#I made my alt name and image very clearly still me. I’m not trying to be sneaky or backhanded or insult You for an opinion or call You dumb

[rouge-fauna]

I think you’re talking about these posts [here & here], I don’t know if there have been others.

I'm not gonna say what I did was right, you are correct I should probably just not respond to asks getting me to talk about other people. I will say for these two posts those people had already blocked me I’m pretty sure, so it’s kinda hard to talk directly to them in that case. And I was not doing so anonymously and had not blocked them so I wasn’t hiding what I was saying. I did not follow them, I am not part of the innitor community, and not that that makes it right but I do think it is kinda different. Though you make a good point, perhaps we should stop this pattern of responding to asks about other blogs and such.

Still, the biggest thing to me I realized, back in elementary school when I first dealt with this, was that honestly all the time we talk about people behind their back. Talking about people when they aren’t always in the room is kinda just inevitable and part of socializing, however I think the important part is how you are talking about other people. It’s when you are insulting them, talking negatively about them to people they know, spreading false information and so on that it becomes not okay. Hopefully that makes sense.

In these cases I merely focused on the lore. I didn’t insult them or talk shit about them, as a person, as a blog or say their takes were stupid or they are stupid or speculate about their trauma or mental history. I just talked about reasons why I disagreed, or saw things differently and why we might see things differently. They were also not the only ones I saw to say similar things so I think in my mind I was making more of a general discussion, not trying to target them specifically. I didn’t post beyond that about them. But you are right, regardless it was probably not the right way to go about things.

But just to be clear, if I am a hypocrite it is not my intention. I haven’t vague blog anyone or meant to vague reblog anyone. I think this week is pretty much the first time I’ve ever been not naming, passive aggressively talking about blogs, and even then I’m not trying to insult them, trying to cancel them. I’m just expressing that before you go off about how I’m stupid and unable to have a discussion about it, the very least you could’ve done was give me an opportunity to try.

[vynnyal]

Throwing random thoughts, headcanons, and a variety of pasta at the wall (but only those having to do with vessels and/or their biology this time): The Thrilling Third Installment™

...aka pretending i can be dark and dramatic jskhdfd

Thk's larger form is not the standard, but the exception. Thk was cited as being "raised and trained to prime form", which people take to mean pk assisted in the vessel's natural growth. However, that conclusion leaves a lot of unanswered questions, most important of which being “then what about Ghost?” In short, I think that train of thought is backwards. Vessels can't grow- they are ageless, and immortal. We know this due to Ghost, despite living as long if not longer than thk, being completely unchanged over the years. The only thing pk trained into "prime form" was thk’s mind and fighting prowess. Their body... well, I think it was mutated. Most likely either directly by pk, or ordered by him- and with the shenanigans happening over in the sanctum, I wouldn't be surprised if Soul was involved, too. In any case, it was in no means natural. Vessels are corpses reanimated by void; neither corpses nor void tend to make drastic changes on their own all that often. Whether pk predicted the vessel’s “issues” and intended to manually “upgrade” them from the beginning, it's hard to say. But... yeah. Unless Ghost goes out of their way to make themselves grow- if its even possible, now that pk is gone- its fairly safe to say, they never will.

...with that in mind, we are promptly gonna ignore that for the rest of this post lmaooo

Grown-up vessels wouldn't look like thk; while they are described as being raised into "prime form"... prime form, to whom? Rather than looking like an idealized pk soldier, it sounds much more fitting that they’d have an entirely different, natural adult form. Consider: their cloaks being longer and fuller, perhaps filling out into something with a more practical use to their “species”. Better yet, they could even grow up to be more beast-like. Feral vessels, YEhaW

The black egg temple is cited as being "built to sustain [vessels]", yet it can't be their lifespan that is sustained. Rather, it seems the egg is specifically designed to keep the radiance from tearing thk apart, physically and/or mentally. Ngl its p obvious, but worth noting.

Sorta-au where Ghost’s shade has 8 eyes, and/or is generally all-around more cryptid-looking.

@ the sharpshadow charm and the strange, 6-eyed creature their shade turns into: kudos to this post, they bring up something super interesting- the creature not only resembles the Shade Lord, but the lord outright becomes it during the Embrace the Void cutscene.

makes me respect the ol’ civilization a whole lot more if a single charm can turn a baby shade into a baby lord.

The concept of finding ghosts unconscious body, laying next to a corpse, while they battle in their dreams. Alt: when ghost enters the dream realm, their shade leaves their shell... And protects their body from harm.

If steel soul mode is taken as canon, just how did ghost and the shade meet? Alt: Ghost may never have “met” it at all, as it technically doesn’t exist in that mode- instead, its more of a metaphor than an actual entity.

What the vessels looked like- or were supposed to look like- before the void. Alt: a story following a child, alive and untouched, that somehow managed to be spared. They could even have a gender. Alt alt: the void intentionally spared them for some purpose, or even out of simple kindness- or at least, something that resembles kindness.

Re: the shade inexplicably having a nail: all the vessel's swords are crafted from “will-bearing rock”- of which i’ve come to lovingly call living stone- and as such, are of void themselves. That's how the shade seems to conjure up its own copy; it merely shapes it, from the ground, using void. And, while more of a stretch, Ghost’s nail being some sort of living stone/pale ore alloy could explain just how Ghost can do seemingly pretty crazy things with an otherwise ordinary nail. Better, while 100% a baseless hc, its material might actually enable Ghost to build it up and modify it to suite their size as they grow older. finally, a logical reason adult Ghost has an adult-sized nail-claymore. hdsfghjfghdsjf

On that same thought: Ghost outright invented the "art" of manipulating- or creating- living stone to make their nail. ...gimme a sec. The other escaped vessels have nails, too, right? Either meaning they also discovered this ability... or that theres some legitimate ground for the “vessel gang” hc. Or, yanno, i’m reading too much into Ari’s sprites but sHHhh

How did all the vessels know to race to the top? They seemed to be falling merely because they had just been born and had literal, actual baby strength; yet not only did they inexplicably risk everything competing to the top, they somehow knew death was waiting if they lost. Alt: pk just, bringing a fucking megaphone and telling them like a sports announcer.

What if Ghost made it, and instead of falling, they managed to joined thk at the lip? What would pk do? Push them off the edge??? Or just adopt them both?? Oh fuck au where they're raised as twin sacrifices. Or worse yet, they’re raised unequally, and one is trained only as an afterthought. As a backup.

Alternatively, pk keeps all the vessels au, only a few years later when they're grown. Pk now has a literal army of pure knights. Radiance is fucked.

Hm. If vessels were fully coherent entities from the moment of birth, why was there a crib in the white palace? Did... did they use it? I have a feeling team cherry made that asset before the abyss scene lmaooo alt: they did, uh, use the crib. Cue a very awkward scene of thk, clearly not a normal baby, staring at wl with like... idk, the poofy baby hat and pacifier. I can’t tell if the image is more funny or more sad rn shdfgfjsdgg

The og notes that inspired this post, in case my rambling makes more sense (and w/o the awful comic hjsfgjsdfhj): Oh oh OH i GET it now. The void is all about "will" and whatnot, right? And shades are "fragments of a lingering will"- will, like the one you leave after your death, but instead of inheritance its the vessels' desires...last regrets.... DAMN team cherry, that symbolism is clever as heck. That took me a while. Kinda funny how a will is, technically, a person's last regrets Like I knew they were last regrets but I didn't understand WHY. Duh, it's because they're literally Made Of Will. They are the vessel's "wills". I'm so stupid.

Ghost, walking thru the abyss, getting increasingly fed up / freaked out, ducking into a crack in the wall. They follow the crack into the Scream Chamber, pause, then exhale in relief that this was EXACTLY what they needed.

Ghost's shade rolling up its void-sleeves like “fuck it, ima defeat thk myself”

Why was thk's sword there? Was its pedestal decayed? Did it fall from their body? Was it place there as an afterthought, or hurriedly? alt: taking thk's sword before freeing them, but doing the mom thing like you're grounding them hdhfjchjch

I can’t believe it just occured to me now, but... as objectivley stupid as the vessel’s test was, Ghost... technically came in second place. What if that whole scene was a metaphor? Because really, it’s just too silly to take seriously. To do so isn’t too far fetched, either; many other elements in the game’s story are better taken as symbolic or metaphorical, anyways. Take the PoP cutscene- while it could’ve been a literal moment, where they just happened to find themselves standing around and took the moment to appreciate each other... imo it makes much more sense to read it as the concept of their faint ~forbidden love~ and parental pride itself. Or, better yet, the scene at the end of the 4th pantheon. Sorry, but I severely doubt that was an actual event. What I’m trying to get at is the significance of “second place” in the cutscene. My brain is too fried to chase down any other possible connections to this theme rn (if thats even what the theme is), but even without proof, the theory smooths out a few interesting tidbits related to just how Ghost could tough it out when all others failed. All except for #1, anyway. Either way I’m just happy to take this as an excuse to pretend that cutscene didn’t literally happen because like, l m a o

The story of a small group of vessels as they work together to escape hallownest. (aka the aforementioned vessel gang hc... im sure theres a more formal name but you get the idea). Its impossible to tell how long it took them to discover that near-invisible hole, the last exit remaining after the king ordered the abyss to be sealed up. Once they did, however, the remaining vessels were quick to make a desperate scramble to escape- only for the entrance to suddenly crumble shut, far, far too soon. The remaining 8 slowly made their way through deepnest, their numbers quickly dwindling as the jouney started to take its toll. The group was nearly wiped out by those terrible, spiney-legged creatures that used their own kinship against them. Only three finally escaped the deep, yet only two made it through the basin- the third, largest sibling, left to fight alone againt a hopeless battle, just to buy the others time. It was in greenpath, so close yet so far to their goal, that the second succumbed to the infection. It was a mercy killing, that nail through the heart. The last, after all of that, finally made their way to the very precipice of howling cliffs, hesitating for just a moment to gaze out upon the still-fresh ruins of hallownest. But only for a moment, before Ghost jumps down to begin their journey beyond this wretched place.

A vessel running from its shade as it tirelessly pursues them, the vessel refusing to put it to rest.

tw: suicide, + personal on main

Ugh ugh ugh ugh Either thk was fully conscious and in terrible pain for all those years... or they couldn’t feel anything at all. The former is horrible, but imagining thk waking up, chained, unable to do anything but wait for Ghost to heed their call? Did they turn their nail on themselves to help Ghost, end the pain, or some awful mix of both? For someone who has personally dealt with close friends and family that struggled with suicide themselves, hollowknight is one of the worst horror stories I've ever seen. And the fact that the story is so personal, so open to interpretation? The fact that each character is so genuine yet vague enough to be read completely differently to someone else’s biases? Its why hollow knight- the game, and the character- will forever be one of the most powerful stories to me.

in short, good LORD THIS GAME IS SO FUCKING SAD

[dragalialore]

AW FUCK YEA CHAPTER 18 LUCKY NUMBER

liveblog below!

So far, so mysterious. We already figured that this was gonna be Kai Yan and Luca’s standoff. This is Nedrick’s “homecoming,” according to Tartarus; what’s up with that? Is the Faewood where he was revived?

HEY DID SHEILA JUST FUCKING TALK? I THOUGHT SHE WAS UNABLE TO SPEAK. Or maybe she can only speak in the Faewood? Or maybe it’s a translation error.

Sheila is your fucking what now

Another thing: Sheila’s attire is very clearly of the church. Just look at Ramiel and Sandalphon’s outfits--the aesthetic is pretty damn dead on. I’m starting to wonder if there’s some real meat to the theory of her being connected to Origa.

hehehe taking meene to the faewood hehehe

This is a new boss design! I like it. Furry eyeball... winged thing. (I killed it too fast to read the name.)

Deeply enjoy that Laxila is in the spotlight again. It’s probably because Luca’s one of the focuses of this chapter, but nonetheless.

Notte’s hearing things! The mental image of her cuddling up to Euden is adorable. I demand fanart.

Mym no bad idea--MYM

F.

Hell yeah, illusions! Time to check out what torments our main cast! Cleo’s up first, and it’s obviously Alberius and, y’know, that whole time she had to murder him with her own two hands? Anyone checked the Halidom for a therapist?

I’ll say it again, but it is uncanny how Alberius looks exactly like an older Euden with long hair.

OH FUCK THE ROBOT IS HALLUCINATING

I can hear the Mascula stans (me included) punching the air right now. It might just be an illusion, but it’s good to see my boy again. GOOD on Laxi for being the coolheaded one for once!

Mascula dropping some hints that he might get a new body in the future... taking bets now on what his weapon will be.

Some insight on Gatov! That I wasn’t expecting. Interesting to see how he basically like... witnesses this traumatic event and moves on. It’s almost like he’s emotionally stable!!

Sheila can’t see the illusions... and Gatov says something about “getting her back”. The first bit might allude to her being blinded somehow, but the second...?

ZENA YOUR TRAUMA IS SHOWING. ZENA YOUR TRAUMA IS SHOWING!!! Glad she’s takin’ it like a champ, but like, girl.

We’ve got most of the main cast back together except Euden, Chelle, Luca, and Elly, it seems... and Alex, but I’ll take the odds that she drags Elly in.

Oh, hi Chelle. You’re still missing Elly too, y’know.

Laxi covering for Mascula is sweet. Their relationship has improved SO MUCH since their first appearance.

Seriously, all these enemy designs are great. I adore them.

Okay, the rokkan being there (and Luca being confused about him being there) are DEFINITELY pointing to signs of Kai Yan fucker--OH YUP THERE HE IS LOL. I’ll put money on that being the real Kai Yan somehow.

Good on Luca for being able to pull out of that on his own! I was worried there for a second, but he trucked through!

oh no oh god euden oh no fuck

HAHAHA HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT GUILT COMPLEX

Y’know, this kinda reminds me of Zena’s gala story and how she told Euden that she felt that she needed to earn her right to exist in this timeline.

Cygames: I have made a normal protagonist.

Us: You fucked up a perfectly good prince is what you did. Look at him. He’s got anxiety.

God, Luca’s older brother vibes are REALLY jumping out. He is not having any of Euden’s shit, but he’s handling it perfectly.

GOD IM GOING TO CRY

Leave it to our favorite bunny boy to zero in on what Euden needs to hear. And he makes such a good point too! Euden is INCREDIBLY selfish, but he covers it up extremely well, almost as if he doesn’t believe his own desires are worth anything. (Well no, exactly like that, but I have a whole ass draft on that subject.) He’s helped EVERYBODY around him but himself--it’s time he gets a piece of that action too.

I’ve gone from wanting to cry to wanting to beat Kai Yan’s ass in three seconds. The mood whiplash is real.

The few details about the Agito we get from their weapons is honestly criminal. I want to know more so, so badly.

I really do love how Luca has consistently been like “lol shut up” to every Agito he runs into. He has nothing to prove about himself to these assholes, and he lets them all know it all the damn time.

Actually, I love how the ENTIRE CAST has just fucking had it with the Agito. “You’re weak!” “Shut up while we beat your fucking ass.” The Agito can try to play their mind games all they want now, but the party is just gonna shoot first and ask questions never.

Chelle, can you whip out that gatling gun again and just shoot the dumbass full of holes?

GOD DONT REMIND ME ABOUT CHAPTER ELEVEN IM STILL EMOTIONALLY HEALING

Oh hey here comes the next Gala dragon. Is it Jeanne?

It’s Jeanne.

why’s she got that paimon sleeve lol

[Luca Goes Super Saiyan]

GET HIS ASS

Is Jeanne the dragon with the most versions now?? No, wait, I think she’s beaten out (barely) by Midgardsormr, with regular, high, zero, and mini versions. Still, I think she’s the ONLY non-story dragon to have THREE alts.

NOTTE?

GIRL??????

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S THE END

[spnfanficpond]

May 2020 Angel Fish Awards

(New Angel Fish design by @slytherkins!!)

Every month all of you fantastic writers work your asses off to post some truly incredible stories. Our Angel Fish Awards are the way for all of us, as a community of writers and readers, to lift each other up and give praise to those who have captured our attention and deserve a few kind words.

The monthly Angel Fish Awards are peer-nominated, meaning ANYONE IN THE POND CAN NOMINATE ANY POND MEMBER’S FIC. While the Pond was founded to support the Guppies, everyone in this community deserves to be showered with love and feedback, and we hope that by opening this up as a Pond wide system, we’ll be able to share the love as far as it can go.

NOTE: WE’VE BEEN HAVING OCCASIONAL PROBLEMS WITH ASKS GOING MISSING. Please use the Submit button when submitting your nominations and make sure you’re signed into Tumblr or your URL won’t show. (If the form asks for your name and email address, then you’re not signed in.) If you like, you can also send a message to Michelle @mrswhozeewhatsis or Mana @manawhaat to check and make sure we got your submission.

Be sure to read through this whole post as people who were nominated more than once only had one tag activated for tumblr tagging purposes!

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE ARE MAY’S ANGEL FISH AWARDS!

Nominated by @focusonspn

A Night on the Town (oneshot) by @supernatural-jackles

I completely love this fic!! Jensen is a total sweetheart, it’s really easy to read and all those words felt like only five minutes. This is everything a Jensen!girl could’ve asked for!!

Hunger (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

HOLY. MOTHER. OF. HOTNESS. It was a fucking pleasure for my eyes to read every single word of this fic!! hot as hell, dark, Demon!Dean and in character as always.

Nominated by @mrswhozeewhatsis 

Handkerchief (oneshot) by @babypieandwhiskey

I don’t usually read RPF, but this is an AU, so I dove in. Mechanic!Jensen with a magical supply of handkerchiefs, ready and willing to clean up whatever mess I find myself in? SOLD. Sweet, appeals to my love of Jensen’s back-pocket bandannas, and it activates my competence kink! Excuse me while I go wibble in the corner.

Nominated by @supernatural-jackles

Still The One (oneshot) by @luci-in-trenchcoats

I have a lot of respect for the way Michelle writes such difficult topics. She approaches them with such grace and accuracy, that makes it all the more realistic. This series is no exception. I deeply enjoy this series and the way things are playing out between Dean and the reader. It’s an extremely heartbreaking story that most of us don’t really think about until it’s put into this kind of perspective. This one is still ongoing, and I’m extremely excited to see how she handles the rest of the story. I highly recommend checking this one out. Just heed the warnings beforehand.

Nominated by @peridottea91

Healthy Competition (Series) by @kittenofdoomage

This! Omg this series! I love it so much!! It’s slower moving but keeps you itching for the next chapter and is oh so relatable. What woman hasn’t had body image issues? And what plus sized woman hasn’t had to deal with rude jerks and bullying? This fic is actually super realistic and hits all those relatable issues. Can’t wait to read the rest!!

Dangerous Signs (Series) by @kittenofdoomage

Ok, let me start by saying that I am a sucker for a good “character transported to alt. universe/world” fic. That said, I got soooooooooo addicted to this fic! It was so well written and you could just feel the reader’s hesitation and torn emotions. Should she stay? Should go? Ugh! Fantastic!! Also, kudos for the Norse mythology!! *chef’s kiss*

Nominated by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters

Cotton Candy (oneshot) by @ellewritesfix05

“It was always nice knowing [...] you could always find ways to bring light into Dean’s life.”

And he damn well deserves it! This was so sweet. No one can resist that “I didn’t do it” smile of his ;)

The Oath (Series) by @thecleverdame 

This series is definitely dark, but it’s so so good. If you’re okay with reading about the heavy subjects covered in these chapters, you won’t regret giving this series a try. I can’t seem to stop diving into all of this author’s content. She’s just too good.

Choices (CYOE) by @talesmaniac89 

I’ve been excited about this impressive project since I first saw the announcement post. Though I’m ashamed to say I haven’t gotten into reading the full thing yet, I plan on making time for reading ALL the different endings. I’m excited to see the different ways in which the story plays out, depending on the brothers’ personalities. For now, I’m recommending this first chapter, the starting point, which was already a beauty of its own. If you haven’t started yet yourself, prepare to be amazed.

Not Safe (Oneshot) by @torn-and-frayed

I love this. Spicy but sweet… Is that a cringy enough way for me to try and put my thoughts into words? I also just really miss Bobby, man.

nominated by @impala-dreamer

Safe Here (series) by @because-imma-lady-assface

This is one of the greatest Dean series. Ashley writes Dean amazingly well, too well sometimes, and this series gives him exactly what he needs; a place to feel safe and find comfort. I love this one so much!

Losing You (series) by @idreamofhazel

This is a superbly done Sam series that has stuck with me for a long time. I literally can’t go into Bed, Bath & Beyond without thinking about the ending <3

nominated by @kittenofdoomage

Blind Luck (oneshot) by @crispychrissy

A great Sam x reader that hits the holy trifecta of smut, fluff, and angst.

 Blood And Water (series) by @crashdevlin

Pretty sure I’ve recc’d this before but it’s such a good series, so twisted and angsty, my dark little heart loves it. Heed the warnings!

Just Sam (oneshot) by @dontshootmespence

This might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for me, it’s perfection, because I am a kinky bitch and any other kinky bitches out there would definitely enjoy this XD

nominated by @deanwanddamons

Private Party With A Rockstar (oneshot) by @mummybear

@mummybear Has been working her butt off this month for her RolePlay May. She wrote this story for me and put me in it (my name is Sian). Rockstar!Jensen is one of my weakness’s, and she knows that, and clearly knows me very well too, as included everything I like 😉

She’s Not You by @winchest09

@winchest09 is one of my fave authors. This is a super cute, super fluffy fic which really cheered me up.

Dangerous Signs (Series) by @kittenofdoomage

I LOVED this series. it was so good and lots of fun with some very sexy going’s on. Rhi’s work is just fantastic 💕

Wedding Bells (oneshot) by @katehuntington

This one shot is super cute and fluffy! I love her writing so much and this is not exception 💕 

Not Much Left (oneshot) by @impala-dreamer

Demon!Dean is another of my weakness’s and fic really hit the spot 🥵🔥

Dear Dean (series) by @smol-and-grumpy

This series made me laugh, made me cry, made me horny and made me gasp. One of the best series I have read 💕

nominated by @emilyshurley

Jensen’s Self Care Routine (oneshot) - @luci-in-trenchcoats

It is just adorable. People taking care of themselves for their loved ones. You can’t get more fluffy.

The Proposal (series) - @katymacsupernatural (Ongoing)

If you love fake dating fics, you’ll definitely love this one. Really like the character of “the reader”.

