#I don't know how to share links so that it's visible as a tweet like other people do

[deancrowleycas]

Say that!

[vaspider]

So, something happened last night that has been sitting heavily on my heart ever since. I'm not naming names for a reason, so don't ask. This is a clear example of something that's happened with increasing regularity.

When the Amsterdam attacks started happening last night, the first thing I thought of was a pair of my friends who had within the last 48h - I thought - been in Amsterdam to get married. (I got the place they traveled to wrong, bc it was late and I was tired, but that's not the point.) These friends are a Black frum Czech lesbian & her new wife, an in-progress convert who's seriously ill. I shared the CNN link on it & spoke with friends on a very small Discord server about how terrified I was that my friends had (again, I thought) narrowly missed being in the city while Jews were being advised to stay inside and, if they had to go out, to remove any visible symbols of their Jewishness.

Here's where I reach up and underline the word frum in that previous paragraph. Got it? Asking that friend to remove her visible signs of being Jewish is like asking her to go outside naked.

And here's the thing that's gonna stick with me for a long time: someone that I used to consider a longtime friend, who rarely, if ever, spoke on that server, popped up almost 4 hours after I was talking about how much this scared me about the relative safety of my friends to share a tweet containing the phrase Judeo-Nazis in order to contradict the CNN article and bring up what she apparently thought was the important part of the story:

"The Israelis started it," according to her & her "Judeo-Nazis" source.

That was what she thought was important to that story. Not that random fucking Jews are getting attacked on the streets of Amsterdam, not that I was relieved that my friends weren't in danger while still dealing with the fear and the shock of feeling they had been so close to it, but that I had to know, right away, that contrary to what CNN (and every other major news outlet talking about it) was reporting, this random person on Twitter referring to Israelis at a fucking soccer game and random visibly Jewish people of any nationality on the street in Amsterdam as Judeo-Nazis said that the Israelis fucking started it.

And like, no, they fucking didn't, but in context, the context in which I was speaking in a small group about my fear for two friends who weren't at the fucking soccer match but who I thought might be close to the danger, does that fucking matter? What does that have to do with "fuck, I think my friends were just there"?

Nothing. And yet - for some reason - that's the first thing that needed to be addressed in this person's mind.

A lot of Jews find our circles shrinking these days. Antisemitism is on the rise, and if we're not experiencing the direct slap in the face of people we thought were friends prioritizing "you know, the Jews started it" over anything else, we're watching people we thought better of make excuses for it, or tell us that we should gladly accept "our share" of the blame for the actions of a foreign government. (Yes, that has been said to me directly, recently.)

If I weren't so fucking stubborn, I would fold into myself & just keep company with the few and the trusted, a circle that gets smaller and smaller every day. But... I'm stubborn as hell. Maybe that'll fuck me over someday worse than it already has, I dunno.

I don't have a pithy closing for this. I'm just sad. It hurts to watch people that I used to trust vomit up shit like that tweet. It hurts that it's getting worse.

[literaticat]

What would be a good pre-order number for a traditionally published picture book?

"Good" in terms of what?

IF you got a few thousand, you might have a chance of getting on the NYT list, depending on what time of year your book is published -- but that feels extremely unlikely, and also, outside of your control, so I certainly wouldn't count on it.

What feels more likely is... maybe 40 pre-orders? 50? Even 100? Well, that's nice and all -- but it wouldn't have much of an impact in the long-term, and it would be perfectly fine if those came the week AFTER the book is published, or at any time.

Real talk: I don't think pre-orders matter as much as authors think they do. And I don't think they are even thought of as a "thing" in the picture book realm.

I never (or so rarely that I can't remember!) see publishers working to push a PB pre-order campaign. In fact, across the board, publishers are suggesting pre-order campaigns much less often than they used to, and those generally for things like YA novels where the person has a big social media presence.

OK, so should authors do it themselves? Well, I recently saw a great newsletter by MG and YA author Jason June about "pre-order fatigue" and how they are pulling back on doing cool swag, as it doesn't really move the needle on sales but can be quite expensive / a pain for the author. So if that's something you love to do and can afford to do, go for it -- but don't count on a huge jump in sales because of it.

Let's be realistic -- your reach is, what? Your friends and family? A small-ish group of social media people you are tight with? Beyond that, you've got strangers. Even if there are a fair number of them: THEY ARE STRANGERS.

For the majority of people, when they see something like book promo online from a stranger, they either ignore it, or if it looks especially enticing, they file it away in their mind as something they will "look into later" -- and if they see it MULTIPLE times from a variety of places, they MIGHT click the link, or make an effort to actually go to a store and look at the book. But most people don't want to spend $20 on a picture book by a person they don't know when they haven't had a chance to look at it -- they are MUCH more likely to actually buy it once it is available in stores and they can actually see how glorious it is in person, or once there are a bunch of reviews and such that sway them.

For reference, I have 50k+ twitter followers, and several thousand subscribers to my Podcast -- I have maybe a couple dozen people who actually put in a dollar for the Patreon, and about 3 people that have ever bought a book off one of the book recommendation links. If I "promote a book" online or on the pod, and it theoretically hits 50k+ eyeballs or however many thousands of listeners, how many of those people actually click to buy it? A COUPLE? MAYBE?

(I'm NOT saying it's not worth promoting the books - it IS worth it. But those tweets, podcasts, links, etc are all contributing to long-term visibility and potential word of mouth, not contributing to actual immediate sales.)

TL;DR:

Should you talk about your book pre-publication? YES, sure. Should you share links to pre-order? YES, absolutely. Should you stress about it? NO!

I wouldn't get too caught up in worrying about numbers, or go out of pocket to do some elaborate above-and-beyond campaign. Pre-orders are simply NOT going to make or break your book.

[berlinini]

Have you ever thought about why larries are so invested in their theories? They are the epitome of confirmation bias. every information that might burst their bubble-they deny it or blame it on "evil management". then they come with "sky is blue. grasses are green. world is larry"

i think it's because it makes them feel special. They are under the impression that they know and understand something secret which no one else understands. a cult mentality.

also, larry helps them to justify harry's shit. they don't want to face the reality that harry is not the person he was 10 years ago. or he was never the person they believe he was. so, making him a victim is a easy solution to live in their fairy land.

what disgusts me is- they insist with their life that "if larry is not real. then louis is a shit dad". they claim, he never had a paternity test and never interacts with his son (as if he owes them to post paternity test report and facetime video with his son on social media). the very same people believe louis and harry has a secret shared house where they live together and goes back after every stunt. i mean how can people be this blind?

(This ask was received on August 23, I am so sorry for replying a month later...)

I find it WILD that the people who think that Harry and Louis are "communicating with them" and "signaling" at every opportunity, people who can come up with elaborate theories about what a t-shirt must mean are actually blind when it comes to looking at Harry and Louis' situations, careers trajectory and actions - hell, even at their lyrics. If you look at THE FACTS and get out of your headcanon for a second, it becomes uneasy to think that 2021 Larry is a love story for the books...

Let's start with the "visible": Harry and Louis have not been seen together FOR YEARS. Larries are stuck in 2012/2015. Yeah, I've seen the footage from that time. Yeah, they looked like idiots in love most of the time. Now.. that was... 6 years ago. THAT WAS 6 (SIX) YEARS AGO.

And if you look "behind the scenes"... it's worse.

There is NOTHING, I repeat, NOTHING that links Louis and Harry post HS1. Fine Line was made to be a hit album, it was heavily promoted in all GP outlets (Rolling Stones, Tiny Desk, BBC, later the Vogue cover). When Love on Tour couldn't happen, WS was pushed down everyone's throat to be become the hit of the summer. Meanwhile Walls promo was barely existent, so was the livestream's and festival's. What else? Let me see... Harry is selling 100$ stay-at-home COVID t-shirts while Louis is donating millions from his livestream to charity. Harry is dripping in ugly as fuck Gucci suits and Louis shows up with a 30£ t-shirt to his concert. Harry leaves fans in the dark about his tour situation while Louis has monthly check-in tweets with fans. Harry forgets to thank his fans in his Grammy speech, while Louis is telling fans that they don't need to buy merch and "support is more than enough". Harry is papped with Olivia on a yacht and at the stadium for the Euro while Louis is watching the matches with his friends in a public pub. I mean, Harry works with fucking Ben Winston while Louis has Charlie Lightening.

So... how do we explain this? Harry isn't doing any of these things voluntarily? It's 'evil management's' fault? He goes home to Louis and cries because he can't be who he "really" is and apologizes for being this famous and successful? He doesn't want that?

If Harry is so in love with Louis and seeing as he's Sony's golden star, why isn't he working extra hard for Louis to have the solo career he deserves? Wouldn't you want your partner to succeed professionally? To be happy?

And why would Louis, seeing Harry becoming the new cultural juggernaut, just sit down in the basement where Harry keeps him and swallow this extremely unequal situation? Doesn't Louis have any ounce of self-esteem? He's made it pretty clear that he wants a solo career. Wouldn't he be hurt by seeing Harry get to where he can't go? When Louis' career is actually being restrained ?

