the balloon arch and enjoy it.

“Who else are you talking to?” Ruby demanded. “He’s still in media. I just walked out to warn you.” “Is that Ruby?” David shouted, like he could scream loudly enough for his voice to be heard in St. Louis. It worked. Of course it did.

Ruby clicked her tongue impatiently and Merida was absolutely going to rip the carpet if she didn’t stop moving. “Isn’t David supposed to be working?” she asked. “I thought he switched shifts so that he could be at the Park and make sure you actually sat down at some point.” “What?” Emma yelled, frustration settling at the base of her spine when she realized she couldn’t throw her hands up the way she wanted to. She was holding two different phones. “Whose plan was that?” “I’ll give you one guess,” Merida muttered, flashing a slightly cautious smile Emma’s direction.

Ruby mumbled something again and David sounded like he was actually trying to swallow his laughter while Mary Margaret shouted, possible, encouragements from wherever they happened to be. Maybe they were in Bryant Park.

Maybe they knew about the balloon arch.

Emma opened her mouth – not sure who she was going to direct her question to or if, maybe, she should just walk to Pret herself and buy her own goddamn cranberry salad. Without the avocado. That part was gross.

The teenager behind the counter absolutely knew she didn’t get avocados on her salad. They probably had her photo up in the back room with explicit instructions not to put avocados on that crazy pregnant lady’s salad.

“She’s fine Scarlet, jeez, relax,” Merida growled and there was an edge in her voice that Emma didn’t entirely expect. Ruby cackled. Or possibly just started the rather quick descent into insanity that Emma was fairly certain began as soon as she had run onto the ice in South Korea.

MSG wouldn’t stop playing that clip. It had a questionable number of hits on several different YouTube uploads that Emma probably shouldn’t have looked up, but she was curious and maybe, in some perverse way, fascinated by the interest and David had told her that the subReddit had started some kind of board guessing what they were going to name their kid.

The subReddit was totally fucked up.

And Emma hadn’t looked at that board.

Or actually confirmed anything.

They hadn’t really decided on it – although Ruby had tried to stage that very awkward conversation a few weeks after the Olympics and then, again, just before the playoffs started and Killian had glared at her and, well, that was that.

There was no confirmation. There was no announcement. Emma wasn’t the famous one. There were just rumors and speculation and, God, that one Perez Hilton article like it was 2008 and Perez Hilton was still relevant or Killian was actually Tom Brady or something.

Which would probably mean Emma was Giselle in this muddled analogy she’d come up with, but she was fairly positive Giselle’s ankles had never swollen this much.

“Scarlet, jeez,” Merida continued, stopping mid-pace to glare at open air and Ruby was still laughing. David was trying to ask Emma questions.

She stood up abruptly, nearly knocking her chair back and, good, the chair deserved to be on the losing end of whatever it was they were, all, collectively staging a few hours before puck drop.

“What is he talking about?” Emma asked, staring at her assistant until Merida actually retreated a few steps. The phone in her left hand made noise and David was still mumbling under his breath. “God, no, David, not you. Will. Where is Will, Mer?” “In the hallway with me,” Ruby answered, almost immediately. Merida rolled her eyes towards the ceiling, looking like she was only just barely hanging on to her control. “Hey, Scarlet,” she continued, like any of this made sense and Emma resisted the urge to actually kick her chair.

Will shouted something unintelligible, what might have just been a string of increasingly impressive curses and what sounded like Cap’s a goddamn idiot and Ruby hummed in agreement.

“Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Emma shouted, jumping slightly like that was a good idea or would get anyone to actually acknowledge her.

Merida opened her mouth to reprimand her – jumping was probably on that list of things Emma isn’t supposed to do that Killian had definitely come up with at some point – but Emma just shook her head and she could hear David’s quiet sigh from, probably, somewhere on the island of Manhattan.

“Scarlet is worried about you,” Ruby explained, kicking at something that might have been Will’s shin if the not-quite-quiet yelp on the other phone was any indication. “Because, uh…” “Cap’s a goddamn fucking idiot,” Will finished. He made a noise when Ruby tried to disagree and Emma’s eyes darted towards Merida, glancing down when another phone found its way into her eye line and there was a Twitter feed on the screen.

“What is this?” Emma asked, shifting her shoulders again so she actually had a free hand. “Scarlet, if you’re going to keep making noises, you’ve got to at least try and turn them into actual words. I’ve got balloon arches to worry about, I can’t spend my day trying to translate your grunts.”

Will chuckled, mumbling under his breath to shove over, Lucas and the phone changed hands. “That was actually pretty funny, Em.” “Yeah, that’s been known to happen. What’s going on? C’mon, David sounds like he’s having a conniption on the other phone.” “Isn’t he supposed to be at work?”

“Why do you know that?” “If you don’t think Cap’s got David’s entire life scheduled to make sure you sit at some point during the game tonight, then you’ve been possessed by aliens or something.” “I’m not sure that even makes sense.” “Eh, I’m kind of distracted.” David was swearing in her left ear, a string of insults directed at some name Emma didn’t recognize, but she did hear internet cretins several times and Mary Margaret trying to quiet him. “By Killian being...how did you phrase it? A goddamn fucking idiot?” Emma asked and Will laughed again. “You know you’ve got to work on your insults. Does this have something to do with whatever Twitter thing I’m not actually looking at?” Will hissed in his breath and Emma wasn’t quite prepared for their sudden dive into serious. She was fairly certain it was anything except what it absolutely was.

“You really might want to look at this, boss,” Merida said, twisting her wrist slightly until Emma’s eyes fell back towards the phone screen.

The timestamp said it had been up for fifteen minutes.

