#so now I guess the one thing that all Cisco's love interests have in common is that they're women

[icedteaandoldlace]

I was gonna make a silly little post about how the one thing all of Cisco's love interests have in common is leather jackets, and I was gonna include pictures of them all wearing them for examples, but when I went to pull up a screencap of this fabulous jacket, which lives in my mind rent free,

looking at it more closely, I realized

it's not leather.

Neither is this one.

Or this one.

Lisa, Kendra, Cynthia, and even Bette are all leather jacket gals, but Kamilla's the odd woman out. All her jackets that look like leather at a glance are made of a different kind of material. I already noticed with this scene that there are a bunch of girls in the bar wearing leather, but the one who isn't is the one who catches Cisco's attention. And it's just the smallest thing, but I love it, because he deviates from his type with her in more ways than one, and it's like he's either consciously or subconsciously looking for something different this time around.

[fezwearingjellybananas]

Tagged by the always lovely @annnesbonny, thank you

How many works do you have on AO3?

172

What’s your total AO3 word count?

866,426 words which is quite a few. I'm currently trying to see if I can hit a million by the end of next year but it's not so much a set goal as it is a game I'm playing with myself

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

There's mostly DCTV ones (mostly Flash but they can all be grouped as one thing), MCU and Agents of SHIELD, Doctor Who, a couple of The Adventure Zone ones, there's one Justice League 2017 film one and a few Flash Comics ones which are both more DC, a Good Omens one, Sherlock, one Librarians which is actually in a fic collection not tagged with Librarians because it was only the one fic out of all of them, I did write Harry Potter and Merlin and one Percy Jackson once way back when on FFN but they didn't make it over to AO3, so I think 13 unless you put all the DC and Marvel things together?

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Crossed Wires (DCTV, Barry/Eddie, I wrote this one in an hour after getting stuck for days trying to come up with something to fit the prompt)

Mis-sent (DCTV, Barry/Cisco, also a prompt fill for a ship week, it's a wrong number/college AU texting fic, figuring out the format was interesting)

"Just sleep in my damn shirt" (DCTV, Barry/Eddie, this was a prompt fill that didn't even get a proper title?)

Milk and Sugar (DCTV, Iris/Caitlin, this turned into a very long series, it was an accident but is also my little baby)

Flash Red; Vibe Blue (DCTV, Barry/Cisco, this remains the only fic I have stopped writing halfway through so I could run to Tesco, buy yeast, and bake bread because I was writing about baking bread and couldn't think of anything else until I had a bowl sitting in the airing cupboard. I made bread multiple times because of this fic.)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do, I don't always know what to say, I often feel like I'm bad with words and knowing what to say to people, but I very much appreciate the comments so I do want to thank people at least

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Ashes to Ashes, it's the end of Inifinty War/very beginning of Endgame fic for the Marvellous Ladies of DC AU so there's a lot of character death (but it'll get better later)

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven't for a while but I have, the Percy Jackson fic was a crossover with Doctor Who where Rory Williams ends up helping various Roman demigods during his two thousand years hanging around as a plastic Roman but that was just on FFN and I don't think I still have it saved. I forgot the Star Wars/MCU one (that makes 14 fandoms total, and was also only on FFN) which was Mace Windu's lightsaber poked him in the eye as he fell out the window after being zapped by Palpatine and he fell into a portal and became Nick Fury which was inspired by a conversation with my brother

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I had a few "constructive critisim" comments that were just critisisms which is why I don't think I have anything on the FFN account anymore. I panicked.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do not, smut is not my thing.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone asked once but I didn't hear anything after that so I don't know if they finished it or not

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

The Marvellous Ladies of DC mentioned above is a collaborative AU with @agentmarymargaretskitz

What’s your all time favourite ship?

I guess Westallen? That's the one that most commonly tends to slip in in other fics, and I do enjoy other ships featuring Iris and Barry seperately but also sometimes that just turns into poly with Iris and Barry together again

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have had a Cynco role reversal featuring comic stuff too in the to write folder for so long that could be a long fic but keeps being put behind other things and not written so I might just stick what I have up in the AU Snippets collection

What are your writing strengths?

I have had some compliments on bits of dialogue recently which was nice

What are your writing weaknesses?

Spelling. I think I might need to work on descriptions more, I often feel like I mostly write dialogue and need more of the inbetween bits.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it depends? Suddenly switching languages can be quite jarring when you're reading, especially when it's to a languge you don't know and there are no translations so for something like that when the POV character is speaking in another language they're fluent in I would probably write in English and use the descriptor tag to note it's in another language, but if it's someone else speaking another language and the POV character isn't fluent I might use the jarring switch intentionally? If they understand some then you can incorporate translations into the text because they're going to be trying to translate what's being said either aloud or in their head and they probably will miss out bits of the conversation and misunderstand so having the character (and the reader) missing part of the information is kind of the point? And little bits, nicknames, the odd word, swearing in French so the pardon my French is used literally and using it to drop this other character actually speaks French too, that's fine, it's just the big paragraphs switching.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

It was a Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover (because I got into fanfiction because my friend sent me several to read) and I panicked about publishing it for months. I did not tell that friend I had published any fics.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I feel bad picking favourites, but I did enjoy writing Ghosting which is a DCTV Cisco/Hartley fic, that was for the Hartmon Halloween event and was different to what I usually write so was fun to play around with and see what works and what doesn't (and considering I started by saying "I'll do no research for this because they also don't know what's going on" I ended up reading a lot about plastering), and I had some really lovely comments on Ghosting which did all make me cry a lot.

The Milk and Sugar 'verse is possibly cheating because it's a series but I was working on that for a long time so I think I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for that one (and it gave me an excuse to read so much science, that series has sources). The Superhero in the Bath, The Night Shift, and Flash Red; Vibe Blue (all DCTV Barry/Cisco) were fun to write too, The Superhero in the Bath has one of my favourite openings, The Night Shift's literal kiss of life is probably my favourite kiss I've written (and my favourite "can I count this as a pun or not" bit), and the bread I made while writing Flash Red; Vibe Blue tasted good too, the recipe was on the yeast pot, it's my go to bread recipe now, it lives in my head. Outfits (DC, Hal/Barry/Iris) was for the DC Poly Week and was my favourite out of those prompts because it was just a little bit of fluff (fun fact about the DC Poly week, 4 out of 7 are Hal/Barry/Iris fics, if you read it as one 'verse it's snippets of their relationship in reverse order), Museum Visits (DC, gen featuring Barry, Iris, and a tiny Wally) was just short and sweet, Double Back (DCTV, gen from the Flash & Hawkgirl series which is Iris/Kendra with a side Barry/Cisco) was really fun to write (the whole series is but that fic is based on Flashback which is one of my favourite episodes) and Vibe and the Flash (DCTV, gen from the Tess Lives AU which features Barry/Iris) had a bit that wasn't planned but showed up while I was writing and I'm so glad it did (the thing those two have in common is I guess I enjoy writing Eobard Thawne being a dick), I really don't think I can pick one favourite, I think, even if there are hard points and some are from a while ago and I would probably do differently now, I've enjoyed writing everything I've written, it's why I wrote them.

Tagging @agentmarymargaretskitz, @starstruckpurpledragon, @incendiaglacies, and @squireofgeekdom if you would like?

[cartoonfangirl1218]

Love in a Fiery Place or Hot and Bothered

Summery: Lisa tries matchmaking. Never let her matchmake. See my (shamlessly self promoted) other fic, Just like Fire, for who the heck Volcana is.

It's been months since Lisa had seen her brother or Mick ever since they went on their time travel, earth saving mission and she was bored.

Sure she had pulled off her share of heists and gone on a few dates with her favorite, babbling engineer but jewelry and sex had it's perks for so long. Especially with Cisco having a job.

She really needed a hobby, but one evening after too much beer and watching Love Actually on Netflix she thought of a brillant idea.

Matchmaking! 

She could matchmake someone she knew and watch them act all blushy and idiotic. It would be definitely entertaining.

She could match up her brother, but Lenny would never go for it. Besides she couldn't exactly see her brother in an attractive way. The guy made cold puns and read Kant during his spare time. Who would go for such a nerd like that!

But Mick. Mick was an equally challenging prospect with his unhealthy obsession with fire, alcoholic tendencies and general unpredictablness. But there were lots of the pyros in the world, she just had to find one who would be willing to date him.

Unfortunately that was a lot harder than she thought.

After checking most dating sites, she found that most Pharos were either dead, in jail, old or jailbait or that they weren't super into it. Just a few trash can fires.

She needed someone who would be just as willing to burn a building down.

So she had to up the search a notch. And what better way was to hack into S.T.A.R. Labs. More specifically, Cisco accessing into S.T.A.R. Labs.

"Please..." Lisa pouted. 

"No no no. I'm not helping you find MICK of all people a date,” Cisco protested.

"Why not? Don't you believe in love conquers all? You redeemed me,” Lisa purred. 

"Hardly." Cisco snorted. 

"Very true, my corrupt little scientist," Lisa smiled, leaning over his chair and basically falling into his lap. "But love could get him off the crime paths he's been on.” 

"Then he can fall in love with a psychiatrist. Putting him with another pyro will only cause more crime." Cisco stammered as Lisa caressed his long hair

"Pyros can handle pyros. Psychiatrists are suicidal and it won't do any good if the girl dies of fear after two dates." Lisa pouted again, bringing her lips closer to his, ending with a nice smoldering kiss.

Plus three more after that.

"Umm what we're talking about?" Cisco asked dazedly coming up for air

"Files. I'm not going to let this go Cisco. I always get what I want,”  Lisa smirked

Cisco paused, "If I do this, I'M choosing the movie and the restaurant for our date."

"Fine! We'll go to that disco bar." Lisa rolled her eyes.

"Alright!" Cisco started humming Bees Gees as he typed away on the computer for pyro meta criminals.

"There's none. That's impossible. There really aren't ANY pyros in Central City besides Mick?l Lisa cried

"Guess they didn't want to steal his gimmick," Cisco shrugged, looking relieved

"Do you think there are any in the Starling city?" She asked "Don't know, it's more mercenary and assassins then metas." He answered

"Maybe there are fire aliens?" Lisa thought out-loud, 

"Only Earth 3,” Cisco shook his head.

"Earth Three?" Lisa froze. 

"Shit!” Cisco eyes widened "No, no, no. That's just some crazy dream I had. There's no such thing as Earth Three is like there being Earth Two. Totally stupid" Cisco babbled

"Take me." Lisa demanded Cisco started taking off his shirt.

"I like how your mind works. But no. Take me to Earth Three. Tell me all about it. Are there really such things as fire aliens?" Cisco groaned

"I'll do it myself. You know I will. So you can come help or I'll trash this place doing it myself" Lisa insisted

"We are so lucky that Caitlin and Flash are out today" Cisco groaned again "Yaaas"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They had entered to Earth Three just as Supergirl finished saving a bus full of children. Once the reporters left, Cisco introduced himself and her as friends of the Flash. Lisa explained her mission to help Mick find love. 

Supergirl had been just as convinced as Cisco at the idea that love redeems but with a lot of wheedling and encouragement about second chances, Supergirl had allowed the idea of helping them.

"I think I know the girl perfect for Mick" Supergirl explained enthusiastically as they walked to the government building, DEO. "Claire Selton, code name Volcana. Born with pyrokenesis and trained to be a weapon by the government. She went rouge on them and used her powers to steal and cause crime. Superman had to put her on a deserted island in hopes not to harm any more civilians. But stay here. I'll be back soon." She left them in a plain white room, suitable for a noir style interrogation scene and waited. Five minutes later, Supergirl was back with a young thirty year old. The girl in question had long flaming orange hair that reached to her ankles in a messy braid. Her tan skin glowed brightly against her white bikini, her ambers eyes sparked with confusion and annoyance.

"No" Claire hissed, sitting down on the table. Lisa noted with pleasure that the metal table steamed and let out drifts of smoke when Claire touched it.

"No what?" Cisco asked.  "Supey told me what you want. My answer is no. I am not going to a totally different Earth for a guy I never even met. What is this? 1689? Supergirl take me back to the island I am missing my afternoon tanning" she demanded. "Oh oh well that's understandable but did Supergirl mention that this guy has a heat gun that radiates about 220 tons of fire power in a single shot" Lisa rattled off.  "It's 225 tons of fire power btw. Plus how many guys here can say they burned a house for the sake of watching it burn" Cisco added.  "And he's been practicing flame swallowing,” Lisa added.  "Claire.." Supergirl started calmly.  "It's Volcana to you.” Claire scowled.

"Volcana. You're not going to get married to him. Just one date and if you don't like it you can come back here. Besides aren't you tired of being alone in your little island?"

"I wouldn't be there if it weren't for you!" Volcana shot back.

"You were hurting innocent people!" Supergirl retorted.

"Well those "innocent people" we're hurting me. I didn't want to be a weapon but you all treat me like a bad guy because I am what I am.” Volcana ranted, flames suddenly burst from her hands.

Lisa and Cisco jumped back and Supergirl put on a defensive stance.  "And he will love you for it" Lisa put in.

"We have a lot of metas. They get what it's like to be used for their powers. Now Mick will get you even more because he understands how pretty the flames are. It doesn't have to be a date, just two adults talking, fellow pyro to pyro." Cisco said

Claire glared at them in silence, contemplating. "Fine, only for the sake of watching something burn."

The three nodded eagerly at each other. --------------------------------------------------------------- Claire changed into a more appropriate outfit of red leather top and black leather pants with combat boots as they left Smallville.

"Good luck," Supergirl gave a tentative thumbs up and left.

As the three went through the portal, Lisa interrogated Claire and was pleased to find out that she and Mick had a lot in common. Love of alcohol, way too graphic descriptions of explosions and fiery deaths, and had no filter when it came to humor.

"They are practically soul mates!" Lisa whispered giddily in Cisco's ear as they left the Earth One S.T.A.R. labs to Mick's abandoned apartment.

"Oh joy," Cisco muttered sarcastically. --------------------------------------------------------- Cisco had left immediately, stating he didn't want there as a witnesses for future villainy. 

Lisa settled Claire to the guest room of the apartment and waited for the boys to arrive. Claire had gotten bored so she sat down, turned on the oven and stared. Another pastime she shared with Mick. Lisa swore her face was going to break open if she smiled anymore. 

Oh this was going to be so good, and if it ended badly damn it was going to be more entertaining than the firework bomb Mick had set up for April Fool's Day. Leonard and Mick arrived at 7 pm. They didn't say anything about where they had been, they were just so exhausted and about to fall asleep but Lisa insisted on keeping Mick awake, slapping his cheek the whole time as he walked to the kitchen. 

"What do you want?" Mick scowled, shoving her hand away from his face.  "I'm about to change your life, Mick this is Claire" Lisa introduced "Claire this is Mick.” 

Leonard gave a questioning look to her but she just grinned. 

"Oh you gotta be kidding me. Look however she suckered you into this I'm not interested. Leave." Mick instructed Claire.

"Aren't you a charmer? I've seen midgets more handsome than you" Claire spat. 

"She's a pyro. Claire, show him" Lisa said.  Claire sighed but showed off anyway by blowing a kiss as her hand spouted fire like a dragon. "Where's smoke, there's flame. That's me. Volcana" Mick just stared in awe. 

"Heatwave" he lifted the gun from his belt, "Do that again, I need to try something.” 

Volcana complied, Mick shot his gun at the same time and it set the table on fire, and quickly spread to the oven. 

"Holy Shit!" Lisa screeched and grabbed the fire extinguisher taped to the door for emergencies like this, spraying it everywhere. 

"What the hell are you two doing" Leonard yelled but the two heat villains ignored. 

"Volcana huh?" Mick grinned maniacally, leaning against the charred table. "I like your heat gun. Sure could have used it on those cold Metropolis nights" Volcana flirted back, staring up at Mick. "I'll leave you to it. C'mon Lenny," Lisa shoved Leonard out the door. When she stopped by the apartment to drop off a six pack and to get her golden bra for her date with Cisco, she saw the living room an absolute mess with scorch marks in random places, a torched smoke detector on the ground, pile of clothes and the smell of smoke in Mick's room. 

She was good. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following weeks just reeked of success. Claire stopped by the apartment regularly. There was a new headline everyday as the couple started fires and explosions around Central City for their dates, and Lisa had overheard their nicknames for each other. Fireball and Spitfire. 

Since it went so well she was even thinking of setting up the other Rogues like Trickster II. Maybe with some Metahumans that Cisco watched like Peek a Boo. She was once again considering setting up her brother but she had pick pocketed his phone earlier and saw that he seemed to have sort of "thing" with White Canary from his Legends team. Which prompted her to stalk any information about Sara. Purely for research, not that she wasn't worried about him getting hurt. Please Len was way too cautious for that to happen. 

At the same time the success of her match had come with a price. Due to their fire kink, the two had burned Mick's room, her room, the guest room, the living room and the kitchen was beyond repair. 

She had to crash at Cisco's place which was nice, but Leonard came also because his cold gun was in the threat of being torched at any second. Nor could he get any piece of quiet with the all the fire puns. "Not fun to hear them," Lisa taunted. 

"That's different. Mine are clever. Theirs are just about fire and sex. Some things I do NOT need to know about my partner." "Thanks for the nightmares," Lisa sighed as a "lovely" mental image entered her head. With them crashing at Cisco's place, Leonard resigned to glaring from the love seat while she and Cisco were on the couch. It was not helping date night. So it was up to her to save the apartment. 

She had entered the apartment expecting another scene of quite literal hot love but found more burning rage.

"You are weak!!!" Claire screamed, "You don't even have pyrokensis you just have a gun huh. I can start a fire whenever I want! You are nothing!" "You're just a hypocrite! Oh the government just wanted to use me" Mick mocked with a falsetto "Screw that. You're just as selfish as me. You just use your powers for petty thief but you could be better, so YOU ARE WEAK!" 

"You have nothing. No brains, no strength and yet you think the world would bow to your awesomeness. And you are the most impulsive idiot I ever met. You just forge along with no regard for logic or what we are suppose to be doing on our date. Honestly what am I suppose to do with you, tell me!" "You think you're so hot. Well I'm hotter, hotter than Cold." Mick sneered.

