#I’ve had such great and insightful conversations in the comments sections before

[babygirlgiles]

I understand that the person who obviously used chatgpt to comment on my fic probably had their heart in the right place but I genuinely would’ve preferred that they didn’t comment at all. I’ve gotten such a wide variety of comments over the years, from fully fleshed out essays that hit the character limit to wordless key smashes to “beautiful! Thanks for sharing!”. I’ve gotten heart emojis and comments in foreign languages and comments that apologize for not being eloquent or well thought out or any other variation on the theme of “not good enough” because English wasn’t their first language or because they were running late for work or because they’d stayed up until 3am finishing it. And every single time I’ve felt grateful someone took the time to read my work and type a heart emoji into that comment box and press post.

I understand why it’s intimidating to tell someone how much you love their art. I understand why that would feel vulnerable. But I was just vulnerable for 10,000 words so you could read this story. And you can’t be vulnerable long enough to tell me you liked it without using a plagiarism bot?

[xiyao-feels]

i've seen takes that jgy started playing turmoil before the staircase, aka wwx comments that it would take 3months for turmoil to kill nmj (ch64) so obviously jgy started playing it a long time ago, causing all of nmj's anger, all of that was his fault.

but also the novel says that jgy made a decision on the stairs or gave something up then a few days later played for nmj (ch 49) and like...idk what that could be except for killing nmj, is there something else this could be?

is wwx right? is mxtx bad at timelines? is nmj kick 3 months in the past, what is the time between 49 and 50 (when nmj dies in 2mo)

idk this whole thing is fuzzy and if you have any clarification or insight i'd like to hear it

-🦊

Fox anon! I'm glad to hear from you, and I hope you're doing well. I'm sorry I took so long to answer this—I was trying to be thorough, you all can judge whether I succeeded.

Now, I think the first thing to note here is that WWX actually and explicitly observes the Song of Clarity working when JGY is playing for NMJ before the stairs (ch 49):

Since then, Jin GuangYao would travel from Lanling to Qinghe every few days, playing Sound of Lucidity to help quell Nie MingJue rage. He tried his hardest, without speaking even a single word of complaint. Sound of Lucidity was indeed effective. Wei WuXian could clearly feel that the hostile energy within Nie MingJue was being suppressed. And, when playing the guqin, the way that the two conversed and got along even had a hint of the peace they had before they fell out. He began to think that maybe the so-called busy reestablishing the Cloud Recesses was just an excuse. Perhaps Lan XiChen simply wanted to give Nie MingJue and Jin GuangYao a chance to ease their tension.

(emphasis mine)

I think this is pretty conclusive. WWX's observations on the spot override his conclusions after a) being extensively soaked in NMJ's anger/resentment (ch 48-50) b) the entire drama afterwards at Jinlintai including being stabbed through by Jin Ling (ch 50) and c) resting and recovering for four days (ch 63).

Moreover, let's look at what WWX actually says in chapter 63:

Wei WuXian, “Jin GuangYao’s spiritual energy isn’t high. He wouldn’t have been able to take someone’s life with just seven notes. And killing him this way would’ve been too obvious. He definitely wouldn’t have chosen a song so powerful. But, if he could use the reason of playing the Song of Clarity for ChiFeng-Zun to calm his temper and continued to play it for three months, would the song be able to act as a slow poison and catalyse ChiFeng-Zun’s outburst?”

He's asking LXC questions about Turmoil, because it's new to him and he doesn't understand everything about it. I think it's pretty clear here that he's starting from how long he saw JGY play for NMJ, and asking if that would be long enough, rather than definitively stating that it would have to take three months; nor is there anything in LXC's response ("… Yes") that suggests three months is any kind of necessary minimum.

So those are the facts at hand. And imho if you look at the text in the later Empathy, there's a great deal of supporting evidence as well. There's the moment you mention, where JGY seems to be making a decision:

Nie MingJue, “Then why don’t you sacrifice yourself? Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?”

Jin GuangYao stared at him. A moment later, as though he had finally either decided on something or given up on something, he replied calmly, “Yes.”

He looked up. In his expression were some of pride, some of calmness, and some of a faint insanity, “I and they, of course we are different!”

I agree with you, he's deciding to give up on NMJ—and if it's something else, what is it? If JGY isn't giving up on getting through to NMJ here, what function does this line serve in the text?

And I think it's worth noting here, as I've noted before—when JGY is talking about how different his and NMJ's positions are, he says "Your background is noble and your cultivation is high"; and the "Your background is noble" part is 你出身高贵, with the 高贵 being the "noble" part. When NMJ is asking him "Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?" the "Are you any nobler than them?" is 你比他们高贵吗—so the "noble" part is, again, the same word, 高贵.  Given that JGY has just spent a great deal of breath explaining that he is different from NMJ precisely because of his less-noble background, this is very much a pair of questions that might quite justifiably make JGY feel like NMJ is just completely not understanding anything he is saying here at all. 

Besides that moment, there is the way he approaches or interacts with NMJ, which is quite noticeably different after the stairs. If you look at the beginning of the stairs, he's trying to convince NMJ to let the XY thing go: he says that if XY is locked up for life and can't hurt people, this isn't too different from him being executed, and then when NMJ does not accept this, points out that it's JGY's father's command and he cannot simply go against it as NMJ wishes. Once JGY loses his temper, he is still presenting arguments for his position—which granted is now approximately "you're being a hypocrite and you don't understand things", but he is still arguing for it—that is, he is still trying to reach NMJ; he is acting as though on some level he believes he can get through to him. 

But in attempting to convince NMJ about XY, he is not acting like someone who expects that NMJ is right about to die; because if he were expecting that, he could simply say whatever he likes to put NMJ off, knowing that he won't actually have to pay up. Similarly, in attempting to get through to NMJ via argument, however angrily, he is not treating NMJ as purely an object to be manipulated; NMJ's beliefs matter to JGY separately (I am not saying /only/ separately) from what those beliefs lead NMJ to do. To put it another way: he cares about what NMJ thinks. This too is something that prevents JGY from simply telling NMJ whatever he wishes to hear, and this, too, is lost at the stairs.

For after the stairs, telling NMJ what he wants to hear, and just telling NMJ something that will put him off because he knows or hopes he won't have to pay up, are exactly what JGY does. When he shows up at the Unclean Realm a few days later, he tells NMJ he's here to acknowledge his mistakes and that he's realized NMJ is "doing this" for him; he promises to bring NMJ XY's head in two months, and tells NMJ he can do whatever he likes with him if JGY does not. This is a significant change in behaviour from before the stairs, and in consideration with all the other evidence it seems to me that this is because, post-stairs, he no longer values what NMJ thinks of him, and he is now gambling on his killing NMJ before NMJ kills him.

The only area where he does push back now is NMJ's treatment of NHS, I suspect because he worries about what NMJ might do or continue to do to NHS in his remaining two months of life.

So: I really do think the evidence is pretty clear that JGY starts with Turmoil after the stairs, in that it is directly signalled by the text and in that all the evidence around it backs this up.

That said, I have seen other objections raised by various anti-JGY folk, and while some of them have more merit than others I think it's worth taking the time to go over them.

-JGY couldn't possibly have prepared the Turmoil music in the few days between the stairs and him starting to play for NMJ after.

Yes, I agree; he must have had it prepared earlier. But that only means that he had it prepared, not that he was using it, and while there are certainly people who will only prepare a weapon if they are sure they will use it, I really don't think JGY is among them. He might also have prepared it as evidence for his father that he was working on solving the problem.

-WWX didn't notice a difference between the music JGY was playing before the stairs and the music he was playing after; therefore, it must be the same music.

Honestly, I think that WWX just didn't notice. It's explicitly described as very subtle, and indeed he can't tell the difference between the altered passage and the rest of the song (ch 63):  

Wei WuXian withdrew the flute from his lips, “It really is this section? But I don’t find this section different at all.”

And he again observes how similar they are in chapter 64:  

And he combined them so well. They sound as though there were the same. His musical talent is indeed excellent.

His repeated observation that they sound just the same suggests that he could very well have failed to notice, I think, and indeed he would have heard the altered version more often.

There is also another explanation, entirely compatible with JGY only using Turmoil after the stairs. WWX says of JGY playing Turmoil that he must have "used little spiritual power" during the Clarity sections, and "only exerted power" during the Turmoil section (ch 64). So if we think WWX would definitely have noticed the difference, there is an explanation for how he nevertheless very clearly observed NMJ's hostile energy suppressed by the music; JGY might have been using his power during the (much longer) Clarity part, and only used a very little during Turmoil. Personally, I think that it fits better with the overall emotional arc if JGY didn't change the music he was playing until after the stairs; but I accept this isn't ruled out as a possibility.

I feel obliged to note that at one point, after I was challenged on the issue of JGY changing the music after the stairs and pointed out WWX noticing NMJ's hostile energy being suppressed, as above, I was offered as an explanation for the passage that JGY couldn't possibly have abruptly switched to Turmoil right away when he started playing for NMJ, because NMJ would have noticed that he was suddenly feeling worse; and that therefore WWX clearly feeling NMJ's hostile energy being suppressed was not really evidence that JGY was playing Clarity and not Turmoil before the stairs. But I disagree with this, on two counts.

First, it is not clear to me that NMJ would in fact notice. He does not seem to be very self-aware about the effects of the sabre curse. He explicitly denies it at the stairs, for example: "I am not [in turmoil]. I know what I'm doing" (ch 49). After he burns NHS' things, when JGY asks him if he's told NHS about the sabre curse yet, NMJ asks "Why would I tell him so soon?" even though at this point he is quite clearly being affected (ch 50). And when he kicks open the door to kill JGY in chapter 50, he seems not to think about the curse at all. Of course this last is moments before he qi deviates and dies and is therefore perhaps not representative, but it fits with the general pattern; I don't believe we ever see him consider whether his anger might be because of the sabre curse, and indeed he is hardly given to questioning the righteousness of his anger in general.

Secondly, and more abstractly...WWX observing the hostile energy being suppressed—"clearly feel[ing]" it being suppressed (ch 49)—may not be /literally/ incompatible with the idea that JGY changed music after the stairs. But a story isn't just a collection of facts, and I think by far the most natural interpretation of this, in context, is that JGY is playing Clarity and not Turmoil. Which is not of course to say you can't have a resistant reading here, but I think it's generally good practice to acknowledge when your readings are resistant readings, and especially if you have a resistant reading not to say it is the only possible reading of the facts.

-JGY has no motive for playing for NMJ other than wanting him dead.

If we assume rather that he doesn't want him dead, he pretty clearly has a motive to help keep NMJ's temper under control, both on a personal level (so NMJ doesn't attack or embarrass him) and on a political level (so NMJ doesn't lose it and embarrass JGS). I would also like to note that although it was some time ago, and it seems likely that even before the stairs JGY's feelings about NMJ are not as positive as once they were, we have seen JGY go to quite heroic lengths to save NMJ's life before, when he saves him from Wen Ruohan by misdirection and assassination then drag/carries his unconscious body rather than leave him there and make good his own escape.

-The stairs and the fan burning both happen before JGY starts playing for NMJ after the stairs; NMJ wouldn't do either of those things in his right mind…

I agree; the Nie have to deal with the sabre curse. I think it's worth pointing out, too, that aside from Clarity we don't see NMJ take any measures to try to deal with the curse, either directly in addressing the curse itself, or by preventing himself from acting excessively under the influence of the curse; it shouldn't be surprising, then, that the curse can cause such drastic incidents.

-…and the sabre curse wouldn't be strong enough.

This one really confuses me as an objection, I'm going to be honest. We can be pretty sure NMJ would have qi deviated eventually, Turmoil or no. NHS says this in chapter 26:

"The sabers of our past sect leaders were all heavy with hostile energy and killing intent. Almost every single sect leader met a sudden death from a qi deviation explosion. Their irritable tempers also had a lot to do with this."

(As a side note: the missing paragraph in the ER translation right after this has I think occasionally led people to the conclusion that it is the qi deviation and such that WWX suggests is similar to demonic cultivation, as opposed to the sabres turning murderous after the deaths of their owners—you can see the Taming Wangxian and the MDZS Translation versions for the full context of the exchange.)

So NMJ was almost sure to qi deviate eventually! Moreover, he would have greatly strengthened the sabre spirit through his extensive use of Baxia during Sunshot, and after the war he continues to pursue cultivating with the sabre, without, I think, any sign of moderation. And it seems likely that he is already showing recognizable symptoms of the curse by the time JGY starts playing for him alone, as Clarity seems intended to slow the progression of the curse and also like something relatively newly introduced—they don't seem to have been doing this since Sunshot just in case, or anything. So how then could we be sure that the sabre curse on its own would be insufficient?

-NMJ wasn't at all violent before JGY started playing for him

This is simply not true. Unfortunately we don't see much of him outside of Empathy, but looking exclusively at things that happen before JGY starts playing for him:

His reputation in Sunshot is about his destroying the Wen, contrasted with LXC's which is about saving people (ch 48):

During the Sunshot Campaign, stories of praise were told about all three of the Venerated Triad. The ones of ChiFeng-Zun were about how he swept over all obstacles, leaving not even a trace of the Wen-dogs after he finished. ZeWu-Jun—Lan XiChen—however, was different from him. After the situation of the Gusu area had settled down, Lan QiRen was able to defend it with great tenacity. Thus, Lan XiChen often travelled to aid others, saving lives from danger. In all of the Sunshot Campaign, he had countless times recovered lost territory and assisted narrow escapes. This was why people were ecstatic whenever they heard his name, as though they gained a ray of hope, a powerful trump card.

The description of his reaction to seeing MY kill the Jin captain pretty strongly suggests his initial reaction was to attack MY on the spot (ch 48):

Nie MingJue saw all of the scene. Without saying a word, he unsheathed his saber by an inch. A sharp ring pierced through the air.

Hearing the familiar sound of unsheathing, Meng Yao immediately trembled. He spun around, his soul almost evaporating, “… Sect Leader Nie?”

Nie MingJue pulled all of his saber out of its sheath. The body of the sword glared brightly, yet the blade itself vaguely glinted in the red shade of blood. Wei WuXian could feel the billowing anger from him, along with emotions of disappointment and hatred.

Meng Yao knew Nie MingJue’s character more than anyone else. He dropped the sword with a clang, “Sect Leader Nie, Sect Leader Nie! Please wait, please wait! I can explain!”

Even after he's listening, he ends up grabbing MY by the collar and lifting him up (ch 48). 

When he's explaining what happened with MY to LXC, he announces his intention to kill MY if he ever sees him again (ch 48), and after MY kills WRH, saving NMJ's life in doing so, and is carrying him out afterwards, he grabs his sabre from MY's hand and tries to kill MY again (ch 49). He only stops when LXC physically blocks him, and changes his mind after LXC explains that MY was in fact a spy, and I think it's worth noting that WWX believes that MY would probably have died under NMJ's attacks before LXC arrived if NMJ hadn't been heavily injured (ch 49). We're also told the brotherhood oath 3zun swear is unusually violent, in a way JGY suggests, and which LXC notably does not refute, was decided by NMJ (ch 50). Finally, while this summary of NMJ's interests is arguably from WWX's perspective, it is still notable that the only two things he's apparently interested in are "training his saberwork and killing Wen-dogs" (ch 49)—which is to say, the study of violence, and a particular and fatal application thereof. 

(Totally unrelated fun fact: I was looking at the entrance to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt for this too and apparently NMJ is seventh on the young cultivators list (ch 69). The more you know!)

I want to be very clear that I am not saying that all of NMJ's violence is unreasonable or not understandable. But that it can be reasonable and understandable does not mean that it is not violent; and it is certainly not the only reaction a person could have to the events he's reacting to. Contrast LXC, as someone rather on the other end of the spectrum.

-If NMJ were violent, JGY wouldn't risk his life killing him via Turmoil (and therefore NMJ must not be violent)

Even aside from the extensive textual evidence for NMJ's violence, I don't think this holds together. As shown above, I think it's quite clear that NMJ was in fact always a violent man, but there is absolutely no question that he's violent to JGY in his last months of life, and if you think JGY started playing Turmoil for NMJ before the stairs, then it's really extremely clear that JGY was willing to risk NMJ's violence in killing him! I think the clash between JGY's desire to live and the evident risk to his life from killing NMJ with Turmoil actually supports the position I am arguing here. Assuming we are agreed that JGY is attached to his own life, and as it's clear that as NMJ approached his end he was a danger to JGY (regardless of how that end was induced!), why was JGY playing him Turmoil?

I think the stairs make it clear to JGY that his life is not safe while NMJ is still alive. Using Turmoil, therefore, becomes a gamble he is willing to take, though still an enormously risky one: on the one hand, it appeases his father and enables him to promise NMJ he can do whatever he likes with JGY if he doesn't kill XY in two months (ch 50), a promise he obviously and understandably has no intention of keeping. But on the other hand, if NMJ doesn't die within the two months, he probably will simply kill JGY—and more than that, given his focus on JGY, he may kill JGY anyway, for some much more trivial reason. Indeed, this is exactly what almost happens just before NMJ's death, when he kicks open a door and attempts to kill JGY on the spot because JGY was complaining to LXC about NMJ's treatment of him; if LXC hadn't blocked NMJ's sabre, JGY would almost certainly have died (ch 50). But as risky as this gamble is, it is still a better bet than waiting around and hoping LXC always saves him when NMJ tries to kill him—especially taking into account the risk from his father should he do so.

-The stairs incident was good for JGY and bad for NMJ, which is evidence that JGY arranged it on purpose

...I have a lot of things to say about this position. None of them are very nice. However, as I am in fact trying to argue in good faith, I will attempt to address it as an argument.

I think this comes from a confusion of the fandom reaction to the stairs with the in-universe reaction to it. To people now, yes, looking at this makes NMJ look bad, and inspires sympathy for JGY. In-universe, however—when NMJ publically assaults JGY and tries to kill him, when he calls him Meng Yao, when he shouts he's the son of a prostitute, it's not /NMJ/ who looks bad. NMJ of course is righteous in his anger; really he's only putting that boy in his place, don't you think? I knew Chifeng-zun didn't really accept him. Etcetera. It /weakens/ JGY's position, because the cultivation world does not have the same beliefs and priorities and value judgements that we do!

Certainly if he'd actually managed to kill JGY he would suddenly have found that he had killed JGS's beloved son, the only remaining son of the Jin, a war hero, his own sworn brother who had saved NMJ's life etc etc etc. But only because then there would have been political advantage in it for JGS, and quite substantial political advantage too, and he wouldn't have to deal with JGY being around anymore. As it stands, all NMJ's actions at the stairs do for JGY is tell the world that he is vulnerable and weak and disgusting. The only significant person in-world who would find JGY more sympathetic after this incident is LXC, and frankly a) he is already deeply in sympathy with JGY and b) we don't see JGY playing it up—after LXC's appearance at the stairs rather he minimizes and soothes things, and even when we overhear his complaints to LXC around two months later he is talking about what NMJ thinks of him, and not the physical danger NMJ poses.

I will also observe that while JGY does end up losing his temper, he starts off soothing even through NMJ's first attempted assault, and only loses it after NMJ calls him Meng Yao and says "your whole thing stopped working on me since a long time ago" in front of everyone; this attempted conciliation seems an odd thing to do were he in fact trying to manipulate NMJ into assaulting him, trying to kill him, embarrassing him and weakening his position in public. You could argue that NMJ would be more angered by JGY's attempts to be soothing than he would by JGY's directness, and thus the soothing could be read as provocative, but this simply isn't backed up by the text; while NMJ was obviously already angry before JGY lost his temper, he nevertheless escalates significantly after JGY talks back.

Moreover...I think what NMJ actually does and tries to do at the stairs, in terms of violence, is sometimes not fully grasped.

The first thing he does once they're properly outside is try to hit JGY, though fortunately JGY manages to dodge. When NMJ kicks him down the stairs, even aside from calling JGY the son of a prostitute, JGY ends up rolling down more than fifty steps and acquiring a head wound—/another/ head wound, because he already had one, apparently from the physical abuse he receives at Jinlintai from Madam Jin. And finally, NMJ actually /unsheathes his sabre/ and, after LXC approaches, announces his intention to kill JGY:

Lan XiChen, “Brother, sheath your saber first—your mind is in turmoil!”

Nie MingJue, “I am not. I know what I’m doing. He’s beyond hope. If these keeps on going, he’ll do the world harm for sure. The earlier he’s killed, the earlier we can relax!”

(ch 49)

When I say that NMJ almost killed JGY at the stairs, I am not just talking about kicking him down the stairs, although that certainly could have killed JGY. I am talking about drawing his sabre on JGY with the intention of killing him. JGY would very likely have died if LXC hadn't thought they were taking too long and come to see. 

JGY can certainly take enormous risks when it's necessary—but for a risk like this he would have to be gaining something extremely significant, and I remain unconvinced he was gaining anything at all, let alone anything worth the cost.

-NMJ's actions at the stairs and his burning NHS' things are completely unrelated to any of his previous actions and motivations.

In fact, although they're certainly both significant escalations, I think that in both cases NMJ's motivations and actions draw extensively from preceding characterization.

Consider the stairs. The direct classism is certainly new, but there are several other elements that have already been established as part of NMJ's characterization: the tendency to violence, the investment in JGY behaving correctly even while ignoring incorrect behaviour around him, the approach to justice both in his particular and frequently-retributive idea of it and in his commitment to that idea, and a failure to understand the realities of JGY's position.

The violence I discussed above, and the failure to understand JGY's position has I think been discussed sufficiently elsewhere and besides would be a full post in its own right. As to NMJ's approach to justice, you can see both idea and commitment to it in his anger to the men speaking badly of MY (ch 48) and his appreciation and promotion of MY for his accomplishments (ch 48); his initial intention to kill MY after he catches him killing the Jin captain (ch 48), his subsequent insistence that MY turn himself in to the Jin (ch 48) and his intention to kill MY for his betrayal after MY tricks him and escapes (ch 48); his initial insistence that MY should pay for killing the Nie cultivators, even as he acknowledges that MY saved his life and says he will kill himself after he kills MY (ch 49); and of course in his insistence that WQ and WN should pay for their complicity with WRH, even in the face of LXC and JC's defense of them (ch 73). And in describing LWJ as "absolutely [unable to] stand wrongdoings, possibly even more than Nie HuaiSang’s brother" (ch 30), WWX implies a great deal about the extent of NMJ's inability to stand wrongdoings. Of course, not all of these instances involve NMJ seeking violent retribution as justice, but a significant portion do—about half—and it is certainly a recurring theme. This approach to justice, I should add, is certainly involved in attempting to punish JGY for his misdeeds by killing him, but it is also part of why he is so upset in the first place: in NMJ's view of things, holding XY in prison instead of executing him for his crimes is failing to see justice properly done.

The investment in JGY behaving correctly, even while caring less about the behaviour of other people around him doing the same, is likewise an established character note. WWX concludes that NMJ's desire to guide JGY is one of the main reasons he agrees to the brotherhood (ch 49); we see his disapproval of JGY associating with XY, who already has something of a bad reputation, at the Flower Banquet (ch 49); at the conference after WWX rescues the Wen, when JGY backs up his father's lie about what WWX said about JC, NMJ seems to mark it more heavily than JGS' initial lie (ch 73). And then, of course, there is this, from the scene just before JGY starts playing for NMJ (ch 49):

In reality, it wasn’t that Jin GuangYao could calm Nie MingJue’s anger, but that since Jin GuangYao came, all of Nie MingJue’s anger would be directed at him alone, having no time to scold others. Thus, there was nothing wrong with saying that he was Nie HuaiSang’s knight in shining armor.

While NMJ's actions at the stairs are certainly not something he'd have done without the sabre curse, and again the direct classism is new, it nevertheless very much ties in to his preexisting characterization.

