#i am so normal about them. i tried taking decent looking screenshots but it's hard since it's a really basic tool. the free cam

[asvidema]

so i'm trying to follow hans around, even if i know people said he doesn't say anything to henry except from normal greetings and such. which is a shame but i'm not complaining. however, something really wholesome happened

i know it could just be part of his standard routine, but he was outside early in the morning, visited the baths for a beer and fix his knife, then it started raining. he went back to devil's den, walked to his and henry's room and started reading at candlelight as the rain poured

[sweetestlamb]

The Greatest Show

Summary: Come on, get into it. 

Author's note: I haven’t been inspired to write for this fandom in a while because honestly the writers are doing amazing, everything I think of is pure filth because I am eagerly awaiting their next kiss. But episode 17 broke my brain with their squash the rumor scene, the growling and grunting that So-Bong was so unaffected by. These two need a tent, desperately. Enjoy my royal pervs, here is my offering. 

p.s. picture borrowed from @tomorrowsdrama- thank you for the screenshots of this amazing moment! 

He's doing what he must to survive, that's all. End of sentence. He takes no pleasure in slamming the King into the closest surface and rubbing their body against him like a cat in heat, not in the slightest. Rumors are weeds, you have to rip them out for flowers and crops to flourish. That's all they're doing, weeding the garden of Joseon so it can flourish for their future child. 

That's what he tells himself as they cross paths in the royal hall, the King is flagged by the entire royal court animatedly discussing something of seemingly vast importance if their volume suggests anything. As he takes a step forward, Court Lady Choi seizes their hand halting them in place.

"Your highness you just not approach the King when he is with the Royal court. It is not proper. We just simply bow as they walk by."

But he doesn't care about propriety or appearing decent and well-behaved in front of these corrupt old bags, they are simply larger weeds that need to be disposed of. Smirking at their potential outrage, he grins evilly letting that fuel him even more before pulling up their dress to run over to their Cheoljongie. He looks bored out of his mind so it can also be considered a good deed, he's such a giving wife.

"My King!" Her voice rings out as he calls to his husband, who immediately looks over at them warmth filling those expressive eyes. Without hesitation the King bounds over to them happily, his movement only slightly faster than his usual glide ever the diligent King.

"My Queen, I have missed you."

The members of the backstabbing clan look disgruntled at the King's sudden departure, grumbling and pointing at them as if they have committed the highest crime.

If they think this is inappropriate then they're in for a huge surprise.

Looking down demurely, he thinks of his younger days when he was a junior understudy for the school play his acting prowess would come in handy now.

"Not as much as I have missed you, my love." He whispers the word of affection, reaching up to caress the King's cheeks softly making sure to appear infatuated. He has to force that after all because he doesn't do that naturally, despite what the royal maids claim. They are just confused, So-yong has a soft face that appears adoring at time despite his true emotions. 

With a soft whimper he throws himself into the King's arm, feeling those strong arms encircle her small waist, lightning zips through their veins but he ignores her bodily reaction.

We're just acting, take the memo! He internally berates the other inhabitant of this hormonally charged body.

But when Cheoljong strokes their neck and easily lifts them off their feet, he gasps loudly clinging to him harder for balance and because her knees suddenly feel weak.

"Your majesty, we do not have time for such....improper dalliance. You must not do this in such a public venue." One of the old farts stage whispers sounding positively scandalized and it revs him up even further. As he feels the King starting to retreat he jumps forward, wrapping their body around the King's like a limpet.

Cheoljong's eyes sparks to life the new position placing them eye to eye, panting softly onto each other. The air between them is charged and thick like a bowl of porridge. 

"Your highness, I agree you mustn't do this." Court lady Choi pleads with her, averting her eyes away from the tangled couple. 

He looks over Cheoljong's wide shoulders to see the Royal court affronted and wide eyed and Court Lady Choi with a similar expression, Hong Yeon is trying desperately to smother her smile as she averts her eyes. Sending her a secret wink, he pulls the King's head forward staring hungrily at his lips.

"I cannot resist, seeing him awakens such deep passion inside of me. Just one?"

He looks at her dazed, as if he's forgotten everyone surrounding them.

"Just...one?" He questions, confusion morphing into sudden realization as he watches them slide their tongue across plush lips.

"Oh."

Ignoring the cacophony of voices around them, he closes the miniscule space between them puckering up and kissing the soft skin of the King's cheek. Cheoljong tries blindly to catch her lips when they retract but he places a slim finger on his pursed lips.

Shaking their head lightly, he starts to slide down the King's hard body feeling the tight muscles even through the layers of fabric.

"We must save the rest for later, my heart. Come and visit us soon." He rubs at his stomach fondly, staring up into Cheoljong’s red face, he looks good enough to eat.

Wait what. Who thought that? No, it's the baby talking I'm just hungry, that's enough of a show.

Bowing deeply at the men, he steps around the King who is still frozen in his spot. Gathering himself he turns to the royal court with an innocent smile, "I apologize, I could not control myself. I will take a long walk to reflect on my behavior."

They collectively stare at her with gaped mouths as she walks off regally, shoulders straight as if nothing happened. After a few steps he turns around, calling over their shoulder, "Don't keep me waiting!" And then to add the proverbial cherry on top, he curls their finger before letting out a roar to which everyone jumps looking bewildered, except the King whose eyes could pierce a hole through their face.

He looks like a starved man. Maybe they should make him some more ramyeon?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To say he's flustered is a bit of an understatement considered the problem in his pants. Logically he understands the Queen's actions earlier, she'd merely been doing what they had both agreed to feigning affection to dissolve those erroneous rumors that were circulating the kingdom. But he would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying this immensely.

His Queen was an enigma he had even up on fully understanding, instead choosing to accept her and all that came with her. And her feelings for him were part of his confusion, she seemed to fluctuate between her emotions without rhyme or reason. He never knew which version of her he would be receiving at any given moment. So having her acting the way he'd only imagined in his dreams was both satisfying and unsettling.

It would be most difficult to go back to their normal, he wanted her in his arms always. Desperately yearned for intimacy that didn't dissipate when the sun peeked over the horizon.

Pushing his work to the side of the table he sighs leaning back into his seat thinking about his Queen.

"Why must she be so confusing?" He groans to myself thinking about their first night together, how passionate she'd been his ears burn remembering the sharp pain of her teeth sinking it. He had bite marks in... interesting places from that heated encounter but her behavior after had been consistent only in it's in inconsistency.

Running away from him, even going as far as hiding. Then just as suddenly she stopped avoiding him and they settled into comfortable nights together. However, they hadn't been intimate since despite his many efforts, he just wanted a kiss those plush pink lips were so tempting and today they'd been so very close. He needed that kiss like he needed air, he didn't care who was around. If she had kissed him he wouldn't have controlled himself, he would have hungrily devoured.

"Your majesty it is getting late, we must leave now if you wish to see the Queen." The head eunuch interrupts his inklings, bowing low in respect.

Is he ready for this? His control feels paper thin at the moment. But he did promise and they have an image to uphold.

Gathering his strength he rises, "Alright, let us take over leave. I shouldn't keep my Queen waiting."

The walk to Daejeon Hall is short but it feels like he's traversing miles, despite his previous concerns he is now eager to see the Queen. Her face is gorgeous at all hours but there's something about her face lit with candlelight, knowing he's the only one who is allowed to see her at such hours.

Accelerating his feet, he almost races to her ignoring cries from the head eunuch in the distance. Every second not spent in her company is a second wasted.

The Queen's Court lady announces his arrival before they all bow walking backwards out of the room before sliding the doors shut.

"You took your sweet time, I told you not to keep me waiting." She glares at him, pouting slightly bringing all his attention to her mouth.

"I apologize my Queen there were pressing matters to deal with." He lies easily no attention of clarifying his meaning, she doesn't need to know that dousing his arousal was the pressing matter at hand.

"Whatever. What's more important than me?" She scoffs looking offended turning away from him.

He lowers down into a crouch, crawling across the room until they are side by side. The Queen gasps at his unexpected closeness, staring at him with wide eyes and open lips.

Grasping at her hands he stares deeply into her gorgeous eyes solemnly with no humor in his voice, "Nothing. You are most important to me, both of you." Reverently he reaches out a hand to palm at her still small belly, impatient to see her round with his seed.

Her face slowly softens as he rubs her stomach and then she places her hand atop his, no longer resistant to these fleeting moments of intimacy.

Instinctively he starts to lean forward, laser focus on her lips as he inches closer to her. When he's close enough to breath into her mouth she snaps from her haze, moving back marginally he almost growls at her he's so frustrated, he's barely able to swallow the sound.

"What are you doing? There's no one to put on a show for."

He peers at her searching her face, her pupils are dilated and he can feel how fast she's breathing each puff landing on his face, her expression near identical to their last night together. But she's stopping him. Even though she clearly desires this too.

He thinks back to her behavior earlier too, she was brazen then comfortable climbing him in front of so many others all in the name of squashing the rumors.

She needs an excuse to do this.

He should feel offended by this epiphany but instead it brings him resolve, she clearly still hasn't fully let him into her heart but she feels something for him she's more than proven that to him. If she needs to draw a line to be with him then so be it for now, he will prove himself to her everyday.

"There are several court maids and servants outside your room, they are pretending they are not listening but they are. Sometimes your imagination can be even more powerful than reality."

She looks towards the door, eying the shadows through the thin covering before turning back to him and nodding in understanding.

"Okay. Let's give them a show."

Without warning she knocks a marble vase to the ground, the loud crash filling the room as it makes contact with the floor.

Then she moans. Loudly. A suggestive gasping moan that goes straight to his chest before zinging lower, tucking at his loins.

She pushes him when he sits silently merely staring at her, "You need to play along too. Come on, get into it."

There's it is again. That damn phrase.

Get into it.

If only she knew how into it he truly was. Grabbing at her ankle and tucking her underneath him, he slams his arms on either side of her head before groaning deeply, "My Queen, please."

Pride explodes in his chest when he sees a deep blush glide across her face. Not unaffected.

"Am I getting into it enough for you now?" He whispers darkly, itching to lower his weight and kiss that delicious look off her face.

Surprisingly she stutters out, "Ye-a-ah. You seem very into it now, nobody can see us though. We don't need to be like this." She motions between their bodies, unable to meet his gaze now. She motions between their bodies, unable to meet his gaze now. She's right but he also knows that he can't miss this chance, he has her right where he wants her and besides squirming distractedly she hasn't shown any desire for him to move away.

"Do you want me to stop?" When she doesn't immediately answer he begins to move backward giving her space but she latches onto his forearm, tight.

"Wait! Maybe we should commit even if they can't see us, it'll help us play our roles better." She reasons and he smiles, razor sharp. She wants this just as badly as he does, he's studied her long enough to read between these lines.

Swiftly he rolls them over so she's on top, pressed together from shoulders to feet her long braid swinging over and brushing against his cheek. Gently wrapping it around his hand he uses it to bring her closer, her breath hitches seductively and he whispers, "Louder. So they can hear you." Without waiting for a reply he tugs at her hair again harder this time and the sound that escapes her lips is orgasmic, a high whining moan that sets his skin on fire. Emboldened and aroused he grabs her neck, speaking into her opened mouth "Do you like that my Queen?" Her eyes are glazed over as she sways as if intoxicated by him.

"Cheoljong, kiss me."

It's too quiet for anyone's ears but his and that makes him even hotter, this wasn't part of the show. This was just for him, just for them.

Always one to seize the moment, he yanks her down to meet his eagerly waiting mouth swallowing the moan that rolls off her tongue. The kiss escalates immediately with both twisting and licking, wet sucking noises soaking the room as they bring apart to gasp for air and crash back together, chaotically and perfectly. When he feels a wondering hand graze his groin he can't resist the urge to thrust up into her touch. Wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her even closer, although there is no space between them.

When he pulls back, her eyes remain close as she licks her lips as if chasing his taste on them. His cock jumps jealously.

"I want you." He admits, wanting to make it clear if his intentions are not already crystalline to her. He wants no room for misunderstandings tonight.

She stares wordlessly before reaching across his body and then he sees the oil in her hand, he hadn't noticed its presence next to them but he eagerly takes it from her.

"Are you comfortable?"

"Don't go soft on me now, bring back the guy who was pulling my hair. Do you want me to call you Daddy too?"

His breath hitches at the word, he doesn't understand why but hearing her makes something dark coil in his belly. She lifts an eyebrow at his heavy silence, "You're so kinky."

He stares confused again, nothing new to him but he stores the word away for further inspection of its meaning. "Is kin-ky bad?" He asks reaching down to lower his pants and cover himself in the thick oil coating each inch of the hard pole.

She doesn't answer right away, avidly watching him stroke himself to fullness before rubbing at the bulbous deep scarlet head, serving to make him almost painfully turned on. "No, kinky is good. I like kinky." She tugs her skirt up and his eyes bulge when instead of seeing the various layers he should see there is only bare skin.

Had he been seduced? It feels as if he has been but he doesn't care enough to question her or pause this for a second. He would happily be her fool.

Gripping at her hips he rubs against her, groaning when her wetness smears across him obscenely. She grinds down onto him meeting him head on, they are definitely on the same page now.

Unable to wait for even another second, he envelopes her in his arms before sliding into her smoothly her natural moisture and the oil easing the way until he is completely encased. She moans long and wailing as he slides to the hilt, he groans loudly joining her as she scratches roughly down his back even through the sturdy material he can feel the burn. Absently he considers gentling his moves, she is pregnant and more fragile after all. But she must read his face and be vehemently against his plan because suddenly she rises up, slipping off his hardness before slamming back down the loud smacking of skin filling the room.

"It's time for the main event. Don’t stop now.” She challenges him, squeezing around his erection. 

Pushing his reservations to the side, he gets into it full heartedly thrusting hard before capturing her mouth in a harsh kiss, hissing when he feels her teeth tug roughly at his bottom lip, his lioness has returned. He teasingly roars into her mouth and she laughs around his tongue, breaking free only to latch on his neck sucking hard. He hopes it leaves a mark.

