#and that mindset actually makes me want to stick my hands in a plug

[despairots]

━━━━━━━━ what will you give me? what will you sacrifice for me? do you really love me?

pairings ━━━━━━━━ yan! scaramouche x gn! reader. modern au, scara’s crazy but he genuinely loves you, reader may be pretty but they are not nice, they are in fact a horrible person. scara is just a name he goes by, he’s actually named kuni, reader also has jealousy issues and they are not mentally well.

content warning ━━━━━━━━ dark themes, murder, manipulation, kidnapping, gaslighting, drugging (or smthing), reader likes teasing people and drugging people, also there’s suggestive themes but its only brief.

just stay by my side until i start to disgust you; even if it’s stupid, this won’t happen again, and i just want to live in the moment, that’s all. your stupid smile you would give him when you passed eachother in the hall.

your enthusiastic passion towards greeting new students even if he would get jealous and possessive, your teasing nature when the both of you would hang out and later on, getting an erection (relieving it later).

you were aware of his acts and frankly, you were intrigued by him. no one in your entire life has wanted to go the beyonds to be with you and only have him as your ideal lover.

sure, you had multiple guys and girls confess their love to you (and then they would go missing the other day), it bored you every time. you wanted something different, you wanted him.

you were deprived from the rights and wrongs of love, deprived in every having a loving figure in your life but when scara broke in your dorm and attempted to kiss you, it affected you in a lovesick, twisted way.

you spotted scara in his regular spot, airpods plugged in (even thought they’re dead), staring through the window and head plopped onto the palm of his hand.

smiling, you walked up to him, hands behind your back as you hugged him from behind, scaring him. you giggled when he jolted back and made eye contact with you before you buried your face into his neck.

small touches from you sent scara into heaven and he genuinely thought you would ignore him when he barged into your dorm but you didn’t. you acted the same towards him but more affectionate.

did you feel the same for him? he thought, ignoring the stares both of you got from your peers, seemingly making bets if you two were together or not.

you stayed in that position before your mouth was placed lightly against his ear, a sweet and soft tone that had a sick twist behind it that only a person who has the same mindset as scara would pick up.

“let’s talk until our tongues go dry.” you left a small kiss that lasted forever to him before sitting down in your seat that was right infront of him.

your voice repeated in his head like a parody, the dazed look on his face was imprinted to you immediately. you knew the effects you had on him and you used it to your advantage.

by the time class was over, scara had an horrible erection that you caused and was responsible for making him leave class to relieve himself as you sat there with a sly grin.

a few classmates were worried, coming up to you and asked why since you were the last one to talk to him and you excused them by saying; “he’s probably unwell, no need to be concerned.” with a charming smile at the end knowing he was probably jerking off to you.

and you took pride in that.

knowing you were the only person to make him feel that way with a simple smile, laugh, touch, and small kisses and teases to him. it was enjoyable.

he came back to class with his hair sticking to his forehead and flustered. his friends came up to him wondering why his state was like that and why he ran out of class, shooting you a small look as you smiled at him.

meet me at the bathroom, cutie. you mouthed at him, packing your stuff up and leaving the class, feeling his eyes following your every move, tuning out the conversation his friends started.

he excused himself again with a stern tone and followed after you, seeing as you waited beside the door knowing he would come either way making you grab his hand and drag him to the bathroom.

shoving him into a stall and pushing him back onto the door, hands placed cheekily on his chest with a smile that was not innocent in his eyes.

“i thought you hated me.” he breathed out, staring at you with heart eyes and cheeks flushed, “how could i?” you responded as you leaned in closer, hands moving up to his cheeks.

his hands placed neatly around your waist, “do you really want to be with me? i can be dangerous.” you smirked and pulled your mouth next to his ear.

“i like them a little dangerous and crazy.” you pulled away before getting something out of your bag; it was a drink to which you popped it opened, drank it and forced your mouth onto his, letting the liquid into his mouth and drip down your chins.

you pulled away, a string of saliva still connected to the both of you as scara looked embarrassed and dazed. “you look cute in this state.” you purred with a hand caressing his cheek, waiting for the effects to kick in.

and it for sure did.

you saw his body go fatigued and slowly lose consciousness as he fell into your embrace and your soft praises, being so close to you made scara hot and flustered, hearing the small praises that he dreamed of hearing.

and being drugged by you was a so attractive he felt so good. he wiggled and whined in your embrace, lowering yours and his body to the ground, an obsessive look in your eyes.

“you’ll be okay, scara.” “kuni. it’s kuni.” you smiled at how much he was submitting to you, and only you. “it’ll be over soon, kuni.”

you placed a warm kiss on his forehead, backing up and watching him fade out of unconsciousness and sleep in your arms until school was over.

“you’re mine, only mine.”

[malyen0retsev]

nothing quite makes you realise how much brain rot twitter is capable of than watching someone you know, in real time, spiral down the hole of anti-trans propaganda under the guise of ‘women’s rights’

[thepoeticfirefly]

Always You (Chanyeol x Reader// Baekhyun x Reader) Three

Summary: She never intended to fall in love with her best friend knowing that doing so will hurt what they already have. But what she never wanted was to hurt them both in expense of her feelings (to edit if i think of a better summary than this crap)

Genre: Angst/Fluff; high school to college au; chanyeol & baekhyun x fem!reader

Disclaimer: this story is mine and any stories with a similar plot is a coincidence. this is story is purely my imagination; moodboard is mine, i really worked hard doing it and I know it's not that good but it was my first time doing one but it was fun😆

Warnings: self-hate so please don’t read if you would be triggered by this. also angst

Word Count: 2.9k+

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7

Weeks has passed by since Chanyeol and Mi Soo became official. News has spread through out their year and everyone thought the new couple was nothing but adorable. Chanyeol couldn’t be more happy to be with Mi Soo, even more when she hangs out with his friends. In Chanyeol’s eyes, everything was going perfectly. He is so high in cloud nine that no sad movie made him down.

Through out those weeks, Baekhyun attached himself to Y/N, doing everything he can that could make her forget Chanyeol, even if it was just for a minute. Since Chanyeol reduced his time with Baekhyun and Y/N now that he has a girlfriend, Baekhyun used those times to cheer up Y/N, always sticking to her side no matter what. To the extent that some even thought they were dating which were immediately turned down by the two.

Y/N was’t dumb to not notice what Baekhyun was doing and her heart soared for the boy. She felt so thankful that she had Baekhyun as a friend, and she could not ask for more. As to not waste Baekhyun’s effort, Y/N focused on him. Always playing along with his antics and talking to him on endless hours, making sure to be cheerful to make the boy happy.

As for Chanyeol, Y/N felt hurt at the fact that he seemed to be more distant, hurting even more because she knew he was with Mi Soo. Y/N has told herself multiple times to be happy for Chanyeol. That she should be glad that every time she sees him, he was smiling. And that if she really love him, she should be happy that he’s happy, even if it wasn’t her by his side.

But even with her mindset, her heart still couldn’t help but ache whenever she sees Chanyeol and Mi Soo together, laughing and just being their happy selves, in love. It was torture to be in the same room as them. And so she didn’t look at Chanyeol except if he talked to her first.

“Y/N” Chanyeol called and Y/N hummed in response, her eyes set on the problem she’s solving. She saw Chanyeol move to Baekhyun’s seat next to her and her heart start beating rapidly. Baekhyun just left the classroom to go to the bathroom and she thought that if she focused on her work, Chanyeol wouldn’t disturb her, knowing that Y/N didn’t like being disturbed while she’s seriously answering worksheets. But her assumption was proven wrong when he suddenly leaned in to her and whispered

“You’re doing it wrong” Y/N shivered at his words, her mind going wild as he took Y/N’s pen, brushing her hand at the action. Y/N watched Chanyeol’s hand point where she was wrong. Chanyeol started explaining what she did wrong but all she could comprehend at the moment was that he’s whispering in her ear, leaning into her, causing goosebumps erupt in her body. She could feel his warmth at her side and she could just go crazy right there and then.

Y/N felt disappointed when he let go of her pen and leaned away. Y/N could feel Chanyeol’s eyes on her and so she nodded, taking her pen and going back on her problem. She heard Chanyeol make a confused sound and said “I don’t think you listened to me at all”

Y/N laughed sheepishly and shook her head no, still not looking at him. Chanyeol’s eyebrows furrowed and held Y/N’s shoulder which made her freeze.

“Why aren’t you looking at me?” He asked. Y/N turned to him but didn’t look him in the eyes

“What are you talking about, Yeol-ah?” Y/N laughed, shrugging him off and returning her focus on her paper. Chanyeol frowned at this.

“I feel like you’re avoiding me lately. Are you?” Chanyeol asked, his voice dripping with sadness that struck her too much than she expected. Y/N didn’t want Chanyeol to feel like this. She thought that maybe he won’t notice since he’s preoccupied with Mi Soo. Y/N felt guilty yet happy at the same time. Regret for making him feel that way and happy because he showed that he still cared.

“No” Y/N scoffed laughingly. Y/N chuckled but stopped when she saw Chanyeol frowning at her.

“Are you actually...avoiding me?” His voice cracked and Y/N has never seen his eyes so sad. Alarmed, Y/N turned her body to Chanyeol and took his hand to squeeze it comfortingly.

“No, Yeol-ah. I’m sorry for making you feel that way. I swear I’ll be better” Y/N heard a scoff from behind and she turned around to see Baekhyun looking disapprovingly at them.

“You swear to be better? What did you even do wrong?” Baekhyun snapped, taking Chanyeol and Y/N aback. It was rare to see Baekhyun mad and so Chanyeol was confused to see him this way so abruptly. Y/N could only look at Baekhyun worriedly, understanding why he was mad but confused since he didn’t have to be mad that much.

“Because I made him feel like I was avoiding him” Y/N said in a low voice, hoping for no one to hear her, though the two boys heard it clearly. Baekhyun scoffed again and Y/N felt suddenly small to be in between Chanyeol and Baekhyun, not liking one bit of the current situation

“Weren’t you?” Y/N froze at his words and Chanyeol was utterly confused, glancing at Baekhyun and Y/N back and forth. Chanyeol let out a confused “What?” while Y/N looked at Baekhyun, frozen on her seat.

Baekhyun felt a sudden rush of guilt when he noticed the hurt in Y/N’s eyes. His eyes softened and muttered a “Sorry” before walking away, sitting at the leftmost chair at the front. Chanyeol and Y/N watched Baekhyun put his head down on the table and Chanyeol took this as a sign to not follow him to let him cool down.

Chanyeol continued what he was doing but Y/N’s eyes was stuck on Baekhyun, worried and uncomfortable. She could only guess that Baekhyun had had enough and exploded. Y/N couldn’t blame him, blaming herself for using Baekhyun as a shield and being her weak self. Y/N hated herself. If only she hadn’t liked Chanyeol, everything would be normal just like before. But what Y/N hated about herself the most is that she suddenly turned into this weak-hearted girl that was easily swayed by her feelings. Looking at Baekhyun, Y/N gulped, her mind set to be a better person and to be a better friend. At least for Baekhyun, she’d do that for all he did was for her. It was time she give back what he gave.

At lunch, Chanyeol scurried off to find Mi Soo, leaving Y/N alone. Baekhyun was still in his seat, seemingly fallen asleep. After fixing her things, Y/N walked towards Baekhyun and sat down beside him. Not wanting to disrupt his sleep, Y/N scrolled through her phone, playing a game to pass time.

“Hah! You suck” Y/N jumped and turned to look at Baekhyun who no longer had his head on his table but was now looking at her phone, watching her play. Baekhyun took her phone and played, his eyes reflecting what was on the screen.

Y/N leaned back on her seat, watching the screen as Baekhyun played. The silence was broken when Baekhyun muttered a quiet “Sorry” still looking at the screen as he played. Y/N smiled at him, her heart now calmed down.

“I’m sorry too” Baekhyun cursed when the character in the game died. Setting Y/N’s phone down, he looked at her and smiled back. Somehow, having Y/N’s attention on him and being worried for him made him happy.

“Nah, it was my fault. Sorry for saying that, especially since he doesn’t know” Y/N shook her head and replied

“It’s alright because I will officially be moving on” Y/N said enthusiastically, smiling from ear to ear to be hopeful. Baekhyun studied her face before copying her actions, going back to his happy self as he exclaimed “Yep! I wish for your success! Now, let’s buy food!”

“Food it is!” Y/N stood up, holding Baekhyun’s hand in hers before dragging him with him as they ran to the canteen, grinning as hope sparked in their hearts.

“CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!” People cheered as Y/N drank down her glass of beer. People cheered as she emptied her glass, Y/N groaning as the bitter taste of the beer stayed on her tongue, her throat burning. 

“Y/N! Y/N! Y/N! Y/N!” Baekhyun screamed, jumping up and down as his drunk self blurred away his sober thoughts.

“Baekhyun! Shut up! You’re hurting my ears!” Y/N exclaimed, bringing her hands to her ears to plug off the noisy boy, her cheeks red as she slowly felt herself getting a bit drunk. It was her 18th birthday and despite to her demur, she was dragged to a party of one of the seniors in her school. All she wanted was a quiet day to herself but now that she was in the party, she couldn’t help but actually enjoy herself. Who wouldn’t enjoy when you have Byun Baekhyun being his happy self cheer and celebrate your birthday?

Coughing, Y/N fell to the couch beside Chanyeol and Mi Soo who watched their friends in amusement. Chanyeol was about to drink when Baekhyun stopped him and reprimanded “No! Underage people can’t drink!”

“Wha-? I’m about to turn 18 too you know!” Chanyeol protested and was about to drink into his cup when Mi Soo took it away. Chanyeol pouted at her and she only replied “No, he’s right. No drinks for you, baby boy” She smirked, sipping from his cup.

Y/N barfed at this, fake gagging to which Baekhyun laughed, drinking more of his beer.

“I am not a baby! I am 17!” Chanyeol screamed and the three of them laughed. Chanyeol’s cheeks turned pink and said “We’re all the same age, why are you doing this to me?”

“ ‘Cause you’re a baby” Mi Soo said, tracing Chanyeol’s nose to which he blushed.

“A big baby” Y/N sputtered out, frowning at everything, turning drunk as the seconds passed.

“Hey!” Chanyeol pouted causing a laugh erupt from Mi Soo.

“And besides Chanyeol, we need to be sober to take these two home” Mi Soo reasoned, turning to look at wasted Baekhyun and now drunk Y/N.

“What a birthday, I don’t even have a cake” Y/N grumbled under her breath, laying down on the couch, pushing Mi Soo off Chanyeol’s lap as Y/N stretched her legs to get comfortable.

Mi Soo yelped as Chanyeol held her to stop her from falling. Chanyeol glared at Y/N for a second but turned his attention back to Mi Soo “You alright?” He asked and Mi Soo nodded, smiling.

“How disgusting” Baekhyun said, watching their exchange. Mi Soo laughed and Chanyeol only stuck his tongue out at his best friend “You’re just jealous you don’t have a girlfriend”

“That’s right I’m jealous!” screamed Baekhyun, tumbling down as he approached Y/N’s sleeping figure “I’m so jealous I could kill you” Baekhyun growled at Chanyeol whom he pushed off the couch. Mi Soo and Chanyeol yelped in surprise as they were totally kicked out of the couch. Baekhyun straightened Y/N’s legs and turned to look at Mi Soo and Chanyeol “Don’t disturb her!”

Mi Soo awed, muttering a quiet “Sweet” as she entangled her arms with Chanyeol’s, suddenly feeling romantic at Baekhyun’s gesture for Y/N. Baekhyun sat on the floor, leaning his back against the couch, his eyes fluttering close as sleep took over him.

Chanyeol took Mi Soo’s hand and began to led her away when she stopped and asked “How about them?” Chanyeol glanced back at his best friends and smiled

“They’ll be alright”

“You sure you’ll be alright?” Mi Soo asked as she stared at Y/N and Baekhyun sleeping at the back of Chanyeol’s father’s car.

“Yeah, as long as they don’t wake up and throw up that is” Chanyeol chuckled as he led his girlfriend to her house. They stopped by her door and Mi Soo kissed his cheeks quickly before entering her house without a word. Chanyeol could only blush and smile at her actions.

Chanyeol got back to the car and drove off, stopping by Baekhyun’s house first. After much struggle, Chanyeol managed to get Baekhyun on his back as he led him to his room. Upon setting him on his bed, he ran out, saying a quick goodbye to Baekhyun’s mother. He couldn’t leave Y/N alone in the car, especially it was night and she’s a girl.

When they arrived at her house, Chanyeol shook her awake, her waking up just to brush him off and curse him to let her sleep. Chanyeol chuckled and had no choice but to get Y/N on his back. Chanyeol effortlessly carried her, her breath on his neck as she dozed off.

“Yeol-ah” Y/N said groggily. Chanyeol hummed in response, knocking on the door. It was silent again, only the silent breeze of the air and Y/N’s breathing filled Chanyeol’s ear.

“Park Chanyeol” Y/N said again and Chanyeol hummed again, glancing at her from his peripheral vision. She had her head on his shoulders, she hugged him tighter and kissed his cheek, giggling to herself.

Chanyeol froze, his legs turning cold at Y/N’s actions “Y-Y/N?”

“Park Chanyeol~” She cooed, giggling again, sending vibrations in his ear. The night hid the blush on his cheeks as his stomach dropped. What was happening?

“Park Chanyeol” She cooed again, but this time, he did not respond. He stood still as he awaited her next words. It turned silent again and Y/N’s and Chanyeol’s heavy breathing was the only sound that entered their ears.

“I love you”

The coldness in Chanyeol’s legs suddenly turned warm and his heart palpitated so fast Y/N could feel it.

“W-what?” Chanyeol stuttered, and as if a spell was cast on her, Y/N jumped away from Chanyeol, very much sober now.

Chanyeol had had his back on her. He was gonna turn around but Y/N stopped her, holding his back as she gasped “Don’t”

“Y/N...” Chanyeol trailed off, pushing Y/N’s hands off his back and turned to her. She had her head down, unable to look at him. Chanyeol let go of her hands and asked “Is it true?”

Y/N gulped, licking her dry lips wet. She was shaking now. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He wasn’t supposed to know. She was supposed to get over him. But why on earth-?

Gulping one last time, Y/N raised her head up to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. He noticed that her eyes were brimmed of tears, and like that, they stared at each other, communicating with each other’s eyes and Chanyeol felt his stomach drop. He was about to speak when Y/N beat him to it.

“I love you” She said, shaking as she struggled to not let her tears fall down.

“Y/N...” Chanyeol’s eyes said it all. He didn’t feel the same and Y/N already knew this but her heart still couldn’t take it.

