#I will be linking this on my site!!! to the Cheer Up page it goes

[runawaycarouselhorse]

[CW mention of (past) intoxication/inebriation, infidelity case.]

This was such a cute game, incredibly adorable, I couldn't stop smiling as it became clearer and clearer who it was...

Loved the worldbuilding, enjoyed hearing little tidbits about the world around them and their relationships (like the terrifying etiquette school teacher), it was a simple mystery, but a fun one.

While I abhor gossip, I'm as loud, flighty, and impulsive as Cecilia here and I'm as quick to anger as Charlotte... wish I could be calmer and more level-headed like Lucy, ffff. I loved how often Cecilia drifted off-topic and went on side-notes, it was both mildly frustrating and very, very endearing. This was so fun and cute!!!

I hope you got a great grade for this, I'd love to hear what your instructor thought of it. ;3; It's a delight!

i made a game for one of my class finals which had a lot of character sprites, rly proud of them still so i decided to post them here :))

if u want to play it, its on my itch.io page! disclaimer, i made this game on my own in 2 weeks so its a bit scuffed haha

here is a link: lichirin.itch.io/tea-party

[straymarkscomics]

Goodbye and hello again

I just logged back into this site after a nearly four year hiatus and barely recognize it. "Go ad free," "log in with Twitter," blah blah blah. And how can I edit through my custom theme instead of tumblr's default interface? Don't answer that; I'm moving. RIP Tumblr.

Thank you to all the people who have read my work on this site and elsewhere, but it's high time I find myself a new site to host Stray Marks Comics from (with this current theme, I had to upload pages in reverse order for them to be read chronologically, so I couldn't upload new material unless the story was finished. Good riddance). I will update this post with a link to the new site once I get it up and running.

And if all goes according to plan, I'll have new material to share as well.

Cheers.

[sparring-spirals]

Oops! All Deep-Dive on Ashton's Playlist

the title is bad and im not really sorry.

So. Listen. I feel like Taliesin’s description is extremely true- Ashton’s playlist is both extremely vibes based, and VERY dense, if you’re digging into it proper. It’s about Ashton, but its also very much about punk, as a culture, as a movement, as historical building blocks. The two can’t really be divorced, I think.

So my way of pulling apart playlists- 50% vibes, 50% lyrics- doesn’t quite translate for this, because I think it’s best done with like, proper googling into each band and each song, and historical delving, alongside sitting back and really absorbing the Vibes(tm) of the playlist. So! I did a bit of a deeper dive, but also. VERY important disclaimer:

This touches on real history. I am not particularly well versed in punk history, and only a bit with the culture, and was only able to do very surface dives for this.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I am NOT claiming authority or absolute correctness on this, and I’m sure there’s a million things I’m not picking up on. Any bigger assumptions I make are meant to be Ashton-specific. I’ll try to provide links and actual facts without my input as well. Everyone gets to draw their own conclusions, this is mostly for me to have a large pool of info I can look at later. This is long. I’m sorry.

Let The World Turn: is a SOLID start to any playlist, but especially Ashtons.

“Let the World Turn” starts off slow, talks about moving on, talks about figuring out how to keep going. How to leave the past behind. And then- kicks up, gets loud and heavy and defiant. Also, Taliesin was not kidding about the incredible history of this band: (link to wiki page) some interesting highlights among it- arguably the first punk band, definitely the first all-black punk band, named “Death” after the death of the father, related to a desire to turn the negative connotations good. Prioritized brotherly bond and this name over the commercial relationship. 

(There’s like 20 layers here and I am not even going to try explicitly laying them down in case I miss big things so all I’ll say is: Holy shit, right?)

Warbaby:  the line of “beat you black and blue�� was. Very prominent to my brain. The band is interesting, though. (link to wiki page) They’re well known within the LA scene, but are not friendly with major record labels, most likely related to their “reputation as trouble makers”. (Not my words, pulling it off a site). The Mau Mau’s are the names of… many things, actually. Like. Puerto Rican gang. Uprising in Kenya. ...

Stayin Alive: I mean, off the bat, you know. Vibes. It’s a reimagined, very unique cover of a well known song. about staying alive. Very fuck you. 

Garbageman: I’m trying to figure out a good way to describe the vibes without getting too pretentious for what its trying to say. I love this song for Ashton, though, okay. It’s fucking perfect. It’s- it’s Ashton, getting into the fight with Ratanish and getting happier and happier as shit goes sideways but it’s a proper brawl, no pretense, no bullshit. That’s how Ashton wants to live. That’s how Ashton will live, for better or for worse, so the question is: what about you?

Beat on the Brat: What can ya lose? Over and over and over.

(Weird Al is a Choice. I’m sure others can speak much more intelligently on this, but: Weird Al as a very talented artist, who largely is known for parodies that are ridiculous but also require a ton of talent and precision and are like. Fantastically made. Also radical self acceptance. You feel me? U feel me. (link to wiki page) )

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?: THIS IS ABOUT FCG AND THAT IS FUCKING TERRIFYING. It’s the well known, cheerful, friendly tone, interspersed with. Rock. Upswells. I don’t know what the musical term for it is but the SHIFT. Drastic, sharp, claws under fur. F.C.G? F.C.G????

Boom Swagger Boom: This is a good song. Taliesin’s caption sums it up well, but I think it also demonstrates another big thing about Ashton, which is how much they appreciate lack of pretense. Attraction, respect, are based on that. Garbageman, too, touches on this: The way a person carries themselves when they can walk the talk. (Optional thought: could refer to a specific person for Ashton?)

Stealing People’s Mail: Yes, yes, the song is about stealing people’s mail (woOOooOooOo). I think the history of Dead Kennedys (link to wiki page) and the themes that run through their songs might be a bigger factor than specific lyrics here- Dead Kennedy’s are a “controversial” band, often with political songs that satirize political figures and authority as a whole, and “provoking debate about censorship in rock music.” So you know, yes, stealing mail, but also- bucking the status quo, shirking authority, railing against a system that works to serve itself.

Sugar Town: “Yeah I’m on my way, on my way to Hell” with the instrumental in the background, the tune. The vibes off this song. Immaculate. Ashton is going to hell, but they’re going to have a good time doing it, owning it all the way down. (Also I tried looking up ShitKid but my "learned on duolingo" Swedish is not good enough to read the wiki and my brain is going too fast to watch info videos. Fun link though)

Happy: This is a beautiful blend of a cheerful, verging on spooky sound with extremely ominous lyrics. There’s SHIT going on in this song that I don’t think we know yet. Who IS happy. Anyway also the double meanings of forced happiness and cheer being a poison. Fuck pretenses, really, huh Ashton? (Danny Elfman is NEAT, worked on like, Tim Burton movies, various other movie scores. interesting. (link to wiki page))

Heart of Glass: WHO THE FUCK FUCKED UP ASHTON. IS THIS ABOUT THE NOBODIES? IS THIS ABOUT THE SPECIFIC PERSON? Holy SHIT. The layers of hurt and distrust and betrayal here. If it’s about the Nobodies: Ashton may (MAY) have come to terms with being left behind, and have rationalized it for the better, but by GOD the trust issues run deep after that. If it’s not about the Nobodies, what the fuck, everyone stop hurting this punk rock D:

Beat My Head Against the Wall: There’s a level of frustration here, although the tune is still? Arguably? Upbeat? But I think there’s a specific acknowledgement here that the rage and anger that Ashton uses as fuel (that Ashton values as honest! Because it is!) can backfire too. But also…………..

Halfway Home: Fucking hell. I feel- like maybe this is the most direct song regarding Ashton’s feelings about the “incident”, and how his entire life- and body- were changed as a result. “Out of body experience”, is a choice phrase by Taliesin. The descriptions of “they lazy way they turned your head into a rest stop for the dead” “is it not me? Am I not folded by your touch?” Ashton, broken and shattered on the floor, Ashton, put together by someone else’s hand through unknown methods, through their fear and kindness and- entirely at someone else’s mercy. 

Ashton didn’t have a say on how they were put together, did they?

Overall impression: Ashton is angry- about the world, about shitty people, about things they cannot change. Ashton is angry because they want the world to be better, so fuck it, they’ll be good where it counts, where it makes things easier, even where it makes them bad. Ashton knows where they are, who they are, what they have at their disposal, and they are proud of it, goddammit.

Ashton has been hurt deep, hurt bad, by people putting up pretenses. Ashton values honesty, authenticity, to a premium. It is not about kind words, it is not about politeness or putting up appearances, about saying the right things but meaning differently. Ashton will take a punch to the face a million times over if you mean it, and will have no patience for empty words or empty gestures.

Ashton is very, very, very punk.

Appendix: “The Decline of Western Civilization” is a documentary that came out in 1981 about the punk rock scene that also stirred up the authorities a bit at the time. (Which is probably a VERY good sign). The Mau Mau’s are noticeably absent from it. Might be an interesting watch.

[godbirdart]

welcome to art fight it’s one of my Favourite things

the site is live all year even though the event only goes on during the month of July! you can submit your characters any time under that little Submit drop down. the option to Attack other players will appear in this same drop down when the event starts.

try and upload a good reference image of your OC that is flat coloured and clear! write some personality notes about your OC in their bio. this will help give other artists a better feel for your character and generate ideas on how to draw them. aim for a bullet point list of traits [example: smug, cheerful, playful etc] instead of dumping five paragraphs of lore in there. that said, a few sentences will work fine too! just cover the basics.

you can also link an external page if all their personality info is already on another site such as toyhouse. this link will show up on their profile. here's my character Adontis' page for example;

the next important thing to set up for your characters is Permissions! these are boundaries you establish for what is and isn’t okay when other players are drawing your character.

you can set up permissions for your characters individually, or make global permissions that appear on every character’s page so you don’t have to write it in for each and everyone one manually.

you can see my global permissions in that screenshot above. i recommend keeping it short and to the point in a bullet list. global permissions appear on each character's page by default.

if you want to make a character whose permissions differ from your global rules, you can fill in unique permissions for them on their profile and click the “disable global permissions” checkbox. this will get rid of the global rules on that character’s profile and only leave the custom ones you made for that character.

Tags are a newish feature on art fight. there wasn’t really a way to search for characters you wanted to draw before [beyond the random button under the Browse drop down, which would just pull up any random character regardless if the player was active or not].

I recommend tagging the essentials: what species your character is, your username, etc.

when it comes to the actual attacking part, read through the Attack Guide! when submitting an attack, YOU have to score your own art based on what you drew. the guide is pretty thorough about how to score your work. if you’re unsure, go with what feels best. just don’t go giving yourself Maximum Points for every attack if the art doesn’t merit them and you’ll be fine. the mods do go through submissions and tally points after the event's done. be warned, though: you cannot edit attacks AFTER they’ve been posted! that means no last-second edits to the main piece after you hit send! you can edit thumbnails though.

if you’re attacked you can Revenge that attack! when submitting an attack there’s often a button on that page for Revenge [or something similar] if you're attacking someone who previously attacked you.

be sure to check the team of the person you're attacking! when on a character's page their name, and the player's username, will turn up in the colour of their respective team. mine is still green because I was on Team Bloom last year and the new teams won't take effect for a bit yet.

you can friendly fire against someone on the same team as you, but it doesn't grant you any points; even if you revenge them. neutral players exist too. they are users who haven't yet chosen a team whose names [usually?] appear in grey. if i recall right, attacking neutral players doesn't grant you points either.

a thing to note: don't feel like you need to make elaborate, grandiose attacks. it's a casual internet game. it's meant to be fun, not stressful. no one expects you to churn out a magnum opus for each and every attack. you can make all your attacks shitposty ms paint doodles if you want. sure, it won't net you as many points per piece, but that is completely allowed.

in my many years on the site, the first few days of art fight are often laggy, as in: the site will crash repeatedly or load at a snail's pace. i recommend looking up some characters you want to draw and saving their refs in advance to work on during the first couple days until the site is stable. of course, now that i've said that the site will likely be fine. but you never know.

anyway i accidentally wrote a novel on this and i'm VERY sorry oops i am just quite enthusiastic about this game

very excited for art fight ;w;

animated icon by seandunkley

character icons by beehemoss

[untitledtheunknown]

Not my best work, but ya know trying. Umbra torture porn, just him solo jacking it to Execution Time and some of his own archives.

Words - 2267

Not super graphic, but normal blood and suffering would expect him to be into. I am full of regret, so enjoy.

For most the screams would have been ear splitting, the sight too much to take in, but for some this was their fantasy. For Umbra, it was welcoming company now, the normal names popping up in chat, clipping moments, discussing the details. The screams continued as the electric volts shot through the victim, their head snapping back as their spine arched. Straining against the restraints on the chair holding them in place.

Umbra is sat propped up in some dark corner of a run down motel, blood smears on the wall and used needles shoved under the mattress. Some place you stay to hide for the night or die, a place where nobody recognizes names and has never seen faces. The internet is solid though and that's all he really needed.

Laptop screen illuminating the darkness, image of the fried body reflected in his black eyes. Chat continued to scroll, eddies being passed around on bets, messages on how the eyes popped, begging the cameras to be moved closer. Umbra shifted on the filthy mattress taking in the smoking form of the dead man before him. Part of the thrill, knowing that could be him, could be any one of the pervs in chat. He loved it, watching the filth who got caught be killed, survival of the fittest, and the fit sat laughing at it.

The screen goes black as the next execution is queued up. A quick section on the criminal, what state they're out of, and method of execution. Lethal injection. Chat sparks up immediately with links to place bets on the time, money being thrown around to switch out the vials. Arguments starting that they should just use bleach, an internal cleaning for the damned. Umbra can't help but smirk at some of the messages flying through, people so deep into the BD addictions they were no different than him. Wanting to witness torture, suffering, felt morally right because these were criminals. He knew they couldn't separate reality from their fiction though, that this was all content and nothing more. A few may be just as twisted as him, enjoying it for what it was. As he began to learn though it was all just an addiction now, another chase for a different type of high, the line between morals skewed and erased. Was all just content, entertainment, nobody was in the wrong here.

He sits in silence, metal fingers tapping across the keyboard on the laptop. Sending messages back to a small group engaged in more graphic types of execution. The screen eventually comes back and a woman is standing in front of the camera. Final rites are being performed, whatever follows for the legal course. Everything is muted, but he can tell by the look the woman doesn't care. No remorse, no fear, she's accepted her fate and just wants to get it over with. She moved back to sit in the execution seat, leaned back and arms bound to the armrests. Umbra watches intently, head tilted to the side playing with a ring weaved into his dreadlocks. He can see the furrowed brow, the annoyance on the woman's face. The doctor comes up and injects the needle and she spits in his face. Chat lights up with people laughing, emotes and money flying bye, both cheering her on as one of them and chanting for her death.

She looks dead into the camera after that, waiting for her death to come. Something washes over him at that glare. It mimics his own, a reflection he's seen in the mirror so many times. He smirked back at the screen, pushing the laptop to the side, adjusting himself on the bed. Watching as the injection is given, his hand moving to grope himself through his pants.

Free hand running up his side to the exposed vent, metallic fingers dancing across where synthetic flesh meets metal. Fingers slipping in and his system lights up, hud display flashing a warning that he quickly dismisses. He knew his limits, how far he could push his system before it went critical. The first jolt has him rolling his head back, squeezing his cock through his pants. Had been too long since he found pleasure, the sensation feeling almost foreign.

He watched with interest, intent, imagining what the prisoner was feeling. He could see the rage in her eyes, not about her death but that she had been caught to begin with. She was a fighter, and this was a pathetic way out. Only riled him up more. Could tell the moment the poison hit her system, the veins jolting out, the sudden attack to her body. He sunk further into the filthy mattress, groping at his stiffening cock. Free hand running along his body, under the torn tank-top and along his torso. Metal fingers catching at the splits of skin where the metal peaks through, metal bones shifting just beneath the flesh, body responding to the touch.

Doesn’t take long for the woman to succumb to the poison in her system, final moments of struggle leaving her body, fading out as she goes slack in the seat against her restraints. It's all too quick he thinks, there’s nothing involved in this method, it's just a glimpse and then everything is over. Finds himself siding with the chat, should have used bleach or some acid, given a real show for the money they’re throwing around.

Doesn’t take long and the next stream is up, another hanging, but the scene has him perked up. Prisoner has blood on his forehead and the guard has a busted nose, another bastard with some type of fight to the very end. Everything is harsh with how they move him, the positioning, they tighten the noose too tight around the convict’s neck and he knows where this is going. They’re going to make his last moments hell, make the poor gonk suffer to his death.

Anticipating he can feel his cock twitch under his grip, straining up against his pants. Final rites are given and Umbra is pulling himself out, kicking his pants off to the side of the bed and letting his legs fall open. Stroking slowly as he watches for the drop. When it does he’s not disappointed, the eager twitch in his palm as he squeezes his own grip. His free hand finding the ends of his dreads wrapped around his neck, tightening them to the scene. Neck only cracked, convict very much alive swinging as dead weight as its up to suffocation to take him. Body jolting in a natural display for survival as everyone simply watches and counts down the seconds.

His pace picks up on the strokes, chin lifted as a display of his own throat, dreads pulled tight to the resistance of metal. It's enough though, barely, he can feel the edge somewhere deep down and a faded high he’s chasing. Stroking himself to the dying heartbeat, to every twitch, to the look of pain and horror. Everyone is a tough bitch until death is consuming them, then the begging starts, the tears, the pleads. Oh how he loves it, how he wishes he could hear their thoughts, the bastards pleading to be spared.

Doesn’t take long for him to get into the motions, hips jerking up to meet his strokes. He’s seen enough people hung he knows how it all goes, but when the vendetta is met where it becomes personal- makes it all the much better. Hips jerking up as his hand squeezes down around the base, straining for friction, wanting so much more. What he wouldn’t give to have a warm body beneath him. Have his toy taking the brunt of his frustration, pent up rage and lust. The snapping of a neck has never sounded so good.

His cock twitched in his hand, a bead of precum dripping down from the head. Robotic fingers stretching to smear it down his shaft. Slow stroke up and teasing the head. Shifting as he watched the body twitch, the final moments of life dying out. His cock pulsing in his hand as he pulled tighter on the dreads around his neck. Felt teased at this point, executions were too quick. Nothing drawn out and truly painful. Feel the frustration boiling over in him. Pulling up a separate tab and plugging himself in, split screen of his own archives. Decades of interrogations, torture sessions, and murders. Attention flickering back to the execution page for what's to come.

Spitting into his hand he leaned back, laptop screen illuminating his face with footage and pictures of his own doing. The second screen comes back with another 3 women to be hung. Stroked himself slowly to the tears, the pleads, the bruises and blood. His grip tightened around himself as the nooses were secured around the women's necks.

A glimmer of a moment, where oddity would set in. That this was wrong, but the fixation of death is what always did him in. Those seconds where people would stand in the in-between. That's what he loved the most out of it, all he could get from these sites. Watching those like him, lessers to him, be met with such a fate, riled him. Watching others be tortured and murdered at his hand was only the next substitute to get him over.

Feelings were rare, he just needed to get off and be done. Transfixed though, dragging it out, choking himself, fingers slipping into his side vent and his hips bucked up into his fist. Jaw clenched tight as he steadied himself. Twisting his fist down his shaft, squeezing at the base and twisting at the swelling head. Warm metal against hot flesh, watching intently at every move on screen. The words meant nothing, but the silence he knew what was about to happen. The floor falling out and the last seconds of misery wiped away.

All dead within seconds, necks snapped and twisted around the ropes. Feet twitching as the body processes its over. Umbra lets out a long slow breath, grabbing his cock at the base and slapping it against his abdomen. Attention shifting to his own videos, the blood spurting out of open gashes, gurgling up from the throat. Desperate hands trying to fight him off, watching the last of their strength fade away, the life in their eyes go dull snuffing out, and their hands falling back to the ground.

Flicking to the next capture, the next memory, biting hard enough on his lip to draw blood. He remembers the man, a corpo in the wrong place at the wrong time. Trying to find his dealer and stumbling upon a monster feasting. A low moan escapes between parted lips and he doesn’t recognize it as his own. The sheer look of horror, the panicked scream and tumble as he tried to turn on heel and run. Blade sinking into the man’s ankle dragging him back into the mess. Then it's just blow after blow, blood spraying up with each pull of his fist. The point of submission came too quickly and he had backed off.

Umbra groaned as he watched the scene, the man spitting up blood from busted teeth and broken nose. The perfect façade broke as he laid there suffering on the floor. Long slow strokes speeding up, fisting at his cock as he watched, fingers again playing with the vents at his side. The electric racing through his body, making him arch back into it, hips stuttering up into his fist. Tongue flicking out smearing the blood from his lip, only making it all feel so much more real.

