#are we just crossposting reviews now? whatever

[malrie]

“A cloud? he’ll say. We went to Troy to get a cloud? We lived all those years knee-deep in death for the sake of a cloud?”

Norma Jeane Baker of Troy is my second attempt at Anne Carson, the first being The Autobiography of Red, which I had read years ago at a younger age. At the time, contextually, much of the callbacks and themes went over my head. It’s nice to better be involved with what topics are being deconstructed in a short vignette like this after all. Carson’s prose is always melancholy and beautiful and sharp and she uses Greek mythology and pop culture history as a venue for fascinating remarks on forced-feminine veneers.

There is an alternative mythology documented by a few Ancient Greek authors where Helen of Troy was not in Troy during the entirety of the Trojan war, but in fact in Egypt, and in her place was a cloud in her exact form called an eidolon. Carson floats this line of myth with the idea of Marilyn Monroe, the Hollywood starlet, as Norma Jeane Baker’s own “cloud.” A decoy, but not a deceit of any kind. “Substitute the playful and musical Russian expression maskirovka: masking.” This is what Carson is exploring in this piece, the idea of masks and clouds as protection, particularly as marks of surviving womanhood.

If you pick a flower, if you snatch a hand-bag, if you possess a woman, if you plunder a storehouse, ravage a countryside or occupy a city, you are a taker. You are taking. In ancient Greek you use the verb ápπáζειν, which comes over into Latin as rapio, rapere, raptus sum and gives us English rapture and rape—words stained with the very early blood of girls, with the very late blood of cities, with the hysteria of the end of the world. Sometimes I think language should cover its own eyes when it speaks.

[evilwickedme]

I'd love to hear more Bat social media thoughts if you have any

Oh I absolutely do

Civilian

Twitter:

Bruce, Dick, Cass, Tim, Steph, and Jason all have twitter. The first four have verified accounts (like proper verified, not the shit Musky introduced). Jason's twitter is just something like litlover666

Tim has an extra anonymous account to post absolute shit in and pick fights with. Steph picks fights on main and makes fun of Bruce constantly. Jason posts mostly book reviews with the occasional photo of whatever he's eating right now and recommendation for some mom and pop restaurant in the worst parts of Gotham. He has a cult following

Bruce's account is entirely PR. He doesn't even have the password. Not because he can't be trusted with it but because he doesn't give a fuck. Every once in a while his social media intern asks him for some photo or he texts them about a charity he wants to promote and that's the extent of his involvement

Dick is sporadic with his use. He tweets happy birthdays to everyone including members of the batfam who aren't on Twitter (see Damian) and responds to random @ s a lot

Cass mostly uses it to crosspost videos of herself dancing from Instagram and retweets Steph's shitposting

Instagram:

Duke, Cass, and Steph all have Instagram. Only Cass is verified, because Duke is too new to the batfam. It irritates him more than he'll admit

Again, Cass's insta is mainly photos and videos of her dancing. She also posts a lot of photos with her family tho, especially in embarrassing situations nobody knew she'd managed to capture on camera

Steph uses it mainly to lurk but her friends only stories are a LOT of fun

Duke posts his poetry on there sometimes, but mostly it's a casual Instagram with pictures of friends and family and selfies. He also posts pictures of Damian's pets every once in a while cause he thinks it's a shame Damian is too young to join the platform and post them himself (Damian is like 11 or 12 at most in my mind and Alfred actually enforces the no social media before you're 13 rule)

Tim deleted his finsta when he became Robin cause it was dedicated to Bat content and that was Embarrassing

Tumblr:

Only Steph and Tim have tumblrs. Jason would thrive on here, but he doesn't have time to figure out any other platform beside the one he's on. Neither Steph nor Tim told each other outright they have tumblrs, but they found each other and became mutuals anyway. Tim doesn't use the platform so much anymore, he was way more into it when he was like 13 or 14, but Steph keeps up with ALL the memes. Both accounts are anonymous but Tim has a HUGE following for telling random stories about his life that sound entirely made up except he always provides photographic evidence or some other kind of proof

Tiktok

WE PR made Bruce start a TikTok and he insisted it be a Wayne family TikTok because, again, he Did Not Want To Deal With It. Tim's supposed to be in charge of it but Dick is addicted. He has his own account too but he only ever posts on the Wayne family TikTok account, mostly to brag about his siblings' accomplishments

Cass, again, has a dance-focused account. She once posted herself dancing with Jason and everyone freaked out over who this giant dude is until he was legally brought back to life. Nobody in the batfam knows how she managed to get him to agree to participate but he was actually really good

Dick's personal account is not as active as the Wayne family account but he posts gymnastics there sometimes

Neither Alfred nor Kate are on social media for very different reasons. Babs is on every platform as a lurker, but on Twitter she interacts with Dick and Cass sometimes. Damian isn't allowed yet but once he turns 13 he becomes an absolute TERROR on twitter

Vigilante

Twitter:

The JLA, Titans, and Young Justice teams all have team accounts of various diplomatic quality. Diana runs the first for the most part, basically every member of the Titans team gets their chances with it at some point for theirs, and Cassie and Tim have learned their lesson about letting anybody except the two of them tweet from the YJ account

Nightwing's account is excessively popular. A lot of people thirst follow him but also sometimes he eviscerates someone horrible and it's extremely funny

Spoiler's account is also popular for being just as feral as her civilian main

It's a recurring joke among the superhero community that everyone is very lucky that Robin doesn't have an account

Signal's account is low-key

Oracle's account is vital, she provides a lot of early warnings for civilians when there are Arkham breakouts and the like. A lot of people have notifications turned on for her account

TikTok:

Just like the Wayne's account, the batfam has an account. It's mostly funny bits from cowl cam but Red Robin has posted a series of videos triggering Red Hood into talking about his various interests (literature, proper gun maintenance, the actual programs that would benefit crime alley) all of which go extremely viral

And that's everything I have right now!! If anybody wants fic recs for social media aus or wants to know my hcs for other heroes' social media just shoot me an ask 🥰

[independence1776]

AO3 Fic Writer Review

No one tagged me, but I wanted to do it. At this point, I have no idea who’s done it or not, so if you haven’t and want to, consider yourself tagged.

How many works do you have on AO3?

93 (+1 where I’m listed as the coauthor, but I’m the artist for the collaboration +1 unrevealed fic for TRSB 2021)

What’s your total AO3 word count?

395,609 (which I think includes the unrevealed fic and does not include the co-author fic)

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Written and posted?

Silmarillion, LotR, MCU, Doctor Who, Star Wars (Prequels, OT, Rebels, Fallen Order, the Kanan comics are now its own fandom tag too but I tend to lump that within Rebels), Young Wizards, BBC Merlin, Babylon 5, X-Men movies (early 2000s films), Mutant X

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

To Remake the Universe (MCU; 15526 words) Kudos: 452

In Deep or in Darkness (MCU/Young Wizards fusion; 58746 words) Kudos: 384

An Unexpected Welcome (The Silmarillion & LotR; 2121 words) Kudos: 255

Evolving Roles (Star Wars Rebels & Prequels; 2835 words) Kudos: 216

Never Discussed But Silently Acknowledged (Star Wars OT; 1800 words) Kudos: 188

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Always! The fandom culture I “grew up in” has as its mores that you do that. Also, people reached out to me to tell me they liked something I wrote, so I feel it’s a bit rude if I don’t at least say thank you in return. Not being able to thank people who leave me kudos was the main reason I started doing my weekly kudos thanks posts because not being able to do severely bothered me. I don’t expect those people to ever see those posts, but I feel better doing it.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I’ve written a couple with major character death as the ending.

Do you write crossovers?

Yup! I’ve written a BBC Merlin fusion with LotR, a Young Wizards crossover with SW OT, a YW crossover with Doctor Who, a MCU crossover/fusion with YW, and a SW & Silmarillion fusion.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah. I existed on ff.net. Of course I got hate and it remains the site I get hate from. Though I have received sporadic hate on AO3, but it’s never approached the extent from ff.net.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I did it once to challenge myself and never again.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Only the usual website scrapping that seems unavoidable, but no plagiarism.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup! There’s been a few over the years, but the only ones I have links to are listed as related works on AO3.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh dear. I… am not really in fandom for shipping. I guess the closest thing I have to an all-time favorite is Elrond/Celebrían. But even then, I don’t write things focused on it. It’s just there in the background.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don’t post WIPs, so I don’t abandon fics like that. I also finish what I write even if I never post. Sometimes, that means I summarize what I know happens in the rest of the fic if I get tired of writing it. But the one story I can say I’ve abandoned is a Depa lives AU… and in the first chapter, Caleb gets pneumonia and ends up in a medcenter (and this is set post-Order 66!). I started writing it in January 2020 and got two chapters in. I have no desire to continue for a rather obvious reason.

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue!

What are your writing weaknesses?

I can’t write action scenes for the life of me. I also have a tendency to not describe things.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If it’s there for a plot-relevant purpose, fine. If it’s there to show off the writer’s knowledge or as flavor text, not great. I especially cannot stand fics where dialogue is written in a conlang and not translated as though the writer expects the readers to know the conlang. (It happens in Tolkien and Star Wars fandoms. I hate it. I’ve quit reading otherwise good fics because of it.) We all know the characters aren’t speaking English or whatever language the fic is written in! So write out the dialogue in that language! Using the phrase “[Character] continued in [language name]” works wonders and gets the point across while still being understandable to your readers.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Written and posted? Mutant X. (My four earliest fics are only on ff.net; I need to crosspost (and backdate) them to AO3. One of them will reach the American legal age to vote in October!)

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Rise Again From Ashes: After spending millennia wandering Middle-earth, Maglor returns to Valinor, where he attempts to adjust to both his Valar-imposed restrictions and living once more with the Eldar. 60,653 words, rated Teens. Maglor and Elrond-centric.

[greyias]

FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 1

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something's rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won't rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic's top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Spoilers: Forged Alliances. SWTOR Lost Suns and Annihilation. Some things in the Vanilla storyline, including the Revan flashpoints. Author’s Notes: Out of necessity, parts of this story will contain scenes from the game itself. Whenever possible I’ve tried to rewrite them so that they hopefully remain fresh and interesting, while still retaining the essence of the scene itself (so hopefully it doesn’t feel like you’re reading a transcript). This one is also going to be a bit slow to start, but it’s going to be a long one.

Crossposted to AO3 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 |  Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

When the Supreme Commander of Republic Forces called — it was generally a good idea to answer. Even if he just so happened to be your father.

However, this was official business, so Theron Shan decided to ignore that fact as he strode into the large office located in one of the corners of the Senate towers. The receptionist had waved him through without any fuss this time around.

Perhaps she had gotten used to him at this point — she hadn’t even glared at him this time. He supposed that was progress. It was nothing he had done, of course, just a bit of guilt-by-association. She and Marcus Trant, the Director of Republic’s Strategic Information Services had gotten quite chummy a little while back, but alas, she was not to become the third women to hold the title of “Mrs. Trant”. Easy come, easy go as the saying went.

Come to think of it, maybe the lack of glares this time around had more to do with the fact that Trant hadn’t accompanied Theron. It was a mystery for another time, though, as his gaze fell on the figure seated behind the desk in the center of the room. 

Jace Malcom was an extraordinarily tall man, he towered over Theron by at least a foot or so, and between the height, his deep gravelly voice, and the gruesome scars crisscrossing his face, the man could come off a little imposing. Theron wasn’t easily intimidated though, and he had a… unique situation with Jace. — considering the fact that the man was his father. Biologically at least, or… whatever.

It was complicated.

Theron hadn’t even known who Jace was, outside of his military record that was, until they’d met during the mission to take out the Ascendant Spear. Their first real meeting as father and son hadn’t exactly gone well, it was awkward, Theron had just wanted to leave, and most of their interactions outside of a professional setting had just been a bit like that. On the job, they were good. Despite popular opinion, Theron could take orders (when they made sense),  and off the clock they… well, they were trying to settle into something resembling familiarity. The “father-son bonding sessions” were thankfully few and far between. Theron liked Jace well enough, and they certainly got along better than he and his mother, but it wasn’t exactly like they were going to go out and throw the gravball around any time soon.