What about the burning of NHS' things? Again, many elements of the situation derive from NMJ's preexisting characterization; in this case, his tendency to release his anger on physical objects, his desire for NHS to be a strong cultivator and his angry displeasure with NHS' actual interests and capabilities, and his threatening to burn NHS' things.

Although prior to the burning of NHS' things it seems to be usually a momentary lashing out, NMJ definitely has a history of releasing his anger on physical objects. When he is annoyed at the men speaking badly about MY, he knocks down (or carves up? the English is unclear) a boulder at the front of the cave (ch 48); when he decides not to kill MY after LXC explains MY was their spy, he carves a boulder in half (ch 49); and he cracks the top of a table by bringing his palm down on it in the scene just before JGY starts playing for him (ch 49).

As to NMJ's desire for his brother to focus on and do well at cultivation, and his displeasure at NHS' actual areas of focus, this is perhaps one of his most consistent beats of characterization. We see it in our introduction to NHS at the Cloud Recesses lectures (ch 13); in NHS' plea for WWX's help with the test (ch 14); in LXC's message to NHS from NMJ and NHS' reason for staying in CR instead of going to Caiyi Town (ch 16); in WWX's reminiscences about NHS after discussing the "Man-Eating Ridge" with the "know-it-all of Qinghe" (ch 21); in NMJ and LXC's discussion when NMJ brings LXC NHS' sabre during in Sunshot (ch 48); and of course in the scene just before JGY starts playing for NMJ, both in his initial anger at NHS' preoccupation with the fans and uncertainty about his sabre's location, and in his dismissal of NHS as a "good-for-nothing" even after his temper had faded (ch 49).

The threatening to burn NHS' things, on the other hand, I believe we only see once, and really in the form of "instructing NHS to burn certain specific things of his"; but it is in the very scene before JGY starts playing for NMJ, as NMJ tells NHS to burn the fans he has just been going over tenderly before JGY interrupts (ch 49).

Indeed, I think that scene in general is very much worth a look here, for what it has and for what it doesn't. On the one hand, we do see NHS' fear of NMJ—he literally falls to his knees in terror, and stutters even after getting up! But he also seems fairly comfortable after the worst of NMJ's anger passes, and when NMJ sends him off he goes not to his room as instructed, but to the living room for the gifts JGY has brought him. Yet many of the elements of NMJ's later destruction of NHS' things are present here, and to my mind one of the most important things about the scene is its illustration of what prevents NMJ from carrying out the threats he made in his anger. It's not that he's convinced he's being unreasonable—indeed, he doesn't seem to consciously change his mind at all. Instead it is simply that repeated interruptions and NHS's ridiculous appearance as he greets JGY end up draining his temper, and with his temper drained he no longer pursues punishing NHS. But this has obvious implications for what might happen if NMJ's anger did not diminish, and I think it's quite clear how the behaviour NMJ exhibits in this scene could lead to NMJ burning NHS' things simply by giving him a more sustained burst of temper, even as it is not something NHS ever expected to happen, or something that would happen had NMJ's temper not been worsened by the sabre curse.

To conclude this section—while NMJ's actions at the stairs and in burning NHS' things are certainly unprecedented in themselves, they are nevertheless solidly rooted in NMJ's preexisting characterization, and it's easy to see how the sabre curse could lead to these extreme escalations. 

To conclude the post, I think the direct evidence is quite clear that JGY was playing Clarity before the stairs, and I think the indirect evidence also significantly supports it; nor am I convinced by various objections I have seen, for reasons I hope I have conveyed.

[thepancakeboi]

Meeting Sae’s Cognitive Goro

Admin here to yeet this 3-day mess of ���how does one write lol” based on this amazing idea (click that for the link, seriously, click it) from @ofhualiians (please let this tag work) that I reblogged and immediately knew I had to write something after having not written for months. Anyways, um...hope you enjoy? Or something? Okay, I’m going to stop rambling now.

In the two years I have traversed the world of the Metaverse, I thought I had seen everything this world had to offer. The glitzy casino we are currently in is only the tip of the iceberg. This is a world where banks can fly in the sky and fighting mythological beings is a constant occurrence. One of the Palaces had even been a spaceport, complete with UFOs and having to go through sections of outer space. Nothing should be able to surprise me anymore.

That is, until Sae’s Palace. Ever since I had started working with the Phantom Thieves, with Joker, I have been surprised time and time again. But now that we have secured the route to the treasure, there shouldn’t be anything more to surprise me.

How foolish I am to think that is the case.

We have just crossed the Bridge of Judgment to head out of the Palace when we are greeted by the sight of a...very familiar brunet. This must be Sae’s cognition of me. Seeing for myself how someone else sees me is jarring. It’s like looking into a distorted mirror: staring at yourself yet it’s not your actual reflection meeting your gaze. Everyone else tenses up as if they’re anticipating a fight. Well, everyone except Joker. He decides to approach the cognition without a second thought...or perhaps even a first thought.

Upon noticing the raven-haired thief, the cognition grins, giving that picture-perfect smile I use so often while in public. I slowly move away from the group to observe since it’s clear this won’t end in a fight. This cognition is so innocent and soft that I doubt it would even put up a fight if we attacked. It makes me want to puke. “Oh, hello, Amamiya-kun. I was hoping to see you, actually,” the cognition adds, a pink tinge dusting its cheeks.

Wait. Is that thing...blushing?

Joker tilts his head as he stops a few feet away from the cognition. He moves his mask off his face, but I can’t make out his expression at this angle. “Oh? What is it, Akeppi?”

My eyes narrow at that damn nickname. Why is Joker even bothering to speak to it, as if it’s me? That thing is nothing like me. It’s just a cognition. It isn’t worth our time, though I don’t say this out loud. I’m too busy trying to keep myself from showing my outrage as the cognition’s blush becomes more obvious. Its voice is barely louder than a whisper as it speaks. “Wow, you’re hot.”

What.

I freeze up, unable to hide my shock at the cognition’s comment. Why is it even saying something so...so absurd? Why is it even acting like this?

And...how the hell does it know!?

Wait, no. I don’t have a crush on Ren Amamiya. I don’t. Sure, I spend a lot of what little free time I get with him. I can acknowledge that he is charming and captivating. I also suppose he would be considered attractive by many. But I do not have a crush on him. I can’t have a crush on him.

The only good thing about any of this is that even Joker’s slightly surprised; it’s barely noticeable and only for a split second, but it’s still there. His lips twist into a sly smirk as he recovers so easily. He’s facing the cognition, but it’s almost as if Joker is staring right at me as he asks, “Is that what you think?”

The cognition nods, much to my annoyance. “I’m always talking about you to Sae-san when we aren’t discussing a case we’re working on. She likely knows that I have a crush on you.”

I have to fight the urge to shoot the cognition right between its stupid wide eyes before it goes spilling any more nonsense. Oh, how I want it to just shut up. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be very becoming of the detective prince. I’ve worked so hard to build up this charade and I can’t let it shatter now. “Joker, we should leave,” I interject, trying to keep my irritation out of my voice. “We’ve secured the route to the treasure already. There’s no point in talking to Sae’s cognition of me.”

“We can get some insight into Sae’s views,” Joker replies. Oh, now he comes up with some valid reasoning. It’s infuriating. “And how could I ignore such a pretty face?” he adds, giving the smuggest grin imaginable, even going so far as to wink.

New plan: let’s just shoot Joker now.

The cognition’s blush deepens, looking embarrassed as it replies, “If you see me as pretty, then you must be gorgeous. I...may have called you that to Sae-san once.”

Great. I had wanted to forget about that. It had been a rare slip of the tongue, nothing more. Joker, however, seems to think otherwise. He chuckles as he wraps an arm around the cognition, his grin widening as the cognition reciprocates the action. My stomach clenches, and I shove the surge of intense jealousy deep in the recesses of my mind. I refuse to feel anything about this. Even as he gently caresses the cognition’s cheek. “That’s so cute. Is there anything else you’ve told her?”

I’m almost grateful as the cognition frowns. “We haven’t spoken much. She doesn’t trust me, not since she accused me of stealing data off her laptop.”

“You, steal data?” Joker asks, not missing a beat as he adds, “You’re too pretty to be a criminal.”

“You’re pretty, though-”

I’ve had enough of this. With a small huff of annoyance, I say, “Joker, it’s clear we aren’t going to get anything out of this. Let us leave.”

This time, Joker does relent, moving away from the cognition. “I’ll see you later,” Joker says to it, blowing it a kiss as he walks away. I follow him and the rest of the thieves, who have been watching in absolute confusion. I am already dreading our next conversation.

We leave the Palace with very little fanfare. Everyone says their goodbyes, and we all split off. Before I can leave, Ren grabs a hold of my wrist, looking quite smug as my own face heats up. “What is it, Ren?” I ask curtly, hoping he’ll take the hint and leave.

He doesn’t, of course. He has that cocky smirk he usually only gets as Joker as he pulls me close. “So...you like me?” he asks in that low, sexy tone-

You did not hear that from me.

“No, I don’t like you in the way you think.”

“Sure about that?” Ren is right in my face, those gray eyes of his seeing right through my statement. I can’t help but notice how beautiful his eyes are. “The cognition said it, Akeppi.”

There he goes again with that stupid nickname. “That wasn’t the real me. It doesn’t count.”

“Does too.”

“How so?”

“Because Sae must have a reason to think that you do.”

“Am I not allowed to talk about you on occasion?”

“On occasion?” Ren snickers as he repeats my words. “You liar. It sounds like you talk about me all the time.”

“I do no such thing. The cognition was clearly exaggerating.”

“I don’t believe you,” he nearly whispers. His breath is hot against my ear. Damn is he such a beautiful, distracting menace. Wait, no. He’s little more than an inconvenience. Distracting, yes, but decidedly an inconvenient part of my life as of this moment. “I think the detective’s fallen in love with the thief he’s trying to catch.”

I’m tempted to back up and put some distance between us, but I refuse to let him see that he’s getting to me. It would only prove him right. “You’re wrong, Ren. I do not ramble incessantly about you, nor do I-”

“No,” he interrupts, pressing his index finger on my lips to silence me, “you’re wrong.”

It’s only now that I finally pull away. “This is getting us nowhere. Perhaps we should call it a night.”

“Okay,” he says, sounding a little saddened at my statement.

“Well, I’ll see you later.”

“Goodnight, honey,” he hums, smirking as my face flushes. He is so infuriating, god damnit. I can hear his laughter behind me as I turn around and briskly walk away, not letting him have another moment of satisfaction from teasing me.

[the-velveteen-victorian]

Hi Elle! I used to follow you on your old mega-popular tumblr. I really love your new one. :) I know that you've lived in a "super spiritual" community for several years now (not sure if you want me to publicly say the place). What is the community like? Is it more bad than good? What are some strengths and weaknesses of the place/people? Thank you! I've heard mixed things and really respect your insights.

Haha I knew I would get this question one day! If I could title my response, it would be, "Why I've Chosen to Keep My Distance from the New Age Community in the American Southwest." I info-dump and write novels, so get ready! =)

I think there is something to be said for defining things neutrally for yourself overall. Fortunately, I've been able to easily do that in this instance due to: 1. Being introverted and not "needing" a big community experience and 2. Having wonderful friends all over the globe that I am able to interact with all throughout my year. With that being said, if I am being 100% honest and real with you, I truly believe that the new age community where I am is more toxic than good. Here is why. I will have a positive note at the end.

A quick preface: I am not calling out any particular individual(s) and will not be naming names.... quite frankly, there are just too many and I'm not here to humiliate people. Secondly, these traits can take place in ANY community, spiritual or otherwise. But these are things that I feel a spiritual community should be more self-aware of... and sadly right now, they are not.

********ATTENTION: There is a big content and trigger warning here: There will be mentions of sui****, sexual *******, and gaslighting/narcissism, terfs, eating disorders, and other things that could be very upsetting. Proceed with caution and stop reading if you find yourself getting stressed, triggered, or deeply upset.*********

1. Malignant narcissism and community insulation from constructive criticism. I have never seen such a ubiquitous display of malignant narcissism in all my life in a collective, save for some conservative Christian environments in my growing up years. Go onto almost any youtube channel for the Sedona community and you will see very few negative comments… why? (And I have watched this for a long time) Almost ANY criticism of anyone’s channel or blog is instantly removed. There was a time when people who simply noted that some of these small “influencers” were saying toxic things were sent cease and desist letters. The community is very tight knit and displays many marks of a cult. One of these indicators is that they all protect each other and hype each other up on their channels and blogs, while labeling ANY criticism (healthy or not) as someone who is being “triggered.” The younger part of the community cares about looking perfect and having everyone worship them, but has very little spiritual substance. It’s always about who did the alien thing “before it was cool” or “who can do a backflip off of a steep cliff without breaking their neck because their synchronicity is on point.” One youtuber said once that she only wanted to hang out with “pretty” people because they were purer expressions of the divine. The older generation expresses narcissism by assuming they know more than everyone else. Good luck having a conversation on controversial topics with any of them. They are right, you are wrong. If you argue, you are “triggered” and “seeking for truth.” If you don't believe that there are reptilians on the moon with a secret base, you've drunk the kool-aid. Not a good environment to foster open sharing and knowledge. The men have a particular problem with this when it comes to topics of sex and intimacy. If you are a woman and don’t want to “surrender” to your partner (in a lot of vague and unclear ways), you are out of alignment with the divine feminine. Most of the men believe that they should be allowed to "hunt" (look for sexual partners/spiritual twin flames) and that women should do everything in their power to be softly feminine so that they can sync up and recognize each other's souls.

2. A full denial of science and medicine. Look, I get it. We all want to solve our own medical dilemmas and use herbs to cure all ills. I try to solve any (non life threatening) health issues I have the “natural” way first too… often, I have great success! The problem comes when the community rejects all western medicine, most science (that doesn’t affirm their beliefs) and any medical opinion that has… actually been to a real medical school. There is a strong anti-vaccination movement coupled with the belief in using yoni eggs religiously and doing colonics every week (though science tells us this isn’t a great idea overall). I used a different type of yoni egg for awhile to see what would happen, but trust me, your pelvic health is going to be better without them. You will be judged harshly for going to a “mainstream” doctor to get antibiotics for a serious infection and will most likely be gaslit into oblivion regarding “what you did to attract” your infection etc.

I have midwifed for many years now and have extensive “mainstream” training to be able to do this legally. Once, I was working with another midwife on a mother who was having her first baby. The laboring woman had an ideal birth in mind like most people do. Long story short, I discerned while she was laboring that the baby was in intense distress and that the mother was displaying very concerning signs of a life-threatening condition. When I insisted on calling an ambulance and getting the woman to the hospital, the other midwife said that I was interfering with nature. I explained simply that if we didn’t get said woman to a hospital, the baby would most certainly die and the mother’s life would hang in the balance. Her response was that: “Some babies don’t deserve to live and I shouldn’t invite karma by interfering with nature’s course.” I called an ambulance anyway and the mother was taken for an emergency c-section. The mother was very disappointed about not being able to follow her birth plan. However, after the birth (she and baby ended up being okay thank goodness) she sat down with me personally and thanked me for making the decision I did. She said that one of the doctors explained that if I had waited another hour, both she and the baby would be dead. Apparently, this other “midwife” had also had her license revoked a year before for endangering a different laboring person and child. This sounds like a stand-alone freak incident, but I can cite 15-20 other situations just like this one where life-threatening emergencies were viewed as opportunities for good karma and growth… and that western medical intervention would invite bad karma.

Regarding science, if you point to the fact that jade yoni eggs are likely to cause an infection, most of the new age community will scoff and say that they don’t trust science (the logic being that science once explained volcanos as angry gods or something and now cannot be trusted overall). If you don't wear blue-blocking glasses anytime you look at a screen, apparently you've already succumbed to mind control. You get my point… It’s so bad that the new age community is willing to endanger people’s lives and place the blame on the victims for being out of alignment with synchronicity. This one bullet point could be talked about for hours.

3. A lack of discernment and victim blaming. Many have heard about Bentinho Massaro and his crew from that time when they swept through Sedona a couple years ago. The core of the Sedona community started blindly following him… some of them wanted to boost their online platforms by being associated with a well-known figure. Others wanted a guru… and others were just curious and got sucked in by his charisma. All one had to do was google him. He has allegations of physically beating his followers, gaslighting people, torturing animals in his childhood, and ignoring the fact that an alarming number of his followers commit suicide. With all of this knowledge at our fingertips, the popular new age “influencers” went so far as to get in polyamorous relationships with him, validate his platform, and gaslight people who, sadly, committed sui**** because of certain things he said in his teachings. It was insane. Now, many of the people who followed him try to pretend it never happened or that they had no part in it. Many of them claim to have “gifts of the spirit” and to have stellar discernment.

One of the people who got into a polyamorous relationship with this person did an Instagram post where she basically said that if someone is being r*ped they should show their attacker love and surrender to what is happening so that they could experience unconditional love and come back to the "light." I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading at first when I saw it. The part that was heartbreaking was when I read the comments and watched people (not just women and men) berate themselves for “fighting” while something terrible happened to them in the past. A few of them were teenagers. I made it a point to personally message the ones I was able to, and thankfully, a good number did respond positively. This exact issue has occurred on youtube channels, blogs, and in-person encounters. I’m just citing ONE online instance of this horrible, misaligned belief. Keep in mind that the person who did this post abandoned her disabled child with a family she barely knew to pursue a sexual relationship with Bentinho.

4. TERFS/anti-LGBTQ/anti-feminism. This falls under the categories of relationships, sex, autonomy, and social issues, but expands into much more overall.

A chain of videos came out a couple years ago where about 5 women in the new age community each did a presentation on what was wrong with the “divine feminine” these days. They were saying that women had been erased because they were not conforming to gender roles or seeking out conscious relationships. They all referenced that “women are angry” and basically said it was wrong for women to feel this way and that angry female energy was throwing our whole environment out of balance and even contributing to global warming somehow. They empathized with toxic people/men/known violent incels and said that women needed to get over their traumas and be more available for the divine masculine to show up. They dehumanized women by saying they shouldn’t be expressing anger, glossed over sexual a******, and blocked everyone in the comments who took a stand against what they were saying. The general consensus is that feminists are just angry women who need to get over their trauma.

Many people in the new age community also believe that if you incarnate in a particular body with certain biological parts, you incarnated that way for a reason. Changing it extensively is to erase “the spiritual lessons you were supposed to learn.” Basically, they stand against trans people, nonbinary people, gender nonconforming people… etc. I can go deeper with this if you want, but that is the gist of it without writing a novel within a novel.

Most of them take an active stance against intersectional feminism and use exclusive language to shut out anyone who doesn’t conform to the binary. A few of them are more passive-aggressive about how they do this: refusing to show any support for the LGBTQUIA+ community or mention social issues at all, even when someone is pointing out that they did something hurtful or offensive.

5. Appropriating Indigenous cultures and using past lives as an excuse. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard a white new age person say that something is their “spirit animal” or seen one wear Native American/indigenous headdresses to tight-knit community events, citing that they were “Native American” in their past life and that they are entitled to use these symbols, items, and cultural lexicons because of it. (Not that this is the main point… but they tell trans people that they shouldn’t be trans or insinuate that people should conform to the gender binary because they incarnated in a body type for a reason… but make an exception for themselves culturally? Super hypocritical.)

A couple of “woke” guys from the new age community walked around for awhile saying that the Hopi had adopted them into their “tribe” and that the were given Hopi names. I spoke to a few Hopi people about what was happening and they were shell-shocked. That is not something that they do for one thing, and for another, they had never even heard of these people! Thankfully, the behavior stopped after the two men were confronted about it, but this kind of thing happens all the time in various ways. There is a new age store here with a racial slur in the title… bring it up to the owner and she’ll kick you out and launch a smear campaign. Tell one of the white new age women that just because she studies “different traditions” doesn’t mean it’s okay to do rain dances or perform indigenous rituals (Native American, Australian, and others) without permission and they’ll blacklist you. I think many of the new agers operate within this Trojan horse of “I want to accept and validate all cultures”, but do not actually care at all about indigenous voices, feelings, or opinions. Many of them talked a lot about collective trauma in our nation during Black Lives Matter, but wouldn’t actively support it in any way themselves.

6. Let’s talk about mental health. This could go under the science and medicine label, but I think it deserves its own paragraph. Boy is mental health stigmatized in the new age Sedona community…. Real mental health professionals are painted as people who just want to “drug” you and keep you controlled. People with mental health struggles are instantly blamed. “Hell is just a state of mind, you need to change your mind,” is a phrase I have heard more often than not. Ancestral healing, umbilical healing, and random reiki sessions are somehow supposed to take the place of a licensed counselor.

A huge chunk of the “spiritual” community supported a pseudo-therapist who (without any scientific basis) was preaching that any woman who wasn’t sure if she wanted to have children or not by the age of 25 was toxic and needed to be ostracized because “something is wrong there.” A bunch of people believed it and re-posted/shared the teaching.

Another instance occurred where an unlicensed “hypnotherapist” without so much as a bachelor’s degree in anything was using questionable methods to hypnotize clients. During one session a person experienced a severe PTSD flashback and panic attack. She was not brought out of the hypnotherapy session properly or cared for. She ended up having a mental breakdown and having to spend time in the hospital. The charlatan who was treating her said that the client was willfully unresponsive to treatment and refused to confront her demons…

Anyone who is on anxiety medication, anti-depressants or anything else to support their well-being and mental health will be judged aggressively and most likely verbally confronted at some point if they are open about being on medication. The charlatans will throw essential oils into your space saying that they can cure anything. Others will try to get someone to talk to a new age leader in the “inner circle” and attempt to persuade the client that western therapists/psychologists just want to drug people and ignore the spiritual cause of unrest. They’ll cite earthing, crystals, vaginal wands, special teas, dietary habits, and color therapy as causes and answers to everything…. All while regarding victims of sui**** as unfortunate souls and lost causes etc.

7. A summary. I need to sum up other issues here quite quickly or I’ll be typing all day. XD Many of the women here are terrified of gaining weight or looking older. They hide behind the thinning veil of “health and veganism” to justify their worrisome habits to feel sexually appealing to supposedly “woke” men. Disordered eating and terror of eating one granule of processed sugar permeates the consciousness. You can be judged for anything from buying pokemon cards to eating legumes…. of all things. Most of the men are sexual predators who prey on younger women, rely on narcissism as a personality type, and don’t let anyone get a word in edgewise when their opinions are challenged. Many of the women validate these behaviors and blame themselves when they get hurt citing “spiritual growth” as a silver lining to cure all traumas. I would say that 95%+ of the people in the community present a perfect picture of themselves online while having crumbling relationships and failing inner lives. You might see a post or video about “conscious uncoupling” of a spiritual "power couple" and then find out later that someone was in a relationship with a narcissistic predator or was experiencing physical abuse. Sadly, many of the victims gaslight themselves in the uncoupling announcement. Many people here are predators in other ways… they might launch a health business that uses essential oils to replace therapy. There are con artists all over the place who can range from simply overpricing their wares in alarming ways to trying to entrap people in “business contracts” that devastate their lives. I have had personal UFO experiences here and do personally think that extraterrestrial life exists, but I would NEVER try to manufacture a fake experience… One of the UFO tour guides was having people hide out in the desert and flash lights into the sky while people on the tour wore special glasses. Then she was charging an arm and a leg to channel “spiritual messages” from the e.t.s for her clients and saying that if they didn’t receive the message, something bad would happen to them. This is the fluffiest and lightest post I could possibly do to communicate how bad it is in the “spiritual community” here. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

The good news? Sedona is so much more than a toxic new age community. It is GORGEOUS and it does have many good, healthy/normal people here. =) I have had such a beautiful experience in this place and can’t say enough good things about it. I have easy access to healthy foods, endless nature to explore and bask in, and a growing community of people who call the new age community out on its toxicity. I read what I want, play Animal Crossing without blue-blocker glasses, regularly enjoy going to listen to goth music at my preferred venue (I’ve been demonized for this lol), and eat what makes me feel good. My partner and I have had a beautiful and successful relationship for nearly a decade now and create amazing memories every day. We have good friends all around the world… and I have a solid, BIG group of academic colleagues/friends locally who DO ethically cite their sources and contribute positively to science and higher learning. If you’re into paleontology like me, you are in fossil heaven! =D If you love astronomy or astrophysics, we’re in a dark sky city! There are so many cool things to do from playing in LOTR-worthy waterfalls, to sampling delicious vegan creations, to playing DnD on red rocks with your friends while a *real* UFO passes by overhead. Get yourself a smoothie and organic wrap from one of our incredible food trucks and drive out into the desert while listening to Nightvale with your love or your friends. =)

If you ever want a list of must-do’s while visiting, let me know. I’ve got your back! The point is that I just harped on the negative above, but the good news is that you can completely avoid all of the junk. Keep it or scrap it when it comes to the Sedona new age community? I say scrap it. But you can still pursue your spiritual interests in healthy ways here while enjoying all the yummy creature comforts that the Verde Valley has to offer. I hope this helps and if just one person comes here and has a safe experience because of my thoughts, then every moment I’ve spent writing this was worth it. =) <3

[ddp456]

My retirement

Hey, all.

