#not Iike i was ever expecting much from them but maybe some sense from you but i guess same same

[weldnas]

-

[fanmoose12]

What if in the time skip Hange had to travel during the timeskip to learn about technology or strategy with Yelena and Levihan keep on talking by letters during the time apart? Started with passionate ramblings and ended with both talking about the 104thkids, life and themselves🥺

Levi!

I'm writing you to inform that I've safely arrived to Marley. Yelena provided me with housing and food. She guarantees I'd be safe here. Tomorrow I'll meet with their engineers. They're all Paradis’ sympathetisers so I'm totally safe here. Besides, Yelena and Onyakopon are keeping an eye on me. So don't worry and take care of everything while I'm gone.

I promise to return as quick as possible. Say hi to the kids.

Take care, 

Hange 

_____________

Hange.

Is it safe for you to write letters? You're not using our code, so I guess no one is reading it, but you and me. Or did you just forget that someone can intercept our letters? Please, don't tell me that you did.

Also, do you understand that by writing that Yelena and Onyakopon are watching over you, you're making me worry even more? I know you want to trust them, but be cautious around them. Don't let your guard down.

We're doing just fine, the construction of railroad is going well.

How is your work going? How many death tools you've devised already?

Don't forget to eat and sleep, 

Levi

_____________

Levi!

Of course, sending letters is safe. Onyakopon is the one who takes care of my correspondence. I know you're still wary of them, I admit, I don't trust Yelena too, but Onyakopon is a good man, I can trust him on this. So don't you worry, I'm not accidentally endangering myself or the fate of our operation. I have everything under control.

Speaking of things under my control, the development of new weapons is going great! Using, the information and instruments I've been provided with, I was able to achieve a lot. I'm not going to tell you about it, I'll need more than one page for that, and I don't have a lot of time for letters, but I'm sure you're going to love our new weapons. Of course, I'll need to modify them a bit, to accommodate for scout's fighting style, but I'm feeling good about this.

How are you doing? How are the others? Did something peculiar happen? If so, please write to me about this. These Marleyans are boring as hell, I can use some laugh right now. Take care and be safe.

Lots of love, 

Hange

_____________

Hange.

So you're making lots of progress. That's good. Don't overwork yourself, though. Take all the time you need, we'll be fine without you.

You asked for a story about brats, and I do have something to tell. I’m sure you’ll love it. 

You've told me many times to stop checking on them during the night and I was following your advice. But yesterday I was heading to the kitchen to brew myself a cup of tea, and I heard some commotion upstairs. I hurried there, worried that something had happened, and you never guess what was going on. The brats were chasing each other through the hallway with pillows in their hands. Even Mikasa was involved in this, I expected better from her. They were so into their stupid game, it took them a full minute to notice me. Once they did, they had enough sense to look ashamed. I ordered them to go sleep, but even afterwards I heard their whisperings. They grew so tall, but, goddamn it, they're still little, annoying brats.

Hope this story is enough to make you cackle, Hange, because I can't remember anything else they've done. They're strangely calm without you. Makes me uneasy, to be honest.

Maybe, they'll be back to normal, once you return.

I hope you'll come home soon.

Until the next letter.

Levi

_____________

Levi!!!!

What did you cross out? I'm really curious! I've tried to use different sources of light to see through it, but you've done a good job of hiding it.

By the way, are you saying that the kids miss me? Tell them I miss them too.

I do have a question - are they the only ones who miss me? Feel free not to answer it, I know you're too shy to do it.

The work has been doing fine, maybe, I'll be able to finish in the next few weeks, but who knows how long I'm going to stay here. Yelena and Onyakopon can't just let me fly back home, they need to devise a safe route for me first. They say it may take another month or two, before I can return. Try not to forget about me in the meantime, yeah?

Sending you hugs!

Hange

_____________

Hange.

Two more months? What the fuck?

Everything is alright. There is nothing to report.

Levi

_____________

Dear Armin,

I hope you and Jean are doing everything in your power to keep your friends in line. I know you're busy as it is and I know I'm asking too much of you, but can you please keep an eye on Levi? I worry about him a bit, and it'll make feel better if you check up on him.

Thanks for all the hard work you do!

Take care,

Commander Hange

_____________

Commander!

Please, don't worry about us, you have enough on your plate as it is. Captain is a bit melancholic, it's true, but I'm sure he'll get better once you return.

In the meantime, I'll think of a way to cheer up our Captain! You can count on me!

The others had asked to pass their best wishes to you. We're eagerly awaiting your return.

Armin

P.S. Sasha just told me that she convinced Niccolo to prepare a celebratory dinner for you. So, as you can see, everyone misses you. The corps are not the same without you. I'm hoping for your swift return.

_____________

Hey,

What the fuck? Why do you send letters to the brat, while I received no response to my last one?

And what was in that letter, by the way? Armin refused to show me. Are you keeping secrets from me, Hange?

Hopefully, you'll answer this letter.

Levi

_____________

My dearest Captain Grump,

I'm so sorry if I hurt your feelings, but there was something I needed to discuss with Armin. It's boring stuff, you wouldn't like it. Do tell me how you're doing, I'm very curious about it. Are you sleeping well? I hope the nightmares don't bring you too much trouble. If they do, then I'm sorry that I can't be by your side to help.

If something bothers you, please tell me about it. I'll try to help in whatever way I can.

Sincerely yours,

Hange

_____________

Hange,

Everything is fine, don't worry. You have more important stuff right now.

The brats act really weird. Today they asked me to accompany them to a trip into town. I can't even imagine their reason for it, but they practically begged me to join, I had no other choice than to agree.

The walk through town was... Nice. The weather was good, sunny but not too hot, just as you like it. Something was wrong with the brats, however. They kept staring at me, Iike I've grown a second head. It annoyed me, although I do have to admit I was feeling strangely too. During the whole day, I kept looking back as though something was missing. Maybe, I'm just exhausted.

We visited my favorite café and then went to a marketplace. The cleaning supplies were running low, so it was fortunate that the brats were with me, they helped me carry everything I needed. I bought something for you too, it already waits for you at your table. I hope it won't be covered in dust by the time you come back.

Take care,

Your Levi

_____________

Dear Levi,

Oh nooo, you went for a walk with kids? I'm so envious! I'm cooped up here all the time, Onyakopon doesn't even let me leave my room during daytime. I'm feeling like a wilted flower. The sun here is so bleak, I can't figure the reason for it, but it's nearly not as bright as in Paradis. It's too cold there as well.

On the bright side, they have lots of meat here, (see, I'm eating healthily). Although, it's a bit dry for my taste. You're going to laugh at me, but I'm actually missing the broth from our cafeteria. Maybe, I'm just going crazy with boredom.

I'm finished with the work, and now I'm waiting for the signal from Yelena. Onyakopon says it could take a few weeks, but I'm getting impatient. I can't wait to be back home. Hopefully, you're waiting for me too.

Sincerely yours,

Hange

P.S. I just reread your letter and what? You bought me a gift? What is it, Levi? Tell me what is it! You know me, I won't be able to sleep until you tell me.

_____________

Hange,

If I find out that you're not getting enough sleep, I'll kick Yelena's and Onyakopon's asses. Then I'll kick yours.

You'll see it when you get home. So quell your curiosity.

Wish you all the best, miss you so much

Levi

_____________

Levi!!!!!!!

Yelena just came back, she told that everything is ready for my departure! I'm so excited! I can't wait to see all of you, I missed you so much!

I'm going to warn you, though, once I return, I'm going to hug you, and no, you can't refuse or run away from me. It's commander's orders.

Lots of love,

Your Hange

P.S. there is a second part of this letter. It describes the details of my trip. For safety reasons, I've used our code to write it. See? I do take precautions.

_____________

Hange

Thanks for your letter. I showed it to Jean and Armin (only the coded part), they're getting ready for your arrival.

Have a safe trip.

The brats and I are waiting.

Hopefully this is the last letter I ever write to you, don’t leave me alone again

Levi.

[vagrantblvrd]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Late-night and also half-assed AU idea times?