“I love you, Chanyeol-ah” She repeated.

“I love you, I love you, I love you” She sobbed, balling her fists as she fought to look him in the eyes.

“Y/N...don’t say that” His voice was hurt. It was full of guilt and pain that it physically hurt Y/N’s every bones but still, she spoke.

“Why not? I feel that way, why can’t I?”

“You shouldn’t feel like that towards me” Chanyeol gulped the lump in his throat. Y/N scoffed.

“It’s my feelings, Chanyeol. I can’t help but feel that way. You made me feel that way. I love you, Chanyeol-ah”

She was crying now, her eyes pleading Chanyeol’s distressed ones. He can’t speak, afraid to hurt Y/N.

“Just say it. I already know anyway so just say it” Y/N said pleadingly. Chanyeol kept quiet, unable to say the words he know will break his best friend’s heart.

“Is there really no chance?” Y/N sobbed and this time, Chanyeol replied, shaking his head as he said a firm

“No”

Y/N nodded, laughing as she wiped away her tears “How embarrassing” She laughed and Chanyeol could only watch his best friend pretend but he could see it. He could see her crumbling down and it hurt.

Y/N stopped wiping her tears and looked at Chanyeol, smiling yet the pain was there “Good night” She said as she slipped by him, knocking on the door harshly, hoping someone to open it so that she could hide away from Chanyeol.

Y/N didn’t stop knocking until the door opened and she dashed away to her room, confusing her sister who opened the door. She looked at Chanyeol for answers but he couldn’t speak, still shocked at the sudden turn of events of the night.

Y/N slammed and locked her door. She slid down to the floor, sobbing loudly as the pain overtook her actions. She sobbed and sobbed. It hurt too much. She loved him too much and remembering his eyes made her cry more. His eyes that wordlessly told her he didn’t feel the same. His “No” that confirmed her worst nightmare. Y/N cried the night away, her tears nonstop as the jab in her chest didn’t fade away. It was too much. It hurts too much. She loved too much and now he was gone. He was gone and he won’t be her Yeol anymore. He belonged to someone else and he will never be hers, just like he was never hers.

[msftbts]

Personal stylist!reader x ot7

(eventual) smut, fluff, slight angst & a bit of comedy

Summary: You travel to Korea to start your new life as a personal stylist, expecting nothing more than to gain some job experience for the future, but seven sulky men make it difficult for you to stay on your lane and follow the rules. Will you stay faithful to your boss, or fall into the charms of another?

Notes: This chapter is not that eventful & its slow paced and short, but I wanted to make it quite detailed and I promise !!! the next chapters will be more interesting. The second chapter will be released very soon. This is my first ever fanfic and I’m super nervous to release it, so pls be easy on me <3 I’m always down for some feedback!

Warnings: mild cursing

Taglist: @milk-mochi @ephemeral-mindset @the-wild-ego

Message/question/request me if you want to be added to the taglist to get notified when I post a new chapter! I update this au at least once a week.

Chapter 1

You looked at yourself in the mirror for the last time before stepping out of the house. The underlying feeling of nervousness caused your hands to shake a bit when you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and straightened the collar of your shirt. You stood there trying to calm down your breathing, since this might be the last bit of quietness you’re going to have for awhile. Traveling across the world to a new job as a personal stylist for seven superstars was something you never thought you would be doing, ever. But you knew damn well this was a chance to get away and start a new life. Atleast for the upcoming 6 months. You took your bag and grabbed the handle of your heavy suitcase, and left without looking back.

Once you finally got to settle down into the airplane and plug your headphones into your phone, you felt a little smile growing across your face. It felt good, actually it felt damn good to get away finally. And knowing you did all of this on your own felt even better. You couldn’t help but feel excited to meet your coworkers. More so the ones who would be working backstage with you, instead of the idols whose asses you would be practically kissing. After reading a few personal stylists self-help books, you knew better than to expect becoming friends with any of the idols. There was often a professional line between the idols and workers, since their agencies were very strict with the rules about any kind of intimacy between them. Also you couldn’t wait to get to put your talents as a personal stylist to test, although your work was going to be very limited, since you had to work with the designers, and most of your work would be helping the idols to get dressed and make sure none of the clothes were wrinkly and in a perfect shape. It was still something very new to you, because the last time you had a proper job, it was in a lame retail store with industrial grey floors, walls and ceilings. You always knew it wasn’t your kind of environment. You took a look at the airplane window, seeing only twinkles of the street lights from your city. “Good fucking bye”, you thought to yourself smiling.

You finally arrived to your hotel after sitting in that cramped airplane for 11+ hours. The hotel was located in the eye of Seoul. It was in a very modern tall building. You threw your bag on to the chair in the hotel room and jumped into the bed with your clothes on. You felt exhaustion wash over you. You slowly got up before you would fall asleep, knowing you had to be up early tomorrow, and couldn’t risk falling asleep without preparing to bed first. After washing all your makeup off and changing into your pyjamas, you dove into the fresh and cool sheets. Before you knew it, you were fast asleep.

The next day was already hectic from the moment you woke up, noticing you had slept past your alarm. You rushed to throw your hair into a scrunched bun, trying to make it look as neat as you possibly could, while rolling your deodorant under your armpits, running topless around the hotel room. “Where the fuck is my shirt?” You screamed to yourself as panic took over you. You found it at the bottom of your suitcase, wrinkled into a ball. You tried your best to straighten it as you buttoned it on, but soon realized how doomed you were. Your phone was ringing and you answered while zipping up your pencil skirt with your other hand. “Hello, this is your driver, I’m right infront of the hotel, you were supposed to be here 15 minutes ago”, you looked at the time in horror. Was it really this late already? You apologized many times into the phone and told the driver you’d be downstairs in a minute. Once you got dressed you took your bag and ran out of the hotel room.

You noticed the driver curiously eyeing you out of the drivers mirror, he must’ve been pitying your hectic ass. “Not the greatest morning for you, huh?” he said grinning. You were so lost in your thoughts, going over the protocol of today’s meeting, that it took you awhile to respond. “Oh! Uh, is it that obvious?” you nervously responded. He let out a friendly laugh: “You’re going to the Bighit’s head office, right? I heard they were hiring new staff for the upcoming BTS tour. Are you by chance going there for the first time today?” he asked. “Yes I am, in fact! How do you happen to know about this? Is it that big of a deal here in Korea?” you responded curiously. “Ah, I don’t know about that, I just have been driving other new hires to the office lately”. “Oh”, you responded, feeling a bit relieved. “But they all went in there like an hour early, just thought you should know” he advised. “Damn it, I really messed up didn’t I? I’m late, and on top of that my shirt is wrinkled and hair messy, and I’m supposed to be their new stylist! I can already give up the hope of making a good first impression”, you sighed. “It’s not the first impression that matters, it’s your actual quality once you start working”, he responded and winked at you from the mirror. Normally you would be creeped out, but now it had an oddly comforting effect on you.

Once you had rushed inside of one of the big main buildings of Bighit’s offices, a quaint looking lady from the front desk guided you upstairs into one of the glass walled conference rooms. Luckily the meeting hasn’t had started yet, but the room was still full of people dressed in sharp looking suits and blazers. You walked hesitantly into the room and took a seat at the long table in the middle of the room. Everyone around you looked very prepared and it made you feel even more insecure than you were before. You were practically wiping sweat off your forehead with the tissues found in your purse. The meeting finally begun, as a smart looking man with round glasses started speaking in front of the room and a projector turned on. He introduced himself as Bang PD-nim and started going over the basic rules of working on tour. You could finally let yourself relax at this point, because all of this was already introduced to you in the letter you received in the mail once you found out you got the job. You tried to look like you remained focused, but in reality your eyes were wandering around the conference room. You looked at the people around you, trying to figure out if any one of them were the idols. None of them seemed out of the ordinary, so maybe the idols weren’t attending this meeting. You also looked at all the newly hired people around you, wondering which one of them would soon become your friends. Your thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and seven casually (but very stylishly) dressed, colorful haired men stepped in and lined up in front of the full room. You knew idols were often extremely good looking and very put together, but you were still caught heavily off guard. Your mouth hang a little open as you took in all the details in these seven charming men. They were all smiling friendly to all the staff and introducing themselves one by one. You memorized the names in your head, but one of them made sure to stick in your mind forever, when the person looked you dead in the eye while letting his gorgeous name roll out of his tongue, Jimin. You could almost swear the moment went in slow motion and you felt your cheeks burning up. You were sure the whole room saw it, but once you catched your breath you noticed no one had reacted to it in any ways. Maybe you just overreacted. That has to be it, right?

Chapter 2 

[thefinalexperiment]

The Final Experiment Chapter 26: The Winter Soldier’s Child

Peter Parker x OC

A/N: Hello! It's me! After almost a year, here's a new bit to this series lol. Enjoy! (Also if you are fluent in Russian, I apologize for anything incorrect, Google Translate is my only resource)

I will no longer be linking things on new part posts due to dumblr and the link censoring, and just to be safe from any potential image post censoring, I will also not be including covers on my stories. All previous parts can be found in my masterlist, in my bio!

---

        On the jet, I sat as far away from Bucky as possible. I was still mad at him, even though the logical side of me knew I just needed time. He kept looking at me, and it was starting to get irritating, but I tried not to lash out. I couldn't wait for the jet to land. We hadn't yet been debriefed so I'd have to wait for that too, but I was itching to get out into the field. Peter gave me an adorable grin and I smiled back, trying to shake the impending sense of doom. It’s not like I had a sixth sense or anything, but sometimes, I would figure things out subconsciously, and it would take my brain a while to catch up with a realization or to put it into words. Other times it was just a normal dose of anxiety, like any other agent might get when going on a mission so soon in a distracted mindset like this. I probably shouldn’t be going for that matter, but oh well.

        Peter caught my eye again, and smiled encouragingly. I nodded in return. He was easy to read right now. His body language was clear: slightly nervous, wanting to impress me, wanting to impress Nat and Bucky, and wanting to impress Tony. He obviously hadn’t done many missions with the team yet, and he wanted to make sure he did well in their eyes. With me, I could sense that it was less about showing off, and more about him making sure I understood what he was capable of. After all, I had never seen the full extent of his powers.

        The jet shakily began to lower. It must have been an issue with the cold, Northern Russian wind. From what I could see out the window, the sky was dark with large clouds. It seemed we might have an issue with weather… The jet touched down, and everyone gathered close for the debrief. There hadn’t been time for one before we left, so Steve and Tony were going to quickly give us the rundown before we went to investigate.

        “So what is the deal with this place?” I finally asked, breaking the odd, silent tension that had lingered since we left. It was like everyone was worried about Bucky and I being in the same, small space for so long.

        Nat reached over and pulled up the files on the holo-table for everyone to see.

        “This was a base for a Russian chapter of HYDRA,” Steve explained. “We aren’t sure if it’s still active, or when it was abandoned if not, but Tony’s sensors picked up some concerning data.”

        He nodded to Tony, who pulled up more data and some schematics and took over in explaining.

        “These guys have got some naughty stuff in the basement. Whether they wanted it to or not, something they’ve got going on down there is waking up. We’re here to find out what it is.”

        “Okay,” I said, mulling it over, “But why send us? SHIELD’s teams could’ve done a simple sweep. What’s different here?”

        “Slow down, smarty pants,” Tony chided good naturedly. “I’m getting to that… The sensors indicate the potential for an Avengers-level threat. These anomalies appear to be experiments of some kind, could be people, other life forms… or just some reawakening science projects. Whatever it is, it’s awake, alive, and raring to go.”

        “Has everybody without screen access gotten a good look at the schematics?” Steve asked.

        Those of us nodded.

        “Alright then. Nat, you and Kaitlynn head for the security headquarters, try to hack their system and give us eyes on their compound surveillance. Wanda, I want you, Pietro, and Peter with Tony, Thor, and I down on the detention level. If any of these experiments happen to get out of control, we’ll need your abilities to keep them in check. Bruce, hang back with Clint, Sam, and Bucky while they sweep for strays. Once the anomalies are under control, I want Tony and you for scientific assessment. If worst comes to worst, keep the Hulk on standby. Everybody clear?”

        At our affirmations, Steve nodded, then he and Tony led the way out.

        The base looked pretty typical, from my experience with HYDRA facilities: a large, gray, metal-and-cement compound, built into the surrounding landscape to disguise it. The doors were mechanical slabs of stone. Some quick work from Tony set gears in motion, and the doors slowly ground open.

        Natasha and I slipped inside, like a pair of shadows, splitting off from the main muscle group. In this moment, it was easy to see that we shared DNA. Some behaviors are learned, some are ingrained in your very nature. The way the both of us moved in our stealth modes was eerily similar.

        I led the way to the surveillance room, Nat covering my six. We both were silent, like invisible spectres, but the rest of the compound remained noiseless too. It was almost unsettling. I got the feeling this place was abandoned, and had been for some time now. So what had triggered Tony’s sensors?

        The door to the room was already open when we arrived, just a crack. With a small motion of my head, I pointed this out to Natasha. She nodded and took up a place on one side of the door. I took the other.

        Silently, she counted off.

        One… Two… Three.

        I kicked the door open, keeping my pistol up. Natasha was close behind. The two of us swept the room, relaxing when nothing turned up. Nat closed the door, holstering her gun. I followed suit.

        “We’re into the surveillance room,” she said. “Starting to scan for intel now.”

        I booted up the computers. They were old, but that didn’t make them any easier to crack. Nat and I sat side by side on the old, creaky chairs, going through lines of code until the old, black-and-white camera footage appeared on the monitors. We now had eyes on the team. Natasha let them all know, and upon their confirmation, I began to dig through the encrypted files stored away in the computer’s archives. Nat tossed a flashdrive to me, which I plugged in and began to transfer the files onto.

        “There’s a lot of video archives,” I muttered to her. “And more than a few of them are marked Zimniy Soldat i Rebenok.”

        Winter Soldier… and child.

        That bad feeling I’d had earlier was beginning to make sense now. I was dreading this mission because I’d been here before.

        Natasha and I looked at each other for a moment, then she sighed.

        “Well, I’ve never been here before… and Bucky didn’t mention it, so he must not remember.”

        “Or he does and he’s just hiding it again,” I muttered.

        Nat gave me a sharp, almost motherly look, and I relented.

        “Okay, okay… comm him and let him know what we found.”

        “Or you could,” she said.

        I clenched my jaw, really not in the mood for this, but I turned my earpiece on. Instead of only addressing Bucky, however, I spoke to the whole team.

        “Guys, we’ve got archive footage of the Winter Soldier…”

        Natasha watched me with an expectant look, but I said nothing else, so she rolled her eyes and spoke, “Winter Soldier and child,” she clarified.

        The others were silent for a moment, before Tony finally spoke up.

        “Alright, download everything, and we’ll debrief it together back at the base. How’s the detention level looking from up there? We’re nearing the location.”

        “We’ve got three cameras dark,” Nat said, typing commands into the computer.

        “But,” I interjected, flowing right along with her train of thought, “The ones that are operative are showing a few science kit type looking things… I’m not seeing any signs of life. Tony, you might want to go first, let FRIDAY scan for signs of radiation and whatnot.”

        “You got it, kid,” he said. “Steve, Thor, you hang back with the rest of the kiddos.”

        The sound of silence settled over the comms, the whole team waiting.

        At long last, Tony’s voice sounded out once more.

        “We’re clean on harmful radiation. Negative on major life signs.”

        “Does that mean minor life signs aren’t off the table?” I heard Pietro sass.

        “Yes, Speedy, that’s what it means,” Tony replied, in that infuriating yet endearing sarcastic tone of his. “Sam, bring Banner down here. Clint, contact SHIELD to have a cleanup crew sent here.”

        “Copy that,” Clint said.

        I sighed and sat back in the chair, glancing at Nat.

        “Well, so much for an Avengers-level threat,” I joked.

        “But not for nothing,” she replied, motioning to the flash drive.

        I looked down at the little stick, turning it over in my hands.

        “There’s probably a good reason he doesn’t want you remembering this, you know,” she said softly. “You know I won’t try to stop you. I actually think you have a right to know what happened… But you need to be prepared for what you might see.”

        Considering her words, I slowly nodded.

        “Okay.”

        I felt like I should say more, but for once, I had no words. Luckily, I didn’t need to fill the silence, because Natasha stood and powered down the computers, no doubt leaving them for the SHIELD team to comb through.

        “Come on, kid,” she said. “Let’s meet up with the others.”

---

A/N: So... dun dun dun! What do you think is on the flashdrive? Be sure to let me know in the comments!

Series Tags: @shamvictoria11 @mla02 @fanficcrapforme @goodbyefornow123 @thebookisbtr @what-inspirational-name

Everything Tags: @coconutknees @hollymac79

[spoadicdeviance]

A Case For Motion Controls

AKA, “You know what?: Part Two”

I made my post some time ago intended to serve as a counterpoint to those who wanted a version of Skyward Sword without motion controls. I’ve stated how motion controls are vital to the game’s core design and how removing them or even giving the player the option of playing the game with standard controls would be counterintuitive to what Skyward Sword set out to do.

Naturally, I have seen some feedback from that post, mostly positive, but with a few people questioning why I was so adamant about Skyward Sword retaining its original control set up. Some people questioned why I was opposed to a hypothetical remake that provides the player with the option for standard controls. Their reasoning being that more playstyles is never a bad thing.

Now, while multiple options given to the player would appear to have no downsides, in this case, however, the idea of Nintendo even allowing to option for standard controls (let alone removing all of Skyward Sword’s motion controls) would be equivalent of them saying that Skyward Sword failed in its objective of showing gamers motion controls can work in video games.

As I told everyone who read my previous post, that’s objectively not true. Skyward Sword’s motion controls do work properly, and they did make a massive difference when playing the game.

Skyward Sword just happened to have been released at a time where the majority of gamers got tired of the whole motion control phenomena that was going on since 2006.

And in all fairness, those gamers have all the right to have felt burned out. With Sony doing less than the bare minimum with the PlayStation Move and whatever the hell Microsoft were trying to do with the Kinect, you could see where a lot of gamer’s hatred for motion controls could’ve started from. 

Even Nintendo should holster a significant amount of blame for the masses turning on the Wii and motion controls. I think Jonathan Holmes of Destructiod put it best in his review of Skyward Sword:

“If the Wii launched with The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, everything would be different.”

