#the general consensus is that I need to communicate more and be more transparent when I don't understand something

[raycatz]

I DID MY CAMP INTERVIEW AND IT WENT WELL AND I HAVE A JOB THIS SUMMER YEEEAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

now to crumple on the floor and hhhhhhh destress, breathe? aha...

o|<

#the director even told me to not worry about missing training because of school - that we could make things work #TvT #rays random ramblings #I got to talk a little about what made me uncomfortable last summer - not all of it because i couldn't find the right words in the moment #but some of it! which was nice #the general consensus is that I need to communicate more and be more transparent when I don't understand something #WHICH TRUEEEEE #and I need to not feel guilty about asking those questions but the ad-staff in turn need to work on like #i dunno I feel judged!!! it's not just me!!! #the ad-staff could be more reciprocative and we're all stressed and it's scary #but anyways #I have a job at camp TvT #yippee!!!! #she asked me what I think went well last summer #and I completely blanked #man I should have talked about my anxiety camper!!!! #I helped anxiety camper get through it! we were buds! #she had it rough the whole week but it did get better as time went on #the staff and I and a brilliant CIT helped her through it and I'm really proud of that #really proud of the kid too

[nikkiitalks]

Race Baiting - A thoughtument by Nikkiitalks.

Okay.. Here we go.

Firstly, for the sake of absolute transparency, when I was first contacted by @olivaraofrph in a tirade of a novel of a response, my skimming through it had me starting to be swayed in her favour, mostly because of the depths of which her privacy was invaded for the sake of the allegations against her. And in that moment, I prematurely forgave her. Told her I understood. But it turns out, after much more has come to light, that I in fact do not understand. And in turn my forgiveness is recanted.

I did not have all the information. Hell, I had a fraction of it. Natalie and I, we were friendly, but not close. We don't talk every day and we never did. We had, though, stood arm in arm against that moment's hot button issue that I had felt strongly about, and so had she. It seemed. We'd held each other in places of mutual respect, shouting each other out and praising each other's advocacy.

Now, it all feels so... silly. This performative display that I so willingly let be pulled over my eyes. But that's beside the point. That was all I knew of her, really. There are others in this tiny niche of our already tiny community, that were far closer. Those that ran servers, indigenous servers, with her. They weren't even afforded the respect of being given an explanation to, but I did?

I was the one, who when I it was brought to my attention, when I was urged to send a DM which I already had, that was deemed the one to get that? A novel, let me be clear, the contents of which I won't make public upon request. A lot of it had nothing to do, truly, with the issue at hand but served to distract from it in a wall of text. It was overwhelming, and it felt just a teeny, tiny bit, manipulative.

There's so much evidence now, even evidence regretfully obtained, that the only place her advocacy extends to is Tumblr. None of your public, irl facing socials having anything there about it. Your own admission of percentage, (how that had been confirmed as she claims I can't speculate), and other things that don't line up. Those of us in the community affected haven gotten together to compare and talk through our feelings toward it all and there is a consensus.

It fucking sucks.

Just the fact that this needs to be brought up absolutely sucks. It detracts from the credibility of other indigenous creators in the space. Not all press is good press, and Natalie right now, is bad press. Beyond myself and the others being lied to. Beyond the personal offense I take to that. This is what bothers me the most. For all the posturing and all the 'talking in wrong and confusing ways' it makes us all look bad. And for what?

The other personal and religious or spiritual beliefs she believes doesn't mean anything to me. The other racism claims about her I can't confirm, whatever. Talking shit about a beloved creator, real or not. Doesn't matter.

What matters is there is damage done to the indigenous community here on the rpc, and before we came together to discuss it, it was distressing to all of us. There is no such thing as clout on tumblr and I don't know why people can't seem to get that through their heads? What need is there to claim to be something you're not, even through insinuations, half truths and vague details? I don't understand.

Yes, the indigenous community is so willing to accept anyone with any indigenous blood, and it's the fact that this is what was taken advantage of by someone... that really gets me. That's what really makes it sting. It's a blow to every white passing Native out there, in my opinion. That's where my hurt is. It's the fact that there is question of the validity of the claims toward a shared familial and generational trauma to myself. That still impacts my father's side of the family to this day.

I don't even know where I'm going with all this, and I feel like I'm typing myself in circles, but it's all to say that I don't care about all the other stuff that serves to muddy the waters of the real issue. Race baiting does nothing but end up hurting those who's real life experiences you're roleplaying.

#olivararph #race baiting tw #rpc #discourse tw

[lryghe]

SVSSS thoughts; luo binghe’s mbti

by general consensus he’s an ESFJ but after thorough analysis he’s totally an ISFP. i’ve decided to post my essay (rant? argument? spam?) here because i wanted to archive the thoughts i have.

please be nice :)

Luo Binghe, being the manipulative bastard he is, has fooled you all (not unlike how he fools his husband daily), into thinking he is an ESFJ, when it is as clear as day that he is an ISFP.

Fe > Fi

In terms of Luo Binghe, the largest (and subsequently most obvious) difference between his perceived Fe, and his actual Fi, relates back to the basic premise of functions;

Although referred to as ‘feeling’, Fi, contrarily, is not based on those deep emotions, but rather on the values that come from within. It’s a decision-making process that is based on one’s own moral code, the strict observance of one’s ethics and relates to how the treat others. Fe, on the other hand, is a communication that is focused outwardly and is primarily based on conforming to society’s mould by mirroring the behaviours of those around them. I’ve seen a million (admittedly stupid) arguments on how Binghe uses his “Fe” like this, and that he’s a people pleaser that is constantly striving for the praise of everyone around him. To which I can say with certainty that, while he definitely has people-pleasing tendencies, they all focus themselves around one person, Shen Qingqiu. This itself is a key distinction in the Fe vs Fi argument. While FeSi users appeal to almost everyone to maintain a positive reputation, Fi users will focus their attentions onto people they like or are hoping to get to know better, say perhaps, a love interest. And while both people-please, Fi users will be more intense and will often reserve their people-pleasing habits for that “special” person. Binghe is noted, by even the ever-unobservant Shen Qingqiu, to change his behaviours around Qingqiu. He displays a lack of care towards anyone that isn’t Qingqiu, even when he was a well-liked disciple of Cang Qiong Peak, not caring about displaying a ‘nicer’ side of himself to anyone, save for if he thinks Shen Qingqiu would be upset should he treat people the way he wants to treat them. That is to say, with total indifference (which is shown by shown by his attitudes towards Liu Mingyan and Liu Qingge when he deems them threats to his relationship with Shen Qingqiu, and the Qin sisters’ treatment when Shen Qingqiu isn't around to praise him, these people being in relative positions of power over him, yet he continues to treat them indifferently). Shen Qingqiu picks up on a particularly over example of this, where he notices that Binghe’s “expression changed faster than a flipped page” and that he had been “all tender affection the moment before, but in the next, contempt filled his features”, which falls directly into the Fi people-pleasing basket, not caring about making himself look good to anyone that isn’t Qingqiu.

Fi user’s faces also tend to betray them when they’re trying to hide their emotions, and despite Binghe seeming to try very hard to leave a good impression on others for the sake of his beloved Shizun, he is generally horrid at hiding things from him, even stating it himself (“I didn’t want to ... but I can never control myself in front of Shizun”). The Shizun in question is (by general consensus) an INTP, which means his inferior function is Fe. The fact that he can read Binghe so easily despite his dreadful Fe, says a lot about the transparency of Binghe’s emotions. Fe users will not struggle with this so much as an Fi user would, simply because instead of needing to hide their emotions, Fe users will not feel them as deeply as an Fi user would. Fe users hide themselves for the sake of others, but also because they struggle to comprehend those emotions in the first place. Luo Binghe, like any Fi dom, attempts to put on that polite mask, and for the most part is successful, but in relation to Qingqiu, always fails due to the depth of his emotions regarding him. Binghe doesn’t struggle with this at all, and nor does he use this feature in an attempt to appeal to others (or namely, his Shizun). When Binghe wants something, he doesn’t try to appeal to others or emphasise his care towards their feelings. So how does he get the emotional reaction that he so clearly desires you ask? By drawing appeal with his own emotions. To put it simply, Binghe manipulates others through the presentation of his own emotions to get what he wants (crying all over Qingqiu when he wants something, projecting his anger to dominate others etc), in comparison to the more common Fe desire to appeal to other’s emotions through empathy (or in an unhealthy way, coercion and deterrence. An Fe will pretend they’re giving you well-meaning advice, which is entirely superficial, whereas Fi cries until you give them what they want). Binghe is well aware of the lack of control he faces in regards to his emotions, and weaponizes this to his advantage.

But that’s not the end of the evidence of Binghe’s Fi behaviours. Yet another large indicator of Binghe’s Fi, is his belief systems. Of course, having Shen Qingqiu as the largely unreliable narrator he is, discerning Binghe’s personal morals and behaviours is rather difficult, but we have some clear-cut things that can’t really be changed through perspective. For example, take Binghe’s ‘minor’ tantrum that involved destroying the realms at the end of the novel. An Fi dom’s belief systems often stem from personal feelings and experiences, a certain “black and white” view on behaviours and morals will often be applied when thinking about ethics of oneself and others, meaning that when Binghe decides to destroy the world since they had hurt him for being poor, for being a demon, for just being so unlovable that everyone around him abandoned him, the shades of grey within the spectrum aren’t considered and the realms are wholly pushed into the ‘evil’ category. Binghe is also very decisive when it comes to his morals and the subsequent actions he takes because of his aforementioned views. An Fi user like Binghe will judge others based off what they’ve seen of them, rather than the common Fe desire to align their morals with the group to connect with them and maintain harmony in that social sphere, explaining rather plainly his thought process that mostly went along the lines of “the world deserves to be destroyed, it was so cruel to me for something entirely out of my control” (Fi users are more likely to disrupt this social harmony when faced with injustice, which is exactly what Binghe does time and time again)). Binghe takes this judgement and decisively begins his plan to end the world, taking control of Huan Hua Palace, misleading the cultivation assembly into believing Tianlang-jun is to blame for the eventual world destroying rift caused by Xin Mo, and all around, getting straight to business. No time for dilly-dallying when your Luo Binghe and you’re trying to eliminate the world for being wholly evil!

Si > Se

I’ve seen far too many blatantly stereotypical arguments for Si on this profile and felt the need to remind everyone that despite having a large focus on the past (which is where most of the Si arguments come from), Binghe ultimately uses those memories to work towards a future where “evil” (read; the realms he’s classified as such) is eradicated, a massive indication of his Fi working together with Ni, his tertiary function.

To dive back into the basics of Se, some common behaviours of an Se user are as follows; taking action before thinking about future consequences, manipulation or use of the ‘system’ to one’s advantage and jumping at the chance to be active/ do something exciting.

Despite Binghe actively working towards creating a future where evil is eliminated, many of Binghe’s actions are rather impulsive. A good example of this impulsivity is his reaction to the accusations thrown at Shen Qingqiu in Jinlan city. Rather quickly does he take control of the situation and presents the assembled people with a solution (one that only worked in his favour). Another is the use of the Black Moon Rhinoceros Phythons from the Holy Mausoleum arc. Luo Binghe’s general thought behind that stroke of genius was something like, can’t get into the Holy Mausoleum? Find something big, find it fast, and just to knock down the walls (because there is absolutely nothing that can go wrong with that!).

In reference to the manipulation/use of the system for his benefit, I find that to be the best example of his Se, and since he’s someone who has been exploited by the way the cultivation world works before, he clearly understands the perfect way to make it align with his goals. He uses the prejudice and leftover fear everyone holds for Tianlang-jun to mask his own puppet work in destroying the realms at the end of the novel. He takes control of Huan Hua Palace and uses their name and respect to draw sympathy and support to him through the Jinlan city and Water Prison arc, even using his own status as a poor disciple who was harmed by his Shizun to his advantage. He realises he’s essentially invincible by the end of the novel, his only weakness himself, and takes the narrative into his own hands and forces it to bend to his desire for destruction, eliminating anyone who stands in his way (including his beloved Shizun).

In reference to Binghe’s clear desire to be doing something, anything, that’s probably where many get his perceived Si from, since everyone is saying his desire to keep things clean is an Si thing (a blatant stereotype, and a harmful one too). Binghe is usually doing something, whether it be cooking for Shen Qingqiu, training at Qing Jing Peak even when his instruction manual was useless when he was a disciple, cleaning the Bamboo house at Qing Jing Peak, simply adjusting his sleeves every 5 seconds, or even going off to fight the Bai Zhan disciples. This clear willingness to be doing something, anything, is so incredibly Se, especially when combined with his near constant assessment of everything around him (even in his own dreamscape!), and his protagonist golden finger fighting skills. Quite the force to be reckoned with he is.

Ne > Ni

I’ll keep this one small since it’s a Tertiary function and this post is getting too long anyway. Probably the biggest indication of Binghe’s Ni Tert is his ‘grand’ visions of the future, like a world that doesn’t exist anymore since it’s evil (again, back to the Fi). Even as a young disciple at Qing Jing Peak, Binghe always aspired to be by his Shizun’s side, something even he recognised as delusional and rather difficult to achieve, but a vision of the future, nonetheless. Then Shen Qingqiu’s death/reincarnation/death/reincarnation cycle abruptly put a spanner in the works, and Luo Binghe’s grandiose ideas started bubbling down to ‘destroy the realms’, which, had it been anyone else, would have been impossible. But he’s Luo Binghe, the protagonist who has these aspirations towards worldly eradication, and the only thing stopping him was quite literally himself, a terrifying realisation for the reader. You spend the whole novel dreading Luo Binghe becoming the antagonist, and just when you think he’s been pulled out of it due to the pressure put on him by the cultivation world? He smiles and adjusts his sleeves and begins to end the world. His Ni presents itself in subtler ways, usually through the use of his Fi. That running commentary in the back of his mind that supplies him with subjective observations, often works together with his Fi to hand judgement to the world and the people within it, most plainly shown when he <3

Of course, Binghe’s use of his functions is the indication of a very (!) unhealthy ISFP, which is why he’s so often mischaracterised by the fandom. You could make an argument for INFP, which would be more believable than ESFJ. I might comeback to make another post on his instinctual variant since I have some thoughts on that too.

Words: 2071 

Reading time: 7 mins 

#svsss #scum villian self saving system #luo bingmei #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #mbti personalities #mbti #mbti isfp #mbti esfj #intp

[holdenarildsen81]

How Blockchain Can Increase Marketing Strategies

Blockchain is actually a technology that has blossomed in an incredible tempo. When Bitcoin was launched, blockchain technology has been restricted to cryptocurrencies. Today, more industries are exploring typically the benefits that are included in this specific technology. Marketing will be one of the particular industries that is reaping helpful benefits massively from blockchain. This technology is usually solving major learning curves that have already been facing the marketing industry. Moreover, best blockchain games wants to be able to establish a solid online presence in today's highly competitive digital market. As many of these, businesses want to be able to ensure that they are well prepared with their marketing strategies. This specific is where blockchain is coming in handy being a technology that can replace the advertising and marketing and advertising business. Blockchains can be programmed generally in most involving the programming languages of your choice i. e. C/C++, Java, Python, Solid design, etc. A great way to learn these languages, you can find community recommended best encoding tutorials on Hackr. io. For ex. listed below are the best tutorials to understand Java. To know even more about Blockchain, one particular can always send to several on-line blockchain tutorials on the internet and get a good grip on it. Read through on for more details how blockchain can boost advertising. Understanding Blockchain Blockchain is comparable to be able to a database. Blockchain consists of multiple obstructions which can be linked to be able to each other to form a chain. Each wedge has information kept in it. The data stored in these obstructions could be shared with desired users within a peer-to-peer (P2P) network. Blockchain is usually secured using cryptographic technologies to stop unauthorized people through tampering with the particular data. The information kept in the hindrances follows a set of algorithm established on consensus. Therefore once data is usually stored by shared agreement, no users are allowed to edit, delete or add data throughout the blocks. Whenever a transaction is produced, whether it be contractual contracts or exchange associated with information or cash, the transaction is definitely done as a block. The block needs to be validated simply by all users within the P2P network and upon approval, a permanent electronic digital record is founded. Once done, typically the block is additional to the chain. The technology at the rear of blockchain made this fully auditable plus transparent. Will not possess a central level of authority and in addition lacks a solitary point of failing or control. Hence, transactions made applying this technology are fully secure plus transparent. Blockchain and the Marketing Sector Blockchain technology has changed today's marketing industry. Here are some ways through which blockchain can improve your advertising and marketing strategies: 1. Concentrating on and Engaging the Right Market If it comes in order to online advertising, many advertisers hardly find a way to target the correct consumers despite possessing their behavioral data. Most marketers have plenty of consumer info plus they still pay out exorbitant fees to be able to middlemen involved inside advertising. Despite doing all this, they can be still unable in order to engage and focus on the correct audience. Blockchain comes in handy because an effective means that of getting the particular right audience to be able to see advertisement. Blockchain creates a decentralized search engine exactly where advertisers easily get to their target viewers. Through blockchain, promoters can also make up target customers applying tokens when these people provide their personalized data to marketers. Every time a person clicks by using an advert, these people get money. People just begin to see the ads that they indicate interest in, such that only the right audience is definitely targeted and involved. 2. Preventing Advertising Fraud Ad fraud is increasingly turning into a critical issue regarding marketers and advertisers. Purchasing fake thoughts and clicks is definitely a common pattern today. Therefore, ad fraud distorts synthetic data and this affects marketing methods and decisions. Blockchain technology comes in to display clicks inside advertising platforms in real time. It also helps marketers through cut down out their advertising platforms and attracting quality traffic. This specific way, clicks happen to be authenticated, thereby preventing ad fraud. three or more. Creating Reward Devices and Loyalty Courses Customers remember any time they are built to feel very special. Commitment programs work effectively with sales because help to make customers feel special. Blockchain can be used to create an unforgettable experience for customers. Gift cards will be attached in blockchain, thereby producing a safe program for maintaining and issuing loyalty programs and gift credit cards. If customers accumulate gift cards and will be unable to get or use them, they may have some sort of negative experience regarding the brand. Together with blockchain, gift credit cards could be converted into digital wallets or even coins, making it easier intended for customers to make use of or redeem all of them. Moreover, different gift idea cards and coupons can be put together and redeemed in one transaction. This idea conserve marketers hundreds and hundreds of dollars inside their marketing strategies. 5. Crowdsourcing and Info Series Good info is incredibly powerful to be able to marketers. Despite possessing many marketing resources aiming out diverse marketing plans, most entrepreneurs remain unable in order to get accurate and quality customer information. It is sole customers themselves that can provide accurate data. But how would a marketer get customers in order to share their files? This is where crowdsourcing and blockchain comes in handy as a way of encouraging consumers to share their own data. In come back, they get many compensation, rendering it a win-win situation for both parties. In this way, the data attained is extremely relevant and authentic. 5. Decentralizing E-Commerce Blockchain is usually decentralizing how buyers buy things online. The technology might be used by simply marketers to create decentralized marketplaces wherever traders can market their products or even services directly to be able to consumers without typically the need to make use of expensive third-party systems. 6. Influencer marketing Consumers tend to believe what other customers say of a company rather than what a marketer asserts. Blockchain is making it possible to make the most of influencer marketing. By way of blockchain technology, online marketers can be able to authenticate the identity of influencers, validate their enthusiasts and get a guarantee on their purchase. 7. Eliminating typically the Need for Middlemen Marketing involves finances and this indicates transacting through financial institutions. Blockchain technology will come with digital billfolds and eliminates typically the need to carry out transactions by means of banks. Blockchain guarantees that transactions manage smoothly and decreases the costs included in transacting through banks that behave as middlemen. As competition in the digital world carries on to grow, entrepreneurs have to glimpse for innovating techniques to boost their own marketing strategies. Blockchain technology has verified to be an excellent tool that might boost marketing techniques. Even though this technology is continue to new in the particular marketing world, it is already being a reliable alternative in order to other marketing resources like Google advertisement banners and pay-per-click. Extracting its total potential can definitely benefit markets by developing a transparent, authentic and secure buyer experience.

#blockchain game #best blockchain games #nft crypto games #new blockchain games

[dailytechnoreview]

Blockchain Technology: The Ultimate Cybersecurity Solution

Blockchain technology has created a sensation in the internet space. Let’s get to learn more about the concept and terminologies. 

What Is Blockchain Technology?

This technology has created a sensation in the internet space which was originally invented by Satoshi Nakamoto. Here are some advantages of using Blockchain technology in Cybersecurity.

Blockchain Technology and Cybersecurity

Trading in cryptocurrencies does involve the high degree of risk. To solve these major concerns many tech communities like Blockchain-hero.com is spending sleepless nights to find other potential uses and solutions for the blockchain technology. The best part of this technology is that it eliminates the need for a third party to control the database which is shared among all the users. This distributed yet secured system initiated a new trend among the internet with lots of future scopes.

Blockchain technology can offer important cybersecurity benefits, such as reducing cyberattacks, and it has recently created a lot of hype as a panacea for all the current challenges related to information security.

Blockchain can provide a strong and effective solution for securing networked ledgers. However, it does not guarantee the security of individual participants or eliminate the need to follow other cybersecurity best practices. Blockchain application depends on external data or other at-risk resources; thus, it cannot be a panacea. The blockchain implementation code and the environments in which the blockchain technology run must be checked for cyber vulnerabilities.

Blockchain technology provides stronger, transactional security than traditional, centralized computing services for secured networked transaction ledger. For example, say I use distributed ledger technology (DLT), an intrinsic blockchain feature, while creating my blockchain-based application. DLT increases cyberresiliency because it creates a situation where there is no single point of contact. In the DLT, an attack on one or a small number of participants does not affect other nodes. Thus, DLT helps maintain transparency and availability, and continue the transactions. Another advantage of DLT is that endpoint vulnerabilities are addressed.

Blockchain technology depends on communication across a network of nodes. Disrupting node communications or disseminating or accepting false information to confirm fake transactions may compromise the network. Hence, communication across the network of nodes is very important if deploying blockchain for security reasons.

Solution architects should consider various risk management strategies when designing any blockchain application, as with any new technology. They should conduct thorough, upfront due diligence and negotiate contractual protections with other participants apart from implementing continuous monitoring for security incidents, as well as consider obtaining appropriate cyber insurance, if available.

Coding bugs often cause vulnerabilities that are continuously exploited by hackers in blockchain-based smart contract projects. Experienced developers and continuous project audits can help avoid these types of errors.

External data sources fall outside of a blockchain application’s network consensus validation mechanism. Blockchain networks and stakeholders in the end-to-end transactions must take steps to monitor and ensure data reliability because these elements may be more susceptible to tampering or other malicious actions. Hackers may be able to compromise a project at this layer.

When discussing the use of blockchain technology for cybersecurity, it is important to understand that blockchain applications are like any other computer system. They can be vulnerable to software coding errors, which can introduce cyberrisk.

Blockchain applications also run on general purpose operating systems and platforms. These can be subject to known hardware and software vulnerabilities. Therefore, when deploying blockchain as a cybersecurity measure, organizations should treat these environments like their other critical business computing resources. They should follow generally accepted cybersecurity practices on blockchain applications. Identifying and managing known vulnerabilities is a core element of any reasonable cybersecurity program.

Users interact with the system in blockchain applications, which can often be a gateway for cyberattacks. The best example of this is cryptocurrency thefts. These involve exploiting vulnerabilities in connected systems. Thus, end user vulnerabilities, which enable attackers to infiltrate and compromise even the most secure private blockchains by impersonating authorized users, must be addressed.

Blockchain has intrinsic features of immutability, transparency and DLT, which can help solve current cybersecurity issues. These blockchain features help manage the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. However, blockchain applications do not work in a silo; they use the operating systems like other applications. They also work in a layer system with frontend application programming interfaces (APIs) and backend database systems. It is necessary to consider the vulnerabilities at all these layers while planning to deploy blockchain for security reasons.

[tremendoussheepstranger]

Web 3 Is the Hype: Explore Web 3 Platforms & How to Use Them

Digital assets and other online items may now be purchased and sold using cryptocurrency, which has aided the growth of the Web3 movement. Hence, the world is witnessing the rise of new & most advanced Web3 platforms for creators and non-creators alike.

Web3 is widespread, but no one truly understands what it is. All of the hype around NFTs (non-fungible tokens), Blockchains, and Cryptocurrencies is a component of web3. It's simply the next generation of the internet. Web3 is a set of javascript frameworks that allow you to communicate from a distant or local Ethereum node interaction.

What is Web3?

One of the Ethereum co-founders, Gavin Wood, proposed the term Web 3.0 in 2014. Since then, it's been a catch-all concept for anything decentralized about the internet's future.

When it comes to conceptualizing a better internet, the term "Web3" has become increasingly popular. Blockchains, cryptocurrency, and NFTs are at the core of Web3's ownership model, enabling users to take back control of their data.

In a Web3 world, individuals control their data and use one personalized account to navigate social media, email, and commerce, producing a public record of their behavior on the blockchain.

Principles of Web3:

Even though it's difficult to define what the Web3 platform is, a few fundamental principles guide its advancement.

Web3 is a decentralized network: Instead of centralized entities controlling and owning significant areas of the internet, ownership is divided among its developers and users.

Web3 does not need authorization: Web3 is open to everyone, and no one is excluded from participating.

Web3 supports native payment methods: It spends and sends money online using cryptocurrencies rather than depending on the outdated network systems of banks and payment processing.