If H&L are so ~in love~ why don't they retire from the industry, buy a tropical island and live there together with their 14 children? Isn't there a point where the pressure from the industry, the stunting, etc. is too much and you decide to save your relationship with the man of your life and just give it all up? Why are they enduring this terrible situation still?

This just proves that larries are actually in love with the idea of this "epic love story" and of knowing about it - as you said anon, about being in "in a secret" and having more information than others. Of knowing "the truth"....

They victimize Harry to let him off the hook for his shitty behavior. They dehumanize Louis and in doing so, actively contribute to the sabotage of his career - by painting him as the man in the shadow, the supportive boyfriend, the man who has no interest in a solo musical career - which is all far from the truth.

I don't think larries understand the weight that their "fandom" has on the boys themselves and on their careers. From Harry having to cater to them by larrybaiting and to the "hetties" (het harries) from a PR and monetary perspective to the effect it has on Louis' personal life - on which they prefer to focus instead of talking (or liking!) his music.

If they don't like Louis if Louis is not 1/2 of Larry, then PERFECT!!! Leave my man alone!!! GTFO!!!

[sasquapossum]

Returning to the Office

(No, I'm not coming out of retirement. This is about companies trying to end work-from-home, and it's a bit slanted toward the kind of tech work I used to do.)

It looks like we're returning to semi-normal. Just yesterday, my town rescinded its mask mandate, including schools except for some of the obvious exceptions (e.g. positive tests or nurse's office). My daughter commented that she might finally learn what some of her classmates really look like. Closer to my own experience, a lot of companies are starting to tell their employees they have to start coming in again, and it's causing a bit of a revolt. Just this morning I saw this.

(Non-paywalled link: https://archive.ph/otgJd)

But the thing that really got me thinking about this was a tweet yesterday.

I don't think many people really are saying that work-from-home is The Way for everyone. That's just an illusion, brought about by the fact that for so many years we've been told that in-office is The Way for everyone. It's a lot like how someone who has lived their entire life bathed in privilege sees any move toward equality as an affront. We've been hearing this Party Line for ages, and it has always been a bit of a lie. The fact that it's a lie is part of why people are responding so strongly to "we've limped by for two years but real collaboration only happens in person" messaging (as though thousands of open-source programmers haven't been proving the exact opposite for years). One thing we've learned over the last two is that bosses want people in the office for many reasons other than remote work being deficient somehow. Some examples:

Their own need to have in-person contact, and/or to get away from their own families (I wonder why).

Reluctance to adopt more remote-friendly work flows, which are often beneficial anyway because of issues like time zones and labor markets and having stuff written down.

A need to observe and control workers' behavior more than they can do when those workers are remote.

Unacknowledged self-interest in maintaining a commercial real estate bubble.

People react when they're being lied to. When they see one argument for returning to the office, and know there are other reasons but those remain hidden, they push back even more strongly than if those other reasons were acknowledged.

Before I go on, a bit of background. I had already worked remotely for most of a decade before the pandemic. A few of those years were in an office near Boston as a member of a team mostly in Bangalore, but most of them were literally at home. So when I see Ms. Vignos make an appeal to authority by referring to half of an indeterminate-length career, I'll gladly cite my own 30-year career as a counterpoint.

There's another important difference here. When COVID hit and everyone had to work from home, I was somewhat heartened because at least my coworkers would gain first-hand experience with some of the issues I had already tried to raise with them - but not all. Any inconvenience associated with being on an all-remote team is just an echo of what it's like to be the only remote when the people on site have execrable hybrid-meeting etiquette - constant rapid interruption, relying heavily on a barely-visible whiteboard, having side conversations and/or eating lunch right next to the microphone. I still cringe every time I hear a potato-chip bag crinkle. Also, time zones still exist and it will always suck being in a unique time zone compared to being in the one the majority of the group shares.

What people are really saying is this: going back to the office might not be right for me, and especially not if I'm going to be in a minority. The time for "extrovert first" work arrangements in tech is over; don't even get me started on how that continues to affect women, minorities, or people with disabilities. People refusing to come back into the office, even quitting if necessary, is to be expected - and no, you can't just brush that off as people who weren't productive anyway. Companies that refuse to adapt are already losing some of their best as well. It will continue until employers get the message in the hardest way possible: losing in the market.

[arigatouiris]

an inconvenient crush // kenma kozume x reader (1/2)

Author’s Note: A new story?? SO SOON?? Thank you for all the love for my previous Kuroo story, it meant the world to me. I write for myself primarily, yes, but it brings me SO MUCH JOY to know that my words reach you. It helps with the motivation to put them out more often. Thank you. This story is very close to my heart because I’m a gamer, although I don’t stream. I’m more like Kenma though, personality wise. Haha.

Word count: 5k+

Pairing: YouTuber! Kenma Kozume x Streamer! Reader

Summary: YouTuber Kozume Kenma has had the biggest crush on Twitch Streamer, (s/n) (y/n), who in actuality simps heavily after Kenma's secret YouTube persona, puddinghead0.

What happens when their paths cross?

Kuroo is honestly tired of Kenma's second-guessing, and (y/n) is a bit of a crackhead.

Warnings: unrequited love, one-sided crush, slight angst, pining, crackhead reader, internet bullying, slang, gaming references, haikyuu manga spoilers, fluff

C h a p t e r O n e : puddinghead0

Kozume Kenma suddenly turned existential when his eyes shifted to his phone screen for the 12th time in ten minutes.

Was he always doing this? Was he always obsessed with his phone to a point where he'd constantly check for notifications? Did this mean he was deeply lonely on the inside and wanted approval from people on a virtual platform, which meant that the approval was also virtual and none of it was real? Did it mean that he craved to nullify the growing void in his chest by distracting himself with a black mirror that showcased light that could permanently impair his sight?

He let out a breath and forced himself not to look at his phone. He didn't care. It didn't matter. That's what he always said.

    "Hey!" His classmate/room-mate screamed from the entrance to his flat, "Are you watching her stream? Posted two minutes ago!"

His phone was definitely slow. He had been checking his phone but there was no notification. Letting out a breath, and giving himself a mental reason to actually check his phone, Kenma opened the notifications tab to see the one notification he had kept his eye out for had been buried under ridiculous facebook notifs.

An inconvenient crush, that's what he told himself whenever he looked at you. You were a streamer, a bit different from what he did on YouTube because you were primarily on Twitch. There were reaction videos of you on YouTube, which was where he found you, but damn—how could one be pretty while rage-quitting a game? It was abnormal. Nothing about you was normal; college student/Twitch streamer, an apparent baker in your mother's bakery, game reviewer for Sony, and you were insanely cute.

    "She's getting to that part," his roommate commented from behind Kenma's back, while Kenma really just wanted to watch the video in peace, "Shit, she's gonna cry."

You did cry, quite a few times, and too easily if he could add. You cried at the ending of God of War, you cried to The Last of Us (which made sense, but you were perhaps just bawling throughout the entire game), you cried in a game called Detroit: Become Human, you cried far too easily, but you never really quit. He loved how passionate you were about games, and it was the sort of passion he could completely understand.

    "Oh shit," You said in the video, your eyes scanning all over the game screen, "What's happening? What's happening?"

Kenma chuckled at how cute you were, god, you were killing him. You looked worried, and he could visibly see a sweat drop on your forehead, but you were so focused that it didn't matter. Suddenly, there was a screaming sound from the game you were playing, and your eyes popped open as wide as they possibly could and you just sat there, unmoving. He loved how you never squealed or made any loud reactions, except when you were in a fight with a difficult boss, but whenever something traumatic happened, you just froze and sunk it all in. You were currently playing the second part of The Last of Us, and a traumatic scene was definitely happening. Kenma had just finished playing it the night before, so every scene you were playing was familiar.

    "I officially hate this game," You said, your voice breaking and he desperately wanted to hold you, "Fucking hell."

    "God, she's amazing." Kenma's roommate said, eyes turning into literal hearts.

    "Hm." Yeah, she is, Kenma thought, but could never really say.

As a YouTuber himself who streams games, he was aware that you were not as popular, and it was a fact that he really didn't like. Sure, you were on a less popular platform, but Twitch was incredibly popular by itself as well. He also understood the bias that came with being a female gamer, and while it sounded ridiculous to him, Kenma was one of those people who believed gaming required no gender.

He adored your content, and he secretly adored the hell out of you, so seeing you soar would only make him happy.

    "I... I can practically feel what pain she's feeling right now," You spoke about the game, a lone tear threatening to leak out of your eye, "But! We shall persevere. I've been waiting 7 years for this game, so I won't let... won't let something like this halt my interest. Let's see if this has a point to it all."

God, he adored you. But, Kenma considered it an inconvenient crush because of course, the world was small. The first big crush he has on someone and he hoped it would remain over the internet, but it just had to become something more tangible, something that could make him weak in the knees.

