#considering that I accidentally sent this to the draft pile instead of posting

[merlinfromberlin]

Of Beasts Swimming In Green

Bumblebee did his best to remain calm while he waited for the rest of Team Prime to rescue Ratchet. His attempts were feeble at best.

Warnings: graphic description of injuries, very high levels of anxiety in general, Dadchet, hints of Dadimus Prime Chronology: S01E22 - Stronger, Faster Wordcount: 990 words

Written for @angstober - Day 04: Blood (or rather energon in this case). Prompt list can be found here: X

Story below the cut or on AO3.

Bumblebee had anxiously been pacing the main area of the Autbot base ever since the rest of the team had left to retrieve Ratchet little more than a breem ago. Even as he walked, his gaze kept wandering over to the monitors, constantly checking that his caregiver’s life signal had remained online during the nanocycle he had dared to look away. Realistically, staring at the medic's profile on the screen did absolutely nothing. The breaking of their sparkbond would alarm Bee of his caregiver's death much faster than his optics ever could.

Still, the scout could not get himself to look away. As long as he was stuck at base, awaiting news of the rescue mission, he was also alone with his fears and doubts and the dreadful fantasies about Ratchet's fate his processor continued to conjure up. Bee had been fighting in this War his whole life, he had been sparked in a hail of Seeker missiles and crawled his way out of the Well while Megatron sought to eradicate every sparkling of his generation unwilling to join the Warlord's cause. Thus, neither Bumblebee nor his imagination had any illusions about the things Decepticons were willing to do even to non-combatants such as medics. Without Optimus here to shield and reassure him, staring at tangible proof of Ratchet's continued existence was his only defence against being devoured whole by the beast invading his processor.

Bumblebee's spark, too, failed to cease its anxious movements. Instead, it continued to swirl erratically, spinning ever faster in a desperate attempt to strengthen its gravitational pull and lure the piece of light binding him to his caregiver closer. It had, of course, no effect. The distance at which sparks orbited each other could not be influenced that easily. 

Nervously, Bee sent a burst of love across his connection to Ratchet. He received no answer.

On the gallery, the children stood huddled together for comfort, whispering amongst themselves as Bumblebee continued to pace. In the beginning of their vigil, the three of them had done their best to try and calm him down. They had stopped once they realised that the bot was barely registering any of their words. Later, Bee would probably feel bad about it. Right now, he did not particularly care. His processor was focused solely on his caregiver's possible demise.

In lieu of anything better to do, Bee walked over to the medbay to check, once again, on the equipment he had laid out there earlier. Cleaning and sorting all the tools necessary for emergency surgery had been among the first things Bumblebee had done after the medic had stormed out of the Autobot base. It had been a somewhat ridiculous action, of course. Out of their team members, only Ratchet even possessed the ability to perform surgery. The rest of them had only ever been trained in basic battlefield first aid. Nonetheless, he youngling had done it anyway. The familiarity of a task he had performed so many times before for the medic driving his actions more than any belief in its actual usefulness.

“Bumblebee.” He jumped to attention immediately when finally, finally, Optimus’ voice came in over the comm line. “Open a ground bridge to our coordinates.”

The portal swirled open before the Prime had even finished his sentence. Anxiously, Bee clenched his fists as he stepped up to the tunnel. It was only mere moments later that Optimus carried Ratchet into the base. As he caught sight of the familiar form in his caregiver's arms, the youngling froze, spark caught in the vice-like grip of terror.

Ratchet was limb and unmoving in the taller bot's grip. His optics were closed, only the dimmest of glows emitting from below their lids. Vicious, slimy green energon was oozing plentifully from cracks in orange-and-white armour where a crater had been dug into the medic's chassis. The repugnant liquid ran down Ratchet's sides in rivulets, dripping onto the floor in small splats that rang impossibly loud in Bumblebee's audials.

Bee could only imagine the kind of excessive force necessary to cave in a bot's plating like that all too well. His own frame must have looked similar in the aftermath of Tyger Pax. A warning lit up on his HUD, blinking aggressively at the side of his visual feed. His vocoder had short-circuited. He cared surprisingly little.

Had the spin of Ratchet's spark not still been intertwined with his own, swirling weakly but steadily inside of his chassis, the youngling would have been convinced that the medic had been offlined. Behind him, Raf emitted a small whimper. Miko gasped. Optimus' EM field, full of worry and void of its usual quiet confidence, enveloped them for a short moment as the Prime hurried past in the direction of the medbay. 

Still, Bumblebee was unable to tear his gaze away from the puddle of viscous green that had formed on the ground in front of the bridge, licking at the Autobot crest they had engraved there. His servos were shaking, his audials buzzing incessantly. It was just so, so, so much energon-more than Bee could fathom anyone losing without returning to the Allspark.