See himself climb on top of the corpo blood coated hands running along his beaten face. The soft hush and broken whimper, grasping him with such care, thumbs stroking over bloody cheeks before pushing them into his eyes. Screams engulfing the room, and Umbra can’t stifle the moan that wracks through him. Watching himself pull back to admire the scene, blood running from the eye sockets, mumbled pleas to be let go. Was no fight to begin with, but the man made such a pretty image. Watching him slowly bleed, removing the knife from his ankle and slicing a clean line across his chest. Only drawing a whimper but soon the front of the shirt stains red, and another gash joins it.

He’s close then, such a simple action, a simple kill and it's got him spiraling over. He watches as the knife comes up, the pathetic cry for it to end, and then it's over. Knife plunged deep into his chest, twisted and ripped back out. Throwing his head back as his cock strains and pulses, stroking himself over the edge. Moan leads to a choked off scream as he cums, body shaking with the climax. Ropes of cum spilling onto his abdomen and up to his chest. Stroking the last of it out up to a squeeze on the swollen head. Wiping what ends up on his hand onto the mattress and just falling back onto the bed. Slapping the laptop closed, over the whole thing.

Lays there in silence for several minutes, staring up at the ceiling. Part of him really hates himself, not so much for getting off but only being able to at his own work. Yet only able to think of that corpo, if it wasn't for the heat of the moment, would have dragged it out. Such a waste of a pretty face. Then the smile cracks, that dangerous laugh, and he’s floating. He’s got another.

[stellahibernis]

Lan Wangji: the Extra Shiny Edition

AKA Lan Wangji’s costumes in the Untamed, part 4/9

Now we have the Sunshot Campaign costume, and bad times were had by both Lan Wangji, for being in the middle of war and his soulmate possibly being on the path of completely losing it, and myself for having to watch the pain on his face at quarter speed while trying to capture the outfit while it’s in focus. On the other hand, the costume is gorgeous, and this particular title amuses me more than it probably should, so there’s that.

He wears this outfit in episodes 18 to 24, and as before, I’ll first talk about the costume and then the story context.

Look at him glow!

The Costume

This is his second of two fully white costumes, after the previous one, and as the title states, it’s shiny! The previous, though also fully white, reflected warmer colors, while this one reflects colder colors, making it look almost silvery at times. This is achieved by fabric choices (which are again gorgeous! I wonder if whatever fabric retailer they went to thought they were making some extravagant wedding gowns).

Let’s start with the silhouette, with yet another bonus Wei Wuxian because of reasons. Fun fact, I was about to despair getting a full body shot of him for this, because there isn’t anything that works until this one at the end of episode 23.

While his previous outfit had no cloud embroidery, this one has a very big and obvious one on the front panel (there’s some also on his shoulders, you’ll see it later when we get to details). This makes perfect sense from the story point of view, which I’ll talk about in the context section.

This outfit sees a lot of action, and the silhouette reflects that, immediately as we see it we can tell he’s ready to mess you up. What’s unusual is that the sash (again the criss-cross type we usually see on him) is on top of the robe that hangs open while usually the sash is under it. This is primarily the detail that makes it look so action-y. Also the top layer has no sleeves, which I think is a good choice, since the fabric is heavier, and the lightweight sleeves move particularly well while he’s fighting. Also you can kind of see here on his left sleeve (on the right above, and I have a better image later) that the second robe in fact has two layers of fabric, an opaque layer covered with a sheer one, they separate a bit near his elbow which is why you can see through. Another detail which doesn’t add that much on the screen, but must have been awesome when wearing it and knowing the care put in it by the costume department.

Seriously, just look how gorgeous that fabric of the top layer is, and the second robe is actually trimmed with it at the collar as well to tie the look together. I also really like the cloud embroidery there at the shoulders as a finishing touch.

Here at the sleeve end you can see the sheer layer sewn on top of the opaque layer. Which, btw, is tricky to cut and sew so that nothing is pulling or bunching, especially with the volume going on here, so kudos to whoever did it. The fact we can only tell by carefully paying attention means they did it perfectly. With a bonus Suibian for crying potential.

A couple of more, mostly because they amuse me:

He’s back in his boring boots again, which is why this outfit lost out on the Most Extra™ contest despite the shininess. Also not in focus, but he’s wielding a temporary sword since Bichen is still in Qishan and they get it back only in the next episode.

An accessory! I don’t know why he’s carrying his qin physically rather than in the dimensional hole he usually has it in, however that one works, but just look at the fabric of the cover, again super gorgeous. Also Yanli who is looking very fond and delights me.

The Context

This, we might say, is the ultimate form of Second Jade of Lan LWJ pre-timeskip, especially at the beginning, and the prominent embroidery of the Sect’s cloud pattern broadcasts it. As I’ve said earlier, white outfits are for when his duty calls, and right here it definitely is. If in the previous one he was angry and mourning, now his anger has turned into a cold fury to fuel his purpose, which at the beginning is to take his home back from the Wens. They succeed, but that’s not the end of the duty. They know that as long as Wen Ruohan has the Yin Iron, no one is safe, and the war must be fought to the end.

Soon enough, another cause comes calling for his heart, which is of course WWX, at first missing, and later changed and occasionally downright scary. I’d say, when he was still missing, it didn’t cause much of a conflict for LWJ, because finding him went neatly together with taking down the Wen Sect, and so he was still doing his part in the war while looking for WWX. It’s only after he comes back that LWJ is really starting to experience the conflict of his loyalties, for which the seeds were sown already earlier when he fell for WWX and acknowledged it to himself. Episode 21 is where we see him for the first time actually questioning his teachings, since he is facing a situation where the rules he’s been taught are the truth of the world do not feel right. I doubt that LXC’s answer gave him much comfort.

When they’re in the middle of the action after they’ve reconciled, it actually goes fairly well, they work together as seamlessly as we’ve seen them to be able to up until the zombies get too powerful and WWX brings out the Stygian Tiger Amulet, after which there is no peace of mind for LWJ.

LWJ is smart and perceptive, and he is aware of exactly how much WWX has changed. He understands how disturbing the revenge taken on Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao as well as everyone else in their vicinity was, more than necessary, and he’s understandably worried about WWX’s state of mind. He also doesn’t really have tools to reach him, with WWX backing away every time he pushes. I also think LWJ is aware there’s something going on with why WWX is not wielding his sword, more than just arrogance and whimsy, but he doesn’t know how to ask about it. All throughout, he does prod at WWX, but ultimately backs away before there is another as serious conflict as the one that happened in Yunmeng.

(Let’s take a moment to be devastated about the fact the above conversation happened at the same spot from which WWX later fell.)

As I said, at the beginning while wearing this outfit, LWJ was the ultimate form of Second Jade of Lan, and so it is significant that the last we see of him is deliberately breaking rules. He has made a choice to try to help WWX with all the resources he has, and so the next time we see him, his costume also reflects this turn of the tide.

If screencapping this one was emotional, I expect the next two to be even worse, which is a cheerful thought. I’m starting to think that maybe this series was a mistake😅 Anyway, pushing onward.

(You can find the rest of this series via “lwj costume series” tag below, or through my blog contents page. I’d link, except we know how this site is…)

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

34. Ivory

Previous Trigger Warnings for mentions of underage/revenge porn, mentions of eating disorder Word Count: 8388

Between Grace making that post of her rapping along to Captain Hook, her saying "aye aye" to Simon in comments, and this photo of Simon's D print in the gray sweatpants, I'm starting to think he's packing a curve 👀

Simon Laurent "liked"

Commenter: He is! Did you never see the old sex tape?

Poster: The WHAT? No… But, wait… I thought that they dated in school. You mean like something that happened after that?

Commenter: They were in school, but it was online for the longest time before she snitched, so I’m sure somebody still has it out there…

Poster: That’s gross. I’m not that desperate to see it that I wanna look at some kids doing it. No thank you.

Simon Laurent “liked”

Commenter is blocked by Simon.

.

Grace was in the grocery store with her mother and brother, and Zasha, a white samoyed puppy that Mrs. Monroe had purchased from a breeder… to potentially train to be in competitions, and Zasha’s handler. Why did Mrs. Monroe bring Zasha into the store, just to have someone else hold her? For the same reason that the nanny was also there, tending to Montanus. “Because, that is literally what I pay them to do.” But… we’re at the grocery store and didn’t even have to BRING them! Grace didn’t argue.

However, she did wonder if she was suffering from some type of weird mid life crisis, or just a rich, bored woman whose husband was working more and more all of the time, despite supposedly getting closer to retirement. Then, she wondered if they weren’t doing so well. But, she kept those wonders to herself, as it would frighten her to know whatever the truth was if it was anything other than her mother did whatever she wanted because she could afford to. 

Plus, she wanted to get out of the house, and apparently that had been reduced to tagging along with Grace at the grocery store, in case she needed help. “You’re almost 6 months, correct? How has it been? Online, one would swear that you’re Diahanne Caroll in her prime. You’ve rarely broken a sweat. Is that for your fans?”

Grace shook her head and read the label of something before putting it into her cart, “I haven’t had any problems, except for eating way more than I used to and getting gas, but those calcium chews usually help with that and I bounce right back. You know, I’ve always taken really great care of myself, think things through and pay top dollar for the finest self care. I guess that the baby is pleased with their temporary temple.” She smiled at her mom and noticed the woman looked leery. “I know… you had a very rough pregnancy with me. Believe me, I remember this fact, but I haven’t been having that experience, personally. In fact… Did you know that I’ve gained THOUSANDS of new followers since they’ve seen that I was pregnant. Pregnant people have been asking me what I use for this and for that and I’ve been plugging my brand, since we’ve got the pregnancy line now. It’s been sensational. I’ve had a blast!” 

Grace had been working on a blog about her pregnancy, which she began with a video addressing all of the questions to all of the people who were not her. 

“Hey, Those That Are Graced!” She’d cheered into the camera, “Happy New Year! I know that I’ve been unavailable to reach out too, and believe me, I do miss interacting with fans and followers, but I am currently not working on my career, to focus on other things in my life. Just to touch base with everyone, I feel like we’ve had this discussion before and those of you who actually respect me would definitely not need it repeated, but there have been so many new faces of possibly unfamiliar followers that I am revisiting notes that I have in all of my bios… 

First, my professional life is one thing, my private life is another. I extend myself professionally, and over the past few months, even though I have not actually been working, I’ve still been spending time providing everyone with content. Please do not send messages, comments, or questions for me to any of my friends, and especially not to my family members, Hazel in particular. She is 12 and shouldn’t have adults bothering her for information that not only isn’t her concern, but isn’t your concern. She wants to be able to enjoy the limited hours of screen time that she’s allowed. That becomes difficult for her when people are asking her hundreds of questions that literally are related to her mother’s sex life. 

Second, my professional life is offered at my discretion, as well. Whenever there is product that I think you should try, I will announce it. If I’m not familiar with a product or no arrangements have been made for me to try a product or I’m unaware of a product… my comments is not the place for said product. That is including everything from your all natural care supplies, book recommendations, your demos, your dance videos… Like… I LOVE receiving those things, but whenever I open my comments back up, that is not where those things go. 

I have links for email addresses for avenues of business, entertainment, etc on my website, and if nothing else, my website is featured on every form of social media that I have. I am the person who goes through those emails. I am NOT the person who checks my social media messages, so you will never get a response from me through those and run the risk of me not seeing something if you send it there instead. 

Third, my spaces have boundaries and moderators to enforce those boundaries. Whenever you’ve been allowed to be a guest in any of my spaces or my child’s spaces, you treat that shit like Afropunk - “No sexism, no racism, no ableism, no homophobia, no fatphobia, no transphobia, no hatefulness.” And then, since I’m not Afropunk and I have even greater needs, and can’t believe I have to say this much else: No pedophilia, no inappropriate interactions with a minor, no incestuous ideation, and no nudity. My moderators are quick, but not perfect. Your fellow guests and neighbors in my spaces should never have to see jokes about my mother and I engaged in sexual acts together, or worse, my UNDERAGE daughter, and no - Hazel and I posting a dance video is not an invitation for someone to make comments that because she might be fluid in her movements that it is sexually suggestive and if ever we find one of those headass posts where you put a photo of my beautiful daughter up, say something obscene or rude or ask, “Thoughts?” Simon finds out your IP address, sometimes more than that and he doxxes your ass. Ask around. If threats of violence or suggestions of harm are given… he might show up at your house and I don’t know what to even tell you about that one, because I’m not at liberty to say, according to the lawyers.” 

She smiled, relaxed, unclenched her teeth that she realized had been clenched since she began her greater needs. 

“Fourth, leave Hazel alone. She isn’t going to add you, because she is not allowed to add adults that she does not know. If you follow her public figure pages, those are for her poetry, her brand, her rapping, her artwork, her theater program, and whatever announcements she wants to share with her fans about her personal life, which is usually vague and innocent. If Hazel posts that she had a great time at the premiere of some movie, that is not the place to ask her personal questions. The place to ask her personal questions is nowhere! We don’t have a space created for strangers to ask her personal questions. She sometimes will be allowed to grant an interview, in which she will answer a professional about appropriate questions that have been approved.

Fifth, shut up about Simon! Shut up about Simon! I swear to you… In the past few years that Simon and I have been in communication and the ones that we’ve been in close communication, I KNOW that you realize that we are communicating, but that falls under my private life, which I have not created a space in the public for.

Now… you may speak with Simon about whatever things he speaks about in his private life, I can’t control that, but what I can control and do control is what he will or won’t say about me, even in HIS space. Yes. I got it like that, and what will happen, is Simon will be seeing this, and he is very good at remembering details and he will memorize everything that I’ve said here and he will respect that and enforce it, even in HIS space. 

Which leads me to my last thing… There’s a lot of Esmoroth fanfolk in my spaces now and you all act a certain way in your little Esmoroth corner of the Internet… but in here, in Grace’s space, you better act like you’ve been tossed to the feet of the Idol Princess when her pheromones are igniting the internal flame of servitude. Because, we stan the Idol Princess in this space, and you’d better act right.”

After the release of the 3rd book and return of the Idol Princess aka the Future Queen, several fans were disappointed and had called Simon out for “pandering.” But, several MORE fans came around. He was competing for top spots with the YA novel greats after the 3rd book. But… that also meant more fans to be in Grace’s business. 

Her New Year’s announcement remained pinned at the top of her page and the next post was text, “Oh, yeah. Last but not least, you may have noticed that I’m pregnant. I’ll be featuring some of my favorite findings on my maternity journey here, so please stay tuned if you’re pregnant, expecting, or planning, for what I think and hope will be some helpful tips for your journey!”

Most of the Esmoroth fandom didn’t like her very much, but they also “just couldn’t stay away. Aside from the Grace in Maternity blog, she still didn’t have social media open for commentary, though she did sometimes pass through Simon’s or Hazel’s comments and engaged a little bit with them. She pinned the video to other sites and then just didn’t really visit them again much.

“I could barely walk whenever I was six months pregnant. I had the finest of everything, too,” Mrs. Monroe broke into her thoughts. “Then again, I had what they now call an eating disorder for several years. I… wasn’t completely… well whenever you were announced…” she looked guilty, like she did whenever she faced her own failures as a mother. “We had to get a 24 hour nurse to keep me… healthy. By seven months, I could hardly get out of bed.”

Grace furrowed her eyebrows, “Mom… you’ve never told me that you had an eating disorder. Did you ever get help for it?”

“Help? Oh… like… whenever I had to be rushed to the hospital multiple times? Yes. I got help.”

“MOM… Did you ever heal?”

“Wait, are you asking me if I have disordered eating now? Heaven’s no, Grace. I was trapped with your father by the time you were born. I eventually realized that I had to be more… alive and well than I did flawless. We hired a nutritionist and personal chef.”

“Mom… a lot of people need psychological help for something like that.”

“And I come across to you as ‘a lot of people’? Hmph. It’s pathetic enough that I allowed myself to be so weak. I wasn’t going to beg someone to give me the strength I needed.”

“That’s not what it’s like at all…” Grace cupped her mother’s face and said, “There may be things that people need to help you with, Mom. That doesn’t make you weak or whatever else you’ve convinced yourself of. It didn’t make me weak when I needed to get help. It doesn’t make Hazel weak when she needs help…”

Mrs. Monroe waved Grace’s hands off of her face, “As long as you’re fine, have no other concerns.”

“Mom…”

“Were you done with the shopping?” Grace sighed and continued moving. 

.

Simon was pacing, clenching and unclenching his fists. Several of the message boards, every one of his social media platforms, and even at least one of Hazel’s. He’d taken her devices away, but now she was angry and he certainly couldn’t find the words to explain beyond, “You can’t be online right now.” She was scribbling aggressively in one of her paper journals, and fuming. They both were fuming from different but related reasons.

Grace came in with her little shopping entourage and Hazel rushed to her, furiously. 

“Your BOY TOY took my devices DURING screen time and REFUSES to give them back!” Grace’s eyes went wide and she turned to look at Simon, who was pacing and didn’t even seem to hear the accusation, notice that she came in or to see Monty. Something was absolutely wrong here. 

“Help get the groceries and I’ll get your devices, okay?” Grace said and cupped her chin. Hazel was still breathing heavily as she stormed out towards the groceries and Mrs. Monroe settled on the couch. Grace took Simon’s hand and he was startled by her sudden touch. But, the moment he realized it was her, he let out a deep breath and wrapped her up in a tight hug. “Hey. Let’s go talk, okay?” She suggested, rubbing his back. He nodded his head, but didn’t move from the spot or lessen his hold on. She squirmed a little bit and said politely, “Oxygen, Gray Eyes..” He let up and rushed out of the room. Grace followed and watched him flop on the bed and cover his face with his fists. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“We’ve been doing SO well…” He said, shaking his head. 

“We have.” So, this is something that he did wrong? “And the only way that we continue doing well is to be open and caring with each other.” He slicked back the wild hairs that weren’t pulled into his ponytail. He appeared to be in a lot of pain, but she had to get whatever this was settled. “Should I go online? Will I see what happened, if I do?” She pulled out her phone, mumbling, “I’m guessing that’s why Hazel’s stuff was confiscate-” He snatched the phone from her hands and she let out a yelp, both at the audacity and the fact that she didn’t even see him get up. 

“No. I have to tell you. You can’t find out on the Internet. SHE can’t get on. She CAN’T!” 

“Why can’t she? Because, she’s pretty pissed and it IS her screen time…”

“Because, the internet is relentless and unkind, and she’s too young to have to deal with how much. Not today. She’ll… I’ll… give her extra time once it's died down.”

“Tell me what’s going on, Simon.”

He frowned, “Someone brought the tape up.” At first, she was confused. Was this something about the movie? Why would he be so upset as to take Hazel’s… “And it’s recirculating again. I’ve been reporting it and fans have been reporting it and it gets taken down, but more and more people have seen it now and it’s just… too much. I don’t want her to run into it…” NOW, she understood. That tape… which… technically… it was done with a webcam, so it was never a tape, it was a recording, but… “I saw it again… not watched it, but you know, saw a portion of it whenever I was reporting it… God…” He sat down on the bed, “You’re a kid, Grace. You had the rounded face and everything…”

“Ummm… You’re a month and a day older than me, Dude.” she said, sitting down, trying to pretend that she was more calm than her heart was allowing. She could barely breathe, thinking about the feelings that just mentioning that used to bring up for her. She wasn’t sure how she might react to seeing it come up somewhere. But, maybe she should try…

She gently took her phone back, despite his struggling. One stern look and he let it go, realizing that she was determined and he was probably already in a lot of trouble, if something had been triggered. She nodded, “Yep, looks like a few people have tagged me, asking me if I saw that somebody posted it…” She went to the video and he clenched the bedspread, moving his legs uncontrollably and looking straight ahead. “You know, a lot of people used to say that you couldn’t see your face in it, that it was out of frame, but it does come into frame a few times…” she said. She paused, “See?” He shook his head. “Simon, you’re not even gonna indulge me a little bit at a time like this?”

His frown deepened and he took another long breath. She was right. SHE was the victim in this. The least he could do was take a look at his disgusting handiwork. He saw himself and he recoiled. “You were a kid, too,” she said. “Sure, at the time, this hurt more than anything my brain can recall. But… I do know, as a grown ass woman, you were wrong and also were a child. Both of those things can be accurate.”

