#i posted the thing about the banner at 1:46 am

[4brussels]

holy shit that took way longer than it should have

i mean this looks cool and all but

i stayed up until like 5:40 am yesterday and was like "yeah im not gonna do that toni-"

god damn it

#once again im gonna tag it as #tumblr #i posted the thing about the banner at 1:46 am #it is now 6:03 as i am typing this good god i need sleep #time to not awaken until the afternoon #jesus fucking christ on a balls #tee-gan

[btstulip]

Help! My brain is melting!

Okay... so first, I'll start with the wild ride that has been the BTS Monochrome pop up announcement:

The MNCRLogistics website was a super fun way to announce the popup (Shout out to all the smart people that figured this stuff out so I didn't have to!), but I am sure that is not all we are getting. This is building up to something bigger, and I am pretty sure it's related to HYYH and likely the K-drama releasing at the end of the month. I have my theories, but mostly they are fun guesses and I won't get into that now.

My big burning question and reason my brain is melting is over Exception @ 7fictionation on twitter.

Before I get into this, there is a lot of questions and hints and analysis out there over both the official content and what ever the Exception content is. It's looking like Bighit has been teasing this for years and even Tae has a picture on Instagram from 2021 of the same photoshoot released by Monochrome Logistics. I am not going to get into all of it because it's too much, but it's definitely fun if you feel like going down the rabbit hole.

Back to Exception @ 7fictionation. This account is definitely piggy backing off of the Monochrome Logistics content. They have been releasing videos, puzzles and streaming playlists as a countdown to something. The big controversy is over this is legit content. Exception @ 7fictionation follows only three accounts, 2 official BTS and 1 locked account that appears to be related to the @ 7fictionation. The official sites do not follow them back, this is one reason why people this this is a fan account and not legit and it is a good point. However, I am not convinced.

A couple of key things stand out to me that are feeding my delulu:

The account was created in December 2023 (with nothing posted until 4/16/24) and the locked @ 7fn_characters joined in April 2023. With Bighit obviously planning this stuff way back, it seems like any spin off twitter accounts would have been created in advance.

Their first post is a video that teases at HYYH content. Obviously the video and music hint at this, but the 8 25 25 8 is code for HYYH. You can see the video here: https://twitter.com/7fictionation/status/1780121445504319961?s=46

The biggest reason I think this is legit is because it's not pointing directly at the #MNCR_Logistics stuff, it's hinting at something else. If this were a fan account trying to piggyback on the official announcements, it doesn't make sense to be bringing in so much new content. It would make a stronger link to copy the messaging from MNCR_Logistics if this was a fan account trying to look legit.

Puzzles that decode to say: Eternal Dream (banner numbers, same code used in MNCR_Logistics barcode on shipping invoice), Eternal Journey (letter code post), and Monochromatic Future (international morse code post). These are similar to some of the codes from MNCR_Logistics, but seem to add to the messaging, not copy.

Seems to be an emphasis on new key words: "Exception" and "Improve". "Monochrome" is barely used outside reposting BTS_official posts.

And to me, one of the most suspicious pieces of the puzzle is the # use. If you are a fan account trying to piggyback off the popularity of official content, why on earth would you use a completely unheard of, unconnected # that isn't trending to promote your posts?!? #7FN_Excp is all over this account. It is the ONLY # used in their posts. They NEVER use #BTS #MONOCHROME #MNCR or #MNCR_Logistics (the obvious #s to use) in any of their posts, those only appear in posts they reposted from BTS_official. They are hinting at something else.

What do you think???? Personally, I am leaning towards Exception @ 7fictionation being a legit part of the new BTS promotion. I might be delulu and I'll gladly admit if I am wrong, but it feels connected, yet different to me. I think all of this, the Monochrome and this other account, are part of what ever "bundle" the members talked about releasing before Jin completed his service. My personal favorite theory is this is all part of HYYH and could be a song (or dare I hope, ALBUM!) for the new K-Drama releasing at the end of this month.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?!?! I have spent too much tine down this rabbit hole and my brain is mush!

#bts #monochrome #MNCR_Logistics #MNCR #MNCR BTS #MONOCHROME BTS #7FN_Excp #7fictionation #bangtan #bangtan boys #btsarmy #bts army #mncr logistics #bts begins youth #bts universe #bts is coming #BTS what is happening?!

[feelingofcontent]

DNP Rewatch: RIP 'danisnotonfire'

Date video was published: 05/01/2017 (X)

DNP Main Channel Rewatch: 343

The re-brand is here. Also the last video posted that was filmed in the first London flat.

0:05 - I’m really not sure the second half of the title clears things us that much...

0:11 - the dramatic music over this social media updates is great. also, his tumblr theme banner and YouTube banner still reading “danisnotonfire” 😂

0:14 - even using some cut-away shots in this video. also love that he’s using Phil’s laptop here

0:16 - and glasses-Dan!

0:20 - the side eye and deadpan expression. also his desktop wallpaper in the background. I love it all

0:28 - “change?! I don’t like change” very dramatic but a bit true. getting all of the change out of the way at once between the move and this

0:35 - “calm your non-gender-specific flaps” amazing

0:47 - that is a lot of years for something you created on a whim as a teenager

0:59 - Dan’s editing for this video is fantastic

1:04 - “dan attempting to have a career.mp4″ 😂

1:09 - just yikes; that would be so weird and embarrassing

1:35 - the self-call out of the “xD” tweets; I can’t. why is this video so funny to me

1:44 - he had been hinting at a rebrand in several other videos before this, including this Dan Takes Quizzes About Himself one

1:46 - repressed it just a month later apparently, haha

2:01 - he has left quite a bit up (and had more at this time), but he did go back and unlist more things about a year after this at the start of 2018

2:08 - ah, HELLO INTERNET. seeing fetus Dan with current Dan is always so strange

2:23 - “...maintain a false façade of perfection all the time” the wide-eyed fear there

2:32 - and there are all the branding things he wanted to kill for a while, but couldn’t with some of them until the end of the TATINOF era

2:36 - the fire in the editing there is great. (also, I spent so long trying to figure out why there was a glass in the fire, until I realized it was sitting on his desk the whole video...I am dumb)

2:39 - “yes this was actually my merch” help 😂😂

3:02 - really can’t blame his teenage-self who had no idea where that user name would end up for that

3:15 - several of these top google searches referencing the diss track is hilarious

3:32 - “dani snot on fire” poor Dan but also this is still so funny to me

3:55 - he tweeted about his horror of this all the way back in 2015

4:02 - can’t take is own script seriously here

4:18 - Dan’s got “crazy eyes” so many times in this video

4:34 - starting to get more open with politics in 2017 too

4:54 - he’s so horrified; poor Dan, again

5:19 - “I will always be ‘danisnotonfire’”...although he did eventually get it changed to youtube.com/danhowell (also, I’m still going to tag these posts for his videos with “danisnotonfire”...sorry Dan)

5:40 - I know he said at one point his family always calls him “Daniel,” but I had forgotten he said this about being “Dan” at school

5:50 - oh Dan 🙁

5:56 - managed to come up with two examples there, lol

6:01 - the flirty tone and eyebrow raise

6:19 - several old video clips in this one too, actually...this from College Dropout

6:25 - the start of the ramped-up journey to more authenticity

6:58 - “laughing at other peoples’ problems is a very popular kind of entertainment” ...self-aware Dan there

7:09 - I love it 😂

7:24 - sharing the moving news on this channel via a “on the ‘AmazingPhil’ channel” shout-out

7:36 - “I need a houseplant...” which is what Phil told him to put in his background in the moving video

Dan is somehow so funny in this video while still getting his explanation across. I guess I would consider this his first “announcement”-type video as he starts to share more about himself over the next few years after this.

This one I really think got filmed before they were in Australia, but he waited to post until he had a chance to also update social media and everything after the move. And it also makes sense as a sort-of “fresh start” in the new place.

#dan and phil #dnp #dnpRewatch #daniel howell #danisnotonfire #dan howell #daniel howell videos #RIP 'danisnotonfire'

[bulkyphrase]

Everybody & the Avengers Team

I've got a new fic rec list for you!

The stories in the "X & the Avengers Team" tags focus on one person's relationship to the Avengers team as a whole. Courtesy of AO3's tag browse and Excel, here's a ranked list of the top 20 most popular pairings:

Tony Stark | 2470 total, 240 OTP

Peter Parker | 2255 total, 85 OTP

Steve Rogers | 602 total, 56 OTP

Loki | 387 total, 26 OTP

Natasha Romanov | 308 total, 35 OTP

Clint Barton | 268 total, 46 OTP

Bruce Banner | 244 total, 15 OTP

Thor | 209 total, 7 OTP

Avengers Team | 174 total, 24 OTP

James "Bucky" Barnes | 156 total, 7 OTP

Wanda Maximoff | 143 total, 4 OTP

Phil Coulson | 105 total, 9 OTP

Darcy Lewis | 91 total, 6 OTP

Matt Murdock | 60 total, 8 OTP

Sam Wilson | 53 total, 5 OTP

Nick Fury | 41 total, 5 OTP

Harry Potter | 40 total, 0 OTP

Pepper Potts | 31 total, 1 OTP

Vision | 29 total, 2 OTP

Stiles Stilinski | 25 total, 0 OTP

In chart form, if you like charts:

Notes:

The numbers after the names are the number of stories tagged with that ship. OTP means the number of stories where that is the only relationship tagged on the story. Numbers are accurate as of July 2021.

Story Recommendations

For your reading pleasure, included below is at least one fic rec for each pairing except the crossovers from non-Marvel fandoms (apologies to Mr. Potter & Mr. Stilinski). Most are gen fic, and even in the ones with a romantic pairing, romance is not the focus.

Tony Stark

As Subtle As Cognitive Recalibration by petroltogo (Teen, 8949) tumblr: @tonystarktogo

Standing inside his penthouse, listening to Rogers, Barton and Banner explain to Fury how they just happened to stumble over the Tesseract on a routine security check of Stark Tower’s roof and wouldn’t you know, they’ve managed to fight off the looming alien invasion before it could really start and secure the missing overpowered nightlight is one of the most surreal situations Tony has ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Peter Parker

the worst field trip ever by shrill_fangirl_screaming (Teen, 3420) tumblr: @i-am-having-an-emotion

"We're on a field trip," Peter said. "To here. And Tony decided to be our tour guide and absolutely embarrass me, so can you please help get him under control?"

Which is how Peter Parker, architect of his own destruction, ended up with not one but two superhero pseudo-dads being annoying on his school field trip.

Steve Rogers

Do You Remember Being Happy? ('Cause I Sure Don't) by GalaxyThreads (Teen, 11022) tumblr: @galaxythreads

That seems about right. He doesn't know how he knows that, though. He does have vague memories of an annoyed fondness at finding peanut butter in some sort of jam. Thor's doing, because he doesn't see the point of using two knives when one works just as fine. He knows that. How does he know that? He knows all those little details, though, almost innately. How can he know these strangers so deeply?

Everyone else below the cut!

Loki

Proprietary by TheThirdMarauder (Teen, 7639)

No, Loki simply wants the Avengers conquered. The details of whom, how, and when matter not. Unless, of course, said details interfere with Loki's plans. Then, well, then none can fault him for protecting his own interests.

Loki has always been exceptionally good at lying to himself.

Natasha Romanov

What Girls Are Made Of by enigma731 (Teen, 4613) tumblr: @enigma731

She rolls her eyes but does as he’s indicated, using his shoulders to leverage herself up onto his back, her arms around his neck and her legs hugging his waist.

“You know,” he says blithely, “this isn’t really what I tend to picture when I think of a hot girl riding me.”

Natasha groans, deciding that if his sense of humor gets them arrested, she’ll kill him herself. “Just go.”

Clint Barton

Dear Clint Barton (circa age 7) by pollyrepeat (Teen, 4221)

With a normal person, this might count as blackmail material, but a) this is a case of mutually assured destruction if ever there was one, and b) Fury is immune to embarrassment. Not just in the regular, Tony Stark way, either, oh no. Things that could possibly end up being embarrassing to Fury get somehow warped and changed until they go from mortifying all the way over into useful and/or good for his image. It’s like a superpower.

Carrying Clint’s small child self around on his shoulders more than once has probably already hit the interagency rumour mill as an example of Fury’s innate awesomeness: good with rocket launchers and small children.

Also available as a podfic!

Bruce Banner

They're Not Wrong by Trumpeteer34 (Teen, 10163)

As Tony began to pace around the hole in the road to keep himself from shooting repulsors at the nearby buildings in a fit of rage, Thor began to study the nearby area. There was no sign of either the Hulk or Bruce Banner beyond the crater. The surrounding area, aside from the rubble of the fight, held no clue as to their friend’s location.

“Guys, he’s gone,” Tony growled into the communicator on their private line, drawing Thor out of his darkening thoughts. “Someone tranqed him and took him. He’s gone.”

Honorary mention goes to the Responsible Science series by @letteredlettered - the stories don’t have the "Avengers Team & Bruce Banner" tag, but they could, and they are amazing. The best Bruce Banner writing I've ever come across.

Thor

Fortunately, I Am Mighty by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 3062)

Steve was the first one to speak. “Are you okay?”

Thor nodded. Which was a bad idea, as it turned out, because now there were little gray lights flashing in front of his eyes. “I’m fine.” Absolutely everyone narrowed their eyes, and he added, “But, uh. Could we possibly not get back in the car just yet?”

Avengers Team

Civil Wasn't by onward_came_the_meteors (General, 7123)

"We're having an ideological conflict here," Tony stated with disbelief. "Are you telling me you still want to go out to dinner?"

"It's a standing engagement, Tony," Rhodey reminded him.

"Not you too—"

"We already had to reschedule from Friday when Natasha was..." Rhodey frowned. "What were you doing?"

The question was directed toward Natasha, who shrugged and said, "Spy stuff."

James "Bucky" Barnes

You Know How I Feel, aka, The Adventures of Bucky and Muffy the Dinosaur by ifeelbetter (Not Rated, 4511) tumblr: @ifeelbetterer

“As you may have heard, Bucky Barnes, a.k.a. The Winter Soldier, recently rescued a tiny part-robot dinosaur during the Avengers’ battle with Dr. Doom in Antarctica,” the other newscaster explained. “Pictures of Barnes and the dinosaur were posted on twitter by fellow Avenger, Clint Barton, a.k.a. Hawkeye, and immediately made Barnes’s new pet America’s sweetheart.”

“Her name’s Muffy,” said Steve."

Wanda Maximoff

and the woman was young again by Mira_Jade (General, 3669)

Tony Stark called them the Cap's Kooky Quintet, and sometimes the term amused her – causing her to lift a sardonic brow where someday a smile would truly smile. She enjoyed the presence of comrades – true comrades – and she enjoyed the way their minds wove and bound together about each other to fluctuate against her senses as one. There was something soothing about being in their midst, and even when their loud and brash ways – their painful Americaness - rubbed her raw and drained on her, it was ever the knitting of their minds that soothed those moments over, and made them inconsequential.

Phil Coulson

Coulson's First Day of School by storiesfortravellers (Teen, 3055)

Coulson looked up at him. “I like drawing pictures with Mr. Rogers. I like having tea parties with Ms. Potts. I like it when Dr. Banner reads me books, and I like it when Natasha teaches me things. And I like when you play with me. You do really good voices when we play action figures. And you’re the only one who lets me do stuff like jump off the high diving board at the pool or eat three cupcakes or play tackle with kids at the park.”

Clint didn’t realize that. He was pretty sure that meant that he was doing something wrong.

Darcy Lewis

Beginner Yoga for Dummies (Darcys) and Sad Hobos by chailover (Teen, 3434)

Darcy had a theory: crazy attracted crazy, working kind of like gravity. It was pretty much her explanation for her life after Thor. And if she had thought the type of crazy Thor attracted was bad, be it Loki or the Warrior Three and Sif, or the dark elves and the Convergence, it was still nothing against what the Avengers manage en masse.

Matt Murdock

Double Blind by smilebackwards (Teen, 2381) tumblr: @smilebackwards

Stark snaps his fingers. “You can’t see half of my inventions. This explains so much about you and why you’ve never been properly impressed by me.”

“Does it?” Matt says, ambiguously.

Sam Wilson

Bystander by scribblemetimbers (Teen, 52029)

“I just want you to know,” Sam says loudly, cautiously raising his hands, “That I’m very poor and very sleep-deprived and literally the only thing you can kill me for right now are my notes.” He pauses. Wait. On second thought: “Please don’t steal my notes.”

“I’m not—I’m not a mugger,” Not Mugger rasps out, and for all that he looks about to keel over and die, the man actually manages to sound offended.

Nick Fury

Bedtime Story by dixiehellcat (Teen, 2532) tumblr: @deehellcat

Fury snorted. “I have to check in with the duty officer. I’ll be back in, let’s say twenty minutes. I expect all of you to have whatever your pre-bedtime routines are completed, and be in here pajama’ed and ready to be read to.”

He tapped the book under his arm, then left with the usual dramatic swish of his long coat. Bruce scratched his head. “Did…he just say be ready to be read to?”

Pepper Potts

Pepper and the Avengers (Which She Knows Nothing About) by rebelmeg (General, 6696) tumblr: @rebelmeg

The Avengers, that mismatched group of hurt and heroism, was one of the most important things in Tony Stark’s life. So, naturally, Pepper had made them an important part of her life too.

Vision

039. Intoxicated by aimmyarrowshigh (Teen, 100) tumblr: @aimmyarrowshigh

It might be nice to fit in, just this once. To lose a bit of composure.

Vision floated over to the refrigerator and, with some timidity, pulled off a magnet. He stuck it to his forehead.

#marvel fic rec

[skyflyinginaction]

Shinhiro Aragaki Transulations from the Persona 3 Portable Fanbook

[sidebar]

Blog Handle Gaki

Latest Posts > Haven't Seen a Movie In... > Eat Some Decent Food... > Look, Cooking's... See more

Categories > Posts (4) > Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (3) > Recipes (5) > Restaurant reviews (2) See more

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[main body]

[handwritten title at top] Gaki-san Cafeteria

Profile Name: Shinjiro Aragaki Sex: Male Birthday: 1991/8/11 [This profile uses year/month/day format.] Blood type: A Group: Gekkoukan Academy Upper Class Year 3 Class C (Suspended) Club: Unaffiliated

Ugh...  Me? Having a blog? So lame... Still, everyone's doing it, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Dunno what's with the goofy title. I'm just gonna write whatever I want. So uh, maybe gimme some ideas for posts?

Well... Might as well pass the time while I'm here. Anyway... enjoy?

Favorite Sites: [banners] A Dog's Heart [in snail] Sea slug [to right] Umiushi Family Cooking [white text, bottom right] Official Site

[large white text below blog page] I'm keeping my eyes peeled. Because there's an unimaginable way back...

[main body]

Aragaki, the lone wolf who sticks out like a sore thumb at nightly meetings, is from the same orphanage as Sanada. Three years ago, Aragaki was a member of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, where Sanada awakened the power of Persona within him. However, he wasn't able to fully control his powers. One day, a horrible accident occurred and a number of people were driven mad. Aragaki's Persona went berserk and snatched away the life of an innocent bystander. Despondent, Aragaki dropped out of school and began aimlessly roaming the streets at night. In order to restrain his Persona ability, whenever Aragaki is faced with danger, he takes a suppressant drug - although it has its side effects. Aragaki only returned to the SEES to bear his past deeds. Aragaki gave his life as a final apology to those tied to the past and unable to move forward, saying: "I'm the only one who deserves to rot in hell."

[at bottom:]

Shinjiro Aragaki

[left column]

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Like A Whole Nother World

Category: Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad 2009/9/3 (Thu) 23:18

People are taking my return to the SEES really nicely... What the hell happened. Back when it was just me and Aki and Kirijo, the lounge felt way too big... But with all the new members, it's stuffed. Girls, a little kid, and even a dog... Some real variety in this lineup. Did Aki and Kirijo just get swept up in all that?

And on top of that, they're all treating me real good, even though they barely know me. The 2nd years think I bailed their asses out at the meeting place, when really I was just chasing off some pests. Either way, they're being real nice to me.

I don't bother with school or club activities or whatever, so I can focus all my energy on battle. Hit me up whenever you're heading off to Tartarus. I mean, that's why I came back here in the first place.

COMMENT Comments (4) ・ Trackback (0)

2009/9/4 (Fri) 01:23 JUN☆P-

Never gonna forget the hero at the meeting spot, dude. You totally bailed us out. With Aragaki-san on our side, we're like a hundred-man army!

2009/9/4 (Fri) 18:51 Yukaricchi♥

So you helped found the club, Aragaki-senpai... Thank you so much for saving us. I think you might actually be a really good guy, deep down...?

2009/9/4 (Fri) 21:00 Aigis

Koromaru-san reports that you often give him treats. It seems you two have become fast friends. Aragaki-san, you are rather reserved.

2009/9/4 (Fri) 23:06 Gaki

Oh come on, are you guys really kicking things off with a bunch of embarrassing comments? Hundred-man army, good guy... Don't just make stuff up about me. Ugh, I dunno how to deal with this.

