#ALSO not to over analyze things. but the last panel of the new update.

[loverworm]

the gloves stay ON during sex‼️

[leportraitducadavre]

Naruto re-read XXV

Chapters covered: 200 - 208 Twentytirth Volume of the manga

Site used: https://manga4life.com/manga/Naruto (VIZ translation of the manga)

Disclaimer: This is intended as a list and simple observations of the topics that particularly interested me in the aforementioned chapters, in that sense, do not expect a linear -or totally deep- analysis.

Tumblr’s update doesn’t allow me to attach more than 10 pictures, therefore, all of them will be LINKED. Apologies.

295) I forgot to add one thing in the prior post. Kimimaro’s introduction is very interesting as his relationship with Orochimaru is presented as a very crude example of what is expected of shinobi. Orochimaru, in this specific case, asked Kimimaro’s body as payment for “saving” him, however, as a vessel, he lost his value -as not only is his body decaying due to his disease but also, a new (younger, more powerful) vessel is being “harvested” for his master (x) = A village, in exchange for “protection”, asks for your body (loyalty, physical and mental capacities, i.e. sacrifice), once it’s done chewing you out, they want someone else (better, younger) and you can do nothing but prepare your successor to fulfill their duties (Jönin-sensei). Construct and conceiving a sense of loyalty and duty to your subjects as to achieve that level of devotion is extremely complicated, the Will of Fire was constructed over time and with the work of different leaders (yes, there was a sense of loyalty that was born from the exhaustion of a long-lasting military conflict -which can also be said of Kimimaro also, as his traumas and past-experiences allowed Orochimaru to build himself as a hero deserving of worship).

296) Naruto’s Rasengan (just like Sakura’s fists, just like the Gentle Fist, and so on), depends solely on whether the technique makes contact or not with the target; it depends on the raw power of the technique itself (meaning, if it doesn’t connect, the waves of destruction that it leaves) and on the speed of the user; Minato, was particularly fast, as he used Raijin; by marking his opponents with his seal, therefore being able to transport himself to wherever they were, he made the technique inescapable.

297) The Sound four were outsmarted by a group of gënin; I know I “shit” on Shikamaru a lot, but again, Kishimoto is constantly reminding us that “raw power” isn’t the only decisive factor when fighting.

298) Look at that panel, the Eagle plunging upon his prey.  

299) “Sorry Naruto, I miscalculated.” (x). Who would have thought that five gënin were few for a mission they didn’t know how many enemies they’ll be facing. Oh, man if only there was someone sensitive enough to feel Kimimaro’s chakra approaching…

300) Orochimaru’s views on Kimimaro are really interesting, there must be out there a post that analyzes deeply their dynamic, as it has much to offer. Despite Sasuke being quite superior to Kimimaro (at least, by the beginning of Shippuden) and having the Sharingan, which is something Orochimaru admitted to lust over -as that’s the reason he desires an Uchiha vessel-, Orochimaru states that he’s fond of the idea of having Kimimaro’s body. Whether it has to do with Kimimaro himself or his body’s capabilities (which is far more plausible than Orochimaru forming a special bond with him, although we’ve seen him cry over his mentor) it’s never explicitly stated.

301) “Orochimaru has already mastered the art of immortality. But it takes time to learn everything.” (x), by the way this is phrased it’s like Orochimaru’s ambition with immortality is to learn everything there’s to know and while I don’t think that’s a far-fetched possibility, it’s not his main objective as he admitted to being scared of death.

302) “I should place more value on the lives of my teammates instead of the person abducted by the enemy (...) besides abandoning a teammate to protect yourself? There’s no one in my squad like that.” (x, x). Why is Shikamaru lying both to himself and Tayuya? Why isn’t Tayuya calling him out on it? Sasuke wasn’t abducted, he left of his own volition (x). Shikamaru isn’t risking his life to save an abducted comrade, he’s risking his life so Orochimaru wouldn’t have the last Uchiha descendent by his side, he’s protecting more Konoha’s possession of the last Sharingan user than Sasuke himself. Sure, he does have a sense of duty in lieu of Sasuke being a comrade and it wouldn’t be weird for them to think that Sasuke was forced into accepting Orochimaru’s help as Tsunade is incapable of replying to Shikamaru’s question (she isn’t even sure of the answer as nor Kakashi or Jiraiya spoke to her about their suspicions); the weight that surrounds the use of the word “save” is likely more for the children’s benefit to put them under a “savior” mindset in order to build their sense of duty and the imperative necessity of bringing Sasuke back (it’s also likely they gave sense to Sasuke’s escape by attributing it to kidnapping since they cannot conceive one of them deflecting).

303) Sakon is said to be the strongest, and he (they?) are the ones that fight Kiba. Akamaru seems able to smell or sense Sakon and Ukon’s chakra quantity and communicate consciously with Kiba; Kikaichus seem able to communicate with the Aburame user by their shared chakra connection, I’m not sure how the Inuzuka do so with their pets.

304) Is Kimimaro’s chakra visible? Yes, it seems to be.

305) Human Beast Combination Transformation: Double-Headed Wolf (Jinjuu Combi-Henge: Soutourou)

Ninjusu, B-rank, Supplementary

User(s): Inuzuka Kiba, Akamaru

The voracious wolf totally obliterates the worthless masses in its ferocity!!

This combined shapeshifting where man and beast become a single entity is a specialty of the Inuzuka Clan, a clan that has been walking side by side with ninja dogs for generations. They coalesce into a bicephalous wolf, thus drastically increasing their power. In their direct attacks, they demonstrate great efficiency. Furthermore, using jutsu in addition to this gives birth to an extraordinary power of destruction.

This is the combination Ninjutsu Kiba and Akamaru owe to their friendship. Like wolves, they corner the enemy with an overwhelming offensive power.

Source

Kiba (Inuzuka in general?) is able to shapeshift into a wolf, might be a derivation of the Henge technique yet it implies the user combining themselves with their animal. This technique exponentially increases the damage their spin jutsu does (I’m sorry it’s just funny that they use different derivations of one single jutsu at infinitum like Naruto).

Ukon’s technique (Kekkei Genkai) when in Level 2 of Orochimaru’s Cursed Seal consists in dissolving himself to enter someone’s body. (x, x), he can create body parts inside his victims and attack them; that is, the body parts that weren’t infected by Ukon’s cells yet, as then he’ll be hurting himself which is why Kiba stabs himself and Ukon leaves. Ukon is the only brother with such capability. Given the need to be at L2 of the Cursed Seal it’s to be believed that Ukon’s Kekkei Genkai is a result of Orochimaru’s experiments rather than a (unknown) clan’s technique.

304) I really like Kimimaro’s Kekkei Genkai (and design), he’s engraved in my memory alongside Zabuza, two secondary villains that never did much for the main plot yet I adore.

305) “He bolted once he realized the enormous power of the spirits… he’s smarter than I thought…” (x). Come on Kishi, it’s like you don’t want to put any effort into Shikamaru’s supposed brilliance, I even see Konohamaru escaping when seeing three giant spirits coming after him! How’s that brilliance?

Tayuya uses the flute to summon three Doki, they’re composed of Mind Energy that takes form and seeks to eat Physical Energy in order to stabilize (I’ve explained that Chakra in itself is the combination of Physical and Spiritual Energy), she controls them through a sound-based genjutsu.

Shikamaru’s capability of trapping an enemy inside his shadow possession is, just like Ino, subjected to both the user’s quantity of chakra and the enemy’s. Because Tayuya’s energy augmented after activating Lv2 of the seal, Shikamaru lost control of her.

The strength of Shikamaru’s suffocating technique depends on how close his enemy is.

(previous post) - (next post)

[itstimetotheorize]

The bizarre mystery of the Little Nightmares 2  episode 2 comic

For those of you who are unaware, a few weeks before the little nightmares 2 game was released, the developers had announced that they would be releasing a new 6 part digital comic series. From what we were told, this comic series would update two “episodes”  every two weeks until the games eventual release.

of the many episodes that were seen, the most popular of the six  were the first and last, episode 1 and 6. Naturally, these two episodes gained an enormous amount of popularity due to our main protagonists mono and six being the main focus. However, aside from these two episodes, the other four presented an entirely different character. The four kids seen in these episodes were, the spoon girl, lollipop kid, ghost child and The toddler. 

At first, many fans had assumed the digital comics were created in order to help explain events that had occurred before mono met six in the little nightmares 2 game, in other words, many of us had believed that these comics were classified as prequel material for the events of the game....or at least....that's what we thought....

A few months after the games release, theorist such as myself began to work day and night trying to figure out every little detail  within the game in order to make sense of what the heck was actually going on in the little nightmares world, especially after “that” ending. In the midst of writing my own theories as well as reading and analyzing everyone elses, I began to notice that not many people had gone back to the little nightmares 2 digital comics in order to try and analyze details we might have missed.

Now, out of all of the things we saw and analyzed within the digital comics, there was always two little details that made many of us question the events of the comics, but for the longest time we never really bothered to think about it to much, because at that time...it seemed as though the answer was obvious, what am I talking about exactly? well, I’m talking about something that happened in the little nightmares 2 episode 2 comic. 

In episode 2, we once again watch another new child called “the toddler”  trying to survive within the little nightmares world. Near the end of the episode, the toddler wakes up from a horrific dream where he is killed in the very hole he is resting in. Frightened, he takes no chances and immediately leaves. As the boy marches on, he suddenly hears the terrifying screams of another child nearby. 

Curious, the boy follows the direction of the scream and comes across an old outhouse with a tv next to it, the tv suddenly turns on and the boy immediately becomes entranced by the televisions light.  Sadly, as he continues to stare at the tv, the thin man reaches out from the other side and all that is heard of the child are his frightened screams. 

As the panel draws away from the tv its revealed to us that the thin man had kidnaped the toddler and dragged him into the television.

When first seeing this episode, many believed it was the developers way of telling us that the thin man had spent much of his time kidnapping various kids around the world. Because of this belief, many of us had theorized that despite being locked up in the tower, within the pale city, the thin man was still fully capable of leaving, after all, we theorized that its was his main goal to search for mono and six. HOWEVER, upon reading episode 2, I couldn't help but feel that something was off and I’m sure there were a few others who felt the same. What exactly felt so off about this episode? well, for starters, this may sound strange but...something about that scream the toddler heard in the forest... didn't make sense.

And I know what you are thinking, “ well that was obviously just a kid screaming in horror as he/she was being taken by the thin man”, yes, I understand that.... but......as  I heard that scream over and over again, I couldn't help but feel it sounded like it was almost....”non human”

when the toddler was kidnapped by the thin man and he lets out his own screams of terror, I, as well as other, did not question it, because it genuinely did sound like a child screaming out in horror....so then... why didn't the other scream sound just the same to us?....unless....what if there was something else going on with that other child?...but what? the comics were short and did not present much information to the audience. In hopes of coming up with a breakthrough I decided to once again go back to the little nightmares 2 game and wait to see if some of the events within the game would help.

 As I watched the tower chapter of the game, for what feels like an infinite amount of times, I began to realize something....something so horrific that it could possibly once again topple every theory I had about the little nightmare's world and lead me and many other back to the theory board in order to make sense of EVERYTHING all over again!.... what exactly was so shocking? well.....the screams heard by the toddler in chapter 2....the very screams we believed at the time were just the cries of another terrified child within the little nightmares world....were NEVER the screams of someone we didn’t know!....whos were they exactly?...well.... they were the screams of MONSTER SIX!!!

But what on earth could this possibly mean???!!! Monster six was the final fight within the game, when mono faced her, he had already killed the thin man after being relentlessly chased by him....but if this is true then why was the thin man shown to be alive within episode two of the comics?!....unless.... What if episode two didn't take place before the events of the game...what if...it took place after mono freed the thin man in the game!! 

Perhaps this could explain why the toddler never encountered the hunter in the forest or near the outhouse, the hunter could very well have been already shot by the time the toddler was traveling through!.....but even if this is true, it still doesn't explain why we heard monster sixes scream in the episode or why thin man made an appearance in the forest rather than stay in the pale city were mono was located ...unless... what if something else was going on?

In the game, after the thin man captures six, six is later seen crying out for mono to help her escape the television.

unfortunately, once mono does free her from the tv, the thin man reaches his hand out and kidnaps six once again!

 As many of you may already know... this is the last time we see normal six.  As the thin man once again begins to pursue mono, mono manages to outrun the thin man on the trains by separating the railcars, 

after this moment however, we don't see the thin man again until after mono exits the manhole cover. The thing that doesn't make sense about this whole situation is... why didn't the thin man just reappear in the same area mono crashed the train?

 The thin man clearly has the ability to teleport to different parts of the pale city without the need of the tvs, after all, we even saw him appear in front of mono after he exited the manhole cover near the end of the game.

 So then, why didn't he do the same thing back when mono crashed the train? what was he really doing in that time? and most importantly...where did he go?!...perhaps we were already given an answer to his whereabouts, long before the game was ever released...

What if after realizing he couldn't catch up to mono on the train, the thin man made the decision to search elsewhere. In the midst of his search, did the thin man decide to go back into the television? expecting mono to walk past another screen so he could better find him? just like how he did every other time in the game?

What if the thin man did sense the presence of a child coming near another television...if he did, then what if the child he found on the other end of that television screen.... was never mono...it was the toddler! 

But if this is what happened to thin man during his brief absence, then what exactly happened to six during all of this?....perhaps we were also given an answer to that  as well.

Many of us had theorized that after thin man captured six, six had begun to feel the effects of the towers hypnotic  transmission as she was dragged through the television screen. After she was taken by thin man a second time and thrown back into the towers hypnotic light, the tower could have very well begun the process of turning her into monster six! and judging by how twisted her limbs are near the end of the game, its possible that the process of being distorted caused six to scream out in horrible pain! in the midst of her transformation, her screams could have echoed throughout the tower (just like her music box did ) and was heard by all those that were near a television, including the toddler!

Mono may not have heard her painful screams because he was already to far away from any tv at the time. The only thing he did find of six, after she became lost in the towers transmission during her time in the tower, was the one piece of her that was still desperately trying to cling onto the cruel reality it was fading from, shadow six!

Regardless of what is actually going on, this does beg the question, if episode 2 of the little nightmares 2 digital comics were to really take place in the middle of monos confrontation with the thin man and not before the events of the game, then what about the rest of the episodes of the comics? do they really all take place before the events of the game or is the timeline of the comics just as scattered as our speculations towards how the loop of the game and the little nightmares world is occurring?...honestly....whos to say....until we get some more information towards the lore of this world, everything’s still just a theory, a little nightmares 2 theory!

[sometime-in-1995]

You're telling me, Seungho's been drinking all night racking his brain analyzing this strange and yet so poignant feelings he has for Nakyum while Nakyum was sleeping? Like, he just sat there, drank all the leftover alcohols and probably inhaled all the leftover opiums? He obviously didn't know how to deal or what to do with his feelings. He's like in panic and yet just stands there doing whatnot.

Nakyum literally just woke up after a circus of a night and the first thing he sees is Seungho being defeated by his feelings, drunk and dazed. And the first thing he hears is Seungho confessing all the the truths he has tried to suppress.

I really didn't expect that we'd actually get Seungho to confess all his frustrations and worries in this week's chapter update. I'm literally baffled and at awe. We barely or even never get to see or hear his emotions out and loud in the open. As a reader, I personally didn't know how to deal with him being open. I literally had to pause every after each panel to hold my chest because it's aching or cover my mouth 'coz hearing him say those words is too surreal.