There were several thousand retweets.

“Oh my God,” Emma breathed, met, almost immediately with another kick to an internal organ she didn’t realize she had until Matthew Jones developed a penchant for kung fu. “He...he actually said that?”

“We’ll go over media training again in the offseason, Em,” Ruby promised. She had to shout the words when Will refused to give up the phone and it sounded like she was actively trying to check him against the wall.

“How did this even happen?” “He was baited into it,” Will answered. “God, stop punching me, Lucas. I can’t think when you do that. And it wasn’t entirely his fault, Emma. There were a lot of questions about playing for a second straight Cup and history and then some guy from the Daily News asked what his motivation was since last year was about resigning and it was like someone flicked a switch and…”

“And we ended up with a thousand retweets,” Emma said.

“Plus a subReddit that is absolutely losing its mind,” David added, a note of something that sounded like a mix between anger and disbelief and the deep-rooted need to play older brother in his voice. “Hey, you eat yet?” Emma shook her head, well aware that the only person who could see her was her slightly overwhelmed assistant, still holding her phone out. “That sounds like a no,” Mary Margaret said, the first time she’d joined the conversation in vocal form, but Emma barely registered the words, too busy staring at Merida’s phone.

There were more retweets now. She wished she hadn’t knocked her chair over. There was nothing to dramatically sink into now.

Emma reached out, grabbing Merida’s phone without a word and she wasn’t really as upset as everyone seemed to assume she would have been.

Should have been? They hadn’t really talked about it. There hadn’t been a need. They’d been ignoring the rumors and the reports and there was a Cup on the line. Again. Win first. Plan...everything else later.

Except there was no way to really hide it anymore – even the oversized jersey she had on didn’t do much to hide the swell of her stomach and that guy behind the counter at Prett probably would have gone on the record to several different dailies about Emma’s cranberry salad consumption.

And, well, there were quotes now.

Emma’s eyes traced over the tweets again, like she was trying to will every single letter into every single corner of her mind and if she actually had a free hand, she probably would have rested it on her stomach.

Cap on his motivation for this run: It’s a personal thing. I’m not really playing for me. There’s bigger things than hockey here.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I've got a family here in New York and my fiancée and I...well, this Finals run has kind of been about that…

I guess I've just kind of been waiting for a run like this. Last year was incredible, don't get me wrong, but this is a lot bigger.

[Not] playing for me or the extension. This is about my future and my kid's future and leaving a mark on a sport that's changed my life.

“They kind of lost their shit after the kid part,” Will mumbled, jerking Emma’s attention away from Merida’s phone and whatever it was her heart was doing against her ribcage. She winced at another kick. “Wait, what was that? Are you ok?” “I’m fine, Scarlet,” Emma promised and it was the truth and she really just wanted that stupid cranberry salad. “The kid is just painfully aware of when he’s been discussed in the press.”

Will let out a strangled sound that might have been a laugh or just choking on a surplus of oxygen in some hallway in the Scottrade Center and David might have actually whooped on the other phone Emma forgot was still pressed up to her ear.

“David, don’t you have a job?” Emma asked. “Are crimes being left unsolved because you were worried about my reaction to the internet?”

He scoffed, but that was kind of an answer and Merida almost looked looked like she was breathing at a normal level again. “I took the whole day off,” he mumbled, sounding like he was admitting to one of those crimes he wasn’t solving and Emma’s laugh seemed to just bubble out of her.

God, she was an emotional, hormonal, still-hungry mess.

“Of course you did,” she said, leaning against the edge of her desk in an attempt to stop the dull ache in her back. It didn’t work. She almost didn’t mind.

She was happy and charmed and this absolutely was not the plan – there hadn’t been a plan – but her mind kept repeating those words she’d tried to will into every inch of her consciousness until it felt like a metronome for her heart and her kid’s kicks against her spleen and maybe they should start planning a wedding.

They were absolutely going to win. Again.

“Rubes, why are you in the hallway?” Emma asked, the question dawning on her suddenly. “Shouldn’t you be in there yelling at people?” “Ok, well, that’s kind of rude,” Ruby started, a noise that sounded like another elbow to Will’s side when he didn’t immediately give up the St. Louis phone. “And Scarlet already told you, he walked right into it. I still can’t quite believe it actually happened. Cap just kind of started talking and said the word kid out loud, like that was something we’d decided was ok and, well, I knew it was going to be everywhere and I wanted to make sure you had some kind of warning.” “So you called to apologize?” “Because apparently all my media training has not sunk in at all.” “And I’m a much better mini-Jones defender than Lucas is,” Will added, yelping when Ruby smacked at his shoulder. “God, Lucas, you’re going to bruise me before I even get on the ice. You really didn’t eat though, Em? Cap’s going to murder me when he finds out.” “Or Locksley,” Ruby corrected and Will hummed in agreement. “That was his job.” “I’m sorry, what?” Emma asked and Mary Margaret actually laughed, apparently gifted with the power of super sonic hearing.

“Emma, for real?” Mary Margaret asked, disbelief in the question and they all might have been on speaker for how easily it was to hear each other. Will was laughing again. “There was a whole list of things. There has been since the Olympics. Every road trip. And it’s not because he doesn’t think you can't feed yourself, although you do get slightly single-minded...it’s because he is so excited. That’s why he stumbled into the questions today. He’s...like bursting with it. It’s obvious every single time he glances your direction.”

Her heart was going to explode.

Or maybe she was going to cry.

They were strangely similar feelings.

And Emma was half a second away from just hanging up on all the phones she was still inexplicably holding and calling Killian when she heard a commotion on the St. Louis side of the conversation and her heart, suddenly, was threatening to beat its way out of her chest.