However, this meeting request had come through official channels, so thankfully that probably meant things would be less awkward and weird. At least he hoped.

Theron cleared his throat, pulling the older man’s attention away from the datapad he was reviewing. Seeing his visitor, some of the deep lines on Jace’s face smoothed into a smile. “Ah, Theron, you’re early.”

“Traffic wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.” He folded his arms in an effort to look casual. “Trant had a Senate briefing, so you get me instead.”

“That’s all right, I was hoping you’d be here for this. We can loop the director in later.”

“Your message was a bit vague,” he said, “just that you had some intel you wanted to discuss?”

Jace nodded. “One of my men came to me with something he picked up in the field — regarding Korriban. And a way we might be able to strike back.”

Theron’s eyebrows shot up. “Hitting Korriban? You can’t be serious.”

“I am.” The elder man looked at him grimly. “This all started on Korriban, it would be fitting for us to start the death knell for the Empire there.”

Korriban had been one of Jace’s first stations, and where he had met the future Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Satele Shan — who just so happened to be Theron’s mother. Theron shifted the weight of his feet, a habit he’d unfortunately picked up in these conversations when the subject of his mother came up, even indirectly as it was now. He hated having a tell, even something so minor and with someone like Jace who while sharp, probably hadn’t picked up on it.

A change of subject from ancient history back to the present was probably in order — and a lot more comfortable. So Theron addressed the deeper issue at hand. “SIS has been trying to get a mole on Korriban for years, and everyone we’ve tried to embed there winds up dead. That place is a death trap.”

“I’m not asking anyone to go undercover,” Jace assured him. “I’m thinking more smash and grab. But before that, I want you to look over this intel and let me know if you think it’s viable.”

“Me?”

“You were the one who cracked how to take out the Ascendant Spear — if anyone can do the same with Korriban, it’s you.”

It was a high compliment, and genuinely based on his skillset, rather than a form of nepotism. After their success against the Ascendent Spear, Theron had been tapped as a resource more and more for Malcom’s office. It had kept him out of the field more than he liked, but the tangible results of his work on the overall war was satisfying in its own way.

“That seems simple enough,” Theron said, trying to focus on the task at hand. “Any reason for all of the cloak and dagger?”

“Considering the target I don’t want to take any chances. I want someone I can trust taking point on this.”

Theron couldn’t quite decipher the look on Jace’s face, but nodded a thanks all the same. It was… odd having someone be so complimentary and open about that kind of thing. Trant’s usual way of expressing gratitude was a cutting sarcastic remark. Which he was fine with — it was familiar. Easy. But the mark of a good spy was adapting to the situation at hand.

Even if that meant a little bit of inadvertent father-son bonding.

Jace handed over a small data chip. The fact that he wasn’t trusting any of this on any network channel spoke volumes about the need for discretion.

“I’ll look this over and get you an answer as soon as possible.”

That seemed to satisfy Jace, but as Theron made his way out of the office and out into the streets, he was unsettled. The reason for that feeling wasn’t readily apparent, but hopefully once he had a chance to dig into the data he’d figure it out. He tended to trust his gut on these things, but a chance to strike as rich of a target as this was too good to pass up on a mere bad feeling alone.

The more he dug into the intel that Jace had given him, the more Theron had to admit that the Supreme Commander was right. A strike on Korriban not only seemed viable, but had the potential to yield invaluable information that could finally lead to an end to the war.

A Jedi named Jensyn had come away from an encounter with an apprentice to a member from the Dark Council, revealing that they had databanks in their main chambers with some of the inner-most secrets to the Empire. A literal goldmine of information that could turn every future battle and operation to the Republic’s favor. It was almost too good of an opportunity to pass up, and so Theron kept digging. Every intelligence report surrounding the encounter checked out, and just because he liked being paranoid, Theron looked into the Jedi too. The man had served aboard the Telos in its campaign in the Albarrio and Relgim sectors, and had an exemplary service record. The closest thing he found to a red flag was the copious amount tea Jensyn liked to consume.  

As far as Theron could tell, the intel seemed clean.

That just left the minor problem of storming Siths’ the inner-keep. Just getting on the ground would have been an issue, except that apparently a SpecOps commander named Rian Darok had found a gap in the patrols on Korriban. It wasn’t a large one, and they’d never be able to launch a full-scale assault… but a strike team could make it through and perform an extraction.

Theron filled a large mug to the brim with caf, settled into the most comfortable chair he could find at SIS Headquarters, and got to work mining everything they had on Korriban. He had to cobble the data together from a variety of sources to even get a close picture if it could be done. They had old schematics of the ground layout, but due to the age he had to cross-reference it with a report from an escaped acolyte to confirm the probable obstacles facing a strike team on their route from the landing zone into the Academy. This, coupled with bits and pieces of security information scraped from the almost-defunct Imperial intelligence, yielded an access point for someone on the ground that could allow a talented slicer to insert an exploit. It was technically doable, but the resistance the ground team would face stacked the deck against the op’s favor.

“Viable but a logistical nightmare” was how he summarized it to Jace and Marcus the next morning, gratefully accepting the giant mug of caf the Supreme Commander had ready for him the moment he walked in the door.

“Pay up,” Marcus said, and Jace grudgingly handed over a credit chip.

Theron narrowed his eyes at the both of them suspiciously over the rim of his mug. “And what was that for?”

“Just how quickly you’d go for caffeine,” Marcus said casually.

Theron fixed his boss with a glare before taking a very long drag of the zippy brew. Apparently being Supreme Commander came with some perks, because if the spy wasn’t mistaken, this was the more expensive Alsakan Mountain roast. The director just shook his head and turned to the datapad with all the findings, letting out a low whistle at the potential yield if the operation was successful. As both of the older men perused the data, Theron barely suppressed a yawn. The all-nighter had come at the tail end of an op, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was probably needing at least a few hours of sleep.

“You could have taken two days to look at all this,” Jace said lightly, “but I appreciate the enthusiasm.”

“Intel can go stale quick.” Theron shrugged off the paternal concern easily.

“All the reason to act quickly,” Jace said, “if Trant can spare you for a little bit.”

“Please, take him. Much less of a headache for me.”

“I’m really feeling the love here,” the agent muttered.

“You’d feel more if you turned your expense reports on time.”

“You have to get a thrill somehow since you’re not out in the field anymore,” Theron shot back easily. “I’m just trying to help.”

“You see what I have to deal with?” Marcus pointed the question at Jace, who just shook his head.

“Well, I’m happy for the loan, Marcus,” he said, turning the subject back to the matter at hand. “I can see how logistics can get sticky, but I think I’ve got someone who can help with that. Colonel Darok has a knack for this kind of thing.”

Having spotted the hole in the patrol route, Theron had to admit the man had a keen eye. 

“You’d need a small army just to get through that many Sith. No way to get that many troops in,” Theron pointed out. “I don’t even see how even a master tactician is going to navigate that. ”

“What about a small strike team?” Marcus asked.

“Might work, but they’d need to have hides of durasteel.”

Jace looked thoughtful for a moment, before he headed over to his desk and pulled up a few dossiers on a datapad. He paged through a few, before handing it over to Theron. “Have you ever heard of the Coruscant Aegis?”

“Never met them personally,” Theron paused to take another sip from his mug before continuing, “but one of them provided cover fire on an extraction for me once.”

Marcus snorted, apparently remembering the incident in question. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

“I needed to make a hasty exit, and the lady was kind enough to clear a path. At least I think it was a lady—there was a lot of blaster fire. Pretty sure she called me insane.”

“That sounds about right.” Marcus heaved the heavy sigh of the wearied soul.

“I suppose I owe whoever it was some thanks,” Theron said. “Probably wouldn’t have made it out without the assist. Some nice flying and shooting.”

“They’re good at what they do,” Jace agreed, “the best actually.”

“Are any of them lightsaber-proof?” Theron asked sarcastically.

“They haven’t let one stop any of them so far.”

Theron juggled the mug and datapad, skimming through the personnel files as he continued to sip from the sweet caffeinated nectar. He tried to school his expression as he skimmed through the major highlights of each name, but the laundry list of heroic deeds associated with each individual was quite impressive. A notorious smuggler who had taken down the Voidwolf. The commander of Havoc Squad. Even a member of the Jedi High Council. It was the last one that made Theron stop and frown.

“Is this last one even real?” he asked.

Jace nodded solemnly. “She is.”

“It says she killed the Sith Emperor.”

That got Marcus’s attention, who leaned over Theron’s shoulder to read the dossier. Not liking the crowding, he handed the datapad over to his boss, and proceeded to prop his hip on Jace’s desk, still nursing the mug of caf.

“You asked for a small army,” Jace pointed out. “Any of them would be able to perform the extraction.”

“I’d say in that case we should get them all,” Theron said, “but they’re probably pretty scattered.”

Their window of opportunity to strike for this was going to close fast, though, so time was of the essence. It was probably also best to keep the number of those aware of the operation on the lower side too. Even if they were going to take on the entire Sith Academy, and maybe even the Dark Council.

Jace nodded. “You probably can get one in all likelihood.”

“Me, huh?”

“Colonel Darok will be in charge of the operation,” Jace clarified, “but I want the SIS involved on this. This is too big of a target to not bring in our best.”

Theron caught the backhanded compliment, but instead of responding verbally, he just nodded. “I can do some recruiting if you want. You have a preference?”

“Surprise me.”

 Jace flashed him a brief knowing grin, and Theron checked the urge to roll his eyes. He was fairly certain Marcus wasn’t aware of the familial connection, so showing disrespect to the man who was technically his boss’s boss probably wouldn’t help things in the long run. Knowing the way his luck tended to run, Theron would probably need to appeal to the director’s better nature in the next month for some reason or another. Theron didn’t intentionally cause diplomatic and inter-departmental incidents, they just tended to… happen. Sometimes. And by sometimes he meant like clockwork. 

“I’m going to need a little time to dig into the files if that’s the case,” he said instead of rising to the teasing.

“That’s fine.” If Jace was disappointed in Theron’s utter professionalism, it didn’t show, and the moment of levity slipped away. "It will take me some time to get Darok caught up and for us to put a battle plan together.”

Theron nodded and pocketed the datapad from Marcus. “Exactly how much time are we talking about?”

“Enough that you can sleep on it,” Jace tried to keep his tone light, but Theron still caught a hint of paternal concern threading underneath.

“Sleep?” Marcus snorted derisively. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“I sleep when I’m bored,” Theron shot back.

“Good. Then you’ll be out before you even get through the first dossier.”

“Are you kidding? This is better than a holo-drama.” The spy tapped his pocket where he had stowed the datapad. 

Jace just shook his head, amused, and the discussion turned to other matters of intelligence. Theron let himself out once he finished his mug of caf, the weight of the datapad in his pocket a reminder of the upcoming mission. Despite the caffeine, he could feel fatigue pulling at him. Either the long hours were getting to him, or the unsettled feeling from the previous day was still eating at him. Maybe after he was able to study the personnel files some more, he could take a moment to review his notes and pinpoint what was bothering him. And then he could get some sleep.

Next Chapter

[dearyams]

wanted to send you a prompt i was gonna do but i am too lazy prompt: mike and will have been dating but havent said i love you, mike is going on some trip for a week where cell phones dont work (obv future fic) and so Byeler is having a phone convo before mike arrives at his destination and they wont be able to talk to each other a week and will says tells mike he loves him but before mike can respond the phone disconnects as Mike arrives at the destinationn

[ crossposted on AO3 ]

“Finished packing yet?”

Mike turns from his suitcase and the clothes piles spread about the floor in his room and grins when he spots Will leaning on the doorframe a few feet away. He’s got two iced coffee cups in hand, indicative of finishing his part-time hours at the local coffee shop a few blocks north from the Byers residence. Mike wonders if Will biked his way over or took a lift with his brother to come visit before the Wheelers make their way on an impromptu trip to upstate New York at a cabin his dad had recently inherited.

The kneeling boy waves his hands at the disorderly state surrounding him and shrugs. “I’m trying and failing at packing the right clothes for this venture, I’ll say that.”

Will chuckles and walks fully into the room. He passes along Mike’s coffee, shoving around haphazardly folded pants to find a seat on the floor beside the other boy. Mike watches him grab a sweater and toss it aside. “It’s summer so you don’t need to pack heavy. Just grab some t-shirts and jeans; that should do. Shorts too if you’d like.”

