#ive known about it and wanted to play since the APP but it didnt run on my phone back then and i never figured out a single google search

[rivilu]

In other news which will surprise no-one who knows me, I am unfathomably stupid

[excidium]

this post contains spoilers for the miraculous ladybug new york special/movie. trigger warning for abuse, so be warned of that if you keep reading.

okay so ive watched the new york special two and a half times by now, so ive finally had time to sit on and reflect what ive watched. the argument that happens between chat noir and ladybug is perfect, and is something that needed to happen for their relationship to become stronger. let me explain.

first of all, and lets get this out of the way -- ladybug had every right to be upset with chat. im not trying to devalue her feelings on the experience at all. he had made a promise to her that he would protect paris, alleviating the pressure she has on her as guardian to protect it. hes her trusted partner, and she was relying on him to keep his word. him failing to tell her that he was no longer in paris was a breach of their trust, and therefore damaged their partnership temporarily. she had every right to be upset with him, and yes. he should have (and did) apologize. it was an apology she deserved, and she was not out of line for being upset with him.

now here is where i get into why this is such a perfect arc for these two, and why this eventually was going to and needed to happen. really, it all comes down to chat’s civilian life as adrien. i think a lot of the time when discussing adrien and his flaws, the fact that he is literally abused, manipulated and consistently gaslit by his father is left out of the conversation. his abuse and lack of parental care is what causes most of his negative traits to bubble to the surface and become amplified, and thats the case here as well.

so why didnt chat just tell ladybug that there was a change of plans and that he wouldnt be able to keep his promise that he made? well, he said it himself. he was afraid of disappointing her. however, this isnt the normal “disappointment” that most people are afraid of. you need to keep in mind that adrien doesnt know how real/healthy relationships work, which is literally the main adrien conflict in this special as well. nino literally describes him as a “baby chick just emerging from his shell”, and he isnt wrong to make that comparison. hes still fairly new to the real world, and has up until now been stuck in a world entirely made up of his fathers control and creation.

now keep in mind that the only “close” relationship adrien really has is with gabriel (at this point). gabriel sets unreasonably high expectations for him, and punishes him harshly whenever he doesnt meet said expectations. for example in the episode “captain hardrock”, gabriel is disappointed with adrien’s piano playing progress, and so he prevents adrien from seeing his friends at band practice (after he had already said he could go) -- as punishment in direct consequence of his disappointment.

gabriel has also literally threatened adrien on multiple occasions by socially isolating him, as well as doing a bunch of other awful shit to him when he doesnt follow directions or live up to his expectations. that is what chat is afraid of/thinking of when he’s afraid of “disappointment”. he isnt thinking of a healthy form of it, but rather the distorted and cruel form that gabriel has shown/taught him. and so thats why hes so terrified of ladybug being disappointed in him, and is why it may seem irrational to some people.

it is irrational to think that ladybug would ever react as harshly to chat noir as gabriel does to adrien, but he doesnt know that. all hes ever known is unhealthy relationships and reactions, and so him jumping to the conclusion that she no longer wants to be partners with him after this mistake makes perfect sense.

adrien is not a bad person. impulsive? yes. bad and selfish? no. he knew he was wrong, and he knew that he deserved to be reprimanded for what he did. his reckless behavior (encouraged by plagg) nearly cost the life of an innocent hero, and he knows that. its why the entire time he was in new york, he was too busy monitoring the akuma app instead of enjoying himself. he feels bad about it. he knows ladybug has every right to be disappointed in him. he knows it was wrong, but he was so afraid to tell her the truth because of the unhealthy expectations he has in his head (set by gabriel).

he both feels guilty and also expects that ladybug will no longer want to be partners w/ him because of this mistake. so much so that he just preemptively gives up his miraculous to save her the trouble of asking for it. marinette is the guardian now, and therefore she has the power to revoke it if she ever feels he can no longer be her partner. ladybug is disappointed in him and says she no longer trusts him earlier in the special, and so he acts on what he thinks will be the consequence. this is something akin to what gabriel would do, and is why he just accepts it as is and runs away without giving it a second thought. this is his reality living with gabriel. this is the type of punishment/reaction hes used to when people are disappointed in him.

and thats why hes so surprised to hear that ladybug still wants him as a partner, because he genuinely believes that his mistake was unforgivable and justifiable in him losing his miraculous. this is how relationships have always been for him, and so why would his relationship with ladybug (when he disappoints her) be any different?

this needed to happen, because ladybug showed him that whats normal for him isnt healthy. that in healthy relationships and dynamics, disappointment doesnt automatically lead to the harshest punishment. theres room to grow, theres room for apologies. she doesnt know chats identity, and so she couldnt possibly have known that he would react the way he did to her saying she was disappointed in him (and that her trust in him was temporarily damaged). she has a healthy relationship with her parents, and so this was highly surprising and abnormal to her (as it was to a lot of people watching). when she said she was disappointed in him, she obviously didnt mean it as “i dont want to be partners with you anymore”. she meant it as “im disappointed and hurt by what you did, learn from this and be better. dont do it again”.

in order for them to become closer partners, chat needs to learn what healthy relationships are like. and ladybug needs to learn how to articulate her feelings better. before this, she didnt really tell chat how much he meant to her. that could been seen in the first scene of the special with the rose and how she was dismissive of his declaration of friendship (and how much he values it). when theyre reunited, she makes sure to tell him how much he means to her -- because she realizes that she hasnt really done that.

in that way, marinette and adrien’s arcs arent that dissimilar to chat noir and ladybug’s. adrien needs to learn to get out of his shell and experience relationships that are healthy, and marinette needs to learn how to be clearer about her feelings. adrien’s social inadequacy caused him to make a huge mistake and renounce being chat noir. marinette’s inability to express to chat how much he means to her (as well as to adrien), leads to chat feeling as though the only way to own up to his mistakes is to give up being her partner.

overall, it’s kind of really amazing that both of the character arcs for both their halves tied into each other. i dont know if im making much sense, but the conflict between the both of them was just really good and is the type of ladybug and chat noir dynamic i was hoping for. hopefully from here on out they continue to develop together as people. a lot of chat’s impulsive behavior comes from fear of consequence (as well as freedom from consequence), and so this argument kind of made him (uncomfortably) face the facts. now he has a lot to think about and reevaluate, since ladybug basically proved everything he thought he knew about the way people should react is wrong.

anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk, i hope this made sense.

[yoon-kooks]

Beginner’s Luck

Pairing: Seokjin x Reader

Summary: You were never a believer in online dating, but things weren’t exactly working out offline either. So what was it that you were missing?

Genre: Fluff, Gamer!AU

Word Count: 3.5k

Prompt: “Can I kiss you?” (request by anon)

You laid on your bed staring at your phone screen, mindlessly swiping left. Your best guy friend, Jungkook, had suggested you try out some dating apps since meeting people face-to-face was a bit difficult for a shy snowflake like yourself.

It had been a few hours since Jungkook had set up an account for you, but you had yet to find someone who really caught your eye. Not that looks were all that important to you anyway. If anything, you’d prefer not to see their face and just get to know their personality instead.

“You might as well deactivate your account if you have no intentions of swiping right,” Jungkook glanced over at you before turning back to his laptop screen, “Shit, I just died.”

“I just don’t get how meeting someone online could ever work,” you rolled over to see what your friend had “died” in. All you saw were a bunch of little anime characters running around attacking a giant fish that literally took up half the screen. “I haven’t seen this game before… Is it new?”

“Ya! It came out a few days ago and I’ve been hooked ever since!” The boy clicked something to revive his character and travelled back to where you assumed the giant fish was. “You should play too since I haven’t made too many friends yet!”

“What about Tae?” You tried to avoid getting yourself involved in Jungkook’s gaming addiction by name-dropping the other gamer in your friend group.

“Nah, I asked him but he’s too busy playing Overwatch,” Jungkook shrugged. “The boy’s an addict, I tell ya.” You rolled your eyes at the biggest addict you knew.

“Well what about the people you met in the game?”

“There’s this one guy, Jinnamon, who goes to the same school as us, and I actually met up with him the other day in person.” The boy cursed under his breath after dying again. “He’s a pretty cool dude, but he kept making weird dad jokes.”

“If that’s your only complaint, he can’t be that bad, right?”

“I suppose…” Jungkook finally just flipped his laptop over and rage-quit after dying for a third time. “I GIVE UP. Here, if you don’t wanna make your own account, just use mine because I’m 100% done with this shit. It’s a stupid game anyway.” You snickered at the boy’s childish temper because you knew he’d be back online after a few hours of boredom. But in the meantime, you decided to check out the game that had gotten him all fired up.

It wasn't just a fighting game, you learned. There were also little mini games and quests you could do with other people, and also places just for chatting. You walked around the town where most people gathered for a little while and then headed to where you thought the giant fish was. It took you about ten minutes to find it, but once you did, you started hitting random buttons on the keyboard to use all different types of magic on the fish. And before you knew it, the fish had been slayed so you picked up the fish bone that dropped. You didn’t understand why a veteran gamer like Jungkook had had such a hard time defeating the monster when it had been so easy for a newbie like yourself. But what were you supposed to do next??

“Hey Kookie?” You tapped the shoulder of the boy who had fallen asleep on your bed, but he was out. Probably because he had stayed up all night playing the game. Not wanting to interrupt his sleep, you decided to ask someone else.

You searched for some kind of messaging system within the game, and once you did, you realized you were only able to message people on your friend list. Since Jungkook had specifically mentioned that Jinnamon guy, you clicked on his name to start a chat.

Nochu: “um hi”

Jinnamon: “oh its u again”

Jinnamon: “i thought u left me lol”

Nochu: “no that was my friend ^^;; he didnt like your dad jokes lol”

Jinnamon: “wait ur friend? u mean jungkook? who r u then o.o?”

Nochu: “Y/N”

Jinnamon: “o im seokjin btw but just call me jin ok”

Nochu: “lol i understand your username now. thats cute😹”

Jinnamon: “rlly? most ppl hate my puns LIKE UR FRIEND”

Nochu: “wowow someones salty hehe”

Jinnamon: “im NOT”

Nochu: “you kinda are /:”

Jinnamon: “ANYWAY. why is a peasant like u speaking to me?”

Nochu: “peasant???”

Jinnamon: “obviously knights like me are superior to mages like u”

Nochu: “i dont really know what youre talking about but okay???”

Jinnamon: “wow what a noob”

Nochu: “gtg bye”

Jinnamon: “WAIT. im just kidding! rlly. what do u need?”

Nochu: “i killed a fish and idk what to do???”

Jinnamon: “lol what fish?”

Nochu: “the big one in the cave that takes up like half the screen? idk what its called”

Jinnamon: “wHAT”

Nochu: “???”

Jinnamon: “pics or it didnt happen”

Nochu: “what pics?? all i have is this fish bone item???”

Jinnamon: “tHATS THE QUEST ITEM OMFG U RLLY DID KILL IT WTF”

Nochu: “what do i do with it?????”

Jinnamon: “give it to me of course lol”

Nochu: “how do i do that?”

Jinnamon: “omg u rlly r a noob”

Nochu: “what?? ive never played this before!! how am i supposed to know??”

Jinnamon: “first of all the trading option is on the bottom right of the screen”

Jinnamon: “and second dont just give away ur quest items to strangers lol”

Jinnamon: “so now that we cleared that up, what r u gonna do with the fish bone?”

Nochu: “give it to u???”

Jinnamon: “omfg no… ur hopeless”

Jinnamon: “i guess i have no choice but to take u under my wing”

Jinnamon: “can we meet up?”

Nochu: “like in person??????”

Jinnamon: “ya its easier to explain this stuff in person”

You thought about it for a moment. Jungkook did say he met up with this Seokjin guy before and that he was a pretty cool dude from your university, so it was safe to assume he wasn’t a creeper at the very least.

Nochu: “okay lets meet in front of the school library in an hour?”

Jinnamon: “got it~ ill send u my number so we can text”

You logged out of the game and packed Jungkook’s laptop into your bag. Honestly, you were beyond nervous about meeting Seokjin in person. While you were fairly comfortable with keeping up a conversation with him in the game, you weren’t sure how things would go outside of that environment. But you reminded yourself that the two of you would have the game to talk about, so there was no reason to worry about any awkward silences.

You glanced at the mirror to check your outfit before scolding yourself for making it seem like a date. Just as you walked out of your apartment, you silently said bye to Jungkook who was still dead asleep.

It was a sunny day on campus, a nice change from the darkness in your room that Jungkook loved to play his games in. When you reached the library, you scanned the area for an empty bench to sit on as you waited. But thanks to your luck, all the benches were occupied with at least one person. Of course, there was still room for you to sit next to someone, but the thought of that gave you butterflies.

Just when you were about to take a seat on the brick wall instead, you noticed a lone boy sitting at one end of one of the longer benches. If you sat there, it probably wouldn’t be so bad since there would be a fair amount of space between you and the boy. So you approached the bench.

“Um, excuse me, is it okay if I sit here?” You stared at the boy who was significantly more attractive up close than from a distance. He definitely stood out with his broad shoulders and his more than handsome face with beautifully plump pink lips.

“Yeah, go ahead,” the boy nodded, “I’m just waiting for someone.”

“Oh, me too,” you smiled at his adorable choppy bangs before taking a seat at the opposite end of the bench. Who knew such a stunning boy existed at your school?

You checked the time on your phone and saw that you were about five minutes early. Rather than text Seokjin immediately, you decided to wait a bit so he wouldn’t feel rushed.

To kill time, your eyes began to wander. Your campus was known for its breathtaking scenery, but somehow all you wanted to look at was the choppy bangs boy. He was looking down at his phone, texting away. You wondered who he was waiting for. A date maybe? The only thing that snapped you out of your daze was the vibration of your phone.

2:02PM Seokjin “im here~”

2:03PM noob “me too lol”

2:04PM noob “wait where??”

2:05PM noob “i just realized i have no idea what you look like lmao”

2:06PM Seokjin “im sitting on one of the benches”

You noticed Choppy Bangs looking up from his phone and scanning the area.

2:07PM noob “uhh… youre not the guy sitting next to me right lol”

2:08PM noob “the guy with the choppy bangs?”

2:08PM Seokjin “…”

2:09PM noob “oh shit it IS you o.o”

“What do you mean ‘oh shit’??” Choppy Bangs turned to you and made some kind of a squeaky windshield wiper sound with his laugh. “And they’re not choppy bangs!”

“Sorry!” you giggled. “So you’re really Jin?? I didn’t expect you to look like that.” You were still in shock that you were the lucky person the handsome boy had been waiting for.

“Like what?” Seokjin raised an eyebrow at you. “I swear, Jungkook said the same exact thing when he saw me for the first time. Like, am I really that handsome?”

You just nodded, trying not to laugh. Maybe he came off a bit strong, but as a shy person yourself, you actually really envied how he embraced his good looks and spoke so comfortably around you. “Shall we go inside, then?”

The two of you made your way into the library and found an empty table next to the window. Rather than sit across from you, Seokjin took the seat right next to you. But it made sense since he needed to show you how to play the game properly.

“Was that really the first time you played this game?” Seokjin asked with big eyes as he brought out his laptop from his bag.

“Ya, I swear!” You took out Jungkook’s laptop and waited for the game to load. When you were presented with the log-in screen, you realized you made a grave mistake. You had no idea what Jungkook’s password was.

After logging into his own account, Seokjin stared at your confused expression for a second and picked up on your problem. All he did was make his squeaky laughing sounds.

With bright red cheeks, you called your friend and prayed that he would pick up to tell you his password. Otherwise, what was the point of meeting up with Seokjin? You’d feel terrible if you made him come all this way only for you to be locked out of Jungkook’s account.

But of course, Jungkook didn’t pick up. He was probably still fast asleep and wouldn’t wake up for who knows how long. So you sent him a text instead in hopes that he would get the message some time soon.

“He better reply quickly,” you groaned.

“Well, in the meantime,” Seokjin slid his laptop in front of you. “Show me how you killed the fish~”

“What? You still don’t believe me?” you smirked.

“Well considering you can’t even get past the log-in screen, no, I don’t believe you.”

“Okay you have a point hehe,” you smiled as you looked at Seokjin’s character, which also coincidentally had his same choppy bangs. You pressed a few buttons, but rather than magic attacks like Jungkook’s character, you were swinging a sword around. “Hey, this is different from Jungkook’s guy.”

