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firelxdykatara · 6 years ago

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Day 2: Hidden Identities

So this is a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short! (lol kill me my jokes suck) ANYWAY, this is for Day 2 of @thirtydaysofzutara and was heavily inspired by @artcraawl‘s amazing Zutara Mulan AU pictures. Some of it is directly from the movie, some is embellished, anyway I hope it’s a fun read, as I certainly had fun writing it!

---

“I don’t know if I can do this, Tui.”

Katara gave one more half-hearted tug, but her father’s sword remained stubbornly embedded in the tree’s trunk. With a sigh, she flopped to the ground, thumping her fists against the hard-packed soil in frustration. Her companion, a silver dragon-lizard with impossibly black eyes, scurried up the tree and perched on the flat of the blade, tugging gently, but to no avail. “It’ll come out! You just have- to be- persistent!”

With a final tug, the lizard slipped from the blade and fell to the ground. Katara pushed herself up on her elbows with a groan. “I’ve been persistent! It’s not working! I haven’t even been able to get that stupid arrow out of the pole.”

“No one else has, either,” Tui pointed out, curling her tail over her shoulder and rubbing a spot of dirt from her scales.

“That’s not the point.” Katara sat up and pushed herself to her feet. “They belong here. They don’t have to prove anything.”

“Neither do you, as far as they know.”

“Sure, and what happens when they find-”

“Who are you talking to, Tak?”

Katara froze. Tui scampered into the bushes with an alarmed squeak, and the moment stretched uncomfortably, as the woman tried desperately to convince herself that voice belonged to someone—anyone—else. It didn’t work; she was pretty sure she could feel his amber gaze burning holes into her back.

He had the disconcerting ability to make her feel like he could see right through her façade—through the warrior she was trying to be, to the scared, homesick girl beneath.

Time sped up again, and Katara turned to look at Zuko, who was standing behind her with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

“Uh…” she began, before realizing her voice was pitched too high, coughing to cover it up. “No one! I’m just, talking to… myself…” She trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand (mostly to hide the fact that she kept reaching for a lock of hair that just wasn’t there anymore). Her eyes slid to her sword, still sunk into the tree trunk, about the same time Zuko’s did. Disapproval radiated from his lithe form in waves, and Katara had to fight back the nervous laughter that kept threatening to bubble up.

“Oh, this is… I was just training…” she said, grabbing the hilt tightly in both hands. It still refused to move, and she braced herself with one foot on the trunk. Finally, with an almighty yank, the sword came free, and the momentum sent her careening off-balance.

Zuko ducked just in time—the blade passed a hair’s breadth over his head.

“Oops,” Katara muttered, giving a weak chuckle as she clumsily shoved her sword back into its sheath. “Cut it a little close there-” Spirits, Katara, stop talking.

The captain looked less than impressed as he straightened back up, looking at her with some emotion in his eyes that she couldn’t quite describe. Then he sighed, shaking his head. “Pack up.”

Something churned unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach. “What?”

“Go home. You’re through here, Tak. I’ve tried my best, but you just aren’t suited for war—not in my company. And if you’re the best that Chief Hakoda could send in his own stead-” He broke off, squaring his shoulders. “You’d be more of a danger to your own comrades than the Fire Nation soldiers. And I won’t have good men, even you, needlessly killed because they weren’t ready.”

Katara watched as he walked away, trying very hard to keep from noticing the way his muscles had tensed (probably from anger) beneath the thin padding of his training vest. “He’s right. I know he is. But…”

Tui poked her head out of the bushes. “But you want to prove him wrong.”

A wry grimace twisted at her mouth. “I was too willful and stubborn to make a good wife, remember? It must be good for something.”

“So what are you going to do?”

The sun had set, the last of its amber glow receding from the skyline just as the full moon began to peek through the clouds. “I don’t know…” Katara murmured, gazing up at the sky—she traced the moonbeams with her eyes, until she caught one that illuminated the arrow still stuck at the top of that tall, wooden beam.

She could have had it down weeks ago, if she’d wanted to risk waterbending—but it was supposed to be a physical exercise. For all that she was at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the company (not that anyone but Sokka realized it), the last thing she wanted to do was prove herself by cheating. But there had to be some way to get to that arrow. And maybe, if she got it down herself…

Hours later, the only thing preventing her from screaming in frustration was the fact that Zuko’s tent was only ten feet away. “Come on,” she grunted, taking another running jump at the pole—and, as before, she made it a few feet before falling to the ground in an ungainly heap.

She might have had a better chance at getting higher, if not to the top, if it weren’t for the weights at her wrists. Katara picked herself up for the thousandth time, dropping the weights and dusting herself off. (It was a good thing her family didn’t seem to have the ‘quitter’ gene, or she might have contemplated just leaving, like she’d been told.) She couldn’t help the nagging feeling that there was something about this exercise that was missing, that she just didn’t understand. She picked up the weights again, holding them in front of her, inspecting the etchings in the gold. It was an ancient form of Earth Kingdom script, and she could only make out a few letters.

Somehow, she doubted anyone had carved a cheat sheet onto these things a thousand years ago, anyway.

But as the weights swayed gently on their leather ties, something occurred to her—it was so simple she could almost kick herself for not thinking of it sooner. It was so obvious. It wasn’t just about having to struggle against the weight. It was about discipline and strength—using them to her advantage.

Squaring her shoulders, Katara faced the pole again—this time, when she jumped, she swung the weights, tangling the leather ties together, and she began to climb.

Halfway up, she almost wanted to let go, forget the whole thing. Her arms were screaming in protest, and she kept slipping even as she gained inches in height—sweat was streaming down her face in small rivers, and she could feel her tunic sticking to her back. The cotton binding around her breasts was beginning to itch something fierce. But she had already gotten too far to quit, and so she kept going—gaining inches and losing centimeters, until she could see the top of the pole. She could almost reach out and grab that arrow.

The sun began to peek over the horizon once more, and Katara gasped for breath, her muscles screaming in agony as she grabbed the top of the pole and finally pulled herself up. It was a deceptively wide beam of wood, in fact, and easy enough to perch on was she grabbed the arrow in one tender hand and pulled it free.

It was only when the cheering began that she realized she’d drawn a crowd.

A tired grin crossed her face, and she subtley bent some of her sweat, coating the arrow-head with a thin layer of ice. Just as Zuko’s tent flap opened, she threw the arrow down—it landed with impressive accuracy, thudding into the ground at his feet as he stepped out. He looked up at her, and while it was difficult to tell from how far away she was, Katara almost thought he looked proud.

---

“I’m sorry. About your uncle.” Katara winced inwardly—she kept forgetting to pitch her voice low enough, but Zuko didn’t seem to notice. He was staring at the fire; if he’d heard a word she said, he didn’t indicate it. Which was almost a relief—she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get into a conversation about lost loved ones and not accidentally blow her own cover.

Sokka had been helping as much as he dared, once he’d realized her plan, but there was only so much he could do to keep her from ruining everything with her ‘stupid girly habits’.

Apparently, talking about feelings qualified.

Either way, Zuko clearly wasn’t in the mood for company. Katara turned to go—if she hadn’t already become so tuned to the tenor of his voice, for reasons she couldn’t even begin to explain, she might have missed it entirely when he said, “Thank you, Tak.”

She stopped, glancing back at him—he was giving her at least an attempt at a smile, and it suddenly struck her how very young he looked. Especially for a captain.

He really couldn’t have been more than a couple years older than she was, and it was hard enough for her to manage to keep her own life straight—she couldn’t imagine what it was like trying to lead an entire company.

She opened her mouth to say something else—she wasn’t quite sure what, but since when had thinking ever stopped her from blurting out what was on her mind?—when she heard the screech of a bird of prey high in the sky above them. It sounded familiar, almost… almost like…

She was six years old, and the snow had turned grey from falling ash. Buildings burned, people were screaming and running away, bursts of fire from soldiers in the streets kept illuminating the overcast sky, and Katara couldn’t find her parents.

“Mama!” she shouted, tears streaking through the soot stains on her face, running towards her house. Everything was chaos, but she still knew home. Somewhere, high in the sky, a fire hawk screamed—the little girl could see it circling over her family’s hut, an omen she couldn’t quite comprehend.

When she opened the door, the smell of charred flesh nearly knocked her off her feet. It was-

“The Fire Nation!” Katara heard herself shouting, those last images from her memory still superimposed over her vision, the smell sticking to her all these years later. She wanted to gag, but there was no time. “They’re here! They-“

An arrow whistled through the air and into Zuko’s shoulder as he stood, knocking him flat.

“Zuko!” Katara rushed to his side as more arrows floated into view just over the snowy hilltop—he waved her off, pulling the arrow free with a grunt and clambering to his feet.

“Everyone, get out of their range! Grab the cannons!”

It was pure chaos, after that. Zuko’s company scattered—they grabbed armloads of cannons and their weapons and ran, forcing the Fire Nation soldiers to abandon their high ground advantage if they wanted to do any real damage. Out of range of the arrows was also out of range of their firebenders, and it took everything Katara had not to panic and freeze.

“Sokka!” The relief nearly knocked her over, but she held her ground, grabbing for her brother’s hand and yanking him out of the way of another arrow barrage. “Where’s Zuko? Is he-”

“He’s fine! We need to set up these canons, Tak. Now!”

Their answering barrage sent shockwaves rippling through the ground—when they were down to the last cannon, Zuko appeared behind them. “Hold- we don’t know who’s left. If…”

He trailed off. The smoke cleared, and revealed the bulk of the Fire Nation army still intact on the hillside.

Ozai was at the army’s head. Katara could feel his smug smirk from here.

“Sokka, take that last canon. Hit Ozai, if it’s the last thing you do!” Zuko commanded. “Men- prepare for a fight!”

Katara’s hand went to her sword hilt, but something was still bothering her. Taking out Ozai wouldn’t decimate the Fire Nations forces—they’d keep coming, they’d kill everyone. How many more villages would suffer the way Omashu had? The way her tribe had? The way-

She caught sight of the snow-covered mountain just behind them. They weren’t going to have time to retreat back through the mountain passes to safety, but maybe, if she could only just… She reached, but nothing. Practicing her bending in secret had only gotten her so far, and that snow was too far off. But…

“Give me that!” She pushed Sokka aside and grabbed the cannon. It would work. It had to.

---

Katara was beginning to lose feeling in her arms. She hadn’t realized Ozai’s blade had cut that deep, but now Koda’s saddle was soaked in her blood, and she had barely been able to muster the strength to grab Zuko and pull him to safety.

The avalanche had stilled, snow wiping the last traces of the Fire Nation army away, and Katara finally slid from her horse’s back, stumbling to her knees. Zuko had regained consciousness, and he rushed to her side. “Tak! Are you alright?”

She gripped his arm and pulled herself upright, nodding weakly. “I’m fine, is everyone else-”

“We made it, Tak,” Toph said, affectionately thumping her shoulder. “Thanks to you. That was brilliant.”

The others chimed in, and Katara smiled, for just a moment. And then she collapsed.

When she opened her eyes, she recognized the colors of the medical tent above her cot. For a moment, Katara was dazed, confused—how had she gotten here? Where were Zuko, Sokka and the others? How-

Her clothing had been removed. The breast binding wraps were visible, overlapping the bandages around her abdomen. The doctor was looking at her, perhaps to be sure she was truly awake, but when she opened her mouth to speak, he turned away and left the tent.

Katara sat up quickly, wincing at the tight feeling of the wound in her stomach, wanting to protest—but then Zuko stepped inside, and the words died in her throat.

It was then that she realized her hair was loose—the thick, dark brown waves that just brushed against her shoulders were much more visibly feminine now that she no longer wore them in her father’s hairstyle, and the breast wraps had only been effective at hiding her figure when covered by padding and armour. Now, she felt her cheeks burn as Zuko’s eyes followed her figure, and realized the truth of what the doctor had obviously told him.

“So it’s true,” came Long Feng’s voice as he entered the tent behind Zuko. Where the latter’s gaze was completely unreadable, Long Feng didn’t bother to disguise his disgust. He surged forward, grabbing Katara by the arm and dragging her out of the tent, throwing her into the snow with just her blanket for cover. She fell to her knees before the rest of the company, tears of humiliation freezing to her lashes before they even had a chance to fall.

“A woman,” Long Feng hissed. “A despicable traitor to our great kingdom!”

Toph and Aang stared in shock. Sokka started forward, but Katara shook her head. It was too late for her, but she would not let her brother take the fall, too. “My name is Katara. I only came here to save my father-”

“More lies!” Long Feng insisted, turning to glare at her as Zuko approached. “Devious snake!”

“I never meant for it to go this far!” Her eyes met Zuko’s, and she pleaded with him silently. Please understand. “You have to believe me! I only wanted-”

“Silence!” Long Feng shouted.

Sokka ran forward. “Wait! You can’t do this—she’s my sister!”

“Sokka, no!”

But the damage was done. “You knew about her deception?” Long Feng was practically quivering with rage. “Stand aside, boy, or you will share in this traitor’s fate!”

“Sokka, please-”

He refused to budge. Katara could still see Zuko, staring at the both of them now, sword in hand. He took a step forward, and several gasps ran through the company—Toph and Aang looked ready to rush to their defense, but Long Feng threw his arm out and stopped them. “You know the law!”

For just a moment, Katara met Zuko’s eyes, and thought she saw something flickering in their depths. Something other than anger or disgust. Something warm.

Then it was gone, and Zuko threw his sword to the ground. “A life for a life,” he said, staring down at her. “My debt to you is ended.” Finally, as if only now realizing he was there, Zuko looked at Sokka. “Take her home. Don’t bother coming back.”

He turned on his heel—Long Feng made a noise, as if he were about to protest, but Zuko turned on him with a glower that could’ve melted steel. The advisor finally cowed into silence, he turned to the rest of his men and motioned for them to move out.

---

“You trusted Tak. Why is Katara any different?”

“You stole my victory.” “No! I did!” “… The soldier from the mountain!”

“She’s a woman, and from the water tribes! She’s not worth protecting!”

“I have heard all about you, Katara of the Water Tribes. You followed your brother off to war—stole your father’s armour and ran away from home. You impersonated a soldier, deceived your commanding officer, dishonored the Earth Kingdom, and… you have saved us all.”

It was… surreal. That was the only way Katara could describe the feeling that overtook her, when she realized that not only was the Earth King bowing, but so was the entirety of Ba Sing Se. As far as the eye could see, citizens were stooping low, and it was all but impossible to believe they were honoring her.

Even Zuko was bowing—even her brother. She wanted to tell them all to stand up, that she really hadn’t done anything that extraordinary, but she didn’t want to risk losing the King’s good faith. The moment eventually passed, anyway, and Katara turned to find the Earth King smiling warmly at her.