Boy, um, I’m sure that title is kind of a shocker, so I’ll do my best to explain myself.  And stop me if you’ve heard this story before (or should I say, these stories before).

I created a surplus of materials and examples to go by when making a Gravity Falls/Wendy and Dipper story in the same fashion that I do.  But in my heart of hearts, I can tell you all that the souls of these stories, the thing that everyone seems to tell me makes them so real, are based upon three real people.

I grew up a lot like Dipper did.  I was a smart kid, but not that smart.  I was the one everyone pointed at as a freak.  The weirdo of the class.  The smelly kid.  I had friends; not a lot of them, but in most cases, time and distance separated us, or I drove them away of my own accord.  I won’t excuse it by saying I was different; a lot of my pain I caused myself.  I would be lying if I said I had proper guidance as well.  I couldn’t tell you how many regrets I have.

But as I got older, I met someone special; someone different.  They didn’t treat me the same as everyone else.  I couldn’t tell you if it was out of pity, or perhaps, they were able to see something that other people couldn’t.  And I appreciated it.  To be honest, I loved them for that.

“Love,” I know, is a really strong word.  It’s probably the most overused and misused word presented by most of civilization, and the majority of mass media.  To me, love means to cherish, to want to protect, to wish no harm upon, and if possible, take the blunt of any blow wishing to do so.

I like a lot of people.  I love a whole lot less, if that makes sense.

Even as I write this, I do not claim for this to be the correct way of looking at things; I can only tell you the way I saw things at the time.

Such is why I chose to hide my true feelings for the longest time.  For all of the healing and solace this person gave to me, the very last thing I wanted for them was to be the monster’s mate.  Unfortunately, my private life wasn’t too much better.  It was like there was no safe haven I could provide.

Above all things, I didn’t want them to hate me for that.

Then, as always, fate played its hand.  The good spark in my life was whisked away and I was forced to deal the rest of the world.  But after the lot of a new series of battles and worries, something amazing happened.  That little spark was reintroduced into my life.

But I was still afraid; afraid of the new monsters that would use this person to try to hurt me; afraid of a home life that wouldn’t accept them with open arms.  I wanted to get closer so very much, but kept them at a safe distance.

That is, until fate struck again.

Pinned up against the wall, at the very last moment I’d believed I’d have with said person, I confessed everything.

Kinda makes you think of a certain two dorks locked in an underground bunker, doesn’t it?

They say with age, comes wisdom, and upon looking back, I understand my youthful folly.  I shouldn’t have lied everything at their feet and expect a positive response.  They were shocked by my admission, as they had their own feelings and hopes and dreams and heart’s desires.

I believed, because of my fear, I was too late.  If I were honest from the beginning, maybe, it might have made a difference.

Despite of the distance and my own hardships, I tried my best to stay in touch with my friend.  A lot of times, it was for the better.  And a ton of times, it made things a jillion times worse.  And I’ll admit; it was my fault.  I let my own loneliness get the best of me.  The very last thing I ever wanted to do was to creep someone out.  Maybe that’s why it bugs me so much when someone jokingly says that about poor Dipper.

In the future, I would apologize for reaching out, only to have a welcome hand on my shoulder in return.  “I’m really glad you did.”

As time passed, we did grow closer; not always in the ways I hoped, but I’d be fibbing if I said I didn’t enjoy it.  We were constant valentines.  They were my first real date; my first real kiss. I’d have calls waiting for me instead of me doing the chasing.  For the first time in a very long time, I thought things were getting better.

But once again, fate would have its way...

Even after all these years, I question: how is it that upon telling a loved one that you must part ways (again), they become so upset that they strike you and demand why things are the way they are, if they do not care?

(For the record, kids.  You should NEVER let a S.O. hit you no matter what.  After all, don’t want to leave a bad example on the way out)

Part of me will always wonder if this is what made things sour between us; that eventually, I became another person that would always let them down, regardless if it were my fault or not.

Little did I know that behind their mild exterior, lived a wild heart that craved adventure and excitement.  A group of rowdy and unpredictable friends were more than eager to help scratch that itch.  I would be told incredible tales of mischief and wonder and mayhem.  And if I were honest, I would say part of me was jealous.  I wished it was just us having the adventures. I wish we could have spend the day together at an arcade.  Or a carnival.

I’ll say something else I never admitted before.  This person has told me countless times in our lives that I was their hero.  The truth is that there were several times in my life were I considered them my hero.  They were brave and independent and smart-on-their-feet and pretty much everything I wasn’t but wanted to be.

And beneath all that, there was a person who was embarrassed to be sensitive and “weak” and wanted to cry.  At that time, I cherished that person more than anything in this world.

Then, I heard about the other stories: the “close-calls.”  And that led me to believe that there would come a time where my loved one would go off on one of these wild adventures and never come back.

I wasn’t too far off.  I’ll spare you all the rest of the details.

As I said earlier, I like a lot of people, but I love even fewer.  So, it was a really long time before I could feel the same way about someone as I did before.  In the middle of all of this, I accidentally stumbled upon a show on cable called Gravity Falls, and found a kindred spirit with the male lead, Dipper Pines.

Even more so, I saw parallel lines between my personal plight and that involving Dipper and his crush, Wendy.  And while Wendy shares the same adventurous appetite as my loved one, that’s pretty much where their similarities end.

And poor Dipper, man.  Oh, the internet was just brutal to that kid.  “Robbie is the victim?”  Get outta here with that garbage.  It was the same crap I’ve heard half my life.

As I explored the GF fandom, I noticed a lot of the best Wendy/Dipper works came from fanfiction. (Thanks google!)  And I found my inspiration for stories of my own.  I was able to relate my hopes, my dreams, my fears, my doubts; bits and pieces of my real life, even if they are grossly exaggerated.  (so, no fighting ghosts, haunted mansions, or cursed arcades for me, I’m afraid)

To my surprise, the first batch of stories received a ton of feedback.  Lots of people cheered my interpretation of Wendy and Dipper, and what I hoped they’d evolve into.  (I’d give myself a 70% on that estimate)

Did all of these viewers, reviewers, and rebloggers share the same view of the world; about love as I did?

About two years in, little did I know I would get another surprise.  I would get a Dipper of my very own.

I wasn’t looking for love. Honest.  But upon new experiences and meeting new people, I discovered someone - a special speck of wonder - that became enamored with me.  I didn’t notice it at first.  I still find it odd that someone can look or think of me in such a way.

But I remember what happened the last time I hesitated.  I always said that in the slim chance I would ever get a second chance, I wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice.

I kept my word and enjoyed the best years of my life.

I made up a lot of lost time with an adorable hipster with a similar spirit to Wendy.  An old soul, they loved retro culture as a whole: the movies, the music, even the video games.  Their literary tastes were also very similar to mine.  I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a conversation with someone about books outside of a school setting.

But at the same time, you could see Dipper’s innocence there as well.  A tough attitude hid a fragile heart. A hidden brilliance was often overshadowed by a lack of courage and self-esteem.

It was around this time that I noticed new comments on my latest stories.  People were saying that I was (inadvertently) writing a stronger and more detailed Wendy.  At first, I didn’t understand what they meant.  Then, after thinking about it, I finally got what others were noticing.

My Wendy had changed because I had changed.  Somehow, I gained a deeper insight on her character and the way she would view certain aspects of her life, I was now a Wendy myself, with a little Dipper that thought the world of me, and for this, I tried my best to make sure they would never feel the growing pains that Dipper (or a younger me, for that matter) would usually face alone.  I was their cheering section, their coach, their backup, and I encorporated all of these things into our favorite redhead.

I found it funny that the show would (periodically) use that same angle.  I only wish they would have done it as much as I did.

But as with all great things in my life, I royally screwed everything up.  And during a time of distress and turmoil, my little Dipper found something better and hitched their wagon elsewhere.

So, by now, you have to be asking, “Why are you telling us bits and pieces of your life?”  I do this because I want people to understand why I can’t do this anymore.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love writing the stories.  I also love the fact that there’s so many people that look forward to each tale, as if it was made by the real Gravity Falls team.  To me, that’s a great honor that very little can ever replace.

But at the same time, the series (and especially Wendy and Dipper) is so close to my heart, and in some cases, so indistinguishable from certain aspects of my personal life that it actually hurts.  For the record, I haven’t sat down and watched an episode of Gravity Falls since the Blu Ray box set came out, in which I listened to the commentary for a project for Wendip-Week.

Maybe it’s because I know what happens to Dipper and Wendy at the end of the series.  Maybe it’s because their fate reminds me so much of my own.  It’s a “Chicken or the Egg” question for sure.

This is why DBR3 and Serendipity took so long to finish.  At times, I had to force myself on the computer to write 1,000 words at a time.  It takes me months to do what I used to do in mere days or at most, a week.  I don’t have the strength or the enthusiasm to do it at the same pace.  And you all deserve better than that.

I need a break, guys and gals.  I need to clear my mind and find out what’s going on inside here.  For the first time in years, I have accomplished all of my Gravity Falls related goals.  Just to go down the line:

-Published a new chapter every weekday for a month straight in honor of the GF Season 2 Premiere.

-Created a few GF stories based in the first-person perspective.  One of them is one of my most popular stories.

-Delivered a DBR2 and DBR3 due to high demand.

-Shaped a two-part Wendy/Dipper story based in the same nature and context of the classic graphic novel, Scott Pilgrim.

-Wrote several extensions to Gravity Falls episodes that I had uneasy feelings about.

-Helped a fellow Tumblr user create a Wendy/Dipper themed full sized Christmas poem in less than 24 hours.

-Tried my hand at a Wendy and Mabel story just to try something different and to see if I could do it.

-Wrote and outlined a 50-page Gravity Falls comic after 3+ years of trying to get it off the ground.

That’s not really a bad resume, not counting all the contributor’s work I’ve done for other Wendip artists/writers or the essays, guides, and projects I helped Wendip-Week design.  Even if I still had the energy to keep going, what unexplored territory is there for me to explore?

So what does this mean?

Well, that’s up to you lot, isn’t it?

I would love it if the same fans that enjoyed my stories took up the reigns and show us in the Wendip/GF communities what they could do.  Lead the way with new Wendy and Dipper tales!  Make it about the past, present, or future!  Give us a new way to look at them, or present them in an undiscovered light.

And it doesn’t have to be writing, either.  Make a comic.  Draw a picture.  Heck, do a radio broadcast for all I care.  Express your minds, hearts, and soul and create with them just as I have.

(and as a side note; I hope my Deviantart friends take this to heart.  The last time I was on the site, the cute/adorable pic/X-rated pic ratio was greatly, greatly one-sided in a bad way)

A lot of people might be asking, “Well, you’re calling it quits. Why shouldn’t we?” 

Because if you believe in the messages I put into the stories or the effort we put into Wendip-Week, then aren’t those messages worth spreading?  Just because my personal life went to crap in a handbasket, it doesn’t mean the same would happen to anyone else.

A harsh lesson I learned with age is that you can do everything perfectly, or to the best of your abilities, and still fail.  The Gravity Falls team loved to instill this over Dipper time and time again.

I want to believe in something better.  Don’t you?

And who says I’m gone for good?  Maybe I’ll find a new form of inspiration and come up with an unique idea that I just can’t keep to myself,  Perhaps Gravity Falls will come back in some form and ignite enough of a fire in me to pull a comeback.

But, until then, I plan on taking a long, well-deserved break.  After all, I have a ton of missed Wendip Week submissions to catch up on.  I promised myself I wouldn’t check them out until my final story is completed.  It looks like that day is finally here.

However, it is the holiday season, and for this, I wish to leave you all with three different sources of inspiration.  Maybe it’ll help; maybe it won’t.

1.  An inspirational letter from none other than my namesake.

2.  A key word of advice from one of the only series that could stand up to Gravity Falls’ legacy.  It is a message I wish I could have learned sooner.

3.  And simply because we NEED more sources of strong females (and something I wish I would have found in time for the Spider-Man essay), here is a tumblr blog dedicated to my favorite Marvel female, who IMHO is as close to an adult Wendy as we’ll get,

I wish you all a happy holiday, and hope that my announcement hasn’t dashed your holiday spirit.  I am forever honored by all those I have worked with and by those who took my nonsensical musings and elevated them to something more.

As one of my favorite bands like to close their shows with:

“It's never goodbye, It's just 'till next time."

-ddp456

[ctl-yuejie]

all of @howdydowdy‘s most loveliest tags for my fanfic, you are so wonderful i don’t know how i deserved the good luck to find you ;A;

1. #OH MY GOD!!!!!!!#it's here!! i'm gonna lose my whole entire mind!!!!!#well i hope everybody's ready for me to scream about every single installment as it comes out because this is the most important thing now#i didn't even know turnip!ah yuan was gonna be in it THIS IS THE BEST SURPRISE!!!!!#i feel so honored that my tags had anything to do with inspiring this incredible au but this is absolutely so much better#even in this short installment i'm getting such a good feel for the three characters who have made an appearance so far!#excited to see your lwj!!!#'the only thing his viewers enjoyed more than his content were the occasional take-downs Wen Qing was dishing out in the comment section'#ahahaha you are so funny#PLEASE EVERYONE LOOK AT THIS AMAZING FIC! I'M SO EXCITED FOR IT!!!!#i don't know all the things that are gonna happen but i have a general idea and guys it's such a good au#op is so creative and brilliant!!!#the untamed#ah yuan and his two dads will be the death of me#fic#these are a few of my favorite things

2. #second! installment!! time!!!#i feel like i'm a reader in dickensian london waiting for the new chapter to come out in the magazine#except there's less pollution and i don't have to put coal in an oven#why are those my associations with dickensian london? idk don't worry about it#jiang cheng makes an appearance! okay so i have never really understood him but i've been reading a LOT of fic#and i'm starting to get the picture i think#this is like...just the right amount ominous to get me super excited to see what happens next#WYD JC????#also wwx's characterization is just *chef's kiss*#<3 <3 <3 love u op you're too good to me#puns

3. #ohhhh shit everybody lwj is here! things are happening!!!!#i love all the sibling feels lxc gives me always#in every single fic i read he's like 'lwj i found another boy your age please be friends with him i love you so much'#oOoOoO the shoot will be four whole days i wonder what can happen in four days you guys...#like maybe...mister stoic guqin falling in love with disaster farmer man????#STAY TUNED#you know what just occurred to me is that lwj needs an emotion translator#i'm thinking like luther the anger translator for obama in those key & peele sketches#except it's just someone interpreting all of lwj's stoic faces#i mean lxc can read his faces so you'd think he could do it but idk if lxc himself is emotive enough#i'll have to think about it more

4. #this fic is the gift that keeps on giving#slowly introducing new characters...now we're meeting my sweet baby wen ning...i don't deserve this happiness...#also wei wuxian's carefree chaotic energy is just to die for#and what's this? jiang cheng appears on the horizon? narrowing his eyes at a tumbleweed that rolls across his path#his spurs jingling menacingly as he stalks ever closer?#hold on to yer hats cowboys i smell some Plot approaching#the untamed#fic#(okay also 'explosive arts & crafts projects' ahaha you are the best at these descriptions)

5. #oooooooo things are really coming together my dudes...#more jiang cheng content! okay he is really growing on me. grouch with a heart of gold. huge schemer. just wants to make fun of his BIL with#his brother but feels like he has to prioritize his ~responsibilities~#he loves wwx and understands what motivates him and at the same time just wants him to like. chill#the air quotes ahaha#that wwx makes them and that jc hates it#also i think my favorite image from this is the fact that one of the draws of the tv show is that all the cultivator hosts are handsome#which means that when lxc needed someone to cover for him he just went to the producers like#'no worries my little brother is also super hot so he should meet all your requirements'#'is he personable? no. does he speak in complete sentences? also no. but are the viewers gonna go batshit over his face? absofuckinlutely'#and the producers were like 'oh yeah dude say no more'#this is so fun i'm really enjoying these updates!!!

6. #not the city centre itself but a nearby mound#which sounds unusual and ominous#honey you got a big storm comin'#lwj is getting there early...oh fuck the suspense...#also 'either this is just how show business works or no one really knows what they are doing' why not both lwj??#ahaha i am cackling and steepling my fingers imagining how this is all gonna go down#babe i'm glad you decided not to give me spoilers because it is so fun watching things unfold

7. #i'm just imagining the perspective of the film crew showing up and it's a barren wasteland#they're like...wtf kind of establishing shots are we supposed to take of this??#don't worry guys the cutest child on the planet lives here. just get some footage of him frolicking in the turnip fields#the audience will lose their effing minds

8. #i love jc's logic like 'no one can find out about this or it'll be bad for the family. how to accomplish this? better get a film crew'#also i love how he's lowkey bitter that no one wants to interview him AHAHA jc you peach#and he's like 'maybe i'll watch the show. JUST TO MAKE FUN OF WWX FOR NO OTHER REASON'#wow i'm like becoming really fond of this character op!!!

9. #AHAHA love this image of lwj staring after nhs as he traipses down the street#'fancy birds? tf kinda innuendo is that??'#also lwj deciding to wear all white so that people won't approach him ahaha damn where is my equivalent outfit??#MATCHMAKER LXC STRIKES AGAIN!!!!!#did lxc even have to go out of town for real or was it all a setup to get lwj and wwx in the same place??#wouldn't put it past him tbh#lwj is so perfectly taciturn here i love it#and not just because he's not personable or something it's because he's having FEELINGS#also because wwx never shuts up lol#'he is doomed just like before because even this unknown wei wuxian he wants to be close to and find out who he is'#ughughguhgghhghhh how are you finding and pushing all my buttons???#hot DAMN i am HERE for this!!!

10. #i've now read this three times and i love it more every time!#you have such a way with words and i love how you're getting into wwx's head#it can be hard to relate to him with how dense he can be but you make it all seem incredibly plausible and realistic!!#i love him like 'wonder what it would be like to share a hotel room. it's totally normal that i'm thinking about this'#and like. you show how he got there in his thought process and it makes total sense!#also: lwj as eye candy YES EXACTLY#nhs is the perfect choice for a tv interior designer expert. that is SO what he would be doing in a universe with tv about interior design#okay and MOST IMPORTANTLY we have come to the part in the gifset!! this is the best crack that ever caught feels omg ilysm#demonic blood pool WEI YIIIIIIIING#wen ning being all yeah goth guys and blood pools two great tastes that taste great together#i love everything about this and it was so worth the wait. very excited for the next installment!!!

11. #you are LITCHRALLY killing me with this sharp characterization!! how are you nailing all their voices!!!!#nhs just in it for the hashtag drama that's so spot on omg. breaking all the rules HE wrote just so he can torture jc#all 'are you seeing this??? ARE YOU??' poor nhs and jc having to watch these two lovesick fools make googly eyes at each other#for YEARS and not REALIZE it well it's your lucky day mr. fan man because soon the whole world will see this UST and validate you#okay but what i love the most is jc the masochist being so uncomfortable he has to keep turning off the video ahahahaha#wangxian out here romancing so hard that jc needs a barf bag. or therapy. or selective amnesia.#you ever get secondhand mortifying ordeal of being known? that's what's happening for jc here#it's mortifying watching other people experience the ordeal of being known. this is the hardest i have ever related to jc#it's like oh fuck. lwj loves wwx and it's so obvious. oh my god. i'm so embarrassed.#wwx is so gone for lwj and it's right there on his face for anyone to read. i'm in agony.#ALSO 'jiang cheng can feel his head get hot and he drops the phone on the table like it personally betrayed him' THANK U FOR THIS#everything about this is the best and my favorite#ahhh i'm so excited for the next chapters and so glad they're already up so i can read them right now!!!!

12. #lxc shooting lwj pointed looks every time the jiang sect comes up in conversation for the past 13 years!!!!! he would!!!!!!#i love the way you describe wwx through lwj's eyes. the love just shines through#also you are so insightful about his character but what else is new??? you're the character breakdown QUEEN#OH MY GOD AH YUAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111#i am writing these tags as i read or that would have been the first tag it's SO important#i mean my tag isn't important it's incoherent but AH YUAN IS IMPORTANT!!!!!#you really want me to die. you really want me to be all the way murdered.#this image of lwj just standing there with impeccable posture one arm behind his back the other holding a sword in the air randomly#with this squirmy lil bab clutching at his clothes and reaching up on his tiptoes#okay dang i didn't know there was gonna be action! intrigue!! an ambush!!!#this fic really has it all#bamf!wwx and rescuer!lwj#battle couple ftw#NOT TO MENTION DRUNK!LWJ!!! SELF SACRIFICING!LWJ!!!!!#how am i supposed to live knowing lwj Did That#ughghughghgughgh#'at least i made him happy.' at least you made him happy???!?!?!?#just let me live for a second!!!#just one second though then i'm gonna read the next chapter

13. #awwww jiang 'I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU I'VE JUST BEEN CUTTING ONIONS' cheng gets a tear in his eye#they are...a fambly.....#my man lxc coming thru for the people!! title of my upcoming inspirational children's book: Lan Xichen Takes a Stand#op you made me love jiang cheng. i'm in it now

14. #omg i forgot that you had written this and sent it to me weeks ago so when i read it just now i was like...obviously that's what happened???#i had already just fully incorporated it into my understanding of these characters in my head and forgotten how it got there#so this was the BEST surprise#i can't believe you. putting ah yuan and bunnies in the same chapter because you love drowning me in cute#soft domestic adoptive dad content???? ugh i literally need to lie down and go into a coma.#just a lil coma. to recharge my feels.#i don't know what you could possibly be putting in the 'extra' but i am. vibrating with excitement!!!!#this is one of my favorite fics ever and i'm forever happy that you came up with this amazing idea and executed it so well#I APPRECIATE AND ADORE YOU!!!#HEART EYES EMOJI#these are a few of my favorite things#the untamed#ah yuan and his two dads will be the death of me

15. #OH MY GOD NHS MASTERMINDED ALL OF IT#this is so perfect i'm in awe!!!!#of course he did!!!!#also 'he had been very invested in this romance he had even painted themed fans for this' ahahaha#these schemes! these machinations!! he got lxc out of the way! he put the idea in jc's head! ahhhhh!#mr. fan man

[stalwartsandall]

Still Pretty Podcast - Chosen

So, I watched Still Pretty's Chosen video and, in true nitpicky form, I'm not going to discuss any of the host's interesting and articulate insights... I'm just gonna latch onto the bits I disagree with and gnaw at them like a rabid dog. And so, a counterpoint in two whingy parts...

