#and be seeing THIS POST CONTAINS FILTERED CONTENT in every two to three posts

[martianbugsbunny]

What this website really needs is a button that will allow me to filter all y/n content out of my feed so I don't ever have to see it because I absolutely can't stand it, my ass does not want to be in a relationship with my favorite characters my ass wants them to be dating each other

[msbarrows]

So yesterday @genginger tagged me in a “three things that you’re proud of in 2023″ thing, and I had to think a lot to come up with things - being long-term unemployed means my days (and weeks, and months) tend to be very sameness-of-a-same.

One thing I got done at the end of the year (but have yet to deploy) is putting together a skills-based resume. Sooooo much anxiety over finally tackling it, as I’ve been unemployed for over a decade now and haven’t job searched in years. Thankfully some online friends did supportive hand-holding while I tackled it. Now I just... need to figure out some applications. Write some cover letters (UGH!!!). Probably make some more versions of the resume, to cover skill sets relevant to specific jobs (DOUBLE UGH!!!).

Been working my way through the big box of old family photos from the basement, plus my personal large file box of photos, and scanning all of them. Have the former finished but am still working through the latter. At some point I need to burn a bunch of them to DVD to send around to my brother and sister’s households (all the family ones, plus some of my personal ones).

One of the biggest projects I tackled in late summer of last year was to finally put together an emergency go-bag for myself (see photo above), inspired in part by katy-l-wood’s Evacuation Prep chart having crossed my dash earlier in the year, plus us here in northern Ontario having had several bad fire summers recently, including the fire by the old ski hill in 2020. Thankfully small, thankfully put out rapidly, but it came right down to the yards of the houses along the base of the ridge. We were on edge for a few hours on whether or not things might go bad and force us to evacuate (not to mention we’ve had bigger fires only a little further away that took 2-3 days to put out), and I’d found myself thinking several times since about what I’d grab if we got that sudden automated phone call or banging on the door. More about the go-bag contents under the cut (it’s long).

Anyone else interested in posting their three things, consider yourself tagged :)

So... go-bag contents! This is still a WIP, I plan to add additional food items to it for one, but at present, from left to right this includes:

couple of foldable water containers. It there’s enough warning before having to leave, those would be filled from the tap and go out to the truck separately, otherwise will be filled at whatever first stop with potable water we* reach.

box of assorted Cliff bars, to be replaced every 6-8 months. I also plan to add a box of assorted fruit bars and/or nut bars and/or sesame snaps. Stable foods with some nutrition and a good energy hit, basically.

the opened out red bag is a first aid molle pouch, it includes EMT shears, bandaids, adhesive mesh, polysporin, and a ton of assorted gauze pads and packing gauze leftover from when I was have a large cyst treated a year or two ago (yay for daily nurse visits to inspect and repack the wound).

the yellow drawstring bag contains a large rain poncho

mess kit, normally stored in the round purse with the raffia flamingo on it (protects it, plus doesn’t hurt to have an extra bag in my bag)

the large black duffle bag that everything fits inside

to the right of that is a dark green electronics storage bag, in front of which are what it normally holds - a solar power bank, my old 7″ android tablet, my old android cell phone (the sim card for which is in my new phone, but it’s still usable for emergency calls and means I have a backup handy if I accidentally break the new phone), red external backup drive, my original bluetooth speaker in its lime green carry case - all of these get their batteries topped up at the start of each month, plus updated (OS, apps, backup files). Also a couple of USB charging bases and cables.

stainless steel thermos

LifeStraw personal water filter (in case the only water source is questionable)

folding umbrella

from in front of that over to right is all small things I store inside a purse organizer, which I have tucked inside a clear vinyl storage bag that some sheets came in, so its protected from collecting dust or lint, plus if anything escapes the organizer it’ll remain in the bag. Contents include: small coin purse holding a small roll of bills, can opener, makeup mirror (as a mirror and for flash signalling), tums, safety razor, comb, hair elastics, USB rechargeable flashlight, soap, tooth floss, toothpaste, toothbrush, ibuprofen, packet of tissues.

the lumpy blue things at back right are compression packing cubes full of tshirts, socks, underwear, a pair of jeans, flannel shirt, light hoodie, plus hiding between them and the clear vinyl bag are a drawstring cloth bag holding pyjamas (so it’s easy to grab just sleepwear), and a zippered pouch of more socks and more underwear. Figure I’ll remove, wash, and repack the clothes on the same 6-8 month rotation as replacing the food in the bag.

Basically it’s aimed mostly at getting to and remaining at an evacuation centre or motel for a couple days sort of goal, but I have also put a bit of consideration into what if we’re unable to reach such a place and end up stuck temporarily outside somewhere, so things like how the poncho can double as a small shelter (which reminds me I should add some paracord or light rope), the LifeStraw can be used to more safely drink from untreated water sources, and I have at least a few days worth of food on hand. Also there’s a sleeping bag stored in the same closet as this kit, so close to hand. And a second, much larger duffle to stuff as many clothes into as possible.

Most of the other small things I’d want to grab, such as ID, keys, and more cash, are in my purse, which is an arm’s length away from where I sit at my computer.

* - I say ‘we’ because I don’t drive, so if there’s an evacuation I’d be going with my brother or waving down a neighbour’s vehicle.

[transienturl]

hi! you seem to know a great deal about this xkit rewritten. im a tumblr user back from the early 2010-2016 years or so and i always used xkit. however, my question now is, do you have a suggestion on what are tumblr setting preferences should be AND what our xkit rewritten preferences (disable/enabled, etc) should be to get it as close as we can to the old tumblr dashboard? Many thanks!

Hello there!

Hmm, let's see. I made my blog in 2011, so I guess I was around in that era. I don't remember the exact details of what the Tumblr UI was like at particular times super well, but I can go through my settings and just kind of see what I think a returning user might be interested in off the top of my head.

I might or might not go into detail on what every XKit Rewritten setting does (I've been thinking about things like recording a video going through all that—maybe when we start running out of new scripts to add), but I'll call out things that stand out.

First off, I always install Palettes for Tumblr (download link in @addons!). I personally use the "circa 2016" palette, i.e. "old blue," but April's also got an even older blue in there, and it's fully customizable if you want any other color scheme you can imagine! I change the font to Helvetica Neue and bump the font size down by one as well; do what looks good to you! Also check out Outbox.

Okay, Tumblr settings...

Account:

Community Labels:

Set the toggles to whatever you want; I go for "blur." Take them off "hide" unless that's really what you want; it'll hide flagged posts completely from your dash with no indication that they're there!

Filtered tags and filtered post content:

Use these like you would use Blacklist or Tumblr Savior to hide any content you don't want to see! This will apply to your account wherever you're logged in (mobile apps and desktop web), and will hide post content with a visual indicator that you can click to unhide it.

Absolutely enable the option in XKit Rewritten's Tweaks to use a slim layout for these (this should just be changed on the site, imo), and optionally hide filtered posts completely.

Here's some detailed info about the difference between the two that I wrote for something else:

Filtering a word or phrase as a tag will hide any post with that exact tag (no wildcards) and reblog chains whose original root posts contain that exact tag.

Filtering a word or phrase as post content will hide any post with the specified word or phrase anywhere in the post text or in any usernames, including in the middle of a word (filtering "ash" will hide posts with "dashboard" or "fashion"). It will not search the post tags.

Yes, there's no way to do a wildcard search that works on the post tags right now. Yes, this sucks.

Dashboard:

If you like visible timestamps, I suggest turning the "show timestamps" option on here. Additionally, I use Timeformat in XKit Rewritten to make them more detailed (I use MMM D, YYYY · h:mm A; feel free to experiment with the options here).

I turn "shorten long posts" off. Up to you! XKit Rewritten has its own Shorten Posts script with more customizability over how long a post has to be to be lengthened, if you'd like.

Turn off the "best stuff first" and "include [etc]" options under preferences if you want your main dashboard to be the old-style, just-the-blogs-I-follow-in-reverse-chronological-order.

Ad-Free Browsing

If you have the money to spend, I encourage it. The site is super fast without ads, and Tumblr needs revenue to pay for developers, moderation staff, and servers.

If you do, I personally allow Blaze ads; they can be kinda fun sometimes. Up to you!

Privacy

Decide if you want to let others see if you're active.

Labs

I absolutely love the Blog Subscriptions tab, which lets me make a mini-dashboard of only the blogs I really want to see every post from, so I turn that on. (To subscribe to a blog, open it up on the dashboard, hit the three dots menu, and click "get notifications." This will give you push notifications on the mobile apps.)

Heavy queue users may appreciate the fast queue button, but if you're an XKit Rewritten Quick Reblog user, there's already an easy way to do that.

Per-blog settings

If you leave/turn "enable custom theme" off, your blog will only show up inside Tumblr itself, which is actually my preferred way to view people's blogs (it's very good now!), but you'll probably want to turn it on to enable [yourblog].tumblr.com.

Decide who you want to be able to leave replies on your posts! (I use "everyone.")

XKit Rewritten scripts:

Tweaks:

If you use Tumbr's filtering options, I recommend the use a slim layout for filtered posts or hide filtered posts completely options, as mentioned.

Turning the changes/etc carousel into a line is a fan favorite. It acts as a "here's where you were up to on your dash" indicator if you turned off the algorithmic stuff in dashboard settings, as mentioned above. If you like it being a carousel, you can turn off the animations in AccessKit.

Remove the sticky effect from the dashboard tab bar. That's the one that appears/disappears when you scroll. (Lots more in here to hide UI elements you dislike, if you dislike them).

Quick Reblog is the renamed version of One-Click Postage, which is of course a fan favorite as well. Turn "Show the comment field" on if you want to be able to add text when quick reblogging (though the regular editor form is usually better for additions). "Suggest tags from the post being reblogged" is great; click in the tag text box and they'll all pop up so you can select the ones you want to copy. Set the limit on saved reblogs higher (imo there's no reason not to).

You can set a queue tag here, but it'll only be added automatically when you use the Quick Reblog popup; put it in Quick Tags too so you can easily add it when queueing a post using the full editor form.

Quick Tags: Add your saved tags here and they'll show up in the Quick Reblog popup!

Classic Search: I don't use this, but many people want pressing enter in the search bar to go to the tag page, as it apparently used to?

Open in Tabs is kind of broken at the time of writing (just a note in case anyone is confused).

No Recommended: Pretty self-explanatory; if you don't like recommendation carousels between posts, enable the "between posts" ones.

AccessKit: This is where Disable Gifs is, if you were looking for it.

Quote Replies: Used to be called One-Click Reply! (This only works on the activity page at the time of writing, not in the activity dropdown menu that you can access from anywhere.)

Tag Tracking+: Many people apparently thought this used to be called something else, but if you're looking for that big sidebar with all of your tracked tags, here it is.

TimeFormat: I mentioned this earlier when we talked about timestamps! (I prefer this over the Timestamps extension, which we kind of semi-retired.)

Trim Reblogs: This is the new way to trim down roleplay threads in a way that's actually supported by Tumblr's UI! To use it, draft or post a reblog with your additions, then navigate to it and press the scissors icon. You can pick which reblog trail items stay, so if you and your RP partner start with a post with just a title, you can keep it on top. This requires the thread to have been started with the new post editor (or on the mobile app).

There are definitely more scripts that I swear by, but I think this is long enough! Also, there are some bits of classic XKit functionality that we haven't quite gotten in yet. I might edit this post later if we add something relevant, but I probably won't. Feel free to check, though!

[with-love-anu]

Some tips to start a fandom blog (for writers)

Okay, before I begin I will like to say that I am no expert or am 100% sure these are bound to work. But these are some things I learnt over time that might help you out! 

1. Tagging posts.

This one is one of the most important points! You must tag everything properly for your content to actually reach as many people as possible. 

Do your research! Search up common/popular tags people use for the content you want to post and use them wisely. 

Use no more than 20 tags because tumblr will not show them up. When you post something, make a quick search of any of the tags you used and go to the recent section to see whether your post actually showed up. If not, try posting again.  

For new blogs- don’t start posting as soon as you make a blog. Your posts will not show up. Instead, reblog some content (gifs / moodboards / fanfiction etc) for a week or two along with tags! 

Tags I use for my fanfiction**:   #character full name   #character first name   #character full name fanfiction   #character full name x reader   #character full name x you   #character full name x y/n   #character first name x reader   #character first name x you   #fandom name   #side character full names (excluding oc)

**I’m currently writing for HP, Marvel etc. 

2. Taglists.

Now this is a tricky topic because there’s never a straight answer to this. I’ll just list down the some things I’ve learnt about taglists.

A long taglist does not equate to more number of notes. While taglists help your readers to be notified about your content, I know for a fact that it doesn’t mean everyone mentioned will interact with the post. Some might do, some might just leave a like while some might not read at all. 

Taglists work only when the people you tag, read and reblog and are actually active. Otherwise not so much. 

Tagging will take at least 10-15 minutes, copy pasting a taglist doesn’t work. You have to click on each individual user so tumblr tags them. While tumblr has updated by adding the filtering activity option, there is still a good chance that the person might not get the notification at all. 

Is there an alternative? Well, what I’ve done is that I’ve made a side blog. Whenever I post some new content- I reblog it over there. If people have the notifications on for that blog, they get notified whenever I post. It technically works the same way as taglists. 

Another thing you can do is submit the link to your post to @catching-the-train-to-hogwarts to be promoted to a large number of readers. PSA: Only for HP fandom.

3. Posting time.

Yes, this is important. Search up the time tumblr or the specific fandom is most active. Post during that time or a little later, so that people could see your works on their dashes. 

Schedule your timezone reblogs strategically. 

4. Interact.

Interact with your mutuals, with other writers. Comment and reblog their works and talk to them. Don’t be afraid to seek help or ask something if they welcome that- you are always free to send me asks. It’s better when people know you because that way it’s more likely that they’ll read and see your work. 

I am not telling you that anyone is bound to reblog your work because you do the same or the fact that they are your friends. I’m trying to say that sometimes a little support goes a long way. I wouldn’t be here if my mutuals didn’t help me out in the beginning.

5. Post format.

Okay so what I’ve found while searching and reading up fanfiction is that I personally was more likely to read a fanfiction with a summary and mentioned word count. 

Use a keep reading option or tag it with #long post. If your fanfiction is more than 1K words and/or contains nsfw/smut content- use that, it’s monotonous to see a wall of text on your dash. It’s the three dot box on a new line  adjacent to the insert gif in case you’re using the website. If you’re using the app, type :readmore: on a new line and press enter.