“That’s because I’m a knight and he’s a mage!!” Seokjin shook his head at you. “Didn’t I explain this already?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know what the fuck knights and mages are!” you pouted, shoving the boy next to you.

“That’s because you’re a noob,” he teased, giving you a light shove back.

“At least I could kill the fish thing!” You moved Seokjin’s character back to the giant fish’s cave and waited for it to spawn.

“Hmm, we’ll see.” And with that, the giant fish appeared. You jumped around and swung your sword, but it was a lot more difficult to control a knight. Just when the fish’s health bar was lowered to the red, you fell victim to one of its attacks where it literally threw up water in your face. A tombstone dropped and Seokjin’s character became a ghost.

“Omg look! You died! You’re a ghost~” you giggled, pointing at Seokjin’s floating character.

“Listen, the fish was supposed to die, not me,” the boy chuckled at your innocence.

“Sorry I couldn’t get you the fish bone though…” You made duck lips and tilted your head in Seokjin’s direction.

“That’s alright,” he patted your head. “You’re not bad for a noob.”

“Stop calling me a noob! You’re the noob~” You grabbed his hand off your head and started pulling at his fingers. “What do you need the fish bone for anyway? Can you become rich and famous with it?”

“You just give it to some witch for a quest. It’s a pretty useless item actually,” he shrugged.

“What! I thought it was important!” you whined. “I thought I was really cool for defeating the fish!! You made me feel special!!”

“I mean, you were the first to kill it, so that’s pretty cool, right?” Seokjin swatted at your annoying hands that were still tugging on his so he could properly entwine his fingers with yours.

“I guess…” You were starting to feel a bit foolish for thinking you were some hotshot after killing some fish in a video game, but Seokjin was really making you feel extra special with the way he held your hand so gently. And you didn’t want it to end.

Buzz! You jumped at the sudden vibration in your pocket. Whoever sent that text better have had a really good reason for interrupting your moment.

3:34PM Kookie “my password is ilyjustin”

3:35PM Kookie “wait why do you need my password?”

3:36PM Kookie “wait where the fuck is my laptop?”

3:38PM Y/N “i have it lmao”

3:39PM Kookie “???”

3:39PM Kookie “dont break my baby”

3:40PM Kookie “oh god its too early in the morning for this shit”

3:41PM Kookie “good night”

You put your phone away, a little upset that Jungkook had ended up responding so quickly. Things had been going surprisingly well without Seokjin even teaching you how to play the game. You just felt good around the boy.

“I guess I can log into Jungkook’s account now…” You flipped the laptop screen up and began inputting the password, but Seokjin was quick to put a halt to your typing.

“Maybe we should take a break?” He got up and stretched before extending a hand out to you. “We can always play online later, right?”

You nodded and took his hand into your own before you had the chance to chicken out. “So where are we going?”

“Have any suggestions?” He swung your hand back and forth. You had to take a moment to think, but there actually was a place you had been dying to visit. And the only reason why you hadn’t gone there yet was because you had no one to go with. But now you did.

“The aquarium!” Your eyes sparkled. “I wanna see big fish!”

“Like the one you slaughtered and then got slaughtered by?” The windshield wiper laugh came out again. It was a sound you were growing really fond of.

“Yeah~ Can we go?” You looked up to Seokjin, who smiled back at you.

“Sure~”

-

“Oooh! Jin, look!!” You repeatedly tapped the boy’s shoulder until he turned to the flat, gliding creature you were pointing at in the tank. “It’s cute, right?”

“You think stingrays are cute?” he asked. “You have really weird taste, ya know that?”

“I like most fish, okay?” you pouted and crossed your arms like a child. “All of them excep-” You cut yourself off and took a step away from the tank when you saw a giant grey and white fish with rows and rows of dangerously sharp teeth staring right at you. “Except that.” You hid behind Seokjin and peeked out from his broad shoulders.

“Aww I thought you wanted to see big fish?” he teased.

“But not a shark!!” You clung to the back of his flannel, shaking as you kept an eye on the great white.

Suddenly, Seokjin’s large hand wrapped around yours as your heartbeat slowed and returned to its normal pace. It wasn’t hard to feel safe in his hands. “Let’s go look for other big fish, yeah?”

“Okay…” You were still pouty, but you really enjoyed holding his hand. It just felt so natural and right. And you appreciated how much Seokjin was trying to make sure you were comfortable.

The next room you walked into was darker than the rest. You stayed as close as you could to Seokjin in case any shark wanted to jump out at you, even though you were well aware that that was physically impossible.

Your eyes grew big and your mouth formed a big O when you looked at the glowing tank in the center of the room.

“You like jellyfish too?” The boy chuckled at the curiosity in your eyes.

You only nodded. The way the jellies flowed and glowed so effortlessly in the water felt unreal. Almost as unreal as the fact that you were genuinely falling for a boy you had just met online. And you needed a moment to let all your feelings sink in.

“Hey, Jin?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you think of me when I first talked to you online?”

“I thought you were a noob. And it turns out, you really are one.” He leaned his head on your shoulder. You elbowed his stomach. “But I also thought you were pretty cute and innocent. Turns out I was right about that too.”

“Really?” You looked up to the boy with your puppy eyes. “Because to be honest, I didn’t expect you to be cute at all~”

“What!”

“But I’ll admit I was wrong~” you giggled. “You’re super handsome and nice, and I really liked spending time with you, and-”

Seokjin cut you off with a warm embrace. Your whole body felt the heat radiating from the boy’s chest. He’d make an excellent snuggle buddy, your pure and innocent mind noted. “Today was fun,” he spoke into your ear.

“It was!” You gave the boy a huge smile as your eyes wandered right onto his plush pink lips. There was only one more thing that could make the day any better. “Can I kiss you~?”

The next moment, you felt his lips pressed up against yours. You had thought nothing would feel better than holding his hand, but the sensation of your lips locking with his was more than enough to solidify everything. You had found the one.

Just earlier that morning, you were swiping left on some dating app, doubtful that meeting someone online would ever result in a relationship or love. Four hours ago, you were fighting some stupid fish. Three hours ago, you were insulted by some boy calling you a noob. Two hours ago, you met that same boy in person. An hour ago, you accidentally turned his character into a ghost. And just now, you kissed him as if a spark had gone off somewhere in your heart. It was never that meeting someone face-to-face was difficult, or that online dating was a hoax. It was just that you hadn’t found the right boy until that very moment.

You just had one hope as your lips parted with his. When you left the aquarium, when you went back to playing that silly online game, or when you decided to quit the game because it was kind of boring, you only hoped your relationship with Seokjin would continue to bloom, both online and off.

“Hey! We never found the big fish!!” you cried, walking out of the darkness of the aquarium and into the brightness of the setting sun.

“Oh shit you’re right…” Seokjin stroked his imaginary beard. “Okay, here’s a question to make you feel better.”

You tilted your head with a confused look.

“Are we… o-fish-ally dating?” You weren’t sure if you were laughing because the joke was so terrible, because the windshield wiper laugh came out once more, or simply because you were with the boy you loved.

“I suppose we are,” you giggled, wrapping your arms tightly around Seokjin as he planted a kiss on your forehead. “And by the way, I was kind of waiting for you to drop a dad joke all day.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting!”

“It’s okay, let’s just go and fight the other big fish together~” You gave him one last peck on the cheek before heading home, hand in hand.

A/N: Shoutout to any og maplers who caught my pianus reference LMAO~

[sadrien]

goodbyes & hellos

on ao3

im so so so late but hey this is for first day of prompt week for @thinkoutsidethelovesquare​!!!! day one: wrong number

this was a lot of fun tbh and ive been dying to write this ship. alyas texts are italicized, adriens are underlined on ao3, just bold here bc tumblrs a butt. shoutout to @reyxa​ for the title <3

enjoy!

Alya narrows her eyes at the new message that lights up her phone. It’s an unknown number that she doesn’t recognize — not that she’s given her number to anyone recently — and it’s also seven in the morning . Anyone how knows her at all should know that she doesn’t wake up before at least nine on the weekends. (And that has nothing to do with the fact that she doesn’t sleep during the week and tends to go to bed after two in the morning.)

She groans as another message shows up on the screen. She squints and lets the messages flow in, figuring she can tell the person they’ve got the wrong number after they’ve finished whatever they have to say. Or she can decide that it’s unimportant and ignore it and go back to sleep.

She likes her second plan the best.

unknown number: Hi!

unknown number: Just wanted to let you know the start time for today has been moved from 10 to 9:15

unknown number: My father has a meeting at 1300 so he wants to get it all done as soon as possible

unknown number: And I know you mentioned wanting to have him on set yesterday

unknown number: I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience! Your agent should be calling you soon, but I thought I’d give you a heads up

Alya squints at the screen. She doesn’t want to care but she’s curious. And curiousity killed the cat and all that but she’s used to letting her nosiness get the best of her.

unknown number: agents???

unknown number: 1st of all srry u have the wrong number

unknown number: 2nd of all were u talking to a movie star or smth???????

unknown number: book writer??

unknown number: what kinda person needs an agent

unknown number: Oh I’m sorry! I must’ve gotten the wrong number from someone

unknown number: I’m really sorry if I was bothering you

Alya rolls her eyes.

unknown number: u woke me up but its chill cause now im curious

unknown number: Curious? About what?

unknown number: way 2 keep avoiding the question

unknown number: ???

unknown number: u said the person u meant to text has an agent

unknown number: how fancy r they

unknown number: Oh! She’s a model!

Alya’s eyes widen. The most famous person she knows is that thirteen year old that was in her school who has ten thousand subscribers on YouTube because she makes lyric videos. The second is a boy who has a few thousand instagram followers because he has nice abs and lots of white boy clothing and muscle shirts.

unknown number: u kno a model????????

unknown number: Uhh

unknown number: I’m not sure how much personal information I should be giving to a stranger

Alya sighs. So close.

unknown number: its fine dude (dude? u good w that? lmk if u arent) i getchu

unknown number: u can just stop responding if u dont wanna talk

She locks her phone and slides it back under her pillow. She stares at the ceiling for a few more minutes, wondering if she’ll be able to fall back asleep. As much as she’d like to take the train back to dreamville, she can’t. Because now she’s awake and now she’s wondering. And once she stops wondering, she doesn’t stop.

She’ll probably stop thinking about this random wrong number in a few days and in a few months, she’ll forget about them entirely but…

Ugh.

Sleep definitely isn’t an option anymore.

Leaving her phone in her bed, she pads to the kitchen, twisting her hair up into a messy bun as she does so. No one is up yet — of course they aren’t, it’s seven on a Saturday and everyone is taking advantage of every precious minute of sleep they can get — so she has the run of the house to herself.

So she makes herself some coffee and a bowl of cereal and turns to television on. Her initial plan is to just leave it on whatever channel that’s playing when she first turns it on, and luckily the twins were the last ones to use it. Saturday morning cartoons. Score.

Alya stirs sugar in her coffee as Cyber Chase plays in the background. It’s not much more than background noise, it’s the middle of an episode and she doesn’t really know what’s happening, but she does snort at a few of the bad jokes.

“You’re up early,” her mom says before dropping a kiss on the top of Alya’s head.

Alya hums. “Got a few text messages and they woke me up.” She notes how her mom purposefully avoids eye contact as she opens a cabinet. Alya rolls her eyes and eats a spoonful of cereal.

“School friends?” her mom asks carefully.

“Yes,” Alya lies. Better than her mom asking more questions. The biggest one being why were you talking to a complete stranger?

“Are you going to see them before we leave?”

Alya glues her eyes to the TV. “If they’re around.”

Her mom makes an unimpressed sound and Alya resists the urge to roll her eyes. She texted a few of her friends the other week, but the conversation was awkward and stilted. They all had the same sort of idea about cutting ties.  

Alya sighs and puts down her spoon, twisting around in her seat to face her mom. “I promise I’m talking to them.”

Her mom gives her that look— the one where her lips purse and a crease between her eyebrows that’s becoming more and more permanent; the one that says she wants to push for more details, but won’t unless they’re volunteered first. Which Alya is not doing, thank you very much. “If you say so, honey,” her mom says, turning her attention to the breakfast she’s making.

Alya stares down into her cereal bowl.

Time to evacuate to her bedroom.

She finishes her cereal as quickly as she can without choking and dumps her bowl and spoon in the sink as she passes it, taking her coffee with her to her room. New plan: curl up in bed with her laptop and hope her mom just leaves her alone until they move.

Alya’s almost forgotten about her phone by the time she flops onto her bed. It vibrates almost as soon as she opens her laptop. She frowns as she pulls it out from under her pillow.

unknown number: Dude is fine for me

unknown number: He/him pronouns please

unknown number: Thanks for asking I really appreciate it, actually

unknown number: People don’t always ask

Plan trashed. This is a better plan.

unknown number: she/her for me

unknown number: and no prob man

unknown number: i wasnt gonna assume ur gender

unknown number: ok that mightve sounded bad but i didnt mean it in a bad way like the ‘lol dont assume my gender’ way jerks do sometime i meant it in like a genuine

unknown number: if u have smth u wanna say u should say it because i am very tired and i can go on for a while

Whoops.

Alya can’t say she’s known for her stellar first impressions but she usually doesn’t ramble her way into an awkward corner. She mindlessly flips through apps as she waits for a response.

unknown number: Don’t worry about it! I didn’t take it the wrong way or anything

Alya smiles to herself as she responds. He keeps leaving her openings which is nice. Based off his initial reaction, she thought he’d shut this down as fast as possible.

She realizes this is probably a little weird. But it’s the most exciting thing to happen to her since school let out so…

unknown number: so whats up stranger??

unknown number: b4 u ask im just sitting in my room doing nothing but text u so thats my morning

unknown number: I actually have work soon, so that’s fun

Alya raises her eyebrows. She forgot age was something else she didn’t know yet.

unknown number: oo work that sounds fun

unknown number: what do u do???

unknown number: I work for my dad, it isn’t anything special

unknown number: But it gives me something to do with my time so I don’t mind that much

unknown number: If I randomly stop responding without warning, that’s why

unknown number: good 2 kno

unknown number: can i ask what u do 4 ur dad or is that 2 personal

unknown number: I uh… I just do whatever he needs me to do

unknown number: I don’t get paid or anything but

unknown number: ay it still works as a resume builder

unknown number: Yeah exactly!

unknown number: thats cool that ur dad can get u a job!! my mom and dad could never w their jobs so i just suffer

unknown number: not that thats any different from what i would do anyway as a teenager

Alright, perfect. She’s brought up the age question in a really clunky and awkward way. Better than nothing.

unknown number: Oh how old are you?

unknown number: I’m 15

Alya lets out a sigh of relief.

unknown number: ayy same!

unknown number: just ur fav teenage superhero blogger

unknown number: doing nothing with her life

unknown number: You like superheroes?

unknown number: yeah!! i love comic books. you??

unknown number: I don’t have time to read many but yeah! I’ve always loved Spiderman

unknown number: wonder woman is my g i r l

unknown number: superheroes are just so cool

She waits a few minutes before she decides that he must have gone off to work. Bonding over superheroes, that’s good. A shared interest. She scrolls through their conversation, rereading some of the earlier messages before she creates a contact for him. She makes the name ‘stranger’ and leaves it at that.

It’s not like they’re meeting up or anything. Even if he is an ax murderer, can’t kill her if she never sends him her location.

Alya spends the next couple of hours avoiding her mom as much as possible. She takes her sisters to the park and then goes to the library after she brings them home.

She doesn’t want to talk about it.

She’s clicking through a webcomic that she missed a few weeks worth of updates when her phone buzzes. She glances down, expecting it to be a text from her mom asking if she has any plans or to do chores or something, but is pleasantly surprised to see a message from her stranger.

stranger: Sorry about that, work ran long

stranger: Admittedly, I don’t know very much about Wonder Woman, but she looks very awesome

unknown number: !!!!

unknown number: when ive got more time remind me to tell u all abou t her

unknown number: and to rec some comic books even if u dont have time

stranger: Is she your favorite?

Alya sits back in her chair. This conversation is going to be a long one.

Alya finds herself randomly texting her stranger for the next few days. He doesn’t always respond quickly, but he responds eventually, no matter how weird her original message.

That’s more than she can say for most of her friends.

