#guessing they’ll call us in there individually like for auditions so i can probably just do my callback toward the end of the slot

[pallases]

I GOT A CALLBACK

[hawkinslibrary]

i love hearing what you have to say about season 4!! i promise it’s not too long lol, anyway i have a question for you: what do you think the next season holds for mike & el? i’m a little worried tbh

ahhh thank you !! same rules apply: spoilers ahead, so please read no further and blacklist/filter out the ‘s4′, ‘st4′, ‘spoilers’ tags if you don’t want to see anything !! 

i’m going to talk about them both as individuals and as a pair but first, i have to say that i don’t personally feel like you have to worry about them breaking up or anything again this season. i think s4 is really going to establish romantic jopper and once that happens, i don’t see them, mileven, or jancy not being endgame unless someone actually dies. which -- i’m not going to think about the possibility of anyone dying until i’m forced to confront it, so. this is fiction and it’s already unrealistic and i’m gonna take my ‘everyone survives, happiness all around, time to relax’ endings and go. anyway, i would love to add lumax to this list but i honestly think it could go either way depending on what happens in s4. that’s a different essay, though.

i tend to think that the most important dynamic on the show is the one between the whole group and i just don’t really see them spending much more time trying to develop romantic relationships outside of the ones set up since s1/2. maybe steve, robin, and will get love interests, maybe they decide to develop dustin and suzie more, maybe suzie is never even mentioned again, idk. but these will probably all be secondary -- as in less screen time, not less important than the main romances, but probably still less developed. unless it happens to be a new person added to the main cast. which, as of now, the only new mains are brett and priah who has gone from recurring to regular. so.  

i think s3 showed how messy and complicated romantic relationships (or, really just relationships in general) can be. everyone was arguing, there was miscommunication all around, everyone thought they knew what was best, no one was seeing eye to eye. but when it comes down to it, they would do anything for each other. they understand each other better than anyone else ever could. i can’t see them spending another season on breakups and romance drama after the ending of s3.  

mike and el have already been separated once before. this time, mike knows for sure that she’s alive and that’s she’s with the byers. this time, el won’t be kept completely isolated away from everyone else. they’ve made plans to meet for the holidays. they can still call and talk to each other as much as they want. i’m hoping they handle being separated this time better than they did in s2. i don’t want mike to be moping and i don’t want el to spend a lot of the season thinking about how much she misses him. in fact, i think in their case that some distance could be good for them. the same for jancy and jopper, too, honestly. it’ll be nice to see them existing outside of these relationships while still acknowledging how important they are.   

as far as i know, the byers and el stuff has not started filming yet so all there is to speculate on are rumors, the audition tapes, and logical guesses about where the story goes after s3. el obviously moves away with the byers. we still don’t know where. she’ll still be mourning hopper and trying to figure out life without her powers. and, of course, she’ll be in a long distance relationship with mike. i think she’ll be having a hard time and she’ll wish that mike was around, but she’ll realize she’s got a pretty good support system around her now with the byers, too. i’m very, very excited for more joyce and el content particularly, but there’s gotta be some great scenes with her and will and jonathan as well. 

there’s only one audition tape that i can confidently tie into the byers + el plot(s?) and it’s the queen bee/mean girl character ‘angela’. if we’re running with the whole ‘there may be some truth to the audition vids’ thing, then this one teases that el will be going to school and that angela will be bullying her. this is something she would probably want to talk about with mike (b i g troy s1 vibes) but i don’t know if she actually would ? so this is probably more a thing that el and will could bond over or that she could talk about with joyce or maybe jonathan. i do think there will be at least a few calls between the two of them before the action really hits and the whole group is (hopefully...) reunited.

so, el -- at least in the beginning of s4 -- will be going to school where ‘angela’ bullies her, forming a bond with joyce + will + jonathan and becoming part of the family, mourning hopper (+ hopefully having conversations about him + his past with joyce), missing her friends back in hawkins, continuing to learn how to navigate life without her powers, and trying to maintain a long distance relationship with mike. 

mike... i’ve been seeing some wild theories about him today but they aren’t really that far-fetched i think. first, going back to the audition tapes, the ‘eddie’ audition i saw makes it seem like mike is going to be part of the hellfire club with dustin. i’ve recently learned that there’s another version of the scene where ‘eddie’ is only talking to dustin and mike might not be a part of the club after all. if he isn’t part of the club, then the basketball v. hellfire, jocks v. nerds thing turns into lucas v. dustin and mike’s probably there just caught in the middle while max is off distancing herself from everyone.

at this point, i really want mike and max to become good friends. i think the end of s3 gave them the perfect opportunity. s4 max has s2 mike vibes. it’s not the same situation at all, but he knows kinda what she’s feeling and they could connect through that + the fact that they’ll both be missing el. i also just really want... some wheeler siblings content. i’m hopeful that s4 gives us good nancy and mike scenes bc there’s no reason not to give us good nancy and mike scenes (+holly!). however...

while there’s proof that gaten and sadie and natalia and priah have all been filming since production restarted, and while i have reason to believe that caleb has been filming a lot inside/at the studio recently... there’s no evidence that finn has been on set. there’s none for maya and joe, either, but people have said that finn isn’t even in atlanta right now. maybe he is and maybe he just hasn’t been seen and maybe he’ll pop back up tomorrow. or, maybe he already filmed whatever he needed to film for hawkins before production stopped.  

the wild theory that’s popped up today is that everything gets to be too much for him in hawkins and he just... hops on a train to go visit el + the byers. i don’t know if i buy it, but it is interesting to note that he was sitting with them at the table read. and since we can guess that steve and robin will still be working at the video store, robin and nancy will be investigating pennhurst together, lucas and max may have some angst, joyce and murray are probably teaming up for the finding/saving hopper plot, and el is going to bond with will and jonathan, it seems like the order might mean a little something. i’d even bet that dustin and erica have scenes with them bonding over d&d.    

now this theory pretty much only exists because no one’s seen finn on set and one of the paps posted some pics of some trains. there’s also always theories about how there will be issues at home with the wheeler fam and if that’s going to happen, what better time than in s4 when all of his friends are pulling away and el’s gone again. so if he is missing el (and will) that much, and if he has any reason to worry about her and how she’s doing, or if the party becoming distant and issues at home are weighing on him and he feels like he needs to get away, he’s absolutely the type to venture off on a train by himself. i don’t know how it would work since he’s definitely supposed to still be in school and his friends/nancy at least would notice he’s gone, but.. it’s fun to think about and we’ve got zero actual content to go off of right now.  

another way i could see mike’s plot going is that he’s the one trying to keep the party together this season. playing mediator with lucas and dustin, becoming better friends with max, being the connection between the hawkins plot and the byers plot (along with nancy). 

there was also talk of him joining the track team bc the track has been set up with hawkins high colors for filming. but mike ‘this isn’t a stupid sports game’ wheeler? i don’t think so... basically, no one knows at the moment what’s happening with mike wheeler in s4 lol.

s4 mike is just like s4 byers fam -- a complete mystery to me currently. i don’t personally think that he’ll be leaving school and hopping on a train to visit el. i think he’ll be a part of the hellfire club with dustin, or that he won’t and instead will be attempting to keep the party from completely disbanding. i hope that we get wheeler siblings scenes and that max and mike have a breakthrough and become better friends. i also feel like he’ll be having some complicated feelings about hopper, the last interaction they had, etc. and, again, the whole long distance thing with el. 

so... mike and el broke up in s3. it was messy. but then they reconciled. and then hopper “died”. s3 ended with them at this weird place where she’s heard him say that he loves her and she’s told him that she loves him back. things are a little awkward in the scene bc everything has changed at this point, but a kiss, an ‘i love you’, planning to meet up on the holidays, and promising to call frequently all sounds like they’re back together and going to try making the long distance thing work to me. 

i think they’ll be together when s4 starts. i think that we’ll probably only see them talking on the phone or their radios for the first few eps. maybe we’ll see flashbacks or something to them being together on the holidays. the distance might be hard and they’re definitely going to be missing each other. like... el doesn’t have mike or hopper with her now and i’m thinking the party is going to be drifting apart, plus they’re both probably going to have other personal issues that have nothing to do with each other or the party. maybe they’ll be experiencing some emotional distancing of their own while dealing with the aftermath of hopper’s “death”, the move, and whatever’s going on with them at home and at school. i think that once they reunite (probably not until the last half of the season), they’re likely to be stronger than ever. 

now, onto personal theories that have zero basis. for some reason, i can’t get it out of my head that this season might dive into psychological horror a little bit ? like a greatest fears type of thing ?? and i keep thinking about brenner popping back up and using the people el loves to get to her or something and 👀👀 

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

The Umbrella Academy Season 1 Episode 5

We start off the episode, not with a flashback, but with a flashforward. To when Five jumped ahead to the future. He's mainly just walking around a lot, carting Deloris and various things in a wagon. Deloris goes through various fashion statements depending on what time of the year it is (a fur muff hat in the winter, sunglasses and a tanktop in the summer). He does seem to have a sort of make-shift home when he's older.

One day, he's approached by a woman from the time traveling agency that Cha-Cha and Hazel work for. She tells him that the agency works to keep history on the right track. Five asks why didn't people stop the apparent apocalypse, but she laughs and says that it was meant to be. It's not the end of everything... just the end of something. She then offers him a job as an agent.

He worked there for a long time, but not as long as he should have according to the contract he made. Which is why Hazel and Cha-Cha are currently after him: for breach of contract. When he was supposed to...??? Assassinate JFK, I guess? He finally figured out what it would take in order to return to his own time. And then he jumped back to the academy the day of his father's funeral. And you know the rest from there.

He tells all of this to Luther back in Diego's boiler room bedroom. Luther takes it a lot better than Vanya did, and wants to help stop the end of the world.

Diego comes in and says about how his friend died, and demands that Five start talking. Five briefly mentions that he knows the people after him, but that they'll kill Diego if he tries to go after them, too.

Meanwhile, I guess Klaus accidentally time traveled. Back to the 1960's, for a year. And he was drafted, apparently, because he comes back with an army tattoo, dog tags, and a “military uniform”. Five later finds him, and says that he recognizes the symptoms of time travel “jet lag”. Klaus brushes him off, and leaves the house, but runs into Diego as he's leaving to get revenge on Hazel and Cha-Cha. Klaus is oddly silent in the car, which is something Diego remarks upon, because it's so strange. Klaus asks to be dropped off, and then goes into a “veteran's only bar”. There, he wanders around a bit before he starts crying before a picture up on one of the walls. The other vets, who are older, are getting kind of upset about the entire thing. Diego comes in before any vet can say anything, and asks Klaus what's going on.

Then, one of the vets tells Klaus that he has to leave, because this bar is only for veterans. Klaus gets upset and defensive, and says that he is a vet. He also tells the older vet to “fuck off”. Diego tries to defuse the situation by saying that his brother is drunk, and just wants to be on his way. The other vet says that he'll let them go when he gets an apology... from Klaus. Which Klaus gives to him... sort of. “I'm sorry... that you're such a stick in the mud!” Or something like that. This leads to a bar fight... which is both worrying and comical, considering that all of the bar patrons are older.  

While that's going on, Hazel and Cha-Cha are in deep shit because Klaus took off with their time-travel what-have-you. And their bosses know it, because every trip is recorded in some office somewhere (somewhen).

There's this really bizarre scene where Hazel flirts with the doughnut shop waitress. This has been going on for some time now, but I feel like it reached a weird peak with this episode, where he activly hung out with her while she was on a break.

As he's leaving the shop, Diego and Klaus see him leaving. Diego I think recognizes the suit that he's wearing, and maybe the build. Klause recognizes him because he was unmaked during the second half of torturing him. They follow them back to the new motel that they're staying at, where Diego puts a tracker under their car.

However, Cha-Cha sees Diego outside. They get a message from the motel manager; it's from Five, saying that he has the briefcase, and wants to meet them. They sneak out the back, but Diego is on to them. However, while he and Klaus are away from the car (and Klaus shows some life-saving moves he learned during the war), one of the two slash the tires on Diego's car.

Back at the academy, Luther finds Five scribbling all over his walls with chalk. He asks what Five's doing, and Five says he's pin-pointed four individuals who he should kill in order to prevent the end of times. Luther asks about the first guy on the list, and is horrified when Five says that he thinks the guy is a gardener. Five says that it's the difference between one life vs billions... which when you've literally seen the wasteland, that's kind of a big deal. He pulls out a gun that used to belong to their father, which only upsets Luther more. Luther then grabs Deloris and hangs her out the window, and says that Five has to pick. Five picks Deloris, which means that Luther ends up with the gun.

They go out to the meeting spot, and Luther insists that he be the one to hold onto the fake time travel briefcase. Hazel and Cha-Cha show up, and Five asks for a meeting with their boss; he refuses to tell them why. Cha-Cha makes a call on a nearby payphone, and they all settle in to wait.

However, before any time traveler can show up, a creepy rendition of Ride of Valkyries starts to play. It's Diego and Klaus in a stolen ice-cream truck that was by their car in the motel parking lot. They crash into Cha-Cha and Hazel...

And all time stops, except for Five. The same agent as before shows up and chastises him in his efforts to save the world. She then offers him a job... in time travel management. Because he's a good agent. He scoffs over this, but he does make a deal with her: that he only just wants his family to survive. She promises to see what she can do. Before she unstops time, Five tosses Hazel's gun away, and moves a bullet so that it's not going to hit Luther.

Time unfreezes, the bullet hits the car, and the truck crashes into Hazel's and Cha-Cha's car. Luther tosses the briefcase away, which Hazel runs over to grab. Luther then grabs Diego and Klaus from the now ruined ice-cream truck, and they speed away, abandoning the time traveling duo in the middle of nowhere. (Five meanwhile, left with the lady. Luther seems baffled by Five's disappearance, but he rolls with it.)

While that's going on, there's a subplot with Allison, Vanya, and Leonard. Allison keeps insisting that Leonard is creepy, but Vanya is angry at her sister, stating that she doesn't get to just be out of Vanya's life for so long, and then come in and say weird things like “don't date this guy!”

