#lengthly and well written!

[observeroflaplace]

Now you may have noticed, but my submissions have been to Ao3 this year; which have been mostly easier to edit and submit. Mostly. I do appreciate a lot of the in built systems there so expect most of my stuff going forward to go there.

Still, this has been once again very fun! I did lose steam after 25, long before I realised, but it’s still a good exercise.

Now for the fun part.

The highlights of the challenge for me.

“Horizon” just plays into some visuals. The open sky during an apparent day contrasted with the reality of a distance sunset. However, I show Izayoi “failing” at first, and revealing a success through a hidden plan from the start. Also, “measured and proportionate response”

“Third-Rate” ”Reticent”, and “Cloud Nine” somewhat act as a trio, with Cloud Nine explicitly following up the present day part of “Third-Rate”. “Third-Rate” is especially important to me, as this character has really been inspiring to play in roleplay on Light lately, and this expands on some very traumatic background themes which lurk behind a character initially conceived as “a more down to Earth and approachable Izayoi”. The warning tags are mostly to be safe, but it also contains my hardest hitting internal monologue.

”Stamp” is worth a mention as it explicitly ties into a piece by Koi, as an in-character reply to that. This is one of many pieces this year that I’ve written in a Mielikki-WoL continuity, with Izayoi here having been coincidentally requested by Koana prior to Mia being sought out by Wuk-Lamat; and here I play a little with some Urianger-adjacent vibes of having promised to be open and not lie to those few Izayoi genuinely holds dear, only to be expected to anyway and it tearing her apart. Don’t worry though, she makes her frustrations towards her current employer very known in “Morsel”, which might just be the funniest thing I’ve written all month.

”Telling” acts as another example of “Izayoi uses an apparent defeat as a ploy” and also “means entirely divorced from raw strength to succeed”. Granted, “not-Bonharve” gets his ass beaten, but as he says, that wouldn’t help their case. What did, happened before that. My tongue in cheek nickname for the villain comes from him being inspired by an antagonist from an rp plot which didn’t quite take off.

As per my usual trend of avoiding the actual word itself (where I can), “Hackneyed” proved especially difficult for me as I didn’t know what, in-universe, had lost its appeal. So instead I went for light-hearted meta commentary about observations in roleplay in the LRC.

“Stable” was the result of some MAJOR “future child” brainrot, as well as wanting to write about one of the possible “bad timelines” we know about. Very Future Trunks/Silver the Hedgehog. After a lengthly discussion with Koi about details, this is what I came up with. Since this is the Black Rose timeline, some details are different from Koi’s own piece about this character later. I don’t name drop him here, ironically for future-proofing. Stable refers to the unstable device/temporal travel, but also to emotionally ground himself for a moment.

Length alone should tell you that I had fun with “Duel” - which I notice was also one of last year’s prompts. The challenge here was figuring out a way to write Izayoi’s ancestor working against a vastly stronger foe and impressing her (for consistency with some rp backstory things), without all of Izayoi’s tricks for a true “anyone could beat you this way” win. But it also let me write some direct power mixed in to represent the unrefined form of this character motivation from the ancestor, as well as toy with aesthetics, ability, and personality more or less from scratch.

Last but not least, “Perpetuity” gets a mention for letting me experiment with intentional repetition for dramatic effect. I hope it feels just as spooky when they layers come apart as intended.

I'd love to see a follow-up after the event is over of people sharing their favorite piece from the event. We just wrote for thirty days! What are we proudest of making?

YES, I love this idea! Now that the challenge's 24-hour deadlines are officially closed:

Writers, what were your proudest moments in FFxivWrite this year?

[eternityunicorn]

I just wanted to talk about an update I made to both my profile here and all my fanfiction on both AO3 and Wattpad. So on my Tumblr profile I updated the lengthly blog summary with this disclaimer:

This disclaimer is also featured on each fic summary page on Wattpad:

And also in this first chapter of each fic on both Wattpad and AO3:

The reason behind this is…well, this on Wattpad:

Now, I am NOT calling this user out or anything. They’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, on their profile, they only have a couple of reading lists (one of my fics is on one of those lists, which is how I know of them) and no written stories of their own. So, it’s not like they’ve been plagiarizing my work or stealing my OCs, etc.

Please do NOT bother this person. That’s not the point of this! I’m just explaining why I have decided to put up the above disclaimer. Bear with me:

Anyway, this user name they’ve chosen still put me on guard, all the same. It’s a bit suspicious to me, but like I said, they haven’t done anything bad. It’s just a user name and could be just a coincidence. This user has been around for a year, so it is likely, depending on how old the user name is.

It’s just that, plagiarism runs rampant on fanfiction sites and even on sites like Amazon, as we’ve learned from the Romilly King fiasco. So, my liberal use of the above disclaimer is just a precaution, just to hopefully ward off any attempts of thievery from any and everybody.

Long ago, in the days of MySpace, I used to use my OC Eternity for role playing on the site. It was fun, but I did run into an incident that caused me to take down my profile and stop RPing, where another newer user used a drawing of Eternity I made as their profile pic without permission.

That was enough to call out this person, which I did, politely asking them to take down my drawing, but then they tried to claim that they had a character named Eternity and she looked just like my Eternity. I think the only thing she changed was the speeches, but everything else was pretty much the same.

This above incident had just solidified my reasoning for not participating in fandom or sharing my OC and her world with others.

Long story short, this has given me PTSD and even though I have decided to share with others Eternity and her world with others. I am always on guard against plagiarizers. I keep my eyes open, because I have seen enough of other people’s incidents with copycats that it just keeps me on my toes.

So…yeah, long winded, but the Wattpad user thing is the reason for my new disclaimer that is now plastered all over everything. It’s just me being paranoid…lol.

If you’ve made of this far, thank you for listening to my rant!

[lambourngb]

Hi. Do you have longer malex fics (20+k) to rec? I am new to the fandom, and really like these characters. I hope s03 treats them better. (If they are with explicit adult things even better!😊)

Hi Nonnie- There’s a lot of good stuff out there on AO3. I’ll list a few that I’ve read, but I’ll probably miss a thousand good ones-

Shadow Work, Finding You and Take Me Back to the Start are all lengthly meaty stories by @myrmidryad - they have written two stories that I have read upwards of 5 times each. https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrmidryad/pseuds/myrmidryad/works


no regrets if we walk this new road by @andrea-lyn is an amazing season 1 reimagining epic. There’s plenty to read by Andrealyn too- lots of 20K stories plus with good pacing, plots and characterization. “No Love Like Your Love” is another epic too https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn

If you’re okay with unfinished and reading AUs- “My love is a life taker” is absolutely amazing by @jocarthage. She also has a finished AU “how can I keep from singing” that clocks in at 55K of loveliness and a season 1 divergent story called “redolent air // tremble and shimmer” both of which are great. But “My love is a life taker” is next level good as an AU. https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage

Constant as a Northern Star is the only RNM story by celzmccelz but it’s a good one. I never liked mpeg as a trope but this is really really well characterized. https://archiveofourown.org/users/celzmccelz/pseuds/celzmccelz

A Simple Life (but with aliens) by @bestillmyslashyheart is another excellent reinvention of season 1. I love the idea of Michael and Alex not breaking up as teenagers. https://archiveofourown.org/works/20342578/chapters/48235081 The Red Name is a long soul mark AU that is also great!

Leave the light on by @sabrinachill is one of the best fake dating/plot/relationship get-back-together stories I’ve read. https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204316/chapters/58305196

The person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger by @iwontbeyourmedicine is a great brainwashed Alex, action/plot, get back together, hurt comfort stories. It’s 25K of fun. https://archiveofourown.org/works/24038176

Manes Street, Roswell by @ninswhimsy - I’m kinda biased, I got to yell about this with her while she wrote it and it’s a homage to my favorite movie Grosse Pointe Blank= but this is fun AU retelling of Malex with Alex as a hitman. I love it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/23675851/chapters/56838106

“I Know Nothing Stays the Same” by @aewriting is seriously one of the best canon-divergent stories out there. It’s powerful. “Vague Space” is a space AU in progress that is also amazing. https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewriting/pseuds/aewriting

I’m leaving out so many great stories- some of them are on my to-read list, since I made a point after Dec to concentrate on writing Last Years Wishes, and not reading all the great stuff that is out there, so I’m ridiculously behind. I also noticed a lot of what I am enjoying are canon divergent or outright AUs, so maybe my taste is different from yours?

Anyway good luck, welcome to fandom, we have a lot of talented folks who are writing and publishing to AO3 and tumblr.

[hercleverboy]

Hi Kate!! Congrats on 1k!! I love learning about true crime, so I would love 🧩!! I would also love 💛 as well!!!! I hope the rest of your week is absolutely lovely just like you are 💕💕💕 - @spencerreidsmiles

💛 a handwritten note

‘ Marissa, my love!

hi there! let’s kick this off by acknowledging how awesome of a writer you are! your fics are just so damn good! you are always so incredibly supportive of my fics, and I mean it when I say I appreciate you greatly! Love you!

- Kate x ‘

🧩 let’s talk about unsolved murders/cases!

one of the most intruiging cases for me is the murder of JonBenet Ramsay. 

tw: murder of a young child, mentions of possible sexual assault, swearing. 

JonBenet Ramsay was a six year old american beauty pageant queen, who was found dead on the morning of december 26th 1996 in boulder, colorado. ultimately, the case surrounding her death was suspicious to say the least. 

on boxing day morning, her mother patsy made a frantic phone call to the police, in which she stated that her daughter was missing from her bed, and they’d found a ransom note from the kidnappers that demanded $118,000 in return for JonBenet’s safe return. 

the police arrive and are immediately searching the grounds surrounding the home, because as we know the first 24 hour window in a child abduction case are the most crucial. 

seven hours after she was reported missing, JonBenet’s body was found in the basement of the Ramsay home by her father John. the cause of death was officially reported to be asphyxiation, and the death was ruled a homicide. 

i’ll explain this case the best way i can by going over the multitude of reasons as to why this case is suspicious. 

we’ll start with the ransom note. 

it was lengthly- spanning over two and a half pages, and included many spelling mistakes on seemingly simple words, whereas words such as attache (with an accent on the e) were spelled correctly. 

the fbi stated that the length of the ransom note was highly unusual, and included way more detail than was necessary for the ransom note. interestingly enough, it was determined that the note was written from inside the house, using paper that came from patsy’s own office. 

it begs the question: would an intruder have time to write such a lengthly note from inside the house?

the initials ‘s.b.t.c’ ultimately led nowhere, and to this day its unsure whether they actually meant anything. 

both john and patsy underwent handwriting analysis to determine whether either of them had written the ransom note. john’s was negative, patsy’s came back inconclusive. 

following this, the ramsay’s stopped working with law enforcement. 

what mindfucks me the most about this is this: why would a kidnapper write such a ransom note demanding a set amount of money and giving the family until a certain time to deliver said money- but then kill Jonbenet anyway? inside the home, no less. 

it should be mentioned that when questioned, the police remarked how shocked they’d been when JonBenet was discovered inside the home, as they’d had no reason based on the ransom note to believe that she was still inside the house. hence why the basement was never searched. 

next we’ll move on to the lack of physical evidence - 

it was reported that there were no signs of forced entry at the ramsay home, and no footprints in the snow outside. they closed of access to JonBenet’s room to avoid the contamination of evidence, but no effort was made to prevent the contamination of evidence in the rest of the house. 

detectives arrived at the home with the goal of awaiting the kidnappers instructions, as john was prepared to pay the ransom money. no attempt was made  by anyone to claim the money. 

crucial forensic evidence was further contaminated when john found and picked up his daughters body upon discovery of her in the basement. 

there were traces of a unknown dna found on JonBenet’s underwear, but when compared to samples for the family members and other suspects, there were no matches, seemingly ruling out any and all suspects. (however, it should be noted that in a documentary done in recent years, a forensic scientist tested a newly opened pack of underwear for foreign dna, and found some. it was then suggested that this dna may have come from the manufacturer, not a possible suspect in the case. therefore, none of the suspects are actually ruled out.)

over the years, numerous people have ‘confessed’ to killing JonBenet, though the confessions led nowhere and were not supported by any evidence. 

patsy was a beauty queen in her youth, and it seemed to those around the family that she was living vicariously through her daughter, but it can’t be determined whether or not that is enough motive for murder. 

she also had a brother, burke, who some have theorised to be involved in the murder. it’s true that he could have had significant motive, even if only because his sister seemed to be the centre of her parents attention and affection. but whether or not he really had any involvement was never proven. (i would reccomend looking at the orginal police interview tapes with burke, you’ll find his calming attitude to be quite eerie.) 

what happened to JonBenet remains unsolved to this day. patsy sadly passed away from ovarian cancer in 2006, so the truth may forever go unknown. 

kate’s 1k celebration 🦋

[tanzaniiite]

valid // kirishima x reader

prompt: "Why are you crying?” “…I wish I knew”

requests: OPEN

warnings: some good ole angst (my favorite) with a dash of fluff

word count: 2,412

a/n: can’t believe this is my first time writing for BNHA and i’ve been in the fandom for like forever. anyways i want to write more so requests are open.

I don’t have any rules or anything like that yet but i’ll probably develop some as time goes on.

___

Today was one of your extremely rare days off and although you wanted to sleep the day away… you couldn’t. Even though you had made it into the hero course, you felt so out of place with everyone. Their quirks were just amazing, how could someone as average as you top that? Your quirk was simple, telekinesis. You could pick up shit with your mind and that’s it. If you overexert your quirk, you got headaches and sometimes migraines, not a fun time. Ever since your quirk first manifested, you always felt confident with it but now you weren’t so sure. But there was no use sulking over it, you just had to work twice as hard to catch up with everyone else.

You walked into the dorms after having a somewhat lengthly gym session, originally you planned on staying for about a half and hour. But that 30 minutes slowly turned into 2 hours without you noticing. Now you were sore, sweaty and tired. You wanted nothing more than to just flop on your bed and sleep for the rest of the day but once again, you couldn’t. You promised Kirishima that you would help him with the most recent math chapter. Turns out Bakugou whacking him over the head wasn’t the best teaching method, huh, who would’ve knew? You walked past your friends in the common room, waving slightly. “Wow Y/n, you went to the gym on an off day? Man I wish I had your determination” Uraraka commented, noticing your work out clothes. Your other friends nodded and hummed in agreement. You smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of your head, “It’s honestly nothing, just a simple workout. I’m trying to improve on my upper body strength” You explained, your cheeks flushed slightly from the sudden attention drawn to you. Iida looked to you and started chopping the air, “I admire your will to work on your weaknesses, especially on your day off. Well done, Y/n! We all should follow Y/n’s example and dedication to become the best versions of ourselves-“ He stated, slipping into one of his ramblings causing everyone in the common room to groan.

You giggled slightly and walked into the kitchen, Bakugou was there sitting on a stool scrolling through his phone aimlessly. “Hey Bakugou” You greeted, making your way to the fridge and opening it. He grunted in response, not looking up from his phone. You drunk from you water bottle in silence as you pondered on where Kirishima might be. You noticed he wasn’t in the common room with his usual friend group and he wasn’t with Bakugou, which was weird because he didn’t seem like the type to keep to himself. ‘Gee, I hope he’s not sick or anything’ You thought, as you finished your water. “Um, Bakugou? By any chance, have you seen Kiri?” You asked, trying your best to not provoke the hothead. Bakugou rolled his eyes, “How the fuck would I know where Shitty Hair is?” He scoffed, finally looking up at you. You shifted under his obvious glare, “Okay, a simple yes or no would’ve sufficed” You replied, walking out the kitchen ignoring the ash blonde’s threats as you made your way to the showers.

After your shower, you changed into more comfortable clothing before making you way to Kirishima’s room. You had all your books and materials you needed, prepared to teach Kiri some math. You had even went as far as to bring your whiteboard, in hopes to help him understand the material a little better. You rapped your fist on his door, standing back waiting for him to open it. After a minute, you knocked again. No response, huh that’s weird. You pressed you ear against the door trying to hear any movement. Turns out the door is too thick for you to actually hear anything. You hated to just walk in without permission but you knew he was in there. Kaminari told you he had saw him walk in there a few minutes ago. After mentally battling with yourself for a minute or two, you finally decided to open the door.

You smiled as you saw Kirishima sitting at his desk, looking at his textbook. Your smiled faltered as you noticed how much distress he seemed to be in. Upon further inspection, he was clutching at his hair and trembling slightly. You put your stuff down on the floor and slowly walked towards him. He didn’t even notice you were in the room yet, you touched his shoulder gently. “Kirish-“ You started, eyes widening as he jumped from your touch. His head snapped up towards you before turning away and wiping his face, mumbling something along the lines of “I’m sorry”. Even though you only caught a glimpse of his face, it was still heart wrenching. His face was flushed, tears in his eyes and the most heartbreaking expression on his face. It was so different from what you normally saw from him, he looked a totally different person.

Kirishima sniffed and finally turned back to you, his eyes dry and a smile adorning his face. It was like he wasn’t crying and trembling a minute ago. But because you knew that smile on his face was forced as hell, the frown on yours didn’t disperse. “So, what can I do for you Y/n?” Kirishsima asked, bringing you back from your thoughts. His voice was back to it’s normal bubbly self but you could hear the tremble in his words. It was obvious that he wanted to forget the scene that just happened but you didn’t. “We have a study session, I’m helping you with the recent chapter. Remember?” You say, gesturing to your books that you placed on the floor by the door. Kirishima looked at your books and nodded, “Yeah, I totally forgot. We can get started if you’d like” He stated, getting up to get his notebook and other stuff.