She texts him as she’s sitting on the counter in her kitchen, stirring a pot.

unknown number: hey stranger whats up

stranger: Just reading, you?

unknown number: making box mac n cheese

stranger: Sounds fun

unknown number: yeah im gonna eat it straight from the pot

The three dots bounce on the screen as the stranger takes his time with the next message. Alya snorts and turns off the stove, straining the pasta and moving to the fridge to find butter and cheese. He’s found his words by the time she’s letting the butter melt in the pot.

stranger: Straight from the pot? Why?

unknown number: because i live life on the edge

unknown number: and also because im too lazy to clean the dish later

stranger: You know what? That’s fair

Sometimes, Alya thinks that she probably shouldn’t think about someone who she doesn’t even know the name of as often as she does, let alone text him as much as she does. But sometimes she’ll see something, and she’ll immediately think of him. Or she’ll just be randomly upset and feel the strong urge to pick up the phone and see if he’s available to vent to.

She knows it’s kind of weird, but she can’t help herself.

One night, at around two in the morning, she finds herself messaging him.

unknown number: hey did i ever mention i was moving

She’s almost asleep, slightly more okay than she was before she sent the text, when he responds.

stranger: You haven’t but we also don’t talk about where we live

Alya stares at the screen for a long moment, the bright light in the darkness making everything on the screen blur into nothing. She just feels kind of numb.

unknown number: yeah

unknown number: like 8 hours away from where i live now

stranger: Wow that’s a big move

unknown number: yeah

stranger: I’m guessing you don’t want to go?

unknown number: not really

unknown number: did u know ur my only friend right now

stranger: I am?

unknown number: me and my other friends sort of cut ties

stranger: The internet exists

stranger: Phones exist

stranger: FaceTime and Skype both kind of suck, but they exist

unknown number: yeah i guess

unknown number: i guess its just too hard for any of us to try

stranger: I have no idea how far apart we live

stranger: We’re doing just fine

unknown number: yeah

unknown number: yeah ur right

One of Alya’s small comforts that comes to mind whenever she thinks about moving is the fact that she’ll have her phone on her and a portable charger. Her stranger will be with her every step of the way.

He’d managed to get her to talk to some of her friends. She doesn’t really think it’ll last once she’s in Paris, but the attempt is nice. And it gives her other people to talk to for the rest of the summer.

It’s too early in the morning when they leave for the last time for her to get really emotional about moving. All she has the energy to do is to take a picture of her old apartment, caption it ‘one last goodbye to marseille’, and save it before sending it to her friends over Snapchat. Before she falls asleep against the car window, she texts it to her stranger.

She wakes up to a new text among the goodbyes from her friends.

stranger: Have a nice car ride! I’ll let you know when I get back from work <3

Alya hides her smile from her sisters and screenshots the text for later.

She texts him from the floor of her new bedroom while her dad starts moving boxes. They’ve been in the process of moving for a while now, shipping most of their things to Paris beforehand. Now all that remains is the actual unpacking.

Alya doesn’t have the energy for that. She just lays on the floor and stares at the ceiling for a while. Then she picks up her phone and sends him a text.

It’s been about an hour since they last talked. She’d talked to him for a good majority of the car ride, only stopping when he was busy and ending the conversation when they arrived so she could get her things out of the car and help her sisters with theirs. She’d sent him a picture of her empty bedroom and said ‘let the unpacking begin :P’. He’d responded with a ‘Good luck!!’ and ‘I’ll let you get to work!’

Alya’s thumb hovers over the send button for a few seconds. She’s never really pushed him for any sort of personal information before.

New city, new Alya. Or something.

unknown number: hey just wondering

unknown number: what do u have me in ur phone as??

unknown number: i have u in here as stranger

stranger: Your contact name?

stranger: Uh awkward but you don’t?

stranger: You’re the only one I just have the number for, so I know who you are that way

Alya reads his texts a few times before she responds. She doesn’t know what she expects in return, but she figures she has nothing to lose.

unknown number: im alya

unknown number: in case u were wondering

stranger: Hi Alya

stranger: I’m Adrien

[wewontliveforeversomakeitworthit]

My Story

Hi, my name is Lisa and I am an alcoholic. My sobriety date is January 3rd 2017 I have a home group, love and service in Rochester NY, i have a sponsor, i have a service position and I am currently working the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Today I shared at the forensics unit at our psych center and nothing came out right and i didn’t actually know how to share my story so I’m going to try to gather my thoughts and share it on here before my next share. I grew up in what would appear to be just a totally normal middle class home in Henrietta NY. I have 4 older sisters and 2 incredibly loving amazing supportive and sometimes absolutely insane parents. While i was growing up I felt exactly how alot of people say that they did too, i felt different, left out and not good enough for anybody. In elementary school I was already a compulsive liar, telling people that i had boyfriends and stupid stuff like that. I turned to food to hide my feelings and to hide myself and that turned into me being bullied for being over weight. And even from that young age i took the things that those people said to me straight to heart and it was gospel and they were right, I was fat, i had awful acne, i was ugly and nobody would ever love me because of my appearance. I decided I wanted to lose that weight when i was going into 8th grade and I lost some of it and was actually pretty normal for the most part at that time. I then thought i was completely in love with a guy in 8th grade who was also my best friend and we hung out over that winter break and i thought something was going to happen, like obviously we were going to be in love and get married but instead he told me that he didn’t want me in that way, turns out hes actually gay now but it sent me on a downward spiral into mental illness that was lurking in the shadows of my life since I could think. I developed anorexia and starved myself every day until i got down to about 100lbs, my family and I went on vacation and being around them i wasn’t able to eat (well not eat) the way that I was. I cried every single night on that vacation because of how utterly disgusted with myself i was. I then came home and developed bulimia because the control of the starving was completely gone. But the night that boy told me he didn’t want me, something else happened. I drank, it was NYE at my sisters house and I was 14 years old, her friends asked me if i wanted a drink and god did i want a drink. I wanted to feel the careless joy the people around me were feeling. They made the mistake of showing me where their green tea vodka was and i started drinking and didn’t stop until it was gone. I remember while i was drinking that something inside of me started to change, i wasn’t shy and concerned with what other people were thinking of me anymore, i didn’t care at all about anything. I remember my tongue and my cheeks getting numb and i was on cloud nine.  After that night i was too preoccupied with my ED to give a fuck about drinking or drugging until bulimia came into play. I started snorting adderall so that i wouldnt eat and that went on through ninth grade until i went to program for my eating disorder and those people saved me from dying from that disease. But after i got out of that program, life got real. I had about a year of decent normalcy but at the beginning of my junior year things started to progress. I started to not give a shit about school at all, i started skipping classes and going to parties on weekends and drinking whenever it was an option for me. I started dating guys who were really just not good people and i had only one friend. We went out when we could but it never dawned on me that I was drinking any differently than any of the other kids i was around because really I wasn’t but the way it was affecting me and the way i was thinking about it was COMPLETELY different from those kids. They would stop drinking so they could drive home or they literally had DD’s but to be honest i dont remember much about those couple of years. I graduated highschool early because i hated literally everyone and i was convinced that they all hated me and judged me because most of the time they did. In my senior year i started using the tinder app and i would go over to random guys houses and meet them and every time that happened id get to drink, in my bio it even said “alcohol enthusiast”. boy was i wrong. I thought it was normal to do what i was doing, i really didnt think twice about it. Meeting these guys and being able to get black out drunk and then maybe sleep with them just seemed like a normal thing to do. Until my parents started asking questions about where i was going and why there were alcohol containers in my car and i would lie and say they were someone elses but theyre not stupid they knew they were mine. Things slowed down a little while i was in my first couple semesters of nursing school, i still drank but just on weekends with my boyfriend at the time and his roommates, and i thought i was drinking normally but i guess blacking out and starting fights on purpose because of your drinking isn’t neccesarily normal. I wouldn’t walk around the park ave area with him at night time unless he wanted to drink and that became a norm for me. I needed a drink if i was going to do anything at all, go to the movies? drink. hang out with literally anyone? drink. watching some tv? drink. While my boyfriend at the time went on vacation for christmas i decided to go to a party because if i saw anything about anyone drinking on social media i was on top of it, i made sure i had a way to get drunk whenever and i went to that party and i did cocaine for the second time in my life. the first time i really dont remember much but it was before i had met Kenny. So he went away and I went to a harmless party and kept my drinks near me like they were my children. I heard they were doing shots downstairs and i went down there and took probably 7 tequila shots in a row and blacked out, i came too when i started doing lines and by the time it was 7am i was calling him asking him to help me. That was a thing of mine, was to get drunk one place and then message or text as many people as possible to help me because i needed to go somewhere else or do something else because i didn’t want the fun to end. I kept on drinking the way i was drinking but because of how sick and awful i had felt i didn’t touch drugs again for a little while but i did wind up finding them again. but then all of a sudden over the summer of last year, shit hit the fan. I was drinking every single night and one night i went and hungout with a guy i had met probably on tinder and he said he needed to stop by a friends house for a birthday gift and i was like oh yeah ok cool, turns out his friend was the supplier for the whole town he lived in and she offered me some and i actually said no. i scolded him for his awful decision making and we went to Durand beach to get drunk and by the end of that night i had at some point asked if i could have some of his drugs so that i could safely drive home and obviously he said yes and then life went crazy. i went back to durand with that same person but met a whole bunch of other people and some how met a small group of people another time on that night and i wish i had clearer details but i was really a black out drinker and i wouldnt come to unless i had something else in my system. So we met this other smaller group of people and my life changed. some how i started attracting people who had what i thought i needed and wanted and id switch back and forth between these peoples houses getting free drinks and drugs and staying up for days at a time and not coming home and moving from job to job trying to keep my head above water. I wouldn’t stop thinking about being able to get the next drink or drug. Id go to morning classes after not sleeping in two days and be completely strung out or just not go at all. I got to a point where i couldnt drink without putting a drug in my system and i tried. I tried to stop myself from getting too drunk by switching drinks or not having as many and i was convinced i didn’t have a problem because i didn’t drink during the day so i clearly wasn’t an alcoholic. I would try to drink around people who didn’t approve of me doing drugs and i still somehow managed to go from house to house to house getting drinks and drugs until there was nothing left. One night i was at a house with all of these people i had been drinking and drugging with who i thought i really was just living the life with and i went upstairs and had a panic attack. I wanted to go home because something in me created a feeling that told me i no longer belonged there. So after 3 days of not being home and countless cries for help to my therapist and other people i called my parents at 4am and told them i was coming home and sobbing i told them i needed to talk to them. That night i told them about what i had been doing and got myself an intake appointment for outpatient. And i still at that point thought i probably only had a drug problem and that it wasn’t the drinking. i really didnt think it was the drinking. But once i started outpatient, i couldnt for life of me stay sober but i wanted it i really did. and when i tell you that night i went home that i was desperate for help i mean i wanted to die. i spent so many days of coming down just praying for god to take my life because truly i couldn’t live it anymore. Times id come home so sick and dehydrated my mom would have to run IV’s through me and id lay on that bathroom floor wishing it would all just end. I had known about AA but it was introduced to me through a girl in my outpatient and she told me she was going to a meeting and i told her i wanted to go. I had just relapsed for what would be the last time and i wanted to be sober more than anything and i couldn’t handle the constant relapses. My first AA meeting was wits end when it was upstairs at Rosedale and i was not buying any of it. I was convinced that all those young people car pooling were getting drunk directly after the meeting and that they were all just liars and fakes. I was texting someone ABOUT getting drunk at that meeting but luckily nobody would comply because on that Sunday i went to a womens meeting in fairport and i felt so engulfed with love and acceptance it was incredible. These women gave me a coin and hugged me and even though they talked about god they were something i hadnt experienced in a long time and that was happy without needing a drink or a drug to do it. I was handed that 24 hour coin and I decided maybe I’d do a couple more of these meeting things but i wouldn’t get involved like they were. My friend and i started going to a 5:30 meeting that was mostly old people or people off the street who were drunk but i stuck around for long enough to meet Pat and he was the FIRST person i heard share within my 2 months of meetings that i could actually relate to and for the first time i went up and talked to someone after they spoke and i told him how much i related and he told me to go to his home group Love and Service and that he wanted to introduce me to someone and that someone turned out to be my sponsor. I had no idea what i was doing and i knew that if i didn’t start to actually do something other than meetings that i was going to drink again and i didn’t want that for myself anymore. So my sponsor and i didnt even discuss her sponsoring me it just happened and she told me to get phone numbers and find a home group and a service position and it took me a couple weeks but i did it. meanwhile, my friend who introduced me to AA asked me if i was calling my sponsor every day and i was like uhhhh what do you mean call her everyday?????? and my friends like yeah duh thats like an unspoken aa rule and i called my sponsor right after that i was like OMG IM SO SORRY I DIDNT KNOW I WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL YOU EVERY DAY. Mostly i just didn’t have any idea how the hell to communicate with people anymore without being drunk. My social awkwardness was at level 100 and im still working on that lol. but we met up and she started to pray and she said “hey god” in the beginning of the prayer like he was just a friend and i was like oh good i got a crazy one idk how well this is gunna workout. but she started taking me through the book and something else changed, i started to grow. this is the longest ive ever done literally anything in my life and it has changed my life drastically already even just at almost 6 months sober. Today I have a full time job that i actually go to every day, today I’m able to be a daughter, a sister, a friend. Today I am learning who i am and how to deal with life on lifes terms and im becoming patient and im just in this constant growth and its absolutely amazing. I’ve found a higher power that i dont understand at all but I know its there and im able to learn things about myself every day and get called out when i’m wrong and just begin to actually live and its amazing. I’m still a work in progress but I am so beyond grateful to be here. Thank you

[crown-eater]

A maze of pain and insane fantasies

Over the course of the past week, ‘Choly had been making a genuine effort to start moving into Cecil’s apartment beyond simply leaving a few belongings here and there as he came and went. Things hadn’t quietened down on the Bell front, but his landlady had served him yet another "final notice” that felt more ominously terminal than the others that had come before it. So between acclimating to his metagenesis and running errands for Bell, Chalcedony, and the Tellurides, he had found himself doing his best to at least scavenge the important things.

Like the leg lamp.

The leg lamp caused a huge fuss, and it ended up in the garbage at least twice. Cecil hated the thing, but it was one of ‘Choly’s most cherished possessions, one of the few things he felt his mother’s hoarding habits had yielded to benefit. He had no idea why it existed, or what cultural significance it might have had, but it was his and he loved it. Ultimately the lovers had to agree to disagree, and the leg lamp moved around the apartment as Cecil repeatedly disowned it. ‘Choly always returned it to the side-table beside the daybed he’d taken for his own.

'Choly had a sizable collection of physical copy novels, including his most prized possessions Roadside Picnic and Crash, the former of which being a nearly verbot relic and thrill token, a tangible piece of Quarter history. But, the stack of roughly a dozen novels paled as child’s play compared to the walls of Cecil’s apartment so densely lined with bookshelves that he also used them as sectional dividers. Cecil had been spelunking to rescue books since childhood, and he cultivated two very different collections from the life’s work: one at the physical copies wing of the library, a good third of it his own additions, and a second at home. His private collection was comprised of books which catered to his own personal interests, including many books too damaged to donate or too controversial to air in public.

Unprecedented for ‘Choly was the experience of a good Wi-Fi signal in a private setting. Cecil had left ‘Choly to the task of unpacking a couple of boxes while Cecil went to work for the day, and once ‘Choly felt like he had gotten sufficient progress, he treated himself to Web surfing unabated.

The notification sound of his chat app startled him, and at first he was disgruntled because an unfamiliar username was messaging him.

9augen: hey you havent been posting very much lately

9augen: everything all right?

9augen: this is rev by the way

«There you are, you stupid ghoul,» he thought to himself. «So you went silent for over a month and came back with a new username. Clever.»

ketherphorbia: *i* haven’t been posting much lately?

ketherphorbia: welcome back to the land of the living

9augen: not quite

9augen: i was just wondering. isnt like you. didnt even make a journal post

9augen: usually you vent if somethings wrong?

ketherphorbia: you’re honestly the only person who’s noticed the radio silence, ironically

9augen: why wouldnt i notice? youre my favorite for reasons you know

ketherphorbia: ...i guess if i can dish to somebody, it’d be you

ketherphorbia: i, well

ketherphorbia: i did it. i tried it.