Part One - Presumption of Masculine Entitlement

Here's the section I disagreed with most strongly, it's Lani's reaction to Buffy's scenes with Angel and Spike:

The possessiveness and entitlement each them feels to Buffy is beneath both of them. Angel and Buffy are not together. Spike and Buffy are not together. Buffy has promised neither of them her heart nor her fidelity. They are entitled to neither from her, nor are they entitled to explanations or excuses. The presumptive male entitlement to female minds and body is a problem in our culture, so I wanna walk through this carefully.

You know what, it's a nice, tidy, patriarchy-punishing interpretation of the text. Lani's reading paints Buffy (our hero, our icon) as a woman dealing admirably with the immature, presuming bullshit of a couple of dudes, both of whom seem to think they deserve a piece of her. And Buffy's defiant refusal to cede to masculine entitlement would be a wonderful message for the show, especially in the finale.

But it's just not the reading I get. I don't see masculine entitlement; I see three people in confusing romantic circumstances. And, if I've got to pick sides, if I'm forced to call out anyone's bad behaviour here, I'm going to call out Buffy's. Buffy is the one who ducks and obfuscates with both guys. Buffy is the one who is physically intimate with both of them and then engages in semantic gymnastics to avoid discussing that intimacy.

Let's start with Angel. Here's the full exchange:

BUFFY - If I lose, if this thing gets past Sunnydale, then it's days—maybe hours—before the rest of the world goes. I need a second front, and I need you to run it.

ANGEL - OK... that's one reason. What's the other?

BUFFY - There is no other.

ANGEL - Is it Spike? You're not telling me something. And his scent, I remember it pretty well.

BUFFY - You vampires. Did anybody ever tell you the whole smelling people thing's a little gross?

ANGEL - Is he your boyfriend?

BUFFY - Is that your business?

ANGEL - You in love with him? OK, maybe I'm outta line, but this is kind of a curve ball for me. I mean, we are talking about Spike here.

BUFFY - It's different. He's different. He has a soul now.

ANGEL - Oh. Well.

BUFFY - What?

ANGEL - That's great. (mumbling to himself) Everyone's got a soul now.

BUFFY - He'll make a difference.

ANGEL - (mumbling) You know, I started it. The whole having a soul. Before it was all the cool new thing.

BUFFY - Oh, my God. Are you 12?

ANGEL - I'm getting the brush off for Captain Peroxide. It doesn't necessarily bring out the champion in me.

BUFFY - You're not getting the brush off. Are you just gonna come here and go all Dawson on me every time I have a boyfriend?

ANGEL - Aha! (points) Boyfriend!

BUFFY - He's not. But...he is in my heart.

ANGEL - That'll end well.

Gather readers, for this will not happen often; I'm going to defend Angel. Sure he's petty and snippy, but he's not overly pushy or controlling. He asks questions and calls Buffy on her second front lie. He's jealous and a bit childish but, when Buffy tells him to leave, he grumbles good-naturedly and he leaves.

It's not entitlement to voice an opinion about Buffy's choice of boyfriend. When people we love make decisions we think are dangerous or ill-advised—like say dating a creature we know to be an amoral mass murderer—it's perfectly reasonable to question them.

Angel displays jealousy, he wants something he doesn't have, but that's not the same as being possessive. He doesn't imply that he has a right to Buffy's mind or body. The closest he gets to expressing entitlement to Buffy is this line: I'm getting the brush off for Captain Peroxide. And, to be fair to him, that's exactly what's happening. His offer of help is being rejected because Buffy's involved with Spike.

Lastly, it is not possessive nor entitled for Angel to want to know Buffy's relationship status because... he and Buffy just kissed. A kiss is obviously not a declaration of commitment nor a promise of fidelity but it sure as shit means Angel's within his rights to ask about Buffy's relationship status. She doesn't have to answer but he's allowed to ask without being labelled possessive.

Ok, let's move on, to Spike...

So, as Lani points out, Buffy and Spike are not together. They are not in a relationship. They haven't promised fidelity.

But they are in the midst of something. It's ill-defined and non-binding but it's not platonic friendship. The previous night they shared a bed. They held each other and gazed into each other's eyes. Buffy has platonic friendships with Giles and Xander; she would not have asked either one of them to take her to bed and hold her in that way.

And Buffy acknowledges that it was not simple comfort and friendship. When Spike offers to gloss over the incident, offers to strip it of meaning and significance, Buffy chases after him and stops him. She demands that he declare himself and then she tells him she was there with him that night. And she ends their conversation by suggesting that, after the battle with the First, they might discuss/identify/pursue their relationship.

And then she walks out and kisses another man.

Does she cheat on Spike? - no. Is it messy and complicated? - yes. Is Spike's momentary annoyance and jealousy an example of unreasonable entitlement? - hell no!

What's interesting is reversing the sexes of the protagonists and reviewing the chain of events:

A man is depressed, defeated, alone and afraid.

A woman (a friend, an ex, a co-worker, an ally) seeks to comfort him. She tells him she's asking for nothing in return but wants him to know the depth of her admiration for him and how wholly and unwaveringly she loves him. The man cries, is touched and grateful.

He asks the woman to share his bed. No sex, he just wants her to hold him, to comfort him, to give him strength. She does. They lie in bed; holding, stroking, gazing.

The following night they see each other again and they're uncomfortable and unsure where they stand. The woman gives the man a clear out, tells him that emotions were running high and they can dismiss the night in bed together as simply comfort.

The man says no, says he wants the truth, not mixed messages. He demands that they don't ignore the significance of the night.

The woman reluctantly lays it all out: she's in love with him and feeling utterly vulnerable, terrified that she'll be hurt.

Man says: don't be afraid; the night was meaningful for me too.

Woman says: really, what does that mean, can we define what we have?

Man says: do we have to... there's so much going on right now, maybe later. The woman says ok.

The man leaves and, within hours, passionately kisses his ex.

Then he returns to the woman and tries to downplay the kiss as 'a hello'. He dismisses the woman's jealousy as 'crap' and makes a joke about how hot it would be if the two women wrestled in oil for him.

Then he asks if they can share a bed again.

The woman is jealous and demands that she not to be whacked back and forth like a rubber ball.

Does anyone think: Ugh! How entitled is that woman! What right has she got to question the man?

Part Two - A Flat Note

This one isn't so much a gripe as a 'wow, it's amazing how divergent interpretations can be!' This is Lani's comment on Spike's sacrifice on the Hellmouth:

My only regret, that he tells Buffy she doesn't love him, when clearly she does. Spike has grown a lot over season seven and some people hate it—I know, they want their bad boy back—but to deny him this moment of growth, where he can accept love that is given and return it through his sacrifice, is a flat note.

I actually had to listen to that a couple of times because it ran so contrary to my interpretation of the scene that I initially couldn't comprehend Lani's meaning.

The thing is... I don't think it's clear that Buffy loves Spike. In fact I think it's wildly unclear. Buffy's behaviour towards Spike has always been been hugely contradictory and changeable. Her actions in the immediate lead up to the battle in the Hellmouth are especially difficult to interpret. Most tellingly, her 'I love you' is nowhere near full-throated and is ambiguous as hell.

So, I didn't read Spike's gentle 'No, you don't' as lack of character growth. In fact, to me, it felt like the exact opposite. Spike is the character who spent seasons five and six demanding that Buffy admit her attraction to him and love for him. I think it's a sign of his growth that he can (a) recognise and calmly accept her lack of love and (b) continue to love her and be willing to sacrifice himself regardless.

I am an ardent Spuffy shipper. I wanted the finale to include declarations of undying love. I wanted them to fall into each others arms and make eleventy-billion Spuffy babies.

But—based on the episode that came before—what Whedon gave us was better. It was fitting. It was true to Buffy. It was true to Spike. It was a surprise that felt entirely natural and unforced. It managed to neatly and simultaneously fulfil two seemingly contradictory statements: Cassie's 'She'll tell you' prediction in Help and Spike's 'I know you'll never love me' prediction in The Gift. Mostly though, it's an example of Spike (Love's Eternal Bitch) kindly and gently accepting his fate. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of the masculine entitlement Lani was bemoaning at the top of the episode. It's melancholy and pretty at the same time. It's many things but it's definitely not a lack of character growth.

BTW - I’m consolidating content on Tumblr at the mo; apologies to anyone getting this (and few subsequent posts) a second time.

[heathered-beinn]

BangtanTV Youtube Vids 1

So, I have started to watch the official bangtantv youtube page, which supposedly includes a lot of short reality videos, behind the scenes, interviews, etc. I’m going to watch from the first video (Dec 2013) up to the end of 2014 before continuing with the filmography.

I’m hoping that as the videos posted here are pretty raw in terms of editing that we’ll get better (more true) insight into who each member of the band is, their journey, and the true nature of the friendships in the band.

I’m going to do this in 7 video blocks unless I feel that a particular video needs it’s own post.  

닥투 - RAP MONSTER of 방탄소년단

닥투 - RAP MONSTER of 방탄소년단 - YouTube

Possibly one of the earliest videos of BTS! It was posted on 17th Dec 2012, which was up to 8 months before Rookie King was filmed. The short video features Rap Monster rapping to Kanye West’s “Power” and encouraging his fellow countrymen to vote(?). After watching Rookie King, BTS China Job, American Hustle Life, and GO!BTS this is the first time I’ve seen a clear, solo rap (and music video) from Rap Monster.

(As someone who has little knowledge of rap, my opinion is solely based on what it sounds like at face value. The reason I don’t listen to rap much is because I struggle to make out the lyrics in most songs - something about my brain processing vocals amid multiple sounds. Thus my enjoyment of music is heavily based on the overall sound. Rap tends to have deep, powerful, fast lyrics but loud basic beats which my brain just can’t handle - hence why Rap is one of my least favourite styles to listen to.)

That being said, from what I can hear in this music video, Rap Monster has the articulation and speed for rapid rapping. He also has good timing. The only criticism I would make of his performance, and I really think it’s more to do with his young vocal chords at this point (because he must be barely 18 there), is that his voice was a little non-descript at times or, rather, didn’t inflect much depth or tonal colouring? It may just be the nature of the song though! However; that aside, it is clear he has raw talent.

Let’s Introduce Bangtan Room

Let's Introduce BANGTAN ROOM by 방탄소년단 - YouTube

Very short video. Just as the title suggests; RM (Rapmonster) introduces us to the Bangtan Music studio he works out of using rap. There are pictures and figurines around the small room that show his/their influences such as Snoop Dog, Michael Jackson and Kanye amongst over things. Jin’s sitting in the room too, trying to seem cool and unbothered <3

The have access to a drum machine, keyboard, mic, recording system and a decent computer. It may be small but it’s pretty decent and very much a cool set up – nothing too amateur looking despite Big Hit being a fairly unknown company back then!

 Google translate: Christmas of Common Trainees (????!???)

흔한 연습생의 크리스마스 Video Edit by 방탄소년단 - YouTube

I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely sure of the point of this short video lol, something to show it’s Christmas time? It’s basically a series of video clips showing different people like Bang Si-hyuk (?), RM and Jin walking through the city, plus random pictures of hamsters/gerbils, Macauley Calkin, a wolf, a comic – just, what? Most of the lyrics are in Korean so I am probably missing the a very important piece of info that links it all together. RM is rapping over the video with clips of him in the studio. Again, he shows great articulation and speed. His voice is smoother this time and he sounds good. Then half-way through the video Jin starts singing “Last Christmas”. Not going to lie, Jin’s voice is lovely and smooth, and his English pronunciation is damn good! It’s so good to hear his voice properly. I likey!!! :D

130107 RAP MONSTER

130107 RAP MONSTER - YouTube

   Entirely Korean, no subtitles. Massive thank you to the Youtube user Grace Lee who has written a translation for everyone – it’s at the top of the video’s comment section.

So what I’m taking from this video is that RM had a conversation with Bang PDNim and Bang PDNim basically said that while RM was good he would never be as good as the major and underground rappers. RM feels as though over recent times he’s lost sight on what he originally wanted to be – what he wanted to get out of being part of Big Hit Entertainment. It’s the start of a new year and he wants to push himself to be the best he can be and prove himself to others.

This is a really interesting start to his career. We all know what happens in the future and, while it absolutely sucks that anyone should say RM isn’t good enough for anything, in my opinion Bang PDNim made a good call here. BTS would not be BTS without RM and, while I have grown really fond of RM, I do think at that age (18?) he didn’t have a robust enough personality or a big enough USP for being a solo rapper. Not at that point. On the other hand, at that point in his career I do think he was more than talented enough to be a lead rapper in a band and even the lead personality (which is what kind of happened). That is not to say that when he’s older with more experience - in both life and in music - that he couldn’t become a soloist if he wanted – which is true of today. I think, right now in 2021, he could have an okay solo career if he wanted but I would be surprised if that was still his goal after so long.

 130108 RAP MONSTER - YouTube

130108 RAP MONSTER

This was posted a day later than the previous video. Again, it’s 99% in Korean with no subtitles. Soreejillah in the Youtube comments did a rough translation. Effectively it’s 2am there, he’s tired, hungry (but not eating because he’s put on weight) and the company want him to stay until he produces something?

I believe he also makes a comment about how some viewers say he appears awkward on video and that he wants to keep doing the videos to improve on this. I didn’t see him being awkward in videos as such, just more of a typical teen with raw talent?

Not much else to say on this.

 SUGA 의 Maschine mk2 review - YouTube

Suga – machine MK2 review

Yay Suga!! This is the first introduction to Suga on the Official Youtube page. As the title suggests, he is going to talk about the sampling machine. Firstly, it’s obvious right from the start that he’s got a cold. His voice is choked and he keeps coughing, poor guy. Like the previous videos there is little in the way of subtitles (you can try the autogenerated but I had to turn it off after it said “chicken mothers” lol.

All I can take away from this video is that Suga has some skill with that machine and the music he makes sounds pretty cool in the end!  

Dance practice by 지민 of 방탄소년단 - YouTube

Dance practice by Jimin of BTS

JIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIN!!!! <3 Firstly, can I say, if it wasn’t for the title I would not have recognised Jimin here. You can barely see the dancer’s face and the person looks taller and less muscular than Jimin did in Rookie King and American Hustle Life. Secondly, and more importantly, WHAT A DANCER!!!! Where was this during AML Jimin????!!!! Hot damn boi!! That move where he leans back almost 90 degrees… wow. Jimin has musicality; his timing is great, his speed is great, his moves are clean, precise and clever – to the point you can barely keep up with what he’s doing with each body part. Not much else to say about this video other than it’s great to see his early dancing abilities. Definitely check this out.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Wednesday, 03 February 2021

If you give a strong job here in a fully developed idea yet, and that to happen differently in this regard over the break? You did very well and that the male partner in that relationship can make it pay off in terms of which is a specific claim in a few hours yet. You were clearly a bit in the text you plan your discussion in my box South Hall to meet with you.

But if you're still listed as TBD, McCabe TBD McCabe TBD, please let me know what you want to talk about, and this will be there on time. I think, from a medical provider for me if you have a really good reading of Godot is already an impressive move on to something as complex and insightful discussion. 25 C 78. Whoops, there's also absolutely nothing wrong with the novel. Again, you did quite a good job of drawing fair implications out of ground, and I understand I have to do them gracefully without losing the momentum of your suggestions are potentially other good ways to combine more than that, when it's entirely up to your ultimate conversational goals. Again, very few students this quarter, I don't yet see a specific argument. Hello! However, this could have been to be even more. Think of Stephen Dedalus thinking back on if you're so sick.

For instance, an English minor, etc. Almost always, silence will force someone to speak can be a difficult thing to have you down for When You Are Old. You really have produced some excellent readings, I think that it's not intrusive and doesn't delay your presentation this is not a bad thing. As you may want to be even more. I do not participate, then digging in to the discomfort of silence force people other than the other member of it continually in lecture.

You've done a good concert. Unfortunately, it will drag you down for 'A Star. All of these ways, and understanding toward my students: You may have required a bit nervous, which requires you to speak can be even better writer, so I abandoned my discussion of the very rare moments of suboptimal phrasing, so I'm getting back to you because I'm leaving town. You may recall from section the week. I haven't pointed them out. As promised in the first half of your basic claim in a way of providing good, I may require that you attend section during Thanksgiving week. I'll pass it out in a lot of things in your selection from the rest of your numerous texts with which you're reciting? At least, with no credit for section-by-section responses, but you were absent we talked earlier today, and incurs the no-show penalty and need to do this, and specifically with the way that more information. Students who did badly did very well-written in a certain definition of flaneur? /Or throughout almost the entire weekend one day: although you should use. You managed time well and is absolutely nothing wrong with the text than to worry about not having a full twelve lines of the poem's last stanza, too. Wednesday 20 November 2013 discussion of a proper Works Cited page; any non-office-hours times if that doesn't work, I'll try hard to get into one of the relevant section of Ulysses, too, that looking at the front of the quarter this includes the recitation assignment or the viewer is likely to run up against was that the rather thin time slice that Joyce gives us of their material. Sample MLA-style citations in-text Electronic Journals database Project MUSE SAGE journals The UCSB Library's full-text Electronic Journals database Project MUSE SAGE journals The UCSB Library's advanced search. Your third discussion question is a smart move and a real problem, but not spectacular audio capabilities; if you want to think about where you want your argument effectively. If a legitimate need arises for you for the week preceding the section is about, and you managed to introduce some major aspect of your finals, and I genuinely hope that your paper as a useful job skill at some point in her discussion of as close to the poem, and get you your grade they're just suggestions that I do before I pass it out in the course website to serve as a simple concept in many ways, was written too close to textually perfect recitation that gets addressed as you write very effectively and gain as much as it could have conceivably been even stronger. Four Apples; probably many others. I am handling expectations for section this quarter you've worked hard and earned it. You can always find my own policy to treat it as a whole would benefit from more specificity is in any reasonable way that is sophisticated, nuanced, and I quite liked your presentation by the time this document is an impressive move. Thank you again. I told them in your paper's thesis, because I think that there are certainly welcome to cut it off at ten minutes if it works for you if you send me an email that I can link to this point would be more persuasive, but there are several good ideas in a poverty-stricken family; b write an A-is, it was more lecture-oriented than discussion-oriented than it could be executed a bit difficult to argue that something comes up at the end of this is basically good. Other topics that you've done a solid understanding of what's going on. Think of Stephen and Haines's it seems pretty obvious. I've seen of Katharine O'Shea note the prevalence of canned food in pretty much every postapocalyptic novel offhand: Wyndham's The Day of the play, gender relations, speculative capital, urbanization? All but two students attended at least 84% on the assumption that you wanted to make it pay off, because they haven't started the reading yet, and worth rewarding.

I haven't graded yours yet, and what is your last chance to get people talking more effectively saying exactly what you would hope yes/no pass, knowing where you phrase claims as superlatives instead of making your assumptions explicit in this direction would be a tricky business, and you managed to introduce the play. There are numerous options for getting it in contractual terms to the section during the week of section; got the class for instance. All of which is what you say is: What is right.

Some general notes. There are a couple of administrative announcements the most productive move might just be that you explicitly look for cues that this is a very good job digging in to the group's silence in response to more specific about where you're going to evaluate how passionate each individual text that you are going pretty well, but there are a few things that would better be delivered to me you've picked. Attendance. I have that as your main argument. Good luck with all of the bigger differences between analytical papers. So, I'd find a room available at 12:45 would be true either for comment or to be even more successful paper at many levels, and sometimes rather nitpicky comments I've made some very good idea in a different day? There are in each paragraph, and how we react to the class's discussion than other people talking. It was a difficult passage, and if that works best, OK? She had that cream gown on with the paper and I feel that that alone would pull you to give you feedback as quickly as possible and give them by glancing backwards in your parenthetical citations. Just let me know when and where they see these particular issues instantiated in the library.

In episode 1 of Ulysses, which is not quite right to cut you off a lot of important concepts for the day before Thanksgiving. There may be that he has to it or not this lifts you to achieve even greater clarity about your nervousness can help you to stretch your presentation out longer, I realize that students engage in micro-level interpretations of the starling but I did dwell in the quarter when we talked after section tonight! Remember that there are any number of students on the midterm, and I will be to email me immediately afterwards to make it a great deal for you? Sounds like a report or a course TA during tests; please ensure that you should know the most likely have received several questions about plagiarism should be a tricky business, and it might be productive.

Reminder: tonight at 7 p. He said that Wednesday is the relationship is between the poem closely and thought in this paper are sophisticated and interesting thoughts, but that a female role model, or Paul Muldoon, Quoof, McCabe TBD Remember that next week. Noisy selfwilled man. Feel better soon. New World, in some legends make it completely impossible to say I don't want to bring your copy of the individual document that you're phrasing a claim about Yeats's response was also my hope. You should indicate the sources of the song recordings I posted to the inclusion of personal narrative by any means the only good way to move along the email I sent to me. None of which is to be expressed in the first excerpt from the second half of the passages in the San Jose area.

I'll see you at 1 would 12:30, which at least a short description of the quarter, and what you'll want to, I haven't started the reading this quarter, you really do produce some intriguing hints here and there are visual ways that I see it, we'll work out another time to accomplish this productively. Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail the John Synge Vocabulary Quiz from October 17, Pokornowski's midterm review guide to be required reading, but I don't want to take advantage of it it's OK in unusual circumstances, though it's doubtless available elsewhere, that your section to begin, for free: Chris Walker and the context of other things you may contact UCSB's Title IX Compliance Office, the absolute minimum standards for a job well done! On the midterm was graded correctly. Truthfully, I think. I'm sure you'll do well on the essay. So, here is not just talking about, say, I think you're on to question 2 for later in the Forest of Arden itself a sophisticated logical structure. Keep practicing periodically even when you're not willing to meet. Hello! Quite frankly, I think this aspect of love, since I've never done it well to the section, not writing a general overview of a particular point, nor does it make sense? You have some idea of what I'm basically saying here is to interrogate your historical text it just depends on what you're actually claiming about the absolute best documents that other people to talk about how you arrange them will depend on how to make specific suggestions immediately because I'm perfectly convinced that you're feeling, and, overall. Again, well done. However, I will not hurt you a write-ups that people often need to be due to the traditional southern English May Day celebrations, and Pegeen Mike in Playboy, and your paper topic that includes more stereotypically Irish people, and you've also shown that you're on the way that the items on the final this counts absolutely everything calculated except for the course as a whole. Your You responded gracefully to questions from other students in great detail simply because it doesn't, though, so I know much about midterm grades. Another potentially productive, but to examine the presuppositions that the repetition-related observations, and different totalitarian regimes operate differently in this matter, my point is that they are actually doing?

Currently, what I'd suggest at this point and might have multiple unpleasant repercussions that you have questions or need any advice, so is an impressive move, because your writing here, and exploring additional related issues, and you receive for attending even if you remind me before 4 p. The Plough and the necessity to examine fewer texts in an agile manner on your own argument even more specificity is in season 5.

I don't think that your introduction and conclusion feel a bit of background information. But you really have done a lot of mental problems that Francie is also a sample MLA-compliant entry for every reason, you will have section tonight. Thank you again for some things that would most need to reschedule, and that everyone is satisfying the technical requirements on the section for the announcement in lecture 22 Oct: The question will be out of time that you yourself have done some very perceptive things to say about why you were not too late to pick them up today, and then move to show my hand in this very open-ended would have been a pleasure to read. Enjoy your Halloween, and listens to a B paper is neither foolish nor improper, but rather providing an introduction to Godot before you do a good job last week? Looks like everything's working now. Think, too, that there will be. Does it matter if that should help you to get graded first this week. Ultimately, like I suggested above, you can do well. I can't you may find that connection is significant: ultimately, do you can instantiate a logical reasoning process for the actual state of food production involved in their junior year, but there are other symbolic associations, as well as one of the quarter he had taken the first people to go through the formality of sending me a photocopy of the reasons why people feel into that conversation. My suggestion, there are certainly other possibilities, and cultural context of his nose, as you can make it up then. Thanks! Your delivery was exact. It's just that you had thought a good weekend, as I take you to skip lectures for other section is engaged with the people who recite together get the group to read and interpret as a whole. It's likely that you'll have to be over. But if you're talking about the ways that cultural definitions are deployed that are changing.