You couldn’t focus on what the hell you were trying to teach the redhead. You kept stumbling on your words or losing your train of thought. Your mind kept wandering back to earlier, you were conflicted. You wanted to ask Kirishima about what happened earlier but you also wanted to respect his wishes and forget about it. But on one hand, it wasn’t healthy for him to keep his feelings bottled up but on the other hand, was it any of your business? Kirishima was your friend and you want to help him, but does he even want your help? He probably had someone to talk about this stuff, so what use would you be? You sighed loudly, gaining the attention of your friend. As he looked at you, he noticed your furrowed eyebrows. He guessed you were trying to figure out how to explain to him the next part of the chapter but expelled that thought when he saw that you were just staring at the front cover of the textbook.

“Hey Y/n?” He asked, watching you cautiously. You hummed in response, still staring at nothing. “Are you alright?” The redhead pressed, putting his pencil down. You looked up at him and nodded slightly, “Yeah, um how are those practice problems coming along?” You asked, changing the subject as you ran your fingers through your hair. “I think I’m doing pretty good, I would’ve never pegged you to be a math kind of girl but I actually understand what’s going on? It’s crazy” He laughed, as he gestured to the problems written in his notebook. You stared in awe, you honestly had no idea how Kirishima could be so composed and back to his usual self when less than hour ago he was just crying. Was he always like this and you just hadn’t noticed? Did he always hide his true feelings? Wow, what a shitty friend you’ve been, to not even get the suspicion that something was wrong. “Seriously Y/n, what’s wrong? You’re worrying me” Kiri stated, looking at you with concerned eyes.

You let out a dry laugh, “You’re worried about me? I’m worried about you Kiri. I know you want to forget what happened when I first walked in, but I’m sorry I don’t feel like a good friend just letting something like that go unnoticed” You replied, looking at the redhead. Kirishima looked taken aback before sighing. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t have let that go” He muttered, looking up at the ceiling. “Kiri you don’t have to tell me anything, but I need you to know that I’m here for you. Whether you just want my opinion on something or if you just want me to listen” You explained, taking his hands into yours. The redhead, looked at your hands that were now holding his. Your hands were so small compared to his, and much softer might he add. His lips trembled slightly before he covered his mouth with his hand in an attempt to muffle the whimper that left his lips. You squeezed his other hand sympathetically, your thumb brushing over his knuckles gently.

Kirishima tried to choke back a sob but failed, after that the tears just kept coming. You moved closer to him and hugged him tightly, he hugged you back just as tight, his face buried in the crook of your neck as he cried. As you comforted him slightly, you couldn’t help but feel guilty. How long has he been holding his feelings in like this? After what seemed like a good 20 minutes of Kiri crying, he seemed to calm down. Now his head was leaning on your chest while he stared at nothing in particular, his hands clutching your shirt slightly. The redhead was still visibly upset, and as much as he wanted to stop, the tears were still falling silently from his eyes. You didn’t want to break the silence but you think it would be helpful for Kirishima to talk about his feelings, of course you didn’t want to force him so you tried to coax it out of him.

You rubbed his shoulders gently, prompting him to sit up on his own. You felt his body heat leave with him and you shivered slightly. Kirishima had his head down, tears still welling in his eyes as he sniffed occasionally. “Hey.. Kiri? You don’t have to answer this but… why are you crying?” You asked gently, passing him a tissue so he could blow his nose. He took the tissue, mumbling a small “thanks” before blowing his nose and grimacing at the noise. You didn’t ask the question again, knowing that he heard you the first time. Instead you sat next to him patiently, waiting for him to answer. “Honestly… I wish I knew” He stated, smiling weakly wiping his eyes again. You blinked in confusion, surely he had to know why he was upset, that just didn’t make sense. Kirishima noticed your confused expression before he explained. “I mean, obviously, I know why but- it’s just so stupid. I shouldn’t be being such a baby about it-“ He said, laughing dryly and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Stop. Stop belittling your feelings, whatever you’re feeling.. it’s valid Kiri” You declared, grabbing his hands once again, and looking into his ruby colored eyes. “… Y/n please. You’re gonna make me cry again” He said, looking away from you. You chuckled slightly, now holding his warm tear-stained cheek in your hand.

“It’s okay to cry Kiri”

“You sound like my mom”

“Is that good?”

“Yeah, she’s the smartest person I know”

You felt you heart swell, this boy was just too precious. You wanted to crush whatever dark thoughts that were clouding his mind. The redhead sighed, before looking back at you, “I’m honestly not sure what triggered this. I guess it really started when I woke up. You know when you have those days when you just feel like shit? Like you’re doing something wrong or that you’re just not good enough?” He asked rhetorically. You nodded slightly, listening intently. “Well today was one of those days. They happen more often than I’d like to admit but it is what is. I spent most of the day in my room only leaving for a snack or the bathroom. Then I remembered about our study session so I figured I would try to get a head start and at least try to understand the material. And… that’s when it really started. I was stuck on a stupid problem and I was so frustrated. I just couldn’t take it and I started bawling like a baby” He finished, looking at you for any sign of boredom or disgust but he was only met with look of sympathy.

“Oh Kiri..”

“I know, it’s dumb”

“Dude, what did I just say?”

You narrowed your eyes at the redhead before holding his face in your hands. “Stop. Belittling. Your. Feelings.” You said, breaking it down. It literally broke your heart that he thought his feelings were dumb and not valid. Kirishima looked at you with sad eyes, “And I guess the real reason I started crying was because.. who wants a dumb hero? When you or Bakugou explain this work to me, you guys make it sound so simple and I can’t help but think.. is there something wrong with me? A-And who wants a hero that can’t do basic math? Or a hero that has low marks? What if I-“ He rambled. You interrupted him with your lips crashing into his. The redhead’s eye widen slightly before he melted into the kiss and pulled you closer to him. Your hands went to his neck, and his hands snaked around your waist. When you finally pulled away for air, you giggled at Kirishima’s pout. He smiled slightly at you, “Can you do that every time I start to spiral?” The redhead asked, leaning his forehead on yours. “Sure, but you don’t need to spiral for me to kiss you” You replied, smiling. Kirishima tilted your face until you guys were centimeters apart, before kissing your soft lips once more.

Bonus!

“Ugh, there’s dry snot on your shirt. That’s so gross, sorry”

“It’s okay, I don’t care about snot. I’ll just change”

“Take one of my shirts!”

“Oh no, that’s okay”

“Please I insist”

“Alright, I’ll wear you shirt. And Kiri?”

“Hm?”

“Please talk to me whenever you’re feeling down, ‘kay?”

…

“I will”

[praise-the-lord-im-dead]

@jurakan @theamiableanachronism here's my list so far!!

Genre fiction:

Clarkesworld:

1,000 to 22,000 words

10c / word for first 7,000 words, 8c / word after that.

Guidelines: sci-fi and fantasy. Well-written, non-political, no automatic eye-rollers.

Three Crows:

1,000 to 4,000 words

$25 per story

Guidelines: gritty horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Ambiguous morality and Slavic settings are both pluses.

Lightspeed:

1,500 to 10,000 words

8c / word

Guidelines: anything goes! (Sometimes submissions are closed).

Fantasy & Science Fiction:

Up to 25,000 words

7-12c / word

Guidelines: anything goes, preference for science fiction and humor. A read-through of an issue is suggested.

Additional: no simultaneous submissions, they will respond in 8 weeks.

Cricket:

600-6,000 words

Up to 25c / word

Guidelines: any and all genres, but it must be immediate and character-driven, acceptable and wholesome for children, and fun.

Analog:

Up to 20,000 words

8-10 c / word

Guidelines: science fiction where science of some kind is a key element of the plot, in which dynamic characters shine against the fantastical background.

Ares Magazine:

1,000 to 10,000 words

6c / word

Guidelines: sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mythology, pulp adventure, alternative history. No fan fiction.

Additional: no simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. You’ll hear back in 8 weeks. Occasionally closed for submissions.

Asimov’s Science Fiction:

1,000-20,000 words

8-10 c / word

Guidelines: studies of human existence with strong, relatable characters. Genre can be bent, but no sword and sorcery or graphic-ness.

Additional: no simultaneous submissions. Usually gets back in 5 weeks.

Giganotosaurus:

5,000-25,000 words

$100 per story

Guidelines: intersectional sci-fi and fantasy.

Pseudopod:

1,500 - 6,000 words

6 c / word

Guidelines: horror. Dark, weird, and brutal. All fiction is meant to be in audio form, so no lollygagging. Everything from literary horror to shock value insanity is all good. Genre definitions are for the birds.

Heroic Fantasy Quarterly:

1,000 - 10,000 words

$50-100 per story

Guidelines: unapologetically heroic sword and sorcery.

Additional: only open to submissions in March, June, September and December.

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Under 15,000 words.

6 c / word

Guidelines: they are fantasy setting nerds and will die for original worldbuilding. Close pov, clear style preferred.

Fiction Vortex

They seem fun but dear lord is their idea for a thing complicated. Look into if I want to write for something as opposed to happily submit my writing elsewhere. Apparently pays $300 flat rate tho.

Aurealis:

2,000-8,000 words

A$20-A$60 / story

Guidelines: sci-fi, fantasy and horror. No horror without supernatural elements, and no derivative works.

Fusion Fragment

2,000 - 15,000 words

3.5 CAD c/ word

up to $300/ story

Guidelines: Science fiction and science fiction subgenres--anything that vaguely resembles scifi, with a preference for the bizarre and an emphasis on quality in style.

Additional: submissions through Moksha. Simulataneous submissions are fine.

Translunar Travelers Lounge

up to 5,000 words

3c / word

Guidelines: FUN stories. Gleeful romance, swashbuckling, intrigue, with plenty of hope and life and joy. Friendships, healthy marriages, equality.

Apparition Lit

1,000 - 5000 words

3c / word, minimum of $30.

flat rate of $30 for poetry.

Guidelines: 'Send us your strange, misshapen stories'. Proactive characters, odd setting, emotional depth and weight.

Additional: an odd and lengthly list of submission steps, make sure to follow those to the letter. Only open to submissions 4 times a year.

Arsenika

up to 1,000 words

$60 / story

$30 / poem

$100 / art

Guidelines: no fan fiction, horror is okay. They seem to be focused on spec fic.

Anathema

only open to queer/poc/indigenous people.

Fiction: 1.5-6k words

Non-Fiction: 1.5 - 3k words

Poetry: under 100 lines

$100(CAD) / story

$50(CAD) / poem

$200(CAD) / cover art

Guidelines: once again, only open to submissions from marginalized groups! including it on this list in case I ever share it.

Grimdark Magazine

up to 4,000 words

7c (AUD)/ word

Guidelines: Must be grim and dark. (They love Joe Abercrombie, for reference) Medieval fantasy or sci-fi.

Metaphorosis Magazine

1,000 - 10,000 words

1c / word

Guidelines: sci-fi and fantasy, beautiful writing, engaging characters. Bonus points for vegan worlds (i.e. no leather goods, meat, or labor animals). No present tense. No overdone tropes. No labeled timeframes. Minimal narration.

Additional: anonymous submissions. don't paint your name everywhere.

Lackington's Magazine

1,500 - 5,000 words

1c (CAD) / word

$25 (CAD) / interior illustrations

$40 (CAD) / cover art

Guidelines: punk, spec fic, all things odd. 2nd person is a hard sell, though, because they see a lot of it. They like stylized prose.

Flash Fiction Online

500 - 1,000 words

8c / word original

2c / word reprints

Guidelines: No hurting women. No hurting men in the ways women are traditionally hurt. 2nd person is a hard sell, as is Evil Human Race, Being Preachy, hiding the mc's name, ending on a identity reveal, sad stories, gory stories.

Strange Horizons

under 5k words preferred, up to 10k

10c / word

Guidelines: they love diverse perspectives, and complex, nuanced stories about political situations. All stories must have spec-fic elements.

Fantasy Magazine

up to 7,500 words

8c / word

Guidelines: fantasy and dark fantasy! They don't have any gripe lists yet.

Nightmare Magazine

1,500 - 7,500 words

6c / word

Guidelines: horror and dark fantasy.

Uncanny

750 - 6000 words

10c / word

Guidelines: speculative fiction. They want intricate, experimental stories with beautiful prose, strong emotions and challenging themes.

Albedo

2,500 - 8,000 words

.6 c / word + print and pdf copy of the magazine issue.

Guidelines: thoughtful, well-written genre fiction. Genre-crossing fiction is also accepted.

Leading Edge Magazine

1,000 - 15,000 words

1c / word

Guidelines: This is a BYU magazine, all stories must adhere to mormon sensibilities (not really a problem anyway?) They just say they're looking for 'fiction', but there's a dragon on their icon so they might do some genre fiction?

Liminal

100 - 6,000 words

6c / word

Guidelines: stories that are strange and unsettling, sharp-edged and evocative. Stories should linger in the mind and evoke emotion in the reader.

Daily Science Fiction

100 - 1,500 words

8c / word, possible anthology royalties (nonexclusive)

Guidelines: Shorter stories are preferred. Character-driven is awesome, but by no means a must. Anything gripping and fun will do -- no horror or erotica, please.

Aftermath Magazine

1500 - 5000 words

2c / word

Guidelines: End-of-the world stories to raise awareness for environmental efforts. They want to celebrate the beauty of the natural world, while it still exists.

The Arcanist

1,000 words or less

$50 / story

Guidelines: Sci-fi and fantasy with strong characters, evoking strong emotions.

The Dark Magazine

2,000 - 6,000

6c / word

Guidlines: Horror and dark fantasy (they don't want graphic violence tho).

PULP magazine

1,000 - 15,000 words

2c - 8c / word (shorter stories get more money)

Guidelines: Solid stories of all genres, accessible to all readers, with balanced emotional weight.

LampLight Magazine

up to 7,000 words

3c / word

Guidelines: Dark fiction. Think The Twilight Zone.

This is by far an exhaustive list--I'm still researching! But hopefully it's helpful?

[astraladvent]

Prism: So far...

((A lengthly excerpt from the Prism Arc catch-up event!))

Berrod Armstrong looked around the room. "Ah, this is a good turnout. Thanks for comin'. There's -- a lot to go through, so I'll begin at the beginnin' and we'll work through it from there. Feel free to add any details you noticed or ask relevant questions as I go on. Won't spend too long answerin' questions before I'm done though."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Some time ago, durin' a social gatherin' in Costa Del Sol, it so happened that we came into contact with a queer manner o'crystal. There was a fireworks show on, an' it seemed that the crystal fell outta the sky, skipped on the water an' hit a cliff wall near us. The spot on the cliff wall that it hit got streaked white an' chalky. The crystal itself was...strange. Colourful, bright an' packed with aether. Goin' near it or touchin' it was enough to wash a man in the stuff."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Didn't take long for us to realise how much it enhanced not only our reserves of aether, but the things we could do with it. The white stuff on the cliff wall on the other hand, killed everything it touched. Stilled the aether in it until it ended up just as white an' dead as the rocks. Fortunately, it was contained to those streaks."

 Louma'li Jinjahl looked sheepish. "Also brought out a few...undesirable qualities in a few."

 Milo North: "Ick."

 Berrod Armstrong eyed Lou for a moment and inclined his head slightly.

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "You're really lucky ya didn't end up lickin' it."

 Berrod Armstrong: "At -first-, we decided to let the La Noscean an' Lominsan authorities handle it. We arranged for the crystal -- the Prism, we called it, to be collected by the Yellowjackets an' taken back to the city proper for the Arcanist's guild to keep in their custody." He rubbed his face then, "Really wished it all stayed there, but the Gods had different plans it seemed. They cordoned off the streaked area, but a couple of our people got samples of the dead white rocks. They were harmless if you didn't let it touch flesh."

 N'hara Tia: "Also got samples of some of the sea creatures it killed. Not the prettiest sight."

 Orion Llewelyn stroked the lizard in his lap, attempting to lull the creature to sleep. It was having none of it with all the people around and hissed.

 Soyer Perera entered and remained silent. No greeting and not motions beyond walking and picking a spot.

 Berrod Armstrong made a face at the mention of the dead sea creatures, but nodded to acknowledge it. "Least chalky fish don't stink..."

Berrod Armstrong: "Anyroad, a couple weeks later the Arcanist's guild called us up for our help with a matter involvin' the crystal. Apparently since we were the once who had 'experience'--" He made quotation marks with his fingers then, "--with it, we were the ones they wanted. Turned out they tried to cast some standard protective stuff around it for safe keepin', but the crystals amplified the magic to the point that it got a bit -too- well shielded. We were hired to work with a fella named Hartsald to  break that shield. From the reports it seemed like one hell of a job, but nothin' catastrophic, an' nothin' the team that went couldn't handle."

 Berrod Armstrong turned to offer a tip of his chin to Soyer by way of greeting.

 Soyer Perera nodded but made no sound.

 Berrod Armstrong: "We used the success of that job to curry some favour with the Arcanist's guild, to the point where we managed to get a sample of the crystal for the company for our own to study. Unfortunately, a couple weeks after -that-, we got another missive from the guild. Hartsald had gone missin', an' from the investigation we launched into it, he'd gone barkin' mad before he vanished. He'd been drawin' nonsense on maps, rippin' up books, writin' over an' over again about somethin' called -blàths bloigh-. No language I'd ever heard of. With the help of those of us gifted in understandin' such things, we learned that it means 'blooming essence'. An' so the hunt for Hartsald began."

 Natja Bafsk breezes on in like she was here all along, peering around and filing her nails into even pointier points.

 N'hara Tia brought a hand to the bridge of his nose. Not a fun assignment…

 Milo North: "Baths Bentlow, yeah."

Milo North: "... Blowfly."

Milo North: "... Blarfs."

 Orion Llewelyn: "Spoilers: He was found."

 Natja Bafsk nods her head agreeably at Milo's valiant effort, knowing damn well she can't do anything better.

 Berrod Armstrong: "The hunt led us to the Blac--" He quickly and apologetically eyed Jancis in the distance, "Uh, the Twelveswood, where the search team encountered all sorts of mischievous magics. Weird plants, floaty-stuff. The reports were...wild. Even though that was dealt with, apparently the team came into contact with an anomaly that caused the same whitenin' effect from the cliffs in Costa. I still...don't really understand what I read about what the team there saw, but everyone came outta it okay."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Mostly, anyroad."