Private Party with a Rockstar (oneshot) - @mummybear

This one is both hot and adorable at the same time

You shook me (oneshot) @myinconnelly1

It’s Myin writing Demon!Dean what more do you want? No seriously that’s the perfect combination

Dancing the Spiral (oneshot) by @myinconnelly1

One of the only times I genuinely felt like a fic was creepy in a good way. And the passing of the whole thing is great. Am I little biased because its Myin, yes but that doesn’t make the fic any less good. sure it’s on the longer side but definitely worth it.

The only exception (series) - @ne-gans and @negans-lucille-tblr

I have only read the first part so far but I had to mention it. It is a serial killer AU so read the trigger warnings just in case.

Make it Big (series)- @negans-lucille-tblr

Again I’m still catching up It’s one of those fics I thought I won’t like reading but was really glad that I started.

Cast no Shadow (series) @kittenofdoomage

It’s Rhi, I can fangirl a lot about her fics. Really enjoyed (?) (that might not be the right word) the whole fitting a new relationship in existing ones. Felt to real in a weird way. It might seem like I don’t like the fic because of how I’m wording this but that’s really not the case.

Nominated by @deanwinchesterswitch

Sunshine (oneshot) by @talesmaniac89

If you like angst, this is the fic for you. It is utterly captivating and heart wrenching. It’s a cut your heart out with a dull centuries-old wooden spoon style hurt. The use of the song lines in this fic is well thought out and poetic. Make sure to have a box of tissues handy. If you don’t at least tear up while reading this, then you don’t have a heart to cut out, and your soul is already in hell.

Choices (CYOE) by @talesmaniac89

A clever interactive series where you get to choose your favorite Winchester, and the ending of the story. This is so detailed and intriguing. I loved the story I ended up with the first time, and excitedly went back in to pick the other options. Each story was unique and well written. 

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You (oneshot) by @waywardbaby

This one shot is an absolutely stunning piece of smut. The lack of dialogue makes it that much better. All you’re left with is the option to feel the detailed emotions—sexual tension to the max.

No Words (oneshot) by @because-imma-lady-assface​

Beautiful, detailed, and heartbreaking. Dean’s pain and need for comfort are palpable, and I cried while reading it. I can’t find the proper words to describe how this fic made me feel, but man did it ever make me feel.

Sky Full of Stars (oneshot) by @smol-and-grumpy​​

This is the sequel to Something Just Like This and is just as exciting as the first series. A roller coaster of suspense. The characters continue on their journey of love, dealing with the good and bad that comes with every relationship—the perfect combination of angst and fluff with a healthy dose of smut.

Something Just Like This (oneshot) by @smol-and-grumpy

A perfect combination of big badass Dean and soft, fluffy Dean, along with all the incredible smut your little heart could desire. I usually don’t like to read a series until it is complete, because I am impatient and don’t want to wait for the next chapter to post. However, this story was intriguing and sexy, and I couldn’t keep from reading each chapter as soon as it posted and then eagerly anticipating the next.

Nominated by anon

Request 42 (oneshot) by @thegirlwhorunswithwinchesters

This was super-duper cute!! I love frustrated soon to be parents especially when one of those parents is Dean! Great work, well worth the read!

Just A Daydream (onesho) by @maddiepants

This fic is refreshing with its canon-ness! I love Sam's little dream, and you get so wrapped up in it, you forget. Absolutely masterful and HOT AS HELL! Also, Tall People, WTF? 

Thank you all for the awesome work and great feedback!

These are not actual awards! This system is set up so everyone in the pond has a chance to share the love and promote a fic/author that has grabbed your attention. The more people that participate, and the more everyone remembers to submit their own fics after posting, the better this will be :D

THANK YOU ALL AGAIN, KEEP UP THE AMAZING WORK, AND AS ALWAYS, HAPPY WRITING!

[staytheb]

Moonlight Melody - chapter 4

Word Count: 5,557 previous chapter, next chapter

Moonlight Melody masterlist.

semi-proofread. anyways, the fourth chapter allows Joohyun to begin her revenge of sorts and meets her new boss, Jinyoung. happy reading and kthxbai, Admin Lia~

The next day Joohyun awoke feeling refreshed, energized, and strangely anew. She felt like she had slept the most peaceful of sleeps she had ever had in a long time. It was if the Joohyun she once knew had been re-awakened to what the world and whatever it had in store for her. There was a spring to her step as she got ready this morning and was even humming a soothing tune. When Joohyun entered the kitchen she was surprised by the meal that her mother had prepared which were all of her favorites.

"Ma, what's the special occasion? Why did you make my favorite foods?"

Joohyun commented with a laugh as she sat down with her mother placing a small bowl of rice porridge in front of her.

"And aren't you in an energized mood today? What gives?"

"Today is the day you start your new job, dear. It's to celebrate the start of a new journey for you."

Jiwoo stated with a smile as she too had a spring in her step before sitting across from her daughter. Joohyun was at first puzzled as she ate a spoonful of the rice porridge. The confusion disappeared once she savored the taste of the hot soup before reminding her mother that she didn't have a new job.

"What new job, Ma? I still work at the bank. I've been there for the last seven years if you don't recall."

"Oh, silly girl, not anymore. Don't you remember?"

"Remember what, Ma?"

"Honey, you quit that job a week ago and a new one right away."

Jiwoo stood to fetch something from out of one of the kitchen's drawers, came back with a letter and some other kind of paper in hand, and placed them on the table for her daughter to read it herself.

"I don't know how you forgot about that when you were excited when these came in."

Her mother went back to eating as Joohyun stopped eating while reaching out to read the letter and the other contents that came with it. She scanned the slightly familiar name of the company and that today was indeed the first day she would be starting. She grew confused as she clearly remembered that just yesterday she was still working for a bank. Her brows furrowed as she recalled Ukulele's words about the tiny wishes that came with the gemstones. Next the image of the unknown man from yesterday also flashed across her mind along with how she pulled the string of the doll last night. Her mother looked at her in concern.

"Joohyun, are you okay?"

"Yeah, Ma, I'm fine."

She answered with a smile to show her mom that she was fine. She glanced down at the paper again with a quirked brow.

"How do I even pronounce this? Mole-Deer? Maul-Dur?"

~~~~~~~~~

Joohyun realized that her new job was the same company as her ex-boyfriend when she stood in front  the familiar building. She didn't understand how she couldn't have connected it, but she remembered that she never really paid any attention to the name or the company itself. Joohyun was more concerned with Bogum to have paid any attention to other things. The last time she was here was when she came to speak with her ex-boyfriend, but ended up doing a product photoshoot instead. Anyways, Joohyun exhaled as she gave herself a once over at her casual outfit consisting of white Adidas shoes, black skinny jeans, a thin black and white striped shirt, and a light blue jean jacket over it.

"I'm so under-dressed for a classy place like this."

She shook the thought away as she psyched herself up. She was already here and would have to deal with the outfit and her ex-boyfriend later. For now she needed to report to her attendance and not make a bad first impression. Before Joohyun could actually walk inside she noticed a car pulling up as Bogum got out of the car and almost walked right by his ex-girlfriend when he actually turned to glance her way and stopped in his tracks. He lowered his sunglasses to make sure what he was seeing was for sure before making his way towards the female while taking off his shades.

"Are you going to cause a scene here, too?"

Bogum accused as Joohyun frown.

"Why would I do that?"

"Never mind. Why are you actually here?"

"I work here now."

Bogum laughed before commenting.

"You really are trying aren't you? Wow, that's a good one."

"I'm not."

She slightly huffed.

"Today's really my first day here."

Joohyun held up her work badge for Bogum to see, but he barely glanced at it.

"Yeah, right. I'm sure it's a fake. I can't believe this is happening. I knew I shouldn't have dated you."

He signed while pinching the bridge of his nose. Joohyun's facial expression immediately dimmed upon hearing those words.

"Look, just go away." 

Bogum did a shooing motion.

"I don't need any trouble here. President Kim is going to be arriving soon and I don't want the likes of you around when he shows up."

"The likes of me?" She asked in shock before shaking her head.

"People like me are the ones that make this world function for the people who are like you."

"What? Say that again."

"I said what I said."

Bogum scowled.

"You need to leave now or I'll call the police."

Joohyun's eyes widened and before she could counter she was interrupted by another person.

"Mr. Park."

Bogum turned his attention to the person and realized that it was his boss, Kim Jaejoong.

"Ah, President Kim. I apologized for not coming sooner. I had an alt-"

Jaejoong held up a hand for him to ceased speaking while turning his attention onto Joohyun.

"And you are?".

"Bae Joohyun, sir. I'm a new hire and I start today, sir."

Joohyun shot him a pleasant smile and hoped that she wouldn't be fired already while holding her badge in front of her like a shield.

"Ah, Ms. Bae. Lovely. Glad to have you a part of the MOLDIR team. I'm Kim Jaejoong."

"Really? I mean. Thank you so much, President Kim. Bogum here thought it was a fake."

Jaejoong turned his attention onto a nervous Bogum.

"Why would you ever think that? Those that are hire for MOLDIR always go through a very thorough screening test."

Joohyun finally learned how MOLDIR was pronounced and repeated it in her head slowly. Mall-Deer. While she was doing that Bogum was stumbling over his own words of how to tell Jaejoong that it wasn't like that.

"Enough."

Jaejoong let out in a cold voice as he pinched the bridge of his nose before focusing his eyes on Joohyun.

"Please report to Wendy at the front desk. She'll notify a Park Jinyoung of your arrival. You'll be working under him."

"Yes, sir!" Joohyun complied with a small salute.

She dropped her hand a second later. Jaejoong chuckled before glancing over at Bogum.

"Let's get going, Mr. Park. We're running behind schedule."

"Ah, yes, sir."

Bogum stumbled ahead towards the car he drove up in as he opened the door for Jaejoong to enter before getting behind the wheel and driving off. Joohyun smiled as a warm-fuzzy feeling settled in her chest. It made the revenge just a little sweeter knowing that her ex-boyfriend was just scolded just now by his own boss. She faced the building and headed inside wondering how the rest of her day was going to go. She freaked a little when she found out that the person named Jinyoung Park was the handsome man she had seen driving in the car yesterday. Luckily, she didn't have to spend her first day with him. She was required to learn the policy, the product line, and other aspects of the company first. It was a very long day, but not as stressful as working for a bank.

~~~~~~~~~

Over the course of two weeks Joohyun worked diligently under Jinyoung's supervision. He was patient and led her well in understanding how everything worked at MOLDIR. Of course when he wasn't around and attending to other work, Bogum found time to bother her. He blamed her for Jaejoong's indirectly demoting him to errand boy. Bogum made it his business to annoy Joohyun so that she would quit. Joohyun didn't give in and wasn't going to let him walk all over her like he did once before. Now that she's been with the company for less than a month now, Joohyun was checking the products currently in stock to log for MOLDIR SHOWROOM's shop hours that was happening in less than three weeks when she felt someone gripped her elbow harshly and pulled her around. She came face to face with a panicked looking Bogum.

"Are you seriously asking for trouble?" Bogum asked her as Joohyun cast him a confused look.

"I don't know what you mean, Bogum."

"There are two police officers that want to speak to you."

"Why?"

"That's what I would like to know."

He let out a harsh breath.

"In all the years I've worked here, there has been no police force involvement in this environment until now."

"Okay, but what makes you think I did something?"

"Because they want to talk with you. Are you dumb or what?"

"I'm not dumb."

"Right."

Joohyun shook his grip off of her.

"Look, Bogum," She started as she took a few steps back away from him, "You're the one that ended things between us and I'm just minding my own bus-"

She was interrupted when Bogum noticed the sweatshirt she was wearing.

"Is that last year's Fall Jeco Animation sweatshirt that you're wearing?"

Joohyun paused in mid-sentence while glancing down at her pink sweatshirt.

"I guess so."

"What do you mean you guess so? How did you even get it? Those are limited items."

"I received it as a gift and was not aware that it was a limited item."

"From who because clearly I didn't gift it to you."

Joohyun frowned at her ex-boyfriend's behavior. Sure his words hurt, but she couldn't help but realized that Bogum was clearly not the perfect boyfriend she had believed him to be. She wondered what she had ever seen in him.

"Clearly it wasn't you, but someone else. Also, I don't have to discuss my private life with you."

The sweatshirt was a gift from Tiffany and as an incentive for her to join in as a side model if needed or wanted to make some extra cash. Joohyun had received three other sweatshirts along with the Jeco Animation, but she didn't really think much of it at the time. Still, she happened to wear the sweatshirt despite her usual wear for today.

"Look, Bogum," Joohyun said his name with a slight sigh to keep herself calm, "I'm just here to do my job. So Mr. Park, per President Kim, expects me to input all of the information by the end of the day to see if more products need to be order or assigned for the showroom next month and I won't let you interfer with that."

Bogum gritted his teeth while trying to keep calm as well, but knew that what Jaejoong  wanted is what he'll received. Despite his reluctance to work with his ex-girlfriend who seemed to be getting the better end of the stick.

"Fine, but make it quick. They're in Room B and don't do anything that'll tarnish the brand. Understand?"

~~~~~~~~~

Joohyun stayed silent after politely greeting the two police officers and unaware that Jinyoung would be sitting in on the questioning due to the fact that he had quite a few meetings to attend today. She felt slightly intimidated about what they wanted to talk about, but oddly with her lead supervisor's present she was feeling weirdly calm.

"Good morning, Ms. Bae. I'm Special Agent Yang Hongseok," The male policeman introduced him while motioning at the woman beside him, "And this is my partner, Special Agent Lee Siyeon. We're both with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Department."

Joohyun nodded in acknowledgement.

"Thank you for taking your time out of your work to speak with us." Hongseok said in a calm tone.

"We'll make this as quick as possible for you to go back to what you need to do."

Joohyun just nodded in response once again.

"Alright, we just wanted to ask you a few questions about your old colleague, Jung Eunji. What could you tell us about Mrs. Jung?"

Joohyun frowned upon hearing the familiar name. She hadn't heard Eunji's name used since her death a few weeks ago and her ex-colleagues just went on like she had never existed when the funeral happened. Of course Joohyun didn't keep in touch with her family as she didn't want to disturb them in their time of mourning and simply went on with her own life. Joohyun wasn't sure what she wanted to say about her colleague as they were only friends at work and never hung outside of it. Still, nothing but fond memories invaded her mind and she spoke of those.

"Eunji was such a mom and even treated me like I was one of her children."

Siyeon and Hongseok picked up on the way that Joohyun spoke of Eunji with a fond tone.

"I remember this one time I got a paper-cut and the bank just ran out of band-aids and she gave me one that had a Pikachu on it since her kids liked it. It was quite cute and it made me feel better."

Joohyun recalled more things about Eunji from making a character lunch box for her one day or sewing a costume for her kids' school play to deciding what she wanted to get her husband for his birthday until Joohyun realized that she was kind of babbling.

"Ah, sorry."

Unconsciously she glanced at Jinyoung and he cast her a small smile which calmed her before facing the two police officers again.

"Why the sudden interest in Eunji?"

Siyeon open her mouth to respond, but closed it to let Hongseok handle it instead.

"Well, there's been a new discovery in the case and we're just re-touching bases." Hongseok replied.

"We wanted to know how Mrs. Jung was like before and after her hospitalization."

"I see. Well, Eunji was happy working at the bank and speaking with the clients, but because of her illness no one knew when she would return to work, and then she suddenly passed. I do remember during her stay at the hospital that she wasn't able to do a lot of things except pass the days calmly."

"Honestly, Ms. Bae, we're a little more interested if you could you tell us anything about if Mrs. Jung was unhappy or unsatisfied with her stay at the hospital or with the hospital staff, per se?" Siyeon asked wanting to get to the point of the conversation.

"Anything that you can recall?"

Joohyun tilted her head pondering if anything like that happened with Eunji.

"Not really. Eunji was always sweet and spoke ill of no one." She answered before recalling something.

"But I do remember there were times she told me that she felt out of it and just wanted to go home. She did keep this little ranger figurine with her as her kids gave it to her as a sort of good luck charm to ward off the bad guys. Bunhong and Woonggom were very well behave, sweet and calm throughout the whole thing despite not understanding what was going on with their mother."

Siyeon asked another question as Hongseok side-eyed his partner quietly.

"What did you think of Dr. Kim Sungkyu?"

"Dr. Kim?"

Joohyun said the name before remembering the doctor.

"He seemed quite professional and well kept. I don't remember much as I hardly saw him whenever I visited Eunji."

"I see."

"Do you by chance know a person name Hyun Seunghee?"

"I don't recall the name. No, I do not."

"I see."

Joohyun thought that was it until Siyeon brought up her old job.

"Why did you leave your previous job for this one?"

"Siyeon."

Hongseok firmly whispered her name, but Siyeon didn't care. The female officer just stared at Joohyun waiting for an answer. Joohyun wasn't sure how to respond as she couldn't just blurt out the truth. She glanced at Jinyoung once again as he cast her another small smile. Joohyun faced the two special agents and went with a partial lie that fitted with her situation.

"It was just a change of pace. Since my mother's getting older and hospital visits aren't cheap and MOLDIR was the best route."

"I see. Well, thank you so much for your cooperation, Ms. Bae, and for giving us your time to further investigate Mrs. Jung's case."

Siyeon thanked her while standing up. The others follow suit.

"Yes, thank you, Ms. Bae for your time." 

Hongseok also thanked her.

"Ah, you're very welcome and I hope I was helpful." Joohyun replied with a polite smile.

"You were." 

Siyeon assured with a curt smile. Soon enough the two officers thanked Jinyoung for his time and Joohyun completely forgot that he was here as well. Anyways, Jinyoung and Joohyun led the two police officers back down to the lobby to see them on out. After that did Jinyoung asked her about the situation and she vaguely explained which was good enough for him as he dismissed her to return to her work and that he would check up on her some time later. Joohyun returned to cataloguing the merchandises and didn't realize that Bogum was no where in sight.

~~~~~~~~~

Joohyun returned home, had dinner with her mother, did her nightly routine, and spent a few minutes on her balcony. Joohyun heard a faint melody playing in the distance as she looked around her. Nothing was out of the norm until she gazed up at the moon and just for a quick second she thought she saw a jade-colored rabbit hopping around while playing a flute-like instrument. She blinked a few times and focused her attention onto the moon again, but there no music playing rabbit hopping about. She sighed while rubbing her face. She asked what was going on with her and if her mind was messing with her.

Joohyun returned inside and settled into bed with another deep sigh. She stared up at the ceiling thinking it would ease her mind, but it didn't. The light traffic outside in the distance soon calmed her nerves as she slowly breathed in and out. She wasn't sure if this is what she should be feeling or if it was still so surreal for her to comprehend. It was as if she was questioning if she had made the right choice to believe in the grim reaper or as if she would wake up any time soon and go back to the reality that this was all made up. Joohyun sighed again as she closed her eyes. She opened them again when she heard Grim Reaper Jessica's voice.

"Good evening."

Joohyun slowly sat up in bed as she noticed that the grim reaper was in the same position as when they had first met.

"Hello." She greeted back.

The grim reaper shot her a small smile.

"How's it going?"

Joohyun smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes when she replied.

"It's going very well."

Soon enough Eclare and Blanc appeared with Blanc lying on his belly upon Joohyun's bed while resting his chin on his paws.

"Tell me everything." The while feline purred.

"I wanna know all the juicy details."

"Are the hellhounds going to be joining us?" Joohyun answered causing Blanc to make a face.

"They're busy. Aren't I enough?"

"I'm not a cat person. I prefer dogs."

"Wow."

Blanc blew a raspberry before disappearing in a puff of a white smoke.

"Don't mind him." Grim Reaper Jessica explained before Joohyun could apologize.

The grim reaper let out a laugh as she petted the black feline in her arms.

"He's just moody because Eclare beat him in a game of checkers earlier."

"Yeah. I got a King Me this many!" 

Blanc announced while holding up his paws to show Joohyun as she giggled at how cute he was and the black cat giggled along with her.

"Anyways," Grim Reaper Jessica interjected, "Is there something you wanted?"

"Huh?"

Joohyun tilted her head in confusion. Grim Reaper Jessica decided to explain it to her.

"You were unconsciously thinking of things that led you to unconsciously call out to me telepathically."

"Did I?"

"Yeah." Eclare answered instead with a nod.

"We get these invisible sound waves when those who want to seek out the other side and we come on over."

"Well," Joohyun spoke slowly," It's more like an answer."

"Then what is your question?"

"Is it normal to feel like this after the revenge is going so well?"

"Depends. What are you feeling?"

Joohyun thought about it before answering.

"Honestly, I'm happy that it's going well, but I feel like it's missing something. Like, I'm not sure, but there’s a void of some sort."

She looked at the grim reaper before continuing.

"I, well, I'm not sure how to explain, but I feel like I'm still incomplete."

"Oh, do you need a massage?" Elcare asked with a smile as he fluttered on over to Joohyun.

"Or maybe you want a slice of strawberry cake? I'm going to get you a slice an-"

The grim reaper whooshed the black feline away and he disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

"Sorry about him. He just loves anything strawberry related."

Grim Reaper Jessica apologized as she now sat cross-legged in mid-air while a black file appeared out of thin air and she read its contents.

"You got a new job that pays well to care for your mother without stressing like before. You have also become a stronger person than before as well. Even your new big boss picks on your ex-boyfriend."

The grim reaper looked over at her charge expectantly.

"What makes you feel incomplete, Bae Joohyun?"

Joohyun couldn't formulate an answer as she herself couldn't figured out the reason why she felt incomplete and simply shrugged.

"Hmm, let me ask you a few things then."

The grim reaper closed the file to which she had opened before it disappeared soon afterwards.

"Why did you date Park Bogum, even though you yourself believed that you were too average for him?"

"Because he made me feel special about myself from the first time we met and had first interacted." Joohyun answered without hesitation before an afterthought came out.

"Or so I had thought I was."

"When did the feeling begin to fade as you continue to lie to yourself that you were still special to him over the course of your relationship?"

Joohyun opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Her expression became thoughtful and curious as she tried to remember when she had felt out of place with her relationship with Bogum. She honestly couldn't remember when she had first started to feel like that. It may have started several months after their relationship, but she wasn't sure.

"Have I really been that blind when I was with him?" Joohyun asked, but it was more to herself than to the grim reaper.

"Did I really disregard the situation so that I wouldn't feel lonely not having someone by my side or that I was just a safety net for him?"

Joohyun looked up at Grim Reaper Jessica.

"Did I get attached just so I can be attached?"

"Only you can answer those questions yourself." Grim Reaper Jessica told her with a calm tone.