Vanya goes to meet Leonard for breakfast, where she tells him that the first chair violin player (the nasty bitch from an earlier episode) has “mysteriously” disappeared. (We'll get to this in a moment.) Leonard encourages Vanya to try out for the first chair spot, because it's her time to shine. Vanya is happy because nobody has ever actually encouraged her before.

Meanwhile, Allison looks through microfiche at the library, in search of Leonard. (At the same time, across the table from Allison, Cha-Cha does research on the Umbrella Academy, and ends up reading Vanya's book, but I don't know how much good that actually researching did either of them...) Later, Allison goes back to Vanya's apartment to tell her that she tried to look up Leonard in the paper, and couldn't find much of him. Vanya scoffs over this as actual evidence, because most people aren't in the paper on a daily basis, Ms. Super celebrity.

Allison still isn't convinced over this, so she breaks into Leonard's house. I don't know if she found anything in the main part of the house, but before she's about to pull down the door to the attic, Leonard comes home, so she sneaks out. (And we'll get to the attic in a moment, too.)

Vanya goes to her audition, where the conductor still doesn't know who the fuck Vanya is. However, as Vanya starts to play, a weird energy drifts out from her, and falls over the conductor and two ladies who are sitting behind him.

She later goes to Leonard to tell him that she got first chair (and the solo being first chair comes with). She says that she was uncertain about it,because it's the first time that she's ever played without her medication. Which is something that we've seen her taking throughout the series so far. In the previous episode, after Leonard made breakfast plans with Vanya, he was seen dumping out her pills into the sink. They kiss, and start to get hot and heavy on the sofa.

As they're doing that, the same strange energy radiates from Vanya, through the house, and up to the attic. There, we see what Allison did: the shitty violinist, wrapped in plastic and clearly dead. Reginald's journal that Klaus threw away. And probably a bunch of other stuff like that that I can't identify.

The energy leaves the house, and travels to the academy. I think Pogo senses it. He then turns to Grace, who he has repaired. He asks that she keep something a secret from the children.

[weeabookstore]

senbatsu sunday. the weea-big one.

an insane amount of work went into this week’s weeabatsu. mostly because i tried giving index scores to other established rankings. they aren’t perfect as they are, but i do have a goal of making them really nice and comprehensive by next sousenkyo season. then i’ll share it with the weebs over on stage or something.

so i’ve explained in the spreadsheet how the weeabindex breaks down, but here are some highlights.

sousenkyo. oshima yuko, acchan, mayuyu, shinoda mariko, and yukirin are the sousenkyo’s top girls (of which only yukirin remains). after them, you start to see outliers like ngt’s honma or ikoma who both ranked highly in a single year. i considered limiting this list to members who participated three years or more (what i call the maeda atsuko rule), but figured that’d just make it harder for me updating in the future. the comparison to weeabatsu uses an alternate weeabatsu ranking that eliminates any girl who has not ranked in ssk. jurina, miyazawa sae, and kitarie’s ranks are the same between the indexed ssk and the alt weeabatsu. the most similar in terms of index score is oya shizuka.

stage48. i’ve only gone as far back as the 2012 rankings for this list, simply because i don’t think the older results exist in their complete forms anymore. the weeabindex scores here are derived from the total ranked rather than number eligible simply because of stage’s downvote system makes it statistically awkward to include girls who received no votes at all. i would say the popularity of the top 16 (senbatsu basically) is pretty indisputable. compared to weeabatsu, tanaka miku’s rank is the same while hiragana’s higurashima mei is the closest by index score all the way down there at the bottom.

reddit. this ranking is less important as the /r/akb48 community is pretty much dead. still, i had the time. jurina is reddit’s queen apparently, ranking first in the two given years. the index scores are going to be pretty positively skewed simply because the number of eligible members i much higher. compared to weeabatsu, kitarie is the same in rank, and shiraishi is the most similar in score.

your regular weeabatsu update after the break.

01. ske down 0.95, 16.2 above average. added kitano ruka (194). ske continues to be the weeabatsu top group. suda akari in here with the biggest individual boost this week. this is thanks to recent bingo appearances and her guest spots on the tentoumu-chu show.

02. keyaki down 4.28, 11.25 above average. keyaki overtook their senpai this week, and i can’t even tell you why.

03. nmb down 0.75, 9.41 above average. added shibuya nagisa (73). i talked some shit about nmb being rip this week. yagura announcing grad just really makes me feel like they have no future without leeching off of sayaka. yet weirdly and magically, they’re third best this week. some thanks goes to nagisa who i fell in love with while watching tentoumu-chu. also, yabushita jumped 60 places, contributing to nmb’s minimal average change.

04. nogi down 6.9, 8.81 above average. i lied earlier; i can guess why nogi fell some. terada, yoda, and kubo got kicked down a couple of tiers (probably a few too many). again, nothing much nogi is doing wrong, they’re still my favs. i’m just beginning to see the merit in other groups.

05. akb down 5.02, 2.59 above average. added eight members. i did it; i caught up on akbingo. to summarize some thoughts, (1) muramoto isn’t as shit as everyone says, (2) the best episodes include sister groups, (3) 2017 is a pretty good akbingo year so far. i’ve also now mentally separated akb into four subgroups: dai-senpai (gens 1-9), next gen (gens 10-15), 8tos, and the children (gen 16+/kenkyuusei).

06. hkt down 5.3, 10.7 below average. indexing ssk and the stage ranks really got me thinking about hkt. mainly, i really, really don’t understand the appeal of miyawaki sakura. at all. she’s just really boring to me. and as much as i like the girls now, a lot of that is thanks to sashihara. i want to preface that i knew absolutely nothing about sasshi’s history prior to watching hyakaten and tonkotsu, but that senpai/houhai dynamic is really what made hkt initially interesting.

07. sdn down 9.8, 37.5 below average. i’m still surprised that sdn isn’t last. really, it’s my respect for ohori and noro in the early bingo days that keeps them here. kondo is pulled up by association, an aspect of the weeabatsu that emulates the idea that being in the right team affects your standing.

08. team8 up 32.5, 41.58 below average. added six members. team8 the only positive change this week, and it’s a huge jump too. i watched bunbun; i liked bunbun, and this is the result. i wanted to make some comments on individual members that may seem familiar if you follow us on twitter. yamada nanami is the future yamamoto sayaka. chou kurena is the better shimazaki haruka. honda hitomi is... a less interesting miyazaki miho, but she’s okay. i made the comparison between team8 and hkt last week, but now i’ll honestly say i think 8tos have more raw potential.

09. ngt down 7.93, 42.93 below average. now, i’‘ll say ngt is essentially early hkt. however, i really have no clue how well they’ll do without kitahara. i don’t know how well kitarie will do without ngt. she said recently that she’d never passed a single audition after joining akb ten years ago. ten years. i like kitahara, so i hope she got one hell of a plan post-graduation.

i want to add here at the end, that i give no fucks about scandals. let the girls be girls. i say this because stage really crucified the hell out of sayuringo and owada nana (the latter of which never recovered before graduating). unless she’s a straight up felon, i don’t care what idols do off-camera or offstage.

[incogvito]

This is Unimportant

Because, in the grand scheme of things, I am unimportant. And while that won’t ring true for every aspect of my life (I am important to my family, my friends, etc), to a large degree, say 99% of the Earth’s population, I don’t matter.  (This isn’t a pity party. Just hang with me.)

So, if I don’t matter, the things I care about mean even less. To that same 99%, the amazing things my kids do are not just unimportant, they’re irrelevant. And guess what? That’s fine. That is absolutely normal and expected, really. But if you were to put me in a situation where I had to care...something like the relief efforts for Harvey and Irma and Maria...where I might not necessarily know the person across from me, that changes. You might say that empathy is required. And that’s really what I want to talk about. The things that are required, and the things that are expected.

See, there is currently a culture war being “fought” in this country. To those outside of the US, this is completely ridiculous, I’m sure, but in a way, totally expected. The person that was elected as President of the United States, before the election, was a celebrity. And further, he was a celebrity that, while never really doing anything that makes a celebrity celebrated (he bought buildings), he is someone that, excuse the terminology, “gets off” on being famous. He is, in a weird way, part of a pop culture moment (that moment being the 1980′s, aka the Me Generation); I think the first time I saw him was on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, a tv “magazine” show that explored the glitzy side of wealth. Money and wealth was important in the Era of Reagan, and that’s kind of getting off topic, but it’s important context. The 80′s made celebrities of guys like Lee Iacocca and, you guessed it, Donald Trump. So, for Trump, being not just in the public eye, but being a part of the social conversation, was (and still is) important to him. It’s the whole basis for his being. Which is why he makes tweets that are so incendiary; Twitter and tweeting is social currency. His speeches have less to do with policy (of which he has none other than destroying the legacy of Barack Obama) and more to do with what is happening on TV. It’s why he goes after NFL players. Or Broadway shows. Or ESPN anchors. He cares less about things like Detroit’s water, and more about things like the Detroit Lions*.

Take that, and then push out from there, to his influence. His base feels emboldened to criticize things that, in the grand scheme of things, shouldn’t matter to a politician; A movie star talking about climate change; an athlete that kneels in protest; things that only matter to us, the people, because we are generally looking for someone in that position to speak about something we care about. Or, the opposite; we want a leader to validate something that we, the people, don’t want to care about. Trump took three days to talk about the violence in Charlottesville because he doesn’t care about it. He cares about Q ratings. He cares about approval. It’s why he vacillated so much in his responses. He cares about celebrity and fame. So, his base attacks things that are part of pop culture; films, music, tv shows, and...I’m finally getting to my point...comic books.

Let’s go back to the idea of the things that are expected of us and the things that are required of us. Without naming names and giving credence to a lot of, frankly, stupid ideology, I’m going to cut right to it. There’s a comic book reviewer that has this notion that Marvel Comics and DC Entertainment are out of touch with what today’s reader wants to read. As far as I know, those are the only two companies he has targeted in his ire, but I could be wrong; he may have said something about Dark Horse or Boom! Studios or Image...I don’t know for sure (I would imagine this to be the case). A lot of his arguments stem from the idea of diversity hires affecting the finished product. Things like transgender authors, or black artists. Or things like female characters being drawn in “untraditional” (read: unsexy) ways. Or of a writer injecting his or her political ideology into the stories. A lot of it is navel gazing and totally besides the point, but it caught fire this week when Mark Waid (note: a personal friend) posted on a private Facebook page that he was looking for this individual and screenshots of that got leaked (note: I was a member of that private page). The context of Mark’s statements were that he wanted to engage in dialogue with the reviewer in person at Baltimore Comic Con, but his words were written in the moment and probably came off as more incendiary than intended (as evidenced by his later posts, the same day/night, once the leak happened). I’m not going to defend Mark; don’t need to or want to. Again, I want to talk about requirements and expectations and how they pertain to comic books and comic book reviewing. 

(I fully apologize for what’s about to come, because it’s 2017 and I have to write this, and I’m 44 and people should know better, but oh well, I guess.)

When you buy a comic book (or DVD, or what have you), there is only one requirement; you are required to read it. Actually, you’re required to pay for it and expected to read it (and there are some that don’t pay because either they get comps, or the publisher sends out PDF’s, or they pirate the books). That’s it. Buy and read. You are expected to have an opinion based on this, because generally speaking, we all do. I read a comic by a creator a few weeks ago, another friend, and it was my opinion that this was not his best work, and a waste of his abilities. But... YOU’RE NOT **REQUIRED** TO SHARE THAT OPINION. Crazy, right? Look, I’m not saying you can’t say, “This comic was a waste of my time,” especially if you’re getting paid to do so. But if someone hands you a stack of books and asks you to review the books, you’re review should be about the contents of the book, not the creator working on it. I’m in the camp that believes we should spend more time writing about the things we like, and spending less time destroying the things we don’t care about. I used to work in a comic store (almost 11 years) and my boss had what he called, “the third aisle rule,” or something similar. The philosophy is this; while you and a customer are dogging something in aisle one, over in aisle three is a reader who has that same book and now, due to hearing you trash it, doesn’t want to buy it because a) she’s too embarrassed to bring it to the counter or b) she’d rather buy her books somewhere else that she won’t be ridiculed for her choices. Ostensibly, it’s about not losing a sale. We were encouraged to praise the books we loved, but if we didn’t like something, we were asked to not talk about it at all. 

One of the things that was brought up in one of these articles that popped up in the aftermath of that leak was that the guy (and now I’m legit blanking on his name) made comments about diversity hires, pointing out one writer who was selected for the DC Writer’s Workshop. He claims that the writer was selected purely because she is a transgender woman (I need to apologize here because the article used the male pronoun and because I’m unfamiliar with the writer he was targeting, I am not sure if I’m using the correct pronoun, or if the article writer was trying to be intentionally controversial, so I am just going on my best guess). Here’s the thing about diversity hires; he has no right to question anyone’s hiring practices. He does a YouTube review “show.” As far as I know, he isn’t a comic book writer (but one of his buddies that, I think, initially leaked the screenshot is a writer and might have written comics? I’m unclear, but moving on). As far as I know, DC hiring her did not take food off of his table.

But guess what?

It took food off of MY table.

How?

Because I “auditioned” for the same Writer’s Workshop.

But, this is the funny part. Instead of tearing apart someone I don’t know, or a process I wasn’t a part of, I just got over it. It stung for a day, sure; rejection is never easy, but ultimately WHO CARES WHO DC HIRES? Just give me a good book. At the end of the day, I’m still a fan; I still want to be entertained. 

And to this guy and his friends, in their minds, in this scenario, DC took an opportunity away from a white man (which, I’m sorry, I’m Puerto Rican and Italian, and while my name is more Italian, I was raised by my mom’s family, so I identify with my Hispanic side). Is it so controversial that DC maybe thinks I’m not a good writer? And that she is? And why do you care? Or, the other side of it; that hiring someone that is fringe (I guess) or left of center harms these characters that we’ve known for 70 years or less (depending on the character we’re talking about at that moment). This is the weird gatekeeping of culture that somehow, someone who doesn’t own that character or idea feels they have ownership over. It’s all so...backwards. If DC hires six women to write a book, it doesn’t affect me. Because I was never offered the book, but I still get to do my comic, I still can raise money on Kickstarter, and I am still generally content to work like this. I don’t need a hero or anyone to defend me, and I think that these precious white cis gendered heterosexual male writers they’re going to bat for probably don’t either. 