His stupor was only broken when Arcee touched his shoulder. There were smudges of synthetic green on her digits, too. He could not tell how much time had passed, how much the beast in his processor had devoured. Probably barely more than a few microcycle. 

"Go with them, Bee."

Slowly, he cycled his optics, but it took him another nanocycle of staring at the two-wheeler before her words fully registered. Once they did, however, he nodded, flaring his EM field in silent gratitude. Then, he ran after his caregivers into the medbay.

Hopefully, together, Optimus and Bumblebee would figure out how to best help and fix the medic. And if they did not... They would. They had to. 

Bee could not bear to think of a world where they did not.

[david-akintunde]

10 Tips To Boost Your Email Open Rates

Here is a simple talisman for success if you’re an email marketer — higher email open rates mean more conversions. Sounds obvious? Even then, many organizations don’t end up writing emails that subscribers want to open. A study by MailChimp found that email open rates are just at 21.33% across all industries.

In a quick glance, this figure looks ok. But is it really? Suppose you have an email list comprising a whopping 15,000 subscribers. With a 21.33% conversion rate, only a mere 3199 leads are ever going to see your emails, and fewer will take any action.

Remember, there comes a point, when it doesn’t matter how extensive your email list is, but how many prospects within that list open your emails. If within the same list of 15,000 subscribers, your open rates go up to 50%, you end up with 7500 leads engaging with your pitch.

So, how do you get here? By following these 10 hacks that are sure to improve your email open rates:

1. Don’t Forget to Segment your Email List

Without email list segmentation, you cannot personalize your emails. While you can categorize your email list under parameters most relevant to you, try these three segments for starters.

Segment based on:

Demography

Challenges and pain points

Like and dislikes

2. Get your Subject Line Right

Your subject line alone is what encourages prospects to open your email. It also helps form your brand’s first impression. So, craft it well! How?

Personalize it for your target audience. Write more than one subject sentence for, say, different age groups, even if the product you’re pitching is the same.

Hold back on using too many punctuations like exclamation marks. You’d be surprised how commonly marketers use more than one exclamation point in subject lines for emphasis. Choose to emphasize with your words instead.

Keep it concise and avoid vagueness.

Draft it in the form of a question, if you can.

Use powerful words and phrases. These stir emotion and arouse curiosity. For example, the image below uses a power word like “sanity-saving.”

Source: Smart Blogger

3. Get your Email Timing Right

Remember, leads will read your emails at different times in different parts of the world. Some will read them late at night, while others will do so in the morning. Leverage whichever email automation tool you use to track the time most of your prospects read your emails.

Once you have an optimal time, send emails accordingly to boost open as well as click-through rates. Also, as a general rule of thumb, avoid sending marketing emails over weekends. Several studies have now revealed that weekends are the most inopportune time to send promotional communication.

4. Get your Email Frequency Right

Nobody, and that even includes you wants their inbox to be bombarded with too many promotional emails from one brand. Not only does this single-handedly bring down your open rates, but the prospect can blacklist you or mark you as spam.

Simply put, strike the right balance with your audience. Generally, sending emails twice or thrice and no more makes for a healthy frequency that doesn’t annoy prospects.

5. Re-engage with the Dormant Prospects

All email lists have prospects who haven’t opened promotional emails from certain brands in months. Your list is likely no different. Weed them out! And scout for new prospects.

But, before identifying and deleting them from your email list, make sure to draft and deploy a re-engagement campaign. Maybe, this campaign contains time-limited offers or personalized deals to re-engage passive leads.

6. Send Emails using an Official Email ID

No matter how small your business is at this point, don’t use your Gmail or Hotmail ids to send out marketing communication. Such a practice will likely land you in the prospect’s junk pile. Use a domain email address that carries your brand name to stay out of spam filters and boost your open rates.

7. Ensure a High Deliverability Rate

Unfortunately, over 20% of marketing emails don’t land up in your prospects’ inboxes. These emails bounce because of:

Temporary server issues on both ends

Sending emails to abandoned or obsolete email ids

Prospects who accidentally blacklist you

Upping your deliverability rate will automatically boost open rates. You can do this by:

Sending reminder emails requesting your subscribers to whitelist you.

Confirm if a prospect has willingly subscribed to your list by asking them to click on a link sent to their inbox.

8. Avoid using Certain Words in Email Subject Line and Body

Stay away from phrases and words that make your email seem less authentic. For instance, “Urgent,” “free stuff for you,” “you have won,” and several others. Think of these phrases similar to swear words in email marketing.