“We’re only a few years older than Hazel, there. If some kid did something like this to her… I would…”

“I would hope that you’d remember that you were their age once and just as bad.”

“Is… is that how you would react?”

“Oh, hell no. I’ve never done anything like this. I’d kill that fucking kid. But, you would have to be the adult that fucking pulls me off of him…” She laughed and scratched at his beard, “But, nothing like this will happen to Hazel. She’s a good judge of character and we know all of her friends.”

“Your parents knew me too, and I think that they’re pretty good judges of character. Your mom at least. She always knew that I was rotten.”

“No she didn’t! She knew that you weren’t rich, and in her head those two things were the same thing. She knew that you were controlling, and she thought that I was going to sacrifice myself for you, but she didn’t think that you were going to straight up try to assassinate my entire character.” He looked away from her, “And NOW, you are very diligent in making sure that you aren’t crossing any lines, with me and with Hazel, my mother, my father, and I think people in general. This wasn’t long enough ago that it’s not hurtful to think about… but it was long enough ago to not beat yourself up over. But… It is a burden that you designed. So, it’s only right that you explain to Hazel exactly why she shouldn’t be online right now.”

Hazel took it so much better than she had taken him taking away her computer and phone. “Are you serious? I’ll just avoid social media. You KNOW I don’t wanna see anything like that, myself, but I already knew that it existed out there somewhere.” She shook her head, “I don’t like the way you look with clothes ON, think I’d run the risk of seeing you without them?” 

Grace suggested, “Is there anything else you want to say to him? Maybe about how you broke the news to me when I got home?”

“Oh..” Hazel flared her nostrils and rolled her eyes, “Sorry I called you Mom’s Boy Toy… You kinda are, but I shouldn’t say it…” 

Simon laughed, mostly because he was relieved that she wasn’t scarred by him having to talk to her about this video resurfacing. “You kidding? I’m gonna put that on a t-shirt.”

“No cap? Because I have SO many where that came from.”

“We’ve gotta brainstorm.”

“Simpsona T-shirts can be your new thing…” And just like that, Grace watched them be best friends again. Hazel could get mad and stay mad for a long time, but she didn’t like to argue, so even whenever she got mad, she tended to stay to herself until she wasn’t. The two of them left to go sit on the swing set outside of the house they were renting, and Grace sat by her mom on the couch. 

“I don’t even want to know what that was about.”

“Cool, because I wasn’t gonna tell you.”

“You don’t have to. One of your “boy toy’s” fans will.” Grace laughed and then threw her head onto her mom’s shoulder. The woman gasped at first, taken aback by the show of affection, but then placed her hand on Grace’s. “You’re a very good mother to both of them. You’ll be a good one to that one too.” she pointed her free hand at Grace’s belly.

“Did you just…?”

“Come on, you’ve been raising yourself a man since you met him and I’ll stand by that forever. Might get it engraved on my headstone.”

Grace cackled, “I absolutely AM NOT raising him!”

“He is literally a life sized puppy that went through a rebellious phase where he kept biting you!”

“Well, I finally realized that I have the power to curve that behavior… and trust me, Mom… It’s not something you’d do with somebody you’re raising.” Grace stuck her tongue out.

“Get off of me you scoundrel!” Her mother joked. Grace just laughed and held on tighter. The woman put her arm around her. “Are you okay, Darling?”

“Whenever I was hurt or scared as a little girl, I was more afraid of admitting it to you and Daddy. I would be more hurt by the thoughts of how little you would think of me if I openly showed imperfection. Not feeling that way took a long time and a lot of work. So, now, if I have a hard day, I’m not too proud to lay on my mommy and say so.” She looked to gauge her mother’s reaction. She was always speechless whenever Grace got emotional. 

She’d never learn past those suppressing ways and it amazed Grace that her mother didn’t realize how much her and Simon were alike in that way. Simon had to work really hard at it and her mother was too proud and pampered to put in such effort. But, whenever Grace booped her nose, the woman’s eyes flickered amusement, ever so slightly. Now, she pushed Grace off of herself and opened her arms to receive Montanus. “Take a photograph of me with my children,” She told the nanny. “One with the two human ones, then we’ll add the new fur baby…”

.

She still hadn’t made any announcements about her status with Simon, nor had she spoken about her pregnancy outside of the maternity blog by the time Valentines’ Day rolled around. But, one thing that she did was allow for Simon to share maternity photos. That was her “gift” to him. 

There. Were. Tons. 

Simon took photos of everything. He had a copy of every ultrasound. He had an electronic journal of every detail that came up. So, whenever he posted the album “Countdown to Ivory’s Arrival,” he had more photos than most of the fans were probably going to look through. Therefore, he left many of them private, with only close friends able to view, and the ones that were public were his favorites of the candids of Grace being pregnant and gorgeous, some of the ones from photoshoots that she would post, and the professional maternity photos that they had taken so far. They took some each trimester, as a family. 

The ones at her three month mark were taken in New York, early November (around their anniversary, whenever he was in town. They had fall colors and all three of them were absolutely stunning. Hazel was impressed with how well that Simon cleaned up, so much that whenever he showed her older photos of himself, she thought he was a different person. She had no idea how right about that she was. Simon being both subservient and also a mega diva himself was absolutely salivating every time Grace did something, but also, it was him who insisted, "We have to have a photoshoot each trimester, each with a different theme.” She agreed on the trimesters, but wasn’t feeling the theme part so much. She told him that they could simply have the season be the theme.

They had three changes of outfits for each set. Grace had a gown made much like the one that she had worn to the fall festival in 9th grade (the one that the Idol Princess’ gown was very heavily based on, the one that Simon had taken photos of her in, getting her first beauty deal underway), one that Simon saw her in and immediately began crying. “You’re… gonna ruin the photos,” Hazel told him. 

There were candid ones of him crying. Her favorite was one where he was crying, Grace was trying to comfort him and Hazel dropped in front of them, bombing it with a prison pose and her tongue out. She had on a yellow pantsuit with fall leaves in her hair, her signature look being wearing leaves in her hair. Simon’s yellow suit was similar to hers, but way more expensive and the red accents, instead of the orange ones that Hazel elected. 

The orange outfits were Hazel in orange overalls, Grace in a romper and Simon in a jumpsuit that Hazel insisted was “the most expensive prison wear in the world.” The red ones were regal matching dress attire, Grace in a two piece dress to show off her belly, Hazel in the same floor length evening gown, but one piece, and Simon in a red suit, made of the same material. Hazel’s hair was down and flowing. Grace’s was gathered up, with most of her afro pulled forward, cascading out of the jeweled red head dress she wore, and Simon’s usually (these days) flowing hair was pulled into a ponytail, with the undercut showing. He was generally self conscious about it, but Hazel put little red jewels over his scar, so even though he was still anxious about his hair, he was proud of her accessorizing enough that he wanted to confidently show it off.

The six month ones were taken in January, and done in all white, which Hazel said, “Looks fabulous on mom and me, but you look like the abominable snowman,” to Simon, on the day of. They were in California by that time, but took a little trip to the mountains because the Monroes had property there that Simon remembered had beautiful scenery that he wanted to have family photos at. 

They did all white shots and winter blues. 

Whenever Simon posted them on Valentines’ Day, Hazel joked in the comments, “I still say that we need to crop your face out.” 

People loved the maternity photos, noticed that Grace did NOT have any on her page and she didn’t comment or react to any on Simon’s page. (Yes, these people pay entirely too much attention to the lives of celebrities that they didn’t even KNOW), but someone did some investigating and found Grace’s pregnancy blog. So… even though that was mostly a completely different following, others stormed into the space, thinking that FINALLY, some place where Grace has actually been interacting and will interact with us. She literally ignored anybody that wasn’t asking about helpful tips for their own pregnancy or giving her helpful tips and the title changed from, “Grace in Maternity” to “Y’all Can See This is a Mommy Blog, Right?”

A few people were seething, but funny enough, Grace’s faithful mommy following were more along the lines of, “Wait… You’re FAMOUS, Monroe Mommy???” After that, she had a hoard of moms check out her other life. She enjoyed having more of them in her fan base, though she also had a lot of ones who had always known being like, “Y’all seriously didn’t know Grace Monroe?” and her favorite quote ever on that blog, “Hell, her album is the reason I AM pregnant!!!”

Meanwhile, Simon had been less likely to play around with any of the fans ever since the video thing. He’d made that very clear, and then sort of stopped interacting with them. He didn’t even go through to like people’s comments anymore. Some of them would say things like, “Whoever resurfaced that video, if we find you, it's on sight for making Simon hate speaking with us!”

Sometimes a person would “Lol” and contend, “He’s too busy working on the Esmoroth movie. He’s not here because of the movie not some fuzzy sex tape from years ago.” 

Those were the only ones that he’d respond to just to say, “No, they’re right,” and nothing else. 

He wasn’t as busy on the Esmoroth movie as he intended to be. He was working on more tech and models for the movie than any other movie things. For one thing, the script was being adapted, and casting was hard. The casting director wanted to get a different type for the Idol Princess, but Simon was extremely firm and clear that the Idol Princess HAD to look exactly as described in the book. “There are parts of the story that are directly related to her looking the way that she does.”

“We can adjust those parts,” the director had said, hoping to appease him. 

“The Idol Princess looks like my childhood best friend. Her look is non negotiable,” he had told them. They didn’t believe in non negotiable, apparently, because the girls that were being considered were all much too light. Whenever Simon had rejected them all, they informed him of those girls’ filmographies and their agents and other people said agents represented.. “Maybe they have that type of record because people are hiring them for roles that were meant to be for someone else. Just… give me all of the call sheets for girl characters who auditioned.” 

He went through and disqualified half on looks alone (not to say that they weren’t pretty children or whatever, but they didn’t look like the Idol Princess). Whenever he had the stack of dark skin girls, he went through, checking their filmographies and auditions.

He asked Hazel for her opinion and she suggested a name that he recognized from his rejected stack. He pulled it back up and looked at the light skinned girl in the photo, "Do you mean this girl, Hazel?" He wondered.

"Yes! She's a really good actress!"

He furrowed his eyebrows and pointed out, "But she doesn't look like the Idol Princess. The Idol Princess has dark brown skin, tightly coiled hair, full nose and lips, and dark brown eyes. This girl has none of those things."

Hazel shrugged her shoulders, "She's really good though."

"Well… maybe some of these other girls are really good and people just don't want to see them in stuff like this." 

Hazel frowned and she asked, "Are you accusing me of favoring her because she's got features like mine?"

"No. I'm just saying that she doesn't look the part. You're usually really good about that kind of thing, Haze."

"Well… I don't know anybody in the age range that looks like the description of the Idol Princess." She folded her arms, "But like you said, maybe that's because people take the easy way out and just get the pretty Black girl that they know of to play a part instead of being true to characters. I've definitely read more books with dark skinned girls than I've seen in movies…"

"Here are some of my choices," he said and spread the sheets out before her. "I think this one has the look, but I think this one had a better audition. BUT, she was auditioning for a background character and this one was auditioning for the Wicked Heiress. Maybe she just didn't have that role in her and should audition for the Idol Princess, so we can know for sure.."

"I think that maybe they should all audition for the Idol Princess again. What if they just didn't believe it would be realistic that they'd get offered a job like this, especially if bigger stars are being considered? Sometimes, I have to talk kids into auditioning for our productions because they're worried that the same actors will win out anyway."

He gave her a side smile, "I think you're onto something, Haze."

.

Hazel sent out the invites for Grace’s baby shower. Unfortunately, all of Grace’s friends lived elsewhere, so it would be an expensive trip. Fortunately, they had money, so the Monroes could foot the bill for everyone who didn’t just have the means to travel across country for an event. 

Meta flew in with Damita from New York the previous week, but he made some business plans to collab with a Cali artist that week, so he was working, as well. Meanwhile, Damita and Grace were spending the week reconnecting and chilling. Shana and Iza came in from Atlanta the night before. Gharrisahn was already in LA for work, so she would swing by the day of. Grace’s parents arranged for Mikayla and Tulip to come down. They were in coach on the same flight that Lucy’s and Lindsay’s moms and they were in first class, so they’d all meet the driver upon landing.

Hazel had on a headset, along with Simon’s assistant and Grace’s assistant, because Hazel had arranged the shower and she wanted to make sure that things went how she meant for them to. 

Grace was in a custom made gown that was inspired by Book 3 of Esmoroth and Simon had been at her side simply staring at her for the entire time she had it on. It had been a surprise. A very nice one that he apparently loved. She hired the costume designer for the movie to make her several pieces, but this one was like the one that the Idol Princess resurrects in. Grace was now hip to the lore enough, mainly from paying attention to Hazel’s ravings, and her and Simon’s movie chat. 

For the most part, Grace didn’t want to have a shower. All of her friends lived elsewhere, the baby was due sort of close to Hazel’s birthday and she still wanted Hazel to be able to have a party - which she doubted would be able to happen if she waited until after they were born, so she wanted to have Hazel’s birthday party, INSTEAD of a shower and Hazel said, “How about you just worry about slaying everybody in your peak perfection pregnancy, and I’ll take care of the shower?” 

With the financial backing of GlamMother, her dad’s big brain, and her own penchant for moments and aesthetics, Hazel tended to be very good at making things come together. She even produced some choreography (Doereography, as she called her pieces), for her and her mother to perform, because, yes, Grace was good and swollen by May, but she also could still do mostly everything that she was doing before with that additional bundle. It did throw her balance off a little and she couldn’t lift Hazel at the moment, but she kept up with every step of the Irish step dancing that Hazel put into the choreo, and she absolutely could still nail every Haitian movement. Hazel wanted to make a birthday choreo with ties to her heritage, and Grace was always very supportive of her doing anything that made her feel connected to her identity. 

For good measure, Hazel looked up cultures from Grace and Simon’s heritages too. She was most accustomed to American jazz/hip hop and ballet. She started at 6, with Grace and when they were apart, Grace used to make instructional videos and post them just for Hazel. Whenever she was 10, she started to tap, and all of the other things in between, she and Grace perfected, and whenever she really wanted to nail something, they’d call in a world class trainer. 

Hazel felt that a world class trainer was needed for the baby shower. Grace very much so disagreed. So, Hazel got her grandmother to get them. “Next time, simply come to me first,” the woman had said. 

Hazel opened up with one of her raps. Her mom’s friends (as always) got their entire lives whenever she would flow - which was possibly the reason that she honed her talent, if she thought about it - and even Simon would be into the groove with things. He didn’t have the best rhythm, but he certainly always looked way taken up with her talent. Grace bouncing around with a round belly was everything in the world to Hazel, and when she was done, she waddled over to hug her. 

They played games, did some traditional shower things and some new things too, that Hazel consulted with celebrity event planners for. When it was time for gifts, Grace froze, looking at the way that everything flowed. It was like her 16th birthday again and she felt like she might have a panic attack. “Grace… It’s okay,” Simon said. She looked at him on the other side of the tete a tete and he smiled, “I learned my lesson. This is straight up simply tribute.” He kissed her on the forehead and she calmed down to receive gifts and cry about everything, but manage to not look ugly doing so, because no matter how comfortable she had gotten over the years, that was still engrained in her as a huge no-no.

Winding down from the party, she found Hazel and her friends at the photo booth, having switched out their baby shower outfits for their birthday party outfits. “Where’s Simon?”

“Bullying people about their gifts,” Hazel said nonchalantly. 

“Oh God…” Grace raced over and smiled, “Hey… what’s uh… what’s going on?”

Mrs. Monroe stood behind Simon with her arms folded and Mr. Laurent was in front of them. Simon answered, “Well, I’m giving people things back that went against the specifications for the list.”

“I don’t remember making specifications for the list.”

“You wouldn’t, because you didn’t, I did. You aren’t particularly great at meticulous things and you don’t pay attention whenever I’m telling you plans like these,” Simon said.

“We’re not gonna send a gift back with the person who gave it to us.”

“What are we gonna do, donate it to charity? Because I am not putting this together for our baby. This company uses…”

“Thank you, Mr. Laurent. Thank you for coming and thank you for this gift.” She gave the man a pat on the hand and smiled at Simon. He was still frowning, along with her mother. “You’re backing him up, now?” She got flashbacks of whenever they used to gang up on her and she was very salty that she had to defend MR. LAURENT of all people against the devastating team and Simon and her mother could be.

“He specifically said nothing from that company ON THE LIST,” her mom said, beginning a tirade against this man, with her and Simon taking turns on letting him know exactly how he’d fucked up.

“Their product is cheap and substandard.”

“They’ve decimated the supply of the people in the area they harness things from TO make cheap product.”

“And they use slave labor!”

“Child slaves.”

“OKAY! Okay… That’s a good company to boycott. But hear me out… Mr. Laurent is a simple man who shops at like three places and definitely doesn’t look up things like that,” Grace said.

To which Simon and Mrs. Monroe both reminded her, (loudly) “It was on the list!”

“I made it clear which companies we weren’t accepting gifts from!”

“It’s already bought.” Simon was going to continue complaining, but Grace took his hands and placed them on her belly and he immediately softened up and stared at it. “This is the most important thing, right?”

He looked up at her and cupped her face, shifting himself to touch foreheads with her. Hazel appeared out of nowhere to bomb the photo that they weren’t even expecting Lucy to take. 

.

“Wait, that was it?” Grace wondered. Let’s be clear… she did go through a lot of pain and it was a tough time in the birthing house, even with Simon right beside her and Hazel, her mother and her best friend nearby. But… it felt like there should be something else happening or that something was missing, that she had neglected something, or like something didn’t happen that was supposed to. 

She supposed that she had simply set her expectations so deeply into the thought of pain, struggle, blood, sweat and tears, that when it came… her imagination had actually run wild. Simon had kept telling her she was doing well and how he was proud of her and other affirmations. He was holding the baby now while she was being cleaned up. 

“Did everything happen?” Grace asked. 

Hazel went over the checklist with her. Yes. Everything happened. “Did I pass out?” No. She was awake. She was there for every grueling minute. It just was a different experience for her than what her mother described, than what she read and interpreted. 

The professionals explained to her how her birthing went relatively well, what to do next, etc. Charlotte, from the center, even talked to her about how it’s not only different for everyone, but how all four of her own pregnancies and births were different from the last. Grace��was expecting something terrible to happen within the first few days, just because it didn’t seem like everything had happened! The paranoia died down on day 3 and she simply was back to cuddling with her new baby.

They looked like her, so far. Hazel made them a stuffie of a potato in a diaper… the baby just looked like a potato. She didn’t know how else to express that. Simon worshipped them. He was constantly holding them whenever Grace wasn’t. He was close by whenever she fed them. He took so many photos on his phone that within days, he surpassed all of the ones he had of Monty from the past several months.

NONE of those were going online any time soon. Grace had only posted a few days after giving birth her experience with having done so. She bounced back so quickly and looked so effortlessly beautiful that some people were claiming that she had been trolling and was never actually pregnant. She found that funny, but it also was her cue to duck away from the Internet for a while again. 

The first month of Ivory’s life, they were for the most part a quiet baby. Simon frequently worried that something was wrong, checking, rechecking, then coming back and checking again that they were breathing, awake, happy, etc. Grace was more like, “You’re so gross. Look at you! Drooling all over everything. Little slobbery monster!” She spoke in a high pitched voice that made Ivory smile and kick their little legs around.

“GRACE! Don’t say that!” Simon insisted. “You’re gonna make them feel bad.”

“No way! Ivory’s a tough little cookie, like their Mama. I gonna bite you, Cookie! Mama gonna bite you!” Then she playfully nibbled at their feet and hands. 

Simon studied the baby for a while and determined, “They seem to be enjoying it.” He would then relax a little. 

Hazel was the only person allowed to post photos of Ivory, and comments were always closed. The first one was on Hazel’s birthday. She was in a sundress, tanned a little more than usual and Ivory and she had on matching rompers and sunhats. “Ivory came 13 days before my 13th year. They really said, “I’ma be 13 too, Sis.” Look at them. Tiny. Tiny Potato. Sis has your back for life. #taurustribe #jk #idcboutthat #MonroeSibs #Doetography #HouseLaurent 

And there it was. All that anyone needed to see. You honestly couldn’t tell what the baby looked like, but how could anybody doubt Hazel’s hashtag “House Laurent?”

Simon sort of liked having a private family. He wasn’t sure why he had been so eager to have people acknowledge things before. Even one year ago, he needed for somebody, anybody to know that he slept in the same bed with Grace Monroe. He needed for her to say “I love you.” He needed to hear Hazel call him “dad.” He still loved those things, but he had everything he could have ever wanted… it just looked different than he thought it would. 