"I thought you didn't care about that!" Claire protested.

"In the middle of sex, yeah I do." Mick retorted.  "Well the TV was on, I happened to mention he was cute get over it!" 

Lisa cringed, ewwww!

"You also said the same about the police officer, Scarlet, the bartender..." 

"You are just jealous." Claire scoffed.

"JEALOUS! I'll freeze your ass in a place where fires die!" A loud crash sounded through the apartment followed by a explosion. 

Lisa scrambled out of the apartment and never looked back. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- After that incident, Lisa rationalize it was a natural lovers quarrel and that the two would work it out, therefore there was no need to tell anyone. That because of her honest assumption it was a lover's quarrel or her pride not letting her admit that her match might not have been as successful, it was up to anyone's guess but a phone call three days later confirmed the worst case scenario. 

It was the middle of the day and Lisa was online shopping using the money she stole from a heist earlier that month when Cisco called.

"Lisa, have Mick and Claire been having any trouble that you know of? Any that you feel like warning us about?" Cisco asked, calmly with a slight edge that gave Lisa a sinking feeling. Best to play it dumb.

"Uh just some spats but you know. Couples fight, they fight. Why do you ask?" Lisa chirped. 

"Well you should know that you're little pet project has gone up in flames." Lisa rolled her eyes. Wonder how long he was waiting to use that pun? "Heatwave was stealing from the Central City bank when Volcana stopped by, something about how "she was better than him" and was trying to one-up his heist. Thankfully we were able subdue them both. Mick's back with the Legends and Claire was sent back to Earth Three. No one knows she came from Earth Three except you, me and the Flash. You and I are the only ones that know how she actually got here." 

"All's well that ends well," Lisa weakly smiled.  She could just feel him glare through the phone. "We're going to talk when I get home." ---------------------------------------------------------------- "So what are we not doing?" Cisco asked pacing in front of her as she sat on his couch. 

"Match making Mick with a pyro." Lisa muttered.  "And...." 

"Match making Mick with anyone." 

"And...." 

"Match making in general." "Ever.” Cisco said.  "Ever," Lisa repeated. 

[lostsoulobsidian]

Since Brandon McKnight (Chester) and Kayla Compton (Allegra) have been both promoted to regulars for Season 7, I expect the creators will do it also with Natalie Dreyfuss. I guess it's too soon to announce it (as Sue's character has only appeared once in the show so far), but I really expect it to happen before S6 ends. Otherwise, I would be extremely disappointed. 

I've got nothing against Chester & Allegra characters, I just don't find them interesting (personal opinion of course, I know they both have fans and I respect that), and I wouldn't like having to see them in each episode whereas I would got to see Sue only in some of them if she has just a recurring role. 

S7 NEEDS to have Sue as a regular. Her presence would be a booster to the show, and not only for her (hopefully) blooming relationship with Ralph (new romance storyline, UST, fiery chemistry between two characters, maybe both too stubborn to admit their feelings towards each other?, like in that Moonlighting show from the 80's starring a young Bruce Willis) - it would be a 'new romance' thrilling storyline, a bit different than we've used to see in Westallen, also because both couples have different personalities and dynamics.

But it would be interesting also seeing what Sue can add to the rest of the characters, even if she's not a member of Team Flash but just Team Citizen: new backgrounds & adventures (she comes from a wealthy environment but knows the criminal underworld) and, now we've known her, I bet her interactions with TF members would be awesome to watch. In comics she and Iris are quite good friends. Imagine seeing them together in the show. Those two alpha females' friendship would be worth seeing! 

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not saying there are characters better than others and I’m actually happy for Brandon & Kayla, both have a lot of talent and they sure work a lot for playing their characters (though I don’t especially enjoy them, but it’s a matter of my taste, or maybe I don’t find their storylines/writing appealing - not attacking their work). I'm just saying that, now that Chester and Allegra are regular characters, Sue deserves to be promoted to regular too. Because she's a classic comic character, because she has so much to add to the show, because she and Ralph's relationship needs screen time to develop in a plausible, enjoyable way before S7 ends (especially seeing that S7 could be the last one of the show), and because she's a great character and I crave to see more of her. And I know I'm not the only one.

EDIT: A couple of final words about the subject, after watching some videos about these news:

1) I get that I'm everything but objective, being myself a devoted Elongsue shipper, but Elongsue ship isn't just about romance. It's about mystery, action, comedy... but with all by two characters that happen to be a couple in love. But I would totally watch their dynamics even if I didn't ship Elongsue, or if they were two people of the same gender, just friends or relatives. 

And I'd prefer seeing this kind of adventures (no matter who are performing them) than seeing Cecile giving advice to Chester about seducing that Jitters waitress; or Frost giving advice to Allegra about making peace with an ex, to name a couple Chester & Allegra storylines that I found uninteresting.

2) I've seen people commenting that Chester's inclusion is in order to replace Cisco, now that there are again rumors about Carlos Valdes is leaving the show. I don't think it's a good strategy. I know Cisco and Chester have some points in common - the tech-science thing, the comedy, the popular culture references; but it would be a mistake trying to make Chester 'the new Cisco'. NOBODY could replace Cisco. He's one of the most popular Flash characters (maybe the 2nd one, after Barry?) and trying to replace him with Chester won't do any favour to Brandon McKnight character.  

[ultrahpfanblog]

My thoughts on Crisis on Infinite Earths

Having been under Quarantine, I had the opportunity to watch the COIE crossover all over again in my free time. I loved it the first time around when it had first aired. Having rewatched it, while I still enjoy it a lot, its definitely not as smooth of a crossover as say Crisis on Earth X. I think its evident that the vision outweighed the CW’s grasp and budget and I can sympathize.

I think the first two episodes are fairly clunky. The Supergirl episode has a lot of good stuff. Loved things like the scene between Kara and Clark at the balcony, the scene with Sara and alternate Oliver, scene between Oliver and Mia, Oliver’s death scene, but there is also some clunky stuff. For one, was I the only one who found Jesse Rath strangely annoying as Brainy. I have seen him in the role on Supergirl but it was as if he was just hamming it up like crazy, over enunciating everything. It was rather grating. While I did enjoy the scene between Sara and alternate Oliver, it doesn’t really add much to the story, a common complaint with the crossover in general. I guess its supposed to show Sara as someone who embraced her destiny and therefore be the Paragon of destiny, but it eats up a decent amount of screen time and there was probably another way to do it. Also, as a Flash fan, its a little frustrating to see Barry get shortchanged in the first two episodes given he is the one who has set up Crisis for years now.

The Batwoman episode is maybe my least favorite because not a lot of consequence actually happens. I think this is the most fan servicy of the episodes with more cameos. Tom Welling’s cameo is a fun one because his frustrated reactions were a fun one. I didn’t mind the fact that he gave up his powers because he had canonically at least been Superman for over 10 years, likely more. The Kevin Conroy cameo doesn’t completely work even though hearing his deep baritone is a joy as a BTAS fan. But we don’t get enough of an understanding of why he is the way he is and his death is kind of poorly executed. And the whole interaction really doesn’t given a proper understanding as to why Kate is the Paragon of courage. The Kate and Kara dynamic is pretty fun, but its kind of tainted now given everything that has happened with Batwoman because we will likely never see it again. Then there is the substory of reviving Oliver using the lazarus pit which doesn’t really lead anywhere in the long run. I liked Mia and Sara’s interaction though Mia was initially very insufferable. I wish we had seen more Barry and Mia interaction. The highlight of the episode is really Brandon Routh returning as Superman. He kind of naturally plays Superman as if he never left. The fight scene between Superman’s could have been better but it was still a breath of fresh air to have him. I do feel that Iris being there was kind of random. She didn’t really have much of a role. 

The Flash episode is where the crossover starts clicking properly for me. For one, I think because Crisis has been built up so much on the Flash that the emotions and character behaviors feel more earned. Certainly, everything that happens with Barry, Frost, Cisco, Pariah, Jefferson, and E90 Flash is really good. The scene between Barry and Jefferson are probably some of my favorites in the crossover. Certainly the scenes with the two Flash’s good. They have E90 Flash a pretty nice swan song and it was surprisingly touching. Yes, the fact that they used the whole “Monitor didn’t say which Flash has to die” excuse is a bit of a cop out but I guess I was already expecting that for obvious reasons, so I didn’t really mind. I think the only part of this episode that’s a little clunky is Kate and Kara just walking around the Waverider. I like their confrontation but its the sort of thing that could have happened in the previous episode. Maybe given more time to the heroes trying to save people from the other Earths. I like the Ryan Choi subplot and Iris is more effectively used here. However, I must admit that eventually, they could have just used Ray instead of Ryan because he looked kind of silly battling the shadow demons in dawn of time battle and he didn’t end up being a set up character to be used after Crisis on one of the shows. Loved the Lucifer cameo though the trip to purgatory didn’t end up being particularly substantial. Overall, it left on an interesting cliffhanger. Admittedly, I was bummed that Lex replaced Routh Superman as a Paragon but its a very Lex thing to do. 

The Arrow episode is really the main ending of the crossover with the Legends episode acting as an epilogue. I think this episode largely succeeds at it though there is definitely a missed opportunity in some of the speed force scenes. I felt that the speed force scenes could have been a fantastic moment for them to revisit some key moments in all the show’s history and see them from a different perspective. But they end up visiting some random scenes and I’m not sure why the memory selves were interacting with Barry. He should have been an onlooker to everyone other than the actual people trapped in the memories. I love all the scenes between Oliver and Barry. That is kind of the heart of the episode and since it is such a strong relationship, it really helps anchoring the episode emotionally. The whole subplot with Novu was very unnecessary since it again leads to nothing. I wish they had instead some more time into the whole Monitor vs Anti-Monitor conflict and how it came to be. For an Arrow episode, this one had a surprising lack of Arrow characters. I suppose it is handicapped by being the finale, but I would say probably Barry gets more screen time than Oliver in the episode. The supporting cast are basically not there barring a brief cameo by Diggle and E1 Laurel in the memory. The battle is fun, if a little too brief and Ryan does look a little goofy just waving his fists at Shadow demons. Oliver’s second death scene is certainly better than the first and its quite well acted by Grant, Stephen, and Caity. Overall, it was a strong ending.

The Legends episode is basically an epilogue. Its genuinely fun and mostly, pretty lighthearted. Kara’s initial awakening, her horror at the new status quo with Lex, reuniting with Barry, and Wolfman cameo is pretty fun. There’s also a fun sense of irony in the scene where he’s asking for Barry and Kara’s autograph since he was the one who killed them off in the COIE comics. The Beebo sequence is again pretty Legends and its fun to watch Arrow characters reacting to this. It is a shame that budget clearly prevented a larger gathering of superheroes. Clearly everyone should have been involved at the end, but they weren’t able to get everyone. I did really like the scenes between Barry and Sara. They are clearly being set up as the lynchpins of the Arrowverse going forward. Its a dynamic that is largely unexplored so it was nice to get a few solo scenes between them. The unveiling of the table at their new HQ also was great and it was nice to see BL, Frost, and Heatwave kicking butt together. This episode is really the one which doesn’t have any filler. However, its also largely just everyone just getting acclimatized to the new status quo. The final fight is ok. Could have been better and larger, but I get the budget restrictions. I hope the future delivers on some JSA action. I wouldn’t mind a simpler crossover such as a team of heroes fighting against team of villains. 

Anyways, that was a long writeup. Overall, its still a fun crossover though the budgetary restrictions and some clunky writing is clearly visible throughout the crossover. I would say The Flash episode or the Legends episode was probably the best of the crossover. I would say, given this is Stephen’s last crossover, I was surprised by how little he was in it. He basically is in only two episodes, because he’s basically a corpse in episode 2 and he has one fairly brief scene in episode 3. I would say episode 1 is maybe his most substantial episode. Grant, Melissa, Caity, Brandon, David, and Ruby are there throughout all five episodes so they clearly had a heavy workload, so good on them for committing. I would say I probably rank this under the Earth X crossover, probably on par with Elseworlds.

[austarus]

HR Wells x Witch!Reader AU Exclusively Magical

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to its rightful owner(s).

“Magic is a sophisticated craft; you can’t just say ‘pizza-us apparatus’!” You heatedly scold your boyfriend and snatch the wand out of his hand, which he’d been fiddling with your magical item. “We’re not in a Harry Potter movie.”

You were out in the city’s nearest woods to scavenge for some herbs and other potent plants for your potion-making. No, you weren’t some wicked witch that intends to poison their mortal enemies from fairy tales, nor were you interested in ruling over society by establishing superiority by use of magic. You were more on the docile side of things. Actively seeking out possible remedies and cures to illnesses that modern medicine couldn’t exactly provide to those who couldn’t gather enough money. Yet everything created comes with a price. A concept too common within magic and alchemy, both schools that you dabble in.  Instead, you allow the costumers to form a different method of pay because circumstances differ from person to person, which is understandable. Honestly, I leave for a few hours and this dork thinks it’s a free-for-all.

“But wouldn’t that make things so much easier? Magic’s supposed to make life convenient, or so it’s been done in the books I’ve read and written. Right, Kitten?” The fedora-wearing man pouted adorably at you with a gentle shrug, a goofy grin gradually gracing his features when your demeanor relaxed a bit.

No, don’t give me that cute and sheepish look. You know how hard I crumble for that.

Said man, adjusted his hat as you took off your raincoat and hung it up on the coat rake. “Puppy, if you wanted pizza you could have just ordered some. We don’t live in the Stone Age and we have an abundant amount of money thanks to your books and my herbal remedies. Or you could have asked Barry to speed some over to you- Actually, never mind, he and Cisco are busy with something that I don’t know about because-”

“-It’s too much science, and it goes way over your head-”

“-It’s too much science, and it goes way over my head.” You frown in confusion when you turned around to face HR as he finished your statement before readjusting the satchel on your shoulder, your hand gripping the strap. A deep chuckle escapes HR’s mouth before his arms encased your body in a gentle, warm hug. The coolness of the outside world escaping your skin.

“Have I said that before?”

“A few times, yes. Which prompts me into kissing you and saying that you have magic, which is cooler than science.” Cue the novelist kissing your rosy cheek with a loving kiss.

“… I’m not letting the pizza thing go.” You slip out of his arms moving away from where he stood to sort your newest collection of plants in your personal cupboard. You side-glanced at him, spotting that little pout on his features.

“But Kitten, that would require effort.”

“So does our bedroom activities,” you blurt out with pinkish cheeks, quickly turning around and giving him a wide-armed shrug, a smug grin on your face., “But if you’re too lazy to order pizza, then you must be too lazy for that. I guess we’ll actually be sleeping at night from now on.”

HR lets out a little gasp as you insinuated your cheeky threat, a look of horror on his face and a hand over his heart. Checkmate, you dramatic Wells. You cross your arms and raise your eyebrows in amusement, watching him pull out his phone and grudgingly call for some pizza. Turning your body back around as he ended the call, you were unaware of two long and strong limbs creeping closer. In one fluid motion and with a yelp falling from your lips, you were scooped up and thrown over HR’s broad shoulder.

“You didn’t think you were going to make that kind of threat and get away with it, were you?” You can hear that damned smirk lacing itself onto his lips.

“But the pizza-“

“No, buts. Except for this rather nice one,” he gives your ass a few firm pats, before rubbing it and shuffling up to your shared bedroom with hasty feet. “No-one ever said that our magical bedroom activities were only exclusive to night time, and we can always occupy ourselves until the pizza comes, right?”

You stayed silent, your heart a beating mess. HR laughed to himself and quirked an eyebrow at your silence. Your brain trying to catch up on how he managed to turn the table around on you. How the hell does he manage to keep doing this to you? You will never ever know.

[barry-writes]

I’m Trying To

Requested by Anonymous: Barry’s been so wrapped up in his work that he doesn't notice you pining for him until someone says something to him and he finally just admits his love for you.

Pairings: Barry Allen x reader

Word count: 3023

A/N: HELLO! I know it’s been forever and I’m sorry! I wanted to work on some old requests that I had so there you go, I really hope you enjoy it! x

Masterlist

You started working at CCPD right after the particle accelerator explosion. With the higher rates of crime in town due to the newly created metahumans, Captain Singh needed someone to keep track of everything in the facility for him, so you became his personal human daily planner, or, more formally speaking, his secretary.

But that was four years ago. Nowadays, yes, you still work for him, but you're way more than a secretary. You're his partner and he confides all of the cases to you, asking for your input.

In fact, he and the other officers ran almost all of the situations by you; you became practically an investigator yourself. Being the daughter of a cop these kinds of things were always common in your life, so you felt very comfortable and valuable in this position.

There was only one thing that was able to knock you off of your feet in this job, and he had a name and last name. Barry Allen, the forensic scientist of the police department and currently one of your best friends, knew exactly how to get to your heart and the worst part is that he didn't even realize he was doing it.

When you joined the department he was starting his job over again since the explosion put him in a coma; and his nerdy and sweet self attracted you from the very first exchange of words you had. Sometimes you thought that you had the same effect on him because of the loving way he always treated you or how he babbled whenever he tried to start a conversation with you, but then you figured that it's just probably the way he normally is, it's nothing about you.

You've never really been straightforward about these feelings, but sometimes an accidental flirting would happen and you could swear that he caught up on it and flirted back, but it was never more than that. He had no idea that you actually meant it and it was driving you crazy because you didn't know how to be direct for the life of you.

You just tried to accept it and get him off of your mind, but every time you saw him coming in your direction, smiling bright and waving at you, you heart involuntarily skipped a beat and you knew you couldn't just shrug that off.

This morning you had a little time to spare so you decided to go to Jitters and get some coffee for you and the crew.  As soon as you got to the facility you distributed the warm beverages to your partners and immediately gathered some stuff to make your way to Barry's lab. Getting there, you saw him walking around frantic, putting some papers away while getting others, trying to organize everything in a weird way. You quietly chuckled to yourself.

"Late again?", you jokingly asked as you made your way inside.

"As usual", he laughed, a little startled by you. "But I survived".

"Oh, thank God!", you mocked him. "I'm guessing you could use a little breakfast, then?", you held some items in front of him.

"Is that for me?", he asked raising his eyebrows, giving you a side smile. You nodded in response.