9. Send the Same Email Once More

Sometimes your prospects want to open your email, but they simply forget or get distracted. And, once they do, they won’t revisit your email. To avoid this situation, resend the same email to subscribers who didn’t open your first email.

Don’t worry about being too intrusive here. You’d be happy to know that this is not an uncommon practice used by marketers to boost their open rates.

10. Don’t only Send Promotional Content

Sure, the ultimate goal for your brand is to sell its wares, but this doesn’t mean all your emails must carry a sales pitch. Share informational or educational content to make your email campaigns more engaging. Help them gain light on their challenges through blogs, case studies, etc. When you send a mixed bag of email content, you are more likely to increase your open rates.

Conclusion

With these 10 tips, you can undoubtedly experience higher open rates, eventually translating into more conversions. As for subscribers who, even after all the attempts, don’t open your emails, it’s best to let them go! After all, not all subscribers turn into qualified leads, and that’s ok.

Three Tips For Writing Marketing Email Subject Lines People Actually Want To Open

Sales, marketing and branding expert. CEO of GoPromotional, distributor of promotional products with a focus on online business development.

When was the last time you sent an email? Did you know that, according to Statista, roughly 306 billion emails were estimated to have been sent and received every single day in 2020? There are only about 7.7 billion people on Earth. Let that sink in. Now, ask yourself this: How many of the emails you receive every day do you actually read? More specifically, how many of the promotional emails you receive do you open at all?

With all the benefits of the information age, it’s important to remember that we’re utterly swamped with information to an extent we’ve never experienced before. So if you want to get through to people — if you’re an e-marketer whose goal is to reach as many targets as possible via mass emails — you’ll have to put in some thought and get creative. This is a game of subject lines, and your job is to master it by crafting engaging, inviting, tempting and even daring email subject lines that will grab attention — even if it’s just long enough for a click.

The fear of missing out is your ally.

FOMO is real, and it’s powerful. For the uninitiated, “FOMO” stands for “fear of missing out,” and while it may be a behavioral trend brought about by our rapidly developing internet infrastructure, it is a valuable marketing tool. No matter what you’re missing — a new blow dryer, a different kind of juice or a wedding — the point is that you’re missing something. Maybe you just don’t know about it yet.

FOMO will be of great use to you as you draft up effective subject lines. Don’t just stop with basic additions such as “act fast,” “for a limited time” or “while supplies last.” Go all the way and use numbers. What makes you want to move faster: “while supplies last” or “three hours left?” The fewer details, the better. This is all about getting your target to open the email. Don’t worry about telling them what ends in three hours. Let them find out for themselves.

Less is sometimes more.

We’re all busy. Nobody has time to read your spiel. Yes, that even includes your 10-word subject line. How many of the hundred emails you received today had 10 words in their subject lines? It adds up, and, at some point, it just looks like alphabet soup. Crafting an email subject line is all about visuals. In my experience, a short, quippy subject line can catch the eye of someone looking at their email inbox because it helps break up the sea of text.

Consider shortening a subject line such as “New jeans from Lucky Brand, Calvin Klein, Collection by Michael Strahan and more” to something more like, “Lucky. Calvin. Strahan.” You can call it a laconic method if you want, but when you treat every word like it’s a scarce commodity, they instantly appear more important.

Laugh it up.

I think we can all agree that email is no longer the stuffy, daunting, formal affair it may have once been. Email is something we do without even thinking. It’s on our phones. It’s how we confirm toothpaste orders. It’s like socks: totally ubiquitous. And consider this: More and more, your target audience is made up of people who weren’t even born before email was invented. These consumers grew up in the beginnings of a post-advertising era, when I believe traditional advertising began to lose its grip. They know a promotional email when they see one.

The solution? Laugh it up. Be a little self-aware. I’ve found that millennials and Generation Z pick up on self-awareness, and they appreciate it. Make fun of yourself a little; it can’t hurt. Switch out your stock enthusiasm for deadpan humor. Be honest. Instead of, “This week’s top picks just for you,” for example, you could try, “We want your money.” The content matters, but what matters more is getting your target interested.

Remember, the meat and potatoes are in the body of your email, but the subject is your alluring dessert. You can have dessert before dinner — as long as you eat.

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?

Your Email Marketing Is Destined To Fail Without These 3 Essentials

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Think email marketing is all spam? Think again! In a world where marketing pitches come at us from all angles and on every device, email marketing has held steady as the favored channel for consumers. When used well, this platform can help you attract, convert, close and delight your buyers. Don’t underestimate it — your company’s email strategy can make or break you.

When it comes to building a successful email-marketing strategy, there are three specific elements that will help you achieve your business goals or move you further away from them, depending on how well you use them.

Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

1. Frequency

Nobody wants to get ten emails a day from a subscription. It doesn’t matter if the content is brilliant, useful or undeniably accurate. Your leads will get annoyed if you send them too much information. Even though they might read it (with some luck), at some point, they’ll feel bothered and eventually click the unsubscribe button.

Avoid losing contacts by not only asking their desired frequency to get your emails, but also by relying on your metrics. Don’t pay too much attention to your open rate alone — look closely at your click-through rate too. This will indicate how interested your leads are and how often they take action to prove it.

While every industry and situation is different, a good place to start with email-marketing cadence is about once per week. This establishes a relationship with your subscribers that can turn into a habit-forming routine. Being too timid about frequency can lead to a sporadic cadence that will end up irritating recipients. If you wait too long between emails, even opt-in subscribers may report you for spam — simply because you’ve let them forget all about you!

2. Relevance

While subscribers may certainly become frustrated by the frequency of your emails, they are more likely to become annoyed if your content is not relevant to their interests and needs.

Relevance is a tricky concept because it depends on many factors like the consumer’s knowledge level, his or her stage in the buyer’s journey and good timing. You must know your audience in order to understand what type of content they want.

Specifically, you need to know what they want from you, which is often dictated by where they are in the buyer’s journey. Are they ready to buy? Are they trying to get valuable information? Are they looking to solve a problem? Are you able to solve that problem?

In every industry, there are two types of buyers: “now” buyers, who are progressing down the purchase funnel, and future buyers, who have no interest in or need for your product currently, but may down the road. For future buyers, the relevance of your content is what’s most important to them; it’s what builds the brand trust that will bring them back to you when they are ready to buy.

Finally, timing is everything. Relevance is about getting the right content to the right person at the right time.

3. Action

We receive emails basically everywhere — at home, work and while on the go. When receiving an email, we may take a look at it immediately, but sometimes it requires further action like submitting a form, watching a video or visiting a website. Try to reduce or streamline required actions in order to make it easy for contacts to follow through at any time of day.

First and foremost, make your offers simple. Your buyers don’t like to be given too many choices; when they are, they often won’t buy anything at all. Even in the physical world, this is the case. In the famous “jam study” by Columbia Business School Professor Sheena Iyengar, for example, she set out two tasting booths for a brand of jam. One table offered six flavors to choose from; the other offered 24.

While the tasting booth with 24 flavors attracted more people, the booth with six flavors sold much more jam — 30% of those who stopped at the booth bought a jar, compared to just 3% of those who stopped at the table with 24 varieties. These visitors were too confused and overwhelmed to make a purchase decision.

The difference between stopping at a booth and buying from a booth is similar to the difference between opening an email and clicking through to an offer. Your email campaigns must be able to achieve both to be successful. The more personalized and concise you can be in your offers, the simpler the choice will be for your email subscribers.

BONUS To enjoy the best email marketing software, click here

[dvp95]

quiet on widow’s peak (2)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, youtuber phil lester, dan howell is not a youtuber, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.2k (this chapter), 6.4k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

"Do you remember the Wilkins place?"

"I'm well, thanks." Martyn's voice is dry, and Phil finds himself grinning at the wall despite himself. "How are you?"

"Good," says Phil. It's mostly true, although he could do without the piles of clothes he's sorting through. He holds his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he picks up a top of Sophie's and starts a whole new pile that he's calling delicates, aka things he's absolutely going to screw up somehow. "People think the Wilkins place is haunted."

There's a beat. Presumably, Phil's brother is trying to fit the name into adolescent memories to see where it slots in. "Oh, that wreck in Rusholme? It hasn't been condemned yet?"

"Apparently it's still a hot spot for binge-drinking teenagers," Phil says.

"Well, sure. But haunted? Really?"

"That's what I said!"

Phil feels a little vindicated by the skepticism in Martyn's voice, to be honest. His friends hadn't taken his weird feeling seriously at all.

"I mean, it's a dump," says Martyn. "More likely to be haunted by a bunch of rats than anything else. Why haven't we heard this before?"

"According to my sources," Phil says, only feeling a bit ridiculous about referring to a bunch of strangers on the internet as 'sources', "the activity only recently started. Which makes me think that someone's lying, or maybe one incident kickstarted everyone else's imaginations?"

"Both could be true. Why don't you ask Ian to go check it out?"

It's not exactly a sore spot, but something inside of Phil still twinges at the question. "He's a little busy, isn't he."

"So am I," Martyn says in that same dry, familiar tone that makes Phil feel as comforted as his mum's fretting or his dad's bad jokes do. "And yet here you are, on my phone."

"You don't have a toddler," Phil points out.

"I don't? Yet here you are..."