Her laughter causes her to tighten around him and he groans at her vice like grip on his cock, he can feel himself nearing the end. Recalling their first night he suddenly grabs her neck, squeezing lightly and when she whines in a broken gasp he tightens his hand and delights as she melts slowly limp in his hold, he supports her weight easily bucking into her tight heat. When he thrusts up a second time he feels her wetness gush around him before he loses himself, his climax tensing his body as he slowly falls apart.

The entire kingdom will surely be in an uproar tomorrow.

He's looking forward to it. That will teach them to spread rumors about their intimate affairs. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the hallway, Hong Yeon brings her hands to her hot cheeks feeling overheated from the King and Queen's boisterous gathering. Every court maid is blushing as they look discretely at the door with every moan and groan that escapes. She hopes this will qualm the rumors in the kingdom, she cannot take this for much longer. Court lady Choi had left to retrieve water after their first moans and had yet to return, she surmised if the Queen were not already with child she would have been impregnated again going by the sounds they were making. It was all too obvious to her, despite the Queen's strange behavior at times, they were desperately in love with each other. She'd never seen two people who were more crafted for the other.

Anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. 

[ranmanjuu]

not a request but can you imagine oda forces trying to play smash against the anti-oda or they all play minecraft together

i’ll expose myself here. i have never ever played smash (although minecraft steve being announced is super pog) so i can’t tell ya that part bud. but i can with the blok game. (disclaimer that this request was made after i closed it yet my heart said No, you actually Want to do this so here i am. most probably will be short).

‎

welcome folks, to SengokuSMP.

oda forces:

—nobunaga:

would be the one that steals your iron and shit. commits thefts willy nilly, and no one is exempt from this. if he needs it, he’ll get it with or without your consent.

would kill an iron golem for the few iron it gives

before he got his own base (cause i think he’d just spend most of his time mining and getting materials to protect himself) he’s probably just barge in the nearest bed and sleep in it, regardless of the owner.

his base would probably be built by hideyoshi or sumthn.

he prefers playing pvp more than just survival. since mc placed a kind of restriction for the end (and therefore blocking them from completing the game), he goes onto servers and practice his battles even in a block game.

1.9 axe-shield pvp. he’s tactical in knowing when to strike and block and to back down, and is immaculate with his crits.

—hideyoshi:

probably spends the first few days around nobunaga to protect him. he always fights off the mobs near him even if nobunaga can handle himself.

always reminds people to sleep every night, so that the phantoms don’t come. even though a lot of the players prefer to just stay up.

built a base for nobunaga near his mine cause he needs A Place and not just mooch furnaces and beds from other people.

spawned iron golems for “protection” but nobunaga keeps killing them cause it just gets in the way

would be the one to make mines 4 blocks high so you don’t Bump your head thing, probably like 3 block width and even staircases. would also be the one to make a safety railing across any bridges he finds.

if an ally, he’d greet new players and give them some extra stuff so that they have Something to start off with

i feel like he’d be a pve player idk why

—mitsuhide:

no one knows where he is most of the time. nor his base.

unless you see his nametag (which, most of the time, he’ll see yours first) it’s kinda hard to find him when he’s off and alone.

mf is the black market of the server. whatever potions, potion ingredients, or shit like that, he has. he probably owns like several wither skulls enough to summon a wither.

he would sneak around when mc is mining and just like. scare the shit out of them. the cave noises don’t help.

(the newest screenshot hasn’t been released yet but,) y’all know the warden? the new mob? cause it’s reliant on sounds, if anyone is ever in its proximity he’d throw like snowballs at them so that it goes after them. little shit.

bow skills?? perfect. even in a game his accuracy is spot on. you know those obstacles people make with like slime blocks and maybe mlg 360s? mf can do that

he probably knows enough redstone to make traps, too.

somehow knows what everyone has/doesn’t have.

—masamune:

prank ass bitch.

he probably has like a Source of tnts in his base or something. if anyone is moving out of their old base, he’ll either blow it up or burn it, whether they wanted to or not.

fuck it. he’ll do it even if you’re not moving.

probably doesn’t often sleep and would rather fight off the phantoms than anything.

he probably wants to defeat the dragon quick, cause it’s supposed to be the game’s ultimate goal. but because of the previous restrictions you put, he just goes off and fights other players (cough kenshin, nobunaga)

and when he does kill you, expect like half of your items to not be returned.

also one of the casual thieves in the server. he just doesn’t care that it Belongs to someone and just yoinks

also a pvp player, although i find him leaning more to 1.8 style. he will jitter click you out of existence.

has dogs because idk he gives off that vibe also they Attack.

—ieyasu:

does not log on much lol. he got on once and then Never Again. it’s only when you ask him that he begrudgingly does get in in his own contrarian way.

definitely goes wayy far out for more isolation cause he doesn’t want to get caught up with whatever shit masamune has.

the only major thing he did besides mining and everything was that he got a cat. and almost no one knows about it, other than you because:

“ieyasu has made the advancement [Best Friends Forever]!”

“mc: :OOOOO!!!!”

yeah, you never told anyone.

the longest time that he logged in at first was probably when he found out that cats sleep in beds and just. sat there as the night goes by in his bunker just watching and hearing it purr. he’s a bit irritated when the others tell him to sleep, but then see that the cat went and slept on him that secretly made his heart soft.

and then you insisted on going to his base which took a considerable amount of time, and even with his denying, you decide to decorate and expand his base! you also got to name the cat, but you never knew since you just said like “i’d name it [...]!” and later ieyasu found a name tag and actually did name it that.

—mitsunari:

he doesn’t run a lot i don’t feel. primarily because he was wonky with the controls from the start.

i feel like he’d have the brain to be a redstone engineer. he spends more time like, making those cool machines than anything (probably those that’d help out everyone like an automated farm, etc.)

thing is he forgot that he could die, so most of the time he’s just starve to death without even noticing it.

much like in real life, he always forgets to sleep. and that’s why phantoms are his number 2 in his cause of deaths.

doesn’t have an actual base. hideyoshi built a small one for him, but mitsunari kind of never uses it and just logs off on the spot. at this point it just became a part of the main buildings for everyone or something.

he doesn’t do an awful a lot of collecting and often asks others for some. and when he is given it, he goes “thank you ^^ <3″ and does like the happy-shift thing. it’s honestly too cute for it to be just pixels.

probably knows a lot about minecraft stuff too, it’s just that he never uses any of it.

—ranmaru:

he was so excited the first time you told him that he was invited to the smp of sengoku warlords! would probably frequent the most.

i think he’d just vibe really. not exactly going extremely into pve or pvp or redstone or building, he plays it at a very slow place and more like an animal crossing player would.

like, he builds a small farm and stuff. it isn’t as efficient as mitsunari’s, but it is what it is. also has an animal pen with loads of one animal category and he tends to let people use it with the exclusion of some (coughs masamune) as long as they breed them again or something.

and while he doesn’t go for the big projects, he is kind of a builder? he has the Aesthetic sense while building his house and stuff yk. would maybe lean into the cute, cottagecore stuff.

favorite food in game is probably cake! it takes more effort than most other foods and it just looks cute so he likes making them.

totally has shaders on.

is scared shitless of cave noises at times. you could play 11 near him and he’d just straight up panic and log off.

‎

uesugi-takeda forces:

—shingen:

i find him to be maybe one of those builders that stick to large projects and stuff idk why

he does other things too, mainly pvp (he likes to just head over to nobunaga’s base and kill him sometimes. not that the man doesn’t accept the challenge). would probably also be more into 1.9 pvp because he’s a very calculative person in fighting. yes even in block game.

but the first thing he built once he’s set from collecting materials, was a “restaurant”. for what, you ask? why of course he takes you on a minecraft date. that was the top of his list the moment you even told him about the smp

once the others found out (which was not that long) he just started bragging. kenshin burnt down the building later on.

but he always escorts mc or some shit while spewing out his Lines in chat, sometimes doing the bow in game thing. in response, there are several barfs in chat, and a list of people coming to kill him.

mf likes to combat log on kenshin when he’s on a Killing Spree for the shits and giggles.

—kenshin:

first time you told him about it, he was very happy to learn something about mc’s modern times, even if it’s a children’s game. unfortunately, he didn’t know what an ‘smp’ meant.

so when he logged on and saw that there were Other people, his smile turned into a deadly frown as he just began punching them to death. he only stopped when they ran off and you intervened.

he tried having you stick around longer when you were giving him a tutorial of how to play the game.

at first he only collected material to get stronger. and by that only sword because he sees no need in getting armor (he doesn’t die in battle irl, he can’t die in a simple game). but WRONG cause he got killed by shingen who, even though he had a stone axe, had iron armor while kenshin got nothing but an iron sword.

he doesn’t make a base (why do so many here don’t make bases istg). in fact, he doesn’t log on much.

at first, he only goes on if mc is on. it’s only when he sees that mc appreciates some of the work the others have put into things (like shingen’s builds, mitsunari’s redstone, etc.) is when kenshin tries to Do Things Too and kinda fail.

this man kinda has no aesthetic sense in the block game. but you give him a for effort.

1.8 pvper. he can definitely do 1.9, but more the former mostly cause his deadly anger makes him jitter click like crazy. often challenges others (consented or not) which mostly includes masamune and nobunaga, and he often surprise attacks shingen and sasuke.

—yukimura:

honestly a normal player in survival.

he makes a decent house, has some pretty strong gear, and just helps around his allies a lot (mostly {try to} drag kenshin away from trouble, scold shingen for being too close to mc {though it’s a him problem ngl} and just being a messy caretaker).

i feel like he’d enjoy tekkit tbh. sasuke would probably introduce it to him and he’d just generally enjoy it.

but this is about the smp

he got lucky the first drowned he killed dropped a trident and it’s been his favorite weapon.

probably tried at one point to build kenshin a small base but he wouldn’t listen so like. shrugs.

he’s a bit iffy with playing alongside the enemies in the same server, but they are kind of divided into two. and mc did say it was just for fun and games and they didn’t want to see actual wars be dragged into this, so he just lets it go and has fun.

he looks forward to beating the enderdragon a lot, when the end is available.

—sasuke:

oh Boy he’s having a field day. his adored sengoku warlords? playing minecraft, his childhood game??? absolute pog.

even though it was you who proposed the idea, the one who set up the server in the first place was sasuke, since he has more knowledge on that stuff.

since he got his bearings quicker than the rest from experience, and he was earlier to log on due to testing and stuff, he mostly helps you with building like the main hub, like the center place for everyone and generally things that involve helping the overall smp.

can mlg water bucket, through a lot of trial and error. he uses it mostly to make dramatic entrances where he drops from a hill and just not take damage.

^ speaking of Dramatic Entrances, he probably has a chest full of ender pearls for those specifically.

although he helps a lot with guiding everyone, at times, he pulls out the ol’ “sleep in the nether :)” suggestion just to troll

ngl he’d stick to his ninja thing and successfully make a redstone-wired door and has his banger secret base in it

—yoshimoto:

the s in smp doesn’t exist to him.

he’s just a collector, really. one of his first priority isn’t even materials like stone, the moment he finds any kind of flowers he’ll pick it up. it’s only when yukimura and sasuke actually Give him shit does he start living a not broke life.

probably dies a lot to mobs and stuff

but like legit, this man spent a long time collecting all 13 discs and almost every flower (yes, even the biome only ones) because he wants to take it all in. nevermind the fact that he can just listen to the discs online and all.

he’s immaculate in his aesthetics. even with just wood he makes his base look really cool ngl. 

some parts of it are plastered with every painting there is in minecraft, or just item frames, or flowers in their pots. every decoration you can think of, lamps, campfires, even armor stands, he has them.

you gotta give him credit, it’s a lot of effort.

he often afks just to listen to the music even though, again, he could just listen to it online.

got into a bit of a spiel with ranmaru, since he unknowingly dyed a lot of his sheep (he did categorize it with color though). and so they made an agreement to just have every color sheep, and put them in different pens. so they just shared it now

he saw the cave updates and went silently bonkers because how pretty some look (like the lush caves? hello??)

he has like. 14+ texture packs and 4 different shaders ready at his settings.

[guerilla935]

My Favorite Games That Made Me Care About How I Looked

I’m very self conscious about the way I look in video games. Not only is it normally very easy to change an outfit or get a haircut in a video game it also says something about how I’d like to be perceived, especially in an online game. There are a lot of games that allow their players to express themselves in a lot of really fun and unique ways and I think that it’s really special when you get to celebrate a style that you would never get to portray in real life. These games that I am about to talk about are all games where I was able to look at my character and feel some ounce of pride at something that I had created. Some full disclosure for these images, I pulled them from official gaming outlets and developer blogs but none of these that you are seeing are my original characters. If anyone would like to request to see any of my characters from these games (or any other games!) I would be happy to go and grab screenshots of those characters.

Grand Theft Auto Online

This is a pretty easy choice for most people. I chose specifically GTA Online over any GTA game or Red Dead game because I think the really special part about this is its setting. Your image is not only your character and your outfit in GTA Online but also your car, your house, and your business. There are a lot of different places to choose to call home and there are a lot of things to get “invested” into. For example, my good friend mojo5 runs a night club and wears suits and spends a lot of time gambling at the casino. That’s a character that would be different than mine who dresses and acts like a street racer. It gives your character a kind of personality and back story that is hard to achieve in other games. I have always kind of considered Grand Theft Auto Online to be a modern MMO of sorts, a playground. And as much as it is a huge lobby where you wait to start activities, it is also a sprawling city-space where you can essential live, make money, create this fun fictional life for yourself. And as far as fashion goes, the outfits, the cars, and the real estate help you shape that fantasy. Basically, I can tell you that I spent way more time customizing my character than I spent in actual activities in Grand Theft Auto Online.