9augen is typing...

9augen: whatd you get your hands on???

ketherphorbia: the junk that’s making all the stalkers sick. fluxeldrin. turns out my assumptions were wrong. it’s not what made the supermarket geek

9augen: ...

9augen: the slag does it do to a dreg then

ketherphorbia: a lot of what it did really slagging sucks. i’ve mentioned my joint disorder before. all those symptoms are magnified to a fault. i...

ketherphorbia: i kinda literally fall apart now

ketherphorbia: on the plus side, it did make me a meta. a really shitty meta, but ME. a META.

9augen: magic fall apart powers sound incredibly useful to me

9augen: haha pics or it didnt happen

ketherphorbia: yeah i thought you were as hard over this as me, you dreg

ketherphorbia is sending a file DSC39082_100-3493.JPG.

ketherphorbia: it stretches pretty far actually

9augen: fuck--

9augen: shit--

ketherphorbia: did i break you? you should see tricks my dick can do now

9augen: i--

ketherphorbia: i really need to take pics of that, but i’ve been kind of nervous to post ‘em anywhere

9augen: slagging cocktease the fuck man. im at a finnegans

ketherphorbia: sorry

9augen: no you arent. one of the reasons i love you

ketherphorbia: yeah no you’re right. you know me too well

9augen: ive told you before i think youre cute right

ketherphorbia: slag, the skin thing makes it hard to disagree with you

9augen: i never sent you a pic of me did i

ketherphorbia is typing...

ketherphorbia: i’m taken, y’know, but no. you haven’t.

9augen: i know. youre a chouay nasty little creature now like youve always wanted. maybe not the next clayface. but you still have got this teratophilic dregs heart pounding hard tonight

ketherphorbia: ...i try

9augen: theres a reason i havent sent you a pic before, but the reason i was quiet for the past month makes things a little more comfortable. i used to be pretty selfconscious about photographs

ketherphorbia is typing...

ketherphorbia: i have no idea what you could even possibly be going on about. you trying to tell me something happened last month? are you going to tell me what happened or not

9augen: The vampire stuff isn’t an act anymore.

ketherphorbia is typing...

ketherphorbia has stopped typing.

ketherphorbia: WHAT

9augen is sending a file DSC92734_101-2245.JPG.

ketherphorbia cancelled the file transfer.

9augen: the slag did you do that for

ketherphorbia: vampires don’t show up in pictures

9augen is sending a file DSC92734_101-2245.JPG.

9augen: very funny bugdick

ketherphorbia: ...a hybrid...?

9augen: im more lamprey than anything else. but theres a lot of nuance to the cocktail. fine tuning

ketherphorbia: ...gives a whole new meaning to ‘body modification.’ how the slag did you even get that done last month? isn’t that stuff banned?

9augen is typing...

9augen: slag i hear somebody griping at the waitress about the smell of me. like some dead thing crawled out of the bay. shes probably going to kick me out. i should get going anyway

ketherphorbia: rude. you a wifi hopper too then?

9augen is typing...

9augen: parting thought for you though. i want my mouth all over every inch of that metahuman skin of yours. just imagine all the perfect lancet marks making lace out of you.

ketherphorbia: you show up in pictures. i really doubt i could keep you away just by not inviting you in.

9augen: im pretty sure they just called the cops. not the evening i was anticipating

9augen: i gotta get a bite to eat. later dreg

9augen: and would you really do something to keep me away? ;)

ketherphorbia is typing...

9augen is offline.

ketherphorbia: did you just--

‘Choly nearly flung the reader once his friend logged off without further answers. Had Rev just implied what it had sounded like? After a minute of trying to calm down, he opened the vampire’s selfie again and stared. He’d snapped that picture in the Finnegan’s. Time-stamp aside, ‘Choly could recognize the newsprint-plastered walls in the background--that was a frequent Wi-Fi lurk for him. The fact the two shared a stomping ground but had never initiated meeting in person haunted ‘Choly a bit. But now, his friend was a lot less inconspicuous.

He decided to make lunch instead of try to linger on the chaos that just thrust itself upon him. Hours later, he was checking his mail on his reader, and had gotten correspondence from a 9augen email. The following thread of emails were exchanged over the course of just over two months.

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To: ketherphorbia@geemail.com From: 9augen@tricity.co.dv Subject: Sorry to have cut out on you like that. —————————————

I suppose I do owe you an explanation, Kether. We’ve known each other long enough, and we trust enough enough. Yes, I did get the work done last month. Yes, that kind of work is verbot. Yes, I’m supposed to keep hush-hush about it until the coast is clear. But, I know I can trust you with the knowledge that the movement is still very much alive and kicking.

You like stories. How about some non-fiction for a change?

I didn’t know what to expect when I went to see him. Aside from what little understanding of splicing I had through news coverage, all I knew of it had been vampires in my coven who’d had the fortune--and I use that word in both senses--to have had work done while it was still legal, to become more like themselves and live as the creatures of the night they were in their souls.

There’s still a lot of under the table activity. Alleyways, clinics. People get work done however they can sneak it. One girl came into this one club a few months ago, even, said she’d traded a few sexual favors for the funds to get a splice that’d emulate albinism for her and would cut her teeth. She was having great difficulty keeping herself from feeding directly from the flesh afterward. They hadn’t used sterile equipment, and the last thing she wanted was to contaminate the coven or its donors. She became a pariah for her limitations after the coven learned of the blood disease. Requiring blood be drawn, rather than be capable of drawing it oneself, is weakness, and in one of us weakness is revolting. And she wasn’t strong enough to accumulate the funds to go about seeking a cure, to dig herself back out of her self-imposed grave.

I was so wary of botched jobs, of diseased implements, of cut dosages... Everything after the ban went into effect sounded too good to be true, that anyone might ever have the chance to get work done again by someone with both the credentials and accommodations to do it and do it well. A friend of a friend was in with one of the underground grafters, got us private referrals for a new project, at a cut rate due to it being a test procedure. None of us was given the same time. The location was a residential address, an apartment in the lower-mid of Union City. Nice, but still obviously it was an aging complex. A feathered girl greeted me and, after confirming I was alone, ushered me inside. Despite being a residential space, the whole place was set up like a laboratory. It was prodigious.

I went in with a lot of specific plans in mind. I told the grafter the things I wanted. Heavy on the bat serum. Wolf eyes. I had the money and the opportunity, and I was going to get exactly what I wanted out of it.

Turns out, I only thought I knew what I really wanted out of it.

Let me tell you. This Linnaeus is the most intimidating, persuasive, and completely dominating individual you will ever have the pleasure of meeting. He’s also probably the most brilliant. I couldn’t even begin to guess what species he’s got in him. In the month since, I’ve been told he specializes in splicing with extinct species. I would call bollocks on such a claim, but it sounds crazy enough to be one-hundred percent true.

After hearing the particulars of my desires, he thought a moment, paced. He pulled up a chair next to me and coolly asked me what vampire species I could name off the top of my head--besides the vampire bat. On the spot and overshadowed by his overwhelming aura, I could only stammer out something stupid, like mosquitoe or flea. I can’t remember exactly what answer I gave him, but I clearly remember his trite, patient laugh that came of it. At that point, he pulled out a graphics reader and tried to pitch to me an entirely different angle. I can only guess that an artist can draw so many of a thing before becoming tired of repetition, regardless of it being a commission. And I am starting to believe that the species I desired for the work simply didn’t push the envelope enough to fit the bill of his particular... project.

This was so much more than just getting the features of bat and wolf. This was about becoming myself. He’d deliberated the best way to give me what I’d be happiest with, and I had the impression he had the entire animal kingdom to sample from--within reason, of course, as he’s working within the shadows of the law. He told me briefly, without going into significant detail, that he was working on harnessing the strengths and idiosyncrasies of all life, going beyond the animal kingdom. It certainly sounds promising, whatever he means.

Ultimately, we came to the agreement that my splicing job would use the pacific lamprey as its base, but that I would get the vampire bat ears I’d sought coming to see him. The underlying work is complex, but everything is so finely tuned to enhance everything else. Cave salamander, and a strange anemone-like creature called a tunicate. Did you know the cave salamander has cultural roots with the Roma? The gills along my neck are mostly superficial, and the lungs don’t do much either--all that’s in my skin now. The nasal structure has a bit of a sonar thing to it, from both the salamander and lamprey; every smell is intense now. Slag, my mouth is filled with teeth now, cheeks ringed with lancets. Linnaeus tells me the tunicate helps with bloodborne pathogens. I later found it also helps with whatever I get exposed to in the bay.

Doesn’t help with the smell, though.

I’m glad that I could reach out to you, and keep correspondence with you. It’s taken a lot to get used to being aquatic, but I regret absolutely nothing that I’ve left behind. Living near the docks has been a slagged blessing. Perfect hunting grounds, and nobody bothers me so long as I stay off shore. I think you’d love hearing about the weird shit I find at the bottom of the bay. Believe it or not, it’s good money. Pawn shops hardly ever have the nerve to question where I got waterlogged goods. Not that it’s smart to question me. With this lean, cartilaginous skeleton, the splicing also yielded me significant height gain, mostly in my torso. The lengthening of my body was necessary to accommodate swimming muscles, but I slouch horribly so it’s hardly obvious just how tall I stand until I straighten up.

I so enjoy the shock value of doing that. Norms haven’t seen the likes of this nascent wave of chimeric hybrids, so I must be some kind of unholy cryptid to them. As though I’d continue unfolding in other ways were they to truly rile me. Admittedly, I do. ...But it’s rare to get a glimpse of the inside of my mouth.

I would love to meet you in person finally sometime. Get acquainted with one another’s new-found inhumanities. Get to play with that skin of yours. Show each other in person what the other’s body’s limits are. Maybe include your boyfriend in fooling around, if he’d be interested. I promise I won’t eat you, either of you, except perhaps in the most platonic sense. I cherish you too much.

Though really, I must admit, the hardest thing about adjusting to this wonderful luck of mine was finding a waterproof reader. Not that I get good Wi-Fi reception in the better half of the bay, nor that I’m able to recharge it without venturing onto land. I just don’t want to slag it up if I get it wet, you know?

This got meandering. I’m going to cut it off here, and leave everything open to discussion. It’s good to be back in touch with you. I wonder if, now that you’re what you write about, that you’ll write about yourself instead of just for yourself.

        ��                        --Don’t be shy.

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To: 9augen@tricity.co.dv From: ketherphorbia@geemail.com Subject: Re: Sorry to have cut out on you like that.  —————————————

>I suppose I do... >You like storie... >I didn’t know w... >There’s still a... >I was so wary o... >I went in with ... >Turns out, I on... >Let me tell you... >After hearing t... >This was so muc... >Ultimately, we ... >Doesn’t help wi... >It’s taken a lo... >I so enjoy the ... >I would love to... >Though really, ... >This got meande... >--Don’t be shy.

I hope you understand how overwhelmed I am with all this.

I still don’t get how I didn’t pick up after all this time that you were in the vampire scene. That... kind of actually manages to make you even creepier than before. In a good way. I promise in a good way.

Understandable, then, I hope, just how jealous I am of you and what you have. This skin and bone deformity is nothing compared to having become an outright monster, complete with the appetites of one.

Slag it all, man.

You’ve got to tell me everything.

What was it like? To have the serum take effect? You must have been conscious.

Describe it to me.

Your semen must be very salty.

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To: ketherphorbia@geemail.com From: 9augen@tricity.co.dv Subject: Re: Re: Sorry to have cut out on you like that. —————————————

>>I suppose... >>You like s... >>I didn’t k... >>There’s st... >>I was so w... >>I went in ... >>Turns out,... >>Let me tel... >>After hear... >>This was s... >>Ultimately... >>Doesn’t he... >>It’s taken... >>I so enjoy... >>I would lo... >>Though rea... >>This got m... >>--Don’t be...

>I hope you unde... >I still don’t g... >Understandable... >Slag it all, ma... >You’ve got to t... >What was it lik... >Describe it to ... >Your semen must...

Spouting off Ballard quotes at me. You must be a wreck...

Creepier than before? I suppose. You’ve always known my predilection for the classics. Fang and claw have always been a preference over tooth an nail.

What was it like? It was an utter entheogeny, my friend. Do you know what a grafting gun is like? To aid in the serum’s administration, it isn’t a single needle but six very fine-gauged needles, in a pneumatic hypodermic gun. In that medical implement, the approximation to vaccination is one which makes me smile to this day, chemicals which carried with them the proverbial antibodies which would make me capable of fighting off the plague of a chronic illness otherwise known to the public as “humanity.”

Linnaeus and his technician had before the procedure harnessed me like a modern Saint Andrew, the cross-like restraints having evolved thoroughly alongside the medicine which required them; their robotic cuffs could expand or contract, as could the distance of each of the hydraulic arcs of its aureole, which envelopd the entirety of the body of the device and acted as its structural integrity in the absence of a characteristic saltire structure.

He’d said that it had been difficult to replace this harness in particular after the ban, also said it had been necessary to be procured again. Implications lingered that the ban had bankrupted his agency, though there was something more to the specialty of this device. There had been incidents in the movement’s embryonic state, before he had implemented such measures as protective bondage.

He did not, however, go into further detail.

In deliberate irony or not, he went for the throat for the injection site. The serum itself felt much like a typical intravenous application, well-chilled and somewhat astringent. Heavy in the veins. Its seeming effervescence was not from gases, but of its heterogeneous components under high pressure. The syringe hisses pneumatically when it fires its contents into you One would suppose that someone with an aversion to needles would panic at hearing that sound in the sense of an injection; though, panic might be too considerate a word. Especially inches from one’s ear.

If he had not been referencing a phobia of needles in his practical necessity for the ring-like restraint system, however, it was the resultant agony of a teenage growth spurt, magnified across the span of the boughs of species, and sped up within a frame observable to the naked eye. It was as though I’d never truly experienced the metamorphosis to the adulthood I’d been meant to undertake. As a normal human being acclimates to his changing body, he might have his shins ache, or be inexplicably hungry, or suffer from bouts of hormone swings. All these things are exponentially worse when your cells are shifting between species, and trying to settle comfortably somewhere in between.

I never realized just what kind of masochist I was until that night.

Bone became cartilage. Skin became mucous membrane. Entire organs restructured themselves. There were entire minutes I could not breathe. My jaws dissolved, for the most part; simultaneously, the total surface of my expanding mouth sprouted dozens of rings of razor-sharp thorns. Nearly three times the vertebrae now comprise my spine. I was suffocating, and I was starving.

The metamorphosis extorts a great energy from a hybrid.

The feathered woman was the one to release me from the cross, whispering forth pedantic blandishments as I sank to rest on all fours. As I glared up at her, the extension of my external gills must have seemed more a threat display than a cry for oxygen. My head swam, but all of me needed to. I was too dizzy to take in anything either of them said, though I clearly recall the doctor finding some distinct pleasure and pride in how completely the serum had taken. “You’ll learn to breathe again,” I remember him admiring as the two of them permitted me at last to shove myself out the door and down the street.

I was fortunate that their secret clinic was so low in the city’s bowels, so close to the river. I didn’t care then how rank the water was, how I knew in my heart even just a fraction of the stuff might kill me. Water. I needed water. I don’t remember how I ended up at the dock, or how I ended up in the bay. I imagine I mostly flopped by inertia. The salt only stung for a moment, as it caught me off-guard; but then, as my faculties began to seep back into me, I could tell that the saline levels were facilitating my ability to breathe and take in the water.

So I was a saltwater fish now? I remember asking myself. It’s a good thing I’m a Jersey devil, then, I guess. I remember the insistent hunger, too, and that even then, my veins burned violently, especially those in my skull.

You know me well enough to know what state in which that experience left me. You also know me well enough to take pride in knowing this is an erotic work crafted for ketherphorbia, written for your own eyes only.

I suppose it’s not entirely out of line for me to return the favor, and ask you to describe your metagenesis.

A celebration. A coronation of wounds inflicted against the iniquity of manhood.

We’re both creatures now. More alike than either of us thought previous. Am I right?

I want to see more of you.

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To: 9augen@tricity.co.dv From: ketherphorbia@geemail.com Subject: Re: Re: Re: Sorry to have cut out on you like that. —————————————

>>I hope you... >>I still do... >>Understan... >>Slag it al... >>You’ve got... >>What was i... >>Describe i... >>Your semen...

