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summonhouse · 2 years

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im going to ramble abt art websites for a bit and its maybe going to be disjointed and potentially mean bc 1. i speak for myself im not here to convince anyone of anything so i dont care about sounding nice? and 2. im feeling a little offkilter lately BUT

these are no more good art websites and its a pain to see a new art website crop up every week and everyones like, thisll be the one guys! bc i dont think in this day and age its possible.

first; websites should not be profittable. ive been thinking abt this w like, twitter and tumblr and deviantart too where the problem is that people want to make more profit- they dont want to break even, theyre not trying to cover the cost of hosting and paying employees, they need an excess. it shouldnt be like this bc thats how we get the lower in quality, thats how we get this trying to appeal to third party money providers and not users and its always bad and more than that its just unnecessary. every art website that people love are the ones that remain stagnant because its reliable, people do not want continual updates to the ui of something they depend upon for posting and money. new experimental features esp on art websites are just.. useless unless theyre asked for and the garbage fed to us isnt what we asked for.

what makes a good art website? something you can post images, gifs, perhaps low quality videos on, have larger text posts for pinning and smaller text posts for status updates. id say an important feature is a gallery and featured page- profile customization is also important, at the very least have icons, text around a username, descriptions, and headers.

can you tell im thinking of deviantart? i think deviantart is the premium art website and i am so sad everyone left at eclipse- honestly not even that sad at eclipse. it was bad, it was broken, deviantart now has a fuck ton of little holes in it where pages just dont load right, ill get on the fucking new notification page and user profile later, but the way that, in the old days, it had huge spanning galleries, and it had “post type” search too! and it was annoying at the time, we hated this, trying to pick what kind of art your posts were, but it helped make searching for specific posts so much easier (now trying to find gifs on my old accs without it is impossible..). thumbs were good easy ways for ppl to spread content meant to be spread while immediately linking to the actual post- it stopped people from reposting art or using html linking the image itself without a hyperlink to take back to the post and credit, because the thumb was immediately easy to use and way easier than working around it. there was so much... community. like ok from 14-16 i was harassed hard fucking core by adults on deviantart because i was an annoying whiny kid that used dA as my support platform, because from 11-14 it really was! everyone was nice to me- my art was hot dog shit, but i dont think i EVER got a comment calling it bad. i got a LOT of comments telling me that it was good, and i really did believe that! being a preteen drawing dogs online and getting genuine support, often from other artists of my ilk but not uncommonly by artists who were immediately visually BETTER than me really really helped me get to where i am now- i never doubted myself because i was surrounded by people who were so happy to draw just like me, and people loved to see everyone elses work and characters- the joy for characters and stories is really what propelled popularity even when my art wasnt good enough to uphold this. i remember seeing a post a long time ago mentioning that like... sites like dA remained bc they werent just for visual artists which is a great point too- it hosted lurkers really well, artists were really friendly to people who commented on their stuff even if they didnt post anything, im p sure it did fairly well for people who wrote a lot of content, i know some people got popular just because they commissioned people a lot, not bc they drew anything but bc their characters and name got popular.

i miss the old dA notification page, it was SO GOOODDD the folders for where you could store old notifications, the way it was so perfectly set up to maintain a bunch of different notifications all categorized by type, the way that they took note to stop posts that were submitted in multiple groups from appearing again and again in your notifs, the birthday warnings, it was just.. so sweet! page customization too- it was just so fun finding cute little things to put on your page, and so versatile and useful too because you could get like, boundary or commission status or language stamps on there! and like, when i was 14 i had recoded my page a few times over myself, it got me interested in html coding! and now its all gone- for what? because the sleek look is modern, and modern things get more money from investors, and the platforms dont appeal to users anymore, they appeal to investors, because they want more money- they need more money. its a hole they dug for themselves, kind of- i feel like people down the line hosting THEM want more money and so it dominos.

i loved points too, ik people thought they were useless and the worth was hard for ppl to get but $1=100 points was SO GOOD like i know buying points w usd incures a fee and so ur not getting 2000 points if you spend $20 but trading between people for a lesser fee was SO FUN i got banned for doing this a few times LMAO but it really brings a community together. it encourages younger ppl without paypal to try and do commission artwork without breaking the law, and it wasnt as if points were WORTHLESS, because i know i traded usd for them!

and like, everyones like.. twitter is better. twitter is chock full of algorithm nonesense, theres ads between every post, video audio doesnt really work right (if you click on a video on mobile it just decides you will hear every video you pass now. which will be in between every normal post in the form of a fucking ad), images get compressed to hell and ive never heard any information as to how to avoid this, gifs turn into bad videos, you still cant post multiple gifs (i think youre supposed to but well it doesnt fucking work!), just fucking try and host pixel art on here, theres on way to say long form things to people easily- “use threads” real talk, as a user, if i see a thread i do not click it, its too much work if not offered to me. i am 1 person and i represent hundreds who see your tweets. if you scroll down onto any featured popular post you will see nsfw or violent bigotry. i used to report every bit of bigotry i saw and got fast reception, near immediate banning- since owner turn over, a post disparagingly saying faggot has not been responded to in the past 48 hours. the community is fucking insane and i cant blame them, its how twitter is built- there is no separation between official posts and casual posts, like on deviantart wher ethere was differences between journals and statuses- everything youd post as a status that would have gone under the radar is a big proper real post, every comment you make is a big real post as well, it forces a lot of passing commentary to the forefront of peoples attention which of course incurs drama. and ofc its an ALGORITHM BASED PLATFORM which means it REWARDS RECEPTION, inlcuding NEGATIVE- any of your posts that you intended to have as private and only for your 5 followers if it gets enough traction gets blown out of proportion and every single other user will see it only as the post itself, as a big number post which means its open for ridicule. i feel like it was host to more psyops than dA ever was? dA had a bunch of trolls but never any govt psyops like that drug minor one

anyways new art platforms dont work out bc they dont have enough people or draw- if you just are allowing people to post images and text posts, even if you have better page customization id just use twitter because despite its cons it has the major pro of, you know, having people using it- if you make a new art platform every week, theres no real point to pursue any of them, id just wait and see which one flourished- and because i dont participate, they dont get clicks, they dont continue to grow, and they ALL die. anyways moderation is impossible in the way people like- i know everyone wants to believe their niche discourse is clean cut and actually go to show deeper oppression but moderators on websites do not care- discourse is ever evolving and so heated that they cannot afford to throw out a guess and likely no one ever explains themselves, just say This ideology is something or other. and we all want it to be so simple that everyone has the Right opinion on pro/antiship, or fetishes, or terfisms, or mogai, but i promise no matter how easy it seems to you there are thousands who violently refuse and will make up their own buzzwords about how their side is right and the other is something or other. like aside from banning slurs or cruelty they really cannot do much and likely would not ban people who have a special word in their description that you and you alone recognize as a dogwhistle for x ideology. this is the problem i know a few art websites had where they had to say clearly what they would and wouldnt allow and NO ONE was happy. also to revisit that point on hosting a lot of people, an art website that is JUST an art website is like.. its not going to get community or that response i mention from other ppl. if i get on a website just to post art, why would i comment on anyone elses?

and like, dA i know it has like front page or new algorithm which spotlights a LOT of fetish content, but honestly like. you just have to accept that theres going to be fetish content, its an art website, if you want new unseen artists spotlighted you have to acccept that in the fallout of that theres going to be fetish content.

so uhmmm theres nowhere to go and nothing to do. get your asses back on dA eclipse was glitchy and sucked and showed dA didnt respect user opinion but it has not been that bad. its functional at the very least and its only ever dysfunctional because YOU all left. i cant get reception not bc dA is broken but because theres no one left to see it

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maybe-your-left · 4 years

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A Case In Need: Control Freak

Here is a link to my Masterlist that has all the chapters and my WIP!

TW/CW: NSFW, allusions to violence, drinking, and some breath play! Ren’s a nasty boy and FUCK is it good.

Also super sorry about it being a while since I updated, I just started some new anti depressants and they threw me for a loop but I'm back on track now and feeling better than ever.

It had been two weeks since Ren had bought you your ‘gifts’.

Scratch that.

Two weeks since a giant monster of a man had removed you from your home, took away your valuables, hid your favorite blanket somewhere, he wouldn’t say where, and gave you a full swat team of bodyguards whenever you were out of his sight. Two full fucking weeks since he started keeping tabs on where you were, what you were doing, and who you were with.

It was exhausting being his ‘lover’. If you could still be classified as that, it was starting to feel like a hostage situation, whenever the two of you weren’t in the office together he would send you texts or phone calls that you were required to answer. He had even gotten a spare cell phone to call you from so it was separate from his personal calls, and you presumed to keep Rey oblivious. Which oddly enough had been working, she had really no idea what was going on. She would visit him at work throughout the day and give him a small kiss on the cheek and always insisted on hugging you before leaving. At some point, she must’ve hounded him for your phone number because now here you were meeting her for lunch hours after Ren left your, ‘our’ as he liked to call it, apartment.

Before he left he had laid out an outfit for you to wear along with an outline of talking points you were ‘allowed’ to bring up with her during the lunch. You had rolled your eyes at him and ensured that you weren’t going to reveal anything to her, you didn’t really want your relationship with Ren to end. You just were getting tired of the short leash he kept you on. After getting dressed, and inspected by Ren, he had pulled you into a long slow kiss and whispered in your ear, “I’ll miss you Angel,” and then he was gone.

Huffing you messed with your hair a little more and straightened out the dress he had chosen for you. Even though he was being a psychopath for control you were surprised to see that he was being generous in the gifts he bought you. The day after moving Ren had taken you to a couture mall in Manhattan and lavished you with thousands of dollars worth of clothes, jewelry, and home goods. He had insisted on keeping the house in a monotone color scheme but he did budge on your wardrobe, he knew that you liked having some pops of color and truth be told you noticed that he enjoyed, a little too much, the baby pink sets you chose at the lingerie stores. He had even gone so far to get you a custom made necklace* that was engraved with his initials, with a ruby inlay, that he wanted you to wear all the time.

Grabbing your purse and slipping on your black strappy heels you heard your phone go off. You searched your purse for the damned contraption, even though it was a small bag it was almost like a Mary Poppins never-ending abyss when you threw things in it. Jingling out your keys you locked the front door and made it down the steps and finally snatched out the phone.

Vicrul and Ushar will be escorting you today. Don’t be difficult with them or you’ll be in trouble.

Ugh, he was never going to let you live that down. You stood outside and waited for their black SUV to pull up while you contemplated messaging him back. You didn’t really feel the need to be escorted to lunch with Rey, wouldn’t she think it’s weird that her husband’s men were driving you? Did she get escorted like that with the other beastie boys? It’s not like you weren’t fond of them, truth be told you liked the guys, they were always posted outside your house when Ren was gone. Usually, it was Ushar who took care of you unless it was a super public gathering then one of the other men would join in. But it had been a while since Vircul had watched you, the last time Ren had let them take you to a spa to get your nails and hair done and you had been in a bratty mood. One thing had led to another and it ended with you screaming that you were being ‘attacked’ because the men would not fucking stop hovering. The spa did not think it was funny however and Ren had to bribe the police officers who were 100% ready to arrest Vicrul because he was pinning you to the salon chair.

The black SUV slinked up to the sidewalk and out of the passenger side came Ushar. “Hello Miss (Y/N),” he opened the back door for you, “Confirming that you are headed to lunch with Lady Ren?”.

“Yes Ushar,” you rolled your eyes behind your sunglasses, “He already said I could go.” The men always did this with you, whenever he was gone they would double, even triple-check that you knew where you were going and any special instructions Ren had laid out for you. It was almost like you were a child stuck in the middle of a custody battle, each side was trying to make sure you knew all the rules and what you were allowed to say or do, it was getting really old.

“Hi Vic,” you cooed trying to get a rise out of him, “It’s been a while hasn’t it?”

Vicrul let out a low chuckle, “Not long enough Angel, not long enough.”

You hummed back at him and settled in so they could whisk you away to probably the worst lunch of your life. You decided to play nice and shoot Ren a text to let him know you were with the guys, but you also wanted to push his buttons.

Don’t worry Daddy. I’ll play nice.