Fucking Deokjae! 😡 I know you're dead but I'm still cursing you for twisting my precious Nakyum's hand! 😭💔 If his wrist won't work like it used to be and deter his painting, Imma dig your grave and kill you again 😭

My precious son, please, go get that hand treated. I'm so worried 😭💔

None of us know what Seungho went through yet for him to turn out the way he is right now and for him to even think of committing murder & suicide. Although whatever happened to him is still not a valid reason to justify what he did to Nakyum, I wasn't ready to hear that coming from him. It's like a scream for help. He's been desperately trying to kill the bugging feeling inside by living in debauchery but still to no avail. Maybe, if there's anything I feel for him, it's pity. I feel like hugging him last night while reading. Dammit, I'm such a sucker for men like Seungho 🤦

The great and mighty Yoon Seungho could actually fall ill, huh. Dude, how can you look so fuckin' hot even when you're sick? You'd expect him to be okay with everything that's happening but we also don't know and understand the mental toll that this turmoil is causing him. The confusion and the frustration he has with having Nakyum around made him recall all the ugly past he've tried to bury by living in debauchery which probably gave him the feeling of superficial freedom and temporary peace.

The thing is, even Seungho is also denying himself of loving and being loved. If there's anything Seungho & Nakyum has in common, it's self-denial.

Nakyum isn't even mad anymore despite of what they did to him, despite of what he've gone through especially that night. He just no longer have the energy to fight back anymore as if he've given up and surrendered all the authority and consent he has for his own body. He's not mad nor cursing Deokjae for twisting his hand. He just sat there feeling the pain.

He's not mad that Seungho dragged him to that room, and yet he knows that Seungho shouldn't have done that. He knows that this is not how love should be like, this is not how he should be treated if it's love that Seungho feels. And yet he kept telling himself that it isn't true, he kept denying himself, his worth. At the same time, Nakyum asking the sleeping and sick Seungho if he has feelings for him has a tinge of hope. When Seungho nodded and instinctively and unconsciously rubbed is cheeks into Nakyum's hand, it seemed and felt like an unexpected answer which flustered Nakyum.

Seungho told himself that he'll only let his body lead, that they don't have to share what's on their mind. It is true, in the middle of his illness and slumber, his body instinctively responded to Nakyum. Nakyum has so much questions and probably Seungho partially confessing to him made things somehow clearer than it did just last night but he isn't the type to just assume things for his own convenience, not after what he experienced with Inhun.

Seungho mentioning the word 'love' is even inconceivable to me. He might not have said it directly but he've implied his jealousy over Inhun. He's jealous as fuck.

He just wants Nakyum to look at him like the way he looks at Inhun. And it hurts him that he doesn't even after Inhun went away for the Civil Service Exam. What's worse is that he doesn't understand why he's feeling that way when he only brought Nakyum to his residence to be his new plaything. He probably didn't even realize it himself how much he has changed ever since he brought Nakyum into his life not until Min pointed it out to his face. So he tried to resort to his old habits, his old lifestyle, thinking that it'd make things go back to how it used to be and probably it'd also make him feel this superficial freedom and temporary peace once again just like it did before. That one week he tried so hard to avoid Nakyum was to 'save' himself but he ended up ruining his health. He've always been the kind of guy who tries to deal with circumstances all by himself, that he grew so overprotective building those high walls so no one could get in and hurt him. And yet, here comes Nakyum who is unconsciously shaking his walls. Who is as clueless as him. They're both like two little toddlers lost in the dark. Don't know how to articulate what they feel, don't know where to hold to steady there steps towards each other and ended up stumblin' on their way.

Chapter 55 is such a big step into Seungho & Nakyum's development with Seungho opening up about his feelings. The way he did it is still so hazy but still made a bit of release and relief. I just didn't like how Nakyum didn't even have the time and luxury to deal with his own pain but to cater immediately to Seungho's as soon as he woke up from that night. *sigh* When will my precious son see the light of the day for him?

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 50

Warning, PLEASE CHECK TAGS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING YOU DON’T WANT TO READ THEN DON’T READ. Tag lists are closed

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Will tag as I go along, Will update tags, Slow Burn, Influenced by Star Trek and other Sci-Fi themes, References to We Happy Few, Tons of References and quotes to George Orwells 1984 see if you can find them all, The First Order is the new Big Brother,  but who is really surprised, Blatant Nazi Symbolism, Interrogation Themes, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Really just drawn out Slow Burn, Don’t repost without permission, Torture themes, Suggestive Themes, Execution themes, Disturbing Themes, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Controlling Kylo Ren, Physical Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Possessive Kylo Ren, A character shamelessly based on Zelda

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 50: Demanding Answers

The Big Chapter 50 is here.

You were ready to walk out into the living area to wait for him. While you waited, you went behind the bar to see if there was anything to drink. You waved goodbye to the ladies and found a nice wine to drink while you waited. You poured yourself a glass and walked over to the couch to lounge, rather suggestively.

You heard the door open and you watched him walk in, he took off his helmet and set it on the buffet in the front entrance area. All while not taking his eyes off of you. He sauntered over to you while his eyes roamed over your body, “Do you want to play Kitten and skip dinner?” As he reached you he bent down for a kiss.

You turned away and moved to get up, setting your finished wine glass down on the coffee table. “No, I would like dinner, and for you to explain some things to me. And if I get my answers then we can play.” You made your way down the hall to the dining room before receiving an answer.

He did follow you. You made your way to your seat and pulled up the menu. He followed and made his way to kiss your cheek which you also avoided, with the back of your hand meeting his lips. “Dinner and questions first, play later,” you commanded.

He let out a frustrated huff but sat down. He made his order and you two sat staring at each other waiting for the food to arrive. You could tell he was getting more annoyed by the minute. You were keeping your face neutral, waiting for him to crack first.

Which he did, “So are you going to ask these questions of yours? Or am I supposed to pry them from your mind.” His fingers thrummed on the table. He hadn’t taken his gloves off yet, something that was starting to annoy you. You prepared yourself for dinner like a lady, but he failed to simply take off his gloves.

“I don’t know, would you rather have some food before you get angry and storm off or would you like to possibly ruin dinner now, before we have even eaten?” Your question was based on history. The last few times you had tried to get him to answer things he had blown up and walked out or made you do a 180 and forget about it until days later.

He was annoyed by this question you could tell. His jaw clenched and the hand that was drumming on the table turned to a fist for a moment before laying its palm flat. “I wouldn’t want to spoil your dinner,” he said through gritted teeth.

Your dinner came in, along with another glass of wine. You were going to need a bit of liquid courage to be able to keep your backbone. As you both ate the tension in the room was high. You could tell by his rough eating of his dinner that he was just getting angrier and angrier. When you were finished you slowly finished off your glass of wine before standing and leaving the room.

You heard a crash, but it did not stop you from your mission. You walked up the stairs to the lounge space and sat down in front of the fireplace causing it to turn on. Before he descended the stairs after you, you ordered a stronger drink from your phone. You could hear him stomp after you, like a child being told what to do. You smirked at that thought. Oh yes, like a child.

He did not sit next to you, but he stood off to the side of the fireplace, glaring at you. With clenched fists and a clenched jaw he asked, “Your questions?”

You raised a finger at him, signaling for him to wait. At that moment the door to your chambers opened and a droid flew up the steps and delivered you your drink. You took the drink from its tray and held up the glass to inspect it before taking a drink. You then hold it in your hand, “Why did you not tell me about the formal dinner? You, not Hux, not Phasma, not your knights, not my ladies-in-waiting, but you.” Your head was level but you glared at him through your lashes, your lips slightly pursed.

You watched him clench and unclench his fists for several moments. His clenched jaw allowed you to see him grind his teeth. If he could harm you with just the look of his dark eyes, you would have been painted across the walls by now, but you were serving him a look back. “It was not a matter of importance,” he sneered finally. His eyes were twitching and seething with anger and frustration.

“Really, because it doesn’t appear that way. Is this not a formal dinner with high ranking planetary officials of the First Order? Is this not the first official event where I will be presented as Lady Ren? Your match. Or is that not something that is important to you anymore, me being your match?” You leaned forward, testing him. Daring him to do something. You took a sip from your drink and swirled it around in your glass waiting for his answer.

You heard a crash come from somewhere downstairs, but you held your ground not moving, not being phased. “Yes, they are important to the First Order and the final agenda, but they are not important to me. You will be presented as Lady Ren because you are Lady Ren. You are my match, the other half to my soul. You are important to me.”

You scoffed at this, something that earned another crash only this time it was a chair that flew off the lounge space balcony and down to the floor below. You flinched for a second before regaining your composure. “If I was important to you then you would tell me such things, or at least you would have the decency to send me a message yourself. Or did you forget that I still have my phone?”

He tore his gaze away from you, his hands clenched tightly into fists, his arms tense and shaking with anger. “Is that what you want?” You were pretty sure his anger was burning a hole in the wall behind you.

“Yes, that is what I want. For you to message me at the very least. I don’t think that is a lot to ask for, or you could tell me before you leave in the morning. Is that such a hard request?” You tilted your head towards him. Your eyes analyze his reaction.  

His fist clenched and unclenched several times before he answered, “No,” through gritted teeth once more.

“Good.” You leaned back in your seat and took another sip of your drink. “Now, I would like you to tell me who you have been speaking to when you think I am asleep.”

This set something off, “I told you never to speak of her again,” he roared. You could see his chest vibrating with anger. Seeming to struggle to keep his emotions locked inside his chest, like a cage.

You racked your brain to think of who he was talking about, but then something clicked and your body felt like ice had been poured through your veins. You stood and turned to walk to the edge of the balcony, “So the scavenger is a she.” Your back was to him.

“She is nothing, she means nothing.” You could hear his anger, but could no longer see it.

Something inside you broke, “If she means nothing then why won’t you tell me about her? Or are you lying to me and yourself.” The ending came as more of a whisper.

You could hear him step forward, “She is no one, she means nothing.” His voice was flat. You turned to look at him, but the look on his face told you everything you needed to know. His eyes were windows that betrayed the privacy of his mind, and heart.

Your drink fell to the floor, your legs moving on their own. You ran down the steps, tears falling down your face. He was frozen in his spot. Your brain and heart were moving at two different paces, without thinking you went into your dressing room and locked the door. You fell to the ground, your heart shattered with the drink you left upstairs. You were alone, but without thinking you hit a button on a remote, to call for them. You did not want to be alone.

There was pounding outside the door. Kylo, he was yelling too, but your brain didn’t process what was being said. You felt numb.

After a few minutes, you heard another voice behind the door and the pounding and yelling ceased. You heard a simple knock and Adlez’s voice, “M’lady it is us, please let us in.”

You hit a button on the remote and the door opened revealing Adlez and Olivia-Rose, Kylo was looming behind them. Adlez’s face upon seeing you was a look of horror and sympathy. She and Olivia-Rose entered and Kylo tried to follow, but Adlez swiftly turned and pointed a finger into his chest. “This is no place for a man. And that very much includes you. Especially when you caused the problem now out.”

Kylo was a bit in shock at what Adlez said, he stumbled back out of the doorway. His face turned to anger and you could see his chest puff up before Adlez hit a button on the panel and shut the door in his face. And she hit another one, presumably locking it. You heard yelling and banging once more.

She quickly rushed to your side, “Now now m’lady, you are safe. Olivia-Rose and I will fix everything just you see.” They both hauled you up, helping you to the vanity.

You glanced at your reflection, your face was a mess, your eyeliner and mascara leaving streaks down your face with puffy red eyes. Your lipstick was smeared and mostly gone from your lips. Your hair was a mess, but you don’t remember ever touching it in the first place. You looked like a girl who was dumped on her prom night.

Both of them moved quickly around you. Taking down your hair, removing your makeup, putting on some weird face mask. You were hauled up once more and changed into a nightgown, one that was similar to last night. Your voice was hoarse, “But I don’t want to wear this.” More tears streamed down your face, making the face mask start to run.

“I said we would fix this, and we will. First, you must wear that and you must stop crying. Now tell us everything,” said Adlez sternly, both of them walked you to the chaise lounge.

You recalled all of the details from dinner and your questions. When you got to the part about the scavenger you could hear Adlez scoff.

“A scavenger for a lady, I think not. Especially when that lady is his match. Why are men, such idiots?” She was angry, you don’t know if it was for you or her own anger, but it made you feel minutely better. Adlez then got up and walked over to the vanity picking up a washcloth and bringing it over to you, she started to remove the face mask.

“Now m’lady if he is still out there, which I have a feeling he is, you will stand your ground. You will demand to know who this scavenger is. If he does not answer, then I want you to come back in here and call on us. We will stay with you all night. If he does not answer you will not sleep next to him. In fact, you will not sleep in his bed until he does.” She walked back over to the vanity to grab various creams and oils.

She applied them to your face and something cool to your eyes. “Remember what I said, men like pretty things in their bed, but they must know to take care of them if they want them to stay pretty. Now I have a correction to that. They must take care of them if they want pretty things to stay. I am more than prepared to spend many nights and days with you in here until he answers you.” A part of you wished you had an ounce of her conviction and confidence. He was a fool for assigning her to you. She finished applying whatever it was to your face and pulled you to stand.

She told Olivia-Rose to grab the perfume from last night, which she then sprayed you with. On either side, they joined you in front of the full-length mirror. Somehow they managed to put you back together again. “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” you mused quietly.

“Yes, but they were the king’s men, you are an empress,” said Adlez confidently. This caused a spark within you. “Now, you will go out there and show him exactly that. You are an empress and she is some dirty scavenger. You will not ask to be told what she is, you will demand it. You are an empress, now act like it.” This caused the spark to be a fire, a roaring fire.

“Head up, shoulders back,” said Adlez as she followed you to the door. You were an empress. Not a queen. Not a princess. Not just a woman. Not just a girl. And most certainly not a scavenger. You were an empress, and now you were going to claim your empire.

[vidalinav]

Cassian’s Love is Warm (3/4)

Summary: Nesta’s recovery in the Illyria and her developing relationship with Cassian... Or the chapter where Nesta communicates a little better and dives more into her magic. 

Links: Nesta’s Love is Quiet Series Masterlist 

This took so long and I don’t even really know if it was worth it but here you go. This is dedicated to those 15 followers who always ask when these chapters will be done and like all my posts about updating this fic. Y’all keep me young...and honest. 

Thanks for reading! Long asf author’s note at the end. 

~

Something in the air smells like spring.

Nesta can imagine Elain here, in this field where wildflowers bloom and cold wind tickles her hair. She can see it all so clearly as if the sun has melted more than the snow—has left more than mud.

Cassian stands behind her, waiting for her to take it all in. She can see the purple tents of the market, the bustling of people. All of them running around with the things to do and accomplish. The presence of life in such a remote piece of the world.

They walk towards that noise, the sweet song beckoning them forward.  

It hits her all at once, then. The smell of cinnamon and cardamom, the array of autumnal spices lined in neat rows. Nesta inspects the red and yellow peppers hanging above the counters. Her eyes trailing over pots of hot broth and the bubbling swirls of chocolate and cream, trying to imagine the sweet taste of strawberries coated in crystalized red.

Cassian points to food she’s missed along the way and there’s something intimate about the way he leans towards her, his hair gently grazing her cheek. He points to his favorite dishes, the color vibrant against the worn brown of the stalls. Nesta wonders if he’s noticed she’s only half paying attention, caught more by his enthusiasm than the seven different kinds of fried food.    

His face grows red when he’s excited, she notes. Like spring has a made a home in him, and he too comes alive. He talks with his hands, gestures wildly, at ease in this unfamiliar place. Nesta lets him guide her along, all too aware of the shy smiles he keeps trying to hide between glances.

When Cassian suddenly stops at a stall, Nesta has to catch herself from running into him. She always forgets he is larger than her—larger than life really, but Nesta never notices how tall he is compared to her. A mountain in her way, she thinks, if he had not also been the bridge.

Cassian points to an ornament hanging from one of the railings. A chandelier of blown glass that sways gently. “How about one of these?”

Nesta tries to imagine the house with its bare walls and tattered décor and place the chandelier in the midst of its chaos. She hopes that the picture will appear like paint on a canvas with its cerulean hues against grey. A hint of sky between parted curtains. Forget-me-not shades in forget-it-all concepts. But the image that appears in her mind is her sister’s skin smudged in the same blue Nesta looks at, a brush gripped firmly in her hands.