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "And one overly animated annoyin' blue...person."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Ah, aye. Jock whatsisballs."

Louma'li Jinjahl couldn't remmeber how many Jock-Jocks it was.

 Zachary Evans mouthed the phrase 'blue person' in absolute confusion.

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "Jock-Jock somethin' Jock, covered in woad an' crazy, aye."

 Milo North: "Somethin' made outta Light."

 Bayan Dataq cracked a small smile. This was getting good. Now there were blue people. He wondered what strange Eorzean people that was.

 Milo North shivers at the memory.

 Berrod Armstrong: "He'd been hired to find Hartsald too -- an' now we know by who. But I'll get to that in time."

 Louma'li Jinjahl had a sneaking suspicion of the 'who' but he'd be happy if fate decided to surprise him. Lou just nodded along with Berrod's assertion that they'd get to it, in time.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Arcanist's guild hadn't made any headway either, an' so as more time went on, the more everyone feared Hartsald was dead. You know how it goes with missin' persons. Anyroad, -another- issue popped up in Mor Dhona that we went to investigate. After what happened in the Shr...er -- -Twelveswood-, we were expectin' to find Hartsald. Instead, we found a Hyuran fella with an axe an' way, -way- too much power. The team went in, accompanied by one Grave Shadow as an observer, the reports said. The Hyur -- Breaker, or Baby or whatever -- was subdued an' separated from a prismatic crystal that he'd been given with the promise of power. It was there that the monk twin ladies some of y'all came to know were sighted for the first time."

 Orion Llewelyn leaned over to Bayan with a hushed voice, "That's where I came in." A thumb was jerked in Berrod's general direction.

 Bayan Dataq nodded. The cast of characters was getting a bit much for him to keep track of, but he was doing his best.

 Jancis Milburga looks thoughtful, "And that odd sludge that came off of him."

 Soyer Perera || It occured to Soyer that it was around this time he had joined the Company too...He had a faint smile at the thought.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Breaker was pretty badly affected by what had happened to him. He wasn't an enemy, not really. Just someone who'd gotten a raw deal. We took care of his recovery an' such,an' in doing so, found out he had a connection to those twins...like -- a thread. Oh--" He consulted his book then, "I shouldn't forget the group out in the ruins of Nym either. After the Hartsald incident, we went to investigate some aetherial spikes there an' did battle with an entire group enhanced with shards of prismatic crystal. It wasn't enough to make 'em -crazy- powerful, so they got taken down smoothly enough. One of 'em was above the rest though...Astrologian gal with a -weapon- made with one of the crystals in it. Our first encounter with a prismatic weapon."

 Milo North: "Someone had fun lickin' crystals."

 Zachary Evans shifted from foot to foot before finally deciding on doing squats. The whole chain of events had given the young man a surge of nervous energy.

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "An' she up an' ran before we could finish kickin' her arse. Seems Shadow got to her though an' finished things."

 Natja Bafsk 's expression slowly takes a turn for the morose, more and more.

 Bayan Dataq 's face gave away he didn't really approve of leaving a mark alive in a hunt, but didn't say anything.

 Zachary Evans: "I'm not exactly sure of -how- comfortable I am working with Shadow again...wherever the Shadows are, things go from worse to catastrophic."

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "Alright, focus folks."

 Zachary Evans: "Sorry, chief."

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "And listen tah what Berrod has tah say, ya can ask shite after."

 Natja Bafsk nods to Sarij Rahzersyn.

 Berrod Armstrong: "It turns out that the Astrologian gal didn't quite get away -- so proven by a box sent to us by a -mysterious benefactor- at the time. It contained the prismatic weapon...broken, though that didn't make the crystal itself any less potent. The box itself was made with...arcane stuff written on it that turned it into a kind of compass that pointed us north, to Coerthas. Again, we decided to investigate, an' the team sent met -- another arcanist? Nah -- a uh, a--" He checked his notes, "Nymian-styled Scholar. He didn't quite have a prismatic weapon, but his -faerie- was made of the stuff. From what I read, his spellwork was...damn powerful."

 Tiergan Vashir blinked at that. "His /faerie/ was made of /crystal/?"

 Berrod Armstrong: "Aye. Bright an' colourful an' glitterin'...an' -potent-."

 Autgar Bloode: "Yes, his fairy was a crystal. He was very strong."

 Orion Llewelyn looked away to take a swig of his drink.

 Tiergan Vashir frowns deeply, brow furrowing.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Was around that time that our study into the crystal itself showed us some of what it was capable of. Like allowin' me to conjure as if it was nothin', for example. Healed a gash on my own arm with a twig an' it didn't even leave a scar." He offered his arm as proof.

Berrod Armstrong: "I should note that the crystal samples in our possession went up to two. The weapon, an' the sample we got from the Arcanist's guild."

 Jancis Milburga furrows her brow at Berrod's arm.

 Tiergan Vashir: "Did.... you have much conjurying ability before or did you go from none to suddenly proficient?"

 Berrod Armstrong: "I tried to learn once. They were nice about tellin' me I would never be able to do it."

 Aulen Mistbreaker was totally not taking a nap or anything as he showed up late.

 Berrod Armstrong: "I don't have a lick of castin' talent, sad to say."

 Orion Llewelyn: "Shame, that."

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "Ya punch things better anyways."

 Zachary Evans: "That's...disturbing. Granting that much power out of the blue is dangerous."

 Autgar Bloode: "You've got plenty of other talents chief."

 Tiergan Vashir: "So these crystals can turn anyone into a skilled mage."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Nnnh -- well, I knew the -motions-, I just never made anythin' happen, you know? But that crystal changed that."

 Milo North: "Or jus' let you throw enough power at a spell."

 Orion Llewelyn: "An' those of us already skilled t'start with, well..." Orion leaned back.

 Milo North: "That it makes it look like you can do it."

 Soyer Perera frowned at that--he hadn't been told they could do that too.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Go on," He urged Orion.

 Milo North: "Scarier thought is what happens when someone like fuckin' black mage casts one of their clever lil' spells with the power of one of these."

 Natja Bafsk nods to Milo North.

 Orion Llewelyn: "Huh?" He sputtered. "Oh I've got nothin'. Just sayin' I can imagine how it'd be like for those of us with a lick o' talent an' skill."

 Milo North: "Power and the nuance to properly use it."

 Berrod Armstrong nodded, "Aye."

 Tiergan Vashir: "Is that why Mountain's Shadow has an interest then?"

 Martin Adler: "Probably." Martin grunts.

 Autgar Bloode: "Save the questions folks."

 Aulen Mistbreaker spoke up. "Well... back on the beach. A simple spell I used turned a small flame into a massive pyre by just being near the damn thing."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Aye..."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Alright -- back to Breaker an' his ability to trace the twins...much like the box had become a compass that led us north, he led a team of us south into the Sagolii to follow the twins' trail. From what I read, the trip was an interestin' one. They utilised their crystals to their full potential and put up a hell of a fight. It was hard, but our team won out with Breaker's help. Poor bastard ended up abed again, an' we took the twins into our custody. Treated them well, mind you."

 Natja Bafsk smiles, but with a notable twinge of sadness.

 Jancis Milburga: "Had to, those crystals were embedded."

 Berrod Armstrong: "That fight was an' educational one, 'cause we learned about the flawed crystals. Turns out that they were not only different to the samples we had, but they had awful effects on the user. Uh --" He consulted his book again, and began to read directly off of it.

 Orion Llewelyn: "They amplified the user's flaws."

 Milo North: "They got real ugly?"

 Berrod Armstrong: "Our samples achieved perfect resonance with the user's aether. Perfect prisms. The flawed crystals however, sought to compensate for their imperfection by resonating oppressively and affecting the user's aether in a detrimental manner -- usually to the tune of illness or behavioural changes."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Aye, what Orion said."

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "Not ugly enough to not fluster Autgar."

 Autgar Bloode would remember that.

 Orion Llewelyn snorted, "Not that kinda flaw. Made angry people angrier an' that kinda thing."

 Bayan Dataq: "Weaknesses?" he asked softly.

Berrod Armstrong: "After some questionin' -- gentle, mind you, we never treated 'em badly," We learned that -Hartsald- was apparently creating the flawed crystals and temptin' people to power with 'em. First the twins, then he tried to get 'em to bring Breaker on board. S'what was happenin' when we met the lot of 'em in Mor Dhona. What was most interestin' is that they said that we couldn't just go -find- Hartsald. He had to be -summoned-. The ritual to do it was queer as all hells."

 Tiergan Vashir: "Summon. Like some sort of voidsent?" There was audible distaste in his tone.

 Milo North: "You can summon other stuff, too. Kinda."

 Berrod Armstrong: "I would think that if the ritual wasn't...downright stupid."

 Orion Llewelyn wavered a hand before Bayan at his question. "Sorta like that."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Once again a team went out -- to the Cloud Sea up above the Spine. Aether's rich there an' it was far away from people just in case things got hairy...which they did. Still don't really understand what happened, but they called him. He was strange, with bright blue eyes with rings in 'em," He gestured at his own eyes, ever one to talk with his hands, "Talkin' funny too, not nearly the same as he was before. Borin' an' kinda stodgy."

 Bayan Dataq perked up a bit. Sounded like the red haired hyur was describing him. Badly, but still.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Seems like he tried somethin', but the team figured it out and put a stop to it before he finished. Unfortunately, one of the twins got turned into a plant -- or was it eaten by a plant...?" He checked his notes again, "Ah, she got turned into a bush. When they finally managed to put Hartsald down, a big ol' pair of flowers grew. One spat out the twin, the other...Hartsald's body. The -real- Hartsald. Poor bastard had been dead all along, an' somethin' was wearin' his face. Accordin' to what I read, he'd been killed long before, even though he wasn't rottin'."

 Milo North: "So.... Voidsent."

 Soyer Perera frowned a bit deeper. If he were the type to be ungrammatical, he'd say this entire thing was getting curiouser and curiouser.

 Jancis Milburga swears to Nald'thal quietly.

 Soyer Perera: "That doesn't sound like a voidsent."

 Berrod Armstrong shook his head. "Would be simple if it was. Read more like a ghost to me."

 Orion Llewelyn: "Aye, I'm inclined to agree with Berrod."

 Bayan Dataq shook his horned head. This is why he preferred sheep and horses. Less magic and spirits. More things that were simple to skewer with his lance.

N'hara Tia: "This whole fiasco gets worse and worse when you really stop and think about it..."

 Orion Llewelyn: "Like....another soul." He offered up.

 Tiergan Vashir: "A ghost that turns people into plants and grows flowers that hold bodies?"

 Milo North: "A ghost who makes people inta plants? Ashkin ain't that powerful. Or smart."

 Milo North: "Mosta the time they jus' moan about how much it hurts or whatever."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Team came back, though the affected twin hadn't regained consciousness. Reks examined her, an' it turned out there -- wasn't a soul in her body. I dunno how that was possible, or how it worked, but that's what happened. We decided to keep her safe, an' her sister didn't leave her side. Breaker was fully recovered an' decided to go out there an' try to make some headway."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Took a couple weeks, but he came back...different. He'd acquired a bit of prismatic crystal, which somehow -fused- with him while he slept. It...made him strong. Real strong. I dunno if he's immortal now, but I know it's real hard to hurt him. Or was. We had to press him for answers, but even when he finally caved an' tried to give 'em to us, he couldn't speak of it, or even write of it. He'd been hexed, and pretty badly."

 Berrod Armstrong: "The same night he came back to us, somethin' happened to the unconscious twin. Long story short, whatever had been masqueradin' around as Hartsald jumped into her, pulled a switch on us, an' ran off into the night. Was a damn mess, I'm told. Her sister an' Breaker went off to try an' find her."

 Natja Bafsk stares down at her lap, ears drooping backward.

 Berrod Armstrong: "'nother couple weeks went by. Breaker an' Rookmin -- ah aye, that was her name -- kept in contact, wrote to us an' stuff...an' then the contact stopped. Stopped for a worryin' while, with the last place they mentioned bein' Tailfeather up in the Dravanian lands. Of course, we sent a team up to find 'em..." He rubbed the back of his head then, "An' what a time that was."

 Berrod Armstrong: "There were so many things -- a cave full o'gold dust. Talkin' to dragons...followin' the trail on a whole. The trail led to a white, magical coffin' with the words 'Let sleeping beasts lie' on it. Anybody who tried to tamper with the coffin got...frozen? Stilled -- though it came at a cost to the coffin's aether. With enough people triggerin' it, it eventually ran out, an' broke open."

 Milo North: "W..."

 Orion Llewelyn: "Nothin' like brute forcin' some magic."

 Milo North places his face into his hands, "You opened the magic box sayin' please dun open."

 Jancis Milburga: "And good we did." Her tone is sadder after the mention of gold dust.

 Tiergan Vashir visibly tenses up at this portion of the tale, shoulders locking. He glances back towards Jancis once before his jaw sets and he looks to Berrod again.

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "To be fair, at least we did it an' didn't die. Can't say if someone else woulda lived if they did the same."

 Berrod Armstrong rubbed at his face with one hand. "I'm glad I can just give the facts here now, because at the time it was confusin' as all hells. Breaker, as it turned out, had been jumped into by the Hartsald-wearer. It was a bad combination, because Breaker himself was fused with a prismatic crystal an' powerful as all hells. Not only that, but in tryin' to resist the thing tryin' to ride him, he unleashed -- well, a beast, is the best way to put it. Y'all would be interested to know that one Mountain Shadow showed up, yellin' at the team for openin' the coffin. He looked pretty chewed up. Even lost consciousness, I think."

 Cerina Borlaaq gave a very audible grunt of pure /disgust/ at the mention of Mountain, however, she didn't say anything about it.

 Orion Llewelyn finished off what remained of his drink.

 Berrod Armstrong: "We know now that Rookmin and Breaker had found the other twin -- Sumintra, which is when the...thing...jumped from her to him. Apparently Mountain was on their trail an' used that coffin thing to subdue the thing -- which we opened. Ah well. Anyroad...there was a fight. Details...don't matter. There was a fight that we won. Autgar managed to kill the thing...for good. Breaker was safe, though the twins were missin' still. Both of 'em this time."

 Jancis Milburga glances back at Martin briefly before gazing at Tiergan for awhile, silently echoing Berrod's words.

 Milo North: "Course he put a cryptic phrase on the fuckin box instead of, I dunno, -something explainin' exactly what was inside-."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Mountain got extracted from the area an' we dealt with the fallout as we always do. Got some blessed quiet for a while after that. We needed it."

 Louma'li Jinjahl: "An' he wrote it in ways that only people versed in an arcane science could understand. Coulda gotten better results with a slab o' wood an' some paint."

 Orion Llewelyn: "That's got me wonderin' though. It /was/ quiet for a good bit. Us meetin' here though..."

 Orion Llewelyn: "does that mean somethin's happened?"

Berrod Armstrong: "Quiet couldn't last, I suppose, 'cause who else came marchin' up to our gates a few weeks later but Mountain himself, with the balls to ask us to -leave it all to him-. Didn't need to consult leadership to outright refuse that, no matter how much I'd like to wash my hands o'this stuff." He smiled at Orion then, "I'll get to that in a lil bit."

 Milo North: "Really. Is "There is an awful monster in here, this box is keeping it from killing you. No touch.' So hard? Fuckin' Mountain."

 Orion Llewelyn: "Wait, he came /here?/ What'd he want?"

 Orion Llewelyn: "Oh well, I guess you just said that." he leaned back again, slightly less agitated.

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "To be fair... even if he wrote that people would have opened it."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Aye. We said no an'...he was uh, awfully gracious an' decided that in the event of our refusal, -he- would leave it entirely to -us- instead. Apparently it'd be one or the other, so long as it meant we no longer clashed. So he officially withdrew from the matter, an' shared with us some information, includin' the whereabouts of some missin' people. The scholar, the twins, an' the Astrologian."

 Mholi'to Valrei offered the room a brief wave as he walked over to an open spot to stand. He was quiet for now as to catch up on the current conversation.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Apparently he'd convinced them all to withdraw from the whole ordeal, an' has managed to keep 'em safe in his own way." There was an unconvinced shrug from him, but he went on, "He also handed over his prismatic crystal -- the Scholar's faerie. We have three samples now."

 Cerina Borlaaq: "So it is only a matter of time before he tries to swoop in again." She huffed. "We should have just cut him down when he showed up at our doorstep."

 Orion Llewelyn: "He gave ya his faerie...?" Orion bunched up his brow.

 Berrod Armstrong: "Hmn. Oh -- aye, though it turned back into a chunk o'pretty crystal when it left his side."

 Orion Llewelyn ran a hand along his jaw, pensively, saying nothing further.

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "Kindly keep murder plans to yerself. Mountain is a company owner of a known company and on the level in the terms of the governing bodies."

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "I don't feel like going infront of a judge again."

 Milo North: "I ain't sayin' anything about killin'. I'm thinkin' it real loudly though."

 Cerina Borlaaq: "I did not ask for your assistance, Sarij. But do not make this company bend to him again."

Berrod Armstrong: "Speakin' of which, couple folks from here parleyed with 'im an' made some requests, one o'which he granted." Very carefully did he pull an envelope from between the pages of the book he'd been reading his notes from. The envelope was handed across to Autgar, though in stretching to do so, Berrod held it dangerously close to the candle's flame. "Ah -- shite, whoops. There y'go."

 Bayan Dataq was starting to wonder why everyone was talking about some mountain. And why everyone hated a geographical feature.

 Natja Bafsk peers over at the envelope questioningly.

 Autgar Bloode plucked up the letter and held it infront of him on the table without a word.

 Dylan Skye: "...What is that, Autgar?"

 Orion Llewelyn leaned back forward, eyes shifting toward the envelope as well and then to Autgar.

 Orion Llewelyn: "Aye, what he said."

 Mholi'to Valrei took a few steps closer to Autgar to peek over the man's large shoulders out of curiosity.