“Sure,” sighs Mike before sipping from his cup. “I don’t want to make the visit miserable if I’m wearing the wrong clothes. Wrong for the weather and wrong for looking tolerable in the photos I know Mom is gonna force on me.”

Will laughs, a gentle breeze in the summer’s heat. “You’ll look good in whatever you put on.”

“As my boyfriend, you’re kind of obligated to say that.”

“Not really.” the brunette leans in to kiss Mike’s cheek. “I’ll let you know when you look bad if only for the sake of my own eyes.”

“And when you won’t be next to me, how will you judge my outfits properly?”

Will checks his watch and hums. “When’s your departure? If you have time, you can try out some of the outfits and I’ll let you know what works.”

Mike grins as he reaches over Will’s lap and snags a band t-shirt. “Sneaky aren’t you; tryna get me undressed.”

“I’ll cover my eyes.” Will places his unoccupied hand over his eyes but spreads his fingers between his middle and ring fingers to peek through the opening. Mike scoffs, tossing a stray pair of shorts at his face which makes the brunette laugh heartily. Mike already misses Will, the knowledge that they’ll be separated for a week squeezing his heart dry with romantic despair. He wishes Will could come with but the trip was pretty unplanned and though Mike's “job” as a blog writer and editor doesn’t require a remote location, Will’s job doesn’t allow the same ease when taking off work.

(Though Mike thinks he’ll probably still be working offline on an article if his mom doesn’t steal his laptop for “family bonding in the forest” time.)

Mike’s sudden fashion show lasts for about an hour and while Will does offer good input, most of that hour is spent playing around and Mike sneaking in as many kisses as they can get away with whenever Mike peels off a shirt and struggles to get his head through the tight collar of another. Afterwards, Will helps finish packing and when completed, they lounge about on Mike’s bed as Will discusses the customers he met earlier in the day.

Though he knows packing just mere hours before departure isn’t a habit he should develop, especially when the plans for his career require frequent traveling, he spent the night before editing a movie review scheduled for posting during the drive. Mike doesn’t regret his momentary time mismanagement if it means he spends more time with Will before the trip. The article can wait—he’s posting it early anyway—but time spent with his boyfriend is always coveted.

When Mike’s mom knocks on the door, Will pulls away from Mike’s chest where he rested his head as they page through Mike’s hard copy of The Golden Compass which he wanted to review in line with the show’s release. Shaking his head and straightening his hair as best as possible, Mike struts to his door and opens it with raised eyebrows. His mom looks up from checking her phone and offers Mike a tight smile before looking past him to wave at Will.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you two,” she starts warmly, “but Mike, we have to get going soon. The traffic through the city is getting dense thanks to an accident on the 70.”

“Got it,” replies Mike as he turns back to Will, who walks to his side with both their empty cups in hand. “I’ll see you in a few days, Byers.”

“‘Course.” Will grins and leans up to press a gentle kiss to Mike’s cheek. “Call me when you’re getting close to your destination.”

“Sure, worrywart,” he teases but turns his face to kiss Will’s lips one last time before he has to depart. He watches Will nod bashfully at his mom and give her a short goodbye before making his way downstairs. Mike doesn’t look away until he hears the front door closing and then he casts his gaze on his mom. “Are Dad, Nancy, and Holly waiting outside?”

“Yes,” she nods toward the front of the house. “We’ll all just waiting on you now.”

It doesn’t take long for Mike to join his family at the car, and as his dad pulls out the driveway, Mike turns in the direction of the Byers and smiles when he sees Will on his bike a little ways down the road watching. He sticks his hand out the window, his wave only growing more frantic when Will waves back. Holly giggles and Nancy makes a side comment about love sick teenagers as if she wasn’t one herself during her escapades with Steve, Jonathan, and now Robin. The first hour and a half fills with Holly saying “moo” every time they pass a cow on the way to the interstate and Mike feels like smashing his head against his window when they pass a farm and Holly moos until she nearly passes out. Pulling out his phone, Mike shoots Will a selfie of himself despondently looking out the window and groans when his cell service takes its sweet time sending the message along. Mike gets a reply a reply twenty minutes later: Will laughing at his misery with a short additional, “you’ll be there before you know it,” and a bunch of kiss emojis.

The next hour passes with Mike flipping through his ever growing Will gallery, a digital photo album filled with selfies and candid shots of Will, both solo and with Mike. He’s not one for being in photos himself but Will manages to drag him into a few selfies here and there. He doesn’t mind snapping a selfie either by himself or together—cheeks squished as they both attempt to fit in the frame as Mike holds the phone up and out—because Will always asks him to send the photo along and then makes it his lock screen until the next time he convinces Mike it’s photo time.

After settling on a candid shot Mike snapped when he and Will visited Lovers’ Lake and the sun framed Will like a bright halo of fire, Mike settles on playing a mobile game for about another two hours before staring out the window until the trees blend together and his eyes find themselves sliding shut. He wakes up a few times here and there when the family stops at gas stations and picks up snacks—he definitely remembers his mom arguing with his dad about stopping at a hotel which they ultimately don’t do—but he wakes up for the final time to his phone buzzing in his lap, startling him out of a dream he quickly forgets upon waking. Caller ID tags the number as Will and he immediately answers as he scrambles for his headphones in his pocket.

“Hey,” he begins, shoving the headphone plug into the slot at the bottom of the device, “Is everything okay back home?”

“Everything’s great,” Will’s voice crackles on the line and Mike peaks outside in the darkness to notice the forest surrounding him. They must be close to the cabin destination already. He didn’t think he had slept for that long. “Just checking in since it’s about time you’ve arrived if your dad didn’t take a rest.”

Mike laughs. “You’re cute, you know, checking up on me like this.” He hears Nancy snorting and reaches over Holly to pinch her bare arm. She glares at him and covers Holly’s eyes to flip him off. “Nancy says hello by the way.”

“Hello back to her.” Mike can hear Will’s grin and his heart clenches in sorrow at the current distance between them. “Are you doing okay there?”

“Yeah, peachy.” Mike yawns and covers his mouth. “Is it too cheesy to say I already miss you?”

“Maybe, but I miss you, too, so you don’t have to be embarrassed about it.”

A sleepy smile curls itself on Mike’s lips. “One week, Byers; one week and then I’m back.”

“Yeah, but don’t spend your time counting down the days, alright? I’ll do that for us both; you just have a great time at the cabin.”

Mike would kiss him if he could. “I’ll try my best but you know how my brain works.”

“Are you telling me it actually does work?”

“I’m breaking up with you.” Will laughs heartily. “Why are you laughing; I’m serious this time.”

“Sure, Wheeler.” Mike frowns as the last bit of his name gets caught in static. “Hey, I know this is probably something that should wait until you’re back but this separation made me realize I should tell you either way.”

“This sounds pretty important.”

“Yeah. I, uh, you probably already know this though but,” and Will takes a deep breath and releases it, though Mike hears it in short, split crackles. “Mike, I love you.”

The clarity in those four words stuns Mike into speechlessness and his mouth dries as his heart thumps speedily in his chest. Will is right, Mike already knows Will loves him, but this is the first time Will has ever said the fact out loud. I love you echoes in Mike’s head at the reverb levels of a rock guitarist. It takes far too long for his brain to come back online, but by the time it does, the car speeds past a brush of trees and the call suddenly drops. Mike looks down at his phone screen as the loud call dropped tone passes through his headphones. His home screen—a playfully disgruntled selfie as Will kisses his cheek—stares him back in the face as Will’s voice continues to bounce about in his head.

Mike, I love you.

Mike quickly calls back but his phone spits back the message that he has no service. “Nancy,” he hisses even though the entire car heard his part of his conversation with Will anyway, “do you have any service on your phone? I need to call Will back and my phone is being homophobic.”

Nancy raises her eyebrows but checks phone and shakes her head. “Looks like you’re straight out of luck.”

“Ha; you’re quite the comedian, aren’t you.” Mike reaches forward to tap his mom’s arm. “Mom, can I borrow your phone to finish a call?”

“Sorry, sweetie, I’ve lost service, too. I don’t think any of us can use internet on our phones.”

“Does the cabin at least have wifi?”

“Nope,” snorts Mike’s dad as he drives the car down a dirt road further into the forest. “You kids these days need to learn what life is like without cell phones anyway.”

Mike rolls his eyes and mumbles under his breath, “Okay, boomer.”

“What was that, young man?”

“Okay, bummer.” Nancy bites on her bottom lip and Mike sends her a grin before settling in his seat.

Their mom reaches a hand back to rest on Mike’s knee. “It’s only 7 days, Michael. I’m sure both you and Will can last that long without contact.”

He told me he loves me, Mom, he wants to explain but Will’s words are too fresh and far too private to blurt out in front of the whole family. He crosses his arms silently and turns to stare out the window, hoping that Will can wait out these next few days and hoping he doesn’t think Mike hung up on him after such an important conversation. I love you, too, he thinks to himself, smiling as he presses his hand against the chilly window and imagines Will on the other side as if the car window is the window in Will’s room and Will’s inside watching Mike with that ever so lovestruck grin filled with appreciation that Mike came over despite the cold night to comfort Will from the nightmares that occasionally plague him to this day.

I love you, Will, he repeats inwardly, wait for me.

[gentcrowcruisin]

One: Why you write

Here’s the thing: there’s not enough time in life to read or write bad fanfiction. Now what you consider good or bad is entirely subjective, so I use another distinction among pieces of fiction. There are stories that give something to the reader, and there are stories that don’t. The second group is easier to write and easier to read. You read it, and when you finish, you’re the exact same individual, only with having had a few laughs or having shed a few tears on the conveniently meaningless comedy or tragedy. I’m well aware that these works have their own niche as tools to let off some steam, and that it’s fun to read something like that, but let’s face it, it’s what it is: meaningless. The stories that belong to the other type are those, that have a meaning. A message that they want to convey about life, the world, humanity or literally any topic that’s relevant to the reader. Admittedly, these stories take effort to write, and require some willingness from the reader. Willingness to absorb the message and even possibly change their attitudes according to it. This makes these harder reads, but only for some capacity. Naturally, an author doesn’t need to write something on par with – I don’t know – Hamlet or Paradise Lost. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, the important part is the intent, the – so to say – soul of the story. Now, that we’ve established our two kinds of stories, I’d like to get a disclaimer out of the way: the advice in this whole compilation of essays is for those authors who wish to give something with their stories. If you’re only writing for your own fun, it’s a moot point, as you’ll write whatever you want, and it’s perfectly fine that way. Keep in mind, however, that with that, you also give up the right to be upset at negative feedback, as you admittedly don’t care about your audience.

So, let’s assume, that you want to give something to the person reading your story. How do you do it? There are a few ways, but first of all, you’ve got to decide what you wish to give to the reader. Most of my own attempts at writing usually go down on this particular plot point. But if you’re lucky and you don’t need inspiration deep from your heart and soul to write something, then think of a message. I’ll give a few examples: world peace; religious peace; why humanity is going to die; why humanity is already dead; why we should totally stop killing each other despite our differences; etc. (Yes, I’m a very optimistic person, who really believes in a bright future, why do you ask?) What I’ve already mentioned, though, is that you don’t need to solve life’s greatest problems. The message might just be that people should be nice to each other. The important bit is that it should be there.

After you decide what message you want to convey with the piece of fiction you are writing, you can get down and find out how you’re going to convey the message. There are countless ways to show your thoughts on the issue you chose to be at the centre of your story. One of the easiest ways is to go with an allegory. Even your whole story can be an allegory in and itself, if the central message is really the centre of your story. The allegory is a personification of your idea. For example, in the Bible, the forbidden fruit is the allegory of… well, there are a few theories about that, to be fair. It might be sex. Or knowledge. Or something else. An easier example is the Garden of Eden. It – at least in my opinion – clearly represents the innocence of Adam and Eve. Or, if we take a look at the Harry Potter books, I’d say Hogwarts is a representation of culture. Or a cultured society. You might’ve noticed that the meaning of some of these allegories is quite ambiguous. Well, that’s mostly because there are two perspectives in play. The author and the reader. The author wants to represent a concept, and the reader will somehow interpret the representation. There is no sentence that can’t be interpreted at least two different ways in a piece of fiction.

