#technically not a daily post but literally who cares when it comes to this update!!!!!!

[thedailymaskedmerchant]

[fandomscombine]

TUA SERIES PART 4: Diego

The Hargreeves Kerfuffle Part 4:Diego

The Hargreeves siblings x Hargreeves!Reader (Familial Relationship)

BG: The Reader is Number Eight. It follows how you fit into the structure of Season 1 and the family dynamic of the siblings.  

This part follows y/n blowing off some steam with Diego being a supportive brother.

You don’t have to read every single part as each focuses on the reader’s relationship with each of her sibings.

But of course to get most of the story, read the whole thing. Besides why would you want to miss out on Hargreeves Siblings content?

A/n: sorry if this took long to update, I lost the master copy of the fic document- well technically, I was and am typing this on an auto-save document but it had glich somehow and when I searched and open the file it was only the first 2 parts. It took a while to find back the most updated document.

WC:1028

DISCLAIMER: I DON’T OWN THE TUA SERIES. THIS IS JUST BY A FAN WOULD REALLY ENJOYED THE SERIES AND WAS INSPIRED TO WRITE.

*ALSO NOT PROOFREAD

>>GENERAL MASTERLIST<<

>>THE HARGREEVES KERFUFFLE SERIES MASTERLIST<<

READ: [PART 1]   [PART 2] [PART 3]

>>JOIN MY WRITING CHALLENGE!<<

Your blood was boiling.

How dare Luther, your own brother accuse you of killing your own father.

Sure, your childhood wasn’t exactly the healthiest and emotionally suitable for a child but in a weird way your father had shape and trained the 7 of you to be at least somewhat in control of your powers.

Raising superpowered children is no small task.

Lost in your thoughts, you hadn’t realized how far from the academy you had walked.

You stared at the city Harborview, imaging how your life would be different if you hadn’t had these powers.

Peace. That’s what you think you would have. A sense of peace, living a normal daily life- get up, go to work, hang out with friends, sleep in a nice cosy apartment and repeat. No powers.

The final words of Sir Reginald replays in your mind.

‘The end is near, get the others ……and save…..the…..tttiiiimmm’

The end is near, get the others and save the tim- whatever or whoever tim is.

You assumed that it meant his time was up and had wanted the family back together. You had done just that but what had that got you? Indictment for one. A family reunion consisting of 5 emotionally incompetent adults and one trapped in a kid’s body.

Leaning across the railing you shouted. ‘Cosplaying as batman at aged 6 was cute but as a grown ass adult lurking in the shadows is definitely a red flag!’

A chuckle sounded from the corner. ‘Noted m’mam. Will not do it again’ said a deep voice.

To an untrained ear, no sounds of footsteps could be heard.

You, however can as do your siblings. All of who can also identify who is coming based on the sound- each ever have a slight variation, a unique touch.

Luther has the heaviest, loudest footsteps out of everyone.

Allison- quiet and delicate.

Diego has a sense of purpose in his walk- no doubt like the secret agent and superheroes he had always wanted to be.

Klaus is a bit unpredictable; it is either too fast and energetic or soft and slow pace.

Five. He cheats, mostly blipping in and out of places. But if need be, he usually takes leaps or huge steps, always ready to teleport out of any situation in midstep.

Ben. The master of stealth. He always manages to take the least steps, the most effective route between hiding points.

Vanya though without training is actually very good. At times you wouldn’t even notice her near as proven in her countless times secretly watching the rest of you training.

‘I doubt that.’ Turning to face the new arrival. ‘You are the literally embodiment of Vigilante Hero Complex.’

The city lights illuminating his face.

‘Ah! Case in point!’ You pointed at his outfit. ‘You’re even wearing a spandex suit, Diego!’

Diego shook his head, brushing off your teasing aside. He was happy to at least help bring a smile onto your face- even if it was at his expense.

‘How you feeling?’ Even though you all were the same age, Diego can’t deny that the numbering hadn’t had an older sibling protectiveness to come over him- especially when Luther was being a total dick. If only he was in charge, he thought.

‘Better… better now that you’re here.’ You admitted, bothering your brother never gets old. ‘Thanks by the way-for the cheer up.’

You both stayed in comfortable silence it was not until 20 mins later did Diego break it by apologising.

‘Sorry for what?’

He didn’t reply instead he lifted something out of his pocket. It shone against the deep blue waves.

You gasped. ‘Dad’s monocle.’

‘I know Luther believes you took it.’ He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I should’ve have confessed instead you took blame for me….’

Wrapping his fist around it he continued, voice getting harsher. ‘I …I just couldn’t you know? After all he did to us? How he treated us? We were just kids!’

He clutched it tighter shattering the glass. ‘He was gone. This was the most valuable things he had- never let it out of his sight….so I thought that this….that by taking this, it would be the closest thing in ever hurting him.’

‘Oh Diego…’ You didn’t know how to comfort someone who is going through the same scenario, a same situation that you yourself need help on.  ‘Dad is gone and…yes he wasn’t the most caring father. But the past is in the past, the only thing we can do now to move forward. Don’t let that define us. Strive to do better.’

‘We tried that once remember? And where did it get us?’ He countered.

‘Better than if we were to have stayed.’ You rebutted. ‘C’mon Diegs. Think about mom. Think about how she constantly reminds us to put our best foot forward, no matter what life throws at us..’

Diego’s face softens, he was always a momma’s boy.

Closing his eyes, he mutters an okay. Then he tosses the bloody cracked monocle into the water. ‘Now, why don’t we go stuff our faces full of donuts.’ You offered. ‘I can handle your typical brooding self but the 2 of us sulking? No can do, what we need is to eat our feelings.’

‘Giddy’s it is.’ Replied Diego, offering you his arm.

‘So I assume you parked 2 blocks from here?’

His eyes went wide. ‘How’d you-‘

‘PPPPlease!’ Rolling your eyes. ‘I might have subconsciously wander to this part of town, but I was conscious about a car not so subtly tailing me for 6 blocks.’

‘So you knew I was watching you from the very beginning.’

‘YUPPPP’ Popping the p. ‘At first I wasn’t sure who- nice car by the way, new?

‘A month ago.’

‘Anyway is wasn’t until you started following on foot til I knew.’

Elaborating when you saw his confused look. ‘You walk as if you’re the protagonist in an action film.’

‘I do not!’ He said defensively.

‘DO too!- Thanks.’ Settling down onto the passenger seat as Diego closed the door.

The debate lasted until you reach Giddy’s or so what was left of the store.

‘WHAT THE-‘

END OF PART 4

READ: [PART 1]   [PART 2] [PART 3]

Taglist [All]: @gruffle1

Taglist [TUA]:@herecomesthesun1969 @alabaster1223 @ultraviolet-m @winterierwriter @lordofthunderthr @grapesauze @xbarrjallenx @white-wolf-buckaroo @yoheyyosup @infinitystones2018 @94seun @buckynatlarry @thegirlwholikestomanythings @just-some-stars @97yrm @2cuteforyourlies @e-bendy @criminallyhamilton @aqarath @change-the-world-someday @sambucky8 @spankin-soda @big-galaxy-chaos @neenieweenie @okimreadynow @weird-pale-blonde-person @thebloodrobin @vicassa​@tkdcnlettuce @alexander-hamilhoe​

Feel free to tell me to you want to be tagged for the series or for all/any other of my fics.

Would love to hear your opinion on the series so far too!

 -Posting this a 2nd time, cause the 1st Tumblr error-ed out and deleted it.

also a bit of self plug here, i have a writing challenge going on and I’d love for you to join!

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Weeping Statue | Feeding Habits Update #6 & let’s chat about quitting writing

Hello! Are we back for another Feeding Habits update (finally)?? Let’s chat chapter 7, Weeping Statue.

Just a reminder: This is my original work and plagiarism of any form will not be tolerated.

Can we talk about struggle? Because this chapter was IT. I believe I started it in late July and finished it earlier this month. I’ve taken my time with chapters before, but this was next level--the amounts of changes I went through in one chapter was astronomical, and reminded me of drafting chapter three earlier in the summer. I went through so many stages writing this chapter: from enjoying it, to feeling no joy from writing at all, to nearly quitting this book altogether!

Scene A:

Harrison and his mother Suzanna simultaneously avoid each other over breakfast after he failed to return home the night previous

She lowkey calls him out (calling out his denial of missing Lonan)

Scene B:

Harrison goes to a farmhouse owned by Theodore Harvey, a friend of his mother’s, to drop off the rescued litter of kittens from chapter 6. He realizes he is missing one kitten and concludes Reeve has stolen one after dinner the night previous.

Scene C:

Harvey invites Harrison inside for coffee where he admits his coffee machine is broken.

Harrison fixes the coffee machine, and is hired by Harvey to flip the rest of the farmhouse as he and his wife are moving.

Scene D:

On his way home, Harrison stops at a gas station where he buys a bouquet of tulips for his mother, a dog collar for the puppy he found in the kitten litter, a pack of gum, pastries, and sunscreen before heading to a beach.

At the onset of a lightning storm, Harrison swims in the ocean and has an epiphany--he decides to accept his miserable life (a development!)

Scene E:

After the beach ordeal, Harrison returns to his apartment ready to accept the plainness of his daily life when an old ghost from his past (his! ex!) Lonan appears to be having dinner with Suzanna

This chapter brought so many things. A) many... breakdowns lol (I cried a lot!), B) many false epiphanies that wound me back into ruts, C) a desire to quit this series that was just as terrifying as it sounds and D) an ideology I never would’ve gotten on my own. Just have to thank my sister Sarah for telling me a few weeks ago after I insisted that I knew what needed to logically happen but couldn’t write it no matter how hard I tried. She said: “It’s not about what works, it’s about what you want” << literally changed my philosophy on writing, even as someone who tries their best to advocate for care and enjoyment in writing. Not sure if it’s because of the timing when she said this, but I’d probably never had made it out of the rut without having this said to me.

I was *not* planning at all to have my boys reunite so soon in the book. Technically, it is not very soon and we are almost done the book, but for some reason, I really didn’t think it would work so early because I felt Harrison’s POV was so undeveloped already (I still think it is). HOWEVER, the fact of the matter is: it was not working at all. I knew exactly what I needed to do to get to point A to Z but the thing about writing is, it is not formulaic! I tried to make fit what I thought worked, but as time progressed and I immensely struggled, less and less did I want what worked. Writing was miserable and that’s not what I want writing to be for me. So I took Sarah’s advice, and I did what would make me happy, and that was, and has always been, seeing my boys interact.

Now that I’ve finished this chapter, I’m not sure if I made the right decision! I have yet to write the boys interacting so I don’t know if it will work, but what I liked about this method is that it freed me from this constriction I’d written myself into and opened a new avenue to do something that DOESN’T “work” for the story but that does work for me. To me, this project, this series, is more important to me than making something “work”. Sustaining my health and happiness (which were declining on the path I was on) is critical for me and my writing journey.

EDIT: by the time I’m editing this post, I have written the boys interacting and haha yep this was the right decision! Was doubting myself for a sec, added in a lil robbery, and now it’s all good (oops)

Excerpts:

I don’t have too many for you because this chapter does need an edit to “set” it in place (right now it feels like liquid Jello that has been in the fridge but is yet to set up). I know it needs one more scene but I cannot :) write :) what :) it :) needs :) no matter how hard I have tried, and so I am giving that section of the story a break instead of over-kneading it and toughening up the dough unnecessarily.

Here is part of the opening scene! There are things I don’t like about this but I am trying not to self-hate, so !!!

The next morning, Harrison gets up at dawn to drop the kittens off at the farm, and Suzanna makes coffee for one. This is unusual for both—Harrison rarely leaves the apartment, and Suzanna always makes coffee for two. In his room, Harrison combs his hair and twists his earring, its blue gem pearling in dribbles of sunlight. In the kitchen, Suzanna stirs coffee like it’s wronged her. Harrison dabs cologne onto his throat and blinks off his hangover. Suzanna flecks her spoon onto the tabletop so it leaves an egg of amber on the surface.

When he approaches the kitchen, Harrison pretends he does not see his mother and his mother pretends she does not see him. They move like this, repelled, one moving left, the other moving right, one opening the top cupboard, the other opening the bottom.

Harrison stops at a convenience store and buys a hodge-podge of things (also the beach scene which yes mirrors the last scene in Lonan’s POV hehe I indulge myself):

He picks up the best bouquet of fuchsia tulips, a collar for the dog he left in his bedroom even though it’ll be weeks until she’s big enough to fit in it, a pack of spearmint gum he doesn’t need, a package of pastries, and a tube of sunscreen—SPF 30. He almost drops every item at least once on his way up to the register, and definitely drops them when his receipt is spitting from the machine and the store clerk says she likes his earring—is it vintage—and he nearly vomits in the parking lot, trained against the hood of the taxi—is it even his taxi—the plastic bag teetering from his wrist, rain coiling against his cheek, the air so humid, his clothes so heavy, it is no wonder the next place he ends up is the beach.

It is never smart to swim during a storm. If he thinks hard enough, his mother’s voice warns him to keep from the shore, stand behind the yellow line, stay safe, stay where you are, don’t run under a tree, and even more, don’t run into the water. He does everything wrong in an even worse order—dollops sunscreen into his palm before opening the pastry so his teeth freckles with zinc, chews the gum and the pastry at the same time so his tongue becomes a slime of crumbs, rests the tulips too close to the shoreline so they wilt under a wave, misplaces the dog collar in his own left hand, and dives into the water fully-clothed.

Harrison getting very angsty about Lonan’s future (which he’s predicted completely wrong haha):

He will die alone. Reeve will not think of him again and he will deserve that. Somewhere in the city with the missing kitten, drinking bottles of holy water because there is no drink more fitting for a woman so sacred. His mother will miss him only briefly, and then return to her daily life of no longer needing to clean up after him. Maybe she’ll find the tulips. Put them on display until they wither, then use their carcasses as fertilizer. Save electricity. Use the coffee machine less. Downsize to a smaller, cheaper, prettier apartment with arched walkways and stained-glass windows. Harvey will think he is a fluke who missed his first day of work and will never think of him again. The dog isn’t old enough to recognize him. Suzanna will give her the collar. And Lonan will continue his life in Las Vegas, tottering after Eliza, refilling her wine, getting neon at house parties, watching French silent films without captions because he’s probably learned another language, cut his hair, gotten a tattoo, learned how to cross-stitch, bought life insurance, a yacht, a coastal summer home, learned how to play the mandolin, perfected his lamb sous vide. He’s probably married. Him and Eliza family-planning. He’ll expand a future, and Harrison will do the opposite. There is something freeing in being unmissed.

Lightning snaps across the sky like a wishbone, sounds like the prick of tambourines from under the water. Everything turns violet—the clouds, his skin, the waves. Tomorrow will be a better day, as he sinks lower into the current, tomorrow will be a better day, as the light fades and dissolves into blackness, tomorrow will be a better day, as seaweed wraps his throat, as the freezing water impales his ribs, as he burrows under and simultaneously, rises up.

This next part comes right after!

In the stomach of a tidal wave, the sky is so much bluer. An unrolling of cyan like fractals of a baked marble. There is so little to remember. No grocery lists, no fresh turmeric, no shift of portabella mushrooms. No outstanding to-dos—no kibble to by, no resume to update. Harrison folds in blue and lets it gorge his eardrums. He gives his body to that wide chasm of water and breaststrokes not into a second life, but a third.

Here is the last bit:

He buzzes back into the apartment at 3:00AM, tracking in saltwater and SPF, puff-pastry gummed to his palm, a dog collar wound around his ring finger, a sheath of tulips shedding into the elevator behind him.

He hits every floor button twice and is undisturbed when the elevator lurches and reopens in sixty-second intervals. A man rotating a jade cuff on his wrist gets on at the fourth stop and gets off at the sixth. A woman wearing a lynx cape gets on at the eighth stop, breaks up with two girlfriends, and gets off at the eleventh. Two children in coveralls tail in after she leaves and throw jacks at each other’s eyes until one of them bleeds, and by then, they are on the fifteenth floor and the children are leaving like they have not left behind accidental shell casings. On the sixteenth floor, a deer head chihuahua patters in with no owner and barks at the door chime the moment it releases and lets him out. A mother and daughter shell pistachios on the twentieth, a maintenance man introduces himself as David though his nametag says Maxwell on the twenty-second, a flock of teenage girls in whirl about a new way to blend oil pastel on the twenty-third. So it is no wonder by the twenty-fifth floor, Harrison misses his stop and becomes one of these people too—the man with zinc down his eyes like a weeping statue, juggling pastry and a dog collar and a seedy bouquet of tulips.

He tracks seawater in that hallway, parts of him scattering with the zinc, the petals, the crumbs. Like a way to get back home even though he hasn’t started at his destination, he moves through the labyrinth of halls, both starving and nauseated. Tomorrow he will rise at dawn and taxi to Brooklyn and hammer four nails into two pieces of plywood and repeat. He will feed his dog. Learn how to cook something that will impress his mother, something French that he can’t pronounce like brasillé or oeufs cocotte. Find liberation in the constrict of routine or at least pretend to. It will be good for him, the rising, the taxis, the hammers, the nails, the dog food, the cooking—it will all be good.

By the time he gets to their door, his fingers are oiled and dripping with sunscreen. Rising, taxis, hammers, nails, dog food, cooking. He nearly drops the house keys. Rising, taxis, hammers, nails, dog food, cooking. Tomorrow will be his arrival. Rising, taxis, hammers, nails, dog food, cooking. His beginning swelling as he turns the lock. Rising, taxis, hammers, nails, dog food, cooking. There is no other way out.

The apartment is dark when he tracks in. The scent of cinnamon steeping the air like Suzanna’s pulled a saucepan of papas off the stove. At first he doesn’t hear it, but he should, the voices leafing the kitchen like a flit of moths. He steps out of his shoes but never sets anything down, even after he passes the coffee table. Two plates ringing the centre, streaked with and caldeirada and bayleaf. A pitcher of lemonade sweating onto the glass. It is almost like he never left, like he and his mother shared dinner, sipped from each other’s cups, cleaned the tines of each other’s fishbones. And he almost believes it. He never went to the farm. The kittens are where he left them, just a few feet away, not in Brooklyn. He doesn’t have a job to tend to. He never fixed the coffee machine. He didn’t go to the convenience store. He is not slathered in sunscreen, not holding a dog collar or pastries or a bouquet of tulips. He never dove into the ocean like it was some port to asylum and didn’t emerge soaked and walking half-dead to his apartment because he never left. This reality is so easy to believe, he is unfazed by the voices and how they get louder when he reaches the kitchen, when one says “Were you shopping for the apocalypse?” and the other one chokes on its drink and apologizes for its rudeness and stares at him in daydream, those eyes like forget-me-nots, gas fires, seafoam, the wing of a starling, his drop earring.

Harrison is grateful he is soaking wet when he enters that kitchen and Suzanna and Lonan sit at the table sharing a box of petit fours. At least he has an excuse when he drops everything.

That’s it for this update! The tea starts HERE!

--Rachel

[thetruthlsoutthere]

Weird Updates thrown your way

save for the things that happen on a daily basis as i had mentioned in a previous post : listed as something im normalized/used to..

1) a few dreams within a month to now consisting of the Doctor coming to my home and me and him chatting, hanging out in my backyard with arms/hands linked - talking over a worry/concern he had about being used just for his tardis, like people only cared about traveling through time and space and not him too. Me being there for him and assuring that he would never have to worry about that with me. I would take the Doctor being in my life without traveling at all bc that would be enough for me. Traveling is a lovely bonus if youre with the Doctor but i would rather have the Doctor themselves only then nothing. They mean more to me than that and they always will. // a reversal of where they had gotten every note i had ever sent and they were sending notes to me too ( multiple dreams of this )

there was also a non Doctor related dream but held a deeper meaning / message but i have to rack my brain to remember :(

2) more silent calls { in the 'normal' daily basis thing } , and in the last week, one of them and i can't make this up for the life of me.. well technically i could. But i am only ever posting genuine stuff on this blog, i won't get anyone's hopes up over something fake, that is cruel. BUT one of the calls literally had the whorp vhorp / etc sound. Possibly a Tardis?

3) more weird 'light'{s} in the sky { in the 'normal' daily basis thing } when it's either starless, barely any stars or lots of stars : blinking, fading and getting brighter, disappearing completely in place, slowly moving around, etc. and even any of these too close to the moon than a star would be.

4) feeling watched { 'normal' daily basis thing post } , being called out weirdly with my own name which when i click on the thing, my name disappears and goes as y/n AFTER i clicked on the link when normally it would be that way before and after. And my name being mentioned with the link i click on having nothing to do with it.

5) sounds and feelings of being alone even when it looks like i am, turning to look and nothing being there. My nephew and animals seeming to sense that something or someone is/was there.

6 / &&: of course taking into all the things i 'normally' feel on a daily basis { what i listed in a previous post }

--

i feel like i may have missed something out but i told this to another person that is also a close friend who is in all this belief so if i miss anything , i will let all of you know.

My ask box is always open as are my messages!

-A

P.S>: i haven't written notes lately but i do want to get back to that when i have a chance without anything getting in the way. Same with other ways of contact/etc. that i listed in a previous post that i want to be consistent on.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

anti - LO anon asks/answers:

(1) Weird, I thought it sent my message, but here's the how the fandom hypersexualizes everything. 1) They thirst after any of the LO gods, in particular to them being shirtless, wear certain clothing (i.e Ares in a white tank top) or them being in a compromised state of pose (like Hades manspreading while being asleep at Demeter's place). 2) This thirst leads them to say things like "I want to bang [LO god]" or "I need to find a man like [LO god] (usually Hades)."  Even worse is if the person saying those things has a boyfriend or is already married. They will either call or even wish their man could be "Hades." IT IS LITERALLY SO DISGUSTING. Every time I see anybody make a comment about how badly they want to be with a fictional character, I always feel sorry for their significant other.

(2) I guess this is gonna be an unpopular opinion but—I don’t see why fans sexualizing LO is bad?...what did that anon mean by that exactly? As in like nsfw art and headcannons? Why is that bad? Rachel herself draws porn of her own characters. EVERY fandom hypersexualizes their fave characters, that’s why we have rule 34. If ppl are sexualizing LO Hebe or Aphrodite’s other children, then yes, that’s creepy and sick, but everyone else in LO is an adult so I guess I say...let ppl be horny XD

(3) Adding on to the previous anons, just go to the author’s twitter. It’s a mess I tell ya. Through my experience. I feel like they’re sexualizing Persephone and Hades(Mostly Hades because he is “Perfect Husbando Daddy” to them 💀. (And yes I do understand that Hades in the media has been romanticize a lot throughout the years)Anyways, they keeping talking his “body parts”, what Persephone is gonna do to him,vice versa.If you want me to send some screenshots I can(Patreon too). I haven’t seen it happen to any other character as much as H+P. (Ares,just a little) That’s from Twitter alone,I just wanna enjoy the characters without someone telling me how hot they are every second.😒 It’s almost as if the Author want these types of people. Then again.....

(4) I don't care if these are spoilers, the early LO release (April 19th) has Hades yelling at Persephone like a child after he saved her from a riot (because she was paying the ferry) then they make out after he yells that he "WANTS HER" and she proceeds to run away from him afterwards. It's unearned and creepy bc he yelled such a possessive line (not that he LOVES her or anything, only that he WANTS her). That's supposed to be a big moment but it comes off as rushed and even more imbalanced.

(5) I have to vent a bit; I really love L*re Olympus bc it's just cheesy and I love cheesy dramas and those cutesy neon colours, but what angers me most about is (after how it has nothing with Greek culture), how characters are so... inconsistent. Minthe, a character that was abusive /vocally/, not physically. Making her hit Hades was so ooc- and my GOD, how could a nymph hit a god and get away with it?

(6) Time for your daily dose of LO complaining, LO spoilers so read/publish at own risk - Today's top story: the latest fastpass episode brings us a very special first kiss between two main characters that will remain nameless. Needless to say (imo) it was executed poorly due to poor pacing and lack of build up in the chapter! People rightfully critiqued and diehard fans attacked, claws out. The shocking updates will continue as ~6 episodes separate us between now and the finale. Stay tuned.

(7) Holy shit so this isn't technically related to the anti-Greek prejudice in Lore Olympus, but in the latest update it's revealed that Hades runs all of the banks -- you know, Hades, the big-nosed leader, and he shames tiny innocent Persephone for 1 Not having a bank account 2 For the fact that the her mother thinks all bankers are greedy. So not only does Rachel Smythe hold ignorance towards Greek people,but also she enjoys Antisemitic tropes.

______________________________________________________________

(1+2) I can understand the thirst for fictional characters... but not when they are the Greek gods, ya know? As anon (2) said, it’s not bad when people are horny. However... it’s at least a little weird when your fetish is old gods from another culture but dressed in a tank top or who knows what else :P And the fact that they reduce the almighty Hades to “UWU hot daddy” makes it even cringier. I am sure that, if the author posts such content, she wants her characters to be sexualized. 

I mean, they are free to do it and we are free to comment on it - without limiting their ability to create and enjoy the hypersexualized content. Because, as much as we don’t like it, fans should be free to do whatever they like.

To add something for anon (2): if hypersexualizaion would be more natural if the comic had sex in it or dealt with sexual themes more frequently. I think the only sexual encounter we had so far was r*pe and nothing else. The storyline of the comic is almost irrelevant to the huge thirst fans have for the characters. If the focus is only on their sexuality and not on the plot or characters then it’s cringey. And I think it’s annoying when they sexualize the characters to such a degree. For example, anon (3) wrote “I just wanna enjoy the characters without someone telling me how hot they are every second”.

(3) “Perfect Husbando Daddy” UUUUGHHH.. It’s so funny the HxP in the comic are so boring and vanilla but the fans desperatelly want to turn them into a super sexualized couple? ALSO, SEND SCREENSHOTS! Patreon, comments you think are cringey, everything xD 

(4) I am happy this changed because I don’t like the scene at all, for the reasons you mentioned. “I want you” can be translated as “I desire you” so it’s not problematic to me. But the circumstances in which he said that were creepy.

(5) Hmmm interesting point! Of course emotional abuse can happen at the same time as physical abuse, but you are kinda right for Minthe’s character. It felt a little ooc for me too. She wasn’t that type of abuser and it was a weird choice. Also, there is a hierarchy and it is indeed very weird that a nymph could get away with abusing a god. The only case she wouldn’t be punished you be if Hades insisted on it. (Something we didn’t see).

(6) OOOOOH I AM INTRIGUED! Not that I care at this point about the characters, I just want to see the drama 😂 I might search a little more!

(7) Of course she holds ignorance towards Greek people; she thinks we are rich! (muahahahaha that was a bad joke, I will stop now :P ) Generally the comic doesn’t take into account the Greek culture which is offensive but in the characters I didn’t see anti-Greek prejudice. (I might be missing something, idk). In order to have prejudice against something, you need to aknowledge it first. Bold of you to assume she knows we exist 😂 

Maybe she made him super rich because he has the richest realm in Greek mythology. And, I mean, Greek noses are not limited to Jewish people, we also have them (my big pointy nose says hi!). I am sure there are Greek bankers with big noses. In fact, I would be surprise if they didn’t have a big nose 😂 

I understand that it can also be interpreted as anti-Semitism. But for the reasons I mentioned, I don’t think she aimed to do that. Plus, the character is supposed to be Greek, so I don’t see how Jewish people would be offended by this. Is not possible for every wealthy fictional non-Jewish character with a big nose to reflect Jewish negative stereotypes. It kinda seems that people want to take a bad depiction of one group (Greeks) and make it about another group (Jewish).

Maybe for Americans the stereotype “big nose + wealth” means Jewish but for Greeks... I don’t think we see it that way. For us a banker with a big nose is just a banker with a big nose. For example, look at the big and pointy nose of Aristoteles Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate who amassed the world's largest privately owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest and most famous men:

I read the scene with the bank account and... yeah it bad for the things you mentioned. Hades should not be making the decision of Persephone having a bank account. He should at least let her discuss it with her mother first. Plus, the story presents Demeter as a stupid uknowing peasant who thinks money grows on trees and banks are evil. 

[arcenciel-par-une-larme]

Before anything else, I would like to ask my brothers and sisters in Christ, IN ALL HONESTY, whether I erred in any way in the reply which I offered to this original post (there was also an intermediate reply which I did not include into the screenshots; either way it was OP who replied to me). (@ignorant-against-christians @anscathmarcach @doctorbluesmanreturns @bagheadautist @a-quiche-in-med @anotherpointlessargument @strawberry-milktea and anybody else who might need to chime in, please feel free to PM me if you prefer that to reblogging all this mess.)