The one where Luke gets sent back in time (Because Reasons) to Clone Wars era shenanigans.

Also Because Reasons Obi-Wan is put in charge of keeping an eye on this kid, idk, Biggs Antilles because everyone is so hapless in the Star Wars universe when under pressure, like seriously.

Anyway.

Obi-Wan is suspicious like a suspicious person and so is Anakin and Luke is kind of losing his mind because he never knew (suspected, but never had proof) that old Ben was a goddamned menace and all his lectures to Luke about same are like, wow, dude, wow.

Oh, and also his dad.

And Ahsoka?

And all the clones and everyone else and he’s like, ;____________________; at what could have been, you know?

But also not sure if he’ll ever get back to his time - he really hopes so because there’s this Mandalorian with an adorable kid - and oh, God, he needs to check on Grogu in this time stat, but yes.

Shenanigans in which Luke desperately tries to hide his real identity because everyone’s iike “He feels like Anakin,how strange, and Luke in the corner like “Hahaha, yes, STRANGE. :DDDDDD

And then adventures in which he ends up having to save Obi-Wan more than he ever expected to when he woke up twenty-something years in the past, and oh dear God is that his mom? (Leia looks so much like her. Mostly the angry part right now, because Anakin and recklessly endangering his life and uh, oops, he didn’t mean to eavesdrop???

But like. Luke is kind of bleeding again (he,too, recklessly endangered his life alongside his father and Obi-Wan) and thought medbay was this way and -

Wait, why are you looking at him like that?

Anaking and Padme worried Luke’s going to at them out to, idk, the Jedi council or whatever about their ~forbidden love, and Luke is just.

“What.”

So then the thing about attachments and how they’re bad because emotions is explained to him and Luke looks at his father who clearly loves his mother so much. Thinks about the nonsense about attachment and how scared it would make someone like Anakin, and Obi-Wan -

Luke loves him, but the man’s made mistakes. (And, like. Luke gets it, he does. Some adventure with Obi-Wan and sharing of past loves because they weren’t sure they’d make it out alive and why not share this thing with someone kind of friend-shaped, and anyway,)

Luke is like, okay, wow.

Because one, the thing about attachments is bullshit - show him one Jedi master who isn’t attached to their padawan for starters - and anyway.

Not his business who they love, an then he scurries off to medbay before he bleeds out in hallway or wherever, which is where Obi-Wan finds him and is like  >:((((( at the bleeding thing and :| about the attachment thing but also *SIGH* because Luke reminds him of this padawan he had once, what was his name???

Anyway.

Yes

Also, though, also.

Them taking Luke to Coruscant to meet with the Jedi council because they have no idea where he came from - Luke floated the possibility of time travel being real to Obi-Wan once, but as a hypothetical and really, never mind him - and anyway.

Luke being like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as they ~question (interrogate) him because he has read up on the Jedi Order and their rules and whatnot. And where he might have been in awe of getting to meet all these Jedi masters once, now he just feels. Pity. He feels pity for them.

It shows, a little, and they call it arrogance for someone so young to think they know better than the entirety of the Jedi council and yet?

Luke doesn’t care.

Which kind of makes him a threat in their eyes, this incredibly powerful Jedi who appeared out of nowhere and shows so little - if any, really - respect for their Order.

And, they realize, who both Obi-Wan and Anakin like.

Ahsoka too, but she’s a padawan, young and such, doesn’t know better.

But also, also, after all the fun-times had with the Jedi council Luke walks out to find Palpatine talking to his father and his mother while Obi-Wan stands by and chips in with a comment or observation every so often and he is like !!! because he never expected this???

Somehow after hearing stories from people, he just. Didn’t expect the fall of the old Jedi Order to take place in a tastefully appointed waiting area, potted plants and chairs and such Maybe one of those little fountains you see in an office sometime for the soothing sound of moving water and whatnot.

Anyway.

Maybe it’s his own personal experience with the man in the throne room on the second Death Star with the dramatic lighting and so on, but it’s a wee bit jarring.

He has one of those “episodes” as the others call them, and gets hustled out of there posthaste while Palpatine is all, “Oh, dear, I do hope he feels better,” and Luke does all the meditating exercises so as not to blurt out that hey, so, that sith lord everyone’s trying to find? RIGHT THERE.

Because lack of evidence and such.

And it’s like.

After seeing what things were like, he’s just. He’s stuck here, probably, right? So. Maybe he can fix things, even a little.

(Right the wrongs that Palpatine wrought and so on.)

And while he’s doing that it occurs to him that Din, okay, Din is alive in this time. And he told Luke about the attack that killed his parents, about being rescued by Mandalorians, and is like.

Can he change that too? Should he? Searches everything he can only to realize he’s too late to do anything about it. That the attack happened before Luke arrived in this time and he has this.

This little breakdown in a library or some such somewhere, because all that fretting and whatnot he did about whether or not he should intervene was for nothing, a moot point because he was too late, and it’s like.

Existential crisis time because if he changes things more than he has, will he even exists in the future? Will Leia?

Will any of their friends exist, and on his way back to the quarters he’s been given he runs into Padme - perhaps sneaking out from visiting Anakin - and she’s surprised to see him, maybe a little worried too.

(She knows his views on the whole attachment thing, yes, but her and Anakin have kept their relationship a secret for a long time now and old habits)

Still, she notices he’s obviously not doing well and they talk for a bit, Luke asking her a hypothetical, like if she could go back in time to  change something to save someone she loved from suffering, would she?

And of course she is like. No, because doing so negates their choices and how would it affect others and so on?

Luke is just, right, of course.

But then she goes on and says, as a person, not a politician, a leader, she absolutely would.

Luke is like, oh, because of course that makes sense, doesn’t it.

Good of the many and so on and anyway.

He goes to his quarters and thinks on it for a bit and realizes, yes okay, the thing with Din was mostly selfish - he wants to say he wouldn’t have done it, but he still doesn’t know  - but Palpatine, okay, Palpatine.

How many million, billions, maybe more, lives was he responsible for? (Luke has his own count for the dead, and monstrously high it may be, but Palpatine is at the heart of all of it.)

So.

He he starts laying the groundwork to expose Palpatine, or maybe just build up, idk, say a Rebel Alliance to oppose him - and discovers that oh, would you look at that.

Because Padme and Bail and their closet conspirators who know something is coming, that Palpatine is surely part of it, but they don’t know the full scope of things.

And honestly, even Luke doesn’t, but.

They think he’s a spy or whatever, and there are all these shenanigans in the meantime, and Luke doing what he can to prove that he’s really on their side, and anyway, anyway.

He plants seeds here and there, everything Leia taight him, everything he picked up, and goes to Obi-Wan for help because his former master and watchdog, and anyway.

Before Luke gets to see if anything he’s done in the past pays off he gets booted back to his time.

Or a version of it.

Ripped back to his time and this moment where he’s sure he’s dead - in the middle of a space battle or collapsing temple somewhere and glowy doohickey, something like that, or, okay, Palpatine trying to kill hi again for the first time - and anyway.

Super disorienting.

Especially when he opens his eyes and Obi-Wan is there along with his father and is that Ahsoka?

But, like.

Older.

Also, though, Din.

And Grogu and Luke is very confused?

But there’s no time for that, as Padme and Leia run in and tell them the Imperials found them, did you get him? Yes, oh, good, and now with the running???

In which they do the running to a familiar ship Luke knows well, and also a few others he likewise knows, and anyway.

They escape just in time because an Imperial fleet was looking for them, and anyway.

Luke is super confused, but that’s okay because exposition time in which he finds out all those seeds he planted worked.

Palpatine was exposed, but didn’t matter because he had contingency plans, you know?

Order 66 never went into effect because someone - Obi-wan was prompted to go back to Kamino and ask after the clones, any...special features that may have been added and anyway.

Palpatine never got his clone army, but he made up for it with battle droids and conscripts and the Empire didn’t win? But neither did the Alliance.

Not yet, anyway, and they’ve been fighting for years at that point. No Death Star - at least not a completed one - and anyway, yes.

Alderaan’s still there, Leia doesn’t have to pretend she can see it in the night sky, and anyway.