“Give me the goddamn phone,” Killian said, the words perfectly clear even when it was obvious he was standing up and Ruby mumbled yeah, Cap, God, calm down under her breath.

There was a shuffling in St. Louis and Emma was dimly aware of Merida grabbing the New York phone away from her shoulder, muttering something to David and Mary Margaret that sounded a hell of a lot like the location of the goddamn balloon arch.

She didn’t listen.

She was too focused on her heart and the grapefruit and the way Killian seemed to just sigh “Swan” into the phone as soon as it was in his hand.

“Hey,” Emma said, the smile easy and the kick immediate and her hand dropped to her side quickly. “Are you ok?” “Are you? Did you eat?”

“Yes and no.” “Swan.” “I’ve got balloon arches to worry about. And the precinct is being just, like, one collectively large dick about security because they think there’s going to be a riot if you guys win or something, like we didn’t do this last year too and…” “Swan,” Killian repeated and she could barely hear footsteps making their way back down the hallway. She snapped her jaw shut, glancing towards Merida who just nodded and mouthed cranberries at her before jogging out of the office.

“The whole battalion rallied, Cap,” Emma said, smiling when she bent down to turn her chair upright. “They were all very worried I was going to have some sort of pregnancy-induced mental breakdown over a string of tweets.” He didn’t say anything immediately and Emma’s heart seemed to pick up at that, her pulse pounding in between her ears and possibly under the hand that still hadn’t left her stomach. “Did you know that the first arena the Blues played in was actually just called The Arena?” she asked and Killian laughed softly, several thousand miles and one not-quite disastrous pre-game press conference away.

“Not very creative,” he said and she didn’t need to be next to him to know his hand was in his hair and he’d absolutely sat down at some point, one leg stretched out in front of him.

“Right? Where’s the fun in that?” “Was that a joke, Swan?” “A poor attempt, but only because I’m kind of exhausted.” Killian sighed and the hand probably moved or tugged on the back of his hair and Emma scowled at her office wall. “That is not some kind of secret message,” she continued. “That is just...your kid practicing breakaways or something.”

He laughed again and the sound seemed to work its way down Emma’s spine and into her soul or something equally absurd and he’d said my kid during a press conference. She was probably going to think about that all night.

“I don’t know how any of this happened,” Killian muttered.

“The kid? You were there, I think.” “That was another very bad joke, Swan.” “That was funny,” she argued, fingers finding their way back to her ring and Killian probably rolled his eyes. “C’mon, admit it, that was definitely funny.” “I’m not acknowledging bad jokes, love and you know that’s not really what I meant.” He took another deep breath, huffing it out like he’d been holding it for days or, possibly, since a pre-game presser that had fallen completely off the rails and there was probably a story to go along with the tweets now and Emma was almost surprised that the group text on her phone hadn’t just dissolved into both Vanklad sisters screaming things.

She had no idea where Merida put her phone.

“Yeah, I know,” Emma said. “And I really am going to eat. Mer went to get that one salad from Pret, so stand down on whoever you were supposed to kill because they didn’t remind me to eat. There are a couple other things going on here, you know, Cap.”

“I’m fairly positive I don’t care about any of those things.” “Sap.” “Honest.” “And suddenly absolutely horrible at answering questions,” Emma muttered, leaning back until her hair fanned over the top of her chair and there was a dull buzz coming from some corner of the office.

The Vankalds had arrived – via text message.

“Lucas is going to kill me,” Killian sighed. “I thought her eyes were going to actually fall out of her head as soon as the words were out of my mouth.” “A lovely picture.” “Ah, well, Scarlet and Locksley both threatened to check me into several different boards in the middle of the presser, so, there’s apparently some kind of line.”

“Everyone on this team needs to relax. Did El and Anna call yet?” Killian hummed. “I have no doubt, but my phone is in my locker and will stay there, possibly, for the rest of time. I’m thinking I’ll just get a new phone when I get home. And only give you the number. Everyone else can...whatever.” “Eloquent,” Emma grinned, glancing up when Merida appeared out of thin air with a salad in one hand and lemonade in the other. “Also the food is here, so cross that off the list of worries everyone knows you made.” “That was a more metaphorical list than anything. It’s not like I wrote it all down.” “Just threatened teammates a few hours before you could clinch a second straight Cup and make history and…” “Confirm reports that we’re having a kid without meaning to,” Killian finished, sighing again and Emma wished Merida would teach her how to teleport so she could get to St. Louis and back before the balloon arch issue evolved into a complete debacle. “And I’m glad you’re eating. I was kind of worried about that.” “Kind of?” “Incredibly. Absolutely. Completely. Any of those work?” “Those are all pretty good, actually,” Emma mumbled through a mouthful of salad and Merida had absolutely picked the avocado off because there was still a hint of gross and if Scarlet was determined to defend her honor maybe he could beat up on the kid at Pret.

She’d clearly lost her mind.

“I’m sorry, Swan,” Killian said after a few moments of silence and every letter felt strained. She narrowed her eyes, glaring at the wall again like any of this was a problem and Mary Margaret was right.

Mary Margaret was always right.

“For what, exactly?” Emma asked, downing half the lemonade in four gulps and stabbing her fork into the salad until it could stand up on its own.

Killian took another deep breath, sighing it out with the kind of drama that did not belong in a playoff run or a season that had been so close to perfect Emma kept waiting to wake up.

She didn’t.

They kept winning.

That was some kind of metaphor.