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "I am saying.... stay the hells away from 'em and not deal wtih em, so if as ya think he tries tah get his fingers involved wit us... we got solid feet undah us rather than having the Immortal Flames kicking in the door again to arrest folks."

 Autgar Bloode elbowed Oli. "We can talk about it when were all caught up."

 Bayan Dataq 's eyes shot open, and then he looked to Orion for clarification. “What kind of company was this anyroad?"

 Mholi'to Valrei frowned as he was lightly jabbed. "Fine, fine," he grumbled. His curiosity still burned bright, but his eyes were forced back towards Sarij. "Honestly, the best thing to do in my opinion would be whatever the hells we intended to do before he showed up. Regardless of what he's offerin'. He smells like trouble."

 Louma'li Jinjahl looked on skeptically as this was unfolding. He didn't have history with Shadow, but at this rate, he was hating him just out of spite.

 Cerina Borlaaq: "That has certainly worked for us in the past when it comes to dealing with him, yes? Because he has not managed to weasel himself into the company, and out of what ever--" she waved her hand in front of her in frustration, "solid ground you are talking about. Figured you would know that better than anyone else."

 Sarij Rahzersyn: "This company is not a wetworks." Sarij replied simply. "Berrod feel free tah continue."

 Cerina Borlaaq scoffed loudly, but decided not to press on.

 Autgar Bloode was scanning over the letter before he returned it to the envelope and rested it on the table infront of him.

 Berrod Armstrong nodded at Autgar, then at Sarij. "I agree that we have to be careful. He's got a legitimate thing going an' -if- he means us ill, which I'll never rule out, he's gonna get us tangled up in a lotta legal shite before the final blow. Either way -- if he says he's out, I agree with Oli there...we press on like he's not around. Granted...it might mean followin' some of his...advice."

 Soyer Perera: "And what's wrong with that?"

 Jancis Milburga nods in agreement. "Coincidence."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Or rather, followin' his methods. He said that he wanted to dissipate the crystals by givin' their aether to the land -- it's why Breaker was put in that coffin, to drain him of the prismatic aether he'd been fused with -- and contain that thing inside him too."

 Soyer Perera: "Provided it doesn't harm anyone or the land itself--we have enough mages here to confirm if the method would actually put it back into the land, right?"

Mholi'to Valrei: "Then make sure that information is verified independently somewhere else. Facts are facts, regardless of who's sayin' it. Are you sure that it's the best method, all things considered?"

 Berrod Armstrong: "So we have three samples. I want us to begin lookin' into ways to gettin' these crystals smelted down into the land, for lack of a better term. Once we find a way to do it safely, that's how we'll handle any o' the prisms we come into contact with goin' forward."

 Berrod Armstrong: "Aye, those things are a menace in man's hands."

 Mholi'to Valrei nodded back. "A broken clock's right twice a day."

[drmannimal]

So you want to be a veterinarian...

Ask a handful of children what they want to be when they grow up and there’s a good chance that someone will say veterinarian. It has long been a dream career of many animal lovers, but is it right for you?

I fall into the “it’s all I’ve ever wanted to be” category. For as long as I can remember I was telling my parents that I was going to be a veterinarian. Human medicine? No, thank you. While I thought I had a pretty good understanding of veterinary medicine before I started veterinary school, I soon realized I didn’t know it all. That being said, veterinary medicine is definitely the right career for me. This post will go over the process of becoming a veterinarian, and the pros and cons of the job.

How do I become a Veterinarian?

To become a veterinarian, you must attend veterinary school. In North America, these programs are typically four years long. 

Pre-Veterinary School Depending on where you live, there are prerequisites you must complete before applying to veterinary school. Many programs require completion of a four year undergraduate degree, taking some specific required courses. Some schools only require 20 prerequisite undergraduate courses (two years) in order to apply. The admissions process is competitive so keeping competitive grades is advantageous, though a 4.0 is not necessary. Good, but not great, grades do not mean you’re immediately cast aside. There are other components to your application. Many applications include veterinary/animal experience and extra circulars. During high school and undergraduate you should participate in a variety of clubs and volunteer activities. This makes you a more well rounded applicant, and also can be quite enjoyable. Some examples: - volunteer at a veterinary clinic: I personally believe everyone should spend time in a veterinary clinic before applying to veterinary school, regardless of importance for application. This will allow you to see what the job actually involves. - volunteer at farms, wildlife clinics, SPCAs etc. - 4-H or similar. - Student government (leadership, communication). - Pre-vet society/club. - Any other club/society on campus, ie. biology society, GSA, yearbook etc. Some schools, especially in the USA, require letters of recommendation. The school may specify who they are looking for letters from (i.e. vet, professor, etc). Make sure you make positive connections with the people you work with in order to allow for a positive recommendation. Finally, standardized testing is required by most veterinary schools, specifically the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). More information about this can be found online.

As a Canadian student, you may only apply to your regional Canadian school, unless you would like to apply internationally. As an American student, you can apply to a large number of schools within your county. Research each school as many have specific areas of interest, different cost, different living style etc. After applying to veterinary school, many schools will then invite candidates for an interview. The type of interview varies depending on the school so make sure you look into the specifics of each school you will be interviewed at. Veterinary School I will give you specifics of my education as an example, though all veterinary schools differ. In general, be prepared for a lot of work. You will be taking many classes at once. For example, I was often taking 10 courses per semester. Many of these courses included a laboratory component.  A large number of classes equates to a large amount of home preparation and studying. Midterm season at my school was typically weeks long. The work load is certainly manageable, don’t let that alone scare you off, though it does take a lot of dedication and planning. The most important piece of advice I have in regards to course load is to make sure you still find time for yourself. Without taking care of yourself and constantly studying, you will burnout. My school had three years of course work, followed by one year of clinical practice. During the three pre-clinical years, we did have exposure to animals throughout labs and shifts in the clinic. We first perform surgery in third year under supervision of the course doctors. For the most part, the pre-clinical years followed a pretty general schedule (other than surgery duties). Starting class at 8 and being done by 4. There are opportunities outside of courses to get involved with clinical/medical activities. Veterinary school have a large variety of clubs that may offer these extra opportunities - ie. pathology club necropsies, exotic animal club medical producers, internal medicine club cadaver labs... There may be opportunity with a local stray spay/neuter program through your school to get extra experience with surgery as well. Clinical year is a whole new ball game. At my school the year was broken into three week segments. Each segment you are placed somewhere new - i.e.. three weeks in the surgery department, three weeks in radiology, three weeks at an external clinic of your choosing... This year takes you away form the classroom and puts you into “doctor” mode. Keep in mind that each veterinary school operates on a different schedule (some introducing clinical earlier in the program) and that this is my personal experience. What your duties are will depend on the school as well. During my clinical year, student are involved in client communication, history taking, diagnostic planning, treatment administration, clinical skills, participation in surgery, etc. All under direct supervision. The hours for this portion of schooling are not predictable and definitely do not run 8-4. Many placements include after hours care of the patients, on-call work, lengthly paperwork, etc. All while studying for the dreaded NAVLE. Even though it was often dreadful, clinical year was my favourite year of veterinary school. Everything started to come together and honestly, it was a lot of fun.

NAVLE In North America, in order to practice veterinary medicine, you must past the licensing examination, the NAVLE. This is a 360 question multiple choice test that encompasses everything you have studied throughout veterinary school. Your school will help you apply and register when the time comes. You will technically be preparing for the NAVLE all of veterinary school but will specifically study for it in your final year. There are preparatory courses that you may purchase and your school may host review classes. The test is written in December and April.

So those are the cliff-notes of how to become a veterinarian. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, would like clarification or would like me to go further into detail.

So after all of that, what are the pros and cons?

Lets not beat around the bush, starts with the cons:

Debt - veterinary school is NOT cheap and the income does not match the level of debt obtained. The majority of students will graduate with $100,000-$200,000+ in debt. This is not unmanageable, though it can be daunting. 

Extensive training - veterinary school is not easy, and it is not for everyone. You will need to be knowledgeable about many species and many subjects. 

Working with owners - “I want to be a vet because I don’t like people”, just no. This is a customer service career. You will speak to people every day. You will have to convince people to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on their pets. You will get yelled at, told you’re in it for the money, probably threatened at some point. 

Working within a budget - unlike human doctors, we really need to think about the cost of each and every thing we do. You will often have owners come in with $100 dollars to their name and a very sick animal, you need to figure out what the options are in each instance.

Euthanasia - many people find this one of the more difficult parts of the job. I personally believe it’s how you look at it. Euthanasia can be a wonderful gift. I do not euthanize healthy animals.

Work-place hazards - our patients can be aggressive and difficult to handle. This is often due to stress or being scared, but it is a danger to veterinary staff. You need to understand how to read signals and prevent dangerous situations from happening. Veterinarians are also exposed to chemicals, radiation, heavy lifting etc.

Hours - depending on where you work, the hours can be gruelling. Not everyone has the luxury of a 40 hour work week. We often stay late (for no extra pay) finishing cases, tending to patients, calling clients, doing paperwork, etc. Many veterinarians must perform on-call duties. This may lead to 2 hours of sleep between shifts.

Responsibility - every decision we make is life or death. The type of drug, the dose, surgery, etc. The job carries a huge amount of responsibility that can be very stressful for certain people.

Ok, so despite all of that, I’m still a veterinarian. I still love my job. Why?

Debt - yes, I have a huge amount of debt. Is it manageable, yes. There are many people in the world who have more debt than me. I hate that its becoming normal for people to have debt, but it is.

Extensive training - vet school sucked, but it was also awesome. I know so much about so many things. I’m proud of the level of knowledge I gained while in vet school. I’m proud of the person I have become through my extensive training.

Working with owners - the vast majority of my clients are absolutely wonderful. There are owners that light up my day, that I look forward to talking to, that remind me how much I love my job. We have many lovely reviews written about us, cards sent in, treats brought in for staff etc. For every person that gets mad at me for cost, there are many more that are understanding and work with me to find a solution within their budget

Working within a budget - this is a con no matter what way you look at it, though I can say that when you’re willing to work with owners and help them within their means, they are often very thankful. There are many cases you can help within a tight budget.

Euthanasia - I tell every owner that euthanasia is a gift. We get to take away pain and suffering. This makes it much easier for me to deal with this on a daily basis.

Work-place hazards - proper training and education can help minimize hazards. Low stress handling, proper restraint etc.

Hours - not every job has horrible hours. I work, on average 40 hours a week. Some days I stay a little late to finish up, but it usually doesn't bother me. Yes, I do on-call but it is not very often. I have a great work life balance. You need to take this into consideration when looking for a job.

Responsibility - you get to call the shots, you get to save lives, help pets, help owners. You do not have to do it alone. There are so many resources out there to help. It’s definitely scary and daunting the first few years out, but its also very satisfying. Confidence grows day by day.

You get to live you dream job.

You get to be a part of an amazing team that shares the same goals as you.

You get to impact the lives of so many people and their pets.

You get to be an ambassador of the animals.

You get to go to work and learn something new every single day.

So, still think veterinary medicine is for you? Reach for the stars <3

[georgiagallagherixd]

Laws of UX / Miller’s Law

This week we were introduced to another of the Laws of UX. In 1956 there was a paper written that became one of the most highly cited papers in psychology. Titled, The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information, it was published in 1956 by the cognitive psychologist George A. Miller of Princeton University’s Department of Psychology in Psychological Review.

The crux of the paper suggests that the number of perceptual ‘chunks’ an average human can hold in working memory (a component of short-term memory) is 7 ± 2. This is frequently referred to as Miller’s law.

What we should take from this 

Don’t use the “magical number seven” to justify unnecessary design limitations.

Organise content into smaller chunks to help users process, understand, and memorise easily.

Remember that short-term memory capacity will vary per individual, based on their prior knowledge and situational context.

An article by Jeff Davidson titled The Most Important Rule in UX Design that Everyone Breaks really helped me to understand the whole concept of Miller’s law. 

Millers Law highlights the importance of foresight and proper planning in the design process, because as you add more features to a product — your interface must be able to accommodate those new features without breaking the visual foundation of what you built.

The more chunks of information you add to an ‘interface’, the more difficult it becomes to ‘work’, using the information at hand. This is especially critical for first time users, because they haven’t had the ‘practice’ needed to encode the interface into long term memory, or, for the behaviour to become habitual.

Since new users do not have lengthly time to learn where everything is,  information design needs to be planned and well thought out before development happens.

[faithfulnews]