Saint’s Row Series

I love Saint’s Row. It is very similar to the last entry in this article but has this unique and goofy style that makes a lot of things okay that I would never do to my GTA character. In Saint’s Row I can have a neon blue Mohawk wielding a 10 foot melee weapon that is designed to look like something extremely unmentionable while driving a night rider space car that is also a tank and it’s totally fine because in the next cut scene you are about to fight Roddy Piper in Keith Davids nightmares. The games are incredibly wild and I love how I can let loose with a lot of different styles, and in the same way that I feel like I am creating my gritty street racer in GTA, I can make my goofy crime lord super hero secret agent in Saint’s Row. I think specifically in Saint’s Row 2 I took it a little more seriously because the tone of the game is a little more serious than the other entries however I have a specially place in my heart for how wacky each game allows me to be.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

You knew we couldn’t just not talk about Animal Crossing: New Horizons. With the current situation, the Animal Crossing community is insanely huge. I cannot avoid the heap of Animal Crossing videos and screenshots all over social media. On my island of Sandover Village, I am patiently awaiting the Able Sisters to set up shop so that I am able to put in codes from everyone else’s custom designs that I’m seeing on twitter. That is because I have on my phone a stockpile of sweatshirts, sweaters, robes, and hats that I am actually really excited to show off in game. I tried to create some of my own but I am not one of the gifted seamstress’s that there seems to exist on the internet. I am not very far into Animal Crossing but by looking at other peoples games I know that I have only scratched the surface of my options in the game. I have to commend Nintendo on the amount of individualization that the design pro feature gives to its players. I have never seen a game give players the option to design their own clothing and it makes the social experience of the game feel so fresh.

Dark Souls III

One of the most badass games that I have ever played as far as character design is concerned is Dark Souls III. When I put on a new set of armor I sit in awe of how it looks because I can see each tiny tear in the cape, every dent in the helmet, and the wear and weight of the armor. I was dragged through this game by some friends (because I could never in a thousand years have the patience to beat it by myself) and I followed them to every cursed swamp and death crypt because I wanted to see every weapon and every armor set. You look absolutely ghoulish in every armor set and I love it to death. This game allows so much in the way of customization and I think it helps that almost every gear set is good enough to get you through the entire game and that allows you to play with a lot of different looks and game play styles. This game is tough, really really tough, but you look really good even when you die.

Splatoon 2

Splatoon 2 is a really special online shooter. I think in the month that I played this game religiously the thing that kept me playing was coming back to the stores to see what kind of clothes were in stock and what kind of items I could steal off the players in the lobby. I think that the developers of Splatoon 2 knew that the players were in it for the threads because every reward for playing the game was most likely a piece of clothing. The clothing options kind of vary from academy prep to Patagonia camp wear to skater outfits. And it comes together in this very hipster overall aesthetic that blends really naturally. The game features a mechanic that I really like wear you can walk up to anyone in the online lobby and look at what their wearing and order it. By the time I logged on the next day I had (a noticeably weaker version of) the exact same item but it really makes you feel like anything you see, you have access too which is really cool. And the ordering of the items kept me coming back to play every day.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

I’ve heard it said many times that the real end game content of Final Fantasy XIV Online was the glamor and housing systems, and for most people they aren’t wrong. I will never stop being surprised at the outfits that players can put together in this game. I have seen millions of players in my 750 hours in Eorzea and I have not seen two characters look the same. The customization options are really limitless and I truly believe that. I played a healer mage and in my time at max level I had outfits that made me look like a cowboy, a thief, a fox spirit, a grim reaper, and even one that made me appear like a real healer mage. The clothing options throw a Final Fantasy twist on every kind of style that they set to replicate. So even though all the outfits can be wacky they never feel out of place in the world. If you want a game that you can make almost 50% just about customizing your character and taking it out to the town to show it off or in big raids to flaunt your style then this might be your game.

Pokemon Sword And Shield

Pokemon is still trying to get it right but Sword and Shield is Game Freaks best attempt at trainer customization. The clothing options in the game are very European, well, they have always been that way but they are ESPECIALLY European in this one. Probably the greatest customization offered is the hair which in the world of anime characters is the most important one. I loved designing my character in this game but it was just so brief because shopping in this game is so boring as most clothes in the actual stores are very samey which makes the act of shopping pretty boring most of the time. I would roll up to a new town really excited to see what kind of stuff they had in the shop but it was just new colors for the same weird duffel bag that your character had already. Note that the game is mostly about the Pokemon so they really didn’t have to put any trainer customization in the game to make it a good game but they did a half decent job putting this much customization in the game and I feel like it’s going to keep getting steadily better the more times they implement this feature into their games. Big plus, you can design your trading card in the game and it is the most adorable thing and feels like a huge payoff to have a cool card if you’ve put a lot of effort into your trainer.

Soul Calibur VI

So I haven’t actually played Soul Calibur VI, I bought the game and went immediately into character creation and started making my own roster of fighters that I ended up using maybe once or twice and moving on from. The character creator in this fighting game is really special. So the idea is that you choose a character that already exists and you keep their move set and fighting style but change how they look and immediately the things that came out of the community were hilarious. Some are kind of terrifying but they come shockingly close to being somewhat recognizable. For me it almost comes down to that being someone who is unfamiliar with the cast of Soul Calibur VI I cannot tell the difference between actual characters from the game and characters frakensteined together in the character creator. As on of the most fun character creators I’ve ever used I think it’s at least worth googling what other people have created.

God of War (2018)

The newest God of War introduced something that we never got in the older games and that was the ability to change out what Kratos was wearing. While it was important in the game to maximize his stats, it also made you look cooler and cooler as the game went on. I wouldn’t say that you have a lot of options of things to wear in this game but I always felt bummed when I picked up something with relatively low stats that looked amazing. Later on the armor sets become more like trophies for completing hard tasks. The design of each piece of armor is really intricate and amazing to look at and while you can’t just pick whatever you want, I really wish that you could.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

In the Reaper of Souls expansion pack a new vendor was added to Diablo III that changed the way that I looted in the game. The vendor was called the mystic and she would make a piece of gear look like any other piece of gear of the same type. This meant that I could look amazing all the time without sacrificing strength. The way that the database of appearances you could pick from expands over time gave so many options that I couldn’t decide at some points. The coolest armor in the game was now accessible at any time. And the armor in Diablo III looks tight, sometimes I would argue that unless you pick some unique stuff it doesn’t make that big of a difference because of the isometric point of view in the game but it is really fun to have an added layer of customization in Diablo.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

So this is actually a section dedicated to Nexus Mod Manager because Skyrim in itself doesn’t actually have a whole lot of variations in the ways you can dress. But with the powers of modding you can now do absolutely anything and there are a whole group of 3D modelers out there getting you immersive and lore friendly items that make you look a whole lot cooler. The wonderful world of modding can turn kind of creepy very fast, a lot of very suggestive mods are out there and a lot of very inappropriate things so you know, a fair warning. It’s incredible when you can make it work and keep it from getting to the level of ultimate Skyrim. You can change and add clothes and weapons, add hair styles, and even add entire races into the game. Sometimes though I really believe that I like browsing mods a lot more than I like actually playing with them but I found that it is really satisfying to download a mod like Immersive Armors and see just how much it changes how diverse the selection of armors that not only you but everyone in the game now wears can be.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

So I believe that some other previous Zelda titles had the ability to change Links outfit but never to this extent. What I think is the coolest part about the clothing system in this game is that you wear certain clothes to survive certain climates but you can also forget all that and make a yummy meal instead that lets you be warm wearing the desert clothes in the snow. The amount of armors that you can amass in this game starts off kind of underwhelming but becomes really fun and interesting and serves all sorts of fun fan service for fans of the series. This game doesn’t have the versatility and variety of some of the other games in the series but any game that lets you cross dress to sneak into a city of warrior women is credited for its costume design in my book.

League of Legends

I have spent a shameful amount of money on skins. I hate League of Legends and I hate most of the business practices of Riot Games but their skins just look good. I can appreciate when someone I don’t like makes something good and they consistently pump out awesome looking skins that are frankly worth the money if you play the game regularly. Back when I played this game daily I put up way too much money, even I think about 18$ just on a skin that changed colors when you typed a specific command. Anyways that’s really all I have, there aren’t a lot of games where I like the skins, especially the fact that they are mostly behind pay walls but League gets a pass I suppose.

Destiny Series

I used to be really into playing a specific game mode in Destiny named Iron Banner. I played a lot of it in Destiny and a good portion of them in Destiny 2. When you played enough Iron Banner in a year you were able to collect an armor set to commemorate the achievement. Almost all the cool armor in Destiny has purpose to it. Not only do you get to decide how you look but it also is you showing off the fact that you completed a raid, were really good at sparrow racing, or kicked major ass in the crucible. Each armor was recognizable and everyone knew what it meant. I think that is what makes the customization in Destiny so rewarding, its that it is in itself an actual reward for completing hard tasks that not everyone will be able to complete.

Code Vein

Out of all the anime games I’ve played I think what stands out to me the most is that their character creators have all been really bad. This is where Code Vein really shined. Code Vein has this dystopian vampire aesthetic that is really unique and allows for a lot of ways to make cool characters that fit into the look of the game. I don’t think that what they’ve done here is completely new but they have this style that is exciting to play with. Making a revenant is fun and builds this anticipation for the rest of the game. I also respect the games decision to allow you to make modifications to your character after the game has started which is not something that most games would allow. Code Vein has these cape’s that you can wear to gain abilities and those are cool to add onto your outfit but I don’t think that it outshines what the character creator has done here. It’s a niche thing I guess but if you have always wanted to make your own anime vampire then this is it.

A Persona

I really like making characters for a reason. I think a lot of the escapism of video games hinges on me placing myself into the character on the screen. That’s why I love what you can do in games like Animal Crossing that is all about creating exactly what you want and Final Fantasy XIV Online where you get to exist and share in a world as a persona of sorts. Being able to customize a character in a video game does not make that game good or bad, but I think that when you are given the option the developer is given an opportunity to make it a very special experience and allow you to be unique within a community of people online. And the internet has made that sharing of characters really special, allowing everyone to see how unique of an experience you can have with a game by beating it with “your character”.

Special Shout Outs For Stylish Games And Characters

SSX series being dripping in 90s style

Also NBA Street Vol. 2 for the same reason

Persona 5 for being the most stylish game ever

Halo because space marines rock extra style points

Katana Zero for being badass and 80s neon will always be in style

Specifically Graffiti Mario in Super Mario Sunshine he had flair

Samurai Legend Musashi for having a stylish game case but being a horrible game

Devil May Cry just for existing

[mysticsparklewings]

Arteza Expert Colored Pencils Review

Hu-boy, have I got a story for you guys! So I've been seeing Arteza's Expert colored pencils floating around in both ads and as freebies to Art Youtubers for a while now, and finally, it was too much and I threw up my hands and said to myself OKAY LET'S TRY THEM. (even though I very sincerely don't need any more colored pencils...) Previously, I've tried their Woodless Watercolor Pencils and liked them, and I've specifically heard good things about these pencils. So I went in with measured, but positive expectations. The full 72 set goes for about $30 either on Amazon or Arteza's own website, which is the same price point as the Schpirerr Farben colored pencils currently on Amazon. So they aren't the super-duper cheapest, but the price is pretty fair compared to companies like Derwent, Faber Castell, or Caran D'ache. So, some tea first, and then I'll talk about how the pencils handle (tea in small text in case you don't care): My set came in the mail and I immediately opened them and went to swatching, as I do. It was when I was writing out the color names (I write the names out first, then go back and put the color down) that I noticed I had two "Charcoal A120" pencils, and likewise discovered I was missing "Peacock Blue A008." And suddenly I was filled with dread; oh no something's wrong I'm going to have to contact customer service ohnononoohno.   So I contacted their customer service through the Guarantee address (returns@arteza.com) on the back of the tin, hoping to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible and wanting/expecting nothing more than the one pencil I didn't have. About two hours later, they got back to me and through a bit of back-and-forth, I provided pictures (which I expected them to ask for), then a screenshot of the Amazon Order Details and my shipping address (also expected). It was just after 4:00, last I heard from them on a Friday, so I figured either that was that and I should be on the lookout in the mail, or they had closed up shop for the weekend and I'd heard from them again on Monday. I woke up Saturday morning with an order confirmation email that confused me, and another reply informing me they couldn't just send the one pencil, so they'd be sending me a whole new set, and I didn't have to return the original set; I was welcome to keep or donate it. This made the confirmation email make sense, as it was for the shipment of the new set. This naturally was a nice surprise. (And I must also add the reply email had a timestamp of 4 in the morning so I have to applaud the magical soul that was coherently responding to customer service emails at such an hour as I would be loathed to do the same.) With that issue at least temporarily dealt with (as I wanted to wait and see the new set before "officially" closing my mental books on it), I moved on to producing the test image you see above and otherwise evaluating the pencil. However, I decided to wait and not fill out a Colored Pencil Testing Workshop for these until after the new set arrived, just in case. And I'm glad I did. The replacement set came in on Wednesday, and I was practically bursting at the seams to get it open and see what was what. All 72 different colors were present and accounted for. However, the "Emerald A094" pencil's tip was broken/missing. I did sharpen it back up, and it appears completely fine. Probably what happened is it was broken during sharpening or something at the factory. Not a big deal, but noteworthy when combined with my previous experience and considering that there are other signs of minor quality control issues. For example, the company/color names and information printed on the pencils are not aligned consistently, and if you go on Amazon and start looking at the negative reviews you'll find a lot more than just these relatively small things. My point in including all this: As I'll talk about in a second, the pencils themselves work just fine and I don't think Artexa is maliciously producing defective sets of colored pencils and just trying to make a quick buck. Quite the contrary. I think they are dedicated to making the best products they can while still keeping them affordable compared to their competition. It's just that they have some issues here and there like every company in existence does, and part of that, in my theory, is likely because they have less in the budget for certain quality control measures when compared to the more expensive brands. This isn't a dealbreaker by any means, but I do think it's important to keep in mind. So all of that out of the way, how do these pencils actually work in the field? They're not as soft as Prismacolor, but I went in expecting that from what I'd already heard. They're not as hard/rigid as the Faber Castell Polychromos, so they land somewhere in the middle. They layer pretty well; they don't seem to build up wax quite as quickly as Prismacolor, but they aren't nearly limitless with layers like the Polychromos. Blending was better than I expected and overall pretty good. The white surprised me a little. The Prismacolor white is still the best I've used, but this one did better than I expected. It also worked well with blending other colors. Speaking of; Color selection is interesting. In the plastic trays, they seem to be arranged from in color order...but in three separate "sets," rather than in typical "all the yellows are together, and the pinks are together," etc. color order. This bothers me a little since I'm used to the other way, but that's just me. The colors themselves though seem to sit somewhere between typical color choices and also trying to be different, which is. (Also a lot of them have really fun color names, which I really appreciate personally.) (And while we're here, I will say the tin and trays are nice/pretty standard, but the trays are pretty snug in there so I have a little trouble moving things around, but it's not so much of a deal-breaker that I feel I need a separate case for them.) They seem to generate a lot of dust/crumbs, but the weird thing was that when I went to wipe it away, it didn't smear specks of color on the paper. Good, but odd. Honestly, they measure up about the same as the Schpirerr Farben pencils in terms of falling somewhere between Prismacolor and Polychromos in terms of performance, and that makes a lot of sense considering both sets are at the same price point. (Though the Schpirerr Farben pencils do still behave and feel different, most likely because they're oil-based to the Arteza's wax-base.) They aren't my new favorite, but they are pretty decent and if Prismacolor is just too expensive for you, I'd say they're not a bad second choice. I did notice something exceedingly peculiar during my testing though: These pencils have basically no water resistance. They melt down almost like watercolor pencils, or at least like the Derwent Inktense (which dissolve pretty well but compared to typical watercolor pencils they do take a little more water and working to melt down entirely). Typically, regular colored pencils do move when hit with a lot of water, but not to this extent, and it usually takes a lot to really pull a noticeable amount of pigment out. The thing about this is that Arteza sells a set of regular watercolor pencils, and as best I can tell from the pictures (as I have yet to procure a set for myself) the only differences between that set and this one are the colors on the front of the tins, and the Expert pencils are round/circular, while the watercolor pencils are hexagon shaped. Other than that, there aren't any visible differences between the two. Granted, this isn't really fair, as the main differences would normally be in how they perform on paper and you can't really tell that from stock photos. And yet, and I can't help but wonder if there's something fishy going on there.  Could they be the exact same cores, just packaged differently...?   I am very tempted to order a set of their watercolor pencils just to compare...But until then, I am planning on trying a watercolor piece with these just to see what happens. Maybe I'll try and they won't turn out that well and my theory will be busted, or maybe I'll have to order the other set and find out for sure that way...   ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[lololololololilolhwhshjfjdk]