Another option is, that you model your thoughts in the story. This is literally the easiest thing ever. Examples include: if you think politicians are corrupt, depict them as corrupt. If you think education is useless (then shame on you, it just needs to be improved), depict school as a hindrance for your protagonist. The message will get through.

You can also have character based messages. The best example for this is Harry Potter. Harry is a very selfless boy with strong emotions, and in the end, he’s victorious due to his willingness to die for his friends. (I’ll have a rant on the topic ‘Why Super!Harry ruins the message of Harry Potter’ sometime later) This obviously conveys the message that we should be selfless, and love our fellow humans, as we’re all in this life together. This is an easy device to show the concept you want to show.

The last – and for some definition the least – thing on the list is being painfully direct. If you ever read Jules Verne, especially the Two Years’ Vacation, you’ll find that a character literally explains why it’s important to go to school even while stranded on a desert island! (“We must, of course, continue with our education. The older boys can teach the younger boys, and we’ll build an utopistic free state of children. Learning’s important, get it?” Heh, fat chance of this happening. If you want to read a realistic book about children on a desert island, read the Lord of Flies. You won’t like it, but it’s painfully accurate. But I digress.) I admit, however, that having a raisonneur character is completely justifiable. They’re the guys who basically say what the author wants to say verbatim. Look at Dumbledore. Or any and all uncles from any and all Moliére plays. You can be direct, but do it with style. Don’t give lessons of several pages (Looking at you Voltaire!), have them tell your opinion in a short and apt way, preferably in a well-flowing dialogue.

One last thing. As I’ve already mentioned, all works of fiction can be interpreted in lots of ways, and that’s completely okay. People will take different things away from your writings, because they’re different people. This could mean that your effort to show your thoughts was in vain, but it really doesn’t. If your message inspires a positive change in someone, it was all worth it. You gave something. It might not necessarily be what you intended to give, but you gave something regardless. And we all know that it’s better to give.

Now you have seen a new perspective on creative writing. I don’t have the illusion that all writers who read this will suddenly only write books worth the Nobel-prize, but I hope I managed to give you something. Also, you probably won’t manage to handle all these advices perfectly on the first try. I certainly didn’t, but you know what they say: practice makes perfect. So write!

AN: If you agree, don’t agree or have any thoughts on the topic, leave a review. If you liked this, and are ready for more, follow the story, because I intend to write a few other pieces of writing advice, fanfic trope analysis and fanfiction analysis. Next I’ll probably try to tackle the ridiculously big topic of fanfiction as a whole. Stay tuned. AN: Check out this series crossposted on FictionPress. (LINK)

[queenlua]

book review: Pilgrim in the Microworld by David Sudnow

I enjoy telling stories at cocktail parties about my youthful internet exploits, because I am both a goddamn nerd and a goddamn delight. Explaining the basic shit like Neopets or IRC channel shenanigans is easy enough; most people have some experience with message boards or chatrooms. Explaining play-by-post RPGs is a bit trickier, but still doable—you frame it as a collaborative storytelling thing, compare it to Watership Down, describe your favorite wolf-soap-opera plotline, and at that point, you’ve either confused the shit out of someone or made a friend for life.

But the one thing I’ve never quite been able to describe, to my own satisfaction, is play-by-post horse battle RPGs.

Ostensibly, it’s really similar to the standard play-by-post RPG format. Your horse attacks the other horse; you describe it in a few sentences of prose. Theoretically, this could be as simple as “Smokey pivots on his right forehoof and kicks at Huey,” then “Huey rears up and falls on Smokey’s back,” or whatever, and you go from there.

But that would be too easy.

See, the winner of a horse battle was chosen by a handful of randomly-selected disinterested mods, who graded each post on the basis of (1) quality of prose, (2) effectiveness of attacks, and (3) creativity of attacks. You got points subtracted for godmoding or simply shrugging off damage, but you got points added for clever counterattacks or use of space. Each player had a fixed number of turns, with a fixed number of attacks each turn; each post had to be done within two days; there was a massive hierarchy of special powers/perks your character could get if you advanced high enough through Pony Fight Club; and the ponies who achieved Gold Rank were like. Envied and feared, all over the site.

Which meant, of course, that I needed to be on this list.

It took me a goddamn week to join my first horse game, because I had to read through a whole encyclopedia of horse breeds to determine, empirically, which breed would be the best at beating up other horses. For my first ever horse battle post I wrote 3,000 words to describe “Ska kicks Duplicity in the side” and revised it like 800 times and was physically shaking when I finally hit send. I had a fucking printout of the equine muscular system and the equine skeletal system taped on the wall next to the family computer for convenient reference. I reenacted horse poses in the basement to try and figure out which angle I could attack from. I scared the shit out of my horseback riding instructor by asking all kinds of weird questions about “so like what’s the WORST thing you’ve ever seen a stallion attack do, though.”

And the posts themselves, oh, the posts. See, “quality of prose” in this scene meant “as purple and neurotic as humanly possible (with a very strange set of jargon you will literally never use anywhere else),” and I rose to the challenge ably. We all did, and the results were some of the most tryhard, pretentious writing this side of David Foster Wallace:

Here’s an excerpt from one that I managed to dig up:

the rotation locates the spring action retention of the hind regions, the gashed arenas stretched and pulled with each following spin and force…hind flints echo ‘pon the soil as fores spin effortlessly upon the soil, hinds lifted in mirrored image of first attack by opponent, a similar region seemingly forced to location, but the motion of the receding spook renders the toss to the hock/limb region towards the more deadly region of rib-cage and right lung, knowledge of retractable inhalation essential to the sustenance of battle..forelimbs echo at the joint, bent and snapped back and forth towards this area with explosive force, the verbatim maneuver thusly completed, the fores lift from mud-caked position, crimson liquid staining the glossy extremes of the bloodkissed’s pelt [. . .] accepted plurality of motionless fate, flints return after seeken motions t’wards the murky loam, a snarl exhaled and soft smirk ‘crossed ashen mug... limp is obvious ‘thin hind regions o’ she as darkness reclaims torso, bulwarked vital throat region definitive as pools roam the other..seems more interesting than the others, but hell...when you’re certain that death is on the line anything becomes more interesting..

Did the horse like, kick the other horse? why are its forelimbs echoing; did it hurt itself just kicking the other horse? how did the kick drawblood? Who fucking knows? The important thing is it sounds fly as hell, and the mods will be too embarrassed to admit they don’t fucking understand what is actually happening. That’s gonna be a 10/9/9 score, easy.

But, uh, this is all a bit much to explain at a cocktail party.

So I am delighted to announce that I now have a better shorthand for explaining The Horse Battle Play-By-Post RPG Scene.

This is the horse battle book.

Sure, it’s ostensibly about some dude’s obsession with the classic arcade game Breakout. But the majority of it is a pseudo-philosophical, over-described, tangent-riddled description of the experience of playing Breakout. Which ends up sounding a lot like the horse battle stuff. Here is an excerpt chosen at semi-random:

A long fast volley at the finish was simply too much for me to handle. The more it lasts the more afraid you get it won’t last longer, and layer upon layer of competing advice rapidly piles up to overheat thoughts to an agitated concentration that melts your cool. The whole field of vision frazzles you with temptation, you stiffen up to fight off distractions, and through that very effort their beckoning power becomes even more salient. Anxiety about the future of the gesture flows backwards without really knowing what a hazard is, all while telling yourself not to analyze anything. Work over a long run at the piano, a tricky passage beginning on a certain measure in the music. Now play the entire piece, and that fast messy section is coming up. Now you’re into it, and in its midst you’re feeling a ragged uncertainty in the movements...

The whole book is like this. When I realized that this was what I was reading, I achieved enlightenment. I stopped and put down the book and grinned ear-to-ear at this man, this one goofy sociology-professor man, partaking in the bizarrely niche hobby of some hundreds of teenage horse girls in the early 2000s. What a blessing.

All that being said, I would not recommend this book unless you, too, have some horse battle nostalgia you need to get out of your system.

(crossposted from DW)

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Where to Find Steph (I-J)

Hey all! Bah, I took so long getting this post done for y’all... I was holding off until I got all the sites I wanted to get, and am still debating on others. Before I begin, I just want to reiterate and restate this: TUMBLR WILL STILL BE MY PRIMARY BLOGGING PLATFORM UNLESS EVERYONE IS GONE / MOVES ELSEWHERE AND MY ENGAGEMENT DROPS. I WILL notify if / when this happens. Tumblr will still be the place to contact me first for anything. I’m also using Twitter quite a bit now that I’ve figured it out, so that’s also the next best place.

So, below I will list all where I am, and what its purpose is planned for, and hopefully we can all be friends any of these sites!

TUMBLR: I am still @inevitably-johnlocked and @stephdrawsjohnlock here on Tumblr, and I will continue to engage on both of these sites as often as possible. The Johnlock Playlist is still ongoing, and I will continue to answer asks as I normally do. As well, fic recs and meta. Just anything you currently see that doesn’t get flagged will remain. If it gets bad, I will let y’all know when I will switch over somewhere else.

TWITTER: @inevitablyjohn1 – This is going to be my OTHER primary platform, where I will post notifications for “important” / “popular” posts on my tumblr such as fic rec lists and watchalongs, as well as promoting some of my classic posts and just reblogging random content. Also will be used to boost my art on stephdrawsjohnlock. I also want to use it as a “quick ask” sort of thing, so like an Ask Me Anything type thing, and random bits of advice. Essentially, I want it to become like my blog, but micro-ized, LOL. Basically, I use this a lot because it’s easily accessible on my phone and I can do play on it at work LOL.

ARCHIVE of our OWN: inevitably_johnlocked – I’ve been meaning to copy over all of my meta over here an age ago, and now it’s kinda too late... But whatever I can find I will repost here. Also, my own Tumblr ficlets are on here as well. I do like to write the occasionally thingy. I’m terrible at checking my inbox here though, so SORRY.

YOUTUBE: Inevitably Johnlocked – Official Home of what I hope to be someday the LARGEST Johnlock Playlist in the fandom. I’m adding new stuff every day and adding old entries. I’m also contemplating doing videos as well for my advice asks, if only to try to remain fresh and new. Don’t know yet.

PILLOWFORT.IO: inevitably-johnlocked – I haven’t 100% decided what to do here, but I think I will begin cross-posting fic rec lists, the giant Johnlock Playlist Masterpost if they don’t have a link limit on their posts and my art and meta on here. I’m still working around it so it’ll take me awhile to get myself sorted!

DREAMWIDTH: inevitably_johnlocked – Same as above; probably will use it to crosspost fic lists, Johnlock Playlist, and art and meta. I like the format of this site, but I don’t like how we can’t really reblog anything.

PICARTO.TV: stephdrawsjohnlock – Occasionally I stream my artwork. I never get people watching, but it’s the thought that counts, LOL. If/when I stream, I will announce it on my Twitter.

DISCORD: inevitably-johnlocked#8385 – I’m not on a lot, but I do check in from time to time :) 

RABB.IT: inevitably-johnlocked – Come watch movies with me :)

MASTODON: inevitablyjohnlocked – Not a huge fan of this platform, but should Twitter go down the shitter, here’s where you can find me.

HANGOUTS: inevitablyjohnlocked – If you used Google Hangouts, you can chat with me here! I have an app on my phone that works occasionally, and I try my hardest to keep up, but I’m garbage. But this is also my fandom email as well, so hmu.

FACEBOOK MESSENGER: I am on Facebook, but I only add people I know. Please message me for my FB if you’re interested. I use Messenger a LOT (it’s how I stay in contact with my family, so it’s always open). I also post random stuff on my facebook, but not much. Right now I’m doing a Tea Review, LOL.

SNAPCHAT: stephanieratte – I use it a lot because it’s on my cell phone, LOL. I don’t have many friends. And I like Bitmoji LOL.

STILL CONSIDERING:

A new deviantART for my Sherlock Art (I AM on dA as StephRatte, but I haven’t updated there since I migrated to Tumblr, and I lowkey use it as a portfolio).

Instagram for my art, but I hear theft there is nuts. I’ve been meaning to make one for ages, but I’ll see.