You, a college student/Twitch streamer, an apparent baker in your mother's bakery, a game reviewer for Sony, insanely cute, and also happened to be one of his YouTube channel's biggest fans.

He had only recently discovered your personal twitter handle, and dear lord, you were simping after him with no remorse. It wasn't as if he was all you talked about, but he had also noticed the trajectory of the games you were playing were on par with his own timeline. Kenma had finished his final stream for The Last of Us II just the night before and you had now started playing it. Right before that, it was Bloodborne, and before that, it was Final Fantasy VII Remake. However, your public handle was a lot more professional and despite knowing that it was there, he hadn't sent you a follow request because well, Kenma called himself an introvert in every matter but Kuroo just said he was shy.

While he knew that he could easily approach you and have you know he knew of your existence, Kenma preferred not to get into such detail. It was comfortable admiring you from afar, and it was comfortable being where he was—he had his company to work hard over, he was also a computer student and a YouTuber. Sure, he had his hands full especially after calling you abnormal for something that he himself was doing, but he never really fit into a bracket anyway. Kenma's latent obsession with you was something he wasn't particularly proud of and this wasn't because it had anything to do with you, but simply because he didn't want to make a big deal out of it. Change, in many ways, scared him. And by changing the structure or dynamics of him admiring you in secret, while you admired him not so secretly, Kenma was certain that it might not lead where he may have wanted it to go.

Surely, Kuroo was against this sort of caution, calling it cowardly and saying it lacked passion; but Kenma knew it was just a crush. There was no way he could deduce the kind of person you were based on how you gamed or reacted to games, based on the little tid-bits of information you gave out while playing those games, or even how you openly spoke about how much you admired 'puddinghead0's videos. Kenma hated Kuroo for giving him that name, but he was too lazy to come up with a new one.

    "Also," You sprung up in the final two minutes of your latest video, "I'm on Patreon, now! I honestly have no idea how it works, but if you really like the content I make and want to support me, you can become a patron and wish me luck!"

Kenma waited for his stupid roommate to go out of his room before he could open Patreon and find your link, which was thankfully in the description. Without a second thought, he donated to your profile but cussed instantly when he realized what he had done.

He had sent you a donation as himself, as 'puddinghead0's Patreon.

Without a second thought, Kenma called Kuroo and explained what had happened.

    "That is why, Kenma, you need to check a thousand times and not let blind love navigate your actions—"

    "If I knew you were going to spout such nonsense I wouldn't have called you."

He could hear Kuroo snicker while he ran a hand through his hair. Kenma groaned before Kuroo said, "How bad is this, Kenma? She'll be happy. Of course, this means she'll know you watch her content, but how bad can this be?"

    "I didn't want her to know."

    "And leave her devoid of the happiness of having her idol appreciate her content? You're cold, Kenma."

    "You don't understand. What if... What if she tries to contact me?"

    "You, my friend, have not even shared your personal account anywhere. The only way she can contact you is by commenting on your videos, which I am sure you check constantly to see if she did comment, or Tweeting, which she does every three days."

Kenma blushed at the accusation because it was true.

    "She won't know who you are. Besides, there's no harm if she even does contact you! Just tell her casually that yeah, you like her contact. I don't see what the big deal is."

    "Of course you don't—"

    "Oh, she's tweeted something."

Kenma's entire body froze. Leaving Kuroo on the call, Kenma opened Twitter on his laptop and there it was, your latest tweet.

I am trying NOT to freak out over puddinghead sending me a donation on Patreon, pls save my soul, I am dead.

Kenma groaned before hearing Kuroo laugh once more, "She's adorable!"

I know that, Kenma thought before feeling his entire face flash up. Ending Kuroo's call, Kenma looked at your public profile before then moving to your personal one. He wasn't following that one either, but he wanted to see your tweets, he wanted to know more about you—he wouldn't deny any of these facts, but Kenma believed it was far too idiotic to dream of getting to know you through a virtual media. He wasn't even the sort of person to become close to people he met in real life, how could he allow himself a virtual friendship?

The thought staggered him, and the idea behind it was what kept him at bay. Kenma wanted to know about you, talk to you, learn about who you were and what you were doing, but he felt the media that connected you was what separated you.

It wasn't cowardice at all if he was just sticking to the facts and being real.

*

The next day, Kenma walked to his class by himself, listening to the latest podcast by Joe Rogan. While the external sound wasn't entirely muted, Kenma could discern sounds of people talking, cars moving around, and other noises even though he was playing the podcast on full sound. However, there was one sound in particular that stood out. Kenma paused before turning to his right, noticing a crowd of people had gathered there, with some sort of event going on. He didn't pay attention to half the events that his college conducted, his mind was obviously quite busy elsewhere, but when the announcer moved around in a weird Joker cosplaying outfit, Kenma was a tad bit intrigued.

Was it gaming related?

He slowly moved toward the crowd before finally being able to hear what the anchor was saying.

    "We've got prizes for the top three best performers, and one of the participants is the one and only (s/n) (y/n), streamer from Twitch!"

Kenma froze, half-minded to run the hell away from there. But, it seemed as if his feet were stuck to the ground. How had he not known this? Didn't you always announce the events you go to? Why were you suddenly here? A second later, he spotted you, hair put up in an updo, a plain black tee, and regular jeans. You were smiling, but some part of that smile seemed a bit hesitant.

    "We will be playing a bit differently today! Instead of the usual Fortnite battles or Apex Legends, we'll be going went and battling out on Red Dead Online! And of course, if you beat (y/n) here you earn bragging rights!"

He noticed you shift in your position a little bit, clearly uncomfortable with the attention you were getting; it didn't even look like you wanted to be there. Kenma could feel his chest hurt, and his palms were sweating now. That's all it is, he told himself. An inconvenient crush, an inconvenient crush, that's all.

Kenma sighed before noticing how he barely knew anyone there and was almost thankful for that fact; but before he could thank his stars, a hand threw itself around his neck and sprung him forward, earning the attention of not just everyone there, but especially you.

    "We have our first participant," It was his goddamn roommate, "Kenma's a brilliant gamer!"

Kenma's eyes immediately found yours, and you were looking at him with wide, confused eyes. Although this was set in the open and the atmosphere was quite cold, Kenma felt nothing but warmth radiating all over his body at the mere sight of you; you were just a few feet away, and you were giving him a rather sympathetic expression, and god, you looked so fucking pretty—

    "That's great! Sign up, ya'll! Winner will be winning a brand new DualShock 4!"

Oh fuck, Kenma thought before he felt his heart beginning to pound. He was now seated beside you, and he could practically shrink into non-existence. You were unmoving, and you weren't looking at him, but would you have looked at him if you knew he was puddinghead? Insecurity swarmed his being and he could practically feel steam escaping his ears but a moment later, he thought he'd die.

    "This was so last minute," you said, rubbing the back of your neck, "The anchor's my cousin and she's so demanding."

    "Oh," Kenma said, feeling his heartbeat skyrocket, "I see."

    "Yeah! I mean," You giggled now, "I'm not even good at Red Dead Online!"

Kenma smirked, knowing the fact already. You struggled with Red Dead Redemption not because you were bad, but because you couldn't progress with a plot so divisive. You wanted to explore more, and since the game was so vast, you barely bothered with the Online version. You turned to him now and tilted your head.

    "You're a gamer, I heard? Kozume-kun, right?"

Fuck, she knows my name, "Y-Yeah. I game when I'm free."

    "Do you have a Twitch or YouTube?"

There's no fucking way I'll answer that, "No—"

    "Ah, you must really be having a great time then."

Kenma blinked before turning to you with confusion. What did you mean?

    "Don't you enjoy streaming?"

    "Ah, no, no," You flailed your hands shyly, and Kenma believed he could combust, "It's not like that. I just think, after a point, streaming becomes more for the fans than for yourself. I used to do it for me, but now... I'm needed in places like this for promotion, and I need to have a Patreon if I'm popular or it'll look weird, I don't know... Too many restrictions. I just love gaming, you know?"

Kenma found himself smiling, "Yeah, I know. I've seen your videos."

    "Oh?"

Kenma's eyes widened. He wanted to slap himself on his forehead.

    "I—I mean, y-you're popular."

    "Thanks! You're really sweet, Kozume-kun!"

Fucking hell, Kenma placed a hand on his forehead, She's too cute.

    "Say," you said, a sly tone to your voice, "Do you want to get out of here?"

    "I'd do anything." Kenma honestly agreed.

But, you couldn't just up and leave. You were called here as Twitch streamer (s/n) (y/n), and that meant your behavior was restricted. As much as you seemed to hate said restriction, Kenma was certain that you wouldn't go against it. It could take a big blow against your viewership, and you wouldn't take that chance.