Use warnings. It is essential- mention it if there are none. 

6. Miscellaneous.

Participate in challenges. Enter in different challenges while making new content because one, it will give you exposure and two it will be great way to promote your work. 

If you’re starting a completely new blog, it’s better to have content made up in advance. Because firstly you need time so that tumblr recognizes that you’re not a bot so you’ll have to reblog posts for a week or two with appropriate tags. Then posting content consistently does give you a boost because more content (maybe at a gap of 3 days) means more followers, more people who read your works. 

When to make masterlists? People are usually quicker to follow when they see a masterlist made so it’s an advantage to make one when you’ve posted about 3-4 works. But if you make a masterlist later- after posting about 10-15 works, it will give you a boost in the activity because new users will be able to see your works and binge. The choice is upto you.

There are users who would say that it’s good to take as many requests as possible because it helps you grow. While it is true to some extend, I don’t find it to be useful. Because when I first begun, taking in all types of requests burnt me out and lowered my motivation because there were scenarios I didn’t relate with at all but still wrote them. The quality of my content decreased too. Again, it’s up to you.

I used to write headcanons during writing blocks. Headcanons are usually easier to deal with and not to mention the fact that they are fun. That way I could provide for more content and still not stress out.

Most of all, take it easy. It’s not your job- you are not supposed to create content every time. You, your health and happiness comes first. People will adore and love you even if you stop posting for months straight. Have fun, okay?

[analyzen]

Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

[urban-homesteading]

How to make money from a Mini Farm: a series

Due to the popularity of my post on how to make money from your mini farm, I’ve decided to go point by point and expand on each one.

Raising Mealworms

Mealworms are the larvae of mealworm beetles. Many animals, such as chickens, wild birds, frogs, and reptiles, readily and happily eat these little bugs.  You can grow them as a food source for your pet, to attract birds to your feeder, or to sell for profit.  Mealworms are low cost, only need a small space, and are easy to maintain animal that can be grown in any size apartment.

How to get started

Get a small plastic storage bin (such as one for shoes that you can poke holes in the top) or a container sold at the pet store with a snap on vented lid to use as a container for your mealworm colony. It should be a container that light goes through but will hold the substrate and not allow the worms to escape.

Place one to two inches of bran, oats, or a mixture of the two in the bottom of the container. This will be your mealworm's bedding and give them something to eat and burrow in.

Place half of a raw potato on the substrate or in a shallow dish for the mealworms to eat and drink from.

Purchase about two dozen mealworms from the pet or bait store to use as your starter colony.  You can also buy online.

Place the mealworms in the prepared container and make sure it stays relatively warm. If it is winter and you are worried about the container getting too cold you can use an inexpensive heating pad placed under the container to keep it warm. If the mealworms get too cold their development will stop (this is why they are stored in the refrigerator at the pet store).

Replace the potato every couple of days (do not let it get moldy) so your mealworms have fresh food and water. 

Since the mealworms are already in the larval stage they should pupate in about three weeks. Two weeks after they pupate the mealworm beetles should emerge.

The mealworm beetles will lay very small eggs which are difficult to see. When these eggs hatch the new larvae are also very small.

The mealworm beetles will die while the larvae grow and the life cycle is repeated.

After one life cycle, the mealworm colony should be well established.

Once your mealworms are established, offer a variety of vegetables and fruit (such as carrots, orange slices, and leafy greens) to the colony to increase the nutritional value of the mealworms.  I find that my mealworms were quite happy on table scraps.

Add bran or oats as necessary to maintain the substrate level. Clean and change out the substrate as needed to keep it clean and fresh but wait until the colony is well-established. Eggs and tiny larvae may be lost if you clean the substrate early on and the life cycle will be interrupted. Once you have a large supply of mealworms, the dirty substrate can be filtered out and the mealworms can be saved to put in the clean substrate. Do not allow mold to grow on the food or substrate.

If you have too many mealworms simply place the whole container in the fridge to temporarily stop their development and simply rewarm it to room temperature when you need them to continue to reproduce.

Selling your mealworms

Once your colony is established, you can sell the worms one of two ways.  One, you can dry them and sell them by the pound, or two, you can sell them live.  Drying mealworms is simple.  Select the all worms you wish to dry and place them in a container in the freezer for 24 hours.  Within one hour, they will fall asleep, and by 24 hours they will be die.

Spread them on baking sheet and bake at 80 degrees for 2-3 hours.  Package and sell by the pound or by the number of worms.  Privately owned pet stores, wild bird stores, feed stores, and bait shops are all places to call to see if they are interested in selling your mealworms.  Stores have an image to maintain, so make sure that you have a tidy package with clearly marked contents.  I always encourage all of you to use as little plastic as possible so if you are selling to a store and you are a small business, I recommend using glass jars with your personalized sticker on them.  I find that posting on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace asking for free, cleaned jars results in dozens and dozens of jars from people who have had spaghetti sauce that week.  Buy nothing and Zero Waste groups are particularly helpful in your area. Mealworms can also be sold through postings on Craiglist (in the pet or farm/garden section), Facebook Marketplace posts, or flyers posted at local pet stores or anywhere else bird or animal lovers are to be found.

If selling live mealworms, count out your worms, place into the container with clean substrate, and place into the fridge until they are ready to be delivered to where ever they are going next (whether that be a bait shop or directly to the buyer).  Mealworms can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two weeks with very little maintenance. After two weeks, the mealworms should be removed from the refrigerator, and a small amount of water and a piece of vegetable should be added to the top of the bedding.  Allow the mealworms to stay at room temperature for about 24 hours.  This will allow them enough time to “wake up” and become more active so that they can consume food and water.  After the 24 hours have passed, remove any remaining food and place the worms back in the refrigerator.  Repeat this process on a two week schedule.

For storing live mealworms, this company makes cardboard boxes that are 100% recycled and are unlined with plastic or wax so they can easily be composted.  However, my research has suggested that these containers will not work for dried mealworms as dried worms have fats within them and they can go rancid if exposed to circulating air for long periods of time.

[kelliesauve]

How Junk News is Spread

Despite having benefited society in many ways, the propagation of junk news is a major issue that has resulted from the widespread use of the Internet and social media platforms. The article, Three Reasons Junk News Spreads So Quickly Across Social Media, delved into three main reasons behind the limits on dissemination of transparent, truthful information. In this blog post, I will discuss my view on the key roles that algorithms, advertising, and selective exposure play in strategically promoting false or misleading information.

Algorithms act as mediators between consumers of social media and the massive collection of information available on the Internet. In this role, algorithms have been given the power to make decisions for the user, determining what content will be displayed based on calculations that use data gathered on every aspect of an individual’s online activity. To put it simply, all of the information shown on our timelines has been carefully selected through an algorithm’s processes, with the goal of keeping us happily looking at our screens for as long as possible. If functioning ethically, algorithms would, in theory, produce a fair representation of results, where information freely flows to users (Howard). However, in reality, common algorithms generate results that are limited based on the user’s individual interests and online activity, showing information that will best capture the viewer’s attention rather than fulfill their desire for accurate, unbiased answers. In this way, algorithms have made it more difficult to find opinions or ideas that do not align with an individual’s personal thoughts or preconceived biases, since these processes entire aim is to use the data collected about our behavior to predict our points of view. By filtering information to a maximum, algorithms act to impede and obstruct access to truthful, reliable search results, thereby promoting the spread of misinformation.

Advertising contributes to the spread of inaccurate information by promoting viral content, which is itself spurred by the use of clickbait. The article defines clickbait as “content designed to attract attention – often by stimulating outrage, curiosity, or both,” and can be found in written forms, such as misleading titles in the news, and visual forms, like provocative pictures in advertisements. In a general sense, clickbait encourages viewers to consume content through the use of exaggeration and deception.

As a regular YouTube user, I am highly familiar with seeing clickbait images in the thumbnails of videos, clearly fabricated in such a way to invoke intrigue and capture attention. More often than not, these thumbnail photos have little to nothing to do with the video, or are a small fraction of the content within, leaving the audience frustrated while the creators profit from their views. As an example, YouTube channel ‘The Ace Family’ (The Ace Family's YouTube Channel) has been called out in the past for their use of clickbait images, such as a photo of Catherine McBroom, member of the Ace family, on an operating table with a liposuction tube in her arm, displayed above a video titled “REVEALING MY NEW BODY! (MOMMY MAKEOVER)”. If anyone is interested… which is the channel’s entire goal here, I must add… here is the link to the 30-minute video. I would like to save a half hour of your lives, though, by letting you know that only two minutes of the video actually contain footage of Catherine in the operating room. Classic clickbait.

In addition to outside forces mentioned, we, as consumers, also play a role in the filtration of information ultimately shown on our social media platforms and the Internet beyond through selective exposure. As described within the article, people tend to engage with and share content that “conforms to their pre-existing beliefs,” (Howard). By determining what sources are worthwhile based on compliance with one’s pre-conceived biases or discomfort with challenging one’s assumptions, we limit ourselves to a small subset of the vast amount of information available on the Internet. The fact that “voters tend not to change political parties or favored candidates,” because they engage with content that fits with their established preferences, is a great example of the impact of selective exposure discussed in the text (Howard). It is easy to imagine that agreeable information is much more palatable than conflicting ideas, but the consequences of avoiding differing opinions from one’s own must be considered. When disregard is given to content that does not support one’s personal thoughts, individuals act to limit themselves from receiving all-inclusive, accurate information.

In all, businesses and individuals must be aware of the impact that algorithms, advertising, and selective exposure can have on the widespread consumption of false information. Knowing that algorithms can produce skewed results, people should actively seek out multiple points of view from several sources to better inform themselves on subjects of interest. Mindful of the deception involved in clickbait, consumers and companies should avoid relying on content that uses tactics aimed at increasing virality and attention over promoting valid information. Finally, to avoid the effects of selective exposure, individuals should consume content that challenges their own beliefs, whether that contains new information or an opposing outlook. By making conscious choices in relation to algorithms, advertising, and exposure, businesses and individuals can avoid associated obstructions to access to fair, truthful information.

Works Cited

Howard, Philip, and Samantha Bradshaw. “Three Reasons Junk News Spreads So Quickly Across Social Media.” Oxford Internet Institute, 26 Mar. 2018, https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/blog/three-reasons-junk-news-spreads-so-quickly-across-social-media/.

“REVEALING MY NEW BODY! (MOMMY MAKEOVER).” YouTube, uploaded by The ACE Family, 12 Oct. 2021. [Screen capture by Kellie Sauve], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDZ7_PUKseA

The Truth About Fake News. 2020. Texas State University, https://www.txstate.edu/commonexperience/pastsitearchives/2019-2020/stories/blog/2020-03-30-truth-about-fake-news.html

[austarus]

HR Wells x Reader Scars Across Time

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to @acewest360

Word Count: 6245

*Hey everyone! Please remember to hit that reblog button as well as liking and following! Sharing the content makes the world spin~ This is probably going to be the last fic I post until winter break. Things have not been going too well for me, I rarely have time to sit down for myself and write or play pokemon at all. But I promise I’ll be back with more fics and series parts with the winter season

“I can’t feel my fingers.”

“And this is why we keep our gloves on,” you emphasized, taking your gloves off and handing it to him to wear as the two of you walked to your apartment, “especially during a snowball fight.”

“But you’ve got to admit, I nailed BA pretty hard.”

“You did,” you giggled and pecked his rosy-cold cheek. “And I’m proud that you did. Knock some sense into him and Harry while you’re at it.” You mumbled the latter part to yourself. The other Wells doppelganger was still having trouble with his daughter, who’s back on Earth-2. She had ‘kicked him off his own Earth’.

“It’s too bad Jesse wasn’t here; I think she would have liked it.”

“She’s still upset with Harry, HR.”

HR did a half shrug, side-glancing at you as he took your hand in his, “She missed all the failed igloos and speedy snow angels, the laughs and arguments we all ended up having on who cheated or not.”

“She’s busy on her Earth being the Flash, though. That must be taking priority over everything else.”

“I know,” he sighed, taking your hand into his. You felt how frigid they were through the knitted gloves you had given him. His eyes met yours are the two of you walked, the chilly air piercing the layers you have on. The novelist hoped that his doppelgangers daughter has been taking care of herself as she takes care of her city. “Harry shouldn’t have avoided her and the issue between them though, that’ll only create a greater rift between them. I know he’s not good with emotions, but… Something doesn’t feel right, like… it just doesn’t add up.”

You only offered the novelist a half-shrug, not really knowing what to say. “I think they’ll end up talking it out, whatever it is that happened between them. They’ll eventually get through it together.” You unlocked the door to your apartment and pushed it open. The door creaked nastily from its hinges; you’ve been meaning to fix that. “Now, let’s first get you inside and thawed out, I’m pretty sure I have some cold sludge stuck down the back of my shirt.”

The two of you entered your cozy apartment, kicking off any spare snow remnant that had clung onto your boots and clothes. Both you and HR left your boots by the door. A shiver ran down your spine, the ice-water mix shifted in your shirt as you moved uncomfortably through your home. You attempted to not track any water on the hardwood floors, eagerly locating some dry towels while HR brought a laundry basket from one of the rooms. The taller man returned with one as you handed him a fluffy towel. You and HR stripped off the winter-y layers of clothes, placing them into the basket. Your long-sleeve shirt clung to your skin, the cool damp cloth making you a bit antsy to get out of it. The Earth-19 being took the basket to throw in the washer, adding in the appropriate amount of detergent and softener. He whistled throughout completing his task, towel around his neck. HR started drying his hair off as he walked back to the living room.

You turned on the weather channel, overhearing Iris mention something about a serious storm going to hit. Flipping through the channels, you finally landed on the Central City News station and just in time for the weather spokesperson to come on screen. The woman fully articulated the severity the storm could cause as well as how many inches of snow to expect with an estimated time. HR’s ears had perked up, eyeing you from behind the couch as you watched the news. You ran a hand through your damp-ish hair before deciding to set it in a towel turban. Well, it’s a good thing I went grocery shopping yesterday. I should still have the portable heater that Cisco made just in case. The candles and matches should be in a spare drawer somewhere.