Regardless about how you or I feel about this game in particular, let’s be honest, The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess was the catalyst of the Wii’s eventual fall from grace. As much as Twilight Princess did a whole lot of good initially for Nintendo and the Wii, the success of that game sent a clear message to other game developers;

1. Make a game for the Gamecube/Xbox/PS2 generation of consoles (Or just take one that was already made)

2. Tack on some waggle controls and AR aiming on said game (playtesting is optional)

3. Release the game on the Wii

4. …

5. PROFIT!!!

Look at what that mindset brought us; piles and piles of terrible shovel ware that barely utilized the Wii’s motion control technology properly, if at all. Heck, most of the shovel ware on the Wii are ports of PS2 shovel ware with waggle motion added.

Sure, there were some great ports on the Wii (Resident Evil 4, Metroid Prime Trilogy, Pikmin 1 and 2), but those were the exception not the rule.

Even with the great Wii games that were not ports (Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns, No More Heroes 1 and 2, Madworld, etc.), when you played them you couldn‘t help but think;

“Why is it necessary to use motion controls if the action I’m preforming could’ve easily been done with standard controls with little to no difference”

That was the issue with motion controls during the Wii’s heyday, not that they were overbearing, but that they were basically unnecessary. Only the AR sensor aiming added anything of note to the games. Even then, it boiled down to the wiimote being a glorified mouse.

Then, when the initial hype surrounding the Wii started to die down, Nintendo decided to unveil Wii-Motion-Plus; an upgraded form of the Wii’s original controller that allowed for more complex motion-based inputs for upcoming games.

“Okay then.” gamers said, “Actual motion controls and not just cheap waggling. Maybe this will be the opportunity for the Wii to finally fulfil on the promise of a gaming revolution.”

And what did Nintendo do with all that resurfaced hype? Release a bunch of mini-game collections that amounted nothing but glorified tech-demos for Wii-Motion-Plus. 

Even Red Steel 2, the only full game other than Skyward Sword that used motion-plus, was too short, too light on content, and simply lacked any moment that made the player think that this game needed motion-plus to exist.

By the time Skyward Sword was released to the public, gamers had been through five or so years of shovel ware, pointless waggling, and games that never truly tapped into what motion controls can do. Needless to say, the idea of a game going all in on motion controls, in the minds of the average gamer, is about as welcome as a lederhosen store in Jerusalem.

Even without taking into account the changes to Zelda formula, the different art style, the OPTIONAL HINTS, some of which were used in previous and later Zelda games (that the masses decided to ignore), Skyward Sword was already fighting an uphill battle when it came to getting approval from gamers with its motion-plus based controls.

That’s the cold hard truth; the majority of people who hate Skyward Sword had already decided to hate the game before it even came out.

Whenever the player held the wiimote at an angle and swung the wiimote in a way that the game interpreted your left swing as an upper-left swing, the player took that as the controls malfunctioning rather than him/her realizing that he/she is playing the game incorrectly.

Whenever the player had to recalibrate the wiimote once (two times max) during an entire playthrough, the player interprets that as motion-based controllers being faulty, ignoring the fact that all technology (not just every controller, joystick, and keyboard and mouse) does not work all the time. 

Seriously, you never had to unplug and re-plug a wired controller because your character was moving without you touching the controller? Buttons on a keyboard/controller never jammed or didn‘t work when pressed? You never had to check the mouse whenever you moved it and it was not doing anything in the game? Really? Yet the wiimote must work at 100% efficiency when you’re playing Skyward Sword.

Whenever the game tells the player that a new dowsing target is available, the player saw that as the game holding their hand and not the game giving an OPTIONAL way of helping inexperienced players. You can always hold the c button, aim the wiimote so that the cursor highlights the eye symbol and select that whenever a new dowsing target came up so that dowsing would never get in the way of your playthrough. 

Also, where were the gamers who complained about dowsing at when Breath of the Wild, the “savior of the Zelda franchise” and “game of the year, all years”, had the Shiekah Sensor? You know, the feature that was just as optional as dowsing was and functioned the exact same way, just walk in the direction of the closest object of interest instead of pointing your wiimote. The fact that Breath of the Wild focused more on exploration should, in theory, make the inclusion of such a feature a more egregious offense than dowsing in Skyward Sword, but that’s just me.

Fact is the most gamers who hate Skyward Sword were just looking for reasons to justify their hatred, regardless if it was consistent with their critical outlook on other games, and it was all because Skyward Sword wanted to do its own thing.

And you know what? It would be one thing if the motion controls just simply worked. Then all I would do is say that this backlash was simply an overreaction to something inoffensive. 

The reason why I write posts this long in order to counter the arguments of those that hate Skyward Sword is not because the motion controls simply work, it’s because the motion controls in Skyward Sword are core to what makes the game truly magnificent.

It’s similar to what videogamedunkey said in his Mario 64 video; the controls were so revolutionary that they were actually alienating.

The 1:1 swordplay allowed combat to have more depth than a lot of other games, let alone Zelda titles. Enemies either blocked or had their weak points positioned in such a way that you had to be precise with how you swung your sword if you wanted to defeat even basic enemies like Bokoblins and Deku-Babas. Also stunned enemies and bosses require more tactful strikes. It wasn‘t just senseless button mashing (although don’t get me wrong, that does have its cathartic moments too).

Flying your Loftwing, using the beetle, and swimming felt more fluid compared to using the analog stick, making even the swimming sections smoother compared to Twilight Princess for example. Heck the Loftwing controls is like if you took a flight stick meant for simulation games and made it horizontal. You didn‘t have to spend an additional $50 (if you’re cheap) on a peripheral to experience it. Just use the same controller you been using for the entire game.

Even aiming with the wiimote at any angle you wanted, without relying on the Wii’s sensor bar, made aiming in Skyward Sword more flexible than standard wiimote aiming, and to be perfectly honest, even when compared to mouse controls.

Plus, there’s the little touches like using the bow by holding the wiimote like a longbow then pressing the c button on the nun chuck and pulling it back like you’re readying the arrow before firing. Bowling the bombs and angling your shot by tilting the wiimote in the direction you want the bomb to go. Getting the shield ready by moving the nun chuck forward like how Link readies the shield in game. All of this and more adds to how the controls make the player feel immersed in the game, like the player is actually doing what Link is doing on screen.

Even the controls some would say are “standard wiimote waggling” like rolling and leaping while climbing ladders/vines do not take anything from the other ways the motion controls add to the overall experience.

These controls are what make Skyward Sword stand out amongst its contemporaries.

If you take all of that and tried to make the game in a way so it can be played with traditional controls, you’ll be left with a control scheme that’s run of the mill in some ways, clunky and awkward in others.

In a previous post, I took a jab at Metal Gear Rising: Revengance, using the game as an example of why Skyward Sword would not work with standard controls. I didn‘t do this simply to spite fans of the game, I did it because the dual analog stick swordplay is awkward to figure out and clunky in execution. It took way too long to decode the analog puzzle that was Blade Mode and I would just use the face buttons for horizontal and vertical slashes whenever possible, which as stated before was just button mashing. That’s what would Skyward Sword’s combat would devolve into if the motion controls were removed.

Every other effect of switching to traditional controls would make the moment to moment gameplay slow and monotonous most of the time with very few select sections not changing for better or worse. There is no inherit benefit to removing the motion controls in Skyward Sword and replacing them with traditional ones outside of pleasing those who hate motion controls.

All of this is not taking into account the ways Skyward Sword is impressive outside of the motion controls; the great story with excellent characters, wonderful art style, captivating music, fun side quests/minigames, the fact that rupees were now worth something in a Zelda game outside of being glorified carnival tickets for minigames, the fantastic level/dungeon design, terrific boss battles, shield durability which made sure you were more strategic when you went on the defense in fights, a stamina meter that allowed for more mobility, light rpg elements including crafting to upgrade your potions/items plus an expandable inventory that can hold certain amount of items with each layout of items effecting how you played the game, a hero mode that gave the game more challenge via only using consumables for healing.

Even if you take out the motion controls and reworked the game to function without them, you still get what amounts to a great adventure game and a step forward for the Zelda series. Why else would Breath of the Wild take a good majority of its design elements from Skyward Sword?

With motion controls, you have the game that’s like no other before it. A game that carried out the promises the Wii had laid out at the start of its life cycle. A game that did what others such as Wolfenstein 3D, Wing Commander, Alone in the Dark, Ultima, Diablo, Deus Ex, the Thief trilogy, The Elder Scrolls, Grand Theft Auto, Mario 64, and even The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time had all accomplished; introducing new concepts to gamers, showing them that the medium is still capable of being much more than what is being currently provided.

And it isn‘t like motion controls will ever replace standard controls, much like how 3D gaming hasn‘t replaced 2D gaming all together, or how Third Person perspective in games has not disappeared in the wake of First Person games. Motion controls would simply be there as an option for designers to use when creating their own game and what’s wrong with more options?

Whether you like motion controls or not, there’s no denying that Skyward Sword accomplished a lot in terms of presenting new ways to design and play video games.

You can read all this and say I’m a Nintendo fanboy (even though I criticized Nintendo for being one of the primary causes of gamers turning on motion controls and the ultimate downfall of the Wii), call me a contrarian, or dismiss me as a part of the “Skyward Sword Defense Force”. All that accomplishes is you throwing ad hominems my way without presenting a counter argument to what I’m saying.

But go on and ask Nintendo for a version of Skyward Sword that removes the motion controls. They might even give you what you want. If that happens to be the case, you’ll be left with a great adventure game and a welcome entry in the Zelda series.

I’ll be playing the version of Skyward Sword that embraces what it is, motion controls and all. The version that is not only a masterpiece in its own right, but also one of my personal favorite Zelda games of all time, alongside Ocarina of Time, A Link to the Past, and Majora’s Mask, if not my absolute favorite.

[everywitchway]

Circle Casting 4 n00bs

(Or anyone else, for that matter)

Step 0: WTF are you doing tho

Are you doing a spell? A ritual? A ceremony? sigilwork? Are you doing multiple workings one after another? Are we charming something here???

For EVERY working, BEFORE DOING ANY CIRCLE CASTING, do/know the following:

-INTENT: What do you hope to accomplish here? Why are you doing this? What has YOU, personally, invested?

-METHOD: How will your working actually accomplish this? What are the steps to perform it? How is the energy moving or changing or being programmed here?

-MATERIALS: HAVE THEM. Like... Yeah, you can leave a circle and return to it, but... It’s cool when you don’t have to. Have all you’ll need to physically clean and energetically cleanse your space and tools, have all you’ll want on your altar, all you’ll need for the working, etc. It’s just nice and easy and convenient, and you don’t have to break that mindset to run and grab somethin real quick.

Step 1: Prep prep prep prep prep prep

Prepare your SPACE: I PERSONALLY, ME, really like to have a physically cleaned space that isn’t dusty or cluttered or annything, before I even get into cleansing. I feel that grime and mess have bad energies intrinsically, and don’t feel a space can be cleansed if it isn’t clean. (I’ve also got OCD so uh) (Take that with a lump of Himalayan rock salt or whatever). AT THE VERY LEAST, make sure you can move about as needed with relative safety and comfort, and that there are few/no distractions or disturbances. Banners and drapery can be potentially hazardous too close to candles or firedishes, so be mindful. Also, if you wanna make your circle easy to navigate, now might be a good time to physically, visibly outline its circumference.

Prepare your STUFF: Again, I, ME, MYSELF, really like to have physically cleaned tools before I even get into cleansing. For similar reasons as stated above. At this point, I’d set up my altar or workspace, and do a check to be sure I have all I need for each planned working. This means tools AND ingredients AND materials, etc. If I’m using fire, I take a moment to ensure I have a method of quick extinguishing on hand, and that flammables are kept away from my firedishes and candles and such.

Prepare your SELF: ME AGAIN, HI. I tend to like to shower/bathe before doing magic, and to live as healthfully as possible leading up. Not that this always happens, if I’m being real. I’ve depressioned my way into a few mildly grimy versions of my ideal ritual self a few times, and sometimes, those are the times we need magic most, and it’s OKAY to be a disaster those times. But to set aside the occasion as special, and OTHER, contrasting just day to day, if possible, I shower, put on clean clothes, brush them teeth/floss/mouthwash, etc. Just because it makes me feel funky fresh and at my best. Some also like to use a ritual outfit, to set this time aside, or a single article, like a hat, robe, or necklace. It can be as in depth or not as you want.

Step 2 I think: Creating an energetically Compatible Space

This, for most folks, just means cleansing. You can smoke cleanse with a variety of herbs, sage being the most popular, or create a spray with cleansing ingredients inside of it (and glitter, if you’re as obsessed with the shiny as me).

DO CONSIDER the difference between CLEANSING and PURIFYING. Purification removes ALL tone/hue from the energy of a space or item, creating a blank slate. Cleansing removes SPECIFIED tone/hue/vibe from the energy of a space or item, leaving only those allowed to stay. Do you need a blank slate? Or does the existing vibe of your space actually need just a little tweak before it’s actually helpful to your spell?

CLEANSING: Sage, Lavender (I find effective for spiritwork), Rosemary

PURIFIYING: Most salts (pink salt not always), silver/iron

Either way, once your space isn’t working against you, rock on, my bwitch.

Step 3: Elements and Entities

If you wanna call the elements, there’s lots of ways to do it, and many of them include calling of the cardinal directions, as well. MY personal issue is that loads of people have different opinions on what element goes with what direction, or point on the pentacle. So... Go with what seems most right to you? I guess? For the cardinal directions, I use North as Earth, East as Air, South as Fire, and West as Water, personally. If including the “spirit” element here, the center (you) represents the element of spirit. For the pentacle, Spirit takes up the top point, Air takes the left upper, fire takes right upper, water takes left lower, earth takes right lower. Just me, of course, I’ve seen it loads of ways. Go clockwise around to each point, however you want (clockwise=draw in) to call each element/direction.

If you wanna get a deity involved, once you’ve called the elements if you’ve chosen to, call your deity up. Generally, its best to be reverent and respectful, and I try to always have an offering for whomever I call. I have my own wonky theology going on, so my methods may not be universal, but most folks, if involved with a deity, already have their own ways of connecting to them. So.. I’mma leave that to you.

Step 4: TEH CIRCLE

At the center of the circle ⭕️, stand with your feet to the ground/floor. Even if you’re on the second floor, reach down with your energy, down, down, down, past the foundations of your house, past the surface level of earth, down into the deep, dark, powerful, fertile, strong ground. Connect with this earth energy, breathing, and slowly bring it up to you, plugging yourself in to that force. Then, with your energy, reach up, up, up, past your roof, past the clouds, into the mystical, otherworldly expanses just above that we always see in aesthetic posts. Connect with this light, free, bright, active, and vibrant energy, and bring it slowly down into yourself, plugging yourself into that force. Take a small amount of each energy, and combine them into a ball. I do a sorta yin-yang marble looking thing, but you do you. Take a little energy from each element/direction (and your deities, if they’re wanting and willing) and surround your existing energy with it. Hold this between your hands, combining fully all energies. Feel it a moment, and then take that energy, breathing, and slowly work it. Stretch it, knowing it will never lose durability or strength, as even though it grows thinner, it cannot be broken. Create a sort of “hula-hoop” of energy around yourself, and get to work slowly spinning it out, like spinning dough to stretch it into crust. If spinning doesnt work, pressing outward with your energy to “blow it up” may help. If you “blow it up”, make that hula hoop into a bubble around yourself when it’s large enough to fit you, then keep pressing out with your energy, to make the energetic giant hamster ball slightly overlap your physical boundary (after all, we don’t want our head to stick out at the edge). If you’ve spun out your ring to enlarge it to full size before you’ve made your bubble, turn the ring to spread its energy, spinning it sort of like one of those... weird... spinny light toys. You know the ones. Or a coin. I don’t care. This will further widen it, overlapping your physical boundary like with the bubble. Once satisfied, visualize it settling into place . The bubble will go OVER you like a dome, but also UNDER you, into the ground below you. I’ve found that if I’m on a second floor, SPECIFYING a dome is somewhat helpful, just in that I don’t want whoever’s downstairs in my circle.

Step maybe 5 probably: Un-circling

Open the top or bottom of your circle, like a convertible car’s roof going back, and collapse it down into a ring again. Break it, and draw it back in, and release any remaining energies to the sources that lent it with thanks. Be mindful of eco-friendly disposal when cleaning up after your working, and do whatever you need to in order to move back to a “normal” state of mind and energy... And to return your space back to “normal”, if needed.

Hope you enjoy this hurried, lazy, and strange post. HMU with questions, and I’ll make edits on this as I get inspired to do so.

Zyg

[christinaengela]

There are really a lot of different reasons why people want to save money – and face it, in these difficult times, who doesn’t? I certainly count myself in that group! Service time is another of those dreaded annual expenses that make car owners cringe – even if you drive an old banger that’s paid for instead of a brand new car that’s owned by the bank and costs more than a house-payment to service at the agents!

In this article I talk about saving some money in perhaps one of the easiest ways you probably never thought about!

Spark plugs! Every internal (or infernal, depending on your experiences) combustion engined car has them – and every time you service your car, either by yourself (if like me you want to save money) or if you take it to the neighborhood garage-slash-workshop, they swap out these items for nice shiny new ones! Naturally, they don’t do this for free – spark plugs cost money, and their cost forms part of your service bill – and adds up over time.

Why do they do this instead of just cleaning them? Have you ever wondered? Well, because they’re “finished” they’ll say, smiling – when they’re really fine and perhaps just a little sooty, and at worst the electrodes are coated with carbon. Underneath all that, they’re still as good as new – but cleaning them takes time and effort on their part – and as we all know, “time is money”. Truth is, they’re only “finished” if their electrodes are burned away or excessively worn, if the ceramic housing is cracked or broken, or the circuit itself is broken (“dead plug”) or the thread is stripped so it doesn’t seal against the cylinder head port.

Modern engines have electronic ignition and engine management systems which, among other things, protect and lengthen the lifetimes of these normally throwaway items, so there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t be able to just give them a clean and keep using them, is there?

Think about it: Your typical spark plug for a Citigolf, Beetle or Mazda 323 or similar costs around between R65 – R80 each, but let’s work on the lighter side for the purposes of this demonstration and stick to R65 each. Since most cars have 4-cylinder engines, they need 4 of these items – and that alone costs you say, R260.00 of your service bill. That’s not too much, is it? You might wonder what you could do with R260 bucks, especially at the very end of a dry month. The answer is, still quite a bit, isn’t it?

If you insist on it, your workshop will return the old plugs to you when you collect your car… in a plastic shopping bag – and there are various reasons you might do this: from seeing proof that they did change your plugs, to keeping the old ones for spares, or to use in arts and crafts etc. I know some people who did that in the past to see how honest their garages were – in fact, many old-school garages used to insist on doing this anyway as a matter of principle. My elderly aunts and uncles were oftimes the proud recipents of a plastic bag containing dirty spark plugs, old oil/air/fuel filters and even brake shoes when they collected their cars from the local garage!