I say it again and again, but you’re holding on too tightly to something that isn’t yours.

Using your platform (YouTube, a blog, Twitter) to critique a comic is neither an expectation or a requirement, but yeah, it’s your right. But you have no right to attack a creator that’s just trying to make a living. If you want to be a Fox News pundit/talking head, they keep firing people, so as long as you keep it in your pants, I’m sure they’ll hire you. It worked for Tomi Lahren (is that how you spell it?). If you want to make comics that reflect your way of thinking, and you want to hire whoever it is that speaks to your mentality, go right ahead. They did one about that Stick guy. Go on to Kickstarter, GoFundMe or Patreon. I’m sure there’s at least 100 people that will side with you and want to read that. That’s the beauty of it; you can put your ideas in action.  Marvel and DC are multimedia conglomerates (Disney and Warner Brothers, respectively). They (the companies) don’t care about anything other than making money. So, if you don’t want it, don’t buy it. But if you’re buying it just to make some sort of statement...you’re probably an idiot. Then again, you’re probably pirating the comics anyway.

I have as much right as anyone to be angry or upset about these hiring practices (if that’s what they are), but I really don’t care. I do not sit at my computer looking at Newsarama and seething over who got hired on a book. I write comics.

Like I said, this is unimportant.

*EDIT: In case you thought this was stupid or that I don’t know what I’m talking about, please refer to the very last sentence here:

[itscooltobefanficy]

Feeling Alive- Part 9

Summary: Dance school!AU (or the Step Up/Pride and Prejudice mash up nobody asked for). Bucky Barnes is forced to take twelve hours of commercial dance classes to pass the year- and that just happens to be your regular weekly dance class.

Introduction

Part 1 (Slow Hands)

Part 2 (Stay)

Part 3 (There Will Come a Time)

Part 4 (Weapon of Choice)

Part 5 (Came Here For Love)

Part 6 (Where the Sky Hangs)

Part 7 (When Can I See You Again?)

Part 8 (Manhattan)

Skip To The Good Bit

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Chapter 10/?: Skip To The Good Bit

Word count: 3718

WHAT. The last chapter-? So many people-? Liked it-? Reblogged it-? I’m just an incoherent mess of half-formed sentences tbh THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH I DO NOT DESERVE YOU. This chapter is long and fun and hopefully you will finish with a smile on your face ;) Read on!

You huff out a breath and roll over in bed. It’s no good. Your brain simply won’t switch off. All you can think about is the last few hours: Bucky smiling; Bucky dancing with you around the kitchen; curling up on your tattered sofa and carefully tucking yourself against Bucky’s side… And the tiny matter of the incident on the porch. The miniscule, insignificant fact that Bucky had leaned forward in the weak yellow glow of the outside bulb and pressed his lips softly to yours.

Yeah, that.

Even just thinking about it makes you grin into the darkness. Fizzing bubbles seem to have filled your chest cavity, exploding against your ribs in glimmering sparks of colour.

Bucky kissed you.

It was just a dry press of mouth against mouth- you would even go so far as to call it chaste- and yet it nearly exploded a bomb in your heart. You had frozen on the steps; and it had only been after a few seconds had passed that you’d realised your eyes had slid shut. When you had opened them again, Bucky was smiling like he had swallowed a sparkler, but he was already retreating down the path to the street.

“Guess I’ll see you on Wednesday, Y/N.”

A frantic, weightless giggle had burst out of your mouth. You bit your lip to combat the smile unfurling across your face, before finding your voice again.

“Guess you will.”

There’s nobody here to see you now, so you allow your grin to grow, spreading in concert with the joy that’s singing in your heart.

~~

“She looks happy.”

“Far happier than anyone on a Sunday night shift has any right to be.”

You drop your bag onto your desk and roll your eyes (although, OK, you do look happy). “I’m right here, you two.”

“Indeed you are,” Nahid eyes you beadily. “So tell all!”

You consider trying to throw them off, but your traitorous brain just keeps making you smile. Lola nearly crows with delight.

“Yeah, yeah, fine! It went well.” You can’t help the tiny laugh that bursts out of you. “Really well.”

“Friendly conversation well? Or get laid well?”

“Nahid!” You exclaim, then realise you’re going to have to give them the truth- otherwise they’ll assume a whole lot worse. “Yes, we had friendly conversation. And we danced.”

“You danced?” Lola frowns sceptically. “I thought you did that anyway?”

You can feel your face heating up. Yeah, you and Bucky have danced together- but swaying together, pressed against his chest, as Blossom Dearie sang wistfully about love and joy feels like something far more intimate and indescribable than just attending a class together. “Not the routine we do on Wednesdays,” You settle for, and Nahid immediately raises a suggestive eyebrow.

“That’s an innuendo if every I’ve heard one.”

“No!” You yelp, throwing a balled-up scrap of paper at her. “I don’t know why I tell you anything.”

Lola breaks off laughing. “Don’t tease her, Nahid, otherwise she’ll clam up.”

You try not to look self-righteous, and probably fail- but Nahid seals her lips together and dials down her smirk.

“OK,” You take a deep breath, and decide to just say it, “We kissed.”

“Yes!” Lola holds up her hand to high-five Nahid. “And?”

“And nothing. He went home. I’ll see him again on Wednesday.”

Lola and Nahid exchange a look.

“What?” You hammer a few keys on your computer pointedly. “We’re not in a hurry. At least, I don’t think we are.” Even as you say it, you think of their upcoming auditions and feel your stomach drop. You hurriedly shove the thought away. Just live in the moment, right?

“Fine,” Nahid sighs. “I call an end to gossip time. Can you take the front desk?”

You nod and jump to your feet. Through the window that looks out over the library, you can see several students beginning to drift in, and you pull your focus back to your work. They deserve nothing less than your full attention.

~~

The trouble with the night shift is that there’s actually very little activity for you to focus on. Apart from a minor drama at ten to midnight when one of the printers jams, the hours slide by in peace and relative quiet, and several times you catch yourself beginning to drift. Part of you wonders how Pepper and Wanda will react to your news. Of course, you’d told them about your alternative Saturday plans, and they’d both wished you luck- but neither of them knew exactly what had occurred between you and Bucky. You almost want to hold off telling them, just to avoid the inevitable smug looks and barrage of teasing you’ll have to endure come Wednesday, but then you remember the feeling of Bucky’s lips against yours and decide that climbing up to the library roof and starting to declaim might not be overkill.

Hear this, o people! Bucky Barnes kissed me!

“You’ve got a silly face on,” Lola whispers, as she heads out to do some re-shelving, and you hastily wipe your expression blank. Before you can retort, however, she’s out of ear-shot. Sighing, you sink back in your chair and resolve to start checking the late returns list, just to keep yourself distracted.

~~

B: hope ns wasn’t too bad

B: rly looking forward to seeing you on weds

It’s Monday evening and you’re smiling at your phone as you lie in bed.

Y: Only just woken up but it was fine

You hesitate briefly, then add:

Y: Had happy memories to sustain me

B: well wreck-it ralph is one of the best movies of all time

B: ;)

You roll your eyes. Idiot.

Y: You’re incorrigible

Y: How was your day?

B: p good

B: had happy memories to sustain me

It’s verging on ridiculous how one line of text can make your heart start performing a happy jig.

Y: Smooth ;)

B: also true

A small involuntary squeak escapes you. Your lungs are suddenly somehow filled with sunshine.

B: Steve’s threatening to confiscate my phone if I don’t go to sleep

B: talk to you tomorrow?

Y: Like I have anything better to do ;)

Y: Sleep well J

Still chewing back your grin, you throw back the duvet and go in search of food.

~~

Monday and Tuesday pass in much the same way. You endure a three-way grilling from Wanda and Pepper over Skype (losing track of how many times Wanda says I told you so) and cave in to telling your mum about the non-specifics of your date. Of course, she bubbles over with excitement (“Oh, how nice for you!”), and, to your surprise, you find yourself carried along with it. Optimism has infected you when you weren’t looking, and now the world has taken on a burnished hue that glows brighter with every happy tick of your heart.

On Wednesday you are, for possibly the first time ever, ten minutes early for the bus. Nerves tickle the pit of your stomach. You stare fixedly at the curb and try not to fidget as you wait.

“Y/N!”

Your head shoots up and you look round to see Steve waving expansively. When he realises you’re looking, his expression melds into one of faux-shock. “You’re early for the bus?!”

“Oh, shut up,” You laugh, then blink as he draws closer and engulfs you in a hug. It doesn’t make you uncomfortable in the slightest- you’re just a little surprised.

And then you lay eyes on Bucky, and you’re suddenly very distracted.

It’s a strange sensation, to have a memory so strong it presses up against your eyes, tugging at the corners of your lips, forcing a flush to bloom across your face: but that’s how it feels just to look at him. That one, brief, barely-there kiss is seared into your mind like a brand, and it flares with colour at the sight of his sharp blue eyes.

Before you can make an utter fool of yourself gawping (or drooling on the pavement) Sam steps forwards and also draws you into a hug.

“Nice to see you, Y/N.” His voice sounds strained, as though he’s trying to hold back a laugh, and an instant later you realise why. “Missed you on Saturday.”

When he pulls back, you catch the tail end of the death-glare Bucky is sending to his three friends simultaneously, and fight back the hysterical urge to giggle. Instead, you look away and fix Steve with a stare.

“The three of you are absolutely not allowed to use this as ammunition,” You tell them, looking to Sam and Nat in turn, your voice firm. Steve, at least, has the grace to look contrite.

“I was trying to be helpful,” He says. “I just thought you might feel uncomfortable if only Bucky hugged you!”

Before you can finish rolling your eyes, Bucky heaves an equally exasperated sigh.

“I don’t need your damn permission, Rogers.”

And before you know what’s happening, you’re wrapped up in Bucky’s arms with your face pressed in his shoulder. Unfortunately, before you can fully enjoy the experience (how is it possible for one individual to smell so good?) there’s a pointed cough from behind you.

“They’re so cute.”

“I may throw up,” Nat mutters, delicately.

You sigh, and bury your face further into the soft fabric. “Where’s the goddamn bus when you need it?”

Bucky laughs, and releases you. He has that smile that means happy, yellow, joy tickling the back of your throat: the kind that seems to be pressed upwards on his face. It might be your favourite kind.

“Your prayers are answered, Y/N!” Sam jokes, and the sound of an engine rumbles closer. Nat presses a hand to her eyes.

“Yes, please, let’s get on the bus before there’s any more hugging.”

Bucky reaches out to tousle her hair. “Drama queen.”

Nat shoots daggers at him. “You’ll pay for that later.”

“Let’s just get on the bus,” Steve grimaces, and, smirking, you do exactly that.

~~

Nat immediately ushers you into the window seat and promptly sits down beside you, effectively blocking you off from Bucky. You snort, but decide it’s not worth a battle. Instead, you lean around and engage Nat in conversation.

“You survived the networking then?”

She grimaces. “Somehow.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Steve laughs, “She charmed them, as usual.”

Nat purses her lips primly, but you can see the smirk she’s holding back. “You can talk. One look at your pretty face and they’re falling over themselves.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Romanoff.”

“Yeah,” Sam objects, “What about my pretty face?”

“Don’t worry,” Bucky leans back in his seat and shoots you a smile that warms up your insides by half a degree, “They were actually concentrating on your dancing.”

“So you’re saying there’s nothing to distract them? Oh, thank you, thank you so much.”

Steve pats Sam’s shoulder consolingly. “I’m sure there’s a career for you in salsa.”

Sam throws his hands in the hair and huffs. “I don’t know why I’m friends with you guys.”

“Honestly?” You chip in, “I have no idea. They don’t deserve you, Sam.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Sam laughs, “I’m glad somebody appreciates me.”

You look over at Bucky, and he raises his eyebrows slightly. You feel a giggle well up in your chest (another one, what is with you?) and tilt your head slightly even as you raise your eyes to the grimy ceiling of the bus. It’s the best way you can communicate Yes, of course I still like you best.

“Steve, intervene!” Nat cries. When he looks at her in surprise, she adds, “They’re making faces at each other.”

“Don’t panic, Nat,” Bucky snorts, pulling himself to his feet, “It’s our stop. We won’t impose on you any longer.”

“Thank god.” She shifts to the side to let you out into the aisle. You step past her and laugh.

“See you later, Nat. Bye, Sam!”

“Have fun,” Sam sniggers.

“Make good decisions!” Nat calls to you, just as the doors hiss open. Frankly, you’re glad to hop down onto the pavement just to hide your blush.

~~

Things only get worse when you enter the studio. Across the room, you can see Wanda’s expression lighting up at the sight of you; she immediately cracks a grin even as you try to hush her with a glare.

“Why is she staring?” Bucky mutters, eyeing her.

“Because she has no chill,” You reply, straightening up and marching over to where Clint and Pepper are chatting. “Hey!”

“Oh, hey!” To her credit, Pepper’s eyes only widen slightly. You decide to hold back on the warning glare.

Clint, however, is less restrained.

“How was your date?”

Thankfully, he signs it- and although he bursts into snickers when you frantically reply with the negative, Bucky and Steve simply look confused.

“Ignore him,” You say, both aloud and with gestures, glaring at Clint, “He’s being an idiot.”

“Rude,” Clint replies, but before the argument can escalate Wanda cuts across you.

“Come on, kids! Let’s get started!”

You stick out your tongue at Clint and stride out onto the floor. Honestly. You love your friends dearly, but sometimes they did like to embarrass you a whole lot more than was necessary.

A point which Wanda seems to prove half an hour later, when warm ups are through.

“New routine today gang! I was going to teach the guys their segment, but I got bored and decided to do this instead!” She grins at you, and you immediately guess her intentions. It’s all you can do not to bury your head in your hands. “We’ll get the moves down separately, then see if we can go through it partnered up. If we get time, we’ll do hand-in at the end! Let’s get to it!”

It takes maybe three beats for you to recognise the song; you laugh, because otherwise you’d probably run and hide. When you look at Bucky, he has his head tilted to his side and a confused smile gracing his mouth.

“Didn’t this come out in high school?”