Web3 is untrusted: It operates through economic incentives and systems rather than relying on trustworthy third parties.

Best Features of Web3:

The system would likely have certain standard features:

i) Single-sign-on anonymity –

Anonymous single-sign-on enables a single username and authentication process throughout multiple websites and services instead of requiring separate logins. Accessibility to your sensitive personal data is not necessary for this login. As a result of this transparency, wallets are anonymous unless the individual decides to provide personal information to their wallets.

ii) Individual acquisition and the use of tokens – Activities that benefit Web3 are rewarded with a token (either non-fungible or fungible, such as cryptocurrency) to encourage participation and disperse ownership. Ownership of the communication is represented by this token, which users may then trade with one another via their wallets.

iii) Self-governing – Along with ownership dispersion, there is a distribution of decision-making authority. Without a centralized authority, blockchain systems rely on consensus to validate activities. However, like those found in decentralized autonomous entities, particular processes can be built to democratize decision-making depending on the quality or quantity of a user's contribution to a site or dapp.

What Is The Significance Of Web3?

Non-fungible token (NFT) technology, digital identities, and virtual worlds are all elements of Web3 developments, developed on top of blockchain-based and decentralized digital ecosystems. So, users now have more control over their digital content than ever before due to Web3, which has significant implications for how Web3 platforms perform and create value.

This is significant because:

Societies can improve efficiency by disintermediating industries, eliminating rent-seeking third parties, and redistributing value directly to network users and suppliers.

Organizations can become intrinsically more adaptive to change due to their unique mesh of more flexible peer-to-peer interaction and governance linkages.

Humans, organizations, and machines may share additional data with greater assurances of privacy and security.

We can future-proof entrepreneurship and investment by practically eliminating Web3 platform reliance risks.

Tokenised digital assets and proven data scarcity allow us to own our data and digital footprints.

Through 'modern mutual' ownership and management of these new decentralized intelligence systems and sophisticated and dynamic incentives, involved parties can work together to address previously intractable or 'thinly distributed' problems.

Web3, In Its Initial Stage:

While there are numerous Web3 dapps, no significant Web3 infrastructure is comparable to the current internet. As a result, web3 will require significant general development, integration, and accessibility efforts before it is achieved.

There are numerous considerations for widespread acceptance, which means that Web3 may fail to meet the hype.

Web3 is primarily theoretical at the moment and has a somewhat steep learning curve. Anyone who wants to get involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry currently has to learn about these technologies. That's not for everyone, significantly if tools like private browsers may help alleviate privacy concerns.

Web3 Is Gaining Popularity:

Web3 talent has become more in demand. Companies are eager to acquire developers to create, innovate, and expand Web3 projects and post thousands of positions every month. These projects offer great opportunities for system professionals.

Those in favor of Web3 argue that online activity should be controlled by the many rather than the few.

Instead of corporate servers, Web3 hosts activities and data on a computer network using blockchain. Of course, the internet would maintain its current appearance and feel, but the online activities would be reflected by your crypto-wallet and internet sites hosted by decentralized applications (dapps), which are digital programs that run on a blockchain network.

Making Money with Web 3.0 Era:

You have the option of selling your content as an NFT

Participate in giveaways

Educate web 3.0 newbies and expand your community

Learn as much as you can but also use it by creating articles and blogs

Build a portfolio of projects that show off your coding skills in solidity or Javascript

What Are The Chances That Web3 Is An Over-Hyped Fantasy?

There is already a small pool of Web3 platform professionals with extensive experience. In addition, a considerable percentage of platform experts got their expertise in Web2 platforms. However, over the last decade, the technological environment has risen dramatically, where most job prospects have been concentrated.

Web 2.0, the modern internet, is based on systems and servers owned mainly by huge corporations, raising concerns about potential vulnerabilities and control. So when Meta's associated platforms fell worldwide, there were calls to use Web3 and its decentralized architecture.

Web3 is a future internet that promises to resolve all the issues with the existing internet. Web3 represents technologists aspiring to the idealistic attitude of the internet's inception — that anyone can access the information superhighway freely.

#web3

[eiirisworkshop]

The Fanfic Author's Guide to Metatext

(As Used on Ao3) by Eiiri

Also available as a PDF here. This thing is 13,000 words.  The PDF is recommended.

Intro: What is Metatext?

Metatext is everything we fanfic authors post along with our story that is not the story itself: title, tags, summary, author's notes, even the rating.

It is how we communicate to potential readers what they're signing themselves up for if they choose to read our story, how we let them make informed decisions regarding which fics they want to read, how we get their interest and, frequently, how they find our story in the first place. A lot of metatext acts as a consent mechanism for readers, it's the informed part of informed consent.

Since most of us who write fanfic also read it, we understand how important this is! But, for the most part, no one ever teaches us how to use metatext; we have to pick it up by osmosis. That makes it hard to learn how to use it well, we all suck at it when we first start out, and some of us may go years without learning particular conventions that seem obvious to others in our community. This creates frustration for everybody.

Enter this guide!

This is meant to be a sort of handbook for fic writers, particularly those of us who post on Archive of Our Own, laying out and explaining the established metatext conventions already in use in our community so we (and our readers!) are all on the same page. It will also provide some best-practices tips.

The point is to give all of us the tools to communicate with our audience as clearly and effectively as possible, so the people who want to read a story like ours can find it and recognize it as what they're looking for, those who don't want to read a story like ours can easily tell it's not their cup of tea and avoid it, nobody gets hurt, and everybody has fun—including us!

Now that we know what we're talking about, let's get on with the guide! The following content sections appear in the order one is expected to provide each kind of metatext when posting a fic on Ao3, but first….

Warning!

This is a guide for all authors on Ao3. As such, it mentions subject matter and kinds of fic that you personally might hate or find disgusting, but which are allowed under the Archive's terms of use. There are no graphic descriptions or harsh language in the guide itself, but it does acknowledge the existence of fic you may find distasteful and explains how to approach metatext for such fics.

Some sexual terminology is used in an academic context.

A note from the author:

This guide reflects the conventions of the English-language fanfiction community circa 2021. Conventions may differ in other language communities, and although many of our conventions have been in place for decades (praise be to our Star Trek loving foremothers) fanfiction now exists primarily in the realm of internet fandom where things tend to change rather quickly, so some conventions in this guide may die out while other new conventions, not covered in this guide, arise.

This is not official or in any way produced by the Archive of Our Own (Ao3), and though some actual site rules are mentioned, it is not a rulebook. Primarily, it is a descriptivist take on how the userbase uses metatext to communicate amongst ourselves, provided in the interest of making that communication easier and more transparent for everyone, especially newer users.

Contents

How To Use This Guide Ratings Archive Warnings Fandom Tags Category Relationship Tags Character Tags Additional Tags Titles Summaries Author's Notes Series and Chapters Parting Thoughts

How To Use This Guide

Well, read it.  Or have it read to you.

This isn't a glossary, it's a handbook, and it's structured more like an academic paper or report, but there's lots and lots of examples in it!

Many of these examples are titles of real media and the names of characters from published media, or tags quoted directly from Ao3 complete with punctuation and formatting.

Some examples are more generic and use the names Alex, Max, Sam, Chris, Jamie, and Tori for demonstration purposes. In other generic examples, part of an example tag or phrase may be sectioned off with square brackets to show where in that tag or phrase you would put the appropriate information to complete it.  This will look something like “Top [Character A]” where you would fill in a character's name.

This guide presumes that you know the basics of how to use Ao3, at least from the perspective of reading fic. If you don't, much of this guide may be difficult to understand and will be much less helpful to you, though not entirely useless.

Ratings

Most fanfic hosting sites provide ratings systems that work a lot like the ratings on movies and videogames.

Ao3's system has four ratings:

General

Teen

Mature

Explicit

These seem like they should be pretty self-explanatory, and the site's own official info pop-up (accessible by clicking the question mark next to the section prompt) gives brief, straightforward descriptions for each of them.

Even so, many writers have found ourselves staring at that dropdown list, thinking about what we've written, and wondering what's the right freaking rating for this?  How do I know if it's appropriate for “general audiences” or if it needs to be teen and up? What's the difference between Mature and Explicit?

The best way to figure it out is often to think about your fic in comparison to mainstream media.

General is your average Disney or Dreamworks movie, Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon shows, video games like Mario, Kirby, and Pokemon.

There may be romance, but no sexual content or discussion. Scary things might happen and people might get hurt, but violence is non-graphic and usually mild. Adults may be shown drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco, and some degree of intoxication may be shown (usually played for laughs and not focused on), but hard drug use is generally not shown or discussed.  There is little to no foul language written out and what language there may be is mild, though harsher swears may be implied by narration. There are no explicit F-bombs or slurs.

Teen is more like a Marvel movie, most network television shows (things like The Office, Supernatural, or Grey's Anatomy), video games like Final Fantasy, Five Nights at Freddie's, and The Sims.

There might be some sex and sexual discussion, but nothing explicit is shown—things usually fade to black or are leftimplied. More intense danger, more severe injuries described in greater detail, and a higher level of violence may be present.  Substance use may be discussed and intoxication shown, but main characters are unlikely to be shown doing hard drugs. Some swearing and other harsh language may be present, possibly including an F-bomb or two.  In longer works, that might mean an F-bomb every few chapters.

Mature is, in American terms, an R-rated movie* like Deadpool, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Exorcist, and Schindler's List; certain shows from premium cable networks or streaming services like Game of Thrones, Shameless, Breaking Bad, and Black Sails; videogames like Bioshock, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto, and The Witcher.

Sex may be shown and it might be fairly explicit, but it's not as detailed or graphic or as much the focus of the work as it would be if it were porn. Violence, danger, and bodily harm may be significant and fairly graphic. Most drug use is fair game. Swearing and harsh language may be extensive.

Explicit is, well, extremely explicit. This is full on porn, the hardcore horror movies, and snuff films.

Sex is highly detailed and graphic. Violence and injury is highly detailed and graphic. Drug use and its effects may be highly detailed and graphic. Swearing and harsh language may be extreme, including extensive use of violent slurs.

Please note that both Mature and Explicit fics are intended for adult audiences only, but that does not mean a teenaged writer isn't going to produce fics that should be rated M or E.  Ratings should reflect the content of the fic, not the age of the author.

Strictly speaking, you don't have to choose any of these ratings; Ao3 has a “Not Rated” option, but for purposes of search results and some other functions, Not Rated fics are treated by the site as Explicit, just in case, which means they end up hidden from a significant portion of potential readers. It really is in your best interest as a writer who presumably wants people to see their stories, to select a rating. It helps readers judge if yours is the kind of story they want right now, too.

Rating a fic is a subjective decision, there is some grey area in between each level. If you're not quite sure where your fic falls, best practice is to go with the more restrictive rating.

*(Equivalent to an Australian M15+ or R18+, Canadian 14A, 18A or 18+, UK 15 or 18, German FSK 16 or FSK 18.)

Warnings

Ao3 uses a set of standard site-wide Archive Warnings to indicate that a work contains subject matter that falls into one or more of a few categories that some readers are likely to want to avoid.  Even when posting elsewhere, it's courteous to include warnings of this sort.

These warnings are:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Major Character Death

Rape/Non-Con

Underage

Just like with the ratings, the site provides an info-pop up that explains what each warning is for. They're really exactly what it says on the tin: detailed descriptions of violence, injury, and gore; the death of a character central to canon or tothe story being told; non-consensual sex i.e. rape; and depictions of underage sex, which the site defines as under the age of 18 for humans—Ao3 doesn't care if your local age of consent or majority is lower than that.

In addition to the four standard warnings above, the warnings section has two other choices:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

These do not mean the same thing and cannot be used interchangeably. “No Archive Warnings Apply” means that absolutely nothing in your fic falls into any of the four standard warning categories. “Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings” means that you the author are opting out of the warning system; your fic could potentially contain things that fall into any and all of the four standard warning categories.

There's nothing wrong with selecting Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings! It may mean that some readers will avoid your fic because they're not sure it's safe for them, and you might need to use more courtesy tags than you otherwise would (we'll talk about courtesy tags later), but that's okay! Opting out of the warning system can be a way to avoid spoilers,* and is also good for when you're just not sure if what you've written deserves one of the Archive warnings. In that case, the best practice is to select either the warning it might deserve or Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings, then provide additional information in other tags, the summary, or an initial author's note.

Unless you're opting out of using the warning system, select all the warnings that apply to your fic, if any of them do. So if a sixteen year old main character has consensual sex then gets killed in an accident that you've written out in excruciating detail, that fic gets three out of the four standard warnings: Underage, Major Character Death, and Graphic Depictions Of Violence.

*(Fandom etiquette generally favors thorough tagging and warning over avoiding spoilers. It doesn't ruin the experience of a story to have a general sense of what's going to happen. If it did, we wouldn't all keep reading so many “there was only one bed” fics.)

Fandom Tags

What fandom or fandoms is your fic for?  You definitely know what you wrote it for, but that doesn't mean it's obvious what to tag it as.

Sometimes, it is obvious! You watched a movie that isn't based on anything, isn't part of a series, and doesn't have any spinoffs, tie-ins or anything else based on it. You wrote a fic set entirely within the world of this movie. You put this movie as the fandom for your fic. Or maybe you read a book and wrote a fic for it, and there is a movie based on the book, but the movie is really different and you definitely didn't use anything that's only in the movie. You put the book as the fandom for your fic.

All too often, though, it's not that clear.

What if you wrote a fic for something where there's a movie based on a book, but the movie's really different, and you've used both things that are only in the movie and things that are only in the book?  In that case you either tag your fic as both the movie and the book, or see if the fandom has an “all media types” tag and use that instead of the separate tags.  If the fandom doesn't have an “all media types” tag yet, you can make one! Just type it in.

“All media types” fandom tags are also useful for cases where there are lots of inter-related series, like Star Wars; there are several tellings of the story in different media but they're interchangeable or overlap significantly, like The Witcher; or the fandom has about a zillion different versions so it's very hard, even impossible, to say which ones your fic does and doesn't fit, like Batman. Use your best judgement as to whether you need to include a more specific fandom tag such as “Batman (Movies 1989-1997)” alongside the “all media types” fandom tag, but try to avoid including very many. The point of the “all media types” tag is to let you leave off the specific tags for every version.

In a situation where one piece of media has a spinoff, maybe several spinoffs, and you wrote a fic that includes things from more than one of them, you might want use the central work's “& related fandoms” tag. For example, the “Doctor Who & Related Fandoms” tag gets used for fics that include things from a combination of any era of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

And don't worry, from the reader-side of the site the broadest fandom tags are prioritized. The results page for an “all media types” or “& related fandoms” search includes works tagged with the more specific sub-tags for that fandom, the browse-by-fandom pages show the broadest tag for each fandom included, and putting a fandom into the search bar presumes the broadest tag for that fandom.  A search for “Star Wars - All Media Types” will pull up work that only has a subtag for that fandom, like “The Mandalorian (TV).” You don't have to put every specific fandom subtag for people to find your fic.

If you wrote a fic for something that's an adaptation of an older work—especially an older work that's been adapted a lot, like Sherlock Holmes or The Three Musketeers—it can be hard to know how you should tag it. The best choice is to put the adaptation as the fandom, for instance “Sherlock (TV),” then, if you're also using aspects of the older source work that aren't in the adaptation, also put a broad fandom tag such as “Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms.” Do not tag it as being fic for the source work—in our Sherlock example that would be tagging it “Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle”—unless you are crossing over the source work and the adaptation. Otherwise, the specific fandom subtag for the source work ends up clogged with fic for the adaptation, which really is a different thing.

By the same token, fic for the source work shouldn't be tagged as being for the adaptation, or the adaptation's subtag will get clogged.

The same principle applies to fandoms that have been rebooted. Don't tag fic for the reboot as being for the original, or fic for the original as being for the reboot. Don't tag a fic as being for both unless the reboot and original are actually interacting. Use an “& related fandoms” tag for the original if your fic for the reboot includes some aspects of the original that weren't carried over but you haven't quite written a crossover between the two. Good examples of these situations can be seen with “Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)” vs. “Star Trek: The Original Series,” and “She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)” vs. “She-Ra: Princess Of Power (1985).”

Usually, this kind of mistagging as a related fandom happens when someone writes a fic for something that is or has a reboot, spinoff, or adaptation, but they're only familiar with one of the related pieces of media, and they mistakenly presume the fandoms are the same or interchangeable because they just don't know the difference.  It's an honest mistake and it doesn't make you a bad or fake fan to not know, but it can be frustrating for readers who want fic for one thing and find the fandom tag full of fic for something else.

In order to avoid those kinds of issues, best practice is to assume fandoms are not interchangeable no matter how closely related they are, and to default to using a tag pair of the most-specific-possible sub-fandom tag + the broadest possible fandom tag when posting a fic you're not entirely sure about, for instance “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: Enterprise.”

The Marvel megafandom has its own particular tagging hell going on. Really digging into and trying to make sense of that entire situation would require its own guide, but we can go through some general tips.

There is a general “Marvel” fandom tag and tags for both “The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom” and “The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types.” Most of us who write Marvel fic are working with a cherry picked combination of canons from the MCU, various comics runs, both timelines of X-Men movies, and possibly several decades worth of cartoons. That's what these tags are for.

If your cherry picked Marvel fic is more X-Men than Avengers, go for the “X-Men - All Media Types” tag.

If you are primarily working with MCU canon, use the MCU specific tags rather than “all media types” and add specific tags for individual comics runs—like Earth 616 or the Fraction Hawkeye comics—if you know you're lifting particular details from the comics.  If you're just filling in gaps in MCU canon with things that are nebulously “from the comics” don't worry about tagging for that, it's accepted standard practice in the fandom at this point, use a broader tag along with your MCU-specific tag if you want to.

Same general idea for primarily movie-verse X-Men fics. Use the movie-specific tags.

If your fic mostly draws from the comics, use the comics tags. If you're focusing on an individual run, show, or movie series rather than an ensemble or large swath of the megafranchise, tag for that and leave off the broader fandom tags.

Try your best to minimize the number of fandom tags on your Marvel work. Ideally, you can get it down to two or three. Even paring it down as much as you can you might still end up with about five.  If you're in the double digits, take another look to see if all the fandom tags you've included are really necessary, or if some of them are redundant or only there to represent characters who are in the fic but that the fic doesn't focus on. Many readers tend to search Marvel fics by character or pairing tags, it's more important that you're thorough there. For the fandom tags it's more important that you're clear.

If you write real person fiction, you need to tag it as an RPF fandom. Fic about actors who are in a show together does not belong on the fandom tag for that show. There are separate RPF fandom tags for most shows and film franchises. Much like the adaptation/source and reboot/original situations discussed earlier, a fic should really only be tagged with both a franchise's RPF tag and its main tag if something happens like the actors—or director or writer!—falling into the fictional world or meeting their characters.

Of course, not all RPF is about actors. Most sports have RPF tags, there are RPF tags for politics from around the world and for various historical settings, the fandom tags for bands are generally presumed to be RPF tags, and there is a general Real Person Fiction tag.

In order to simplify things for readers, it's best practice to use the general Real Person Fiction tag in addition to your fandom-specific tag. You may even want to put “RPF” as a courtesy tag in the Additional Tags section, too. This is because Ao3 isn't currently set up to recognize RPF as the special flavor of fic that it is in the same way that the site recognizes crossovers as special, so it can be very difficult to either seek out or avoid RPF since it's scattered across hundreds of different fandom tags.

On the subject of crossovers—they can make fandom tagging even more daunting. Even for a crossover with lots of fandoms involved, though, you just have to follow the same guidelines as to tag a single-fandom work for each fandom in the crossover. The tricky part is figuring out if what you wrote is really a crossover, or just an AU informed by another fandom—we'll talk about that later.

There are some cases where it's really hard to figure out what fandom something belongs to, like if you wrote a fanfic of someone else's fanfic, theirs is an AU and yours is about their OC, not any of the characters from canon. What do you do?! Well, you do not tag it as being a fanfic for the same thing theirs was. Put the title of their fic (or name of their series) as the fandom for your fic, attributed to their Ao3 handle just like any other fandom is attributed to its author. Explain the situation in either the summary or the initial author's note. Also, ask the author's permission before posting something like this.

What if you wrote a story about your totally original D&D character? The fandom is still D&D, you want the “Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)” tag.

What if there's not a fandom tag on the Archive yet for what you wrote? Not a problem! You can type in a new one if you're the first person to post something for a particular fandom. Do make sure, though, that the fandom isn't just listed by a different name than you expect. Many works that aren't originally in English—including anime—are listed by their original language title or a direct translation first, and sometimes a franchise or series's official name might not be what you personally call it, for instance many people think of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series as The Golden Compass series, so it's best to double check.

What if you wrote an entirely new original story that's not based on anything?  Excellent job, that takes a lot of work, but that probably doesn't belong on Ao3!  The Archive is primarily meant as a repository for fannish content, but in a few particular circumstances things we'd consider Original Work may be appropriate content for the Archive as well. Double check the Archive's Terms of Service FAQ and gauge if what you wrote falls under the scope of what is allowed. If what you wrote really doesn't fit here, post it somewhere else or try to get it published if you feel like giving it a shot.

Category

What Ao3 means by category is “does this fic focus on sex or romance, and if so what combination of genders are involved in that sex or romance?”

The category options are:

F/F

F/M

Gen

M/M

Multi

Other

The F/F, F/M, and M/M categories are for stories focused on pairings of two women, a woman and a man, and two men, respectively.  These refer to sexual and/or romantic pairings.

The Other category is for stories focused on (sexual and/or romantic) pairings where one or both partners are not strictly male or female, such as nonbinary individuals, people from cultures with gender systems that don't match to the Western man-woman system, and nonhuman characters for whom biological sex works differently or is nonexistent, including aliens, robots, and inanimate objects or abstract concepts. There are some problems with treating nonbinary humans, eldritch tentacle monsters, sexless androids, and wayward container ships as all the same category, but it's the system we currently have to work with. Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Multi is for stories in which several (sexual and/or romantic) relationships are focused on or which focus on relationships with multiple partners, including cases of polyamory, serial monogamy, strings of hookups with different people, and orgies.  A fic will also show as “Multi” if you, the author, have selected more than one category for the fic, even if none of those are the Multi category. Realistically, the Archive needs separate “Multiple Categories” and “Poly” options, but for now we have to work with this system in which the two are combined.  Use Additional Tags to clarify the situation.

Gen is for stories that do not contain or are not focused on sex or romance. Romance may be present in a gen fic but it's going to be in the background.  While rare, there is such a thing as a sexually explicit gen fic—solo masturbation which does not feature fantasizing about another character is explicit gen fic; a doctor character seeing a series of patients with sex-related medical needs following an orgy may qualify if the orgy is not shown and the doctor is being strictly professional—but such fic needs to be rated, otherwise tagged, and explained carefully in the summary and/or author's note.

Much like the warnings section, category is a “select all that apply” situation. Use your best judgement. For a fic about a polyamorous relationship among a group of women, it's entirely appropriate to tag it as both F/F and Multi.  A poly fic with a combination of men and women in the relationship could be shown as both M/M and F/M, Multi, or all three. A fic that focuses equally on one brother and his husband and the other brother and his wife should be tagged both M/M and F/M, and could be tagged as Multi but you might decided not to just to be clear that there's no polyamory going on. If you wrote a fic about two characters who are both men in canon, but you wrote one of them as nonbinary, you could tag it M/M, Other, or both depending on what you feel is representative and respectful.

When dealing with trans characters, whether they're trans in canon or you're writing them as such, the category selection should match the character's gender.  If there's a character who is a cis woman in canon, but who you're writing as a trans man, you categorize the fic based on his being a man. If there's a character who is a cis man in canon, but whom you're writing as a trans man, he is still a man and the fic should be categorized accordingly. When dealing with nonbinary characters the fic should really be classed as Other though, by convention, fics about characters who are not nonbinary in canon may be classed based on the character's canon gender as well or instead. When dealing with gender swapped characters—i.e. a canonically cis male superhero who you're writing as a cis woman—class the fic using the gender you wrote her with, not the gender he is in canon.

Most of the time, gen fics should not be categorized jointly with anything else because a fic should only be categorized based on the ships it focuses on, and a gen fic should not be focusing on a ship in the first place.*

*(One of the few circumstances in which it might make sense to class a fic as both gen and something else is when writing about Queerplatonic Relationships, but that is a judgement call and depends on the fic.)

Relationship Tags

The thing about relationship tagging that people most frequently misunderstand or just don't know is the difference between “Character A/Character B” and “Character A & Character B.”

Use a “/” for romantic or sexual relationships, such as spouses, people who are dating, hookups, and friends with benefits. Use “&” for platonic or familial relationships, such as friends, siblings, parents with their kids, coworkers, and deeply connected mortal enemies who are not tragically in love.

This is where we get the phrase “slash fic.” Originally, that meant any fic focused on a romantic paring, but since so much of the romantic fic being produced was about pairs of men, “slash fic” came to mean same-sex pairings, especially male same-sex pairings. Back in earlier days of fandom, pre-Ao3 and even pre-internet, there was a convention that when writing out a different-sex pairing, you did so in man/woman order, while same-sex pairings were done top/bottom. Some authors, especially those who have been in the fic community a long time, may still do this, but the convention has not been in consistent, active use for many years, so you don't have to worry about putting the names in the “correct” order. Part of why that died out is we, as a community, have gotten less strict and more nuanced in our understandings of sex and relationships, we're writing non-penetrative sex more than we used to, and we're writing multi-partner relationships and sex more than we used to, so strictly delineating “tops” and “bottoms” has gotten less important and less useful.