[righthand column]

Boy's & Girl's Event

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Escapade

Category: Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad 2009/9/6 (Sun) 21:55

Under the full moon, a Shadow appeared, as promised. I hang out at Escapade plenty, but this time everyone on the floor was complaining about the power being on the fritz. I guess that was an omen or something that a Shadow was about to appear. Can't let things like that slip you by.

But man, there were some real annoying tagalongs last night. Junpei thought he was gonna party his ass off, the poor guy. That chick from Strega was totally stringing him along, but Junpei still managed to be worried about her. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but pure-hearted guys like him are the ones that fall for that kind of thing.

But still, the chick's Persona was really something... Might be worth worrying about. I think I'll pop my head into the hospital too.

[screenshot:]

Junpei Iori

Hey, uh... I just wanna know one thing... Was that really all just an act?

COMMENT Comments (4) ・ Trackback (0)

2009/9/6 (Sun) 22:23 Yukaricchi♥

I mean, Junpei's so unsubtle about things like this... I bet he's going to visit at the hospital again today. Maybe if Junpei keeps talking to her, Chidori-san will start to open her heart... Or maybe I'm naive for even thinking that?  

Boy's & Girl's Event

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Passing the Persona Torch

Category: Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad 2009/9/15 (Tue) 22:36

Man, you guys are a real pain. Though I guess I can't be so quick to judge if Koro-chan hangs with you...

⬤ Questions From Persona Users ⬤

1. How did it feel when your Persona awakened?

I don't remember anything from back then...

2. What did you think when you saw your Persona?

Don't really care, that's just how he looks. He's Aki's Persona's brother. I mean, me and Aki go way back. You couldn't separate us even if you tried.

3. What's your favorite attacking strategy?

I'm not a big fan of whittling enemies down bit by bit. Better to give 'em one big hit and knock 'em dead, all in one go.

4. Any Shadows you have trouble with?

I don't got any weak points. I mean, if your Persona is weak, that just means your heart is weak.

5. What do you want to do when we're done fighting?

Hell if I know. I just want to take responsibility for what I've done. I think I'm just about there. After that... Aki, it's your turn.

COMMENT Comments (4) ・ Trackback (1)

2009/9/15 (Wed) 19:47 Aki

So it's my turn... Got it. Shinji, it may very well be because of my influence that the power of Persona was awakened within you...

[left column]

Boys & Girl's Event

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What Are You Weirdos, a Cosplay Group?

Category: Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad 2009/9/16 (Wed) 22:58

Come on... I am not gonna participate in your little cosplay thing. The bus stop was one thing, but this time you　want me to wear a tailcoat? What? Is that a butler costume? Like I'm gonna play some servant role.

Oh, and when we're going off to Tartarus, don't expect me to act like we're going on a picnic, or whatever. When a Shadow pops out, I want to look like a grown-up warrior. We didn't get this far by being stylish.

I mean, if you're fighting to win, then I'll quit whining. Just don't mess around too much. And don't forget that lives are on the line.

COMMENT Comments (4) ・ Trackback (0)

2009/9/17 (Thu) 19:48 Yukaricchi♥

Please don't call us all "weirdos"! Our leader is the one who's into dressing up. I'm a victim too.

2009/9/17 (Thu) 22:39 JUN☆P-

That's the first time I've seen you hatless, Aragaki-san. ...And your head looks totally normal. So disappointing...

2009/9/17 (Fri) 19:29 Aki

I've never brought this up, but... Junpei, what do YOU look like with your hat off? I mean, even when you went swimming at the beach, you refused to take it off.

2009/9/17 (Fri) 21:46 Gaki

What kind of weird ideas are you having about people's heads... Hey Aki, meet me at the strategy room for a tactical debriefing on stealing Junpei's hat.

[right column] Boy's & Girl's Event Public Post

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Haven't Seen a Movie In Ages

Category: Posts 2009/9/23 (Wed) 22:26

Man, I haven't been to the movies in ages. It's a lot nicer to go on your own, but... Well, if you're inviting me, you must be kind of a weirdo. I guess I don't mind coming along though, kills some time.

But like, did you pick that movie on purpose? "Woof-Meow Kingdom"... We were surrounded by family, made me weirdly sweaty. And the climactic scene where they got dragged in the river... That was... Well, whatever...

Right, I need to give Koro-chan the special dog food and assorted bones I got on the way home. The leash we use on walks is filthy, so maybe I should get a new one, too... Oh, and I'm going to give him a bath later tonight. Shoot, I forgot to get a massage brush...

Anyway, do you think Koro-chan's good at doggy paddling? Never know when something bad might happen around water...

[screenshot:]

> Somehow, Aragaki's eyes seem red...

COMMENT Comments (3) ・ Trackback (0)

2009/9/24 (Thu) 10:00 Aigis

Koromaru-san is profoundly moved by your exceptional treatment of him, Aragaki-san.

2009/9/24 (Thu) 19:13 Fuu＊ka

Aragaki-senpai, you're a real animal lover, aren't you? Nobody who likes animals is a bad person, or so they say. I'll have to cook up something nice for Koro-chan too!

[advertisement:]

Garlic ・　Olive Oil ・ Pepperoncini

Paella

Family Cooking

Airing Weekly, Sunday 7 PM SMATV Network Kismet Publishing

September edition of the textbook now on sale. If not at your local bookstore, go here → to order online.

[button:] I Want It!

[left column]

Boys & Girl's Event Public Post

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Evening Walk

Category: Posts 2009/9/26 (Sat) 23:14

You guys keep going off about how taking a walk at night soothes the soul, and I kinda have to agree. I used to kill time at night by hanging out in back alleys or clubs, but I guess it's not so bad doing something more healthy with my evenings. And this is so weird, but taking a nice walk makes me want to make dinner for Koro-chan.

It's fall and everything's being harvested, which makes it the season for eating. You guys need to remember to eat up and stay healthy. Or else you're gonna end up bedridden, like our leader was. What would you even do if a shadow popped out then? Well, I guess everything's going good on that front, so it's fine for now. Just remember to get a nice square meal in every day.

[screenshot]

Shinjiro Aragaki

You hungry? I'll fix you something when we get home.

Girl's Event Public Post

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The Trick to Cooking

Category: Cooking 2009/9/27 (Sun) 23:47

Fall's the season for eating, but I don't think that fancy kitchen we have is getting any use. The fridge is full of sports drinks and milk, the cupboards are crammed with protein shakes and cup noodles and junk food... It's messed up. Do you people seriously never cook? We didn't even have a good set of utensils, so I brought some in. Yamagishi's the only one who seems excited about cooking, but she doesn't have the basics down yet. Don't get me wrong, enthusiasm's great, but...

Well, if you've heard someone say that cooking is an act of love, it probably came from someone who's mastered their basics. Doesn't matter how much love you pour into your cooking, if you mess up some fundamental part, it's not gonna taste good. A super common mistake beginners make is ignoring what the recipe says and improvising instead. Get your basics down pat, then you can switch things up. Remember, you don't gotta rush it. Doesn't matter what you're doing, taking it one step at a time is key.

COMMENT Comments (2) ・ Trackback (0)

2009/9/28 (Mon) 18:51 Fuu＊ka

Aragaki-senpai, thank you... You put it pretty bluntly, but you're trying to help, aren't you? I'll start working my way up with simple things like onigiri. If you'd like, feel free to come sample my work?

2009/9/28 (Mon) 19:52 Mitsuru

Aragaki, I'm rather surprised at how good you are at cooking. I wouldn't say you surpass my family's professional chef, but your food was indeed exquisite. Perhaps eating together with everyone isn't so bad, every once in a while.

[right column]

Girl's Event

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Making Things Right

Category: Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad 2009/10/3 (Sat) 02:45

[screenshot]

Shinjiro Aragaki

...They're in your hands now. I believe in you.

[post body]

So tomorrow's the long-awaited full moon, huh. And you know another huge Shadow's gonna pop out. But I never thought the full moon would fall on tomorrow's date, of all days... I can't bring myself to call it a coincidence.

It's not like I think I won't be coming back, but with what I have in the palm of my hand... Well, I can't tell if it's a coincidence or a cruel prank. And the whole time I sit here agonizing about it, the pocketwatch in my palm keeps on ticking. If I had to name the one thing I can never change, it'd be my past self. Who's bound by their past now? It's not just me... So, the only thing left for me to do is to make things right. Because no matter what I choose, I don't got much time left...

I'm not gonna write anything more here, I promise. You don't have to forgive me for my selfishness. And no matter what happens, don't you dare cry...

COMMENT Comments (5) ・ Trackback (0)

2009/10/7 (Wed) 18:36 Fuu＊ka

Aragaki-senpai, they said you wouldn't wake up... When I first read this post, I didn't get it at all, but... Looking back, I think you knew what you were about to do...

2009/10/7 (Wed) 20:28 Mitsuru

Of course I was aware of the situation between Aragaki and Amada. It was a failing on my part that it came to this. From hereafter, the Kirijo family will dedicate all available resources to his medical care. Perhaps Aragaki's strong spirit will grant us a sliver of hope...

2009/10/8 (Thu) 01:36 JUN☆P-

I know you were ready to give your life in this battle, but... Now that it's actually happened, it hurts like hell... Aragaki-san, please wake up...

2009/10/8 (Thu) 20:38 Aki

When I thought Shinji was all but gone, he whispered, "This is what I wanted." While some may dismiss his way of making things right, I would not count myself among them. Everyone, we need to face forward!

2009/10/9 (Fri) 18:46 Amadaman

I've decided to keep fighting here. Until Aragaki-san returns, I will protect his place.

[bubble at top left]

If You Get Into A Relationship...

Social links with Aragaki don't turn romantic until you max out your S. Link rank with him. But once you do get to max, if you call him one more time, you can have the protagonist confess to him. After a short period of heated questioning, you can enter Aragaki's room. Acting much unlike the Aragaki you've seen so far, he will embrace the protagonist and make an unexpectedly bold move. While it's quite the mushy event, if you do get in a relationship, he'll actually be quite assertive. By the way, the protagonist confesses to him in the dorm lounge. If you think about it, Yukari and Junpei and all the other members would be right next to them the whole time...

[screenshot:]

Shinjiro Aragaki

You're uh... not married, so don't get this wrong, but...

[bubbles at top right]

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thur Fri Sat Break

[center of circle:] Shinjiro Aragaki

[by tarot card:] Moon

[spiky bubble at bottom:] Shinjiro Aragaki

[to left of portrait, beneath "Persona capable to summon once Moon's commu rank reaches the max:]

Sandalphon, the Angel That Conveys Prayers

[tag labeled 27]

From the Iwatodoi Dormitory Lounge ......Edition 27

[junpei:] Man, Aragaki-san's cooking is the best. [koro:] Woof!! [aegis:] Koromaru-san says he enjoys it too. [aragaki:] H, hey. You guys suck at eating balanced meals. Try to take care of yourselves. [mitsuru:] I agree completely. Akihiko could stand to eat something aside from gyudon. [Rice with beef and vegetables.] [sanada:] I, I eat more than just gyudon! I get plenty of protein shakes in too!

[next column] [mitsuru:] Ugh... You're giving me a headache. [junpei:] Gyudon and protein shakes and nothing else... That's uh, really... [aragaki:] Don't act like you're any different. You basically live off cup ramen. Balance your diet. [junpei:] Uh, well... I uh, how do I put this, just like, think it's good... [fuuka:] Okay, I'll keep balance in mind and cook something up! [aragaki] How about you focus on learning how to cook, first. ...Although, you can go ahead and start practicing.

[vertical line of text in center:]

Brotherly Lines

[column on right]

S. Link Rank 3 Female Protagonist

Look at the balance in these meals... Do you guys live off this...?

S. Link Rank 4 Female Protagonist

...You're not going to leave those vegetables on your plate, are you?

S. Link Rank 7 Female Protagonist

Get some good sleep. ...'Night.

S. Link Rank 9 Female Protagonist

Feels like I got a place to come home to.

S. Link MAX Female Protagonist

Now that you're here, I don't have a care in the world...

[screenshot to left:] Shinjiro Aragaki

Does everyone here eat like crap...?

[block labeled Girl's Side] Like An Older Brother

Shinjiro Aragaki always makes sure his fellow club members make it home safe. While he comes off as rather blunt, he's actually deeply worried about everyone's unhealthy eating habits. Following the protagonist's advice, he throws a party. While putting everything together for the party, he teaches Fuuka (who is hopeless at cooking) how to cook. Drawn by the smell, their dormmates gather, and the lounge springs to life. While everyone enjoys the meal, Aragaki steps out for a bit, and asks the protagonist for a private chat. Then, gazing at the protagonist with a gentle smile, he says, "I'm leaving Sanada and everyone else in your hands."

[screenshot to right:]

Aegis

Koromaru-san is distraught.

[caption below screenshot:] Even Koromaru-san can tell how bad Fuuka's cooking is. But with Aragaki teaching her, she'll be able to make delicious food someday.

TRANSULATIONS NOT MINE THEY ALL BELONG TO THE LOVELY (https://kasael.tumblr.com) ALL CREDIT OF THIS ENTIRE TRANSULATION BELONGS TO THEM NOT ME DON’T REBLOG WITHOUT CREDITING THEM FIRST.

#Persona 3 #Persona 3 Portable #shinjiro aragaki #transualtions

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #202

Thur Aug 29 2019 [11:35 PM] Wack'd: So this issue opens with the arrival of Tony Stark! [11:35 PM] Wack'd: He's real mad they made him pay their cab fare! [11:35 PM] Wack'd: Yeah, I'm just kidding, he's here to look into why the Baxter went nuts in #201 [11:38 PM] Wack'd: He smashes through a window and that's all it takes to provoke a superhero brawl these days I guess [11:38 PM] maxwellelvis: Oh right, this must still be back when he was pretending Iron Man was a guy who worked for him. [11:39 PM] maxwellelvis: Man, "Demon in the Bottle" IS still a ways off, isn't it? [11:39 PM] Bocaj: I want an issue of Iron Man that’s just a montage of all the times people have told someone to bill Tony Stark [11:39 PM] Wack'd: Look, it's not like he can't afford it [11:39 PM] Bocaj: Yes [11:39 PM] Bocaj: That’s why it’s funny [11:39 PM] Bocaj: If everyone were billing spider man it’d be sad [11:40 PM] Wack'd: True [11:40 PM] Wack'd: Credit to Janice Cohen for some surprisingly dynamic colors

[11:41 PM] Bocaj: (There was actually an issue of avengers where some lawyers from the Maria stark foundation had to come by and question some of the “bill it to Tony Stark!” charges the Avengers were making) [11:41 PM] Wack'd: No credit to Marv Wolfman for what has to be the quickest Sue's force fields have ever been rendered useless [11:41 PM] Bocaj: (Including two quinjets on the same day) [11:42 PM] Bocaj: Dammit wolfman [11:42 PM] Wack'd: So uh [11:42 PM] Wack'd: Apparently this is not just the playful playfighting the Four are known for [11:43 PM] Wack'd: Uh

[11:43 PM] Wack'd: Uuuuuuhhhhhh

[11:44 PM] maxwellelvis: Umm... [11:44 PM] maxwellelvis: First off, I'm pretty sure Collins was kidding, Reed. [11:44 PM] maxwellelvis: I don't think he expected you to actually strap rockets to your suite. [11:44 PM] Wack'd: I guess it makes sense Collins would think shooting these top five floors into space would be a good idea if he never expected to make money on them without the Four living there [11:45 PM] maxwellelvis: Anyways, this is looking really bad for Iron Man because he doesn't even have an AI to blame for this. [11:46 PM] Wack'd: Wait, Stark hasn't told you guys about his secret identity?

[11:46 PM] Wack'd: Jerk! Reed and Sue invited you to their wedding! [11:47 PM] maxwellelvis: He told nobody about this until his personal demons forced his hand. [11:47 PM] maxwellelvis: That's how Rhodey got started being a superhero; [11:47 PM] Wack'd: I'd been assuming superhero quid-pro-quo with everyone besides Spider-Man, honestly [11:47 PM] maxwellelvis: he filled in as Iron Man while Tony was battling his inner demons. [11:47 PM] Bocaj: It’s honestly weird how long Tony had a secret identity [11:47 PM] Wack'd: Don't the Avengers all live together in a fucking mansion? [11:47 PM] Bocaj: Yes [11:48 PM] maxwellelvis: The ones Iron Man was originally part of didn't. [11:48 PM] Wack'd: Do they just never take their costumes off? [11:48 PM] maxwellelvis: That's probably changed since then, though. [11:48 PM] Bocaj: Half of the avengers don’t bother with secret identities [11:48 PM] Wack'd: Reed explicitly refers to Iron Man as an Avenger in this issue btw [11:49 PM] Bocaj: When Beast joined and revealed he was Hank McCoy Thor was like whoa buddy you don’t got to reveal that and Beast was like my dude I’m a blue furry man [11:49 PM] maxwellelvis: The Wasp has never bothered with any sort of mask, so that means Ant-Man's identity was kind of an open secret. [11:49 PM] maxwellelvis: Thor kept his identity secret, as did Iron Man. [11:49 PM] maxwellelvis: Nobody knew that the Hulk was Dr. David Banner except for Rick in those days. [11:49 PM] Bocaj: The two of them revealed their id’s when they rejoined post kooky quartet [11:49 PM] Wack'd: Alright so [11:49 PM] Wack'd: Moving on [11:49 PM] Bocaj: That’s when they stopped bothering with the secret [11:50 PM] Bocaj: Ok [11:50 PM] maxwellelvis: And Cap... well, the first time the Avengers found Cap, he wasn't wearing his mask. [11:50 PM] Wack'd:

[11:50 PM] Wack'd: I dig Tony's look here [11:50 PM] Wack'd: Dunno why [11:50 PM] Bocaj: Yeah tony why don’t you go get iron man [11:50 PM] Wack'd: This is the second time Tony's shown up and I've been like "fuck that's a good look" [11:50 PM] maxwellelvis: "I'm skeptical that you can, yet intrigued that you may." [11:51 PM] Wack'd: Also I like that he's wearing a red suit jacket with a gold striped tie [11:51 PM] Wack'd: Subtle [11:51 PM] Bocaj: He’s a classy subtle man [11:51 PM] Bocaj: Or some of these words anyway [11:51 PM] maxwellelvis: There seems to have been a misjudgment in how much eyebrow to give him in this panel [11:51 PM] maxwellelvis: he looks like a strategically shaved caveman wearing Tony Stark's clothes. [11:51 PM] Wack'd: So anyway Tony goes to do a quick change while musing on the possibility of an imposter [11:52 PM] Wack'd: No one really makes anything of the fact that if Iron Man is Tony's bodyguard, they should probably be in close proximity most of the time [11:52 PM] Wack'd: Any bodyguard you need to go find is doing kind of a shitty job! [11:52 PM] maxwellelvis: It's his eyebrows, they make his brow look bigger for some reason. [11:53 PM] Bocaj: That’s a good point wack’d [11:53 PM] Bocaj: By all standards Iron Man is a shitty bodyguard to the outside world’s perspective [11:53 PM] Wack'd: So the Four and Iron Man head back to the Baxter to sort this out [11:54 PM] Wack'd: A smooth recovery

[11:54 PM] Bocaj: Does Reed know? [11:54 PM] Bocaj: That’s the kind of thing someone would say if they knew [11:54 PM] maxwellelvis: Reed's the sort who'd take a cover story like Stark's at face value [11:55 PM] Wack'd: Earlier I assumed that Iron Man was showing up to do the IT work from 201, but knowing what I know now it seems to be obviously inaccurate that it would be Iron Man doing that and not Stark [11:55 PM] Wack'd: Secret identities sure do make life confusing [11:55 PM] Bocaj: Tony as Iron Man uses that “yeah I pick up a lot from Stark” line a lot [11:56 PM] Bocaj: Nobody ever catches on, except Thor [11:56 PM] maxwellelvis: The one guy who isn't a supersceintist. [11:56 PM] Wack'd: The easiest way to learn supergenius-level engineering: spend all your time as a bodyguard paying attention to what they're doing! [11:56 PM] Wack'd: It's not like there's other things you should be paying attention to when you're guarding a man's life! [11:56 PM] Bocaj: Sure that sounds legit [11:57 PM] Wack'd: God this is the world's worst cover story on every conceivable level [11:57 PM] maxwellelvis: That's how we lost 14 Hank and Deans. When he wasn't busy growing that ridiculous... [11:57 PM] Bocaj: It is geez [11:57 PM] Wack'd: Brock was just so busy learning science [11:57 PM] Bocaj: I’m now super glad that mcu Iron Man was like “hey fuck that actually” [11:58 PM] Wack'd: So they find the Baxter on an island in the Atlantic [11:58 PM] Bocaj: HOW [11:58 PM] Wack'd: I mean I'd assume it has a set landing point far away from civilization, since it's an emergency measure [11:58 PM] Wack'd: But Reed specifically mentions that they had to use a signal tracker to find it, which raises a lot of questions [11:59 PM] Wack'd: Maybe the Iron Man impersonator put it there [12:00 AM] Wack'd: Man the late 70s really love their Inspector Gadget style villain teases

[12:00 AM] Wack'd: The square dialogue bubbles are a clue but also Quasimodo's on the cover, so [12:00 AM] Bocaj: Kurt Busiek pulled one where a villain sitting like this watching the heroes was being watched by a villain doing this [12:00 AM] maxwellelvis: What ever happened to the good old-fashioned cloak? [12:01 AM] maxwellelvis: @Bocaj Dammit, Scrier, get outta here. [12:01 AM] maxwellelvis: @Wack'd I see. So I guess it's a good thing you rarely show the covers, then. [12:01 AM] Bocaj: I think it was Kang watching Ultron watching the Avengers [12:03 AM] Wack'd: So uh quick recap: [12:03 AM] Wack'd: Last time we saw Quasimodo he was turned to stone by Norrin Radd since he couldn't handle being turned into a human [12:04 AM] Wack'd: He's apparently had stuff happened in other books since which I'm sure he'll recap for us [12:05 AM] Wack'd: Okay so apparently he got turned back into a robot, then Hawkeye paralyzed him, during which time he fucking...astral projected???