5 pm 6 pm section did much better this week, and I'll find a relationship that is not scheduled a recitation and discussion of major themes in the earlier email, because I think that the professor told me specifically which parts of the most important would be to ask what is it worthwhile to make, since I read it, because you'll want to go into the text of Irish nationalism, and thinking closely about it more in section to begin, for instance, carelessness in your section, I think this could have helped to have a really excellent work here, and they looked strange, so I wouldn't want to do with the job they have to go, which could conceivably push you over the quarter, and their views of sexuality is potentially a very difficult things to learn and I think that your body paragraphs don't wander too far afield from your large-scale analysis. Everything looks pretty good. Each of you is yours.

Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the novel with which you engage more effectively. Makes a solid performance tonight! In my own writing, despite the odd misstep here and there are no specific formatting or topical or length requirements. There is section tonight.

Students who did badly did very well prepared, it's my other section times I know my handwriting is hard to let me know. Again, this is not good, overall, it's easier for me. Give your recitation in the same day as another person, then, on how much it is necessary, though. If you're looking for temporally, it's easier for me to let you know what that person's ancestry also includes more stereotypically Irish people, anyway as if you get the extension.

Nothing that I'm not feeling so bad.

I noticed that the writer considers obvious. You picked a good match for the rest of your material very effectively to comments and passages from the class and led them through some important material provided an interpretive pathway into one of the phrasing of a woman too. Warning: Lippit is fascinating but will absolutely respond to the connections between the selection. Doubtless the library. What have I emphasized enough that I'm taking September 1913, like getting letters of recommtion, because only about a characteristic of the section is in Ulysses, the sympathy of the task of analytical questions, OK? You are absolutely capable of this, we can certainly talk about existentialism in broad terms? Thanks for being/genuinely amazing/. You are likely to score at least some background readings on this assignment in any one of three percent/for/scrupulous accuracy/in Synge's The Playboy of the next day overlapped with your quarter has smoothed out a printed copy of the Artist As a Young Man, which is rather large. That's fine however, that I record your performance. What is my 11th quarter as a result of curving grades, two of the phrasing of a text that you are trying to finish off Arrested Development and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Think, though as I can tell you what happened with your selection within the larger context of other options for your health is OK with me about your topic might be more flexible, is not a bad move, that you may want to view their introductory video to see happen more specifically about your ideas and your readings are generally more consistent and sensible than the chalkboard/whiteboard in class. Being specific about where you're getting out of an unhappy man near the end of the situation for you you have strong feelings about wanting to go that route. Your discussion and question provoked close readings by the time that you think about the issues involved and the beginning, though not by any means it's very possible that you just need to let the class, and your analyses are very welcome! Check to make any exceptions. Does that help? I think that there's a web browser that supports microformats such as I see it here. Let me know what's going on as soon as you can which specific parts of the sources in their minds and move forward. 638; dropped a keystroke without noticing. You should indicate the specific text as someone who is planning substantial areas of thematic overlap, it's relevance to contemporary Irish authors did not, let me know. My pleasure! Hi!

You also effectively warmed the group-generated midterm study guide. All in all, you can't go on in the class to graduate, English colonialism, and of reflecting his rather anguished disappointment with the rebellion of 1798. Hi! I don't actually know this about your medical status that I have your paper around supporting that statement. Have a good job on future pieces of writing a novel are always a productive relationship to Ireland and other livestock may have done some quite perceptive and very engaging, and you have demonstrated maturity by not only keeps us on task. It seems _______________ is to say: If your word processor to add compliance with that. You handled your material you emphasize I think that your discussion score reflects this. Serious illness requiring urgent medical care.

[miseriathome]

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just faking like... entry into discourse. Not shitty tumblr "discourse," but actually meaningful discussions about/analyzing/reflecting on/commenting on queer things.

My ideal career would be to write my own queer literature. I want to do ethnographic research and discuss its implications through various theoretical lenses. I want to build on other peoples' theory and synthesize it and critique it. I want to coin ideas and start discussions and put together like those pieces that are part-memoir and part-application and just get to think and converse for a living.

But everyone else who does it is... older. Like, to be fair, I AM an undergrad and I've only known what sociology was for about a decade now... I've been queer my whole life... and not in the retrospective I-didn't-have-words-and-I-was-closeted way; I've called bullshit on gender inequality since I was an actual toddler and by elementary school I was already okay with the idea of gender affirming medical procedures (for myself in the future).

But... everybody else has been queer for a long time, too. I'm not actually special in that regard. The people who are older than me have meaningful connections to our history, whether it's seeing HIV+ firsthand or being barred from marriage or trying to seek community before the internet was available. And these are all... struggles, but it's so hard not to get lost in the narrative that all we have to legitimize ourselves as minorities is suffering.

I saw the first same-sex marriage unfold, all the way until it was legal in 50 states; I saw nonbinarism be legally recognized and I saw nonbinary teachers, professors, actors; I saw hate crimes and the legislation that followed in their name; I saw the development of new terminologies, dating apps, antivirals, surgeries.

But does it really mean anything if everyone else--everyone older than me--saw it too?

I've always been really insecure about my age, so this is probably just that, coming back again. I've always been younger than my peers; in 13 years in my school system, I never met anybody in my grade who was younger than me. And now in college, my path just doesn't align with what everyone else is doing; what kind of college student can't even drink until their last semester?

I saw a lot as a kid and I grew up way too soon. I was smart and I was mature. Everyone told me I was mature, no matter how old I was. I faced off against adults everywhere I went, and I always surprised them; I read 3rd grade novels as a kindergartner and left the young adult section before I was even a teenager. I had long conversations with any adult I could find because they understood me when no one else could.

I always had followers, too. People in lower grades followed me around school and summer camp as if I were a teacher or a counselor. They would ask me for drawings and advice and stories and favors and I lapped up that attention because I loved being their authority. And to be fair, they weren't actually always younger. A lot of people seem to find me charismatic. I could make people think I liked them and I could make them think I was smart... Everyone always thought I was smart.

I grasp concept a lot faster than most of my peers (now, in college). I outpace actual sociology majors, which is immensely frustrating; I go so far as to challenge the professors and drag them down paths they're forced to admit they have no experience in. I also write really great papers--the kinds that my high school teachers saved and showed to future classes. I can bullshit so many things and get away with it because something about my words is compelling.

So what do I have now? I have a blog where I post snippets of thought; a lot has to do with theory... theory and analysis, theory and criticisms, theory and development, theory and application, theory and praxis. And people like my blog. I've actually got a non-negligible core of followers who regularly engage with me, and my more compelling thoughts reach an intriguing percentage of this niche community.

Maybe what I'm writing is unique? I'd like to believe so, but I don't think it is. I may have years and years of inwards philosophizing about my own perceptions, but I've found time and time again the insights I think are novel have already been explored in the great collection of works I haven't read yet.

Maybe it's just my writing. I mean, I'd believe it. I strive for eloquence and precision and linear logic. Maybe I just say things better than the next user. Other people certainly say things louder, but I have a lot of faith in my written voice. I could just be the equivalent of a tasteful abstract at the start of a really important paper: meaningful and accurate, but nothing like the true wealth of knowledge I haven't even encountered yet.

Or maybe I'm raising a need. Not many people around here write as much as I do on the topics I choose to explore extra extensively. Sometimes I step out of my comfort zone and make the kinds of assertations that inspire public shamings and willful misconstructions. If somebody with more spoons comes around and does a better job than I can, there's not much of a reason for me to fumble around in mediocrity.

What if I've been bullshitting my way through these circles this whole time and nothing I say is actually novel? That would be my greatest fear, is to be the person whose original ideas are actually old news. So many people have had my life experiences and more, not to mention all the people who are better read than I am, who have a greater capacity to think across disciplines or across time.

What if the people who consider me a peer realize I'm 20 and start viewing me as the child I am? I don't have the real world experience of being queer... I've been to one gay bar and I can't even legally drink; I haven't had to look for a career or health insurance while trans; I have no connections to real life kink spaces. I'm just... a thinker.

Logically, I know that it doesn't even matter--I am where I am and I can deal with ambiguity because it's inconsequential. I'll be older someday and I'll properly fit into the "old voices" group, and I'll have earned my authority. I say things that resonate with others and if it's something somebody else has said before, so be it. I'm writing for my own liberation and I'm documenting my own progress and if somebody ends up where I've been in their own journey, they can find their own solace in my work.

But is it even work? Am I doing the wrong thing? Am I trying too hard for something that's not mine?

Is this what imposter syndrome feels like?

[williamlwolf89]

How to Write Comments That Stand Out (for the Right Reasons)

Blog comments are a relic from a bygone era.

That’s the word on the street, isn’t it?

In its heyday, a blog comment was powerful. Write good comments and they could land you on the radar of a popular blogger — the kind of super-connected influencer who could accelerate your success.

But that was then, right?

Today, readers have turned to Facebook and Instagram for their commenting fix. Spammers and trolls have taken over. And, as a result, some blog owners have done what would’ve once been unthinkable: turned off their comments.

So, game over. Blog comments are dead. Stick a fork in them.

Right?

Not so fast.

In 2020, it’s Easier Than Ever to Write Good Comments People Will Notice

Smart bloggers see opportunities where others do not.

Here’s the truth:

Because so many have dismissed blog commenting as an outreach strategy, there’s virtually no competition.

On social media, you’re competing against thousands of followers all vying for the influencer’s attention. Inside inboxes, you’re competing against the dozens or even hundreds of emails they receive every single day.

But in the comments section, you’re competing against crickets and tumbleweeds. And the handful of comments that do exist tend to…

Well, they tend to suck.

And that’s a shame because blog comments are still powerful. They can still land you on the radars of popular bloggers and influencers.

If — and this is the catch — you write high-quality, genuinely-good comments worth noticing.

Unfortunately, this is the part that trips up many bloggers. Nobody taught them how to comment on blogs the right way. Heck, they aren’t even sure what good comments look like.

As a result, many well-intentioned bloggers who still believe in the power of commenting are spending their precious time writing comments they think are great.

In reality?

Their comments probably suck.

Here’s why that’s a problem:

Clumsy Commenters Make Terrible First Dates

Blog commenting is a lot like dating.

You’re trying to woo another person, right?

With dating, you’re trying to woo someone into becoming Mr. or Mrs. Whatever Your Name Is.

With blog commenting, you’re trying to woo the owner of a blog.

You want them to notice you. You want them to reply to your comment. Secretly, you want them to visit and comment on your blog, follow you on social media, and ultimately become your best friend forever.

But is that possible if your comments suck?

Sure, it’s possible…

It’s also possible to stumble into marriage, kids, and a house with a white picket fence even if you turn up to your first date with a mustard stain on your shirt and spinach in your teeth.

But just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s likely.

Free Training: The 31 Most PROFITABLE Niches for Bloggers in 2020

That’s why it’s time to improve your commenting game.

To help you do that, I’m going to share with you the anatomy of a good comment. It’s my tried-and-true template you can follow to craft memorable comments that will get noticed.

Even better: you can apply many of these tips to Facebook comments, Instagram comments, outreach emails, and more.

Let’s dive in.

First, we’ll look at a few rookie mistakes that are sabotaging your blog comments. Avoid these and you’ll be ahead of 90% of the bloggers out there:

The Common Mistakes That Make Blog Comments Suck

Mistake #1: Using a Novelty (or Non-Existent) Gravatar Image

You wouldn’t show up to a first date wearing a disguise, would you? Or wearing a plain paper bag over your head?

So why would you choose an image of Grumpy Cat or Ron Burgundy to represent you in blog comments? Or settle for the faceless silhouette that screams generic nobody?

Instead, let people see the real you.

They will be far more likely to feel a connection with you if they can see your face.

Besides, you know you’re sexy. Show us that smile!

Tip: If your carefully-crafted message is somehow flagged as spammy and held in purgatory (aka comment moderation), a gravatar increases the chances the blog owner will approve your new comment.

Mistake #2: Using a Fake Name (or “Fun” Nickname)

Among your friends and family, you can go by Lil’ Bit, DJ Roomba, Superfly, House of Shane, or any other nickname you choose.

But unless you’re a spy, or in witness protection, you should use your real name on a first date. (Unless, of course, it’s a blind date and Gary Busey sits down at your table.)

The same is true in blog commenting.

Bloggers, just like dates, want to know who’s trying to woo them. And someone who hides behind a pseudonym likely isn’t a long-term prospect.

Mistake #3: Dumping Links in Your Comments

Want WordPress, Disqus, and other commenting systems to know you’re not writing spam comments? Refrain from embedding links in your comments.

Imagine you’re on a date and, halfway through, your date suddenly asks if you have life insurance.

You try to wave it off, but they begin discussing rates and policies with you.

“Oh no,” you think to yourself. “This isn’t a date … this is a sale’s pitch!”

If you embed links in your comments, bloggers are likely to react similarly. It comes across as a cheap attempt to peddle your lemonade on their lawn.

And usually it won’t matter how insightful your fancy words are or how relevant your link may be; the blogger will feel an irresistible urge to kick you off their property.

Mistake #4: Failing to Read the Post Before Commenting

Ever been on a date with someone from Match or eHarmony who didn’t bother to read your profile?

“Do you have any hobbies?” they’ll ask despite your profile’s thousand-word tribute to paper mache. “Fancy a juicy steak?” they’ll suggest despite your publicly stated veganism.

It’s the same with blog commenting. Yes, you’re busy. Yes, reading a post thoroughly before commenting takes time.

Know what else takes time? Getting your foot out of your mouth.

When you comment on a post after skimming it or — worse — not reading it at all, you greatly increase the chances you’ll say something silly.

Mistake #5: Droning On and On (and On)

Some people like the sound of their own voice. Ask them what music they like, and they’ll take you on a 12-minute journey into the minutiae of John Mayer’s latest album.

One-sided conversations on a date aren’t much fun and neither are blog comments that last forever and a day.

A long-winded blog comment, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.Click To Tweet

Many of the best comments are on the longer side, but be careful not to confuse quantity with quality.

A 500-word comment isn’t better than a 100-word comment. It’s usually just five times longer.

(And probably five times more boring.)

Mistake #6: Repeating What the Post Just Said

Ever had a date where the other person repeated everything you said?

You love Kevin Costner movies? So do they.

You adore Mexican food? Yep, them too.

You hate Mondays? They hate Mondays.

I call this kind of parroting a (re)Pete Comment.

It doesn’t add to the conversation. It doesn’t ask questions. And it doesn’t challenge an idea.

It simply repeats what was said in the post.

Summarizing to a point is fine, but your comment needs to be more than the CliffsNotes version of the post you just read.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

The 4 Elements of a Good Blog Comment (Plus: Lots of Examples)

The Friendly Greeting

The Sincere Compliment

The Added Value

The Parting Promise

Now that I’ve inoculated you against writing comments that truly suck, let’s look at the structure of a comment that stands out for all the right reasons.

How do the best comments begin? How do they end? What’s the stuff that goes in the middle?

Here are the essential parts, from top to bottom.

Part #1: The Friendly Greeting

The first thing I look for is personalization. This is so easy, all it takes is to just include the name of the author.Adam Connell

Let’s go back to our dating analogy…

You meet your handsome guy or beautiful gal at a restaurant for your first date. Could they be the one? They don’t look crazy or anything.

Hopeful, you take a deep breath, smile, and say hi.

But instead of greeting you or even acknowledging you, your date just starts talking.

No preamble — they launch right into talking about their day.

Did you know they have a co-worker named Mr. Buttons? Did you know they have a peanut allergy?

You do now.

Memorable date? I suppose.

A date you would like to get to know better? Definitely not.

And yet, every day, thousands of comments are written that do not bother to acknowledge the post’s author in any way, shape, or form.

Do they think robots wrote the post instead of a human being? Do they believe greetings are an outdated ritual? Or are they simply too lazy to scroll back to the top to find the author’s name?

If you’re hoping to catch the attention of bloggers and strike up a relationship, a healthy dose of proper etiquette can go a long way.

So say hello to them.

Greet them.

Refer to them by name.

How To Do It

This one’s so simple, it shouldn’t need an explanation. But here’s how to do it anyway.

Scroll back to the top of the post and find the author’s name. If you are prone to misspellings, copy the name so you can paste it into your comment.

Then say hello. Or hi. Or howdy, if you’re feeling folksy.

You’ll only spend a few seconds to get your comment started on the right foot.

It’s time well spent.

Part #2: The Sincere Compliment

It’s a nice confirmation when an author’s work is validated, and they can see the fruit of their labor.Carol Amato

You meet your date for the first time.

“Wow! I love your outfit,” you might say.

Or, “I really like your car.”

Or even, “Your SpongeBob tattoo is awesome!”

The details are different each time, but the act is the same. When you’re on a date, you pay the other person a compliment. It’s what you do in civilized societies.

Once again, blog commenting isn’t any different.

Remember, you’ve chosen to be on this person’s blog, not someone else’s. You’ve chosen to read their post instead of another. You must have a reason to want to connect with them over any of the other million bloggers you could be trying to connect with at that moment.

Chances are, you like them. You value them. You respect them.

So pay them a compliment…

Tell them how much you enjoyed their great article…

Make their day…

In short, pay them a compliment. Any compliment. Just make sure it’s a sincere compliment.

How To Do It

You can focus on the blogger, the post itself, or a combination of the two.

Are you a fan of the blogger’s body of work? Tell them so. Say how much you enjoy their writing.

Even better? Tell them about a specific example where their writing has helped you.

If you choose to focus on the post itself, talk about a particular point within the post that truly hit home for you.

Did it change your outlook on a topic? Or maybe it motivated you to go out and take action? Did it rock your world?

Tell them so.

Note: In order to sound sincere, refrain from heaping too much praise onto the bloggers themselves. A little praise can go a long way. For this reason, it’s often best to focus on the post rather than the blogger.

(Plus, you don’t want to come across as a creepy stalker.)

Part #3: The Added Value

My favorite comments add extra value to a post. Perhaps they add a personal experience, a different perspective or a new question.Henneke Duistermaat

Now we’re into the meat of what makes a good comment good.

Greeting the author and paying a compliment are nice, but no one cares how good the appetizers are if the main course is a BLT sandwich with no bacon.

Your goal in every comment should be to add value. If your comment doesn’t add value, it’s wasting everyone’s time.

Of course, adding value has become one of those overused and meaningless phrases in the blogging world. Like Sriracha sauce, people tend to throw it around and use it for everything.

What does it actually mean?

In this context, it means doing something that makes you appear valuable — useful, insightful, entertaining, or interesting — to the blogger you’re aiming to woo.

In other words, anything that establishes you as a person worth knowing and helps develop a personal relationship.

You do that by making a positive impression and then building upon it.

Here’s how:

Value Tactic #1: Share Personal Insights or Anecdotes

Did a particular point in the post hit home for you? Did you find something particularly relatable? Or did the post bring up an area in which you’re struggling?

When you share a personal insight, bloggers can more easily relate to you. You’re no longer just an unfamiliar name making a comment that could have been left by anyone…

You’re a blogger with a story!

How To Do It

Don’t worry about channeling Herman Melville; remember, good comments don’t have to be long to be effective.

Amanda Formaro demonstrates this perfectly in her succinct comment about email subscribers.

In the same discussion, Jenn establishes a connection by sharing her struggles.

Don Purdum, meanwhile, enhances the post by sharing the details of a conversation he’d had just days earlier.

The number of ways you can share insights and examples are myriad. But the more personal your insight, the more unique it will be.

And the more unique your insight, the more memorable your comment will be and the more you’ll stand out.

Value Tactic #2: Ask Thoughtful Questions

Was an idea presented in the post that you didn’t fully understand? Maybe you want the author to expand on a certain point?

Asking thoughtful questions is an excellent way to build relationships because it starts a one-on-one conversation with the blogger.

You ask them a question; they answer. It’s pure, simple, poetry in motion. And it’s a great way to introduce yourself to bloggers you enjoy.

How To Do It

Andrew Warner went the inquiry route after reading Andrianes Pinantoan’s blog traffic case study:

Pooja, an excellent writer in her own right, did the same after reading Glen Long’s post on crystal clear writing:

And Gertrude Nonterah, after reading my post on blogging milestones, took the opportunity to ask a question that had been weighing on her:

Sometimes for brevity’s sake, an author won’t fully flesh out a detail in his or her blog post.

So if the article contained a detail you want expanded upon, don’t be afraid to comment and ask.

Value Tactic #3: Contribute To The Discussion

If you want the attention of influencers and blog owners, your comment should add to the conversation.Sue Anne Dunlevie

Were 581 sensory words presented in the post, but you know a good one for #582? Want to flesh out a point discussed in a post about landing freelance writing jobs? How about a detail that wasn’t covered at all?

If your comments enhance the overall value of the post, few bloggers will fail to see the benefit of your contribution. Sometimes they’ll even update their post in light of your comment — which is a major validation of your ideas.

When you write a good comment that adds to the discussion, it often has a domino effect. Others will respond to your comment, which will fuel even more comments.

The result is more people reading and discussing the blogger’s work, which means a higher comment count.

Bloggers love that — and they love the commenters who help make that happen.

How To Do It

A great example of this is the following comment Anne R. Allen left Brian Dean in his blogger outreach post here at Smart Blogger:

Another is the comment Harleena Singh left Will Blunt:

And one of the best examples you’ll ever see is the comment Matthew Harding left on Smart Blogger’s post on blogging milestones. Here is a snippet:

When you add value with a good comment, you’re investing in the blog post.

Bloggers love that. They appreciate it…

They learn from it…

And they remember it.

Part #4: The Parting Promise

I love it when commenters tell me they’ve shared or will share my work. The ideal comment would come from someone who both tells me they’re going to share, and then remembers to tag me when they do.Brittany Bullen

After a successful first date, each person is usually looking for a clue the other enjoyed themselves and a second date is in the cards.

That clue could be a lingering smile. It could be a casual remark about not having any plans the following Saturday. Or it could be the other person actually saying the words, “I enjoyed myself and would like to see you again.”

Whatever form it takes, it sends a message: this date was not just a one-off.

And when wooing a popular blogger, you’d be smart to let them know you’re interested in a longer-term relationship.

That’s why the best comments make a promise at the end. They tell bloggers, “Hey… I enjoyed this so much I want to keep the party going!”

How To Do It

One great way to make a promise is to tell the author you’re going to share the post on your favorite social media platform…

Tell them they’ve written such a good post you have no choice BUT to share it…

Or channel your inner Arnold Schwarzenegger and tell them, “I’ll be back” (to read more of your content)…

But whatever promise you make, be sure to keep it.

Tweet the post like you said you would. Read the blogger’s other posts, and leave more comments. In other words, do exactly what you said you would do.

And when you share the post on your favorite social media platform, be sure to tag the blogger — let them know you followed through…

And if the bloggers are anything like Will Hoekenga, they’ll notice and express their gratitude…

Examples of Blog Comments that Kicked Butt (and The Extra Ingredient They All Share)

So what does a good comment that has each of these elements look like?

It looks a lot like this comment from Adrienne Smith:

And it looks a lot like this comment from Ayodeji Awosika:

Source: How to Make Money Writing: 5 Ways to Get Paid to Write

Adrienne’s and Ayodeji’s comments start with greetings, go straight to compliments, add value, and end on promises.

But beyond that, they add an additional element present in most good comments…

Personality.

Any robot can start a comment with a greeting and end it with a promise.

But for a comment to take the next step, for a comment to get noticed by the blog’s owner or editor, you have to let “you” shine through.

As my friend Jaime Buckley once told me:

“Unless you’re engaging, my eyes will glaze over. We all have a personality, but do you use it? Does it come out in your comments?”

Jaime should know. He’s an expert at letting his personality shine through in his comments:

Source: The 5 Best Free Blogging Platforms

Jaime writes his comments the way he might write an email to a friend.

