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halfwaythereroyal · 4 years

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Gorgeous (Poe Dameron x Reader) - Kilig

Pairing: Poe Dameron x F! Reader

Warnings: This can be read alone or as part of the Kilig series. Cursing. No other warnings I can think of unless your secondhand embarrassment is really bad.

Word count: 1,453 words

***I changed the POV in Part 2 to be first person because I love writing the thoughts that run through your head when you have a crush

*Y/F/I - your first initial

👑 All my writing will be posted to my side writing blog from now on! 👑

Kilig is a Tagalog word to describe the feeling of excitement and exhilaration and possibly embarrassment from anything remotely romantic.

Part 1 + Part 3 + Part 4 + Masterlist

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“Is he looking? Is he looking? Can you see him? Tell me. No don’t look too fast!” I chided my friend who whipped their head around to look at Poe Dameron in the most obvious way.

“You wanted to know if he was looking!” my friend whispered to me.

“Yeah but you can’t be too obvious. You gotta be real subtle. Look at the whole room before looking at him,” I said before I looked down at my notes to appear busy.

“Oh he’s looking!” my friend squealed excitedly. They started tugging on my sleeve. I swatted their hand away.

“Sshh! He’s gonna hear you! He’s totally gonna know we’re looking.” I harshly whispered.

We were gathered in the command center with the squadron leaders, waiting for the end of debriefs. Since the incident where I accidentally assaulted his nose, Poe and I haven’t talked to each other. Not necessarily for lack of effort on his part. I’ve definitely seen him. From a distance. How could I miss that head of hair and jawline? That perfect fucking hair of his.

Every time he spotted me from a distance, he would shout my name and start walking towards me. Every time I spotted him from a distance, I would quickly duck and go to any room, hallway, closet, anywhere to avoid conversation. I couldn’t say anything to his face.

Because look at his face!

That is why I ended up here now, at a briefing, avoiding his gaze knowing damn well he’s looking at me. I can feel the heat creep up my cheek because I can feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of my face. I kept my eyes trained pointedly on the papers in front of me. My leg was shaking up and down with impatience for this briefing to finally end. My notes’ legibility have long disappeared and doodles took its place. My friend took notice of my impatience and pointed focus on my doodles. They slipped their hand onto my paper and cheekily wrote “P + Y/F/I” onto the margin of the page and drew a large heart around the initials. They started giggling, and I smacked their hand away.

“You can’t avoid him forever you know,” they whispered. “This base is not that big.”

“What do I even say?” I questioned.

“Hey Poe! I’ve dreamt of kissing you ever since I made your nose bleed. Care to make that happen?” they answered, wiggling their eyebrows suggestively.

“You little…” I moved to shove them with my shoulder when General Organa spoke up.

“Y/N, do you have anything to add?” General Organa asked. I cowered in her slightly chiding stare.

“No, General.” I answered. There it is again. The heat that creeps up on my cheeks when he looks at me.

“Nothing else? Okay everyone. Good meeting. Dismissed.” General Organa turned around to speak with someone, and the room sprang into life once more. I looked across me and latched on to Poe’s eyes. I gave a closed-mouthed smile, gathered my pages of notes, and turned to my friend, slightly widening my eyes to subtly indicate they needed to get out of the way of my escape route. I already had it planned. I was currently situated on the further side of the room in relation to the door. I was going to say a quick goodbye to my friend then make a beeline to the exit, keeping my head down, and not look at anyone else. Then it’s off to the mess hall for lunch.

My friend grinned and bumped their shoulder with mine before stepping out of my way. I walked through the throng of Resistance officers to get to the door, making sure my pace was not too fast to be so obvious.

“Y/N wait!” Poe called out. His voice was unmistakable even with the buzz of chatter surrounding us. The doors hissed open to my worst enemy: crowded hallways. Why was there always a crowd when I was trying to run away from the best pilot of The Resistance? I kept my gaze forward as if I didn’t hear him. I hastily squeezed down the hallway. “Y/N!” Poe called out again. My head twisted side-to-side before making the decision to turn left down a less crowded hallway, with only a few people scattered about. I was speed-walking through when a very well-known droid skidded to a stop at the end of the hallway: BB-8. I abruptly stopped in my haste, and the two of us stared each other down for a moment before I continued on my fast-paced quest to the mess hall, remembering the reason why I was running away in the first place. BB-8 immediately barreled towards me at the first sign of my movement, with loud, alarming beeps causing people to throw themselves against the wall to avoid the droid’s war path. The droid stopped at my feet and happily chirped in greeting.

“Hi to you too, BB-8! I’m really hungry so gotta go. See ya!” I attempted to side-step the droid who merely turned its head and rolled sideways, blocking my feet. I stepped to the other side to get around, and BB-8 mirrored my movements and blocked my path once more. “BB-8, I’m serious. I have to go.” BB-8 beeped in response, trying to carry a casual conversation. We continued a dance consisting of me side-stepping the droid, and it blocking my path while happily beeping away. I even tried faking a side-step to psych the droid out, but BB-8, a droid, had faster reflexes than me. “BB-8 come on!” I groaned. I turned around to look for an alternative route and smashed straight into someone’s hard chest. My notes slid down to the floor, and the person I crashed into held my arms to keep both our balance. I looked up.

Poe Dameron.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Poe grinned. Damn that smile of his. “Allow me.” He bent down to gather my notes while I stared dumbfounded at the back of his head. Poe stood back up to his full height, a few inches taller than my slight stature. He gave me his signature charming smile and held the notes out to me which I attempted to grab, but he moved the notes out of my reach with an inward flick of his wrist.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Poe asked.

“I am not avoiding you!” I scoffed.

“So you casually run whenever you make eye contact with me?”

“I just need to get to places quickly. Gotta make the most of my time.”

“Right. And it’s not because of how you and I totally have a thing right now?” Poe bit his lip as the corners of his lips lifted up in a smirk. BB-8 chirped in agreement behind me.

“This,” I waved a finger between the two of us, “is not a ‘thing.’” I drew air quotes. “I need my notes, please.” I stuck my hand out for him to give me the array of pages.

“Have lunch with me.”

“What?”

“Have lunch with me. I heard that they have meilooruns at the mess hall today.”

“I’m not hungry.” BB-8 beeped behind me in disagreement, telling his human that I just told it differently when I was trying to run away.

“See, BB-8 says you said you were hungry. If this isn’t a ‘thing,’” Poe mimicked my earlier air quotes, “then you and I are just friends grabbing lunch. Come on. I’ll give you your notes back.” I tilted my head to the side and raised an eyebrow in question. Is he serious?

“Fine, but this is just friends grabbing lunch,” I finally agreed. “And this is mostly because I feel bad for making your nose bleed the first time we met.”

“You’ve got that effect on me, Y/N.” Poe smirked.

“Just friends,” I reminded him. I stuck out my hands once more. “My notes, please.”

He handed me my notes, but not before looking down at the margin of the top page, where my friend had not-so-subtly doodled Poe’s and my initials added together, enclosed in an obnoxiously large heart.

“P+Y/F/I?” Poe grinned brightly while raising his eyebrow in the most suggestive manner. My eyes widened, and my cheeks burnt in embarrassment. BB-8 beeped in a tone that matched his human’s. I snatched the papers out of his hand and clutched them to my chest, as if he hadn’t already seen the damning heart.

“So…lunch?” I asked him.

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Part 1 + Part 3 + Part 4 + Masterlist

A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews and notes on my writing! I’m planning on making a “Kilig” series for several characters in the future like Cassian Andor, The Mandalorian, Javier Peña, etc. Let me know if you have any prompts, would like to see any characters in the Kilig series, or would like to be added to a taglist!

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angrycowboy · 4 years

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Okay, time for coffee and rewatch!

I did a rewatch last night after watching it live and flailed at @haloud, because this episode was everything I wanted for the premiere and getting the show back. It made me hurt and it made me happy and it made me excited for all the things to come.

After I’m done with this, it’s off to find a decent download and start giffing!

- I love the little Echo flashback. I mean, I think it’s interesting to include Max mentioning the Alighting and the whole “savior” thing. Though, I wonder if it’s going to come into play more than just the mentions in this episode that allowed Liz to connect the dots about Max. But I am heart eyes at this cute Echo moment.

- Liz’s “you smell like rain” comment is also interesting. I am just gonna sit here and think about Maria’s comment about Michael smelling like a river now and what is up with these aliens.

-Jeez, Liz and Rosa. Oh my god, Rosa. And Liz, with tears on her face, needing to switch into crisis mode.

- Graffitti! Omg Rosa’s artwork. “We don’t believe in humans” Omg I love it.

-This is an Arturo Ortecho appreciation blog. He’s adorable being so proud of Liz. I just smile at this scene so hard. It’s perfect.

- “I reject good-bye” I love Maria DeLuca, y’all.

- So in my happy place headcanon, Michael did just get some sort of flash about Max’s death, left the Pony, and basically has been avoiding Maria ever since. Simplest explanation and I can live with it.

- BUT as always, my biggest gripe with the show, it’s been two weeks and no one has talked to one another. Though I kinda understand Liz avoiding everyone while she’s trying to deal with Rosa.

-”Came to vent about Michael Guerin ghosting me” Yeah, I mean, I’m glad that the show established this right off the bat. Especially after this fucking hellatus this fandom decided to go through in regards to Miluca. I’m actually happy about this. But see ya’ll? Fucking overreaction central.

- “And now just one more Roswell good time before I hit the road.” The delivery on this, and the look on Liz’s face. Fuck, Jeanine just nailed every scene in this episode.

- Michael Guerin, Resident PigPen and Disaster Bi, stumbling int the church and shoving his way into a filled pew. Oh, Michael, you are a mess and I love you so much.

- Oh, Isobel. Also, I love the overacting in the beginning when Isobel is trying to talk about Noah vs how she changes when she starts speaking about Max instead. I love that use of Noah’s funeral to publicly mourn Max. It’s so good.

- Fuck, this flashback to the cave. To Isobel seeing Max dead. OUCH.

- Oh my god, the staple of every funeral and wake - people bringing way too much food and it’s all the same fucking thing. ISOBEL GIRL, I FEEL YOU.

- “Mrs. Evans! That’s a phenomenal cape.” Listen y’all, have I mentioned how much I love this sad disaster alien cowboy? Cuz I do. A lot. He is a MESS.

- I really love this shot of Alex watching Michael at the wake. Just that little bit of concern - it’s so Alex and I love him so much. And I operate under the “if Alex knows, Kyle knows” and vice versa, which means that Alex isn’t watching Michael like this because he knows Michael is spiraling because of Caulfield and Max, he thinks Michael is only spiraling because of Caulfield.

- Kyle being all practical and realistic about dealing with Jesse, and Alex is just like YOLO LET HIM DIE. Like I kinda love how Alex just kinda doesn’t want to deal with Jesse.

- “I’m not a murderer.” “No, you’re not. But he is.” Also, are we gonna talk about Alex’s little eyebrow raise and the look in his eyes, and how he’s still possibily talking about himself? Cuz, oh my god. I have feelings. Alex Manes, you stubborn bastard, I love you so much. (cc: @ober-affen-geil)

- “Seemed like a kiss at least worthy of a text back.” Oh Maria, my darling. You keep holding onto the hope you have for him, because girl, you are gonna need it with this massive spiral of his.

- “Regulars shouldn’t drink alone when they’re grieving.” Oof. The fact that Maria thinks Michael is acting like this because of Noah is dead kinda yikes, and really just makes me desperately want her in on everything else that is going on, because it just makes it so obvious how little she knows. But I also like that line because he comforted her in 1x07, no questions asked, and in a way she’s doing the same back for him. She’s telling him she’s there if he needs someone.

- SHERIFF VALENTI WITH HER HAIR DOWN. I LOVE IT.

- Also her and Ann. “Graffiti is an early indicator of gang violence.” Ann Evans is the epitome of suburban white mom. I love Michelle Valenti just nodding along, like yeah, I’ll get right on that and not looking into this suspicious shit surrounding your son and your son-in-law.

- Lol @ this little public display of anger between Liz and Isobel.

- Oh shit, the fact that Liz hasn’t told Rosa about the cover-up is interesting, because that means that’s definitely coming. And oh my god, I cannot wait.

- ALSO I CANNOT BELIEVE WE WERE ROBBED OF THIS HUG.

- “a glowing ooze filled egg coffin from outer space” Listen, if that’s not the most accurate outsider description of the pods ever. (Also creepy Noah scenes are creepy.)

- Liz talking about burying Max, y’all that shit HURTS. Like, obviously we know that isn’t gonna happen but the fact that Liz and Rosa are sitting talking about it as a finite ending in that moment is just... OUCH.

- “...where’s my hole t-shirt?” um... as of 1x04 it was in the backpack that Fredrico returned! What’cha doing with it, Liz?

- God, Liz and Rosa is just so perfect. “I never thought we’d get to have this stupid fight again.” I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

- Isobel, darling. What are those pajamas. They’re wild.

- “I meant to call - I heard you and Evans broke up” So that does establish that Kyle was too preoccupied dealing with Jesse, and Liz has been singularly focused on Rosa that they haven’t talked in the two weeks. Cool cool cool.

- “Lemme guess? Alien thing?” Kyle is so tired of this shit.

- Omg Maria beating people at pool. I love it. I love her. More of that please! Also this outfit she wears is super cute. FIGHT ME.

- Mimi and more alien movie references!

- “It’s been ten years since [Rosa] died.” “Not always.” I love love love the roundabout ways Mimi is telling the truth about the things she knows. When you don’t have all the facts, of course it would sound like she’s not making sense, and of course it would appear to present as dementia. But what does she know that she’s even talking in this kinda code at all? And why? And what’s up with the wandering?

- This scene with Kyle and Rosa is fabulous. “Ten years and my half-brother is still pining for my sister. Cool cool cool.”

- Hahaha “What’s your drug of choice?” “Why quarterback, you wanna party?” I LOVE THIS ENTIRE SCENE SO MUCH IT’S HILARIOUS AND FANTASTIC.

- Upon rewatching, it’s much more obvious about the hows and whys of Kyle not knowing Max was dead. Because I missed all of that the first time around, and thought it came out of left field, but it really actually doesn’t.

- Rosa is clearly like, “when the hell did Kyle fucking Valenti get so smart?”

- this continued implication that Alex shows up at the Airstream and just basically invites himself in will never not completely fuck me up about them

- A FUCKING GUITAR LIKE HOW DARE THIS SHOW

- Okay first off, where the fuck is Alex? Is this his new house? Why does Michael know where to find him? Is this Jesse’s house and Alex is housesitting while he’s in a coma? It’s also the same place as this shot Carina posted over the summer that we all died over. Can’t wait to maybe get an definite answer to that (and also, what happened to the cabin). Just the fact that Michael knows exactly where to find Alex when all through S1 Alex always came to the Airstream is again, more shit about them that just fucks me up.

- Michael mentioning Alex had said he was getting out of the Air Force to make music... um, question. Where? When? I am going to handwave this because I can handle it may have gotten cut, and Alex did talk about fighting his own battles and not his fathers in 1x13. And I can see them having talked a bit about it during their junkyard talk in 1x10 too.

- “came back the next morning after clearer heads had prevailed - wanted to show you something.” Okay, Alex, honey, We need to talk about this. Michael just saw and felt his mother die, giving him a folder with that information, with that photo, is not how you should be going about this. I get it - Alex operates on having as much information as possible. If it exists, he wants it to make the informed decision. But that’s not Michael. And Alex pushes just a bit too hard, and Michael snaps. And I love this scene because Michael says things that needed to be said between them. Michael needed to say them, and Alex needed to hear them.

-ugh that photo... but if there’s prop consistency, then it’s interesting that it took a year after the crash for Michael’s mom to end up a prisoner at Caulfield. It really makes me excited for the flashbacks, because if she wasn’t caught in the initial melee after the crash, how did it happen?

- Alex’s little “hey” when MIchael pushes the folder back into him. Just. Fuck me up, okay? I’ll be here, in the middle of the floor, sobbing. It’s just, it makes it so obvious they’re no where near being on the same page. And Alex’s asking if he left, and if Michael would come with him - it really reads like a hail mary attempt on his part. Because he’s still thinking in that moment, that Michael will say yes, like Michael always says yes. Alex doesn’t really know what it’s like for Michael to say “no” to him.

- “I wanna be good for somebody.” (and with the fucking Malex theme playing over them what the fuuuuuuuck) 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

- Hahaha Isobel using the good crystal to practice - THAT’S MY GIRL

- Handprint talk! Also lol @ Liz mentioning the handprint Max gave her in 1x13 during sexytimes and Kyle, not knowing what she’s talking about immediately just assuming she’s talking about the one from the pilot. Though it’s interesting that neither Liz nor Michael had residual physical handprints show up, but we know Liz was able to still feel Max die in 1x13

- “exorcising demons” Yoooo, I am here for this Isobel. She is determined, and she wants her life back and she is going to take it by force if necessary. Also, that’s a fantastic use for that good crystal.

- But it also breaks my heart a bit because she clearly is in this huge denial about Max. She really believes that she can bring him back if she tries hard enough, if she focuses and learns. And the way Michael is just... so resigned to this whole thing. His hope is just... gone.