The convention currently in use on Ao3 is that the names go in alphabetical order for both “/” and “&” relationships. In most cases, the Archive uses the character's full name instead of a nickname or just a given name, like James "Bucky" Barnes instead of just Bucky or James. We'll talk more about conventions for how to input character names in the Characters section. The Archive will give you suggestions as you type—if one of them fits what you mean but is slightly different from how you were typing it, for instance it's in a different order, please use the tag suggested! Consistency in tags across users helps the site work more smoothly for everybody.

This is really not the place for ship nicknames like Puckleberry, Wolfstar, or Ineffable Wives. Use the characters' names.

Now that you know how to format the relationship tag to say what you mean, you have to figure out what relationships in your fic to tag for.

The answer is you tag the relationships that are important to the story you're telling, the ones you spend time and attention following, building up, and maybe even breaking down. Tagging for a ship is not a promise of a happy ending for that pair; you don't have to limit yourself to tagging only the end-game ships if you're telling a story that's more complicated than “they get together and live happily ever after.” That said, you should generally list the main ship—the one you focus on the most—first on the list, and that will usually be the end-game ship. You should also use Additional Tags, the summary, and author's notes to make it clear to readers if your fic does not end happily for a ship you've tagged. Otherwise readers will assume that a fic tagged as being about a ship will end well for that ship, because that's what usually happens, and they'll end up disappointed and hurt, possibly feeling tricked or lied to, when your fic doesn't end well for that ship

You don't have to, and honestly shouldn't, tag for every single relationship that shows up in your fic at all. A character's brief side fling mentioned in passing, or a relationship between two background characters should not be listed under the Relationship tag section. You can list them in the format “minor Character A/Character C” or “Character C/Character D – mentions of” in the Additional Tags section if you want to, or just tag “Minor or Background Relationship(s)” under either the Relationship tag section or in the Additional Tags section.

There are two main reasons to not tag all those minor relationships. The first is to streamline your tags, which makes them clearer and more readable, and therefore more useful. The second reason is because certain ships are far more common as minor or background relationships than as the focus of a work, so tagging all your non-focus focus ships leads to the tags for these less popular ships getting clogged with stories they appear in, but that are not about them. That is, of course, very frustrating for readers who really want to read stories that focus on these ships.

If your fic contains a major relationship between a canon character and an OC, reader-insert, or self-insert, tag it as such. The archive already has /Original Character, /Reader, /You, and /Me tags for most characters in most fandoms. If such a relationship tag isn't already in use, type it in yourself. There are OC/OC tags, too, some of which specify gender, some of which do not.  All the relationship tags that include OCs stack the gender-specific versions of the tags under the nongendered ones. Use these tags as appropriate.

For group relationships, both polycules and multi-person friendships, you “/” or “&” all the names involved in alphabetical order, so Alex/Max/Sam are dating while Chris & Jamie & Tori are best friends. For a poly situation where not everyone is dating each other you should tag it something like “Alex/Max, Alex/Sam” because Alex is dating both Max and Sam, but Max and Sam are not romantically or sexually involved with each other. Use your judgement as to whether you still want to include the Alex/Max/Sam trio tag, and whether you should also use a “Sam & Max” friendship tag.

Generally, romantic “/” type relationships are emphasized over “&” type relationships in fic. It is more important that you tag your “/”s thoroughly and accurately than that you tag your “&”s at all. This is because readers are far more likely to either be looking for or be squicked by particular “/” relationships than they are “&” relationships. You can tag the same pair of characters as both / and & if both their romance and their friendship is important to the story, but a lot of people see this as redundant. If you're writing incest fic, use the / tag for the pair not the & tag and put a courtesy tag for “incest” in the Additional Tags section; this is how readers who do not want to see incestuous relationships avoid that material.

Queerplatonic Relationships, Ambiguous Relationships, Pre-Slash, and “Slash If You Squint” are all frequently listed with both the “/” and “&” forms of the pairing; use your best judgement as to whether one or the other or both is most appropriate for what you've written and clarify the nature of the relationship in your Additional Tags.

Overall, list your “/” tags first, then your “&” tags.

Character Tags

Tagging your characters is a lot like tagging your relationships. Who is your fic about? That's who you put in your character tags.

You don't have to and really should not tag every single background character who shows up for just a moment in the story, for pretty much the same reasons you shouldn't tag background relationships.  We don't want to clog less commonly focused on characters' tags with stories they don't feature prominently in.

You do need to tag the characters included in your Relationship tags.

A character study type of fic might only have one character you need to tag for. Romantic one shots frequently only have two. Longfics and fics with big ensemble casts can easily end up with a dozen characters or more who really do deserve to be tagged for.

Put them in order of importance. This doesn't have to be strict hierarchal ranking, you can just arrange them into groups of “main characters,” “major supporting characters,” and “minor supporting characters.” Nobody less than a minor supporting character should be tagged. Even minor supporting characters show up for more than one line.

If everyone in the fic is genuinely at the same level of importance (which does happen, especially with small cast fics), then order doesn't really matter. You can arrange them by order of appearance or alphabetically by name if you want to be particularly neat about it.

Do tag your OCs! Some people love reading about OCs and want to be able to find them; some people can't stand OCs and want to avoid them at all costs; most people are fine with OCs sometimes, but might have to be in the mood for an OC-centric story or only be comfortable with OCs in certain contexts. Regardless, though, Character tags are here to tell readers who the story is about, and that includes new faces. Original Characters are characters and if they're important to the story, they deserve to be tagged for just like canon characters do.

There are tags for “Original Character(s),” “Original Male Character(s),” and “Original Female Character(s).” Use these tags!  If you have OCs you're going to be using frequently in different stories, type up a character tag in the form “[OC's Name] – Original Character” and use that in addition to the generic OC tags.

Also tag “Reader,” “You,” or “Me” as a character if you've written a reader- or self-insert.

You can use the “Minor Characters” tag to wrap up everybody, both OC and canon, who doesn't warrant their own character tag. Remember, though, that this tag is also used to refer to minor canon characters who may not have their own official names.

Just like when tagging for relationships, the convention when tagging for characters is to use their full name. The suggestions the Archive gives you as you type will help you use the established way of referring to a given character.

Characters who go by more than one name usually have their two most used names listed together as one tag with the two names separated by a vertical bar like “Andy | Andromache of Scythia.” This also gets used sometimes for characters who have different names in an adaptation than in the source text, or a different name in the English-language localization of a work than in the original language. For character names from both real-world and fictional languages and cultures that put family or surname before the given name—like the real Japanese name Takeuchi Naoko or the made up Bajoran name Kira Nerys—that order is used when tagging, even if you wrote your fic putting the given name first.

Some characters' tags include the fandom they're from in parentheses after their name like “Connor (Detroit: Become Human).” This is mostly characters with ordinary given names like Connor and no canon surname, characters who have the same full name as a character in another fandom, such as Billy Flynn the lawyer from the musical Chicago and Billy Flynn the serial killer played by Tim Curry in Criminal Minds, and characters based on mythological, religious, or historical figures or named for common concepts such as Lucifer, Loki, Amethyst, Death, and Zero that make appearances in multiple fandoms.

Additional Tags

Additional Tags is one of the most complicated, and often the longest, section of metatext we find ourselves providing when we post fic. It's also the one that gives our readers the greatest volume of information.

That, of course, is what makes it so hard for us to do well.

It can help to break down Additional Tags into three main functions of tag: courtesy tags, descriptive tags, and personal tags.

Courtesy tags serve as extensions of the rating and warning systems. They can help clarify the rating, provide more information about the Archive Warnings you've used or chosen not to use, and give additional warnings to tell readers there are things in this fic that may be distasteful, upsetting, or triggering but that the Archive doesn't have a standard warning for.

Descriptive tags give the reader information about who's in this fic, what kind of things happen, what tropes are in play, and what the vibe is, as well as practical information about things like format and tense.

Personal tags tell the readers things about us, the author, our process, our relationship to our fic, and our thoughts at the time of posting.

It doesn't really matter what order you put these tags in, but it is best practice to try to clump them: courtesy tags all together so it's harder for a reader to miss an important one, ship-related info tags together, character-related info tags together, etc.

There are tons and tons of established tags on Ao3, and while it's totally fine, fun, and often necessary to make up your own tags, it's also important to use established tags that fit your fic.  For one thing, using established tags makes life easier for the tag wranglers behind the scenes. Using a new tag you just made up that means the same thing as an established tag makes more work for the tag wranglers. We like the tag wranglers, they're all volunteers, and they're largely responsible for the search and sorting features being functional. Be kind to the tag wranglers.

For basically the same reasons, using established tags makes it easier for readers to find your fic. If a reader either searches by a tag or uses filters on another search to “Include” that tag, and you didn't use that tag, your fic will not show up for them even if what you wrote is exactly what they're looking for.  Established tags can be searched by exactly the same way as you search by fandom or pairing, your off the cuff tags cannot.

Let's talk about some well-known established tags and common tag types, divvied up by main function.

Courtesy

A lot of courtesy tags are specific warnings like “Dubious Consent,” “Incest,” “Drug Use,” “Extremely Underage,” “Toxic Relationship,” and “Abuse.” Many of these have even more specific versions such as “Recreational Drug Use” and “Nonconsensual Drug Use,” or “Mildly Dubious Consent” and “Extremely Dubious Consent.”

Giving details about what, if any, drugs are used or mentioned, specifying what kinds of violence or bodily harm are discussed or depicted, details about age differences or power-imbalanced relationships between characters who date or have sex, discussion or depictions of suicide, severe or terminal illness, or mental health struggles is useful. It helps give readers a clear sense of what they'll encounter in your fic and decide if they're up for it.

One the most useful courtesy warning tags is “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” which basically means “there are things in this fic which are really screwed up and may be disturbing, read at your own risk, steer clear if you're not sure.” This tag—like all courtesy warnings, really—is a show of good faith, by using it you are being a responsible, and thoughtful member of the fanfic community by giving readers the power and necessary information to make their own informed decisions about what they are and are not comfortable reading.

Saying to “Heed the tags” is quite self-explanatory and, if used, should be the last or second to last tag so it's easy to spot.  Remember, though, that “Heed the tags” isn't useful if your tags aren't thorough and clear.

“Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is one of only things that should ever go after “Heed the tags.”  If you use this, your additional warnings need to go in the author's note at the very beginning of the fic, not the one at the end of the first chapter.  If your additional warnings write up is going to be very long because it's highly detailed, then it can go at the bottom of the chapter with a note at the beginning indicating that the warnings are at the bottom. Some authors give an abbreviated or vague set of warnings in the initial note, then longer, highly detailed, spoilery warnings in the end note. It's best to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for readers to access warnings.

Tagging with “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat,” “Heed the tags,” or “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” is not a substitute for thorough and appropriate courtesy tagging. These are extra reminders to readers to look closely at the other warnings you've given.

While most courtesy tags are warnings, some are assurances like “No Lesbians Die” or “It's Not As Bad As It Sounds.”  A fic tagged for rape or dub-con may get a tag assuring that the consent issues are not between the characters in the main ship; or a fic with a premise that sounds likely to involve lack of consent but actually doesn't may get a tag that it's “NOT rape/non-con.” A tag like “Animal Death” may be immediately followed by a freeform tag assuring that the animal that dies is not the protagonist's beloved horse.

Descriptive

There are a few general kinds of descriptive tags including character-related, ship-related, temporal, relation-to-canon, trope-related, smut details, and technical specifications.

Many character- and ship-related tags simply expand on the Character and Relationship tags we've already talked about.  This is usually the place to specify details about OCs and inserts, such as how a reader-insert is gendered.

When it comes to character-related tags, one of the most common types in use on Ao3 and in fandom at large is the bang-path. This is things like werewolf!Alex, trans!Max, top!Sam, kid!Jamie, and captain!Tori. Basically, a bang-path is a way of specifying a version of a character. We've been using this format for decades; it comes from the very first email systems used by universities in the earliest days of internet before the World Wide Web existed. It's especially useful for quickly and concisely explaining the roles of characters in an AU. Nowadays this is also one of the primary conventions for indicating who's top and who's bottom in a ship if that's information you feel the need to establish.  The other current convention for indicating top/bottom is as non-bang-path character-related tags in the form “Top [Character A], Bottom [Character B].”

Other common sorts of character tags are things like “[Character A] Needs a Hug,” “Emotionally Constipated [Character B],” and “[Character C] is a Good Dad.”

Some character-related tags don't refer to a particular character by name, but tell readers something about what kinds of characters are in the fic. Usually, this indicates the minority status of characters and may indicate whether or not that minority status is canon, as in “Nonbinary Character,” “Canon Muslim Character,” “Deaf Character,” and “Canon Disabled Character.”

Down here in the tags is the place to put ship nicknames!  This is also where to say things like “They're idiots your honor” or indicate that they're “Idiots in Love,” maybe both since “Idiots in Love” is an established searchable tag but “They're idiots your honor” isn't yet. If your fandom has catchphrases related to your ship, put that here if you want to.

If relevant, specify some things about the nature of relationships in your fic such as “Ambiguous Relationship,” “Queerplatonic Relationships,” “Polyamory,” “Friends With Benefits,” “Teacher-Student Relationship,” and so on. Not all fics need tags like these. Use your best judgement whether your current fic does.

Temporal tags indicate when your fic takes place. That can be things like “Pre-Canon” and “Post-Canon,” “Pre-War,” “Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “1996-1997 NHL season,” “Future Fic,” and so on.  These tags may be in reference to temporal landmarks in canon, in the real world, or both depending on what's appropriate.

Some temporal tags do double duty by also being tags about the fic's relationship to canon. The Pre- and Post-Canon tags are like that.

Other relation-to-canon type tags are “Canon Compliant” for fics that fit completely inside the framework of canon without changing or contradicting anything, “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence” for fics that are compliant up to a certain point in canon, then veer off (maybe because you started writing the fic when the show was on season two but now it's at season four and you're not incorporating everything from the newer seasons, maybe a character died and you refuse to acknowledge that, maybe you just want to explore what might have happened if a particular scene had gone differently), and the various other Alternate Universe tags for everything from coffee shop AUs and updates to modern settings, to realities where everyone is a dragon or no one has their canon superpowers.

The established format for these tags is “Alternate Universe – [type],” but a few have irregular names as well, such as “Wingfic” for AUs in which characters who don't ordinarily have wings are written as having wings.

If you have written an AU, please tag clearly what it is! Make things easy on both the readers who are in the mood to read twenty royalty AUs in a row, the readers who are in the middle of finals week and the thought of their favorite characters suffering through exams in a college AU would destroy the last shred of their sanity but would enjoy watching those characters teach high school, and the readers who really just want to stick to the world of canon right now.

Admittedly, it can get a little confusing what AU tag or tags you need to describe what you've written since most of us have never had a fandom elder sit us down and explain what the AU tags mean. One common mix up is tagging things “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” when what's meant is “Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence.”  The misunderstanding here is usually reading “Alternate Universe - Modern Setting” and thinking it means an alternate version of the canon universe that is set at the same time as the canon universe, but is different in some way. That's not how the tag is meant to be used, though.

The Modern Setting AU tag is specifically for fic set now (at approximately the same time period it was written), for media that's canonically set somewhere that is very much not the present of the real world. This can mean things set in the past (like Jane Austen), the future (like Star Trek), or a fantasy world entirely different from our own (like Lord of the Rings or Avatar: the Last Airbender). Fic for a canon that's set more or less “now” doesn't need the Modern Setting AU tag, even if the world of canon is different from our own. If you're removing those differences by putting fantasy or superhero characters in a world without magic or supersoldier serum, you might want the “Alternate Universe - No Powers” tag instead.

Some of the most fun descriptive tags are trope tags. This includes things like “Mutual Pining,” “Bed Sharing” for when your OTP gets to their hotel room to find There Was Only One Bed, “Fake Dating,” “Angst,” Fluff,” “Hurt/Comfort” and all its variants.  Readers love tropes at least as much as we love writing them and want to be able to find their favorites. Everyone also has tropes they don't like and would rather avoid. Tagging them allows your fic to be filtered in and out by what major tropes you've used.

Explicit fics, and sometimes fics with less restrictive ratings, that contain sex usually have tags indicating details about the nature of the sexual encounter(s) portrayed and what sex acts are depicted. These are descriptive tags, but they also do double duty as courtesy tags. This is very much a situation in which tags are a consent mechanism; by thoroughly and clearly tagging your smut you are giving readers the chance to knowingly opt in or out of the experience you've written.

Most of the time, it's pretty easy to do basic tagging for sex acts—you know whether what you wrote shows Vaginal Sex, Anal Sex, or Non-penetrative Sex.  You probably know the names for different kinds of Oral Sex you may have included. You might not know what to call Frottage or Intercrural Sex, though, even if you understand the concept and included the act in your fic. Sometimes there are tags with rectangle-square type relationships (all Blow Jobs are Oral Sex, but not all Oral Sex is a Blow Job) and you're not sure if you should tag for both—you probably should. Sometimes there are tags for overlapping, closely related, or very similar acts or kinks and you're not sure which to tag—that one's more of judgement call; do your best to use the tags that most closely describe what you wrote.

Tag for the kinks at play, if any, so readers can find what they're into and avoid what they're not. Tag for what genitalia characters have if it's nonobvious, including if there's Non-Human Genitalia involved. Tag your A/B/O, your Pon Farr, and your Tentacles, including whether it's Consentacles or Tentacle Rape.

Technical specification tags give information about aspects of the fic other than its narrative content.  Most things on Ao3 are prose fiction so that's assumed to be the default, so anything else needs to be specified in tags. That includes Poetry, Podfics, things in Script Format, and Art. If it is a podfic, you should tag with the approximate length in minutes (or hours). If a fic is Illustrated (it has both words and visual art) tag for that.

Tag if your fic is a crossover or fusion.  The difference, if you're not sure, is that in a crossover, two (or more) entire worlds from different media meet, whereas in a fusion, some aspects of one world, like the cast of characters, are combined with aspects of another, like the setting or magic system.

If the team of paranormal investigators from one show get in contact with the cast of aliens from another show, that's a crossover and you need to have all the media you're drawing from up in the Fandom tags. If you've given the cast of Hamlet physical manifestations of their souls in the form of animal companions like the daemons from His Dark Materials but nothing else from His Dark Materials shows up, that's a fusion, the Fandom tag should be “Hamlet - Shakespeare,” and you need the “Alternate Universe - Daemons” tag. If you've given the members of a boy band elemental magic powers like in Avatar: the Last Airbender, that can be more of a judgement call depending how much from Avatar you've incorporated into your story. If absolutely no characters or specific settings from Avatar show up, it's probably a fusion.  Either way, if the boyband exists in real life, it needs to be tagged as RPF.

Tag if your fic is a Reader-Insert or Self-Insert.

You might want to tag for whether your fic is written with POV First, Second, or Third Person, and if it's Past Tense or Present Tense (or Future Tense, though that's extremely uncommon).  For POV First Person fics that are not self-inserts, or POV Third Person fics that are written in third person limited, you may want to tag which character's POV is being shown. Almost all POV Second Person fics are reader-insert, so if you've written one that isn't, you should tag for who the “you” is.

A fic is “POV Outsider” if the character through whom the story is being conveyed is outside the situation or not familiar with the characters and context a reader would generally know from canon. The waitress who doesn't know the guy who just sat down in her diner is a monster hunter, and the guy stuck in spaceport because some hotshot captain accidentally locked down the entire space station, are both potential narrators for POV Outsider stories.

Other technical specifications can be tags for things like OCtober and Kinktober or fic bingo games.  Tagging something as a Ficlet, One Shot, or Drabble is a technical specification (we're not going to argue right now over what counts as a drabble). Tagging for genre, like Horror or Fantasy, is too.

It's also good to tag accessibility considerations like “Sreenreader Friendly,” but make sure your fic definitely meets the needs of a given kind of accessibility before tagging it.

Personal

Even among personal tags there are established tags!  Things like “I'm Sorry,” “The Author Regrets Nothing,” “The Author Regrets Everything,” and “I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping” are common ones.  Tags about us and our relationship to the fic, such as “My First Work In This Fandom,” “Author is Not Religious,” and “Trans Porn By A Trans Author,” can help readers gauge what to expect from our fic. Of course, you are not at all obligated to disclose any personal information for any reason when posting your fic.

The “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag is common, but probably overused. Tagging is hard; very few of us have a natural feel for it even with lots of practice.  It's not a completely useless tag because it can indicate to readers that you've probably missed some things you should have tagged for, so they should be extra careful; but it can also turn into a crutch, an excuse to not try, and therefore a sign to readers they can't trust your tagging job. Just do your best, and leave off the self depreciation. If you're really concerned about the quality of your tagging, consider putting in an author's note asking readers to let you know if there are any tags you should add.

You might want to let readers know your fic is “Not Beta Read” or, if you're feeling a little cheekier than that, say “No Beta We Die Like Men” or its many fandom-specific variants like the “No Beta We Die Like Robins” frequently found among Batman fics and “No beta we die like Sunset Curve” among Julie and The Phantoms fic. Don't worry, the Archive recognizes all of these as meaning “Not Beta Read.”

The Archive can be inconsistent about whether it stacks specific variants of Additional Tags under the broadest version of the tag like it does with Fandom tags, so best practice is usually to use both.  You can double check by trying to search by a variant tag (or clicking on someone else's use of the variant); if the results page says the broader or more common form of the tag, those stack.

There's no such thing as the right number of tags. Some people prefer more tags and more detail, while other people prefer fewer more streamlined tags, and different fics have different things that need to be tagged for.  There is, however, such a thing as too many tags.  A tagblock that takes up the entire screen, or more, can be unreadable, at which point they are no longer useful. Focus on the main points and don't try to tag for absolutely everything.  Use the “Additional Warnings In Author's Note” strategy if your courtesy tags are what's getting out of hand.

Tag for as much as you feel is necessary for readers to find your fic and understand what they're getting into if they decide to open it up.

A little bit of redundancy in tags is not a sin.  In fact, slight redundancy is usually preferable to vagueness. Clear communication in tags is a cardinal virtue. Remember that tags serve a purpose, they're primarily a tool for sorting and filtering, and (unlike on some other sites like tumblr) they work, so it's best to keep them informative and try to limit rambling in the tags. Ramble at length in your author's notes instead!

Titles

Picking a title can be one of the most daunting and frustrating parts of posting a fic. Sometimes we just know what to call our fics and it's a beautiful moment. Other times we stare at that little input box for what feels like an eternity.

The good news is there's really no wrong way to select a title. Titles can be long or short, poetic or straight to the point. Song lyrics, idioms, quotes from literature or from the fic itself can be good ways to go.

Single words or phrases with meanings that are representative of the fic can be great. A lot of times these are well known terms or are easy enough to figure out like Midnight or Morning Glow, but if you find yourself using something that not a lot of people know what it means, like Chiaroscuro (an art style that uses heavy shadow and strong contrast between light and dark), Kintsukuroi (the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold), or Clusivity (the grammatical term for differences in who is or isn't included in a group pronoun), you should define the term in either a subtitle, i.e. “Chiaroscuro: A Study In Contrast,” or at the beginning of the summary.

As a courtesy to other writers, especially in small fandoms, you may want to check to make sure there's not already another fic with the same title in the same fandom, but this is not required. In large fandoms, there's no point in even trying. After all, there are only so many puns to be made about the full moon and only so many verses to Hallelujah.

It may be common practice on other platforms to include information such as fandom or ship in the title of a fic, but on Ao3 nothing that is specified by tags belongs in the title unless your title happens to be the same as a tag because, for instance, you've straightforwardly titled your character study of Dean Winchester “Dean Winchester Character Study” and also responsibly tagged it as such.

Summaries

Yes, you really do need to put something down for the summary. It might only need to be a single sentence, but give the readers something to go off of.

The summary is there to serve two purposes: one, to catch the interest of potential readers, give them a taste of what's inside, and make them want to know more; and two, to give you a space to provide information or make comments that don't really fit in the tags but that you want readers to see before they open the fic.

We've already talked some about that second function. When you put an explanation of the title or clarification about tags in the summary, that's the purpose it's serving. You can also put notes to “Heed the tags” or instruct readers that there are additional warnings in the author's note here in the summary, rather than doing so in the tags.

The first function, the actual summarizing, can be very hard for some of us.  It's basically the movie trailer for your fic, butwhat are you even supposed to say?

There are two main strategies as to how to approach this: the blurb, and the excerpt. Blurbs are like the synopses you at least used to see on the backs of published books, or the “Storyline” section on an IMDb page. Writing one is a matter of telling your readers who does what, under what circumstances.

Depending on the fic, one sentence can capture the whole thing: “Sam and Alex have sex on a train.” “Tori tries to rob a bank.” “If anybody had mentioned Max's new house was haunted, Jamie wouldn't have agreed to help with the move.”

Sometimes a blurb can be a question! “What happens when you lock a nuclear engineer in a closet with a sewing kit, a tennis ball, and half a bottle of Sprite?”

Of course, plenty of blurbs are more than one sentence. Their length can vary pretty significantly depending on the type and length of fic you're working with and how much detail you're trying to convey, but it shouldn't get to be more than a few short paragraphs. You're not retelling the entire fic here.