Why did he want to “take care of” Grace for so long? She was caoable of taking care of herself, probably better than he was of himself. She had talents (was ALREADY back to working on new dances with Hazel and new music), qualities… God… that smile made him weak… She had several other things too, but if he sat there making a list, he’d be there for a while, and he COULDN’T be there for a while, because Ivory was six weeks old and Grace told him that he could take them with him to work. 

He began strapping the baby into the stroller… “Are you… where are you trying to take my baby?” Grace asked.

“My calendar says that they’re six weeks old. I can take them to work with me.”

 Grace put her hands on her hips and Simon frowned. “You said it. I have a recording of you saying it.”

“Well, I said that we shouldn’t take them anywhere before six weeks…”

“And I set my calendar,” Simon completed the thought and pulled the diaper bag onto his shoulder. “Abigail is bringing Monty, so they’ll have a play date.”

“Oh, she is?” Grace asked, toweling herself down. “Hold on. I’m coming.”

“Grace, I’m gonna be late!”

“I’m not letting you go be a Daddy sized snack with TWO cute babies on you with a cute, perfect bodied nanny with no friends!”

“I don’t think she’s all that cute and I have no idea what her body looks like!”

“It doesn’t look like she pushed a baby out of it six weeks ago!”

“NEITHER DOES YOURS!” 

She came into the room, changed up and smiling, “Awww. That’s so sweet.”

“How did you?” She looked perfect. She looked perfect and she couldn’t have taken any longer than five minutes. And she thought she had anything to worry about? But, he wasn’t complaining. If he had Grace and the baby around, that was just better, all around. 

“I’m staying here,” Hazel told them and continued dancing in the mirror.

Grace was standing on the scooter, with Simon behind her, sporadically kissing her on the neck every now and then, making her smile and gush. Whenever they pulled into the studio Simon took the baby out, which Grace noticed was wearing an oversized heather gray, “Proof he got lucky with Grace Monroe” onesie. “Simon! What did you…?” She gasped and saw that he had a shirt, the same color that read, “I got lucky with Grace Monroe.”

“In my defense, you weren’t supposed to be here today!” Simon told her. 

“How many shirts and onesie sets did you buy?”

“Not a lot. I bought WAY MORE t-shirts than I did onesies.” She fell behind a little and the back of that man’s shirt said “Grace’s Babydaddy.”

“Simon…”

“In my defense… You were right there whenever I walked out of the house wearing it.” She laughed. “It’s just in the studio. I’m working on some mechanics. There’s not gonna be cameras on me or anything.” She was still pouting. “I know that you’re super secretive, but I’m sure that most of the people who give a damn about what we do already know that this is indeed my baby…”

“It’s not that.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Ugh. I wanted to do this whole reveal thing for you on Sunday! I was gonna make this long, sweet post and open my comments and EVERYTHING. Now, I feel like it won’t have the same effect…” His eyes were already all watery, just from her THINKING about doing so.

“Sunday is Father’s Day…”

“Yeah. I can keep my own secrets. Not tell people about my pregnancy or who I bone or how I share time with my daughter or whatever, but I didn’t plan on making you stay in the shadows of my spotlight for the rest of our lives, especially when it comes to this. You’ve been an immense pain in the ass, but you’re a wonderful father and I figured it’d be a good… coming out of sorts for me to acknowledge that on that day.”

He cradled Ivory closely, “You can still do that.”

“Well, you’ve announced it all over your clothes and also… I just told you the entire plan!”

“I love knowing plans!” Simon said. “Here.” He took off the shirt and threw on his hoodie, which it was too hot for and then they changed the baby’s onesie too. “I sort of want to eat it up whenever people actually find out from you that I am indeed, who you bone.” She laughed. “This is the best spoiled surprise that I’ve ever had!”

“Well… I didn’t tell you ALL my plans, so there’s still stuff to look forward to.”

“Yeah?” He asked, casually as they walked inside.

“Mmm hmm.”

“Can I have a hint?”

“Something that starts with the letter P.” Simon turned red and she smiled brightly.

“Uh. Didn’t put THAT on your calendar, did you?” 

His lip dropped, “I DIDN'T!” He frowned, “In my defense… we don’t really do that enough for it to have been something I was counting down to.” He smirked, “But every time we do…” He raised his eyebrows and smiled at her. She bit her lip and shook her head, “Nope. Sunday. You aren’t gonna beard break me, Mr. Laurent.”

Next

[bobbiejelly]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/157220?view_full_work=true Here’s bobbiejelly’s talk about how much Sex & Caring in Seattle is the very best ever. Full link above, Chapter 1 on Ao3 link is here:   https://archiveofourown.org/works/157220/chapters/226527   So this is probably one of the most classical Meredith/Addison fanfictions on the planet. It’s an epic WIP that still has potential to be finished. And I haven’t given up hope! Bluefall on Ao3 can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluefall/pseuds/Bluefall     DISCLAIMER: Everything that I’m about to say next maybe I have no right to say or share or promote or whatever, but for all that it’s worth, the links are still up and nothing required a signup (except to comment) and all of it’s public soooooo….   Anyone could have found this as I have. And I want it to be found easier. Because it’s so worth it.   So where do I, bobbiejelly, come in? Recently, I personally have been compiling an archive of all the places to read Meredith/Addison fanfiction ever. And in this search I have come across a lot of hidden gems. And the following are some of them… So, I’m taking a shot in the dark here, and Bluefall if you ever reach out to me on here or on Dreamwidth and tell me you’d like me to deleted this I will in a heartbeat. But allow me to say that I’ve been searching the internet recently for Addison/Meredith fics. And I found on the LiveJournal tag for Bluefall here: https://ga-fanfic.livejournal.com/tag/author:%20bluefall   Which has all broken links due to the purged account that there at some point was a piece called “Epilogue” a one-shot that’s interconnected-but-not-really that was written alongside the back half chapters of Sex & Caring.   ·   Description from LiveJournal here: ·   ·   BLUEFALL ·   April 16th, 2008, 11:41 pm Epilogue Title: Epilogue Characters/Pairings: Meredith/Addison Rating: PG Summary: Meredith and Addison through the years. Assumes an established relationship (hence the title).   (Follow the fake cut) · TAGS   author: bluefall, shipper: addison/meredith · · 3 · LEAVE A COMMENT         Anyway, so I found that there and then went on a goose chase to find that fanfiction, and I was pleasantly surprised when I took a shot in the dark on the platform Dreamwidth, that a lot of people into the ga-fanfic community on LiveJournal were also into.   And I found that Bluefall’s Dreamwidth site was not actually purged at the same time as the LJ one. And that the epilogue fic is there. AND that there are two interlude fics for Sex & Caring there. AND that there are more MerAdd one-shots written by Bluefall even before this author wrote Sex & Caring all of those years ago (maybe? The timeline is fuzzy here because at some point that author first posted it on FF where it disappeared from so it’s hard to tell what came first…).   But I digress, here is Bluefall’s Dreamwidth page:   https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/     Here is the link to the Sex & Caring page: https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/tag/sex+%26+caring   On that, here are the two interludes between (I won’t spoiler this here) but they are amazing! As the original author recommended, I’d say also don’t read these until you’ve finished (currently Chapter 19) the fic because of spoilers, but if you’re already here in the comments like me asking for more, well, here it is : https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/30581.html   And finally, here is the piece called “Epilogue” a standalone that is NOT a true ending to Sex & Caring, but not-not that either. What? Erm, allow the original author’s words to explain:   Bluefall An Autumn Shade of Azure GREY'S: EPILOGUE Grey's: Epilogue Apr. 16th, 2008 11:00 pm bluefall Title: Epilogue Fandom: Grey's Anatomy Warnings: none Summary: Mer and Ads, through the years. A/N: I wrote this originally as an epilogue to Sex & Caring, but I have been a true champion about not finishing that story, and I realize that this doesn't entirely fit with it, and works better as a standalone anyway, so here it is.   The link is here: https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/14961.html   And the link to all of their other Grey’s One-Shots are here:   https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/?tag=grey%27s+anatomy&skip=20   And individually here:   Honesty: https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/10895.html   Grey's - Hypotenuse : https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/9109.html   SOOOOOO There you have it. And I’ll even post a link to the Sex & Caring Dreamwidth Chpater 1 page in case for some obscure reason you’d rather actually read Chapter 1-18 on that platform:   https://bluefall.dreamwidth.org/18872.html   Anyway, so that’s what I’ve found in my research.   Have a great day and take from that what you will.   And there’s also a lot of comments on the chapters on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal for this fanfic that are really cool to read. A lot of familiar usernames from Ao3 and Dreamwidth, Livejournal, from back in the day. It’s really fascinating to see the reactions that were then, in real time, and now, a decade ago.   Fanfiction is truly timeless, and I welcome you to check out these archives if you want. I certainly have. And it made my day!!! bobbiejelly https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiejelly

@lespians @lordoflezzies @lightningmaystrike @lucy-lane-deserves-better @hannidelialanagram @dramedies @sassyygayy @bobbiejelly @tisziny @thatwinchestergirl67 @thenetflixgal @hime1993 @tryandholdyourbreath-blog @@freshbrainss @jeonghyo @singwhenyoucantspeak @demonbxtxh @cyanskies @lyduennn @bebopfirefly @lerevedenemo @almostintellectualunicorn @llerasklpnv @jessicazavala1234 @englishstrawbie @ftmeatball @thewaywardimpala @lurlina @louhazzabeingloudandloud 

Anyway, tagged all these people because they’ve liked one of my MerAdd meddison posts and/or followed me at some point, and thought you’d all want to know this. 

All responsibility goes to @bobbiejelly if the original author Bluefall emerges from the floorboards and is upset that their old Dreamwidth is being disseminated widely for people to fawn over a decade later :D.

This has also been commented widely on Ao3 in the replies to chapter 19, where people were asking for another chapter, and I just linked them these things...

CHEERS!

[thatsacult]

Some people just don't want kids, and often find they're questioned, mistrusted, or even hated for it. The childfree subreddit has become a digital home for 142,000 of them. 

​Can the internet be a place of respite for people being pestered by their broody parents? Or are they longing for a childfree, separatist world that isolates and misunderstands parents?

Written and edited by: Helen McCarthy www.twitter.com/helenlmccarthy

Music by: Antti Luode www.anttismusic.blogspot.co.uk

Thanks to all the episode contributors. 

EPISODE 1 - CHILDFREE SOURCES:

SUBREDDITS r/childfree https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/ "Discussion and links of interest to childfree individuals".

r/antinatalism https://www.reddit.com/r/antinatalism/ "Antinatalism is a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth, standing in opposition to natalism".

r/AskParents https://www.reddit.com/r/AskParents/ "A Subreddit devoted to the asking of questions to parents".

r/AntiChildFree https://www.reddit.com/r/AntiChildFree/ Subreddit opposing r/childfree.

r/Fencesitter https://www.reddit.com/r/Fencesitter/ "A place to ask questions, share experiences and offer support to those who are on the fence about having kids".

TWITTER @childfree_not_4 https://twitter.com/childfree_not_4 "Interested in childfree, teamnokids, voluntary childlessness, antinatalism, MGTOW, tubal ligation, vasectomy, overpopulation, nihilism, pessimism, hedonism"

@ChildfreeChick https://twitter.com/ChildFreeChick "Childfree Atheist"

FACEBOOK Childfree Humor https://www.facebook.com/ChildfreeHumor/?ref=br_rs "For people who don't care much for kids and want to have a laugh about it".

The Advocacy for Anti-Procreation https://www.facebook.com/advocacy.anti.procreation/ Supporting: ChildFree, Adoption/Fostering/Respite Care, Assisted Dying, Nihilism, Animals, Birth Control, Choice, & Environmental topics... it's time we reduced our carbon footprint".

STFU Parents https://www.facebook.com/STFUParents/ "You used to be fun. Now you have a baby".

Childfree Chicks Confidential (closed group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/childfreechicksconfidential/?ref=br_rs "We are a diverse group with childfree & childless women & men".

we're {not} having a baby https://www.facebook.com/WereNotHavingABaby/ "we’re {not} having a baby! is the brainchild of Amy & Lance Blackstone, a childfree couple, married since 1995".

Cheerfully Childfree https://www.facebook.com/CheerfullyChildfree/ "A sanctuary to consider, become, and remain Childfree without the backlash of breeders who can't accept us for who we choose to be".

Elder Orphans (closed group) https://www.facebook.com/groups/elderorphans/ "The group is restricted to individuals over 55 who live without a spouse".

CHILDFREE SITES & BLOGS The Childfree Life http://thechildfreelife.com/ "A safe haven in a baby-crazed world".

The Rinky Dink Life http://therinkydinklife.com/ Site created by Brittany Brolley for childfree women and "DINK couples (dual income & no kids)".

TLFW http://tlfw.co.uk/ "Lifestyle network for childfree women".

Why No Kids http://whynokids.com/ "We're childfree and happy. You could be too!"


Childfree Woman by Karin Rahbek http://www.childfreewoman.com/ "How to gain respect and acceptance".

Nonparents.com https://www.nonparents.com/ "For people without children by circumstance or choice".

Jesse Nichols' blog - Why I choose to be childfree https://medium.com/jesse-nichols-blog/why-i-choose-to-be-child-free-7282bd75a38c "An open letter to family and friends".

Childfree is Not a Dirty Word http://notadirtyword.com/ "Connect with childfree adults from around the globe. We do life, laughter and tears. Whether childless by chance or by choice, you are welcome here".

PRESS & ARTICLES Inside the growing movement of women who wish they’d never had children, Sarah Treleaven, Elle UK. 15 Dec 2016. http://www.elleuk.com/life-and-culture/culture/longform/a33037/i-regret-having-kids/

Having It All Without Having Children, Lauren Sandler, TIME. 12 Aug 2013. http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2148636-1,00.html

12 Women Discuss Whether They Regret Their Decisions Around Motherhood, Sara Coughlin, Refinery 29. 29 April 2017. http://www.refinery29.uk/being-a-mom-regrets-reddit-stories?utm_r29_redirect=us

Adults Who Choose Not to Have Kids Inspire Moral Outrage, Study Finds, Julia Layton, Health: How Stuff Works. 17 March 2017. https://bit.ly/2PxLUpO

Parenthood as a Moral Imperative? Moral Outrage and the Stigmatization of Voluntarily Childfree Women and Men, Leslie Ashburn-Nardo, Springer Science+Business Media. 11 March 2016 https://bit.ly/33BzIwx

Huge demand for Baby-Free Zones, William Jordan, YouGov. 27 Aug 2013. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/08/27/four-five-want-child-free-zone-planes/

Childless couples 'on track to be Australia's most common family type', Stephanie Corsetti, ABC News Australia. 15 May 2017. https://ab.co/3fIUNYa

'Shut the f**k up, parents': Meet the (childless) woman behind vicious baby blog that has the mommy set up in arms, Daily Mail. 4 Oct 2012. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/weather/index.html  The Very Sad Childfree Life, Robert Barron, Real Clear Religion. 9 Sep 2013. http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2013/09/09/the_very_sad_childfree_life.html

Meet the 20-Somethings Who Want To Be Sterilized, Catherine Pearson, Huffington Post. 24 Oct 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/female-sterilization-young-women_n_5882000

Judgement of Child-Free People is Real - And Now There's Science to Prove It, J.R. Thorpe, Bustle. 3 Mar 2017 https://www.bustle.com/p/judgement-of-child-free-people-is-real-now-theres-science-to-prove-it-41787

No kids allowed: Is Britain becoming an anti-child society? Kerry Potter, The Telegraph. 31 Aug 2017. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/no-kids-allowed-is-britain-becoming-an-anti-child-society/

Midlife Ramblings: What I Don’t Get About My Childless/Childfree Young Friends, Ann Brenoff, Huffington Post. 9 Feb 2013. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-brenoff/childless-to-my-childless-friends_b_2616049.html

I used to judge childfree women, Eleanor Tucker, The Guardian. 8 Nov 2014. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/08/i-used-to-judge-childfree-women

The Outrage Against Childfree Women Is Real — And Needs To Stop, Therese Shechter and Amy Blackstone, Bust. http://bust.com/feminism/19421-moral-outrage-childfree.html

Silent bodies: Childfree women's gendered and embodied experiences, Helen Peterson and Kristina Engwall, European Journal of Women's Studies. 2013. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259975667_Silent_bodies_Childfree_women's_gendered_and_embodied_experiences

Study Finds People Are Morally Outraged by Those Who Decide Not to Have Kids, Kimberly Lawson, Broadly. 2 Mar 2017. https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/a3wvgp/study-finds-people-are-morally-outraged-by-those-who-decide-not-to-have-kids

How to Decide Whether to Have Children, Olga Khazan, The Atlantic. 22 May 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/05/how-people-decide-whether-to-have-children/527520/

Our Planet Is So F****d That Some Women Are Choosing to Not Have Kids, Linda Yang, Broadly. 14 Dec 2016.  https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/59mb5d/our-planet-is-so-fucked-that-some-women-are-choosing-to-not-have-kids

'Why I'd BAN children from cafes and restaurants.' This incendiary view will either make you cheer or want to tip spaghetti hoops over the author's head, Janet Street-Porter, Daily Mail. 23 Nov 2015. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3331117/Why-d-BAN-children-cafes-restaurants-incendiary-view-make-cheer-want-tip-spaghetti-hoops-author-s-head-writes-Janet-Street-Porter.html

Father was 'sexting' as son was dying in hot car, Eliott C. McLaughlin and Dana Ford, CNN. 7 Jan 2015. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/03/justice/georgia-hot-car-toddler-death/

How the rise of childless women could change the face of Britain: Rampant infidelity. A struggling economy. Meltdown for the NHS. And shorter life expectancies, Maureen Brookbanks, Daily Mail. 14 Jan 2016. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3398484/How-rise-childless-women-change-face-Britain-Rampant-infidelity-struggling-economy-Meltdown-NHS-shorter-life-expectancies.html

Why do childless people hate kids so much? Jennifer Wilde, Baby Centre Blog. 7 Dec 2011. https://blogs.babycenter.com/mom_stories/why-do-childless-people-hate-kids-so-much/comment-page-2/

The ChildFREE (Hate) Movement: Childless By Choice, Alan Thomas, Imperfect Parent. http://www.imperfectparent.com/articles/the-childfree-hate-movement-childless-by-choice/

I fought a four-year battle with the NHS to be sterilised at 30 - and won, Holly Brockwell, The Telegraph. 24 March 2016. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/i-fought-a-four-year-battle-with-the-nhs-to-be-sterilised-at-30/

BOOKS Violence Goes to the Internet: Avoiding the Snare of the Net, Evan M. Axelrod, 2009.

Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet, Lorne L. Dawson, Douglas E. Cowan, 2013.

VIDEOS Why do people join cults? TED-Ed on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TEDEducation/videos/1623132447699955/

MISCELLANEOUS Rational Wiki - Childfree Movement https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Childfree_movement

Pregnant Pause podcast https://www.pregnantpausepodcast.com/

Ann Davidman - Motherhood Clarity Mentor http://motherhoodisitforme.com

Is the Child Free movement anti-feminist? Mumsnet forum, 27 Apr 2011. https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/1202284-Is-the-Child-Free-movement-anti-feminist

To be dead jealous of childless couples sometimes? What do you miss? Mumsnet forum, 29 Sep 2008. https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/616638-to-be-dead-jealous-of-childless-couples-sometimes-what-do

The Anti Child Free Blog  http://anti-child-free.blogspot.co.uk/

[shenlongshao]

Jam Kuradoberi: Extra Analysis

A few years ago, I made a character analysis of Jam Kuradoberi that cleared up common misconceptions about her personality. But there are some things I forgot to mention after re-reading my old post. There's still some misinformation spread about Jam, which I want to clarify so this will be a long post. First is analyzing Jam's Instant Kill called "Gasenkotsu".

Jam says "Ten! Jo! Ten! Ge! Yui! Ga! Doku! Son!"  

Now I'll show the given translation to this you've likely seen on Tumblr and other places.