A lot has changed but so much is still the same, and everyone, okay, everyone thinks Luke an idiot.

(They’re also not surprised by that, because Skywalker, but yes.)

This whole thing of Luke’s original memories clashing with this new timeline - he keeps his old ones, but it makes for a confusing time, you know? Some point where Luke gets this faraway look and turns to someone - maybe they were dead in that original timeline - and tells them how different everything is.

If they’re feeling brave enough, and honestly most people in Luke’s life are that brave, they ask what he was thinking about to get that look on his face and he’ll tell them about terrible future that didn’t come to pass.

One he feels a little guilty for missing sometimes because those other versions of the people he knew, loved, are gone and he’s the only one who remembers them? But then he’ll see one of them, or someone who was dead in that other timeline and realizes it’s not as simple as that.

Looks at the life he knew before and the one he’s learning now and can’t decide if what he did was the right thing?

But then he’ll catch his parents on a balcony somewhere lost in on another’s eyes and these soft smiles and the love between them that’s grown over the years. Or see Obi-Wan walking about with Cody, and soft smiles and quiet laughter and hundred dozen little moments like that and thinks, selfishly, he doesn’t truly regret it if these people he’s come to love get something like that, you know?

And, then, of course, then Din finds him, or maybe Luke goes back to their quarters on whatever ship or base they’re at then, and he’ll be waiting for him.

They were on the cusp of something when Luke got thrown back in time, but things changed once he got back.

Slow, awkward, because different timelines and experiences, but something new and good, and anyway, anyway.

Din’s there and Luke is being a little (lot) selfish in wanting to keep whatever the two of them are building between them, and Din seems to want the same, and anyway.

Yes????

[howlljenkins]

When the Snows Thaw

The corner of Jon’s lips twitched up. “You’re the savior of the Seven Kingdoms. You can have anything you want.”

“Good,” Arya said. “Because I want you to ask your Dragon Queen to legitimize Gendry.”

Jon’s eyebrows shot up. Whatever he had been expecting her to say it wasn’t that. “Gendry? Why?”

“So I can marry him.” She said this as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. The sky is blue. Winter is cold. I want to marry Gendry Waters.

Read on AO3

“Jon.”

Startled, Jon whipped around to find Arya standing a few feet behind him on the covered walkway that overlooked Winterfell’s courtyard.

“I’m going to get you a bell to wear if you keep doing that,” he grumbled as his little sister fell in beside him.

Below them, the effort to rebuild the castle was well underway. Men called out to one another as they worked, the sound of hammering ringing through the courtyard as Winterfell was put back together, beam by beam and stone by stone.

“I wasn’t trying to be sneaky,” Arya said.

“Aye, I don’t doubt it. Still, you move too quiet.”

A small smile played around Arya’s lips. “Very well. I’ll bang some pots together next time.”

Jon laughed. “I’d appreciate that.”

A comfortable silence settled over them as they watched the work taking place below. The construction was slow but steady. Every day, Winterfell grew stronger, more like the place they had known as children. More like home.

Jon glanced over at Arya. He was still having trouble reconciling the young woman she’d become with the girl he had left behind all those years ago. She was so different...and yet he saw echoes of the girl he’d known in near everything she did, from the way she walked to the way she refused to be anything but the truest version of herself.

It had been several weeks since they had battled the dead, and Arya’s head injury was well on its way to healing. The Night King’s handprint on her neck had faded, though it was still far paler than the rest of her skin, and Jon had a feeling it would never completely disappear. At the moment she was chewing on her bottom lip, lost in thought. It was a something she had always been getting in trouble for when they were young. Ladies don’t nibble on their lips like rabbits, Jon remembered their Septa saying. He found it oddly comforting that Arya had retained the habit. Another thing that hadn’t changed.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked.

Arya huffed a breath and turned to him. “That I need a favor.”

The corner of Jon’s lips twitched up. “You’re the savior of the Seven Kingdoms. You can have anything you want.”

“Good,” Arya said. “Because I want you to ask your Dragon Queen to legitimize Gendry.”

Jon’s eyebrows shot up. Whatever he had been expecting her to say it wasn’t that. “Gendry? Why?”

“So I can marry him.” She said this as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. The sky is blue. Winter is cold. I want to marry Gendry Waters.

For a moment Jon just stared at her. Finally, he found his voice, though perhaps not his eloquence. “I don’t… what?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You do know what marriage is, don’t you?”

“Seven hells, Arya," Jon growled. "I know what marriage is. I just don’t understand… When did you two even meet?”

“We’ve known each other for years. Ever since King’s Landing. We travelled together before the Brotherhood sold him to the Red Woman.”

“And you never thought to mention this?” Jon demanded.

Arya shrugged. “It wasn’t important then. It is now.”

“Because you want to marry him,” Jon repeated. He was still struggling to believe he was having this conversation with Arya of all people. Arya who scoffed at songs of lords and ladies, who had never taken a liking to anyone their entire childhood. His wild little sister whose dreams had always been of knights and adventures, not marriage and children.

He could tell Arya was growing impatient with him. “Look, will you do it or not?” she said.

“I…” Jon’s mind reeled. He needed to buy himself more time to think. “Why does he have to be legitimized? I didn’t think you cared about things Iike that.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “I don’t. But Gendry’s got this stupid notion that a bastard can’t marry a lady. The idiot. Now will you do it or not?”

“You’re sure this is what you want?”

Arya didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“Very well,” Jon said, and Arya’s face split into a smile. “But I can’t make him accept,” he warned.

“That’s alright,” Arya said, still grinning. “Leave that part to me.” Rising up on her toes, she kissed Jon on the cheek. “Thank you, Jon.”

He nodded mutely as she turned away, still too stunned to say anything. Perhaps marriage was not incompatible with adventures. Perhaps marriage was just a different kind of adventure.

She had made it several feet before he called after her. “Arya.” She turned. “Smiling,” Jon said, “it looks good on you.”

She lifted one brow. “You should try it sometime. If you keep brooding so much your face is going to get stuck like that.”

Jon chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Once she’d gone, Jon rested his forearms against the railing, trying to wrap his head around what had just happened. Gendry and Arya...they did have a fair amount in common. They were both bull-headed to a fault. Loyal beyond measure. And kind, though they would both have rankled to be called thus. The more Jon thought about it, the more he had to admit the match made some sort of twisted sense. And just because they wanted to get married didn’t mean they’d do it right away. Maybe they’d wait a while. At least until the snows thawed and Winterfell had been fully repaired and could host a real celebration. A spring wedding, Jon mused. Yes, that sounded right.

[survivor-rotuma]

Ep. 4: “Wow my team is shit!!!” - Lysandre

Joey G

So I’ve had a really busy few days, but luckily my connection with Felix not only scored me a spot on my OG tribe’s majority alliance, but I also ended up with him on the swap tribe and leveraged his connections to join a new majority alliance with Lysandre and Raul. Now that work seems to be slowing down a bit, I have to kick it into high gear to secure my position on the tribe as well as make bonds that can help me come merge time.

Charlie

I feel very confident about my vote this tribal, pretty sure I won't be blindsided either

Apollo

You wanted some tea sis? Well here you go! The bruschetta alliance is probably really weak as in power sense but I think we’re strong as in our connections with each other. A tribe swapped occurred and thank god I bonded with Felix and the rest of the bruschetta alliance did as well. We all ended up on his tribe and I’m grateful to be on the safe tribe this round. The tea is? I really like Felix but I kind of want to vote him out at the first chance possible. He’s really good at challenges (and yes I’m completely basing this off of a puzzle score) and his charisma is far too high and he’s really likeable. He’s a fucking threat. And yes I do Iike him a lot but I want to be the prom king not the runner up.

Lysandre

Hi this iis Lysandre the Lion and the lier coming at you live from the WHAT THE FUCK IM ON MEA NOW.

Lysandre

Ok so there was no swap and we are back on our OG tribes until MERGE and that makes me feel so bad because It makes my chances of using the idol go up by a bunch! and PLUS THE NEW CHALLENGE IS A SCAVENGER HUNT, aka my least favorite challenge ever.