“I don’t...I have no idea how that happened. The guy asked about what this whole run meant and there were dates thrown around and something about history and it was like my brain just dissolved into the absolute truth and Locksley kept mumbling shut up and Scarlet kept trying to elbow me in the side without anyone seeing, but everyone saw and then Lucas did that thing with her eyes and, suddenly, I realized I’d said my kid and it was...every single word of that was true, Emma, but we hadn’t actually decided and…” “Shut up,” she interrupted and Killian sounded like he was choking. “Just...agh, shut up for two seconds and stop apologizing for being a giant sap and just…” They were horrible at finishing sentences.

They should probably finish that. Parents finished sentences. My kid. Jeez.

Emma slumped in the chair – as much as she was able, digging her heel into the carpet and her fork was still standing up, perfectly vertical in a mound of salad that she couldn’t possibly be expected to eat when she was feeling every single human emotion at once.

“Did they take the avocados off your salad?” Killian asked softly and Emma might have laughed or just dissolved and she should probably screenshot those tweets.

Anna probably had.

They’d probably end up framed in the brownstone.

“How could you possibly know that?” Emma countered.

He scoffed, skate guard sounding impossibly loud when he tugged his leg back up and she only just realized he’d called her Emma.

That felt like cheating. Skating into the crease. Or an offsides that didn’t get called. Or something. There’d probably be a review on that.

She had definitely lost her mind.

And forgotten about the balloon arch entirely.

“Swan,” Killian muttered, groaning slightly when he stood back up. “Give me a little credit here, love. I think you’ve scared that poor kid behind the counter for life.” Emma made a face. At the wall. They should have had this conversation on FaceTime, if only so she could actually see Killian’s face and maybe stay on some kind of track in this moment that seemed questionably focused on the well-being of Pret employees. “Don’t poor kid that teenager, Killian,” she argued. “They don’t even take orders now. You press buttons on a machine and they ignore my no avocados caveat completely nine times out of ten. Mer definitely took avocados off this salad.” He must have nodded because she could hear something that sounded decidedly like playoff scruff scraping against the phone and that almost felt normal and not apologetic. “You called me Emma,” she added, squeezing one eye closed when it sounded like an accusation and the whiplash of this conversation was exhausting.

She hoped Matthew Jones stopped practicing breakaways later that night. There’d be more work if they won. She really wanted to sleep.

They were definitely going to win.

“Yeah,” Killian admitted. “It felt like a kind of big moment type of thing.” “There’s probably eighty-seven stories out there now. I think David was trying to fight the internet before. Or figure out how to arrest the entire subReddit.” “That part wasn’t actually because of me. He’s just supposed to make sure you sit down at least six times after puck drop.” “Seems like an arbitrary number.” “At least twice a period for five minutes.” “Of game time?” “No, David claimed that was too much math to try and figure out. He was very serious about using the timer on his phone though.” Emma rolled her eyes, but every single human emotion had, at some point, evolved into just plain old happiness and she didn’t care about the headlines or the stories or even the quotes if their kid was the reason behind some sort of historic Stanley Cup victory.

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me at all,” she said. “He tried to get me to come uptown yesterday, but Reese’s was scandalized at even the idea of me sleeping on anything except an enormous bed, so that got shut down pretty quickly.” Killian chuckled, but there was still a note of something in the sound and Emma was standing before she even realized she’d decided, mumbling hold on and stalking across her office to try and find her phone. It was behind a box of signed merch that, apparently, hadn’t made it to Bryant Park yet.

“God damn,” she groaned, pushing the box out of the way and swiping her thumb across the phone screen. There were twenty-four text messages in the group chat.

She didn’t read any of them, just clicked on the camera and ignored the bags under her eyes and whatever it was that one piece of hair was doing, clicking on buttons before her mind could actually catch up. “You have to delete that later because that’s Ruby’s phone and she probably doesn’t want pictures of me in your jersey,” Emma said, rushing over the words and Killian exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for the entire conversation.

“Swan,” he breathed and maybe she was the one blushing now and maybe she should sit down again because her knees suddenly felt a bit more wobbly than usual.

“I’m happy,” Emma said, trying to infuse every bit of honesty and meaning and important into two words. “And excited and slightly terrified and I wish I was in St. Louis because we’re going to win again and I know we didn’t really talk about confirmation or a plan, but as far as either one of those things go, just stumbling your way through an explanation of why you’re playing works pretty well.” “There was no stumbling involved, love.” “No?” “No,” Killian said. Someone was shouting his name at the other end of the hallway, but he didn’t take a step. Or, at least, it didn’t sound that way. “I am absolutely playing for our kid. And I am also excited and slightly terrified and happier than I can ever remember being.” She sniffled. Of course. “Do not point out that I am crying,” Emma mumbled, dragging a knuckle underneath her eye and she was fairly positive she heard his answering smile. “As the photographic evidence proves, Cap, we weren’t going to be able to keep this one under some sort of metaphorical hat for much longer. No matter what Ruby and Scarlet may believe.” “They’re taking their roles very seriously.” “I know they are. So you are.” “I think we both are, Swan,” he said softly and she couldn’t seem to stop crying, but our kid sounded even better than my kid and Emma just wanted to sleep through the night again and organize another Stanley Cup parade and then, probably, live happily ever after or something. “And I slept like shit last night. I thought Locksley was actually going to smother me with his pillow at one point.” “Go win a Cup and come home then.” He was smiling. She was positive. “Fairly simple marching orders, General. Anything else besides just generic winning?” “Nah. A win works. We don’t need Mattie Jones picking up any other pointers on new ways to destroy my organs with fancy on-ice moves.”

There was another Jones, seriously, get the fuck in this locker room and Emma dropped back into her chair, head thrown back and her whole body shaking with laughter and Matthew Jones seemed to pick up on that as well.