Nesta stares into the clear teardrops.

“Where would we put it?” She asks, trying not to meet his eyes. She notes the stalls across from them and the amount of people drifting from each. Tries to count them one by one in her effort to escape his gaze, questions already forming at the tip of her tongue. How long will they stay here perusing items that have no commonality? How long before the items become unwanted again? Things thrown haphazardly around each room with no purpose but to be pleasant, yet still can’t manage even that.

“Maybe, above the dining table…after we get a new dining table.” He remarks. “Maybe, the living room.” He nods slowly, tapping his finger on his cheek. “I can see it hanging there.”

Nesta can see it there. She hates to admit it, but she does.

Such a bright light in all that darkness.  

She can imagine them under it, too, with more than enough pillows cushioning them on the couch, pushed to the floor. A thick rug she can feel through her toes, that she can feel on her back. Their shadows tangled by firelight. Her head resting on his shoulder. His fingers trailing along her arms and—

Nesta shakes her head. Her face growing warm.  

“We can look at other things, if you don’t think—”

“No” Nesta says, breathless and her heart beating much too fast. “It’ll work; I think. With the rest of the house I mean.”

She scorns herself for sounding flustered, but Cassian simply smiles in confirmation. Mouth wide and endearing.

“We can make it work.” He promises, as he signals the shop owner.

Nesta watches as they talk, the muted gestures careful as he hands the chandelier to Cassian. Such craftsmanship in glass. Beauty in something so breakable. She could shatter it before they even made it back home—

Home is not a prison like she thought it was. It is not four walls and a roof, or food or no food at all. It is not poverty or silk sheets. It is not made of glass and it is not so breakable that she could crush it between her palms and bleed on white carpet.

Nesta’s not entirely sure what it is, but she knows what it’s not. Knows that it is not fragile, and it does not hang, and it is not painted with decorative leaves that fall in shades of blue.  

It is not glass.

But maybe it’s wood, and the next stall, larger than the last, offers an array of furniture and a female that carves and carves never noticing Nesta as she gleans.

On and on she gathers. She walks to the next stall and then the next and the next, not even sure if Cassian is following or if he stayed behind collecting the light that will hang above them like a glittering star.

It’s odd, Nesta thinks as she turns in a sea of unknown faces. She’d spent so much time with her nose raised, she forgot what it was like to stare straight ahead, and… see the world for what it is. Color and wind and sun, and not just walls. A thousand different things she could see, feel, touch… A thousand different things she didn’t have to hate—that she didn’t have to love either but could choose to anyways. So many choices at the tip of her fingers.

As liberating as that thought is, there’s something sad about it still. The world tinted grey, even when the sky is blue.

Even in a crowd of people she is still not where she ought to be. She isn’t at the center, while the world spins around her. Nesta is not where the world ends or where it begins or where it continues. She’s not even sure if she could see her world if she could fly above it. She is not the part that if removed would eradicate all function, all fluidity.

People move around her, whether she stands in place or walks. They laugh with their friends, talk to their family, to shop owners, mumble to themselves. And as Nesta stands, glancing here and there, a thought enters her head. She is still merely at the edge. Hanging off of it? Maybe not. But she could see her feet dangle. See all the rocks below—

“Are you going to buy anything?” The sharp voice cuts through. Nesta manages a quick glance at the older fairy, unaware that she’d been standing by a shelf of framed mirrors.

“I’m sorry. I was—I’m waiting for someone.” She manages, wanting to kick herself for being flustered twice in one day. The female looks pointedly at Cassian who is still talking animatedly with the shop owner.

“Could be a while.” She says, and Nesta can’t help but agree. “Come in while you wait.”

The female moves, lifting the tent flap behind her, revealing a dim, dark space. A hidden place tucked into a corner of the market, larger than the others had been. A tent, Nesta thinks, rather than a stall. With wine-stained cloth enclosing all inside.

Nesta tries not to look to curious at the awaiting female, analyzing every tick of her patient gaze.

“What do you sell here?”

The ominous panels shift, and Nesta wonders if perhaps she asks too many questions. Never trusting the slightest possibility of endangerment, even when it’s disguised as shopping and pretty trinkets.   

“A great deal of things.” The fae answers. “But nothing I can show you if you stay here outside.”

Her skin like weathered paper, crinkles as her eyebrows raise in waiting. “There are things you’d like I think.”

“How would you know what I like?”

Without so much as a blink, the fae steps inside, her chipper voice carrying behind the tent flaps. “I don’t expect you to be so different from anyone else.”

It’s those words that bury themselves in her, make a home in her, crawl into her skin, until they all but coat her like a new wool sweater.  

For as long as Nesta can remember, she is always the one who’s different. The smart one, the clever one, the quiet, judgmental one, the mean one, the one with the most hostility. Never the one who played nice with the others, who had many friends that ran to her with secrets and gossip. She was not the one they trusted. Not the one they let in.

But not in this world—she’s one of the many in this world. Not one of the few. So, Nesta enters the little shop and wanders.

She walks from one shelf to the next, expects to see marvelous rubies and diamonds with a thousand different colors woven into its shine. Imagines inventions that move when she winds them or talking clocks that sing songs at the end of an hour. Disappointedly, all the shop owner keeps is picture frames.

Nesta stops to stare at a large one, dust covering the worn brass.

A picture of the market appears in its frame, and Nesta blinks at the sudden image. She can make out one of the shopkeepers, children laughing with balloons and candy in their hands. She can even see Cassian in the corner, talking with the fae next door, his hands waving. His head nodding.

“Is it—” Nesta shakes her head in disbelief, “Is it moving?”

The female comes to stand next to her, peering into the image. She smiles, too self-indulgent to be anything but praise and pride. With the glint in her eyes, Nesta almost expects to hear a long-forgotten secret make its way out of her lips. Perhaps where the treasure lies. Or where the golden eggs are hidden. She leans in unconsciously towards her and listens.   

“Marvelous, isn’t it?”

She points to one on her left. “This one is Monteserre in winter… and this one depicts the stunning shades of blue in the Night Court stars.”

Nesta follows her down the row as she continues to describe the various pictures that wink and wave and shudder beyond her control.

“This one is my personal favorite, Spring in Dahlias, I call it.”

Nesta looks at the flowers that flutter as if wind has shifted them. She places her hand on the image, her fingers gliding along, expecting to feel soft petals. Nesta only feels the cold glass.

She doesn’t try to keep the awe out of her voice.

“How much are they?”

“They are not for sale.” At Nesta’s furrowed brows, the shop owner explains, a small, conspicuous smile creeping along the edges of her mouth. “I only sell the frames.”

Nesta watches as the shop owner maneuvers behind the first image. The market a bustling and lively place that one could dream of and be satisfied with. “Pictures are a kind of magic, I think… and just like hopes and dreams and memories, we see what we want to see. Feel what we want to feel. ”

The fairy trails her fingers along the brass, hunching over the top to get a better view. As if she had not made the view herself.

“In many ways I made these because I was trapped in places I didn’t want to live in and was myself not someone I wanted to be. They let me escape this world. Even for a moment.” The fairy gazes wistfully at the picture, turning towards Nesta. Her eyes a pale shade of green and self-assured promise. “And later when I didn’t want to escape anymore, they were memories. Little recollections of times I didn’t even consider the magnitude of or how much impact they would have on my life.”

The female steps around the image and Nesta feels the sudden urge to run, though she doesn’t know why. She is in no danger as far as she’s gleaned and even if she were Cassian is only a few stands away. But Her heart thumps regardless, one beat after another, faster and faster, as the shopkeeper continues.

“Hopes, dreams, memories. It’s all simple magic, really. Perhaps the only kind we all possess. Past the names we call ourselves, beyond the masks we wear. I think to master it is to master ourselves.” She takes a cloth out of her pocket and wipes the edges of the frame. “How else can we see things as they truly are?”

“Why do you keep these hidden?” Nesta asks, her voice soft and accusatory. She could hear the light laughter. Mocking her or believing her to be naïve, Nesta didn’t know.

“Because there’s some who’d rather not know what they look like when they don’t know they’re being watched… Others who don’t want to know what magic looks like when it’s not used for violence or war… No, these are for the special few. Those who think too much already. The ones who need to see.”

Nesta shakes her head.

“I don’t understand—” She starts, but Cassian appears through the tent flaps, a box placed carefully in his hands

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

He sets the box down gently at his side, combing his hair with his fingers. A carefree, contented kind of way. “I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

Nesta can feel the urge to roll her eyes but she can’t deny that that something about him makes her feel assured. More calm. Less cautious. As if all the words ever spoken make sense somehow, even if she can’t decipher what they mean. Even if she can’t tell if they’re meant to be dangerous.

“I wasn’t so far away.” A huff in her words. “I was waiting for you, but you took too long.”

“Sorry” Cassian answers, a sheepish grin on his face. “The shop owner wanted to talk about the new policies of land ownership in Prythrian, and once he started, he wouldn’t stop.”

He notices the shopkeeper watching them, an intrigued, curious gleam in her eyes, and nods slightly in her direction, taking his time perusing the items leaning on each wall. A warrior’s assessments that Nesta would find odd in such a place if she had not done so herself.

“Did you find anything you like?” He asks, at last.

Nesta maneuvers to the corner, tracing her fingers along one of the frame’s edges.

She is not a painter like Feyre. She is not hopeful like Elain. She is not brave like Cassian. She is not useful, or pleasant, or trusting… but something in her heart says that she can have this one thing, if only she’d reach out and take it.

Perhaps, Nesta lies when she says she doesn’t want to be like them. Maybe, she’s been waiting for them and them for her and got lost somewhere along the way. Somewhere that was messy and monotonous and crass. Maybe she lets herself get carried away, swept up in the lively fire of anger and the grandeur of being unrelenting and unforgiving.

Perhaps it is also true that Nesta is not like them at all. Maybe she is merely trying on different shoes until she finds one that fits the best, until she can walk in those shoes comfortably, stand in front of every person who means anything to her and look each one of them in the eye.

What will she tell them after it’s all said and done? What will she see reflected back at her?

 “I want to get these frames.”

Nesta holds them up for Cassian to see, the brass of one contrasting with the wood of another. She counts three in her palms, but she wants more. She’d take them all home if she could.

“We’ll take these.” Cassian directs his words to the female waiting, “As many as you have.”

He doesn’t ask what she’s going to do with them. Possibly trusts her enough to know about such things, or maybe he doesn’t care at all, Nesta thinks. Maybe Cassian knows she needs this, like he knew she needed all of those books, or the training, or the teasing arguments whenever she was too sad to get out of the house or out of her nightgown. Like all of those games he played with her or the food he set out to have her try. Maybe it was just in his heart to be like that. To be that caring.

Nesta barely notices as the female collects the frames, giving Cassian back his change.

His eyes light up when he’s content, she notes. Not quite green, not quite amber. A little bit eager as he looks at her. Nesta wants to know what it means to be looked at like that. If it’s as dangerous as she always imagines it would be...

Cassian takes the frames out of her hands, holding them for her as they make there way outside. But not before the shopkeeper grabs a hold of his arm and leans towards him.

She holds her hand next to her mouth as if she is telling some secret, and though the statement she says next is directed at Cassian, Nesta still grasps the words.

They float around like music notes, reach her ears, travel down her spine.

The words curl around her heart, burrow in the center of her chest, warming her all over.