And while I'm awaiting that, let's dive right into the last reply and give OP a much-needed reality check. (Translation: let's try to set some things straight for anybody who is willing to listen, since OP has already declared themselves sinless, infallible and above reproach.)

Where are my children growing up that you think they’re not going to be interacting with Christians and being exposed to Christian theology on a daily basis? Hell, my children will have multiple Christian family members, as well as several queer Christian honorary aunts and uncles. Also, you know, a Catholic-educated mom.

It isn't all that much of a good sign when literally the first paragraph in your reply is a mile-long appeal to false authority.

First of all, it is completely inane to consider my response as personally addressed to you. I didn't even reblog it from you or tag you.

Secondly, please accept this PSA: Having Christian friends does not make you an authority on Scripture. Nor does having a Catholic-educated (not even practicing Catholic) mum. In fact, if the state of millennial liberal "Christianity" online is any indication, it is very much a possibility that your "Christian friends" might very well be teaching you that "Yeah, basically atheists are right in all that they say about Christianity, but I'm a good Christian and I love Christ and I don't believe any of that outdated stuff that's in the New Testament!" in which case, yeah, the fact of the matter is that you WON'T be getting an accurate image of orthodox Christian theology from your friends, or from your mother who might very well have prayed her latest Rosary when she graduated high school.

You have completely misunderstood the point of this post if you think the above beliefs (which are overwhelmingly held and spread by Christians and ex-Christian atheists, not Jews) have the same negative effects on Christians that harmful beliefs about Jews have on us.

Right. So, in other words, you didn't want to draw attention to and decry anti-[whatever religion] slander and, in the course of that, also spread awareness of common anti-Judaism lies. You just wanted to compete in Oppression Olympics, and to virtue-signal your victimhood. Yeah, how dare I assume that you wanted the former just like any virtuous human being! HOW DARE I assume that you're not an intellectually dishonest SJW! THE HORROR!!!

Also, nice job pretending that you're "fair" and "not bigoted" when you try to blame CHRISTIANS for the ANTI-CHRISTIAN bigoted lies which are commonly propagated.

And again, the only reason that you think I blamed these beliefs on Jews is, as it seems, because you want me to mean that. Because you want to score oppression points. In reality, I made it perfectly clear that it is of no importance whether the person peddling anti-Christian slander is Jewish, atheist or whatever else; but that is something which either you missed entirely or you deliberately refuse to acknowledge.

Christians might not be uniquely bigoted, but you damn well are uniquely powerful in western countries, and with that comes unique responsibility, to paraphrase Uncle Ben.

Why didn't you just go the full "Check your Christian privilege, we live in a Christian hegemony, one can't be bigoted against Christians, a minority cannot oppress a majority, PREJUDICE PLUS POWER!" route from the get-go so we can know where we are standing, then?

This is a perfect example of why I shall always insist that

At the Oppression Olympics, nobody wins.

Because you looked at my response and you immediately saw not a complementing opinion (which it is), but a competing one. You saw an opponent, and in your mind you cannot be anything short of 100% right a priori, because of course it's a competition. Of course oppression and injustice are a zero-sum game.

Only in real life, THEY ARE NOT.

Any rational Christian, and any rational Jew, is horrified both by anti-Christian and by anti-Jewish bigotry. You, on the other hand, insist upon trying to find the "bigger victim" at all costs. And from your reply, it seems fairly certain that you had no rational reason to do that. You just wanted to downplay the injustices and slander which is aimed against Christians. It almost reads as if you vehemently refuse to even remotely sympathise.

By the way, I think that Devin Kelley, Chris Mercer, and Floyd Corkins (among others) might be some names which ought to debunk your opinion that anti-Christian bigotry has no tangible real-life effects.

Oh, but I forgot. "Prejudice plus power"...

I have every intention of teaching my children about different religions, but this reply was obviously in bad faith and just about jacking off your persecution complex as part of the poor, downtrodden 80% majority.

THERE WE HAVE IT!!! THERE IT IS!!! I F***ING CALLED IT. HEAVEN FORFEND IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN ONCE. "A majority cannot be oppressed!!!! PERSECUTION COMPLEX!!!"

At this point, your rhetoric is barely distinguishable from an "AtheiSJW bingo" of sorts, or from the inane hate asks that we get at anti-christophobia...

I don't know why I expected any better. Maybe because I DARED to assume the best about you. Yeah, what a heinous thing to do...

And OF COURSE it must be true that I came into this in bad faith. Of course. Why? Because you say so. Because it's a JACKPOT for you. You've found before yourself the perfect chance to set the scene with me as "Le Mr. Evil Bigoted Christian" and score brownie points, and BY GOLLY you aren't going to let such an opportunity go to waste!! I mean, WHO EVEN CARES about such trivial technicalities such as TRUTH...

..........and in the wake of all this, you have the gall to accuse ME of playing Oppression Olympics???

Can your projection and intellectual dishonesty get any worse?

And the PERFECT FINALE of inimitable intellectual and moral superiority:

Do not interact with this post further.

Classic pigeon chess strategy. No comment needed.

-

Again, for what I have done amiss in this whole story, I apologise sincerely. My mistakes, however, do not bar me from calling out the errors of others and defending myself against unsubstantiated charges or pointing out their bigoted behaviour.

As for the potential few idiots who shall hasten to accuse of antisemitism (for whatever contrived BS reason their sick brains might conjure), do not even bother. Antisemitism is one of the many kinds of bigotry which I have decried in the past and shall continue to decry, and thus I do not automatically become guilty of the same bigotry just because I do not self-flagellate for being Christian and I refuse to bow down to your short-sighted, sociopathic cultural Marxist dogma of competitive victimhood.

God bless you all.

UPDATE: A few mere hours later and OF COURSE another Bingo square was checked off: I have been blocked. Should I pretend to be surprised?

[sevdrag]

dreamwidth update: have i literally not posted since January what the fuck.

I guess not so HELLO; I’m still here. Tl;dr: in January I accepted a 6-month contract working for [Contractor Co] as a technical writer for [Employer Co], which started late February and explains most of the February absence bc it happened very fast and I had a lot of things to get together in 0 time. The job’s an hour away, so I lose 2 hr each day to transit. My contract stipulated that my eventual schedule needed to be MWF in office / TR work from home, or that wasn’t going to work out, but for the first 4-6 weeks I had agreed to be on campus every day for training and learning purposes, so that’s what happened to Feb and the beginning of March. I then went out to visit my BFF/Murder Husband to help out (and play) with his new service puppy, which was — the trip was great and we had fun with each other but the whole service puppy thing was a literal disaster and I think I’m not exaggerating to say his health condition might have sent him to the emergency room from stress (a trigger) without them extra pair of hands. Plus, puppies. Then this shit happened. I’m now working from home, as is my entire team — so much for that 2hr drive, huh? It’s my first full week (flew home last Monday, didn’t work Tues or Weds bc I had to set up for house arrest) and while I was real bad this week I’ve finally got everything sorted out so I can be productive moving forward. Everything is a bit surreal. (I am at 12 days since my flight home, without symptoms - i mean, i have a runny nose and a cough but that’s normal, I had it before flying, i have it every year - just as an FYI.) See, I love being in my house, so quarantine is like... perfect for me. Which isn’t something you say to someone, because it sounds like you want this to go on - which I absolutely don’t - I’m just expressing that it’s much easier on me to do this than most people, and no ma, you don’t need to worry. I’m great. One of the things I have found I am very good at is — not denial? But — realizing when in a situation you are powerless beyond a certain point, and thus, moderating the amount of anxiety channeled towards that particular situation. So while every now and then something breaks through my barrier and I end up driving the anxiety bus into the ravine, overall, I’ve been doing well. I think there’s something about — having — already being disabled, right? Like, I could worry every day about my fibro, I could get angry, I could get upset, but like, what the fuck would it do? And I’ve honed that tool over the years (to the point where some friends think I’m doing much better than I truly am cause I just don’t talk about it) and it’s coming in handy now. I’m used to it. Okay, another health thing to be careful about. Yep. Put it in that file drawer. Then again I also had an existential panic in the middle of the grocery store unrelated to anything, so. I’ve been posting daily cat pics on Instagram (Seventhe) and tumblr (sevdrag) for anyone who thinks they’ll need a daily pick-me-up. I wrote a Fuck Tonne of fic in January and then Feb (the job) dropped, but I’m at a point where I’m ramping back up in fic, too, so I’ll link to that as I go. Weird stuff. Hang in there. comments Comment? https://ift.tt/2UHSXOP

[nitallica]

Cross-posted from my blog: I hate pricks, don’t you?

OK, so time for another update! My follow-up with my primary care physician a few weeks back did not go as well as I’d hoped, but I was not completely surprised. With the holidays and everything going on, I’ve been stress-eating like crazy and have re-gained some of the weight I’d lost. Surprise surprise. BUT there was some good news: my numbers were still a lot better than they were this time last year; my doc said not to be too hard on myself. Honestly, there is no one harder on me than me. /shrug

So yeah, he prescribed a new fancy blood glucose monitoring system and I’m shocked to say that my insurance actually covered it! It hurts like a motherfucker when I have to inject the sensor into my arm, but it’s been providing me with a wealth of knowledge as far as my blood sugar levels go, and it’s been interesting to see my daily patterns.

This beats pricking my finger 8 times a day ANY DAY! I hate pricks. :)

My blood sugar is always highest in the mornings, which I’ve known that for a while, but what I did not know was how badly my headaches, anxiety, and stress were affecting my levels too. I’ve noticed that these things raise my numbers exponentially. In fact, I had a panic attack early Monday morning and at the time of the attack, my blood sugar was nearly 300! (this was around 3am, when normally it’s under 100) So it’s confirmation that all of these other things are affecting my numbers, not just my diet. For the most part, with my normal diet and daily dosing of Metformin, my numbers are usually in a pretty good range. There’s always room for improvement there, but apparently it’s the stress, headaches, and anxiety fucking me up the most.

Shocker, I know …

I saw the new neurologist yesterday. I really like this one. I recounted all of the treatments tried over the years that I could remember, and filled him in on the cluster fuck that happened with the pain center. He recommended I be put back on Aimovig. Apparently insurance now requires that I stay on that, and if THAT doesn’t work, then I can be put on Botox. Fine by me. I had my first (technically second total) treatment in his office, plus a shot of Toradol for the headache I’d had all day (leftover from the day before).

And today I feel FUCKING FANTASTIC compared to how I have felt for the past WEEK!

I am not convinced that this stuff will hold off every headache, but it’s supposed to keep getting better, so I will give it an honest go. Plus I’ve been prescribed Imitrex nasal treatments for when I do get a headache. I get 8 of those per month, and if that doesn’t work, then I can get a Toradol. I previously had those after my hysterectomy — they didn’t do squat for the surgery pain, but worked GREAT on headaches! So it’s nice to have met with a doctor who does not want me to be in pain.

Let’s see … what else? The Lexapro seems to be helping with my depression. The holidays were really hard for me, but they didn’t seem as dark as they had in years previous. If anything, I’d say that the Lexapro makes it more manageable, not as heavy a burden. I still have moments when I’m down, but they are not near as frequent. I don’t feel like I’m drowning … just more like I’m floating and waiting for the energy to paddle to shore.

I tried online dating for about a minute, then remembered why I stopped trying. Ugh. I met a handful of seemingly decent guys, only a couple of whom actually asked me out. One of which, we’re just friends. He’s a really cool dude, but we’re looking for different things in a relationship. The other … well, either he was really shy or it wasn’t really a date, as he brought a friend. /sigh I still have that long-distance interest, but he’s had burdens of his own to shoulder, and it just hasn’t been a good time for either of us. We’ve talked several times about meeting up. I think if that ever happens, we’d be inseparable. But there’s that IF …

Story of my life.

There’s also the debacle with trying to get my roof fixed on my house. I can’t remember if I mentioned this or not? The gutters were ripped off during a storm, causing a bit of damage to the underside where they were attached to the roof and house. I’ve been in touch with several places, one of which was going to do the work then flaked out on me. Another is coming this weekend to take a look at it. I decided that if I’m going to be here for another year or so, I might as well make it comfortable and invest in what could increase the value when it comes time to sell. This gives me time to find what I want in a new place. I’ve yet to find anything that I’ve just fallen in love with … maybe I’m too picky?

And with all the crap going on at work, it’s not a good time to be selling right now anyways. The “raises” they gave us a few months ago were underwhelming at best, and insulting at worst. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have something — it’s better than nothing. But when they’re cramming the “company cares!” bullshit down your throat all the time, but aren’t interested in actually investing in their employees, that just seems a tad disingenuous to me. Or maybe it’s just me? I had asked the CEO about the possibility of “catch-up raises” for those of us who’d gone without for years and who were far underpaid than our counterparts at other companies. I was told to talk to my boss (he had literally JUST started when this took place) and it was implied that I should be grateful for what I was given.

Bleh …

So what’s new with y’all?

... from I hate pricks, don’t you?

[marigoldbaker]

very really married (14/15)

read it on ao3!

i'm just going to pretend that i didn’t almost forget to post this extremely important update today. that’s what’s going to happen.

The moment Giles realized what the Codex said, he felt as though some final, vital part of him had shattered. Losing Jenny had always been an inevitability, but losing Buffy—he couldn’t contemplate it. This bright, brilliant child who stared death in the eye and laughed on a daily basis…he could not lose her too. Not so soon after he had broken Jenny’s heart.

He would check his translations, he decided, even as the earth shook and broke under his feet. He would check and double-check and triple-check and demand answers from Angel, and he would not tell Buffy about any of this until he had found a foolproof way to keep it from happening.

Everything in the Codex comes to pass, said a thoroughly unhelpful voice in the back of his head. Giles leaned against the checkout desk and stared at the semi-wrecked library, dazed by how rapidly it all seemed to have fallen to bits.

Giles threw himself into research. Buffy came in, the next morning, and he could barely register her presence through the haze of cross-referencing and recataloguing and attempting to repair the damage done by the earthquake on top of everything else. He was on autopilot, thinking only in terms of conjugations and typos and misprints—maybe the Codex meant fall, not die? Fall was more general, certainly, and could mean anything from death to the loss of Giles’s good opinion—but no, no, it translated to she will die—had he calculated the date incorrectly?

“Rupert,” said a voice. “Rupert.”

“Quite busy,” said Giles, not looking up from his books. “Library’s closed. Come again later.”

“I’m playing the wife card,” said Jenny firmly.

That made Giles look up. “Please don’t,” he finally managed.

Jenny flushed, ducking her head. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. I guess if you’re living in a hotel, you don’t really get to play the wife card anymore, huh?”

“No, Jenny, I just—” Giles exhaled, frustrated. Why on earth couldn’t she have done this before Buffy’s impending death? “I am under a lot of stress,” he said. “I don’t think now is the time for you to—to reenter my life.”

“So I’m a stressor?” Jenny looked a mixture of indignant and hurt.

“You are someone I love who I hurt very deeply,” said Giles, “and I am terrified I will hurt you again. Please, Jenny, I-I am in no condition to even attempt at tactfulness—I am tired, and I have quite a lot of work to do—”

“I know,” said Jenny. “I thought that maybe I could help.”

This took Giles aback. “I’m sorry?”

“Buffy checked in with me today, and she said you seemed pretty seriously out of sorts,” said Jenny tentatively. “And I knew it had to be pretty bad if Buffy was concerned enough to check in with me about it, and—and the only things I could think of that might upset you enough to keep them secret all had to do with death and destruction and—”

“Buffy is fated to face the Master,” said Giles.

Jenny blinked. “The who now?”

“The Master,” said Giles unsteadily. “He is a very powerful vampire who trapped himself underground a very long time ago, and he has taken a particular interest in Buffy since her coming here. I discovered a prophecy yesterday that suggested—” He swallowed, then shook his head. “That explicitly stated Buffy would face the Master, and that she would die tomorrow night.”

Jenny studied him for a long moment. Softly, she said, “I’ve never once seen you so undone.”

“How can I not be?” said Giles helplessly. “She’s my—” He didn’t quite know how to describe what he felt for Buffy. Slayer seemed too clinical a term, suddenly; he would have been able to send his Slayer to die without hesitation. “I care very deeply for her,” he said. “And she is only a child. Sending her to die at the hands of a master vampire is, is something I could never do.”

“Your predecessors didn’t seem to have much of a problem with it,” said Jenny a little coolly.

It was then that Giles realized that Jenny had almost certainly read the same Watcher diaries as he had. Not only had she found out of his calling from a secondary source, she had received her only information about it from callously indifferent, utterly detached idiots, all of whom had prioritized their mission over love, family, and the life of the girl they had been charged with protecting. “I am not my predecessors,” he said. “I have no intention of letting a little girl die for the sake of the world, not if I have any way of stopping it.”

Jenny nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Then let me help you.”

“Are you sure?” said Giles uncertainly. “You said you wanted distance—”

“Yeah, well, I think I can put that aside until we figure out how to stop this prophecy from going down,” said Jenny, giving him a small, tired smile.

Not for the first time, Giles was struck by how very remarkable Jenny was. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Jenny hesitated, then reached out, awkwardly squeezing Giles’s shoulder. Giles, who hadn’t been touched since the nightmare incident, couldn’t suppress a startled gasp, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You weren’t lying about…everything, were you?” she said. “Not about—not about hating computers, or, or liking tea, or—”

“Loving you?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny.

“I lied about being a Watcher, Jenny, but that is the only thing I lied about,” said Giles quietly.

For a brief moment, it seemed as though Jenny might kiss him; her eyes flitted down to his mouth, and she leaned in very slightly. But she seemed to think better of it, letting her hand drop and stepping back, and Giles found himself longing for the days when she would grab him and kiss him just to make a point or make him squirm. “Let’s, uh, get back to the Buffy thing,” she said somewhat loudly. “Where did you get the prophecy from?”

“Angel, actually,” said Giles.

Jenny looked startled. “Seriously?”

“Yes, he, he was very helpful,” said Giles awkwardly, raising his hand to straighten his glasses. “He did save my life last week.” Jenny drew in a sharp, pained breath, and he blinked. “Are you quite all right?”

“Your hand,” said Jenny.

Giles raised the hand in question, remembering belatedly that he had sustained a rather bad burn from his attempts to shut off the gas valve. But there hadn’t been time to doctor it properly—there never did seem to be time for that sort of thing. “Oh,” he said, and grinned a bit sheepishly. “Quite a lot better than it looks, actually. I can hold a pencil—”

Jenny looked as though she was about to cry. “Okay,” she said. “Yeah. Um, we should—we should really start in on the research. Can you maybe call in Angel and see if he can help us out?”

“Certainly,” Giles agreed, both bemused and concerned by Jenny’s reaction. The burn certainly would be healing better if he’d paid proper attention to it, but there truly wasn’t time to do such a thing when one was focused solely on the care and keeping of one’s Slayer. “If you could double-check my translations?”

“Sure,” said Jenny. “Sure,” and picked up the Codex, hurrying it out of Giles’s office. Giles watched her go, feeling a rather confusing blend of emotions, and then turned back to the phone. Angel wouldn’t be able to go outside till sunset, but calling him at least gave Giles something to do.

Angel arrived only a few minutes after sunset. Upon seeing him, Jenny stiffened, but her eyes were wide with an almost childlike curiosity. “Angelus,” she said.

Angel turned, studying her thoughtfully. “Ms. Calendar,” he said. “Buffy mentioned you, once or twice. You’re Giles’s wife?”

Jenny hesitated. Then she said, “My family’s kind of the reason you have your soul.”

It was a mark of how surprising the news was: Angel looked visibly taken aback. “What?”

“I, um, moved to Sunnydale to watch you,” Jenny hedged. “Technically. I feel like I should tell you because literally everyone else knows at this point and it feels weird for you not to? My family really wants to make sure you’re perpetually suffering. It’s kind of their thing.”

“Is that your thing too?” Angel asked carefully.

Jenny seemed to seriously consider the question. “I feel like I don’t know you well enough to make that assessment,” she said.

This seemed to satisfy Angel. “Okay,” he said. “Well. Nice to meet you. Giles, is this why you called me down?”

“Actually, um,” Giles picked up the Codex, now triple-checked by both him and Jenny, “there is something else about which we needed to inform you.”

Angel directed a slightly wary look at the Codex. Smart fellow. “Okay,” he said again.

Jenny stepped forward, placing a quiet hand on Giles’s elbow. “Um, Rupert and I have gone over the Codex…quite a few times,” she said. “And we—should I tell him?”

“I think that would be best,” Giles agreed. He wasn’t sure if he had the emotional energy to break the news to another person.

Gripping Giles’s elbow as if trying to support herself, Jenny continued. “We went over the Codex,” she said, “a-and we came across a prophecy regarding, regarding Buffy. And the Master.”

Angel stared blankly at him. Slowly, he said, “You’re not trying to tell me—”

“The Master will rise,” said Giles unsteadily, “and tomorrow night, the Slayer will die by his hand.”

Angel’s expression didn’t change. “Check it again,” he said. “It’s got to be wrong.”

“We’ve spent the last five hours checking it against all of Rupert’s prophetic volumes,” said Jenny quietly. “If we’re wrong, then so is this entire library.”

“There’s got to be some way around it—”

“Some prophecies,” said Giles, “are mutable. Buffy herself has thwarted more than a few of them. But there is nothing in the Codex that does not come to pass.”

“Then you’ve been reading it wrong,” said Angel fiercely.

“I wish to god we were!” Giles shouted, completely and finally losing his temper. “But there is no other way to interpret it! Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master, and she will die!”

“Have you—” Angel began, but the rest of his words were cut off by quiet, unsteady laughter.

Giles looked, horrified, over Angel’s shoulder. He knew that laugh, though he had never heard it in quite that cadence, and his stomach dropped when he saw Buffy standing in the library doorway. “So that’s it, huh?” she said. “I remember the drill. One Slayer dies, the next one gets called. Wonder who she is.” She turned to Giles, eyes almost too bright. “Will you train her, or will they send someone else.”

“Buffy,” said Jenny softly.

“They say how he’s gonna kill me?” Buffy’s voice broke. “Do you think it’ll hurt?” Angel moved forward to hold her, but she jerked back before he could reach her. “Don’t touch me!” she shouted at him, then turned accusing eyes on Giles and Jenny. “Were you guys even going to tell me?” she asked.

“We were looking for a way to stop it,” said Jenny.

“Here’s how,” said Buffy, shaking. “I quit.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Angel.

“No, I think it should be,” said Giles.

Buffy, Jenny, and Angel all turned to stare at him. “Rupert,” said Jenny, a warning note in her voice. “Remember all those prophecies we checked? Buffy’s supposed to be the only one—”

“I think I’ve had rather enough of this,” said Giles, not really to anyone in particular. “I think I am thoroughly bloody sick of having to live in a world where the people I care about are put deliberately in harm’s way just by virtue of cosmic chance. And I think I am entirely done sitting passively by and letting it happen.”

Buffy looked suddenly frightened, anger and misery forgotten. “Giles,” she said. “What are you—”

“Buffy, you are not going to face the Master,” said Giles. “Don’t worry yourself about it. It simply is not going to happen.”

“But you said—”

“I don’t care what I said,” said Giles. “If it comes to pass, it will come to pass no matter what we do about it. The least I can do is make sure I have done everything I can to stop it from happening.”

He couldn’t quite understand why Buffy didn’t look comforted, or why Jenny had gone ashen, or why even Angel looked a little concerned. All he knew was that preparations needed to be made, battles needed to be fought, evil defeated—

With a sudden sob, Buffy raced from the room, not looking back.

Giles didn’t have time to worry himself about what Buffy thought of him. He had plans of his own to finalize. “Jenny, thank you for staying, but I believe I would like to be alone right now,” he said. “Angel, the same applies for you. If you would just—”

“Rupert,” said Jenny, a warning look in her eyes. “If you’re about to do something stupid—”

“I am going to research,” said Giles, because it was true. He needed all the information he could to go after the Master.

“Then I’m going to help,” said Jenny. “That hasn’t changed.”

“I can help too, if you want,” said Angel uncertainly.

“This is married-couple stuff,” said Jenny flatly. “Thanks, thought.”

Angel got the hint. Quietly, and without protesting, he left the library.

“Wow,” said Jenny. “Buffy really picked a good boyfriend, huh? That guy takes directions like nobody’s business—”

“If you’ll look online, Jenny, I think I shall turn to my books,” said Giles loudly. He didn’t really feel like making conversation when Buffy’s life was at stake, and especiallywhen Jenny was smart enough to figure out what he planned to do from only a few context clues.

Jenny hesitated, then nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Okay,” and hurried to the computer.

They spent the entire night researching, and then some. Jenny called in sick the next day, and napped in Giles’s office when Snyder came around to ask Giles, in accusatory tones, where exactly Ms. Calendar was. Giles caught up on sleep only when he began to feel dizzy, and only in short fifteen-minute naps; he was a strange mixture of anxious and driven, and couldn’t bring himself to sleep for longer.

They heard over the intercom about three students found dead in the AV room, but by this point Giles was too tired and too resigned to mysterious deaths to really take much notice of it. It did sting, however, to notice that Jenny’s reaction was similarly minimal, save for a small flinch and an indrawn breath when it was revealed that Willow had found the bodies.

Buffy came in around sundown, wearing an oversized leather jacket over a long white dress. Prom was that night, Giles realized. Somehow, she looked older and harder than he remembered; the news of the prophecy seemed to have aged her beyond her years. “Hi, guys,” she said.

“Buffy,” said Giles. “Good. Stay here with Jenny. You’re not going down to fight the Master tonight.”

“Who else is gonna?” said Buffy simply. All the vindictive fury of the night before was gone, no sign of it remaining.

“I am,” said Giles.

Buffy didn’t look at all surprised by this pronouncement. Jenny, however, did. “No, you’re not—” she began hotly, storming forward.

“You’re right,” said Buffy. “He’s not.”

“There isn’t anything you can say to talk me out of this—” Giles objected.

Lightning-fast, Buffy moved forward, landing an uppercut to Giles’s jaw. Right about then was when everything went black.

Giles came to with Jenny slumped against his side, a bruise blossoming on her cheek. His jaw stung. Looking around, he saw that Buffy was gone, and he felt a rush of complete and utter panic. “Jenny,” he said, shaking her. “Jenny—”

“Rupert,” mumbled Jenny, nuzzling into his side.

“Jenny, Buffy is gone,�� said Giles thinly.

That woke Jenny up. “What?” She blinked, then raised a hand to her bruised cheek, wincing. “Shit. She knocked you out, and then she said she was going to go down before anyone else got themselves hurt, and I said I wouldn’t let her, and then—uh.” She winced again. “That’s when it gets kinda fuzzy.”

“She’s going to get herself killed,” said Giles, already standing up. Jenny tugged, hard, at his arm, and he shook her off. “Don’t try and talk me out of this,” he began, crossing the room to grab a broadsword.

“Rupert, you’re going to get yourself killed—”

“Hell of a way to go, isn’t it?”

“You’re scaring me,” said Jenny. Her voice broke. “Please. We need to figure out what to do about the apocalypse before we go running off after Buffy.”

“I’ll let the children handle the research,” said Giles. “You can stay with them and supervise. I need to—” He swallowed. “I need to find Buffy.”

“And what happens if the Master takes you down?” Jenny demanded. “You’re the only other person with supernatural experience—”

“Go find Angel, then,” said Giles flatly. “I’m sure you can talk him into saving the world for Buffy’s sake.”

“Rupert—”

“Jenny,” said Giles. “This is my fault. I am going to go fix it.”

“How the hell is this your fault?”

Giles stared at her for a long second. Then he said, “I don’t know, but I think I should like it to be,” and turned to hurry away.

“Okay, genius,” said Jenny, and grabbed his arm, harder this time. Giles turned, a retort at the ready, but all intelligent thought left his mind when he saw the way she was looking at him. “It’s clear to me,” she said, “that there is absolutely no talking you out of this idiot idea, because when you get an idiot idea in your head, you cling to it like it’s one of your precious volumes. But I am not letting you charge down there without thinking—”

“Try and fucking stop me,” said Giles, attempting to shake her off. It didn’t work quite as well this time.

“Let me finish, asshole!” snapped Jenny, cheeks red. “I am not letting you charge down there without thinking, so I am obviously going to have to come with you.”

Just like that, Giles’s fury was gone. “No,” he said. “Jenny, no, that is out of the question—”

“It’s not up for debate,” said Jenny fiercely. “If you’re going down there, I’m going too.”