So… you hold a dirty spark plug and turn it over and over in your hands, wondering what’s wrong with it, and why it had to be replaced? Why can’t it just be cleaned and used some more? Why not indeed?

I’m sure there are many convinving reasons a car manufacturer or service agent could come up with why a seemingly good sparkplug that still works fine needs to be replaced every time you take your car for a service… just as they shamelessly justify service plans for new cars at the agents that often cost more than a running second-hand car just for a service – but I honestly can’t think of any. It’s a car – not a space shuttle!

That aside, yes, they are dirty – and if the dirt builds up enough, it will interfere with the sparking ability of the plugs and impairs their function – which allows them to collect more carbon and build-up, making them dirtier, which means you end up using slightly more fuel, making the engine less efficient. If it gets bad enough, the engine begins to misfire, and speaking as someone who’s had to drive a car home on two cylinders due to fouled up spark plugs caused by worn piston rings, I know what it’s like!

My old beetle for example, is an old car – it will be 58 years old next year. Naturally there is a bit of wear on the engine – and being a 1200cc engine, it’s also extremely picky about which spark plugs it uses. Any plug I put into it beside the original factory-specified make and model spark plug only lasts me about three weeks before the engine begins to splutter, becomes underpowered and eventually, won’t even start! In 2015, when I got the car and before I realized the problem was the incorrect spark plugs, I bought at least four sets of new aftermarket spark plugs (which were listed as useable on that model car, but burned at the wrong temperature) and changed them out every three weeks! Anyway, at the end of 2015, I wound up holding a bagful or soot and oil-covered plugs, counting the cost, and pondering whether I could clean these things to reuse them rather than just buy another set?

It’s worth mentioning that just because a spark plug fits into the holes in your car engine, it doesn’t mean it’s designed to work on your engine! Spark plugs may even look alike, but are rated at different operating temperatures – too hot OR too cold, and they cause problems! Well, I was gob-smacked! No wonder those plugs were so badly fouled! In 2015 I’d changed the plugs so frequently that I began to wonder if the engine was on its way out and would need a rebuild… The correct plugs solved that problem. Anyone who’s had to change plug on a bug engine will know my pain!

Thing is, nobody seems to tell you you can clean your spark plugs – and in most cases, I find, they can be cleaned back to almost new condition. To my mind, this is all part of the consumerist throw-away-society mindset. It’s easier to just buy a new one and throw the old one away – yes, it’s easier – but expensive and wasteful.

When I eventually figured out the problem with the beetle and sourced the extremely elusive Bosch original specified items, I bought two sets – put one in the car, and kept the other in the toolbox in the trunk for emergencies. The correct plugs last a lot longer between cleans than the incorrect ones, lemme tell ya! It might interest you that I haven’t had to buy new plugs since 2016 – for the bug, or for my citi golf. Let’s do a quick sum here to work out what that means.

Two cars in my case adds up to eight plugs – that’s R520 (at R65 each) if I’d serviced both cars in one year – and if I’d repeated that for the last four years, it would’ve cost me around R2080 just for new plugs – which probably didn’t even need to be replaced! What a waste! Instead though, over the last four years, that’s roughly how much I saved! This is working on the conservative side, because I can bet you dollars to donuts the price has gone up a bit every year since 2016, meaning it would be more than that now!

The goal in my view, is to have two sets of good plugs – one installed in the car, and one clean and ready in the garage at home (or in your toolbox in the boot). When the time comes – old cars will let you know when they begin to miss or splutter or become underpowered, or you can just do it once a year come service-time – you swap out the plugs and then clean the dirty ones at your leisure and put them aside for when needed again.

Let me tell you how I reached my conclusions – there are a few ways to clean spark plugs. In the course of my research, I tried two methods.

The first method I followed was to burn them clean – that’s right – with a gas torch, and then wire-brushing them until they’re free of any build-up. The conventional wisdom about this method (according to various YouTube video fundis) says you should apply the flame until all the build-up glows red and then turns gray and begins to fall off on its own, and then you can brush off the rest – a sort of fine flaky gray ash, using a hand-held wire brush. The end result – about ten or fifteen minutes, and maybe one or two light burns later – is a shiny, smooth, fairly clean plug. Courage, you still have another three to do. *Sighs*

Yes it does work, but I found this method slow, messy and labor-intensive. Basically, if you’re not doing the actual cleaning all the time you’re cleaning them, they remain dirty. Thus, the task requires your full attention for the duration of the job. There’s also a distinct risk of injury – you’re working with a very hot flame that can cause grievous injury after all – so it takes concentration and focus to avoid accidentally sustaining burns – and face it, it can happen! There had to be an easier, safer way – and there is! Chemistry! And a little common sense!

I advise against the gas torch cleaning method, especially if you’re not confident in using fire tools like gas torches! Besides, I look better with eyebrows, and I’m sure you – like me – have better things to spend that much of your time on!

I had much better results with chemistry – it was less trouble, less time and attention-consuming, and it’s easy-peasy. You need four small shot-glasses for this task – or one per plug – with just enough space inside it to hold the electrode end of the plug and a bit of fluid at the bottom.

Without even touching the plugs with a wire-brush yet, I poured a little brown vinegar into the glasses – just enough to cover the threads. Then I added a small amount of bicarbonate of soda powder – just about a pinch – to the fluid before inserted the plug into the vinegar at the bottom of the shot glass. I left the plugs in a quiet undisturbed spot overnight for the chemical reaction to do its thing. The next day when I got home from work, all it took was a little light wirebrushing to completely remove the grime and a little drying with an old rag! I was surprised at how clean they turned out!

This is simplicity itself – all you need to do is pop them into the glasses with the fluid mix, leave them overnight, and the next day give them a quick brushing and lubrication! Remember, you’ve already fitted the clean plugs to your car as you took out the dirty ones, so you didn’t need to wait for them to dry before using your car!

You’ll see in the pictures below how nice they look! Spray them lightly with Q20 to safeguard against rust while they wait for their next shift, and you’re good to go!

Remember to check your plugs between changes for the correct electrode gap (consult your car-care manual for instructions), and for excessive wear – cleaning them can’t fix physical damage!

If you’re lucky, you might never need to buy spark plugs again – think of all the money you could save! 🙂

That’s all for this time, have a D.I.Y. day!

Pictures included – enjoy!

Cheers!

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Easy DIY Moneysaver – Clean & Reuse Your Spark Plugs There are really a lot of different reasons why people want to save money - and face it, in these difficult times, who doesn't?

[sweetnestor]

You Look Happier | Chapter 11

university au, teamiplier + jack

platonic/romance/angst/smut(only on ao3)

previous chapter

Despite the “driving lessons” I had done with Mark, I still found myself wide awake the night before the trip. I wouldn’t stop being anxious about it until it was actually happening. In a way, the insomnia was almost beneficial because by the time I had to be awake, I wasn’t even the slightest bit tired.

I got out of bed the second my alarm went off. My mind was buzzing with everything I had to get ready, so for a moment, I wasn’t entirely riddled with anxiety from head to toe. I made sure my clothes were packed, my sweaters were in place, and my bathroom necessities were in order. Then I stuck my head out there door and listened for commotion from my roommate. Once I heard footsteps and movements, I went to the bathroom to do my makeup.

Never thought I would make myself up at four in the morning. There’s a first time for everything, I suppose.

Somehow, I was still wide awake by the time I was ready to go. Jack, on the other hand, was quiet and grumpy for the entire ride to Mark’s house.

When we got there, I noticed an unfamiliar SUV parked in the driveway. Figured it was the rental we all pitched in for. Not long after I parked in front of the house, I saw another car creep up from behind. Tyler, Kathryn, and Ethan. More reasons to unintentionally stay awake all night.

“Morning guys,” Tyler greeted when we all got out of the cars.

We mumbled back a greeting. Jack was clearly sleepy, and I was in a bad mindset as always.

Just then, Mark and Amy came out of the house, rolling their luggage behind them. They both looked exhausted. After exchanging greetings, Mark unlocked the SUV and went to open the back compartment. Then, everyone began to load their luggage.

“You mind taking the first round?” Mark asked me after stowing his suitcase away.

“Not at all,” I replied, sounding unusually upbeat.

He noticed this. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Nope! Can I have the keys?” I smiled, holding my hand out.

Mark put the set in my hands with a look of uncertainty. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yes. No offense, but I look and feel more alive than the rest of you guys.” Fake it til you make it, right? Wide awake, but crying inside.

“You’re the pretty one of the group, so it’s no surprise,” added Ethan, who came up from behind me.

Mark scoffed and mumbled, “I’m prettier,” before going to help Amy with her luggage.

My heart rate accelerated for a split second. I looked at Ethan, wanting to scold him for making such a risky comment.

“Dude,” I said quietly. “We agreed.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied just as softly. Then he gestured for me to follow him off to the side. “I know we’re gonna tell everyone when we come back. But I’m really excited about it, and I don’t know if I’ll make it the whole weekend.”

“You have to,” I warned. “If Mark finds out on this trip and he takes it badly, then we’re stuck with him being angry all weekend.”

“I think he’ll take it well,” Ethan told me with a shrug. “But I’ll wait. I’ll stick to the plan.”

I nodded once. “Good.”

Before either of us could say anything else, someone joined the conversation. I jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder, fearing for a split second that we had been caught. But it was only Jack, who barely batted an eye at my physical reaction.

“We’re all ready to go,” he told us.

I shot one last look at Ethan before going to the vehicle.

I was driving for the first few hours. Mark was the passenger seat. Tyler, Amy, and Jack were in the backseat/middle row. Ethan and Kathryn sat in the very back, the third row. Eight hours with all of them. I took a deep breath and prayed to some higher entity that this would go well.

~

“Hey, can you pull over?” asked Tyler. “I’m feeling sick.”

“Oh, are you?” I replied, turning on the hazard lights and pulling to the side of the road.

It was a good three hours of silent driving. I had my music playing quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping team. The unfamiliar road had kept me distracted, as well as make me think of every Final Destination-related disaster scenario. But for the most part, my nerves weren’t too bothersome.

Once Tyler got out of the car, the rest of the group seemed to come back to life. Jack and Ethan stretched their arms upwards while Kathryn and Amy shifted in their seats.

“I’m getting coffee from the back,” Mark announced. “Anyone want anything?”

“I’ll go with you,” Jack said as he took off his seatbelt.

That prompted for all of us to get out of the car. I opened my door and extended my legs, making my knees pop. It felt good, but now that I wasn’t driving, the lack of sleep was hitting me.

“Baller, you want anything?” called Jack from the back of the car.

Coffee would be good. But if Mark took over and started driving, then coffee would be bad. I also definitely could not fall asleep while someone else was driving, though. I was fucked either way.

I got onto my feet and started to pace, trying to wake myself up. I blinked back the heaviness in my eyes and went to the trunk of the car.

“Water?” I asked, resisting the urge to yawn or rub my eyes.

Jack reached into the mini cooler and pulled out a water bottle. “You okay?”

“I’m on fire,” I replied.

“You want me to take over?” asked Mark.

I shook my head. “I can keep going.”

“You haven’t slept, though.”

“And I won’t until we get there.”

He looked at me for a second. “Yeah, I’m taking the next round. And Tyler’s gonna sit in the front since he’s sick.”

Suddenly, I wished this water was patron. Suddenly, I wanted to teleport to the Grand Canyon so I could fling myself off the edge. Here we fucking go.

“We’re gonna have a rowdy time in the back seat,” Ethan sarcastically said as he placed his hands on my shoulders.

“Yeah, we’re gonna party!” Jack added, bouncing on his feet.

Now everyone was more awake and alive than I was. It was daunting. I was starting to feel the dark storm cloud form above my head. It was getting out of my control.

After a few minutes of stretching and waking up, we all got back in the car. I was in the second row, in the window seat behind the driver. Everything started to feel like it was going in slow motion. I breathed rapidly, but not loudly, through my nose. I tensed visibly when the car started to move. I was also fighting off tears, and my heart was palpitating. I kind of wanted to die.

“Drink your water,” Jack gently reminded me.

I was petrified, though. I was too scared to move. My eyes just stayed glued to the crack between the side of the vehicle and the driver’s headrest, watching the road. Everything sounded muffled, but I did catch Ethan saying something to Jack. Then, I felt a hand go over mine, squeezing gently. I took Jack’s fingers and returned the pressure.

“Should we stop?” asked Mark, who had probably seen the gesture through the mirror.

I lightly shook my head. I didn't want to inconvenience anyone. I drove with Mark one-on-one for this very reason. I had to be capable. I had to control this in whatever way I could.

“What do you need?” Jack asked me.

I sighed heavily, thinking about what was bothering me. The constant sound of the wind hitting the car was particularly stressful.

“My headphones,” I said at last. “I left them in the glove department.”

He reached over and tapped Tyler on the shoulder. Then, he was passing over my black, sleek headphones.

“Anything else?” Jack prompted again.

I shook my head as I plugged the cord into my phone. Finally, I had music to distract me. I decided to make a playlist.

~

My appetite had gone as well. The next stop was at a McDonald’s in Needles, California. It was around ten in the morning by now, and everyone was tired of the granola bars from the back. I, on the other hand, could have lived off of those for the whole weekend. I just had to find my way around every meal.

“Are you getting anything?” asked Ethan when we were inside the establishment.

“Nah, I don’t really eat breakfast,” I replied. “I’m good on just coffee.”

“You sure?” he pressed, his voice slowing down, like he was carefully choosing his words.

He’s tiptoeing. I couldn’t blame him, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. I was perfectly capable.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine. I’ll be in the bathroom,” I said coldly before walking off.

As soon as I was alone, a wave of guilt went over me. I sighed and looked in the mirror. Then I distracted myself by touching up my makeup. I dug through my purse for my powder, but quickly grew frustrated and winded up dumping the contents onto the counter between the two sinks. Once I found what I was looking for, I heard one of the toilets flush and out came Amy from a stall. Great.

She didn’t pay any mind until she saw the mess I made. “Oh…”

“Sorry, my bag is an endless void,” I said as I gathered my stuff to one side.

“Relatable.” Amy chuckled as she turned on one sink. “Are you doing okay?”

Here we go again.

“I’m more okay when people don’t ask if I’m okay,” I replied, but then I felt bad. “Sorry, nothing against you. It’s just tiring when people treat you like a time bomb.”

“Gotcha. It’s just… your hands are shaking.”

I hadn’t noticed until she said it. I had to show that I was fine. “They always shake. Comes with the combination of mental illness and caffeine.”

“I thought you didn’t have any coffee, though.”

Shit.

I stayed quiet as I powdered the oily parts of my face.

~

I drove the rest of the way over there, and I chugged a coffee in order to stay awake. While I was jittery and hyperaware of my surroundings and the noise in my brain, my new car anxiety playlist helped diffuse it. Basically, I sang my freaking heart out for the last four hours.

After paying for parking and finding a space, we all went out into the bitter cold. Although, once I was outside, my legs ached with chills. I crossed my arms and joined the group at the trunk, where they were packing their backpacks with snacks and water.

“Forty degrees!” exclaimed Kathryn.

“Shit,” I breathed out.

“You good, Baller?” Jack asked, amused as he put his arm around me.

“Shouldn’t have worn leggings,” I replied, unconsciously huddling into his side.

“I have sweatpants, do you wanna borrow them?” Ethan offered. “You can wear them over your leggings.”

Oh god, he really wants to expose us, doesn’t he?

“Yeah, you’re not going to survive with one layer on your legs,” Mark added.

“I’m getting them,” Ethan concluded as he dug through the trunk for his suitcase.

“Fine,” I sighed.

Jack kept me in his embrace, and neither of us paid any mind until it was brought to attention.

“You guys dating?” Tyler asked as he put bottles of water into his backpack.

“No, we’re just close,” I replied.

“Um, sweetheart,” Jack said, sounding mock offended. “How long more are we going to hide our undying love for each other from our friends?”

I chuckled, but decided to play along. “Okay fine.” I turned to the group and took Jack’s hand. “We’ve eloped. We’re helplessly in love and we have three kids. The secret’s out, my legal name is now Bella Santiago-McLoughlin.”

“Oh, I hadn’t realized you were going to hyphenate,” Jack went on, still not sounding happy.

“Wow, congratulations,” Mark said with a laugh, but he didn’t seem too amused.

“Sweatpants!” announced Ethan, holding the article of clothing in the air. Then he handed them over to me.

I detached from my loving husband and took the pants from my boyfriend. When I put them on, I felt instantly better, from both the warmth and the fact that it was the first time wearing his clothes.

After that, we all ventured towards the Visitor Center, where there was a series of shuttle stops. Shuttles. To take us to various parts of the canyon. Public transportation. With other people. I looked down at my water bottle, hoping I could pull a Jesus and turn it into wine, or something stronger. Obviously, I couldn’t make the whole team walk around everywhere, I had no choice but to get on with them. Somehow I survived.

It wasn’t until after a first stop at one edge did I realize how high we were. We were dropped off at a ledge with very little people. There was a sign that explained some history on this section of the Grand Canyon, and a small barrier.

I pretended to focus on the sign while everyone else went to the fence. Ethan, Kathryn, and Tyler immediately started taking pictures with their phones. Mark, Amy, and Jack were just taking in the view. I took a picture of all of them, their backs to the camera, and posted it on Snapchat. “When you’re too scared to look over the edge.”

I wonder how many people killed themselves here. Okay, edgelord. Come back to earth. And leap over that fence. Oh, fuck off.

By the time I worked up the courage to approach, the boys went further down the area, near some trees. So it was just me, Kathryn, and Amy. I was more focused on the view.

The Grand Canyon looked like a painting. The other end looked like a mural against a giant wall. I couldn’t really comprehend how huge this place was, nor how big the drop was. Somehow, it was less scary that way.

“I feel so small,” Kathryn commented, looking out at the view.

“Let’s take a selfie!” Amy suggested as she pulled out her phone. “I actually bought a selfie stick, and I gotta use it! Over here!”

She led us over to where the fence ended. Concrete turned to stone, and my heart rate spiked. I suddenly slowed my steps, hesitating while my mind got louder.

“Come on,” Kathryn coaxed as she took my wrist. “We’re all shitting our pants here. Let’s do this quickly.”

Amy put her phone on her selfie stick and then put on her sunglasses. “Smile!”

We were facing the sun with the canyon behind us. I shut my eyes, smiled wide, and held onto Kathryn’s arm for dear life. As soon as the picture was taken, we ran away from the edge like a bunch of maniacs.

It was a small thing, and a lot of people had the same fear of heights as I did, but I felt the slightest bit of pride once I had calmed down. I was very far from home, and I stood on the edge of one of the world’s biggest drops. I was experiencing a bad case of nerves, yes, but I hadn’t spiraled into a full blown panic attack. I was okay.