Your mate is lovely.

~~~

The mountains have many different names, she learns, and its acres sprout multi-colored flowers. Enduring patches of delicate petals. She passes wisteria, rhododendron, azalea, feels their softness on the tip of fingers. It’s for this reason, Nesta asks to walk some more before they go home.

She spends her time balancing on the raised edge of the sidewalk, Cassian close beside her. Never too far away. Never so distant that she can’t make out his shape or smell his scent or feel the warmth he resonates in the early spring chill.

Her hands are clasped behind her, but she feels a little braver, a little more playful and child-like. Not nearly enough to hold her arms out like she wants to and fit the whole world in the length of them. But she does wobble slightly every now and then, just to see Cassian flinch.

“How did you find the market?” Nesta asks as they reach a clearing of muddy rocks and grass.

“I used to come here when I was young. Azriel, Rhys, and I.” He shakes his head fondly as he remembers. “We used to spend all day here, eating as much as we could and taking more home.”

Nesta waits for him to continue as he passes her, going to sit on the cold ground. His large body at odds with the tiny daisies that sprout in aimless places on the field. She stays behind watching, trying to capture the outline of his figure and every color that bleeds into his skin.  

“Actually, I didn’t start coming here until Rhys’s mom took us. She used to sell dresses here and she’d take us with her sometimes. If we behaved, she said she’d get us each our own surprise. It always ended up being food, but sometimes it was new clothes, or toys, or weapons as we got older.”

Nesta can see his fists clump the grass as she gets closer to him, lured by his story and the image of three children running around the market square.

“I don’t know why I remember, but I know we used to steal food when no one was watching, even made a game out of it. Who could take the apple from the crabby goblin? Or how many strawberry tarts could we eat behind the dryads back? The one who always raised her nose at us and complained to Rhys’s mother to.”  

Nesta laughs quietly. The sound bright as she pictures a smaller version of him, with rosy cheeks and a penchant for getting in trouble. She wonders if she ever looked that way, too. Innocent and hopeful. Playful and proud.

Nesta wants to say so much to him. Ask him questions about his favorite things, the memories that make his voice sound like he sprinkles sugar atop them. Such sweetness in the light of his smile.

“That sounds fun.” Nesta says, cringing at the perfunctory response.

“It was,” he agrees. “Until we got home and took turns throwing up everything we ate.”

Nesta can’t help the grin that appears, and Cassian knocks his shoulders with hers. His smile reaching his eyes as he looks at her, mirth in the crevices of his mouth.

“You have dimples.” He notes. Nesta touches her cheeks, covering them with her hands. “I didn’t expect you to have them.”

The words sink in before Nesta can decipher what they mean, and she spends the next minutes deciding on an answer, worried more about her response than the stillness that tangles around them. She can feel her teeth pull on her bottom lip, begging her not to say anything.

She never says anything.

“My mother didn’t like them.” Nesta admits, not daring to look at Cassian. “She said that I was born with such a perfect face, it was a pity that the only imperfection she could see was in my smile.”

She shakes her head, staring into the wide expanse of interlacing pinks and marigolds. When did she lose the right to laugh so freely, the freedom of being love drunk and a curious daydreamer? When did life decide she was no longer a child and the only thing she could carry were the memories piled so high and so heavy they were crippling?

“I never wanted to smile in front of her, after… I didn’t want her to look at me and only see what I lacked—how imperfect I really was to her.”

And, Nesta lacked almost everything to her mother. Always talking when she shouldn’t, saying things she could never take back. She was always too moody, too angry, too taciturn. Never what her mother wanted her to be.

Even now she reveals too much and Nesta wants to slap a hand over her mouth, rewind time, start at the beginning where her secrets are kept hidden. Safe in the anger she never hid well.

She can see the questions already forming, something Nesta hopes isn’t pity making a way in the honey tones of his irises.

“I guess I took her words too literally.” Nesta bites, the animosity burning bright red.

Cassian opens his mouth to say something, but Nesta doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t even want to know what he could possibly say to take the bitter taste out of her mouth.

“Why did you stop coming here?” She asks accusingly, amazed that she can switch her emotions, like blowing out a candle. One minute a flickering flame, another smoke rising to the mist.

His brows furrow as his eyes darken. Nesta is almost ashamed that she feels proud to have caused such a look. ”You said you used to come here. Why don’t you anymore?”

Cassian grimaces, his wings drifting higher. “No, I don’t come here often.”  

His hands wring themselves around and around and Nesta wants to know what he is imagining between his fists. If he hopes to maim as much as she wishes to pummel.

“When she died, I never had the heart to come back. I didn’t want to see where she had walked, where she had laughed, the people she knew so well, and not see her in the midst of it all. There was a part in me, a part in all of us, that was already empty. I didn’t want to see how empty this place had become—what the world looked like without her. So, I just… stopped coming.”

Nesta pauses at his words, suddenly guilty that she is playing a game of whose life turned out worst. There is no winner in daddy issues or absent mothers. No crown for the unwanted, the unclaimed. And she will not find secrets in fingerprints or under the skin her nails dig into. There is only pain.

His and her own.

“Did she come here often?” Nesta asks, her voice steady and soft. His words blinking away the burning sting in her eyes.  

“When she could get away—from raising us that is, or some task she had to do for Rhys’s father.” He scoffs. “Raising us mostly. That was all she good for apparently. Never mind that she was smart as all hell and could rival any male Illyrian, trained or no.”

“Do you think she would have been seamstress all her life if she had never mated?”

Nesta doesn’t know why she asks more questions, when she all but ruins the conversation. When they get back, she’s sure she’ll spend hours going over everything she says, marking every tally of moments gone awry. But she wants to salvage as much as she can, wants him to spill the words out so she can collect them like tiny seashells, like parts of a ship already wrecked and abandoned.

Cassian stays silent and Nesta wonders what has trapped him in his head. He stares at the mountains not meeting her gaze and takes his time answering her question. When he does, she can hear the strain of his voice, can see the veins in his hands bulge as he tightens his fists on the grass.   

“Illyrians are not… good with females making their own money. They saw, it is as a bad example to the others. No one needed to get ideas, so they gave her more chores, more work. And that was before she had married, so I’m told.” He pulls on the daisies between them. The petals falling in clumps as he grits his teeth. “I can imagine what they would have done if she continued.”

She can feel the anger from Cassian, and feels it rise up inside her, as well. A pain Nesta supposes she shares with all of them, no matter what body she walks in. Like calls to like, she hears Feyre once say.

To be an Illyrian, fae, or human. To be a female, forever young and beautiful. To be a male, always the strongest and most self-assured. To be nothing, but petals and dust. To have it all. To have so little. It was never enough.

In that way, they are the same, she supposes. Both with their feet in the sand, the waves crashing on their ankles. Anger and sadness floating out in that bitter sea she so often drowns in.

Nesta never stops drowning, gives up trying to keep her head above water. She imagines her mouth opening, and a waterfall bursting out. A broken pipe siphoning from an ocean that would never dry. Something explodes out of Nesta. A silence she can no longer keep by holding her lips tightly together.

“My father used to make carvings out of the wood I had to cut,” Nesta holds her palms out as example.

She always expects to see the blisters, count them one by one, as some kind of reminder that she’s suffered. Sometimes, she wishes they’d appear, so she could rub her fingers across them and trace the memories. But they are long gone, and all she can see now are weaving lines and skin.

“I remember being mad at him, so very angry that he’d use the wood that was supposed to be for fires or…food—" She looks towards the bushes, so full and overflowing with berries. What would she have given to have just a taste then? To have these resources growing just outside her door. “He’d sell them, and I still could only thing that it was mine. He’d use my wood, my time, my pain, and it was my money—what I deserved for dealing with a father who could care less about his own daughters.

“I suppose that’s how Feyre felt.” Nesta feels her eyes sting as she stares straight ahead, “And I guess that’s why I understand.”

The anger, she thinks. The sour taste of regret.

Cassian stays oddly quiet as she speaks and Nesta can’t help but be grateful. She does not need to hear sweet coddles as if she needs sympathy, but equally so Nesta doesn’t know what she’d do if she heard criticism. He can’t possibly understand something he’s never lived through, and it makes a part of her furious to think he’d try. But it also makes a deep sadness fill the center of her chest.

Nesta—never to be understood or her sins forgotten.

He stares up at the mountains and she watches as he closes his eyes, his wings lifting slighting at the breeze. “The only thing I remember of my mother is her voice. I don’t remember what color her hair was, how tall she was, even what eye color she had. I can only assume they’re like my own…but that isn’t good enough. Not really.”

Nesta listens carefully to it all.

She’s never heard anything about Cassian’s biological mother and he’s never spoken a word about her, though she often notices how he looks at the others in the camp. The children, the couples, the families he is and will never be a part of. Even sometimes when he looks at her—like he is missing something that nothing in the world can fill.

“I like to imagine that she smelled like the woods, like fresh air… fires…warmth. That she carried me when I was tired and tucked me in when I was sleeping. I liked to imagine that she told me bedtimes stories. I hoped she told me bedtime stories, and I imagined waking up and believing every word that she said the night before. As if she painted my soul, my wants, and my wishes on the edge of my dreams.”

Cassian sighs, his shoulders sinking to the ground as Nesta resists the urge to lay a hand there. She is always trying to resist him, shake the feel of him off of her. A lump forms in the back of her throat, and she clenches her fists to stop the reaching.

“All this time, I could hear her call out my name as if she were screaming right in front of me,” He croaks. His eyes red as he stares, never quite looking at her. “This year, I could barely remember what she sounded like.”

“Why are you telling me this?” She asks, softly, her head resting on her bended knees.

Nesta watches as his grins. His face so obviously despairing that Nesta wants to ask him why he smiles when his heart is broken, why his expression looks so familiar to her. As if she were looking in a mirror as opposed to his war-torn face.

“Maybe all memories fade away, at one point or another. Whether we want them to or not.”

Nesta looks away, leaning back and blinking at the sky quickly turning to its dark cerulean hues. An ocean of darkness, she thinks.

She is always, always drowning.

“Do you miss your mother?” Nesta asks.

Cassian sighs, his hand running through his hair.

“As much as I can miss someone I’ve never known.”

“Do you miss your father?” He questions.

Does she?

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. Grief looks so strange in Nesta’s eyes, she often wonders if she cares at all.

But she remembers the tombstone she can never visit, the goodbyes that get caught in her throat, the ships she doesn’t even want to look at in fear that she would cry and never stop.

Does she want to miss someone who hurt her so badly?

“More than I wish I did.” Nesta decides.

She looks him over once more before laying down on the grass. The feel of it pillow-soft and cool against her arms. The sky watching over both of them.

“We’re both orphans,” Nesta remarks.

Cassian chuckles, their shoulders touching as he follows suit. Nesta can feel the heat from his body all the way to her toes. “Penniless, parent-less lot, the two of us.”

She stares up at the wide expanse, the stars already peeking through the twilight. The space so substantial and vast it could swallow them whole.

“I suppose we have each other now.”

~~

Amren tells her to think of magic as water. To bathe in it, to wash in it, to let it move around her. Nesta never tells her she’s afraid to take a bath, afraid of what the water might to do her. Even after she put one foot in and another until her whole body is submerged, she’s never wanted to touch that magic she felt just beneath her skin. Never wanted to know just how much it felt like hate.   

But, Amren also tells her that if magic is water, her emotions are fire. The more she rages against it, the more she can’t control it. The more she hates the magic, the more it burdens her. Her anger breathes through her, and so the magic evaporates before Nesta can see exactly what it’s made of and what it calls to.

That’s what she tells herself when she stares at the picture frames and nothing appears. Nothing moves and she swears it’s because the magic inside of her does what it wants and doesn’t care at all about her. How could anything care about something that is so miserable and broken.

She scowls at the offending structures leaning lazily on the wall. The picture frames seeming to hum before her. The one Nesta holds in her hands, with its carved mahogany, glares at her to get on with it.

Nesta supposes it would be easier if she knew what images she wanted to appear. She can think of nothing, though she tries all morning, all last week, and all the way back to Windhaven when they make it back from the market.

Nesta sits back and sighs, her head bumping on the new couch they are still deciding on where to place.

The problem, it seems, is that Nesta can think of no good times worth remembering. She has seldom laughed with unutterable joy at the jokes her friends make. She has no friends. She can’t imagine the famous blooming roses of Rask or the briny beaches of Vallahan. She has never been anywhere. She doesn’t want to be reminded of Velaris, where she can still smell the putrid scent of puke and whiskey. An image would merely remind her of the headaches she gets with even a whiff of alcohol.

She moves on to people, but she is not inclined to dwell on any of them either. In fact, Nesta doesn’t want to think of them at all. And so Nesta sits there, resigning to the belief that she was born to be good at nothing…

Some part of her knows she’s scared.

The stiff spine, the wringing hands, the focused gaze. It isn’t an enemy that stands before her, but—Nesta inhales—there is too much that hasn’t been said.

She doesn’t want to know what her mind thinks of when she loosens the reigns. Amren has taught her so many times to keep those shields up, it seems counterintuitive to break them down now. But mostly, Nesta doesn’t want to know what magic looks like. She’s spent so much time denying it’s even there, that the idea of letting it move freely makes her feel wild—her spooked horse-like tendency to see all things as fearful even if they were smaller than her and she could stomp on them easily.

Nesta sets the frame down, the base screeching against the hardwood without leaving a scratch. Her fingers tapping along her thigh to some unnamed melody she can barely recall.

Her powers are always a mystery to her. Never to be understood, never to be forgotten. They are always there. She imagines its depth, the endlessness like drowning in a cauldron, the questions forming in the space between morphing bodies. Human to fae or… something or other.

Nesta tries to silence these questions, but she is simply too curious.  

Will the magic shoot out of her hands, follow the sound of her voice, grant her wishes? Will it twist around her spine so that every time she uses it, she’ll feel a twinge in her back and a terrible need to bend and crumble? Will it spit fire out of her mouth like those roaring insults meant to bite and hide her away?

Is it hollow like a hole never filled? Does it echo like a rock in a well? Will it squirm? Eating her from the inside out.

Nesta does not want to know, she asserts, does not even want to imagine what the others have called powerful and strange.

But she can name one type of magic.

It was there that day. Between the two of them.

Nesta thinks about the idea of them several times. Even before she ever lives in this cabin. Long before she lets herself think about them together like that. The image always there, always waiting, and always agonizing.

She lets herself dwell on it now for the picture appears.

Maybe not a memory. Maybe not a dream.

In the space between mahogany lines, Nesta traces her fingers along the glass and brings it closer to her. The appearance finer than paint and perhaps more vibrant. She is almost afraid to look at it for long, fearing that it will change into something dark and horrid. But there they lay.  

The two of them.

On that hill of vibrant green. The specks of white and yellow dusting their skin. A blanket of beautiful things she’d like to wrap them in, across both of their shoulders where dust and time had settled. This Cassian looks down, a soft grin on his face, pulling his arms around tighter, wrapped around this—this girl who looks a lot like her and nothing like her at all.

This girl grins. A wide and happy smile, her cheeks brimming and a lively red. Nesta watches as the girl in the picture with her hair and her eyes, leans her head on his shoulder. Both of them so close and so…loved.

Nesta hates this girl. Immediately chastises this young thing.

This girl who never sees terror or feels the deepest regrets. Who never knows starvation for touch and affection. Who never looks at the world with its hatred and despair and is just so hungry that she eats them like scraps of food left on the dinner table. This girl doesn’t know pain—

Nesta breathes deeply. Her fist only inches away from punching the glass into oblivion.

Or maybe she does… Perhaps this girl, this young, naïve, hopeful girl sees it all—feels it all, as she does, but smiles as Nesta always wishes she could, remaining free and unencumbered like no Nesta has ever been before. Perhaps this Nesta knows what it’s like to feel the raging disappointment and instead of soaking it up and bottling it for later, she tells stories instead, laughs instead, thrives instead.

Despite the pain. Regardless of the memories.

Nesta does not destroy the image. Whether its some dream manifested or some cosmic joke, the magic is there. Her power is in the center of it all and it is not cruel or angry or crass.

It’s water…and if it is, she’s made of it. There is no separation between who she is and what the magic makes her. There is no way to pull it out and leave the whole of her behind. As much as she wants to pretend it isn’t there, she can more dismiss that it exists than she can claim that air doesn’t take space in the atmosphere or that she doesn’t dream strange, improbable dreams.

Pretending doesn’t equate to truth.

So, Nesta leans the finished, moving frame on the living room wall and picks up another. The lavender paint reminding her strangely of dinner parties.

Nesta makes so many, fills all of the frames of different sizes and shapes and colors with moments she not only remembers, but of those she wishes to see—the pictures she needs to see.

Of Cassian with that group of friends she almost always resents. Of Amren and her, in that tiny apartment with puzzles strewn about. Of the camp and the raging, rising females who lay claim on her and treat her like one of them. Of the stories she swallows and the worlds that swallow her, that she can feel in the pit of her stomach.

Of her sisters. Because she loves them.

More than herself, most days.

She fills the walls with them all. The snow, and city lights, and night stars, and mountain tops filling the backgrounds, quietly saying hello, goodbye, stay a while. We promise you’ll like it here. We promise to be good to you.

Nesta straightens each one.

The one of her and Cassian though, she hides. Behind her bookshelf, where it won’t taunt her with its hopeful dreams, with its lies it tells so truthfully.

That one can wait.

When the night arrives, Nesta goes to the doorway and the moon scrutinizes her as she waits for the tell-tale sign of wings that signals Cassian’s return. It’s silvery sheen ordering her to do more this time, than watch from the living room window.

She is not the one trapped behind glass.