PHEW. I’ll add to this list should I remember anything else, but yeah, I really want to stay in contact with y’all so I hope to still see y’all after the 17th! <3

[minimoonstar]

Happy 2019

Watched: nothing yet today

Read: 90% through Elizabeth Sandifer's A Golden Thread - An Unauthorized Critical History of Wonder Woman. The book's structure is basically "[insert number of] days since DC Comics's last nonsense." I didn't go in with much WW background, so my mind was blown to learn that 1) the DISC Management personality profile, on which I had to take an employer-mandated but tragically lasso-free seminar, originated as a bastardization of Marston's psychological theories of dominance and submission; and 2) Gloria Steinem once got Chuck Delany fired off the book, probably without actually reading said book.

A Twitter thread I posted yesterday, compiled and added to and manually crossposted to/from Pillowfort, ayy:

In 2018 I did more tidying than the rest of the decade put together. The full Marie Kondo (I have never read a Marie Kondo book tho): carloads of stuff went to the Renaissance depot, library donation box, sold on Kijiji, gifted to friends. I furnished the baby's room and filled it with hand-me-downs and shower gifts, but that stuff doesn't feel like mine -- it's his. The big entertainment system is mine, though, to compensate for not being able to go to the movies.

In retrospect 2018 was more ending than beginning, this sort of intentional pruning/last hurrah of Stuff I Own and Stuff I Do -- that, let's be real, I can’t keep up anyway (into my 40s?) -- but am now giving up, instead of the gentle, organic phasing out of the last few years. "Not being able to go at all" differing from "eh, I'll check it out for an hour or two then leave," the pregnancy has taken on a sharp nostalgia: I "took the baby with me” to concerts/film fests/marketplaces/conventions/etc., however abbreviated or alcohol-less, and got into a mindset that we were exploring the world in tandem, though for him that consisted of changes in my blood sugar and novelty noises.

In actuality the baby currently evinces enjoyment only of breast milk, my yogic breathing practice (a memory fragment from the womb?), and -- admittedly -- Schubert. Tandem exploration will follow a long process, if lucky.

Endings have also been positive, in 2018. Mortgage, aforementioned; an 18-month work project that all involved agreed to declare a success (having shifted the definition thereof, to accommodate); the two major pieces of writing I signed up for and completed (One Week One Band, the Ravage fanbook novella). Don’t love being invalided out by the field surgery on my pelvic floor -- on which more later, lucky yous -- but am going into January feeling like I may not have to pop Advil 4evr and uh... 10lbs below pre-pregnancy weight. So. That’s a thing?

I’m not much for resolutions, but as 2019 must perforce consist of beginnings, it deserves a degree of intentionality. Thus:

Write every day, or rather in lieu of job to go to (as opposed to the diffuse 8-12hr daily job of breastfeeding) just open for business, like a shop, a couple hours every morning -- as per Amos Oz, in the Paris Review interview reposted this week.

Maintain a list of things watched/read/listened/etc, even if not commented on, such that a year’s end list becomes theoretically computable - tweet, at least, though I’ll try on here, Medium, whatever.

A proper Happy New Year to everyone reading: the Internet doesn't work like this for everyone, but it's always been most (if not all) of the social life I need. I'll never feel isolated as long as I have you all to talk to, or even just to listen in on. <3

[yumeka36]

Detective Pikachu Review

**Note: most of my review is spoiler-free but there are marked spoiler-filled paragraphs towards the end**

So how did this veteran Pokemon fan feel after seeing the very first live-action movie of my most beloved franchise? I was a bit skeptical about it when promotion first started last year – it looked like a standard “buddy cop” detective story that just happened to take place in the Pokemon world, rather than the Pokemon world itself being the main focus (which is something I wanted). The realistic designs of the pokemon themselves were a bit jarring too, but I soon got used to them. I decided to keep my expectations low for the movie, so I wouldn’t be disappointed if it wasn’t good, or I’d be pleasantly surprised if it was.

So now that I’ve seen it, I’m happy to say that I did enjoy it overall. I wouldn’t say it’s great, but definitely good, especially for a Pokemon fan. It was actually a very well constructed mystery, with twists and surprises at the end that I wasn’t able to predict. Probably what I was most grateful for is that the setting of a world where people and pokemon live together was integral to the plot, and the design of Ryme City with its constant imagery of various pokemon mingling around the buildings and streets in their CG debut was a real treat. I felt like a kid again, getting bits of joy as I noticed this and that pokemon making a cameo in the background. This is a common occurrence in the animated Pokemon movies (of which I’ve seen all 21) but seeing them in the “real world” was, of course, special. Now that I’ve gotten over the “shock” of seeing these beloved characters in CG, I think most of their designs look good and I couldn’t have imagined them differently myself. Unfortunately not nearly as many pokemon species appeared in the movie as I’d hoped – out of the current 800+ total pokemon, only about 60 could be seen in this movie, so after a while you start seeing the same background pokemon over and over. I’m not sure if this was intentional or due to limitations, but I wouldn’t say it’s a hindrance. It’s common in the Pokemon games for certain species to be more prevalent in certain regions, so we can say that the same applies to whatever region Ryme City is in.

Other things to note is that the movie did have some nice heartfelt moments too, despite it having a typical “estranged father and son” plot. I didn’t find Ryan Renolds’ performance particularly funny, but at least I didn’t find it bad either. Some scenes that were supposed to be funny or exciting, like the Aipom chase scene and the Mr. Mime interrogation were just kinda “meh” to me. The movie had a nice mix of action, drama, and comedy that meshed well, which is a good thing, even if they didn’t always hit their mark for me.

**SPOILERS BELOW!**

As I said, the mystery part of the plot was interesting, but a few key things didn’t make sense to me (if anyone has thoughts, I’d love to hear). I didn’t understand what Mewtwo was trying to accomplish by “linking” Harry and Pikachu and then wiping Pikachu’s memories. Wouldn’t he be able to find Tim better with his memories intact? And what did Mewtwo need Tim for anyway? I guess to finish what Harry had started, but again, wouldn’t keeping Pikachu’s memories intact be more beneficial? And since Mewtwo is able to telepathically communicate with people, couldn’t he have revealed Howard’s scheme to the authorities on his own instead of waiting and hoping that Pikachu will eventually bring Tim to him?

The nature of Mewtwo’s ability to “link” the minds of people and pokemon was strange too. Using a device like the one Howard used to put his mind into Mewtwo made sense, but then Mewtwo could just straight up put a whole person, mind AND body, into a pokemon if it first inhales the R gas? So what this accomplishes is giving the pokemon the ability to talk to humans, as seen with Harry’s Pikachu? So is this the “people evolving with their pokemon” that Howard envisioned? But the human’s body is gone and only the pokemon’s body remains, so whose mind is controlling it, the human’s or the pokemon’s? In Pikachu’s case, it seems like Pikachu’s mind was in control, but then at the end, it seemed like his voice and personality were like Harry’s. It’s hard to say since we only see Harry for the last few minutes of the movie, but I found it too vague and it just seemed like an anticlimactic result for such a grandiose evil plan. Plus, if Mewtwo was able to merge Harry and Pikachu without any R gas present, what was the point of the gas anyway? It seems to just make pokemon turn vicious, so what if they killed their trainer before Mewtwo could merge them? These are the kinds of discreet plot holes a lot of movies have for the sake of story – if Pikachu didn’t have amnesia, the plot would be resolved too fast, if there was no R gas, they wouldn’t have clues to go by, etc. So even though they affect my overall rating of the movie, I can’t fault them too much as the general public who doesn’t think too hard about what they watch won’t notice (I think too much), and they’re not bad enough to ruin the movie for me, and that’s really what matters.

**END OF SPOILERS**

Like most of the animated Pokemon movies, I originally thought Detective Pikachu would be another one that appeals to fans but couldn’t win over anyone who doesn’t already like Pokemon. Now that I’ve seen it, I think it could definitely pique the interest of someone who’s at least neutral to Pokemon. The movie explains the basics of the Pokemon world but doesn’t delve deeply into things like Pokemon attacks and abilities, so it’s very accessible to open minded non-fans too. To summarize, while it’s no masterpiece, it’s a fun, enjoyable flick for Pokemon fans and anyone else who likes mystery, action, and comedy stories set in a fantasy world. I really hope it ushers in an age for a variety of live-action Pokemon movies in the years to come!

(for further reading, here’s a great article from The Guardian that gives an excellent overview of Pokemon’s history and how Pokemon GO and Detective Pikachu are reviving the franchise)

*Crossposted from my main blog, Yume Dimension*

[hegemoneapple]

Basilisk Eyes: Chapter 24: Clown barf

Crossposted: Basilisk Eyes by Hegemone | Completed: Chapter 24 out of 157 | T | AO3 | FFN | WATT | HPFF

Knowing that he only had to make it through Saturday and Sunday with Dudley made Harry almost giddy until he remembered that he had to make it through Saturday and Sunday with Dudley. He tuned the radio to the BBC news station and listened to the stories while he worked his way through ironing the stacks of napkins. While he was listening, he felt like he was escaping being Harry for a while and it was nice.

Also, listening to stories about children in Rwanda who were forced to become soldiers and kill people when they were younger than he was kind of helped put everything in perspective. Some of them had lost their legs or arms in the war (and… he imagined… their eyesight, though the story didn’t say that specifically). It occurred to him that many of them must be orphans like him, too. All because some people thought that they were more human than others… it made him think of wixen and their pureblood nonsense. He was lost in thought when a wisp of smoke grazed his nose. He jerked the iron up and felt the napkin that he’d been ironing with his fingertips.

“Ow!” he shouted and stuck his burned fingertips in his mouth. He was pretty sure there were scorch marks and holes in the napkin, but he didn’t want to investigate further.  

“Oh, no!” he started panicking. He was tempted to throw the burnt napkin in the bin, but knew that Aunt Petunia would count the napkins and he’d be hit with whatever was nearest. He turned off the radio because he couldn’t think while they kept talking.

He twirled around for a little bit—dashing from side to side as he tried to figure out what he could do to fix the burnt napkin until he got dizzy and disoriented and almost fell down, then he focused on breathing until he was calm.

“Okay. It’s a burnt napkin, not the end of the world,” he told himself sternly. He really didn’t want to show up at training with more bruises.

He put his hands on his hips as he calmed down and touched his pocket.

My staff!

He took out the collapsed staff and touched it to the napkin and said “Reparo napkin” hoping that it would work even though he didn’t know the magic word for napkin. He felt it. It was cool again, not burning hot and he couldn’t feel any holes or difference in the cloth from the other napkins. Maybe it worked! He put the napkin in the middle of the stack and kept ironing, but didn’t turn the radio back on, afraid that he’d drift away again.

Finally, at half past 9, he’d put away all the napkins, the ironing board, and iron away and climbed upstairs to his bed. The Dursleys weren’t home yet and he was glad.

He put on his pajamas and climbed into bed, leaving the window open just in case Hedwig came back in the middle of the night. 

It’s not outside the realm of possibility.

oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo

Harry knew something was up by the way Aunt Petunia was pounding up the staircase early the next morning. She flung open his bedroom door and stomped over to his bed where she was flapping something in his face and demanding to know, “What is this, boy? Just what do you think this is?”

Harry cowered down into his sheets, trying to get his face out of the range of the cloth that she was slapping him with.

“I don’t know,” Harry ventured. “Could you tell me… please?”

“Just what do you think you’re up to? You think this is a funny prank? Do you?” she shrieked, continuing to flail him with the cloth. “All I want is for everything to be perfect when Dudders comes home from school… but you just have to go and ruin everything… ”

“I’m sorry, Aunt Petunia,” Harry tried, hoping it would appease her.

“Oh, you’re sorry, are you? Well, so am I. I’m sorry we ever agreed to allow you and your strangeness to enter our home. We thought we could stomp it out of you, but no. Even now, damaged as you are, you’re still doing it!”

“What did I do, Aunt Petunia?” Harry asked again.

“My napkin! My beautiful napkin! Yesterday they were all perfect and white and today this one… ” she seemed at a loss for words. “These were my grandmother’s napkins, pure Irish linen! Now this one… looks like clown barf!” Her anger was palpable.