“I would be honored if you would accept a seat on my council, Katara,” he said—Long Feng looked like he was about to faint.

“B- but sir, you can’t just- there are no positions open!”

“Alright. You can have his job.”

This time, he did faint. Katara had to smother a chuckle before taking a deep breath and shaking her head. “You honor me, your majesty, but… I think it’s time for me to go home.”

He nodded, as if he’d expected nothing less of her.

The Earth King gave her his medallion and Ozai’s sword, and when Katara finally turned to go, she very nearly ran right into Zuko. “Oh! Zuko, I-”

“Katara-” he began, at the same time. They both broke off; Katara bit her lip, waiting for him to continue. He cleared his throat. “I, uh- you fight good. Well! Proficiently, you- you’re an excellent soldier.”

Their eyes met, but Katara was the first to look away, this time. “Oh. Thank you, Zuko. For everything.” And then she left, finding Koda and pulling herself into his saddle to begin the long journey home.

“You don’t meet a girl like that every dynasty,” the Earth King declared—sounding very much like he was calling Zuko an idiot.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” From a distance, Katara could hear Grandma Kanna’s voice, “Would you like to stay forever?!” Zuko laughed. “Dinner would be great.”

#zutara #katara #zuko #zutara mulan au #zutara month #my writing #day 2

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scaryscarecrows · 6 years ago

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Roots and Leaves, Pt. 6

DC did it first. Take your grievances to them.

Jason and Sheila e-mail back and forth for about a week before she says that she has Thursday off so if he has Thursday off does he want to meet for lunch again?

Last time wasn’t bad. Not a lot of staring or people or anything. He can…he can probably do it again. And it’s a few days away still, so he has time to psyche himself up or, worst case scenario, fake his death and move to Canada.

And it’s been a week and she hasn’t pulled out the Pity Card on him yet and maybe…maybe this’ll all work out okay. She might never be Mom, because Catherine’s always gonna be Mom, but…but she could be Mother, maybe. He can see that in the distant (or not-so-distant?) future.

But he’s not going to rush into things, that’s what got him here in the first place. Patience, grasshopper.

Thursday rolls around and he hasn’t faked his death and moved to Canada, so he has no choice but to put on jeans and a hoodie and resign himself to a couple of hours, easy, of no sunglasses and no e-book shield.

Sorry, any small children who might come out of this traumatized.

Okay. He brings his Kindle anyway, and his sunglasses for the journey, and sticks to his normal Civilian Weaponry-couple’a knives, one pair of brass knuckles tucked into a hidden pocket in his hoodie. Last thing he needs is for someone to pick up a bullet, match it to the Red Hood’s, and come knocking on his door. His luck is bad enough that’s exactly what would happen.

Besides, it’s noon on a Thursday, and even in Gotham that’s a slow hour. Bank robbers gotta eat, too.

The monorail ride there is literal Hell (three fighting couples, two crying kids and old man with no personal spaaaaace!) and he’s literally gasping for air when he stumbles out of the car. He likes people. Honest. If he legitimately hated them all, he wouldn’t risk his life to help them. But interacting with them…he could do without that, mostly.

Whatever. Whatever. It’s over, he lived, he’s had worse.

(And no, he doesn’t hear faint cackling in his head, and that’s final.)

It’s windy today, the type of wind that buffets people every which way and is determined to keep his hood off his head. He fidgets with the drawstrings until it’ll stay and buries his hands in his pockets. Wind sucks. He can feel pollen and dust and Gotham Grime being blown onto his skin.

“Jason!”

Is he there already?

Sheila…looks a lot more haggard than she did before. He tries to remember if she’d mentioned being horribly busy, doesn’t think she did, and figures that to be fair, he hasn’t mentioned the bruise that goes halfway up his back.

She smiles, her awkward driver’s license smile, and waves. Yeah, she doesn’t…it must’ve been a long week, or maybe a rough drive or something. She looks tired.

“Hi.” He’s not sure what to call her, still. Miss Haywood is too disconnected, Sheila’s too personal, and it’s way, way too soon for Mother. Names are a pain. “I’m not late, am I?” He knows he’s not. “Monorail was packed.”

“So was the subway. Can I…?”

Her arms are half-out and he figures she’s asking for a hug. He can do a hug, as long as it’s a short hug.

“Yeah. Thanks for the warning.”

Holy crap, she feels frail. But to be fair, barring Dick’s tackle-hug, everyone’s felt frail since…since. So it could just be him. Hugs are weird now.

(“HUG YOUR DADDY!”)

No. Not today. Everything’s fine.

It’s a sort-of short hug, short enough, anyway, and he wonders, abstractedly, if a day will ever come that he’s used to that sort of thing again. If it even matters whether he does or doesn’t.

It does. Of course it does. And the day will come, in time, and he’ll be better, be normal, be what people want him to be.

Little steps.

* * *

They’ve fallen into a companionable silence and for once Jason’s not jumping whenever someone walks by in a purple sweater or anything when Sheila forces her lips out from between her teeth and says, “I know you were Robin.”

Well. That’s, uh, there’s that out of the way.

“Yeah.” There’s clearly no point in denying it. She probably put it together when Batman came knocking. “For a little while, yeah. I was.” He tastes blood, wonders how long he’s been doing that, and wishes he had gum. Or a mint. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right off, I just…old habits die hard, I guess.”

“Oh God, no, no, I didn’t mean-” She takes a drink. Her hands are shaking, she’s shaking and he doesn’t know what’s wrong. “I just. I thought I should probably make it clear that I did know, so you wouldn’t…I know I was absent, but I don’t want…you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide things from me.”

Oh. That’s. He doesn’t know what to say. Bruce, God knows, has the emotional capabilities of a Himalayan Salt Lamp. Thankfully Jason hadn’t been the type to go through crushes every two weeks, or he probably would have been in Hell. He certainly wouldn’t have…it’s not like he would have shut down the conversation, but sharing and caring? That would have been awkward and best not repeated. Alfred was the go-to for that sorta thing.

All right, then. Since they’re dropping sudden bombshells ‘n all…he has to know.

“You worked for Joker.” There. It’s out. He said it.

And now he kinda regrets it-the self-loathing on her face is a pretty good match for his own, and he can’t tell himself it’s anything less than deep, deep wishing to have made better choices.

“I did.” She straightens up, begins tearing apart a piece of bread on her plate. “Briefly. I’m not proud, but he had a line to my mother, knew where she lived, knew her schedule…knew.” She swallows hard. “Knew she had to rubber-band her jam jars because she couldn’t open them otherwise. I panicked. But it was only for a couple of months-pills, he wanted pills, as much as I could get him. And then he just…went away. I don’t know what he did with them.”

Honestly, after everything, he can’t…he doesn’t have the right to say much. And honestly? There was that one guy, who accidentally cut the fucker off in traffic and couldn’t get away from him.

And look at him. The first man he killed, that wasn’t…oh, sure, he probably had it coming, at least a little, but Jason wasn’t thinking about that or considering it like he does now, he just…he wanted to kill Bruce. Because that was right and reason at the time even though he knows it’s insanity now.

No, he can’t say much.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, and it’s suddenly easier to look at his hands. “I didn’t…that sounds awful.”

“No.” She tips his chin up and it’s an effort not to pull away and to remember that it’s fingers, warm human fingers, and not the pointy end of a crowbar against his skin. “You deserved to know. It’s only fair.”

Truth be told, it’s a relief to know that she hadn’t…yeah, technically she could’ve…maybe done something different, but she hadn’t wanted to work for him. She wasn’t like the ones he’d christened Dumb and Dumber that…they enjoyed that kinda work.

Lunch is finished in relative silence after that, though, and he’s wondering what’s going to happen now when she rifles through her purse and swears.

“Damn…I meant to grab an old photo album I wanted to show you, with some old family pictures and things.”

Pictures of Willis? Yeah, he’s good. Pictures of other people might be interesting, though.

“Next time?”

“My apartment’s a few blocks over.”

Something feels off. He’s paranoid, he knows he’s paranoid, but something…she’s been shaky and weird all afternoon and he doesn’t…

Calm the fuck down, you freak out when someone window-shops for too long!

“Is everything…is everything okay?”

Or maybe something is wrong-she pulls a napkin over and there’s suddenly a pen in her hand.

“I really do want you to see these pictures, Jason,” she says, but her hand is moving and there’s the ever-so-faint skrit-skrit of pen on paper. “I swear you got my mother’s eyes.”

The napkin slides over to him and he glances down. Her handwriting’s spikey and awful-doctor writing to the bone-but his is no better and he can read it well enough.

An old colleague has been hanging around the hospital lately.

Oh.

That explains a bit.

“Sure.”

Her shoulders drop and she crumples the napkin, nails picking it into shreds.

“I’m sorry to do this to you,” she says softly, nearly too soft for him to hear, and he’s quick to shake his head.

“No, no, I don’t mind, I’m glad you…if there’s anything I can do to…”

Shit, she looks like she’s going to start crying and that is indeed PANIC in his throat. Tears are not good.

“You’re a good boy.” Her voice is watery but there are no tears to be seen. Thank Jesus. “I promise next time we have lunch it’ll be normal.”

Oh, good, things haven’t plummeted down to fiery Hell because of all the revelations flying around.

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” he says, and whoops that’s his ‘all will be well, citizen, never fear!’ voice. But it must work, because the about-to-cry look disappears. “Um. Do you wanna…it looks like it’s gonna rain, should we get going?”

And so they do.

* * *

The wind has picked up and it smells like rain. He’s not looking forward to patrol later.

The wind’s not so bad, though, to stop Sheila from lighting up with a self-depreciating, “I know I’m a doctor and should know better, but I honestly don’t care.”

“I can’t really say anything.” He holds up his own pack and rattles it before pulling one out. It’s not as calming as it usually is and he doesn’t know why.

Eh. It’s been a long day, that’s all. He’s not used to interacting with people on a personal level anymore, which is his own fault and probably not necessarily a good thing.

The first few drops have started to fall when they arrive at her building-big, square, and simplistic. She fishes out her keys while they’re in the elevator (which smells like new car, for some reason).

The hallway is deserted. It’s a little creepy, to be honest-his own building might be crap, but there’s always activity. And then, of course, there was Arkham’s hallways, or what he could hear of them. Noisy. Always noisy. But this? Wayne Manor was silent like this. It unsettled him then and it unsettles him now. Call him a city boy, whatever, but he needs noise.

The brass knuckles and knives in his jacket are warm and comforting and he knows he’s not gonna need ‘em, but they make up for this creepy-ass silence.

Sheila opens the door and motions him inside. It’s dark inside-blackout curtains, probably-but he can hear the rain. It smells like new car in here, too, and he wonders, off-handedly, why-

-it’s not empty. He’s walked into one too many ‘empty’ buildings to be very, very attuned to the sound of somebody breathing. Okay. Be calm, back out and shut the door.

He’s about to do exactly that when the light switch clicks and bathes the whole place in stark white. White walls, white floors, white furniture.

Which only makes Harley Quinn stick out like a sore thumb in all that red and black.

“BAY-BEE!” She could never hope to match Joker’s grin, but she gives it a good go, stretching her makeup. Okay. Change of plans. Get Sheila out of here (and preferably out of the building), deal with Quinn. “It’s been a whiiiiile!”

He takes in the mallet leaning against the couch and the shotgun (are those fuzzy dice? Really?) in her hands and comes to the conclusion that great, she’s riding the crazy train.

But maybe she hasn’t seen Sheila yet. Where’s that goddamn light switch?

He moves, only a little, only to feel the unmistakable press of a gun against his lower back.

“Don’t. Move.”

And the world drops out from under him.

No. No, no, no, she said she quit, it was over, she said they’d let her go, she said-

The door shuts. He twists so he can still see Quinn in his peripheral. Sheila’s face is a blank mask-no tears, no joy, no nothing. Just quiet determination and he doesn’t understand, she said…

“Mom?” The word feels thick and wrong in his mouth, but maybe…maybe she’s brainwashed or hypnotized or something, maybe she doesn’t…isn’t…

“Sorry, kid.” The words are harsh but her tone isn’t. Quinn giggles in the background but she sounds so far away and Sheila’s still pressing a gun against him. “It was you or me, and, well…it had to be you.”

What?

“Aww, come to mama, baby!” Quinn giggles again before straightening up and scowling. “Now.”

His feet drag him forward, sneakers scuffing against the white carpet an’ Heaven’s s’posed ta be white, innit, so why does this feel like Hell and what’s going on she said she said-

For once horrible, desperate second, he wants Bruce. Bruce wouldn’t…yeah, he’d thought, at first, that he’d left him but he knows that he didn’t, he really didn’t, he just…

Bruce wouldn’t have pulled a gun on him, he wouldn’t and God, if he’d just fucking talked to him-

“I did what you wanted, Quinn.” Sheila’s voice is so, so flat and is this all she wanted from the beginning? Is it? “Now call your man.”

Quinn doesn’t even look at her. She’s looking at Jason like she always did-like she’s torn between wanting to rip his head off and wanting to wrap him in a blanket and keep him.

This is his own goddamn fault, he just thought…just once, just once-

“Quinn!” Desperation now, and the gun wobbles against his hoodie as she steps out from behind him. “I did what you said! Call your man!”

Okay. Okay.

He forces himself to take a few deep breaths that taste like that last cigarette outside and says, voice as steady as he can make it, “Let her go, Harley. Leave her alone, I’ll. I’ll do what you want, just. Just let her go.”

“Aww, look at you!” Her pigtails sway and he finds himself oddly hypnotized by the movement. “I knew ya had to be Robin for a reason.”

Yeah. Yeah, he was Robin and that’s all he’ll ever be, the one that fucked up.

“Please, Harley.”

“Nyeh…” She adjusts her grip on the gun, finger dancing near the trigger, and looks down at her knuckles. “Eeny, meanie, miny, moe, catch a Batman by the toe. If he hollers, let ‘im go, eeny…meanie…miny…moe!”

He sees it before she does it, but there’s no time-he’s moved maybe half a centimeter before the gun goes off-

-and Sheila.

Falls.

His ears are ringing. They’re ringing and everything’s so white except her, all blonde and blue and so fucking red because Harley didn’t miss and if he’d been quicker, he should have been-

“Aww, don’t be sad!” Harley’s not alone, of course she’s not. He should have known from the start stupidstupidstupid. “Doncha know what happens to people who know too much?”

Her eyes are open. They’re open and they’re looking at him like this is his fault and it is if he hadn’t…

S’like Joker said, once.

“Good boys know how to lay down and DIE.”