His feet hit the pavement as the crack of the open door reveals him. She is not a painter like Feyre, but she counts all the shades of indigo and wine that form the backdrop as he steps towards her. The stars as alive as each person who stares at her from those picture frames and blinks.

He looks at her cautiously, waiting for her response, but she takes his arm instead. Pulling him toward the day’s work.

She doesn’t ask him what he thinks, what he can read through gazes on his family’s faces, but she watches as he scans over the images, taking his time assessing each one.

She swallows when he looks back at her, and Nesta braces for the response. Will he deny her visions, her hopes and her wishes? Will he call her out for moving too fast? Will he knock all of them off the wall and yell?

Worst of all, will he say nothing? Her wants not even worth a response.

Cassian places his hand on her cheek. She feels his thumb trace her skin where it burns and if he moves any lower, he can probably hear her heart thumping wildly. And even if she’s scared beyond belief, Nesta still leans into his palm.

She closes her eyes, clenches her fists, and waits for that crippling fear.

Nesta feels the hot press of his mouth instead.  

He pulls her to him, his arms moving to her waist as hers wrap around his neck.

His lips are soft, and she leans into him, tastes him, soaks him into her skin. Not at all sure what she should be thinking. Not thinking at all.

But Cassian pulls away far too soon, and when she opens her eyes again, his cheeks are brimming red. Nesta doesn’t say anything and neither does he, but she can feel him in the silence. Joy in deep breaths. Warmth she can feel to her toes.

She turns as he does, back to the images on the wall. Their shoulders almost touching as Nesta fiddles with her neckline and Cassian smiles neatly.

The two of them beaming.

The people of their pictures dreaming their own little dreams.

She will not be afraid of memories. She will not be afraid to hope.

~

Tags:  @dreaming-of-bohemian-nights , @missing-merlin, @strangeenemy, @saltydreamcollector, @midnightbluhm, @my-fan-side, @queenofillea1, @tswaney17, @gloriousinlove, @ekaterinakostrova, @thebluemartini, @anishake, @lord-douglas-the-third, @mis-lil-red

AN: 

I wanted this part to be a battle for Nesta. Happiness and Sadness are two sides of the same coin, and I wanted Nesta to constantly toss it and I wanted it to be a fight against what she hoped it would land on. I didn’t want to write her one day getting over it all, because I don’t really think that’s true. Healing, after all, is the ugliest part. So, this chapter ends a little hopeful but bittersweet and it will probably remain that way for the rest of it. 

I split this chapter up, so we have one more part 4/4. And then the last segment which I may or may not ever get to called “Love is Bright Red, Hope is Dark Blue” which is more about the inner circle and their part in all of this. Since I think it’s easier for Nesta and Cassian to love each other in the dark so to speak and maybe not in front of their family. But, I haven’t written any of it, and to be frank, I only sometimes like writing this fic and I want to move past this. So, I will not make any promises. 

But I hope everyone is doing well. It’s an odd time to be alive right now, and I really hope everyone is staying home and staying healthy. Oh btw, I’ve read Crescent City. It’s such a good book! I was amazed but not at all surprised. SJM always writes the books I want to read so there’s that. 

Anyways, thank you for sticking with this fic, I know I take forever to update, but every comment, kudos, like, and reblog mean the world to me and tbh, the constant comments are the only reason I have even made it this far. 

Of course, if you like this second to last end part, please feel free to do just that! I always love what you guys comment. I’m out! Finally 

[sweetiepie08]

Rebel Z Chapter 3

Invader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn, @agentpinerulesall​

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list feel free to message me. Also, if you’re on the tag list and you changed your name, please just let me know. 

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5.  Chapter 6.  Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. 

[-]

Tak activated her Vortian disguise before she even entered the solar system. When dealing with the Meekrob, an Irken could never be too careful, especially after Tenn’s disappearance. Word around the stars was that her life signal suddenly went out one day. No one knew what happened. Apparently, the Tallest hadn’t received ant worrying reports. Her last transmission was a routine observation update. She wasn’t making any risky plans and she didn’t have a near-discovery. She was there one minute and gone the next. Soon afterward, the Meekrob put out a warning declaring that any Irken caught within their planet’s range would be killed on sight. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who was responsible for her disappearance.

It was a shame, really. Tak was a few levels ahead of Tenn in training, but she heard good things. Any invader assigned to Meekrob must be talented. They were, after all, Irk’s most formidable enemies. Safe to assume they had done her in. It was a tragedy that someone so young and bright had been cut down in her prime, but life as an invader was fraught with peril, at least so long as the enemy was intelligent.

Finally, they approached the planet Refirencee and, after going through a check point, she docked her ship in a public hanger. Before exiting her ship, she looked at MiMi. An information retrieval unit would be especially advantageous on this mission, but the engineering was too obviously Irken. “MiMi, cat disguise.” MiMi saluted and her holo-cloaking devise activated. Tak looked her over an nodded her approval. They were lucky an Urth cat looked so similar to a Vortian jelicle.

Satisfied with their cover, they hopped out of their ship and headed for the transport bay. There, they found a digital sign displayed the departure times for bullet trains which took the planet’s patrons to different sections of the massive data base. The trains were broken down by planet and the one for the Irken information section left in only a few minutes.

As they waited for their train, Tak noticed a few patrons looking at her. She tried to keep her eyes on the track before her and ignored their stares as she felt a light pounding in her chest.

One of the patrons approached her. “Um, excuse me,” he said, eyes turning to MiMi.

Tak shot him a glare. “What?”

“I’m not sure they allow pets.”

“She’s an emotional support jelicle,” Tak said. A spark flashed across her eyes and the patron’s face went blank for a second.

“Right,” he answered, almost robotically. “Sorry I bothered you.”

The train arrived and Tak and MiMi boarded. They took a seat and the train took off at break-neck speed. They arrived at the Irken section in a matter of minutes. She stepped off the train to find her self in a large, domed building, surrounded by towers of data cartridges. Sorting droids buzzed about, arranging cartridges to their rightful places. In the center of it all, a librarian sat at a large, circular information desk.

“Excuse me,” Tak said, approaching the desk. “Where can I find information on the cyber age?” It would be a good start. The invention of the PAK kicked off the era.

“That will be section 8792,” the librarian answered. “I’ll call you a browsing cart.”

The librarian pushed a button and a cart zipped up to the desk. It was just a flat, hovering rectangle with a handrail and a control board at the front. Tak and MiMi hopped on and she entered the section number into the control panel.

“By the way,” Tak said, turning to the librarian, “forget I was here.” The spark flashed across her eyes again and the Librarian’s face went blank. Tak hit the start button and her cart zipped off. She arrived at her destination within seconds.

“MiMi, find a data console about PAK invention,” Tak ordered as they stepped off the cart. MiMi saluted and slinked through the aisles. While she waited, Tak sat down at a computer desk. In a few minutes, MiMi returned with a data console marked “Irken Cyber Age Vol. 1”. Tak took and plug it into the computer. She scrolled through the text, skimming over most of it. The information mainly consisted of things any smeet would know. After the control brains were built, they gave the scientists the idea to build the PAKs. These PAKs efficiently distributed Irken knowledge and ushered in a glorious new age of blah, blah, blah…

Yes, every Irken alive knew their basic history. But what about the PAKs themselves? How were they built? How did they work? Tak was beginning to wonder if this was a waste of time. After all, the key to PAK mechanics was Irk’s most guarded secret. She shouldn’t expect to find that information here. In fact, she should be glad that knowledge hadn’t fallen into enemy hands.

She continued to scroll and a picture caught her eye. It showed the five engineers in charge of the PAK project. The face of one particular engineer kept glitching in and out. He was decently tall. Not tall enough to be considered for the upper echelons of tallness, but a good height none the less. His round, purple eyes caught hers and she studied his uneasy grin. The names of each engineer were listed in the caption and one name, Krislotch, glitched in time with the face. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone wanted her to pay attention to this guy.

Was it even Krislotch himself? Very well, you have my attention. Now what do you want. She scrolled down a bit further and noticed individual letters glitching as well. A message perhaps? Hidden in the page? What are you trying to tell me, Krislotch?

“MiMi, my tablet.”

MiMi reached into her head and took out a small, metal canister. Tak unfolded it into tablet mode and took out a stylus. She wrote down each letter in order.

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF IRKEN INDUSTRY VOL 13. CHAP 78.

Now this was interesting. It seemed Krislotch left her a little crumb trail. Where it led, she could only guess, but she simply had to follow. She ordered MiMi to find the volume mentioned. When the SIR unit returned, she plugged it into the computer and jumped straight to the designated chapter. Reading through it, she found it was about a factory disaster which resulted in a great number of deaths. Apparently, some worker named Mia, somehow, caused a back up of materials at her station. The machine couldn’t put out new materials, overheated, and caught fire. For some reason, the sprinkler system was disabled, and the fire only spread. Fifty-seven workers, including Mia, died in the accident.

As Tak read the page, she spotted two full sentences glitching. The first gave the number of those dead and the other showed the date. She wasn’t sure why the number of dead was important, but even a smeet a few minutes old knew the significance of the date. This disaster took place exactly 0.1 cycles before Installation Day, the day all Irkens were given their PAKs.

More letters glitched. Put together, they led to a console called “The Irken Cyber Age: a Complete History vol. 1.” They also directed her to a page which, once she read it, confirmed her suspicions. Krislotch did, in fact, want her to know the disaster occurred 0.1 cycles before Installation day. But apart from that, what was the connection?

Yet again, more letter glitched. She’d picked up the trail. Glitching letters led her to a console of Irken History, itself with more glitching letters leading her to the next clue. As she read on, a clear pattern began to emerge. Since the introduction of the PAKs, every major historical event was preceded by a deadly disaster by exactly 0.1 cycles. The historical events mainly revolved around Irken galactic conquest: military campaigns, invasion launches, and the like. The disasters varied widely, but they all had a few things in common. They were all caused by an Irken who then died in the disaster, and they all left fifty-seven dead. Even the names of the Irkens who caused them were similar: Mia, Mib, Mic, Mid, Mie…

The trail stopped before reaching more recent events. The final set of glitching letters gave her the title “An Observatory Study of the Final Days of Ecore,” as well as the coordinates to the console’s location, which rested in a completely different part of Refirencee. She’d waste no time getting there, but something nagged at her.

There must be some current events which fell into the pattern, she thought. Things I would remember. Operation Impending Doom was the obvious answer. It was the most recent invasion launch, but she couldn’t think of any major disasters that preceded it. Then again, the launch date had to be delayed due to… Wait… Was that it? How many died that day? And how long after did Impending Doom II launch? She had to check to be sure.

“MiMi, find information on the original Operation Impending Doom.”

MiMi swept off and quickly returned with a new data console. A quick look confirmed her suspicions. Fifty-seven dead in a rampage caused by disgraced Invader Zim. Impending Doom II launched exactly 0.1 cycles later. It was a close fit, but it wasn’t’ perfect. Zim was alive, for one thing, while the other disaster causers died. Another was the name. It didn’t fit the pattern, unless…

Tak slapped her palm to her forehead. Was the idiot such a complete incompetent that he got his own assigned name wrong?

Surely more answers would be found in the next console.

She and MiMi rode the cart to the closest train station and took the next train to a section called Dead Planets. Once there, they took another cart to the location designated by the glitching letters. As they approached, they found they weren’t looking for a data console at all. The coordinates Tak punched into the cart took them to a section deep in the library. The shelves surrounding them held actual, physical books. Judging by the layers of dust, they were the first lifeforms to enter these aisles in a long time.

They made it to the correct shelf and Tak ordered MiMi to locate the book. The robot found it in matter of seconds and brought it to her. Tak brushed off the cover and opened the book. A small, plastic square fell out and landed on the floor with a clack. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It was a data storage device not used in ages. This was old technology, ancient even, but whatever was on it must be important. She pocketed it and sat down on the floor to read. As the book wasn’t in Irken, she couldn’t read it without assistance. She tapped the implant on the side of her head and a universal translator monocle popped out, covering her eye. She began to read.

A Note to the Reader

When I began this journey, I had no intention of chronicling the final days of Ecore. It began as an anthropological study to discern what made this once-thriving civilization drop out of contact with the greater solar system. I set up a hidden shelter on the outskirts of Ecorien society and observed from the outside. My discoveries explain, not only the degradation of Ecorien culture, but the death of the planet itself.

Tak poured through the book, wondering what this weak, primitive culture possibly had to do with Irk. The anthropologist wrote about the Ecorien’s devotion to, what he called, “the Many-Eyed God.” Apparently, this new theology was a sharp deviation from known Ecorien culture. In the past, the Ecoriens revered their planet’s natural resources and energy. This new god was completely unheard of.

He also went on to describe the people’s changed appearance. They looked thin and sickly, and aged rapidly. They’d go to their god for supposed cures, but they didn’t seem to do any good. The people never got better from what plagued them, no matter how devotedly they followed their god.

The most fascinating part was a barbaric ritual referred to as a “blood toll.” When the Ecoriens asked their god for a large favor, such as a bountiful harvest or a cure for a plague, the god would order a blood toll. They brought fifty-seven young, healthy Ecoriens before their god and slaughtered them.

Fifty-seven… Fifty-seven Irkens… Fifty-seven Ecoriens… Was this what Krislotch wanted me to see? She read on.

Soon, she reached the final days of Ecore. An uprising broke out among the younger generations of Ecoriens. The blood toll sacrificed many of them and the elders asked the Many-Eyed God for more and more favors as the species grew weaker. The youths fought back against the elders, refusing to be sacrificed. However, the history of blood tolls had greatly reduced their numbers. Relatively few were young enough to be prime candidates for sacrifice, but old enough to fight. The elders overpowered them. The Many-Eyed God ordered the mass slaughter of the younger generations, promising to restore youth and health to the elders.

Youths died by the thousands, from young adults, to children, to infants. At the end of the bloodbath, the Many-Eyed God detached itself from the planet’s core. It drifted into space, leaving the Ecoriens with nothing but the blood on their hands. With the younger generations wiped out, they were doomed to extinction.

Tak turned the page in horrified awe. The last days of this planet were truly a massacre. The Ecoriens, tricked by this god, turned on their own. Their own god used them, sucked them dry, and abandoned them when they had nothing left to give. This wasn’t just the death of a planet. This was the murder of one.

What this massacre had to do with Irk and PAKs, she still couldn’t say, but the number fifty-seven stuck out in her mind. Fifty-seven died in the Irken disasters. Fifty-seven slaughtered in the Ecorien blood tolls. The connection was obvious, but what it meant escaped her. The Irkens had no gods, not for a few millennia at least. They thrived on science, technology, and conquest. It was said, even before the cyber age, that the Irkens bowed to no laws, but made their own. Nothing calling itself a god could gain this kind of influence on Irk.

But when she turned the page, her vail of denial evaporated. She dropped the book in shock. MiMi swept up to her and peered over Tak’s shoulder. The book lay open on the floor, displaying a two-page spread of images of the Many-Eyed God. Some were sketches. Some were photos taken at a distance. All displayed the same familiar entity. She’d looked into these eyes. This “god” encoded her as an elite trainee. She begged this “god” for the opportunity to prove her worth. This “god” denied her and banished her to Dirt, a husk of wasted potential.

The Control Brain and the Many-Eyed God were one and the same.

She stared down at the book as the truth stared back at her. This thing, whatever it was, had wormed its way into Irken society. It controlled them, fed off them. They even had their own blood toll of sorts. In the end, the Ecoriens withered away to nothing. They were sucked dry and left to rot. It was only a matter of time before the same happened to Irk. This thing, the Control Brain, has to be stopped.

The number 10:00 appeared in the corner of her vision and began ticking down. 9:59… 9:58… “My life clock!” How? Why? Her PAK was still attached. It shouldn’t… Wait, the Control Brain. Her PAK emitted a constant stream of information to the Control Brain and she just had a rebellious thought. There was no time to waste.

“MiMi,” she commanded. Almost as an afterthought, she realized her holo-disguise had gone out. “Take me to the ship. Top speed.”

MiMi stretched out her arms, wrapping them around Tak, and propulsion jets burst from her feet. She flew them out of the library, across the planet, and to the parking bay at such a speed, the world became a nauseating blur. By the time they arrived back at the ship, she had less than 8:00 minutes to save herself.

She plugged her PAK into the ship. “Computer, life-supports error check, immediately.”

After a few seconds of scanning, her computer answered. “Life support systems completely shut down.”

Her insides dropped. “Search for the cause.”

A few more seconds of scanning passed. “Systems shut down after a command initiated by the Control Brain remote feedback program.”

It was as she suspected. “Suggested solutions?”

��Remove feedback chip and manually restart system.”

She felt her guts twist and her body broke into a sweat. Remove feedback chip? Every Irken alive knew it was treason to disconnect from the Control Brain. She’d be an outlaw, a traitor. Returning to Irken-controlled space would be a death sentence for her. But I’m going to die right now if I don’t.

She had no choice. If even thinking about saving her planet from this… this… parasite made her a traitor, then traitor she was. She pulled the plug from her PAK and removed it from her back. She had only a few minutes before her organic brain turned to mush.

She opened a compartment of tools and then opened a panel on her PAK. With a set of tweezers, she located the feedback chip and, with a tug, marked herself traitor. Using a shocking fork, she restarted the life support systems. She turned around, the PAK reattached, and her life clock disappeared. Already, she could feel her body reinvigorating, but the weight of what she’d just done fell heavy on her.

Right now, the Armada was receiving an automated notification that Tak, the deserter janitor, had gone traitor. Orders would be issued for her capture or killing. Every Irken in the military would know her face. She could never go back.

And she couldn’t linger here. She and MiMi made quite the scene with their exit. People would come after them. Anyone who managed to get a look as they flew past could clearly see she was Irken. They had to get far, far away from Irk and far, far away from here.