"I'm just here to aid you as best as I can."

"I'm sure that you can aid in an answer or two, right? It's basically the same thing as I'm sure it is."

Joohyun reasoned as the grim reaper smiled at the woman's attempt to receive an actual response to her questions.

"You're weird, but no, I can't."

Joohyun sighed while lying back onto her bed.

"I've always been weird."

"And there's nothing wrong with that either."

The grim reaper floated down to stand on her own feet while walking to the side of Joohyun's bed instead of being at the end of it so that she could be in her charge's line of sight as the woman had turned her head off to the side.

"If you listen well, then there is something that I can do to help you find your answers quicker though."

Grim Reaper Jessica told her as she snapped her right fingers together and suddenly Flesh appeared at her feet. Joohyun's eyes sparkled upon seeing the hellhound with red eyes appear. She instantly sat up and beckoned for the canine to come to her to which Flesh immediately leapt on to the bed and snuggled himself against her.

"That is, if you're interested."

Grim Reaper Jessica casually spoke which Joohyun's attention went back to the grim reaper.

"Yes, I am." Joohyunn answered quickly.

"You have a free day tomorrow, right?" The grim reaper asked to confirm.

"I do."

Joohyun answered despite a majority of her attention was on the canine.

"Take care of Flesh for the time being and go out for a walk at the Golden Star Park tomorrow." Grim Reaper Jessica instructed as a dark red leash suddenly appeared beside Joohyun.

"Flesh will know when to let you know when he wants a walk and after that he'll take care of the rest."

"But what if my mom notices him?"

Joohyun's question wasn't answered as she turned her attention onto the grim reaper, but Grim Reaper Jessica had disappeared leaving her alone with the red-eyed mutt.

"Don't worry, Ms. Watermelon. Your mom won't noticed I'm here unless I reveal myself to her."

Flesh assured her as Joohyun glanced at him with an unsure look not minding the familiar nickname she was called by the felines a week ago.

"But how does taking you for a walk tomorrow going to answer my questions?"