“You’ll get yourself killed—”

“What, and you won’t?”

“I can’t lose you,” said Giles, his voice breaking. “It’s bad enough to know I’ve broken your trust, Jenny, I cannot lead you to your death—”

“What’s going on?” said Xander uneasily.

Giles and Jenny turned. Xander and Willow were standing in the middle of the library. “We came to tell you that the faucet at my house started running blood,” said Willow, “but, um, it looks like you two are…” She squinted at Jenny’s bruised cheek, then at Giles’s jaw. “Trading punches?”

“No, that was Buffy,” said Giles without thinking, then winced. “A-and anyway, we really must be going—”

“Where is Buffy?” Willow asked, a note of worry in her voice.

“Somewhere,” said Giles. “Don’t worry about it. Jenny, why don’t you stay with the children and brief them on the situation?” Before Jenny could respond, he finally managed to shake free of her grip, hurrying out of the library without looking back.

He heard running footsteps behind him, and turned, infuriated. Sure enough, Jenny had sprinted out of the library after him. “No,” she said. “You are not getting off that easily. First of all, lead me to my death? As if I would follow you anywhere! If anything, I’d be leading you, because you clearly don’t even know where you’re going! Second, you are not throwing yourself into a suicide mission just because you feel like I’m never gonna trust you again, because that is so fucking stupid and you seriously need to get your priorities straight. Third—”

“She’s just a child, Jenny,” said Giles, a catch in his voice. “She doesn’t know what she’s getting into, and she’s down there all alone.”

“I can’t—” Jenny scrubbed a hand across her face, shaking. “I can’t lose you,” she said. “Do you get that? I can’t lose you on the same day the Master kills Buffy. You’ve been the one constant in this fucked-up town, and if I lose you—”

Giles stepped forward, almost unconsciously. Jenny looked up at him, eyes bright and wet.

“Wait,” said Xander from behind them. “Wait. Buffy went after the Master?”

It suddenly and unpleasantly occurred to Giles that the time they had spent arguing was time during which Buffy might have already gotten herself killed. “Yes,” he said. “She did. And Jenny and I are going to go down and find her.”

Xander didn’t relax. Neither did Willow. “Do you guys seriously think that’s a good idea?” she said.

“Well, I definitely don’t think Jenny should come with me,” said Giles, “but I think I’ve wasted enough time trying to talk her out of it, and lord knows that is a futile endeavor.”

“We’ll go and get Angel,” said Jenny. “He’ll know how to get us to the Master. You kids need to research anything and everything that might lead us to where the Hellmouth’s gonna open up.” Her eyes were on Willow when she said, “I trust you know your way around the library?”

“What if you guys get killed too?” said Willow, voice wobbling.

“Counterpoint: what if we don’t?” Jenny stepped forward, pulling Willow into a tight hug. Over the top of Willow’s head, she said to Xander, “And if you follow us down there, I will kill you myself. Capisce?”

Xander didn’t look very happy about this, but he nodded. “You guys better bring her back alive,” he said.

Giles didn’t know how to make that promise. “Come on, Jenny,” he said instead. Without a word, Jenny let go of Willow, falling into step with him as they hurried out of Sunnydale High.

They arrived at Angel’s apartment in record time, thanks to some utterly reckless driving on Jenny’s part, and burst in without knocking. Without preamble, Jenny informed Angel, “Buffy went after the Master.”

Angel blanched. “He’ll kill her,” he said, horrified.

“That’s what we’re intending to stop,” said Giles matter-of-factly. “You know the way to the Master’s lair, I assume? We’ll need someone to take us there.”

Angel hesitated, studying Giles. Then he said, “You love her, huh?”

The Rupert Giles who had left England with thoughts of an obedient, dedicated Slayer would have balked at such a foolish question—or perhaps he might not have. Perhaps, Giles thought, this sort of love might have been in him all along, whether or not he had known it. “Very much,” he said.

Angel seemed satisfied with this. “He’s underground,” he said. “I can get you there.”

The tunnels were dark and dank, and Giles couldn’t stop thinking about how terrible a place this was for bright, brave Buffy to meet her end. Buffy had been nothing but light and youth, and the thought of her rotting away in some moldy enclave—

“Hey,” said Jenny, very softly, and he felt her hand slip into his, their fingers entwining. Belatedly, Giles realized that he was crying, and scrubbed hastily at his face, doing his best to regulate his breathing. Lord, and in front of Angel—

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Okay,” said Jenny, bumping her head against his shoulder. “Well, maybe the hand-holding isn’t to help you.”

Giles wanted rather badly to appreciate the possibility of a reconciliation with Jenny. He wanted rather badly to return to the time when it was Jenny’s leaving that had had him absolutely miserable. Then, at least, all the people he cared about had been alive, and there had been no chance of anything but that—

A bright light shone from a tunnel up ahead, and a ripple passed through the air. Instinctively, Giles knew what had happened; dropping Jenny’s hand, he ran.

“Giles, it’s too late, he’s gone up!” Angel was shouting after him, but Giles was running down the slippery tunnel, turning the corner, clambering down and into the Master’s lair and Buffy—

Buffy was lying, facedown, in a pool of water. Giles half-fell down next to her, pulling her clumsily out and into his arms. She was cold and wet, her hair falling in lank tendrils around her face, and she wasn’t—and she wasn’t—

“She’s not breathing,” said a voice that didn’t sound anything like his own. He could see Jenny and Angel scrambling to reach him, and turned his attention back to Buffy, her eyes closed. She had been so still and calm, when last he saw her. Always, she had been loud and lighthearted, never carrying herself like she was battle-worn. God, had he been foolish—thinking that her destiny didn’t weigh on her, thinking that she didn’t take it seriously, what had he been thinking? Buffy, dead—Buffy, dead and gone—

“Not breathing,” said Jenny, “does not necessarily mean gone for good.” She pointed to Angel. “We’ve got a walking, talking example of that right here.”

“The prophecy—”

“Fuck the prophecy,” said Jenny fiercely. “If she drowned, then there’s a chance. Do you know CPR?”

“Yes,” said Giles dizzily. “Yes, I—” He removed his jacket, setting Buffy’s—setting Buffy down on it as gently as possible, and was reminded of a time, months ago, when he had done just this in a science laboratory. He would do anything to protect this girl, he knew, and he knew that she could beat incredible odds— “Prove me wrong,” he whispered, and began the compressions, counting clumsily. He felt certain that he wasn’t strong enough, precise enough, enough—

Rescue breath. One, two.

“Shut up,” he heard Jenny saying to Angel, and he tried not to think about Jenny, or Angel, or Buffy, or the apocalypse around them, or how much time he might be wasting, trying to bring back a dead girl just because he loved her—

Rescue breath. One, two.

And what would he tell her if she was alive? That he loved her? He felt sure that she would laugh it off, and the thought of her laughing it off—of her laughing—made Giles smile, despite himself. She would laugh it off, and then she would give him that bright, sweet grin, and something would solidify between them—something not quite Watcher-Slayer, he supposed, something more along the lines of—she had a father, he knew, but—

Buffy coughed, and spat up a rather impressive amount of water all over Giles’s sweater vest.

“Oh my god,” said Jenny, and laughed, punching Angel’s shoulder. Angel winced. “Oh my god—”

Giles pulled back, taking Buffy’s hands in his. Buffy blinked up at him as if not quite sure who he was, coughed again, then sat up, staring at Giles with wide eyes. “Giles?” she said in a tiny voice.

“Buffy,” said Giles, and almost started crying when she pulled him into a crushing hug.

After that, the apocalypse really did feel like nothing at all. The Master was defeated, the Hellmouth beast retreating back from whence it came (Xander would inform everyone, proudly, that he got a good few hacks in with Giles’s battle-axe), and Cordelia Chase had somehow managed to destroy a respectable number of vampires with a rather expensive car—along with some school property, but Giles was off the clock and really didn’t care all that much anyway. He had more important things on his mind.

“—and then I flipped him through the roof,” Buffy was informing Xander and Willow, who were listening with rapt, adoring attention. “But you guys saw that part, obviously. I’m pretty sure almost everybody saw that part—Giles, you saw me flip him, right?”

“I did see you flip him,” Giles agreed, grinning. “You did excellently tonight.”

“Aww, you’re just saying that ‘cause I died,” Buffy teased, leaning into Giles’s side with cheerful ease.

“Absolutely not,” said Giles emphatically. “Never assume I praise you for anything other than your stellar achievements.”

“You know what?” said Buffy to Willow. “If this is how he acts after I die, I’m gonna die every day for the rest of my life.”

“Um,” said Willow, “logistically—”

Giles took this moment to tuck his jacket a bit more securely round Buffy’s shoulders. “I won’t have you catching cold,” he informed her. “That long in sewer water—it’s a wonder you’re not ill already.”

“You’re such a helicopter Watcher,” said Buffy, snuggling into the jacket. She buried her hands in the pockets, then stopped, a strange expression on her face. “Uh, Giles?” she said. “You, uh—want your jacket back?”

“Keep it,” said Giles. “Just till you’re a bit drier—”

“No, Giles, I really think you should take your jacket back,” said Buffy, and directed an extremely significant look first at Jenny, then at the left-hand pocket of Giles’s jacket.

“Wh—” The penny dropped. Wincing, Giles took the jacket back, took out the ring box as subtly as he could, then firmly tucked the jacket back round Buffy’s shoulders. “You still need to stay warm,” he said.

“It’s totally ruining my look!” Buffy protested.

“As you would say to me, deal,” said Giles, smoothing down Buffy’s hair. She grinned. “I really would have gone down there in your stead,” he informed her, grateful that the loud music of the Bronze muffled his words from the rest of the group.

“I know,” said Buffy, and her grin softened into the trusting little smile that, a very long time ago, Giles had seen directed at Jenny. “You did come running after me.” She reached forward, hugging Giles. “Thank you,” she said into his shoulder. “You’re the best Watcher I’ve ever had.”

“The bar was set rather low, then, wasn’t it?” Giles quipped, hugging her back.

“Shut up,” said Buffy, pulling back to just keep smiling at him.

“Hey, uh, Buffy?” Angel was shifting from one foot to the other, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “Um—if you’re not too busy—there’s a nice song on, I thought maybe—”

“Why, Angel, are you asking me to dance?” said Buffy, sounding positively delighted by the concept. She hopped up, giving Angel a big, smitten grin before turning back to Giles. “Love you,” she said, as easily and effortlessly as if she hadn’t had to think about it at all.

Giles found himself a bit overcome and had to polish his glasses. Buffy didn’t seem too surprised by this. “I—I love you too,” he said, though he supposed he didn’t really need to say it for her to know it. There wasn’t much else that could have motivated a Watcher to fight against a recorded prophecy.

Buffy’s smile was just as bright and sweet as Giles had imagined it to be—more so, in fact, now that he was seeing it. Tucking her arm into Angel’s, she let him lead her onto the dance floor.

“You know what?” said Willow. “Let’s cut a rug. Xander, you wanna come dance?”

“Uh, Will, I don’t know—” Xander began.

“Not with each other,” said Willow, rolling her eyes. “It’s gonna be a fast song soon!”

Xander considered, then grinned, following Willow into the crowd.

It took Giles a moment to realize that this left only him and Jenny. About to stammer out some excuse and head home alone, he opened his mouth, but was cut off when Jenny held out her hand. “Dance with me,” she said.

Heart pounding, Giles stood up. “All right,” he said, and took her hand, following her lead.

There was an empty space by the refreshments, and that was where Jenny draped her arms around his neck, looking up at him with all the affection he had been so afraid of losing. It left him all but speechless. “So you were a total stubborn idiot tonight,” she said. “Really reaffirmed some pressing questions.”

“Oh?” said Giles.

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “It was kinda hard for me to picture you as a Watcher till I saw it in action, you know? All those diaries I read had Watchers as self-serving bastards who talked about their Slayers like commodities, and that just…” She trailed off. “That didn’t fit with the guy I fell in love with,” she said. “But this night really, really does.”

Giles stared at her. Slowly, he said, “I don’t—I don’t entirely follow—”

“I love you, Rupert,” said Jenny, and oh, Giles had never dreamed hearing it from her might ever feel like this. Now he understood why she had looked at him like he was a treasure, after Angel; the head-to-toe feeling of being loved, of being known in one’s entirety and still being loved, was overwhelming. “I was so scared,” she said unsteadily, “that you made yourself up as some kind of a cover story. And it made so much more sense than this sweet, annoying, ridiculous librarian just falling into my life completely by accident.”

“I never lied about the important bits,” said Giles quietly. “I never could.”

“I know that now,” said Jenny, giving him a small, wobbly smile.

The slow song had transitioned into a fast one, but they remained swaying quietly to the music, Jenny in Giles’s arms. Jenny Calendar, well aware that her husband was a Watcher, somehow looking at him with just as much love as she had when he was just a clumsy librarian. Giles couldn’t comprehend how lucky, how happy he was.

“And I would never dream of lying about loving you,” Giles whispered. He needed to make sure she heard it, properly, with no secrets or hurt separating them. “I—I don’t know how I can possibly express—all the things I want to tell you, now that I can—”

“So save a few for tomorrow,” said Jenny, her smile widening. “We’ve got more than enough time for you to butter me up.”

Giles let out a watery laugh. “More than enough time?”

“All the time in the world,” said Jenny.

“Wait,” said Giles. “So—”

“Yes, Rupert, I want us to get back together,” said Jenny, looking up at him with that exasperated amusement that he had missed so much. “What does it take to get that through to you?”

“Possibly a formal dissertation,” said Giles, not very seriously, which made Jenny start giggling as he leaned in.

There was then a series of very loud cheers. Well aware that the children were almost definitely watching their reconciliation, and that he was most certainly going to be teased by his audience if he continued the kiss he had initiated, Giles…was distracted by the flutter of Jenny’s eyelashes, and her slowly-spreading smile, and kissed her anyway.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Cordelia was saying to someone in the background. “Those two are weird. But they’re at least weird together, you know? Less trauma for the rest of the dating pool, probably.”

“Cordelia, please shut up,” said Buffy.

Jenny broke the kiss, resting her forehead against Giles’s with a happy sigh. “I love you,” she whispered again.

Giles felt as though his sheer, dizzying joy might send him flying off into space. “I love you too,” he whispered back, struck with the knowledge that he got to say those words, and mean them, for as long as their marriage lasted.

That line of thought reminded him of something important. Keeping one hand on his wife’s waist, he fumbled in his pocket. Jenny looked somewhat bemused by this. “Rupert, what—” she began, and then stopped, breath catching in her throat, as Giles opened the ring box.

“Wait,” said Cordelia. “But they’re already married!”

“You’re a little behind the times, sweetie,” said Xander, and attempted to pat Cordelia’s shoulder. Cordelia stepped very hard on his foot.

“I can’t really go down on one knee,” said Giles, giving her a small, apologetic grin. “Partially because I feel fairly certain I fractured my kneecap in the sewer—”

“—after this, we’re going to the ER,” Jenny informed him in a somewhat wobbly voice, directing a shaky smile at the engagement ring.

“—yes, of course, dear, but please don’t detract from my point,” said Giles.

“Are you seriously correcting me in the middle of this?” Jenny asked, raising her eyes to Giles’s—and oh, her eyes were full of love.

“Of course,” said Giles, his grin becoming more smitten than nervous. “It’s rather our MO, isn’t it?” He removed his free hand from her waist, using it to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She turned her face into his hand, smiling back up at him. “Jenny, I love you,” he said softly. “No part of this arrangement was what I ever imagined, but I don’t think I could ever have anticipated falling into the life of such a terrifying, stubborn, bitingly intelligent woman completely by accident. It’s me who’s the lucky one, darling.”

Jenny preened. “You can say that again.”

“And I want to,” said Giles. “And I will. Every day, and every week, and every month, and every year. Jenny, will you—” He stopped, realized the problem with proposing to the woman he had already married, and rather wished (for the first and hopefully last time) that he had listened to Cordelia Chase’s snide side commentary. “Um.”

“Take your grandmother’s engagement ring and not divorce you till death do us part?” said Jenny helpfully, looking very much like she was trying not to laugh. “Because I will definitely do both of those things.”

A very long time ago, Rupert Giles might have cared about the fact that proposing to his fake wife in the middle of an American high school prom was absolutely not what the Watchers’ Council would call respectable. A very, very long time ago, he might not have grinned, tears in his eyes, as Jenny donned his grandmother’s engagement ring, draped her arms back round his neck, and kissed him like it was their wedding day, the children starting up a new round of cheering.

“Are we seriously cheering on a couple of newlyweds deciding not to get a divorce?” said Cordelia. “Someone better explain this to me at some point.”

“She’s right,” murmured Giles, pulling back just enough for his lips to still brush Jenny’s as he spoke. “This whole affair is horribly unromantic.”

“Just my style,” Jenny whispered.

Giles smiled, soft and slow. “Mine too, I think,” he said, and leaned in, tenderly kissing his wife.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#1yrago My RSS feeds from a decade ago, a snapshot of gadget blogging when that was a thing

Rob Beschizza:

I chanced upon an ancient backup of my RSS feed subscriptions, a cold hard stone of data from my time at Wired in the mid-2000s. The last-modified date on the file is December 2007. I wiped my feeds upon coming to Boing Boing thenabouts: a fresh start and a new perspective.

What I found, over 212 mostly-defunct sites, is a time capsule of web culture from a bygone age—albeit one tailored to the professional purpose of cranking out blog posts about consumer electronics a decade ago. It's not a picture of a wonderful time before all the horrors of Facebook and Twitter set in. This place is not a place of honor. No highly-esteemed deed is commemorated here. But perhaps some of you might like a quick tour, all the same.

The "Main" folder, which contains 30 feeds, was the stuff I actually wanted (or needed) to read. This set would morph over time. I reckon it's easy to spot 2007's passing obsessions from the enduring interests.

↬ Arts and Letters Daily: a minimalist blog of links about smartypants subjects, a Drudge for those days when I sensed a third digit dimly glowing in my IQ. But for the death of founder Denis Dutton, it's exactly the same as it was in 2007! New items daily, but the RSS feed's dead.

↬ Boing Boing. Still around, I hear.

↬ Brass Goggles. A dead feed for a defunct steampunk blog (the last post was in 2013) though the forums seem well-stocked with new postings.

↬ The Consumerist. Dead feed, dead site. Founded in 2005 by Joel Johnson at Gawker, it was sold to Consumer Reports a few years later, lost its edge there, and was finally shuttered (or summarily executed) just a few weeks ago.

↬ Bibliodyssey. Quiescent. Updated until 2015 with wonderful public-domain book art scans and commentary. A twitter account and tumblr rolled on until just last year. There is a book to remember it by should the bits rot.

↬ jwz. Jamie Zawinski's startling and often hilariously bleak reflections on culture, the internet and working at Netscape during the dotcom boom. This was probably the first blog that led me to visit twice, to see if there was more. And there still is, almost daily.

↬ Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society. Curios and weirdness emerging from the dust and foul fog of old books, forbidden history and the more speculative reaches of science. So dead the domain is squatted. Creator Josh Foer moved on to Atlas Obscura.

↬ The Tweney Review. Personal blog of my last supervisor at Wired, Dylan Tweney, now a communications executive. It's still going strong!

↬ Strange Maps. Dead feed, dead site, though it's still going as a category at Big Think. Similar projects proliferate now on social media; this was the wonderful original. There was a book.

↬ BLDGBLOG. Architecture blog, posting since 2004 with recent if rarer updates. A fine example of tasteful web brutalism, but I'm no longer a big fan of cement boxes and minimalism with a price tag.

↬ Dethroner. A men's self-care and fashion blog, founded by Joel Johnson, of the tweedy kind that became wildly and effortlessly successful not long after he gave up on it.

↬ MocoLoco. This long-running design blog morphed visually into a magazine in 2015. I have no idea why I liked it then, but indie photoblogs' golden age ended long ago and it's good to see some are thriving.

↬ SciFi Scanner. Long-dead AMC channel blog, very likely the work of one or two editors and likely lost to tidal corporate forces rather than any specific failure or event.

↬ Cult of Mac. Apple news site from another Wired News colleague of mine, Leander Kahney, and surely one of the longest-running at this point. Charlie Sorrel, who I hired at Wired to help me write the Gadget blog, still pens articles there.

↬ Ectoplasmosis. After Wired canned its bizarre, brilliant and unacceptably weird Table of Malcontents blog, its editor John Brownlee (who later joined Joel and I in editing Boing Boing Gadgets) and contributor Eliza Gauger founded Ectoplasmosis: the same thing but with no hysterical calls from Conde Nast wondering what the fuck is going on. It was glorious, too: a high-point of baroque indie blogging in the age before Facebook (and I made the original site design). Both editors later moved onto other projects (Magenta, Problem Glyphs); Gauger maintains the site's archives at tumblr. It was last updated in 2014.

↬ Penny Arcade. Then a webcomic; now a webcomic and a media and events empire.

↬ Paul Boutin. While working at Wired News, I'd heard a rumor that he was my supervisor. But I never spoke to him and only ever received a couple of odd emails, so I just got on with the job until Tweney was hired. His site and its feed are long-dead.

↬ Yanko Design. Classic blockquote chum for gadget bloggers.

↬ City Home News. A offbeat Pittburgh News blog, still online but lying fallow since 2009.

↬ Watchismo. Once a key site for wristwatch fans, Watchismo was folded into watches.com a few years ago. A couple of things were posted to the feed in 2017, but its time has obviously passed.

↬ Gizmodo. Much has changed, but it's still one of the best tech blogs.

↬ Engadget. Much has changed, but it's still one of the best tech blogs.

↬ Boing Boing Gadgets. Site's dead, though the feed is technically live as it redirects to our "gadgets" tag. Thousands of URLs there succumbed to bit-rot at some point, but we have plans to merge its database into Boing Boing's and revive them.

↬ Gear Factor. This was the gadget review column at Wired Magazine, separate from the gadget blog I edited because of the longtime corporate divorce between Wired's print and online divisions. This separation had just been resolved at the time I began working there, and the two "sides" -- literally facing offices in the same building -- were slowly being integrated. The feed's dead, but with an obvious successor, Gear.

↬ The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Required reading at the time, and very much a thing of its time. Now vaguely repulsive.

↬ i09. This brilliant sci-fi and culture blog deserved more than to end up a tag at Gizmodo.

↬ Science Daily: bland but exhaustive torrent of research news, still cranking along.

The "Essentials" Folder was material I wanted to stay on top of, but with work clearly in mind: the background material for systematically belching out content at a particular point in 2007.

↬ Still alive are The Register, Slashdot, Ars Technica, UMPC Portal (the tiny laptop beat!), PC Watch, Techblog, TechCrunch, UberGizmo, Coolest Gadgets, EFF Breaking News, Retro Thing, CNET Reviews, New Scientist, CNET Crave, and MAKE Magazine.

↬ Dead or quiescent: GigaOm (at least for news), Digg/Apple, Akihabara News, Tokyomango, Inside Comcast, Linux Devices (Update: reincarnated at linuxgizmos.com), and Uneasy Silence.

Of the 23 feeds in the "press releases" folder, 17 are dead. Most of the RSS no-shows are for companies like AMD and Intel, however, who surely still offer feeds at new addresses. Feeds for Palm, Nokia and pre-Dell Alienware are genuine dodos. These were interesting enough companies, 10 years ago.

PR Newswire functions as a veneering service so anyone can pretend to have a big PR department, but it is (was?) also legitimately used by the big players as a platform so I monitored the feeds there. They're still populated, but duplicate one another, and it's all complete garbage now. (It was mostly garbage then.)

My "Gadgets and Tech" folder contained the army of late-2000s blogs capitalizing on the success of Gizmodo, Boing Boing, TechCrunch, et al. Back in the day, these were mostly one (or two) young white men furiously extruding commentary on (or snarky rewrites of) press releases, with lots of duplication and an inchoate but seriously-honored unspoken language of mutual respect and first-mover credit. Those sites that survived oftentimes moved to listicles and such: notionally superior and more original content and certainly more sharable on Facebook, but unreadably boring. However, a few old-timey gadget bloggers are still cranking 'em out' in web 1.5 style. And a few were so specialized they actually had readers who loved them.

Still alive: DailyTech, technabob, CdrInfo.com, EverythingUSB, Extremetech, GearFuse, Gizmag, Gizmodiva, Hacked Gadgets, How to Spot A Psychopath/Dans' Data, MobileBurn, NewLaunches, OhGizmo!, ShinyShiny, Stuff.tv, TechDigest, TechDirt, Boy Genius Report, The Red Ferret Journal, Trusted Reviews, Xataca, DigiTimes, MedGadget, Geekologie, Tom's Hardware, Trendhunter, Japan Today, Digital Trends, All About Symbian (Yes, Symbian!), textually, cellular-news, TreeHugger, dezeen.

Dead: jkkmobile.com, Business Week Online, About PC (why), Afrigadget (unique blog about inventors in Africa, still active on FaceBook), DefenseTech, FosFor (died 2013), Gearlog, Mobile-Review.com (but apparently reborn as a Russian language tech blog!), Robot's Dreams, The Gadgets Weblog, Wireless Watch Japan, Accelerating Future, Techopolis, Mobile Magazine, eHome Upgrade, camcorderinfo.com (Update: it became http://Reviewed.com), Digital Home Thoughts (farewell), WiFi Network News (farewell), Salon: Machinist, Near Future Lab, BotJunkie (twitter), and CNN Gizmos.

I followed 18 categories at Free Patents Online, and the site's still alive, though the RSS feeds haven't had any new items since 2016.

In the "news" folder, my picks were fairly standard stuff: BBC, CNET, digg/technology, PC World, Reuters, International Herald Tribune, and a bunch of Yahoo News feeds. The Digg feed's dead; they died and were reborn.

The "Wired" feed folder comprised all the Wired News blogs of the mid-2000s. All are dead. 27B Stroke 6, Autopia, Danger Room, Epicenter, Gadget Lab, Game|Life, Geekdad, Listening Post, Monkey Bites, Table of Malcontents, Underwire, Wired Science.

These were each basically one writer or two and were generally folded into the established mazagine-side arrangements as the Age of Everyone Emulating Gawker came to an end. The feed for former EIC Chris Anderson's personal blog survives, but hasn't been updated since his era. Still going strong is Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond, albeit rigged as a CMS tag rather than a bona fide site of its own.

Still alive from my 2007 "Science" folder are Bad Astronomy (Phil Plait), Bad Science (Ben Goldacre), Pharyngula (PZ Myers) New Urban Legends, NASA Breaking News, and The Panda's Thumb.

Finally, there's a dedicated "iPhone" folder. This was not just the hottest toy of 2007. It was all that was holy in consumer electronics for half a decade. Gadget blogging never really had a golden age, but the iPhone ended any pretense that there were numerous horses in a race of equal potential. Apple won.

Still alive are 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, MacSlash, AppleInsider and Daring Fireball. Dead are TUAW, iPhoneCentral, and the iPhone Dev Wiki.

Of all the sites listed here, I couldn't now be paid but to read a few. So long, 2007.

https://boingboing.net/2017/12/29/my-rss-feeds-from-a-decade-ago.html

[lucalicatteart]

Nanyevimi Basics

Just a short bit of notes about timelines, trade routes/ land stuff, and going over basic concepts like the gap in history, global areas, blood incompatibilities between species, etc. Since these are kind of background details of the world that I may end up referencing a lot just when generally speaking about it, I thought it’d be good to have some general info about this stuff all in one place.     (info under read more)

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This isn’t actually too long (or at least is shorter than some of the posts I’ve made), but I’m going to provide an outline of the sections (like a little table of contents), just because the topics are all so scattered and unrelated (since it’s really just.. “Random Misc. Things You May Need To Know About The World’), so that it’s easier to just go to the section you want to read lol...

Topic Outline (in order):

Main Info/ state of world

timelines/ explanation of the history gap

explanation of what ‘global areas’ are

current day travel routes and map stuff

interaction between species (blood incompatibility, mating, etc.) 