"Your favorite coffee and a bear claw from Jitters", you proudly said as you handed them to him.

"No! Really???", he smiled so big that the corners of his eyes crinkled. "What did I do to deserve this?".

"Nothing specific", you answered with a giggle. "It's just something...special".

"Well...", he said stepping closer to you and taking the food from your hands. "You don't have to do anything to show me that you are special", he winked and gave you a little kiss on the cheek.

Your heart accelerated and your face was burning hot, you were sure it showed. The words got stuck in your throat and you just stood there speechless for a minute. You saw Barry's expression falling a little like he was getting worried, so you tried to distract him with a fake laugh.

"It's just... I just wanted you to eat something, that's all", you nervously replied.

"Okay, I will", he laughed. "Thank you!".

"Anytime".

He sat down, putting some papers away and started taking a bite. You stood in front of him, slightly cocking your hips on his desk as you mindlessly focused on his movements.

The way his lanky fingers wrapped around the paper cup and how his tongue darted out to lick his plump lips were hipnotizing to you. So much that you lost track of everything else and the only thing catching your attention was Barry drinking coffee.

Suddenly you became aware of a faded voice in the distance, making you slowly come back to your senses. You leaned in and almost fell with your face on the desk, but you were able to hold onto the edge of it.

“Y/N, are you okay?”, Barry asked.

You started shaking your head in an attempt to awake.

“Y/N?”, he called again.

“Huh?”, you looked up at him with wide eyes.

“I asked if you’re okay!”.

“Yeah, yeah it’s all good!”, you replied. “I just... got distracted for a moment”.

“Okay then”, he chuckled. “So, is all that for me, too?”

“What? What do you mean?”, you asked confused.

“The files?”, he said pointing to your hand.

“Oh, the files! I forgot I had those”, you let out a nervous laugh. “Which is weird ‘cause they are the reason I came here in the first place!”, you awkwardly tried to explain yourself and Barry was desperately trying to hold in his laughter.

“Do you want me to take- ”.

“Yes, yes, please take them”, you interrupted him, shoving the files into his hands.

“Hum, Y/N... Are you really okay? You seem nervous”.

“I really have to go now”, you had no idea of what was happening anymore, you were just uneasy for being around Barry. “You are nice! I mean, this...this was nice! Nice talking to you, okay? Bye”.

He waved at you and stood there confused, not sure if he should laugh about the situation or be worried for you. You practically sprinted out of the lab, completely ashamed of your behavior and the things you said. You were 100% sure that even if Barry was the least interested in you, it would have ended right there.

A couple of hours had passed and you were still recovering from your earlier meltdown, trying to focus on all the things you were typing. You were pulled out of your thoughts when you heard a light knock on the door frame. When you lifted your head you saw Barry. Immediately your heart started beating fast and you were praying that you wouldn’t be weird again.

“Hey, there”, he greeted as he walked to you.

“Barry, hi!”, you smiled, getting up from your chair. “Can I do anything for you?”.

“I just wanted to check on you, see if everything is okay”, he offered a smile back.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”, you asked with a false confusion to your tone.

“I don’t know, you seemed a little unsettled earlier”.

“Oh, right. I am so sorry about that. I had just had like 3 cups of coffee and I think they started kicking in”, you lied, trying to laugh it out.

“Are you sure that’s all?”, he raised an eyebrow.

“Definitely. Again, I’m so sorry. It was really embarrassing”, you sighed.

“Nah, I thought it was pretty cute”, he smirked as he looked at you. The smirk got even wider when he realised you were blushing.

“No, it wasn’t”, you giggled while holding your head down.

“It was!”, he insisted, laughing. “You look nice when you’re nervous!”.

“I...”, you were speechless and you were sure your face looked like a tomato at that moment.

“And also when you’re blushing”, he said stepping closer to you.

“Barry, oh my God! Just shut up!”, you said shaking your head and covering your face with your hands. He chuckled, genuinely amused for seeing you so bashful about a few compliments.

He put his hands on top of yours and took them away from your face, smiling when his eyes met yours. You couldn’t help but smile too, still a little embarrassed.

“So, are you sure you’re okay?”, Barry reassured and you nodded.

“Good”, he said lightly stroking your arm. “I should go back now. I’ll talk to you later?”.

“Yeah, sure. Thanks for the concern”, you smiled.

He was walking through the door when you felt an abrupt gust of courage and decided to take a leap of faith. You called his name and he turned around, eager to listen to you.

“I wanted to ask you something”.

“Yeah?”.

“Yeah, well... I don’t know if you heard about it but there’s going to be a screening of ‘The shining’ at the Hofherr Park tonight. I’m not even sure if you like thrillers but I thought the idea of a screening is nice and all, so... Would you like to go, maybe?”.

“Sure, yeah! It sounds great!”.

“Really?”, you asked excitedly, still in disbelief that you actually had the guts to ask Barry out.

“Of course, I’d love to go!”, he replied. “You know who would also love it? Cisco.”

“Cisco?”.

“Yeah, ‘The Shining’ is like, his favorite movie. I’m gonna let him know about it!”.

“Oh...okay”, all the excitement was gone in the blink of an eye. Barry left the room and texted his friend about the movie, telling you he’d call you later to arrange the time and everything else.

Your heart faltered and all you could think about was that Barry wasn’t interested at all. This was the chance for the both of you to be alone and he chose not to take it, that was the affirmation you needed. Not the one you wanted, but the one you needed to hear so you could finally let go of this.

You felt sad especially because of everything that has happened today. You could swear he had a flirting tone to his actions and that was what gave you the confidence to ask him on a date. Apparently he was just messing around.

Later that afternoon Barry went to STAR Labs and was hanging around with Iris, Cisco and Caitlin. They all know you and are also very aware of your feelings towards Barry. He seemed to be the only one oblivious to them.

That’s why they all thought it was a little weird when Barry told them the news about you asking him out followed by him inviting everyone else to come, too. They chose to not barge in, though. That was until he received a text from you.

“I’m not feeling very well, can’t make it to the movie. Have fun with Cisco”, he read the message and everybody exchanged some looks. “That’s so strange, she looked excited for it earlier. Although she was acting weird before, maybe she wasn’t okay after all”.

“Barry, c’mon”, Iris took him out of his thought bubble. “Do you really not see what’s happening?”.

“What do you mean?”.

“Man, you are so dumb...”, Cisco mocked.

“Am I missing something here?”, Barry asked confused.

“Y/N likes you, Barry! Can’t you see it?”, Caitlin said in a pitiful tone and the boys’ eyes went wide.

“The girl’s been head over heels for you ever since you met each other”, Cisco said with a chuckle.

“What? You guys are crazy”.

“You really haven’t noticed? I can’t believe you”, Iris laughed. “Everybody knows it. And something tells me you like her too”, she smirked.

“Obviously”, Cisco added.

“I...I...”, Barry was confused and couldn’t find the proper words. “Of course I like Y/N, I mean, she’s one of my best friends and she’s amazing and smart and...so beautiful...”

“Barr...”, Iris called warmly and the boy took a deep breath, almost like he was starting to accept these feelings.

“Dude, do you realize what you’ve done?”, Cisco asked.

“You’ll have to be more specific because my brain is not being very reasonable right now”.

“The girl that has a crush on you and that you also have a crush on asked you on a date and you said you’d bring your friends. How’s that sound to you?”, he said almost with an amusing tone.

“Holy shit”, Barry realized. “Holy shit, I screwed up big time”, he started pacing from one side to the other. “What do I do? Oh my God, she’s never gonna even look at me again. I’m so stupid!”, he was in denial that he had done such a thing.

“Look”, Iris said putting a hand on his shoulder to ease him. “It was pretty stupid, but it was just a mistake. You need to calm down, go home and talk to her tomorrow. I think you both need some time right now, okay?”.

He listened to her attentively and knew she was right. He agreed with her and went home to try and get some sleep, but it was useless. He couldn’t stop thinking about you and how bad you must have felt because of him. He couldn’t wait for the morning to come so he could see and talk to you.

The next day, surprisingly, Barry was the first one to arrive at the station. He entered your office and kept anxiously waiting for you. When you got there and passed in front of the door, the sight of Barry was so upsetting that you decided to keep walking.

“Y/N!”, the boy left the office running after you. “Wait, wait, wait!”, he held your arm and pulled you inside, closing the door behind him.

When he finally took a good look at you he could see you had some circles under your eyes and that they were puffy, probably from crying. He brought his hand to your face to stroke your cheek.

“What do you want, Barry?”, you harshly said, pushing yourself away from here.

“Look, I know you’re upset and we need to talk”.

“I have nothing to talk to you about. Can you please leave my office?”.

“Y/N, please”, he begged with a genuine sad expression on his face. You sighed deeply.

“You have five minutes”, you said as you made your way to your desk. He followed suit.

“I just have to ask... Have you been flirting with me?”.

You looked up at him and couldn’t hold in your laughter. You couldn’t believe that he was actually asking that.

“I have been trying to, Barry! Thanks for noticing now”.

“I’m sorry, I’m not good at this stuff!”, he tried to explain.

“Yeah, I can tell”.

“Y/N I- ”.

“Look, Barry”, you interrupted. “I like you, okay? I have huge, deep feelings for you. And I know that you don’t like me, that’s fine”.

“Y/N -”.

“It’s fine, really! You don’t have to like me, this is entirely my fault and my problem and I’ll just deal with it”, you spilled.

“But I do”, he said taking some steps towards you.

“Do what?”.

“Like you”.

“What?”, you asked confused and he chuckled.

“I’m trying to say that I like you too”, he stopped in front of you and smiled, putting a strand of hair behind your ear. You could feel yourself melting under his touch again.

“Please, don’t say that”, you pleaded.

“Why not? It’s the truth”.

“Barry, c’mon”, you shook your head. “If you liked me you would have said something sooner”.

“I’m an idiot, Y/N! I’m not used to people flirting with me, I had no idea it was happening!”, he said in distress and you couldn’t help but laugh at his reaction. “I just thought you were this really cute and awkward girl!”.

“Barry, I literally asked you out!”, you said crossing your arms on your chest.

“I know, I know!”, he said running his hands on his face. “I’m so sorry, I really am! I swear I like you, I’m just stupid when it comes to signs”.

You kept looking at him trying to hold in a smile but you couldn’t, he was just too adorable.

“Can we please give this a try?”, he whispered as he put his arms around your waist. “Go on a date with me?”.

You were surprised with his sudden eagerness. You swallowed a lump in your throat as soon as you felt his arms around you. You reciprocated by wrapping your arms around his neck. You were both breathing heavily, this being the closest you’ve ever been to each other.

“And how would that date be?”, you dared to whisper back.

“No friends, no interruptions, no misunderstood signs. Just you and me together”, you grinned widely and he replied it.

“You’re lucky you’re so cute, Barry Allen”.

“Can I count that as a yes?”, he smirked and it made you laugh. You just nodded in response. “Good”.

You kept holding and looking at each other for a minute, hearts beating fast with certain anticipation. You started to laugh.

“You know, I think this is the part where you kiss me”, you said.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured”, he chuckled, hanging his head low. “I said I’m bad at this”.

You lifted his chin up with your finger and brought your face close to his.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get better”, you shot him a little wink and locked your lips with his, sighing and taking in every single second of it. Your hands held both sides of his face as he held you tight to his body. You kissed him passionately, like you were trying to make up for all this time of him not noticing you. You were now sure that this wasn’t going to happen anymore.

After a while you pulled apart for some air, both of you a little desoriented by what had happened.

“Wow”, you mutted to yourself.

“Wow, indeed”, Barry replied with a chuckle. “So, you mean to tell me we could’ve been doing this for the longest time? I truly am stupid”.

You laughed and hugged him tightly, kissing his cheekbone.

“Don’t worry, we can do it from now on”.

[olicitysecretsanta]

Home for Christmas (You can count on me)

Rated: PG-13 for implied sexy times.

For @trueromantic1 who is enjoying Season 7 and loves Felicity being a Mom to William. This is more of an Oliver-centric canon fic but there is lots of William-Felicity bonding and Oliver-William bonding!

Summary: William is finally coming home from Cambridge and even though Oliver and Felicity have patched things up in time for the holidays, Oliver struggles to reconnect with William after prison. A series of holiday themed moments as the Smoak-Queen family adjusts to their new lives. Mostly fluff with a hint of angst.

December 13th

“You don’t think he’s going to be embarrassed by us do you? Maybe we went a little overboard with the balloons,” Felicity pondered as she untangled the gaggle of red and gold balloons in her hands, just nearly avoiding hitting another woman waiting outside the airport security checkpoint.

“We’re just excited to see him. I’m sure we’re not embarrassing,” Oliver replied, shifting the huge sign that read “Welcome Home William!” as a stream of passengers exited the terminal, trying to peer around them for their son.

“Yeah, because teenage boys aren’t known for being embarrassed by their parents,”

“I’m sure the pile of Christmas and Hanukkah presents under the tree will make up for it. You can barely walk from the front door to the kitchen without tripping over presents. What was in the big silver box anyway?” Oliver had been subtly trying to find out what Felicity had bought for William all week, slightly worried that her gifts would be better. 

William’s first Christmas after Samantha had died had been hard and this year Oliver felt like he had a lot to make up for after being in prison for six months and sending his family into witness protection. Plus William was so different from him at that age it was hard to guess what he would enjoy. But the latest video game console sitting under the tree at home seemed like a safe bet.

“Oh! Cisco was able to hook me up with a prototype drone! Don’t worry, all of the dangerous stuff has been removed but it’s still better than any of the commercial drones on the market,”

“A drone? Damn, that is a good gift, why didn’t I think of that,” He might have to go back to the drawing board and hope he could get another gift before Christmas, Oliver mused before his thoughts were interrupted by a shout.

“Dad! Felicity!” Oliver was sure William had grown at least a few inches as the teen appeared through the crowd.

“Will!

“Hey buddy, we missed you so much!” The signed was abandoned on the floor and one of the balloons floated away to airport ceiling as both adults wrapped their arms around the teen.

“I missed you too, don’t cry dad,” William mumbled against Oliver’s chest.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you,” Oliver replied through watery eyes. “But I thought I’d start making up for lost time by getting pizza for dinner from your favorite place,” finally releasing a bashful looking William.

“Yes! And maybe after we can watch the new season of Doctor Who. Felicity introduced it to me while we were in Hope Springs and I finished catching up but I wanted to watch the new season together!”

“Aww Will, you’re the best binge watching buddy ever. Of course I waited! We can start the first episode tonight,” even Felicity was brushing away a few tears as she swung her arm around Will’s (she could swear) broader shoulders.

“Doctor Who? He’s the space detective one right?”

“He’s a Time Lord, Dad,” William rolled his eyes but Oliver couldn’t be happier, just glad to see this sign of normal teenage behavior in person. Maybe he was a little jealous that William and Felicity had another interest in common but he brushed it off.

They were under witness protection for five months, of course they were going to bond even more. But he was back home now and he’d reconnect with William soon enough.

Let the bonding begin.

December 18th

The Smoak-Queen family had quickly fallen into a routine and Oliver couldn’t remember the last time he had been this happy. William was settling into the new apartment and Oliver had specifically told Dinah that he wouldn’t be pursuing the new Green Arrow until after New Years so he could spend some quality time with his family.  

And Oliver was not looking forward to William going back to school. He would miss sleeping in and then cooking a late breakfast for the three of them. After breakfast they would have family time, going ice skating or to a museum. William and Felicity would keep up a running stream of commentary on whatever scientific or historical exhibit they saw and Oliver was happy to listen to the two of them.

After lunch, they would relax at home or go out to a movie. Today, William had enlisted Felicity to go to the mall for some gifts while Oliver prepared pot roast, William’s favorite home cooked meal.

He was just pulling some homemade rolls out of the oven when Felicity’s new security system alerted him to the two coming off the elevator towards the apartment. Soon they were pushing open the door weighed down with various bags.

“Hey guys, you’re just in time. Pot roast is almost ready,”

“Oh. Sounds great, Dad,” William responded but Oliver caught the subdued tone and disappointed expression on his face.

“What is it, I thought you loved my pot roast?”

“I do! I just thought it was mac and cheese night. It’s Tuesday,” William turned to Felicity as she was adding a few more boxes to the Mount Everest size pile of presents. “You didn’t tell him about mac and cheese night?”

“OK, what’s mac and cheese night?”

“It’s just a tradition we had in Hope Springs. I learned how to make it from scratch so it’s not as unhealthy as it sounds. We knew you would disapprove so we would add different toppings like avocado or salsa.” Felicity explained, looking a little guilty.

But Oliver was touched, if not a little jealous, by this bit of domesticity that his wife and son had shared.

“Well the pot roast will keep for tomorrow night. Why don’t you two show me how to make this famous mac and cheese,” Oliver relented easily as he turned off the oven and moved toward the fridge. He couldn’t help smiling widely at the loud cheers before they both threw their arms around him.

December 20th

The menorah had been lit and the sufganiyot and latkes been eaten. The three had spent a nice evening with a movie marathon after dinner before sending William off to bed when he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Now Oliver was enjoying cuddling with his wife on the couch, surrounded by gold foil wrappers from chocolate coins and empty popcorn bowls. Oliver was happy that Felicity was sharing his Jewish heritage with his son but this time of year had been hard ever since he came back from the island.

Of course Felicity picked up on his mood. “Hey, whats with the sad face?”

Oliver smoothed his hands down her back to reassure her. “Missing Thea and thinking about my parents. William would have loved to see the mansion at Christmas. Thea and I used to race to see you could finish candy canes the fastest.”

Felicity shifted so she was sitting up and could look at him properly. “I’m sure Thea misses you too. Do you want to go by your parents graves after we take William to Samantha’s this weekend?”

“That’s a good idea. But I still don’t know if I’m ready. My mom loved us more than anything but I’m still angry at her for keeping William a secret from me. I missed out on so many Christmases and William’s been distant ever since he got home. I don’t know if it’s because he misses Samantha or if he’s still mad at me for going away,”

They had talked about his conflicting feelings towards Moira in the past and that just made the holiday even harder for him.