- “Max’s heart was weakened before he decided to lasso lightning” Michael really does get some great lines. But omg he’s so angry, and he’s so determined to get Isobel to see reason.

- Ahhh Liz and Rosa. Also, Liz in the bathroom. Breaking down because she’s got that moment to herself to finally break. That scene in the shower. It always just fucks me up. It’s fucked me up since the first time I saw it at NYCC, and it still fucks me up now.

- These nightmares are creepy as fuck.

- ‘Don’t treat me like the little sister.” OH SNAP, LIZ ORTECHO.

- I adore messy flirty disaster Michael. And smiling through a punch? Oh, Michael.

- The way Liz’s mind works, just bouncing and making those connections and conclusions and realizing how there might still be hope for Max. Woo boy, I need to take some time to process that (and don’t get me started on Michael’s loss of hope).

- “So she wants to use Noah’s heart? He’s the actual devil.” TOO RIGHT YOU ARE, ALEX.

- Also, this is @el-gilliath‘s fault but Alex brings up that when cremated, the aliens give off toxic fumes - so what does that mean for Caulfield? All those aliens would have been burned alive someone somewhere would have noticed then, right?

- Alex is so soft looking in this scene.

- Which is hilarious cuz the next scene is him throwing the morgue doctor agains the wall.

- “I thought he was you.” Oh boy. Let’s not even begin to unpack that.

- Aaaaah this scene. Okay first off, fuck Flint. I hate him. “There’s a chain of command in this family.” Oooooh boy, so we’re gonna see that this season, right? Cuz I am so curious about the other two brothers and their involvement as well.

- “there’s a sealed incinerator at area 51, can’t exactly storm the place” I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU, ALEX. But it’s nice to see confirmation that Liz knows that Alex knows about everything too. Woo hoo, communication!

- “Flint was the Manes in my grade. He was always such a dick.” YESSSSSSSS.

- Michael’s speech about hope. Shit. He is just. “Hope screws people up. Hoping that your family will come and save you from the system. Hoping that anyone can be saved at all.” And poor Maria, she doesn’t know anything. Did she know about how Michael grew up? Because even Alex only knew he was living out of his truck as a rumor, and didn’t know the full extent until the junkyard talk in 1x10. So maybe Michael did have that hope for a moment in 1x13, that he went to the Pony thinking things could be different. But then Max died, and it reminded him that hoping just means more of the same shit.

- Also, Maria. Honey. Taking Michael’s keys doesn’t really mean anything. He’s a mechanic and a telekinetic alien.

- “Need help moving a body.” “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.” LOL!

- No Kyle, your life is never going to be normal again. Nope.

- “The last thing Isobel needs is to get her hopes up.” Lots and lots of talk of hope this episode.

- “I always thought it was synthetic but if it’s organic” YOU MEAN LIKE HOW LIZ HYPOTHESIZED IN 1x08? Cool cool cool. I also love how their brains work, speaking of that callback. Liz is a biomedical engineer, this is her jam. Michael seems to lean more towards mechanical engineering, especially in 1x08 how he talked about the pods being “tech” and having a seam. But I am super curious about this idea that the alien organs can be fixed in a way, essentially being in line with Liz’s chosen field of study and her career path.

- It’s so cute how Michael gets a bit squeamish before he’s just totally in awe, like he’s probably never really gotten the chance to actually know anything about his own biology, and how it differs from humans - especially not before working with Liz in S1 to develop the serum antidote.

- Liz and Rosa, omg I love them so much. This conflict Liz is dealing with, she’s so happy to have Rosa back, but she’s so angry and so mad and so upset over losing Max at the same time. i LOVE LIZ ORTECHO.

- “I’m gonna fix it” GODDAMNIT Y’ALL LIZ ORTECHO. JUST... LIZ FUCKING ORTECHO.

- I am so looking forward to figuring out what’s up with Mimi and this wandering and why she had Rosa’s bracelet from the roadside memorial.

- Poor Isobel. This is gonna be an interesting story arc to see play out. Knowing what Carina said about it, I am much more interested in letting it play out before making any decisions on it. I’m not crazy about a pregnancy story line, but who knows what Carina has in store with it.

- Zombie!Max I think it’s interesting he says, “you’re the only one I can reach” and how that ties in with Liz’s earlier remarks about the handprints. Why was Rosa the only one to get a handprint? Is it because she was the most recent one Max healed? In the pilot, Max did say, “the mark could show up” so he knew there was a possibility it wouldn’t. But what does that mean? There’s definitely something more there, and I am excited to find out.

#roswell new mexico #notso liveblogs roswell #notso rambles #rnm 2x01

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years

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Bloggin’ bout HS^2 Commentary from start to Mid-Jan-2020

Sigh. Time to pay the piper. Someone’s gotta extract whatever plot-important and plothole mentions get mentioned in this commentary, even though reading behind-the-scenes stuff about Homestuck makes me even more nervous than reading frontend stuff ever could so I don’t really want to. FYI, that’s what you’re going to get out of my posts on these -- anything regarding plot stuff and plotholes, things we would’ve misinterpreted or missed otherwise, not any of the other paid content such as sketches or full quotes from them about things.

TWENTY FUCKING DOLLARS A MONTH!???!?? Is Andrew even seeing any of this cash? --no, not much of it I guess, he would want to make sure the WP folks get paid enough after the--

Yeah I’m not gonna even think about that.

Fuck it. I’m ponying up.

Alright, first commentary post on the Patreon, commentary and bonus sketches for Ghostflusters... whoa, this is long and extensive. Is it going panel by panel??

I guess I’ll give you a small quote just for a taste of how this starts...

Page 33: Not sure what any of this shit means. It’s pretty deep though. We were going for an echo of the beginning of the epilogue when John is dreaming in anime. Except here it’s Jake, and nobody is dreaming, at least not yet. Also an anime dream wouldn’t be a nightmare for Jake, since Jake likes anime. Or he used to. Now anime probably just reminds him of Dirk.

Good thing we’re never gonna hear from that guy ever again.

...because this commentary is sort of stylized. They’re kind of riffing on what they’re doing, and I get that -- when you have to write commentary you’re asking people to PAY for you can easily feel like you have to be entertaining. But they are describing the rationale for the shot choices they made and such. They’re also going for a sort of Andrew-recap sort of attitude, and I don’t blame them for that choice, either.

[Candy] Jade is...well, you’ll see.

GOD DAMNIT. Don’t remind me that Dave vanished on her forever while they were doing pro-revolutionary work and she’s probably going to be in a bit of a state! Stupid knowing author future allusions...

Then again, that’s exactly why I’m here blogging about the commentary for you guys -- for me to relay Authorial Intent on Stuff That Happened That Seemed Plotholey and Hints About What’s Going To Be Relevant.

I just, uh... didn’t expect there to be that MUCH of it. And that casual phrasing for that Candy Jade Is Going To Be Seen And Or Relevant hint is... kinda indicating to me that there’s gonna be a LOT more of that here than I wanted. :|

Continuing... there’s talk of why they started with Jake here, being unused to writing for middle-aged characters in Homestuck terms, et cetera, but again, I’m only here to relay anything with plot impact or SERIOUS perspective on how we should / the authors are viewing this. The rest stays behind the paywall for whichever of you all think it’s worth $20, I don’t really have a choice. At least now I know why there was no one to tell me what details were actually BEHIND the paywall. Seriously, that’s steep.

Speaking of how stylized the commentary is here, I can get why some might read it and view the authors as slightly callous -- I’m giving them PLENTY of benefit of the doubt, though. Andrew was FAR from callous and he hurt us worse out of love of artistic intent with the Epilogues than the HS^2 folks could EVER hurt us. Real Dirk-like, actually. Dirk is practically half of a self-insert, as we well know. No wonder Andrew thought the right thing to do was to take his hands off the story, what with Dirk’s villainous action being putting his own hands ON the story.

We like to make fun of Jake English as much as the next guy, but he probably is actually pretty good at “doing things” if the need arises.

Mhmm; there are some jibes at how screwed up Jake has made his life, but I don’t believe these authors actually disrespect Jake at all. He was dealt a bad hand by the story leading up to this point (quite INTENTIONALLY by Dirk’s narrative control in the Epilogues, too) and HS^2 and its bonuses so far have been exploring the heap of merits and potential he’s still got in him.

It’s kind of sweet how he wants to clean out his ecto-son’s house, even if most of that is to prevent the slow creep of mounting existential dread and narrative relevance.

Huh. So they think Jake can sort of feel that narrative relevance is seeping in around him, to him? That’s not out of the question at all.

Continuing... they’re going on a bit about the same sort of things I mentioned about their choices in detail or detail-less-ness when depicting people in this new format, considering ages and the paired text descriptions and such. That’s the sort of thing you’d traditionally want to pony up for commentary for, so rest assured that all that IS in their commentary posts if you want to do that. I’m kind of extracting the plot stuff out of the paywall just on principle.

A lot of making this comic--and every other comic ever--is trying to convey as much information with as little space as possible.

Quite so.

From this conversation we find out a couple things. 1) that Brain Ghost Dirk knows about Ultimate Dirk, and he thinks he’s a dickhead. 2) Brain Ghost Dirk knows who Jeff Bezos is, and Jake doesn’t. This could be a sign of a couple things, all of which are probably stupid.

This is ALSO what I came here for: Legitimate “don’t worry about it” handwaves about stuff that shouldn’t matter to us. I never ascribed the slightest bit of relevance or inference to BGDirk making a Jeff Bezos reference, and I’m glad I was completely justified in ignoring it. So far I agree with this probably-plural-but-acting-like-a-singular author’s train of thought.

Come to think of it, it’s maybe strange that in this Cool Future Earth where all of our characters are rich as hell, none of them have bothered to have any sort of corrective eye surgery. Jane, Jake, John, and Jade all still wear glasses. I guess they do have “signature looks” to maintain in regards to their brand.

I had to include this, I was legitimately curious. Understood it was probably an artistic decision to stay on-brand a fair bit -- and losing glasses even temporarily has a lot of thematic significance whenever it happens in Homestuck Proper -- but it’s nice to have some confirmation that this was the understandable rationale behind the choice.

Here we find out what Dirk thinks about Jake’s behavior of the last few years. In other words, we find out what Jake thinks about Jake’s behavior over the last few years. [...]

[Brain Ghost] Dirk is manipulating Jake here, but he isn’t actually saying anything demonstrably untrue.

Again, most of this was obvious at the time, but it’s nice to have authorial confirmation on what was being brought across as per the strange divide between Brain Ghost Dirk’s independent will and his mostly-part-of-Jake status.

Seriously though, shoutout to the conceit that god tiers can just fly endlessly, with no visible effort. It’s a really excellent form of narrative shortcut that fits perfectly into the bonkers vibe of earth c as a whole. Oh there goes one of the Creators, just flying over the Wal-Mart like an asshole.

You know... who IS doing the commentary here? One of the authors, all of them? One of the artists?? This really is a COLLABORATIVE effort between the authors and artists involved here, I think, and it shows in their clear surprise and appreciation for each others’ work that only settles into a full understanding instead of just knowing what one intended off the bat.

It calls into question exactly how much of the Condesce’s mind control was actually mind control at all, and how much was just a lowering of inhibitions.

Right, right.

We see Jane greeting Jake here with open arms, which makes you wonder exactly what is going on here. If you’ll remember from Candy, Jane has already served Jake divorce papers. A mystery in need of solving, for sure.

HERE we go! This is the potential plothole we were concerned about that got me alerted that the commentary had something to add in the first place. John mentioned toward the trail-end of the Candy epilogues that divorce papers had shown up for Jake. (And we also saw an HS^2 update ago or so that Jane hadn’t actually KNOWN Tavros was “awol” at all until he was literally a part of this whole clowncorpse logistics business.) So in light of what this post continues to say:

It could be that Jane has put aside the nasty business of their divorce in order to have a strong chest to cry on. Can’t really say I blame her. Jake English has many flaws but he does seem like a good person to drape yourself across and really let loose on. And without Gamzee there, Jane needs another punching bag.

...it all finally fits as pretty logically consistent, although the author is being deliberately coy in a way that leaves it open for more to be revealed later about exactly how this is happening. Good! No obvious plotholes in HS^2 (yet). That’s an honest relief. The more often they have something in mind where I’d previously worried they’d screwed up, the more often I can give them credit and speculate properly on those gaps in story-logic expecting something there, like we so often got to with Andrew before the retconsplit made even THAT kinda fucky.

If you’ve ever had a friend or family member go evil, you’ll know that one of the hardest parts is there’s always still elements of them that you like.

I can definitely say that from nearly personal experience.

Also, at this point in the story there is no lingering doubt that Jake and Dirk have had a sexual relationship. There’s a familiarity there that wasn’t around when they were teens.

I assumed so, but I guess I never thought ABOUT how I assumed so. Huh.

Do any of the creators have a moral leg to stand on if all they’re doing is curling up into a ball and hoping the world gets better without them? Actually, does anyone have a moral leg to stand on if they do that?

Almost Riddley, there.

These posts are certainly interesting! Steeply priced for what they are, but interesting. Moving on to the second of four so far... this one’s about Catnapped Part 1.

Taking over Earth C's business world certainly would have required rubbing shoulders with the already-powerful on the planet.

--yep, which I never doubted even when brought up in the Epilogues is a large part of her supply-side government views.

Ah, looks like the bonus commentary is a good deal shorter! But that bonus section was a good deal shorter than the story section covered earlier too, so.

On to the next one, for Clown Logistics.

Page 58: If you love Vriskas, i hope you enjoy more Vriska content. If you hate Vriskas, well. Here is another one that is kind of different. Feel free to contemplate nature vs nurture and how best to apply this dichotomy toward emoting about the vriskas of your choice how you see fit.

I’m starting to really enjoy this author commentary.

Tavros being named Tavros sure was a decision. Go back and reread the commentary for panel 58 but stop before the nature/nurture thing, since they are not clones, or even the same species. They just have the same name, which, in this universe, means you at least type kind of the same.

Hmhmm.

Page 65: Sometimes you try and come up with something to say about a page, and you cannot, and so you wait 8 hours, and go see Knives Out, and then you have 2 white russians, and then you still can’t come up with anything to say, but oh well! Commentary needs writing. Tavros is experiencing an emotion here.

Now THAT’s a mood. I gotta go see Knives Out sometime soon.

...Alright, I can see why some people think MAAAAYBE this author might be being a little disrespectful to the audience, but if they’re going based on THIS, I don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. This comment could have come from Andrew’s fingertips any day of the week!!! I honestly wouldn’t WANT replacement authors who couldn’ comment like this in there for a page in paid commentary, especially in a lighter section of the story that doesn't need too much said about it.

And I paid $20 for this shit.

...Continuing, I’m loving all this commentary on Harry Anderson. Representative excerpt:

Again, direct your eyes toward the boy. What a fucking asshole.

...these commentaries are honestly improving my mood! I didn’t expect that, really.

Ah, I didn’t even notice that the flying cars appear to be self-driving. I think maybe the back of my mind MIGHT have noticed but only a bit.

Referring to the corpse-carry crew:

Page 82: Pokedex entry for Magneton in Pokemon Sun: When three Magnemite link together, their brains also become one. They do not become three times more intelligent.

Ain’t THAT a mood.

(...I just had an internal “Wait, am I using that right, it being a “mood”? Isn’t that the hip new term, how do I have any right to latch onto that however much I feel it? Ohhh gosh I’m so fucking old” moment.)

It’s clear from the commentator’s complaints that the crew never viewed this commentary ALONE as worth upping the pledge to $20, but that’s... not quite a bad thing? I think it’d have been more disrespectful to think that they COULD make the commentary worth that. I doubt there’s a single person on their team who feels quite right about the business model (besides the artists they have plenty of context to know how deserving they are of a living goddamn wage), but it’s what they have to live with and go with, here. I feel weird for honestly understanding ‘em, and more than slightly pitying for how many people will look at all this and read “these assholes don’t care about us”. I really can’t think that’s anywhere CLOSE to true from this without more context. (And I really DON’T want more context, don’t send me any. I’ve got to read HS^2 and I’m enjoying reading it so far so let me keep enjoying it please. Background drama details make me nauseous, DON’T give me any if there is any (which I wouldn’t know about in the first place beyond an opinionated friend or two dropping hints in a bad mood).)

Did you know there are people who I’ve seen honestly believing “Undertale is pretty good but the creator is an arrogant asshole”?????

Because they saw his tweet about the game score passing Kojima’s MGSV on metacritic briefly and misinterpreted his wide-eyed disbelief, disbelief honed to nervous laughter to maintain sanity by Toby’s insecurity about his unprofessional work and work product??? They thought he was SERIOUS without any of the context of the usual insincere little dog persona they should’ve read into the game of his they played??

Awh man. That just ticks me off.

Anyway where were we.

Page 91: This is a flashback so I didn’t write this one, which means I thankfully don’t have to say anything about it.

Wait. What?

Are they trading off writers between chapters, or...? Hm.

Whatever they’re doing, it fits together pretty darn well SO far.

Alright, that finishes that off, time for the last commentary post on the second bonus update.