She powered up the engines and flew the ship out of the parking bay, still unsure of where to go. Anywhere in Irken-controlled space was out and word that an Irken was spotted on a Meekrobian-protected planet would soon spread. She had to go somewhere remote, a planet uncharted and ignored by most of the known universe, a place the Tallest would never willingly go.

She let out a roaring, agonized groan as her mind landed on the perfect answer. It was both the safest place in the universe to hide and the last place she wanted to be, especially in this state. Still, she had no choice.

“Computer,” she growled, pinching the bridge between her eyes. “Set coordinates to Urth.”

[ahiddenpath]

Nanowrimo Update

Hey baes!  I haven’t done my writing for today, so as of 11/8, I’ve written 15,039 words.  I’m a day ahead, and I’m hoping to build another day’s buffer over the weekend.

Writing talk/excerpt/upcoming giveaway/life talk beneath the cut, wall of text ahead.

Writing Talk

So far, this has been the most painless Nanowrimo ever.  I’ve been doing this since 2008, with one year off in 2011 (Skyrim released on 11/11/11, and I knew nothing could compete with it).  I dunno why I’m doing so well, especially given that I’ve struggled to even sit down and write for... gosh, months?  Like two years?  I’m not even sure how long anymore.  I’m almost... mad?  Like?  Was I actually able to write this whole time, or...?  Did I only need some kind of deadline????

But, I’m trying to just roll with it instead of analyzing.  I can tell you that, like most Nanowrimo drafts, it’s repetitive and... pretty bad, just dialogue with stage directions.  But I know from lots of experience that fixing a terrible first draft that you enjoyed writing is much easier than agonizingly piecing together a decent first draft, so I’m just letting it flow.

Excerpt (Please forgive my unedited Nanowrimo draft, lol!  This will be the first scene of the Eimi in Tri fic.)

Eimi and the Izumis took their seats at a round table with a linen cloth.  Eimi kept glancing at Koushiro and his parents, trying to figure out how to act.  She had never been to such a fancy restaurant.

Their host, an older, handsome man in a tuxedo, helped Kae into her seat and said something Eimi couldn't parse.  After a few seconds, it registered as French with a Japanese accent.  Koushiro responded slowly, with a heavier accent, and Eimi nearly tripped on a table leg.

Stunned, she took her seat, quite missing that the host meant to help her next.  When he departed, she leaned into Koushiro, who sat beside her.

"You don't speak French," she hissed.  

He offered a sheepish smile.  "I prepared with a phrase book for tonight."

A server appeared by her shoulder with a water carafe.  Eimi leaned back to make way for her.  How long, she wondered, had Koushiro studied his phrase book?  Had he perused it for an afternoon and produced passable French?  For years, her language skills had surpassed his.  But they were first years in high school now, and the older he grew, the more Koushiro's brain expanded.  It was like watching the Winchester house growing and rearranging in its heyday, but with fewer occult references.

Not knowing what else to say, Eimi nodded and opened her leather-bound menu...  Which was entirely in French.  She swallowed a sigh that might have tarnished Koushiro's pleasure.

It was Kae and Masami's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and Koushiro had taken pains to make it special.  Although he would never admit it to his parents, he had poured over restaurant reviews for weeks, comparing menus, ambiance, and service.  And apparently, when his choice turned out to be a French establishment, he had brushed up on the language.

His adoptive parents made it clear that Koushiro didn't owe them anything a biological child wouldn't.  This didn't penetrate Koushiro's natural sense of gratitude and appreciation, and here they sat, dressed up and smiling indulgently at Koushiro.  Everyone at the table knew that he was overdoing it... except for him.

Eimi caught Kae's eyes and had to fight down a laugh.  No one would call Koushiro out on this; he was being too damned cute.

Koushiro opened the menu and blinked.  "Ah, hmm.  Well, I can translate this."

That familiar look of pride and wonder transformed Kae and Masami's faces.  Eimi stared up at the chandelier overhead, struggling against laughter once more.  As much as she admired Koushiro's ability to pick up conversational restaurant French on a whim, she was objective enough to temper it with his inability to foresee the language barrier as an issue for his guests...  If only just.

Upcoming Giveaway

I’ve mentioned my AlphaSmart 3000 a few times, but short version: it’s a portable word processor that runs forever on three AA batteries, boots up immediately, and does nothing but store your typed words.  I can write about x1.5 as many words in the same time frame on an AlphaSmart compared to a computer, because all it does is word process.  You also can’t edit effectively on it, which slowly teaches you to focus on forward momentum while writing

What I didn’t know is that AlphaSmart created newer models before discontinuing their products in 2013.  I did some research and found that the AlphaSmart neo 2 has a more ergonomic keyboard than the AlphaSmart 3000 and has a word count feature.  Because I spend about two hours a day with this device, I decided that spending $30 was worth it to protect my hands.

So now I have an AlphaSmart 3000 that needs a new home.  While I feel a little strange about giving away the older model and keeping the newer one for myself, well...  I think it’s a great tool, and I’ve used it so much in the last six years.  It could definitely be helpful to one of my writer followers.

First, though, I need to track down a cable for it, because the Ebay seller of my new AlphaSmart neo 2 failed to include the promised cable.  In the meantime, if anyone has any ideas for the giveaway, I’m all ears.

Life Talk

I’m in a great place mentally recently, which I know is linked to being creative daily again.  It’s funny, because when you have anxiety (or depression, I imagine?), doing things sounds impossible, even if it’s something you love.  But doing things you love eases anxiety and depression, so if you continue to not do the things you love, your anxiety gets worse!  It’s a vicious cycle, and now I’m like...  Bruh.  Was a freaking deadline all I needed this whole time?!

I mean, regardless, I still needed therapy.  I still needed to learn the things I’m learning now.  But going forward, I’m definitely going to create a daily deadline for myself, even if it’s only 500 words/day (roughly 15,000 words per month, as opposed to the 50,000 words required by Nanowrimo).

However, lately I’ve been a storm of hormones in a tight bag of skin.  I can tell it’s not my mental state, which is calm and... honestly, shockingly receptive.  It’s something physical, and I’m going to get a hormone panel as soon as I can at my therapist’s recommendation.  

To give you an example...  A few days ago, when I came home from work, a car was in my assigned parking spot, so I couldn’t park.  This is annoying, yes, but all I had to do was park on the street and talk to my neighbors until I found whoever owned the car and got them to move it.  

Instead, I pulled over and shut down for about ten minutes.  I was so furious, I had to sulk/brood/talk myself down.  And then my anxiety was like, “I can’t talk to people, can’t talk to people,” while my rage (which is foreign to me) was like, “I WILL SCREAM AT THEM, HOW DARE THEY.”  

In the end, I called my husband, and he came out of the house and drove us to dinner, and the car was gone when we came home.  

This isn’t normal for me at all, and it sounds like some kind of hormone imbalance.  I can’t know for sure until I get it checked out.  In the meantime, I’ve taken to telling my husband when I’m feeling vulnerable/defensive/irritable.  I don’t want to snap at him over nothing, so I try to say something like, “I feel angry for no reason, and I need to be alone,” or “I feel defensive, and I can’t talk about this subject right now without being unreasonable.”

I dunno, maybe this sounds like I’m falling to pieces, but it’s separate from actual anxiety/stress.  It’s like...  A fake, sourceless thing.  I’m actually doing really well, it’s just that my body is bonkers.  But addressing it is simple, so at least there’s that.  And really, I should have had this done a long time ago.

And that’s all my brain is giving me right now!  I hope you’re all well :D

[hydrus]

Version 377

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

source

tar.gz

I had a good week. I mostly caught up with my smaller jobs queue, just pushing on work that had piled up.

Qt

Thank you for the continuing Qt bug reports. I fixed a variety of typo-broken buttons this week, mostly buried in less-used UI, and if you have set a browser launch path override in the options, hyperlinks across the program should obey that again. I also believe I fixed the annoying issue where media viewer hover windows that needed to shrink (because of switching to a new media that had fewer info lines or known urls) would linger too tall for one frame. EDIT: I'm still having slight hover window resize flicker in my IRL client when I keep my mouse over the top-right hover, I'll give it another go next week.

Furthermore, all non-menubar menus across the program now open on right-click release instead of press. This sounds trivial, but there was a mix of down/up click handling here, now unified, and some things like thumbnail and tag selection are handled more naturally in the initial click down. This also fixes an issue where users who had menu styles with no significant border were sometimes accidentally activating the first menu item on a slow click (the click down would show the menu, the click up would activate it).

Last week's support for styles and stylesheets for Qt seems to have gone well. There is more to do here, but this week brings better error handling for unusual situations, better 'we already have this set, no need to waste CPU re-applying it' detection, and fewer hacky colour overrides, so custom stylesheets should be able to colour regular panels without lots of unintended grey or white boxes.

the rest

The shortcut system should now be able to support any text key. This includes extended characters like ø or æ. If you need to apply a modifier to get these keys (e.g. ctrl+alt+e), these modifiers are likely to show up spuriously in the shortcut's label (e.g. ctrl+alt+æ), but everything should nonetheless line up in the program correctly. Let me know if you discover any new bugs here!

There are also some new shortcut commands this week, for the 'media viewer' set. They are 'pan_top/bottom/left/right_edge' and 'pan_horizonal/vertical_center'. They move the whole image around to edges, or center it again, and should be helpful if you often look at tall or wide comics at 100% zoom. There will be more to come here in coming weeks.

The work on making the UI smoother is also continuing. Session saving and a variety of 'media refresh' events that occur on file import or maintenance are now significantly faster and do the bulk of that work in the background. Users with very large sessions should experience less juddery behaviour during both idle and heavy work periods.

full list

qt:

all non-menubar menus across the program now launch on click release. some previously launched on click press. a variety of related click event behaviour is cleaned up, particularly with thumbnail/tag selection on the click down. this also fixes some users' menus immediately activating the first entry on slow clicks in some ui styles

I think I fixed the annoying single-frame delayed size-down resize on media viewer hover frames when changing media!

the vast majority of old wx panel background colour hacks are removed, so custom stylesheets should now cover much more of the UI

improved the new custom style and stylesheet setting, resetting, and error handling code, particularly for not re-applying the same style or stylesheet twice, and for handling un-re-settable styles (seems to be defaults initialised by third-party OS-wide Qt style) gracefully

fixed hyperlinks not using the custom web browser launch path as set in the options

fixed the 'migrate entire db' and 'set thumb location' buttons in the migrate database dialog

fixed a typo bug when launching the url selection tree after adding an ipfs directory to download

fixed two typo bugs when editing regex favourites and simple downloader formulae

fixed an issue where custom shortcut sets could not be deleted

fixed a typo in the edit account type panel

fixed sorting the login listctrl when there are session logins mixed with non-session logins

removed some old media viewer hover window display/raise hacks

retired the 'always show hover windows' debug mode

the media viewer will no longer perform any drag calculations on anything but left-click drag

misc Qt code refactoring/cleanup

.

url searching:

the database now stores 'known url' domain information more efficiently. it will take a few moments/minutes to reshape the db when updating

system:known url's exact url search now runs extremely fast. this will only affect new predicates of this type, not those in existing sessions

system:known url's domain search now runs much faster and matches subdomains of the given domain. this will only affect new predicates of this type, not those in existing sessions

system:known url's url class search now runs much faster. this will only affect new predicates of this type, not those in existing sessions

when entering a regex system:known url predicate, the dialog will now not OK (throwing up an error dialog) if the regex is invalid

.

the rest:

the shortcut system now allows all text characters. if it has text, it should work, but it is the wild west in terms of modifier labelling. anything unusual on your keyboard like ctrl+alt+e to make æ will _display_ as ctrl+alt+æ, but the same key combination will match up in the program all correct

added shortcut actions 'pan_top_edge', 'pan_bottom_edge', 'pan_left_edge', 'pan_right_edge' to the media viewer shortcut set that will move the current image so the respective edge is aligned with the larger canvas's

added shortcut actions 'pan_horizontal_center' and 'pan_vertical_center' to do as above but center on that axis

session save now hangs the UI significantly less, whether triggered by user command or auto-saving 'last session'

saving of last/exit sessions on client close is a little faster

the call to refresh thumbnail file info (and redraw if needed) when a file is imported or has metadata-regenererating file maintenance done will now only call for files that are actually loaded, run faster per file, run faster when the client has large collections in its session, and not hang the ui thread when waiting for the new media info to arrive

like regular popups, modal popups (like those created when big vacuum/analyze jobs jump in) will now only appear if the main gui or an on-parent child has OS focus

the main gui/on-parent child OS focus test now includes misc child windows like the autocomplete results hover window

network jobs that fail for one reason or another will now be more reliably cleaned up, and their connections returned to the connection pool. this may fix the 'too many open file handles' errors some users were seeing after long term unreliable network traffic

fixed an issue where some thumbnails that were trashed or physically deleted were being removed from 'all known files' and file repository views when it was not appropriate

connection and downloader retry time options now have a wider min/max range when in advanced mode, with an accompanying warning label for the connection panel

checker options times now have a wider min/max range when in advanced mode, with an accompanying warning label

cleaned up some shutdown reporting text

misc debug improvements

next week

The holidays are coming up. As 379 would normally be due on Christmas Day, I will postpone that to New Year, which means next week's 378, on the 18th, will be the last release of the year. I am due for a 'cleanup' week, which will also make for a nice 'safe' release before the break. So I will clean up code, do some more Qt neatening, and otherwise catch up on smaller jobs like I did this week.

I never strictly marked down the day when I started working on hydrus, but December 14th, 2011, the date of the first non-experimental beta, has emerged as a decent birthday. This week marks eight years. It has been a lot of work and a lot of fun. There are a couple thousand things I would still like to do, so if I can, I would like to keep going as I have into the 2020s. I deeply appreciate all the feedback, help, and support over the years. Thank you!

If you would like to further support my work and are in a position to do so, my simple no-reward Patreon is here: https://www.patreon.com/hydrus_dev

[tyronemacpherson]

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[rs12345]

firewall Products And Firewall Market Share

The firewall market is a very complex and competitive sector. There are many types of firewall devices available, each with their own unique selling points and security attributes. As a firewall market player, it is important for firewall manufacturers to perform up to date firewall market share analysis to determine what types of products are on the market, how the current players are growing, and what competitors are offering. A firewall market share analysis can be performed by any firewall company, but it is a particularly valuable service to have done for companies in the firewall software space that have a number of products that compete directly with the leading firewall products.

https://www.reportmines.com/explosion-panels-market-in-china-r184951

https://www.reportmines.com/explosion-panels-market-in-us-r184952

A firewall market share analysis will first identify the types of firewall products in use today. It will then compare those products to known threats. Some of the common types of threats include Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS), worms, Trojan horses, and rogue software. Each of these poses a significant threat to organizations and should be a top priority in an organization's firewall product development and deployment strategy. It is important to take these types of threats into consideration as part of the firewall market share analysis. Not only will this help to ensure that you are developing and deploying the right firewall in the right environment, it will also help you become the leader in your field.

Next, the firewall market share analysis will consider some of the ways in which your competitors are growing and diversifying their markets. As competition increases and companies look to reduce their operating costs, one of the first things to go will be firewall investments. As more firewall products are brought out, the remaining ones will become more relevant as products that have both security and cost benefits become more important to end users. In addition, as more companies look to partner with smaller companies to provide both IT and firewall support, you will find that those partnerships will become even more important as you try to stay ahead of the trends.

https://www.reportmines.com/explosion-panels-market-in-japan-r184953

https://www.reportmines.com/explosion-panels-market-in-south-korea-r184954

One of the other factors that will impact the firewall market share of any firewall product will be the amount of data that actually travels through them. There are a number of different threats to firewall applications - data that is not encrypted or is passing through a firewall at the time of an intrusion. While firewalls can prevent many of these types of data transfers, they have very limited ability to filter out malicious network code. Some of the more common data that could be encrypted include: credit card numbers, bank accounts, and passwords. As more data moves through firewall-protected systems, you will need to make sure that you have the ability to filter this out.

Another factor will be whether or not you are implementing software updates as part of your firewall market share management strategy. Many customers prefer to not have to wait for an update to be delivered to their firewall. In order to get this customer satisfaction, you need to make sure that you have a firewall that supports automatic updates. When customers can easily install and update the firewall on their firewall platform, they are much more likely to do so. Many firewall distribution companies are working toward adding automatic updates to more firewall products on a regular basis.

https://www.reportmines.com/explosion-panels-market-in-india-r184955

Another factor that will impact firewall market share is the ease of use and setup. You should always try to make firewall installation as easy as possible. In some cases, firewall customers prefer to avoid firewall installations because of their lack of any technical support. If you are the firewall market share friendly and offer easy to use firewall installations, you will have a leg up in this market. Any firewall installation that requires any type of technical knowledge to manage should be avoided.

