#nobody proofread this meta

[aroaceleovaldez]

reminder that the only reason the "ADHD is actually demigod BATTLE STRATEGIES" and "dyslexia is DEMIGOD BRAINS HARDWIRED FOR ANCIENT GREEK" things exist in the PJO universe is because it's a very direct reference to early 2000s teaching/parenting techniques for neurodiverse and disabled children, which aimed to frame childrens' disabilities and hardships as a "superpower" or strength so that the children would feel more positively about their disabilities or situations. This technique has fallen out of favor since then for the most part since more often than not it just results in kids feeling as though their struggles are not being seen or taken seriously.

Yes, demigods are adhd/dyslexic (and sometimes autistic-coded) in the series. This is extremely important and trying to remove it or not acknowledge it makes the entire series fall apart because it is such a core concept. Yes, canon claims that their adhd/dyslexia is tied to some innate abilities, which is based on an outdated methodology. It's important to acknowledge that and understand where it comes from! But please stop trying to apply it to other pantheons in the series like "oh, the romans have dyscalculia because of roman numerals!" or "the norse demigods have dysgraphia for reasons!" - it's distasteful at best.

A better option is to acknowledge the meta inspiration for why that exists in the series, such as explaining potentially that Chiron was utilizing that same teaching methodology to try and help demigods feel more comfortable with their disabilities and they aren't literal powers. In fact, especially given Frank, there's implication that being adhd/dyslexic isn't a guaranteed demigod trait, which means it's more likely to be normally inherited from their godly parent/divine ancestor as a general trait, not a power, and further supports the whole "ADHD is battle strategy" thing being non-literal. It also implies the entire greco-roman pantheon in their universe is canonically adhd/dyslexic - and that actually fits very well with the themes of the first series. The entire central conflict of the first series fits perfectly as an allegory about neurodiverse/disabled children and their relationships with their undiagnosed neurodiverse/disabled parents and trying to find solutions together with their shared disability/disabilities that the kid inherited instead of becoming distant from each other (and this makes claiming equivalent to getting a diagnosis which is a fascinating allegory! not to mention the symbolism of demigods inheriting legacies and legends and powers from their parents and everything that comes with that being equivalent to inheriting traits, neurodiversity, and disabilities from your parents).

anyways neurodiversity and disability and the contexts in which the series utilizes representation of those experiences particularly during the 2000s symbolically within the narrative is incredibly important to the first series and the understanding of what themes it means to represent. also if i see one more "the romans have dyscalculia instead of dyslexia" post in 2023 i'm gonna walk into the ocean.

[airenyah]

A LOOK AT STYLE'S JOURNEY | Ep 9

(Overview | Ep1+2 | Ep3 | Ep4 | Ep5 | Ep6 | Ep7 | Ep8 | Ep10)

Yeah, I don't really have any introductory words to say on this one except... ENJOY <3

Pronoun situation: As usual, just assume Fadel and Style use the rude pronouns guu/mueng with each other unless I specify otherwise.

To recap: On their road trip through the country, Fadel and Style ran into an interesting pair and got involved in their (pre-)marital dispute. Style finally figures out what exactly Fadel is mad about and makes him a promise.

No. 1: A Stylish Death

Once more, Style and Fadel are on the road. Fadel finally took Style's advice from the end of episode 7 to heart and is currently taking a nap on the backseat of the car instead of threatening Style non-stop. Style turns his head to check on him, then shakes his head and looks back to the road, his expression amused. It's my personal headcanon that he finds it just as funny and ridiculous (affectionate) how bad of a kidnapper Fadel is as we the fandom do. What kidnapper just sleeps peacefully while letting their victim drive them around in a car without supervision? Speaking of headcanons, you know how there's been talk about where exactly Style got the sunglasses from all of a sudden? My mom suggested that they could be Bison's and that they just happened to lie around in the car, but it's my headcanon that Style actually nicked them from Jimmy and Popcorn's house. He probably found the glasses somewhere around the house and charmed the two of them into giving them to him before he and Fadel left.

Anyway, the radio cuts out and Style ends up finding a photo of some mysterious guy in the glove compartment in search of CDs. To be honest, I don't think Style is all that jealous in this moment (I think he'd know if there was a love rival he needed to worry about, I think he can read Fadel well enough by now), but I do think he's very confused and intrigued. Because Fadel did tell him four episodes ago that he didn't have any past lovers. And only the night before (I assume) they had a chat in which Style mentions that he doesn't know Fadel's past. And I think Style wants to know. About Fadel's past and now about the guy in the photo specifically, because that guy is likely connected to Fadel's past, too. Which Style wants to know about.

But right in that moment, Fadel wakes up. Style quickly throws the photo back into the compartment, slams it shut and immediately ropes Fadel into a conversation so that Fadel doesn't even have the time to ask what Style was doing in case he saw anything. Fadel starts telling Style about Bison's parents' island and house and Style hopes his best friend is still alive. The only thing Fadel has to say about that is: "I can’t guarantee that. You’ll have to find out for yourself." That's not a very reassuring answer. "Can’t you at least lie to make me feel better?" Style asks. Language fun fact, Style's reply actually goes more like:

Can't you give me some hope, please? มึงให้ความหวังกูหน่อยก็ได้ป่ะ [mueng - hâi - kwaam wăng - guu - nòi - gôh dâai - bpà] you - give - hope - me - a little (please) - [particle] - ?

Then Style asks for a quick stop at a clothes store because "I’ve been wearing [your clothes] this whole time, and it’s getting disgusting" and I just love that @panncakes was spot on when they said:

im just saying style is obviously not wearing his own shirt in episode 8 and since fadel had time to prepare for this search mission he obviously brought essentials including spare sets of clothing and baggy black does scream fadel; so im just going to assume fadel has style Who He's Definitely Killing Soon running around in his own clothing because you can't have a dead man running around in day old dirty clothes obviously and not because sharing clothes is becoming their Thing

In a bit we will see that Style actually is wearing a shirt that we've seen Fadel wear before on the show.

They start bickering, because Fadel isn't in the mood to go shopping for clothes, but Style fights for his will by joking about Fadel killing him and going on a very Style-like monologue about wanting to be a good-looking corpse. When he's done monologuing, he turns his head and throws Fadel a side glance to check if it worked.

It did.

No. 2: You Better Run, Better Run, Faster Than His Bullet

It worked. Despite Fadel's reluctance they are now standing in a clothes store on Style's request and that makes 3/3 series that JoongDunk have gone to a clothes store in. I'm starting to wonder if looking at clothes together on camera is in their contracts. Maybe the real sunflowers were the clothes stores we made along the way. (Yes, I am still waiting for a JD sun flower Easter egg. Since sun flowers were such a big thing in both their previous works and their mascot is a sunflower too.) Anyway, so Fadel caved and let Style go shopping for clothes after all, because when does Fadel not give in to Style and Style is hyped. They bicker some more and Style finally calls Fadel out for being a bad kidnapper while at the same time using the opportunity to pointedly call himself Fadel's boyfriend and just as pointedly call Fadel his own boyfriend again as well. Just listen to how much he stresses the word "faen". Actually, let me just share a more literal translation again, because he doesn't just throw around the word "boyfriend" two but three whole times in Thai:

Right now I feel more like a boyfriend. ตอนเนี่ยรู้สึกเหมือน​แฟนมากกว่า [dton nîia - rúu-sèuk - mĕuuan - faen - mâak gwàa] (right) now - feel - like - boyfriend - more Official subs: I feel like a boyfriend. It's/You're like a boyfriend who accompanies his boyfriend while shopping. เหมือนแฟนมาเฝ้าแฟนช้อปปิ้งอ่ะ [mĕuuan - faen - maa - fâo - faen - chóp-bpîng - àh] like - boyfriend - come - watch over, care - boyfriend - shopping - [particle] Official subs: This feels like going shopping with my boyfriend.

(The italicized boyfriends indicate which boyfriends Style pointedly stresses.)

Last episode, Fadel claimed twice that he and Style weren't boyfriends/a couple after Style referred to them as such. Now Style is calling them boyfriends again, but the only thing that Fadel debunks this time around is the claim that Style is his hostage. Fadel doesn't say a single word about them not being boyfriends. He ends his defense by claiming that Style doesn't hold enough value to be exchanged for anything and Style throws him a little nod like Sure Jan whatever you say. 

Fadel continues to say "I'm just letting you find a little joy before I kill you" and that's interesting because:

I'm only letting you be a little happy before you die. กูแค่ให้มึงมีความสุขเล็กๆ น้อย​ๆ​ ก่อนตายเท่านั้นแหละ [guu - kâe - hâi - mueng - mii kwaam-sùk - lék lék nói nói - gòhn - dtaai - tâo nán - làe] I - just - let, give - you - be happy - little, small - before - die - only - [particle]

Let's compare with every other explicit death threat that Fadel has made to Style since he's kidnapped him:

Doesn't matter where [I'm taking you]. You'll be dead anyway. But before I kill you, I have to see my brother.

Once I find him, I'm going to kill you both.

One wrong move, I'm blowing your brain out.

If my car was stolen, not only would I kill you, I'd take a car from your garage.

Just because I let you do this doesn't mean I won't kill you, you know?

Do you see what's different all of a sudden? Yeah, that's right. Fadel threatened Style's life, but he did not say that he would be the one ending it. For once, Fadel did not say that he, Fadel, would be killing Style. The only other time he made a reference about Style being dead rather than him killing Style was the very first time he voiced an explicit death threat and that one was still followed by an "I kill you" in the very next sentence. Now, though? There is no "I (will) kill you" anywhere to be found. It's the same thing a few lines down: "You're going to die soon, what else do you want?" (Btw, I did check the Thai lines in the list above and in Thai he also says that he'll kill Style each time.)

I don't know if Style picks up on that subtle change in phrasing, but he certainly isn't as annoyed by and tired of the death threats anymore as he used to be. Instead, he now deals with them by making light of them, like earlier in the car when he insisted he wanted to be a good-looking corpse and now by asking Fadel to drop his dead body in a beautiful place so that at least his ghost could haunt nice places in nature. And what I love about this is that even though this is clearly meant more like a light-hearted joke, Style still sounds almost kind of genuine in his words. Because Fadel is "serious" about his death threats and so Style will also be serious about his dying wishes. And even though he doesn't believe that Fadel will actually kill him, Style still would rather haunt a beautiful place when he dies (even if it isn't at Fadel's hands). That part is genuine. However, Fadel ain't got no time for this particular wish. And so he threatens Style's life one more time by playing along with Style: "If you don't choose something right now, the only place you're haunting is this damn secondhand store."

Style stares at Fadel for a moment. Message received. It's time for Style to back down from being annoying or else Fadel will really lose his patience. And so Style turns his attention to the clothes rack, but not without showing Fadel how completely and utterly unimpressed he is by Fadel threatening death for the millionth time in the past 3-ish days. Style soon gets distracted from his performance when he notices a nice pair of shorts, which he grabs and then pointedly holds out to Fadel like There. I'm choosing something. Happy now? 

Style seriously starts looking for something to wear after that and he's so focused on the clothes that he misses the way Fadel watches him with the most adoring look in his eyes. Style finds a top he likes and walks off to try it on. When he comes back to ask for Fadel's opinion on his outfit, Fadel points out that Style never really wears stripes:

But I don't really see you wearing striped clothes. แต่กูไม่ค่อยเห็นมึงใส่เสื้อลายทางนะ [dtàe - guu - mâi kôi - hĕn - mueng - sài - sêuua laai taang - ná] but - I - not really - see - you - wear - striped clothes - [particle] Official subs: I never saw you in stripes before.

Just wanted to make a little clarification, because in the subs Fadel actually says "I never saw you in stripes before" when Fadel actually has, in fact, seen Style in stripes. But "not really" and "never" isn't quite the same. In Thai Fadel implies that Style rarely wears stripes, not that he never wears stripes, and I think Style wearing stripes in front of Fadel three times in eight episodes is rare enough to be considered "not really".

Fadel taking note of this fact has Style quite satisfied, because Fadel is clearly paying attention to him. Then Style firmly tells Fadel "You can't kill me. You love me." and this stand-off really reminds me of the one in the storage room in episode 3 when Style tells Fadel "You won't [punch me]. You like me." Except this time Style is even more confident in his words. In fact, he knows he's right, because Fadel has had many perfect opportunities to kill him in the last couple of days, was actually close to killing him a few times and yet Style is still alive and kicking and actively being an annoying little menace in Fadel's life. And he also knows for a fact that Fadel is in love with him. He tested him in the bathtub and got a satisfactory result. Instead of being punched in the gut like last time, Style suddenly finds himself whirled around and on the ground, everything accompanied by the sound of gunshots. 

From one second to the next, Style finds himself worrying about his his life again after he's finally managed to deal with his fear of death triggered by the pool incident. Somehow, Fadel and Style still have the time to bicker while Fadel fires off a few more gunshots and then they run to a different hiding spot. I do love how Style's first instinct the moment Fadel has dropped down on the ground next to him is to reach out to Fadel. And I love how Style doesn't even seem to be thinking about it, he just touches Fadel automatically, his hand seeks out Fadel almost out of reflex.

Fadel realizes he's out of bullets and blames Style who defends himself and then asks how they're gonna fight this guy. And once again we get to see how much of a helper Style is and how much of a need to fix things he has, because he immediately offers himself up as bait to distract the attacker. Fadel hates the idea, but Style insists. He's too helpful for his own good. Style gets in position to run, but turns back to Fadel for a moment when Fadel calls out Style's name a few times. Fadel tilts his head in disapproval like Are you fucking serious right now?! Style nods and blinks at him in a silent answer: Yeah. It'll be fine, don't worry. I got this. Then Style bravely runs off. His need to help overrides his fear of death. 

Turns out Style cannot, in fact, outrun bullets. A bullet grazes him and he goes down. And at this point, let me just leave @secriden's observation here, because it totally hadn't occurred to me and it hurts me, so obviously I need to make it everyone else's problem, too:

[I]it is just deliciously dramatic that Style gets injured precisely dressed in the clothes he'd picked out so he could "at least die in something that's actually my style" and in the place Fadel said Style would haunt only minutes prior.

Fadel finds Style a minute or two later, once he's dealt with the attacker and they're both safe. Style says "It’s just a graze" and "This is nothing" and I'm not sure if he's saying this more to reassure Fadel or to reassure himself. His mouth says one thing, but his face sure says another.

Whatever brave face Style was putting on a moment ago disappears once Fadel starts wrapping his own shirt around Style's injury. Style goes down, clearly in pain. And I'm left wondering... Is that it? Is this why we've been counting Style around guns? Was it foreshadowing to Style getting shot? Only time will tell.

No. 3: Treating the Wounded

Somehow Fadel gets Style onto Bison's island. I wonder how far away they were at the point of Style being shot and how long it took for them to arrive on the island. Style is weak and pale and yet the first and also only thing out of his mouth is "Kant… You're alive. I'm happy to see that". Kant's death is a worry that Style has carried around ever since that morning at the hospital right before Fadel ambushed him and now that I think about it, this worry must have also played a part in Style's fear of and about death last episode. But Kant is alive. His best friend is alive. And that's all that matters through the pain right now.

Kant wants to help but Fadel immediately yells at him to let go of Style the moment Kant grabs Style's arm. I'm sure Style would have been cool with Kant also helping him, but Style currently doesn't have the energy to talk back to Fadel. Fadel continues to lead him towards the house and at one point as they're walking we see Style shut his eyes for a moment in a way that has me wonder if for a second his vision went blurry and/or if he's feeling dizzy from the pain and the shock of the injury:

Once at the house, Bison stitches Style back up while Fadel helps and acts as Style's moral support. I'm not sure how many details of what is happening here will be retained in Style's memory as his brain is certainly too busy with keeping him alive through the pain.

No. 4: Bestie Talk

Style wakes up in a bed and Kant finds him only a minute later with painkillers. Style first voices his relief that he himself didn't die from the shock of the surgery, followed by his relief that Kant isn't a corpse either. Kant's potential death really is something that was weighing him down. But Kant's alive! And he even told Bison about everything! Style can't believe his ears. How in the world is Kant still alive, then? Kant says "He loves me" and Style goes "Ohhhhhhhhh" while I go "The power of love, huh?" and then Style goes "The power of love, alright" and I die of laughter at how predictable Style's words were. Style, believer in the power of love, is very happy that his prediction was right, is very happy for his friend and his happiness. Kant continues "I love him, too. I'll do anything to keep him alive" and Style asks "And how are you going to do that? This mess is getting out of hand. It's not just the cops who are after them, but someone else clearly wants them dead" and it's interesting, because so far in their 1:1 scenes it was always Style being the optimistic one, the hopeful one, the dreamer while Kant kept things realistic and had a more pessimistic outlook on life. This time, though, it's the other way around. This time Style hits Kant with the realism. And it makes sense, because it was also Style who got hit by a real bullet. Style has felt and is actually currently feeling the very real consequences of "I'll do anything to keep him alive". One moment you think you can outrun a bullet, the next you almost die on a make-shift surgery table.

Kant says he doesn't exactly know how he's going to go about it, but that his heart is already in it. Style looks away, clearly thinking about something, then raises his eyebrows and nods.

"My heart is already in this." Style knows. Oh, how well Style knows that feeling. The feeling of wanting to do something, anything in the world for the well-being and safety of your hitman boyfriend. He's been feeling like this for a long time now. If we're being honest, Style has felt like this since all the way back in episode 5 where he told Kant "How would I even get through this? I compromised my whole body, and if we're being honest, I've already compromised half of my heart, too. I'm worried about him now" in that locker room. But back then things were going great for Style. Fadel had finally given him a chance and was happily dating Style while Style was falling in love with him more and more despite knowing his true identity. Back then, things were great. Now, though? Not so much. One moment Fadel threatens him with death, the next moment Fadel saves him from death. Style is happy that everything worked out well for his beloved bestie and his hitman boyfriend, but he himself is quite confused at the mixed signals he's getting from his own hitman: "Meanwhile, my chances are 50-50. He's hot and then cold. He loves me and then he doesn't. I honestly can't keep up with him." And I don't think the 50-50 refers to there being a 50-50 chance on whether Fadel will kill him or not. I think by now everyone and their mother knows that Fadel absolutely cannot bring himself to take Style's life no matter how hard he tries (and how hard he tries to convince himself otherwise) and Style is very much aware of it. He even called Fadel out on it at the store. No, I think the 50-50 is out on whether Fadel will forgive him and whether Fadel is willing to give Style another chance. Style knows Fadel loves him, but is the love he has also enough to let Style in again? Is it enough to put his walls down for Style again? And besides, apart from saving Style's life a few times, ever since Fadel found out the truth Fadel hasn't exactly been treating Style in a way that makes Style feel loved and appreciated while Style has done nothing but show his love and appreciation for Fadel. Fadel hasn't exactly shown that he really cares about Style. Style made it very clear that despite Fadel nearly taking his life at the pool, he still loved Fadel and was even willing to sleep with him anyway and Fadel just handcuffed him to the bed in return and told Style he didn't trust him. Style cried from trauma and the only consolation Fadel gave him was "don't be dramatic" and "I don't wanna listen". Style voiced genuine concerns about being murdered and Fadel came back with approval of Style's murder. Style called them boyfriends and Fadel returns with yet another death threat. Those aren't exactly bright prospects for Style and no matter how much Style stays in good spirits, deep down it's gotta hurt, too. Fadel may love Style enough not to kill him, but does he even care about him at all as well?

But Kant has an outside perspective and sees things that Style doesn't see. And from that perspective it looks like Fadel absolutely does care: "But from what I saw, he had your hands clasped in his so tightly. And the way he looked at you was exactly how I looked at Bison at the hospital." Style looks away again, even more lost in thought this time around as he contemplates Kant's words and thinks about Fadel holding his hand through the surgery as well as his relationship with him. Kant's words should come as good news, but Style still looks rather downhearted.