You glanced over your shoulder to see HR with chaotically messy hair and the collar of his shirt soaked. You nibbled on your bottom lip while setting down the TV remote. “Hey, um… HR do you want to stay over the night? There’s a winter storm coming and stuff,” You sheepishly wrung your fingers for wanting to ask him to stay the night when you knew he probably had an upcoming deadline to meet. Am I being selfish? I’m mean… we’ve been together for almost a little bit over a year now. Gah, fuck, I’m overthinking again. Stupid past relationship trauma and emotional distress. You just didn’t want to inconvenience him.

You will never deny how safe you felt around him, how you didn’t need to be careful of how to act. You can be you. And HR can be the dorkily cute novelist that he is with no filter in regard to his ideas and thoughts and expressions. The two of you complimented each other, two wounded souls just fixing and adoring each other. It took a couple of weeks for you to open up about your past relationships to the novelist, which he listened with understanding and concern taking hold in his eyes. He had done the same thing you had done. HR had proposed to ask three questions and you would need to answer fully and honestly with the reward in return. A reward of something you had long forgotten because having HR understand your past like you had done with him caused your heart to swell to a grand scale.

HR’s gaze softened at you, a gentle smile gracing his lips. “I don’t mind staying the night.” It’s so much better than sharing space with one grumpy scientist back at the labs who’ll probably hurl objects at me if I do anything out of line in his eyes. He saw that bit of insecurity eating at you, and he would do all he can to brush it away. Your insecurities had lessened over time, but every now and then it pops back up. But it’s understandable, you were trying your best to be a good and considerate girlfriend.

HR’s heart melted when you perked up, a bright smile crossing your face as if your sullen thoughts had washed away in an instant. “That means we can even make s’mores tonight!”

“How-“

“-I bought this handy dandy electric s’mores maker-”

“-Birdy, we’ve talked about this. You can’t buy every single thing from Amazon.”

“But… but the s’mores.”

“Do I need to take your debit card from you?” HR joked at the pout you had given him, the both of you knowing he would actually do no such thing. But he worried of these little impulse buys you get yourself into. Especially when prompted by Cisco, Iris, and Caitlin.

“I will fucking fight you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“You’re right, I love you too much.”

“Was it really necessary though?”

“… Yes, the state of my survival depends on it.”

“Liar,” HR sighed to himself. “I’m guessing Cisco and Iris happened to be browsing through Amazon again when they got bored? And you happened to be with them? Browsing from page to page, especially the bargains section.”

“… Maybe~”

“…”

“Don’t worry, I made sure I paid my rent and taken care of the apartment before deciding to buy the s’mores maker.”

“Good.”

“Plus, I really bought it for you.” HR felt the tips of his ears warm a bit. “You said it was one of the things you used to make with your mom, but now you just don’t have the time to camp or be by a fire to make them. So… I got this for when you’d come over and stuff…”

“How did I ever get so lucky to have someone as precious as you in my life, my little birdy?”

Your giggle allowed his heart to jump through hoops. Hail started pounding on the windows of your apartment catching both your attentions. “We should probably go wash up. I think I still have some clothes you left when you slept over a few times.” An idea lit up brilliantly in your mind, your brain already gathering the necessary materials.

A smile graced HR’s face, feeling his heart flutter as you shuffled to gather his clothes. I would do anything for you. The taller man looked out the window, observing the outside world ravaging in the heaviness of white fluff. The power might go out soon. If we’re lucky, then it doesn’t. But mother nature doesn’t seem to be letting up anytime soon. “Which drawer are they in?” He questioned, padding off to your bedroom but throwing a glance at you.

“I think they might be in the top left drawer,” you lied to him, needing to buy some time. “I’m not really sure. But if not, you’ll have to look around for them in my closet or something.”

You hurried to the bathroom once he was out of sight, stepping closer to the closet. Twisting the handle, you were greeted with towels on one shelf and scented candles on another. Now, what to choose. You opted for the scents of Balsam-Cedar and Autumn Leaves from Yankee Candle. Scattering the small candle containers around the tub, you made sure they were positioned in a place to avoid any fires. This is going to look simply divine. You mused a cheery hum from your lips as you worked fast. The electric lighter was in a drawer along with the bath bombs for relaxation. You contemplated whether the tiny flower petals were a bit overkill, then figured that it would be. I’m extra as fuck anyway, so why the hell not. You pulled out the mason jar filled with pastel pink-blue hydrangea and hibiscus petals. With everything set up, you just had to fill up the tub with water and work your magic. Shutting off the bathroom lights, you shuffled over to your room right as HR let out an ‘aha!’ when he found his checkered cotton pajama bottoms.

“Come take a bath with me,” you started, taking his hand and squeezing it meaningfully with jubilant warmth within your eyes. “We can warm up faster in less time before the storm cuts out the power.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to…” He trailed off; his other arm held his clothes to his chest. You knew what he meant and nodded assumingly. An ex many years ago had tried to drown you once, but… Your ex isn’t HR. The man in front of you is considerate, kind, dorky, and quirky. The man in front of you is more wholesome and beautiful inside and out than any other man you had been with. You knew the novelist would never dream of hurting you. We’ve proven that much to each other in the past year, we wouldn’t hurt each other no matter what.

“I trust you, HR.” You leaned up and kissed his nose gingerly, “You know I feel safer around you.”

“And I, you,” the taller man allowed you to tug him to the bathroom once you had pulled out your own pajamas and undergarments.

“Before we go inside, I’m going to need to you wait out here for a few moments.”

“Interesting. What are you planning, little birdy?”

“Who? Lil ol’ me? Nothing really!” You responded with a cheeky grin before entering the bathroom. HR just kept that boyish smirk on his face then sneezed. God, he loves you, but he needed to get out of these clothes soon. Another sneeze left him when the sound of water graced the silence in the apartment. The hail had stopped, but heavier clumps of packing snow fell onto the city.

“Done~” you mused with childish delight, opening the bathroom door and ushering him inside. HR held his breath as the scents of the forest greeted him. The candles were beautifully lit around the tub, flickering and wavering as it cradled the bathroom with a dim glow. The bathroom lights were off to allow the candles to work their magic in the darkness. Neither of you would deny the warmth the candles brought as the flames danced happily in their respective glass communities. Scents of cedar oak, maple trees, and autumn leaves flourished in the air, but it wasn’t overbearing. The running water moved gently as you had begun to strip down and out of your clothes. Your movements shook HR out of his trance, tugging his own clothes off, but stopped short of shrugging his pants off when he saw all of you. Your eyes caught his intense gaze. A tight knot formed in the pit of your stomach.

“HR?”

“You’re…” He couldn’t find the right words. Any word couldn’t justify the beauty in front of him. “You’re elegantly divine.” Is what he settled for as he felt hot oil splash onto his cheeks.

“It’s not something you haven’t seen before.”

“It’s something that I hope I don’t have the misfortune to never see.”

You screamed on the inside as your mind started spinning at his desire. A smug grin grew on his face as you looked away, stumbling over to a jar on the sink counter. HR fully stripped, coming up behind you with his arms encasing you and strong hands resting on your hips as he watched. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. You leaned back into him, dropping a good two handfuls of flower petals into the water. His body, while chilled from your earlier winter-y activities still provided your own with a spectacle of warmth. Goosebumps gradually ran over every in of your skin. The taller man watched you with tired eyes.

“You know you’re going to have to let me go so we can wash up, right?”

HR pouted, to which you leaned up on your tippy toes to try to kiss his pout away. “Fine, but I think we both deserve some time to cuddle.”

“I was going to trap you in bed, regardless.”

A quiet laugh left his lips. Breaking away from his sturdy limbs and wonderfully sculpted body, you rifled through a drawer for a bath bomb. Milk and Honey~ Unwrapping it and disposing of its bindings into the trash, you set it down into the water as it instantly fizzed.

“Wait, you like bath bombs?” HR questioned with an arched eyebrow.

“Yeah, but only the organically made ones- that way it doesn’t irritate my skin.” You shut off the hot water and pulled out the necessary towels for the both of you.  “Also, they smell phenomenal!”

“They do.”

“What’s wrong?”

“One year on this Earth and I hadn’t even noticed that you had bath bombs too. Do yours also release an underwater firecracker?”

“An underwater firecracker??”

“Yeah, little ocean sparks underwater that also stimulate the water to move like the waves as if pulled from the effects of the moon.”

You just stared down at the slowly fizzing bath bomb in disappoint. “Why don’t you do that? Rude.” The novelist craned his head down to kiss your cheek with a snicker at your evident disappointment.

You stuck one foot in, the warmth enticing you as a hum left your lips before going all in. A wave of relief washed over your muscles as a tired groan left your lips while shutting your eyes. Leaning back, your skin touched the cool marble of the tub as the water drifted in multiple directions. The water rose to just above the top of your cleavage. HR had followed suit once you fully entered, sitting across from you with his legs crossed. A sigh had left him as he felt the tension in his body break away, the scents also helping him ease into relaxation. After a moment he pulled you in between his legs and you humored him because his were so long that they needed the space. Your eyes finally adjusted to the brightness set by the candles from your position.

You eyed the scar on his chest, teeth raking over your bottom lip. The one where Savitar had left his mark. Those thoughts came back. Your throat dried instantly. Swallowing thickly, your mouth moved on its own accord. “I almost lost you.” HR froze as he leaned his broad back against the tub, an arm on the rim of the cool marble. You reached out a hand to trace over the scarred skin. The closer you had gotten- the more you looked at his upper body- was the more you mentally berated yourself under the soft glow of the candlelight. Scared paths and crossroads of tinged undertones on his skin, some faint- others dark and deep. A few were clean and a few others were messy. Even the scar, perfectly hidden by his left eyebrow seemed to be clearer to your eyes now. Your heart sank in your chest, frustration and anger and hurt welling up inside you at the pain HR must have endured over the years. But mostly, anger and hatred towards yourself. How have I been so blind? How many times have my eyes overlooked these? How pathetic and ignorant have I become? HR shivered under your touch, under your gaze over the ugly reminders on his body. “We’ve been together for a year,” you started, “a little bit over a year- and I’m a damned fool for never truly seeing how hurt you’ve been.”

“I…” The words died in HR’s mouth. The sullen look in your glassy eyes, the pained expression on your face. His heart felt heavy, yet it oddly thrummed loudly in his chest. The warmth of the water didn’t help how you were feeling.

“And for that, I’m sorry.”

“Just being by my side and seeing who I am- how I’m worth something, exceeds any grim reminder of my past.”

“But, I didn’t-”

HR took your hand and intertwined your fingers together, “You’re the light of my life, you allowed me to forget my past and accepted me, all of me. I don’t hold it against you that you didn’t notice, we’ve been going through one hoop after another with these crazed villains. Hell, I forget the scars are even there when you’re with me… I feel whole when you’re with me.” The novelist strained emphasis on the last sentence. You felt the tears start to riot in your eyes before streaming down your face. HR gently cupped your face, wiping the tears away with a dry hand. “I’m happy that you overlooked them. I’m happy that I could shed them when I’m around you.”

You were silent for a few seconds. “I’m still mad at Iris,” you whispered with a sharp sniffle, your fingers finding the scar over his heart once more. “No, I’m pissed that she didn’t the willpower and guts to speak up when she had a chance. We… we could have prevented… both of you could have-”

“-We could have gone through a million different avenues, but the results would have led to the same road.”

“Wouldn’t it? You, at least, couldn’t have been hurt if we had done something differently.”

“Iris could have been hurt.”

“You were hurt!” You snapped as your voice wavered. “You were going to die, had it not been for Julian and Cisco and Barry. I… I can’t lose you. Every night, a dark thought slips into my mind. You could have died- You could have died right there when you were just starting to live a life of your own. All because of Barry and Iris.” Your cheeks felt wet and only then did you realize that the tears had pooled up and escaped. His gaze softened at you, nonetheless, the tears didn’t take away from any frustration that you had presented.

HR recognized the bitterness in your voice. The fiery anger within your eyes as you looked up at him with desperation. The same anger that he had long disciplined himself to distance from. Anger blinds all gates of logic within the mind. Because in a way, you were right. Iris could have easily said something when she was disguised as his persona. Instead the queen of the castle seemed reluctant in sacrificing herself, instead allowing the pawn to take the fall. HR had thrown it all away to save someone who didn’t really care to know him and treated him with disdain at first. All to prove to the others that he was worth being on their side. To prove to Savitar that he wasn’t a coward like the projected future had revealed. But most importantly, to prove to himself that he’s capable of more than just standing on the sidelines as backup. The anger and distraught and hate. HR worked tirelessly to move past them. You were his future now. You and the fact that in the end he seemed to earn his spot. Sadly, even at the expense of his own life. At the end of the day those were the cold, hard facts. Ones he willingly chooses to not give in to.

“But I’m here.” HR wrapped his long arms around you, pulling you closer to him. You choked back on a sob. Your anger waned at his gentle touch. “I’m here and I’m alive,” he let out roughly, letting you cry it all out as he rubbed your back soothingly. HR knew everything you had said had been true. And even if it did work out in the end, he didn’t want to imagine a reversal of the situation. If it had been you who had traded places with Iris instead of him. The novelist can only hope that the team wouldn’t have to put anyone else in a situation like that. That Barry and Iris wouldn’t have to play close to this dangerous game of chess again. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” you sniffled, calming down with a stutter. You knew that anger blinds judgment. You didn’t hate Iris, but you resented her inability to save both her live and HR’s. HR wet his hands and cleared your face from any remnant of tears. kissing your eyelids sweetly.

“Interesting that you put hydrangeas and hibiscus petals.”

“How so? And how did you know?” you raised a questioning eyebrow at HR.

“The jar’s labeled.” You facepalmed at yourself. Of course, the jar’s fucking labeled, I’m such a dumbass. “But also, I studied the language of the flowers as well as the language of the colors for my writing.”

“So, what do hibiscus plants stand for?”

“From what I recall,” HR scratched the back of his neck in recollection, “they stand for love and affection between family members, friends, and others. A perfect statement of gentle feelings towards the others. It can even symbolize passionate relationships.” You had placed both hands on his shoulders as he spoke, mesmerized by his knowledge of the flower. He wiggled his eyebrows at his later statement, causing you to giggle with flushed cheeks.

“What about the hydrangeas?”

“Ironically, heartfelt emotions,” he kissed your cheek, rubbing the skin of your lower back as he continued. “Gratitude for being understood.”

“I would call it more of a fateful coincidence,” you mumbled, pressing your lips to his for a chaste kiss. But truthfully, he just wanted to roll around in bed with you and kiss you silly to his heart’s content… amongst other certainly heart-fluttering bedroom activities. When you pulled away, your eyes drifted over his figure. “Can- Can I ask you about them?”