I don't know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don't mean just in Homestuck's dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth.

Now that’s a mood.

I've been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you're making in 2019 has to either address what's going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus's sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.

Now THAT is a god damned MOOD.

The author(?) goes in about why this is happening, why Jane is being confronted this way, why she IS this way, et cetera.

Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it.

That’s one of the biggest goddamn reasons for the inequality and political landscape we have today IRL, yeah.

She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.

Jane's favorite comic, a noir-detective drama steeped in the pop-cultural trappings of pulp Americana, reflects this mindset.

So, our catgirl Seer of Light takes us through the looking glass, and we get to see an old friend.

Hm!

Nothing really to say, I just had to share this fitting context the author is giving. How things fit together even better than they seemed to, and this was all far from random.

I feel warmly ensconced in the womb of nostalgia, gently cradled on Norman Reedus's chest.

Pffffffff

Yep, more of what we already surmised and appreciated, how Swifer and Cliper were giving us some much needed perspective... the commentary post even has little traditional-Homestuck sprites for ‘em.

And... that’s it for the commentary so far! Again, I enjoyed all that more than I expected. $20 doesn’t sting for me as much as it does for others in general, but it stung a lot less after I was through reading all that honestly somewhat-entertaining stuff confirming a lot of the insights I’d thought the plot was having.

I’ll probably wait to check for further commentary posts until like... after bonus updates come out, in the future, and then just blog about whatever I’m not caught up on. Sound fair? I’m going to blog as often as a real or bonus upd8 comes out, but I’m not going to pop in more often than that for my own sanity’s sake. Have a good MLK weekend, y’all. :)

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #Homestuck Commentary #blastyoboots

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vantaestummy · 5 years

Note

p lease write one where yoongi gets sick all over the backseat of the car because he tried to go on his laptop during a drive (the scenario you mentioned in your carsick jungkook fic a while back) with joon driving since he was the one that mentioned the memory. thank you i love your work

A/N: ofc lovely! Here we go. I hope you enjoy. I wrote this with my amazing anon friend who is a phenomenal writer. I truly enjoyed this collab. they’re so awesome! thank you for everything!

TW/// EMETO

WORD COUNT: 3420

-----------------

Namjoon was a fairly decent driver. Sure, it took him forever to get his license but it wasn’t because he couldn’t drive. It was because he didn’t find it necessary. Where would he go? What purpose would he have to leave the dorms if he could walk or bike most of the way there? It made no sense but having a license did maintain its perks.

Yoongi was hungry, very hungry, and the man had the taste for something far more specific than Namjoon could have ever imagined. He wanted skewers but, not just any skewers. The best skewers in Seoul, and unfortunately for them, those were all the way across town.

So Namjoon drove them there, Yoongi having offered to pay for his meal and the gas so that they wouldn’t return the company car on E. The food was good and sat comfortably in Namjoon’s sated belly. It was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

Yoongi had decided to bring his laptop along for the journey, hoping to be somewhat productive during the lengthy and impromptu drive. He decided to sit in the front seat on the drive over to the restaurant, not wanting it to feel like he was using Namjoon as his own personal driver, but now that they’re on the way back home, he decided to sit in the backseat so he could have enough space to get comfortable and maybe read through a few blog posts he’d been saving.

He buckles himself into the middle seat so he can still easily lean forward to converse with Namjoon whenever he starts to get bored of reading, but he figures there won’t be very much talking going on judging by the way Namjoon is absolutely immersed in the songs on the radio, completely focused on humming each and every lyric.

Yoongi pulls his laptop out of his bag and powers it up, eager to start browsing the internet. He pulls the sleeves of his sweatshirt further over his freezing cold hands and begins typing in his password. Namjoon hears the clicks from the keyboard and laughs.

“You seriously brought your laptop?” Namjoon questions, voice laced with disbelief as he reaches over to turn down the air-conditioning. Yoongi responds with a small nod, eyes fixed on the blindingly bright screen in front of him as he scrolls through dozens of different articles and posts.

It’s completely silent for the next few minutes, apart from the quiet clicks of the computer mouse coming from the backseat. Namjoon continuously glances in the rear-view mirror, laughing lightheartedly at the way Yoongi is just squinting at the screen, presumably trying to read something important.

"You weren't kidding when you said you've been immersed in the new songs you were writing." Namjoon chides, his voice playful and not at all insulting. Yoongi hums in acknowledgement, the words on the screen zipping past, just like his view outside the window. It almost makes him a little dizzy, the movement of the car along with that of his mind. Yoongi takes in a deep breath, swallowing down an uneasy feeling that has suddenly taken him captive.

Namjoon knows that Yoongi doesn't do too well in cars, more specifically, right after they've gotten off of a plane. There is something about the planting of feet against wavering ground, uncertain surroundings and the body still adjusting to being thousands of feet in the air rather than just five. They all know that the eldest rapper is sucesptible to carsickness but, he must know what he is doing since, he has decided to do the worst thing one could possibly do: read while trapped in a moving car.

Suddenly, he begins to feel boiling hot, the sudden change in temperature reminding him of the time he genuinely thought he was being cooked alive in a sauna while vacationing in Finland. It isn’t a very pleasant feeling, and the sweat collecting above his brow despite the cold air consistently flowing through the vents is particularly unnerving.

With one more glance at his laptop screen and another small wave of dizziness, he decides to push his laptop aside, still leaving it open for when the feeling finally passes. He stares out at the horizon, thankful that he’s sitting in the middle so that there isn’t an entire seat obstructing his view.

He expertly breathes through the disorientation, inhaling deeply through his nose, holding for three seconds, and then exhaling through his mouth, repeating the practiced process over and over until he starts to feel himself calm down.

The breathing exercise helps him feel a little better, and he figures he just got dizzy because he was staring at the screen for too long, so he pulls his laptop back into his lap and begins clicking away once again, hoping the worst is over.

Unfortunately, the second he glances at the screen, he feels his stomach drop, a harsh wave of heat plaguing his body, making his head spin as he shoves the laptop off of his lap, letting it fall to the floor. He realizes that he wasn’t just dizzy from looking at the screen for too long, he was full blown carsick.

Namjoon is more than suspicious at this point. Yoongi has been far too silent and as he looks into the rearview, he sees that the elder rapper’s chubby red cheeks have taken on a faint tinge of green. Not only that, but his laptop is no longer in sight.

Namjoon turns down the radio. “Hyung? You good?”

Yoongi visibly swallows, the car hitting a bump that immediately thrusts his stomach into his throat. “Yeah..” He murmurs, the lie more like a slur that slithers past his lips. He’s too nauseous now to even function, his stomach bubbling the more and more they drive. Yoongi barely stifles a burp in his fist, his vision blurry as he becomes too dizzy to speak.

Yoongi’s mouth begins to fill with saliva at a rapid pace, a telltale sign that he’s going to blow chunks within the next five minutes if he doesn’t manage to get his stomach under control.

He swallows convulsively, trying not to panic when each swallow forces his stomach further up his throat. It’s only making everything worse, so without thinking, he opens his mouth and let’s the drool fall freely from his lips, coating his jeans and part of the seats.

Namjoon makes an unusually sharp turn, muttering something beneath his breath about almost going the wrong way. The directions on his phone tell him to make another turn in a couple hundred feet.

Oh god.

Yoongi feels the urge to gag. There’s no way his stomach can handle another turn. He needs to say something immediately, but he can’t get the words out quick enough. Namjoon makes the turn and Yoongi heaves involuntarily, jolting forwards from the force of it as he slaps his hands over his mouth.

His cheeks puff out with vomit and before he can swallow it back down, it bursts past his tightly sealed lips and sprays through the cracks of his fingers, coating the back of both seats, the center console, and his lap as it steadily drips from his hands.

Namjoon gasps, immediately looking back at the older boy when he hears the horribly grotesque noise. He had a feeling that something was wrong, but he trusted the boy to speak up if he needed to pull over. He never thought this would happen.

Yoongi cups his vomit-covered hands beneath his chin and closes his eyes, shuddering aggressively when another weak gag forces up a trickle of his dinner. It feels far too warm and chunky in his hands, making him want to throw up even more. Namjoon gasps at the sight. Thankfully, his stomach of steel can handle it, and all he worries about is his hyung.

“Fuck hyung. Give me a minute I’m gonna pull over.” Namjoon grits as he manages to swerve around a few slow moving cars, which, now that he thinks about it, isn’t necessarily a good move since the jolt of the car causes his hyung to emit more gurgling noises, a shallow splash sound being heard from behind his seat.

Yoongi lurches forward, not even bothering to sit up as he gags once more, a torrent of puke plummeting to the floor mat below. A burp rips itself from his throat, pushing out an onslaught of vomit as his stomach literally tries to kill him from the inside out.

“Hold on hyung. I see a place where we can pull over.” Namjoon tries desperately to keep his composure but the garbled noises coming from the backseat sound absolutely dreadful as well as painful.

It almost seems a little dangerous when Namjoon frenziedly jerks the wheel and the car jolts to the side of the road, but Namjoon doesn’t mind breaking the law if it means he can finally help Yoongi through this unpleasant situation.

Namjoon rips the key out of the ignition, figuring they won’t be doing very much driving in the next few minutes, maybe even hours. He unbuckles himself before rushing to get to the older boy in the backseat.

He leaves his door open so that some fresh air can flow into the car before opening the back door. His heart sinks, even his strong stomach swirls at the sight. Yoongi looks miserable, skin excessively pallor, hair disheveled and damp from perspiration. His hands and lap are covered in chunks of his dinner and Namjoon doesn’t even know where to begin with the cleanup process.

While he’s contemplating the easiest way to get Yoongi out of the car, the boy in question hiccups, indicating that he’s definitely on the verge of getting sick again.

“Hey-easy, not in your hands!” Namjoon rushes out when Yoongi gives a powerful belch into his cupped hands, saliva pouring from his mouth and coating his fingers. His eyes are squeeze shut as another burp bursts past his lips, this one somehow more nauseating than the last.

The way he’s visibly struggling to keep everything inside of his stomach is alarming to say the least. Splashes of his dinner coat the back of his tongue with every queasy burp and Yoongi knows that vomiting some more is inevitable, but still, he hopes to postpone the event for at least a few minutes.

“Yoongi-stop, let’s get outside the car, okay?” Namjoon says, voice wavering as he grips the older boy by the arm, forcefully dragging his tense figure towards the open door.

Yoongi keeps his hands cupped beneath his mouth, not trusting his stomach at the moment. He hiccups again, the nauseous feeling intensifying by what feels like a million as he slaps a palm over his lips.

He doesn’t manage to make it all the way out of the vehicle before another hot spray of puke ejects from his mouth, splattering all over the last clean section of the seats, steadily dripping down the fake leather and soiling the carpet as well.

Namjoon hauls ass, gripping Yoongi’s waist as he manages to hold the older up so that he doesn’t fall, carefully maneuvering him out of the car where he can barely lean without tipping over. Yoongi heaves, ejecting every last rancid thing that has been boiling in his cauldron of a stomach for the duration of the car ride. He feels so sick, and his head is pounding so viciously that all he can do is gag over and over again.

Namjoon has a calm hand on his back, the other smoothing back his sweaty fringe as the elder male pukes his guts out. Namjoon sighs, feeling awful for what was happening but, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it. He doesn’t know of Yoongi’s limits. Only he does. So the fact that he decided to read while in a moving car was beyond anyone’s control but his own.

“Baby... look how sick you’ve made yourself. Why would you even try to read knowing how sick you get in cars?” He asks, his tone a bit sharp but more worried than anything. His hyung threw up, a lot. It’s only a matter of time before he passes out from either pure exhaustion, or sickness itself.

Yoongi responds with a heartbreaking whimper, bottom lip beginning to tremble at the words. He regrets bringing his laptop and he regrets thinking he could handle reading on the road. Honestly, he feels so miserable that he regrets going on the drive entirely.

The dinner tasted good when he’d first eaten it in the restaurant, but it definitely wasn’t as enjoyable when it was shooting back up his throat at a rapid pace. It definitely didn’t look as appetizing when it was regurgitated either. There’s no way he’ll be able to stomach skewers ever again.

Yoongi places his palm beneath his shirt, resting it against his swirling tummy. He gags fruitlessly, only ejecting small amounts of saliva with each awful heave. His stomach still hurts, and every time he inhales, all he can smell is the rancid puke that covers the entire front of his shirt and his jeans.

“Here, sit down, okay? I don’t think you can handle any more driving right now.” Namjoon murmurs as he carefully maneuvers Yoongi until he’s sitting on the asphalt, leaning back against the rear tire.

Once he’s sure that Yoongi is stable enough to be left alone, Namjoon sprints around to the trunk of the car, hoping to find a towel, some water, or a spare change of clothes for the sick boy.

Thankfully, he manages to find an unopened case of water bottles. He figures it’s for the company office but he’s desperate to get everything cleaned up, so he tears it open, making a mental note to buy them another pack before they notice. He grabs four of the bottles and rushes back to Yoongi.

Namjoon tentatively reaches down and grabs Yoongi by the wrist, holding up the limp limb so that he can clean it off. He unscrews the cap on one of the water bottles and pours it over Yoongi’s hand. The eldest rapper has his eyes closed, his head heavy like a weight as he keeps his chin against his damp chest. One would think he’s asleep from how he looks, but Namjoon knows he is painfully awake.

He winds up using the entire bottle of water, tossing it aside before using his own shirt to dry off Yoongi’s hand. The older boy just sits silently, his cheeks burning deep red as he let’s Namjoon clean him up.

It doesn’t feel possible, but Yoongi swears his cheeks burn ten shades darker when Namjoon intertwines their fingers together, pausing his task of cleaning to reassuringly rub his thumb across the top of Yoongi's hand.

They sit like that for a moment, Namjoon’s hand in Yoongi’s as he draws patterns into the skin there unconsciously. Yoongi’s stomach still aches, his throat burning and raw but thankfully, he has nothing more to throw up. He’s still dizzy though, and everything hurts so bad that he’s having problems seeing straight.

As if Namjoon was reading his mind, he places a light kiss upon Yoongi’s head. “Here, rest for a minute. Lean on me. We’ll get back to driving when you feel up to it.”

Cars speed past as Yoongi does as he is told, leaning his head against the younger’s shoulder, relenting all of his weight and closing his eyes with a heady sigh. “I’m sorry. It was dumb to read. Just thought I’d get some work done. I thought I could stomach the drive.” He nearly slurs, his cheek smooshed against the younger man’s shoulder. Namjoon doesn’t say anything for a moment. Instead, he kisses Yoongi’s hair once more.

“It wasn’t the best move but, it’s not like you did it on purpose. Like you said, you thought you could handle it. I’m not mad.” Namjoon reassures with little pecks.

Yoongi snuggles his head deeper into the crevice of Namjoon’s neck. “We had to stop because of me. And now we’re stranded because I couldn’t keep my stomach where it belongs.” Yoongi pouts, squeezing his eyes shut and groaning. Namjoon giggles a bit before giving the older rapper’s hand a gentle squeeze, his other arm wrapped snuggly around his soft stomach.

“It’s okay baby. It’s not like it’s my car anyway. I think it’s Sejin’s.”

Yoongi snorts at that, a squeaky giggle slipping past his lips and making Namjoon want to coo. He squeezes Yoongi closer to him, kissing him on the forehead his time.

The older boy mumbles something incomprehensible underneath his breath as he feebly shoves Namjoon away from him, bashfully staring down at the ground when the affection becomes too much for him to handle.

“I should probably start cleaning the seats now.” Namjoon says awkwardly, itching the back of his neck as he stands up and heads back towards the trunk of the car where he remembers seeing a few spare sweatshirts that he knew belonged to Jungkook. Yoongi doesn’t really want him to go but, he doesn’t really have the bearings to stand at the moment.

Namjoon leaves all of the doors wide open to let the car air out a little before he begins scrubbing at the mess with his impromptu towels. He feels bad for soiling Jungkook’s clothes, but he’d feel even worse if he had to return his managers car with a puke-covered backseat.

Namjoon feels thankful that the seats are leather so nothing really soaked through or ended up staining. It easily absorbs into the material of the clothes and the cleaning process is finished within five minutes. It’ll definitely need to be scrubbed with disinfectant and the carpet and floor-mats should probably be shampooed, but there’s no real visible evidence of the incident.

Yoongi gives a weak cough and Namjoon smacks his head against the roof of the car as he hurriedly crawls out to get to beside the sick boy, worried that he’s about to start vomiting once again.

“Are you going to throw up again?” Namjoon questions as he drops onto his knees in front of Yoongi, placing a caring hand on the older boy’s cheek. Yoongi shakes his head, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

“I just want to go home and take a bath.” Yoongi whines, eyes glimmering with unshed tears as he looks at Namjoon, waiting for some kind of solution or comfort from the leader. He feels disgusting.

“I managed to get the inside of the car all cleaned up, so how about we change your shirt and then we’ll start driving again, okay?” Namjoon murmurs, pushing some of Yoongi’s disheveled hair out of his eyes.

Yoongi nods shyly, lifting his arms up to let Namjoon peel off his soiled shirt. Namjoon moves as quickly as possible, turning away as he hands Yoongi the last clean sweatshirt he’d retrieved from the trunk.