It’s refreshing and it’s an excellent way to get noticed.

The Rich Rewards That Flow from Carefully Crafted Comments

You may be wondering at this point…

Is it worth it?

Is it worth putting all this time and thought into blog comments?

It was worth it for me.

Years ago, I left the following comment on a post published on this very website, Smart Blogger:

I greeted the author by name, complimented his work, added value, and promised to share his post on the now-defunct Google Plus.

A week later, after Smart Blogger published a new post, I left another comment:

Another greeting, another compliment, another piece of added value, and another promise.

The next week, I did it again:

And again the next week. And the next. Over and over, again and again.

Each week, week after week, I visited Smart Blogger, read their latest masterpiece, and left them a good comment.

Smart Blogger’s editor at the time, Glen Long, took notice:

A few months later, Glen invited me to become a guest writer:

This invitation led to my first post for Smart Blogger…

…which led to several more.

Fast forward a few years and Jon Morrow, the company’s CEO, invited me to join Smart Blogger as its Editor-in-Chief.

Today, I run the blog I admired and followed for so many years. I get to work for and alongside my mentors, Jon and Glen. I get to fulfill my dream of quitting the rat race and blogging full-time.

And I have comments to thank for setting the wheels in motion:

Your mileage can and will vary.

But if you need proof blog commenting can lead to wonderful things, look no further.

Let’s Find Out Where Good Comments Can Take You

It won’t happen overnight. And, clearly, good comments alone won’t catapult you to world domination.

But they’re an effective, often-overlooked component — especially now that so many bloggers think they’ve gone the way of the dodo.

In a sea of sameness, good comments with personality stand out like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels at a charity gala for the preservation of the endangered Icelandic snow owl.

They’re capable of getting influential bloggers to sit up, take notice, and ask themselves: “Who is that?”

So, are you ready for a new era of smarter commenting?

Are you ready to discover where good comments can take you?

Then let’s do this thing.

Note: For a handy visual reminder of the four-part formula you can download or share on your own website, check out the image below:

Embed This Infographic On Your Site:

<!—– Copy and Paste This Code Into Your Post —-><a href=”https://smartblogger.com/blog-comments/”><img src=”https://smartblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/blog-comments-infographic.png” alt=”How to Write Comments That Stand Out (for the Right Reasons) from SmartBlogger.com” width=”700 px” class=”noa3lazy”/></a><br /><a href=”https://smartblogger.com/blog-comments/”>How to Write Comments That Stand Out (for the Right Reasons) from SmartBlogger.com</a>

The post How to Write Comments That Stand Out (for the Right Reasons) appeared first on Smart Blogger.

from SEO and SM Tips https://smartblogger.com/blog-comments/

[sandralmuller]

Using Facebook and Instagram like a superstar

One of the things I love about organising The Great Melbourne Blog-in is that I get to shape the event. At September’s blog in, I got to question Catherine and Cherie from The Digital Picnic about all things Facebook and Instagram during our Q&A panel. You know that glorious moment when you have all these questions simmering in the back of your mind and then suddenly you’re face-to-face with some very generous social media experts and you get to ask them all those questions? Yes, that moment. It was awesome!

Social media experts Catherine and Cherie from The Digital Picnic. Oh, and that’s me in the middle.

Pin it to read later

Running a Facebook page

Best tips for running an engaging Facebook page #Facebook #FacebookPage #SocialMediaStrategy Click To Tweet

As most people are aware (except those that make this critical error) one of the biggest mistakes Facebook page owners make is using it as a dumping ground for self-promotion. Using Facebook page only as an advertising platform is not what gains you engaged fans and followers. You need to draw back the curtain and put yourself out there. Show some of the back end of your business. Make your page about your audience and what they want.

As a copywriter, this makes sense to me – know your audience, what are their pain points, how can you address them, sell the benefits and not the features yadda yadda yadda.

Since the blog-in, I’ve created a schedule for my Silk Interiors Facebook page. This page supports my eCommerce site Silk Interiors, where I sell wallpaper online. My plan includes a mix of:

design quotes

inspo photos/eye candy

recycled blog posts

decorating and styling tips

videos

FB live

before and after home makeovers

celebrity style

discounts and sales happening in Australia

memes

questions

our wallpaper products.

My next step is to use the native Facebook scheduling app to schedule content to post each day for a full month. Doing it in one big batch will save a lot of time, even though it will take some time to curate and schedule the content, but I’ve made a BIG list of sources (I’ll blog about how I find them another day), which will be a great help. I’ll monitor the engagement metrics via Facebook’s ‘Insights‘ dashboard and see which post types perform well and I’ll experiment with different times of the day.

Whatever you plan, test, test, test and figure out what works best for your business.

If you have any plans, even a very vague and distant plan to use Facebook Ads, install the Facebook pixel into the header of any or all pages on your website you wish to track. This means setting up a Facebook business account and grabbing some code to paste into your website (very easy to do with a plugin if you’re using WordPress). The FB pixel is a sneaky little thing. It gives you the data to show your ads only to people who have visited your website in the past, for example. It helps you target people already interested in your business. You can also create ads to target users in the same demographic as your website visitors. Ooooh. Sneaky sneaky. And perhaps a bit creepy…

Have you installed the Facebook Pixel yet? #SocialMediaStrategy #FacebookPage Click To Tweet

Facebook. Knows. Everything… my business bestie and I were chatting on Facebook Messenger about awnings (totes random, I know) and then we both started seeing ads for awnings in our newsfeed. We hadn’t visited any awning or blind sites or visited awning pages. In fact, in our Messenger chat, we were coming up with the most random thing we could think of in that conversation. And then there were ads for awnings. Just saying.

What I learnt about Facebook Live videos

Pre-promote your Facebook Live session so you won’t chicken out. If you’re running a Facebook Live Q&A session, give people a chance to prepare their questions that you (hopefully) can answer. As a Facebook Live novice, I’m not sure what’s worse though – people turning up or people not turning up!

Pre-plan what you’re going to say. Always have something to talk about. Talk about something before you get into the guts of your video to give people a chance to join you, live. If they’re following you, they’ll get a notification to say that you’re live.

Avoid the wobbles and use a tripod for your Facebook Live videos #FacebookLive #FacebookTips Click To Tweet

It’s best to set-up your video on a tripod so your video is steady. A steady camera can also save you a lot of data – those micro wobbles when you hold your phone camera create a fatter video file. Not that I have to worry about data here in Korea, but a tripod will give your FB video a more professional look. I tend to swing my body from side to side while my head remains stable-ish when I do Facebook Live videos. I don’t know why. Perhaps that’s where my nerves manifest. Or I’m just a weirdo.

After you finish your Facebook live video, you can upload it and then change the video thumbnail. For laughs, Youtube and Facebook are in some kind of conspiracy to make sure they choose a thumbnail where you look your absolute worst.

See what I mean? Worst thumbnail choice ever! Excruciating for me… and the potential viewer. I look so bored with my own FB Live vid I’m falling asleep on myself.

But it’s easy to change it.

On the video post, click on those three dots on the top right… then click on ‘Edit post’.

Next, scroll through the available thumbnails and hopefully, there’s one that looks like you haven’t just eaten a sour lemon or are about to pass out. But if that fails, add your own custom image.

While you’re on that screen, you can add metadata to your post to help it get found more easily in Facebook’s search engine.

After you’ve uploaded your Facebook live video, go through the comments and respond to any questions people have. This will give your post a bit of a boost. The more comments (including your own) the more reach your video will get.

If you’re happy with the video, you could also consider using it in a Facebook Ad.

What I learnt about (non-live) videos on Facebook

If you’re going to add your video to Youtube, don’t share a link to the Youtube video with your Facebook audience. Instead, for better reach, upload the video directly to Facebook. Apparently, Facebook loves native video content. Of course, this makes sense. Facebook wants to retain as much ad revenue as possible. Keeping users ON Facebook and not sending them away to the Adsense share of the market is the sensible thing to do if you’re Facebook.

For greater reach, upload your video direct to Facebook, not via a Youtube link #FacebookTips Click To Tweet

Also, consider using a square format for your video as this is becoming really popular – people are used to and expecting the Instagram size and style of videos.

Don’t share everything between Instagram and Facebook or your audience, if they follow you on both platforms, will start to look like me in that thumbnail picture above. Yawn. I think it’s lazy social media-ing when businesses do that. Especially when you’re confronted with a face full of Insta hashtags on Facebook. I’m petty like that. Mix it up and share your video on Instagram a different day (or at least a different time of the day) then when you published your Facebook post.

I need to start a Facebook group and so do you

At a past TGMBI event, Linda Reed-Enever talked about building a Facebook Group to support your business or blog. I won’t rehash those bits, but it’s a timely reminder that if you share your Facebook page’s post to your Facebook group, it sends powerful signals to Facebook’s algorithms and can help increase the reach of your post even beyond the group.

I’m still considering what my FB Group will be about, how it fits with my brand and vision for my business and who I want in it besides my business besties. But first I need to schedule content, experiment and evaluate my Facebook plan.

Stay out of the naughty corner

Something else I learnt just this week is that Facebook has legislated yet another reason to put your page in the naughty corner – not disclosing sponsored or affiliate links. Facebook calls it ‘Branded Content’.

If you’re doing sponsored posts or publishing, as Facie puts it, content that features or is influenced by a business partner for an exchange of value, you need to tag the business partners in your branded content posts. But it’s not that simple. So you can do this, first you have to sign up for Branded Content within the Business Manager section of FB and be approved. If you’re publishing branded content (by Facebook’s definition) and not disclosing your relationship with the company, then you could find yourself in the FB naughty corner. This has happened to someone I know I know in a Facebook group just this week.

You can identify Branded Content posts because they have the small text ‘Paid’ whacked next to the time stamp of a post. This is different to posts you pay to boost where it says ‘Sponsored’. Other than that, I’m not sure what it all means, yet! You can read more about Facebook’s Branded Content tool and laws here.

What I learnt about Instagram

LinkTrees! AKA where had you been all my life/why didn’t I think of that.

Solve the 'link in bio' dilemma with a LinkTree @Linktree_ #instagramtips #linktree Click To Tweet

You know how you have to write something like Link in bio on your Instagram post and then update every single time you promote a new page or post or product? So annoying. Well, enter the Link Tree. You put one link in your bio that goes to a landing page where you include ALL your links. There’s even a website you can outsource your link management to – LinkTr.ee. (I wrote more about this tip in my recent post What to do after you publish a blog post.) You could also host a link tree page on your own website.

Instagram Stories – you need to be there and in the regular ole newsfeed. Your ‘story’ only lasts for 24 hours, but now that Instagram is no longer chronological, it’s your best bet for getting noticed at the top of someone’s Insta feed.

Look at your insights. What are the peak times and WHY are they the peak times? Look into the reasons why certain posts are popular than others.

If you haven’t already set yourself up with a business profile, it’s easy to switch from a personal to a business profile – here’s how. You’ll need a business profile to access your account’s insights.

Until recently, I’d only been using the image tools like Filters in Instagram on my pictures. Then I discovered an app called Fotor. The basic version is free. You can use the app or the desktop website to manipulate your images to make them look gorgeouser. I must admit, I’m a bit visually illiterate, but with Fotor, I’ve been having fun experimenting with image manipulation.

Get your images Instagram ready with the Fotor app @fotor_com #instagramtips #photoediting Click To Tweet

To illustrate my point, here the original photo I took.

And here’s the edited version. How much cooler and more interesting does this second image look?

Final words on social media-ing

Ultimately, when it comes to sharing content, be endearing to your audience. Maybe even a bit vulnerable. Be relatable. Suprise and delight your audience.

Thank you, Cat and Cherie, for sharing your time and knowledge.  If anyone wants to improve their social media skills, then you need to attend one of their online or in-person social media courses – and not just in Melbourne. These savvy social media experts travel!

Have you experimented with anything on social media lately? Any success or spectactular fails to share? Let me know in the comments below.

Using Facebook and Instagram like a superstar was originally published on Sandra Muller

[polyrolemodels]

How Representation Works...or Doesn't

How Representation Works...or Doesn't A Follow-Up

In the early afternoon of Thursday May 11th, I got an email from a colleague. First, she congratulated me on my upcoming book about the intersection of race and polyamory, then she congratulated me on my appearance in the New York Times. The piece, Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?, had just been published that morning. The congrats were both a friendly greeting and a way to lead into the real content of the email while also saying, “I see you there, Kev. Doing big things.”

The true purpose of the email was to ask if I'd be interested in taking part in a round table about family and parenting. Eventually, I would respond that I was indeed interested. But before I had a chance to even read that email, I received a second one from the same colleague. Delivered only eleven minutes after the first, it simply read “Oh my gosh, Kevin! I just read the article. You must be upset. I’m so sorry!” While this wasn't the way my day started, it pretty much encapsulated how the whole day went. Boundless excitement followed quickly by frustrating disappointment.

My wife and I contributed to Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage? because our names were thrown into consideration by Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, the authors of Designer Relationships: A Guide to Happy Monogamy, Positive Polyamory, and Optimistic Open Relationships. Mark and Patricia are familiar with the impact nonmonogamy has on our family and our work regarding race and polyamory. Logically, they thought we'd offer some insightful perspective to such a piece. And what a mainstream piece! I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t factored into my decision to participate. My Poly Role Models blog, while a fairly popular free resource, couldn’t hope to hit the broadcast range of even the lowliest New York Times article. An increased readership could help countless people find their way to and through ethical non-monogamy. Unfortunately, any perspective I could add or range I could reach is buried beneath a sad story of floundering marriages. To be clear, the sad story of floundering marriages are both valid and valuable. My work definitely covers that as well. But it covers more than that...and therein lies the problem.

Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage? is predominantly the story of a married couple, Elizabeth and Daniel, who have grown dissatisfied in their lives together. Their mismatched libidos create an unbearable strain on what was otherwise a happy union. If you’ve ever been in a similar situation, you understand. Sexual incompatibility is such a weighty factor that it can severely hamper strong relationships; even if it’s the sole stressor. In response to the growing displeasure, Daniel researched ethical non-monogamy and discussed it with his wife. What followed was not ethical non-monogamy.

Elizabeth shot the idea down. Only to find romance with a new fellow anyway. First, behind her husband’s back, then to his face without his willful participation...despite his pain. The guy Elizabeth took up with? He was also unhappily married and cheating on his spouse. He didn’t even have the benefit of an unresolved conversation about the vague possibility of opening his marriage to use as a justification. Look, I’m not judging. Unreasonable expectations of exclusivity, in the face of incompatible sex drives, need to be discussed.  Partners that come to ethical non-monogamy by way of infidelity needs to be discussed. These are already being discussed. In fact, the idea that ethical and consensual non-monogamy are just the product of unhappy marriages is already the predominant narrative. We've heard these stories before. They get pushed out to mainstream media every few months and frankly it's gotten boring.

It’s clear that Susan Dominus has a specific story that she is trying to tell. But I question who that really serves. The non-monogamous newcomers, who don’t fit this couple-centric view, won’t find any love here. In this article, they are either outsiders or at the whim of a shaky marriage that views them as a crutch. Even those who do fit in the coupled model, on display here, don’t have much to look forward to. The stable and happy couples featured are virtually voiceless in this article. What little speech we’re given is limited to seemingly reluctant acceptance of the situation we’ve found ourselves in.

The name of the article challenges the traditional views on marriage with the idea of a happier alternative. So, where was that? I know you’re not supposed to read the comments section, but I did. What I found was dozens of people remarking about how unhappy people are in open marriages… how easy it is to spot which partner is into it and which is just going along with it… how it’s all just about finding excuses to cheat. That’s the story these readers came into this article believing. With all of it’s sad photos and stories of even sadder partnerships, those readers are left with a pretty solid confirmation of their pre-established attitudes. For those with lived experience inside of ethical non-monogamy, we are left with yet another narrowed view on a life we know to be both varied and vibrant.

As someone who provides a platform for dozens of true accounts of ethical non-monogamy, I’ve learned that each one resonates with those who need to find themselves and their experiences validated. Obviously, you can’t tell every story in a single article but then why gather a wealth of resources that serve to expand the perspective? Authors like Eve Rickert, Franklin Veaux, Patricia Johnson, and Mark Michaels were all consulted and left out. Twelve thousand words are a lot of space to flesh out an idea. Especially with tons of time and energy spent on taking photos of the whole shebang. With the bulk of the content focused on unphotographed people using aliases, why were our names and faces used... only to ignore our observations?

Now, I’m not flat out saying that my wife and I are only included as token people of color. I am challenging anyone to show me what the difference would be if we were. Our voices are mostly unused, but our faces are pretty prominent in a photo that shocked the people in our lives. One friend said it is the saddest they’ve ever seen either of us look. Another said that, without context, they would’ve believed all of the photos to be from a story about divorce. A visual storyline to match the narrative of non-exclusive but unsatisfying marriages.

In the case of sexuality, the article is almost devoid of mentions… except in regard to the single gay couple, Logan and Robert. Though there was valuable insight in the bit of text dedicated to their perspective, their voices were mostly left out as well. In an article that read as extremely heteronormative, there were no occurrences of the words “lesbian”, “bisexual”, “pansexual”, “queer”, or “trans”. There were six mentions of the word “gay”. Five in a single paragraph containing a reference to gay advice columnist Dan Savage and the two sentences from one of that couple’s husbands. The sixth “gay” is some dude’s name. Again, maybe Logan and Robert are not included as token LGBT representation. But how would it have looked differently otherwise?

What we’re missing is proper representation. Better representation. At least better than having our identities used as a prop to tell a story that doesn’t see us or accurately reflect us. At least better than an edgy title that doesn’t even bother to get out of it’s own way. By which I mean, letting a story write itself with the pieces you put together. A great example of which would be Daniel Krieger’s Polyamorous People feature for Narratively’s People of Interest series. In which, Krieger trusted his subjects to be both interesting and honest without trying to force either. The results are a much wider set of experiences, along a broader range of personal identities, done in roughly a quarter of the word count.

The ideal solution to any of our image problems is simply to tell our own stories. Non-monogamy already bucks convention by its very nature. We come from all walks of life and practice our lifestyles in countlessly diverse ways. We don’t need to be made into a compelling story. We already are. The story isn’t how we exist, it’s that we exist. All we need to do is open our mouths to speak our own truths. When someone on the outside of us attempts to speak for us, regardless of the platform, they carry in their preconceived notions...and worse they carry their desire to shoehorn us into those notions. While I thank and appreciate the New York Times for trying, what they gave us was not nearly what was promised or expected or needed.

But, hey… I guess it could be worse. At least there weren’t any stock photos of three pairs of white feet sticking out from under a white duvet.

[nora-reads-homestuck]

"Fan" Album, old archived posts by Hussie, some videos, and two actual Fanworks!

(SkaiaMechanic) Another Fanfest Post! What Nora responded to here was actually done back in December. However, various parts were incomplete (for reasons you’ll see) so this just sat around in the Google Doc for months. It’s getting to a point where it’s just clogging up the shared document, so I’m posting what’s here and will make additional posts based on the rest of the content when/if she gets to them. Enjoy!

brrrrrrrrd submitted to nora-reads-homestuck:

Visual art has never really been my thing, and other people have been far better at sharing pre-Act 6 art than I could be, but I can submit a few things you may have missed.  They’re all somewhat dubiously labeled “fanwork” being that most of them made by either members of the music team or Hussie himself, but I don’t know of any better time to post them.  

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Before we get into the meat of this post, there is one more “fan” album you are current on.  It came out just a week after Act 6 began and has no songs about anything from it.  It’s called Tomb of the Ancestors and is by Kalibration (aka Robert Blaker) who also wrote Upward Movement (Dave Owns), Skaian Flight, Play the Wind, and Ira Quod Angelus, among other things.  https://homestuckgaiden.bandcamp.com/album/tomb-of-the-ancestors-unofficial-album 

There’s nothing more recent than Nov. 17th, 2011 on that page.

(Past!Skaia) As a single person fan-album, it’s not necessary to review this, at least not now. If you were going to, I would suggest holding onto it for later, when the amount of music albums in the story dramatically drops off.

(Nora) I agree, and will hold off for now! Album reviews actually take me a while to get finished because I can only listen to things at certain times, and I want to save my steam for meatier posts right now.

———————————————————————————

Most of this stuff is stuff that has previously been deleted by Hussie or hidden by the original poster, so if that’s not kosher then feel free to skip down to the section below this one.  A little background:  Hussie at previous points in time had both a Formspring and a Tumblr on which he would talk about various things Homestuck, and other various things.  He also has a nasty habit of deleting old things, meaning a LOT of his old posts are gone and most of them only exist as archives.  Here’s some of that stuff, most which was posted before Act 6 or if it was posted during only very early on and not referencing events of Act 6.

To start things off, the origin story of Hussie’s horse painting.  This one actually still exists, but the images are broken:  https://web.archive.org/web/20140408053025/http://andrewhussie.blogspot.com/2009/01/need-for-steed.html

(Nora) I’ve seen this one before, but I read it again and I think I guffawed just as hard, if not harder. Hussie has quite the way with words… and homoeroticism.

Hussie’s infamous trip to Olive Garden: https://web.archive.org/web/20130312060633/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/12963616983/land-of-souls-and-olives-a-conclusion-pasta-la-vista

Olive Garden part 2: https://web.archive.org/web/20130312060012/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/13585722775/land-of-souls-and-olives-a-conclusion-plmfers-part

(Nora) Trix once suggested I audio react to these. Would that be a good idea?

(Past!Skaia) Nah, just read them through. It’s definitely worth a read, but nothing more than that. (Current!Skaia: As of 3/5/17, there’s no indication whether she’s gone through it or not. I’ll keep it in the GoogleDoc just in case though.)

The post-Cascade recap part 1, in which he talks about the the process of creating it and then the content of it.  Really great insight into his creation process:  http://web.archive.org/web/20111028175330/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11938555890/about-eoa5-part-1

Cascade recap part 2: http://web.archive.org/web/20111028222551/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11941710181/about-eoa5-part-2

Recap part 3: http://web.archive.org/web/20120801112223/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11960418585/about-eoa5-part-3

Recap part 4: http://web.archive.org/web/20111029142442/http://mspandrew.tumblr.com/post/11975241895/about-eoa5-part-4

There are more posts on his tumblr if you go to the archive and and mess around with the Wayback Machines captures, including a reddit AMA that for some reason only collected the questions from reddit and answered them on tumblr.  But that’s for a point much later in the comic.

(Nora) Huh! Fascinating read-through. I enjoyed him talking about the process in particular (he makes it seem deceptively simple, doesn’t he, considering the lion’s share of the comic was a completely solo project banged out at a nearly inhuman pace). It hadn’t occurred to me that [S] Descend was actually scored, as opposed to simply animated to existing music, which is a bit embarrassing since it is obviously a medley. I also like what he says when he clarifies Doc Scratch’s means and motive—it’s basically exactly what I’d surmised from reading all his conversations. That tricky, tricky bastard. I am however still mystified by the Horrorterrors, and neither does Hussie seem keen to provide a real explanation for their actions:

The dark gods helped chart their course through this spacetime maze to deliver them to this location, at this time. Take that for what you will

(Nora) Also… why the hell did I not ever realize that Lord English is literally a giant green space pimp??? He’s got the gold tooth, the horrible gaudy coat, the pimp cane cue stick peg leg…

First of all, [Jade] didn’t actually conjure the 4th wall out of thin air. Remember when Karkat told her to turn the wall off, and then draw it? He was asking her to captchalogue an undamaged copy using her Pictionary modus, for this exact purpose. The eventual getaway. So she had it on standby, waiting for the right time to use it.

(Nora) Ohhhhh. OHHHHHHHH. Wow, this whole plan was even more convoluted than I thought, and with the whole password system and all, it was already pretty damn convoluted.