>Spouting off Ba... >Creepier than b... >What was it lik... >Linnaeus and hi... >He’d said that ... >He did not, how... >In deliberate i... >If he had not b... >I never realize... >Bone became car... >The metamorphos... >The feathered w... >I was fortunate... >So I was a salt... >You know me wel... >I suppose it’s ... >A celebration. ... >We’re both crea... >I want to see m...

There are no words to convey just how arousing that sounds. I guess the best compliment I can give is to divulge the mighty fine time I’ve had rereading that last email. I can only imagine how the fuck the man knew how bad your autoerotic asphyxia was. Maybe he noticed the rope-like bruising on your neck... I’ll get off your case, but I won’t stop getting off on your case. :)

You want to know how it went? The story’s one testament after another of my own clumsiness and stupidity. It started with a date with Cecil at the coffee shop on Garden Center. The woman spearheading Tri-City’s EPA presence had decided that same shop would be where she would unwind after the day she’d been having, and a point of conversation with Cecil resulted in her burning ears shouldering in to both drop information and grab some of her own from us. One thing led to another, and I ended up with enough information to suggest not just where the Supermarket Geek had taken his spill, but what it had been he spilled in.

I vacillate whether I have hindsight not to have researched my facts further before acting upon them. But it was enough for me, that the conversation had yielded an unprecedented factoid, to the point that said information spurred a particular writing session.

I don’t know if you read the “Quarter Oysters” wip I threw up on my blog a while back. I’ve written more recent things, but there are a number of reasons I can’t share them. Really, though. I don’t know. Maybe I can share them with you. You’ve already made me an accomplice to slag all of verbot shit. Turnabout’s fair play...

Any rate... After writing “Quarter Oysters,” I snuck out of the house and broke into the dump site I’d had described to me. The place was littered with toxic waste drums. In several spots, they were stacked up over a story high. I’d never seen such a thing be so organized as this. Many of them were leaking to spite their order. Some of them even glowed. There were two guards stationed, and I managed to duck them once; they’d almost found me the first time because I’d slipped and thrown out my knee, but I chewed on the shoulder of my shirt and reset it while in hiding. I found a drum of Fluxeldrin cordoned off by tape, and I had my tippling cane with me, so I had a vial to sample of it. I’d have taken more than one, since the cane contained four, but I already heard them coming for me, and I couldn’t hide fast enough. So, I only took the one and hastily reassembled my cane, rather than risk getting caught actively stealing it. They threw me out of the Yard, but they thought I’d just been a snooping idiot cripple. For once my youthful look and decrepit demeanor benefited me. They had no idea I’d smuggled my prize.

I shambled down the street and found myself a safe place where I could mull things over in private. The place was run down, even for a half-completed apartment complex. I’m not even joking, it was creepy as hell. Someone had been living there, I’m sure of it, and from what I saw in the rotting pressboard cabinets, I’m sure they were cooking drugs or bombs or something. There was even a nasty spring-box mattress there. And a bathtub, but not attached to anything. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the kind that installs into where the floor and wall meet when it’s just a free-floating hunk of fiberglass, but they are unsettling as hell when they’re not installed.

My reader was going dead because I’d used it as a flashlight while retrieving my prize, so I couldn’t really research after the fact. I knew Cecil would freak if he found me in possession of the stuff, so I had to act on it then and there. I didn’t have enough to rub it into my skin and get even coverage, so I decided like an idiot I had to drink it for maximum effect. Fluxeldrin glows an aggressive lime green, is oily like antifreeze, and smells like rotten cut flowers but worse. The consistency of it made it cling to every surface of my innards that it came into contact with, and the smell and taste of it had me fighting all compulsion to regurgitate every last drop of it along with all my organs. I flung the vial after downing its contents, too caught up in the moment to realize the recklessness of it. Fighting the urge to vomit, hands on my mouth trying to keep my lips clenched tightly together, I ultimately collapsed on the mattress, not even caring about the grime.

When I awoke, there was blood on the mattress where my face had been, crusted up around my nose and mouth. I threw out the same knee again upon trying to stand--but this time, I threw it out as though the joint weren’t actually connected, and I spilled out on the cement floor. I really wish my reader hadn’t been dead by then, because I would kill right now for a photograph of something that can make me vomit. And I mean I puked to the bile, the way that the fall had disheveled my leg. Couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I managed to get it back together, and gather my belongings. Putting my cane back together, I barely managed to get to my date with Cecil for lunch the next day.

I bullshat some stupid excuse about having had to hit the yards early that morning for something time sensitive. The night before he’d suggested that he could get me a job working at the Central Library, and after lunch he dragged me up there to show me around. I was interested in doing all this, really I was... but it was so hard with all my joints feeling like every surface was over-oiled. With fifteen minutes to closing time, I ran into the Geek trying to use his library card for the first time. Meeting him, I can guarantee you he’s a stalker too. ...I made an idiot out of myself and really shook him up trying to get him to eat my finger splints. I’m still messed up over that.

But that doesn’t even get to the verbot shit. The stress of having slagged up first impressions with the Geek had me pretty literally falling apart. All the physical problems my joint disorder’s inured me to, that all’s magnified by what the Fluxeldrin did to me. Worse for wear, I ended up trying to get in with Dr. Bell before the All’s Well Clinic closed for the evening. I didn’t manage it. So, I did the logical thing and broke in through the back door with the intent to “borrow” some pain pills, and wait out the night to see him first thing in the morning. The first week I was like this was the most excruciating, man. This condition has the unprecedented ability to drive me to do just about anything to alleviate these systems, when they flare up. And breaking and entering a pharmaceutical storage wasn’t outside the realm of what felt acceptable in my present state that night...

I fell face-first into Bell’s racket. He’s the only doctor in the city with knowledge of the metahuman condition, and the only one whom I can reasonably see helping me cope with what the Fluxeldrin did to me--but it comes at with a high price tag. I know his deal, but he has that B&E hanging over me. If I don’t do exactly what he says, he’s got ways to make my life hell. And he’s got me running shopping errands for him for the truck he cooks for his projects. He’s the heart of the Quarter, I just know it.

I’m so torn on the right thing to do because my dick doesn’t want what’s taking place to ever stop. I guess I’m telling you not just that I trust you not to tell anybody, but that I want some input on what kind of person it makes me, to be going along with this madness to avoid the fallout of shaking the foundation everything’s tentatively scattered upon. I’m scared, Rev. For Bell’s victims, for me, for Cecil. For everybody who’s ever gotten sick in the Quarter.

This got really long-winded and meandered into a “from one friend to another” situation. So, to make it up to you, a quick and dirty recap:

I broke into a stalking yard and stole a flask of fluxeldrin. And drank it. I drank something that fluoresced neon lime green, smelled and tasted like rot, and felt like gasoline. Something I knew could kill me. Something I knew was banned in its industry of origin due to its health hazards. I drank that. And it made me the shittiest meta that will likely ever be.

It’d be nice to meet, but I’m not sure how that would even work. You said you’re a fish now, but you’d be a fish out of water... Even I know better than to go anywhere near the toxic soup that dares to call itself Hudson Bay...

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To: ketherphorbia@geemail.com From: 9augen@tricity.co.dv Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Sorry to have cut out on you like that. —————————————

>>Spouting o... >>Creepier t... >>What was i... >>Linnaeus a... >>He’d said ... >>He did not... >>In deliber... >>If he had ... >>I never re... >>Bone becam... >>The metamo... >>The feathe... >>I was fort.. >>So I was a... >>You know m... >>I suppose ... >>A celebrat... >>We’re both... >>I want to ...

>There are no wo... >You want to kno... >I vacillate whe... >I don’t know if... >Any rate... Aft... >I shambled down... >My reader was g... >When I awoke, t... >I bullshat some... >But that doesn’... >I fell face-fir... >I’m so torn on ... >This got really... >I broke into a ... >It’d be nice to...

Delight is in the details. Oh, would I have never expected a short story written explicitly for mine eyes alone--let alone with such minutiae of gauche detail! Were it under suspicion of being fiction, I would think you a master for the unfortunate believability of your tale; that the course of events you’ve described can’t not have happened.

I’ve been around the coastline of the Quarter since my rebirth. The scent you described is very potent for this nose, these gills. If I were to hazard assumptions, I do believe the stuff has begun to seep into the water table, into the river. Of all the areas of the waterways around this city I can’t tolerate, it’s there, believe it or not. Something about it is fundamentally repulsive, and no matter what it is, I can’t shake what feels like an archetypal fear of it. So, for you to so casually narrate your deliberate pursuit of obtaining this Fluxeldrin business, and so flippantly have imbibed it... Well, I harbor a revolting admiration for you.

You do find yourself between a rock and a hard place, I imagine. Several. Or maybe, you simply find yourself hard between all these rocks. I won’t force details, though I can certainly read between the lines. It’s difficult to say. But, knowing you...I needn’t remind you how often we’ve shared the fantasy of some pandemic mutating the masses like some fabric-rending reality, culling the unfit. Everything is perfect.

The world is fluorescing into wounds, as you so describe.

To say you’d kill for something graphic enough to make you retch. I’d love to see it, too. Systemically disarticulate you, just to watch what you’d do. Stretch out that stuff that used to be your skin, curious how translucent it is, admire the veins.

Calling the bay an unapproachable toxic soup, though? I survive just fine in it. It’s all I have, Kether.

Regardless.

I’m sure we can determine a way to make this work.

[themoneybuff-blog]

The thin green line: Why you should be skeptical of financial blogs

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Ive been blogging since before blog was even a word. (I wrote my first blog post twenty-one years ago last Thursday!) Ive had a financial blog for a dozen years now. In that time, things have changed in a variety of ways. For instance: Blogging has become more business-like and less personal. A decade ago, most blogs even money blogs were rooted in the authors individual experience. Nowadays, most big financial blogs have a minimal editorial voice. Theyre much like money magazines used to be.Audience interaction is limited. In the mid-2000s, it wasnt unusual for blog articles to get dozens (or hundreds) of comments. This site has old articles with over 1000 comments. Nowadays, many blogs have removed reader commentsbecause they receive so few reader comments. And when blogs do allow comments (as here at GRS), theyre scarcer than they used to be.Today, most bloggers want to make money. In fact, thats their primary goal. When I started blogging in 1997, there was no way to make money from it. When I launched this site in 2006, my primary goal was to get out of debt. My secondary goal was to help others get out of debt. Yes, I wanted to make money but that was only my third aim. It was almost an after-thought. (This was, in part, because it was more difficult to make money blogging in 2006.) Most of the changes in the world of blogging are neutral. Theyre neither good nor bad. They just are. But I think the move to a more money-centric approach often does a disservice to readers to people like you. How I Became a Blogging Cynic Twelve years ago, if I read something on a financial blog, I generally accepted it at face value. If somebody recommended a book, I trusted their sincerity. If they wrote about the best bank accounts, I believed they were telling me about the best bank accounts. If they raved about a company or service they liked, I had no reason to doubt them. Today, Im much more skeptical. Why? Because most of my friends are bloggers, and I know what they think and say in private. Now, these folks are not bad people I love them! but, like most of us, theyll sometimes put profit ahead of, well, truth. Honesty. Objectivity. Today, for instance, I saw an article from a colleague I respect. He was raving about a financial service. The problem? Im damn sure hes never used the service himself and the only reason hes recommending it is he gets a commission on it. With his huge audience, he can make big bucks by promoting this company.Or there was the time I overheard another colleague talking with her partner about an advertiser who had just cancelled their affiliate program. (An affiliate program is, essentially, a commission program. You provide a sale or a lead to a company, and you get a kickback.) If theyre not going to offer an affiliate program, my colleague told her partner, were not going to promote them. We need to go back and change articles to feature a company that does offer an affiliate program. I wanted to call out my colleague on that last one but I didnt. I bit my tongue. I think her actions were shady, but I realize that not everyone shares the same values. What isnt right for me and my business might be perfectly fine for her. Whats perfectly fine for me and my business might seem shady to somebody else. Im not willing to criticize other financial bloggers for what they do. Im not in their shoes. Their business is not my business. Theyre free to make choices that adhere to their personal ethics. (My hope is that theyre at least considering ethics when they make these choices.) But I have to say: The stuff I hear and see behind the scenes has made me cynical. Ive become skeptical of the stuff I read on other money blogs. (Not on all money blogs Ill recommend some I trust later but on many of them.) The Thin Green Line Heres a prime example of how whats right for one person (and business) may not be right for another: credit cards. In the world of personal finance, credit card companies pay big bucks for sign-ups. Why do you get pitches for credit cards in the middle of cross-country airline flights? I guarantee you the flight attendants (or at least the airline) get a kickback. Why do services like Mint promote the hell out of credit cards? Because they make their money when users get new cards! And why do financial bloggers write credit-card reviews? Because theyre earning $100 or $200 or $500 per sign-up. Does that mean promoting credit cards is evil? No, of course not. But while some people feel okay promoting credit cards, others dont. I have never made a penny on credit cards. Not a cent. The opportunity has always been there, but Ive never taken it. Having wallowed through twenty years of credit-card debt myself, I dont want to play a part in trapping other people in the pit. (True story: Ten years ago, I turned down $20,000 for a single blog post about a credit card. Thats right: I could have earned several months worth of income for a days worth of work, but I said no.) Now, having said that, Ive made peace with the world of credit cards. Ive come to understand that credit cards are not evil. Theyre a tool. And like any tool, they can be used constructively or destructively. I now believe I can promote credit cards and earn commissions in a responsible manner, doing my best to steer readers clear of debt. As a result, Ill soon be writing more about the subject, and Ill include affiliate links when I do. (This might happen as soon as next week!) So, you see, whats right for one business may not be right for another. Theres a thin green line that each of us is unwilling to cross but that thin green line is in a different place for each person and each business. And that line can shift with time. Actually, this is true for all sorts of businesses, right? One restaurant may not offer alcohol because the owner has religious objections to the stuff. Another restaurant might be vegan-only. Another might source only products from within a hundred-mile radius. And so on. This thin green line isnt unique to bloggers or to financial bloggers.

Your Mission: Be a Skeptic! The trouble with the rise of blogging as a business is that the business has become the focus for most financial blogs. Financial bloggers arent making decisions based on whats best for their audience. Theyre making decisions based on whats likely to bring them the most income. And truthfully? Theyre generally looking at short-term profit rather than long-term profit. Ive seen so many people make choices that earn them a big payout today at the expense of audience trust; as a result, their audience shrinks and theyre less able to earn profit tomorrow. This problem is even worse with corporate-owned financial blogs. As more and more businesses acquire small, personal blogs, these businesses make decisions based solely on short-term profit. They miss the fact that whats profitable in the short-term may actually kill the golden goose in the long-term. So far, it probably sounds like Im writing this article to call out my colleagues. Thats not the case. They can do whatever the hell they want with their businesses. I wish them all the best. (No, really. I do.) My purpose in writing this article is to encourage you, the blog reader, to approach financial blogs with skepticism. Do the same with any website nowadays, especially if its about personal finance. My goal is to get you to think critically about the financial advice you read on the internet. When a popular money blog recommends a specific mortgage company, ask yourself: Why did they write this glowing review? Did the author use the company themselves? Did anyone in their family use the company? No? Then what other motive could they have? And could their review be colored by the fact theyre getting paid? That list of best bank accounts on Financial Blog X? Its probably actually a list of best bank accounts that pay me a commission. And its not just blogs. Find a list of best bank accounts on a nationally-known money site and odds are its exactly the same thing. (Another common trick with lists of best bank accounts? Link to the ones that pay commissions, but dont link to the other ones even if the other ones are better.) Based on what I know of the space, its especially important to be skeptical of reviews for credit cards, bank accounts, and so-called robo-advisors. Financial bloggers with big audiences (or strong search-engine presence) can make a ton of dough pitching these products, even if they wouldnt ever choose them personally. Here are two specific examples: A lot of folks promote Bluehost, a company that provides hosting for websites and blogs. Why do they pitch Bluehost? Do bloggers actually use Bluehost? No. I dont know a single one who does. Yet, people promote the company because they earn $100 per sign-upmaybe more. When asked why they push Bluehost if they dont use the company themselves, theyll say, Well, my blog is too big. Bluehost is good for beginners. Fair enough. But in private, Ive never heard a single blogger say theyd use Bluehost even if they were starting out. Regardless, theyre perfectly fine running How to Blog articles that promote the company. (I have nothing against Bluehost, by the way.)In the personal finance space, you see ads for Personal Capital everywhere. I have them here on Get Rich Slowly. (And soon Ill move over my Personal Capital review from Money Boss.) In this case, many folks do use (and like) Personal Capital. I like the service primarily because I think they have one of the best retirement planning tools on the market. But many of the people promoting Personal Capital do not use the app for various reasons. In fact, some have strong objections to the company yet still push it on their financial blogs because they earn thousands of dollars per month doing so. Every so often, you get to see a public example of a blogger having second thoughts, changing their mind about what theyre willing to do for money. Last week, Early Retirement Dude wrote an article entitled I Wont Be Advertising for Personal Capital Anymore, and I Apologize for Doing So. (I love that piece for its honesty!) Again, Im not writing this article to call anybody out. And Im not trying to hold myself up as holier than thou. No, my aim is to make sure that you, as a consumer of financial information, view recommendations with a critical eye. Actually, skepticism is a handy skill in all walks of life. When you hear something, verify it before you believe it. And dont just verify it from a similar source. Seek out opposing viewpoints.