It may seem a little odd that our usual confident, optimistic, hopeful boy is suddenly discouraged. However, I think it makes sense. Style knows that Fadel loves him, but he hasn't exactly been treating Style in a way that makes Style actually feel that love (not killing Style and saving his life is kind of the bare minimum at this point, let's be real). Not to mention, there are also many things that we, the viewers, see from an outside perspective, but Style himself doesn't see them, like when Fadel nearly reached out to Style when Style was crying, or the look of adoration Fadel was watching Style with at the clothes store, or the concern Fadel showed while Bison was stitching Style up. But for the last incident, there was someone there to witness the outside perspective and finally Style learns how Fadel looks when Style's not looking. And that makes Style think. Fadel does seem to care. And Kant's words also serve to reconfirm that Style is right about Fadel loving him, but is that love enough to make Fadel want to be with Style again? After all, Style still has to work for Fadel's forgiveness. And I think that's why Style ultimately isn't all that convinced by Kant's words, because what good does the knowledge that Fadel loves him do, when there's a chance Fadel still won't take him back? What good does the knowledge that Fadel does care do, when it only happens in moments where Style is missing out on it? When it only happens in moments where that care doesn't properly reach Style?

Kant can tell that his friend is still unhappy, so he changes the topic to something more cheerful: "Thanks, though, for risking your life looking for me." This has Style genuinely laughing again as he says "I don’t need your gratitude." Another interpretation of this line is actually:

No need to get so touching, dude. ไม่ต้องมาซึ้งเลยมึง [mâi dtông - maa - séung - loiie - mueng] no need - come - touching, deep - [particle] - you

I think this is a little more coherent with Kant teasing Style about saying "I love you" afterwards, but that might also just be me. Anyway, Style and Kant bicker a bit and Kant accidentally causes pain to Style's injured arm. When they stop bickering, Style, who is in a bit of a better mood again after feeling a down about Fadel only moments before, now really wants to know alllll the tea he's missed while he was busy surviving the pain of the surgery: "When [Fadel] had my hand in his, how did he look at me?"

Kant goes into a dramatic reenactment for Style until they both break away laughing about how weird the thought of the two of them (Kant and Style) to kiss is. Once they've calmed down, Kant repeats that Fadel is worried about Style. Style smiles to himself, getting lost in thought again. It's still not an entirely happy smile, because Style still has a way to go to earn Fadel's forgiveness and Fadel still needs to make it clear in return that he does care about Style and appreciates him in a way where Style can actually see or feel it, but Style is definitely more hopeful again compared to earlier in the conversation. Maybe there is a chance Fadel is willing to give Style another chance after all. Maybe there really is still hope that Style will get his boyfriend back and that said boyfriend will also start treating him accordingly again. Maybe things aren't so bleak after all.

No. 5: Over My Dead Body

However, things take a dark turn when Style walks in on the love of his life holding his best friend at gunpoint. Style missed the beginning of the confrontation, so technically he doesn't really have context, but he also doesn't really need it, because he knows exactly what grudge Fadel is holding. No need to ask. Besides, the day they were playing with the BB guns Fadel already told Style "Kant has to deal with me. He started all this, after all." And now Fadel is making good on that promise.

But Style has been so worried about Kant's safety for so many episodes already and especially ever since Kant got kidnapped and now that Style's finally got his best friend back, alive, and he is not going to watch his (not-)boyfriend kill him in front of his very own eyes and so he shouts at Fadel not to hurt Kant. However, Kant is ready to accept his fate. But before he dies, Fadel needs to know that Style is innocent: "But Style has nothing to do with this. I lied to get him roped into this." Remember the word หลอก [lòhk] from last episode? Yeah, it makes an appearance again. Just so you know:

I deceived my friend one more time. ผมหลอกเพื่อนผมมาอีกทีนึงอ่ะ [pŏm - lòhk - pêuuan pŏm - maa - ìik tii nueng - àh] I - trick, deceive - my friend - [past tense marker] - one more time again - [particle]

(If you didn't read my ep8 meta: this word means "to trick" or "to deceive" and it came up A LOT during ep8. Lots of tricking and deceiving happening on this show. Who would have thought.)

But Style is not cool with Kant's sacrifice. "Don't you dare take all the credits," Style scolds him. And here, have the Thai version too, because it made me laugh:

Don't be cool all by yourself. มึงอย่าเท่คนเดียวดิวะ [mueng - yàa - têh - kon diieow - dì - wá] you - don't - (be) cool - alone, by yourself - [particle] - [particle]

Style won't let Kant to this alone. If Kant has to die, so does Style. And he makes that very clear to Fadel: "If you're going to kill him, kill me, too." Style's voice sounds angry when he says this and this is interesting, because Style hasn't really been properly angry with Fadel ever since he found himself tied up at the pool. Sure, Style got annoyed and he was even really done with Fadel at some points, but Style was never angry with Fadel, he never held any of what Fadel said or did to him against Fadel. No, instead of getting angry, Style just went with it and often met Fadel with kindness and love instead. But now that his best friend's life is on the line, Style is finally truly angry at Fadel. Fadel can shoot Kant over Style's dead body. And with the many times Fadel has saved Style in the last couple of days, Style knows for a fact that his dead body is not something Fadel can bear to see. Even when Fadel himself is the one who wants Style dead.

Style continues: "Nobody forced me into this. I agreed to it willingly." Style could have gotten out of this mess at any point after he was informed of Fadel's real occupation and of what Kant's real mission was, but Style didn't. Style stayed. And he even stuck to Fadel's side all throughout episode 8 without running away which is something that he did willingly. Not because he was afraid of Fadel's gun. Fadel never really treated Style as an actual hostage apart from that one time he handcuffed Style to the bed and the few times he waved his gun in Style's face. Style had plenty of opportunities to make a run for it, especially when Fadel was napping in the car. But Style chose to stay. Nobody forced him to do anything, not Fadel during their road trip and also not Kant at any time before that. Style went along with everything by his own choice and of his own will. No one's made any decisions for Style. Style also has agency in this game.

Style underlines this point by dropping down on his knees and offering his life by his very own choice. "Don't you have a little sympathy? We've been through all these things together. Why did you bother stitching me up if you're going to end up killing me anyway? Why didn't you just let me die?" Style is still angry, but now his voice sounds more reproachful as well as desperate. Style's hurt is really starting to shine through. He has stuck to Fadel's side with unwavering loyalty these past few days, has shown over and over again that he's serious about Fadel and his feelings for Fadel, he's been nice to Fadel, has helped him, has followed his wishes, has even nearly given his life to protect Fadel in the store. And not a single time has Fadel shown any sign of appreciation or as much as acknowledgment. That hurts. Even more so, when Fadel then goes to murder Style's best friend as a thank you in return for all that Style has done for him. I think when Style asks "Don't you have a little sympathy?" the unspoken question is You don't care about me, despite all that I've willingly done for you? Style's next words are even more loaded: "Why did you bother stitching me up if you're going to end up killing me anyway? Why didn't you just let me die?" This is You do care about me, because if you really did hate me all that much you could have easily let me die back there and finally be rid of me, but you didn't. You couldn't bear to see me die. This is If you care about me and my life this much, then why do you keep treating me so coldly? This is You saved my life and now you're just gonna destroy it immediately after? Are you really this cruel?

As Style is kneeling there, I don't think he is scared for his own life, I don't think he expects Fadel to actually shoot him dead on the spot. I think Style feels fairly safe in this moment, but he is terrified for Kant's life. He knows that Fadel can't bring himself to kill Style, because he loves him too much, but Fadel doesn't feel the same way about Kant. In fact, Fadel feels quite the opposite about Kant. If Fadel kills Kant now, even if he spares Style, Style's life would still be ruined. No matter how much Style insists that he'll like Fadel no matter what, I think if Fadel kills his best friend (or any of Style's loved ones really, like his dad), I think that's the one exception to the rule. I do think they would not be able to come back from that.

This moment here is also the first time Style actually begs Fadel for mercy. Yes, back at the pool he also worked on Fadel not firing that life-ending shot, but back then Style was mostly angry and annoyed and only a little scared. Yes, he did ask Fadel not to kill him, but back then Style was begging for his life, not for mercy. Back then Style didn't ask Fadel to show compassion. But now Style is on his knees, desperately begging Fadel to be merciful, to show compassion, to really think things through. Fadel stares at him.

Fadel may not appreciate the loyalty Style has shown him over the last few days, but Kant very much does appreciate Style's loyalty and voices it, too: "I'm happy to have called you a friend." Style replies "Thank you for making my life such an adventure. It's been so goddamn fun, you know that?" and now tears start falling from his eyes as he's speaking. And what I love about this is despite how Style is crying and despite how upset he is in this moment and despite how terrified he is about their (Kant's) death, for Style his potential goodbye to Kant isn't a tragedy. No, it's a celebration. Style is upset and he is sad and he is desperate and afraid, but he smiles a genuine smile through his tears as he speaks his potential last words that Kant may get to hear from him. It's a celebration of their friendship. Style takes this tragic moment and turns it into a happy one. Because if death is inevitable, he at least wants to spend their (Kant's) dying moment in happiness and with good memories in mind. Kant acknowledges that celebration with a smile and a nod, which Style returns.

But Fadel stays stubborn. "How can we be sure you're not just fooling us again?" Style's smile and brief moment of happiness has disappeared when he replies to Fadel. "You think I'd risk my life for all this if I didn't really have feelings for you?" Style is still firm, but now all the anger from moments before is completely gone. Only hurt and despair is left. Style is asking Fadel All this time you never thought or cared to see my perspective, did you? He's telling Fadel I'm here before you, literally begging you on my knees and you are STILL not willing to believe a single word out of my mouth nor any of my actions. Style may always act like Fadel's continuous stabs at him just bounce right off, but at the end of the day it does hurt him that Fadel keeps pushing him away, keeps refusing to appreciate or at the very least acknowledge Style's genuine sincerity. Style's words are reproachful, like he's asking What else do I still need to do in order to prove to you that I'm being serious, no tricks? How much longer will you disregard my very real feelings? Are you really that stubborn? Is this really the hill you're going to die on?

Now Kant jumps in with a beg of his own to support Style: "People make mistakes. Won't you give me a chance? I really love your brother, and my friend really loves you. The two of us will do anything to make sure the two of you get the life you want." Fadel looks at Style after Kant says "The two of us will do anything to make sure the two of you get the life you want." Style has his eyes fixed on Fadel and despite Style still being tense and his breathing being shaky, the expression on Style's face is firm and determined. Style really meant every single thing he just said or did. And he is especially determined in his decision to die alongside Kant. Style is sending a couple of messages to Fadel here. He's saying Since you're always disregarding my own feelings on this matter anyway it really seems like you don't give a shit about me after all, so killing me in addition to Kant really shouldn't be a problem for you at all, so go on, do it. He's telling him If you kill him, you kill me too. If not physically, then at the very least emotionally. He's asking Won't you finally believe that I'm undoubtedly serious and honest about everything and especially about you?

Style is also observing Fadel, watching Fadel intently to see what he's doing, to see what his next move is going to be. Fadel, who was staring at Style, looks back to Kant, then throws Style another look.

And that's when he makes the decision to not to shoot. To put the gun away, instead. And that decision was without a doubt made for Style, not for Bison. I think Style's words (and especially also the unspoken ones) got to him and more importantly, he got to see Style's loyalty in full action. And that was crucial for Fadel to see, because if Style is this loyal to Kant, then if Style's love for Fadel is true, Fadel can expect the same loyalty from him down the line. In fact, Style actually has shown Fadel the same loyalty all along already, or else he wouldn't have followed Fadel to Bison's island, nor would he have thrown himself in the line of fire at the store to protect Fadel. Although I'm not sure Fadel is really ready to truly look at and acknowledge that in this moment.

Fadel puts the gun down and walks a few steps away. Both Bison and Style rush to Kant to check on him. Once Style has made sure Kant is alright, he looks to Fadel. Fadel is looking at him too.

Then Fadel looks at the rest and asks "Any of you allergic to seafood?" And yes, that comment is funny, but it's funny in a way that in German we call Situationskomik (= situational comedy, comedy of the situation). I really don't think Fadel is making a joke here (like. that is NOT the face of a man who is cracking a joke). No, I think this is a peace offering, actually. It's an unspoken peace offering, because cooking for someone else is a gesture of care. And instead of killing Kant, Fadel offers to cook for everyone which includes Kant.

No. 6: Encouragement

Style on the phone with his dad and I'm relieved, because I'd been worrying about his dad with Style suddenly disappearing just like that without a word. And I'm sooo so glad the series spent a moment on showing us the relationship between Style and his dad again. Like, of course Style is gonna call his dad so that his dad doesn't have to worry. Bison is concerned that Style's dad will be mad if Style shows up back home all banged up like that, but Style is confident he can come up with some superhero story and promises not to spill the beans on Fadel and Bison. Style and Bison have some friendly banter until Bison tells Style that Fadel wants to talk to him and said for Style to meet him at the beach. Style is suddenly worried that Fadel changed his mind and wants to shoot him after all, since Style had already offered as much when he was on his knees earlier that day.

I think we have well-established by now that there is no way Fadel is capable of killing Style, and as I mentioned, I think Style is confident in that, too. So I don't think Style thinks Fadel is actually planning to kill him for real, I think he's mostly just being overdramatic and exaggerating again. Bison then plays along and says "No way. The worst he'd do would be trying to drown you" and when Style blinks at Bison and stares at him in shock I think it's because Style doesn't immediately recognize that this is a joke. After all, he hasn't really spent all that much time with Bison, so he doesn't really know Bison and his humor all that well. So Style stares at Bison with big eyes, then tilts his head and squeezes his eyes a bit, trying to figure out whether Bison is being serious right now and if this is something Fadel would actually do (after all, Bison knows Fadel's killer side a hell of a lot better than Style does) or whether Bison is just joking. Bison notices Style's struggle and clears up that he's just kidding and that Fadel wouldn't do that. But it's already too late. Bison's got Style genuinely concerned now. Fadel has proven over and over again that he won't be shooting Style, but who said anything about drowning Style? It's a possibility that Style had not yet considered.

Bison laughs and asks if Style really does like Fadel. All the fear and worry from a second ago disappears instantly as Style firmly tells him "Whatever Kant feels about you, that's how I feel about your brother. If you understand him, you should be able to understand me." Style fell in love with Fadel in episode 5 and absolutely nothing that has happened since, and especially absolutely nothing that has happened since Fadel drugged him at the hospital has changed any about that. Style chose Fadel at the end of episode 5 and he is still very set on that decision.

Bison advises Style that Style needs to prove his feelings to Fadel and tells Style "He acts all tough and rough on the outside, but on the inside, he’s just a softie". Style laughs. He did get to see that for himself during that short time period where he and Fadel were actually happy in their relationship. Bison continues: "He never hesitates when he kills. So if you're still alive, that means he's got a soft spot for you." Again, I think this is something that Style has absolutely clocked already and even called out (both explicitly at the beginning of the episode when he said "You can't kill me. You love me" as well as implicitly whenever he was teasing Fadel, for example in his hitman-teerak monologue or when he quoted Popcorn's words and went "I deserve to die" and cockily leaned his head back to mimic giving his life over to Fadel), but I also think that it still hits kinda different to hear it from someone who first of all has an outside perspective on things and second of all who knows Fadel's killer side better than anyone, from someone who's seen over and over again what Fadel is like when he's murderous, from someone who can absolutely judge the difference. Which Style can't, because he's never seen Fadel actually kill anyone, even if he got close to witnessing it a few times.

Style had started to get discouraged, because Fadel just wouldn't budge and just wouldn't let Style back in and Style just kept hitting one wall after another. And we can't forget that Style spent a lot of time repeatedly hitting walls for the first four episodes already and even when Fadel let him in, Fadel never let him in 100% (only 80%) and so even then Style still came across walls. And I think on top of being discouraged, Style was also starting to get tired a bit. It must be quite exhausting to be this persistent, let's be real. There is only so much energy you can spend on running after someone who keeps pushing you away again and again and keeps being harsh to you. Fadel hasn't even talked to Style or checked on him since Style woke up after the surgery. As far as we're aware of, the only time they've talked since then was when Style was begging for mercy on his knees. So yeah. That sure is encouraging.

But first with Kant's optimism and now with Bison's support as well, Style is starting to feel like maybe not all is lost after all. Hesitantly, he asks Bison:

You think I still have hope? มึงว่ากูยังมีหวังอยู่ป่ะวะ [mueng - wâa - guu - yang - mii - wăng - yùu - bpà - wá] you - think - I - still - have - hope - [auxiliary verb] - ? - [particle] Official subs: You think… I have a chance?

Style is starting to get his hopes up a little bit again. Maybe Fadel will take him back and be nice to him again. Bison is absolutely convinced: "Go for it. After all you've risked your life for, what else do you even have to be scared of now?" Style looks towards the ground, uncertain. Yeah, what else could he be scared of?

Nothing, except Fadel potentially drowning him in the ocean instead of rejecting him like a normal person. Or, you know, just the rejection in general, even if it doesn't come with murder. Honestly, at this point I think Style is also lowkey nervous, because now he really does have (strong) feelings for Fadel and Fadel being willing to be his boyfriend (again. or still) matters more than anything this time around. What will Style do if Fadel rejects him again?

Bison taps his shoulder encouragingly and walks off. Style stays back, thinking everything over.

How is he going to proceed from here? Is he going to try yet again and risk running into another wall as always? Or is he just gonna let it go and finally leave Fadel alone?

No. 7: A Vow Fulfilled

Style does go to the beach. When he arrives, Fadel is already there which makes sense, since Bison did tell Style that Fadel wanted to talk to him at the beach. Except Fadel immediately snaps at Style about what Style is doing here and asks about Bison. Style informs him that Bison was actually the one who said Fadel wanted to talk to Style right here. I think based on Fadel's facial journey and the fact that he moves to walk right off, Style can tell that Bison lied, probably to get Fadel and Style to talk to each other. And now, with new found hope, Style does very much have something to talk to Fadel about. So he catches Fadel's arm and pulls him back, asking him to at least stay for a chat. Fadel isn't really convinced and Style hits him with a cheeky "I can't sleep unless I talk to you". He then hands Fadel a list of all the relatives he has in his life, because "I want you to be sure that I'm not lying to you again." And I'm just gonna drop the Thai line again, because – ding ding ding, you guessed it! Our favorite word หลอก [lòhk] from last episode makes an appearance again:

I want you to be confident that I won't deceive you again. กูอยากให้มึงมั่นใจว่ากูจะไม่หลอกมึงอีก [guu - yàak - hâi - mueng - mân-jai - wâa - guu - jà - mâi - lòhk - mueng - ìik] I - want - that - you - (be) certain, confident - that - I - will - not - trick, deceive - you - again

If you haven't read my ep8 meta, I would encourage you to go read at least sections 6, 9 and 10, so that you have context for its significance. Last episode Style figured out that having been tricked (especially into love) was the one big thing that Fadel was really mad about. Last episode Fadel asked Style "You think that you deceiving (tricking) me is no big deal?" when they were sitting on the couch, then later when they were dancing, Style acknowledged that it is in fact a big deal and tells Fadel "But I'm ready to do anything to make you forgive me." Later in the bathtub Style acknowledges again that he did a bad thing by tricking (deceiving) and betraying Fadel (again I refer you to section 10 of my ep8 meta). And now, as Style is actively doing something in the hopes that it will finally make Fadel forgive him, he once again repeats to him the exact thing that Fadel is mad about, promising he won't be tricking/deceiving Fadel ever again. And yeah, the official translation isn't exactly wrong, because lying is in fact a thing that comes with deceiving or tricking people and this word can be translated as "lying", but I just want some consistency in the word choice. Because I'm sure the consistency of the word choice หลอก [lòhk] in the original Thai was very much on purpose. Otherwise they could have just had the characters say โกหก [goh-hòk] (= to lie) or some other word at some point too. But no, they kept (and keep) saying หลอก [lòhk] while the subs are all over the place (from "made someone do something" to "lying" to "fooling someone" etc. etc. -> these are just the ones off the top of my head). The translation student in me wants to scream. I might turn this into my master's thesis.