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-- MAIN INFO / WORLD STATE  ---------------

Main things to note about the world: 

Humanoid intelligent species have existed in the realm for well over 500,000 years (though most history prior to the point has been lost due to a gap in history spoken about later in this post)

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That means a lot of stuff is old and a lot of things don’t make sense lol, or at least you end up seeing a lot of things like, species that seem to have no ancestor (because whatever they evolved from was so far in the past that all information on it has been lost), weird ruins that nobody knows the point of, stories and religions and things where nobody is even sure where they originated from anymore, etc.  (though this doesn’t actually impact too much since of course most average people just focus on what’s around them.. like if you’re just a humble little elf farmer or something you’re not really going to care about solving 40,000 year old mysteries, you’re just going to focus on events directly in your lifespan and your immediate surroundings)

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Currently in the world, many groups are disconnected. Despite efforts by a few international councils and stuff to establish worldwide trade routes and things like global areas, everyone still exists pretty isolated from each other and the realm can really come across more as many little distinct pockets of people scattered everywhere, rather than some broad interconnected network of societies. Though this is clarified a lot more in the later section about global areas. 

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magic exists, which impacts a lot of different things. If you haven't read the post on types of magic (HERE (link)), at the end of the post it explains how magic is used in daily life in Nanyevimi, common attitudes towards it, etc. Which may also be important context to consider when thinking about the world. I didn’t include anything about magic in this post since I already covered a lot of ‘The Basics Of Magic' type of stuff in that one.  But if nothing else, at least know: 1 - Magic is extremely dangerous and risky and mere exposure can cause health problems, especially with higher level magics.. 2 - 95% of people in the realm either can’t do magic or can only do it a little bit/low level magics (or are capable of higher level magics but choose to use magic extremely sparingly because... dangerous lol).. 3 -  magic is used in minor ways to occasionally help people with things or do things that wouldn’t be possible through any other means, but fully magically integrated societies that use magic for everything and etc. would be extremely rare.. 4 - magic has a lot of  dynamics to it’s use, and while it’s still partially mysterious/not fully understood, it does still seem to have  recognizable patterns/systems that determine how it can be used, whether something will work or not, who can use what type of magic, etc.,, even if these rules deal in vague concepts that are hard to figure (like someone’s “inherent magical energy level” is a super abstract measurement lol).  for much more detail than that, just read the post about magic lol

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NOTE: At the very beginning of planning my world, I did FORMERLY have the idea that Nanyevimi could be connected to earth (our real world) somehow (where it’s like, a secret realm existing technically alongside earth but very separate to the point neither really know about each other), but I’ve since decided that this is NOT the case.  The more that I planned other aspects of the world, the more that a connection to earth/our real world became kind of incompatible and nonsensical, so I’ve done my best to go back and change all of that (remove any instances it was referenced, etc.), but there may have been a few places that I missed it or something.  So just be aware that THIS post is currently the most updated TRUE info about the state of the world (updated last on September 20th, 2019), and ANYTHING in other posts that contradicts something written in THIS post, should be considered inaccurate. So if you see some old stuff about the human realm being connected to Nanyevimi or some other random nonsense that I contradict later, please disregard it (and maybe let me know so i can go back and edit what I missed!)    ANYWAY though, Nanyevimi has NO association with our world/earth/the human realm and is an ENTIRELY separate fantasy world!!!! 

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There are probably a little over a hundred unique humanoid intelligent species (humans, elves, jhevona, etc.) thought to exist in the world (if counting subspecies as separate groups. if not, then the number is a bit smaller). All of these groups have different lifespans and magical ability and biological needs and etc., so this can be another reason for the seeming disconnection through the realm  (like, the huge gap between species who live to be 8000 years old on average to those who only live up to 200, cultural/technological differences between magic and non-magic species, various groups having entirely different standards as to what climates they have to be in for survival/what resources they must consume to live (food, blood, magic, etc.),, as well as things mentioned  later in the post, like how blood of one species can be dangerous to another, and how pretty much no species can mate with other species (meaning like, merging their societies or something is less plausible)). Basically: there are massive cultural*(1), physical, biological (like “I’d literally die if I visited this climate”,etc.), technological, communication based, etc. barriers between many many groups, which overall makes it somewhat difficult to interact cohesively across the realm.   *(1) (By ‘cultural’, I mostly mean timescale based.. like all other cultural stuff like customs, language, etc. I feel like can be overlooked, since you can adapt to that sort of thing, but with varying lifespans and people’s entire societies literally operating on vastly different scales from one another, it seems like much more difficult to overcome)

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A few of the main things in the world that scholars are unsure of (not that there aren’t plenty others, but these are like, the Main mysterious things in the world that actually impact people in the sense that not understanding them makes everything complicated lol) :    ---- why the random history gap occurred 500,000 years ago and what it even was    --- basically everything about magic lol.. why it exists. what it is. why some rules apply in some scenarios and not others. why the hell it’s so dangerous that mere exposure to it can make people sick/infertile/etc. how it’s passed on from person to person. etc.    --- why blood is so weird and species have so many blood incompatibilities despite no physical properties of various bloods really seeming that different     --- what a soul is and what ‘’soul’’ magics really are, what is actually being transferred when souls are worked with or moved, and again like, whether souls have innate “magical properties “ or etc.     ---  what “inherent magical energy” really is (as well as why some species posses more than others, the means for how it is drained (when using magic) and restored (naturally by the body??), why you can seemingly grow it by means of soul absorption (and again, what are ‘’souls’’ and how are they linked to ‘’magic’’, etc.)))

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Species lean towards being taller in Nanyevimi.. like technically the ‘humans’ in Nanyevimi are pretty genetically similar to humans in our real world, but they’re taller in Nanyevimi. That’s kind of just across the board like, animals tend to be bigger, humanoid people tend to be taller, even stuff like plants tend to grow larger, etc. Of course there's plenty of tiny stuff, this isn’t a definite rule, but things do trend towards slightly larger rather than smaller. This is why the heights for characters/species/  etc. will probably seem oddly tall lol

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While there have been some myths and legends of this existing, the land has no magical properties. Sometimes in magical/fantasy worlds there will be stuff like, magic forests or magic rocks or other like, natural resources that somehow contain magic, so I just wanted to specify that while this is a magical world, this type of thing really isn’t seen in Nanyevimi. Magic is inherent in some of the humanoid species in the realm, but doesn’t seem to naturally occur anywhere outside of that.  Though there can definitely be like.. fake magical natural things. Like if a mage casts an enchantment over a forest to make it act in a certain way or serve a magical purpose, it could SEEM like a magical forest or etc.,, but natural parts of the land/world themselves are not inherently magical, in this case it would be caused to act magically by an external force (the mage). There are only a TINY handful of exceptions to this, usually in the form of water or gems (such as a lake that seems to contain magical energy itself, or stones that seem to hold a magical property), and by tiny handful I mean like... maybe 3-5 things existent in the entire world lol. And even for those, it’s hard to tell if it’s genuine, since there are probably millions of years of history of this land, much of which has been lost,.. Thus, who would even know if the “””genuine magical lake””” wasn’t just some fake-magical resource that a mage created 800,000  years ago and nobody knows the origins anymore so they just assume the magic is inherent, when again, it’s merely external. 

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Most species are fairly small. There are a few majority populations (elves, certain types of humans, certain subspecies of jhevona, etc.), but many groups make up only a tiny fraction of the world. So even though there is a wide variety of all different types of species and groups of people, a lot of them live in more isolated areas (which may have something to do with why they’ve got such different anatomy or abilities or etc, like they evolved in a weird niche pocket on their own for so long) So.... there is A LOT of variation, but often more powerful/unique/strange species tend to exist in more isolated areas and in smaller numbers and be more rare, so it’s not like EVERYONE in Nanyevimi is going to be some wild super all powerful mage god with 10 arms and 30 eyes and the ability to levitate or etc. lol.. The vast majority of people in the world are just... fairly normal looking humanoid creatures, who can maybe do a LITTLE basic magic or maybe even can’t do magic at all, that just kind of go about their day hanging out in their village or etc.  While species varied in abilities and appearance DO exist in smaller amounts in some places, and you’ll occasionally come across some 15 foot monster creature or some extremely powerful dangerous mage, like 80% of people you come across in travels or something are just going to be typical everyday folk who can’t like, destroy people’s minds with magic and don’t have any bizarre abilities or strange anatomy or etc. Most elves, humans, Jhevona, vampires, etc. aren’t out here doing anything crazy or growing into all powerful god creatures or getting into wild magical plots and etc., they just like.. hang out in the town they grew up in and farm vegetables or write books or something, maybe occasionally purchase an enchantment from someone or try to learn a spell.. etc. Basically: Though I tend to focus on the small pockets of people with wild abilities or write a lot about rare types of magic (since I find them most interesting lol), I still always want to stress that overwhelmingly Nanyevimi is definitely not some wild dangerous fantasy world where everyone is some variation of monstrous creature with impossible powers and ancient mystery plots ruling their lives. Just like the real world, while there are some unique fascinating things you can focus on, a lot of those things are much more rare/uncommon, and most people are just... fairly normal going about their daily lives. Though I’ll discuss a lot of smaller species and more rare/hidden away areas because it’s fun,  I don’t want to give the impression that EVERYTHING is like that universally or something lol

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Some areas have ‘’’’’modern’’’’’ technology (computers, smartphones, etc.), others don’t. Some areas have magical technology, others don’t. Some places have a currency system, others don’t. Some societies are collective/mutually share all resources, some buy and sell in a market style set up with currency, some barter, some do none of those things. Some places have kings and queens, some collectively rule themselves, some are ruled by religious figures, some have democracies, some have authoritarian dictatorships, some have something else entirely. Some places have binary genders, some places have more fluid systems, some have entirely different gender systems or exist in such a way that the concept doesn’t even apply. Some live in families (like parents and children in a house), some live in large collective community homes, some have entirely different societal organizations of living. Some have skill based hierarchy, some have money based hierarchy, some have hierarchy based in some other abstract concepts unique to the species, some have little to no societal hierarchy.. etc. etc. etc.  Basically, the world is extremely varied (especially with how isolated many groups are culturally and lack of outside interference, people don’t often share technology/religion/social systems/ideas with many others, so there are pockets of people doing entirely opposite things from one another even living with in the same general area, etc.), so I really can’t generalize much about it.  I wouldn’t be able to give much generalized info like “most people are ruled by royalty” or “most people have this economy”, because really ‘most people’ doesn’t really exist, since things are so varied. While some broad concepts can apply (like “most people in the world are not expert level magic users” or “most people know to avoid blood of unknown species because it’s proven to be hazardous in the past” or “most species average lifespans fall within the range of around 60 for the shortest living species, and 900 or so for the highest” etc.), overall there’s not really a Common or Typical way to be, or a general way most places in the realm function. 

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LASTLY , even though I do stress how disconnected things are, remember that all of this is like, GENERAL info. There are plenty of places where there is some amount of conflict or people trying to take over land or fighting their neighbors or etc. I don’t want it to seem unrealistic like “oh everything  is perfect and peaceful at all times and nobody talks to each other” lol, like.. obviously it’s a broad and varied world so it DOES happen, but here I’m just meaning to say like, GENERALLY, there are not as many conflicts as you would expect  there to be, for some of the reasons given, and especially broad scale huge conflicts barely ever happen. Like they haven’t had a world war really in the past 50,000 years, and they’ve only had maybe a few hundred conflicts that were like continent wide or between many neighboring nations in that same timescale (which sounds like a lot but like.. it’s spread out over 50,000 years lol..).  Most conflicts are between smaller isolated groups who actually have the basis to conflict with each other.  Like for example if two similar groups  actually want the same resource or etc. (since in a world where everyone’s at a totally different level of technology and societal organization and many people may not even live off of similar diets (if their species even has to eat at all), it kind of reduces the amount of people in direct need for the same things, unless those groups do actually exist in fairly similar ways).  And some groups do genuinely have a historical basis for conflict, such as the whole beef between some groups of elves (though of course not ALL) spreading general hostility towards jhevona for their philosophical beliefs, which has been going on in some form for like, probably like 400,000 years or something like, they’ve just historically had on and off periods of conflict about this. Or like between alliance elves VS. elves outside of the alliance (rooted when they split their belief system about 10,000 years ago, ). Or the specifically Fanyiniri elves’ historical basis of issues with the Avirre’thel (which is like 20,000 years old, AND is actually a good representation of how a lot of conflicts in the world are since it’s like.. They’re not fighting anymore REALLY and they haven’t been for probably 10,000 years, but the groups still have some degree of underlying tension. That’s a good example for how a lot of things actually play out in Nanyevimi it’s like... A lot of.. ancient stuff that happened forever ago but some societies still remember it since some people live to be like 10,000 years old, and some don’t, so there are just disconnected varying levels of underlying tension and confusion everywhere, yet not uniformly enough for ACTUAL conflicts to initiate.. More just for everyone to feel vaguely unsettled and afraid of the larger world and want to isolate and protect themselves from whatever magic and nonsense is out there, even if they don’t know why or only have the mythical remnants of ancient conflict in their culture.) ANYWAY, stuff still happens. There are still plenty of little issues and corrupt governments and internal conflicts and land disputes or whatever that can be focused in on a micro scale, like between two neighboring cities or between two groups of the same religion or etc. etc. I don’t want to make it seem unrealistic and disingenuous with the idea that “everyone keeps to themselves and nobody fights” sentiment.   But my MAIN point with stressing the whole “isolation and lack of conflict” thing above is really to just get across that broad, massive, wars and etc. are very very uncommon , and that this isn’t like an Epic Fantasy World where there are always Super Combat Death Faction World War Save The King Oh No Take The Throne And Uh Oh The World Is Ending And The Battle Between Good And Evil Is Such That It Can Literally Destroy The Entire World type stuff lmao. In Nanyevimi it’s usually more like:  “eh, these groups slappy hand at each other every few thousand years and this dude doesn't like that guy and there’s some really intense internal political infighting going on over here and uh oh, is that a cult? and oh well here’s some religions that disagree and a little clan of elves that doesn't like another clan of elves, But Overall None Of These Conflicts Are Far-Reaching Or Disastrously Broad To Be Able To Destroy The Damn World Or Cause An Apocalypse Or Whatever". I’m not necessarily trying to emphasize that the world is utterly peaceful, but more that none of the conflicts that occur in the realm are that massive or broad reaching, they usually occur with small groups infighting amongst themselves, or little historically based group conflicts here and there, but nothing is going to like, literally end the world or something. I know a lot of fantasy worlds will have like.. big World Destroying stakes involved and ‘super evil faction’ vs. ‘super good faction’ fighting each other to Determine The Fate Of The Entire Universe, so I guess I just wanted to explain like... it’s not Like That lol. The same underlying reason for emphasizing stuff like that a majority of people are not wildly powerful mages or etc. Like... overall I kind of aim for the world to be pretty average, with a lot of cool magic stuff under the surface and interesting topics and history I like to go over, but.. at the end of the day,  most everyone is still just.. a humble little elf hanging out on a farm picking flowers.. There’s no big world war or super powerful society destroying mage battle looming in the distance.. Of course there are plenty of historical/political conflicts here and there and a handful of ominous magical experiments and evil mages and etc., but overall it’s just.. an elf watching the sunrise holding a bunchel of flowers in a mundane magically enchanted bucket.. you know?

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Also, certain things are impossible to do with magic. You can’t do everything. Please see the post on magic to learn about those limitations. 

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-- TIMELINES/ HISTORY GAP ------

here’s an explanation of the image of the timeline (full sized/more visible image is in the photoset above, but i put a small one here too lol) 

- Unknown Time -  (any time prior to roughly 500,000 years ago) Nearly nothing at all is known about this time. There are like a few ruins/ structures and evidence of civilizations before this time, but  legitimate historical records or solid information is fairly absent (despite people being pretty confident that records must have existed). 

Other than a few small losses of information here and there, historical record in Nanyevimi has been “mostly” in tact for about 500,000 years (meaning, there is some form of continuous recording of at least most significant world events since that time.. Obviously some, if not a majority of, things will be lost to time, or not recorded, etc. but like.. in GENERAL, ‘recorded history’ is here being used to mean that there is at least some decipherable amount of information allowing scholars to piece together at least a VAGUE  world timeline, etc.), seemingly starting with some of the early societies of that period. 

However, history seems pretty nonexistent before that point, as if everyone began writing everything down all at once, or moreso as if something happened around that time which somehow destroyed all records, ruins, and relics across the entire realm prior to that point (yet somehow was never mentioned in these future writings... You’d think if there were some worldwide disaster, even if the past were entirely eradicated, those who survived would write about their experience of the disaster event, but there’s hardly any indication of anything like this. In the records we have from before this time, no natural disasters or anything are really mentioned, and no true explanation has been given. All we know is that.. SOMETHING, at some point, seemed to happen around this time, and many people forgot a lot of things. But since everyone forgot everything, nobody actually gives any clear answers as to what happened, or any sort of specific event or cause. )

It is known that advanced humanoid species (practically no different than those today) have existed in some form for far longer than 500,000 years, and scholars occasionally find things that date back to that time, however for the most part any knowledge or understanding of that world is absurdly sparse,  and basically anything that occurred before the ~Magical Point Where Recorded Nanyevimi History Began~ has been entirely lost. 

We DO have records and writings from immediately AFTER this happened (like, documentation of everyone being very understandably concerned to have  gaps in memory all of a sudden) but anything PRIOR to this point in time, is basically just a mystery. We know about the aftermath, but nothing about the event itself. A lot of history just suddenly picks up out of nowhere around 500,000 years ago, in vague texts written by massively confused societies that have huge memory gaps and basically are barely functioning,, but anything before that point just seems either suspiciously obscured, or gone entirely. 

- Faded Time - ( 500,000 to about 300,000 years ago) There are a FEW actual documents and things from this time, history was still recorded, but it is so long ago a lot of it has been lost or forgotten. Though unlike the lack of information in Unknown Time, the fact that so little is known about the Faded Time period is not seen as mysterious or supernatural in origin. It’s really just attributed to like... it being old as hell, and things naturally being lost over time and etc. Considering the time period, the amount of info we have is reasonable, and doesn’t seem to just abruptly stop or not fit together correctly (like is the case for Unknown Time). We have about as much information as you’d expect to have about this time period, nothing unusual at play, though it is still understandably sparse. 

- Ancient Time - (300,000 to 50,000 years ago)  Much more in the recent past. Though obviously still old and a lot of information from this period (especially around the beginning of the time period) is scattered and fragmented, there are a pretty reasonable amount of things known about this time. 

- Modern Time - (50,000 yrs ago to Current Day) Much more connected and  better kept info. Most things from this era are not vague or mysterious at all. Though obviously due to the isolation of the realm and societies keeping to themselves, there are plenty of secrets and mysteries and gaps in the information of scholars, but overall this is the most well documented period of time. There are a handful of beings that have actually been alive for most of this time (like you’ll hardly find  even one single creature that’s over 100,000 yrs old, that just really doesn’t happen,  but there ARE a small amount of 40,000 - 20,000 year olds in existence and etc.), which absolutely helps contribute to the better continuity and documentation of events in this period.

- Lost Era - (basically the same period as Unknown Time, anything prior to the memory gap roughly 500,000 years ago)  Everything is lost, there have been like, legit maybe, 1,000 artifacts or signs of past civilization found from this time period (none of which are actual written record or any form of information.. it’s more like ‘oh a random piece of a jar’ lol), out of probably billions, entirely gone , no history exists

- Disrupted Era - ( 500,000 to like, a little over 300,000 or so years ago) A period of time with evidence of lots of war and conflict. Most of which is thought to be driven by the mysterious occurrences and the fact that history just randomly evaporated, which obviously like... having a mass memory gap occur overnight can cause a lot of issues within societies lol.  This is probably the most similar thing to an apocalypse documented in known Nanyevimi history, where problems are just compiling on top of problems and everyone is running around panicking, basically everyone’s way of life is in upheaval or under direct threat nearly all at the same time, and of course some people respond to this badly.. It’s just like.. disaster upon disaster and nobody knows what to do. 

Like, groups and places suddenly seem empty as if they don’t even exist anymore even though nobody remembers exactly what it was , everyone has sudden gaps in memory and places and things that just feel off without being able to articulate why, societies are disoriented, infrastructure and etc. is suddenly missing that people assume surely must have been there before but they can't recall what was formerly in it's place, certain techniques for doing things have been lost and nobody can remember how to operate certain items anymore or etc., entire groups of people who were once pivotal to economies now seem to just be gone leaving nothing but an awkward gap in their place, etc. 

 It would be similar to if people in the USA suddenly woke up and there were no cars or roads  and all existence of them had been removed and nobody remembered what they were at all, but other stuff was till in tact. Certain things would seem totally off and impractical with nobody being sure why (like “Why do I have a job so many miles away from my house? I can’t walk that far... did I used to get there another way? It doesn’t make sense for me to even have agreed to work there..” or people seeing just huge gaps of land in the middle of cities (where car manufacturing plants or car dealerships used to be) and being like “What’s with this blank plot of land?? Shouldn’t something be here??”, people randomly missing members of their family and all evidence of them (because the family members worked in the auto industry or their identity was so intertwined with cars that when erasing all evidence of cars it was easier to just wipe them away entirely) and being like “Why do I have four seats at my table, and four beds in my house, if only three people live here? And how did I have children?? If I have no wife to have children with? Where did the kids come from?”,, (or alternatively not wiping away those members of the population and instead they’re still present but just suddenly have a massive amount of their memory gone) , etc. 

So like, take the above scenario of if all cars were missing in the US, but then add maybe 4 other major things (like if internet and electricity and etc. were suddenly gone as well) and then also just evaporate a few entire states out of the country, and also some of the wildlife, and also maybe 400 plants or something. Like it wasn’t just ONE thing, it was multiple seemingly significant things, places, people, ideas, technologies, entire societies, just... all of a sudden missing at once with no memory of that. Or at least this is the closest thing we can estimate that it seemed like, based on the few records that exist of the aftermath of this period. 

People of course didn’t forget everything, it’s not like everyone suddenly had no idea who their family was or how to walk or how to speak and etc., many things were maintained, but it’s more like everyone in the world just suddenly woke up from a slumber with random bits of significant information missing, certain groups of people and places and items entirely gone, huge stretches of knowledge (some of which were very important to certain cultures or societies to be able to function correctly), certain cultural traditions and ideas entirely lost, etc. 

 So of course, immediately after this happened, there was a lot of societal upheaval and reorganization, as people had to rework entire economies or learn new ways of doing things since their old ways had been lost overnight, fill in their gaps in systems and relearn certain knowledge as soon as possible. This strange erasure of history and etc. seems to have sparked a lot of land disputes, fighting over resources, and various other conflicts, which seemingly led to an entire age of general aggression and widespread issues until finally societies kind of settled back in place and found ways to restore the former balances that were going on. 

( Side Note: I make it sound like it happened all at once, but there’s actually no definitive evidence of this. Because the spread of information was slower back then, and additionally seemingly some technologies had just been lost, there was really no way to spread word quickly or send out messages like “hey, our population seems to be undergoing some sort of mass memory loss, is that happening with you guys too?”. The few records that do exist from directly after the 500,000 year mark (in Faded Time) do suggest that it happened relatively around the same time, as there don’t seem to have been cases of people who had lost memories interacting with those who still had them (implying that at the least if it happened in one area it happened in the next closest area soon enough after that they wouldn’t have time to communicate before the other area’s memories were messed up), but nobody is sure if it was actually EXACTLY at the same time, or if it was more like, over the course of a week or two. 

Scholars are also unsure if this happened to EVERYONE, or only certain people in certain locations. Every existing record from every location around this time period seems to describe the same phenomena (albeit sometimes in different ways/ various interpretations, depending on religion/culture of the group), but the records from this time are still very scattered and limited.

 Additionally, it’s thought that society was more concentrated to a central area around this time (or at least, the “main” society, like large trade cities and etc. where most of the population was kind of spread in just a few areas centered around huge trading routes or significant resources, there are thought to have been certain cultural hubs in various locations across the world), and also these larger societies were probably the main ones producing the records,, so it could also be the case that this event really only impacted certain areas or civilization hubs that were connected with each other, and skipped random groups who lived 2000 miles away in an isolated forest or etc. 

We know at least that it was extremely significant and impacted seemingly all record-keeping societies of the time, but nobody can be sure if this happened everywhere, as there were likely plenty of scattered smaller societies entirely disconnected from the main lands/cities/trade who probably didn’t even have writing systems or keep records, or maybe did them in different ways (like some random group of Jhevona that stayed isolated far in the mountains and only kept records with magical orbs or something, thus no evidence would really be found from them, etc.). 

So anyway! I just wanted to clarify that as well. As far as is known in the few existing records we have, it’s assumed this happened at the same time and affected everyone, but it also may be likely that it could have happened over the course of a few days or more, and there’s no explicit evidence that it actually affected LITERALLY everyone, only that it affected everyone who’s records have ever been found. As there is literally no indication anywhere for people to even remotely give a good guess as to what the cause of this was, what it was for, why it happened, where it came from, or what it even WAS (a spell??? a weird natural disaster that had strange effects? etc??), there’s no real basis to assume details of who it could have effected and who it wouldn’t have, or how long it would have taken, since it’s literally just,, we know nothing about it except that there are vague records and evidence to support it occurred. )

- Restful era - (roughly 200,000 years to Current Day) Everyone is tired of fighting and confusion stemming from the disrupted era, and just begins to isolate.  Communication and tech also helps allow for more  global peace keeping efforts and these groups additionally aid in reducing conflict. Obviously people, especially lower lifespan groups*(1),  still have issues,  but largely it’s pretty peaceful. Most people have also forgotten about or just plain moved on from the weird loss of history thing, and have now filled most of the gaps left in society and re-acclimated to life. Groups don’t even remember where their conflicts originated or that any history was lost, they just know they kind of want everyone to mind their own business lol. Large scale wars and interconnected multi-country conflicts and etc. are fairly uncommon from this point on, and people have seemed to really either just agree to disagree or move on. Things seem readjusted, most people have the resources they need.

Nanyevimi  (as a whole, of course there are plenty of exceptions to this but it’s just much less common now than it was in the past) is kind of at a weird  period of stagnant isolation between most people groups ( not in a hostile way), where like anyone who did have conflicts, after legit thousands of years of fighting just got tired of it or etc. It has to be considered that with lifespans being a lot longer for many species in the realm, conflicts are also happening on a different scale, if at 2,000 years old you’re still beefing with someone over some minor land conflict you had when you were 33 years old it’s just going to seem useless after a while and you’ll probably both give up on it.   

Especially with increased standards for international intervention in the past 30,000 years  and stuff (like having mediator countries step in if two others are about to go to war, programs to kind of foster some positive relationships and mutual terms of agreement between groups even if they’re wildly different, at least enough cooperation to not start shit, for the sake of the greater good, etc.), most people barely get involved with neighboring countries at all, and especially not in a negative context. 

(Another theory on the existence of so much peace currently is that extremely conflict prone societies may have all died out during the major time of conflict, and those societies that put more of a cultural focus on peace keeping or self-isolating are the only ones who lived through that period. Like, when basically everyone on the entire planet is blowing each other up with magic and wrecking the world and scrambling for resources, the groups who ran away and hid far in the mountains or snuck around trying to keep peace with everyone/cooperate as best as possible are probably the ones who made it out of that era alive, while the more conflict eager or uncooperative ones simply perished during the disrupted era, or dying age, right after the main upheaval.  Especially since from the few documents we do have from the disrupted era, it’s clear that hundreds (or even thousands) of groups died out during this time, entire species being killed off and societies collapsing unable to cope with the chaos of the memory loss event (and this isn’t even including the possible groups who vanished seemingly as a result of the memory loss event), so the idea of “many groups died out and only a few remained who possibly leaned towards certain societal characteristics that helped them survive” is not extremely far fetched.)     

( *(1): Typically groups with lower lifespans (60 - 200 yrs avg lifespan) tend to be known for having more conflicts, because their generations phase in and out so quick, and they’re not around long enough to get a real grasp of envisioning he future and deeply considering how they'll impact it. Whereas a species that lives 2,000 years on average will probably have like.. seen history repeat itself 600 times already, have had plenty of lifetime to level out emotionally and learn what mistakes not to repeat, to think heavily about the future and take time with decisions because they know they'll be around for a long time, etc. etc. 

Obviously there are exceptions to this but it’s like, a common idea (with reasonable evidence to support it) in Nanyevimi that people/societies tend to get a bit more relaxed as they get older, especially when people are living thousands of years, it’s unlikely that you’d live to 800 years old and still be going around starting petty drama with everyone you meet or something, since by that time your behavior has probably either gotten you killed, or you’ve learned not to repeat the same mistakes and found better ways to cope with the world, etc. So species with lower lifespans are generally seen as more conflict prone, though again, this is not ALWAYS the case. ) 

- Dying Age - (500,000 to about 450,000/460,000 years ago) This was the primary period where many of the conflicts of the disrupted era occurred, Right after the memory loss thing. Though the various conflicts and issues seemed to continue on until around the restful era, this period of time was like the WORST of it, many bad things seemed to spring up at once...  lots of wars and confusion, weird viruses, natural disasters that were maybe previously prevented by a certain technology which was now lost, seemingly entire species having gone missing, more issues with societal function after the loss of everything prior, a large reduction in the population of the world and shrinking or death of many societies, etc. 