[12:06 AM] Wack'd: So uh [12:06 AM] Wack'd: He's back on Earth now [12:06 AM] Wack'd: For some reason [12:06 AM] Wack'd: And has a decoy Iron Man because his body can't move [12:06 AM] Wack'd: And he's convinced that in order to go back to the stars he hast to destroy the Fantastic Four [12:07 AM] Wack'd: For some reasom [12:07 AM] Wack'd: Oh okay he was syphoning power from the Baxter, hence all the nonsense in 201 [12:07 AM] Wack'd: And with that power he can move again [12:08 AM] Wack'd: And he has to destroy the team because, well, they're pissed at him and are going to try and stop him [12:08 AM] Wack'd: I don't get why they can't just give him the energy he needs so he can go back to space [12:08 AM] Wack'd: Like, if they can play nice with Mole Man, surely this is no issue [12:10 AM] Bocaj: Spite [12:10 AM] Wack'd: Aw, okay. In the scuffle he manages to steal the Four's rocket [12:10 AM] Wack'd: A happy ending! Kinda!

[12:10 AM] Wack'd: He's not in the next issue and there's no indication that anyone's going to go after him so [12:11 AM] Wack'd: I don't know how they got a rocket to begin with but they can probably just build another one

#1979 #Marv Wolfman #John Buscema #The Main Book

[feaftlikeabeaft]

hey so uh demon’s souls remake on ps5 huh

what a concept

I was typing this as a comment on a YouTube video comparing the original to shots from the trailer for the remake, but I thought why not write it up as a blog post so I can inflict my nerdiness more directly on strangers on the internet and even a handful of friends? Sounds like a great idea to me.

Spoilers: I am cautiously hopeful that the trailer isn’t exactly what the final game looks like. I'm not fully sold on the look of the remake. Obviously things can change between then and now but it seems like they've completely changed the colour palette of the original. The original had this grimy yellow palette while the new one has a soft blue one. It remains to be seen what the full game really looks like but so far the amount I like vs what I dislike is pretty much 50/50 at this point. I hope they only improve from here. 

I’ll be writing this as a commentary to this video here with timestamps, so click here to follow along. Credit to the creator of the video, ElAnalistaDeBits, for compiling these images.

0:17 The opening area looks pretty good imo, they've lost the griminess but they've created an atmosphere reminiscent of the soul-devouring fog mentioned in the opening of the game. Lots of the concept art they used in that opening has this kind of colour palette, so that at least is welcome.

1:03 I also like the corridor of the Boletarian Palace. It looks filthy and abandoned, just like it should be, with more detail that will surely be very immersive in the final game. 

1:46 The Tower Knight, however, I am less a fan of. It looks like it's brand new, as do the flags and banners on the battlements. I don't think this is the vibe that makes the most sense for this scene, as the palace is meant to have fallen to the demons already. The colours are simple and pop out cartoonishly which gives the area the look of a toy set.

2:31 I also really dislike Flamelurker's new design. With those big horns it looks like a generic demon, like the Iron King (from Dark Souls II)'s little brother. The original had those weird stretched and broken lips that at least gave it a more unique face. I really hope they go back to  the original design.

2:50 The shots we get from the opening cinematic I also think miss the mark. The lighting is a bit generic and don't convey the atmosphere of the original that felt like you were looking into a faded old memory. This one's just too crisp and pretty. Hopefully in the final version they put some filters over it and sort the lighting out so it doesn't look quite so artificial.

Also, the hanging corpse put on some weight! Good for them, they looked kind of sickly before. Sadly, their newfound health somewhat takes away from the creepiness of the scene and doesn’t sell the idea that this person was killed by having their soul sucked out of their body. It looks more like they were simply murdered via mundane means like tooth or claw which is less evocative.

4:39 The Storm King, on the other hand, looks awesome. I love the weather effects selling it as a truly magnificent and powerful being.

5:05 The Vanguard looks ok. Something about the design is less scary to me. I think it's in the eyes and the texture of the skin, it's a little generic. Somehow being less goofy also make it less unsettling. Seeing the demon on the left spooks me, while the one on the right doesn’t really evoke much in me emotionally because I’ve seen monsters like it a million times before.

5:49 The Boletarian Palace (I think?) looks pretty good, it's definitely a different vibe from the original but not in a bad way. I think the team must have taken inspiration from the idea of the blue fog in the original concept art.

7:13 I strongly dislike the way they've remastered the Dragon God's roar. It looks really boring to me while the original packs so much creepiness and fear. The way the teeth extend and rattle with the DG's roar in the original is both awesome and scary, while the new one goes over the top with the glowing eyes and mouth, plus the camera angle makes the DG look small somehow.

7:54 The scythe-wielding enemy and the environment its in looks good, although I'm not a fan of the change to green glow over white. I’m also sad that they dropped the spooky glowing eyes. Although they were a little goofy, they were also unsettling and did their job of conveying some intelligence behind this being. The new one seems a little soulless, nopunintendo.

8:25 The comparison of the skeleton enemy here is misleading as one is a pre-rendered cutscene and the other is seemingly in a moment of actual gameplay. Still, from what I can see it looks good.

9:04 The gargoyles look... fine. They've swapped the weird shrunken flesh of the originals for ornate stone which does make sense for them since they're gargoyles, but it makes them look less creepy and monstrous. The Player Character also looks less convincingly shocked than the original. The original is like “woah, what the fuck!?” while the new one is like “hmmm this seems a little suspect”.

And that’s all I have to say on that! Overall I have mixed feelings but I also cautious optimism that they’ll take the game in a new direction while remaining faithful to the original. I think what they’ve going for is a stronger adherence to the original concept art which could be neat. The remake could end up being what Fromsoft wanted to make back in 2009 but couldn’t due to the limitations of technology of the time. If so, I’m sure the remake will have something for new players and veterans alike! Hopefully they don’t go too far in scrubbing the game’s environments of the grime, I think anyone whose played Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, or Bloodborne will be able to tell you that a nice layer of grime really sells the atmosphere that Fromsoft like to portray.

#demon's souls #demon's souls remake #demon's souls remaster #my thoughts #i won't be buying a PS5 just for DeSR but i do hope enough good games come out on it to warrant the purchase so i can play it at some point

[lifestylejournaling]

Masterlist of Lifestyle Journal Ideas

I was going to post images with each listing, but 100 pictures on one Tumblr post was quite a task. So, if you’d like to see examples of any of these, I am adding them to my Pinterest Board which can be found [here].

1. Books To Read- Color them in as you go! Or make a fun list of them and check them off one at a time. 

2. All About Me- Make doodles of things you love, add quotes, draw yourself!

3. Future Log- There are so many ways to make this page. Please do some research to see which would work best for you

4. Movies To Watch- Pretty self-explanatory, but there are many ways to do this page too

5. Skills To Learn- Jot down all the things you want to learn

6. Important Numbers and Addresses- In case of emergency of course. Also, be careful what you put in this part for your own privacy reasons

7. Year In Pixels- Honestly, one of my favorite pages

8. Fonts, Banners, and Frame Ideas- For practice and to choose from when you are having trouble being creative

9. Snail Mail Log- Keeping a list of people who you want to send letters to

10. Savings Tracker- It’s always fun to see how much you have saved up

11. TV Series Tracker- Keep track of all the shows you still need to binge

12. Monthly Challenges- I know I haven’t been helpful with this lately, but you can always search for challenges on my page

13. Music Playlists- A list of songs that describe you, your goals, things you love, etc. 

14. Timeline of Your Life- This was hard for me to make. My life isn’t all that exciting

15. Inspiration Page- Fill it with quotes, pictures, memories, etc. 

16. Self-Care List/Ideas- I posted many lists like this on my Pinterest if you want more ideas

17. Monthly/Yearly Memories- Look back on all the good and bad things that you’ve gotten over and endured. 

18. Sleep Tracker- See how many hours you get each night. This also works well when paired with number 7. 

19. Me Time Log- Keep track of how many hours you spend with yourself. We all need to learn to love on ourselves a little more. 

20. Tiny Adventures- Go out of your comfort zone and go on some tiny adventures like reading in public, talking to a stranger, giving people compliments, etc. 

21. Word Tracker- For those who are writers who like to procrastinate

22. Daily To-Do List- This can be done on your weekly pages or you can make a page specifically for daily sticky notes. 

23. Blog Post Ideas- Got an idea, but you’re not at your computer or have what you need for your post? WRITE IT DOWN

24. Fitness Log- Keep track of how much and when you work out or stretch or do yoga or and of those fun physical activities. 

25. Food Log- If you’re trying to lose weight or just get healthy or just want to track your food intake for fun, this is for you! 

26. Meal Prep- I love how cute and helpful these pages can be. 

27. Gift Lists- Ever see something and say to yourself, “Man, ____ would really like that”? Keep a list of things people would like so that you don’t worry about it when it comes to holiday time or birthdays. 

28. Grocery Lists- Every time I go shopping, I forget something because I didn’t write it down. 

29. Goals- Oh, yes! It’s 2018. We need some goals. Monthly, weekly, daily, YEARLY. Just get some goals and aim for them. 

30. Recipes To Try- I see nice recipes all the time on Facebook, but I never think about them again after I keep scrolling. It’s bad. 

31. Daily Affirmations- Give yourself some compliments and some emotional support

32. Business Plan- Make yourself a good businesswoman or businessman or businessperson in 2018. You got this. 

33. Birthdays- Keep track of all those important people in your life that need to be remembered on their special day. 

34. Work Hour Log- Sometimes we don’t keep track of all the things we get paid for. Actual work, babysitting, photography jobs, writing jobs, pet sitting, house sitting, etc. 

35. Wishlists- Not so you can #treatyourself, but so that you can make note of things you really want. 

36. Gratitude Log- It’s always good to have a moment of gratitude with yourself. Make it a monthly challenge if you need to!

37. Quotes- Your own, friend quotes, celebrity quotes, author quotes, and lyrics. 

38. Illustrations and Doodles- Doodling helps you keep your mind fresh and ready to react quickly to situations. 

39. Jokes- Your own, ones you heard, ones you read, etc. 

40. New Discoveries and Interesting Facts- Find a new interesting fact? How about that lemonade is basically Sprite in almost any other country than America?

41. Travel Log- Places you want to go! There are so many ways to do this, so look up different versions before starting!

42. Family and Friend Favorites- Their favorite colors, animals, stores, places, hobbies, etc. 

43. DIY Projects- Things you want to try out someday. 

44. Chore List- Keep track of when you do your chores so that your house doesn’t become disgusting or dusty. 

45. Bucketlist- What do you want to do before graduation, moving out, marriage, having kids, etc. 

46. Story Ideas- I always come up with story ideas and then when I sit down to write them, I blank. 

47. Period Log- For people with periods that have many PMS symptoms or even PMDD symptoms. This is a great way to show your doctor all of the things you go through each cycle. 

48. Words That Make You Happy- Silly words, ugly words, words that are fun to say, etc. 

49. Things That Make You Happy- People, places, and things. 

50. Monthly Habits- Water intake, cleaning, bathing, exercising, reading, etc. 

51. Story Titles- This can be titles for books, short stories, poems, or just nice sounding titles for anything. 

52. Made Up Words- I make myself laugh with all the words I make up on the daily. 

53. Follower Counter- This page keeps me inspired to keep doing what I love. 

54. Index- Always have an index for easy access to the pages you want to find. 

55. Icons- Sometimes we need to have icons to make our pages pretty. Sometimes we make too many icons and never use them (me). 

56. Packing List- For those who travel often or stay at friends’ houses more than our own, it’s good not to forget the things we need. 

57. Morning Routines- Our bodies need routines for mornings to get us ready for the day. 

58. Nightly Routines- Our bodies need routines for nights to prepare us for sleep. (see what I did there?)

59. Weight Tracker- If you’re struggling with your weight, keep a chart tracker or add your daily weight to your calendar. 

60. Pen Test Page- If you get new pens, highlighters, or markers, its best to test them out before using them. 

61. Brain Dump- Sometimes we just need to jot down ideas or thoughts. It’s okay if they don’t make sense. 

62. Spending Log- Keep track of what you spend because you might need that someday. 

63. Water Tracker- HYDRATE

64. Habit Tracker Reward System- This is something I came up with myself, so if you have questions, message me!

65. Name Lists (For Babies and Stories)- Keep a list of cool names for characters or even future babies. 

66. Looking Forward To...- Birthdays, holidays, raises, pay days, vacations, etc. 

67. Compliment Lists- Make a list of your go-to compliments, your favorite ones people have given you, etc. 

68. Level 10 Life- Please look up what this is before jumping into it!

69. Pet Care Log- Keep track of how much you do with your pets. Walks, play time, park time, play dates, baths, etc. 

70. Achievements- What have you done that you are proud of?

71. Weekly Log- Keep track of your week. This is one of the most used pages in any bullet journal honestly. 

72. Monthly Log- Another overly used page in any bullet journal. Very important. 

73. Daily Log- I don’t do this too often, but I know it helps others who really need a whole page for each day. 

74. Bill Tracker- This was fun to make and something I will be using now

75. Income Tracker- How much and how frequently do you get paid?

76. Deadline Page- Prepare yourself for things that you need to get done. Do not procrastinate this year!

77. Vocabulary Practice- Sometimes we just need to educate ourselves on our own terms. (and with our own terms. Anyone? Anyone?)

78. Doctor Appointment Log- If you don’t want to add them to your calendar or they are too far out to add to the calendar you’re using. 

79. Username and Password List- Be careful with this page. If someone finds your bullet journal, this could be bad. 

80. Monthly Cover Page- These are so cute! I just started doing them, but they make my journal so artsy and pretty. 

81. Dream Log- This is a fun one. Track your dreams. This would be good to line up with how many hours you get as well. 

82. Favorites List- What are YOUR favorites? Movies, snacks, drinks, subjects, people, colors, animals, etc. 

83. Habits To Break- Do you bite your nails? Quote The Office too much? Throw clothes into piles on your floor? STOP THAT. 

84. Small Things That Matter- Puppies, getting up in the morning, pennies, smiling at yourself, laughter, etc. Remind yourself that there is good in the world. 

85. Things To Sell- Get rid of the things you don’t need. Or make things to sell! Be prosperous this year. 

86. School Schedule- High school and college students really need this. Even teachers do too. Make a chart of your classes, room numbers, buildings, and times.

87. House Projects- Things that need fixing or improvements around the house. 

88. Day Trip Ideas- Fun places to go when you have the time. 

89. Things I Am Bad At- It’s okay to admit our shortcomings and work on them. Or just accept them for what they are. 

90. Resolutions- YES! Make yourself this better this year. Be the best you. 

91. Crochet/Knit Log- When making a blanket, small items, or just keeping track of your improvements in your skill. 

92. Future Planning- Make a list of the things you want in your future and how you plan on getting them. 

93. Quirk List- Ever notice you do small little weird things? Make a list to appreciate who you are. 

94. Who Borrowed What- Sometimes people borrow things and you forget until you need it again. By then, they threw it out or gave it to someone else. 

95. Six Word Stories- Get those creative juices pumping. 

96. Love Yourself- Write down all the things you love about yourself. Appreciate yourself. 

97. Paying It Back- Honestly, a good page to have, but it doesn’t get much attention from me. 

98. Childhood Dreams- We should always try to look back on what we thought we wanted

99. Good Deed Ideas- Ever think “wow, wouldn’t it be great if I could _____”?

100. Mind Mapping- There are a few reasons I really enjoy this, but it really helps me get my thoughts and ideas out more easily

#bullet journal #organization #bullet journaling #100 things #masterlist #list #high school #college #studyblr #study blog #study #dot journal #dot journaling #studyspiration #pages

[itswomanswork]

TAS 543: (Personal Story) Suicide – Drugs – Divorce to NOW Successful Dad and Multiple Business Owner

  Let’s face it, everyone has their own story filled with the highs and lows that life brings along. Some people have more tragedy and pain in their life than others but at the end of the day, it all comes down to how you choose to move forward. Will you stay stuck and defeated by your pain or will you move forward and rise above it? The choices you make today can have the power to shape your life for years to come! Make sure to listen to this episode of The Amazing Seller as Scott sits down with Joel Bower and opens up about his childhood, the pain his mother struggled with, how that’s impacted him today, and more.

Why it’s helpful to understand how the past shapes us.

  Did you know that there is one on earth who is a self-made individual? It’s true! While the term often refers to someone who’s worked hard to build their wealth or fame with their talent and hard work it can be misleading. People are a product of their surroundings, for good and for bad. The more you buy the lie that your past doesn’t matter, the more you cut yourself off from growth. What lessons can you learn from looking back at your past? What healing could occur? Learn from Scott’s story and how he’s been able to embrace and come to terms with his past to plot a more hopeful future by listening to this episode of The Amazing Seller.

Pain is part of the story, you choose what power it holds.

  Hearing Scott open up about the pain that filled his childhood from the tension in his parent’s relationship to financial struggles, alcoholism, and an eventual divorce seems like too much for any one person to bear. While it would have been understandable for Scott to succumb too much of the pain in his life, he chose a different path. He didn’t want his story to be dominated by the pain in his past, he wanted to use it as fuel for a brighter future. You can do that too! You don’t have to let the narratives of past hurt or failure to define your future. Hear more about Scott’s journey by listening to this powerful episode of The Amazing Seller.

If the pain is too much to bear, please get help.

  One of the toughest aspects of Scott’s story is hearing the long-term impact of substance abuse and isolation. As she struggled with the pain of her own past, Scott’s mother sought relief by depending on alcohol and prescription drugs to relieve the pain. Thankfully, he was able to witness his mother find freedom through sobriety before her death. During a particularly difficult time in his life, Scott had mentioned taking the route of committing suicide. Looking back, he doesn’t think he really would have followed through with the threat, he was just trying to elicit a response from his mother. Both of these aspects of Scott story serve as a reminder that life can pull you in directions you would never have imagined if it gets to be too much to bear, get help. Don’t struggle and suffer alone, a healthy and fulfilling life is worth fighting for!

Believe in yourself and pursue what makes you happy!

  At the end of the day, Scott wants his story to serve as an example that you can rise above your pain and pursue a life of joy and happiness. While it is not helpful to ignore your pain, the key is to find a way to focus on what you can do with your life in the here and now. Embrace a future where you can pursue what makes you happy. Believe in yourself and your ability to go out there a succeed. If you need encouragement and motivation, look to what Scott has done. No, he’s not perfect but he wants his story to help leaders like you who are wondering if they have anything to offer the world – you do!

  OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER

  [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast!

[1:30] Scott welcomes Joel to the podcast.

[5:00] You can use your pain as fuel to move forward.

[7:15] A preface to Scott’s story.

[8:45] Scott starts to share his story.

[15:15] What it was like growing up in a tumultuous household.

[24:45] Why Scott struggles with leaving his family even for a short trip.

[28:30] How your past story shapes your current behavior.

[30:45] Scott talks about having to make the decision to live with his father over his mom.

[36:20] What would be different if the challenges and hurt never happened?

[39:00] Why does Scott feel compelled to control things in his life?

[43:00] Scott talks about building his house.

[46:00] The long term impact of fear, suicide, and death.

[50:00] Finding stability and building a solid foundation.

[55:15] Why it’s important to believe in yourself and pursue what makes you happy.

[57:00] Scott talks about the moment he found out his mother had passed away.

[1:00:00] Advice for people who are struggling right now.

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        TRANSCRIPT TAS 543

TAS 543: (Personal Story) Suicide – Drugs – Divorce to NOW Successful Dad and Multiple Business Owner

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  [INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:02] Scott: Well, hey, hey, what’s up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of The Amazing Seller Podcast. This is episode number 543 and today I’m a little scared, I got to be honest with you because we are going to be sharing…

  Read full transcript…

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  Click Here to Download Transcript <<

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  …something that I’ve never shared before and this is a very, very personal story. I could get a little emotional through this story, but it has to do with suicide, drugs, divorce, and becoming a successful dad and multiple businesses that I’ve owned. I’m going to be sharing with you stuff that I’ve never ever shared before and I’m doing it for a few different reasons and I’ll talk a little bit more about that here in a second, but this is not about how to grow your Amazon business necessarily today, although it could translate into that by you being able to move past some of your own obstructions in your life or just things that you think that you can’t do.