A second later, your hand gripped his wrist before you shot him a wink. Kenma's heart jumped to the skies before you pulled him away from the crowd, with participants lining the entrance to enter their names. Sure, you were doing something bad—your cousin wanted you there, but not once had she even asked if you wanted to be a part of this event. Just as Kenma was pulled in without his consent. You weren't a competitive gamer, and you were not going to be, even if it was for someone else. After running away a fair distance, Kenma felt the part of his wrist burn right where you were touching him.

    "I think I need to run more in real life and not just as Ellie." You said, and Kenma chuckled.

    "Running's good."

    "I used to run track," You said, turning to him. "Now I run in games and that's it."

You have no right being that cute, he thought before clearing his throat. He slowly pulled away from you, which made your eyes widen before shooting him an apologetic smile. He was a bit confused as to what you had done, did this mean you didn't care about losing followers?

    "You might think that I've committed career suicide," You scoffed, "Honestly, this is the bravest I've been in so long."

    "What do you mean?"

You shrugged, "Ever since I became a bit popular by streaming, I've just... I could feel myself change with the way my viewers wanted me to be? I don't blame them or anything, I just think that the love I get from them makes me yearn for more. And that yearning leaves me... inept to be myself. It's the downside of wanting to remain popular, I guess."

    "It's not like you can't be yourself and still be popular." Kenma added.

    "Yeah I know," You said, "I mean, just look at puddinghead0, we don't even know what he looks like, and wow. I adore his content."

Kenma froze once more. Was this being recorded? Did Kuroo finally tip you off and was this being filmed for his reaction? Whatever it was, he wasn't going to reveal to you now.

    "Y-Yeah, I think he just doesn't care."

    "I wish I was more like that because I end up caring. I like the comments and the views and the love. Agh, it's such a weird complex moral question. Don't even get me started."

Kenma laughed at your reaction before you turned to him and stuck a tongue out. Kenma rolled his eyes before waving a hand at you.

    "If anything," Kenma said, looking at the ground, "You didn't lose this follower today."

Your eyes widened at his statement. You smiled before nodding, and let out a chuckle.

    "Thank you, Kozume-kun."

*

Locking the door to his room, Kenma began to edit for his latest video. He was making a review for The Last of Us 2, but his mind was elsewhere. He still hadn't told Kuroo that he had met you, which would only cause the black-haired man to tease him relentlessly. Letting out a sigh, he felt sleep douse his eyelids as he continued the edit, right before a notification popped up on his phone.

It was you.

He narrowed his eyes before checking the date and time; it was unusual for you to stream live on random days. He'd learned your pattern by now. You'd been doing this for a couple of months, and it was quite easy for him to know just when and what time you'd begin. However, the screen for The Last of Us 2 was open and you looked like you had just stopped crying. His heart broke at the sight, and he instantly closed the tabs to his own edit, before opening your video on his monitor. You were taking deep breaths before chuckling.

    "Hello to everyone that's still with me," You sounded so broken, Kenma felt helpless as he continued staring at you, "You might be wondering why I'm... yeah. So, I did something and I guess I got punished for it? I was forced into a game contest and I think walking out of it made some of my followers mad. I even spoke to this other person about walking out and honestly, it didn't hit me then that what puddinghead's doing takes a lot of courage."

    "Ah, fuck, (y/n)," Kenma groaned.

    "I guess even when I expected to lose followers, I didn't expect the hate? Some of the comments were just... nasty. I..." You sniffed, "...I didn't expect that you would hate on someone for making a personal choice? And I didn't do it to offend anyone, I seriously don't know how the internet works. Oh, oh wow—" You looked troubled and Kenma could see why. "—losing out on viewers now, great. 'Don't be a whiny bitch', 'This is why girls shouldn't game'..."

You took a deep breath before calming down and saying the few words Kenma feared you might eventually come around to say.

    "This is (y/n), signing off to a world where gaming is appreciated and is not filled with a community of hate. Hope to see you there."

And the stream ended.

Kenma sighed before leaning back, no thought in his head. He knew for a fact that his room-mate must have seen the stream as well, and Kuroo would be calling him about the entire ordeal just to ensure he had something to say about it. Kenma, on the other hand, felt like he had practically pushed you to make this decision and partly felt like taking the blame, despite the common sense telling him that he had nothing to do with it. You weren't the sort of person who would jump at something without a second thought, and even if he didn't know you personally, he had been following you and your streams for months now. It felt like he knew that part of you quite well.

Kuroo was the first to call. Kenma stared at the phone for a bit before letting out a breath and getting back to editing his video. He only had to add commentary, and his mind was already circling on what to say.

Uploading the video took him exactly two more hours, after having missed three calls from Kuroo and twelve messages. At one point, Kuroo had even stopped contacting Kenma, thinking he was busy with something, and he was spot on. Kuroo's eyes wandered on the new notification about his friend's YouTube channel, which was weird considering it was not yet time for him to post something. He knew quite well that Kenma might have definitely seen (y/n)'s stream, and wanted to desperately talk to him about it, but without a clue of what the boy was thinking, Kuroo simply clicked on the notification and let the video play out.

It was the review for the game, The Last of Us 2, and Kuroo knew while giving the review, which was around 8-9 minutes, Kenma would speak his thoughts that were a tad bit uncensored toward the end. He'd talk about the drama surrounding the game, he would even bring up the entire hate that this game was receiving, but instead—Kenma had a rather strange dialogue instead.

    "One thing I don't understand is how toxic the gaming community can be, at times," Kuroo paused, narrowing his eyes at his friend's words, "While we welcome new gamers to the entire journey of learning and discovering the joy of gaming, we also tend to put them down if they didn't adhere to a certain trend. I came across one such incident happening to (s/n) (y/n)'s Twitch channel."

    "Holy shit!" Kuroo sat up straight, eyes wide as saucers at the bold move his friend made.

    "I'm part of this community and I think I have the right to call out how toxic we are in general," 

Kenma's voice didn't even waver, but after knowing him his entire life, Kuroo could deduce that the boy was a bit angry, 

"(y/n) didn't particularly do anything wrong, and she's received some nasty comments about being a female gamer, and I think that's...just disgusting. She has all the right to either attend or ditch a gaming event, and no one has to be forced to do something they don't want to do. We all have games we don't like despite being gamers, we don't have to do it all. I support (y/n), and I'll admit, I'm saddened by how her fans have treated her. Her content is great and I have immense respect for her. I hope she decides to come back and stream more. That being said, I think The Last of Us 2 is..."

As he got around to talk more about the game, Kuroo knew that this was a huge step for Kenma, and he had no idea what suddenly made the boy rethink his entire decision on never bringing her up. Now that he had, he's indirectly initiated a conversation with her, she'd definitely try and reach out now—in any way she possibly could, just to thank him at least.

Kuroo noticed his phone ringing a second later and a grin made its way to his lips.

    "What just happened?"

    "I met her, Kuroo," Kuroo almost had the wind knocked out of him, "She was at my college campus. I was walking back to my room since classes were canceled. There was some sort of gaming event. She didn't want to be a part of it, and neither did I, and we ditched. It was—"

    "You like her more now, don't you?"

When Kuroo received nothing more than silence from Kenma's end, he was certain. His precious, introverted, best boy had fallen for someone. It was a proud moment, almost.

    "You have to tell her—"

    "Kuroo, this... this is all I want to do."

    "That's bullshit, and even you know that."

    "What? You want me to open up to her and tell her I'm the YouTuber she's been gushing about for so long and I was the one who kind of pushed her into doing what she did, and so that she can hate me afterward for hiding the truth because I wouldn't be losing out on anything and she—"

    "Whoa there, Kenma. I'm just saying go talk to her as her favorite YouTuber. You're overthinking this."

    "No, you're underthinking this. I did what I had to do. It was... hard to see her like that."

Kuroo let out a sigh but before he could say anything, Kenma had already ended the call. That boy needs to grow a pair, he thought, a bit annoyed at Kenma's nature of avoiding his feelings. While Kenma believed it was for the best, he knew he was simply running away from it. Kuroo knew his friend adored (y/n), but the boy couldn't categorize that as real feelings because he's met her just once. Finding something real virtually scared him more than finding something real in real life, and while Kuroo wanted to understand that, it only annoyed him because Kenma wasn't even trying.

When you watched puddinghead0's recent video, you were jaw-dropped in awe and absolute admiration. Tears filled your eyes, but what was more was how his voice now seemed a tad bit familiar, though you didn't pay any heed to it since you've been following this channel for an entire year now. It moved you to know someone you've been admiring has been watching your content, but at the same time, he was speaking up for you? You wanted to thank him, you wanted to send him a message and say you were incredibly grateful for what he's done and the only way you knew you could say something was on Twitter.

So you mentioned him on a tweet and poured your heart out within character limit. You wondered if he would notice your tweet since you've mentioned him countless times before, but even if he didn't, even if he paid you no heed after all of this, you were still grateful. However, a second later, you received a new follower. You blinked upon noticing that it was Kozume-kun from the other day. A soft smile fell on your lips at the soft recollection of running away from a gaming event, after which everything spiraled, but you didn't in any way blame him. Your mind again drifted back to puddinghead0 and you sighed.