An excerpt is a portion of the fic copied out to serve as the summary. This, too, can vary in length from a line or two to several paragraphs, but shouldn't get too long. It should not be an entire scene unless that scene happens to be uncommonly short. It's important to select a portion of the fic that both indicates the who, what, and under what circumstances of the fic and is representative of the overall tone. Excerpts that are nothing but dialogue with no indication of who's talking are almost never a good choice. Portions that are sexually explicit or extremely violent are never ever a good choice—if it deserves content warnings, it belongs inside the fic, not on the results page.

Counterintuitively, some of the best excerpts won't even look like an excerpt to the reader if they don't contain dialogue. They seem like particularly literary blurbs until the reader reaches that part in the fic and realizes they recognize a section of narration.

Some of us have very strong preferences as to whether we write blurbs or use excerpts for our summaries. Some readers have very strong preferences as to which they find useful. Ultimately, there's no accounting for taste, but there are things we can do to limit the frustration for readers who prefer summaries of the opposite kind than we prefer to write, without increasing our own frustration or work load very much. Part of that is understanding what readers dislike about each type so we know what to mitigate.

Blurbs can seem dry, academic, and overly simplified. They don't automatically give the reader a sense of your writing style the way an excerpt does. They can also seem redundant, like they're just rehashing information already given in the tags, so the reader feels like they're being denied any more information without opening the fic.

Excerpts can seem lazy, like you, the author, don't care enough to bother writing a blurb, or pushy like you're telling the reader “just read the fic; I'm not going to give you the information you need to decide if you want to read or not, I'm shoving it in front of you and you just have to read it.” That effect gets worse if your tags aren't very informative or clear about what the plot is, if the excerpt is obviously just the first few lines or paragraphs of the fic, if the except is particularly long, or, worst of all, if all three are true at once.

A lot of the potential problems with blurbs can be minimized by having fun writing them! Make it punchy, give it some character, treat it like part of the story, not just a book report. A fic for a serialized show or podcast, for instance, could have a blurb written in the style of the show's “previously on” or the podcast's intro.  Make sure the blurb gives the reader something they can't just get from the tags—like the personality of your writing, important context or characterization, or a sense of the shape of the story—but don't try to skimp on the tags to do it!

Really, the only way to minimize the potential problems with excerpts is to be very mindful in selecting them. Make sure the portion you've chosen conveys the who, what, and under what circumstances and isn't too long.  You know the story; what seems clear and obvious from the excerpt to you might not be apparent to someone who doesn't already know what happens, so you might need to ask a friend to double check you.

The absolute best way to provide a summary that works for everybody is to combine both methods. It really isn't that hard to stick a brief excerpt before your blurb, or tack a couple lines of blurb after your excerpt, but it can make a world of difference for how useful and inviting your summary is to a particular reader. The convention for summaries that use both is excerpt first, then blurb.

If you're struggling to figure out a summary, or have been in the habit of not providing one, try not to stress over it. Anything is better than nothing.  As long as you've written something for a summary, you've given the reader a little more to help them make their decision. What really isn't helpful, though, is saying “I'm bad at summaries” in your summary. It's a lot like the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag in that it's unnecessarily self depreciating, frequently comes across as an excuse not to try, and sometimes really is just an excuse. Unlike the “I'm Bad At Tagging” tag, which has the tiny saving grace of warning readers you've probably missed something, saying you're bad at summaries has no utility at all, and may drive away a reader who thought your summary was quite good, but is uncomfortable with the negative attitude reflected by that statement. Summaries are hard. It's okay if you don't like your summary, but it's important for it to be there, and it's important to be kind to yourself about it. You're trying, that's what matters.

Author's Notes

Author's notes are the one place where we, the writers, directly address and initiate contact with our readers. We may also talk to them in the comments section, but that's different because they initiate that interaction while we reply, and comments are mostly one-on-one while in author's notes we're addressing everyone who ever reads our fic.

The very first note on a fic should contain any information, such as warnings or explanations, that a reader needs to see before they get to the body of the story, as well as anything like thanks to your beta, birthday wishes to a character, or general hellos and announcements you want readers to see before they get to the body of the story. On multi-chapter fics, notes at the beginning of chapters serve the same function for that chapter as the initial note on the fic does for the whole story, so you can do things like warn for Self-Harm on the two chapters out of thirty where it comes up, let everyone know your update schedule will be changing, or wish your readers a merry Christmas, if they celebrate it, on the chapter you posted on December 23rd but is set in mid-March.

Notes at the end of a fic or chapter are for things that don't need to be said or are not useful to a reader until after they've read the preceding content, such as translations for that handful of dialogue that's in Vulcan or Portuguese, or any parting greetings or announcements you want to give, like a thanks for reading or a reminder school is starting back so you won't be able to write as much. End notes are the best place to plug your social media to readers if you're inclined to do so, but remember that cannot include payment platforms like Patreon or Ko-fi.

As previously mentioned, warnings can go in end notes but that really should only be done when the warnings are particularly long, such that the length might cause a problem for readers who are already confident in their comfort level and would just want to scroll past the warning description. In that case, the additional warnings need to go in the note at the end of the first chapter, rather than at the end of the fic, if it's a multi-chapter fic; and you need to include an initial note telling readers that warnings/explanations of tags are at the bottom so they know to follow where the Archive tells them to see the end of the chapter/work for “more notes.”

When posting a new work, where the Preface section gives you the option to add notes “at the beginning” or “at the end” or both, if you check both boxes, it means notes at the beginning and end of the entire fic, not the beginning and end of the first chapter. For single-chapter fics this difference doesn't really matter, but for multi-chapter fics it matters a lot. In order to add notes to the beginning or end of the first chapter of a multi-chapter fic you have to first go through the entire process to post the new fic, then go in to Edit, Edit Chapter, and add the notes there.

Series and Chapters

Dealing with Series and Chapters is actually two different issues, but they're closely related and cause some of us mixups, especially when we're new to the site and its systems, so we're going to cover them together.

Series on Ao3 are for collecting up different stories that you've written that are associated with each other in some way. Chapters are for dividing up one story into parts, usually for pacing and to give yourself and your readers a chance to take breaks and breathe, rather than trying to get through the entire thing in a single marathon sitting (not that we won't still do that voluntarily, but it's nice to have rest points built in if we need them).

If your story would be one book if it was officially published, then it should be posted as a single fic—with multiple chapters if it's long or has more than one distinct part, like separate vignettes that all go together. If you later write a sequel to that fic, post it as a new fic and put them together in a series. It's exactly like chapters in a book and books in a series. Another way to think of this structure is like a TV show: different fics in the series are like different seasons of the show, with individual chapters being like episodes.

If you have several fics that all take place in the same AU but really aren't the same story those should go together as a series.  If you wrote a story about a superhero team re-cast as school teachers, then wrote another story about different characters in the same school, that's this situation.

Series are also the best way to handle things like prompt games, bingos, or Kinktober, or collect up one shots and drabbles especially if your various fills, entries, and drabbles are for more than one fandom. If you put everything for a prompt game or bingo, or all your drabbles, together as one fic with a different chapter for each story, what ends up happening is that fic gets recognized by the Archive as a crossover when it isn't, so it gets excluded from the results pages for everyone who told the filters to Exclude Crossovers even though one of the stories you wrote is exactly what they're looking for; and that fic ends up with tons and tons of wildly varying and self-contradictory tags because it's actually carrying the tags for several entirely different, possibly unrelated stories, which also means it ends up getting excluded from results pages because, for instance, one out of your thirty-one Kinktober entries is about someone's NoTP.

Dividing these kinds of things up into multiple fic in a series makes it so much easier for readers to find what of your work they actually want to read.

If you've previously posted such things as a single fic, don't worry, it's a really common misunderstanding and there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reposting them separately. You may see traffic on them go up if you do!

Parting Thoughts

Metatext is ultimately all about communication, and in this context effective communication is a matter of responsibility and balance.

Ao3 is our archive. It's designed for us, the writers, to have the freedom to write and share whatever stories we want without having to worry that we'll wake up one day and find our writing has been deleted overnight without warning.  That has happened too many times to so many in our community as other fanfic sites have died, been shut down, or caved to threats of legal action. Ao3 is dedicated to defending our legal right to create and share our stories. Part of the deal is that, in exchange for that freedom and protection, we take up the responsibility to communicate to readers what we're writing and who it's appropriate for.

We are each other's readers, and readers who don't write are still part of our community. We have a responsibility as members of this community to be respectful of others in our shared spaces.  Ao3 is a shared space. The best way we have to show each other respect is to give one another the information needed to decide if a given fic is something we want to engage with or not, and then, in turn, to not engage with fic that isn't our cup of tea. As long as our fellow writer has been clear about what their fic is, they've done their part of the job. If we decided to look at the fic despite the information given and didn't like what we found, then that's on us.

Because metatext is how we put that vital information about our fics out in the community, it's important that our metatext is clear and easy to parse. The key to that is balance. Striking the balance between putting enough tags to give a complete picture and not putting too many tags that become an unreadable wall; the balance between the urge to be thorough and tag every character and the need to be restrained so those looking for fics actually about a certain character can find them; the balance between using established tags for clarity and ease and making up our own tags for specificity and fun.

Do your best, act in good faith, remember you're communicating with other people behind those usernames and kudos, and, most importantly, have fun with your writing!

#THE GUIDE #metatext #fandom meta #fandom etiquette #Eiiri made this

[gubler-garbage]

Dude you don’t know how cathartic it is to read your thoughts on the shipping culture in always sunny. Whenever I get into a piece of media for the first time my go-to move to get content about it is to go on tumblr, and when I did that for iasip I genuinely thought I was going crazy. Seeing the sheer amount of shipping posts made in complete sincerity made me wonder if I was missing something? So I suspended my disbelief thinking maybe some crazy shit happened in the seasons I hadn’t seen yet, but lo and behold that’s not the case lmao. Also this is a way smaller thing to complain about but the fandom’s intense focus on Mac and Dennis (on tumblr at least) makes it so there’s way less content for Charlie (that’s how it feels to me, but maybe I’m wrong) which bums me out. Anyway, sorry for the long ask, I just wanted you to know that someone did read your long post and appreciated it a lot.

thanks you so much!! It's been really lovely hearing from y'all. I don't want to come off too critical of the fandom because generally speaking and having been on this garbage site for almost 10 years, the people in this fandom are kind and respectful towards each other with very little vicious or angry discourse and even if I don't agree with quite a few takes, I do enjoy reading what everyone thinks because a lot of y'all have really thoughtful critiques of the show and its creators. It's really just the really hardcore shippy side of the fandom that puts me off a bit. I don't have any problem with shipping or anything, macden is a ton of toxic fun but I definitely agree with you that the way people talk about them as if its not just a ship but a foregone canon conclusion is quite strange honestly. Like I think it would be a really interesting direction for the show but the way people talk about them seems like a incredible reach and a recipe for intense disappointment. I feel like its a more common thing now that people aren't just content with shipping something, they need it to be canon. There is no such thing as a "correct" interpretation of art, interpretations can be ill informed, ignorant etc but it isn't "wrong" and trying to impose your interpretation on others is really just obnoxious. Imo half the fun of shipping is exploring the dynamics of characters that would never be addressed in the show or expanding on different plots or characters that you think are interesting but never really made it to being a large part of the show or movie or whatever. I just personally don't understand this attachment to something being made explicitly canon (but obviously when I say that I'm not referring to queerbaiting and the like from shows like supernatural, I definitely understand where people are coming from with that, like I was a Richonne stan in twd fandom lol). I have seen people try and make the "queerbaiting" argument for sunny and that one really gets me goin like absolutely livid like some of you really love to try and co-opt serious issues of representation for your dumbass shipping discourse, it drives me up a god damn wall. It's really transparent when there is so so (cannot be over expressed) so god damn much to criticise about sunny but (and of course this is only my personal opinion but I feel like it's a pretty solid consensus) the way Mac's sexuality and coming out was treated (in the latter half of the show once the decision was actually made to take that path with his character) was with the utmost reverence and respect that it deserved. Of all the misteps made by sunny Mac's coming out and acceptance is absolutely not one of them. Personally I feel Mac is one of the most important pieces of representation currently on tv and the idea that out of the incredibly long list of criticisms for the show some of the fandom have decided "queer-baiting" is the primary issue is unbelievable to me. Like first of all the fundamental misunderstanding of what the term even means is endlessly frustrating but also reeks of that Community meme "I can excuse racism but I draw the line at my gay ship not being canon". It's petty and childish and devalues all of the very important discussion to be had surrounding representations of queer characters.

I'm so sorry, I got so off track on this one gang. One last thing I really have absolutely no problem with the popularity of macden, they're a real fun ship and people are free to post whatever they please. Personally I love my sweet baby rat boy charlie and wanted to see more of him so I jumped headfirst into that brainrot and made the content myself lol.

Just really wanna reiterate cos I feel like I might come off a bit aggressive in this, I love you macdens y'all are making super cool content and amazing art and if that's the direction the show ends up going I'll be more than happy! All fandoms have some bad takes goin on, thats half the fun lol.

#seriously chase your bliss gang #iasip #ask #one day I will learn to edit myself.... my professors would appreciate it #if you've sent me an ask recently I'm so sorry its taking me so long to get to it #just been a bit busy but I really appreciate them and I wanna take the time to answer them properly

[kinkpluspositive]

Exploration of kink and self

People, especially newbies, might experience a stress while exploring their kinky side. In society's eyes, vanilla is the norm. You might want to spice things up once in a while but more than that is not acceptable in general. So, what do you think happens when a self-identified degradee (person being degraded) wants to try something more than dirty talk, like humiliation? Of course, there might be a shame surrounding the idea: What is wrong with me? Why do I want to feel humiliated? Why does being humiliated helps me have a good time? On the other hand, there are degraders who enjoy degrading somebody. Similar questions are on their mind, too. It takes real courage and a lot of time to get to that place of self-acceptance. Even if we put aside what we have been told growing up by society about how a healthy relationship and sex life look like, we all have our inner conflicts from our past as humans. Why is it important to acknowledge both sides of the story?

Society plays a huge role in our conditioning. We all have some external factors that affect how we approach relationships. A common example for that would be the pain. Pain in general gets a big "no" from society.

This is such a broad omission. The key is consent, as always. If adults that can give consent decide to experience some consensual pain in their bedroom activities, they can do that! Pain is not just something you feel when you are heavily punched. It’s a spectrum of sensations. Maybe you just like the itchy feeling after an impact play. For some people, pain is just a different sensation that they want to experience in a safe environment. This doesn't mean you are OK with anybody slapping you. Of course not!

What about our own problems? You might get triggered when you hear certain phrases, or maybe you have trust issues thanks to a certain ex. To have a healthy dynamic, you will eventually have to deal with those issues. It is true for both vanilla and kinky relationships of any kind. It’s just that if you are engaging in kink, it’s possible that there’s a higher risk factor involved than when you do in vanilla. It requires more honesty, more trust and even more effort to build that safe zone unique to your dynamic. You can see how involvement in kink relates to knowing yourself in the first place.

Especially for people that want to fully submit (like slaves), that’s the prerequisite of inviting your Mistress/Master to your mind and them knowing you as well as you do. If you can’t see yourself transparently, how can you expect to be transparent with them? How can they be sure while making a decision on your behalf, consider everything and reach a final decision that way? We can’t read your minds, even if we do give off the vibe. We trust that how you introduce yourself is all that we need to know in that matter. That you give the whole info and nothing but the truth… It’s true for anyone and any role.

I’m not saying you should already have those traumas resolved before you do anything, don’t get me wrong. Know yourself enough to guess your reaction to different circumstances you may face when you are in that state of vulnerability. Communicate your needs to your partner and let them know if you need more time to open up or that you don’t want to further discuss some matters. You know yourself better than anyone else. As you further dive into the world of kink, you will see that exploration of self and kink goes hand in hand.

You can safely explore and experience BDSM with partners you trust. It's better to be informed about what you are getting yourself into, than not knowing at all and doing it anyway. Be risk-aware. Do your research.

I hope this was helpful! Check my blog to see more content like this.

#self exploration

[victorromeofox-blog]

VRF Website and Community

VRF Website and Community - Soft Opening Coming Soon!

I've been a little less active here in the last little bit, but have been working behind the scenes to build up the VRF website and planning around community-building.  I'm just about ready to start opening the site to semi-public access and start inviting trusted people to the Discord within the next week!  There is some information below introducing some of the content and features of the site and Discord server.  Please contact me (Ask or email preferred) if you would like access - I recommend reading the rest of this post before you do, but it is not required.

If you’re looking to better understand BDSM and kink, participate in a community of rational, respectful, and conscientious kink practitioners, and contribute to protecting, uplifting, and helping others - while still enjoying some fantasies - you are exactly the type of person who would be a great fit for this space.

If you’re “just here for the porn”, this website and community are not going to be what you’re looking for.  They are specifically a pushback against that very mentality, and the rampant toxicity and problematic discourse in the online BDSM/kink space, especially CNC kink, and your needs will be better met elsewhere.  Same goes for those who are just out to get nudes, roleplay online, organize hookups, or find a submissive - there are other spaces geared toward that.

In the meantime, I'd like to explain what this all means to me, where VRF is headed next, and what factors I'm taking into consideration as I continue.  This is going to be a fairly reflective post - almost like a letter of intent - but I'm putting it out there primarily for transparency and also for those of you who want some insight into my thoughts and process.

VRF - A Quick Recap

When I started VRF in 2015, I didn't really have a goal.  I was just looking to curate the kinds of porn I enjoyed the most on Tumblr and occasionally added some captions that came to mind as I did - and accidentally cultivated a sizeable following.  As the blog grew and began to have more interactions with others on the network, I realized that I couldn't stay in-persona all the time - not without sending a potentially dangerous message - so I started answering asks and giving advice out of character, as myself.  These "real" interactions, as well as the reality checks that kept rolling in, set the tone for what VRF would become - and made me feel much more comfortable with running a blog featuring questionable content.

I stepped away from the blog and went on hiatus in 2016; I saw a sharp rise in hateful, bigoted, and violent voices online and no longer felt comfortable that my posts would remain firmly in the realm of fantasy for the majority of readers.  Although the original @violent-rape-fantasies was terminated in 2019, I made a fairly complete backup of the entire blog before it went down.  I returned in late 2020 to start again from scratch, try to rebuild my following, and reconnect with the community - that effort was terminated by Tumblr in 2021, leading me to the two blogs I currently have (@VictorRomeoFox-blog / @violent-rape-fantasies-2​) and to create a self-hosted website containing the original VRF archives with major quality-of-life improvements to the Tumblr experience.

This process made me consider what my goals are for VRF, how I want to achieve them, and what promises I make to the community as part of that journey.  

VRF - Mission and Values

VRF's mission is to be a safe, inclusive, and collaborative space that promotes affirmative consent, healthy relationships, and conscientious kink, where consenting adults can explore their kinks, enjoy fictional fantasies, and uplift one another without overbearing guilt or shame.

Let me quickly break some of this down:

safe: I want people to feel comfortable consuming and interacting with me and my content - not only the kinks and acts depicted in the fantasies, but in the entirety of the space that VRF projects, including knowing that their personhood, privacy, anonymity, and emotional safety are important to me.

inclusive: although I focus primarily on male-on-female scenarios, people from all walks of life are welcome so long as they are good citizens of the community and conscientious kink practitioners.  This also means rejecting hate, bigotry, and willful ignorance.

collaborative: VRF is discursive, both in-persona and out-of-character; the content and direction I take is often influenced by the conversations I have with followers, the asks and submissions I receive, and the state of the community as I see it.  I want to always be in conversation with the community to understand its needs and goals so that I can better meet them.

affirmative consent: as discussed in a previous post, I highlight affirmative consent because it centers around positive action as opposed to consent, which can be a passive state.  I believe this is critical for conscientious kink.

healthy relationships: the relationships we hold shape who we are, who we become, and how we interact with the world around us.  I believe that healthy relationships build healthier, happier lives - this concerns all relationships, from friendships to families to romantic or sexual partnerships.  I have seen less emphasis in this community on relationships, and interpersonal interactions in general, and think that this is a major oversight.

conscientious kink: kink can be dangerous or harmful when not practiced with care and consideration - not just for physical health, but for mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  It requires reflection, introspection, and communication in order to form intentionality - the understanding behind what you do, how you do it, and why you do it.

reducing guilt: this is one of the concerns I get most often from followers - how to reconcile their guilt for enjoying consensual non-consent, and whether it is morally wrong or an indication that something is wrong with them.  I believe that CNC, like most kinks, can be practiced in a conscientious way to reduce and mitigate the potential dangers, but that it requires consistent effort, education, and research.

Aside from these, I identified values which are important for me to maintain in order to meet the mission.  Some of them are:

transparency: I try to be as transparent as I can, while maintaining my privacy and anonymity, so that people know that I have nothing to hide.  I cannot build a safe space without building trust, and I can’t build trust without being honest and transparent.

leadership by example: if I am positioning myself as a resource and giving advice to others, I must embody the values I put forward and lead by example, not by words; otherwise, what I say is worthless and lacks substance.

data- and research-driven: I want to provide people with a deeper understanding of themselves and their kinks; while anecdotal information can at times be helpful, I want the things I posit to have weight and justification behind them.  This means an intersection of data, research, and analysis around all of the factors involved, including moral philosophy, psychology, sociology, and biology.

care and patience: these kinks are difficult and hurtful to some people, and confusing or conflicting to others.  I need to be caring, considerate, and patient in order for people to feel comfortable engaging with my content and interacting with me.

contextualized: these kinks and fantasies don’t exist in a vacuum and must be contextualized in order to remain conscientious of the relationship it maintains to the real world.  This means that I don’t want fantasies misrepresented as reality or reality misconstrued as fantasy, and the onus is on me to ensure that followers are seeing both sides of the equation.

quality over quantity: I have a limited amount of time that I can dedicate to VRF work, and want to make the best possible use of that time.  I want to focus on high-quality content, both in-persona fantasies and out-of-character advice, research, and resources, without worrying about how much or how frequently I’m posting.  It also means that I care far less about the number of followers and viewers I have, and much more about whether I am cultivating the kind of followers that match my vision for VRF and its community.

There are other factors and values as well, but these are the biggest ones for me.  They drive how I present myself, how I interact with the community, and what kinds of content I put forth.

VRF Website - Content and Features

What does the website allow me to do that I couldn’t on Tumblr?

No censorship, frustrating filters, or threat of termination - I can focus on my content without running into blockers at every turn, or worrying that I’m going to lose all my work without warning.

Better content controls, organization, and layout - I can group posts logically and have different ways for users to access and view them instead of being one monolithic stream of posts.

Tagging and search - I’ve tagged my archive with kinks, features, toys, actions, positions, locations, and more to make it easier to both find content that you want to see and avoid content that you don’t.  The VRF site features granular search controls, including tag combinations, so you can engage with the site how you choose.

Random Post/Random Caption - sometimes, you’re in the mood to mix things up.  Instead of seeing a temporally-sorted feed of posts, you can go to a random post or caption from the menu bar.

Clear disclaimers and view control - instead of my content being blended into a sea of posts, which creates difficulty in carving out that safe cognitive space for engaging with these kinks or necessitates rapid context-switching, all of my posts will be in one central repository with clear disclaimers where I have control over how things are viewed.

The VRF Archive - the content from the original @violent-rape-fantasies blog have been restored to the VRF website.

There are some downsides, of course - like the lack of network discovery, limited server space and resources, cost, maintenance, and effort.  But the benefits greatly outweigh the additional overhead.

VRF Community

What’s the VRF Discord community all about?

This is a new idea I’m playing with - I’m not new to Discord or community management, but combining that with VRF is a new endeavor for me.  Since I’m going to be shifting my focus from Tumblr to the VRF website, some of those network and community interactions from Tumblr will move to Discord instead, such as interacting with followers, taking requests, feedback, and suggestions, and delving deeper into kink philosophy, fantasy, and practice.

I’ve set up the Discord in a way that different sections can be partitioned - like general discussion, BDSM/kink discussion, CNC fantasies, member content (submissions), and so on.  The different sections are accessible to different levels of membership and verification to maintain that safe, inclusive, and collaborative space.  For example, agreeing to the rules and guidelines gives you access to the general discussion section; verifying your age gives you access to BDSM- and kink-related sections; and being an active and trusted member who contributes to the server over time gets you access to the private sections.

This will also be a much easier way to get in contact with me, and keep the majority of my interactions with the community in one place, instead of hunting across Tumblr messenger for both my accounts, Asks, Twitter, Discord DMs, Telegram, Kik, and email.

VRF - Next Steps and Future Work

In the next few weeks, the VRF website and Discord community will soft-open and move toward general opening.  This is a new direction for me, but after assessing my priorities and goals, it is the solution best suited for what I want to achieve.  I will continue to use Tumblr, but will likely be focusing the majority of my time on the website and Discord.

The mission and values I’ve identified leave quite a bit of room to explore various ways to express these kinks and share knowledge.  I’m not hard-set on VRF being a blog with porn and captions, and could see changes or pivots in the future.  I would love for this work to be able to generate some modest revenue in the future in order to cover basic operating costs, support survivors of abuse as well as kink education and safety, and commission custom content.  As an aside, if you read all of this, please start your request for access with the word “potato” in all caps to let me know you got this far.

I also want to move toward a more ethical and sustainable model of captions and fantasies.  My first step toward this is in creating gifs myself and fully crediting the source, which I started doing when I returned from hiatus.  Concurrently, I am working with my partner, who is an artist, to develop illustrations and animations to accompany captions instead of commercial pornography - we’re still in the R&D phase for this, but hope to share some early content soon (including a fantasy and sketch that we’re working on to accompany a follower submission).  Ideally, we would be able to collaborate with submitters and sex workers to create fully original, credited, and compensated content - but that’s a huge stretch goal for the future.