One last factor that will impact firewall market share is price. There are a large variety of firewall products on the market - ranging from firewall management solutions to firewall replacement. Each firewall solution will have its own relative cost. However, it is often easier and cheaper to replace firewall products than it is to install new firewall software. This will play a large part in determining which firewall market share positions you will be in over the long term.

As with any business, firewall market share is all about the right mix of products that customers are comfortable with and that are priced competitively. If you can provide a good firewall product at an affordable price, you will be in good shape for years to come. Companies that get into the firewall market with too many products or that try to implement many different firewall solutions may find themselves running into issues in the future. If you want to increase your firewall market share, make sure you have a good firewall product that is priced competitively and that customers are comfortable using.

Summary

Further key aspects of the report indicate that:

Chapter 1: Research Scope: Product Definition, Type, End-Use & Methodology

Chapter 2: Global Industry Summary

Chapter 3: Market Dynamics

Chapter 4: Global Market Segmentation by region, type and End-Use

Chapter 5: North America Market Segmentation by region, type and End-Use

Chapter 6: Europe Market Segmentation by region, type and End-Use

Chapter 7: Asia-Pacific Market Segmentation by region, type and End-Use

Chapter 8: South America Market Segmentation by region, type and End-Use

Chapter 9: Middle East and Africa Market Segmentation by region, type and End-Use.

Chapter 10: Market Competition by Companies

Chapter 11: Market forecast and environment forecast.

Chapter 12: Industry Summary.

The global Needle Coke market has the potential to grow with xx million USD with growing CAGR in the forecast period from 2021f to 2026f. Factors driving the market for @@@@@ are the significant development of demand and improvement of COVID-19 and geo-economics.

Based on the type of product, the global Needle Coke market segmented into

Switches

Routers

Modem

Hubs

Set-Top Boxes

Others

Based on the end-use, the global Needle Coke market classified into

Household

Enterprise

Organization

Others

Based on geography, the global Needle Coke market segmented into

North America [U.S., Canada, Mexico]

Europe [Germany, UK, France, Italy, Rest of Europe]

Asia-Pacific [China, India, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, Rest of Asia Pacific]

South America [Brazil, Argentina, Rest of Latin America]

Middle East & Africa [GCC, North Africa, South Africa, Rest of Middle East and Africa]

And the major players included in the report are

HUAWEI

CISCO

ZTE

Ruijie

TP-Link

Netgear

Juniper

Tengda

D-Link

H3C Holding

Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat is the USP of the report?

Needle Coke Market report offers great insights of the market and consumer data and their interpretation through various figures and graphs. Report has embedded global market and regional market deep analysis through various research methodologies. The report also offers great competitor analysis of the industries and highlights the key aspect of their business like success stories, market development and growth rate.

What are the key content of the report?What are the value propositions and opportunities offered in this market research report?Related Reports

Near-infrared Spectroscopy Market

Near Infrared Analyzers Market

Natural Source Vitamin E Market

Natural Food Flavors and Colors Market

Contact us: https://www.reportmines.com/contact-us.php

[xaydungtruonggia]

To Post or Not to Post: 7 Quick Tips for Google Posts

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins joins us for a special edition of Whiteboard Friday, giving  you a sneak peek at her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation: To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers, July 12-14!

Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Moz fans. It's Joy Hawkins, and today I'm going to be giving you a preview of the presentation I'm going to be doing later this year at MozCon. It's all about Google My Business posts. 

So if you are unfamiliar with posts, there are currently four different types of Google My Business posts. There are what we call the update posts, which is kind of your typical post that has an image and some text. There are what we call offer posts, event posts, and then last year Google actually released a new one called COVID posts. Now typically all these posts share some similarities, but they're all a little different. 

1. COVID Posts perform well

One of the things that we looked at in the study, that I'm going to be going over at MozCon, is which type performs better.

So specifically we wanted to know: Do they get more clicks? Do they get more conversions? We identified that two of the types definitely outperform the other two. So I'm not going to reveal both. But I'll tell you that one of the two was the COVID post type. The reason for this I believe is that, unlike the other three types of posts, COVID posts get their own special spot in the knowledge panel.

So I've done my best to highlight this here. On the left here, you'll see that at the bottom there's usually the post carousel, and it's underneath reviews, questions and answers, and products. So it's kind of like shoved down in the search results. Now COVID posts on the other hand, which are featured over here on the right, they show up right at the top, right underneath the business information.

So they're very visible, and it's a really good place to get a quick message across. The only downside, of course, is that they don't have photos. So keep that in mind when you're figuring out which type to use. 

2. Average CTR = 0.5%

Now the second thing that we discovered was that the average click-through rate on all the posts in our study was half a percent, so 0.5%, which means that you need about 200 views on a post before you're going to get a click.

Now don't let that discourage you. Keep in mind that that is only tracking clicks that happen on the actual post. So, in reality, people could be calling you more, they could be clicking on your website more, lots of other things. So there are still a lot of reasons why you would want to consider doing Google Posts. 

3. GMB does not equal GA

The third thing on my list here is keep in mind, when you are tracking the results from posts, that what you see inside Google My Business Insights is not going to match what you see inside Google Analytics.

Now in this industry, often we use what are called UTM codes, which help you track things better in Google Analytics. If you're unfamiliar with how those work or how to use them with Google Posts, I'm going to link to an article down below that will explain all of that. But the main thing that you've got to remember is that these numbers won't match. So don't expect them to match. If you do, you're going to be very frustrated. Don't go down that rabbit trail. Just remember that they are tracked differently and you're going to get different numbers. So pick one and stick with it. 

4. Justifications = 60 days

The fourth thing is in regards to justifications. Now if you're unfamiliar with that term, you're like, "What are justifications," Miriam Ellis recently did a blog post here on Moz about this topic, and she explained it really well. So I'm not going to do what she did and explain it. Check out her article, and that will give you all the information you need. 

But just in case you're not familiar and you really don't know what I'm talking about, I did my best — I'm not an artist — to draw it over here. So let's say, for example, you're on Google and you do a search for local SEO, and my agency, Sterling Sky, shows up in the search results.

If we had a post recently that mentioned local SEO, Google might grab that little snippet, the words essentially and stick it right there in the local pack results. This is what we call a justification. So they're really cool, and it's a great way to get more words and more messaging in front of your possible consumers. Now the thing to keep in mind here is that post justifications only look at posts that were done from the last 60 days.

So your older posts won't be looked at. So you've got to have a post strategy that is pretty frequent. 

5. Seasonal Posts = one of the worst

The fifth thing was that we wanted to look at content types. So people often ask me, "Joy, what should I post about? Like what am I supposed to put in the content in Google Posts?" It comes up a lot as a question.

So we, with our study, basically organized all the different posts we looked at into different categories. Then what I'm going to show at MozCon is the winners and the losers. So one from the losers, that did not perform well, were posts about seasonal topics. Now that shocked me to be completely honest. But what I'm talking about here is let's say you have a dermatologist and it's coming close to Christmas.

So you use like Christmassy wording and Christmas emojis and like Christmas stuff to try and make the post kind of be more relevant. These did not perform well. So it kind of surprised me, but that was one from our losers list. 

6. Use emojis! 

One from our winners list was emojis, point number six. So emojis are great. Some of you may be excited by this. Some of you might roll your eyes.

If you love emojis, this is one of the strategies that we saw that actually helped performance on Google Posts. So make sure you use emojis if you are trying to get people's attention. Posts with them outperformed posts without them. 

7. Update Posts = 6 months

Finally, the last tip I'm going to share with you today is in regards to the update posts. Now if you're not familiar with the term "update posts," I kind of made it up because there was no name for the traditional post inside Google My Business.

So it sent updates, so we just called it that. But this was the type of post that, if you remember when Google first launched this feature, you would do a post and it would last for seven days, and after seven days, it would get deleted from your knowledge panel. So it was essentially invisible, which was a little annoying because you don't want to have to go and post every seven days. Because you can't schedule a post natively inside Google My Business, it was a bit of a headache to try and keep up with this as a business owner.

So the good news is that several months ago Google changed this, and now these posts actually stay on your knowledge panel for a long time. But I wanted to know exactly how long they stayed on there, so I tracked some and came to the conclusion that they stay on your knowledge panel for six months. So essentially what that means is if you made one update post, never posted again, it would stay there for six months and then it would disappear, which is a lot better than seven days.

So keep these tips in mind when you are coming up with your post strategy. Obviously to get a lot more, feel free to check out my talk at MozCon upcoming later this year. Some of the things that I'll be talking about there — there's a lot that I didn't cover — I'll be addressing if posts impact ranking, which is probably the number one question that I get asked, and I'll also be going through a lot more of the winning and losing strategies that we found from the study.

Thanks for listening, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

 Tweet your questions and comments about Google Posts using #MozBlog!

[ductrungnguyen87]

To Post or Not to Post: 7 Quick Tips for Google Posts

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins joins us for a special edition of Whiteboard Friday, giving  you a sneak peek at her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation: To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers, July 12-14!

Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Moz fans. It's Joy Hawkins, and today I'm going to be giving you a preview of the presentation I'm going to be doing later this year at MozCon. It's all about Google My Business posts. 

So if you are unfamiliar with posts, there are currently four different types of Google My Business posts. There are what we call the update posts, which is kind of your typical post that has an image and some text. There are what we call offer posts, event posts, and then last year Google actually released a new one called COVID posts. Now typically all these posts share some similarities, but they're all a little different. 

1. COVID Posts perform well

One of the things that we looked at in the study, that I'm going to be going over at MozCon, is which type performs better.

So specifically we wanted to know: Do they get more clicks? Do they get more conversions? We identified that two of the types definitely outperform the other two. So I'm not going to reveal both. But I'll tell you that one of the two was the COVID post type. The reason for this I believe is that, unlike the other three types of posts, COVID posts get their own special spot in the knowledge panel.

So I've done my best to highlight this here. On the left here, you'll see that at the bottom there's usually the post carousel, and it's underneath reviews, questions and answers, and products. So it's kind of like shoved down in the search results. Now COVID posts on the other hand, which are featured over here on the right, they show up right at the top, right underneath the business information.

So they're very visible, and it's a really good place to get a quick message across. The only downside, of course, is that they don't have photos. So keep that in mind when you're figuring out which type to use. 

2. Average CTR = 0.5%

Now the second thing that we discovered was that the average click-through rate on all the posts in our study was half a percent, so 0.5%, which means that you need about 200 views on a post before you're going to get a click.

Now don't let that discourage you. Keep in mind that that is only tracking clicks that happen on the actual post. So, in reality, people could be calling you more, they could be clicking on your website more, lots of other things. So there are still a lot of reasons why you would want to consider doing Google Posts. 

3. GMB does not equal GA

The third thing on my list here is keep in mind, when you are tracking the results from posts, that what you see inside Google My Business Insights is not going to match what you see inside Google Analytics.

Now in this industry, often we use what are called UTM codes, which help you track things better in Google Analytics. If you're unfamiliar with how those work or how to use them with Google Posts, I'm going to link to an article down below that will explain all of that. But the main thing that you've got to remember is that these numbers won't match. So don't expect them to match. If you do, you're going to be very frustrated. Don't go down that rabbit trail. Just remember that they are tracked differently and you're going to get different numbers. So pick one and stick with it. 

4. Justifications = 60 days

The fourth thing is in regards to justifications. Now if you're unfamiliar with that term, you're like, "What are justifications," Miriam Ellis recently did a blog post here on Moz about this topic, and she explained it really well. So I'm not going to do what she did and explain it. Check out her article, and that will give you all the information you need. 

But just in case you're not familiar and you really don't know what I'm talking about, I did my best — I'm not an artist — to draw it over here. So let's say, for example, you're on Google and you do a search for local SEO, and my agency, Sterling Sky, shows up in the search results.

If we had a post recently that mentioned local SEO, Google might grab that little snippet, the words essentially and stick it right there in the local pack results. This is what we call a justification. So they're really cool, and it's a great way to get more words and more messaging in front of your possible consumers. Now the thing to keep in mind here is that post justifications only look at posts that were done from the last 60 days.

So your older posts won't be looked at. So you've got to have a post strategy that is pretty frequent. 

5. Seasonal Posts = one of the worst

The fifth thing was that we wanted to look at content types. So people often ask me, "Joy, what should I post about? Like what am I supposed to put in the content in Google Posts?" It comes up a lot as a question.

So we, with our study, basically organized all the different posts we looked at into different categories. Then what I'm going to show at MozCon is the winners and the losers. So one from the losers, that did not perform well, were posts about seasonal topics. Now that shocked me to be completely honest. But what I'm talking about here is let's say you have a dermatologist and it's coming close to Christmas.

So you use like Christmassy wording and Christmas emojis and like Christmas stuff to try and make the post kind of be more relevant. These did not perform well. So it kind of surprised me, but that was one from our losers list. 

6. Use emojis! 

One from our winners list was emojis, point number six. So emojis are great. Some of you may be excited by this. Some of you might roll your eyes.

If you love emojis, this is one of the strategies that we saw that actually helped performance on Google Posts. So make sure you use emojis if you are trying to get people's attention. Posts with them outperformed posts without them. 

7. Update Posts = 6 months

Finally, the last tip I'm going to share with you today is in regards to the update posts. Now if you're not familiar with the term "update posts," I kind of made it up because there was no name for the traditional post inside Google My Business.

So it sent updates, so we just called it that. But this was the type of post that, if you remember when Google first launched this feature, you would do a post and it would last for seven days, and after seven days, it would get deleted from your knowledge panel. So it was essentially invisible, which was a little annoying because you don't want to have to go and post every seven days. Because you can't schedule a post natively inside Google My Business, it was a bit of a headache to try and keep up with this as a business owner.

So the good news is that several months ago Google changed this, and now these posts actually stay on your knowledge panel for a long time. But I wanted to know exactly how long they stayed on there, so I tracked some and came to the conclusion that they stay on your knowledge panel for six months. So essentially what that means is if you made one update post, never posted again, it would stay there for six months and then it would disappear, which is a lot better than seven days.

So keep these tips in mind when you are coming up with your post strategy. Obviously to get a lot more, feel free to check out my talk at MozCon upcoming later this year. Some of the things that I'll be talking about there — there's a lot that I didn't cover — I'll be addressing if posts impact ranking, which is probably the number one question that I get asked, and I'll also be going through a lot more of the winning and losing strategies that we found from the study.

Thanks for listening, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

 Tweet your questions and comments about Google Posts using #MozBlog!

[camerasieunhovn]

To Post or Not to Post: 7 Quick Tips for Google Posts

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins joins us for a special edition of Whiteboard Friday, giving  you a sneak peek at her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation: To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers, July 12-14!

Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Moz fans. It's Joy Hawkins, and today I'm going to be giving you a preview of the presentation I'm going to be doing later this year at MozCon. It's all about Google My Business posts. 

So if you are unfamiliar with posts, there are currently four different types of Google My Business posts. There are what we call the update posts, which is kind of your typical post that has an image and some text. There are what we call offer posts, event posts, and then last year Google actually released a new one called COVID posts. Now typically all these posts share some similarities, but they're all a little different. 

1. COVID Posts perform well

One of the things that we looked at in the study, that I'm going to be going over at MozCon, is which type performs better.

So specifically we wanted to know: Do they get more clicks? Do they get more conversions? We identified that two of the types definitely outperform the other two. So I'm not going to reveal both. But I'll tell you that one of the two was the COVID post type. The reason for this I believe is that, unlike the other three types of posts, COVID posts get their own special spot in the knowledge panel.

So I've done my best to highlight this here. On the left here, you'll see that at the bottom there's usually the post carousel, and it's underneath reviews, questions and answers, and products. So it's kind of like shoved down in the search results. Now COVID posts on the other hand, which are featured over here on the right, they show up right at the top, right underneath the business information.

So they're very visible, and it's a really good place to get a quick message across. The only downside, of course, is that they don't have photos. So keep that in mind when you're figuring out which type to use. 

2. Average CTR = 0.5%