Them. HR knew what you were referring too. That curiosity of yours is one day going to land you in trouble, birdy. HR mused to himself with a little noise of thought. He was well past the mental pain, taking up meditation and various things to acknowledge and push past it. But the idea of you feeling the need to know didn’t rub him the wrong way like it should have. Rather, it stirred something deep in his heart, a playful glint hidden in his eyes. “Depends on what’s in it for me, little birdy?”

You thought deeply for a minute and HR remained silent, running patterns over the skin of your arm. You felt warmth build up on your skin with every contact. “One night.”

“One night…?”

“One night, you can do anything to me- within reasonable bounds. You decide when the night can be.”

The Wells doppelganger immediately licked his lips and felt his blood rush at the notion. “Is that your final condition?” Because if it is, this big bad wolf’s going to make sure to devour his little red riding hood all night long. HR tilted your head back, a hooked finger under your chin as his lips skimmed over yours. There’s much planning that needs to be done.

“Y-yeah.”

“‘Yeah’ isn’t a word of confirmation.” Learned that one from a law buddy back on Earth-19.

“Yes,” you won’t deny the anticipation in your voice. The murky white waters retaliated with every movement from the two of you. “One question, one scar.”

“One question, one scar, one night.” The novelist smirked down at you, a cocky look on his face.

“Fair enough.” I essentially ordered one love romp of a night… I’m so fucked, literally and figuratively. I just hope I don’t have to come into the Labs the next day, neither of us.

HR watched you closely, grabbing the body wash as you decided with a focused look on what scar to choose. Your eyes roamed his body. You already knew of his mental scars, and he knew of yours. The novelist waited patiently as you quietly processed the image of them on his skin. Some scars on his body were from hitmen, bullies, or muggers- mainly during his young adult life or when he was creating STAR Labs with Randolph. That bastard probably sent some after me, wouldn’t be surprised since he knew I would be executed if I crossed dimensions. Bath sponge in hand, he lathered your body wash on the sponge with every intention that he would help wash you while he reiterated a scarred tale.

“What’s the story behind the one on your eyebrow?”

That one took HR by surprise; usually human nature would be intrigued with the most noticeable of things- big things. Instead, you pinpointed the one that was easily concealable in plain sight. Settling for the smaller scar in comparison to the others. The novelist took your arm, scrubbing your skin with lips pressed thinly. You opened your lips to ask if he’d rather you choose a different one, but HR cut you off in a matter of milliseconds.

“I got it back during my university years. I was an English Arts major,” he paused for a moment, switching to your other arm to give it the same treatment. “My father obviously didn’t approve, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to keep going with my literary studies, taking up photography in my spare time. One day, I was just walking through the city in the late evening. Dismal and dark, with fog everywhere.” HR rinsed off your arms, gesturing for you to turn around between his legs so he can start on your back. He plucked off the PanOxyl Foaming Wash bottle from beside a candle, using a different sponge specifically for the backwash. You had told him that sometimes you unfortunately get acne on your back and shoulders, so you use this backwash to keep it clean and acne-free. To your surprise he wasn’t revolted in any way, instead he admired your constant diligence with wanting to keep good hygiene, especially since so many factors can trigger different responses from the human body. You silently waited, listening intently as he continued. “I heard whimpers. Cries coming from down the alley. There was this… this small puppy- I-I can’t really recall what breed it was, but it looked hunger and tired and scared.” You looked back at him, heart aching as you saw his eyes show the pain in his heart too. “I thought to myself. How could someone leave a helpless baby animal to starve in the city’s alleyways? Why couldn’t someone have the heart to nurture it?”

“What did you do?”

HR ran the water over your back to remove any bubbles or foaming wash from your skin. “I saw myself in the puppy. Lost. Abandoned. Alone.” he whispered as he raised his chin, eyes finally meeting yours as you fully turned to observe him. Your gaze softened; your wet hand reached out to cup his jaw. Droplets of water fell from your skin into the colored water as he nuzzled into your touch. “I approached it, I wanted to keep it safe and warm. It didn’t object when I picked it up, cradling it like it the baby that it is. It trembled and shivered in my arms.” His heart dipped remembering the way the puppy felt in his arms. One of his larger hands held onto yours, the one cupping his chiseled jaw. “I had to do something, couldn’t just leave it there.” I couldn’t abandon it.

“There’s a ‘but’, isn’t there?”

“There always is…” He let out a mirthless laugh. “Things went south when a couple of drunk guys found me and the puppy. Turns out these were the same guys that had been harassing the little one through the alleys. They had been trying to use the puppy in illegal cage fights.” HR bowed his head slightly. “One thing led to the other, there was a knife and I was running like hell with the puppy. Until they cornered me, hence…” He trailed off, gesturing to his eyebrow scar with a free hand.

“HR,” you whispered, but he squeezed your hand as he took it off his face. Your other hand tightened into a fist in the water. HR’s eyes caught the movement but didn’t say anything.

“They roughed me up pretty good- I’m wasn’t- I’m not a fighter, but I would have been damned if that little puppy had been hurt. I ended up finding the little guy a home where he can be looked after and well-fed and safe.” You unclenched your fist, gently listing it to stroke his stubbly cheek as he concluded. HR ran his fingers down the length of your arm.

“You’re safe.”

“I know. You’re safe too, my little birdy.”

“I know.”

You twisted your body, stretching an arm out as you reached for his Old Spice body wash. It was your turn to help wash him. You started working away at his sturdy chest, obviously doing your best to not ogle at his abs and his entirely toned framework. But he caught your eyes drifting off more than once.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For always listening to me.”

“I love you, HR. And I would do anything in the multiverse to keep you safe and loved. You’re my one one one after all.” You winked at him, eliciting a deep chuckle from his lips. Music to your eyes, smiling as the corners of his lips lifted upwards. “There’s that radiant smile I love so much.” The man blushed but continued to grin.

HR ran a hand through his hair before catching a glimpse of his hair in the mirror. He squinted a bit as he held a lock between two fingers. “Looks to be about that time of year again.” Your fingers threaded through his hair once he released the strand.

“I’m assuming a haircut is needed.”

“Yup”

“I will never understand how men ask for their hair to be done.”

“It’s honestly really easy, with the provided visuals of course. I should take you with me once.”

“I’d be okay with that.”

“Probably going to need to dye my hair black again.”

“I think I have some leftover dye in a cabinet somewhere. You know… I wouldn’t mind seeing silver streaks on you. Makes you look like a sly silver fox to me.”

“… I’ll keep that in mind for next time as long as you allow me to learn how to do those intricate braids in your hair.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Wells.” You leaned up to kiss his lips.” The novelist smirked against your lips as he ran a hand over your bum. Neither of you had noticed that the water was starting to become lukewarm, the candles and warmth of each other distracted the two of you. “It’s a done deal.”

Taking his Old Spice Shampoo in hand, you squeezed a good amount out meanwhile he tilted his head down closer for you to reach. HR’s hands settled on your hips, steadying you on his lap to have your legs wrap around his waist. You scrubbed and massaged his scalp, creating a bubbly hairdo for him. You couldn’t help the giggle that escaped your lips. But once your bright eyes met his baby blue ones, you felt your heart skip in your chest.

HR felt your hands slow as you retracted them but made no effort in submerging them in the water to get rid of the bubbles. Instead your smaller hands rested on his broad shoulders with the tips of your fingers doing a sort of feather-light dance against his skin. The novelist found himself mesmerized by your radiance, never mind the candlelight that continued to flicker around the both of you. You felt hypnotized by his baby blue eyes, pulling you into an ocean of wonder. HR licked his lips with half-lidded eyes as you moved to kiss him deeply, your lips slowly moved against his with a sensual kind of dance to it. The doppelganger breathed you in slowly and he pressed forward. His palm rested on your cheek while his other hand took one of yours to hold onto. The kiss broke but was soon reconnected. Over and over again. The moment wasn’t rushed. There was no hurry to get to the finish line. It was just you and him and the wisps of fire around the two of you. HR nibbled on your lower lip before you reluctantly pulled away. Your tongue ran over your swollen bottom lip.

“We should probably finish up before the power decides to run out,” you started in a low-ish voice. HR noted the slight jitter in it and his heart swelled at the effect of his kisses on you.

“I don’t think it might get to that point. We’d probably end up snowed in, but there’s a chance that the power might not go out.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“I know. If we must, then by all means,” The novelist murmured, nuzzling his nose with yours before the two of you finished washing up.

HR stepped out first from the foamy waters of the tub, stretching a fine limb over for some dry towels. He handed one to you when you had stepped out after him unfortunately a little less graceful as you almost slipped on the tiled floor. HR’s hand reached out to steady you. Giving him a sheepish smile, you whispered a thank you to which he returned with a wink. He knew you could be clumsy at times, but nevertheless he’s grown to love that about you. HR had come to realize that him being able to catch you from tripping over your feet or stopping you from running into things would give him a sense of ‘being your hero’ or ‘saving you’. It was just a small thing that made him happy. A ‘your hero in-the-moment’ kind of thing.

You wrapped the towel around you to rid your body of the water and bubbles. The two of you had cleaned each other well which made you sigh in contentment because feeling clean and being clean made you feel satisfied and relieved after a long day. You couldn’t help the stare you had fallen into as your eyes roamed over your boyfriends’ body as he dried himself off. Subconsciously, you licked your lips at every dip of skin, every inch of muscle. Wrapping another towel around your hair, your eyes never left HR until he turned towards you. You blinked for a split second and hastily busied yourself with pulling your undergarments from your clothes pile. HR walked back past you with his pajama’s on. The novelist had every intention in extinguishing the candles that were left only to land a soft smack on your ass. You let out a little yelp in surprise at the impact.

“See something you like?” He teased as he blew the fire out. He knew. There was a large mirror in the bathroom after all. A smirk finally settled on his face, one that he had been repressing until he smacked your ass. The heat had stayed on your cheeks from the bath and getting caught.

“Maaaaaaaaybeeeeeeee.” To be honest, it was a nice ass.

HR chuckled, “Well, since you’re done why don’t you get that cute ass of yours in bed while I go and get the smores maker?”

“How can I ever refuse such a generous offer?” You hummed, leaning up to kiss him. The Wells doppelganger nipped at your lips in return then broke away from you. He stepped towards the door. “HR?”

“Hm?” He turned back to you with curious eyes. There was a soft glow that had settled within your eyes. The sight made his body tingle.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[thousandfourhundreddays]

Can you write a modern Michael smut ?

IT’S TIME.

Michael Gray x Reader

A/n I LOOOVE writing anything modern so I love this request. Hope you enjoy!!

You’d first met Michael on a night out in Manchester. A drunken night out. A very drunken night out.

You’d never believed in love at first sight but from that night on, you couldn’t help but succumb to the idea.

You caught his eye the moment you walked in, the light filtering in, framing you perfectly, reflecting off your dewy skin, illuminating your ocean tinted eyes. The world stilled around him as he fell in love.

Now, a year and a half later, you were still together. Things were perfect, somehow still in the honeymoon phase and there was a part of you which though that it’d never fade.

However, one thing you hated was the distance. Michael in Birmingham and you down in London. The mear 130 miles between you felt like millions as you lay in bed at night. You understood that work was a priority. If you ever wanted to be able to build the future that the two of you had discussed so many times, the two of you had to be patient. The beautiful house, expensive cars, holidays, falling asleep in each other’s arms every single night, waking up to the boy you loved with your whole heart was so close, only just a little further until your could grasp it.

But for now, you were lay in bed, gazing at the ceiling, wishing that the cold space beside you was taken up by him.

Rolling over with a frustrated huff, reaching for your phone which you had lazily strewn on your bedside table, the blue light flooding the darkness, revealing the time. Through squinted eyes, you strained to focus on the numbers. 01:14am.

Carelessly you threw your phone down beside you, the sheets rustling as you soothingly rubbed your eyes.

A yawn escaped your lips as your eyes flicked between your phone and the darkness. You lay there for a few minutes, the cogs of your mind whirring behind your eyes.

“Fuck it” you whispered to yourself, abruptly sitting up, grabbing you phone and opening your contacts, scrolling down about half way, finding Michaels name and calling him before you could talk yourself out of it.

Raising it to your ear, you knees tucked up against your chest, biting your lip impatiently as you heard the pained sounds of the dial...

“Y/n? What’s up? You ok?” A string of questions fell from his lips, worry woven through his croaky voice, most likey from sleep.

“Michael” you spoke through a content sigh, collapsing back down onto the bed at the sound of his voice

“Y/n what’s wrong?” His voice a little desperate

“Nothing, no nothings wrong, sorry” you giggled

You were met with silence, Michael now totally lost as to why you were calling so late, not that he was complaining. Your voice was just as much of a comfort to him as his was to you.

“Come see me.” You stated bluntly. Your fingers crossed as they rested by your side.

“Y/n, babe, I can’t-... well I don’t... hang on” you could hear his smile radiate through his voice as he nearerd the end of his sentence.

Searching through his mental calendar, he silently begged for tomorrow to contain nothing but paperwork and accounting.

His lips curled up into an even bigger grin as he remembered that tomorrow was in fact Saturday, a catch up day for him and the boys in the office. Deciding that the paperwork can wait, he finally put you out of your misery...

“Ok” you now both lay there in bed, contentidley beaming to yourselves.

“Really?” Slightly shocked at his spontaneity, but then again, maybe you were the spontaneous one, knowing full well he could never say no to you.

“Yeah.. yeah I’m on my way, love” you heard him rustling around, stumbling out of bed and haistily packing a bag.

“Thank you” you said excitedly

“The pleasures all mine, darlin. I won’t be long” he giggled

“I love you”

“Love you, try and get some sleep though, yeah? It’s late”

“Ok, ok”

“Bye” you spoke in unison, your soft voices blending in the still night air. Relaxing into the matteres as you heard the line cut off.

Too much excitement flowed through your body for sleep to ever arrive, not helped by the constant checking of your phone, wishing for the time to tick by quicker. It was the longest two hours of your life but here you were, stumbling out of bed after hearing a gentle knock at the door.

You silently ran towards the door, feet absentmindedly carrying you over the cold wood floor, standing on your tip toes to peak through the peep hole in your door. Your body wrapped in one of Michaels shirts pressed up against the cool wood.