The three of us met up with the four boys in the roundabout. Then we went on another shuttle to a more isolated part of the area. There wasn’t a fence or railing of any kind here, which only made my intrusive thoughts louder.

“Oh, there’s a path we can take back to the Visitor Center,” said Tyler, who was reading a map. “It’s two miles.”

“Let’s go ‘splorin’!” Amy said excitedly.

So we did. We stayed in a group, with Mark and Tyler mostly leading the way. I stayed towards the back, just like at uni. The view was nice, there were red rocks and bluebirds everywhere. I wasn’t as cold anymore, now that I had been moving. My mind was less noisy as long as I didn’t look directly at the canyon.

“Whoa, there’s underground caves we can explore too!” Jack exclaimed. He was reading a pamphlet he got when we first arrived to the national park.

“Yikes,” I said in response.

That was enough for everyone to scrap the idea. Thank god.

Every now and again, we would stop at a particularly exciting ledge. Mark, Tyler, and Jack would stand at the very edge of the cliff for the thrill of it. Again, my mind was at full volume. Please don’t jump off. Or do. That would be fun. Shut up!

It was worse when Ethan decided to join them. He stepped through the mud, over to the wide open terrain. If I reacted, would I end up exposing us? I mean, he was a hair away from life and death, after all. It made sense, right?

“Mark, be careful!” Amy called.

Could I do that?

Ethan quickly turned and got away from the edge after a minute or so. “Nope!”

He was the only one to notice my sigh of relief, and I gave him a look. He responded by quickly squeezing my hand. What I needed was to hug him tight, but that couldn’t happen until later.

~

After the hike, we took another shuttle to one of the restaurants at the park. Now, I was hungry. I was starving, and it hurt. And I was very fucking tired.

Thankfully, it wasn’t busy when we got there. It was still a little too early for dinner. Once we were seated, I looked around for the bathroom. Then I looked for an emergency exit. They were right next to each other, towards the back of the restaurant. The tables surrounding those two doors were empty for now, so I had an easy getaway.

However, as time went on, the vicinity started to fill up. Things slowly started to get more and more hectic, and there was less and less space, making me feel cramped. I started to feel how I did in the car. The tables by the bathroom were getting occupied. Okay, I stood at the edge of a cliff today, yet a crowded restaurant was going to be the thing to break me.

I blacked out through dinner, so surely I didn’t burst into tears and ruin everything. Next thing I knew, we were on a shuttle back to the Visitor Center. I felt like I was a million miles away. I felt pins and needles in my hands and feet. The only time I made a coherent sentence was when I asked if I could drive to the hotel.

It was a shorter ride than I had anticipated. We checked in and got to our rooms, which were coincidentally on the same floor… right next door and across from each other. Jack and I roomed together. Ethan and Tyler were on the room to our left, Kathryn was across from us, and Mark and Amy were on our right. What a happy coincidence.

I knocked out almost as soon as I hit the bed. Being awake for thirty two consecutive hours had finally hit me. It was like my anxiety attack disappeared, and sleep took over.

When I woke up, there was someone next to me. Even in my groggy state, it startled me. I jumped and gasped, only to discover Ethan lying asleep next to me. Or… his eyes were half open, so I couldn’t really tell. I sat up on my elbows, looking at his face in thought. Suddenly, the picture he sent from PAX South made sense. I waved my hand in front of his face, which made him stir.

“Sorry,” I said gently. So he was asleep. Weird.

He groaned as he stretched his limbs, and then he swiftly rolled over and climbed over half my body. He lied his head on my chest and sleepily mumbled, “Titties…”

I chuckled and then quickly scanned the room. The other bed was empty, but I did hear the water running. “Is Jack here?”

“Showering,” Ethan replied, his cheek pressed rather painfully on my breast. Thankfully, he sat up. “I came to see you after we settled in, but you were asleep. So I decided to nap with you. Nap date!”

“Best date ever,” I said as I stroked the side of his face. “Good napping! Where does your roommate think you are?”

“Editing videos in the lobby,” he said, somewhat guilty. “But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Anyway...” He moved a strand of hair from my face, his eyes trailing down my face. Then, he planted a soft kiss on my lips. “I wanted to do that all day.”

My face heated up at that. And all I wanted to do all day was pass out. What a good girlfriend I am.

Just then, we heard the bathroom door open. Ethan quickly rolled off of me right as Jack came around the corner. He caught wind of the tension though, like he had caught us doing something scandalous.

“Don't worry, I'm on my way out,” he told us as went to his suitcase on his bed.

“You don't have to leave,” I said.

“WiFi’s better in the lobby,” he replied. “I have some stuff to take care of.”

“Cool, have fun!” Ethan exclaimed.

Jack chuckled as he grabbed his laptop and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “All I ask is that you kids stay off my bed! And use protection!”

I groaned and rolled onto my front to hide how red my face had gone.

“Understood, Mr. Bella’s Dad, sir,” Ethan said.

I kept my face hidden until I heard Jack’s laughter go out the door. When I looked up, I found Ethan on his side, looking down at me. I smiled and reached for his hand.

“Thanks for letting me use your sweats today,” I told him. “You’ll never get them back.”

He chuckled. “I figured. Take care of them, they’re super comfortable.”

We hadn’t had a moment like this since Valentine’s Day. Even when we finally had a weekend off, we were still busy and had little time for each other. I knew I wouldn’t be able to relax here, knowing that we could get caught at any moment, but I did enjoy the time alone.

“How many layers are you wearing?” Ethan asked as he took the end of my sweater. “Aren’t you warm?”

He started to unzip me, and it felt a lot more intimate than it should have been. Then, he placed his hand inside my sweater, and leaning in to kiss my jaw. Of course, that all added to the angry bout of nerves tangled in my stomach. I was so anxious it actually hurt my lower abdomen.

Wait…

“Ethan,” I said, tapping his arm.

“Hmm?”

“I have to use the bathroom.”

He leaned back, a confused look on his face. But he let me go anyway. “Okay…”

I got up and dashed off to the small bathroom. Just as I had suspected, Mother Nature left me a present, and it made me groan in annoyance. Mildly embarrassed, I went back to the door and opened it a crack, peering my head out. “Ethan? Can you do me a favor?”

“What do you need?” he called back.

“There’s a bag in my suitcase,” I explained, internally cowering. “It’s black and has cats on it. Can you bring it?”

He did it without question. Surely he would know what was inside the bag just by looking at the design, right? I couldn’t help but feel mildly embarrassed regardless, despite that this was a way to test him. He passed, he didn’t get squeamish or weird when I returned to bed curled up in a fetal position.

“Aww, is someone getting menstrual cramps?” he cooed as he came around to spoon me.

I groaned in response, wanting to sink into the mattress.

“Are you in a lot of pain? Do you need anything?” he asked, more concerned now.

“No,” I mumbled, turning over so I could curl into his chest. I felt really gross and uncomfortable now that the symptoms were kicking in. “I’m fine.”

My phone suddenly dinged, and I debated ignoring it this time. Ethan was stroking my hair and kissing the top of my head, and it was distracting. But it dinged a second time, and it made me turn to reach for it on the bedside table. Fuck, was I glad to read the texts from Jack.

“Idk how crazy you guys are getting, but Tyler’s looking for the blue boi!”

“We’re going up there now! Put your clothes on! :p”

Panic struck my chest. I quickly sat up and told Ethan what was going on, so we acted fast. I mean, I knew we weren’t doing anything of what Jack was poking fun at, but we still didn’t want to get caught cuddling alone on the bed. I had an idea, so I grabbed my skin care products and rushed him into the bathroom.

By the time Jack came back to the room with Tyler on his tail, they found me applying some black goop onto Ethan’s face.

“What are you doing here?” Tyler asked him.

“Face masks,” he replied simply. “Bella brought some stuff. You want in?”

I offered a smile as I evened out the stuff on his face with a brush. I would have put a mask on myself, but I didn’t have enough time to wash off my makeup. I could only hope it didn’t seem inconspicuous.

“No thank you,” Tyler replied. “I was gonna go get food and see if you wanted to come, but uh, I’ll go ask Kathryn.”

“Bring me something!” Ethan called after him as he left the room.

Jack waited until he heard the door shut. “Guys, I don’t like lying!”

“One more day!” I promised.

“Or, we could have told Tyler now and made him not tell anyone,” Ethan suggested.

“You really think he’d keep it from Mark?” Jack asked in disbelief. “He’s more loyal to him. And anyway, I don’t think Mark would really care that you guys are together.”

“That’s what I keep saying!” Ethan gave me a look.

“One more day!” I repeated.

______

next chapter

[mabsj]

30/12/19

Hellooowww Tumblrr Diary... Late update I guess because my schedule is abit tight today.. (29/12).. I schedule myself spending time with families, they wanted to have their lunch at bedok Sri Bistari.. Should try and if you want to eat Roti John, Nasi Ayam Penyet, thats a place I can recommend.. If someone who loves to eat Pengat Durian, they are selling too.. But have to be quick because its limited only.. Well Diary, today was a tiring day.. Spend time with my family for lunch at bedok, then I went for my fitness to gain back not muscles, but strength.. ahahaha.. But if muscles would be fine.. hahahah.. Anywayssss... Supposedly I'm meeting my best buddy (Hisyam).. Well....Turns out I cancel it because He's somewhat late so I want to finish my fitness early.. So I texted him to cancel and we find another day Insyaa'Allah.. So after having lunch, spend time with my family, send them back home, change my attire bla bla bla, get to my car, drive off to ECP(East Coast Park).. Yeeeaaapp.. I decided to change the menu.. I mean...venue.. So I make some quick jog, and my cousin called.. This cousin of mind, He's a littllllee bit fetish.. Not fetish in that.. But fetish in riding up.. Yeah.. He pass his bike license and buy a 1st hand bike.. He loves bikes.. But for me,, I loves cars.. Not luxuries I supposed.. So I continue my jog and some push ups, pull up and I jogg back to where I park my car because Im meeting him there.. So he arrive and we walk to this so called like a foot bench.. Cant describe it but if you were a photogenic type of person who loves to take a picture with nice view scenery of the sunset, thats the place.. So he sat down having out nonsense conversations and he ask me if I would ever accompany him if he were want to ride up with me.. My answer is, I WOULD LOVE TO.. Like who doesnt want to travel right ?? Drive up, see the scenery, visiting neighbour country.. But he told me, Im much more faster driver than him.. But woah.. I have to stop that.. He know I've been to Thailand by driving up.. Border of Narathiwat.. So he ask me, whats the feeling like.. I said, wonderful.. Lots of Challenging.. He wants to try but he was scared.. Because his bike is R15 V3.. 2B bike.. But I said, my nephew ride X1R to thailand and he is also 2B bike.. Much smaller tank than yours.. But he manage..If a smaller bike can manage, why not you.. I said to him.. Your pitstop is mucb more than car.. I drove up, my only pitstop is top up some petrol.. Which is from full till empty lights on, it took me 450km.. Smaller bikes can reach up est 150km-250km depending on what type of 2B bikes.. Cars is more tiring even if we drive fast, even if we got aircon, roof, but once you fall asleep, thats it.. that car will turn into a bed of yourself..

So he ask me why dont I change my car to drive like bigger CC cars example like BMW, MERC, AUDI, VOLKSWAGEN, JAGUAR, ESTIMA, VELLFIRE, ALPHARD.. And I told him, thats is what every single person dream of to have.. But mine is different.. I dont dream of having that car.. I dont like is.. My favourate car is sports car.. Not exotic supercar like skyline gtr.. nope.. Thats not me.. I prefer sports car like Subaru Impreza, Mitsubishi Lancer GT, Colt plus Turbo.. Those legally modified cars.. Eventhough they aren't that luxury, but the interior you can make it luxury.. My mindset of buying a car is not about luxury or feeling luxury.. Its about traveling with ease, comfort.. Its how you change to make it comfortable.. Yes I drove a red Subaru.. Its loud.. I named that car Sabre.. Because its loud and fast except not blow off valve sound.. And I save that my money and bought that car and pay full cash.. But I have to let it go due to lots of mechanical failure.. So I change to Mitsubishi Colt Plus Turbo.. Not so sporty and big.. Just a small zippy white car looks like a hatchback.. But the engines ladies and gentlement.. I was shock by with its pick up power and withstand power.. Its incredible.. Much faster than my Sabre(Subaru).. With Mivec Turbo, Smooth engine, Loud blow off valve sound, Turbo installed and thats a beauty.. I fall in love to that car and I trade in my Sabre to that.. And I named is, Beetle.. It looks like a beetle to me due to the body size and the face of the car..

Yeap.. Thats the beauty.. My longest journey with this lady is to Narathiwat Thailand.. I know Singapore cars heading to Thailand can only cross border at Kayu Hitam(Perlis).. So no choice.. I head there visiting my late uncle family there as we unable to visit him when he passed away.. So there was me(driver), passengers is my mum, cik rasid(Uncle), Cik noi(Aunty) and Ramdhan(Cousin).. 5pax in this car travelling to Narathiwat.. We depart at night around 9pm Singapore at my Aunty house.. So we go through via Tuas-Second Link and stop at gelang patah for them to buy food, snacks, cigg whatsoever.. we departed at 10pm.. I was the main and only driver.. I make calculations before the trip on how many times I need to pump, how many pitstop, and total KM journey, est total hours and est time arrival.. Initially it goes as plan as what I plan on hardcopy.. 1hr break on every pitstop.. Total hours including pit stop is 18hrs estimated including pit stop.. total journey, going there took me 1256km.. not counted as going back to singapore.. thats times 2..

So we depart from gelang patah at 10pm.. My first pit stop is Yong Peng bus terminal pit stop where every busses stop there.. We arrive there 1hr 15mins as what I clocked in inside my stopwatch.. But sadly many of the halal food is closed.. so we head to next RnR.. And gladly its open.. so we had some food to eat.. 1hr.. I finish my food, I go to the massage chair for massage.. insert in Rm10 and all mine.. but halfway I let my mom continue because the massage chair beside me spoiled.. hahahaha.. And we departed at 11.15pm.. I decided to have additional pit stop for me to had my cold bath to wake me up and drink some coffee, have some cigg.. not sure whats the pitstop name.. Because i've been driving for 2hrs and 30mins non stop and I feel sleepy.. Time was like around 2am plus.. I had my bath and drink strong coffee because normal coffee still makes me sleepy.. And smoke some sticks.. So time still shows 2am plus.. And I continue the trip.. The rest all are asleep.. Only me are awake.. In order for them to sleep peacefully, I plug in my earpods.. ahahaha.. So I played hip hop songs with full blast.. We reach KL RnR pitstop at around 3.45am.. shock huh.. I was driving 140km/h with 5pax inside.. hahahaha.. So they all had their meals whatever.. 4.30am, we continue the journey.. Same as usual, everybody was asleep.. I continue driving.. Drive about 2hr30mins, we arrive at Penang.. Slightly above penang.. ahahaha.. Time shown is 6am.. so me, my mum, my aunty went for our subuh prayers.. I felt fresh after my prayers.. so I grab myself some coffee and some fruits so we head on to our last RnR pit stop.. the Northbound i forgot the name is.. Its 45mins drive.. And there we had our morning freaking cold bath, and had our breakfast.. They thought its 1hr still.. But I told them, make it 2hrs.. Because we are early and ahead of our Schedule.. They are shock.. ahahaha.. I was shocked too.. Had my 2nd petrol pump and we buzz of to Changlun.. Still at malaysia but thats were I do my 3rd party insurance for thailand, white card and details of the pax inside my car and details of my car.. We reach Kayu Hitam at 9am.. And its fast.. Then we reach at Sadao border, thats where it my turn to get off from the car to get my export vehicle permit done.. total we spend there almost 2hrs including chop our passport.. Once done, we continue our journey in Thailand.. Welcome to Thailand..

The journey is not as comfortable as malaysia or singapore.. Its really rough.. Dont even think your car will be clean.. Its dirty with sand and muds.. We head on to Narathiwat Via Pattani.. Thats the highway for them though.. And the journey took us 3hrs by right.. BUT !!!! It drag till 4hrs.. BECAUSE !!! The waze GPS shows speed limit is 90km/h.. But actually they are driving 40-50km/h.. Skip the journey we reach narathiwat school at 4pm(Local Time).. Thailamd timing is 3pm(1hr behind).. We had my cousin to fetch us infront of the school and guide us inside.. Finally we reach..

We arrive at 4.15pm to our Late Uncle family house.. She cooked for us actually.. She knows I love tom yum and she cook it spicy for me.. hahahaha.. But sadly didnt get to.. Because, upon arriving, we greet and see them hug and cry, and me unloading all the stuff from my boot, and we chit chat, laugh, and on ome point, I lie down and poooofffff.... I was fast asleep.. My mum told me I was soundly asleep from 5pm(Local) till next day 10am(local).. ahahahaha..

Alright Diary..Will continue tomorrow as I need my sleep because Im working.. Good nighty..

[orphans-forest-blog]

How to Get Started with SEO

Research Engine Optimization (SEO) trends plus techniques seem to change along with the tides. Posts with this blog are readable plus informative, sharing news about Search engines, SEO trends and more. With brand new technologies and techniques, algorithm up-dates and trends, SEO is permanently evolving and offering new possibilities for marketers to rank highly looking results. I feel that specialized SEO mistakes that affect get budget - and also dirty Google with non-SEO-friendly content like as social landing pages, Wp media archives, offer pages plus cloned e-commerce product pages : will have a more harmful effect on sites moving ahead. Using the effort to comprehend also the basics of SEO may help your site gain increased click-through rates, engagement, and associated with course, rankings. Getting experience that spans multiple stations with an integrated mindset : especially on SEO and PAY-PER-CLICK synergy, combined with a functionality mentality—sets up people who are usually new to the marketplace regarding success. Voice research is also an emerging tendency in SEO strategies.