Phil snorts a laugh and drops all of the socks he's gathered into an empty basket. It's as good a place to start as any. "Shut up, Mar. I'm at least six."

There are, literally, enough dirty socks and pants between the four of them that Phil has a whole load of just underthings. He spares a moment to be grateful to Sophie for not including her bras, because he'd have no idea where to begin with those. He sighs and picks up the basket, fitting it against his hip with one hand so he can hold his phone with the other.

"Well, I can ask around," says Martyn. "I think my friends might be past the point of sneaking into abandoned houses to party, but maybe they've heard something from their annoying little brothers."

"Ha, ha," Phil says dryly. "Think I should contact some of the people making these claims?"

"Deffo," says Martyn. "If you can record them, it'd be best."

"Yeah, that way I can use them in the video," Phil hums, setting his basket on the washer and opening every cupboard to try to find the detergent. "I mean, if they're okay with that, obviously."

"I actually meant because your bullshit detector is dysfunctional, so me or Peej will have to tell you if someone's lying."

"Wow, rude. Whose fault is that?"

"Yours," Martyn informs him dryly. "Just because I told you Santa would pull you up through the chimney doesn't mean you had to believe me."

Phil rolls his eyes, but he's grinning. Maybe it's just a big brother thing, or maybe it's their personalities, but Martyn isn't wrong - Phil has a hard time telling when someone is lying to him. Martyn was always good at lying with a straight face and seeing right through Phil's outlandish stories.

"I still blame you," says Phil.

"Alright," says Martyn. "When are you coming to visit?"

"Probably not ‘til after this one," Phil says slowly, glancing at the kitten calendar on the fridge. They'd let one of their milder housemates pick this year's after everyone got tired of looking at Chris' previous choice of nude knitted puppets.

"Yeah? You gonna head up north for this one?"

In the very last cupboard he checks, Phil finds the detergent. He wants to be annoyed about it, but the truth is that Holly's habit of switching around the kitchen when she's anxious has saved many a pack of biscuits from expiring behind some flour. Phil has never once been useful to anybody when he's having a meltdown, so.

Phil absentmindedly loads the washer while he considers Martyn's question. Maybe it would be best to check the place out for himself, see if anything's really going on. He likes being on-site best, trusts his own gut more than he trusts strangers' eyes.

The problem, of course, is that Phil's childhood home is up for sale, he has no money for a hotel, and Ian's gone and got himself a child. The last thing Phil wants to do is impose or, like, get roped into babysitting. A trip to Manchester might be out of the question for him right now.

"Maybe," Phil says, noncommittal.

Martyn sees through him in an instant, like always. "Want me to ask Mum if they've got any viewings next weekend? I'm sure you know not to trash the place."

"Have I ever once trashed the place? Don't answer that," Phil adds, remembering the shaving cream incident.

A huff comes down the line, and Phil feels the same pride at making his brother laugh as he had when he was seven and making weird noises out the car window. Yeah, he definitely needs to go to London soon, the Isle afterwards - he hasn't seen his family in way too long.

"I'll let you know what's buzzing, if anything," says Martyn. "And I'll call Mum for you and all. I know you get weird about asking them for favours."

"I get weird about asking anyone for favours," Phil says instead of a thank you, because if he gets weird about asking for help, then Martyn gets twice as weird about reacting to gratitude.

"Except me."

Phil smiles, watching the rainbow of socks and pants spin. "Yeah. Except you."

--

Laundry does end up taking Phil most of the day, but he doesn't mind much. It's the least he can do when Chris always does the first draft edit for him, PJ reminds him to take his EMF meter and his meds when he's packing for an overnight, and Sophie sends him pages upon pages of research while she's at work. He's so fond of these people, and he appreciates all they do for him, but being in debt to them - and not in sole control of his projects - makes Phil feel like he's got ants crawling up his arms.

While he waits out the machine cycles, Phil starts putting feelers out into this story. He checks the sources linked to him again and shoots off a couple of direct messages and emails to see if any of the people posting about the Wilkins place are eager to chat one on one.

He's got his laptop set up at the kitchen table and he's on his third coffee of the day when it occurs to him that he's not out of the woods of owing favours just yet. He clicks back into the Tumblr submission that started this spiral.

He decides that he needs to thank this person, at the very least, and maybe offer to buy them a coffee or something when he's in town. They did so much of Phil's grunt work that it feels weird not to pay them back somehow.

"Well, I can't exactly do your laundry," Phil murmurs to the screen. He hopes none of his other housemates are milling around to hear him.

Another click, and he's on the blog. It's minimalist and monochrome in a way that makes things easy to read, but not very interesting to look at. Phil's eyes start to glaze over as he scrolls through, because it's entertaining enough but - well. It's a typical Tumblr blog. That familiar mixture of memes and rants about social issues and some gifs from shows that Phil doesn't have time to watch. There are a lot of familiar walls of text tagged as personal posts, but Phil still can't parse them without really trying.