ANZABS 2018 program and abstracts

ANZABS CONFERENCE 2018

6-7 December, 2018

Venue: Wesley Hall, Trinity Methodist College, 202A St Johns Rd, Meadowbank, Auckland 1072 Thursday 6 December 9.30 am – REGISTRATION 10.00-10.10 – mihi 10.10-11.00 – Keynote speaker: Robert Myles – Fishing for Eyewitnesses in the Fourth Gospel 11.00-11.30 – Morning tea 11.30-12.00 – Lyndon Drake – Economic Capital in the Hebrew Bible 12.00-12.30 – Anne Aalbers – Resurrection and Celibacy: Two Sides of the Same Coin? 12.30-1.00 – Jonathan Robinson – "And he was with the beasts," (Mark 1:13): Ambiguity, Interpretation and Mark as a Jewish Author 1.00-2.00 – Lunch 2.00-2.30 – Ben Hudson – Ethical Exhortation and the Decalogue in Ephesians 2.30-3.00 – Csilla Saysell – The Servant as 'a covenant of/for people' in Deutero-Isaiah 3.00-3.30 – Afternoon tea 3.30-4.00 – Jacqueline Lloyd – Did Jesus minister in Gaulanitis? 4.00-4.30 – Mark Keown – Jesus as the New Joshua 4.30 – AGM Friday 7 December 9.30-10.00 – Ben Ong – Pākehā Reading of the New Testament 10.00-10.30 – Jordan Chapman – Nero as “The Destroyer” in Revelation 9:11 10.30-11.00 – Morning tea 11.00-11.30 – Sarah Hart – The Rich–Poor Divide: Seeking Biblical Directives 11.30-12.00 – Paul Trebilco – What does Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, tell us about the Christians in Ephesus at the close of the second century CE? 12.00-12.30 – Ross Millar – Narrative of the discourses: the introductory settings of Matthew’s teaching discourses 12.30-1.00 – Deane Galbraith – Jeremiah Wrote an Epilogue, And It Once Had a Mighty Fine Whine: The Original Prophecy of Unmitigated Doom in Jeremiah 25.1-13Lunch 1.00-2.00 – Lunch 2.00-2.30 – Stephen Gerbault – The Gospel of John, David F. Ford, and Reading in the Spirit 2.30-3.00 – Philip Church – “In Speaking of a New Covenant, God Declares the First Obsolete” (Heb 8:13): Supersessionism in the Book of Hebrews 3.00-3.30 – Julia van den Brink, “Blessed God”: The use of μακάριος to describe God in 1 Tim 1:11; 6:15 3.30-4.00 – Rikk Watts – The Stronger one and the dove: Revisiting two discarded images. 4.00 – closing words and karakia. Afternoon tea and chat for those who wish to stay. Registration To cover catering costs, there will be a registration fee for ANZABS 2018: Student/lower income presenters - $20 Student/lower income attendees - $40 Everyone else - $80 Please pay this registration fee in cash, on the day. To sign up for attending the conference, please register here: https://goo.gl/forms/Cs3yPj8xJQEmWQel1 Full abstracts are below. Abstracts Anne Aalbers, University of Auckland Resurrection and Celibacy: Two Sides of the Same Coin? In this paper I am proposing that, integral to religious belief in the first century, sexual abstinence – or celibacy – was the assumed status of the resurrected. I will discuss not only familiar NT texts but also some evidence of Jewish ascetic practice such as that which comes to us from the texts of the Judaean Desert. Greek and Latin historical sources, as well as insight available to us from common proto-gnostic attitudes, reveal a consistent cultural understanding of celibacy in the eschaton. Such diverse sources of support for the idea would suggest that, in any record of the account of the resurrected Jesus, the Gospel writers would assume this to be the case. In my PhD thesis I am proposing that John’s Gospel shows full consistency with this expectation and that Jesus’ puzzling prohibition to Mary Magdalene, not to touch him while he is still embodied before ascension (20:17), is motivated by this understanding. Julia van den Brink, Laidlaw College ‘Blessed God’: The use of μακάριος to describe God in 1 Tim 1:11; 6:15 Blessing statements using μακάριος are scattered throughout the Septuagint (LXX) and the New Testament (NT). Most are found in beatitudes (e.g. blessed are the poor, Luke 6:20). In the diverse uses of μακάριος across the LXX and NT, there appears to be one rule for its use: it is never used to describe God. While God may be described as ‘blessed’ using εὐλογητος, he is not praised with μακάριος. There are, however, two noticeable exceptions: 1 Timothy 1:11 and 6:15. In this paper, I will explore some possible explanations for why the author of 1 Timothy has seemingly broken with tradition and described God using μακάριος. Jordan Chapman, University of Otago Nero as ‘The Destroyer’ in Revelation 9:11 The angel of the abyss in Revelation 9:11 is given two names, both of which mean, ‘The Destroyer.’ Most commentators note that an allusion to the Greco-Roman deity Apollo can be seen in the Greek name of the angel, but fail to develop its significance. Epigraphical and literary sources attest to Nero's self-association with Apollo, and the Nero-like traits of the Beast later in Revelation (13, 17) make an Apollo-Nero allusion probable. In evoking Nero in Revelation 9, John fleshes out the nature of idolatry in the chapter and foreshadows his use of Nero-like qualities for the Beast. Philip Church, Laidlaw College ‘In Speaking of a New Covenant, God Declares the First Obsolete’ (Heb 8:13): Supersessionism in the Book of Hebrews In the 2000 edition of his Hebrews commentary Robert Gordon claimed that Hebrews was supersessionist. In the second edition (2008) he added an eighteen page defence of that claim. Since Hebrews was written by an ethnic Jew to ethnic Jews, and since the argumentation is drawn from the Jewish Greek Scriptures, the critique of the Jewish cult is an internal critique, the seeds of which were sown in those Scriptures. The former covenant anticipated the new, and what it anticipated is now a reality. Now that the reality has come, what anticipated it has been fulfilled and is no longer necessary. This is fulfilment rather than supersession. Lyndon Drake, Oxford University Economic Capital in the Hebrew Bible In Genesis 2:17, God prohibits eating fruit from ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.’ Commentators are divided about the reason for the prohibition and its related sanction, with some (for example, James Barr) even arguing that God acts unethically. I propose that eating from the tree functions within the narrative world of the text as an archetypal, negative example of comprehensive consumption in the face of plenty. Or, conversely, Adam and Eve lack appropriate restraint. Other biblical texts, particularly a number of economic regulations in the law codes, present restraint rather than complete consumption as a divinely-approved virtue. By contrast, the Adapa story and the Gilgamesh epic both present the restraint of primeval humans as foolishness. I argue that the virtue of restraint presented in Genesis 2 functions as a unifying principle for a number of biblical texts which address economic issues. Deane Galbraith, University of Otago Jeremiah Wrote an Epilogue, And It Once Had a Mighty Fine Whine: The Original Prophecy of Unmitigated Doom in Jeremiah 25.1-13 Jeremiah's prophecies dated before the Judahite exile of 597 BCE predict complete devastation for the land of Judah, the elimination of any remnant within its cities, and no hope of return for exiles. For Jeremiah, the ‘prophet of doom’, hope was something that only (pseudo-)prophets offered. Yet many have challenged this picture, pointing to the prophecies of hope in the various final forms of the book of Jeremiah. This paper finds support for a pre-597 ‘prophet of [unmitigated] doom’ in LXX Jer 25.1-13, when read against the tyranny of the (Masoretic) canon. In LXX Jer 25.1-13, Jeremiah composed an epilogue of hopelessness, without expectation of any future for Judahites, without any knowledge of the Oracles against the Nations, and without expectation of punishment for Babylon. Stephen C. Gerbault, Laidlaw College, Alphacrucis College The Gospel of John, David F. Ford, and Reading in the Spirit How is the church to read the Gospels? In a review essay on Richard B. Hays’ 2016 book, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, David Ford (2017) suggests that John is offering a creative ‘reading forwards’ paradigm for reading Scripture. This paper hopes to explore what is meant by reading forwards and how it relates to Hays’ reading backwards. It will then conclude with brief suggestions for reading the Gospels in the Spirit. Sarah Hart, Good Shepherd College, Te Hepara Pai ‘The Rich–Poor Divide: Seeking Biblical Directives’ What perspectives does the Bible offer regarding the economic gap between the rich and poor? Are analyses or directives of a rich-poor divide discernible in the biblical literature? These two questions focus the choice of biblical passages and secondary sources. Principal texts for the discussion are Jubilee Year and Land Tenure (Lev 25), Naboth’s Vineyard (1 Kgs 21), and selected texts from the prophetic writings (Is 5:7; Am 6:4-7). Secondary sources include the work of Rainer Albertz and Samuel Adams. Ben Hudson, University of Otago Ethical Exhortation and the Decalogue in Ephesians This paper will argue that the paraenesis of Ephesians (Eph 4:17-6-9) is structured so as to reflect the second table of the Decalogue. The lengthly exhortations are attended by a series of allusions and echoes which evoke the scriptural commandments concerning parents, adultery, stealing, murder, false testimony and covetousness, in reverse order. Noticing this extended engagement with the Decalogue in which Gentile Christ-believers are exhorted to a way of live shaped by scriptural commandments contributes to resolving a number of puzzles in Ephesians including; accounting for the relationship between the two halves of the letter, discerning the letter’s purpose, and interpreting the difficult phrase τὸν νόμον τῶν ἐντολῶν ἐν δόγμασιν καταργήσας (he abolished the law of commandments in decrees, Eph 2:15). Mark Keown, Laidlaw College Jesus as the New Joshua It is common in NT studies to hear Jesus considered in regards to Messiah (Christ), Lord, Son of Man, Son of David, the Prophet, Son of God, new Moses, and so on. Yet, it is extremely rare to find Jesus considered as the New Joshua. In this paper, I will argue that God’s choice of name for his Son suggests that this is as essential an OT connection as Jesus as Christ and Son of Man, the two ideas that dominate the Gospel narratives. He is after all named by God as Joshua. To understand Jesus, he must be considered as the Second Joshua. Jacqueline Lloyd, Laidlaw College Did Jesus minister in Gaulanitis? References to Gaulanitis are absent in the Gospels. Consequently, Jesus’ ministry in Gaulanitis is largely ignored by New Testament scholars. However, the Synoptic Gospels do state that Jesus ministered in Bethsaida, which has been identified with Et-Tell in the central Golan, a region roughly corresponding to ancient Gaulanitis. In this paper I will argue that Jesus probably did minister in Gaulanitis. I will also argue that the reason there is no mention of this in the Gospels is because the Jewish people living in first-century Judaea considered Gaulanitis to be a part of Galilee. Ross Millar, Laidlaw College Narrative of the discourses: The introductory settings of Matthew’s teaching discourses Matthew is often divided into narrative and teaching sections, with the end of each teaching discourse beginning marked by the literary formula, ‘when Jesus had finished saying [all] these things...’ Each of these discourses begins with a narrative introduction and the settings and characters of these narrative introductions will be examined for patterns. The ways Matthew uses these opening phrases to outline the differing relationships crowds and disciples have with Jesus will be explored. Robert Myles, Murdoch University Fishing for Eyewitnesses in the Fourth Gospel John 18:15–16 mentions an unknown disciple of Jesus who ‘was known to the high priest�� giving him access to the events in Caiaphas’s courtyard. A minority of scholars maintain the identity of this disciple is consistent with John, the son of Zebedee, whom they also maintain was the author of the Fourth Gospel. To support this position, the commonplace fiction of entrepreneurial Galilean fishermen belonging to an aspiring ‘middle-class’ is asserted. This paper reviews the arguments and suggests that a more rigorous account of the agrarian political-economic relation in the ancient world demonstrates the implausibility of such a scenario. Ben Ong, University of Otago Pākehā Reading of the New Testament The contextuality of the scholar dictates the analysis of their work. ‘Pākehā’ exist due to their relationship with hau kāinga, true home people, in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu. This relationship inherently influences the contextuality of the person and, therefore, the scholar. Few contextual biblical studies works exist in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu, this paper proposes a possible contextual methodology on the basis of relational identity granted in Te Tiriti o Waitangi for biblical studies, allowing for critical dialogue between ‘traditional’ analytical methods and the non-Māori scholar’s understanding of te ao Māori, the Māori world. Ka tino aweawetia te tātaritanga o ō rātou mahi e te ao horopaki o te tangata mātauranga. Nā te hau kāinga Māori te noho o ngā iwi Pākehā i roto i Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu. Ka aweawe tēnei piringa i te horopaki o te tangata me te tangata mātauranga. He mahingia horopaki itiiti o mātai Paipera Tapu ērā i roto i Aotearoa me Te Waipounamu. Kei raro i Te Tiriti o Waitangi, ka whakaaria tēnei pūrongo i tētahi tikanga i mātai Paipera Tapu, ka taea te kōrero tātaritanga te hanga i waenganui i te kōrero tātari o tikanga Pākehā me tētahi Pākehā mōhiotanga o te ao Māori. Jonathan Robinson, University of Otago ‘And he was with the beasts,’ (Mark 1:13): Ambiguity, Interpretation and Mark as a Jewish Author James Dunn, in his seminal 1980 work, Christology in the Making, wrote, ‘We should not underestimate the Jewish hermeneutical readiness to read as much into the text as possible.’ Yet it may be observed that when it comes to interpreting texts from the 1st century Jewish sect known today as early Christianity the impulse of Dunn and others is sometimes to read as little into the text as possible. This paper will explore this tendency and its ramifications using Mark 1:13 as a test case, before arguing for a ‘maximal’ exegesis of this remarkably ambiguous yet evocative phrase. Csilla Saysell, Carey Baptist College The Servant as 'a covenant of/for people' in Deutero-Isaiah In the context of the Servant Songs, Deutero-Isaiah twice uses the phrase ‘a covenant of/for people’ (berit ‘am – Isa 42:6; 49:8), a construct chain that has puzzled commentators for a long time. The exact relationship between the two parts of the chain is hard to work out and the referent for both the covenant (Noahic? Mosaic? something else?) and the people (humanity? Israel?) is obscure. This research explores the different options for interpreting this enigmatic phrase in order to throw light on the Servant’s mission and its implications for the NT. Paul Trebilco, University of Otago What does Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, tell us about the Christians in Ephesus at the close of the second century CE? Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History 5.23.1, quotes a letter by Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, written around 190CE. In the letter Polycrates defends the practice of concluding the Paschal fast on Nisan 14. Polycrates shows that Christians in Asia Minor were in the habit of celebrating Easter at the same time as Jews celebrated the Pascha, regardless of what day of the week Nisan 14 fell on. In this letter, Polycrates gives us some very valuable information about Christians in Ephesus at the close of the second century, including details relating to leadership, traditions, the relationship between Ephesus and other churches and the Ephesian church’s relationship with the local Jewish communities. Rikk Watts, Regent College The Stronger One and the Dove: Revisiting Two Discarded Images. In spite of initially appearing somewhat conventional, ascertaining the identity and significance of “the coming stronger one” and the symbolism behind the “descending dove” in Mark’s prologue has proven surprisingly difficult. This paper will review the range of options, assess their strengths and weaknesses, and indicate why there is little agreement. It will argue for a reinstatement of the two options—Yahweh and Israel—which nearly all commentators early on cite and yet immediately exclude. On the basis of some previously uncited material along with a fuller appreciation of how they function in Israel’s tradition, the paper will suggest that their rejection was precipitous and that reinstating them makes better sense of their place in the context of Mark’s narrative overall.

Go to the article

[cherryvanillamilkshakes-blog]

Thunderstorms

It was a Friday; I was wearing a long white dress; there was a faded patch of fake tan on it from when I was rushing to get ready in time; I had long dark hair with super blonde ends; I was in my grandparent’s garden; I was surrounded by friends who I mostly don’t see anymore; there was a beer pong table set up: game after game. I was consumed with Smirnoff double blacks. My 16th birthday.

I waited around for people to arrive at my grandparents house on this Friday evening. They were so kind to allow me to host my birthday there, although I was paranoid about my drunk friends messing up my grandmother’s garden that she has poured her heart and soul into for most of her life. People slowly began to arrive and the night began like any other get together does: a game of King’s Cup that never seems to be that fun. It was due to be light for hours, those particular summer nights in February where the transition between light and dark continues for so long that you don’t even realise when it’s complete.

A wave of surprise, excitement and relief hit me all at once when my dear friend James walked into the garden from the deck - the entrance in and out of the house. Although he had clicked going on my event, I had messaged him two days earlier asking if he would be attending my birthday and he didn’t reply to me. We had a small argument over text one week prior. I knew - just by looking at him - all was forgotten. The argument was history, it was my birthday and James didn’t want to miss it. He was here and we were okay. We exchanged a hug and he sat down with me and the small group of my friends who were also here - about 5 of us in total. It was still early, the darkness was nowhere to be felt. Topics of discussion included his birthday (which was only the day before), he told us that he found full bottles of abandoned liquor and took them; he mentioned his new job at Topshop that was due to commence soon; we spoke for a moment about the recent loss of his beautiful boyfriend Matai; we played King’s Cup. James got the King card, he drank it all back - he was a professional.

The night grew, but it mostly grew into a big blur, as I find most nights do. By now, everyone had arrived. Photos were being taken; people were creeping off in miniature groups to smoke weed in deserted places; the music was playing off a portable speaker; James was smoking cigarettes. There weren’t many lights in the garden, so when nighttime finally spilled into the sky we had to move the beer pong table from the grass onto a slab of concrete by an outside light, so that the players could focus. James discussed how he was planning to move to Wellington. He seemed excited about this.

Time caught up to us and the night came to a close. I was sitting on a picnic table in the garden with my best friends, feeling anything but sober - but I was happy. James came up to us and asked if we wanted to stay the night. I don’t recall why it didn’t work out, but it was alright because he said he wanted to go home and see his older brother. We said we would see each other soon, we hugged goodbye.

After saying thank you and goodbye to my family, I left my own birthday at my grandparents house. Danielle, Fay, Fran and I all departed together, heading to the McDonalds drive through for an essential greasy feed, laughing and joking together the whole way back to Danielle’s as the date rolled from the 20th to the 21st. 

-- 

Vibrations woke us all up. I don’t know how, but I knew what had happened before my eyes even opened. All four of us were crammed in Danielle’s bed. We each awoke. Danielle climbed out of bed and reached to her phone, we missed the call. 

“Shannon called me.” 

This confirmed everything that I knew I already knew. Silence screamed. We all knew.

As Danielle texted James’ best friend Shannon, we huddled around Danielle’s phone together, riddled with dread. 

“James is with Matai now.” 

I screamed, mainly because I didn’t know how else to respond. Fran fell into quiet tears; Danielle ran to her mother; Fay left the room and called her family.

We didn’t know how to cry, because it wasn’t real. We had seen him just last night and he seemed happy. After the loss of Matai, James would cry out loud and scream and bleed his hurt and we could all see it. Last night I couldn’t see pain. 

One of the most significant things I recall about the tragedy was the support from everybody that immediately poured in as people began to find out about James. People who did know James well, and people who didn’t know James well. Multiple messages from people trying to express their sincerest condolences flooded in just hours later. The words people sent felt see-through and false, I tried my hardest to show appreciation for everyone’s kind messages, but my replies just felt empty and strange no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t process anything, I would send love hearts and sad faces but I didn’t feel any love or sadness, because I was numb. 17 years of age only by two short days and gone. 

Shock is undoubtedly one of the most unexplainable and overwhelming emotions. It’s something you can acknowledge only in the moment of experiencing it, trying to recount exactly what it feels like simply isn’t possible. It’s like being in a dull dream. Not a nightmare because there’s too much emotion in nightmares; but a colourless and lengthly dream that you desperately want to wake up from, yet when you do, that same atmosphere stalks you all day.

Having to call our friends that morning and tell them the horrible news was burdensome; particularly because I couldn’t process it myself, let alone deliver the heartbreak to other friends who adored James. There was no easy way to say it, I just had to say it. I remember calling Annie and telling her, I could tell that my voice sounded so plain, but I still couldn’t cry real tears. Even when the words left my mouth and I heard it aloud for the first time, it still didn’t seem real. It felt like I was being told what to say and the words were just flowing out of my mouth, like a practiced routine. 

On the day of the tragedy, we all stuck together and remained at Danielle’s house on Finnerty Avenue. Friends arrived with eyes full of tears, minds full of confusion and hearts full of sorrow. We all hugged and sat together, they brought mattresses with them so we could all be together for the whole night. James had only moved out of Danielle’s house a few weeks earlier. The house was still painted with memories of him, and it was painful.

I spent the night looking through James’ tumblr, surrounded by everybody. We were listening to James’s favourite songs, some of us were sitting on the floor of Danielle’s bedroom and some of us were crying. There was a post that read ‘I am weak and I am sorry’. It was written in the early AM, and it was the last post James made on his tumblr. I looked through photos of him and cried out loud, the first time tears had uncontrollably spilled from my eyes that devastating day. Fay, Mason and I slept in the same bed that night and fell asleep listening to Phoenix by A$AP Rocky and Idle by Spooky Black, silent tears trickling. 

The morning after was so hard. The shock was alive yet James was not. I thought that he would message us or come over or be active online. I was just waiting for something - anything. Because it just couldn’t possibly be real, and know I keep saying that, but there’s truly no other way of describing how I was feeling.

Over the duration of the next few days I was surrounded by so many beautiful friends, all who were experiencing the same grief as each other. This made it slightly bearable. We were there for each other from the morning to the nighttime. We didn’t go to school, except for one day where we spent most of the time in the counsellor’s office colouring in. I saw my favourite teacher Miss Walsh who knew both James and Matai through her younger sister; she hugged me and asked me why I was even at school. The school granted us the week off.

We visited James’ parents often throughout the week and watched his mother’s heart shatter, she was in a world of pain and desperately wanted her baby boy back. We sat in James’s room and looked through his belongings, reminiscing and missing him. His phone was next to his bed with missed calls and messages and his Doc Martens were still in the middle of his bedroom from when he took them off last. We came across his suicide note in his journal, the final line reading “I’ll see you when you’re old and grey.” 

We saw James a few days prior to the funeral. His casket was white and was placed in the lounge of the Taylor’s house, surrounded by flowers. It took us awhile to build up the courage to see our friend. We had each other though - so we were strong. We looked at him, cried to him, touched him, kissed him, spoke to him. 

The funeral was held on the Thursday, and the night before Fay, Shannon and I stayed in James’ bedroom overnight. I wanted to be as close as possible to his spirit. I wanted to feel him around me, but I couldn’t. 

The morning of the funeral I said goodbye to James’ physical being. I sat in the lounge alone and told him what I needed to tell him, and I hoped and prayed that he would hear me. James’ mother made green tea and pressed a drop onto his lips, crying. 

I felt plastic throughout the whole funeral. I didn’t know how to express true emotion because it felt so fictional to me. After the service, I hugged Angela for awhile - a close friend of James’. People were lingering in the church and outside the hearse was getting ready to depart. I scrambled to get out of the door so I could place a flower on the coffin and say a final goodbye. I managed to do so but couldn’t see my friends anywhere. They were still inside, having conversations and stuck behind the cluster of people. I watched it drive away. 