Anyway, now that this rant is out of the way, let's continue: So Style explicitly tells Fadel he won't be หลอก [lòhk]-ing him anymore and if he does end up doing it again, then Fadel is free to kill him together with his entire family. Fadel is outraged: "You're selling your whole family out for this? And you said you're a family man." And here's the literal translation, for those who are interested (it doesn't really change much):

You're selling your relatives to me? นี่มึงขายญาติให้กูเลยนะ [nîi - mueng - kăai - yâat - hâi - guu - loiie - ná] [interjection] - you - sell - relatives - to - me - [particle] - [particle] But you said you love your family, didn't you? ไหนมึงบอกว่ามึงรักครอบครัวไม่ใช่หรอ [năi - mueng - bòhk wâa - mueng - rák - krôp-kruua - mâi châi - rŏh] but - you - said that - you - love - family - no - ?

Style doesn't see a problem: "Because I know for a fact that I won't ever lie to you again." And yes, he does repeat the word หลอก [lòhk], thanks for asking. In fact, his wording is actually almost the same as earlier:

Well, I'm confident that I definitely won't deceive you again. ก็กูมั่นใจไงว่ากูจะไม่หลอกมึงอีกแน่นอน [gôh - guu - mân-jai - ngai - wâa - guu - jà - mâi - lòhk - mueng - ìik - nâe-non] well - I - (be) certain, confident - [particle] - that - I - will - not - trick, deceive - you - again - definitely, for sure

But Fadel, on top of being hurt that he was หลอก [lòhk]-ed by Style, he is now also offended that he is worth only a car to Style and sasses Style about it: "From what you did to me, I just hope that car's a real beauty." And it's actually kinda funny, because Style agreed to make Fadel his boyfriend, but it's been how many episodes since they've started dating?? And we have yet to see Style with said car. In fact, the only time that he went to Kant to claim the car was when he happily bragged about Fadel being his boyfriend the moment he started dating him many episodes ago, but then Kant told him about Fadel's real occupation and Style was like fuck that, keep your car, I'm out. And even when he agreed to stay with Fadel anyway, Style still didn't leave with the car. In fact, as of episode 6 it was Kant who was still in possession of the car, despite Style and Fadel being head over heels in love by that point (I've reached image limit, but we see Kant and Bison arrive at the bowling alley in that car at the end of episode 6 part 1). Style may have gone into it for the car, but he never actually took the car and by now the car is long forgotten. I didn't go and check, but as far as I remember Style hasn't even brought the car up to Kant ever since that scene in episode 4 where he initially came to claim it. At this point, Style would much rather have Fadel than the car anyway.

Fadel doesn't know any of that, of course. He doesn't know that Style isn't even in possession of the car (for now). And so Fadel drops a bitchy comment about it. Style's eyes widen and he immediately knows that Kant must have told Fadel. Fadel confirms and yells at him: "How are you gonna defend yourself now?" Shit. Style hadn't prepared for that conversation before he made his way down to the beach. Style hesitates a bit as he searches for words and the best way to defend himself without pissing Fadel off even more and making him run away again. Style's voice sounds a little stressed when he tells Fadel that it was only in the beginning that he wasn't being sincere. Fadel stares at him wordlessly. When Style continues to say "But after spending time with you" the stress from just now is gone and when he says "I've changed" his voice is very sincere and there's also an urgency that comes with it. Style really means what he says and it's important to him that Fadel believes him, too. But Fadel just looks away. So Style continues: "I never let anyone get the better of me. But for you, I'd do it again and again. I think we get along well." Now let me just share the Thai wording again:

Usually, I never lose to anyone. ปกติกูไม่เคยแพ้ใครนะ [bpòk-gà-dtì - guu - mâi koiie - páe - krai - ná] usually - I - never - lose (to) - anyone - [particle] But I have a soft spot for you. แต่กูแพ้ทางมึงว่ะ [dtàe - guu - páe taang - mueng - wâ] but - I - have a soft/weak spot for - you - [particle] I think we can have a life together. กูว่าเราสองคนอยู่ด้วยกันได้ [guu - wâa - rao sŏng kon - yùu - dûuay gan - dâai] I - think - the two of us - be, live - together - can, be able to

(Side note: there's a word play in the first and second line: to lose = แพ้ [páe] vs. to have a soft/weak spot = แพ้ทาง [páe taang])

Style uses the word แพ้ [páe] here, which means "to lose" or "to be defeated". And where have we heard Style use that word before? In episode 4, when Fadel drags him out of the Rise Up meeting and into the hallway. Once in the hallway, Style says: "I don't take defeats." And then we actually heard something similar again in episode 5 when Fadel tells Style "A guy like me doesn't know how to accept defeat" during their go-kart date. And now here Style is, standing in front of Fadel, telling him Fine. You win. I lose. And gladly so, if it means I get to have you in my life. Because he thinks they can be together. Style wants that and he's serious about it. Fadel looks away and sighs. So Style continues talking. And I'm just gonna share the literal translation again, not because it really makes any difference in meaning, but because I think some of you might be curious:

The thing I can do now is to convince you that I will be by your side. สิ่งที่กูทำได้ตอนนี้อ่ะ ก็คือพูดให้มึงเชื่อมั่นว่ากูจะอยู่ข้างมึง [sìng - tîi - guu - tam dâai - dton-níi - àh • gôh keu - pûut hâi mueng chêuua-mân - wâa - guu - jà - yùu - kâang mueng] thing - that - I - can do - now - [particle] • is - convince you - that - I - will - be - your side Official subs: The only thing I can do right now is promise you that I'll be by your side. But if you give me a chance แต่ถ้ามึงให้โอกาสกูอ่ะ [dtàe - tâa - mueng - hâi - oh-gàat - guu - àh] but - if - you - give - chance - me - [particle] Official subs: But if you give me a chance I will show you that I'm serious. กูจะทำให้มึงเห็นว่ากูเอาจริง [guu - jà - tam hâi - mueng - hĕn - wâa - guu - ao jing] I - will - make that - you - see - that - I - serious Official subs: I can show you I mean every word.

Fadel, who looked back at Style when he talked about being at Fadel's side, now looks away again and sighs for a second time. He remains stubborn. But Style won't be discouraged. He's made the decision to try getting through to Fadel once more and so he's on a mission now. "You don't believe me? Fine." Stupidly stubborn guys require stupidly silly methods. And at this point I really wanna share @ginnymoonbeam's words on this post:

You know when you've been fighting about something for a long time and eventually you get to a point where you know the other person has won, but you're too stubborn to just give up your position? That's Fadel. Everyone knows he isn't going to kill Style, that he loves Style, that he dragged him on this road trip because he wants to be with Style. He knows it too, but he's climbed on this hill-to-die-on and can't see his way down. Style's dramatic little stunt gives him a way to climb down. He has to get in the water because Style is the one being stubborn and unreasonable. It's gotta be a scene with a sense of urgency to break through that last resistance, but it also has to be something deeply stupid, because a genuine dangerous crisis takes his focus elsewhere. Fortunately manufacturing a deeply stupid emergency situation is right in Style's lane.

If Fadel wants to remain on that hill, then Style will just have to walk straight into the ocean. And he'll just keep walking until Fadel climbs down from that hill and gives him a chance after all. Even if Fadel's mirror last episode said that bad people don't deserve chances. And Style clearly is bad people for tricking Fadel into loving him and being crazy about him and then betraying him. And according to Fadel's mirror people who trick others into loving them all deserve to die. So instead of having Fadel drown him, Style will just willingly go drown himself in the ocean. He deserves to die for tricking Fadel after all. And so Style walks on. But suddenly Fadel starts getting stressed. He shouts after Style that his wound is going to get infected and but Style is determined to show just how serious he is: "And I will die of that, too!" Style is bad people and Style deserves to die for his sins and so Style will drown himself in the ocean and let the infected wound kill him on top of that. For love. Style walks and walks and makes a big show out of it and his injury gets closer and closer to the water and Fadel gets more and more stressed until he breaks after all: "Fine! I'll give you a chance." Style smiles for a moment, before he raises his eyebrows like Oh, is that so? and questions Fadel: "Really?"

Style knows he's won now, but the thing is that Fadel was reeeally stubborn for a reeeally long time and Style reeeally had to work for Fadel to utter the words "I'll give you a chance". And so Style decides drag it out a little longer. I think he partly does it to playfully mess with Fadel a bit, partly simply just to be a little shit and give Fadel a bit of a taste of his own medicine, and also partly because just as much as Fadel needed to see proof of Style's sincerity, Style also wants to see some proof that Fadel really means it when he says he'll give Style a chance. After all, Style's heart is on the line here, too. And there's only so much rejection a man in love can take. Style doesn't want that chance if Fadel is just gonna turn around and go back to making death threats again as soon as Style is back out of the water. And so instead of walking back to land, Style calls out "Nah, I’m gone. There’s no way you mean it." And let me just–

You're tricking me for sure. มึงหลอกกูแน่ [mueng - lòhk - guu - nâe] you - trick, deceive - me - for sure Official subs: There's no way you mean it.

Yup. Our favorite word is back. Fadel has repeatedly thrown it into Style's face that Style tricked him and now Style is turning Fadel's words back around on him. And it's not in a malicious way, no, Style is affectionately teasing Fadel with it and also being a bit of a little shit and also, as I just said, I do think Style is also lowkey worried that Fadel is in fact just tricking him. And I do think Style wants to confirm that this is not the case. By the way, I'm not sure Style's tease even registered in Fadel's brain, because he's so stressed and he's already moving to walk into the water the moment the words "I'm gone" are out of Style's mouth. As Fadel walks up to him in the water, Style watches him with a happy, expectant expression on his face. That expression turns serious as Fadel approaches him.

Style's behavior just now as he was walking into the ocean was very playful, very silly in order to get Fadel to loosen up and to lose his grumpiness a bit and to get Fadel to climb down from his hill of stubbornness. But what he has to say Fadel is actually very serious: "I promise you that, from now on, you'll only see the 100% real me." I think this is a big relief for Style, because we saw how much he was longing to be able to talk freely about everything with Fadel as far back as episodes 5 and 6. Fadel says "Besides work, I've been real to you from day one" and Style just looks at him without replying, because Fadel is kind of right. Although, it's not like Style could just say it, because apart from the deal with the car, the whole being a police snitch was Kant's thing, not Style's and so it was Kant's secret to spill. And it's not like Style could have just told Fadel Kant's secret, because Kant would have been a dead man right there and then. Style got as close as he could to spilling the secret without actually spilling it and I think especially that night at the rock concert Style would have like nothing more than to come clean and to stop Fadel from going on that mission, but it would have been at the cost of Kant's life and only two scenes ago we saw that Style will not have that.

As much as Style was Style for walking into the ocean just like that, Fadel is also Fadel and of course can't let this go without making another threat: "If you don't stay true to me after this, you'll find out how I deal with liars."

If you aren't real with me after this, you better watch out. หลังจากเนี้ยถ้ามึงไม่เรียลกับกู มึงเจอดีแน่ [lăng jàak - níia - tâa - mueng - mâi - riial - gàp - guu • mueng - jer - dii - nâe] after - this - if - you - not - real - with - me • you - meet - good - for sure

Bye the way, I'm not sure how obvious it is to non-Thai speakers, but whenever they talk about "being real" they actually use the English word "real". And I just wanted to put the Thai wording here, because Fadel also uses the anglicism "real" here when the subs talk about "staying true". Also, his threat is way less elaborate. Literally, the threat translates to something like "to meet good" (like, you'll meet something good as in something bad will happen to you).

Style doesn't talk back. He stays quiet. And I think it's because at this point there isn't really a lot he can say. It's true that he hadn't been real with Fadel and so he quietly accepts his fate. Style then also huffs a little and looks at Fadel fondly. Because even if Fadel just threatened him again, it still implied that they really will have a "from now on" together. And that makes Style happy. That's exactly what he just walked into the ocean for. After a moment, Fadel prompts Style to get out of the water before his wound gets infected. And now Style starts talking back again and teases Fadel: "Even when you're threatening me, you're worried about me."

And here I wanna share the literal wording again, because it reminds me of some other scenes. And let me just explain this one word before I do... So where the subs say "threatening", Style uses the word โหด [hòht] which is a word I actually discussed with my Thai friend after episode 7 and he explained that it can be translated in a few different ways depending on context, but usually it means "cruel" or "aggressive" or "brutal". I'm gonna go with "harsh" as a translation to have some consistency, because I feel like this word could work for all the lines that I'm about to drop.

In episode 4, when Style showed up in the kitchen he told Fadel:

No matter how harsh you are, I'm still hooked on you. มึงโหดแค่ไหนอ่ะ กูก็ยังติดใจมึงอยู่ดี [mueng - hòht - kâe năi - àh • guu - gôh - yang - dtìt-jai - mueng - yùu dee] you - harsh - how much - [particle] • I - [sentence link] - still - hooked - you - anyway Official subs: It doesn't matter how scary you are, I'm still hooked.

Then, in episode 7 when Fadel surprise attacked Style with a shower of kisses at the garage, Fadel had following complaint to Style:

When I'm sweet, you don't like it. ตอนกูหวานมึงก็ไม่ชอบ [dton - guu - wăan - mueng - gôr - mâi - chôp] when - I - sweet - you - [sentence link] - not - like Official subs: You don't like me being nice. When I'm harsh, you still scold me. ตอนกูโหดมึงก็ด่ากู [dton - guu - hòht - mueng - gôr - dàa - guu] when - I - harsh - you - [sentence link] - scold - me Official subs: You complain when I'm cold.

Now in episode 9, Style's words are very reminiscent of that complaint:

Even when you're this harsh, you're still sweet with me. นี่ขนาดโหดนะเนี่ย ยังหวานกับกูเลย [nîi - kà-nàat hòht - ná - nîia • yang - wăan - gàp - guu - loiie] [interjection] - this harsh - [particle] - [particle] • still - sweet - with - me - [particle] Official subs: Even when you're threatening me, you're worried about me.

When Style comments "How adorable", he's still teasing Fadel, but you can also clearly see just how delighted and happy he is that Fadel really seems to mean it when he says he'll give Style a chance after all. He looks at Fadel with the brightest smile. But Fadel has spent a lot of time being angry and hurt and grumpy and stubborn and so he isn't gonna be cheesy from one second to the next. And so he speaks out another (very empty, almost joking) threat as he warns Style he can be worse. "You want that?" Style says no. But if Fadel is already letting him put in requests, then Style wants Fadel to use only his sweet side.

From now on I want you to use only your sweet side. ต่อไปนี้กูอยากให้มึงใช้แต่ด้านหวาน [dtòh bpai níi - guu - yàak - hâi - mueng - chái - dtàe - dâan wăan] from now on - I - want - that - you - use - only - sweet side Official subs: From now on, I just want to see you being lovey-dovey.

This actually makes Fadel laugh a bit and ask for clarification and when he looks at Style after that, his face is suddenly so much softer. Style explains: "In a situation like this, if we weren't fighting, what would you like to do to me?" He smiles at Fadel, his face expectant and mixed with almost a sort of innocence like Oh, this is totally not an implicit request for you to kiss me and it also has a bit of a challenging flair like Do you dare to kiss me? The message reaches Fadel loud and clear. He dares. As long as Style is alive he'd make Fadel kiss him again. And Style did. Fadel is kissing him. By Fadel's own choice. Style left it entirely up to him, didn't force Fadel to kiss him, didn't get physically close to him, didn't try to seduce him in any way, didn't even explicitly say the words "kiss me" out loud. In fact, Style asked "What would you like to do to me?" and Fadel could really have chosen to do anything, but what Fadel wanted to do was to kiss Style. Style may have said earlier that he'd lose to Fadel, but is Style really losing here with Fadel back at his side?

Now. The eyes. Let me address the eyes, because I've seen talk about it. Honestly, the way Style's eye keep fluttering open kinda reminds me of what I wrote about the ep6 rock concert kiss and forehead touch in my ep6 meta:

They seal that promise with a kiss. And it's interesting, because Style doesn't immediately close his eyes when Fadel goes to kiss him but instead looks at him for a moment longer. And then his eyes keep fluttering open for a moment. It's almost as if he can't tear his eyes away from Fadel, as if he can't help but use every opportunity to look at Fadel, to catch every last glimpse of Fadel while he still has the opportunity to do so. They break apart and Fadel tells Style that he's (also) very happy tonight and Style (re)confirms his own happiness. They lean their foreheads against each other. And again, Style can't really close his eyes and fully sink into the moment the way Fadel can. It's like he tries to close his eyes but they keep fluttering open a second later because he just can't keep his eyes away from Fadel, is compelled to keep looking at him while he still can, while Fadel is still right there with him. And even when they break away from each other and turn to look out of the window towards the stage, it takes Style a couple of seconds to tear his eyes away from Fadel, who is already looking elsewhere.

Except now it's the polar opposite energy. Back at the concert, it was the end for Style. Now in the water it's a (new) beginning. Back at the concert it was like Style had to savor every last look at Fadel that he could get before it was too late. Now in the water it again feels like Style just can't stop looking at Fadel, but for a different reason. I think it's undeniable that Style is deeply in love with Fadel. But Fadel started pushing him away from the moment Bison was stabbed and at first Style didn't even know what the fuck was happening, especially with how weirdly affectionate Fadel had been the day before. And from then on Fadel has just kept pushing Style away again and again, outright tried to murder him even, and then just kept refusing Style, kept refusing to believe Style no matter how much Style tried to show him just how serious he was about his feelings for Fadel and how serious he was about their relationship. Fadel was pushing Style away so much that even Style, our beacon of optimism and hope, believer in the power of love, even he was starting to get discouraged that Fadel would ever take him back. But now Fadel is here, kissing him again. Style can't believe his eyes and it's like he has to keep looking at Fadel to check that he's really not dreaming, that Fadel really is here, standing in front of him, kissing him. It's the relief that he is finally getting his Fadel back which makes him unable to stop looking at Fadel to make sure it's real.

And another aspect my mom actually mentioned when I was talking to her about this scene was that Style is also checking on Fadel. I don't remember her reasoning, but for me personally it's that Fadel has been very hot-and-cold lately, jumping from saving Style's life to pushing him away again and threatening him in the very next moment. And as I mentioned above, Fadel is not the only one with a heart that can get hurt. Style is also human, Style also has a heart, Style can also get hurt. Even if it may not seem like it through his easy-going, unserious, always optimistic personality. Style is human and Style isn't the only one here between the two of them who did something hurtful to the other. And so I think part of the reason why Style's eyes keep fluttering open is to check Fadel's reactions. Because just because Fadel is in hot-mode right now, doesn't mean he won't jump right back into cold-mode from one second to the next. And so Style has to keep checking so that he's prepared for it if it happens again, because I'm not sure Style's heart could handle it if Fadel suddenly pushed him away again now without a warning. It would be like that time Fadel dumped him in the kitchen back in episode 4, except this time Style would probably be even more hurt than back then, because now he is undeniably irrevocably deeply in love with Fadel. If Fadel pushed him away again now I think that would actually break Style for real.

But Fadel doesn't. They break apart and Fadel nuzzles his face into Style's neck for a moment (definitely kissing it) and then they lean their foreheads against each other for a while. Together again at last.