(sidenote: most of the old records from the earlier periods of this time (since obviously during the latter bit of the era this was starting to fade out and people were getting their shint back together) are almost humorously dark like.. catastrophic to an absurd degree.. where some ancient elven scribe or something is just like:

“Well, ..hmm.. so.. I do not remember my name, nor my occupation, nor what I am doing in this town, though I am told it is my home. My father has died, I have no food, my house (I assume it is my house?) was lit on fire last night, and there are men coming from the east to kill us (those in the village I supposedly belong to), apparently.. Oh yes, also from the south and north (at least not the west, but that is because the entire west has exploded, or so I am told). I also have contracted a strange illness. I tracked down a fellow who claims to practice medicine, however he simply died in front of me as he was struck by a stray brick resulting from a nearby magic duel. There are still people fighting outside of my home currently, though the men from the east, north, and south, should not have arrived yet, so this conflict is unknown. Luckily, what they do is not my business, as they are outside of my house, and while in bad shape, the remaining walls shall protect me.   One of the villagers believes that we should start sacrificing children to their god, another would like me to cut off my toe for a spell, the other wishes to construct a dictatorship in response to the widespread conflict... I am not sure I trust any of them. I would seek religious advice, but a star fell from the sky yesterday and crushed the church (but it is okay, because everyone in the church disappeared a few days ago, anyway). My teeth are also falling out. There is a mountain in the distance shooting fire and smoke into the sky, but we are unsure what this means... 

Anyhow, I am leaving with my wife tomorrow to find a place to live far in the woods away from society, because everyone is blasting magic upon one another, and it feels unsafe so we-.. oh hmm.. My wife has just died by random lightning strike.. Well.. I suppose on my own then, I shall leave for the woods. Though, the woods is on fire also, and strange screams are coming from it, and the trees are oozing black liquid, I still think it shall be for the best if I can leave this area before those men from the east, north, and south get here. Perhaps I shall head west. If it has exploded, there should be no people there, correct? Ah well, my finger has just crumbled into a pile of dust and a hoard of rats are currently scurrying in through my fireplace somehow, they are now biting at my flesh (joke is on them, my flesh has been infected for 2 days now, so I hope it shall sicken them).. I suppose I should stop writing and deal with these matters. Wish me well on my journey.” )

- Time of Progress  - (300,000 to like.. maybe 100,000 or so, I know the timeline is inaccurately sized (jumping straight from 300,000 to 50,000 lol, but this is around the timeframe it would be) Technology and science grows (or at least, restores itself to a point of functioning past what may have been lost), and better travel allows people to communicate and share more wisdom and information with each other faster/more efficiently, which ends up helping  various areas of study and helps progress certain societies and systems in the realm (though everything is still largely isolated, and technology/knowledge  isn't anything CLOSE to evenly distributed (you can still be in a place with electricity and then travel like, not even 100 miles away and find people who have never even heard of electricity in their lives, etc.), this more just means that, the few societies and groups of scholars who DON’T want to be isolated, now have new ways to communicate with other people who are actually open to communication,, and there are less barriers to communication in general, were any of the isolated groups to wish to start acting more collaboratively.).  

- Elven Times - (roughly 30,000 years ago to Current Day) Period where elves became the majority group (by population size) in the entire world. Which like.. isn't really that significant, but is usually still counted in history books and stuff since groups like the Elven Alliance are still one of the most prominent political and economic powers in all of Nanyevimi, and even though their height was probably like 5,000 years ago, they still hold a LOT of influence around the realm. 

Also because this signifies the dying out of many smaller species, and the reduction of species that were more prominent on the world stage in the past (like certain groups of Jhevona). Which isn't caused by the elves, but it’s still of note that many populations have recently (like, in the past 60,000 years or so lol) seemed less able to survive, less able to reproduce, etc. and is something currently a good bit of scholars are looking into (especially since magic exposure/use  is known to cause stuff like infertility and health problems, even though magic has been around this entire time (so why would it start causing worse problems now?), people wonder if its somehow getting more dangerous/unstable, or more powerful, or something that would end up causing higher level magical species (like Jhevona and other obscure groups) to increasingly grow more and more infertile and unhealthy, while evolution starts to favor species with lower levels of inherent magical energy/non-magical groups (like elves or humans). Thus possibly predicting the eventual dying out of higher level magic species/stronger magic in favor of less magical or non magical groups (which also is supported by the general observation that species tend to grow less and less magical as they evolve over time), though this is of course all speculation. 

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ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE: most common people don’t know about any of this stuff!!! lol.. The 500,000 year ago collective memory gap is like... something a majority of the population doesn’t even know of, or really care about, since it is.. SO long ago, and history has picked up and continued since then. A lot of this is stuff that only the most obscure and dedicated scholars would get into. This information, generally, does not affect the world at large or really influence many current cultures or anything, since these issues are so ancient. Kind of similar to how a mystery on earth dating 20,000 years ago, probably wouldn’t impact your daily life, and you likely wouldn’t even know about it unless you were a scholar or something. 

Though since some species in Nanyevimi can have pretty long lifespans, they can tend to have a more lengthy view of what counts as ‘recent history’ (like humans may consider anything in the past 10 - 100 years to be Recent, whereas some societies in Nanyevimi may view ‘recent’ as more like 100 - 2,500 years or etc.), most average people in the realm really don’t care much about anything that happened over 20,000 years ago, and tend to focus more on modern history. 

So though I’m writing this information for context, I do want to clarify that it’s not like, it’d be common knowledge for everyone, you’’re not going to find the 500,000 year ago memory gap or something being brought up in casual conversation or etc.(unless you’re chatting with a scholar), a majority of people aren’t even aware of history any further back than maybe 5,000 - 20,000 years (depending on the culture/ species of the group in question.) 

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ALSO NOTE - there are plenty of other time distinctions, and individual cultures and groups of course have their own custom calendars and timelines, may mark different historical events or eras, etc. This is just like.. the broadest and vaguest possible way to categorize a few important historical periods but, is by no means comprehensive. In an actual history textbook or something there would be A LOT more detail and many more events and time-periods that are distinguished and marked on a timeline. 

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-- GLOBAL AREAS -----------------------

“Global areas” or “global cities” are a very specific type of area that is meant to cater to many different groups of people of various species, backgrounds, etc. They are often primary areas for trade (though there are plenty of trade cities and traveling hubs that aren’t in Global Areas), and usually have a variety of resources and housing types, as well as Global Learning Centers (a specific type of school, described more in detail in THIS (link) post about schools).

 Areas where many groups of people live in harmony have obviously existed in some form for hundreds of thousands of years, but the specific initiative of forming Global Areas (usually done by international groups promoting peace and unity in the realm, and more efficient travel/share of knowledge. often some of the same groups who will step in and try to de-escalate wars, or mediate conflicts between others, etc.) is more recent, mostly being established only in the past 15,000 years or so ago. 

The main thing that distinguishes a “global area” from a “normal place where a lot of different people happen to live”, is that global areas are specifically constructed with the idea of accessibility for as many different people as possible in mind. While a regular city or area can certainly have a wide variety of people in it, there is no guarantee that there are accurate resources available for all of those people. Whereas the very nature of a Global Area is such that it kind of makes a promise to be as broadly accommodating in every way as possible, and there is some amount of guarantee that no matter the background of the traveler, they will be able to find some form of comfort there. 

(similar to what separates a ‘global learning center’ from ‘regular school with a diverse population’. Global learning centers are making a GUARANTEE and are designed specifically to cater to anyone who attends there, whereas while normal schools can certainly introduce accommodations, it’s not promised that they will and they have no technical obligation to.)

Global areas often feature various types of climate controlled housing (since some species have to be in certain temperatures), a tremendous amount of language resources (as well as free magical technology for residents who need it, like enchanted earrings that will translate speech for you, in the case that your language is so rare they actually don’t have any other resources on hand for you, etc.), massive markets with such a variety of food and products that no matter your culture or species based diet requirements, you can definitely find something you’re able to eat,, have plenty of cultural representatives and diverse councils of people who represent their own species, so that no decision is made without considering the needs of like, nearly every group of people, and there are different things set up like resources and etc. to help people avoid stuff like culture shock or feeling alienated,, having many different versions of things (like a clothing shop that specializes in designing for species of various anatomy (people with wings, 10 foot tall species, 2 foot tall species, people with multiple arms, tails, animal legs, etc.), or having  multiple ways to get to the top floor of a building (magical lift system, normal stairs, non-magical lift system (for people who can’t use magic or who have trouble being around it, but also couldn’t use the stairs), etc.etc.) 

The reason that this is kind of strange/that global areas are rare in the context of how most of Nanyevimi is, is because : 

The way that everything is lined up is like,, in one country everyone is one specific  type of elf and they all mostly speak their own language and they use magical technology and have cell phones and computers and rooftop gardens and they use a silver coin with a star in the middle for their currency , but then you travel just a mere 300 miles away and suddenly EVERYTHING is completely different, it’s a country primarily inhabited by orc-like people who all speak a totally different language and use fire to light their homes, communicate everything by letter and travel on foot, they use dried animal pelts for currency and have no conversion for the currency you’ve brought from the previous land, etc. etc.

Things like language barriers and cultural differences are easily overcome, especially if in a group that can use magic, but sometimes things like people existing literally on a nearly different timescale than your own (thus processing the very nature and importance of events and perception of their entire existence differently than you), or having such vastly different biological needs from you (one can only live in the heat, one in the cold, one must eat metals to live, other is allergic to metal, etc.), the uneven spread of technology, and stuff like magical areas vs. non-magical areas,  can sometimes make it much harder to relate to or trade with others (at least harder than it would be if most people lived generally around the same timespan and had similar physical needs and the technology to effectively communicate across longer distances). 

Groups generally don’t isolate in a hostile manner or for negative reasons, and most cultures are generally pretty open to negotiation/trade/cooperation if prompted, but just in general societies in Nanyevimi seem to lean towards keeping to themselves in a neutral manner, generally just because they have so little in common with the people around them, have natural environmental barriers between them, or have no real need for things like expanding or invading other countries or forcing people to assimilate to their ways or etc. 

Like for example, if you’re a small  2 foot tall squirrel species that lives in trees and has a lifespan of just about 50 years old on average and your highest daily concerns are just making cool huts out of grass and finding enough berries and writing cultural story songs in your language to pass on to your offspring before you die, you’re probably not going to be very concerned with the giant 19 foot tall humanoid water creatures that live a little off the coast of your forest and live for 8,000+ years and spend most of their time building underground monuments to their group of 22 celestial gods and eating fish and that don’t speak any language you think you could even come close to understanding because you literally can’t even produce the same noises with your mouth anatomy. And yeah, they take small pebbles from the shore sometimes, but overall they don’t bother you or interact with you and they’re just so far outside of the scope of any of your most pressing daily concerns and you feel like you couldn’t even comprehend the way they’re living anyway so, you kind of just leave them be? And sure, if they were being killed or needed resources or something (assuming they’d even be able to communicate that to you), you’d help them out since, why not? You have nothing against them. But, for the most part you just don’t think of them, you’re busy with your grass and your songs. Maybe a few members of your squirrel group get curious and go out to attempt to talk to the others occasionally, or create a religion based off of these strange water beings and leave them flowers at the shore from time to time to maybe gain luck from them or something,,  but overall they just seem so abstract to you, never make contact with you, and aren’t causing you any harm so?? you just don’t think about them often.

Like almost in a way there’s SO MUCH variance in so many ways between different groups and species and etc. that it ends up being difficult to establish a more concrete sense of uniformity or unity across the realm. Small areas can group together, and plenty of species can exist alongside each other and etc., but the wide variance in biology and technology and inconsistent travel and communication systems and isolating environmental factors and etc. make societies exist more in little isolated centers and tiny civilization pockets around the world, rather than all being one huge interconnected system where everyone knows about everyone else and trades with everyone else and etc. 

( though there are plenty of global organizations and international councils that try to promote unity and safe travels and will help represent you or give you a translator or etc. if you have to be traveling between a lot of countries,,  trains that run between large areas and etc..  and a handful of  broad sources of global connection on a large scale that are present and available and at least somehow accessible from some areas. and of course, global cities and stuff. But these things aren’t present everywhere, and are not super widespread)

The current state of Nanyevimi is kind of just like, a bunch of little distinct pockets of people (towns,  cities, villages, etc.) within slightly larger distinct pockets of people (countries) all of which likely don’t really have much to do with the pockets of people beside them (with the exception of a few major conflict areas, or major areas of unity where there’s a lot of alliance between groups in the area) and just kind of sit alone doing things in their own ways, with the occasional like, interference of a global council or something asking permission to build an international railway through the area or asking if it’s okay to escort travelers through the lands or etc.  Other than communicating for only the most utterly necessary of trade or resource exchange, most groups don’t go forming political alliances with other groups or trying to integrate others into their culture or take over their lands or etc., they just want to keep to themselves. 

(Note: though you do see people more often connect with those of a similar species/lifespan/culture, due to having some sort of common ground with them (like a group of Jhevona having communications with another culturally isolated group of Jhevona in a city not too far away from them, since they evolved from the same society and speak a similar language or etc.), but sometimes even then people still  may not talk or trade with each other, or at least no more than they would any other group. And sometimes this may  actually go the opposite way and they have more grounds for conflict with another group, due to shared culture lol.. Like Group A and Group B who have the same religion arguing over who is right, while utterly ignoring/staying isolated from their neighbors Group C, D, and E,, , since they have so little common ground with the other groups that they couldn’t even find something to have a conflict over in the first place. So, SOMETIMES, if a group is in an area where there are many similar groups around them (a village of humans with a few other human villages in the surrounding area, or humans and elves, etc.), you may see less isolation and more connection and cooperation in the region, but even then, that’s not guaranteed and there are still plenty of places where people choose to stay away from others regardless (or cases where rather than unity, their similarities serve to  promote conflict instead)) 

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BUT ANYWAY, this is context on why “global cities” are kind of an actual distinct thing, since you would think like, “every city is a global city”, but usually cities are pretty much just the people in the area and not much else. Like for example, most large cities in Navyete still are mainly populated by vampires/avirre’thel, since the entire population of Navyete is like over 96% Avirre'thel due to them being an extremely isolated people generally. Even though they’re still large bustling cities with many inhabitants, those inhabitants are mostly all people who speak the same language and are from the same culture.  Then compare that to some of the major coastal cities in Asen, which,  though they are right next door to Navyete, have a massive variance in population and are usually places where you find businesses and schools and groups and species and cultures from legit all over the entire world collected in one place. 

(Asen is a very “global country” overall, despite being originally founded by the Fanyiniri and elves still being the slightly dominant population in the area by most measures (especially if you count rural areas), Asen has operated as an independent country free of the Fanyiniri for like 10,000 years, and it just so happens to be really conveniently located for hubs of global trade and etc).

So, yeah. Something being a 'global area’  (cities, learning centers, travel hubs, etc.)  is actually fairly unique and uncommon in the realm as a whole. Though there are many attempts to unify the realm (like people always suggesting ‘universal languages’ or like, having every living species classified in a registry to keep track of them all, or to have like, established communication networks or councils involving every culture/nation in the world, etc.), these usually, hardly ever work or even get off the ground as an idea (since with most things there’s a lot of criticism of if that should even be a goal in the first place, implications of that, doubting why everything needs to be uniform/standardized in the first place and why we can’t just let everyone have their own independent cultures,  etc. etc. It’s usually some professor brings up an idea and then his colleagues split into  groups of differing opinions on the matter and argue about it for a few years and then eventually drop it) , so , Global Cities and stuff are usually the closest thing to a unified society that exists. Little tiny pockets of the world where, at least on a smaller scale, you can find the extremely rare event of like 50+ unique humanoid species all chilling and trying to get along with each other in one space

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-- TRAVEL ROUTES  --------

This will be really brief but I just wanted to establish the information of this map for future reference lol. 

This is basically showing the MOST major routes for traveling and trade in Nanyevimi. Though there are of course plenty of smaller roads and etc. like, literally everywhere. The lines shown in pink are JUST the like.. commonly established, frequently traveled, very well known about, ways to get from one area to another. 

(note: This is in reference to routes for traveling between countries/continents/etc., not WITHIN them. Every territory of a group of people is going to have their own unique transportation system, and they usually travel WITHIN the interior of their own nation far differently than they would when traveling between outside nations or across the land. While some of these routes DO pass through pre-existing territories, they’re often (but not always) mutually agreed by all parties to be neutral land (since everyone collectively has a use for them), meaning trade routes may be somewhat plain and not have the same level of customization as the usual transportation within a country.

Like for example, there may be a group that lines the roads in their cities with gold and uses magical platforms to hover from place to place, but the trading road that passes through the outer edge of their territory is just a plain wide dirt road lined with bricks and a few tiny shops here and there. While some groups do see it as a business opportunity and set up elaborate cities and stuff around the trading road (even if they technically don’t own the road Itself, they may own the area around it), others think more like “well why would we dedicate resources and time to sprucing up some random ugly ass road, when we have our Perfect Beautiful Cities right here within our own territory? who cares what all those scraggly travelers see lol. We don’t need to show off.” And others don’t even think about it at all and it’s just a plain barely formed dirt path going through an unkept nasty forest (these are usually the more dangerous ones ghgh).

But anyway, the main point is that when I talk about how people travel or what roads are like, I mean the ones connecting territories and specifically designated AS trade roads. These same things generally do not apply for roads that native people use to get around in their own spaces. “Trading roads” are often given their own special designation, and treated differently by the locals depending on their culture (whether they ignore them, barely do anything, try and make them as nice as possible, line them with frightening row of armed guards, etc.), but overall they’re generally not as specialized or unique as the roads/transport you may find actually within a native area of a nation where locals spend all their time. ) 

It’s kind of thought of as one big road/route (referred to by many different names, depending on the culture) that connects most significant places in the realm all together. Though many parts of it are well maintained by local governments and etc., plenty of sections and areas are still pretty dangerous to pass through, or are NEAR dangerous areas, so traveling is still absolutely NOT easy or simple or anything just because there’s like.. a single vaguely established road network that many people use/know about. 

Establishing and maintaining this broad route around the world has been another initiative really upkept by groups that are for global unity and increased connection in the realm (similarly to people who worked to establish/maintain Global Cities/Areas, who are usually attempting to promote easier travel, increased spread of knowledge, etc.), and it’s become most established probably just in the past 15,000 years. Though plenty of the portions of the road and routes have been used for likely hundreds of thousands of years (especially ones which occur along coasts or natural resources, which early groups would have flocked to and been passing through/living around anyway), the attempt to connect them all and bridge gaps (making safe paths through previously dangerous areas, etc.) was started more recently. 

Despite these attempts to make travel more safe and systematic, the most common way to travel is still in large groups due to the possible dangers. Usually instead of just one or two people setting out alone, it’s more of a scheduled thing? Like a group may send letters and notices ALL around in as broad of an area as possible (or phone calls/emails/magic notes/etc. TOTALLY depending on the level of technology available in the area) saying “hey everyone, we’re traveling along this route in a month of two. anyone who wants to come, especially if you have valuable skills like medical or combat knowledge, please meet us at this place on this date, and bring as many supplies as you can!”. 

It’s common for people to set out on roads with 15 - 40 people all together, even if they’re entirely unrelated groups and not all going to the same place (like maybe 2 of the people there will duck out of the group at an earlier place once they get to their stop, and don’t intend to travel down the entire route, etc.). This can get complicated, since it can end up being SO many different types of people from all various cultures, religions, species, groups, (some who may even have a pre-existing conflict with another), but generally they practice road neutrality. You can get kicked out of a travel group for being disruptive, stealing, hurting others, etc., but GENERALLY the case is that anyone is accepted, under the premise of “we all have a better chance of getting there if we go together than alone, so put any differences aside and let’s just walk along a road for a few days without any of us being bastards, regardless of who you’re walking alongside”.

Some areas have established travel groups that can be rented (usually coming with a cook/food forager, a medic, 2 guards, and a general assistant), so you pay a certain fee and the trained group of professional travelers will accompany you to your destination, but this is more rare. Royals of course hire their own groups, but still will usually have 20 or so people with them when traveling. If you’re very strong and very bold you can travel alone or with only 1 or 2 people, but it’s generally seen as a sign of power (meaning: people will either see you alone and be like ‘oh fuck better stay away from that guy.. if theyre alone that means they must be SUPER strong’, or they’ll see you as a big target like ‘hey. who does that idiot think they are?? arrogant ass, too good for traveling company?? lets rob them’ ). Some places have groups of traveling guards that will walk with you for free, you just have to catch them on their route (so they walk the same area back and forth on a schedule, you just need to follow along behind them at the right time as needed). etc. etc. 

Like mentioned, every area is at a different level of safety and development, so this can be really complicated (especially the politics of the road, two groups of travelers with conflicting interests, people taking advantage of groups, local governments trying to take advantage of or control traveling groups, guards waiting until they’re in a dangerous area to suddenly demand ridiculous fees from the travelers and threatening to abandon them alone in the scary woods if they don’t pay, etc.etc.) and I could never explain it ALL in a short section, but I’ve mentioned most of the general gist I guess of some of what goes on. 

Explanations of map image: 

main route (pink) - this just represents the large international traveling/trade road/route mentioned above  

global areas (yellow) - these spots are supposed to show where all existing global cities/areas are. Though obviously they’re way large and not to scale, since if I actually made them the right size on the map, they’d be a tiny barely visible dot lol. Especially if it’s just a single city, I kind of had to make them huge looking so they were able to be shown lol.. Despite being oversized though, the locations are shown fairly accurately and give a general idea of where they are.

isolated (gray) - these gray portions are to show areas where the population who inhabits that area tends to be very isolated from others. This is significant in the context of the map since these areas are often avoided or more difficult to travel to, not due to the people being hostile to outsiders, but merely because they’re much less likely to agree to run giant ass roads through their lands lol. Many  cultures/species/people groups/etc. in these areas just kind of want to be left alone and don’t really want a huge center of trade or giant crossing areas going right through their country, since they feel it may attract conflict or interrupt their way of life. Thus, if you travel around there, you’re unlikely to find accommodations or lodgings, you’re probably just walking along a dark dirt road in unkempt wilderness, if you see locals they may just ignore you, you’ll have to sleep in a shelter of your own making and hunt your own food, etc. The area isn’t hostile and nothing there is out to get you, but they also don’t give a shit about you being there, so while they’ll let you pass through, you’re kind of on your own for food and shelter and etc. and don’t expect the roads to be nicely kept up or anything. 

avoided (dark purpley sort of) - these areas are similar to the ‘isolated’ portions, except it indicates that these are areas travelers and traders actively AVOID passing through, and are very unlikely to build roads through or travel across. Though this is often not even due to the people groups in the area, and is commonly more because of climate or wildlife (like for example the very northernmost and very southernmost continents are mostly colored purple, because it’s so cold and harsh there that travel is literally impossible for most people and the climate is extremely deadly). Though of course sometimes this is because of the people, like for example, the Thastanri (I write all about them in a post HERE (link)) have now taken to being actively hostile to outsiders and go through great efforts to shoo away travelers (even sometimes kill them) due to their history of having their lands and people destroyed by random adventurers trespassing in their settlements so they can hunt dragons (as well as dragons being nearly extinct because of this, and the Thastanri wanting to protect them). But I would still say  that in a good 80% of cases, the purple areas are colored that way just because of something about the land or climate in the area being inhospitable and extremely risky to travel to.

 And even the remaining 20%, probably a majority of that is just stuff like “there’s a war going on between two groups around here so it’s kind of a not safe place”, rather than random nonsense stuff like “the people who live here just kill outsiders on sight for no reason”. So the purple areas are similar to the gray, in that they both indicate areas where there are not many open trade routes or large maintained roads for travelers, but for the gray ones it’s more just due to the isolated culture of the people there, and for the purple ones it’s MAJORLY just indicating extremely hazardous climates or impossibly difficult landscapes (and,, occasionally, is because of hostile cultures/groups of people, but this is more rare). 

So yeah, there’s some context I guess on travel in the realm, and where certain things are located or etc.

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-- INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SPECIES ----------

And this is just a few general things about like, stuff that most people consider when interacting with other groups and etc. 

~ BLOOD ~

 Many scholars and cultures theorize that blood itself, has supernatural properties and something to do with the nature of magic, while others (which is a more common view) claim that though some blood can indeed have magical properties, that is more reliant on the already existing magical aspects instilled in the person themselves by their soul/magic/etc (as there’s still debate as to where precisely magic comes from and what indicators are present on a physical or tangible level). Some people believe all bloods to have differing special properties depending on the species, and some say they’re all virtually the same with little difference, especially when you look at them under scientific examination. 

Regardless of whether there are some secret magical properties or not, it is at least known that most species have a huge list of incompatibilities and harmful effects that can occur due to the mixing or accidental consumption of blood. Which is one of the things that has lead some people to believe blood contains magical properties in the first place, as it can have such varied reactions in others. 

Even if, when examined in a lab, two bloods have seemingly no large difference (like obviously blood will vary by species and all blood has normal variations in it, but I mean like.. it’s not like you’ll compare two of them and one is of such absurdly different composition that you’re unsure if it’s even blood, etc. Most of them seem fairly in the same range, and there are no currently recognizable properties that correlate with or account for the differences that have been noticed in blood, etc. ), they may still have wildly varying effects in certain applications, hinting at some sort of undetectable inherent properties. 

This is something that most people are aware of (despite maybe like, extremely EXTREMELY isolated cultures who have never interacted with anyone before), and though obviously your everyday person is not going to know EVERY single blood incompatibility that exists in the realm, they will still likely at least know the ones that affect them personally (like how their own blood and the blood of the few groups closest to them tend to interact). 

Since blood’s  harmful properties have been around seemingly since like.. forever, it’s of course become part of cultures in the form of myths and little nursery rhymes and stories to teach children to never play with blood or touch blood, especially from another species.  Even if your everyday average person in the realm doesn’t have a deep scientific knowledge of blood or species evolution or the properties of magic, they probably at least grew up hearing about avoiding the blood of others. 

Though it’s not always harmful, sometimes the blood of one species can be healing to another, or do absolutely nothing, or even get them high or put them in some weird state of goofy delirium, make them pass out, help them sleep better, fix their vision, etc. etc. But a good majority of the time, the blood of one species usually either seems to have neutral interactions with others, or entirely negative ones (ranging from mild sickness/nausea or light skin burns or something (if the blood is just coming into contact with the skin), to like, full on.. contracting progressive deadly diseases or having seizures or dropping dead on the spot). 

In rare cases sometimes just being AROUND the blood of another species can be harmful to one (like, you don’t have to ingest it or get it into an open wound, just having a drop smeared on your skin could hurt you), but usually blood actually has to  get into the body somehow to actually be harmful to a person. 

Again, nobody is really sure exactly what the properties are that determine this. It’s thought that it may have to do with inherent magical ability (like since magic itself is such a dangerous and degrading force, species like the Jhevona who naturally have much more magical energy than other groups, would have more hazardous, or “stronger” blood, due to their magic being more potent (maybe a mage’s blood is gradually poisoned by magic exposure just like the rest of their body?). Thus like, a Jhevona drinking a human’s blood (a non-magical species) may not do much, but a human even just accidentally getting Jhevona blood into a cut on their finger would become instantly sick and possibly die (due to.. seemingly.. magic poisoning??)), and while many blood incompatibilities seem to follow these rules (”stronger” blood harming “weaker” blood, etc.), there are plenty of exceptions to this rule that nobody can explain, so it’s really still a kind of uncertain thing. 

Especially since sometimes the effects of blood are just seemingly like, random and nonsensical (like “oh this very specific type of elf blood can heal wounds for certain species, but for other species it infects their limbs and makes them fall off” lol ), it’s really hard to get a grasp of what underlying mechanism is actually at play here. 

But anyway, so that’s a thing lol! I will probably reference this often in things, and I can elaborate more on details or specific or etc later, but for now just.. know it’s a concept that exists, like.. Blood is a big thing in Nanyevimi and there are a huge range of various effects and incompatibilities associated with coming into contact with the blood of another species, so it’s something many people are aware of and are likely always keeping in mind wen interacting with others (like “oh, am I incompatible with them blood-wise? Or are they one of the ones that’s okay? I just don’t want to be offering them a tissue for their nose bleed some day and then I randomly drop dead because I touched their blood. this is important for me to know before I interact with anyone” etc.). 