I’m sharing this because I hope that it’ll serve you. I hope that we can connect a little bit deeper by me sharing this with you and to do this because I know it’s going to be kind of a little bit hard for me. I’ve invited on a good friend of mine, also a part of our TAS team, Joel Bower. He’s really good at digging deep and I wanted him to actually go through this and I’ve never really shared the full story with him either so he’s going to be asking some questions throughout this, so we can get the best out of this interview. So, I’m going to have him interview me today. So, Joel, are you there, my friend?

[INTERVIEW]

[00:01:31] Joel: Yes. I am here, man.

[00:01:33] Scott: Yeah. So, we’re going to get started here. I mean, I don’t know where to start but what do you want to, I mean, before we jump in, I mean, I talked to you about it a little bit. I talked to some other people personally and I’m like, “Should I even share this stuff? Does it even matter?” What do you want to say to people listening before we jump into this story of mine?

[00:01:52] Joel: Yeah. I think this is such a cool part and we came up with this idea of sharing deeper. It’s something that we do well with the audience. We share a lot. We always want to be honest and forthright and open and here’s our lives, here’s what we’re doing. It’s not like here’s this business, scary business thing over here. Here’s this family thing over here. It’s always been together for us. That’s how we do it. So, this reveal part like kind of talking about your story I think is so crucial because it’s going to help people hear that, “Hey, not everything is going smoothly or perfectly.” When someone’s having a lot of success, a lot of times it’s because they’ve gone through a lot of other stuff before this that have prepared them to take the actions, make the decisions that they made to get them here.

And so, if you’re like in there and you have that story for yourself and you said, “Hey, man I don’t know if I can do this next thing. I came from a broken home or I didn’t have the education I’m supposed to have or maybe I have too much education.” Whatever the reason is we all have a story behind us and we can either use that to propel us forward or to hurt us. And so, I think it’s so awesome and so brave honestly, Scott, for you to share so many things because I know what you’ve talked about, you shared a little bit with me is this is stuff that happened in your childhood that really shaped you but could’ve been damaging, could’ve been very painful, and could’ve left you weaker than you are and you made the choices consistently to change that and so I’m really excited to hear that.

[00:03:11] Scott: Yeah. It is and there’s a lot that I look back on to society’s standards or like them kind of saying like if you go through this, you will become this. I should’ve been a lot different than I am right now and I’m not quite sure 100%. I can’t put my finger on it like what actually allowed me to kind of escape that. I always look like there are cycles in families and as you’re being raised, you’re being shaped, and it’s up to you to either take the good and run with it and take the bad and run with that or run with that. I think I’ve picked a lot of the good and I was able to focus on that but there’s been a lot of bad now that I look back on it that I would never want my kids to go through. And I don’t want people to think that they have to have a broken story like I don’t like talking about people being broken. “Everyone is broken. You got to fix yourself,” like that’s not what I want to do here so I don’t want people to think that I’m saying that.

But I do know a lot of people look at what’s happening on social media, what people post. They never really post like the girl without makeup. It’s always like we’re trying to put a face on ourselves or kind of like that perceived image and I want people to see that not everything was perfect as I was growing up and there was a lot of times that I was and there’s a lot of things that I do today that are a result of that and some of them aren’t really that great that I’m still working on, insecurities and stuff like that. But I think what I should probably do, Joel, is probably just kind of go back and then we might even have to go back once we start going through because there are other parts that I might be missing but just, I mean, do you want to start by asking any questions or do you want me to just kind of start with where I’m thinking?

[00:05:08] Joel: I want to give one quick frame because you brought up a lot of good points and it’s like this isn’t saying, “Hey, if you don’t have a horrible past,” or something that’s traumatic in your past. Whatever we go through in our lives it is traumatic to us because really, it’s kind of – it’s not – how do I describe that? It’s not concrete. It’s not like this is a level of pain you feel for this activity. It’s relevant to us are relative to us and so if someone went through a thing or they went through like dark times or addiction or stuff and found trapped or painful relationships or whatever it is, each person’s case like if it’s, “Okay. My parent was never there,” the person where the parent was never there because they might have had an alcohol problem versus the parent wasn’t there because they were busy at work. The pain for the child can be very similar. And so, I don’t want you to look at this and go, “Okay. I see why Scott succeeded now is because he had these really awful things I didn’t.”

For you, your stuff is your pain and you can either turn that to motivate you to change or to be better or to have more in your life or to have less. That’s up to you. So, I don’t want you like listen to Scott and go, “Oh, it’s not that bad. So, that’s not why I’m not motivated to move forward.” So, I want both sides and if you do happen to share with Scott like similar things, I hope the insight helps you to go, “Okay. I have been using this to kind of hurt myself and stop myself but what if I could do something more with it?” And so, I just want you guys to pay attention and not like try to disqualify and go, “Oh, it’s not me,” and then tune out like realize. And if you have worst stuff than Scott, the same thing applies. For you, that’s really, really intense. Relative to Scott, for Scott’s own life, this was a traumatic stuff. He didn’t have more traumatic things happen so this was the intense emotional stuff that affected him and hurt him in the same way that some of your stuff was. Not to say what happened to you might not be more traumatic that can happen or less traumatic. It’s just pay attention. We are human and we feel our pain is real.

[00:07:06] Scott: Yeah. Absolutely. So, I’ll set the stage really quickly and what I really want people to understand too before we even dive in is that I had great parents. My mother she had some issues and I’ll talk about that. I’ll explain how that then affected me and I lost my mother when she was 50 which was devastating to me. She had a heart attack and we’ll talk about why I think she had a heart attack, but I had great parents. My mother taught me a lot of really, really good things but there was also a lot of negative things that came along with that going through her own struggles. My father was always there. He’s actually here right now visiting. I’m so fortunate to have him still in my life at 75. He just turned 75 July 4 so I’m really excited about that and I’m glad he’s here and we’re going to a Yankee game this week and stuff so I’m really fortunate to have that but there were times that he wasn’t around because he was working three jobs a lot of times but I just want people to understand I’m not knocking my parents at all and I don’t fault them in anything that they’ve done but I’ve learned a ton, some good and some not so good. So, where do you want to start?

[00:08:26] Joel: Yeah. Let’s start with maybe like an early memory that like at the time you’d even know that anything was going on because that was your life but now you realize, “Wow. That was intense. If other people went through that I don’t know if they would’ve felt so good like so normal about it or like being able to do something good with it.”

[00:08:42] Scott: Yeah. Okay. So, let me set the stage here. So, this is what I was told and this is what I remember if I think back, well, I didn’t know it, but my mother was eight months pregnant for me and my father was living with them, with my mother’s parents, and they owned a bar, they owned a tavern in an area called Ballston Spa which is in New York, upstate New York. They’re excited they’re going to have a new baby. My mother didn’t think she could get pregnant and I was eight months in her belly and they owned a bar so like I said you can imagine there’s a lot of drinking going on and stuff like that. And I’ll talk a little bit more about her history or her past once we move forward but just to kind of set the stage. So, my mother went to bed one night and I think her and her father gotten a little bit of an argument over probably because he came home drunk and she was upset with him.

And it was probably a common thing that was happening even through her childhood and my father was there and they lived together like I said and let me also go back a little bit. I had, now I do, I have a stepsister or a half-sister, Kelly, who my father legally adopted. She was two years old when they got married. He legally adopted her and made her our last name and all of that stuff. Her father abandoned her until she was 16. Another story, I’ll talk more about that later but just to kind of set the stage. That’s what we’re talking about. So, now my mother goes to bed and she goes to bed like as normal, eight months pregnant with me, and my father wakes up and hears a crazy scream like someone screaming and my grandmother which I didn’t know at the time I was eight months in my mother’s stomach, my father goes in the garage and my mother’s father had committed suicide.

[00:10:42] Scott: Yeah. He took a hose from the pool and put it on the exhaust pipe and just went to sleep and killed himself. So, my mother obviously, my father didn’t want her seeing that. He had to go out there, shut the car off, take everything apart, called the paramedics and all that stuff. And that’s what started a huge downward spiral for my mother as you can imagine. Eight months pregnant, didn’t lose me, almost did, and then here we are. So, getting a little choked up talking about it.

[00:11:26] Joel: That’s some intense stuff absolutely, man. So, when looking back at that now like what is kind of the takeaway you have for like how that shaped your life or how that affected you?

[00:11:38] Scott: Actually.

[00:11:39] Joel: Like, just knowing that background but I know you weren’t out and about.

[00:11:42] Scott: Well, it makes me understand my mother of what she went through and probably why she went on the path that she did but, again, being like thinking of her and my father having to go through that like seriously like what that was like, like what could that, I mean, and then to think that I might not have been here. My kids might not have been here. So, like thinking of all of those things really puts it into perspective for me and really says, “Holy crap,” like my father’s been a through a ton to after then helped my mother go through that. And my father was friends with her father. I mean my father met my mother at the tavern that they own. He used to come down and shoot darts on like Wednesday nights and my mother was there and that’s how they met.

[00:12:33] Joel: But I really love something you said in there. It was just that we don’t always think about the effects of what we do and have or what happens to us, how it affects things that aren’t even about like your kids. You mentioned like that’s long down the chute but, man, that is like in the decisions that they made in those moments about our lives and that’s something we forget. A lot of times we make decisions because of our own fears or worries or concerns but it was interesting to see that level of glimpse like look at had your mom made different decisions, she would be affecting the lives that aren’t even there yet, and she could’ve. She could’ve either way and so maybe it was like at that point like the will because you were there maybe she’d step up in certain ways where she might not have done that had she not had a reason to. And so, it’s an interesting perspective when things happen to us what we do with them.

[00:13:25] Scott: Yeah. I agree and now going into a little bit more of the darker, I mean, if it could get any darker but that’s where my mother started to lean on drinking and she started to want to cover the pain. And we’ll go back a little bit, but she didn’t really know, she kind of knew, but she didn’t know why she was starting to have a drinking problem. She didn’t realize it. I don’t think a lot of people realize why they start having a drug addiction or they have. Why are they masking these certain things? Was it just the suicide? And later in life, we found out, no it was more than that. The guilt of her not saying goodnight properly haunted her but then again things that happened to her and her childhood that she didn’t really know until she went through counseling that made it even make more sense which I’ll share with that in a little while.

But at this point now, okay fast-forward a little bit, my father is working and my mother is working. She was working in a restaurant in Ballston Spa called Echobelly’s and I actually worked there. It’s a funny story. I worked there my first job after I was I think I was 13. I was getting paid $3.25 an hour which is minimum wage by the way. Dating myself. But I work in the same kitchen that my mother did later. She wasn’t there at the same time but she was there as like the prep chef and stuff and so she was a good cook and all of that, but my mother was always fun and happy but then she was also very down and depressed, and sometimes we would see her go away and like, I mean away like she would just seclude herself. And growing up I remember it more so when I was probably in early to later elementary school like third, fourth, and fifth grade.

[00:15:23] Scott: That’s when I really started to notice that there was something going on and I was being affected and I really didn’t know how I was being affected until later in life even when I was a teenager, but my mother was always again had a drink in her hand as I was growing up at that age. I’m hearing my father and her arguing whether it was over money, whether it was over drinking, a party that they had, and they got out of hand or whatever. I remember being in the middle of that and seeing that and hearing that. So, kind of teaching me a lesson like my wife and I have never argued in front of our kids like shouting matches never happened and I think my wife grew up in a very similar situation as well, alcoholism, her father was abusive towards her mother and all of that. So, we resonated really well which I think is pretty awesome that her and I met to be able to share similar stories.

But going back to like my mother then, my mother would start to lean on prescription drugs, valium, and just different prescribed drugs to really numb the pain that she was having but by doing this also she was starting to really get depressed and there were times I’ve never seen my mother smile. But my mother was a happy person like a fun person like she’d be the one that would be on the ground tickling and having fun. I’ve got pictures of her wrestling me and we’re just having a blast, so I remember all of that stuff and I know that that was a huge quality and it hurts me to ever not be here for my kids.                      

                                                                                                                                                                                   [00:17:09] Joel: Yeah. Do you remember, I mean, you talked a lot about her kind of being depressed and kind of being off. Do you remember how it affected you as a kid? What were you thinking?

[00:17:19] Scott: Well, the other problem was that she would keep me home from school, so I had probably when I was in fourth grade I missed probably half the year at school and that was because she was keeping me home because she didn’t want to be alone. She wanted someone there and she didn’t know why but she would say, “Hey, Scott, you want to stay home today?” I’m in third grade. “Yeah!” Get to watch Price Is Right. We get to watch some TV shows, get to watch soap operas or whatever like I’m a kid. So, of course, I said yes. I sleep in, but it was also scarring me because later in life even now it affects me to not wanting to be separated from my family. And then I had a meeting at school. Obviously, they’re like, “Your son’s missing too much school,” had to go see a therapist and kind of figure out what was the reason.

The reason is because I was basically being kind of taking in my mother’s world of being her rock, her security, and then actually to back up a little bit, let me back up just a little bit. Also, what was happening during this as I was in elementary, my mother was going back and forth to rehabs so she would go to a rehab and I’ll never forget it, Long Island, so it was about a three, maybe a four-hour ride for us and we didn’t have the best car like we had a car that would break down. My father would fix a car. We never had new cars. So, we’re driving this car all the way there hoping it doesn’t break down and we’re driving there to visit my mother and I didn’t get to see her like six weeks. So, imagine seeing your mother all the time and then not for six weeks. Gone. So, yeah that was tough.

[00:19:15] Scott: But again, going back to like that stuff affects me still to this day of not wanting to travel as much, away from my family because I had that attachment. I had that fear that you’re not going to be there. I got a funny story I’ll share with you about our friend, Jimmy. I’ll share that here. Just to remind me, I’ll share that with you and it goes hand-in-hand with not wanting to be separated and thinking my parents were going to not be there like I wouldn’t want to play with my friends as much because I wouldn’t want to be away from home that long because I was afraid my parents weren’t going to be there because I would come home one time and I’d be with a sitter because my father had to go take her to a rehab for six weeks. And I didn’t know when that day was going to come.

[00:20:00] Joel: And how do you see like from your kind of the kid’s view of how it’s affecting your dad and what he did in response to that?

[00:20:07] Scott: Yeah. I’ve seen it. It was tough and now I even look back and I go, “Man, I don’t know how he did it,” because he’s dealing with providing, making enough money to feed us in the house, put a house, a roof over our head, and clothes and all of that and work. And how do you focus at work when you have this going on in your life? I can’t even imagine. I mean, think about when you have like one little thing happen. One little thing in your life that happens and then imagine being someone that’s providing, you’re dealing with a wife that is not really stable that has alcohol problem, prescription drug problem, mental, where you’re not like there were times that she wouldn’t want to go out in the store because she’s afraid she was paranoid like people were – she was feeling like she was weird or she was different and that was becoming a problem and soon we found that she had huge phobias about going out in public and we didn’t know why. No one knew why. My father didn’t know why. So, again, yes seeing my father go through this now even looking back, even now that I’m a grown man with a family, I mean, he’s a strong person, huge.

[00:21:19] Joel: There’s something really cool in this and it’s the – and I’ve seen it a lot. Some people go through things like this and then they become the same. They talk about, I don’t know if you know my background is actually in sociology. That was my degree in college and so looking at like social trends of how people repeat patterns and like how abuse would continue from one to another or alcoholism. Generally, there’s like two choices and it’s like most kids generally choose to be like do what their parents want. What’s interesting and here is like all things that we know are valuable to you are actually responses of like, okay, that’s not going to happen in my family. Okay. I’m not going to have this money struggle. And all these things that you’ve created in your life were in the opposite response and I find that a lot in people that have like come through really hard things and made really amazing lives, they make those choices. They make the standard choice of like that’s not going to happen and I started to hear that trend.

It starts to make a lot of sense of Scott’s big why and you shared that with the audience before but, yeah, it’s just connecting those pieces for me. It’s like you could’ve said, “Okay. Well, this must be normal. This must be what life is about so I’m going to do the same thing.” And most people do, but if you’re in that place, if you’re seeing that pattern or something that’s not good for you, it’s not making your life better. You could also choose what Scott did in many of these cases, not that he did in everywhere. There are probably some places where he’s held on to some of that stuff but where it’s really holding you back, you could like see that and say, “You know what, I’m going to raise my standard. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that my family can be together. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that my family has resources,” and yeah, it’s just a beautiful thing and that’s why I love these stories is because you mentioned it to me and I don’t know if you did in the intro. I’m already forgetting.

[00:23:05] Scott: We’ll go back and listen.

[00:23:07] Joel: But you had mentioned like the story is like if you can connect and help someone if they can pull that out and that can make their lives better, that’s why you want to do this and so hopefully, if that’s you, if you’re on the other side of this and you’re hearing that, and you go, “Oh, man. You know what, I’m actually repeating that pattern that my dad did that I didn’t like. Maybe he was angry all the time or maybe he had drug and alcohol problems, whatever it was.” If you could say like, “No, no, no, my new standard is not going to have that be part of my life. I’m going to do something different for my kids, for family.”

[00:23:37] Scott: Yeah. And I try to also understand like people. I don’t blame like I don’t blame like someone that committed suicide like I’m like there’s a story in their past of the reason why they decided to do what they did, or someone turned to drug abuse. There’s a reason why and it generally links back to their childhood and their upbringing. So, I never look at someone like you’re just a bad person because that’s what you do. I try to figure out where something happened that made that person change. I look at my son. He’s 20 and he’s a lot better of a kid than I was, and the reason is, is because, number one, he’s got more supervision that he has growing up. I didn’t as much because my father was working all the time and my mother was gone. I had a sitter. So, we were going, I had free reign of wherever I want to go, do whatever I wanted to do. And so, he wouldn’t even think about doing things that I would’ve did because he’s got a stable upbringing and also, we’ve kind of shown him the way.

Now, that doesn’t mean he can’t go the other way but I always try to look at other people and their experience in where something could’ve been changed or something or where that moment happened and I go into like even to this day and, Joel, I may have told you before too even like leaving my family a lot of times is hard for me and it’s hard because I don’t want to miss out but I also don’t want a negative effect even though it won’t be. It’s like four days. I’m gone four days. Big deal. “Go, dad. We’re going to have a party like get out of here,” but in my head, I go back to my childhood and like that, I want to be rooted. There’s a lot of people like digital nomads like that wouldn’t be me. It’s just I like grounding. I like roots. I like to establish my home like my home base in a sense and that comes from my childhood.

[00:25:37] Scott: It doesn’t mean that’s a good quality of mine necessarily. It just means that that’s – and I look back and see why I want to be that way and I’ll share a story. So, when I was in fourth or fifth grade, I had that issue and I just I wanted to be able to – I didn’t want to go to school and it actually got to the point where I was then asking my mother if I could stay home because I didn’t want to go to school because, number one, I also was fearful that my mother was not going to be home when I get home. And so, then when you’re in like elementary, generally, you’re in like a few classrooms like two or three. You’re locked in a day, not locked in, but you’re kind of like you’re in a room and you don’t have like classes that you move around to a lot. It’s kind of like you’re in two or three areas and that I feel trapped and the reason why I feel trapped is because if I wanted to, I want to be able to just go. I just want to go. I have an out and when I was going to middle school, I felt, okay, this is going to be better because now I’m going to be changing classes every hour. If I had to, I could run out if I wanted to.

So, I would have that mindset and I’d say, “I could run,” but now what I did here’s a little safety thing that I did for myself, I said to my mother, I said, “Hey, I’m really nervous about going in this, that, and the other thing and I don’t want to leave and all that,” and she said, “Here’s what I want to do,” and again like my mother was so good about being like she was really good about trying to make sure that I didn’t feel that stuff later on like she was always trying to protect me and also wanted to be open and that was one thing I learned from her is open, never keep things bottled up and she learned that later in life by going through counseling but then she taught that to me. And that’s why my wife and I we always if anything’s bothering me, get it out in the open, just don’t bottle it up, get it out there. But anyway, so she said to me, she said, “Scott, here’s what we’re going to do because I want you to be able to go there and be able to relax. I’m going to give you a quarter,” this is when they had payphones for a quarter, and she said, “I’m going to give you a quarter. Keep it in your pocket and at lunch, if you want to call me, just put it in the payphone and you can call me and you know I’m here and you know everything.”

[00:27:38] Scott: And I had that quarter in my pocket and I never use that quarter, but I had it there just in case I needed to make that call. And that helped me. That helped me kind of get through that but also going to middle school definitely helped me too because I did feel that out. I felt like I could run out the door as if I wanted to. But, yeah, I mean that really that did affect me.