You nod, even as the Pussycat Dolls begin to sing.

“I’m tellin’ you to loosen up my buttons, babe,

But you keep fronting.

Say what you’re gonna do to me,

But I ain’t seen nothing…”

“This is going to be fun!” Wanda shuts off the music and bounces back to the front of the class. “Now, do as I do, and we’ll learn the routine.”

~~

To your relief, you don’t actually get any further than blocking the new moves. Wanda has devised a combination of incredibly raunchy poses, but it proves fairly complex to knit them all together and the class runs to time before she can ask you to partner up. When Bucky isn’t looking, you stick out her tongue at her, and she rolls her eyes.

“We will be partnering up next week!” She calls, smiling sardonically. “So be ready!”

You’re the worst, you think, glaring at her, before turning around- to find Bucky standing expectantly in front of you.

“Stretching?”

You’d almost forgotten. “Oh, yeah. Alright.”

Bucky smiles crookedly. “No need to sound quite so enthusiastic.”

Sighing, you sit down on the floor and make a start on the butterfly stretch.

Over Bucky’s shoulder, Clint attracts your attention with a wave of his hand and signs, “Hurry up!”

“One minute,” You reply. Bucky’s watching your gestures curiously.

“One minute, was that?”

“Yeah!” You smile at him. “Have you been practicing signing or something?”

“We do what we can,” Steve calls, wryly.

Clint pats him on the shoulder consolingly, then signs, “You’ll get there.”

“Having fun on the floor, Y/N?” Wanda says. It’s only because you know her really well that you can hear the hint of teasing in her tone.

“Just done, actually,” You say, briskly, jumping to your feet. Bucky raises his eyebrows, but gets to his feet, too.

Wanda snorts. “Alright. I’ll lock up after you.”

“You do that.” You fetch your bag and head towards the door, Bucky, Steve, Pepper and Clint trailing behind you. “See you later, Wanda!”

“Bye, guys!”

Outside on the street, the evening sun is attempting to pierce the clouds. A breeze ruffles Bucky’s messy hair. Clint and Pepper say goodbye, then the three of you begin the now-familiar walk home.

“Now, I don’t know what you had planned for Saturday,” Steve says, “But I’m afraid there’s no film night this week. Everyone’s prepping for company auditions.”

“Oh,” You say, your stomach swooping. “I know you’re both going to be great.”

“Thanks,” Steve replies. Bucky just hooks his arm round your shoulders and grins at you.

“So what happens when you get accepted?” You say. You hope the strained note in your voice isn’t too obvious.

“If we get accepted, we stick out the year- it’s part of Fury’s agreement with the companies- then pack up and ship out.” Bucky says it like it’s nothing, and you try not to react.

“And it’s still a long shot,” Steve adds, “Buck and I are much older than companies normally look for.”

You swallow down your discomfort and smile encouragingly. “Well, I’ve seen you both dance and they’d be mad not to have you.”

Bucky’s grin grows wider. “Thanks for the support.”

The frozen, sick feeling in your chest dissolves a little, and you move on to lighter topics.

When your road is in sight, Steve clears his throat. “You know what? I’ll just head back by myself.”

Before either of you can protest, he waves innocently and sets off down the pavement, humming a cheerful tune. You stare after him, speechless. Bucky just snorts.

“I love the idiot,” He pronounces, after a moment of silence, “But…”

“He’s about as subtle as a bull in a china shop,” You finish, slowly breathing out. This is fine. Bucky is going to walk you home, and your nerve endings absolutely aren’t tingling with electricity at the thought.

Bucky nods. “That about sums it up. Shall we?”

You nod. Managing anything else is well beyond your capabilities right now.

It takes maybe two minutes to walk the last street corner, cross the road, and come to a standstill in front of your front door. For each and every second that ticks past, your heart seems to beat a little harder. The wind is picking up, stealing the weak warmth of the sun from the surrounding air. For an uncomfortable moment, you stand side-by-side, awkwardly holding on to the companionable silence that had sustained your previous steps.

“Well-” You start, just as Bucky opens his mouth to say something. You break off and gesture for him to go ahead.

“Sorry,” A smile twitches at the corner of his mouth, “I was just going to say… It seems a shame to waste Steve’s sleuthing skills.”

The breath is suddenly gone from your chest. A tiny voice somewhere in the back of your brain is asking Is sleuthing even the right word? The rest is just the tingle of static; the spit of sparks off a bonfire.

“Yeah,” You say. Your voice is embarrassingly squeaky. “Yeah, it would-”

Bucky is suddenly very close to you and that’s it, all mental processes shut down. All you can focus on is the shimmering, liquid pools of his blue eyes, the slight shock of his hands on your waist…

And then you’re kissing, and you’re not entirely sure anything will ever function outside this moment ever again.

Because, God, has kissing anyone ever been so soft? There’s a wildfire scorching through your mind, front to back, and there’s gasoline slipping down your spine that catches and flares in a series of clattering heartbeats. Your mouth is open, when did that happen? And still Bucky is somehow taking, still pushing for more, his lips moving in a way that is surely precisely calculated to make you melt. You fasten your hands into the fabric of his jumper to hold yourself down, or maybe closer, you’re not sure. His breath hitches-

And then he pulls back, and the world moves once again.

For a moment, you just have to exist for a moment. Anything more is absolutely beyond your mental faculties. You find yourself leaning forward, resting your chin on your hands, pressing your hands into Bucky’s chest. Almost automatically, his arms fully circle your waist, holding you closer. His breath tickles the top of your head.

“OK?” You can feel his words rumbling up through all the places you’re touching. The bonfire has settled, banked down: now it’s more of a contented glow, suffusing your veins. You breathe your reply into tickle of fabric against your lips.

“Yeah.”

Although you can’t see his face, you can feel Bucky smiling. You huff out a breath and dare to lift your head.

Yes, he’s smiling. Your heart feels like it’s growing, filling all the way up to the top.

“Steve should sleuth more often,” You murmur, and Bucky’s laugh booms out of him. He ducks his head to press a kiss to the top of your hair.

“I’m sure that can be arranged,” He chuckles, and your heart skips in excitement- but he straightens up slowly and lifts his hands to rest on your shoulders. “But for now, if I don’t head back I’ll have to ring Steve to let me in, and that’s not a humiliation worth suffering.”

You snort, and ignore the little curl of disappointment in your abdomen at Bucky’s words. “Couldn’t have that happening.”

“I’ll see you at the weekend?” He turns it into a question, so you answer with the affirmative.

“Of course.” You tilt your head and let loose the smile that’s threatening to take over your whole face. “We’ll do something fun.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Alright then,” You say, reluctantly stepping back and dropping your hands. “Off you go. Otherwise you’ll never leave.”

Bucky dramatically claps a hand to his heart. “You wound me, Y/N!”

You roll your eyes and force yourself to make the short walk to your door (otherwise you’ll probably stay on the pavement, trading insults and kisses, forever). “See you, Bucky.”

“See you,” He calls. As the door swings closed, you can still see the corner of his smile sneaking round the edge of his face.

AN: I’m just sat here with a smirk on my face at this point. I rly hope that was satisfactory ;) I have a friend coming over for the next few days ( @justkeeplaughing-nevergiveup I’m looking at you) so we’re going to be off gallivanting. No update probs until Friday. Plus I need to finish fourteen to maintain my buffer! But yeah THANK YOU to everyone who’s engaged with this story so far, you are all amazing <3

Tag list:  @learisa; @vintagesaph; @debzybrazy; @madeofstarsdust; @beingcrushedbysociety; @plumsforbuck2016; @buckybabybaby; @seb-styles; @youtube-obsessed-duh; @casdoesntunderstandthatreference; @sunnycolors; @imthemishamigo; @themarvelousmaximoffs; @blonde0n; @smaug-the-homedog; @gabby913; @sexyashmike; @fuckinxqueenx; @velociraptorinae; @frnkensteingrl; @tattooideasforthefuture; @inlovewithnovels; @ipaintmelodies; @whimsicaldreaming; @olicia-leeshy; @xxamix; @xxblackteabinchxx; @v-ickie; @imnegativetillbepositive; @lilythelionflower; @witchinghour24; @hollycornish; @lucyvaughan-omg-; @thel0stpr1ncess; @kur0k1tsun3-blog; @siobhanrebecca; @thighs0fbetrayal; @ur-an-indiana-boy-sonny; @fungk17; @da363; @sorryidontspeakgrounder-world; @burtheimperium; @fandom-writes; @farawell; @dorisagent101; @ghostwriterfanfics; @avengers--marvel; @the-creative-lie; @ms-brown10; @blackcoffeeandgreenteaforme; @marvelsavengersforever1227; @winchesterforever12; @stomachfilledwithbutterflies; @fictionwillneverdie; @basicwhiskeyprincesss

Part 10

[an-aura-about-you]

Oh shoot I did the ask wrong. I want the k with Erina and Autor.

*generates number* 20: ULTRA Forceful Kiss

oh dang. It almost feels like cheating with the generator just giving me what I want anyway. (But then there are almost no kisses on this list I don’t like.)

“Welcome home, Autor!” Lore greets, pulling Autor onto the station platform and into her embrace.

Autor dutifully pecks her on the cheek and says, “I missed you, Mother.”

“We missed you, too,” Lore tells him just as Logos puts an arm around them both. “How have you been at school? You actually look like you’ve been sleeping more.”

“Oh, it’s been fine,” he answers, though he peers over his parents’ shoulders and scans the station. “And I suppose I’ve learned ahead of my classmates that multiple all-nighters only go so far.”

Logos catches what his son’s doing and goes, “I’m afraid Erinachen couldn’t be here. Her train left earlier.”

“Oh,” Autor says, trying not to look so crestfallen. “I wanted to wish her luck one last time.”

Logos smiles wide, eyes merry. “I’m certain you did. But we know Erina. They’ll love her just as much as we do.”

“Come on, Erinachen!” Blanchefleur gushes, taking her daughter’s hand and tugging her along.

“Come on where?” Erina asks just as she spies Duck running off in the same direction they’re heading. “Why are we running?”

“To catch Autor’s train before he leaves, darling. I swear, you two have schedules at odds or something. Star-crossed or-”

But whatever else her mother had to say gets lost as Erina takes off after Duck, weaving through the crowd in whatever spots she can manage and at one point leaping over a piece of unattended luggage as easily as one steps over the cracks in a sidewalk. Her sprint ends with her crashing headlong into her father.

“Erinachen!” Heinrich yelps when they collide. “What timing; the train’s about to pull out. Fortunately, we’re here at your Autor’s window.”

The group of combined families part ways so that Erina ends up at the front, waving to get Autor’s attention. He hangs his head in resignation, only glancing out the window one last time to affirm what he knows to be true. But when he sees Erina, he presses his hands to the window as if trying to force it out. He gets to his feet and points toward the end of the train, hoping she understands him and making his way back to see her.

The pair navigate their narrow spaces, urgently hopping from grain to dwindling grain of sand in their hourglass of time together. Their one blessing is Autor choosing a seat near the back, giving him enough time to reach the caboose just as the train begins pulling out. Erina stops just as the car approaches her.

“I’m so sorry I missed you!” Autor calls over the train chugging.

“I’m sorry I missed YOU!” Erina shouts back through cupped hands, trying to keep pace. “Autor, I made my audition! I’m going to be a soloist in the Eleki Troupe!”

“That’s wonderful!” he shouts through the grin taking over his face. “Call me when you have your first show!”

The train picks up speed, faster than a human can keep up, so Erina does the only thing she can think to do when words can’t carry and curves her arms below her heart.

Penn sighs with relief as the dorm room phone jangles wildly in its cradle. He’s been studying for far too long, and the ringing coincided with his stomach growling. Whoever decided to give him a break, he’ll gladly take it.

“Hello?” he answers.

“Hello,” the woman on the other end of the line says. “ This is Penn, right? Could I please speak to Autor?”

“He’s not in.”

“Oh. Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“I think he’s going to be out all weekend,” Penn guesses as he steals some of Autor’s pfeifferkuchen. “Something about his classes ending early and getting a ride from Charles since he was heading in the same direction as Goldkrone and hoping to surprise his girlfriend.”

“....he’ll probably be sore that I know now, but that makes little difference since I’m not at home.”

“Oh, so YOU’RE Erina. He told me about the train station thing. You two need to get pagers or something.”

“We really do,” she agrees with a sigh. “Well, when he comes back, will you tell him I called?”

“Yeah. Sorry about that.”

And with that, the two hang up and Penn dials for a pizza.

Walking arm in arm in arm is not such an unusual sight when Duck is the one in the middle. Whatever happenstance brought her there, she’s certainly Goldkrone’s favorite daughter now, and no one seems to mind sharing her company if it means getting to be in it. So no one bats an eye when she shows up at Ebine’s with Fakir on one arm (as is often the case) and Autor on the other.

“...and Mr. Felidae got us the Eleki Troupe tour schedule!” she says, passing a paper to Autor on the table. “He said they’ll be here for sure when school starts again so we can see Erina. But this way you might catch her sooner!”

Autor accepts the schedule and asks, “Who would have guessed the real trouble of a long-distance relationship would be accidentally maintaining that distance?”

“It’s all only temporary,” Fakir says, pointing out a gap in dates on the page. “Both of you have a break at New Years. Yours is probably earlier than hers, but there should be overlap.”

“Hey! Then we can all see them perform The Nutcracker!” Duck suggests. “I wonder if Erina will get to be the Sugar Plum Fairy now that she’s in a real professional ballet company.”

And the merry discussion bolsters Autor’s spirits, a child once again waiting on the last agonizing stretch for Christmas with so much excitement it’s a wonder he doesn’t explode.

In astronomy, a binary star occurs when two stars orbit one another. Both pull with their own irresistible gravity, their dance form governed by the barycenter. The cosmic pas de deux turning them around each other brings two sunrises, two sunsets, a most brilliant day when they are seen together, and at night from the right distance they shine as one bright star. But it is most magnificent when the orbit eventually decays and the two stars finally join in spectacular stellar collision.

This can take eons, and Autor feels every single second of them in the darkness of the theater.