This is especially important in the realm of politics. If you hear something from a liberal commentator, seek out a conservative rebuttal and vice versa. Dont live in an echo chamber. One of my favorite ways to check the accuracy of a review? When somebody recommends a product or service to me, I use Google to search for [product/service] sucks. Or, if Im on Amazon, I read the one-star reviews. You can learn a lot from the complaints about a company or product. Readers First Other personal financial blogs with traffic similar to Get Rich Slowly (about 10,000 visits per day) earn anywhere from $500 to $2000 per day. (Yes, really.) Get Rich Slowly earns only $50 per day. Crazy, right? Part of this is because Im lazy. Part of this is due to fear (no joke). But another part is because Ive been wrestling with how to make money without compromising my personal values, without crossing that thin green line. How do I advertise credit cards when I know credit cards cause problems for so many people? How do I promote banks in a way that Im providing honest, objective info yet still earning commissions? So far, Ive been treading water using Google Adsense and Amazon links. Im earning more than minimum wage with this blog but not much more. Get Rich Slowly is a business. Its a money-making venture. It doesnt make much money right now about $2000 per month but Im hopeful that it can eventually earn as much as it did in the olden days: over $20,000 per month. That said, Im not willing to compromise the editorial side of things to make a quick buck. Heres my number-one guiding principle at Get Rich Slowly: Readers first. In everything I do, from design to advertising to content creation, I try to put myself in your shoes. Does this article help my readers? Does this ad interfere with the reader experience? How does the layout of the site help or hinder the folks who come here? You know why I dont have pop-ups or splash screens at Get Rich Slowly? Because I think theyre actively reader-hostile. My colleagues tell me they vastly increase the number of subscribers and affiliate conversions, but I dont care. I personally hate pop-ups, so why would I subject my readers to them? That sounds like hypocrisy to me. Its important to note that readers first doesnt mean readers only. A readers only policy would mean no ads. Im not willing to run Get Rich Slowly for free. This is work, dammit, and I want to get paid for my work. (This notion is lost on a lot of folks at places like Reddit, where they think any blogger who tries to make money is somehow shady.) Readers first means that before I decide whether to run an ad, before I decide whether to write a review of Personal Capital, I do my best to minimize the negative impact on my audience. The best-case scenario is promoting something like a bank account. Helping readers sign up for good bank accounts is a win-win-win: a win for the reader, a win for the bank, and a win for me (because I get a commission). Amazon affiliate links are another no-brainer. A middling scenario is something like banner ads at the beginning and end of my articles. Or my Personal Capital review. Or the upcoming credit-card articles. Less-than-ideal scenarios include those two stupid ads I have embedded in the middle of articles right now, which seem to be causing headaches for certain readers. (Those are on the chopping block for when the redesign goes live. Eventually.) Or the promotion I did for Credit Sesame back in January. (My solution there? I did the promotion because I was contractually obligated to do so but I declined to take money for it.) Last year at Fincon the financial bloggers conference I participated in a panel discussion called What Will You Do for Money? We talked about scenarios like this as we explored financial journalism and ethics. If youre interested in this subject, you can watch this video recording of the entire panel (which the Fincon organizers have graciously made available specifically for this article). [embedded content] Four Financial Blogs Worth Reading Its perfectly possible to run a blog even a financial blog in a way that serves the readers and provides an income for the author. Thats how I made money before with Get Rich Slowly, and thats how I intend to make money in the future. There are lots of other financial bloggers whose view of the thin green line is similar to mine. Some are big. Youve probably read Mr. Money Mustache, for instance. Pete and I have remarkably similar views on monetization and serving the audience. Its easy, though, for MMM to play it safe. His audience is so large that even minimal monetization produces huge income. Im more impressed with new, small financial blogs who have made a commitment to serve their readers. When youre just starting out, you want to make money now now now. Its tough to wait. Most new bloggers bury their sites in ads. (I saw one a couple of months ago that was almost entirely ads the editorial content didnt start until below the fold. Ugh.) Most new bloggers want to run advertorials and/or promote products and services with big payouts. Here are four newer financial blogs that I think do a great job of making money while remembering to serve their readers: Please note that these are by no means the only financial blogs worth reading. There are tons of folks producing quality content and putting readers first. These are just four blogs that I personally have found to be filled with useful, entertaining articles without the marketing that mars the experience for me on other sites. Simply put, these newer bloggers have earned my trust. Honestly, if I were starting out, Id be tempted to focus on the money too. Im fortunate that Ive earned a wad of cash already, so I can sit back and take a more measured approach. Im not in a hurry to make lightning strike twice. Instead, Im going to stick to my Readers First pledge. Yes, I want to make money from Get Rich Slowly, but my primary aim is to help the folks who find this site to make and keep more money for themselves. If there are ways that I can do this while also earning a little scrilla, Im going to do it. Meanwhile, Ill continue to be skeptical of the information I find on other financial blogs. I encourage you to do the same. In fact, you should be skeptical of what you read here too. I know Im staying on my side of the thin green line, but you dont know that. I want you to be skeptical of me and my motives until Ive earned your trust. Several GRS readers have written to let me know they love the Spare Change section that resides after the first post on this sites home page. I use the Spare Change to share worthwhile articles from financial sites around the web. Its my attempt to sift the wheat from the chaff so that you dont have to. You can find an archive of all past Spare Change links via my Pinboard account. Shares 100 https://www.getrichslowly.org/financial-blogs/

[dietcoachesofamerica]

(images courtesy Mark Warnke/Men's Health)

The following men not only wanted to shape up, they took action and made their ambitions a reality. 

Take a look at how they shifted their habits to improve their lives for years to come.

How Christopher Jacob lost 38 pounds in 4 years

After his wife had a heart attack in 2012 at age 45, Christopher Jacob knew they both had to make a change. 

The father of three from Saudi Arabia had high cholesterol, and feared he was on a similar path.

Jacob and his wife both vowed to take shaping up seriously to ensure they would be around to support their kids for decades to come. 

Despite a work schedule packed with travel as a director of human resources, Jacob made exercise a priority. While traveling, he would pick out his hotels based on the workout facilities, searching for options with either a pool to swim in or a gym to lift in. 

Jacob would also follow along with fat-loss workout videos from Mens Health Fitness Director BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., to add variety and blast calories. (Gaddour just launched his newest and most intense fat-burning workout program ever with Mens Health, MetaShred Extreme.)

He also reigned in his calorie count to about 1,500 to 2,000 per day, using the app MyFitnessPal to track his intake. On days when he overdid it, he worked off the extra calories at the gym.

The 44 year old got off his cholesterol medication in January 2015 and has been off it ever since. The same motivating factor that pushed him to take action in the first place continues to drive him to keep the weight off today: His kids. 

I am a family man, Jacob says. And I would like to see my kids grow, influence them in any means possible, and have an impact on their livesso that when the time comes to let them go, I know that I have taught them well. 

How Ted Gibson lost 45 pounds in 6 months

The sexiest women in the world want Ted Gibson. Angelina Jolie, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and other A-listers line up for himfor haircuts, at a price of $1,500 a pop. 

Related: The 100 Hottest Women Of All Time

But while New Yorks top hairstylist was busy growing his salon empire, his girth grew too.

I just wasnt exercising as much as I had been before, says Gibson, 50. And the weight slowly crept on. 

As a 64, 200-pound ultralean bodybuilder in the early 1990s, Gibson had always been a naturally big, muscular guy. 

But last January I hit 280, he says. I had less energy and my back hurt. I wanted to look amazing for my impending 50th birthday. 

So Mens Health paired Gibson with Vinny Brandstadter of Peak Performance, a New York City gym just around the corner from his salon, and Mens Health nutrition advisor Mike Roussell, Ph.D. 

Roussell worked to sneak healthy tweaks into Gibsons diet that wouldnt affect his overall lifestyle. He helped Gibson find healthy meals at each of the restaurants where his staff orders lunch every day. 

Along with making key changes to his diet, Gibson hit the gym three days a week. Gibson did aerobic intervals that built his endurance and hour-long circuits that burned between 500 to 700 calories.  

Related: The Lifting Technique That Flattens Your Belly

He admits he was nervous to not be the big guy anymore. 

But Im now at 235 pounds, says Gibson. This is the best Ive felt in a long time. I have a lot more energy, my back doesnt hurt, and Im getting a lot of compliments. 

How Yosef Herzog lost 50 pounds in 5 months

Yosef Herzog played sports in high school and college. But once he graduated, his structured workouts fell apart. Aside from intramural sports and some pickup basketball games in Manhattan, he rarely stepped foot in the gym.

The weight crept up on him. At 231 pounds, he began experiencing back pain and was out of breath after tying his shoes. 

After trying to develop healthier habits and losing motivation after a couple weeks, Herzog signed up for the gym at his office.

His evaluation session didnt seem that tough: Lunges, planks, and pushups. But 20 minutes in, Herzog lost his lunchtwice.

I wouldnt say I was in Chris Farley territory, but I was definitely in bad shape, says Herzog. 

He began alternating cardio and strength training, six days a week. 

Herzog also cleaned up his diet. He swapped oatmeal in for his usual breakfast bagel, salad in for subs, and Mexican-style chicken and beans in for burgers. 

In less than half a year, he weighed 181 pounds and needed new clothes. The fitter I got, he says, the more confident I felt.

How Bryan Hodgins lost 190 pounds in 2 years

From age 2, Bryan Hodgins had been overweightbut a lot changed for him at 17, when he got a job at a local grocery store. 

Hodgins started in the heat of August 2014walking over a mile to get to the store where hed push carts and help customers pack their groceries. He weighed about 380 pounds at the time.

Related: Why Some People Sweat More Than Others

At first, Hodgins didnt think those 7-hour shifts had any impact on his body.

I didnt notice any difference, he says. I had family and people I work with, over the course of a year and a half that I was [at the store], tell me, Youve lost weight. And you know, I never believed them.

A little less than a year later after he started working at the grocery store, he was helping his family move and weigh metal at a scrap yard. On a whim, Hodgins decided to hop on one of the scalesand was floored by the result. 

I can still remember the number as clear as day as being 247 pounds, Hodgins says.

He had lost about 140 pounds.

Even though the weight loss was accidental, the significant amount of pounds hed dropped really began to sink in. 

When you see a number that low, from what youve started at, you get a sense of accomplishment, he says. And so I tried eating better. 

Hodgins began incorporating more protein-rich foods like chicken and eggs and eliminating packaged sweets and salty snacks.

He also started working out with a friend from work. 

They made me do mountain-climbers and pushups and situps, Hodgins says. They kicked my ass when it came down to it.

Now down to 190 pounds, Hodgins is studying to be a paramedic. He hopes to eventually enlist as a combat medical technician in the armed forces. 

How Mark Warnke lost 53 pounds in 4 months

Mark Warnke had just booked tickets to propose to his girlfriend on the beach when she ended the relationship. 

Warnke was devastated. But in the aftermath of his breakup, he decided it was the perfect time to take control of his life. 

He started in the kitchen.

Warnke switched out his frozen meals and canned soups with chicken breast and fresh vegetables that he could throw on the grill Sunday night and eat for the rest of the week.    

In the past, Warnke had tried trends like cutting carbs and diet pills, but nothing worked better than eating whole foods. 

He also started doing bodyweight workouts on the Mens Health website.

Soon Warnke was able to put his heartburn medication away and after only a month of his new training regimen, Warnke had to go out and buy all new pants.

He was down 53 pounds total four months after the breakup. 

But if you ask Warnke, he didnt lose the weight to spite his ex-girlfriend.

It wasnt an, Im going to show her, he says. It was an Im going to be the best person I can be.

How Jake Galicia lost 86 pounds in 2.5 years

When Jake Galicias blood test results came in, he was shocked to find out he had high blood sugar and lipid levels. At 29, Galicia thought he was too young to be on the borderline for metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Galicia had always been on the heavier sideat the time he was 247 poundsbut the new father could not stand the idea that his condition might someday stop him from watching his toddler grow up. 

In February 2012, Galicia started a low-carb diet full of protein and vegetables.

Despite working sporadic shifts at an insurance company, Galicia made it a priority to squeeze in workouts.

Galicia would exercise anytime between the early morning and midnight, depending on when his shift fell that daybut he always made time. 

Initially hed hit the gym to run on the treadmill or complete circuit workouts. But as the fat began melting off, he started incorporating strength training into his workouts to gain muscle. 

And those odd hours at the gym were well spent. Galicia eventually shed 10 inches from his waist.

Now 33 years old, he says perseverance was key to his weight-loss success.

No matter how hard it may seem, you have to finish your workout, he says. This is how your body exceeds its known limits, preparing you to face more difficult physical tasks.

This article originally appeared on MensHealth.com.

Read more: www.foxnews.com

[viralhottopics]

How an Army of Twitter Bots Almost Created a Political Pundit

This story was originally published by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at http://bit.ly/2nUq67u.

Tweets from 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelleys account normally get only a few dozen retweetsat least until Pelley enlisted the services of Jim Vidmar in late March for an episode about how fake news spreads. Vidmar, a social media consultant, bought access to a network of 5,000 Twitter bots from a Russian website and turned them loose on this tweet:

What happens when 60 Minutes investigates fake news? #marchmadness

— Scott Pelley (@ScottPelley) March 16, 2017

And voila: 4,000 retweets within minutes.

Its not surprising that Pelley went to Vidmar, who spent years mastering the art of deploying fake social media accounts, to get the true story behind the bot army accused of bolstering Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign. Except for one thing Pelley failed to mention: Vidmars name is as fake as the Twitter bots he helped Pelley purchase.

Vidmars real last name is Denlinger. He often goes by his wifes maiden name when talking to the media about practices that run afoul of the rules of the social media platforms on which he long has made his livelihood.

Amid the scrum of last years presidential campaign, Denlinger attempted to use his own network of Twitter bots to reinvent himself as an influential political pundit.

In January 2016, Denlinger began tweeting from an account with the handle @PoliticsJim. While that account was suspended by Twitter a few months later, its tweets now lost down the social networks memory hole, Denlinger briefly was able to dominate the Twitter conversation surrounding a handful of presidential primary debates.

An analysis by the social media analytics firm Spredfast found that on hashtags relating to the Democratic primary debate Feb. 11 between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, @PoliticsJim had six of the top 10 retweeted messages. During a Democratic town hall the following week, @PoliticsJim scored the biggest tweet win of the night. For a GOP debate a few days later, @PoliticsJim produced seven of the 10 most viral tweets.

Denlingers tweets typically contained simple image macro memes, priming them to be shareable on their own. However, the bots he created popped his message to the top of a trending hashtag, a perk usually reserved for celebrities with large followings. Top tweets about major political events usually come from politicians such as Clinton herself or high-profile comedians such as Patton Oswalt. But Denlinger had figured out how to game the system, and he was riding the bot wave to the top of the feeds of anyone scrolling through debate hashtags.

Denlingers bots had their origin in a program he developed to help gamblers cheat at online poker in the early 2000s. The program, which he hacked together in about a week, scanned what was happening on a video poker app and automatically counted cards, giving players an edge in deciding when to hold em and when to fold em.