a little escapade

ryan...is a real treat.

we went on a walk (when it was snowy and cold but i adore the cold) and then he walked me home.

now, he’s told me multiple times that he’s liked me. and at first, i was willing to give it a bit of a try. but there are a few reasons that is a bad idea.

1. he’s somewhat clingy, and i’m his “first real friend” who “understands him.” this...normally tends to make people extra clingy from my experience (i often attract wounded/hurt people who need to heal, and often times i am the only one in years who has treated them decently).

2. he doesn’t test me or challenge me. and truth be told, if someone does not challenge me in the way that i need to be challenged, it does not turn out very well for the person i’m with. (to be perfectly honest, even though i’m mostly aromantic, i would be fully willing to date someone who tests me, even though i don’t have feelings for the person. they give me what i want/need. end of story.)

3. his mother is in a particularly high place in her field and mine. now, that might scream “opportunity” but she takes no bias. if i dated him and got closer to her, maybe it would open up some opportunities, but i’m most likely to wreck it with my impulsive nature.

i don’t like him like that, and there is nothing that he has to offer me to make me stay.

but that’s off topic.

tonight, he did something i thought only happened in those sappy romcoms.

he sent me an encoded question, with three codes. he told me it was personal, and that i had a time limit.

this is obviously binary, right?

i go to decode it and find...

something that suspiciously looks like a backwards encoded sentence. but i ask him about it anyways, to see if he’ll throw me some bait.

damn. well, luckily i copied and pasted the code so even if he deleted it, i could still find out what it said.

next, i flipped it so it wasn’t a backwards sentence.

this...kind of looks like the caesar cipher. i could be wrong, but it doesn’t hurt to check, right?

it took me a few tries, but i finally found the number of letters he moved the code down the alphabet.

though, right before i found the number, he called time.

i didn’t see this second text until after i found the number. but i didn’t care. he said this was a personal question and well...

curiousity killed the cat, right?

i had a feeling i knew what his question would be, but once i saw it, i just felt pity.

i stared at it for a second. oh ryan...

this poor boy should quit while he’s ahead, really. if he had anything about him that i did like, he would still be screwed up forever.

i wouldn’t even feel bad, which is probably the best worst part. i would feel bad for my reputation, but not for wrecking him. it’s upsetting, but true. my empathy levels are too low.

i’m sure i would at least try not to do anything to him. but i know i would slip up and hurt him irreversably. which i suppose is another reason i won’t pursue him.

...

we go on to text a bit more.

as shown in one of the previous screenshots, he tells me not to keep at it.

i’m somewhat flattered he remembered that. my narcissism is kind of happy.

i’m not technically lying here. lie by omission? yes. but i technically was extremely close when he called time.

and i wasn’t going to try and find it anymore since i had already found the answer.

i then mentioned i was curious and he gave me permission to keep looking for the answer.

well, at least i have permission now. but he wants to know if i’ll ever try to actually decode it.

i’m surprised he didn’t find me suspicious, seeing as i always try to pull answers and what he is thinking out of his mind, but oh well.

i didn’t exactly want to deal with what might become another hard conversation. not for him, for me. i told him i would be willing to date him a while ago, but couldn’t because i was too busy and life was too hectic at the time. which was true, because at the time i was somewhat interested. and i was nervous i might wreck him. but now...

i just don’t feel like dealing with him all that much.

so i’ll ignore it until he decides to tell me. hopefully i can think of something to say. maybe it’ll be the truth this time. maybe i’ll reject him once and for all. that would be easier on both of us, i think.

[sky-girls]

Look at me

So leaving aside the fact that it’s sad that i can barely keep up with the ficweek me myself decided to do here is day 5 finally!! and i hope you guys enjoy it!!

“im sure i can get some kind of sexual gratification just from staring at /them/  if i try hard enough”

It all starts with a kitty pic and of course  at that moment she doesn’t think much of it. She just sees the picture of one fat, grey kitty on her instagram search page and decides to go to the page of the person to see if maybe they have more pictures of kitties.

And flor.ph , photography student does have some pictures of kitties, some pretty cute and adorable ones, but mostly she has picture of people, lots and lots of attractive people. A particular guy calls her attention. Probably a model, he has to be a model, because he is the hottest guy she has ever seen in her whole life.

He is wearing a white dressing shirt, first few buttons undone and he is looking straight into the camera, his eyes are a deep dark brown and even through the screen of her phone they make heat pool into her lower stomach, his hair is curly and slightly messy and before she can even control it she has images of herself caressing it and pulling it. She sees the description and finds a hashtag #MByFlor. She taps on it instantly.

What she finds takes her breath away almost literally. There’s so, so many pictures of this guy and Luna crosses one leg over the other as she looks around, of course there’s no one, she is alone in her room sitting on her desk but somehow she still feels slightly exposed, like she could be catched doing something wrong any minute, not that there’s anything wrong with just looking at pictures of a guy. But the more she scrolls through the hashtag the more certain thoughts she wouldn’t want anyone else to know, slip into her mind.

She can’t say it’s her fault though, it’s obvious these pictures are made for this kind of reaction, the clothes the poses, the abs, the hands, she has no idea what it is with those hands, but they will be feeding her fantasies quite a while she is sure.

She sighs softly to her face as she  keeps going through the pictures, some of them are staged obviously, there’s no way the way this guy is lounging on a pool chair with his shorts and an opened button up shirt, his abs all noticeable and making Luna’s fingers tingle to touch them as he holds his sunglasses a little bit away from his eyes is not staged. But there are also some that are obviously candids, some that have him messy haired and looking sleepy and it’s such a 180 from the other pics but that still makes her feels things, things like wanting those lips he is biting as he is playing the guitar while wearing glasses and a sweater on hers and every inch of skin they might want to be in.

There’s nothing shameful on following the hashtag and the account, even if she feels kind of ashamed doing it, even if it might be about all that came before that. She just wants to see him again. He is nice to look at.

Why wouldn’t she?

⭐

She learns a few things about the guy the next few weeks as his pictures constantly pop up on her instagram. One, his full name is Matteo, he is cousin of the photographer, who is also super fucking hot by the way, he plays guitar, he seems to like space, he has a grey kitty called Lyra and none of these things help with the massive crush she has been developing on him lately.

It’s not actually a crush of course, she doesn’t know him but she has a pretty decent picture of him on her head and she can fill up the rest in whatever possible ways she likes, she can make him everything she wants him to be and mostly she wants to imagine him on her bed, she also very likes looking at him.

Matteo is very pretty, besides being hot as hell, he is pretty and just looking at him makes all kinds of feelings stir up inside of her body.

She ends up using one of his pictures as her phone’s home screen just because she like looking at him too much and not even Pedro’s incessant teasing will make her change it.

Overall she thinks she could be doing worse, she is not obsessed with him or anything, he is just some hot guy she can use to fill up her thoughts.

The only bad thing is that his account is private. And he hasn’t accepted her yet.

⭐

After vacations things take an unexpected turn, a very very unexpected turn that has her choking on her tea silently as Pedro pats her in the back softly and sends her a weird look.

“What happened?” He asks her when she is better but she doesn’t look at him, she can’t stop staring in front of her. Where fucking Matteo is, in a white button up shirt and black pants looking as hot as ever and maybe even more.

There’s something different about seeing him on real life, something different about the energy he gives off, about the way he makes the room feel. He calls everyone’s attention for one reason or other and he hasn’t even talked yet but she is sure everyone is staring at him and she has no idea how she will manage to breath in this class from now on. There’s no doubt here, Matteo is her T.A.

“Good morning.” He says and his deep voice sends shivers down Luna’s spine in ways she wasn’t ready for. She bites her lower lip and takes a deep shaky breath cause of all the stuff her brain could be doing right now it’s only going all those dreams, all those fantasies, all those moments where she imagined him, his hands, his lips and filling them with words said by him in this exact same voice. It’s even better and hotter than she imagined and she wasn’t ready for this.  “My name is Matteo Balsano and I will be your physics ta this semester.”

She stops paying attention to his voice lulling her softly as she keeps staring at the way his lips move as he talks Pedro kicks her under the table softly and she sends him a glare. He sends her a questioning look and she blushes more that she ever has, she slowly takes out her phone of her pockets praying Matteo doesn’t notice and unlocks it quickly and the laugh that comes out of Pedro calls everyone's attention. He turns into a cough soon enough that people get worried but she can see that Matteo doesn’t believe him.

“Are you okay?”He asks the guy and Pedro is seriously having  problems breathing so the wheezing sound that he makes when he tries to say he is okay doesn’t sound any convincing him. His eyes fix on Luna and there’s something weird about it but maybe it’s just because she is very not subtly holding her phone

Luna struggles to hide her phone, the last thing she needs right now is for him to want to look at it and find himself shirtless staring back at him.

The class goes fast, it goes the fastest any physics class Luna’s has ever had and the only thing she learnt of it is that she needs to get home as fast as possible and be alone.  But she still has classes after this one and more importantly she has Pedro at lunch trying to interrogate her.

“Why is he on your phone? Luna, please.” He asks for the third time and Luna sighs, he will tease her so much but who wouldn’t in his situation, this is honestly ridiculous.

“There’s this guy.” She mumbles. “This instagram guy.”

“An instagram guy you have a crush on?” He asks teasing before gasping. “Is he the instagram guy?”

“Of course he is.” She huffs and Pedro chokes on his sandwich laughing. Good. “And now he is teaching us physics.”

“This is great news.” Pedro exclaims still laughing and Luna looks at him like he is crazy. “Don’t you see it?”

“What I see here is that I am fucked.” She says annoyed and he nods.

“Not yet, but this is where I am getting, yes.” He tells her and she rolls her eyes. “This is your chance to get laid.”

“This is not my chance for anything, don’t be ridiculous.” She tells him and Pedro huffs.

“Why not?” He asks. “You are hot and you have the hots for him that’s perfect combo right there.”

“Oh, wow.” Luna starts trying to distract him. “You said I am hot this is the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

“I can admit it sometimes.” He says simply. “But really, you have a once in a lifetime chance, you should use it.”

“What I should do is change my phone background.” She says with a sigh and he nods.

“Yeah, that too.”

⭐

After she gets home that night his phone buzzes with an instagram notification, someone is following her and the profile picture makes her trip over her feet and almost step on poor baby cassie. Matteo is smiling lazily at the camera from it. when she taps on the profile she sees that she can see all pictures.

She doesn’t mention this to Pedro this probably means nothing.

⭐

And it actually doesn’t, now she can see all of his pictures , all of his stories and she gets to have much more pics of him saved on her phone but also he barely ever pays attention to her except to ask her things when she is spacing out. Usually because she is staring at his arms.

It’s all normal and it’s obvious that for him she is not someone worthy of notice. Which is okay, she never expected anything else and she of course won’t do anything to change that no matter how much Pedro insists she should. He is just a crush, an impossible crush she kinda blogs about but that’s all of it.

She expects nothing of him, she is perfectly content with him just appearing on her dreams.

And apparently her gmail inbox too cause a few weeks into the semester she has a mail from him, a mail sent only to her. Which is weird on itself. The mail is short. Very short, only informing her that if she would like it she will be the person in charge to deal with class in physics subject but also kinda implying that she can’t really say no here. She sends a screenshot to Pedro of course and his answer is about what she expected.

Peter rabbit:

do it!!!1

do it do it do it do it

Me:

Are u crazy?? The last thing I need is to be alone with him

Peter rabbit:

That’s exactly what you need tho lol

come on we both know what goes through that mind of yours now you can actually have a chance to use that desk in the ways you would like

Me:

JESUS FUCK PEDRO YOU ARE NOT USEFUL

Peter rabbit:

I am very useful excuse you, just bc you don’t wanna follow my advice doesn’t mean its good advice

just say yes nothing has to happen (even if it totes will)

Luna bites her lower, lip, he is right nothing has to happen and this is good chance to stare more at him, to spend more time with him and even if she will end up all tense and stressed because she wants something she can’t have at least she will be close to him. Maybe this will be worth it.