Tenjou Tenge Yuigadokuson (Written in Japanese is  天上天下唯我独尊 )

“In Heaven and Earth I am all that is Holy!” / “Unrivaled Self-Conceit”

Gasenkotsu= Narcissism

If you focus only on 唯我独尊(Yuigadokuson), translators(both people and computerized) will automatically give you "conceited, narcissism, ego" etc. because they dissect each word within "Yuigadokuson". Narcissism, etc. are part of the list of meanings, but these aren't the only ones; it's important to know the context. The best way to get the correct meaning is understanding this is from Buddhism, which is known to be practiced in India, China, and Japan(and probably some other countries too). Buddha said the phrase "Tenjou Tenge Yuigadokuson" after gaining enlightenment. Since this is a real cultural saying with a specific meaning, it needs to be translated as a whole rather than in pieces. The real translation of "Tenjo Tenge Yuigadokuson" is "In Heaven and on Earth, I alone am worth of honor." Since the phrase does involve speaking about oneself and one of the meanings of honor is high respect or great esteem, it's commonly mistaken for narcissism. But the real meaning of "Yuigadokuson" is "self-esteem" and "resolve" across Japan, China, etc. This is me explaining from what I know and studied of Chinese culture by reading books like "Speaking of Chinese" by Raymond Chang and Margaret Scrogin Chang. I've spoken with and observe some Asian people when I was in school or when order out to eat, etc. way back in 1994 before the era of the internet. I still take the time to make sure I learn and understand about Chinese culture, its language(mainly focused on Mandarin), etc. Now I'm going to show reliable sources and evidence.

1. SOTOZEN.NET (https://global.sotozen-net.or.jp/eng/library/glossary/individual.html?key=shakamuni): This explains the history of Buddha's life and its founder along with the meaning of "Tenjo Tenge Yuigadokuson". This is an Asian themed site that's translated in many languages.

2. True Buddhism (https://true-buddhism.com/teachings/yuigadokuson/): This is a Japanese only site that goes into great detail  about "Tenjo Tenge Yuigadokuson" and answers questions to common misconceptions about it. It will go into explanation about Buddha and his enlightenment, which you can just go the 1st website I linked to to understand the references. One of the things it mentions is how the saying doesn't mean "I'm the greatest in the world" or about being conceited, but about self resolve.  If you don't understand Japanese and just want a quick translation, you could use Google Translate to get the general interpretation of the sites, but it(Google Translate) is very weird at times, XD. I think using a good Japanese to English dictionary would help better if you're unable to contact a good translator.

3. Naoto Matsumoto's Video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=NQRDZF7Hy_g&feature=emb_logo): Naoto Matsumoto is a Japanese man who teaches the meanings behind both Taoism and Buddhism. You can skip to 1:19 of the video to listen to the specific part of him addressing the saying "Tenjo Tenge Yuigadokuson". He says, "The most humble way is being like the baby Buddha who said, 'Above Heaven, below Heaven, I alone am the most respectable being.' Tenjo--Tenge--Yuigadokuson. I hope you would understand this; this is not haughty at all. He is saying everything is one." This is the most important because it's from a knowledgeable native who naturally understands about his culture, which is the best way to truly understand something from another country. A good translator who isn't native to the country he/she studied about can be equally trusted if he/she has a great understanding of the culture. You'll be surprised how many translators know about something, but not have the full understanding cause of the false generalizations they have towards other countries.

This last one I'll link to isn't technically a information resource, but it's showing how the saying "Tenjo Tenge Yuigadokuson" is used.

4. 雅 MIYAVI's Facebook Page(https://www.facebook.com/comyvzcrew/posts/2472543299438327/): Miyavi is a Japanese singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He has the tattoo of the saying on his body to strengthen his resolve to do what he loves, which is to keep playing music.

Jam is also using this saying to strengthen her resolve on the path she's chosen and enlightenment about herself. Also note from Jam's Instant Kill(how it was before Revelator) she's also being silly and embraces the part of her being a silly idiot, XD. Now to examine how her IK is in Revelator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkr-g2Z1uM4

You notice how it begins with seeing her restaurant destroyed. There's a comical shocked expression, but notice how she's using her tears for fierce determination while giving the final kick to her opponent. What she says after is random like "I passed the first interview!" or "Done and done!". All of this is about resolve, so below is the accurate translation.

Tenjo Tenge Yuigadokuson  (Written in Japanese is  天上天下唯我独尊 )

"In Heaven and Earth, I alone am worthy of honor" or "Above Heaven, below Heaven, I alone am the most respectable being" / "Self Enlightenment & Resolve"

Gasenkotsu= Self-esteem

Next is addressing what I've read detractors often say about Jam. “Jam is a gold digger!” This relates to the "greedy" part, which I already covered isn't true about Jam in the character analysis post (https://shenlongshao.tumblr.com/post/151953570662/character-analysis-of-jam-kuradoberi).   Let's look at the definition of "Gold Digger" according to Webster since people misusing the word. Gold Digger: 2. a person whose romantic pursuit of, relationship with, or marriage to a wealthy person is primarily or solely motivated by a desire for money. Next is comparing the top traits gold diggers have and see if Jam displays any of this behavior. TOP TRAITS OF A GOLD DIGGER ------------------------------- #1: A gold digger hates having to put hardwork or effort into what she wants. She doesn't have or even try to have her own goals or dreams because she wants to the wealthy man or one who has good income to do everything and enjoy the benefits. The only "work" she'll put in is trying to get a guy who has money and spending it lavishly.  #2. When first meeting a guy on a date or in general, a gold digger won't hesitate to ask him financial related questions like "What's your job?" "How much money you make in a week/month/year?" etc. If the guy doesn't have a high or good paying job or high social status, she won't care or interested in truly getting to know him as a person. She wants extravagant dates, things, and status to boost her ego. 3#. A gold digger is never a giver, only a taker. The concept of helping out financially like paying a bill or anything about doing her part unless she gets something out of it is foreign to her. She'll either make up excuses like, "Oh, I used all my money last week" or manipulate the guy in some way(like using her looks, sex, etc.)so she doesn't have to do anything.  #4. A gold digger is usually very high maintenance, spoiled, and entitled  in some way cause that's the treatment she's used to having. She has the "go big or go home" mentality and doesn't appreciate the simple and small things. EVIDENCE JAM ISN'T A GOLD-DIGGER ----------------------------------- Volume 2 of Guilty Gear X Drama CD shows a hint of Jam's earlier life before her video game debut. The chapter is called "Boiler-Maker", where she used to work in a tiny restaurant as a waitress with little to no pay. Here is the link to read that section. http://gearlegacy.tripod.com/rtt/id22.html She eventually gets tired of her working situation and quits, wanting to start her own restaurant; leading into the events of Guilty Gear X(Plus). Here is the translated prologue of Jam's Story Mode. Prologue Grilling, frying, boiling, deep-frying, washing, cutting, putting in oil. A cook who mastered the 100 martial arts of China. That is Jam. In order to found her new restaurant she set out on a journey. A journey to... the devil's forest. In there were said to be ingredients unknown to man. Source:  https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/536497-guilty-gear-x-plus/faqs/31309 The Prologue for Jam's story(and others) is explained through the perspective of the P.W.A.B.(Post-War Administration Bureau). She's one of the characters that have 3 different story paths depending on what you do, so I'll give a general summary. Jam finally starts her own restaurant, but an arsonist(Robo-Ky) sets her restaurant on fire. She fights him despite the heavy smoke, but Robo-Ky escapes and begins to chase after him. This leads her to initially mistake Ky Kiske to be the arsonist, but the story can branch out differently from here. Either way, it'll end with Jam needing to start over again with her restaurant. This has been an ongoing purpose for each game since so I'll show only one more official profile of hers. Jam Kuradoberi's profile from GGXRD Revelator 2: Jam Kuradoberi's Personality: Iron chef of Chinese food and master of Chinese martial arts. She is a bright and cheerful girl that has the ability to fight using her Ki force. Her dream is to open her own restaurant and have lots of people enjoy her cooking. She almost attained her dream, but was smashed down every time by unforeseen troubles. But her passion can't be stamped out, so she keeps trying. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180219014839/http://guiltygear.us/ggxrdr/characters/ (Note: You'll have to select Jam from the character list.) The Japanese version of the site phrases it a little differently, but it's basically the same meaning and description. From the beginning, Jam has her own goals and dreams; she's continuously worked hard for it by herself. This is the complete opposite trait a gold digger would have. Of course she would appreciate not having to financially struggle so much if with a wealthy man, but Jam is very driven and passionate about her dream. She would simply continue doing what she loves and contribute in the relationship. Her less-than-fortune upbringing and the fact of her having to work for everything in her life by herself means she has a greater appreciation for the smaller and simple things in life. Not even on her list of Likes on her profile states "money", it's only "Cooking, researching, youth, and handsome men". This should be enough proof by itself, but I see detractors labeling Jam's romantic interest in Ky to "she wants him cause he's a handsome rich guy, so she's a gold digger!" I'm laughing at this cause it's so easily refutable. I'm going to show the dialogue, quotes, etc. Jam has with Ky. They first briefly met in Guilty Gear Plus when Ky was on a journey to see Dizzy. (Below is from Ky's Story Path, but Jam's story path of their first meeting is generally the same with minor differences in dialogue.) GGX Plus Ky's Story --------------------- Ky: Excuse me, the forest ahead of here, how can I... Jam: (Aiya! What a nice looking man!) The Demon's Forest is very dangerous.     You should stay away. Ky: Thank you for your concern, but it's my duty... Jam: Then I must test if you're ready for the forest! Draw! Ky: W-w-wait a second! Jam: If you lose it's washing dishes for you! Ky: Huh? Wait! Source: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps2/536497-guilty-gear-x-plus/faqs/31309 How is Jam wanting Ky do dishes if he loses being a gold digger? LOL! There’s no  part of her asking him what's his job and how much money he makes. Let's look at Jam's win-quote against Ky that's been the same throughout most Guilty Gear games until Revelator(I'll get to that later). Jam's Win-quote vs Ky: “Uu... Mada shibirete ugokenai aru. Doko ka ni kata wo kashitekureru  yasashii otoko wa inai aru ka?” (chira) Translation: “Ooh... I'm still shaking and can't move. Isn't there a kind man        around who'll lend me his shoulder?” (glint) There's no mention about Ky's wallet in this.  Pre-Battle Jam vs Ky: Uchi no mise, otoko ten'in tarinai. Anata boui yaru yoroshi. Translation: My store doesn't have enough male workers. You can work there. Once again Jam wants Ky to work for her at her restaurant, which definitely doesn't pay much in comparison to Ky's salary as an IPF(International Police Force). This isn't how a gold digger operates. Further proof is Jam's 3rd ending from Story Path 3 in Guilty Gear X2. I've referenced her dialogue with Ky in my character analysis to prove she is kind and friendly person and not a jerk. It also shows Jam is once again not a gold digger because she didn't pry about Ky's finances nor ever made it her main focus of why she pursues him. Lastly is Jam's win-quote against Ky in Revelator. Jam's win-quote against Ky: There is no finish line for cooking world. Only beginning. Same as when you find nice woman. You learn about her then find nicer woman. So...nicer woman right here, you know? By this point, Ky is a king of Illyria, another position with not only way more financial stability than Jam, but very high social status. Yet, Jam doesn’t refer to either at all. Next one! “Jam flirts with Bridget cause she told him to come back in 5 years! And says he's cute boy!” I can't believe how many people misunderstood Jam's win-quote against Bridget, which is this. Jam's Win-quote to Bridget: Ha! Kono nioi! Anata otoko no ko ne! 5 nen tattara mata kuru yoroshi!     Translation: Ha! This smell! You're a boy! Come again in five years, okay? Bridget is a cute boy in a adorable way and could potentially be a pretty boy if he's ever allowed to escape the gender-bender look and feminine mannerisms. But Jam is simply complimenting him when she says him being cute. The purpose of Jam's win-quote against Bridget is to suppose to let you and other players know 2 things. The first is letting you know Bridget's a boy cause otherwise we would've assumed he's a girl. The second is to hint of his age, which is likely 13 years old cause plus 5 would be 18 years. His body hasn't fully matured yet and 18 is the age mostly likely a person's body is reasonably developed. The fact she said 5 years should be enough to let people know Jam doesn't want a little boy. The context is actually her saying she isn't interested in him romantically. Jam doesn't flirt with Bridget at all, she sees him as a friend. Time for the next detractor statement~. “Not only is Jam after Ky, she's after his son as well!” This sounds like something from soap operas, XDD. I'll address this part cause there's some basis to it. Jam's smiles when Sin tackles her during his Instant Kill and says things like "You hug me harder!" and "Hey, you come work at my restaurant!"  There's her win-quote against him where she says has good basics and just needs to cook to be perfect man. And how she's willing to teach him cause she's a chef. Another part is Sin's win-quote against her is him mentioning of doing his best to hold back against her in a fight, but then becomes very nervous and saying like "get away from me!" which hints she got too close to him.  But these actually are meant to be strictly humorous rather interpreted as her seriously wanting Sin. Proof is this...

Sin's no where in that picture and the story states "man"(singular) and not "men"(plural) she's sets her sights on. Since I've already listed the quotes Jam says to Ky; compare those to what she says to Sin and other guys.

Another statement I read from detractors. “Jam forced Ky to go on a picnic with her!” Hahaha! XD Let's look at the part of Jam's 3rd ending from Story Path 3 with Jam and Ky to find this "evidence". Jam: It's such a nice day. How about we go eat somewhere? Ky: B-but, I should work... Jam: Ehhhh? Ky: I'm sorry for troubling you... let us go. Jam: Okay! Come on, cheer up! So Jam asking Ky about going on a picnic together and her saying "Ehhhhh?" in a disappointed and childlike manner when he first says he should work is forcing him? XD  Ky is a mentally functional and capable adult in his late 20s who's been in many leadership roles. In fact, Ky wasn’t obligated to stay and talk to her after saving her, yet he did of his own free will. Next is another one from detractors. “Ky would be Jam's personal punching bag.” ROFL! I won't spend too much time on this cause this is clearly out of no where to claim Jam would actually abuse or use Ky as a scapegoat in any way. It's perfectly okay to not like her cause everyone has characters they like and dislike, but making things up about her that aren't true makes people who do that very illogical and have poor comprehension skills. Now for the last one I think is the most interesting. “Why Jam does wear such a short skirt where you can see her panties?! This is so hentai!” There's actually a cultural reason why Jam and other Chinese girl characters like Chun-Li, Lei-Fang, etc. who show lots of legs nearly or up to their hip bone. Believe it or not, it's not strictly about sex appeal. The short answer is Chinese girls wearing a mini-skirt or dresses that show lots of leg, even to the point of possible pantyshots is the same level as a shirtless guy. This means it isn't considered sexual in China by itself if worn on a casually, but formal and holy places would obviously be inappropriate to wear it. It's even socially okay for a 50 year old woman to wear a mini skirt. But there an important part you'll also notice, Jam and other Chinese girls normally never wear low-cut tops showing their boobs. This is also a cultural thing cause in China, women are deemed good and respectable if not showing off cleavage even though their skirts are short. Showing cleavage, especially alot and if the girl isn't a model or etc. as part of a job, then it'll be the opposite; she'll be viewed as "very naughty" a.k.a want sex. This is why in Revelator Jam says to Elphelt, "You hide boobs more! You make me nervous!" and talk about some of the other girls' clothes. When thinking about in general, it's not really too different from what you may see in other places.

I hope you enjoyed reading!^_^ My next lengthy GG related post will be when Frosty Faustings arrives to analyze Faust's new design, gameplay, etc.!

[littlefearsdoodles]

Collaboration Briefs

Boy howdy did a lot of people respond to my call for collabs.

I know there are folk that haven’t heard from me yet, sorry, I will get to you! Please be patient.

I wrote a few posts two years back on how to run a collaboration (best one here: littlefears.co.uk/2017/11/13/blog-collaborations ).

The one thing I’ve refined is the brief. I feel getting everyone on the same page is insanely important at the start. I always worry it sounds super serious, but most people comment on how helpful the first email is. Awesome.

Set out your goals together. Outline what you want from the person/people involved. If you need to set deadlines at the beginning, do so in the brief. Ensure everyone knows of any word counts, genres, post types, social media sharing requirements and required image sizes are laid out from the start.

Someone once asked me to collaborate with them giving almost no guidance. “Draw me an image showing *XYZ*,” he asked. So I did. Took me 30 minutes, scanned it, sent it over. He replied, “not enough colour.”

God damn. Could you not have told me that before I spent 30 minutes drawing something for you? Suffice to say, I walked away from that one.

The flip side of this. If you send someone a specific set of instructions and they ignore them, send you completely unwanted content or repeatedly ask you questions answered in the brief, you know that collaboration will be more trouble than it’s worth.

I’m still taking names for collaborations, but that’s not the aim of this post. If you want to collaborate with me, please email me at fears@gmx.co.uk BEFORE you write anything. I don’t mean that to sound rude or mean, but, well… You know…

The aim of this post is meant to be informative and a sharing of a process. With that, I thought I’d share my current brief for the Sunday collaborations. This goes out in an email to everyone who’s interested in collaborating with me. It changes over time. People ask questions on all sorts of things and I adapt my initial email to include all answers I can.

Feel free to copy/cut/paste/tear apart/rehash for use anywhere for yourself. I figure it’s helpful to see how people run collaborations.

Dear Sir/Madam/Alien/Demon/Puppdawg

(Something personal to each collaborator goes in this space, and then…)

The Goal

I’m trying to break up my constant telling of my own tales by bringing in a Sunday collab in which readers submit their own fearful tales. I love what I do, I just want to mix it up a bit. As for yourself, I’m hoping this will be a fun jaunt into the Fears world for yourself and give you a bit of exposure (urgh, the E word!).

The Collab

I’d love for you to write a story up to 512 characters long. I’ll draw the panel and make a video for the story. I post it to the LittleFears.co.uk and share it across all my social media. I’ll include links to your blog or social media of your choosing in every post.

The Story

There’s no specific genre I would like. Humor, kooky, philosophical and horror all fit. Whether it has a punchline or not, if you could imagine it being an episode of the Twilight Zone, Outer Limits or Black Mirror, then your spot on.

The length should be under 512 characters. It’s not an arbitrary limit. But I’m hoping this can be fast and fun for both of us. No 12 page essays are required.

You're more than welcome to use my characters or make up your own. The only characters that I do not want a story written for are Copper and Iron because they’re part of an ongoing story.

Once it’s written, get it over to me via email, social media direct message or however else you fancy.

The Image & Video

I’ll then draw up a panel for the story and email it to you. If you’re happy with it, I’ll make a video. I’ll email you the audio along with social media specific panels (such as a Pinterest long image). If everything is good with you, we’ll get onto posting.

The Scheduling & Post

When all the contents made and agreed we can decide what Sunday we want to post it. If you want to post the story, image and video on your blog too, we can schedule a specific time and synchronize the posting with links to each other's posts.

In the post, I’ll include a link to your blog/social media of choice. When the story is posted, I’ll share it across all of my social media with links to you in everyone. My total audience is about 80k followers and subscribers, so I’ll hope you get a bit of exposure from it (urgh, the E word again!).

If you would like to include a link to my site or share the post across your platforms, that’d be awesome, but certainly not required.

The Next Bit

If you’re up for this, please do let me know and start writing a story. Again, any questions, queries or anything else, please do drop me a line and a query.

Thanks

Peter

Phew, right. I hope ya’ll learned something. Hey, if you did learn something super helpful, you can buy me a cuppa tea on my Ko-Fi page. The Little Fears are fueled by tea, and without it, we can’t survive.

Not being melodramatic… Honest…

LINK! https://ko-fi.com/E1E6DSNP

Cheers. Erm. /endpost?

Thanks to Warren for the $10 Patronage.

Ko-Fi | Patreon | Etsy | Books | Skillshare | Threadless

[adventuresofamodernscholar]

**Disclosure** I wrote this entire post in order to avoid making my presentation for a conference…and forgot to finish it until about 18 months later. So everything that refers to “this week” or “in a few days” happened over a year ago. I am the world’s worst procrastinator.

  Phew! I am exhausted!

A few weeks ago I decided to quit my day job, so I have been nothing more than a full time graduate student for the past month or so. While I am looking for another (less stressful) job, my days have been pretty unstructured and open; somehow I cannot remember having had a minute of free time this month, though, so maybe I haven’t been as free as I seem to think…. hmm.

Anyway, a big chunk of my time this month has been dedicated to working on building my CV in preparation for applying to PhD programs next summer. I have been studying for my GRE exams, submitting papers and abstracts for publication and conferences, and, of course, I have been working hard on my schoolwork and preparing presentations for conferences for which I have already been accepted.

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to present virtually at a conference in India, but this past weekend I had my first in-person presentation at an academic conference; it was simultaneously the most exciting and most terrifying moment in my academic career so far. I was so nervous, especially since I had no idea what to expect, what to wear, or how I would be able to afford to go! I spent an unreasonable amount of time delving through obscure sites trying to find some solid information about these conferences, so I wanted to create a helpful post for other young academics with the same questions that I had. I hope this is helpful!