We are also considering other formats for fantasy and knowledge delivery, including a visual novel format or interactive media (i.e., games) if the art development turns out well and proves sustainable.  We’re both fairly busy people in our personal and professional lives, and in situations where we have to maintain a fairly strict separation between kink involvement and our everyday lives, so carving out time for VRF work is challenging at times!

I look forward to seeing folks on the VRF website and Discord community soon!

#vrf #blog #website #community #about

[mairacute]

First of all I want to let you know that I am just a bounty hunter and writer for Cryptocurrency projects and help promote projects that want to grow and become successful in the Cryptocurrency world.

So I’m here to introduce a project where the name of the project is LUNALAND, Many good ideas are presented by the project, especially the development and system used by the LUNALAND project, For more details, please see the articles that have been summarized by several well-known sources and bounty hunters.

INTRODUCTION

LunaLand (LLN) is a peer-to-peer digital currency and store of value. Like digital gold, it aims to offer protection against inflation and infinite money printing. It is the antithesis of fiat currencies with unlimited supply potential. It not only has a finite supply, but it is also a hyper-deflationary supply coin which will burn most of the initial supply until the target supply of only 400 million coins is reached.

Starting with an initial supply of 1 Trillion coins, a total of 99.96% will be burned in regular cycles. The burn cycles will continue until a target supply of 1 Lunar distance in meters – the distance from the Earth to the Moon – of coins is achieved, namely 400 Million LLN.

Centralised platform token projects that aim to build a platform/ecosystem have a high degree of risk. Namely, there is execution risk, team risk, market risk and other risks which must be overcome for the project to produce real value and result in the appreciation of the coin price. LunaLand seeks to overcome this by not being tied to a centralised platform/project which impacts the price of the coin. It is a pure peer-topeer digital currency and store of value, and its success will depend only on user adoption and the building of the LunaLand community.

While there is no platform/ecosystem that can directly influence the price of LLN, the LunaLand project team is building real-world applications for the currency to underpin the value of the coin.

OUR MISSION

Our mission is to develop a peer-to-peer pure digital currency and store of value which will be recognised as a cryptocurrency leader in terms of adoption, use and value.

OUR VISION

A Digital Currency, at the Dawn of a New Era.

LUNALAND (LLN) is a digital currency and store of value that offers protection from real-world inflation as the World goes on a money printing spree. We encourage liquidity with no-tax trading by rewarding early adopters and putting 100% back into liquidity pools.

LUNALAND (LLN) COIN

LunaLand (LLN) is a peer-to-peer digital currency and store of value. It will enable you to easily send money online and be used as a medium of exchange. There is no mint function, so supply is limited. The number of LLN in use can only decrease over time, making it the antithesis of modern fiat currencies. A digital currency utilising the power of the blockchain to bring transparency, security, and low transaction fees.

It is a BEP-20 token built on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) with an initial supply of 1 Trillion coins. It is a hyper-deflationary coin with a burn function that will burn supply until a total of 400 Million coins remain – 1 Lunar distance in meters. The burn function will be utilised until 99.96% of all coin supply is burned.

With a finite, deflationary supply, the aim is to put a price floor on the coin and reward early adopters and token holders over time. This is accomplished by a high initial supply that will keep the initial entry price low to encourage trading and coin adoption as the supply is deflated.

FEATURES SUMMARY

Target Supply

The distance from the earth to the moon is 400,000,000 meters. LunaLand’s target supply is 400,000,000 coins.

Manual Burns

Regular burn cycles to reduce supply by 99.96% from 1 trillion to 400 million coins.

Hyper-Deflation

Hyper deflationary supply to increase upward price momentum.

Reward Holders

Controlled burns do not penalize buyers/sellers via a tax and encourage trading and liquidity while still rewarding holders.

Encourages Trading

Encouraging liquidity by rewarding early adopters and putting a minimum of 50% back into liquidity pools. No tax on trading to encourage liquidity, and coin rewards to holders gives you the best of both worlds!

Low Entry Price

A supply of 1 trillion coins is intended to provide a low entry price and reward holders with unlimited upside potential.

MANUAL BURN

One of the key features of LLN is its finite hyper deflationary supply. With an initial supply of 1 trillion coins, LunaLand will have regular burn cycles until 99.96% of the coins are burned and the target supply of 400 million coins is reached – 1 Lunar distance in coins. Manual burns that are controlled by the team means that the burn is finite and controlled. Regular cycles and clear communication will ensure that the community is informed and rewarded as we grow. The regular burn cycles and conditions will be communicated and tracked at the official website http://www.lunaland.io.

There are several novel features of the LunaLand burn strategy that aims to reward holders and benefit the community. We set out below the key features and conditions of the LunaLand burn strategy.

BURN STRATEGY AND CONDITIONS

Burn Cycle

LunaLand will implement at minimum weekly burn cycles which will burn an increasing number of coins until target supply is reached.

Random Burn Amount

Each manual burn will burn a range bound randomly selected – via a random number generator – number of coins which will increase as coin adoptions grows.

Burn Range

As account holders grow, so will the number of coins burned. A randomly selected burn amount will be chosen from an increasing range that will grow by an order of magnitude (10X) as the number of holders grows. Starting with a range of 1M-10M, the range will be increased for every order of magnitude increase in holders starting from 10 holders.

Communication

Each burn will be announced to the community before the burn function is invoked and a burn countdown timer on the official website will inform the community when the burn is taking place.

Burn and Earn

With each burn, we burn 90% of the burn amount and distribute 10%

proportionally to holders

TOKENOMICS

LunaLand Contract Name : LunaLand

Symbol : LLN

Decimals : 18

Contract Address : 0x6020371b0e8a2fc259a6b111d178bba9c966a4a4

Initial Supply : 1 Trillion

Target Launch Supply : 400 Million

Burn Function : Yes

Mint Function : No

Network : BSC Mainnet – BEP20

BEP 20 TOKENS

The LunaLand (LLN) coin is a fully compliant BEP20 Binance Smart Chain (BSC) token. There are several reasons why we have opted for a BEP20 token over other networks, some of which are :

Low Transaction Costs

The current cost of transferring $1,000,000 worth of LunaLand tokens is $0.05 (at the time of writing). In comparison, the cost of doing the same on the Ethereum network can be 1000x higher, or more, depending on congestion on the network.

High-Speed Block Creation

In recent tests when distributing LunaLand tokens to our investors, we found sending large amounts of LunaLand did not take more than 8 seconds to reach the buyer. Again, using Ethereum as an example, blocks can take several minutes or sometimes up to an hour to create, depending on network congestion.

Mining on the network is more environmentally friendly

Bitcoin and Ethereum currently use a proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm to solve complex mathematical problems and form a consensus to verify a block. The PoW mechanism creates a world-wide competition to solve the mathematical problem and thus results in very high-power consumption due to competing actors in the network attempting to outperform each other with high-powered mining hardware. The BinanceSmartchain network use the Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA) mechanism. It is a hybrid between Proof of Authority (PoA) and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS). This consensus model can support a short block time and low fees, and it only requires 21 validators to run. Validators take turns to mine (verify) blocks which results in a much more power efficient mining process.

Ability to utilize Pancakeswap as a first exchange

Using a BEP20 token means we can immediately utilize the Pancakeswap exchange and list LunaLand on an exchange immediately after the presale comes to an end. Pancakeswap is one of the largest decentralized exchanges on the planet with over $600 million of trading every month (at time of writing).

SALES STAGES

Pre-Sale – Presale will run from 28th June to 20th July where the price of LunaLand will be $0.005 per coin.

Parameters :

Price : $0.005

Soft Cap : 1 Million LLN

Hard Cap : 200 Million LLN

End Date : 20th July 2021

DX Sale : DX sale will run from 10th July to 20th July where the price of LunaLand will be $0.01 per coin.

PancakeSwap – LunaLand will list on Pancakeswap on the 20th July 2021. The price will be determined depending on the liquidity pool and will be announced to the community in due course.

ROADMAP

Our Vision is to create a new digital currency that becomes a top 10 cryptocurrency and is underpinned by real world use as not just a store of value but a medium of exchange. There are several tactical milestones we need to achieve to realise our vision. The roadmap below aims to provide clear goals that are informative and ambitious.

Q2 JUNE 2021

Design and creation of LUNALAND

Launch of Pre-sale

Whitepaper published

Marketing team initiates campaigns

Q3 JULY 2021

Launch LUNALAND of PancakeSwap

Further ecosystem development

Expansion of marketing campaigns

to drive coin adoption

Q3 AUGUST 2021

Listing on Coinmarketcap (CMC)

Listing on CoinGecko

Initiate development of LUNALAND online store and app

Target supply reached – burn complete

Q3 SEPTEMBER 2021

Listing LunaLand on additional DEX platforms

Merchandise partnerships for LUNALAND store

Q4 2021

Launch LUNALAND store Merchandise partnerships in place.

2022 and Beyond

Listing of centralized exchanges – Binance, Kraken and others

CONCLUSION

LunaLand seeks to overcome the centralized platforms’ high degree of risk to produce real value and result in the appreciation of the coin price by not being tied to a centralized platform/project which impacts the price of the coin. It is a pure peer-to-peer digital currency and store of value, and its success will depend only on user adoption and the building of the LunaLand community. The LunaLand project team is building real-world applications for the currency to underpin the value of the coin.

Maybe this is all I can present to all of you, for more details I put some links at the end of the article, for you to visit and get more accurate information

ACCURATE INFORMATION

Website : https://www.lunaland.io/

Whitepaper : https://6b39cf01-dbf8-4543-ab71-7bcac199a12d.filesusr.com/ugd/c6bd41_e13088f4fb5042b68ad6afb79dd13445.pdf

Ann Thread : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5346079.0

Twitter : http://twitter.com/IoLunaland

Telegram : https://t.me/lunalandio

Discord : https://discord.gg/RGM769PB

Reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/Lunaland/

Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPfFZksXwohPMzE7OyZiKRg

Instagram : http://instagram.com/lunaland.io

AUTHOR

Bitcointalk Username: Mairacute

Telegram Username: @mairacute

Bitcointalk url: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3334914

BSC USDT Wallet Address : 0x9758aabf2b323516C272e1B676131703790f87A7

[genuflectx]

Alien/Reader {Xenith}

Length: 12,346 words

Main Themes: Aliens, fluff, consensual human pets, pet shows, micro/macro, comfort,

Other Warnings: Grief, global warming, mention of surgery, physical exam, telepathy, insects, space travel, broken family, being poor

SHOUT OUT to my beta readers! RosalieBear and Volurin!

(all images in aesthetic board are labeled for reuse with modification or are mine)

If you enjoy this writing, consider joining my patreon! $5 donors get to see half of stories like these before publishing, and $10 donors see the whole thing a full month before everyone else!

1/25/2020: REPOST

There was just nothing left for you on Earth. Nothing. The last thing you felt before leaving that dirt ball was relief.

The tides had risen significantly, draining into unprepared cities and tourist destinations. Corporations had seen it coming but had pockets too fat to ever consider a change. The little people wanted change; cried for it. There was simply no one around to listen. You could no longer stand to see your home planet dying in front of you. You’d already lost a pen-pal to the flood waters of a grand hurricane, inspired by the boiling sea.

The city you grew up in became more violent as you aged. You tried not to come out of your shoddy apartment if you could, wanting to avoid the risk of becoming the center of the next vigil. It wasn’t the peoples’ fault, widespread economic inequality plunged more and more innocents into unavoidable poverty. Even you saw some of that pain when one year, you were forced to live off of noodles, rice, and beans, courtesy of a broken limb. Medical bills weren’t cheap in your country.

But the worst of it wasn’t the failing climate or the civil unrest. It was the sheer loneliness. Your family was scattered; decades were punctuated by uneasy gatherings that just reiterated why it was you only met once every ten fucking years. Good god, even the aunt who was supposedly the nice one gave you the migraine of the century. And your parents? They’d broken your heart.

You’d had a generally good relationship with your mother and father, even if they always felt the need to fight against your every life decision. Your mother had contracted an avoidable ailment, believing only in alternative medicines, and passed away. Your father, unable to cope, spiraled into an understandable depression, and hadn’t been the same since. He did not believe in psychology or medications taken for mental health, much like your mother. And there was nothing you could do to change that. Years after your mother’s passing, you became distant from your father.

So there really was nothing for you left on Earth. Nothing but worsening weather, crushed rebellions, and your ever silent pay-as-you-go phone. But the Xenith homeworld, beaming with white light? It would be a clean slate. A new life.

It was nearly a decade ago that the Xenith had made first contact. They were easy going, monstrously big creatures, that became overly excited when they’d met their first human. They had no intention of meddling in human politics. No no, Earth was much too messy. But they thought the humans themselves were so interesting, that at the first world-wide conference with Earth’s leaders, they asked humanity to ship people to their planet as soon as possible. The world leaders had naturally been baffled. ‘Ship’ humans like a product? They did not agree. The Xenith had been disappointed but understood.

But, after many years of discussion, of voting, of drawing contracts, a few countries were finally on board. And it was all free. The Xenith provided everything needed to pay for transport. They even trained humans for and oversaw the surgeries that were necessary for humanity to survive in their atmosphere and gravity.

So, after having robotic organs implanted directly into your body, going through a long recovery process, and packing a few small bags, you were shepherded onto a spacecraft and given a room. You boarded without even looking back. Not even a text goodbye to your family. You were certain they would never even notice you were out of state, let alone off planet.

The journey wasn’t so terrible, if you were honest with yourself. Most of the staff were human, save for a single Xenith translator. But being near that one Xenith was simply… astounding. You got the feeling you would never lose the awe you had upon being in the same room as one, let alone if you were ever in the presence of a whole crowd.

It was true that they were giants. When knuckle-walking on all fours, they must have been at least fifteen to twenty feet tall. When standing bipedal, even taller. Their pads were soft, black to dark-blue, and stretched across ninety percent of their four thick fingers and beyond the knuckles. Then, their feet had three round toes with equally as thick padding on the soles.

Their bodies were smooth and rubbery, with semi-glittery skin, as if partially transparent. Skin colors ranged from pale blues, pinks, yellows, and grays, to the rare dark gray. They had four slits in their lower chest from which they breathed from, and instead of hair around the edges, there was a lace like material to protect the delicate flesh within. Tails were usually cropped, but if not cropped at birth then they would grow long and stiff. Their pelvic bone was theropod-like. It made them sit funny.

Despite their cold outward appearance and inability to express as widely as a human, they donned their bodies in beautiful clothes. The translator themself wore bright, pumpkin-orange fabrics over their body, which was embroidered with dark red thread. Their clothes were not tight fitting. Rather, they made one reminiscent of blankets thrown over horses during winter. Perhaps they even looked like capes, especially when they stood on their back feet.

Xenith were just amazing. You could hardly believe one of those beasts was supposedly going to adopt you. You couldn’t imagine how life with one would play out.

While the trip was very accommodating, and the watchful presence of the translator kept everyone up to date, the food had been a down side. Apparently supplying enough goodies for the re-locating humans had been too expensive after all those surgeries. Only the ship staff got the real stuff. Everyone else got flavored paste in pouches. The alien promised better grub upon arrival, as the government run ‘companion shops’ were very eager to receive a new shipment of humans.

“Thhhey’re the new favorittte,” the translator had bellowed with their strange, five-pronged tongue. “humansss…. are so cute! You will be treated well.”

You had a lot of thinking to do while the craft took its two month journey into the stars. This was considered a 'job’ or 'volunteer work’ by the humans who arranged the set up. But to the Xenith, it was much more. It made you wonder exactly what the nature of being a 'companion’ was. Before deciding to leave, you had done a little reading, but only enough to know that you were eligible and able to leave as soon as possible. The rest of the information on what the job entailed would come to you through the translator.

Xenith rarely spoke aloud, and when they did it was slow and booming with a lisp. Otherwise, communication lay in their skilled telepathic abilities. Their satellite dish heads and six wriggly antenna aided their inward conversation, but did not translate well with lesser species, including humans. It was very difficult for them to learn human languages. Luckily, the translator had become an expert over the year.

“When you arrive,” said the alien, their tongue pronouncing 'v’ as 'fph,’ “you will come to be placcced into public viewing roomsss in designated adoption locations. Many will be waittting. Many will want you.”

Someone in the back of the orientation room asked “So, this is like an apprenticeship, right?”

That had confused the Xenith. They blinked and took a brief moment to think, the skinny antennae on their flat head fidgeting. Eventually their brain pulled up the translation, and they perked up. “No, this is not ssservitude. You learn no trade. But if any harm comesss to you, you will be removed. Not that harm comesss your way. We cannot think to hurt our companion.”

“And we can leave whenever we want? If we don’t like it? I read that we could!” asked someone else skeptically.

They nodded. “Whenever you would like. But… you would break your master'sss heart, as you term the phrase,”

The more you learned about the species during your transport, the more you realized what the translator had said was pretty literal. Humanity liked to imagine itself as a quick-to-pack-bond species, but the Xenith had them beat. Their whole psychology was based so heavily around emotional bonding that when a pet passed away, it nearly killed them. For their companion to dislike them so much that they would leave willingly, it meant absolute heart break to the Xenith. You wouldn’t doubt that organ failure due to the strain of separation was possible too, but that was only a guess.

It was all as the translator had said. Upon arrival the humans were relocated to sprawling government facilities that housed creatures looking to be adopted. Both sentient and non-sentient species were presented. You were placed into a rather roomy, glass-walled space at the front of the building. Two other humans lived with you, and through the right-sided wall, you could see another group of three inside of their own spacious glass room. It truly reminded you of a combination pet shop and apartment complex, if not for the hovering aliens constantly peeping over the glass.

A caretaker, who did not speak any human languages, made sure all was well three times a day. Hot food and heavily filtered water were always available. The three of you had your own rooms with human beds, which the Xenith cleaned once a day.

You’d never had a maid before. It gave you a vague sense of guilt that you weren’t cleaning the room yourself, but the caretaker did not seem to mind. If anything, they acted as if they had the most wondrous job on the planet; humming aloud and talking cheerfully to the pets despite language barriers.

Over the course of three days your bunk mates had been adopted. You grew sad and alone, wondering why it was you that had yet to be chosen. Humans were supposed to be the new favorites, right? There were certainly a great number of Xenith who still visited your cage, but after they spoke with the caretaker, they left to view other options.

What was so wrong with you? Was it something the caretaker said that scared everyone away? Many a night was spent at the edge of your tidy little bed, lost in thought. Anxiety plagued your heart. Maybe this was a mistake.

At the very least, there was a particular Xenith that visited you once a day. You wanted to believe that they were interested in having you, but worry got the best of your troubled mind. For all you knew, they just pitied you; glancing down into the glass thinking how it was so sad no one actually wanted to take you home. You sighed.

This alien had four fleshy horn-like appendages on their satellite dish head, in which the top-most left horn was shorter, as if by past injury. A deep dark red cloak was tied over their back, which fluttered and swayed as they padded on their knuckles. The reds, accented by golds, contrasted the pale, desaturated blue of their silvery skin. They also had a cropped tail, and whenever they greeted the caretaker, their tail stub and six pink antennae would wiggle.

You hoped with all your heart that they were thinking about picking you. You couldn’t take the loneliness any longer. That was the main reason why you left Earth, after all. Still, the nagging fear that you would not be wanted, not even by the supposedly pack bonding Xenith, instilled a deeply rooted misery in your twisting guts.

Another despairing week passed by. In the morning, that particular red-robed Xenith came to your display for the dozenth time. The caretaker came with them, and they were both glancing down at you and across to one another silently. You squinted, wondering what the pale giants were telecommuting about.

“(And all is settled? The shipment is now here? It must be perfect.)”

The inner eye lids of the caretaker’s eyes blinked slowly. “(Correct, Sientia. The import of human belongings has docked. Expect delivery today.)”

Sientia was delighted, their upper most and longest antenna coiling together with excitement. They gently lifted and pressed the pads of their knuckles to the ground, as if prancing in place. Now that the secondary ships containing Earth goods were finally arriving, caring for human pets would be a lot easier. There had to be good beds, good bathrooms, good food and clothes. So, tomorrow, Sientia would come back and remove you from the lonely communal homes.

Sientia, some short time before, had reached the end of their mourning period. As a Xenith, companionship was the main driving force of their life. So when their previous pet passed away of old age, they fell into a deep, sorrowful grief, and decided if they survived mourning, the next one must have a longer life span. It just so happened that the long-lived alien species, Homo sapiens, were finally agreeing to put their people into the Xenith pet program.

So, Sientia had given away some of their extra crop in order to secure their pick of the next human pet shipment. Each craft carried fifty at a time, so demand was very high, especially being that it was first come first serve with pets. And on the first day of your shipment’s arrival, Sientia had chosen you. You were the perfect shape, and with the despairing history listed in your files, Sientia knew you had to be the one. How could they choose any other human to be their companion? They would give you a happy life.

Both of the giants began to stare down at you, and you stared back. The visitor lifted back their lips (or what barely constituted as lips) and bore their flat teeth in what you assumed was meant to be a smile. Xenith facial expressions were rather empty, since they spoke telepathically. This one was acting on purpose. They were hoping to elicit comfort from you. Instead, something about the attention made you embarrassed and you looked back down.

The next day the funny blue-tinted alien arrived to take you home. They were accompanied by the caretaker, who was in very good spirits. Sientia splayed out their huge palm inside the glass, awaiting your reaction. Instantly, the caretaker jolted.

“(You may scare the thing away with such forward action! It is typical to allow me to place the pet into a container for relocation. If they bite you or become injured, I am not liable.)”

Sientia barely flinched at the warning, instead focusing on you. It was as if they had not heard the caretaker at all. “(Come, come. I am taking you home!)”

When Sientia 'spoke,’ you heard nothing. Rather, you felt the strangest tickle in your brain that traveled down your spine, and you got the sense that they were asking for your attention.

Glancing slowly from the hand to the strange salamander face above you, you suddenly realized you were being adopted. Relief washed over you and, with a nervous smile, you climbed on.

You flailed and got to your knees when the hand moved. Gravity pressed down on you gently as Sientia lifted you up, up, up out of the glass apartment and into the air. They stopped you close to their face, where you could look deeply into their six pink neon eyes.

“…H-hi,” you peeped, feeling as vulnerable as a bare baby.

“(Look, they are brave! I will carry them,)” Sientia imparted happily to the caretaker.

“(Very well. Allow them to collect their belongings, then you may leave. Please contact us if you require additional supplies. And you,)” The caretaker gestured towards you with their long antennae. “(You must be good to Sientia. Their body is weak from mourning.)”

Of course, you heard nothing.

So you gathered your things and went home with them in the most horrifying way possible; over twenty feet in the air. They trod home on two feet. The world moved passed you in a blur of light and color, and when Sientia noticed you shaking, they placed their other hand over you to create a comfortable bubble of safety. You wrapped your arms around one of their thick fingers so you could feel some sense of security.

Eventually you arrived. Before letting you down, they moved into a specific room and closed the door behind them. It was best to let pets grow used to their new environment slowly. One room would do for now.

“(There you are,)” they comforted. They placed you and your suitcase at the mouth of a house-sized 'cage,’ which rested upon a high surface. “(Nice and easy.)”

The comforting words fell upon deaf ears. You stood there shaking, still feeling adrenaline pumping in your veins. You barely shifted to glance back at the uncomfortably square human-sized door.

Sientia stared at you. When you only moved to cross your arms, they snorted from the nostrils of their chest and went away to a device embedded in the wall. They touched the screen. A couple of choice pages were pulled up, to which they read greedily from. Images were downloaded.

They glanced back at you. Back to the screen. Back at you. Then they lumbered over and sat down nearby.

“(I see I have made a mistake, your expression seems to be 'unhappy,’ or 'distant.’ You are a brave human. But. I may have been irresponsible to carry you before you were ready. I got, excited.)”

They studied your face for a while longer, their expression hard to read. Xenith had a perma-smile, much like dolphins. Sometimes it was unnerving to look at.

You looked away, feeling awkward to be stared at silently. Soon you began to glance around the gigantic room, noticing the state of your surroundings. Besides Sientia’s bed (what looked like a pile of cloth in a long box), a computer poking out of the wall, and the smooth counter top that your cage sat upon, the room was eerily empty. The walls were a pale, metallic pink, and a heavy light emulated the sun overhead. No windows.

Sientia huffed. They decided they would attempt to communicate better. They didn’t know your language, but they had learned a few words and phrases in preparation for your arrival. They’d probably butcher them, but hopefully you would understand. Earth languages did not come easily with their sticky, five pronged tongue.

“(Perhaps I should have began with) Hello, I am called Sssientia.”

You started frightfully. You didn’t think this one could talk!

“Could you speak the whole time? Um, I’m [Y/N]. Your name is… pretty. Ssssen-ccchia,” you enunciated. It sounded more harsh from your toothy mouth, though.

They perked up, pleased. Finally, your attention was back upon them. Now you both knew each other’s names. Not a bad start!

“Hungry?” asked the giant, trying to speak softly so as not to frighten you.

You smiled shyly. That spooky ride to your new home had made you forget you hadn’t had breakfast. “Yes, a little.” you replied.

Sientia knew 'yes.’ They made a low, throaty sound and stood up on all fours, then got to their two feet. You were left alone in the empty room as the alien fetched something to eat. Curiosity over came you; what would they bring back? The adoption facility had given you baked chicken, fresh corn-on-the-cob, and ripe fruits like peaches and pears. Would your new owner present the same? Your belly rumbled.