She sends him an answer saying that she will do it and then opens her instagram profile, because she has issues, many, many issues. This will be awful but she will manage somehow.

⭐

It all goes better than expected he is nice and funny and interesting and she can hear him talk for hours but she manages to keep it in her pants and act like a decent human being around him no matter what. She is very proud of herself.

At least until one tuesday comes after a long weekend and she has to stay after class to discuss if they can change the date of the next quiz they have and all she has been able to see when her eyes close is that instastory from friday night where he is dancing with a girl pressed against him, his lips on her neck, his hand on her hips and the other under resting on her thigh under her dress. And that image usually leads her to imagine what would have happened if that girls was her, what would have happened if his hand went higher.

She is honestly the biggest mess and is in no state to be in a classroom alone with him but no one else will do it so it has to be her.

“Hi.” She says walking to his desk after everyone else has left and she ends up resting her hips against one of the table on the front because she can’t keep her legs from trembling just a little. He grins at her, authentic a little tired and a little lazy and she wants to pull him from his tie and kiss him. She needs to keep a safe distance because she has no idea what she will do if she doesn’t.

“Hi, what’s the problem now?” He says with a fake tired sigh and she shakes her head at him.

“Why do you always assume there is a problem?” She asks and his deep, soft chuckle, makes her take a deep breath.

“Because that’s all you come talk to me about.” He says raising an eyebrow as he rolls his sleeves up exposing the tattoos on one of his arm and Luna shifts uncomfortably at the sudden heat that takes over her body.

“Well, you are right.” She tries to say casual. “And I am sorry to ruin the amazing weekend you just had with these problems but the class was wondering if we could change friday’s quiz for next week.”

“Yeah, no problem, I do have one question though.” Matteo says and Luna nods looking at him but not really at his eyes, she wouldn’t handle that right now. “How do you know I had an amazing weekend.”

The teasing sparkle in his eyes fills her with anger and desire all in one blow and she needs to take a deep breath to calm down and hope her face doesn’t wanna match her red skirt right now.

“I just assumed.” She stutters and Matteo nods unbelieving. “I mean you look relaxed so I am guessing you had fun this weekend, let out some tensions.”

“Oh I did, not the ones I would have wanted but I did.” He says and Luna chokes on air when he says that, he probably doesn’t mean the same kind of tensions she is thinking of right now also maybe he does.

“That’s sad.” She manages to say. “At least you had fun.”

“I did.” Matteo says simply and Luna nods. “What did you do this weekend?”

“Not much.” She clears her throat.

“Didn’t you have fun?” He asks and she swallows hard, why does she feel like there is some other intention to these questions? “I thought maybe Pedro and you did something interesting these long weekend.”

“No, he went out with these girls he is seeing.” She clarifies for some reason. “And I stayed at home doing some reports I had to fix.”

He just nods and Luna has no idea if she can leave or no.

“I think I saw some of your stories on instagram.” He comments and Luna dies a little inside. “You are very responsible.”

“Yeah,that’s me.” She says nervously. “A responsible girl who has other class right now so she needs to go.”

She runs to the bathroom and skips her last class. She can’t believe what just happened and has no idea what it means, but she is dying.

⭐

After that she is kinda done with him, she can’t keep being like this around him, she can’t keep feeling like this. She needs to forget about him and what better way than to find some hot stranger in some bar get laid, leave their place in the morning and forget all about them too.

She needs a quick thing that will leave her satisfied for a while and won’t bring her any problems, so she puts on this tight black dress she has, the one pair of heels she owns, that one leather jacket and paints her lips red before she tells Pedro to meet her at the club and getting a taxi.

Pedro being Pedro gets excited about anything that involves alcohol and the chance to hook up with some hot girl so he throws himself into it right away. He lives closer than her so he gets there faster and when she arrives he already has two shots waiting for her.

Or maybe one was for him but she drinks both of those and that’s what matters.

She lets him post some pics of her on her instagram, she looks hot, she feels hot and she posts it just thinking once about what would Matteo thinks when he sees it before dragging Pedro to the dance floor and deciding to forget all about Balsano.

She manages mostly at least until she is back on the bar ordering more drinks and her phone vibrates so she takes it out and sees that she has a notification on instagram from mbalsaon.

She opens it fast and sees that he liked her pic and he actually send her a message. She takes deep breath, it’s probably going to be something nice or something teasing about her having fun now, it will be nothing important.

Her fingers still shake when she opens it.

mbalsaon:

do you have any idea just how hot you look?

She almost drops her phone when she reads it.

me:

sorry???

mbalsaon:

you look so good with that dress and the way you are dancing

me:

the way i’m dancing? what??

mbalsaon:

turn to your right, cucciola

She does as he says, ignoring the weird nickname and finds him sitting not far away from him on the bar, he is wearing a black shirt and dark jeans sipping on a glass of something she can’t recognize from him but he lifts it softly on her direction.

mbalsaon:

if you don’t want this i apologize the last thing i want is you make you feel uncomfortable

but i kinda feel like you do

so if I am right i am going out right now, i need some air, maybe you do too

She sees him down the contents of his glass and walk towards the doors much closer to him that to her, when he disappears from her sighs she takes a deep breath, texts Pedro and follows Matteo.

She definitely could use some fresh air right now too.

[groundramon]

Homph I finished tri and I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching because I had too many funny shitposts and nobody to share them with bc charlie hasn’t watched tri yet

PS i wont be reblogging tri spoilers (besides MINOR stuff like, digivolutions of already confirmed digivolution lines or non-spoilery shitposts, but I’ll try to tag shitposts as #tri spoilers anyways [digivolutions specific to tri ill tag as well but not ones that were already basically confirmed]) for a while so ur safe here!  I’m just gonna like everything/most things because then I can rb em to hisyaryumon lmao (also u should check out hisyaryumon....its me n charlie’s digimon blog)

EP 1:

- ok. alright. ok. good. they’re dealing with kari’s emotions now instead of just. nothing.  ok. alright. cool.  Still dont like how obscure/”artsy” they’re being with it, this is digimon not kagerou project, but ok.

- Also. I stand by tk and kari being one of the few good straight ships in digimon.  just saying.

- kari: this is my fault... me: god damn it shut up you little brat also me: god relatable ALSO me: ill take whatever display of emotions i can get

- I love how nobody believes tai is dead like.  They’re upset and worried but they’re also like “nah. he cant be. that fucking asshole just left us in our time of need” (actually only matt is the last one)

- Gabumon i would die for you also im crying and I think that’s the first time tri managed to make me fucking CRY

EP 2:

- I had thoughts but then the 02 kids happened and I entered another plane of reality.  I don’t feel real right now

- the only one I can remember is evil!gennai being a dumbass and being like “SUFFER AND SQUIRM YOU PATHETIC HUMANS AS YOU FIGHT OVER THE LAST SEAT” 1. humans are KNOWN for their ability to care for others you dumb obvious fuck and 2. is. is the entire tube going? because that tube can fit too people if they squish.  This isn’t a joke I’m serious it can.

- oh yeah also when i saw whomstever the fuck his name is (adult guy who i love but fuck names) and he was all bloodied i was like “its a cold day in hell when i see blood in digimon” (I think there was blood in an earlier ep but shh idc)

EP 3:

- didn’t nishijima start off as a fucking life coach to these kids.  What the fuck he was supposed to help them find a career not emotionally scar them by bloodily dying in front of one of them

- im realizing that the reason hackmon was always in his cloak, in the shadows, standing still is that they cannot animate him in any normal position for the life of him.  I drew him with better anatomy when i was 14 and didn’t have a tablet.  No seriously, look:

I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, you guys are just underestimating how bad the anatomy on this poor creature is.  Why cant ppl draw dracomon or hackmon correctly imma cry

- ordinemon has the best reaction faces

the best part about these two screenshots is that they literally cut one to the other, first the first one to the second one and then it cuts back to the first one.  They were really proud of these stupid ass expressions.

- I started overcoming my dissociation shock from the second episode and my hypercritical mind was analyzing the shit out of everything that happened (it is Not happy) but then evil!gennai called kari and evil goddess and idk if he’s exaggerating to make her feel bad or if she’s literally a fucking god of chaos and destruction and either way im like

she did kinda like.  Watch wizardmon die, watch tai die, watch gatomon get absorbed.  The dark ocean is just a metaphor for depression and honestly if 02 wasn’t all over the fucking place I think Kari would’ve had some pretty decent development in it.  Actually you know what, I’m using that as an angle to approach Tri at now, wish me luck bc i might actually give it more leeway now

EP 4:

- I’m not dissociating but I forgot to say anything again and I already forgot what happened

- Cant believe mei is fucking dead

EP 5:

- I like to imagine that Tai got there like a few minutes ago, but he was like “well damn guess yall figured it out without me.  alright ill just. see if I need to do anything” and then meicoomon was Still Bad so he waited for when she struck just to make the most badass entrance possible.  Fucking extra ass bitch

- I forgot to write anything again but uhhh I wasn’t satisfied so anyways lets just get into the Juicy Details

Originally I was actually planning to be kinder to Tri than I expected.  Was very invested during it.  ‘Round the end of the last ep I realized hmmm no this isn’t working out.  Where are the 02 kids.  You should’ve brought them in to save the day.  That would’ve been SO cool and SO fun.  Fucking cowards.

god I’m kinda tired so I’m going to address a couple things I still had problems with, note that this isn’t everything it’s just everything I felt comfortable yelling about without rewatching past eps.  Like I forgot nishijima was all bloodied and presumably died in the last part until they brought it up and I was like “????” ALSO DID THE LADY WHO WAS HIS PARTNER OR W/E KILL HERSELF WITH THE GUN SHE FOUND, I JUST REALIZED LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS THAT SHE FOUND A GUN AND THEN I THINK IT CUT TO BLACK AND I’M

DID SHE FUCKING KILL HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK

anyways my problems:

1. They did joe. really dirty.  I’ll write a more proper rant on this sometime later (mostly bc charlie is MUCH better at talking about joe than I am) but basically I can tell you that his character development in the movies squandered his OG character development.  He’s basically an entirely different person.  Like Tri joe isn’t bad, besides being largely neglected (yes he has a whole half a movie to himself, no that doesn’t make up for it all), its just...not OG joe.  He’s a fine character just not the same character, and its NOT fine when you put the two together.

2. THEY DID THE 02 KIDS EVEN DIRTIER IM SO BITTER sorry you nostalgia-blind, money-hungry fucks at bandai, but the 02 cast is PART OF THE ADVENTURES UNIVERSE.  The only people who hate 02 are ones who like the characters but hate the mess of the storyline at the end, or are completely irrational and elitist about their love of the digimon series and would greatly re-evaluate their opinions if they watched the original series and 02 back to back.  They couldn’t even show them in some kind of group montage at the end??? Standing in the background when they call Mei???  Why couldn’t they call mei from a home phone also, but that’s a less important problem idc that much.  It was a cute scene besides the lack of 02 characters.  Whatever.  AND THE PROBLEM IS LIKE kari and tk?  This entire time???  Were like “oh they disappeared. oops” instead of being frantically searching for their lost friends???  Like i get tk and kari probably have fucking ptsd and can’t express any emotions because they watched important people die in front of their eyes at an incredibly young age but also 1. they didn’t address the ramifications of ptsd, so fuck that theory/excuse and 2. THAT??? WOULD ONLY MAKE THEM LOOK HARDER??? and put on a brave face as they look, but inside they’re so scared and so worried.  Not just “oh sweet, they were found/saved, theyre in the hospital but that’s fine” like WHAT theyre fucking assholes if that’s what they’d canonically do lmao.  God I am SO bitter over the ENTIRE thing with the 02 kids, it would’ve been BETTER if they were deleted from the fucking canon entirely.  Would I have still been bitter?  Yes.  But at least I wouldn’t be madder at TK and Kari too.

3. I stand 100% by the notion that Digimon is not and will never be cut out to be an adults’ franchise.  It wasn’t designed for adults, and it can’t be skewered towards adults.  These particular characters were designed for kids to relate to and find entertaining.  They do not work when placed into an adult setting.  Like, can you imagine a character like Ed from FMA going to the Digimon world?  I guess in a way that’s just Marcus but like.  Just imagine the FMA cast in Digimon Adventure.  It doesn’t work.  Digimon Tri is basically that except real.  Also Data Squad was darker than Adventure so my joke doesn’t even work.

I guess my primary point is that Tri isn’t mature enough of a setup for an adult audience.  It puts a focus on being “complex” and “philosophical” instead of working within Digimon’s constraints and making something good and adult out of that.  Like!  Digimon is a fucking TOY COMMERCIAL.  Don’t give me messages about the futility of human life.  I want bad puns and emotional characters.  That’s what Digimon has ALWAYS been, and ideally always will be.  Tri could’ve made itself more mature by dealing with the ramifications of the Digital World’s events, how it affected the kids psychologically and dealing with healing old scars.  It would’ve been a more mature take on a story we loved and would use things we loved about the story already - the fact that it took so much time exploring characters’ emotions and was surprisingly mature for the time - to make itself better.  You need to take the aspects that drew adults to the show and amplify them, not just slap on a complex story and unfunny dialogue and be like “oh this is fine, right?”

It’s not that Digimon can’t exist as an adult property, its just that if it repeats what Tri did, it’s got no merit and in my eyes the franchise is dead.  If it survives I guess I’ll be happy that people can still enjoy it but I find it unsustainable and unsatisfying to fans of the older series.  Tri is just a fuckfest of highly specific nostalgia that tries too hard to appeal to old fans without capturing what made the original series so magical, and in part thats because the original series WASN’T FOR ADULTS.  I don’t know about the Digimon Story games, bc they’re T-rated so perhaps they’re a better take on an adult Digimon story than Tri?  But you either need to make your own characters and lore specifically for an adult-oriented Digimon season, or perish.  Also, please make it a series and not a group of movies.  Getting four eps every 6-9 months was hell.