What to Wear

For some reason, this was one of the most stressful parts of my preparations; I had no idea what to wear to an academic conference! I tried searching a variety of websites geared towards academics, but there is almost nothing out there on the subject. Even my trusty friend, Pinterest, had an overwhelmingly diverse array of results for “academic conference outfits” (although there are some cute ideas, hence the link). I did find one very useful piece of advice, though, in the bowels of an internet Q&A page: “don’t be the jerk who shows up in a full suit”.

Considering the fact that I was thinking about splurging on a new suit for this conference, I was beyond grateful for this piece of advice.

Eventually, I settled on a crisp new cardigan, black slacks, and a nice blouse, and I would certainly say that I fit in with what everyone else was wearing. I was actually surprised to see that I was among the better-dressed attendees.

  While at this point I can only speak for my experience at one conference, I can recommend something similar for other first-time conference presenters. You want to look nice and professional, but there is no need to go out and buy a full suit. However, despite the fact that I did see several people wearing more casual outfits, I would not recommend going the t-shirt and jeans route either. As a young academic, you have a lot to prove, and looking professional (but not like you are trying too hard) will really help you to look and feel confident and competent.

*update* as a now-veteran conference attendee (I have attended about a dozen conferences in the past 18 months) I can attest that something business casual, like what I wore to my first conference is perfect. I have seen people wear jeans and a nice shirt to conferences, but I think that this is best left for days when you are simply an audience member, rather than a presenter.

How to Pay

A few weeks ago, when I made the decision to quit my job, I did a quick audit of how much I could expect to spend on the conferences to which I have been accepted (I have a total of 7 within a 9 month period), and I was shocked to see that between travel, hotels, and conference fees, I was looking at several thousands of dollars in expenses. The average academic conference costs about $300 to attend and, apart from the conference that I am attending this weekend in DC, I will need to travel for each conference, staying out of town and/or abroad for several days for each.

I reached out to one of my professors/mentors for advice, and boy am I glad that I did! While his first suggestion (asking the department for funding) was unsuccessful, his second suggestion (taking my request to the Dean of my school) resulted in a huge financial relief. While I will not be able to fully fund my conferences through my school, I will be able to receive significant financial assistance.

Before you begin attending conferences, find out if your program or school is willing and able to financially assist students who are planning to attend conferences. If not (or if you need more assistance than your school provides), you can also apply to a number of scholarships for graduate students, which you can put towards your conference expenses. One of my favorite resources is ScholarshipOwl, but there are plenty of free lists out there with some potentially really helpful scholarships.

What to Bring

Business Cards – If you do not have any yet, have some made ASAP! I did not remember to bring any with me to UF, and I instantly regretted this lapse when I began connecting with other speakers. You will meet so many interesting and important people in your field at these conferences, and you want to make sure that they can contact you (and you them) afterwards. *NOTE* make sure that you collect cards from the people you meet and EMAIL THEM ASAP. You may make some valuable connections and you want to reinforce them before you become just another card in their wallet.

Extra Copies of Your Presentation – I have been using Prezi lately for my presentations and, even though it is a beautiful presentation program, I tend to get very stressed out when it is time to present because, with my free account, I cannot put my presentations on a flashdrive. I am thinking that, as I begin attending more conferences, I may need to shell out and pay for the upgrade that will allow me to save a copy of my presentations separately from the website. All that is to say, if you are smarter than me, you should have multiple copies on hand of your presentation, just in case there is an issue. I recommend, at the very least, emailing yourself a copy and having a copy available on a flashdrive, in case either copy does not work. I also recommend printing several copies of your script (if you are using one), in case one gets lost, damaged, etc. Murphy’s Law.

A Buddy – If possible, it is great to have a buddy there with you when you present, especially if that person is in your field. Not only will their presence help with emotional support as you put yourself out there, but it is also helpful to have someone in the audience who you can rely on to ask a question during the Q&A session. Of course this is not always possible, and only really applies to your first experience to help you through your jitters. I had my boyfriend with me for my first conference and, though I luckily did not need him to fill an awkward silence after my presentation, it was such a comfort to have him there silently cheering me on. When you are putting yourself and your work out there to be judged, it helps to know that someone in the audience believes in you.

What to Expect

I honestly had no idea what to expect before my first conference. My imagination pictured any and every possible scenario, from a huge lecture hall filled with peers, to a tiny classroom with two other people in it. In reality, I found myself in a seminar room with about 20 audience members of various academic backgrounds; about half were PhD students, about a quarter were faculty, and the remainder were a mix of undergraduates and family/friends of presenters.

What really surprised me was the relaxed nature of the conference. There was a set schedule, but everything seemed to be very casual and nonchalant; no one was concerned when the projector issues interrupted the schedule, or when one presenter was late so the schedule had to be moved around. It definitely took the pressure off to realize that the people presenting and listening were just people who were there to learn and teach, without making a show of professional superiority.

How to Prepare

Whatever you do, do not be like me. As I am writing this post, I am supposed to be writing my presentation for my next conference (which is happening less than two days from now), and I am procrastinating like you would not believe. The funny thing is, just a few days ago I was crying and yelling in a hotel room, where I swore that I would never procrastinate again, especially for another presentation. I swear to you, I woke up the morning of my presentation without a finished script, without a finished visual presentation, and without having rehearsed at all. I woke at the crack of dawn to get to work, and finally printed my finalized script about 30 minutes before I needed to leave for the conference. DO NOT DO THIS! I thought that I would learn from my first experience, but I have made this mistake over and over again. While my presentations usually go over well, the stress and anxiety are simply not worth it.

Try to have your presentation 90% prepared a week before the conference. This gives you time to practice, edit, and ask for revisions from your professor(s). Have a prepared script that goes over your research in depth and allow your slideshow to guide your talk. In my experience most presenters read straight from their papers, so while presentation skills are important, it is okay to refer to your paper as needed.

What to Do While You are There

Conferences should be as much (if not more) about learning from others as it is about presenting your own research. I have learned more from attending panels, lectures, and exhibits at conferences than in my 22+ years of schooling. Make sure to go through the conference schedule and circle anything of interest and GO! You will have paid an arm and a leg to attend this conference, so get every learning opportunity that you can out of it.

As I mentioned before, you should also be using this opportunity to network like crazy. I missed many opportunities for this during my first few conferences, but eventually one of my professors instilled in me the importance of forming professional connections outside of my own university. I have met and learned from dozens of grad students, faculty, and researchers, and I have managed to create small opportunities for myself along the way (such as chairing MLA panels and award committees). I have even gotten to squeeze my research into a special edition of a competitive journal coming out in 2020 because I had an opportunity to chat with one of the publishers about my research. Network people!

Finally, take this opportunity to visit the hosting city beyond the conference center walls. I have seen more of the USA in the past 18 months than I had in my past 26 years, and it has been a blast! I took my dad with my to Colorado for the RMMLA conference and we had a week of adventures, I visited Vegas (somewhere I never thought I would go but ended up enjoying), and I got to road trip with my (now) fiance to Florida and visit a great-aunt who I had not seen in 20 years. The world is your oyster and there is more to learn at a conference than what panelists have to say.

  *Note* at this point I have attended about a dozen conferences both in person and virtually.At this point I would say that everything in this post continues to hold true, but I welcome any suggestions for further advice!

How to Survive Your First Academic Conference **Disclosure** I wrote this entire post in order to avoid making my presentation for a conference...and forgot to finish it until about 18 months later.

[awkward-and-fluffy]

Important little post for those who are still following me and wondering where I’ve gone...

I’ve obviously lost interest in Tumblr over these past couple of years. I’m not that active here anymore and a lot has been going on in my life anyhow.

If anyone wants to keep up with me on social media, I’m on Twitter the most! And I’ve actually gotten myself comfortable with doing Twitch streams as of May 2018. It feels like a great accomplishment for me to overcome most of my public speech fears through that!

Aside from getting into streaming, I managed to finish enough of my website for it to be hosted! I put a lot of money into that, but it’ll last about 2 years. :’D

Sooo...

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/WolfKat777

My Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/wolfkat7

My Website: https://wolfkatworks.com/

Sometime soon I’ll be able to complete the HTML/CSS tutorial pages for my website, but it wasn’t possible to get it launched ASAP when those pages take the longest to put together. I’m not sure when I can get them done yet, but I hope it’ll be before Tumblr completely crashes and burns... I need my old tutorials on this blog to reference back to for how I organized everything. There are lots of mistakes to fix and new screenshots to take for better lesson examples, etc.

But yeah, a lot’s been going on. I’ve been trying to search for a new job (with no luck yet), managed to reach Affiliate on Twitch by some miracle, various family issues took place, my dad had to get heart surgery, etc.

Before going to a read more, if you don’t quite want to read a big wall of text or are scared of reading any medical topics (I get that), I’ll provide my thanks and more right here.

It’s been awesome to meet all the people I have on here - mostly through Gravity Falls! Writing and replying to theories was such a freakin blast, no matter how ridiculous things would get at times. Granted, I don’t like Tumblr itself as a social media platform and community if I’m brutally honest... However, I still had a little good come from this regardless of my bitterness from my old account before this one.

To you old mutuals of mine, and some of you old pals, keep being awesome! I hope you’re doing well in life; and if not, I hope for things to improve. Fight a good fight, but be careful in picking those fights. Life’s worth living and all that cliche junk that may or may not have much affect on you as motivating advice. 

This all goes to my general base of followers too if any of them come across this post. Thank you guys for following this dumb blog and enjoying and sharing so many of my fun posts for Gravity Falls! The show is still super important to me, and my all time favorite cartoon to exist. Whether you sent asks, replied, reblogged, or simply liked, all of that was awesome in its own way. Having discussions on the series is one of the best memories I’ll have on this most often unbearable website! (I hope that doesn’t sound too insulting or generalizing about this site...)

And thank you for anyone who enjoyed the rest of my content here, and bearing with any personal ramblings I may have had on some bad days.

It’d be cool to come across anyone here again in the near future, but at some other online platform. I’ve provided my active links above, so feel free to find me elsewhere if you want.

Goodbye to you all, and have a great rest of 2019 and beyond!

This new year is also already off to a very... Surreal and terrifying start. In case you haven’t already checked my Twitter from the time of this post to see what I wrote there, I got a severe case of my rapid heartrate and ended up hospitalized rather than stuck in Urgent Care on its own. Just 3 weeks ago, I was in UC from a less severe but still terrifying rapid heart rate that woke me up at 5am and wouldn’t calm the heck down.

I know it seems weird to include this following story for my “farewell, Tumblr” post, but I think it’ll help give some interesting record of closure here. I’ve had personal posts and ramblings on this blog about my cardiac terrors and fears. I don’t recall exactly what I’ve written here, but maybe it’d be interesting for me to search for any of those posts again to kinda look back on those thoughts...

It’s been a few years since I’ve had a bad case of rapid heartrate... In fact, I remember writing about that experience back then here on my blog too. I was put on a heart monitor for only 3 days and yeah. Of course 3 days wasn’t enough to catch anything significant... So my heart issue was still freakin shrouded in mystery and only ever connected to my anxiety/panic disorder.

Welp, I was put on a heart monitor again just last week and I requested for it to last 30 days. Lo and behold, about 8 days later, my most severe case occurred and my monitor recorded a 250bpm max rate... This monitor is linked to cellular wifi thankfully, so the company got alerted of it and called my local UC to take me in and then called the house for my mom to answer and help drive me there. (Some moments before leaving home, my heartrate went back down to the 140′s or so, but still really bad and wouldn’t return to normal.)

In UC, I had to get X-Rays as well, but I have no idea what they found from ‘em? I wasn’t really told what they resulted with... I’ll have to ask sometime.

However, with everything going on and not even medication getting my heartrate back to normal, I was moved into a hospital shortly after my stay in UC. That was my first time ever being in an ambulance.

At the hospital, I got more blood tests done, more EKGs, all that stuff. There was also talk of me needing a uh... An ablation procedure. Then later that night, a cardiologist visited me and explained that I FINALLY got a confirmation on my issue. I’ve waited 10 years for answers on why my heart would be like this... Ugh. I’m relieved, but also frustrated it took that long to figure it out, y’know?

At this point, I didn’t have the name of the condition, but I was feeling more at peace when the cardiologist mentioned this condition isn’t life-threatening and doesn’t increase my risks of heart disease. The most common issue of it is how disruptive it is, and some other symptoms it can induce (dizziness,fatigue, etc.) Gosh, that cleared away so many worries and questions I had throughout these years.

But yeah, it’s something that people are just born with and it causes a faulty circuit or two in the heart giving it weird signals at times. Stuff like that. Those with the condition have a chance to never have symptoms of it, while others start showing symptoms between 11 - 50 years old. Mine started showing when I was 13, so that was... Great.

The only way to most likely treat it, is through an ablation... And that’s where things get really scary. I’ve always had nightmares about needing heart surgery, or my heart getting shot by bullets, etc. Like, that’s how bad I felt from never knowing what’s wrong with my vital organ.

My other option was medication, but it wouldn’t be guaranteed to help by itself. Afterall, I’ve had a few times in UC throughout my life where these meds didn’t help much if at all. They also figured it’d be good to get this procedure done the earlier the better, since it can be much more complicated if I were to have it done at an older age.

-big siiigh- After spending my first night there, yep, I’ve had that done. I don’t want to describe it ‘cause it was a terrifying experience, but I hope it helps in the end. I indeed had a faulty circuit they found, and they uh... Did what had to be done.

After I was sent back to my room, the cadiologist returned and gave me the name of my condition. Of ALL THINGS, it’s “Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome” or “WPW Syndrome” for short. Despite all the straight-up trauma I’ve had, I guess in a way I can kinda thank God for the bit of humor?? (For context, I developed an interest in wolves and werewolves during my teens and loving them about as much as cats...)

I was keeping my closest friends up to date on this through my phone during all this too. I kinda knew what I’d get myself into when revealing the name of my diagnosis to them... But the friendly teasing (such as “wow, so you DO have a wolf’s heart!”) cheered me up. I’m just really thankful for my friends for keeping me company even if only possible through online chat. And despite my conflicts with my mom, she stayed by me and helped me, spending nights in the hospital with me and all that stuff. I would’ve been so much more terrified and - errgh, for lack of better words - heart broken. Being all alone without someone I know being nearby during these types of things, regardless of how much I like being alone, is stressful. I would’ve otherwise only had doctors and nurses, but they’d come in and out and not always be in the room.

So, my heart needs to adjust to this, and the recovery is a little scary at times too. I’m pulling through the best I can, using guidance from my doctors. They had me stay one more night, and as of yesterday, I’ve been able to return home. Gotta spend a week relaxing and healing up, keeping up with certain medications to help, and so on.

With all that said, and for those who read this entire mess of a thing, see you all elsewhere!

[nonbinarypastels]

About & FAQ Page

This page was last updated on July 31, 2018

About nonbinarypastels

This blog was created to combat REG (reactionary, exclusionist, gatekeeping) politics in the LGBTQIA+ community as well as other forms of harmful conservative rhetoric that’s become so common on tumblr through the spreading of positivity and information based posts. My goal for this blog is not only to validate and support LGBTQIA+ people (and people of all marginalized identities) but also to encourage people to be more accepting of others, more able to think critically about all issues, and more passionate about making a positive difference not only in their own lives but the lives of those around them.

What I post about

Positivity — Not only nonbinary positivity but positivity for all  LGBTQIA+ identities and other people as well.

Social Justice/Politics

Mental Health/Mental Illness

Critical Thinking Skills

Fandom/Media

Miscellaneous Other Topics

If you’re only here for positivity

Please blacklist the #not positivity and #discourse tw tags.

Things you should know before you follow this blog

This blog is inclusionist. I believe that all aromantics and asexuals belong in the LGBTQIA+ community. I’m also firmly against other exclusionary rhetoric that seeks to exclude any non-cishet (by which I mean non cisgender, heteromantic, AND heterosexual) group from the community.

This blog supports creative freedom and a safe fandom environment. I don’t care what kind of fiction people write/read or what they ship as long as all of their content is tagged properly and kept in appropriate spaces. While I think media criticism and having civil discussions about what we’re writing and reading and why is a good thing, I think the ‘anti’ community on tumblr totally crosses the line with their behavior which goes beyond legitimate media criticism and straight into cyberbullying and harassment.

This blog does not support radical feminism. Radical feminism is a harmful conservative movement that harms and attempts to control the lives of marginalized people. I do not support any form of radfem rhetoric.

This blog does not support trasnmedicalsim or truscum. These are groups that actively harm trans and nonbinary people by pushing reductionist, transphobic rhetoric and policing the identities of trans and nonbinary people.

This blog is queer positive. I will not censor the word queer or exclude queer people from this blog or the community.

Please do not send me messages

About any medical or life-threatening emergencies you might be having. I am not a doctor and cannot give medical advice and there’s also no guarantee I’ll be online when you send your message. If you’re in a life-threatening situation please contact the relevant local authorities (either 911 or your country’s equivalent) or get to a hospital immediately.

Calling out people I reblog from or who are reblogging from me about anything having to do with ships or fanfiction. As stated above, I don’t care what people ship or write/read as long as it’s properly tagged and not posted in inappropriate spaces. Any messages I get about “so-and-so ships ___” will be deleted.

About anything having to do with MAP discourse. I am a CSA survivor and am generally not comfortable discussing or reading about MAPs.

Telling me that a-specs “aren’t actually lgbt” or anything similar. You will automatically be blocked for being an aphobe.

Saying there are only two genders. You will automatically be blocked for being boring.

Asking me questions that have already been answered on this page. I made this FAQ for a reason. Any asks I get containing questions that I’ve already answered (or asking for definitions of terms that are listed in the glossary) will be deleted.

———————————————————————————— General Questions Do you have a question about what a certain term means?

Please check the glossary page to see if I have a definition already listed. If the term you’re looking for is not in the glossary, please feel free to send me an ask about it.

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/172930687066/glossary-page

Are you feeling down and need to be cheered up?

Please check the self care tag for posts you might find helpful.

http://www.nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/tagged/self+care

Why do you put image descriptions on your posts?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/165370079304/can-i-ask-why-you-provide-image-descriptions-i

Who is that in your icon?

Deadpool from Marvel comics

Icon by http://www.wadewicons.tumblr.com/

Do you take requests?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/172930396816/requests-page

Who are you/what is your main blog?

Considering how nasty I’ve seen discourse about the identities I’m trying to provide positivity for get and the things I’ve seen other blogs similar to this one having to deal with, I’m not comfortable disclosing the link to my main blog. I value my privacy and my safety and I hope my followers can respect that.

What are your pronouns?

Any pronouns other than it/itself are okay. I have no other preferences.

Are you a minor?

No.

Can people who aren’t nonbinary interact with this blog? Can cis people?

Anyone, nonbinary or not, is allowed to follow nonbinarypastels and reblog from us. Not only am I okay with cis people following this blog and reblogging from it, I 100% encourage them to do so. I think it’s important that not only do LGBTQIA+ people support ourselves and those who ID the same as us but that we support people of different identities and just as much I also think it’s vital for cis people to show that they support us. I think cis people reblogging positivity posts for people who aren’t cis is an excellent way to show that.

Can I interact with this blog if my blog is about ___?

I don’t care if your tumblr is 99% cute crayon drawings of pretty flowers or drawings of kinky furry porn, if you like the posts here or need them or want to spread the positivity with your followers I have no problem with you following + reblogging from this blog.

Can I share your posts on other sites?

Feel 100% free to share my posts on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media. Credit + a link back is appreciated but it’s not required. However, please do NOT upload my posts to sites such as redbubble, storeenvy, or other sites where you’ll be selling them to others.

Can I use your posts in moodboards/aesthetics posts?

Yes!