Flesh snuggled closer to her without answering. Joohyun sighed as she continued to pet the canine while settling back into bed herself.

~~~~~~~~~

Joohyun wore black on white Adidas shoes with white skinny jeans along with a white long sleeve loose top with a thin black and white plaid cardigan over it. Her hair was in a long ponytail as she wasn't sure how hot it would be outside as well as if it would ran unexpectedly either due to it being monsoon seas. With one hand she held a small umbrella while the other hand she held onto the end of the dark red leash as Flesh led her along one of Golden Star Park's path ways like any normal canine would. The pup was happily trotting along on its little legs to which Joohyun couldn't help but smiled. Her mother hadn't noticed the canine's presence despite Flesh scurrying around all over the place.

Of course Joohyun really wanted to questioned what was the plan for today as she had no clue except to give the hellhound a doggie walk like any kind of dog would happily love to engage in. Still though, she didn't want to appear like more of a weirdo with her talking to Flesh as if he could respond back if one of the pedestrians happened to overhear her. So Joohyun just enjoyed the casual walk underneath the partially cloudy blue-gray sky until she felt the leash yanked hard in her grip and Flesh dashed off all of a sudden.

"Flesh?!" Joohyun called out to the hellhound while being pulled by the mutt.

This was totally not what she had expected when the grim reaper told her to take the red-eyed hellhound out for a walk. She was even more puzzled with the fact that the canine led her to recognized her lead supervisor and one of her female colleagues, Jisoo, standing underneath a pine tree. She heard Flesh growling at the young woman who seemed shaken up by its presence. Joohyun wasn't sure what was going on, but felt an unsettling feeling once Jisoo slightly turned and she noticed something shiny to the side of her colleague's waist.

"Call off your dog, Joohyun." Jisoo ordered.

Joohyun's mind blanked out as she had no idea what was going on.

"I said call off your dog right now. Do you hear me, Bae Joohyun? Call off your damn dog."

Jisoo repeated as she motioned with her hand that held something which Joohyun realized was a pocket knife.

"Call off your damn dog and no one gets hurt!"

"Ms. Kim, please calm down. No one has to get hurt."

Jinyoung spoke in a calm tone to de-escalate the situation.

"Put down the knife and we can talk it over. Please."

Jisoo pointed the knife at him again.

"Yeah, right. Why do you think I want to hurt you? I'm just letting you know how I feel about, Park Jinyoung."

Jisoo faced Joohyun once more, but still held the knife at Jinyoung.

"Call off your mutt, Bae Joohyun."

Joohyun opened her mouth, but no sound came. She instead try to click her tongue for Flesh to back off and come to her side, but the dog continued to growl at the young woman. Jinyoung cast a gaze towards Joohyun just as Jisoo barked at him to focus on her to which he did.

"Jisoo, let's calmly talk about this."

"I am calm, but you won't look or speak to me at work. You even threw away my love letter for you."

"I apologize. That was careless of me. But, please, put down the knife."

Make an anonymous call to the police about a fire in the park.

Joohyun heard Flesh's voice inside her mind as her eye widened.

A Fire?

She questioned in her own mind.

You'll learn later, but just do it without letting them know. Hurry!

Joohyun immediately did as Flesh informed her to do without catching the attention of the other two. Then Joohyun watched Flesh run at the pair just as Jisoo who in turn panicked and stabbed Jinyoung's stomach. She immediately let go of the knife in fear of what she had just done just as Flesh tackled her along with the injured Jinyoung to the ground knocking both of them out. Joohyun gasped at the scene before her. She didn't think that this was what the grim reaper had in mind when she meant that Flesh would take care of the rest if she brought him to the park. Luckily there weren't other people in their area of the park.

"What should I do? Call the police? Wait. I just did that. Then an ambulance? Oh my gosh."

Calm down. They're fine. The police is enough.

Came Flesh's voice inside her mind again. Flesh sniffed the two bodies before trotting over to Joohyun.

"Bite into a ruby gem until it dissolves into liquid form combined with your saliva."

She suddenly heard Flesh's voice ordered her snapping her out of her panicked state.

"First used a tiny bit to smear across the female's forehead, and then spit the rest onto the male's injuries."

Joohyun was about to do that, but shot Flesh a disgusted look.

"You want me to do what?"

"Eat the gem, smear some on the female's forehead, and then spit the rest on the male's stomach."

"No that's gross. What happens if-"

"Just do it."

Flesh ordered and something within Joohyun complied. She reached for one of the rubies, popped it into her mouth, waited until it liquefied, and then did what Flesh had instructed her to do. She brought her thumb to her lips and spread some juice onto it to smeared on Jisoo's forehead afterwards. Then with the rest of it she spit onto the stab wound with the knife still intact on her lead supervisor. Soon enough the knife melted away as the wound healed. There was no trace of the injury or that Joohyun had spit on Jinyoung. She glanced at Jisoo's forehead and saw that the residue wasn't there either. Joohyun glanced behind her over at Flesh who sat patiently.

"Now what?"

"Use another gem stone like a lipstick and kiss the male."

Flesh ordered nonchalantly as Joohyun looked taken aback.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just kidding."

Flesh laughed just as the sounds of sirens could be heard in the distance. The mixed breed dog quickly ran off to a different pine tree away from the unconsious pair while Joohyun witnessed fire coming out of the canine's mouth spreading onto the pine tree.

"This is what you meant by the fire, Flesh?"

"Yeah. Now c'mon. Let's go!"

"But how does this answer anything?"

"You'll find out later."

"Bu-"

"Trust me, Ms. Watermelon. C'mon, let's get a move on before we're discovered and those two wake up."

Flesh picked up his own leash and handed it to Joohyun before pulling her along. He assured her as they headed on back home. Still, Joohyun wonder if what transpired just now was a good thing or a bad thing. She sighed. She just had to trust in the grim reaper and the red-eyed mutt.

[aelaer]

Whumptober 27: Alt #15 - Field Medicine

Finally filling my Wong space for the @stephenstrangebingo​ (oh hey third bingo). I've not really written from Wong's POV before, either, so this'll be fun. Card at the end.

I sort of have 2000 words of build-up before I actually get to the Whumptober prompt itself, but it is present! I just uh, well, I guess it wanted story first. So that comes first.

Warnings: Uh, by the time we get to the prompt, lots of blood and a mix of magical and mundane healing/emergency field medicine. I don't think it's graphic, but… tell me if it seems on the more graphic side? I'm a horrible judge at such things when it comes to my writing. Oh, also, big alien scarab bugs. Lots of bugs.

27. Alt #15: Field Medicine / Wong

Ever since The Situation With Thanos, Stephen Strange was on retainer with the Avengers to consult on more mystical artifacts and, on rare occasion, to help out with threats. When these threats came, the Master of the New York Sanctum was called in as last-minute backup, wherever they were in the world. His ability to be anywhere in an instant made him perfect for the job.

Wong warned him about getting too embroiled in these mundane affairs. Unfortunately, Stephen had a very stubborn streak of "if I do nothing and people die, that's my fault" embedded within him that the head librarian wasn't able to quash.

When the agreement was first made, not long after the Decimated came back into being, Wong was honestly worried that they would use him as an easy solution for every terrorist group, every new so-called supervillain, and cleanup projects that would eat up all of Stephen's time. And Stephen, guilt-ridden for every life he wasn't able to save, would have done every single one without complaint.

Thankfully the Avengers weren't being complete idiots and calling him in for every so-called emergency. Since the agreement was made, he was called for two scheduled, non-emergency consultations and only one nasty invasion of something that was alien in nature and going to quickly eat everything, living or not, in the city of Houston without immediate intervention. That was fine, and Wong began to relax at the new norm of occasionally crossing paths with these so-called superheroes.

The second time Stephen was called in for an emergency, Wong was with him. They were in the library at Kamar-Taj when, in the quiet of the room, even he could hear the buzzing from a pocket on Stephen's robes.

Stephen shot him an apologetic look and left the library to take the call. When he returned, his expression was grim. "I have to cut this short, Wong. Remember Houston?"

"How could I forget?" He wasn't there, but he saw the footage. Those alien things were… unpleasant. Seemed more inter-dimensional than alien, but they were definitely from their dimension, just very, very foreign to Earth.

"Yeah, they're back, but this time in Mérida, Mexico."

Wong raised his brows. "The Avengers want you to go to Mexico?"

"The Mexican government has already called the Avengers to Mexico, but by the time they get there from New York, Mérida will be half-gone." Stephen was carefully pecking out the name 'Mérida' on Google Image Search on his phone for a reference. "Apparently they've evacuated the area of all civilians. Also, I don't know if Mexico has any enhanced people in that area, so it might just be local law enforcement and whatever people in the army they've managed to get there. Those things are vicious, so I'm going in."

"I'll go with you." Stephen looked at him in surprise, and Wong continued, "As you said, they are vicious. And someone needs to watch your back."

"The Cloak does that," Stephen retorted, but he didn't argue otherwise and, a moment later, created a portal into the heart of Mérida.

Wong had a particular fondness for movies that explored the occult and supernatural in completely inaccurate ways. One of those films was 1999's The Mummy. While its interpretation of ancient Egyptian powers was laughably wrong (oh, if only Hollywood knew), the movie was genuinely funny and enjoyable.

He realized that, as he and Stephen stepped through the portal and he saw the two-foot-long, insectoid alien creatures for the first time in person, that they reminded him very much of the fictional variety of scarabs that featured heavily within the movie. Only instead of just flesh, these things were eating concrete, trees, and… yes, that was definitely a bicycle wheel in that one's mouth. It looked like the area had been evacuated, at least.

At the smell of their fresh blood, however, a good two dozen several yards away abandoned their lifeless meals to charge right at them.

Wong immediately threw a Flames of the Faltine at the first wave of the beasts coming at them. "Please tell me your oath doesn't cover these things," he told Stephen.

"It definitely doesn't cover these things," Stephen affirmed, bringing down the Bolts of Balthakk upon another wave of them. "They lack any sort of ability to reason, and transporting them to another dimension would simply doom that dimension."

That's what he thought. He swiveled about and quickly blew away several with the Winds of Watoomb that were getting entirely too close for comfort.

A loud scream came from a building just down the street, and Wong sighed. "I thought you said they evacuated everyone."

"Clearly not!" Stephen said, his own frustration leaking through his tone. "Can you handle this for a minute?"

Wong only replied, "Yes," and there Stephen went. A minute would definitely be doable.

Two minutes later, Stephen's astral form appeared out of the ether. Wong raised his brows at him.

"So, bad news," said Stephen. "By 'evacuated everyone', it appears they meant 'evacuated everyone that wasn't within half a mile of the hatching spot because we couldn't reach those that didn't immediately run'. They just weren't able to get to some people, and it appears most left behind have barricaded themselves indoors— though who knows how long that will last."

"Not long enough," Wong said.

Stephen nodded. "Cloak's keeping my body up in the air and I'm going to scout through the buildings and get everyone remaining out."

"What about this so-called hatching spot?" he asked as he fried another wave with the Bolts of Balthakk.

"It's like a nest of some sort," he answered. "At least, there was one in Houston. They don't know the exact location here, but it'll be in this general area. Try to see where the bugs are coming from."

"All directions, currently," he retorted, and blasted another row away with the Winds, just to give himself some breathing room (and watch a handful of them splatter against corners, which was useful). "How did you kill the nest?"

Stephen grimaced. "I didn't. There was an enhanced human in Houston who could kill things with touch. I cleared the immediate area and she just touched the inside and rotted everything within it. Useful, if not completely terrifying." He looked over his shoulder. "Gotta go, Wong. Good luck."

"Mmm," he replied in turn, and Stephen disappeared.

Right. Time to find the nest. Flying, while possible, would simply expend too much energy with using magic alone, so walking it was. He called upon the Flames of Faltine again to clear his immediate radius of about ten feet, then set a Shield of the Seraphim about himself and began to walk northward, where quite a few of the alien insectoids seemed to be coming from.

Thankfully, these aliens' ability to eat through anything physical did not extend into the mystical and the shield remained intact as he pushed the aliens bugs off his path. They began to crawl around and then over the shield, attempting to dig through with little success; when they fell off, they'd just get right in the back of the very large crowd of alien bugs following him. Whenever they crowded his view too much, he'd spin in a quick circle to shake them off, then continue walking once more.

By the time Wong found the nest about ten minutes later, he had an impressive collection of ravenous aliens all about his shield. He shook them off again, then approached the nest to get a better look.

It reminded him of a termite mound, the large, bumpy stick of rock and dirt that had burst through the ground and ripped a hole through the street. It probably went rather deep, too; a quick check for life below him confirmed that.

Right. If this was going to work, he was going to have to be creative. He walked around the perimeter of the alien nest, again felt the general distance the amount of life underground went in its depth and width, and considered what spells he might use.

Wong pressed his lips together at a thought. Yes, that might work. It would take everything out of him, but he was certain he could manage it. He looked up at the alien mound and hoisted himself up on one of its lumps; better to be on top of the source for this next feat.

Ignoring the large bugs still scrambling all about his shield and gnawing unsuccessfully at it, he started beginning the movement and internal chanting needed to invoke the Seven Suns of Cinnibus, which would blast his immediate area and "all dark places" connected to the mound's entrance with burning light, ensuring that it would go through every tunnel dug through the city. Midway, he brought in the incantations necessary for the Flames of the Faltine, weaving it within the primary spell to turn the bright light into a searing heat specifically targeting these alien bugs. A bit like blasting the area with a selective microwave, if he had to explain how he cleared out the nest to some Avenger (though honestly, he was more than happy to leave all that to Stephen).

The two spells were woven together and in one swift movement, Wong dropped the shield and slammed his palm into the ground. The searing light combined with the fire-strength heat incinerated the bugs all around him and blast through the tunnels within the earth, moving at a speed faster than rushing water.

Wong held it for about five seconds before he fell to his knees, breathing heavily.

Well, he was completely out of magic. But that should have gotten everything within a mile radius around the nest, alongside every dark crevice within the tunnel system below.

He lowered himself off the mound and grimaced. Now he needed to find Stephen, because there was no way he was going to be drawing any dimensional gateways for a good twenty-four hours. Wong rubbed at the light headache starting to form at his temples, then started walking in the direction he had come from.

About ten minutes later, somewhere near where they had portalled in and near the border of the mile radius his spell managed, Wong discovered, much to his chagrin, that two of the bugs had wandered away a little bit farther than a mile from the nest. And now they were very much interested in having him as food, and he couldn't weave so much as a shield at the moment.

Wong looked around his immediate area and saw an abandoned broom outside of a half-open shop door. He grabbed it, twisted off the broom end and chucked it at one of the approaching alien bugs, then immediately used it to fend them back, giving them sharp hits across their hard shells and swinging the stick to whack them away. He could possibly eventually kill them this way, but in all honesty, he was just biding his time until Stephen came from wherever the hell he was and took care of them in a more efficient manner so they could get back to Kamar-Taj.

Rather annoying, though. There was a reason he rarely used such spells; having nothing left in reserve was hardly an ideal situation. And if Wong was going to be completely honest with himself, the spell had drained him physically as well and he could not keep this up forever.

Unfortunately, it turned out he may have overestimated his remaining physical strength and underestimated how much the spell had drained him. Wong was able to keep them away for about two minutes before misstepping on a piece of uneven, cracked roadway. He quickly corrected himself and moved to block one of the bugs jumping at him, but he just missed and it latched onto his left arm and bit through the sleeve.

Shouting in anger and pain, Wong rushed to the nearest wall and slammed the alien bug into the concrete wall even as he used the stick to keep the other one away from him. The one on his arm finally detached after five hits as its shell cracked and its head was smashed in. Wong went to reposition himself defensively against the remaining bug, but a sudden wave of dizziness hit him and he had to lean against the wall. After whacking away the insectoid again, he spared his arm a glance.

That was a lot of blood. That was too much blood.

He hit the bug again, then grimaced and tried to use the wall behind him to apply pressure. He wasn't sure how long he could keep standing, but he knew it wasn't going to be for long, not with how his head was feeling.

Another hit, and he lowered himself to one knee. Wong could not help but be a bit annoyed; out of all the things to die from, an alien bug bite was really unexpected and unfortunate.

This was very, very unfortunate.

As the alien bug charged at him again and he prepared to whack it back once more, it suddenly burst into flames. Wong fell to his other knee even as Stephen landed just behind the burnt thing.

"Wong, where are you hurt?" Stephen asked as he knelt beside him.

"Arm," he grunted, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes. "No energy."

Stephen didn't ask any questions as he positioned himself beside his arm. The Cloak was suddenly against him, applying pressure to the bite and he felt his friend place a hand on his head and the feeling of energy course through his body. He knew this spell; he was trying to encourage the heart to slow down a little, to pump flood a little less quickly, and while he did that he was sure Stephen was looking at the damage.

"Brachial artery. No time," he said lowly, though Wong wasn't entirely sure what he meant. He then heard something plop onto the sidewalk and when he opened his eyes, he saw a medical bag, of all things.

Stephen wrenched it open and grabbed a tourniquet. "You've lost too much blood already," he said even as he wrapped it over his left arm to secure it, before he began twisting. "Mundane will work better, now."

Wong had no idea. Wong wasn't a doctor, so he was more than happy to allow the other sorcerer to take over here. But… "Where'd the bag…?" he asked, and found himself vaguely annoyed as the rest of his words slurred away. This was incredibly annoying.

"Personal pocket dimension," Stephen answered. "Less magic than a portal, which still confounds me."

"Space," he said.

"No, I know the theory and the theory makes sense, but at the same time it still doesn't make sense." He finished applying the tourniquet and pressed his lips together. "The Cloak's completely wrapped around your arm and I don't want to remove it. I'm going to levitate you into the healing wing and see you situated, then take care of anything remaining here."

Wong usually would rather not be levitated, but at the moment he was too tired to be bothered about the circumstances. He closed his eyes and felt himself being carefully lifted off the ground and positioned to recline more, and then the atmosphere completely changed to the smells and sounds that he well knew around Kamar-Taj.

Knowing he didn't need to keep his guard up any further, Wong let himself drift off.

((See, I am actually capable of beating up characters that aren’t Stephen.))

[kierongillen]

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 41

Spoilers, obv.

After last issue's formalism, this one just accelerates. And, as everything in this arc, everything is a big beat. If everything is a big beat, how do you choose what to spend your space on? What beats really matter? How do you pace it? What can be a grace note and what's a scene? That's what this issue, and the rest of the arc, tends to be about.

This issue has gone down very well. I'll admit that while I absolutely gasped when I got paged in, I suspect it's going to be least favourite of the whole arc. That more says how much I enjoy the rest of the arc. Also, as a friend put it to me, I may be allergic to making people happy.

Let’s get on with this.

Jamie and Matt's cover:

There is, to some degree, a "Who hasn't had a headshot cover?" to this arc. As such, Mimir finally gets his. This is a glorious one – the pinks and blues, work really well, and the circuitboards frame it well. Obviously, Mimir plays a big role in this issue, so it is thematic. As is…

Paulina's cover

I just love Paulina's covers, as her being the regular alt-cover artist on Thunderbolt should imply. This made me want to immediately pitch a kick-ass pop D&D bard comic to someone, Xena Warrior Princess as produced by Xenomania. The names of the swords are the chef-kiss, but there's so much to love. The expression is everything.

Page 1

One page scene, with a modified nine panel grid. The one page scene is something that happens a lot this arc. I did a two-page version, but with the right seven panels, we're sorted. Yes, this is all we see of the de facto antagonists of the series this issue – when last issue was all about them, it doesn't worry me too much.

Page 2

Standard music journalist concept. That the second album tends to be worst than the first. Hard to prove, though my old friend Peter's note that "you have your whole life preparing for your first album and have a year to do your second" does seem to imply an easy explanation.

Page 3-4-5

Stealth mission! It's Metal Gear WicDiv!

We actually forgot to add the flashes to the first panel until the very last minute. Monthly Comics is a hell of a time sometimes, stress the “hell.”

I love the determination of Laura in the second panel of 3. That's great eyes.

Looking at this now, that "I can't do much now" is in a panel smaller than 1/9th of the page says a lot about the scale she's working on. The background was Matt in full trippy mode – I had a friend note that this scene is a little akin to Kohl in Rue Britannia 5 (The difference being Kohl is using nostalgia for a performance, while Laura is just doing a performance) but the moving squiggle does remind me the use of optical illusions in Phonogram 3. Bugs in the optic nerve are our friend.

Panel 3 on 4 is obviously Clayton living large and conquering. When you ask for something like "Can you sample the background and use as a speech balloon" you have no idea if it's going to work.

We could have divided the middle panel into two, but I suspect it'd have been less effective. We've seen the trick before. Now we see the same trick, but different. Mix it up. We're performers.

Hmm. I realise the Norns string of balloons is something I'm doing more often now – it's not something I've always done. I'm normally a one-panel-one-emotion, which strings of dialogue rarely allow (as, if there’s any change of emotion inside the string, the image is rendered ludicrous). In a middle shot, and a strong emotional throughline with the dialogue and I'm more okay with it.

While this whole three pages is an action sequence, it's also exposition for Laura's current state. The best exposition is demonstration, I guess.

I mean, the last panel of page 5? That's how cut to the bone we are. Problem? Solve it. Problem? Solve it. We don't need to fuck around anymore.

Page 6-7-8

And after six whole trades, the reunion between Lucifer and Laura. I suspect a different writer would have played this bigger and more melodramatic, but when the reader knows this, a splash feels overkill, especially with the taut pacing of the rest of the issue. However... there are five panels here. That's a page's worth of content, and enough to give an emotional throughline.

Sometimes when writing it's all about trying to find an honest response which is also unexpected. Like, in life, you think you'll feel sad or happy at certain times, but when you live through it, you don't. Or you don't entirely. What other stuff is happening? That's what rings true to me.

Anyway – that's where Laura's Guilt comes from. Laura at her most Dionysus.

And then Lucifer shatters all that self pity with the wink. Did you miss me? Of course, you did.

Page 7, panel 4 is one of those "a comic panel is not a moment in time" bits of magic McLeod always talks about. As in, as we read across the panel time progresses. The Mimir/Cass conversation is getting on for... 10 seconds, maybe? The teleport signatures do not take that long to appear. It's only with Laura's interruption that panel kicks into high gear.

As Multiversity noted you can easily imagine another draft of this with a bigger fight scene. And it's true – but also lying around was a version which cuts it even shorter. Do we need to really give a whole page to Cass breaking out? I felt so. Without the big beat, it feels flat. And it's good to see Cass let rip.

The slight angle on Jamie's external shot with a Norns black/white plus golden thread from Matt is really interesting. We don't often see the Norns as combatants in WicDiv, so this is a rare chance to give Cass a "Hello, I am a bad ass too, in case you've forgotten."

Page 9-10-11-12

Cripes. Going this and making notes I can't believe how tightly we're winding this and (more so) getting away from it. We did all this in four pages?

Two panels to the escape – the right image and a handful of taut captions to hold you between scenes. The first is doing a lot of work, but the second is just elegant. What do you need but the broken doors? Great stuff by Jamie here.

(Laura's captions do a lot of work here in setting up the themes, and the return of Sakhmet's memory to the story)

If you're wondering "How on earth could we get the escape be quicker, it's to take the first two panels on page 8 and move to the previous page. That makes it a five panel page, which is entirely do-able. That's a cost, but it would have bought slightly more space in this scene. As it is, I preferred to cut mid-page and end with Lucifer's first spoken lines in ages.

Once more, a big reveal in a small panel. Chrissy's note on the script was basically hearts for Luci at this point. Like, the second she cuts to the chase and tell s people what to do...

...and then the page turn, and she just goes full Lucifer. I know you lot have missed her, but I have too.

Getting back to Inanna was also easy, the sweetheart... but it all leads back to Sakhmet. That Mothering Invention was as tight as it was didn't leave much room for Laura to think about Sakhmet, or mourn at all... or, most of all, make it clear the story (and Laura) considers her loss important and real. It's an awful sad panel at the end of the page.

Inanna's voice was easy to find again. He's such a sweetheart. Tara is a little harder, just as I wrote her less, but I've been fascinated by this arc in terms of writing her as an actual character. I think one of the ironies of issue 13 was that it put Tara on a pedestal, and the pedestal is an objectifying as any other cage. Getting her back as a character is wonderful, and she gets to be as messy and flawed as everyone else.

Inanna not knowing ANY of this is hard. That's the problem with most of this arc – there is so much information flying around, and secrets some (but not all) are aware of. Who gets to respond to what and when? What to remind people of? What to let slide? Inanna not knowing about Baal is so huge it had to be hit and hit hard.

And then... the bodies.

When plotting this and trying to work out how I could get the cast – oh god, this is not a deliberate pun, but it's also clearly a pun - back on their feet, I was thinking of the Morrigan Gambit. Three heads, three bodies. Perfect. Then I remembered Mimir, and swore. I started to think about how that would be a tense, dramatic situation and how the personal politics could play out and I realised that Tara would just turn it down. I then realised that's exactly how the scene would work too.

(In a "tightness" thing, I suspect in another world, this scene would have been two pages. The "and Tara then just butts in" is the key thing, but you could get the timing a little more intricate to sell the moment more – still, even in this page, I could have extended it more, but seeing Tara's elaboration and everyone else's response to it was just key work for them all.)

In passing – Mimir's glowing in the dark in the penultimate panel just wonderful. Nice work Jamie and Matt.

Page 13

From the Sisters of Mercy's song, Marian.

Page 14-15-16-17

Here's where you talk about spending space. What's important here? You need the scale to show what Baph has been doing – and Jamie turns it into something astoundingly gothic. The use of blacks, the use of light and shade. Just the right level of suggestive. It’s one of my favourite bits of composition in the issue.

As the pantheon are getting back together, this leads to an increase in crowd scenes, which are the eternal artist killer. As such, I'm looking for solutions which only involve the absolute minimum of the cast in a scene.

Thee was an awful moment earlier in the issue when I went – wait! Do I have too many heads to carry? Then I realised I was fine. That said, finding places to put them down so we can have chat scenes was also somewhat tricky. The shelf turning up on page 15 is an example. Clealry Baph planned to (er) have a place to keep heads.

Well, I say, Baph, but it's clearly Nergal now. The road from early Nick Cave to late Nick Cave has been a long way. It's a great shot.

To go back to the space, why spend it on this? We’re reintroducing Nergal and Morrigan, and we’re also showing the scale of them in the plot, and the actions of Nergal. Where we go with the bodies is such a big beat, it needs to come from something similarly large. That’s also the reason why so much (relative in the issue) space is spent on the Morrigan/Nergal scenes. Of course, it’s also a key scene for this subplot, so demands space for that. It’s rarely just one reason. Probably a useful time for my usual “these notes are only ever a selection of thoughts.”

This is also a serious pose panel by Jamie.

The “I could bring her back.” He’s an underworld god too. If she could do it, he could. This is something which I suspect some people thought implicit in the old scene, but the final manipulation of Morrigan is unpacked at length in the nine panel grids.

Nine panel grids are a natural rhythm for this – when I was planning the later bit the triple-goddess of it made obvious sense, so it expanded to the whole scene. Also, the cropped image reduces the possibility of a Jamie crowd scene.

I always thought that, given the amount of time the various characters get on film, Ladyhawke could more accurately be called Blokeywolf. I digress.

Page 18-19-20