“You probably don’t need to worry about Locksley killing you later, Arthur’s going to do it in the middle of the hallway,” Emma muttered. “You better go or you’re going to get fined again and the website claimed we’re supposed to be starting some kind of savings account at this point.” “Because the cost of raising a kid is nearly $226,000.” “Why do you know that off the top of your head?” “I read. I’ve got...time.” “When you’re not sleeping?” Killian hummed, a noncommittal sound and someone was sprinting down the hallway, stopping close enough to him that he mumbled a string of curses at the person Emma could only imagine was Ariel. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there in five seconds,” Killian muttered, swatting at something. “My hand is fine, Red. Go talk to Scarlet about that bruise on his thigh.” “Is that from that blocked shot here?” Emma asked and Merida was back in the doorway, tapping a finger on a watch she wasn’t actually wearing and they were all going to get fined.

“He’s fine,” Killian promised. “And why are you quoting the site, Swan? How much not sleeping is not sleeping?” “That’s a convoluted sentence. And you really need to go get dressed.” “I’m, at least, three quarters of the way there. Tell Matt Jones to stop beating up on your organs, Swan. Two minutes for roughing.” Emma groaned, but the muscles in her cheeks were starting to ache from overuse. “Look who’s making bad jokes now. I retract my previous marching orders. We would both like a goal. Also, in this scenario do I outrank you?” “Well, there are no generals on hockey teams,” Killian laughed and Arthur sounded like he was dissolving into hysterics at the other end of the hall. “But a goal seems doable, so I guess in the grand scheme, yeah. Also you said we.” “As long as he’s kicking my internal organs, I get to claim the kid as part of the demands too. Plus, that website was totally right. He totally knows it’s you. There are flips and kicks and slashes every time you talk, which seems like playing favorites, but whatever.” She thought Arthur had walked down the hall, grabbed the phone and crushed it one hand. There wasn’t a single sound in St. Louis. She couldn’t even hear Killian breathing, let alone respond and Emma widened her eyes when she waited for an answer.

“Killian,” Emma said slowly and his breath hitched. “You ok?” He must have nodded again, but that still wasn’t an actual answer and she tried to reign in her impatience. “Is that….” he started and Emma was an idiot. She was going to start crying again. “He really does that?” “Yeah,” she said. “Like clockwork.” He exhaled again and no one was shouting for him anymore. “Hey, Mattie,” Killian muttered, softly enough that Emma could barely hear him. “Could you stop slashing your mom? Like, at least, for the night? She’s got stuff to do and I know she hasn’t actually eaten that salad Merida brought her. So if you could just give her a couple hours to figure out balloon arches, that’d be great. Plus you don’t want those penalty minutes.” Matthew Jones kicked in response. Hard.

And Emma had given up even trying to tempering whatever hormones were in control of her entire being. Merida looked a little glossy-eyed too.

“Sap,” Emma mumbled again, but Killian just laughed and maybe she didn’t really have to wait for happily ever after. “And you’re some kind of weird soothsayer. We should forget this whole hockey thing, just parade you around the country and let you predict people’s eating habits.”

“I think that’s just your eating habits, love,” Killian countered and, well, that was probably true. “Eat the cranberries, please. And sit down at least twice a period. I’m going to skate like shit otherwise.” “Oh, that’s cheating. I can’t be held responsible for your skating habits.” “I’m pulling out all the stops here, Swan.” “Yeah, I don’t think you have to worry about that. Between Reese’s and David, it’s a wonder I’m not just working in some kind of bubble-wrap suit at this point. I will sit down three times a period if you can promise me a goal.”

“But, like, a real chair. Not one of those terrifying things that they have in the Park.” “Do you hear yourself?” Emma asked. “You are critiquing chairs.” “Emma.” “Killian.” “Boss,” Merida cut in, a pained expression on her face and Emma would probably have to buy her assistant several somethings to make up for the insanity that had been pregnancy and playoffs. “We’ve really got to go or we’re going to hit traffic up Broadway.” Emma nodded, tugging on the ends of her jersey when she stood up. “A goal, Jones. And a Cup. Mostly a Cup. I don’t want to see any bad headlines. Only celebratory ones that Mrs. V can frame downstairs.”

“That’s fair,” Killian said. “And I’ve got every intention of ignoring every single headline from here on out, but I’ll see what I can do about winning.” “Good. We love you.”

He was smiling. She knew it. They were going to win.

“I love both of you too,” he said. “More than anything.”

David brought a chair. And, really, Emma shouldn’t have been surprised because of course David brought a chair, but she wasn’t entirely ready for him to actually follow her around Bryant Park with it, muttering statistics that he’d never admit to actually looking up, only pausing long enough to get bottles of Powerade from Mary Margaret because, as he put it, you have to stay hydrated, Emma, it’s humid out.

Mary Margaret took pictures of it all.

And that included Emma kicking the chair and David’s scandalized face and Mrs. Vankald’s slightly stunned face because Mrs. Vankald had stayed in the city and brought Emma cookies, actual cookies,  like she’d just gotten an A on a term paper instead of planned a Stanley Cup Finals event, and then offered to let her stay in the brownstone that night if she wanted.

Emma absolutely was not prepared for that.

She probably should have been.

“I told Anna and Elsa not to yell at him too much,” Mrs. V said, just a few minutes left on the clock and Killian had scored in the second period and Mary Margaret had taken a picture of Emma’s reaction.

Emma blinked, jerking her head to the left and Mrs. V was smiling. Beaming. God, the whole lot of them were emotional maelstroms. The Rangers were winning.