Where do you get the pictures for your image posts?

https://www.pexels.com/

http://www.unsplash.com

Why the pineapples?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/168615228296/hello-ive-noticed-your-recent-posts-about

——————————————————————————- Call Me Out Would you like to tell me that the term ‘a-spec’ was stolen from autistics and that it’s problematic to use it to refer to ace/aro people?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/162255685756/hey-idk-if-you-were-aware-of-this-but-you-have-a

Would you like to tell me to stop including the ‘I’ in the LGBTQIA+ acronym?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/161388049611/you-do-realize-that-like-a-lot-of-intersex-people

Would you like to tell me that butch and femme are lesbian-specific words and no one else has the right to use them?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169789232996/nonbinarypastels-since-i-keep-getting-anons-wrt

Would you like to tell me not to use queer as an umbrella term?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/165557176711/hey-uh-sorry-if-this-is-too-much-to-ask-but-dont

Why are you intolerant towards conservatives?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169509757921/being-an-intolerant-jerk-about-conservatives-and

—————————————————————————– Questioning Do you have tips for figuring out your gender identity?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160444273391/any-tips-to-give-to-help-someone-to-figure-out

Is it okay to use they/them pronouns if I’m still questioning my gender and might be cis?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/162316760041/i-feel-comfy-using-theythem-but-i-dont-know-if-im

I want to question my gender but I’m afraid I’m faking it all?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169375568051/hi-i-always-thought-i-was-a-cis-guy-but-ive

———————————————————————————– About Being Trans + Nonbinary Are nonbinary people trans?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160443055731/do-you-consider-nb-to-be-a-part-of-the-trans

Am I still agender if I have feminine interests/hobbies?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/159863843416/i-identify-as-agender-but-i-also-like-girl

Can you be lunarian and agender?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/159119628926/can-i-be-a-lunarian-agender-or-does-that-like

How do you deal with nbphobia?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/161289280081/tw-transphobia-tw-ableist-slur-tw-r-word-do

What do I do if my friends are nbphobic?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/161290197211/one-of-my-best-friends-is-a-radical-feminist-i

What’s the difference between being nonbinary and being a tomboy?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170485614676/im-having-a-mild-identity-crisis-whats-the

Can you be nonbinary and prefer she/her or he/him pronouns?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170449570882/hi-im-someone-who-identifies-as-non-binary-ive

Are nonbinary people to blame for trans people not being taken seriously?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/161287284091/how-do-you-respond-to-people-who-say-nbs-are-the

How do I deal with people saying nonbinary people are responsible for trans people being made fun of?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/167977849726/hey-i-got-some-really-messed-up-enbyphobic-anon

Is trans day of visibility for nonbinary people too?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/159055092686/sorry-if-this-is-stupid-is-trans-day-of

Is there any proof there are more than two genders?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170985650804/sgaprivilege-sonoanthony-hatingongodot

Do you think it’s fetishizing for people to say they’re attracted to nonbinary people?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170815582801/whats-your-take-on-the-claim-that-mlnbwlnb-are

Am I still trans/nonbinary if I didn’t always know from a young age?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169845692030/hi-okay-so-im-trans-nonbinary-and-i-noticed-that

Am I still nonbinary if I never want to come out?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169159856571/can-i-still-be-nb-if-i-dont-plan-on-coming-out-to

How do I overcome internalized nbphobia?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169128988716/do-you-have-any-tips-on-overcoming-internalized

What can I call the nonbinary person I’m dating other than boyfriend/girlfriend?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/164729025088/hi-i-dont-know-if-you-guys-answer-questions-but

What’s your opinion on “there are only two genders” jokes?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169533948384/hey-i-was-wondering-if-you-might-be-able-to-give

Who is allowed to ID as nblm/nblw/nblnb? Do I have to have a certain alignment to ID with these terms?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/175370970607/hi-im-a-asexual-biromantic-agender-person-and

———————————————————————————- About Presentation + Dysphoria

Do you have any tips for dealing with dysphoria?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171870400516/urgent-im-a-non-passing-pre-everything-trans

What’s the difference between social dysphoria and body dysphoria?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171770067231/whats-the-difference-between-social-dysphoria-and

How can I write about trans/nonbinary characters who have dysphoria?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/163261302706/hello-there-nonbinary-questioning-black-anon

How can I bind safely if I can’t afford to buy a binder?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160277656876/hello-i-came-here-because-i-wanted-to-ask-if-you

Do you have any advice about buying your first binder?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171412780521/advice-for-somebody-who-is-getting-their-first

How can I look more androgynous?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160850193236/do-you-have-any-advice-for-nonbinary-teens-who

Is it normal to want top surgery but not want to take T?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/168600610588/is-it-normal-for-a-nonbinary-person-to-want-top

What can I do if I hate my voice?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169110950161/hey-i-am-non-binary-and-14-years-old-i-was

I want to change my hair but I’m afraid people will hate it?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/166569911301/hey-i-recently-came-out-as-non-binary-i-really

—————————————————————————— About Sexuality How can you be sex-repulsed without being asexual?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/159348049986/how-can-you-be-sex-repulsed-but-not-asexual

Can you be in a queerplatonic relationship if you’re not ace/aro?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171758800972/can-you-have-a-qpr-if-youre-not-acearo

What’s the difference between demisexuality and regular attraction?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160198336046/whats-the-differrence-between-demisexual-and-just

Is pansexuality transphobic/biphobic?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160201643591/hi-i-just-want-to-tell-that-i-heard-someone-say

Do bisexuals have straight-passing privilege?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/163139939492/hey-there-i-was-wondering-if-you-can-help-me

Can you be asexual and still like masturbation?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171408739131/so-i-was-wondering-could-you-be-asexual-and

Can you be wlw and mlm at the same time?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171269548272/hi-im-confused-this-is-a-genuine-question-pls

Can you be nblw, nblm, and nblnb at the same time?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171158368762/i-identify-as-a-nblw-nblnb-and-nblm-is-that

How can lesbians use he/him pronouns?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170496057755/this-is-an-ignorant-question-so-i-apologize

What is the split attraction model?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169931000321/hello-i-was-reading-that-post-about-asexual-stuff

———————————————————————— About Coming Out

Are you looking for coming out tips and encouragement? Please check my coming out tag!

http://www.nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/tagged/coming+out

Is it okay to come out to my friends before my family?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160086167706/i-am-trans-and-came-out-to-one-of-my-friends-who

How do I explain being nonbinary to my parents when they just don’t get it?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/168598203993/ive-accepted-im-nonbinary-and-my-parents-know

Do you have any advice for coming out as nonbinary?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171342286106/hey-any-advice-on-how-to-come-out-to-my-dad-as

How do I come out to my parents?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170782185301/hi-i-identify-is-non-binary-and-i-know-for-sure

How do I get my parents to use my name/pronouns and accept me?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/168598203993/ive-accepted-im-nonbinary-and-my-parents-know

——————————————————————————

Fandom & Fandom Discourse Related

What is an anti?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171868269706/what-is-an-anti-i-had-always-heard-that-anti

What have antis ever done wrong?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171966569929/shipping-isnt-morality-block-report-program

How can I deal with antis who are harassing me?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171974140371/hi-sorry-to-bother-you-i-was-looking-through

Do you support pedophilic ships?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170196527876/wait-you-support-pedophilic-ships-thats-gross

What’s your opinion about MAP discourse?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171209629491/so-what-do-you-think-of-maps-then-the-ones-who

If you’re not a bad person, why do you like bad things in fiction?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/164750728921/about-your-post-on-how-liking-certain-fiction

What is purity culture?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169710243376/do-you-know-whenhowwhy-purity-culture-started

What is your opinion on RPF?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/175123194126/i-wasnt-able-to-find-anything-on-your-blog-about

What is fujoshi discourse?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/174877862940/i-just-saw-someone-reference-fake-fujoshi-blogs

——————————————————————— Misc. How do you handle ignorance?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/160627538536/how-do-you-handle-ignorance-im-too-scared-to

What’s an invisible disability?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/163099887223/hey-i-have-a-quick-question-whats-an-invisible

What is TERF/radfem rhetoric?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/169015697831/on-radfemreg-rhetoric

How do I know if I have an eating disorder?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171664946546/ed-tw-i-guess-mmmm-since-i-was-young-ive

What’s the difference between being squicked and being triggered?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/171341992144/um-so-ive-been-wondering-if-feeling-physically

How do you deal with bigots?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170516017459/exposure-to-identities-really-is-the-best-way-to

Why can’t someone be both anti-SWERF and anti-kink?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/170011993907/hey-quick-q-feel-free-to-ignore-but-i-had-a-post

When was gay used as a slur?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/166431435436/hello-i-just-saw-your-post-that-i-think-was-from

How do you find out about the free samples you post?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/163522947367/hey-this-isnt-about-anything-nonbinary-but-i-was

What is your opinion on self-diagnosis?

http://nonbinarypastels.tumblr.com/post/175045406707/what-are-your-thoughts-on-self-diagnosis-ive-been

[sueboohscorner]

#TheFlash Season 5 Episode 5 "All Doll'd Up" Recap and Review

Nora hasn’t contacted Westallen in two weeks.

There is a robbery at an art museum. The police are chasing two guys on motorcycles. Barry catches one of them. Nora goes after the other one. Iris tries to talk to her but gets cut off. Nora catches the other motorcycle guy, but Barry has to clean up her mess, again.

Westallen has a family meeting. Iris and Nora get into it and Iris storms out. Barry tells Nora to see Iris as she is, not as who she might become.

The rest of the team, including Cisco, talk about Cicada and Caitlin’s dad. Sherloque has a new map radius for Cicada might be. Cisco vibes the message Caitlin found from her dad. He sees an office with a chalkboard. There is a yellow ID on the desk. Sherloque deduces Hudson University. Apparently Caitlin’s dad knew Professor Stein. Cisco’s hands still hurt.

A man is giving a woman an extremely expensive necklace. They then go into the next room. A man contorts himself out of a box and steals the necklace. He has a creepy as hell doll face and hair. The woman sees him leave.

Barry is at the crime scene. Iris is too, interviewing the couple. He’s so happy to see her and convinces her to team up on the case, date style.

Nora is complaining to Cecile about Iris. Cecile isn’t having it. She decides to exchange information about Barry for chores.

Sherloque, Cisco, Ralph, and Caitlin are in Stein’s office. Cisco vibes the chalkboard. Caitlin’s dad was writing the chemical formula for ice over and over again. There was a sketch on the desk that Cisco couldn’t quite make out. Sherloque deduces that it was Khione, the Greek goddess of snow. This all leads to Killer Frost. Caitlin is afraid that her dad left because of Killer Frost. Cisco vibes the sketch and it leads him to an old chemical lab. His hands also start bleeding.

Barry and Iris haven’t found a DNA match on the hair Barry found.

An architect name drops Gotham while Mr. Creepy as Hell is in the vent system.

There’s a bomb threat at Seaver Architecture. When Barry gets there, he sees Mr. Creepy in the vent before the building explodes. He gets the regular guy out and Mr. Creepy walks-ish out.

Barry tells Iris about this. The guy’s prints contort as much as he does, so when Barry decontorts the prints, he finds a match. His name is Peter Merkel, the son of billionaire Theresa Merkel, who is coincidentally holding a gala tonight.

The rest of them are in the lab. It’s been torched, but there are links to Caitlin’s mom’s company. Cisco tries to vibe and passes out.

Westallen is at the gala, and they look amazing. They find Theresa Merkel, and she allows them two minutes to ask questions. Iris asks about her son. She hasn’t seen him in two years, when she had him arrested. Iris wants to go home after they’re done, but Barry convinces her to dance. At least until she excuses herself. Barry follows her out. Iris is afraid that she is just like Theresa Merkel, who gave her son everything, but wasn’t enough. Barry tries to cheer her up but can’t. Also, Peter Merkel is watching.

Cisco wakes up in the infirmary. Caitlin tells him that he still has remnants of Cicada’s dagger in his hands. They then bond over losing their powers. They both still have value as themselves, even without powers.

Iris is looking over Merkel pictures. Barry finds her and they talk. She’s afraid of becoming her mother and that she’s doing the same thing Joe did when he lied about her. Barry tells her that worrying about the future is useless. She has to get to know Nora as herself, as she is now. He suggests that they go home, but she has a lead.

Cecile and Nora are still talking. She tells a story about a boy who lost his parents. Barry sat with him at lunch every day for a year and then wrote a page about him in the yearbook. He finally smiled. The story was about Iris, not Barry. She’s been telling stories about Iris. She tells Nora to give Iris a chance. Cecile even gives Nora Iris’s baby book.

Barry gets a video call from Iris. Peter Merkel was taking the things important to his victims. He then kidnaps Barry.

Iris tells the team. Sherloque broke the extrapolator, but Ralph has an idea. He Spidermans Iris to the roof where Barry is being held. I know that the writers had no way of knowing that Stan Lee was going to die Monday, but this was as good of a Stan Lee tribute on DC television as we will get.

Barry wakes up on top of said building tied to a chair with meta cuffs on. Iris and Ralph show up.

Nora finally answers her phone.

 Peter Merkel pushes Barry off the building. Iris jumps after him, and somehow manages to unlock the cuffs so that Barry can speed them both away. Nora sees it and is insanely impressed.

Ralph lands on a car and Peter Merkel is inside him?

Everyone else is extremely impressed with Iris too. Ralph gives himself a little credit. Cisco dubs him Ragdoll.

Iris and Nora talk while looking at the journal. Iris wants to know her, no holds barred, and they actually start to talk. Barry eavesdrops.

Sherloque and Ralph have an idea. There is a way that Caitlin’s dad could have used Caitlin’s mom’s company without her knowing. Tanhauser has black sites. Cisco uses Devoe’s satellites to track him, but Caitlin is afraid.

This should have been the Halloween episode. I don’t do scary. I don’t watch horror movies and I watched this in the middle of the night. This is not my thing, entirely subjectively. 6/10.

[adieka]

How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO?

(1) How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO? (2) Does Social Media affect SEO? Search Engine Optimization? (3) Do Social Signals Work for SEO? (4) How Important Are Social Signals to Rank? (5) Some Value of Displaying Social Share Numbers in SEO (6) Social Shares Help You Rank Higher in Google Is a Myth! (7) Can You Rank a Blog Post Purely on Social Signals With No Backlinks? (8) Do You Do Buying Social Links From Any Influencer Else? (9) A Social Media Content Strategy for a Niche of Maternity (10) Is Instagram Good for Backlinking? (1) How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO? Christine I’m looking for information on link building using social media and how I can effectively use social media to grow our Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is for a legit online business and I’m focused primarily on a North American and European audience. Anyone willing to point me to some useful reading? Anything from beginning to expert. 2 👍🏽 2 [filtered from 12 💬🗨]📰👈

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Peter Try “The Art of Social Media” by Guy Kawasaki. It’s not written from an SEO perspective, of course. It’s really about optimizing your social media channels and getting the most out of them, but it’s got useful tips on engagement on social. If you can be engaging on social, you can influence your rankings indirectly through all the traffic you send to your site from social posts.

Christine ✍️ Great! Thank you!

Jay You can't link build with social media, but you can have strategies for awareness and brand mentions which does help Search Engine Optimization (SEO) somewhat but only for your brand. If you don't have a brand and just have a generic web site… social media is not going to get you long lasting results.

Christine ✍️ Thanks for the reply and info. We are hoping to use social media to better establish and grow our brand. We have a number of things that we’d like to roll out over the next couple of months, so I’m trying to learn as much as possible so I don’t waste any opportunities. Do mentions have any direct effect or does that solely help awareness and traffic? Jay It's not direct, but I believe Google keeps an awareness of brand mention across the major social platforms. There's no way to know absolutely how their algorithm takes it into account, but from what I understand it does help. The problem with social media is that there's no link permanence and individual account values can't be corroborated easily by Google. However, it is a good way to both jump-start awareness as well as garnering opportunities for attracting web links that do matter in the long term. If you focus on social, your primary efforts will be: Page creation & maintenance on Facebook. Don't focus on post volume at first, focus on post quality and engagement. Make sure your posts are both attractive and interesting and trigger engagement from anyone seeing the post. This will fuel Facebook to show your page posts to more people more often. Facebook's algorithms are based primarily on engagement. If your brand/business has a visual angle to it take advantage of Instagram. Again, quality over quantity. Make people stop scrolling to want to look at your photos & like them. Pinterest is OK but doesn't usually drive social value. Twitter is good if you have truly interesting and unique things to say. All of these social platforms require regular attention, especially early on as you build up a following. Create a blog and add 2-3 posts to it weekly. Interesting topics, nothing bland. If you Google the topic you want to talk about and 8,000 other sites already have the same article with basically the same information you plan to post - write about something else. Or, if you have a truly distinct spin on a topic then go ahead, but you really need links to it to out-rank those who already have a foothold on the search terms related to the topic. As you build your main web site, also make sure to always focus on best practices. You don't need an SEO company to tell you what those best practices are, just Google for advice and you will find a million articles. SEO companies are good for helping you determine why you may not be ranking for specific terms, or how to lift your Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) a little higher, or to review your site to see if you are doing something wrong, or to look at technical stuff that you may not have familiarity with - like sitemap files, micro tagging, link building (the legit kind, don't fall for the mass backlink scams), HTML mark-up, etc. Christine ✍️ Thank you for such a thorough response. This is helpful info!

Chris Social media signals (e.g shares, comments likes on posts that mention your brand/on your page) directly help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but it's not a HUGE ranking factor. There's nothing amazing or special that you can genuinely read about. Getting specific ideas to help would be optimal, your business has a lot of viral potential, think voice over (VO) competitions, posting VO work/parodies , I remember the EA sports guy going viral a while back, stuff like that will help you get a lot of mentions and grow your brand. It's all about the content you produce and how normal people will interact with it. There's a lot of reading you can do out there, but ultimately doing actual SEO would probably help you a lot more, especially if you are targeting business owners.

Christine ✍️ Thanks for the response and info. We’ve been tossing around some viral video ideas, but you sparked a few new thoughts from my partner.

Doug Social media, at the moment, helps with traffic and branding if you have a large enough audience and/or wallet. Besides improving dwell rate, it does nothing to “help” with rankings on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Christine ✍️ So it sounds like rolling out a well planned social strategy going for brand awareness and traffic is what we should focus on. Thank you!

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(2) Does Social Media affect SEO? Search Engine Optimization? Horia created a poll. Cheers, everyone! Here's an interesting thought experiment: Does social media affect Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? More specifically, do your social media efforts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et. al.) have any impact on organic rankings? Would love to get everyone's verdict in the poll and your opinions in the comments. Thank you! 66 votes 15 votes 10 votes

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Marty Marion🎓 » Horia From my viewpoint, if one objective is to generate more searches for keywords or phrases that are important to you, then social media can have a massive impact on stimulating searches… and searches result in clicks… which definitely impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO)… so I would think social media CAN affect SEO, not that it DOES all the time… I always like to look at social media strategies as PART of a comprehensive SEO plan. 💟👍🏽4

Horia That's a great argument, Marty! So I take it you see the benefits of social media from a "social engineering" point of view, where you create momentum for phrases, which in turn stimulate queries. 💟👍🏽2 Marty Marion🎓 » Horia Yes, stimulate intrigue, questions, etc that make people search for the specific subjects (phrases) that are most important to you and make sure your pages are super optimized… 👍🏽2 Lees » Marty Marion Can you give us an example from the past in which you used this technique? Or is this just a theory? 👍🏽1 Marty Marion🎓 » Lees Sure. Have used it often. For a big ecommerce lingerie company we did social posts asking men to post their favorite "sexy celebrities" from the 1950s through 1980s. Searches for "sexy + lingerie type" etc went up and so did sales through organic. For a jeans company we asked "how skinny are skinny jeans for men?". Same results. Questions seem to provoke searches. 👍🏽3

Petter I do believe that some signals are included, but not to the extent that SEO users in general should have a great understanding on how to engage the public etc. there. I believe that SEO users should work with SoMe consultants, but Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a large enough field in itself, so for my part I'm happy to let SoMe consultants take the lead there, and just see how SEO can benefit from it in the ways Marty described above (open to any venue where my clients make more money). As I see it, there are two main issues with some of the "myths" going around on how social signals has an effect on Search Engine Optimization (SEO): 1: Engagement metrics is not a direct ranking impact. If it was, then the webpages that exists to spin shareable content would win in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), but they don't. 2: Monitoring social media is possible, but it requires a lot of resources - and Google is already tasked with monitoring everything that can be monitored - so dedicating the amount of resources needed to be on top of this makes very little sense when there are so many other signals that aren't as "fleeting" and temporary. BUT: Google does tie in Facebook business profiles to businesses, so this might in some way somewhere feed into the algorithm, but from the little research I have done - I have yet to see any correlation between rankings and active, inactive or no business profiles on ie. FB - so if there is a signal there, then as of now it cannot be a strong one. The link from your business profile on FB is nofollow - so after march 1 2020, social media profile link might start to add value. However - visible links (written URL's that goes via redirects with nofollow) may count towards a mention when/if Google picks it up. Hashtag trends is fairly available, which could make sense for Google to tie into on queries that are fresh (I believe that at least their machine learning algorithm focusing on obtaining meaning to queries ties into this in some form or way - ie. "planking" made no sense before, but then suddenly became a trend - and I believe Google wants to be relevant on such queries and the only way to be that is to stay on top of what queries might mean). And again, like Marty stated above, Social Media has the ability to provide impact on amount of brand queries as well as other queries. So it is a valuable channel for the client to pursue. But again, I believe that our clients are better off if they have someone who solely focuses on these channels helping there, leaving us SEO users to cooperate with them but at the same time keep our focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 📰👈

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(3) Do Social Signals Work for SEO? John Do Social Signals Work For SEO, Whats Your Opinion? 📰👈

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Kumar Yes...do work...do it on proper way.. After publishing new page or post...share it on social media..and do social signals on it.. Also after doing any guest post...do the same...👍3

John ✍️ Great Advice. Kobi » Kumar what do you mean by social signals? Kumar » Kobi most powerful social media's... Twitter - Retweets. Facebook - Shares. Pinterest.. - Repins. Share on all these platforms and do social signals...