The drive took a little over fifteen minutes, Vicrul parked up front and Ushar quickly opened your door and held his elbow out for you to take. You grabbed it, thankful for the support since you weren’t sure what to expect. The two of you began into the large building, with Vic jogging up close behind. Climbing into the elevator you noticed the other patrons were scooting away from you. Being as you were a small woman being flanked by two men who looked like they wrestled bears for a living, it was a natural response. Most people had hopped off before you hit the rooftop for your ‘date’.

Stepping out you scanned the area and immediately noticed another hulking group of men in pitch black suits. Ahh, so the others are here too, of course, Rey would have her own guards. You let the guys lead the way and soon you were a group of six men hovering by the hostess stand. Looking around you couldn’t find Rey, she wasn’t any smaller than you, she hadn't gotten far especially with four guys flanking her…

“Ugh there you are!” she squealed before pulling you into a tight hug, effectively pinning your arms to your sides. “I thought you got lost, Kylo told me he sent the Knights to come get you but I was so afraid you stood me up!”

“The Knights,” you whispered, still in her boney clutches.

“Yes, the Knights,” she released you and grabbed your hands in hers, “They are the bodyguards we use!”

Oh. The Knights. That’s what Ren called them, well it made sense, they were fucking huge and seemed like they did anything for their ‘master’.

“Are you ready to eat? I got us a lovely table out on the balcony,” Rey smiled at you.

“Oh yes, of course,” you tried to match her enthusiasm, “Let’s go.”

-----

After the two of you were seated the Knights had flanked you both on your sides, leaving about a 6-foot circle for the waiter and other servers to talk to you.

“So (Y/N),” Rey grinned at you, “How are you liking work? Kylo says you’re doing an excellent job.”

You blushed, “Oh thank you, he’s never mentioned that.”

“Oh, that’s just because he’s bad at giving affection, we’ve been married for almost 10 years and he still rarely says ‘I love you”,” she giggled and started drinking her cosmo. What an awkward turn this lunch had gone, and right at the fucking beginning. It didn’t shock you that Ren was weird with affection and compliments in front of people but you assumed that after ten years he would at least show something toward Rey. Your heart sank, what if he never returned feelings to you? You had been seeing each other for almost a month, and even though you knew it was wrong, you had started feeling ‘feelings’ for him. The PDA was okay, you weren’t a huge fan of it, but even at the mall he had held your hand and kissed your forehead when you found something he liked. It was strange and new for you, and being told that he wasn’t like that with his wife made you ill.

“Let’s talk about something else,” you spit out, “Sorry, it’s just I’m at work all week so maybe we talk about something different?”

“Oh of course,” she took another swig of her drink, “I can’t tell you the last time I hung out with a girlfriend.” another drink, “Probably since before I got married!”

“What?”

“It’s true,” she sighed.

“What do you do all day then?”

“This and that,” she motioned for the waiter to get her another, “Usually I go and play tennis at the country clubs, join in at the book club I’m a part of, you know domestic things.” She looked almost sad, you wondered if Ren was the reason she had nothing to do, or maybe she was just that boring.

“Well,” you tried to soothe her, “What do you like to do?”

She inhaled deeply and looked out at the skyline, “I really enjoyed being in school. Learning, reading, doing something. But I don’t anymore, women in my situation aren’t expected to have those kinds of hobbies.”

“Situation?”

“You know,” she looked back at you and dabbed her lash line, “Being married to a powerful man, I’m expected to hold a certain standard.” She sniffled and you resisted the urge to reach across the table until one single rule from the outline stood out in your mind, ‘Under no circumstance are you to soothe her, she is dramatic at times and I don’t need you falling into a trap’.

A server thankfully interrupted your pity party, leaving your dishes and a quick message about ‘if you need anything else just call’. Rey had seemed to reign herself back in and turned back to you with her trademark smile.

“What about you?”

“Oh um,” you paused to bite into your salad, “I don’t really do much. I usually go out to bars and stuff on weekends. Or my friends and I have wine and cheese nights!” You smiled at her, it had been about two weeks since your last meeting. Finn and Rose were super confused when you told them you moved but you convinced them that with your new salary you could afford some new things. You actually were supposed to meet them in a couple of days at your new apartment for drinking.

“Ugh that sounds so fun,” Rey almost screamed, maybe she was drinking too much. You weren’t sure what her tolerance was but you were sure that Ren probably monitored her drinking. “I used to do that in college with one of my friends.”

“Oh? Where did you go to college?”

“The same one as you!” she squealed, “Sorry, I saw on your resume where you went to school. I’m pretty sure we were in the same class.”

“Oh no shit,” you giggled back at her, you tried to remember if you knew her. The only people you hung around were Finn and Rose, sometimes Poe who had moved across the country after graduating. He was the ambitious one out of the group, he had joined the Air Force before school and became a pilot.

Rey started giggling uncontrollably, you could feel the Knights start to shift towards her. Especially Vicrul who seemed to be keeping a very sharp eye on her. “Yeah, we both used to hang out with Rose,” she said over her glass.

You froze. Rose? Your Rose? How did she know her? You were sure Rose didn’t know Rey, and if she had wouldn’t you have known Rey too. Now all the Knights were closing in on you two, you could feel the mood shifting to a topic Ren probably didn’t want you to have. “How… How do you know Rose?”

“Oh, it was way back when,” she flung her hand out to somehow calm you, “back when I was hooking up with this guy Finn.”

“I think that’s enough Lady Ren,” Vicrul grunted while reaching for her drink.

“Hey,” she shouted, “I’m a grown woman Vic. I can drink whatever I want!” She was starting to cause a scene, you turned and noticed other patrons looking your way. And what a sight it was, little Rey holding a half drank cosmo as high as she could away from the Knights.

Vicrul got closer to her and almost growled, “Don’t make me call him.”

Rey narrowed her eyes, “Do it, pussy.”

And then all hell broke loose, Rey had launched from the table, effectively throwing her drink on Vicrul. In her haste she had also thrown the food all over you, your pretty new dress now soiled by the salmon salad you ordered. Ushar had rushed to your side and grabbed you by the shoulders and was attempting to pull you from the scene. But you couldn’t just sit and watch, Rey was sobbing and screaming at Vircul to let go of her, even going as far to bite his arm that corralled her to his chest. You couldn’t help but cry too, this poor woman, she was truly a prisoner. She had so many friends at some point, maybe even was your friend, and then she was thrown into a world she didn’t seem to enjoy with a husband who only cared about her appearance.

Suddenly everything stopped, the Knights were silent and lined up by the table, aside from Ushar and Vicrul. You swallowed your tears and you heard footsteps. Slow and methodical steps coming towards you. Waves of dread began to fill your stomach while the aura of danger was licking between your legs. You cowered into Ushar’s chest, you didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to be at the end of his wrath.

“How strange it is,” he boomed from your left side, “that here, in our favorite restaurant, you decide to make a scene.” He stalked towards Rey, slow steps, each one growing louder than the last. He had his hands clasped behind his back and although you couldn’t see his face you knew that it was tense. You could practically hear his jaw popping in and out of place. He cracked his knuckles before bringing his hands up to his neck. “I expected more from you,” he spat out and began to crack his neck. Each pop was like a nail in Rey’s coffin, you couldn’t help the little whimper that rose from your throat which caught his attention.

Ren whipped around and was in front of you instantly. His fists clenched at his sides and his breathing shallow. He was waiting for you to meet his gaze, almost taunting you to stare back. You gulped and squeezed your eyes shut. You didn’t want this. You didn’t want him to blame you, if he would just calm down you could explain what she had said, no one had told you that she got so emotional when she had cocktails. It wasn’t in the outline briefing he had given you this morning. So really it was his fault.

“Take her away,” he snarled at Ushar, who suddenly picked you up and rushed you out of the restaurant. Peeking over his shoulder you witnessed Ren closing in on Rey. When the elevator doors shut you hoped that the pained screaming you heard wasn’t what you thought they were.

The drive back was silent. Neither you nor Ushar said a word. You barely remembered to breathe, you were petrified. How could lunch have gone so wrong so fast? You just wanted to get to know her, get an understanding of who she was. You didn’t think she was going to launch into a speech about how much she hated her life. And what was the whole Finn and Rose thing about? Not once had they mentioned that they knew her, other than when Finn told you about the Ren incident. But you didn’t think that meant Rey and Finn hooked up in college. It was all too familiar and uncomfortable, you needed answers and unfortunately, there was only one person who could give them to you.

-----

You waited. Paced, bit your nails in anticipation for him to come to you. He hadn’t told you this morning when he would be back, but he always would come around in the evening to drop off food and watch a movie with you. Or give you feedback on something at work, or fuck you on any surface he could find. But he never stayed too long, which should be normal, he did have a wife who would probably be suspicious if he was gone overnight.

After about 5 hours you had decided that he wasn’t coming. So you stripped down and started a bath, throwing in a black glitter bath bomb that was supposed to help soothe the body and soul. After it was just the right temperature you grabbed a glass of wine and turned on some Netflix to drown out your wandering brain. Sinking in you enjoyed the stillness, you didn’t get this luxury at your old apartment and now you were being spoiled rotten with all these new features. Never in your wildest dreams did you think you could live somewhere like this, or wear the clothes that you had hanging in the closet. You hummed to yourself and started drinking and began to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of Fraiser coming from your laptop.

You were pulled from your sleep to the sound of a door slamming shut. Followed by grunting which you assumed was someone taking off their shoes, and another series of slamming noises. Guess someone decided to pay you a visit, you groaned and drank some more of your wine, preparing for his royal asshole to grace you with his presence.

You heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, your master bedroom doors swinging open and closed until the man, the myth, the legend, was now standing in your bathroom. Fully clothed aside from his shoes being gone. “Well hi,” you said to him.

He grunted at you and made his way into ‘his closet’, which was filled with clothes of his own that he bought on your shopping trip. He reemerged completely naked with a black robe draped over his forearm.

“Why is the water black,” he grumbled before swinging a leg across from you.

“What do you think you’re doing Ren?”

“Don’t be difficult Angel. I’ve had a long fucking day,” he snapped at you, “Now is this water going to stain me, or am I good to get in?” he stared at you. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched like he was getting ready to attack his prey. You tried to keep your face neutral, not letting him know that you were still slightly scared of him after the display this afternoon. You slowly scrunched your legs to your chest as a nonverbal way of telling him he could join in. Once you moved he brought both legs in and sank into the tub.

You both were very lucky that this was a large bath since Ren’s legs took up about 75% of the space in it, leaving you to stretch out on top of him. Your feet placed on his abs while he sunk lower and lower until his head was resting on the lip of the tub.

“What’s in your glass,” he practically moaned at you with his eyes shut. He looked super uncomfortable but you could tell he was trying really hard to relax. Which seemed to never be his natural state.

“It’s a Cab*, the one with the lion on it.”

Ren snatched it out of your hand without even looking and chugged the rest of it. “We’re going to need more of that,” he rolled slightly to his right and pressed an intercom button.

“Whoever the fuck is downstairs will you bring up the Juggernaut bottle,” he barked into the speaker. Assuming that one of the Knights was going to follow his order. Within minutes one of them came in and gave Ren the bottle which he immediately started chugging from.

“Ren,” you reached out and pulled the bottle from him, “Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened earlier? Or are we just going to drink?”

“Can we not do both?”

You exhaled loudly, trying to get your point across that you needed to talk to him. He groaned and started rubbing his face. “I don’t know what you’re expecting from me. She is my wife and what we do in our personal lives is none of your business.”

“Are you serious,” you snapped at him, “Ren I am fucking you. You’ve been calling the shots of my life for almost a month, you bought me an apartment, car and new clothes and made me go to lunch with her and now it’s none of my business?”

He crossed his arms and looked away from you, trying to focus on your laptop even though it was paused from watching too many episodes.

“Kylo,” you barked, “I’m fucking talking to you.”

“Don’t you dare call me that,” he yelled, raising a finger at you.

Bringing the bottle to your lips you waited for him to continue. Interesting that he allows Rey to call him that but not you, this was something you were going to have to explore.

“Is it because you’re ashamed, Ren,” you cooed at him, “Ashamed that I saw how out of control she is. Or that I know you beat her.”