No. 8: Lore

They're back in the room and Fadel is about to finish renewing Style's bandages after their little swim in the ocean. Fadel tells Style not to do something like this again. Style smiles and says "But I gotta pull some dramatic stunt for someone like you." Fadel huffs in response but is otherwise very focused on the bandages and doesn't reply. Now that they're finally one on one again and Style is also no longer dying of pain, he uses the chance to finally, albeit hesitantly, ask about the guy on the photo in the car. One could think that Style asks out of jealousy, but to be honest, I don't think so. As I mentioned in the beginning of this meta, I think he'd have a gut feeling if that guy was someone who could actually be a potential rival. Also, there's a chance that the person on the photo was also just a family member or something, not necessarily someone Fadel was romantically involved with. Besides, Fadel did tell him that he didn't have any past lovers and that he didn't want a lover in the first place to avoid getting anyone in trouble. So I think rather than out of jealousy, Style asks out of curiosity and genuine care. Fadel has shared next to nothing about his past, but Style wants to know. His voice is full of concern, but not because he feels threatened by the guy in the photo. Instead it's genuine worry for Fadel. Style hesitates to ask and seems almost a little nervous, as if he's scared that this question will cause Fadel to shut him out again.

Fadel stares at Style for quite a long moment, then goes back to the bandage without answering Style's question. Style immediately says "I'm sorry for prying. If you don't want to tell me, I understand" and that cements it even more for me that Style isn't asking out of jealousy. Because I think if he was jealous, he'd try to find out more. I don't think he'd be all that chill with Fadel not answering his question. No, I think Style's question is him cautiously trying to learn more about Fadel's past, but Style will also respect Fadel's boundaries if Fadel isn't ready to talk about it. Especially since last time Style insisted on Fadel opening up about his past, Fadel dropped that his parents were shot dead. So when Fadel doesn't answer, Style is quick to let him know that he won't be prying this time and that Fadel doesn't have to talk if he doesn't want to. And it's only then that Fadel makes the decision to open up after all. That guy is his ex. This new information has Style a little speechless as it dawns on him that Fadel lied about not having had a boyfriend before.

Once Style has processed this, he continues to ask how long Fadel had been dating this guy for and the reason why they broke up. And again, I don't think Style is bothered by the fact that Fadel does have an ex. There is so much worry and care in his voice as well as on his face while he talks and listens to Fadel. He genuinely cares to know about Fadel's past. And Fadel shares willingly and without any more hesitation: They were gonna start a life together but then the guy disappeared from one day to the other. Fadel jokes "Maybe he was scared of me, thinking I'd kill him if he broke up with me" and Style huffs and smiles a little, but that smile doesn't really reach his eyes.

Style doesn't think the joke is all that funny. He looks at Fadel fondly, but I think he also really feels for him. He feels bad for him for getting dumped like that and feels sad that Fadel thinks his past lover might have been scared of him, so terrified even that he didn't even want to confront him. And we know the latter part specifically really gets to Style, because the next thing he does is that he grabs Fadel's hand and tells him "I'm not scared of you". And Style is about to continue that sentence, but for a moment he just lets this part stand on its own, lets Fadel process that first before he goes on. Style isn't afraid of Fadel and it's important to him that Fadel knows that. Style continues to say that he hasn't been scared of Fadel since he saved the woman at the bowling alley and I call bullshit on that. I think Style stopped being afraid of Fadel by the end of episode 5 and I wrote 12k words about it. However, I do think the bowling alley incident cemented what Style was saying about Fadel being a good person last episode in the bathtub. Style ends with "You risked your life for a total stranger. I know I'm in love with the right man." And let me just...

A person who risks their own life for someone they don't even know. คนที่เอาชีวิตตัวเองไปเสี่ยงเพื่อคนที่ไม่รู้จักด้วยซ้ำ​ [kon - tîi - ao - chee-wít dtuua eng - bpai - sìiang - pêuua - kon - tîi - mâi - rúu-jàk - dûuay sám] person - that - take - one's own life - go - risk - for - person - that - not - know - even I love the right person. กูรักถูกคนแล้วละ [guu - rák - tùuk - kon - láew - lá] I - love - right - person - already - [particle]

I do much prefer the phrasing of "I love the right person", because it's not just a state of being, but it's something that Style actively does, is actively doing, has actively been doing, actively chooses to do over and over again.

Style's words really hit Fadel. And I think this time, he finally fully believes them, finally lets himself fully believe them. Fadel goes through quite the emotional journey, then grabs Style's arm and puts it over him as he lays his head in Style's lap. Fadel finally gets to be a child seeking comfort. Style's free hand immediately finds Fadel's head to stroke him. At one point Style smiles a little and shakes his head, looking a bit amused.

It's my personal headcanon that in this moment Style is remembering Bison's words about Fadel being all rough on the outside, but actually being a huge softie inside and is laughing to himself about how it's true. He currently has a very soft (and vulnerable) Fadel in his lap after all he roughness that Fadel put him through. They continue to stay like this until the end of the scene.

No. 9: Peace, Joy, Egg Cake

Allow me to bulk the last few scenes into one last section and allow me to mostly just skip over them a bit, since there isn't all that much plot happening here and it's more about the characters getting to be a little happy again at the end of this story arc before we go into the last bit (can you tell I'm just trying to get this meta done asap so I can hopefully drop it before ep10 lmao).

We got our OT4 happily playing frisbee in the water and it makes me laugh how Style's wound getting infected apparently isn't the same big problem anymore as it was the night before. It also makes me laugh how Style is apparently also perfectly capable of lifting an entire human man with that injured arm of his. I remember this one time a couple of years ago where I scraped open my entire leg and I couldn't walk on it for at least a week without being in pain, so like. Good on your pain tolerance @ Style, I guess. Same thing with Bison and his stab wound. And Fadel's sprained arm has magically healed as well, apparently. Not to mention Kant with his ocean trauma having absolutely no problem letting loose in the ocean water. This show is so unserious, I love it.

After they're done playing in the water, they sit on the shore and have a conversation about staying on the island, except Fadel reminds Bison that they still have one last job to do. Although Fadel then also says "Once we wrap up the last mission, we can go anywhere and do anything. Not sure if they'd come with us, though." For the last sentence, Fadel turns his head and says it directly into Style's face. This statement was 100000% directed at Style and Style alone, not Kant. Style stares at Fadel for a moment and then makes a face like My love, do you really even need to ask after I've followed you all the way here?

Then he says "Just tell me where, and I'll go with you." and I shake my hands at the writers in disappointment, because this would have been THE opportunity to bring back "hitman teerak". Especially because the wording is also kind of similar.

Episode 7: Tell me where you wanna go na krub, hitman-teerak. มึงอยากไปไหนอ่ะ บอกกูมาเลยนะครับนักฆ่าที่รัก [mueng - yàak - bpai - năi - àh • bòhk guu maa - loiie - ná - kráp - nák-kâa - tîi-rák] you - want - go - where - [particle] • tell me - [particle] na - krub - hitman - teerak Official subs: I'll drive you where you want me to go, my dear hitman. Episode 9: Tell me where you're going. I'm all ready to go. จะไปที่ไหนก็บอก กูพร้อมไปอยู่ละ [jà - bpai - tîi năi - gôh - bòhk • guu - próm - bpai - yùu - lá] will - go - where - [sentence link] - tell • I - ready- go - [auxillary verb] - [particle] Official subs: Just tell me where, and I'll go with you.

Please tell me, does the episode 9 sentence not scream for a "hitman teerak" drop? Does it not look a little incomplete?

Anyway, Style continues to say a very Style thing and Fadel laughs. This has Kant quite impressed. I have not gone back and checked if Kant is right about never having seen Fadel laugh, but I'm just gonna assume it's true. The only scene that I can think of where Kant may have seen Fadel laugh is at the bowling alley in episode 5, but Kant would have had to be looking at Fadel to see actually see that. Also let me just...

Please, the way Style is smiling so brightly at Fadel. He's so over the moon to have his Fadel back. With everyone being so happy and cute it just has me very worried about what next episode might have in store for them, especially considering the preview (we're not gonna have any more injuries on this show, are we? 🥺🙏).

As for Style's mood in the scene with everyone on the boat on the way back to land, I'm just gonna leave Joong's tweet here...

(Overview | Ep1+2 | Ep3 | Ep4 | Ep5 | Ep6 | Ep7 | Ep8 | Ep10)

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Oh, indeed. There is an incredibly popular quote used in probably hundreds of jonsa graphics and a few metas and no doubt a lot of videos by now, "Stone and snow, that was all that was left of Winterfell. Just like her and Jon." I have no idea where it originally came from, some 2011/2-era fanfic or graphic edit, but it certainly does not come from GRRM. Heck, it's not even grammatically correct and not even really GRRM's style (not that that's ever stopped anyone).

And yet, a few years ago, a jonerys friend asked me to proofread their meta disputing various jonsa claims… and within their essay, they had spent 6-8 paragraphs disputing this quote. 🤦‍♀️ They were extremely surprised to hear it was not actual ASOIAF text that they needed to consider.

And there's so much out there, just like this. Another pervasive one, non-ship related, is “a harp in the tomb, a child in the womb, a dragon in a stone egg”, a nice bit of poetry sourced only from a theory essay postulating Rhaegar's harp is in Lyanna's tomb. People have come to me going, "but that theory must be true, I mean, the poem!" and I had to gently explain he drew the receipts himself.

(lol, well, I say not ship-related even though it's R+L=J, but I tend to think of those obsessed with it (particularly that essayist) more as theory-obsessives rather than ship-obsessives. Not to slight shippers, I'm one myself, but it's a different kind of attitude for text analysis and projection, focusing less on proof of love specifically.)

But yeah, made up or misread jonsa theories are hilariously pervasive -- "the girl in grey" for one (it's Alys Karstark, who came to the Wall as a girl in grey riding a dying horse escaping a forced marriage. GRRM gave the answer in the book the prophecy appeared ffs, the whole story point of the prophecy is that Jon sent Mance and the spearwives to Winterfell to aid "Arya" and thus they ended up in Theon and Jeyne's storyline, but no, Sansa's going to do it all over again just because!) And my Ashford tourney crack theory they stole and misinterpreted (it was about Aegon, and about the fact nobody won the tourney because of Dunk (Sandor, lol, though I'll accept Brienne too), and I've seen people seriously considering it important even though I admit it's almost certainly coincidence and doesn't mean anything! Jonsas aren't the only ones of course, believe me I've seen some tremendous crack in my own ship, but I'm thinking specifically of cases like that where the actual text of the story (Alys Karstark, Mance, Jeyne, Theon; or the historical events of the tourney where Dunk and Egg met and Baelor Breakspear died) doesn't even seem to exist if you're only looking at edits and videos and other fanworks. It gives a wildly bizarre reading of the text if you've never actually read it.

And yes, twitter is full of these cases where the text has become irrelevant, where people make inferences and projections on top of distanced inferences and projections. Not to exclude worg and reddit, where people just make theories-on-top-of-theories, building up enormous cloud castles with no real foundation. Like the Southron Ambitions Conspiracy (textually, the rantings of a lonely paranoid woman), which developed (rationally) into the fan theory that "the STAB bloc formed to remove the Targaryens", but people use that as a basis for so much more, defaulting it as true, even though it is still only an unproven theory! And because it's maester-related and Targaryen-related, it's been mixed with the maester anti-magic conspiracy (very likely true, but also very shadily sourced within the text), into this enormous Protocols of the Elders of Hightower bizarre conspiracy theory that the Hightowers and Citadel want to control all of Westeros and killed all the Targaryens and dragons even the ones who were killed by each other and you can't trust the maester-written Fire & Blood in any way! except it's an inviolate text for the parts you want to be true and nothing is real but everything is, how dare you say otherwise.

Anyway, thank you so much re the term "sourcecreep" and that Jack Sparrow not-a-quote. Fascinating stuff.

@ilynpilled

ppl being more interested in Fandom than the actual source text is so real like they do have their own nonexistent text thats just a recycled concoction of the same bland fandom incorrect quotes tropes over and over again which deviates so much from the canon and they prefer to the actual thing lol

my favorite example of sourcecreep is the fact that if you go on reddit, pinterest, or facebook, or google image search 7 years ago, or flickr and photobucket if you're properly fandom old, you will find image edits of disney's jack sparrow with the quote overlay "the problem is not the problem. the problem is your attitude about the problem."

if you've seen enough of these edits (there are many thousands of them), you might even read those two sentences in his trademark cadence.

the problem here, though, is not anyone's attitude about the problem. it's that this quote has never appeared in any of the five films in which jack sparrow appears. nor in any of the video games he stars or guest-stars on. nor in any of the tie-in young jack sparrow novels or the film novelizations. it is not from a deleted scene or an early draft of any script. it's not from any of the disney park parades or firework shows in which jack is included as a face character with recorded speaking lines. it's not from the original ride or the re-dress of the ride post-dead man's chest.

this is a quote from the YA series the sisterhood of the traveling pants. one of the characters' coaches says it to them in one of the books because they are children in high school. there is no reason for it to be attributed to this character or this franchise besides one patient zero at some point or another 20 years ago making an image with a text overlay on picnik photo editor and uploading it to their livejournal or whatever.

anyway this is how asoiaf fans on twitter absorb information about their favs from the series and then post about it. i believe there are many such cases across fandom at large.

[raine-kai]

Contextualizing the Messy AkiHaru Scene

So...it came to my attention that a lot of translations of the scene where Akihiko crashes at Haruki's house in chapter 20 of the manga or the anime movie suggest that nothing happened more than we see in the panels/on the screen.

This is a translation error. The Japanese is unambiguous that a lot happened during the scene break; the art backs this up, in the change to Haruki's hairstyle from before to after the scene break.

Mainly, I want to retranslate for people who are interested, who didn't know that this was a mistranslation. But, I think that no matter how the scene is translated, there are subtexts and undercurrents that are lost, that cannot be simply translated into existence.

So I would like to explain several things in the lead-up to the scene in question, as well as in the aftermath, in order to hopefully give more context.

WARNINGS FOR SPOILERS AND NONCON

Notes on Translation: Given astonished me from its very first chapter with its deliberate and brilliant use of words. It is a story that is so incredibly articulate when it wants to be that moments of wordlessness or fragmented words are equally articulate, for they are crafted with as much deliberation and care as the articulate moments. As anyone knows who has ever tried to translate something, just plain translating the surface meaning of words often leaves a lot of the meaning behind. I will do my best to convey in English what the original text conveyed to me in Japanese, but it will inevitably fall short of the original text.

The Lead-In

First off, let's talk about Akihiko and the particular damage that he brings with him into this scene. He, of course, has the argument with Ugetsu and the fact that he has nowhere to go; but he has also been living this way for two years, presumably only a little longer than he has known Haruki. Akihiko describes the patterns that he and Ugetsu go through:

[Translation: "Even since Ugetsu and I broke up, we periodically continue to clash. Sometimes it's about the timing at which Ugetsu found a new guy. Sometimes it's just before or after Ugetsu is away for a long time. Sometimes these clashes come suddenly, immediately after we have been intimate for a few days, just like we used to be.]

Later, Akihiko reveals that he has a pattern of dealing with being kicked out of the home he shares with Ugetsu by finding someone, anyone to stay with. He has come to associate these stays as transactions, where the thing that he provides is most often sex. (We also see this transaction-based approach in his relationship with Ugetsu, for whom he feels compelled to cook—a thing that he later continues for Haruki with an urgency that does not match Haruki's easygoing acceptance of this dynamic.)

In fact, we see hints that perhaps Akihiko associates crashing with someone with providing sex to a deeper degree than even he acknowledges, in a scene in volume 1 where he crashed at Haruki's apartment while drunk, and upon stating it would be too much trouble to pull out a futon, did not merely crawl into bed with Haruki, but on top of him.

[Translation: Haru: Akihiko, get a futon and sleep wherever... Aki: Whaaat? But that's so much effort... Haru: So sleep on the....floor....]

So this is a deeply engrained association for Akihiko.

However, it is also a part of his life that he has gone out of his way to conceal from Haruki. From Haruki, he has not merely concealed the many times that he has essentially prostituted himself for a place to sleep; he has also hidden from Haruki that he has any flatmate at all, much less the nature of his relationship with said flatmate.

Haruki has the idea that Akihiko used to sleep around, but does not anymore. He is blinded partly by his own desire to see only the best parts of Akihiko; he is also blinded by Akihiko's desire to only reveal the best parts of himself to Haruki.

In volume 4, we see the moment that Akihiko lets slip that he has a flatmate, and the degree to which this shakes Haruki.

But the more emotional moment for Haruki comes when he realizes that Akihiko is talking to him on the phone while having sex with a woman.

[Translation: "That was a woman.... He was totally having sex."]

No promises have been broken; no trust has been betrayed. But there is an illusion of Akihiko that Haruki has, that Akihiko himself has carefully cultivated over the recent months for a reason that even he cannot explain. It is a paper-thin illusion, that only held up because Akihiko and Haruki both wanted it there.

But now, that illusion is shattering.

This just so happens to overlap with Take suggesting that Haruki take on a support role in his ex-gf's band.

Haruki has struggled from volume 1 with insecurities. He is the band leader; he is the one who brought them together, the one who runs their social media, the one who keeps them in line. Given is a band that absolutely would never have existed without Haruki. Yet he feels outshined by the other three members. There are several scenes depicting Haruki struggling with this. Akihiko is often the one to whom he voices his insecurities, and always without fail sets him straight. There is one particular exchange, during the same conversation when Akihiko reveals that he has a flatmate, when Haruki calls himself ordinary (凡人枠) and Akihiko retorts that he is not, he is 調停者枠....which is difficult to translate, but essentially means mediator, but in this case is denoting that he is the one who brings the different pieces of the band together (both musically, and as a person). Akihiko tells him then, "You're the one that everybody seeks," with a particular look in his eyes even as he reaches for Haruki's face. (Haruki pulls away and Akihiko pulls back and laughs it off.)

But the undercurrent is, for the first time, Haruki is beginning to see the truth of the words that he never quite believed. He is wanted and needed...he just needs to find a way to explain this to the other members of Given. In particular, Akihiko, who has always felt to Haruki like someone on equal or higher footing than himself, despite Haruki himself being older.

And these are the undercurrents at play as we head into the scene in question.

The Crucial Chapters 19-20

Akihiko shows up on Haruki's doorstop in the middle of the night, with an injured face from a fight with Ugetsu.

Haruki lets him in and they start talking as usual....but this time, it's different. They are both just a little bit at odds in a way they have never been before.

Haruki is aware, now, of a facet of Akihiko's life that until recently he had believed was left in the past.

Akihiko perceives that Haruki is hiding something, and in his typical way, immediately wants to know what it is.

This is why, when Akihiko asks his questions and asks if Haruki is hiding something, Haruki snaps back in a way we have never seen him do before:

[Tr: "[I am, but] you're one to talk!"]

Akihiko grabs Haruki by the wrist and asks again, and Haruki tells him...but throws in that the band he is doing support for is his ex's band.

Akihiko responds, "So you're going back to your ex?" and proceeds to crawl on top of Haruki to acknowledge for the first time what has always been unspoken between them: "You're in love with me, yet you're gonna run away?"

As Haruki lies sputtering for a response (he tries to pretend ignorance, but can't finish a sentence, between Akihiko pressing closer and his own shock) Akihiko reaches for Haruki's braid—the hair that Haruki has been growing out for as long as he has known Akihiko, as something like a wish charm (願掛け) for his love; the hair that Akihiko is somewhat obsessed with, taking every opportunity he can to play with it or style it—and speaks words that reveal that he is still fixated on Haruki's ex.

[Full text: 春樹さぁ、元カノがどうとか言ってたけど、お前こんなんで本当に女なんか抱いてたの？

Translation: You talk about this ex-girlfriend, Haruki, but did you seriously have sex with women like this?

Note: the こんなんで/"like this" is beautifully ambiguous. On a surface level of course it is referring to Haruki's long hair—with all the years of pining and love for Akihiko that that implies—but it also draws attention to how they are right now. The fact that Akihiko has crawled on top of Haruki as he has before, and Haruki does not fully push him away. It draws attention to the way that Akihiko himself is so central to Haruki's entire being.]