“Mistah J had a spot for ya, baby.” Huh? “But you up an’ left us before it was time! So since it’s his birthday-” The fucker has no birthday he just appeared one day too evil for Hell. “-I thought I’d get my puddin’ somethin’-” She winks. “Real nice.”

And they’re on him.

Harley’s goons are dumb, but they’re also big and they manage to drag him down for a minute before he gets a knife out of his sleeve and drives it into the nearest jaw.

“Andre!” Yeah, Andre ain’t comin’ back from that any time soon. “I thought we taught you manners!”

He reclaims his knife and scrambles back up and okay okay maybe he can get outta this-

WHAM!

Lights out.

#Jason Todd #Sheila Haywood #Harley Quinn #you knew this was coming #oh Jason I'm so sorry honey #one day you can have nice things #but not today #Roots and Leaves

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ryuchurro · 6 years ago

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Red nervously clutched his little pouch of gold coins in one hand. He was.. Was he really doing this?

Was he really going to finally follow through on his loud brother’s advice? Just to.. Just to ask Sans out for “a fancy evening”..? Just like that?!

No.. He was different.. He wasn’t up for that. No way, no fucking way. Red stared at his phone, the dumb message he had typed up. ‘hey, we should go out for dinner tonight’ It read. And this was right after they had just been sending puns to each other a couple of hours ago. He hadn’t even replied to that yet! Fuck!

Red sighed softly, shoving the coins into his pocket, the pouch cushioned by leaky mustard packets... He’s such a slob.

If he asked them for a coffee then him and Sans would have to shortcut there around now. It closed in an hour.. That was long enough for a... A date. That, and waiting wasn’t something Red really liked, so he altered the text a bit. He also gave the address of some rinky little cafe on his side of town, something that wouldn’t cost him too much.

Was that rude? Red didn’t really know how the Tale’s viewed that, but his pockets weren’t very full often, if ever. Despite all his jobs, he just didn’t have enough for fancy food.

He pulled in a large breath, then let it out as he pressed send on their text.

Sans was sitting on his couch, writing a new sticky note for the ever-growing pile on the floor. Another denial to pick up the sock, it must have been there for at least a year. ‘no’ it reads. How original.. But he was tired, so cut him some slack.

He was just about to add a period, when something in his pocket buzzed at him. Intrigued and a bit confused, Sans let the pen and paper drop to the couch. He put his hand into his pocket and took out his phone. A few ketchup packets fell out in its wake. The front of his ancient phone showed that he had a new text from ‘Mustard guy’. Red? What’d he want? Did he finally think up a counter to Sans’ diller condiments pun?

He jammed his bony finger into the enter key, bringing up the text in it’s entirety.

Mustard guy: hey let’s go out for coffee.

Attached was an address.

Sans stared at the message. Huh? That was.. That wasn’t what he had expected. It didn’t even have any sort of jokeiness to it. Was he being asked out?

He snirked slightly and pushed himself to be semi-sat up. He slowly tapped back a message, not bothering with capital letters either.

Red watched his phone for the reply. His TV played for background sound, a show about some dog monster wrestling a gatordile monster, very entertaining. Red, however, wasn’t paying attention to his second favorite show. He was staring at his phone.

In fact, when it buzzed, he nearly dropped the fucking thing!

He growled slightly in annoyance as he caught it. His eyelights flicked over the text quickly, sweeping over it. Worry panged in his gut. Sans probably thought it was a joke. Maybe he’d just play it off, yeah. That’s what he would do.

Sans: why? we gonna tell jokes?

Red wiped a bit of nervous sweat off his brow. He typed in a few letters. ‘hopef’. A thought stopped him. Sans seriously didn’t get the hint? Now it was awkward. His hands shook a bit in frustration. Can’t he just ask someone on a date without something going wrong?

Mustard guy: well, yeah. probably. itll be real awkward if ya didn’t

Great. He said awkward because of how awkward it was. Now it was even more awkward! He groaned and rubbed at his scarred right socket. It panged a bit at his sharp hands dragging over it. Another growl escaped him at this. Stupid fucking eye! Can’t see shit out of it. What’s even the---! Text! It ripped Red’s attention back to his phone, which his grip had tightened a lot on. That was.. Fast, especially for Sans. He usually takes his time on skipping apostrophes and missing the capital button.

Sans knew what this was..

He thought he knew. He knew that that many compliments from a Fell monster was by no means normal.. But... He certainly hadn’t expected this. Now he gets to tease Red by dancing around it. If it even was a... A date. He brushed a bit of sweat from his browbone as he replied, at an actual normal texting speed. No need to be slow now... Maybe he was texting too fast.

Sans: when dya wannna meet up?

Sans glanced around the room for his scarf. Maybe he had some money in his other pocket? He slowly reached into his left pocket to check.

Ketchup. Ketchup. Ketch-- CLINK!

Alright nice. He pulled out a single, Tale coin. It had a circle engraved on it, quite plain really. He stared at the little piece of metal he had held between his thumb and pointer finger. Could he get something from the shop with this? He didn’t really know, he hadn’t been to that place before. Must have been a Fell thing..

DING! He looked away from the currency and back to his phone.

Mustard guy: now

The reply was simple. The doofus was probably nervous. Sans took a second to laugh before shoving the coin back into his coat, and then sitting up and standing. He looked down at his phone with a faint smile, then dragged his scarf from the floor and to his neck with a touch of blue magic.

Sans: alright see you there

The reply was almost instant.

Mustard guy: aight

Sans grinned at the mental image of Red sitting at his phone, typing texts and blushing like some highschooler.

Sans: is this a date?

He just had to. He had to! Who wouldn’t?

Sans shoved his phone into his pocket and silenced it. He had to get ready!

Red stared at the message. He gave a squeak and looked away from the phone. He couldn’t look at it. He kept imaging Sans’ stupid smirk.

He tapped back a reply after calming himself down.

Mustard guy: yeah sure whatever u better be there

The message went unread.

He zipped up his jacket halfway, and then stepped outside. It was lightly snowing. Perfect. Sans watched his breath unfurrow in the cold air, and then shortcut to the place without checking his phone.

Dating start!

#kustard week #writing #dating start #i didnt finish editing but this was fun #ill write the next prompt later #longish post

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wrestlezon · 3 years ago

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aew dynamite 4/20/22 liveblog containment post

happy 4/20. we're starting this ep late

cm punk match: good i have to rewatch it though i missed parts of it

i cant believe they pulled out the handcuffs on wardlow. this is so unfair to me specifically

i called them the blood club and then was like oh my mistake blackpool and then yuta came out with his blood tights so maybe i was right the first time actually dante martin's avoidance flipmoves against danielson was super cool did excalibur bring up the wrestling observer and someone else went yikes? was that in pipmode or not lmao lmfao is this going to be the signature bcc move where its the three of them beat the hell out of the three opponents

the elite out here in full black funeral attire oh man kyle is going to lose his match isnt he... elite losing streak

wardlow appeared on screen and my friends im watching with yelled

tony khan announcement! i wonder what itll be njpw president! wo-- ADAM COLE...??? RUDE????? LMAO omg he's stealing their thunder!!! gasp! jay white! i suppose he is finally free after fighting all his wrestledads in impact(?). i only have a very surface level knowledge of this guy gathered by tumblr osmosis but i like the cut of his evil jib.

mjf is here! shawn spears is throwing popcorn on people-- THE TWO OF THEM ARE MAKING A MESS he still has the handcuffs on. cool. whatever i am unphased (lying) *looks at the corner graphic* oh no sammy and tay are showing up today??? ough hmm wardlow fought the blade in a solos match a while back when he was building up his streak right straps: down. nips: unleashed powerbombs! live mjf reaction yea wooo!!! get them wardlow!!!! am i really going to be graced with handcuff bits? every week for as long as this wardlow bit is going on? wow. awesome. this show gives me so much

eddie promo!!!!! yesssss :)c

i am sitting and watching this kyle vs jungle boy match but i have to admit these two are not guys i particularly focus on. actually now that i think about it, it IS weird seeing these two tag guys do a solo match against each other... im glad kyle doesnt spray tan. or at least doesnt look like it. refreshing wow??? kyle won??????? i wasnt expecting that oh hes going up against samoa joe next. rip kyle omg its cage

mjf promo time lmfao shawn spears is serenading his chair i love mjf insanity hours. may your empire crumble there was something else i wanted to say here but i forgot it

hook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i want to see what happens here. will danhausen show up? what the fuck is his hair right now oh! its one of the workhorse men yay danhausen! danhausen on TV!!!!! proud for him DANHAUSEN YOURE CHALLENGING HOOK??? SPICY danhausen and hook are real opposites and i am entertained. this is probably an annoying segment to read for danhausen dislikers. sorry. i am a fan of his weird energy

i hope scorpio sky gets that belt back. but also this promo explains why im going to see sammy and tay later i suppose

nyla rose vs thunder rosa promos...

oh here they are... sammy and tay. i can tolerate them on their own (them being a pda couple is funny on an ironic level) but i can't handle them AND danbert at the same time. ethan goin' off oh dang please end this feud this combo is too much for me

house of black time! wow we're in real promo hours right now i laughed at the "narrative" line i have to say also i dont know who theyre talking about-- is it fuego

lmfao dmd literally brought legit sports guys with her? lmao? (sleeping emojis) oh wait i can pull up the emoji keyboard hold on.😴

serene deeb hikaru shida! oooo ooooo streetfight!!!! ooooooo!

excalibur nailing this insane promo match list marathon. standing ovation for this man

coffin match coffin match that skateboard hit was really loud!! oh no! not that fan's sign! OH ITS STING!!!! i love this bit. i fall for it every time wow this is turning into a darby and sting vs ahfo tornado tag aint it NO GRANDPA THATS TOO HIGH!!!! i appreciate how the steel chair is the perfect size to wedge in between the ring ropes. real frog on a lilypad type stuff right there oh my god!!! jose!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cool ending

#talkzon

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summerinsacramento-blog1 · 7 years ago

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Seeing the forest when you’re stuck in the trees

One week later, I feel rationally better. My heart hasn’t caught on, but I don’t feel the deep sting I felt before. Now, it’s a numb little tingling that I can ignore. Every day, it’ll sting less and less, but its probably gonna be a point of sadness I hold for years when I remember what 22 felt like. And that’s fine. I have years to heal and move on. I turn 23 in 27 days. That can be the night I officially start a new chapter. One without my last love, but a year where hopefully I feel self-love that I never felt before.

With that said, I am writing this while listening to The Weeknd’s new album about how hes heartbroken for the umpteenth time, so we’ll see how this goes. My friend said I should actually listen to this now, as its what I need. Ricky if youre reading this and I hate myself after this, it’s on you.

This is the story of a young boy who is processing heartbreak in a new city, new career, and a new frame of mind. This is the story of what I have learned in the last week, when my life was pulled out from under me in what I believe will be the best possible way. It sucks now, but I’ve learned something, tangentially related to the relationship.

The title

In order to understand this, I want to start by letting you see who I am. I graduated from college in 2017. It hasn’t even been a year since I stopped living my life in terms of “you have 3 months to prove yourself, go.” Until today, I never realized just how much that had affected the way of life I was living.

My mentor today totally slapped the shit out of me with this one: “Stop thinking in the now. Do what will make you happy 10 years from now. Everything is else is just experience. Not everything has to work.”

That man met me 4 hours ago as I type this, and he’s managed to being me back from a stage of confusion to clarity.

He then hit me with this one: youre not playing with the same rules anymore as when you were in college. You’ve been living on 3 month blocks of time. You need to learn to work towards a deep future, which you do not have the vision for now.

It hit me immediately that he’s right. For the 5 years since I left home, I have essentially lived my life in such a microscopic scale that I never learned how to see past the tree I was currently on. I lived life climbing a tree, seeing what was coming, and walking to that… but that means that I followed a track. I went from class to class, job to job, woman to woman, hoping to get what I wanted, but the thing is

You can only see trees that are in your field of vision that way, and this is incredibly slow.

Also,

this assumes you want to stay in the forest.

I’ve been thinking about this all day, because I need to learn how to think that way and get off the trees and start walking. I need to go to town and make friends that will last years here. I know I have the same feelings in Phoenix (more on that down the road), but I can’t leave myself with no options in Sacramento. I don’t even mean romantically here. What if I still don’t know what I want? What if I make a Friend in Sacramento with a haircut business and he trains me to be his recruiter? What if I meet a young couple in Sacramento, and they pass me all of their furniture because they’re leaving the city to start a new life? What if I meet a kid in Sacramento who needs a mentor and I commit to making his life better? What if I meet a woman in Roseville who runs a night club and she wants to pay me to be a stripper? What if I what if I what if I what if I get out of the house and find out.

Both he and my trainer have pointed out to me that I cannot rely on my job to bring me happiness, I have to make it on my own, and I have every intention to. I will be leaving my apartment in 3 weeks and moving to the city. Density is the greatest asset of a city; the only finite resource you have is time. So Im starting a journey of self discovery. I’m joining the sister chapter to the club I loved the most while at Arizona State. I joined a volleyball league. I’m going to every work social from here out for young people – I refuse to wallow in the sadness anymore. I already told the girl I loved all the good and the bad. Everything from here on out is overkill. I won’t be sad, as itll sully the memories of the times we weren’t. Don’t be fooled, I am hurt, but I am taking it as a good hurt instead of sinking to the dark place I was in 2016.

Speaking of 2016: The Dark Descent of Drunk Depressed Jairo

(For the sake of the other people in this story, I am changing names. If you are my friend and know, cool, but I don’t want to breach their privacy as I share mine)

This story actually starts in 2015, and I sat on it for a long time. It was during an event I ran. Three powerful figures that still mar my self-conscious were there. Girl 1 was texting me throughout the day. Girl 2 and 3 were there. I don’t want to drop too many details, but I remember thinking “Girl 3 is super nice, but I shouldn’t hit on her because she won’t appreciate it.” I had been trying to get at Girl 2 for weeks. Girl 1 was dumb as all hell for being interested in me and getting me first down the line.

I dated Girl 1 for a year. The second half of that year was the most miserable point of my existence. I remember I asked my friends if I should leave at month 5. They said I needed to give her time, and I suffered for 6 more. All this time, I kept having constant desires to leave her for Girl 2 (I NEVER acted on these. It was more of a “why does this girl treat me better than the one who claims to love me?), and she was jealous of Girl 2. I can’t blame her. My 21st bday was during that time, and after ending things I started being a degenerate in plain view of everyone. I am not proud.

But it was okay, I was on a high tree and I knew the kind of tree that I would climb. Drunk me wanted to climb, and there are entire weeks of my life where I drank every day.