As said earlier, the triple-goddess to nine panel grid is one of those natural ways to give a stress to each of the elements. You’ll notice the clicks are left then right then centre. I’d originally written it as left to right, before – after Chrissy’s Editorial urging – rewrote to end with the Macha section to go last. Gentle Annie may have been the kinder part of Morrigan, but Macha was the part he mostly dated.

Then, in a moment of weirdness, Jamie actually drew it in the original order, despite never having seen that script. Morrigan has powers, as does the logical necessity of a left to right panelling order. As a nine panel grid, just moving panels around to fix it is easy. Hail grids!

Like most of the big acts of magic, it’s all about emotional sense than anything else. Hence, it is inevitable as Nergal actually does this, the bleak temple he’s constructed starts to crumble. And, in perhaps the most ludicrous bit of me in the comic, The Temple Of Love Is Falling Down. Too much is the bare minimum.

Jamie’s triple-portrait of the Morrigan is pretty startling. I have no idea if Jamie will miss drawing Badb’s hair, but I’ll miss seeing it.

Re-reading this now I’m struck by how low-key it is. That was always part of WicDiv’s magic – the finger click, and then things happening. The Morrigan transformation was usually drawn to be instantaneous – one panel Macha, the next Badb and so on. This kind of keeps to that.

And then… the reveal. That the new bodies isn’t a splash page says everything about this issue, but it still gets the punching the air moment. We had to have one of those eventually. Lucifer in a black suit is one of the things I’ve been waiting as long to see as Nergal in his. I giggled with glee at seeing this. Jamie’s worked in elements of the Morrigan into each of the gods – Lucifer’s red hair is the most obvious one, but Gentle Annie in Inanna and Macha in Mimir also have their notes. Inanna’s netting top is the main one – and note the shapes on Mimir’s armour changing to mimic Macha’s.

Yes, writing Lucifer remains fun and easy. I recommend it to everyone.

Page 21-22

In terms of seeing chat, people responding to the small details in the issue is one of the bigger joys. That Jamie got the Inanna/Nergal hug in the background of this exchange between Laura/Lucifer/Cass is absolutely wonderful. Laura and Cass have come a long way.

This is arguably a small cliffhanger – the smallest of this arc, at least. However, it sits on the weight of the rest of the run. We’re promising a solution to one of the larger mysteries in the run, and I suspect we get by on that. Note how space is used – this is a dense panel layout, but we go to a thired of a page for Laura’s “I know how to end this” (so giving it weight” and then going to three panel page for the conclusion (which adds weight to each of these beats.) Jamie takes the framing to tight on Cass for the beat as well to sell it. Note Matt with the Norn-colouring creeping in – and how it goes from the fires in the first panel to this is just a joy.

Page 23

Interstitial, and obvious reference to the Jay-Z record, but everyone is just excitedly clapping over the adding stuff to the godwheel. Sergio outdid himself here. It’s certainly an example of how you can have storytelling and even hero-shot audience-cheers beats out of things entirely unlike a traditional comics panel. After all these issue,s we get to see something added to the godwheel. Of course people cheer. That said,  as I said to a friend, “Of all the things I’ve found to torture the WicDiv readership, hope is the cruelest of all.”

EDIT: Actually, I messed up here - Jamie did the tweaks. Nice work Jamie!

And that’s it. Next up – 42, wherein questions are answered. In passing – the letters we’ve been getting are amazing. I’m going to try and cram as many as I can in the issues to come, but issue 44 will be our last one with a letters page. So that’s a timelimit if you wanna try and get in. It’s wicdiv@gmail.com.

Thanks for reading.

[kcwcommentary]

VLD6x06 – “All Good Things”

6x06 – “All Good Things”

For me, the title “All Good Things” is a cliché. Unfortunately, that hints at the many clichés that are in the writing of this episode.

As we continue to finish Lotor’s story, this show continues to offend me with its declaration that Lotor, as an abuse victim, is as bad as his abuser. It infuriates me that this is the message the show chose to send through this story. I imagine that the EPs and the writers weren’t even aware they were doing so, but that does not absolve them of doing it. I haven’t read or seen every interview with them, so maybe they apologized for doing so, but I don’t know of them having done so.

We start in the Black Lion’s psychic space with Shiro repeating Keith’s name, and Keith opening his eyes. His opening his eyes here would have worked better if the last we saw of him in the previous episode was him closing his eyes. However, last episode ended with him opening his eyes, sort of symbolizing a psychological awakening, so him beginning this episode by opening his eyes feels off. The way last episode ended, there was a resignation in Keith. Shiro’s clone was unconscious, the facility was destroyed, and Keith and Shiro were plummeting toward the planet. It was a slow, dramatic, interestingly peaceful moment. But now, this episode is ignoring that tone and feels like it’s resetting Keith’s mental state to the anger and aggression he had during the fight, not to the calm he had as he fell with Shiro’s clone at the end of last episode. The beginning of this episode is not matching up well with the end of last episode.

Shiro’s spirit appears to Keith. He’s calm and quiet as he talks.

“The thing that attacked you wasn’t me,” Shiro says. I really do not like that they have him call the clone a “thing.” That “thing” was someone who the Black Lion sensed across great distance and directed Keith to save back in 3x05 “The Journey.” It would have been nice had this show not ignored or forgotten this (honestly, I can very much imagine the EPs and writers of this show truly forgetting what story they’ve told earlier in the show). The Black Lion also let the clone pilot her. The Black Lion would not have directed Keith to rescue the clone nor let the clone pilot her if she considered the clone to be an evil thing.

Shiro says that he’s been here in this psychic space since the fight with Zarkon at the end of season two. “My physical form was gone,” and the show never bothers to explain what happened to Shiro’s body, nor how he died.

“I tried to warn the others about the imposter while on Olkarion, but our connection was not strong enough,” Shiro says as his image fades and disappears. I’ll say that it seems reasonable that he would have a hard time connecting to them since the others have demonstrated through their actions that they don’t really think of Shiro as a friend.

Keith opens his eyes and he’s inside the Black Lion. “You saved us,” Keith quietly says to Black. Us! Not just Keith. The Black Lion has again saved the clone! He’s laying nearby, unconscious but reactive enough to slightly groan. The EPs and the writers want us to think that the clone is evil. They write that into the dialog of the characters. They just had the spirit of Shiro call the clone a “thing.” But the Black Lion saved the clone again! This means something, and the show totally ignores it in its push to call the clone evil. This is something the show absolutely should have addressed, but they couldn’t because it would undermine their premise that the clone was not a person that is used to justify having the Paladins use the clone’s body without any debate about the ethics of doing so.

Coran, Hunk, and Pidge are working on the Castle to the get the ship working again. Allura is visibly experiencing emotional distress. Lance seems to notice, but he doesn’t say anything at first. Krolia and Romelle have just been standing off to the side until Krolia announces she’ll go help with repairs and Romelle follows her. Why weren’t they helping to begin with? Lance takes the opportunity to ask Allura if she’s okay.

She says she’s angry at herself for “play[ing] right into Lotor’s hands.” Of course, I don’t blame her since I blame the EPs and the writers for purposefully writing Lotor as if he was a character undergoing a transformational arc specifically so that they could claim a cheap plot twist of saying he was evil all along. Lance says, “You didn’t put us in this situation. It was Shiro who went rogue and released the virus in the Castle.” I know they don’t yet know about the clone, but it still bothers me hearing them talk about Shiro like this.

Allura goes on about how she trusted Lotor but shouldn’t have and about how she doesn’t think she can trust herself now. While these are valid feelings for her to have given what has happened in the story, I’m stilled aggravated by it because it’s all coming from the EPs’ and writers’ efforts to manipulate the audience by writing Lotor to be a good person for most of his time on the show.

“I had more reason than anyone not to trust him,” Lance says. Thus, the show says that Lance feeling intense jealousy over Allura being with Lotor was right. Allura responds by hugging Lance. Lance’s jealousy is justified, and he’s rewarded with a moment of getting-the-girl for it. Ugh!

Keith establishes communication with the Castle and informs Allura and Lance that Shiro was a clone. He also tells them he’s detected that Lotor’s ships are heading back to them, but it will take time for him to get to them. They’ll have to hold off Lotor without him. Keith tries asking the spirit of Shiro to help him get to the others. The Black Lion’s wing is still sparking. This sparking first started as a depiction of damage from a fight, so its continual sparking should be setting up something to happen, like the wing exploding or Black losing all propulsion or something, but nothing ever comes of it. It’s not necessary to explain Black being too far away to get to the others before the battle starts, so if that’s what it’s supposed to be signifying, then it’s pointless.

Allura narrates, “Accessing the quintessence field has been Lotor’s singular drive for millennia. He wants to harness the power for himself.” I have a hard time dealing with this switch the show has flipped in Lotor’s motivation. The show made the situation more complicated in a really good way by having Lotor argue that using the rift as a source of quintessence would allow him to move the Galra away from taking quintessence from living creatures. With the show’s twist that Lotor’s a villain all along, what was a great complication is now ignored and replaced with a simplistic, selfish desire for power. By having this twist with Lotor, the show has narrowed and made the current primary antagonist generic. Allrua says the Paladins have to destroy the gate at the opening to the rift.

Ugh. Lotor tells Ezor and Zethrid, “My deepest apologies for lying to you both. But in order to gain the Princess’s trust and make the Paladins of Voltron believe we were truly at odds, it had to be done.” By now having Lotor talk like a generic villain, he becomes far less interesting. That the EPs and writers think this is interesting baffles me. Having Lotor talk like this now feels fake. This is just not the same character they’ve written since at least 4x06 “A New Defender.” And it makes the title of that episode a total lie, proof of the EPs’ audience manipulation.

Titles function as a promise, almost like a thesis statement, about the content of the story so titled. But this show did not use that title as a promise, it was purposefully a deception used against the audience. Allura earlier talked about how she shouldn’t have trusted Lotor, and how she doesn’t think she can trust herself now. Well, this whole Lotor-is-a-villain-all-along plot twist tells the audience that we should not trust the EPs and writers of this show. What makes this particularly infuriating is that the EPs and writers clearly think that they were clever with this plot twist. It feels more amateurish to me than anything even slightly resembling clever.

I’m not quite sure why Allura thinks she can have the Lions blow up the gate and it’ll destroy the rift. I understand that she feels the need to do something, and there’s little she can do at this point. But we know her plan to destroy the gate will not get rid of the rift opening. One, the narrative doesn’t tell this little bit of story significantly enough to make it have the tonality of a conclusion. But also, we know the history of this rift opening. We know that Alfor destroyed Daibazaal trying to destroy the rift opening, and yet it has continued to exist for 10,000 years.

The fact that this rift opening has persisted is unexplained though. When we had the “comet” having opened a rift in 3x04 “Hole in the Sky,” that rift closed as soon as Voltron pulled the “comet” through the rift opening into this reality. So, what held this rift at Daibazaal open for 10,000 years? Also, given Honerva’s obsession with the rift, why has she never come back here to work with it over those 10,000 years?

Hunk says, “The last time we fought Lotor, we had five ships and Lotor had two, and he still kicked our butts. This time, he’s going to have three ships, and we’re only going to have four.” I guess technically true since Lotor was unconscious last episode when the whole of Voltron fought all three of Lotor’s ships, but it still feels like Hunk’s statement is wrong since they fought all three ships.

Coran is given an extended repair sequence. It’s nice that the show is giving Coran something to do since they’ve barely used him the past several seasons. He finds an old tool kit from his grandfather.

Lotor’s ships arrive.

Allura yells at Lotor, “You enslaved countless Alteans. Harnessed their life source for your own personal gain. How many innocent lives did you destroy?”

He responds, “It’s true, many Alteans perished in my quest to unlock the mysteries of quintessence. But I protected thousands more, and I rescued their culture. Our culture.” We’ve been told by the narrative that we’re not supposed to trust anything Lotor has ever said or will say again. The problem is that by writing this dialog, the show reminds us of Lotor’s argument. And the thing is, despite the show declaring him to be a lying villain, he’s not wrong here.

This makes me think of the issue of energy production. Some Alteans, for some never properly explained reason, have the ability to produce more quintessence than most other lifeforms. This is part of the problem with this show never properly defining its magic system. The show never explains what quintessence is. It’s always generic as just some miscellaneous life energy. But why can some Alteans create more of it than everyone else? And what does it say about the position of privilege that their ability to do so grants them? Or at least, the privilege that it gives Allura. She uses quintessence to power her ship all the time. The show never explores that Lotor and the Galra’s desire for quintessence to power their civilization gives them a valid point of critique against Allura. Why does she get to have a source of energy that benefits just her and the few she chooses to use it for? This is not to say that it’s okay for the Galra to produce quintessence by taking it from other life forms. Lotor himself has said as much, that he wants to transition the Galra off of this method of energy production. That’s been his whole point in trying to get quintessence from the rift.

Part of why this conclusion to Lotor’s story is so unfulfilling is because the show does not resolve this argument. I even wonder if the show realizes it’s made this argument. I can easily imagine that the EPs and writers saw Lotor’s argument as nothing but a means to trick everyone into letting their guard down. But the problem for them then is that the show still has Lotor make a very valid argument that is never resolved.

Ezor says, “I stopped trying to figure out Lotor’s master plan long ago. Too complicated.” Ezor here is totally lampshading the story; the show is acknowledging that this plot has become too complicated, and they’re essentially asking the audience to ignore it and just move on. This feels like the writers almost admitting that they’re too unskilled to be able to handle writing this story. I imagine there are instances of lampshading in other stories that work and don’t end up feeling like the writers insulting the audience for the audience wanting the story to make sense, but this does not have that effect for me. I want this story to make sense. I want it to be consistent, but it’s not. All this does is point out that the writers know there’s a problem with what they’ve written. It does nothing to fix the problem.

Allura fires first. Lotor orders his team to hold their fire. Lotor tells Allura, “My feelings for you are true, and I know you have feelings for me as well.” Maybe it’s just the voice acting being better than the show’s story arc deserves, but Lotor sounds genuine in what he’s saying. My guess is that the voice actor, maybe even the voice director, believed that what Lotor says is true, but the problem then is that the EPs and the writers have declared it that Lotor is just a deceptive villain.

Allura responds by saying, “You betrayed and used me. You’re more like Zarkon than I could have ever imagined.” In order for her statement to be true, that he did betray and use her, it requires that everything he’s said to her to be a lie. Because his arguments have always been valid, I cannot believe his past statements to Allura to be lies. So, how then has he used her? If his goal is and always has been accessing a source of quintessence to provide energy to the Galra so that he can make the Empire stop producing it through taking it from living creatures, then how has he “betrayed and used” her?

The show does not explain what Lotor’s goal was in harvesting quintessence from the Alteans. It’s used as a demonstration that Lotor is an evil person, so I guess that combined with the show declaring him to be a liar is supposed to make it that he did it as a cliché villain taking life from other people and no deeper explanation was ever crafted by the writers. But again, this runs into the problem of Lotor’s argument about getting quintessence from the rift being totally valid and never invalidated.

Also, I hate what the show does with Allura here. Lotor was abused by his father. We know this. Lotor has talked to Allura about it. And here, they have her tell someone who’s been abused that they are like their abuser. This is cruel. This is the show itself, not just Allura, being offensive. Lotor has demonstrated several times throughout this show that he has vigorously tried to escape his father’s abuse. He has actively worked to do things differently than his father. He has been subject to ridicule from both his father and mother because he’s not full-Galra, while he has rejected that racism and Galra-supremacism by embracing his Altean heritage and accepting Axca, Ezor, Zethrid, and Narti, in defiance of the Galra who condemned him for doing so. In 3x01 “Changing of the Guard,” we learn that unlike Zarkon, Lotor does not adhere to classist discrimination and fights alongside lower ranking soldiers; we see some of Zarkon’s classist discrimination when he condemns Blaytz in 3x07 “The Legend Begins” for flirting with a server at dinner. Lotor specifically told Allura in 5x06 “White Lion” that he envied Alfor being her father because Zarkon never supported his desire to be an explorer. He told her about how he was in charge of a planet, how Zarkon got angry that Lotor let the population there rule themselves, how Zarkon ordered Lotor to destroy the planet, and when Lotor refused, Zarkon did so himself. Lotor is not like Zarkon. It is absolutely cruel for the show to write Allura saying this. And it’s offensive to those of us who have been subject to parental abuse. Through Allura’s condemnation of Lotor, the show is saying that no matter how much we try, we will not only never escape the abuse, we’ll become as horrible as those who abused us.

The show then goes generic villain by having Lotor criticize Alfor for being “too weak.” He orders his team to destroy the Lions. They all start fighting. I have to say that there is definitely something wrong with the writing when I’m actually on the antagonist’s side instead of the protagonist’s.

Coran does whatever ultimately miscellaneous thing he does to get the Castle back up and running. It’s a moment that is played for humor, but given the tension of the moment, of the dialog between Lotor and Allura, this is not the time for humor. This show has a recurrent problem with tonality dissonance like this.

Lotor says, “Once I wipe out Voltron, I’m going to start a new Altea. An Altea that will never know Princess Allura or King Alfor. Nor will they know the Lions of Voltron. All they will know is me, their great leader! I’m ready to wipe the universe clean of all my enemies: Voltron, Haggar, and the rest of the Galra!” The show now has Lotor screaming like a cliché maniacal villain. Ugh. This last line shocks Ezor, Zethrid, and Axca. How they’re surprised that Lotor views Galra culture as highly toxic and one that has been cruel to anyone who isn’t full-Galra, I don’t know. It’s not like the Galra Empire hasn’t discriminated against the three of them for their being only part-Galra.

Axca says, “I think it’s time for us to sever our ties to Lotor for good.” The EPs and writers of this show cannot ever decide on where Lotor’s generals’ loyalty actually lies, can they? By switching that allegiance around so damn much, I’m left confused. I’m tired of having to try to figure out what Ezor, Zethrid, and Axca’s motivations are. With these characters, I feel like I’m being jerked around.

As they take two of Lotor’s ships away from battle, Lotor responds, “Even my generals betray me.” Since the EPs have said in an interview that their goal with Lotor was to have him end up being like Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender, this moment and this line is clearly supposed to be a copy of Azula breaking down after Mai and Ty Lee turn against her. This moment reminding me of that interview causes me again to think about how amateurish it is for the EPs and writers to build their characters by trying to copy characters from other shows. They inadvertently cause me to compare Lotor to Azula while watching this episode. What Azula went through in the end of AtLA was written with a great deal of respect for her character. Her viciousness is condemned, but the last we see of her in AtLA is Azula experiencing severe psychological anguish, crying, and Zuko and Katara looking on with expressions of pain and sympathy for Azula. With how this show ends Lotor’s character, and the EPs saying that he was supposed to be like Azula in the end, I have to think that they totally missed what made the conclusion of Azula’s character poignant. In the end for Lotor, he’s just a screaming maniacal villain.

Lotor takes over the other two ships and ejects his generals from them. He then combines his three ships into Sincline. It’s been a long while since this show has had a mecha versus mecha battle.

Pidge reacts, saying, “What is that thing!?” This is not the first mecha she’s seen in this show, so this response is silly. Allura says, “That is why he was using me. I helped him build it.” The ability for it to physically combine has nothing to do with the quintessence-imbuing alchemy that Allura did. If what Allura did is what enabled this to happen, I would think she would have noticed that she was doing it. Also, the show has very much already established that what she did was make the ships capable of entering the rift. So, this is just more inconsistent writing. Hunk comments, “Well, the good news is that it’s now four-on-one.” I genuinely laughed.

Sincline attacks the Lions. Coran has the Castle shoot Sincline, but Sincline eventually returns fire. The two blasts do the cliché opposing beams directly clashing with one another until eventually one overpowers the other thing. Sincline hits the Castle. Pidge reacts by saying, “Impossible! Lotor’s weapon has completely repelled the Castle’s attack!” One, we can already see that his weapon has done so, so that dialog does not add literally anything to the show. Two, who thought having her proclaim something we just saw happen to be “impossible” is good writing? It’s cliché at best, but even if it wasn’t cliché, it still wouldn’t be good dialog.

Meanwhile, Keith is listening to communications of the battle. He starts begging Shiro to help him. His screaming Shiro’s name is a bit too much, causing the moment to totally fall over into excessive melodrama, which despite the intended purpose of melodrama actually causes the moment to lose emotion, not gain it. Keith appears in the psychic space again, and Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder. Shiro tells Keith to see through the Lion’s eyes. He repeats his advice to Keith from back in season one: “Patience yields focus.”

The music in this moment is really nice.

Keith’s hands start to glow, he drives the controls forward, and the Black Lion’s wings glow and expand into bigger engines.

The other Lions are floating motionless in space, seemingly lacking power. Lotor’s dialog continues to be cliché villain-speak. Sincline detects the Black Lion incoming, which slams into Sincline as it flies past. Keith orders them to form Voltron. Though I wish they would have occasionally updated the form-Voltron animation, I actually like its use in this moment.

The two mechas are poised for what comes next, the final shot of the episode is great.

I’m left thinking that, even if the show had the same plot points, everything that contributes to how we get to them could have been written so much better. It feels like, due to inexperience and carelessness, the EPs and the writers lost control of the story long before now, but because the plot development inherently has risen the stakes of the story, the failure to sculpt the details causes the story to turn into a blend of clichés and offensive implications. The resolution of Lotor’s story is not one that is fulfilling. It ends up feeling like the EPs and writers destroyed something interesting in order to make something generic from it. Like most of this whole series, it’s the loss of what could have been, the potential the show had, that makes this story so disappointing.

[un-chat-sauvage-blog]

On-Page SEO for 2019 - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Whew! We made it through another year, and it seems like we're past due for taking a close look at the health of our on-page SEO practices. What better way to hit the ground running than with a checklist? In today's Whiteboard Friday, the fabulous Britney Muller shares her best tips for doing effective on-page SEO in 2019.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going over all things on-page SEO, and I've divided it into three different sections:

How are crawlers and Googlebot crawling through your site and your web pages?

What is the UX of your on-page content?

What is the value in the content of your on-page content?

So let's just jump right in, shall we?

Crawler/bot-accessible

☑ Meta robots tag allows crawling

Making sure your meta robots tag allows crawling is essential. If that's blocking Googlebot from crawling, your page will never be in search. You want to make sure that's all panned out.

☑ Robots.txt doesn't disallow crawling

You want to make sure that let's say this page that you're trying to get to rank in search engines, that you're not disallowing this URL from your robots.txt.

☑ URL is included in sitemap

Similarly you want to make sure that the URL is in your site map.

☑ Schema markup

You also want to add any schema markup, any relevant schema markup that you can. This is essentially spoon-feeding search engines what your page is about and what your content is about.

☑ Internal links pointing to your page with natural anchor text

So let's say I am trying to rank for chakra stones. Maybe I'm on a yoga website and I want to make sure that I have other internal pages linking to chakra stones with the anchor text "chakra crystals" or "chakra stones" and making sure that I'm showing Google that this is indeed an internally linked page and it's important and we want to give it some weight.

☑ HTTPS - SSL

You want to make sure that that is secure and that Google is taking that into consideration as well.

User experience

☑ Meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Does it meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Definitely look into that and make sure you check all the boxes.

☑ Responsive mobile design with same content and links

Is it responsive for mobile? Super important with the mobile-first indexing.

☑ Clear CTA

Is there one clear call to action? A lot of pages miss this. So, for this page, maybe I would have a big "Buy Chakra Crystals Here" button or link. That would be a clear CTA. It's important to have.

☑ Multimedia: Evaluate SERP and add desired media

Are you providing other desired media types? Are there images and video and different forms of content on your page?

☑ Page speed: utilize CDNs, compress images, use reliable hosting

Are you checking the page speed? Are you using CDNs? Are you compressing your images? You want to check all of that.

☑ Integrate social sharing buttons

It's the easiest thing. Make sure that people can easily share your content.

Content and value

This is where it gets really fun and strategic too.

☑ Unique, high-quality content

Are you providing high-quality content? So if you go to Google and you search "chakra stones" and you take a look at all of those results, are you including all of that good content into your page? Then are you making it even better? Because that should be the goal.

☑ Optimize for intent: Evaluate SERP and PPC, note which SERP features show up

You want to also optimize for intent. So you want to evaluate that SERP. If that search result page is showing tons of images or maybe videos, you should be incorporating that into your page as well, because clearly that's what people are looking for.

You also want to evaluate the PPC. They have done so much testing on what converts and what doesn't. So it's silly not to take that into consideration when optimizing your page.

☑ Title tags and meta descriptions

What are those titles? What are those descriptions? What's working? Title tags and meta description are still so important. This is the first impression to many of your visitors in Google. Are you enticing a click? Are you making that an enticing call to action to your site?

☑ Header tags

H1, H2, and H3 header tags are still super important. You want to make sure that the title of your page is the H1 and so forth. But just to check on all of that would be good.

☑ Optimize images: compress, title file names, add alt text

Images are the biggest source of bloat of on-page site speed. So you want to make sure that your images are compressed and optimized and keeping your page fast and easily accessible to your users.

☑ Review for freshness

You want to review for freshness. We want to make sure that this is up-to-date content. Maybe take a look at popular content the last year or two of your site and update that stuff. This should be a continual wash and repeat. You want to continue to update the content on your site.

☑ Include commonly asked questions

It's such an easy thing to do, but it's commonly overlooked. AnswerThePublic does a great job of surfacing questions. Moz Keyword Explorer has a really great filter that provides some of the most commonly asked questions for a keyword term. I highly suggest you check that out and start to incorporate some of that.

Find common questions now

These help to target featured snippets. So if you're incorporating some of that, not only do you get the extra traffic, but you find these opportunities of getting featured snippets, which is great. You're expanding your real estate in search. Awesome. PAA boxes are also a great way to find commonly asked questions for a particular keyword.

☑ Add summaries

Summaries are also hidden gems. We see Google seeking out summaries for content all of the time. They are providing summaries in featured snippets and in different SERP features to help sort of distill information for users. So if you can do that, not only will you make your content more easily scannable, but you're also making it more accessible for search, which is great.

☑ TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency)

TF-IDF stands for "term frequency-inverse document frequency." It sounds a little intimidating. It's actually pretty simple. What's the number of times that "chakra stones" is mentioned in this particular page divided by the number of times it's mentioned anywhere? This is basically just a calculation to determine relevance for the term "chakra stones." Really cool and commonly used by Google. So if you can do this on your on-page, it will just help you in the long term.

☑ LSI (latent semantic indexing) for relevance

Similarly LSI or LSA, it sometimes referred to, is latent semantic indexing, and it's also for relevance. This helps determine, okay, if I'm talking about chakra stones, it may also incorporate those other topics that are commonly related to this topic. Relevant.