Felix

"Alright so big things have happened since my last confessional. First off, I can't believe Jay pulled that Twistos twist on us! I was so ready to move on with my alliance with Raul, Lysandre, and Joey. Plus, I was also ready to create an alliance with Apollo with whomever he deemed worthy. Oh, well. At least that means I do not have to betray anyone yet. Plus, it means that I get back with Tuai Quad LLC which means Cassie cannot use her advantage on me. Overall, this twist didn't hurt me, but I would've liked more time to establish bonds. Oh well. At least this means I have like 3 alliances at merge if all of those people make it to the merge.

Joey says that we should keep the Golden Alliance between us. I guess that's fine. I mean if it ever comes to light then I do have an excuse ready. Though I don't know how well it would work. Plus, it makes him think we have this hared secret together and that we are this Final 2 duo. It'll be good to keep up a good reputation with him.

Cassie says she wants to target Marie at merge. That could be a risky and game-changing move on her part if it succeeds. She sees Marie as the head of the Mea tribe, so it'd be good to get rid of her. To be honest, it wouldn't be such a bad thing for Cassie to target Marie. After all, it would put the target on her back and not mine if the move goes through or not. Depending on my decision to side with either Tuai or Mea, it could put me in the best position in the game. I'd definitely be playing the middle in that case. Though I should not forget that Sumi also exists. They are probably the underdogs of this season, but I can't let hem go unnoticed. As long as I can keep playing the middle, I'll be golden. Hopefully, we can vote out someone irrelevant on the first tribal at merge to keep the two sides butting heads.

I don't know how well I will do in this challenge though. The Scavenger Hunt is always hit or miss for me. However, even if we do go to tribal, it'll definitely be Charlie who will get voted out. I think of Charlie as wildcard in this scenario. I cannot have him get to merge because I basically don't talk to him. He could easily flip on me and Tuai. Let's see how this goes."

Zest

woah jay! you really got me thinking I made the merge. Anyways, hyped for this scavenger hunt.

Brianna

Kind of. Really wish. We didn’t have to go back to our original tribes. Ugh. It’s a scavenger hunt competition and we had to sit one person out. No one was saying anything so I got randomly picked to sit out. I mean. I was fine with it. But we are less than 24 hours away from the challenge being finished and we have zero points. I can’t count on anyone on sumi. And if I end up getting voted out because of this I will throw a fit.

Marie

Wow, my closest ally left the game. I hope everything is ok! And I’m hoping lys Raul and I can stick together

Apollo

"Nobody: ...

Jay: it wasn’t a real swap! Go back to your old tribes until merge!

Me: https://68.media.tumblr.com/6f9f874d5d67596a06b123e372d682ee/tumblr_inline_og1vygJXEY1usj39c_500.gif"

Apollo

Anyways in all seriousness, I’m pretty shook that we’re staying in these tribes until merge if the merge is at f11. If it’s at f13 then no big deal. Borris and I have majority with Zest and Bradley and Brianna think they’re sitting pretty until we lose anyways and Zest knows about the foursome made without him so ideally I’m in a good spot with Borris. I would like to keep us all as long as possible but I’m very much not going to be upset if we lose Brianna and Bradley. Fuck it might even be good to be perceived as the weaker tribe going into merge. If we’re the “strongest” tribe then people are going to want to pick us off at the start and I’m not here for that.......Maybe....maybe we need to lose a challenge or two

Flint

This weeks immunity challenge is a blast but also a little more difficult then I had expected. Felix Cassie and I are doing our best and I hope it keeps Tuai out of trouble for one more round!

Flint

There has been a little whispering of idol talk and it’s kinda got me nervous. A few tribe mates have said they gone out hunting but also mentioned they believe someone already found it. I suspect that it’s Joey because he’s been a bit quiet so maybe he feels comfortable sitting back a bit with an idol in his pocket.

Felix

Kathleen quitting is kind of a shame. That means I can't work with her in the future, and I was already laying down the groundwork for it. Oh, well. At least now the pact I made with her and Raul can't be spread around or broken. I hope we don't go to tribal. I really don't have the mental energy for it. Plus, I didn't do that well in the challenge so maybe they'll just send me home. Who knows? All I know is that Charlie is getting my vote if we go to tribal.

Felix

I'm kind of sad that Mea is going to tribal again. They are the ones that I bonded with the most during the One World, and it is a shame to see such active people go home one by one. I hope it's Raul who goes because he's the least talkative out of Marie and Lysandre. Plus, I've talked to the other two extensively and have built strong bonds with them. We'll see what happens, but this is such a shame. Plus, if Marie stays then Cassie will still be able to target her still.

Zest

"what a fun scavenger hunt challenge. I am so grateful for my tribe. I also am really enjoying having an alliance. I hope to find something on an idol hunt soon. This competition is really starting to AMP UP!"

Lysandre

Wow my team is shit!!! Also I'm going to miss Steph- I mean Kathleen! So the challenge went terribly. Marie submitted like 6 items and Raul really carried the team with his 0 items what a legend. We are going to tribal as a tribe of 3 which is... new and I'm literally so pressd.

Cassie

I guess you could say I went a bit all out for this particular challenge. It was super fun to go around looking for stuff. Our tribe is doing really well still and we're anticipating a merge soon. We still have the numbers and I hope we can stick around to the final 5. Go Tuai!

Lysandre

I'm thinking of something iconic to say as an episode title but the flopness of my tribe keeps alerting Jay of Tribal Council.

Flint

Tuai lives to see another day! Watching Mea dwindle to 2 players after tonight is crazy to think about. I feel lucky to be apart of such a strong tribe and hope we stay aligned once we hit the merge, but I have a gut feeling someone from Tuai will flip and join the other players

Brianna

"Heheh it’s okay we won"

Marie

Wow, I think we’re the worst tribe in online survivor history

Felix

I can't believe that Apollo had a "Leaders Alliance" with Cassie and Marie. How shookening is that? He runs his mouth about starting an alliance with me, but already has one with people he considers the "leaders" of his tribe? Nah nah nah. He's way smarter than he lets on. He may think I'm a pawn and a good personality, but I am going to go after him at merge. Marie doesn't matter since she has no numbers and no tribe to fall back on. Apollo has been slowly building alliances with probably Zest, Boris, and/or Brianna. They're probably really tight at this point, so we need to be very careful of how we tread with Apollo. He needs to go. I think how it should go at merge would be (Random Non-Tuai Person) -> Marie (for Cassie's good side) -> Apollo (a big threat and we'd have the numbers if Tuai would work together) -> Cassie (cause she'd be a threat too). Tbh, I want everyone in that Leaders Alliance gone because if they think they're the top dogs then they got to go. They'd be too much of a threat as the numbers close down. And I want their blood all over my hands.

Felix

"I cannot just passively play this game lol. I'm currently trying to plant seeds in Flint's and Cassie's heads about Sumi's potential threat. They scare me the most going into merge because they are a big unknown factor. They have just as many  people on their tribe as us, and we barely know anything about them or their play style. Cassie seems on board to keeping Marie around for a little bit, but we need to start taking care of Sumi's numbers. If Boris is right, then they all shouldn't be too inactive so it'll be easy to convince people to take out inactive people. I just hope we can convince Marie and Lysandre to take out Sumi as well.

One good thing to take away from all this is that I am not seen as a leader, just very active. It paints a target on Cassie's back and not my own. They'll be going after her first. I'll just have to play along with this narrative until I stab her in the back. "

Charlie

I feel like ill be up for elimination this week because I sat out of the challenge. Its making me really nervous tbh

Marie

3 person tribes are very hard to navigate. You feel on top but on the bottom at the same time! It’s really weird because raul thinks it’s lys, but lys and I voted for raul. But I don’t know if lys actually voted for raul???? What if they voted for me?

Joey

we went back to our original tribes, so i’m now reunited with the majority alliance. i didn’t have to do the challenge, i don’t have to go to tribal, and we still have charlie as someone on the outs if we ever lose a challenge. my path to merge is set!