They returned, hopeful you would like the foods they were given from the companion facility. Sientia plopped down carefully and lowered their palm. Inside was a cucumber, a hunk of warm, uncut bread, and a fat chicken leg. The meal looked miniscule in their oversized grasp.

“Strange combination,” you mumbled with a smirk, accepting the food. There was no plate, so you just nibbled straight from their hand.

Sientia’s antennae wiggled and curled with joy. They watched their little pet eat from their palm; a new sense of adoration and comfort washing over them. They had a good feeling about you, even if they still hurt from their previous loss.

They’d been so terribly sad when their previous pet had passed. Sientia had known that it was coming. That species only lived about twenty-five years, which for a human, was fifteen Earth years. But it was still a shock when they’d woken to find their beloved friend gone. Even while watching you eat, they felt a small tang of pain. The mourning period was over, but the sadness of memory never really left.

As you crunched straight into the juicy cucumber, Sientia crunched down on something too. You stared up, head cocking in confusion. When Sientia noticed, they slowly lowered the partially eaten food to your level for you to get a good look-see.

You stepped back. “Ah! That’s a HUGE bug!”

The half-eaten insect-like fauna was removed from your space as soon as Sientia realized it scared you. Seemed like a lot about the Xenith world frighten a human, but they hoped you would come to enjoy it in time.

“(It is tasty, I raise them. Perhaps I will show you the farm someday. But staying very close. You are a good snack for large livestock, like this one,)” they gestured by lifting the insect in hand, then biting off another gooey chunk.

You shuddered and averted your eyes. Gross. How could you forget? Xenith were well known on Earth as a people who consumed 'gargantuan pests.’ Great measures were taken to bar them from entering livestock onto Earth when they visited. Dead ones only. They’d surely cause a massive plague if not kept well under watch. Yet, here on the Xenith home planet, they were farmed far and wide as a main source of food.

You weren’t hungry anymore.

The rest of the day was spent inside that one room, exploring. That is to say, exploring what little there was to actually explore. Your cage was like a little house: a cozy bedroom with a king-sized bed, a spacious bathroom (plumbing and all), a small library with books in many languages, and a more open area for eating.

The cage did not have a ceiling, except for the bathroom. One of the walls of your bedroom was glass, while the dining room was all glass. By contrast, both the library and the bathroom were made of painted wooden walls.

Below the cage there was empty space, empty space, empty space. Perhaps for Sientia this was a small room, but to a human it was a beaming cathedral. You felt like a ladybug when you tottered about the bottom edges of Sientia’s thickly blanketed bed. Sientia kept a close eye on you while you sniffed around. They did not want to step on you.

The day was long on this planet. A cycle was thirty-two Earth hours. You ended up taking a five hour 'nap’ in the mid-day. Had a second meal. Then about three hours after that, Sientia gently put you back to bed and dimmed the room’s light.

After a very, very long sleep, you were awoken as Sientia stirred about the house. You rose drowsily. Good god, you hoped a few months on that schedule would see you adjusting to it well. Your circadian rhythm, so far, was displeased. Days too long, nights too long. But you’d live.

As you slipped an old T-shirt over your head, Sientia appeared, looking in above you. They watched you a bit, but you were reluctant to do anything while feeling like a walking television.

“Uh, hi,” you waved awkwardly.

“Hi,” Sientia repeated. They did not know many words. “Hungry?”

Food was already set out for you in the dining area. You had a breakfast of scrambled eggs (a little rubbery), pancakes (with maple embedded), and a sliced apple (salted). When you were full, Sientia slid one of the glass walls out of place. You didn’t know those were removable!

A hand was laid down. “[Y/N], come, (I am going to get you many nice things to wear.)”

You grimaced. You didn’t want to be carried around like that again just yet. “I would rather not.”

Sientia’s antennae moved subtly, thinking, then they understood the issue. The hand came back up as they puffed out their chest. Sientia pointed to a harness. Right above their four nostrils was a backpack like carrier, which was strapped around their shoulders. It reminded you of a baby wrap or purse, but much, much larger. It even had a few pouches in front for accessories, such as food or toys.

“You had one of those? Why did you carry me in your hand yesterday!” It was more scolding than it was a question.

Sientia bellowed a response, but you got the feeling that it was as meaningful as a human meowing back at a cat.

“…Alright, okay. Let’s just do this then.”

So they cheerfully settled you into the pocket on their chest. It was deep enough that you would not have to see the world, if you choose not to climb up and look.

You spent the ride curled up close to the side of the pouch that Sientia’s skin touched on the other side. You thought you could hear a heartbeat from there, but that was surely impossible. Xenith didn’t have hearts. At least, not in the human sense. Still, there was the steady pulse of their body, thumping gently and keeping you calm. And since you were so close to their nostrils, hot air constantly warmed the pouch. You wondered if this was how a lap dog felt while being carried in a purse. It was nice. You nearly forgot that you were being carried far from the ground.

Finally, Sientia came to their destination. It was a little pet boutique that sold many different types of imported clothes, specializing in sentient species. It had recently begun to acquire shipments of imported human goods.

Sientia had been devastated to see what little you had brought with you, and was determined to put you in something better. You may have left your new home wearing a hole-worn T-shirt, but you would return wearing lavish threads.

“(Hello, what species do you shop for?)” asked the retailer, who was dressed in extravagant magenta fabrics.

You poked your head out, nervous eyes wandering around.

“(Eh! You care for a human! So cute! Yes, yes, we have many clothes for humans. Please, let them down to browse, and we may write up a payment plan.)”

Sientia helped you to the floor and the retailer pointed them towards the human section. It looked small, but it was truly as expansive as a mega-chain on Earth.

“Y/N,” Sientia gestured towards the clothes and gave you a nudge.

You hadn’t been paying much attention and stumbled, catching your balance by grasping onto a clothes rack. Upon realizing the rack was proportionate to your size, you gawked. Your wide, surprised eyes drank in the sight; rows upon rows of imported human goods. Dresses, jackets, shorts, coats, an extensive section of underwear. You looked back at Sientia with awe.

“Are you actually going to buy me clothes?” you peeped, barely audible enough for the pale giant.

When they gestured towards the rows again, you turned and began to tear through the selection.

You tried on clothes for an Earth hour. When you’d come out from the (far too big) stalls to show Sientia, they were always overjoyed with how stunning you looked. It didn’t seem to matter what you picked out, it simply pleased them that you were having so much fun.

At the checkout line, you had garment after garment piled up in your arms. You couldn’t remember the last time your face had hurt from smiling this long. Sientia carefully petted your head with a round finger tip before taking the clothes and checking out. You’d gotten all that you’d wanted, and instead of being chided, your master was brimming with elation. No one had ever been so glad to throw their money away on you. Not even your parents. You tried to massage your cheeks to relax them while the retailer and Sientia finished up their business.

Back home, you folded and hung your new threads up neatly. Then you strutted about bearing a fancy faux fur coat and patterned leggings. You even had new name brand shoes. None of it matched, but it was more than you’d ever had. To show off like a proud peacock made you blush, but Sientia purred and grumbled happily, finding you quite humorous. You couldn’t help but enjoy their attention after such a nice outing together.

They brought their head down to the table. “(You seem so happy and look so good! I hope I’m doing well by you, so that you may want to stay with me.)”

You came near. Avoiding their watchful gaze, you nervously lifted a hand and patted their snout, between the smaller eyes. “Thank you for all of this, really. I was worried about being here, but I think… maybe you have a good heart. Or,” you laughed “maybe you just like to spend extravagant amounts of money to show off? Well.. I’m grateful.”

They audibly chirped at you in reply, nuzzling the hand carefully with affection.

A few days went by uneventfully. Then one day, while you were being allowed to explore the (much larger) main chamber, a loud beep alerted Sientia to visitors.

They opened the door. “(Antha, you’re here! Welcome! It’s been very long, please come and have a drink. Where is your- eh! Your human is on your head! Doesn’t that hurt?)”

The dark gray Xenith bumped a padded fist with Sientia in greeting, then chuckled out loud. They came inside as they spoke. “(Only a little, it tickles now mostly. We are close, so I am not annoyed! Now, where is yours that you tell me so much about? I’ve been eager for ours to meet. It is good for humans to have a friend. They’re social beings.”)

You carefully stepped under a table, watching the guest enter. Upon the other’s dark, wide set head, a human stood and clung to antennae with both of their hands. It frightened you even to look at. Good god, that was high. They could slip at any moment and plummet to their death. You had to look away so it didn’t make you queasy.

“Come,” called Sientia as the two Xenith laid on blankets around the shallow table.

So you came out and were placed upon the surface, which was covered with a thin, patterned cloth. Likewise, the guest brought down their companion. Instead of going to greet one another, you both remained close to the side your master lay at. But then Antha spoke an alien language out loud, and their human came to you.

“Hey. Antha thinks I need to talk to someone of my own species I guess. So uh,” he stuck out his hand awkwardly.

What was this, a business meeting? You hesitantly accepted the shake. This man was possibly ten years older than you and was wearing casual, comfortable clothes. He spoke with a slight accent, which you were unfamiliar with. But the most interesting feature was that when Antha spoke to him again, he actually turned and understood.

“So like… you can understand them?”

The man turned back to you. “Uh, not really,” he pointed at a device in his ear. “Antha just got us digital translators. I mean, some of the words don’t translate very well, and there’s some lag, but it’s better than nothing. I think my master is going to give yours one! Say, how long have you been a pet?”

While you and the other chatted idly, Sientia and Antha caught up.

“(So… you’ve been feeling better?)” Antha asked quietly in Sientia’s head.

Sientia’s eyes became downcast. “(I… suppose so. It’s hard to adjust to something new after being with someone for so long. It’s going to take a while.)”

Antha lowered their head in understanding.

“(It still hurts. As I rest, my body aches,)” their six antennae moved sluggishly and drooped.

Antha attempted to comfort. “(I am here. And so is- what do you call your companion? They will sooth your ache too.)”

“([Y/N], a good name. I believe they are feeling well about their new home. The cage is proportioned correctly, and they have eaten nearly everything I’ve given them. We do not communicate well, because we cannot understand one another, but I feel that they are generally happy so far.)”

Antha’s head bobbed, remembering they’d come for a reason. “(Th, yes! Here, accept this gift!)” they then dug something out of the pouch around their chest. There was a strange object, meant to be clipped onto one of the large antennas. Then, beside it, a tinier object that looked like a grain of sand in the palm of a Xenith.

“(Gift?)”

“(See that I speak to my human so easily? This is a translator! My friend, you’ve been through such grief, you deserve something nice. Please accept it.) Clarence dear, help [Y/N] with the device.”

The man stopped talking and perked up at his name. He nodded, and took the small piece when it was lowered to him. He helped you do basic set up while Antha fit the bigger piece onto Sientia. It took about ten minutes to get everything all settled, but luckily, it wasn’t too difficult.

“Can you hear me?” asked your master nervously.

You gasped then smiled. Amazing! “Yes! Yes, I understand perfectly! This is so cool!”

Clarence returned to the side of Antha and sat in their hand, satisfied.

“It works well,” spoke Antha, rubbing their thumb gently over their pet’s back.

“Thank you Antha! Th- [Y/N], are you happy?”

Emotions were mingling and mixing intensely inside of you. So when Sientia suddenly popped that question, you had to take a moment to process it. That was only the third question Sientia had asked you since meeting, and it was such a selfless one. You blushed.

“I-I-I mean-” you stammered. “-this world is… different. But the air is clean and the people are kind, so.. yeah. I’m pretty happy,” you spilled. “Anything beats Earth.”

You glanced back at Clarence and Antha. Clarence was rubbing his face against Antha’s fingers affectionately like a cat. Your blush darkened and you snapped back to Sientia, who titled their head.

“Are you happy, Sientia?” you peeped. You wanted to add 'are you happy with ME?’ but did not.

“…Yes, see?” they put on a humanoid smile, teeth and all, like they had done before adopting you. But there was a thin layer of sadness under that reply.

You were quiet, but eventually smiled back. You hoped Sientia couldn’t understand the way your brows furrowed in concern.

After a short, awkward silence, Antha huffed and spoke up. “Sientia, [Y/N], have you considered competing yet?”

You looked back and forth between the two. “Competing?”

“(NO,)” Sientia lowered their head and looked away. “(Antha… you know that was Inridd'h and I’s favorite thing.)”

“(Yes, I’m sorry,)” they apologized, before lifting a grabby Clarence up onto their head. “(But I just… I also know how much it meant to you. To be able to train and spend so much time with your companion, and to show the crowd how much you trusted one another.”)

It seemed the Xenith were ignoring you. You sighed and sat down, legs crossed.

Sientia looked back up at Antha, their sad pink and cyan eyes like doe. They watched Clarence balance and keep a careful hold on Antha’s antennae. Eventually he made his way to the back of Antha’s head where their crest was, and settled there when Antha tilted their head forward. No sense of fear. Clarence knew Antha would not allow him to fall. Then, Sientia shifted to watch you. You sat so patiently, waiting for attention. Guilt struck the blue Xenith.

“[Y/N],” they called softly. “Would you like to compete?”

You straightened up. “Well, that probably depends on what you two mean by competing. Like… sports?”

Antha rumbled. “Perhaps not. It’s more similar to a, ehm, a 'dog show?'”

They didn’t sound too convinced of their own comparison. You scratched your head and leaned back on your hands. “So like, being dressed up and paraded around an arena? Or is it more like agility, where dogs run through tubes and go up ramps?”

Both of the aliens looked confused. It seemed they had difficulty explaining. Antha only had vague knowledge of how human dog shows worked, and Sientia was totally unaware of them. However, Clarence had been in a few small scale shows.

“It’s kind of a dog show plus beauty pageant!” he yelled from Antha’s head. Antha flinched in return, so Clarence apologized quietly for yelling so close to their sensitive antennae.

Sientia placed their head onto the table, where eye contact was easier. They looked like they were awaiting a response.

You stood and crossed your arms uncomfortably. A sense of dread sat in your guts. You thought about the nice new clothes you’d been given, and tried to imagine yourself walking down a stage all fluffed up. All your brain could conjure was the image of a crowd of Xenith and strange, beautiful alien creatures, wondering why it was you were so… ugly. Why were your clothes like that? Why walk that way? You imagined what they’d say.

'Oh, you know humanity is simply second to the slug peoples of planet Dirtemous. That’s why they all look and act so hilarious!’

Then the beautiful alien’s equally beautiful friend would laugh and reply. 'Yes, and what sort of awful thing would ever want to claim THAT particular human as a pet? I’d rather have the slug! Ho-ho-ho!’

You took a breath. What a stupid imagination you had. But even such an exaggerated, outlandish thought had some sort of truth in it. You were anxious. Not only were you worried about being scrutinized by strangers, you were also worried that you would embarrass your master. Sientia was a kind, lonely thing. They didn’t need you making things worse. You were just making yourself sadder and sadder, and the look in Sientia’s eyes did not help.

“You don’t have to agree, my pet,” they eventually added.

With one last glance at Clarence and Antha, you decided. You wanted to trust Sientia like that. You wanted to make them happy. So, you would try.

“Yes. I don’t think I’ll be very good at it, or win anything, but… yes. I’ll compete,” you shrugged.

There was both pain and joy inside of Sientia. The notion that they were replacing a chunk of their heart that was once filled with their old pet devastated them. But they also knew the only way to recover was to keep going; to move forward. Inridd'h would not have wanted them to keep falling asleep at night aching for relief. Inridd'h did not smile upon them when they shut themself away.

Sientia, too, would try.

An overwhelming desire for comfort overtook Sientia, and they scooted their flat head forward to nuzzle you. It knocked you back a bit to have their whole head thrust up against your body, but you steadied and petted their head.

“Are you okay?” you asked, unaware of why it was they seemed so upset.

Antha stood up slowly. “It is time we head back home. Please keep in contact, Sientia. I care. We will want to come to your competition! Goodbye friends.”

“(Wait, you never had anything to drink!)”

But Antha and Clarence had already gotten to the door and let themselves out.

You hadn’t been sure what training for an alien competition would entail.

Apparently, you would be physically looked over to determine if you had good breeding. Like a dog. You didn’t look forward to that part very much, considering you were sentient and not some space lemur that could just be treated like decoration. This segment would also note your outfit. Sientia had said that this part of the competition would be worth less points than the rest of the competition.

Then, much like a pageant, you would show off your talents. This forced you to actually have to sit down one night and determine what the hell your talents even were. Running away from home, maybe? You got flashbacks from the horrific talent show in second grade. You did not want a repeat of that.

“I don’t think I really have any talents,” you admitted to your master as you sat comfortably in their bed.

Sientia laid down beside you, poking at a device in their hands. You supposed the device was much like a cell phone on Earth, but made for the Xeniths’ large, clumsy fingers. They were pulling up videos of humans performing various tasks, hoping to find a talent to suggest.

“Cooking?” they asked.

“I can cook packaged ramen. Maybe bake a potato. So no.”

“Horse riding? We do not have a 'horse,’ but they can provide something similar.”

You plopped over on your back, grimacing. “God, no.”

“Th! Humans are adequate at singing!”

“Um… let’s not even go there.”

With every suggestion your heart sank further and further. You should have never agreed. With a sigh you turned over onto your side, hoping to keep Sientia from seeing the way your eyes watered. You wiped at the sting.

“Sientia, really, I don’t think I can win this. So maybe I should give up before we get too deep.”

They sat up on their elbows, setting the device down. “I detect sadness in your voice. Did you change your mind?”

“I just don’t want to get your hopes up.”

The room was quiet a moment. Then the giant turned on their side and gently rubbed their finger along your back, hoping to ease the pain in your words. The sensation was… actually very nice.

“Please, do not be sad [Y/N]! You don’t have to do this if it makes you uncomfortable. The competition is simply an act, performed for the love of it, and perhaps sometimes for the prize! I don’t believe any companion’s master has been broken by a loss. I could not be disappointed if we lost. So, please feel better.”

You still had a heavy heart, but the reassurance that this was not anything serious helped you feel a bit easier. Knowing that Sientia already knew you could lose and did not care cheered you up even more.

“R-really?” you squeaked, turning onto your back once again.

They nodded, swiping their finger across your torso and belly as if to continue comforting.

You squeaked and grabbed the finger, face red. “That tickles!”

Sientia stopped and removed the appendage. “Eh! Sorry!” they looked away. “My… previous companion enjoyed belly rubs.”

Now it was Sientia who sounded sad.

“Do you… want to talk about it?”

They thought, antennae moving slow as if fidgeting. Eventually they huffed out hot air and answered.

“They were bigger than you. Non-sentient. Covered in rough, damp skin. Very jumpy and loud, and they passed away in their favorite spot in the glass house. We… used to compete a lot. And I miss them,” Sientia seemed to sink into the blankets. “That is all I would like to say for now. I’m still hurting.”

You had to wipe at your eyes again. Memories of your mother played through your tumultuous brain, reminding you how grief could invade one’s life so fully. Even when your family had problems, you never could stifle or hide the hurt when she passed. After gaining courage, you stood and moved to curl up against Sientia’s skin.

The alien was surprised at the contact. They glanced down and felt their affection surge for you, the finger coming to your back again.

“You’re so much softer than Inridd'h. So much different.”

You curled against yourself tighter and nuzzled your forehead against their skin. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it is good that you’re different. I’m different than I once was, too. Please never be sorry for being yourself, my pet.”

After a minute or two of easy silence, they added. “Do you still want to compete, or have your changed your mind?”

Without hesitation, you replied. “I still want to do it. Maybe I can’t think of a talent off the top of my head, but… I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Together.”

In the end, you decided on painting. According to Sientia, Xenith were most fond of abstract art. That was something you could do. Though not formally trained, you’d painted a couple of shoddy pieces in the past that your parents had enjoyed. One had even been printed as a holiday greetings card, much to your embarrassment. But unlike the thickly globbed on acrylics of family pets and favored cartoon characters, you’d be working with thin watercolors to make something representational and abstract.

So you practiced and practiced. Sientia had even gotten you a nice new desk to sit and paint at. You’d use thin sheets of paper to work with, though the Xenith’s idea of “thin paper” was still rather thick.

It was actually extremely therapeutic to just focus on shapes and color. You’d find yourself trying to represent the objects in your room without making it obvious what they were. Making an abstract piece representational was a feat and required a great deal of thought. You hoped by the time the competition started, you’d be able to stand in front of the crowd and paint something they would enjoy.

Soon, you moved onto painting on a sheet of paper tacked to a wooden board, which was held up by a portable easel. You’d stand in front of the blank, semi-yellowed sheet, and just think. A pink spot there. An orange square there. A deep, deep cobalt wave streaked vertically through the piece. It was missing something. You watered down some yellow then made a generously thick, wiggly-lined circle around the square. Done.

“How comes practice?”

You were startled and snapped your head up. How long had Sientia been watching? You stilled your heart and smiled up at them. “I actually think my work isn’t half bad!”

“Hm,” The giant lowered their head closer to your spot on the counter top. “What is it?”

You stepped back. “Well, what do you think it is?”

This response pleased Sientia. They tilted their head this way and that, before deciding. “I don’t recognize the shape. This yellow, it is a good color. I am no artist, but I also enjoy-” they gestured to the blue. “-this squiggle, here.”

You placed your hands on your hips, feeling all fuzzy from the praise. “It’s a lamp. One I had in my apartment, way back on Earth. It was pretty ugly, but my parents had given it to me as a housewarming gift.”

Sientia lifted their looming head back up. “I didn’t know humans needed heat lamps. Should I ask one be imported?”

You laughed heartily, before taking a rest and explaining that no, you had not referred to a heat lamp.

The time to compete finally came. Sientia picked out a nice outfit for you to wear, settled you into the pouch, then headed out eagerly.

You knew you’d arrived when it became terribly noisy. Most of the Xenith remained in their heads, however other alien species that resided on the planet were chattering away.

You poked your head out of the pouch to watch where you were being taken. You were inside of an arena, which was surprisingly similar to arenas on Earth. The stands were chock-full. It was hard to distinguish what sort of other aliens were among the bleachers. All you could make out was a mix of pale Xenith, and various shades of lavender and baby’s breath blue.

The two of you checked in and were escorted to the first area. This space was within the bleachers. Instead of having the audience surrounding you, you were simply on camera for the first half of the contest. Later you would be taken back into the thick of it.

Sientia placed you carefully onto a pedestal as drones buzzed around everyone. They kept all companions at around Xenith chest level, as they stood on twos. Almost immediately you were surrounded by several of the other Xenith contestants, who were delighted to see a human.

A silvery Xenith focused on Sientia. “(You have a human?)”

“(Aw, might I hold them?)” asked a yellowish Xenith.

The third spoke your language. “Hello!”

Sientia huffed awkwardly and kept close. They seemed abashed.

“(Please don’t touch! This is [Y/N]. It’s their first competition, so do not frighten my dear companion!) [Y/N], are you well?”

You backed up and bumped into the hand of the yellow-tinted Xenith. With a start you leaped and stumbled back over to the side Sientia was closest to. “It’s just… wow. A lot of attention.”

“(Apologies. I attempted to adopt a human, but they continually were out. How did you receive this one?)” questioned the silver alien.

Sientia fidgeted. “(I farm, so I simply gave excess crop away early. This secured a spot to choose a human.)”

The yellow Xenith kept staring at you longingly. “(Ehmmm… I wanted one, too. You think ahead. Very smart.)”

Sientia wanted to get rid of them. “(I believe the judging is starting.)”

So the others ended up scurrying back to their own companions, but not before a couple more desirable glances were thrown down at you.

You sighed, grateful.

“It really is starting,” commented Sientia with surprise, as the judge came into the inner bleachers. “Brace yourself. The pedestal will shift.”

So. A physical and fashion check was first on the agenda. It was the part you had been dreading every day. You took a deep, calming breath.

Because so many sentient species were twelve feet and under, the judge had to be proportionate during this segment. Everyone was moved downwards, so that the small judge could come by. A drone slightly bigger than your head followed behind the no-nonsense alien, which you had no doubt was plastering all this upon the screens outside.

One by one, the contestants were- you shuttered- fondled. You didn’t know if that was a good or bad shutter, but you had butterflies in your stomach.

The judge, a seven foot tall, light blue alien that walked on the tips of its three-pronged feet, was very thorough. They would circle the contestant, watch the way they walked, judge their outfit, and then feel certain parts of the body over. Occasionally a contestant would lean in, as if dizzy, before the judge finished up, wrote something down, and then left to the next pedestal.

“Don’t be nervous,” comforted Sientia quietly, who had laid beside you. “Remember, we can forfeit at any time my pet. I will not let you stay if you change your mind.”

You smiled at them before being spooked by the sudden appearance of the judge. You hadn’t realized that the alien had been getting close.

The judge was very professional throughout most of the examination. Stoically, they watched you walk and jotted something down. Comments were mumbled in an sing-song alien tongue about your choice of outfit.

'Polka-dots, with plaid shorts?’ you imagined them saying.

Then the part that had you most nervous came. The alien felt your arms gently, slid a hand over to your chest and thumbed over the ribs. Were they counting them? They squished down where certain organs were along your body. Finally, the intrusive appendage cupped your cheek and pressed your upper lip out of the way. You instinctively bore your teeth and grimaced.

“Very good teeth. Unique human specimen,” spoke the strange alien in your language.