They do reblog Phil's video posts, though. That makes him grin.

He scrolls back up to the top of the page to shoot them a message and immediately gets distracted by the bio.

winnie. 21. any pronouns.

For someone who sent Phil a wall of text that could be mistaken for copypasta at first glance, it's surprisingly succinct. Phil takes another swig of his coffee and tries not to get caught up on the last part of it.

Any pronouns? What does that mean, any pronouns? What if Phil uses the wrong ones? He isn't exactly a queer theory student, and as much as he supports everybody under his little rainbow umbrella, he's got to admit that a lot of things still go over his head.

He dithers for so long that his laptop screen goes black, and he makes a face at himself in its reflection. Surely he's overthinking this.

Hi!, Phil types, and then accidentally hits enter. He was just trying not to send the fan a paragraph back, but, fine. Oops. So I'm looking into the things you sent me on the Wilkins place and I'm really impressed by the amount of time you put into this? Like it makes MY job a lot easier haha. Is he a triple-texter? He's a triple-texter. The first one didn't count anyway. So thanks!!!!! I'll def give you credit in the video, but is there anything else I can do to pay you back?

Not literally, he wants to add right after he's sent it. Oh, well. He can't just keep spamming this poor person's chat. He hopes it's obvious that he'd offer monetary compensation if he had it.

Phil leaves the Tumblr tab open and works on editing for a little while. It's almost frustrating how bad this video is, how little effort and energy Phil has started putting into these, and he doesn't know how to fix it short of rethinking his entire career.

He could easily keep churning these out for as long as people watch them, but. He's not having fun anymore.

The Phil on his laptop screen is asking questions, wandering around a cemetery just to see if anything will happen, and Phil can't help comparing it to things he did last year, the year before that, the year before that - it feels like his content is declining as his enthusiasm for the topic does, or maybe vice versa.

Phil zones out for so long that the dryer chime goes off from the hallway, echoing through the old, creaky house. He'd given up on sorting the loads after the fifth shirt that could belong to any of them, so he just takes his own things out and folds his housemates' clothes into one basket.

They can figure it out, he's sure. There's only two bedrooms between the three of them, so there's only two closets, and Phil has gone so long without knowing who's officially sharing that it would be awkward to ask now.

Phil swaps the load over and goes back to his laptop, even though the very last thing he wants to do is continue editing and uploading this mediocre video.

The thing is, Phil doesn't need his content to be perfect. He's happy to post things that just make him laugh or have a nicely spooky vibe or whatever, he doesn't need to solve mysteries every month or two. It's just that. He can hear how little he cares about it, lately. It won't be long before people notice, if they haven't already.

Phil sighs and exits the project. Maybe this video is best left unposted. He's not happy with it at all.

Maybe, if this Wilkins place video doesn't pan out, Phil can start redirecting his energy into a different type of creative output. He's got so many stories bouncing around in his mind, he just needs to figure out how he wants to tell them.

It sounds like his father's voice inside his head, telling him you can't chase ghosts forever. He wishes he still had the gumption to disagree with it.

His laptop makes a little noise, and Phil blinks back to reality. He has to click on a few different tabs to figure out where it came from, but then he realises that he's gotten a response on Tumblr.

Phil smiles despite himself and gets ready for another difficult-to-read message.

Sure enough: UHHHHHH hi hello what the fuck i didnt expect you to say anything this is so weird i am being so weird right now um like no problem? i was procrastinating an essay and this was more fun to research so you dont have to thank me or pay me back whatever that means like i was just fucking around its fine but thank you?????

Phil thinks about the four word Tumblr bio again and snorts. Maybe Winnie wanted to seem as cool and minimalist as their theme itself was.

Procrastination or not, I appreciate it!, Phil replies. Would it be ok if I use you as a reference?

?????????????? i mean yeah but what the fuck, he gets back almost immediately.

It's nice to see you know some punctuation! Sorry if it's weird to reach out like this, I just wanted to like acknowledge the work you put in. I don't have to mention you in the video if you'd prefer!

The sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut interrupts Phil's nervous typing. He freezes for a moment, fingers still on the keyboard, but then PJ comes in the kitchen with a little salute and several bags of craft supplies, and Phil can breathe again.

It isn't that the other people who live in this house are bad people. Far from it. It's just that, of the people Phil has opted to share this large space with for nearly two years, only three of them have made any kind of effort to understand Phil. The others are nice enough, he supposes, but sometimes they come and go and new people replace them and - Phil isn't exactly good with change, is the thing.