What he needed was a publicity plan. If I dont learn marketing to get this in front of the right people, its not going to go anywhere, he said during a phone interview last spring. A lot of people in the tech industry dont understand that concept. They think if they create something great and click submit to the internet, boom, theyll be found.

Denlingers insight about his card-counting software contained the seeds of everything hes done sinceexploiting technical flaws in computer systems to draw attention to whatever he wants to sell. He claims hes developed nearly 200 pieces of software that have sold over 1 million copies and taken on a host of clients ranging from musicians to businesses.

For example, he discovered Twitters official Android app didnt limit the number of accounts you could actively follow per day. Thinking back to his poker program, Denlinger loaded a cellphone emulator on his PC and wrote a script that followed a huge number of accounts at lightning speed 50,000 accounts a day, about one-quarter of which immediately would follow him back. With corporate clients looking to pad their accounts with real followers, Denlinger had discovered a money-making machine.

I made so much money that year, it was unbelievable, he said.

When the Wall Street Journal profiled Denlinger in 2013calling him Jim Vidmarit mentioned the ruse, and Twitter quickly closed the loophole.

In 2015, after selling a pair of startups, a gaming company called BadgeHelp and online task marketplace MyCheapJobs, Denlinger had time on his hands. A longtime political junkie, he turned his attention to following in the footsteps of one of his heroes: political analyst Mark Halperin, best known for insider campaign tell-alls such as Game Change and Double Down.

Thats the kind of journalism that I respect, the kind where you cant tell who theyre going to vote for, Denlinger said. I just want the facts. Thats what Im trying to do with this.

Ive heard so many pundits and so many of these people at CNN and MSNBC and Bloomberg and all these other sources I get information from, he continued. I sit here and listen to the people they drag on that they consider to be experts and Im like, Oh my god. Maybe if I got some attention, I could go on some of these shows.

While Halperin spent a decade climbing the media food chain, starting as a desk assistant for ABC News in the late 1980s, Denlinger saw the current media landscape as eminently hackable. He employed a mass of bots, retweeting everything @PoliticsJim posted. These bots spread the tweets to their followers, but more importantly, they boosted Denlingers tweets to the top of whatever hashtag he wanted to invade.

On social media, nothing draws attention like a crowd, and soon Denlinger was in the mix with political pros.

Using another tool he created, Denlinger identified and followed between 400 and 700 influential human-operated Twitter accounts each day, hoping they would follow him back. Even so, bots dominated the ranks of @PoliticsJims followers. TwitterAudit found that nearly two-thirds of his followers were made of code, not flesh and blood.

Denlinger woke up one morning last spring to find his account had been suspended.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment, but Denlinger notes that the company rarely detects this type of bot use on its ownespecially when the bots arent obviously shilling a specific product. He suspects a user noticed what he was doing and tipped off Twitter.

He considered starting anew with another account but scrapped the idea.

If I wanted another @PoliticsJim, I could have had one within 20 minutes, he said. I have 50,000 accounts that are over five years old. I could have brought one up, slapped a few thousand followers on it, and there we go, off to the races again.

But the experience had been less than fulfilling. Denlinger had shoved himself into the Twitter conversation, generating hundreds, if not thousands, of interactions on each tweet, but he never broke through the cacophony: He never made it onto political talk shows.

I felt like I had done this big thing online, but nobody recognized it, he said. No one cared. No one understood it. Nothing.

So he went back to selling. Instead of focusing on himself, Denlinger has returned to helping others go viral.Bots can take a piece of content only so far. Pelleys tweet, for example, has amassed over 4,500 retweets so far, but only about 300 likes. The content didnt strongly resonate with actual human beings.

That resonance, Denlinger said, is crucial. Trump may have over 6 million fake Twitter followers, according to TwitterAudit, but Denlinger says those bots arent why he became president. And they are not what made people pay attention to the at least 325 people, places and things the former reality TV star has insulted on Twitter since announcing his presidential campaign nearly two years ago.

When the TV bookers came from 60 Minutes, they werent seeking Denlingers political acumen, asking him to be the next Halperin. They wanted to tap into his social media savvy, his ability to find holes in a system used by millions around the world.

Now Denlinger is playing that to his advantage: On his website, he is offering a 60 Minute Show Special, a one-hour social media consulting session for $60.

Aaron Sankin can be reached at asankin@revealnews.org. Follow him on Twitter: @ASankin.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2nUi6DD

from How an Army of Twitter Bots Almost Created a Political Pundit

[themoneybuff-blog]

The thin green line: Why you should be skeptical of financial blogs

Ive been blogging since before blog was even a word. (I wrote my first blog post twenty-one years ago last Thursday!) Ive had a financial blog for a dozen years now. In that time, things have changed in a variety of ways. For instance: Blogging has become more business-like and less personal. A decade ago, most blogs even money blogs were rooted in the authors individual experience. Nowadays, most big financial blogs have a minimal editorial voice. Theyre much like money magazines used to be.Audience interaction is limited. In the mid-2000s, it wasnt unusual for blog articles to get dozens (or hundreds) of comments. This site has old articles with over 1000 comments. Nowadays, many blogs have removed reader commentsbecause they receive so few reader comments. And when blogs do allow comments (as here at GRS), theyre scarcer than they used to be.Today, most bloggers want to make money. In fact, thats their primary goal. When I started blogging in 1997, there was no way to make money from it. When I launched this site in 2006, my primary goal was to get out of debt. My secondary goal was to help others get out of debt. Yes, I wanted to make money but that was only my third aim. It was almost an after-thought. (This was, in part, because it was more difficult to make money blogging in 2006.) Most of the changes in the world of blogging are neutral. Theyre neither good nor bad. They just are. But I think the move to a more money-centric approach often does a disservice to readers to people like you. How I Became a Blogging Cynic Twelve years ago, if I read something on a financial blog, I generally accepted it at face value. If somebody recommended a book, I trusted their sincerity. If they wrote about the best bank accounts, I believed they were telling me about the best bank accounts. If they raved about a company or service they liked, I had no reason to doubt them. Today, Im much more skeptical. Why? Because most of my friends are bloggers, and I know what they think and say in private. Now, these folks are not bad people I love them! but, like most of us, theyll sometimes put profit ahead of, well, truth. Honesty. Objectivity. Today, for instance, I saw an article from a colleague I respect. He was raving about a financial service. The problem? Im damn sure hes never used the service himself and the only reason hes recommending it is he gets a commission on it. With his huge audience, he can make big bucks by promoting this company.Or there was the time I overheard another colleague talking with her partner about an advertiser who had just cancelled their affiliate program. (An affiliate program is, essentially, a commission program. You provide a sale or a lead to a company, and you get a kickback.) If theyre not going to offer an affiliate program, my colleague told her partner, were not going to promote them. We need to go back and change articles to feature a company that does offer an affiliate program. I wanted to call out my colleague on that last one but I didnt. I bit my tongue. I think her actions were shady, but I realize that not everyone shares the same values. What isnt right for me and my business might be perfectly fine for her. Whats perfectly fine for me and my business might seem shady to somebody else. Im not willing to criticize other financial bloggers for what they do. Im not in their shoes. Their business is not my business. Theyre free to make choices that adhere to their personal ethics. (My hope is that theyre at least considering ethics when they make these choices.) But I have to say: The stuff I hear and see behind the scenes has made me cynical. Ive become skeptical of the stuff I read on other money blogs. (Not on all money blogs Ill recommend some I trust later but on many of them.) The Thin Green Line Heres a prime example of how whats right for one person (and business) may not be right for another: credit cards. In the world of personal finance, credit card companies pay big bucks for sign-ups. Why do you get pitches for credit cards in the middle of cross-country airline flights? I guarantee you the flight attendants (or at least the airline) get a kickback. Why do services like Mint promote the hell out of credit cards? Because they make their money when users get new cards! And why do financial bloggers write credit-card reviews? Because theyre earning $100 or $200 or $500 per sign-up. Does that mean promoting credit cards is evil? No, of course not. But while some people feel okay promoting credit cards, others dont. I have never made a penny on credit cards. Not a cent. The opportunity has always been there, but Ive never taken it. Having wallowed through twenty years of credit-card debt myself, I dont want to play a part in trapping other people in the pit. (True story: Ten years ago, I turned down $20,000 for a single blog post about a credit card. Thats right: I could have earned several months worth of income for a days worth of work, but I said no.) Now, having said that, Ive made peace with the world of credit cards. Ive come to understand that credit cards are not evil. Theyre a tool. And like any tool, they can be used constructively or destructively. I now believe I can promote credit cards and earn commissions in a responsible manner, doing my best to steer readers clear of debt. As a result, Ill soon be writing more about the subject, and Ill include affiliate links when I do. (This might happen as soon as next week!) So, you see, whats right for one business may not be right for another. Theres a thin green line that each of us is unwilling to cross but that thin green line is in a different place for each person and each business. And that line can shift with time. Actually, this is true for all sorts of businesses, right? One restaurant may not offer alcohol because the owner has religious objections to the stuff. Another restaurant might be vegan-only. Another might source only products from within a hundred-mile radius. And so on. This thin green line isnt unique to bloggers or to financial bloggers.

Your Mission: Be a Skeptic! The trouble with the rise of blogging as a business is that the business has become the focus for most financial blogs. Financial bloggers arent making decisions based on whats best for their audience. Theyre making decisions based on whats likely to bring them the most income. And truthfully? Theyre generally looking at short-term profit rather than long-term profit. Ive seen so many people make choices that earn them a big payout today at the expense of audience trust; as a result, their audience shrinks and theyre less able to earn profit tomorrow. This problem is even worse with corporate-owned financial blogs. As more and more businesses acquire small, personal blogs, these businesses make decisions based solely on short-term profit. They miss the fact that whats profitable in the short-term may actually kill the golden goose in the long-term. So far, it probably sounds like Im writing this article to call out my colleagues. Thats not the case. They can do whatever the hell they want with their businesses. I wish them all the best. (No, really. I do.) My purpose in writing this article is to encourage you, the blog reader, to approach financial blogs with skepticism. Do the same with any website nowadays, especially if its about personal finance. My goal is to get you to think critically about the financial advice you read on the internet. When a popular money blog recommends a specific mortgage company, ask yourself: Why did they write this glowing review? Did the author use the company themselves? Did anyone in their family use the company? No? Then what other motive could they have? And could their review be colored by the fact theyre getting paid? That list of best bank accounts on Financial Blog X? Its probably actually a list of best bank accounts that pay me a commission. And its not just blogs. Find a list of best bank accounts on a nationally-known money site and odds are its exactly the same thing. (Another common trick with lists of best bank accounts? Link to the ones that pay commissions, but dont link to the other ones even if the other ones are better.) Based on what I know of the space, its especially important to be skeptical of reviews for credit cards, bank accounts, and so-called robo-advisors. Financial bloggers with big audiences (or strong search-engine presence) can make a ton of dough pitching these products, even if they wouldnt ever choose them personally. Here are two specific examples: A lot of folks promote Bluehost, a company that provides hosting for websites and blogs. Why do they pitch Bluehost? Do bloggers actually use Bluehost? No. I dont know a single one who does. Yet, people promote the company because they earn $100 per sign-upmaybe more. When asked why they push Bluehost if they dont use the company themselves, theyll say, Well, my blog is too big. Bluehost is good for beginners. Fair enough. But in private, Ive never heard a single blogger say theyd use Bluehost even if they were starting out. Regardless, theyre perfectly fine running How to Blog articles that promote the company. (I have nothing against Bluehost, by the way.)In the personal finance space, you see ads for Personal Capital everywhere. I have them here on Get Rich Slowly. (And soon Ill move over my Personal Capital review from Money Boss.) In this case, many folks do use (and like) Personal Capital. I like the service primarily because I think they have one of the best retirement planning tools on the market. But many of the people promoting Personal Capital do not use the app for various reasons. In fact, some have strong objections to the company yet still push it on their financial blogs because they earn thousands of dollars per month doing so. Every so often, you get to see a public example of a blogger having second thoughts, changing their mind about what theyre willing to do for money. Last week, Early Retirement Dude wrote an article entitled I Wont Be Advertising for Personal Capital Anymore, and I Apologize for Doing So. (I love that piece for its honesty!) Again, Im not writing this article to call anybody out. And Im not trying to hold myself up as holier than thou. No, my aim is to make sure that you, as a consumer of financial information, view recommendations with a critical eye. Actually, skepticism is a handy skill in all walks of life. When you hear something, verify it before you believe it. And dont just verify it from a similar source. Seek out opposing viewpoints.

This is especially important in the realm of politics. If you hear something from a liberal commentator, seek out a conservative rebuttal and vice versa. Dont live in an echo chamber. One of my favorite ways to check the accuracy of a review? When somebody recommends a product or service to me, I use Google to search for [product/service] sucks. Or, if Im on Amazon, I read the one-star reviews. You can learn a lot from the complaints about a company or product. Readers First Other personal financial blogs with traffic similar to Get Rich Slowly (about 10,000 visits per day) earn anywhere from $500 to $2000 per day. (Yes, really.) Get Rich Slowly earns only $50 per day. Crazy, right? Part of this is because Im lazy. Part of this is due to fear (no joke). But another part is because Ive been wrestling with how to make money without compromising my personal values, without crossing that thin green line. How do I advertise credit cards when I know credit cards cause problems for so many people? How do I promote banks in a way that Im providing honest, objective info yet still earning commissions? So far, Ive been treading water using Google Adsense and Amazon links. Im earning more than minimum wage with this blog but not much more. Get Rich Slowly is a business. Its a money-making venture. It doesnt make much money right now about $2000 per month but Im hopeful that it can eventually earn as much as it did in the olden days: over $20,000 per month. That said, Im not willing to compromise the editorial side of things to make a quick buck. Heres my number-one guiding principle at Get Rich Slowly: Readers first. In everything I do, from design to advertising to content creation, I try to put myself in your shoes. Does this article help my readers? Does this ad interfere with the reader experience? How does the layout of the site help or hinder the folks who come here? You know why I dont have pop-ups or splash screens at Get Rich Slowly? Because I think theyre actively reader-hostile. My colleagues tell me they vastly increase the number of subscribers and affiliate conversions, but I dont care. I personally hate pop-ups, so why would I subject my readers to them? That sounds like hypocrisy to me. Its important to note that readers first doesnt mean readers only. A readers only policy would mean no ads. Im not willing to run Get Rich Slowly for free. This is work, dammit, and I want to get paid for my work. (This notion is lost on a lot of folks at places like Reddit, where they think any blogger who tries to make money is somehow shady.) Readers first means that before I decide whether to run an ad, before I decide whether to write a review of Personal Capital, I do my best to minimize the negative impact on my audience. The best-case scenario is promoting something like a bank account. Helping readers sign up for good bank accounts is a win-win-win: a win for the reader, a win for the bank, and a win for me (because I get a commission). Amazon affiliate links are another no-brainer. A middling scenario is something like banner ads at the beginning and end of my articles. Or my Personal Capital review. Or the upcoming credit-card articles. Less-than-ideal scenarios include those two stupid ads I have embedded in the middle of articles right now, which seem to be causing headaches for certain readers. (Those are on the chopping block for when the redesign goes live. Eventually.) Or the promotion I did for Credit Sesame back in January. (My solution there? I did the promotion because I was contractually obligated to do so but I declined to take money for it.) Last year at Fincon the financial bloggers conference I participated in a panel discussion called What Will You Do for Money? We talked about scenarios like this as we explored financial journalism and ethics. If youre interested in this subject, you can watch this video recording of the entire panel (which the Fincon organizers have graciously made available specifically for this article). [embedded content] Four Financial Blogs Worth Reading Its perfectly possible to run a blog even a financial blog in a way that serves the readers and provides an income for the author. Thats how I made money before with Get Rich Slowly, and thats how I intend to make money in the future. There are lots of other financial bloggers whose view of the thin green line is similar to mine. Some are big. Youve probably read Mr. Money Mustache, for instance. Pete and I have remarkably similar views on monetization and serving the audience. Its easy, though, for MMM to play it safe. His audience is so large that even minimal monetization produces huge income. Im more impressed with new, small financial blogs who have made a commitment to serve their readers. When youre just starting out, you want to make money now now now. Its tough to wait. Most new bloggers bury their sites in ads. (I saw one a couple of months ago that was almost entirely ads the editorial content didnt start until below the fold. Ugh.) Most new bloggers want to run advertorials and/or promote products and services with big payouts. Here are four newer financial blogs that I think do a great job of making money while remembering to serve their readers: Please note that these are by no means the only financial blogs worth reading. There are tons of folks producing quality content and putting readers first. These are just four blogs that I personally have found to be filled with useful, entertaining articles without the marketing that mars the experience for me on other sites. Simply put, these newer bloggers have earned my trust. Honestly, if I were starting out, Id be tempted to focus on the money too. Im fortunate that Ive earned a wad of cash already, so I can sit back and take a more measured approach. Im not in a hurry to make lightning strike twice. Instead, Im going to stick to my Readers First pledge. Yes, I want to make money from Get Rich Slowly, but my primary aim is to help the folks who find this site to make and keep more money for themselves. If there are ways that I can do this while also earning a little scrilla, Im going to do it. Meanwhile, Ill continue to be skeptical of the information I find on other financial blogs. I encourage you to do the same. In fact, you should be skeptical of what you read here too. I know Im staying on my side of the thin green line, but you dont know that. I want you to be skeptical of me and my motives until Ive earned your trust. Several GRS readers have written to let me know they love the Spare Change section that resides after the first post on this sites home page. I use the Spare Change to share worthwhile articles from financial sites around the web. Its my attempt to sift the wheat from the chaff so that you dont have to. You can find an archive of all past Spare Change links via my Pinboard account. https://www.getrichslowly.org/financial-blogs/

[viralhottopics]

How to lose your gut, according to 6 regular guys

(images courtesy Mark Warnke/Men’s Health)

The following men not only wanted to shape up, they took action and made their ambitions a reality. 