Marie

This is the most silent I’ve seen our tribe and it’s scary

Apollo

Ummmm Fuck Mea’s drag? I guess

Marie

Wow this game makes me feel like a horrible person. I thought I’d get through this with no regrets but having to comfort the person you voted for and telling them they aren’t going home sucks

Raul

I'm probably going home unless I pull off the impossible like this is gonna be a mess I really hope, I don't leave cause that would be a shame , I really really hope I convinced Marie to vote out lys and lys doesn't want Marie here it could be a 1-1-1 vote wouldn't that be cute

[ladystylestores]

How to Keep Your Blog Afloat During COVID-19 • The Blonde Abroad

If you’re like me and your blog brings in a significant portion of your business’s revenue, this can be a really hard time for us all — it’s really important to take a look at what’s changed, determine how you can pivot your strategies, and continue to support your business over the coming months.

I’d like to preface my thoughts by saying that most of these tips are focused on income-generating blogs, so if you make the bulk of your blog revenue through ad revenue, affiliates, or converting your audience to product sales, these tips are more likely going to relate to you.

But even if you’re just starting out, it’s a really good education on what to expect from the business side of running a blog and turning it into an income.

Here’s how I’m keeping my blog afloat during this time!

Blog and Social Media Performance

Obviously, because fewer people are searching for travel and destination-specific content right now, my blog traffic is down — and with that comes fewer users on my site, less revenue from ads, fewer product sales and less affiliate income. You might notice that your blog is producing less passive income as well.

Here are some things I’ve personally noticed on my own platforms:

Instagram Stories Engagement: Increased

Instagram Posts Engagement: About the Same

Open Rate of Emails: Increased

Blog Readership: Decreased

Pinterest Viewership: About the Same

Traffic Referrals to Blog from Social: Increased

My takeaway?

More people are on their phones, scrolling Instagram and opening emails, meaning they’re still looking for sources of information, entertainment and inspiration, but they’re not actively looking for travel content, which makes sense given the travel restrictions and uncertainty.

So, with that, I decided to use this time to make some changes to my blogging strategies to ensure that I’m still able to support my business with revenue (and pay my team), as well as to pivot my content strategy to build out more content around non-travel topics and keep my readers happy and entertained!

We’ll get into all these strategies more, below!

Look at your “1-month” vs “2020 YTD” Google Analytics traffic to compare.

Take Time to Analyze

In my personal experience, I saw a huge drop-off in traffic starting in early March — at first, I didn’t understand why, but when the pandemic lockdowns started to reach Europe and the US, where the majority of my audience is based, it became crystal clear.

If most of your content is travel-related, there’s a good chance you experienced a drop as well, and this is understandable given the circumstances. Since no one can travel right now, wanderlust and bucket list type searches aren’t as prominent.

Here’s my blog traffic from January through April, for reference:

My traffic has basically been cut in half or, on some days, down to a third of my normal traffic.

So, going back to the idea of “pivoting” your strategies, take some time to review your top traffic and see which pages or posts are still getting views. Your analytics will tell you pretty deeply about what things have changed and stayed the same.

Typically, I have a pretty standard list of my top 10 pages that are consistently getting the most views and clicks on my blog.

That’s because those top-traffic pages rank on Google or do really well on Pinterest, and lead to a constant flow of referral traffic. But, now that people’s search habits have changed with the times, I have whole new content showing up on “top”.

At the moment, most of my traffic is generated from more home and lifestyle-related posts.

These top-pages are still getting the most views (no changes):

About Me: Readers are still interested in my story and the “how” and “why” behind The Blonde Abroad

Home Page: New users are still finding my website from other places (although fewer than before)

Start Here Page: There are still new users coming across my website (although fewer than before)

Destinations: Of course, there will be some people still looking for information on future trips (although fewer than before)

These pages are getting fewer views (compared to “normal”):

All travel guides

Any destination-specific content

These pages are getting more views (compared to “normal”):

So, take some time to analyze your own traffic.

The main things you want to analyze are:

How much the volume of traffic has been impacted?

Where users are landing on the site (ie: certain pages, posts, etc.) and if and how that has changed?

User behavior on your site — consider questions like: Are users spending more time on your site or less? Are they reading more or fewer pages?

What type of content are they looking at now compared to before the traffic drop?

Now, let’s dive into what “new” content we’re creating that’s killing it!

New Content

Normally, we have a pretty standard content creation schedule which includes tons of travel guides. It’s definitely very heavy on the travel theme, but given that most of the world is on lockdown, we’ve decided to share more lifestyle content and things to do at home—in anticipation of what the next 6-12 months will look like for travel.

Luckily, I’m quite confident that we can carry on with a majority of lifestyle content for the time being and still engage my readers.

We’ve seen a nice spike in interest for content like comfy clothes to wear around home, things to do to stay entertained and manage stress during this time, and the global recipes we’re sharing.

Here are some of my top lifestyle posts that we’ve created during lockdown:

What I’d recommend for new content for the new few months is content that brings in some form of affiliate revenue. Include lots of shoppable moments. Consider what your audience is doing right now. If you don’t know, ask them! Most things ‘from home’ are going to do well!

So, take this time to explore other ideas or other pillars of content that you might not normally focus on!

Improve Existing Content

I’m personally experiencing crisis fatigue and struggling to put my head down and be productive.

Are you feeling this, too?

If you’re struggling with coming up with new ideas, one of the first productive things you can do is to improve old content and those newly high-ranking pages.

Maybe the copy is outdated since you wrote it, or old photos need to be optimized. Or perhaps you need to fix up the grammar and incorporate more internal links to newer content on your blog.

My suggestion: Go through your highest-traffic pages and posts, in order of page views, and make sure they’re the best they can possibly be.

Here are my tips on revamping existing content so it’s optimized for user experience and SEO!

1. Optimize Images for Retina Display

I started blogging 8 years ago and never resized my images. FAIL. Huge images slow down your site. It’s SO important to upload correctly sized images.

To find an optimized image size for your blog post: Open a blog post, right-click, and press Inspect—the ‘display’ size of that image is what’s shown (ex. 300x500px). For retina display screens, you’ll want to upload an image 2x that (ex. 600px wide) and under 300kb.

Here’s a screengrab of my photo Export settings in Lightroom for reference:

  2. Is Your Title Engaging and Optimized with SEO Keywords?

Yoast’s Blog and Backlinko are great resources for learning the basics of SEO and implementing them. Be sure to incorporate searchable phrases and words throughout the post and update the title to something more engaging, if necessary.

For example, I had some blog posts from 2011 and 2012 that were written in more of a diary format with titles that no one was ever going to find through a search engine, so I updated those types of posts to include more itinerary information and more tangible tips for travelers.

Rather than drafting all of your old content, you might consider ‘re-vamping’ an older article. For example, you can take a “My Experience in Prague” post and transform it into a high-ranking “How to Spend 48 Hours in Prague” guide with just a little SEO research and some edits to the copy!

Articles that have been live longer tend to rank higher, so editing an existing post is sometimes better (if you have a good base) than starting from scratch.

The next section is all about SEO, so if you’re not well-versed, don’t worry — I’ll dig deeper next!

3. Quality of Imagery

Make sure your images are engaging and high-quality. If you don’t have your own photos, check out royalty-free image databases like Unsplash or free stock photo websites. Create engaging Pinterest graphics, too!

Platforms like Canva Pro offer tons of designs and tools to help you create beautiful graphics if you’re not familiar with Photoshop just yet.

Since we’re not our exploring at the moment, it’s a great time to improve your manual photography knowledge or step-up your flat lay photo game!

I put together these guides so you can up your photo game:

  4. Update the Copy

If the information in some older blog posts is no longer as useful or informative as it once was, take this time to update outdated information.

For example, maybe a product you recommended last year is no longer available, or the price you paid for a food tour is not the currently advertised rate, readers will appreciate the most up to date information, and so will Google.

Take this opportunity to improve the readability of your older blog posts by breaking up large chunks of copy into smaller, easy to read sections, or bullet-point lists, for better user experience.