So he relaxes when he can talk to PJ instead of making small talk with someone who thinks he's weird and too messy. "Hey! How's your day?"

"Better than yours," PJ laughs. He drops all the bags on the table and starts puttering around the kitchen. "Hungry?"

"Please. And it wasn't so bad, I got some work done."

"Yeah? Any new info on the new haunt?"

It's incredible how genuinely interested PJ always is in Phil's work. Phil grins down at his keyboard and shrugs a bit. "Some. Mostly just poking around right now, though. Mar's asking his friends too. Oh, and I thanked the person who sent it in."

"That's good," PJ says. He's putting the kettle on, because that's what PJ does when he comes home. "How'd they react?"

"Mostly confusion," Phil laughs. He glances at his screen to see if Winnie has responded - they haven't - and chews on his lip a little bit. "Hey, Peej? If someone says any pronouns are fine, what does that mean?"

"Generally," PJ hums, "it seems like it would mean any pronouns are fine."

"Oh, shut up." Phil runs a hand through his hair, always anxious about getting stuff like this wrong.

"I'm not joking," PJ says, although his tone is still light.

"Oh. So it just... doesn't matter?"

"Not to some people, I guess." PJ leans against the counter as he waits for the water to boil. At least he's smiling, although Phil can't help but notice that it's a little patronizing. "You do know that I'm not a gender guru, right? I'm barely a gender novice. I failed gender out the gate, buddy."

Phil knows his cheeks are pinking up a bit, but he rolls his eyes. "Shut up," he repeats. "You still know way more than me."

The shrug he gets in response makes Phil huff a laugh. This isn't something they talk about, but Phil has been present for enough of Chris and PJ's conversations that he'd gotten the idea.

He wonders if PJ cares that he's bringing it up. Is he making PJ uncomfortable? They don't talk about this.

"Stop spiralling," PJ says easily. His smile is warmer, now. "I don't hate you, nobody hates you, and the fan who doesn't care about pronouns certainly doesn't hate you. If you're that worried about upsetting them, though, you can always ask."

Maybe he's known PJ too long. He's grateful for it, still, so relieved that he doesn't have to voice the swirling anxiety of doing something wrong when he only has the best intentions.

"I guess I could do that," Phil mutters, embarrassed by how easily he's been read.

Winnie's responded by the time Phil looks back at the chat window, a lmao yeah ofc thats fine i just cant believe you want to, im not trying to b weird ive just been a fan for a really long time?? (used a comma for you too) (and brackets) (youre welcome) that makes Phil smile.

Awesome! And are the name Winnie & they/them pronouns fine to talk about you with, or do you prefer something else for this?

no yeah thats good idc how you refer to me, is Winnie's immediate response. It's stupid how much of a load feels like it's been lifted off of Phil's shoulders at that easy reassurance.

"You were right," Phil informs PJ.

PJ nods, solemn, as he stirs his noodles. "I often am."

"You're annoying, also," says Phil. "Hey. D'you wanna come up north with me?"

"Phil," says PJ dramatically, holding the wooden spoon up to his heart. "Are you asking me to run away with you?"

"No, absolutely not, stop making that joke." There's no way in hell Phil is going to keep putting up with this from both of them, and PJ is more likely to listen to him than Chris is.

PJ laughs. "Yeah, yeah. You going to see the haunt?"

"If my parents are okay with us hanging out for the weekend, yeah."

"Oh, okay," says PJ. "We're just waiting on confirmation that Kath and Nigel want to spend time with you? Might as well pack now."

"Your stuff's folded," Phil says helpfully. PJ throws a noodle in his general direction. It flops onto the floor between them, a sad, wet spiral of a thing, and Phil touches his nose at the same time PJ does.

"Well, one of us has to pick it up," PJ says in his Reasonable Adult voice, as if he hadn't thrown it in the first place.

Phil looks at his laptop, valiantly pretending not to see the floor noodle, and blinks.

and i mean i havent seen any of this shit firsthand but if you need to ask me anything about the stuff thats gone down im always free. like literally always.

[robboyblunder]

~click for better view!

So since i’m into Red vs Blue, I made my own halo soldier/spartan a bit ago and have been drawing him a bunch for practice and out of boredom so I thought I’d post the stuff I did with him~ you’d be surprised how much I can do with freetime and a lot of boredom... I made him up using an online generator and came up with this:

the profile bust picture took up an entire page in my sketchbook too so it’s a LOT bigger than it looks; I wanted to do more with it but didn’t wanna ruin it so I left it as it. anyways here’s this guy! I’ll put the story stuff I made up for him under a read more~ I used some ‘make your own soldier’ template someone made lmao

(please don’t repost or use w/o permission, and leave my description; thanks!)