“Well, Moira and I didn’t have the best relationship either but I’m sure she kept an eye on William. Besides, Christmas is about family and being together. We’re both happy you’re home,” she responded pointedly and poking a finger in his ches..

“Hey, I promised I’m not leaving you ever again,” he told her with a kiss to take away her pout. “It was my decision to go to prison, I just didn’t realize how hard it would be to earn his trust back again,”

“He’ll come around just like I did. And we can make our own traditions as a family,” said in between laying kisses down his throat. “We can start with you making love to me under these Christmas lights,”

Oliver hummed at the sensation. “But what if William wakes up?”

“Oh, I put some up in the bedroom too,” she replied with a twinkle in her eyes and a shriek as Oliver lifted her into his arms and practically sprinted towards the bedroom.

December 24th

After his talk with Felicity, Oliver had thrown himself into every holiday activity he could think of, determined to make some new traditions with his family. That’s why the kitchen was currently covered in flour and all of the materials for gingerbread houses. He and William were attempting to build a gingerbread village but it was really a thinly veiled attempt by Oliver to get some more one on one time with William.

“So aside from your classes, I haven’t heard much about Cambridge. Did you like it there?”

“Cambridge was cool. I’ve never been to the East Coast before. Felicity said we could visit colleges there sometime,” he replied absently, his focus on creating a moat around a gingerbread mansion.

William and Felicity might be thinking about colleges but Oliver was definitely not ready to think about the boy going off to college yet. “Maybe in a few years, buddy. Did you make any friends at boarding school?”

“Not really. It’s hard to make friends when you’re living under a fake name and a crime lord is trying to hunt down your family.”

“True,” he admitted. “So there were no cute girls there…or boys?”

Williams eyes widened a bit and he paused. Bingo.

Oliver knew from experience as a teenage boy it was best not to push. And William was shyer than he was at that age and he didn’t want to embarrass his son and risk missing this opportunity to hear more.

“Well…not in Cambridge… but there was someone in Hope Springs…” William ventured tentatively.

“Oh?” The best strategy when you wanted someone to talk was to let them fill the silence.

“H-he was in my art class, he was an exchange student from England and really good at drawing.”

“Ah, artsy types are always very mysterious. So, did anything…,”

“No!” he denied quickly, maybe a little too quickly. “Besides, after Diaz broke in we left so suddenly…”

“I’m sorry son,” Oliver tried to play it cool concentrating on placing gumdrops on the roof of a gingerbread cottage. But internally he was fist pumping and celebrating that William had confided this small but major bit of information in him. Progress!

“Hey, we should take a family vacation to London this summer. My parents took Thea and me when I was about your age,”

“Really?! That would be so cool dad!”

“It’s a plan then.”

After sending William off to his room to clean up Oliver cornered Felicity in their bedroom.

“Felicity!” Oliver rounded on her as she was lounging in bed focused intently on her tablet. “Why didn’t you tell me about the boy?! I knew I missed a lot in prison but this is a big thing you should have told me about!”

She pulled her eyes from the screen to look up her husband who had a streak of flour on his forehead and a giddy look on his face. She frowned. “Oliver, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What boy?”

“They boy William had a crush on in Hope Springs! Wait. He didn’t tell you?” This was even better!

“Will had a crush on someone? No he didn’t say anything about it to me,” Felicity pouted a bit.

“Yes!” Oliver really fist pumped this time.

“Oliver! I’m happy that the two of you bonding but it’s not nice to gloat,”

“Sorry hon, I just got a little over excited that he felt comfortable enough to come out to me,”

Felicity caressed his face (no more beard thank goodness) but looked a bit troubled. “You don’t think he was afraid to tell me do you? This is not good Oliver, I thought William and I understood each other,”

“I’m sure that’s not the reason. He probably just needed some time. I’m sure he would have told you eventually,” he replied pulling her into a hug.

“You’re right, I’m happy he trusted you with this,” she shrugged off her worries before taking advantage for the moment of privacy to kiss her husband.

“Dad? Felicity? You’re not being gross right now are you?”

They pulled away just as William pushed the door open, holding a DVD in one hand.

“Hey Will, what’cha got there?”

“Die Hard. We watched it last year on Christmas Eve. Should I go put it on?”

“It is your Dads favorite,” Felicity covered for Oliver who looked calm but who she could tell was internally freaking out with happiness again.

“Die Hard is the best Christmas movie and a Queen family tradition. You start it up and we’ll get the popcorn,” he motioned toward the door, before pulling Felicity back into his chest as William disappeared to the living room.

“You were right. We just needed to start some new traditions,” he said with a peck to her lips. Oliver knew he was still slowly building back the trust that he had lost but tonight was Christmas Eve and his family was together and starting their own traditions.

“Mmmm, my three favorite words,” she replied impishly. “I think I deserve another gift tonight after William goes to bed,” her words were innocent but the heated look she gave him clued him into what kind of gift she was talking about. Oliver’s response was a heated kiss that caused them both to forget what they were supposed to be doing.

“Dad! Felicity! I know you’re being gross in there!”

“Coming Will!”

“We’ll be right there!” They replied smiling dopily at each other before finally making their way out of the bedroom. Oliver sighed contentedly, taking in the sight of the presents under the tree, the menorah, and his wife and son on the couch as the title credits for Die Hard came on.

Oliver was finally home and he couldn’t be happier

[some1foundme]

Repost: The Long Way Home

So I wrote this fic years ago (2015) and posted it to ff.net but I was scrolling around in my documents folder and remembered that it was there and had never been posted to AO3 or here.  Anyhow, here it is.  I’m going to post this rather quickly considering its complete so check back for the next installment soon.

Read on AO3

Chapter One

Cold, crisp October air tugged strands of blonde hair free from her ponytail, whipping it across her face.  The body of the man at her side did little to shield her as they stood at the bow of the ferry.  Not that she minded.  Felicity relished the bite of the ocean air.  It reminded her of the life she’d left behind.  It reminded her that this was real, that she was finally going home.

Ray’s arms tightened around her waist and she sighed, leaning into his embrace.

“You okay?”

She nodded, “I am.”

“You seem nervous.”

She snorted, “You think?  It’s been a long time, Ray.  Years.  And I just – I don’t know.  Maybe I’m a little freaked out about coming back here.”

He chuckled at her rushed response and settled his chin on the top of her head.

They’d met at work almost two years earlier. She had taken a job as the head of research and development at Palmer Technologies, the company that Ray now ran after his father’s retirement.  She hadn’t meant to end up in a relationship with the boss’ son, it had just happened.

“Wow, Felicity…”

The awe in Ray’s voice brought her eyes up from where they’d been focused on her shoes.  Star Island appeared like a mirage before them.  The early morning fog had lifted and from the direction of their approach, they had an unimpeded view of its southernmost point.  On the cliff overlooking the channel, her family home stood proud.  She pointed it out to Ray.

“There it is.  That’s Verdant.”

Ray let out a whistle of appreciation.

“The way you described it doesn’t do it justice. It’s beautiful, Felicity.”

She couldn’t find the words to respond.  It had been a long time since she’d stepped foot on Star Island.  Five years, to be exact.  And seeing it now before her, rising out of the Pacific with such grace, caused a swarm of butterflies to take flight in her belly.

Felicity hadn’t wanted to come.  She had – in fact – adamantly refused.  Until her mother’s guilt trip had become too much to bear. She hadn’t really given an explanation as to why it was suddenly so important for Felicity to return, but her mom’s persistence had finally worn her down.

When she’d brought it up to Ray that she was taking a week to return home, he’d invited himself along.

She couldn’t exactly tell him that she’d prefer it if he didn’t join her.  They’d been a couple for more than a year.  They lived together, worked together, spent almost all of their time together.  And while Ray was a great guy and they had so much in common, her heart and her brain couldn’t get on the same page where their relationship was concerned.  She had wanted to ask him to stay home in Coast City but she hadn’t been able to come up with a reasonable excuse.

When the ferry reached the dock, the fluttering in her stomach erupted like a volcano.  She thought she might hack.

They left the boat with their luggage in tow and Felicity clutched the strap of her bag with both hands to hide the fact that they were shaking.  She moved on autopilot with Ray right behind her and when her mother suddenly appeared on the crowded pier, tears sprang to her eyes.  She released the handle of her suitcase and rushed into her mom’s arms.

“Oh my baby girl, I’ve missed you.”

A tiny sob escaped her and Felicity buried her face in her mother’s shoulder.

“What is it?  What’s wrong, hun?”

She sniffled, drawing away, and wiped at the tears behind her glasses.

“Sorry, Mom.  Nothing’s wrong.  I – I just missed you,” she explained, hating how vulnerable she sounded.

A throat being cleared behind her reminded Felicity that she hadn’t come alone.

“Mom, this is Ray Palmer.  Ray, this is my mom, Donna.”

Ray stepped forward to shake her mother’s hand and Felicity didn’t miss the appreciative gleam in her mom’s blue eyes. She rolled her own.  Ray was an attractive man, she couldn’t deny that, but it was her mom’s obvious approval that she found amusing.

“Mrs. Smoak, um, Smoak-Lance?”

Donna smiled, “It’s just Lance.  Felicity is the only one who chose to hyphenate.  Not that her dad and I mind, of course.  It’s nice to get both family names out there. And please, Ray, call me Donna.”

Ray graced them with a brilliant smile.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Donna. Felicity has told me so much about you.”

It was the appropriate thing to say but Felicity knew it couldn’t be further from the truth.  She never talked about home.  Or her family, as much as she loved them.  When she’d run from Star Island, she’d left everything behind.

She reclaimed her bag and followed after her mom and Ray as they headed toward downtown.  Her mom had her arm looped with Ray’s, guiding him along as she spoke animatedly about the island and its residents.  Her voice acted as narrator to the scenes playing out before Felicity’s eyes.  She found herself examining everything, her gaze wandering from storefront to storefront, person to person.  Memories came flooding back quickly and a sense of longing shook her to her core.

“Our family has lived here going back three generations now,” her mom explained, “Of course, the island and the village were originally founded by the Queen family.  They’re still here, as are a handful of other families that live here year-round.  It’s mostly seasonal, I’m sure Felicity explained that, but there are a couple hundred of us who stay during the off-season.”

She had explained the gist of it on their drive from the city.  Star Island had been founded in the mid-1800’s by the Queen family as a home for their summer house.  Over the years, it had turned into a permanent residence for the family. Rumor had it that a scandal on the mainland had chased them to the island in the forties and they’d simply chosen to stay.  Whatever the reason, Star Island had become a flourishing spot for vacationing families of all shapes and sizes.

But for Felicity, it was home.  It was where she had met her first friend, where she had ridden her first bike, kissed her first boy, built her first computer.  It was the place all of her memories centered around.

“No way!  I must be dreaming!  You’re a hallucination, right?”

Her mind didn’t register the voice quickly enough and she was swept up in a crushing hug before she could prepare herself.

“Barry!  Put me down!”

She was laughing by the time he set her on her feet and she smacked at his arm.

“Wow, look at you, little ‘Lis is all grown up.”

She was sure she was blushing but she couldn’t wipe the stupid grin from her face.  Barry grinned back.

“I don’t look all that different, Barry. Where are you headed to this early?” she questioned, “Catching the ferry?”

He nodded, “Some of us do work for a living. I didn’t know you were coming home, though, or I would’ve taken some time off.  Wait ‘til Caitlin finds out!”

She hadn’t seen Barry and Caitlin since their wedding almost a decade earlier.

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry.  Barry, this is my boyfriend, Ray.  Ray, my cousin Barry.”

Barry hesitated for just a moment before taking the hand Ray had extended to him.  She didn’t think that Ray had noticed, but she certainly had.

“Nice to meet you.  Felicity doesn’t normally bring her boyfriends home.  As a matter of fact, ‘Lis doesn’t normally bring herself home so…”

The awkward silence that would’ve inevitably followed that statement was avoided when the blast of the ferry horn cut through the air.

“Shit.  I’m going to miss it.  I’ve got to go!  I’ll see you later!”

And then Barry was off and running, heading in the direction from which they’d come.  The three of them watched him go for a moment before resuming the trek to the inn.

“Any other family members that we can expect to run into while we’re here?”

Her mother explained to Ray that Cisco, Barry’s younger brother, and their parents lived on the island as well.  Cisco, Felicity discovered, was on sabbatical from his job at Star Labs after an accident in the lab.  It was more than likely that they would see her cousins and her aunt and uncle before they returned to Coast City.

“And what about your oldest daughter?  Laurel, right?”

Ray’s question was so unexpected that Felicity stumbled.  He didn’t seem to notice.

“Laurel isn’t here,” her mother answered softly, “As far as I know, she’s fine.”

Felicity watched as her mom disengaged herself from Ray’s side and continued up the road without them.  He turned to her, clearly confused, and she sighed.

“Should I not have asked about Laurel?”

She rubbed at an ache that seemed to be forming in the middle of her forehead.

“I should’ve told you.  My sister is kind of a sore subject for my parents.  We don’t … it’s probably in everyone’s best interest if we don’t talk about her.”

Ray took her hand as they trailed after her mom.

“What’s the deal with that?” he asked, “You never really talk about her.  I guess it didn’t dawn on me that something was wrong there.”

She let out a huff of frustration.  This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted him to come with her.  His line of questioning, while not ridiculous, was unwelcome and while she hadn’t set the decorum of what she did and did not want to talk about, she had hoped the fact that she avoided talking about her family at all would’ve been a big enough hint for him.

“Laurel is just- we don’t… please, just don’t bring her up again, okay?”

Her tone was more harsh than she’d really intended but after only twenty minutes on the island, he’d upset her mom and caused her own hackles to rise.  She’d known that bringing an outsider to Star Island was a mistake.

“I understand, Felicity.  I’m sorry.”

Her ire faded in a rush and she squeezed his hand.

“It’s fine, really.  Come on.”

She tugged him forward and as they reached the crest of the hill, Felicity stopped to look out over the harbor.

“I can’t imagine what it was like growing up with this as your view day in and day out.”

She nodded, “It’s breathtaking.  You should see it in the summer.  Boats dotting along the horizon for as far as you can see. And during a thunderstorm, when the lightning flashes out over the water.  It’s incomparable.”

They turned together to face the house behind them.

Verdant.  Her parents’ livelihood, their inn.  Her home. It was just as she remembered it, its tall turret a sign of the Victorian architecture that was prominent on the island.  The soothing green wood shingles and white trim the reason for its name.  

Her mother waited on the front steps.

“The house looks beautiful, Mom.  Has Dad painted it recently?”

It looked to be in impeccable shape, better even than when it had first opened, and as she took in more of the details, Felicity noticed a number of small improvements.

“Dad’s been working so much down at the docks that he hasn’t had time to do anything around here at all, really,” her mom explained, “We’ve actually hired someone on to do the maintenance for us.”

Felicity frowned.  She wasn’t keen on the idea of anyone outside of their family working at the inn.  It meant too much to her parents.

“Anyone that I know?”

Her mother didn’t respond and Felicity felt the hair on her arms rise.  When her mom turned to face her, there was something in her expression that Felicity didn’t recognize.

“Mom?”

“Honey, I’ve been meaning to te-“

“Mrs. Lance, I took care of the ceiling fan on the back porch but I couldn’t –“

She felt herself moving, knew that she had turned to face the person whose voice she had recognized the moment that it’d reached her ears, but she hadn’t consciously decided to do so.  Her eyes met his, dark blue and haunted and staring back at her for the first time in longer than she could remember.

A ghost.  He has to be a ghost.

Her heart was thrumming loudly in her ears, so loudly that it drowned out the sounds of her mother and Ray beside her.

“Oliver?”

[selfshipstuff]

Thanks to @sketchy-galaxy​ for the ask! Here’s my answer for Question 1 of the voice ask meme, which was as follows: 

“Recall how long I’ve known my f/o(s) and how I discovered them/their source material.” 

I’ll put a transcript of my rambling under the cut. 

00:00 - 00:35 - Um... hi. So... for question number 1-- which is about how long I’ve known them and how I discovered their source material-- I’m thinking I’ll start with Hunk, since, Starr, you’re the one who asked and I remember that we bonded a little bit over... um... being with Hunk and Lance respectively-- and Lotor, of course, in your case as well. 

00:36 - 01:34 - Um... Hunk, I met in... 2016, I wanna say? So, it’s going on... 3 years now? Or I guess it is 3 years now, 'cuz I met him... towards the end of 2016. And, I mean... with Voltron... I was introduced to that by-- well. It being so popular on Tumblr. I’m not quite as into Voltron as I was at the time? But... he’s still really special to me.  Obviously, I mean, [laughing] you never really,, [shaky breath] stop loving someone when you love them that much. But... [long pause, awkward laugh] Anyway! Next!

01:35 - 02:28 - Um... mmh. With... Adrien, from... Miraculous Ladybug-- um, Miraculous is another one of the ones that I discovered through Tumblr. Um, it was really fun though, because I’ve always had, like, a soft spot for French, and, um... French culture and France in general, so it’s really cool that there’s this show that’s focused on like, superheroes, and magic, and France, all three of which are like extremely fun to me. And... I don’t really remember when I started watching Miraculous, but I think it was a little bit before or after I started watching Voltron, so probably also around that 2016 area. Mmmh...

02:30 - 04:09 - And then... with the Hitachiin twins, Hikaru and Kaoru-- um... I could be saying all of their names with the proper, um, accents, but... I... don’t think it would sound good, and I am not confident enough to be recorded [laughing] saying them that way. [deep breath] Um, so, Adrien, Hikaru, and Kaoru it is, rather than all the accented ones. But, with the twins, I, um... they,,, have been around for me for [chuckling] a lot longer than a lot of the others have. Because I’ve liked them since I first watched the anime-- um, it’s Ouran High School Host Club, for anyone who doesn’t know, I guess, although it’s pretty... it’s a classic, I guess, so most people would know, I think. Um... [clears throat] when I first watched it, I was in middle school... so that was probably... um... I wanna say... 7th grade? 8th grade, something like that? So... I graduated this past year, it’s 2019... um... [long silence where I’m basically doing the math lady meme] I wanna say 20...12, 2013? Something like that, but it’s been a while. Um... [laughs sheepishly] 

04:10 - 05:00 - Aaand... then there’s... Krel, who’s really, relatively new, but [chuckling] I love him so much. Um, he’s from 3Below-- Tales of Arcadia-- it’s the second installment in the Tales of Arcadia series, it comes after Trollhunters. Um... I had been meaning to watch Trollhunters... since I started seeing content for it on Tumblr as well. Um... [weird throat noise rip sorry skksjkj] but... I had been putting it off for a while? That’s the case with like, all of them, by the way, that I discovered on Tumblr. Um, I started watching Trollhunters around the time that 3Below was released? So I wanna say... 2016, 2017 as well. 