If you make substantial changes, you can add the updated date at the top of your blog post (ex. Updated May 12, 2020)—Google Iikes to crawl content for when posts were last updated, which can help your content’s rankings.

  5. Link Out to Other Content on Your Blog

Make sure it’s easy for readers to what they’re looking for! Usually, if a reader is engaging with one of your posts, odds are they would love to read more about that topic — so you need to make it EASY for them to find more of this related content within seconds.

That’s easily doable by integrating more internal links to related content in your posts.

Helpful Tip: All links to external sites should “open in a new window” and any internal links (other pages and posts from your own site) should open in the same window.

All of these little things can help improve your user experience, increase page views and the time readers spend on your site and can help with page loading speed (when you optimize your images).

Set your goal to revamp and update 2-3 posts a day if you’re not creating new content. If you’re like me and have thousands of articles on the site, it might have been a while since you’ve last reviewed some of your old content!

SEO + Keywords

If you have a little bit of savings or budget and are heavily dependent on your blog for your income, an SEO audit is a great resource to have a professional analyze your site for improvement. This could be a great time to have a professional take a look and give you feedback on improvements you can make across your website.

While it’s pretty pricey, it’s an investment in your business, and the changes that he recommended to me helped to generate more page views and income across the board. It’s very helpful to have someone guide you through the whole process and give you actual steps to take to improve your SEO.

If you’re just getting started with SEO, this SEO Simplified Course was put together by my friend, Sam, who is an expert in the field. I also recommend him for the SEO audit.

If you want to DIY, here are some tips:

If you’re not using an SEO plugin, start there!

Yoast SEO makes it so easy to improve your blog post and pages’ rankings in Google Search and is the go-to SEO plugin for WordPress. They also have tons of resources if you’re just learning about incorporating SEO throughout your blog.

You can also verify your Pinterest account through the plugin.

One of the most simple and free ways to analyze your existing content is to use KeySearch’s keyword check. With this tool, you can find out which keywords are sending users to your website and how readers are coming across your content when searching on Google.

As an example, for a travel guide to Cape Town, I’ll include longtail keywords like “the best things to do in Cape Town,” “where to eat in Cape Town,” and “itinerary for Cape Town” throughout the post. These are all keywords that people would search for, and by using them, I’m ensuring that people will find my article via search engines.

On Pinterest, take a look at your analytics and see which pins are getting the most clicks (aka, traffic to your blog), and which keywords are used in those pin descriptions.

Doodle & Design

Whenever I have downtime is when I really start to critique the design and usability of my website.

Again, another way I’m stimulating my creativity without feeling that sort of “productivity fatigue” is by doodling and creating custom graphics for my website. I decided to work on creating some cute, hand-drawn elements that I could use to update my social media graphics, sidebar elements, and more!

Take this time to create some new, fun templates for your social posts, so you can work with those in the future — and so you don’t have to recreate the wheel every time.

If you’re using a template for WordPress, one of the easiest things you can do, aesthetically, is to enhance your blog (sidebar, homepage, etc.) with custom graphics that send readers to different pieces of content.

Is a full rebrand in order? Maybe not. But now is the time to start looking at the appearance of your blog and tweaking things that you’ve been wanting to.

User Experience should be the #1 priority for any blog!

How is Your Blog’s User Experience?

The most important thing to consider is what the experience is like for any reader who stumbles upon your website.

How quick and intuitive is it for a user to get the information that they’re looking for?

Some of the things I’ve worked on over the past month are easy updates, and good ways to improve overall engagement.

  Test Your Search Bar

For example, if I type in ‘Cape Town’ into the search bar, what comes up? Is it the content that I want to pop-up? Is it relevant?

If your search tool isn’t giving you the results you’d like, try the SearchWP plugin — it’s more intuitive than any other search bar plugin I’ve used, it’s inexpensive, and you can even set your own parameters based on your content to improve the user experience.

It’s also a great idea to reference the analytics from the plugin and see what people are actually searching for on your website — you can use that to create a plan to either update those pieces of content and/or add new relevant content to satisfy that topic!

  Link to Related Content

Make sure to crosslink your content! If a reader is scrolling through my post on “The Top Things to Do in Cape Town”, I want them to also see The Ultimate Guide to Cape Town, A Guide to Driving the Cape Peninsula, and Where to Eat in Cape Town linked throughout that article—and for those posts to just be one-click away.

I want to drive the user to my most comprehensive pages where I know they’re going to spend more time digesting my content!

When you start to build out a lot of content, older posts can start to get buried—so you’ll want to create a system to prevent this, and ensure that your older, but related, content is just as discoverable and easy to find as the newer posts.

Work on improving your posts’ layout and internal links so users can find what they’re searching for, and ultimately, spend more time on your site.

Whether you manually add a “Read Next” section with text links to your related pages or use a plugin to generate a carousel of related posts at the end of a post, there are quite a few ways you can make sure users are seeing all of your content on the topic!

  Add in Opt-In Monster Pop-Ups

I hate pop-ups as much as the next person. So, instead of having it flash across the screen and have a generic sign up for my newsletter, I’ve added pop-ups or “slide-in” graphics that are curated depending on the content the user is looking at.

This is a strategy to keep readers on my blog longer, increase my page views, and ultimately increase my ad revenue while adding to a user’s experience. Additionally, this can help direct your readers to specific content that makes you money (think: affiliates, products, presets, and more).

Consider OptInMonster slide-in pop-ups that are low profile and that you can easily customize — I choose to have mine slide-in from the bottom of the browser.

It takes a bit of legwork to get the graphics designed and organized, but the process with OptInMonster is quite easy, and as you can duplicate pop-ups to different pages with just a few clicks.

For example, some of the popups I have are:

Promotion for Presets (income-generating)

Free Lightroom Editing Guide (to gather email subscriptions)

Read Next Posts and Travel Guides (improves user experience and driving people to content)

Promotions for my Products and Travel Shop (income-generating)

Ad Revenue

I’ll be blunt, I’ve seen my website’s ad revenue drop by about 1/3. This has a lot to do with a drop in overall traffic, but it also has to do with what advertisers are paying for now — many have reduced their budgets across the board.

Regardless of who you are, you’ll be seeing a drop in ad revenue at the moment.

That being said, I’ve always been quite conservative about how many ads are on my site and the type of ads that are displayed.

But since ad revenue is a big income stream for me, in order to compensate for the decrease in traffic, I’ve pretty much doubled the number of ads on my site and allowed for more video ads which are higher paying.

They can be slightly more annoying for the user, but I think most folks are understanding about trying to keep my blog afloat and changing tactics.

Weekly Newsletter

I am continuing to send out my weekly newsletter, and continue to add that personal touch to what we’re doing — checking in with my readers has been really important to me, and well-received from the community. People seek that sense of normalcy, even if it is just a consistent email every week!

If you haven’t ventured into the newsletter world before—now might be a good time to start focusing on your email list and sending some love to your own community.

Want to see what my newsletter looks like? Sign up for it here!

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What things have changed for you? How are you adapting?

I’d love to start a conversation about business strategies during this time. Let me know in the comments below!

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[todokori-kun]

(Random but I think your reply was a little later than normal? Was it the internet again? Anyway it’s nice to be talking with you again queen :D

Also just in case you didn’t get the other messages I sent (I sent them a few days ago so I guess tumblr ate them again), I was basically trying to say that the CP aesthetics are gorgeous and that I found the real Hamilton’s last letter to Eliza and was wondering if you’d like to see it too if you haven’t already. I think I was also trying to ask if you got the new pics I sent you)

EXCUSE me how is it even possible to not be impressed with Hamilton (ok, ok, so I guess you’d be pretty unimpressed with Alex after Say No To This…but ELIZA. ANGELICA. AND PEGGY. WASHINGMACHINE. And of course the entire hecking cast is awesome). At least they acknowledged the Frenchfryette…

(jk, jk, we all have different tastes so I guess even Hamilton might not be the right thing for some people ^^)

HE AIMS HIS PISTOL AT THE SKY-

“WAIT!”