Gently swinging the door open, you took in the sight of him, the boy you loved standing at your door at three o’clock in the morning, a smile gracing his face, lighting up the room as you mirrored him.

All but throwing yourself at him, he took you in his arms, holding you tighter than he ever had before. Muttering small I love you’s into your ear.

“Iv missed you”

He simply smiled, taking your face in his hands, kissing you gently. Moving his hands to your waist to steady you, he guided you backwards into your appartment. Dropping his bag by the door he pulled back,

“Iv missed you too” a cheeky smirk plastered on his face

Moving your hand to the nape of his neck, you pulled him in once again, deepening the kiss, humming with pleasure.

It was now your turn to lead him away, pulling him towards your bedroom, you kicked the door shut as you went.

“You didn’t just bring me all this way for a shag did you?” He asked playfully

Biting your lip, your words were muffled by his lips “Maybe I did, are you complaining?”

“Not at all” speaking through kisses he was placing down your neck.

You giggled as he made his way back up to your lips, his tongue slipping between your soft lips as he placed his hand on the small of your back, lowering you down onto the bed.

Resting your legs around his waist, you pulled him closer, his callous hands brushing the thin skin of your thighs. A soft moan filling the air as he traced small circles on the inside of your leg.

Holding you by the waist, he kissed your skin through the delicate material that lay between you making his way down to your core. Voicing a accepting groan as he appreciated your choice of underwear, he placed a small kiss over the black lace thong that you wore, he pulled them off you painfully slowly, doscarding them on your bedroom floor.

You chuckled at the sight before being cut off by a moan that slipped up your throat as Michael plunged his tongue into your wetness, spreading your juices over your lips.

“So fucking wet” he murmured, entranced by the taste of you.

You started to beg as he dipped his tongue into your core once again, craving for a release. “Ok baby, ok” he spoke, his lips vibrating against your wetness as he dipped a finger into you.

“Mi- Michael!”

“What’d you want baby, tell me what you want” his voice was deep and seductive.

“More” you begged. “I want more” now breathless you reached down, in twining your fingers in his hair, pushing his lips deeper between your legs. The sight alone was enough to bring you close to the edge

Your vision blurred as he sped up, adding another finger. His tonge flicking against your clit, sucking on the bundle of nerves, teasing you, bringing you to the edge.

“I’m close” you whined “I’m close” you repeated breathlessly.

“Let go for me y/n, cum for me” he purred, bringing you to your peak, his fingers carrying you through your orgasm as your legs began to shake as he sucked gently on your clit. Your head resting on the pillow, your lips hanging wide as you came on his fingers.

Licking up your cum, he continued to stroke your core as he made his way back to you, kissing you deeply, allowing you to taste yourself on his lips.

Removing his fingers from between your legs, he licked them clean before placing one in your mouth, “that’s my girl” he whispered, kissing your lips softly once you were done.

Moving his lips down to your neck, he sucked slowly, leaving small purple bruises on your tanned skin. His fingers making quick work of the buttons on your shirt, leaving it to hang open, he took in the sight, eyes wide, licking his lips as you followed his lead, pulling off his hoodie and moving down to his joggers. Carelessley throwing them to one side, you began to pull at his hair, scratching at the nape of his neck, silently telling him how badly you wanted him.

Taking the hint, he slowly lowered himself back down to you, biting your lip, drawing a sensual moan from you as he pulled off his boxers. Once again, using your legs to pull him closer, deepening the kiss.

He took himself in his hand, pumping down once or twice before lining himself up with your entrance.

“Please, please baby, I need you” you purred into his mouth. And with your beg, he pushed into you slowly, allowing you time to adjust, both of you revelling in the pleasure of him streatching you. After a few seconds, a slight nod from you encouraged him to draw his hips back before pushing into your again. Swallowing each other’s moans between kisses, a slight sheen of sweat began to glimmour over your bodies.

Setting a pace, he whispered sweet nothings into your ear, nibbling into your ear lobe as he went.

“So good, so good, so fucking tight.” He chanted, entranced by the feeling on you clamping down on his cock.

The lewd sound of your wetness echoed through the walls of your apartment, fusing with your filthy moans as you left scratches down his back, a reminder of the pleasure he fed you.

You were both reaching your peak, his thrusts becoming clumsy as he twitched wildly inside of you.

“Michael, I’m gonna cum, I’m close baby, I’m close” your sentence broken up by your irregular breathing.

“Let go, go on” he moved, his hand down to your clit, your body becoming overstimulated as he pushes you over the edge, tears forming in your eyes.

You vision once again become blurry as he fucked you through your orgasm, releasing himself deep inside of you with a low groan.

Both of you basked in your post orgasm haze, regaining your breath as you kissed his damp skin, drownin in each other’s moans. Slowly, he lowered himself to lie next to you, taking you in his arms, holding you close.

“Fuck, I love you” he spoke, releasing a deep breath.

“I love you” placing a light peck to his chest “so much”

Placing his hand on your cheek bringing your eyes up to face him, he naturally brushed your skin with his thumb.

“Its time y/n” and with those simple words, everything fell into place.

A/n ok so this was loooooong, but I hope you enjoyd!!🖤

MASTELIST

TagList

@obsessedunicorn24

@namelesslosers

[mdzs-kinkmeme]

Just remarking on something I saw on Twitter - you really read every fic posted on the meme? I'm not asking because I think you have ulterior motives, but that is an astoundingly large amount of fic. What's the purpose of reading all of it - proofreading? Content warnings? Thank you for all the work you do!

Most importantly, I need to check to see that the filler submitted a fill that actually matches the claim and doesn’t have the prompter’s DNWs in it. If the prompt was for Wangxian and the fill is for Drarry, that’s a pretty good reason to not include it in the collection, you know?

From there I check to see that the rating is appropriate for the content, that the major AO3 warnings are used correctly, and that the tags accurately describe what is in the fic. Occasionally I will suggest adding a tag that isn’t in the Ao3 Big Four, but it’s always just a suggestion, not a requirement. I scan for any sort of intentional trolling or bigotry (and, since intentional bigotry is unlikely, I scan for significant microaggressions that the author might not realize they’ve included and might want to know about.) And lastly, because multiple fills being submitted for the same prompt can get messy sometimes, I keep an eye out for potential plagiarism drama.

Appropriate rating: If the fic has an actual sex scene where what’s happening is unambiguous, it needs to be rated E. Some fillers rate theirs M and I request that they up the rating. Alternatively, some fillers rate their fics E for extreme gore and violence; I request that they bump their rating down to M because E is just a sex thing.

Big Four AO3 Warnings vs Choose Not To Warn: I might have needed to remind a filler that “underage” specifically means the US-centric “under 18″ not “underage in my home country,” but my memory of this is fuzzy. Pretty sure people have been good about these.

Accurate tags: Some fillers unknowingly use the platonic ampersand symbol (“&”) when they should have used the romantic-or-sexual forward slash (“/”). I also once had to point out to someone they had accidentally tagged their fic “Consensual Infidelity” when the infidelity was very much not consensual. Basically I’m just checking for people who started typing in a tag and hit “enter” without realizing autocomplete had betrayed them. I’ve never seen a filler intentionally mislabel their fic.

Suggested additional tags: A decent handful of people writing incest fic forget to tag it with an incest warning tag (or they’ll tag with something like ”Niecest,” “Jadecest,” etc, rather than with the generic confirmed tag.) While of course it’ll be obvious from the listed ship that the fic will contain incest, this kind of tagging makes it much more difficult for people to filter out incest generally, forcing them to exclude ships one at a time, so I always request that one of the generic confirmed tags be added. Here and there I’ve suggested a few other common triggers be tagged for, such as claustrophobia. However, if people don’t want to tag those things then that’s of course their prerogative as the author -- descriptive tagging is encouraged, but not mandatory.

Trolling/spamming: None of this so far, but if the Sangcheng troll or the Xiyao troll tries anything, I’ll catch it.

Bigotry/noteworthy microaggressions: So far this has only come up in one fill, with a non-English speaker using the r-word in the mouth of a character they were definitely not trying to make sound insensitive, and they were very willing to change it to something more fitting when I asked.

Plagiarism???: Two fills for the same prompt often unintentionally overlap in their interpretation of that prompt, but sometimes it’s clear that certain elements in a later fill were directly inspired by an earlier fill. While fanfic does by definition involve riffing on existing stories and story elements, it’s always a good idea to be up front about where you’re getting those stories or story elements from, to avoid ill will among fellow authors. So at least once I have (on the behalf of the anon author) encouraged a filler to add an “inspired by” shoutout to their fill. Everything ended happily :)

------------

I am a pretty fast reader and there aren’t generally more than two or three fics added in a day, so it’s not too far out of my way to read everything within a few hours of when it comes in. The one thing I can’t claim to do is keep up with updates to every single multi-chapter fic in the collection. I read the fill when it’s submitted and only keep up with it if it’s actually something I’m personally interested in. So if you see something crop up in a later chapter that runs afoul of these guidelines (e.g., a later chapter adds an explicit sex scene and doesn’t change the rating, or adds major character death and doesn’t warn for it) please let me know so I can talk to the author!

On the days when four or five fills come in at once, I just ask in the tag wrangler chat if anybody wants to read something for me, and we share the load. So there are maybe....four or five total fics in the collection I still haven’t read. But yeah, as a general rule, if it’s in the collection, I’ve either read it or I’ve at least read the first chapter.

[seohubltd]

 Get free backlinks ========================================

Original Content: There’s no such thing as a free backlink. Instead, there are techniques which generate free backlinks.

Getting free backlinks for your website doesn’t mean that you won’t pay for links. What it means is that you won’t pay money for links. Rather, you pay for those links with time and hard work.

For website owners willing to put the work in, this is great news. After all, there’s no better way to get the upper hand on your competition than by doing the work which they won’t do. So, here are four ways to get free backlinks for your website.

https://seohubltd.com/

1. Guest Post Outreach Editors of all kinds are always looking for great content to put on their website. If you provide that content, they’ll post it for you online. You’ll need three things to get started:

A target website which accepts guest posts or submissions and is relevant to your industry and your story idea. An irresistible article which is relevant to your industry and the publication. A contact at the target website. These three things are key. Let’s say you have a jaw-dropping story: incontrovertible evidence that Stonehenge was built by aliens. The wrong publication — Care Homes Weekly for example, still won’t run it!

More than that, it’s no good having anything unless you have an email address or — at the very least — a contact form.

https://seohubltd.com/

Find a Story To get started with guest post outreach, you first need to find the story. To do that, try typing your keyword into Google, clicking ‘News’ and see what kind stories come up. This will give you some idea what’s going on in your industry and what people are writing about.

“Car insurance providers” won’t pull up much news, but the more general “car insurance” gives you a better overview of the industry

If Google News doesn’t give you any ideas, try typing your keywords into Google Trends, Answer The Public or BuzzSumo.

Or, if you want to go old school, just write your keyword in the middle of a piece of paper and jot down anything that comes to mind. Try bouncing ideas off your colleagues or a partner to see which ideas stick.

Find a Publication Once you have an idea, you need to find someone to publish it. Google your keyword or a phrase related to your industry and then, in quotation marks, type “guest post”, “write for us” “submission”, or something similar.

By doing this, you’ll find a load of sites that have accepted guest posts in the past. That means they’re probably open to the idea of accepting guest posts in the future too!

Car insurance is a pretty hot topic!

Find the Contact Details Once you have an idea and a publication, it’s time to send a pitch. To do that, you’ll need to find some contact information. Ideally, you’re looking for the editor.

If you’re lucky, you might find a page titled “Submissions” or “Write for us”, which gives crystal clear instructions on how you can pitch an idea. If not, you’ll have to do some sleuthing.

First, try the “Contact us” page. Not there? How about “About us” or something similar? Still nothing? Scroll to the footer of the website. Zilch?

Okay. It’s time to go on social media. You should be able to find a number of people who regularly write for your target website. Simply search their names on the different social media profiles. You should get some matches fairly quickly. Journalists often have an email address in their social media profiles so that people can send them stories. If not, just send them a message via social media with your pitch.

Send a Pitch Once you have an email, it’s time to send off the pitch. This needs to be punchy, short and informative. Editors are strapped for time and they see more pitches per day than they are able to respond to. You need something which is really going to sing. If possible, aim for less than eight sentences. If you can’t explain your story in eight sentences, you probably don’t have a good idea of what the story is about.

After sending the pitch, follow it up periodically once a week with a polite email. Unless you get a response, do three of these follow-ups. If you don’t get anything, it’s their loss. If you get a reply, it’s time to write the article!

Create the Content Write the article you promised in your pitch. Follow their guidelines, if they have them, and don’t promote your product. That’s not what the article is about. If you can include a natural link to a relevant blog post or page on your website within the article, that’s great. If not, make sure you get a backlink in the author bio.

Once you’ve checked, doubled-checked and triple-checked your article, send it over. Try to find out when it might be published, but don’t be pushy. Follow it up once every couple of weeks with a friendly email. Do this three times.

If all goes well, you should have an article published with a backlink to your website! And if the story looks good, there’s no harm emailing the editor and asking if they’d be interested in a continued partnership. They might work at other properties or need more content in the future.

2. Guest Comment Outreach This is a faster process in every way. The opportunities come faster and the articles get published faster. However, it means that you need to be faster, too. If not, your competitors will reap the benefits.

Follow as many journalists on Twitter relevant to your industry as you think appropriate. Keep an eye out for #journorequest or #prrequest in your feed. If you don’t see anything, search for the two hashtags in the search bar.

Confusingly, both hashtags are also used by bloggers. You can either just try to ignore them, or you can type “filter:verified” after the hashtag.

This will filter out all posts from unverified accounts. As a general rule, journalists are more often verified than bloggers.

Did you know that Ikea made solar panels? I certainly didn’t…

Find the journo request that only you could answer and offer to answer it. The journo might give their email address out in the Tweet itself, in which case you should email them. If they don’t, comment saying that you’d love to contribute and give them your email address. They’ll either comment back, email you directly, or they might ignore you.

If they do the latter, don’t chase it up. Twitter moves fast and journalists are very busy people. If they are interested, they’ll probably give you a deadline. If not, ask for one — though assume that it’s as soon as possible.

Get them their comment ASAP. Include a link to your website somewhere in the comment, or write a short bio line at the top, with a link to your website. The comment doesn’t need to be long and the journalist might only end up using a couple of sentences anyway. About 300 words should be more than enough.