I stand by saying Appmon is a more faithful Digimon season than Tri to Digimon’s original spirit.  I believe it holds more potential for success than Tri and better embodies the spirit of the older Digimon seasons.  It’s dumb, its corny, it has horrible puns, but I LOVE it because it also has a deep dark story and emotional moments.  If you dislike Tri and you agree with things I said that make it unlikeable, I highly recommend giving Appmon a chance - if you watch a few episodes and think “oh yeah, I guess this is decent” you’re going to like it.  It’s everything Digimon has always been and hopefully always will be, just with a different concept.  And hopefully the end of the series doesn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth and I have to redact this statement haha since I’m not done with it yet, but I’ve heard good things about it so I’m hoping not so.

Overall, if you watch Tri, don’t get your hopes up.  It resolves everything okay-ish but it’s a pretty forgettable anime on its own and simply doesn’t work as part of the Digimon franchise.

I am, however, pretty interested in what evil!gennai said at the end about Diaboromon and Daemon.  It raises interesting questions about the timeline too.  We know Daemon is in the dark ocean, so perhaps that’s a hint at a future project?  (They did confirm a future project btw, in conjunction with tri being over)  But what about Diaboromon?  I dont believe that Our War Game (I think thats what its called?) took place after Tri, based on the outfits and ages and stuff, but I also don’t remember the movies that well.  Could Diaboromon still be out there too?  It’s interesting.

However, because of the lackluster performance of Tri, I don’t have my hopes up and I really hope that this “next project” goes in a different direction.  Although I guess if they include the 02 kids, I’ll be somewhat less salty...

Side note, did they ever explain why the gennais went evil?  Like ?  That’s a pretty important thing.  The gennais helped SAVE the human world in 02.  And I get that apparently Tri is ignoring 02′s ending but still.  It’s shitty, because Gennai was still a good guy in the original too (and also they cant just keep is younger look and act like 02 never happened)  MAYBE its something I missed but I dont think so.  God there’s just.  So much wrong with Tri.  I’m very displeased and very bitter and I wanna get back to Appmon asap.

It’s got good moments, its got bad moments, I dont know, I don’t care.  There’s nothing wrong with you if you like it, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you flip flop and are split like me.  I just wish Tri fulfilled its potential instead of becoming a boring mess.

[onlinemarketinghelp]

How a Non-Native English Speaker Made An Affiliate Website That Earned $847 per Month https://ift.tt/2MeOVdN

Note from Spencer: As a heads up, this is guest post success story.  I love a couple of things about this story from Erfan Uddin.  First is the fact that he knew nothing about niche websites when he first got started.  He shares his journey from total “newbie” to a site that made over $1,000 a month.

Second, he’s from Bangladesh; proving that it doesn’t matter where you live in the world…you can do this! (As a heads up, his English is pretty good, but not perfect.  I’m leaving some of his grammatical mistakes in this post because I think the lessons he shares are more valuable than having perfect English).  This also proves that a non-native English speaker can write and rank articles in English – Google isn’t concerned with perfect English, as long as you meet the searchers intent.

Finally, I should mention that my team and I over at MotionInvest.com bought Erfan’s site at the beginning of October and we are happy with the purchase!  If you are looking to either buy or sell a content site, check us out at MotionInvest.com.

When I first started my niche blog website, two years ago, I had only $135 in my pocket. Believe it or not, it took me a little less than 1.5 years to hit the $1k earning in commissions.

Here’s a quick look at the total sessions of 2019.

And here’s the commission of the year 2019 till September:

Before I share my story let me introduce myself first.

This is Erfan Uddin, a mechanical engineer in the profession, an online enthusiast. I’m currently living in Bangladesh. Also, trying to create some online income stream so that I can quit my 9 to 5 job.

The only reason that pushed me into this industry is to live a comfortable life financially. I was completely broke when I started this website.

Back then I kept searching on Google typing “how to make money online with no money”! This might look hilarious now, but this was what I did. I was looking for a legit income source rather than jumping with a scam.

Somehow, I learned the term “passive income” and later stumbled upon this process of Amazon affiliate. Finally, I decided to take the course of Khalid Farhan as that was legit and affordable for me.

First, I went through the course and started implementing it. From the very beginning, I had a tough time working with the process as I was completely new with this area.

I had to learn keyword research, article writing, WordPress, SEO. Keyword research was the most crucial part and the hardest. In the end, the KW that I choose created this site. If that same KW is shown to me right now, I would leave it. It was hard back then and even harder now.

My suggestion here would be not to go after a keyword that is in the niche you love. Go after a keyword that is quite easy to rank for if only you have a tight budget.

After selecting a keyword I quickly generated some more keywords for supporting articles. On top of that, I found nichepursuits.com and followed their success stories and podcasts regularly. This helped me a lot in generating keyword ideas and article structure.

Right away, I bought a domain on 01 November 2017 from Namecheap and used their hosting as they had a great offer back then. Quickly, I set up WordPress and installed a free theme. Later on, I used a group buy process for the Genesis theme. Genesis themes are truly minimalist and fast.

WordPress setup was done and I ordered my first article to a writer. The quality of the article was not good but acceptable. That article never ranked as I said the keyword was too hard for me.

As the cost of article writing was not affordable for me I started reading about article writing. This cost me some time and the growth of the site came to a halt before it even started!

I quickly learned about the long-tail keyword and wrote a couple of articles based on it. This strategy worked for me. Following this strategy, I quickly published 08 posts within January 2018.

I added a couple of more content over the month of February and March 2018. Till then the traffic was not even mentionable. You can see that in the screenshot of my analytics:

  See that? This tiny amount of sessions demotivated me already. I was ranking on the first page only for a couple of very low volume of easy keywords. I was about to lose hope and then came the first sale on Amazon. It was 31 March 2018 when I got the first sale!

This was when I planned for some real strategies. I am going to share those strategies and show you how I scaled it to $1K in commission.

Keyword Strategy

After the first commission, I decided to laser focus on a specific topic. As my domain selection was for an authority website, I niched them down. This was my first approach to building AUTHORITY on a topic.

I could not go after my primary keyword anymore as it was extremely competitive. Having said that, I jumped into long-tail keywords.

I’ll take “rangefinder” as an example here. Suppose, I found a keyword “best rangefinder”. This is super competitive and there’s some big fish on the first page. So, I would go for a keyword like “best rangefinder for hunting” which is way less competitive.

Well, yes, the search volume will be low like 250 p/m. But, normally those big sites do not target these laser-focused long-tail keywords. If you can find 5/6 keywords like this and rank on the 1st or 2nd spot, you can easily manage a minimum of 2000-3000 traffic per month only with these keywords. Believe me, this worked for me like a charm.

And for the informative keywords, I had great affection for these kinds of keywords. I love writing informative contents and most of the cases they are easy to rank for. I used google’s “people also look for” and “search suggestion” for finding these kinds of keywords.

However, you have to go in-depth for finding these kinds of keywords. I sometimes scraped my competitors for finding these keyword ideas.

Content Strategy

I really could not afford to hire a writer back then, in 2018. All the content was written by me. It took some time to get in shape but I put so much effort into learning article writing.

My concept was to fulfill the “searcher intent” of a keyword. I typed a keyword on google and looked at the “people also ask” and the “search suggestion” closely. It is like Google itself is telling you what users are looking for. And I tried to write as detailed as I can on those topics.

I am not going to talk about the format of an article as I really do not agree that there is any specific kind of format for “buying” or “informative” articles. All it matters is to give the user what he/she is looking for.

Going after this method worked well for me. The traffic started picking up from June 2018 till December 2018. You can see that in the screenshot.

And the earnings were like these in the last three month of 2018:

I know I know. The income is poor regarding the traffic. I’ll talk about it later.

Till December 2018, I had only 22 articles. 60% of those were informative content.

I wasn’t happy at all with the site performance. Then I decided to look for keywords that are:

“easy to rank”,

“has a search volume above 1000”,

“missing super informative content on the first page”.

I found some and wrote a super informative and detailed article on those. I was writing more informative articles than money articles. This process brought great traffic and increased my site authority.

For example, A keyword like “best time of the day to hunt deer” is the potential candidate for super information-rich content.

You can see the traffic in the year 2019 until September. It kept rising and was stable.

I published about 2/3 articles each month of the year 2019. As the earning increased I started sourcing articles from freelance writers. The site had a total 40 posts!

The only thing that I focused, was publishing content for the user. I tried to serve a user what he was looking for.

Backlink Strategy

This is the one area I had trouble with progress. Managing good quality backlinks were tough. Moreover, I had to start and learn about SEO from scratch.

I started with blog commenting and social profiles. Made some forum comments too. That did not bring any results at all.

Over the full year of 2018, I only did guest posting. It was hard and I really hated this part. Still, I was super afraid of PBN.

However, I managed to avail of some moderate quality guest posts on some decent sites. Good sites were asking sky-high prices!

In the year 2019, I focused on only two types of backlinks. Forum commenting and niche edits. In my opinion, having a link from an old post is way more effective than a newly published guest post.

Oh, I tried some Web 2.0 also in the middle of 2019. I was inspired by this as my competitors were doing it. And that worked for me too!

On-Page SEO

This was my most favorite part. It was the only place for me where I could play around by my wish. Yes, Google has its own theory. But, I played with the keyword density, H tags, internal linking to find out what works best.

I followed the instructions of famous SEO guys on this. My site had Yoast SEO plugin installed and I never waited for the GREEN signal to light up for on-page SEO. This GREEN signal is the silliest mistake that most newbie makes. 

I created some extra notes within the content, like a featured area, targeting the featured snippet. For some it worked, for some, it didn’t.

Final Income Status

I worked hard and prayed. The results were satisfying. The income shot up in April and kept growing. Here’s what my income looked like:

March 2019: $215.81

April 2019: $505.21

May 2019: $1170.59

June: $911.59

July: $855.09

August: $836.66

September: $849.13

I setup Onelink in June 2019 for Canada and UK. UK did not bring anything at all. But, Amazon Canada brought about $100 per month since July 2019.

Final Thoughts

This income might not be even a dime for some people but this was huge for me!

Finally, I sold the site to Motioninvest.com on October 01, 2019. This was a great experience with them. No brokerage fee, super fast deal.

If you want to take something from this story I would say, focus on your content then backlink. Understand what the user is searching for and find the gaps in the top 10 results of the first page. Write content that fills the gap and sneak in that space!

One more thing I must mention, please use a table on your money pages for great conversion. My conversion rate was nearly doubled right after I used a comparison table plugin.

In a nutshell, the best way for achieving a goal is to start working hard right now. Learn and take action.

The post How a Non-Native English Speaker Made An Affiliate Website That Earned $847 per Month appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

from Niche Pursuits

Note from Spencer: As a heads up, this is guest post success story.  I love a couple of things about this story from Erfan Uddin.  First is the fact that he knew nothing about niche websites when he first got started.  He shares his journey from total “newbie” to a site that made over $1,000 a month.

Second, he’s from Bangladesh; proving that it doesn’t matter where you live in the world…you can do this! (As a heads up, his English is pretty good, but not perfect.  I’m leaving some of his grammatical mistakes in this post because I think the lessons he shares are more valuable than having perfect English).  This also proves that a non-native English speaker can write and rank articles in English – Google isn’t concerned with perfect English, as long as you meet the searchers intent.

Finally, I should mention that my team and I over at MotionInvest.com bought Erfan’s site at the beginning of October and we are happy with the purchase!  If you are looking to either buy or sell a content site, check us out at MotionInvest.com.

When I first started my niche blog website, two years ago, I had only $135 in my pocket. Believe it or not, it took me a little less than 1.5 years to hit the $1k earning in commissions.

Here’s a quick look at the total sessions of 2019.

And here’s the commission of the year 2019 till September:

Before I share my story let me introduce myself first.

This is Erfan Uddin, a mechanical engineer in the profession, an online enthusiast. I’m currently living in Bangladesh. Also, trying to create some online income stream so that I can quit my 9 to 5 job.

The only reason that pushed me into this industry is to live a comfortable life financially. I was completely broke when I started this website.

Back then I kept searching on Google typing “how to make money online with no money”! This might look hilarious now, but this was what I did. I was looking for a legit income source rather than jumping with a scam.

Somehow, I learned the term “passive income” and later stumbled upon this process of Amazon affiliate. Finally, I decided to take the course of Khalid Farhan as that was legit and affordable for me.

First, I went through the course and started implementing it. From the very beginning, I had a tough time working with the process as I was completely new with this area.

I had to learn keyword research, article writing, WordPress, SEO. Keyword research was the most crucial part and the hardest. In the end, the KW that I choose created this site. If that same KW is shown to me right now, I would leave it. It was hard back then and even harder now.

My suggestion here would be not to go after a keyword that is in the niche you love. Go after a keyword that is quite easy to rank for if only you have a tight budget.

After selecting a keyword I quickly generated some more keywords for supporting articles. On top of that, I found nichepursuits.com and followed their success stories and podcasts regularly. This helped me a lot in generating keyword ideas and article structure.

Right away, I bought a domain on 01 November 2017 from Namecheap and used their hosting as they had a great offer back then. Quickly, I set up WordPress and installed a free theme. Later on, I used a group buy process for the Genesis theme. Genesis themes are truly minimalist and fast.

WordPress setup was done and I ordered my first article to a writer. The quality of the article was not good but acceptable. That article never ranked as I said the keyword was too hard for me.

As the cost of article writing was not affordable for me I started reading about article writing. This cost me some time and the growth of the site came to a halt before it even started!

I quickly learned about the long-tail keyword and wrote a couple of articles based on it. This strategy worked for me. Following this strategy, I quickly published 08 posts within January 2018.

I added a couple of more content over the month of February and March 2018. Till then the traffic was not even mentionable. You can see that in the screenshot of my analytics:

  See that? This tiny amount of sessions demotivated me already. I was ranking on the first page only for a couple of very low volume of easy keywords. I was about to lose hope and then came the first sale on Amazon. It was 31 March 2018 when I got the first sale!