There was a sweet scent, like sugar, in the air. Your eyes fluttered and you found yourself relaxing. Suddenly you understood why it was some of the other contestants appeared to become dizzy. Whatever this alien was emitting smelled lovely.

The judge swiped a finger over your blunt human canines. “Always fascinated by Homo sapien teeth.”

They removed the hand and glanced over at Sientia, the air sack around their neck tinged pink. “You groom your human well,” they said in Sientia’s language.

“Thank you,” Sientia eyed the judge suspiciously.

You had no idea what they had said. The judge patted your cheek, quickly wrote a final thought down, then left. It almost made you sad to see them go. However, after a few minutes your head cleared. That was a weird experience. You straightened your back and awaited the second segment.

“Do you think I did alright?”

Sientia moved their head near. “Yes, you did wonderfully! I am certain. The judge sounded… much too pleased. Fae are simply like that, though.” They gave you an encouraging nuzzle.

You blushed and rubbed your hands over Sientia’s head. It was funny that you were supposedly the pet, yet you were the one who did most of the petting. You felt them physically purr.

After the first segment ended, contestants were directed one by one back into the main arena. The Xenith held their companions in their hand and were paraded around the edge. It was hard to keep your cool. You had to force yourself not to look down as you tried to keep balance.

This was all so overwhelming. It wasn’t nearly as loud as a stadium back on your home planet, but the quiet chatter did invade your thoughts. Being so high in the air, with all eyes and ears and words directed at you, started to make you terribly dizzy. But as you glanced over into the crowd, you found a familiar face.

“Look! It’s Antha!”

“Ehm,” hummed Sientia in response, who was finally allowed to come to a stop. “You see Antha?”

Antha wiggled their fingers. On top of their head stood Clarence, hardly more than a speck in the distance. But the little speck squirmed, and you just knew he was waving vigorously at the two of you.

Your spirits lifted again. You waved back, grinning. The support was very much needed, and Clarence’s presence reminded you of the true reason you’d decided to compete. You wanted to trust Sientia fully, as Clarence did Antha, and you wanted to make your master happy.

Sientia nodded their head in Antha’s direction. This almost made Sientia feel like they had before the mourning period; warm and fuzzy, like a healthy Xenith. They puffed up just a little more, antennae high and spread wide.

So, it was time for the talent competition to begin. You watched the flickering screens above the stadium as various individuals attempted to impress the intense, boring eyes of the judges.

There were four judges in total. One Xenith. The other three included a brawny, one-eyed biped, a large piebald covered in feathers, and the previous judge who had done the physical. They sat across the field, and hardly blinked as they jotted down notes and numbers on the performances before them.

A dark, four-armed alien with a flat face could throw a heavy metal ball across the entire field with ease. A five-foot, mousy alien could complete an agility course in under twenty seconds. A long and skinny serpent like alien could dance and twirl like a ribbon within the air. The crowd particularly liked the serpent, clicking and chattering at the graceful shapes made as she looped around.

You tried to still your heart. That was some tough competition, but you’d been practicing your art skills each and every day. You were certain you would please at least the Xenith judge. Maybe you’d win them over with your human 'cuteness,’ even if the painting didn’t elicit a major response. After all, some thought humans were endearing. If you fumbled, you’d play it off and try to look nothing short of adorable. Even if the voice in your head kept telling you that they should see you as an ugly species, that you yourself were ugly, you’d been proven wrong on multiple occasions.

Finally, it was your turn to shine.

“Are you ready?” asked Sientia quietly, with concern.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Sientia stepped further into the field, careful let you down, then removed your setup from the pouch on their chest. It was a large sheet of watercolor paper, nailed to a wooden board five feet wide and ten feet tall, which Sientia propped against their free wrist. Your act would consist of painting a certain someone while using their hand to raise and lower yourself along the canvas. A show of trust while also entertaining the crowd. A perfect act.

Two drones flew low, eyes watchful. You tied an apron on and stuffed your brushes into the front pockets. After picking up a closed container, you made meaningful eye contact with Sientia. They lifted you upon their hand, to which you opened and dumped the container down over the top of the paper. Gray tinted water dripped, soaking into the paper a quarter down.

The brushes were whipped out. Over the course of ten minutes you drove the wide tipped brushes into buckets of pre-mixed colors and swept them across the open plains. Deep cyan, made from an imported liquid watercolor, was your main shade.

You made four quick strokes, forming a ball with spikes coming from one end. One long thin strip vertical from that, though not touching. Then horizontally a fat, stocky, uneven line that was bigger at the end than tip. Two near perfect, wet cyan circles close to the bottom, both dripping towards the edges. You admired your work a second, already out of breath.

A few more blue splotches were added before you switched colors. A bright, watery pink mingled with the blues, mixing into purple in several areas. Embarrassingly, a large, unwanted splat splashed onto the paper, to which you blushed and pretended was on purpose. Then, before you knew it, you were adding the final touches in a gold leaf yellow.

Standing from a distance in Sientia’s hand, you turned your head this way and that, before giving a curt nod and deep bow.

“Tah-dah! It’s finished!”

Sientia let you down, and you were exhausted. Finishing a painting that large in just over ten minutes killed you. You popped your joints and looked hopefully over at the judges. Three of them were scribbling excitedly, while the Xenith was staring at the art. You didn’t know if that was good or bad. Eventually the giant titled their head down and gave their unknown input, too.

“You are so amazingly talented,” swooned Sientia, drawing your attention.

You smiled sheepishly, face very red. “Th-thank you. I… made it for you.”

Affectionate and surprised, Sientia wanted to cuddle you, but the two of you had to step back so the next contestant could work.

The rest of the aliens went by in a blur. You were simply too in your own head to pay hardly any attention. Over analyzing the minute body languages of the judge panel was not fun, and had you guessing- then guessing again- as to what your final score would be.

When the last out-of-breath contestant returned to their owner, the talent segment was done. All Xenith and pets were marched around the outer rim for a final lap, before returning to the inner stadium. Pets were placed back onto their pedestals to rest while the judges compiled their thoughts.

You sat and fidgeted quietly.

Sientia’s head teetered against the edge of the pedestal, cross-shaped eyes focused upon your nervous little form. “It is okay if we don’t win, my pet. Please remember. I’ve had so much fun today! It’s been a very, very, very long time since I’ve walked the circle and presented my companion before all. Do not fret so!”

That made you smile, if only a tidbit. “I know… I just can’t help but have nervous energy! If we won, that would make me sooo happy. It would make you so happy.”

The alien’s face emoted more densely than you’d ever seen before. Their eyes dilated, antennae curled, and they put on a wide, open grin. The smile was added for you, but still. Such emotion.

“I was right to choose you, [Y/N]. You are perfect.”

You nearly cried. Who in your life ever called you perfect? Not your first partner, nor your last. Most certainly not your parents or 'good’ aunt. Nobody was perfect in this world or the next, but the sheer fact someone was inspired enough to utter something so romantic made your heart flutter. You opened your mouth to even attempt a reply, but a noise chimed and echoed through the spacious corridor, flinging everyone around into silence.

A winner had been decided.

You stood and swallowed, hard.

Upon the elongated screens high, high on the metallic walls, the various aliens of the panel chatted softly. The same footage was being aired on enormous screens above the stadium, so everyone was watching in anticipation along with the contestants.

The four judge panel went through each contestant’s score briefly, citing anatomy and subjective thoughts on the talent segment. As they spoke in the local Xenith tongue, recordings of the contestants and their owners were played. You could not understand the talk at all, yet your eyes stayed glued to the video.

You saw yourself. Did your painting really look that bad on screen? 'Stay optimistic,’ you chanted to yourself inwardly. 'The Xenith like abstract art.’

You were given a number score of 68 out of 100. A sigh of relief. That wasn’t totally awful. So far, the scores ranged from 22 through 65, meaning you were somehow ahead. But there were still seven more scores to reveal.

Burning eyes stared down the screens, counting scores. 43, 50, and there it was, 71.

You lost.

Your legs were weak. You found yourself on knees, not even bothering to watch the rest of the judgment. Sientia had turned attention to you as soon as the higher score had been announced.

“Are you okay?” asked Sientia gently.

You sighed and ran a hand through your hair. “Yeah, I guess. Disappointed. Trying not to cry, but okay.”

They paused in thought. Sientia was truly not put off by the results. If only you could hear their telepathic emotions, they could send a wave of comfort and compassion your way. Instead, they had to settle for the physical and verbal. That was fine, too.

You felt something boop your head and flinched. A quick glance up revealed that one of Sientia’s longer antennae had touched you, from where the giant was tilting their head down. It patted you, unsure, the other poking you carefully in the face. It was like a dog coming up to sniff you. Considering the antennae were the most sensitive part of any Xenith, this was perhaps not far off.

“I know you’re trying to comfort me,” you said. “and it makes me happy, but… I don’t think I’ll be totally over this for a few days.”

“When we get home, I will make you your favorite food, and we can put on one of the imported Earth medias you like so much. Will this sooth?”

You couldn’t help the tug at your lips. “Hmmm… that is… acceptable. Thank you. So, who won?”

Out of 15 contestants, you ranked number 8. That was nearly in the dead center. The winner, with a score of 100 (as all contest winners are scored 100), was the four-armed alien who’d thrown the metal ball across the field. You supposed you couldn’t feel too bad about losing to an act like that. After all, even you had been impressed by that contestant’s superior show of strength.

There may have been resentment in your heart, as if you could have somehow done better, but at least Sientia did not blink twice at the results. To be human was to be rampant with emotion, so you could not help but feel a little upset at losing your first competition. But in the end, it was Sientia’s judgment that mattered. And Sientia was overjoyed just to spend time with you doing something they loved. That was something you would simply have to learn, especially if you decided to partake in more pet shows.

The two of you were given your prize, then met up with Antha and Clarence before leaving.

Antha lifted and pressed their knuckle pads to the ground, with Clarence balancing stupendously on their head. “(The two of you looked very good on the field!)”

If a Xenith could blush, Sientia would have. Instead, their antennae twirled bashfully. “(Thank you, friend. [Y/N] did well. I am so very much proud of them.)”

“And how do you feel, companion [Y/N?]”

You were still being carried in Sientia’s hand. You pursed your lips and shrugged. “Disappointed.”

Antha lowered their head closer, as Clarence wanted to comment.

The other human waved and beamed. “Hey, you did super great for your first competition! I’ve been in a few and man, let me tell you… the first time I tripped in front of the whole stadium. Over my own feet, too. Don’t worry so much, you did just fine!”

You couldn’t help but smile awkwardly, a little embarrassed “Thanks, Clarence.”

On the way home, you fulfilled your dream of riding at the top of Sientia’s flat head. Your master had been reluctant and afraid that you would get anxious, but you were adamant. One arm looped tightly around an antenna, the other fiddled with a tiny red participation ribbon, which was your only prize.

“Pet?”

You hummed.

“I’ve thought to ask. You say you painted for me. But, ehm, what have you painted?”

It took a moment to decipher the question. “Oh! Well,” you blushed. “I was trying to paint you! I know it didn’t come out exactly how I expected… that I could have done b-better to impress the judges-”

“Eh! No more talk of judges! I will hang it upon my wall above my nest. Look, we are home.”

Home was lamp-lit and unfit for a human to wander the rooms wide as a veldt, but it was home. The house that you grew up in had never felt like home, nor did the apartment you huddled in on Earth. But this strange, empty cube in the suburbs of the Xenith home world? It had begun to feel like home more so than any sad, brick building every did. You left Earth months ago, and never once began to regret that decision.

Sientia, you master and friend, spoke to you candidly and with compassion. They clothed you lovingly in lavish things, smoothed your anxieties like an iron, and wanted nothing more than to spend as much time as possible with you. They loved you so much that they wanted to lift you high in their palm, to put you in the eye of buzzing drones and chattering aliens.

Even during a time that Sientia was still recovering from loss, they wanted to badly to move forward. You think that they did. You could hear it in their voice now, whenever they spoke sweetly to you, that they knew Inridd'h was smiling. Before the competition, when you were still practicing your abstract thinking, there was a glint in Sientia’s six eyes. It filled them with comfort to watch you work so hard, and with such great passion.

You loved the miniature house Sientia built for you, and the surrounding areas Sientia themselves lived in. But more than anything, you loved Sientia. Sientia was what made the house a home. You prayed you could stay as long as possible, because at this point, you had no intention of leaving.

So, when they two of you returned home, you ate a big dinner, popped in a human movie, and curled up on their nest together. You fell asleep atop their head with a full belly and a healing heart.

EPILOGUE

Sientia held you close to their body. You could feel warm air rising from the nostrils of their chest, as you wobbled and balanced close to their shimmering blue skin.

“Now, you must stay close. Some species may swoop low and pick you up if you move too far. It is perhaps safer to remain in my hand, at first.”

You nodded, apprehensive but excited.

It had been half a year since you decided to become the pet of the great alien species, the Xenith. But you’d yet to experience the awe of being in close quarters with your master’s life work; their livestock. They’d kept you distant from their crop, as giant bugs were most certainly to be predators to little humans. You could be a tasty, blood-filled morsel. The scenario was as tense as introducing the pet chicken to a new barn cat.

You shielded your eyes as they opened the door to a blistering glass greenhouse. After a moment of wiping away involuntary tears, you were able to see again.

“Woooah,” you gasped.

To Sientia this was a large terrarium, but to you it was an expansive jungle. Tall yellow grass sprouted all around, circling the dirt and clays below. Alien ferns spread their fleshy leaves and fronds, sprinkling the air with heavenly scents. A myriad of neon blossoms bloomed among the plants and grasses, dotting it all with pinks, yellows, and whites. You’d never seen anything like this before. Not even at the zoo.

“Is this what all your grasslands look like, out in the wild?”

Sientia physically rumbled. You’d come to distinguish their vibrations and grunts from one another by now, and could see that they found your question funny.

“Some. I try to keep my crop happy.”

“Sooo.. where are all the gross bugs?” you asked, peeking over the side of their palm.

Sientia sat. “Here is one, in the grass.”

With their free hand they plucked the animal right out of hiding. It squeaked and stirred, squirming in surprise. It was much bigger than you, but still smaller than Sientia’s hand. You were used to seeing your master chomp down on these creatures, but they looked so much bigger when wriggling.

Sientia gently set the insect down into their other palm, so the two of you could meet up close. However, they kept a firm finger to the bug’s back, to keep it in place.

It’s stubby, fat antennae twitched and flickered, prickly legs struggling to pull itself out from the weight on its back. Eventually it was still.

“Go on. It’s safe. This is Henhil, you may tell from the markings against the back and legs. This one’s first clutch hatched a few days ago, so we shall not keep her long. You hear this, Henhil?”

Henhil’s mouth parts chewed idly.

“Wow,” you whispered, fascinated.

They really did just… look like giant over sized Earth arthropods. This type seemed like a cross between a fat beetle and a mantas. Her body was covered in a shiny black, and her wings, legs, and face were lined with silver. Two stripes of green cut through the silver on each of her eight legs. Bugs still freaked you out, but this was truly an amazing opportunity. What Earthling got to boast getting up close and personal with Permian era insects?

“She’s very pretty.”

Henhil started to wriggle again, her energy returning. You stumbled away, mindful of the mouth, as Sientia went ahead and plopped her back into place.

“On, then. Back to your children. Is this what you were expecting [Y/N?]”

You sat down, the heat exhausting you and making you sweat like a pig. “Well, it’s definitely something you’d like to do. I mean, raising bugs.”

“Then you think you would truly like to utilize such animals in a future competition?”

In the excitement you’d nearly forgotten the real reason Sientia was introducing the bugs to you at all. You’d been in two competitions now, and had won neither. Somehow, the concept of horseback riding continued to come up. Sientia was fascinated by the horse. There were no horses imported off planet, which was a shame. The next best thing where Sientia’s crop of livestock.

The insects were horse sized, give or take. Some had a body shape well off enough to accommodate a way of riding comfortably. Of course, they were being bred and raised to eat. Not ridden. But that didn’t mean that some of the younger one’s couldn’t be coaxed into allowing a human rider onto their backs. Henhil’s new clutch was likely a good place to start.

So, did you think you’d be able to get over your squeamishness and ride a big ol’ bug for the sake of winning? Absolutely. Winning wasn’t everything, but it would sure feel great to win. Or, if not win, to at least get second place. You know it would delight Sientia.

“I think I’d like to try. Maybe tomorrow, when you show me her mate, we can take a peek at the babies too?” you shuttered. “Are they like… grubs?”

The translator did not translate 'grub’ very well, but Sientia got the gist.

“Somewhat. Let’s go inside, you appear over exerted.”

Sientia brought you to their face and nestled you gently as you gave a smooch on their 'nose.’ Then, they stood and absconded from the sweltering greenhouse.

#terato #exophilia #aliens #size difference #writing

[scrambledgegs]

Too Late the Hero

    It was Harvey Dent who uttered the famous lines, “You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” A foreshadowing statement, as Dent later on personifies his very words when he goes on to become Two Face in the “The Dark Knight” Batman movies.

     This statement cannot be any truer, and we all can recount both real-life and fictional characters who easily represent this notion. The true-to-life “villains” we know of today may have actually started out as idealists, heroes, or savior-like archetypes that we used to looked up to – and looked past whatever side blemishes they also possessed in order to justify their actions. I think the best contemporary example of this – is the person whom Filipinos notoriously love to discuss nowadays – the person that needs no introduction, President Duterte.

About to Croak?

     President Duterte has recently been the talk of the town all the more when rumors circulated that he may have contracted COVID-19, while other rumors pointedly said that he was already on his deathbed. To augment such rumors, it was said that he may have allegedly even flown to Singapore to have himself checked. His office was quick to quash any such news by posting proof of life photos of the President, where he is seen to be eating a meal with the first family in Davao. Well, one thing we can all agree on however, is that he did not look his best. 

     The more significant and underlying message in this recent raucous is that, the general consensus on social media is that many had their fingers crossed for a new President. It looks like Duterte’s star power is quickly fading.

RUDY and RODY

   I was reminded of a conversation that a friend and I had around three weeks ago. During our usual, light political banter, I suddenly remembered how my parents used to compare President Duterte to American political icon, “Rudy” Giuliani. Quite serendipitously (and as though Netflix read my phone messages or possibly my mind), minutes later, I came across a new Netflix documentary entitled “Fear City: New York vs. The Mafia” where Giuliani is documented to have played a significant role in.

     This true crime documentary examines the rise and fall of organized crime in New York in the 1970s to early 1980s. It narrates the dark tale of how the Big Apple once transformed into the playground of underbelly operations of The Mafia – composed of the five major Italian-American crime families and their sophisticated network of ruthless henchmen. Law enforcers could not put a stop to their rings of crime, or even implicate them, and others that dared come close, found themselves or their loved ones in a rather, messy situation. These crime families of Italian descent were basically your true-to-life gangsters from which The Godfather Trilogy was based on.

 Batman, Robin and Commissioner Gordon in Gotham City

     Bringing down the Mob back then was a feat everyone thought impossible. Nevertheless, joint forces between the FBI and Giuliani (then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York; 1983 -1989), and his handpicked team of prosecutors were able to do so – and with much required grit and tenacity. Giuliani especially, was credited to be the single piece of rice that tipped the scale in this momentous moment in the history of criminal justice. After which, Giuliani’s political career began to skyrocket. Despite losing his first election in 1989, he eventually gets elected Mayor of New York in 1993, and then reelected in 1997 to hold the position until 2001.

    During his term as Mayor of New York, Giuliani’s most popular platform was his “toughness on crime.” Such that, the gentrification, revitalization and “clean-up” of New York and significant decrease in crime rates during those heyday years are largely attributed to him. His appointment of NYPD Chief of Police, Bill Bratton also proved effective, and is often the popular topic of business case studies today. Bratton did not resort to brute force alone. In fact, he was said to be data-driven, resourceful and efficient. His non-traditional, out-of-the-box thinking, many would agree, had indeed brought about real, lasting positive change in New York.

    Giuliani was also known for making popular what is known as the “perp walk”, wherein he would orchestrate public arrests, worthy of media frenzies and major headlines, of high-profile suspects, usually of white-collar crimes. The nature of these arrests garnered some criticism of course, but it was not enough then to tarnish his image and push him far away from the good graces of the American people, especially New Yorkers. He is also highly commended for his post-9/11 (2001) disaster responses and was even knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for these tremendous efforts. He was even named TIME magazine's Person of the Year in 2001.

 Fall from Grace   

    However, fast forward years later to now 2020, many of Giuliani’s constituents and longtime supporters who once held “America’s Mayor” of the highest esteem, often say that the Rudy Giuliani of the past is long gone. Embroiled in various controversies and investigations, not to mention issues that involve being President Trump’s current legal adviser, he has said to have become the very type of white-collar “perps” he used to round up and arrest. It is quite unfortunate, isn’t it, these kind of tragic hero to zero stories. Time is not on his side now, but who knows if there is still a chance for a comeback.

 Rudy Giuliani’s story sounds very familiar.

Rody

    Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in Davao, Philippines to be exact, during the same time that Rudy Giuliani was rising to fame, there lived and breathed another Mayor with a very similar tough guy image – Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte. An attorney as well, he also began his career in the prosecutor’s office.

Photo taken from The New York Times: Rodrigo Duterte posing with an Uzi submachine gun in 1994, when he was mayor of Davao City in the Philippines.

 Duterte Harry

    Duterte “made his bones” by allegedly taking crime into his own hands. Before assuming the Presidency, he was known as the gun-toting, smart-talkin’, fearless and tough Mayor who cleaned up Davao which back then, was supposedly a war-torn region due to the emergence of the New People’s Army (NPA) post Marcos-regime. People nodded in approval because he produced “quick” results.

    If Rudy Giuliani had his Chief of Police, Bill Bratton and the NYPD, Rody Duterte had a comparable squad as well. With the help of his elite unit of police enforcers, coined as the “Davao Death Squad” (DDS), they were able to arrest crime suspects, such as alleged (but non-convicted) drug dealers and petty thieves and parade them throughout the streets, for behold, all to know and see. This sounds like the Filipino version of a perp walk. In extreme cases, sometimes suspects were allegedly found dead in alleys or eskinitas, their bloody bodies mutilated.

     Yet, it could be said that quite a number of Davaoenos, as well as Filipinos beyond the Mindanao region, supported this kind of vigilante method because they felt safer, and they felt that finally, the wheels of justice were turning. To simplify this narrative by using a fictional analogy again, it is the same train of thought on why we have a great admiration for Batman and the like.

     Many believed this was what the Philippines truly needed - a “strongman” to discipline the country, which to be fair, is an idea that can understandably seem like the right and sound solution, given the Philippines’s web of problems. Not many are willing to further dissect, assess and accept what is truly needed to lead the Philippines. Duterte’s notoriety thus gained much popularity, and his savior persona spread like wildfire throughout the country, propelling him to the Presidential seat in 2016.

One-Trick Pony in a Small Pond

    Four years later, come 2020, and here we are, amidst a terrible pandemic with no signs of turning the tide in favor of a victory. I’ve heard one too many times, friends and colleagues say how they despise being a Filipino, and are looking for opportunities to leave and start a new life elsewhere immediately. I can’t say I blame them.

     The once highly respected and beloved Davao Mayor has become the Philippines’s Public enemy number one, for reasons we all know today such as, but not limited to:

Militaristic and shotgun approaches instead of “comprehensive, scientific and systematic policies” to mitigate the pandemic  (Read: Lives vs Livelihood Tradeoff?, August 5, 2020)

Lack of economic and fiscal planning and No transparency on stimulus packages and foreign loans (Read: A Perfect Storm, May 22, 2020)

Preferential treatment towards those in positions of power and unequal application of the law (Read: On lockdown and pushed over the edge, April 30, 2020)

Playing Russian Roulette on community quarantine implementations

Deflecting faults and shortcomings through the “Pasaway citizen” narrative

Demeaning local government leaders/efforts when they come up with their own local initiatives

Putting China’s interests ahead of the Philippines (Read: From Ugly Duckling to Black Swan, April 3, 2020)

And some of the more specific controversies that we can’t help but feel overwhelming emotions for:

Trial of Maria Ressa and his attack on free press and journalism

Shutdown of ABS-CBN which includes 11,000 employees to lose their jobs during a time like this

Inaction of recent PhilHealth scandal

  Perhaps si Mayor should have stayed as Mayor, or perhaps evolved to a different role beyond public service, instead of eyeing gargantuan tasks too big for him to handle. He may have been “effective” as Davao’s Mayor, but running a country is a whole different ballgame.

     It was in fact, the late Miriam Santiago, during the final 2016 Presidential debate held in Dagupan, Pangasinan (April 24, 2016) who pointed out, “We are not choosing a manager, administrator, etc. We are choosing the next President of the Philippines for the next 6 years.“ She even went on to enumerate three minimum criteria that a President must have in his or her arsenal in order to effectively lead, such as “1) Academic Excellence; 2) Professional Excellence, and 3) Moral Integrity” – all of which majority Filipinos flippantly shrugged off as useless qualities. I agreed with her which is why I voted for Mar Roxas. Maybe those who voted for Duterte regret this decision now, and hopefully see the wisdom behind Santiago’s statements.

     As I’ve said many times over, Duterte peddled a dream that the Philippines can only be great again with an “iron-fisted” leader, and sadly but quite expectedly, our misinformed voters ate it all up - hook, line and sinker. (Read: ORAS NA, April 26, 2016).