Once you’ve sent your comment over, check for the published article. If it doesn’t contain your comment, hard luck. If it does contain it with a link, congratulations!

If the article is published but without a link, don’t worry. Send the journalist a polite email asking to be credited for the story. Most are more than happy to oblige.

3. Directory Listings Directory listings can be found all over the internet. They are websites dedicated to listing the services of other websites. To start, write one short and one long description of your business. Some directories want short descriptions, some want long descriptions, so have both at the ready. Make sure both descriptions contain a backlink.

To find directories, type in your keyword or a phrase from your industry and “directory” or “directories” into Google. Make a list of all the directories you find. At this point, you’ll need to filter out junk directories. This is harder than it looks! In general, you’re looking for directories with some kind of human verification in place. Systematically approach every directory that meets the cut asking for your business to be listed with the description you have provided.

It’s an arduous process, but remember that your competitors probably think it’s arduous, too. In fact, they might not even bother doing it, which is all the more reason why you should do it!

4. Wikipedia Citations Wikipedia needs citations. Without them, it’s not an internet source to be trusted. To find the citation which a blog post on your website would be perfect for, search Wikipedia for articles relating to your keyword or your industry. Find a section which is missing a citation and add your blog post as a citation for that section.

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find a publication as soon as you have got an concept, you need to locate someone to post it. Google your key-word or a phrase associated with your enterprise and then, in citation marks, type “guest publish”, “write for us” “submission”, or some thing comparable.

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find the contact info as soon as you have an idea and a e-book, it’s time to send a pitch. To do that, you’ll need to find some contact statistics. preferably, you’re searching out the editor.

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ok. It’s time to head on social media. You ought to be capable of locate some of folks who often write for your goal website. virtually search their names at the one of a kind social media profiles. You need to get a few matches fairly quick. newshounds often have an electronic mail deal with of their social media profiles so that people can ship them testimonies. If now not, simply send them a message via social media with your pitch.

ship a Pitch as soon as you have got an e mail, it’s time to send off the pitch. This needs to be punchy, short and informative. Editors are strapped for time and that they see extra pitches in step with day than they're capable of respond to. You need something that's certainly going to sing. If possible, purpose for much less than 8 sentences. If you may’t provide an explanation for your story in 8 sentences, you possibly don’t have an excellent idea of what the story is about.

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Create the content Write the item you promised on your pitch. follow their guidelines, if they have them, and don’t sell your product. That’s not what the object is ready. If you could encompass a natural hyperlink to a applicable blog publish or page for your website inside the article, that’s superb. If no longer, make sure you get a backlink in the writer bio.

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follow as many reporters on Twitter relevant on your industry as you suspect suitable. keep an eye out for #journorequest or #prrequest in your feed. if you don’t see whatever, search for the two hashtags in the seek bar.

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this will filter all posts from unverified bills. As a general rule, newshounds are greater regularly demonstrated than bloggers.

Did you understand that Ikea made solar panels? I actually didn’t…

find the journo request that only you can answer and provide to reply it. The journo may supply their email address out within the Tweet itself, in which case you have to e-mail them. if they don’t, remark announcing which you’d love to contribute and supply them your electronic mail cope with. They’ll both comment back, electronic mail you at once, or they could ignore you.

if they do the latter, don’t chase it up. Twitter moves speedy and newshounds are very busy humans. If they're interested, they’ll possibly give you a cut-off date. If no longer, ask for one — even though count on that it’s as quickly as viable.

Get them their remark ASAP. consist of a link in your internet site somewhere inside the remark, or write a brief bio line on the top, with a link to your internet site. The comment doesn’t need to be lengthy and the journalist may handiest grow to be the usage of multiple sentences anyway. approximately three hundred words should be extra than enough.

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three. listing Listings listing listings can be found everywhere in the internet. they may be websites devoted to list the services of other websites. to start, write one brief and one lengthy description of your business. a few directories want quick descriptions, some need long descriptions, so have both at the ready. ensure both descriptions comprise a back-link.

To discover directories, type to your key-word or a phrase from your industry and “directory” or “directories” into Google. Make a list of all of the directories you find. At this point, you’ll want to filter junk directories. this is tougher than it appears! In general, you’re seeking out directories with some kind of human verification in location. Systematically technique each listing that meets the reduce soliciting for your business to be indexed with the description you have furnished.

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[milap-sd]

Update Announcement Bar in Shopify :)

Hi welcome to update announcement bar tutorial where we will have a look at the advanced implementation so that the value for someone to qualify for free shipping it's updated whenever someone adds an item to the card without the page having to refresh and the same thing should work on the cart page. 

If someone adjusts the quantity you can see the message gets updated and it should be fun to implement this so let's go alright so starting this post I assume that you have already seen part 1 of this tutorial and just to quickly recap that by now you should have this modified announcement bar and you can display the amount that someone needs to add in order to unlock free shipping. 

When you add an item to the cart this value won't get updated automatically and you need to refresh the page so that it gets updated and if you haven't seen part one yet I highly recommend you go back and watch that first so you can get a really good understanding of what is going on but otherwise if you're using the theme you could also go ahead and copy and paste the content of our modified header that liquid fire.

Okay so that being said I can already tell you that in this post we are going to write some JavaScript code to implement our update functionality and therefore I want to give you a quick overview on how the JavaScript is structured within the W theme and you will find the same pattern and many other themes as well and I can simply right click with my Chrome browser and then go to inspect and switch to the console and in here we can test and debug JavaScript code but what I want to show you right now is that our theme fires attached an object that is called theme to the window and in that theme object we will find all the theme elements that have to be managed in some way by JavaScript and just to name a few examples here we have the mobile navigation or maybe the search drawer or some post if we have posts on our page and all these elements contain methods that help to control them. 

So for example we could use the MDOT search drawer and in here we will find a method that is called open and this would simply bring up the search bar and in the same way we have a method that is called closed and this would dismiss the search bar and in the same way we are going to create a helper function to update our shipping bar and then we will simply call that every time an input changes.

Okay so now we can have a look into the actual theme code and in your theme files you will find a folder called assets and this should contain the theme j/s which should contain most of the JavaScript for your theme and you can already see the window dot theme object which I just showed you on the front-end and here it is set to a blank object and then over time you will see that all the other elements are added to this object. 

So we have the theme of currency the draw the header the mobile navigation the video and so on and so forth and within these elements we have all the helper functions that we can use to control the elements but for example here we have a method called pause video and here we have one that is called load videos and now we are going to scroll to the bottom and down there we will implement our own shipping bar element with all the necessary update functions. 

So let me zoom in that it's easier for you to read and down here we drop to a new line and first of all we create our new shipping bar element so let's type theme dot shipping bar and then we set it to an empty JavaScript object and now we will drop in between these curly brackets and down here I can define the so-called object properties and all the properties will be public on the front end so maybe we could simply type test and then some text hello world and maybe another property or test - which will be some random number maybe one two three four five but we can also add functions to these properties. 

So we will have an update function and then we would simply type function a pair of parenthesis and a pair of curly brackets and in here we can define what happens when someone executes the function let's do user lock and for now we would simply type updated shipping bar and for now safe this and after a quick refresh on the front end. 

We should now have access to our new themed shipping bar object and you can already see that we have our defined values so ended shipping bar the test equals had a word and test two as one two three four five and we can even call our update method therefore we just use parentheses and you can see now it says updated shipping bar and this is exactly where we will implement our real update functionality later but for now I just want to tell you that I have a small problem with these two values being public because later we will have some variables and I don't want them to be public but with the syntax that I used we don't have a way to create private or hidden properties.

So we will fix that and then we will go ahead and implement the update method so back in the theme file we will now define this object in a slightly different way so let's type a theme but shipping bar and now we won't set it to an object immediately or instead to a function this function should be executed immediately so we type parentheses at the end and in between the curly brackets we can define that function and in here we can now define all the variables that we need and our update method and then all the variables will be private and we will only return or make the update method public and now I feel like this may sound a little bit confusing especially if you're new to JavaScript. 

So let's define some variables and then I will show you this in action so we will have one variable for the shipping bar HTML and then we will have one let's say for the promote message we can do promote ext and then we will have another one for the message that shows up when you unlock free shipping so unlocked txt and down below we can then define our update function. 

Let's do function that is called update we can also define that function right here but for now we will simply type console dot lock updated shipping bomb and now we can go ahead and delete all the above declaration and in this function we will simply return our new update function to the public let's type update we'll link to the update function and then save this so as we check the front-end one more time. 

We should now see that within the theme that shipping bar element we only have access to the update method and all the other variables are no longer public and so this syntax helps to keep things structured and it's also used throughout the theme so I thought it would be a good idea to share this alright. 

So in order to build out our update function we now need to assign some values to our variables and the shipping bar itself is relatively easy to get so we can simply use document query selector and then selected by its CSS class so I think it was announcement far nons min - bah but in order to get the other two values so the promote message and the unlock message and the threshold as well we will need that too. 

Now we will use a small trick to get these because we can't simply access the customizer settings from the JavaScript file so therefore we will go back to the header dot liquid where we implemented our free shipping bar and then we will simply add these values to the data set of the announcement bar so we will define three data attributes the first one will be data #NAME? then we will have data there's unlocked and we will have data - threshold and now we can simply copy these variables that we defined above and place them into the data attributes are we wanted me to add curly brackets so the liquid gets rendered and unlocked txt threshold and in the JavaScript we can now get these data attributes and assign them to our variable so back in the JavaScript fire.

We can now take the announcement bar and get all the values we need from its data set so bar dot data set but promote and bar dot dataset dot unlocked and bar but dataset best hug we can save this and now the time has come that we can implement our update function and therefore we will use an ajax request so a request in the background if you want to say and therefore we type dollar sign get json and then the request domain which will be slash cart js. 

So we want to request the cart and once we get that data so then we want to perform a certain action with their data so we can simply type the function and then cart and then curly brackets and in here we will define what happens with the card data but now let me show you really quick what we get when we call this request domain and therefore I will copy this to my clipboard and then I can use my Shopify domain and append slash card j/s and you can see that I get the card data in the JSON format and the JSON format is a way to display structured data we can see it here in a more structured way and you can see that I get information on the card like the item count the items in the card the subtotal total price and this is the key attribute. 

I'm interested in to compare if the threshold has been reached or not yet and now back in the update function I can simply calculate the value that is left by subtracting the card dot total price from the threshold - card dot total price and in the same way as we did it in the header fire we now need to apply a money filter to this value left because right now it's incense and doesn't match the theme mana formatting. 

So let's do VAR value left money and then we can use a function that lies within theme dot currency dot format money and this function will take the value and sense and the theme dot money format and then we can save it and now the last thing we have to do in order to finish our update method is simply check if the value that is left is less or equal to zero then we want to display the unlock message and otherwise so if it is still above the zero then we want to display the promote message and therefore we will simply access the announcement bar.

So we will type bar in our HTML in both cases and now we can simply copy the message from the head of fire so let's do this right away and right here we have the announcement bar message so we can simply copy it stood right here now we have to use single quotes we will get a conflict with these double quotes and we also remove the curly brackets from the liquid rendering because now we can use the JavaScript variable that we defined above and then we will use plus here we use single quotes again success message and down below we can copy the same statement or the same markup and now we will replace the unlock message with the promote message but if you remember. 

We still have this dynamic placeholder from the customizer settings where we output the value that is left and we will replace that as well so let's type dot replace and then value oh it's in brackets where you and we will replace it with the value left money and then we can save it and I hope you can already see that this is very similar to what we have done in the first tutorial so in the head of fire we did basically the same we took some of the messages from the customizer and when we update or put out the announcement by message we simply check if the value that is left is less or equal to zero and then we set the  announcement message to either the success message or to the promote message all right. 

So now we should give our new implemented method a test on the front end and therefore I went to the cart page and now I will adjust the quantity and when I call our new method so theme the shipping part our update we should see this value jump to 10 euro and it does so this is great and now I would qualify for free shipping and I will call the same method again and then we should see the unlock message and we do so this works great and we didn't make any mistakes otherwise we would see them right here and we could fix them in the theme file but now that this is working.

We simply have to call this method whenever the card input or the card quality changes and I think right now you already have enough input so the last thing is very simple to do and then we can finish the project all right so back at the theme files we now have to find all the places where let's say in items edit with the card or the input quantity is changed or an item is removed entirely and in the W theme you can search for exactly these keywords. 

So let's search for update item and right here you will find a function that is called whenever the input quantity changes and you can see that they also do an AJAX request to perform this on the background and once this is done they also do some other stuff and right before they end here we can call our new theme shipping bar update method let's copy it right here and this is the first place we will add this and then we will go ahead and search for at item 2 card or add item and you will see the second function that gets called whenever an item is added to the card and even here they do an ajax request to perform this on the background and again once this is done the executors function and right before they end this function. 

We can again insert our new m dot shipping bar update method and save it again and the last place we recall our new function is when an item is removed so on remove and let's see here we have the function for it and there's the Ajax request to perform it on the background and once this is done they execute all this and at the end we will call our new shipping bar update method let's copy it here as well: and save and I think now we have all the important places. 

So let's check this on the on the front-end so back at the front-end I can now try to add an item to the cart and you would see that this gets updated immediately and even on the cart page if I adjust the quantity let's say to six and is updates to the unlock message perfect and even if I remove the item entirely this jumps back to 50 so everything's working perfect. 

Okay so before we finish the post I want to add one more little thing so that this gets a little bit safer to use because right now we don't have any validation if the shipping bar is enabled and if it isn't enabled this might throw an arrow and break a lot of theme code so what I simply want to do is after we get the shipping bar or after we try to get the shipping bar I want to test if the shipping bar has any useful value.

So we can simply type if bar and then wrap this into curly brackets and the same thing will be done in the update method so if we have a shipping bar then we want to do everything that we just implemented and otherwise we will simply do nothing so we'll save this and this is the minimum validation that we can make and then we can finally finish the post and this was a lot to explain and probably a lot of input for you as well so if you have questions you can always leave them down in the comment section and as always I hope you found some value in this post and then I hope to see you on the next post bye.

[darlingrutherford]

Once Upon a Time in Thedas

Oops, I went and posted the first chapter of my Cinderella!AU, because I can’t help myself. First chapter is a short one to set the scene. This fic may move rather quickly for the main bit of it, but I have every full intention of expanding on it after the main bit is done. This is a bit out of my comfort zone and rather different from what I usually write, so please be kind! Also, tagging @schoute because I promised ;) And, enjoy! <3 

Trigger warnings for this series for mentions and scenes of mental/physical abuse. 