Give it like 2 months, and I was starting to talk to this girl, I’ll call her girl 4. I thought that was the tree I would climb next – and boy did I try. We even agreed to go on a date. It never happened though, because in the days in between, I definitely linked up with Girl 2, sort of fast. Just as fast things ended.

Anyway I managed to fall from two trees in like 3 weeks, and I was going nuts for 6 months after. This is where the spiral took off. My grades took damage and I lost interest in most things, and I was so hurt that my search for my future was taking so long, and I kept getting hurt while trying. Why was this forest so thorny? I gained like 20 pounds in liquor weight, which I barely got rid of recently.

That is, until I linked up with Girl 3 once again in 2017 and this time by accident. We were together for what are the happiest days of my life so far. There will be better days, but I haven’t seen them yet. At least not so concentrated. Whatever it was though, I loved her for who she was for a year, and I want to believe she genuinely loved me back. It did hurt, however, that I always told her the above story, and I would say that I finally picked the right girl. I was on the right tree.

As of last week we know that isn’t true. She cut off the tree under me, but she did it at the right time. And actually, it was on the 3rd anniversary of the day those three girls flowed together into my life.

I was sad because I was on the ground. Tired of climbing and thinking I finally climbed the tallest tree in the forest and found the best spot, only to tumble.

But there was another force at play that I never saw coming. Her name is Girl 0. There is no romance there, we are just good friends, or rather, were. Eight years ago – she was my best friend in 8th grade before we drifted apart. She came back into my life to make sure I was okay, and in the past 6 days we’ve rapidly realized that were good friends still. That gave me so much perspective. Time moves on for everyone, but my best friend from middle school and I collabed for another album ten years later, and with no resentment. She’s coming to my 23rd birthday and that’s exciting!

I also realized that I no longer have resentment for G1 ort G2 since almost 2 years have passed, and I won’t resent G3 at some point. Well, I don’t resent her the same, but one day I’ll either stop missing her, or will feel differently than now – I can freely admit she was the most special girl of my life, and she’ll be a tough act to follow. I kind of wish me moving 800 miles didn’t drive us apart, but I’m also glad it did because now I have to force myself to walk along this forest, no matter how scared I am. I will grow from this. G4 is engaged now, to the boy that she would link up with after me. I’m happy for her, genuinely.

Regardless, that was the lesson I needed. I need to step down from the trees. Its time I start walking and stop looking for anything in particular short term. I can’t go through this forest one tree at a time. I need to pick a direction and walk it. That’s scary because I don’t know the future, but it was scary before, and I made little progress. Maybe this scary time is what I need. Maybe I need to just keep going and remember that the first 18 years didn’t count, the next 4 were a trial period, and the most recent 1 was me playing with the rules that no longer worked. I got X amount of years left, and I gotta make them count.

On a similar note, I would like to thank every single person who came out in support of me. You guys are the best, and your friendships, some way old and some way young, have helped me remember that I am loved, and that I am never truly alone.

On another note: The Weeknd’s album was okay and did not make me feel sad. The man almost gave Selena Gomez a kidney though, so maybe he was in deeper love than I was.

On another nother note: If you take the height of the 8 girls I consider exes and plot it, it makes a sine wave with an average around 5’4”. If the pattern holds, the next girl I date has to be taller than me. We’ll see, but maybe I’ll start climbing again, just differently now.

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the-amber-droid-dreams · 2 years ago

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ok actual list of pros and cons

Pros :

Its so damaged knotted and fucked up that its lowkey unsalvageable (trust me on this one)

Especially since i have an important event in *checks watch* 7 hours

My hair has been ruining my mental health and my confidence and literally makes me feel suicidal at this point

I have been avoiding this issue for months and i Know im not gonna fix it otherwise lmao i should stop lying to myself

This way itll be SO easy and quick to take care of and wash holy shitttt

I can start over and hopefully take care of it better this time. Learn to take care of my curls as well

There are cool short hairstlyes yea ? I wasnt doing anything with it long anyway. I literally dont know how to do anything but a mfing ponytail

Cons :

I like the aesthetic of long hair much better

My dream hairstyle needs at least moderate length hair (though i can still do an undercut with short hair that would still look cool yea ??)

If i could just do the undercut NOW it would save me cutting it all off but no way in hell will my parents allow it

Ive been growing it for 6+ years and its halfway down my back :((

Ive made a big deal abt Not wanting to cut my hair for so long its kinda embarassing if i do it Now

Also a couple ppl figured out its kinda fucked up but not the extent of it and cutting it off will be embarassing bc it feels like theyll think in giving up or smthg idk,,,

Not sure if itll come out good looking if i do it myself but i have to do it myself atleast the first half

Actually SO many ppl are gonna see me with this hair in the next couple days

Fuck it i need to cut it off dont i ??? The "not suicidal" reason is really really appealing ngl

Ok if someone has any objections Please make them in the next half hour

Hair chop is scheduled for 10 am ig

ok what if i cut all my hair off

#fuck. fuck. fuck.#suicidal ideation #ig

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owensrhodes · 6 years ago

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Green Spring Cleaning: How to Keep Your Clean Eco-Friendly

Get your home in top shape without hurting the environment with these green spring cleaning tips. Image: Photographee.eu/Shutterstock

Spring cleaning can feel daunting to tackle, but you know it’s worth it. Sure, you’ll spend a few days working hard to clear out the last year’s dust, clutter and whatever else you find. But, in the end, you get to step back and admire your work. It’s the best feeling! At least, it should be. But when you look at the mountain of dirty paper towels soaked in chemical-based cleaning solution, you might start to feel less excited about what you’ve accomplished. But fear not! With these green spring cleaning tips, you can get your house in top shape without causing the earth any harm.

Reduce, then reuse or recycle

Green spring cleaning, or really any cleaning, is a lot easier if you’re not trying to navigate around junk piles during it. Before you start sanitizing, use this opportunity to clear out your house. To start, get three boxes. One is for recyclables, one is for items you plan to sell or donate and one is for items you think you may be able to reuse. Then, go through your home or apartment room by room and toss anything you want to clear out in the appropriate box. Old receipts and magazines, clothing you haven’t worn in years, toys your kids don’t play with anymore – anything taking up space in your home is fair game.

Note that we didn’t say to have a trash bin. Ideally, you want to minimize the amount you send to a landfill as much as possible. A great way to do this is by thinking about what can go into your reuse bin. Upcycling can help you make the most of what you’ve got while simultaneously reducing your household waste.

Refresh your air naturally with the help of plants. Image: Photographee.eu/Shutterstock

Freshen the air naturally

Ah, spring. There’s a sense of freshness as new growth springs from the earth. In fact, that’s a big part of what inspires us all to refresh our homes during this season. So, naturally, you want to throw your windows open and let the spring air in. And you should! But if the fresh air isn’t quite enough, you’ve got a few options to try before resorting to those room sprays filled with who-knows-what.

For starters, you can boil rosemary springs or citrus peels in a big pot of water while you’re cleaning your kitchen. The resulting steam will fill the space with a fresh, detoxifying scent. And if you want to expand that feeling of freshness to every room in your home, go green. No, really. There are a number of houseplants you can add that will purify the surrounding air, plus their green and living nature helps any space feel more vibrant.

Choose green cleaners

Look at the ingredient list of most household cleaners and you’ll see a long string of words you can’t pronounce. Sure, some of them are totally safe for your family and the earth, but others aren’t. Instead of keeping a running mental list to do your part for your household’s health and the earth, why not swap out your old cleaners with ingredients you can trust – and probably already have in your kitchen?

Whether you need an all-purpose spray, tub scrub or grease remover, we’ve got you covered with some eco-friendly cleaner options. When in doubt, a mixture of equal parts white vinegar and water is a great go-to. Add some essential oils for a refreshing scent and you can tackle all your cleaning tasks without worrying about what chemicals you’re leaving behind.

Tidy up your office, streamline your life and reduce paper waste during your green spring clean. Image: Photographee.eu/Shutterstock

Save the trees

This isn’t your first rodeo. You probably know how to spring clean (and if you don’t, this guide can help). But do you use this opportunity to clean parts of your house that aren’t necessarily dirty but do contribute to clutter? Here, we’re talking about papers. Your spring clean is a perfect opportunity to ditch those piles of paper, filing what you need and recycling the rest. And, while you’re at it, make your future cleaning jobs that much easier by switching all your billing and notifications to paperless. Yes, it’ll add a little extra time to this year’s green spring cleaning, but it can save you hours upon hours of organizing and filing in the future. Plus, it’s good for the trees!

Minimize material waste

The whole point of green spring cleaning is getting your house spick and span without any environmental impact. So if your usual cleaning routine results in a pile of used paper towels and disinfectant wipes, it’s time to make a change. Plus, a reusable microfiber cloth will make it easier than you ever imagined to get windows and mirrors streak-free and sparkling!

Remember that reuse box we set up earlier? If you’re short on cleaning rags, it’s wise to add a couple of old cotton t-shirts to it. These can be cut up to help you wipe down any number of surfaces. And because cotton is such a soft material, you don’t have to worry about any scratching.

Happy green spring cleaning, and thank you for doing your part for the earth! Do you have any green cleaning tips? Please let us know in the comments so we can use them in our own homes and apartments.

The post Green Spring Cleaning: How to Keep Your Clean Eco-Friendly appeared first on Freshome.com.

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chikotos · 8 years ago

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speaking of That my mom is finally recognizing that when I say “i dont feel good” it doesnt mean i have a cold or sth its that Uh, im probably experiencing suicidal thoughts and cant express it well (or at least smth along those lines) and my house has been dirty cuz i havent cleaned in a while or i cant keep it clean and she n my sister cleaned an area and i repeatedly told her not to bc shes always using my sister to do things im not adequate enough to do on time and its rlly not fair to her even if she doesnt realize it cuz like shes only 12 & we dont ever even talk so she shouldnt have to take care of someone 5 years older than her.. and i was gonna clean but I basically slept all day so i could just clean alone at night when I feel safe to walk around the house . i wasnt even tired idk why i slept but now im eerily awake and maybe will be umless i force myself to sleep

its so lonely here and thats only hit me like this year cuz all the time before I would go through periods of hanging out after school maybe.. twice a year? and only hanging out with one person whod have many friends but theyd b my only friend which is a problem i tend to have. but it jst got to the point where im realizing, i think cuz i was in my schools drama program n exposed to lots of friendships, that im jst like ,really fucking lonely. Which is unfortunate because ive always been such an internal person at home and have been able to work creatively but thats all like leaving me? art doesnt make me happy anymore because i dislike my art so much and havent had a platform to share it in so long and i guess I thrive on other ppls opinions of it? and I definitely cant write anymore. I havent been able to zone in on an interest in MONTHS and thats left me creatively drained, a lot.

I think im starting to rlly, RLLY redirect my complete attention from interests to ppl (which always ends well am i right lads) and it isnt fair to ppl who like, have others and need space and time etc or Uh, dont even know me. but its like a switch like , I can either be creative or i can feel loved and Boy Howdy, do i need both,

its just weird cuz im the only one in my family thats emoitonal like this and I think thats why i feel so isolated. like im not exxagerating when I say my dad has 0 friends tht arent family. my mom has work friends she will hang out with maybe 4 times a year not for work, but shes always complaining abt social situations which I can understand. maybe my siblings r like that too but my sisters young n focuses on minecraft n stuff n hangs out w friends more than me n we barely know each other so its not like id know, maybe my half brother is but whens the last time hes wanted to talk to me right. like i cry all the time and all it does is make my dad angry at memfor being incompetent and make my mom think its her fault and my sister confused and jst takes up everyones time

and its jst all v strange. like i was kinda raised 2 not have friends, inadvertantly i guess. i can remember my mom trying to make me feel better about something along the lines of u can b okay w/out friends if u have family but she jst told me friends dont matter and im never gonna talk to ppl i meet at my age as an adult, so it stuck w/ me and i started to make moral judgements on ppl on small things we could talk out like say, they use homophobic language sometimes but im sure theyd respect me enough to stop, but id make those judgements before we could befriend each other n take a chance, kinda to protect myself from attachments? but later in life ive found ppl who dont do stuff like that, and thats when i focus in on them im an unfair way to them and they r the only person/group of ppl in my life, etc etc and idk how to stop because im so scared of hanging out w/ most ppl alone i guess? but ill still be here, thinking about like example (namedrop bc he doesnt have me tumblr anyways) my friend jacob tht never hung out w/ me outside of school but i fuccin loved that kid n he just stopped talking to me over the summer n ignored my text i send first day of summer and now we see each other and talk briefly but its like he wont let us be friends anymore and smth like this always happens and its So

and tbh how can i expect it to not happen when i limit myself so much n they will have plenty of other close close friends when i dont? and i think ive gotten better but idk anymore.

and uh, unrelated. I think my dog ive had for 12 years may have to end up being put down this year. hes got cataracts in both eyes and skin diseases and back problems and teeth problems (hes inbred) and hes losing his hearing too and for the past two weeks hes been peeing everywhere and we can let him out but he cant climb stairs anymore n he has to walk them to get to our yard and im the only one w/ the patience to pick him up (hes only 8 pounds) n put him in the yard bc my parents will jst scream at him n my sister doesnt like dogs and hes got seperation issues w me and whines when he cant be in my room which is the farthest from the door out n stuff. and its like rlly stressful my mom will scream at him in front of my sister n brother n me and the other day she said my dad grabbed him by the neck and threw him out on the concrete cuz he peed inside and hes so tiny that thats just gonna make everyting worse and its notmlike i can stop them bc why would anyone listen to me and hed prob b fine for s few more years if he lived in a patient house with ppl who would take him to the vet but theyre prob gonna put him down early snd its gonna b so weird w/out him

when i showered earlier i took s razor with me w/ the intent to cut my thighs, and i did a little, but i never ever draw blood wnd its strange. why am i given these urges when im so fucking terrified of blood. itll still leave marks n stuff but it makes me feel weak ? n ill bruise myself up instead but its never the same. and im such an advocate for help w self harm but i cant for myself. its like i subconsciously want 2 get caught ? idk. i did throw my razor away though and the others i have r rusty and im not THAT much of a dumbass so i dont have options to self harm anymore unless i get new ones. lifehack

and uh lol, having no schedule n it being summer my eating habits r SHIT. it always hurts to eat p much, its at different times n most of the time i just snck only or i dont eat for hours n see black spots n stuff. and when i dont eat its not a body image thing (im nt rlly happy w my nody but its not sth not eating will help with) its cuz i dknt wanna go upstairs for food where my dad is n the snacks r downstairs so its easier, or cuz i forget or cuz i like, want to punish myself? but im too lazy to self harm. its weird

n since ive stopped id’ing as ace officially my internalized lesbophobia has gotten so much worse . im so repressed and lost ans sad, nothinng rly makes sense? I either fall in love w/ anyone who flirts with me or i focus on someone who ill never fucking talk to or see again and imagine countless scenarios n set myself up to b sad. i seek validation from ppl on it but nothhing comes out right or i just cant say it, because other than when i make myself the butt of gay jokes i just cant sven get the words out of my throat that im gay cuz im jst so ashamed and disgusted with myself. ive been looking at pictures of guys lately cuz ive been trying to force myself to like them. back when i thought i was pan it always felt safer bc i could always just love a cis guy or whatever and everything would b okay for my family ykno. and its such a shameful thing for me bc my irl friends who im out to, most see me as v confident abt it at least a little bc im loud abt it u kno, and make all sorts of jokes, and i jst know so many would b surprised or like sad abt that

i want to stop liking girls so much. like holy shit. i have so many straight girl friends and i hate it when they flirt with me because lik, none r my type so i feel nothing but then i feel like i shiuld then feel like No i shouldnt then feel like i shouldnt even be around them bc im a gross disgusting creepo dyke predator. n they always use the excuse of me having a gf so its fine id never hit on them well like, now im single so i have to be DOUBLE careful not to b affectionate w them as im w all my friends and itsssssssssssssmjshfjhdjfhsjdhjshdjshdjhsjdhsjhdjshdk

and i like, think abt this girl alot n yea its romantic even thomwe never fucking talked n rlly i do that w lots of girls and its making me lose out on friendships bc i wanna b their friends somehow bc i think theyre very cool n stuff but i cant stop hodling on to stupid daydreams n idealizations i get to distract me when im sad n its jst stupid like i know its dumb but guess whos boutta keeeeeeppppp doin it??!!!!! boy!!!