Suddenly he was on top of you, his hands around your throat. Teeth snapping in your face like a wild dog. “Don’t you ever accuse me of that,” he seethed and released you enough so you could breathe again, “I’ve never laid a finger on her in my life. You don’t know anything about me little girl.”

You had dropped the bottle in the tub, the red liquid pouring out and mixing into the black water. Almost like there had been blood spilled between the two of you. You grasped onto his forearms to try and anchor him off of you but were getting nowhere. “That’s hard to believe,” you gasped, “When you’re currently choking me to death.”

“Oh Angel,” his face softened to a less dangerous one but more one of mischief, “That’s because I know you like it when I’m rough with you.” You inhaled sharply, and Ren pushed you up further against the tub. Effectively pinning you in place while his knees knocked yours to accommodate him.

“Like right now,” he came closer to you, “I know that your pretty little cunt is sopping because of me. It’s okay to be afraid, I won’t hurt you.” One of his hands dropped into the water, “That much.”

Suddenly he had you flipped around, on your knees with your chest and face pressed up against the end of the tub. Water sloshing between you two while he pressed his hips into yours. Revealing a once well-hidden erection that was now skimming your folds. He brought one hand down between your legs, lightly petting at you. Humming when he felt your arousal mixed with the water. You moaned and tried to press your hips back into him, desperate for friction. “No, no Angel, you’ve been a bad girl.”

You froze and felt him line himself up at your entrance, usually he worked you open so it wouldn’t be so painful when he pushed into you, but it was clear that right now Ren wanted you to feel the pain. His other hand came up and gripped to your hair, successfully knotting it in his fist.

“Tell me, Sweetheart, do you know how long you can hold your breath?”

You craned your neck to try and look at him, you were obviously confused.

“Let’s find out.”

Ren pushed into you and suddenly you were dunked underwater. You thrashed and screamed under the black mess while he started pumping into you. Each thrust was harder than the last, he was determined to make you know how much he could hurt you. You tried to push yourself back up to the surface but he had you pinned, after what felt like hours he pulled you back up and you choked on the water.

Gasping and gagging you started sobbing while Ren was laughing like the Joker. “I think we can do better than that,” and he had you under the water again, his pace far more crucial, he was chasing a high that he didn’t know he had. The amount of power he held over you now was unbearable. This man, who you had grown to like more and more, was now holding you hostage under the water and the sick part was that you didn’t want him to stop.

He pulled you back up and pinned your face to the side and thrust in more and more, grunting and groaning at the clenching of your walls around his cock. The hand holding your hip hostage slid down and started rubbing tight circles around your clit causing you to moan. “That feels good doesn’t it Angel, I can feel you, you love it when I fuck you like this.”

Gagging again you responded, “I do I love it, Ren, please don’t fucking stop.”

“You want to cum don’t you,” he leaned to your ear and continued his brutal pace, “Cum all over my cock? Even though I almost drowned you?”

You screamed as his circle grew faster and faster over your nub, you couldn’t help clenching around him. You felt so close to your orgasm, you just needed a little bit more.

“Tell me you like it, Angel,” he huffed before stopping to take a bite out of your shoulder, “You like it when I control you. You need it don’t you dirty slut, someone to keep you in check.”

“Yes Ren I love it, please please let me cum,” you begged him.

“After you cum you’re going to thank me for everything I’ve done for you, do you understand whore? I own you. I own your mouth, your tight little cunt, even your thoughts.”

You were bucking back into his thrusts, desperately chasing your release, “All yours Ren, please I need it.”

He stilled his movements and turned your head to try and face him, “Take a deep breath and cum Angel.”

And you did just that as he dunked you back under the water, pinning you flat against the bottom while his fingers rubbed your clit in sync with his cock. You were clenching and desperately trying to hold your breath until you felt him empty inside you. Hot sticky cum painted your insides as his grip on your loosened, you took the chance to lift out of the water and gasp for air while Ren slumped against you. His chest flush with your back while his cock was still squirting into your tired pussy.

His arms came around you and pulled you up with him so now you were on top of him while he buried his face into your neck. Lazy and sloppy kisses were placed all over the crook of your neck up towards your jaw, his hands were slowly petting your breasts in a way to calm your breathing. Finally, he took in a deep breath and stood with you clutched to his chest.

Treating you like you would porcelain he stepped out of the tub and turned to the shower, quickly rinsing the two of you off before leaning you against the wall. You couldn’t even move, your body went into fight or flight every time he shoved you under the water. You were so sure he was going to kill you, but each time he was sure to pull you back up and prepare you for the next blow. It was almost considerate, given the circumstances, that he even let you cum with him. You stared at the man who was washing both of your bodies of the glitter, wine, and cum. He looked so focused on piecing you back together even though he had been the one to break you in the first place.

He shut the water off and stepped out, quickly drying himself off and getting in his robe before reaching his hand out for yours.

“Come on Angel, you’re shivering,” he whispered to you, afraid to command you after what had happened. You grabbed his hand and walked out of the shower where he again dried you off and wrapped you in your black robe too. Once you were bundled he picked you up and you wrapped your arms and legs around him, desperate for him to stay with you.

He brought you to the bedroom, pulling down the sheets with his right hand while still cradling you with his other. Bending over to place you down you squeezed him harder, “Please don’t go,” you whispered in his ear.

“I’m not going anywhere (Y/N), not anymore.”

You released him and watched him go back to the bathroom and shut off the lights before coming back and climbing into bed fully naked. Ren came up behind you and started to pull off your robe, kissing your bare skin when it came into contact with the room's cold air.

“I promise (Y/N), never again” he cooed before pulling you into his embrace and the two of you were lulled to sleep.

TAGLIST: @finn-ray-nal-beads @morby @kirah36 @onlykyloscenes @clumsycopy @candycanes19 @desiraypark @direnightshade

*Here is our necklace from Tiffany: https://www.tiffany.com/jewelry/necklaces-pendants/elsa-peretti-color-by-the-yard-pendant-62464399/

**Here is the wine we are having, it’s my sister’s favorite red wine and it's honestly not that bad: https://www.wine.com/product/juggernaut-hillside-cabernet-sauvignon-2017/532155?state=CA&s=GoogleBase_CSE_532155_type_Wine_RedWine_CabernetSauvignon_261&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=&utm_campaign=Google_Shopping_Smart_CA_Relaunch&showpromo=true&promo=PSCASE10&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpNr4BRDYARIsAADIx9wTNMJgAuhl1zWgoZEny8NAfa4vYZmIzTH446JIQfJ5NE9upZGPAGgaAk0eEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds#promoBarModal

#adam driver #adamdriver #kylo ren #kylo trash #kylo x reader #modern kylo ren #clyde logan #flip zimmerman #phillip altman #toby grisoni #jamie massey

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outdoors-living · 3 years

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Gardening for small spaces

Are you an enthusiast about gardening?

So we are.

We are excited to present this new blog post about how to create your outdoor cute garden in a small backyard.

As a gardening enthusiast, I read blogs very often, but I find all those are to describe big gardens. So I life in a tiny house and my yard is so small…only one of those a pergolas would take all the place.

Years ago I was learning bout window farming, this concept of growing veggies indoor…I love. Ever since I grow my Italian herbs at home.

I’m kind of inspired by home and garden décor, I tend to choose minimalistic products for my self and I curate them for others. I enjoy simple living and the décor accents that I choose are durable, well constructed and enhance calm and Zen.

At the end, indoors or outdoors, the target is to create this intimate sense of home.

Read more about this topic on my last blog post here

Keeping my blog updated is something I do constantly. I'm inspired by creating an ambiance of beauty, warmth and welcoming atmosphere to welcome my loved ones and to make them feel comfortable in my home

To discover the full line up of blog posts, please follow this link https://solytierra.shop/blogs/news

I put together 10 easy gardening tips for small spaces, so you can set-up your dream outdoor living space, even if it’s tiny. This is great for you living in a urban apartment or tiny house, or even those having (as me) a small house entrance.

As said, finding good gardening ideas for small spaces is not easy. Pinterest, Instagram and others show impressive gardens, but what about the real homes or apartments?

In this post you will discover how easy is to gardening for small spaces and it’s like a therapy. I like to take things positively, so every time I sit down on my garden I think to myself…well…at least I don’t have to do the lawn (since is so tiny)

So let’s dive into it and let’s answer the question: how to build a garden in a small space?

We may all have dreams of big, never ending gardens, but the reality is that most of us simply don’t have the space.

There’s nothing wrong with that– with a little creativity even the smallest of spaces can give you plenty of joy of gardening, flowers, or even a relaxing outdoor green room all your own. Keep reading to learn more about plants for small spaces and how to make a garden with little space.

Here are my 10 tips to create your very own garden area

1 Using containers

Creating a Small Garden Space with containers to create this sense of space without clutter. Less is more in small living areas.

On the image above, you can view an sphere solar powered fountain behind the nice lavenders.

You can get the look in this Pinterest post

If your space is too small for a wooden raised bed, you can also make gardens in small spaces using containers.

Containers are rectangular concrete planters, also known as box planters.

These are great to create this sense of botanical garden , where everything has its place and all is so coherent that it seems all had been there for years.

You can choose a nice container garden to suit whatever space you have available. I curated this set-of-3 multi size containers for you

Plant things that have interesting foliage and bark and a long flowering period, so they beautify the space year-round. Plant a single large item, like a flowering bush or dwarf tree, to create a sense of varying levels and different views from different angles.

I selected these nice containers here on Amazon

2 incorporating the element water, solar water fountains fo complete the look

I curated these self powered water fountains, so you don’t need electricity wires, just to set-up the small solar panel and start enjoying the nice sound of the water stream.

Discover these solar powered water fountains

3 Using all the space to extend the outdoors living area

What about using all the space, even if it’s a tiny patio?

Do you find that you only really use one particular section of your garden? If so, dividing your space up into specific zones is a great way to maximise every inch.

As a basic layout, you can divide your garden area in three distinct areas for sunbathing, playing on the grass, and in order to create these sections, you can use box planters. They are easy to set-up and a great décor addition to your outdoor living area as well.

What about creating a mini path between those sections? This would be great to entertain your visits and to give your place a feeling of order and sense.

These set-of 3 concrete planters are great to ensure that even the very bottom of the garden is used.

4 Incorporating flooring for outdoors living room

Flooring is a really effective way to zone a garden space – see how the paving, grass and decking are used here. But if you can't change your flooring, look to screens, outdoor rugs or living walls, to create distinct 'rooms' within your garden.

Small garden ideas can be quite subtle. Take this one, using zoning, a trick usually reserved for breaking up large indoor rooms into different areas – say, one for relaxing, and one for dining. The key to garden zoning is using different textures, colours or materials to differentiate between the areas. Flooring, for example, is perfect for doing this, and will create a larger-feeling, more interesting outdoor living space.

5 STACK GARDEN POTS IN MULTIPLE HEIGHTS TO ADD DIMENSION

Container gardening is one of the best small garden ideas, especially if your garden has a patio or decking. The trick is to go for as many different types and heights of garden as possible: this will help add dimension and texture to the space. For instance, mix and match large terra-cotta pots with tall and slender glazed pots. And if you have a really small space, stack them up like this or wall-hang them to pack more in.

6 INCLUDE AN OUTDOOR FIREPLACE OR PIT FOR COOL NIGHTS

Outdoor fireplaces are actually even better suited to smaller gardens than larger ones, for the simple reason you will really feel the cosiness in a smaller space.

If your house won't permit the addition of a fireplace structurally, consider getting a clay chiminea or look at fire pit ideas instead.

7 CREATE A SMALL BUT LUXURIOUS OUTDOOR RELAXATION AREA

Even the tiniest garden can become a luxurious, relaxing sanctuary. You will have to decide what's most important to you – a fully planted up outdoor space, a nook for reading, perhaps even a tiny pond... However small your garden is, once you've decided what you want your space to be like, there's no reason you can't achieve it, with the help of a skillful garden designer or landscape architect.

8 LESS IS MORE IN A SMALL GARDEN

'In a small space, a few large features are better than many small ones. Two or three big pots will have much more impact and look far more stylish than a dozen ill-assorted smaller ones. One tree, if you can fit it in, is better than three shrubs of a middling size,' says gardening expert and TV personality Alan Titchmarsh.

9 Growing your food

how to grow a vegetable garden in a small space?