(Burr. You should know by now that the whole ‘talk less, smile more’ and ‘wait for it’ theme doesn’t really work out for you most of the time. It’s certainly not gonna stop a bullet you already fired ;-;)

According to my parents I was a really bubbly, well-mannered kid who never whined or threw tantrums…but, BUT, I was as much of an airhead then as I am now, and I ended up causing a lot of trouble XD Other than the bathroom flooding incident, once when I was tiny my mom left me playing in the hall while she was making dinner. When she came to check on me I’d turned one of the walls into a piece of modern art (like Carnage Kabuto did to Genos, only better/worse). With permanent markers.

And once when I was even younger, mom woke up to a strange sound coming from outside the bedroom, and she realized I wasn’t in bed with her. She found me in the living room, plucking the rocks out of a plant pot and rolling them across the floor like marbles.

I also remember that I had a habit of doodling all over my arms and legs and cutting up my pajamas to make them look 'cool’. Literally any time I rolled up my pants you’d see giant, brightly colored marker lines/dots/swirls all over my legs, and all of my pajama shirts and pants were starting to fall apart because I kept snipping at them (I remember grabbing my craft scissors and hiding behind the sofa to redesign my clothes in peace without my parents seeing and being all “Evans, those are for cutting PAPER, not your clothes” lol).

I was a weird kid.

You’re right- at the place where they finally got the thing out, I think the doctor just had me lie down and got it out with pincers(?). No pain, no blood, it was over pretty quickly. I do think I remember being told that the heel of the shoe had gotten buried in the inside of my nose, though, and that was why it was so difficult to get out…

As for the nosebleed, idek. I remember some people holding this blue, rubbery pump-thing to my nose and trying to get the shoe out with that??? And then blood just suddenly started pouring from my nose? LOL it didn’t hurt, though, and there’s always the chance that it had nothing to do with the shoe. I got a lot of random nosebleeds as a kid, I’d literally just get up in the middle of the night, decide I needed to go wipe my nose because it felt runny, then turn on the light to see blood plastered all over my nose and around my mouth…I probably looked like something out of a horror movie XD

I RELATE TO THAT. There are still a few toys I’m super attached to even if I don’t play with them anymore, and I get sorta…upset?…when people touch them the wrong way (also my dad keeps talking about how we need to throw some of the old dolls away soon and I haaate it ;-;).

Yeah, that particular kid (let’s call her Friend A) is a bit of a brat lol. She smacks her own mother when she’s upset and screams her head off whenever she doesn’t get her way. It’s pretty uncomfortable to watch because her mom never really does anything about it…

(also, some context for the kicking: the boy she kicked (let’s call him Friend B) has been friends with my little sister for a few years now so they’re closer with each other than they are with Friend A. But Friend A got upset about that and came to the grown ups to tell on them; everyone tried to calm her down and suggested that maybe she should try asking them nicely, but she ended up throwing a tantrum. So Friend B’s grandma jokingly said that if Friend B kept being rude to her she could just fight back, give him a punch (she was laughing while saying it, so even to a kid it should have been pretty obvious she was joking).

After we found out what Friend A had done and tried to talk to her about it, she was like 'his grandma told me I could so I did it.’ and refused to apologize.)

OH NO. IS THIS ANOTHER ONE OF THE DREADFUL FANDOMS WHERE YOUR OTP NEVER, eVEr, HAPPENS?! That settles it, I’m never watching or reading Fairy Tail 0.0

Well, sure, most mangas have at least one hiatus at some point…but HxH is on a whole different level. The hiatuses are LEGENDARY.

just imagine what would happen if a manga artist tried to keep up with Ishida’s TG schedule (one chapter every single week except on holidays). An artist who apparently has no assistants. An older artist who has health problems. Tbh you can’t really be upset with HxH for the hiatuses…but it’s still a really, REALLY long wait whenever it happens, and sometimes it goes right back on hiatus barely a few months after the last hiatus ended ;-; I’m lucky I joined the fandom so late (and right after the hiatus ended, too! :D) but I can’t be sure when it’s going to happen again..

Ok, ok, so in case you haven’t searched what Feitan looks like he is LITERALLY Levi. The narrow eyes. The murderous stare of disinterest. The hair.

Then there’s absolute loyalty to a leader. Levi ->Erwin, Feitan-> Chrollo (Chrollo=manipulative spider thief who actually managed to troll HISOKA, of all people). Feitan is also one of the stronger characters as far as I know, and he’s just as blunt and rude and Levi. And he’s a thief; Levi used to be a thug.

Also, also- Levi=160cm. Feitan= 155cm.

Feitan is Evil Levi. Actually, maybe Thug Levi could have turned out like Feitan if he never met Erwin…that’s a scary thought 0.0

(as for Hisoka and Saitama, well. Hisoka realizes that even his Nen (his special power), Bungee Gum, has absolutely no affect on Saitama. He proceeds to Schwing. Very hard.)

(I doubt I’ll ever be over Old Man Fu because Iiked him a lot ;-;)

Saitama is my fav tbh, though Genos comes close..and from what I know about Metal Bat, he’s also a really cool dude. (Also I love Amai Mask/Sweet mask. I love to hate on him.) I like Sonic, but I can’t take him seriously most of the time because he feels like a parody of Sasuke from Naruto (also I keep thinking of Sonic the Hedgehog lol)…his smile is adorable though :3

I’m neutral towards Tatsumaki because her powers are super cool and I like her design but her attitude is a bit annoying to me. Still, I think I read that she’s gotten more development and backstory in the manga/webcomic, so I’ll wait until I can catch up with canon :)

OH NO. Apparently Bert’s death can still hurt me even after all that’s happened since then (also AoT’s new chapter hit me straight in the Annie/Bertl feels. I guess it’s basically one-sided canon now).

YES. I’m seriously so hyped for Ragnarok. I’m just as hyped for the fanfic as I am for the actual movie. And the FANDOM. Can’t wait to see what tumblr’s gonna be like when the Loki fans realize their king has returned XD

I can’t drop TG because there are too many things I want to see/know (like the whole deal with Kimi and Kanou, what’s going to happen with the whole Human vs. Ghoul thing in the end, what’s going to happen to the Touken kid, if Kaneki will live, if Shuu will ever actually get angry at Kaneki, the OEK’s true identity, Eto’s return…). And SPOILERS FOR NEW CHAPTER

after this chapter I definitely can’t stop until we see how Urie gets out of this situation (plus I sense character development/backstory/reveal time, which is always cool). Maybe I should be scared for Urie but I’m still not that worried. Death cliffhangers in TG almost never come true, and like I said, Urie just CAN’T die now when his character arc is nowhere near finished.

But I totally get your frustration, queen.

I’m probably gonna play it tomorrow :D I’ll let you know when I do!

Yep, I know what happens in his bad end. I don’t want play it XD

I did play Fritz’s bad end a few days ago, though. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY GOODBYE VARG

I ship Queen Luna with too many people and I don’t even care

(DON’T YOU DARE WRITE MORE FRITZ HCs THOUGH, PLEASE. HAVE MERCY. IT’S TOO FLUFFY FOR ME TO HANDLE)

Also: I have a game to recommend! :D If you haven’t played it already, The Blind Griffin by Asphodel Quartet is awesome. I downloaded it from Itch.io :) it’s set in America, in the 1920s. The MC is looking for a job and happens to stumble into a speakeasy run by magicians.

Review so far:

pros:

-great MC! She has a fun personality- not the flat heroine most Otome games have, but not a super cold Ice Queen type either. I really liked her.

-Diverse cast! From the main cast there’s the MC, who’s Chinese-American, Vivienne, who’s African-American, Alexei, who’s Russian, Giovanni, who’s Italian, and Emilio, who’s Spanish. Then Marie, who’s transgender, and her gender identity is handled very well! Also a lot of different body types and facial features.

-Lovable characters. I didn’t expect to like everyone so much but there is literally nobody in the main cast that I dislike. I thought I wouldn’t enjoy Giovanni’s route after I played Alex’s and decided he was my fav, but turns out I was wrong. Gio was great too.

-everything is quite realistic and fits well with the setting. There’s even a glossary for slang.