These ‘quality updates' are very reminiscent of Search engines Panda updates and often influence many websites at the exact same time - and often these types of focus on demoting similar ‘low-quality' SEO techniques we have already been told Panda targets. Each SEO person was always speaking about long tail keywords They will are multi-word phrases that obtain a lot more fine-tuned or even even perhaps just various methods of saying the same issue. Now that SEO is getting popular among device users, it is usually safe to say that SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION on mobile platforms will improve and improve business to customer relationships in 2018. A brand new wrinkle within the SEO game is sociable networking or social media advertising, which not just helps your own company to be found, yet also allows your business in order to interact directly together with your potential clients. When it arrives to SEO Trends in 2018, Relevancy is still exactly the particular same. Good keyword research is the cornerstone of your SEO. A very essential SEO trend to know within 2018 is the mobile-first list. To avoid getting penalized and ensure that will a website is fully enhanced, these top SEO trends with regard to 2018 needs to be regarded. Being a good experienced SEO content writer, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION copywriter, copy writer, technical writer, reactive content writer, blog writer, Outstanding special interest in digital marketing and advertising. That means this increases user experience which enhances SEO and rankings. Carrying out technical SEO intended for local search engines is actually a similar process. In Local SEO, citations are referred to as mentions” of your local business on other websites and web pages. That getting said, if you want in order to increase your search ranking, and stay relevant and competitive in your own industry, then you have in order to stay abreast of the present SEO trends and techniques. SEOs will need in order to collaborate closely with designers plus developers to prioritize technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and usability search engine positioning factors to gain a competing edge. Since a result, SEOs increasingly follow accelerated mobile pages and improve the user experience for cellular: from page load time in order to navigation, information architecture, and style. It can important to realize that lookup engines don't use meta explanation being an SEO ranking aspect. Similarly, the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Tips and Techniques expects several changes to images and movies in the year 2018. Basically, they stick to a process of including forthcoming SEO trends to promote the website's rankings, thereby boosting specialist and visibility of a company. On the additional hand, you can't build hyperlinks from fashion related blogs or even articles for your SEO suggestions article. If you have got an eCommerce website (or actually any website), then you certainly need SEO to help a person bring in more high-intent visitors, which will likely convert in to qualified leads or sales intended for your business. You should change your initial image This video is positioning #3 for the keyword โ€SEO strategyโ€… today your video will be ranking #2 for that key phrase. Right here is the trick, attach the link inside your content of your own target website, helping your focus on audience in reaching your web site, increasing traffic and impacting SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. SEO optimized posts have a tendency to rank high in research results in comparison those unoptimized blogposts. The point about YouTube Google rankings given that April 2014 Google had the major update, many vseo have got been crying however the answer is pretty simple. If a person have just started your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION campaign for the brand-new website, after that you should focus on long-tail keywords. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, alone, is not enough in order to guarantee success and content advertising, alone, is not enough in order to guarantee success. We believe by now, most associated with the principles of SEO are usually more or less well comprehended by people that have performed their amount of time within the trenches since 1999, even though new platforms and data forms arrive all the time maintaining the need for ongoing exercise or testing even more essential than in the past.

In the particular future, SEOers will have in order to write more for the internet user, which the search motors will begin to mimic. Lookup Engine Optimization popularly referred in order to by the acronym SEO is usually really a technique of immediate marketing employed to rank the webpage on top leads in order to increase the number of the particular visitors on website. My predictions regarding SEO in 2018 is that will we are going to carry on to see Google devalue web pages with keyword stuffing and slim content. Technical optimization: all associated with the behind-the-scenes engineering that SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION pros do to make this easier for search engines such as google to find a site. SEO styles continue to emerge, but 2018 might be a great revolution in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION just because a lot associated with new game-changing technologies will develop in this time and SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION optimization will get a much better yet new shape. Although personally We are usually not a fan of tone of voice search, but a high percent of people are extremely for up-to-date on-page SEO optimization, add functions such as voice search, e-mail plug-ins such as ability associated with users to just click upon the email and send this, call plug-ins as well as other modes associated with communication such as Skype. As research engine algorithms have become even more refined, the nature of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION profession has additionally changed. 2017 introduced an entire new set associated with changes in the way companies market their products and providers, marketers try to improve their particular ranking with seo (SEO), the particular way people surf the internet and much more. If RankBrain will certainly become more and more important in rankings, which is really likely, that means that SEO's will start optimizing more plus more for user experience rather of other factors. As marketers plan their content marketing technique for 2018, SEO is usually SEO 2019 Slide top-of-mind — or at least this should be! 2018, certainly is going to be a good interesting year for SEO within support of time will inform who manages to maintain the particular right blend to come at the top. Digital advertising experts dealing with both SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and AdWords rely on the particular keyword page of the research console to show which key phrases trigger user queries for each organic and paid content. These niches or categories are usually labeled with keywords, so SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION enables you to be rated for a particular category simply by using appropriate keywords or key phrases and key phrases. As predicted, local SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and local search made a good impact in the past yr, though the online world has not fully embraced the new great introduced by hyper-localization. Consequently, let's have a look in the emerging SEO trends associated with 2018. Nearby SEO is always a great place to start for little businesses. Analyzing the quality of your own website's inbound backlinks and just how they're feeding into your domain name architecture can provide your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION team insight into many methods from your own website's strongest and weakest webpages to search visibility on specific keywords against competing brands. Because my company offers had plenty of success in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, I believed that search purpose wouldn't affect me. I might just create a better page” and push that page upward with backlinks. Videos in your blog can also increase your own Dwell-Time, which makes them the must-have for SEO this time of year. By making use of optimization strategies like the domain name name, keywords, The meta label, indexed pages, internal and exterior links, SEO can significantly assist your website search engine ratings for all pages. This new trend is definitely driving companies like Google, Msn, and Pinterest to invest within new ways to better realize the way we visually eat content which means your 2018 SEO strategy should act furthermore and optimize your visual content material. You will get an possibility to discover out about latest trends plus new methods SEO professionals are usually adopting to rank a web site high in the search motors. There are usually LOTS of voice searches within the wonderful world of regional SEO. As Search engines tweaks its algorithms, tools, plus search engine policies, so will go the SEO industry. Whenever it comes to writing SEO-friendly text for Google, we have to optimize for user intent, not only exactly what a user typed into Search engines. One region of focus for greater marketing SEO performance in 2018 may be the confluence of content, influence, plus social. The above SEO developments & tactics research from your study conducted by the team associated with GoodFirms must have given a person rich apprehension for dealing along with the Search Engine Optimization associated with the website. Algorithmic chasers, technical SEOs, and Google Design followers should hone their specialized skills to focus on rising voice search technologies and AI applications. Once you have got a variety of keyword suggestions, you can then use all of them for on-page SEO, improving your own content, building helpful pages plus finding relevant sites in your own niche. Search queries like Chinese language food near me” or greatest auto mechanic near me” supply the perfect opportunity for nearby SEO to capitalize on possible customers. In this free e-book, we will discuss everything a person need to find out to start a good effective Local SEO campaign intended for your business.

This new paradigm associated with users relying on voice research for many of their lookup needs will be a video game changer for SEO. The internet users are just about all excited to know how brand-new SEO trends could affect their own business this year. It's the job to stay ahead associated with digital marketing trends so check out out these 9 SEO forecasts. The process associated with manipulating your content so Search engines and other search engines normally return your page near the particular top of the organic lookup is what SEO is almost all about. As Rand Fishkin pointed out in a Whiteboard Friday, content that is enhanced for keywords still holds important SEO power. 9 forecasted SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends that will shape your own digital marketing strategies. Some SEO professionals and bloggers say that brief URLs ranks better in Search engines. Amazing article i don't know regarding youtube SEO but after reading through this article i fully realize how to rank video on the internet and google also. Topics like as content quality, website rate, security, design, the Knowledge Chart, artificial intelligence, algorithm updates plus Google mandated changes should become considered by anyone looking in order to stay up to date along with SEO. The tactic of enhancing your pages to earn even more traffic through being more extremely relevant to search queries, on-page SEO is something everyone may do. Our goal is in order to craft a page that assists the searcher achieve their objective, answering the intent of their particular search. Videos on your blog may also increase your Dwell-Time, producing them a must-have for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION this year. Because Google continues to refine the enigmatic search algorithm to provide users probably the most relevant results, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION professionals and pundits across the particular globe have taken note associated with the growing number of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends and strategies that are usually poised to be the potential future of SEO. SEO is used as the description for a person, somebody that does search engine search engine optimization as a job, and since a verb I'm going in order to internet search engine optimize this particular website”. Google takes very serious doubt to such Black Hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques. And when you have the handle on that, it's period to optimize your site intended for the new SEO trends that will I outlined within this guide. Research from Intellectual SEO and others shows the relationship between search rankings plus social signals. SEO content is a mixture of keywords and keyword terms. A big component of the internet marketers believe that online marketing is restricted to SEO, SMO & SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING, where in fact, a lot associated with other online marketing strategies have got previously arrived at the finish of 2016 plus some of all of them are still coming since the particular beginning of 2017. Today, a person are going to know the best SEO techniques that will assist improve your website's optimization (and traffic) remarkably. To become able to use article advertising for SEO, authors aim in order to write useful articles which can be used by as numerous publishers as possible and create many backlinks. 2. Writing Intended for the Audience - There offers been a major shift within SEO from writing for the particular search engines like google (Google), to writing for your audience. It can be one of the top SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends in 2018 because generally there will be a great focus on SEO according to visible content, since it is the more interactive approach. Knowing the above facts, Voice Research being on the uprising within forseeable future, SEO specialists have got to be more accurate regarding long tail keywords, schema, Search engines my business and FAQs webpages; as these pages would influence the technicality of search outcomes tremendously. New School SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION has us searching for semantically related keywords and additional relevant paragraphs we can add in order to a single long-form blog write-up.

A professional SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION company will verify the nearby listing on Bing and Search engines. Like many things in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you will need to begin with an extensive keyword study In order to rank for the Jesse Bowie question, you also need to explore what else individuals ask. And remember, various other search engines like google this kind of as Bing and Yahoo depend sometimes even more on exactly what some may call outdated SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION practices. Google Webmaster Equipment is portion of Google's best SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION websites package. If a person have a website that a person want to become easily discovered by a search engine, you need to increase your site rank via SEO as well. Which what most of these SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION tactics making the effort to accomplish - increased rankings. This free ebook will teach you, step by step, how to increase your Local SEO so you can start generating more traffic and sales for the business. Not only internet lookup engine algorithm changes but furthermore the way people search maintains changing, therefore, thinking about the above ten SEO trends- digital marketers plus business owners can make the particular website ready for ranking higher in 2018. All of these types of strategies wrapped up are identified as SEO, or seo. At the most basic degree, SEOs need to think regarding the fact Google can significantly closely imitate what a human being user can do. Search engine optimization has in order to evolve with the times, yet not in the way almost all people describe it. Every period I see someone write SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION has changed a lot within 20 years” I laugh away loud. Keyword research is one associated with the most important aspects associated with SEO. It's that will period of year again, whenever we see an influx associated with SEO articles forecasting trends in order to look for in the brand-new year. I move into much more detail within SEO Page Titles: 15-Point Directory for B2B and B2C Manufacturers, which explains the best methods to work in relevant key phrases that accurately reflect the web page content. The main thing, however, is usually that Local SEO is almost always cheaper and more efficient than traditional marketing. Lookup Engine Optimization; short for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, is a process coping along with the optimization of websites within a way that they can get high ranking within the particular search engines. Amongst the traditional strategy and the particular backbone of SEO, Content, plus Links continue to be simply because worthy as they were. Digital marketing trends have got become more affected by cultural media, so keep it within mind when planning your 2018 SEO. Since a internet search engine trainer, I always suggest people in order to see SEO as a advertising process in addition to the particular technical aspects. FORMS OF SEO There are two main forms of search engine optimization, whitened hat search engine optimization (the ‘good' kind), and black head wear (the 'not so good' kind). With a shift to mobile-first indexing, the biggest SEO craze we'll see in 2018 will be the adoption of accelerated mobile web pages. Information analysis of keyword triggers plus user queries can be utilized to allow experts to spot client intent and plan their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and PPC campaigns accordingly. By focusing upon these best SEO trends within 2018 and actualizing particular strategies, it will guarantee that the site is completely streamlined plus prepared to get targeted customers. I agree with most points but still uncertain how voice search can move to SEO. SEO content in 2018 requirements to be fact-based, user-targeted plus compliant with Google's truthfulness specialist signals. The trouble is that SEO ranking factors have changed a lot over the years (find out how in our keyword research guide ). That means the search engine optimization methods that worked 5 years back will not fly today. While I still discover this trend in play along with many enterprises still in the particular middle of their digital modification, the convergence in the MarTech space is creating many synergies and opportunities which should become seen as a welcome growth for brands and agencies that are searching for an advantage in regards to their SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION powered content marketing or outreach methods. For marketers who had been raised in the ‘traditional SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION market, ' 2018 is the time to adapt or pass away. If your web pages were designed to get the particular most out of Google, along with commonly known and now obsolete SEO techniques chances are Search engines has identified this and will be throttling your rankings in several way. SEO changes along with the time and has arrive a long way from dark hat days of link gardening and keyword stuffing to the particular rise of machine learning AI's. SEO will not only mean placing appropriate keywords at the proper location. Maybe you bought a few, or maybe your SEO did not care too much regarding the high quality of the links he constructed for you. It does not matter if you are a local business delete word, search engines greatly value backlinks as well as the SEO value” they bring using them. Most of the particular classic SEO elements still keep a lot of weight, items like incoming links and inner structures so we're having in order to optimize for those but at the same time most see the writing upon the wall - AI is definitely pushing its way into the particular algorithm and with it a good increased ability for Google in order to comprehend a user's intent plus whether a page meets that will intent and deliver that since a result that regardless associated with many of those classic indicators.

[sunshinekarliekloss]

Exclusive: Karlie Kloss on Her Diet, Brows, and Staying Stress-Free

The first time I ever met Karlie Kloss was last year at an event—she was making her way down the red carpet, graciously stopping, smiling, and shaking hands with each journalist eagerly lined up to nab a sound bite from the two minutes we had with the statuesque model. I ask her a question I’ve asked several other celebrities: “How do you balance it all?”

I often expect the same answer: They find time for exercise, sleep, healthy food, and socialising to maintain a sort of internal homeostasis. But Karlie’s answer instantly threw me for a loop. “After dinner tonight, I will be at my kitchen table writing a paper. I have a huge paper due tomorrow, so that’ll be fun. It’s for a writing class. But like every woman, I multitask and make it work.” I knew Kloss was attending NYU, but it didn’t even cross my mind that after posing for photographers in a couture gown while representing a billion-dollar cosmetic company she’d have to go home and… type up a term paper. She may have likened herself to “every woman,” but Kloss’s schedule is certainly in the minority.

Today, I got to speak with the supermodel once again, this time because she’s the new face of Carolina Herrera’s latest fragrance, Good Girl. It seems to be a fitting campaign for Kloss, given her inherently good nature: Her gluten-free vegan cookie line, Klossies, donates proceeds to FEED Projects, a company that helps bring meals to children in need, and her summer camp, Kode with Klossy, is a free two-week program that teaches girls aged 13 to 18 how to build apps and code. But this is all my own perception, of course, so I ask Kloss what she thinks constitutes being a good girl. “It’s someone who has a duality to her—she is not one-dimensional. For me, I always strive to be professional, to work hard, and to learn something new every day. But at the same time, I also like to have fun, to live my life and have a sense of humor about everything. Being a good girl doesn’t mean you have to be boring. It’s been really special to work with Mrs. Herrera and her team on a project that is now six years in the making. I resonated with the character of the Good Girl and her dynamic approach to all aspects of life: her career, hobbies, personal life, and everything she gracefully balances. Mrs. Herrera and her daughters are brilliant, beautiful, and empowered women who embody the spirit of Good Girl—I’m inspired by their powerful femininity and honored to help bring the Good Girl to life. The fragrance is exactly what it symbolises: sweet white floral notes with an undertone of spice and mystery—a good girl gone bad.” With each passing minute of our conversation, Kloss speaks eloquently and passionately about her career, her life, and her health, leaning in with her forearms on her thighs, hands clasped together, speaking in a quiet, whisper-like tone, like we’re sharing a secret with one another (despite the fact that there are publicists, photographers, and assistants within ear shot of us). She’s so mature, in fact, that I forget she’s just 24 years old—two years my junior. What I discover in our time together is her thirst for learning, her desire to help people, and her simple approach to leading a happy, balanced life.

Karlie Kloss: “This job is one that requires a lot of hard work, a lot of travel, a lot of time by yourself on an airplane [or] in a hotel. You have to be really strong, you have to be really independent, and you have to have endurance. You know, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, which is pretty crazy to think because I’m just now 24, but at the same time, I feel like I’ve learned so much and become so much stronger because of the challenges that I’ve faced building a career at an early age and learning an industry from the ground up. “My beauty look is always evolving. What’s great about beauty is that you can take risks and be very experimental because your hair grows back and you can always change up your look at the end of the day. “[If I could be anything other than a model, I'd be] Karlie Kloss, MD, like my dad—he’s a doctor. I wish I were an astronaut. There are so many things I would add [after my name]. So far, I have student and aspiring computer engineer. Learning to code is something I’m very, very adamant about, and I love to encourage other girls to get into computer science. I think it’s such an empowering skill set—you really can do so much with this knowledge of understanding how to build something. It can be a really creative skill set as well, so that’s one thing I’m really excited about—working with girls who have been a part of my program and many more girls who we hope to include going forward. You know, you can work in fashion or have a passion for fashion or art and also be even more set up for success when pairing that creativity with the kind of technical problem solving that coding is. “I definitely would like to think of myself as an entrepreneur. I think it’s a mindset, you know? It’s a mindset of thinking outside the box. I very much love the idea of being a philanthropist, but more than anything else, I just like to help people. I feel really, really lucky in my life, so I like to share opportunities with others because I’m fortunate to be in the position to do that. “My favourite credential is being a student. I love to learn. I think that my whole life, even long after I hopefully someday graduate from NYU—because I’m just a part-time student, I’m slowly working my way—but I think a student of life is something that I’m very proud to be, and I hope that I always have that kind of curiosity.”

“What I’ve definitely learned as a girl, and then as a woman, is that there’s constantly a relationship with your own body. It’s a relationship with learning what works for you, and for me. I’ve been a model for almost 10 years, and so in that time, my body grows and changes and I have to learn how to take care of myself. “When I first started modeling, I ate Snickers bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner —I didn’t know about nutrition, or really, I always just had a super-fast metabolism. But also, because my body was maturing and growing up, I had to learn how to eat a more balanced diet. And I really learned and got excited about baking and cooking with healthy ingredients, fresh ingredients, a more balanced diet of vegetables and protein, and learning what it means to actually eat clean. In doing so, I not only feel better in my body and more confident in my body, but I also have so much more energy. That has been a whole other education. “I’m big on drinking lots of water. I don’t drink coffee after three o’clock because I really try and sleep. Sleep is another thing—I feel like my mom harping on a balanced diet and sleep and water—it’s so true! The answers are actually so easy, but it’s more just the self-discipline of sticking to them. I really like to eat a lot of fish. I love to eat a lot of vegetables, and I love a good protein shake after a workout. I don’t eat meat, so protein and just getting the right nutrients is key. That and trying to eliminate as much stress from my life as possible.”