We drank wine and let off lanterns that night at Shannon’s house, two colourful flames that floated into the sea of stars. We wrote messages to both James and Matai, expressing that we were deeply devastated that two of the most amazing people we had all ever met were no longer with us, and we questioned how we could possibly go on without aching from how much we love and miss them. We also told them that we were at a sense of peace knowing they would be reunited again. The lanterns cooperated beautifully and side by side, rose into the night sky. We stood together and Mason yelled out “We love you James” to the lanterns, then we all started yelling too. We watched and watched and watched, until the flames flickered away into the horizon, never to be seen again.

Eventually, the messages and visits stopped, the school was no longer granting us excusable time off, time was progressing and James still was not here. People were living their lives normally again. The shock slowly wore off and welcomed grief instead, and it was real now. Our friend group expanded and continued to stick together, remembering our beautiful friends who left us too soon. We supported one another at all times whenever we needed it, it is still needed to this day. 

I had so many regrets and unanswered questions for so long, I always will. What if we had stayed with James that night? Did he plan all along to do it that particular night? Did I say the right thing at his funeral? Is he mad that I didn’t cry when I spoke at his service? Is he mad at me for any other things I’ve said or done? Was I a bad friend to him? Does he know how much I love him, and does he love me back? Is he safe? 

For so long I felt as if the only way I could reach out to James was through social media, because if I spoke out loud he might not hear me, and it wasn’t enough to just keep him in my thoughts, he needed to know. I wrote about him on the bathroom wall at school. People would write horrible anonymous jokes about him on Yik Yak, I would respond and get angry. One day we were all at Danielle’s house, and Fran was crying because someone wrote on the ridiculous anonymous app that I posted pictures of James for attention. So I cried too, because I didn’t want to be viewed that way, I just didn’t know how else to express my sorrow. 

Time is a saviour but it’s also an enemy too. I think about James all the time and the same regrets are still tucked away in my soul; but I no longer cry whenever I think about him, and I don’t beat myself up over what I did or didn’t do. I was so afraid of getting used to it because I didn’t want to forget. I look at the last messages I sent to James on Facebook when I asked if he was coming to my birthday and they haven’t delivered, they used to say seen. It’s been too long. 

I reminisce on times we shared. I need to remember everything. Back when we were 13 and 14 years old and shopping in Auckland City op shops seeking out the most indie looking clothes we could secure; the nights where Danielle and James lived in the little house on Clovelly Road; the weekend Danielle and James moved into Finnerty Avenue and Fay, Fran and I helped them move, we had no wifi for two days so we christened the house by smoking and laughing, James had a cigarette in one hand and a joint in the other; the melancholy I felt through the grip of James’ hand as he clutched mine on the way to Matai’s funeral. I try to remember every single memory I’ve shared with James, but it’s not enough. No amount of time spent with him would have ever been enough. 

The death of my special friend James brought myself and my friends some severely dark times, each of us were fighting a battle for so long, and the battle scars are still carved into us, where they will stay forever. The strength and determination to carry on that I witnessed from my wonderful friends was beyond admirable, I love them with all my heart. Although this cloud is more of a thunderstorm, the silver lining is contemporary; I learnt about the importance of caring for others and what they are going through, the need to tell your friends just how much you love them, and to always be prepared for life’s endless and unforeseen possibilities. I will never stop missing James, but I know I’ll see him again when I’m old and grey; and his hands will still be soft, his hair will still replicate perfection and his eyes will still be big, dark and beautiful.

[souichipresents]

Souichi Presents: [REDACTED] For Your Enjoyment

TKyahaha! Welcome, welcome back to Souichi Presents! YOUR the one stop shop for 90% Junji Itou based reviews, with a 10% error bar of “whatever thing with horror or monsters in it your humble author happens to have consumed recently.” AND TODAY IS NO DIFFERENT! With my triumphant return, I happen to feel like covering a unusual subject. Something distinctly less... picture oriented. 

A little more paperwork oriented. Indeed, I speak only of....

THE SCP FOUNDATION 

As far as horror online goes, the SCP foundation practically needs no introduction. The premise is full of delicious hooks: a government agency who’s sole job is to find, catalogue, and as needed isolate “strange thingS” in the world, to protect the common population from them. All of the main writing on the site follows the specific structure of in-fiction files, using structured forms and terminology. The subject matter can vary from the apocalyptic to abstractly innocuous, living humans to living... somethings. 

Reading enough of them begins to paint a larger picture; other factions and groups involved with these items creations from the distinctly un-child friendly “Dr. Wondertainment” products, to the rich-catering dealers in terrifying strangeness Marshal, Carter and Dark. 

The appeal to me of SCP is- well probably a little too lengthly for an introduction~ But in short, I actually adore the feeling of... mundanity they seem to contain. Minutia, tests, paperwork. Normal people working an incredibly terrifying, dangerous, strange job. I like when the things they find aren’t... necessarily made to be understood. Things in horror often feel like they’re MADE for you. A understandable story is presented to you. 

But sometimes, you just have to appreciate the idea of something completely breaking our concept of reality as we know it and not giving a damn if it’s at all coherent. Fuck you, here’s a cows heart on crab legs that talks in a british accented word salad, and its trying to kill you. Horribly. Why? They have no idea. But they do know if they keep it in several feet of iron and concrete, and feed it a cow every few days, they can keep it’s hideous stinger away from YOU. 

With all that said, I don’t want to tread old ground: Nobody needs to be told that the vending machine that dispenses increasingly obtuse snacks possibly from vastly different universes then ours is awesome. So instead I spent awhile hitting up the archive at random, selecting entries I feel represent my favorite concepts in the site that were *new* to me. Let’s see what I dredged from the archives on an absolutely forged security clearance starting with.... 

SCP 1860; “It’s Bleeding Song”

I’ll never say that an SCP *needs* pictures; in my opinion many, many entries fly on the strength of written descriptions. Besides which, if you recognize what a SCP’s image actually is (say, a decomposing whale) it can remove some of the punch. BUT I’ll say this one’s image really puts the hooks in, especially as soon as it becomes clear that it’s... not dangerous. 

Instead, it’s just strange, and... sad. I find this sadder and more troubling then some of the more human SCP. Something about seeming ike a constructed item- about how it CAN communicate, but just doesn’t... care to? It leaves mysterious holes you can just glimpse pieces of a strange, sad story through. It also doesn’t have *too* much to it-really on the whole we’re seeing three ieas, and it sticks firmly to it. 

Not to say there can’t be complicated SCPs, but it can get a little unwieldy. This is an example of an SCP with a strong thesis. 

SCP 889; “Hybridization”

Once again this is a technically nonlethal item, but it’s also... much much more disquieting. Not just because of what it does, which is introduced hilarious DND style hybridization rules to the ‘real world’, but because it exists. It exists, and you have to think about the idea that someone MADE it. 

Also whoever wrote this was a master of the backburner scare; dropping a detail in the containment procedure that doesn’t click until you’ve read a lot further down the page: “. If any prokaryotes are discovered exhibiting the effect of SCP-889, or if any staff members contract an unusual illness, SCP-889 is to be incinerated and sealed indefinitely. All staff members and equipment are to be decontaminated fully”

Prokaryotes, aka single celled organisms. That’s a fun thought. Super fun. Not the worst thing I’ve ever heard at all. 

SCP 956; “The Child Breaker”

Alright so. I’ll be honest with you guys. I really just. Think a living pinat that beats people open till they launch candy made out of their organs to be deeply hilarious. That’s on me. In theory this is a stupid, stupid, goofy idea. But if you’ve read my reviews before you probably know that I adore horror letting it’s self be silly. Goofy, odd things can be more terrifying then ‘serious’ horror designs. If you need proof, just look at any ill designed inanimate object mascot for a local business.

But this one really shines because of one detail: the discovery that it has always been, when deactivating, turning to stare in the direction of the nearest elementary school. Just like that you experience a chilling snap from ‘silly’ to ‘horrifying’ that’s just delightful. 

SCP 1075; “The Forest Formerly Known as Vince”

In contrast this SHOULD feel silly, but the deeper I went into it, the more it became... disquieting. It SHOULD be ‘heh, they think the tree is people’. But then there’s... details. Moments like the interview with the woman who is listed as the trees ex-wife where it’s not... even a HAPPY story. But it’s not grimdark or anything. It’s just... sad. 

It settles. It settles in the seams of the SCP Foundation’s story structure. See I’m not a big fan of the entries painting the Foundation as EEEEVIL DARK etc. It’s just a government group trying to keep shit in control and... doing as well as any government enforcement could be doing. It’s up to interpretation, and for my part I’m 100% more interested in people doing their best and sometimes failing. 

But they do fail sometimes. And there’s the big failures, or even the SCPs they’re just barely keeping in check, or can’t. But then there’s the seams of things that aren’t a BIG deal, necessarily. But you just feel... a little disquieted. I like the texture on this one. 

SCP 1319; “The Split-Up”

This might be one of my current favorites just because it raises so, so, so, so, so many questions. What exactly does this MEAN for the world? For... all humans? Why then? Why?

You really feel like workers at SCP had plenty to be afraid of without worrying that THIS could happen. 

SCP 1160; “Effective Containment”

Considering how much containment features into the SCP, I’m surprised I don’t see more entries using them for this kind of subtle ‘punchline’. Overly wrought containment bounces my eyes right off the whole entry. It’s where you have to throw your hooks, and get someone interested in an item they haven’t seen described yet- or at least make it brief enough that a reader gets to the main jist of the story fast. 

But this- this is beautiful. A perfectly executed example of a totally neutralized SCP. And what makes it so, so very satisfying is that after so many SCPs able to cause so much injury and chaos and confusion this feels like revenge. Not bloody revenge. No, a far finer vengeance: the vengeance of sheer indignity. 

SCP 1589; “Roman Anthropophagus”

Along with a fascinating idea, this is one of those entries that clearly sets up a little more about the world SCP takes place in. It makes it clear- these things have been going on a long, long, long time. And not all of them come from places OUTSIDE of humanity. Maybe even... not as many of them as we think. 

SCP 252; “Humboldt Squid’

This I just love because it’s one of the entries that doesn’t over-sell the Foundation. It can get a little tiring if they’re always flawless perfect super agents. Sure they’re professionals. But sometimes, just sometimes, someones gonna make a mistake. 

And get fooled by a squid. Kinda hard to blame them. If something seems like it’s going to kill you in SCP, 9/10 times you’re probably right.... 

SCP 2188; “Life and Times of Joaquín Pablo Izquierdo de San Felipe”

It’s not that I didn’t expect to find this kind of story on the SCP Foundation site. It’s that I never expect to find this kind of story. This ranks up with... well. Stories from Mr. Ito like Blood Sickness of the White Sands Village, or Second Hand Record. Stories like Mushishi. They feel unsettling, and stick faintly to the inside of my minds eye. But they also feel... as if you were holding a piece of thread between your hands, and pulled it as tense as you could- that feeling. That tension, that fragility. 

There are stories that are frightening, but also feel like tears gathering just under your eyelids, when you’re not sure why.

What can I say about this SCP? What a strange concept; what a powerful story. Of any SCP I’ve seen this may be the most literaly and successfully *whimsical* in a very sincere way. It may be one of the only entries I’ve seen that makes me really, genuinely feel the humanity behind the SCP foundation. It’s a shock of genuine sincerity and craft.

I love a lot about the SCP foundation; And I like the dryness, the bureaucracy, the shocks between the oddball and the profane, terror and technicality. But I think having a few stories like this is alright. Every now and then. 

That’s all I have for this week, my friends. I’m hoping to resume normal production now! We’ll see how that goes, but I can promise I’ll always come back to Souichi Presents. Even Tomie. 

Because as always, Souichi Presents... will return. 

[kadobeclothing]

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2020

How do you convince your visitors to take the plunge on your website? There are so many elements that a top-notch landing page needs, and making those elements the “best” they can be often depends on what your landing page goals are.

Take form length, for example. It’s just one of the many components you need to optimize, but best practices will tell you that both short and long forms perform well — it all depends on whether you want to generate a lot of (potentially) lower-quality form submissions, or a smaller number of higher-quality submissions.

So if you’re looking to up your landing page game, it’s helpful to know what goes into a great landing page and see a few examples of these nuanced elements in action. Click one of the links below to jump to that section of the article: Surprisingly, when I started doing research into landing page examples, I realized there are hardly any sites out there with modern, impressive landing page designs that are more than just a sign-up form on a homepage. So, we decided to compile a list of landing pages we love ourselves.

One big caveat here: I don’t have access to the stats for these pages, so I can’t tell you how well they convert visitors, leads, and customers. Still, these examples — even those that are no longer active on the business’s website — have some of the best combinations of those nuanced landing page elements I’ve ever seen. Obviously, if you feel inspired to try any of these tactics on your own site, the only way to know whether they’ll work for you for sure is by testing them out for yourself.

Landing Page Examples Shopify Muzzle TransferWise Airbnb Teambit Wistia Webflow Nauto Industrial Strength Marketing Inbound Emotion Velaro Live Chat IMPACT Branding & Design Unbounce Bills.com Trulia Landbot Webprofits H.BLOOM Conversion Lab

Sign-Up Landing Pages 1. Shopify Like many of the other landing pages in this post, Shopify’s trial landing page keeps it simple. The user-oriented headline is just a few words, for example, and the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial’s details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.

2. Muzzle Landing pages help users decide whether or not your product or service is actually worth their precious time and energy. What better way to clearly and straightforwardly communicate your value proposition than by confronting visitors with the very problem your app solves? Muzzle, a mac app that silences on-screen notifications, fully embraces this show don’t tell mentality on their otherwise minimal landing page. Visitors to the page are greeted with a rapid-fire onslaught of embarrassing notifications in the upper left of the screen. Not only is the animation hilarious, it also manages to compellingly convey the app’s usefulness without lengthly descriptions.

3. TransferWise TransferWise allows you to send and receive money in different currencies, and its landing page, shown below, separates each individual action so you’re not distracted by options that don’t apply to you. If you want to send money, the transfer form is right there on the right for you to fill out. To receive money, simply click to the middle tab, and to sign up for TransferWise using your debit card, click to the far-right tab. Each tab on this landing page produces a different call-to-action based on what you’re signing up for — each of them in a vibrant green box to highlight your next step after your three possible starting points.

4. Airbnb To help convert visitors into hosts, Airbnb offers some enticing personalization: an estimated weekly average earnings projection based on your location. You can enter additional information about your potential accommodations into the fields to get an even more customized estimation. If you visit the page already convinced, the clear call-to-action at the top of the page makes it easy to convert on the spot.

5. Teambit Whimsical isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when you think of HR software, but Teambit’s illustration-heavy landing page is exactly that. A simple, one-field form is accompanied by a delightful office full of animal characters — all of whom are very pleased with Teambit, in case you were wondering. An animal cartoon appears beside each informational section of the landing page, keeping visitors scrolling down to learn more. Teambit’s landing page is perfect proof that you don’t need to have a conventionally “fun” product or service offering to create a fun landing page.

[Click here to see the whole landing page.] 6. Wistia First up is Wistia’s landing page for their Free Wistia Account. Right off the bat, you notice the one-field form to create your account — the blue, minimally patterned background contrasts nicely with the bright white form field. The length of the form field combined with the prominent placement eliminates nearly all friction to create an account … but if you’re having doubts, you can always scroll below to read answers to top FAQs. By separating these two sections with stark color contrast, Wistia makes it much easier for you focus on converting.

7. Webflow Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here — not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free. The animated GIF below the form is visible in the same frame on the website, so users can see how the product works and sign up without scrolling or clicking over to a new page.

Ebook Landing Pages 8. Nauto Nauto, a data platform for self-driving cars, helps make autonomous driving safer for companies who manage fleets of self-driving vehicles. Naturally, its customers would need all kinds of information to sell them on this platform. Nauto has it, packaged into a super-simple ebook whose landing page gives you both a brief contact form and some preview statistics to prove why this resource is so important.

At the top of the page, shown above, a warm photo of a car’s interior hugs the lead-capturing form. The green “Download Now” button might’ve even been on purpose (on the road, green means go, after all). Scroll down, and you’ll see another “Get the eBook” CTA to remind users what’s waiting for them. You’ll also see three jarring statistics about car accidents to entice users to learn more. Check it out below.

9. Industrial Strength Marketing Right off the bat, this landing page pulls me in with a compelling, punchy header: “Don’t Make Me Zoom.” It directly speaks to a common experience most of us have had when we’re browsing on our phones or tablets — and it’s a little sassy, too. But that’s not the only thing keeping me interested in this landing page. Notice how the color red is strategically placed: It’s right at the top and bottom of the form, drawing you even closer to the conversion event.

Plus, this design is meta to boot: It looks and works great on mobile, too. Keep in mind that a lot of visitors will be accessing your landing pages on their smartphones or tablets, and if the design of your website doesn’t work well for them, they might give up and leave your page. The folks at Industrial Strength Marketing made the fonts and form field big enough so that visitors don’t have to pinch-to-zoom to read and interact with the content, for example.

10. Inbound Emotion Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can still appreciate the conversion capabilities of this HubSpot partner site. My two favorite features of the page? The form stays in a fixed, prominent position as you scroll through the site. I also love the hands that serve as directional cues toward filling out the form and sharing the page with others.

11. Velaro Live Chat Sometimes the smallest details make the biggest difference. They’re what make Velaro Live Chat’s landing page awesome, for example. That small PDF symbol over the feature image helps set expectations for what format the download will be in. The arrow in front of the subheadline helps further direct your attention to important copy they want visitors to read. Like IMPACT, they also have an auto-checked box to subscribe to their newsletter on their form — which, if turned into an opt-in check box, is a great way to increase subscribers. All of these small, seemingly insignificant details help bring together a solid, admirable landing page design.

12. IMPACT Branding & Design Full disclosure: IMPACT is a HubSpot partner — but that’s not why they’re included here. IMPACT’s landing pages have long been a source of design inspiration. I love the simple layout of the page, from the large headline copy and detailed featured image, to the outline that surrounds the form, to the colors and fonts that are very pleasing to the eye. The free guide IMPACT is offering for download here also doesn’t emphasize the download itself in the blue button that allows you to submit your filled-out form. Rather, IMPACT is inviting you to “generate more conversions” — putting the focus on what you stand to gain as a result of reading the guide.