-Art and music are gorgeous

-several different endings! I’ve only played the romance routes so far but I think there’s a friendship ending as well as a sad ending for each character. The romances were really sweet so I can’t wait to see what happens with the other routes!

Cons:

-it was made for NaNoReNo, so the story does feel a little rushed because of the time limit and the game is really short ;-; it feels like there should have been more but they just didn’t have time to finish the story.

-not a lot of choices.

And random note: do you know, I actually wanted to make an Otome Game myself a while back. I had some plot, choices, routes and characters all planned out and even downloaded a program to try and teach myself how to make a game…but then I realized I suck at it and it was just too much for me to handle on my own XD I’ve been working on the ideas I had for that game though- mostly the characters, I’ve thought of a lot of Love Interests ;) maybe someday I could actually make this work as a collab with someone else when I’m older…for now I think I might try writing down the script and drawing some more concept art for the characters because I have too many ideas and I need to let them out LOL

I’M ALIVE. The internet was absolute shit, yay. Sorry about the long wait OTL

Aaah, right, I got those, I just noticed them after posting ^^;;; They were buried in the asks from my other blogs ^^:::: Thanks a lot about the aesthetic compliments! I’m glad you liked them! I definitely enjoyed making them ^^ And wow, the feels ;-; Best of Wives and Best of Women.

The drawings you sent me are gorgeous!! Dead Fish Eyes Family tho XD

The thing is, from the start, even before we reached My Shot, they were like ‘meh’. But I still forced them to listen anyway muhahahahaha HOW COULD THEY NOT LIKE THE SCHUYLER SISTERS? THE ABSOLUTE QUEENS??? I am disappointed in them T^T

I STRIKE HIM RIGHT BETWEEN HIS RIBS I WALK TOWARDS HIM, BUT I AM USHERED AWAY THEY ROW HIM BACK ACROSS THE HUDSON I GET A DRINK

((I’m writing those lyrics while listening to one of the most happy songs I know XD))

I’m guessing Burr needed a real life lesson about bullets and their negative effects on humans, especially if they’re fired at someone else. Welp, hopefully he knows now.

We were opposite as kids XD My parents once decided to make a small experiment. They told me to sit down and stay like that for as long as I could. Then, they started measuring how long it took me to start fidgeting, then how long until I stood up and ran somewhere. Barely a minute before fidgeting, a bit more than 3 until I stood up and ran away. I wasn’t joking when I said everyone thought I had ADHD.

Thankfully, I knew the consequences of drawing on walls well enough from my sister’s example (I still remember how mad my mom was when she found out she’d been writing an walls) to do anything, but for some reason, I always broke everything I touched. I was not to be trusted with the dishes and if anyone got me a snow globe (which was surprisingly often), it wouldn’t last a month unless it was placed on the highest shelf, out of my reach. Even then, I would still manage to break it sooner or later.

((Random, but my playlist is on shuffle and just played 98% of my Christmas songs, one after other. I am slightly worried XD (even tho I sang along)))

I didn’t do it to my clothes, but I had a knack for redesigning barbie clothes/hairstyles/makeup. And my sister would usually help, despite being 6 years older XD She was always so artistic, she even sewed some clothes for them! They were actually pretty good, despite her being 10-12 yo.

To be honest, I’m fascinated. I am genuinely fascinated. Partly at the fact that the shoe managed to get buried in the inside of your nose, partly at how much fuss you went through to get it out XD  I think I would’ve cried regardless of pain or not, had I gotten a nosebleed as a kid. I just couldn’t stand blood (still can’t tbh)

I’m slowly running out of space on my shelves, because I keep adding new books there, and yet I never move any of the trinkets or toys that are there. My mom keeps insisting we at least move some stuff to the basement, not throw it out, but I never give in XD I mean, I’m very happy with how the whole thing looks right now, and it would be empty without the stuff. For some reason, I have no problems with dolls now, but plush toys and small figurines are what get to me… For example, horses have always been among my favourite animals, so I have a shitton of horse toys, and they honestly take up a lot of space, and yet I feel like I’d be betraying my hobby (horse riding) by throwing them away ;-; Until I have no more space for books, I’m not moving anything XD (unfortunately, that’s gonna be very soon, even now I always have to move stuff around a lot to fit them in)

Wow. Well, I’m gonna be a stiff and say ‘Kids these days…’ Im only halfway joking. I went to visit my old elementary school last year and, boy, did the first years (7yo) annoy me. Now, I was a brat, but I wasn’t a brat with a smartphone who didn’t socialise with others at all. And my old teacher told me stories of their parents… I’m slowly changing my mind about wanting to be a chemistry professor in the future XD I think imma just be a researcher. Thing is, parents aren’t strict enough. True, my mom was a bit too strict, but one of the girls I went to elementary school has parents who always let her do anything she wanted, and even when they grounded her, they’d ‘un-ground’ her half an hour later. And guess how she turned out! Today, she smokes (cigarets and weed), goes out at least 4 times a week and gets wasted every time, I don’t even want to start on her grades and, most of all, she’s an ungrateful brat who’s used to getting everything she wants. Life’s gonna be fun for her. 

YES, YES IT IS. I mean, in the last chapter, almost all of them were heavily implied, one of them even had an actual love confession a few chapters back, but nothing was said in the last chap, except for this:

WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN??? THIS IS MY 2nd ULTIMATE OTP IN THE SHOW; WHAT THE FUUUUU

AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE, WHERE BOTH OF THEM DIED IN THE MANGA, BUT THEY WERE THERE IN THE LAST CHAP, APPARENTLY AS REINCARNATIONS??

BUT MY OTP. THE SHIP I CARED ABOUT SINCE DAY 1. THE ONE I SHIPPED FOR AS LONG AS I’VE BEEN READING THE MANGA (which is, admittedly, quite long, I’d say more than a year and a half) IT WAS THE MOST ??? ONE.  OKay, here’s the story: He’s originally a bad guy, but he was manipulated, so he repented of his sins, did some good shit and was still locked in a prison. Then, there was  a huge war arc and he was freaking helpful and did a lot of good stuff, so now, in the end, he was pardoned. AND THE LAST CHAP; HERE’S WHAT WE FIND OUT: HE WAS PARDONED; AND EVER SINCE,  SHE’D BEEN DOING HER HAIR EVERY DAY (implying she’s happy or seeing him, I guess???) AAAAA I’m lowkey debating posting the entire last chap here for you to read, even without context, just so you can see how much it’s only implication and nothing real (;_;)

Ouch… Well, I’ll have to think about it then ^^

Tbh I can’t imagine Levi with Feitan’s hair. It’s too messy XD

Ahahahahahah Idk if I’ll ever get over Schwing, despite not watching/reading the manga…  Schwing.

I think most of Metal Bat’s personality comes through in the manga, because he has a few omake in the manga, where he goes to strenuous lengths to protect/keep his sister pure. It’s adorable, really. His sis is a bit of a brat tho. Amai mask. I can not stand that guy. 

Oh yes, the beautiful, murderous smile. You can practically hear the panties dropping.

I still have 15ish chaps till I’m caught up w the manga, but both she and her sis have very… interesting personalities XD Im pretty sure she’s like that on purpose, though, to bring more humour into the manga (as if it needed that XD)

AoT Will keep hurting me as long as it can. Basically, until I either drop it or until it ends. 

Oh, you don’t think they’ve realised yet? From the amount of gifs I’ve seen, I’d say the fangirls are very well informed XD 

Oh joy… Please keep me updated XD And come screaming if Urie does die, cause I gotta read that for myself XDDD

OYAOYAOYA SO HAVE YOU PERHAPS STARTED WALTZ??

Ahah, I warned you… I still wanna cry when I think of Varg. #stillnotoverit

huehuehueheuhueheuheuheuehueheuheuheuehuehueheue ill spare you for now. no telling what comes in the future tho~

Alrighty, i’ll check it out ^^ it seems interesting enough!

Oh, yeah, I forgot to add, but I’m trying to start a love live dance cover group here in Zagreb! It’s harder than you think =3= It seems like I’m the only one who likes the show. Hopefully, I manage to find people ^^