Yoongi pulls the sweatshirt on and makes to stand, laughing quietly when Namjoon fusses over him and grabs his hands, slowly guiding him towards the passenger seat as if he can’t walk on his own.

Namjoon reaches over Yoongi’s body to buckle his seat-belt for him and Yoongi blushes at the close proximity. Once Yoongi is settled, Namjoon climbs into the drivers seat and starts up the car, instantly rolling down all the windows to make sure there’s enough cool air to keep Yoongi’s stomach calm.

Then, Namjoon blindly reaches for Yoongi’s hand, humming contentedly when he finally finds it and interlaces their fingers. He gives a couple soothing squeezes before pressing a gentle kiss atop Yoongi’s knuckles.

“Let’s get you home, pukey.”

------------------

A/N: Is smoosh a word? idk. there’s no red line under it and it wasn’t corrected when I was writing so ill take it. I love you guys. the best parts of this fic were written by my friend tee hee.

#sick bts #bts emeto #bts sickfic #car sickness #sickie #sick fic #sickfic #caretaker!namjoon #sick!yoongi #sick!namgi #my fic #collab #emeto #tw emeto #emetophilia #tw vomit #tw puke

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hannah-writes · 5 years

Text

The Semiotics of Roswell (aka why Malex is Endgame because the camera says so)

One of the things I’m most grateful for about the Roswell fandom that I’ve met through Tumblr is the renewed passion I found for my degree subject, something I thought I’d fallen out of love with because of the pain associated with my time at university. Turns out I just needed to separate what I’d learned and what I loved from what I’d experienced. And Roswell (and @signoraviolettavalery, in particular) really helped reshape that.

Now, I know y’all are here for some meta, and this is just boring exposition. I’d originally planned on just keysmashing something as I’ve done in the past on other people’s posts and re-blogs but I thought I better try and be consistent.

One last thing before I dive in, like any other interpretation of a text, semiotics is influenced by the viewer, their experiences, their history and their take. It means that people might - and probably will - disagree with the way that I’ve viewed this, but discourse is discourse and I’d be interested to hear other views. For further reading on semiotics, I’d suggest starting with any of these books ( Metz, Christian (1974). Film language: A semiotics of the cinema. University of Chicago Press. Monaco, James (2000). How to read a film: the world of movies, media, and multimedia: language, history, theory. USA: Oxford University Press. Chandler, Daniel (1994). Semiotics for Beginners.).

I’m gonna work an episode at a time and will be focusing mainly on the visual narrative of Malex, since that’s predominantly my ship, but also looking at it through the way it’s parallelled with Echo and Michael/Maria which means there will probably be a fair bit of Echo content. What started out as a way of making a friend feel better is now a monster. You can blame her.

This is gonna be image heavy. You have been warned!

The first time we’re introduced to what we know will be a romantic pairing is Max and Liz at the checkpoint. This is a well-known trope for heterosexual couples; two characters of opposite genders meet in a location in the first episode you can be pretty confident that they’ll hook up before the show is over. Same goes for movies; boy meets girl, there’s bound to be love there somewhere. Or at the very least, sex.

What this also does is begins to set up a visual narrative that lasts across the show that can be referenced when we know a romantic pairing is going to be on the screen. (NB: this is important to note that there will always be other shots where characters are in this position that are not romantically linked, however, the regularity of their placement is what is being called out here, and in Malex’s case - which I’ll get to eventually, so stick with me - there’s an absolute consistency in their framing which is too precise to be accidental)

Max is shown on the left-centre of the frame here, and Liz on the right-centre. Compare these two images with the ones below.

Both are completely on the same side of the shot which in terms of reading the framing indicates that, romantically, they are no longer on the same page. There’s an unevenness in the camera angles here, too which is partly about perspective (i.e. when we look at Max, we’re looking up as Liz is and vice versa) but in a wider context, it also shows a power dynamic (and this is important for later). In this scene, as a police officer, Max has the power. (Think later to the scene in 1x13 where Max and Liz are intimate and a vast majority of the camera angles are shot up at her from Max’s position).

The closeness of these shots is intimate; if we didn’t know the setting of these, we might not have assumed that there’s a physical barrier between them as there’s no real indication of one. The close-up shots are tight on their faces and not so much on the environment around them, focusing the audience to narrow in on their faces.

It’s also a highly unusual move to have a switching POV shot keeping the same angle regardless of who’s POV we’re seeing the scene from which just further highlights that this is telling us categorically that Max and Liz - though romantically entangled (TV Trope 101) - are not right now on the same page. If they were, ironically, they would be on opposite sides of the screen.

When we bring another character in, Sheriff Valenti is more centralised in her framing, and the angle at which she is shot (from Liz’s POV still as we’re inside the car) is immediately less intimate, there’s more space and as an audience we’re made aware of the barrier of the frame of the car door. The close up is even a little less intense here, we see more of Sheriff Valenti’s shoulder in the over-the-shoulder shot of Liz’s face, and we see more of Liz’s car. It’s a reminder, it’s breaking that spell of MaxandLiz that we had earlier by physically creating distance.

What is important, though, is this shot below and it took me a while to realise but Max is reflected in her car window and here is a perfect example of them sharing a shot with a defined side. It’s literally seconds, but they’re on either side of the shot here and even though we can’t see Max (other than in his reflection - and honestly I only noticed when looking through screencaps), we know she’s looking at him. The obvious imagery here is that Max is, literally, in her rear window; he’s part of her past, but it also shows that he’s a part of her life despite her having attempted to move on.

This image is also key in another way; it sets up the beginning of the visual dynamic for this show’s couples that I’m going to call Your Side My Side.

One of the other on screen romantic (sort of) dynamics set up in this is Liz and Kyle. Comparing their framing (over the shoulder, opposite sides) to the Max and Liz (over the shoulder, same side) gives us a clue into the route their relationship is going to take. He’s framed similarly to Sheriff Valenti; Kyle’s in the middle of the shot here, when it would have been just as easy to have him off to one side of the frame and it would have lost no narrative impact. However, there’s none of the my side your side here, since the two of them share the middle of the screen.

In this shot (haha, and it’s a terrible screencap of Jeanine’s beautiful face and for that I AM SORRY), Liz is pretty much bang-smack in the middle of the shot, but both she and the back of Kyle’s head are sharing the same space in the frame and they’re on the same side of the image. You never see Echo or Malex sharing the same side of the shot while they’re both in it, they’re always paralleled on opposite sides (which we’ll see, for example, in the first toolshed scene where they’re sat side-by-side but on either side of the frame).

What’s set up with Kyle & Liz is a narrative that they are not to be framed romantically. Though they hook up, their shots are largely framed in a similar way with them sharing space in the frame.

Now, the reason you’re all here: Malex.

This next few screenshots don’t need as much dissection as the kissing ones, but hey, we’ll spend some time looking at everyone’s pretty faces :D

Michael and Alex have their own sides of the screen - Alex on the right, Michael on the left. What’s interesting here is the closeness of the shots, the character that isn’t in focus is just as dominant on the screen as the one that is; Michael takes up almost half of Alex’s shot (above) and Alex does take up half of Michael’s shot (below)

After they both look at Master Sgt Manes (which is a shot of the two of them in the middle, Master Sgt looking on - setting up the voyeuristic element Malex that I touch on in the video break down) the camera gives them some distance from each other, though the focus and shot type doesn’t change, Alex and Michael barely fit in the frame with each other.

Though we don’t fully know what’s going on, past Michael’s spiteful comments about being a ‘real Manes man’ (and since he’s set up as a fuck-authority character it’s easy to assume that it’s all it is, he’s angry at the fact that The Man is on his property telling him what to do, fuck the man! Well, fuck that man in particular, please, in the airstream I missed you so much and how dare you be here with him.) it’s not until the ‘run and tell your daddy’ that we as an audience realise that there’s likely more going on here. The shift in framing is indicating that it’s Alex putting distance between them, which is a common theme in their relationship for the rest of the season. His face is still in Michael’s shot (above), but only Michael’s shoulder is in Alex’s (below).

Though we’re setting up a precedent for Alex putting distance between them, Michael’s the one that shuts down the interaction in this scene by disappearing into the airstream. He’s the first to break it.

Having set up the my-side-your-side dynamic for Malex in their first interaction, their meeting again at the reunion is interesting because it shows a shift - already - in their interactions. We find that the right-left dynamic is constant unless there’s a power shift or something significant, both of which we see before the Malex kiss.

Here, they’re shot on the same side of the frame (Alex’s side). Alex has come to the reunion thinking that Michael’s doing something wildly illegal considering what his scientists found (and honestly, with Carina confirming Alex’s costume was wrong in the pilot and then in 1x02 seeing Alex with Captain Bars on his collar it makes me so happy he’s outranked his shit-bag father). They’re no longer even remotely on the Same Page. Alex is angry and confused and disappointed; Michael is better than some back-alley meth lab in the middle of a dairy ranch.

The sudden shift in their camera angles - the mid-shot that falls back further when Alex grabs Michael’s arm (as Michael’s looking to get away from Alex again, for the second time in this episode) and holds him close gives us another dizzying shift.

The my-side-your-side changes (below) and the camera pulls in intimately close for the ‘you’re wasting your life’ and ‘does the macho cowboy swagger thing ever get old’.

Alex is turned into Michael (above) but Michael’s not facing Alex, not turned away. “you tryna hold my hand, private?” even though he doesn’t have the physical distance - and the camera doesn’t let him have that either, it’s close and tight and suffocating and Michael can’t escape it even if he wanted to - he can joke, he can look away, he can keep distance between their heads.

Alex has the power in that screenshot above; Alex is the one that grabbed Michael. Alex is the one still holding him.

In the below shot, however - this is a split second before Michael says ‘did it get old for you?’ - we’re treated to the same shot as above but reversed. They’re back on their own sides of the screen and Michael’s reclaimed the power in the scene. When using ‘private’ in an offensively flirtatious manner didn’t work, he drops his voice and all but purrs in Alex’s ear a question (that probably was meant to be mocking and actually ends up being a little more broken than he intended it to be (is that why you left? did you get bored of me? was I not enough?) but it’s enough. Alex is visibly rocked by it and the camera - since it stays so tight on them, swings out a second later to reveal Michael walking away to wrap his arms around another girl, with the framing still being quite visibly your-side-my-side.

Now, let’s talk about the real reason everyone’s here; the Malex kiss. I can’t work out how to embed a youtube video in an already image-heavy post and as I was writing I realised that fuck I have too much to say about it to stick into this already busy as heck post so I’m gonna dissect that separately and focus on stills here, but I’ll link to that post, too. (It’s here, by the way, if you wanna see it and breaks this scene down into TINY PIECES).

The my-side-your-side is constant here, and honestly, the video post I made explains it in a lot more detail but I’ve started so I’ll finish. The blue wash of this entire scene is meant to encourage a sense of calm - and how we move from Alex being backlit with red (below, where he’s saying ‘we’re not kids anymore, what I want doesn’t matter) to being completely swamped in blue like Michael is is representative of the change in Alex from ‘must not kiss Michael’ to swaying into Michael’s orbit and holding onto him because he needs it as much as Michael does. (You can tear the headcanon that they’re soulmates and linked on a fundamental, cosmic level from my cold dead hands).

We’re meant to focus more on Alex’s face in this section, which is why Alex has a few more close-up shots (and eh, who can blame us for wanting more of Tyler’s pretty face? Pfft) and we’re able to watch the journey of resistance (red) to acceptance and calm and serenity and home (blue) as he moves forward into Michael’s space and accepts Michael into his.

This kiss is epic. You can’t deny that. The framing is soft-focused and the camera lingers, allows us to really zoom in on the moment and focus on what’s happening: the intensity of the moment. I’ve talked about this a lot, but the way the camera swings to catch up with Michael as he surges into Alex and then goes still is - imo - representative of how Alex stabilises Michael’s world, soothes it right down. The world rocks on its axis when their lips first touch, when their bodies collide, but then it all goes still and calm as Michael’s entropy changes. The blue helps foster that, too, it’s calming and soothing and tranquil. It’s safety and security. And it’s home.

With Jesse Manes’ words about love being spoken over this (below) shot and not over Echo (who have a cute handprint moment but it’s not the same), the show is choosing to put a focus and emphasis on the fact that this, right here, is a cosmic, epic love that cannot - and will not - be denied. Alex can’t run from who he is (as the soundtrack said while he was looking at a picture of his out-and-proud teenage self) and they can’t run from this (as the soundtrack says, again). This is it for them. And this is it for us, too, as viewers. We’re getting it set up in the very beginning that this is a cosmic love story, that it has history and pain but that it is love. That’s important to remember: we are told at the very beginning that Michael and Alex love each other. It doesn’t matter that they also sets up a paradigm of the two of them almost saying what they mean but never actually saying the words. “What I want doesn’t matter” - I want you. “I never look away, not really” - I love you. “It was late, I was tired” - I stayed because this is safe for me, you are home. What we are TOLD EXPLICITLY is that Michael and Alex love each other.

Hold onto that, folks. Because the visual narrative does not change.

(tagging, by request, @i-never-look-away, @stydiaeverafter, @signoraviolettavalery, @saadiestuff. If you wanna be tagged in future meta, let me know!)

#roswell new mexico #rnm #roswell new mexico cw #alex manes #michael guerin #max evans #liz ortecho #hannah uses her degree #hannah writes #malex #echo #maria deluca #semiotics #roswell cinematography #i have no idea what else to tag this as #semiotics of roswell #meta #my meta #visual meta

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naruhearts · 5 years

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OKAY SO I've just spent the best part of an hour scrolling through your blog and reading a bunch of your destiel meta and I HAD to message you... I was one of the many people who STRONGLY believed destiel had a chance of being canon after season 8 (more like season gr8 am i right), but throughout the years I slowly lost all hope. However, S14 has made me 110% invested in the show again and YOUR META IS GIVING ME HOPE FOR DESTIEL, which is TERRIFYING. Your writing is wonderful and I'm STRESSED.

Got back from Washington late last night!

Oh my gosh @alovelikecas, your message really made my day and I’m SO glad you enjoy my meta xox (even when most of my meta looks like, to me, sloppy-ass writing, haha! I’ll probably make an end-season meta post after 14x20 — if I have the time — that touches upon SPN’s current and repeating themes since Season New Beginnings S12/Dabb Era, not to mention I have, like, some more unfinished meta in my drafts >.>)

Yeah I mean, I didn’t join Destiel land until Summer 2016, and before that, I was late to the Season 11 party, so I basically had no narrative context for anything, and I’ll copy-paste what I said here:

Looking back, one significant thing I recall? S11 gave me a sense of Destiel’s true narrative validity (as not a ‘fanon’ ship but organically developed in the canon) when I perceived it as a season that was ‘missing something’. Keep in mind I had no idea about Destiel yet while watching S11 at the time.

I was literally asking myself — repeatedly — why Dean/Amara seemed to contain odd narrative holes, considering A. Dean explicitly said that the non-consensual attraction he felt for Amara was NOT love and “it scares him”, B. Amara told Dean that ‘something stops you - keeps you from having it all’, C. Djinn!Amara stated that she can: ‘feel the love [Dean] feels, except it’s cloaked in shame,’ and D. Mildred’s iconic ‘You’re pining for someone’ —> which did not logically correlate with A and C, meaning: since Dean doesn’t freely love Amara and thus isn’t possibly pining for her — with female love interests as currently non-existent (I remember crossing off the dead/gone girls on a piece of paper lol) — who the hell was he pining for, then?

Originally posted by elizabethrobertajones

Obviously, without writing long-ass paragraphs of meta about it again in this post, S11 made sense as soon as I watched it within the Destiel context (especially after I read up on some grandiose pieces of Destiel meta (@charlie-minion was the very first person who inspired me to write meta; I followed her once I joined the fandom Oh my god, here we go, holy crap this subtext – I’m invested in this godforsaken ship because they’re in love with each other and I’m not getting off any time soon. The rest is history.

I’m aware that I do come off as positive (and I’m still Destiel-positive; whatever happens in 14x20 this week may or may not change that), but I hope you don’t mind if I use your lovely ask as an additional opportunity to clarify my meta standpoint: no one’s saying Destiel WILL become text.

The general Destiel meta community (all subfactions: Destiel-positive, -negative, -neutral, and in-between) is not the Most Holy Canon Word, and we aren’t SPN writers, and again, we can’t actually speak to the veracity of Destiel as guaranteed-gonna-go-textual, but we — a diverse pool of critical thinkers from all walks of life: particularly those who have some degree of experience in literary academia/English literature studies (fun fact: I was actually pursuing a Minor’s in English until I changed my mind - my first love’s Health Science/Biology, which I stuck with, but here I am doing lit-crit analysis on the side *wink*) — can speak to the veracity of Destiel as a real, palpable, and ever-substantial long-running romance narrative aka the love story between Dean and Cas IS THERE. I see it. We all see it. We didn’t pluck it out of the random ether one day. It naturally evolved across the show’s overarching narrative like some vast spiderweb, linked together by numerous character arc amalgamations of Dean Winchester and Castiel as separate individuals who were then brought together — who brought themselves together, by the sheer force of free will and choice — and are now inherent parts of the other’s story (and respective character progression).