and i try so damn hard to talk feeling out, n talk abt who im attracted to n stuff w ppl, n i try so hard to gush but i cant cuz smth comes outta my mouth and then i cant speak past that and no one ends up rlly knowing how i feel, bc ANY time i talk abt anytingngay related abt me its what happens. and i listen to others talking abt tht stuff and i jsut get so god damn JEALOUS bc idk how to express myself

all these inadequacies n shit is making it rlly hard to see how,im gonna b on my own n its always been like this. at TWELVE YEARS OLD i came to fhe fucking conclusion that i was just gonna kill myself when i turned 18 so i didnt have to deal with all this and i was OKAY WITH IT and i just went through life knowing that and hiding it and so rarely questioning my inevitable suicide as a childc so instead of dealing with all that n my problems n getting better i let myself get worse cuz uh, fuck it right

idk its all just occured to me how im not a fully functioning human being, in seberal if not all aspects of my life, its weird. now that I actively want to live and realize i uh Kinda have to simce ill b the legal guardian of my brother its all very scary

sorr i was all over the place and all the typos i didnt mean anyof them n im not crytyping like, i cried a bit but i jst hate typing kn thsi shitty tablet keyboard, n dont wanna spellcheck. if u read through comgratulations also please dont message me abt like the self harm junk n my dog n stuff like, whatever ur abt to say. I Know my guy

time to go uhhhhhhhhhhh daydream about impossible gay shit with guilt in the back of my mind

#personal #animal abuse/#self harm/#other stuff probably i guess #nya #its long uhh full disclosure i sjt wanted to feel like i was talkin 2 someone nyall can ignore this

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ramblingsandruminations · 8 years ago

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When Suicidal Ideation is the norm

All the help in the world becomes a muddy puddle of shitty affirmations, thorned gaslighting, and useless guilt. If one more person tells me "have you tried yoga/deepbreaths/vitamin B..." Ugh. Who am i kidding? This is tumblr, where you can always find somone who says exactly what you are thinking ( #omgmetho #datme #meirl ). Weve all heard the "stop giving advice and atart taking it " speech, we're all likely to have read some post about the "evils" and " abuses" of therapy and inpatient treatment, and I'll bet a paper hat, some vending machine doodad, or some shitty-yet-adorably-hipsterly prize that within 100 reblogs someone links to some news article about "Queer Youth Completes Suicide And We Think You Will Pay Us to Feel Bad About It, Don't Forget To Like, Share, and Subscribe to Trevor Project, Your Reblog Will Save A Life (And Keep Us Relevant For Our Advertisers)." Tomorrow(well, next daylight hours) my 26-year-old depressed college freshman self is going to walk into my schools coubseling office and tell them i never recieved the location for the therapist they reffered me to (true story--Honestly not avoiding treatmwnt, even if it is useless) and request a second referral. Ill sit through some lecture about self-advocacy veiled in "concerned questions" and once again be misgendered, deadnamed, and criticized for giving a fuck (note: commenters looking to describe me with the word "cuck," i see you there, good for you, let me know how that white kkknight holier than thou red pill rage fest dopamine addiction is filling the gaping void of existential dread within you). After that, there is always a small chance they'll see just how depressed i am, and faster than you can say "looney is a word based in misogynistic beliefs of womens mental health and menstrual cycles being unhealthily and unscientifically connected to the moon," ill be fielding questions which boil down to "do you want to kill yourself" and "do you have a plan." By this time in my life, i've gotten pretty used to BSing my way around psychology. All it really takes is knowing that all they can take you on is your word, and nothing else. "Do you want to kill yourself?" they ask, and i reply "*short pause, heavy, short exhale denoting weight and truth* Well, yeah. But quite frankly, suicidal ideation is a part of my everyday life- nothing i do isn't plagued with some form of "i should wrap this mouse cord aroubd my neck and die" or " i wonder if that branch is strong enough to support my weight" or "man, my head hurts, but i bet a bottle or two of ibuprofen could make it stop." For me, its not a question of wanting to die, its a matter of what do i have to live for, and ive been through enough inpatient DBT and group therapy to help me cope, using breathing techniques and self-care tips to push me through the worst of it." This is usually if not always all they need to hear. Sure, im depressed, but anything they could tell me is something i know and am already doing-i sound to them more like a patient leaving inpatient than one entering it. Our hospitals are overfilled, understaffed, prqctucally unfunded; if im "stable" im staying out of their ledger book. Occasionally, they still worry, having one of those "consciences" their peers claim to have lost when a schizophrenic patient tried to bite their ear off, and ask a follow up "but are you sure? You seem distressed, and if you need some help, we are here for you," to which all i have to do is look at them through sad, but strong eyes and say "Thank you, but i have a great support network of friends and of course, my boyfriend. He's fantastic, and one of the most important things to have happened to me. He keeps me on this side of the dirt." A small tired chuckle, and their focus diverts towards affirmations of how good it is to have support, their therapy brains running on autopilot. Then all it needs is some "active" listening, uh-huhs, and compliant assurance that ill keep working on myself to assuage them of any guilt or corncern. Maybe, though, ill tell them the truth, and let them take me in. Three hots and a cot, after all. I'll fight through my dysphoria as they ogle every nook and cranny of my malformed body trying to see if im hiding a weapon or some drugs; I'll continue to insist on a private room and remind them calmly yet firmly that no, i will *not* room with a male, and their lack of knowledge on how to treat a transgender non-binary patient is well behind on proper treatment according to WPATH, the APA, and our state govt. When i get a room, theyll say that i should take as much time as i need to get acclimated, and not worry about what the rwat of group is qorking on, and then contradict themselves within 5 minutes and say i need to go to group, theyre waiting on me. In my fresh new scrubs, ill walk in and within seconds, ill identify how th staff monitors who came in when (usually different colored scrubs based on different halves of the week, and of course, anyone likely to leave within 48 hours wearing "normal" clothes), and see the therapist or doctor talking about emotional management techniques. When i sit down, eeyes will be on me, some with looks of angey jusgemwnt, some with awe and wonder: what could THEY be in for? The group leader will ask me my name, ill state it and my pronouns (to several uncomfortable shifts in the room), and theyll let me know what they were talking about. Ill make a good effort to participate, play along, etc. Someone in the group will be desperate to control the conversation, talking more and more as if this entire experience is just for them- another person will be too dissociated to say anyrhing, despite the doctors attebpts to get them to open up. Already, the cliques will become apparent; humans are aocial creatures, after all. When we leave for the next scheduled activity (either rec or lunch, depending on the time) the docs will be watching me- im on suicide watch, and they expe t me to jump out a window or try and slit my wrists with a paperclip or something. Im not a danger in this regard; ive been threatened with solitary and ECT if i dont comply before- i am their prisoner and i must comply. Within an hour or two of being there, ill be able to notice how well funded they are (or more likely, arent.) The quality of their reading materials; the availability of puzzles abd how well taken care of they appear. Recreation will be the most bare of kindergarden activities; coloring books, maybe a tv with basic cable. A daycare for adults, abd not the cool buzzfeed articles. Someone, probably an addict, will be trying to fanangle their attendee into giving them special treatement- a snack, or an extra smoke break. I'll be sitting in a corner, smirking- the staff arent even an eigth as dumb as this person thinks, and they've seen this type before. They might get something, but itll cost them sour looks from staff and less accommodating treatment with the doctors. After the second hour, we'll have another activity (second group, rec, or maybe "outside time" if its a particularly fancy facility; while the sun will certainly be shining, our feelings of freedom will be dampened by the high fances and walls keeping us from getting away). This is usually wheb the realization sets in that im stuck here for 72 hours plus, and ill be counting them down to stave off boredom. 15-30 minutes in to this third hour, ill be called in to meet tye psychiatrist, fisrt meeting with an attendee to fill out the generic details, then 30-45 minutes of diagnosis before im told ill be put on ab antidepressant, an anxiolytic, and tramodol, a sedative marketed as "something to help me sleep" and "another antidepressant" which makes me laugh every time. Tramodol is the auppressant, the "slow down" drug which helps keep everyobe on a nice, calm level thats safer for the orderlies. Were i violent, id concur; instead, i begin to wonder how long it will take before i no longer feel persistently asleep once i leave. A couple weeks, likely. Hopefully, the food will be good, but not likely 5 star- one place ive stayed had been cooking for us in the break room, sometimes PB&J, sometimes microwaved quesadillas. Maybe theyll have more drink options than coffee, water, and sugar-free koolaid- maybe not. Likely not. Some of us will complain; most of us will know it is a fruitless endeavor. After another group or two, it will be dinner, then wrap up group. We will discuss what progress we think we made today, and be sent to bed after meds are distributed in little paper ketchup cups. Most places wont do the "cuckoos nest" tongue check, but some will, particularly the ones with kleptos and pill ODers. Lights oyt will be around 10 pm, the beds will be plasticky and the blankets thin, and sleep will only cone rhanks to our sedatives. Day two, we'll be woken early, around 6-7, by an orderly checking our blood pressure and body temp. Well all gather in the hallway, rubbing sleep out of our eyes and head to the eating area for breakfast- which loooking back will likely be the best meal of the day, not the least be ause we have access to augar and caffiene. By now, i will likely have made a friend, probably with an older woman or two, and we will enjoy surreptitiously smirking at each other when the teoublemaker patwnt tries to get an omlette or something silly. Someone will start telling fanciful stories dreamed up in the night; talk will eventually turn to who is leaving today. The orderlies will be trying to not look too interested in what we reveal to each other instead of them. They will not succeed in this. Ths first morning they will use as a test of how i deal with frustration. An older nurse will act exasperated, as though taking care of me is a curse she was tasked with. She will try to cut theough any response i give her, and rudely discount anything i try to say, as if accuaing me of lying. Knowing it is coming doesnt help it hurt less. If it overwhelms me, ill be labeled as dramatic- if not, as detached. Sluggish from the new medications, i will be treated as though i ahould not be here, and will be led aroubd more quickly than i am rady to be. I will notice that part of it is that i am beginning to realize how broken down i feel i am. Reaching out will result in canned answers and "the doctor is busy's". After all, this iant about me, and theyve seen my type before. At lunch, i will be upset by the bland meal, abd ask if they have any hot sauce, or maybethey will be out of a preferred tea, or the food will not be enough to feed me. The newcomer who arrived at morning group will share a look with the quiet patient. I will try not to notice the parallels. A therapist will ask to talk to me today. It may be a nice session, but will essebtially boil down to "let me give you ideas for solving your problems, so that your depression seems more managed." By the end of the day, they will already begin my release plan. Theyve fixed me, they are sure. I will also get my clothes back. The aurvey will be slightly different today; instead of asking on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being best abd 10 being worst how was my day, it will be the opposite: scale of 1-10 with 1 being worst and 10 being best. This way, they can track how much is me being honest, and how much is me remembering numbers to fake it. (Once, a nurse messed up so often that it was a sentence by sentence change). Later, if there is any improvement, it will be used by the hospital as signs that treatment is helping; if it gets worse, that i had a rough day and shouldnt think much of it. Bedtime will come, and i will relish it- being sedated takes a lot out of a person. When morning comes, the eggs will feel soggy and cereal with be a much better choice. A bagel will be carried into morning group and more DBT will be discussed. I will mostly be checked out; they are pulling most of their material from a 12 step program, and the leader is a student of psychology learning how to help people, but ive heard it all before, and that sense of guilt just pushes me towards suicide harder. At this point, ill feel just how desperate they are to get me out; nurses eill hint at things being the "wrong" answer with " you dont REALLY mean that, do you sweetie?" and " well, you cant keep thinking THAT way, or we'll have to keep you here longer." Boredom and longing for home will encourage me to pretend to be better, and not tell them how last night before falling asleep i stared at the vedfrane wondering if i could take it apart and form a springwire noose, or tear the blankets to make a rope. When they ask if im feeling better, it will actually mean "are you done with your timeout from reality? Have you learned how to fit in properly yet?" The meds wont really begin having a noticable effect for months- they know im lying. What they hope for is a glimmer of hope and a mountain of guilt for wanting to hurt others by hurting myself. Ill fake those, too. Still, ill be misgendered. Still, theyll blame hormones and buzzfeed rather than neurology and chemistry. After all, im well-adjusted, not at all like the Caitlyn Jenners and Wachowskis they read about on their facebooks. Its just a phase, and im just confused. I didnt try to hurt myself- nothing is *really* wrong with me. What can i do? Try and strangle myaelf, or others? That just means im lashing out, and ill get a new med regime and another 3 days, this time strapped down. Being strapped to a bed and left alone is mind-numbingly boring. If i tell them i still want to kill myaelf, theyll just nod their head and tell me it will go away soon; if i say i have a plan, rheyll keep me playing chess and reading AA papers until i apologize. Their job is not to fix me, their job is to stabilize me and make sure i dont break myself more. The fixing is my responsibility. Day four is release day. They will claim i have made improvements and have me fill out an action plan for when i feel depressed again. It will include people i can call, and ways i can push through bad feelings. It is my exit exam.when i pass, ill be set up with a therapist outside the hospital later in the week, and told how to connect with various resources. They will think i didnt know there were trans support groups. I will think that if it was just a support group i needed, i wouldnt dream of death. Neither of us will admit these things. And so, ill come back to school. Late on homework, i will have to prostrate myaelf with dictors note beggibg for forgiveness. I will get it, more due to policy than empathy, and at the end of the day, i will lay in bed, stare up at the ceiling, and contemplate which of my top three anchor spots would be the best ending to my story. Other than medical bills, nothing will have changed. Life drones on. I think i understand why death seems,so much better. In death, i can pretend there is a solution. In death, i can imagine a cure. In death, i can envision a caretaker and easier existence. It doesnt matter that death is the end of it all- i can pretend it willl be more, and my imagination can create many comforts in that void. But even death is a lie, and nothing will ever stop hurting.