05:01 - 06:32 - Umm... then there’s Stardew Valley, which I also discovered partially through Tumblr, partially through my boyfriend, who plays as well? He-- his favorite is definitely Shane, um, mine is... Sebastian, although I love [chuckles] all of them... a lot. Um... Demetrius can go eat dirt, but-- maybe some of those like... mushrooms that he put in my,, stupid,,, cave on my property, but... um... I don’t think any of them are poisonous, unfortunately. RIP to anyone who likes Demetrius, but I’m better. [deep breath] UM... [pause] now I feel bad, I shouldn’t’ve said that, that’s mean. But anyway, um... dang... I wanna say Stardew Valley I started playing, errmm... late 2016, early 2017? I know that seems to be, like, a really... popular time for a lot of my-- my babes, but like... I don’t... know why that is. I have a really poor internal clock, so I probably am just like, not remembering the timing properly. Um... but I would say that’s probably about the time that I started playing Stardew Valley and met Sebastian. 

06:33 - 08:32 - Um... [long pause] let’s see. Then... this is getting into... the... not super current territory, but like, still like, “I love you, please be on my list”? Y’know, that kind of area? Where you’re like, [high voice] “I’m not posting about you, but I still love you, I promise.” Um... Cisco from The Flash, I started watching The Flash, I wanna say, 20...17...? Like, mid-2017, I think, and I loved him like right off the bat. He was my favorite character, episode 1 of season 1, and... that has like, not changed, at all. [laughs, then settles down] They did him dirty, I was so mad about all of his, like, canon love interests? ‘Cuz like, they did him so dirty, poor baby... um! [laughing] That’s kind of off-topic though. Um-- then... there’s also... oh. How I discovered The Flash-- um. I mean, honestly? It’s just because the DCU is so, like... I guess... it’s so big, in pop culture, and I hadn’t really watched the MCU or DCU movies or shows? Until like, really recently. So I started trying to catch up to it, so that’s kind of how that happened. I’m all caught up on The Flash through season 5 now, but... for a while, I wasn’t. Um... but anyway. 

08:33 - 09:47 - Next is... let’s go with Connor. Connor Murphy, from Dear Evan Hansen. Um... this is, as you can tell, a [laughing] popular theme throughout all of them, but Dear Evan Hansen is another one that I discovered through Tumblr. Um, it was kind of difficult...? To get to the source material, because... as,, anyone who’s ever been into musicals knows,,, um,,, ya gotta... ya gotta watch those bootlegs. But they’re not like... super legal... [wheezing in laughter] so it involves,, some, like... lowkey piracy... um... I-- technically-- yeah, not technically. Completely, 100%. But it’s worth it. He’s a Boy. He’s so relatable. I’m gonna say 2016 for that as well, but probably af,,ter,,,, I watched,,, Voltron? I wanna say..... um, actually, maybe 2017, that’s probably more accurate. 

09:48 - 10:29 - Um. At this point, I’m just reading down my-- my actual F/O list, um, on my blog, [collapses into laughter] because,, I don’t,,, actually have the capacity or the bandwidth to properly keep a list in my head, and... just talk about them all in an organized fashion without something to look at, ‘cuz I’m a very org-- eh, visual organized person, when it comes to like,, how to like, think and talk about things. So... if thess-- (bluh) if this order sounds familiar, that’s why, I’m literally just reading it off of my list. 

(divided this next one into 3 paragraphs bc it’s so long good god--) 

10:30 - 14:47 - Um... next, I’m gonna say-- I’m not even gonna specify which F/Os, ‘cuz there’s like a looot of them from this source material-- but I’m gonna say Homestuck. Um. I discovered it, again, through Tumblr, but also through like...? I dunno if it’s pronounced Quo Tev or Quote V, but that fanfic website we'd all been to when we were like 11. Um-- [laughs] Um, I first discovered it-- or, I guess... um... [deep breath] I don’t wanna say “interacted with it”, because I really didn’t, I kind of just... observed it for the first time,, when I was, I wanna say... 12, or 11, so 2011... 20-- no, 2012 or 20...13, I wanna say, and then I finally read it in the first couple months of 2016. And, I think-- I actually binged it, and... I didn’t,, I’m not like... a very highly motivated person, so I would read them in like short bursts throughout a couple weeks. 

I think I finished it in like 2 weeks, but... I would read it at like... after midnight hours, [laughing] so I would be sitting in bed, in this dark basement, by myself, and I remember reading about when Gamzee canonically was like... off the shits. [bursts into wheezing laughter] And I was,,, so freaked out, ‘cuz I was sitting in this dark basement, at like 3 in the morning, all by myself, reading about this like, killer clown-- I’m not even afraid of clowns, but like, god! What the fuck! [laughs] ... Um-- so I guess, some of the more prevalent, um, folks from Homestuck for me would be Dave and Davesprite-- um. I know that’s like, a really common one,, for Dave, because he’s like That Guy for the series, but for me it’s more like, “Wow! We have a lot of... shared experiences,” and, I mean... I dunno. That’s something to get into some other time. 

But, I mean... I think I’ve liked... Dave, Davesprite... um, Dirk, in like a palerom way, if you’re familiar with the quadrants from Homestuck? Which is basically kind of like, uhhh, “I wanna be your best friend” but like also, comfort, like-- like-- I don’t know, it’s hard to describe. Um... I guess it would be kind of like a queer-platonic partner, if you’re familiar with, um, ace-spectrum language. Um... I also really liked Roxy for a short time, and... Dave,,peta,sprite??? I don’t know how to pronounce their name. Um, I was never really a fan of Jade, to be honest, um... which I know is like... the bad mojo for that fandom, but... it be like that, I apologize. Um..... anyway, let’s move on before I get into the trolls, because that’s a long list that I don’t even have time to touch right now, we’ve already been going for like 15 minutes and I still have more to talk about... and this is just for question one, I apologize, Starr, what ha-- what can of worms have you opened-- [laughs]

14:48 - 17:30 - Um... I guess, next would be... Donnie, from TMNT. Because... because,, ss-- shocker, surprise! I’m,,, very, very pan,,,, very, very not picky when it comes to who I am loving,,, my stupid heart is like “Not human? Not a problem!” Of course, you still have to be able to consent, yadda yadda yadda, no, bestiality is gross, et cetera, et cetera. Um... but like, when it comes to TMNT, that’s one of those things that... I’ve been... aware of, for like, my whole life, because I mean it’s been around since like-- how long now?? Wh,, since like the 19...8...0s...? Something like that? Um-- oh shoot, my sisters are home. Oh well. 

Um, Donnie is definitely a Main when it comes to the four of them, um, shortly thereafter followed by Mikey, and then it’s Leo, and then I also... I-- I mean, I like all four of them, in separate ways, but like... Raph is definitely, like... Raphael is kind of on the bottom for me? Which I know is kind of odd and uncommon in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fandom, but... that-- I appreciate that he’s [laughs] really passionate,, but I have a hard time,, with, um... people who have, like... quick tempers. Um... due to like, past experiences. So... that’s, um... [long pause] Anyway, I started watching based-- uh, with the 2012 series. Um, I haven’t seen the new one yet-- with the 2D animation, where they’re all different types of turtles? Um, I did watch the 20...14/2016 movies, um... Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and TMNT: Out of the Shadows-- those were really good as well. Um... [huff] and that’s that! I live by that.

17:30 - 19:30 - So, next I guess would be... Merlin, from the show of the same name that aired on BBC. Umm, I don’t actually remember when I watched this? I wanna say 20...14, 2015... probably mid-2015. [burps] ‘Scuse me-- um... I mean... pretty much immediately, I liked him. Um, like, first five minutes of the show, I was immediately like, [surprised voice] “Oh! I love him! He’s mine now.” Um... I discovered him through, um... I mean, general internet culture, same as Homestuck. I did, uh-- kind of find them through Quo Tev-slash-Quote V, however the hell you wanna pronounce it, as well as Tumblr, and like Ao3. Um-- ‘cuz y’know, um, Merlin and Arthur are a really popular ship, so... I did see a lot of that-- I actually do kind of like that ship, but personally, I’m also kind of like, [high voice] “Mmmmmmmm... Arthur,,,....... he’s mine. Go have fun with Gwen.” [pauses, then laughs] ... Not gonna lie though... Morgana before she went, like... crazy, crazy evil? Was like... highkey eyes emoji. And then she went over to the dark side ‘cuz they had cookies or whatever and I was like [high voice] “Mmmmm, I don’t like that.” ‘Cuz,, I’m not, like,, super, like,,,,.... no tea, no shade, y’all who have villain F/Os are super valid, but that’s for me-- [bursts out laughing]

19:31 - 21:08 - Um-- [long pause] And then I guessss... have I mentioned Peter yet? Um,, Spider-Man-- I mean, shh, I totally didn’t just reveal his identity, um-- but... I’ve,, always really liked Spider-Man?? Like, he’s always just kind of been one of my favorite heroes. Um. Even when I hadn’t really watched much of the MCU or DCU, I think Spider-Man was up there with Wonder Woman for me. Um... I still haven’t watched,,, like, anything other than the Tom Holland ones-- [laughter] I do own them, I just,, haven’t watched them-- [collapses into laughter again] Um,, I think,,, [groaning] I don’t know, I just love him... I watched, um... like, I watched... what’s it called? Um-- Homecoming. When it came out. Uh, I saw it in theaters, and I don’t remember when that was, but... I did-- I pretty much immediately was like [high voice] “Mmm, boyfriend material.” So-- I mean, I discovered that through mostly popular culture and cultural osmosis as well, um, but Peter Parker’s been like a childhood one for me as well, I guess. 

21:09 - 23:51 - And then there’s also... uhhh... one second, I’m thinking-- oh. [snaps fingers] Right. I have the list. Right in front of me. Um, Ratchet, from Ratchet & Clank, the 2016 game-- um, I actually haven’t played any of the other ones in the series. Um... I haven’t,, I’m not super familiar with the franchise? I know that he has, like, a canon girlfriend at some point who I’m like... not super comfy with. [starts laughing] Um,,, content for her keeps showing up on my dashboard and I’m like “I don’t want these,,,” But, um... so, I discovered it... through, um. Well. 

Unfortunately, I discovered it through my dad, who I have a very bad relationship with, but he-- at the time, um, he hadn’t disowned me yet, and I was over at his house, because I was-- it was like, visitation weekend. So, I was on the PlayStation, and he had bought Ratchet & Clank in like a weird attempt to like... bribe me with,, affection, or something. And, I guess... I just like... I played it. ‘Cuz like, there wasn’t anything better to play, and I just immediately like fell in love with the game. The graphics are really good, um... the game was fun, it was easy to play once I got a hang of it, which is [snickering] really good because I’m not very good at video games [full-on laughing] even though I love them. Um...

And I mean, that was kind of more of a gradual thing for me. It wasn’t like a [snaps fingers] “I love him,” it was more like [surprised] “... Oh. Ohhh, no,,, I’m starting to love him!” Which is actually kind of strange for me, because it’s kind of like... slow-burn things are less common for me. Um, like normally I’ll at least have like a crush at first, but... for Ratchet, it was really more like... “Ohhh my... Suddenly, I Am Starting to Have Some Affection.” Like, in the middle of playing the game, and it was kind of hilarious. Um... this was, I wanna say, 20...17, 2018. So, more recent. 

23:52 - 25:30 - And then, of course, um, Sans Undertale. Because who doesn’t love The Boy? Ummm... obviously, discovered Undertale through, um... Tumblr, also my boyfriend had it, so I got to watch him play it a bit, and he talked about it as well. Um... popular culture, because everyone was talking about it, it was on YouTube quite a bit, um, and at the time, I was pretty active watching YouTube videos-- I don’t really anymore, but I did at the time. Um... honestly? I never finished the game myself. It’s-- I still have it, it’s like, on my computer, I just haven’t touched it since I like... first got it. I played it for like a couple weeks, but I already kind of knew everything that happened, and I just kind of... didn’t?? Anymore?? So I’m real-- I’m like-- Before I even played the game, though, I was already like “I love him!” because... I mean... I’mma keep it real with you, Chief... I saw a lot of Undertale content on Tumblr and Ao3... and I was just like “Well. I guess I love him now!” Um, I wanna say that was-- I don’t remember when Undertale came out, but I wanna say it wassss... half a year after it came out? Maybe... closer to a year, somewhere around there. 

25:31 - 27:10 - Um... I think those are pretty-- oh! [snaps fingers] Y’know what, I know who I’m forgetting. Um... I also, um, recently started watching Supergirl, and, like, immediately, I loved Winn. He’s so good. Um-- I started watching Supergirl probably... June, July, August of this year? So, it’s very recent, but [shaky voice] oh my god,, I love him. This is again, through like, pop culture, um, it being part of the DCU, being how I discovered it. Um, and also I saw some stuff about lesbians on Tumblr-- um-- I do really like how they handled Alex’s, um... journey through that. And then, I mean... I don’t think I’m gonna say much more, [laughs] ‘cuz I’ll just,, keep going, and I’ve already been recording for like 27 minutes? And I’ve gotten off-topic for probably about half of that. 

So, that’s question number one... if I,, left out any?? That you wanted to hear about, I can do another one, but I think... this should be good for now. 

[lost-your-memory]

here's a prompt I'd love to see you write! Kara is sent as a reporter to "investigate" Earth-2, and while there she meets her doppelganger and the two really hit it off, going from an interview to drinks to a night spent together. Afterwards Kara tells this whole experience to Cat. Doesn't have to be angsty :)

It was an interesting prompt and I cheated a little to be able to stay coherent with the whole universe but I hope it suits you anyway ! 

“New topic Danvers, you’re going to Earth 2 and I want a five pages article about the difference between our world and the second one.”Snapper is even grumpier than ever and Kara simply nods. She thinks that sometimes, her new boss standards are even higher than the ones Miss Grant used to set. He’s not even looking at her, walking around his bullpen and moving post-its around on his board, purposely ignoring her as she tags along, waiting for the rest of the instructions she knows he’s going to bark at some point.“5 points, top. I want politics analysis, demographic statistics, ecological report and a general cultural background, that you can measure to our world with relevant data.”His voice is raw and raspy and he’s walking even faster. She takes mental notes of everything and then she frowns, slightly.“And the last point?”She thinks she sees the shadows of a smirk on the man’s lips but it’s gone as fast as it appeared and he finally looks at her, an incredulous sparkle shining in his narrowed eyes.“Do keep up, Danvers. I want to know if Earth two has a Supergirl or some kind of superhero to protect National City. If you can find out more information about others like her in the world, that’s even better but if you can’t, focus on National City.”With that, he’s stepping into the elevator and pulling his glasses down on his nose to look at a bunch of papers he’s just picked up. The doors close on him and she sighs.Her phone chimes to let her know she has a text and she pulls it out. It’s from the man who just left and she groans.Snapper : I want it for yesterday, Danvers.