I say this too many times to count: the entire point of writing meta? Personally, it enables me to appreciate the literary gorgeousness of Dean and Cas’ relationship as, first and foremost, a tentative alliance offset by the very moment Cas raised Dean from perdition (it’s a poetic beginning). Their alliance then inevitably proliferated into a rocky — at times, necessarily turbulent — friendship, then a deep profound bond…one that crossed platonic boundaries since S7/8 and is, ultimately, indelibly rooted in romance. Together, Dean and Cas build up each other’s strengths, complement each other’s flaws, and narratively motivate the other to self-introspect — to become the best version of themselves that they were always meant to be: self-actualized entities who let go of their painful, horrifying, psychologically/emotionally destitute pasts.

These above reasons and more are why I think Destiel belongs right up there on the shelf of Ye Olde Classics, similar to epics by John Milton, Shakespearian tragic dramas, Homeric characteristic cruxes, and the great Odyssey journey: a legendary journey, fraught with circumstance, that finally ended with Odysseus (now an enlightened man) returning to Penelope, the love of his life.

Channeling the scope of Homer’s Odyssey, Destiel is an incredible storytelling feat of obstacles, both internal and external, romance tropes, mirroring, foreshadowing, and visual cadence/emotion, enhancing SPN’s already character-driven main plot in that Dean and Cas try to make it back to one another; like Penelope, their love holds true despite everything. If Destiel were an M/F couple, we all know their love story would be absolutely undeniable to the GA.

I do understand the bitterness S14’s fostered in some viewers, though. I do understand that Dean and Cas seem distant (and yeah, it’s a noticeable difference compared to S12/S13), but I believe the Destiel subtext is still heavy and holds steady.

Right now, at this point, there remains multiple personal issues for the characters to solve, you know? Dean and Cas aren’t talking properly; their love languages stay mistranslated, although we’re persistently shown that they still understand each other on a certain level that no one else can, and the visual narrative keeps framing them as on-the-nose solid counterparts: a domestic-spousal romantic unit independent of Sam.

Originally posted by incatastrophicmind

They want to be there for the other. They need to quash the final remnants of their respective internal loathing (Dean’s self-worthiness, Cas’ self-expendability) before they’re able to give the other 100% of their time, efforts, attention, and love (as flawed and complicated but compellingly beautiful as it can possibly be). During the times Dean and Cas do try to talk shit out, extraneous issues continue to get between them.

As other friends/meta pals discussed with me, S14 is like S10 in that it’s confusing the cast/audiences. And exactly: S8, besides S11/S12/early S13, also belongs in the close-to-canon serious Destiel narrative transition! I can discuss the showrunning/writer problem of SBL (Singer + Bucklemming; @occamshipper hits the nail on the head) that tugs subtext – especially subtext linked to Destiel – back and forth, sometimes in the weirdest nonsensical ways, but I won’t go too far into it here. I agree, however, with the recent idea that Jensen does seem a bit confused as to where he should bring Dean emotionally this season (don’t get me wrong, I do NOT believe Dean is OOC; OOC is a completely different concept vs expected character behaviour). And if Dean’s consistently romance-coded past interactions with Cas are any indication, Jensen would also — in the same vein as all of us — want Dean and Cas to start getting their shit together. Long-running fictional characters like Dean and Cas, conceived over 10 years, are so well-written to the point where you, the author, can predict what they’ll do even if you just plop both of them inside a room and give them no direction, and I personally feel that nowadays Jensen is prevented from achieving Dean’s further internal growth/unsure how to act in the moment because of some dumb SBL scripts saying one thing while his character’s heart says another. Wank aside—

Season 15 should hopefully convey a much more logical subtextual perspective e.g. unbelievably amazingly cohesive Season Destiel 11 that aired after choppy S10. Not all hope is lost!! I also want to clarify that I personally LOVED Season 14 in general. It’s been mostly Emotion-centric constant, with Yockey, Berens, Perez, and Dabb usually making my top-rank SPN writer list.

Currently the narrative’s still allowing pretty significant (imho) wiggle room for the lovers to fracture apart and get back together, where their miscommunication comes to a dramatic head. We just saw Dean and Cas argue over Jack’s well-being in 14x18 and 19. Dean — besides putting Cas at the top of his You’re-Dead-to-Me-Because-You-Lied-but-I-Still-Love-You-Goddammit hitlist (for clear spousal-coded reasons) and taking Cas’ actions to heart (he’s the person he trusted the most who lied to him) — no doubt blamed himself for what happened, and Sam was, like I said, the mouthpiece of truth. TFW were all culpable. They all failed Jack in some way, shape, or form.

I’m not expecting anything for 14x20, but I’m nervous either way! Thanks for sticking with my long answer

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antagonistchanremade · 5 years

Text

One flaw that exists in all my themes, even Evolution, is that videos and particularly large images sometimes roll right off the post, like this.

Man this is ugly.

I don’t think this is a problem in the default theme, so I’m gonna look into seeing why the default theme doesn’t have that problem.

I mean, I’ve generally had a good time when it comes to reverse-engineering the default theme’s post formatting.

Most themes use Tumblr’s pre-2015 post formatting (where, you know, reblogs are shown in a plain pyramid of blockquotes and links), mainly because the basic implementation of posts just automatically applies that particular formatting; the default theme, however, uses the current style of post formatting. After a brief look at the default theme’s code, you quickly discover that it takes a lot of extra code to make posts look like they do on the dash... and that said code can be reworked to make posts look like just about anything.

Like, here’s the Default Implementation of post formatting, as seen on most Tumblr themes including Antag01 and Bliss, as well as the dashboard until 2015:

If you don’t do anything fancy with the coding for the posts, this is what you’ll get. Because deep down, this is how the site actually stores multiple series’ of reblogs.

Then, here’s the Official Implementation of post formatting, as seen on the Default Theme and the dashboard:

(ignore the fact that carnival-phantasm’s URL is green and in a green box, that’s from the Shinigami Eyes extension, not from the post formatting)

I don’t know how this is implemented on the dashboard, but on the Default Theme, you have to add a whole bunch of extra code to the post formatting to make it look like this. It’s honestly kinda scary-looking at first. I would say that it’s a good example of Tumblr’s Spaghetti Code at work... but then again, this was a late addition (remember, they had to very suddenly find a way to implement real formatting to the posts instead of the hack the site had previously been built around with just having pyramids of blockquotes, AND make it so all the OLD posts WOULD ALSO FIT INTO THIS FORMATTING), AND the complexity actually adds a lot of depth to it. When I first decided to try reverse-engineering the Default theme, I just wanted to implement the modern post formatting, which is why my initial reaction to seeing the code was “Oh, ew”; but then, after starting to understand how it worked, I realized that I could actually totally play with this and create my own entirely new post formatting from scratch, which in my opinion is better than the Official Implementation in most ways but also inferior in a few ways (namely, some things that are missing from my formatting). There is code in place to separate different additions to the post from each other, and code in place to retrieve the avatars of different users, and to disable the links leading to inactive blogs. Honestly, again, while my initial reaction to seeing this was negative... it’s probably the only thing Staff has done since all the way back in the Yahoo buyout in 2013 that’s actually impressed me. Reverse-engineering this was fun and gave me a lot of freedom. A lot more freedom than I would have gotten if I’d gotten what I was expecting and hoping for. There are still problems, of course- for instance, it’s utter nesting hell- but overall, it works.

So, finally, here’s my Evolution Implementation, how Evolution does things, featuring the same post as the Official Implementation:

(again, ignore carnival-phantasm’s green URL, that’s still from Shinigami Eyes)

So, part of the really complex coding for the Official Implementation is built around each individual post testing whether or not it’s an original post. Like, each post has a property that determines if it’s an original post, or if you reblogged it from someone. This is so that the post will run different code depending on if it’s original or not; it’s essential for making any non-Default implementation work. So, after I did all my other work, I realized something crucial- because I created my own formatting that didn’t necessarily fit with what people were used to, I should make it slightly more obvious which posts were original or not. So, I added a bit of code that only executes when the post isn’t original that adds that little “(reblogged post)” marker to the top of the post. It’s not too obvious, but it doesn’t need to be; again, it’s only there as a backup plan in case my formatting didn’t make it immediately obvious what was going on in the post.

Also, in my implementation, I decided to give each different player in the post a bit more gravitas. A big box dedicated to telling you who’s saying what. In my opinion, it’s a bit easier to parse posts with multiple replies.

And, actually, let’s take a look at something from Evolution’s preview blog:

There’s a very similar big box for Asks, in particular for the question and the answer. The box is slightly taller, but also doesn’t quite reach the edges of the post the way the URL box does. The avatars are slightly bigger, and are given a bit more room to breathe. So, it’s a bit consistent, but also there’s just enough going on to communicate that this is a separate style of conversation.

AND ALSO, quotes and links:

Again, a similar-yet-different style of big box. I will admit, formatting the links and the quotes themselves has nothing to do with the Implementation. Even with the Default Implementation, you can play a bit with the CSS formatting for links and quotes. But having the Evolution Implementation gave me the freedom to make that formatting consistently match up with how reblogs and asks are indicated.

Also, that quote is reblogged, but because Quote posts are formatted stupidly to begin with, I can’t have it really display the OP without breaking things. Quotes are.... not good. Even in the modern style of post formatting, Quotes still work the same way that they did in the Default Implementation.

Also also, that bottom part- the part that’s like “Five months ago, 4 notes, via”- that’s not part of the Implementation. Like the links and quotes, formatting those is something you gotta do even under the Default Implementation.

And just to give you an idea how complicated the non-Default implementations are, here’s the code for text posts in Antag01 (again, basically the simplest way to code them that most themes use and until 2015 they all used):

This is it. It basically just says, “This is a text post, and the title is a size 3 header that is also a permalink to the post itself.” There’s more code dedicated to formatting the post’s title than there is to formatting the post itself. Literally “{Body}” is the entirety of what’s responsible for that screenshot of the Default Implementation. The Default Implementation is just what Tumblr does on its own.

Meanwhile, here’s the code for text posts in the default theme (aka, the Official Implementation):

And here’s the code for text posts in Evolution:

Evolution’s “IsDeactivated” block is larger than Antag01′s entire “Text” block. There’s literally more code in Evolution dedicated to deciding what to do if someone involved in the post is deactivated than there is code in Antag01 about text posts period.

Anyways, if I do end up starting Antag 04 soon, I’m gonna come up with another style of implementation. As much as I like the Evolution Implementation, I kinda came up with it on the fly when I realized that I could make my own implementation, and it’s not as well thought-out as it could be. There are a couple oversights, and it’s very aesthetically tied to Evolution, and I wanna make a theme where I know from the beginning that a custom Implementation is possible and thus can tie things even closer together.

#importantagonist

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wiredandrewired · 5 years

Text

Was trying to actually work on something but my brain is stuck on loop. So instead I’m gonna make a post of the Voltron stuff sitting unposted in my writing WIP folder to help me organize my thoughts.

I guess since I’m posting this, if you have anything you wanna say/ask about any of these feel free. I respond well to outside interest.

1. Project ReVolt is without a doubt the project I’ve posted about the most here. And talked about in random tags. And tangents. Originally it was just the name the project had in my internal brain filing cabinet but it’s kind of spread and stuck to where my wife and I just refer to it as that when we talk about it.

ReVolt is basically going to be a VLD series rewrite more along the lines of how my wife and I would have done it or at least liked to see it done. In some places it will probably stick pretty damn close to the events of the series canon, but in others go completely off the deep end. We’re each going to be doing one, so a lot of the headcanon and worldbuilding and such that we’ve worked out together in various other stories and RPs will be consistent between the two stories, but it will also give us a place to veer out and do things without the others’ input (as we’re not gonna let each other see our fics until they post, tee hee). I’ve done a SHITPOT of rules and infrastructure work using actual alchemy tracts to try and make sense of the series’ largely Powers As The Plot Demands system, and am pretty convinced I’m going to A)fall hard into my very common Esoterica Ranting Mode pitfall and B)enrage literally everyone who reads it with my character and plot choices. Most conservative estimate says this will be six ‘books’ long as again, we’re doing literally the entire series. Current status: at the ‘ridiculously large amount of notes and setting up actual arcs and outlines’ stage, and waiting for the wife to finish ‘Happier HOPEless’.

2. There Are No Monsters Here is a fic I really want to do but cannot seem to get off the ground, set to take place entirely in the ‘last universe’ from season 8--the one native-Honerva died in and crazed-death-god-Honerva picked out as her ideal and tried to wedge herself into. I guess the basic idea was that, like the ‘main’ universe, it got rebuilt pretty much as it was prior to Nightmare Mom Ruining Everything, and I have it with no one fully remembering the events of season 8 that took place there, but characters really closely tied to those events having some itching feeling that something happened, and all the Altean alchemists agreeing that some kind of massive quantum Event certainly occurred even if they don’t know what.

Mostly the story exists as a place for me to have a canon-compliant AU that still lets me explore stuff like Altean history, the racial and cultural tensions of the Coalition, dink around with Oldadins that DON’T die in one fell swoop, a living Daibazaal and Altea, Lotor growing up with a decent-but-not-without-strains relationship with his dad, teen Allura and tiny Lotor being absolute shits to each other while also coming to terms as they grow up with who and what they MUST be both on a political and quantum scale, and generally prove that even a perfect universe isn’t, all in one place. The title is entirely facetious, and anyone who’s read any of my alien culture headcanons for this series knows that. Lol. Current status: lots of bits and pieces, but no good beginning or connective tissue. I have a lot of notes, some arc outlines, and a few scattered scenes and bits of dialogue from later in the story, but my god, I CANNOT get it off the ground.

3. Someone Must Get Hurt (But It Won’t Be Me) is supposed to be a pretty wholly Honerva-centric fic that starts...sometime in her youth?...and carries forward to an as-yet-undetermined point. Probably her death. I mean the first one. I’m not sure. Another chance to dig my fingers into Altean culture and Alchemy, this time leading up to All The Bad Shit That Happened, with the added bonus of being done from a focal point of a character I have a lot of really strong feelings about both positive and negative that’s resulted in me somehow being EVEN MORE wrapped up in her than I was before I added abject knee-jerk trauma hatred to the mix. In no way meant to make Honerva more sympathetic, I think I just want to write her even more like my mother so I’ll feel EVEN BETTER about killing her? Idk man my feelings about her are so complicated. Also an excuse to write a shitpot of her and Zarkon because listen, I’m really glad they’re married because I ship them so fuckin hard. Current Status: SO many notes. SO much infrastructure. Like three pages of an opening I’m almost definitely throwing away because I can’t decide where, when, or how to open but feel like this isn’t it. One short but very telling scene of Honey and Zarkon from late in the story. I’m obsessed with it but I can’t get anywhere.

4. Currently Untitled Demon Hunter AU started because my wife talks to me about Happier HOPEless a LOT and I just got an itch in my bones to work on one myself. In spite of the entire Demon Hunter AU thing getting started by a prompt on a Shance blog, neither Shiro nor Lance are set to appear for at least a chapter? And I am not confident in my ability to not veer off into utter non-shipping anyway because man, am I bad at it. Or like...just an entirely different ship for either or both of them. Current Status: A lot of vague notes, a POWERFUL urge to structure the chapters and overall arc after Ripley’s Gates even though that limits my chapter count and means I will DEFINITELY have 20k+ word chapters, and about seven pages of the first chapter so I guess I’m committed now?

5. Currently Untitled Post Series Fic basically exists for me to vent my frustrations about two main things: The Universe is Fucking Huge And There Are Dangers Other Than Galra, and The Galra Empire Was Huge and Is Not Going To All Fall In Line Behind Voltron Coalition and Especially Behind Keith Who Just Arbitrarily Fucking Decided To Tell Them They Couldn't Pick A New Leader According To Their Own Traditions And Need To Do What They’re Told Now What The Fuck. Also there was a lot of stuff in the series that got left hanging, and while ReVolt is an IN-series fix-it fic, I wanted something that patched up loose ends in a way that was satisfactory to me but also kind of canon-compliant. Current Status: A lot of notes and screaming. No one has seen my progress on this and they might never.

6. Dog Runs And Death Dreams is a warmup file turned deeply self-indulgent series of scenes in which I choose to assume that Shiro’s rare neuromuscular disorder was left so ambiguous so I could plug the symptoms of mine into it. It’s genuinely not any deeper than that. The whole thing is set pre-Kerberos, and includes copious Shiro x Adam content because of it, but also not the kind that makes me feel good about writing because that means it includes the ‘slow fizzle’ that leads up to their breakup before the mission. Ugh. Working on it does make me feel better when I've been having symptoms, though, and I’ve been letting myself write it, unchastised, in a really loose rambly way that I usually deride myself for. It’s just cathartic. Current Status: no notes, no plan, just strain-writing between seizures, but somehow it feels like it has some kind of structure and just keeps growing? Possibly too close to the bone for me to ever post.