“I always love to indulge in a really great facial, probably two days before an event—I especially want to make sure I have time to heal. I really love to do even just an at-home mask. If I’m going to a red carpet and I don’t have time to get a facial, I love to exfoliate and do a mask to really hydrate my skin. I’m a big fan of the under-eye patches, too. “I think all of us in our day-to-day lives, you know, we are all constantly on—we are all constantly connected through email, through social media, through the news. I think my schedule happens to be especially demanding with travel and all the things I have going on, but I think we all face this. I think taking time to detach… For me that’s key, you know? Really making time to take care of myself, to exercise, is ironically relaxing to me because it actually allows me to kind of just have a natural release of endorphins and release of stress. I really like to meditate. I’m not really good about routine because my days are always so different, so I have this app called Headspace, and I love to just plug my headphones in. And in 10 minutes, if I’m in the car or if I’m going to class or work or wherever I’m going, I just need 10 minutes in the morning to kind of totally chill out and get centered and get focused for the day. “I have an amazing makeup artist—his name is Hung Vanngo, and he is the master of all brows. He helped me create this shape today, but I learned early on not to over-pluck them—I think that’s one thing a lot of people really make a mistake with. “I love this trend, or at least over the last few years, it really came into a trend, this healthy brow, and so I definitely appreciate every hair and try not to over-pluck them. But I love a good, really thin brow pencil, or a really, really, really tiny brush, like a liquid pen but very natural and matching it to your skin color. So if you have a great arch where you have patches, where you want it to be more full, or if your brow is too short and you want to kind of extend it, you can use really anything. If you use a pencil, you want it to be really sharp because, essentially, you want to just draw in the hairs and also use something with a brush on the other end, which I learned the name of is actually a spoolie. What a great word. But I think it’s such an important feature—even if you’re not wearing a ton of foundation or concealer or a smoky eye or a red lip, a strong brow goes a long way.” (x)

[nameless-articles]

Nioh: The Right Game for the Wrong Time; but really a discussion on how we should talk about games and what to keep in mind when engaging with video game criticism.

I played Nioh (2017) recently, which you can see on my YouTube/Twitch (shameless plug), and I had some mixed feelings along the way. I enjoyed my time with the game, even if it was a bit frustrating at times. However, any time I wanted to criticize or point out something I didn’t enjoy, it was often accompanied with a comparison to a lesser known series by a small developer named FromSoftware. While I’m sure my viewers got annoyed by this, in the moment of playing it was the easiest way to acknowledge my gripes with the game with another game, but I wonder if that is the best approach to critiquing a game. This piece is about my feelings towards Nioh, but I also want it to be a critique on how we, as game critics and players, tend to criticize games. And let’s just pretend that my last article wasn’t over a year ago, k thanks.

Nioh is a good game, but maybe I should say a little more than that while I have you here. I have never played any Koei Tecmo games, so keep that in mind as I talk to you about Nioh. While streaming, someone pointed out how it reminded them of Ninja Gaiden and how they were interested in this game based on that alone. I only mention that little anecdote to comment on how easy it is for people to think about other games when we are looking at or playing another one, and how simple it is to give the reader some background context.

Of course, people don’t just do this for games. Just about everything in our life is in a constant state of relation, positive or negative, with some other aspect of our lives. It is not enough for a game to be good, it must be good in comparison to other games that we’ve played. Likewise, this piece of chicken I’m pretending to eat must not only be good, it has to be better than the piece of undercooked Church’s fried chicken I ate in a trailer in fourth grade, and so on and so forth.

I’m not here to say that comparisons are bad to make, in fact I started this piece by acknowledging how frequently I compared Nioh to FromSoftware games. Comparisons are an easy way of conveying our pleasure/displeasure with a certain process, however the ease with which we can produce comparisons is not to be mistaken with calling it the ideal basis of criticism.

“[Asking developers] to change such fundamental elements of the mechanics is not examining the game for what it is, choosing to examine it for what it isn’t or based on an experience the game does not seem designed to give.” - Me in my Sekiro article (found here).

While I’m not the best at following my own advice, I still agree with my assertion that assessing experiences for what they aren’t can be a recipe for disaster, or at the very least dissatisfaction. When I compare Nioh to something like Dark Souls, I am drawing from a pool of knowledge that may or may not be the same as another player. For someone playing Nioh without any previous Souls experience, such comparisons are almost pointless in describing the experience of playing the game, and I envy that reality because it is not easy to divorce yourself from previous experiences when assessing a new one. It may be impossible to do so and may actually prove to be a disadvantage of one’s criticism. Let me elaborate by going on a tangent for a second.

The Tangent

I hate tutorials. After fifteen years of playing games each with their own spin on how to teach players how to play, I am over them. Especially when now more than ever games all control about the same, and the ones that don’t control like the rest are unfairly maligned for doing so. So when a game feels the need to tell me how to play, I can’t help but roll my eyes knowing I’m about to go through a process that takes minutes from my life I’ll never get back, only to figure out how this flavor of third-person right-analog-controlled-camera left-analog-controlled-movement feels in comparison to the countless other games that feel just about the same. Nioh is kind enough to grace you with not one, not two, but essentially three different versions of a tutorial in a game that took me about thirty hours to beat. You have the opening section in England, the always accessible Dojo in the mission select screen, and the very first mission all treating you like it is the first time you’ve ever played the game. Of course, none of these teach you about the more intricate mechanics and passive abilities you can get throughout the game that, in my experience, cost me more time understanding their stat bonuses than they actually ended up being useful in gameplay (a bit more on this later). 

Tutorials are difficult to manage because on one hand you want to give the player just enough to get started, but at the same time you don’t want to risk under informing your player such that the tutorial gives them what they could’ve already assumed from an ad. This is only the case for someone who plays enough games to feel they can make an assumption, and oftentimes it's important to keep in mind that every game is potentially someone’s first game. What may come across as a hindrance for someone who regularly plays games is almost necessary for someone picking up a controller for the first time. The question(s) then becomes, from which point of view should your criticism come from, how much of that criticism should be contextualized for the reader, and what is a reader to do with that information? I’ll use Nioh as an example because these questions can lead to other interesting points of discussion that extend outside the game itself.

Which point of view should your criticism come from?

When criticizing a game either in writing or in a conversation, there’s hardly a reason to play devil’s advocate (please take this advice outside of games as well). While yes, it can be interesting, maybe even fun, to tease out other points of your argument by engaging with a point of contention different than your own, to play devil’s advocate is to engage with those views as if they are your own, when that is never necessary. It is enough to acknowledge that such a point of view reasonably exists (that is, it is a view held by a large enough group of people to warrant using your precious brain power on) and then engage with the idea from there. However, anyone’s best argument is going to come from the one they truly believe, justifying it as such and engaging with dissenters keeping in mind how they perceive the situation. In short, if you have experience playing games, then it makes little sense to pretend that you don’t. And if a game conjures up a similar experience to another game, and you can point to mechanical similarities to prove why you feel this is the case, then it makes sense to do so. That said, the process of comparison shouldn’t be used to undervalue how a game is different from another. For example, it is not enough to only say that Nioh has much more number of mechanics, consumables, weapons, and armor (as far as getting an endless amount of stat variation is concerned), and as a result it is better/worse than other games like it. One could look at all the additions as a positive, proclaiming it gives the player much more freedom in tackling the enemies, while someone else could see it as a negative, proclaiming that all the excess of mechanics leads to a bunch of unnecessary thought a player has to give to mechanics that only affect how quickly an enemy’s health bar depletes. Both are valid interpretations of the game’s mechanics.

From my point of view, the immense control players have over their movement, far more than anything possible in any of FromSoftware’s offerings, means you never really have to engage with most of the mechanics except for levelling up and swapping out gear for something of higher defensive and offense stats. While it’s also true in Souls that you can stick to a boss’ right side and avoid most damage, the ease of doing so in Nioh renders most of any boss’s challenge mute. Not helped by bosses only having four to six different moves means it’s reasonable for a player in the “right” mindset to learn a boss’s entire moveset. In the end, the myriad mechanical options add extraneous complexity to a combat system that is fundamentally conquerable by doing what you would do in other similar games. 

That said, not all of the changes to conventional souls-like design goes unappreciated. The ki-pulse system makes stamina management a far more interesting affair than anything I’ve ever played. It allows an attentive player to remain aggressive for longer and makes Yokai combat encounters different from others in the game, which helps somewhat in making the combat less repetitive (though a notable lack in differing enemies/enemy reskins can wear down even the most enthusiastic players). Notice, I started this comparison by referring to this game as a souls-like, but none of what I actually said about the stamina system relies on playing other games to understand. No matter the comparison being made, the game discussion needs to center on what is being offered in the game itself, with little to no attention given to the qualities of the other game(s) being compared. A lack of enemy variety is subjective, because underneath that assertion is an understanding that I have played other games with more enemy variety, such that an indirect comparison is being made at any qualitative analysis. On what basis am I saying there aren’t enough enemy types? Surely I am making that statement based off other games that have had more enemy variety under similar constraints (game time, play space). 

A player with a different background may have no reason to consider a game in that terms at all. If the only other game I played was flower, where there is maybe only one enemy in the form of environmental hazard, something like Nioh would have way more enemies than I could ever imagine. With that kind of background, I may even praise Nioh for the amount of enemy variety and not think much of enemy reskins or reusing bosses. For the record, I don’t mind Nioh’s reusing of bosses for side missions and as a way to cap off the experience at the end. Nonetheless, the end game side missions that just put two bosses together in a pre-existing boss arena are not a high point of the game.

Neither of these perspectives are inherently better than the other. At best, we can say one point of view comes from playing similar games while another comes from a set of eyes completely new to the formula. Neither give an assessment more “true” to the nature of the game, because, if I haven’t already made it clear, a game has no nature or critical existence outside of the discussion borne from it. Neither is more accurate, because both describe someone’s experience. The next question is about how relevant that is to the reader.

How much context does valid criticism necessitate?

In short, context could mean everything or nothing, depending on who you ask. Context, in the context of this specific piece of video game analysis, does not so much refer to the context of a game’s release as it does to the gaming backgrounds of individuals reviewing or critiquing said video game. What does the reader need to know about the author to find their criticism valid?

The list of individual traits is endless and, with regards to playing video games, fundamentally useless. For an absurd example, you would not care if the critic ate rice and fish (or if they preferred saying fish and rice) a week before playing the critiqued game, because that should have little ground on their criticism. It is easy to understand the pointlessness of such points of definition, but there are others that warrant a discussion despite them being fundamentally unanswerable questions. For example, must someone play the other games in the series to reasonably critique the third entry of a franchise? Must someone beat the game in its entirety (does entirety mean getting to the end credits or something absurd like viewing every texture and audio file individually after obtaining all the trophies and secret items at max level)? Does someone need to play the game at all? Would any of the criticism I put forth about Nioh be any less true than if I had watched a YouTube video and come to the same conclusion? Should someone that agreed with me on all those points rescind their agreement until they find someone else who had actually played the game? These questions refer to vague lines in nonexistent sand, with infinitely definable answers.

So then is context meaningless? Possibly. For some it may not matter at all whether the critic has played many games, where they’ve demonstrated a cogent understanding of the medium and seek to express that ideology in their criticism. Realistically, most of us don’t think about the context to such a degree. Yet there are articles and discussions about game journalists having trouble with Cuphead’s tutorial and others needing to use cheats to beat Sekiro, and members of the community typing in rage about how this marks the uselessness of such critics. So it’s clear that it matters, at least to some individuals.

I do not use those outraged and inflammatory instances to poison the well of the “context matters” crowd. Because some of the most popular game critics are those who have a history of their likes and dislikes. If I were to give you a review of a game I did not play, most people would tune out immediately, believing that anything I might have to say would be completely nonsense because we don't deem that kind of “uninformed” criticism appropriate. Would watching hundreds of hours of Nioh make me more qualified to criticize than someone who dropped it after the first hour, despite having never played it? For some this is an easy question, but I am not here to pose easy answers. In truth, any number of arguments could be made as to why one of those two would give more informed criticism, and those arguments would be just as subjective and context-ridden as the original question.

Let’s go back to the context of Nioh, and this refers both to the context of Nioh, the game, and of my own experience with it. When I started streaming the game, someone in chat hyperbolically wrote that I would get an achievement for being the first souls player to beat the first boss. The insinuation, which they further clarified, was that souls player often complain that Nioh is too difficult, and they weren’t ready for a game that was offering them a real challenge (not like the fake challenges I had been exposed to up until then). I have countless hours in the Souls series, have played all the games from Demon's Souls to Sekiro, and I did not have much challenge with the game. Other than an optional boss (which is actually two bosses), I never died more than six times to a boss, which is not something I could say about other games in the subgenre. I was always waiting for the game to get as hard as everyone told me it was going to be, and as a result I always prepared myself and nothing ever proved to be as challenging as what I had already experienced in other games. 

Nioh came out in 2017, and that legitimately surprised me. This game came out after Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3. Had this game come out before both of those, and had I played it before playing those and Sekiro, I think I would’ve had a much different perspective on the game. I imagine I would’ve looked at Sekiro a lot less favorably knowing about Nioh, and it would’ve felt less like a unique take on the Souls formula in a Japanese setting and more of a game that was actually taking from Nioh in the way that Nioh takes from its predecessors. Nioh, for the most part, feels like an amalgamation of the souls genre, along with a few gimmicks of its own (which still harkens back to Demon’s Souls). At the same time, the focus on mechanics and Japanese setting does make it better than some of the more middling offerings within FromSoftwares offerings. I would say Nioh is a better package than Dark Souls 2 and 3, which means I am more likely to go back to it more than those two games.

I can’t help but try to imagine a world where Nioh came out before Bloodborne. It would’ve been more groundbreaking and would’ve had less to compare to, though this isn’t always to a game’s favor. As it stands, the game feels like a mechanically refined Souls game with a far more linear level and story progression. For someone that played Dark Souls for the gameplay, Nioh probably stands out as superior to those, but for someone who enjoyed the more exploratory adventure aspects will find this game lacking, as you are far more likely to encounter doors that can only open on one side, and usually never the side you’re on the first time around. 

Of course, this is just one person’s experience with the game and is by no means absolutely indicative of the experience someone else will have. Some readers will be more aligned with the context of one reviewer/critic over another, and the next question seeks to assess how all readers, regardless of experience, might incorporate this piece into their own understanding of games.

What is a reader to do with context? 

When playing a game for the first time, the experience can benefit from initially knowing as little as possible, so the player must slowly construct a frame of reference through which they’ll go on to view the rest of the experience. However, if everyone played things with little knowledge going into it, readers would be left with a wide array of reviews all amounting to the same level of first impressions, especially when people rush to be the first to say something new or interesting about a certain game. The longer a game is out, the more coverage it receives, the more difficult it gets to contribute a new mode of analysis. Thus, a well-informed reader is someone who engages with critics who have similar and different tastes than themself.

Many readers are quick to ignore thoughtful opinions based solely on its central claim. “[Insert reviewer] said this game is misogynistic, and I refuse to engage further with the matter.” Maybe I don’t need to tell you why such a point of view is detrimental to video game discourse, but in case I do: dismissing an opinion without offering your own thoughtful critique doesn’t propagate discourse; instead of ignoring legitimate criticism of a video game you enjoyed, maybe you should complicate the criticism by offering counter claims and examples. I’m not saying everyone needs to have an opinion on everything, because we all know enough people have enough opinions to keep readers engaged for centuries to come. One does not need to argue with a piece of criticism to engage with it. Reading and understanding the criticism in good faith is quality engagement on its own.

Most readers are content with critics telling them what they already believe to be true. I agree, it is very comforting to listen to the words of a journalist, someone with a small semblance of authority in your hobbies, affirming what you already know. But it is important in these moments to also cast a critical eye on those that agree with you, because sometimes it can take another person saying the same sentiments to find points of contention.

Context is important because it informs how the critic is interrogating any piece of art, and a reader mindful of that context is going to help them determine whether they’re coming from the same place. For example, if I know a critic enjoys a certain genre or has exposure to certain games, I can leverage that with my own personal experiences with that genre or those games, meaning I can keep that information in mind as I’m engaging with the criticism. In the context of Nioh, does the reader have experience with the Souls-like genre, does that experience differ from the critics (if so, in which ways does the difference in previous experience account for why a critic might like or dislike certain elements of Nioh like difficulty or other mechanics)? Keeping the differences in mind will help a reader understand why they might disagree with a critic, likewise the similarities will help a reader understand why they might agree. It is also not uncommon for differences to lead to agreement (I like this game because it was easy, I like this game because it was difficult. Both of these statements can simultaneously be true to two different players, and it doesn’t diminish either of their enjoyment or appreciation).

Keeping such context in mind as you engage with criticism and give critique will make you more aware of the intersubjectivity of play at play. This awareness helps you better understand your own biases as well as others, which benefits the overall discourse. I’m not saying you need to engage in a respectful manner, but that you must actively engage with the opinions being expressed.

Conclusion, and the Context of this piece

Most of this essay was sprung from an internal conflict over how I wanted to talk about Nioh. I mentioned that I frequently drew comparisons during my playthrough, and I do not know why. It had to do with the familiarity with going through a level, fighting a boss, rinsing and repeating. It does not take very many games to realize how derivative the entire medium is, though framing it that way suggests that other artistic mediums are immune to formulas and derivation. They are not, but it does not change the fact that having so many games play and feel so similar to each other is a perfect storm for player fatigue and burnout. From platformers, to first person shooters, to third person cover based shooters, to open world sandboxes, to battle royal games, how many of the same kind of game can people handle before they yearn for something wholly different?

Then I thought to myself, every game within a genre is someone’s first game within that genre,  just like every game is someone’s first game. Derivativeness is good because experimentation becomes codified and refined, and we get games within genres that stand out within a genre, making entire new subgenres of their own, as was the case with Demon’s Souls. Different experiences are exciting, but they tend to be unpolished, janky, and often never reach the heights their potential suggests. Which I believe sums up how I feel about Nioh without needing to say how much I enjoyed it.

Nioh would not be what it is without Souls game, any argument to the contrary has an insurmountable amount of evidence to contradict, but that does not mean you must view Nioh under these constraints to understand why it is a great game worthy of your time. Whether you’re a fan of the genre or not, you owe it to yourself to try one that could be the one to change your mind entirely, so long as you don’t expect the game to change your life, as I always seem to hope for.

[toomanysinks]

The damage of defaults

Apple popped out a new pair of AirPods this week. The design looks exactly like the old pair of AirPods. Which means I’m never going to use them because Apple’s bulbous earbuds don’t fit my ears. Think square peg, round hole.