#psychology #depression #inpatient #suicidal ideation #existentialism

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ships4you · 8 years ago

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drugged ♛ sherlock

I love how many Sherlock requests are coming in. The fandom is rising once again!!!!

Wanna request an imagine? Check out my prompt list here.

Requested made by: @deepestgalaxymilkshake

Characters: Sherlock/Reader

Genre: fluff

Warnings: innuendo

Prompt: “You’re seriously like a man-child.” | “Just shut up and kiss me.”

“(y/n).”

“(y/n)!!”

You slammed your book shut and stomped your way over to your whiny boyfriends bedroom. He had been recently drugged by ‘the woman’ and hasn’t been making much sense for the past couple of hours. “What is it darling?” You asked Sherlock with a hint of sarcasm in the tone of your voice. Sherlock hung off half the bed with his eyes still shut as if he were sleeping. He simply grunted instead of answering and pointed at his coat which was draped over the door.

You smirked and rolled your eyes, “Use your words Sherl.” He then mumbled softly, “Phone…” his finger still pointing at his coat. You sighed, “You are seriously like a man-child.” and grabbed the phone from his coat and handed it to him.

As he reached up to take it his body slowly began to slide off the bed. Noticing this, you immediately jumped into action; grabbing the upper part of his body and lifting it up onto the bed with a grunt. Before he could protest you sat, back to the headboard and placed Sherlock’s head on top of your lap. Then you handed him his phone, amused by his drugged state. You played with his curly black locks as he began to send a text.

To John:

you. you my freend. need milkk. we never hav mlk.

Shaking your head laughing you grabbed the phone from him and redid his text.

To: John

Sherlock says we need milk could you grab some while you’re out? -(y/i) (l/i)

You the set the phone on the counter and went back to petting his hair, “Have I ever told you how cute you are drugged. Don’t think of that as an invitation to start up drugs again.” Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned into your hand a bit more, “Hmm you’re the only drug I need darling.” Smiling, you brushed a piece of hair out of his face and watched him slowly fall asleep.

You were still in the same spot you were in 2 hours ago reading your book once again and Sherlock cuddled into your lap. John showed up a while ago, with the milk you requested and grabbed your book to distract you. You did enjoy watching Sherlock sleep. He’s usually just getting into bed way after you’re asleep and wakes up at least two hours before you. So seeing him actually sleep was extremely rare.

Sherlock began to open his eyes slowly and looked up at you. You moved your hand from your book to stroke his hair once more, “Good morning my love. How’d you sleep?” He then surprised you by quickly maneuvering you to lay down next to him. You were turned towards him and he nuzzled his way between your shoulder and the bed. You laughed, “Are we all sober yet?” Sherlock groaned, “Mmmmm no, getting there. I have a horrible headache.”

You rubbed your hands up and down his sides, “Well, John said that would happen, it’ll go away though. I think all you need is a distraction. I could read you my book, or we could watch the telly-” Sherlock cut you off by kissing you and flipping you onto your back. He pulled away for a brief moment and said, “Just shut up and kiss me.”

The next morning you were tired. You and Sherlock stayed up almost all night doing. Well, let’s just call them experiments. You stood hunched over the coffee maker desperately waiting for your coffee while John and Sherlock sat at the table. As they ate breakfast Mrs. Hudson walked into the room and plopped down in john’s chair, “Oh Sherlock you poor thing,” she said “you must’ve had such a horrid headache last night.” Sherlock shrugged keeping his eyes fixed on his newspaper.

John swallowed his bite of food before saying, “How’d you cure your headache”. You then picked up your coffee and quickly downed it, turning towards the living room. Sherlock set his paper down and smirked up at you, “Well (y/n) was a very good distraction. She kept me distracted all night.” You nearly choked on your coffee and Mrs. Hudson rose from the seat. “Oh my that’s my cue to leave.” As she left the flat you glanced at her through the kitchen door. She paused before going down the stairs turning you and gave you a thumbs up mouthing ‘Nice’.

#Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #sherlock imagine #sherlock x reader #Sherlock Holmes x Reader #sherlock holmes imagine #sherlock holmes x you #BBC imagine #sherlock bbc #bbc sherlock #bbc sherlock imagine #sherlock bbc imagine

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annaxkeating · 6 years ago

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Increase Your Landing Page Speed (By Stealing Our Homework)

If you’ve read Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report (and you really should), then you already know why speed is so important this year. Slow-loading landing pages have always been an obstacle to higher conversions, and now Google is punishing poor mobile load times in its search rankings. To be successful in 2019, we—marketers—need to be thinking fast. But are we?

To find out, we polled almost 400 marketers on their attitudes around page speed and asked what (if anything) they were doing to get faster.

Just 56% of marketers are happy with their mobile load times, according to the 2019 Page Speed Report.

Almost three of every four respondents said they had taken steps to improve their page speeds over the last year, and that’s pretty good. Alarmingly, though, only half of marketers we surveyed are satisfied with their load times on mobile.

So most marketers are trying to get faster, but many aren’t where they want to be. Which begs the question: what are people doing to speed up their landing page load times?

Computer, enhance!

Only 39% of marketers have bothered to find out how fast their pages are actually loading. Not great.

Here, we start to see why marketers are somewhat pessimistic about their page speed progress. Just over half have optimized their landing page images—ostensibly one of the simplest ways to speed up your load times—and even fewer have done any of the real technical-sounding things they need to get faster. (I mean, fair, they sound pretty boring to us, too.)

Here’s a doozy, though: just one in three marketers have run a website speed test to find out whether their load times are impacting their conversions. That’s the easiest one!

And hey, we get it. Marketers are being asked to do more than ever before, often with fewer resources. If you’re a small team (or a single person, the smallest of the teams), you might feel you don’t have the time or expertise to meaningfully improve your page speed.

But I’ve gone and done the hard work for you—me, a film school graduate who, until recently, believed that his Apple computer was impervious to viruses. (Hoo boy, it is not.) I’ve spent hours talking to Unbounce developers, reading how-to guides, and generally just bombarding my brain with the most dull, technical page speed information I could get ahold of. (Apologies to said developers.) And if I can get my head around it, there’s no excuse for the rest of you.

Below, I’ve simplified some of the most effective ways to increase your landing page loading times in a guide. For each fix, I’ve indicated the technical difficulty and the estimated time it’ll take, so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself in to. Use the table of contents below to jump to what’s relevant to you, or go ahead and do it all in order.

Jump to a Landing Page Speed Fix

How to Check Your Landing Page Speed

Run a Google Speed Test (5 Minutes)

Try the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer (5 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Easy Fixes

Reduce Your Page Content (15 Minutes)

Optimize Your Images (30 Minutes)

Host Your Videos Elsewhere (30 Minutes)

Audit Your Hosting Solution (30 Minutes)

Implement a CDN (30 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Intermediate Fixes

Minify HTML, JS, and CSS (15 Minutes)

Enable Browser Caching (15 Minutes)

Set Up GZIP Compression (15 Minutes)

Kill Needless Scripts and Plugins (30 Minutes)

Convert Images to Sprites (30 Minutes)

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Hard Fixes

Remove Render-Blocking JS and CSS (45 Minutes)

Start Hand-Coding with AMP

Final note: If you’ve built your page with Unbounce, you can skip a lot of this stuff—we make many speed fixes on the back-end automatically. In this post, look for the ‘Building Pages in Unbounce?‘ callout boxes to see if a given fix is something you need to implement.

Look for these callout boxes throughout this post to get Unbounce-specific tips and learn how we automatically optimize your landing pages to make them load super fast.

How to Check Your Landing Page Speed

First things first.

Before you throw on your hard hat and start hitting things with a hammer (both figuratively and literally), it’s important to have some idea of what’s working—and what’s not—on your landing page. That means running a speed audit.

It’s important to point out that, regardless of which speed test you use, you don’t want to get too hung up on your score. Achieving a perfect score is not always technically possible (and it might not even be desirable). Instead, use your results as a general guideline to improve page speed and implement the fixes that make sense for you.

Okay—let’s test them pages.

Run a Google Speed Test

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 5 Minutes

There are a bunch of great tools for testing your page speed, but why not start with the big dog itself? Google’s PageSpeed Insights is an awesome way to do a quick performance check-up with at-a-glance recommendations. (Ryan Engley, Unbounce’s VP of Product Marketing, explains how to interpret and act on your PageSpeed Insights results in this must-read blog post.) Then there’s Lighthouse, a newer tool from Google that provides a comprehensive analysis of your how your page presents to end users.

You’ll also want to run your page through Google’s Test My Site tool, which will check your speed from a mobile perspective.

Clicking on individual results in PageSpeed Insights will reveal your problematic page elements.

Running a Google speed test should only take a couple of minutes, and the results will help you identify some of the top opportunities to boost your landing page load times.

Try the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 5 Minutes

Running a speed test with Google should be your top priority, but PageSpeed Insights doesn’t give results tailored to landing pages. For that, you’ll want to run your page through the Unbounce Landing Page Analyzer, which not only provides feedback on page performance but includes a bunch of advice on creating more effective campaigns and kicking your conversions into overdrive.

Unbounce’s Landing Page Analyzer provides feedback on page speed, but also actionable advice on things like SEO, message match, and mobile-friendliness.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Then you’ll definitely want to give our Landing Page Analyzer a shot. Get best-practice recommendations for conversion optimization and see how your landing pages stack up against others in your industry.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Easy Fixes

With your results from both Google and Unbounce, you’ll be well-equipped to move onto the actual work of making your page perform better. It’s time to pick up that hammer.

These fixes should be simple enough for anyone to tackle, regardless of their technical expertise.

Reduce Your Page Content

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

We’ve marked this as an easy opportunity to increase your page speed, but it probably won’t feel like that when you start thinking about which elements on your page you can junk. Marketers love big hero shots, beautiful supporting imagery, and fun, animated explainer videos. But how much of that content is actually helping you drive conversions?

Visual content accounts for a huge portion of the size of an average web page—images account for over 20% of web page weight, as pointed out by Kinsta—and each element creates an HTTP request. That’s when your visitor’s browser pings your web server to request the files that make up the elements of your page. Too many calls can be a serious drag on your load time, so one of the simplest ways to improve your page speed is cutting down the number of elements you include.

Look at each piece of content on your page critically, then ask yourself: “Does this spark joy?” “Does this increase conversions?” If you don’t think there are pieces you can toss, try running an A/B test with a slimmed-down version of the page. The results might surprise you.

Bottom line: stick to the fundamentals of good landing page design and try to keep the number of elements (and thus HTTP requests) to a minimum.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We recommend that you keep things pretty lean, but we’d never remove content from your landing page. (Must resist… desire… to do best practices…) This is one optimization that you’ll have to tackle on your own.

Optimize Your Images

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Once you’ve trimmed some elements from your page, you’ll want to optimize the content that made the cut. Poor image optimization is the most common reason for slow page loads, especially for mobile visitors. Fortunately, it’s also one of the easiest issues to fix.

These are some quick tips for shrinking your images and improving your page speed. The goal here should be getting images at least under 800kb, but the smaller we can make them, the better.

Resize your images

It’s easy to chuck a larger image onto your page and rely on your content management system (CMS) to compress it to the appropriate size, but it’ll still be loading at least some of those extra pixels on the back end, and your visitors are going to feel it in the load. When you add an image, make sure it’s the same dimensions that your page will be rendering it.*

*This doesn’t necessarily apply to Unbounce’s retina image support—read up on that here.

Choose the right file type

Most people don’t think too much about the format of the image they’re uploading, but it can have a dramatic effect on page performance. The file types you’re probably most familiar with are JPEG and PNG—and, yes, there are differences.

JPEG is a ‘lossy’ format, which means it’ll lose some data during compression. That typically gives you a smaller file, but it can come at the expense of visual fidelity. Generally, images with significant color variation (say, photographs) perform better as JPEGs, and any dip in quality can usually go undetected.

PNG is ‘lossless,’ so the image’s appearance won’t change when resized, but it tends to make for larger files if there’s significant color variation. PNG is ideal for simple images with defined shapes, like those with text. Saving PNGs in 8-bit (rather than 24-bit, which has a broader color palette) can help shave off some extra bites.

Here are some optimization tips for JPEG and PNG (and GIF, that villain) from Google itself.

Use compression tools

Before your weigh-in, it’s good to run images through a final round of compression. There are plenty of image compression tools on WordPress, as well as some free, standalone ones like TinyPNG. These shrinky gizmos offer a simple way to cut down your image sizes without braving the cursed labyrinth that is Adobe’s export settings. (Hey, I’m a words guy.)

Your takeaways here are:

Ensure your image dimensions match how they’ll actually be displayed

Use JPEG when a slight dip in visual fidelity isn’t the end of the world (like photography), but PNG when it is (images with text and sharp lines)

Compress images to keep the file size as tiny as possible

If you want to take a deeper dive into image optimization, we recommend that you check out this post from Search Engine Land, which goes into detail on making images smaller while keeping them beautiful.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We’ve got you covered. Unbounce’s Auto Image Optimizer shrinks your images as soon as they’re uploaded so you can focus on making the best landing page possible.

Host Your Videos Elsewhere

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Why carry something yourself when you can make someone else carry it for you? That’s my motto for landing pages and life, and it’s why I’m no longer welcome on Unbounce’s company hiking trips.

Hosting videos on your own domain can be great for SEO purposes, but that’s not usually our goal with landing pages. We want everything to load in a flash and give our visitors the best chance to convert. Depending on your hosting solution, though, your videos might be slowing down your page speed, suffering from playback issues, and taking up an uncomfortable amount of server space.