“What?” said Harry disbelieving. When she hit him in the face with the napkin again, he grabbed at it, managing to yank it from his Aunt’s hand and ran his fingers over it from seam to seam. It felt like the ones he ironed last night—nothing different about it.

“I ironed them, Aunt Petunia, just like you said.” 

Okay, I burned one and tried to fix it. I guess that didn’t work. It’s not burned though, no holes!

“I know you did ma… something vile,” she finished, unable to utter the word.

He didn’t deny it and felt heat rising in his neck and cheeks.

She snatched the napkin from his hand and stood very still over his bed. Harry had the sense that she had her hand raised as if to slap him and he cringed, bracing himself for the blow. But she suddenly turned and stormed out of the room, slamming his door as she left.

Harry sat in his bed for a little bit, trying to calm his racing heart. He didn’t know if he should get up and go down right away and get breakfast started or wait a little until she cooled down.

He decided to go somewhere in between.

As he nervously pulled on his clothes, feeling the seams to make sure they weren’t inside out and tried to make his hair lie flat, he chanted to himself… Saturday, Sunday, Saturday, Sunday, Saturday, Sunday. . .

As he was picking up his glasses to put them on, he traced the cracked lens with his fingertips.

I guess it is good I didn’t try to repair this crack.

He put his collapsed staff in his pocket and started out of his room to head to the bathroom, but in the hallway, he heard Dudley emerging from his room and decided to duck back into his room and wait. Last summer he would have made a mad dash to the bathroom to get in first and lock the door before Dudders who couldn’t move nearly as quickly as Harry… but then he always had to move quickly when he was exiting, too, to dodge the waiting blows from his cousin and he didn’t want to risk that today.

Once Dudley was safely in the bathroom, Harry went quietly down the stairs and used the bathroom downstairs. Since he had unloaded all his items from his school trunk into his staff, he also had his toothbrush and toothpaste. 

This staff is so handy, especially with the extendable storage charm. Everyone should have one of these. 

He laughed at himself for sounding like one of the infomercials Aunt Petunia watched.

He walked cautiously to the kitchen, listening for cues that Aunt Petunia had cooled down. It was awfully quiet. 

That can’t be good. 

He was tempted to go back upstairs and wait a little longer but then he heard Dudley emerging from the bathroom and decided to try his luck in the kitchen. At the door, he held his staff in his pocket with his thumb and middle finger to get a description of the kitchen. He didn’t think his aunt or uncle would very much like the staff’s description of them: “a thin, dour woman to your right washing dishes at the sink and a ruddy, obese man to your left reading a paper at a table.” He stifled the laugh that threatened to escape his throat.

He went to the stove to start tackling the stack of eggs, sausages, and tomatoes that were undoubtedly on the docket—it would be a full English breakfast for sure with Dudders home from school now. 

Aunt Petunia had laid everything out as she’d been doing since he’d awoken on Privet Drive earlier that month. He ran his fingers lightly over the waiting food and utensils, surprised that she’d taken care to do it this morning when she was so angry with him for ruining her napkin. 

Maybe she did it before she discovered the napkin.

He was getting better at knowing when the sausages would be done—he couldn’t time them using the clock (he’d never get away with casting the time charm in the company of Vernon and Petunia), but he’d sing a song in his head (R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts mostly) as a way to gauge the time and then poke at them with the tongs and smell them until he was certain they were done. He hadn’t had a negative review yet, which was as much praise as he was ever going to get.

He’d loaded up the plate with sausages and had started with the eggs when Dudley finally made it downstairs. He tried to keep his posture as neutral as possible and didn’t turn when Dudley came into the kitchen. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon fawned over Dudley as Harry expected and Harry managed to escape their notice for a while longer.

Harry was surprised when Dudley turned on a telly in the kitchen. He didn’t know it was there. 

Must be a welcome-home Dudley present so he can watch his favorite shows while eating. 

Its sickening noise littered the kitchen.

He’d finished up the scrambled eggs and was starting with the tomatoes and mushrooms when Aunt Petunia came near him to retrieve the eggs and he flinched, expecting her to hit him. She just huffed loudly, obviously annoyed at his presence, but didn’t touch him. 

Weird.

The baked beans were bubbling softly on the back burner and Harry turned off the heat, then carefully scooped them into the bowl that Aunt Petunia had set by the can for them. He touched the tongs to the frying tomatoes and mushrooms and tried to flip them, but it was really hard to know if he’d done it or just turned them to mush. He’d made some progress with the slippery vegetables during the week, but apparently not enough because Aunt Petunia took over, sending him on his way with her hip.

He had no choice now, but to sit down at the table and try to eat. He gulped and then slipped his hand in his pocket to touch the staff for more seamless guidance to the table where his hand found the back of the chair and he pulled it out and sat down. He used the staff to get a sense of where the dishes were on the table and only reached for toast, eggs, and sausages as the rest would have required asking Uncle Vernon or Dudley to pass them to him.

“Watch what you’re doing, boy!” Uncle Vernon yelled, using the tone that he reserved just for Harry.

Harry started, then recovering quickly, put the serving spoon back in the bowl of eggs and lightly touched the space between the bowl and his plate and discovered that some of the eggs had dropped off the spoon onto the tablecloth. He picked them up carefully and put them on his plate.

“Why’s Harry wearing sunglasses inside?” Dudley asked through a mouth of food.

“Harumph,” was all the response Dudley got from his father. Harry was surprised. It was a perfect segue into how Harry was now even more of a burden on the family, one of Uncle Vernon’s favorite topics.

Dudley’s attention was drawn back to his show and Harry was able to eat in relative peace.

[joelpreston]

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[thelmasirby32]

Four powerful tools to optimize your social media conversions

I think you’ll agree with us when we say, “It’s really hard to get conversions from social media channels.” Hours of creation and curation later, all we get are a few likes or just basic inquiries. But what if we told you that getting leads from social media isn’t quite a very hard nut to crack?

In fact, by using the below-mentioned tools we managed to get 89 new enquires in the past week alone. That’s a 594% staggering increase from the 12-13 leads that managed to squiggle through previously.

Sounds unbelievable?

Well, our magic potion is certainly a mix of a few tricks and tools that helped us to achieve this feat. But most importantly, it is the result of months of trials, tests, and efforts of keeping the social community engaged through frequent posting and analyzing.

What exactly are social media conversions?

Conversions from social media could be anything – from gaining new subscribers to your mailing list, more app downloads, website visits, to closing sales through your social channels. These conversions are an important part of digital marketing services and strategy.

The question now is, how do you, as a marketer gain meaningful conversions from your social media channels?

To help you out, we’ve put together a list of our most trusted social media tools for marketing that helped us gain an edge over our competitors:

1. Ace your social game with Agorapulse

Agorapulse is a social community and moderation tool that helps businesses manage all their social network profiles. Furthermore, it helps you gather critical data like statistics and reporting to help you gain high-quality insights, devise and execute effective social media campaigns.

It is the ultimate social media tool as you can connect it to every social account that you run. Plus it also provides a CRM platform making it efficient for sales-oriented tasks.

Agorapulse features

Social inbox

One amazing feature in Agorapulse is its ‘Social Inbox’. If you are the kind of brand that likes to stay connected with your customers and monitor each brand mention, then Agorapulse is the tool for you. All your social media notifications will appear in the social inbox, so you can take action and reply to comments and mentions directly from this social inbox.

Social listening

As a social listening tool, Agorapulse can also find mentions of your brand on social media, where you haven’t been tagged. This generally helps you to identify negative reviews and smell a crisis before the disaster strikes. You can also set up custom searches for whatever query or keyword you like.

Content scheduling and queueing

Scheduling is easier too with categories. With the Chrome plugin, you can schedule content on the go.

Source: Agorapulse

Audience analysis

As a B2B company, it is important to know if your clients are interested in your brand’s social content. Agorapulse lets you see your most engaged followers, who are more likely to become customers or clients in the near future.

Analytics and reporting

Agorapulse stands out for its in-depth analytics reports. These reports help in measuring your social media ROI to see if your efforts on social media are paying off. Compare your page’s performance to those of your competitors, to know where you are lacking.

Pricing

Agorapulse, beyond the trial period, is a paid tool. But if you are serious about getting leads and conversions on social media, it is definitely one that we recommend spending on. Agorapulse plans come in four different pricing ranges.

Medium- $99/mo Best for small businesses

Large-$199/mo Best for agencies

Extra Large-$299/mo Best for larger organizations

Enterprise-$499/mo Best for large teams with many profiles

Clients

Agorapulse remains the favorite social management tool for big names like Ogilvy, Disney, Dove, and Yves Saint Laurent.

2. Understand your social media audience with Socialbakers

Socialbakers is a tool that can manage and measure everything from social media to your audiences in one place. It helps you discover your customer personas, what content resonates with them and which influencers do they like.

One of the more important things with social media is to understand the kind of content that resonates with your audience. Getting to know what your followers like and engage with, helps you in creating more relevant posts and content for the future. After all, content is created with the latent aim of getting customers in the long run.

Enter Socialbakers – an all in one analytical tool that helps you get the most of your data.

Socialbakers features

Creating detailed reports

Social media managers often tend to struggle with making customized performance reports to review their efforts on social media. With social bakers, you can get a complete analytical report scheduled to your inbox at set intervals of time. Save it as a presentation or excel sheet or PDF to peruse when required.

Source: Socialbakers

Competitor analysis

The multi compare feature in Socialbakers allows you to pit yourself against 10 other similar brands from your industry, so you can identify where you stand. By recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, you can create a better content strategy.

Social engagement

Discover what content is clicking with your audience, to do more of what’s working and engaging the viewers. Monitor your social media performance over different platforms to see which social channel is doing best.

Know your most engaged audience

Also, Socialbaker’s the ‘Response Time Evolution’ feature lets you determine the highest engagement time frame, you can mark the exact hour at which your posts should go out to get more responses.

Pricing

Socialbakers has two pricing plans that are determined by the number of profiles you wish to manage with it.

10 profiles- $19/mo

20 profiles-  $38/mo

Clients

Socialbakers is the tool of choice for brands like Sony, Samsung, Nat Geo, Vodafone, Walmart, and more.

3. Integrate apps, save time, and do more sales with Zapier

Zapier is an online automation tool that connects two or more apps. It automates simple repetitive tasks eliminating the need for coding and human intervention.

Zapier automation helps you manage your social media and spend time engaging in meaningful customer conversations.

Zapier features

Automate repetitive tasks

Zapier helps you by creating time-saving zaps or workflows that are fully automated.  It is a personal assistant that does little tasks for you.

Crossposting

Crossposting across different social media platforms is easy with Zapier. That means if you post a new picture on Instagram, and want the same to be posted on your Facebook account, you don’t need to do it manually each time.

Source: Zapier

Many people face issues crossposting their Instagram content on Twitter. The pictures appear as links, which need to be clicked and can be viewed only on the native platform. Zapier allows you to create image tweets from Instagram that can be directly viewed on Twitter.

Ongoing sync among apps

As social media managers usually suffer from a lack of time, they look to automate simple tasks, these tasks could be anything from posting the same content on different platforms, posting blog links to social media channels, saving interested leads and sign-up form data to a Google sheet, and more.

Zapier eases the burden by automating all these processes.

Zap templates

The best part about Zapier is that there are already hundreds of zap recipes created for you to use. If you are unsure, you can even customize a zap, by specifying a trigger and the resultant action.

Pricing

Zapier is a free tool for up to 100 tasks a month, and single-step Zaps, but if you want advanced features, and more zaps then there are four paid upgrades.

Starter- $25/mo Multi-step Zaps

Professional- $61/mo Advanced tools and unlimited Zaps

Team- $374/mo Collaborate with team

Company- $749/mo Enterprise-Grade Features

Clients

Zapier is trusted by teams large and small. Popular users include BuzzFeed, Spotify, Adobe and Fox network.

4. Get high-quality B2B leads with Lusha

Lusha is primarily an email and phone number tracker. It is GDPR compliant and helps you get the contact information of B2B leads you’re interested in. Interestingly, you can even integrate Lusha with your salesforce to capture leads, contacts, and other sales front data.

Lusha features

Email and phone number finder

We tried using Lusha on our Linkedin profile and got some amazing results. Apart from people who regularly interact with our content on Linked in, we delved deeper and found contacts of people that we were interested to sell our services to. We primarily targeted CEOs, Marketing Managers, and key decision-makers.