Take a look at how they shifted their habits to improve their lives for years to come.

How Christopher Jacob lost 38 pounds in 4 years

After his wife had a heart attack in 2012 at age 45, Christopher Jacob knew they both had to make a change. 

The father of three from Saudi Arabia had high cholesterol, and feared he was on a similar path.

Jacob and his wife both vowed to take shaping up seriously to ensure they would be around to support their kids for decades to come. 

Despite a work schedule packed with travel as a director of human resources, Jacob made exercise a priority. While traveling, he would pick out his hotels based on the workout facilities, searching for options with either a pool to swim in or a gym to lift in. 

Jacob would also follow along with fat-loss workout videos from Mens Health Fitness Director BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., to add variety and blast calories. (Gaddour just launched his newest and most intense fat-burning workout program ever with Mens Health, MetaShred Extreme.)

He also reigned in his calorie count to about 1,500 to 2,000 per day, using the app MyFitnessPal to track his intake. On days when he overdid it, he worked off the extra calories at the gym.

The 44 year old got off his cholesterol medication in January 2015 and has been off it ever since. The same motivating factor that pushed him to take action in the first place continues to drive him to keep the weight off today: His kids. 

I am a family man, Jacob says. And I would like to see my kids grow, influence them in any means possible, and have an impact on their livesso that when the time comes to let them go, I know that I have taught them well. 

How Ted Gibson lost 45 pounds in 6 months

The sexiest women in the world want Ted Gibson. Angelina Jolie, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and other A-listers line up for himfor haircuts, at a price of $1,500 a pop. 

Related: The 100 Hottest Women Of All Time

But while New Yorks top hairstylist was busy growing his salon empire, his girth grew too.

I just wasnt exercising as much as I had been before, says Gibson, 50. And the weight slowly crept on. 

As a 64, 200-pound ultralean bodybuilder in the early 1990s, Gibson had always been a naturally big, muscular guy. 

But last January I hit 280, he says. I had less energy and my back hurt. I wanted to look amazing for my impending 50th birthday. 

So Mens Health paired Gibson with Vinny Brandstadter of Peak Performance, a New York City gym just around the corner from his salon, and Mens Health nutrition advisor Mike Roussell, Ph.D. 

Roussell worked to sneak healthy tweaks into Gibsons diet that wouldnt affect his overall lifestyle. He helped Gibson find healthy meals at each of the restaurants where his staff orders lunch every day. 

Along with making key changes to his diet, Gibson hit the gym three days a week. Gibson did aerobic intervals that built his endurance and hour-long circuits that burned between 500 to 700 calories.  

Related: The Lifting Technique That Flattens Your Belly

He admits he was nervous to not be the big guy anymore. 

But Im now at 235 pounds, says Gibson. This is the best Ive felt in a long time. I have a lot more energy, my back doesnt hurt, and Im getting a lot of compliments. 

How Yosef Herzog lost 50 pounds in 5 months

Yosef Herzog played sports in high school and college. But once he graduated, his structured workouts fell apart. Aside from intramural sports and some pickup basketball games in Manhattan, he rarely stepped foot in the gym.

The weight crept up on him. At 231 pounds, he began experiencing back pain and was out of breath after tying his shoes. 

After trying to develop healthier habits and losing motivation after a couple weeks, Herzog signed up for the gym at his office.

His evaluation session didnt seem that tough: Lunges, planks, and pushups. But 20 minutes in, Herzog lost his lunchtwice.

I wouldnt say I was in Chris Farley territory, but I was definitely in bad shape, says Herzog. 

He began alternating cardio and strength training, six days a week. 

Herzog also cleaned up his diet. He swapped oatmeal in for his usual breakfast bagel, salad in for subs, and Mexican-style chicken and beans in for burgers. 

In less than half a year, he weighed 181 pounds and needed new clothes. The fitter I got, he says, the more confident I felt.

How Bryan Hodgins lost 190 pounds in 2 years

From age 2, Bryan Hodgins had been overweightbut a lot changed for him at 17, when he got a job at a local grocery store. 

Hodgins started in the heat of August 2014walking over a mile to get to the store where hed push carts and help customers pack their groceries. He weighed about 380 pounds at the time.

Related: Why Some People Sweat More Than Others

At first, Hodgins didnt think those 7-hour shifts had any impact on his body.

I didnt notice any difference, he says. I had family and people I work with, over the course of a year and a half that I was [at the store], tell me, Youve lost weight. And you know, I never believed them.

A little less than a year later after he started working at the grocery store, he was helping his family move and weigh metal at a scrap yard. On a whim, Hodgins decided to hop on one of the scalesand was floored by the result. 

I can still remember the number as clear as day as being 247 pounds, Hodgins says.

He had lost about 140 pounds.

Even though the weight loss was accidental, the significant amount of pounds hed dropped really began to sink in. 

When you see a number that low, from what youve started at, you get a sense of accomplishment, he says. And so I tried eating better. 

Hodgins began incorporating more protein-rich foods like chicken and eggs and eliminating packaged sweets and salty snacks.

He also started working out with a friend from work. 

They made me do mountain-climbers and pushups and situps, Hodgins says. They kicked my ass when it came down to it.

Now down to 190 pounds, Hodgins is studying to be a paramedic. He hopes to eventually enlist as a combat medical technician in the armed forces. 

How Mark Warnke lost 53 pounds in 4 months

Mark Warnke had just booked tickets to propose to his girlfriend on the beach when she ended the relationship. 

Warnke was devastated. But in the aftermath of his breakup, he decided it was the perfect time to take control of his life. 

He started in the kitchen.

Warnke switched out his frozen meals and canned soups with chicken breast and fresh vegetables that he could throw on the grill Sunday night and eat for the rest of the week.    

In the past, Warnke had tried trends like cutting carbs and diet pills, but nothing worked better than eating whole foods. 

He also started doing bodyweight workouts on the Mens Health website.

Soon Warnke was able to put his heartburn medication away and after only a month of his new training regimen, Warnke had to go out and buy all new pants.

He was down 53 pounds total four months after the breakup. 

But if you ask Warnke, he didnt lose the weight to spite his ex-girlfriend.

It wasnt an, Im going to show her, he says. It was an Im going to be the best person I can be.

How Jake Galicia lost 86 pounds in 2.5 years

When Jake Galicias blood test results came in, he was shocked to find out he had high blood sugar and lipid levels. At 29, Galicia thought he was too young to be on the borderline for metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Galicia had always been on the heavier sideat the time he was 247 poundsbut the new father could not stand the idea that his condition might someday stop him from watching his toddler grow up. 

In February 2012, Galicia started a low-carb diet full of protein and vegetables.

Despite working sporadic shifts at an insurance company, Galicia made it a priority to squeeze in workouts.

Galicia would exercise anytime between the early morning and midnight, depending on when his shift fell that daybut he always made time. 

Initially hed hit the gym to run on the treadmill or complete circuit workouts. But as the fat began melting off, he started incorporating strength training into his workouts to gain muscle. 

And those odd hours at the gym were well spent. Galicia eventually shed 10 inches from his waist.

Now 33 years old, he says perseverance was key to his weight-loss success.

No matter how hard it may seem, you have to finish your workout, he says. This is how your body exceeds its known limits, preparing you to face more difficult physical tasks.

This article originally appeared on MensHealth.com.

Read more: http://fxn.ws/2hNBcrV

from How to lose your gut, according to 6 regular guys

[viralhottopics]

How to lose your gut, according to 6 regular guys

(images courtesy Mark Warnke/Men’s Health)

The following men not only wanted to shape up, they took action and made their ambitions a reality. 

Take a look at how they shifted their habits to improve their lives for years to come.

How Christopher Jacob lost 38 pounds in 4 years

After his wife had a heart attack in 2012 at age 45, Christopher Jacob knew they both had to make a change. 

The father of three from Saudi Arabia had high cholesterol, and feared he was on a similar path.

Jacob and his wife both vowed to take shaping up seriously to ensure they would be around to support their kids for decades to come. 

Despite a work schedule packed with travel as a director of human resources, Jacob made exercise a priority. While traveling, he would pick out his hotels based on the workout facilities, searching for options with either a pool to swim in or a gym to lift in. 

Jacob would also follow along with fat-loss workout videos from Mens Health Fitness Director BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., to add variety and blast calories. (Gaddour just launched his newest and most intense fat-burning workout program ever with Mens Health, MetaShred Extreme.)

He also reigned in his calorie count to about 1,500 to 2,000 per day, using the app MyFitnessPal to track his intake. On days when he overdid it, he worked off the extra calories at the gym.

The 44 year old got off his cholesterol medication in January 2015 and has been off it ever since. The same motivating factor that pushed him to take action in the first place continues to drive him to keep the weight off today: His kids. 

I am a family man, Jacob says. And I would like to see my kids grow, influence them in any means possible, and have an impact on their livesso that when the time comes to let them go, I know that I have taught them well. 

How Ted Gibson lost 45 pounds in 6 months

The sexiest women in the world want Ted Gibson. Angelina Jolie, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and other A-listers line up for himfor haircuts, at a price of $1,500 a pop. 

Related: The 100 Hottest Women Of All Time

But while New Yorks top hairstylist was busy growing his salon empire, his girth grew too.

I just wasnt exercising as much as I had been before, says Gibson, 50. And the weight slowly crept on. 

As a 64, 200-pound ultralean bodybuilder in the early 1990s, Gibson had always been a naturally big, muscular guy. 

But last January I hit 280, he says. I had less energy and my back hurt. I wanted to look amazing for my impending 50th birthday. 

So Mens Health paired Gibson with Vinny Brandstadter of Peak Performance, a New York City gym just around the corner from his salon, and Mens Health nutrition advisor Mike Roussell, Ph.D. 

Roussell worked to sneak healthy tweaks into Gibsons diet that wouldnt affect his overall lifestyle. He helped Gibson find healthy meals at each of the restaurants where his staff orders lunch every day. 

Along with making key changes to his diet, Gibson hit the gym three days a week. Gibson did aerobic intervals that built his endurance and hour-long circuits that burned between 500 to 700 calories.  

Related: The Lifting Technique That Flattens Your Belly

He admits he was nervous to not be the big guy anymore. 

But Im now at 235 pounds, says Gibson. This is the best Ive felt in a long time. I have a lot more energy, my back doesnt hurt, and Im getting a lot of compliments. 

How Yosef Herzog lost 50 pounds in 5 months

Yosef Herzog played sports in high school and college. But once he graduated, his structured workouts fell apart. Aside from intramural sports and some pickup basketball games in Manhattan, he rarely stepped foot in the gym.

The weight crept up on him. At 231 pounds, he began experiencing back pain and was out of breath after tying his shoes. 

After trying to develop healthier habits and losing motivation after a couple weeks, Herzog signed up for the gym at his office.

His evaluation session didnt seem that tough: Lunges, planks, and pushups. But 20 minutes in, Herzog lost his lunchtwice.

I wouldnt say I was in Chris Farley territory, but I was definitely in bad shape, says Herzog. 

He began alternating cardio and strength training, six days a week. 

Herzog also cleaned up his diet. He swapped oatmeal in for his usual breakfast bagel, salad in for subs, and Mexican-style chicken and beans in for burgers. 

In less than half a year, he weighed 181 pounds and needed new clothes. The fitter I got, he says, the more confident I felt.

How Bryan Hodgins lost 190 pounds in 2 years

From age 2, Bryan Hodgins had been overweightbut a lot changed for him at 17, when he got a job at a local grocery store. 

Hodgins started in the heat of August 2014walking over a mile to get to the store where hed push carts and help customers pack their groceries. He weighed about 380 pounds at the time.

Related: Why Some People Sweat More Than Others

At first, Hodgins didnt think those 7-hour shifts had any impact on his body.

I didnt notice any difference, he says. I had family and people I work with, over the course of a year and a half that I was [at the store], tell me, Youve lost weight. And you know, I never believed them.

A little less than a year later after he started working at the grocery store, he was helping his family move and weigh metal at a scrap yard. On a whim, Hodgins decided to hop on one of the scalesand was floored by the result. 

I can still remember the number as clear as day as being 247 pounds, Hodgins says.

He had lost about 140 pounds.

Even though the weight loss was accidental, the significant amount of pounds hed dropped really began to sink in. 

When you see a number that low, from what youve started at, you get a sense of accomplishment, he says. And so I tried eating better. 

Hodgins began incorporating more protein-rich foods like chicken and eggs and eliminating packaged sweets and salty snacks.

He also started working out with a friend from work. 

They made me do mountain-climbers and pushups and situps, Hodgins says. They kicked my ass when it came down to it.

Now down to 190 pounds, Hodgins is studying to be a paramedic. He hopes to eventually enlist as a combat medical technician in the armed forces. 

How Mark Warnke lost 53 pounds in 4 months

Mark Warnke had just booked tickets to propose to his girlfriend on the beach when she ended the relationship. 

Warnke was devastated. But in the aftermath of his breakup, he decided it was the perfect time to take control of his life. 

He started in the kitchen.

Warnke switched out his frozen meals and canned soups with chicken breast and fresh vegetables that he could throw on the grill Sunday night and eat for the rest of the week.    

In the past, Warnke had tried trends like cutting carbs and diet pills, but nothing worked better than eating whole foods. 

He also started doing bodyweight workouts on the Mens Health website.

Soon Warnke was able to put his heartburn medication away and after only a month of his new training regimen, Warnke had to go out and buy all new pants.

He was down 53 pounds total four months after the breakup. 

But if you ask Warnke, he didnt lose the weight to spite his ex-girlfriend.

It wasnt an, Im going to show her, he says. It was an Im going to be the best person I can be.

How Jake Galicia lost 86 pounds in 2.5 years

When Jake Galicias blood test results came in, he was shocked to find out he had high blood sugar and lipid levels. At 29, Galicia thought he was too young to be on the borderline for metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Galicia had always been on the heavier sideat the time he was 247 poundsbut the new father could not stand the idea that his condition might someday stop him from watching his toddler grow up. 

In February 2012, Galicia started a low-carb diet full of protein and vegetables.

Despite working sporadic shifts at an insurance company, Galicia made it a priority to squeeze in workouts.

Galicia would exercise anytime between the early morning and midnight, depending on when his shift fell that daybut he always made time. 

Initially hed hit the gym to run on the treadmill or complete circuit workouts. But as the fat began melting off, he started incorporating strength training into his workouts to gain muscle. 

And those odd hours at the gym were well spent. Galicia eventually shed 10 inches from his waist.

Now 33 years old, he says perseverance was key to his weight-loss success.

No matter how hard it may seem, you have to finish your workout, he says. This is how your body exceeds its known limits, preparing you to face more difficult physical tasks.

This article originally appeared on MensHealth.com.

Read more: http://fxn.ws/2hNBcrV

from How to lose your gut, according to 6 regular guys