☑ Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

What is the readability of this page? The easier it is to read the better, but you just want to keep an eye on that in general.

Bonus tip!

One final tip that Kameron Jenkins put on Twitter, that I love so much, and Kameron is a world-class writer -she's one of the best I've ever had the privilege of working with - mentioned this on-page SEO trick. Find the top three ranking URLs for your target keyword.

KW research tip 1. Search your target kw & pull the top 3 ranking URLs 2. Compare URLs in @Moz KWE 3. Click on the areas of most overlap 4. See KWs that top-ranking URLs for target KW also rank for 5. Use ideas to optimize your own page! pic.twitter.com/FxJjOxn7DJ - Kameron Jenkins (@Kammie_Jenkins) November 7, 2018

So if I were to put in "chakra stones" in Google and pull the top three URLs, put them into Moz Keyword Explorer and I see what they're ranking for, I see what those three URLs are specifically ranking for, and I look at what they're commonly ranking for in the middle here. Then I use those keywords to optimize my page even better. It's genius. It's very similar to some of the relevant stuff we were talking about over here.

Discover new keyword ideas

So definitely try some of this stuff out. I hope this helps. I really look forward to any of your comments or questions down below in the comments section.

Thank you so much for joining me on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I look forward to seeing you all again soon, so thanks. Have a good one.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

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[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “The Ballad of Duke Baloney!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Colleen Evanson

Storyboarded by: Jean-Sebastien Duclos, Mike Morris, Sam King

Directed by: Jason Zurek

Not full of balogna.

Here’s an interesting way to start this "ballad": begin with a scene from the season finale that didn't really have a conclusion. I just saw as a good way to include a beloved villain in a montage filled with cameos from previous episodes. There was clearly more to this story, but it wasn't important compared to the whole "sorceress just took over the entire town" plot.

In particular, Glomgold’s shadow ends up throwing him into the ocean. As he shouts “curse you, me”, he ends up nearly drowning, only to be saved by some fishers.

Specifically, he wakes up to find himself caught in a net. Glomgold reacts as well as one would expect, telling these fishermen to get their hands off of him. Turns out, that's not the right word to say.

Lady: Whoa, fisherperson?

The "gag" with her is that she wants everything to be more socially conscious, though I'm not sure if this is supposed to be one. Their names, from left to right, are Fisher and Mann, something Fisher point out almost immediately to defend this stranger's wrong word. Glomgold isn't having it, and asks them if they knows who he is. They don't, as they're simple fisherpeople. He tries to exclaim in a dramatic way, until he realizes...

...even he doesn’t know. Yes, this episode starts with that cliche where someone loses all of his memories after a bump in the head, or a bunch of water going through it in this case. However, they use this as an excuse.

After the theme song, we cut to a report showing what exactly happened between Glomgold’s disappearance and now. A new CEO just barged into Glomgold’s absence, as she literally pushes away his silhouette to reveal herself. Her name is Zan Owlson. I swear, I misheard it as Van Owlsing, and that still made sense. Glomgold is practically a vampire compared to her.

Even the newsreporter decides to tell the viewers that this new CEO is not insane. We get a small bio of her past: she was the top of her class, and she ran a charity called Change for Chicks! No, Johnny Bravo, she means literal chicks. Unlike her predecessor, she cuts a lot of funding dedicated to revenge and sharks. Even moreso unlike her predecessor, she is completely open to make deals with long-time rival company McDuck Enterprises, as we see her shake hands with its CEO.

In other words, she’s exactly the opposite of Glomgold in every way, as enhanced by the news cutting to a Simpsons-esque file photo gag of him eating shrimp in an unflattering manner at a charity auction. Maybe the one from The Golden Lagoon from Agony Plains?

It’s also shown by the old Glomgold logo being replaced by a treasure chest filled with a bunch of people. She doesn’t even include herself in this, definitely not something Glomgold would do.

Zan Owlson: At Glomgold Industries, our community is the greatest treasure of all.

She even makes an outright reference to the Glomgold motto that Glomgold just made up to get those henchmen he hired to like him in Woo-oo. What happened to those guys?

We cut from the newsreport, which we barely get back to, to a fisherperson's wharf, where Louie and Webby are planning on going fishing. While it’s a day in the limelight episode for Glomgold, that doesn’t mean we don’t get to see the nephews and honorary niece.

Webby is all about hunting fish in a more barbaric way with a stick, while Louie just wants to fish with a fishing rod. Louie is more of the straight man here, though they seem to swap back and forth between scenes depending on one's viewpoint. They do realize that they forgot one thing that would help them immensely, and there happens to be someone with a South African accent.

While his beard was dyed by several unfortunate squid ink-related accidents and his accent has changed, it’s clearly the duck that attempted to kill them and their uncle several times over. They react very similarly to Bart and Lisa Simpson reacting to Sideshow Bob, but this bearded guy has no idea who this Glomgold guy is.

He rechristened himself “Duke Baloney”, just like the humble sandwich meat, in his words. This does not go well with Louie, who already makes the obvious quip about his name. Webby has to take him aside to talk about this.

Webby and Louie get into their conflict, though for Webby, it's a little less defined and more just "she doesn't agree with Louie's idea". Louie thinks this is all just an act, and he even says he should know because it takes a con artist to know one. Webby, on the other hand, thinks that he really is suffering from this and needs to go back to his old self. Either that, or maybe this is Glomgold turning into a good person like a reverse werewolf, her reasoning changes throughout the episode.

They do humor the idea that maybe this guy is just a different person altogether, but then he gets caught in his own rope trap.

Duke Baloney: Curse you, rope!

Louie & Webby: It’s him.

This is a slight hint that this will probably not be permanent. That would be an odd way to write off a huge arch-nemesis!

Glomgold invites them over to what I now realize is the closest TV-Y7-FV equivalent to a bar, offering them a bucket of fish heads, to Louie's disapproval. I’m sure real ducks eat a lot worse than that.

Webby tries to show off a Missing poster with Glomgold on it that also seems to function as a wanted poster due to tax evasion! Oh, how unrealistic, everyone knows rich people always get away with that. Unfortunately, all this gets is scorn from Baloney’s fellow crewmates for even suggesting he’s related to that tyrant. This is a "bully-free zone" according to that one fisherperson, after all. That's pretty much it for the socially conscious aspect of her character.

Even Louie joins in on this chants along with everyone else. Sure, he was totally against the guy, but the boy just wants his free Pep! However, Webby notices the money happens to have a very fancy money clip. They decide to stay back to investigate this from afar.

A general theme that pops up in this episode is that Duke Baloney may have amnesia, but his inner Glomgold continues to show more and more. This especially comes in once we see a McDuck Enterprise company get involved. While this doesn't entirely revive his memory, he does get a sudden dislike for "that boat."

This is especially shown with disagreements with his fellow crewmembers. The crewmembers are okay with being #2, However, considering #1 is owned the richest duck in the world, I wouldn't blame them for not wanting to fight a battle they can't win. Duke Baloney, on the other hand, doesn't see that as impossible.

One clever bit is that he does the cliche “look at me, I’m a pretty lady and not a trap” gag, and realizes he could get more fish if he did something for the ladies, too. He never does realize that, if this plan did work, he would get some really messy fish guts. All in all, aside from the dynamite, he just seems like this misunderstood guy who’s down on his luck.

At least, that's what Webby thinks. Louie accuses her of being naive about this, as that’s what she assumed when she was a humble deliveryman and a humble pastry chef. Yeah, Louie, you invited him to a party, if I remember correctly.

While looking at Baloney trying to convince his fellow co-fisherpeople to do a plan that is oddly similar to that Scottish guy. Webby & Louie, continuing to spy on this kind fellow to confirm their different suspicions. Louie says that he's going to be thrown in a pit full of sharks with bombs strapped on to them. Webby says that's ridiculous...

...and we immediately cut to Duke Baloney's plan to get fish, which just happened to get to the part involving sharks with bombs strapped onto them. They don't have womp womp music, they're not that blatant most of the time.

This whole scene is funny, though; it's just like that scene from The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks where Glomgold details his plan with similar drawing. Speaking of plots that weren't resolved in the episode that could use a continuation...that one. Louie and Webby still can't see what any of this could prove, so Webby has an idea that Louie is not a big fan of: record investigation!

Granted, Louie getting hit in the face probably didn't help in any way. I like how the next scene shows Louie walking into Webby’s investigation room. See, anything can have a consequence, even slight gags like that one.

She gets out her board, with a drawing of the moneyclip, a picture of Glomgold, and a picture of Duke Baloney, and...nothing else. She couldn't find anything. Not only is there no record of Duke Baloney, there’s no record of Flintheart Glomgold before he came to America.

In order to find more information and possibly either reveal Glomgold's evil plan or bring Glomgold back to normal, they decide to do a plan involving a certain rich duck. If one can ask why would they want to bring Glomgold back to his former self to terrorize the McDucks, just wait.

Meanwhile, in Duke Baloney’s dreams, we see a bizarre sequence full of odd imagery. Some of it is obviously referencing what will happen in the future, some of which possibly not even in this episode. One of the big ones that isn’t addressed again is that shot on the bottom left. Everyone knows Glomgold is evil, but…is there a more spiritual reason we don’t know about?

That’s not the only unanswered question, either. The shortest description I could say is that he constantly gets a message from what looks like his younger self that the boiler room is out, who slowly turns into Zan Owlson. No connection is made to how Glomgold would be familiar enough with the new CEO to have her appear in his dreams, since all of this happened after he got amnesia.

While most of this dream sequence's symbolism is subtle, there is one line that just whacks you right in the head.

Duke Baloney: This GOLD! It’s GLOOMING onto me!

Yeah, that’s pretty forced. It's at the end of the dream sequence, they may have felt that they needed something blatant at the end to make him wake up.

He wakes up, and his final reaction to all of this? To essentially tell himself to "never mind all that." Hey, it’s not like those dreams mean anything, anyway!

While Duke Baloney is getting welcomed into the family of fisherpeople and telling himself that nothing can possibly ruin this day, in comes Scrooge McDuck. He was invited by Webby and Louie the to talk it out to see what's really going on.

We don't get to hear their conversations, and neither do Louie and Webby, so Webby tries to read their lips. Of course, she does it in a way that makes it seem like she was right all along, even making them say "oh, that Webby was correct all along, huh? I wish I was his housekeeper's granddaughter!" However, while she may be able to read lips, the next move shocks both her and Louie. They look like they're going to fight...

...and then they hug it out. After all the time of Webby seemingly succeeding at everything she does throughout Season 1, it’s a little refreshing to see her actually be wrong for a change. Nobody’s perfect...I learned that with the last episode. Scrooge tells them he's far happier this way, and they should just let him be Duke Baloney.

Webby and Louie accept this, and decide to go back to their initial plan of fishing. However, a storm is brewing.

Duke Baloney, who somehow has that missing/wanted poster, decides that even if he was this Glomgold fellow, he wants his life at the sea. He throws the paper, but it hits him right in the face, symbolically proving that any kind of face turn with him is ultimately futile.

The storm starts happening, and Baloney sees Webby and Louie in trouble. Being the hero that he is now, he tries to. However, he gets hit by, and ends up nearly drowning in the same way he did in the beginning of the episode.

We get another scene from Baloney’s subconscious, but this time we get an outright memory rather than symbolism. In particular: this one is right from one of Baloney’s repressed memories. I decided that outright spoiling it wouldn’t add anything to the review, but the best hint I could give is that I really do mean Baloney’s repressed memories. That shot from the dream I had on the top right is a pretty good hint of foreshadowing this, too.

I will say this: the first thing I did after watching this episode was look up whether or not any of this had any basis in the original comics. The simple answer is not really. While Scrooge first meets Glomgold in South Africa, Glomgold was already grown-up and clearly evil from day one. This flashback adds another dimension to that entirely.

There is one important-to-the-plot takeaway from this, a literal one, I might add, but I’ll talk about it later.

Everyone’s cheering him on to save the kids, and it appears that maybe, just maybe...no, of course not. What did you think was going to happen? No, he made his decision. He says it in such an epic way, that I decided to make this a GIF. A really small GIF to fit Tumblr's restrictions, but I had to keep that animation as smooth as it was.

Duke, er, Flintheart Glomgold: (in his usual Scottish accent) Because I'm Flintheart Glomgold...and I always will be! Ha ha ha ha ha!

I know I implied that I didn't want to spoil, but this scene is just so amazing. It's a lot smoother, they needed to animate it on the ones. It's an impressive sight seeing him laugh with all that lightning behind him.

I did give him a little bit of a That seems to work in his favor, as he happened to have his a spare grey beard in this pocket this whole time. It makes more sense when you watch the episode, trust me.

We somehow fade to him being surrounded by his crewmembers and their friends under very calm weather. This is the one scene transition that doesn't really add up to me. Was the storm in his head the whole time? These former crewmembers only accuse Glomgold of stealing from children rather than attempted murder, which seems to go with that theory.

One thing's for sure: Duke Baloney has left the building, and now it’s Glomgold’s time forever. He starts a Glomgold chant that even he expects no one will join in, as he dives into the water.

This chant continues with him going into his formerly owned organization, where Scrooge was talking with Zan Owlson about how using nickels would save more money than dimes.

Scrooge and Glomgold making a big deal, mostly due to Glomgold still having an all-important money clip, referenced. Yeah, Scrooge treats it like it’s this big deal, suggesting there’s something more to it than just gold. Honestly, considering the Number One Dime twist in The Shadow war, it could be anything at this point.

Also, I am so glad they apparently didn’t decide to push the reset button to prevent any potential plots with Van Owlson, since she barely did anything in this episode other than show her apparent benevolence. Quite a few plot points to this new story arc...at least, I hope it’s a new story arc. I have no reason to believe it’s not.

Oh yeah, and no Dewey in the episode for the first time ever. Not even a mention. How weird!

How does it stack up?

Despite only having an A plot, it is indeed an A plot this time. I can’t wait to see what happens next with this future plot this time. There's some very interesting twists to the classic Glomgold character, and I’d say it could pay off in the future. No bologna here, that’s for sure.

Next, America may not be getting their cartoon, but they will be getting their DuckTales 2017 appearance!

← The Depths of Cousin Fethry! 🦆 The Town Where Everyone Was Nice! →

[bangtan-yeonghon]

Oath | Ch.28 | Jungkook

Genre: Angst | Mafia!AU

Members: Jungkook | You/Reader | Yoongi | Taehyung | Namjoon | Hoseok | Jin | Jimin |

Summary: What if one day everything you ever wanted is taken away and your whole world comes crushing down? If you were to forget today, who would you be tomorrow?

| Previous Chapter | Chapter List | Next Chapter |

Word count: 5k

Being presented with the task of keeping an eye on Namjoon, Hoseok wasted no breath and took to the streets. It didn't take him long to gather info about the man's whereabouts. A hint here, a hint there, and he was right on the spot, more precisely in front of the abandoned hotel he recalled visiting one time in the past. His brows furrowed at the sight of the cars parked in front. One in particular caught his attention, Taehyung's. What was he doing there? Next to it was an Infiniti QX70, one he knew Jungkook usually drove. And almost blocking the narrow road, as if they had been parked in great haste, were two black Mercedes-Benz sedans, most likely belonging to Namjoon and his dogs. It didn't take a genius to figure this gathering was unusual and had only one possible ending, a bloodbath. And to top it all, gunshots already started being fired just as Hoseok was about to get out of the car. Out of instinct he tucked down, thinking he was the target. Little did he know it was one of his teammates that started the show.

"Shit!" He said automatically. He went for his phone and dialed the first number that came to mind.

"Yes?"

"Jimin, I'm at the old 'Paradise' hotel, the abandoned one in the forest-"

"Obviously. There's no other 'Paradise' I know of."

"Shut up and listen, punk! Namjoon's here with his men."

"So?"

"I think Jungkook's here too."

"Thanks for the info, but I'm not in the mood to tail him tonight."

"Taehyung and Y/N are here too, stupid!"

"What the fuck are those two doing there?!"

"How the fuck would I know?!"

"You don't think they're serving cookies and tea now, do you?"

"Oh, they seem to be serving something, alright. There's been shots fired on the rooftop. I don't know how many are up there, but I need you to come here right now."

"Wouldn't dare miss it. On my way."

"Stupid kids!" he murmured, looking up.

Gun in hand, Hoseok slunk through the parked cars, taking sneaky peaks from the shadows at the main entrance and top floor, eyeing for armed men. It was clear. Once he made sure of it, he ran to the entrance and slammed his back on the outside wall. His chest was rising in a quick but controlled pace as he scanned the inside of the main hall. No trace of any living thing. The creases between his eyebrows flattened, but the tension in the arms holding the gun was just as high. His back was gliding across the walls as he made his way up the staircase step by step, collecting all the dust. When he reached the last flight of stairs his attention moved from the ground to the rooftop exit. To him a big mistake, to Taehyung an opportunity. Hoseok's foot slipped on one of the highly damaged steps. More exactly, a big chunk of it detached and started sliding down the others like a bowling ball. No need to say everyone on the rooftop had heard it.

After muttering a juicy "fuck" under his breath, his ears searched for a clue of what was happening outside. He was too low to get a view, so he had to count on his other senses. Not even one moment later a scream echoed through the hollow structure, making it twice more dramatic as it drowned in the depths of the floors below. He took one more step and bullets started flying again. Adrenaline pumping through his veins enhanced his senses. He could feel the veins in his temples throbbing. With no idea of what the situation was like, his mind started making up all sorts of possible scenarios. One more step, two more steps, cautious, well planned, leaving no room for mistakes. Suddenly Taehyun's name carried by a familiar voice tingled his ears, making them follow the sound like those of a cat. The combination of words used painted a grim mental image, one that would in three more steps become reality. He ran up and froze in the doorway as his eyes traveled from Namjoon's body to Taehyung's. Jungkook was the first to notice him. He was still hovering over Namjoon, his sad look turning to a mixture of surprise and relief at the sight of Hoseok. No words exchanged. It was pretty obvious what had happened, and there were more important matters at hand than going over the details. The two moved at the same time, one dragging you away while the other took your place.

In your head there were only moving shadows and blurry outlines. Eyes shot, and arms wrapped tightly around Jungkook, you focused on the faint fragrance emanated by his shirt, more like clung onto it to escape the sickening smell of blood. You could feel it drying on your skin, a gruesome sensation that set fire to your brain. Nothing made sense anymore, it was like your mind went CTRL+ALT+DELETE. Glued to Jungkook, your body was jumping up and down as he ran down the stairs. On the other end, Jungkook was dead worried about what went on inside that pretty head of yours. He had too much in his already. Black Tiger was set to get you, his leadership was hanging by a thread, war was about to break out and he had no way to get you out, to keep you safe. A sense of guilt was blending into his emotional canvas. Namjoon had been like an older brother to him for most of his life, even if the former had never treated him like one. In his group, Jin had been the only good friend he had. However, the sole strong brotherhood bonds he had formed had been with the "enemy", Yoongi's group. And yet somehow that night he felt like he had lost two brothers, one he had shot with his own hand, and one he had failed to protect. All he could do now was put his trust in Hoseok. Time was still going on its fast paced track, dragging everyone along, so crying over the past was out of question. Especially while danger was still lurking in the dark.

You felt Jungkook's muscles contract and his weight shift a little when you were about to exit the building. Out of curiosity you turned your head, eyes falling on another shadow in the night. While your vision was still blurry, Jungkook's was crystal clear. Jimin was heading your way, his stride so heavy it would've made you think he was about to tear the whole place apart. Seeing you with Jungkook added to the list of reasons to do just that. The place was unusually quiet given the fact that shots were being fired when Hoseok had called, there was no trace of him or Taehyung, and Jungkook was running out of the building with you in his arms. It all made for one suspicious setting. When you got a clear image of who was standing in front of you, your body got as tense as your fiancé's.

"You keep giving me reasons not to trust you, Y/N," Jimin said with his gun pointed at you. His voice was as harsh and heavy as his steps.

"Put the gun down, hyung, it's not what it looks like," Jungkook replied, trying to calm him down.

"Hyung? Hyung?! Did you just call me hyung?! Ha! What a joke. I'm not your hyung, rat. You know what? I might as well just shoot you both right now and get it over with. Two traitors down with a single bullet."

"Y/N has nothing to do with this. She came here not knowing I was on the rooftop."

"Very romantic. And let me guess, the two other cars parked down the road were not part of the plan."

"Yes. Namjoon has been keeping an eye on me."

"Keeping an eye? Hahaha! Way to go, mr. new leader of the Black Tiger clan. So much trust within the group already."

"We don't have time for this. You need to get Y/N out of here," Jungkook said and took a step closer, but Jimin tightened his grip around the gun.

"I don't take orders from you."

"He's telling the truth, Jimin," you murmured, exhausted by everything.

"You shut up! I've had enough of your shit."

"Taehyung..." you continued anyways.

"What about him?"

That's when it all washed over you with the force of a raging hurricane, emotions crushing you with each new wave. Jimin's eyebrows were furrowed waiting for the answer that was so difficult for you to push out. Your lips started to tremble, eyes to get soaked in tears, and that's when he noticed all the blood on your clothes and hands.

"Fuck!" Fear and concern were oozing from his voice. He abandoned the thought of dealing with you two and ran into the building like his feet were on fire.

Junkook's eyes followed him, but soon returned to you when he felt you digging deeper into his embrace. Tears were touching the skin on his neck, tumbling down to his collarbone, your tears.

"He's not dead, he's not dead...he's not dead," you kept whispering.

A soft sigh brushed against Jungkook's lips. He had no idea what to say to make you feel better, nor what to do. He carried you all the way to Jimin's car and carefully let your feet touch the ground. Thankfully, you had enough strength in them to keep you from falling, but still needed to lean against the car door for support. You looked down at your stained fingers and your head started spiraling. The mere thought that Taehyung's blood was drying on them was enough to make your stomach turn, actually seeing it was even worse. Jungkook saw you trembling out of control, but before he could do anything you were already hunched over on the side of the road, a meter away from the car, throwing up. He jumped to your side and caressed your upper back as you took deep breaths. Catching a glimpse of red again, you frenetically started rubbing your hands on your jeans and blouse to get rid of it. It was useless, and the more it stuck to your skin, the more desperate you became. Jungkook was trying to calm you down, to keep you from harming yourself, but you kept pushing his hands away and going at it even harder. A burning sensation started spreading from your fingers to your palms from all the friction. It was clearly not enough to stop you. An outsider would've definitely thought you lost it. That was not far from the truth, though.

You were on the verge of ripping your skin off by the time Jungkook came back running with a bottle of water. He let the liquid pour over your traumatized hands, allowing you to ravish in its cooling, purifying sensation. A crimson red waterfall spread from your fingertips to your feet. Seeing it all wash away cleared your mind. For a hot minute you had felt like a criminal accused of killing her lover. A disturbing thought, far from the truth. Jungkook slowly pushed you back to where you had been standing five minutes earlier. Standing in front of you as you leaned back on the door, he took your hands into his and wiped them on his T-shirt to get rid of every last drop of bloody water. You looked up at him while he was at it. He had the expression of a helpless, troubled man that had to take on the whole world on his own. That alone almost made you want to cry again. You felt so sorry, because you knew the person in the center of most if not all of his troubles was you. At the same time you were relieved to have someone like him by your side. He caught you staring when he was done, and reciprocated the gesture. Around you everything was silent, but you were communicating through your eyes. He closed the distance, caged you in one of his sweet embraces, and began swaying from side to side. Your bodies were moving in perfect unison while Jungkook was tenderly caressing the back of your neck with his thumb. With your head pressed tightly against his chest and eyes closed, you fell under the spell of his heartbeats and forgot about the pain.

Up on the rooftop Jimin barged into the scene of three people battling death. The one on his right, Namjoon, was still coughing, while the other body laid lifelessly on the cold cement. Hoseok was in a fight against the running sand in the hourglass that was Taehyung's life. His head snapped into Jimin's direction.

"What the fuck happened?!" Jimin asked. He crouched down next to Taehyung, trying to help Hoseok stop the bleeding.

"I have no idea, I found them like this. Fucking piece of shit over there shot him three times. Have you met with Jungkook?

"Yeah. Bastard was trying to run away with Y/N. Or vice versa for all I know."

"That's not it. Jimin, you need to get Y/N out of here."

"Hell no! We need to get him to a safe place first."

"Listen to me! I've called for backup, help is on the way. You take Y/N and head over to our safe house. Yoongi should be waiting for you there."

"You told him about this?"

"Yes. Now go! That girl is not in good shape."

"Like I give a fuck. It's him I'm worried about. He's gonna make it, right?"

"I can't say, but you're not helping either. Just do what the fuck I just said, and we'll talk about this later."

Jimin took a second look at his friend, fingers turning into fists as he already sought revenge. "If he dies, so does she. That's all I'm saying." He got back on his feet and went downstairs just as fast as he's gone up. Outside, there was no sign of you nor Jungkook. Anger was building up inside him like wildfire. "Just as I thought, she ran away with the rat. Fucking traitors," he told himself. Only that as he made his way to the car, the outline of two bodies intertwined emerged from the shadows. They were moving like one in smooth lines from left to right, as if to a sound only they could hear. A part so small in Jimin was proud of you choosing not to flee, a feeling he immediately shut down. He paced back to the car and went straight for the driver's side, throwing an authoritative "get in" at you without even looking in your direction. Jungkook had seen him approaching from behind, but you haven't so his order startled you more than Namjoon holding a gun to your head. Releasing you from his protective grip, Jungkook took a step back. He caressed your cheeks one more time before he pressed his lips on your ice cold forehead.

"It will all be over soon, Y/N, hang in there," he whispered in your ear. "I will honor my oath to you." You had no clue what he was talking about. Oath? You didn't recall him ever making one. But you were so light headed that you let his words flew by your ears without weighting them. One last secret kiss on the lips and he tucked you in the car. As Jimin drove in reverse the light from the headlamps was getting dimmer and dimmer on Jungkook's body. His heart was breaking every time you left his side, yours was being poked by millions of blades. Anxiety was creeping in as his image faded into the night. You were fighting with everything left in you to keep it together. You were basically walking on thin ice that was already showing signs of breaking near the edges.

The ride was making you nauseous once more. All those turns and bumps, all those objects, trees, houses passing by your eyes at great speed, and the putrid smell of blood that still tainted your hands were too much to handle. You kept shifting in your seat to keep it under control, but at some point it stopped working. You rolled down the window and took out your hand, feeling the chilly wind pass through your fingers. Jimin looked over at you. Now he could see why Hoseok insisted on getting you out of there. You were pale, shaking, and your eyes had no life in them. As fresh air filled your lungs, new questions popped in your head. But you were so scared to ask away. Jimin had been up there, he had seen Taehyung. You could have asked him why he didn't take him with you. But what if he said he was dead?  You kept pushing that thought far, far into the depths of your mind, yet it still managed to bounce back.

He had died to save me. How's that different from my soul taking his? I'm no different from Namjoon. It's all my fault. Should I ask him? No, no, Tae's not dead...he's not dead...that's why Jimin left him there. He's probably already feeling better. Jungkook's there...he'll help him. He'll get better. He won't die.