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~ MATING ~

A majority of separate species in Nanyevimi cannot mate with each other. While one race of elf could mate with another race of elf, or a subspecies of Jhevona could probably mate with another subspecies of Jhevona, stuff like a human and an elf being able to have viable offspring is pretty much nonexistent, because they are entirely different species*** and have too many genetic differences.  

Many  humanoid species (but definitely not all lol) do have compatible enough anatomy to like.. have sex, at least in some form, but as far as actual mating/producing lineage would go, it pretty much could never result in a child. Those that are EXTREMELY similar in anatomy and also genetics (such as being descended from the same ancestor species) can sometimes produce children, but the children are often deformed or have health problems, or are fairly normal but infertile (as pretty much all half-species children are) and will not be able to reproduce their family line any further than that. 

(like for example groups of elves descended from the continent of Aviinine could likely mate with Avirre’thel/vampires, since they literally have the same ancestors, and this can actually lead to pregnancy, but even still the children have many health issues and die early, if they even are able to be born).

But many are not even close enough to do that. Like for example a Ythrili and and Verrucalt would just have such different anatomy that they couldn't even have sex in the first place, particularly the Ythrili is the one who is the most different in this scenario, their genitalia don't necessarily even resemble that of many other humanoid species and thus they can't even mate (or even really engage in sex at all) with anyone other than their own kind in the first place. Or like, some humanoid species with more animal traits (like “cat people" or the Uvra Istill with their like.. furry hooved lower halves and strange body anatomy), are so different from other species there would just be no way for it to produce a child in the first place, as for some of them (like in the case with the ythrili) they just don’t even have the anatomy to do so, or whatever possible sex things they could vaguely manage, definitely would not lead to reproduction. 

Another thing to consider is magical ability. The more “normal” humanoid species (unlike more animal looking or bug related species), regardless of whether they’re magic capable or not,  could generally all be thought of as being at least able to attempt to mate with each other, as their anatomy physically is,, usually,  compatible, however there can be a lot of issues with magic vs. non magic species and carrying children. Particularly with a non-magic species carrying a magic child, depending on the level of magic. 

So for example, a humanoid demon (Jhevona)  is one of the most inherently magical species to exist. Even if a human were to be able to somehow successfully become pregnant after mating attempts with a Jhevona, they still could not carry a Jhevona child, they would just straight up die, and no amount of healing magic could save them from the processes that are going on internally. 

Though scholars and doctors are still unsure of the exact nature of magic and what physically is occurring when magic is done, how energy is stored, what exactly determines the effects magic has on  a person, how it’s passed down genetically, etc. etc. ,  they at LEAST know that, generally, a species with a higher inherent magic level does not do well genetically with species who are less magical. 

 One theory about this is that it could be due to the genetic transference of power. Like perhaps parents of magical children naturally give some of their energy to the child while it is being processed in the body, and if the parent carrying the child is non-magic, yet the child is magic, it is going to be expecting to receive a stronger energy than the parent even has to give. 

 So like, to use oversimplified video game terms again to help describe magic lol, say they need maybe 200 MP to develop, and the parent has 0MP. But since the child's life force is actually stronger than the parent (being that they have magic in their genes somehow), the parent (rather than the child) would actually be the one to die. As they would slowly (or in some cases fairly rapidly) be having whatever inherent energy they posses (if there’s no magical energy to feed from, maybe the child starts taking physical energy by degrading their body, or from the person’s “”soul”” or etc.) devoured by the infant in an attempt for it to nourish itself, since it has to get that 200 MP somehow. Likely though, the parent still wouldn’t even have 200 mp to give, so it’d be more like.. the parent’s entire lifeforce is drained away and it dies, but the child was only able to get 80mp from that, so it dies as well.

 Now if the Jhevona is the one carrying the human's child, then it doesn't seem to kill the parent, and usually will be fine (as power is more balanced), but in this case if the imbalance is severe (such as with demons (most powerful species basically) and humans (least powerful humanoid species)), then  now the child may die, as it is thought perhaps the parent's body is naturally trying to bestow them with more energy than they can handle, causing their system to be overwhelmed and they usually just get destroyed, though not as dramatically as the first scenario (especially since again, exposure to magical energy itself is thought to be toxic, especially for non-magical people, and especially for a weap unborn non-magical infant.. even just being within the magical parents womb may expose them to enough magical energy to kill them, kind of like exposure to nuclear radiation or something). 

So in one case, the parent is too weak for the child's expectations and they slowly but often violently and painfully suffer to death, and in the other case, the child is too weak for what the parent's body is naturally attempting to nurture them with, and so they die pretty early on and silently, usually before even being fully developed, often just resulting in a miscarriage. (Also, this would still apply even with other magical species, if the magical “level” of the species weren’t balanced, such as an elf with a Jhevona, perhaps the problems wouldn’t be as severe, but likely the parent/child would still die, and even if born the offspring would be deformed or infertile)

Then another example could be a human and a vampire/avirre'thel, as vampires originated as simply elves who had given up their magical abilities (before eventually evolving into something more genetically distinct), thus they technically are also inherently non-magical, just like humans, so you would think  there would be more of a balance.

 However, complications would still arise from them having stronger life forces/souls/whatever inborn quality it is that controls this sort of thing which experts still don’t entirely understand, meaning that though they would still be more balanced magically, an Avirre’thel child would require slightly more energy than a human may be able to bestow them with healthily, though it is much less likely to entirely kill them as in the case of demons/jhevona. 

The main issue in this case would actually be the differences in genetics.  Vampiric/avirre’thel  anatomy has some marked distinctions, especially in the way they biologically process food, chemicals produced in their body (having different types of saliva and also producing poison in their fangs, etc.) , how they intake energy, the vast amount of health problems (due to the original deals during creation of the species they did get all those disease curses, Avirre'thel have a 89% higher rate of disease and illness than any other comparable species, like 1 in 4 of them has some unique vampire lifelong condition, and probably one out of every 2 you meet is having some more minor health condition ), etc. 

Though either way it is (the vamp carrying the child or the human doing it), it is unlikely the the parents will die (though still much more probable than if they were both breeding with their own species), it is very likely that the child may die from complications, either during birth or soon after, usually revolving around the systems being incompatible. 

Like for example, humans need food to survive, while vampires/Avirre’thel only need life force in the form of blood, so to work that out, the child's body may require both and mix them, or may kind of have one but more of the other, or etc. Either way it is likely to be an inefficient mix (like they need blood (bc vampire) but their body is incapable of processing it correctly the way that a full vampire would and converting it into energy when they receive it (a trait from the human), therefore no matter how much blood or food you give them, the body is processing it wrong, and they starve to death even though they're being fed, etc. OR they have more of the immune system of a human but can still catch vampiric diseases, which are way too much for their human immune system to handle and they die, etc. The human traits cannot process the speed of regeneration that occurs in a vampire thus the cells begin to repair themselves incorrectly and the child just dies of some strange form of magic cancer, etc.  

While technically slightly more possible to be born, most of these children wouldn't make it past a year old, 4 if lucky. If there were somehow 10 million Avirre’thel + human children born, 9million would die, allt he rest would be born but die in a month or maybe a year at most, and perhaps FOUR out of those 10 million could actually live into maybe their 30s, still with health problems, and live into late adulthood or so (before likely dying of disease), and they would still really need to be helped by mages or something, like have constant healing magic or medical treatments every day of their life to help them with their body not being able to do basic functions, etc. (and of course, they would still also be infertile/unable to produce further offspring).

For a last example, a Jhevona who is of a subspecies that they have generally quite low level magic, and an elf that is of a subspecies with a higher than average level of magic, could possibly actually work out. As long as: 

1. The blood of both subspecies is compatible (beyond magic, another thing is blood (though blood is thought to be  tied in with magic somehow). Since a ton of species have a long list of incompatibilities blood-wise, sometimes even coming into contact with the blood of a species incompatible with yours can make you sick, so they would have to be sure that both specific sub-species of their own species that they are, are compatible types (though i'd guess you'd do that before having sex anyway) , and aren't just going to repel instantly once mixed (like the parents body rejecting the baby’s cells, etc.)

 2. They are definitely sure that their inherent power levels are fairly equal and one isn't extremely more magically capable than the other (since even within species there can be a lot of variation, some subspecies of demons/jhevona and elves are more or less powerful, other factors that affect “lifeforce”/”soul” strength, or whatever the hell vague concept determines all this magic stuff (scholars still don’t know), and like mentioned, if a baby is trying to take more power than a parent can give or vice versa, it won’t work well, so they have to be balanced). Which is... something so extremely vague that it’s very very very hard to actually measure and be sure of, so you’d likely not actually be able to test for this but, you could guess I suppose. 

 and  3. Genetically, whatever subtype of their broader species that they both are, their biology is not extremely different in the way they process food, or regenerate health or any other essential process (like some Jhevona process food directly into magical energy rather than physical energy or etc. which would mean competing biological systems for the child to have to genetically fall between somewhere). This also includes making sure there are no immune system incompatibilities or diseases that either group is prone to that would end up being disastrous for the child’s immune system if it were to be weaker/stronger than one of their parent species.

 Again, the child would be definitely infertile , but if it meets all conditions above it COULD, potentially, be born successfully and live a reasonably long and somewhat healthy life.  

 Also another example just to note something: a magic doing human and non magic doing human would be able to mate exactly the same as two non magic humans, as the magic of humans is not inherent. Humans can only use material magics ( energy borrowed for outside sources/through external means,, and ONLY if they trained for like 30 years lol) and its impossible for them to use abstract magic (since it draws upon inherent power, of which they have none). So even a human who has struggled through trying to learn a few tiny basic feats of magic despite their non-magical nature does not posses any more inherent power or a stronger soul or anything than a non magic using human. One is simply borrowing or channeling power from something else, but they biologically are exactly the same, so it would have pretty much no bearing on childbirth, outside of maybe if they had modified their own biology with magic somehow, which is mostly impossible through solely material magics anyway. 

So anyway: a majority of separate species can’t breed with each other, and even when they can, the children usually have many complications and can die or even cause the parent carrying the child to die as well. While relationships between certain species living closely with each other may be common in certain areas, childbirth and actually mating within those relationships is generally impossible, due to the fact that.. they are like.. different SPECIES lol.. 

***( I know a lot of fantasy stories have their groups be more connected or etc. but that’s just always seemed a little unrealistic to me? lol.. Like if you have two species (even though everyone calls them “fantasy RACES”, in some cases it’s obvious their biology or etc. is so different they would be like.. fully genetically different SPECIES) with such different anatomy and functioning and etc. and then you say they can somehow just like.. effortlessly mate and produce a viable hybrid offspring with no issue?? I’m not a biologist, but I thought that like, to breed and produce fertile offspring and etc., you do have to have some similarities? So like if one party is like a 10 foot tall bat winged animal person that harvests all of their energy from magic rocks and has 4 eyes and 2 hearts and other random genetic/biological differences, and the other is like a regular elf with an average humanoid anatomy that harvests energy from normal food and etc., I just feel like it’d be hard for the body to reconcile those differences when making an offspring and actually have something that functions? The same way that a human couldn’t mate with a dog, and a cat couldn’t mate with a horse, etc... idk..  Anyway, so I do define the different groups in my world as fantasy SPECIES, not fantasy “races” (though there are some species that have sub-species within them, or distinct ‘’races’’ or ethnic groups or etc. WITHIN their own species), and since they are indeed fully separate species with differences in genetics and anatomy and the way their bodies function/process things or the layout of their organs and etc, I feel like it makes the most sense to have a rule that like.. most of them can not mate with each other and it wouldn’t be realistic for that to be the case (especially considering things like magic toxicity and etc.)?? But, if this is unrealistic or something, let me know! Obviously since I have people who like.. feed off of magic energy or have random cat ears or whatever, I’m not going for absolute biological accuracy lol, but certain things like the classification of groups as different species and how certain things like that work, I do want them to at least seem like they make sense.) 

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And that’s about all of the essentials!!! Hopefully, at least lol. I’ll add anything new if it comes up, but I think this is most of the general context necessary to understand the world as a whole and what type of environment it is, and some of the main concepts I mention a lot in other writings (blood incompatibilities, the memory gap, global areas, etc.). But always let me know if there are any questions or if I need to clarify something! Thanks for reading, have a great day~ 

[woodland-knight]

In Which Therion Makes a Stupid Decision (Ficlet)

I’ve been in a huge writing rut the past few months, so I’ve been unable to finish any sort of fic (Bravely or otherwise). While this fic is technically unfinished in itself, @sugaredrefrain was delighted by it and really wanted me to post it. I might go back and properly finish it at another date, but for now, the ficlet form will have to do.

The best description I can give of this is that some mid-game plot stuff led to a dumb headcanon, which in turn, led to this dumb ficlet. There actually aren’t any spoilers in this fic, however, and it vaguely takes place after Therion’s second chapter.

Update: There’s an AO3 link now as well.

It had started with a cherry tomato.

The plan was simple, yet perfect. Therion considered himself a professional when it came to connivery and thievery, but this? This he considered his best plan yet. It was enough to keep himself amused while showing his companions he didn’t want to be friends, and if all went well, they’d keep their distance from him from then on. In the few months they had been travelling together, he had kept many of secrets under wraps, though a few had managed to slip out. There was one, however, that he had yet to reveal; one that made this plan possible.

Obtaining the tomato had been easy enough. He had volunteered to join Alfyn and Tressa on a supply run, much to their surprise, and looted the small, red fruit when they passed by a farmer’s stall. He had pocketed a few for good measure, and for the rest of the trip followed behind the other two in a devilish silence. They didn’t pay much attention to him as they chatted amongst themselves, but they would occasionally look behind them to make sure he was still following. Luckily for them, Therion had no plans of running; not yet, of course.

Therion waited until everyone was gathered together in the inn before going through with his plan. Normally the group was split up around town as everyone did their daily activities, but they had all come together to decide where to go next. After a bit of a scuffle in the northwest, they thought it might be time to go to the east for a bit. Either way, Therion didn’t care. As long as he found the dragonstones, he would be satisfied.

“Both Tressa and Cyrus said they’d like to go to Boulderfall for a bit,” one companion mentioned to another. Therion wasn’t paying much attention to them as they spoke, as he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to come to him. One little bump, and it would begin.

And then, much to his delight, it hit him… Literally.

Somebody had passed by him and knocked into him without meaning to. He hadn’t seen it coming, so he had to react fast. Slipping a few tomatoes out of his pocket and into his hand, he placed them over the left side of his face and squeezed them.

“AGH! MY EYE!”

His yelling had caught the attention of the others, and not even seconds later he heard Tressa let out a blood curdling shriek. Tomato juice ran down Therion’s hands and cheeks, and it seemed to give the effect he had wanted. At least, based on the pesky merchant girl’s reaction.

“Are you okay!?” Alfyn asked in a panic. He had been the one to hit Therion, and as soon as he turned and saw the “blood” on Therion’s hands, his face turned a ghostly shade of white and he let out a loud yelp of his own.

From the other side of the room, Ophilia came running over. She was yelling about one thing or another about healing Therion, and looking at her face she looked like she was about to either cry or faint. Trying not to smirk, Therion lifted his bangs slightly to show the dripping, red goop and an empty eye socket. The Cleric stumbled backwards in shock, bumping into Cyrus, who had shouted out in surprise himself in reaction to everyone else shoutin while he had been trying to sit and read.

It had only been 20 or 30 seconds in total for it to all go down, but the satisfaction Therion felt would last a lifetime. Tressa was busy trying to get Ophilia back onto her feet, and Alfyn was looking through herbs trying to figure out how to cure “liquified eye”. Cyrus, meanwhile, was trying to catch his breath after the scare and had yet to notice Therion’s “injury”. It was a delightful and wonderful scene, and Therion was smiling up until Olberic came over and lifted Therion’s face up.

“Let me look at that,” the much older gentleman said as he squinted his eyes. Therion’s bangs fell away to the side, revealing his now closed, missing eye covered in scars.

“Like what you see?” Therion asked with a smug tone. He figured he had been caught in his lie at this point, but it had been fun while it had lasted.

“...this is an old wound,” Olberic stated as he let go of Therion. “You’ve been missing that eye for awhile now. That was a dirty trick you played.”

From a few seats away, there was the faint sound of a dagger being drawn. “Maybe he’d like to lose his other eye as well,” Primrose suggested with annoyance in her voice. She and Olberic were the ones trying to do most of the planning, and she didn’t seem to enjoy the interruption. Again though, Therion really didn’t care.

“An eye for a fake eye, eh? That doesn’t seem fair to me,” Therion joked while shrugging. “Besides, I think you’d find I have better aim with my one eye in tact.”

“That wasn’t funny! I seriously thought you were hurt!” Tressa complained as she fanned Ophilia with a stray piece of paper she had found in her backpack. On his right side, Therion could see H’aanit nod in agreement as she sat with Linde.

“The lass is correct. Thou hast caused a lot of trouble, and now Linde is panicked from all thy yelling,” H’aanit said as she glared daggers at Therion’s one eye. Not caring, he simply turned his head away from her so she was out of his view.

“I see my jokes aren’t appreciated here,” Therion said before shrugging again. “Lesson learned then. No more jokes about my missing eye.”

“No lesson is learned without punishment,” Cyrus interjected. “You deserve some sort of penalty for frightening Ms. Clement and Colzione, and for riling Linde up as you did.”

“I still suggest he loses his other eye,” Primrose grumbled. She was now in Therion’s field of vision, and he could see she had placed her dagger on the table. Therion, however, was not troubled.

Meanwhile, Olberic shook his head. “That won’t solve the problem, Primrose,” he said with crossed arms. He was glaring down at the young thief and most likely trying to decide his fate.

“Shucks, I’m just glad to know I wasn’t the one who squashed his eye,” Alfyn mentioned as he sat down near the younger girls. “I don’t think anything can fix a wound that horrific.”

Regaining composure, Ophilia nodded in agreement. “There’s only so much that magic and herbs can heal,” she said before taking a deep breath. She was still shaken, but she would recover.

“Then what doest thou suggest we do?” H’aanit asked as she stood back up. Linde seemed to be calmer now, as the giant snow leopard took a moment to walk around before curling up under Cyrus’ chair.

Guilt free, Therion raised his hands slightly. “Fine, fine, punish me as you see fit,” he said smugly. “Though there’s nothing you can really do to stop me from going out and continuing to cause trouble. I’m a free, thieving spirit, you know.”

Unamused, Olberic stared Therion down. “Fine then, if that’s what you think, then you’re grounded,” he said with an intense demeanor. “No leaving the inn unless we’re traveling, and you’ll be under surveillance at all times of the day.”

Therion’s one eye widened in horror. “Wh-what!? You can’t do that!” he cried out in disbelief. “I’m 22 years old! You can’t ground me!”

“Too late,” Olberic continued telling Therion. “You’ve caused a lot of trouble, and now you’re paying for your actions.”

“This is unfair!” Therion complained. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Him? Grounded? What kind of madness was this!?

“That’s what you get for being a jerk!” Tressa mocked before sticking her tongue out. Therion was just about to make a move and pounce on her, but Olberic grabbed him by the torso and picked him up before Therion could.

“Come on boy, you’re going to your room,” Olberic said as he started to carry Therion away. Therion tried his best to kick his way out of the situation, but the Unbending Blade was too strong. There was no way Therion could escape his grasp. He was screwed, and there was no one to help him.

“I’m an adult! This is absolutely ridiculous!” Therion continued to complain. He felt Olberic grip him tighter, and for a moment Therion felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“Then act like one and think about what you’ve done,” Olberic demanded as he opened the door to Therion’s room and dropped him in. “If you haven’t apologized by tomorrow evening, I’ll see that your punishment continues.”

“You’ll pay for this!” Therion shouted as he pulled his hand back and formed a fist. “I’ll make sure you regret putting me in here!”

Before Therion could make a strike at Olberic, the door was slammed shut and locked up tight. Therion was left alone in the small room, where the windows weren’t big enough to climb out of and the door didn’t have a pickable lock. He was stuck, treated like a small child being punished for a misdeed, and he would stay there until the group moved again. It felt like an unfitting punishment for such a harmless joke, but there he was. Grounded at the age of 24 by a man much older and stronger than him.

All over a stupid cherry tomato.

[staringatthetwinsuns]

On writing Luke Skywalker as a character with a disability (meta thoughts)

Inspired by this post and the immensely thoughtful reblogs that go with it, I am going to try to consolidate my thoughts, advice, pet peeves, and feels about writing Luke Skywalker as a character with a disability (and perhaps touch a bit on Anakin/Vader). This is something I've actually spent a lot of time thinking about, and I don’t see it talked about very often, but now that I know I’m not the only one who thinks about it, I thought I'd try to share my perspective at least and start a conversation. Please feel free to add to, question, or outright argue with anything here.

First, a disclaimer: I am not an amputee, a doctor, an occupational therapist, or anyone else with relevant personal experience. I have personal reasons for caring deeply about this, but the most important ones are probably just wanting to see my favorite character written well and wanting to see diverse characters represented in fiction in general, so. Take this as you will.

Also, I will say in advance that I mix person-first language ("person with a disability") and identity-first language ("disabled person") here, because I know there are people who prefer both.... apologies/warnings in advance if you strongly dislike or are triggered by either.

So, first things first, and this is really just general writing advice that could apply to any disability or ANY aspect of a character's appearance… to what extent is is even necessary to address Luke's prosthetic hand in fic? The post I linked to above was really talking about art, and in that case, I suppose you do have to make some sort of choice—to draw Luke with a natural-looking hand like he had in ESB, a black glove as in ROTJ, or a metal hand like in the sequel trilogy. In fic, however, it doesn’t always need to really be addressed at all. Again, this goes for ANY aspect of a character’s appearance, and the golden rule is: Would the POV character (the character whose point of view we are in at the moment) notice or care at this particular moment in the story? You know how it feels weird when you read a bad YA fantasy novel and the narrator says something like "I looked at him with my brilliant purple eyes, which perfectly accented my flawless ivory skin"? That’s unnatural because actual people (even teenagers, shock! horror!) don’t really go around thinking about their own eye color or how flawless their skin is (unless they're incredibly unlikable, and then why would we want to read about them?). They’d be slightly more likely to be thinking about it if their skin WASN'T flawless and that zit they found this morning was bothering them, etc. Cardinal rule: don’t mention anything the narrator or POV character wouldn’t logically be thinking about at the time.

So, whether you even need to mention Luke's hand at all probably depends on a number of factors: Whose POV are we in? When does the fic take place? (Luke's going to be more aware of his new hand between ESB and ROTJ, for example, than decades in the future.) Does anything specifically happen that reminds the POV character of the fact that his hand's a prosthetic?

Which brings me, I suppose, to the next thing: Whether it even counts as a disability at all and the fact that, EVEN IF IT DOESN'T, you still can't really ignore it as if his hand just magically regenerated.

So, first. Is having an amazing cybernetic limb in the Star Wars universe a disability? I say a cautious yes… or at the very least, it's a medical condition on the same level with say, wearing glasses or contacts or having a hip replacement or something in the real world?

I do think it depends on a lot of factors though, and movie canon, at least, doesn’t give us a lot of answers. We don’t really know how much feeling Luke has in his hand… pressure/pain is established, but what about heat or cold? Does it hurt at all (aside from pain sensors)? Is it stronger, weaker, less flexible (more flexible? That's a bit hard to imagine?) etc, than his other hand? I think it PROBABLY counts as a disability and at least counts as something that would affect his daily life in AT THE VERY LEAST small ways. More on that later.

I don’t actually remember what Legends had to say about any of this but again, movie canon doesn’t give us a lot. Here are some of the things I appreciate fanfic writers thinking about, though. (For the record, I am GUILTY AS HELL of overlooking some of this stuff myself in certain fics though, so don't feel bad if you have too… just suggestions for things we probably SHOULD be considering!)

1. How different is the sense of touch or the range of movement in Luke's prosthetic right hand, compared to his left hand? Does it affect the way he does things? Does he favor one hand over the other in certain situations because of this? Does this change as time goes by and any differences become his norm? (I'd personally think there'd be some difference… not necessarily better or worse, but different, and that over time it would definitely start to feel normal.)

2. How different does it look or feel to other people? 1980s-era special effects aside, look at the rest of the technology in the universe. Look at your own hand for goodness' sake. I can’t imagine it’s a perfect replica. Like, I can see the bones and veins in my hand. My fingernails get too long and split and have ragged cuticles. There's no WAY that anyone would even WANT a prosthetic hand that realistic, so. There's got to be some difference. Especially in a romantic or sexual situation, especially fairly soon after ESB, it seems weird not to mention this. I HAVE seen fics that addressed the body temperature issue, either by having the other character be surprised that his hand WAS warm or stating that it wasn't? I guess I personally don't think that heating would be a priority and that it might therefore be cooler than his other hand? Again, definitely not always necessary but, in certain scenes might be important and gets sometimes ignored.

3. There is no f-ing way that Luke’s hand actually ages, so… while I agree that the "Oh all the skin just fell off" idea is stupid, what DOES he do as he ages? Go for the metal model because it doesn’t look the same anyway so it doesn't MATTER if he ages? Get the skin updated to look more like whatever age he is now? Just… have a random 22-year-old-looking hand even though the rest of him is 50?

4. Regardless of whatever you go with for #3, either the entire hand or some of its parts must need replacing over time. Anyone who thinks people use the same prostheses for 30 years doesn’t know anyone who actually uses one (or hasn’t known them for very long, anyway), and even if you play the "advanced technology" card.. want to show me a 30-year-old car, airplane, or space shuttle that has NEVER HAD A PART REPLACED EVER? Can he do the maintenance himself (one-handed? Well, at least he has the Force?) or does a medical droid need to do it, etc?

5. What does the REST of the galaxy think about this? The only canon instances of ableism I can think of are Obi-Wan’s "more machine now than man" in ROTJ, and Dooku's not-so-nice thoughts about Anakin's arm in the ROTS novelization (although Palpatine obviously feels differently in the same scene), but… on the whole is there any stigma attached, or not? If so, is Luke more like "screw it," or is he somewhat self-conscious? What do Leia, Han, Chewie, Wedge... whoever else is in the fic, think? I mean, seriously... imagine a loved one losing a limb. You might not CARE (you shouldn't CARE, in the sense of loving them less or differently, and I don't think any of the above characters would either) but it would still be a thing to get used to?

6. Back to technical stuff, just how much of his arm IS mechanical anyway? Definitely seems to be more than he actually lost to Vader. (This Quora post is fascinating.) Again, usually not relevant since Luke never wears anything but long sleeves after ESB (which is a travesty; look at those ARMS on Dagobah), but… might be relevant if he’s naked in your fic? ;)

7. Related to #6, how obvious is the point where the synthskin meets his natural skin? This could probably be barely noticeable (theatrical makeup experience FTW?) but, might not be? Is this the reason he always wears long sleeves? XD I can't imagine synthskin can tan or grow hair or anything, right???

Okay, so assuming you've put the thought into your headcanon for the above (I… really hadn’t either until recently though, and my fics are all inconsistent so… no judgment either way), let me come back to this "minor thing that affects your life in small ways" thing.

I don’t really get the impression that, with Luke anyway, this particular fandom pays TOO MUCH attention to his prosthetic hand to the point where it feels like a fetish. I have read a COUPLE of fics that felt icky that way, but many more involving Anakin/Vader. If anything, it gets kind of over-ignored as a perfect replacement that is exactly like his biological hand in every way.

That's just not possible. It's not. And even if it WERE scientifically possible (in a very cyberpunk-ish world, no less) would anyone BOTHER to make a cybernetic hand with ugly veins, scraggly cuticles, and age spots?

So. Even if you don’t consider it a disability, it’s a THING. I don’t think my wearing contacts is a disability, but I still can't open my eyes underwater, and if I nap in the afternoon my eyes get dry and gunky, and if I drive somewhere and lose a contact I legally and literally CANNOT drive home (never happened but, anxiety FTW?), and don't forget that one time I lived through a major earthquake and all the supermarkets ran out of food because the roads were closed, you better bet I was worried about what would happen if I ran out of One Day Acuvue before the courier services opened back up (actually go to an eye doctor and get that awful glaucoma test? *shudder*). Similarly, someone who can walk normally on an artificial hip or knee isn’t disabled in the same sense that someone who uses a wheelchair is, but they still set off metal detectors and can’t sit comfortably in certain positions. It may or may not be a major thing, but it is a thing… and it does seem weird to me that a lot of writers seem to treat Luke’s hand as a perfect replacement when it CAN'T BE. For example:

1. It's metal in his body. I’ve translated enough medical documents to know that THAT IS A THING. Metal detectors, MRIs, whatever… there are times when metal vs. organic material is a thing.