    I’d like to believe that Duterte perhaps started out as an idealist, with the genuine desire to carve out change where he thought he could. However, somewhere along the way, he lost himself and what he stood for when he let his ego get in the way. I think he himself now knows, but cannot admit to the public, that a one-trick pony has no business leading a highly complex, difficult and problematic country such as the Philippines.

More Analogies in 2020: The Year of the Rat led by the Pied Piper

    Other than Duterte, three other political personalities that will forever be remembered as the shameful faces of the COVID-19 situation in the Philippines are Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, Speaker of the House Allan Peter Cayetano and the ever-infamous, Department of Health Secretary Francisco Duque. I surmise history will not be so kind to them, and their roles and decisions in this crisis will continue to be told on, even when “this is all over.”

Infestation of Rats

    These three loyal lackeys of Duterte can be likened to the rats in the children’s fairy tale of the Pied Piper who is no less than Duterte. Roque, Cayetano and Duque seem like educated and smart people, leaving no other explanation for their horrible decisions, except that they have long sold their souls to Duterte, and are in too deep to back out now. They’ve let themselves fall under some kind of spell. A consolation in the story of the Pied Piper, is that the entranced rats follow the Pied Piper’s hypnotizing music to their eventual demise and drown at sea. The Pied Piper however, just leaves them there and walks on. Seems like a foreboding scenario, figuratively speaking.

      It would be best if the story ended there. However, we find that the Pied Piper, like our very own version, is a vengeful one, and will stop at nothing until he has accomplished a personal vendetta towards whomever crosses him. In our Pied Pier’s skewed view, he feels that his opponents have gravely wronged him, or have been incredibly ungrateful for all the “work” he has achieved. His next plan of action is to hit them where it hurts the most – by getting to the children or those “most vulnerable and without a voice”. Seizing the power of his position, he is able to demonize multitudes through his filthy words, terrorizing laws and drug wars. (Read: Dead Kids, February 20, 2020).

     In so many dark metaphors, in the dead of the night, while everyone cluelessly sleeps, the Pied Piper plays his hypnotizing song that “vulnerable communities” are uncontrollably drawn to, forced to follow, or fooled into blindly following, until they all disappear without a trace, possibly never to be found again.

Light at the end of a Long Tunnel    

    However, I think our Pied Piper may have made a costly miscalculation. He may have robbed the country blind and killed countless lives (directly and indirectly), while we ignorantly slept, but he has ignited a fire. He has seemed to awoken a sleeping giant – a sleeping giant, unified in anger against this administration and what it stands for. Is Change Coming?

[anthonymoosh-blog]

The Scramble for Africa.“A call for unity among African’s States”

Scramble for Africa:

The Scramble for Africa as a result of the Berlin Conference between 1884 to the early twentieth century was the worst disaster to have ever happened to Africa, and it was a crime against humanity. It began 1884 with the Berlin Conference and ended by the early twentieth century. Africa found itself being divided by non-Africans with imaginary borders, and Colonies. They partitioned Africa's with limited knowledge about Africa's history, culture, ethnic, language and traditional leadership leaving us with almost no past. They designed regional maps without providing any notification to traditional African rulers. This deprived African borderland communities of lucrative opportunities by hindering their movements, and forcing them to live differently than their customary life. A change is possible, we no longer live in the eighteen or nineteen centuries, it is now! A more peaceful and robust change is possible and very necessary, I remained optimistic.

Colonial Borders in Africa:

Post-independence government continued colonial practices and use of these artificial borders which were designed by the colonialists as political instruments and have increased instability and underdevelopment for borderland communities across the continent. Africans stop moving freely in their everyday activities, and nomadic practices, which inflicted economic hardship and social inconvenience. Changing the lifestyle and structural systems of African communities negatively affected African lives, administrative structures, social cohesion and economic well-being.

Traditional leadership:

The institution of traditional leadership in Africa pre-existed during colonial time and was the only known system of governance among indigenous people. However, after independence many African countries developed antagonistic relationships between traditional leaders and society. They further removed the chief’s rights; allowing them only the arbitration of domestic disputes and to sit on village development committees claiming that they lack the power to organize society.

The chiefs’ environmental authority was not recognized, and the chiefs could no longer function as custodians of the land, especially as custodians of customs, culture and values. They could neither allocate it nor protect it from any form of degradation. Several strategies were used to removed chiefs, and the aim was to destroy traditional leadership, and to bring in western democracy, and forgetting our own understanding of democracy (ruler ship) which was unique in its own ways, and nowadays refer to as “consensus”, All of this was possible simply, because we decided to continue the use of these improper borders in order for western democracy to function properly. This affected the traditional African governance structure.

There is a need for traditional authorities to be recognized through African Constitutions., We need to give back power to traditional leaders to restore dignity and role in society.

Traditional/indigenous leadership is still relevant as a trusted institution for governance by the majority of Africans. They still play an integral role in the governance system on the continent and as such they should not be silence. There is still hope for Africa to change the narrative.

Divide and rule:

Besides artificial deliberate borders, European colonial powers employed “divide and rule,” “direct rule,” and “assimilation” policies, which forced the loss of social norms, identity, and social order for Africans. For instance, it took 30 years to settle the boundary between Congo and Uganda. Yet they are all African (same people), but with different nationalities and have developed hostility through resource competition, which often led to traditional Africans breaking away from their original tribes to form new communities. This problem is still prevalent with almost no intervention from political leaders on the continent. We have contemplated what damage the status quo has done and is still doing — it is time to start to think about an alternative, because the sustenance of democracy is the responsibility of every citizen through its traditional values system.

Why should Africa unite?

Kwame Nkrumah a long time ago thought ‘Africa ought to marry or perish!’ Without honest African unity, our continent will continue at the mercy of imperialist authority and exploitation. In February 2009, upon the individual nominated chairman of the 53-nation African Union in Ethiopia, Gaddafi told the assembled African leaders: “I shall continue to insist that our sovereign countries work to achieve the United States of Africa”. The African Union, by contrast, has fixed itself the errand of edifice, a “united and integrated” Africa by 2025. Africa has a great potential good number of Africa’s resources remain unexploited.

As we navigate these stormy times as a continent permit me to give profound reasons why Africa's obligation to marry is urgent and necessary.

Africa’s Wealth:

Africa is enormously wealthy! When people say Africa is rich they are not talking about physical cash. In fact, Africans have the wealthiest land mass on the earth. This wealth can be found in its gigantic mineral resources and in its titanic agricultural potential. Africa’s limestone wealth includes a broad form and giant measurements of assets that are life-threatening to the expert and industrialized enhancement of humanity, e.g., gold, platinum, diamonds, manganese, cobalt, chromite, coal, radium, iron ores, chromium, copper, lead, zinc, tin, titanium, antimony, tantalum, germanium, lithium, phosphates, bauxite, uranium, petroleum, and natural gas. Parallel records may well be provided on the subject of Africa’s agricultural potential, which remains largely untapped. According to a research done by the All African People’s Revolutionary “There is an estimated 632 million hectares of arable land in Africa, only 179 million hectares are actually cultivated, less than 30% of its arable land. In fact, this arable land is in just four countries (the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and the two Sudan's), where nearly 40% of this uncultivated land is located”, there is enough agriculturally-rich land to feed Africa’s 1 billion inhabitants numerous epochs over. However, with the colonialist imaginary borders and partition of the continent this wealth is unevenly distributed, and Africans can only benefit from this wealth when it is developed and shared on a continental basis.

Common currency:

African states have been unable to achieve a stable single currency, and low inflation rates, but a Common Currency One of the best ways to integrate Africa’s economy, enhance inter-African trade, and gain control in setting the prices of African exports is through the use of a common currency. A collective African currency will eliminate the transaction outlay customers fee at what time trades a sundry currency other than their own, exceptionally for folks intricate in inter-African trade. Secondly, the prices of goods and services will be more transparent, and thus more comparable, when there is a common currency. Thirdly, the African familiar currency will turn into an intercontinental currency of privileged importance that billions of people, inside and outside of Africa, will have to acquire to purchase anything made and sold anywhere in Africa.

This would enable Us solve the trade deficit (Balance of Payment) that exists between Africa and other continents. It will definitely lead to the common currency appreciation against USD, Euros, Pounds etc. The far-off funded conflicts in South Sudan, Central Africa Republic, DRC Congo amongst others cannot happen, and Senegal will cease Paying imposing taxes to France. Common currency will grant easy access to loans with lower interest rates and will lead to low public debt.

Free trade:

Single continental market for merchandise and services, with free movement of business professionals and investments, accelerating the institution of the Continental Customs Union, and the African customs union. Free trade will increase intra-African trade through superior management and coordination of trade liberalization and facilitation across Africa. Enhances competitiveness at the productiveness and endeavor horizontally by exploiting opportunities for ascend production, continental market access, and better reallocation of resources.

According to a research paper published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in February 2018, Continental Free Trade Agreement eliminating all tariffs could generate welfare gains of USD 16.1 billion, at the expenditure of USD 4.1 billion in trade revenue losses (representing 9.1% of contemporary levy revenues).GDP and employment are likely to cultivate by 0.97% and 1.17% respectively. Intra-African trade advance is estimated at 33% and the continent’s trade dearth is estimated to crash by 50.9%. The aims are to boost intra-African trade by making Africa a single market of 1.2 billion people.

Agriculture:

The need for Africa to diversify its economy from commodities alone has been mentioned constantly by many economic commentators. The agriculture sector is tremendously important to Africa's economies, but over the years has been the most neglected sector in Africa's. A study from 2016, shows that the agricultural sector employed about 65% of the continent’s labor force, and 75% of its domestic trade. After all, only one country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has the agricultural potential to feed the entire continent. How, then, Africans are starving when only one of Africa’s micro-states is capable of feeding the whole continent?

There is absolutely no reason for the people of Africa to be going hungry anywhere on the continent with these arable lands,favorable climate and huge water bodies located throughout the continent. Agriculture will also lead to the creation of a more viable African marketplace for food. There is a need to boost agricultural productivity to attain sustainable manufacturing agribusiness growth as an agency of wealth and task creation. The agricultural potential of our great continent can only be realized when we plan continentally, and this can only be done by a unified Africa.

No independent African State today by itself has a chance to follow an independent course of economic development. This position will not change unless we have a unified policy working at the continental level. The major problems facing Africa do not affect various states separately, nor can they be solved separately. Our unity is their disaster, but we must each and every African fasten on the utter dream “we must unite".

Reference

Improper Design and its Impact on African Borderland Communities

https://africaupclose.wilsoncenter.org/colonial-borders-in-africa-improper-design-and-its-impact-on-african-borderland-communities/

https://aaprp-intl.org/10-reasons-why-africa-must-unite/

Prinston anthony sieh moosh Nimene Is a master candidate at cavendish University Uganda studying international relation and diplomatic studies.

[chooserofslain]

*: ·ﾟ✧ ⚔ 𝙸'𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙰 𝙻𝙾𝚃 𝙾𝙵 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙶𝙴𝚂 𝙰𝚁𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙳 𝙷𝙴𝚁𝙴 / The Governance of New Asgard 

I have been meaning to write this out since ‘ Endgame ’ came out & these are some general thoughts / headcanons about how Valkyrie decides to rule New Asgard. These headcanons are pretty flexible & will probably change over time -- & I will make an update when / if they do. & of course we’ll see what happens when Thor : Love & Thunder comes out because ... FINGERS CROSSED we get all the details about how New Asgard is governed & I will be totally validated in all ways! 

If you are curious about anything please drop me an ask !

1. Once Thor leaves to join with the Guardian’s, Valkyrie calls a town meeting - if not right at that moment very early the next morning. She makes the announcement to all of Asgard & -- while she wants to respect Thor’s choice & it is his crown to give ... she does all her people the chance to VOTE on this change. It is a resounding ‘ yes ’ -- but in the name of transparency, the Valkyrie vows to have another vote in nine months time to check in on her leadership. If they believe someone else is more worthy -- she will turn over the honor. 

2. In the same meeting, the new King of Asgard asks that the people elect a Ruling Council, of FIVE members from the community. Two should be elders, one should be of middle age & the final member a young Asgardian, so all views are represented. The elections happen approximately three weeks later & citizens may elect themselves or someone else. Anyone over the Asgardian age of 18 can vote using a write in ballot system. Elections continue until a consensus is made which in its first iteration - does not take any more than a day. Votes are counted by a trusted panel of three elders. The new Ruling Council will meet with the King every three days ( or more if necessary ) for a meeting, on that same day there is OPEN COURT - where citizens of New Asgard might bring problems, concerns or questions to the King & council. The Council also rules for nine months & then there is a vote of confidence. Members can remain on the council for terms no longer than three years & may run again after three years have passed since their last tenure. 

3. After the initial nine month trial period, the King may rule for three continuous years before there is another vote of confidence. Unless there is an emergency or scandal, where the King may be disposed. The Ruling Council must be put up for a vote of confidence every year and a half, if no one wishes to oppose the current members a vote can be skipped. 

4. There is no coronation for the King of New Asgard, instead after the second & final vote after the initial nine months there is a FEAST that lasts three days. & while she resists the idea, at the end of the three days, the people do present the King with a crown, made of melted down gold trinkets & jewelry salvaged from what was left of Asgard’s ore. It is a simple circlet with a piece of the root of Yggdrasil that once sat in Asgard in its center instead of a stone. The King wears this only on sacred days or when a vote is called -- or on another special occasion. 

5. On days of Open Court, the King & Council meet openly in the temple, under the newly planted World Tree. A simple carved chair sits under this tree, where the King sits to hear the concerns or complaints of her people. It is without ornament but instead carved with sacred runes & patterns. When considering a case brought before her, the King often relies on her council to help with the final judgement. FAIRNESS is valued above all else in New Asgard & if claimant feels a decision is unfair they may appeal the decision. 

6. The King of New Asgard does not enjoy many perks -- & this is PURPOSEFUL. There is no palace ( she lives in a simply renovated cabin a top a hill, that is not much different than those of her people. The only difference is that her cabin does include a separate room which she uses as an office & armory ) & she works on a rotation of tasks ( fishing, cleaning, building repair, training & farming ) just like any other citizen of New Asgard. The only difference being - she does skip days to attend council meetings & open court, along with any travel she may need to take into the wider world. But often still haul in fishing nets or help till a field even with these other duties. 

7. While New Asgard is open to ALL, currently -- voting & other privileges is currently restricted to only Asgardian refugees or - ( although this has yet to happen ) if a Midgardian or other is married to a naturalized Asgardian. Once they have been married, the non-Asgardian might then participate in the same way. If anyone wishes to live in the village they must ask leave of the King & Council to be given a living space, if permission is granted they will also get a food & beer ration, clothing & a work rotation. Eventually citizens of New Asgard will have specific citizenship but - that needs to be further figured out with the country of Norway, who will have to gift the land to the Asgardians.

#「 ᴏᴜᴛ ᴏғ ᴠᴀʟʜᴀʟʟᴀ ⚔ ooc 」 #( Headcanon. ) #「 Fᴏʀ ᴘᴇᴀᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʀᴜsᴛ ᴄᴀɴ ᴡɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʏ ⚔ king of new asgard / post endgame /mcu based 」 #( omg i have so many thoughts ) #( im two seconds away from drawing out a map of new asgard whoOPs ) #( i probably will once i can see it from the scenes in endgame .... so ) #( DON'T JUDGE ME I LOV THIS AND MY TRASH KING A LOT OK ) #( yes yes i have been thinking about this for thREE MONTHS ITS FINE ) #( feels good to have written it out ! )

[canadahomeowners]

Orkin vs Terminix

When you think of pest control companies, Orkin and Terminix are two of the biggest names in the industry. Over the years, these comprehensive pest control companies have built their brand and expanded their knowledge and catalogues of pests covered. They are each solid options for pest control, whether you’re dealing with common household pests, or trickier insects like termites and bed bugs. But which company is the right choice for you? Ultimately, we recommend both Orkin and Terminix, each for their own reasons. Orkin is a thorough company that offers the most customer resources and information, while Terminix has the best customer service. Read on to find out how each compares and see which one is the right fit for your needs. If you’d like to receive a free quote from Orkin, call 877-871-4573, or fill out a simple form. If Terminix is the way you want to go, call 866-458-5559, or at this form.

Orkin vs Terminix Overview

Orkin and Terminix each have extensive histories in the pest control industry. Orkin has been in the business for over 100 years. Its pest control specialists have to undergo a rigorous, 160-hour targeted training program, and they serve over 1.7 million residential and commercial customers. Orkin is incredibly transparent about its services online, breaking down the steps and even noting specific products and treatments. Orkin stands out for its huge array of online resources, in keeping with its commitment to give suggestions and recommendations to its customers. Online, customers can find a thorough pest library, bug bite photo gallery, and many links to blog pages they’ve written about specific pests. Terminix has over 90 years of experience, and was the first company to ever obtain a termite control patent. Its pest specialists include graduate-level entomologists and certified members of the Entomological Society of America. Terminix serves over 1 million more customers than Orkin, with a total of 2.8 million residential and commercial customers. Terminix rises above the rest in terms of customer service. Unlike its top competitors, Terminix offers an online chat function. Customers can communicate with Terminix representatives in real time, asking questions and receiving immediate answers. We chatted with Terminix several times and found the representatives to be prompt, informative, and not pushy about sales. Below, you can find a table that compares Orkin and Terminix on key metrics: Terminix vs Orkin Comparison Provider Terminix Orkin Provider Terminix Orkin Our Overall Score out of 100 92 94 Superlative Best Customer Service Most Customer Resources States Available 47 47 Annual Cost for General Pest Control $550-$700 $790-$980 BBB Rating* A- N/A Online chat Yes No Website Terminix.com Orkin.com Phone number 866-458-5559 877-871-4573 *N/A signals inconsistent accreditations and ratings

Orkin vs Terminix Plans

Orkin and Terminix each offer general pest control, as well as termite control and bed bug removal. Each company also offers other specific plans for mosquitoes and ticks. General pest control—pests covered There is a lot of overlap over the common household pests that Orkin and Terminix protect against in their general pest control plans. The companies identify these particular pests online and over the phone, but note that some others may be included. Orkin Moths Crickets Fleas Hornets Scorpions Ants Silverfish Roaches Mice Spiders Centipedes Earwigs Terminix Clothes moths Rodents Roaches Scorpions House ants Silverfish Mice Spiders (non-poisonous) Centipedes Earwigs House crickets Millipedes Paper wasps For both pest control companies, the treatment plan starts with an initial visit and inspection, and is followed up by incremental scheduled visits, either bi-monthly or quarterly, depending on the plan and company. Different plan breakdowns are offered in different locations. Both Orkin and Terminix offer guarantees. The Orkin 30-Day Money Back Guarantee and Terminix 100% Satisfaction Guarantee both ensure that a technician will return to your home at no extra cost if you pests return between scheduled appointments, and they will refund your last payment, so long as you stay a customer. Termite control Orkin and Terminix each offer comprehensive, targeted termite treatment plans. Orkin Orkin follows a three-step A.I.M. process, or Assess, Implement, and Monitor. This process involves an initial, extensive inspection of your woodwork with state-of-the-art equipment like IR thermometers, followed by a treatment recommendation and custom-tailored plan. After the needed treatments, Orkin will create a Continuous Protection Plan to prevent future infestations. To combat termites, Orkin uses Termidor liquid treatments, dry foam and Orkinfoam, and sentricon bait and monitoring. If termites return, the Re-Treatment Program guarantees Orkin will eliminate them at no extra cost. Terminix Terminix also breaks down its termite tackling process into a trio of teps. First, Terminix conducts a thorough inspection of your interior and exterior, paying close attention to potential access points. Your technician will then develop a customized treatment or protection plan, then conduct annual reviews. Terminix’s termite methods include its own proprietary OnGuard Protection System bait stations and various liquid solutions. For qualifying homes, Terminix offers the Ultimate Protection Guarantee, ensuring you never have to pay for treatments or repairs from new termite damage, as long as you keep your plan. Bed bug removal Orkin and Terminix both offer targeted bed bug removal options. Here’s how they stack up. Orkin As with its termite program, Orkin utilizes its A.I.M. approach for bed bugs, subbing beds, furniture, rugs, and linens for woodwork. After your treatment, Orkin will come back for follow-up visits to make sure that bed bugs won’t return. Terminix For bed bug removal, Terminix starts with an extensive inspection before removing visible bed bugs and eradicating hidden ones and any eggs before they hatch, using a variety of methods, including its non-toxic RapidFreeze solution. Terminix’s Bed Bug Guarantee means that if you find bed bugs within the treated area within 30 days, Terminix will return for additional, free treatments until the matter is resolved. If you buy a mattress encasement for all mattresses and box springs in your house, the guarantee will be extended to 90 days. Mosquito service Depending on where you live, mosquito services can be extremely useful. Orkin Orkin protects against Zika, Chikungunya, and West Nile by implementing several treatments to interrupt the mosquitoes’ life cycle in either monthly or one-time applications. These applications include microbial insecticides, traditional insecticides, and insect growth regulators. Terminix Terminix follows an Inspect, Kill, Protect, and Maintain protocol through monthly applications of a targeted treatment. This treatment has a key active ingredient with a special polymer layer that keeps it from washing away due to weather and lawn watering, allowing for weeks-long protection. Tick Control Ticks can turn your yard into a nightmare. Luckily, Orkin and Terminix have a solution. Orkin Orkin offers its A.I.M. process, inspecting ideal tick hang-outs like tall grass and heavily wooded areas before creating a treatment plan and performing follow-up visits. Terminix Terminix follows an Inspect, Prevent, Treat, and Maintain protocol, including a monthly service. After a thorough inspection of your yard, Terminix makes recommendations to make your yard less appealing to ticks and applies liquid and granular treatments to create a barrier.

Locations

Orkin and Terminix are both available in 47 states. Orkin is available everywhere except for Alaska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Terminix does not service Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Alaska.

Cost

It’s hard to estimate the exact cost comparison, because what you’ll pay ultimately depends on the type of pest you’re dealing with, the degree of infestation, the size and location of your home, and how many individual treatments you will need. In order to get the most accurate quote, Orkin and Terminix will need to perform an inspection of your home. Orkin’s general pest control cost for a 2,000-square-foot home would range from $790-$980. Terminix’s general pest control plan for a home of the same size would range from $550-$700.

Customer Reviews

Orkin and Terminix both have mixed reviews online. Each has multiple pages with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for different branch locations. Orkin’s BBB ratings vary from page to page, while Terminix’s pages hold a consensus of A-. While Orkin has some inconsistencies, its owner Rollins’ headquarters page is BBB-accredited with an A rating. Its reviews are mixed. Christopher W. said: “Shreveport Louisiana Office Inspector Damien M******* came out at my request to perform a termite inspection. Mr. M******* was very professional. He completed a thorough inspection of my home. After the inspection, Damien presented me with a diagram of my home and termite prevention options. I elected to go with the baiting system. On the day of installation, I met with Damien and Josh. Josh performed the baiting system and was very knowledgeable and did an excellent job. Kudos to the Orkin Shreveport office!! The Termite Team is jam up and jelly tight!!!” Elmer H. said: “I had them come out to do an initial rat termination service for me, and before they performed the service they had me sign a contract for a one-year service agreement without providing me with detailed information about the one-year plan. They told me my initial service would entail at least four follow ups without a charge. However, when I later cancelled my year service contract within the 72 hour ( Washington State law gives a consumer the right to cancel a contract within 72 hours) period allowed by law; I received a call from Orkin inquiring why I canceled, and I told them why. I was informed by Orkin that I would still receive 2 free follow up visits as part of Orkin initial service. Orkin then scheduled an appointment for me and did not keep the appointment at the appointed time. I called them the next day to find out and they told me since I cancelled my service I was getting my promised free followup as promised.” Terminix’s headquarters page shares the A- rating and has mixed reviews, as well. Lisa F. said: “Terminix is a company you can depend on for quality service, professional employees, and great products that really work to kill pests around your home. I highly recommend them to anyone who needs pest control. Our technician, Ronald***** R****, has been amazing! Very courteous, informative, always explains what is being done. I was concerned about having treatment with our animals but he assured me that it is not going to hurt them. I have never been told that with any other company and it actually is true. We had an ant issue that was not on our scheduled service month and Ronald **** R**** came out as soon as possible. He was not only able to get rid of the ants but keep them away. I will always use Terminix because of the kindness and respect I receive from my technician, The service is affordable and it works!” Eric B. said: “Terminix customer service is nonexistent. I had an appointment for termite inspection on 3/16/2020, and when nobody showed up I called the service center and was rescheduled for 3/17/2020 between 8 and 10 am. Again nobody showed up so I called again and asked for a supervisor and was told there were no supervisors at that location, they would take my information and I will get a call in the next 48 hours. (Really) I guess that Terminix thinks it’s no problem for people to miss work two days in a row just waiting to see if they may show up if they feel like coming. They cant even make a phone call to let the customer know they will not be coming. With no supervisor at the call center I guess that they just don;t care about customer service.”

Orkin vs Terminix Verdict

As you can see, each company offers comprehensive services, nearly a century or over a century of experience, and money-back, satisfaction guarantees. Their general pest control plans and approach to pests like termites, bed bugs, mosquitoes, and ticks, appear similar. In terms of differences, from our sample quotes, we do find that Terminix skews cheaper, has more consistent ratings, more customers, and offers a very efficient online chat function. Orkin, on the other hand, has more experience, more nationwide availability, and a greater number of customer resources. If you’d like to get a quote from Orkin, call 877-871-4573, or fill out a simple form. If it’s Terminix that’s piqued your interest, you can reach the company at 866-458-5559, or at this form. Read the full article