7. Birth and Rebirth was born out of two things: the fact that Zarkon is shown to have two ENTIRELY DIFFERENT reactions to first being presented with his baby son in different flashbacks and different seasons, and the fact that in spite of the flashbacks we get at the end of the series, earlier on, the impression I got of Lotor and Zarkon’s relationship wasn’t of a young man who had never had affection from his father, but who had instead lost it. Well, three things: I have a lot of underlying issues at work, at play, and at large when it comes to the Galra Imperial Family. Also, anyone notice the monitor blips in the first baby Lotor flashbacks indicate a heart murmur? Anyway, it was supposed to be a thoroughly self-indulgent and thoroughly self-hurtful examination of Lotor’s early life and the death by degrees of what was left of his father in the husk Rift Adventures left behind, but I got stuck on it a little way in. Current Progress: ten pages, a lot of notes, and some wistfulness. I keep hoping I’ll get inspired to pick it back up again. Contemplating rewriting some of the beginning, maybe it’ll help?

Bonus entry that is not actually in any form of progress soever:

50/50 Voltron Trashfire Edition is spawned from the ‘50/50′ challenge on an old TF board I used to haunt. It’s a fifty-prompt smut challenge using the list of ‘50 reasons to have sex’ from some tv show, and the idea is to write a different ship for every prompt (hence the name). My wife is blazing through it and has several (like twelve?) up on her AO3, but I’ll be utterly blunt: I haven’t written fifty porn fics in my LIFE. Over ALL my fandoms. Current Status: Literally all I have done is assign a ship to each prompt, and I might actually have some prompts with just question marks beside them still. I have one aborted start to one entry. That’s it. It’s not happening. But the empty file is technically in the folder, SO.

#things Rewire Writes #disregard I'm decompiling #writing woes #fanfiction: the struggle #the state of the rest of these makes me a little worried about Revolt tbh #I need to unclog the writing pen in my brain

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kavyavarma225-blog · 5 years

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TRADITIONAL MARKETING VS DIGITAL MARKETING ?

Let's figure out what is most suitable for the marketing and promotion for your business. Online Advertising vs. Traditional advertising could seem like a tough decision to make

Marketing is nothing but giving a permanent solution to the customers for what they want exactly. It is that aspect of the business that you can never gonna ignore. A wise entrepreneur will segregate separate budget for the marketing alone.

The problem is, we are living in a generation where maximum people are doing only Online transactions while other people do not yet know how to use the internet. So, the traditional vs Digital Marketing decision becomes difficult.

All we need to do is to know the PROS ad CONS of both and see how it applies to your business. Check out the benefits of both the market's statistics and you will have a good indicator of which mode of marketing you need more.

What is traditional marketing?

Traditional Marketing is the conventional modes of marketing that have been used since the beginning of marketing. This includes

Television

Newspaper

Radio

Billboards and Flyers by the highways and the roads

Ads in related weekly magazines.

What is digital marketing?

Digital or Online Marketing is the marketing mode of the global village. It is the only era of the internet that influence in every realm of life.

Digital marketing includes platforms like:

Social media like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Business networking sites like LinkedIn.

Promotional ads via emails.

Paid pop-ups.

Blogs

Clickbait links for viral content.

Online marketing is more user-friendly than traditional marketing, though all the types look similar. Now we got to know what traditional and online marketing is, let us figure out the best of the traditional vs. digital marketing contest.

Traditional vs. digital marketing

Let's lay down the pros and cons of online advertising vs. traditional advertising.

Pros of Digital Marketing over Traditional Marketing:

Reduced cost

Newspaper ads, television ads, and the likes cost a lot. Online advertising, on the other hand, is something even young entrepreneurs can afford with some saved up money.

So, even school goers can have a startup thanks to the cheap cost price for online marketing. This, in turn, helps expand the scope of marketing across boundaries of age and finance.

Easy Monitoring:

In traditional marketing, we have to wait for weeks, sometimes even months before the boosts start to turn up. In this battle of traditional vs. online marketing, online marketing wins again owing to its quick results.

You can see everything in real-time including:

A number of visitors.

The most active time of the day.

Conversion rates.

Bounce rates.

When you have the result handy in real-time, you waste no time taking action.

Brand building opportunities:

This is mainly because with the limited space and frequency of advertisements with traditional marketing, digital marketing clearly wins this category.

You can have a whole website instead of a column on a newspaper page. You can put forward things to people whenever you want once you own a blog or a Page on social media. With this space, you can create a consistent image for your Company. This is something one advertisement aired on the radio or posted in the newspapers cannot give you. And will also help in branding your business.

Higher exposure

Now, you can’t claim that a television ad or an advertisement on every newspaper in town is going to cover the majority of the population. Any means of traditional advertisement is limited to a certain locality or targeted people.

Whereas online advertisement reaches out to the entire world so you are missing out on nothing.

Flexible nature

With traditional marketing, you cannot really interact with your target audience. You need to wait out for the responses to come in before you can plan your next step. This is a long and tedious process.

Online marketing allows you to engage your audience in real time. You can chat and discuss a lot about your brand or Company with the actual audience immediately. Yes, this demands more engagement from your side too. You need to be prepared to invest that much time or a public relations team into the marketing budget.

Quicker publicity

Very much due to the real-time results of online marketing, you get instant publicity. If you don’t, you at least instantly know that this particular ad isn’t working for you.

Traditional vs. digital marketing is an almost unfair comparison here because the former has no scope to deliver in this regard. Whereas with the latter, comments helping you reach a new audience and earn a new visitor every second.

Non-Interpretive

Audience can choose to skip Ads. Online advertising vs. traditional advertising have some lesser discussed but crucial differences. For example, the option of choice of ads. With traditional marketing, flyers are handed to you when you are rushing to board that bus. A television commercial comes up on repeat cutting right through a really interesting plot twist of your favorite TV show.

Whereas, online marketing will offer you the choice of time and media. Also, you cannot opt to receive a newspaper without ads. You can always skip online ads if you are not interested.

Suitable for every scale of Business:

There are certain matters in which online advertising takes precedence with due course in the battle of traditional marketing vs. digital marketing.

You don’t have to worry about the size of your business and staff to reach the maximum potential of your online presence and advertising. With traditional advertising, smaller businesses are at disadvantage. Virtual expansion does not require large number of real people handling things.

Easy analytics

With online marketing you instantly know what is working for you and what isn’t via Google Analytics. You can measure the inbound traffic, bounce rate, conversion rate, profit, and the general trend of interested audience, all in real time.

This helps people using online marketing stay a big step ahead of people relying on traditional marketing.

Advantages of Traditional Marketing

There are some aspects where traditional marketing wins some rounds of online advertising vs. traditional advertising battle. Though few, here they are.

Target Local Audience

You can give an ad on a certain channel, and send out flyers to some chosen parts of the city, to keep things focused on the target audience.

With traditional marketing, you are not wasting resources into the sea of possible targets.

Materials are for keeps

The best thing about traditional marketing is that things are tangible and securable. With the virtual data of online marketing, all you can have are screenshots, which you can lose again.

Unless, of course, you save them on Cloud but who does that! The biggest win for traditional advertisement in the online advertising vs. traditional advertising battle is the hardcopy of materials that the audience has access to. This tends to make them remember the product or service better than what they saw once while browsing the internet.

More personal

Though you can totally use your blog or social network Page to create a brand image and interact a lot with the audience, it remains virtual. Real and personal approaches make people want to take something more serious.

This is why the door to door promotion and handing out flyers followed by a quick discussion on the road will never become obsolete. Of course in some parts it already is, but a comeback of these traditional modes of advertising is inevitable.

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digitalmarketingagencyjeddah · 4 years

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How long till you see results from Digital Marketing?

Results, results, and results. That’s what matters in this fast-paced business environment. We know that digital marketing produces results but how long will it take to see these results? This is a complex question because it depends on a few factors. Such as where your business is currently in terms of your digital marketing strategy as well as which aspect of digital marketing you’re concerned about and how much you’re willing to spend. The key is to decide your objectives and key performance indicators KPI’s before starting. There are digital marketing tools that create instant results and there are some that could take a year to fully yield returns. We’re gonna take a look at a few services we provide and how long they’re expected to provide results.

Social Media Management

Social Media Management isn’t a short term solution to your digital profile but a long term investment in your online presence. Now in terms of social media, it is simple to measure your results and improvements. There are a few basic metrics you can use such as followers or likes to measure how well you’re doing, but at Brain Space, we consider engagement rate to be the holy grail.

Engagement rate can be measured in a few ways but it essentially measures the level of engagement your content gets by its audience. It takes likes, comments, views, stories shares and more into consideration depending on the platform. Most people like or follow pages because they like the brand at a certain time or their friends are following it. You don’t want your account to be one of those pages people follow and completely forget about and that’s why engagement rate is imperative to your social media success.

Now, how long till you see your engagement rate rise is dependent on the stage your page is at before we start managing it. If you’re starting from scratch it may take 6 to 9 months to see results. However, if your page is already up and running your metrics will start to improve in a few months. The key is uploading quality content that interests your target audience on a consistent schedule (at the bare minimum one post a week).

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

If you’re looking for the quickest results in digital marketing then look no further! PPC delivers instant results. Pay-Per-Click lets us place ads on platforms and are charged a fee when the ad is clicked on. This is done on search engines where the goal is to get someone who is searching for a related topic to click on your ad and visit your website. With over 3.5 billion Google searches per day, advertising on a search engine is undoubtedly the quickest way to get the word around about your business to the right people. Right of the bat, you will start to get clicks on your ad. However, PPC isn’t that simple and requires trial and error to optimize. As you refine your PPC campaign you can expect to see optimal results in about 3 months.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is a pillar of digital marketing that is integral to your overall digital marketing strategy. SEO is the process of getting traffic from natural or organic search results on search engines. Our SEO specialists at Brain Space use many techniques to optimize your website’s ranking on search engines. Yes, many of these techniques can be implemented swiftly but in order to get to #1 on Google that requires more time and effort. You can expect some results in 4 to 6 months but your efforts will begin to compound over time and gradually deliver greater returns the longer you do it. We recommend a full year of SEO activities to start seeing the true fruits of your labor.

Again these numbers can vary greatly depending on your business and the market you’re in. Geographic location, domain age, target market, and baseline traffic all play big roles in depending on how much search engine traffic your site receives from SEO. It’s not a one size fits all and every SEO strategy must be designed specifically for each business. Our SEO specialists aim to get you on the first page of Google and eventually the number one spot!

Blogs

Blogs take the longest to start seeing results. Simply put you won’t gain thousands of readers overnight. It takes consistency, volume, and quality in order to see your website traffic skyrocket! We’d recommend for a small business to post one to four blogs a week while large businesses should aim to post daily. This is what we would call a strong content strategy. And a strong content strategy could take 8 to 12 months to generate results. Now that seems like a long time to be writing blogs, but trust us the results are worth it. Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see positive ROI. One of our favorite quotes when it comes to blogging is “If you build it they will come”. Your blog may start off with a few readers but the great thing with SEO is as soon as it picks up speed it won’t stop until you’re at the top.

Digital Marketing is not a quick fix to your problems. It requires patience but so do all good things. Nevertheless, digital marketing is the most effective form of marketing for the bulk of businesses. You can generally expect to see results within 6 months and by the time you get a year into your digital marketing strategy, you will see a considerable return.

#digitalmarketing #ksa #jeddah

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paintedrecs · 7 years

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Rules: Go to your works page, expand all the filters, and answer the following questions! how fun! (tagged by @mad-madam-m )

1. What’s your first and second most common work ratings? Any surprises?

Teen And Up Audiences (22)

Mature (5)

Nope. Actually, I’m a little surprised I even have 5 in the Mature category. I stressed a little about including more explicit sex in PDIW (I know there are still people in fandom who won’t read fics if they’re not rated E), but the thing is, I don’t enjoy writing sex and don’t feel like it needs to be squeezed into a story. If it’s necessary to move action or emotional connections along, that might change at some point. But so far, that hasn’t been the case.

2. What’s your most common archive warning? Least common? Do you consider yourself an adventurous writer?

No Archive Warnings Apply (18)

Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (11)

I should probably change the latter to “No Archive Warnings Apply,” because I think that’s more true for all of them? I was just being a lazy tagger, and that was the default.

I said this the last time I answered this question: I don’t think writing Major Character Death or other “gritty” storylines makes someone an “adventurous” writer. (So this question annoys me.)

I like to challenge myself by finding ways to fit Sterek into the oddest scenarios possible. Like Hot Fuzz, which was prompted by an article about shaving patterns into hairy backs. Or my Sterek zine piece (yet to be revealed!), which was inspired by a friend’s tweet and my insistence that pretty much anything can be Sterek if you look at it the right way.

I also try to stretch myself and make sure my writing improves as I go. (Hopefully this is true! It’s hard to tell when you’re looking at your own work.) For instance, I think I’m a lot better with dialogue than with physical descriptions, so I made conscious efforts to write more of the latter in PDIW chapters.

3. How many fics have you written in each relationship category? Is this more accidental, or do you have preferences?

M/M (28)

Gen (1)

That’s mostly because I only write Sterek. I have a F/F WIP that I dunno if I’ll ever get back to (from Kali’s perspective, so Kali/Julia), and if I ever finished my Allison POV one, it’d be M/F, unless I decided to give her a break from relationships. I have other pairings in the background (Cordia and Berica are common), but I only indicate the primary pairing’s category, so that’s why the numbers are like that.

4. What are your top 4 fandoms by numbers? Are you still active in any of them, and do you tend to migrate a lot?

Teen Wolf (TV) (27)

Check Please! (Webcomic) (1)

Teen Wolf (TV) RPF (1)

I will not be writing more RPF, and I occasionally think about taking that one down, although I still like the story itself. I’m active in CP, in that I run a blog and support Ngozi on Patreon, but I honestly don’t feel the need to write fics for it. (Or even to read zimbits fics, really.) I’m happy with their canonical portrayal and would rather sit back and let Ngozi tell their story.

You can tell I don’t really migrate...I do in terms of reading, but for now, I’ll probably just stick to writing Sterek. I have so, so many ideas left and no time to even finish those, much less jump into other fandoms.

5. What are your top 4 character tags? Does this match how you feel about the characters, or are you puzzled?

Derek Hale (25)

Stiles Stilinski (24)

Laura Hale (10)

Scott McCall (10)

Derek is my favorite, as anyone who’s followed me for any length of time probably knows. So yeah, the top three are pretty obvious. I absolutely love Laura Hale and would like to write some fics from her perspective, too.

In terms of favorite characters, Cora Hale or Sheriff John Stilinski should really be fourth, but Scott’s important to Stiles, so it makes sense for him to be up there. I don’t particularly like canon!Scott, especially in the later seasons, but I still have a soft spot for fanon Scott. He’s a good guy and a supportive best friend, and Stiles needs him in his life.

6. What are your top 2 most used additional tags, and your bottom 2? What would happen if you combined all 4 of these into a fic?

Top Two:

POV Stiles (9)

POV Derek Hale (7)

Bottom Two:

Established Relationship (4)

Alive Hale Family (3)

Well, those top two are boring! Although inaccurate, I think, since I don’t consistently remember to tag the POV. I think I do come up with more Stiles POV, especially lately, because I tend to make those faster-paced and more humorous, so it’s a little easier to write. Derek generally has a softer, quieter, more introspective narrative, and I need to invest more time and emotional energy when writing from his POV. Which isn’t to say that Stiles doesn’t have emotional depth or his own trauma - he just deals with it differently. Snappy dialogue and avoidance is a little easier to write.

I wouldn’t mind combining all four. I don’t think I have...Established Relationship is usually a canon-compliant thing for me, and Alive Hale Family obviously isn’t. And alternating POV is something I do more for longer fics. I don’t think I have anything like that lined up right now, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

7. How many WIPs do you have currently running on AO3? Any you don’t plan on finishing?

None!! I don’t post WIPs. I do share snippets on twitter, and if you follow me there, you’ll get sneak peeks for most of my upcoming fics, since I outline a bunch as twitterfics that I (plan to) later flesh out. But I edit my writing too much to post incomplete works.

PDIW was completely done before I started posting. It cracks me up a bit that some people seemed to think I was actually writing a chapter of that a day...it took me about 7 months to write, and another 1-2 months to finish editing, and that was a fast process.

I posted The Supermoon Series as an accidental WIP, and it still annoys me that I can’t go back and fix things in the first part that didn’t quite fit with the expanded plot of the later ones. So I’m not gonna do that again.

#meme #fic talk #I dunno I'm procrastinating #sterek #long post #sorry I rambled

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sagemoderocklee · 7 years

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Since your editing Alliance will that make any major changes to the chapters that are already up or just small things? The pace does pick up! You write the characters so well, do you think its cause you've watched alot of the show? Or when you write a character do you kinda go back to the series and focus on a character to get a better idea of how they talk and everything? I ask because I've had ideas for stories but didn't think I wrote the characters right, then get annoyed @ myself lol.

I don’t anticipate any major changes to what’s already up. I’m mostly going over the posted chapters for grammar, sentence structure, and consistency. If I do end up changing anything vital I will make a post about it over at @thealliednationssaga blog and I’ll definitely let people know when I update the next chapter as well.