“It’s because he’s excited,” Mrs. V continued, reaching out to squeeze Emma’s hand. “This is…” She took a deep breath, blinking a few times before she started talking again and St. Louis had pulled John Blues or whatever his name actually was out of net. “He’s waited a long time for this. A family. And something bigger than the game and I am so happy for both of you.”

Mrs. V didn’t wait for a response before she was hugging Emma and Mary Margaret was still taking pictures and someone yelled when the buzzer went off in St. Louis. It might have been Emma. She wasn’t really sure.

They’d won.

Again.

“Oh my God,” Emma breathed, mostly into Mrs. V’s shoulder and that just sparked an even tighter hug and more shutter clicks and several kicks to a variety of organs when it sounded as if every person in Bryant Park started jumping up and down at the same time.

That might have just been David.

And eventually Mrs. V let go of her and Mary Margaret stopped taking pictures, but only long enough to announce we’re coming home with you and, well, that was that and Emma was on some kind of emotional high that she was sure would, eventually, wear off. She kind of wanted David and Mary Margaret there.

Killian called from the locker room and Scarlet asked if Emma had eaten again and Robin wanted to know if she’d actually sat down at any point, Roland shouting in the background and Henry asking to lift the Cup and Emma’s cheeks were still a bit sore by the time all of them got back uptown.

She didn’t even bother taking her jersey off when she collapsed on the bed, Mary Margaret and David camped out on a small mountain of blankets in the living room.

She thought she was dreaming at first – David’s voice drifting down the hallway and Mary Margaret asking questions when it sounded like the front door swung open. Emma pushed out of bed, grabbing a blanket and knocking several pillows on the floor as she padded towards what sounded like an argument.

She dropped the blanket.

“Killian,” Emma muttered and he didn’t even bother saying anything, just dropped his bag on the floor and pushed past David and Mary Margaret and his left hand landed on her stomach when he tugged her towards him.

One of them probably kissed the other one first, but it didn’t really feel that way and she wasn’t about to argue specifics when he was there and they’d won and he wasn’t supposed to leave St. Louis until the next morning.

There was a schedule. She’d seen it.

Matt Jones kicked his dad’s hand. Hard. Killian practically jumped back, eyes wide and he hadn’t even put a tie on. He was still wearing a Stanley Cup champions shirt.

“Are you still wearing my jersey, Swan?” he asked, just a bit breathless and Mary Margaret was already starting to fold up the blankets on the floor.

Emma shook her head, trying to make sure she was actually awake and she only realized she was gripping his shirt like a vice when Killian winced. Mary Margaret mumbled something about leaving and call us...later and Emma didn’t notice when she and David walked out of the apartment.

“How...how are you here?” Emma asked, tugging on championship merch. “You’re not supposed to be here.” Killian grinned at her, ducking his head to brush his lips across hers quickly as his thumb moved across her side. “Yeah, I didn’t really care about that,” he said. “I had places to be.” “Yeah? Wait, did Reese’s and David leave? Is that what David was yelling about?” “He was told to be more quiet by both me and Mary Margaret, but I wasn’t really interested in explaining myself when I used my own key in my own apartment.” Emma laughed, head falling against Killian’s shoulder and he couldn’t seem to stop tracing his hands over every inch of her, moving across her shoulders and down her back and he was much better at working out that knot at the base of her spine than she was. “Oh, shit, yeah, right there,” Emma mumbled. “God, that feels good.” “Did you sit down at all, Swan?” “David took his job very seriously. He brought a chair.” “He mentioned he was thinking about doing that. Locksley offered to give him one, but, apparently he just had one?” Emma nodded, not even objecting when Killian directed her back towards the hallway, toeing out of his shoes and she was, suddenly, exhausted and determined to sleep and he’d come home early.

“They brought chairs for the Pens game last year too,” Emma muttered, eyelids fluttering when Killian pressed his fingers into the small of her back again. “God, you can’t do that, we’re supposed to be celebrating or something. You guys made history. They’ll probably have some kind of exhibit in the Hall of Fame.”

“You know I’ve never actually been to the Hall of Fame.”

Emma didn’t actually remember laying down or Killian, more or less, collapsing on the other side of the bed across from her, but she pulled her head up to stare at him speculatively and the slightly nervous smile on his face. “For real?” she asked and he didn’t really nod, just moved his eyebrows and let his hand drift across the front of her jersey again and they were going to fall asleep on top of the blankets.

“For real,” he echoed, inching forward until their legs were twisted together and he probably knew Mrs. V offered to let her stay in the brownstone. “Seemed kind of self indulgent. And we only played in Toronto a couple of times before Liam got hurt. He wanted to go to some haunted lighthouse instead.” “Spooky.” He kissed her and she could feel the smile and hear the laugh and he came home for them – a few hours after history. “And boring as all hell, honestly,” Killian muttered. “There were no ghosts, just Scarlet making ghost-type noises and infuriating Liam and the tour guide.” Emma made some kind of noise that might have been an actual giggle, burrowing against Killian’s chest and a small pile of pillows. “You want to go?” she asked.

“Where?” “The Hall of Fame. I mean, not now, obviously, but, you know, eventually. We can carry on some kind of Jones family tradition and make sure Mattie’s a trivia savant too.”

He didn’t answer her immediately, just gaped at her like he was trying to make sure that had really just happened. “Yeah,” Killian said eventually, but it came out like a whisper and a hope and playing for my kid and Emma bit her lip so she didn’t actually dissolve into hormones again. “I would...I would love that, Swan.”