While Haruki flushes and thinks to himself, "Shut up, shut up! I did have sex with women, before I met you!" Meanwhile, Akihiko kisses him—a kiss that the art carefully does not show us lip-to-lip, either only showing us angles where we cannot see the point of contact, or focusing on the contact of only their tongues. Make no mistake, this is not a romantic kiss. This is a kiss full of frustration and pent up emotions and two years of unspoken, unacknowledged emotion brewing between these two.

Akihiko begins to strip Haruki further, and Haruki interjects, 「え、うそ、うそうそ、待った」(tr: "Wha- wait wait wait, just a sec"), which Akihiko ignores, and proceeds to begin performing oral sex on Haruki, even as he acknowledges internally that his actions are taking out his frustration with Ugetsu on Haruki.

[Note: the words Haruki uses at this point are not clear "Stop" signals. え、うそ、待った are all words that convey shock and uncertainty, and it is noteworthy that Haruki does not at any point use a word that would convey an equivalent of "Stop". That doesn't make this consensual, as his consent has not been obtained, but this is important to note, that Haruki deliberately does not ever outright tell Akihiko to stop.]

This is where Akihiko reflects on his messy relationship with Ugetsu, and the lingering hold it has on him:

Even since Ugetsu and I broke up, we periodically continue to clash. Sometimes it's about the timing at which Ugetsu found a new guy. Sometimes it's just before or after Ugetsu is away for a long time. Sometimes these clashes come suddenly, immediately after we have been intimate for a few days, just like we used to be. Like he is urging me, "Great, here's an opportunity. Let's part ways and break up for real." Like he is shutting me out of his world by force, to reinforce that he doesn't need me. What the hell? If you don't want me, why do you allow me to hold on? If you sympathize with my holding on, why do you try to throw me away? I want to trap you. I want to escape. I want to give up. I can't fully give up. I want to touch you. I can't breathe...

And when Akihiko comes back to the present, some time has past. His shirt is gone, Haruki places a hand over Akihiko's with tears in his eyes, and for the first time, says やめてよ [approx. translation: "Please stop," but this is a very gentle way of saying it—a plea in softer language]....and then continues, そんな顔しないでよ、辛そうな顔しないでよ、なんなの？言ってよ、なんでもしてあげるから [tr: "Please stop looking like that, like you're in such pain...What is it? Please tell me. I would give you anything."]

It is the なんでもしてあげるから here that is utterly striking. @edragoon​ and I debated translations and arrived on "I would give you anything" as the best option, but even with Haruki's soft language leading up to this, even with his words so focused on Akihiko's pain, the sheer love conveyed by these words is heart-wrenching—as is the art, Haruki's hand reaching out to Akihiko's face.

Akihiko has unearthed Haruki's unspoken feeling as part of his self-destructive spiral in a move that he no doubt expected to hurt Haruki, but instead, Haruki has owned up to his no longer hidden feelings and offers all of himself to Akihiko; turns the focus back onto Akihiko and his pain, rather than on himself, as Akihiko probably expected. As no doubt has happened in similar situations with Ugetsu.

And Akihiko, caught between Haruki here and the mess in his heart that is Ugetsu, expresses resentment that these words are coming from Haruki instead of Ugetsu.

"Why did you have to be the one to say that?" Akihiko laments silently, and then out loud,

[tr: "Telling you won't change anything."]

He follows this up with a small, "Sorry," and wonders to himself "Why couldn't it have been you?" (In Japanese, as in English, it is ambiguous whether he is wishing that Haruki were the one he wanted those words from, or that Ugetsu were the one saying those words. The last use of "you" in his internal monologue was directed at Haruki, supporting the first interpretation, but he is also lost in his head, so it would be no surprise if he is swaying back and forth.)

The scene breaks here, and on the next page, Haruki is curled up facing the back of the couch, fully dressed in new clothes and his hair now pulled back in a ponytail, and Akihiko is seated on the floor with his back to the couch, shirtless.

[Tr: "I'm sorry. Truly. I was completely in the wrong."]

Haruki responds, "That's not the part I want an apology for," even as he remembers those damning words, Telling you won't change anything.

[Tr: "...I said I'd give you anything. By the end it was basically consensual."]

Haruki goes on to say Akihiko is free to stay over, but he will be going to a friend's place.

Akihiko visibly panics, but only manages to call Haruki's name once as Haruki tells him he can use anything, can leave the door unlocked, but simply should be gone by morning.

Haruki leaves the apartment, and we see him cry as he walks through the darkened streets as those words Akihiko spoke again.

Left behind, Akihiko berates himself for how much he lets himself lean and depend (甘える) on Haruki, and he reflects on the events with his family and Ugetsu that lead him to where he is, without anywhere else to go. [NOTE: this is no doubt a significant factor in his later decision to move out of Haruki's apartment once as he goes through the process of bettering himself.] He contemplates the ways in which he has behaved towards Haruki, the parts of his own life he has almost instinctively hidden from his view.

Akihiko spends the night on the floor by the couch. (A shot of the clock at one point tells us it is 1:20am.)

We see morning dawn, and it is as Take is at work discussing lunch break that he gets a text from Akihiko, asking if he's seen Haruki. It is in the evening, when Take goes home, that he finds Haruki listless and hollow-eyed in front of his apartment.

The clock reads 9:40pm when Haruki comes home at last. Apart from the few hours he was with Take, Haruki has spent the better part of a night and a day alone who knows where.

[Tr: "Oh, you're still here"]

The hair that Akihiko had adored, the hair that Haruki had been growing since the day he met and fell for Akihiko, is cut short.

The Aftermath

The two of them don't shy away from the subtext of the last day—especially Haruki, who says blandly, "Sorry, but I'm tired after your rejection of my feelings, as you can see. Please go home." And when Akihiko tries to reach for him with a, "Wait, but—" his hand his slapped away by Haruki, who informs him, "Look, I'm angry at you." and cuts off Akihiko's attempted apology one syllable in with an admonishment that an apology will only make him angrier.

But Akihiko says what he should have said the night before—that he is at the end of his rope and has nowhere to go. He quietly asks to be permitted to stay in Haruki's apartment, assuring him that he will sleep on the floor, that he will not do anything again. He begs for Haruki to help him.

Haruki is furious.

「サイアク」the narration repeats: "[This/he] is the worst."

At last, Haruki agrees, but with the words, "If you weren't a band member, I'd throw you out."

The next day at band practice, Akihiko and Haruki are wildly out of sync, and while Haruki puts on a carefree smile for Uenoyama and Mafuyu, he is still spiraling with despair and humiliation.

And yet Akihiko too is on pins and needles, reacting with abject (though silent) horror when Uenoyama asks Haruki what's wrong.

But Haruki tells Uenoyama and Mafuyu nothing, and when he walks off and Akihiko goes after him, the words that come out of his mouth are all about his insecurities about his place in the band. About how he is too ordinary and does not belong in such a band of geniuses.

This is not what Akihiko was expecting his outburst to be about; this is also familiar territory for him, that he knows how to handle. Akihiko knows music.

He assures Haruki of why his music was off today, as he would have any other day. He assures Haruki that he is utterly deserving of his place in their band, as he has so many times before.

[Tr: "I've pretty much always told you that you're necessary, haven't I!?"]

And all at once, memories come rushing back to Haruki of so many times that Akihiko has told him of his value.

Haruki's anger loses its momentum and he deflates. They had back to Haruki's apartment, with Akihiko promising to cook dinner, as he is the freeloader. (Another nod to his tendency to view these arrangements as transactional.)

Living together proves a disillusionment process for Haruki. Of course, the night that Akihiko first came to his apartment was the enormous catalyst, but the disillusionment process continues.

All of those ways in which he had formerly idealized Akihiko crumble one after another for Haruki as they live together. Akihiko cooks, but he only has one flavor profile, and often makes fried rice. Akihiko spends most of his days on music, be it violin or the drums, and it is louder than Haruki is used to with his bass—it is also evidence that Akihiko is the musician he is because he puts in the work, not just inherent talent.

...And that brings us to the end of volume 4, so I think I shall stop here!

If you read all this way, thank you, and I hope this added something positive to your day!

[pocketgalaxies]

Hey, you’ve might of already answered this and I missed it, apologies for that, but what is your opinion on the whole Yu and Birdie fight? And how Bells Hells reacted to it? I’ve seen some harsh takes,like, harsh ass takes. And I am wondering what yours is. Again, sorry if you have already answered this.

hello! nobody has asked me this so you're all good!

idk what the harsh takes are but i personally thought it was totally in line with the characters as we know them so far, so i have no complaints dkfjskdf like?? idk i think critical role would not be as successful as it is if these people weren't extremely masterful character creators, and as long as things are in-character there's very little for me to complain about

all this to say i feel pretty neutrally positive about it, kind of just "that happened the way it happened!" and looking forward to seeing more extensive fall-out in upcoming eps, honestly not sure if i have much else to say at this point. i don't have any TAKES per se, just really hoping we get some RP-heavy stuff this week to get a better idea of how everyone is Feeling™? but some rambly thoughts about what happened in general:

in general i think the death wish run did a LOT of work to make bells hells trust yu. she repeatedly showed that she was willing to take huge risks to help bells hells succeed, and i think this ultimately played a big part in preventing the party from immediately turning on them once they revealed their true form (especially imogen and orym)

ashley did such a wonderful job walking the line between "you're my mom, i trust you above all else" and "you're a stranger i haven't seen in 90 years." i made a liveblog post about this too but i think it's interesting to see how fearne was p much paralyzed with indecision, but as soon as she got something out of birdie (read: that she is ruidusborn) that explained her behavior as anything other than intentionally hurtful, she was ready to turn on yu, but she needed that answer first.

imogen's prioritization of information-gathering makes a lot of sense considering that she knows better than most how emotions can bias your actions and perceptions, as well as how your feelings may not always be accurate or fair to the situation. imogen explicitly wanted fearne to have a happy reunion with her mother, and she also had some level of persistent suspicion of yu (from jealousy sure but also from the mind shielding), but she used detect thoughts to get all the info she could first, and that ended up defining her course of action

ashton was very very quiet. but mad at yu for sure. not sure what to make of it yet aside from being very very pissed at a traitor

fcg...i'd have to rewatch to rly confirm this but my initial impression was that fcg did a pretty terrible job picking up on the social subtext of everything that was going on DKFJSDF. sam has been v consistent in showing that there is just Something lacking in fcg's social instincts. everything is a little bit too objective, a little bit too black and white

chetney is consistently morally questionable and willing to make deals with the (proverbial) devil. i still feel like i don't understand this man at all so that's all i have to say at this time

i'm getting tired and i think ppl have written much better meta about orym than i have. something something he feels like he failed himself and will and keyleth 6 years ago and he was not willing to let it happen again

i wrote a little about laudna in yesterday's gifset but basically she just made me Sad. the use of bane to de-escalate was really interesting on marisha's part and in general i think laudna is extraordinarily non-confrontational and also was completely panicking. the helpless confused "agh!"s as she presses her hands into her eyes and summons the shadows onto a person that she loves. it made me very sad.

anyway hope this was fun to read i'm not going to proofread it so sorry if it's nonsense but long story short i don't have any particular takes about it at all, let alone harsh ones dkdkfjskdjfs

if you want to read more smarter neutrally positive analyses you can go in my #cr meta tag! there are some posts about yu and birdie in there too since i am too tired to put them here rn lmaooo

[sylleblosscm]

Since my bookstore hates me specifically and it taking all the time in the world to send me my copy of Dawn, @lightwithinthenightsky very kindly helped me get a digital version of it to read right away. And like a normal person who likes things a normal amount, I’ve been taking notes of details and things of interest, and also whatever I want. 

 It’s really a few different stories. The first is Episode Ardyn with a twist at the end, and the second is a story about Aranea. This is as far as I am right now, and I will be using these notes for myself to refer back to when I write Real meta about it. I have them in my Drive but I’m storying them here too so uh. If anyone wants them, I guess? Wants to discuss/use as a reference/ whatever. Go wild. But be warned: I don’t proofread prelim notes so even I don’t know what I was trying to say at any point. 

Pg ~140

Aranea, my girl.!!! Wyf!!!!!

Interesting information about life in the Empire

Aranea has fond childhood memories. 

First, playgrounds, then sporting grounds and theatres repurposed for the Empire’s ambitions.

Life under the Empire, once luxurious, is now empty and difficult. Luxuries are hard to find.

Regardless, some remain loyal to the emperor because something glory something. 

Aranea likes to sleep on a firm mattress and stiff sheets, where she can spread out. Absolute blanket hog. Crucial info.

The Empire values its MTs more than the mercenaries they hire, because mercenaries are cheap.

Pg 155

Diamond weapon, my old friend

I’m out of garlic prawns :(

Diamond Weapon was able to fell an apparently shitload of Imperial forces with its glowing red core. 

Like that one episode of Doctor Who on the Titanic.

Aranea seeing red and going apeshit on Diamond Weapon for taking human lives, my beloved. 

She crashed into a storehouse Cloud Strife style and just got up like it was nothing Top energy. 

Pg 159

Thanks to DW (I am going to call it that now and Imagine the annoying little sis from Arthur, nobody can stop me) there is an evacuation order in place throughout the Imperial Capital. 

The Aerial Safety Net system is a thing, which was installed on highrise rooftops “back when the Empire cared about safety”.

So there are clear vibes of a not-too-distant pass where the citizens of the Empire had it good.

Kind of interesting that “thank the Gods” is still an expression used outside of Lucis, in places not necessarily blessed by the Gods. 

TANGENT: After growing tired with the Gods’ bs, Luna and others changing their language to something along the lines of “thank the stars” instead. Must come back to this.

The safety net is one-way; it can stop things from falling but not rising.

How many times has someone accidently hit, say, a ball into the air and lost it on the net? Like with roofs and stuff? Was that a common issue?

“rogue MTs thrashing about alongside the daemons. The control system normally keeping them in line must have been put out of commission.” **Aranea suggests that there have been issues with rogue MTs slaughtering innocents before. This is good plot stuff, also I used something like it once so ha. 

Aranea finds a dead person murdered by one of the MTs, and can scarcely stand to look at it (bby girl pls).

Aranea looked after a three-year-old once? Who? Did I miss this? Will it come up again? Is mommy energy but also mummy energy?

There are a lot of residents stuck in the city that nobody seems either available or willing to help. Aranea has her team step up to the task like the top she is. 

“All right, Tiny. Time for your spanking.” Aranea please I can only be so bisexual. 

Diamond Weapon is king-konging it on top of Z Keep.

Pg 167

All the civilians they rescued are children. 

“...Aranea had experienced something similar before. The adults must have seen to the children’s safety, then gone to try to hold off the daemons and MTs. She felt sure of it, remembering voices from the distant past.” Episode Aranea when??

I think this book just roasted Chapter 13. Good.

Aranea is very Angry at the military for leaving the children in this situation, but also at herself for being part of such an organisation, and tries to comfort a little boy ;-; 

Man I came in here for a cool Luna AU but this/?? Dude.

Pg 170

Naturally, this seems to be all Ardyn’s doing. 

Something about the Emperor not producing an heir? Ok??

Apparently the Emperor had a wife and son but they both ded now. Are they trying to make me feel sorry for this creep? I don’t.

He wouldn’t even discuss the prospect of remarrying. So instead he decided to try to live forever rather than produce another heir. 

You know. Like a creep.

Apparently, he once was, or had the persona of, a selfless statesman, and that all changed about the time Ardyn arrived. 

Aranea’s already closer to guessing Ardyn’s true nature without seeing it or being told than anyone else, what a Queen. Queen of my heart. 

Aranea having a moment of silence for an Emperor she didn’t care for. 

Anyway, in case the theme isn’t clear, Aranea cares very, very dearly for human life and childhood innocence. 

Ardyn wants to send Diamond Weapon to Tenebrae. HMMM. 

Oh god Ardyn eats apples loudly, please I take back everything good I ever said fuck this guy.

Biggs, Wedge, and the people they rescued are on a train heading to Tenebrae, around the same time Noct is on a train. Probably not the same train; Noct’s didn’t have that many children. Also, Biggs, Wedge and Aranea were already in Tenebrae when Noct got there.

GET HIS ASS, ARANEA. FUCKING ROAST HIM. 

Pg 184

And now Aranea’s beating Loqi’s ass. Good For Her.png.

Ok they’re getting along now she also saved his ass.

Why does Loqi have a child?

Aw, Aranea’s whole home was destroyed by daemons. She’d wanted to help fight them off, but she was just a kid. She was told to remain and look after the younger kids.

Oh shit, is the kid the Emperor’s granddaughter????

Aranea takes the kid, Loqi stayed behind because something something glory to the empire. RIP, dude.

Pg 194

Aranea deduces the kid is used to being doted on.

They engage DW from Wedge’s ship. 

It gets knocked down but it gets up again. They’re never gonna keep it down. 

She announces the resignation she’d sarcastically tendered to Ardyn and fucking j u m p s from the ship what is it with this series and badass women jumping from midair? 

Then she says it was an honour to serve with everyone Aranea pls..

Yooo Aranea puts up a hell of a fight and resigns to being defeated then Biggs and Wedge show up and DLC WHEN?????????

She’s gonna take it out by being yeeted at it holy shit Imma wife this chaotic queen dlc whennnnnnn

Pg 207

Huh. Apparently Tenebrae was a resort destination before the Empire’s occupation. Neat.

The boys are roasting Aranea for saying goodbye to everyone and it’s the cutest shit??

Pg 210

First the DW fight then a bunch of daemons. Poor bastards :/

Aw the kid was worried about Aranea, and Aranea just gives her a big hug please.

The kid’s name is Solara Antiquum, Sol for short. Yeeeah, I know who this is.

Help this whole interaction is so cute, Aranea, please adopt this child and live an idyllic cottagecore life it’s all I want for you now.

Secret Granddaughter, yep.

Pg 214

The same year Noct comes back 

Aranea, Biggs and Wedge living their best life with their daughter, Good For Them.png.

Apparently she has a “famous” cassoulet recipe, she’s getting wifier by the second. 

It’s Sol’s favourite food. 

[kiranatrix]

Any tips for writing a well DN fanfiction ?

This is a bit tricky to answer since everyone’s idea of what makes a good story differs. The main thing is to write something YOU like and want to do for fun. But I can give you my process at least.

- Ideas. The idea has to 100% grab me by the neck and shake me. If I can’t get it out of my head, then I know I’ll have the stamina and creative juice to actually write it to completion. If the idea fizzles out after a few days then I doubt I’d be able to make other people interested in it either.

- Characters. Readers like to be able to recognize their favorite characters, so while author interpretation is good and needed, we still want to feel their essence from canon. Closely reading the source material or good meta helps with understanding who they really are/what motivates them. Putting them in new situations but still keeping their personalities, quirks, values, etc. is a good combo. For the same reason, stories centered on OCs will have a harder time attracting readers because the author has to get you to be interested in them. Canon characters have that interest built-in.

- Plots. Have the loose story ending in mind but don’t be afraid to change things up as you write. Twists and turns are fun but when they come out of the blue, not so much. Subtle foreshadowing is your friend! Writing satisfactory character arcs takes some time to build up (multi-chapter), but you don’t need to worry about that in a short one-shot since that’s more like a snap shot in time. Outlining can help you think about the major plot points and it doesn’t have to be detailed. I leave the fleshing out for the writing.

- Vetting. Bounce your ideas off people you trust to tell you something sucks or not. I’m serious, this is solid gold. BUT that shouldn’t stop you if you have an idea you really have to get out of your system. No one can see your vision as well as you can but if you’re writing to appeal to others too, other opinions are worth listening to. Grow some thick skin if you want to grow as a writer because you’ll only receive really helpful feedback if you can listen to it without hurt feelings.

- Proofing. Format it nicely and proofread. Nobody really cares about the odd typo here and there but when there are a lot, it can hurt the enjoyment of the story. Get Grammerly, use spellcheck, grab a beta reader, etc. Break up your paragraphs. When writing dialogue, use line breaks when a new person speaks. Break up long chunks of exposition with dialogue and vice versa. Check a page of a published book to see how professional typographers do it— there tends to be a lot of empty space and line breaks because that is easier for people to read.