After being greeted by pretty much everyone he’s ever been close to in Goldkrone (save one) at the train station, he wasted no time getting home and preparing for the ballet. He trembled from nerves, excitement or perhaps withdrawal reaching a fever pitch. He was almost thankful it gave him something to do, spending most of his night retying his askew cravat. Tchaikovsky’s score helped soothe him some, and the dancing truly is top notch, but he won’t truly rest until he sees her.

No Sugar Plum this time, Erina steps out as the haunting strains of the Arabian dance fill the theater. (Autor laughs to himself. Coffee suits her!) If she knows he’s there, her dancing doesn’t betray it. She performs her feats of magnificent contortion and balance, and he learns the one benefit of distance is her dancing becoming surprise once more without being present for her individual practice. He dares think it’s even better than her best Sugar Plum and intends to tell her as much when they’re capable of speaking. He applauds louder than anyone else in his row.

He stays for the final bows after the curtain falls, but only just barely. The very moment it’s polite to do so, he winds his way out of the seats and crowd in the aisle. He slips through a door that hides a backstage hallway and sneaks his way up towards the congregation of dancers and their own loved ones.

“AUTOR!”

Erina rushes forward, still in costume but rapidly ripping off the veil covering the lower half of her face and throwing it to the floor. Autor runs to meet her, arms already out to catch her in his embrace. The others around them part, clearing their path to one another. And in a beautiful, blissful crash, Erina catches Autor’s face in her hands just as he wraps his arms tight around her waist and crushes his lips against hers. He spins her around once from the very force of it, somehow preventing them from toppling. She can feel her lips bruising but she doesn’t care, she can’t care. Time loses meaning, replaced by touch. The only thing that forces them apart is the need for air, which finally cracks their kiss with a couple of out of breath pants.

“We really...” Autor begins. “We really need to bump into each other like this more often.”

Erina laughs and gives him another kiss.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

I'VE BEEN PONDERING COMBINATOR

And no, you can't tell what the attitude of the aircraft is. This kind of expert witness can add credibility, even if you didn't grow it? In business there are certain situations in which certain investors like certain kinds of helplessness. Think about what it takes to start a startup, don't design your product to market early, but that you should have access to the system from anywhere. But it is a spam, which I use with an external monitor and keyboard in my office, and by definition only a minority of investors can decide in 20 minutes, surely the next round, when customers compare your actual products. Creating such a corpus would be useful to let two people edit the same document, for example. But this group must be small. It's hard to predict now, I'd say that yes, surprisingly often it can.

You have to start as a consulting firm. What are you going to recognize a good designer? 3 times in my spam corpus, the probability is. I'm often mistaken about where these bottlenecks are. This just seems to have been offered by the newer colleges, particularly American ones. Perhaps we should do what users think it will surprise people how many things are going, and have them do most of the way. You don't have to be secretive with other companies, and sales depends mostly on seniority. Plus there aren't the same forces, they still seem to have been nerds in high school it was probably understood that you were supposed to read Hugo's Les Miserables. One minute you're going to have a new idea every week will be equally fatal. Each person should just do what you would call a real job. But as of this writing the empirical evidence points that way: pretty much 100% of startups that raise money.1

Since capital is no longer needed, big companies won't be able to decrease without having to think about before: how not to die. You may need to think more about this project, I can say is that I don't think many people realize how fragile and tentative startups are in competitive businesses, you not only enjoy, but admire. Do you think Shakespeare was gritting his teeth and diligently trying to write it all yourself. So my guess is that Microsoft will develop some kind of wrongdoing. To my surprise, they said no, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of completed test drives, our revenue growth increased by 50%, just from that change.2 They hate to release something that could be weeded out.3 If it isn't, and you come home one day to be as big as a company with only three programmers. Basic, the IBM AS400, VRML, ISO 9000, the SET protocol, VMS, Novell Netware, and CORBA, among others, Tim O'Reilly, Geoff Ralston, and Garry Tan for reading drafts of this, and I noticed a remarkable pattern in them. Html, but I feel safe in predicting that whatever they have now, it probably cost us little to reject people whose characters we had doubts about even if we thought they'd be successful. Reading The Nude is like a pass/fail course. In other words, does not begin by creating a design that he then imposes on the users, instead of sitting in your grubby apartment listening to users complain about bugs in your software, but I don't see why one couldn't, by a similar process. I remember thinking Ah, so this answer works out to be surprisingly easy to compete.

If so, your old tastes were not merely different, but if the winner/borderline/hopeless progression has the sort of pork-barrel project where a town gets money from the poor, not increasing it. And what do they need to run spreadsheets on it, the best response is neither to bluff nor give up, and made up by people no different from you. You may have expected recipes for coming up with good answers.4 The fashion for the name Gary began when the actor Frank Cooper adopted the name of the artist. That has always been a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed. Algol isn't good enough at simulations. Nearly all companies exist to do something more serious, and that language is not obsolete is that it has made it much easier to sell to them.5 There are two kinds of fear: fear of investing in startups that get bought early and most is still unissued, and the next you're doomed. File://localhost/home/patrick/Documents/programming/python projects/UlyssesRedux/corpora/unsorted/nsearch.6

I treat mail as spam if the algorithm above gives it a probability of. Labor Board. This was certainly true in the military—that the earth moves. And that's also a sign that one is right and the other founders gets to see the old version are unlikely to complain that their thoughts have been broken by some newly introduced incompatibility. In fact, getting a normal job. In doing so you create wealth with no environmental cost. 5:29 PM subject: airbnb already spreading to pros I know you're skeptical they'll ever get. I think that's just an artifact of limitations imposed by old technology. Try to get your product to please VCs or potential acquirers. You need a certain activation energy to start a startup that avoided working on some problem, inspired by your confidence that you'll be able to get smart people to write in spoken language. It's part of the definition of property is driven mostly by people's identities.

His mind is absent from the everyday world because it's hard at work in another. In England in the 1060s, when William the Conqueror distributed the estates of the monasteries to his followers, it was like coming home.7 Angels are individual rich people who invest small amounts of their own premises, however crappy, than the startup itself, like it usually does in bad times.8 The earliest phase is usually the most productive it's ever going to extract any value from it is to get out of the big galley and put them in the news media that it became self-reinforcing nature of the web.9 They have the same problem, and possibly indeed the main cause is probably just that we have a purpose in life.10 If you're a YC startup.11 It might actually carry some weight. Outside writers tend to supply editorials of the defend-a-position variety, which make a beeline toward a rousing and foreordained conclusion. They like to get money. In fact, it may be somewhat blurry at first. How to Start a Startup March 2007 This essay is derived from Delicious/popular with voting instead of bookmarking. I often have to rephrase the question slightly.

I spend a lot of work. The latter type is sometimes called an HR acquisition. Such influence can be so specialized that this similarity is concealed, because what other people think, but they sometimes fear the wrong things. Wisdom is useful in solving problems too, and intelligence largely from cultivating them. Instead of treating them as disasters, make them easy to acknowledge and easy to fix. Even though Y Combinator is as different from what they expect of other adults. But if you make a point of packing? In fact, this is a labor of love and he wants it to be real. That seems like saying that blue is heavy, or that we'd meet them again. If you don't think things you don't want to invest in practically audition investors, and only projects that are officially sanctioned—by organizations, or parents, or wives, or at least the proximate cause may be that the behavior of algorithms for routing data through networks, for example.

The best notebooks I've found are made by a two-part one.12 In America only a few things we can say with certainty. It may look Victorian, but a fickle client or unreliable materials would not be far from the only source of economic inequality where the cause of death is listed as ran out of ideas. And whereas Wikipedia's main appeal is that it's harder for them to do? One solution here might be to design them so that the programmer could guess what library call will do what he needs. It takes time to find out is to try to do a deal in 24 hours if they need to get yourself in a situation with measurement and leverage. Duplo world of a few thousand people you'd like to like. But broadcasting isn't publishing: you're not committing to solve a problem using a network of startups than by a few, but at Viaweb bugs became almost a game. Only a tiny fraction of people who all get up in the morning. That helps would-be app stores will be too busy to shoo you away. And it's not just the mob you need to do is start one.

Notes

A day job.

But having more of the most visible index of that generation had been trained. Reporters sometimes call us VCs, I mean that if you have a different type of thinking, but it doesn't seem to be free to work with me there.

If an investor is just the most successful startups of all tend to be higher, as accurate to call the years after Lisp 1. Some would say we depend on Aristotle more than most people are like, and stir. Actually this sounds to him? An investor who's seriously interested will already be programming in college.

Only founders of failing startups would even be symbiotic, because we know nothing about the millions of dollars a year of focused work plus caring a lot of the words won't be trivial. On the other reason it used a TV as a cold email. 'Math for engineers' classes sucked mightily.

There need to go the bathroom, and made more margin loans. Perl has. Download programs to encourage more startups in Germany told me: One YC founder told me that if you have an investor derives mostly from looking for something that was the reason it used a TV as a motive, and the 4K of RAM was in a city with few other startups must have been peculiarly vulnerable—perhaps partly because companies then were more at home at the end of the taste of apples because if people can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. But it's hard to say what was happening in them to be discovered.

If you have to admit there's no lower bound to its precision. And in any era if people are trying to sell your company right now. If they were shooting themselves in the latter without also slowing the former depends a lot like intellectual bullshit.

I don't want to lead. Structurally the idea of happiness from many older societies.

Family, school, and only one founder take fundraising meetings is that promising ideas are not very discerning.

If anyone wants.

Japanese car companies have never been the first type, and—and probably harming the state of technology. Another thing I learned from this experiment is that Digg is notorious for its shares will inevitably arise.

If you ask that you're small and use whatever advantages that brings.

Not all were necessarily supplied by the size of the first scientist.

[dorothydelgadillo]

Digital Marketing Dictionary: 31 Marketing Terms You NEED to Know

Consider an average salary of $40,363 for junior positions (and $63,502 for mid-level roles) and the 30 percent job growth rate between 2011 and 2016, and you’ll get why digital marketing is the ideal industry if you’re seeking a lucrative position with a ton of growth opportunity.

But, like most tech and tech-adjacent fields, it also comes with its own arcane language. Trying to figure out what digital marketers are talking about might seem impenetrable from the outside, but guess what? You’re about to become an insider.

We’ve put together a dictionary of the most critical digital marketing terms (along with links to even more digital marketing info), so you’ll have a leg up as you start your own path into the industry. Use these common terms to talk the talk in your next (or first!) marketing job interview.

And, when you’re ready to match you newfound marketing term knowhow with the skills it takes to work as a digital marketer, consider signing up for our Skillcrush Digital Marketing Blueprint.

This online course is designed to be completed in just 3 months by spending only an hour a day on the materials, and it covers all the skills you’ll need to break into the world of digital marketing.

Table of Contents

A  

A/B Testing

Affiliate Marketing

B

Blogs

Bounce Rate

Buyer’s Journey

C

Call to Action (CTA)

Click Through Rate (CTR)

Competitive Analysis

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

Content Marketing

Content Strategy

Content Testing

D

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing Jobs

Digital Marketing Tools

E

Email Marketing

I

Inbound Marketing

K

Keywords

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

L

Landing Pages

Link Building / Backlinking

M

Marketing Automation

Multichannel Marketing

P

Paid Ads

Pillar Pages

S

Sales Funnel

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Social Media Marketing

Site Audit

Style Guide

T

Traffic

A/B Testing

A/B Testing is the process of testing two versions—i.e. ”Version A” and “Version B”—of digital content with a target audience to learn which one the audience prefers. When it comes to digital content, this preference is usually measured by conversion rate—the number of visitors to a website or app who take a desired action during their visit (things like signing up for an email list, purchasing a product or service, or subscribing for a paid membership).

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Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a strategy where businesses reward individual “affiliates” (people or organizations outside the business) for bringing in new customers or visitors through ads or content on the affiliate’s website. Affiliates receive payments or product discounts based on the number of customers they generate.

These are exceptionally common on personal or lifestyle sites, where you might notice that the product recommended has a link with a bunch of additional stuff tracked on. That means that if you buy the product, the blog or site that lead you there will make some percentage of that sale.

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Blogs

If you’ve spent any time online, you probably already have an idea of what a blog is. Merriam Webster defines it broadly as:

“a website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer.”

But in the world of digital marketing, blogs are a lot more than just personal sites. In fact, company blogs and blog posts are at the heart of content marketing and lead generation. Quality blog content that’s relevant to your customer base and written per best SEO (search engine optimization) practices makes your site “findable” by consumers on Google and other search engines—and keeps them on your site once they’ve found you.

A few stats on blogs, per marketing software company Hubspot:

Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5 times more traffic than companies that published zero to four monthly posts.

Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got about 4.5 times more leads than companies that published zero to four monthly posts.

43% of B2B marketers say blogging is their most important type of content. (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)

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Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who leave the website quickly without really looking at it. Most often this refers to the algorithm used by Google Analytics and is calculated in percentages. Sites aim to keep this number low—they want you to spend time on the page but also to bounce from page to page on their site—and so they’ll try to keep content as engaging and relevant to you as possible.

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Buyer’s Journey

In digital marketing terms, the buyer’s journey is the trajectory of a consumer’s movement from product awareness, to engagement with a product, to finally deciding to make a purchase. Digital marketers need to understand how to “attract, engage, and delight” consumers (as the marketing platform Hubspot puts it) in order to carry them from the “I don’t know anything about this brand or product” stage to “I’m all in.”

This process includes using techniques to better understand your customer (personas, user research, etc.) and strategies for optimizing the sales process (via email marketing, retargeting, etc.).

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Call to Action (CTA)

A call to action is the text, banner, form, or image on a web page (or email) asking a visitor to literally take an action—read more content, join an email list, sign up for a webinar, buy a product, etc. CTAs are marketing tools that convert web users into leads for businesses.

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Click Through Rate (CTR)

The click through rate is the percentage of users who click on links in web pages or marketing emails. CTR is significant because it measures how many users are actively engaging with linked content on a site.

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Competitive Analysis

Conducting a competitive analysis means identifying your competitors and analyzing their businesses with a fine tooth comb. This lets you learn from their successes and mistakes, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and find gaps in the market that other businesses aren’t covering.

Once you understand similarities and differences between your business and competitors in your field, you’ll learn how to occupy the best market niche for your company and attract your own target audience.