[00:28:01] Joel: What I really like is how you covered, you’ve looked back and you said, “Okay. How did this affect me and like what is my decision right now?” And you said, “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” but what’s really cool about that is because you’re aware of it, you get to choose what you want to do with it. A lot of people are kind of victims to what they think is the truth so it’s like, “Well, families don‘t always stay together so if I leave then there’s risk.” And they don’t ever question that or realize it. And so, even the fact that you have that choice, if you started noticing and say that you needing your kids there all the time was affecting them negatively, you can do something about it, so you can see it. And that’s what’s really cool is like it’s not necessarily bad or good, right? We look at, well, how is it affecting our lives? I had a very similar thing. My parents are or I’m a product of divorce and there’s a lot of being shift back and forth between two families that were very, very different and I had a similar thing as like that connection. I build my home base. I love my wife. I love being around my kids and seeing them on a regular basis and having routines in my life and I do a lot to build those.

And there were times where it’s like, “Okay. Well, I can do this trip,” and I would start to have that resistance. It’s like, “Oh man, maybe I shouldn’t go. That’s a whole week. What are my kids going to do without me?” So, in my mind what I did is like I’m like, “Okay. Well, how is this going to affect them? How is this going to shape them?” Because I came to a realization that it’s not what we say to our kids. It’s what we do that tells them how to be. So, they’re looking at me as a model, so I was like I stop myself and said, “I don’t want my kids to think that something should hold them back from something that’s really important to them.” I know that they can handle it and I want to show them that too and so there’s like all these other blessings that like finally overrode that compulsion. Not that I don’t have that every time because I do like I love being around my kids and so no, I think that’s amazing and that kind of insight of and not saying, “Oh, no, this is the right way to be. See look how good a father I am.” That’s not what you said. You said, “I don’t know if that’s a good thing,” and I love that because that was like there’s so much freedom in that truly.

[00:30:04] Scott: Yeah. You’re right 100% and now talking about divorce let’s go into that area because I was 13 and starting to, again, I was starting to feel a little bit better. I’m like starting to kind of, I’m a teenager now and I’m able to explore a little bit better, a little bit more freedom, whatever, and then I get the question and the question for my mother I’ll never forget it. I was sitting on their bed. Actually, let me go back because that just triggered something for me. I used to go in my mother’s bedroom before school and I used to touch the bed. I just remembered that. I used to touch the bed, so I’d have like a scent and kind of like a touch.

And I just remembered that just now as I mentioned the bedroom because I remember going in the bedroom and having a conversation with her, but I remember I used to go in there. My mother used to have a certain scent. It was like a woman’s musk or something and I still have a bottle of it, but she sat me down on the bed when I was 13 and she said, “Your father and I we’re not getting along. We still love each other but just not in that way and we’re going to be splitting up.” She didn’t say divorce. She said, “We’re going to be splitting up,” and she presented me with a question which I never wanted to ever receive, and I prayed at night for this never to happen, this one moment I prayed every night. I can remember praying, “Please don’t let my parents ever get divorced.” And the day came, and she said, “Who do you want to live with?” And I’m like, “How do you answer that?” So, I knew my father was more of the stable one and I knew that my father was a provider so I kind of tried to take the easy way out without hurting anybody’s feeling.

[00:32:04] Scott: I said, “I’m going to stay wherever the house is.” And I knew that my father was going to stay there so I knew I was going to have the stability but again I was still saying goodbye to my mother kind of and that hurt. And I remember standing in the driveway talking to my buddy about it and actually it was Jimmy. I remember talking to Jimmy about it and trying to have him consult me, as a 13-year-old kid he was older, he was 15. How do you do that? So, yeah, that was a big one. That was a big blow on top of everything else.

[00:32:38] Joel: That’s amazing like how many people I’ve heard that the parents came to ask that very question when divorce occurs. It’s shocking like at least give me some foundation. Well, how do I understand like what’s going on? It is. It’s like they don’t know how to deal with it and they come out and they just blurt it out like who do you want to live with? You don’t ask that kid that. You can ask him what he thinks.

[00:33:02] Scott: The crazy thing is my sister who has always grown up as my sister, she’s not my half-sister, she’s my sister and she’s dealt with a lot of her own internal things and a lot of is probably because of her father leaving her at two years old and he finally contacted her on her 16th birthday and tried to basically buy her back which is another story, but she was always battling with weight. People look at me and they’re like, “Scott, you’re not overweight.” My sister is overweight, and she has been her whole life and I remember her getting bullied and me trying to protect her and all that stuff. So, she was our family but with that being said, she was always on my mother’s side in a sense like she would kind of take sides in a sense because it was her mother and I get it like if there was an argument like my sister would defend my mother in an argument. Like, literally, my mother and father are arguing back and forth screaming and then my sister would chime in and I’m like trying to stay out of it.

But as a kid, I’m seeing this. I’m witnessing this. That’s why whenever I hear someone that is in that environment like we have cousins or, I’m sorry, my wife has cousins that in their family. There’s some chaos going on, some arguing going on, and some language being thrown back and forth, and I’m like what they’re doing to these children they don’t even understand like because I was in the middle of that. I’ve seen all that and I’ve seen my sister defending and it’s just not a good environment. But my point is my sister also stayed in the house with me and my father and didn’t go with my mother necessarily and I think because she’d also knew stability was there at home and my mother wasn’t really stable. But, yeah, so the divorce thing was really hard, really hard, and it was something we had to deal with. We did but it wasn’t easy at all.

[00:35:04] Scott: Okay. So, that’s that part. So, let me move forward now. So, now I’m probably going to get into a little bit of then my mother. Obviously, I’m a kid now and I’m getting older. I’m 15, 16 years old and as a 15, 16-year-old kid, I’m not like seeing my mother probably as much as I should have like I’m out hanging out with my buddies. I’m getting my license. We’re driving. I’m getting a girlfriend. We’re doing our thing and I kind of feel guilty to this day a little bit about that. My mother never made me feel guilty but now I do because I could’ve probably spent more time there but there were times also that I would go there, and she would say, “Scott, you know, now’s not a really good time. I’m not really feeling up to myself or I’m going through a thing here,” and she would always be really good about not putting that on me and being like, “Scott, don’t worry about it. This is nothing personal. I just need some time or I’m going to counseling this weekend. It’s really emotionally draining or whatever,” so those things.

[00:36:08] Joel: Well, that’s really cool. I just want to point that out that I keep seeing is as we look back at our past and sometimes we kind of like, “Oh, that should never happen and that’s wrong,” and bad but who would you be if some of that stuff didn’t happen and that’s always like a tough question because you can’t predict it 100% but would you be Scott? Would you be the Scott Voelker that’s helped as many people as you’ve helped if those pressures didn’t be there? So, it’s like you look back in the past and go, “I’d love to change that,” but what if you did?

[00:36:37] Scott: Yeah.

[00:36:38] Joel: What would happen for your kids? What would happen for your wife? Would you guys have connected on the same thing and been there for each other? And so, as I start going to these scenarios and the reason I do that is because I don’t want my kids to get trapped. Bad things happen sometimes like friends aren’t nice or parents do stupid things or people say mean things because they’re working out of fear rather than really thinking about how it affects that child and I want my kids to go, “Okay. Well, you still get to choose.” You still make the best of it. How are you stronger and how are you going to use this to shape you moving forward? That’s more important. And so, it is cool as like but I always like you hear the things and you’re like, “Oh, they’re arguing directly in front of kids, that should never happen,” but what would’ve happened to you if it hadn’t?

[00:37:23] Scott: Yeah. No, you’re 100% right. It’s not easy to go through.

[00:37:28] Joel: No, it’s not.

[00:37:29] Scott: But you’re right. You look back on that and you see that that actually made me think differently on how I wanted to do it or how we wanted to do it, my wife and I. So, yeah, I mean…

[00:37:41] Joel: That can go the other way. I mean that can go where the yelling and they never have security and they never have confidence and they never try. That can go the other way too. It’s no matter what the event is, that’s not what determines what happens in our life. It’s that’s next step so like the things that shaped you into something someone else could’ve gone through and you said to destroy themselves. People go through violence and one person walks out chanting going, “This is not happening to other people,” and then another like just folds into the fear.

[00:38:11] Scott: Yeah. And I think when people are going through any of this stuff you might say to yourself like or when you look back at your life, “No, there’s nothing good that could’ve come out of that,” but if you dig a little bit deeper I think you can find that there is. Now, I’m not going to sit here and say that I’ve been a perfect parent. I don’t think anybody’s a perfect parent. I don’t think anybody’s perfect at anything. There are definitely things that I could’ve done differently. I think I did a pretty darn good job and my wife did and I think we’ve raised some pretty amazing kids and I think they’re kind of the result of what we’ve done. But are there things that you would say, “Yeah, I wish I did?” Well, I’ll give you an example and part of my upbringing or not even upbringing but part of my like childhood that abandonment feeling or not the security of my mother being there or whatever, also that was out of my control.

So, when I’m out of control what does that – and I didn’t realize this until later in life but what does that generally do to someone like in their own life as far as like your day-to-day stuff? Well, for me, I’ve been always kind of like a neat freak. I want things in certain places. I want things tidy. Before I can work, I need to make sure that the counters are clear, that the sink is empty, there are no dishes in it. Because in my head, I can control that. I can make that done and I feel less cluttered. I feel secure in a sense and I’ve also accomplished something that I have control over. And I didn’t realize this until later in life and I was looking at all this stuff and now I’ve recognized it. It doesn’t make it right. I’ve gotten a lot better but I’m just saying like if you recognize it and you’re like, “Oh, I see. That’s where I come from or that’s why I do that.” It’s not that I’m weird.

[00:40:09] Scott: It’s just that that’s the reasoning why I’m the way that I am but those things do come into play and I see that all the time. Even to this day, I mean things aren’t 100% the way I’d like them but I’ve kind of learned to adapt because I’ve got kids and kids make messes and things aren’t always going to be perfect and then also I’d say, “Well, I can clean the floors later because there’s an hour more I could spend here doing this with the kids or whatever.” That stuff still creeps in there. It’s like, “All right, guys. Just give me 15 minutes. Let me get this done. That way I can settle, and I could feel relaxed.”

[00:40:43] Joel: Yeah. And you mentioned that term is something I hear a lot. I know I’m weird or that might be weird, and people do that a lot of time to themselves. I mean from what I’ve seen, from seeing so many people if you actually get to see their whole story, kids see everything in the past, we all have weird things. The weird things are what make us. I mean, if we can just calm down about that a little bit and just go, “Okay. This shaped me. This makes me.” And again, you’re hitting that same thing and I love it is that you realize it. You’re not saying this is right because I do it. You’re saying, “I don’t know if that’s right, but this is what I’m doing and I’m actually improving it because it’s added to my life.” Right there, well, what’s important to you is your family. So, it’s like, “I’ll let that go because I’m going to hang out with my daughter for an hour.” And that is so cool and that’s how we use these things. Weird isn’t going away and I would say if you’re really growing, if you’re really – it’s weird to own your own business. If you look at the average, it’s weird to be successful and it’s weird to take action when there are other people telling you to be afraid. That’s weird. Thank God. Let’s go get weird, man.

[00:41:46] Scott: Right. Yeah. Let’s get weird. I love that. I like that. Be different. Be weird. Yeah. I like it. But it’s so true. It’s like there’s a lot of different things that we were brought up around or introduced to or whatever and that does shape us, and I think that’s super important. For people, they just seem to look at their own lives and just say, hey, where am I “weird”? Where are we different? And it’s okay to be different and just recognize that and try to figure out where that is a strength as well.

[00:42:22] Joel: Well, I’ve seen that in a business standpoint that from you, that organization, that control piece, but what it does it gives you a certain level of certainty too. Once you go, “Okay. Well, that’s a lot of ideas.” No, what are five things we need to do? And you go boom, boom, boom and as soon as you hit there, man, Scott’s off. You’re just taking off and it is cool so that same weird trait has shaped you in such a positive way and I know you probably use that throughout your life. It’s not just in business but like everywhere is I’m going to line this up and then as soon as you get that like, “Oh, okay. Now I see it.” You will make it happen.

[00:42:54] Scott: Well, yeah, it’s funny, a good buddy of mine who he was known to start projects and never finish them.

[00:43:02] Joel: Yeah.

[00:43:02] Scott: I was always the one that was like I’m starting and I’m finishing it and I don’t care if I have to work until two o’clock in the morning. It’s getting done. There’s a story of me finishing the house that I built, and some people know from my story that I’ve shared in the past, but I built the house, gosh, when I was working in construction and full-time and I built my own house that my family lived in, raised my family in for over 17 years and I did that in about 11 months. And I had some time off from my construction job that I took off on purpose, so I can go and shingle my roof, so I can get some stuff done and then I had this one area in the peak of the house. I was putting it, they call them fish scales or like these little decorative scales that go up there kind of like cedar shakes and it was way up, way up. I had like a 36-foot ladder extended and it’s two o’clock in the morning, floodlights are up there. My mother-in-law lived just up the hill, so she could see. She couldn’t go to sleep because she was nervous. I’m up there until two o’clock until that last shingle was up there and I did that because I had it in my mind. I started it. I’m finishing it today no matter what. It’s getting done and I did it.

And I do probably relate that back to just knowing that I can wipe my hands with it. It’s done. I’m complete. I finished something. I have control. I said I’m going to do something. I’m going to do it but yeah that does come back into your life that could be beneficial. So, alright, so let me move on. So, we got up to the divorce, got to be a teenager. My mother was living, I don’t know, probably about 10 minutes away and I would visit her occasionally like when I could once or twice a week, probably more, I should’ve done more but again I didn’t, but she was going through her own stuff, going through a lot of counseling. My mother was always, they were always sampling new drugs on her, I mean prescription drugs to basically try to balance out her emotions and her anxiety and phobias and like all of that stuff.

[00:44:59] Scott: So, to me she was kind of like a test pig or kind of like a guinea pig test subject for these different meds and I didn’t know any better and nowadays I wouldn’t advise that at all but that’s what she was because she was always trying to find that balance without the alcohol. Without the alcohol, how do you balance your mindset, your thoughts and not really knowing why you’re feeling a certain way that you’re feeling? So, kind of like she was going through this stuff as I was getting older and I remember her again going through these bouts of where she was depressed then she was happy and depressed and then happy, but I remember now. I don’t want to forget this because I think this was an important lesson as well is when I was probably around 16 I think it was. I was going through something with a girl or whatever and just have my own little issues and talking to her and then she was having problems and just felt like my life was just like in chaos.

And I think my mother might have called me or something or I called her from one of my friends or something. We got in an argument. I forget what for and I threatened to kill myself and I don’t think I meant it, but I knew it would get a reaction and, boy oh boy, did I cause some problems because then I had a big sit down and she told me that, “If you ever feel like that like you need to tell someone, you need to reach out to someone, there’s a hotline,” and it was great. I mean she was worried because she’s seen what had happened and she had her own bouts. She probably attempted suicide two or three times all by pills I think. It was all pills. My father had told me a story one time. They’re having a barbecue and she disappeared and then he went in and she was basically there unconscious and had to call the meds or the ambulance, the paramedics and have them pump her stomach and all that stuff.

[00:47:02] Scott: So, you know what I mean? So, she understood it, but I’ve seen that as also a way to get attention, so I don’t know if that’s what I was doing at the time. I don’t think I meant it. I’ve never had a thought of that moving past that one time, but I don’t really believe I meant it. I think it was an attention thing because I’ve seen what it did for her, not in a bad way, but in a way that she was doing it because she did want attention. She wanted help and didn’t know how to get it because she was so confused and lost in her own head. But, yeah, that was kind of an eye-opening thing for me too because once I said that I’ve seen the fear that came over her and then we’re leading up to about the time that I got married and I want – and this is where my mother did pass away eventually but where she was going through counseling and she was going through a really dark time to where she would say, like me and my wife, Lisa, got married and we would go visit her and she had said, “I don’t really want you guys to visit for like the next couple of weeks. I’m just going through some really rough times right now and stuff.”

And here I’m kind of a young adult and I’m kind of nervous and scared of her of what could happen, and I want to go there but I know that I shouldn’t. And then she had told me what she had discovered through one of her counseling sessions and what she had discovered is that she was molested as a kid. So, it started to all add up but she and the person that supposedly have done this was her father. So, now it starts to make more sense like everything starts, all the pieces start to align, everything starts to come together but now still that doesn’t help fix her.

[00:48:53] Joel: Yeah. That didn’t stop it. Yeah. That’s poignant.

[00:48:58] Scott: Yeah. So, there are no meds that are really going to help that. It’s a lot of counseling. It’s a lot of forgiveness. It’s a lot that because for all those years she really kind of hated her father but didn’t because she felt guilty and then wondering why and now it kind of make sense why. They didn’t know it. She blacked it out. I think she discovered it through being hypnotized or whatever like to bring you under and then they start to discover like some things that she wasn’t even aware of or on the surface.

[00:49:31] Joel: So, a couple of things, and I mean I like to do a couple more things and I could wrap this story up a little bit just so people have like their takeaways and some things but first, I’d like to hear some ways where you started noticing what had happened, some of those events, actually negatively affected you and what you did about it.

[00:49:48] Scott: Yeah. Well, I think part of the things that started to negatively affect me was and again I’m talking about the whole story, not just like bits and pieces but thinking to myself like I need to figure out how to be secure and how to be safe and then how to find someone that in my life that I’m not just necessarily saying like I have to have like my wife I feel as though we make a great couple, a great team but in the same breath I never wanted to have to lean on someone. I don’t think anyone should have to lean 100% on someone. I think it’s good to have someone there to lean on when you need them, but you shouldn’t have to depend on that person.

So, could I go on and be successful? Sure. Would I want to? No, but I think it also allowed me to and I think anyone is to build up your own skill sets and dig deep inside of your own self to find out what those things are and then use those to move yourself to where you want to go and really discover what that is. I think that’s another big takeaway like what is it that you want and then figuring out why you want that. Why do you want to be able to stay home with your kids? Is it so you can watch Netflix and have them go to a sitter? Like what is it? That wouldn’t be good for me like if I’m going to build a business that allows me to have time, I want to take the time to spend it with my family.

[00:51:26] Joel: Okay. So, the piece you’re responding to is like kind of the dependency like feeling that comp and know that that’s not why you want to be connected to your wife and that’s not why you want to be connected to your family but overwriting, is that what you’re talking about?

[00:51:38] Scott: Yeah. Exactly.

[00:51:40] Joel: And then okay cool.

[00:51:42] Scott: Yeah. I think so. Again, it’s like one of these things that’s why I wanted you on, Joel. It’s kind of like you’re hearing things and you’re kind of distilling them down differently than I might even be playing them in my own head. And I like that because it does make me say, “Oh yeah, he’s right. That does make sense,” and it’s kind of like one of those counseling sessions. It’s kind of where you go there, and you get that feedback and that’s good to be able to do that.

[00:52:07] Joel: It’s really nice you had another added piece and both because of we know how valuable it is to anybody starting their business, but you went to your big why.

[00:52:15] Scott: I did.

[00:52:16] Joel: And I love that because that’s exactly where you start to answer for some of these things because that’s what will get you over it. It’s easy to stick in the pattern and go, “Okay. Well, I do feel dependency and it hurts their way, so I’ll just stay there,” but then you ask yourself what my why was and now you open up the resources to do something about it. And that way you can go, “Okay. No, no, no, my wife and I are a great team.” It’s not the dependency piece or that I don’t like being alone or my family has to always be this because we’re a great team and we do amazing things together and that’s why I’m doing it, not because of my dependency and I love that.

[00:52:50] Scott: Yeah. I think it’s crazy too though how like things do end up, I don’t want to say always working but they seem to as long as you put yourself out there, but they seem to find themselves or you’re able to find those through whatever you’re doing in your life. Now, again if you’re out there and you’re doing bad things, you’re going to find bad things. But what I’m saying is for me to be able to be drawn to my wife and then us hitting it off and knowing almost immediately that we were a match like that’s kind of crazy to me to think back that her and I met and within six months we were like engaged and I knew it like I just knew it. But again, going back to my girlfriend in high school taught me a lot. It taught me of what I didn’t want, and I didn’t know it at the time, but she was really there to me for just the companion, to having someone there. I knew that she probably wasn’t going to be the one for me.

But to me it was that dependency, it was having someone to be around, it was a little bit of affection and love and those things that you want in your life that you might not have because my mother was going through her things, my father was busy with his thing. So, you’re kind of trying to find a way to fill that void. But then when you find the right one, man, it’s like crazy. It’s like look at all the amazing things that have happened. My wife and I built multiple businesses together. We have a great relationship, 24 years married. We’re both healthy. We both have the same visions as far as what we want to do in life, health-wise and personally and family. We actually just this past weekend my daughter was visiting, my oldest daughter Alexis and her and her husband are going to be trying for kids here probably in the next couple of years and we’re talking about what are some cool grandma and grandpa names. I don’t want to be just grandpa. So, it’s like I’m excited to be able to take the lessons that I’ve learned and use those in our lives moving forward and also helping people by even just sharing this story and if some person walks away that listens to this and said, “Holy crap,” like I connect with that like in some way and that helps pull you out or even just redirect your path or give you another perspective then I’m happy like I’m so happy.