Once Upon a Time in Thedas - Chapter One | Cross-posted on Ao3 | DA Cinderella!AU with alternate world canon | Alistair Theirin/Lana Surana | Mature rating for this chapter | 

Once upon a time, there lived a young elf named Lana. She lived with her mother and father on the outskirts of Denerim in a small cottage surrounded by trees and brush. Denerim was a large city in Ferelden, home to many different kinds of people: humans, elves, even the occasional dwarf or two who had come to the city looking to trade. Shops of all kinds paved the city: apothecaries, smiths, inns, even a few rarities shops run by mages who had managed to scrape their way to a better living despite their Maker-given gifts. Being a mage wasn’t considered a blessing by many. They could be dangerous, unpredictable. As such, the Chantry kept a close watch on all mages, requiring them to live within a city limit so that the Templars could keep an eye on them. Circles existed to contain any mage deemed too dangerous or those who would refuse to abide by Chantry rule, but those who kept quiet and to themselves could live a simple life.

Lana had come into her magic at the age of eight, much to the displeasure of her parents. There had been an argument, one started in a moment of hot headedness when Lana had questioned her mother. When the back of her mother’s hand made contact with her face, ice had sprung from Lana’s fingertips and frozen the floorboards beneath her feet. That was the day Lana sustained her first scars: one, on her forearm from a knife her mother had swung at her in anger, and another, a small knick close to her left eye, just before her father had forced the knife from her hand. Lana had spent three days in her parent’s dark hall closet while they argued and ultimately decided, with council from the local Chantry, what to do with her. Since that day ten years ago, Lana had been confined to their home. Her parents were devout Andrastians. They were ashamed of having a mage be of their blood, and wished nothing more than for all of Denerim to forget that Lana even existed. And, for some time, they did.

All her days after that frightful, fateful moment had been spent focusing on the Chant, taking care of their home, and trying to suppress the magic inside of her. Lana did the best she could. Some days she woke up with her pillow cold as ice, or a flame would spark from her fingertips when she was having trouble lighting the hearth. Each time a panic would set in deep in her gut, and after a quick look to ensure neither of her parents had seen, she would carefully remove any evidence and pray to the Maker to make it stop while she atoned throughout the day.

Each day began the same for Lana: she would wake just before the sun to recite from the Chant, brush out her hair, and braid it in a simple, tight braid that her mother preferred her to wear. Then she would dress before quietly making her way into the kitchen. Breakfast would be complete by the time her parents woke, hot tea heated on the hearth and not by magic to be on the table waiting. The three of them would sit at the table, say a morning prayer from the Chant before their meal, and eat in silence. Occasionally there would be a harsh remark from one of her parents: her mother would remind her to sit up straight; her father would remind her of something she missed in her chores the day before, which her mother would reprimand her for later. Then Lana would clear the table, clean the dishes, and work on sweeping the house if the sun was out. Her parents would sit at the table, and Lana would take her time sweeping while they discussed the happenings about Denerim as of late. She would listen eagerly as she worked, wanting to soak in everything they said. Later she would take what she heard, sit at her windowsill, and daydream about life in Denerim for those without magic.

In her daydreams, she thought of the bustle of the city, all the sounds and all the different people who would be there. She thought of the shops, the different types of trade found throughout that made Denerim the city it was. She had seen the Royal Palace once, when she was much younger, from the outside as she walked quickly at her father's side on their way to the market. Its gates had seemed so large at the time, stone walls surrounding it but not quite containing the sound of those running back and forth about their daily duties from within. Every so often Lana would imagine what it would be like to wander the city again, with someone else at her side, someone other than her father; someone she could walk hand in hand with, when they could walk leisurely without rush. As her face would flush from the thought, she would pull herself from the dream. That's all it was, after all. Just a dream. Who in their right mind would love a mage?

Lana’s days weren’t entirely filled with chores. She had become quite proficient at them, and as such was able to afford a good amount of her day to reciting the Chant as her parents preferred for her. They allowed her to choose where she spent that time, as long as it was within their small property. Between her bedroom and the small garden that surrounded their home, Lana found her peace. When the sun hit her face, Lana felt she could breathe again. No matter how the day had been, as long as she had behaved herself, she had the sun. Even when confined to her room when her mother had decided it was needed, Lana’s window faced West, and the sun always found her. On a day such as today, when Lana had made her mother happy with her - as much as a mage could - she found herself on her knees in the garden near her window, the sun warming her face as she recited the Chant.

“...’So the Maker turned from his firstborn and took from the Fade a measure of its living flesh and placed it apart from the Spirits, and spoke to it, saying, ‘Here, I decree opposition in all things: For earth, sky; For winter, summer -’”

“‘For darkness, Light.’”

“Sister Leliana!” Lana rose from the ground as she heard the light voice of the Chantry Sister. As an established mage in Denerim, the Chantry kept a close watch on Lana. Traveling from Lothering, Sister Leliana had been assigned to her for going on a year then, after Lana’s last Sister had taken a missionary sabbatical to the Free Marches. The Sister would check up on her twice a week, and Lana often found herself clinging to the opportunity to see the face of someone other than her parents. “Is it Tuesday already?”

“No, it is Monday,” Leliana said with a smile. “I will have special business tomorrow that will keep me from you. I thought it best to stop by and see how you are doing.”

“I should tell my -”

“I already spoke with your mother,” Leliana said. She smiled as Lana visibly relaxed at her reassurance. “How have you been since I last saw you?”

“Very well, thank you,” Lana said. Leliana waved her hand and walked to the edge of the garden near a tall oak tree, and Lana followed. They sat in the shade, elbows close to one another.

“How are you really?” Leliana asked, her voice lower than before. She took Lana’s hand, turning it over to observe a fresh scar near her elbow. ��They don’t listen to us talk, you know. Out here, it’s just the two of us.”

“It’s fine. I… I upset her,” Lana said quietly. “I accidentally used… I shocked her when she grabbed me.”

“I see.” Leliana was quiet for a moment as Lana fidgeted with the end of her braid. Her braid was the same always, and this day was no different: close to her head, beginning on one side near her temple and ending on the other at the nape of her neck, not a hair out of place. The sun glimmered off her red strands, glittering like fire in the light that filtered through the branches of the tree.

“How are things in Denerim?” Lana asked, trying her best to not sound too eager.

“You are in Denerim too, you know,” Leliana said with a knowing smile.

“I know,” Lana laughed quietly. “It’s just… it’s so quiet here.”

“You heard they chose a new King a month ago?”

“I did, yes.” Lana’s face lit up, as it always did whenever she and Leliana spoke about anything new. Reciting the Chant and speaking of the Maker with the Sister was wonderful and all, but Lana yearned for the world outside their home more than anything. It was a world she felt she would never know, despite its closeness, and she wished more than anything to live vicariously through the Sister as much as she could.

“He was crowned this past week,” Leliana said. “He will have to find a Queen soon, I assume.”

“Should be easy for royalty. I can’t imagine any woman would say no to a life of living in a castle. Can you imagine?”

“Would you say yes?” Leliana teased.

“Don’t be ridiculous, why would I be asked?” Lana flushed, then horror washed over her face. “I’m so sorry, Sister, I didn’t mean to say that you are -”

“I know what you meant,” Leliana reassured her. “It will be our little secret. Now then… Which part of the Chant would you like to discuss today?”

Lana and Sister Leliana spoke to one another for a few hours. Lana always appreciated how much time Leliana took with her. The other Sisters had been content with an hour here or there, but Sister Leliana seemed to genuinely sympathize with Lana's life, and Lana's parents would never question a Sister of the Chantry. By the time Sister Leliana had left on her way, the sun had begun to fall and Lana rushed inside to help her mother in the kitchen.

“Don't think that you can shirk your duties just because Sister Leliana was with you today,” her mother warned.

“Yes, mother, of course,” Lana said. She quickly grabbed a pot from above the stove and went about lighting the wood below the stove.

“What did you two discuss today?”

“We spoke of Threnodies, and the Maker's creation of the world.” Lana grabbed a knife from the table, trying to make quick work of the potatoes. She turned them in her hand, trying to peel quickly with the sharp knife.

“For three hours?” Her mother scoffed. “You had better be able to recite it backwards to me after - now look at what you've done! If you've bled on the potatoes…”

Lana dropped the knife, holding her bleeding finger tightly in her hand. She angled her hand away from the table, quickly scanning her eyes and feeling relief wash over when she saw no blood on the table. She felt warm for a moment, and then the pain in her hand almost melded into nothing. Her mother grabbed her injured hand, tearing it towards her face and Lana's stomach opened like a pit. Her finger was stained in blood, but the offending wound had closed as if it were a week old. In her panic, she had worried of the wound itself offending her mother and she had healed it. An eerie silence broke over the home, the calm before the storm as time seemed to stop. She could see the red rushing to her mother's face, could feel time speeding up. Lana began speaking quickly, her brain racing.

“I didn't - I didn't mean to -”

“Do not talk to me after you did that… unholy thing in my house!”

Lana audibly winced as her mother grabbed her by the long point of her ear. She had to bend low to offset the pain as her feet quickly followed her mother's. She strained to look up, her stomach sinking and panic setting in as she saw them heading straight towards the closet.

“Mother, please, I swear on the Maker I didn't mean to -”

“I don't want to hear a sound from you until I open this door again!” Her mother yelled as she opened the door. Lana stumbled forward, grabbing at the wall for balance as she hit it. She turned around as the door slammed shut behind her. She could hear the lock turn as her mother forcefully turned the key, then the sound of her feet stomping away in anger, before silence took over.

The closet was dark. It had always been dark, pitch black, and empty for this use and this alone. Lana couldn't see her shadow as she slid down against the wall. It was tight and, even as small as she was, she couldn't stretch out her legs. Normally her mother would punish any regular transgressions with a pinch, a bruise, something quick and then leave Lana to her room. The closet was reserved for magic, for when Lana went against the very stringent rules that her parents expected her to abide by in order to live in their presence. Lana had spent many hours in the closet when she was younger, when controlling the magic had been harder. Sometimes it was hours, sometimes a day, always dark, and alone. As she grew she had become better at suppressing the magic, but, occasionally, it took her by surprise, as it had that day. She shook against the wall in the darkness, knowing that when she finally did see the light again there would be hell to pay. Making noise would make it worse. It would make her mother leave her in there for longer if she heard, make the eventual punishment more terrible than it already would be. Lana hugged her knees close to her chest, burying her face against her legs. She cried silently, her lips moving as she recited the Chant barely above a whisper in hopes that the Maker would hear:

“Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and d - do not falter… Blessed a - are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just… Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow... In their… In their blood... the Maker's will is written.”

[baddieromanova]

so you falice shippers still ship that mess who fucked once, even after alice willingly took him back after what he said to her and won't even talk to his new son? and are happy about it? lol sucks to be tasteless

This message has been sitting in my inbox for roughly 2 days and I’ve been going back and forth on whether to dignify it with a response or not. While I tend to ignore and delete hateful messages such as this and not give the coward behind them any form of the attention they crave, after careful consideration, I decided to abandon that belief because answering this question gives me a great opportunity to tell you about yourself and how wrong you are, sit back and get comfortable.

First of all, I’ll never understand how people who have 99% of a fandom blocked and filtered tags pertaining to what that fandom makes posts about and produces content for, still manage to make posts about what said fandom is doing, saying etc. Why do y’all make so much assumptions about a group of people you’ve sworn off all contact and interaction with for well over a year? How would you know what goes on in the Falice section of the fandom? So my main question here is, what’s the point of even using the block button against us if you’re still going to come to our blogs and goes through the tags to seek out what we’re up to? If these blocks weren’t in effect we could all have mature discussions instead of resorting to this, so I have to wonder, is it because the block button on your end prevents us from shutting down your bullshit so you can happily enjoy your idealistic totally pulled out of your ass version of Riverdale and it’s ships/characters? Hmm

Second of all, I can assure you no Falice fan is happy or even satisfied about their sudden reunion with no reconciliation or acknowledgement over what happened in 3x15, which we knew was bound to happen, hence why a lot of fics were produced back in the SUMMER containing the content we knew we were not going to get. Would we have loved to actually see FP apologise? Alice to punch him in the face? His reaction to Charles? A touching moment between all three after being reunited for the first time in 25 years? FP to practically grovel to Alice till he was on the brink of tears? Alice acting cold towards him? Heck yeah, we all at least wanted her to spit at him, I don’t know anyone who didn’t want her to act physically towards him, he deserved it, which is why we took our dreams to Wattpad and AO3. Personally I wanted a resentful anadonned child plot to play out where Charles initially hates Alice and we see that play out while they try to build a relationship. We have ranted, we have rambled, we have argued and we have moved on. We don’t watch this show with rose colored glasses and an idealistic perspective. We know it’s a joke and the writers are incapable of decent and realistic execution of development for friendships, relationships, break ups and reconciliations and use time jumps to avoid doing so, we’ve accepted that. We’ve made our peace with that, which is why we can still watch and find some enjoyment while you and others literally complain every single day over the most minor instances.