—She uses Cisco’s device to travel to Earth 2, after a short visit to the first one to have a movie night with the Allen-West & Co little makeshift family.She lands in a place she immediately remembers.It’s the deserted alley behind Noonan’s and it’s a few minutes away from the CatCo Plaza. She likes the familiarity of it, the strong scent of coffee swirling in the air, mixed with the fresh dough of cinnamon rolls and the unique smell of boiled milk. She smiles and takes a deep, deep breath before adjusting her outfit and pulling her glasses higher up on her nose.She’s here as Kara Danvers, reporter for the CatCo magazine and she really hopes that for once, she won’t have to be Supergirl.—As it turns out, Earth two doesn’t have a Supergirl.She’s at Noonan’s to jostle a few points on her notepad so she can have a clear line of what she needs to do and all the information she has to gather when the images on the muted TV above the counter captures her attention.Her jaw all but drops and she stares, dumbfounded, at the face of her sister, displayed on the screen with a bright caption underneath.National City’s champion engaged in a deadly combat with the Last Child of Daxam.She almost chokes on her coffee when she sees the face of Alex’s lookalike opponent. She could have guessed from the title on the caption but it still takes her by surprise and she notices the differences. He’s smaller, larger and his eyes are as black as a moonless night.She’s at loss as to what to do, feeling terrified for that woman who looks exactly like Alex but who isn’t her sister but soon enough, the fight is over and the Daxamite is being dragged by a team of men in black. She squints, hoping to identify them as DEO but they’re gone too fast for her to make out anything helpful.The camera focuses on the woman who saved the city and zooms, capturing a smile and a pair of soulful, shining eyes as she effortlessly hovers a couple of inches above the ground. She’s flying but there’s no cape billowing behind her and the black of her suit is sparkling under the flashing lights. It looks like it’s made of some kind of flexible metal that follows every single one of her movements and there’s no crest on her chest, no visible sign of any kind.She tilts her head to the side in a gesture that is all too familiar to Kara and then, up, up, up and away she flies.The woman doesn’t seem to have a superhero identity and the news only refers to her as National City’s champion.It’s odd and strange but then again, it’s a whole new world, Kara thinks.—She goes from strange discovery to heart-wrenching tragedy, in this strange universe she’s supposed to investigate.CatCo exists but it’s not a media empire, it’s a production company that produces movies, TV shows and some very prestigious documentaries. Kara finds out that it’s even bigger than the Walt Disney company, in her world and she’s stunned when she learns it’s been created by one talented Cat Grant, art prodigy and business genius.She’s thrown off by the unsettling familiarity of all those differences.She derives from her official researches to dig a little more and she finds out Lucy Lane is a well-known reporter in Metropolis and about to marry President’s daughter. She smiles at that but then her heart weeps a little when she scrolls down on Lucy’s biography. It says Lois Lane died in a shooting but there are no details. No title for Lois, no explanation surrounding her death and Kara digs around a little.She discovers Lois Lane was the leader of a rebellious, terrorist group that tried to have the president Luthor assassinated. She resisted when the army went to take her down and they had to shoot her.It makes her heart bleed a little and she weeps even more when she learns that Lois’s fiancé, Clark Kent, is still purging his sentence in Metropolis’s prison.Apparently, Barry wasn’t kidding when he told her Earth 2 was the one with the bad doppelgangers.—She stumbles upon a robbery in National City main avenue, as she exits the public library, and she realizes how much Barry’s words were true.She’s walking in a small crowd when she hears the gunshots and she has to force herself to act like a civilian instead of listening to her instincts. She runs to go hide herself behind a car and only then she risks a glance towards the stage of the action.She stares in bewilderment, thinking the universe, in every earth that exist, has a funny sense of humor.The doppelgangers of Winn and James are here, shooting in the air to clear a path towards the fancy shops full of jewelry and pretty, rich things. They are carrying fancy technological weapons but they use the common one to shoot and scare people away.The police’s sirens howl in the distance and there’s a familiar windy sound, followed by the crack of a superforce hitting the ground. National City’s champion is here, tall and strong and Kara is blown away by this woman who looks so much like her sister, back on Earth 38.The combat is weird and unfair as evil Winn and James are using ice and fire against the city’s hero and Kara realizes that National City’s champion doesn’t have heat vision or icing breath.In the end, the evil robbers drives away and Alex’s lookalike takes off into the night, leaving the police to deal with the mess.Kara’s left staring at the street and the words are out of her mouth before she can even think them.“You have got to be kidding me.”—She sees herself.She stares at this Earth 2 version of Kara Danvers, climbing out of a police car, all geared up like a cop and dangling a messing ponytail around as she barks orders and directives.It doesn’t stop just there because now she’s picking up on a familiar voice, rich and deep and with some well hidden accents of Spanish and soon enough, there’s a version of Maggie Sawyer following her Earth-2 version of herself.Her head spins and her mind goes blank for a few seconds, because it’s too much to take in.—“Whow. You look just like my partner here. It’s … kind of creepy actually.”She lets out a dry chuckle at Maggie’s words.There’s one thing she never realized about crime scenes, it’s the protocol and procedures the cops have to follow through. As Supergirl, she’s used to leaving before the dust of the fight has even settled but now that she’s trying to act like a normal civilian, she has to give a statement and to wait for a cop to let her go.It’s embarrassing. She didn’t think this thing through and now, she sees the Earth-2 version of herself approaching from behind Maggie, who is still staring at her with awe and wonder in her dark, chocolate eyes.“Hi. Are you done with …”She meets deep, deep blue eyes and the world stops for a while.She’s looked at herself in a mirror before but this, this is beyond words and she couldn’t even try to describe the mixed feelings that makes her whole body vibrate and tingle.It’s unnerving and fascinating at the same time, to see a perfect reflection of herself have a personality, an attitude and emotions that are not hers.They stare at each other for what seems like a whole eternity but then, Maggie’s voice comes between them.“Hi, Kar’. Miss Teschmacher here was just giving me her statement but to be honest, I was just too struck by how much she looks like you. It’s scary, really.”Kara tries not to wince at the familiarity between the two cops. It’s already so weird to look at her clone, she doesn’t need to know what is happening between Earth-2 Kara and Earth-2 Maggie.“It’s … fascinating.”Kara almost gasps because even her clone’s inflections are the same as hers. It’s deep but a little sweet and even though it lacks her usual sunny disposition, she can imagine that being called on a crime scene can erode the optimism, on the long term.“Uh, yes, kind of, I guess” She stutters a little because really, that whole situation feels entirely surreal and she hopes she can escape it right away.“Alright, Miss Teschmacher, you’re free to go. We have your number if we need more information.” Maggie says before turning on her heels to go talk to a rookie.Kara let out a relieved sigh and wanders away.—She jumps when her phone, her Earth-38 phone rings.It’s a reflex, something she’s acquired along all those years working for Cat Grant, she picks up.The voice at the other end of the line is hers and for a whole minute, she can’t reply. Her clone asks, almost shyly, if they can meet for a drink and Kara doesn’t even know what that means but she’s curious and a little dizzy too, so she says yes.—It goes incredibly smoothly.She meets her other self in a bar and after a brief moment of panic when she recognizes Hank Henshaw as the bartender, she sits in one side of a booth. Sat across the polished table, facing her, is that improbable version of herself with deep, deep blue eyes and a smile brighter than the sun itself.She’s wearing a pair of ripped off jeans and a worn-out light Grey sweater with the faded black and bold NYPD letters plastered on her chest and she notices, for the first time, that her clone doesn’t wear glasses.That’s why the blue is so deep and bright and free, in her sparkling eyes. It’s like watching the sun shines over an ever clear ocean.“I know it’s unusual and maybe not very professional but I wanted to see you again. I’m … drawn to you in a way I can’t even explain.”Kara opens her mouth but there’re no words coming out of it and she just looks at her clone. She’s scanning that face that is exactly like hers, up to the scar above her eyes and the very slight curl around her lips. It’s deranging and yet fascinating.“That’s … That’s okay. I’m actually curious. I’ve never … I mean, I can’t believe I’ve never seen you before. You’re … me.” It’s an incoherent ramble but the local version of Kara Danvers doesn’t seem to mind. She smiles and waves a waitress to order a bourbon.She shakes her head and simply asks for a club soda, not wanting to drink, not when the whole world is already spinning on itself and she’s feeling so dizzy, so unsteady.Earth-2 Kara arches a brow but doesn’t push it.—Three hours later, she’s drunk and laughing openly with the woman everyone else assumes is her twin sister.Three times, people came to ask if they were sisters, awe and wonder clear on their face.It turns out, she doesn’t have her high tolerance to alcohol here.She knows she has all her other powers, she tested her hearing and supervision when she’s taken off her glasses under the pretext of cleaning them, but she’s vulnerable to the effect of alcohol.That’s how she ended up drinking sweet, sugary cocktails while her clone self lined up the double Bourbon.It’s easy and it shouldn’t be, to talk to that version of herself she ignores everything about.—It’s one AM and she’s drunk, she’s drunk and she’s naked in a bed she doesn’t know.The body atop of herself however, is familiar in a way she can’t fully explain. It’s herself but it’s not her and she’s spinning in lust, want and desire. There’s a pang of guilt tugging at her heart but it goes away when fingers dig in her flesh and caresses her center.—She jolts awake, sweat drenching her whole body, eyes wide and breathing shallow, ragged.There’s a good number of eyes on her and she looks around in a frantic, desperate way to chase away the reminiscence of something she can’t even begin to think about.She’s at the DEO, safely tucked under the sun bed. It was all a dream, nothing was real. Nothing happened.She passes out under the weight of her relief.—“You’re telling me that, when you were in your weird coma, you just dreamed of another earth, one where you … slept with your doppelganger?”Cat’s voice sounds both incredulous and amused. Kara winces and hides her face under a pillow, groaning from underneath it. It’s not funny and she stills feels a little nauseous about the whole experience, even knowing nothing was real, that it was all the fruit of her coma-imagination.“It’s not funny.” She groans and she smiles against the sheet when she feels Cat’s hand strokes the muscles of her back.It’s been five days since she woke up but she’s still a little weak and vulnerable and she needs a daily dose of sun-powered rest.Cat’s been there the whole time, making a scene in the DEO lobby when agents tried to take her away.It was Alex, who pleaded her cause to Hank and the martian finally, finally caved and let Cat stay. Of course, the CEO of one of the most powerful media empire of the world had to sign a ridiculous amount of papers and confidentiality agreements but she did it without a fuss.Now, they were back at Cat’s place and Kara finally had brought herself to tell the whole dream to the other woman.Who was clearly struggling to get her mind around the story here.“You slept with yourself, Alex was some kind of Supergirl, Winn and James were Bonnie and Clyde, Maggie was your partner because right, you were a cop and I was … a female Walt Disney?” The last words are sharp and disdainful and it makes Kara laugh.“Yes, a very loved one if I remember correctly.” She does, remember. Everything. It haunts her nights and sometimes even her days too.“Ugh. Lionel Luthor was president, greater Lane was the actual Lois and about to marry Lena Luthor when your cousin was in prison for having tried to kill the president and Lois …” Cat trails off and there’s something strangled in her voice when she pronounces that name. She doesn’t say it out loud often, Kara remembers. It’s loaded, it’s a wound that didn’t heal correctly.“Can you please stop talking about this? I dread the day I will have to tell Alex about it… I will never, never hear the end of it.” She groans again and the sound of Cat’s laugh fills the room. It helps, that Cat is taking it with humor. Mostly.“Alright, Darling.”Kara pokes her head out of under the pillow and throws a suspicious look at Cat Grant, who is not famous for giving up when asked.“Oh, don’t worry. I’m not done with that chapter but for now … I would rather focus on something else.” Cat says and her voice is low and husky, lined with desire as her hand wanders across Kara’s skin.Kara smiles and shuffles closer to Cat to ask for a kiss. She’s a breath away from her lover’s mouth when she hears the question.“Wait, did you sister really kill that daxamite man-child you’re calling a friend?”Kara groans and makes her shut up with a deep, messy and hungry kiss.

[coldtomyflash]

Wally West Speech Patterns

So I wanted to do this speech patterns post as separate from what turned into the body language post because then I can focus more exclusively on the language aspect, but I’ll mention a bit throughout for how to combine that with body language.

Precise Word Choice

Okay so importantly, one thing that really stands out about Wally is his actual word choice. Unlike a lot of people I’ve looked at so far, even when he’s not using technical language (like Cisco and Caitlin with physics and biology), Wally actually uses a lot of multi-syllabilic and more specific words. He doesn’t say he “we dropped him off in iron heights”, he says “deposited” in Iron Heights. That shows a more precise use of language. Not “I don’t know” but “unclear” (so cute in that scene).

He uses words like “required” instead of “needed”. 

He doesn’t go for the simplest words, not because he’s trying hard to pick complex ones, just because he seems naturally strong in linguistic intelligence. 

Even when he’s trash-talking villains and might opt for a more punchy “yo metal mouth,” he’s equally likely to go with “A little quaking in your boots might not be inappropriate,” when he’s not pressed for time. 

And look at that word choice! It’s brilliant. The use of a double negative (”not” and “in-” before appropriate) fluidly rather than simplifying the statement to a positive (”a little quaking in your boots might be appropriate”) which would make his statement more direct and come off as a little less clever-sounding. He wants to sound clever when he’s being cheeky.

And I mean, look how he uses words here to tease even while displaying some discomfort (which, note, more restrained posture and body language). 

He’s chose a four-syllable word for his adjective (interesting), a highly specific and less common word for the noun (venue) and his comment is noticeably tongue-in-cheek in part because of that word choice. And then talking about the ‘theme’, which is more an abstract word (and not all of the characters like to deal in abstraction when they make remarks, for the record). He didn’t say “style” or “decorations” or anything, but chose ‘theme’. He likes to use some metaphor and abstraction in his language.

So we get from that that Wally likes words a good deal, and enjoys word-play, a little bit at least. Please please write him with a love of language, even though it’s subtle.

Plainer/Punchier Words

But note that you don’t have to always have him going for longer or more precise words. Don’t strain yourself. Because he sure doesn’t. He’s happy to be direct and even to swear, a bit more than some of the other characters, but still sparingly.

I’d say that Wally doesn’t mind to swear, and does maybe slightly more than some of our other characters, at least in Flashpoint. “Who the hell are you?” and “I’m so gonna kick your ass” come easily to him. But he’s never vulgar, and the swears come out mostly when he’s challenged and when he’s being Kid Flash. 

Wally is also perfectly happy to opt for the word “weird” as one of his preferred adjectives. Really, he uses it more than once.

It’s great. (He’s also one of the few characters the word ‘dude’. Joe also does sometimes. I kind of love it). Another word he likes to use is ‘awesome’ actually, which he’ll use totally without irony. He uses it here again, with a ton of other adjectives too, more specific ones as he’s searching for words to describe a feeling, and maybe not used to not having the exact words he wants at his fingertips. 

(Though note, like the tic-tac-toe theme example from above, Wally isn’t above sarcasm. He’s just very dry when it comes out, and it’s often when he’s annoyed or tired of something, or exhausted maybe. It’s not his base mood, but it certainly can come out). 

Both ‘weird’ and ‘awesome’ come out when he’s feeling comfortable in his surrounding though, more relaxed with who he’s talking to. And he uses them appropriately. He remarks on things that genuinely are weird.

Practicality

Which brings me to another point. Wally is very practical. Like, as a person, and in his speech. That’s part of the precision thing. But he’s often the one voicing when things are strange or awry, remarking on the improbability of their situation. He’s also the one to jump to the simplest solution to a problem:

He likes to cut to the heart of things and see them as they are, and isn’t one to over-complicate an issue if it doesn’t have to be. Which means he also cuts to the heart of interpersonal problems, even personal ones, in a flash:

Ouch. 

But note that he’s well aware of his own feelings and showing a real clarity of understanding the situation. He feels that people don’t have faith in him and his abilities here and he’s not wrong. They’re more worried about him being hurt than they are trusting of his ability to succeed. Wally sees the core of things and it shows in his speech, getting there concisely. 

Even though he likes adjectives, he’s not overly flowery when he talks, at least unless he’s really upbeat about something. Particularly when upset, he’s more short and to the point with his word choice (”it sucks”) but there is nothing overly simplistic about his phrasing.

Sentence Structure

Wally uses full sentences. Like, almost always. I mean, not if he’s responding “yeah” to someone, or there’s a good cause for him to be short and speak in phrases. But unlike some people (*cough*Leonard*cough*) he never drops the subject of a sentence. He doesn’t even drop descriptors that he could. “That dude gets weirder every time I see him” and not “dude gets weirder every time I see him”. 

Even here, conveying a very complete thought when asking for help (this could be transcribed as a single two-clause sentence instead of as two sentences, because he very often uses two-clause complex sentences if you listen to him).

So Wally’s more naturally verbose than some people. He uses full sentences and lots of adjectives -- all that ‘weird’ and ‘awesome’ to qualify nouns, even the word ‘inappropriate’ about the Rival quaking in his boots, ‘greatest’ to explain the feeling of running, and just generally across the board. There are so many adjectives (and sometimes adverbs) popping up in his speech, helping to stretch out those sentences.

Softening His Speech

And you know what else there is? Qualifiers and hedging! 

I love talking about how people qualify and emphasis, which you might know by now. Because this really gives insight into a person and also into specific little things that will make their speech sound like ‘them’ instead of same voice. I’ve said that Len very seldom qualifies anything (I think he uses the word ‘really’ once or twice?) and that Barry mostly only qualifies into making things more absolute (adding “at all” to something). But Wally? Wally hedges properly, to soften something. To qualify it. Thank you, Wally. I mean, not that he never uses a qualifier as an adverb for emphasis:

But look at how he hedges this statement, even jokingly: “I think”:

He’ll often say “I think” in front of something to make it less absolute.

This ties in to how he turns imperatives (orders) into questions sometimes. He softens a command by seeking agreement from the person he’s giving it to.

And he also does this a bit with declarative sentences. Check out this gifset where he’s angry and shouting at Joe (season 2) but still says “okay?” mid-rant in part because he’s still unsure of himself and is hiding behind bluster (I’m guessing) and in part because he probably isn’t too comfortable with shouting people down and being so abrupt with them. 

He’ll ask questions for clarification too, especially when unsure of himself. Because he doesn’t shy away from bolder statements when he’s confident or needs to feel confident, building up someone else or else sure of what he wants:

But questions are a definite facet of his speech. Most of them don’t require an actual answer, they’re rhetorical or just phrased that way. And I think that Wally uses questions a lot to soften his speech. Not to seem soft but not to have sharp corners and bold demands. He’s incredibly personable and likeable and it shows through in this way. 

Contrast how in this gifset where we saw him use ‘awesome’, how he says “are you kidding” instead of “you gotta be kidding me,” which we’ve seen Leonard do in a way that came off as quite sharp. That’s the difference.

Emotions

I should point out, since I just brought up anger, that a lot of Wally’s speech, like anyone’s, is impacted a lot by his emotions. I’ve made reference to that already, about how he’ll say ‘weird’ and ‘awesome’ more around people he’s comfortable talking to. About his dry sarcasm at times, that irony. But his anger is important too. He was pretty understandably angry when we first got to know him in season 2, but you can tell he isn’t used to being angry and shouting people down all that often, like I just said. 

It’s especially noticeable because his go-to response when others are shouting or else are angry with him is to trail off and get quieter. You see it a lot and I reference it in my body-language post. Wally retreats and processes what’s going on, verbalizes (often to someone else, for example like to HR) to get his thoughts in order, and then he talks to the person about what’s going on, cutting to the heart of the issue fast, like I said. 

But if he is going to fight back (because he knows what he wants to say and what the issue is already) he’ll often bring a question into it instead of pushing back with declaratives.

His anger brings out his prouder and more stubborn side though. Which definitely exists. Although when he’s in a good mood, Wally will comfortably admit if he doesn’t know something in order to learn, when he’s upset or less comfortable, he seems to shut down and let pride keep others at a distance. This was the whole issue with how Joe first approached asking Wally to move in with him, for instance. But note that in Flashpoint, he’s like “is that like, a thing, ‘flanking’?” (lol yes, Wally, it’s a thing). 

And when he’s not angry or frustrated with someone, he admits to needing help.

So he is at least a little bit ruled by his emotions in his speech, but for the most part, he doesn’t let it get in the way of his good sense, even if he can be a bit stubborn. His strong ethics tend to be what guide him though, a deep sense of loyalty but also the desire to do good and help others, and he places that above his own anger and pain every time.

Final (Minor) Notes

I mentioned that Wally will hedge a statement with “I think” but that fits into a broader pattern he engages in. He’ll often praface a statement with some minor addition like “I think” or “wait” or “hold up” (the latter two I find ironic, for a speedster).