2. He can't possibly have the same fingerprints, if he has any fingerprints at all. It MIGHT be possible for a planned amputation but… that hand was lost. Any biometric-type military clearance Luke has now has to be reset/redone. Finger vein identification etc. is probably a no-go period. (NEW THOUGHT: Unless the Alliance had his fingerprints on file... doesn't REALLY match up with the rest of the technology of the world, but... cool possibility?)

3. Maintenance. Especially considering if he’s going to live on a water planet with exposed mechanical parts with no one else to help him do maintenance if needed *side-eyes Rian Johnson*

4. Ongoing pain? This is a headcanon of mine anyway. From what I understand, phantom pain comes from the brain sending out signals to a limb that is no longer there, and getting no response. Since Luke’s hand DOES have feeling, I don’t think he’d have that kind of ongoing issue, BUT. I do think there’d be pain right after he got it (again, talk to anyone who’s had a joint replaced?) and I kind of imagine his hand aching whenever he was reminded of Vader or of losing it. Not a necessary thing to work in, I suppose, but that’s a headcanon I use a lot.

5. Identity as a disabled person? I have seen this addressed in some fics, and I agree that it might not have a place one way or the other in a story that has nothing to do with disability, but… I do sort of see Luke being especially compassionate to other veterans or victims of the war, and to people with disabilities in general, maybe especially because he now knows that’s something he shared with his father? I also like it when fics address the fact that not everyone in the galaxy has access to what I assume was the top-of-the-line model for the Alliance’s biggest hero, at that Luke might feel guilt about that, or at least a desire to help others?

6. Vanity/self-esteem? Luke doesn’t seem like a hugely vain person to me but… would he be at all self-conscious about meeting someone new and getting the awkward questions? Does he tell the truth, and if so how much of it? Or does everyone just already know? (That wouldn’t necessarily be LESS awkward though?) Like everything else, this probably depends on when the fic is set.

7. Is there anything he’s not supposed to do, like get wet (especially without the skin, oh dear sequel trilogy)???

I guess on the whole I see Luke as a not-vain person who probably wouldn’t care THAT much about appearances (except everyone does a little, right?), but I do think his hand would be a constant reminder of Vader, for better (after ROTJ) or worse (between ESB and ROTJ). I don’t think it would be as life-changing as losing a limb in the real world today, but I also don’t think he’d go months (or even a day really) without even thinking about it, with zero changes to anything whatsoever.

I think it’s really important that the technology in Star Wars is shown to be helping and healing people, rather than just blowing things up. I LOVE that people have taken that ideal version of a prosthetic limb and made strides toward actually creating it in real life. But I also think that just ignoring the fact that Luke IS a character with a disability (however rendered-minor it is by said technology) does a huge disservice to the character and to diversity in pop culture in general.

So… long story short, I’d love to see more fics that did address this, even if it’s casually and in passing. While there are certainly situations in which the best choice is "it doesn’t matter in this scene," if anything I see Star Wars fics going too far in the other direction… not really considering this as a part of the character and the world?

[marketingcomcaio]

30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’ve driven 30 million visitors to my website from SEO.

Technically it’s more, but who’s counting.

What’s funny, though, is I barely look at my traffic, even as Google continually rolls out algorithm updates.

I know that sounds contradictory because if you are an SEO, why wouldn’t you obsess about traffic, right?

Well, it’s because I’ve learned some hard lessons over the year… mainly because I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

So today, I wanted to share them with you so that you can learn from my mistakes… so here goes:

Lesson #1: Don’t obsess over rankings, obsess over conversions

I used to check my rankings every single day. Literally.

On top of that, I would log into Google Analytics 4 to 5 times a day and continually check my traffic.

That’s all I cared about back in the day… boosting my organic traffic.

But here is the thing: As my rankings and traffic went up over the years, my revenue didn’t go up proportionally.

For example, during one quarter in 2017, my SEO traffic went up 39.52%, but my revenue from SEO went up only 4.29%.

I quickly learned that traffic isn’t everything. If you can’t convert the traffic into revenue it doesn’t matter.

That taught me that you need to focus on the right keywords that drive conversions and continually optimize your site for conversions.

An easy first step for you to take is to install Crazy Egg and run a heatmap to see where people click so you adjust your design and copy to get more sales.

Lesson #2: The easiest way to grow your SEO traffic is international expansion

You already know that I get a lot of SEO traffic, but do you know what country drives most of my traffic?

If you guessed United States, you are wrong.

Brazil is my most popular region, followed by India.

International SEO is the easiest way to expand and grow your traffic. Here are a few posts that you should read before you expand your SEO globally:

How to create a global SEO strategy

Fundamentals of international SEO

How to correctly setup your site for international SEO

How to profitably expand your SEO globally

Lesson #3: Keywords are very, very, very, very important

When I used to write my content, I didn’t obsess about the keywords when I should have.

My team actually proved me wrong on this.

I used to focus on writing content for humans and didn’t worry about search engines. My team, on the other hand, obsesses about keywords.

Just look at the growth of our traffic in Brazil because of our obsession with the right keywords.

One simple thing I do before writing that has really helped is I head over to Ubersuggest and type in a few of the keywords that I want to go after.

Once it loads, you’ll see a report like the one above. I want you to then click on “Keyword Ideas” in the left-hand navigation.

You’ll see a report that contains a list of keywords that you could potentially be targeting.

Make sure you click on the “Related” tab, as well as “Questions” and “Comparisons” … scroll through the list. You’ll see hundreds of keywords. Pick all of the ones that are relevant and ideally have a high cost per click (CPC). These are the keywords that’ll not only drive traffic but revenue as well.

Whenever I write a blog post, I go through this step. Every single time.

Lesson #4: AMP pages can drive more SEO traffic

AMP pages load faster on mobile devices than non-AMP pages.

If you aren’t familiar with the AMP framework, read this.

What most people won’t tell you about AMP pages is that:

In regions like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, countries with decent Internet infrastructure, you won’t see much of an increase in traffic.

In regions with poor Internet infrastructure, like Brazil, you’ll see a 10 to 15% lift in mobile SEO traffic by having AMP pages.

AMP pages don’t convert visitors into customers as well as normal responsive web design. So, you’ll have to work on testing your AMP pages so you can boost your conversion rates.

Lesson #5: SEO will never convert as well as paid ads

When I started off with SEO, I would run projections on how much the traffic would make me.

But the numbers were always off, even if I was able to get the rankings.

Here’s the main reason: If you are bidding on terms like auto insurance through ads, you can drive people to a landing page that looks like this:

But if you want to rank organically, you’ll have to do it through content. So, your page that ranks well will look more like this and convert less…

It doesn’t mean SEO is bad. In reality, it’s much cheaper in the long run than paid ads and will produce a better ROI. But don’t just assume that if you get 100 visitors from paid ads and 3 purchases that you’ll have the same conversion rate with your SEO traffic.

Chances are it will be significantly lower by maybe 2 or 3x, but because SEO is cheaper, it will be much more profitable.

Lesson #6: Remarketing is one of the best ways to generate an ROI from SEO

If you get a ton of traffic from SEO, there is a simple strategy you can implement to boost your conversions.

Remarket everyone on Facebook, Google, and YouTube.

That way people come to your site, read your content, and build trust with you and your brand.

Then you remarket them throughout the web with ads that prompt your products or services and send them to a landing page that will drive sales.

I’ve been doing this for years, just look at my old remarketing ad…

For the regions I use remarketing in, it is responsible for 46% of my leads.

Lesson #7: Don’t forget to update your old content

I publish one new blog post a week. I’m working on increasing this as I get more time, but for now, it is one a week.

Can you guess how many blog posts I update on a daily basis? Technically it is 0 (me at least), but my team focuses on updating at least 3 old blog posts per day. That’s roughly 90 a month.

Once you have a few hundred pages, make sure you focus on updating your old content or else your traffic will quickly drop.

You can use this content decay tool to see which posts you should update first.

This will help you continually grow your SEO traffic instead of hitting plateaus or seeing your traffic take massive drops.

Lesson #8: Don’t forget to optimize your title tags

One of the easiest ways to grow your rankings is to optimize your title tags.

If you can write persuasive copy and get more clicks, you’ll quickly move up on Google.

In Brazil, we spend more time doing this than we do in the United States.

We get a similar amount of impressions in Brazil, but we have more people focusing on improving our title tags and testing. Hence, we get 95% more SEO traffic in Brazil.

If you want tips on boosting your clicks, check out this article.

Another simple hack is to use the “Content Ideas” report in Ubersuggest.

On the right side of that report, you can see social share counts from Facebook and Pinterest. And on the left side, you see titles of articles.

Typically, if people like a title they share it more. So, look for titles that have a lot of shares as it will give you ideas on what you can use on your website to get more clicks and boost your rankings.

Lesson #9: Don’t put dates in your URL

I used to put dates in my URLs like:

Neilpatel.com/2017/12/title-of-post/

This causes search engines to assume that your content is related to a specific date. And after that date gets old, search engines assume your content is irrelevant and outdated.

The moment I removed the date from my URLs, I grew my SEO traffic by 58% in 30 days.

If you have dates in your URL, make sure you 301 redirect your old URLs to your new ones once you make that change, or else your rankings will drop.

Lesson #10: Don’t be afraid to use popups

Don’t you hate popups? Well, who doesn’t?

But people use them because they work.

The majority of your pages that will rank are blog-related content. And blog posts tend to drive fewer direct conversions because people are on your site to read the content.

In order to maximize your conversions from SEO, you should consider using exit popups so you can convert more of those visitors into customers as they leave.

When you leave this site in most cases, you’ll see a popup that looks like:

And it drives you to this quiz, which allows me to convert SEO visitors into customers.

You can easily copy me by using Hello Bar. It works for all industries including B2B and ecommerce and even lead generation sites.

Lesson #11: Brand queries affect rankings

Everyone talks about how you need links to boost rankings.

But very few people talk about brand queries.

As Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of web spam both emphasized how brands are important.

One of the big reasons for my growth in SEO traffic is the growth in my brand. I’ve seen a direct correlation in which the more people who find me from my name, the more SEO traffic I get.

Just look at my brand growth over time:

I’ve received over 1.9 million visitors over the last 16 months from people typing in variations of my name in Google.

Lesson #12: Don’t waste your money on paid links

I’ve been doing SEO since I was 16 years old. That’s a long time…

When I started off as a kid, I dabbled in paid links and I used to dominate Google for terms like online casino, online poker, web hosting, auto insurance, and even credit cards.

And I was making a killing off of affiliate income from these sites.

But it was all short lived.

Why?

Because I bought links. And eventually Google penalized all of those sites.

If I never purchased links, those sites would have taken longer to rank, but they would have been around today, and I would have generated more income overall.

Don’t buy links, it’s bad and shortsighted.

Lesson #13: Guest post to build a brand, not to build links

I already covered the importance of branding above.

A great way to build your brand and indirectly boost your SEO traffic is through guest posting.

But don’t use guest posting to build links.

Most sites that offer guest posts, nofollow them (which they should), and Google is smart enough to know what a guest post is, hence they ignore guest post links from sites like Forbes.

It’s pretty easy to spot a guest post for both a human and algorithm…

But if you are using it to build a brand, great. Focus on the content quality and not links.

Lesson #14: Don’t forget to interlink

Do you know what some of my highest ranked pages are?

The ones that are interlinked.

It takes anywhere from 6 months to a year for many of the interlinks to kick in, but it is still effective none-the-less.

Every time I wrote content, I used to make sure I link out to my older pieces of content when it made sense. But I made a big mistake… I wasn’t going into my older pieces of content and then adding links to my newer pieces of content.

That one change was game-changing for me. It took time to see the results but it worked exceptionally well.

It’s how I rank high for terms like “email marketing”.

Lesson #15: Google isn’t the only game in town

Although Google is the most popular search engine, it isn’t the only one you need to focus on.

Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine?

Even Bing gets a lot of traffic.

If you want to rank high on Bing, follow this.

Or if you prefer video, watch this:

As for YouTube, this guide will teach you YouTube SEO. It works really well, just look at my YouTube SEO traffic:

Over the last 28 days, I received 429,501 video views through YouTube SEO.

Lesson #16: Speed is everything

The faster your server and the more optimized your site, the more traffic you’ll get.

Years ago, my friend Otis added more servers to his site GoodReads.

Within a month, his SEO traffic went up over 20%.

Speed is part of Google’s algorithm, so optimize it for both web and mobile.

A quick way to see your site’s speed is to enter your URL here.

You’ll see a report that breaks down your mobile and desktop load times as well as what you can do to improve them.

Lesson #17: Quality over quantity

SEO used to be a game of quantity over quality.

That isn’t the case anymore. With over a billion blogs, Google has its fair share of sites to choose from.

Just look at About.com. Eventually they renamed it Dotdash and changed their strategy.

They took all of their About.com content and moved it over to 6 vertical based sites and deleted 900,000 pages of junk content.

This grew their traffic and revenue by a whopping 140%.

Focus on writing high-quality content. It’s why I blog less and try to make my content amazing.

Lesson #18: Tools are better than content marketing

I used to focus all of my energy on content marketing because it drove a lot of links and SEO traffic.

But over time, I realized that creating free tools builds more natural links than anything else I have ever tested.

Just look at Ubersuggest. I spent years creating it and look at how many links it has generated…

30,603 backlinks! That’s a lot of links.

If you don’t have the resources to build a custom tool like me, you can always start with buying a white label tool from Code Canyon for $10 or $20. They literally have tools for almost all industries.

Lesson #19: Don’t rely only on SEO

When I first got started in SEO, all I could think about was SEO.

To me, it was the best marketing channel out there because it allowed me to compete with large companies.

Even to this day, I still love SEO more than any other channel.

But it doesn’t stop me from leveraging other marketing channels.

See, years ago you could build a business off of one marketing channel.

Yelp was built through SEO. Dropbox through social media referrals. Facebook through email invites…

Those days don’t exist anymore. You can’t just build your traffic from one channel.

Although you should do SEO, you should also try paid ads, social media marketing, email marketing, push notifications, and anything else that comes out.

Diversify your traffic sources and don’t just rely solely on SEO.

Lesson #20: People love linking to data

Spending money and time to gather your own unique data is an easy way to build links.

Check out my posts on content marketing trends and social media trends.

I’ve added tons of unique data, stats, and charts to each of those posts.

The end result? Extra backlinks. 🙂

The content marketing trends post received 447 backlinks.

If you don’t have the time to gather custom data you can always find someone on Upwork to help you out.

Lesson #21: Don’t forget about Infographics

One of my favorite SEO strategies that still works well today is infographics.

I have tons of them on the NeilPatel.com blog.

I didn’t start off with infographics here… I used to do them on my old blog Quick Sprout and KISSmetrics.

Here’s an interesting stat for you when I used to crank out infographics on KISSmetrics.

Within a two-year period, from 2010 to 2012, 47 infographics generated 2,512,596 visitors and 41,142 backlinks from 3,741 unique domains. They also generated 41,359 tweets and 20,859 likes.

If you don’t have money to hire a designer, you can use Infogram or Canva to create one on your own.

Lesson #22: Google doesn’t penalize for duplicate content

You don’t want to post tons of duplicate content on your site as it’s not the best user experience, but keep in mind that Google doesn’t penalize you for duplication.

They may not just rank the duplicate content as well.

So, if you spend all of this time producing amazing, unique content, why not publish it FIRST on your own website.

Then after a few hours or days if you want to be safe, take that exact content and publish it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and anywhere else that will accept your content.

Literally, take all of the words and paste them onto those social channels.

It will get you extra awareness and branding. Plus, the content should already be indexed on your site, so Google knows it came from your first… and I doubt you care if the duplicated version on LinkedIn ranks. That’s still great branding.

In other words, don’t be afraid to repurpose your content even if it causes duplication.

Just look at this post, for example. I’m also repurposing it into a 4-part podcast series.

Lesson #23: Don’t recreate the wheel

I used to spend hours a week doing keyword research trying to figure out what new terms to rank for.

Eventually, I figured out an easier and better way to find new content topics and keywords to go after.

Go to Ubersuggest, type in your competitor’s domain name and hit search.

In the left-hand navigation click on Top Pages.

You’ll see a report that shows you all of the popular pages on your competition’s website. This will give you ideas for the type of pages you should create on your website.

Then I want you to click “View All” under Est. Visits (estimated visits). This will show you all of the keywords that drive traffic to that page.

You now have a list of topics and keywords for each topic to go after.

Lesson #24: Don’t pick a generic domain name

Remember how in Lesson 11 I talked about brand queries and how they helped rankings?

After I learned that, I decided to go buy exact match domain names where the domain name was the keyword.

That way I would get lots of brand queries without trying.

Well, there’s an issue… even if you rank high, what you’ll find is you will have a low click-through rate in most cases.

If you have a low click-through rate, it tells Google your brand isn’t strong and people don’t prefer it, which can hurt your ranking.

So instead of focusing on exact match domains, unless you have millions to spend on branding like Hotels.com, focus on building a memorable brand.

Pick something that is unique, easy to spell, and easy to remember.

Lesson #25: Learn from blackhat SEOs, but don’t go over to the dark side

Blackhat SEOs come up with some interesting data and experiments.

Many of them don’t work for long, but they are interesting none-the-less.

Although I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, I do recommend following them.

The easiest way you can learn from them is by reading Blackhat World.

People there share some interesting insights, especially every time there is a major Google algorithm update.

Again, I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, but following them may help you uncover “white hat” techniques that can increase your rankings. Not everything they do is bad… many of them use legitimate tactics as well.

Lesson #26: Short URLs rank better than long ones

My URLs used to be the title of my blog post.

For example, with this post I would have used this URL in the past…

Neilpatel.com/blog/30-lessons-after-30-million-seo-visitors/

Eventually I switched to short URLs.

Google just prefers them. And I’ve seen it firsthand. That’s why I use short ones now.

URLs at position #1 are on average 9.2 characters shorter than URLs that rank in position #10. So, keep them short.

Lesson #27: The power’s in the list

If you want your content to rank high on Google, you need more people to see it.

Whether it is from social shares, or from push notifications or email blasts… the more people that see your content, the more engagement it will get, and the more people that will link to it.

I used to do a ton of manual outreach every time I published a new blog post and I would email people asking them to link to me.

And it works, it’s just time consuming and a pain.

These days, I have a better strategy… send out an email blast every time I publish a new post.

I can now get anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 clicks per email I send out.

Now of course you won’t get that from day one as it took me years to build up my email list.

But you can start today by collecting emails. You can easily do that through Hello Bar.

And as your list grows, so will the clicks to your blog and the number of links you get, which in turn will increase your rankings.

Lesson #28: Don’t let your foot off the peddle

This was one of the hardest lessons I learned.

It’s exhausting to continually blog and do your own SEO. Sometimes you just want a break.

With my old blog, Quick Sprout, I used to publish 12 blog posts a month and I did that consistently for 3 years.

One day I decided that I wanted to stop for a month. So, I took a 30-day break.

Guess what happened to my traffic?

It tanked by 32%.

So, then I started blogging again. And guessed what happened to my traffic after I started blogging?

It didn’t come right back.

It took me 3 months to get back to where I was.

When things are working for you, don’t slow down. Keep pushing harder, even if you are exhausted. Because the moment you stop, you’ll drop, and it is a lot of work to get back to where you were.

Lesson #29: The best SEO advice comes from conferences

The best SEO advice I have ever learned over the years has come from conferences.

And no, I don’t mean by sitting in on the sessions, although you can learn from those too.

The best SEO secrets and advice I learned came from networking. When you go to these conferences, hundreds if not thousands of other SEOs are there. And when you go to the bar after hours and mingle with people, you’ll quickly pick stuff up.

You’ll be shocked at what people tell you. It’s how I learned a lot of the good tactics that I still use today.

Lesson #30: Never stop learning

This one may sound obvious but when things are going well, people get complacent.

Google makes on average 3,234 updates per year and that count has been increasing over time.

Just think about that for a bit… that’s roughly 9 algorithm updates per day.

Because they are changing so quickly, you won’t survive if you don’t stay up to date.

Yes, the ideal strategy is to do what’s best for your users or visitors as in the long run, Google wants to promote those sites, but it doesn’t mean that you can ignore the changes happening in the industry.

Read all of the SEO blogs out there, attend conferences as I mentioned above… experiment on test sites… push yourself to be better.

That drive of always improving and always wanting to learn more has helped me tremendously. It’s one of the reasons for my growth in rankings over the years.

Conclusion

There are a lot of lessons that you will learn as your rankings grow and as you spend more time on SEO.

But hopefully, you don’t have to waste time and go through the same mistakes I made. You don’t want to learn these lessons the hard way.

That’s why I decided to share them. I want to save you the time and help you achieve your traffic goals faster.

Which SEO lessons have you learned?

The post 30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors appeared first on Neil Patel.

30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[remelitalia]

30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’ve driven 30 million visitors to my website from SEO.

Technically it’s more, but who’s counting.

What’s funny, though, is I barely look at my traffic, even as Google continually rolls out algorithm updates.

I know that sounds contradictory because if you are an SEO, why wouldn’t you obsess about traffic, right?

Well, it’s because I’ve learned some hard lessons over the year… mainly because I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

So today, I wanted to share them with you so that you can learn from my mistakes… so here goes:

Lesson #1: Don’t obsess over rankings, obsess over conversions

I used to check my rankings every single day. Literally.

On top of that, I would log into Google Analytics 4 to 5 times a day and continually check my traffic.

That’s all I cared about back in the day… boosting my organic traffic.

But here is the thing: As my rankings and traffic went up over the years, my revenue didn’t go up proportionally.

For example, during one quarter in 2017, my SEO traffic went up 39.52%, but my revenue from SEO went up only 4.29%.

I quickly learned that traffic isn’t everything. If you can’t convert the traffic into revenue it doesn’t matter.

That taught me that you need to focus on the right keywords that drive conversions and continually optimize your site for conversions.

An easy first step for you to take is to install Crazy Egg and run a heatmap to see where people click so you adjust your design and copy to get more sales.

Lesson #2: The easiest way to grow your SEO traffic is international expansion

You already know that I get a lot of SEO traffic, but do you know what country drives most of my traffic?

If you guessed United States, you are wrong.

Brazil is my most popular region, followed by India.

International SEO is the easiest way to expand and grow your traffic. Here are a few posts that you should read before you expand your SEO globally:

How to create a global SEO strategy

Fundamentals of international SEO

How to correctly setup your site for international SEO

How to profitably expand your SEO globally

Lesson #3: Keywords are very, very, very, very important

When I used to write my content, I didn’t obsess about the keywords when I should have.

My team actually proved me wrong on this.

I used to focus on writing content for humans and didn’t worry about search engines. My team, on the other hand, obsesses about keywords.

Just look at the growth of our traffic in Brazil because of our obsession with the right keywords.

One simple thing I do before writing that has really helped is I head over to Ubersuggest and type in a few of the keywords that I want to go after.

Once it loads, you’ll see a report like the one above. I want you to then click on “Keyword Ideas” in the left-hand navigation.

You’ll see a report that contains a list of keywords that you could potentially be targeting.

Make sure you click on the “Related” tab, as well as “Questions” and “Comparisons” … scroll through the list. You’ll see hundreds of keywords. Pick all of the ones that are relevant and ideally have a high cost per click (CPC). These are the keywords that’ll not only drive traffic but revenue as well.

Whenever I write a blog post, I go through this step. Every single time.

Lesson #4: AMP pages can drive more SEO traffic

AMP pages load faster on mobile devices than non-AMP pages.

If you aren’t familiar with the AMP framework, read this.

What most people won’t tell you about AMP pages is that:

In regions like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, countries with decent Internet infrastructure, you won’t see much of an increase in traffic.

In regions with poor Internet infrastructure, like Brazil, you’ll see a 10 to 15% lift in mobile SEO traffic by having AMP pages.

AMP pages don’t convert visitors into customers as well as normal responsive web design. So, you’ll have to work on testing your AMP pages so you can boost your conversion rates.

Lesson #5: SEO will never convert as well as paid ads

When I started off with SEO, I would run projections on how much the traffic would make me.

But the numbers were always off, even if I was able to get the rankings.

Here’s the main reason: If you are bidding on terms like auto insurance through ads, you can drive people to a landing page that looks like this:

But if you want to rank organically, you’ll have to do it through content. So, your page that ranks well will look more like this and convert less…

It doesn’t mean SEO is bad. In reality, it’s much cheaper in the long run than paid ads and will produce a better ROI. But don’t just assume that if you get 100 visitors from paid ads and 3 purchases that you’ll have the same conversion rate with your SEO traffic.

Chances are it will be significantly lower by maybe 2 or 3x, but because SEO is cheaper, it will be much more profitable.

Lesson #6: Remarketing is one of the best ways to generate an ROI from SEO

If you get a ton of traffic from SEO, there is a simple strategy you can implement to boost your conversions.

Remarket everyone on Facebook, Google, and YouTube.

That way people come to your site, read your content, and build trust with you and your brand.

Then you remarket them throughout the web with ads that prompt your products or services and send them to a landing page that will drive sales.

I’ve been doing this for years, just look at my old remarketing ad…

For the regions I use remarketing in, it is responsible for 46% of my leads.

Lesson #7: Don’t forget to update your old content

I publish one new blog post a week. I’m working on increasing this as I get more time, but for now, it is one a week.

Can you guess how many blog posts I update on a daily basis? Technically it is 0 (me at least), but my team focuses on updating at least 3 old blog posts per day. That’s roughly 90 a month.

Once you have a few hundred pages, make sure you focus on updating your old content or else your traffic will quickly drop.

You can use this content decay tool to see which posts you should update first.

This will help you continually grow your SEO traffic instead of hitting plateaus or seeing your traffic take massive drops.

Lesson #8: Don’t forget to optimize your title tags

One of the easiest ways to grow your rankings is to optimize your title tags.

If you can write persuasive copy and get more clicks, you’ll quickly move up on Google.

In Brazil, we spend more time doing this than we do in the United States.

We get a similar amount of impressions in Brazil, but we have more people focusing on improving our title tags and testing. Hence, we get 95% more SEO traffic in Brazil.

If you want tips on boosting your clicks, check out this article.

Another simple hack is to use the “Content Ideas” report in Ubersuggest.

On the right side of that report, you can see social share counts from Facebook and Pinterest. And on the left side, you see titles of articles.

Typically, if people like a title they share it more. So, look for titles that have a lot of shares as it will give you ideas on what you can use on your website to get more clicks and boost your rankings.

Lesson #9: Don’t put dates in your URL

I used to put dates in my URLs like:

Neilpatel.com/2017/12/title-of-post/

This causes search engines to assume that your content is related to a specific date. And after that date gets old, search engines assume your content is irrelevant and outdated.

The moment I removed the date from my URLs, I grew my SEO traffic by 58% in 30 days.

If you have dates in your URL, make sure you 301 redirect your old URLs to your new ones once you make that change, or else your rankings will drop.

Lesson #10: Don’t be afraid to use popups

Don’t you hate popups? Well, who doesn’t?

But people use them because they work.

The majority of your pages that will rank are blog-related content. And blog posts tend to drive fewer direct conversions because people are on your site to read the content.

In order to maximize your conversions from SEO, you should consider using exit popups so you can convert more of those visitors into customers as they leave.

When you leave this site in most cases, you’ll see a popup that looks like:

And it drives you to this quiz, which allows me to convert SEO visitors into customers.

You can easily copy me by using Hello Bar. It works for all industries including B2B and ecommerce and even lead generation sites.

Lesson #11: Brand queries affect rankings

Everyone talks about how you need links to boost rankings.

But very few people talk about brand queries.

As Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of web spam both emphasized how brands are important.

One of the big reasons for my growth in SEO traffic is the growth in my brand. I’ve seen a direct correlation in which the more people who find me from my name, the more SEO traffic I get.

Just look at my brand growth over time:

I’ve received over 1.9 million visitors over the last 16 months from people typing in variations of my name in Google.

Lesson #12: Don’t waste your money on paid links

I’ve been doing SEO since I was 16 years old. That’s a long time…

When I started off as a kid, I dabbled in paid links and I used to dominate Google for terms like online casino, online poker, web hosting, auto insurance, and even credit cards.