You can also think of growing Italian herbs for your foodies’ creations. Are you a hero of homemade pizza? Growing oregano is so easy as throwing seeds on a box container and water it often. Put this under morning sunlight and voila! Fresh herbs right away on your doorstep

10 GO MONOCHROME TO ENHANCE A SMALL GARDEN

And by monochrome we don't mean black or white; washing your entire small garden in a deep, vibrant colour will create a jewel-box effect that's very attractive, and it'll distract from the small size of your garden.

In the case you’d like to have pottery, add other elements in terracotta tones, maybe other plant pots or play with fabrics.

Bonus: ADDING TEXTURES

Adding some outdoor potteries can create a huge impact recreating this sense of eternal décor. Even you can extend this feeling by using clay dinnerware sets, as these ones on Etsy

Is gardening a therapy for you? Read my last post about this topic here

https://solytierra.shop/blogs/news/creating-your-dream-garden-as-a-therapy

Would you like how to bring Feng Shui to your garden area? Find it here https://solytierra.shop/blogs/news/5-tips-bring-feng-shui-to-your-outdoor-space-this-summer

Are you a Pinterest aficionado? Discover these beautiful pins here

https://www.pinterest.ca/Pottery_sol_y_tierra

Thanks for reading, don't hesitate to contact me for suggestions, comments or ideas

Bernat

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ryukogo · 7 years

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hi! i dont know if youve answered this already, but im really curious! how and why did you classify team gwen and team david as they are? did you use a guide to classpects by other people, or did you analyze the meanings of the classpects from the canon hs wiki?

oh man!! some people have asked but never publicly!! i’m glad you asked though!! the classpecting @fiddler-unroofed and i did for Team David and Team Gwen draws very heavily from the guide made by dahniwitchoflight among other things (though i did look through other blogs and their descriptions + the wiki itself), so what may not make sense for you makes sense for us!

(fiddle may or may not reblog this if she wants to correct anything i say because we talked about this so long ago, so pay attention to any updates!)

some of them get pretty long, so i’ll put it under a cut! [and warning: i know some people are triggered by the episode Reigny Day, so if you don’t want to read about that, please avoid Dolph’s description, which I conveniently put as last so you don’t have to read it! should you want to read everyone else’s!]

TEAM DAVID

Role Recap: David as Seer of Hope, Nurf as Rogue of Rage, Max as Knight of Doom, Neil as Sylph of Mind, Nikki as Witch of Breath, Space Kid as Heir of Space

-=-=-=-=-

DAVID, Seer of Hope (One who Invites Knowledge of Hope or one who Invites Knowledge through Hope)

- We pinned David as a Hope player from the start! Hope, if we look at it in Homestuck, appears to be the power of belief, and we all know how strong David’s beliefs are! He believes wholeheartedly in a lot of things - in Cameron Campbell being a great person, in Max being able to change, in Camp Campbell itself, the list goes on, so it was only natural he’d be a Hope player to us.

- It took a while for us to decide on a role for David, but through elimination and through making sense, he became a Seer. Seers understand their Aspect, and usually keep their party from making grave mistakes, according to the MSPA Wiki.

- David as the Seer of Hope, taking into account the descriptions given by dahniwitchoflight, in this manner, would make sense.

I directly quote, aSeer of Hope will find themselves faced with many paths and choices for what to put their trust in and what to believe. Many outside sources will give them differing opinions about is truly real and The Seer of Hope’s challenge is to learn and see through the false lies and find the one true authentic path for them to take. Maybe they need to figure out what it is exactly that they truly believe in. They might have trouble deciding who they can trust to confide in, who they can really count on in times of trouble. It also might be as simple as they need to figure out what they like and what makes them happy.

That bolded line? Think about the last episodes of Season 1 and Season 2 - Order of the Sparrow and Parent’s Day, respectively. Those two episodes specifically highlight the situation in the bolded sentence - his belief in the camp and his love for camp even when everyone else seems to have abandoned it in favor of better things (Order of the Sparrow), and his belief in Cameron Campbell (Parent’s Day). The last one is a slight stretch, but I remember a post going around about David choosing Camp Campbell over Cameron Campbell, and I thought that was pretty accurate. I’ll update this post and link to it when I get the chance!

I found this particular paragraph by dahni highly appropriate for David in particular: “Regardless of struggles though, the Seer of Hope will be innately optimistic that they will be able to make the right choice. They have faith in themselves to be true or that will be able, even if they aren’t always able to see the right choices in others right away. Like most Hope players as well, Seers of Hope would be happy agreeable people, if a little naive or overenthusiastic at times. They might not always know what’s right, but they are confident that they will know when the time is right.”

-=-=-=-=-

NURF, Rogue of Rage (One who Invites Theft of Rage or one who Invites Theft through Rage)

- Nurf is arguably the special case among all of the people we classpected, actually, being already a nearly realized Rogue of Rage prior to the start of their session, just lacking in the god tier status. Why do we say this?

Nurf is a very self-aware character, aware of things people call him - a problem child, a bully, all that stuff. In his appearances over the two present seasons - where he has voiced lines anyway - we see he clearly understands that he has issues, and that he’s visibly the most adjusted in his family (Parent’s Day, compared to his mother, he is actually very much aware of the repercussions to lashing out and all that jazz.)

In this sense, Nurf has already risen to his challenge, or is on his way to becoming a true Rogue of Rage. Paraphrasing dahniwitchoflight, he lets himself be angry and upset at things - he’s already learned to be stubborn and unmoving, he just needs to learn how to not always be so.

“They stop viewing Rage as something negative that they can’t deal with and start seeing it as something necessary or justified or even something to treasure and take pride in. They learn to give and take constructive criticism and they learn to handle rejection and rejecting others. They stop letting others shut down their concerns or pacify them by telling them to lighten up or ease off or lol I was just joking.”

We’ve seen Nurf advising Neil to look into aggression therapy, and similar situations over the episodes. As I have repeatedly stated, he’s very much aware of his issues, and he’s trying his best, but he’s also, as he states himself in his character episode David Gets Hard, ‘just a kid’ - it’s gonna take a pretty long while before he gets 100% better.

-=-=-=-=-

MAX, Knight of Doom (One who Exploits with Doom or Exploits Doom)

- I’m surprised no one thinks Max is a Doom player. Doom is the opposite of the Life aspect, and quoting Dahni, “It is the bitter repulsion, the cautious pessimism and the necessity of obligation that limits you and what you can do in the world around you. It is understanding what you can and cannot change. It’s the sharp Black and White boxes and lines that everything in the world gets sorted into. It is the sadness and apathy of acceptance contrasted with the frustration and anger of limits. Doom sees what it wants, and lets it go, gives it to others, or just lets it be destroyed altogether. Things will be lost or destroyed, people will die or forget and things will happen that cannot be changed, so don’t bother trying.”

Max in the series is generally presented as a cynical child - it’s even in his description. He gets better from Parent’s Day onwards, from what we understand - his attitude in Night of the Living Ill is pretty different from, say, his attitude during Order of the Sparrow, but before that, he’s always seemed like a Doom player, being very much aware of the limits, what he can or cannot change.

“Doom sees what it wants, and lets it be destroyed altogether.” - This may be a stretch or a personal interpretation, but Max’s desire for his parents to care could be seen as a want, but because they don’t he lets that want be destroyed - he refuses David’s attempts at bonding with him because he’s already let it go (not that that stops him from hurting when he remembers that they don’t care, of course).

- Known Knights in Homestuck are Dave, Karkat, and Latula respectively. According to the Wiki, all the Knights seen thus far conceal their innermost selves - because of a physical “imperfection” or whatever. This can be attributed as well to Max, who’s revealed to actually want for his parents to care for once - his imperfection, which he hides through most of his actions over the series towards David, and occasionally everyone else.

A few key descriptions in Dahni’s paragraphs regarding a Knight of Doom caught my attention in particular - “A Knight is very skilled with using the rules and limitations of any game or session to their advantage. They skillfully fulfill any responsibility or obligation required of them with ease. They might use their natural caution and pessimism to make realistic choices and endeavors. They use and exploit any rule or limit that they can to their advantage. They might also be very good at exploiting any sacrifices made or any obligation or responsibility that they are held to. They might be very good at avoiding any unnecessary thing or person and are very good at recognizing when something is too futile to even bother with.”

“Out of all the Doom players, a Knight of Doom seems like the one most likely to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.“ Max in Cult Camp, anyone? He kept trying to convince David of Daniel’s cult leader shtick, but the man didn’t believe him, so he did it “Daniel’s way”, and threw himself into the purification sauna just so David could finally catch on that something was wrong - the greater good.

“A Knight of Doom can also expertly use and exploit fire, bombs and explosions to their advantage, maybe they create flashy distractions during fights. They might even use decaying or dying things to their advantage.” Hah. Camp Cool Kidz, using Space Kid as the expendable character.

-=-=-=-=-

NEIL, Sylph of Mind (One who Invites Creation of Mind or one who Invites Creation through Mind)

- Neil was most definitely a Mind player from the beginning, and reading through the descriptions we couldn’t think of a better role than Sylph - fuck the gendering of the classes, we want Neil in a dress, dammit. Also, the description for Sylph is rather appropriate - “Sylphs will calmly, analytically and happily give their opinion all about their Aspect. They meddle, healing or fixing any lack of it they notice. ”

“A Sylph of Mind is one who encourages others to be more sensible and logical, to think things through just a bit more and don’t be so rash! Just wait and see every side of the situation before making a decision.” - Neil, towards Max and Nikki mainly, and to everyone else in general.

He’s not as rash as Nikki or Max, definitely - save for that one incident in Eggs Benefits, where he adopts what is assumedly his mother’s way of parenting (since we’re pretty sure Carl isn’t that way thanks to Parent’s Day). Generally he’s a very rational character, being the ‘smart’ character among the campers. He is very knowledgeable as a Science camper, and his belief in science only solidifies his status as a Mind player.

A Sylph of Mind invites creation of Mind or creation through Mind - with this line of thinking, Neil invites creation of Mind (or invites creation of reason - he is the most logical of the comedy trio, being the mind) or creation through Mind. Sounds very appropriate to me, but make of it what you will.

-=-=-=-=-

NIKKI, Witch of Breath (One who Manipulates with Breath or Manipulates Breath)

- I read the tags on the Team David reblogs, and I know someone out there doesn’t think Nikki is a good Witch of Breath. I present you this description of a Witch - “Witches are enthusiastic, confident and optimistic rebels. They break and change the physical and metaphysical “Rules” of their Aspect.”

“They want to be free and have fun and be in control of whenever they want to do those things, but they also recognize that not everyone is as free as them, and so they might try to take them along for their ride, giving them a taste of the freedom that the Witch would enjoy, but not necessarily the kind of freedom that the person they are dragging along would enjoy. They might even start to think that this kind of “freedom” and this direction would even be good for the person it was directed at, regardless of that person’s own wishes.

And this is where we see where the Witch of Breath can kinda go to the dark side, ripping up the foundation of someone’s life in its entirety, forcefully cutting them free of all bonds, putting them in a whirlwind of excitement and confusion and then setting them down somewhere lost and confused when they’re bored and had enough fun, almost like Tornadoes. But Witches of Breath can be good too, they just need to distinguish between someone unhappy and wanting freedom, and someone content to be in their bonds and obligations.”

Nikki is a Breath player because Breath players are frequently associated with freedom and the like - John, Rufioh, Tavros. Nikki loves the forest, loves being wild - when she joined the Flower Scouts the year before she came to Camp Campbell it’s said she was run out for not being ‘girl’ enough, and implied that she wasn’t able to ‘be herself’ there. The Witches in Homestuck canon - Jade, Feferi, Damara - all have great power over their aspect, and to imagine someone like Nikki wielding that over Breath, an Aspect related to change, to direction, to air in general, which is a free element in itself, is very good indeed.

Nikki is very impressionable, and as seen in a lot of episodes, usually goes along with a lot of things her friends do - she follows the people she holds respect for, examples being Ered in Camp Cool Kidz, Neil in Mind Freakers, Max in a lot of episodes but we’ll use Into Town for this example since she follows him around instead of Neil, and even Neilbot (who she thinks is Neil) in Anti-Social Network. Her allegiance in this sense is like the wind - free, ever changing, but mostly loyal to her friends in general. This eagerness to follow, however, is especially exploitable by people who know how to exploit relationships - people, perhaps, like a Prince of Blood.