Blair Yes they do work but for me best be Twitter signals overall if they come from popular accounts. John ✍️ Really? Do you think Twitter is better, why?

Kumar » John most powerful social media's... Twitter - Retweets. Facebook - Shares. Pinterest.. - Repins. Share on all and do social signals... You will see the positive response..👍2

Mike They only work in making your link building look less fake. No direct impact on rankings and I say this after buying 10’s of thousands of signals for numerous web pages.👍3

John ✍️ I Agree and Disagree......I seen someresults but nothing major.👍1 Tiwari » Mike It is all about quality and not the quantity. These 5 dollars bot-generated Fiverr social signal gigs are just worthless. Mike I’ve compared urls that I built links to with, and without social signals, never saw 1 case where a kw rank improved due to signals. Even on less competitive branded terms. If you know a vendor who can provide a better experience I’m all ears! Mike Nah, Ive used providers “recommended” by notable people in this group and others, never Fiverr...but I might as well have used Fiverr for the results.👍1 John ✍️ » Tiwari 👍.

Hays I've seen it work in for time-sensitive queries like events. I had a site ranking in the top 3 positions for a few top keywords after an event/raffle we had got shared a few hundred times and we had over 10,000 post engagements, that brought 7,000 visitors to the page in 3 days from Facebook. So within 24 hours from the post we were ranking for these keywords. 3 years later, after the event we still rank number 1 for our focus keyword which was the item we raffled. This last year's event ranks number 2 for same keyword and similar item.👍1📰👈

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(4) How Important Are Social Signals to Rank? ArtRos How important are social signals to rank? 3 👍🏽 3 [filtered from 25 💬🗨]📰👈

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Roland They can help in some areas but not a requirement for success. One very useful return from posting on social media is quicker indexing of the site promoted. Keith Webpages with a significant amounts of social engagement are likely quality pieces of content that have generated a number of other Google related signals that convinces Google to rank them higher. Doubting the causation to social signals impacting ranking that much as they are so easy to manipulate. Maggie it's part of trust and authority within your niche - but Google can tell fake social signals from true engagement. It won't affect your rank negatively if you don't have them, but they help to some extent. Peter You can indirectly influence your rankings through traffic to your site from social, so I’d say put out great content on social (or post links to good website content from social) that gets people wanting to visit your site. Steve Hi, it depends on what you mean by social signals, but as long as you mean getting likes/shares/etc for your content then I think it's definitely a positive factor. Here's a screenshot of a page of mine in the fitness niche: As you can see it has gathered over 2000 Fb shares and engagements over the years (I think 10k or more but Buzzsome has a 1 year limit to show, anyway… ) and this page ranks rather well in Google for its target keyword. Granted, I also managed to build a lot of white hat backlinks to it with outreach strategies and the Skyscraper Technique, but 1, even before I started link building to it I saw a nice little upward movement for it in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) after I started getting so many FB shares for it, so I think all those shares definitely sent a positive message to Google. 2, the social shares helped in one more way with Search Engine Optimization (SEO): I displayed a big Social Share Counter box on this page so that when I asked other people to link to it (you know with the outreach Skyscraper link building technique I mentioned earlier) it helped me get a "yes" from more people because they saw how popular the page was already. So I'd say bottom line: yes, social signals do help a lot with SEO both directly and indirectly. Steve P.s.: Unfortunately I got all those thousands of shares back when my site was http and not https, and since I switched to https the social signal counter doesn't really work, that's why I had to rely on Buzzsumo data as proof that you can see for yourself.📰👈

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(5) Some Value of Displaying Social Share Numbers in SEO Neil Is there 'value' in displaying social share numbers - yes or no? (and why) 3 👍🏽 3 [filtered from 30 💬🗨]📰👈

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Fleming No not for SEO purposes. It's more to show users that your website gets engagement and has value its more to create user engagement.. Imagine walking past 2 shops one has customers queuing even outside, while the other has no customers whatsoever, which one are you likely to want to go in? Now some people will go to the empty one to avoid the queue however most will want to know what that shop has the other doesn't. Hope that makes sense Neil it did in my head as I wrote it lol Its also worth noting that a lot of those plugins you can change the number of likes retweets so it doesn't even reflect the real shares etc half the time. 💟👍🏽5 Neil ✍️ On my own website I do display the shares which may look great on some urls that get shared a lot 1000+ shares etc BUT - some urls don't get shared and then potentially have the oppositive effect - 'this url has little value' (maybe it has). Also, I do wonder whether displaying what is your website's popular pages - is this giving valuable data to competitors… all this, without the effect of slowing down the load time (albeit hopefully minimally). Fleming I just see it as a vanity metric who cares if it was shared 1200 times if only 5 read the whole thing and got anything from it? Its kind of like when people go yeah my video was view 10k times but only 4 got past the 30 seconds. Daine » Christopher is right, it is a vanity metric to a degree. But, here’s the thing. It has value because: 1. Social Proof: It encourages other people to share it, thus expanding your reach, audience, and traffic. 2. It builds authority and credibility. It shows that the piece is popular. 3. It has a hidden SEO benefit, because when conducting link outreach, posts that have been shared a lot convey popularity, and value, in turn helping to increase the chances of gaining a link. People are more inclined to link to popular content. 4. It encourages people to read it more, due to social proof. Social proof is very powerful, psychologically. 5. Social signals MAY play a small part in ranking. 💟👍🏽12

Neil ✍️ THAT is my gut feeling - and why I have stuck with it… Hazi Social proof. Fleming Does it hold much value though? when social proof can be easily manipulated as most plugins you can add the share counts etc? Daine It’s more ‘perceived’ value, rather than real value. Fleming » Daine yeah more a trust signal kind of thing. Daine » Christopher , yeah, exactly. Lancaster Perception is reality and the only reality is the one your visitor chooses to believe when they are on your website.

Micha » Daine I’d go with on this one, with these additions: 6: each share is a potential batch of new readers, therefore, possible links 7: BuzzSumo recently did a study of over a million datapoints and discovered sharing on social media is half of what it used to be. Whether that’s an ongoing trend or not, FOMO, likeability, credibility and the “follow the herd” effects are all indisputable market persuaders.📰👈

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(6) Social Shares Help You Rank Higher in Google Is a Myth! Martin This guy disappointed me. Are social shares really unimportant in ranking? Myth #5 Social shares help you rank higher in Google [38 💬🗨]

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Janka You're disappointed by the truth? 👍🏽9

Shubham » Janka ✔️ Ronald » Janka lol, thats society in general though 👍🏽1

Fouad Why being disappointed? I think he explained it very well. 👍🏽1 Doug At the moment, there is no evidence to suggest that social shares directly help improve the ranking of a website. To my understanding, it might help with User engagement if it’s compelling content... which would likely help with rankings. (Arguably if it’s compelling content it would likely rank well anyway outside of social shares). Also, it might help get a page indexed that is currently not. Social Likes and Shares are too easy to spam and manipulate. The only thing I could see Google doing in the future is assigning authority or credibility to individuals who share content based on their voice within a certain community/industry... that might be an interesting (albeit somewhat concerning) progression on this topic. 👍🏽6 Bhati I have site which get traffic from Google and only links it has are from facebook shares. 👍🏽3

Owais » Bhati What type content the website shares? Bhati » Owais viral articles, political, national news. I have multiple sites. 👍🏽1

Farhat yup, social share is very important, it helps your URL to indexed and make engagement with the audience, which helps Google bot to understand your content is useful to users. 💟1

Carl » Farhat agreed i have a 50k sku ecommerce store we get lots of social shares

Kevin To explain it simply : Bot shares won't help SEO, because it won't drive traffic. But real human share will benefit to SEO BECAUSE it will drive traffric in the end. But this is not the number of shares / likes that matters but rather the fact that it drives traffic or no. In others words, you would better have a 1K shared post that drive 50% traffic than a 20k shared post driving 2% traffic. 👍🏽4 Smith There's no evidence that there's SEO traffic because of the social shares. He is right. It's the other way. You get more social shares because of your SEO traffic. And that makes sense. 👍🏽4 Suraj Only believe on your experience, there are share only there review. Toth They're an indirect factor. Way too easily gamed to be a direct factor, for Google anyhow. 👍🏽4 Hazra It certainly doesn't have any impact for info post. Social shares helps to gain more visibility which indirectly increases the chance of getting natural back links. That's it.. 👍🏽2 Homer He's wrong. Social shares are social signals, and will affect both indexing and ranking. It won't get you to page one alone, but it will make a difference. 👍🏽1

Hamid but you can't say that they are impacting directly to your rankings. 👍🏽1 Homer » Hamid Yes, because I have had sites move up from page 10 to page 5. They are. 👍🏽1 Hamid » Homer Great, so how do you monitor that really due to socials this happened? Homer » Hamid On the sites that this happened on, I only had social signals going to them. The content was also old and had quite jumping around in the SERPS. The site also had no real traffic going to it. I always start link building with social signals only, meaning that there was no other factor.

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(7) Can You Rank a Blog Post Purely on Social Signals With No Backlinks? Lyon Can you rank a blog post purely on social signals with no backlinks? [filtered from 22 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Nabil It depends on how hard to rank for the keyword yet how powerful and specific your website, last but not the least how's your website's technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) status. Arif If you're not an instant-lover, or you're not in rush, well... yes you can. but if you are, well this method doesn't suit you. Roger You can rank an article with just dummy text and no backlist but, for that to happen, there are certain variables that need to occur and, one of the most important is keyword difficulty/competition. Oliver There is absolutely NO evidence that social signals are being used by Google as a direct ranking factor. 👍🏽1 Tanvir I think yes .. it depends on the content you have ... like if you have good content and people visit your site from the social site ... and then they create backlink ... then yes you can rank 😃 Joe Ive been doing this for 20 years and love the variety of opinions here. In various ways there is a tiny bit of truth to many of them, but Oliver states the truth. That being said other items on the page will affect the ranking. Social signals alone will do nothing for you. Social signals combined with other things like a great description in the social post or key technical aspects of the page will get additional people to click and visit so while you may think you did it with social signals, it is misleading. No one strategy is good all by itself. That is something Google frowns upon. you need multiple strategies and techniques. Above all you need kickass content which drives traffic and engagement. you might have zero backlinks and crappy technical but if your content rocks, you have people visiting, staying and engaging, Google will still rank you. their priority is the searcher and giving them the best results for their query 👍🏽1 Jim Ranked for this, no backlinks bro

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Oliver The website has 130 do-follow referring domains (according to Ahrefs), only ONE internal link (with a keyword-rich anchor text) from the homepage would be more than enough to rank #1 for that keyword, Google still uses PageRank internally. Your website looks awesome and from what I'm seeing you have a lot of useful content, reviews, case studies, and etc.. 👍🏽1 Jim » Oliver yeah but in terms of referring domains pointing directly to this page, there's none, so yeah.

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(8) Do You Do Buying Social Links From Any Influencer Else? Olga Hello! How often do you buy social links or blog posts for your projects? [filtered from 28 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Mike I never buy social links... at least not from an SEO perspective. I might approach someone with a significant following about advertising with them, but that is for the traffic, not any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit. Not sure what you mean by buying blog posts. If you mean posts for your own site, I regularly pay writers to create content. If you mean guest posts on other sites, I pay for those frequently, but never through anyone selling them as a service. 👍🏽8

Wren » Mike wow so interesting. How do you go about advertising with someone with a significant following, do you get them to share your product and do they have to declare that it's a paid promotion? Mike » Wren Depends on the situation and what we are promoting. Sometimes, I might have a client willing to sponsor a YouTube video in exchange for the content creator doing one of those typical 15-30 second pitches you see on a lot of videos. In those cases, a sample of the product or a few products will be sent to them to use in the video. Stuff like that. It's never a video 100% devoted just to the product or service. Instead we sponsor one of their videos they are already doing. Wren » Mike ok, so does that mean they don't to say they have been paid for it. Mike » Wren They will say something like, "this video is sponsored by...." Wren » Mike ok cool. Cheers for sharing this with me. 👍🏽1

Singh It is not a good idea to buy a social link....in a long run it can affect your website very badly 👍🏽3

Olga ✍️ » Singh how's that? Singh The purchased social links are likely bots or inactive accounts, so they won't engage with your posts. This means your posts won't show up on Explore Pages, or on your real audience's newsfeeds. It will also make it hard to measure metrics. 👍🏽1 Olga ✍️ mm I see. That's true. Thank you! 👍🏽1 Singh Thanks for sharing

Laura Never. I share my links to my website's own social accounts. If pay-per-lead (ppl) wanna link to my pages or projects they can go ahead, I don't do any "link building" and don't find it necessary. 📰👈

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(9) A Social Media Content Strategy for a Niche of Maternity Ammar Hey SEO Pro's.. I've got a brand with a niche of maternity products.. I'm. regularly posting content on its social media platforms but I don't know why I'm unable to achieve any engagements or likes.. Could any of you experts please let me know what I'm doing wrong if possible please? Facebook link: https:/facebook.com/mamanmeofficial Instagram: instagram.com/mamanmeofficial Any type of help is appreciated, thanks a lot! 1 👍🏽 1 [filtered from 17 💬🗨]📰👈

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Shetty You do have a decent number of followers. What about your insights? How many people are you reaching and how many are taking action? Website clicks?

Ammar ✍️ Its not very good atm even after paid marketing as well..

Dielan Could be due to the fact you are only targeting consumers in Qatar? It’s not a very large country

Ammar ✍️ Tried removing Qatar, same results no effects :S

Lowry Try to engage your followers. Ask questions, post to articles & ask peoples opinion about them. Post a small fb survey about what baby merch products they want to see on the market. Eva You’re posting too much about your brand and products. Try posting 20% brand/product posts and 80% other. Who is your target audience? What are their challenges and interests? Share posts that solve a problem for them, that they can relate to, that they find useful. Particularly on Facebook, it’s about being social, not selling.

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Ammar ✍️ Tried posting tips - quotes- and stuffs like that but still no effect :s Eva » Ammar yes, you’ve posted tips and quotes but in the caption you’re selling. It’s the first thing Mums read as they scroll through their feed and they won’t even read the quote or tip in the image. You don’t have to sell in every post. Also, because you have small numbers, try sharing viral posts from similar parenting pages Ammar ✍️ Noted, What are your thoughts on post styling? are they good or do i need to change anything? Eva » Ammar I think the styling of the image is good. Just a couple of things. 1. This post, for example, [product image] I recommend that instead of writing about the business, you explain what this product actually is and how it can help a mum. 2. On Facebook don't use hashtags. 3. Try to limit the posts you have with links to an external website. Facebook likes to keep people on Facebook, not clicking out somewhere else. This one, for example, [quote image] Instead of writing about the business, write something that resonates with a mother, 'Do you feel like you need to keep your eyes open with matchsticks at the moment? Don't worry, babies start to figure out night and day by 3 weeks so (hopefully) you can get a little more sleep. Remember too, you'll have a different audience on Facebook and Instagram so try to share different content on each. Try and find a parenting group and ask mums with newborns what their challenges are and craft content around that. For each product you promote, relate it to the mother. What problem can it fix? How can it help them get more sleep? How can it help their baby sleep more? How can it fix their sore back? How can it help with breastfeeding and helping them get more milk? But also, share humor, Facebook users love humor that relates to their situation. With Instagram hashtags, look at what your competitors or similar businesses are using. Click into the hashtags, have a look at the content that is being shared and what's getting the best engagement. Ammar ✍️ These info's are gem, thanks a lot!

🔗🏹 Gergo My opinion: There are different tactics to use for different platform. Niche website built for organic traffic-turns into product selling, or other monetization methods. IG is not a platform for niche site-building, it is for entertainment! My point is, try to look for user intent perspective. People generally not using IG for finding any product to buy… imo. Another key issue is IG is full of bots, my friend tested and built 6000 followers in 3 months on a personal account with a simple code… yes it got banned, but we just wanted to see how far it goes… I assume your follower base probably full of those bots, commenting, like-ing anything, but its not a real audience with intent to buy. Haven't looked for deeper atm, but there is a huge different building a site and getting 2k traffic and converting into sales, as having as IG account and 2k followers… Sebastian Very interested. One very quickly look at the account. What comes first is mind. Is have your content made up by mother's. Join some library mother and baby groups and survey them for what are interested. Than post those on Instagram.📰👈

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(10) Is Instagram Good for Backlinking? Mikkel Is Instagram a good or necessary Backlink? [filtered from 24 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Andrei No, social media links are nofollow and do not pass link juice. Useless for SEO. 👍1

Ethan » Andrei that's not entirely true.The main argument being that social media doesn't directly affect your SEO. However, it does have an impact on the factors that do affect rankings such as traffic, meaning it indirectly affects your rankings. So, it may not directly increase your seo or provide backlinks but it definitely please a role in your seo ranking and should be utilized for best practices. 👍5 Andrei » Ethan sure, but that kind of argument can be made for any type of marketing, including paid ads. You gotta draw the line somewhere and say this is an SEO job and that is something else. Back to the question at hand, having a genuine, well maintained social media profile is a must for most businesses and will marginally contribute to your search performance. Having a backlinked social media account sitting idle is not going to contribute to your seo. 👍1 Ethan » Andrei true and I see your point there. However, social media plays a massive role indirectly with your SEO. I mean social platforms have there own search engines after all so this plays as another way to provide your company with more traffic to increase SEO. We all know how important local seo is and you might as well forget about it unless you have a social media presence. Social profiles will also ranking on Google so if you want to draw a line, then technically your now creating seo for your social profile and ranking on Google with it. Don't forget about how much content is shared through social media as well 👍2 Andrei » Ethan all good points! Although I think social media is not exactly critical for local seo. Is it? There is GMB and schema and some local directories. Never seen social media on this list. 👍1 Andrei » Ethan I feel like we are arguing, so I wanted to stress that I'm not, this is how I express curiosity. It might come off arguing-ish since my first language is russian 🙂 👍1 Ethan » Andrei I am not arguing either but I am glad that your clarified. I hate how facebook is used so much for that 🙄. I am curious as well and want to always better my skill and knowledge with SEO. I enjoy general conversations about it. True, but most if not all of those that rank without social media have been around since the dawn of google. If you take a new company and try to start ranking, it would be much much harder without social media platforms. If you were to take the same company and start with social media from day one, they are much more likely to start ranking on google faster and higher. 👍1 Swanson » Andrei I treat social media as another directory to update for locations. Will I manage your profile and post for you? No. But I want to make sure that your locations are listed correctly, that the descriptions and contact info is consistent with the rest of your web presence. I tell clients it’s just another channel you can use to present content they are adding for their site. 👍1

Ryan Let's say you are a taxidermist in a city of 1,000 people. You have one competitor.. All else being the same, your competitor has a website of the same quality as yours. If you have optimized Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and let's say you posted 50 posts, my guess is you would be ranking ahead of your competitor. It's not like an Instagram account will rank you, but in most cases it's common sense to have one, probably worth the 5 mins it takes to set it up. You're establishing your brand online. Could you go without it, of course. 👍2 Russ I just don't get why Instagram is so popular lol… You cannot put links in posts, which just seems daft and pointless… So if someone posts something that looks interesting, no way to find out more, you have to Google it for more info. So no backlink SEO benefit either. you cannot even share/re-post other people's posts from the app, you have to get another 3rd party app to do that. 📰👈

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This may satisfy you: Do You Reveal Yourself on Social Media that You are a Site Owner/Founder? Any Risk About it from Competitors, Haters?