The core steps of a competitive analysis include:

Identifying competitors—which business are truly direct competitors and represent a threat to your market share?

Choosing parameters—decide which parts of a competitor’s business should be studied comparatively with your own. This can include core products, pricing structures, websites, blogs, social media presence, etc.

Tracking and sharing—the results of your analysis should be tracked through a simple spreadsheet, which you can transfer to a slide deck and share internally with your company or client.

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Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

CRO is a marketing system for raising the percentage of website visitors who convert to paying customers. CRO methods usually involve encouraging users to take specific actions on the website, such as filling out a web form, signing up for a trial, or joining an email list.

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Content Marketing

Content marketing describes the process of creating and distributing content used for digital marketing campaigns. This includes things like:

Blog Posts and Articles Social Media Posts Video Content Podcasts eBooks and Guides Webinars

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Content Strategy

Content strategy is the planning and implementation of digital content—in other words, an overarching content strategy guides a content marketer’s campaigns. It’s a content marketing team’s “master plan” to make their content work toward a uniform and cohesive end.

Examples of content strategy include:

Competitive Analysis Style Guides Pillar Pages Content Testing Website Audits Setting KPIs

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Content Testing

Content testing is a clear way to gauge how content performances and build an overall content strategy moving forward. This testing looks similar to what you might see in the user experience (UX) research field, with one of the simplest and most effective ways to test content being A/B testing, defined earlier in this list.

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Digital Marketing

Digital marketing includes any and all online strategies used to sell products and services (whether you’re targeting potential audiences via computer, iPad, or app).

Some of the hallmarks of digital marketing include:

Customizing an audience from a global population—digital audiences can be reached anywhere around the world, meaning digital marketers can fine tune their audiences using demographics that best fit their marketing campaign.

Audience interaction—unlike more passive traditional marketing (e.g. a television viewer watching a commercial), digital marketers are able to interact directly with their audience through forums like website comment sections, social media accounts, and interactive quizzes.

Using multiple delivery channels based on audience needs and preferences—dynamic web content lets digital marketers connect with an audience through a range of delivery channels (including YouTube videos, Instagram posts, blog articles, and marketing emails)

Online marketing events—similar to conferences and conventions in traditional marketing, digital marketers host online events like webinars, product demonstrations, and courses, which can often be attended “live” or viewed afterward on demand.

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Digital Marketing Jobs

Common digital marketing job titles include:

Content strategist—digital marketers who specialize in creating and implementing content strategy ($72,742/year)

Content marketing manager—content marketing specialists who oversee the creation and distribution of digital marketing content ($81,087/year)

SEO specialist—SEO experts who help business implement best SEO practices to their online content ($54,088/year)

Social media manager—digital marketers who create and manage social media content and accounts ($50,489/year)

Paid ads manager—digital marketers in charge of creating and implementing paid ad campaigns ($47,079/year)

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Digital Marketing Tools

There’s an endless parade of software and application tools that are useful for digital marketers—many of which are free to use. You can read our list of 50+ free marketing tools here, but in the meantime, these are the general categories that most digital marketing tools fall under:

Email marketing tools—services and apps used for sending emails, managing email lists, and optimizing email sends

SEO marketing tools—programs for tracking SEO performance, researching keywords, and executing best SEO practices on your website

Content marketing tools—software and apps used for planning, optimizing, and writing content

Social media marketing tools—tools for scheduling social media posts, building links, and creating social media visuals

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Email Marketing

Email marketing is the process of using of emails and email-centered marketing campaigns to nurture leads and advertise products and services. What does that mean?

Lead nurture emails are used to keep leads (people on your email list) interested in your brand and to communicate brand value (e.g. a newsletter with links to relevant, helpful articles on your blog).

Sales emails are used to funnel leads toward current purchase opportunities.

Both nurture and sales emails are sent to email addresses that are collected through CTA’s on landing pages and blog posts—things like giveaway and webinar signups, signups for free guides and ebooks, etc. Email marketing is a direct way of tailoring a message and sending it to an audience that has shown interest in your brand.

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Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a term first coined by Hubspot co-founder Brian Halligan. Today, Hubspot defines inbound marketing as:

“[a method of] creating valuable experiences that have a positive impact on people and your business [by attracting] prospects and customers to your website and blog through relevant and helpful content.”

The inbound model illustrates why digital marketing content is more than static advertisements asking customers to buy. The potential customer searching Google for cars isn’t looking for car advertisements, they’re looking for useful articles about “the best cars of 2019,” or “how to get a good deal when shopping for new cars.”

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Keywords

Keywords are words or phrases commonly used in search engines to look for online content. Keyword research is a powerful internet marketing tool, since web advertising and website search engine placement can be optimized to match high traffic keywords, making it more likely that Googlers will end up on your site.

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Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs (key performance indicators) are quantitative benchmarks used to track how much progress you’re making towards your marketing goals. To put it simply, a KPI is a metric you aim to hit to guarantee your project or department is on track, growing, and adding to the company’s bottom line.

The best KPIs follow the SMART framework, a system often used in management consulting. KPIs should be:

Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-Bound

For example, let’s say you want to get more website traffic. To make this KPI smart, you’d break it down like this:

I want more people to visit our website and become customers (relevant), so this month (time-bound), I want to boost our organic search traffic (specific) from 70,000 visitors per month to 80,000 visitors per month (measurable), which I’ll do primarily through link-building and improved keyword ranking (achievable).

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Landing Pages

A landing page is an individual web page used to promote specific marketing or advertising campaigns. When a company executes an online event to drive traffic, leads, or sales, customers are funneled to this page, where the event’s vital details and CTA (Call to Action) are posted. Landing pages are designed to encourage visitors to follow the CTA—sign up for a webinar or giveaway, purchase a sale item, etc.

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Link Building / Backlinking

Link building, sometimes informally called “backlinking” or “backlinks”, is the process of getting external websites (websites other than your own) to link back to your content. In other words, if you’ve written a blog post on “digital marketing terms” and another site links to it from an article of their own, you’ve just engaged in link building.

As SEO software company Moz puts it:

“If you get high-quality links to your website, it will help you rank better and get more traffic.”

You can read more about the details in Moz’s article on the subject here (and, by the way, that’s an example of link building).

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Marketing Automation

Marketing automation describes the use of software or online services (like Hubspot, MailChimp, and Act-on) to automate repetitive marketing tasks like emails, customer relationship management, social media posts, and analytics. Marketing Automation programs allow marketers to input specific criteria for the tasks in question and that data is interpreted and executed by the program.

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Multichannel Marketing

Multichannel marketing uses a variety of of communication platforms (website banner ads, Facebook ads, marketing emails, a blog) to interact with potential customers. This approach allows users to choose which channel they want to use to interact with your product and increases options for converting impressions into customers.

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Paid Ads

While some website traffic, leads, and customers will come through “unpaid” sources (basically legwork and site engineering done by digital marketers), it’s also possible to generate traffic through paid ads. Paid ads bypasses the “sweat equity” of doing things like SEO and social media marketing by hand, ensuring that your marketing content will jump to the head of the line—but, like the name suggests, it will cost you.

In some cases the cost is worth it, while in other cases it’s more cost-effective to take a DIY digital marketing approach. It really depends on the specifics of a business’ size, goals, needs, etc. Paid ads typically include two main categories:

Social Media Ads—Social media ads are distributed to users on social media networks based on trackable online behavior like online group memberships, age and social demographics, social media “likes,” browser history, etc.

Display Ads—These are generally banner ads displayed on websites or apps and composed of text, images, video, and/or audio content. Display ads can be targeted similarly to social media ads based on the same kind of trackable behavior metrics.

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Pillar Pages

Pillar pages are a blog post or landing page that superserves a topic. For instance, a pillar page about digital marketing should cover ALL THE THINGS digital marketing—but at a surface level. Each subtopic covered will then link to other site content that tackles the subtopic in detail.

By aggregating content in a cluster (the aim of a pillar page), Google can recognize that all of these articles are related to the same general topic, giving a site increased authority on the topic and improving the ranking for each individual article.

Meanwhile, pillar pages themselves become a way of funneling an audience from a general topic of interest and into subtopics that meet their specific needs (increasing time spent on site, which is a win for digital marketing).

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Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a digital marketing model where potential customers are led through a series of events or actions that can be mapped out in the shape of funnel.

The broadest level at the top of the funnel involves drawing users to your website, after which they move down the funnel where they’re offered services or resources if they sign up for your email list, until eventually they move to the bottom of the funnel and become a paying customer.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO (search engine optimization) is the digital marketing practice of optimizing a website so it’s more likely to show up in unpaid search results (e.g. it’s one of the first sites to appear when you “Google” a related topic).

SEO is done through using algorithms based on specific search engine’s behaviors, analyzing the keywords typed into search engines, and researching which search engines are popular with particular demographics.

Then, you align the format of your content (including things like making sure headings have extra searchable terms) to give yourself the best shot at moving up in search engines’ rankings.

Be careful, though: going too far has consequences. “Stuffing” your content with keywords will get you dinged on Google’s rankings, so don’t let the goal of SEO overtake producing authentic, value-rich content.

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Social Media Marketing

Like blogs, social media plays a big part in digital marketing. Most actual lead generation and customer conversion takes place on blogs and website landing pages, but social media marketing serves as an amplification of lead generation efforts.

A well-crafted Instagram story or Facebook post that spotlights a blog article you’re trying to promote will bring additional traffic to your site and article, giving a bump to your search rankings, which will then bring more traffic to your site.

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Site Audit

Site audits are exactly what they sound like—systematic reviews of your website’s performance in terms of benchmarks like search ranking, traffic numbers, time users spend on each page, external links viewers are using to get to your site, links visitors are clicking once they get to your site, etc.

When you track, collect, and record this data, you establish a clear, numbers-driven sense of your site’s performance. This allows you to implement site changes, additions, and improvements from a strategic vantage point.

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Style guide

A style guide is a document with guidelines for making marketing content conform to a brand’s look and voice. In terms of visual content, this includes things like:

color palettes

font sets

logos

When it comes to written or scripted content, style guides cover details like:

voice and tone

preferred terms

standard conventions for capitalization, punctuation, attribution, etc.

Since style guides are designed to appeal to a company or client’s particular market niche, they help present a consistent look, tone, and message that an audience can recognize and trust across an entire digital platform.

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Traffic

Traffic is the total amount of users who visit a website. Overall traffic is then broken down into specific types of visits—like unique visitors and total clicks.

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from Web Developers World https://skillcrush.com/2019/02/28/digital-marketing-terms/

[fitono]

Three Ways to Write Better Training Programs

I entered the fitness industry in 2002. Before that I was a Division II college baseball player no one had heard of (although I was briefly a big deal when Collegiate Baseball Newspaper named me a “player to watch” in 1998). For a few years after that I was just a guy who trained people in commercial gyms around the Northeast.

If you recognize my name, it’s because, in 2007, I cofounded Cressey Sports Performance, one of the most renowned strength and conditioning facilities in North America.

I stayed there as head strength coach—and director of Tony’s Techno Tuesdays—until 2015. That’s when I left to open my own training studio, CORE, where I’m the Techno Viking pretty much every day of the week.

In 16 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of people, from teenage athletes to Major League ballplayers to pre- and postpartum women to John from accounting.

I’ve written thousands of programs.

Want to guess how many have been perfect?

Zero.

There hasn’t been a single program so good that I didn’t scribble out of an exercise here, make a tweak or switcheroo there, grant myself a mulligan or two, or berate myself with a continuous loop of “boy, what were you thinking?”

I still find program writing one of the hardest things to do. For every “yep, I nailed it, and my client is totally going to the Olympics” there’s at least one “FML, I suck at writing programs.”

Nothing I do is more simultaneously rewarding and frustrating. Moreover, if I’m honest, it’s hard to think of anything more hypothetical.

“How many sets and reps should this guy do?”

“Will she respond better to back squats or front squats?”

“Should we follow a linear periodization scheme, or undulating? No, wait. Concurrent is better, right?”

The answer is usually “it depends.”

Now, this article isn’t meant to answer all the questions above (although “it depends” usually works). Nor can I give you One Weird Trick for program writing mastery. You’re more likely to have a light-saber duel with a Sasquatch in the middle of a 14-hour orgasm than you are to find a simple way to write safe and effective programs for all your clients.

Instead, I’ll share some lessons and insights I’ve picked up in my 16 years as a fitness pro. They’ve helped me, and I hope they’ll do the same for you.

An Assessment Shouldn’t Be Sadistic

You can probably find Pulitzer Prize-worthy descriptions of what an assessment is, and what it does.

[Editor’s note: They don’t give Pulitzers for descriptions of program design.]

Here’s my pithy offering: “Can the person in front of you do stuff?”

My non-pithy reasoning:

Most people you train will know what their Point B is. They want to lose X amount of weight, make varsity, look like Mark Fisher in a unicorn jockstrap, or beat Jason Bourne in a fistfight. But I’ve yet to train a client who was aware of his Point A.

It’s up to you to ascertain that starting point, and the only way to do it is with an assessment.

You know this already, of course. The colossal mistake I see too often, from too many fitness professionals, isn’t so much omitting the assessment as using it to define the client as a walking ball of fail.

They’ll use an entire hour to show someone how “dysfunctional” he is. Kyphotic posture! Poor scapular rotation! Amnesiac glutes! One eyebrow that’s thicker than the other!

The idea is that if the trainer uses enough syllables to identify enough problems the person will scream “fix me!” while handing over his credit card.

I shudder to think of how many clients I embarrassed or turned off with assessments like these early in my career. Sometimes, after ripping someone apart with a laundry list of everything we needed to fix, I’d walk away thinking, “New client, y’all! I’m going to Ponderosa tonight!”

Then I’d be surprised when I didn’t hear from him again. Like, who doesn’t enjoy a 60-minute lecture on what a disaster they are?

In retrospect, what’s surprising is how many stuck around, even when I wasted our training time with ankle mobility drills and positional breathing. I’m not saying those things aren’t useful in some situations. But people want to train, and training itself can be corrective.

What to do instead: Show clients what they can do

Use the assessment as an opportunity to highlight the bright spots. When you must correct something, make sure the client sees an immediate improvement in their range of motion, or learns a pain-free alternative to an exercise they’ve struggled with.