-=-=-=-=-

SPACE KID, Heir of Space (One who Invites Manipulation of Space or one who Invites Manipulation through Space)

- I think we can all agree Space Kid is the Space player. It’s even in his name.

- “Heirs naturally gravitate towards their Aspect or unconsciously seek it out. They huge amounts of Aspect related strength as well.“ Being the grandson of Neil Armstrong - and being Neil Armstrong Jr., essentially - , of course Space Kid gravitates towards space. It’s in his blood to love Space. When he’s not consciously reaching for the stars it’s still on the brain and in the heart, and a lot of his actions are dedicated towards reaching the stars.

- “They may be very easily manipulated by others egging them on with rewards of their favorite object or obsession. They might even be manipulated by their random and changeable nature making them very willing to try new things.”

Space Kid is repeatedly described as the ‘most expendable’ character, oftentimes the butt of many jokes. His character episode, Space Camp Was A Hoax, even highlights how Max more or less tries to make him feel nauseous about space through that montage of him and Max ‘training’. In Bonjour Bonquisha, it’s a short event, but Space Kid is seen doing the gallon challenge - easily manipulated. Night of the Living Ill - Max manages to convince him easily to give him his space suit (not that he got to use it, but still).

- Also. Space Kid is Neil Armstrong Junior. Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon, while Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space. Being the grandson of the first man to walk on the moon means it’s in his blood. He’s, essentially, an heir. Of something space related. Eh? Eh? I’ll stop now.

-=-=-=-=-

TEAM GWEN

Role Recap: Gwen as Bard of Time, Preston as Thief of Heart, Nerris as Maid of Light, Harrison as Mage of Void, Ered as Prince of Blood, Dolph as Page of Life

-=-=-=-=-

GWEN, Bard of Time (One who Invites Destruction of Time or one who Invites Destruction through Time)

- This one got tricky. We had classpected nearly everyone else and we still lacked a Time player. We considered Gwen to be a Time player, though, and it stuck. It’d be a pretty cute callback to her liking Doctor Who, though, wouldn’t it?

- To directly quote dahniwitchoflight again, “Bards also ghost their opposite aspects, so a Bard of Time would also act much like a Space Player, in the beginning anyway. They try to avoid destroying anything and aren’t likely to believe in Fate or Destiny, but more so creating or changing their own fate in a precise way.”

A good example of this? Gwen, trying to change her fate as a counselor in Gwen Gets A Job.

Another direct quote: “Maybe it’s inevitable that they will never be a good artist and will go on a destructive spree, ruining all the projects they once loved because they think it will never happen, perhaps even listening to sad music in the process. Though eventually, if they take agency of themselves and don’t let themselves be controlled by the whims of Space, which is also impatience as much as it is beginnings, they will get through their crisis and be patient with themselves again that yes, they are pretty good and they’ll get better eventually, a good end will happen rather than a bad one.” Gwen’s got many anxieties and insecurities on her own in CC canon. But like a lot of us wish would happen, she can get better and get through a good number of her problems because we love her and wish her a happy life.

- This one is a friend’s observation - they associate Time players with keeping shit together (besides Damara, obviously, since the shit was not kept together), and Gwen? She definitely tries to keep shit together in camp.

- Bonus info: we have plans for Time player Gwen, so :)c

-=-=-=-=-

NERRIS, Maid of Light (One who Creates with Light or Creates Light)

- Obviously Nerris was a Light player. Light is primarily associated with luck and fortune, and Nerris is a DnD/PnP player - she relies on the luck of the dice to perform actions, doesn’t she? It makes a lot of sense for Nerris to have powers over luck and chance.

- Now, you’re thinking ‘why is Nerris a MAID? it doesn’t make sense!! nerris is no maid!!’ and you’re… pretty right, Nerris doesn’t seem like the Maid type (Maids in Homestuck canon include Aradia, Jane, and Porrim, for a comparison.) However, I did some research, and, if we’re following the inverse classpecting theory posed by bladekindeyewear, Nerris seems to be acting more like her classpect’s inverse, a Bard of Void.

Directly quoting dahniwitchoflight, “A Bard of Void as the other destruction class would also ghost Light as they destroy Void. They would be perceptive, attentive people and might like to hang around important or influential people. They might try to pop into the spotlight now and again to remind people that “Hey, I’m still here! Check it out!” They might super focus on a hobby or interest important to them or they might have a cool skill or interest that they want to be recognized for. They might be natural curious or nosy about a lot of things. They can act like a kind of satellite, hovering around others that they think are more important or influential than them. They might hide things from people, but make it really obvious that it’s hidden because they’re actually trying to drum up interest in whatever is hidden.”

Nerris, super focusing on DnD/PnP? Check. Wanting to be recognized for it? Check. Nerris, wanting to pop in the spotlight now and again? Also a check, though this one is built more on how we interpret Nerris - she’s part of the Performance Trio for a reason, and that reason is their love for the spotlight, wanting the focus on them. Nerris takes focus in S2′s Quest to Sleepy Peak Peak - or at least, tries to maintain focus. It’s supposed to be Nerris’s character episode, but she ends up sharing this episode with Harrison, and fights for the limelight with him during the majority of the episode.

In this line of thinking, Nerris, as a Maid of Light, rejecting her role the same way Rose does in Homestuck, goes on to ghost her classpect’s opposite, Bard of Void. In the end, however, should she eventually learn to accept her role as Maid of Light, these descriptions for Maid of Light become very appropriate for her:

“They might start out relying on all kinds of lucky charms and objects for any good luck and would heavily rely on superstitions.” - Her dice

“They would make their own luck and build up their own importance and influence.”

“They would be able to take something considered meaningless and give it new meaning, new significance. They would become amazingly aware and perceptive of the world and everything around them.”

- Also, Light is the opposite of Void. Who’s the session’s Void player? Harrison. Wouldn’t it be fine and dandy for her to be envious of Harrison here too?

-=-=-=-=-

HARRISON, Mage of Void (One who Understands with Void or Understands Void)

- “Mages will uniquely experience their Aspect, both good and bad. As a result, they gain a unique understanding of what their Aspect is or does.” Harrison has already experienced his Aspect, both good and bad - he’s an illusionist, and we all know he makes things appear and disappear for his tricks (good). However, he also made his brother disappear at some point (bad).

- “Mages of Void might constantly feel worthless and meaningless, like they’re totally irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and have nothing to offer. They may be unable to get anyone’s attention and be constantly ignored.”

Harrison, arguably, consistently experiences this, especially in Quest to Sleepy Peak Peak, faced against Nerris during the beginning parts of their adventure. He doesn’t even retaliate when Nerris calls him dumb and ugly - he just admits that it hurts. He’s a constant victim to Nerris’s barbs when it comes to stuff like this.

His character episode, however, Mind Freakers, shows that he loves the attention when he performs - he is part of the performance trio, and as such he has to have some love for the limelight, so when Neil tries to prove that his tricks aren’t real and that magic isn’t real, he’s genuinely worried about what the others will think. He’s afraid they will ignore him for the one thing he knows he can at least do semi-right - it’s shown that he takes pride in his skills as an illusionist (not so much his powers in making stuff appear), so to be ignored for even that little thing he uses to get others’ attention…

- To quote classpect-analysis, Mages are usually manipulated by their aspect, and, with Harrison’s aspect being Void, he has quite strong ties to the horrorterrors - which isn’t helped by the fact that he’s a Derse dreamer like all the players on Team Gwen. Should Harrison god tier, he would become someone to whom secrets meant nothing. He’d be able to see through any darkness, ignore any misdirection, and see in the nothingness what they need to see.

“The Mage of Void would also be able to stand more on equal footing with the horrorterrors, and likely could call upon them to bring the Void. They could also probably create illusions, and obscure themselves directly. In short, the Mage of Void has a very strong potential to be the one who brings the apocalypse to the rest of the session, and is incredibly skilled at knowing what others don’t want them to. Not a very cheerful class, but a very powerful one.“ Harrison has all this potential as a Mage of Void, but since he’s not very experienced yet, this isn’t possible.

- Harrison as well being a Void player is sadly a tragic joke… inexperience with his powers led to his brother disappearing, and so far, he hasn’t learned how to appearify him back yet.

- Our classpecting of Harrison as a Void player also ties in with how we classpected Nerris as a Light player, being the inverse aspects of each other. It’d tie in with their magical rivalry, and the envy Nerris most likely feels over the fact that unlike her, Harrison has real magic - this is paralleled in Campestuck, where Nerris ghosts the Bard of Void role, the inverse of her own classpect, in order to be better than the real Void player, Harrison.

-=-=-=-=-

PRESTON, Thief of Heart (One who Steals with Heart or Steals Heart)

- Fiddle herself admitted this was her projecting onto Preston, but, double checking it, the description for Thief of Heart definitely fits Preston.

- “Thieves have good intentions, and might be egocentric. They have natural confidence with their Aspect, but hide insecurities and hate being seen as weak.” Preston? Preston.

- ”They have a natural confidence in dealing with emotional and passionate people and in being truly unique to themselves.They are dangerously overconfident in themselves and their passions if anything.” We see a lot of this in his character episode in S1 - Romeo and Juliet II: Love Resurrected. He wrote and directed the whole play himself - dangerously overconfident, if you ask me. The poor boy can’t seem to chill.

- “Speaking of stealing Hearts though, I can see them being overconfident in emotional matters as well, ‘of course everybody loves me I’m great, so of course you’d wanna date me ;)’ or on another note ‘lol of course I can make that guy hate me watch this’. They can also be dramatic and overemotional beings, always feeling emotions in extremes. But something to be said about the Thief of Heart is that they are actually always very open and honest with how they feel and who they truly are and what they do and what kind of people they are. They might seem extreme at times, but they’re not lying to you. If they love you or hate you, you’ll know because they won’t shut up about it. “

One of the many characterizations of Preston has him as dramatic and overemotional (zero volume control, anyone?), and very honest. You see shades of this in Eggs Benefits the moment he’s sure Nurf can’t hurt him regarding the egg anymore: “I’M A HORRIBLE PARENT!” “You really are, Nurf.” He bluntly tells Nurf this, even after the guy pretty much beats him up. That’s him being open and honest about what he thinks about the whole thing.

-=-=-=-=-

ERED, Prince of Blood (One who Destroys with Blood or Destroys Blood)

- One of my favorites, personally, next to the Performance Trio because I am biased. The aspect of Blood seems to strongly refer to relationships and allegiances, and affinity and unity and all that jazz. The Prince class, on the other hand, has been shown to be about destroying with their aspect or destroying their aspect in particular. Combined, that means a Prince of Blood ‘destroys relationships or destroys with relationships.

- Ered as a Prince of Blood in this sense would work. We see in S1E4, Camp Cool Kidz, very strong evidences of her possibly being a Prince of Blood - after the campers usurped David and Gwen and took over the camp, the main reason the campers became divided was because of her in particular! She tore the campers apart - loyalties were tested, especially Nikki’s towards Max and Neil, being a part of the comedy trio.

Directly quoting dahniwitchoflight again, “A Prince of Blood would ghost Breath as they destroy Blood. They would be indifferent, unemotional, flexible, detached from anyone or the world around them and be extremely independent. They might have a tendency to separate themselves from others, not really feeling obligated to stick around or do anything with them and would hate actually being dependent on another person.” Does that not sound like Ered to you? The resident cool kid, just being cool like that. While not dependent on the other campers, she most definitely uses them as weapons when they are her allies - see Nikki, who she pits against Max.

Another direct quote: “But they could also destroy these same connections just as easily, liked hiring a mercenary. They would use the unwitting loyalty and bonds that others had for them to destroy and tear apart the bonds of enemies, or really anyone.” Again, Ered.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - “But that’s just Ered in one episode! You can’t base your whole classpecting on one episode!” But see, that particular episode is essentially an Ered episode - all the campers have their own camper-centric episodes, and Camp Cool Kidz is Ered’s, so it would make sense that a lot of her personality would be revealed in there. Ered is seen interacting civilly with a lot of the other campers in other episodes after Camp Cool Kidz, so we might be wrong. Still, it’s appropriate for Campestuck, and we’re going with this.