I'd kill to see him, man, you thought, eyeing your tweet of him dreamily.

A second later, there was a notification. You almost spat out your heart at the mere words: puddinghead0 likes your tweet.

puddinghead0 likes your tweet.

puddinghead0 likes your tweet.

    "Oh my god—" You choked on air. However, a second later, you found it difficult to remain sitting on your bed.

Don't thank me, I hope you're feeling better. You didn't deserve any of that.

Is that a—

...deserve any of that. <3

Fuck me.

Kenma almost dozed off in class right before it ended. It wasn't like it was school where the teacher would wake him up after noticing him asleep, no one really bothered. Kenma was pushed awake by the momentum of the class once it was over and he leaned back before gathering his things. Tightening his hair tie, he casually walked out of class and got to the campus. He spotted the event area, where the gaming event had occurred and instantly spotted his room-mate and a bunch of people gathered there. Rolling his eyes, he walked away from there, not wanting to gather any attention.

    "Kenma!"

He had failed. Kenma froze to his spot before turning to spot his room-mate dashing over to him, a wide grin plastered on his features. Wrapping a hand over Kenma's shoulders, his roommate brought him to the others he was talking to, before releasing him.

    "You're that guy (y/n) ran away with during that event, right?" One of them asked, and Kenma didn't bother to respond.

    "Why did she run though? I mean, it doesn't make sense for her to just up and leave."

    "I've been telling you," The same guy said, "She's not the one playing those games. She's just the face."

Kenma frowned. What is this dick talking about?

    "Man, I think that's harsh," His roommate said, "I just think she's too chicken to play in front of people—"

    "She's literally a streamer." Kenma said, rolling his eyes.

    "Yeah, but why did she—"

    "If you can't understand that she doesn't owe you shit, then there's no helping it. She didn't want to play at that event, and she didn't. I don't see why you aren't calling me a fake gamer for running too." Kenma snapped.

The others shrugged, "That's because we've seen you play—"

    "It's bullshit." Kenma said before walking away. You all are bullshit, he thought before the frown on his face settled into an uncharacteristic glare, directed at what who knows what.

A moment later, he felt his phone buzz with a notification. Kenma opened his phone and saw that he had a message from you, but what confused him was—

The message was directed to Kenma and not puddinghead. His heart jumped as his fingers roamed over the notification, wanting to open it only when he was in the comfortable confines of his room. Swallowing the bubbling anxiety, Kenma fought the urge to smile as he continued walking back, unaware of what the Twitter message could be. It would normally take him around 12 minutes to get to his apartment from campus, but that day, Kenma merely took 7.

On reaching his room, he finally allowed himself to open your message.

(y/n): Hey! I've taken a break from streaming for now, just wanted to let you know. I don't know why I'm sending you this message, but talking to you that day made me realize that I don't really need to seek approval constantly. Also, puddinghead liked my tweet and I'm a bit too happy so I needed to gush, don't @ me

Kenma chuckled, feeling his heart jump at every word you'd said. He knew you didn't realize that you were gushing about him to him, but that didn't matter. He wanted to gush about you too. He felt a stone stuck at his throat at how real all of this felt, despite having only seen you once.

Kenma Kozume: I think he's the sort of guy who isn't too loud about the things he likes. And I think a break is a good idea, (s/n).

(y/n): Call me (y/n), came the immediate response. Kenma's eyes widened at the fact that you were online, and that the two of you were currently exchanging messages live.

(y/n): Yeah, I got the feeling from his videos that he's perhaps a private person. I'm still really glad that he supported me, I can't thank him enough. I'm feeling much better already!

Kenma smiled, I'm glad that you are.

(y/n): Also

He blinked.

(y/n): Do you want to co-op at Bloodborne? I'm trying to get a platinum, haha.

    "Fuck," He let out a breath before chuckling uncharacteristically. "You can't be serious."

(y/n): I'll send you my PSN, and you can add me as a party member. Only if you're up to it, I mean.

Kenma Kozume: Sure, sounds like fun. Also

Kenma gulped. He felt like this was showing off, but he didn't care. He was going to say it.

Kenma Kozume: I already have platinum in Bloodborne. :)

(y/n): Ah, screw you.

Kenma chuckled. He wouldn't admit it, but his heart was hammering against his chest and his palms were sweating. Soon, he'd be connected to you via the DualShock and the two of you would be co-oping in a game that was designed to make players fail. He wasn't too sure how much more his heart was going to take, and while he knew he had to tell someone, for some reason, Kenma wanted to keep this a secret. It wasn't because he was ashamed or he didn't want anyone to find out.

It was simply because it was too good to be true, and he didn't want to lose out on a chance to get to know you more. Because, if this kept up...

If this kept up, Kenma was surely going to fall in love with you.

[posi-pan]

You know what I really hate, seeing that meme/post that’s a bunch of mspec flags like “these identities overlap but the small distinction is important to some”. I see it ALL the time and while I believe most of the people sharing it are doing it with good intentions, the post itself is somewhat ill-informed and it glosses over everything that makes our mspec identities different and individual. It basically boils it down to “they’re all basically the same but slightly different!” and while some may feel that is true, others (like me) don’t find it true at all.

I wish people would take it upon themselves to actually read and learn about mspec identities, and take sources and helpful information from mspec people instead of just sharing a meme that heavily oversimplifies it. I wish people would share links and articles and posts and graphics made by mspec folks instead. Posting that silly meme is like, the most lazy way of bringing awareness to mspec folks and what our labels and identities mean. And again, I know most of the time these people aren’t trying to diminish us or anything but reposting the same ill-informed picture as if it solves any “discourse” doesn’t do anything for anyone. Ugh, I just hate that post.

yes!!!! i was just tweeting about that recently! i understand the intent behind the picture and why people post it, and for a while it was fine, i guess. but like you said, it oversimplifies things and doesn't actually educate anyone on mspec identities or help mspec people.

it basically amounts to shallow "ur valid" statements that don't come with any support or awareness or genuine care. it's easy so people cling to it, instead of actually having a discussion about mspec identities and what they mean and how people relate to them and how they're similar/different and what their histories are and how people can actually make mspec people's lives better.

most recently, i saw that picture in the pan visibility tag on twitter and it had thousands of retweets and i was like???? of all the posts in that tag or in general people could share, that's what they go for??? really???

[rhysthecat]

Idk how many of you believe in/follow astrology, but this might shed some light on why recent events have been so aggressive and why this year has been a total disaster so far. If you don't know what this means, here is an explanation, as well as some other info about this years eclipses: Okay so mutable signs are very easy to manipulate and are wishy washy ppl, I am a fixed sign which means Im the opposite basically meaning I'm stubborn and won't let anyone tell me what to do and I like what I like and no one can change my mind. Mars is indeed known as the god of war, and eclipses can cause a massive shift in mood and actions, similar to full moons (like when ppl drive shitty, my mom always says, "must be a full moon tonight", even if its still daytime). So basically what the tweet is saying is that mutable signs, and honestly they should have put #aries too because their ruling planet is mars, but mutable signs are at risk of their moods and behaviors becoming extremely aggressive during the days around this particular eclipse and during. I was unsure why mars was "involved" so I looked it up, and it will be visibally right next to the moon during the eclipse and for the next few days. Eclipses also activate our south and north nodes in our birth charts, those represent our fate according to our past and future, this is in general for everyone during an eclipse, it illuminates our destinies. In short what eclipses represent in astrology is whatever happens in the coming days/month is going to define what happens to you for the next few months or even year, whether its visible in your region or not. This one in particular, because its in conjunction with mars, is going to be aggressive, intense, and passionate all at once, and that will manipulate everyone in their own ways, more so for mutable signs like i described earlier because they are more inclined to changes and mood swings based on ppl/planets. There will be 4 eclipses of the moon and 2 eclipses of the sun this year alone. Three will be visible from parts of north America. The eclipse tomorrow is of the moon, the eclipse on the 21st is of the sun. As a cherry-on-the-top, the solar eclipse will be during mercury retrograde as well (link in comments for info on mercury retrograde). There was already a penumbral lunar eclipse in january which explains why things started off so fucked this year already, and these upcoming three will create a massive shift in mood, aggression, and actions in everyone on the whole planet. Then there will be a total solar eclipse on December 4th, meaning the entire sun will be covered by the moon with no outer ring. This will be best seen from the very tip of south america. Just wanted to let you know so you can be prepared for the oncoming onslaught of the world and know why everyone is so damn angry recently lol. Im greatful that this was brought to light for me, so i wanted to share this information with you all so you can have some sort of explanation as to why this year sucks so much, and is most likely going to continue to suck. I put some links and stuff in the comments for more info on the eclipses and what mercury retrograde is. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello. Do you have any advice on how to promote yourself as an author via social media like writing blogs? I'm struggling greatly to keep myself active in any of these because I don't know what to share. My life isn't very interesting and any free time I have for writing I spend working on my novel so I also don't have any extra short stories to share like some guides tell me to do and I don't want to post many details about my novel before publishing it. Thanks in advance.