Data import

With a warm list of qualified leads, we were able to create smart email campaigns. Also, using the phone numbers that we got through Lusha, we were able to pitch our services over sales calls.

Source: Lusha

The plugin works on LinkedIn, Gmail, and Salesforce platforms. Generally, contact information is hidden on LinkedIn, and to contact someone, you’ll have to send a message or an In-mail. With the click of a single button, Lusha shows you the personal email, work email, and phone numbers of the person you want to get in contact with.

Pricing

The free plan gives you five credits. That means you can view the contact information of five different profiles. However, if you wish to export contacts, and save them to your CRM, you have to purchase a paid plan. Lusha prices its plans on the basis of the number of Lusha credits. There are 3 pricing packages to choose from.

Professional – $75/mo

Premium – $149/mo

Enterprise – Price upon consultation

Lusha empowers some of the world’s best companies. These include Google, Uber, Dropbox, Facebook, Microsoft and more.

Takeaways

Social media traffic has a low conversion rate of only 0.71% when compared to search campaigns and email marketing. However, given that we put in smart work and regularly monitor our efforts, we can milk in more leads than usual. What’s really important to note is the knowledge of each social medium and how audiences behave on different social platforms.

With the above mentioned social media tools for marketing, your social media team is better equipped for conversions. If you’re still unsure about your social media conversion strategy, you can avail digital marketing services of an experienced agency.

Shaista Mujeeb is a Copywriter at Wolftain Agency.

The post Four powerful tools to optimize your social media conversions appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/02/06/four-powerful-tools-to-optimize-social-media-conversions/

[flashsuggestion]

Reverse m!a (does it have to be canon events, or can it be suggest!verse stuff? If canon, then Wallys dying scene in the Justice Lords run, if suggest!verse then batman and this blog breaking up or that one time wally drank 13 coffees)

//ANON YOU’RE A GENIUS (i was gonna do the suggestverse stuff but this got kinda long! i’m gonna crosspost this to my ao3 btw) 

“Up.” Wally stood gingerly, shifting his weight to his non-injured leg. Once he was fully standing, he felt a gun pressed to the small of his back. “The president wants you.” They lead him down a maze of hallways and out of the compound, loading him into the back of a van. All the while, he wracked his brain as to why Luthor would call for him now, after days of keeping him collared and chained in a dark cell deep in the heart of some governmental compound or another. No matter how much he tried to get any information out of the guards, all he got was stony silence.

He knew better now than to try and get a reaction from them, knew better than to try and annoy them from their silence. 

Wally really didn’t want to get tazed again.

The truck rolled to a stop, and Wally tensed as one of the soldiers– seemingly the one in charge– spoke into a walkie-talkie, giving a confirmation code to whoever was on the other line.

A beat, and the truck began to move again, traveling down a small incline– probably a tunnel of some kind. It was a few minutes before they stopped again, roughly hauling Wally to his feet by his cuffs. His wrists chafed, had been chafing for days, and the rough motion only made them throb more. Besides that, Wally was hungry. The food were he’d been held had been… subpar, to say the least.

The back of the van opened, and Wally was lead out, still limping as they pressed the muzzle of a gun into his back to urge him forward. “Move.”

“Okay, okay!” Wally laughed awkwardly. His voice was scratchy, but he gave them a small grin. “Pushy.” They glared at him, and he winced.

They walked in silence to an elevator. Once they got in, Wally started humming. Look. He was stressed, and it made him feel better. Also, it was kinda funny, up until they pressed the muzzle into his back just a little harder.

The elevator stopped, and Wally was lead down more hallways, up a flight of stairs. The first thing Wally noticed as he stepped through the door was the cameras. He flinched back, instinctively, despite the fact that they’d left his mask on. Wally hated being weak in front of the cameras. He was a symbol of hope for the people of the Gem Cities, and being seen like this countermanded that.

The second thing he noticed was the man behind the desk, and where exactly he was. 

They weren’t joking when they told him that the president had asked for him.

Wally was in the fucking Oval Office, collared like an animal and cuffed like a criminal. 

Thankfully, the cameras didn’t seem to be recording yet, so whatever Luthor was going to do to him wasn’t going to happen just yet, but whatever it was, it was going to happen soon.

“Come here,” purred Luthor, gesturing towards him. Again, Wally was shoved forwards with the gun, and he limped forwards, hissing quietly every time he put weight on that leg.  There was a small, but undeniably smug look on Luthor’s face as Wally approached, and it made him want to spit in the guy’s face. What an asshole. 

“I’d really like to speak to your manager. Or at least leave a one-star review on Yelp,” he said, grinning cheerfully. “The service was poor, the atmosphere was bad, your cleanliness needs some work, and the food? I’d rather die than think about it.” Wally stuck out his tongue and scrunched up his nose, screwing his eyes shut in a pantomime of disgust.

“You may get your wish much sooner than you think,” murmured Luthor, and Wally stumbled back in horror. He could barely understand what the man had just said. Luthor stood, unconcerned and seemingly unnoticing of Wally’s distress as he gestured to the camera operator to begin rolling. “On your knees.”

“You heard the man,” said one of the soldiers as the two on either side of him roughly pushed him to his knees. Wally barely protested, going limp in their arms as he stared, horrified at the man who was the President of the United States. Luthor was speaking, adressing the cameras with a cool, collected expression. 

“–These heroes are a danger, undermining the power of the government. As I’m sure you can see, we have one such hero here with us today.” Luthor gestured towards him, and Wally set his face in a hard line. He wouldn’t give the man the pleasure of seeing his fear. “Who is the Flash to decide who of us are criminals? How can we trust a man whose identity we do not know? As your president, I will unmask him.” Once more, Wally’s eyes widened in shock and horror, flinching back as the man reached for his mask, but the soldiers held him in place.

It was unceremonious, irreverent, the way that Luthor simply and quickly pulled it back over his head, letting his hair tumble free over his face in one quick motion. Wally pressed his face into his shoulder as soon as Luthor let go, trying desperately both to hide his face and the tears welling in his eyes, but Luthor grabbed his chin, turning his face towards him forcefully. 

“Such pretty green eyes,” the man murmured. “Such a shame that Wally West, a promising young forensic scientist from Keystone City decided to turn to vigilantism to get his kicks.” Wally shuddered, his breath hitching quietly as we tried to keep calm. Luthor dropped his chin, and Wally sagged in relief, clusing his eyes as Luthor turned to address the cameras. 

“From now on, the punishment for vigilante activity is death.” Oh god, Luthor had a shotgun. Why did he have a shotgun.

Wally felt the cold metal of the barrel against his forehead, and the tears he’d managed to hold back spilled down his face.

He didn’t want to die.

[greyias]

FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 3

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something’s rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won’t rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic’s top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Author’s Notes and Spoilers: See Chapter 1.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Crossposted to AO3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

He’d gone with Shield, because of course he had. His reservations about that gap in the file were mostly just suspicions, and it was hard to ignore the fact that the woman described in the file seemed ridiculously capable. Now, if only he could wipe that knowing grin off of Jace’s face.

“Thought you might go with her,” the older man rumbled, tone entirely too smug.

“It was a numbers game,” Theron muttered, “one Cross of Glory recipient versus an entire ship full."

“Of course.” His father sounded anything but convinced, and then sobered some as a large man decked out in SpecOps armor entered the office. “Ah, just in time. Theron Shan, meet Rian Darok.”

Darok shook Theron’s hand with an almost bone breaking grip. The colonel practically towered over the SIS Agent, and actually even had a few centimeters over Jace which seemed like an accomplishment in itself. Dark brows narrowed in contemplation, and Theron got the distinct impression that he was being sized up in some way. He returned the scrutiny with a tight-lipped smile.

“Always a pleasure to work with the SIS,” Darok said, “Agent Shan.”

The emphasis placed on his surname made Theron abort the handshake and take a step back to reclaim his personal space. “Yes, well, we all try to do our part, Colonel.”

“Interesting last name.”

“Not really. It’s pretty common according to the last Republic census.” Theron let his gaze briefly slip over to Jace, but the older man had already drifted over to the large holo-table across the room with a projection of a dogfight over a large planet and wasn’t paying attention to their conversation.

“Common among Jedi too.”

“Wouldn’t know much about that, seeing as I carry a blaster and not a lightsaber,” Theron bit back, letting his irritation bleed into his tone.

“Sure,” Darok said, seeming to let the subject drop.

They joined Jace over at the holo-table, and upon closer inspection Theron could see that it was a representation of Korriban and a simulation of the patrol schedule. A frown played across the Supreme Commander’s face as he watched the simulation. The Harrower-class dreadnought passed through the planetary orbit, before heading out to continue its patrol of the system. Displayed on the map, the opening was now glaringly obvious. Theron watched as holograms of an entire squadron, including a Hammerhead, some Thranta-class corvettes, and several of BT-7 Thunderclap ships come out of hyperspace and then immediately start the bombardment. As soon as they entered the atmosphere a second wave of ships jumped in, following the path they carved to the surface. It was a risky maneuver, and one that required perfect timing to pull off.

Theron was starting to feel lucky that he only had to recruit one individual rather than pick out the pilots for this operation. Darok stalked by, glaring at the holo-table as if it had personally insulted him as the simulation switched from the orbital view to the planetary view. The gaps in their intelligence were more glaring here, as several crude representations of the Academy’s layout filled the holo.

Apparently Jace picked up on the tension between his two leads on the operation, because Theron felt a nudge to his shoulder. “Is there a problem?”

His father had intentionally pitched his voice low, so only Theron could hear. If he thought about it for more than two galactic seconds, the prodding on his genealogy wasn’t that big of a deal. And it shouldn’t have rankled so much that the first thing people thought of when hearing the name “Shan” was “Jedi”. 

“I want a codename,” he muttered petulantly. “Can you work on that?”

“How about ‘Theron Malcom’?”

“No,” he said flatly. “Never mind. You don’t get to make codenames.”

“Why not?”

“Because it needs to be covert.” And not lame. “Like Zerosum.”

“Must be in the genes. I’m rescinding your permission to name things as well.” Theron wrinkled his nose, but Jace turned his attention back to the other man in the room before another snarky response could be made. “Colonel, is there an issue with the holo-table?”

“No sir,” Darok said curtly, “just reviewing every angle to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”

“Have we?”

“A name to attach to our second wave. Seems like an important part of the operation.”

Jace motioned to Theron, who crossed his arms as he met Darok’s even stare. “Jedi Master Greyias Highwind.”

He used the actual name on the file, partially for name recognition, but also because it was unclear if the colonel had clearance to know the identities of the Coruscant Aegis. Darok’s stony expression faltered for a moment, a brief look of curiosity stealing across it before the frown fixed itself back into place. “The Hero of Tython? That seems a little high-profile for a covert operation.”

“She can do the job,” Theron shot back, “and none of this is exactly groundbreaking territory for her from her file.”

“Her file? She hasn’t been read in yet?”

“I was waiting for final authorization before spilling the beans on our little party.”

“You have it,” Jace cut in. “Do what you need to pull her in. We need our best on this, gentlemen, understood?”

From his tone, it was clear the Supreme Commander was talking about more than the Jedi in question, an unstated order for both of them to work out whatever issues they had for the good of the mission. Darok gave his commanding officer a curt nod, and Theron acknowledged it as well with a tight bob of his head. He didn’t have to like Darok to work with him.

“I suggest we move this operation to Carrick Station. It will be easier to coordinate and gather my forces for the assault.” Darok spared a glance across the table. “Hopefully Master Highwind will decide to join us there.”

“She’ll be there,” Theron promised, “don’t worry about that.”

“That’s good to hear.” Jace crossed his arms. “Just remember that our window of opportunity to pull this off will close if we wait too long.”

“Don’t worry, sir, my team will be ready.”

“So will mine,” Theron tossed back.

“Then I’ll leave this in your capable hands, gentlemen. If all goes well, the next time we meet we’ll be toasting to the end of the Empire.”

As Jace turned away, both Theron and Darok shifted their positions, sizing each other up. The colonel resting his sizable fists on his hips, Theron crossing his arms as he glared up at the taller man. 