- Kill your darlings. No, not your characters, I mean be prepared and willing to cut out writing that doesn’t work. If you don’t get overly attached to any one thing in your writing, you have ultimate freedom to look at it objectively for what works. Your story will be better for that.

- Do something different. The easiest way to carve your niche is to write something unique that isn’t like everything else out there. Maybe you have a unique style? Unique character interpretation? Like to focus on a genre that isn’t very prominent in fanfic?

- Don’t become obsessed with stats, popularity, or comments. It really sucks to write a story that you loved but nobody else seems to. All that hard work! But that’s the game and no one is obligated to read it, like it, or comment on it. If they do, awesome! They have great taste lol! But if not, do not take it to heart, and keep doing what makes you happy. Fanfic is a hobby we do for free and for fun, that’s it. Its popularity will not validate you or invalidate you because it’s not like we’re making money or getting anything else out of playing in the canon author’s sandbox. What I hope you get out of fanfic is from the writing part (the act of creation), not the number of kudos etc.

- DN specifically. This is a complex universe with lots of Death Note rules, shinigami lore, unique personalities, dark themes juxtaposed with humor, moral dilemmas, and complicated mind games. These are the aspects that make canon Death Note an incredible, compelling story. Fans of the series enjoyed it in the main story and will enjoy it in yours, too.

- Have Fun. This is the most important thing. Nothing else really matters because this is where the author’s passion comes from. That means don’t be afraid to break hearts or be fluffy or dark or silly or serious or however it is fun for you to be. If you disregard everything else, just do this.

[digitalmarketingcompanyindelhi]

The Ultimate SEO Friendly Website Redesign Checklist

As a provider of SEO services in Delhi we get a lot of questions from our clients regarding preserving the existing SEO structure while they want to redesign their website since it is an important task. Nobody wants to reinvest the whole capital and effort that they had put up earlier in the process of SEO.  We also noticed that there are many people that face the same issue and have the same doubt in the minds.

There are a lot of clients that come to us too late when they have actually redesigned their website and the whole structure of the SEO is already damaged. As the best digital marketing company in Delhi, we find this problem rising and becoming too common these days due to the steps that are taken by the inexperienced website designing companies. Upon investigating this further we also found out that once you redesign your website without thinking about the SEO aspect of it, the ranking of your website takes a major blow due to it. The ranking and the traffic take a major dip further down and recovering from these things takes a lot more effort than before.

Since this common is becoming common and a lot of businesses facing a lot of problems due to it, we as the provider of best SEO services in Delhi decided to come up with a checklist of our own that can help save the rankings and traffic of lots of businesses.

 The best checklist for website redesign needs to be a perfect blend of technical aspects of the website like the code and the schema while also encapsulating things like the execution and the content planning for it.

The checklist that we have designed as one of the best SEO services provider in Delhi consists of all the elements that are related to things that are important before and after the launch of your website. Having said enough, let us jump straight into it:

 Things that you should look out for while the initial setup of the website:

1.   Setting the development of the website as no index and no-follow.

2.   Cross-check if the links on your website are search engine friendly and can be discovered easily.

 Things that you look out for during the phase of content planning:

1.   Using website tools like Dynamo mapper can help you to crawl through the entire website so that you can get the list of all the URLs on the page.

2.   Making use of Google search console and SEM rush can help you to identify and note the top landing pages of your website.

3.   Create an SEO map by using techniques that are focused on mapping and also tracing the targeting keywords to URL.

4.   Making sure that the relationships among the different content are maintained without disturbing their structure.

 Key points that you should crosscheck while creating the content for your website:

1.   Upload the content that is a minimum of 1000 words after consulting your SEO company in Delhi.

2.   Taking some time to review the content that you are going to upload and also proofread it for grammar and spelling mistakes.

3.   Present your content in a way that it attracts a visitor to read it, consulting an SEO consultant in Delhi can help you learn more about this.

4.   Concentrate on meta-title and description as well since they also play a major role in the SEO of your website.

5.   Cross-check your landing pages to ensure that the SEO is working as you desire or not.

 Next up is the list of things that you should cross-check with respect to technical things related to SEO:

1.   One of the best practices in this is to make sure that the overall structure of the website is set for both the search engine as well as the person visiting your website.

2.   Making sure that the responsive aspect of the website is working properly or not is the next major task.

3.   Code in such a manner that you follow maximum W3 standards.

4.   Cross-check the schema and structured data on your website.

5.   Make sure that all the images on the website have their own alt tag with the correct values.

6.   Compressing and optimizing the images to make sure that the website loads faster.

7.   Working on the creation of a new sitemap for your website.

8.   Cross-check the Robots.txt file on your website and validate it with the help of an SEO expert in Delhi.

 Finally, let us have a look at the things that you need to ensure during the launch of your website:

1.   Removal of the no follow and no index from the website once it goes live.

2.   Validating the Google Analytics and setting it up to make sure that the structure of the URL is correct and also the flow of your website is as per your checklist.

3.   Uploading the new sitemap of your website on the console of Google and Bing.

4.   Using Dynamo Mapper and similar tools to create error reports for your website.

 We hope that we didn’t scare you with a huge checklist for SEO during the redesign of your website. Things may appear to be huge but if this list is followed properly with the consultation of the best SEO services in Delhi you will see the results guaranteed.

If you would like to work with the best SEO services in Delhi, get in touch with us at Conceptualise.in today!

[marshmallowgoop]

@kuribo4indahouse replied to your post “[[MOR] Getting my stuff reblogged by big blogs always kinda feels...”

Don't worry too much about tumblr. Tags are weird. People often just won't see things they would like. My tumblr isn't anything to write home about, but sometimes I'm sirprised nobody sees some things I post that I think are of interest. And then snothr blog posts the same thing and it gets tons of notes. I think tumblr's system gives preference depending on several factors. I have like 1200 followers, I guess that is quite a bit but not that much? So your stuff is probably being missed by many KlK fans on this very site, it's weird. :/ 

Don't worry about it. Your coverage of the KlK game is absolutely amazing btw, I think you'd work well as a game's journalist for example...or just media/film journalist.

I hope I made sense lol, I'm a little sleep deprived

You made perfect sense. Thank you for writing all this when you were so tired. I have too much to say to put well in a reply, so I hope it’s okay if I post this as a non-reply. Do let me know if not; I’ll take this down right away.

I agree that Tumblr is highly flawed. If content includes outside links or somehow seems “spammy” by the site, then that content won’t be searchable. You might be able to find the content by scrolling through the tags, but tags aren’t looked at as much as the search—in fact, it’s actually impossible to go through Tumblr tags using the mobile app—and if content isn’t searchable, it will never be recommended to other users, either. 

Because I’m careful to cite my sources (and write a lot, I guess?), the majority of my work isn’t searchable. That means that the only way folks will find anything I do is if they happen to go through tags, follow me or check out my page, or if a big blog reblogs my work. And that’s the thing: Tumblr—and social media in general—is so much about being noticed by the right people.

And if you go to your Tumblr settings, click “Labs,” and opt to enable the “Reblog Graphs,” you can really see this phenomenon in action. 

All you have to do is hit the little bubble icon at the bottom of posts on your dashboard or blog:

For example, check out the Reblog Graph of a recent post of mine that did fairly well:

The orange dot here is my root post, and each of the blue dots represents one reblog. Because I’m a small content creator (and this post isn’t searchable), only four blogs reblogged the post straight from me, whereas 13 blogs reblogged the post from a bigger blog. If that bigger blog hadn’t reblogged my work, it’s likely that none of those 13 blogs would have reblogged my work, either. They probably wouldn’t have even seen it.

Of course, this is just how society works. Joe Nobody’s not gonna make much of a name for himself until he’s noticed by someone powerful and influential who can help make him big. But social media sites like Tumblr hurt so bad because it’s just so clear to see how much you don’t matter unless someone huge thinks you do.

I mean, I fall into this thinking, too! So often I’ll see a post that I think is really good, but it’ll have very few notes, and popular blogs won’t have picked it up at all. I’ll wonder to myself, “Is this creator someone that I shouldn’t be supporting? Is this a repost of someone else’s work that people are ignoring as they should?” 

And... that’s sad! It’s sad that I think this. It’s sad that I’ll have blogs “like” my posts and only reblog them when someone big and popular does—and sad that I catch myself doing this, too. It’s sad that your worth is so decided by a few powerful people at the top.

On a personal level, I’ve had so many doubts and insecurities about my work because I’ll see essays that make similar arguments to my own but garner so much more praise. I’ll see YouTubers make videos on topics I’ve literally written a book’s worth of meta about cite “recommended reading” and never include anything by me. They say that “comparison is the thief of joy,” but comparison is also a way to help push yourself to be better. What are others doing that I’m not that gets them noticed?

Maybe Tumblr isn’t the best place for my kind of content. Maybe I need to start making video essays. Maybe I format my posts badly. Maybe folks have a personal problem with me. 

My frustration is that I’m unsure of my own quality. I know I have a lot to learn and improve on, but I believe in what I do. I cite my sources, I proofread, I strive for accuracy and make sure that I can back up all of my arguments and claims. I’ll spend hours writing and rewriting until I get a post the way I want it, I’ll scrub through tons of video footage to confirm that I’m spelling that word right, I’ll take numerous photos to be sure that the one I’m putting on my post is the best it can possibly be. 

I think about presentation and readability and keep my paragraphs from going on too long. I include pictures and gifs to break up the word blocks, and I think about the placement of these images and the relevancy of them. I think about making my language engaging and exciting, even when talking about more academic concepts, and I’ve worked a lot on improving my grammar and making myself as easy to understand and as accessible as I can. I’ll watch an entire movie or read peer-reviewed journals or papers to make my responses to asks extensive and interesting and nuanced.

Everything I write that’s longer than a few sentences generally takes, at the absolute minimum, two hours of my time (including this!) I’m sure some of my more ambitious posts have pushed 30 hours, if not more.

And some of those ambitious posts? They get maybe 20 notes and not a single comment.

So, I wonder. Am I making content that people don’t like because it’s bad and I need to get better, or am I just doing all the wrong things to get noticed? Or do people—especially the big, influential people—simply hate me?

This is why social media contributes to such poor mental health, and I know I’m far from alone. There are people who work so much harder than me who get so much less for their efforts. There are so many passionate, dedicated, kind people who don’t receive the attention they deserve—such as yourself, kuribo4indahouse!

Thank you for your sweet words. I know I shouldn’t be a game journalist because I’m not really a gamer and that’s not my expertise, but to be taken more seriously and become more recognized as a media journalist or commentator would be a dream come true. 

I don’t know if I have what it takes, but nobody can know. All I can do is keep improving and trying, and even if I don’t “make it,” I love what I do, and I’m very thankful to those who support me.

[souljaems]

↬ “keep running home to you” flash!au part 2 — lee jeno.

— part one & final part 

— words: 3.6k

— warnings: I don’t know any of the NCT Dream members personally, I’m writing this based only in my opinions. I didn’t create any of the universe used in this story, all rights reserved to DC Comics.

— no proofread, sorry about any possible mistakes.

— fINALLY HERE IT IS THE SECOND PART!!! I’m not over yet, but the final part will be coming soon, I hope you all can enjoy this. Thank you so much for all your support, that’s my Christmas gift for all of you. GIVE JENO ALL THE LOVE HE DESERVES. 

”Jisung, what do you see?” Your voice sounds in Jisung’s ear, while he’s staring at the metahuman in front of him.

”You gotta be kidding me, how is this man a meta? I used to read every single post on his blog, he's a good writer.” Jisung says staring at the man who's literally controlling the wind.

”What can we say? There are no bad guys like the ones in our old gold days.” Donghyuck’s says in a fun tone, only to see you rolling your eyes beside him. ”Remember Jisung, he's not controlling the wind, he's controlling the thoughts of the people around you, making it into this kind of cloud of thoughts that it may look like wind, but it's not, it's much stronger.”

Jisung tries to run into the weird cloud barrier to arrest the guy, but he's thrown away meters back, only confirming the Donghyuck words.

”Okay, that hurt, you’re right Haechan. How do I stop a guy that can use the thought of people as a weapon?” Jisung asks in a rushed tone, slowly getting back on his feet.

”Okay, listen. If he's only using the thoughts of people around you guys to create this weapon, then it means he can't reach the whole city to create a stronger weapon, he has a limit.” Yeri's voice sounds in his ear, making a smile appear in Jisung's face.

”Got it, I'm running everyone out of here.” Jisung answers, already taking every single person he can see in the surrounding area to a safe and distant place.

”THAT’S MY BOY, YOU ALL.” Hyuck screams in the Star Labs, the place where all the team is, trying their best to help Jisung.

After Jisung is back, all the weird and rigid cloud that created a wall around the guy is gone, Yeri's plan worked and now the guy is unprotected.

”Give up Martin, I took all the source of your cloud away, you can't use the thoughts of people to protect yourself anymore, it's over.” Jisung says calmly walking 

“Okay Flash, I gotta give you credit for that, it was really impressive. But did you really thought that was the limit of my abilities? You’re not capable enough to stop the Mind Master from destroying this city.”

“Ugh, that’s a terrible name.” Jisung and Hyuck say both at the same tiime, with the disgust in Haechan’s face forcing you and Yeri to hold your laughs back.

“You two don't you dare to laugh, I can totally think about a better one than this.” Hyuck voice sounds in Jisung’s ear making him smile. 

“You will never destroy this city, not on my watch. Now, let’s get over with this.” Jisung says ready to handcuff the guy with the special handcuffs capable of containing the power of a metahuman. 

Jeno is watching the whole thing through the TV, a helicopter is recording live the whole, and thankfully to his speed, he’s capable of seeing a fast cloud emerging from behind Jisung and at this point he doesn’t even have to think about it, he’s already up from his chair, running to the place Jisung is. The Flash is clearly in danger.

Jisung is almost arresting the guy, but then he feels a strong pain in his chest and when he lowers his head to see what has happened, he notices a sharp shape that has just crossed his body. Mind Master is looking at him with a proud smile.

“You did exactly as I wanted, Flash. I knew the only thing capable of truly hurt you was your own thoughts, they’re the only thing fast enough to injure you in a way that your body can’t heal faster.” The man stares at Jisung eyes like he's something that he got in a fish, making Jisung want to punch his face.

Jisung tries to get out of it but a strong pain makes him scream, the cloud now has the shape of a hook, there's no way Jisung can get out of it.

”His blood pressure is dropping, he's not losing any blood but I don't think he's capable of handling this much of pain.” Yeri says while staring at the computer that has Jisung's health information.

”Why is he not healing Yeri? What do you mean he's not capable of handling it?” You quickly ask feeling a strong pain in your chest, seeing your brother like that is killing you. ”Yeri!”

”His cells can't even start the healing process, it's not because the cloud is still there, it is because the cloud is moving fast inside of him, just like his thoughts, his cells can not heal faster than that.” Yeri starts to explain, feeling afraid to continue.

”Jisung, you have to stop moving, this thing is very close to your heart, it can kill you.” Donghyuck says while he's already looking for his mask, he's in no damn way letting this guy kill Jisung.

Hyuck is opening a breach so he can go there when he feels Killer Frost approaching him. Killer Frost is an alter ego of Yeri that just appears when Yeri's scared or angry, and now, she's damn scared of losing her friend.

”Easy to say.” Jisung answers still trying to move.

”It's useless Flash, you can't escape something with your own speed.” Mind Master says, walking around in circles, enjoying every single second of The Flash's suffers.

”Jisung stop moving, please! Listen to Hyuck, they're coming to help you.” You beg on his ear, already feeling tears forming in your eyes.

”No! Don't let them come, it will make his powers stronger. Y/n you have to stop them!” Jisung quickly says trying to escape one more time, but this time, it's fatal.

”JISUNG!” You scream when you see the computer's screen indicating that his heart has just stopped beating.

Jeno finally arrives, he pushes the Mind Master away, what makes his cloud fade away from Jisung, since now he's clearly surprised.

”My powers are not enough to kill two speedsters at the same time. Too bad, guess you'll have to wait until another day.” The man says before fading away in some kind of cloud protecting him. ”Goodbye Flash.”

”Damn it!” Jeno screams in anger, running to Jisung that is not breathing anymore. ”Oh no, no, don't you dare to die on me. Jisung? Jisung? Please, you... You can't die.” Jeno says in a lower tone of voice, feeling tears rolling down his face. ”You can't die because of me, I was supposed to be the Flash and fight that guy... please Jisung.” His heart is literally shattering into pieces, he can't believe that for the first time in his life, he got it late. And even for the first time, that was fatal.

The breach Hyuck opened on the Star Labs close, and now it appears where Jisung is. He's with Killer Frost and both of them have tears in their eyes.

”Who are you?” Hyuck asks in a threatening tone when he sees Jeno next to Jisung's body.

Jeno stares at the two of them, seeing the same pain that he has in his eyes in their eyes.

”Answer the damn question right now if you don't want to become an ice crystal.” Killer Frost says with her hands ready to split ice.

”I’m not here to hurt you, I'm a speedster just like him.” Jeno answers slowly getting up, with the tears still falling down on his face.

”So what? We fought speedster before, that doesn't mean you're a good guy.” Donghyuck says trying his best to hold his tears, with his hands ready to spill energy at Jeno if he had to.

”Take me to Star Labs, and I'll explain everything.” Jeno says, quickly looking at the helicopter that's still recording the whole situation.

”How do you...”

”Believe me, I just know.” Jeno says clearing the tears from his face. ”I also know Y/n is hearing the whole situation there, she needs to hear the truth too and I can't tell this here, please, I just want to save him.”

Hyuck can't explain why, but his hands are going down without his control. There's a feeling inside of his guts that tell him to believe in the stranger, and when he looks at Killer Frost, he knows she's feeling the same way. Even because, speedster or not speedster, they have enough things in the Star Labs to stop the stranger if they have to.

”Okay.” Haechan says, breathing heavily, not being sure he can discuss anything at the moment.

”Okay?! Vibe, we can't just...” Killer Frost starts to say, with wide open eyes towards Hyuck.

”You can feel that's the right thing to do too. The whole city is watching.” Hyuck rushes to say, opening another breach and signing to the stranger to take Jisung’s body. ”Let’s go.”

After all of them entered in the breach, the breach closes and opens right after in the Star Labs, where you are, with your heart broken. Jeno feels his heart shattering to pieces when the first thing he sees is you, running to him just to hug Jisung’s body.

Everyone stares at you, but nobody seems to know exactly what to say, you're crying your heart out.

”My baby brother... It has to be something we can do, he can't be...” You say without a thousand of tears rolling down your face, you're on the floor hugging your only sibling's body, and you can help it but to feel like a part of you is completely gone. ”Hyuck, p-please, tell me that's something we can do to save him.”

Donghyuck is staring at you, his eyes already denying everything. Killer Frost is gone, which means Yeri is back, now on her knees standing by your side and trying to give you support.

”There is, but you guys have to listen to me first, okay? I can explain everything.” Jeno's beside you, so when he softly speaks next to you, your attention turns to him as well, and you have the feeling you heard his voice before, but it's not only that. You're feeling like you're going to believe whatever he says, it's almost as you already trust in him.

”Wait, are you talking about some twisted kind of resuscitation? Because if you are, forget it, we're not doing that to him, right Y/n?” Hyuck says, looking for your backup, but you honestly are not listening, all you can do is stare at the mysterious person by your side that gives you a strange feeling in your chest.

”Take your mask off.” You say with tears still falling down your face, attracting Jeno's attention. He's feeling nervous to be that close to you again, but now he's almost sweating because of your request.

”What?” Jeno asks, not getting the point of it.