I’m so glad that you feel the pace picks up. I know the first few chapters are really kinda slow because they set the stage for the entire fic, so I always worry that it puts ppl off. I just re-read the prologue and chapter one last night--and like the prologue I love, but chapter one has some things that need serious fixing. at least i think so lol but i’m a perfectionist. like honestly you should see the notes I have for this fic lmao

oh man. thank you so much. that means soooo much to me you have no idea. because like this fic--like smh there are literally so many characters and I do not know how I managed to get all these different perspectives into it and write them all well enough? like that makes me so happy!!! especially cause I started out not being quite as familiar with so many characters.

For writing them, it really depends on the character. Like Lee and Gaara I think are the ones I’m most familiar with. Lee because of cosplaying him and roleplaying him, but also because of shipping him and Gaara so much. I spent a lot of time thinking about them as individuals and as a couple and why it all works so well, so like with them it was a lot of them being my faves so I always rewatched the parts of the series they were in, but also I just spent a lot of time on my own thinking about them.

With other characters, it was a lot of reading the Naruto Wikia, actually. I honestly have not read the manga or watched the anime enough. It actually took me a long time to even start writing Naruto fanfiction because I didn’t feel comfortable enough with the characters or the world. It wasn’t until after I cosplayed Lee in 2010 that I started to write fic for the series. And that was when I started writing Alliance, in fact.

So, characters like Ino, Hinata, Kiba, Chouji and some others, who I hadn’t spent as much time thinking about or seen enough of in canon, I went to the Wikia.

Honestly, I feel like I’ve spent more time on that Wikia than anyone who doesn’t contribute lol The Wikia is what saved me in terms of finding small bits of information about characters, villages, techniques etc. And it helped with the big things too. It was a super handy reference. Especially for someone like me who skipped a LOT of the series. I jumped around a lot with Naruto. So my canon knowledge can be a little spotty. It’s fine in terms of Alliance if the character isn’t a central figure, but if they end up being important then the Wikia is basically my go-to.

After a while though--and again I’ve been working on this fic for 6 1/2 years, so it’s been a long while--characters just become easier to write. Like, you might start off kinda shaky with them, but the more you write them the more familiar with them you get and eventually it starts to just come naturally.

Also, I think a lot of the credit goes to my editing process which is intense. Like this fic has been done for like a year and a half or something??? But it’s not fully posted because my editing process is intense. Going back over what I wrote really helps. With each individual character, they all have their own arcs. So I have a set of questions I can focus on for each character, and then branch out a bit on an individual basis.

If you’re not feeling confident with writing a certain character, I definitely recommend not only reading about them outside of the content itself, but also just practicing writing them. Put them in a situation and just let it flow. If you feel stuck, it’s probably because it’s unnatural for the character (although you could also be overthinking). You can always make a list of traits you feel that the character has and then write drabbles or something to explore those aspects of the character.

Like let’s go with Lee because I’m super comfy with Lee. Let’s say you don’t feel confident writing him, but you really love him. So ask yourself: What do you know about Lee that’s important to his characterization? What do you think his most defining character traits are? What are his goals? What are his fears?

For the first question, let’s just focus on one aspect and see where that takes us. Let’s look at Lee’s speech patterns. His speech patterns are very formal, which lends itself to more flowery speech. This also indicates that, as a person, he is very respectful. He would always defer to someone’s rank, unless familiar with them (ex: Neji), and he is always very courteous even with strangers and enemies. Lee also never curses, which follows that he probably doesn’t like vulgar language at all and would be very sensitive to it.

So already we have an idea of Lee’s voice. The voice of a character is super important because you want to make sure each voice comes through strongly, otherwise it can get kind of muddled, especially if there’s a dialogue heavy scene. And with characters like Lee, Kankurou, and Gaara (for example), who have very particular voices either in their speech patterns (formal speech for Lee, drawling and very casual for Kankurou) or in their inflection (Gaara is generally very monotone, even deadpan at times), if you don’t have a grasp of their voice, then you lose a lot of characterization in that. If Lee curses while he’s sober, then he’s OOC. If Kankurou doesn’t drawl and use a lot of contractions, he’s OOC. If Gaara isn’t concise and straightforward, then he’s probably OOC. Gaara is more nuanced though because he does emote a lot more later in the series and you have to take the situation into account.

I could honestly go on and on, but I feel like I’ve gone overboard. You definitely did not ask for a lesson in creative writing and here I went and did one anyways so I’m gonna shut right the hell up lol I feel like just that first question is a good enough aid if you need it which you probably don’t and I’m just being ridiculous >

#naruto #asks #anons #alliance talk #rock lee #eeri babbles #smh im sorry i got carried away #Anonymous

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genki-sensei · 6 years

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Musical Lesson 77: B’z - Into Free - Dangan

Hi there! I’m feeling motivated in releasing more Musical Lessons. Instead of dawdling between posts, I’m going to consistently work on translations and analyses. I’m going to try and post more. The introductions will be shorter, but I will try and leave the analyses their usual length (whatever is enough to bring out the main themes of the songs. I’m going to start a trend where I translate one Japanese song, and then will present two English songs.

Today’s Musical Lesson will present the main theme throughout the upcoming translation project. The theme will be “freedom,” and in particular, spiritual freedom in respect to Buddhist philosophy. Why should one achieve spiritual freedom? What are the causes and conditions for spiritual freedom? What does spiritual freedom entail (in respect to the listener)? Am I (as Genki Sensei), qualified to even discuss these topics? Again, I must humble myself before all excellent teachers in the lineage before me. I have accrued many words and lines of reasoning, and have advanced along the stages of the path. I only wish to light some candles behind me, in case anyone feels compelled to trace my steps. This blog is a method for practicing the perfection of generosity. I have discussed my spiritual journey in past posts. I hope all the readers can accompany us as we walk further along this path.

Audio file for this Musical Lesson can be found HERE. English Lyrics can be found HERE. I copied them below for your convenience.

Today I woke and looked outside again

But the sky looked the same to me

Something told me that this world had changed

Couldn't figure out what did it mean

Some say to get out fast, looks like it's gonna last

Get all your things and fly (DON'T LEAVE NOTHING BEHIND)

Some said it'll be OK, just go ahead and stay

Be sure to drink your iodine

The wind is pushing me, into the clouds again

I feel the blood in my veins

Time is running free, I feel like letting go

Just like the Dangan

Staring out to the hourglass inside

My mind is racing and wild

Blinded by eyes that cover up the facts

Uncertainty with all the cracks in a smile

I'm breathing life or death, are we making progress?

Not really sure this time (THE CHOICE IS YOURS AND MINE)

Not sure what to do next, no real test reflex

Can't touch or see with my own eyes

The wave is pushing me, into the current again

I feel the blood in my veins

Time is running free, I feel like letting go

Nothing to slow me down

Dragon inside of me, I feel it letting go

I can't hear not a sound

Flying into free, I hit the mother lode

I am the Dangan

The wave is pushing me, into the current again

I feel the blood in my veins

Diving into free, can feel it letting go

Not gonna hit the ground

The sky is painted free, why can't we understand

We kill ourselves in the end

It's simple as one, two, three, it's written in the sand

We are the Dangan

Flying

Flying into free

~ Lines to note ~

If one is wondering, iodine is used purify contaminated water so that it becomes safe for consumption. So “Be sure to drink your iodine” is about this.

The word “dangan” refers to the Japanese word (弾丸) [dangan], which means ‘bullet’ in Japanese.

~ Analysis ~

I will start my analysis with the usual run-down, and then will move to deeper themes. Wanted to point out that this song was the theme song for the game Dragon’s Dogma.

The song starts with the singer waking up looking outside. Even though things looked the same, the singer knew the world changed, but the singer did not know why. The singer is getting mixed perspectives about the world; some say to stay, some say to leave. The singer hears that things should be okay, as long as they drink their iodine.

The singer is not content with just staying still. Instead, they want to bring all their things and fly (likely they chose to get out fast). The singer then states that the wind is pushing them into the clouds again. Additionally, the singer feels their blood in their veins and they feel like letting go. The singer says time is running free and that they feel like a bullet.

The next section begins with the singer peering into an hourglass inside of their self. While observing their self, they see that their mind is racing all over the place and is wild. Then the singer interacts with a person who is blind to the truth, and covers up facts (aka, is a liar or purposely does not disclose important facts). The singer feels uncertain about this person, especially since they have cracks in their smile (likely indicating that the person in lying).

Next, the singer realizes the seriousness of their situation, and question if they are making progress. The singer has many questions about their goal, as the singer cannot touch or see the goal. As such, the singer is not aware of time, and if they will be tested.

Even though the singer is unaware of their progress, they are still moving full speed forward. This time the wave is pushing the singer into the current. Again they feel the blood in their veins, and nothing can slow them down in their advancement. The singer feels a dragon inside of them, and they just want to let it go. In this state, they are flying free, cannot hear sounds, and have hit the mother lode. Again the singer states they are a bullet.

The singer is still moving full speed forward. Again the wave pushes them into the current. They feel the blood in their veins and are now diving into freedom. The singer can feel the process of letting go, and feels as if they won’t hit the ground (and hence will stay free in the sky). The singer then states that the sky is painted free, and wonders why we don’t understand. Additionally the singer states we will eventually kill ourselves in the end. All in all, this is all simple, like writing 1,2,3 in the sand. The singer then states that we are bullets. And as a bullet, we are flying into free, or flying into freedom.

On to the deeper analysis! I will discuss three themes or topics. The first topic is about liberation and freedom, the second about progress and time, and the third about living life. I will connect these topics to spiritual ideas so as to create context as to why these topics are important to contemplate.

First off, let’s discuss liberation and freedom. In the beginning of the song, the singer is given an option; they can fly away quickly (with all their things and leave nothing behind), or they can stay in the world and drink their iodine (in other words, just deal with the state of the world as it is). The singer chose to fly away, like a bullet, and the wind pushed them towards the sky painted free. Basically, the singer chose freedom in the sky versus being stuck on earth. This may seem like the obvious choice, but the singer wasn’t even aware they had a choice until the they noticed the world had changed. What about the world did they noticed? Possibly, they woke to the knowledge of the three marks of existence: stress, impermanence, and selflessness. Having observed the stress and suffering of the world of samsara, the singer may chose to fly away towards the free sky (possibly a celestial realm or Pure Land that leads to nirvana). Moreover, the singer wishes to leave nothing behind in the suffering of samsara, which reveals they may have the bodhisattva ideal and may wish to achieve the great enlightenment of the Buddha that liberates all sentient beings. The singer may strive for this goal full throttle, hence they are like a bullet flying zooming through the open sky.

Next, let’s discuss progress and time. Among the three marks of existence, one is impermanence, or the idea that everything is constantly changing and not static. Our human life too, is not permanent, like writing on the sand that gets washed away by the tide. Contemplating this idea is like watching an hourglass inside us that slowly counts down towards our eventual passing. As such, the singers mind is racing and wild. Considering the inherent stress and suffering mixed with the world, this may explain why the singer strives for freedom and liberation. Now what does the singer want to be liberated from? An obvious answer can be from suffering in general; but also, the singer may want freedom from dishonest individuals that wants to keep them in samsara. The singer indicates that there are some individuals that say it is ok to stay in samsara, and there are also people who cover up the facts (hence hide the truth) and present fake smiles. Since this short human life is precious, the singer wants to utilize it to get away from the suffering of the world, and progress can be measured in regards to what extent the singer has liberated themself (maybe by examining if they cut off any fetters or links to samsara). If the singer makes conscious decisions to reduce their suffering, and reduce the suffering of others, they may essentially be flying into free.

As for the last theme, we will discuss about actually living life. Some may argue (understandably so) that curbing our desires and reducing our attachment to the world isn’t “living life,” and freedom in this context appears undesirable and unrealistic. I am not making the case that this song is secretly telling us to become nuns and monks. In actuality, the song tells to embrace living in the mundane world, and to feel the blood in our veins. Moreover, there is a dragon inside of us, and we should let this feeling loose. If done properly, we can reach the freedom in the sky and hit the mother lode. What can aid us in this process, is contemplating the mark of existence of selflessness. What this means is that we shouldn’t be attached to a fixed sense of a lasting “self.” The dragon is inside of all of us, we just need the means and will-power to embrace it and imbue it into our lives. With the courage and zest of the inner dragon, we can make the decisions in our lives that lead us to our higher goals. These higher goals can include falling in genuine love and finding a romantic partner, being a singer and dancer, or maintaining and realizing the bodhisattva deeds. In essence, living life freely means to imbue our life with passion and wisdom. Puffy posits that anyone can be free. The better we understand freedom, the easier it will be escape our bondage. Hope to further explain in future lessons~

#japanese #music #b'z #jrock #otaku #otaku life #freedom #spirituality #buddhism #samsara #nirvana #pure land #dukkha #impermanence #selflessness #life #death #passion #wisdom #philosophy

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kristinejrosario · 7 years

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From Miserable Telemarketer to Successful Entrepreneur: How Starting a Blog Changed My Life

This is a guest contribution from Joen Rude Falsner.

Most of us have been there: we’ve all had this job where the financial compensation was the absolute single motivation to even show up.

Luckily for most people this, usually, low-compensated, uninspiring and numbingly boring job is characterized by being temporary. Something we do only for a short period of time.

Not for me.

For five full years I was rocking the position of a full time phone supporter specializing in assisting surprisingly helpless people with their TV setup and broadband service subscription.

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

I hated it. Oh my God, how I hated it.

A little bit about me

So I’m Joen. A 28-year-old dude from Denmark who has an opinion about most things in life.

Whether the topic is bear hunting in Alaska or how to keep tropical flowers alive in a costal temperate climate, I will find a way to ask questions that I am genuinely interested in knowing the answers to while also insisting that I know a thing or two about the subject.

The struggle of saying no to the system

This is who I’ve been most of my life. In my mind I have always had all the answers, but never when the topic landed on me. When the topic was ‘Joen’, I instantly became mute.

I was okay with this for a few years, but then I started to realize that my friends were moving up in the world.

Everybody around me seemed to be thriving with fancy degrees, fancy grades and eventually fancy titles. They had their life paved already, while I was digging my own hole deeper and deeper using faulty modems and TV boxes as a shovel.

At age 25, it would be fair to describe me as a rather depressed individual primarily due to the fact that I didn’t seem to have much of a bright future.

I didn’t have any formal education other than high school and a 2-year-short piece of garbage degree in marketing that was worth nothing more than a seat behind the register in your nearest supermarket.

See, that’s the thing. I never wanted a formal education, because it simply wasn’t for me. I just couldn’t care less about it.

I wanted to create. They wanted me to read.

Saying no to the system was a huge deal that I am forever grateful I did. It was also something that was incredibly difficult. Everybody expects you to do what society expects you to do.

Because if you don’t do what society wants you to do, then what are you going to do?

Entering the digital universe

Regardless of my state of depression I was eager to dig my way out of the hole.

My close friend, Frederik, who is kind of a SEO and PPC hero told me about blogging and affiliate marketing. He actually introduced me to the whole digital universe a few years earlier, but it took me two years before I summoned the courage to act on it.

Finally, I decided to start a blog.

February 7, 2014, I started Stayclassy.dk, a fashion and lifestyle blog with focus on quality over quantity and the good life.

I was determined to be successful.

From dinosaur to digital dude

Back in 2014, when I started my blog, I think it would be fair to say I was kind of a dinosaur.

Of course I knew how to work my way around a computer and I have always been pretty handy with ‘basic stuff’, but I had no idea just how big the difference was between casually using a computer and understanding the incredible opportunities the Internet offers.

Getting started with blogging

When I started blogging I was only familiar with basic tools.

I knew that it was important to make a keyword analysis in order to identify the best keyword for an article so that it would be easier for it to rank. I also knew it was important to create a lot of content.

Quality content of course.

But that was pretty much it. Those were my tools. Creating content and using the right keywords. Looking back, I actually like the simplicity of my starting point.

Because creating content is really the most important part of getting started with blogging. Forget link building, guest blogging and what else you got.

There’s no point of reaching out to people if you haven’t already built a solid platform to show.

My goals when I started the blog

I’m not gonna lie.

Getting into blogging was mainly incentivized by the possibility of earning money. I wanted to get out of my day job badly and in order to do so I had to earn money.

I started the blog while also working my full time job. In other words, my schedule just got a lot busier. It was three hours of blogging before work and 3-4 hours of blogging after.

All together that made my average day ~3+9+3=~15 hours long.

The goal from day 1 was to create one quality article a day. An article that had to be at least 1000 words long.

I knew that text heavy articles weren’t necessarily a goal in itself, but setting this rule was important as I was also forcing myself to write.

A lot.

You have to remember that when I started blogging my only writing experience was chatting to girls on Tinder. I had zero experience, although I’ve always been all right at putting together a sentence or two.

The strategy

By writing an article a day, and sometimes even two, I knew that in a year I would have 365 articles in the bank. That’s 365.000 words or the equivalent of 3-4 good books. I liked the sound of that.

Content before anything.

That was my basic strategy to begin with. It wasn’t until I had +45 articles that I began thinking in terms of getting links.

With 45+ articles I had something to show. I had already created a blog that I was really proud of. People would also take my blog seriously and that made my link-building effort a lot easier as more of my guest post enquiries were granted.