“Deal.” Matt kicked Killian’s hand and his eyes widened again, the smile on his face was probably enough to get them to Toronto if Merida ever explained the secrets of teleportation to them. “Hey, kid,” Killian said, twisting the blankets underneath him as he moved level to Emma’s stomach and the hormones won when he kissed right where his lips landed. “We won again.” He kept muttering words against her, fingers tracing absentmindedly over her hip and her back and Emma didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until she woke up.

And there were, as promised, headlines – analysis of game play and legacy and history and Emma didn’t care about any of them except one story in the Daily News sports section, three pages inside with a headline that left her blinking more than the probable human average.

A Cup and a Kid: Cap Lifts Blueshirts to NHL Royalty

She never really read the whole story, just skimmed until she found the post-game quite and the page didn’t quite tear perfectly when Emma ripped the article out of the goddamn newspaper.

“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs to my career,” Jones said after the Rangers clinched their second-straight Cup on Thursday night. “But this is as good as it’s ever been and it’s got nothing to do with the ice. I got engaged during the Olympics and my fiancée and I are expecting our first kid and it’s…”

Jones took a deep breath before continuing, a wry smile on his face when he glanced around the locker room, gaze flitting over teammates and bottles of champagne and someone pressed a championship t-shirt into his hands.

“They’ve changed everything, you know?” he asked, shrugging and taking a swig of champagne when Scarlet dropped next to him in front of his visitor’s locker. “It’s all worth it now.”

That article never got framed in the brownstone basement. It sat on Emma's desk instead, flanked, eventually, by family photos and an overpriced picture in front of the hockey Hall of Fame.

#cs ff #captain swan #cs #captain swan ff #cs fic #blue line one shots #killian jones has officially lost his chill #is basically the moral of the story

[amychan-2264]

Best Coding Class for Adult Beginners in Hong Kong

What is the Best Coding Class in Hong Kong? A Quick Guide

“Learning to code” seems to be the recent talk of the town, talents of different sectors have shown interest in getting to know this complicated yet basic language even they might have no background at all. Why should you learn to code? What is the best way to learn coding as a beginner? Preface is ready to give you a comprehensive explanation!

How coding skills can boost your career?

Even your job is plainly irrelevant to software development, at least for now, coding can still further your career:

1. Be digitally literate

Every company has embraced and used technology. That explains why getting buddy-buddy with computers is important - if you know how to communicate with these ice-cold machines, you must be able to identify and use them confidently, creatively and critically so as to meet the challenges in today’s digital society.

2. Expand your career prospect

While technology has become an increasingly significant portion of our daily life, not only is coding a valuable asset to those technical roles, other professionals such as marketers and administrators can also gain a competitive edge from familiarizing yourself with this intercommunication process!

3. Great earning potential

Obviously, the most discussed draw of learning how to code is the earning potential. According to a report released by US News in 2019, the median annual salary of computer programmers was nearly $90,000 USD. If you work in metropolitan areas, the wages were far more - about 50% higher than the average.

4. Strengthen critical thinking skills

Steve Jobs once said that, “Everyone should learn how to code, it teaches you how to think.”

In the world of coding, things are not black and white, evaluating the issues from different angles may come up with multiple “right” answers. This variability can train your mindset to be open to new ideas and stay flexible.

5. Improve your social life

Instead of using old-fashioned texts and drawings, with coding skills, you can share your thoughts with the entire world with interactive applications and websites. You can even create a platform for people who share similar interests and beliefs to get together. The huge potential provides you with a new outlet to connect with friends all around the globe.

Source: Medium, Quacquarelli Symonds Limited

Further Reading: Why Coding Is Important?: 10 Reasons Why You Should Learn To Code

How can I start learning Coding from zero?

You will see hundreds of pages simply by googling “how to code”. Don’t know which route works best for you? Preface has summarized the most mentioned methods for your easy reference.

Online Resources

If you have literally no knowledge base at all, it would be a good idea to get a feel for it through online courses.

You can visit Codecademy, Udemy, edX for some free tutorials before jumping in with both feet. These websites offer structured curriculum including videos, readings and quizzes, so if you first start to learn, this could be a great opportunity for you to experiment whether you really want to give it a real go.

Coding Class

If you decide to dive deeper into learning coding, you need a dedicated instructor to make sure you are on the right track. A professional mentor can prevent you from being overwhelmed by thousands and thousands of learning materials over the web, moreover, to save you from constant self-doubt since they can give you honest pointers and ignite your spark.

Real world applications of coding skills

Regardless of your specialization, coding opens up new areas of opportunity in your career.

Data Science in Business

Thanks to the wide affordability of internet access, the target audience can be easily monitored and tracked since they must leave digital footprints on different channels.

However, deriving actionable insights from data is not that simple, that’s how data science comes in handy. Marketers equipped with relevant knowledge are capable of analyzing the numbers from the webs, smartphones, sensors and other sources, thus, gaining a deep understanding of the customers and identifying their actual needs in a more structured way.

Of course, marketing is just an example, the skill also plays an important role in other fields, including but not limited to hospitality, event planning, human resources, finance and management.

Further Reading: An ultimate guide to data science in 2021

Source: Monocubed, BoTree Technologies

Python in Business

As one of the most popular programming languages across the globe, Python remains a valuable asset no matter if you are an engineer or not. Can you link up this programming language with UI design? As a matter of fact, learning Python helps designers to present more unique, user-friendly and intuitive graphics. The clinical professionals have also used Python-based artificial intelligence to conduct more accurate diagnosis.

Coding course and class for adult beginners

1. All-in-one: Data Science and Python

Master the fundamentals of data science with Python basics alongside an elite instruction team in just 80 hours. The course goes over the entire data science process, including APIs, matrix factorization and cross-validation methods. If you are more interested in machine learning and algorithms for predictive analysis, this course also covers these advanced concepts with a focus on practical business applications.