[00:55:09] Joel: And that’s perfect because the kind of question I have that actually is what lessons from your life would you teach others, would you teach your own kids that you want to make sure that people you care about are getting from your life?

[00:55:23] Scott: Yeah. Well, it’s a great question and I think the biggest thing is believing in yourself and from there going for what makes you happy.

[00:55:37] Joel: Awesome.

[00:55:37] Scott: Right? So, don’t settle because you think you have to or because you need to conform to a certain lifestyle or even a lifestyle that your parents might think that you should have because every one of your family went to college or maybe they haven’t went to college and so you’re not supposed to go to college or whatever it is, don’t conform. The life that we have is so short and it is. I mean, 90 years would be amazing like 100 would even be better if we’re healthy but it’s really not that long. So, like why be unhappy doing what you’re doing in life or even just the life that you’re living or the person that you’re with or the family that you’re raising or being a certain role model for your kids or even kids that you coach on a baseball team or softball team or whatever, soccer, whatever sport you’re doing or helping out with Scouts, whatever it is.

It’s like what are the things that’s going to light you up or that you’re going to be remembered as and those are the things I think you should really focus on and understand that the things in your past doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s where you have to go but you could learn from those past experiences and that could go all the way back to your childhood or your parents and all of that stuff. Before we do wrap up though, I did want to share one last thing just with people because it was kind of like the last thing that happened to me which also was eye-opening. Actually, it forced me to deal with it but the day that I found my mother passed away I was coming back from work, working construction and my son, Scottie, now who’s 20 was two months old. She held him once or maybe twice. And so, I was coming home from work and I pulled in. We were getting ready to go to New Jersey on a little vacation, ourselves and another couple.

[00:57:36] Scott They had some kids and we’re going to go away together and I pull in the parking lot and I remember parking the van in the parking lot, the work van, and my wife, Lisa, came pretty much jogging up to me crying, bawling her eyes out, and I’m thinking to myself like one of our kids something happened like I’m just – and she came up and she hugged me and she said, “It’s your mom.” I didn’t even cry at the time. I don’t think I was in shock but almost in another part of me was almost relieved and I know a lot of people don’t like to say that, but I’ve seen her fight for so long and struggling and I knew that she was probably going to be in a better place, but you never want to see that but in the same breath we were always, always worrying about how she was doing or was she going to try to commit suicide.

And so, that was the final thing really with that, that also taught me that death can be really, really devastating and grieving but it can also be a learning lesson there as well like being able to take the lessons that you’ve learned through that whole experience and then adapting those to your life and then helping other people when they have a death in their family and how you got through it. So, yeah, it wasn’t easy. My mother was 50 and that’s young. That’s really, really young. My wife’s father died when he was 56 of colon cancer. So, we both dealt with it. We dealt a lot of that in our lives but, again, I just want to wrap up with that. I know it’s not like you shouldn’t wrap up with that but it’s like it was kind of like that was the final piece and actually, it was terrible, it was devastating, and it took a while.

[00:59:35] Scott Even to this day I just wish that she was here for just a moment to enjoy my kids and all of that but in the same breath I’ve seen the fight that she put up for so many years and she was so strong. I mean, she was a smoker too and she quit smoking for like 12 years before she died. And just to also to kind of give her some props when she passed away, she was 20 years sober, so she had quit drinking completely for 20 years, never had a drop and if you know anything about alcoholism, if you drink one drop you are now, you’ve slipped back to zero. So, she was 20 years clean and she had quit smoking for over 10 years. So, pretty strong woman but she dealt with a lot and, yeah, she taught me a lot as well.

[01:00:20] Joel: That last piece reminds me up one more thing and it’s just something I want to make sure. Sometimes it’s easy to tell someone when they’re doing okay or when they’re doing good advice and can take it up. What advice do you have for people that are going through a hard time right now when things seemed more difficult or harder to feel optimistic about?

[01:00:37] Scott: Yeah. That’s a good one because when you’re in it, it’s hard. It’s really, really hard. I think you got to look at the good things that have happened in your life and how they’ve shaped you but then also look at the future, where can the future go. Now, I know if you’re dealing with someone going through cancer it can be so devastating, it’s so hard. Or a sudden death, it’s instant. You don’t know how to deal with that. Try to think about the people that are here now that are still here, the ones that love you, the ones that need you, the ones that you can impact. Think about that and that to me will push you past any negativity or at least get you through the negative times or the times that you could really, really start spiraling down. Think about all of the good that you provide and the people that are looking up to you or that are finding you as motivation or inspiration or just someone that they enjoy being around or just someone special in your life.

[01:01:43] Joel: Awesome. You have people that need you. We do so much more for the people we care about than we do for ourselves sometimes. Awesome. That was an amazing answer.

[CLOSING]

[01:01:52] Scott: Awesome. So, let’s kick this up a notch. What do you say? I think we got to close this baby down the way that we close it down and a lot of times people say, “Scott, how do you get all that energy?” Well, I just get excited because I’m here and I’m able to serve you and I’m able to hang out with people like Joel and my whole team and my family and my extended family, the TAS Community, all of you guys and this thank you wall that I look at every day and I’m looking at right now. You can’t see me but I’m looking at it and a whole bunch of letters that come in all the time, emails about people that we are helping and that we’re changing their lives and if this episode has done that, let me know for sure in the show notes.

The show notes to this episode can be found at TheAmazingSeller.com/543. You can get all of the transcripts or show notes. There won’t be a lot of links here but there will be the transcripts if you want to read this or you can just go back to it, bookmark it. This might be an episode you might want to go back and listen to or maybe even have someone in your life that you think has went through this and that can maybe help them. That might be a good idea as well. But let’s get some energy going on here today, Joel. Let’s close this baby out. Are you ready, my friend?

[01:03:02] Joel: I am, sir.

[01:03:03] Scott: All right. Well, let’s kick it up a notch. So, guys, remember, as always, I’m here for you, I believe in you, and I’m rooting for you, but you have to, you have to, come on, say it with me, say it loud, say it proud, Joe is going to say it on the count of three. You ready, Joel?

[01:03:18] Joel: Yes, I am.

[01:03:18] Scott: You ready with some energy?

[01:03:20] Joel: Oh yeah. I’m going to get that energy now.

[01:03:22] Scott: One, two, three. Take action!

[01:03:24] Joel: Take action!

[01:03:26] Scott: Have an awesome amazing day, guys! And I’ll see you right back here on the next episode.

[END]

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[sasarie]

A while ago I discovered manga artist Shizuka Yamaguchi's blog where she listed 100 dreams she had for herself and her career. She updated and reflected on them over time and it was interesting to see her grow and score her dreams through her hard work. I'm doing that for myself so that I have some directions for myself, and also so I can look back in the future to see if my dreams and goals change with time.

I don't know if I have 100 career + personal goals and dreams, so I will just list them as they come. These dreams and goals are an accumulation of years of thinking and dreaming so they might be erratic.

Also, while I truly believe in the value of sharing your aspirations, I think there are some heart's desires that should stay inside yourself. They're the ones that light the brightest fires for you and the ones that it would crush you to hear someone criticise. For the longest time the dream of just being an artist was one of these types of 'heart's desire' for me. I was afraid to share that dream because I knew if I heard negativity around it I would probably listen to it and talk myself out of working towards my dream. So there are a few dreams that I will hold close to me and only share once they’ve been set into motion. :)

My Art & Career Dreams & Goals - 19.11.20

1.Participate in a fanzine for a fandom I love

2. Open a sticker shop online (like Red Bubble)

3. Make 100+ finished pieces

4. Be commissioned by someone who likes my work

5. Have my art used as a thumbnail/background for a music mix on YT (haha is this a corny dream?)

6. Be hired for freelance work

7. Build a portfolio website

8. Make a daily comic (funny, light-hearted, slice of life comic)

9. Publish that comic on Webtoon

10. Release a one-shot story driven webcomic to Webtoon to see if I like writing comics

11. Improve my traditional art to a level that I’m satisfied with

12. Sell 100 stickers

13. Start an art channel on Youtube

14. Sell an original piece of traditional art

15. Sell a print

16. Have some of my own stickers/physical products irl

17. Have a shirt or clothing with my art on it

18. Make a digital zine/pdf of my art or sketches and put it on Gumroad

19. Start a Ko-fi page so I can do mini sketch commissions or something

20. Film a sketchbook tour or maybe a digital sketchbook tour

21. Learn simple animation and make a simple gif

22. Learn how to paint backgrounds

23. Learn how to design fantasy weapons (because I am so bad at this….)

24. Collaborate or art trade with another artist

25. Release a printed book of my art and/or sketches

26. Make an online store that I maintain so I can personally package and ship things to people who enjoy my art

27. Publish some tutorials or mental perspective/motivation posts sharing things I’ve learnt about art making so far

28. Compete a 30 day traditional art challenge

29. Paint some kind of wall or mural piece

30. Publish an art travel journal thing

31. Illustrate for packaging of skin care/beauty products

32. People liking and become fans of my original characters and stories

33. Participate in a Q+A with people who follow my art

34. Be commissioned to illustrate Twitch emotes / banners

35. Be recognised by a game studio for my fan art

36. Approached by a client for freelance work (rather than find it myself)

37. Have my art displayed in a gallery

38. Make seamless patterns/surface design

39. Have a Patreon and people actually want to support me because they value my art

40. Sell my art at a convention

41. Frame and hang a piece of my own art in my home

42. Paint the cover art for a fantasy or magical realism novel

43. Buy a screen tablet with money I make from art

44. Be able to afford to buy from and support artists that inspire me whenever I want

45. Be able to afford to invest money into my own art education

46. Contribute art to a video game

47. Contribute art to a charity event/auction thing

48. My art is used as promotional splash art for tablet/program/art related product etc.

49. Take my Love on a holiday with money I earnt through art

50. Be genuinely proud in myself for making a career out of something I never thought I could do

Okay, I think this is enough dreams for now. Some seem pretty impossible, to be honest… But who knows. I will work towards everything listed and hopefully achieve even more. I feel embarrassed reading through this list but apparently that’s the way sharing your goals is supposed to be.

I’ll check back on this list sometime next year and see what has happened.

#selfvalkyrie

[lady-bertrams-pug]

I don't know why I'm doing this but- 46 and ErwinXEren? Or LeviXEren, either is fine (or even both idk)

Heeyyyy thank you! As you left the choice up to me, I went with the OT3. Some alcohol-induced shenanigans ahead.

46: 

What is this? 20 questions?

**********

“You’re late.” Without looking up, Erwin continued chopping up fennel as if he held a personal grudge against the crisp green heads.

“Only ten minutes.” Eren snatched a cherry tomato and popped it into his mouth. “And it wasn’t my fault. Someone dragged me out to the bar when it was long past the bedtime for a solid and responsible young lad like me.”

Erwin had to admit that he had a point. It had been his own idea to go out for a drink, and somewhere between the third gin-tonic and 11 pm the thing had gotten out of control. It had taken him all his determination to crawl out of bed.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Eren don an apron, gloves and a hairnet. He looked remarkably fresh for someone who had been dropkicked out of a bar for dancing La Bamba on a table.

“Why isn’t the radio on?” Eren flicked on the ancient radio set, and Erwin winced at the volume of some post-grunge track mercilessly drilling into his eardrums. The younger man whistled as he began cleaning and slicing a crate of bell peppers.

Erwin relaxed a tad. Apparently Eren had forgotten about his alcohol-induced bout of oversharing. Levi would skin him alive if he -

“So, is it an animal?”

“What?” Erwin’s hands stilled, and he felt as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head.

Eren’s smile told him that he remembered every last syllable of last night’s conversation.

“Levi’s tattoo. Is it an animal?”

“Eren, can we just forget about this?”

“Like hell am I going to forget about this. You spilled that Levi has an unfortunate tattoo and expect me not to ask what it is? Come on.”

Groaning, Erwin crossed over to the coffee machine and filled the largest mug he could find. Maybe a dose of piping hot caffeine could soften his blazing headache a bit. Usually, he loved their food truck, surrounded by mouthwatering aromas and selling fresh pasta to their customers. Today, it would be taxing. Very taxing. He thought of the clams that waited for their preparation and gagged.

“Is there enough of the lemon pesto for today?” He tried to swerve, knowing it was fruitless.

“Yup. All the pre-cooked sauces are stocked up. We only need to get the veggies, seafood and meats ready. Is it a fluffy kitten? Please tell me it’s a fluffy kitten.”

“No, it’s not a cat. Eren -”

“Any other animal?”

“No animal.”

“A flower?”

“Uh…”

“Hah. Just one flower?”

“Eren. Please. Levi will kill me.”

“He will kill you anyway, so you might just as well tell me everything. So, one flower?”

Erwin closed the lid on the box of fennel and turned to the asparagus in hope of avoiding the clams for a while longer. “No, it’s not one flower.”

Eren beamed. “So, several, huh? Hm. What’s a classic choice of tattooed flowers… lilies… no, wait, roses. Is it roses?”

“What is this? 20 questions?”

Both men whirled around to the door. Levi’s arms were crossed, and his raised eyebrow said he was not amused.

“I thought you guys were long finished with preparations. Can’t I stay at my cousin’s for one fucking night without you messing up everything?”

He ignored his boyfriends’ chirped greetings of ‘Hi, honey’ and ‘Good morning, darling’ in favor of checking the fridge contents.

“And what’s this talk of tattoos and flowers?”

Guilty silence.

Levi turned around and regarded them both closely, instinctively homing in on Erwin, who scratched his head and shuffled his feet like an overgrown schoolboy.

“Oh no, you didn’t.”

“Levi, I -”

“He didn’t tell me on purpose, Levi, he just let it slip when he was drunk…”

“Eren, you’re not helping.”

“What? Levi, we only talked about bad life choices and stupid stuff we’ve done, and I said that you’re the only person I know who I think never did anything dumb, and then he said you had this regrettable tattoo. I swear, that’s all.”

Levi huffed with a hint of amusement. “Your opinion of me is far too flattering, Eren. I may appear to have my shit together now, but I certainly did my fair share of dumb stuff. Including getting a dumb tattoo.”

He sighed. “Well, I guess sooner or later you’ll get to see it anyway.” Levi and Erwin had already been an item for many years, while Eren had only recently changed his status as business partner and friend to boyfriend.

Eren blushed slightly. “I, um, hope so. But what I don’t understand, why should a roses tattoo be embarrassing? Many people have flowers. As long as they aren’t terribly ugly -”

“Oh, the roses are perfectly fine. It’s more the banner that says ‘daddy’.”

“Excuse me?”

“And the dick.”

“I thought you just said dick.”

“I did.”

“Oh.”

Eren picked up a celery stem and nibbled on it thoughtfully. Erwin and Levi exchanged a glance and waited for him to mull it over.

“So you have a tattoo. Of a dick. With roses. And the inscription is ‘daddy’.”

Levi inclined his head. “Accurate.”

“Hm.” More celery crunching.

“Why did you get that?”

Levi glanced at his watch. “That’s a story I’d rather share with enough time and after two or three beers.”

“Fair enough. Have you ever thought of changing it?”

Erwin looked up from the asparagus he’d been tending to while listening to their conversation. “And what should he cover it up with, a unicorn?”

“Don’t be silly.” Eren picked up two more stems. “I thought more about adding another dick. And have them crossed like swords.” He demonstrated with the celery and waggled his eyebrows.

Levi laughed and took a container of prawns from the fridge. “Maybe if you get me drunk enough, kid. And Erwin, for the love of God get some fresh air, you look like death.”

**********

Note: Levi’s tattoo is inspired by this magnificent art by @kiokushitaka

**********

Drabble challenge 1-100 by @prompt-bank

#eruriren #eruriren network #eruriren fanfic #frauwrites

[daniellethamasa]

Hey all, Dani here.

Greetings! I usually like to do these monthly wrap-ups on the first of the month, but I had a couple post office delays with the delivery of my OwlCrate and a Book Loft package, so I decided I would wait one more day since the shipment tracking said I would get them both today. Thankfully they arrived a few hours ago, so I was able to put the finishing touches on the post.

April was actually a really good month on the being in home and watching shows, reading books, blogging, and playing Animal Crossing. Granted, it was also a lot more stressful in terms of going into work, and I have a feeling that it’s only going to get worse on that, as more and more people are deciding that they are tired of the restrictions of social distancing and now with mandatory wearing of masks, so they are taking their unpaid leave and just not dealing with it. Unfortunately it means those of us who are left have to work even harder, which is physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. I’m now actually finding myself wishing that the factory would just close for a week or two until the manpower struggles lessen a bit, but I don’t think that will happen. It’s immensely frustrating. I don’t want to be there with everything going on, but I can’t afford to take two weeks without pay.

But today’s supposed to be a pretty nice day, so I think Damian and I are maybe going to go to a state park that has some pretty nice and wide hiking trails, so we can get outside and walk around a bit. We’re obviously taking our masks with us too. I bought some of Etsy, getting him a Slytherin mask and me a Ravenclaw one. I ordered a couple others but those haven’t shipped yet.

As usual with my monthly wrap-up, let’s start off by checking in on my overall goals for the year.

Reading: I read 30 books in the month of April, 10 of which were manga volumes, two were re-reads, and three were novella length. Overall that takes me to 101 books read already in 2020. Still, I’d say that is a pretty good month of reading. I should probably count up how many pages that is. Okay, I did the calculations, and only counting finished books I read 8,707 pages in April…but really I’ve probably read a few hundred more if you include unfinished reads. Overall though I’m super happy with that. I successfully completed my requirements for the OWLs Magical Readathon, so all I have to do is pass the NEWTs in a couple months and I’ll be a Trader of Magical Tomes. I also participated in Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, and that was a whole lot of fun. Plus, I am currently in the middle of the Calendar Girls Springtime Whirl, going until May 11th, so I’m hoping to read a few more books at least for it–I haven’t achieved a bingo yet, but I’m really just having a good time trying to read to fulfill random prompts.

Blogging: It was the best month on my blog so far this year, and pretty close to being my best month in the history of Mousai Books, in terms of stats anyway. In terms of number of blog posts, this was definitely the best month overall…but I’m going to dial it back a little bit, because there’s no way I can keep doing like 10+ posts a week. It’s not sustainable for me right now. But I do still feel pretty good about continuing to have posts up pretty much every day. I wrote up 46 blog posts in the month of April, which is impressive, but it was also a whole lot of work. I did really enjoy the content though. I had a lot of books to talk about, and I especially enjoyed my National Library Week posts.

Writing: Well, I wrote a lot of blog posts, though that doesn’t count on the creative writing front. I was all excited about jumping into writing my book and then the world went to crap and I can’t get in a good mind set to write, so I’ve focused my attention on reading, and more study of the craft of writing. So it’s progress, but it isn’t progress in a trackable form such as increasing word count.

Conventions: Right now we are waiting to see what’s going to happen with Gen Con in late July/early August. It is a massive convention, so we’re expecting there to at least be a ton of restrictions. Lexington Comic and Toy Con ended up being postponed again, this time to June 18-21, and then it was just announced like yesterday that the 2020 convention is being canceled. But we both really want to work with Colorworld Books again, so we’re hoping that Cincinnati Comic Expo in September will still be good to go. My friends at Colorworld Books are trying to continue with their business as a digital affair, but 99% of the profits were made from attending conventions, so this has been a struggle for them. If you want to go check out their online store, that would be great. They have metal art prints and bookmarks, geeky t-shirts, and books. Oh, and you can use ConLife30 for 30% off of all metal, or CORONACON for 10% off any shirts. Oh, and they have actually started doing Colorworld LIVE convention style events just about every week. They gather up three or four awesome voice actors, hold a livestream panel, then a VIP panel for anyone who buys some signed merch, and of course you can get shirts, metal art prints, and more with characters these actors have portrayed. It’s pretty cool.

Okay, I guess I should start with wrapping up my time with the OWLs Magical Readathon. I was going for the Trader of Magical Tomes career path, which required me to read 4 books. I ended up changing one of the books from my TBR out because it was taking me so long and I worried I wouldn’t finish it in time. But, other than that, I was successful in reading all four books, so I’m ready to continue my Magical Tome training in the NEWTs later this year.

I’m also in the middle of the Calendar Girls Springtime Whirl, which is a bingo inspired reading challenge running from April 13-May 11. Once the reading challenge is over I’ll share a post with an updated bingo board covering all the categories I completed.

All right, let’s run through everything I read in the month of April. If I have a review up, I’ll also include the link back to that post.