Landing Pages to Learn More 13. Unbounce It’s no surprise Unbounce is near the top of this list — they’ve actually written the book on creating high-converting landing pages. Although there are lots of amazing things about this landing page, the two that I absolutely love are: 1) The use of a chat window instead of a classic form, and 2) the detailed — but well packaged — information below the form. The first helps direct attention to the goal of the page — for you to fill out the form — in a way that’s unobtrusive and feels less like a chore. The second gives this page an SEO boost (search engines will have more content to crawl) and assuages any worry from folks who need to know more about a piece of content before handing over their information, all while not distracting people from the chat window.

14. Bills.com Often, people think landing pages are static pages on your website. But with the right tools, you can make them interactive and personalized. Take the example below from Bills.com. To see if you’d benefit from their consultation, you answer three questions before you are shown a form. It starts with this one:

Then, you answer two more questions, like the one below:

And here’s the final landing page form where you fill out your information:

I’m not sure how the algorithm works (or if there’s one at all), but while I was filling it out, I had some anxiety about not qualifying. Once I found out I did, I was excited to fill out the form, which I’m sure most people who are in debt and using this tool are. By making this offer seem more exclusive before the form appeared on the landing page, I’d bet that Bills.com increased conversions pretty significantly. 15. Trulia Trulia did something very similar to Bills.com with their landing page. It starts with a simple form asking for “an address” (which sounds less creepy than “your address,” although that’s what they mean). Below this simple form field is a bright orange button that contrasts well with the hero image behind the form, and emphasizes that the estimate will be personalized to your home.

Of course, the address itself won’t be enough to estimate the value of a home. It just denotes the home’s neighborhood. That’s why the next page follows with more questions about the property itself, like number of beds and baths. Below, you see the copy “Tell us where to send the report” — with a disclaimer that, by entering this information, you’re agreeing to connect with a real estate agent. This is a great example of a company giving value to their visitors from the get-go, while setting visitors’ expectations about what will happen as a result.

16. Landbot Landbot, a service that creates chatbot-based landing pages, puts their own product front and center on their chat-fueled landing page. Visitors are greeted by a friendly bot — complete with emojis and GIFs — who encourages them to provide information in a conversational format, instead of via a traditional form.

17. Webprofits For a little contrast … what about long landing pages? With just a few tricks, you can make even the longest landing page feel short. Webprofits’ landing page below shows us how. Right at the top, there’s a prominent CTA button to learn more — with a nice contrast against the background so it stands out, and a downward arrow to encourage scrolling. By not putting a form field up front, they help reduce friction and create an opportunity for visitors to learn more before being presented with a conversion option. They also make it easy for you to figure out what Webprofits actually does. The rest of the page offers detailed information about what you’ll get when you give over your information. Plus, it includes strategic CTAs throughout to take you back to the top to fill out the form, like “Let’s Talk.”

18. H.BLOOM Sometimes, you’ve just got to stop and admire a landing page for being beautiful. Using high-resolution photography and lots of white space, H.BLOOM’s landing page is a pleasure to look at. Aside from its beauty, the page has some great conversions elements: an above-the-fold form, clear and concise description of what’ll happen when you fill out the form, and even the bright orange “Submit” button. The only thing we’d change up? The copy on the “Submit” button — that could be more specific to the offer at hand.

19. Conversion Lab While I wouldn’t typically include an example of a homepage with a form on it in a post about landing pages, this website is special. The homepage is the entire website — the navigation links just take you to the information below. When you click “Get Help With Landing Pages,” the entire site moves over to make room for the form. Here’s what it looks like before you click:

And, when you click that CTA, check out how the form appears:

I love how you don’t have to leave the page to fill out the form, yet the form won’t feel intrusive to casual website visitors.

Landing Page Ideas A well-optimized landing page can transform prospects into leads by gathering information that can help you better understand, market to, and delight visitors. Since landing pages are crucial for conversions, it’s important to make sure they’re well planned, designed, and executed.  Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating landing pages:

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[wordsbytori-blog]

Thunderstorms (written in August, 2017)

It was a Friday; I was wearing a long white dress; there was a faded patch of fake tan on it from when I was rushing to get ready in time; I had long dark hair with super blonde ends; I was in my grandparent’s garden; I was surrounded by friends who I mostly don’t see anymore; there was a beer pong table set up: game after game. I was consumed with Smirnoff double blacks. My 16th birthday.

I waited around for people to arrive at my grandparents house on this Friday evening. They were so kind to allow me to host my birthday there, although I was paranoid about my drunk friends messing up my grandmother’s garden that she has poured her heart and soul into for most of her life. People slowly began to arrive and the night began like any other get together does: a game of King’s Cup that never seems to be that fun. It was due to be light for hours, those particular summer nights in February where the transition between light and dark continues for so long that you don’t even realise when it’s complete.

A wave of surprise, excitement and relief hit me all at once when my dear friend James walked into the garden from the deck – the entrance in and out of the house. Although he had clicked going on my event, I had messaged him two days earlier asking if he would be attending my birthday and he didn’t reply to me. We had a small argument over text one week prior. I knew – just by looking at him – all was forgotten. The argument was history, it was my birthday and James didn’t want to miss it. He was here and we were okay. We exchanged a hug and he sat down with me and the small group of my friends who were also here – about 5 of us in total. It was still early, the darkness was nowhere to be felt. Topics of discussion included his birthday (which was only the day before), he told us that he found full bottles of abandoned liquor and took them; he mentioned his new job at Topshop that was due to commence soon; we spoke for a moment about the recent loss of his beautiful boyfriend Matai; we played King’s Cup. James got the King card, he drank it all back – he was a professional.

The night grew, but it mostly grew into a big blur, as I find most nights do. By now, everyone had arrived. Photos were being taken; people were creeping off in miniature groups to smoke weed in deserted places; the music was playing off a portable speaker; James was smoking cigarettes. There weren’t many lights in the garden, so when nighttime finally spilled into the sky we had to move the beer pong table from the grass onto a slab of concrete by an outside light, so that the players could focus. James discussed how he was planning to move to Wellington. He seemed excited about this.

Time caught up to us and the night came to a close. I was sitting on a picnic table in the garden with my best friends, feeling anything but sober – but I was happy. James came up to us and asked if we wanted to stay the night. I don’t recall why it didn’t work out, but it was alright because he said he wanted to go home and see his older brother. We said we would see each other soon, we hugged goodbye.

After saying thank you and goodbye to my family, I left my own birthday at my grandparents house. Danielle, Fay, Fran and I all departed together, heading to the McDonalds drive through for an essential greasy feed, laughing and joking together the whole way back to Danielle’s as the date rolled from the 20th to the 21st.

–

Vibrations woke us all up. I don’t know how, but I knew what had happened before my eyes even opened. All four of us were crammed in Danielle’s bed. We each awoke. Danielle climbed out of bed and reached to her phone, we missed the call.

“Shannon called me.”

This confirmed everything that I knew I already knew. Silence screamed. We all knew.

As Danielle texted James’ best friend Shannon, we huddled around Danielle’s phone together, riddled with dread.

“James is with Matai now.”

I screamed, mainly because I didn’t know how else to respond. Fran fell into quiet tears; Danielle ran to her mother; Fay left the room and called her family.

We didn’t know how to cry, because it wasn’t real. We had seen him just last night and he seemed happy. After the loss of Matai, James would cry out loud and scream and bleed his hurt and we could all see it. Last night I couldn’t see pain.

One of the most significant things I recall about the tragedy was the support from everybody that immediately poured in as people began to find out about James. People who did know James well, and people who didn’t know James well. Multiple messages from people trying to express their sincerest condolences flooded in just hours later. The words people sent felt see-through and false, I tried my hardest to show appreciation for everyone’s kind messages, but my replies just felt empty and strange no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t process anything, I would send love hearts and sad faces but I didn’t feel any love or sadness, because I was numb. 17 years of age only by two short days and gone.

Shock is undoubtedly one of the most unexplainable and overwhelming emotions. It’s something you can acknowledge only in the moment of experiencing it, trying to recount exactly what it feels like simply isn’t possible. It’s like being in a dull dream. Not a nightmare because there’s too much emotion in nightmares; but a colourless and lengthly dream that you desperately want to wake up from, yet when you do, that same atmosphere stalks you all day.

Having to call our friends that morning and tell them the horrible news was burdensome; particularly because I couldn’t process it myself, let alone deliver the heartbreak to other friends who adored James. There was no easy way to say it, I just had to say it. I remember calling Annie and telling her, I could tell that my voice sounded so plain, but I still couldn’t cry real tears. Even when the words left my mouth and I heard it aloud for the first time, it still didn’t seem real. It felt like I was being told what to say and the words were just flowing out of my mouth, like a practiced routine.

On the day of the tragedy, we all stuck together and remained at Danielle’s house on Finnerty Avenue. Friends arrived with eyes full of tears, minds full of confusion and hearts full of sorrow. We all hugged and sat together, they brought mattresses with them so we could all be together for the whole night. James had only moved out of Danielle’s house a few weeks earlier. The house was still painted with memories of him, and it was painful.

I spent the night looking through James’ tumblr, surrounded by everybody. We were listening to James’s favourite songs, some of us were sitting on the floor of Danielle’s bedroom and some of us were crying. There was a post that read ‘I am weak and I am sorry’. It was written in the early AM, and it was the last post James made on his tumblr. I looked through photos of him and cried out loud, the first time tears had uncontrollably spilled from my eyes that devastating day. Fay, Mason and I slept in the same bed that night and fell asleep listening to Phoenix by A$AP Rocky and Idle by Spooky Black, silent tears trickling.

The morning after was so hard. The shock was alive yet James was not. I thought that he would message us or come over or be active online. I was just waiting for something – anything. Because it just couldn’t possibly be real, and know I keep saying that, but there’s truly no other way of describing how I was feeling.

Over the duration of the next few days I was surrounded by so many beautiful friends, all who were experiencing the same grief as each other. This made it slightly bearable. We were there for each other from the morning to the nighttime. We didn’t go to school, except for one day where we spent most of the time in the counsellor’s office colouring in. I saw my favourite teacher Miss Walsh who knew both James and Matai through her younger sister; she hugged me and asked me why I was even at school. The school granted us the week off.

We visited James’ parents often throughout the week and watched his mother’s heart shatter, she was in a world of pain and desperately wanted her baby boy back. We sat in James’s room and looked through his belongings, reminiscing and missing him. His phone was next to his bed with missed calls and messages and his Doc Martens were still in the middle of his bedroom from when he took them off last. We came across his suicide note in his journal, the final line reading “I’ll see you when you’re old and grey.”

We saw James a few days prior to the funeral. His casket was white and was placed in the lounge of the Taylor’s house, surrounded by flowers. It took us awhile to build up the courage to see our friend. We had each other though – so we were strong. We looked at him, cried to him, touched him, kissed him, spoke to him.

The funeral was held on the Thursday, and the night before Fay, Shannon and I stayed in James’ bedroom overnight. I wanted to be as close as possible to his spirit. I wanted to feel him around me, but I couldn’t.

The morning of the funeral I said goodbye to James’ physical being. I sat in the lounge alone and told him what I needed to tell him, and I hoped and prayed that he would hear me. James’ mother made green tea and pressed a drop onto his lips, crying.

I felt plastic throughout the whole funeral. I didn’t know how to express true emotion because it felt so fictional to me. After the service, I hugged Angela for awhile – a close friend of James’. People were lingering in the church and outside the hearse was getting ready to depart. I scrambled to get out of the door so I could place a flower on the coffin and say a final goodbye. I managed to do so but couldn’t see my friends anywhere. They were still inside, having conversations and stuck behind the cluster of people. I watched it drive away.

We drank wine and let off lanterns that night at Shannon’s house, two colourful flames that floated into the sea of stars. We wrote messages to both James and Matai, expressing that we were deeply devastated that two of the most amazing people we had all ever met were no longer with us, and we questioned how we could possibly go on without aching from how much we love and miss them. We also told them that we were at a sense of peace knowing they would be reunited again. The lanterns cooperated beautifully and side by side, rose into the night sky. We stood together and Mason yelled out “We love you James” to the lanterns, then we all started yelling too. We watched and watched and watched, until the flames flickered away into the horizon, never to be seen again.

Eventually, the messages and visits stopped, the school was no longer granting us excusable time off, time was progressing and James still was not here. People were living their lives normally again. The shock slowly wore off and welcomed grief instead, and it was real now. Our friend group expanded and continued to stick together, remembering our beautiful friends who left us too soon. We supported one another at all times whenever we needed it, it is still needed to this day.

I had so many regrets and unanswered questions for so long, I always will. What if we had stayed with James that night? Did he plan all along to do it that particular night? Did I say the right thing at his funeral? Is he mad that I didn’t cry when I spoke at his service? Is he mad at me for any other things I’ve said or done? Was I a bad friend to him? Does he know how much I love him, and does he love me back? Is he safe?

For so long I felt as if the only way I could reach out to James was through social media, because if I spoke out loud he might not hear me, and it wasn’t enough to just keep him in my thoughts, he needed to know. I wrote about him on the bathroom wall at school. People would write horrible anonymous jokes about him on Yik Yak, I would respond and get angry. One day we were all at Danielle’s house, and Fran was crying because someone wrote on the ridiculous anonymous app that I posted pictures of James for attention. So I cried too, because I didn’t want to be viewed that way, I just didn’t know how else to express my sorrow.

Time is a saviour but it’s also an enemy too. I think about James all the time and the same regrets are still tucked away in my soul; but I no longer cry whenever I think about him, and I don’t beat myself up over what I did or didn’t do. I was so afraid of getting used to it because I didn’t want to forget. I look at the last messages I sent to James on Facebook when I asked if he was coming to my birthday and they haven’t delivered, they used to say seen. It’s been too long.

I reminisce on times we shared. I need to remember everything. Back when we were 13 and 14 years old and shopping in Auckland City op shops seeking out the most indie looking clothes we could secure; the nights where Danielle and James lived in the little house on Clovelly Road; the weekend Danielle and James moved into Finnerty Avenue and Fay, Fran and I helped them move, we had no wifi for two days so we christened the house by smoking and laughing, James had a cigarette in one hand and a joint in the other; the melancholy I felt through the grip of James’ hand as he clutched mine on the way to Matai’s funeral. I try to remember every single memory I’ve shared with James, but it’s not enough. No amount of time spent with him would have ever been enough.

The death of my special friend James brought myself and my friends some severely dark times, each of us were fighting a battle for so long, and the battle scars are still carved into us, where they will stay forever. The strength and determination to carry on that I witnessed from my wonderful friends was beyond admirable, I love them with all my heart. Although this cloud is more of a thunderstorm, the silver lining is contemporary; I learnt about the importance of caring for others and what they are going through, the need to tell your friends just how much you love them, and to always be prepared for life’s endless and unforeseen possibilities. I will never stop missing James, but I know I’ll see him again when I’m old and grey; and his hands will still be soft, his hair will still replicate perfection and his eyes will still be big, dark and beautiful.

[digitalmark18-blog]

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2018

New Post has been published on https://britishdigitalmarketingnews.com/19-of-the-best-landing-page-design-examples-you-need-to-see-in-2018/

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2018

How do you convince your visitors to take the plunge on your website?

There are so many elements that a top-notch landing page needs, and making those elements the “best” they can be often depends on what your landing page goals are.

Take form length, for example. It’s just one of the many components you need to optimize, but best practices will tell you that both short and long forms perform well — it all depends on whether you want to generate a lot of (potentially) lower-quality form submissions, or a smaller number of higher-quality submissions.

So if you’re looking to up your landing page game, it’s helpful to know what goes into a great landing page and see a few examples of these nuanced elements in action. Surprisingly, when I started doing research into the latter, I realized there are hardly any sites out there with examples of modern, impressive landing pages that are more than just a sign-up form on a homepage. So we decided to compile a list of landing pages we love ourselves.

One big caveat here: I don’t have access to the stats for these pages, so I can’t tell you how well they convert visitors, leads, and customers. Still, these examples — even those that are no longer active on the business’s website — have some of the best combinations of those nuanced landing page elements I’ve ever seen.

Obviously, if you feel inspired to try any of these tactics on your own site, the only way to know whether they’ll work for you for sure is by testing them out for yourself.

Landing Page Examples

Shopify

Muzzle

TransferWise

Airbnb

Teambit

Wistia

Webflow

Nauto

Industrial Strength Marketing

Inbound Emotion

Velaro Live Chat

IMPACT Branding & Design

Unbounce

Bills.com

Trulia

Landbot

Webprofits

H.BLOOM

Conversion Lab

Sign-Up Landing Pages

1. Shopify

Like many of the other landing pages in this post, Shopify’s trial landing page keeps it simple. The user-oriented headline is just a few words, for example, and the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial’s details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.

2. Muzzle

Landing pages help users decide whether or not your product or service is actually worth their precious time and energy. What better way to clearly and straightforwardly communicate your value proposition than by confronting visitors with the very problem your app solves?

Muzzle, a mac app that silences on-screen notifications, fully embraces this show don’t tell mentality on their otherwise minimal landing page. Visitors to the page are greeted with a rapid-fire onslaught of embarrassing notifications in the upper left of the screen. Not only is the animation hilarious, it also manages to compellingly convey the app’s usefulness without lengthly descriptions.

3. TransferWise

TransferWise allows you to send and receive money in different currencies, and its landing page, shown below, separates each individual action so you’re not distracted by options that don’t apply to you.

If you want to send money, the transfer form is right there on the right for you to fill out. To receive money, simply click to the middle tab, and to sign up for TransferWise using your debit card, click to the far-right tab.

Each tab on this landing page produces a different call-to-action based on what you’re signing up for — each of them in a vibrant green box to highlight your next step after your three possible starting points.

4. Airbnb

To help convert visitors into hosts, Airbnb offers some enticing personalization: an estimated weekly average earnings projection based on your location. You can enter additional information about your potential accommodations into the fields to get an even more customized estimation.