Done properly, transferring videos to a third-party platform can shed some extra load time and help your pages render faster. Consider moving video content to Wistia, YouTube, or Vimeo, then using a light embed technique so that your videos only load heavier playback elements when your visitors actually click on them.

Building Pages in Unbounce? As a disclaimer: Using light embed codes with Unbounce (or any custom code, for that matter) will require some technical knowledge to implement and could, in rare cases, cause issues. Check out this Unbounce community post for more information.

Audit Your Hosting Solution

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

Loading speed isn’t just determined by what’s on your landing page. Your web host also has a major influence in how quickly your page rolls out to potential customers.

There are three common models for web hosting:

Shared hosting Generally the most affordable solution, shared hosting is when your website is hosted alongside other sites on a single web server. Everyone draws from common resources (like storage space and processing power), which means—you guessed it—you need to share.

Virtual private server (VPS) hosting This is essentially a mix of both shared and dedicated hosting. With VPS, your website still shares server space with others, but you’ll have dedicated resources that no one else can dip into. The result is more power and flexibility, but it tends to come with a higher price tag.

Dedicated hosting For those who’ve had a traumatic roommate experience (who hasn’t?), dedicated hosting means your website has the server all to itself. More resources, no sharing. That’s great if you’re heavy on digital content and get a ton of traffic, but dedicated hosting is also the most expensive option and requires the technical know-how to set up and maintain your server.

Low-volume websites can generally get by with the cost-effective shared solution, but once your traffic starts to rise, you might not be getting enough juice from your web host to deliver content quickly—and that’s when load times start to suffer. (Give this post from Search Engine Journal a read for a more comprehensive explanation.)

It’s also important to note that the whereabouts of your web server can have a significant impact on your page speed. If you’re not using a content delivery network (CDN; more on this below), you’ll want to make sure that traffic from foreign countries isn’t encountering too much latency.

Think your hosting solution might be impacting your page speed? Run your site through a server speed test like this one from Bitcatcha, and use WebPageTest or Pingdom to see how your quickly your landing page loads in other countries. Depending on the results, you might decide it’s time to upgrade your hosting plan (or change web hosts altogether).

Building Pages in Unbounce? You don’t have to worry about this one—Unbounce’s global hosting solution boasts 99.95% uptime and ensures that your landing pages always have the necessary resources to load super fast.

Implement a CDN

Difficulty: Easy / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

When your landing page gets a visitor, their web browser pings your server to get the content necessary to build out the page. Simple, right? Everyone downloads your website information from the same place, regardless of their location around the world. Well, that’s usually fine if the visitor is in or close to the country that your web server is located, but when they’re halfway around the globe, chances are they’re going to encounter some latency.

To avoid that, you should look into deploying a CDN, which caches your website across a network of data centers and proxy servers all over the planet. Say your own server is in the United States and someone from Lithuania is trying to visit your landing page. Instead of downloading your content from across the Atlantic, that visitor can pull a cached version from a server nearby.

Setting your website up with a CDN is pretty straightforward and—depending on your traffic—generally affordable. Here’s a list of some popular CDN providers from Mashable.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We’ve got five global data centers supporting the Unbounce CDN, which means your landing pages will load in a flash regardless of where they’re being accessed from.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Intermediate Fixes

These next speed fixes are a little trickier, but they should be manageable for marketers with a little technical know-how. Still, a mistake here could mean actual damage to your landing page.

Our recommendation? Do some research, make a backup, and—if you can—consult briefly with a developer on your team. It never hurts to have an experienced colleague to turn to if you get in over your head.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We talk a lot about WordPress through this next section. If you’re using our plugin to publish Unbounce landing pages to a WordPress domain, some of these recommended speed fixes can actually cause technical issues. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us for clarification if you’re ever unsure.

Minify HTML, CSS, and JS

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

All those lines of HTML, CSS, and JS code that make up your landing page? They’re packed with spaces, line breaks, and other bits of formatting that make it more legible and easier for us to interpret, but each makes your load time just an eensy bit slower—and the web browsers your visitors are using to render your page don’t particularly need them.

With minification, the goal is to cut out all of that extra junk and condense your code so that browsers can read it faster. Here’s an example snippet of Javascript code from Wikipedia:

var array = []; for (var i = 0; i < 20; i++) { array[i] = i; }

After minifying, that code would look something like this:

for(var a=[i=0];++i<20;a[i]=i);

There are plenty of free online tools that will do this for your landing page, like Minify Code, as well as a bunch of WordPress plugins. Be sure to check out this post from Elegant Themes, which is an awesome resource that dives into the many options at your disposal.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Do we minify? We practically invented minifying. (Editor’s note: We did not.) Unbounce compresses all of your code automatically, making your landing page as slim as can be. No coding your pages from scratch and no minifying that code in the background? We’re making this too easy for you.

Enable Browser Caching

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

The goal with any landing page should be getting prospects to convert the first time they visit, but the reality is that not everyone will. Sometimes, visitors will need some time to think about it: they’ll bounce, do more research, check out some competitors, then come back to your original offer. Browser caching ensures that when they return, your page will load even faster—and that’ll make them more likely to convert.

Not sure if you’ve already got caching enabled? Before you start, run a quick caching check using a tool like this one from GiftOfSpeed.

If your site is built on WordPress, enabling caching is as easy as adding a plugin.* (WordPress is almost too easy, huh?) Check out this list of caching plugins, most of which include quick instructions for getting set up.

*If you’re publishing Unbounce pages to a WordPress domain, these caching recommendations could create big problems. Check with us first.

For those not on WordPress, enabling browser caching on your own is pretty simple if you’re willing to get your hands dirty. For example, on Apache web servers, it comes down to inserting a little bit of code into the .htaccess file on your web host or server: <IfModule mod_expires.c> ExpiresActive On ExpiresByType image/jpg “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/gif “access 1 year” ExpiresByType image/png “access 1 year” ExpiresByType text/css “access 1 month” ExpiresByType text/html “access 1 month” ExpiresByType application/pdf “access 1 month” ExpiresByType text/x-javascript “access 1 month” ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access 1 month” ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access 1 year” ExpiresDefault “access 1 month” </IfModule>

This article from Varvy provides a great how-to, as does this one from WinningWP (which discusses enabling browser caching from a WordPress perspective but is applicable more broadly).

If all of this makes you nervous, there’s likely a simpler method for you to set up browser caching. Most web hosts will enable caching for you if you ask. Depending on your hosting solution, it might be as easy as making a phone call. (Although, now that I think about it, that might be more daunting for some of us.)

Building Pages in Unbounce? Seven-day browser caching is enabled on all Unbounce-built landing pages, so this is a speed fix you can comfortably skip. Maybe use this free time to treat yourself to some self-care? You’ve earned it.

Set Up GZIP Compression

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 15 Minutes

When a visitor reaches your landing page, their browser pings your web server to request the files that make up the page and the server transmits them back. Naturally, that process moves faster if the information being sent is compressed to be as small as possible. Here’s where GZIP compression comes in.

(You’ll want to check to see if GZIP compression is already enabled before you get started.)

As with browser caching, the difficulty of setting up GZIP compression is going to be determined by how your website was built. If you use WordPress, you’re in luck: many WordPress plugins will enable GZIP compression for you almost automatically. If you don’t use WordPress, well, we’re headed back into your server.

This article from GTmetrix provides a quick overview of the importance of GZIP compression and how to enable it. With Apache web servers, you’ll need to add this chunk of code to your .htaccess file. <IfModule mod_deflate.c> # Compress HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Text, XML and fonts AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rss+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/vnd.ms-fontobject AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-truetype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xhtml+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/opentype AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/otf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/ttf AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/x-icon AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/css AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/xml

# Remove browser bugs (only needed for really old browsers) BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html Header append Vary User-Agent </IfModule>

And again, if this is beyond your comfort zone, your web host will probably help you set up GZIP compression if you ask nicely.

Building Pages in Unbounce? You don’t have to ask us nicely, because we’ve already done it. All Unbounce landing pages are automatically compressed during data transfer. (But be nice to us anyway, alright?)

Kill Needless Scripts and Plugins

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

WordPress is wonderful in its simplicity. As we’ve seen throughout this article, page speed fixes that might require a front-end developer on a static website can often be achieved by simply installing a WordPress plugin. Want to enable browser caching? Boom, W3 Total Cache.* Need to minify your scripts? Pow, Autoptomize.* Developer, shmeveloper.

But because it’s so easy to add functionality through plugins, WordPress websites have a habit of collecting a lot of them—along with all the of the bits and bites of code that make them work. Those add up.

Take a look at the scripts and plugins you’ve added to your website and decide whether they’re essential to your visitor experience. If they’re not, junking them could help cut some extra seconds off of your load time. (And guess what? There’s a plugin for that.) You can also disable plugins one at a time, then retest your page speed to determine which ones are problematic.

*If you’re publishing Unbounce pages to a WordPress domain, these plugins in particular might start a fire.

Building Pages in Unbounce? This is more of WordPress fix, but it also applies to Unbounce customers that have inserted a bunch of custom scripts onto their landing pages. Learn how the Unbounce Script Manager helps you keep things tidy.

Convert Images to Sprites

Difficulty: Intermediate / Estimated Time: 30 Minutes

If your landing page includes a series of similar-sized images (say, for a client logo bar), you can shorten your load time by combining them into an image sprite, then use CSS to display specific chunks of that sprite at a time. This post from WebFX provides a great step-by-step guide for creating CSS sprites.

Joining smaller images into a larger file might seem counterintuitive, but again, the idea here is to reduce the number of HTTP requests on your page and ultimately make it faster. Each individual image requires its own call—combining images into a single CSS sprite means your page only needs to make one.

Building Pages in Unbounce? We don’t build CSS sprites for you, but you can certainly use them on your Unbounce-built landing pages. Check out our documentation on custom JS and CSS with Unbounce.

Improve Your Landing Page Speed: Hard Fixes

We’re into the scary stuff now.

These are fixes you should absolutely not attempt unless you know what you’re doing or you’ve consulted extensively with a front-end developer. (We even had one of the Unbounce devs fact-check this article, and we’ve never felt smaller.) Proceed with caution.

Remove Render-Blocking JS and CSS

Difficulty: Hard / Estimated Time: 45 Minutes

Those CSS and JS scripts that make your landing page beautiful and enable cool, dynamic functionality? They could be one of the major reasons that your page is loading so slowly. (Bad news for my flashing, neon visitor counter.)

When a web browser runs into CSS or JS in the head of your document, it’ll wait to download and process that content before continuing to render your page’s HTML. That might sound like a good thing from a user experience perspective—after all, we want people to see our landing page as it was intended—but it actually means that visitors can be left waiting on a blank screen while everything loads in the background.

To avoid this, we need to implement techniques for preventing render-blocking CSS and JS on our landing page. (Refer back to your Google PageSpeed Insights results to check if any scripts are slowing down your page load.)

Reduce render-blocking CSS

There are a couple of ways that we can neutralize render-blocking CSS. One option is to defer all CSS until after the HTML has loaded. That’ll certainly improve page speed, but it will also present non-styled content when the visitor first reaches our page. Not ideal.

The other, more preferable option is to defer most style rules until the HTML has been rendered, but inline the CSS necessary to correctly display content above the fold within the HTML. That way, visitors will see the properly-styled content as soon as they hit the page while the rest will load out of view. Pretty sneaky. This is a great tutorial using a real-life example from codeburst.io.

Another page speed opportunity for you here is combining your CSS files. By moving your style rules from several files to just one (or maybe two, tops), you can reduce the number of times that visitors need to ping your web server and improve your landing page load time. Here’s a good resource from GiftOfSpeed on combining and compressing you CSS scripts.

Eliminate render-blocking JS

Like CSS, JS scripts can prevent your landing page from rendering as quickly as you might like. We can avoid that by deploying the defer and async attributes. The former tells the browser to wait until your HTML is rendered before it begins pulling in JS scripts, while the latter asks that JS be downloaded simultaneously without interrupting the HTML download.

An important note is that not all JS scripts are equal: some are critical to the rendering of your page and need to be addressed right out of the gate, so they’ll have to stay at the top. Dareboost does a good job of explaining how to distinguish between critical and non-critical JS, as well as how to implement deferred and asynchronous loading.

Building Pages in Unbounce? Unbounce optimizes for most Google PageSpeed Insights recommendations, including the removal of render-blocking elements. That means you can skip this one.

Start Hand-Coding with AMP

Difficulty: Very Hard / Estimated Time: ∞ Hours

Alright, “∞ hours” is an overstatement, but implementing AMP is no small task. Developed by Google, the AMP project is an entirely new framework with which to build your web pages. The goal? Dramatically improve page speed, especially for mobile users.

AMP is made up of three core components: AMP HTML, AMP JS, and AMP Cache. That means you’ll need to learn new markup, as well as understand the framework well enough to get your landing pages validated and make sure they actually work.

We won’t get into the nitty-gritty of building with AMP here, but the AMP website has a bunch of resources (including tutorials) to help you get started.

Building Pages in Unbounce? No hand-coding AMP pages for you—Unbounce makes it easy to drag and drop together AMP experiences. Choose one of our AMP-optimized templates, load your content, get validated, and start publishing lightning-fast landing pages right away.

Improving your landing page speed can sound intimidating, but even small tweaks will make a big difference for your load times. Tackle the easy stuff first, then move onto more challenging fixes as you get comfortable. And above all, keep testing: seeing your improved speed results after each undertaking will give you the confidence and motivation to move forward.

Or, you know, just build with Unbounce. We automatically handle most of the speed fixes listed (or at least makes them super easy), which saves a ton of time. That means you can focus on what matters: getting more conversions and improving ROI.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/landing-pages/increase-landing-page-speed/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#digital marketing

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years ago

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Questions About Weddings, Roth IRAs, Shoes, Blankets, and More!

Whats inside? Here are the questions answered in todays reader mailbag, boiled down to summaries of five or fewer words. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question. 1. Thoughts on caring for parents 2. Wedding question, part one 3. Wedding question, part two 4. Starbucks Visa 5. Books on home buying 6. Frugal running shoes 7. Roth IRA contribution question 8. Roth IRA or bigger e-fund? 9. Unwanted Christmas toys 10. Marketing crocheted baby blankets 11. Where do I get advice? 12. Further areas of philosophy Here in Iowa, it felt like winter did not begin until about January 12th or so, but when it did, it hit with a vengeance, with many inches of snow and a forecast for the coming week that has wind chills at our home approaching -50F. When the weather gets that cold, it interferes with all kinds of things. You simply avoid going outside if at all possible, which means that As I write this, Im bundled up in multiple layers of clothing with a cup of hot tea on my desk. I feel quite good after getting up quite early to shovel snow. I dont bother running the snowblower unless we have several inches, as shoveling our drive of a few inches of snow is good exercise. On with the questions. Q1: Thoughts on caring for parents My wife and I are in our forties. We have two adult children that are moved out and on their own. Her parents are both in their late seventies; my parents have been deceased since I was 20. Her parents are ailing. Theyre not in a situation where they need to be in a retirement home, but household tasks wear them out. They live about an hour away and we visit them two or three times a week to help out, as do my wifes siblings. We have been talking about the possibility of having her parents move in with us to make things easier on all involved. We are actually set up very well with this, as we have a large main floor bedroom that could be used by them and a main floor bathroom with a shower that could be modified a bit to make it easy for them to use. Our main worry is that the other siblings will simply stop helping or visiting in any way and just assume were taking care of it. They really like the regular visits from their children and grandchildren and we worry that will all dry up if they move in with us. Our secondary worry is financial as it will add some household expenses. What are your thoughts on this? Shaun In general, if everyone is on board with this, I think multigenerational living is a great approach for everyone involved. The key to making it work is communication people cant hold back on their feelings or else you will turn every little molehill into a mountain. You have to listen to each other and genuinely try to be supportive of one another to the best of your ability. If you can do that, itll work well. As for your specific concerns, with your primary worry, one way to handle this is to just simply have regular family dinners at your house. Make it a routine to have people over for dinner a couple of times a week. I dont know whether your home can support this, but it sounds like it can. Doing this gives people a reason to visit and see your in-laws rather than just stopping by. Its usually easier to go visit a parent or a grandparent if you have a reason to do so; if its just stopping by, its easy to skip it. If theres a meal involved, it feels more like a reason to visit. So, if the move happens, just institute some regular meals. Maybe have a regular Sunday evening potluck or something like that, and maybe start inviting a few people over on weeknights on a regular basis. For the extra meal effort, dont hesitate to ask people to come early to help prep if needed or to bring a side dish in fact, thats a good idea, because it invests them in the meal and makes the visit feel more purposeful. As for the financial concern, talk that over with your in-laws. They will probably want to feel some ownership over the situation anyway. You can simply ask them to pay the energy bill and the internet bill or something like that, something that will partially replace their utility costs at their old place and possibly cut your overall bills, too. They can contribute to buying food, too. This can end up being a money saver for you, actually. The key with any situation like this is open communication and candor. Everything wont go perfectly and youll all do things that drive the other one crazy. Just be open about it and dont let it grow into hurt feelings. Understand that everyone loves each other and you all want to make this work. Q2: Wedding question, part one I have two wedding-related questions for the Reader Mailbag. One of my best friends is getting married, and has asked me to be a bridesmaid. We are in our mid-to-late 20s. She and her fiance make good incomes and come from fairly well-off families. My friend and I have pretty different approaches to our finances as she really enjoys going out, eating out, shopping, etc. Meanwhile, Im currently in grad school. My friends wedding will be at a swanky venue in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. (Note: its not a destination wedding, but I dont live there.) I expect everything about the wedding to be top-of-line. My friend wants all of her bridesmaids to purchase bridesmaids dresses together as a group from the same store, by the same deadline. The store stylist said that this guarantees that all of the dresses will come from the same dye lot. The dress that my friend chose for everyone to wear is $300. Its not that I dont have the money for this, but thats a lot of money! I found that same dress, used, in my size online. The used dress is significantly less money than the dresss retail price. I dont feel that dye lot matters much, but some online wedding forums warn against bridesmaids purchasing dresses piecemeal to avoid inconsistencies that may show up in the wedding photos. I would feel awkward asking my friend if I can order the dress on my own rather than as part of the group, because I feel like Id be ruining her expensive photos. Again, its not that I absolutely cant afford it, but it just seems so wasteful to spend hundreds of dollars on a dress when I can find it for so much less. Is this a time when I just need to suck it up and participate in the group order for the sake of maintaining social normalcy? I already feel bad because Im skipping the bachelorette party which is across the country, so I feel like Im the odd one out. Tammy If I were in your shoes, I would sit down and talk to your friend about the situation. Simply ask if it is okay for the bridesmaids to buy the dress on their own. If she asks why, simply explain the reason youre a graduate student, $300 is a lot of money, and you found the same dress in the same color for much less. The thing to remember is that if this causes a real issue, then there are issues in the friendship to begin with. A good friend appreciates the situation that their friend finds themselves in and works to find a way around it. A wedding is not made or broken on the dress worn by a bridesmaid. Just have a conversation. The vast majority of the time, this will be a non-issue. If it is an issue, its a valuable indication of the status of the friendship. Q3: Wedding question, part two Second, how much would you recommend spending for the wedding gift? I was thinking of something from the registry thats $100, but a lot of wedding etiquette sites say that if its a really good friend, you should be spending closer to $175. I dont want to seem cheap or send the message that I dont value her as a really good friend, especially when this is going to be a really nice/luxurious occasion. But theres also a shower gift to account for Tammy You should completely ignore wedding etiquette sites when they give an exact dollar amount for a gift, especially one as weirdly precise as $175. Thats just weird, bad advice. Give a thoughtful gift you can afford. Pick something from the registry that you can afford and then also write a nice handwritten note to go along with the gift expressing your best wishes for the couple in your own words with your best penmanship. Anyone who looks negatively upon a gift given to them is a person lacking in character. Gifts should always be given freely based upon what the giver can easily afford. Q4: Starbucks Visa As a Starbucks lover, is the Starbucks Visa worth it? How does it compare to popular cards like the Chase Freedom? Lana Well, lets walk through the hypothetical example given in their sales pitch. In that example, youre spending $525 a month for a year, $25 at Starbucks and $500 elsewhere, so that adds up to $6,300. Lets say you use the card for two years, so the total is $12,600. This earns you 64 rewards in the first year and 28 rewards the second year, totaling 92 rewards. A reward is a drink or food item at Starbucks and appears to be at least somewhat Starbucks choice. Lets assume these are worth an average of $4 each, so your total rewards are $368 in value. To get that reward, you also have to pay $100 in annual fees on the card. So, youre getting $268 in value, all in the form of Starbucks items that you largely cant select yourself. Thats a little over 2% in rewards in the form of food items that are probably good but you cant select yourself. Thats not really the best card deal out there, and its going to decline in value each additional year because you only get that big bonus the first year. I dont think this card is worth it unless you drink a lot of Starbucks, in which case you might want to rethink how much youre spending in coffee shops. Q5: Books on home buying Do you have any recommendations on books to read to learn about home-buying? My wife and I are planning to purchase this year. Jim My first recommendation for first-time homebuyers is Home Buying Kit for Dummies by Eric Tyson (seriously). Its an extremely good guide to what people should know about buying their first home, and Sarah and I read an earlier edition thoroughly when we were considering buying our current home. Ignore the for Dummies part its a really good guide. From there, Id hone in on which aspects of home buying arent crystal clear to you and read articles and find books to fill in gaps in your knowledge. If I had to pick a second book, Id probably look at 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask by Ilyce Glink. While its not as thorough as the Tyson book, it does delve nicely into specific areas of the home buying experience and can complement specific areas of the Tyson book well. Q6: Frugal running shoes For a new years resolution I followed your advice and started a resolution of running for 1 minute every day this year and running more if I feel like it but not required. Its been working great! I have been running about 20 minutes a day on average on warm days and at least running a block or two on the really cold days. I thankfully have a spot to run on snowy days. Anyway Im writing to ask for frugal advice on running shoes. I used to be a big spender back when I was running and bought expensive shoes constantly. I whipped my finances in shape during a time when I wasnt running for various reasons but now that Im back at it, I need to figure out a way to do this without spending $100-200 a month on shoes. Ideas? Tom Lets get this out of the way right now: I do not advocate anyone running in worn out shoes. You are begging for various physical problems by doing so. You should be replacing your shoes 300 to 500 miles or every 18 months, because the sole of the shoe simply wears down. Look at the bottom of the shoe and see if you see a lot of creases on the shoes bottom and theres significant discoloring thats a great sign of wear and you should probably get new ones. My recommendation is to find a good mid-cost model that really works well for you, buy a pair of them, and then stalk out bargains on that specific model. I have either personally liked or heard very good things about ASICS Gel Venture, Nike Revolution 4, and Adidas Cloudfoam, all of which are available under $50 a pair with ease, so try those. Once you have a sub-$50 pair you really like, just watch very closely for bargains on those shoes and buy multiple pairs at once if you find a really good deal. You can watch them on Amazon by using tools like Camel Camel Camel, for example. Q7: Roth IRA contribution question I decided to put some money that I got for Christmas from my wonderful generous grandparents into a Roth IRA. I opened one through Vanguard and went to deposit the money and they asked if it was a 2018 contribution or a 2019 contribution. Which should I choose? Not sure of the ramifications. Julie Since this is a new Roth IRA meaning you havent made any contributions to a Roth IRA in 2018, I assume and Im also assuming that (a) you havent filed your taxes for 2018 yet and (b) the amount youre contributing is less than $5,500, then you should make a 2018 contribution. Each year, youre allowed to contribute up to $5,500 to your Roth IRA starting in 2019, that limit goes up to $6,000. That window to contribute starts on January 1 of a given year and ends when you file your taxes for that year early in the following year. So, until you file your 2018 taxes (some time before mid April), you can still make a 2018 Roth IRA contribution, and you should do so because that window is about to close forever, plus it leaves the 2019 contribution window wide open. This is a great thing to be doing with a gift from grandparents, by the way. While they might want you to do something fun with that money, if you told them that you put it aside for your future, theyll be proud of you and for good reason. Heres another good Roth IRA question. Q8: Roth IRA or bigger e-fund? I have about $3,000 in an emergency fund which would be enough to get by for about two months. I am single with a 7 year old daughter. I have about $1,000 surplus in checking. Should I add to the emergency fund or add to my Roth? Nowhere near contribution limits for the year. Amy First of all, I want to say that I am in awe of what youre pulling off here. Youre a single mother who not only has a healthy emergency fund, but is also concerned about saving for retirement. You are on the ball and deserve kudos for that. Second, two months of living expenses is a good healthy emergency fund. If I were in your shoes, I would probably make the Roth contribution with most of the surplus, leaving a little behind in checking as a buffer. Then, I would set up an automatic transfer from checking to savings each week $10 or $15 or $20 should do. This way, your emergency fund automatically grows slowly over time and if you have to tap it, you know its going to refill over time with no further effort. So, Id probably contribute around $750 to the Roth IRA, then Id set up a $20 per week automatic transfer into my emergency fund going forward. Q9: Unwanted Christmas toys My kids receive an absurd number of gifts for Christmas each year. For the last few years, my husband and I have actually removed a few items from their pile that they were less interested in and put them aside to see if they remember them and if not we quietly sell them and put the money in their 529. We figure the gifts were unwanted. This past weekend my sister came over and mentioned the toy she had bought for our middle child. It was one he had overlooked and we had put in storage in the garage. We hadnt sold it yet. He wanted it so we dug it out and gave it to him. My sister was obviously curious as to what the deal was and we explained it to her and she got really mad at us and called us thieves. What are your thoughts? Jason I honestly dont see anything too wrong with your approach. Youre putting the gifts that your children arent interested in aside for a while, giving it some time in case they do think about them, and then if they dont, you sell them off and put the money aside for their college education. Its not as if youre stealing their toys or anything youre just turning the ones they dont want into something that will help them for life. Your sisters response might have had something to do with the fact that she apparently put a lot of thought into the gift and your child wasnt interested in the gift, which hurt her feelings. Her feelings were probably hurt even worse when she found out you were going to sell it unopened. This is one of those situations where you should just give it a little time and talk about it when the situation is less raw. I think your sister will see the sense in what youre doing. Q10: Marketing crocheted baby blankets In late 2018, three extended family members had babies so I crocheted a blanket for each one. The recipients seemed to genuinely love them and two suggested that I try to sell them. I enjoy making them but I dont even know where to start. Carrie My honest suggestion is that you throw out the suggestion to your social network. Post it on social media along with a picture or two of the baby blankets and say that youre willing to make them for baby shower or birth gifts. State your price and the dimensions and what kind of customization options you offer. Im honestly not sure what to charge for the blankets. Thats something you would be much better at assessing than I am. My suggestion would be to go relatively low in price at first cover the price of the yarn and make a little for yourself, but not a mint and then raise it if your blankets become popular. You might also consider an Etsy account in order to sell your wares. Q11: Where do I get advice? You give so much great advice! Where do you go when you need advice? Jenna When Im in a situation where I dont know what to do, I usually write it all out. Im a huge proponent of doing three morning pages, which is a journaling technique where you sit down each morning and just brain dump three pages of writing in a blank journal. I try really hard to do that every day, and it often turns into a forum for me to take a problem in my life and turn it over thoroughly with pros and cons. I usually need to really understand a problem first before I can look for meaningful advice on it. Quite often, this process will make the solution to my problem screamingly obvious. The next step, if journaling doesnt give me an answer, is always to talk to my wife, even if the advice I need involves her. We communicate with each other a lot not a day goes by without a few meaningful conversations. Sarah is my primary source for advice on everything. If Im still unsure, I usually go to the library and try to research ideas on my own. I tend to trust expert advice from books, where the reasoning behind the advice is usually laid out and I can see how that advice applies to my life. If Im still unsure, I usually talk to a few people in my life that I really trust. I have a few mentors in the community. I really trust and value the views of my parents and my wifes parents and my sister-in-law. I talk to them next. If Im still not sure what to do, Ill go talk to a professional in that particular field, but its very rare that I get to this point. Q12: Further areas of philosophy I have been enjoying your semi-regular series of Saturday articles about how different schools of philosophy provide personal finance guidance. What areas are you planning to cover in the future? Dane So far, Ive covered stoicism, Epicureanism, Aristotleanism, and secular Buddhism, for those interested. Danes note actually came in before the last one was posted. Going forward, I definitely want to write an article on transcendentalism, which Ive touched on indirectly several times. This would cover Emerson and Thoreau (who I hold in very high regard), among others. I can see a useful article on utilitarianism at some point. I want to read more about various Eastern schools of philosophy which, outside of secular Buddhism and a few others, I know little. Beyond that, it really depends on where my reading takes me. I love reading philosophy, particularly those with a practical angle that provides insights on how to live, and I find that most such schools of thought that deal with the practical in some fashion have a lot of application to personal finance. Got any questions? The best way to ask is to follow me on Facebook and ask questions directly there. Ill attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive many, many questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours. https://www.thesimpledollar.com/questions-about-weddings-roth-iras-shoes-blankets-and-more/

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