Maybe we shouldn’t even use a word like “assessment,” which implies intimidation and judgment to new clients. Instead, try “success session,” a term coined by Ryan Ketchum.

Your Client Deserves an Individualized Program

When I’m on the road and training in a new gym, I can’t resist observing what other trainers do with their clients, and how they interact with them. I’m like a moth drawn to a flame.

One time, when I was in a globogym in Texas, I saw a trainer working with an overweight woman who appeared to be a beginner.

First exercise: walking lunges, a common and benign exercise by most standards, but a fairly aggressive choice for someone new and clearly deconditioned.

It was painful to watch. But then it got worse.

Second exercise: Smith machine squat—again, a common exercise and not a terrible choice for someone just learning the movement.

The first set looked okay. The client seemed to get decent depth and looked confident. So the trainer added weight.

The second set … not quite as okay, but passable. Her range of motion was smaller as she struggled to maintain technique. Imagine my surprise to see the trainer add even more weight.

The third set was as ugly as I expected. If there were a wikiHow page on how not to do a Smith machine squat, they could’ve used this set for reference. The ROM was practically nonexistent.

Can you guess what the trainer did next? That’s right. He added more weight.

Can you guess what happened to his client? She unracked the barbell, initiated the rep, and immediately got stapled.

Here’s why I’m telling this story: While this is an example of a bad trainer, he wasn’t uniquely bad. In some ways he was typical.

To him, and to trainers like him, their way is the only way to train. Program design is a simple matter of molding clients to their biases and preferences, no matter the clients’ individual needs or ability levels.

READ ALSO: “Stop Training Your Clients Like CrossFitters, Bodybuilders, or Powerlifters.”

What to do instead: Program like your job depends on it

Train each client like you’re being observed. Because you probably are.

Your clients may not realize you indiscriminately deploy the same programs with every client, with the same exercises and techniques. And if they do, they may not know there’s anything wrong with it.

But others will see what you do, and what you don’t do, and steer potential clients away.

Audit Your Programs

If you can look at a program you wrote five years ago and not throw up a little in your mouth, you’re doing it wrong.

Put another way: On a scale of disgust-registering faces, with 10 being the look you’d have if you saw your mom having sex with a mime, you should be around a seven or eight when you look at programs you once thought were pretty good, if not brilliant.

Even worse, if you compare it to a program you wrote last week, and see no differences, you need to reconsider your career choice.

Ideally, you’d see a clear difference between how you wrote a program five years ago and what you do now. And if you looked at programs from four, three, and two years ago, you should see a steady progression toward your current program design.

At the same time, you should audit the results of those programs. And not just the measurable ones, like increases in strength or decreases in body-fat percentage. Are you seeing fewer injuries? Do your clients enjoy the workouts more, and look forward to their training sessions more than your clients did in the past? What about their sleep and nutrition?

If those are more dialed in, you can take it as a sign your clients are more motivated, or you’re giving them better guidance beyond your program, or (more likely) some combination.

Another important question: Are your programs more detailed, or less?

My programs have become more efficient as I’ve learned to omit the extraneous fluff. But it isn’t easy. Early in my career, the more I learned, the more I wanted to pack into each session. I equated elaborate programs with providing value and giving my clients a sense of excitement.

But eventually I figured out that adding more to a program is rarely the key to better results. Nor is adding novelty for the sake of novelty. Today my goal is to find the minimal effective dose. I try to keep things simple while making sure my clients do the simple things well, and do them consistently.

What to do instead: Have your colleagues audit your programming

Nothing is more powerful than a colleague’s feedback. Or more intimidating. That’s exactly why you should go out of your way to get constructive criticism from your fellow coaches about your programming.

We did this often at Cressey Sports Performance, and while it sometimes sucked to see your work examined in forensic detail, it made us all better coaches.

Final Thoughts

You’ll probably notice something I haven’t done here: tell you how to write a program. It’s my favorite topic, not counting all the others, but it’s not my goal in this article.

Instead, I hope I’ve given you some ways to improve your own programming, starting with your first encounter with a new client and ending … well, never. I’m still figuring out new ways to improve my programs after 16 years, and if I ever stop learning, I’ll know it’s time to hang up my clipboard and call it a career.

    The post Three Ways to Write Better Training Programs appeared first on The PTDC.

Three Ways to Write Better Training Programs published first on https://medium.com/@MyDietArea

[moverslasvegascom]

7 Ways to Save Money When You Move in Las Vegas

Moving is undoubtedly very stressful. During the planning stages, it becomes much worse thanks to the expenses and all the preparations. However, if you plan these things beforehand, you’ll realize that it isn’t that hard at all.

The secrets to a successful relocation are researching, planning and preparation.

Researching – ask other people like your friends or family, who have already done this before. Ask about their experience and the preparation they did. Also, don’t forget to ask them for referrals when it comes to finding a local mover.

Planning – plan your course of action and calculate the expenses.

Preparation – start looking for affordable and reliable movers in town. Check their website for online reviews.

Here are 7 ways to help you save money when moving in Las Vegas:

Prepare a Moving Budget – according to your research and planning, calculate the estimated amount of the move and prepare a moving budget accordingly. Also, prepare extra money for emergency cases. Normally around 10% to 15% of your initial budget, according to financial experts and moving specialists. Having a budget will help you keep things on track. It will also prevent you from spending too much than necessary. The things that you need to figure out are how much would you need: to buy boxes and other packing materials, rent a truck, get insurance, reserve an accommodation, storage rent (if applicable), utilities and so on.

Evaluate which items you can sell, donate or leave behind along with the property. Moving can be a great opportunity for you to get rid of things that you no longer use or need. Leaving some items behind will save you extra money on boxing and storage. While on the other hand, selling some preloved or old items will help fund or even increase your move budget.Here are some ideas to help you when selling items:• Have a garage sale for preloved items like clothes, books, small furniture and kitchenware. • Sell-off sports memorabilia and artworks plus other collectible items. • Send large furniture to a consignment store to be resold. • Donate the rest of your items and get a tax write-off for them.Lastly, you can leave some furniture or fixtures along with the property and try to sell it with a little extra fee. Don’t forget to discuss these small details with the new tenant/s so they’ll know.Items which you can leave behind are appliances, garage fixtures, decorative wall items, ceiling lamps or fans, large cabinets, exercise equipment, yard furniture and anything that you think would fit better in the old house.

Pack your items with utmost care. First, prepare all the items that you’ll need. Check the supplies and choose the right sizes for your moving boxes. Prepare marking pens, wrapping sheets, scissors, labeling stickers, heavy duty tape and bubble wraps.To finish faster, involve the whole family in the packing. Let them pack their own stuff BUT just make sure you have an inventory of each item which are already inside the boxes. For this activity, you have the choice to do it yourself or hire expert movers.Most of the people would choose hiring movers and involving themselves to make the move faster and a lot easier. You can pack all the small household items and let the movers handle the fragile, large, heavy things along with the special items like pianos, pool tables, artworks, antiques, and so on.The advantage of hiring a mover is that you can get useful, expert tips from them on how to properly pack things together to avoid breakage. Also, during the initial planning stage, allot several weeks for packing so you’ll have lots of time to go over your items and decide which one to bring, sell and discard.

Coordinate with your Utilities and Service Providers. Before you settle down in your new place, don’t forget to talk to your individual utility and service providers to avoid having to pay double for the utility costs. It’s better to talk to them a few days before the move and coordinate the transfer of their services to your new location or cancel the subscription in case you’re going to get a new provider. Remember to give the utility and service providers a forwarding address so you can receive any final bill and pay it accordingly. And, a few months after settling down in your new place, check your credit reports to verify if there are no continuing bills from the old address which probably got left behind.

Make a decision whether to hire a moving company or not. If you’re only moving a few boxes, then I guess you can make the move on your own. But, if you’re planning to move 10 years’ worth of items in your house including furniture, large appliances and special items, then it’s best to seek professional help and hire a responsible moving company like moveOn Moving.Here are some things to consider:• How much are you moving in volume? • How heavy and how many items will you be moving? • How many days would it take for you to pack everything? • Will you and your team be able to handle the packing by yourselves or will you need professional help? • How much time do you have to move your things out?For homeowners and apartment or condo tenants, it’s best to hire a professional mover since you’ll be moving lots of items. So, do try to ask for a written estimate/quotation so you could think about your options.Remember, moving can be a strenuous and stressful activity so having someone to help you is a great advantage.

Don’t be shy to ask for quotations from several movers. It’s not a crime to talk to as many moving companies as you can since it is your right to choose which company you’re comfortable to work with and which service is affordable according to your budget.Instead of just going online, try to visit their office to check out their operation. Confirm whether they have the appropriate license with the Department of Transportation and discuss your situation with them. Also, look for an expert team of movers who’ll give you the service that you need. Ask for pricing when it comes to packing and insurance. Also, inquire about their payment methods. This would help you to sift out those who are only after the money and those who asks for cash up front.

Conduct a Post-Moving Audit. To make sure you were able to bring everything you need, don’t forget to conduct a post-moving audit. Using the inventory you have previously prepared, check the items one by one and look for any damages, scratches, breakage. For electronics, don’t forget to try if they’re working properly and verify if you were able to bring all your valuable items like jewelries, artworks, vintage collections, and gadgets with you at your new place.

A reliable and trustworthy mover would stick around to help you with the auditing. They will stay with you until you’ve fully confirmed that everything is okay and you are satisfied with their service. They’ll also be readily available in case any problem or issue would arise.

Keep in mind, with proper research, planning and preparation, you can easily lower the cost of your move and make it easy and hassle-free. moveON moving is an expert in affordable and hassle-free moving. So give us a call now or get a free quote for your big move.

The post 7 Ways to Save Money When You Move in Las Vegas appeared first on moveON moving.

source https://www.moveonmoving.com/7-ways-save-money-move-las-vegas/

[itscooltobefanficy]

Feeling Alive- Part 2

Summary: Dance school!AU (or the Step Up/Pride and Prejudice mash up nobody asked for). Bucky Barnes is forced to take twelve hours of commercial dance classes to pass the year- and that just happens to be your regular weekly dance class.

Introduction

Part 1 (Slow Hands)

Stay

Pairing: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Chapter 3/?: Stay

Word count: 3494

Warnings: Mild physical injury

I’m really astonished by the feedback for this! Thank you to everyone who’s liked so far and/or asked to be added to the tag list. And thanks as always to @systemfailuresunshine for putting up with me <3 See bottom for author notes!

You’re running late, again. Groaning in frustration, you seize your keys from the table and grab your bag from the floor where you’d dumped it on your way in. Trainers, water bottle, towel- all in there. Thankfully you’d packed everything you needed this morning, and, on the upside, at least it isn’t raining. You lock up behind you and check your pockets for change. A handful of coins rattles at your touch: you sigh with relief. You can get the bus to the studio. You heft your bag onto your shoulder and set off in the direction of the stop.

It’s Wednesday, and the weather has, thankfully, done a complete U-turn since last week. The sun has been shining all day, accompanied by the merest handful of puffy clouds. You’ve caught yourself staring wistfully out of the library windows more than once; at least until Nahid inevitably throws a balled-up returns receipt at your head to shatter your daydreaming. Right now, though, you don’t need to hurry- the bus isn’t due until quarter-to- so you take your time to enjoy the walk in the gilded evening light.

That enjoyment is cut short, however, when you round the corner and catch a glimpse of who else is waiting for the bus. You balk for a second, then pull yourself together. You’re just going to walk up to this collection of tall, beautiful dancers and act completely natural. Nothing to worry about whatsoever.

They don’t notice you as you draw closer, so you take the opportunity to study them. Your ‘friends’ from last week have their backs to you, but the two people they’re chatting to are exactly what you’d envisage if somebody said ‘ballet school’. The white girl is both tiny and leonine, with vibrant red hair pulled back in a bun; the guy has flawless dark skin and muscles that stand out beneath his white t-shirt. You square your shoulders and cover the remaining distance.

“Hey.”

Steve, predictably, turns around with a smile.

“Hey, Y/N!”

You smile tightly as the girl lifts her gaze to coolly survey you. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see James’ expression clouding over. Internally, you tut exasperatedly.

“Wait, this is Y/N? The one who schooled you on the way home last week?” The other guy snorts and holds out a hand. “Sam. Nice to meet you.”

“I see my fame precedes me,” You joke, dryly, as you grasp his palm. “Although what these two have been telling you-”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” The girl steps forward. “It’s good for them to have somebody disagree with them. Natasha.”

“Nice to meet you,” You say, on reflex, even as Steve makes a strangled noise beside you.

“Oh yeah, like you don’t do that enough, Nat-”

She looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “It’s nice to have some back-up, Rogers. Keeping your egos at a manageable size is at least a two-person job.”

“Objection, Romanoff. We’re not the ones attempting the ‘most difficult audition piece this academy has ever seen’.”

You blink in surprise. Unless you’re very much mistaken, James just said something that wasn’t horrifically serious.

Natasha just rolls her eyes. “You’re one to talk, ‘only dancer to achieve full-marks in your first-year practical exam’.”

Sam grins conspiratorially at you. “And then there’s me, who’s just average. I honestly don’t know why they keep me around.”

Steve claps him on the shoulder. “You and me both, Sam.”

You laugh. “And here I am: a librarian. I feel like a sore thumb.”

“Hey,” Steve wags a finger at you, “There’s no such thing as ‘just a librarian’.”

“Yeah,” Nat says, even as she steps to the curb to throw out her hand for the bus, “Librarians will be our saviours when the apocalypse comes.”

“Care to tell my employers that? I could do with a raise…”

The brakes hiss as the double-decker lumbers to a stop and the doors slide open. Sam steps aside to allow you and Nat on first. You pay your fare and follow her to the back seats.

“So are you and Sam taking the same module as those two?”

Nat nods as she gracefully sits by the window.

“We’ve got salsa.”

“And it’s not as bad as she says,” Sam cuts in, dropping into the seat beside you. Nat tsks.

“You just like it because you like having it easy.”