-=-=-=-=-

DOLPH, Page of Life (One who Invites Exploitation of Life or one who Invites Exploitation through Life)

- Poor Dolph. I like him a lot, he’s a very sweet character who didn’t deserve all those Hitler jokes that Roosterteeth made with him. While the Hitler parallels are inexcusable, he’s still, in essence, a child - he can change as he grows older. And, when he grows older, he can finally realize what the hell Neil’s problem is with him. Anyway.

- “A Page of Life would start out with a deficit in their ability to grow, their own power, or just their own status and wealth. They start out at the very bottom as the underdog. They don’t know how to handle wealth or power very well, and may wield any that they gain very clumsily at first.” Dolph’s character episode, Reigny Day, is unfortunately just a big Hitler joke, but if it is his episode, then at least a few facets of him can be gleaned from it. Given the position of counselor for the day, Dolph adopts the dictator-like persona, but as you can see it’s a poor persona - even if the judges for Counselor of the Year think otherwise. Dolph may have seemed like he handled that power well, but (god damn it, Roosterteeth) if visual indicators are anything to look at, he really wasn’t handling it well, especially when Neil ‘goes missing’. The visual indicators I’m referring to are the ‘crazy, stray hairs’ he gets as lightning flashes in the background. That scene.

“They think they do though, in fact they believe themselves worthy of more than what they currently have for sure, and just recklessly go along with any temptations that they might have. They think they are invincible or untouchable, when they’re really not. They also don’t have a strong grasp on the correct way to go about getting that status or wealth that they so desire. They think power and status means that they can just do whatever they want without consequence, and thus they act like they can get away with anything.”

Ugh. Even more Hitler parallels, unfortunately. Reigny Day is the prime highlighter for these aspects of Dolph. In Campestuck Dolph mellows out very slightly since Campestuck is set three years after CC canon (Max is 13 in Campestuck and 10 in Camp Camp), and thus these aspects aren’t as prominent, but they are still, unfortunately there.

“Since Pages are prone to having their temptations, their power and whatever status they earn exploited by others, they must be wary of anyone seeking to usurp what they’ve earned or own, or be wary of people directing them to do things that they wish to do, but don’t currently have the power to, while the Page of Life does have the power to do.”

Dolph seems very eager to please, and again, this is veering into interpretation territory, but over the episodes it seems he has some form of hero worship for a particular character. As the description above states, he must be wary of people seeking to usurp what he owns or has earned, because, perhaps, if he isn’t careful, the hero worship he has for the character may lead to his downfall.

Pages are powerful players, we know this - they just need to awaken their true potential, and Dolph is no different. He can potentially become very, very powerful - and if he’s exploited by someone who knows how to manipulate others to their own whims, he’s a dangerous enemy indeed, being the exploiter of Life itself. It’d be terrifying if someone - say, a Blood player - used him as a pawn for something other than winning the Game.

#camp camp #campestuck #classpecting #campestuck classpecting #classpecting campestuck

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anitabyars · 4 years

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“A Secret for a Secret was such a refreshing read. Kingston is all good and saintlike . . . until he's so not! A big recommendation from me”

-- Tijan New York Times Bestselling Author

A Secret for a Secret, an all-new not-to-be-missed sports romance guaranteed to bring all-the-feels by New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting, is out now!

From New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting comes a new romance about trading secrets, breaking the rules, and playing for keeps.

My name is Ryan Kingston, and I’m a rule follower. I’ve never been in a fistfight. I always obey the speed limit. I don’t get drunk, and I definitely don’t pick up random women at bars.

Except the night I found out that my whole existence has been a lie.

I got drunk. And picked up a stranger.

Her name was Queenie, and she was everything I’m not: reckless, impulsive, and chaotic. We did shots and traded secrets. And ended up naked at my place.

She left me a thank-you note in the morning and her panties as a parting gift. But no way to contact her.

Six weeks later I’m sitting in the first official team meeting of the season, and there she is. I neglected to mention that I’m the goalie for Seattle’s NHL team.

And Queenie? Turns out she’s the general manager’s daughter.

Download your copy today or read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PuergO

Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/SecretforSecret

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/2PwTgec

Amazon Audio: https://amzn.to/2YYr8U2

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2Q3mzDU

Excerpt:

“You think our GM got himself an assistant?”

I follow his gaze to the front of the room. Standing at the desk with her back to us, arranging papers, is a woman with wavy chestnut hair that nearly reaches her waist. “Maybe an intern?”

She’s wearing a navy dress that conforms to her very feminine form. I trace the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip, skimming down to where the hem of her dress hits the bend in her knee. Her calves are bare, athletic, and toned, and her heels boast a little bow on the back. Classy, yet sexy. “Possibly.”

“I hope the eye candy is gonna be permanent,” someone at the table behind us says, loud enough for everyone close by to hear.

“I wouldn’t mind if she helped me with my jockstrap,” one of the other guys chimes in, eliciting a loud chuckle from the rest of the table.

I glance over my shoulder and pin them with an unimpressed glare. I recognize Foley from Tampa, and Dickerson is an LA trade. They’re notorious womanizers. “Watch your mouth and have some respect. That’s someone’s daughter.”

“Take it easy, King. It’s not like we’d actually say that to her face,” Foley says.

I don’t have an opportunity to reprimand him further because the GM, Jake Masterson, and our head coach, Alex Waters, enter the room through the side door. The GM crosses over to the woman, whose back is still turned to us, and he gives her a smile that seems . . . overly warm. He leans in and squeezes her shoulder as he says something with his mouth close to her ear.

“Maybe she’s not his assistant. Maybe she’s his new girlfriend, ’cause that looks pretty damn friendly to me.” Bishop jams a sausage link into his mouth.

“Maybe,” I agree.

She turns slightly, giving me a glimpse of her profile. Her cheeks are flushed pink. I blink a couple of times, because she seems incredibly familiar.

“I think I know her,” I mumble, more to myself than to Bishop.

“Not as well as our GM does, by the look of things.”

It hits me like a puck in the chest without pads on. I do know her. Queenie. My one-night stand who bailed the next morning and left a Post-it and panties hanging from my doorknob. Destroyed panties. “Oh God.”

Did I sleep with the GM’s girlfriend? Memories come barreling into my brain, and I want to sink into the floor. My behavior that night was highly atypical. Everything about that night was. I chalked it up to the alcohol, the family drama, and the fact that she seemed to be a very eager and willing participant in our adventures. Do not think about the things you did to her.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about Queenie and our night together. I’ve even considered driving by the bar where we met, but I don’t know if she’s likely to show up there. And it’s not as if I can ask the bartender about her without looking like a creep. Besides, if she wanted me to have her number, she would’ve left it.

“Are you okay? You look like you’re about to hurl,” Bishop asks.

I cover my mouth with my palm, not because I’m going to be ill but to hide the fact that it’s hanging open and I can’t seem to close it. Although my stomach is starting to do those awful somersaults that will soon turn into full-on nausea. The kind I used to get when I’d first hit the ice for a game.

This is bad. Really bad. I’ve never had a one-night stand before. I’ve always been in committed relationships, and I prefer to get to know my bed partners before they actually get into bed with me. Teen pregnancy was pretty common where I grew up in Tennessee, because there wasn’t much else to do apart from playing sports or getting into trouble with drugs and alcohol—my brother, Gerald, went the latter route. I obviously fit into the sports category. By the time I became a teenager, my parents had finally learned their lesson. It was drilled into me to never become that kind of statistic, or to turn my girlfriend into a mom before she was ready to take on more than senior-level algebra.

Ironic how my actual mother would’ve been one of those girls had my grandparents not made the choices they had.

“King?” Bishop nudges me. “You’re staring, man.”

Jake whistles with his fingers, causing the woman beside him to cringe but then quickly school her expression into an uncertain smile. “Who’s ready for a new season?”

He’s rewarded with a chorus of cheers from the players. Waters stands off to the side, clapping enthusiastically. He generally runs all team meetings, but Jake is a hands-on GM, so he always manages first meeting intros before he hands it over to our coach.

Jake waits for everyone to settle down and take their seats before he continues. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my personal assistant, Queenie.” He throws his arm over her shoulder and pulls her into his side.

A hot spike of anger rushes down my spine—it’s a foreign feeling. I’m usually very level headed. But not right now. It’s obvious by the way Jake and Queenie interact that there’s a relationship there. Is she a cheater? Did she make me one? There’s a definite age gap. He’s young for a GM, but he’s in his forties, and I’m pretty sure she’s in her mid twenties.

“She also happens to be my daughter, so don’t get any ideas, boys.” He somehow manages to wink and glare at the same time.

And it just went from bad to worse.

My one-night stand isn’t my GM’s girlfriend; she’s his daughter.

About Helena Hunting

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of PUCKED, Helena Hunting lives on the outskirts of Toronto with her incredibly tolerant family and two moderately intolerant cats. She's writes contemporary romance ranging from new adult angst to romantic sports comedy.

Connect with Helena

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2kN5wdZ

Twitter: http://bit.ly/2mloUim

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/Zt1xm5

Facebook Fan group: http://bit.ly/2kN5yCD

Website: http://www.helenahunting.com/

Website link: https://helenahunting.com/books/a-secret-for-a-secret/

Never miss an update! Subscribe to Helena's mailing list:

http://bit.ly/38TflLm

My Review

5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow! The dynamics of these two! This was everything I love in a read. The characters just took my heart on a amazing ride. I loved the chemistry between these characters and the storyline was just so touching I couldn’t put it down! The ending gave me tears and All The Feels! Another must read.

These opposites attract in all the right ways when a wild child falls for a milk drinking, door opening, extra-polite Boy Scout who unleashes a very dirty man when he takes his clothes off. And although the chemistry is sizzling between them, there is more than their heat that burns between them.

But will the secrets they are keeping, tear them apart or bind them forever? We have a new King and Queen in the romance world and you do not want to miss their story!

Received a complimentary copy in exchange for a honest review.

#socialbutterflypr #netgalley #helenahunting #asecretforasecret

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dargeereads · 4 years

Text

“Helena Hunting delivers a smart, funny, emotional story that grabs you from page one.” — Ilsa Madden-Mills, Wall Street Journal bestselling author

A Secret for a Secret, an all-new must read forbidden standalone romance that is sure to have you swooning from the start by New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting, is available now!

From New York Times bestselling author Helena Hunting comes a new romance about trading secrets, breaking the rules, and playing for keeps.

My name is Ryan Kingston, and I’m a rule follower. I’ve never been in a fistfight. I always obey the speed limit. I don’t get drunk, and I definitely don’t pick up random women at bars.

Except the night I found out that my whole existence has been a lie.

I got drunk. And picked up a stranger.

Her name was Queenie, and she was everything I’m not: reckless, impulsive, and chaotic. We did shots and traded secrets. And ended up naked at my place.

She left me a thank-you note in the morning and her panties as a parting gift. But no way to contact her.

Six weeks later I’m sitting in the first official team meeting of the season, and there she is. I neglected to mention that I’m the goalie for Seattle’s NHL team.

And Queenie? Turns out she’s the general manager’s daughter.