Thirdly, I admire your attempt to use the writers incompetence when it comes to writing relationships to push your “Falice is a mess who fucked once” arguement and even throwing in the 4x04 time jump matched with FP and Alice suddenly being together and little mention of Charles to put emphasis onto it. You’re trying to twist it into a Falice problem when it’s actually a Riverdale problem sweetheart, their problem with accurate story development and execution and just being lazy with any character and ship outside of Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead. If we want to go by that logic then I suppose by default Tom is a bad parent for being conveniently absent during his sons participation in a farm cult and not noticing his missing kidney despite being a cop thus immediately being able to pick up on that. I guess Sweet pea is a shit friend for “not saving” his bff from said cult and I guess Polly’s a bad mother for putting the same twins she was willing to run away from her family from to keep safe, up for adoption, and not even acknowledging their presence now or even having a say in who has custody of them. Of course none of these things are actually true, they’ve just unfortunately happened because of either plot convenience for the core four characters or just complete lack of care from the writers. Just the fact that they still seem to be in their newborn phase despite being nearly three years old according to the shows timeline says it all. They don’t care. As for “mess of a ship who only fucked once”, as much as you people love to clutch onto season one canon or what was established back then for dear life and disclaim 3x04, you sure do love to ignore certain parts of that season and keep 3x04 in your mouths when it comes to Falice. Seasons one and two always implied much more happened between Falice as teens than what 3x04 presented. You don’t go from telling someone you’d still sleep with them if they weren’t so stuck up, impulsively telling them to leave their spouse, doing a parole violating act to protect them, writing an apology letter despite being unable to strong two sentences together, talking about your kids making said mistakes you and your ex did and then snapping back with they weren’t all mistakes and having your heart broken upon seeing the woman you love return to her husband to “Yeah we just fucked once”. Falice were more than a one time thump, and that’s the canon I’m choosing to stick with, the same way you choose to believe Hal fathered Charles despite there NEVER being any implication through dialogue, backstory or characters that he was and there being a higher chance of the father being Tom or Fred before FP being a viable candidate. I’m not going to suspend belief of that just because the writers were more concerned with the sensationalism and “fun” aspect of the teen actors playing their parents, and essentially just doing dress up because none of their portrayals of their parents were accurate or even done to a high standard, Lili’s acting was decent but her acting is decent in general, Cole’s mannerisms were superb and KJ looked like Luke’s twin but outside of that, I didn’t see any of them as young versions of the parents and I promise nobody else did, and doing a storyline revolving around a bootleg Dungeons and Dragons game and making it borderline supernatural rather than just giving us a simple episode about the parents as teens based on the stories that have told on the show already.

You’re most likely a Halice or crackship that will never happen stan, you’ve got bigger priorities than FP and Alice and their relationship love which I’m sure has no impact on you or your faves whatsoever , maybe if you spent the time you did crying over Falice actually minding your business and shipping your ship you wouldn’t be so bitter.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, late-January 2020

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across since the mid-January report, although some may be older than that. 

Right now I am trying to get at least 2 of these out each month. Is that enough? Too much? Am I missing topics you want to see covered? Please let me know! Comment here, message me through Tumblr, Twitter, or my website.

Also, I am once again working on plans to start an ecommerce business forum, where small business owners can learn and discuss topics like the ones I post about here. If you have any preferences for a suggested platform/forum space,please let me know! I will be running a survey once I narrow down my list. 

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy introduced alternative shipping for US sellers shipping outside of the US & Canada, run by Asendia. Etsy Labels will no longer offer USPS First Class International for those shipments, but faster levels will still be through USPS. The Help file doesn’t give that much more detail; discussion is here. 

Having educational/information pages on ecommerce websites can help product page search rankings. Blog posts, pillar pages and tutorials can all be a good investment. 

Excellent article on how to keep your existing buyers (aka customer retention) rather than always going after new ones. It cites decent research in the area, with examples. (As regular readers know, I love Help Scout’s customer service articles!) For example, “When it comes to highly rated customer service, quality and completeness matter more than speed. According to research from Gallup, customers were nine times more likely to be engaged with a brand when they evaluated the service as “courteous, willing, and helpful.” “Speedy” service, on the other hand, only made customers six times more likely to be satisfied.”

ETSY NEWS 

More updates to listing categories, including a new Presets & Photo Filters category, and Cribs & Cradles is now called Moses Baskets & Hammocks. 

Tips on marketing your Etsy listings for weddings. “Etsy wedding shoppers are often drawn to Etsy because they identify as creative people themselves, an asset you should consider when developing and marketing your products. By offering DIY versions of some of your popular items, you can draw in crafty shoppers, who may end up purchasing a finished handmade item from your shop instead. Offering both options can also be a great way of hitting multiple price points.”

If you sell jewellery and/or accessories, here is Etsy’s advice for marketing in the first half of the year. “While high-end jewelry is often a carefully considered purchase, more affordable everyday items make easy impulse buys and gifts due to their small size and approachable price points.” Also, people are still shopping by gender: “70% YoY increase in Jewelry, Accessories, and Bags category searches containing “him”. “We expect the bags category to grow the most out of these three categories in the next year, led by the increasing popularity of small leather goods such as wallets, dopp kits, and items for travel. A recent increase in average order value within the Bags category suggests buyers are willing to pay more for high-quality materials like leather.” But note that “Buyers tend not to use the term "purse" in their searches.” Finally, “From July through September 2019, over half of Etsy US and global GMS came from purchases that shipped for free.”

In case you missed it, Disney is going after Etsy sellers of Baby Yoda merchandise. Some speculate that they are mostly focusssing on the listings making the most sales. More sarcastic & humorous take here.

Interesting interview (podcast & transcript, including a pdf) with CEO Josh Silverman, on business strategies.  I do like this quote: “When you’re successful, what can be really hard is to tell you’re successful because of some things and in spite of others.” To be very honest, I have this problem a lot, and have seen other business people misjudge their success as well. This is telling, though “And you have until December 31st to ship it.” I have a hunch that is what happened with Etsy Ads and the free shipping tools. So they shipped unfinished tools, and that was bad for the business. Finally, “HOFFMAN: Until this point, Etsy’s focus had been on its sellers. It saw itself as a marketplace for handmade items, and the people who made them. Josh knew he had to change this perspective… SILVERMAN: It was a really big shift in focus. I think Etsy, like many two sided marketplaces, has very deep empathy for sellers, so much so that it can forget to have empathy for buyers. And when you talk to your sellers, they really mostly want three things. They want buyers, they want buyers, and they want buyers – in that order. In order to serve the sellers, you’ve really got to focus on buyers...By the end of my fifth week almost everyone in the company had a new job.”

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google confirmed a core search update that started to roll out January 13 and took about 3 days, and showed substantial changes on most tracking tools. Early analysis indicates this has once again affected sites based on trustworthiness, but big winners and losers are still unclear. The take from Moz is that this hit health sites like previous updates, but also hurt diverse sites such as Orbitz, Yellow Pages, Poshmark, USA Today and Forever 21. RankRanger noted that there was more volatility in finance rankings than the December update. 

Remember Google’s algorithm change late last year, called BERT? George Mueller offered a bit of advice [text and video] on how to optimize for it: “if ... there’s anything that you can do to kind of optimize for BERT, it’s essentially to make sure that your pages have natural text on them...So instead of stuffing keywords as much as possible, kind of write naturally” 

Google is now highlighting some products (clothing & accessories) in organic search results on mobile in the US & India; you have to have a Google Merchant Centre account set up, but you do not need to buy ads to get this organic boost. Here’s the Google help file on how to optimize. 

If your website has many related pages on a specific topic, organizing the info on one “content hub” (aka pillar pages, or even category pages in some cases) is an excellent way to get user and search engine attention. 

Brief video from Google for SEO beginners: how to optimize images for Google search. They also link to their support file on this question, which has more advanced info. And here is another beginners video on Google SEO considerations for your website. (More links in the video comments.)

Google has a “SafeSearch filter” that removes porn and other mature content from search results, but sometimes it catches innocent sites as well. 

Another good article on how internal linking can serve multiple purposes on your website, especially keyword ranking.

Sites that get the “featured snippet” position in Google search results can no longer get organic ranking on the first page. This could change, though. 

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

Excellent tips & advice on how to make email marketing work for you. Not using emails? You should. “...email has over 3.8 billion daily active users. Take a minute to think about that. Most people who use email probably fall between the ages of 15 and 64, and since there are only about 5 billion people on the planet in that age range, that means email has over 75 percent market penetration.” And “Almost three-fourths of people prefer to hear from businesses via email.”

Do you think that every email campaign needs its own landing page? I’m not sure, but there are some convincing arguments here. And don’t forget to plan to send your emails at the right time for your list subscribers. 

Updated for 2020, HubSpot does an excellent holiday calendar that can help you plan social media posts and other content ahead of time, including hashtags where applicable. 

Tips on converting your existing content (blog posts etc.) into podcasts. “Podcasts tend to be longer-form content than video or blogs. Many videos that companies produce are relatively short, ~2 minutes. For someone looking to listen to your podcast, this may not be substantial enough in terms of the information covered.”

Here’s a useful list of demographics of social media users - think about which sites would work best for your business based on who is using them. 

Reddit is an excellent source of content ideas (video & transcript), as people are usually discussing and upvoting things that interest them, and it is all organized by topic for you. 

Instagram is adding direct messaging (DM) access to their website. 

Facebook is accused of denying data access to potential competitors. 

A surprising number of American adults use LinkedIn, and their numbers are growing faster than expected. “LinkedIn users make up around one-third of all social network users in the U.S.”

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Another tutorial on setting up a Google Ads account. 

Google ads were less evident in organic search results, for about a week. This mirrors the changes on mobile several months ago, & includes favicons next to brand sites. But more people complained about the desktop layout, so they have backed down and will continue to test new versions. 

Facebook, Google & Amazon are not the only advertising options out there. 

Short infographic on how to advertise on TikTok. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

If you haven’t set up Google Search Console for your website or blog, you should. [YouTube Video, from the Beginners series]

A good basic guide to using the Google Keyword Planner, including more tips on how to get in without setting up a paid ad campaign. 

Instagram is most useful when you track your stats - use Insights to track your reach, clicks, impressions etc. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

The growth of ecommerce purchases has been detrimental to US retail sales overall, due to brick and mortar store closures, lower b&M profit margins, and fewer jobs. Remember that Amazon now gets around 50% of ecommerce purchases in the US, meaning that the increase of online retail is more consolidated than the lost brick and mortar sales. 

Amazon will now be reporting counterfeit goods sold on its site to the authorities: "The hope has been that Amazon’s coveted data will help law enforcement make connections about criminals." 

Amazon has started a delivery program in Australia called Amazon Flex. Requiring drivers to sign up for shifts up to 4 hours that they choose, driving their own vehicles, the program is being compared to Uber. 

Shopify now has over 1 million merchants, and is growing rapidly. “This past Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, the company saw $2.9 billion in total sales; during its peak, Shopify software was processing $1.5 million in sales and 16,000 checkouts a minute.”

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Smartphone purchases continue to increase: $5.9 billion spent on Black Friday & Cyber Monday, and 48% of online purchases in the US on Christmas Day. 

Supposedly, USPS is the most trusted brand in the US, followed by Amazon, Google, and Paypal. Actual quote: “levels of distrust are high in America, but it found that brands can win trust by protecting consumers' data privacy, not hiding important information in fine print and treating employees better than the minimum required by law.” I’m struggling with Amazon & Google in the top in particular, given that quote, but at least Facebook didn’t make the top 25. 😉 Note that age is a differential factor here: “Google is the most trusted brand among Gen Z and millennials, while USPS is the most trusted among older generations like Gen X and baby boomers.” Study details & top 25 list available here. (There is a large difference between the generations, according to this study; it’s worth a scan.)

MISCELLANEOUS

If you are looking for a new search engine, here are 7 that aren’t Google. Some of you  probably hadn’t heard of all of them, because I hadn’t. 

Anti-virus software Avast is still selling user data to major companies.

[localbizlift]

Facebook and eBay pledge to do more to tackle trade in fake reviews after pressure from UK regulator

Facebook and eBay have made commitments to do more to stop fake reviews being sold on their platforms after coming under pressure from a UK markets regulator — even as fresh examples of the problem have been found on Facebook-owned Instagram.

Last June the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) warned the two platform that they must do more to prevent the sale of fake reviews on their platforms, saying it had found “troubling evidence” of a “thriving marketplace for fake and misleading online reviews.”

The regulator estimates that more than three-quarters of UK shoppers are influenced by reviews when they shop online, with billions of pounds being spent every year based on write-ups of products or services — which in turn encourages an illegal trade in fake and misleading reviews.

A few months after the CMA’s warning UK consumer rights group Which? released the results of its own investigation of the problem — singling out Facebook for having failed to move the needle (while finding eBay had made progress).

Today the CMA says Facebook has removed a total of 188 groups and disabled 24 user accounts as a result of its investigation. While eBay has permanently banned 140 users after the intervention.

The regulator said both companies have now pledged to put measures in place to “better identify, investigate and respond to” the trade in fake reviews, and help prevent such content from appearing in the future — with Facebook agreeing to introduce “more robust systems” to detect and remove such content; and eBay saying it has improved its existing filters to “better identify and block listings” for the sale or trade of online reviews.

Commenting in a statement, CMA chief executive Andrea Coscelli said: “We’re pleased that Facebook and eBay are doing the right thing by committing to tackle this problem and helping to keep their sites free from posts selling fake reviews.”

“Fake reviews are really damaging to shoppers and businesses alike. Millions of people base their shopping decisions on reviews, and if these are misleading or untrue, then shoppers could end up being misled into buying something that isn’t right for them – leaving businesses who play by the rules missing out,” he added. 

The CMA’s press release does not contain any detail of the kinds of improvements the pair have agreed to but Facebook told us it’s looking into developing automated technology to help detect and remove the bogus content.

Commenting in a statement, a Facebook spokesperson said:

Fraudulent activity is not allowed on Facebook or Instagram, including offering or trading fake reviews. While we have invested heavily to prevent this kind of activity across our services, we know there is more work to do and are working with the CMA to address this issue. Since we were first contacted by the CMA, we have identified and removed over 180 groups and 24 accounts for violating our rules and have taken robust steps to prevent this type of fraudulent activity from re-appearing on our platforms. This includes exploring the use of automated technology to help us detect and remove this content quickly, before people see it and report it to us.

An eBay spokesperson also told us: “We maintain zero tolerance for fake or misleading reviews and will continue to take action against any seller that breaches our user polices. We welcome today’s CMA report, as well as their acknowledgement of our ongoing enforcement work on this issue.”

Despite the CMA chalking up the platforms’ pledge to ‘do more’ as a win for consumers, it also reveals it’s found fresh examples of fake reviews traded on Facebook-owned Instagram — suggesting the game of whack-a-fake goes on. And will go on, unless or until platforms face more robust regulation and enforcement vis-a-vis the content they spread and monetize.

The CMA notes that websites have a responsibility to ensure that unlawful and harmful content isn’t advertised or sold through their platforms. However, as it stands, there’s little real punishment for failing to tackle the trade in bogus reviews — beyond reputational damage (and the slow burn of user trust).

The UK government recently proposed legislation to tackle a range of online harms, setting out a safety-first plan to regulation Internet firms last year — which could mean more stringent controls on platform content in future. For now, though, regulators only really have tough words in their toolbox to try to make tech giants clean up their act.

The CMA says it reported the instances of fake reviews that it found being traded on Instagram to Facebook, adding: “Facebook has committed to investigate the issue” — and saying it “will be seeking a commitment from Facebook to take action to tackle these further issues.”