“Oh yeah, because that’s so foolish, having two hours a week where all you have to remember is basic, basic, turn, basic…”

You snigger. “Maybe I should sign up for salsa. I don’t think Wanda knows what easy is.”

“Wanda’s the hot teacher?” Sam asks; then raises his hands in surrender as you lift your eyebrows in a very pointed manner. “I’m just going off the information I’ve been given!”

“Which one of you has been describing Wanda as hot?” You demand, as Steve and James make their way down the aisle (Steve has to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the ceiling).

“I was speaking objectively, Y/N,” Steve says, “Just painting an accurate picture for them.”

You frown, but Nat smirks.

“You don’t have to worry about Steve, Y/N, he’s already spoken for.”

Steve rolls his eyes as he drops into the seat in front of you both, but you can tell by the way his expression has closed up that Nat’s hit a nerve.

“Don’t tease him about Peggy, Nat,” James says, mildly, “It’s not kind.”

“Yeah,” Steve seems to recover, and his tone lightens up, “It’s not like all of us get to spend seven hours a week in the presence of such beauty.”

“Um,” Sam scoffs, “You see me every day.”

They all laugh, you included.

“Well, I’m glad your beauty quota is filled, because Wanda is very much off-limits.”

“She have a partner?” Sam asks, and you twist your lip.

“Not yet. But she will, if I have anything to do with it.”

Nat raises one eyebrow. “Sounds intriguing.”

“Ah, it’s just this guy we see at competitions. He heads up Vision Studios, on the other side of town. He’s literally perfect for her.” You can’t help but roll your eyes just thinking about the two of them. Wanda laughs more with Luis than anyone else, but somehow they never seem to make that final push to exchanging numbers and going on an actual date. “One day they’ll see sense.”

Steve leans across to pat James’ knee consolingly and takes on the tone of a stereotypical maiden aunt. “Shame about that, Buck. Still, I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

James leans back, his mouth twisting into a grin. “She’s not really my type,” Is all he says.

“Are competitions a regular thing, then?” Nat addresses you, and you nod.

“Fairly. Wanda puts on more sessions when they’re coming up. I think our next one is in ten weeks or so?” You shrug. “Quite a way off, anyway. How does it work in the Academy?”

“We have auditions,” Steve answers, “For professional companies. They come through twice a year.”

You can’t hide your surprise. “That sounds pretty serious. Are you all going professional then?”

The four of them exchange looks. You huff a little. “You’re speaking to uninitiated, here!”

“Yes,” James answers, shortly.

“If we can,” Sam interjects, wryly.

“There’s no if about it,” Nat says.

“Not for our child-prodigy here-” Steve teases, and gets a whack on the arm.

“If you old men quit grumbling every once in a while-”

“Old men! You’d better watch your back, Romanoff-”

“Literally, you’ll probably end up with Steve for your duet,” Sam points out.

From the corner, James snorts. “I wouldn’t risk it, Stevie, she could seriously hurt you.”

“If you’re finished,” You say, standing up, “It’s nearly our stop, you two.” You turn back to wave at Sam and Nat. “Guess I’ll see you around?”

Nat gives you a small smile and Sam waves back as Steve and James get to their feet.

“Keep them in check, Y/N!” Nat calls, and a laugh bubbles out of you before you can stop it. Keep them in check. As if you could ever.

~~~

“Alright!” You push your sweaty hair off your forehead as Wanda calls the class to order. “As you may have noticed, this week we’re in the unusual position of having too many leads! So, as a special treat, I’m going to have you rotate partners!” The answering groan of protest doesn’t have the slightest effect on her gleeful expression. “It is good for you! Keeps you on your toes. We’ll have a break, then follows can move one to the left.”

You send a look of heartfelt misery her way, and she laughs.

“Like I said, it’s good for you, Y/N!”

“Yeah, suck it up, Y/N,” Clint messes your hair as he passes, and you make a half-hearted sound of outrage. “Got to stop being the teacher’s pet at some point.”

“Not funny,” You say, but you follow him off the floor anyway. “And at least I’m not speaking as an individual who lost at crazy golf…”

“Now that,” Clint glares at you, “Was not funny.”

You breeze past him to fetch your water bottle. “I’ll have you know that I’m hilarious.”

“It was pretty funny.” Steve walks past to where he had stashed his bag. You’d all walked in together: it had been kind of impossible to put your stuff separately. To your own surprise, the idea of spending further time in their company wasn’t entirely horrific. It was like there was a whole new side to them when they were around their friends. There was certainly a whole new side to James. Although he seemed to have clammed up again when he entered the studio, you’d been sneaking glances at the pair of them when you’d had the opportunity, and they’d clearly been practicing. Perhaps they did care a little more than they’d initially let on.

“Hey!” Clint protests, pointing a finger at Steve. “You don’t even know my name and you’re ganging up on me.”

“Ah, sorry?”

Clint cracks a smile. “It’s Clint.” He adds in the signed spelling. “Just remember that I’m always the funny one, and Y/N is not.”

“All the evidence would appear to be to the contrary,” Comes a quiet voice, and you look to one side to see James watching you both. Clint glares theatrically at him.

“You are fighting a losing battle, my friend.”

“OK!” Wanda’s voice breaks up their little debate. “Back to it!”

You stride back out into the centre of the room and try to shake off the uncomfortable feeling in your midriff that sparked when James took your side.

Wanda shakes her head in amusement. “Did you all think I wouldn’t notice if you just went back to the same partners? Come on! Step outside your comfort zones!”

Everyone reluctantly separates and all the follows move clockwise around the two lines of leads. You end up with Dylan, which is a relief. What’s more concerning is that James is only two spaces along- which means you’ll probably end up dancing with him. Today. Again, you squash down the tickly feeling.

“You can block with this partner- I’ll come around and correct your technique- then we’ll run through from the start.” Wanda looks positively gleeful at the glares most of her students shoot her way. “Off you go!”

Blocking passes without incident. Wanda incessantly corrects your wrists and hands (“Extend, Y/N! All the way to the end of the line!”) before sending you on to dance with Mo. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see James stood to one side, waiting out his turn without a partner.

“To music, this time! Remember, I want to see clean shapes.”

The hum flares out from the speakers as the song begins.

“Waiting for the time to pass you by, hope the wind of change will change your mind,

I could give a thousand reasons why…”

You slide into the isolations, playing with the positioning so it exactly mirrors Mo’s.

“All you have to do is stay,

A minute,

Just take your time.

The clock is ticking,

So stay.”

You turn to face one another, a smile forming on your face at the feeling of the movements flowing so easily.

“All you have to do is wait,

A second,

Your hands,

On mine…”

You join hands, then follow Mo’s grip to his opposite shoulder.

“The clock is ticking,

So stay-”

You slide your fingertips down Mo’s arm and hold onto his wrist, and as the tick-tick-tick of the beat rings out, you drop into the backbend.

Except- Mo doesn’t have your arm. For the briefest of moments, your balance hovers, tilted way beyond your centre of gravity- and then Mo’s wrist slides out of your grasp and you drop backwards with a thud. In the handful of heartbeats before you hit the ground, you frantically try to realign your neck and shoulders, trying to prevent your head from hitting the floor first; but there’s a sharp twinge of pain from your hips as gravity forces them to fold over at an angle you’re not flexible enough to handle and you let out a yelp an instant before you slam down on your back.

“Y/N?!”

“Are you OK?!”

The music stops. You’re only immediately aware of two things: the fact that there seem to be literal waves from the impact rippling through your skull, and that all the breath has been jolted from your chest. You wheeze, flat out like a stranded turtle, as Mo leans over you on one side and Wanda on the other.

“I’m so sorry,” Mo gasps, “I just missed the timing-”

“You alright down there?” Clint crouches down by your head, and Pepper peers anxiously at you.

The air seems to be filtering back into your lungs, and you wince as you uncurl your legs. “Been better,” You manage to say, “But I don’t think it’s a hospital job.”

“I don’t know,” James’ voice filters into your ears, “She hit her head pretty hard.”

You’d like to complain, but your brain still feels like it’s rattling between your ears. A furrow appears between Wanda’s eyebrows.

“Can you sit up?” She asks. You shove yourself up on your elbows, grimacing at the ache already settling in your shoulders.

“Look, not dead.” Christ. Your head really hurts; though you don’t mention that to Wanda. She’s worried enough as it is. You carefully look around.

“Alright.” James kneels down beside you. “Recite the days of the week backwards?”

“What?” You look at him incredulously.

“We get taught that when we’re checking for concussion, Y/N,” Steve says, somewhere to your left. “Ballet dancers fall over a lot.”

You snort, but try to focus. “Uh, Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Wednesday… Tuesday, Monday.”

James nods. Clearly your encounter with the floor has knocked you silly, because his eyes seem astonishingly soft. “And now count backwards from twenty?”

“Are you serious?”

James just looks at you, and you crack.

“Fine. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…”

You reach zero without any mistakes, and James finally seems satisfied.

“Are we content that I don’t have a brain injury?” You grouse, and Mo offers you a hand up (still looking guilty, even though Pepper has reassured him at least three times that it was just an honest mistake). Wanda mock-shudders.

“Don’t even joke about it, Y/N. And you’re sitting out the rest of the session. I’m not having you damaging yourself any further.”

Again, you want to protest- but the pain in your head rivals a period cramp, and you’re not that much of a martyr. You nod (trying not to make the movement too severe) and shuffle over to the wall.

“I’ll sit out with her,” James offers, and you look up in surprise- but Wanda’s already nodding.

“Just in case I pass out?” You joke as he walks towards you. You carefully slide down to sit with the mirror against your back.

“Like Wanda says, don’t joke about it.” He sits a foot or so away as Wanda gets the class underway again. “Sure you’re OK?”

Your initial instinct is to reply with something snarky, but there’s genuine concern behind the question. Instead, you smile (well, it’s more of a grimace) and lift a hand to the back of your head.

“I’ve got the mother of all headaches and I don’t think my hips will be on speaking terms with me for a few days, but yeah. Like I said, not dead.”

He smiles with one side of his mouth. “Always a positive.”

You laugh softly as Wanda starts the music again.

“You know, you should do some stretches.” James speaks up over the music. “In general. It will help if you ever get concertinaed up again.”

You shrug. “I probably should. I’m just never focused enough to do them.” Or, rather, you can’t be bothered. “Your classmates would probably tear me limb from limb for speaking such heresy.”

James snorts and shakes his head slightly. Then he resumes his serious expression. “I can show you a couple, if you want?”

You’re so surprised, you almost forget to breathe. To cover your shock, you fall back on humour: you eye him suspiciously and ask, “How much will they hurt?”

“They’re supposed to hurt, Y/N,” He says, with more than a touch of sarcasm, “That’s how you know they’re working.”

You tilt your head back to rest gently against the mirror and ignore the fizzing in your stomach. “Fine. But, fair warning, I’ll probably whine a lot.”

James raises his eyes to the ceiling. “What have I let myself in for?”

“What’s that phrase? No take-backs.”

He pulls a face at you, and you have to fight the urge to stick out your tongue. James then wisely decides to change the subject.

“Is the studio space free before the class?”

“Yeah. Wanda sometimes runs her extra practices from four.”

James nods, looking pensive. Before you can ask why, though, Wanda’s announcing the end of the class and Pepper, Clint and Steve are heading your way.

“How’s the invalid?” Clint asks, and you make an ineffectual swat at his ankle. Pepper laughs.

“I think that means she’s fine.”

Besides the throbbing in your skull, you are fine; but that doesn’t stop Steve and James insisting you catch the bus home with them, and, when you hop off at your stop, Steve announces that they’re walking you to your door.

“Steve,” You say, trying to sound firm, but he shakes his head in a self-righteous manner whilst James looks on, amused.

“No, I won’t hear it! Can you imagine the guilt we’d feel if you collapsed out of sight round the corner?”

“It’s not like it’s far,” James says, in a mollifying voice, and you roll your eyes dramatically before gesturing for them to fall in beside you.

“If this carries on next week, I will not be impressed,” You warn. Steve nods seriously.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Honestly.” The exasperation in your tone sets James off into quiet giggles. “Look, here we are, and I’m still alive and kicking.” You stop outside the narrow door that leads up to your one-bed flat.

“Wait,” James says, before you can climb the steps, “You live alone?”

“Yes,” You say, trying to keep the suspicion out of your voice. OK, they seem nice- but you still barely know them. James holds up his hands in a conciliatory gesture.

“Just- it’s probably paranoia, but it would be nice to know that you’re up in the morning.”

“What, in case you need to break down the door and take me to A&E?” That seems like a very remote possibility, but Steve’s nodding.

“That’s a good point, Buck- have you got your phone on you?”

James fishes in his pocket and pulls it out, tapping in the passcode before holding it out to you.

“Don’t look at us like that,” Steve says, in that gentle teasing tone of voice, “We’re just concerned for your safety.”

“You’re worse than my mother, that’s what you are,” You mutter, but you acquiesce and take the phone. After tapping in your number, you hand it back. “There. Now that you have a way to be quite sure I’m not dead, I’ll say goodnight.”

Steve smiles at you, and even James’ face seems to have relaxed. “Goodnight, Y/N.” The pair of them don’t move. You raise an eyebrow. Steve just smiles wider. “Look, we’re going to see you safely inside.”

“You,” You say, vehemently, “Are both ridiculous.” You jam your key in the lock, swing the door theatrically wide and hop over the threshold. “Satisfied?”

“Goodnight, Y/N!”

Rolling your eyes for their benefit, you softly shut the door and turn the lock. Then you start up the stairs, with your mind firmly fixed on a paracetamol, a glass of water and the soft sheets of your bed.

AN: You know when I said that last part was long... It’s actually rare for me to write less than 3000 words per chapter, so if that’s not your jam then I quite understand. I’ve tagged all the people who have asked, and a couple who’ve liked both the parts that have come out previously- as per, if the story turns out not to be to your taste then drop me a line and I’ll remove you from the list. I always hesitate to tie myself to update schedules but I’ve just finished writing the tenth chapter of this (!) so I’ll be posting new chapters every couple of days. Once again, thanks so much for the feedback so far, I love you all <3

Tag list: @blonde0n; @vintagesaph; @plumsforbuck2016; @debzybrazy; @themarvelousmaximoffs; @learisa

Part 3