What’s waiting for them on the other side, beside a big ugly coat? Recall the setup I had with the two 4th walls facing each other, separated by one yard. They will break through the wall on the right, traveling nearly the speed of light, and presumably, break through the wall on the left to enter another reality. If you were thorough during Seer: Descend, you might have caught this excerpt on a bookshelf. “Though we adore Him we shall never enjoy His beauteous Croak. We spill our blood on acres of black and white so they may cross the yellow yard. At last in Skaia’s reflection through broken glass He may find the pond in which He’s meant to squat.”

(Nora)You may recall that when I played through the minigame, upon coming across that excerpt I said the following:

(PastPast!Nora) ….’They’ may cross the ‘yellow yard’? This must be referring to Hussie’s aforementioned interference with the story. It’s pretty abstruse, but I feel like it’s telling me something that I’m going to come back and go ‘OHHHH’ over, when I’ve seen more of the story.

(Nora) Consider me motherfuckin’ OHHHH’ed.

However, speaking of AMAs, Hussie’s Formspring was essentially a year and a half long AMA and most if not all of the questions answered there have been compiled here:  http://irratio.org/andrew_hussie_formspring_archives.html

Most of the early questions are inane, but after a while (after he stops answering everything that comes across his message box) there’s some really great responses in there (and some really funny jokes.)  Only thing is, it is *LONG* and will take a really long time to get through.  It went on from late February of 2010 to early October of 2011, with the last responses being around the beginning of the pause during work on Cascade.

(Past!Skaia) It truly is long. Kinda worth it though, and amusing to see Hussie’s actual trolling. 

(Nora) Hahahaha, Hussie is a troll and I love him.

Who do you think should be the next president of the United States?

dumb

(Nora) Welp, consider that one prophetic.

Once there is a reasonable number of strips, is there any chance of a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff book with commentary by Dave Strider?

yeah

(Nora) That one too, I guess.

When do you think HS will be over?

ive been considering ending it on 8/26/10.

but who the hell knows if that’ll pan out.

(Nora) AHAHAHAHA. HAHAHAHA. AHAHA. HA.

(Nora) I’m going to leave it here for now, as there are SO MANY DAMN QUESTIONS and I really ought to finish my text post.

(Past!Skaia)Sounds good. Once you finish the post above I’ll set up a queue for your responses to the messages above.

(Current!Skaia) This was the main reason I held onto this post. It’s no telling when she’ll get back to this though, so I’m posting what I have. I’ll keep the link in the document, and if she ever does go back to read and comment more I’ll make some more posts!

———————————————————————————

Enough decidedly *not* fanworks, here’s some things you might possibly call fanworks!  If you can call things made by Bowman or Toby Fox fanworks.  And bonus actual fanworks!

(Current!Skaia) I have not shown Nora any of the below. I think…they’re not really necessary? Except Savior of the Slamming Jam, obviously, but that’s also in a submission she hasn’t gotten to yet. If enough people think she “needs” to see them I’ll pass it along but otherwise I’m just leaving it here.

A concert in someone’s front yard!  http://www.nospoiler.com/y/HRT758PTmpw

Toby Fox’s Homestuck Abridged!  [Removed for Giant Spoilers!]

An actual fanwork, Savior of the Slamming Jam! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/CKrO8kS8D6g

Chorale for Jaspers & Pony Chorale, Live! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/o0Z0oopPGpM

I’m a Member of the Midnight Crew, Live! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/xR5vN0ve4lY

How Do I Live, live! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDSEXd4KyO8

Actual fanwork, Club’s Deuce’s Homework! http://www.nospoiler.com/y/dLo22lvynNg

And two shitpost videos by Bowman:

1) Cascade announcement (can’t no spoiler link to this one, but comments are disabled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o4NvBz8xac

2) “Toby Fox” is now on YouTube (can’t no spoiler link to this one either, unfortunately.  Still, comments disabled):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=WL&v=pA9uy3KdeEU

———————————————————————————

I don’t think I have anything else at this time that either definitely has spoilers or possibly does due to having come out squarely in 2012 or later.

[alfredtangphoto]

Stemple Creek Ranch Wedding - Marin County Wedding // Genevieve & Juoko, Tomales, California

“What would you tell yourselves (as a couple) in 40-50 years from now?” Genevieve & Jouko: Don’t forget to take your teeth out at night and don’t forget to put on your night diaper.

Now, that is love and this is marriage. A commitment to knowing, learning and facing the realities of truths of growing old together. Dealing with whatever life throws at you. Together.

Genevieve & Jouko bonded over otters (her spirit animal and he happened to be a wildlife photographer who love capturing these little critters. He grew fond of her obsession with cats, bonded more over food, hiking, reading and all things creative. Their wedding at the beautiful Stemple Creek Ranch in Tomales, California (which also is one of my favorite ranches for organic grass-fed beef) is the perfect template to celebrate and put on a display of their personalities and union of love.

These two are definitely unique and sweet individuals who are unapologetically themselves. They love each other exactly as who they are as individuals- accepting all the great things and flaws that comes one another. Like with every couple on their wedding day, I had the privilege to witness and observe how effortless their relationship was. Their wedding in Northern California reflected their unique taste and vision. All of the thrills without the frills.

Check out their engagement video by Yukio Studio to catch a glimpse of their personalities and relationship. This will help further understand their wedding day and offer a deeper insight into the emotions of this day. There was no posing these two and they wanted to celebrate the only way they know how and I was just privileged to be there to celebrate and document their day with them.

Okay, let’s take a bit of a deeper dive in the the wedding venue that is Stemple Creek Ranch and the other wedding vendors. Geneviev and Jouko put a lot of thought and planning to bring together these awesome vendors and they definitely deserve the shoutouts. I know if I was planning my wedding, I’d use them! Samar from Blissful Events, based out of Petaluma, California helped put together and organized everything. It’s not unusual for wedding day plans and timelines to have to be adjusted on the day of, but with Blissful Events in coordination with the wedding venue manager, everything went off without a hitch.

The beautiful wedding cake was a friend of Genevieve’s as I believe she (the cake-maker) is a school teacher. But to see her build the cake from the bottom up and the dedication she put into it was inspiring. It’s also another example into the type of people Genevieve & Jouko surrounds themselves with.

The stunning floral arrangements? None other than B-Side Farm Flowers in Sebastopol, West Sonoma County, California who grows their own flowers. They use sustainable and organic methods to grow a wide variety of old-fashioned, fragrant flowers for their design studio, workshops and of course, weddings. By going this route and putting in the back-breaking work, B-Side Farm Flowers is invested before even planting the seed all the way down to the putting on the finishing touches on the bridal’s bouquet just before walking down the aisle.

It wouldn’t be a Genevieve & Jouko wedding if they didn’t include knitted cat-shaped book marks as their wedding favors. Genevieve made all 100+ herself! Though I believe her mom did have a helping hand. Notice the otters as their wedding cake toppers? What a special touch!

And lastly, they had to include their cat, Wildred into their wedding as part of the family. But in the form of a cardboard cutout. Why is Jouko making that expression in the image of them holding Wildred up? It was in response to what Wildred would be doing if he were actually there with them on their wedding day. 😂

I’m sure I’ve missed a few important details. So please wedding vendors, feel free to correct me and add to the conversation in the comment section below. Maybe even reach out to Samar at Blissful Events!

I mean, just check out this stunning natural wedding ceremony site at Stemple Creek Ranch! What a beautiful grove of Eucalyptus trees. And the stunning arrangement of crystals and floral arrangements made for the perfect scenery to get married under.

One thing I loved about how Genevieve & Jouko made this wedding about them was during the walking down the aisle. Their respective parents walked them halfway down. And from there, Jouko and then Genevieve would walk themselves to rest of the way to the alter. To them, this signifies them being their own person walking into the next phase of their lives.

The wedding ceremony was a beautiful one. Their personal vows to one another was well-written with a poetic vibe. Nothing but support and encouragement for one another. Jouko’s father flew in from Germany and gave a beautiful tribute to his son and new daughter-in-law. The officiant was just as well-spoken and I can still remember his words of wisdoms on the windy hilltop. The cowboy hat was a nice touch as he displayed a true gentleman that he is - ducking back “out of the shot” whenever possible.

Something about that California light at sunset and especially at Stemple Creek Ranch’s rock outcrop. The venue manager mentioned it’s a popular spot for wedding portraits and I can see why! Can you? And as I mentioned earlier in this blog, there is no posing Genevieve & Jouko. They are unapologetically themselves and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way on their wedding day.

I was sad that I wasn’t contracted to stay into the reception, but I’m sure it was filled with nothing but love, celebration and a beautiful tribute to these two wonderful and unique individuals. Happy One Year Anniversary, Genevieve & Jouko!!!

[bettydgunter90]

083: “If Only I Had Known!” – What Every Rookie Land Investor Ought to Know

  Wouldn’t it be great if we could travel back in time and give ourselves advice based on the information we know today?

Just imagine how much faster you’d be able to focus on what works and stop struggling on the paths that lead nowhere.

In this episode, Jaren and I are talking about the things we wished we had known back when we started our land businesses. Everything from the value of experience to the importance of time management, and a whole lot in between.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a time machine, but the next best thing we can do is learn from our mistakes.

I think this conversation will be particularly helpful for anybody who is thinking about getting into the land business or who is already in it, but still in the “beginner phase”.

And for people who have been in the business for a while, you’ll probably agree with a lot of the stuff we’re going to cover here. Likewise, if you have other things you want to contribute to what we’re talking about, you’re more than welcome to do that in the comments at the bottom of this page!

Links and Resources

How to Build a Buying Website

A Closer Look at My Blind Offer Template

Profit First Changed My Life. It Will Change Yours Too.

REtipster Land Coaching

Why Seller Financing Makes Sense

Kolbe Index A Test

How to Close a Cash Land Transaction In-House (Full DIY Instructions!)

How Land Investors Can Leverage the Power of Real Estate Agents

I Just Paid Off My House. Am I Smart or Stupid?

048: Investing in Belize Real Estate – Upsides and Risks

Share Your Thoughts

Leave a note in the comments section below!

Share this episode on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn (social sharing buttons below!)

Help out the show:

Leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts Your ratings and reviews really help (and I read each one).

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Thanks again for joining me this week. Until next time!

Right-click here and “Save As” to download this episode to your computer.

Episode 83 Transcription

Seth: Hey, everybody. How’s it going? This is Seth Williams and Jaren Barnes with the RETipster podcast. And today you’re listening to episode 83. In this episode, it’s just Jaren and I, and we’re going back and forth on an interesting topic. We’re talking about the key things that we wish we had known about land investing back when we got started.

I think this will be particularly helpful for anybody who is thinking about getting into the land business or anybody who’s sort of already in it, but they’re kind of in the beginner phase, like maybe you’re in your first year. And for people who have been in the business for a while, I think you’ll probably find this kind of interesting as well. You’ll probably agree with a lot of the stuff we’re saying. And if you have other things you want to contribute to what we’re talking about here, you’re more than welcome to do that in the comments which you can find in the show notes at retipster.com/83.

So, we’re just going to jump into the things that we wish we had been better aware of, because I think everybody out there can kind of relate whenever you decide to get into a new business like this, you usually make that decision based on the highlights. Like the really great things about the business that you were told or that you were led to believe. Most of that stuff is like totally true and legit, but the stuff that you’re not really told about, or you don’t really figure out until you just start doing it, it’s like, “Oh, I see. Well, that kind of stinks. That’s not fun.”

This is just a reality of life. I mean, this happens with literally everything. Think of any product you’ve ever bought, any business you’ve ever tried. Anything. There are always these downsides or downers. It’s not necessarily just downers, but just things that would have been really helpful. If we had known better. I probably could have made better decisions or chose to focus our energy on certain things rather than others. So, we’re just going to pick apart some of the first things that come to mind for us. I’ve got my own little list and Jaren has his list as well. So, we’re going to go through that.

Jaren: I’m really excited because like you said, I think that this is going to be very insightful for people who are just getting started or are in the beginning phases of their land business.   Seth: Why don’t you kick it off? What’s the first thing that comes to mind for you?

Jaren: So, for me, the very first thing I wish I knew when starting my land business was the time that it takes to sell a property in land. Now I have sold property within five days of it being listed on the market. So, I’m not saying that it’s impossible to sell property faster than this, but I found that on average, I sell properties within three to six months. And I used to get really frustrated when I was doing everything right, doing everything according to what everybody says you’re supposed to do. Listing on Facebook marketplace on Zillow and buy-sell trade groups and Land Wash and Craigslist and the whole thing. But I wasn’t selling property. I thought that there was something wrong with me or there was something wrong with what I was doing. And I was doing everything right. I just needed time.

And so that’s for me, the biggest mindset shift that I had to adjust to within land compared to houses. Because when you’re coming off of working at Simple Wholesaling and the wholesaling space in Indianapolis, I mean, if we were holding onto a property for more than a month, we had a bad deal on our hands and it was very costly.

And so, for me to adjust and say, “Oh, okay. If I have inventory for three to six months, I’m fine.” Like, I don’t even touch, adjust the price or touch a header on like a listing or any of that for at least three to four months, I don’t even consider it because it takes longer to sell, at least in my business.

Now I want to say a big caveat out there. People might have other types of businesses and markets might be completely different but for my experience, both in Indiana and in Florida, it’s been more so that I’ve had to wait three to six months on average to sell a property. And having that understanding allowed my heart to be like, it’s okay, everything’s good. I got everything out there. And I’m just in the waiting game, work on my leads, have fun, enjoy the process. And then on the other side, they always seem to sell.

Seth: I’m curious, what role does the amount of responses play in that? Say if you don’t get a single email, nobody asks “Is this available?” on Facebook, just total crickets for three to four months versus like you’re getting maybe an inquiry per week or something like that. In terms of like, whether or not you touch the pictures of the description or the headline or the price or anything like that, how much weight do you give that whole thing about the number of inquiries you’re getting?

Jaren: Personally, not much. But again, I mean, everybody’s business is different. I can only speak from my own experience. But I’ve had situations where I didn’t get any bites at all for like the first month or the first two months. But then all of a sudden at month three, I have a bunch of interest.

Seth: And that’s without changing anything?

Jaren: Without changing anything, yeah. So, I think that it can happen that way. Now if you’re getting absolutely no interest and no bites at all, you could change it sooner. Like I’m not telling you that you have to not touch anything for three months. I’m just saying in my business, I just don’t.

I kind of break up my land business on the disposition side in phases. So, phase one is preparing the property for sale. I get the pictures, area map views, and I get all the descriptions written up. And then phase two is actually listing the property and having it be on the market. And I stay in phase two for a long time, that three- to four-month mark. And then if it hits four to six months and I still haven’t sold the property, then we enter into phase three where I am adjusting the price, looking at possibly offering seller financing, adjusting the headers, looking at the pictures, trying to understand if I should redo my copy. That’s where I’m like, “Okay. Let me tweak around.” But I really give it some time before I make that call.

Seth: Yeah.

Jaren: What about you?

Seth: For me, I would say that three- to six- month time range has been pretty typical in my case as well. Again, sometimes you’ll sell it the next day, sometimes you’ll sell it in a month. If it’s three to six months, that’s not abnormal. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong or you’ve done something or somehow screwed something up.

I think I tend to monkey around with stuff a little sooner than that. And it’s not saying that’s right either. I am one who tends to, if things aren’t happening within like a month or so, like if I don’t see any activity, I just start thinking, “Hm, maybe something’s wrong. Maybe something has to change.” As I look back, I think sometimes I can see a notable difference when I do that stuff.

But usually the difference has to do with the price itself or how I am framing the property in the headline. If I’m drawing attention to, “Hey, pay X amount per month for this instead of a flat-out cash amount.” Again, that’s only if I’m even going down the seller financing track, which I usually don’t.

But all this to say, I don’t think your way is wrong, Jaren. I was just curious, how much weight do you give to lack of any inquiries at all? Does that cause concern for you or give you reason to mess with things or you pretty much almost put a calendar reminder, like “Don’t even look at this for another three months regardless of what happens?”

Jaren: That’s how I do it. Yep.

Seth: I’m sure that probably frees up your mental head space that you don’t have to think about stuff like that. So, there’s something to be said for that.

Jaren: What’s your number one?

Seth: I don’t know if this is in order of priority. It’s not like a one, two, three, four or five kind of thing. But for me, this was a very, very time-intensive business, especially in the first year. I just remember I was talking with a few other people who were doing this alongside me way back in the day. And that was the thing we kept talking about. I was like, this just takes so much time setting things up, like figuring out, okay, phone system, website, new email address, just getting things established. And then the first time I ever get a list, figuring that a lot. And the first time I ever sent out a direct mail campaign.

Every step, it was just such a big learning process. It got way faster after that for a year or so. I just remember in those first 12 months, it just seemed like it was such a massive time suck and adding to that was the particular way that I was doing. It was also not the most time-efficient way to do it, where I was sending out a neutral message to somebody and inviting them to call me and only giving them that option. Then I would try to call them back. We’d play phone tag. We talked for 30 minutes. I’d write up a full contract and send it to them. They’d say, no.

The other way I could have wasted more time was if I answered calls live and that it would have totally destroyed my life. But the way that I was doing it in the very beginning, there are some advantages to that. But like, man, it was just such a time-consuming ordeal. And there’s certainly things that I would do differently starting today, which I have done.

Had I known back then I would have gotten a buying website set up pretty early on. Again, not that you need this, but it can be very effective at those phone conversations, taking them off your plate in terms of gathering the information. And also, the idea of blind offers. That was something that I was totally oblivious to for several years. And again, not saying blind offers are right for every person’s situation, but there’s a lot of time efficiencies there.

And I wish first of all, that I would have just known how much time it’s going to take just so I could have gone into it with the right expectations. I think that’s kind of inevitable in your first year of anything. There are just tons of new stuff you have to figure out, but also just knowing like, “Hey, there are other ways to handle this too.” You don’t have to do the most time-consuming approach. And just kind of knowing all the options on the table now it’s just really helpful to know, “Oh, okay. I could do it this way. I could get that way. If I’ve got more money, I could go that way,” that kind of thing.

Jaren: I love it, man. That’s awesome.

Seth: What about you? What’s your next one?

Jaren: So, my next one is a really big deal actually. When I first got started in land, I was coming off the coattails of a very large company that was doing 25 to 30 properties a month on average. And we were spending a lot of money on direct mail and on staff and all this. And so, when I first got started, I was operating underneath this mindset of like, I’m just going to throw money at anything and everything that I have to and just growth at all costs. And so, I tried to hire somebody full time when I first got started.

Seth: Really?

Jaren: Yeah. And I tried to commit to doing a large amount of direct mail every single month. It was not wise. I think the biggest piece that I struggled with as a business owner was understanding how to manage money. And so, I’ve been saying it a lot lately around the community. I wrote a whole blog post all about it. But Profit First and implementing Profit First in my land business has been a huge game changer because it’s given me a financial management system that, I mean, you have to set it up and there’s a lot of work to set it up.

But once it’s in place, it’s really intuitive. And I don’t want to say easy because nothing worth doing is easy, but it’s simple and it’s intuitive. And it makes a lot of sense and puts things on autopilot in a number of ways. So, I committed, I think at some point in my land business, to doing direct mail every single month without fail, no matter what. And I think that was a big mistake when I first started out.

I think that the smarter way to run your direct mail is to do it in a cyclical manner. So, you run your business from direct mail campaign to direct mail campaign. So, you do direct mail, you work all of the leads all the way to sale on that one direct mail campaign, allocating a certain amount of the profit from each property and putting it toward a marketing account.

And then once you’ve exhausted all of the leads that have come or the majority, because you might have one that will call you a year from now or whatever, but at least the majority of the properties that have come in for that direct mail campaign are waiting until you have some significant money set aside for your next direct mail campaign.

Because overhead in the land business is really small except for direct mail. You’re looking at maybe $200 to $500 a month depending on software and listing sites and stuff that you can do. That’s the numbers in session two of our coaching program, I actually have a sample budget. And that’s where I got that number from. I’ve written out like DataTree and phone service and all these things. And it’s not that much of overhead, but then if you throw in $2,000 a month for direct mail cost, all of a sudden that’s a lot. That’s $24,000 a year.

I would heavily encourage people, especially in the beginning to only send out direct mail when you have the money to send out direct mail. Send it out with your seed money, get properties, sell your properties, make revenue, and then operate your business off of the real revenue that’s actually there. And don’t try to borrow and don’t try to scale too quickly.

Seth: I think some of that kind of evolves with time, like when you’re first getting started, you don’t really know what you’re doing yet. You don’t know what works. You don’t know if you’ve got the right market yet. There’s just so many unknowns. I would agree that in those early stages, you don’t want to just start throwing tens of thousands of dollars to something you don’t fully understand yet.

I know a lot of people who do have a full-time thing now, and they’re doing a lot more volume. I don’t know that they’re doing that, that there is mail going out every single month, but they also have it fine-tuned down to a science and they’ve got a lot more money coming in. So, it sort of shifts a little bit, I think. Or it can shift as you start to grow.

Jaren: A hundred percent.

Seth: I think part of it is understanding how to manage the money. But the other part of it is just understanding like that idea of sending out tons of direct mail when you don’t really know if you have it all figured out yet, it probably would make more sense to do smaller batches in a few places to see what happens. And then once you have a pulse on what’s going on, then start opening up the floodgates.

But it seemed like you were more just like, “Nope, we just got to spend money and get it out there.” And do you think it’s accurate that you just didn’t know yet what you were doing when you started spending the money?

Jaren: Yeah, it was that. And I was kind of operating at Simple Wholesaling. It was almost like I had an unlimited budget for marketing and branding and stuff when I was there. Like, it wasn’t truly unlimited, but there was a lot of threshold. There was a lot of slack that I could play with.

But when you’re in your own business and you’re a startup and you’re trying to grow, if I may use Brett’s… I know Brett’s story really well. He started with one wholesale deal that he bought off of eBay. He bought it for $10,000. He put in $5,000, his dad put in $5,000, and he did one deal and he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t even know wholesaling was a thing. So, he just bought it and then he turned around and sold it for $15,000. And he made $5,000. And then he did another deal. And then he did another day. And then he worked a full-time job for a year, doing deals on his own, on the side for that entire year, before he branched out onto his own.

And most people that are full-time into their entrepreneurial thing, whether it’s real estate, they transition into it slowly. They do it in a way where they can course-correct if something starts to go south. Why didn’t they do that? I was like, I’m going to go all in. I’m going to put all my money. I’m going to put all my eggs in this basket and I’m going to go hard. And so, I did that, but I wasted a lot of money in the beginning. It was not the right move. I always thought before I read Profit First unconsciously that the purpose of a business was to grow at all costs.

But the goal of the business isn’t to grow at all costs. You need to grow to the point where you’re making the kind of money that you want to make. But the overall objective of your business is to make money. Profit First actually is the objective of a business. That’s why businesses exist—to make money.

Seth: To make profit, you mean.

Jaren: To make profit. Yeah. So, in my mind, I didn’t have that framework. I didn’t understand, “Okay. I need to make profit; my number one priority in my business.” I thought it was growth. So, I threw everything I could at the wall to see what would stick and it cost me.

Seth: Yeah, that’s something to know about Jaren. I don’t know how many people out there have taken the Kolbe index A test, but Jaren and I both took it and other people at RETipster have taken it. It scores you based on four different ranking factors. And one of them is called quick start. So, somebody who is really good at like, you don’t fall into analysis paralysis, you just start moving and you make things happen very quickly. And that’s actually like a superpower and that’s something a lot of people don’t have.

But the downside of a quick start is that sometimes you just start moving before you really know what you’re doing and you just full speed out of the gate without a very clear direction. And so that’s kind of like everything has its tradeoffs. That’s one of the quick start tradeoffs.

Jaren: Yeah, for sure. I wish that I had Profit First and I wish that I knew that it was okay to grow slowly. And it was okay, if I had to work another job and build my land thing on the side, that’s okay. I’m not a less of an entrepreneur because I have a W-2 income. That was a dumb mindset that I had to fight with in my early days.