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare — 4.5 stars

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie — 5 stars

The Winter Duke by Claire Eliza Bartlett — 4.5 stars

Manga Classics: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Po Tse — 4 stars

The Queen of Raiders by Sarah Kozloff — 5 stars

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane — 5 stars

Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren — 4 stars

You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle — 3.5 stars

The Library Book by Susan Orlean — 5 stars

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron — 5 stars

Hickville Crossroads by Mary Karlik — 4 stars

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley — 4.5 stars

Fruits Basket Collector’s Edition Volume 4 by Natsuki Takaya — 4 stars

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman — 4 stars

Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin — 4 stars

Witches of Ash and Ruin by E. Latimer — 4.5 stars

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone — 5 stars

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey — 5 stars

Fairy Tail Volume 8 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin — 4 stars

The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer — 4.5 stars

Fairy Tail Volume 9 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming May 4, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 10 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming May 18, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 11 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming June 1, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 12 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming June 15, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 13 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming June 29, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 14 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming July 13, 2020)

Fairy Tail Volume 15 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars (review coming July 27, 2020)

The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold — 3.5 stars

The Honey Don’t List by Christina Lauren — 4.5 stars

Whew, that was quite the list of reads for the month. Seriously I had a lot of fun reading this month and definitely found some books that are contenders for my Top Ten Reads of 2020 from April to June, so that’s great. Unless something bad happens, I have a feeling that this will be my best year of reading in a long time.

All right, next it’s time for the book haul portion of things, starting with the OwlCrate unboxing.

I think I’m really going to enjoy putting together the Moony puzzle, and the book sounds rather interesting. Clearly I enjoy having another notebook, as those are handy to have around. Same with the tote bag. And Damian really likes the wooden phases of the moon banner, so I gave that to him to add to the decorations in his man cave. I actually do like the OwlCrate version of this cover better than the original. The people are a bit closer and bigger, and the cover has this wonderfully eerie glow to it, almost as if it is bathed in moonlight, which is great. Plus those sprayed edges.

And, before I get into the rest of the books for my monthly haul, I want to talk about some other purchases I’ve made lately.

The stickers I bought off of Redbubble and they are from a dozen different artists. A few of the stickers are for Damian (and he already put them up in his man cave) and the rest are going on my art wall collage. The metal art prints are from my friends at Colorworld Books, and I love the metal art, but it is not easy to capture their beauty in a photo because of the reflection of light. Maybe I’ll think of doing a little video of them in my Instagram stories or something. I might pick up some more art this weekend. We’ll see.

As part of the bookhaul portion of today’s post, I need to do a shout out to The Book Loft of German Village in Columbus, OH. After some requests on social media, they complied and decided to offer a Malamarkus Mystery Box. You pay a single price for the box, tell them in your order comments what genres you would like, and then they fill the box with items such as books, a tote bag, bookish pins or stickers, etc for you. I have purchased two of these boxes, and it’s really fun to get a package where you have no idea what books they will select for you. The first box I ordered I gave them the genres of Epic Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Manga, with a couple examples of authors/series for each. I loved the selections so much that I picked up a second box, asking this time for fiction that makes me feel like I’m playing Dungeons & Dragons.

What’s really fun about both of these boxes is that they ended up having books for both Damian and myself. In the first box he got Dr. Stone because he watches the anime and wanted to try the manga, and The Starless Sea because I already owned a copy. In the second box I gave Damian The Last Wish, Heart & Shadow, and The Shadow of What Was Lost, again because I owned all of them already. What is really funny is that I had just bought and received that last one from my Barnes & Noble order a few days ago. Oh, and Damian also got the tote bag because I already have one–in that exact same color.

Okay, now for the standard bookhaul segment of the post.

Along with picking up the two books in her Dasreach Council series that I didn’t have, I also was able to buy that lovely Beauty and the Beast stained glass cloth mask from author Josette Reuel as well. We are now required to wear masks while at work, and I wanted to have a selection of cloth masks instead of relying on the disposable paper ones they are going to hand out at work. Though I’m still trying to figure out a good/easy way to be able to get a drink while also working on the factory floor, because the masks make you overheat even faster and that means you dehydrate even more.

Finally I guess it’s time to talk May TBR. I am sort of participating in Moody May, hosted by Kathy from Books and Munches and Destiny from Howling Libraries, and the whole point of Moody May is to read whatever you are in the mood for, which is perfect for mood readers who don’t like TBRs. But I’m sort of a mixed reader, because I enjoy having a somewhat planned TBR and then picking up mood reads to supplement my reading. So, I have made a rather ambitious TBR, which will probably be supplemented by shorter mood reads.

See what I mean? This stack of books is massive. Why am I doing this to myself? Honestly it’s because I seem to pick up thick fantasy reads as the weather gets warmer. I don’t even know how many pages are in these 10 books. So, yeah, I was curious and checked and those ten books are 6,276 pages.

Now that doesn’t include the fact that I’m in the middle of three or four other books that are also around 500 pages each. What can I say? I do love a good lengthy read, especially right now when my weekends are not filled with running around or playing D&D for hours and hours.

April Wrap Up and May TBR Hey all, Dani here. Greetings! I usually like to do these monthly wrap-ups on the first of the month, but I had a couple post office delays with the delivery of my OwlCrate and a Book Loft package, so I decided I would wait one more day since the shipment tracking said I would get them both today.

#Anime #ARC #Book Releases #Books! #Conventions #Gen Con #Manga #manga review #Movies #National Library Week #Reading #Reading Challenge #Tabletop Games #Video Game #Young Adult

[marketingcomcaio]

Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer)

SEO has been changing drastically over the years.

In 2010, Google made 516 algorithm changes. That number increased to 1,653 in 2016 and to 3,234 in 2018. We don’t have data for the last couple of years, but still, you can bet that the number is continually going up.

With over 9 algorithm changes a day, it’s safe to say that it is no longer easy to manipulate or game Google.

So, is SEO dead?

Well, let’s look at the data and from there I’ll show you what you should do.

Is SEO dead?

Do you know how many searches take place on Google each day?

Roughly 5.6 billion searches per day.

That’s roughly 2 trillion searches each year.

Although that’s a lot of searches, there is also a lot of content being created.

There are roughly a billion blogs on the web.

There are so many blogs that you can find an excessive amount of content on most topics out there.

For example, if you look at the long-tail phrase, “what is digital marketing”, there are only 11,300 global searches a month but a whopping 665,000 pieces of content trying to answer that question.

In other words, the supply is much greater than the demand.

You’ll see even more of this for head terms. Just look at the phrase “banana”:

640,300 global searches seem like a high number but there are 880,000,000 million results. Sure, some of those results may not be on the food, banana, but still, that’s a lot of content compared to the search volume.

You can still find search phrases where there is more search volume than content but the trend is continually increasing in which content production is exceeding search demand.

On top of that, Google is turning into an answer engine in which they are answering people’s questions without them having to go to a website.

According to Dejan SEO, they saw CTRs drastically decrease once Google started answering questions. Just look at this weather search query:

Their clicks from weather-related queries went from 46% all the way down to 7%.

This trend has become so common that the percentage of traffic that Google drives to organic listings (SEO results) has been decreasing over time.

So, does this mean SEO is dead?

It’s actually the opposite.

SEO is not dead

With all of the data, how can that be the case?

First off, all marketing channels become statured over time. It’s just a question of when.

You can say the same thing about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even email marketing.

Heck, just look at the image below. It was the first banner ad on the Internet.

Can you guess what company created that banner ad? It was ATT.

Of the people who saw it, 44% of them clicked on it. Now banner ads generate an average click-through rate of 0.5%.

That’s an enormous drop.

And, as I mentioned above, it’s with all channels. Just look at Instagram engagement rates:

It doesn’t matter if it is a sponsored post or an organic post, the trend on Instagram is that engagement is going down.

That’s why you are seeing people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone promoting their phone numbers all over Instagram.

That way they can communicate with their fans directly without having to deal with algorithms or platforms decreasing their engagement.

But even with those decreasing numbers, you are seeing sponsored posts on Instagram surging by 150%.

In other words, people are still spending money because they are seeing an ROI or generating enough value in their eyes.

And the same is happening with digital ad spending.

The numbers are on the rise because companies are generating an ROI.

So, how is SEO still not dead?

As I explained above, just because the metrics aren’t going in your favor doesn’t mean that a channel is dead.

Just look at my search traffic on NeilPatel.com.

Not only do I have to deal with Google’s algorithm like you, but my competition includes other marketers who know what I know… yet I am still able to grow my search traffic even with Google’s decreasing CTRs.

When you look at search as a whole (and I am not only talking about on Bing and Google as people also search on other sites and platforms as well) Google still dominates market share with a whopping 94%.

People still use Google and prefer them as their method of search. But what’s changed is how Google is being used.

It used to be where you would use platforms like Instagram for discovery and Google for commerce (purchasing).

The trend has switched over the years in which Instagram is being heavily used for commerce and Google is mainly used as a discovery engine.

Just look at this case study by Olay.

Olay sells products related to skincare. One of their products happens to reduce darkness under your eyes.

So, they used to push heavily on ads that sold their products directly.

But the moment they changed their ads to focus on education by teaching people how to reduce dark circles under their eyes instead of forcing people to buy their products, their ROI went through the roof.

By sending people to educational-based content first (and then selling through the content), they were able to increase click-throughs by 87%, decrease their cost per click by 30%, and increase conversions by 100%.

This is a prime example of how more people are using Google as a discovery engine first instead of a commerce engine.

SEO isn’t dying it is just changing

Now that you know that Google is shifting to a discovery engine (for both paid and organic listings), there are a few other things you need to know if you want to dominate the organic listings.

1: Google wants to rank sites you want to see

Their algorithm core focus isn’t backlinks or keyword density, or a specific SEO metric… the focus is on the user experience.

If a site has millions of backlinks but users hate it, the site won’t rank well in the long run.

Look at this case study of the “best grilled steaks.”

Rand Fishkin had all of his social followers do the following:

Within 70 minutes, the listing jumped to the top spot.

This is what I mean by user signals. You, the end-user, control how Google adjusts rankings.

2. People don’t just use Google. Google gathers data from everywhere.

Google knows you spend hours a day on your mobile device and hours on other sites and applications that aren’t controlled or owned by Google.

So, when they are figuring out what to rank and where to rank it, they aren’t just looking at their own dataset.

They crawl things like social media and use social signals to help them better improve their results.

For example, here is a case study on how Google is using social media for search discovery.

Even if you hate the social web, you need to use it more. Not only can it help with your site’s indexing but it can also help with brand building, which indirectly will help boost your rankings as well.

Here are some articles to follow to help boost your social media presence:

How to Gain 1,260 Instagram Followers per Week

16 Powerful Facebook Marketing Tips That Actually Work

The Complete Guide to Using Twitter to Grow Your Business

9 LinkedIn Marketing Tips

How to Hack YouTube

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing

4 Principles of Successful Snapchat Marketing

3. Google loves brands

If you don’t believe me, just look at these quotes from Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of webspam.

They both believe in brands.

As your brand grows, you’ll find that your rankings will climb as well.

You saw my search traffic stats earlier in the post, but here’s a breakdown of how many people found my site by searching for my name in the last 7 days.

And that number doesn’t even include the misspellings. You would be shocked at how many people spell my name as “niel” instead of “neil.”

Google loves brands. Heck, when you type in “men’s running shoes,” they even have Nike, Adidas, and Asics there.

Branded search volume is more correlated with rankings than links or domain authority.

If you want to build a brand, focus on the social media articles I linked to above and follow the brand building articles below:

How to Dominate Google

How to Increase Rankings Through Brand Mentions

How to Use SEO to Build Your Brand

The Future of SEO

If you are still struggling to build a brand, talk to one of my team members about our Digital PR.

4. Focus on a niche

Do you remember the old-school site About.com?

Over time, About.com tanked in terms of their Google rankings and the business was dying. There were a few reasons why:

The site didn’t focus on a single niche… it was about everything

The content was mediocre. They didn’t go in-depth but instead just kept things surface level.

They had too much content that no one cared to read.

They decided to rebrand as Dotdash and start niching down. So they took the content on About.com and split it into six specific vertical sites.

When doing this they found that a lot of the content didn’t fit into those 6 verticals or wasn’t up to their new quality standard. This caused them them delete roughly 900,000 articles.

From the data, you can see that they got much more traffic by splitting up their content into niched-down sites.

It was so successful that they took one of their new vertical sites and broke it down further into three niche sites. Here were the results:

This helped them grow their revenue by 140%.

If you want to do well in today’s world of SEO, focus on one niche. Google prefers topic-specific sites because that’s what you and everyone else loves.

Just think of it this way… would you rather read medical advice from About.com or WebMD?

WebMD of course.

Another thing they did

5. Future is personalization

Have you noticed that when you search on Google the results you see are different than the results of your friends?

It’s because Google is trying to personalize the results to you.

Not just on Google search but anywhere you use a Google device… from a smartphone to Google Home to even their autonomous cars.

With all of the data they are gathering, they are better suited to understand your preferences and then modify the results to that.

Just think of it this way: Every time you visit a place and you are carrying your mobile phone (especially if it is an Android device), Google may be able to potentially use that information to tailor results to you.

With your website, don’t try and show everyone the same message. If you personalize your experience to each and every user, you will be able to rank better in the long run as it will improve your user metrics.

A good example of this is on my blog.

Right when you land there, I let you pick the type of content you want to see and then the page adapts to your interest.

It’s actually the most clicked area on the blog, believe it or not.

Conclusion

SEO is not dead, it’s just changing.

Sure, click-through rates are going down and Google keeps adjusting its algorithm but that’s to be expected.

Google has made it so you can easily target your ideal customer through SEO or paid ads.

It used to be much more difficult before they came along. That’s why they are able to generate over 100 billion dollars a year in advertising revenue.

Don’t worry about things that aren’t in your control. Instead, start adapting or your traffic and business will be dead.

What do you think about the changing SEO landscape?

The post Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer) appeared first on Neil Patel.

Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer) Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[jjpocketbook]

Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer)

SEO has been changing drastically over the years.

In 2010, Google made 516 algorithm changes. That number increased to 1,653 in 2016 and to 3,234 in 2018. We don’t have data for the last couple of years, but still, you can bet that the number is continually going up.

With over 9 algorithm changes a day, it’s safe to say that it is no longer easy to manipulate or game Google.

So, is SEO dead?

Well, let’s look at the data and from there I’ll show you what you should do.

Is SEO dead?

Do you know how many searches take place on Google each day?

Roughly 5.6 billion searches per day.

That’s roughly 2 trillion searches each year.

Although that’s a lot of searches, there is also a lot of content being created.

There are roughly a billion blogs on the web.

There are so many blogs that you can find an excessive amount of content on most topics out there.

For example, if you look at the long-tail phrase, “what is digital marketing”, there are only 11,300 global searches a month but a whopping 665,000 pieces of content trying to answer that question.

In other words, the supply is much greater than the demand.

You’ll see even more of this for head terms. Just look at the phrase “banana”:

640,300 global searches seem like a high number but there are 880,000,000 million results. Sure, some of those results may not be on the food, banana, but still, that’s a lot of content compared to the search volume.

You can still find search phrases where there is more search volume than content but the trend is continually increasing in which content production is exceeding search demand.

On top of that, Google is turning into an answer engine in which they are answering people’s questions without them having to go to a website.

According to Dejan SEO, they saw CTRs drastically decrease once Google started answering questions. Just look at this weather search query:

Their clicks from weather-related queries went from 46% all the way down to 7%.

This trend has become so common that the percentage of traffic that Google drives to organic listings (SEO results) has been decreasing over time.

So, does this mean SEO is dead?

It’s actually the opposite.

SEO is not dead

With all of the data, how can that be the case?

First off, all marketing channels become statured over time. It’s just a question of when.

You can say the same thing about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even email marketing.

Heck, just look at the image below. It was the first banner ad on the Internet.

Can you guess what company created that banner ad? It was ATT.

Of the people who saw it, 44% of them clicked on it. Now banner ads generate an average click-through rate of 0.5%.

That’s an enormous drop.

And, as I mentioned above, it’s with all channels. Just look at Instagram engagement rates:

It doesn’t matter if it is a sponsored post or an organic post, the trend on Instagram is that engagement is going down.

That’s why you are seeing people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone promoting their phone numbers all over Instagram.

That way they can communicate with their fans directly without having to deal with algorithms or platforms decreasing their engagement.

But even with those decreasing numbers, you are seeing sponsored posts on Instagram surging by 150%.

In other words, people are still spending money because they are seeing an ROI or generating enough value in their eyes.

And the same is happening with digital ad spending.

The numbers are on the rise because companies are generating an ROI.

So, how is SEO still not dead?

As I explained above, just because the metrics aren’t going in your favor doesn’t mean that a channel is dead.

Just look at my search traffic on NeilPatel.com.

Not only do I have to deal with Google’s algorithm like you, but my competition includes other marketers who know what I know… yet I am still able to grow my search traffic even with Google’s decreasing CTRs.

When you look at search as a whole (and I am not only talking about on Bing and Google as people also search on other sites and platforms as well) Google still dominates market share with a whopping 94%.

People still use Google and prefer them as their method of search. But what’s changed is how Google is being used.

It used to be where you would use platforms like Instagram for discovery and Google for commerce (purchasing).

The trend has switched over the years in which Instagram is being heavily used for commerce and Google is mainly used as a discovery engine.

Just look at this case study by Olay.

Olay sells products related to skincare. One of their products happens to reduce darkness under your eyes.

So, they used to push heavily on ads that sold their products directly.

But the moment they changed their ads to focus on education by teaching people how to reduce dark circles under their eyes instead of forcing people to buy their products, their ROI went through the roof.

By sending people to educational-based content first (and then selling through the content), they were able to increase click-throughs by 87%, decrease their cost per click by 30%, and increase conversions by 100%.

This is a prime example of how more people are using Google as a discovery engine first instead of a commerce engine.

SEO isn’t dying it is just changing

Now that you know that Google is shifting to a discovery engine (for both paid and organic listings), there are a few other things you need to know if you want to dominate the organic listings.

1: Google wants to rank sites you want to see

Their algorithm core focus isn’t backlinks or keyword density, or a specific SEO metric… the focus is on the user experience.

If a site has millions of backlinks but users hate it, the site won’t rank well in the long run.

Look at this case study of the “best grilled steaks.”

Rand Fishkin had all of his social followers do the following:

Within 70 minutes, the listing jumped to the top spot.

This is what I mean by user signals. You, the end-user, control how Google adjusts rankings.

2. People don’t just use Google. Google gathers data from everywhere.

Google knows you spend hours a day on your mobile device and hours on other sites and applications that aren’t controlled or owned by Google.

So, when they are figuring out what to rank and where to rank it, they aren’t just looking at their own dataset.

They crawl things like social media and use social signals to help them better improve their results.

For example, here is a case study on how Google is using social media for search discovery.

Even if you hate the social web, you need to use it more. Not only can it help with your site’s indexing but it can also help with brand building, which indirectly will help boost your rankings as well.

Here are some articles to follow to help boost your social media presence:

How to Gain 1,260 Instagram Followers per Week

16 Powerful Facebook Marketing Tips That Actually Work

The Complete Guide to Using Twitter to Grow Your Business

9 LinkedIn Marketing Tips

How to Hack YouTube

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing

4 Principles of Successful Snapchat Marketing

3. Google loves brands

If you don’t believe me, just look at these quotes from Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of webspam.

They both believe in brands.

As your brand grows, you’ll find that your rankings will climb as well.

You saw my search traffic stats earlier in the post, but here’s a breakdown of how many people found my site by searching for my name in the last 7 days.

And that number doesn’t even include the misspellings. You would be shocked at how many people spell my name as “niel” instead of “neil.”

Google loves brands. Heck, when you type in “men’s running shoes,” they even have Nike, Adidas, and Asics there.

Branded search volume is more correlated with rankings than links or domain authority.

If you want to build a brand, focus on the social media articles I linked to above and follow the brand building articles below:

How to Dominate Google

How to Increase Rankings Through Brand Mentions

How to Use SEO to Build Your Brand

The Future of SEO

If you are still struggling to build a brand, talk to one of my team members about our Digital PR.

4. Focus on a niche

Do you remember the old-school site About.com?

Over time, About.com tanked in terms of their Google rankings and the business was dying. There were a few reasons why:

The site didn’t focus on a single niche… it was about everything

The content was mediocre. They didn’t go in-depth but instead just kept things surface level.

They had too much content that no one cared to read.

They decided to rebrand as Dotdash and start niching down. So they took the content on About.com and split it into six specific vertical sites.

When doing this they found that a lot of the content didn’t fit into those 6 verticals or wasn’t up to their new quality standard. This caused them them delete roughly 900,000 articles.

From the data, you can see that they got much more traffic by splitting up their content into niched-down sites.

It was so successful that they took one of their new vertical sites and broke it down further into three niche sites. Here were the results:

This helped them grow their revenue by 140%.

If you want to do well in today’s world of SEO, focus on one niche. Google prefers topic-specific sites because that’s what you and everyone else loves.

Just think of it this way… would you rather read medical advice from About.com or WebMD?

WebMD of course.

Another thing they did

5. Future is personalization

Have you noticed that when you search on Google the results you see are different than the results of your friends?

It’s because Google is trying to personalize the results to you.

Not just on Google search but anywhere you use a Google device… from a smartphone to Google Home to even their autonomous cars.

With all of the data they are gathering, they are better suited to understand your preferences and then modify the results to that.

Just think of it this way: Every time you visit a place and you are carrying your mobile phone (especially if it is an Android device), Google may be able to potentially use that information to tailor results to you.

With your website, don’t try and show everyone the same message. If you personalize your experience to each and every user, you will be able to rank better in the long run as it will improve your user metrics.