Little did you know that Jungkook had left just a minute after you did, and that the van you've passed by on your way out was there to pick up Taehyung and Hoseok. You had no idea how close Taehyung actually was to death, nor that Namjoon had more chances of surviving. You also had no idea the ring you hid in the back pocket of your jeans was no longer in that pocket, but in plain sight on the car seat, capturing the attention of the last person that should've seen it. The sparkles made Jimin curious. He picked up the ring while you were resting your head on the window frame, only to notice the resemblance to the one he kept in his room. It didn't take him long to figure you've found it, and clearly took it because you remembered it was actually yours. The image of Jungkook hugging you came back to him. He scoffed when he connected all the pieces. So your memories have been back for a while, and that's why you were suddenly so affectionate towards Jungkook, so tense around the others, and why Taehyung was so obsessed with keeping you by his side. In the end he had been right, Taehyung's love for you had only brought him misery. He pulled over out of the blue, making you hit your head against the door. You turned to Jimin, but he was already out of the car, circling it to your side while you were watching in confusion. He yanked the door open and in a matter of seconds your body was pulled out by force, almost collapsing the moment feet came in contact with the ground.

"What the fuck, Jimin?" you managed to say softly as the world whirled around.

"Caught you red handed, princess," he said with a weird smile on his face. He lifted the ring to your eye level. "Recognize this?"

Fear splashed all over you like ice water. What to say? What to do?

"I see you've been going through my things- stealing." He was moving closer and closer, trapping you like a predator ready to dig into its pray.

"I haven't stolen anything from you. That ring wasn't even yours to begin with."

"How would you know who this belonged to? It was in my room, which makes it mine."

"It's not yours! It's mine!"

He smirked in response, clearly satisfied with the answer. "Oh, would you look at that. The princess got her memories back. Now, were you going to keep this for yourself?" He lifted your chin with a finger. "News like these deserve sharing. You steal, you lie, you deceive, you get people killed, what's next?"

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up!" His voice turned from mocking to threatening. "Taehyung got shot because of you! I told him many times to keep his distance, that you'll only bring him pain. Look what you've done! You did this! His blood is on your hands. Literally."

"He's not dead!!" You screamed.

"This is all on you, Y/N. I don't know what you planned on doing by hiding shit from us, but you failed. You're done!"

"He's not dead!" You whispered.

"Yoongi will find out about this. Count down the minutes, sweetheart, you don't have many left. Now get back in. As much as I'd like to deal with this here and now, I promised hyung I'll take you to the safe house."

After shoving you back inside things became even worse. Your heart was beating way too fast, your head was still going round and round, your vision was blurry and dark, and you couldn't hear a thing. Before you knew it, you opened your eyes to the front door of a fortress-like house. Seems like you had passed out in the car. You didn't even know how you got out or what had happened in the meantime. One of Jimin's arms was holding your waist while yours spread across his shoulders for support. What was that place? You've never been there before. You only noticed how big the walls were. There were members of the gang watching the yard constantly. It really felt more secure than the last place. You recalled you've never really seen Yoongi sleep in the old house, the one that was now in ruins. All this time he had probably come here. It suited the image of a leader. A man opened the door for you and in the hallway stood Yoongi, talking to some other muscular guy. He wrapped it up quickly and sent the man on his way when he saw you.

"What happened? Why is she like this?"

"Didn't Hoseok tell you?"

"He did, but I didn't think she'd be in this state. Hey, Y/N, look at me," he said in a warm voice. He came closer to take a better look at you. At this point you looked like a ghost. Barely even there.

"Don't pity her, she deserves it."

"What do you mean?"

"She played us. I found this in her pocket," he said as he handed Yoongi the ring. "It just happened to fall out of her pocket exactly the night Taehyung got shot. A little suspicious, I'd say. She had been hiding something and acting all weird and shit earlier when we met at the club. She left with Taehyung. I bet she led him there on purpose! It wouldn't surprise me if she is a traitor just like Jungkook."

"She has nothing to do with this," Yoongi calmly replied.

"How are you so sure?!" Jimin was getting worked up.

"She wouldn't hurt Taehyung. She has no reason to do so."

"She got her memories back! She knows everything! Take that for a reason. I've seen her today with Jungkook, they were all over each other. They planned this from scratch!  She even went through my room like a filthy thief."

"If she had planned this from the beginning, do you think she'd be here now?"

"I don't care! I don't trust her!" Jimin reached for his gun and let your body fall to the ground. You were on your knees with a gun pointed to your head for the second time that night. Jimin's screams of frustration didn't even faze you, not after everything you'd been through that night. A big part of you just wanted to get it over with, bullet or not.

"Jimin, put the gun down." Judging by the tone in Yoongi's voice, it was something on the lines of 'you won't shoot, so stop fooling around'. He was tired of having to deal with people, yet people were still playing with his patience.

"We can't trust her, hyung," Jimin's voice broke down. "Look what she did to Taehyung-"

"Was she the one pulling the trigger?"

"No. But-"

"Then we're done here." Yoongi came to your side and helped you get up.

"Why are you always taking her side?!"

"I'm not taking any sides, for fuck's sake. Stop acting like a child. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Taehyung's been shot!!"

"And she has nothing to do with it! Find me real evidence that she plotted this, and then we'll talk!"

"Are you really going to ignore the fact that she got her memories back and said nothing?"

"No, but I will give her a chance to explain herself. Are we done?"

Jimin side-eyed you then shook his head. He was not ready to let this go, but he put his gun back and lowered his voice.

"Just don't place your trust in her like Taehyung did, hyung."

"I know what I'm doing, kid, I haven't built this group a week ago. I'll take care of Y/N, you can go and help Hoseok."

When Jimin left, it was like a rock had been lifted from your chest. Yoongi leaded you to his office, a room twice as large as the one he had at the other place. In the middle of it was a black L shaped sofa facing a wide screen smart TV. In between them a coffee table was stylishly placed to match the aesthetic of the place. Yoongi let you get comfortable and went out to fetch a pillow and blankets. Sleeping on the couch might not have been the best thing, but he had to keep his eyes on you, so his office was the most convenient choice. When he came back you were already lying on your side in a fetus position. The TV was on, but your eyes were shut. You just needed some sound in the background to get rid of the voices in your head. You jumped when Yoongi's hand slid under your cheek. He was just trying to lift your head up to put the pillow under.

"It's ok, Y/N, it's me. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

Yoongi had this weird combination of roughness, authority, and warmth in his voice every time he spoke with you. It had a fatherly touch. You relaxed and made way for him to place the pillow then rested your head on it. He wrapped you in a blanket and patted the side of your arm as he crouched in front of you.

"You look horrible, Y/N. Try to erase tonight from your mind, it will feel better."

"I can't...I keep- seeing him..laying there...and all that blood..."

"It's not your fault, kiddo."

You looked up at him, surprised that he knew what was going on in your brain. Was he a psychic or something?

"When my mom and sister died, I felt the same as you. I blamed myself for leaving home that night, I blamed myself for not protecting them, heck, I even blamed myself for not dying with them. My mind was such a mess. You wouldn't want to know the things I did because of it." He laughed it off, but you knew that what he was referring to was in no way funny. "Thankfully, I had someone in my life to show me how far from the truth I was, and now it's my turn to do the same. It's not your fault, Y/N. I wasn't planning on telling you this, but you remind me so much of my little sister." He fondled the top of your head.

"Is that why you've been so nice to me?"

He smirked. "Maybe. I never got to see her grow, to be the older brother she could always count on. I guess having you as a member of our group made me think of you as my little sister. You're just as stubborn, energetic, and determined as she used to be. So tell me everything that's haunting you, don't let it kill you inside. You're a victim as well."

"Tae..."

"Don't worry, Hoseok is doing his best. Have a bit of faith, kiddo."

"I'm scared."

"We all are. Some of us are just better at hiding it."

"I can't stay here. I need to go see him. I need to be by his side."

"Be by his side and do what? Cry to death? There's nothing you can be of assistance with. You'd just be a nuisance, an obstacle in their way. What you really need is some rest, you look like a ghost. "

"I can't fall asleep..."

"At least give it a try. I'll be right there," he pointed at the desk behind the couch, "I won't leave you alone. If you need anything, just tell me, ok?"

You nodded and pulled the blanket higher. Yoongi helped you adjust it so that no part of your body was left uncovered. After that, he took a seat in his leather chair where his true feelings surfaced. He was just as worried as you, if not more, only that he had put on a mask to cloak them while talking to you. The reason behind it was that if he showed a strong side, you'd also gain strength, or at least you'd cling to his and keep walking.

"Hey, Yoongi," you said softly, looking over the edge of the sofa. Your voice startled him a little. His eyes jumped to you. "Thank you!" You flashed a smile and lowered yourself back on the pillow. Behind, the sharp look on Yoongi's face turned mellow. Seems like you got each other's back like real siblings.

The battle between your mind and your body was drawing to an end, the latter aka exhaustion gaining ground fast. Not sure if you had actually fallen asleep or passed out again, but you were definitely not awake anymore. However, the world you had entered in your dreams was far worse than the reality you had faced that night.

[kaiekasunwhisper]

The Sunwhisper Sister

((Co-written with @thefugitivemango / @gattius-lightmourn )) Few things had brought Gattius much happiness as of late. He used to enjoy pitching in at the infirmary, but lately it felt like a chore. He used to enjoy sitting in command meetings  and discussing the current state of the war on Argus with other high-ranking officials, but now it felt mundane and repetitive. He used to enjoy looking out the Vindicaar’s massive window out at Argus, watching the Azerothian forces advance… but now, it only made him worry. His circle of things that made him happy lately had been reduced to one of two things, as of late; Syrielle, and food. Given Syrielle had already gone to bed, however, Gattius sought out the latter. Talbuk gyros always tasted so good, and reinvigorated him after a long, tiring day. He made his way to the vendor’s small kiosk, and placed his order. “Yer gonna get fat, lad. Round as a Pandaren, if yeh keep eatin’ like that.” Alteris teased, materializing in Gattius’ peripheral beside the kiosk. “Bah, please. I do enough running around this damn ship to work off three times this meal.” Gattius retorted. “Still, yeh ought t’ find something more healthy to eat. I dunno if I wanna live in a mind connected to a frail, deterioratin’ body.” “Would you prefer I just eat salads and drink water?” Gattius frowned. “I don’t just eat for sustenance, Alt; I eat for comfort. And aside from a Sunsail filet, these talbuk gyros are the best tasting food I’ve had in a long time. I need this.” “Oi, suit yerself, lad. Don’t come cryin’ t’ me when--” Gattius suddenly felt a sense of dread wash over him; a sentiment expressed not by him, but by the image of Alteris. The Pathfinder stiffened, eyes wide as he stared off outside Gattius’ field of view.

“Oh, shit!”

He vanished in an instant, much to Gattius’ surprise! That had NEVER happened before. Quickly, warily, the Blood Knight turned to look the direction Alteris was looking before he vanished - he saw a woman, adorned in plate, approaching him… The older woman walked directly over to the captain, her gaze set on him. She was intimidating to say the least. Everything about her; the way she was composed, the way she walked… even the neutral expression on her face almost looked like a glare. Needless to say, everyone made certain to not get in her path as she walked. She stopped a few paces away, a respectable distance. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore no makeup to hide her age, clearly a couple hundred years older than he was, slightly taller but around the same build. There was an obvious scar that traveled across her left cheek and ear; a very old wound. Her dark red armor showed clear signs of recent battle. She stood up straight, tall and proud. Two very large swords were strapped across her back. “Captain Lightmourn,” she stated, eyeing him over… maybe sizing him up a little, “Blood Guard Kai’eka Sunwhisper. I’ve recently put in an application for the position of reservist of the Phoenix Guard.” ‘There’s something familiar about this woman,’ Gattius thought to himself. Not just the composure, or the static glare. He turned fully to her as she approached, eyes narrow as he rested his forearm on the hilt of his blade. He, too, sized the woman up - very much immune to being intimidated by battle-hardened women by now. His brow raised, however, as she rattled off her name and rank - Sunwhisper… A strange coincidence at the very least. His ear twitched, cautiously. “A pleasure, I’m sure.” Gattius responded, casually, as he looked Kai’eka over again. “How long ago did you submit this application? The process takes a few days, and I’ve got much more pressing matters as of late to be reading reservist dossiers.” He met her gaze with his own, frowning a bit. It surprised even himself; perhaps his time in command over the Guard had shortened his patience, and added edge to his demeanor. He felt irritated enough already. But now, this Blood Guard exuding a bad attitude had come up to him inquiring about her application? He didn’t have time to be pestered like this. Still… there was something alarming and particularly interesting about this woman… He sighed. “I’m sure you understand, Blood Guard… Sunwhisper, you said?” he added, tone taking a somewhat calmer and more personable tone. “Is that the same Sunwhisper as Pathfinder Alteris Sunwhisper?” He narrowed his eyes again, watching her reaction - given Alt’s odd behavior, he couldn’t help but ask… She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest as Gattius got on the defensive something fast about the application. He was clearly stressed, most likely about the missing Commander. “Relax,” her tone remained neutral, “I came to tell you I applied. That’s it. I don’t give a shit where the process is at. You’ll get to it when you can. No skin off my back.” She was trying to be nice… It wasn’t something she was good at, however. She tried to think of something to say the would put him at ease. Nothing came to mind. She didn’t want to be talking to him in the first place. Clearly, she was not a people person. She went to turn away, but paused as Alteris was mentioned. She froze, her ear twitched, and she turned her attention back to Gattius, a look of interest now. “He’s my brother. Pain the the ass,” she said, “How do you know him? I haven’t heard from him in years.” Gattius sighed, her response confirming what he had feared. “--Sorry, I’m… I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.” he apologized. “Got a lot on my mind lately. Thanks for following up about that application.” He gave the woman another look-over, appraisingly. She was fit, seemed strong, clearly a capable combatant. But after her retort, he noticed she went quiet, and broke her gaze from him. He sighed, guessing she didn’t interact too much with people. All the more reason he should’ve been patient with her before. What she revealed after was more than surprising to him - Alteris had always told him his family was long dead. A sister, though, still living… he wondered why Alteris never said anything. He wondered why Alteris never sought her out, kept connected to her after so many elves died in the Third War. But most of all, he wondered if it were true… “His sister, aye?” he quirked his brow. “He never spoke of a sister…” He watched her a moment, as if to gauge her. What did she have to gain by lying about this? Was she trying to garner Gattius’ trust? Interest? To what end? The way Alteris responded to her… still couldn’t explain that one. This whole thing raised dozens of questions. Still, he opted to answer hers as best - and plainly - as he could. “Alt and I were partners, for many years.” he explained. “I met him when we pushed through the Dark Portal together, and we were with each other every step of the way since.” His ears wilted, lips pressing to a thin line. “I… I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but… he’s dead. Killed in Action, during the Pandaria Campaign.” This conversation had gotten uncomfortably personal all too fast. She frowned, being told that he had never mentioned her. Part of her wasn’t surprised, given the fact that he had literally run away. He hadn’t wanted to be tracked down, made even more obvious that he had found a Light user to cling to. Smart. She wondered if Gattius knew he had been used in such a way. “Yeah, he rushed through the Dark Portal something fast,” she said simply, finally uncrossing her arms and allowing them to fall at her sides, “That’s where I lost track of him.” She eyed Gattius over again, wondering the exact nature of his relationship with her brother. The word ‘partners’ could mean more than one thing. “At least you’re an Elf,” she concluded, “His ‘partner’ before you was a Dwarf.” Her tough attitude seemed to melt away, though, as Gattius told her of Alteris’ death. Her ears wilted, pain evident in her gaze before she looked away. Hands balled into fists. She had always wondered of his fate. If he had died in Outlands or somewhere else. Where had his adventures taken him? Hope that he was alive and that she’d finally be able to track him down had risen when the Captain had brought him up… Now she knew her final surviving family member had also perished. She turned away, her back to Gattius. “It was good to meet you, Captain.” she managed before walking away. She needed to be alone now. “--Ah, wait!” Gattius insisted, lightly jaunting up beside her as she moved away from him. “Wait, I…” He hadn’t exactly planned how to follow that up; but seeing her react to the news of her brother’s death resonated with him, deeply. He knew how she felt - moreso than anyone else ever could. Alteris was his closest friend, almost family and then some as they cultivated a deeper, emotional relationship. He’d always thought he, alone, would mourn the loss. But now, seeing the sister he never knew Alteris had, he couldn’t let her mourn him alone, as he had. “Listen, I…” he began again, organizing his thoughts on the fly. “When you’re comfortable with it… I think we should get together and talk about it. If that’s okay with you, I mean.” He shrugged his shoulders, reminding himself to be sympathetic. “There’s a lot I don’t know about him, even after the years we were together - clearly, aye? I didn’t even know he had a sister.” he explained. “And it sounds like you don’t know about the later parts of his life, either. I’d be happy to tell you about it. We could honor his memory together, yeah?” Gattius nodded once, offering a comforting smile. “What do you say?” Kai’eka cursed under her breath as she heard the Captain following, holding back the urge to turn on him and tell him to get lost. She had to keep reminding herself that she wasn’t part of the Guard yet, and she never would be if she didn’t manage to navigate this discussion properly. She stopped walking, allowing Gattius to catch up to her, though she kept her eyes ahead of her as he spoke. Her fists remained clenched at her side. “I’m not…” she sighed, rolling her shoulders back, “I’m not good at talking… about things… feelings.” She wanted to be left alone, and some very particular aspects of her life with Alteris were absolutely not up for discussion. She knew Gattius had questions, and she didn’t want to answer them. But at the same time,   after all of these years, she finally found someone with the information she had been looking for. Unfortunately for her, it was someone she wouldn’t be able to intimidate and threaten the information out of. “Maybe.” She finally answered, “Not now, though. Later.” Gattius nodded, understandingly. He knew it was probably the last thing she wanted to hear in that moment. Clearly, she wasn’t a very social person - he knew the sort. Respectfully, he took a step back from her. “Of course.” he assured her. “Take any time you need. I… I know it’s hard to hear news like that. I understand what it means to lose someone.” He fought the urge to keep talking, realizing anything more he said would be best saved for when she was ready to hear it. He regarded her one more time, taking note of her features and demeanor. He believed she was being sincere, quelling his worries perhaps she was simply trying to manipulate him. But he trusted his gut - and his gut told him she was genuine. “--Ah, er…” he fumbled, snapping back to the conversation. “It was good to meet you, Kai’eka. I’ll be around the ship, here, if you need anything. Even if you’re not ready to talk, you’re welcome to come to me for anything you might need. Mending, support, some kind of liaison between you and these Army of Light types… you name it.” He smiled warmly, before nodding his head. He turned from her, throwing a hand out to the side to wave his farewell. Kai’eka finally made eye contact, the look betraying the fact that she was doing everything she could to hold it together. Clearly, she was trying to hide how distraught she was over the news. She gave Gattius a respectable nod of the head. “Thank you, Captain,” she said simply, before continuing on her way. The Blood Guard made her way straight over to the teleporter, steeling herself before being transported to the planet surface. Her ears picked up the sounds of battle not far. She went the opposite direction, to the cliff’s edge. She was finally alone to reflect on the conversation Alone… “Alt…” She had spent years looking for her brother, trying to determine what happened to him. Now, her search had come to an end. And she knew for a fact that she would never see him again. She wanted to scream. Her cold front melted away. Bringing a single hand up to her face, she grit her teeth and closed her eyes; however, it didn’t stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks.

[suzanneshannon]

Telling the Story of Graphic Design

Let me just frame this for you: we're going to take a piece of production UI from a Sketch file, break it down into pieces of information and then build it up into a story we tell our friends. Our friends might be hearing, or seeing, or touching the story so we are going to interpret and translate the same information for different people. We're going to interpret the colors and the typography and even the sizes, and express them in different ways. And we really want everyone to pay attention. This story mustn't be boring or frustrating; it's got to be easy to follow, understand and remember. And it's got to, got to, make sense, from beginning to end.

I've asked my colleague Katie to choose a component she has designed in Sketch. I'll go through and mark it up (we mainly use SCSS, Twig and Craft but the templating language is not very important), then she will respond briefly. Hopefully I'll get most of it right, and then one or two things wrong, so we can look at how things get lost during handoff.

In white label or framework type front-end, the focus is on building pieces that are as flexible and adaptable as possible, as content and style-agnostic as possible (within the scope of the product), because you simply will never know where the code is going and for what, ultimately it is being used. But recently I moved to a web design agency, which has a complete inversion of this focus. It is particular. It is bespoke. It's all about really deeply engaging with the particular client you have and the particular clients they have, and designing something that suits them, as a tailor would.

Working so closely with a graphic designer like Katie, with highly finished pixel-spaced UI, instead of directly from wireframes or stories is an adjustment and an education, but there are still lots of things I can bring to the table. Chiefly: document design.

Document design, which admittedly is just the old semantic web with an accessibility hat on, is really looking at graphic design, engaging with it as a system of communication, and translating the underlying purpose of the colors/type/layout into an accessible, linearizable, and traversable DOM. It's HTML, kids. It's just HTML. You'd think we all knew it by now… but look around you. You'd be wrong!

Katie has slung me a Sketch file chock full of artboards, and she's pretty great at writing out what she wants so I don't have to think too hard:

Event card

First I look through the whole UI file and figure out what is actually a card on this site — it turns out there are six or seven components that use this paradigm. Let's make some observations:

Zoom out on section of artboards

Another card, classes this time.

A card is a block of meta data about a page on the site.

It has an image/media and metadata — it's a media object.

It's shown in a group of objects.

That group is always typed (there's no view where there are search results and news articles and classes are all mixed up).

Each object has a single link to a page and no other actions.

Each object has a call to action (Book, etc.).

Each object may have times, categories, badges, and calls to action.

Each object must have media, title, and link.

So a card is the major way my user is going to find their way around this site. They are going to be clicking through guided pathways where they get a set of cards they can choose from, based on top pages like "what's on" or "classes." They're not getting options on this card. It's not really an interactive element — it's a guide, an index card, that sets her onto her path: in this case a purchase path where she books a ticket for a show at this arts centre.

Before going on, let me just frame this for you:

Imagine you were looking at a flyer for a show and discussing it on the phone. If you actually wanted to go to this show in real life. What would you do? You wouldn't just read the flyer out, would you? That's the text. And it might have all kinds of random stuff on it if you started literally at the top. You wouldn't start with "Twentieth Century Fox" or "Buy Hot Dog Get Cola Free" or "Comedy Drama Musical Family Friendly." (I would actually hang up on you if you did!) And you wouldn't simply describe the color or fonts. That's the CSS. You'd talk through the information on the flyer. You'd say, "It's The Greatest Showman and it's on Tuesday, starts at 7:30. It's at the Odeon on Oxford Street by the tram." Right?

This is the document. Keep that person on the phone in your mind.

Count, group, and name

So let's say we'll deliver a card as the inside of a list item. We want a group and that group should be countable. We've already named the page with an <h1> so we'll introduce and describe the group with a heading, an <h2>. First we'll name it, then we'll deliver it, so someone using a screen reader can:

Get the list signaled in the headings overview.

Get a count up front of the number of items on a page.

Know they can skip to the next list item to get the next card.

Know they can skip the group at any point and go to the next page — the pagination is the very next element and it will be labelled as a landmark.

See the Pen Cards delivered as a countable list with descriptive heading by limograf (@Sally_McGrath) on CodePen.

Anchor

In this particular case, I'm gonna wrap this whole card in an anchor element (<a>). There's only one link on the card and I want to front load that information so someone can click as soon as they know it's the right card, instead of having to search forward for the action. A big clickable area is nice too, though of course that can be taken too far and make an interface a sort of booby trap! But these cards are not too enormous and I can see they have a nice gutter around them, so there's a rest space that will reduce accidental clicking for people with more limited dexterity.

Title

Event card "title" element

Then we'll jump down a heading level and mark up the name of each show as a heading, an <h3>. The designer has made this type the focus and we will too. Some people browse super fast by jumping to the next heading, then next heading, so I'm not going to put any important information before the heading — they'll jump right over it. I will put the image there, though, as I know in this case, I can't get meaningful image descriptions from the API so those images are hidden and have empty alt attributes. Now the user can guess (correctly in my case) that the developer is actually describing the content in some meaningful way and might flip back to headings overview (list headings level 3) and just get a list of the shows.

Now let's deliver our metadata. Let's list it:

Badge

Date/Time

Categories

Badge

Event card "badge" element

This seems to be something the venue adds to a card to highlight it. As a developer, I can't immediately see why a user would look for this, but it's emphasized strongly by the designer, so I'll make sure it stays in. Katie has moved the badge up out of the flow, but I know that with a headings jump our user could miss it. So I'll just put the wording directly after the title, I think. I'll either put it first or last, so make it easier to account for in a non-visual browse and not be too crazy paving in a tabbing, visual browse.

<p class="c-card__badge"><abbr title="Harrow Arts Centre">HAC</abbr> Highlight.</p>

...But on second thought, I won't put an <abbr> after all. It's the brand color, so it's really a statement of ownership by this venue, and we've already said HAC a million times by now, so the user knows where they are.

<p class="c-card__badge">HAC Highlight </p>

See the Pen Badge by limograf (@Sally_McGrath) on CodePen.

A quick aside: the 'badging' is very specific to this organisation. They want to show people clearly and quickly which events they've programmed themselves, and which are run by other organizations who've hired their venue.

Date/Time

Event card "date/time" element

Now date and time. Katie is keying me in to this decision point by styling the dates in bold. Dates are important. I'm going to pop it in an <h4>, because I'm thinking it looks like someone might be quickly scanning a page of events looking for the matinee, for example, or looking for a news article published on a particular day. I don't always put dates into headings, especially if there are millions on a page, but I do always make sure they're in a <time> element with a complete value so the <time>Thu</time> or <time>Mon</time> Katie has specified is read out as comprehensible English words "Thursday" instead of garblage. I could also have used hidden completion or <abbr> with a title.

Categories/ Tags

Event card "categories/tags" element

Next come the categories, and I'm putting them after badge and date. This section is next in the visual order reading top-to-bottom, left-to-right, of course, but it also seems to be deprioritized: it's been pushed down on the left and the type is smaller. This works for our linear storytelling. As a rule, we don't want people to sit through repeated or more general content (cinema, cinema, cinema) to get to unique or more specific content (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday). Remember, we are inside our card: we know it has already been sorted in a few general ways (news, show, class, etc), so it's likely to have a lot of repeated pieces. We want to ensure that the user will go from specific to general if we can.