Guide: How to Promote Yourself as a Writer/Author via Social Media

1) First and Foremost, Don’t Overthink It.

I’m starting here, because this is a subject that can be very overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Some writers/authors seem to have limitless time to dedicate to social media, but most of us don’t, and that’s okay. It’s better to prioritize your writing, but there are things you can do to work social media into your routine. Also, don’t feel like everything you post has to be related to writing, your writing life, or some super interesting event or adventure. Content is content. It can be just about anything.2) Your Main Social Media Options, Just to Get Them Out there- Tumblr- Facebook- Twitter- Instagram- Pintrest- YouTube- Goodreads- Google Plus- Writer/Author Blog2) Get to Know Your FavoritesIt’s better to have good visibility on a few platforms than it is to spread yourself thin across all of them. Even if you set up accounts on all of them, you don’t have to be active on all of them. Focus on the ones that work best for you, even if it’s only two or three of them. I recommend choosing at least two, if not three, then dedicate a week to each one. Set up your account (if you haven’t already), find and follow other writers/authors, especially in your genre. (Hashtags are helpful for this. Google will provide lists of hashtags for writers/authors on each platform.) Try to spend ten to fifteen minutes a day on that week’s chosen platform. Make a post, then spend some time liking and commenting on the posts in your feed. This helps to build relationships with other writers. And don’t be bashful. Anyone who has a public writer/author page is hoping for likes and comments, even from people they don’t know yet.3) Choose a Primary Platform and Stick with ItAs the saying goes, “Jack of all trades, master of none.” The same is true of social media, so even once you’ve narrowed the field down to your favorite two or three platforms, you may want to choose one that you use daily, for ten to fifteen minutes per day. Then, try to dedicate a little time to the other two, maybe on the weekends.

4) What to Do About Content

It depends on the platform, obviously, but here are some ideas:

Re-Blogs/Re-Posts: - writing advice/tips- writing-related quotes- motivational quotes- book/reading related quotes- pictures that relate to what you write- pictures that inspire what you want to write- pictures that relate to reading/writing- posts from other writers/authors that are shareable- writing/reading related memes- aesthetics of your favorite books 

Original Posts:- personal writing-related anecdotes- writing tip/advice posts (share what you know!)- photos of your writing space/reading area- pictures of handwritten quotes or tips that you want to share- aesthetics of your WIP- photos of coffee, tea, stationery, books, pets, nature- your monthly goals- end of month review of which goals you completed and which you didn’tTags/Challenges/Questionnaires:- “tag” challenges are sort of like hashtag photo prompts. Search for an existing tag challenge or create your own and tag your followers to join you.- monthly photo challenges give you a prompt for each day. These can be related to books/reading, writing, both, or anything else.- prompt challenges inspire daily short poetry or micro fiction- you’ve seen questionanaires here and probably on facebook, too. Often you can find some geared toward reading and writing.Book Reviews, Movie Reviews, TV Show Reviews, Video Game Reviews- book reviews make for great content. It doesn’t have to be anything long and drawn out. Just a picture of the book, how many stars you give it, and a few things that you liked (or didn’t like) about it. - did you watch a movie over the weekend that you really enjoyed? Tell your followers about it in a spoiler-free review.- did you binge-watch a new TV show? Let others know about it with a spoiler-free review.- did you play a new computer, phone, or video game? Talk about it!Support Other Writers/Authors:- if a writer/author you admire or follow posts something you can help promote, do it! For example, maybe an indie author your friends with has just posted that their book is on sale this week. Sharing that can promote audience sharing between you and them, it gives you content for the day, and it’s awesome to support other writers/authors, especially indies.Arts, Crafts, DIY, Cooking, Adventures, and Other Hobbies- share your grandmother’s recipe for pumpkin pie- share a picture of the sweater you’re knitting along with your three favorite knitting tips and tricks.- share a picture of your bujo or planner layout for the month- share a picture of the cabinets you re-finished and talk about what the process was like.- share pictures and stories from the antiquing road trip you took over the weekend.- share a picture of the painting you’ve been working on.- share a picture of the room you cleaned out along with some de-cluttering tips- share a pretty picture of a flower you took on your afternoon walkSpend some time looking at the content of other writers/authors on the platform you want to focus on. This is a great way to see what’s most common, what you can mimic, and what you can jump in on.5) Set Up a Schedule

Whether you focus on one platform or three, it can sometimes help to set up a posting schedule. For example:Monday - Blog post on author blogTuesday - Re-tweet two or three writing-related tweets on TwitterWednesday - Post a writing/book related photo on InstagramThursday - Re-blog writing tip on TumblrFriday - BreakSaturday - Twitter re-tweetsSunday - Instagram tag challengeThat’s just an example, of course. If you focus on one social media platform, it might look more like this…Facebook Posting Schedule:Monday - Re-post writing adviceTuesday - Post writing/reading related quoteWednesday - Share personal writing tipThursday - Link to interesting writing-related articleFriday - Book reviewSaturday - Picture from weekend adventureSunday - Break6) Social Media Management Apps

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, you may want to look into a social media management app like Hootsuite, Pagemodo, or Sprout Social. (There are many others, too.) These sometimes cost money, but they can be well worth it if you need help managing your social media presence. Ultimately, these allow you to plan out posts in advance, so instead of worrying about it every day, you take maybe an hour every week to pre-plug in all your tweets and other posts for the week. When you see writers/authors who seem to post on all social media every day, this is generally how they do it.7) Don’t Neglect your Writer/Author Blog

Last but not least, make sure you set up a writer/author blog and try to make a post in it at least once a month. Not only will this give you content you can share on the platforms you focus on, but it’s a great way to keep track of your writing journey and to keep your growing audience up-to-date with the latest news. Even just a short post to talk about your progress for the month and your goals for the next month is better than nothing.8) Try to Relax and Have Fun with It

It may take you a little while to establish a routine that you’re comfortable with, but it will happen eventually. Just remember not to overthink things and not to feel like you have to do everything. Like I said, it’s better to choose one platform and post on it every two or three days than it is to be sporadic on all the platforms. Just do the best you can, and it’ll all make sense in time. :)

[what-do-bunyips-look-like]

oh man i've been struggling to not write an angry post about it but this was all i needed to make me to do it!

No-one has to like Travis McElroy. You don't have to enjoy his personality or his style of humour or anything about him. I myself am not a fan of his solo projects and I can relate to his brothers when they're obviously exasperated with him. You can find him annoying all you want, that's your business. You can criticism him for the genuinely harmful things he's said in the past (and apologized for). You can criticize him for holding opinions that you don't. But the concept that someone deserves to be sent suicide bait because they were annoying or tweeted something a little tone deaf is disgusting. Being annoying on a stream or "cringey" or tweeting something for attention are not punishable by death, and I don't know what to say to anyone who genuinely thinks they are.

Do people realize that internet attention and validation can be addictive? Especially so for someone with adhd and narcissistic traits (I'm not sure if he's explicitly stated he has NPD, but guess what narcissism and attention seeking behaviour are symptoms of adhd too)? Tweeting something a little preformative that you know people will praise you for is easy money in the attention economy and it's also easy dopamine. Is it good behaviour? No, of course not. Is it understandable? 100%. And his admission that he realizes he has a problem with doing that and is trying to work on it is a *good thing*, not further evidence that he is a bad person.

I would really ask those of you who can't stand him but love his brothers... why exactly that is. Do you maybe have some... idk, implicit bias against effeminate and visibly neuroatypical men? A combination which has been vilified for oh, god, forever?? Go look up "the feminine boy project." Go read literally anything about autistic children "failing to understand appropriate gender roles" or the "plague" of autistic trans people that terfs love to go on about. Go watch Contrapoints video essay on Cringe and how that relates specifically to trans people and neuroatypical people.

The idea that "effeminate/gender nonconforming/trans" + "visible disability/mental illness" = "creepy/gross/evil/repulsive/dangerous" is very deeply entrenched in our culture, media and psyche. Seeing everyone reach the conclusion that Travis alone, who shares pretty much the exact same positions and values as his brothers, is "gross" and "bad" and "cringey" when he's the only one that displays this exact combo is uh, frustrating. Do not think I have missed the comparisons to "the weird kid" (ie the visibly neuroatypical or queer one) in high school. Do not think I haven't seen the people calling him the f slur, making fun of his "gross" voice (read: effeminate with a lisp), terfs comparing him to Chris-chan. The backlash against him is wildly out of proportion to anything he said or did and it is absolutely inextricably linked to ableism and a fear and hatred of feminine/effeminate amab people (even if those people are straight cis men). If you actually have something valid to criticize him for, go for it. But currently you're all displaying that either you were the bully in high school, or you desperately wanted to be.