The only way I could rock AirPods would be to walk around with hands clamped to the sides of my head to stop them from falling out. Which might make a nice cut in a glossy Apple ad for the gizmo — suggesting a feeling of closeness to the music, such that you can’t help but cup; a suggestive visual metaphor for the aural intimacy Apple surely wants its technology to communicate.

But the reality of trying to use earbuds that don’t fit is not that at all. It’s just shit. They fall out at the slightest movement so you either sit and never turn your head or, yes, hold them in with your hands. Oh hai, hands-not-so-free-pods!

The obvious point here is that one size does not fit all — howsoever much Apple’s Jony Ive and his softly spoken design team believe they have devised a universal earbud that pops snugly in every ear and just works. Sorry, nope!

Hi @tim_cook, I fixed that sketch for you. Introducing #InPods — because one size doesn’t fit all pic.twitter.com/jubagMnwjt

— Natasha (@riptari) March 20, 2019

A proportion of iOS users — perhaps other petite women like me, or indeed men with less capacious ear holes — are simply being removed from Apple’s sales equation where earbuds are concerned. Apple is pretending we don’t exist.

Sure we can just buy another brand of more appropriately sized earbuds. The in-ear, noise-canceling kind are my preference. Apple does not make ‘InPods’. But that’s not a huge deal. Well, not yet.

It’s true, the consumer tech giant did also delete the headphone jack from iPhones. Thereby depreciating my existing pair of wired in-ear headphones (if I ever upgrade to a 3.5mm-jack-less iPhone). But I could just shell out for Bluetooth wireless in-ear buds that fit my shell-like ears and carry on as normal.

Universal in-ear headphones have existed for years, of course. A delightful design concept. You get a selection of different sized rubber caps shipped with the product and choose the size that best fits.

Unfortunately Apple isn’t in the ‘InPods’ business though. Possibly for aesthetic reasons. Most likely because — and there’s more than a little irony here — an in-ear design wouldn’t be naturally roomy enough to fit all the stuff Siri needs to, y’know, fake intelligence.

Which means people like me with small ears are being passed over in favor of Apple’s voice assistant. So that’s AI: 1, non-‘standard’-sized human: 0. Which also, unsurprisingly, feels like shit.

I say ‘yet’ because if voice computing does become the next major computing interaction paradigm, as some believe — given how Internet connectivity is set to get baked into everything (and sticking screens everywhere would be a visual and usability nightmare; albeit microphones everywhere is a privacy nightmare… ) — then the minority of humans with petite earholes will be at a disadvantage vs those who can just pop in their smart, sensor-packed earbud and get on with telling their Internet-enabled surroundings to do their bidding.

Will parents of future generations of designer babies select for adequately capacious earholes so their child can pop an AI in? Let’s hope not.

We’re also not at the voice computing singularity yet. Outside the usual tech bubbles it remains a bit of a novel gimmick. Amazon has drummed up some interest with in-home smart speakers housing its own voice AI Alexa (a brand choice that has, incidentally, caused a verbal headache for actual humans called Alexa). Though its Echo smart speakers appear to mostly get used as expensive weather checkers and egg timers. Or else for playing music — a function that a standard speaker or smartphone will happily perform.

Certainly a voice AI is not something you need with you 24/7 yet. Prodding at a touchscreen remains the standard way of tapping into the power and convenience of mobile computing for the majority of consumers in developed markets.

The thing is, though, it still grates to be ignored. To be told — even indirectly — by one of the world’s wealthiest consumer technology companies that it doesn’t believe your ears exist.

Or, well, that it’s weighed up the sales calculations and decided it’s okay to drop a petite-holed minority on the cutting room floor. So that’s ‘ear meet AirPod’. Not ‘AirPod meet ear’ then.

But the underlying issue is much bigger than Apple’s (in my case) oversized earbuds. Its latest shiny set of AirPods are just an ill-fitting reminder of how many technology defaults simply don’t ‘fit’ the world as claimed.

Because if cash-rich Apple’s okay with promoting a universal default (that isn’t), think of all the less well resourced technology firms chasing scale for other single-sized, ill-fitting solutions. And all the problems flowing from attempts to mash ill-mapped technology onto society at large.

When it comes to wrong-sized physical kit I’ve had similar issues with standard office computing equipment and furniture. Products that seems — surprise, surprise! — to have been default designed with a 6ft strapping guy in mind. Keyboards so long they end up gifting the smaller user RSI. Office chairs that deliver chronic back-pain as a service. Chunky mice that quickly wrack the hand with pain. (Apple is a historical offender there too I’m afraid.)

The fixes for such ergonomic design failures is simply not to use the kit. To find a better-sized (often DIY) alternative that does ‘fit’.

But a DIY fix may not be an option when discrepancy is embedded at the software level — and where a system is being applied to you, rather than you the human wanting to augment yourself with a bit of tech, such as a pair of smart earbuds.

With software, embedded flaws and system design failures may also be harder to spot because it’s not necessarily immediately obvious there’s a problem. Oftentimes algorithmic bias isn’t visible until damage has been done.

And there’s no shortage of stories already about how software defaults configured for a biased median have ended up causing real-world harm. (See for example: ProPublica’s analysis of the COMPAS recidividism tool — software it found incorrectly judging black defendants more likely to offend than white. So software amplifying existing racial prejudice.)

Of course AI makes this problem so much worse.

Which is why the emphasis must be on catching bias in the datasets — before there is a chance for prejudice or bias to be ‘systematized’ and get baked into algorithms that can do damage at scale.

The algorithms must also be explainable. And outcomes auditable. Transparency as disinfectant; not secret blackboxes stuffed with unknowable code.

Doing all this requires huge up-front thought and effort on system design, and an even bigger change of attitude. It also needs massive, massive attention to diversity. An industry-wide championing of humanity’s multifaceted and multi-sized reality — and to making sure that’s reflected in both data and design choices (and therefore the teams doing the design and dev work).

You could say what’s needed is a recognition there’s never, ever a one-sized-fits all plug.

Indeed, that all algorithmic ‘solutions’ are abstractions that make compromises on accuracy and utility. And that those trade-offs can become viciously cutting knives that exclude, deny, disadvantage, delete and damage people at scale.

Expensive earbuds that won’t stay put is just a handy visual metaphor.

And while discussion about the risks and challenges of algorithmic bias has stepped up in recent years, as AI technologies have proliferated — with mainstream tech conferences actively debating how to “democratize AI” and bake diversity and ethics into system design via a development focus on principles like transparency, explainability, accountability and fairness — the industry has not even begun to fix its diversity problem.

It’s barely moved the needle on diversity. And its products continue to reflect that fundamental flaw.

Stanford just launched their Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (@StanfordHAI) with great fanfare. The mission: "The creators and designers of AI must be broadly representative of humanity."

121 faculty members listed.

Not a single faculty member is Black. pic.twitter.com/znCU6zAxui

— Chad Loder ❁ (@chadloder) March 21, 2019

Many — if not most — of the tech industry’s problems can be traced back to the fact that inadequately diverse teams are chasing scale while lacking the perspective to realize their system design is repurposing human harm as a de facto performance measure. (Although ‘lack of perspective’ is the charitable interpretation in certain cases; moral vacuum may be closer to the mark.)

As WWW creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has pointed out, system design is now society design. That means engineers, coders, AI technologists are all working at the frontline of ethics. The design choices they make have the potential to impact, influence and shape the lives of millions and even billions of people.

And when you’re designing society a median mindset and limited perspective cannot ever be an acceptable foundation. It’s also a recipe for product failure down the line.

The current backlash against big tech shows that the stakes and the damage are very real when poorly designed technologies get dumped thoughtlessly on people.

Life is messy and complex. People won’t fit a platform that oversimplifies and overlooks. And if your excuse for scaling harm is ‘we just didn’t think of that’ you’ve failed at your job and should really be headed out the door.

Because the consequences for being excluded by flawed system design are also scaling and stepping up as platforms proliferate and more life-impacting decisions get automated. Harm is being squared. Even as the underlying industry drum hasn’t skipped a beat in its prediction that everything will be digitized.

Which means that horribly biased parole systems are just the tip of the ethical iceberg. Think of healthcare, social welfare, law enforcement, education, recruitment, transportation, construction, urban environments, farming, the military, the list of what will be digitized — and of manual or human overseen processes that will get systematized and automated — goes on.

Software — runs the industry mantra — is eating the world. That means badly designed technology products will harm more and more people.

But responsibility for sociotechnical misfit can’t just be scaled away as so much ‘collateral damage’.

So while an ‘elite’ design team led by a famous white guy might be able to craft a pleasingly curved earbud, such an approach cannot and does not automagically translate into AirPods with perfect, universal fit.

It’s someone’s standard. It’s certainly not mine.

We can posit that a more diverse Apple design team might have been able to rethink the AirPod design so as not to exclude those with smaller ears. Or make a case to convince the powers that be in Cupertino to add another size choice. We can but speculate.

What’s clear is the future of technology design can’t be so stubborn.

It must be radically inclusive and incredibly sensitive. Human-centric. Not locked to damaging defaults in its haste to impose a limited set of ideas.

Above all, it needs a listening ear on the world.

Indifference to difference and a blindspot for diversity will find no future here.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/23/the-damage-of-defaults/

[fmservers]

The damage of defaults

Apple popped out a new pair of AirPods this week. The design looks exactly like the old pair of AirPods. Which means I’m never going to use them because Apple’s bulbous earbuds don’t fit my ears. Think square peg, round hole.

The only way I could rock AirPods would be to walk around with hands clamped to the sides of my head to stop them from falling out. Which might make a nice cut in a glossy Apple ad for the gizmo — suggesting a feeling of closeness to the music, such that you can’t help but cup; a suggestive visual metaphor for the aural intimacy Apple surely wants its technology to communicate.

But the reality of trying to use earbuds that don’t fit is not that at all. It’s just shit. They fall out at the slightest movement so you either sit and never turn your head or, yes, hold them in with your hands. Oh hai, hands-not-so-free-pods!

The obvious point here is that one size does not fit all — howsoever much Apple’s Jony Ive and his softly spoken design team believe they have devised a universal earbud that pops snugly in every ear and just works. Sorry, nope!

Hi @tim_cook, I fixed that sketch for you. Introducing #InPods — because one size doesn’t fit all pic.twitter.com/jubagMnwjt

— Natasha (@riptari) March 20, 2019

A proportion of iOS users — perhaps other petite women like me, or indeed men with less capacious ear holes — are simply being removed from Apple’s sales equation where earbuds are concerned. Apple is pretending we don’t exist.

Sure we can just buy another brand of more appropriately sized earbuds. The in-ear, noise-canceling kind are my preference. Apple does not make ‘InPods’. But that’s not a huge deal. Well, not yet.

It’s true, the consumer tech giant did also delete the headphone jack from iPhones. Thereby depreciating my existing pair of wired in-ear headphones (if I ever upgrade to a 3.5mm-jack-less iPhone). But I could just shell out for Bluetooth wireless in-ear buds that fit my shell-like ears and carry on as normal.

Universal in-ear headphones have existed for years, of course. A delightful design concept. You get a selection of different sized rubber caps shipped with the product and choose the size that best fits.

Unfortunately Apple isn’t in the ‘InPods’ business though. Possibly for aesthetic reasons. Most likely because — and there’s more than a little irony here — an in-ear design wouldn’t be naturally roomy enough to fit all the stuff Siri needs to, y’know, fake intelligence.

Which means people like me with small ears are being passed over in favor of Apple’s voice assistant. So that’s AI: 1, non-‘standard’-sized human: 0. Which also, unsurprisingly, feels like shit.

I say ‘yet’ because if voice computing does become the next major computing interaction paradigm, as some believe — given how Internet connectivity is set to get baked into everything (and sticking screens everywhere would be a visual and usability nightmare; albeit microphones everywhere is a privacy nightmare… ) — then the minority of humans with petite earholes will be at a disadvantage vs those who can just pop in their smart, sensor-packed earbud and get on with telling their Internet-enabled surroundings to do their bidding.

Will parents of future generations of designer babies select for adequately capacious earholes so their child can pop an AI in? Let’s hope not.

We’re also not at the voice computing singularity yet. Outside the usual tech bubbles it remains a bit of a novel gimmick. Amazon has drummed up some interest with in-home smart speakers housing its own voice AI Alexa (a brand choice that has, incidentally, caused a verbal headache for actual humans called Alexa). Though its Echo smart speakers appear to mostly get used as expensive weather checkers and egg timers. Or else for playing music — a function that a standard speaker or smartphone will happily perform.

Certainly a voice AI is not something you need with you 24/7 yet. Prodding at a touchscreen remains the standard way of tapping into the power and convenience of mobile computing for the majority of consumers in developed markets.

The thing is, though, it still grates to be ignored. To be told — even indirectly — by one of the world’s wealthiest consumer technology companies that it doesn’t believe your ears exist.

Or, well, that it’s weighed up the sales calculations and decided it’s okay to drop a petite-holed minority on the cutting room floor. So that’s ‘ear meet AirPod’. Not ‘AirPod meet ear’ then.

But the underlying issue is much bigger than Apple’s (in my case) oversized earbuds. Its latest shiny set of AirPods are just an ill-fitting reminder of how many technology defaults simply don’t ‘fit’ the world as claimed.

Because if cash-rich Apple’s okay with promoting a universal default (that isn’t), think of all the less well resourced technology firms chasing scale for other single-sized, ill-fitting solutions. And all the problems flowing from attempts to mash ill-mapped technology onto society at large.

When it comes to wrong-sized physical kit I’ve had similar issues with standard office computing equipment and furniture. Products that seems — surprise, surprise! — to have been default designed with a 6ft strapping guy in mind. Keyboards so long they end up gifting the smaller user RSI. Office chairs that deliver chronic back-pain as a service. Chunky mice that quickly wrack the hand with pain. (Apple is a historical offender there too I’m afraid.)

The fixes for such ergonomic design failures is simply not to use the kit. To find a better-sized (often DIY) alternative that does ‘fit’.

But a DIY fix may not be an option when discrepancy is embedded at the software level — and where a system is being applied to you, rather than you the human wanting to augment yourself with a bit of tech, such as a pair of smart earbuds.

With software, embedded flaws and system design failures may also be harder to spot because it’s not necessarily immediately obvious there’s a problem. Oftentimes algorithmic bias isn’t visible until damage has been done.

And there’s no shortage of stories already about how software defaults configured for a biased median have ended up causing real-world harm. (See for example: ProPublica’s analysis of the COMPAS recidividism tool — software it found incorrectly judging black defendants more likely to offend than white. So software amplifying existing racial prejudice.)

Of course AI makes this problem so much worse.

Which is why the emphasis must be on catching bias in the datasets — before there is a chance for prejudice or bias to be ‘systematized’ and get baked into algorithms that can do damage at scale.

The algorithms must also be explainable. And outcomes auditable. Transparency as disinfectant; not secret blackboxes stuffed with unknowable code.

Doing all this requires huge up-front thought and effort on system design, and an even bigger change of attitude. It also needs massive, massive attention to diversity. An industry-wide championing of humanity’s multifaceted and multi-sized reality — and to making sure that’s reflected in both data and design choices (and therefore the teams doing the design and dev work).

You could say what’s needed is a recognition there’s never, ever a one-sized-fits all plug.

Indeed, that all algorithmic ‘solutions’ are abstractions that make compromises on accuracy and utility. And that those trade-offs can become viciously cutting knives that exclude, deny, disadvantage, delete and damage people at scale.

Expensive earbuds that won’t stay put is just a handy visual metaphor.

And while discussion about the risks and challenges of algorithmic bias has stepped up in recent years, as AI technologies have proliferated — with mainstream tech conferences actively debating how to “democratize AI” and bake diversity and ethics into system design via a development focus on principles like transparency, explainability, accountability and fairness — the industry has not even begun to fix its diversity problem.

It’s barely moved the needle on diversity. And its products continue to reflect that fundamental flaw.

Stanford just launched their Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (@StanfordHAI) with great fanfare. The mission: "The creators and designers of AI must be broadly representative of humanity."

121 faculty members listed.

Not a single faculty member is Black. pic.twitter.com/znCU6zAxui

— Chad Loder ❁ (@chadloder) March 21, 2019

Many — if not most — of the tech industry’s problems can be traced back to the fact that inadequately diverse teams are chasing scale while lacking the perspective to realize their system design is repurposing human harm as a de facto performance measure. (Although ‘lack of perspective’ is the charitable interpretation in certain cases; moral vacuum may be closer to the mark.)

As WWW creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has pointed out, system design is now society design. That means engineers, coders, AI technologists are all working at the frontline of ethics. The design choices they make have the potential to impact, influence and shape the lives of millions and even billions of people.

And when you’re designing society a median mindset and limited perspective cannot ever be an acceptable foundation. It’s also a recipe for product failure down the line.

The current backlash against big tech shows that the stakes and the damage are very real when poorly designed technologies get dumped thoughtlessly on people.

Life is messy and complex. People won’t fit a platform that oversimplifies and overlooks. And if your excuse for scaling harm is ‘we just didn’t think of that’ you’ve failed at your job and should really be headed out the door.

Because the consequences for being excluded by flawed system design are also scaling and stepping up as platforms proliferate and more life-impacting decisions get automated. Harm is being squared. Even as the underlying industry drum hasn’t skipped a beat in its prediction that everything will be digitized.

Which means that horribly biased parole systems are just the tip of the ethical iceberg. Think of healthcare, social welfare, law enforcement, education, recruitment, transportation, construction, urban environments, farming, the military, the list of what will be digitized — and of manual or human overseen processes that will get systematized and automated — goes on.

Software — runs the industry mantra — is eating the world. That means badly designed technology products will harm more and more people.

But responsibility for sociotechnical misfit can’t just be scaled away as so much ‘collateral damage’.

So while an ‘elite’ design team led by a famous white guy might be able to craft a pleasingly curved earbud, such an approach cannot and does not automagically translate into AirPods with perfect, universal fit.

It’s someone’s standard. It’s certainly not mine.

We can posit that a more diverse Apple design team might have been able to rethink the AirPod design so as not to exclude those with smaller ears. Or make a case to convince the powers that be in Cupertino to add another size choice. We can but speculate.

What’s clear is the future of technology design can’t be so stubborn.

It must be radically inclusive and incredibly sensitive. Human-centric. Not locked to damaging defaults in its haste to impose a limited set of ideas.

Above all, it needs a listening ear on the world.

Indifference to difference and a blindspot for diversity will find no future here.

Via Natasha Lomas https://techcrunch.com

[pinksfuckers]

The 9 Benefts of SEO

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