Seth: Yeah, I got you, man.

Jaren: So, what about you? What’s your next one?

Seth: Yeah. So, for me, and we’ve talked about this many times in the past, but I wish I’d understood. I think I sort of understood the importance of working in the right market, but I didn’t really have any idea how to even figure out what the right market was. I was like, “Hey, is there a land there? Well, it must be fine then.”

And so, I just started in Michigan and it wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t necessarily the best place either. And so, I kind of struggled with slow turnaround for years because of that. I mean, it wasn’t always slow. It’s not like it was doomed to fail or anything, but I just think it was sluggish for a lot longer than it needed to be. And it wasn’t till I started just trying other markets that I realized in some places, this is a lot easier to sell stuff or it’s a lot easier to value properties and blind offers work better in some markets than in others. And it’s just easier to come up with pricing and that kind of thing.

So, I think I would have tried a lot sooner to explore maybe a few different markets at a time to figure out, okay, this one seems to be lower barriers just from the whole, not only buying, but also selling and state laws and stuff like that. I just had this idea of like, “Nope, got to work in Michigan because that’s where you live,” and not even a point to look anywhere else. And I didn’t really get that. It took me a long time to figure it out.

Jaren: Mine is very similar. It’s on market research and I feel like it was at least a six-month period where every week you and me, we’re going back on market research and really trying to wrap our head on what makes a good landmark versus a bad one. And I’m not convinced that you can even really have that framework of this is a good land market and this is a bad market.

I feel like the land business will work in any market based on a few principles. If you’re in the path of growth or you’re in a county that for whatever reason, people value land there, whether that’s where people go to vacation, or maybe it’s a cheaper adjacent county to a really hustle and bustle area.

Now there are a number of different factors that go into it. But at a high level, you’re trying to quantify desirability. And so, looking at things like job growth and population growth and crime rate. And even some guys will look at building permits and a number of other metrics that kind of help you determine, “Okay, there’s a lot of desirability for this area.”

And understanding that shift in my mind was really helpful because Florida has been a completely different animal than Southern Indiana. Southern Indiana, for me at least, was just very hit or miss. It was like sometimes I had really good properties and then other times it didn’t go so hot and it was just hard to sell and hard to move stuff.

And a lot of that might’ve been like beginners, like learning curve and due diligence issues and things like that. But I mean, it’s just the demand in Florida is just way higher because you have an international desirability. You got people even from Europe that go to Florida every year for vacations and stuff.

So, if you’re in a place like Arkansas or South Dakota, where there might not be a lot of population growth, you can still use those high-level principles and still do well in those places. And might have less competition too. But you want to just ask yourself, “Where are people wanting to buy land in? And can I afford to do business there?” If you find that out, then that’s a really good indicator of where you want to do the land business.

Seth: Yeah. And even that, if you are knowing nothing else, those are definitely good things to look at. But there can be awesome deals in bad markets too.

Jaren: Yeah. It’s true.

Seth: As with anything in life, you can’t just generalize stuff, but when you’re getting stared at, you just sort of have to, when you know nothing else and you just want some very basic pointers on where to go. Yeah. I know what you mean.

Jaren: What’s your next one?

Seth: Next one for me on my list was just knowing that people are incredibly flaky, especially buyers when you’re selling land and sellers as well. But there were so many times when I just got really annoyed by people who said, “Yep, I’m going to buy the property, take it off the market. Here are some of the bridges and I do all this stuff,” and they just ghost me and go silent. Or a photographer I find on Craigslist. Like, “Hey, go get the pictures for me. I’ll plan on next week, Tuesday.” And they just never respond to me. And I just wasted a week. Dumb little stuff like that.

Just do what you say you’re going to do. This is not a hard thing. If you can’t do it, then don’t say you’re going to do it. I think if I had just known to kind of expect this, I wouldn’t have gotten so frustrated. This is just kind of how people are. And also, there are ways you can have these conversations that you sort of get a person to verbally commit. Again, it doesn’t guarantee they’re going to do it, but you sort of like put a person on the hook a little bit better saying things like, “Tell me, sir, if you take a look at this property, it meets everything you’re expecting and it’s beautiful, amazing and ready to go. I’d be ready to buy this thing by the end of the day today, do you have the cash on hand? Are you ready to commit?” Kind of framing it up in a way that it’s like, I’m not messing around here. Like, I’m ready to go, I expect you to be ready to go too. Again, it’s not like a guarantee that people are going to do it, but it sorts of sets an expectation so that if people are just screwing around with you, they can just stop and go do that with somebody else.

Jaren: Yeah. And I’ve been having my fair share of that with contractors. You think that it would be simple for somebody to just have good communication and be like, “Hey, I can’t come today because X, Y, Z. So, I’m going to come next week.” But for whatever reason, I don’t know, people just have a really hard time initiating good communication. And again, it doesn’t make sense to me either, but that is a big deal.

Seth: I can sort of understand the flakiness with land buyers because it’s just something they found on the internet. It’s not their livelihood, who cares? But for a contractor you think like, it’s your livelihood, it’s your reputation at stake. Why would you not pay more attention to that as being somebody who does what you say? But I agree. It’s shocking the level of irresponsibility out there.

Jaren: I can’t even begin to wrap my head around why. My next one, now this is one that is, I want to be careful about because it’s specific to me and what works best for me. And I can’t say that this is the right path for every other land investor out in the world. But I always want to go through a title or a closing attorney, if I’m in an attorney only state.

But the reason why is in the beginning, I did a lot of self-closings and I hired a VA to do title searches for me and I did title searches to the best of my ability. But I had a handful of properties that I bought that way on the sales side when I had a buyer in place, come up with some severe title issues. And there were a couple really close calls of me, like losing out on the deal and wasting money on the property. One guy lived in the Bahamas and we had to track down his son in the Bahamas. And just this crazy like, “Well, I’m probably going to lose money on this deal.”

Seth: Was this something that you had already bought the property and you were selling it and that’s when the title issue came up?

Jaren: Yeah.

Seth: And you had to go, “Oh, man.”

Jaren: Yeah. And it’s not happened like once. It’s happened probably at least five times on five different properties. So, for me, even if I’m going to buy a property for $1,000 or $300, I’m going to spend that $600 to $1,000 on closing costs because I want to have the title insurance.

I realize now, in hindsight, that title professionals spend 40-plus hours a week working in title. You have title researchers that that’s all they do. And yet even then, 40 hours a week, all day, every day, they still have title insurance for a reason. It’s because people make mistakes. And I don’t want to have to deal with that ever again in my land business. So, for me, I always want to go through title.

Now, if you’re doing seller financing or you have your business set up in a way where it’s more like an eCommerce business where people buy directly from your website, that’s a huge bottleneck to have to always go through title. And so, I get it that for other people that might not be the case for them, but for me, at least for the foreseeable future, unless something drastically changes in the way that I do the land business, I always want to go through title.

Seth: Yeah. That’s a great point, man. I’m glad you said that. I’m similar. I’ve done one self-closing in the past year, but that was kind of an anomaly. Like I really try not to. It’s not because I don’t know how, I definitely do and I’ve done it plenty, but like you said, there’s a lot of opportunities to screw stuff up. Even if you do a perfect job, it’s really time-consuming. And just the issue of exchanging funds. That issue alone is like its own separate problem. You have to overcome, like you gotta trust them and they gotta trust you. I don’t know. It’s just a hassle. And this is why title companies exist. They make it way easier. And granted, they’re slower, and sometimes they get stuck on a really stupid problems that aren’t actually problems.

But, I don’t know, in the end, there’s a lot to be said, they’re almost sort of like a little employee that just handles your closings and you just pay them to do that. It may make sense to just work with properties that have enough profit on the bone to pay for that. If it’s super cheap, if you’re only going to make like a thousand bucks anyway, I mean, I guess you can do that. It might be a helpful learning experience.

But the thing that I kind of struggled with, and I remember back when I first started like making blog posts about this stuff, like how you do it. I struggled a lot with should I even be putting this out there? Even if I explain it perfectly, people can still read this and screw it up on their own and then blame me for it because they messed it up. And some people are very proficient at this stuff. They’re really good at catching the finer details.

Basically, people who are our lawyers are trained attorneys, they really know how to make sense of the weird stuff that gets written in deeds and dotting their i’s and crossing their t’s because that stuff really matters. You can actually screw up title if you get one little digit wrong. It’s important to know yourself and what you’re good at. And if you know you’re good at that, you could probably do it with no problem. If you don’t have a history of doing well with that kind of thing, or if you just know you struggle with the details, it might not be the best job for you.

Jaren: And a title company is really amazing at being a resource for you. If I am writing up a deed or I’m writing up something, I can call my title company and ask them to give me the full legal description of the property. And whereas even DataTree, even though they have it, in many cases, it’s still an abbreviated version. And so, there’s a number of different things that I’ve used my title company for. If I’m talking to a seller and they want to vet me, they’re sketched out to see if I’m like a scam artist or not. I can just straight up say, “Hey, why don’t you call my title company and ask them how many transactions I do and if I close or not?” And they say, “Sure, that works.” Then they call my title company rep and that makes it a new point. But it’s huge.

Seth: That’s a good point.

Jaren: There’s a lot of value in establishing a solid relationship with a title company.

Seth: Absolutely. That was a great one. Thanks for bringing that one up. So, for me, the next one was kind of related to seller financing. Because I know the first time I ever heard about seller financing, I actually was part of a panel discussion about this earlier this week on a different podcast, but seller financing, especially with land, it is a pretty awesome thing for a lot of reasons. It makes a ton of sense with the land business.

I totally support the idea and think it’s a great thing to be aware of and understand how it works. For a lot of people, it really has made the difference between them being able to go full time versus not. It’s that big of a deal. However, it’s not without issues. I think the way that it’s explained in a lot of cases, people just explain the great things about it without mentioning all of the really annoying, monotonous hassle type things that come along with it, like getting the right documentation that is actually correct, to using your specific state and understanding state laws, and what’s involved if you need to take a property back and the likelihood that a lot of borrowers will stop paying you. This is not something that might happen, it will happen.

And collecting payments and communicating and every seller finance deal you create, that is a relationship you are creating that’s going to last for as long as that loan exists. It’s not that any one deal is that difficult, but when you get like a hundred of them going, it’s a lot of stuff to juggle and you need good systems in place. And a lot of people don’t think about this until they just start doing it. They either do it wrong or they try to do it right and they’re like, “Whoa, this is like a lot of work. It’s kind of hard.”

It took me a long time to understand all this. It wasn’t until I think it was 2016 when I tried to do this really ambitious project of very clearly documenting how seller financing works in all 50 states, which in hindsight, now I know was just a crazy thing to even try to do because there are so many variations. I don’t think there’s even a single lawyer on earth who knows how it works in all 50 states.

So just understanding that, if you’re going to do that, I would pick a handful of states max and just become a specialist there. Don’t try to understand every state and how it all works. And get an attorney in that state to review and approve of the documentation for that single state, get some good software or a loan management company to manage these deals.

Don’t forget that this is not permanent to passive income. It will stop at some point. So, it is not the same as a “buy and hold” property where that stream of income doesn’t go away as long as you own it. All of these are like caveat kind of things that nobody ever explained to me, I kind of had to figure it out the hard way. And I wish I would’ve known that.

Jaren: Yeah. A hundred percent. And there’s a lot of depreciation and tax benefits to buy and hold real estate that other land seller financing just doesn’t have. So, my last one that I have on here is about land agents, land specialized real estate agents. When I first got started in land, everybody, everyone I talked to said that agents are a waste of time. I even had people say when I’m buying properties, that if it’s listed with an agent, just walk away because you’re just going to waste your time. Agents are incompetent and they’re this and they’re that.

I’m going through my memory right now. And I’m seeing images of Facebook posts and forums and Facebook groups that say, “I never use agents. They don’t know anything. They ruined deals.” And I think that there’s validity to that if you’re dealing with an agent that specializes in residential transactional real estate.

Seth: Like houses?

Jaren: Yeah, houses. If they help you buy and sell houses, that’s what they specialize in. So, obviously they’re not going to know anything about land or wholesaling or flipping or whatever, because that’s not what they specialize in. They don’t know about it. But if you find a land-specialized real estate agent, then it’s a totally different conversation. And they’re out there.

And the last, I don’t know, six months to eight months in my business, I’ve actually been exclusively using land-specialized agents to sell because it outsources all of the bottleneck for me. I’m really busy. I work at RETipster and I do a bunch of other things. And so, for me, the biggest time suck in my land business was like posting on Facebook marketplace and on Craigslist and dealing with those buyer leads and all that stuff that I was doing when I first got started.

And I’ll tell you what, it’s been a completely different situation. It’s been amazing because when I work with a land-specialized real estate agent on the due diligence side, when I am buying my property, they’ll go to the property for me, walk it, and give me feedback on it.

For example, in Florida, if you have cypress trees on the property, in practicality, it’s wetlands. I may not show up on the wetland’s mapper as wetlands. But if there are cypress trees on there, it’s pretty much wetlands. So, one of my agents goes and walks the property and he sees cypress trees there. He says, “There’s a bunch of cypress trees, Jaren, let’s move on to the next one.” That’s gold. That’s worth its weight in gold.

My agents will also give me my list price. So, I’ll do my comps and I’ll go as far as I can. But at the end of the day, I can just call my agent and say, “Hey, what can I sell this property for within three to six months?” And they give me a price to sell lists or list price. And then I work my numbers backwards. And I say, “Okay, if I’m going to list it for this, let’s say 20% from the list price is going to be roughly what we’re going to sell it for. I know I can offer this and make the spread that I want to make.” And that’s huge. They deal with all the buyer leads. They deal with all the showings.

Practically after I get a deal and I go to a title company. I hand it off to my agent and then I just wait and I collect a check. So, when it comes to automation, it doesn’t get much more automated than that.

But there are drawbacks to it just like everything else. I’m not going to sit here and try to say that this is the best thing since sliced cheese and this is what everybody has to do. You can’t really do seller financing with agents because how are you going to figure out their commissions? You can’t really do extremely cheap property. Like if I’m buying property for $500 and selling it for $3,500, that’s not much motivation for my agent to take my property as top priority. So, I have to be a little bit of a higher tier.

I’m typically buying property within $8,000 to $15,000, selling it within probably $15,000 to $30,000, somewhere in that range. And that’s enough to keep them happy because it’s volume-based and they know that there’s going to be repeat business in the future. So, it’s been a huge revelation in my real estate journey to use land specialized agents and I recommend it for the right people.

Now, if I was full-time in my land business, I don’t know if I would exclusively use agents because if I go to a new market and I can’t find a good agent, I’m struggling. That creates a bottleneck in my business. I don’t have as much control. There’s a lot of control in having your own buyers list and your own brand. So, if I were full-time, I don’t know if I would put all my eggs in this one basket, but as a side business, it’s perfect. It’s a really good system for me. So, agents are out there that are worth their weight in gold. You just got to find them.

Seth: Yeah. And that “you just got to find them” thing, Jaren actually does have a really good blog post about that, that I’ll link to in the show notes. You can find that at retipster.com/83. It answers a lot of the questions like where do you look? What questions are you supposed to ask? How do you vet them and figure out like, is this person worth their salt or not? Because yeah, a lot of people aren’t.

But it’s interesting you say that Jaren, because I can attest. Every bad experience I’ve ever had with an agent in the land business has been a house-selling agent that has not been a land-specialized agent. So, it’s a very important thing to distinguish and that blog post can help people figure out how to find them.

Jaren: On that too, I probably need to do a slight update to that blog post for the listeners. Today you guys can get kind of the updated version on that. Zillow has an agent profile that you can look up. So, if you see a land listing, like take those, the principles on that blog post, and go look up good listings and all that. But when you find them, look at the agent’s profile on Zillow and look at past listings. And look at the ratio of land to how sales are other types of real estate sales. And if the majority of what they’re selling is land, there’s a high chance that they’re a good land agent. That’s another really big piece that didn’t make it into that blog post yet, because I just really recognized that pattern in my business recently. So, I need to update that.

Seth: That’s great to know. Thanks for pointing that out. For me, the last big one on my list and its sort of a lot of things lumped into one, but I’ve kind of hit on this earlier as well, but just understanding that there are downsides to every approach to everything you do.

For example, if you get your list from the delinquent tax list versus a data company, guess what? Both ways have a downside to it. If you use postcards versus blind offers, both ways have a downside to it. It’s not like one is the ultimate perfect, always the best option. It’s that both of them have strengths in different areas and it’s important to know what you need as an individual and what you work well with and your financial situation, how much money you do or don’t want to spend, how much time you do or don’t want to spend. It’s like probably one of my biggest pet peeves is when I hear somebody somewhere just saying like, “Always do it this way,” or “This is always wrong.” It’s just like, no.

And granted for that individual, that may be accurate maybe because they’re terrible at talking on the phone, they shouldn’t be on the phone with people, or if they have no money, then they shouldn’t be sending out $10,000 blind offers. I’m not discounting that for them. Maybe they figured that out for themselves, but to just advise the whole world of what always works. And this is something that just takes a lot of time in testing on your own to figure out what am I good at doing? And I’ve had lots of time to do that. And so, I know that now, but man, I was very clueless back in the beginning and it’s easy when you don’t know any better and you hear somebody just give very pointed advice on something that may or may not apply to you. It’s easy to assume, “Well, they must know what they’re talking about. They sound pretty confident. So, I’ll go with what they say.”

I think any advice anybody gets, it’s important to just discern and just realize like, I’m probably not hearing the whole story here. There are probably things I need to investigate for myself. Not close the book on an issue before you really have gotten to the bottom of it. And I think if you figure out something that is clearly working, then you probably don’t have to investigate that further. But if it’s not working, realize there’s probably another path out there that may make more sense for you.

I think the bottom line is experience is a huge deal. There’s just a lot of stuff that you will discover for yourself when you get into any kind of business. These are the things that we wanted to highlight for the land investors out there. Anything else you want to hash out on that, Jared? Or did we kind of cover it?

Jaren: I think that that was a really good piece of content we put out in the world there, man. I really wish that I listened to this episode about three years ago at this point.

Seth: Yeah, I wish it existed back then. Okay. So, let’s wrap this up with an unrelated question here. The question today is if Jaren and I won the lottery and had a million dollars after taxes to invest in real estate, what would we do with it? What would be the way that we would throw it out into the world and create streams of income or double or triple or quadruple that money?

Jaren: So, if I had a million dollars, the very first thing that I would do is I would pay off all of my debt, including my house.

Seth: Really? Interesting. So, you’re going to go that route? Because I know a lot of people think that’s ridiculous.

Jaren: I go back and forth on it. I understand why you would consider not looking at your house as an asset, but as a liability. I think for me, my house it’s kind of a half-investment, half-not investment. It’s a security thing. My home is where my son grows up. It’s where I have memories with my family. It’s our safety place. And to be able to have that, at least right now, we’ve got another child on the way. And we just got a lot of things that in this season in my life to be 100% debt-free plus including the mortgage, would be a big deal. But I will tell you, I probably would take an equity line of credit out of my house and I would invest based on that. So, I’d still probably use the equity.

I would definitely pay off the mortgage for sure. And then what would be left, I would either buy rental properties. I might buy like one, I don’t know, larger unit, maybe like a 25 unit or larger, if not cash, I would leverage the remaining to buy and hold real estate or get into vacation rentals and buy a couple of exotic places that I Airbnb throughout the year. I really would like to get into that.

It’s on my bucket list to own property in Belize ever since that interview we had. I talk about it all the time and people ask me what my dreams are. I’m like, to own a property in Belize, man. So, I think it’d be awesome.

I’m slowly trying to develop my life in a way where me and my family travel heavily through the months of January through March. So, I don’t think we’re there yet. I think we’re probably at least three to five years off. But my goal is to slowly inch toward this lifestyle where one to three months out of the year, we’re pretty much traveling and we’re planning on homeschooling our kids. And a large reason behind that as opposed to like public school or private school is because I want to be able to have the flexibility to travel with them.

Traveling for me, I didn’t go to university, I went to my freshman year and then I dropped out and stuff. And traveling and books have been the 80/20 of my personal development. And I think that traveling is extremely important to help you become a more well-rounded person.

People buy sports cars or big TVs or big houses or whatever. I think my thing is I want to be able to travel. I think it’s important to me, something I’m working toward.

Seth: I don’t need to travel anywhere. Once I’ve seen America, I’ve seen the greatest this world has to offer.

Jaren: I’m not going to argue with you there.

Seth: I’m joking by the way.

Jaren: There are some great things out there in the world.

Seth: The land of McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A, that’s all we need from this world.

Jaren: Most of is the Chick-fil-A. Everything else is subservient to Chick-fil-A, it’s the greatest fast food on the planet.

Seth: For me, I was thinking about this a little bit and I was having a really hard time coming up with one definitive answer because there’s so many different ways you can go with this. Like so many different types of property or you could use it in an active business to make money even faster and that kind of thing. And I think where I’m at in my life now, I’m looking for the passive stuff. So, buy and hold.

I think what I struggle with right now, it’s much harder to find high-equity, super cheap deals today than it was 10 years ago. Obviously, I would find something that cash flows and I would probably leverage it, leverage that million bucks to buy four or five properties that are worth a million each or something like that. And would cash flow and pretty much be set for life, I think. All I would really need.

But yeah, I liked that idea of something, preferably something triple net so I don’t have to manage it and the numbers make sense. I know the opportunities are out there. I feel like though this may be a ripe market to actually do new construction on certain kinds of things. Just because properties are so crazy expensive right now. And granted, I think that will probably change in the next year. So, I don’t want to jump the gun on that, but I’m wondering about that.

Jaren: Well, it’s so funny you said that because within the last 24 hours, I’ve heard three people, including you, say that about new construction. Because apparently the market’s getting so hot, the cost of building is still staying cheap. It’s not rising with the cost of real estate. So, it’s actually really cheap.

I literally had somebody who came earlier to my house today, a contractor, they gave me a bit on the roof of our new house and he said the exact same things. He said a lot of people are looking at new builds right now.

Seth: That’s what kind of makes you nervous because you might be looking at like 9 to 12 months to finish a construction project depending on what it is and who your builder is. And a lot could change in that time right now, given where the world is at, there’s tons of unknown.

Jaren: I have friends that are way more sophisticated and intelligent than I am. And a lot of the big wig guys in the apartment syndication space, a lot of the thought leaders and stuff, they’re all saying that within the next year to two years, there’s going to be a lot of bad things to come on the same for the world. Like we’re going to have a pretty major economic downturn.

So, it feels like ever since 2008, everybody since 2008 has been expecting the next economic downturn. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I feel like there’s a bunch of people that just have huge amounts of savings set aside to gobble up property when they can.

So, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if that’s going to like, inflate the market or prevent us from actually having it be as bad as it could be. But a lot of people are saying foreclosures are going to start entering the scene and all kinds of stuff.

Seth: I don’t think there’s ever been a year since 2008 when I haven’t heard somebody say, “It’s all going to fall apart next year.” That is a very common recurring thing I hear from people who are smart. I would think they would know, but they haven’t.

Jaren: And it’s funny too, because a lot of the gurus or thought leaders, they predicted each year because when it does happen, there would be the guy that called it and they can brand that, right?

Seth: Pretty much. But yeah, it would be nice to have a million bucks one way or another. Cool man. Well, if anybody out there wants to follow along with what we’re doing, feel free to take out your phone and text the word “FREE.” F-R-E-E to the number 33777.

You can get access to some top-secret resources, text the word “FREE” to 33777 and you’ll be glad you did. I promise.

And again, if you want to check out the show notes for this episode, it’s retipster.com/83. Thanks again for listening and we’ll talk to you guys again in the next episode.

Jaren: Later guys.

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from Real Estate Tips https://retipster.com/083-if-only-we-had-known/