There is a primary category that is sorted first and then some other categories sometimes. I won't deliver this as a countable list as there's mostly just one category, and loads of lists of one item is not much use. But I will put a little tag beforehand because otherwise, it's a slightly impenetrable announcement. MOVEMENT! SPOKEN WORD! (I mean, you can work it out retrospectively, but we always try to name things first and then show them, in linear order. This isn't Memento.) I used to use title="" fairly heavily but I've gotten complaints about the tooltip so I route around. Note the use of colon or full stop to give us a "breath." That's a nice bit of polish.

<p class="c-card__tags h-text--label> <span class="h-accessibility">Categories: </span> </p>

Also I'm hard-coding in my spaces to make sure the categories never run together into complete garblage even with text compression or spaceless rendering turned on somewhere down the pipeline. (This can happen with screen readers and spans and it's rather alarming!)

There's a piece of this design I will do in the CSS but haven't really pulled into the document design: the color-coding on primary category. I am not describing the color to the reader as it seems arbitrary, not evocative. If there were some subtextual element to the color coding beyond tagging categories (if horticultural classes were green, say), then I might bring it through, but in this case it's a non-verbal key to a category, so we don't want it in our verbal key.

I'm sorting the primary category to the front of the category paragraph, but I'm not labeling it as primary. This is because there's a sorting filter before this list that sorts on primary category, and it's my surmise that it would be easier and less annoying to select a category from that dropdown than to read through each card saying Categories Primary Category Music Secondary Categories Dance. I could be wrong about that! Striking a balance between useful and too much labeling is sometimes a bit tricky. You have to consider the page context. We may be building components but our user is on a page.

See the Pen Dummies in page context by limograf (@Sally_McGrath) on CodePen.

Action

Event card "action" element

Last, the action. The direction to the user, to Book, or Learn More, or whatever it is, has been styled as a button. It's not actually a button, it's just a direction, so I'll mark it up as a span in this case. I definitely want this to come last in the linear document. It's a call to action and also a signal that we've reached the end of this card. The action is the exit point in both cases: if the user acts, we go to the target entry; if they do not, we go to the next card. We definitely never want any data to come after the action, as they might have left by then.

See the Pen Card by limograf (@Sally_McGrath) on CodePen.

My conclusion

This markup, which counts, groups, and names data, delivers linear and non-linear interactions. The page makes sense if you read it top to bottom, makes sense if you read parts of it out of context, and helps you jump around.

Katie, over to you...

Katie Parry, designer

What an ace article! Really interesting. (I particularly like that "Mon," "Tue," etc. on cards are read as "Monday," "Tuesday"... smart!)

One thing that struck me is that using assistive tech means users get information served to them in a "set" order that we've decided. So, unless there's a filter, someone browsing for dance events, for example, has to sit/tab through a title, badge, dates, and maybe several other categories to find out whether an event's for them or not. Bit tiresome. But that's not something you've got wrong — it's just how the internet works. Something for me to think about in the future.

Most of our clients are arts and cultural venues that need to sell tickets for events so I design a lot of event cards. They're one of the very first things I'll work on when designing a site. (Before even settling on a type hierarchy for the rest of the site.)

Thinking visually, here's how I'd describe the general conventions of an event card:

It must look like a list – so people understand how to use it.

It needs to provide enough information for folks to decide if they're interested or not. (The minimum information is likely an image, title, date, and link.)

It needs to include a clear call to action — usually a link to find out more information.

It needs to be easily scannable, visually.

Making information visually scannable is a pretty straightforward case of ensuring every information type (e.g. image, title, date, category, link) is sitting in the same place on every card and follows a clear hierarchy.

I focus a lot on typography in my work anyway but clearly: titles are styled to be highly prominent; dates are styled the same as each other but are different from titles; categories look different again – so that folks can easily pick-out the information they're interested in from simply scanning the page. I'm composing the card for the user, saying, "Hey, look here's the event's name, this is when it's on — and here's where you go to get your tickets!"

The type styles – and particularly the spacing between them – are doing a lot of work, so I will point out here that the spacings are not quite right in the code sample:

Spacing between the title and dates, dates and button, and button and piping don't match the design.

This is important. Users need to be able to scan information quickly as they aren't all looking for the same thing in order to make the decision to go to an event. Too much or too little space between elements can be distracting.

Here, let me tighten that up for you:

See the Pen Card with accurate spacings by limograf (@Sally_McGrath) on CodePen.

Perfect!

Some people just want a general mooch at what's coming up at their local venue. Others may have seen an advert for a specific show that tickles their fancy, and want to buy tickets. There are people who love music but don't care for theatre who just want a list of gigs; nothing else. And some folks who feel like going out at the weekend but aren't that fussed about what it is they go to. So, I design cards to be easy to scan — because most users aren't at all reading from top to bottom.

Despite the conventions I just laid out, cards certainly don't all look the same — or work in the same way — across projects.

There is always a tension in web design between making an interface familiar to the user and original to the client. Custom typefaces and color palettes do a lot here, but the other piece of it is through discovery.

I spend time reading-up about a client, including who their audience is by reading what they say on review sites and social media, as well as working directly with the client. Listening to people talk through how they work, what feedback they get from their audience/users often uncovers some interesting little nuggets which influence a design. Developers aren't typically involved much in discovery, which is something I'd like to change, but for now, I need to make it super-clear to Sally what's special about this event card for each new project. I write many, many (many) notes on Sketch files, but find they can tend to get lost, so sometimes we have a spreadsheet defining particular functionality.

And soon a data populator instead! :P

See the Pen Cards in page context, scraped from production by limograf (@Sally_McGrath) on CodePen.

The post Telling the Story of Graphic Design appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

Telling the Story of Graphic Design published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[simplemlmsponsoring]

New Post has been published on http://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/seo/on-page-seo-for-2019-whiteboard-friday/

On-Page SEO for 2019 - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Whew! We made it through another year, and it seems like we’re past due for taking a close look at the health of our on-page SEO practices. What better way to hit the ground running than with a checklist? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, the fabulous Britney Muller shares her best tips for doing effective on-page SEO in 2019.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we’re going over all things on-page SEO, and I’ve divided it into three different sections:

How are crawlers and Googlebot crawling through your site and your web pages? What is the UX of your on-page content? What is the value in the content of your on-page content?

So let’s just jump right in, shall we?

Crawler/bot-accessible☑ Meta robots tag allows crawling

Making sure your meta robots tag allows crawling is essential. If that’s blocking Googlebot from crawling, your page will never be in search. You want to make sure that’s all panned out.

☑ Robots.txt doesn’t disallow crawling

You want to make sure that let’s say this page that you’re trying to get to rank in search engines, that you’re not disallowing this URL from your robots.txt.

☑ URL is included in sitemap

Similarly you want to make sure that the URL is in your site map.

☑ Schema markup

You also want to add any schema markup, any relevant schema markup that you can. This is essentially spoon-feeding search engines what your page is about and what your content is about.

☑ Internal links pointing to your page with natural anchor text

So let’s say I am trying to rank for chakra stones. Maybe I’m on a yoga website and I want to make sure that I have other internal pages linking to chakra stones with the anchor text “chakra crystals” or “chakra stones” and making sure that I’m showing Google that this is indeed an internally linked page and it’s important and we want to give it some weight.

☑ HTTPS – SSL

You want to make sure that that is secure and that Google is taking that into consideration as well.

User experience☑ Meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Does it meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Definitely look into that and make sure you check all the boxes.

☑ Responsive mobile design with same content and links

Is it responsive for mobile? Super important with the mobile-first indexing.

☑ Clear CTA

Is there one clear call to action? A lot of pages miss this. So, for this page, maybe I would have a big “Buy Chakra Crystals Here” button or link. That would be a clear CTA. It’s important to have.

☑ Multimedia: Evaluate SERP and add desired media

Are you providing other desired media types? Are there images and video and different forms of content on your page?

☑ Page speed: utilize CDNs, compress images, use reliable hosting

Are you checking the page speed? Are you using CDNs? Are you compressing your images? You want to check all of that.

☑ Integrate social sharing buttons

It’s the easiest thing. Make sure that people can easily share your content.

Content and value

This is where it gets really fun and strategic too.

☑ Unique, high-quality content

Are you providing high-quality content? So if you go to Google and you search “chakra stones” and you take a look at all of those results, are you including all of that good content into your page? Then are you making it even better? Because that should be the goal.

☑ Optimize for intent: Evaluate SERP and PPC, note which SERP features show up

You want to also optimize for intent. So you want to evaluate that SERP. If that search result page is showing tons of images or maybe videos, you should be incorporating that into your page as well, because clearly that’s what people are looking for.

You also want to evaluate the PPC. They have done so much testing on what converts and what doesn’t. So it’s silly not to take that into consideration when optimizing your page.

☑ Title tags and meta descriptions

What are those titles? What are those descriptions? What’s working? Title tags and meta description are still so important. This is the first impression to many of your visitors in Google. Are you enticing a click? Are you making that an enticing call to action to your site?

☑ Header tags

H1, H2, and H3 header tags are still super important. You want to make sure that the title of your page is the H1 and so forth. But just to check on all of that would be good.

☑ Optimize images: compress, title file names, add alt text

Images are the biggest source of bloat of on-page site speed. So you want to make sure that your images are compressed and optimized and keeping your page fast and easily accessible to your users.

☑ Review for freshness

You want to review for freshness. We want to make sure that this is up-to-date content. Maybe take a look at popular content the last year or two of your site and update that stuff. This should be a continual wash and repeat. You want to continue to update the content on your site.

☑ Include commonly asked questions

It’s such an easy thing to do, but it’s commonly overlooked. AnswerThePublic does a great job of surfacing questions. Moz Keyword Explorer has a really great filter that provides some of the most commonly asked questions for a keyword term. I highly suggest you check that out and start to incorporate some of that.

Find common questions now

These help to target featured snippets. So if you’re incorporating some of that, not only do you get the extra traffic, but you find these opportunities of getting featured snippets, which is great. You’re expanding your real estate in search. Awesome. PAA boxes are also a great way to find commonly asked questions for a particular keyword.

☑ Add summaries

Summaries are also hidden gems. We see Google seeking out summaries for content all of the time. They are providing summaries in featured snippets and in different SERP features to help sort of distill information for users. So if you can do that, not only will you make your content more easily scannable, but you’re also making it more accessible for search, which is great.

☑ TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency)

TF-IDF stands for “term frequency-inverse document frequency.” It sounds a little intimidating. It’s actually pretty simple. What’s the number of times that “chakra stones” is mentioned in this particular page divided by the number of times it’s mentioned anywhere? This is basically just a calculation to determine relevance for the term “chakra stones.” Really cool and commonly used by Google. So if you can do this on your on-page, it will just help you in the long term.

☑ LSI (latent semantic indexing) for relevance

Similarly LSI or LSA, it sometimes referred to, is latent semantic indexing, and it’s also for relevance. This helps determine, okay, if I’m talking about chakra stones, it may also incorporate those other topics that are commonly related to this topic. Relevant.

☑ Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

What is the readability of this page? The easier it is to read the better, but you just want to keep an eye on that in general.

Bonus tip!

One final tip that Kameron Jenkins put on Twitter, that I love so much, and Kameron is a world-class writer —she’s one of the best I’ve ever had the privilege of working with — mentioned this on-page SEO trick. Find the top three ranking URLs for your target keyword.

KW research tip 1. Search your target kw & pull the top 3 ranking URLs 2. Compare URLs in @Moz KWE 3. Click on the areas of most overlap 4. See KWs that top-ranking URLs for target KW also rank for 5. Use ideas to optimize your own page! pic.twitter.com/FxJjOxn7DJ — Kameron Jenkins (@Kammie_Jenkins) November 7, 2018

So if I were to put in “chakra stones” in Google and pull the top three URLs, put them into Moz Keyword Explorer and I see what they’re ranking for, I see what those three URLs are specifically ranking for, and I look at what they’re commonly ranking for in the middle here. Then I use those keywords to optimize my page even better. It’s genius. It’s very similar to some of the relevant stuff we were talking about over here.

Discover new keyword ideas

So definitely try some of this stuff out. I hope this helps. I really look forward to any of your comments or questions down below in the comments section.

Thank you so much for joining me on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I look forward to seeing you all again soon, so thanks. Have a good one.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

Read more: moz.com

[monoxaos-blog]

On-Page SEO for 2019 - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Whew! We made it through another year, and it seems like we're past due for taking a close look at the health of our on-page SEO practices. What better way to hit the ground running than with a checklist? In today's Whiteboard Friday, the fabulous Britney Muller shares her best tips for doing effective on-page SEO in 2019.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going over all things on-page SEO, and I've divided it into three different sections:

How are crawlers and Googlebot crawling through your site and your web pages?

What is the UX of your on-page content?

What is the value in the content of your on-page content?

So let's just jump right in, shall we?

Crawler/bot-accessible

☑ Meta robots tag allows crawling

Making sure your meta robots tag allows crawling is essential. If that's blocking Googlebot from crawling, your page will never be in search. You want to make sure that's all panned out.

☑ Robots.txt doesn't disallow crawling

You want to make sure that let's say this page that you're trying to get to rank in search engines, that you're not disallowing this URL from your robots.txt.

☑ URL is included in sitemap

Similarly you want to make sure that the URL is in your site map.

☑ Schema markup

You also want to add any schema markup, any relevant schema markup that you can. This is essentially spoon-feeding search engines what your page is about and what your content is about.

☑ Internal links pointing to your page with natural anchor text

So let's say I am trying to rank for chakra stones. Maybe I'm on a yoga website and I want to make sure that I have other internal pages linking to chakra stones with the anchor text "chakra crystals" or "chakra stones" and making sure that I'm showing Google that this is indeed an internally linked page and it's important and we want to give it some weight.

☑ HTTPS - SSL

You want to make sure that that is secure and that Google is taking that into consideration as well.

User experience

☑ Meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Does it meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Definitely look into that and make sure you check all the boxes.

☑ Responsive mobile design with same content and links

Is it responsive for mobile? Super important with the mobile-first indexing.

☑ Clear CTA

Is there one clear call to action? A lot of pages miss this. So, for this page, maybe I would have a big "Buy Chakra Crystals Here" button or link. That would be a clear CTA. It's important to have.

☑ Multimedia: Evaluate SERP and add desired media

Are you providing other desired media types? Are there images and video and different forms of content on your page?

☑ Page speed: utilize CDNs, compress images, use reliable hosting

Are you checking the page speed? Are you using CDNs? Are you compressing your images? You want to check all of that.

☑ Integrate social sharing buttons

It's the easiest thing. Make sure that people can easily share your content.

Content and value

This is where it gets really fun and strategic too.

☑ Unique, high-quality content

Are you providing high-quality content? So if you go to Google and you search "chakra stones" and you take a look at all of those results, are you including all of that good content into your page? Then are you making it even better? Because that should be the goal.

☑ Optimize for intent: Evaluate SERP and PPC, note which SERP features show up

You want to also optimize for intent. So you want to evaluate that SERP. If that search result page is showing tons of images or maybe videos, you should be incorporating that into your page as well, because clearly that's what people are looking for.

You also want to evaluate the PPC. They have done so much testing on what converts and what doesn't. So it's silly not to take that into consideration when optimizing your page.

☑ Title tags and meta descriptions

What are those titles? What are those descriptions? What's working? Title tags and meta description are still so important. This is the first impression to many of your visitors in Google. Are you enticing a click? Are you making that an enticing call to action to your site?

☑ Header tags

H1, H2, and H3 header tags are still super important. You want to make sure that the title of your page is the H1 and so forth. But just to check on all of that would be good.

☑ Optimize images: compress, title file names, add alt text

Images are the biggest source of bloat of on-page site speed. So you want to make sure that your images are compressed and optimized and keeping your page fast and easily accessible to your users.

☑ Review for freshness

You want to review for freshness. We want to make sure that this is up-to-date content. Maybe take a look at popular content the last year or two of your site and update that stuff. This should be a continual wash and repeat. You want to continue to update the content on your site.

☑ Include commonly asked questions

It's such an easy thing to do, but it's commonly overlooked. AnswerThePublic does a great job of surfacing questions. Moz Keyword Explorer has a really great filter that provides some of the most commonly asked questions for a keyword term. I highly suggest you check that out and start to incorporate some of that.

Find common questions now

These help to target featured snippets. So if you're incorporating some of that, not only do you get the extra traffic, but you find these opportunities of getting featured snippets, which is great. You're expanding your real estate in search. Awesome. PAA boxes are also a great way to find commonly asked questions for a particular keyword.

☑ Add summaries

Summaries are also hidden gems. We see Google seeking out summaries for content all of the time. They are providing summaries in featured snippets and in different SERP features to help sort of distill information for users. So if you can do that, not only will you make your content more easily scannable, but you're also making it more accessible for search, which is great.

☑ TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency)

TF-IDF stands for "term frequency-inverse document frequency." It sounds a little intimidating. It's actually pretty simple. What's the number of times that "chakra stones" is mentioned in this particular page divided by the number of times it's mentioned anywhere? This is basically just a calculation to determine relevance for the term "chakra stones." Really cool and commonly used by Google. So if you can do this on your on-page, it will just help you in the long term.

☑ LSI (latent semantic indexing) for relevance

Similarly LSI or LSA, it sometimes referred to, is latent semantic indexing, and it's also for relevance. This helps determine, okay, if I'm talking about chakra stones, it may also incorporate those other topics that are commonly related to this topic. Relevant.

☑ Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

What is the readability of this page? The easier it is to read the better, but you just want to keep an eye on that in general.

Bonus tip!

One final tip that Kameron Jenkins put on Twitter, that I love so much, and Kameron is a world-class writer -she's one of the best I've ever had the privilege of working with - mentioned this on-page SEO trick. Find the top three ranking URLs for your target keyword.

KW research tip 1. Search your target kw & pull the top 3 ranking URLs 2. Compare URLs in @Moz KWE 3. Click on the areas of most overlap 4. See KWs that top-ranking URLs for target KW also rank for 5. Use ideas to optimize your own page! pic.twitter.com/FxJjOxn7DJ - Kameron Jenkins (@Kammie_Jenkins) November 7, 2018

So if I were to put in "chakra stones" in Google and pull the top three URLs, put them into Moz Keyword Explorer and I see what they're ranking for, I see what those three URLs are specifically ranking for, and I look at what they're commonly ranking for in the middle here. Then I use those keywords to optimize my page even better. It's genius. It's very similar to some of the relevant stuff we were talking about over here.

Discover new keyword ideas

So definitely try some of this stuff out. I hope this helps. I really look forward to any of your comments or questions down below in the comments section.

Thank you so much for joining me on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I look forward to seeing you all again soon, so thanks. Have a good one.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[golehyas]

On-Page SEO for 2019 - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by BritneyMuller

Whew! We made it through another year, and it seems like we're past due for taking a close look at the health of our on-page SEO practices. What better way to hit the ground running than with a checklist? In today's Whiteboard Friday, the fabulous Britney Muller shares her best tips for doing effective on-page SEO in 2019.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hey, Moz fans. Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today we're going over all things on-page SEO, and I've divided it into three different sections:

How are crawlers and Googlebot crawling through your site and your web pages?

What is the UX of your on-page content?

What is the value in the content of your on-page content?

So let's just jump right in, shall we?

Crawler/bot-accessible

☑ Meta robots tag allows crawling

Making sure your meta robots tag allows crawling is essential. If that's blocking Googlebot from crawling, your page will never be in search. You want to make sure that's all panned out.

☑ Robots.txt doesn't disallow crawling

You want to make sure that let's say this page that you're trying to get to rank in search engines, that you're not disallowing this URL from your robots.txt.

☑ URL is included in sitemap

Similarly you want to make sure that the URL is in your site map.

☑ Schema markup

You also want to add any schema markup, any relevant schema markup that you can. This is essentially spoon-feeding search engines what your page is about and what your content is about.

☑ Internal links pointing to your page with natural anchor text

So let's say I am trying to rank for chakra stones. Maybe I'm on a yoga website and I want to make sure that I have other internal pages linking to chakra stones with the anchor text "chakra crystals" or "chakra stones" and making sure that I'm showing Google that this is indeed an internally linked page and it's important and we want to give it some weight.

☑ HTTPS - SSL

You want to make sure that that is secure and that Google is taking that into consideration as well.

User experience

☑ Meets Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Does it meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines? Definitely look into that and make sure you check all the boxes.

☑ Responsive mobile design with same content and links

Is it responsive for mobile? Super important with the mobile-first indexing.

☑ Clear CTA

Is there one clear call to action? A lot of pages miss this. So, for this page, maybe I would have a big "Buy Chakra Crystals Here" button or link. That would be a clear CTA. It's important to have.

☑ Multimedia: Evaluate SERP and add desired media

Are you providing other desired media types? Are there images and video and different forms of content on your page?

☑ Page speed: utilize CDNs, compress images, use reliable hosting

Are you checking the page speed? Are you using CDNs? Are you compressing your images? You want to check all of that.

☑ Integrate social sharing buttons

It's the easiest thing. Make sure that people can easily share your content.

Content and value

This is where it gets really fun and strategic too.

☑ Unique, high-quality content

Are you providing high-quality content? So if you go to Google and you search "chakra stones" and you take a look at all of those results, are you including all of that good content into your page? Then are you making it even better? Because that should be the goal.

☑ Optimize for intent: Evaluate SERP and PPC, note which SERP features show up

You want to also optimize for intent. So you want to evaluate that SERP. If that search result page is showing tons of images or maybe videos, you should be incorporating that into your page as well, because clearly that's what people are looking for.

You also want to evaluate the PPC. They have done so much testing on what converts and what doesn't. So it's silly not to take that into consideration when optimizing your page.

☑ Title tags and meta descriptions

What are those titles? What are those descriptions? What's working? Title tags and meta description are still so important. This is the first impression to many of your visitors in Google. Are you enticing a click? Are you making that an enticing call to action to your site?

☑ Header tags

H1, H2, and H3 header tags are still super important. You want to make sure that the title of your page is the H1 and so forth. But just to check on all of that would be good.

☑ Optimize images: compress, title file names, add alt text

Images are the biggest source of bloat of on-page site speed. So you want to make sure that your images are compressed and optimized and keeping your page fast and easily accessible to your users.

☑ Review for freshness

You want to review for freshness. We want to make sure that this is up-to-date content. Maybe take a look at popular content the last year or two of your site and update that stuff. This should be a continual wash and repeat. You want to continue to update the content on your site.

☑ Include commonly asked questions

It's such an easy thing to do, but it's commonly overlooked. AnswerThePublic does a great job of surfacing questions. Moz Keyword Explorer has a really great filter that provides some of the most commonly asked questions for a keyword term. I highly suggest you check that out and start to incorporate some of that.

Find common questions now

These help to target featured snippets. So if you're incorporating some of that, not only do you get the extra traffic, but you find these opportunities of getting featured snippets, which is great. You're expanding your real estate in search. Awesome. PAA boxes are also a great way to find commonly asked questions for a particular keyword.

☑ Add summaries

Summaries are also hidden gems. We see Google seeking out summaries for content all of the time. They are providing summaries in featured snippets and in different SERP features to help sort of distill information for users. So if you can do that, not only will you make your content more easily scannable, but you're also making it more accessible for search, which is great.

☑ TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency)

TF-IDF stands for "term frequency-inverse document frequency." It sounds a little intimidating. It's actually pretty simple. What's the number of times that "chakra stones" is mentioned in this particular page divided by the number of times it's mentioned anywhere? This is basically just a calculation to determine relevance for the term "chakra stones." Really cool and commonly used by Google. So if you can do this on your on-page, it will just help you in the long term.

☑ LSI (latent semantic indexing) for relevance

Similarly LSI or LSA, it sometimes referred to, is latent semantic indexing, and it's also for relevance. This helps determine, okay, if I'm talking about chakra stones, it may also incorporate those other topics that are commonly related to this topic. Relevant.

☑ Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test

What is the readability of this page? The easier it is to read the better, but you just want to keep an eye on that in general.

Bonus tip!

One final tip that Kameron Jenkins put on Twitter, that I love so much, and Kameron is a world-class writer -she's one of the best I've ever had the privilege of working with - mentioned this on-page SEO trick. Find the top three ranking URLs for your target keyword.

KW research tip 1. Search your target kw & pull the top 3 ranking URLs 2. Compare URLs in @Moz KWE 3. Click on the areas of most overlap 4. See KWs that top-ranking URLs for target KW also rank for 5. Use ideas to optimize your own page! pic.twitter.com/FxJjOxn7DJ - Kameron Jenkins (@Kammie_Jenkins) November 7, 2018

So if I were to put in "chakra stones" in Google and pull the top three URLs, put them into Moz Keyword Explorer and I see what they're ranking for, I see what those three URLs are specifically ranking for, and I look at what they're commonly ranking for in the middle here. Then I use those keywords to optimize my page even better. It's genius. It's very similar to some of the relevant stuff we were talking about over here.

Discover new keyword ideas

So definitely try some of this stuff out. I hope this helps. I really look forward to any of your comments or questions down below in the comments section.

Thank you so much for joining me on this edition of Whiteboard Friday. I look forward to seeing you all again soon, so thanks. Have a good one.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!