If you visit the page already convinced, the clear call-to-action at the top of the page makes it easy to convert on the spot.

5. Teambit

Whimsical isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when you think of HR software, but Teambit’s illustration-heavy landing page is exactly that. A simple, one-field form is accompanied by a delightful office full of animal characters — all of whom are very pleased with Teambit, in case you were wondering. An animal cartoon appears beside each informational section of the landing page, keeping visitors scrolling down to learn more.

Teambit’s landing page is perfect proof that you don’t need to have a conventionally “fun” product or service offering to create a fun landing page.

[Click here to see the whole landing page.]

6. Wistia

First up is Wistia’s landing page for their Free Wistia Account. Right off the bat, you notice the one-field form to create your account — the blue, minimally patterned background contrasts nicely with the bright white form field.

The length of the form field combined with the prominent placement eliminates nearly all friction to create an account … but if you’re having doubts, you can always scroll below to read answers to top FAQs. By separating these two sections with stark color contrast, Wistia makes it much easier for you focus on converting.

7. Webflow

Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here — not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free.

The animated GIF below the form is visible in the same frame on the website, so users can see how the product works and sign up without scrolling or clicking over to a new page.

Ebook Landing Pages

8. Nauto

Nauto, a data platform for self-driving cars, helps make autonomous driving safer for companies who manage fleets of self-driving vehicles. Naturally, its customers would need all kinds of information to sell them on this platform. Nauto has it, packaged into a super-simple ebook whose landing page gives you both a brief contact form and some preview statistics to prove why this resource is so important.

At the top of the page, shown above, a warm photo of a car’s interior hugs the lead-capturing form. The green “Download Now” button might’ve even been on purpose (on the road, green means go, after all).

Scroll down, and you’ll see another “Get the eBook” queue to remind users what’s waiting for them. You’ll also see three jarring statistics about car accidents to entice users to learn more. Check it out below.

9. Industrial Strength Marketing

Right off the bat, this landing page pulls me in with a compelling, punchy header: “Don’t Make Me Zoom.” It directly speaks to a common experience most of us have had when we’re browsing on our phones or tablets — and it’s a little sassy, too.

But that’s not the only thing keeping me interested in this landing page. Notice how the color red is strategically placed: It’s right at the top and bottom of the form, drawing you even closer to the conversion event.

Plus, this design is meta to boot: It looks and works great on mobile, too. Keep in mind that a lot of visitors will be accessing your landing pages on their smartphones or tablets, and if the design of your website doesn’t work well for them, they might give up and leave your page.

The folks at Industrial Strength Marketing made the fonts and form field big enough so that visitors don’t have to pinch-to-zoom to read and interact with the content, for example.

10. Inbound Emotion

Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can still appreciate the conversion capabilities of this HubSpot partner site. My two favorite features of the page? The form stays in a fixed, prominent position as you scroll through the site. I also love the hands that serve as directional cues toward filling out the form and sharing the page with others.

11. Velaro Live Chat

Sometimes the smallest details make the biggest difference. They’re what make Velaro Live Chat’s landing page awesome, for example.

That small PDF symbol over the feature image helps set expectations for what format the download will be in. The arrow in front of the subheadline helps further direct your attention to important copy they want visitors to read. Like IMPACT, they also have an auto-checked box to subscribe to their newsletter on their form — which, if turned into an opt-in check box, is a great way to increase subscribers. All of these small, seemingly insignificant details help bring together a solid, admirable landing page design.

12. IMPACT Branding & Design

Full disclosure: IMPACT is a HubSpot partner — but that’s not why they’re included here. IMPACT’s landing pages have long been a source of design inspiration. I love the simple layout of the page, from the large headline copy and detailed featured image, to the outline that surrounds the form, to the colors and fonts that are very pleasing to the eye.

The free guide IMPACT is offering for download here also doesn’t emphasize the download itself in the blue button that allows you to submit your filled-out form. Rather, IMPACT is inviting you to “generate more conversions” — putting the focus on what you stand to gain as a result of reading the guide.

Landing Pages to Learn More

13. Unbounce

It’s no surprise Unbounce is near the top of this list — they’ve actually written the book on creating high-converting landing pages. Although there are lots of amazing things about this landing page, the two that I absolutely love are: 1) The use of a chat window instead of a classic form, and 2) the detailed — but well packaged — information below the form.

The first helps direct attention to the goal of the page — for you to fill out the form — in a way that’s unobtrusive and feels less like a chore. The second gives this page an SEO boost (search engines will have more content to crawl) and assuages any worry from folks who need to know more about a piece of content before handing over their information, all while not distracting people from the chat window.

14. Bills.com

Often, people think landing pages are static pages on your website. But with the right tools, you can make them interactive and personalized.

Take the example below from Bills.com. To see if you’d benefit from their consultation, you answer three questions before you are shown a form. It starts with this one:

Then, you answer two more questions, like the one below:

And here’s the final landing page form where you fill out your information:

I’m not sure how the algorithm works (or if there’s one at all), but while I was filling it out, I had some anxiety about not qualifying. Once I found out I did, I was excited to fill out the form, which I’m sure most people who are in debt and using this tool are. By making this offer seem more exclusive before the form appeared on the landing page, I’d bet that Bills.com increased conversions pretty significantly.

15. Trulia

Trulia did something very similar to Bills.com with their landing page. It starts with a simple form asking for “an address” (which sounds less creepy than “your address,” although that’s what they mean). Below this simple form field is a bright orange button that contrasts well with the hero image behind the form, and emphasizes that the estimate will be personalized to your home.

Of course, the address itself won’t be enough to estimate the value of a home. It just denotes the home’s neighborhood. That’s why the next page follows with more questions about the property itself, like number of beds and baths. Below, you see the copy “Tell us where to send the report” — with a disclaimer that, by entering this information, you’re agreeing to connect with a real estate agent. This is a great example of a company giving value to their visitors from the get-go, while setting visitors’ expectations about what will happen as a result.

16. Landbot

Landbot, a service that creates chatbot-based landing pages, puts their own product front and center on their chat-fueled landing page. Visitors are greeted by a friendly bot — complete with emojis and GIFs — who encourages them to provide information in a conversational format, instead of via a traditional form.

17. Webprofits

For a little contrast … what about long landing pages? With just a few tricks, you can make even the longest landing page feel short. Webprofits’ landing page below shows us how.

Right at the top, there’s a prominent CTA button to learn more — with a nice contrast against the background so it stands out, and a downward arrow to encourage scrolling. By not putting a form field up front, they help reduce friction and create an opportunity for visitors to learn more before being presented with a conversion option.

They also make it easy for you to figure out what Webprofits actually does. The rest of the page offers detailed information about what you’ll get when you give over your information. Plus, it includes strategic CTAs throughout to take you back to the top to fill out the form, like “Let’s Talk.”

18. H.BLOOM

Sometimes, you’ve just got to stop and admire a landing page for being beautiful. Using high-resolution photography and lots of white space, H.BLOOM’s landing page is a pleasure to look at.

Aside from its beauty, the page has some great conversions elements: an above-the-fold form, clear and concise description of what’ll happen when you fill out the form, and even the bright orange “Submit” button. The only thing we’d change up? The copy on the “Submit” button — that could be more specific to the offer at hand.

19. Conversion Lab

While I wouldn’t typically include an example of a homepage with a form on it in a post about landing pages, this website is special. The homepage is the entire website — the navigation links just take you to the information below.

When you click “Get Help With Landing Pages,” the entire site moves over to make room for the form. Here’s what it looks like before you click:

And, when you click that CTA, check out how the form appears:

I love how you don’t have to leave the page to fill out the form, yet the form won’t feel intrusive to casual website visitors.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-examples-list

[lindyhunt]

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2018

How do you convince your visitors to take the plunge on your website?

There are so many elements that a top-notch landing page needs, and making those elements the "best" they can be often depends on what your landing page goals are.

Take form length, for example. It's just one of the many components you need to optimize, but best practices will tell you that both short and long forms perform well -- it all depends on whether you want to generate a lot of (potentially) lower-quality form submissions, or a smaller number of higher-quality submissions.

So if you're looking to up your landing page game, it's helpful to know what goes into a great landing page and see a few examples of these nuanced elements in action. Surprisingly, when I started doing research into the latter, I realized there are hardly any sites out there with examples of modern, impressive landing pages that are more than just a sign-up form on a homepage. So we decided to compile a list of landing pages we love ourselves.

One big caveat here: I don't have access to the stats for these pages, so I can't tell you how well they convert visitors, leads, and customers. Still, these examples -- even those that are no longer active on the business's website -- have some of the best combinations of those nuanced landing page elements I've ever seen.

Obviously, if you feel inspired to try any of these tactics on your own site, the only way to know whether they'll work for you for sure is by testing them out for yourself.

Landing Page Examples

Shopify

Muzzle

TransferWise

Airbnb

Teambit

Wistia

Webflow

Nauto

Industrial Strength Marketing

Inbound Emotion

Velaro Live Chat

IMPACT Branding & Design

Unbounce

Bills.com

Trulia

Landbot

Webprofits

H.BLOOM

Conversion Lab

Sign-Up Landing Pages

1. Shopify

Like many of the other landing pages in this post, Shopify's trial landing page keeps it simple. The user-oriented headline is just a few words, for example, and the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial's details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.

2. Muzzle

Landing pages help users decide whether or not your product or service is actually worth their precious time and energy. What better way to clearly and straightforwardly communicate your value proposition than by confronting visitors with the very problem your app solves?

Muzzle, a mac app that silences on-screen notifications, fully embraces this show don't tell mentality on their otherwise minimal landing page. Visitors to the page are greeted with a rapid-fire onslaught of embarrassing notifications in the upper left of the screen. Not only is the animation hilarious, it also manages to compellingly convey the app's usefulness without lengthly descriptions.

3. TransferWise

TransferWise allows you to send and receive money in different currencies, and its landing page, shown below, separates each individual action so you're not distracted by options that don't apply to you.

If you want to send money, the transfer form is right there on the right for you to fill out. To receive money, simply click to the middle tab, and to sign up for TransferWise using your debit card, click to the far-right tab.

Each tab on this landing page produces a different call-to-action based on what you're signing up for -- each of them in a vibrant green box to highlight your next step after your three possible starting points.

4. Airbnb

To help convert visitors into hosts, Airbnb offers some enticing personalization: an estimated weekly average earnings projection based on your location. You can enter additional information about your potential accommodations into the fields to get an even more customized estimation.

If you visit the page already convinced, the clear call-to-action at the top of the page makes it easy to convert on the spot.

5. Teambit

Whimsical isn't usually the first word that comes to mind when you think of HR software, but Teambit's illustration-heavy landing page is exactly that. A simple, one-field form is accompanied by a delightful office full of animal characters -- all of whom are very pleased with Teambit, in case you were wondering. An animal cartoon appears beside each informational section of the landing page, keeping visitors scrolling down to learn more.

Teambit's landing page is perfect proof that you don't need to have a conventionally "fun" product or service offering to create a fun landing page.

[Click here to see the whole landing page.]

6. Wistia

First up is Wistia's landing page for their Free Wistia Account. Right off the bat, you notice the one-field form to create your account -- the blue, minimally patterned background contrasts nicely with the bright white form field.

The length of the form field combined with the prominent placement eliminates nearly all friction to create an account ... but if you're having doubts, you can always scroll below to read answers to top FAQs. By separating these two sections with stark color contrast, Wistia makes it much easier for you focus on converting.

7. Webflow

Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here -- not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free.

The animated GIF below the form is visible in the same frame on the website, so users can see how the product works and sign up without scrolling or clicking over to a new page.

Ebook Landing Pages

8. Nauto

Nauto, a data platform for self-driving cars, helps make autonomous driving safer for companies who manage fleets of self-driving vehicles. Naturally, its customers would need all kinds of information to sell them on this platform. Nauto has it, packaged into a super-simple ebook whose landing page gives you both a brief contact form and some preview statistics to prove why this resource is so important.

At the top of the page, shown above, a warm photo of a car's interior hugs the lead-capturing form. The green "Download Now" button might've even been on purpose (on the road, green means go, after all).

Scroll down, and you'll see another "Get the eBook" queue to remind users what's waiting for them. You'll also see three jarring statistics about car accidents to entice users to learn more. Check it out below.

9. Industrial Strength Marketing

Right off the bat, this landing page pulls me in with a compelling, punchy header: "Don't Make Me Zoom." It directly speaks to a common experience most of us have had when we're browsing on our phones or tablets -- and it's a little sassy, too.

But that's not the only thing keeping me interested in this landing page. Notice how the color red is strategically placed: It's right at the top and bottom of the form, drawing you even closer to the conversion event.

Plus, this design is meta to boot: It looks and works great on mobile, too. Keep in mind that a lot of visitors will be accessing your landing pages on their smartphones or tablets, and if the design of your website doesn't work well for them, they might give up and leave your page.

The folks at Industrial Strength Marketing made the fonts and form field big enough so that visitors don't have to pinch-to-zoom to read and interact with the content, for example.

10. Inbound Emotion

Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can still appreciate the conversion capabilities of this HubSpot partner site. My two favorite features of the page? The form stays in a fixed, prominent position as you scroll through the site. I also love the hands that serve as directional cues toward filling out the form and sharing the page with others.

11. Velaro Live Chat

Sometimes the smallest details make the biggest difference. They're what make Velaro Live Chat's landing page awesome, for example.

That small PDF symbol over the feature image helps set expectations for what format the download will be in. The arrow in front of the subheadline helps further direct your attention to important copy they want visitors to read. Like IMPACT, they also have an auto-checked box to subscribe to their newsletter on their form -- which, if turned into an opt-in check box, is a great way to increase subscribers. All of these small, seemingly insignificant details help bring together a solid, admirable landing page design.

12. IMPACT Branding & Design

Full disclosure: IMPACT is a HubSpot partner -- but that's not why they're included here. IMPACT's landing pages have long been a source of design inspiration. I love the simple layout of the page, from the large headline copy and detailed featured image, to the outline that surrounds the form, to the colors and fonts that are very pleasing to the eye.

The free guide IMPACT is offering for download here also doesn't emphasize the download itself in the blue button that allows you to submit your filled-out form. Rather, IMPACT is inviting you to "generate more conversions" -- putting the focus on what you stand to gain as a result of reading the guide.

Landing Pages to Learn More

13. Unbounce

It's no surprise Unbounce is near the top of this list -- they've actually written the book on creating high-converting landing pages. Although there are lots of amazing things about this landing page, the two that I absolutely love are: 1) The use of a chat window instead of a classic form, and 2) the detailed -- but well packaged -- information below the form.

The first helps direct attention to the goal of the page -- for you to fill out the form -- in a way that's unobtrusive and feels less like a chore. The second gives this page an SEO boost (search engines will have more content to crawl) and assuages any worry from folks who need to know more about a piece of content before handing over their information, all while not distracting people from the chat window.

14. Bills.com

Often, people think landing pages are static pages on your website. But with the right tools, you can make them interactive and personalized.

Take the example below from Bills.com. To see if you'd benefit from their consultation, you answer three questions before you are shown a form. It starts with this one:

Then, you answer two more questions, like the one below:

And here's the final landing page form where you fill out your information:

I'm not sure how the algorithm works (or if there's one at all), but while I was filling it out, I had some anxiety about not qualifying. Once I found out I did, I was excited to fill out the form, which I'm sure most people who are in debt and using this tool are. By making this offer seem more exclusive before the form appeared on the landing page, I'd bet that Bills.com increased conversions pretty significantly.

15. Trulia

Trulia did something very similar to Bills.com with their landing page. It starts with a simple form asking for "an address" (which sounds less creepy than "your address," although that's what they mean). Below this simple form field is a bright orange button that contrasts well with the hero image behind the form, and emphasizes that the estimate will be personalized to your home.

Of course, the address itself won't be enough to estimate the value of a home. It just denotes the home's neighborhood. That's why the next page follows with more questions about the property itself, like number of beds and baths. Below, you see the copy "Tell us where to send the report" -- with a disclaimer that, by entering this information, you're agreeing to connect with a real estate agent. This is a great example of a company giving value to their visitors from the get-go, while setting visitors' expectations about what will happen as a result.

16. Landbot

Landbot, a service that creates chatbot-based landing pages, puts their own product front and center on their chat-fueled landing page. Visitors are greeted by a friendly bot -- complete with emojis and GIFs -- who encourages them to provide information in a conversational format, instead of via a traditional form.

17. Webprofits

For a little contrast ... what about long landing pages? With just a few tricks, you can make even the longest landing page feel short. Webprofits' landing page below shows us how.

Right at the top, there's a prominent CTA button to learn more -- with a nice contrast against the background so it stands out, and a downward arrow to encourage scrolling. By not putting a form field up front, they help reduce friction and create an opportunity for visitors to learn more before being presented with a conversion option.

They also make it easy for you to figure out what Webprofits actually does. The rest of the page offers detailed information about what you'll get when you give over your information. Plus, it includes strategic CTAs throughout to take you back to the top to fill out the form, like "Let's Talk."

18. H.BLOOM

Sometimes, you've just got to stop and admire a landing page for being beautiful. Using high-resolution photography and lots of white space, H.BLOOM's landing page is a pleasure to look at.

Aside from its beauty, the page has some great conversions elements: an above-the-fold form, clear and concise description of what'll happen when you fill out the form, and even the bright orange "Submit" button. The only thing we'd change up? The copy on the "Submit" button -- that could be more specific to the offer at hand.

19. Conversion Lab

While I wouldn't typically include an example of a homepage with a form on it in a post about landing pages, this website is special. The homepage is the entire website -- the navigation links just take you to the information below.

When you click "Get Help With Landing Pages," the entire site moves over to make room for the form. Here's what it looks like before you click:

And, when you click that CTA, check out how the form appears:

I love how you don't have to leave the page to fill out the form, yet the form won't feel intrusive to casual website visitors.