And I was making a killing off of affiliate income from these sites.

But it was all short lived.

Why?

Because I bought links. And eventually Google penalized all of those sites.

If I never purchased links, those sites would have taken longer to rank, but they would have been around today, and I would have generated more income overall.

Don’t buy links, it’s bad and shortsighted.

Lesson #13: Guest post to build a brand, not to build links

I already covered the importance of branding above.

A great way to build your brand and indirectly boost your SEO traffic is through guest posting.

But don’t use guest posting to build links.

Most sites that offer guest posts, nofollow them (which they should), and Google is smart enough to know what a guest post is, hence they ignore guest post links from sites like Forbes.

It’s pretty easy to spot a guest post for both a human and algorithm…

But if you are using it to build a brand, great. Focus on the content quality and not links.

Lesson #14: Don’t forget to interlink

Do you know what some of my highest ranked pages are?

The ones that are interlinked.

It takes anywhere from 6 months to a year for many of the interlinks to kick in, but it is still effective none-the-less.

Every time I wrote content, I used to make sure I link out to my older pieces of content when it made sense. But I made a big mistake… I wasn’t going into my older pieces of content and then adding links to my newer pieces of content.

That one change was game-changing for me. It took time to see the results but it worked exceptionally well.

It’s how I rank high for terms like “email marketing”.

Lesson #15: Google isn’t the only game in town

Although Google is the most popular search engine, it isn’t the only one you need to focus on.

Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine?

Even Bing gets a lot of traffic.

If you want to rank high on Bing, follow this.

Or if you prefer video, watch this:

As for YouTube, this guide will teach you YouTube SEO. It works really well, just look at my YouTube SEO traffic:

Over the last 28 days, I received 429,501 video views through YouTube SEO.

Lesson #16: Speed is everything

The faster your server and the more optimized your site, the more traffic you’ll get.

Years ago, my friend Otis added more servers to his site GoodReads.

Within a month, his SEO traffic went up over 20%.

Speed is part of Google’s algorithm, so optimize it for both web and mobile.

A quick way to see your site’s speed is to enter your URL here.

You’ll see a report that breaks down your mobile and desktop load times as well as what you can do to improve them.

Lesson #17: Quality over quantity

SEO used to be a game of quantity over quality.

That isn’t the case anymore. With over a billion blogs, Google has its fair share of sites to choose from.

Just look at About.com. Eventually they renamed it Dotdash and changed their strategy.

They took all of their About.com content and moved it over to 6 vertical based sites and deleted 900,000 pages of junk content.

This grew their traffic and revenue by a whopping 140%.

Focus on writing high-quality content. It’s why I blog less and try to make my content amazing.

Lesson #18: Tools are better than content marketing

I used to focus all of my energy on content marketing because it drove a lot of links and SEO traffic.

But over time, I realized that creating free tools builds more natural links than anything else I have ever tested.

Just look at Ubersuggest. I spent years creating it and look at how many links it has generated…

30,603 backlinks! That’s a lot of links.

If you don’t have the resources to build a custom tool like me, you can always start with buying a white label tool from Code Canyon for $10 or $20. They literally have tools for almost all industries.

Lesson #19: Don’t rely only on SEO

When I first got started in SEO, all I could think about was SEO.

To me, it was the best marketing channel out there because it allowed me to compete with large companies.

Even to this day, I still love SEO more than any other channel.

But it doesn’t stop me from leveraging other marketing channels.

See, years ago you could build a business off of one marketing channel.

Yelp was built through SEO. Dropbox through social media referrals. Facebook through email invites…

Those days don’t exist anymore. You can’t just build your traffic from one channel.

Although you should do SEO, you should also try paid ads, social media marketing, email marketing, push notifications, and anything else that comes out.

Diversify your traffic sources and don’t just rely solely on SEO.

Lesson #20: People love linking to data

Spending money and time to gather your own unique data is an easy way to build links.

Check out my posts on content marketing trends and social media trends.

I’ve added tons of unique data, stats, and charts to each of those posts.

The end result? Extra backlinks. ?

The content marketing trends post received 447 backlinks.

If you don’t have the time to gather custom data you can always find someone on Upwork to help you out.

Lesson #21: Don’t forget about Infographics

One of my favorite SEO strategies that still works well today is infographics.

I have tons of them on the NeilPatel.com blog.

I didn’t start off with infographics here… I used to do them on my old blog Quick Sprout and KISSmetrics.

Here’s an interesting stat for you when I used to crank out infographics on KISSmetrics.

Within a two-year period, from 2010 to 2012, 47 infographics generated 2,512,596 visitors and 41,142 backlinks from 3,741 unique domains. They also generated 41,359 tweets and 20,859 likes.

If you don’t have money to hire a designer, you can use Infogram or Canva to create one on your own.

Lesson #22: Google doesn’t penalize for duplicate content

You don’t want to post tons of duplicate content on your site as it’s not the best user experience, but keep in mind that Google doesn’t penalize you for duplication.

They may not just rank the duplicate content as well.

So, if you spend all of this time producing amazing, unique content, why not publish it FIRST on your own website.

Then after a few hours or days if you want to be safe, take that exact content and publish it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and anywhere else that will accept your content.

Literally, take all of the words and paste them onto those social channels.

It will get you extra awareness and branding. Plus, the content should already be indexed on your site, so Google knows it came from your first… and I doubt you care if the duplicated version on LinkedIn ranks. That’s still great branding.

In other words, don’t be afraid to repurpose your content even if it causes duplication.

Just look at this post, for example. I’m also repurposing it into a 4-part podcast series.

Lesson #23: Don’t recreate the wheel

I used to spend hours a week doing keyword research trying to figure out what new terms to rank for.

Eventually, I figured out an easier and better way to find new content topics and keywords to go after.

Go to Ubersuggest, type in your competitor’s domain name and hit search.

In the left-hand navigation click on Top Pages.

You’ll see a report that shows you all of the popular pages on your competition’s website. This will give you ideas for the type of pages you should create on your website.

Then I want you to click “View All” under Est. Visits (estimated visits). This will show you all of the keywords that drive traffic to that page.

You now have a list of topics and keywords for each topic to go after.

Lesson #24: Don’t pick a generic domain name

Remember how in Lesson 11 I talked about brand queries and how they helped rankings?

After I learned that, I decided to go buy exact match domain names where the domain name was the keyword.

That way I would get lots of brand queries without trying.

Well, there’s an issue… even if you rank high, what you’ll find is you will have a low click-through rate in most cases.

If you have a low click-through rate, it tells Google your brand isn’t strong and people don’t prefer it, which can hurt your ranking.

So instead of focusing on exact match domains, unless you have millions to spend on branding like Hotels.com, focus on building a memorable brand.

Pick something that is unique, easy to spell, and easy to remember.

Lesson #25: Learn from blackhat SEOs, but don’t go over to the dark side

Blackhat SEOs come up with some interesting data and experiments.

Many of them don’t work for long, but they are interesting none-the-less.

Although I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, I do recommend following them.

The easiest way you can learn from them is by reading Blackhat World.

People there share some interesting insights, especially every time there is a major Google algorithm update.

Again, I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, but following them may help you uncover “white hat” techniques that can increase your rankings. Not everything they do is bad… many of them use legitimate tactics as well.

Lesson #26: Short URLs rank better than long ones

My URLs used to be the title of my blog post.

For example, with this post I would have used this URL in the past…

Neilpatel.com/blog/30-lessons-after-30-million-seo-visitors/

Eventually I switched to short URLs.

Google just prefers them. And I’ve seen it firsthand. That’s why I use short ones now.

URLs at position #1 are on average 9.2 characters shorter than URLs that rank in position #10. So, keep them short.

Lesson #27: The power’s in the list

If you want your content to rank high on Google, you need more people to see it.

Whether it is from social shares, or from push notifications or email blasts… the more people that see your content, the more engagement it will get, and the more people that will link to it.

I used to do a ton of manual outreach every time I published a new blog post and I would email people asking them to link to me.

And it works, it’s just time consuming and a pain.

These days, I have a better strategy… send out an email blast every time I publish a new post.

I can now get anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 clicks per email I send out.

Now of course you won’t get that from day one as it took me years to build up my email list.

But you can start today by collecting emails. You can easily do that through Hello Bar.

And as your list grows, so will the clicks to your blog and the number of links you get, which in turn will increase your rankings.

Lesson #28: Don’t let your foot off the peddle

This was one of the hardest lessons I learned.

It’s exhausting to continually blog and do your own SEO. Sometimes you just want a break.

With my old blog, Quick Sprout, I used to publish 12 blog posts a month and I did that consistently for 3 years.

One day I decided that I wanted to stop for a month. So, I took a 30-day break.

Guess what happened to my traffic?

It tanked by 32%.

So, then I started blogging again. And guessed what happened to my traffic after I started blogging?

It didn’t come right back.

It took me 3 months to get back to where I was.

When things are working for you, don’t slow down. Keep pushing harder, even if you are exhausted. Because the moment you stop, you’ll drop, and it is a lot of work to get back to where you were.

Lesson #29: The best SEO advice comes from conferences

The best SEO advice I have ever learned over the years has come from conferences.

And no, I don’t mean by sitting in on the sessions, although you can learn from those too.

The best SEO secrets and advice I learned came from networking. When you go to these conferences, hundreds if not thousands of other SEOs are there. And when you go to the bar after hours and mingle with people, you’ll quickly pick stuff up.

You’ll be shocked at what people tell you. It’s how I learned a lot of the good tactics that I still use today.

Lesson #30: Never stop learning

This one may sound obvious but when things are going well, people get complacent.

Google makes on average 3,234 updates per year and that count has been increasing over time.

Just think about that for a bit… that’s roughly 9 algorithm updates per day.

Because they are changing so quickly, you won’t survive if you don’t stay up to date.

Yes, the ideal strategy is to do what’s best for your users or visitors as in the long run, Google wants to promote those sites, but it doesn’t mean that you can ignore the changes happening in the industry.

Read all of the SEO blogs out there, attend conferences as I mentioned above… experiment on test sites… push yourself to be better.

That drive of always improving and always wanting to learn more has helped me tremendously. It’s one of the reasons for my growth in rankings over the years.

Conclusion

There are a lot of lessons that you will learn as your rankings grow and as you spend more time on SEO.

But hopefully, you don’t have to waste time and go through the same mistakes I made. You don’t want to learn these lessons the hard way.

That’s why I decided to share them. I want to save you the time and help you achieve your traffic goals faster.

Which SEO lessons have you learned?

The post 30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-visitors/ via https://neilpatel.com

See the original post, 30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors that is shared from https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home/30-lessons-after-30-million-seo-visitors via https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home

[jjpocketbook]

30 Lessons After 30 Million SEO Visitors

As you can see from the screenshot above, I’ve driven 30 million visitors to my website from SEO.

Technically it’s more, but who’s counting.

What’s funny, though, is I barely look at my traffic, even as Google continually rolls out algorithm updates.

I know that sounds contradictory because if you are an SEO, why wouldn’t you obsess about traffic, right?

Well, it’s because I’ve learned some hard lessons over the year… mainly because I’ve made a lot of mistakes.

So today, I wanted to share them with you so that you can learn from my mistakes… so here goes:

Lesson #1: Don’t obsess over rankings, obsess over conversions

I used to check my rankings every single day. Literally.

On top of that, I would log into Google Analytics 4 to 5 times a day and continually check my traffic.

That’s all I cared about back in the day… boosting my organic traffic.

But here is the thing: As my rankings and traffic went up over the years, my revenue didn’t go up proportionally.

For example, during one quarter in 2017, my SEO traffic went up 39.52%, but my revenue from SEO went up only 4.29%.

I quickly learned that traffic isn’t everything. If you can’t convert the traffic into revenue it doesn’t matter.

That taught me that you need to focus on the right keywords that drive conversions and continually optimize your site for conversions.

An easy first step for you to take is to install Crazy Egg and run a heatmap to see where people click so you adjust your design and copy to get more sales.

Lesson #2: The easiest way to grow your SEO traffic is international expansion

You already know that I get a lot of SEO traffic, but do you know what country drives most of my traffic?

If you guessed United States, you are wrong.

Brazil is my most popular region, followed by India.

International SEO is the easiest way to expand and grow your traffic. Here are a few posts that you should read before you expand your SEO globally:

How to create a global SEO strategy

Fundamentals of international SEO

How to correctly setup your site for international SEO

How to profitably expand your SEO globally

Lesson #3: Keywords are very, very, very, very important

When I used to write my content, I didn’t obsess about the keywords when I should have.

My team actually proved me wrong on this.

I used to focus on writing content for humans and didn’t worry about search engines. My team, on the other hand, obsesses about keywords.

Just look at the growth of our traffic in Brazil because of our obsession with the right keywords.

One simple thing I do before writing that has really helped is I head over to Ubersuggest and type in a few of the keywords that I want to go after.

Once it loads, you’ll see a report like the one above. I want you to then click on “Keyword Ideas” in the left-hand navigation.

You’ll see a report that contains a list of keywords that you could potentially be targeting.

Make sure you click on the “Related” tab, as well as “Questions” and “Comparisons” … scroll through the list. You’ll see hundreds of keywords. Pick all of the ones that are relevant and ideally have a high cost per click (CPC). These are the keywords that’ll not only drive traffic but revenue as well.

Whenever I write a blog post, I go through this step. Every single time.

Lesson #4: AMP pages can drive more SEO traffic

AMP pages load faster on mobile devices than non-AMP pages.

If you aren’t familiar with the AMP framework, read this.

What most people won’t tell you about AMP pages is that:

In regions like the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, countries with decent Internet infrastructure, you won’t see much of an increase in traffic.

In regions with poor Internet infrastructure, like Brazil, you’ll see a 10 to 15% lift in mobile SEO traffic by having AMP pages.

AMP pages don’t convert visitors into customers as well as normal responsive web design. So, you’ll have to work on testing your AMP pages so you can boost your conversion rates.

Lesson #5: SEO will never convert as well as paid ads

When I started off with SEO, I would run projections on how much the traffic would make me.

But the numbers were always off, even if I was able to get the rankings.

Here’s the main reason: If you are bidding on terms like auto insurance through ads, you can drive people to a landing page that looks like this:

But if you want to rank organically, you’ll have to do it through content. So, your page that ranks well will look more like this and convert less…

It doesn’t mean SEO is bad. In reality, it’s much cheaper in the long run than paid ads and will produce a better ROI. But don’t just assume that if you get 100 visitors from paid ads and 3 purchases that you’ll have the same conversion rate with your SEO traffic.

Chances are it will be significantly lower by maybe 2 or 3x, but because SEO is cheaper, it will be much more profitable.

Lesson #6: Remarketing is one of the best ways to generate an ROI from SEO

If you get a ton of traffic from SEO, there is a simple strategy you can implement to boost your conversions.

Remarket everyone on Facebook, Google, and YouTube.

That way people come to your site, read your content, and build trust with you and your brand.

Then you remarket them throughout the web with ads that prompt your products or services and send them to a landing page that will drive sales.

I’ve been doing this for years, just look at my old remarketing ad…

For the regions I use remarketing in, it is responsible for 46% of my leads.

Lesson #7: Don’t forget to update your old content

I publish one new blog post a week. I’m working on increasing this as I get more time, but for now, it is one a week.

Can you guess how many blog posts I update on a daily basis? Technically it is 0 (me at least), but my team focuses on updating at least 3 old blog posts per day. That’s roughly 90 a month.

Once you have a few hundred pages, make sure you focus on updating your old content or else your traffic will quickly drop.

You can use this content decay tool to see which posts you should update first.

This will help you continually grow your SEO traffic instead of hitting plateaus or seeing your traffic take massive drops.

Lesson #8: Don’t forget to optimize your title tags

One of the easiest ways to grow your rankings is to optimize your title tags.

If you can write persuasive copy and get more clicks, you’ll quickly move up on Google.

In Brazil, we spend more time doing this than we do in the United States.

We get a similar amount of impressions in Brazil, but we have more people focusing on improving our title tags and testing. Hence, we get 95% more SEO traffic in Brazil.

If you want tips on boosting your clicks, check out this article.

Another simple hack is to use the “Content Ideas” report in Ubersuggest.

On the right side of that report, you can see social share counts from Facebook and Pinterest. And on the left side, you see titles of articles.

Typically, if people like a title they share it more. So, look for titles that have a lot of shares as it will give you ideas on what you can use on your website to get more clicks and boost your rankings.

Lesson #9: Don’t put dates in your URL

I used to put dates in my URLs like:

Neilpatel.com/2017/12/title-of-post/

This causes search engines to assume that your content is related to a specific date. And after that date gets old, search engines assume your content is irrelevant and outdated.

The moment I removed the date from my URLs, I grew my SEO traffic by 58% in 30 days.

If you have dates in your URL, make sure you 301 redirect your old URLs to your new ones once you make that change, or else your rankings will drop.

Lesson #10: Don’t be afraid to use popups

Don’t you hate popups? Well, who doesn’t?

But people use them because they work.

The majority of your pages that will rank are blog-related content. And blog posts tend to drive fewer direct conversions because people are on your site to read the content.

In order to maximize your conversions from SEO, you should consider using exit popups so you can convert more of those visitors into customers as they leave.

When you leave this site in most cases, you’ll see a popup that looks like:

And it drives you to this quiz, which allows me to convert SEO visitors into customers.

You can easily copy me by using Hello Bar. It works for all industries including B2B and ecommerce and even lead generation sites.

Lesson #11: Brand queries affect rankings

Everyone talks about how you need links to boost rankings.

But very few people talk about brand queries.

As Google’s ex-CEO and ex-head of web spam both emphasized how brands are important.

One of the big reasons for my growth in SEO traffic is the growth in my brand. I’ve seen a direct correlation in which the more people who find me from my name, the more SEO traffic I get.

Just look at my brand growth over time:

I’ve received over 1.9 million visitors over the last 16 months from people typing in variations of my name in Google.

Lesson #12: Don’t waste your money on paid links

I’ve been doing SEO since I was 16 years old. That’s a long time…

When I started off as a kid, I dabbled in paid links and I used to dominate Google for terms like online casino, online poker, web hosting, auto insurance, and even credit cards.

And I was making a killing off of affiliate income from these sites.

But it was all short lived.

Why?

Because I bought links. And eventually Google penalized all of those sites.

If I never purchased links, those sites would have taken longer to rank, but they would have been around today, and I would have generated more income overall.

Don’t buy links, it’s bad and shortsighted.

Lesson #13: Guest post to build a brand, not to build links

I already covered the importance of branding above.

A great way to build your brand and indirectly boost your SEO traffic is through guest posting.

But don’t use guest posting to build links.

Most sites that offer guest posts, nofollow them (which they should), and Google is smart enough to know what a guest post is, hence they ignore guest post links from sites like Forbes.

It’s pretty easy to spot a guest post for both a human and algorithm…

But if you are using it to build a brand, great. Focus on the content quality and not links.

Lesson #14: Don’t forget to interlink

Do you know what some of my highest ranked pages are?

The ones that are interlinked.

It takes anywhere from 6 months to a year for many of the interlinks to kick in, but it is still effective none-the-less.

Every time I wrote content, I used to make sure I link out to my older pieces of content when it made sense. But I made a big mistake… I wasn’t going into my older pieces of content and then adding links to my newer pieces of content.

That one change was game-changing for me. It took time to see the results but it worked exceptionally well.

It’s how I rank high for terms like “email marketing”.

Lesson #15: Google isn’t the only game in town

Although Google is the most popular search engine, it isn’t the only one you need to focus on.

Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine?

Even Bing gets a lot of traffic.

If you want to rank high on Bing, follow this.

Or if you prefer video, watch this:

As for YouTube, this guide will teach you YouTube SEO. It works really well, just look at my YouTube SEO traffic:

Over the last 28 days, I received 429,501 video views through YouTube SEO.

Lesson #16: Speed is everything

The faster your server and the more optimized your site, the more traffic you’ll get.

Years ago, my friend Otis added more servers to his site GoodReads.

Within a month, his SEO traffic went up over 20%.

Speed is part of Google’s algorithm, so optimize it for both web and mobile.

A quick way to see your site’s speed is to enter your URL here.

You’ll see a report that breaks down your mobile and desktop load times as well as what you can do to improve them.

Lesson #17: Quality over quantity

SEO used to be a game of quantity over quality.

That isn’t the case anymore. With over a billion blogs, Google has its fair share of sites to choose from.

Just look at About.com. Eventually they renamed it Dotdash and changed their strategy.

They took all of their About.com content and moved it over to 6 vertical based sites and deleted 900,000 pages of junk content.

This grew their traffic and revenue by a whopping 140%.

Focus on writing high-quality content. It’s why I blog less and try to make my content amazing.

Lesson #18: Tools are better than content marketing

I used to focus all of my energy on content marketing because it drove a lot of links and SEO traffic.

But over time, I realized that creating free tools builds more natural links than anything else I have ever tested.

Just look at Ubersuggest. I spent years creating it and look at how many links it has generated…

30,603 backlinks! That’s a lot of links.

If you don’t have the resources to build a custom tool like me, you can always start with buying a white label tool from Code Canyon for $10 or $20. They literally have tools for almost all industries.

Lesson #19: Don’t rely only on SEO

When I first got started in SEO, all I could think about was SEO.

To me, it was the best marketing channel out there because it allowed me to compete with large companies.

Even to this day, I still love SEO more than any other channel.

But it doesn’t stop me from leveraging other marketing channels.

See, years ago you could build a business off of one marketing channel.

Yelp was built through SEO. Dropbox through social media referrals. Facebook through email invites…

Those days don’t exist anymore. You can’t just build your traffic from one channel.

Although you should do SEO, you should also try paid ads, social media marketing, email marketing, push notifications, and anything else that comes out.

Diversify your traffic sources and don’t just rely solely on SEO.

Lesson #20: People love linking to data

Spending money and time to gather your own unique data is an easy way to build links.

Check out my posts on content marketing trends and social media trends.

I’ve added tons of unique data, stats, and charts to each of those posts.

The end result? Extra backlinks.

The content marketing trends post received 447 backlinks.

If you don’t have the time to gather custom data you can always find someone on Upwork to help you out.

Lesson #21: Don’t forget about Infographics

One of my favorite SEO strategies that still works well today is infographics.

I have tons of them on the NeilPatel.com blog.

I didn’t start off with infographics here… I used to do them on my old blog Quick Sprout and KISSmetrics.

Here’s an interesting stat for you when I used to crank out infographics on KISSmetrics.

Within a two-year period, from 2010 to 2012, 47 infographics generated 2,512,596 visitors and 41,142 backlinks from 3,741 unique domains. They also generated 41,359 tweets and 20,859 likes.

If you don’t have money to hire a designer, you can use Infogram or Canva to create one on your own.

Lesson #22: Google doesn’t penalize for duplicate content

You don’t want to post tons of duplicate content on your site as it’s not the best user experience, but keep in mind that Google doesn’t penalize you for duplication.

They may not just rank the duplicate content as well.

So, if you spend all of this time producing amazing, unique content, why not publish it FIRST on your own website.

Then after a few hours or days if you want to be safe, take that exact content and publish it on Facebook, LinkedIn, and anywhere else that will accept your content.

Literally, take all of the words and paste them onto those social channels.

It will get you extra awareness and branding. Plus, the content should already be indexed on your site, so Google knows it came from your first… and I doubt you care if the duplicated version on LinkedIn ranks. That’s still great branding.

In other words, don’t be afraid to repurpose your content even if it causes duplication.

Just look at this post, for example. I’m also repurposing it into a 4-part podcast series.

Lesson #23: Don’t recreate the wheel

I used to spend hours a week doing keyword research trying to figure out what new terms to rank for.

Eventually, I figured out an easier and better way to find new content topics and keywords to go after.

Go to Ubersuggest, type in your competitor’s domain name and hit search.

In the left-hand navigation click on Top Pages.

You’ll see a report that shows you all of the popular pages on your competition’s website. This will give you ideas for the type of pages you should create on your website.

Then I want you to click “View All” under Est. Visits (estimated visits). This will show you all of the keywords that drive traffic to that page.

You now have a list of topics and keywords for each topic to go after.

Lesson #24: Don’t pick a generic domain name

Remember how in Lesson 11 I talked about brand queries and how they helped rankings?

After I learned that, I decided to go buy exact match domain names where the domain name was the keyword.

That way I would get lots of brand queries without trying.

Well, there’s an issue… even if you rank high, what you’ll find is you will have a low click-through rate in most cases.

If you have a low click-through rate, it tells Google your brand isn’t strong and people don’t prefer it, which can hurt your ranking.

So instead of focusing on exact match domains, unless you have millions to spend on branding like Hotels.com, focus on building a memorable brand.

Pick something that is unique, easy to spell, and easy to remember.

Lesson #25: Learn from blackhat SEOs, but don’t go over to the dark side

Blackhat SEOs come up with some interesting data and experiments.

Many of them don’t work for long, but they are interesting none-the-less.

Although I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, I do recommend following them.

The easiest way you can learn from them is by reading Blackhat World.

People there share some interesting insights, especially every time there is a major Google algorithm update.

Again, I don’t recommend practicing blackhat SEO, but following them may help you uncover “white hat” techniques that can increase your rankings. Not everything they do is bad… many of them use legitimate tactics as well.

Lesson #26: Short URLs rank better than long ones

My URLs used to be the title of my blog post.

For example, with this post I would have used this URL in the past…

Neilpatel.com/blog/30-lessons-after-30-million-seo-visitors/

Eventually I switched to short URLs.

Google just prefers them. And I’ve seen it firsthand. That’s why I use short ones now.

URLs at position #1 are on average 9.2 characters shorter than URLs that rank in position #10. So, keep them short.

Lesson #27: The power’s in the list

If you want your content to rank high on Google, you need more people to see it.

Whether it is from social shares, or from push notifications or email blasts… the more people that see your content, the more engagement it will get, and the more people that will link to it.

I used to do a ton of manual outreach every time I published a new blog post and I would email people asking them to link to me.

And it works, it’s just time consuming and a pain.

These days, I have a better strategy… send out an email blast every time I publish a new post.

I can now get anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 clicks per email I send out.

Now of course you won’t get that from day one as it took me years to build up my email list.

But you can start today by collecting emails. You can easily do that through Hello Bar.

And as your list grows, so will the clicks to your blog and the number of links you get, which in turn will increase your rankings.

Lesson #28: Don’t let your foot off the peddle

This was one of the hardest lessons I learned.

It’s exhausting to continually blog and do your own SEO. Sometimes you just want a break.

With my old blog, Quick Sprout, I used to publish 12 blog posts a month and I did that consistently for 3 years.

One day I decided that I wanted to stop for a month. So, I took a 30-day break.

Guess what happened to my traffic?

It tanked by 32%.

So, then I started blogging again. And guessed what happened to my traffic after I started blogging?

It didn’t come right back.

It took me 3 months to get back to where I was.

When things are working for you, don’t slow down. Keep pushing harder, even if you are exhausted. Because the moment you stop, you’ll drop, and it is a lot of work to get back to where you were.

Lesson #29: The best SEO advice comes from conferences

The best SEO advice I have ever learned over the years has come from conferences.

And no, I don’t mean by sitting in on the sessions, although you can learn from those too.

The best SEO secrets and advice I learned came from networking. When you go to these conferences, hundreds if not thousands of other SEOs are there. And when you go to the bar after hours and mingle with people, you’ll quickly pick stuff up.

You’ll be shocked at what people tell you. It’s how I learned a lot of the good tactics that I still use today.

Lesson #30: Never stop learning

This one may sound obvious but when things are going well, people get complacent.

Google makes on average 3,234 updates per year and that count has been increasing over time.

Just think about that for a bit… that’s roughly 9 algorithm updates per day.

Because they are changing so quickly, you won’t survive if you don’t stay up to date.

Yes, the ideal strategy is to do what’s best for your users or visitors as in the long run, Google wants to promote those sites, but it doesn’t mean that you can ignore the changes happening in the industry.

Read all of the SEO blogs out there, attend conferences as I mentioned above… experiment on test sites… push yourself to be better.

That drive of always improving and always wanting to learn more has helped me tremendously. It’s one of the reasons for my growth in rankings over the years.

Conclusion

There are a lot of lessons that you will learn as your rankings grow and as you spend more time on SEO.

But hopefully, you don’t have to waste time and go through the same mistakes I made. You don’t want to learn these lessons the hard way.

That’s why I decided to share them. I want to save you the time and help you achieve your traffic goals faster.

Which SEO lessons have you learned?

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