”I just lost my brother to some masked guy, so enough of masks for today. Take it off, please.” You ask him again, and all Jeno is capable of doing is nodding, he could never deny a request from you.

Jeno takes a deep breath before finally taking his mask off, he thought he would see a shocked you in front of him, but your eyes are as calm as ever staring at his.

”Wait... you're the guy who saved Y/n from the Master Mind today when he was driving like crazy that car. Who are you?” Yeri questions him in a confused tone.

”Lee Jeno, from high school. How didn't I remember you earlier?” You ask, still looking at Jeno's eyes that indicates how he's surprised that you remember his name at all.

You feel some kind of electricity running through your veins when you look at Jeno's, It's weird but at the same time a peaceful feel. Before Jeno starts talking, you ask him to take your brother to the emergency room in the Star Labs, look at him makes your chest hurts. You really want to believe that Jeno has a solution for all of that, but part of you still tell you that your brother is gone for good.

”You said there's a way to save him, we're listening.” You ask, staring deeply at Jeno's eyes. You have no idea why you can't seem to be away from his eyes.

”Okay, so, um... There's no easy way to explain this, but, speedsters have the ability to travel in time because we can break the barrier of time-space and run faster than it if we want to.” Everyone looked at Jeno with shocked eyes and he quickly starts to explain it better. ”Yes, I know it sounds already crazy but I swear it gets worse. I'm from another timeline, where I was the Flash, Jisung was the Kid Flash and you guys were still in the team. Something that I can't tell you guys now happened, and another thing also happened right after it that made me decide to come back in time change the past where my mom was murdered, but I didn't know what effects that would make in this present, so that created an alternate timeline where a whole new existence where a lot of things changed, because I messed up the original timeline.” Jeno stops explaining when he sees the confused looks on your faces. ”And I can tell from the ”I don't believe you”look on your faces that you don't believe me.”

”Wait, are you telling us that all of this started when you created this flashpoint in the timeline?” Hyuck asks looking at Jeno like he's crazy. ”Oh, that's a great name, but that's... not the point, sorry.”

”How any of this will bring my brother back? Are you going to turn back in time and stop him from fighting the Mind Master today?” You ask, not being sure if you’re following this.

”No, we don't know which consequences that could bring to Jisung or to any of us, it's not safe for him. Travel in time there's always this high risk of changing too many things, I know that better than anyone.” Jeno states, biting the intern part of his cheeks after, he’s so mad at himself for letting that all happen.

”So, how are you saving my brother?” You ask in a worried tone.

”I need you guys to help me to find a point where it's safe enough for me to travel back in time, without putting Jisung’s life at risk so we can stop him from fighting the Mind Master in a different way.”

”You do realize that we're not capable of thinking in all the variants, right? Our computers are not good enough to predict all the variants, we're talking about the timeline here.” Yeri says, making the three of you exchange worried looks.

“I know, but finding out at least some of the variants will help us to get a better guess in what to do.”

”Jeno, if what you're telling us is true, it's impossible to actually know any true variants, because almost all our these years weren't really lived by us, they're just memories.” Hyuck says in a suggestive tone.

”What does that mean?” Jeno aks, not getting Hyuck’s point.

”It means we don't have actual numbers or probabilities to use, it's not safe to risk a guess from doubtful variants, it can mess even more the timeline.” Hyuck says in a serious tone, but part of him is breaking, he really wants to believe that there’s a way to save Jisung.

”We don't know that for sure.” Jeno tries to say, but he’s already having a lack of confidence.

”Don’t we?” Yeri asks in a tired tone. ”We really want to help, but what you're asking to do is impossible, it won't truly help you to know what's the best moment, we don't even know if this moment you’re looking for exists in this timeline.”

”So, my brother is gone.” You say trying to stop your tears from falling down, attracting the attention of everyone for you. ”I think is time for you to go too Jeno, I have a funeral to plan.” You give a bitter smile and walk out of the room, not feeling well enough to hear about it anymore.

”Y/n wait!” Jeno calls you out, but you don't stop, what makes him go after you, he couldn't let you think that it was all over. ”You have to believe me, it must be another way to save him, we just need to think better about it.” He says, holding your wrist and making you stop, still not looking at his eyes.

“Jeno, that’s the problem, I want to believe you, I really do. I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s this part of me that screams “trust him”, and when I look at you it makes really hard for me not to listen to this crazy feeling that trusting in you won’t be a mistake, but... I don’t really know you Jeno and all my eyes can see right now is my brother not breathing in that bed.” You say, not being able to control your tears anymore, you pull your hand back, escaping from Jeno’s grip and feeling your wrist tingling right after it. “You’re doing something to me.” You whisper, closing your eyes and trying to ignore the feeling that you’re going crazy.

“What?” Jeno asks, being shocked for a moment when you turn around to face him in the eyes, 

“You said you came from another timeline right? Where we all helped you like Team Flash? We were something else to each other back there, weren’t we?”

A short silence it's all both of you can hear. Jeno’s eyes are wide open and he feels like his heart will stop any time now.

“I... how do you...” Jeno starts to say, but stop himself when he remembers he can’t talk about it the risk of messing it up it’s too big.

“I don’t know, it’s just a guess. The way you look at me and all these weird feelings I’m getting right now, it just made me wonder about it. See, I have a good life, a good job, good friends, but I’ve always felt like something was missing and I sound completely crazy right now, but this feeling seems to fade away when you’re close and... I can’t stand being next to you without feeling like I want to look at your eyes. I know you can’t’ say much, but you know I’m right.” You say, seeing Jeno slowly moving his hands to clean your tears off your face, you feel your whole body tingling with his touch, it’s a weird sensation since you don’t know Jeno at all, but it’s like your body is already used to it.

“Yes, you’re right, I can’t talk much about it, but we were something else.” Jeno whispers with a small smile on his face.

“At least I’m not going crazy.” You answer in a sad tone, closing your eyes in relief.

“I promise you Y/n, I’m gonna fix this, you’re not losing Jisung, just trust me, okay?” Jeno says in a low tone of voice, taking his hand out of your face slowly, he really didn’t want to let go of you.

“Okay.” You answer opening your eyes just to see Jeno smiling at you, running out of the place right after it.

”Where is he going?” Hyuck asks in a confused tone after seeing you enter the room again.

”I hope he's not doing what I think he is.” You answer, taking a deep breath and going straight to the computer. ”Find his house Hyuck, I think I know what he'll do and we have to stop him.”

When Jeno stopped running, he's at home, already looking for his mom.

”Mom? Mom, where are you? Mom, I need you.” Jeno calls for his mom, already feeling his voice trembling, he doesn’t know if he’s capable of doing what he has to.

”I’m in the kitchen Jeno, why?” Nora answers, turning just to see his son in tears. ”Oh baby, what happened? Why are you crying?” She asks, but the answer she gets just makes her confused, Jeno is now hugging her out of nowhere.

”I think I'm going to let go of the woman I love.” Jeno whispers getting his mom to feel even more confused, but what she thinks it's happening is that Jeno is giving up on you.

”Oh my dear, the things didn't go how you expected?” She asks in a sweet tone while caressing his back.

”N-no, I thought I was doing the right thing, but... now I see I only screwed up everything. Following my heart was a bad idea.” Jeno says, but his mom immediately push him a little, so now she's facing him.

”Following your heart never will be a bad idea. Even if things don't go as expected, at least it’ll give peace to your heart. You're an adult, following your heart is becoming even harder now, but don't stop doing it just because it's getting harder, sometimes things won't go as your heart wants to, but it’ll bring you peace and more responsibility to try again. Try again is not a sign that you failed, it's a sign that you're growing up and learning about your mistakes. You learn with your mistakes.” Nora says in a serious tone and with a warm smile in her face. ”Don’t be ashamed to follow your heart. It's the best you can do.”

”Do you really think that works?” Jeno asks in a lower tone, enjoying every second of having his mom by his side. She's really the wisest person he knows.

”I lived my whole life like this, so I think you'll have to trust me on this.” She answers with a sweet smile on her face while running her fingers through Jeno's hair.

The doorbell sounds in the kitchen, making Jeno's mom look at the clock, not being able to risk a guess at who could be, but when she finally opens the door, she just smiles at Jeno who is behind her.

”Maybe you don't have to do any of that.” She answers, leaving the door and making Jeno face you in front of his door.

[shirtlesssammy]

7x23: Survival of the Fittest

The Road So Far:

I just want to give a GIANT shoutout to everyone in fandom that survived this and stuck around. I know in my heart my interest would plummet without Cas. Season 7 was brutal.

Now:

We find Crowley and Dick Roman sharing a business Scotch and negotiating how they’re going to divvy up Earth once the Leviathan master the human race. Demons get Canada. Leviathan need America though. (“They’re so fat.”)

In return for this generous offer? Crowley must give “Frick and Frack” imposter blood (as part of the cocktail that will kill Dick Roman.) They agree, and because Dick Roman doesn’t “kiss on the mouth” to seal his deals, Crowley unfurls a standard writer that stretches 10 feet. Lol.

Sam and Dean, meanwhile, are on the road trying to locate a righteous bone. Sam suggests contacting Cas again. For the record, I believe when Dean says ���Dude, on my car” he’s making an oath that Cas made an appearance naked and covered in bees, not that he showed up naked, covered in bees, on Dean’s car. Either way, Dean was there and Cas was naked. But there were bees.

The boys arrive at a nunnery crypt and find the perfect bone, Sister Mary Constant. “Let’s bone this nun.” Oh Dean, always a way with words.

Crowley and Roman finish their negotiations.

Sam and Dean perform a summoning spell for Crowley. (Ah, was it during Dean and Crowley’s summer of love that they finally got him on speed dial?) Crowley doesn’t show, but Meg does. And she has a friend along with her: Cas.

He’s currently jamming out to some serious emo soft rock in the car. 

(Sidenote: Cas and Jack wave the same way. My heart.)

Dean is showing very, very, very little patience for his dear, damaged friend, but I know he cares so I’ll let his posturing and toxic attitude slide for right now. Cas does have serious questions about monkeys and cosmetics. Indulge the angel, Dean.

Once inside, Cas continues to act and say strange things. In his own broken way, he lets the brothers know that the angel garrison protecting Kevin is gone. Dean, in his usual football coach aggression, scares Cas, who does not want to deal with conflict. (I do love Dean’s line “We’re worried.” His worry manifests itself through anger throughout the series.)

Meg notices the demon summoning spell materials and is about to ditch when Crowley finally makes his appearance.

Crowley is less than pleased to see the angel. Cas dives into a nice, rambling diatribe about insects and honey (and a THOUSAND Cas + bees fics were born.) There is meta out there about this but I just can’t find it right now. Sigh, it was really good. Crowley doesn’t want to torture Cas if he’s not all there, so he hands the boys his blood, or is it? He says it is, but also says not to trust anyone.

He then tells Meg that she can stay with Cas until they handle Dick Roman.

Meanwhile, Bobby in the body of a hotel maid, is well on his way to becoming a vengeful spirit.

Dick Roman makes plans in case Crowley double crosses him. It involves an arm.

We briefly check in with Kevin Tran at SucroCorp Headquarters. His allies aren’t the sharpest blades in the drawer.

The brothers soak the righteous bone in the blood.

Nothing happens so Sam and Dean have no idea if it worked. Cas flaps in (I miss his wings) to present the (I proofread that as “his”. Brb, weeping) brothers with sandwiches. (His monitoring of the ingredients and comforting the pig before slaughtering it? Don’t touch me.) 

And when Dick Roman asked for the arm, he meant a literal frozen arm, wristwatch still intact.

While Kevin awaits his fate, he’s presented with dinner, a Biggerson’s burger. “I’m a vegan.” Not for long, buddy. You’re going to be living off of hot dogs soon enough.  

Kevin escapes with the help of his purloined hairpins and overhears a board meeting fronted by Dick Roman. He's discussing business strategy, including how they're going to divide America up to perfect their plan of industrialized leviathan feeding. This is all delivered in a cheerfully upbeat business-speak manner as they enjoy sushi made from fresh orphan.

When Kevin's heard enough, he heads straight for the exit, but is confronted by Dick's assistant.

Dean and Sam sit in a car and tap into Sucrocorp's security cameras. (They thank Charlie for it and I smile just to hear her name mentioned.) To their dismay, they discover that Sucrocorp is now overrun with Dick Romans, or a bunch of dicks, as the show might phrase it.

In the boardroom, Dick has Polly take off her dress and draws attention to her slight build. (Gross) He injects her with a drug that will be targeted to all skinny Americans. As it takes effect in Polly, she begins to spasm and foam at the mouth. She collapses quickly to the floor.

Sam notices a truck pull up outside of Sucrocorp and recognizes the maid as she gets out of the truck. He sees ectoplasm dripping from her, puts two and two together, and bails on the stakeout so he can go retrieve Bobby. He confronts Bobby in a back alley as the security camera whirls around. Bobby brandishes the knife at Sam, telling him to leave. When Sam refuses, Bobby slams Sam against the side of the car and chokes him. It's only when Bobby sees his reflection in the side of the car that he withdraws, horrified.

Back at the cabin, we learn that the woman Bobby possessed is doing much better. Sam then switches over to talking about the leviathan hunt and reveals the multiple Dicks. Cas looks perturbed by the news. “Hey, Shifty, what's your problem?” Dean asks. DEAN

“Do we need a cat? Doesn't this place feel one species short?” Cas says, deflecting. (Me: But seriously, YES) He refuses to get involved since he destroyed everything.

“Nobody cares that you're broken, Cas. Clean up your mess,” Dean shouts. This causes Cas to flap off and Meg informs Dean that Cas is the only one who can recognize the real fake Dick. They need him.

Later, Sam and Dean spin their wheels trying to figure out how to tackle their Dick problem when Bobby appears. He tells them he's going vengeful now that he's in the Veil, and begs them to burn the flask. Cut to a little while later, standing around a bed of hot coals. It's all feelings and no hugs in this little funeral scene and Dean chucks Bobby's flask into the coals. As the flask burns, a light illuminates Sam's and Dean's face. And then...Bobby is gone.

Jump to later, where Cas is busily playing games when Dean approaches him for help. He's not asking for a soldier. Instead, he just needs a lift to get to his car. They flap into a little storage garage with a covered car. Cas muses on their approaching assault on Sucrocorp. If Sam and Dean die, they're heroes. But if Cas dies he's just doing what he can to fix his own stupidity. Although, he also entertains the possibility that he'll die and get brought back again. “It's a punishment,” he tells Dean about his last three resurrections. OUCH, man.  

Dean delivers his own brand of pep talk in reply. “I'd rather have you, cursed or not. Nut up, alright? We're all cursed. I seem like good luck to you?” He's angry and defensive, but Cas starts to smile anyway. He detects a note of forgiveness in Dean. Cas vows to go with Dean and help out.

It's gray, it's rainy, but that doesn't stop Baby from squealing tires and generally being amazing. The Impala tears into Sucrocorp headquarters to the strains of Born to Be Wild.

Meg emerges, armed with borax and a knife. Dean, Castiel, and Sam are already inside, having slipped in while Meg distracted security outside. They hastily go from room to room checking for Dick Romans.

Outside, demons accost Meg. Crowley is moving in.

Sam rescues Kevin, who convinces him to stick around and blow up Sucrocorp's lab. In the lab, Dick is delicately sampling lethal creamer when Dean and Cas show up and slice up the chief lab tech leviathan. 

Dean pulls out the bone weapon, Dick lunges for Dean, and Cas tosses Dean out of the way and hurls himself at Dick. Dick easily chucks Cas across the room. This gives Dean the perfect opportunity to stab Dick right in the chest, but it seems to have no effect. Dick's still walking and talking and being smarmy. But then Dean opens his jacket and pulls another sharpened bone from a front, inner pocket vast enough to hold and conceal a giant bone (who MAKES these coats and where can I find one?) Cas pulls Dick's head back, baring his throat long enough to allow Dean to stab Dick right through the neck.

Dick Roman snarls angrily and begins to pulse with energy. He cackles before exploding into black goo.

Sam picks up his head to look around the lab moments after the explosion. It's empty of anyone but him and Kevin. While it's spattered with black goo, Dean and Cas are gone.

Enter Crowley, who happily tells Sam that without Dick Roman leading them, the leviathans are easy picking for his demon army. The bone weapon had a kick and dragged Dean and Cas off to Purgatory. Crowley nabs Kevin for his own, then leaves Sam alone in the lab as he silently freaks out.

Dean wakes up in a forest to Cas tersely ordering him to wake up. Cas tells Dean that they're in Purgatory and it's full of monsters and...even worse...leviathans. Dean turns to see red eyes glowing in the woods and tells Cas it's time to go...but Cas has already flapped away, leaving Dean alone. 

Random findings and food for thought:

7x23/13x10 parallels

Dean needs Cas to get Dick

Starry, Starry Quotes:

Here we are, negotiating like proper psychopaths.

Let's bone this nun

Go ask him, he was your boyfriend first.

How important is lipstick to you, Dean?

You have no sense of poetry.

Where's the fun in clobbering a ball of wet fur? Text me when Sparkles here retrieves his marbles

Please accept this sandwich as a gesture of solidarity.

We should play Twister.

I see now. It's a punishment resurrection. It's worse every time.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

[templatetesterus-blog]

Does Article Marketing Still Work - Are Keywords Important?

Well, does article marketing still work? You bet it does! Are keywords important? You bet they are! Nobody knows where these fable came from, but even dozens so-called internet marketing and SEO gurus are saying that object marketing does not enterprise anymore and that keywords are no longer important. Neither is true.

It likely stems from the fable surrounding the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, but it is patently obvious to me that you tend to get more guest to your website and blog if you promote them using object marketing. I generally get an upswing in visits to specific pages within my website after I promote that page in the resource of my article.

The pages I have ranked highest in Google are keyword rich for the occupation rendezvous they potion for. I have seen no testament whatsoever for item marketing being dead or of a hammock page acceptance a high divisions for a keyword not contained within that page. Sure, there permanence be the odd one, but Google entries are packed with pages without keywords - that's nonsense. The highest ranked pages for any keyword contain the keyword - generally in the title, but sometimes only in the corpse of the page content. Try it for yourself!

Keep Keyword Density Down

Article marketing is still one of the best orderliness of promoting a website or blog - and when you use it, type sure you utility keywords: least 0.5% - 1%. I am not suggesting you should essence your page with 5% or even 3%, but if you use Yoast for your WordPress SEO you won't get a nice lawn decoration without keywords! You must give your proofreader some impression what your content is about, and Google also likes to see keywords in your Title tickets and Meta Description tag. That's because it helps Google exploiter choose the listed page bulk relevant to their needs.

Google is all approx ceremony its user happy, and Google buyer are those using it as a pastime engines - clan seeking information. These people omission to see their keyword or pastime session in the record Google offers. Otherwise they solidity utility another pastime engine. To suggest Google prefers no keywords displays ignorance of Google's cause in life.

When penmanship articles, make sure you utility the keyword in the title, preferably at the beginning. It may also encouragement to use a related manifestation towards the conclusion so you are using two related keywords. For example, if you are document roughly the topic of keywords, you could use a title "Why Keywords are Essential for Good Web Content." You are then focusing on 'keywords' and 'web content.'

Duplicate Content Won't Help

Where scoop marketing durability have negative results is if you submit the same object to too many directories. Choose one or two major object directories, such as Ezine Articles and Go Articles. Alternatively, submit different stall of your scoop to different object directories. Submission services such Submit Your Article enable you to achieve this easily.

I have yet to see testament of this harming entrance - I have never had a chinchorro page lose its faculty viewpoint through me presenting articles promoting it to multiple directories. Google testament income dealing of too scads copy on the decoys itself, and ultimately parting only one elucidation published. Nevertheless, the placement you get with multiple meekness can help you in the shot term.

Does Article Marketing Still Work - Yes It Does!