2. From Newbie to Full Stack Web Developer

The Web Developer course is a beginner-friendly course which takes a step by step teaching approach to give learners a solid foundation in both front-end (HTML & CSS) and backend (Python in Django) development. This specialization is structured as 5 modules, each with comprehensive exercises, quizzes and assignments. The final project requires students to complete their own web product using APIs and various background jobs, so it can be guaranteed that students can firmly understand how to apply programming techniques to various actual use cases.

3. Learn How to Code with Disney

Realizing adult learners face their own set of difficulties, Disney has used quite an unique approach to help the grown-ups to study, practice and retain the information. The online class will cover 4 essential coding concepts namely the HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Processing within 125 lessons, each lasts for 30 minutes. Students can start creating a website, game and media art completely from scratch. If you often get bored of the regular teaching style, the Disney characters might be your ideal study partners to keep your motivation.

Original Article: https://www.preface.ai/blog/others/coding-class-for-adults

[dramataste9]

Search Engines Pixel 4 And Pixel 4 Xl Tips

BlackBerry and HTC will be two big names on the tips of the users with regards to selecting PDA and smartphone gadgets. So, whether you've had the telephone since release, like me, or you merely first got it for Christmas, listed below are 20 Pixel 2 camera tips and tricks to greatly help take your mobile pictures to another level. But this data is frequently sensitive business or personal information, and while it really is beneficial to have so much info at your fingertips, it also leaves the user open to mobile security threats. Fortunately for you, but you can also access detailed background information about a person too. Moreover, there are lots of cellphones that use various types of screens with all of their features. Have a look at our easy suggestions and create amazing abstract photography together with your smartphone. Well, assuming you have made the final decision and so are perfectly sure that this is the right time that you should buy your first ever used smartphone, in that case they are 14 useful tips that could be your guidance every time you're planning to buy used smartphones in the future. You've sat down, opened the field, Okay, we've established just how useful location-based augmented actuality apps could be. Now, it is time to share some tips that may help you develop high-quality apps. And in accordance with a 2015 Pew Study Center study, IPhone 8 Guide, Launching, News, User Guide, Handbook, Tutorial, Tips and Tricks, so if Apple abide by its calendar, we're able to see the new iPhone on the same time one year from now. We even have the privilege of posting our recommendations + tricks with The TODAY Exhibit, CNN, newspapers and magazines around the country, and well known - regular moms and dads who quit us at PTA meetings and have us how old kids need to be to acquire a smartphone, and whether they really need to panic about Snapchat. Please note these tips will not be on the iOS variation you have installed on your iPhone or iPad. If you're one of the numerous consumers who've purchased one of these brilliant devices, you then have a superior quality DSLR alternative right at your fingertips. Im a technolgy site writer, i provide incredibly usefull details aboy tech, video games, smartphone, tips & methods on my internet site Tech vech pro. Next on our list of iPhone tips and tricks will save you considerable time using the calculator. You may also donate unwanted cellphones. These tips can help you break free of the habit and far better balance your daily life, online and off. These tips should receive your smartphone running swiftly and make your battery power last longer. Smartphone security ideas by Wired, PC Mag, This is among the easiest, yet most powerful iPhone photography tips you can learn. Limit your child's cellphone use during certain times, for example, dinner, homework, household and sleep time. While rooting an Google android smartphone or tablet gives the user total control on what these devices can and can't do, and help restore buy to storage chaos, here are a few simple suggestions that don't require rooting and will keep your handset running smoothly. PinoyTechSaga blogs tech news and tips, game news and reviews, smartphones specs, PH telecom promos, KDrama leisure reviews and so on. Check out these quick and easy tips for using the Google Pixel 3 for photography. These tips and tricks will make your Smartphone even more efficient and make your daily life more easy. It is a simple set of tips and tricks regarding Android Development which I have gathered from several sources. And run down many guidelines for iOS 14. But, when an individual wants a Cellphone, whether or not this is a regular one or a complex SmartPhone, it's the Cellular Carrier who eats the majority of the cost of the phone. The terms used in this ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY have exactly the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, that is accessible at Hints And Hidden Tips For Smartphone unless usually defined in this ONLINE PRIVACY POLICY. We run through fingerprint reader setup and tips, how to use both navigation and show gestures, finding everything in the surveillance camera, which display settings to utilize, the significance of the quick settings panel, and more. While that means that most software-based tips are general across all of Apple's iOS products, there are several things that specifically take advantage of the SE's smaller footprint. Shortcuts will allow you to trigger any command from any other iOS device like an Apple Watch, and it will also have the ability to provide more info for motorsports fans, superstar facts, cooking tips and support with translations when visiting abroad. Smartphone security tips for your browser often mention the many risks connected with surfing the web on your phone. Regardless of the kind of business you have, it's important that you and every person in your staff observe these basic telephone etiquette tips for professionals all the time. That being said, we have put a listing of Fortnite Mobile guidelines to help you win the battles in no time. Fortunately, photographer Donny Tsang is usually sharing his tips for styling and editing foodstuff photography on a telephone using two no cost apps. Iphone tips for these areas of the iPhone have become useful especially the battery power savings tips. You certainly do not need to know special stuff for smartphones, you can utilize all the tips also for photography in general. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that you need to stop using gadgets, like your cellphone, at the very least half an hour before bedtime. If you are worried about cellular phone use, follow the hints below. Read on for the tips on the best ways to disinfect your phone also to eliminate fingerprint smudges,

#android #iphone