“I guess we’ll see if you can get our guest of honor to show up on such short notice.”

“You worry about the logistics of your own men, Colonel,” Theron said coolly. “I can handle wrangling one little Jedi Knight.”

Next Chapter

[dailytechnologynews]

No one will care about 3rd gen APUs and the H-Series if AMD doesn't take drivers seriously...

[Crossposted from /r/amd]

So I've posted quite a bit about the issues with Ryzen Mobile as it seems that AMD still hasn't started distributing drivers for Ryzen Mobile, even after more than a year since release and the appearance of over 30 unique devices running on those amazing Raven Ridge Mobile APUs.

Here's a quick overview of what I've done to grab AMD's attention:

Tweet at AMD, AMDRyzen, AMDGaming, LisuSu and HPSupport

Most popular post about the issues

Post AMD recognized about the issues

Post on AMD Support Forums

As you can see, enough people are having these issues and care about them because otherwise I wouldn't be getting guilded and my posts wouldn't be on the frontpage of /r/amd for as long as they were. It seems that many, many people are having these issues, but only about 1% from what I've seen actually do anything about it. Most people just complain that their system doesn't work and either replace their system or live with the issues. That isn't the way to deal with anti-consumer brands as by ignoring their acts we basically tell them that whatever they're doing is fine and they can just keep on doing it. Posts like the ones I'll be referencing later and this by /u/brokemyacct one are what we need to shine light on not only the outstanding performance of these APUs, but also the overly frustrating issues associated with only these APUs and not even relevant for older A-Series chips.

I've also spent lots of time chatting with others that own Ryzen Mobile systems to clarify that this isn't an HP issue, so any of you who planned on downvoting this post and commenting that HP sucks at driver support can simmer down and remember that this post is about all the driver issues on Ryzen Mobile devices and not just those limited to HP systems.

Issues

Drivers

The latest drivers to be found for Ryzen Mobile on any website are those from the Windows Update Catalog dated to the 30. August 2018, and by downloading drivers from HP, Acer or any of the other major brands you usually get older drivers from July of this year, repackaged as drivers from August/September. The Radeon Software is outdated as well as version 17.7 is from July of last year and is very basic without much control over the CPU/GPU in games or programs. Even amazing features that have finally made it over to Raven Ridge Desktop haven't found their way to Mobile yet such as Radeon ReLive or the Radeon Overlay. Radeon ReLive luckily can be installed with a workaround, but it isn't what we want, because seemingly everything is possible with a workaround, such as installing newer drivers that aren't designed for the GPU but do work somewhat.

What's also interesting is that it seems downloading drivers from say Acer on to your HP device and then installing those with the workaround doesn't seem to make a difference at all. The stability barely changes, the performance too and usually features don't disappear or get added based on the OEM that distributed the driver, basically proving that OEMs don't even touch the drivers much and if they do, they all do the same changes like seemingly lower clocks as installing unofficial drivers (18.9.3 for example) on my system will give me higher clock speeds even without changing anything in the BIOS or power plan settings.

Now, I know that some people will and some people already have mentioned that Linux has great open-source drivers. I'm aware and I just want to say that this of course is a thread about the driver situation on Windows and I'm not interested in hearing about Linux every time I write something like this. I paid for Windows 10 Pro for a reason and that's because I want to use Windows 10 Pro, otherwise I could've ordered the FreeDOS variant of my device. I need Windows 10 Pro, want Windows 10 Pro and dislike Windows 10 Pro and there are many other reasons for not wanting to or not being capable to switch to Linux which is why this is an issue and switching to Linux isn't an answer.

Stability

Now all of that wouldn't be so bad if the systems at least ran stable. Especially the PRO variants found in devices like the HP EliteBook 755 G5 shine a terrible light on Ryzen Mobile because these devices (and the ThinkPad series) are marketed at enterprise users that require a little more GPU power than can be found in an Intel SoC and would be perfect for the use-case if it wasn't for their lackluster stability; from VLC crashing, Adobe Programs not recognizing the GPU all the way to the system showing multiple BSoDs an hour means that getting an Intel system is the better option for those who really need to get work done and can't upgrade to a 2'000+ CHF device. If GPU performance really matters, the only stable option is something like the EliteBook 1050 G1, Dell XPS 15 or a workstation for ridiculous amounts of money, which is terrible because not everyone (including myself) can afford a device like that.

Just from talking about these issues to other people I have found that a) I'm not the only one dealing with these issues and b) issues exist that I don't even have to deal with or others don't have to deal with:

Ridiculous TDP limits (post by /u/MinecraftAddict131 explaining the problem a little better)

VLC crashing in DX11 mode, not in OpenGL or other modes (comment /u/WillingMagic confirming that this isn't an HP-only issue, GIF displaying the issue)

Adobe Programs not recognizing the GPU and thus I'm forced to use the software renderer (used to recognize it in the beginning, image to display the issue)

Blender3D not recognizing the GPU (used to recognize it in the beginning as was Adobe Premiere Pro)

DX11 (and other) games not allowing to change the resolution, sometimes even with stock drivers (comment/u/MynnyD confirming that this happens on his Lenovo ThinkPad E485 with any non-OEM drivers)

Weird screen flickering when Vari-Bright is enabled (GIF to display the issue)

Framedrops in games when Chill and Target Framerate Control are enabled

Random crashing with BSODs often resulting in data loss (image displaying the issue)

Crashing when installing workaround drivers (image displaying the issue)

Can't change screen brightness with the F3/F4 keys, no option in the battery quick menu, have to go to the energy settings

The sad part about these issues is that clearly most of them are driver/software related meaning that with some simple BIOS and driver patches these issues could be resolved, possibly bringing these APUs back into the regular consumers' eyes and keeping people optimistic about the future APUs to be released. Already with the A-Series APUs AMD kind of messed up, even though even those are getting driver support, and I should know, because the EliteBook I'm currently writing this post on was supposed to replace my notebook with an A10 APU and R5 dGPU which is still getting driver updates!

/u/BadReligion even went as far as to contacting an HP Rep only to be disappointed by the fact that these HP employees like to point fingers at AMD when AMD points fingers at the OEMs for not updating the drivers as they should.

Especially the BSODs are annoying because of how common they are and usually result in data loss which means that I'm constantly saving files instead of focusing on writing them. As a programmer, spamming CTRL + S isn't as bad, but it's really freaking annoying to do this in literally every program and even on Reddit I've started using drafts.

Another interesting, and sad, thing is that most tech reviewers and tech journalists don't write about these issues even though some of them should know about these. Now either it means that they don't test enough or they're being paid to STFU, which sucks. The only reviewer I could find mention the issues is Solid State Tech that didn't a long-term real world review of the Envy x360 and mentions the issues in the middle of his video, but nothing to be found in the title or description about the issues. If reviewers and journalists would make people aware of the issues, less people would buy a product they don't want and AMD would get their shit together way quicker.

Performance

In addition to the lack of stability on some systems, it's clear that OEMs are "nerfing" the devices as I've done a lot of testing as well as others have to figure out pretty quickly that by simply installing "incompatible"/unofficial drivers like 18.10.1 can yield in major performance gains as this comment by /u/WillingMagic displays really well where someone benched his system with different drivers and also confirmed that his system is having issues with VLC even though he owns an Asus.

/u/MinecraftAddict131 also put in a lot of work to finding out that his Huawei Matebook - which I might add has one of the best implementation of Ryzen Mobile - could perform way better if it wasn't for these crippling factors that even Huawei implemented into their otherwise great system as he watercooled his device and explained in this post that removing the limits would give him way better (and expected) performance. He already went about bricking his system because of how "desperate" he is and I really think it's impressive how much work and trust people put into these AMD systems when all AMD - and the OEMs - do is disappoint us at seemingly every turn.

There are many others posts that display the issue and how unofficial drivers result in way better performance across all Ryzen Mobile systems such as this one from /u/bobzdar. Also /u/BadReligion (TechEpiphany) made some videos comparing the performance of the different drivers showing extremely well that drivers that aren't even designed for Vega Mobile perform better than those distributed by OEMs:

Ryzen 7 2700 Review PUBG *new drivers!* awesome performance

AMD Ryzen 5 2500U driver comparison. 17.7 "Official" vs. 18.1.1 Wolfenstein II

Far Cry 5 Ryzen 5 2500U Vega 8 "18.3.4" Driver Gameplay Benchmark iGPU

Request

Now, I've seen /u/AMDOfficial's reponse to mainly my posts and it seems that they're just trying to pull some PR bullshit by saying that they will "enable OEMs" to update their drivers twice a year. This sounds like the complete opposite of what we wanted as the first thing we wanted was more updates and secondly for those two come directly from AMD but with their statement they basically said that we'll be stuck with twice-annual updates that are as buggy as they are now and that AMD doesn't give enough shits to distribute the reference drivers (that exist FFS!) on their website or they're being limited by some clause.

So, for you AMD PR people that seemingly can't read, here's what we want. Separated by line breaks to make it as easy as possible to read and bold in case you have a vision problem:

Drivers for Ryzen Mobile coming straight from your website.

Drivers for Ryzen Mobile as part of your regular driver packs.

Future driver support for Ryzen Mobile (2-3 years at least!).

Ryzen Master for Ryzen Mobile.

More control over our hardware with Ryzen Master for Mobile.

Drivers from the OEMs for those who want "optimized" drivers.

Future

The point I want to bring over with this post is that if AMD doesn't take drivers seriously, no one will care how good the hardware of the upcoming (leaked) H-Series processors and 3rd gen Ryzen Mobile APUs will be if they don't update the current-gen's drivers. Ryzen Mobile was the same story, the very first laptop I remember seeing with Ryzen Mobile was the Lenovo IdeaPad and just seeing the Vega badge gave me a little hard-on. Then the first benchmarks rolled out and even though everyone knew that the idiots at Lenovo made a bunch of mistakes, those Vega iGPUs kicked intel's ass into the future and showed that an iGPU could keep up with current-gen dGPUs.

But in the end of the day, people still buy intel/nVidia systems even if they cost more and intel and nVidia are less pro-consumers because those systems just work and in terms of drivers intel and nVidia are actually more pro-consumer than AMD is.

The only thing AMD is doing that's really pro-consumer is making "pro" hardware available for the masses and not hiding products like Vega and Threadripper behind "pro" paywalls. And it does seem that their taking notice of what's going on with their recently made post and as this post shows, it seems that they have done some kind of "silent update" and quite possibly are working on Raven Ridge Mobile drivers meaning that there's a chance for us believers.

Update

It seems that AMD does read these posts as they responded to one of mine and made a thread about it that got massively upvoted, which is really sad because all in all they simply said that they don't care about their consumers and will make our situation worse by only enabling OEMs to release drivers every 6 months instead of every 3 months which is currently technically the case. You people need to understand that we don't want them to simply listen, we want to see change and we want to see drivers. Not some wimpy PR guy behind his desk trying to sooth us down. With their statement they also made it fairly clear that they don't plan on updating the drivers themselves and will just let the OEMs do whatever they want. Obviously I responded to that thread and the comment under my thread with an aggressive and a less aggressive response.

Also, my mainboard was replaced today, and as expected, nothing changed. VLC still crashes, the Radeon Settings are still outdated (obviously) and Adobe Programs still don't recognize my GPU for hardware acceleration. I haven't had a chance to check Blender3D or games yet, but this is enough to prove that we're dealing with driver issues, which is what I'll be telling the HP Support to make sure we either get new drivers (which won't happen) or I get a new system that works for free. It can't be that after all this time investment I still can't get my work done, which is important unlike the issues some are having with games which might be aggravating, but not vital.

Question

What drivers are you Ryzen Mobile users using and how's your experience with them been? I'm currently using the newest available from Windows Update which is dated to the 30.08.2018 which is honestly just... meh. Obviously it's more stable than those from AMD (18.10.2 etc.) which is why I'm using them, but the performance is lackluster and features like Adobe Mercury Render Engine - Hardware Acceleration don't work which is something I'm really pissed off about because it was one of my main requirements for my new laptop: HW acceleration, but now after the repair still isn't working and going to waste more of my time trying to convince HP that I need better drivers or a different device.

EDIT: Added paragraph about Linux not being an option for many of us even if the drivers are better, because it simply isn't the right solution for the most of us!