Each to his own is what I say. One person may use one promotional method while somebody else uses another. Why are so-called SEO specialist always beefing roughly what others are doing, and claiming it 'doesn't work?' What does it incident to them what I do - unless it does employment and my technique are harming their rankings? Or is their way the only way, and is 'pay me to finds what my medium is' their ultimate objective?

Take my expression for it - keywords are important, and 'does article marketing still work?' - sure it does, and don't let anybody tell you differently unless they can give you definitive verification otherwise. They productivity occurrences their chinchorro page was deindexed - but maybe there are other reasons for that. I don't know. I do know it mechanism for me - article marketing and using keywords!

Pete is a successful article ghostwriter and relies heavily upon item marketing and intelligent use of keyword to get his website to the top of the Google rankings. Check out his website Article Services [https://templatetester.com/yoast-seo-alternatives/] for more information on manuscript articles, article relinquishment  and how to utility keywords correctly.

[lexiehewitt6]

Search Marketing Made Easy With Tips That Help You Succeed

Failing to use the right Search Marketing techniques will mean that very few visitors will ever find your site. Use the tips in this article to start generating more traffic to your website.

Search Engine

To make sure you have a place in search engine results you should have a large amount of keywords, even those that are misspelled, in the area of your site where you put meta tags. The content of your meta tags is what helps the search engine categorize your website and determine how to describe your link to searchers. To demonstrate this, let’s say your site theme is about knives. You could include a variety of related keywords, including: “knives,” “nives”, and “knifes”, along with any other reasonable options you may want to consider.

Be patient for results from Local SEO In Lynchburg VA. Large changes in traffic volume will not immediately happen. On the contrary, it can take several months if your site is fairly new. You need to build your good name, and that takes time.

To boost your PageRank, you have to attract and maintain the visitors on your page. There is evidence that the more time a person is on a site the higher ranked that site will be. There is more and more evidence suggesting that how long a visitor stays on a site affects their PageRank, according to Quantcast scores. When customers can chat, discuss, and interact with each other on your site, they are more likely to stay longer.

Using a product feed will boost your online presence and get more people to your site. These feeds will list details about your products and services, such as images, prices and descriptions. Send these to search engines, as well as sites that compare prices. A feed reader can also help customers subscribe to a feed.

Promote your expertise in your particular field, so your customers are aware of your level of knowledge. It is an effective marketing strategy that can have great rewards. You can do this by starting a website focused around your niche. You can additionally implement search engine optimization strategies to attract as much targeted traffic as possible. Make sure you know exactly what customers are looking for, don’t just guess.

Authoring a blog and commenting on other blogs related to your website’s niche can be a good SEO Marketing technique. Blogs are a great way to move up the search rankings as they are constantly updated: this makes them easy for search engine algorithms to find and rank. Search engines will respond to backlinks by bringing more visitors.

Don’t try using Flash when you’re using a website for Local SEO purposes. Spiders can not read it and it is slow to load. To optimize your website for search engines, you have to have information that’s searchable by them.

Site Map

Including a site map on your website is key to any search engine optimization process. Spiders use the site map to find out information regarding your website. A huge site might require more than a single map. As a guideline, try to stay under 100 links for each map.

Research information about keywords first so you know what to write. You should focus on the correct keywords during website design and you should incorporate your keywords into your titles. Your keywords research will help you ascertain what search words and phrases are being entered by your prospective customers as they look online for products or services like yours. Raise your SEO Services ranking by focusing on these subjects throughout your webpage.

While proofreading is often overlooked, it’s vital to the quality and respectability of all websites. Make sure that all of the information on your site is clearly laid out for your visitors and for search engines. When you have mistakes in your content, search engines will skip over you.

Keep away from spam filters and never use duplicate content. Know that you are possibly using duplicated content without knowing it. Repeating the same product description can save time, but search engines see it as spamming.

Look into using online ads. Do it yourself search engine optimization may sometimes not be enough to see a significant increase in rankings. Advertisers such as these work to increase the number of people visiting your page. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Focus on becoming an expert in just one or two aspects of Lynchburg SEO Services right away. New techniques are cropping up every day, but mastering even one will dramatically improve the success of your content.

Use language meta tags if your site is not in English. They can help improve your rankings since they will be found in those foreign language searches.

Try optimizing one page with one specific keyword phrase. Trying to stuff a page with too many keywords will make your content hard to read. It’s better to choose a single topic and provide the best content possible. This will make it more likely that visitors return the site. If your audience is visiting your site often you’ll find that the reward is even greater than that which you gain from search engine optimization!

When buying a new domain, see if your host can redirect your old landing page to the new one. That way, users will be able to use old bookmarks to reach your new site. You can also get redirect pages up on the older domain and that can lead the users there to your new site.

Make sure to configure your hosting company’s server so that it’s case-sensitive for URLS. Having lower case letters in your URL may decrease the chance that visitors end up on your site.

By commenting on relative blogs, you will get increased traffic to your site. Many blog owners will let you drop your link if you leave a comment of substance. If you link your site to irrelevant topics or leave useless comments, you will likely have this privilege revoked. If you know your subject well, it will be easy for you to leave acceptable comments, along with your link, on many blogs.

Internet Businesses

Nobody wants to see his or her own business failing. Many businesses do end up failing, including Internet businesses. However, many Internet businesses actually do succeed because of the vast number of strategies that online businesses can utilize.

When you don’t know where to begin, When it comes to search marketing, you really shouldn’t trust your company’s Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are searching for someone who can advice you enhance your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

can appear to be a complicated topic. Therefore, it’s vital that you arm yourself with the right knowledge. The information from this article will help you move forward purposefully.

from https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/search-marketing-made-easy-with-tips-that-help-you-succeed/

from Lynchburg SEO Expert - Blog https://lynchburgseoexpert.weebly.com/blog/search-marketing-made-easy-with-tips-that-help-you-succeed

[sylviajackson10]

Search Marketing Made Easy With Tips That Help You Succeed

Failing to use the right Search Marketing techniques will mean that very few visitors will ever find your site. Use the tips in this article to start generating more traffic to your website.

Search Engine

To make sure you have a place in search engine results you should have a large amount of keywords, even those that are misspelled, in the area of your site where you put meta tags. The content of your meta tags is what helps the search engine categorize your website and determine how to describe your link to searchers. To demonstrate this, let’s say your site theme is about knives. You could include a variety of related keywords, including: “knives,” “nives”, and “knifes”, along with any other reasonable options you may want to consider.

Be patient for results from Local SEO In Lynchburg VA. Large changes in traffic volume will not immediately happen. On the contrary, it can take several months if your site is fairly new. You need to build your good name, and that takes time.

To boost your PageRank, you have to attract and maintain the visitors on your page. There is evidence that the more time a person is on a site the higher ranked that site will be. There is more and more evidence suggesting that how long a visitor stays on a site affects their PageRank, according to Quantcast scores. When customers can chat, discuss, and interact with each other on your site, they are more likely to stay longer.

Using a product feed will boost your online presence and get more people to your site. These feeds will list details about your products and services, such as images, prices and descriptions. Send these to search engines, as well as sites that compare prices. A feed reader can also help customers subscribe to a feed.

Promote your expertise in your particular field, so your customers are aware of your level of knowledge. It is an effective marketing strategy that can have great rewards. You can do this by starting a website focused around your niche. You can additionally implement search engine optimization strategies to attract as much targeted traffic as possible. Make sure you know exactly what customers are looking for, don’t just guess.

Authoring a blog and commenting on other blogs related to your website’s niche can be a good SEO Marketing technique. Blogs are a great way to move up the search rankings as they are constantly updated: this makes them easy for search engine algorithms to find and rank. Search engines will respond to backlinks by bringing more visitors.

Don’t try using Flash when you’re using a website for Local SEO purposes. Spiders can not read it and it is slow to load. To optimize your website for search engines, you have to have information that’s searchable by them.

Site Map

Including a site map on your website is key to any search engine optimization process. Spiders use the site map to find out information regarding your website. A huge site might require more than a single map. As a guideline, try to stay under 100 links for each map.

Research information about keywords first so you know what to write. You should focus on the correct keywords during website design and you should incorporate your keywords into your titles. Your keywords research will help you ascertain what search words and phrases are being entered by your prospective customers as they look online for products or services like yours. Raise your SEO Services ranking by focusing on these subjects throughout your webpage.

While proofreading is often overlooked, it’s vital to the quality and respectability of all websites. Make sure that all of the information on your site is clearly laid out for your visitors and for search engines. When you have mistakes in your content, search engines will skip over you.

Keep away from spam filters and never use duplicate content. Know that you are possibly using duplicated content without knowing it. Repeating the same product description can save time, but search engines see it as spamming.

Look into using online ads. Do it yourself search engine optimization may sometimes not be enough to see a significant increase in rankings. Advertisers such as these work to increase the number of people visiting your page. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Focus on becoming an expert in just one or two aspects of Lynchburg SEO Services right away. New techniques are cropping up every day, but mastering even one will dramatically improve the success of your content.

Use language meta tags if your site is not in English. They can help improve your rankings since they will be found in those foreign language searches.

Try optimizing one page with one specific keyword phrase. Trying to stuff a page with too many keywords will make your content hard to read. It’s better to choose a single topic and provide the best content possible. This will make it more likely that visitors return the site. If your audience is visiting your site often you’ll find that the reward is even greater than that which you gain from search engine optimization!

When buying a new domain, see if your host can redirect your old landing page to the new one. That way, users will be able to use old bookmarks to reach your new site. You can also get redirect pages up on the older domain and that can lead the users there to your new site.

Make sure to configure your hosting company’s server so that it’s case-sensitive for URLS. Having lower case letters in your URL may decrease the chance that visitors end up on your site.

By commenting on relative blogs, you will get increased traffic to your site. Many blog owners will let you drop your link if you leave a comment of substance. If you link your site to irrelevant topics or leave useless comments, you will likely have this privilege revoked. If you know your subject well, it will be easy for you to leave acceptable comments, along with your link, on many blogs.

Internet Businesses

Nobody wants to see his or her own business failing. Many businesses do end up failing, including Internet businesses. However, many Internet businesses actually do succeed because of the vast number of strategies that online businesses can utilize.

When you don’t know where to begin, When it comes to search marketing, you really shouldn’t trust your company’s Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are searching for someone who can advice you enhance your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

can appear to be a complicated topic. Therefore, it’s vital that you arm yourself with the right knowledge. The information from this article will help you move forward purposefully.

from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/search-marketing-made-easy-with-tips-that-help-you-succeed/ from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.tumblr.com/post/614988863287574528

[lynchburgseoexpert]

Search Marketing Made Easy With Tips That Help You Succeed

Failing to use the right Search Marketing techniques will mean that very few visitors will ever find your site. Use the tips in this article to start generating more traffic to your website.

Search Engine

To make sure you have a place in search engine results you should have a large amount of keywords, even those that are misspelled, in the area of your site where you put meta tags. The content of your meta tags is what helps the search engine categorize your website and determine how to describe your link to searchers. To demonstrate this, let’s say your site theme is about knives. You could include a variety of related keywords, including: “knives,” “nives”, and “knifes”, along with any other reasonable options you may want to consider.

Be patient for results from Local SEO In Lynchburg VA. Large changes in traffic volume will not immediately happen. On the contrary, it can take several months if your site is fairly new. You need to build your good name, and that takes time.

To boost your PageRank, you have to attract and maintain the visitors on your page. There is evidence that the more time a person is on a site the higher ranked that site will be. There is more and more evidence suggesting that how long a visitor stays on a site affects their PageRank, according to Quantcast scores. When customers can chat, discuss, and interact with each other on your site, they are more likely to stay longer.

Using a product feed will boost your online presence and get more people to your site. These feeds will list details about your products and services, such as images, prices and descriptions. Send these to search engines, as well as sites that compare prices. A feed reader can also help customers subscribe to a feed.

Promote your expertise in your particular field, so your customers are aware of your level of knowledge. It is an effective marketing strategy that can have great rewards. You can do this by starting a website focused around your niche. You can additionally implement search engine optimization strategies to attract as much targeted traffic as possible. Make sure you know exactly what customers are looking for, don’t just guess.

Authoring a blog and commenting on other blogs related to your website’s niche can be a good SEO Marketing technique. Blogs are a great way to move up the search rankings as they are constantly updated: this makes them easy for search engine algorithms to find and rank. Search engines will respond to backlinks by bringing more visitors.

Don’t try using Flash when you’re using a website for Local SEO purposes. Spiders can not read it and it is slow to load. To optimize your website for search engines, you have to have information that’s searchable by them.

Site Map

Including a site map on your website is key to any search engine optimization process. Spiders use the site map to find out information regarding your website. A huge site might require more than a single map. As a guideline, try to stay under 100 links for each map.

Research information about keywords first so you know what to write. You should focus on the correct keywords during website design and you should incorporate your keywords into your titles. Your keywords research will help you ascertain what search words and phrases are being entered by your prospective customers as they look online for products or services like yours. Raise your SEO Services ranking by focusing on these subjects throughout your webpage.

While proofreading is often overlooked, it’s vital to the quality and respectability of all websites. Make sure that all of the information on your site is clearly laid out for your visitors and for search engines. When you have mistakes in your content, search engines will skip over you.

Keep away from spam filters and never use duplicate content. Know that you are possibly using duplicated content without knowing it. Repeating the same product description can save time, but search engines see it as spamming.

Look into using online ads. Do it yourself search engine optimization may sometimes not be enough to see a significant increase in rankings. Advertisers such as these work to increase the number of people visiting your page. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Focus on becoming an expert in just one or two aspects of Lynchburg SEO Services right away. New techniques are cropping up every day, but mastering even one will dramatically improve the success of your content.

Use language meta tags if your site is not in English. They can help improve your rankings since they will be found in those foreign language searches.

Try optimizing one page with one specific keyword phrase. Trying to stuff a page with too many keywords will make your content hard to read. It’s better to choose a single topic and provide the best content possible. This will make it more likely that visitors return the site. If your audience is visiting your site often you’ll find that the reward is even greater than that which you gain from search engine optimization!

When buying a new domain, see if your host can redirect your old landing page to the new one. That way, users will be able to use old bookmarks to reach your new site. You can also get redirect pages up on the older domain and that can lead the users there to your new site.

Make sure to configure your hosting company’s server so that it’s case-sensitive for URLS. Having lower case letters in your URL may decrease the chance that visitors end up on your site.

By commenting on relative blogs, you will get increased traffic to your site. Many blog owners will let you drop your link if you leave a comment of substance. If you link your site to irrelevant topics or leave useless comments, you will likely have this privilege revoked. If you know your subject well, it will be easy for you to leave acceptable comments, along with your link, on many blogs.

Internet Businesses

Nobody wants to see his or her own business failing. Many businesses do end up failing, including Internet businesses. However, many Internet businesses actually do succeed because of the vast number of strategies that online businesses can utilize.

When you don’t know where to begin, When it comes to search marketing, you really shouldn’t trust your company’s Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are searching for someone who can advice you enhance your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

can appear to be a complicated topic. Therefore, it’s vital that you arm yourself with the right knowledge. The information from this article will help you move forward purposefully.

from Lynchburg SEO Expert https://lynchburgseoexpert.com/search-marketing-made-easy-with-tips-that-help-you-succeed/

[markdaniel9]

Search Marketing Made Easy With Tips That Help You Succeed

Failing to use the right Search Marketing techniques will mean that very few visitors will ever find your site. Use the tips in this article to start generating more traffic to your website.

Search Engine

To make sure you have a place in search engine results you should have a large amount of keywords, even those that are misspelled, in the area of your site where you put meta tags. The content of your meta tags is what helps the search engine categorize your website and determine how to describe your link to searchers. To demonstrate this, let’s say your site theme is about knives. You could include a variety of related keywords, including: “knives,” “nives”, and “knifes”, along with any other reasonable options you may want to consider.

Be patient for results from Local SEO In Lynchburg VA. Large changes in traffic volume will not immediately happen. On the contrary, it can take several months if your site is fairly new. You need to build your good name, and that takes time.

To boost your PageRank, you have to attract and maintain the visitors on your page. There is evidence that the more time a person is on a site the higher ranked that site will be. There is more and more evidence suggesting that how long a visitor stays on a site affects their PageRank, according to Quantcast scores. When customers can chat, discuss, and interact with each other on your site, they are more likely to stay longer.

Using a product feed will boost your online presence and get more people to your site. These feeds will list details about your products and services, such as images, prices and descriptions. Send these to search engines, as well as sites that compare prices. A feed reader can also help customers subscribe to a feed.

Promote your expertise in your particular field, so your customers are aware of your level of knowledge. It is an effective marketing strategy that can have great rewards. You can do this by starting a website focused around your niche. You can additionally implement search engine optimization strategies to attract as much targeted traffic as possible. Make sure you know exactly what customers are looking for, don’t just guess.

Authoring a blog and commenting on other blogs related to your website’s niche can be a good SEO Marketing technique. Blogs are a great way to move up the search rankings as they are constantly updated: this makes them easy for search engine algorithms to find and rank. Search engines will respond to backlinks by bringing more visitors.

Don’t try using Flash when you’re using a website for Local SEO purposes. Spiders can not read it and it is slow to load. To optimize your website for search engines, you have to have information that’s searchable by them.

Site Map

Including a site map on your website is key to any search engine optimization process. Spiders use the site map to find out information regarding your website. A huge site might require more than a single map. As a guideline, try to stay under 100 links for each map.

Research information about keywords first so you know what to write. You should focus on the correct keywords during website design and you should incorporate your keywords into your titles. Your keywords research will help you ascertain what search words and phrases are being entered by your prospective customers as they look online for products or services like yours. Raise your SEO Services ranking by focusing on these subjects throughout your webpage.

While proofreading is often overlooked, it’s vital to the quality and respectability of all websites. Make sure that all of the information on your site is clearly laid out for your visitors and for search engines. When you have mistakes in your content, search engines will skip over you.

Keep away from spam filters and never use duplicate content. Know that you are possibly using duplicated content without knowing it. Repeating the same product description can save time, but search engines see it as spamming.

Look into using online ads. Do it yourself search engine optimization may sometimes not be enough to see a significant increase in rankings. Advertisers such as these work to increase the number of people visiting your page. Using products such as those from Google can make a huge difference.

Focus on becoming an expert in just one or two aspects of Lynchburg SEO Services right away. New techniques are cropping up every day, but mastering even one will dramatically improve the success of your content.

Use language meta tags if your site is not in English. They can help improve your rankings since they will be found in those foreign language searches.

Try optimizing one page with one specific keyword phrase. Trying to stuff a page with too many keywords will make your content hard to read. It’s better to choose a single topic and provide the best content possible. This will make it more likely that visitors return the site. If your audience is visiting your site often you’ll find that the reward is even greater than that which you gain from search engine optimization!

When buying a new domain, see if your host can redirect your old landing page to the new one. That way, users will be able to use old bookmarks to reach your new site. You can also get redirect pages up on the older domain and that can lead the users there to your new site.

Make sure to configure your hosting company’s server so that it’s case-sensitive for URLS. Having lower case letters in your URL may decrease the chance that visitors end up on your site.

By commenting on relative blogs, you will get increased traffic to your site. Many blog owners will let you drop your link if you leave a comment of substance. If you link your site to irrelevant topics or leave useless comments, you will likely have this privilege revoked. If you know your subject well, it will be easy for you to leave acceptable comments, along with your link, on many blogs.

Internet Businesses

Nobody wants to see his or her own business failing. Many businesses do end up failing, including Internet businesses. However, many Internet businesses actually do succeed because of the vast number of strategies that online businesses can utilize.

When you don’t know where to begin, When it comes to search marketing, you really shouldn’t trust your company’s Google ranking to someone who is not a Lynchburg SEO Expert. If you are reading this, you most likely are searching for someone who can advice you enhance your business’ online visibility, website traffic, and leads.

can appear to be a complicated topic. Therefore, it’s vital that you arm yourself with the right knowledge. The information from this article will help you move forward purposefully.

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