This was when I planned for some real strategies. I am going to share those strategies and show you how I scaled it to $1K in commission.

Keyword Strategy

After the first commission, I decided to laser focus on a specific topic. As my domain selection was for an authority website, I niched them down. This was my first approach to building AUTHORITY on a topic.

I could not go after my primary keyword anymore as it was extremely competitive. Having said that, I jumped into long-tail keywords.

I’ll take “rangefinder” as an example here. Suppose, I found a keyword “best rangefinder”. This is super competitive and there’s some big fish on the first page. So, I would go for a keyword like “best rangefinder for hunting” which is way less competitive.

Well, yes, the search volume will be low like 250 p/m. But, normally those big sites do not target these laser-focused long-tail keywords. If you can find 5/6 keywords like this and rank on the 1st or 2nd spot, you can easily manage a minimum of 2000-3000 traffic per month only with these keywords. Believe me, this worked for me like a charm.

And for the informative keywords, I had great affection for these kinds of keywords. I love writing informative contents and most of the cases they are easy to rank for. I used google’s “people also look for” and “search suggestion” for finding these kinds of keywords.

However, you have to go in-depth for finding these kinds of keywords. I sometimes scraped my competitors for finding these keyword ideas.

Content Strategy

I really could not afford to hire a writer back then, in 2018. All the content was written by me. It took some time to get in shape but I put so much effort into learning article writing.

My concept was to fulfill the “searcher intent” of a keyword. I typed a keyword on google and looked at the “people also ask” and the “search suggestion” closely. It is like Google itself is telling you what users are looking for. And I tried to write as detailed as I can on those topics.

I am not going to talk about the format of an article as I really do not agree that there is any specific kind of format for “buying” or “informative” articles. All it matters is to give the user what he/she is looking for.

Going after this method worked well for me. The traffic started picking up from June 2018 till December 2018. You can see that in the screenshot.

And the earnings were like these in the last three month of 2018:

I know I know. The income is poor regarding the traffic. I’ll talk about it later.

Till December 2018, I had only 22 articles. 60% of those were informative content.

I wasn’t happy at all with the site performance. Then I decided to look for keywords that are:

“easy to rank”,

“has a search volume above 1000”,

“missing super informative content on the first page”.

I found some and wrote a super informative and detailed article on those. I was writing more informative articles than money articles. This process brought great traffic and increased my site authority.

For example, A keyword like “best time of the day to hunt deer” is the potential candidate for super information-rich content.

You can see the traffic in the year 2019 until September. It kept rising and was stable.

I published about 2/3 articles each month of the year 2019. As the earning increased I started sourcing articles from freelance writers. The site had a total 40 posts!

The only thing that I focused, was publishing content for the user. I tried to serve a user what he was looking for.

Backlink Strategy

This is the one area I had trouble with progress. Managing good quality backlinks were tough. Moreover, I had to start and learn about SEO from scratch.

I started with blog commenting and social profiles. Made some forum comments too. That did not bring any results at all.

Over the full year of 2018, I only did guest posting. It was hard and I really hated this part. Still, I was super afraid of PBN.

However, I managed to avail of some moderate quality guest posts on some decent sites. Good sites were asking sky-high prices!

In the year 2019, I focused on only two types of backlinks. Forum commenting and niche edits. In my opinion, having a link from an old post is way more effective than a newly published guest post.

Oh, I tried some Web 2.0 also in the middle of 2019. I was inspired by this as my competitors were doing it. And that worked for me too!

On-Page SEO

This was my most favorite part. It was the only place for me where I could play around by my wish. Yes, Google has its own theory. But, I played with the keyword density, H tags, internal linking to find out what works best.

I followed the instructions of famous SEO guys on this. My site had Yoast SEO plugin installed and I never waited for the GREEN signal to light up for on-page SEO. This GREEN signal is the silliest mistake that most newbie makes. 

I created some extra notes within the content, like a featured area, targeting the featured snippet. For some it worked, for some, it didn’t.

Final Income Status

I worked hard and prayed. The results were satisfying. The income shot up in April and kept growing. Here’s what my income looked like:

March 2019: $215.81

April 2019: $505.21

May 2019: $1170.59

June: $911.59

July: $855.09

August: $836.66

September: $849.13

I setup Onelink in June 2019 for Canada and UK. UK did not bring anything at all. But, Amazon Canada brought about $100 per month since July 2019.

Final Thoughts

This income might not be even a dime for some people but this was huge for me!

Finally, I sold the site to Motioninvest.com on October 01, 2019. This was a great experience with them. No brokerage fee, super fast deal.

If you want to take something from this story I would say, focus on your content then backlink. Understand what the user is searching for and find the gaps in the top 10 results of the first page. Write content that fills the gap and sneak in that space!

One more thing I must mention, please use a table on your money pages for great conversion. My conversion rate was nearly doubled right after I used a comparison table plugin.

In a nutshell, the best way for achieving a goal is to start working hard right now. Learn and take action.

The post How a Non-Native English Speaker Made An Affiliate Website That Earned $847 per Month appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

October 14, 2019 at 03:31PMhttps://https://ift.tt/33zd70p https://ift.tt/2Mypzq4

[welcometotheonethatgotaway-blog]

Chapter 1 - 24th March 2017

You get hit by it when you least expect it. And I am not talking about the flu or some similar disease, although considering the outcome one could categorise it as a deadly condition. I’m talking about the over-mediatised topic in shows; the thing we so desirably search for our whole life. The one thing that can destroy or repair us in a matter of seconds. Yes, I am talking about love. Well, what I perceived as love. As you read this you might think that I’m over-exaggerating everything that I’m saying or that I’m making stuff up, but, honestly, I am not. So sit back, relax, and enjoy my longest not-so-love story that lasted all of 2 months.

It all started in such an idiotic manner. It was an innocent night, I was talking to some not-so-innocent people on the internet (don’t think of anything dirty… yet) and just feeling quite bored. At some point I innocently thought to myself: “Hey, I could make some time pass by swiping Tinder. I am not looking for anything in particular, but it’s nice looking at cute faces one in a while”.

So I started swiping (not gonna lie, most of them I swiped left, which, for whoever doesn’t know, means that you don’t want to match with the person that has popped up) and I hopelessly and aimlessly did so for about an hour or two. But from one swipe to another I stumbled upon someone. Nothing went through my mind except the fact that he owned the same onesie that I had. A Star Wars Chewbacca one, £15 from Primark. I thought it was kind of humorous so I swiped right (which means you want to match with the said person) and *drumroll* IT’S A MATCH! For the sake of confidentiality I’ll just refer to him as Rob.

So after matching with this Rob person, I was interested in finding out more about him. So I did what people usually do before swiping right, which is check their profile. By doing this I got to realise that this person I matched with is actually pretty damn adorable, not gonna lie. So I initiated conversation and took the role of the “I’ll text first” person. I made a remark about having the same onesie and we hit it off from there. We played a nice game that I proposed that involves “I ask one question, you ask one question”. And, just how any conversation with me goes, it got to the question of “Do you have snapchat?”. The answer was yes so we moved on to there.

 As a parallel to this story, I use snapchat a lot. And everyone who knows me knows I use it a lot. But most people don’t take the time to think why that is. It’s because nothing stays. Everything is temporary. All the pictures, all the texts. Unless screenshotted, (which shows), or saved, they’re just gone. This gives any insecure person like me, a tiny sense of security. No screenshots of WhatsApp convos, no saved pictures to show, no evidence of anything that’s happened that I won’t know of.

 ANYWHORE, moving on. There were some flirty remarks directed towards me, which felt nice, but at that point I was not looking into anything of the sort. I just wanted to un-bore myself. So we continued snapchatting back and forth for a solid 2-3 hours.

Not to bore you too much I will skip the tens of selfies exchanged in those hours and jump to where it gets interesting.

So it’s about 10:30-ish PM by now, at this point we were talking about meeting up for a coffee or something. I jokingly responded with “What if I come by your place tonight?”… Ok, I totally get how that sounds and trust me when I say it was not what it seems to be. At first I asked that as a joke, anticipating a negative response, but… little did I know that his answer was positive. So, me being me, and being incapable of making decisions, I divert the conversation off subject while thinking hard of what to do. I know I could have just said no because it was too quick and weird or I could say yes because hey, cute boy, never done this before, so why not? But instead of it being an easy decision it took me almost an hour. Overthinking is a bitch and I’m so sorry if you do it too. Anywhore, so I make my decision aaaaaand, well, let's just say THIS is where it all officially starts.

So I text him back saying that I’ll leave my house soon and so I did! Packed up and by 11:30 PM I was outside. No turning back. At this point I was still not fully realising what was happening and what the consequences could be so I didn’t react in any way. But the moment I step foot in the bus I thought to myself: “Crap. I’m going to the other side of London to meet a complete stranger, who can, for all I know, be a murderer, or rapist, or just a general psychopath.” So, having my anxiety levels waaaaay over my limits, I start panicking. I had to call someone. The first person that came to mind was a friend of mine who, as myself, studied in the UK. I’ll refer to her as Steph. So I message Steph that I did something stupid and ask if I could call her and to my luck she said yes. So she asks what’s up and I say: “I did a booboo… Iiiiiii… may-or-may-not-have-met-someone-on-tinder-and-now-I’m-on-my-way-to-meet-him! (heavy breathing) So, I’ll be at postcode *insert postcode here* if I don’t call you in 2 days call the police.” I was legitimately petrified. I did not know what was going to happen, who was I meeting, or better said what kind of person was I meeting and talking to Steph made me feel better. (sidenote: THANK YOU STEPH <3 ) At least I did not have a panic attack in the bus. That part comes later…

So, as soon as I get to the tube station (the place where Rob lives will be kept confidential because, you know, I’m a decent human being?) I take a tube line and change at a station for another tube line and badabing badabong, an hour and a half later I was there! I was genuinely terrified. As soon as the tube doors opened I ran up the already moving escalator stairs, feeling how my chest was getting tighter and tighter and my lungs were receiving insufficient amounts of oxygen. I  rushed out the station door and lit up a cigarette (ironic right?). Freaking out, I called Rob and asked him to come pick me up. And so he did. I was looking out for him and PRAAAAAYING that he’s not taller than me (yes, that’s what I was thinking, judge me). And then, I saw him. But, unlike a normal human being who would let the other person know that you acknowledged them, I turned away and pretended I didn’t see him and let him approach me. When he was about 5 meters away from me I lifted my eyes from watching the floor, to the horizon and there he was. Approaching me, this boy, just as tall as me (or maybe 1 cm taller), with a full gingery beard (by full I don’t mean long, I mean just a really nice one that covered most of his roundy cheeks and just looked soft and all-round beautiful to be honest), a blue beanie that left his short fringe cover his forehead and blue eyes that made me think twice about loving brown eyes. I think you get it the idea that in split second there were fuck ton of things through my mind. I felt something I have only felt once before in my life. I didn’t know what it was. I had a hunch, but I didn’t want it to be true. But I pulled myself together and tried acting normal. Well… ‘normal’. So I half smile and with an awkward wave I shyly speak out: “Heeey”. To which he, with a half smile (which was and is so beautiful and charming that I just couldn’t anymore), replied: “Hi!”. And we hugged, because, quite frankly, I am a hugger, and we begin walking towards his apartment.

I tried to be as open as possible in this time and was kind of trying to cope with everything:

“Hey, just fyi, I’m absolutely terrified and I am so sorry for this.”, I said while showing him how hard my hand was shaking.

“Oh come on, it’s ok. I’m not an axe murderer” he replied in a jokingly way with a slight chuckle.

“Well even if you were then I won’t have any assignments left to do so it’s a win-win situation!” I replied, and we both laughed :) #BestIceBreakerAmIRight?

So we continued walking and walking until we had to take a left down a weird alleyway. Truth be told it was really creepy.

“Uhm WHERE are you taking me?!” I exclaimed. “You want to rape me don’t you?” (obviously said sarcastically).

“Yeah, just ‘round this corner is my rape cave!” he responded (again obviously sarcastic).

And we laughed it off and continued walking and surprise surprise we were at the entrance of his flat! We entered and so it begun.

“Would you like something to drink? Tea? Water?” he asked.

“Some tea would be nice, thanks!” I answered.

“What kind?”

“Whatever you have.” I answered, not sure what else to say since I am so horrible at picking and making a decision.

He then opens a cupboard FULL of tea boxes to which he adds:

“Mate, I’m British. I own a lot of types of tea. So pick. I have…” and he started naming out ALL the kinds of tea he had, to which I respond:

“Just a black tea. Earl Grey if you may?”

“Sure thing!” he replied.

So he made me and himself some nice hot cups of tea, during which we had some small talk (more like me complaining about being a student) and then we went into his livingroom and sat on the blue, obviously worn out, IKEA couch.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll continue my ‘Grace and Frankie’ marathon” he said.

“By all means!” I replied.

“Have you ever heard of this show before?”

“Can’t say I have. To be honest, I don’t really watch tv series nowadays... My free time is spent talking to friends online and playing games”

“Ok so. It’s about…” and he goes on to tell me the main plot of it and what I should know without giving any massive spoilers.

“Ok. Great thanks!” I respond and then we carry one watching.

At that point, even after all I described when we first met and afterwards, I did not want anything to happen. I just wanted a nice, cosy night, where I just waste time with this guy I just met and have a giggle.

While the show went on in the background we began talking and basically making small talk. He seemed like a genuine person. He seemed like one of those people who would just say anything to you in such a manner that it would be 100% true and not hurt as badly as it should. Later on, I came to learn that, although this was true, his decision of being so straight forward was not always the best of things. But, going back to the story line, while meaninglessly talking about random stuff, I noticed that he was paying more attention to me than the show. Me. A stranger. Someone he has just met over a dating app a few hours prior to that. And he was taking an interest into what I was saying. And being nice, even though he told me he was “a massive cunt” (his words, not mine). But I didn’t see a “cunt” that night. I didn’t even see a complete stranger. I saw someone that cared about my story. That cared about what I wanted to say, when few other people did. And that did not change till the end of the story. And for that I will be always grateful. Thank you, Rob. For everything.