Download your copy today or read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PuergO Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/SecretforSecret Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/2PwTgec Amazon Audio: https://amzn.to/2YYr8U2

Add to Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2Q3mzDU

Excerpt:

“You think our GM got himself an assistant?” I follow his gaze to the front of the room. Standing at the desk with her back to us, arranging papers, is a woman with wavy chestnut hair that nearly reaches her waist. “Maybe an intern?” She’s wearing a navy dress that conforms to her very feminine form. I trace the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip, skimming down to where the hem of her dress hits the bend in her knee. Her calves are bare, athletic, and toned, and her heels boast a little bow on the back. Classy, yet sexy. “Possibly.” “I hope the eye candy is gonna be permanent,” someone at the table behind us says, loud enough for everyone close by to hear. “I wouldn’t mind if she helped me with my jockstrap,” one of the other guys chimes in, eliciting a loud chuckle from the rest of the table. I glance over my shoulder and pin them with an unimpressed glare. I recognize Foley from Tampa, and Dickerson is an LA trade. They’re notorious womanizers. “Watch your mouth and have some respect. That’s someone’s daughter.” “Take it easy, King. It’s not like we’d actually say that to her face,” Foley says. I don’t have an opportunity to reprimand him further because the GM, Jake Masterson, and our head coach, Alex Waters, enter the room through the side door. The GM crosses over to the woman, whose back is still turned to us, and he gives her a smile that seems . . . overly warm. He leans in and squeezes her shoulder as he says something with his mouth close to her ear. “Maybe she’s not his assistant. Maybe she’s his new girlfriend, ’cause that looks pretty damn friendly to me.” Bishop jams a sausage link into his mouth. “Maybe,” I agree. She turns slightly, giving me a glimpse of her profile. Her cheeks are flushed pink. I blink a couple of times, because she seems incredibly familiar. “I think I know her,” I mumble, more to myself than to Bishop. “Not as well as our GM does, by the look of things.” It hits me like a puck in the chest without pads on. I do know her. Queenie. My one-night stand who bailed the next morning and left a Post-it and panties hanging from my doorknob. Destroyed panties. “Oh God.” Did I sleep with the GM’s girlfriend? Memories come barreling into my brain, and I want to sink into the floor. My behavior that night was highly atypical. Everything about that night was. I chalked it up to the alcohol, the family drama, and the fact that she seemed to be a very eager and willing participant in our adventures. Do not think about the things you did to her. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about Queenie and our night together. I’ve even considered driving by the bar where we met, but I don’t know if she’s likely to show up there. And it’s not as if I can ask the bartender about her without looking like a creep. Besides, if she wanted me to have her number, she would’ve left it. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to hurl,” Bishop asks. I cover my mouth with my palm, not because I’m going to be ill but to hide the fact that it’s hanging open and I can’t seem to close it. Although my stomach is starting to do those awful somersaults that will soon turn into full-on nausea. The kind I used to get when I’d first hit the ice for a game. This is bad. Really bad. I’ve never had a one-night stand before. I’ve always been in committed relationships, and I prefer to get to know my bed partners before they actually get into bed with me. Teen pregnancy was pretty common where I grew up in Tennessee, because there wasn’t much else to do apart from playing sports or getting into trouble with drugs and alcohol—my brother, Gerald, went the latter route. I obviously fit into the sports category. By the time I became a teenager, my parents had finally learned their lesson. It was drilled into me to never become that kind of statistic, or to turn my girlfriend into a mom before she was ready to take on more than senior-level algebra. Ironic how my actual mother would’ve been one of those girls had my grandparents not made the choices they had. “King?” Bishop nudges me. “You’re staring, man.” Jake whistles with his fingers, causing the woman beside him to cringe but then quickly school her expression into an uncertain smile. “Who’s ready for a new season?” He’s rewarded with a chorus of cheers from the players. Waters stands off to the side, clapping enthusiastically. He generally runs all team meetings, but Jake is a hands-on GM, so he always manages first meeting intros before he hands it over to our coach. Jake waits for everyone to settle down and take their seats before he continues. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my personal assistant, Queenie.” He throws his arm over her shoulder and pulls her into his side. A hot spike of anger rushes down my spine—it’s a foreign feeling. I’m usually very level headed. But not right now. It’s obvious by the way Jake and Queenie interact that there’s a relationship there. Is she a cheater? Did she make me one? There’s a definite age gap. He’s young for a GM, but he’s in his forties, and I’m pretty sure she’s in her mid twenties. “She also happens to be my daughter, so don’t get any ideas, boys.” He somehow manages to wink and glare at the same time. And it just went from bad to worse. My one-night stand isn’t my GM’s girlfriend; she’s his daughter.

About Helena Hunting New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of PUCKED, Helena Hunting lives on the outskirts of Toronto with her incredibly tolerant family and two moderately intolerant cats. She's writes contemporary romance ranging from new adult angst to romantic sports comedy.

Connect with Helena

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2kN5wdZ Twitter: http://bit.ly/2mloUim Facebook: http://on.fb.me/Zt1xm5 Facebook Fan group: http://bit.ly/2kN5yCD Website: http://www.helenahunting.com/ Website link: https://helenahunting.com/books/a-secret-for-a-secret/ Never miss an update! Subscribe to Helena's mailing list: http://bit.ly/38TflLm

#Helena Hunting #A Secret for A Secret #release blitz #new release #Kindle Unlimited #All In series

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go-famousgentlemenstudent-blog · 6 years

Text

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SEO professionals have an actually bad routine: They like to toss around odd words and market lingo when they speak with clients without checking to make sure that their customers understand the subject at hand. And you'll learn how in this simple three-step guide. A differing set of outcomes will help to find those gems you miss out on. Backlink analysis tools never reveal a website's total link profile, and it can take weeks or months for new links to appear in them. You'll be asked to pick the format and the list. If possible, ask to examine your post before it gets released: Many major publishers normally provide their guest authors with a sneak peek of their post just before it goes live. Thank you very much, Neil, for sharing a lovely article! The significance and quality of an external link are very important elements when you prefer to determine the impact/ value of an link. Companies little and big LOVE to show off their customer testimonials. You'll get all the SEO metrics to evaluate your backlinks. So, even if you're capturing an airplane, your next piece of material will get to your audience. Link building stays one of the most effective ways to rank better and drive more traffic that's likewise more precisely targeted. The only way to make backlinks is to supply worth and please your readers. The Google disavow tool is an advanced feature and you ought to use it with care. Simply puts, they have actually made the playing field harder. No doubt, constructing links is a difficult task, however you can make it simple, if you are utilizing ideal techniques and resources. I remember when I composed for KissMetrics (maybe circa 2013-2014) and my article showed up on Business owner, I was perplexed there was no Canonical. These can likewise be called 'inbound' or 'inbound' links. In order to acquire a better understanding of exactly what to trust online and more importantly exactly what not to trust, we should initially understand a little about the history of SEO and why the major search engines like Google and Bing do not stand still for long. Include those links in atxt file (formatted inning accordance with Google's standards). Webmasters who host PBNs are likewise notorious for utilizing shortform material. Sites that sell products or services enjoy to show the client's feedback. Even when you do get mentioned, however, there's no actual assurance that the people referencing you will give you a link. Offer valuable and separating material that other sites will want to share. In addition to SEO, we also picked Brick Marketing to manage our website migration to WordPress, and once again, couldn't have been happier with our choice to do so. The Brick Marketing team made the procedure pain-free and simple, and made numerous useful recommendations to enhance our site that we would have never thought about on our own.

However, you ought to speak to an excellent, trusted SEO business for professional viewpoint to see if there are any possibilities to recover your website. what are backlinks seo However link building does not need to be as difficult as most people make it. Consider it like social media - if you're a source of fantastic content and you get it in front of the best people, they're going to share it. With that in mind, we'll get you begun with 33 concepts to assist you construct genuine inbound links. This action has actually triggered numerous sites to lose their page rankings, but has also allowed other pages with genuine backlinks to increase in the search engine results with significant online search engine such as Google. You never know who will build upon your knowledge and develop their own post referencing your initial post as a citation!

Be cautious of any business who promises a # 1 natural ranking. Sure, it'll take time and you're giving someone else's site material. I like your blog site and i like the approaches you are sharing here. The objective is to connect to your audience and exist among users, so search for keywords that relate to your industry and Pin material that your users would wish to see and that motivates and complements your brand name. Since the toolbar" PageRank that gets published is being updated more irregularly and less regularly than in years past, it's ill-advised to avoid getting links from certain sites 59 Understanding Backlinks based on PageRank. Billy and other link shorteners will cut bad links. Et oui, vous aurez beau améliorer la structure de vos pages ou de votre website web en général, ce ne sera pas suffisant. There are less variety of sites having high PR and it is said that higher the number of backlinks, greater would be the rank in online search engine of your website. You are producing ASSETS for your company when you create quality material. More than that, you'll most likely discover it much easier to obtain prepared interviewees with just one or two simple concerns than with a whole post's worth of questions! Let's discuss the very first question, because, for efficient link building, site company matters. Although you may get a momentary spike in rankings, your grace duration won't last long. There are numerous methods to disable these links so that they will not affect your ratings adversely. There are numerous factors that figure out the worth of a backlink. Some offer do follow links and for the a lot of part, you can get into them fairly quickly. Make product/service statements on relevant social networks platforms. You can supplement a post on your main keyword with several smaller posts on long tail variations with links pointing back to the post representing your primary keyword. Le guest-blogging consiste à mettre en location un partenariat rédactionnel sur child blog. Much of it is outright, consisting of spam emails using visitor posts on apparently trusted authority websites. There is a lot of valuable direction you can get with your material strategy. I will adhere to high road and construct great backlinks all the while cursing that business along the method. That is, as long as your material is special and important.