I wrote this all in wordpad so if the grammar or anything is off...that’s why lmao.

Name: Renin Psy Codename: Psy ID: PS22 DOB: July 1st, age 25 Gender: Male Armor: EVA helmet, CQB left shoulder pad, EVA Right shoulder pad, EOD Chestplate Armor Colors: Primary is Silver, Secondary is Tan, Detail is Salmon Nationality: (???), born in desert climate biome on unspecified planet; formerly lived in oasis area within all the sand and heat before being taken into and raised by army as spartan soldier. Location: (???) Rank: ‘formerly’ captain, now bounty hunter (still has rank due to being considered missing as he was never recovered from a mission) Classification: Highly trained in standard soldier abilities, but has become a reconnaissance expert/bounty hunter Squad/Fireteam: Used to have squad of 5 (including him), now loner Primary Weapon of Interest: Sniper rifle Secondary Weapon of Interest: SMG/automatic Preferred Armor Ability: Thruster Pack

Personality: Surprisingly empathetic and easily emotional, he hides it well behind a steely demeanor that makes him seem distant and never quite involved; very objective focused, and will bend or break rules if necessary to achieve his goals, though he's not very willing to sacrifice innocents to achieve them making him conflicted. Being very emotional, he has a lot of spirit and determination and can be fairly stubborn at times. Despite being skilled in combat, he prefers to avoid it altogether if possible as stealth is his main skill; uncomfortable situations and fighting upset him and he can show strong emotion if his demeanor wavers, surprising others with outbursts of emotion now and then. Otherwise he's a quiet and distant person, though when he opens up to someone he can be very talkative, sharing, and loyal. He is not easy to forget or forgive, and carries grudges to the core.

Relationship Towards Fellow Comrades: Appreciates team mates and company, and does best to be on their good side; as the leader, he usually tries to keep his relationships with all members balanced not allowing favorism (or keeping it to himself) to keep them from infighting. Though usually short and to the point on the outside and seemingly spaced off a lot, when one gets closer to him he becomes warm and friendly and opens up.

Last Known Location: Disappeared in action during combat, lost team (not sure if they're alive or dead) in a frozen wasteland planet

Status: MIA

Anything Else About you Spartan: He's a very caring and creative fellow with a soft heart which is unfitting for the army, so he hides it and tries to be a concise and effective leader instead making him seem like an emotionless robot to most. To those he serves, he's usually unquestioningly loyal unless he gains suspicions their actions and objects are harmful and not morally right; he hate injustice and unfairness, and would rather die than commit and unjust act. Having been drafted, he decided to make the best of his situation and try to achieve to the greatest heights he could, though even if he excelled he was never at the top; instead he was more so above average, and his team wasn't considered top-tier though it was effective. Though after disappearing in action, he now secretly travels collecting bounties on those he deems guilty while helping others wherever he can; he donates a lot of the massive bounties when he doesn't need the money, keeping few personal belongings as he has no stationary home. 

His main goal is to try and recover from the mission that nearly destroyed him and his team breaking them apart, bring his team back together, and achieve justice against those who sent them to their deaths without letting them know what could happen fully. he isn't exactly sure why, who, or how but he's determined to find out one way or another. His side goal is to try and help those he can, and fix himself internally; the practical suicide mission he and his squad went through traumatized him and left him struggling to keep his emotions and sanity in control; he often loses himself to memories, spacing off more so than ever or can violently relive them and become aggressive and physically violent in response often accidentally scaring/endangering/hurting others in return. hurting others however piles more of the immense guilt and blame he has on himself further making him unstable.

Likes: friends, fair treatment, romance novels/movies/etc., motorcycles and vehicles, trying out new weapons, temperant weather, collecting valuable items, making others happy, taking down criminals, running over criminals, flying (jetpacks, planes, you name it), star gazing, day dreaming, leading his squad, sneaking up on others, polishing his visor, cleanliness (though dirtiness isn't entirely bothersome; he just prefers things clean), being complimented, feeling special/important, sniping, being accurate, feeling included, water falls, robots/robotics, cats

Dislikes: loneliness/being alone, injustice, killing/hurting innocents, upsetting those he cares about, thick mud, extreme heat or cold (he deals with it but hates it), being underground, his stuff breaking/getting lost/stolen, sharing his personal items, thinking about bad memories, spacing off (when not on purpose), being spotted/giving himself away from stealth, feeling ignored/unimportant/useless, making mistakes, turtles/turtle like creatures, dishonesty and manipulation, swallowing his pride, being forced to follow rather than lead, being disrespected/mocked/etc., people w/ cold/unfriendly personalities, getting lost, being out of control, being exposed