At the point when the episode ended there was a slight silence for about 5 seconds, when he jumped out of the couch and said:

“Right. Wanna move somewhere more comfy?”

“Where? This couch is already more comfortable than my bed in my room. At least it doesn’t have a spring going into my back…” I responded with a slight chuckle.

“That couch is nowhere near as comfy as my bed. So, if we may?”

“Sure thing! Leggo!”

And I chugged the remaining quarter of a cup of tea that I had and we switched moved to his bedroom.

Truth be told, he was bragging earlier about how comfy his bed was and how I will fall in love with it once I lay in it. But me, being the bastard that I am, did not believe until I saw, or in this case, felt it. So we get there, I sit down and just exclaim:

“Oh. My. God. You weren’t joking…”

“I told you didn’t I?”

“Yes you did.” Point at which I fall on my back and whisper: “I’m never leaving this bed hooooooly shit…” Rob giggled and sat on the bed.

We then started talking. We talked and talked for a while and it felt amazing. I was thinking to myself: “Wow. He understands me. Or at least he tries to. How is this happening? Why is this happening? What am I feeling right now? Is this ok? Should I continue talking to this person? Am I doing the right thing? Will this come back to me and bite me? Am I really doing the right thing? Why? Why do I keep on talking and sharing stuff some people that have known me for years don’t know and why does it feel so right but so god damn wrong? Why? Ok, just pull yourself together. Don’t freak him out like you do to most people.” Mind you this happened in a matter of seconds. So… I get up and sit next to him and we continued talking. And it got to a point where we almost kissed, but I borderline denied it. I was not ready. And I was not even sure if I wanted that. I didn’t know what I wanted. I kept telling myself that I don’t want anything, but I was feeling the exact opposite. He giggled a bit after I “rejected” the kiss (if you want to use that word) and we moved on with our conversation.

At one point he laid on the bed, facing upwards. So, me being the socially awkward but sometimes ballzy person that I am, I laid there aswell and placed my head on his soft, comfy belly. In that moment I was in bliss. I felt like everything was great and nothing wrong was going on in my life. I felt safe for once in a long while. And that was an amazing sensation.

After a series of conversations he got up to drink some water and check his phone. I took the liberty to place my head on his lap and we continued talking. And this is where something very weird happened. I don’t remember what we were talking about. I don’t remember how the next part happened but I know for sure it did. There’s a blank space in my memory. Like it got wiped out. But… I place my head on his lap and (sigh)… the next thing I know our lips collided. At that point, time just stopped. I could feel the softness of his lips as well as the roughness of his bearded face. I, again, was in bliss. This is one of the only moments that absolutely nothing else went through my mind. It was just me and him. Nothing else. This doesn’t usually happen to me. It takes a lot for someone to make that happen and I was pleasantly surprised it did. Thank you, Rob. For everything.

It was hard to get out of that moment. It truly was. And once I did and I looked at him I felt so vulnerable. I giggled bit. The look he had in his eyes was so precious. I can still see those beautiful, perfect, blue eyes just looking at me like I was a trophy (or so I thought). I felt something I haven’t felt since I was 13. But then it happened again: “Wait. What’s happening? What JUST happened? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Is this ok? Was it the right decision? What was I thinking?! I don’t know this person! But it felt so right though. But was it? What did I get myself into? What am I doing? What if I get too attached again? It was just a kiss. But it felt like it was more than that… Oh God. Ok. Ok. Calm down. It’s gonna be fine. Just calm down. Breathe.”

Luckily I didn’t have a panic attack. I have no clue how I didn’t, but I’ll take it.

After that “event” we talked for a bit and got into bed. Now. Don’t worry. There’s not going to be any gross details because again, believe it or not, I’m a decent human being and I would not like to overshare something that: a) might be WAY too inappropriate, b) would piss off Rob, c) would make people start speculating stuff. Plus, it’s my private life and this story is already letting you peek into one of the most important and private experiences of my life.

 But anywhore, we get into bed and we cuddled and “cuddled” for a good few hours. This was not supposed to happen. This was purely a happy accident and me not thinking straight (*giggle*). I didn’t want anything to happen and I just wanted a chill night without any strings attached, with, you know, clothes on, without it evolving into what it did and most certainly WITHOUT feelings getting involved. But, as always, life surprises you when you least expect it, am I right?

So we did whatever we did (don’t let your imagination drift away too much because most of the things you’re most likely thinking of didn’t actually happen) and we would sometimes stop and chat. And that felt amazing. It wasn’t just “cuddles” for me. It felt like something else. But you know, people don’t always feel the same way you do regarding some stuff.

Ok. Here I’ll go into a tiny bit of detail because I find it quite funny and apparently he did too. So. We were talking and at one point he said:

“Ok, turn on your side.”

“Uhm… Why?” I said with a slightly confused voice.

“Turn over with your back towards me, I wanna spoon you.” He explained.

“Ooooooh okay! Truth be told, I’ve never spooned before.” (yes, I know, I never cuddled till now when I’m 19. And what? Judge me :P )

“Oh my God!” He exclaimed with a slight giggle. “You’re such a gayby!”

This was a completely new term for me and so I asked borderline laughing and in confusion:

“I’m sorry, I’m a what? Baby?”

“Noooo! Gayby. Like baby, but you know on the gay side.”

(Ok. As a side-note, since I want to make this as close to truth as possible, I am not sure if that was the first time he called me that. He might have used it when I told him he was my second boy kiss but hey, I have the memory of a goldfish. AT LEAST I’M TRYING RIGHT?) <=[

So at that point I had my first spooning session (it sounds so sexual but it wasn’t, trust me) and I realised something I have been assuming for years now: “I would soooooo choose to cuddle and spoon with someone rather than, you know, ‘cuddle’.” After that happened, we went back to facing each other. I looked him in the eyes and he was looking back at me. I felt so open. Like had a clear path to my memory and everything I had repressed there. It scared me. But not enough to close up. It was a good kind of ‘scary’. I have never felt so… secure with myself while there was someone else next to me. It’s like all my insecurities disappeared for a minute and I wasn’t worrying about my body or face or anything. I was free. I was safe. At that point I hugged him and whispered:

“Thank you.”

“For what?” he answered with a slight chuckle.

“For everything.” I whispered back to him

And then there was silence. Smiles. A kiss. And sleep.

[coin-river-blog]

Justin Sun recently announced a $20 million giveaway. The full details of the airdrop haven’t been released yet, but he is definitively giving away a Tesla. This reporter’s been thinking about it: if a million people sign up for a $20 million giveaway, that’s $20 each. That’s actually a decent amount of cryptocurrency for nothing at all.

To celebrate #BTT & #USDT–#TRON success, I am planning a $20m free cash airdrop. Good news-it's coming, bad news-I may decide to give away more! First, I will randomly pick 1 winner for a #Tesla up until 3/27! To apply, follow me and RT this tweet! Simple! #Blockchain pic.twitter.com/wFyzwtB3ur

— Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) March 12, 2019

No matter how you feel about Justin Sun or his creation, it’s undeniable that the explosive growth of the Tron ecosystem is a positive sign for the blockchain industry. A recent exchange with Charlie Lee illustrates the power that user-friendly, affordable tokenized platforms actually have. A woman had passingly heard of Charlie Lee’s Litecoin, speaking to the creator himself. But she knew all about Tron, and was eager to tell him about it.

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A Tron lady asked @SatoshiLite: do you know Tron? It’s always TOP-10. Charlie replied: do you know other TOP-10 coins? Not really. Litecoin? Tron lady: Yeah, I’ve heard of it. We kept laughing. She seemed very puzzled and asked: what’s so funny? pic.twitter.com/5gDdhVlfBn

— Xinxi Wang (@TheRealXinxi) March 13, 2019

Can users make use of $20 in TRX or BTT? Well, yes. You can make some investments, have some fun, or all of the above with that amount of TRX. Like most tokenized platforms, the base token is the most liquid. TRX is more widely used and accepted than any of the tokens running on it, however BTT is also accepted at most of the casinos.

TronLink: The MetaMask of Tron

There are multiple wallet options for Tron. For holding Tron, this reporter chose TronWatch. But for daily use, you need a browser-based plugin that allows you to interact with decentralized applications. A popular option for this, that works with TRX.market, Tronscan.org, and most other dapps, is TronLink.

Unfortunately, TronLink is only available for Chrome at this time. This is a drawback from Ethereum’s MetaMask, which is available for Firefox and Chrome.

Getting Tron

If you don’t want to wait for the airdrop from Justin Sun, you have the option of buying Tron now with other cryptos or stablecoins. Binance has a thriving TRX market and was the launchpad of the BitTorrent ICO. To acquire $20 worth of TRX via Dogecoin, this reporter used Changelly. The cost was 9300 Doge.

Using Doge to buy TRX on Changelly.

#1 Invest in a Casino

Another aspect of the casinos is their “token mining” aspect. It’s a cool feature of several TRX casinos: for every bet you place, you earn a small amount of a token. You can then stake that token or burn or it or sell it on a decentralized market.

One of the most valuable tokens in the TRX market is Ante, which is worth over 25 TRX on a normal basis. ANTE derives from TronBet.io, perhaps the most popular casino by volume. The more Ante tokens you control, the greater your share of the dividend. A popular model adopted by both Trontbet and TronDice is to return 70% of profits to the daily dividend pool. The dividends are paid via smart contract.

So, you can also buy Ante and Dice tokens, and stake them on the site, like so:

This is what dividends look like on TronDice. To earn a real amount of TRX, you need 10s of thousands of dice tokens. Dividends are paid out at midnight UTC every day.

The dividends may be small, but for this reporter, at least, something is better than nothing. The dividend varies by day. If we consider that we’re in a bear market for both interest and value in the crypto space, it’s probably a long-term decent investment. At any rate, it’s safer than actually gambling on the site. TronDice, which is pictured in the screenshot above, pays 2.5 dice tokens for every 10 Tron bet. Each token is worth roughly 1 100th of a TRX at this point, meaning you can purchase a 100,000 token stake in the casino for 1000 TRX, or roughly $3.

The dividends may be small, but they’re better than nothing. And the casinos make money. While many people win every day, plenty of people lose. That’s the nature of casinos. The cool thing about TRX casinos is that they don’t take more than each individual bet. The ones discussed in this article, at least – TronDice.org and TronBet.io – require you to sign each transaction. TronLink has a feature that allows you to automatically sign for a set period of time.

So, for an investment of $20, it seems you could make 25 to 50% in a few months time. And if you get that investment stake for free from Justin Sun’s airdrop, you’re making free crypto.

#2 Gamble

For the purpose of this article, the author converted about $20 worth of Dogecoin to TRX, and commenced to play on Tronbet. They have three game offerings now, but they will soon be launching live poker.

The most fun game is definitely Moon, a chart game which allows you to bet on the rising price of a fictional asset. Moons range from 1.00x (which is a loss for everyone who bets) all the way to 9900.

The minimum bet on both casinos is 10 TRX. If you bet 10 at 1.4x and you win, you get 4 extra TRX. You also get a small amount of Ante. The amount of Ante you receive is relational to your level. You get less per bet as your level increases. Eventually, all the Ante will be mined out, and the value will go up, as it is the only way to obtain a stake in the casino.

This reporter has seen it get as high as 300. Here’s a short recording of a game of Moon:

There are a variety of other casinos out there. Another one this reporter tried was TronVegas. They use the same model as most Bitcoin-based casinos, where you make a deposit and then play. This is riskier than on-chain betting, of course, because you can’t know that your funds are safe. TronVegas also took the reporter’s money.

As a side note, TronBet intends to give away 5 Teslas soon.

🚗#ANTE 5X TESLA GIVEAWAY🚗 Date: 18/3 – 31/3 🎊Chance to win for only 10 $trx ✅Any leftover Tesla after event end we will choose random winners from twitter ✅Tag 3 friends + Follow + RT + comment with addy ✅Min Lv. 15 on https://t.co/WqCzbG1Fo9 @justinsuntron @PokerStars pic.twitter.com/7zQ6L5hxjB

— TRONbet (@TRONbet) March 13, 2019

Casinos are one of the most popular dapps. For the purpose of this article, the author only really fully investigated two of them. But a full list of Tron casinos is available here.

#3 Play Games

Tron has a number of cool games running live on it. The most popular game is a massively multiplayer role playing game called TronLegend. The second most popular requires less time investment and is called TronGoo.

TronGoo has an in-game economy based on the production Goo. Players can fight, improve their kitties for fighting, and employ workers to earn Goo. Ownership of goo entitles you to TRX rewards. The game does require a bit of a learning curve, but fortunately they grant you a free intern kitty when you sign up.

TronGoo is good for people who aren’t necessarily interested in gambling. The basic premise is that you produce Goo and lock up Goo. In-game items can be purchased for TRX, part of which goes into the “research pot,” which is given back to users proportional to their goo production and holdings.

The coolest thing is that you can raise an army and steal Goo from other players.

This reporter successfully attacked another player and stole millions of goo.

Other Ways You Can Use $20 In Tron

You can, of course, play the token’s market. $20 gets you about 800 TRX at current prices. If you take that an invest in dice tokens, for instance, you can get about 80,000 of them. Then you can sell them at a higher price as the market fluctuates. You can invest in BTT, Ante, and other tokens as well, all by virtue of having a TronLink wallet and access Trx.market.

You can of course just speculate on Tron’s eventual return to market highs. Simply hodling tokens works in Tron as well, but the point of this article is that the nascent system has exploded with dapps. You don’t have to be a Tron bull or fanatic to have a lot of fun there.

After you use Tron for awhile, you’ll understand why it has such a high volume of transactions. Every bet on TronBet is a transaction, as well as TronDice and many other places. The blockchain is handling this volume of transactions and interest seems to be on a quick trajectory. It’s hard not to get excited about Tron after using it for awhile.

One thing that bears mentioning: to transact on Tron, you need bandwidth. Everyone gets a small amount for free, but if you freeze your TRX at Tronscan (on the wallet tab), you can get more proportional to how much you freeze. This will save you TRX in transaction costs.