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The Connection Between Insulin Resistance and the High-Carb, Low-Fat Diet Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Dr. Tim Noakes, a well-respected scientist, researcher, physician and professor at the Division of Exercise Science and Sports Medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, is one of the world's foremost experts on low-carb diets. In fact, he was instrumental in getting the low-carb diet revolution off the ground. He's also an accomplished athlete. As a long-distance endurance runner with 70 marathons under his belt, he had long promoted high-carb diets, himself consuming 400 grams of carbs a day or more when preparing for a race. Eventually, he discovered this wasn't the best way to improve athletic endurance and health, and ended up writing a number of popular books on low-carb diets. From High to Low Carb Noakes graduated from medical school in 1974. At the time, he was also running, and this was when the high carbohydrate diet really started to become popularized. Following the advice of one of his professors at the cardiology unit where he worked, he changed to a high-carb diet and began promoting it in his writings, including the book, "Lore of Running," which was widely read. "There it says that you must eat lots of carbohydrates for both health and performance. I continued to do this for 33 years until 2010," Noakes says. One day in 2010, he went for a run and had one of the worst runs of his life. He also admitted he was overweight, which didn't help. By chance, that same day he received an advertisement for Dr. Eric C. Westman's book, "The New Atkins for a New You: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great." It claimed you could lose 6 kilos (13 pounds) in six weeks, which he didn't believe because he'd tried many diets and none worked. Despite that, he bought the book, and within two hours of reading, he realized he'd had it all wrong all this time. "I decided then and there that I was going to go low-carb. I started at lunchtime on that day. I've been on that diet now for the last six years. I've dropped 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in weight. My running returned to what it had been 20 years earlier," he says. "I subsequently discovered that I have type 2 diabetes because of a strong family history and all these carbohydrates. But I'm glad to say today all my blood tests are within the normal range. I am taking medication. But … in six years with diagnosed diabetes, I have not worsened. In fact, I'm probably slightly better than I was six years ago, which is completely contrary to what would happen if you followed conventional advice. Anyway, I decided that I'd start reading. I read all your work. I read all the books. I started doing research. That convinced me that this is a really important change that we need to promote throughout the world. Clearly, the diabetes and obesity epidemics started in 1977. It's caused by the dietary guidelines. I slowly began to understand [how] industry has driven the bad guidelines … I also do intermittent fasting. I only eat between lunchtime and … 8 p.m. … I found that that's been really helpful. It's about a 16-hour fast and an eight-hour period where I eat." Diet Revolution Leads to Legal Wrangling In 2013, Noakes published "The Real Meal Revolution: Changing the World, One Meal at a Time," which turned into the best-selling book ever in the history of Southern African literature. The success of this book produced major changes in dietary understanding in Southern Africa. Alas, its success also led to legal action being taken against him by the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which is a professional medical licensing and regulatory board. The action came after he posted low-carb advice to a pregnant woman on Twitter. As a result, the president of the Association for Dietetics in South Africa wrote a long letter to the Health Professions Council, challenging his ability to practice medicine. "It is so bad that my own university dissociated itself from me," Noakes says. "At my hospital, Groote Schuur Hospital, you are not allowed to prescribe a low-carbohydrate diet for any condition. You're not allowed to discuss the diet among the doctors. If you do practice it or if you were to prescribe it, something would happen to you. That's how strong the movement against it is. It's absolutely astonishing. The worst bit for me actually wasn't the trial and being accused of malpractice and so on. The worst bit was my university. The dean of medicine wrote to the local newspaper and said they dissociated themselves from my views and all those who support the low-carbohydrate diet. Of course, they had no evidence for it, but here I'd worked at this university for 35 years or so, and was one of the better-known scientists. That they could do that was absolutely astonishing. But … it does seem that industry was strongly involved." Overwhelming Evidence During the hearing, he presented five and a half days of testimony about the low-carb diet. He was also cross-examined for three and a half days. Then for another three days, expert witnesses were heard, including Nina Teicholz, Zoe Harcombe and Caryn Zinn, all three of whom presented a remarkably sturdy case for its use. "For example, when Nina — [who] wrote the book 'The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet' — when she finished, the lawyer for the prosecution could not cross-examine her. He just threw up his hands and quit. He didn't have anything to say. Zoe Harcombe was the same. She has just completed her Ph.D., showing there was never any proven evidence to change the dietary guidelines in 1977. She presented her Ph.D. thesis. Again, the evidence is absolutely overwhelming. The end result is that we've had 23 days in court so far, and we won every single moment for 23 days. We won everything. They have not been able to pin one thing on me. I think it's the first time in history that a diet has been put before a legal jury to decide whether or not it's true." The final decision, more than three years after the Tweet was posted, was that Noakes was found not guilty of misconduct. It remains to be seen whether the health professional council, the statutory party that took action against Noakes, will have to change their nutritional guidelines and update all nutrition and dietetics teaching in South Africa. As noted by Noakes, "That could be a huge moment for South Africa and perhaps for the rest of the world." Corporate Influence At the request of CrossFit founder Greg Glassman, investigative journalist Russ Greene visited Noakes in South Africa. He went through all the transcripts of the trial, and then began digging into the backgrounds of all the expert witnesses testifying against Noakes. Most of them turned out to be linked to an organization called the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), which is a Coca-Cola funded organization. ILSI is basically a front-group for the beverage industry, and has links to Monsanto, Pfizer, Unilever and, in the past, the tobacco industry. Green wrote an exposé, "Big Food vs. Tim Noakes: The Final Crusade," which is posted on his website, therussels.crossfit.com.1 "It's an amazing exposé, which suggests there was a coordinated effort in South Africa to bring me [down] and that it was driven by industry. The reason was we were getting too close to questioning the role of sugar and carbohydrates in ill health. We haven't proved it, but there's enough evidence out there to suggest there were things behind the trial that one would not have thought about," Noakes says. Beverage Industry Hurt Athletes With Manipulated Science This isn't the first time Noakes has taken on big industry. In 2010, he published "Waterlogged: The Serious Problem of Overhydration in Endurance Sports," a book exposing how industry influences science, and how the beverage industry has influenced the drinking guidelines for athletes. He wrote the book because he was angry about people being hurt as a result of these manipulated guidelines. While rarely discussed, exercise-associated hyponatremia — drinking too much or overhydrating — actually contributes to many unnecessary deaths. Noakes explains: "When I started running marathons in the 1970s, we didn't drink during races. In fact, I ran a 56-mile race and I think I had four drinks. You'd have a drink every hour and you would literally swirl your mouth out with water and that would be about it. No one came to any harm. Then in about 1974 I began actively to promote drinking during marathon races. I became very active in South Africa saying there was not enough fluid available to marathon runners … By 1981, the race … had a drinking station every mile. They had 56 drinking stations in a 56-mile race. At the end of that race, a lady was unconscious. She was hospitalized ... Her blood sodium concentration had fallen. She wanted to know what had happened. She said, 'Maybe I took too little sugar or salt during the race. What should I do about it?' I said, 'I have no idea.' I then decided to investigate. Over the next 10 years, we were able to show that … she had overdrunk fluids. She'd retained the fluids, [which] caused her brain to swell, [causing] her to go unconscious. She'd remained unconscious for four days. We provided definitive evidence that it was overdrinking that caused the problem." In 1993, the first American marathon runner died from overhydration. Still, in 1996, the American College of Sports Medicine, funded by Gatorade, produced new drinking guidelines stating that dehydration is the killer when you exercise, and you should drink "as much as tolerable" during exercise. Other deaths followed, all of which were completely unnecessary. In 2002, a young female runner died shortly after completing the Boston marathon. Cause of death: water intoxication. As recently as last year, two American football players died from overhydration. An estimated 3,000 athletes have also been hospitalized for hyponatremia, but fortunately almost all have survived. Yet, there have been at least 16 completely unnecessary deaths of which we are aware. How Industry Controls Information Finally, in 2007, the American College of Sports Medicine revised their guidelines to what Noakes had suggested, which is that you should drink to thirst. "It took a lot of time to change. The only reason we could change was because two scientific journals in the entire world were independent of the sports drink industry. [The] industry … makes sure its key opinion leaders, who have funds to do research, also happen to be the people who draw up the guidelines, whether they be dietary, cholesterol or drinking. In addition to that they are the main reviewers of journal articles. Over a 10-year period, we would submit papers and I knew they went to exactly the same reviewers every time. It didn't matter which journal we sent them to … But there were two journals that were independent, the British Journal of Medicine and the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. They published our work. I always knew that if there were two journals open to our papers … we would win in the end. In the end, we did win, because in the end all that matters is the truth. But if those two journals had also been controlled, if they'd had the same editorial boards, we wouldn't have ever done it. That was how I learned that is how industry controls information. They actively do it. They actively support people to make sure that only guidelines that benefit industry are ever published." With Fewer Carbs, You Don't Need Insulin One of the absolute worst things conventional medicine does is treat type 2 diabetics with insulin. This only exacerbates the problem. The key to treating and reversing type 2 diabetes is to cut down on net carbs, replacing them with high amounts of healthy fats and moderate amounts of protein. Noakes has researched reversal of type 2 diabetes in South Africans, coming to the same conclusion. "It seems to me that provided you remove the carbohydrates, you don't need the insulin," he says. "We're looking at the whole body … [W]e're looking at every organ in the body that we believe has been influenced by type 2 diabetes. We're seeing how they differ in people who reversed their type 2 diabetes on this diet, versus those who continue to be treated with standard therapy, including insulin … [This has] not been done anywhere else in the world. It's just the most exciting work I can think of." Removing net carbs is only one side of the equation, though. That will reverse the insulin resistance, but equally important is having the ability to burn fat as your primary fuel. Paradoxically, driving your insulin level too low can result in a rise in blood sugar. The reason this can happen is because the primary function of insulin is not to drive sugar into the cell, but to suppress the production of glucose by the liver (hepatic gluconeogenesis). In situations like this, eating a piece of fruit, for example, will actually lower your blood sugar. This is what happened to me, as I went a bit too extreme in my ketogenic approach. That got me to explore this whole process, eventually concluding that continuous ketosis may not be a wise long-term approach. You actually need this cycling, where you go through a one-day-per-week fast and one or two days a week of feasting, where you eat maybe 100 or 200 grams of carbs. Noakes is planning clinical trials with type 2 diabetics where they will be looking at these kinds of variations. Are Carbs Bad for All Athletes? It's worth noting that some athletes may not perform at their best on a ketogenic (high-fat, low-carb diet). I believe that if you're doing ultra-endurance events like marathons, the ketogenic diet is the way to go. But for high-performance spurt, interval types, it might not be your best bet. It'll help you from a health perspective, but it may not optimize your performance like it will for long-distance running. Noakes weighs in on the topic, saying: "I say the ideal diet for sports is the one that's ideal for life as well … I spent 20 years of my life studying glucose metabolism in the body during exercise. The question I want to know is, how can adding a little bit of carbohydrate make you run faster? For example, if you ingest carbohydrate during exercise, because you've got plenty of fat on board, why would you need a little bit of carbohydrate? To some extent, I think the carbohydrate effect is a drug effect, particularly during exercise. If you're taking carbohydrates, I think it's acting like a drug, because metabolically, I can't see how it would make any difference. It's really interesting. When we do these studies, we take people on high-carbohydrate diets and we put them on a high-fat diet. The performance does come down. But I wonder to what extent, as to the withdrawal of the drug effect as much as a metabolic effect … I think even if you're cycling the Tour de France, you don't need more than 200 grams of carbohydrate a day." Insulin Resistance Is the Real Killer According to Noakes, "[I]nsulin resistance is the real killer and … we need to understand that … [the] main driver [of chronic disease] is insulin resistance and a high-carbohydrate diet." Unfortunately, most medical schools around the world still do not teach medical students about insulin resistance, and one of the primary reasons for this is because medical schools are strongly influenced by the food industry, which wants you to believe that eating fat is dangerous and eating sugars and grains (net carbs) is healthy. Neither is true, but these ideas are driven by financial motives. We need to remember that diabetes is one of the greatest growth industries in the world. If it can be reversed or prevented by a relatively simple dietary change, then that industry collapses. "What I would like to dedicate the rest of my time to is trying to get medical schools to change the focus of the teaching of nutrition and to admit that we failed by telling people to eat a high-carbohydrate diet, and that we have to replace that with an understanding that carbohydrates and insulin resistance are the problem. The broad range of diseases that we see is linked to that," Noakes says. "There's a paper in the Journal of American Medical Association … Chinese people with diabetes were compared to Chinese people without diabetes. The risk for all the common chronic diseases was two to three times greater. It was frightening. There wasn't a condition that wasn't listed there. We have to realize we're heading toward a disaster because we don't understand that you must treat insulin resistance with a low-carbohydrate diet. Unless we do that, we're not going to address the health of our nations … We used to be very lean. That's what we're designed to be. We have to somehow get back to that original state, because humans are … not designed to be fat." Sugar Addicts Are Particularly Intolerant to Carbohydrates While I believe limiting protein is just as important as cutting carbs, Noakes believes restricting carbs is the primary key for diabetics. As for how much carbohydrate is too much, we agree that an ideal limit for health is 25 grams of net carbs per day. My recommendation for diabetics is stricter than his, however, as I recommend a maximum of 15 grams of net carbs per day until your insulin resistance is resolved. Noakes suggests a range of 25 to 100 grams, depending on your levels of exercise and of insulin resistance, with 25 grams being the maximum for those with marked insulin resistance/Type 2 diabetes. He also notes that people with sugar addiction or carbohydrate addiction who are morbidly obese tend to be incredibly intolerant to carbohydrates, and need to be particularly mindful not to exceed 25 grams of net carbs. "The people that I've helped lose 80, 100 kilograms, that's 160 to 200 pounds, they literally cannot eat 26 grams of carbohydrates. They have to stick to 25. Once they get up to 50 grams … they move back toward the addictive nature," Noakes says. "They start to eat more carbohydrate, and very quickly, they're eating 100, 200, back to 400 grams. People don't understand that if you have a real weight problem and you're morbidly obese, you've really got to be strict 25 grams and no more. I think it's the same with type 2 diabetes. You've got to stick to 25 grams." Dr. Noakes was one of the experts I sought to help edit my new book "Fat for Fuel" for accuracy. Unfortunately, he was in the middle of his trial and could not edit it. However, there is little doubt in my mind that "Fat for Fuel" is the finest resource you can obtain to give you the practical details of how to implement the strategies that Noakes discusses. To Learn More, Join Me at My Upcoming Live Lectures There are many professionals or others who would like to dive deep into the details and if you fall in that category, I want to offer you some opportunities to learn more. On June 14 and 15, 2017, I will be in Colorado Springs for the SopMed’s third medical ozone and ultraviolet light therapy training. The 14th I will be giving a three-hour course that goes into many of the details that are not discussed in my new book “Fat for Fuel,” either because I learned of them later or there was not room to fit them in the book. If you are specifically interested in nutritional ketosis, there will be a large number of experts lecturing at the Low Carb USA event in San Diego August 3-6. I will be one of the speakers along with Gary Taubes and Stephen Phinney. You can see the entire list of invited speakers lower on the page. The Early Bird Special, which saves you $100 on the ticket price, ends on April 30. I am also speaking in Florida in November. If you are a physician and are interested in learning about how you can use the ketogenic diet and other therapies for cancer, heart disease, Lyme and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, please be sure and come to our ACIM conference in Orlando, Florida on November 2 through 4 at the wonderful Florida Conference and Hotel Center. If you are a patient, there will be a separate and less expensive track on the same date and location. However, you will need to come back to this page in a few days as the registration page for the event is still not up. The Early Bird Special, which saves you $100 on the ticket price, ends on April 30.

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