A good example of this is on my blog.

Right when you land there, I let you pick the type of content you want to see and then the page adapts to your interest.

It’s actually the most clicked area on the blog, believe it or not.

Conclusion

SEO is not dead, it’s just changing.

Sure, click-through rates are going down and Google keeps adjusting its algorithm but that’s to be expected.

Google has made it so you can easily target your ideal customer through SEO or paid ads.

It used to be much more difficult before they came along. That’s why they are able to generate over 100 billion dollars a year in advertising revenue.

Don’t worry about things that aren’t in your control. Instead, start adapting or your traffic and business will be dead.

What do you think about the changing SEO landscape?

The post Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer) appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-dead/ via https://neilpatel.com

The original post, Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer), has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/01/21/is-seo-dead-a-data-driven-answer/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com

[jimmyjohnsmnm]

Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer)

SEO has been changing drastically over the years.

In 2010, Google made 516 algorithm changes. That number increased to 1,653 in 2016 and to 3,234 in 2018. We don’t have data for the last couple of years, but still, you can bet that the number is continually going up.

With over 9 algorithm changes a day, it’s safe to say that it is no longer easy to manipulate or game Google.

So, is SEO dead?

Well, let’s look at the data and from there I’ll show you what you should do.

Is SEO dead?

Do you know how many searches take place on Google each day?

Roughly 5.6 billion searches per day.

That’s roughly 2 trillion searches each year.

Although that’s a lot of searches, there is also a lot of content being created.

There are roughly a billion blogs on the web.

There are so many blogs that you can find an excessive amount of content on most topics out there.

For example, if you look at the long-tail phrase, “what is digital marketing”, there are only 11,300 global searches a month but a whopping 665,000 pieces of content trying to answer that question.

In other words, the supply is much greater than the demand.

You’ll see even more of this for head terms. Just look at the phrase “banana”:

640,300 global searches seem like a high number but there are 880,000,000 million results. Sure, some of those results may not be on the food, banana, but still, that’s a lot of content compared to the search volume.

You can still find search phrases where there is more search volume than content but the trend is continually increasing in which content production is exceeding search demand.

On top of that, Google is turning into an answer engine in which they are answering people’s questions without them having to go to a website.

According to Dejan SEO, they saw CTRs drastically decrease once Google started answering questions. Just look at this weather search query:

Their clicks from weather-related queries went from 46% all the way down to 7%.

This trend has become so common that the percentage of traffic that Google drives to organic listings (SEO results) has been decreasing over time.

So, does this mean SEO is dead?

It’s actually the opposite.

SEO is not dead

With all of the data, how can that be the case?

First off, all marketing channels become statured over time. It’s just a question of when.

You can say the same thing about Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even email marketing.

Heck, just look at the image below. It was the first banner ad on the Internet.

Can you guess what company created that banner ad? It was ATT.

Of the people who saw it, 44% of them clicked on it. Now banner ads generate an average click-through rate of 0.5%.

That’s an enormous drop.

And, as I mentioned above, it’s with all channels. Just look at Instagram engagement rates:

It doesn’t matter if it is a sponsored post or an organic post, the trend on Instagram is that engagement is going down.

That’s why you are seeing people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone promoting their phone numbers all over Instagram.

That way they can communicate with their fans directly without having to deal with algorithms or platforms decreasing their engagement.

But even with those decreasing numbers, you are seeing sponsored posts on Instagram surging by 150%.

In other words, people are still spending money because they are seeing an ROI or generating enough value in their eyes.

And the same is happening with digital ad spending.

The numbers are on the rise because companies are generating an ROI.

So, how is SEO still not dead?

As I explained above, just because the metrics aren’t going in your favor doesn’t mean that a channel is dead.

Just look at my search traffic on NeilPatel.com.

Not only do I have to deal with Google’s algorithm like you, but my competition includes other marketers who know what I know… yet I am still able to grow my search traffic even with Google’s decreasing CTRs.

When you look at search as a whole (and I am not only talking about on Bing and Google as people also search on other sites and platforms as well) Google still dominates market share with a whopping 94%.

People still use Google and prefer them as their method of search. But what’s changed is how Google is being used.

It used to be where you would use platforms like Instagram for discovery and Google for commerce (purchasing).

The trend has switched over the years in which Instagram is being heavily used for commerce and Google is mainly used as a discovery engine.

Just look at this case study by Olay.

Olay sells products related to skincare. One of their products happens to reduce darkness under your eyes.

So, they used to push heavily on ads that sold their products directly.

But the moment they changed their ads to focus on education by teaching people how to reduce dark circles under their eyes instead of forcing people to buy their products, their ROI went through the roof.

By sending people to educational-based content first (and then selling through the content), they were able to increase click-throughs by 87%, decrease their cost per click by 30%, and increase conversions by 100%.

This is a prime example of how more people are using Google as a discovery engine first instead of a commerce engine.

SEO isn’t dying it is just changing

Now that you know that Google is shifting to a discovery engine (for both paid and organic listings), there are a few other things you need to know if you want to dominate the organic listings.

1: Google wants to rank sites you want to see

Their algorithm core focus isn’t backlinks or keyword density, or a specific SEO metric… the focus is on the user experience.

If a site has millions of backlinks but users hate it, the site won’t rank well in the long run.

Look at this case study of the “best grilled steaks.”

Rand Fishkin had all of his social followers do the following:

Within 70 minutes, the listing jumped to the top spot.

This is what I mean by user signals. You, the end-user, control how Google adjusts rankings.

2. People don’t just use Google. Google gathers data from everywhere.

Google knows you spend hours a day on your mobile device and hours on other sites and applications that aren’t controlled or owned by Google.

So, when they are figuring out what to rank and where to rank it, they aren’t just looking at their own dataset.

They crawl things like social media and use social signals to help them better improve their results.

For example, here is a case study on how Google is using social media for search discovery.

Even if you hate the social web, you need to use it more. Not only can it help with your site’s indexing but it can also help with brand building, which indirectly will help boost your rankings as well.

Here are some articles to follow to help boost your social media presence:

How to Gain 1,260 Instagram Followers per Week

16 Powerful Facebook Marketing Tips That Actually Work

The Complete Guide to Using Twitter to Grow Your Business

9 LinkedIn Marketing Tips

How to Hack YouTube

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing

4 Principles of Successful Snapchat Marketing

3. Google loves brands

If you don’t believe me, just look at these quotes from Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of webspam.

They both believe in brands.

As your brand grows, you’ll find that your rankings will climb as well.

You saw my search traffic stats earlier in the post, but here’s a breakdown of how many people found my site by searching for my name in the last 7 days.

And that number doesn’t even include the misspellings. You would be shocked at how many people spell my name as “niel” instead of “neil.”

Google loves brands. Heck, when you type in “men’s running shoes,” they even have Nike, Adidas, and Asics there.

Branded search volume is more correlated with rankings than links or domain authority.

If you want to build a brand, focus on the social media articles I linked to above and follow the brand building articles below:

How to Dominate Google

How to Increase Rankings Through Brand Mentions

How to Use SEO to Build Your Brand

The Future of SEO

If you are still struggling to build a brand, talk to one of my team members about our Digital PR.

4. Focus on a niche

Do you remember the old-school site About.com?

Over time, About.com tanked in terms of their Google rankings and the business was dying. There were a few reasons why:

The site didn’t focus on a single niche… it was about everything

The content was mediocre. They didn’t go in-depth but instead just kept things surface level.

They had too much content that no one cared to read.

They decided to rebrand as Dotdash and start niching down. So they took the content on About.com and split it into six specific vertical sites.

When doing this they found that a lot of the content didn’t fit into those 6 verticals or wasn’t up to their new quality standard. This caused them them delete roughly 900,000 articles.

From the data, you can see that they got much more traffic by splitting up their content into niched-down sites.

It was so successful that they took one of their new vertical sites and broke it down further into three niche sites. Here were the results:

This helped them grow their revenue by 140%.

If you want to do well in today’s world of SEO, focus on one niche. Google prefers topic-specific sites because that’s what you and everyone else loves.

Just think of it this way… would you rather read medical advice from About.com or WebMD?

WebMD of course.

Another thing they did

5. Future is personalization

Have you noticed that when you search on Google the results you see are different than the results of your friends?

It’s because Google is trying to personalize the results to you.

Not just on Google search but anywhere you use a Google device… from a smartphone to Google Home to even their autonomous cars.

With all of the data they are gathering, they are better suited to understand your preferences and then modify the results to that.

Just think of it this way: Every time you visit a place and you are carrying your mobile phone (especially if it is an Android device), Google may be able to potentially use that information to tailor results to you.

With your website, don’t try and show everyone the same message. If you personalize your experience to each and every user, you will be able to rank better in the long run as it will improve your user metrics.

A good example of this is on my blog.

Right when you land there, I let you pick the type of content you want to see and then the page adapts to your interest.

It’s actually the most clicked area on the blog, believe it or not.

Conclusion

SEO is not dead, it’s just changing.

Sure, click-through rates are going down and Google keeps adjusting its algorithm but that’s to be expected.

Google has made it so you can easily target your ideal customer through SEO or paid ads.

It used to be much more difficult before they came along. That’s why they are able to generate over 100 billion dollars a year in advertising revenue.

Don’t worry about things that aren’t in your control. Instead, start adapting or your traffic and business will be dead.

What do you think about the changing SEO landscape?

The post Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer) appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://ift.tt/2qdL8ni via https://neilpatel.com The post, Is SEO Dead? (A Data-Driven Answer), has been shared from https://ift.tt/2G8TKBz via https://ift.tt/2r0Go64

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #184 & 185

Thur Aug 22 2019 [12:35 AM] Wack'd: We still haven't resolved why kidnappers kidnapped Agatha who kidnapped Franklin so we're probably back to that in [12:35 AM] Wack'd: FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 1 #184 [12:35 AM] Bocaj: I hope someone kidnaps the kidnapper's kidnapper [12:35 AM] maxwellelvis: I'd like to at least see the covers for these, but I guess we're too far in now. [12:36 AM] Wack'd: You can just...go to Marvel Wiki and punch in issue numbers? [12:36 AM] Wack'd: There's a reason I don't post covers often [12:36 AM] maxwellelvis: yeah [12:36 AM] Wack'd: So Reed has had...a very long day [12:37 AM] Wack'd: And for once in his life lets his family take care of him and get him into bed [12:37 AM] Wack'd: Mostly because he was literally passing out, but still [12:37 AM] maxwellelvis: And probably because he no longer has the physical ability to resist their efforts to get him to take a break [12:37 AM] Wack'd: Also true [12:40 AM] Wack'd: So Ben calls to check in with Alicia ( 🎵 checking in with Alicia / Alicia what's uuuuup 🎶) [12:40 AM] Wack'd: And Alicia, on Sue's orders, doesn't mention what's happened to Franklin to stop him from doing something reckless and stupid [12:41 AM] Wack'd: All the ruckus knocked AUNTIE offline (hey! someone remembered!) and Thundra and Greer are like "actually, fuck this" and leave Ben to clean up the damaaaaay wait a second [12:41 AM] Wack'd: WE FORGOT ABOUT THE HEAT-GENERATING ROBOT [12:41 AM] Wack'd: Gotta circle back to that at some point, probably [12:41 AM] Wack'd: But not right now [12:42 AM] Wack'd: hrrrrrrg

[12:43 AM] Wack'd: Johnny is also leaving, having decided he's not going to harrass Frankie [12:43 AM] Wack'd: Instead, he's gonna get hit by a laser, I guess

[12:44 AM] maxwellelvis: Also, Johnny's dialogue here? CRIMSON BANNER RIGHT THERE [12:44 AM] Wack'd: I have no idea what that means [12:44 AM] maxwellelvis: Red flag [12:45 AM] Wack'd: Oh yeah [12:45 AM] Wack'd: I mean [12:45 AM] maxwellelvis: I mean more so than usual, y'see. [12:45 AM] Wack'd: He's deciding not to harass her until she confesses her deepest traumas and decides to date him again? [12:45 AM] Wack'd: Seems like kind of the opposite [12:45 AM] Wack'd: A green...something [12:46 AM] Bocaj: green street sign [12:46 AM] maxwellelvis: The way he's been acting since finding out she's got a phobia of fire has been... [12:46 AM] maxwellelvis: very much not how you treat that sort of thing, even for the 70's [12:47 AM] Wack'd: hahahahahahahahaahahah this is so fucking stupid i love it

[12:49 AM] Wack'd: So Reed, Sue, and Ben head off to rescue Franklin and Agatha, with Ben shooting off a flare to see if Johnny will notice anything's up [12:49 AM] Wack'd: (He won't) [12:50 AM] Wack'd: And shortly thereafter the Fantasticar is shot by another one of those lasers, which transport them to an even bigger, spookier haunted house than Whisper Hill [12:50 AM] Wack'd: "It's darker than Doctor Doom's soul in here," quips Reed [12:50 AM] Bocaj: Weirdly poetic for him [12:51 AM] Wack'd: They find Johnny, completely out of it, hanging from a banister by his shirt [12:52 AM] Wack'd: And then there is this asshole

[12:52 AM] Wack'd: The Eliminator is here to dispose of any evidence that Agatha Harkness ever lived [12:52 AM] Wack'd: And that includes living evidence [12:52 AM] Wack'd: Fight fight fight [12:53 AM] maxwellelvis: TECHNOMAGES! See! Maria was right! They ARE real! [12:54 AM] Wack'd: Sue is like "okay, fuck this, I'm gonna force field this doofus" [12:54 AM] Wack'd: And then she is atomized [12:54 AM] Wack'd: Len Wein sure likes to set Sue up to do something cool and then have her unceremoniously disposed of [12:55 AM] Wack'd: OH OKAY NEVER MIND [12:55 AM] Wack'd: She only pretended to be atomized so that the Eliminator wouldn't suspect anything if a hit didn't land [12:55 AM] Wack'd: Using invisibility [12:56 AM] Bocaj: As I would say "I can't believe Sue Storm is dead forever and now the book will be about <x inane thing> from now on" [12:56 AM] Wack'd: And then she saves Reed and Ben from getting got, and uses the force fields to block their life signs so Eliminator thinks they're dead [12:56 AM] Bocaj: I guess force fields can do that [12:56 AM] Wack'd: Yep [12:56 AM] Wack'd: Johnny then follows his sister's lead and pretends to blow himself up on a suicide run [12:57 AM] Wack'd: The Eliminator, having eliminated the last of the witnesses to Agatha's existence, congratulates himself on a job well done and starts to self-destruct [12:57 AM] Wack'd: And then the Four all pop to their feet and tell him they're fine. Just to mock him in his dying moments [12:57 AM] Wack'd: And then he explodes [12:57 AM] Bocaj: ... wow [12:58 AM] Bocaj: thats [12:58 AM] Bocaj: wow [12:58 AM] Wack'd: Weirdly cruel actually [12:58 AM] maxwellelvis: That's like something the Seventh Doctor would do [12:58 AM] Wack'd: But he did just try to murder them and may or may not have murdered their prepubescent child and family friend [12:58 AM] Wack'd: So he earned it, honestly [12:59 AM] Wack'd: Anyway [12:59 AM] Wack'd: With that done with they're more determined than ever to find out if Franklin and Agatha are still alive [12:59 AM] Wack'd: (I mean spoilers, they are, but they don't know that) [01:00 AM] Bocaj: Like I said, Agatha is sometimes a ghost and it doesn't mean anything. Vitality is just something that does or doesn't happen [01:00 AM] Wack'd: Maybe she's a lich and she cloned her own body so she could wear it like a suit sometimes [01:00 AM] Wack'd: Who's to say [01:01 AM] Bocaj: Who's to say indeed

Thur Aug 22 2019 [01:02 AM] Wack'd: I dig the hell out of this Gaspar guy's lettering

[01:02 AM] Wack'd: Man I wish hand-lettering was still a thing in comics [01:02 AM] Wack'd: I miss it [01:02 AM] Wack'd: Like there's not necessarily any merit to doing it for dialogue bubbles but for stuff like this it's invaluable [01:03 AM] maxwellelvis: It feels like he just got back from seeing Dr. Strangelove or something for the writer and illustrator credits. [01:03 AM] Wack'd: I got more of a Batman TAS vibe personally [01:03 AM] maxwellelvis: That too [01:03 AM] Wack'd: With the low center of gravity on the Es [01:03 AM] Wack'd: And the big round Os [01:04 AM] maxwellelvis: I just had Strangelove on my mind is all [01:04 AM] Wack'd: It's good lettering [01:04 AM] Wack'd: Anyway, last issue, I forgot to mention because it was on a two-page spread that was rendered [01:04 AM] Wack'd: Really small for some reason [01:04 AM] Wack'd: But they found a metallic egg in the woods outside the big gothic mansion [01:04 AM] Wack'd: And have now determined it's probably where Eliminator came from [01:05 AM] Wack'd: So Reed's doing his workaholic best to figure out something about it to save Franklin and Agatha [01:06 AM] Wack'd: Reed manages to pinpoint the metal to somewhere in the Colorado Rockies [01:07 AM] Wack'd: Also, waaaaaay back in #39 the team lost their powers so Reed's hauled his old extendo-arms from out of the basement to cover for his lack of stretching [01:07 AM] Wack'd: This requires him to wear his 60s uniform for some reason

[01:07 AM] maxwellelvis: They were probably built into the suit. [01:08 AM] Wack'd: And then Sue and Johnny also get into their 60s uniforms because Len Wein seems determined to rehash literally every ounce of the Kirby years for moral support [01:08 AM] maxwellelvis: *literally every ounce of the Kirby years Roy Thomas hasn't already [01:08 AM] Wack'd: Generally when Thomas or even Conway brought back stuff from the past it was to put a new spin on it. Wein seems to just do it because he likes it [01:10 AM] Wack'd: JOHNNY HAS MADE MODIFICATIONS TO THE POGO PLANE [01:10 AM] Wack'd: THIS CAN ONLY GO WELL [01:10 AM] Wack'd: Remember the last time Johnny was allowed to so much as touch this thing he and Medusa got stranded in the Himilayas [01:11 AM] Wack'd: So they land in the Rockys [01:11 AM] Wack'd: And Johnny has built--I shit you not--a hot-rod-in-a-box [01:12 AM] Bocaj: huh [01:12 AM] maxwellelvis: Like, like you throw it on the ground and BOMB! there's a hot rod? [01:13 AM] Wack'd: Some assembly required but the implication is that Johnny has done this in like five minutes

[01:13 AM] Wack'd: And so the Four go exploring in the whopping one tiny town they found in the Rockies in hopes this is anything [01:14 AM] Wack'd: Reed has Ben do his old Ninja Turtle shtick because Len Wein is nostalgic so no one notices them [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Everything about this man screams "trustworthy"

[01:15 AM] Bocaj: That’s impressive facial hair [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Not just a twirly mustache but a beard you can also twirl in two directions [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Also his name is SCRATCH [01:16 AM] Wack'd: You know, like THE DEVIL??? [01:16 AM] Wack'd: The Four find nothing odd about this at all [01:16 AM] KarkatTheDalek: Truly, I have never known a more trustworthy name [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: "Nick Scratch" [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: That's not even TRYING [01:17 AM] Wack'd: The Four wander around this tiny town aimlessly for a bit and then give up [01:18 AM] Wack'd: But Agatha sees this from her window and realizes she has to do something, even if it means alerting her captors [01:18 AM] Wack'd: So she raises A GAINT WALL OF FLAMES around--oh right, also this town is named NEW SALEM [01:18 AM] Wack'd: You dinguses [01:18 AM] Bocaj: oh [01:18 AM] Bocaj: New Salem comes back up again for the Scarlet Witch Vision maxi series [01:19 AM] Bocaj: The one where Vision dry humps a mystical pregnancy into Wanda [01:19 AM] Wack'd: Was it ever really time for deception at all? Signs point to "no"

[01:20 AM] Wack'd: "YOU!", Sue yells, like this was a surprise or something

[01:21 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this asshole summons a bunch of gargoyles to fight the Four [01:21 AM] Wack'd: Fight fight fight [01:21 AM] Bocaj: I’m sick of fighting silly fights! [01:21 AM] Bocaj: heeheehee [01:21 AM] Wack'd: "No one had yet considered that I could hit people hard with things"

[01:22 AM] Bocaj: A force field with momentum is a blunt object and trauma [01:22 AM] Wack'd: Anyway they best all the gargoyles so Nick Scratch unleashes his most terrifying plan yet [01:23 AM] Wack'd: "Why're you hitting yourself, why're you hitting yourself, why're you hitting yourself"

[01:23 AM] Wack'd: Also this is a thing that happens

[01:25 AM] maxwellelvis: I wonder if, when these two were kids, and Franklin Storm had to tell young Sue to stop hitting her brother, if he ever imagined that ^ would happen? [01:26 AM] Wack'd: I think if his powers of foresight were that good he wouldn't have gone to prison and then died tragically [01:26 AM] Wack'd: Anyway, they're defeated, darkest hour, yada yada yada let's get on with it

#1977 #Len Wein #George Pérez #The Main Book