Now the second thing that we discovered was that the average click-through rate on all the posts in our study was half a percent, so 0.5%, which means that you need about 200 views on a post before you're going to get a click.

Now don't let that discourage you. Keep in mind that that is only tracking clicks that happen on the actual post. So, in reality, people could be calling you more, they could be clicking on your website more, lots of other things. So there are still a lot of reasons why you would want to consider doing Google Posts. 

3. GMB does not equal GA

The third thing on my list here is keep in mind, when you are tracking the results from posts, that what you see inside Google My Business Insights is not going to match what you see inside Google Analytics.

Now in this industry, often we use what are called UTM codes, which help you track things better in Google Analytics. If you're unfamiliar with how those work or how to use them with Google Posts, I'm going to link to an article down below that will explain all of that. But the main thing that you've got to remember is that these numbers won't match. So don't expect them to match. If you do, you're going to be very frustrated. Don't go down that rabbit trail. Just remember that they are tracked differently and you're going to get different numbers. So pick one and stick with it. 

4. Justifications = 60 days

The fourth thing is in regards to justifications. Now if you're unfamiliar with that term, you're like, "What are justifications," Miriam Ellis recently did a blog post here on Moz about this topic, and she explained it really well. So I'm not going to do what she did and explain it. Check out her article, and that will give you all the information you need. 

But just in case you're not familiar and you really don't know what I'm talking about, I did my best — I'm not an artist — to draw it over here. So let's say, for example, you're on Google and you do a search for local SEO, and my agency, Sterling Sky, shows up in the search results.

If we had a post recently that mentioned local SEO, Google might grab that little snippet, the words essentially and stick it right there in the local pack results. This is what we call a justification. So they're really cool, and it's a great way to get more words and more messaging in front of your possible consumers. Now the thing to keep in mind here is that post justifications only look at posts that were done from the last 60 days.

So your older posts won't be looked at. So you've got to have a post strategy that is pretty frequent. 

5. Seasonal Posts = one of the worst

The fifth thing was that we wanted to look at content types. So people often ask me, "Joy, what should I post about? Like what am I supposed to put in the content in Google Posts?" It comes up a lot as a question.

So we, with our study, basically organized all the different posts we looked at into different categories. Then what I'm going to show at MozCon is the winners and the losers. So one from the losers, that did not perform well, were posts about seasonal topics. Now that shocked me to be completely honest. But what I'm talking about here is let's say you have a dermatologist and it's coming close to Christmas.

So you use like Christmassy wording and Christmas emojis and like Christmas stuff to try and make the post kind of be more relevant. These did not perform well. So it kind of surprised me, but that was one from our losers list. 

6. Use emojis! 

One from our winners list was emojis, point number six. So emojis are great. Some of you may be excited by this. Some of you might roll your eyes.

If you love emojis, this is one of the strategies that we saw that actually helped performance on Google Posts. So make sure you use emojis if you are trying to get people's attention. Posts with them outperformed posts without them. 

7. Update Posts = 6 months

Finally, the last tip I'm going to share with you today is in regards to the update posts. Now if you're not familiar with the term "update posts," I kind of made it up because there was no name for the traditional post inside Google My Business.

So it sent updates, so we just called it that. But this was the type of post that, if you remember when Google first launched this feature, you would do a post and it would last for seven days, and after seven days, it would get deleted from your knowledge panel. So it was essentially invisible, which was a little annoying because you don't want to have to go and post every seven days. Because you can't schedule a post natively inside Google My Business, it was a bit of a headache to try and keep up with this as a business owner.

So the good news is that several months ago Google changed this, and now these posts actually stay on your knowledge panel for a long time. But I wanted to know exactly how long they stayed on there, so I tracked some and came to the conclusion that they stay on your knowledge panel for six months. So essentially what that means is if you made one update post, never posted again, it would stay there for six months and then it would disappear, which is a lot better than seven days.

So keep these tips in mind when you are coming up with your post strategy. Obviously to get a lot more, feel free to check out my talk at MozCon upcoming later this year. Some of the things that I'll be talking about there — there's a lot that I didn't cover — I'll be addressing if posts impact ranking, which is probably the number one question that I get asked, and I'll also be going through a lot more of the winning and losing strategies that we found from the study.

Thanks for listening, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

 Tweet your questions and comments about Google Posts using #MozBlog!

[gamebazu]

To Post or Not to Post: 7 Quick Tips for Google Posts

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins joins us for a special edition of Whiteboard Friday, giving  you a sneak peek at her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation: To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers, July 12-14!

Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Moz fans. It's Joy Hawkins, and today I'm going to be giving you a preview of the presentation I'm going to be doing later this year at MozCon. It's all about Google My Business posts. 

So if you are unfamiliar with posts, there are currently four different types of Google My Business posts. There are what we call the update posts, which is kind of your typical post that has an image and some text. There are what we call offer posts, event posts, and then last year Google actually released a new one called COVID posts. Now typically all these posts share some similarities, but they're all a little different. 

1. COVID Posts perform well

One of the things that we looked at in the study, that I'm going to be going over at MozCon, is which type performs better.

So specifically we wanted to know: Do they get more clicks? Do they get more conversions? We identified that two of the types definitely outperform the other two. So I'm not going to reveal both. But I'll tell you that one of the two was the COVID post type. The reason for this I believe is that, unlike the other three types of posts, COVID posts get their own special spot in the knowledge panel.

So I've done my best to highlight this here. On the left here, you'll see that at the bottom there's usually the post carousel, and it's underneath reviews, questions and answers, and products. So it's kind of like shoved down in the search results. Now COVID posts on the other hand, which are featured over here on the right, they show up right at the top, right underneath the business information.

So they're very visible, and it's a really good place to get a quick message across. The only downside, of course, is that they don't have photos. So keep that in mind when you're figuring out which type to use. 

2. Average CTR = 0.5%

Now the second thing that we discovered was that the average click-through rate on all the posts in our study was half a percent, so 0.5%, which means that you need about 200 views on a post before you're going to get a click.

Now don't let that discourage you. Keep in mind that that is only tracking clicks that happen on the actual post. So, in reality, people could be calling you more, they could be clicking on your website more, lots of other things. So there are still a lot of reasons why you would want to consider doing Google Posts. 

3. GMB does not equal GA

The third thing on my list here is keep in mind, when you are tracking the results from posts, that what you see inside Google My Business Insights is not going to match what you see inside Google Analytics.

Now in this industry, often we use what are called UTM codes, which help you track things better in Google Analytics. If you're unfamiliar with how those work or how to use them with Google Posts, I'm going to link to an article down below that will explain all of that. But the main thing that you've got to remember is that these numbers won't match. So don't expect them to match. If you do, you're going to be very frustrated. Don't go down that rabbit trail. Just remember that they are tracked differently and you're going to get different numbers. So pick one and stick with it. 

4. Justifications = 60 days

The fourth thing is in regards to justifications. Now if you're unfamiliar with that term, you're like, "What are justifications," Miriam Ellis recently did a blog post here on Moz about this topic, and she explained it really well. So I'm not going to do what she did and explain it. Check out her article, and that will give you all the information you need. 

But just in case you're not familiar and you really don't know what I'm talking about, I did my best — I'm not an artist — to draw it over here. So let's say, for example, you're on Google and you do a search for local SEO, and my agency, Sterling Sky, shows up in the search results.

If we had a post recently that mentioned local SEO, Google might grab that little snippet, the words essentially and stick it right there in the local pack results. This is what we call a justification. So they're really cool, and it's a great way to get more words and more messaging in front of your possible consumers. Now the thing to keep in mind here is that post justifications only look at posts that were done from the last 60 days.

So your older posts won't be looked at. So you've got to have a post strategy that is pretty frequent. 

5. Seasonal Posts = one of the worst

The fifth thing was that we wanted to look at content types. So people often ask me, "Joy, what should I post about? Like what am I supposed to put in the content in Google Posts?" It comes up a lot as a question.

So we, with our study, basically organized all the different posts we looked at into different categories. Then what I'm going to show at MozCon is the winners and the losers. So one from the losers, that did not perform well, were posts about seasonal topics. Now that shocked me to be completely honest. But what I'm talking about here is let's say you have a dermatologist and it's coming close to Christmas.

So you use like Christmassy wording and Christmas emojis and like Christmas stuff to try and make the post kind of be more relevant. These did not perform well. So it kind of surprised me, but that was one from our losers list. 

6. Use emojis! 

One from our winners list was emojis, point number six. So emojis are great. Some of you may be excited by this. Some of you might roll your eyes.

If you love emojis, this is one of the strategies that we saw that actually helped performance on Google Posts. So make sure you use emojis if you are trying to get people's attention. Posts with them outperformed posts without them. 

7. Update Posts = 6 months

Finally, the last tip I'm going to share with you today is in regards to the update posts. Now if you're not familiar with the term "update posts," I kind of made it up because there was no name for the traditional post inside Google My Business.

So it sent updates, so we just called it that. But this was the type of post that, if you remember when Google first launched this feature, you would do a post and it would last for seven days, and after seven days, it would get deleted from your knowledge panel. So it was essentially invisible, which was a little annoying because you don't want to have to go and post every seven days. Because you can't schedule a post natively inside Google My Business, it was a bit of a headache to try and keep up with this as a business owner.

So the good news is that several months ago Google changed this, and now these posts actually stay on your knowledge panel for a long time. But I wanted to know exactly how long they stayed on there, so I tracked some and came to the conclusion that they stay on your knowledge panel for six months. So essentially what that means is if you made one update post, never posted again, it would stay there for six months and then it would disappear, which is a lot better than seven days.

So keep these tips in mind when you are coming up with your post strategy. Obviously to get a lot more, feel free to check out my talk at MozCon upcoming later this year. Some of the things that I'll be talking about there — there's a lot that I didn't cover — I'll be addressing if posts impact ranking, which is probably the number one question that I get asked, and I'll also be going through a lot more of the winning and losing strategies that we found from the study.

Thanks for listening, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

 Tweet your questions and comments about Google Posts using #MozBlog!

https://ift.tt/3x0l65D

[kjt-lawyers]

To Post or Not to Post: 7 Quick Tips for Google Posts

Local SEO expert Joy Hawkins joins us for a special edition of Whiteboard Friday, giving  you a sneak peek at her MozCon Virtual 2021 presentation: To Post or Not to Post: What We Learned From Analyzing Over 1,000 Google Posts.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers, July 12-14!

Secure Your Seat at MozCon Virtual

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, Moz fans. It's Joy Hawkins, and today I'm going to be giving you a preview of the presentation I'm going to be doing later this year at MozCon. It's all about Google My Business posts. 

So if you are unfamiliar with posts, there are currently four different types of Google My Business posts. There are what we call the update posts, which is kind of your typical post that has an image and some text. There are what we call offer posts, event posts, and then last year Google actually released a new one called COVID posts. Now typically all these posts share some similarities, but they're all a little different. 

1. COVID Posts perform well

One of the things that we looked at in the study, that I'm going to be going over at MozCon, is which type performs better.

So specifically we wanted to know: Do they get more clicks? Do they get more conversions? We identified that two of the types definitely outperform the other two. So I'm not going to reveal both. But I'll tell you that one of the two was the COVID post type. The reason for this I believe is that, unlike the other three types of posts, COVID posts get their own special spot in the knowledge panel.

So I've done my best to highlight this here. On the left here, you'll see that at the bottom there's usually the post carousel, and it's underneath reviews, questions and answers, and products. So it's kind of like shoved down in the search results. Now COVID posts on the other hand, which are featured over here on the right, they show up right at the top, right underneath the business information.

So they're very visible, and it's a really good place to get a quick message across. The only downside, of course, is that they don't have photos. So keep that in mind when you're figuring out which type to use. 

2. Average CTR = 0.5%

Now the second thing that we discovered was that the average click-through rate on all the posts in our study was half a percent, so 0.5%, which means that you need about 200 views on a post before you're going to get a click.

Now don't let that discourage you. Keep in mind that that is only tracking clicks that happen on the actual post. So, in reality, people could be calling you more, they could be clicking on your website more, lots of other things. So there are still a lot of reasons why you would want to consider doing Google Posts. 

3. GMB does not equal GA

The third thing on my list here is keep in mind, when you are tracking the results from posts, that what you see inside Google My Business Insights is not going to match what you see inside Google Analytics.

Now in this industry, often we use what are called UTM codes, which help you track things better in Google Analytics. If you're unfamiliar with how those work or how to use them with Google Posts, I'm going to link to an article down below that will explain all of that. But the main thing that you've got to remember is that these numbers won't match. So don't expect them to match. If you do, you're going to be very frustrated. Don't go down that rabbit trail. Just remember that they are tracked differently and you're going to get different numbers. So pick one and stick with it. 

4. Justifications = 60 days

The fourth thing is in regards to justifications. Now if you're unfamiliar with that term, you're like, "What are justifications," Miriam Ellis recently did a blog post here on Moz about this topic, and she explained it really well. So I'm not going to do what she did and explain it. Check out her article, and that will give you all the information you need. 

But just in case you're not familiar and you really don't know what I'm talking about, I did my best — I'm not an artist — to draw it over here. So let's say, for example, you're on Google and you do a search for local SEO, and my agency, Sterling Sky, shows up in the search results.

If we had a post recently that mentioned local SEO, Google might grab that little snippet, the words essentially and stick it right there in the local pack results. This is what we call a justification. So they're really cool, and it's a great way to get more words and more messaging in front of your possible consumers. Now the thing to keep in mind here is that post justifications only look at posts that were done from the last 60 days.

So your older posts won't be looked at. So you've got to have a post strategy that is pretty frequent. 

5. Seasonal Posts = one of the worst

The fifth thing was that we wanted to look at content types. So people often ask me, "Joy, what should I post about? Like what am I supposed to put in the content in Google Posts?" It comes up a lot as a question.

So we, with our study, basically organized all the different posts we looked at into different categories. Then what I'm going to show at MozCon is the winners and the losers. So one from the losers, that did not perform well, were posts about seasonal topics. Now that shocked me to be completely honest. But what I'm talking about here is let's say you have a dermatologist and it's coming close to Christmas.

So you use like Christmassy wording and Christmas emojis and like Christmas stuff to try and make the post kind of be more relevant. These did not perform well. So it kind of surprised me, but that was one from our losers list. 

6. Use emojis! 

One from our winners list was emojis, point number six. So emojis are great. Some of you may be excited by this. Some of you might roll your eyes.

If you love emojis, this is one of the strategies that we saw that actually helped performance on Google Posts. So make sure you use emojis if you are trying to get people's attention. Posts with them outperformed posts without them. 

7. Update Posts = 6 months

Finally, the last tip I'm going to share with you today is in regards to the update posts. Now if you're not familiar with the term "update posts," I kind of made it up because there was no name for the traditional post inside Google My Business.

So it sent updates, so we just called it that. But this was the type of post that, if you remember when Google first launched this feature, you would do a post and it would last for seven days, and after seven days, it would get deleted from your knowledge panel. So it was essentially invisible, which was a little annoying because you don't want to have to go and post every seven days. Because you can't schedule a post natively inside Google My Business, it was a bit of a headache to try and keep up with this as a business owner.

So the good news is that several months ago Google changed this, and now these posts actually stay on your knowledge panel for a long time. But I wanted to know exactly how long they stayed on there, so I tracked some and came to the conclusion that they stay on your knowledge panel for six months. So essentially what that means is if you made one update post, never posted again, it would stay there for six months and then it would disappear, which is a lot better than seven days.

So keep these tips in mind when you are coming up with your post strategy. Obviously to get a lot more, feel free to check out my talk at MozCon upcoming later this year. Some of the things that I'll be talking about there — there's a lot that I didn't cover — I'll be addressing if posts impact ranking, which is probably the number one question that I get asked, and I'll also be going through a lot more of the winning and losing strategies that we found from the study.

Thanks for listening, and if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

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