TLDR: You don't have to like Travis McElroy or enjoy his content. He has done and said things worthy of criticism in the past. But if you have a massive hateboner for him and people like him and are now gleefully trying to cancel him, maybe give some long and careful thought to why that is. I promise it's a little more complicated then "idk his vibes are just off lol"

Y'all are fuckin ableist check ur cluster B stigma he's trying his hardest

[pinksfuckers]

What You Know About SEO 2019 And What You Don't Know About SEO 2019

Lots of people are usually still unaware of the essential uses of SEO, but along with time and more expansion they will will learn. Investing in high quality tactics which do take more but endure and are usually the ones which generate important traffic is the best method to spend your time upon SEO. Some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION specialists and bloggers say that will short URLs ranks better within Google. This technique is definitely sometimes known as SEO content” or SEO copywriting”. But you need to not ignore the most substantial part of the website developing process, i. e. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Whilst businesses can choose to perform their own SEO, hiring the SEO agency that has encountered search engine optimizers will simply no doubt, help businesses reap RETURN ON INVESTMENT in the long run. Within fact if you look carefully you will find that content material marketing and SEO go hands in hand. On the various other hand, Black Hat SEO consists of efforts like redirecting internet research engine "spiders" to different web pages than human visitors see, mass-posting "spam" comments (on blogs, community forums, articles), or putting lists associated with keywords in late each web page in very small fonts. Because we've seen, one of the particular major advantages of SEO will get more traffic because of much better search engine ranking. If you are severe about improving search traffic plus are unfamiliar with SEO, all of us recommend reading this guide front-to-back. A few of these SEO strategies attempt to deceive users into going to sites about subjects they avoid have any curiosity about, which places them at odds with the particular purpose of search engines. Here's a true statement a person hear as often: Your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION technique for 2018 shouldn't concentrate on keywords. (1888PressRelease) Stone Marketing, a Boston-based, full-service SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and internet marketing firm today announces they have been positioned as the number five SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION firm in the 2010 Advertising World Top ten SEO Business Award initiative. According to Forrester Analysis, the number of global smart phone subscribers is expected to achieve 3. 5 billion by 2019, crossing the 50% mark intended for smartphone penetration by 2018, plus reaching 59% by 2019. On-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ensures that your site can be read by both possible customers and search engine automated programs. In 2019, voice-search will become the dominant way that individuals search. But SEO is all regarding the organic” rankings, which show up in the middle of the particular search results page. The most important SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION factor for creating high-quality content material is doing good keyword study. Criteria changes in 2018 seem in order to centre on reducing the strength of old-school SEO techniques, along with the May 2015 Google ‘Quality' formula update bruisingly familiar. Keep in mind in SEO article writing suggestions you keywords have to create sense too. Domain Authority within SEO is a rank that will measures how popular and reliable search engines call at your own website. If the key phrases you happen to be hoping to rank regarding don't show on the page, this will be much more tough to achieve your goals -- making on-page optimization a essential part of most SEO strategies. If you speak about search ranking in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you're talking about the place of your content on lookup results pages (SERPs). Kent Lewis, Originator, and President of Anvil, the performance-based firm based out associated with Portland, says that in 2019 voice search and Amazon lookup can be a lot more notable than they were in 2018. Google Search Console (Webmaster tools) is one of the particular SEO basics. If you would like to find out how We actually do it, visit Write-up Czar for the free gift plus details of the way i use write-up marketing and SEOcious to get top Google listings. It really is geared towards SEO professionals (in-house and agency), marketing managers, and company owners. But now SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION considers tweets, retweets, Google+ authorship, along with Blog9T other social signals. Besides rating the web site, the SEO team turns into fault Client's marketing or product sales team by converting surfers or even visitors into buyers. Because therefore much sharing now takes place on major social media systems, social signals may become mainly because important to SEO as period on page, editorial linking, plus content quality. Using social press marketing in PA with SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION tactics can help boost the website's ranking and popularity. This may create friction and the impact that most well-designed websites are usually very poorly optimized for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. They have impacted SEO previously as well by bringing inbound links, and today it's even even more. SEO differs from local lookup engine optimization in that the particular latter is targeted on customization a business' online presence therefore that its web pages is definitely going to be displayed simply by search engines when a consumer enters a local search with regard to its products or services. The challenge for webmasters plus SEO is that Google will not want business people to rank regarding lots of keywords using autogenerated content especially when that creates A LOT of pages upon a website using (for instance) a list of keyword variants page-to-page. In time, the range between social media marketing management, channel growth, and SEO will be considerably blurrier than it really is definitely today. In 2016, SEO experts possess determined which factors are nearly all likely to affect your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rankings. Customers and marketers will need in order to begin implementing multiple forms associated with digital marketing tactics including compensated search, social media marketing, nearby SEO, in addition to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION if they hope to rule a given Google SERP. Before beginning with this, the SEO experts should visit your organization and realize each and every aspect associated with your company so that they will can help your achieve your own marketing goals. What really matters in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 is what a person prioritise today to ensure that will in 3-6 months you may see improvements in the high quality of your organic traffic. Mobile will account for 72% of US digital ad invest by 2019. 55 The difference from SEO is the majority of simply depicted as the distinction between paid and unpaid concern ranking searching results. I get into much more detail in SEO Titles on pages: 15-Point Checklist for B2B and B2C Brands, which explains the right way to work in relevant keywords that will accurately reflect the page articles. Are good nevertheless SEO potential may be reduced when compared with single links. The schooling behind our SEO expertise has been developed from years and yrs of learning from mistakes marketing and advertising with our other businesses. Our own in-depth guide contains the most recent SEO best practices so a person can improve how your content articles appears in search results, plus get more traffic, leads, plus sales. Keyword analysis definitely belongs to the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION basics. I'll start by stating that social mass media 5 Quick Tips For SEO 2019 and SEO are heavily linked to each other. Black head wear SEO attempts to improve search positions in ways that are disapproved of by search engines, or even involve deception. This particular is more tedious and tasking than inorganic SEO because this particular is how all the key phrases get a full blast associated with attention. SEO: It stands for Lookup Engine Optimization. Within this post, we'll break this down in the complete first timers guide to SEO: what SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is, how it works, exactly what factors affect search and exactly what sorts of changes you may make today to improve your own search optimization. The no follow hyperlink has been contradicted many periods over where SEO is included and it depends on the particular web owner regarding if they will allow them on the web site or not. Google My Business is Google's business directory and, thus, super crucial to your local SEO Shown businesses with all the best SEO can appear in the Local 3-Pack, the batch of 3 highlighted businesses nearest you that seem when you do a appropriate local search. Fire up Visibility recently released SEO: The particular Movie ”. This 40-minute movie covers a brief history associated with search engine optimization portrayed via the experiences of some associated with the biggest names within the particular SEO industry. In addition to producing content accessible to search engines, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION also helps boost rankings therefore that content will be positioned where searchers will more easily believe it is. The Internet is getting increasingly competitive, and people companies that perform SEO may have the decided advantage in visitors plus customers. Unfortunately, SEO - and lookup in general - is usually soloed into focusing on The particular Google” and not really regarded as for other tactics. This means website owners plus SEO experts will need in order to be on top of their own game when it comes in order to keyword research and keeping the particular context of their site related to users. Varvy's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Overview tool audits your internet site for key parameters like domain name strength, links, image SEO, sociable counts, on-page SEO, technical standing, page speed, loading time plus more. The particular trouble is that SEO rank factors have changed a great deal over the years (find out and about how in our keyword exploration guide ). That means this search engine optimization techniques that will worked 5 years back won't take flight today. Search engine search engine optimization (SEO) will be the process of influencing the online visibility of the particular website or a web web page in a web search motor 's unpaid results—often known since "natural", " organic ", or even "earned" results. Seo (SEO) is a procedure of improving positions in natural (non-paid) search results searching motors. Additional SEO ranking factors include: available URLs, domain age (older is usually usually better), page speed, cellular friendliness, business information, and specialized SEO. Your own search engine optimization strategy can become divided into two different types: on-page SEO and off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. While you familiarize yourself with this local community, you will inevitably stumble your own way onto the websites associated with SEO Gurus” selling courses that will teach you SEO for hundreds of dollars. Expert SEO writers can also make use of modifiers and keyword variations in order to further optimize the content. Inside a lot associated with cases, this happens as the consequence of non-ethical SEO particularly buying and selling links which usually could get you up the particular Google ‘adder' quickly. Content is usually key but content alone is usually no longer king; content, circumstance, and relevance will drive overall performance of content and digital advertising, and SEO is part yet not full parcel. Ultimate WordPress SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Guide for Beginners (Step simply by Step) — 28% of sites on the internet use Wp. SEO is usually abused as a blanket term intended for digital marketing. This particular means that SEOs spend the lot of time working upon getting links in a procedure called link building Link-building techniques can range from simply asking for a link to writing the guest post - and generally there are many others. Basically, SEO plans the keywords that will are to be delivered plus content provides them. So, when you are considering about applying SEO in the particular broad sense, you need in order to channelize its technical specifications via content marketing. In 2019, you can wager that White Hat SEO may have separated itself even additional from Black Hat SEO, plus that above all else, offering quality content will be the particular most important factor for companies ranking in search. The outcomes are not instant, you can use the time on attempting other Internet marketing techniques whilst SEO would go to function. The third major SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking signal is Google's synthetic intelligence search ranking algorithm. Sometimes SEO is usually simply a matter of producing sure your site is organised in a way that lookup engines like google understand. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION involves a number of modifications towards the HTML of person Web pages to obtain a higher search engine ranking. As a result associated with technological advancement, SEO is in order to undergo more drastic changes, plus the two latest technologies that will are expected to influence SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION to some very great degree are AI (Artificial Intelligence) plus Voice Search. User-generated content racks up serious SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION points by providing sites along with fresh content, bundles of back links, and sources for organically framing natural attributes. You'll find it right here Also really worth checking away is Moz's Beginner's Explained SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, ” which you'll find right here, and the SEO Success Pyramid from Small Business Search Marketing and advertising. Off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategy refers to the impact of a change in some other websites in your search rank. Bruce Clay-based set the standard for honest internet marketing by authoring the particular " SEO Code of Integrity, " now translated into eighteen languages, and it has already been a respected leader within the particular ever-changing lookup engine marketing industry since mil novecentos e noventa e seis. Website SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (including, content optimisation, meta marketing, the significance of links). A good SEO Specialist is someone which is an expert on the particular topic of search engine marketing. Just since a proper On-page and Off-page SEO optimization work will provide a better Ranking to your own website in Search Engine Outcome Page (SERP). The largest SEO change and pattern I realize already happening within 2018 is Google's switch in order to a mobile-first index, so when a site is not however mobile-friendly and optimized for this, it's critical to prioritize this particular as it is now essential for its SEO success. With good on-page SEO, research engines can easily index your own web pages, understand what your own site is about, and effortlessly navigate the structure and content material of your website, thus rating your site accordingly. Search Motor Optimization (SEO) is the technique to campaign your products on the web towards the right clientele intended for increasing ROI. There are many tools upon the web to assist along with basic keyword research (including the particular Google Keyword Planner tool and there are even more useful third party SEO tools to help you perform this). The biggest change that will we'll see in 2019 (and that's already happening) is the particular fact that keywords are getting less important. Once you've discovered your keywords, use another SEMrush tool, the SEO Content Design template, which is part of their own Content Marketing Toolkit, to function out the best way in order to optimize your content. If a company is providing you all these services below one roof, climbing up the particular SEO ranking will not end up being an uphill task for your own business any more. Local SEO companies allows a person to position your business upon search engines like google plus other digital marketing platforms therefore you're seen by potential clients — on their terms. YouTube adds the particular nofollow” tag to their hyperlinks, so they don't really assist with SEO. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION isn't just about building research engine-friendly websites. The sooner you understand exactly why Google is sending you much less traffic than it did this past year, the sooner you can clear it up and focus upon proactive SEO that starts to effect your rankings in a beneficial way. The trending SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION technique or strategy now plus in 2019 will be Lookup Enterprise Optimization It has already been coined by myself since 2015. An extensive dental marketing plus dental SEO campaign can end up being attained by the enterprise just if the web address associated with a dental practice contains in to all the promotional materials with regard to the business. This shows the importance of focussing voice search engine results within order to grow your company, marketing, and Search Engine Optimization(SEO) strategies. They accomplish this by increasing their internet site rank through a method known as SEO or even search engine optimization. Just like most other SEO approaches, be certain your links are appropriate, plus be careful never to cross the particular line into excessive linking -- you don't want your website visitors to obtain annoyed. Bryan Yeager, Research Director at Gartner, can share 9 Key Insights through Gartner's Marketing Technology Survey in order to Help You Prepare for 2019 and Beyond. SEO is a combination associated with digital marketing efforts all functioning together to increase a website's value to users and presence in search. On-page SEO (also recognized as "on-site" SEO) may be the action of optimizing different parts associated with your site that affect your own search engine rankings. In 2019, we'll have to optimize voice research answers with CTAs that Google's algorithms don't pick up upon, but humans do. Dan Mallette, Lead SEO Strategist at each InVue Digital & HearstDMS, forecasts that SEOs will need in order to optimize for voice search and discover new avenues as SERP real-estate shrinks. Obviously, a social networking site that has more interaction will bring bigger SEO benefits to be able to some business than one of which has less interaction, but simply having a social presence will be a good start. A lot of of these so-called 'tweaks' include advertising and link-gathering, and We use SEO and article advertising for that. Within 2018, your SEO success will not depend on how well a person optimize your website for Search engines. But if you're brief on money, use these diy SEO ideas to improve your natural rankings. If you choose SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you're helping Google's spiders in order to crawl and understand your content articles. The job of a good SEO is to manage the particular optimization of websites to assure they gain site traffic from lookup engines such as Google and Bing. One great part of content that will ranks well within the research results is its beginner's facts SEO. SEOs in addition to online marketing specialists in standard who are dealing with global websites or for online organizations thinking about going international can certainly benefit from attending ISS. We would certainly like to serve you in order to save money and your power by offering affordable SEO solutions to increase link popularity. Work the key word into the SEO page name, content header, image, image altbier text, etc. SEO equipment provide position monitoring, deep key word research, and crawling through personalized reports and analytics. Certainly, white hat SEO always integrated creating high quality, unique articles as a prerequisite for getting long-term quality results, this truth hasn't changed. Beyond compensated and organic, there are various other types of SEO and expertise and niches within search motor marketing. This particular SEO model is called the "topic cluster, " and contemporary search engine algorithms rely upon them to connect users along with the information they're looking intended for. Your own SEO strategy likely involves articles designed to be shared upon social media. Take this article intended for example, if you search intended for reverse engineer Google, ” seo secrets, ” reverse engineering seo, ” this informative article is on the particular first page for every associated with those search terms. Social networking and SEO ought to be working together, sharing content material or utilizing engagement metrics since data for future article advertising. Simply put, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is marketing through an knowing of how search algorithms function combined with a knowledge associated with what human users might research for. The results furthermore underscore the value of creating new content with your SEO online marketing strategy. If you create new content structured on your priority keywords, a person have several advantages having an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION marketing strategy. Both SEO and content material marketing converge in numerous places; they will do not work in solitude. Free to enroll in SearchLeeds covers everything from specialized SEO and analytics, to PAGE RANK, content marketing, paid media plus more. Following technical mobile SEO greatest practices (e. g., image optimisation, redirects, JavaScript and CSS) is usually a necessary barrier to access in today's digital world. Performing SEO upon your own websites is the great method to practice plus hone your SEO ability. We optimize your web site both of internal and exterior factors thats Google's engine rely on and reliable for top rating search result, Gurantee your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking No succeed can refundable. Looking deeper: An SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION cost often means one associated with two things: the investment inside your organic search strategy, or exactly how much you pay for compensated search engine marketing (SEM) providers like Google AdWords. All of us are dealing with new methods designed to target old design SEO tactics and that concentrate around the truism that DOMAIN NAME ‘REPUTATION' plus Plenty of WEBPAGES plus SEO equals Plenty associated with Keywords equals LOTS of Search engines traffic. BrightonSEO is a one-day search advertising conference and series of teaching courses held, unsurprisingly, in Brighton. From narrowing straight down target markets to changing the particular way content is written, AI and voice search will possess a continuous effect on SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION moving forward. One aspect of SEO is usually link building, which we can discuss slightly below, which usually leads to thin content. Applications for this 2018-2019 cycle of the SEO Progress programme are now closed and even will re-open again in Early spring 2019. SEO could be difficult because search engines are often reevaluating and changing how they will prioritize search engine results. Moreover, it will help SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION by gaining backlinks, likes, remarks or shares. All of us wished to look at a massive group that included businesses of most sizes and in all sectors so we could really observe how SEO traffic increased whenever the only common denominator was including reviews to their site. In reality, this is section of the SEO technique we have used to continuously grow our organic traffic throughout the last 12 months right here at SnapApp: #3. Mobile may account for 72% of ALL OF US digital ad spend by 2019. This workshop will be designed to help business proprietors implement Digital Marketing techniques regarding their business including social mass media, organic SEO as well because paid channels. The Beginner's Guide in order to SEO continues to be study over 3 million times plus offers comprehensive information you require to get on the road to professional quality Search Motor Optimization, or SEO. Whether it's using web analytics for carrying out research or even conversion tools that monitor plus report the usage of essential keywords, SEO agencies know exactly how and where you can obtain the information they need in order to save time furthermore lessen your in-house price. Generally there is probably no more simple strategy for SEO than the particular integration of internal links in to your site - it is definitely an easy way to enhance traffic to individual pages, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Consult says. SEO SERVICES Generally there are a number of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services which can help enhance the organic search engine search positions of a website.