Along with the consistent output of quality articles I started getting links. My blog started to become authoritative-ish.

I remember how much I hated the link-building game.

I thought it was so lame that links were the all-important factor in getting those much desired organic rankings. This was also one of the reasons that I didn’t put too much effort into it at that point, which, in hindsight, was a really bad decision, but more on this later.

Affiliate blog posts for the win

That was my mind-set.

If I wanted to earn money, I had to monetize as much as I could without of course making my blog appear spammy.

So the majority of the articles I wrote were affiliate blog posts, however I would complement them with lifestyle blog posts of various sorts in order for my blog to maintain a dynamic range of content.

Mainly it was affiliate articles in the fashion department where I had one particular affiliate program that would turn out to perform extremely well.

I already knew that, as this was the online go-to-fashion retailer for most Danes, but I didn’t know that it would become ~70% of my combined affiliate income almost three years later.

Spending a lot of time analyzing all the available affiliate programs as well as testing them out has been of great importance to the success of my blog.

If you don’t keep a close eye on this, you will consequently earn less money. Less money that over time will accumulate to a huge loss.

Earning my first dollar

Exactly 14 days was how long it took me to earn my first affiliate dollar after having started the blog.

My first sale was worth exactly 7 euros.

I was ecstatic. Just two weeks in and here I am already living the passive income dream.

Okay not really, but I could immediately see that this “earn money online blogging”-thing wasn’t just a fairy tale pipe dream.

It could be done if using the same technique as Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption (best film ever by the way), who dug a hole through the wall by applying only pressure and time.

Pressure and time

That is all it really takes and although there isn’t any hole to be seen right away, you will eventually hit the other end of the wall.

Although I was seeing dollars only two weeks after getting to work, things were moving slow. Painfully slow actually, but it was easy to stay on track as I continued to grow my audience month after month.

The first 11 months of Stayclassy.dk

The first dot on the screenshot above marks the very beginning of Stayclassy.dk with virtually no traffic. Eleven months later the dot had jumped 16,193 steps in the right direction.

This was the time where I finally quit my beloved phone supporter job.

And not only did I quit. I moved to Australia. Away from icy Denmark and on to the deliciously warm continent where endless summer is always thriving.

I was not earning a full time living by any means at that point, but it was enough to get by as I also had saved up a bit of money.

Suddenly Joen was moving up in the world. Life was looking up. It felt great, to put it mildly.

Affiliate Marketing is great, but…

… it takes time and an abundance of hard work to get there.

Being one year into my blogging journey I was still not making enough to fully rely on it. Far from it actually, but I was okay with that. I knew it was only a matter of time, if I kept doing what I was doing.

Nonetheless, it was time to diversify my income stream.

So I engaged in sponsored content. I was getting more and more enquiries from businesses who were seeking promotion.

This was terrific as I was able to supplement my affiliate income with a tangible here-and-now income. They would pay me immediately as opposed to the hundreds of affiliate articles where I was still waiting to reap the true benefits of my hard work.

Given my blog’s good image I didn’t even have to approach businesses. They approached me. That was a solid pat on the shoulder and a strong indication that I was doing something right.

So I carried on.

The digital dude

That’s who I was starting to feel like. After a year of hard work, I was beginning to get a real grasp on blogging and this digital universe in general.

I was suddenly able to have “academic discussions” with my friend, Frederik.

I knew what was going on in the world of blogging and the wide variety of things you need to consistently keep an eye on.

After just one year I felt like I had learned incredibly many things that no school could ever teach me.

The main reason for this was that every time I wanted or had to implement something on my blog, I had to learn about it. Combining theory and practice was apparently the way to go. At least for me.

Becoming a successful blogger

So basically, in year two of my blogging career, I was kind of living the dream. I was travelling around Australia living in Darwin (not that much of a dream spot by the way), Cairns and Melbourne. I also spent six weeks in Bali and a month in Thailand.

Was this it? Had I made it?

I think most people would agree that I had indeed become a successful blogger, but to me I was only getting started. I was comparing my blog to a successful start-up. Things were going just fine, but it was nowhere near enough.

In short I kept maintaining the outlook of treating my blog as a real business: that strong growth was the only acceptable outcome. I think this has been an essential ingredient in getting to where I am today.

Being a successful blogger isn’t a static thing. It’s a constant battle that requires a continuous effort.

Very quickly things can go the wrong way. You can get hit by the Google bus (yes, that was a metaphor for losing rankings) subsequently affecting your income. There can be a drought where businesses are not interested in having sponsored content on your blog.

So many things can go wrong along the way.

I’ve been through all of this.

Several times. Up and down. Down, down and then up, up and up. It’s a never ending rollercoaster that will sometime make you feel sick and other times euphoric.

Dealing with the hardships of blogging

So yeah, blogging is no walk in the park. I have been through quite a few hardships.

Oh God, the discipline…

Call it what you want, but I call it hardship. One of the biggest challenges I have faced, and still am facing, is discipline.

It is so much easier to get up in the morning when you have a boss, who expects you to be there at 9am sharp.

When you are your own boss, it is so easy to allow yourself to sleep way past 10am. It is so easy to browse through hilarious cat photos instead of doing what you should be doing.

I have definitely not solved the problem of procrastination. I have, however, become more self-disciplined. I am constantly trying to improve my self-discipline by the use of various techniques.

Urgency

Because life seems so long, it is really hard to work towards your goals with a sense of urgency.

The mind seems to think that there always is plenty of time to do something else, which is why it is okay not to do what you should be doing right now.

I tell my brain every day that I need to have a better sense of urgency. This actually helps me with being more disciplined.

Mental toughness

Everybody talks about motivation. “You need to stay motivated”. “Read this book so you can get motivated”.

Of course motivation is a good thing, but I have come to the realisation that motivation is something that comes and goes as it pleases. It is a temporary state of mind and you have no control over it.

Instead, I have learned that the key to becoming a disciplined blogger (and person in general) is to work on your mental toughness.

Convincing yourself to write when you reeeaally don’t feel like it. Convincing your mind to finish a blog post although it tells you to stop right now. You get the point.

It is a draining exercise that will only be fruitful if applied repetitively.

It is a quite complex topic that I am by no means an expert on, however I have found it easier to work on my mental toughness when combining it with meditation and cognitive behavioral self-therapy.

Yeah, that was a pretty advanced word, but it’s actually not that complex.

In essence, it is about analysing your own thoughts and rationalising the why and what’s: why am I feeling this lack of doing anything productive? What is the consequence of not doing this work and what is the positive outcome if I do? By working right now, I will move closer to my hopes and dreams.

This exercise is really helpful as I simply get more shit done.

Delayed gratification

It’s about working hard now and then at some point later be rewarded. It makes sense, but the waiting time can be daunting. And it usually is.

At least for me as I am notorious for being impatient. When I hit publish on a blog post I want it to rank immediately, but fact of the matter is that it usually takes months before it sits on page 1, IF at all.

When getting into blogging you really have to be okay with delayed gratification.

I have been dealing with this hardship by always celebrating the small victories. It can be a little improvement in my rankings. It can be a few new e-mail subscribers, new fans on Facebook, a little increase in affiliate sales and so on.

Don’t be too hard on yourself just because you have yet to reach your big milestone.

Surviving ‘the dip’

You are probably familiar with Seth Godin’s terrific book, The Dip. Basically it addresses how every new project, business and hobby is all fun and games in the very beginning.

It’s exciting and you are as motivated as can be.

Pretty fast, though, the excitement fades. Suddenly obstacles are starting to build up. It’s not as easy as it was yesterday and you actually have to work hard.

Few people are lucky enough to avoid the dip and I sure as hell wasn’t one of them.

When I started the blog I had already read Seth Godin’s book, so I was aware of the concept.

That was a good thing as I therefor was expecting the dip. I was prepared for it and knew that this was simply just a state I would have to hustle my way through.

By keep telling myself that surviving the dip is an essential part of becoming successful, I was able to power through.

Having to do everything yourself

Most bloggers who start out have very limited resources. That means they have to do everything themselves. Outsourcing is generally not an option.

Right from buying the domain, setting up the first blog post to sending business proposals to potential partners, fixing various technical aspects and understanding how SEO works, everything is on your plate.

And you have to be really hungry if you are going to chew your way through all of it.

Having to do everything yourself has been one of the most valuable things I have had to do. You learn so incredibly much so incredibly fast simply because you have to.

The downside, however, is that you easily will find yourself overwhelmed. You don’t know where to start and it all just seems too much.

What I have done in order to not go down Overwhelm Lane, is to break down the tasks in what is super important and what is not so super important.

Then I will start with the number one super important task and solve it. When I have somewhat solved it, I move on to the next one. And then the next one.

It’s so much easier this way as opposed to starting from scratch with five different things you have zero grasp on.

From successful to thriving blogger

Even though I felt like a successful blogger after only twelve months of blogging, I wasn’t thriving. The blogging hardships were still of too great proportions.

I was still waiting for the blog to properly take off. I also still had so much basic stuff to learn.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2017

That’s today.

2 years and 10 months later I am still blogging away. I have written more than 700 articles. I have published more than 700,000 polished and edited words.

Stayclassy.dk has become the largest men’s fashion and lifestyle blog in Denmark with more than +60,000 monthly readers.

Blogging is my bread and butter, but my blogging income allows me to eat steak and béarnaise – and quite often actually!

I feel like I am thriving. I understand the blogging business. I know how it works. I generally just find it easy to connect the dots. Getting to this point has also sped up the growth of my blog.

The most valuable tools I use

Consistency

It might seem self-explanatory, predictable and whatnot. I don’t care. Consistency carried out with persistence is by far the best path to destination successfulness.

And everybody knows that, right?

I think they do. The problem is that most people don’t understand just how important it actually is.

Or maybe they do.

They just don’t have the stomach to stay on course by moving one feet in front of the other every day. Because it is by no means an easy tool to use. It requires self-discipline on a daily basis, and yeah, we’ve already been over that.

The most incredible SEO-research tool available

Right up until six months ago I have been a cheapskate when it comes to the many online research tools available. No way I was paying $200+ a month just so I could look at competitor backlink profiles and keyword rankings.

Boy, has this been a poor decision, and not only a poor decision, it has also been an expensive one.

I’ll tell you why.

In the jungle of SEO-tools I was referred to Ahrefs.com by a friend of mine who was doing an unbelievable job with building links and domain authority for his own site.

I signed up with a paid profile and started looking at backlink profiles of competitors and people in the Danish SEO-industry, who I knew were building lots of links.

Immediately, I saw how many quality links that were just laying there. Up until July 2016 I really hadn’t done much about building quality links to my blog, so I figured it was well overdue I put in an effort.

And so I did.

I picked all the low hanging fruits to begin with, however sticking only to relevant and natural ones. I moved on to approaching strong websites where guest posting made sense.

Quickly, I got into the game of doing white hat link building. So many strong websites were suddenly pointing to my blog and then, BAM, I saw the effect.

The annotation next to July 2016 marks the day I started putting effort into link building. Two months later my blog took a massive jump. And then again.

Essentially I had doubled my organic traffic. This naturally had a pleasant effect on my affiliate income.

It was great to see this boost in traffic and earnings, but I am still cursing myself for not putting in this effort much earlier. I wonder how much money I have lost.

Oh, well.

Expensive lessons are sometimes the most valuable ones. And here the lesson was that links are ever important, whether you like it or not.

I know that everybody knows this. I’m not sharing any wild information that will shake the blogging or SEO industry. I just want to remind people that as ridiculous it can seem to spend an entire day on getting a single link, it is most likely worth it.

Another great thing about Ahrefs…

… is that their ranking system works as daily motivation for me.

Being able to see your Ahrefs rank, but also domain rating and organic search movements is fantastic.

It makes me want to work even harder as the daily effort I put into my blog translates to these Ahrefs statistics. Everyday they are updated.

Here is one of the Ahrefs graphs I follow religiously. Notice how it started going upwards in July, when I signed up.

What blogging has given me

Getting into the blogging business was in many ways a desperate measure.

Back in 2014, I would never have guessed just how many good things that would come out of it.

Because fact of the matter is that blogging has done so much more for me besides giving me juicy do-follow links, a bunch of traffic and a passive income.

I’ve become an independent dude

Almost three years of experience with running my own business has made me very independent to the point where I will never work for another person.

The joy of seeing my own business grow and grow is more fulfilling than anything I can think of.

The independence has also given me clarity.

I am more focused on what I want to achieve with my time on this little planet of ours. I will always have doubts about the decisions I make, but I have become confident enough to follow through and take the risks regardless.

Being a good writer is incredibly valuable

I will probably never be the Mark Twain of the 21st century, but I think that I have become a pretty decent writer in the course of the last three years. A writer that keeps improving.

One of the things that I have realized and thought a lot about lately is how valuable it is to be a good writer.

Writing not only allows you to tell a compelling story, it enables you to reach out to other people with a much higher rate of success. Here I am talking about creating appealing proposals to businesses, but also communication in general.

Additionally, writing has made me much more creative simply because I have forced digital ink on the screen every single day. Coming up with blog post ideas and putting them to life is one of the best ways to exercise your brain’s creative muscle.

Freedom to do what I want to do

Although blogging is no 4-hour-work-week gig, it comes with a tremendous amount of freedom.

Yes, you have to spend a lot of time in front the screen, but having the freedom to choose where in the world you want to sit and when is priceless.

In many ways it is the ultimate thing in life. Being able to do what you love from anywhere in the world.

As I’m writing this I am sitting on a roof top bar in Melbourne with the sun in my face.

Well, actually the sun is in my back, but yeah, no complaints.

I moved back from Australia to Denmark in December last year as I wanted to have a steadier base to work from. That hasn’t stopped me from bringing my laptop around the world.

In the last 12 months I have brought my laptop to Dubai, Italy, Greece, Berlin, Switzerland and now Melbourne where I am spending two months before moving onto an epic road trip around the southern parts of Australia.

The doors that have opened

Blogging has opened so many doors for me. It has led me to bigger and better on a continuous note. I get to work with amazing companies.

One of the best experiences was a company that wanted me to do an article on their insane collection of whisky, rum, cognac etc., where I was literally paid to taste some of the most expensive drops in the world. Is this real life?

I have established a network with talented, interesting and reputable people that stretch much further than the blogging environment.

My blog has given me a strong résumé that makes a formal education irrelevant. Although long educations in Denmark are free, I have also saved a lot of time and money by not wasting the last three years on a bachelor degree that won’t serve me.

Most importantly, blogging has made me a happier dude

And not just happier. Happy.

Blogging has given me a sense of purpose in life. I feel like I make a difference doing what I do, which is a feeling that gets emphasized by the many messages I get from inspired readers.

Okay, I’m gonna stop now with the happy camper poetry. It gets a bit much, doesn’t it?

Is blogging for everyone?

Certainly not. And I don’t mean that as in ‘not everybody is talented enough’. I am pretty sure most people could create a blog with decent content.

The problem is just that blogging is much more than creating content. As we talked about earlier there are so many strings to pull, if you want to become successful.

Of course everybody can blog on a hobby level. Nothing is stopping you from writing about your love of gluten free unicorn shaped candy, but if you want to make a living off of it, you will have to go beyond the content.

You will need to treat it like a business. Are you up for starting a business?

What’s next?

For me, you might ask? Only three years in, I still have a lot to learn. I feel like I am still just getting started. After all, three years really isn’t that much.

But to answer your question, I will continue to create content relentlessly although things are beginning to head in new directions. Directions where the format isn’t necessarily text-based, or at least where I don’t have to create all of it myself.

This means that I am in the process of expanding the team from 1 (me) to 2 or 3. This would allow me to take things to the next level and move closer to the ultimate goal, which is becoming the leading fashion and lifestyle magazine in Denmark.

Right now I am in the early phase of starting a vlog.

Something that scares the shit out of me. Putting myself in front of the camera and figure out how to tell a story. Am I even interesting enough? Hardly, most of my friends would probably say.

But I don’t care.

It’s time for Stayclassy.dk to work on even higher engagement. In a world where people can’t seem to get enough of videos, it is increasingly difficult to keep your audience interested only via text formatted content.

People want variety.

Although I have zero experience with recording I decided to jump straight into the vlogging world. I bought a Canon 70D, Røde VideoMic, various tripods, lenses and the whole shebang.

I am on really deep water, but I think I will manage to find my way to the shore.

This is the first vlog of Stayclassy.dk. One of many adventures to come.

So this turned out to be quite a long read. 5000 words actually. That’s a pretty good length if you want it to rank high. Google loooves rich content.

Remember, though, it’s not about the word count. It’s about the message.

I’m sure you got what it takes to become a successful blogger. Really all it takes is to get started, be consistent and passionate, and carry on.

Joen is the guy behind Stayclassy.dk, which is the biggest fashion and lifestyle blog for men in Denmark. He writes articles with the main purpose of inspiring his readers to become the best version of themselves. Connect with him on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

The post From Miserable Telemarketer to Successful Entrepreneur: How Starting a Blog Changed My Life appeared first on ProBlogger.

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richardrobertsimsuccessblog · 7 years