And while I’ve talked about how he uses adjectives a lot, I find that interesting because he means he doesn’t have to be quite as short and declarative in his sentences. For instance, when he says “cool skateboard” to that kid in Flashpoint (and notice he softens this whole interaction even more by adding ‘though’ at the end), we can contrast that to someone like Mick, who uses simple declarative sentences for his preferences a lot, and would probably say “I like your skateboard” instead. When it comes to matters of taste and preference, Wally doesn’t state, he describes.

Wally’s speech also gives rise to the notion that he has a strong grasp of intrapersonal (self) understanding and a sort of existential mindset, a calling to a higher purpose. His desire to help people comes out time and again and he doesn’t hedge that desire ever. He questions his purpose and looks deep into some personal questions. 

And in an amongst a lot of the other things I’ve said about his word choice, sentence length, cutting to the heart of issues, and phrasing things as questions, this gifset (and the sentence at the bottom) really showcases all of that in one place and also puts something else in perspective: Wally, especially when emotional, is comfortable going on for a few (long) sentences at a time. Although short sentences or a single-sentence-at-a-time is perfectly common, don’t hesitate to write him going off for a while when needed, especially if he’s upset and calling people out.

He has a longer speech again here too, with more of that intrapersonal understanding (and vivid word choice) showing through.

And okay, I think that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope this helps. There’s probably more to say about his speech (of course there is) but with any luck, this will provide a good starting place for people who aren’t sure how to write him.

[Link to the body movement post]

[digitalmark18-blog]

Top Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now

New Post has been published on https://britishdigitalmarketingnews.com/top-social-media-trends-to-watch-right-now/

Top Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now

The world has never been into social media as much, as it is now. There are more than 3 billion active users on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social platforms. This is almost half of the worldwide population. Many businesses continue to find social media is the most effective way to reach audiences.   

We realize it perfectly at Chanty. Building a simple AI-powered Slack alternative, our team has just started sailing in the rough waters of social media. This is how I got curious about the top social media trends for businesses to pay attention to.

I’ve dived into dozens of articles and expert opinions on the topic, picking up the most important social media trends. I’ll briefly review them in this article, providing some case studies. Have a read at the 7 social media trends to pay attention to this year.

1. Videos are good, live streaming is better

We all know videos rock, right? According to Cisco forecasts, 82% of all consumer internet traffic will be video by 2021. Pre-recorded content works well, but the benefit can be even greater if you incorporate live streaming into your marketing mix. Live streaming makes up 66% of all internet usage, and this number is growing. The options for live broadcasting are endless.

A live streaming case study.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ live tour of the DD test kitchen. Video source.

In 2016, Dunkin’ Donuts, a US coffeehouse company, debuted with its first Facebook Live video. The presenters gave a sneak peek to their “test kitchen” and created a big donut-themed wedding cake. This behind-the-scenes video attracted 48K viewers so far, which is quite an impressive number considering the unpretentious topic of the video.

Here’s a tip. Going “viral” won’t help much if you’re not reaching your target market. Be sure to use content marketing tools, such as Google Analytics to measure ROI.

2. Micro-influencers can work magic

This social media trend might be your safest bet. Influencer marketing is one of the most trusted forms of advertising. Influencers tend to have higher user engagement than content generated by brands. But guess what? Way too often, star campaigns didn’t cover the expenses.

The thing is that celebrities may seem a too far apart from their fans, so they don’t get enough empathy from their audience. However, bloggers who have fewer followers (approximately 10K) are perceived as more authentic and relatable. This helps them to engage more people in their promotional campaigns. So, sorry, dear Kardashian family, we’re turning to everyday people.

A micro-influencer marketing case study.

Banana Republic influencer campaign. Image source.

Banana Republic’s Instagram campaign can serve as a successful example of the micro-influencer marketing. The American clothing retailer works extensively with bloggers who try on its clothing in a variety of settings. By seeking fashion influencers known for their sense of style Banana Republic claimed to reach a large and targeted audience.

There is another advantage of turning to micro-influencers. Having a smaller group of followers, they can afford to keep things personal, responding to comments and messages.

Here’s a tip. Make sure that the influencers you choose fit your target audience. If you work worldwide, remember that the popularity of social media platforms varies by region. For example, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are banned in China. Instagram, however, doubled its user base in India last year.

3. Tell your story (using ephemeral content)

Ephemeral content tops record levels. Instagram Stories grew up to 400 million daily users. So why do people love the short-lived content? I would say, it’s because of love and fear. First, it plays on the FOMO (fear of missing out). We don’t want to miss any news about summer discounts of our favorite brand, right? Second, people (especially millennials) love authentic connections to brands, which is exactly what ephemeral content offers.  

An ephemeral content case study.

The Instagram Story of the Beyond Yoga brand. Image source.

Here’s a typical example of how a retail company uses the ephemeral content. In this Instagram Story, Beyond Yoga features a woman getting through her workout in the branded clothes. This is an effective way to create buzz for a new product.  

The ephemeral content provides plenty of possibilities for marketers from unveiling a product line to the behind-the-scenes coverage of a company’s workflows.

Here’s a tip. It’s a good idea to keep your content personal and casual. It shouldn’t take visitors away from the main feed of your social media account.

4. Get a friendly chatbot

Here’s the thing: your customers would love to talk to you. In case you’re busy, they won’t even mind a friendly bot. Since marketers became aware of this, live chats have been an integral part of sales. When customers engage with a brand via chat, they are 4.5 times more likely to make a purchase and far more likely to become loyal clients. The hyper-personalized customer journeys make visitors feel they are special and worth attention.

A chatbot case study.

Kia Motors chatbot. Image source.

Many brands design Facebook Messenger chatbots to answer questions and requests from their potential customers. Above is a common example. KIA, a South Korea automobile manufacturer, introduced a chatbot. It can answer car buyers’ questions and guide them to the vehicle that fits their needs. This feature resulted in 3 times higher online conversion rates.

Chatbots have a bright future, especially since they are entering the financial sector. Reportedly, Citibank is rolling out the first Facebook Messenger-embedded chatbot that will allow customers to access their financial records and conduct transactions. This is considered to herald a new era of mobile banking.

Here’s a tip. Chatbots should be skillfully crafted and work seamlessly on a variety of devices. Be sure they provide good linguistics and are bug-free. This will excite your customers, so they will come again and spread the word about you.

5. Embrace augmented reality

Nearly all talks about augmented reality start with a clause, “It’s not fully there yet.” Indeed, AR seems a lot like a promise. But a very fulfilling one. It has been slowly conquering apps, games,

global positioning systems and… social media. We already feel at home with AR selfie filters

– bunny ears and mustaches used in Facebook or Instagram Stories.

However, in May 2018 Facebook introduced a more advanced AR feature – the camera effects in Messenger. The idea is the following: when users are chatting with your company’s bot, they can click “try on looks”. The command opens up the camera pre-populated with filters and AR effects specific to your brand.

An augmented reality case study.

AR for the Facebook Messenger Platform. Image source.

At launch, four brands introduced AR effects for their Messenger experiences: ASUS, KIA, Nike, and Sephora. As an example, Nike is using Messenger to promote a new pair of sneakers. The brand provides users with an exclusive sneak peek at their product. Reportedly, after launching the feature Nike saw higher engagement from users who interacted with these AR experiences.

Though not publicly available yet, AR camera effects in Messenger are to become a common solution for businesses. Meanwhile, Facebook moved on to the next tech endeavor – AR advertisements. The pilot brand partners testing the feature include Sephora, Bobbi Brown, and Pottery Barn.

Here’s a tip. For now, consider incorporating the embed branded AR camera effects into your Facebook messenger bot. The platform works in beta as of August 2018. But you can request access to it, by adding your company to the waitlist. There’s much more to come in AR technologies, so be prepared.

6. Incorporate social advertising

Your social media ads budget can be tight, as in most companies. But as Facebook continues to slash organic reach for businesses, the paid promotion might be your healthy choice. Luckily, Facebook has pioneered some of the most precise ad targeting tools ever. Do you want to target fifty-something, well-to-do, Texas farmers, who like dogs and rodeo? No problem. However, there’s a nuance you should be aware of. 53 percent of people want to see more video content, so make sure video ads fit into your social media strategy.  

A social advertising case study.  

Kay Jewelers’ video ad. Video source.

This video ad from Kay Jewelers, an American jewelry company, tells a quick but touching story, using just a few seconds of your time. You don’t even need the sound to get the message the company is sending.

Here’s a tip. If you are going to use video ads, be sure your ad has a clear (and, preferably, happy) ending. People view videos more passively on Facebook than they do on YouTube. They won’t have time to interpret your ad if it’s too long or complex.

7. Build communities, connect offline

People have built communities from time immemorial. This human tendency has never been so important for us, marketers, as it is now. Surfing the web, users get tired of automation and being sold to. They want real experiences and interactions. That’s why a loyal community can be a lifesaver for businesses.

Facebook Groups can be powerful for building communities. At Chanty, we started one recently, and it seems like a long and exciting journey is ahead. There are multiple ways to engage people in your community: from asking them for some feedback to building a creative promotion your customers are interested in. Ideally, it all comes to connecting in real life. If possible, take your communities to an offline setting.

A case study online to offline.  

Image source.

This is an Instagram post from Kylie Jenner, the owner of a cosmetic company. She founded her business online, and it exploded in popularity thanks in part to social media. In 2016, when the company announced a pop-up store, fans were ecstatic. They finally got a chance to handle the product in-person, try out the colors, and even meet their fashion idol in real life.

Here’s a tip. Create a community for your passionate customers, but don’t try to control it too much. It’s better not to delete posts (unless it’s spam) or sanitize negative feedback. Keep in mind that your community is an extremely useful reality check and feedback mechanism and whenever possible try to find a way to connect offline as well.

Wrapping up today’s top social media trends

We’ve listed the seven top social media trends that you can’t turn a blind eye to. To recap:

Post high-quality live videos. Craft messages you send to viewers and use analytics tools to measure ROI.

Collaborate with micro-influencers, but make sure they are in touch with your target audience. Keep in mind that popularity of social media platforms varies by region.

Use ephemeral content to show the human side of your brand. Keep your stories personal and casual not to distract your visitors from the main feed.

Adopt a friendly chatbot to create a real-time engagement with prospective customers. It should be bug-free and work reliably across devices.

Be prepared for the best AR technologies coming to the social media. Consider joining Facebook AR camera effects beta program or placing an AR advertisement.  

Utilize social advertising and paid promotions as the organic reach in social media has extremely declined. Experiment with using video ads, as they tend to resonate better than static image ads.

Build communities, online and offline, and provide them with great content. Consider connecting with your potential and actual clients offline whenever possible.

Did I miss anything from this list of top social media trends? Feel free to leave your comments below. And if you found this article helpful, please share it on your favorite social platform.

Aleksey Chepalov is on the marketing team at Chanty — a simple AI-powered business messenger and a single notification center. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work.

The post Top Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now appeared first on Top Dog Social Media.

Source: https://topdogsocialmedia.com/top-social-media-trends/

[unifiedsocialblog]

Top Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now

The world has never been into social media as much, as it is now. There are more than 3 billion active users on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social platforms. This is almost half of the worldwide population. Many businesses continue to find social media is the most effective way to reach audiences.   

We realize it perfectly at Chanty. Building a simple AI-powered Slack alternative, our team has just started sailing in the rough waters of social media. This is how I got curious about the top social media trends for businesses to pay attention to.

I’ve dived into dozens of articles and expert opinions on the topic, picking up the most important social media trends. I’ll briefly review them in this article, providing some case studies. Have a read at the 7 social media trends to pay attention to this year.

1. Videos are good, live streaming is better

We all know videos rock, right? According to Cisco forecasts, 82% of all consumer internet traffic will be video by 2021. Pre-recorded content works well, but the benefit can be even greater if you incorporate live streaming into your marketing mix. Live streaming makes up 66% of all internet usage, and this number is growing. The options for live broadcasting are endless.

A live streaming case study.

Dunkin’ Donuts’ live tour of the DD test kitchen. Video source.

In 2016, Dunkin’ Donuts, a US coffeehouse company, debuted with its first Facebook Live video. The presenters gave a sneak peek to their “test kitchen” and created a big donut-themed wedding cake. This behind-the-scenes video attracted 48K viewers so far, which is quite an impressive number considering the unpretentious topic of the video.

Here’s a tip. Going “viral” won’t help much if you’re not reaching your target market. Be sure to use content marketing tools, such as Google Analytics to measure ROI.

2. Micro-influencers can work magic

This social media trend might be your safest bet. Influencer marketing is one of the most trusted forms of advertising. Influencers tend to have higher user engagement than content generated by brands. But guess what? Way too often, star campaigns didn’t cover the expenses.

The thing is that celebrities may seem a too far apart from their fans, so they don’t get enough empathy from their audience. However, bloggers who have fewer followers (approximately 10K) are perceived as more authentic and relatable. This helps them to engage more people in their promotional campaigns. So, sorry, dear Kardashian family, we’re turning to everyday people.

A micro-influencer marketing case study.

Banana Republic influencer campaign. Image source.

Banana Republic’s Instagram campaign can serve as a successful example of the micro-influencer marketing. The American clothing retailer works extensively with bloggers who try on its clothing in a variety of settings. By seeking fashion influencers known for their sense of style Banana Republic claimed to reach a large and targeted audience.

There is another advantage of turning to micro-influencers. Having a smaller group of followers, they can afford to keep things personal, responding to comments and messages.

Here’s a tip. Make sure that the influencers you choose fit your target audience. If you work worldwide, remember that the popularity of social media platforms varies by region. For example, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are banned in China. Instagram, however, doubled its user base in India last year.

3. Tell your story (using ephemeral content)

Ephemeral content tops record levels. Instagram Stories grew up to 400 million daily users. So why do people love the short-lived content? I would say, it’s because of love and fear. First, it plays on the FOMO (fear of missing out). We don’t want to miss any news about summer discounts of our favorite brand, right? Second, people (especially millennials) love authentic connections to brands, which is exactly what ephemeral content offers.  

An ephemeral content case study.

The Instagram Story of the Beyond Yoga brand. Image source.

Here’s a typical example of how a retail company uses the ephemeral content. In this Instagram Story, Beyond Yoga features a woman getting through her workout in the branded clothes. This is an effective way to create buzz for a new product.  

The ephemeral content provides plenty of possibilities for marketers from unveiling a product line to the behind-the-scenes coverage of a company’s workflows.

Here’s a tip. It’s a good idea to keep your content personal and casual. It shouldn’t take visitors away from the main feed of your social media account.

4. Get a friendly chatbot

Here’s the thing: your customers would love to talk to you. In case you’re busy, they won’t even mind a friendly bot. Since marketers became aware of this, live chats have been an integral part of sales. When customers engage with a brand via chat, they are 4.5 times more likely to make a purchase and far more likely to become loyal clients. The hyper-personalized customer journeys make visitors feel they are special and worth attention.

A chatbot case study.

Kia Motors chatbot. Image source.

Many brands design Facebook Messenger chatbots to answer questions and requests from their potential customers. Above is a common example. KIA, a South Korea automobile manufacturer, introduced a chatbot. It can answer car buyers’ questions and guide them to the vehicle that fits their needs. This feature resulted in 3 times higher online conversion rates.

Chatbots have a bright future, especially since they are entering the financial sector. Reportedly, Citibank is rolling out the first Facebook Messenger-embedded chatbot that will allow customers to access their financial records and conduct transactions. This is considered to herald a new era of mobile banking.

Here’s a tip. Chatbots should be skillfully crafted and work seamlessly on a variety of devices. Be sure they provide good linguistics and are bug-free. This will excite your customers, so they will come again and spread the word about you.

5. Embrace augmented reality

Nearly all talks about augmented reality start with a clause, “It’s not fully there yet.” Indeed, AR seems a lot like a promise. But a very fulfilling one. It has been slowly conquering apps, games,

global positioning systems and… social media. We already feel at home with AR selfie filters

– bunny ears and mustaches used in Facebook or Instagram Stories.

However, in May 2018 Facebook introduced a more advanced AR feature – the camera effects in Messenger. The idea is the following: when users are chatting with your company’s bot, they can click “try on looks”. The command opens up the camera pre-populated with filters and AR effects specific to your brand.

An augmented reality case study.

AR for the Facebook Messenger Platform. Image source.

At launch, four brands introduced AR effects for their Messenger experiences: ASUS, KIA, Nike, and Sephora. As an example, Nike is using Messenger to promote a new pair of sneakers. The brand provides users with an exclusive sneak peek at their product. Reportedly, after launching the feature Nike saw higher engagement from users who interacted with these AR experiences.

Though not publicly available yet, AR camera effects in Messenger are to become a common solution for businesses. Meanwhile, Facebook moved on to the next tech endeavor – AR advertisements. The pilot brand partners testing the feature include Sephora, Bobbi Brown, and Pottery Barn.

Here’s a tip. For now, consider incorporating the embed branded AR camera effects into your Facebook messenger bot. The platform works in beta as of August 2018. But you can request access to it, by adding your company to the waitlist. There’s much more to come in AR technologies, so be prepared.

6. Incorporate social advertising

Your social media ads budget can be tight, as in most companies. But as Facebook continues to slash organic reach for businesses, the paid promotion might be your healthy choice. Luckily, Facebook has pioneered some of the most precise ad targeting tools ever. Do you want to target fifty-something, well-to-do, Texas farmers, who like dogs and rodeo? No problem. However, there’s a nuance you should be aware of. 53 percent of people want to see more video content, so make sure video ads fit into your social media strategy.  

A social advertising case study.  

Kay Jewelers’ video ad. Video source.

This video ad from Kay Jewelers, an American jewelry company, tells a quick but touching story, using just a few seconds of your time. You don’t even need the sound to get the message the company is sending.

Here’s a tip. If you are going to use video ads, be sure your ad has a clear (and, preferably, happy) ending. People view videos more passively on Facebook than they do on YouTube. They won’t have time to interpret your ad if it’s too long or complex.

7. Build communities, connect offline

People have built communities from time immemorial. This human tendency has never been so important for us, marketers, as it is now. Surfing the web, users get tired of automation and being sold to. They want real experiences and interactions. That’s why a loyal community can be a lifesaver for businesses.

Facebook Groups can be powerful for building communities. At Chanty, we started one recently, and it seems like a long and exciting journey is ahead. There are multiple ways to engage people in your community: from asking them for some feedback to building a creative promotion your customers are interested in. Ideally, it all comes to connecting in real life. If possible, take your communities to an offline setting.

A case study online to offline.  

Image source.

This is an Instagram post from Kylie Jenner, the owner of a cosmetic company. She founded her business online, and it exploded in popularity thanks in part to social media. In 2016, when the company announced a pop-up store, fans were ecstatic. They finally got a chance to handle the product in-person, try out the colors, and even meet their fashion idol in real life.

Here’s a tip. Create a community for your passionate customers, but don’t try to control it too much. It’s better not to delete posts (unless it’s spam) or sanitize negative feedback. Keep in mind that your community is an extremely useful reality check and feedback mechanism and whenever possible try to find a way to connect offline as well.

Wrapping up today’s top social media trends

We’ve listed the seven top social media trends that you can’t turn a blind eye to. To recap:

Post high-quality live videos. Craft messages you send to viewers and use analytics tools to measure ROI.

Collaborate with micro-influencers, but make sure they are in touch with your target audience. Keep in mind that popularity of social media platforms varies by region.

Use ephemeral content to show the human side of your brand. Keep your stories personal and casual not to distract your visitors from the main feed.

Adopt a friendly chatbot to create a real-time engagement with prospective customers. It should be bug-free and work reliably across devices.

Be prepared for the best AR technologies coming to the social media. Consider joining Facebook AR camera effects beta program or placing an AR advertisement.  

Utilize social advertising and paid promotions as the organic reach in social media has extremely declined. Experiment with using video ads, as they tend to resonate better than static image ads.

Build communities, online and offline, and provide them with great content. Consider connecting with your potential and actual clients offline whenever possible.

Did I miss anything from this list of top social media trends? Feel free to leave your comments below. And if you found this article helpful, please share it on your favorite social platform.

Aleksey Chepalov is on the marketing team at Chanty — a simple AI-powered business messenger and a single notification center. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work.

The post Top Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now appeared first on Top Dog Social Media.

Top Social Media Trends to Watch Right Now published first on https://getfblike.tumblr.com/

[shannonwluna4]

Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview With Comedian, Marketer Tim Washer

As we marketers long to make meaningful connections with our audience, we often look deep into our figurative crystal balls in hopes of finding a way to lay an irresistible field of content that will trap their attention. Unfortunately, we canend up putting our audience to sleep-leaving the door open for more colorful characters to swoop in and carry them away. So, how can we take to the sky and get our audience to surrender to our content? By crafting a narrative that has empathy, humility and wit. And there's certainly no better person to look to for inspiration than comedic treasure Tim Washer, Creative Director of Marketing for the Service Provider Division for Cisco. As part of our Wizard of Oz-inspired Behind the Marketing Curtain interview series, today we'll pull back the fabric and get to know more about how Mr. Washer arrived in the wonderful world of marketing, and share insights that can help you harness the power of comedy to humanize your brand and connect with your audience. Enjoy!

The Man Behind the Curtain

Tim grew up in Houston, TX and attended college at Texas A&M University, majoring in-you guessed it-marketing. But after graduation he took a sales job at Xerox-which was certainly not in his original plan. As I was getting close to graduation, there was one thing I knew I didn't want to do: work in sales, Tim recalled. But as I was looking at marketing jobs, most open positions seemed to be promotional jobs-and I wasn't turned on by that. Then a professor of mine mentioned Xerox, and said their sales team was rated No. 1, he added. So, then I thought: 'Why not start there?' This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get a better idea of how customers think and what their needs are, which is essential in marketing. It was a total one-eighty for me. After snagging a meeting and shadowing someone for a day, Tim landed the gig at Xerox-laying the foundation for what would be a long career in the software and technology space. A few years later, he went back to school to get his MBA. Then, in the late 1990s, he made his way to New York City and has been there ever since. But shortly after his move, Tim realized he wasn't exactly working in his calling. What I really enjoy doing is comedy and improv, and making people laugh, he said. That's where I feel at home. That's my Kansas. As it stands today, Tim has been able to merge his practical sales and marketing experience with his true passion. As previously mentioned, he's currently Cisco's Creative Director of Marketing for the Service Provider Division, and specializes in corporate humor and video content. Here's a little taste of his work: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8MWl9UGwQo[/embed] Prior to Cisco, he spent about six years doing similar work at IBM. In addition, he's still active in the comedy arena, with writing and acting credits for his work on Saturday Night Live, Conan, The Onion, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. But how exactly did he get here? We'll get to that in the next section.

Following His Yellow Brick Road

Like Dorothy Gale, an unexpected twister hit Tim without warning, sending him on a long and winding path. I know the exact moment it happened, Tim remembered. It was March 3, 1998. It was the season of Lent, and Tim said he was thumbing through a devotional guide that his church- Fifth Avenue Presbyterian-had created for the season. In there, I saw a Frederick Buechner quote that said: 'The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger coincide,' he recited. And there were a series of reflection questions, the first one was: 'What is your spiritual gift?' For Tim, that answer was easy. It was making people laugh-but he asked around just to make sure others felt the same way. But it was the next question that sealed his fate. The question asked: 'How good of a steward are you being to this gift?' Tim explained. And at that moment I had this feeling of obligation come over me. I realized it was no longer a choice. It wasn't something I wanted to do-it was something I had to do. I was going to be a comedian. [bctt tweet="#Comedy wasn't something I wanted to do. It was something I had to do. @timwasher" username="toprank"] After that, Tim joined the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) in New York City, and studied improv under the incomparable Amy Poehler. She actually helped him get one of his first big breaks-writing for SNL. She was extremely influential and helpful, Tim said, likening her help to the kind Dorothy received from Scarecrow, Tinman and Cowardly Lion. He had a few other trusty helpers along the way, too, including Tony Hale, known for his role as Buster Bluth on Arrested Development and Gary Walsh on Veep, as well as film director Scott Teems. Scott is without a doubt one of the most influential people on my career, Tim said. When I pitched my first comedy video to IBM, I didn't have any budget, but I called him up and he worked with me on it. And they loved it. He's been a dear friend, and whenever he's available I ask him to work with me. Nearly two decades later, and several of his signature and wildly successful PowerPoint bits later, Tim has carved out a unique career niche for himself and he's turning out award-winning corporate work.

Meeting the Wizard

Without further ado, let's dive into Tim's tips and insights for infusing comedy into your marketing strategy. That's a horse of a different color. How can comedy and content come together to create a unique audience experience and bolster brand voice? Comedy is the most powerful way to humanize a brand because it demonstrates empathy. Let's face it, a lot of true comedy comes from pain. So, when we can come out and touch on a customer pain point, we show them that we understand their point of view. When we do something that is self-deprecating, when we look vulnerable, and when we let our guard down a little bit that's when we make a connection. These days, there's so little content out there that truly connects with people. So often we start off with a good idea, it goes through a committee where everyone wants to have a say in something, and the idea begins to soften. Then you end up with the lowest common denominator of something safe. So much of marketing is telling people how great we are. But with comedy-especially in the form of video-we can show them that we're not always going to tell you how great we are. And if you can make someone laugh, that is the most intimate connection you can make. [bctt tweet="If you can make someone laugh, that is the most intimate connection you can make. @timwasher" username="toprank"] The Wicked Witch was defeated with just a pail of water. What creative tactics and tools can marketers use to create an engaging video experience? If you're going to do comedy, it's critical to get a comedy writing and a video production team that are experienced with producing comedy. One of the biggest mistakes people make is saying: Let's make a funny video. Our in-house video guy can probably do it. But when it falls flat, they often think comedy just doesn't work for their brand. Comedy is very much a social sport. You need to have a partner with the right chemistry, and someone to bounce ideas off-and someone to tell you when something just isn't funny. This dramatically enhances the work. As a more general rule for creating great video, you need to be able to tell a story-a story that doesn't focus on hitting all your product talking points. For example, we did a mini documentary for Cisco that showed how smaller service providers are serving third-world countries. It focused on how our customers are making a difference, and of course inferred that our technologies are helping them make that difference. [bctt tweet="If you want to add #comedy to your #marketing, get an experienced team. @timwasher" username="toprank"] Dorothy's ruby slippers were the key to achieving her end goal of returning home. How can marketers leverage their existing resources to unlock creative video content ideas? These days budgets are being cut, yet we still need to produce more content. So, we need to transition from marketers to content creators-and those are two very different skillsets. But the bottom line is that you need to focus on telling the story. Get away from the product and focus on finding out how people are actually using your product or service. Ask yourself what people want to watch. Ask yourself how you could make something visually interesting and compelling. If you don't have a big video budget, invest in a cheap light, tripod and camera, and start shooting. Make 10 videos, and then publish the 11th one. Once you get comfortable with it, great things can happen. [bctt tweet="When doing any kind of video #content, you need to focus on telling the story. @timwasher #marketing" username="toprank"] Good witch or bad witch? What's a bad habit all marketers should drop? Letting fear have too much influence over their decisions-and dropping this habit certainly requires some deep personal reflection. Ask yourself how does fear hold me back in my job? Is it a risk-averse boss? Is it fear of failure? You need to figure out how fear is impacting you right now, in this very moment. Then you can start to find solutions to work around it. [bctt tweet="Ask: How does fear hold me back? Once you figure it out, you can look for solutions. @timwasher" username="toprank"] What's one thing you would ask the all-powerful marketing wizard for? (More budget, more resources, better data?) Well, I'd always ask for more budget. But I'd also ask for a committee of yes people. Those who are more open to risk-taking. I'm fortunate to work for a company that is open to all of that, and wants to be leaders in the creative space and embrace risk-taking.

We're Off to Meet More Wizards

I'd like to sincerely thank Tim for taking the time to open up about who he is, where he comes from and how he approaches content and comedy. Thank you so much, Tim. Of course, TopRank Marketing's journey to Emerald City is still underway. In the coming months, we'll be bringing you more exclusive interviews and insights from industry wizards to add some smarts, heart and nerve to your marketing efforts. Stay tuned for our next installment, my pretty! What's one thing you'd ask the all-powerful marketing wizard for? Tell us in the comments section below.

The post Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview With Comedian, Marketer Tim Washer appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank.

[marvinhle81]

Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview With Comedian, Marketer Tim Washer

As we marketers long to make meaningful connections with our audience, we often look deep into our figurative crystal balls in hopes of finding a way to lay an irresistible field of content that will trap their attention. Unfortunately, we canend up putting our audience to sleep-leaving the door open for more colorful characters to swoop in and carry them away. So, how can we take to the sky and get our audience to surrender to our content? By crafting a narrative that has empathy, humility and wit. And there's certainly no better person to look to for inspiration than comedic treasure Tim Washer, Creative Director of Marketing for the Service Provider Division for Cisco. As part of our Wizard of Oz-inspired Behind the Marketing Curtain interview series, today we'll pull back the fabric and get to know more about how Mr. Washer arrived in the wonderful world of marketing, and share insights that can help you harness the power of comedy to humanize your brand and connect with your audience. Enjoy!

The Man Behind the Curtain

Tim grew up in Houston, TX and attended college at Texas A&M University, majoring in-you guessed it-marketing. But after graduation he took a sales job at Xerox-which was certainly not in his original plan. As I was getting close to graduation, there was one thing I knew I didn't want to do: work in sales, Tim recalled. But as I was looking at marketing jobs, most open positions seemed to be promotional jobs-and I wasn't turned on by that. Then a professor of mine mentioned Xerox, and said their sales team was rated No. 1, he added. So, then I thought: 'Why not start there?' This seemed like the perfect opportunity to get a better idea of how customers think and what their needs are, which is essential in marketing. It was a total one-eighty for me. After snagging a meeting and shadowing someone for a day, Tim landed the gig at Xerox-laying the foundation for what would be a long career in the software and technology space. A few years later, he went back to school to get his MBA. Then, in the late 1990s, he made his way to New York City and has been there ever since. But shortly after his move, Tim realized he wasn't exactly working in his calling. What I really enjoy doing is comedy and improv, and making people laugh, he said. That's where I feel at home. That's my Kansas. As it stands today, Tim has been able to merge his practical sales and marketing experience with his true passion. As previously mentioned, he's currently Cisco's Creative Director of Marketing for the Service Provider Division, and specializes in corporate humor and video content. Here's a little taste of his work: [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8MWl9UGwQo[/embed] Prior to Cisco, he spent about six years doing similar work at IBM. In addition, he's still active in the comedy arena, with writing and acting credits for his work on Saturday Night Live, Conan, The Onion, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. But how exactly did he get here? We'll get to that in the next section.

Following His Yellow Brick Road

Like Dorothy Gale, an unexpected twister hit Tim without warning, sending him on a long and winding path. I know the exact moment it happened, Tim remembered. It was March 3, 1998. It was the season of Lent, and Tim said he was thumbing through a devotional guide that his church- Fifth Avenue Presbyterian-had created for the season. In there, I saw a Frederick Buechner quote that said: 'The place where God calls you is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger coincide,' he recited. And there were a series of reflection questions, the first one was: 'What is your spiritual gift?' For Tim, that answer was easy. It was making people laugh-but he asked around just to make sure others felt the same way. But it was the next question that sealed his fate. The question asked: 'How good of a steward are you being to this gift?' Tim explained. And at that moment I had this feeling of obligation come over me. I realized it was no longer a choice. It wasn't something I wanted to do-it was something I had to do. I was going to be a comedian. [bctt tweet="#Comedy wasn't something I wanted to do. It was something I had to do. @timwasher" username="toprank"] After that, Tim joined the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) in New York City, and studied improv under the incomparable Amy Poehler. She actually helped him get one of his first big breaks-writing for SNL. She was extremely influential and helpful, Tim said, likening her help to the kind Dorothy received from Scarecrow, Tinman and Cowardly Lion. He had a few other trusty helpers along the way, too, including Tony Hale, known for his role as Buster Bluth on Arrested Development and Gary Walsh on Veep, as well as film director Scott Teems. Scott is without a doubt one of the most influential people on my career, Tim said. When I pitched my first comedy video to IBM, I didn't have any budget, but I called him up and he worked with me on it. And they loved it. He's been a dear friend, and whenever he's available I ask him to work with me. Nearly two decades later, and several of his signature and wildly successful PowerPoint bits later, Tim has carved out a unique career niche for himself and he's turning out award-winning corporate work.

Meeting the Wizard

Without further ado, let's dive into Tim's tips and insights for infusing comedy into your marketing strategy. That's a horse of a different color. How can comedy and content come together to create a unique audience experience and bolster brand voice? Comedy is the most powerful way to humanize a brand because it demonstrates empathy. Let's face it, a lot of true comedy comes from pain. So, when we can come out and touch on a customer pain point, we show them that we understand their point of view. When we do something that is self-deprecating, when we look vulnerable, and when we let our guard down a little bit that's when we make a connection. These days, there's so little content out there that truly connects with people. So often we start off with a good idea, it goes through a committee where everyone wants to have a say in something, and the idea begins to soften. Then you end up with the lowest common denominator of something safe. So much of marketing is telling people how great we are. But with comedy-especially in the form of video-we can show them that we're not always going to tell you how great we are. And if you can make someone laugh, that is the most intimate connection you can make. [bctt tweet="If you can make someone laugh, that is the most intimate connection you can make. @timwasher" username="toprank"] The Wicked Witch was defeated with just a pail of water. What creative tactics and tools can marketers use to create an engaging video experience? If you're going to do comedy, it's critical to get a comedy writing and a video production team that are experienced with producing comedy. One of the biggest mistakes people make is saying: Let's make a funny video. Our in-house video guy can probably do it. But when it falls flat, they often think comedy just doesn't work for their brand. Comedy is very much a social sport. You need to have a partner with the right chemistry, and someone to bounce ideas off-and someone to tell you when something just isn't funny. This dramatically enhances the work. As a more general rule for creating great video, you need to be able to tell a story-a story that doesn't focus on hitting all your product talking points. For example, we did a mini documentary for Cisco that showed how smaller service providers are serving third-world countries. It focused on how our customers are making a difference, and of course inferred that our technologies are helping them make that difference. [bctt tweet="If you want to add #comedy to your #marketing, get an experienced team. @timwasher" username="toprank"] Dorothy's ruby slippers were the key to achieving her end goal of returning home. How can marketers leverage their existing resources to unlock creative video content ideas? These days budgets are being cut, yet we still need to produce more content. So, we need to transition from marketers to content creators-and those are two very different skillsets. But the bottom line is that you need to focus on telling the story. Get away from the product and focus on finding out how people are actually using your product or service. Ask yourself what people want to watch. Ask yourself how you could make something visually interesting and compelling. If you don't have a big video budget, invest in a cheap light, tripod and camera, and start shooting. Make 10 videos, and then publish the 11th one. Once you get comfortable with it, great things can happen. [bctt tweet="When doing any kind of video #content, you need to focus on telling the story. @timwasher #marketing" username="toprank"] Good witch or bad witch? What's a bad habit all marketers should drop? Letting fear have too much influence over their decisions-and dropping this habit certainly requires some deep personal reflection. Ask yourself how does fear hold me back in my job? Is it a risk-averse boss? Is it fear of failure? You need to figure out how fear is impacting you right now, in this very moment. Then you can start to find solutions to work around it. [bctt tweet="Ask: How does fear hold me back? Once you figure it out, you can look for solutions. @timwasher" username="toprank"] What's one thing you would ask the all-powerful marketing wizard for? (More budget, more resources, better data?) Well, I'd always ask for more budget. But I'd also ask for a committee of yes people. Those who are more open to risk-taking. I'm fortunate to work for a company that is open to all of that, and wants to be leaders in the creative space and embrace risk-taking.

We're Off to Meet More Wizards

I'd like to sincerely thank Tim for taking the time to open up about who he is, where he comes from and how he approaches content and comedy. Thank you so much, Tim. Of course, TopRank Marketing's journey to Emerald City is still underway. In the coming months, we'll be bringing you more exclusive interviews and insights from industry wizards to add some smarts, heart and nerve to your marketing efforts. Stay tuned for our next installment, my pretty! What's one thing you'd ask the all-powerful marketing wizard for? Tell us in the comments section below.

The post Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview With Comedian, Marketer Tim Washer appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank.