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wordofyourbroadway · 1 year

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Interview with the Creators of ‘Dusk : A Bite-Size Love Story’

(AKA... the Twilight Musical)

While surfing Tiktok last month, I stumbled upon a video, promoting a new comedic musical theatre parody of Stephenie Meyer’s famed “Twilight” franchise.

Originally released in 2005, Meyer’s iconic tetralogy of love and action, (and hot werewolf/vampire romantic interests), has been a subject of polarity. Some argue it is a masterpiece that turned them into readers, or got them into the fantasy genre, meanwhile others find it simply hilarious, and love to meme-ify it.

This new musical I discovered, seems to cover the story of Twilight in a way that pleases both sides. Not only is it hilarious and very aware of the silly aspects of the story, it is also clearly full of heart and it is visible that a lot of care and passion went into the creation process.

In March 2023, I posted one of my weekly “Word of Your Broadway” (my musical-theatre centered podcast) episodes, and funnily enough, I mentioned that I would love to see Twilight be turned into a comedic musical, similar to what “Starkid” did, with their infamous “A Very Potter” Musical.

So naturally, when I discovered “Dusk”, I took it as a sign, and I asked them if they would be interested in a written interview, which I can use to launch this blog, and they very kindly accepted!

See below for the Q’s, which were answered by director and writer, Morgan Kennedy (@Mo.Ea.Kennedy), and music composer, Daniel Ruffing (@DanielRuffing)...

1. Morgan, you said in an interview with ErieNewsNow, that ‘Dusk’ is your debut show. What would you say was the biggest lesson you learned during this process as a beginner?

MORGAN: “This entire process has been brand new to me! Every aspect of my life has been chaotically altered by this project. Despite a near 20-year involvement in musical theatre and even longer relationship with story-telling, nothing could have adequately prepared me for the last year-worth of synchronistic pandemonium Dusk has inspired. I hadn’t written for the stage before, so the most practical lesson I’ve learned has probably been standard formatting for musical theatre. The first draft looked like an average script, but the margins and stage directions (I’ve since learned) were a nightmare. This wasn’t initially of consequence, but it’s something I try to stay on top of now (I’m still learning). Dusk began with such impure intentions; I made a joke about writing a jukebox parody musical of Twilight to the director of another project I was working on last April, and she enabled the idea by saying “If you write it, we’ll do it.” Calling her bluff, I promised to have a script ready later that week, not ever intending to actually write one. To my surprise, however, I was struck with inspiration later that same evening and had a first draft together within four hours. That draft read more like a manic satirical retelling of Twilight than the loving critique it has become, and absolutely no effort was put into proper formatting or grammar. Spell check single-handedly made the document legible. My goal in completing it was truthfully just to follow through on the joke. I did not anticipate the excitement it caused or the initial iteration being so well-received. That was the point where I realized we had an opportunity to take the project seriously and that I should probably start learning how to ‘become a playwright.’ On a less practical note, the biggest lesson I’ve learned as a beginner playwright is the amount of collaboration and communication that goes into writing for theatre. It differs greatly, in my experience, from other forms of writing, which tend to be solo endeavors. For a musical, especially, so much goes into the development process that I now believe a strong team is absolutely crucial to your survival, haha. You need to be able to rely on people. This type of work necessitates a lot of trust and vulnerability, which can be overwhelming. I’ve had to navigate a number of personal lessons in that regard while developing Dusk, but I can gratefully say I’ve grown significantly as a result. I’m so thankful for my team; I couldn’t ask for better people to be spending all my time with. It is definitely a unique and intense sort of working relationship, though.”

2. Daniel, As the music composer of the show, do you think it was MORE challenging to compose a musical cast album for a franchise that already has such an iconic soundtrack, as opposed to an original piece, or was it easier because there was more inspiration to work off of?

DANIEL: “I actually found this to be one of the easiest projects in my music composition career! I really love creating musical nods and references in my previous works, so writing this musical involved a lot of that kind of thing. There’s definitely more inspiration to work off of, and it always provides a decent baseline to follow so that you, for example, aren’t making songs too “showtune-y.” One of my favorite writing exercises is to take one or two bars from a song and try to come up with my own song that transforms those bars into something original, and that’s a lot of what we did for this musical, especially with the help of George Meucci, who came up with samples for a few of the songs”

3. Your social media presence is very strong and you make awesome Tiktok videos that keep up with trends and draw in a large audience. How important of a role do you believe social media plays for musicals nowadays in relation to their success?

DANIEL: “It is crucial- so many musicals have had their success start on apps like TikTok, and the same is true for Dusk! With Dusk especially, our target audiences are younger than average theatregoers, so using social media has been integral to getting the musical seen and heard.

MORGAN: Dan is absolutely right! Social media plays a critical role in the growth of almost all concepts and stories these days, and Dusk is no exception. Where our situation differs slightly is that Dusk, as a parody, is a derivative work, which offers somewhat of a built-in fanbase. Twilight had such a global impact that the only way for us to feasibly reach a fragment of our intended audience is by using apps like TikTok and Instagram in hopes that the platforms’ algorithms direct our content to those who want to see it. As a bonus, these platforms allow us to connect directly with viewers of our content, and it’s been a lot of fun getting to interact with everybody commenting and leaving questions! It definitely feels like a special community to be a part of!”

4. I know there have been hints about a proshot being released soon, but personally I’m stoked for a potential cast album--any chance we will be getting one soon?

DANIEL: “There absolutely will be a cast album! We are just in the process of mixing and mastering all of the tracks, so hopefully, we have more information soon, but it will be available on all music streaming platforms!”

5. What are your hopes for the future of this musical?

DANIEL: “We are happy to announce that Dusk has been accepted to Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August, so a lot of our future will be dependent on that, but we’d love to do more performances around the world!”

MORGAN: “Along with bringing the show to more cities (more countries?), our team has talked about future hopes to license the Dusk. Personally, I’d love to see how a variety of creative visions and venue capabilities could impact the design and story-telling of the show. Especially because the inspiring-material is something so many people hold opinions on and feel an attachment towards. I have a suspicion that each company’s production would end up playing like a unique love letter, drawing attention to specific details overlooked by other teams who may be more attached to different elements of the story. I find that idea sweet and rather unprecedented for a parody piece.”

6. I noticed a lot of similarities between one of my favorite comedy musical groups, “Starkid”, and your show. I was wondering if they were an inspiration, and if not, who were some of your biggest inspirations during the process of creating this show?

MORGAN: “I’m embarrassed to admit how little familiarity I have with Starkid. I knew the group existed, but I didn’t know the type of work they produced until I started seeing comments comparing the style of our material to theirs online. What I’ve since seen of their work I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, though! I’ll definitely be checking out more! My primary inspiration to write the show stemmed from a silly critical analysis of Twilight I began building when I was 11. I was a fan of the books and movies as they were coming out, but I did not enjoy the first book in the same way my peers seemed to the first time I read it. I didn’t find myself relating to Bella or investing much into the relationship at all–I actually developed a vendetta against boyfriends who secretly did anything; especially when it involved sneaking through windows–but I was absolutely enchanted by Stephenie Meyer’s subtle worldbuilding. There is an undeniable coziness in her depiction of Forks that made it easy, at 11, to overlook any themes, plotlines, or characters that weren’t made for me. I didn’t become more invested in the story until I read New Moon the following year, which further inspired my critique of the series, but also quickly became a comfort read. It was the first book I encountered that explored themes of mental health–albeit, irresponsibly–which got my attention and encouraged me to read the rest of the series with a more focused critical eye. Going forward, I found myself balancing the themes and tones illustrated in the books against those of the films and landing in a place where I thoroughly enjoyed mocking the characters and their decision-making while also psychoanalyzing them and knowing exactly where those choices came from. And with immortal characters, the depths you can go to with a game like that are endless. Though I believe there’s a lot to be said about some of the unhealthy themes, irresponsible characterization, and marginalizing lore seen in the Twilight Saga, I’ll defend that Stephenie Meyer delivered a captivating story with heart and elements of truth that made an impact. I definitely relied heavily on details from the books when writing Dusk, but the movies and (hilarious) memes were also sources of inspiration. I would say that the plot of the musical was inspired by the books and the tone was inspired by the movies and online discourse. The characters are a happy blend of all three. The show’s development was quite expedited, as far as projects of this sort are concerned, so I didn’t have the time to consider ideas drawn from outside sources when creating the draft used for the workshop performance, which is the version people have been seeing clips from on social media. We are, once again, in the revision process, though, and this time I find myself wanting to incorporate elements of storytelling that aren’t explored in-depth within the Twilight universe but seem to exist in that world. I’m very interested in the dynamics amongst the supporting characters, for example. In that regard, I have been most inspired by Psychology journals, a few other book series’, and—oddly enough—Les Mis?”

7. If you could give any other popular movie or book franchise the “Dusk” treatment, which one would you choose?

DANIEL: “I know this sounds weird, but I’ve thought Interstellar would be an interesting challenge for a musical. Maybe not a parody, but I’ve had tons of ideas for songs, and I think it would be an amazing spectacle on stage. If I’m going the parody route, however, I’d have to say The Lord of the Rings franchise!”

MORGAN: “I have agonized over this question! Haha, this one is so hard! I don’t know! At this point in my ‘career,’ I just want to create the things I wish existed. I’m a huge reader, so I love the thought of focusing on book-to-musical adaptations. That evolution makes a lot of sense to me. I read anything now and imagine the staging, or where songs would fit within chapters, how I would choreograph them, the lyrics I’d use, etc. The dream would be to work with authors, helping them to adapt their works into musical productions while I continue writing my own stories. I know that I’m absolutely DYING to write fantasy for the stage, so I would probably choose to parody something in that genre. I’m not sure where I stand on this idea as a parody, but lately I’ve been making jokes about a musical adaptation of stories from the Sarah J. Maas Universe because I can see that entire show so clearly. The music would be stunning, and the visuals would be breathtaking, the combat: badass, and the banter? So indulgent. That being said, there aren’t plans for any more parodies at the moment. We’re working on developing a few original concepts next. We have some beautiful stories in the works!

(PSA: Despite our current plans, I’d rearrange my whole life several more times to work on an epic book-to-musical adaptation. Authors, hit us up! Haha.)”

----

EXTRA RESOURCES:

{ please check out my audio podcast, “Word of Your Broadway” on Spotify! }

{ Click here for the GoFundMe, to help Dusk out on their journey to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival }

SOCIALS FOR “DUSK”:

Twitter (@DuskMusical)

Instagram: (@Dusk_Musical)

Tiktok: (@Dusk_Musical)

Thank you all for reading, and thank you endlessly to Morgan and Daniel for participating! - Chloe Grace

My Twitter: (@WordOfYourBway)

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fitness-register · 2 years

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Top 6 Benefits Of Foam Rolling: Expert Fitness Advice

Foam rollers are hype in gyms and you must have witnessed people rolling about on a foam roller in a fitness centre. Have you ever thought about what the benefits of foam rolling are? Why do people invest significant time on foam rolling both pre and post-workout?

After reading this blog, you will understand the effectiveness of foam rolling. Navigate the fitness specialist business directory in the UK to schedule an appointment with a fitness expert to acquire additional information on foam rolling.

Understanding a foam roller

Foam rolling is also referred to as self-myofascial release (SMR). People experiencing muscle tightness are recommended foam rolling by fitness specialists along with other definite exercises to get rid of muscle fatigue and muscle soreness, as well as improving posture and blood flow.

Types of a foam roller

Your fitness specialist will recommend you a denser foam roller if you are highly experienced in foam rolling and sports massage. Foam rollers are mainly of two types- smooth foam rollers and textured foam rollers

Smooth foam roller: It offers consistent pressure on the body. It generates a less intense massage and thus, is recommended to beginners. If you are experiencing a lower level of tightness or looking for an all-around massage, opt for a smooth foam roller.

Textured foam roller: A textured foam roller targets specific areas of your muscles. If you want to eradicate a knot in your muscle, go for this foam roller. The massage is more intense than a smooth foam roller.

Top benefits of foam rolling

Foam rollers help in down-regulating your nervous system and thus, help in quick recovery of the body. The top benefits of foam rolling are mainly:

Decreases muscle soreness

When you work out, your muscles are torn down. Any workout such as cycling, running, swimming, or resistance training triggers muscle fatigue, which further leads to muscle soreness. Soreness highlights that you have been training hard to push your physical strength to the next level. However, you need to recover from such muscle sores sooner. Foam rolling decreases muscle soreness. To prevent muscle fatigue, carry out at least 5 minutes of foam rolling both pre and post-workout.

Decreases cellulite

Cellulite is a nightmare for the majority of women around the world. Foam rolling helps in mobilising fat cells if amalgamated with the right training session and calorie deficit diet. For instance, 5 minutes of pre-workout foam rolling will mobilise the hamstrings, glutes and other areas where cellulite is present.

Cost-effective than sports massage

Foam rolling is cheaper than sports massage or therapy. If you don't work out every day, you are likely to get fatigued and stressed when you indulge in physical activity. You may have to take a week off to visit a sports therapist to repair the damage stimulated by training. In the UK, sports massage costs approximately £29- £79. Thus, foam rolling can be beneficial in wiping out muscle fatigue. You can contact a fitness specialist from the business directory in the UK to get detailed tips on the dos and don'ts of foam rolling.

Enhances posture

Are you suffering from poor posture and rounded shoulders? Foam rolling is the best solution to correct your posture. Foam rolling can loosen off the tight muscles which lead to poor posture. Consult a fitness specialist near you to obtain foam rolling tips adhered to specific exercises to strengthen weak muscles of your shoulders and back.

Increases blood flow

To increase blood flow in the body, fitness experts recommend at least 30 minutes of foam rolling. An improved blood flow can enhance your warm-up session, thereby, facilitating rapid recovery of the body. Foam rolling before workout decreases the chance of injury, while post-workout stimulates speedy recovery of the muscles by eliminating metabolic waste from the body.

Improves flexibility

Foam rolling increases long-term flexibility. A regular stretching routine associated with foam rolling helps in improving flexibility in the long run.

Conclusion

Foam rolling helps you in getting rid of muscle tightness or knots in muscles. Consult a fitness expert today from the fitness specialist business directory in the UK to obtain adequate information on practising foam rolling correctly and securely.

#foam rolling #benefits #fitness advice #uk #fitness register UK #fitness specialist #online directory

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petroltogo · 4 years

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full disclosure, this got complete out of control (you’ll see that below the cut) and for those who prefer to read longer texts elsewhere I also posted the full story on AO3. @hopeswriting I hope you like it!

So Hana takes a step back. She let the stress of being field-active, of having to cover for Sawada and keeping their squad upright run her down and never once took a moment to breathe and think. It worked, for a time, but it can’t work forever. Hana won’t be around forever to pick up Mochida’s slack when he’s hesitating, to push Sawada down when he gets ideas about helping, to shoot down Miura’s more crazed ideas that she makes sound horrifyingly reasonable.

In other words, she needs to start working on a solution instead of being the solution. Which means approach the problem in a new way.

Since Vongola Inc.’s bureaucracy is as nightmare-inducing as Hana expected it to be, getting another member assigned to their squad is a spectacular failure. [Hana cannot believe the bullheadedness of people who have never even seen a gun in real life but somehow think they can tell her what she does and doesn’t need in a fight.] Unsurprising but it was worth a try.

Which brings Hana to Plan B: Get Sawada off the squad. He’s spent the past two and a half months flapping around on the field like a fish who’s jumped out of an aquarium only to realize that he does, indeed, need water to survive. He’s panicked and cried and thrown up [in Sawada’s defense, they all have, but unlike Sawada they usually manage to control themselves until after the crisis is over] — in short, he’s had his fun.

It’s time to end this.

[continues under the cut]

Since the last time Hana tried to hammer a rational thought into Sawada’s brain, she’s payed attention and realized that Sawada won’t ever get off his ass and do something to improve his life if the only thing to be gained is more happiness and less lethal danger for himself. Which, frankly, is a thought that boggles her mind but alright.

If Sawada refuses to make decent life choices, Hana will make one for him. She doesn’t usually meddle like this, this is 100% Kyouko’s bad influence on her, but Hana has spent too many months keeping this idiot alive. He’s not gonna die on her now.

So Hana files the transfer papers for Sawada.

She does it properly too. Researches Sawada’s high school grades — which range from passable to terrible, how did he make it into the Vongola Inc. attack squad training in the first place? — and interests — of which there are barely any, seriously, does this guy not have a life? — and pays attention to Sawada in action. Most of the time that’s like watching an avalanche come down on top of you in slow motion, but there are parts of their work where Sawada doesn't hold them back. Even — dare she say it — makes himself useful. Like the whole talking to witnesses and calming survivors down part. Especially when there are children. Sawada is awkward and too sensitive and gets too restless around the adults, but with children he’s actually— Not bad.

Based on those same observations, Hana fills out the appropriate forms to get Sawada transferred to Human Resources. Sawada will be fine there. Maybe even do well. Not that he could do any worse than an attack squad but whatever.

The request is denied.

Transfer requests out of attack squads aren’t denied. No one wants a well-armed operative who doesn’t feel stable and confident that they can handle their job running around.

At this point Hana has repeated the phrase so often, the words have lost all meaning, but in the face of such a monumental, senseless idiocy it bears repeating: What the fuck, Vongola.

Practice doesn’t make perfect but it does make better.

A week passes and then another one. With every successful and unsuccessful mission that they survive together, they get better. Their teamwork improves, their instincts sharpen, they learn to play off each other. They learn to navigate around Sawada. And even Sawada does improve.

He doesn’t panic as much or as obviously anymore. He’s getting better at not getting in the way. He’s getting decent at hand-to-hand combat, even if he sucks at applying those same skills in an actual battle. Hana still isn’t happy to have him at her back, but she can trust him not to bowl her over from behind anymore. And besides they all do their best to keep him out of the actual fights whenever possible. It’s progress.

Not enough but it is what it is.

In the end. It’s not unexpected. It’s the opposite of unexpected and even that doesn’t seem a strong enough word for it. Because Hana is a planner at heart. She’s imagined this very outcome too often to be slowed down by shock or surprise now that it's actually happening.

[Numbers don’t lie. They can’t show the truth but they reflect trends and probabilities and just because every human being thinks they are the exception doesn’t make it true. Numbers don’t work that way and exceptions mean there’s a majority there whose story is told in those very same statistics.]

Hana knows what it means to walk into a battle with a squad member that can’t handle themselves by her side. She’s gone over the dangers too many times to count at this point, both inside her head and out loud. They all have. They’ve been doing this job for four months and by some miracle they’ve been managing, but beginner’s luck only holds out for so long.

It’s a bad mission.

Not their first one. They’ve already had close calls — too many of those — have gotten injured, hell, Sawada has even gotten himself kidnapped once. None of that knowledge helps prepare them for another once though. None of those past terrors make it any easier to remain calm and level-headed in the heat of the moment.

Most importantly none of it prepares Hana for a super who can control electricity. Whose powers apparently aren’t stopped by their uniforms, going by the charred body of what used to be one of her squad member that's lying crumbled on the other side of the room. [What does it say about her, about this squad that Hana’s first hysterical thought when she watched Nakamura go down screaming is 'At least it wasn’t Sawada’s fault.'?]

Communications are down, she’s cut off from possible reinforcements, trapped somewhere in the lower levels of the building. She doesn’t have any smoke bombs left, doesn't have a paralyzer, doesn’t have an exit and her only backup now that Nakamura is dead is Sawada. Sawada who is cowering in the corner furthest away from her and Nakamura's body, back pressed so hard against the wall he’ll have bruises if he survives this, wild, panicked eyes fixated on the crazed super who’s staring at him like Sawada is the fucking North star.

Or his next meal, going by Sawada’s luck.

Hana’s drawn her gun like Sawada should’ve because he’s armed, Hana knows he’s armed. She can see the gun from across the room. And Sawada isn’t fucking drawing it.

"Stay back!" she calls out towards the super who's glazed eyes remain fixed on Sawada. "Or I’ll shoot!"

Sawada still isn’t moving. The lightning guy is moving slowly, a demented grin on his lips, blood caking the left half of his face. And Sawada isn’t fucking moving. Not to defend himself. Not to run over and seek cover behind Hana, where she could fucking reach and protect him.

"Why are you so surprised?" Hana can almost hear Kyouko’s voice ask her, curiously puzzled. "You always knew he would be a liability."

Hana fires a warning bullet, half hoping the insane super will miraculously flinch back and let himself be arrested, half praying it will shake some sense into Sawada. Both is too much to ask and when lightening guy takes another step, Hana knows she’s out of time.

He’s too close to Sawada. All he needed to burn Nakamura alive was one touch. [The room is still echoing with his screams. Or is that only in her head?]

Hana doesn't kid herself: She's known how this story would end from the start.

She shoots.

[As the daughter of a lawyer and a librarian who fell in love over their shared passion for justice in a society that sorely lacked it, Hana didn’t grow up with the system-friendly propaganda her classmates were fed every day. She grew up with heated arguments over human rights over the dinner table, with long-winded discussions about the failures of the system and where and how to best address them.

Hana didn’t grow up glorifying supervillain deaths and she never, ever wanted to take a life. There is a reason why Hana planned to stay no longer than six months with her squad and it’s a simple one: Hana never wanted to become a killer.

But who does?]

Kurokawa Hana has been an active Vongola Inc. operative on an attack squad for four months, three weeks and six days when she kills René Moretti during a sanctioned mission with a clean headshot.

The official investigation is an open and shut case.

A month after the incident and three weeks into her mandatory therapy, Kurokawa Hana is cleared for the field once more.

Mandatory therapy is a joke. Hana isn’t going to let a therapist on Vongola Inc.’s payroll get into her head and brainwash her into believing killing isn’t a problem as long as it is for the organization’s gain, thank you very much.

[That’s not quite what the woman said but Hana can read between the lines and even if she couldn’t, she doesn’t trust Vongola. How could she, at this point?]

But Hana is smart and resourceful and has supportive parents who get in touch with some old friends and give her the contact of a psychologist that at least won’t have divided loyalties from the get go. So Hana goes and hopes it’ll help.

In the meantime, she pretends Sawada doesn’t exist.

[He doesn’t thank her. The one time he approaches her, he stutters out an apology of all things as though that would somehow erase the brain splatters Hana can still see behind her closed eyelids. She doesn’t snap and she doesn’t kick him out of a window because Hana is better than that.

She grits her teeth and turns on her heels and locks herself into the bathroom and smashes the mirror until her knuckles are bloody and there are glass shards sticking out of her skin and the screams inside her head finally shut up because Hana is a murderer and nothing anyone does will ever erase that.

The worst part of it is that she doesn’t feel guilty about the life she took. Only grieves for what she broke within herself.]

Here’s one truth Hana has to live with every day: She has taken a man’s life. [And it was easy.]

Here’s another one: If she’d been in that room with anyone on her squad other than Sawada, she wouldn’t have had to.

Sawada stays out of her way whenever possible and that’s the way Hana likes it. It doesn’t help and at some point she grows used to the bitterness that still twists her insides up into knots at irregular moments when she catches sight of him, but she can bear to look at him again, to give commands and order him to back up and cuss him out for breaking the coffee machine without actually murdering him.

Which she could do. She’s done it once already after all.

That first time is not the last time. Of course it isn’t. The longer she stays in the field, the more chances there are for something to go wrong and probability theory alone will tell you that sooner or later Hana will find herself in a similar situation, having to make the same choice.

Not every person Hana shoots is to protect Sawada. Some are to protect a civilian or even herself. Does that make it better?

Hana doubts it, but she realizes she doesn’t truly know.

[If there’s one thing she’s learned in the last month and a half, it’s that Hana is a good killer. Enough conscience not to turn a machine gun onto a crowd of civilians or throw a child off a building, but not enough to feel bad about snuffing a stranger’s life out of existence. Just the way Vongola likes its operatives.

Hana never pictured herself in this gritty, bloody world of field work, never wanted to be, but she makes herself at home all the same.]

One slow Wednesday morning while cleaning up the mess on her desk, Hana stumbles upon the transfer papers she never handed in. They’re filled out already, even the signature is already in place. Have been for — over a year now, that’s how long it’s been. Back when she first planned out every step of her career at Vongola Inc.

Staring down at her own handwriting that reads like a strangers, Hana considers. She could still hand them in, she supposes. Get transferred to the legal department just like she planned. What’s a delay of a few months?

There’s no reason to think that she couldn’t do the job. In fact, Hana is sure she’d be good. Great even. Certainly she’d make a better lawyer than a field operative.

"Kurokawa, you coming?" Mochida calls from the briefing room. The rising impatience indicates it’s not the first time he’s called her and a glance at the clock tells Hana their daily team meeting was supposed to start five minutes ago.

"Yeah, one moment."

She gets up. Takes one last glance at those papers. Throws them in the rubbish bin underneath her desk and doesn’t look back as she crosses the room in sharp, determined steps. There’s no point to it.

[What she wanted to protect when she made those plans is already lost. And Hana might be a better lawyer but she’s a decent operative. She’s keeping her squad members alive, keeping Sawada alive, which is an achievement all on its own.

She’s already taken lives for the sake of her team, for the sake of the mission even. What’s a few more?]

In a strange way it makes almost sense. [Out of the two of them, Kyouko is the villain. But it’s Hana who’s always flirted with the darkness looming at the edge of every super’s consciousness. It’s Hana who’s cut out to be a monster.]

"Why are you here?" Hana asks Sawada on a whim, roughly a year and a half after they were first assigned to the same squad. There’s no deep motivation or reason, not even any real curiosity.

Sawada blinks stupidly at her. "You said the first one to go home and leave you alone with this tower of paperwork would be dangling from the Vongola sign on top of this building by a rope made out of their own entrails."

Hana rolls her eyes. "I meant why did you join an attack squad." You idiot, she almost tacks on but leaves it unspoken in the end. It’s nothing Sawada hasn’t heard before. Damn she needs coffee if her tongue is getting away with her again. It’s not even two in the morning yet.

"Huh?"

Sawada looks honest to god confused. He’s lucky that punching him would require too much effort. Now that Hana thinks about it, so would getting worked up.

"I mean," she says very, very slowly, "that you are the least violent person I’ve ever met, Sawada. You’re a terrible field operative. So why haven’t you quit and applied for something else?"

Sawada stares at her with those illogically huge eyes that are supposedly cute — if Kyouko is to be believed — but that Hana finds off-putting. Possibly because they look at her like that all the time. "Oh." Sawada says as though none of what Hana has just said ever occurred to him. "I’m terrible at everything. And Vongola Inc. were the only ones who offered me a job. So." He shrugs.

Which. Hana isn’t even gonna touch that one. Nope.

"Just get the damn coffee, Sawada," she groans and hopes she’ll have forgotten this conversation in the morning.

[She doesn’t know what she’d hoped to find here, what kind of revelation she’d been waiting for but the worst self-esteem in the history of self-esteem hadn’t been it. If she thinks about the fact that this entire shit-show could’ve been avoided if someone had given Sawada a proper motivational speech as a child, she is gonna burn something.

Probably Vongola Inc.]

[On bad days, Hana cancels her coffee and cake time with Kyouko, doesn’t look at Sawada unless it is to glower and locks herself into an empty briefing room or her own apartment whenever possible. Her hands don’t shake when she holds a gun or a knife or a rope — they never do — but sometimes when she catches sight of her reflection she breaks it until it breaks her.

On bad days, catching sight of Sawada makes Hana feel every drop of blood drying on her hands, chunks of skin getting caught under her nails, gun powder sticking to her fingers. On bad days, she hates Sawada for what he’s made her become.]

By the time they’ve all been working together as an active squad for two years, every member of the team except Sawada has become a killer.

They don’t talk about it. They don’t acknowledge it.

[The shots one of them took so Sawada wouldn’t have to — because he wouldn’t have. They don’t even send him out with a gun anymore because what’s the point of handing someone a weapon they refuse to use? The shots they took to save him. The tasks Mochida assignes specifically so Sawada won't have to see some of the worst they’ve had to face, won't be forced to make choices he isn't prepared for and has too much heart to make. The missions he’s been put on desk duty for that no one else came out of unscratched. It's not even always about blood and death, is the funny thing. There’s so many things worse than murder.]

There’s nothing to talk about.

[On good days, Hana is grateful that it was her behind that trigger. Because even at her worst she’s never wanted Sawada dead.

And. Being a killer suits her, them. That's why they were chosen after all. That's why they qualified. That's why Sawada should've never passed his entrance exam. And perhaps one day Hana will make her peace with that knowledge. But the unvoiced issue remains: Sawada isn’t like them. Sawada cares in ways no one on the squad does, no one on any attack squad should, and— It’s not concern that compels Hana to shield him. It’s certainly not empathy. It’s self-preservation.]

Sawada doesn’t thank her for any of the lives she takes on his behalf. Hana doesn’t expect him to. She doesn’t think he understands what she’s protecting him from and a large part of her — a part that pulls the trigger without flinching, that has nightmares about Nakamura’s burned corpse, the smell of his flesh, but never about the man she killed — hopes he never will.

[It’s not the life Kurokawa Hana thought she would want, certainly not the life she planned, but most of her original squad is still alive, Sawada is still alive, even though Hana still doesn’t know who within Vongola is moving against him. And though Sawada is still useless, he’s calmed down a lot over the past two years. Could almost be classified as an asset on his rare good day.

And it’s not always great, not even always good, but. It is.]

aaand i think that concludes hana’s POV. if you have any further questions though (or if there’s other characters you’d like to see more of, don’t hesitate to let me know in a comment or an ask)!

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misscrawfords · 6 years

Text

So you want to read something like Jane Austen?

I see lots of posts where people answer this question with recommendations for classic historical romance authors like Georgette Heyer or more modern bodice-rippers like Julia Quinn or Tessa Dare. But to me that’s never quite the appropriate answer. Sure, if what you want is romance with country dancing and breeches, that’s fine, but surely if you want to read more things similar to Jane Austen, the best way to do that is to delve into her lesser known contemporaries. People Austen admired and people who admired her. People writing on similar themes and using similar language.

So this is my list of 10 novels from the 18th and early 19th century that you might like to try if you’ve read Austen and want to branch out more. These are just personal recommendations and based off what I’ve read; I’m very happy to hear other suggestions!

Worth noting as well that all of these are available online or free for kindle download. :)

1. Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Fanny Burney (1778) Summary: Evelina Anville is a shy, innocent country girl who is invited to London by friends. Here, she attempts to navigate the complicated social mores of the season while keeping her integrity. She encounters handsome men, vulgar relations and gets into numerous alarming and hilarious scrapes along the way to discovering her true noble heritage and winning the love and hand of the charming Lord Orville. Why you should read it: A great first novel for Austen fans to get into who aren’t otherwise familiar with literature of the period. Burney’s first novel is sparkling, witty, filled with dialogue and not very long. The humour is more robust than Austen’s - it’s definitely Georgian rather than Regency - but a lot of the scenarios will be familiar to Austen readers. Particularly recommended for fans of Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and readers who like historical romances set during the London season.

2. Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress by Fanny Burney (1782) Summary: Cecilia Beverley is an orphaned heiress who will only inherit her fortune on the very specific condition that her husband takes her name. Until she turns 21 she is left with three very different guardians - the profligate Mr. Harrell, the proud Mr. Delvile, and the vulgar Mr. Briggs. Cecilia must protect herself from the advances of the unscrupulous fortune hunters she meets and deal with her feelings for young Mortimer Delvile, whose family is excessively proud of its ancient name. Why you should read it: IMO Cecilia is a masterpiece. It’s a much longer and complex novel than Evelina but it contains fierce social satire and commentary of a world where women are horribly vulnerable and money rules all interactions pointing forwards to authors like Dickens and Eliot. Burney is a little more moralistic and less witty here but it’s a fascinating portrayal of a highly intelligent and capable, independent woman in a world where she is constrained by the men around her, in the kind of plot that romance novelists can only dream of. It’s also worth noting that Pride and Prejudice was arguably written as a response to Cecilia and it is very interesting to spot and consider the ways in which Austen was explicitly influenced by this novel and what she changed in writing Pride and Prejudice. Particularly recommended for fans of Pride and Prejudice and Emma. Please note that this novel contains a suicide and (period appropriate) mental illness.

3. Belinda by Maria Edgeworth (1801) Summary: Belinda Portman is sent to live with the fashionable Lady Delacour in London with whom she develops a strong friendship. Part of the plot deals with Lady Delacour’s fear that she has breast cancer and part with the customary romantic entanglements of a young girl out in the London season. Why you should read it: Maria Edgeworth was one of the most popular novelists of Austen’s day - and was far more commercially successful. Belinda is her second novel and has been compared to Austen for its natural portrayal of character. Lady Delacour is the most interesting character - a slightly older woman, independent, strong-minded and fearless. Particularly recommended for fans of Persuasion, Lady Susan, Sanditon and of potentially queer subtext, intriguing references to interracial marriages (look it up!) and 18th century surgery.

4. Patronage by Maria Edgeworth (1814) Summary: A magnum opus almost Dickensian in scale charting the rises and falls of two neighbouring families, the hard-working and virtuous Percy family and the ambitious, scheming Falconers. The daughters need marriages, the sons need careers and the paterfamilias of each family must make tough decisions about what he wants his family to stand for. Why you should read it: This novel is admittedly a brick and tough to get through at times but it really is worth it. You are plunged into Regency society in a way no other contemporary novel succeeds in with a large and varied cast of characters. The novel also takes you into the world of men and their professions in a way that Austen never does. Particularly recommended for fans of Mansfield Park (which was published in the same year) and people who want to learn more about Regency society in all its forms.

5. Rob Roy by Walter Scott (1817) Summary: Romantic Frank Osbaldistone leaves his father’s business in London to visit his cousins in north England where he meets and falls in love with the beautiful and charming Diana Vernon, gets caught up in a Jacobite plot and the scheming of his wicked cousin, Rashleigh, and meets the famous Scottish outlaw, Rob Roy. Why you should read it: There were several Scott novels that could be included here but I picked Rob Roy for its attractive portrayal of Diana, since Scott is not always great at writing 3D heroines Austen fans will like. Scott was the most successful novelist at the time, bursting onto the novel scene writing novels with a male protagonist at a time when most novels were by, for and about women. Scott and Austen admired each other a great deal despite writing in very different genres, with Scott writing historical romances rather than contemporary social satires. Particularly recommended for fans of Persuasion, Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice.

6. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794) Summary: Set vaguely in the 16th century, this most famous gothic novel follows the adventures of Emily St Aubert from her father’s French estate to Venice with her aunt, Madame Cheron after he dies and then, when her aunt marries the sinister Montoni, to his castle in the Italian Apennines. Why you should read it: C’mon, it’s Udolpho! Don’t you want to know what’s behind the infamous black veil? Northanger Abbey will be 10 times better once you’ve read Udolpho and despite the excessive amount of fainting, overuse of the word “sublime” and far too many spontaneous reciting of poetry, it’s a genuinely engaging adventure novel with larger-than-life characters, daring adventures, and some really beautiful descriptions of France and Italy. Particularly recommended for fans of Northanger Abbey, obviously.

7. Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (1818) Summary: Utterly ridiculous gothic satire with a tenuous plot about a morose widower who lives with his son, Scythrop, in a crumbling mansion in Lincolnshire, but you’re not reading this for the plot. Why you should read it: I read it for university, having never heard of it before, and found it hilarious. Published in the same year as Northanger Abbey, it is similar in poking fun at gothic conventions. It depends on a reasonable knowledge of gothic novels and contemporary literature and philosophy so not a novel for beginners to undertake unless you have an edition with a commentary, but it’s very short and absolutely absurd. Particularly recommended for fans of Northanger Abbey and the Juvenilia.

8. Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson (1740) Summary: Pamela is a maid in Mr. B’s house and must use all her ingenuity to fend off her employer’s advances and convert his many and increasingly desperate attempts to seduce her into a marriage proposal. Why you should read it: Pamela was a sensation when it was first published. Written in the form of letters, it was arguably the first novel to really get into the brain of a young woman and was quite radical in its treatment of the relationship between the sexes, consequently being highly influential on subsequent novels. Any of Richardson’s novels could deserve a place here - Clarissa is arguably his best but it’s ridiculously long and I haven’t read it, and Sir Charles Grandison was apparently Austen’s favourite novel but I also haven’t read it. Pamela is probably the most approachable but please note, in case the summary didn’t set off enough alarm bells, its depiction of consent is very much of its time. Particularly recommended for fans of the literary culture into which Austen was born.

9. Marriage by Susan Ferrier (1813) Summary: Lady Juliana rather foolishly elopes with an impoverished Scot and must adapt to living in his rundown estate in the Highlands. The first half of the novel deals with Juliana’s comic attempts to deal with this rough kind of living while the second half, set 17 years later, follows Juliana’s daughter, Mary, a virtuous girl, who goes to live in Bath with her cousins, including the “naughty” Adelaide. Why you should read it: Ferrier was another author much more popular than Austen at the time. Marriage is similar to Burney and Edgeworth in its plots and scopes and there are moments when she almost reaches Austen’s wit. It is, however, rather more heavy-handed in its obvious morality and in the way it contrasts its good heroine and bad (but far more appealing) anti-heroine. Very typical of women’s novels of the time. Particularly recommended for fans of Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park.

10. St Ronan’s Well by Walter Scott (1824) Summary: This novel follows Francis Tyrell and his attempts to marry his former love, Clara Mowbray, and fend off his rival, the engaging but sinister Lord Etherington. All of this is set under a backdrop of the gossip and scandal-mongering of a fictional Scottish spa town. Why you should read it: This is a self-indulgent inclusion - I wrote my dissertation on it, Scott’s least known and least loved novel. It’s Scott’s only attempt to write a contemporary novel and it is obvious that he is influenced by Austen and trying in many ways to emulate her. It’s not entirely successful and the novel is an uneasy mix of sparkling dialogue and social satire with melodrama and romantic tragedy. The characters are really great, however, particularly Scott’s portrayal of Clara’s deep unhappiness, and the plot quite shocking- make sure you get hold of a first edition or at least read up on it, as Scott was later forced to remove his earlier references to pre-marital sex, which is really key for the plot. Particularly recommended for fans of Emma, Mansfield Park and Persuasion.

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crystalninjaphoenix · 5 years

Text

The Blade or The Handle

Switch AU

Yay, new one of these! This idea’s been waiting on the back burner for a while, but I knew it had to come at a specific point in the story. Anyway, it’s about Anti and Marvin. And also Distorter appears. And...yeah, this is a short author’s note, but I’m tired and don’t know what else to say.

More of this AU found here

Anti didn’t get a lot of visitors. Even the people he considered friends didn’t stop by that often, and when they did, they usually called or texted to let him know. Which is why, when his doorbell rang on Saturday morning, he elected to ignore it and continue editing the video for tomorrow.

And then it rang again. And again. And again. And by that point Will had knocked on the door to his recording room and said “Dad, I think someone’s at the door” and Anti realized that this person wasn’t going to go away. He sighed, saved the project, and stood up. Before he went to answer the door, he grabbed a switchblade from the nearest shelf and shoved it in his pocket. Just in case. You never could tell with people, sometimes.

Luckily, he opened the front door to a familiar face. Though an unexpected one. He blinked. “Marvin, what’re you doing here?”

“Well, nice t’see you too,” Marvin commented. “Fancy seein’ you here.”

“This is my apartment.”

“I know. T’at was a joke.”

“What are you doing here?” Anti repeated.

Marvin sighed, shifting position. “T’is may sound odd.”

“Just say it, dude.”

“I need a knife.”

Well, that was certainly unexpected. Anti leaned against the doorway. “Um. Why? If you’re gonna go mug someone, I don’t want my knife at the scene of the crime.”

“I’m not goin’ t’mug someone,” Marvin said, rolling his eyes. “I jus’...need to borrow one. For some time.”

Anti narrowed his eyes. Marvin was being weirdly evasive about this. But he wasn’t the type of person to go out and stab someone, so the evasion probably wasn’t one of suspicion. Maybe the best course of action would be to let him in, and then try to get the reasoning out of him. “Alright, fine. Come on in.” Anti leaned back and stepped aside, letting Marvin come into the apartment.

“Hi Mr. Marvin,” Will said, sitting at the coffee table with his DS.

“Hello, William.” Marvin smiled. “How’re you?”

“Good. It’s the weekend!” Will looked up briefly. “I think Dad wants to hurry with whatever you’re doing.”

Anti, standing next to the door to his recording room with his hand on the knob, coughed awkwardly. “Don’t call me out like this, kid,” he laughed.

“Well, it’s true,” Will said.

“I’d hate t’keep you from what’s it you were doing,” Marvin said. “We can hurry.”

“Thanks,” Anti said. “C’mon, follow me.”

Anti’s recording room had a lot of stuff on the shelves mounted on the walls, but there was one shelf in particular that he was interested in. It was surrounded by a glass case that he kept locked. This was his knife shelf. He kept it locked because one could never be too sure, having knives and a nine-year-old kid in the same apartment. “Here we are,” Anti muttered, unlocking the case.

Marvin stared at the shelf. “I...was not expectin’ t’at. Why d’you have so many?”

Anti shrugged. “Knives are cool. And you never know what sort of situation will arise. What’re you looking for? I can help you figure out which one you want.”

“Ah...” Marvin looked a little lost. “I don’ know...”

Well, this might take a while then. Anti sighed quietly, picking up one of the knives at random. “Look, the shape of the knife determines its purpose. This one’s a needle-point blade, which means it’s good for fighting, particularly stabbing. A lot of stiletto blades have a form like this.” He picked up a different one. “Or there’s a clip-point, which is good for cutting, but not so much for piercing, unless you sharpen the other side. It depends what you need the knife for.”

“You know quite a lot about t’is, don’ you?” Marvin whistled.

“I do.” Anti wasn’t able to keep a tinge of pride out of his voice. “Which is why I’ll be able to get you the best knife you need, but I need to know what you want it for.”

“Well, I...” Marvin took a step backwards. “I’m not quite...sure. I was just t’inkin’ t’at...I needed somet’ing for defense.”

Anti set down the knife. “Wait. You mean, like, to keep?”

“Not necessar—”

“No, if you want a knife for self-defense, you need your own,” Anti insisted. “Because you’ll need to carry it on you.”

Marvin squirmed a bit. “I didn’—didn’ mean t’at I wanted to keep one of yours for meself. I didn’...I suppose I didn’ t’ink I would need...I t’ought I could just borrow one of yours.”

“Yeah, well.” Anti took his phone out of his pocket and opened up his browser. “You will. I know a couple websites, I can get you something.”

“You don’ have t’do t’at,” Marvin muttered. “Jus’ forget everyt’in’.”

“Shut up, I’m doing this. I can get you a simple style, the sort of thing for beginners.” Anti scrolled through the options on his phone. “Some of them have designs or colors, you want anything like that?”

“Anti, if you’re so insistent, you can give me the website name and I’ll do it on my own,” Marvin said. “I have my own money, wouldn’ want you t’spend yours.”

“Yeah, but you’re an old man who doesn’t know how to navigate anything online,” Anti joked. “Trust me, I can spare it. Why the sudden interest in defense, anyway? You’ve been here for, what, at least a year and a half now. Seems kind of out of the blue.”

“...oh.” Marvin hesitated, looking reluctant. “Well...since Jackie...y’know, disappeared—”

Anti squeezed his phone so tightly he could’ve sworn the case cracked. “Oh.”

Marvin was quiet for a while, feeling the shift in the atmosphere. “I jus’ t’ought it would be a good idea,” he finally mumbled.

“It is,” Anti said shortly. All of a sudden, he wanted Marvin out of his apartment even more than he did earlier. “I’ll get you something, send it to you and Jackson’s house.”

Marvin nodded. “T’ank you.”

“Welcome. Now, if that’ll be all—”

“I-I’ll be goin’,” Marvin said. “See myself out.”

“Yeah, go on.”

Without another word, Marvin turned and strolled out of the room, and then the apartment, saying nothing more than a brief goodbye. Anti sighed deeply. He put all the knives back in their places on the shelf, locking the case. He probably should’ve returned to editing, but...he suddenly didn’t feel like it. With nothing else to do, he left the recording room and ended up in the living room again, sitting down on the sofa.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Hmm?” Anti looked over at Will, who was staring at them. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

“You’re rubbing your neck,” Will pointed out. “You do that when you’re upset.”

Anti froze, and lowered his hand, just then realizing that he had, indeed, been rubbing his throat. “You’re an observant kid, you know that, Will?”

“Yeah,” Will nodded solemnly. “So what’s wrong?”

“...it’s nothing,” Anti said, turning his head to stare out the window. “Nothing that you need to worry about, anyway.”

Will set his DS down on the coffee table. “Is this about Uncle Jackie?”

“No,” Anti lied.

“You miss him, huh Dad?”

Anti didn’t say anything.

“I think I get it,” Will said, kicking his feet. “I’d miss Taylor if he went away.”

“You would,” Anti agreed. “I know that.”

“So that’s how you’re doing.” Will paused. “Dad, aren’t you always saying it’s good to talk about your problems?”

“It is,” Anti said, turning away from the window. “And you know I’d listen if you wanted to talk about your problems. But this is different. This is grown-up stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand a lot,” Will said defensively. “Like, I know that you say Uncle Jackie saved your life, and that’s why you’re friends with him. And that people sometimes don’t talk a lot when they get upset, and that’s what you’re doing.”

Anti smiled a bit. “Yeah, you got those parts right. But it’s a little more complicated than just that. Will, I don’t mean to say that you’re not smart for not understanding. You just haven’t been around as long, so you haven’t seen as much as I have. It’s like you and Michelle. You’ve been in second year, but she hasn’t, so you know a little bit more. You get that?”

Will nodded, slowly. “Then maybe you should talk to people who’ve been around as long as you.”

“Maybe,” Anti admitted. Silence fell for a moment. “Hey, don’t you have homework?”

Will squirmed. “I have all day, Dad. And Sunday!”

“If you get it done early, then you won’t have to worry about it!”

“I know what I’m doing!”

Anti laughed. “If you insist, bud.”

———————

Two months.

That was how long Jackie had been gone.

And that was how long Marvin had been having nightmares for.

He wasn’t exactly sure they were nightmares, per se. Nightmares implied dreaming, which implied that nothing in them was actually real or had actually happened. But Marvin was dead sure that these nightmares were more than just figments of his sleeping brain’s imagination.

It started maybe three days after Jackie had been taken. Marvin went to bed as usual, and he dreamed that he was trapped in a tiny room. No more than a closet, really, completely dark and with a door that wouldn’t open when he pulled and pushed on it. His vision wavered, and the ground swayed beneath his feet. The walls felt like they were getting closer, sucking the air out of his lungs. He wasn’t sure how long he was stuck in the darkness, but eventually the door opened, and he fell out, landing hard on the floor outside. He felt dizzy, and his thoughts wouldn’t stay in one direction. But when something grabbed his arm, he had the presence of mind to shout and try to pull away. That movement resulted in a long line of pain running down his forearm, pain so real that it woke him up.

And getting ready that morning, he screamed when he saw a long, thin scar along his left forearm, in the exact spot he’d been cut in the dream.

Jameson had heard him, of course, and come running, barging into the bathroom where he was. “Marvin?! What happened?! Are you hurt?!”

Marvin could only shake his head, and hold out his arm for Jameson to see. “When was t’is? H-how did it happen?!”

“I...Marvin?” Jameson had been confused. “I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?!”

“Because you’ve had that longer than I’ve known you,” Jameson said patiently. “I remember seeing it that first night you stayed over.”

Marvin stared at him, then looked back down at the scar. “T'en...how come I’m only noticing it now?” He whispered.

Jameson could only shake his head.

And the nightmares—the memories—only got worse from there. Marvin didn’t know what to do about them. Jameson had made every member of the group a small charm meant to ward off any...mental intrusions during sleep, but his didn’t seem to be working. He wasn’t about to go bother JJ about it; the magician was busy with an approaching show, and when he wasn’t practicing for that, he was trying to learn a scrying spell to find Jackie. He had a lot on his plate, and Marvin didn’t want to add to that.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible was approaching. He found he was constantly looking over his shoulder, tensing at every little creek in the house. He’d recently found a job, at a nice little bookstore that he could take the bus to, and on his way there and back every day, he found his head was on a swivel, looking around for anything that could be causing this terrible feeling. That was why he’d made the impulsive decision to go over to Anti’s apartment and ask for a knife. So that when the terrible something arrived, he’d be at least a little prepared.

Coming back from that little outing in the morning, Marvin found the house quiet. He wasn’t sure what time JJ’s rehearsal started. Maybe he’d left already. Marvin sighed, and went into the living room. Immediately, Mr. Fluffington the cat appeared, winding around his ankles. “Hello, Mister,” Marvin said, bending over to pet the fluff. “How’re you today?”

Mr. Fluffington looked up at him with big green eyes, and mewed exactly once.

“T’at’s good to hear. Tell me if y’need anyt’ing.” Marvin carefully untangled his legs from the wandering kitty and walked over to his usual armchair, sitting down. He’d left a book on the nearby table last night, and was delighted to see that it hadn’t been moved at all. Jameson was trying to get him into more modern books, and it was working, Marvin was interested in many of these stories. Maybe he could finish this one today! There was apparently a sequel.

But about ten minutes later, a strange hissing sound interrupted his reading. Marvin looked up. Mr. Fluffington was standing on the windowsill, staring outside. The fur on his tail was standing up, his ears flat against his head. As Marvin watched, the cat hissed again, and briefly batted at the glass of the window with his front paw.

“What’s wrong?” Marvin marked the place in his book and stood up, walking over to the window. “Somet’ing bothering you?”

He looked through the glass to the outside. The street was empty, so there was nothing to be freaking Mr. Fluffington out. Yet, here he was. Looking...maybe scared, maybe angry? Marvin couldn’t quite remember what these signs meant. He searched the outside, scanning the street with his eyes.

And then he saw someone standing on the sidewalk across the house. Someone wearing all gray and smiling—

Marvin shrieked, scrambling backwards. He tripped over a wrinkle in the rug and landed hard on his backside. Even after falling, he kept backing up until he hit the opposite wall. “What the hell? What the hell?!” Marvin shook his head, holding his cane out in front of him like it was some kind of shield. “Leave me alone! Haven’ you done enough?!”

There was a small mrow? next to his elbow. Marvin looked down to see Fluffington nearby. The cat butted his head against Marvin’s arm.

Marvin stared at him for a while longer, then scooped Fluffington up in his arms and managed to stand up. Nope. Leave his cat out of this, thank you very much. “C’mon, we’re goin’ t’stay in my room today,” Marvin muttered. He grabbed the book off the nearby table as well. And without turning his back to the window once, he left the living room.

———————

A little under a week later, Anti received a phone call. That was just as unusual as having someone knock on his apartment door, but at least this one came with caller ID so he could see who it was. Didn’t make it any less weird, though, especially when he saw who it was. “Why’re you calling me?” He said immediately upon picking up the call. “I thought you got phone anxiety and couldn’t talk on the phone.”

“Charming way to start a conversation,” JJ muttered. “And no, I don’t have phone anxiety. Going silent when talking to people I don’t know is entirely different. Anyway, are you busy?”

Anti paused. “That depends on what you’re about to say.” He wasn’t, really. It was Friday so Will was at school, and he hadn’t started recording yet.

“This may sound odd, but...do you mind checking on Marvin for me?”

“That does sound odd,” Anti said flatly. “First, where are you? Second, why me? Third, Marvin is a grown man, why are you asking me to check on him? Is he sick again?”

“I’m at a rehearsal,” JJ explained. “I wanted to cancel, but Darla wouldn’t let me. Said we’re getting too close to the show to skip rehearsals now. And I need you to check on him because...well, he’s not sick. At least, I don’t think so. But he’s been acting...strange.”

“Hmm. How so?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s been sleeping well,” Jameson confided. “Sometimes, if I stay up late, I can...hear him. And he hasn’t left his room unless he needs to for work. He even takes his food in there, which is something he definitely doesn’t do. I think he’s worried about something, but won’t tell me. So maybe you could check on him? See if he’s...I don’t know, just alright?”

“Okay, back to my second question, then,” Anti said flatly. “Why me?”

“Well, normally I’d ask Jac—” Jameson cut off. Then when he spoke again, it was a bit slower, more cautious. “I tried calling Henrik, but he’s not picking up. Not responding to texts either. So it has to be you.”

Anti was silent for a while. If Marvin was worried about something, maybe that had to do with his knife-themed visit last week? Maybe it was a bigger problem than he’d let on. “Alright, fine, I can check on him,” he finally said.

JJ exhaled a breath of relief. “Thanks, Anti.”

“I’m going to bill you for my bus fare, Jackson.”

“That’s fine, just make sure everything’s okay.”

Anti hung up. Guess it was time to travel across town. Before he left, he grabbed one of his knives, and, after a little bit of hesitation, his gun as well. Just in case.

Travelling by bus, it was a little over thirty minutes to get from Anti’s apartment to Marvin and JJ’s house. Anti arrived at a little past midday, and found the door locked. Made sense, but he couldn’t exactly check on someone inside if he was stuck outside. Anti looked around to make sure the street was empty, then pulled a pair of paperclips out of his pocket, straightened them, and after a little bit of fiddling with the lock he was inside.

“Hello?” Anti slowly shut the door behind him. “Marvin? Jackson told me to check on you.” His calls received no answer. Didn’t Jameson say Marvin was staying in his room all the time? He was probably still there, then. Anti walked down the hall until he found the door to Marvin’s room, and he knocked. “Marvin? Are you in there?”

After a moment of silence, footsteps approached the door. It opened a crack, through which Anti could see a familiar turquoise-blue eye staring, wide, and then it opened all the way and Marvin was there. “Anti? What’re ye doin’ here?” he asked, surprised.

“Jackson told me to check on you,” Anti explained.

Marvin frowned. “Well, consider me checked on. T’ank you.” He started to close the door again, only to find Anti’s foot in the way. He sighed. “Really, I apprec’ate Jems’ concern, but I am fine.”

“If you’re fine, can I come inside?” Anti asked.

Marvin blinked. “Ahm...sure.” He stepped aside, letting Anti push the door open.

Marvin’s room looked the same as ever. Just a little messier than usual. Mr. Fluffington was sitting on the bed, in a loaf formation. “Please tell me you’ve been letting that cat out to eat and do his business,” Anti muttered.

“Well, of course. What am I, an animal?”

“I don’t know, if Jackson’s right and you’ve been staying in your room all day, then I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been keeping the cat in there with you all the time.”

Marvin bristled. “I haven’ been staying in my room all day. I go to work.”

“And apparently that’s about it.” Anti turned on Marvin. “Look, as someone whose job doesn’t give me an excuse to leave the house, I can tell you from experience that staying in one place all day is bad for you. It’ll bring you down.”

“I...I know,” Marvin stuttered. “But...t’is is...isn’ what you t’ink it is. Or what Jems t’inks it is, it sounds like.”

“Alright, then what is it?”

Before Marvin could answer, Mr. Fluffington hissed. Both men looked over at the cat in unison as he stood up, fur on end and ears flattened, and stared out the room’s door.

Marvin paled. He spun around and backed away from the doorway, eyes wide. “Close the door,” he said.

Anti blinked. “What?”

“Close the door!” Marvin yelled. He turned and ran until he was as far from the door as possible, gripping his cane tight. “Why are you jus’ standin’ there?! Close it!”

“Why are you freaking out so much?” Anti said, exasperated. “What, ‘cause the cat’s freaked out?”

“Jus’ close it! Do it!” Marvin closed his eyes, covering his ears with his hands. His cane clattered to the floor.

“I don’t under—alright, fine.” Anti huffed. He turned, and reached for the doorknob. And then he stopped. His eyes lost focus for a moment, staring into nothing. Thoughts got lost inside a gray fog.

And then Marvin screamed.

Anti had his knife drawn and his gun halfway out before he knew what was happening. He spun around to see Marvin had fallen to his knees, burying his face in his hands. “Hey!” Anti ran across the room to stand next to him. “What happened?”

Marvin didn’t move for a long moment. And then he raised his head. Two thin streams of blood were leaking from his eyes.

Anti stumbled back. He remembered this. It had happened before, a few months ago, and it had happened when—

His head whipped around the room, scanning the surroundings. “I know you’re there,” he growled. “Scared to show yourself?”

Silence. Anti backed up, pulling his gun from its holster. He turned his head left, and then when he turned it back to the right there was a grinning face inches from his own. Anti cried out and started to raise his gun, but then a blackened hand snapped out, fingers wrapping around his throat. The hand smacked his head against the wall once, twice, three times, then let go, letting him sink, dazed, to the floor.

He stayed there, slumped, for a while, until he heard a loud meow. Anti shook his head, looking down to see the cat next to him, resting his front paw on his leg. Fluffington butted his head against Anti’s arm, then darted towards the door and back again. “Wh...?” It was only then that Anti realized Marvin was gone. “Oh, I think the fuck not.” He climbed to his feet. His gun was missing, possibly dropped by him, but he didn’t have time to look for it. “Kitty, stay here, I’ll get him back.” And he ran.

The front door was wide open. Running outside, Anti looked around. He caught the tail end of a brown jacket—Marvin’s jacket—disappearing around the corner. He growled, slammed the door behind him, and broke into a sprint.

He turned the corner and saw Marvin right away, walking down the empty street as if in a daze. “Hey! Get back here!” Anti ran, catching up to Marvin easily. He grabbed him by the back of the jacket and spun him around, staring into wide, blank, bleeding eyes. “Marvin, snap the fuck out of it! You’re stronger than this!”

Marvin’s head slowly tilted to the side, as if trying to hear the words but finding it difficult. Laughter came from somewhere, and the sound of whispering. Marvin’s eyes suddenly narrowed. Anti saw what was coming a moment before it happened, throwing himself backwards in time to avoid the sudden swing of Marvin’s cane. When had he picked that back up? Anti shook his head. Not important. “I’m not your enemy! Put that down!”

Another swing. Anti couldn’t quite avoid this one, but managed to cover his head, so the topper of the cane hit his arms and not his temple. He backed up, eyes searching the street. “Where’s your gray friend now?” He half-yelled. “What, he’s gonna make you do all the fighting? Come on, Marvin! It’s Distorter! Remember what he is!”

The blank expression on Marvin’s face shifted a little, but then the blood streams from his eyes thickened. A small sound of pain came from his throat, and he swung again. Sloppily this time, and Anti dodged easily.

“He tried to kill Henrik!” Anti shouted. “He tried to kill me! He probably would’ve killed Jameson—your best friend Jems, remember?! Hey, remember how he kidnapped Jackie and we haven’t seen him in months?! Or how he’s probably done something awful to you that you that you’ve forgotten?!” His voice dropped to a low tone. “Or are you too afraid to remember?”

Marvin froze, eyes flickering. Slowly, he reached up and grabbed his head with one hand. His expression became pained. His breathing started speeding up, and for a moment, his eyes settled solidly on a spot next to Anti.

A message. Anti lunged to the side, towards the spot Marvin was looking at. He connected with something solid, which cried out as both of them fell to the ground.

Anti blinked, and it was like a curtain had been lifted. Distorter was there, clearly visible now that whatever mental trick he’d been using to filter out his presence had been lifted. Anti had him pinned to the ground, practically kneeling on his chest. Yet he was still smiling. “Oh, nice job,” he said, tone cold. “Maybe you’re smarter than you look.”

“What,” Anti growled, “the fuck are you doing to him?”

“Maybe he’s just remembering who his friends are.” Distorter shrugged awkwardly. “You should be worried about what the fuck I’m gonna do to you.”

There was movement in the corner of Anti’s vision. He glanced toward it, seeing Distorter’s arm was moving, slithering across the sidewalk pavement. He was holding something—

Anti yelped, scrambling sideways, just in time to avoid—

BANG!

The sound of the gunshot left ringing in his ears. He shook his head, climbing to his feet. Distorter stood up, too. His left shoulder twisted awkwardly, arm dangling., but he showed no reaction. In his right hand, he was holding Anti’s gun. “Hmm...that’s a bit too quick, huh?” Distorter dropped the gun, kicking it away. “For the likes of you, at least.”

“What is your deal with me?!” Anti suddenly screamed, snapping completely. “I get it, Volt and Jackson got in your way, what did I do?!”

“Well, you did shoot at me that one time,” Distorter drawled. “Do you even remember that? Eh. It’s also the fact that you exist, you know?”

“Oh really? Maybe I have a problem with you existing, too!” Anti reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife again. “Maybe you should just get out of here and leave us all alone!”

Distorter laughed. “Not the best comebacks you can come up with, huh? Or is it just that you don’t want to voice your actual thoughts where they can be heard?”

Something inside Anti’s chest froze, beating ice through his veins. “Wh...what do you mean...?” He asked, voice hushed.

Distorter’s head lolled to the side. “Oh, I’ve seen inside your head, remember? All the sordid details of your past are there for me to see! All those bloody thoughts are broadcast clearly, brainwaves more like radio waves. Wow, they let you have a kid with you, when you think the things you do? Unbelievable! Does he know how often his dad thinks about drawing strangers’ blood, or—”

Anti screamed, and lunged. He was holding a knife in his hand. Next thing he knew the blade was covered in red, and Distorter was laughing, laughing, laughing, as the same red soaked through his gray shirt in five different places. Anti staggered back, breathing hard. He looked down at his hand. And the knife fell from his shaking fingers as horror dawned on him.

“Are you trying to prove my point?!” Distorter was bent over with laughter. “God, I couldn’t have planned that better if I tried! Seriously! You—”

BANG!

Distorter staggered sideways, a sixth red stain blossoming on the side of his shirt. Anti stared at it, then followed the path the bullet would’ve taken...over to Marvin, pointing the gun with trembling hands.

“I t’ink it’s a little diff’rent when it’s you,” Marvin said. He sounded a little shocked, but his voice didn’t waver. “How many of these do you t’ink you can survive?”

Distorter’s smile never wavered, but something changed in his black eyes. Somehow, he now looked distinctively...displeased. “Marvin...Marvin, I can’t believe you would do this.”

“Don’ sound so betrayed!” Marvin shrieked. “I remember what you did to me!”

Tension filled the moment, each pause waiting for something to happen as all three remained frozen. Then, without another word, Distorter turned on his heel and started walking away. Only a few steps later, and anyone watching had their vision fuzz over, and he was gone.

Marvin let out a breath he’d been holding. He turned to look at Anti, still standing frozen, and walked toward him. As soon as he got close enough, Marvin leaned down and picked up the blood-covered knife from where it had fallen on the ground. “Do you...want this back?” he asked.

“Don’t give that to me,” Anti whispered.

Marvin seemed a little surprised at the response, but he nodded, flipping it closed and stuffing it in his pocket. He looked a little unsure about what to do with the gun, and ended up just holding it. “We should...should go back, right?”

Anti didn’t say anything. But he nodded. And when Marvin started walking, he followed.

They arrived back at the house, finding that nothing inside had changed. Anti settled down on the sofa in the living room, staring into nothing while Marvin made sure the cat was alright. When Marvin returned, holding Mr. Fluffington in his arms, Anti was still in the same place.

Marvin sat in his usual chair, letting Fluffington loaf on his lap. “Anti...” He cleared his throat. “You seem kind of...shaken. Do you...want to talk abou’ it?”

“No.”

Marvin watched Anti for a while more. Then nodded. He set the gun and the knife on the nearest table, then picked up a book and started to read.

A few minutes passed in silence.

“It’s not my fault,” Anti suddenly blurted out.

Marvin looked up. “Of course not.”

“It happens sometimes. You know, your thoughts get kind of carried away?”

“Of course.”

“And you don’t really even want them.”

“No, not at all.”

“But sometimes you just keep thinking the same thing, just kind of going in circles and feeling the same thing and it’s like you can’t let go of it like some kind of fucking obsession and you know it’s not—” Anti broke off, taking a deep shaky breath.

Marvin nodded. “It’s not good, is it?”

“No.”

More silence.

For a while, they just stayed there. After a few minutes passed, Anti shifted position on the sofa, ending up closer to Marvin. After ten more minutes, he relaxed a bit, curling into the couch cushions. Twenty minutes after that, and Anti had closed his eyes. He wasn’t asleep. But he felt like he could’ve fallen asleep, if he wanted. The silence was as warm and soft as being wrapped in a blanket.

Marvin didn’t say anything. Sometimes you needed words. Sometimes you’d already said all you could. And that was fine. You’re allowed to take your time.

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticegos #jacksepticeye fanfiction #septic egos #septic egos au #septicswitchau #brigid writes fanfiction #marvin the magnificent #1920s marvin #antisepticeye #programmer anti #distorter #chase brody

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latter-day-saint-nick · 5 years

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Here‘s a list of all the books with queer protagonists I’ve read this year. While I do actively seek those out, there are several books on here that I didn’t know had queer themes when I picked them up from the library and then I was pleasantly surprised by lesbians. I‘ll avoid spoilers except when discussing trigger warnings.

Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell

Neo, a South African teenager, is obsessed with music of any kind. Her love of music brings her together with the singer of a local band and they have a passionate relationship that they must keep secret. The descriptions of Neo‘s life and her tendency to hear music in everything are beautiful and dynamic. The author included a list of the songs Neo is listening to throughout the book, so I was introduced to a lot of cool music from South Africa and other places. TW: Corrective rape and Bury Your Gays. This is a book by a queer (albeit white British, rather than black South African) author writing about a very real problem that exists within our communities, so it feels different to when a cishet author kills off a queer character just for shock value. I still can‘t help feeling that he could have made the same point without having the character die – just have her be injured. Still, I loved pretty much everything else about the book, so it gets a tentative recommendation from me.

The Mermaid’s Daughter by Ann Claycomb

25-year-old opera student Kathleen tries to cope with the constant pain in her feet, nightmares about having her tongue cut out, and desperate yearning for the sea. With the help of her girlfriend Harry she delves into her family history to uncover the secret of a curse spanning generations of women. What’s nice about this book is that Kathleen and Harry’s relationship is accepted by all their family and friends without question, so if you want to read a nice wlw fantasy story with no homophobia, this one’s for you. TW: Some discussion of suicide, but nothing too graphic.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth

A teenage lesbian is sent to conversion therapy by her religious aunt. This is basically a coming-of-age story as the title character comes to terms with her identity and the death of her parents. It’s considered an important work of LGBT YA literature, so I really wanted to like it more than I did. Most of the first half of the novel deals with Cameron’s everyday life in her small town in Montana, which was, to be honest, rather boring to me. The pace of the story picks up a bit once she gets sent to conversion therapy, but even then it’s slower and less eventful than I would have liked. But since it is a popular book, that’s probably just me. I did like that the two best friends she makes at the therapy camp are a disabled girl and an indigenous boy, two types of people that are not often represented in queer fiction, so that’s something. TW: Conversion therapy and self-harm.

Proud by Juno Dawson

This is a collection of poems and stories about queerness aimed at a YA audience, and each one is a pure delight! These stories detail moments of joy and pride that make you feel happy and hopeful about being queer. They include a high school retelling of Pride and Prejudice with lesbians, a nonbinary kid and his D&D group on a quest to disrupt the gender binary at their school, a magical phoenix leading a Chinese girl to find love, and gay penguins. All stories, poems and illustrations are by queer writers and artists. Seriously, I cannot recommend this collection enough!

Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

An Irish magical realist story about three girls who perform a spell to find things that they have lost. The spell appears to have wider consequences than they expected, bringing to light things that should have stayed lost. This book has three narrators, two of whom are wlw. It treads a nice line between fantasy and reality, and has some pretty good plot twists. Also, there’s a crossword at the end, which is awesome. More books should come with crosswords.

Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

A space opera trilogy set in the distant future about the embodiment of a ship’s AI who seeks revenge against the ruler of a colonialist empire who destroyed her ship and killed her beloved captain. This is not beginner’s sci-fi, as it is very complex and intricate, but if you’re fine with a bit of a heavier read, you’ll be rewarded with some very interesting concepts. What makes this series queer is that the Raadch empire has no concept of gender and uses female pronouns for everyone. This makes every romantic relationship queer by default, whether we are aware of the characters’ sexes or not. I found it particularly enjoyable when Breq, the protagonist, tried to communicate in different languages that have gendered pronouns, which she had to navigate carefully in order not to offend people. She tries to look for outward clues of gender, such as hairstyles, chest size, facial hair or Adam’s apples, but even then often gets it wrong, because these things are not always consistent. That is just a great depiction of how arbitrary ideas of binary sexual characteristics tend to be. Also, I guess technically Breq is aroace, but since she’s not human, I’m not sure if she can be considered the best representation, though she is a very likeable character that I enjoyed following.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee

These books are a lot of fun! They’re historical adventure stories with a bit of fantasy thrown in, featuring disaster bisexual Henry Montague, his snarky aroace sister Felicity and his best friend Percy whom he is secretly in love with. In the first book, the three teenagers are sent on a tour of Europe for various reasons, but they quickly abandon the planned route when they get embroiled in a plot involving theft and alchemy. The second book details Felicity’s further attempts to become a doctor, which leads her to reunite with an old friend and chase a tale of fantastical creatures.

The Spy with the Red Balloon by Katherine Locke

Technically I read this one late last year, but whatever. I just wanted to put it on the list to have an excuse to talk about it. It’s about two Jewish siblings with magic powers who are recruited during World War II to take part in a secret project to fight the Nazis. Both siblings turn out to be queer: the brother is gay and demisexual, while the sister is bisexual, and they each have a love interest. This book is an independent prequel to The Girl with the Red Balloon, which takes place in East Berlin during the time of the Wall, and is just as good, albeit not as gay.

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

This book tends to be classified as fantasy, because it takes place in an alternate, Latin-American-inspired world, with a distinct history, culture and religion, but there’s no magic at all, so I’m not sure it counts. But I digress. The country of Medio is built on classism and acute xenophobia. But by hiding her status as an illegal immigrant, Daniela, a girl from a poor background, manages to rise to the top of her class at her elite finishing school and become the first wife of one of the most powerful young men in the country. But her new comfortable status is threatened when she is pressured to join a group of rebels who fight for equality. At the same time, she also finds herself falling for her husband’s second wife. Obviously, this book’s political message is very topical, but beyond that, it’s just a very good story, with a well fleshed-out fictional world and great characters. This is the first in a series, with the sequel, We Unleash the Merciless Storm, coming out in February.

All Out: The No Longer Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages by Saundra Mitchell

A very nice collection of short stories about various queer teenagers in different historical settings, from a medieval monastery to an American suburb on New Year’s Eve in 1999. Most of the stories are realist, but there are a few ghosts and witches to be found in-between. What I found particularly notable about this book is that it featured several asexual characters, which you don’t often see in collections like this. I definitely recommend it.

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

This is a thoughtful, heart-warming life story about a woman growing up during the civil war in Nigeria. After Ijeoma, a Christian Igbo girl, is sent away from home, she finds her first love in Amina, a Muslim Hausa. Even after they are found out and separated, Ijeoma doesn’t quite understand what’s so shameful about their love. Still, as she grows older, she attempts to fit into a heteronormative society while also connecting with the things and people that make her happy. TW: Homophobic violence, including an attack on a gay nightclub. The novel makes up for this by having a remarkably happy ending.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

A young man in Victorian London finds a mysterious watch on his pillow, with no idea how it got there. This sets into motion a strange series of events, which leads him to a lonely Japanese watchmaker, to whom he finds himself increasingly drawn. This is an unusual novel that treads the line between historical fiction, fantasy and sci-fi. Most of the characters are morally grey and have complex motivations, but are still likable. I just really enjoy stories that take place in this time period, particularly when they are this thoughtfully written and don’t just take the prejudices of the past for granted.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

A YA book about a transgender teenager, written by a transgender author. After her mother decides that she is not safe in her hometown anymore, high school senior Amanda moves in with her dad in a town where nobody knows her and she can try to go stealth. But even as she is making friends and experiencing romance for the first time, she constantly worries about what will happen if her secret comes out. It’s a fairly standard story about being transgender, really, but as it comes from a trans author, it feels a lot more personal and less voyeuristic than these stories tend to be when coming from a cisgender perspective. Amanda is a sympathetic and compelling character. TW: This book deals with a number of upsetting themes, including transphobic violence, being forcibly outed and suicide. There is a flashback to Amanda’s pre-transition suicide attempt, which I found particularly triggering. I also wish she could have come out on her own terms, instead of being outed in front of the whole school by someone she thought she could trust. It is still a pretty good book, but it can be very upsetting at times.

As I Descended by Robin Talley

A loose retelling of Macbeth that takes place in a boarding school in Virginia and involves two queer couples. The supernatural elements of the play are amplified in a wonderfully creepy way, and the characters are complex and realistic, so you understand their motivations, even when they do bad things. TW: Out of the five queer characters in the novel, three die, two of them by suicide.

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo by Jill Twiss and EG Keller

A charming picture book about the Vice President’s pet bunny who falls in love with another boy bunny and wants to hop around at his side for the rest of his life. This book was written as a screw you to Mike Pence, but even so it is a genuinely nice kid’s book that deals with homosexuality and marriage equality in a way that is appropriate for young children. The illustrations are incredibly cute as well.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

A very strange, surreal tale about four people (most of whom are queer in some way) exploring a magical city that you can enter in your dreams by sleeping with someone who has been there before. I wanted to like this one more than I did, because I really love Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland books for children. But while some of the dreamlike imagery is cool and pretty, I found a lot of it weirdly uncomfortable, along with the frequent sex scenes.

The Pearl Thief by Elizabeth Wein

15-year-old Julia is home for the summer at her parents’ ancestral mansion in Scotland and gets involved with a plot about theft, disappearance and possibly murder. She also has her first crushes – on a man working at her parents’ estate and a young Traveller girl, respectively. This is a prequel to Code Name Verity, which has the same protagonist, though her bisexuality isn’t really alluded to in that, which is why I’ve kept it off the list, even though it is an excellent book. The Pearl Thief is pretty good as well, though it is a bit strange to read after you’ve already read Verity and know that this carefree teenage character is going to grow up to be a spy in World War II and be tortured in a Nazi prison. Do read both books, though. They are great.

Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

A young scientist falls in love with the wife of the man she’s having an affair with. There’s speculation about quantum mechanics and interconnectedness, all wrapped in very poetic language. To be perfectly honest, I really didn’t get it, so I have no idea what any of it means. But at least the main character is bisexual and polyamorous (and possibly genderfluid – I’m not sure).

Queer Africa by Makhosazana Xaba and Karen Martin

A collection of short stories by queer African writers, discussing themes like love, sex, marriage, family and homophobia. The attitudes towards queerness in these different countries varies. In many of them, homosexuality is illegal, even though same-sex relationships used to be respected before the interference of Western colonialism. In any case, these stories are an interesting and oftentimes beautiful examination of queerness from a non-Western point of view, some joyous and some tragic. TW: The second to last story is about incest.

#books #LGBTQIA

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wordsnstuff · 7 years

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☼ Masterlist ☼

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Chaos Killed The Dinosaurs Chaos and impeding doom. We're all in the middle of it, so let's suffer together and try to our universal struggle more poetic. Listen On Spotify

Sweet Dreams & Beautiful Nightmares This playlist is a beautiful mix of sweet melody and sinister undertones. This playlist will help you drift into a peaceful sleep and comforting nightmares. Listen On Spotify

Ambient Ambient tunes to calm you down and inspire you. Whether turned on for a relaxing evening, a late night of deep thinking, or just something to listen to that's catchy, but not too heavy, this is perfect for any time. Listen On Spotify

Classical & Instrumental Whether you're studying, reading, sipping Earl Grey, writing, etc. this playlist will relax and inspire you. Listen On Spotify

Badassery Embrace your inner badassery and do it to the perfect soundtrack. Listen On Spotify

Stay Wild Everyone needs adventure and some risk in their lives. Sneak out, dance, experiment, and have fun while you’re young and free. Roll down the windows, activate your soundtrack, and stay wild;) Listen On Spotify

Like Or Like-Like You may be going through a breakup or relationship troubles in general. Sometimes you just need to listen to music and either cry, or get mad. Here’s the perfect soundtrack. Listen On Spotify

I Was Never What You Wanted A lot of people are in that bubbly, exciting place, where you’re trying to figure out if they like you back. Here’s to new romance and the pain and butterflies that come with it. Listen On Spotify

Soaked To The Skin With Emotion These song’s are bursting at the seams with emotional weight, and it can be therapeutic to indulge in someone else’s overwhelming thoughts. These songs are relatable, nostalgic, depressing, and honest, and they’re well worth a listen. Listen On Spotify

New Old Favorites Classics and love songs ~ From Sinatra to Lana, this playlist takes you back to the good old times.. whenever those were. Listen On Spotify

“Just Friends” “Just friends” don’t look at each other like that... Listen On Spotify

Calmly Sad Sometimes it’s important to take the time and let the emotions flow. For those rainier days, here is some calm music to listen to while you clear your system of whatever is bringing you down. Listen On Spotify

Skin Emotion is like skin. Some is soft, some is rough, some is dark, and some is light. All emotion should be felt, through our skin and inside our bones. Here’s a list of songs to sit back and let sink in through the skin. Listen On Spotify (feat. @redwatersounds)

Cuddles To Kisses Night in with your favorite person? Need some romantic, slightly steamy ambiance? These songs will set the mood for a memorable evening. Listen On Spotify (feat. @redwatersounds)

Hurt Me, Won’t You? All the songs she cried to over you.. Listen On Spotify

Pagan Underground In history class, we learned about witches. About them being hunted down. We were told this was all a misconception. That true witches were never to be found. But I know the real truth, the one everyone says is wrong. Listen On Spotify

Driving At Night Windows down, stereo loud, and our throats raw from singing along as our worries are soaked up by the stars above.. Listen On Spotify

2 AM With You On The Beach Here I am, drowning in an ocean of you.. Listen On Spotify (feat. @redwatersounds)

Rebellious Teenagers The greatest pleasure in life is doing what others say you cannot.. Listen On Spotify (feat. @redwatersounds)

Silk Sheets & Afternoon Tea We all need a calm day in bed with a cup of tea sometimes, as well as a soundtrack to go with..Listen On Spotify (feat. @redwatersounds)

Warmth Warm songs for cold days..Listen On Spotify

Valentine’s Day You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams..Listen On Spotify (feat. @redwatersounds)

Good Old Days When we had the time to just lay and listen..Listen On Spotify

We Were Picturesque Remember those days? I’m starting to forget…Listen On Spotify

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get-out-go · 6 years

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Beginner tips for 4x4 rental self-drive safaris

Are you an independent and adventurous traveller that wants to explore Africa at your own pace? A self-drive safari is one of the best ways for you to experience Southern Africa’s splendour first hand and a great alternative to the traditional safari.

Although road conditions throughout much of Africa are the stuff of nightmares, most of Namibia, South Africa and to a degree Botswana are very accessible. Renting a fully equipped 4x4 vehicle though greatly opens up your options as a number of must-see parks and bush camps are not accessible with a normal car. As your 4x4 camper becomes both your accommodation and transport this is also quite economical and flexible.

Having the freedom to go from one game reserve to the next as well as being able to stop off at wine estates, beaches and amazing landmarks en route is actually a lot easier than you might think. Self-drive safaris let you take in South Africa, Namibia or Botswana at your own pace with many highlights making for some incredible moments along the way.

Unlike the traditional safari, this experience is not given to you, you have to get out there and grab it. The reward however, is unmatched.

Here are a few practical beginner do’s and don’ts and some common questions about self-drive safaris;

Do’s

Research and plan your trip well in advance. Most 4x4 vehicle rentals, reserves and campsites require advance booking.

Do not skimp on the vehicle, stick with reputable rental companies.

Understand your vehicle and equipment. Have the rental company consultant take you through the vehicle and equipment thoroughly. There are no stupid questions, don’t be embarrassed to ask anything.

Adhere to traffic rules, road signs and stick to the speed limit, especially in national parks and game reserves - it is for your own safety and allows you to see so much more.

Watch out for animals - many of the roads are unfenced and animals such as donkeys and cattle (even hippo) often wander across the road, in parks and reserves it could be anything from a tortoise to an elephant!

Take a GPS and maps. The roads are often not sign-posted so these are a definite necessity. I would also highly recommend renting a satellite phone when venturing into remote areas alone (also see FAQs).

You should always have a first aid kit. Apart from special medication needs like chronic medicines there are a few basic things that should be in every first aid kit to cater for cuts, bruises and burns. Consult your rental company for options.

Arrange your own medical and emergency evacuation insurance.

Ditch the tick-in-the-box mentality. An essential element of your trip is patience; enjoy what Southern Africa has to offer. Don’t rush from place to place, but rather take your time and enjoy the spectacular wilderness.

Don’ts

Do not travel after dark as animals are harder to see on the road at night. Many accidents happen because of this.

On safari, don’t get too close to wildlife no matter how amazing the sighting is. Wildlife is just that; wild. They are not pets, they behave unpredictably and can be very dangerous. Do not corner animals with your vehicle or honk or shout at them. See post on what to do when you encounter dangerous animals here.

Don’t Contribute to safari traffic jams. Many people pull over at sightings however they see fit, without taking into account that they might be blocking other people or cornering animals. At busy sightings wait your turn then move forward, watch for a few minutes, take your snapshots and move on. Alternatively park away from the sighting and wait for the traffic jam to subside. You’ll be amazed what you see sometimes once everyone else has left…

Inside national parks / game reserves, stay inside your vehicle at all times unless otherwise indicated.

Don’t feed wild animals.

Don’t litter! Always take out what you brought in, only dispose of your garbage at designated points.

Only make fires in braai (BBQ) areas or fire pits / rings. Be extra careful in windy conditions and put out your fire before going to bed.

FAQs

Q: What vehicle should I rent?

A: Vehicle reliability is probably the most important factor here. While the rental company will come to your aid to repair or replace a vehicle, aid may be hours, or even days away. My personal preference is the Toyota Land Cruiser or Hilux, two of the most common (and most reliable) vehicles in Africa. Be sure to discuss your camping equipment needs with your rental company.

Q: Do I need off-road experience to self-drive through Southern Africa?

A: Depending on where you want to go, not necessarily. You do however need good, general driving experience and a valid drivers license obviously. If you do want to venture off the beaten track a little more but you’re an inexperienced off-road driver, another option could be joining a guided self-drive tour. There are many great tours available (with varying degrees of difficulty) guided by reliable tour-operators like Bejhane Adventures (or sometimes provided by some of the rental companies as well).

Q: Where can I go off-road?

A: First of all, let’s define “off-road”. Off-roading is a very loose term that’s often used to describe anything from travelling on gravel roads and jeep tracks to literally driving off the road. Generally, always stick to roads and tracks, driving off the road can be dangerous if you’re inexperienced and also not permitted in a number of areas like National parks.

Q. Is it safe to go on safari by myself?

A: Yes, but again, it greatly depends on where you want to go. Many remote destinations have no mobile reception, no recovery or emergency services on hand and are so desolate that you might not see any other traffic for days. I would advise always renting a satellite phone and GPS when travelling alone to these remote areas and recommend rather going with an experienced guide / tour if it’s your first “off-road” self-drive safari. Be aware of crime elements in cities, towns and more populated areas in general. Only camp in designated campsites.

Q: Is it safe to drive at night?

A: No, do not drive at night if you can avoid it.

Q. What do I do if my rental vehicle breaks down?

A. Ensure that your rental company has 24h emergency / road-side assistance (the reputable ones do). After a call to their helpline, assistance / replacement vehicle will be dispatched. The time it takes to get to you will greatly depend on your location obviously. Always make sure to have enough provisions (especially water) when travelling in remote areas.

Q: Can I drive through water in my 4x4?

A: Yes, if necessary, but be sure to gauge the depth and flow of the water first. You should be able to comfortably walk through the water no deeper than your knees and with no obstacles. Never attempt to cross rapids! When in doubt, rather find an alternate route.

Q: Do I need to carry extra fuel (i.e. jerry cans)?

A: It depends entirely on the vehicle you’re renting and where you’ll be travelling to. Some vehicles will have long-range fuel tanks and/or jerry cans can usually be provided as well. Check with your rental company and research your routes prior to departure.

Q: Is it safe to cross borders?

A: Yes, it is safe to cross borders between Southern African countries however, ensure that you have the relevant visa’s and paperwork for yourself and your vehicle. If your rental company caters for cross-border trips, they should supply you with all the relevant info and paperwork. Always be patient, courteous and respectful when dealing with customs and immigration (or any other officials for that matter).

A few additional references;

4x4 Rental Companies;

Bushlore

Britz

Avis Safari Rental

Forums, Guides and tools;

iOverlander Maps

Tracks4Africa Navigation

Self-drive 4x4 Forum

SA 4x4 Forum

Lonely Planet’s Southern Africa Guide

#Overlanding #safari #africa #travel #adventure #4x4offroad

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riichardwilson · 4 years

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How to Find Free Money in the Middle of a Pandemic

A step-by-step guide to finding a grant that is specific to your needs.

August 7, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Anyone can google “how to apply for a grant,” but the results will be all over the place in terms of usefulness.

Recently, I spoke with Sara Lee Peterson, a veteran in grant writing, to get her top three critical secrets on how to obtain a grant for your business even during a global pandemic.

Related: 5 Steps to Gaining Financial Freedom

The pandemic has created many grants specifically for COVID-19 relief and associated innovative research quests with regards to the virus, so if you adequately prepare, find the right RFP (Request for Proposal), and have time on your side, you actually have a shot at being awarded funds by a foundation (for non-profits) or the government. Here’s how to start.

Beginner tips

MAKE YOUR LONG STORY SHORT. Condense the history and future of your organization as tightly as possible. Potential funders have a lot to read and a well-written, succinct narrative is paramount.

SEE THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES. Appreciate that there may not be an exact match opportunity for your vision right now. Practice patience.

CROSS THE BRIDGE WHEN YOU COME TO IT. Don’t plan on grant monies. Plan what can/ will happen without them, and relish in the monies if they happen.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. If you are awarded funds, use them well or be prepared for sincere and abrupt backlash (I.E. retracted funds).

And if you aren’t awarded funds, try, try, try again!

Step 1: Understand who you are

NON-PROFITS: You have the lUXury of finding grant opportunities in both the federal and foundation worlds. Grants favor the 501c3 but you still need to find one that shares your vision. Most databases will make you pay a minimal fee to search opportunities but start with Candid.org and Grants.gov. Also, take a look at the philanthropic sides of banks like Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan. They all serve private foundations eager to help non-profits.

SMALL BUSINESSES: Federal grants have a lot to offer you; your best sources will be either local (state) sources (start with GrantWatch.com), the SBA website, and Grants.gov.

Step 2. Find the right grants for you

Now that you know who you are, go to Google and type in “Grants for Fill-in-the-Blank”. That’s it. You have the uncannily easy liberty of searching your exact interest and passion to see who wants to give you money. It will be a small pool of funders, undoubtedly, but ones who are extremely interested.

Step 3. Understanding what a grant is

Grants have a 4-part lifecycle:

1) The Hard Part: A Battle for Eligibility

This opening is where most trip up or give up. Do not give in to the temptation of molding your project to fit a funder’s vision. It must be a harmonious match, lest all your effort will be for naught.

2) The Harder Part: Writing / Compiling

You’ll need to write (or outsource) a compelling proposal that convinces the funding organization that your project is not only worthy but better than your competitors’ and completely in line with their mission. On top of that, the organization of materials for a complete proposal can be surprisingly overwhelming. A technical narrative, abstract, schedule, and budget are usually only the basics when it comes to completing the package.

Related: How to Minimize Risk and Protect Your Money During Times of Crisis

3) The Hardest Part: Waiting

It’s in their hands after you submit. You did the work, now do what entrepreneurs do worst: wait (potentially months) for an answer.

4) The Best Part: “Free” Money!

Of course, it isn’t free. You worked hard to get this far, and now you’ll work harder to execute. You talked the talk, now you must walk the walk.

Step 4. Do this in this order.

REGISTER EVERYWHERE. Obtain all your government assigned codes and registrations before you bother to search for a suitable opportunity: EIN or TIN, DUNS number, CAGE code, register with SAM.gov, Grants.gov, SBA (if a small business). Getting all these can have an annoying wait time; you don’t want to waste it scrambling while the funder’s clock is running down. Don’t fight time. You’ll lose.

SEARCH according to your eligibility. This will be time-consuming. Searching by keyword is not a good idea. PLEASE NOTE: Grants.gov alone is a beast. There is a lot to get lost in there so be strategic and methodical in your navigation. It’s a procrastinator’s worst nightmare- so many things to click, so much stuff to learn. Going through the process in the right order at the right tempo can reap benefits.

CONTINUE TO SEARCH. You might not find an applicable RFP. Search every day or put that task on the list of daily activities of someone you trust.

KNOW WHY YOU NEED FUNDING AND WHERE IT’S GOING. Hoping to take home a bonus? Don’t bother. Brand new business in need of capital? You might be better off finding investors, but this can be a potential path. Need supplies, additional employees, research time, or want to create a new facet of an existing program? These are pretty good allocations. You needn’t set an exact dollar amount or timeline to your plans but have a general overview written down.

Related: 3 Federal Loan Programs You Can Take Advantage of Right Now

DO YOUR RESEARCH. When you find them- the organization you just KNOW will want to give you money- research them as if you’re writing a book about them. What’s their mission? Their history? Who have they funded in the past? Who are the people in charge? Find their idiosyncrasies, understand their goals, and capitalize on the fact that unlearned, inexperienced grant seekers will not do this and pay (by not getting paid) for it.

WRITING THE PROPOSAL. Please do not use the internet for this one. Examples of proposals will do you very little good because this part is wholly dependent upon your purpose. If you are not very articulate or perhaps too verbose, think of who you like listening to. Who debates well? Who has a personable yet professional manner? Who adept at finding their way around databases they’ve never used before? That person should head your proposal. And yes, your proposal should change for every submission you do. No one proposal is suitable for multiple funders.

We hope this article was informative and will help in your efforts to obtain a grant!

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scpie · 4 years

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How to Find Free Money in the Middle of a Pandemic

A step-by-step guide to finding a grant that is specific to your needs.

August 7, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Anyone can google “how to apply for a grant,” but the results will be all over the place in terms of usefulness.

Recently, I spoke with Sara Lee Peterson, a veteran in grant writing, to get her top three critical secrets on how to obtain a grant for your business even during a global pandemic.

Related: 5 Steps to Gaining Financial Freedom

Beginner tips

MAKE YOUR LONG STORY SHORT. Condense the history and future of your organization as tightly as possible. Potential funders have a lot to read and a well-written, succinct narrative is paramount.

SEE THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES. Appreciate that there may not be an exact match opportunity for your vision right now. Practice patience.

CROSS THE BRIDGE WHEN YOU COME TO IT. Don’t plan on grant monies. Plan what can/ will happen without them, and relish in the monies if they happen.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS. If you are awarded funds, use them well or be prepared for sincere and abrupt backlash (I.E. retracted funds).

And if you aren’t awarded funds, try, try, try again!

Step 1: Understand who you are

SMALL BUSINESSES: Federal grants have a lot to offer you; your best sources will be either local (state) sources (start with GrantWatch.com), the SBA website, and Grants.gov.

Step 2. Find the right grants for you

Step 3. Understanding what a grant is

Grants have a 4-part lifecycle:

1) The Hard Part: A Battle for Eligibility

2) The Harder Part: Writing / Compiling

Related: How to Minimize Risk and Protect Your Money During Times of Crisis

3) The Hardest Part: Waiting

It’s in their hands after you submit. You did the work, now do what entrepreneurs do worst: wait (potentially months) for an answer.

4) The Best Part: “Free” Money!

Of course, it isn’t free. You worked hard to get this far, and now you’ll work harder to execute. You talked the talk, now you must walk the walk.

Step 4. Do this in this order.

CONTINUE TO SEARCH. You might not find an applicable RFP. Search every day or put that task on the list of daily activities of someone you trust.

Related: 3 Federal Loan Programs You Can Take Advantage of Right Now

We hope this article was informative and will help in your efforts to obtain a grant!

loading…

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/how-to-find-free-money-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/

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motherhen-bear · 7 years

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Kendra Tevelyan: Facing the Tiger

“Solas?”

The elven mage glanced downwards, his brush still poised to finish the crest of the Empress’s mantle in gold and yellow hues. From up on his high perch he saw Kendra Trevelyan standing below him at the ready, hands folded neatly behind her back.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you have a moment?”

“Of course, Inquisitor,” he replied, putting aside his pallet and brushes before carefully making his way down the ladder to her. “What can I do for you?”

Kendra nodded, almost more to herself then to him, but did not answer him for a moment. She seemed to be struggling to find the words, which came as a surprise to Solas who had always taken the Inquisitor for a sure-tongued individual considering, or rather in spite of, her noble upbringing. Eventually she gestured toward the exit that led out onto the battlements.

“Would you walk with me?” she asked.

Solas arched a curious brow, but made no objections as he followed her outside and into the midday sun. The brisk mountain air pulled a long breath from his lungs, clearing his sinuses of the scent of oil paint and aged parchment. Other than a courtesy meal and his regular and nightly delving into the Fade, it had been a while since Solas had stepped outside his study for anything besides a mission with the Inquisitor and he felt every one of his long, long years quickly and quietly take roll off his body as the tension released.

Kendra noticed the way his shoulders relaxed and smiled at him.

“It would seem I arrived just in the nick of time. When was the last time you took a break, Solas?”

“As you know Inquisitor, when one is preoccupied with preventing the destruction of the world, simple pleasures often go neglected. However,” he fixed her with a deadpan stare, though the amusement was palpable in his tone, “based on tales I’ve been told of last night in the tavern, you seem to be making up for them.”

Kendra’s cheeks reddened considerably before she proudly and quite impressively declared, “One of these days, Sera is going to replace the water in your canteen with Dwarven ale and I am going to laugh when you fall on your head and start serenading spirits.”

‘If she only knew,’ Solas thought to himself, but he kept his silence as they continued their way along the battlements.

The pair walked in companionable silence, Kendra nodding at the odd one or two guards who passed by them and paused to salute. They passed through Cullen’s office, of which the commander was currently absent from, and continued along. The Inquisitor was still wearing the same worried expression from earlier on her face, evidently stalling for a point when some spirit would leap through a rift and re-grant her the power of speech.

Solas let out a sigh before breaking the tension, “Inquisitor, while my journeys into the Fade have unlocked many secrets, they have sadly not given me the ability to read minds.”

Kendra stopped short, her eyes wide and she let out a rather unladylike snort-of-a-laugh that she quickly tried to masquerade it as a cough. He continued, not missing a beat.

“If whatever it is that’s troubling you weighs so heavily on your mind, then perhaps here and now would be the best time to let it go.”

He glanced over the side of the battlements and down into the abyss below. “By my estimate, it should travel for quite the distance.”

Kendra stared at him and Solas watched as a smile crept across her face. Her entire posture transformed from unsuitably hunched, uncomfortable and awkward, into one that was much more preferably calm, composed, and in-control. The world had done much to the youngest Trevelyan, with more still on the way before any… mistakes could be fixed. Better that she not let herself be brought low by inconsequential insecurities, especially if she was basing them on his reactions.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. I suppose I was hoping that there would be a way to ask this without sounding like a complete simpleton, but…” she shook her head and tucked a loose tendril behind her ear. “Apparently not.”

Solas maintained a rather unimpressed expression, but the corner of his mouth did twitch upwards. Just once.

That was better. There was no need for all this shame and embarrassment when it was just a simple matter of–

“I want you to help me get over my fear of magic.”

Well.

“All my life, it was always assumed that if I hadn’t been married off by the time I was of age, I would either join the Chantry or the Order. I’ve spent so much of my life training to fight magic, but…” Kendra let out a frustrated huff. “That training has also birthed an unhealthy fear of it. It can’t continue.”

It would seem that they were talking about it now.

Her discomfort wasn’t as much of a secret as she may have liked it to be, at least not to Solas. He still recalled the naked fear on the young woman’s face the first time he had grasped her marked hand and thrust it towards a rift. That same fear, while less extreme, still lingered whenever Solas lit a torch of veilfire or summoned a barrier. The other mages in their party had also surely noticed it. For all of her many faults, there were few shrewder than Vivienne, and Dorian was far too aware of the effects his presence caused not to notice the unconscious flinch the Inquisitor made every time he levitated a book to his chair from across the library. Around Cole it was even worse, and though she did an commendable job of tampering down her reactions whenever the spirit was near, Cole was not such a being that her unease and disquiet could be hidden from his gifts.

Now that same woman stood before him, an embarrassed flush raised high on her cheeks and looking positively furious with herself.

“We’re fighting demons from the beyond, combating an immortal darkspawn magister, and stumbling across ancient elven magic at every turn. Being afraid of everyday displays of magic and proven allies on top of all that has never been more foolish or energy-wasting!” Kendra paused, frowned, and collected herself before continuing. “In my head I know that, but I can’t shake it on my own. I need your help, Solas.”

“Why not ask Dorian or Vivienne?” Solas asked. “They are both talented practitioners of the arcane and I’m sure they would be happy to help alleviate your fears.”

Kendra was quiet for a moment, giving the diplomatic illusion of considering his words, but it was obvious her mind was already made up the moment she continued the conversation. “You're not wrong, but I don't think the results of those lessons would bear the best fruit,” she said with a smile that would rival Josephine in manners.

“Dorian is exceptionally skilled and a dear friend, but he’s too impatient,” she explained, smiling whilst rolling her eyes. “Knowing him, his ‘beginner level’ would likely start with a field of undead and a giant fireball.”

The memory of the Inquisitor’s last mission into the Fallow Mire flashed through Solas’ mind and he couldn’t help but find himself agreeing.

Kendra continued, “I respect Vivienne, but she would have me hone my fear as a weapon, not rid myself of it. While I understand her reasoning, I’ve already been trained in that way. No,” she shook her head and looked directly to him. “I need a different sort of lesson and I need a teacher with the staying power to do it.”

Solas said nothing as he considered the human woman in front of him, hands clasped military style behind her back, patiently waiting for him to either accept her odd request or send her away to find someone else.

Humans were predictable. Most people were, but humans especially. While there was something to be admired in their passion and strength, it was constantly being squandered due to their lack of wisdom or finesse. Humans never seemed to learn from their mistakes and what’s worse; they were constantly denying they existed.

To be fair, the same could be said of him, but that was a dark mirror Solas did not wish to stare into, at least not today.

However, Solas had seen the letters on Kendra’s desk – all addressed to House Trevelyan and yet never sent, but never fully abandoned either. He had spotted her early training sessions the morning after a particularly severe battle with one too many close calls. He’d noticed the tension behind all of her gracious smiles, curtsies and ‘how do you do’s’ at the Inquisition’s last social function. He knew she had luncheons with Vivienne, drank with Dorian, and took walks with him when what came from their dreams, haunted her nightmares.

The Inquisitor despised her own failings like they were manifestations of Corypheus himself. What’s more, she attacked them with all the vigor needed to fell a dragon and all the care required to navigate the Orlesian court. He had never met someone so aware, so ashamed, and yet so prepared to drag herself, kicking and screaming, into the light if it was necessary, despite her discomfort.

It was admirable. Admirable and worrying.

After a long pause and a sudden gust of autumn wind made Kendra drop her composure and rub her arms for warmth, Solas finally let out a sigh.

“Handpicked by the Inquisitor to dispel her childhood nighttime horrors – an arduous task, but an important one surely.

“Does that mean…?”

He couldn’t hold back a slight smile. “Inquisitor, if my knowledge and instruction may be of some use in aiding you, then I would be happy to help.”

Kendra beamed and bowed. “Thank you, Solas,” she said as she rose. “I put myself in your capable hands.”

“Of course. When would you like to begin?”

She bit her lip and made a considering, humming noise under her breath. “Would it be terrible if I said now? Or at least as soon as possible?”

He found himself chuckling, despite himself. Admirable and worrying indeed. “How does after three bells sound? It will give me time to prepare and you the chance to dine before we begin."

Kendra nodded eagerly as they began to head inside, “Sounds perfect. Should I bring anything?” Her body was still clearly thrumming with nerves for what was to come, but her voice was steady – a good sign.

“Just yourself, Inquisitor. An open mind, perhaps some patience…” Solas said thoughtfully.

“I’ll be sure to fetch them from my quarters,” she teased now that he had accepted and apparently the pressure was off. Solas wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that asking him had been that nerve-wracking. “No fireballs?” she asked as she held the door open for him, a minor hint of trepidation in her voice.

“Not for lesson one,” he replied and stepped inside.

#Dragon Age #DA #Dragon Age Inquisition #DA:I #Inquisitor #Trevelyan #Inquisitor Trevelyan #Kendra Trevelyan #Solas #fanfiction #fanfic #mine #my fic

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inexchangeforyoursoul · 7 years

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... I fucking forgot to put it on here, too, didn’t I.

(Why this chapter took so long in comparison? Apart from tests, I started adding to some fragments... and wrote at least two other chapters' worth of material. For way later. Kate pls. (aka tfw you have no idea what to insert between two much more planned-out scenes and leave the vague part rotting until further notice)

The rest of the afternoon slips away unnoticed and Kat starts yawning with the darkness setting in. Those damn lamps on the wall make her think of the drowsy winter nights she spends sitting in her window. Also, it's still really hot in here.

Law has been sitting next to her after finishing up another sheet of paper and fiddling around with some stuff in the many drawers of his bureau. Which is rather annoying, because he's yet to say a fucking word. Combined with the stupid task and exhaustion, it's driving her crazy.

Kat's patience is at the end of its tether at last, which manifests itself in a series of quick finger snaps as the pocket watch flickers around. After the last one, the paper tower with the object on it tilts to the side and stops in a precarious angle.

"ARGH, that's it! I give up," she groans, flinging her arms into the air. The practice blocks follow the motion and stretch out alike to a harmonica; some of that paper is indeed just wood fibers and dust by now.

And he stays silent still.

"You really could try and help me out somehow, you know?" she grumbles to him, then decides to arrange the stuff in the suspended garbage towers so they remain more stable once reassembled.

"That's the thing... I can't help more," he sighs, leaning back on his arms. "I already said everything you'd need to know... you get a feeling for it and it happens, eventually. Didn't take that long for me."

"Well, then... riddle me what happens if it doesn't happen?" she asks, poking the ground paper out of the stack. It's kind of annoying this way around...

He shrugs, checking back on what she's doing. "We kidnap you, I guess."

She lifts her brow. Instead of getting rid of the garbage, she moves everything remotely intact to the side instead. Much better, and much easier. "Excuse me?"

"If you need more than two weeks to do it, we'll just take you with us," he states.

"Pfff, as if. Can't catch me, your legs are longer than mine," she scoffs as her fingers do dozens of minute movements and the layers settle in an orderly manner one by one, until the watch finishes it all. The paper block on the right is shorter than its pair now.

He can't quite suppress the laugh upon hearing that. "Touché." Having said that and returning attention to the settling scene as she drops the useless dust and shreds as-is, he sighs. "It really would be easier if it was possible with this technique... you are damn good at it for a beginner."

"It's just easier for me to think with... shapes, rather than space." Being done with practice, she leans forward to rest her head on her hands. "Betcha there exists a way to telekinesis intangible shit back to where it belongs."

"Good luck figuring it out," he says nonchalantly, then flops on the bed.

"Also done for today, huh?" she asks, peeking back towards him.

"Could barely sleep yesterday... and your body can't keep up, so yes, I'm done," is the reply. Then he lowers the hat, which he had on ever since going out to eat for god knows what reason, onto his eyes .

Kat yawns. "No wonder it can't handle it... honestly, do we have to sit in here for this? I'm dying from the heat... gonna catch a cold as soon as I leave."

"Hrm..." he grumbles, then pulls up one leg to loosen the shoelaces. "This is the only place where we definitely won't get disturbed, unfortunately. My crew can stay quiet for a few hours when told so, but," deepest sigh she's heard as of yet, "Nico-ya said Strawhat was already questioning where the hell I was... just imagine him crashing on us." He kicks off one shoe, then switches legs. "Nope."

Kat bobs her head in silent agreement. The other ship's captain was clingy enough at breakfast; needed to be reminded four times that she's not Law. "Fair enough." She pats his knee and stands up.

"Eight again tomorrow?" she asks, yawning again.

He grunts something that's a very likely yes; she gives a similar sound upon leaving the room, as a ways to say bye.

Having waddled her way up to the Thousand Sunny, -and being fast at that, too, because it's gotten cold outside,- she enters the girl's room again, where she's met with way too much brightness compared to the submarine.

"Holy fuck, if I was a vampire I would have disintegrated the moment I opened the door," she says, rubbing her eyes.

"You mean Torao is no vampire after all?" Nami asks to both Carrot's and Kat's amusement. Judging by the voices, they are sitting somewhere to the far left.

"Infiltration of water cave successful, lacking evidence as of yet," she plays on while running into one of the chairs with eyes squeezed shut. Carrot was already laughing harder at the answer, but her going mole has her in stitches; Nami has joined in, too. Can't see shit, but this is music to her ears.

"Apparently I've become blind as a bat, though..." she continues while taking a quick, squinty blink at her surroundings. "Anyway, yet to see him leave at daylight without a hat on. Further investigation need-ow!" That must have been the leg of the other chair she just rammed her foot into... goddamn.

"Do you guys actually need anything more than a nightlight for what you're doing?" she says, suppressing a hiss with moderate success.

"Nope, on my way," Nami says calming down; this is followed by a few knocks on the strip floor, then a click with the stinging brightness subduing. Finally, she can see again. Her eyes still kinda hurt, though.

"Thanks," Kat breathes in relief as she drops on her cover pile, then poofs the pillow a little.

"Tired?" asks the navigator while walking back to the vanity desk she's been sitting at.

"Yeah," she sighs, settling down. "Using this devil fruit is rather draining... not to mention that his room is as hot as a volcano. Though you've probably been around there already, no?"

"I've only been as deep as the dining room," is Nami's answer. "Carrot did help with something down there, though- right?" she asks, turning to the rabbit girl.

"Yeah, been to the engine-room once," comes the excited reply. "The motor itself is bigger than our submarine!" the mink adds, spreading out her arms to illustrate. The point of the original question is forgotten.

"Makes sense..." Kat muses. "It is a pretty big... shipmarine, after all." She yawns, then shudders upon hitting the cold blankets; her lair is chilly, which is unwelcome after the hours spent in the heat. Kat pulls the dedicated cover over her shoulder. Thinking about it, though... these guys also have a submarine? What?

"Should we leave you alone?" asks Nami, putting the hairbrush she's been fiddling with away. Carrot bounces to the closer end of the bed to check on Kat's cocoon.

"Nah, it's fine... I doubt it's all that late, anyway." She... really has no idea about the time. The sun went down around eight yesterday. It must be about one hour before her normal bedtime at worst... she's probably exhausted enough to fall asleep with people talking nearby regardless. And without lying sleeplessly for up to an hour before losing consciousness; that's why she makes sure to go to bed between 10 and 11 in the first place.

"Well," starts the redhead as she takes a look at the clock inside, "it's twenty past nine. You did go to sleep not much later yesterday."

Was about half an hour off... oh well. "I see... do what you like, then," she mumbles, already half-aware of her surroundings. The blankets are getting nice and warm.

"If you say so," sighs Carrot, already getting up. She surveys the corner pile for a few seconds, then turns back to Nami, flapping an ear. "Out cold like salad. Shall we check on the others and the thing they were excited about? That flier seemed interesting."

The other nods, and tiptoes out with the fuzzy girl in tow.

It's not until the 6am bell toll that Kat wakes, but there was little rest she could get. Like earlier in the afternoon, she has seen a legitimate nightmare. It kind of felt like any other really drawn-out dream with lots of running around, except those don't cause her to wake with every bit of hers shaking and sweating. They never do that. Instead of getting chased by a faceless anxiety monster that she shakes off over and over, getting lost in a magical labyrinth loaded with traps, or riding an unruly dinosaur through a never ending library, it was all just so... cold. Plain. And unnaturally unchanging, and depressing.

She doesn't know who the man in the feather coat was, but hell if she wanted him to leave.

Then, he did anyway... and there was fire again, and she woke in tears and with a lump in her throat. It took a few seconds until she noticed that the pain she felt while sleeping clung onto her and manifested itself back in reality, just like before. This time, however, it was not just her side- half of her body felt as if it was trying to murder her. The entire torso was either stiff or throbbing with pain, if not both, as was her left arm. A good portion of it didn't subdue within a few minutes, either. By the time Nami, Robin and Carrot woke up, most of the stiff, stabbing pain in her chest moved deep under her clavicle.

"Say, Kat... you don't look well at all," notes Nami in the doorway as they move out as the last ones. "Are you doing alright?"

"It's... nothing big, I just got up with the wrong foot; or shoulder. Guess sleeping like this has its downs, huh." Except she was lying on her right side and you can't do that with what's likely your internal organs... no idea what else it could be, though, except maybe overheating. Which she's perfectly willing to blame. Damn, does she feel like shit, though... it's tolerable by now, but her ribcage and arm are still aching and this fact is apparently not subject to change. The next round in the sauna will be the icing on the cake. Although... she remembers the cooler weather that was promised for the day; based on what Shachi said about the temperatures, it might be bearable this time. She sure hopes so.

"Eugh..." Nami reacts as if she just felt a pang herself, pulling her neck in; "That's always bad... do you want a massage? Robin is really good at it, let's catch up with her."

"Really...? I don't know," Kat says, pondering. She should probably take on the offer, but it still doesn't feel right. "I guess... I'll pass for now... maybe in the afternoon? If it still hurts. It probably will, though... These tend to stay for a few days."

"You sure like to go for compromises," Nami sighs.

"Well..." Yeah, she does. She scratches her neck- a bad move that's immediately punished by a pang right above her shoulder blade. Her face twitches and she lets out a small moan. Alright, while she has a mystery torture service going on, she also may, in fact, have slept on her neck, because no other part of this bullshit reacts to movement.

"... painkiller?" asks Nami, raising a worried brow.

"Definitely down for that," she grumbles.

Shoving down one crescent roll (and Luffy away) at the table just to swallow the pill in an appropriate manner is quite a chore, though; normally she wouldn't eat a thing until at least 10, getting nauseous from the food otherwise. Which, surprise, she does; double the fun until the painkiller kicks in.

As she pretty much tiptoes down the metal stairs, -and resists the vague urge to throw up,- she decides to hum a tune. That usually distracts her from ills. Even helps with pain, as she's heard- inclined to believe that. At least she feels a bit better afterwards. Let's see... Drunken Sailor sounds fine. And is also kind of appropriate at the moment.

Humming along, she picks up a light echo of what she's doing and... wait a goddamn minute.

Going a little higher or deeper... everything sounds just fine with minimal effort. Kat's steps pick up pace, and she practically kicks the door onto Law, ignoring the extra neck pain it comes with.

"You!" she shouts basically as it slams open. Law's heart attack counter: 2. "You can sing," she whispers with leery eyes.

The look of utter terror creeps onto the face of the man as he gets over the initial shock. A face she soon can't resist laughing at.

"Oh my god," Kat starts as soon as she cannot keep herself from cackling anymore, the vibrations of which release another chain reaction of stabs in her shoulder. Can't decide which sensation the tears are caused by. "is... is this *cough* your most closely guarded secret, or what, because... your, hhhh- owowow... your face, man...!" she slowly collapses into a squat of joyful misery.

"First of all," he stammers in angry embarrassment, "you better keep this to yourself...!" She looks back up at him. Didn't know her face was capable of getting that red, whether it was from anger or shame.

All in all, a bad move as she needs to laugh harder, which... really is more painful than anything else. A little pain in the abdomen reappears, too, though it may just be the regular stomach ache caused by laughing too much. She hisses and squeezes her locked hands to redirect attention. This would be more effective if the left hand would still hurt... but that's one of the parts where the pain started to subdue by now.

Taking note of her display of anguish, Law sheds every additional emotion and puts on his usual serious demeanor. "... what's the matter?"

"Slept on my neck," she whimpers. Sticking to this half-truth for now; the stuff she just took should care of the rest, anyway. "Asked for some painkillers already, though."

"... those probably won't do," Law states after short consideration, then turns back to beeline for his bureau.

"What do you mean?" Kat asks, peeking up carefully as to not strain any of the afflicted muscles. He's rooting around in the upper right drawer.

"Let it suffice... that my body has developed a resistance against weak agents," he says with more monotony than what she's gotten used to.

It seems he's especially crabby today. Regardless... that means he's drugging himself regularly. Why, though? It's... hmm. She puts a hand on her left shoulder where receptors demand attention from deep below the skin again. There's... an inkling. Sad thing, if true, regardless of cause.

A second later he picks up a little paper bag, shakes its sole content out, and crumples the rest. "You've eaten something, I assume?" he asks, stepping back up to her.

"Yep, ate a roll," she groans as he's helping out with the feat of standing up. "Which in turn also makes me wanna puke. I don't eat a thing so early for this very reason..." she breathes. Good news: the additional lingering pain in her chest disappeared after laughing. Bad news: some of the pain returned to her stomach, and she's got the faint feeling it has nothing to do with said activity. The averaging of it all ends in a 'vaguely better than before,' though.

"Not a good practice, but I see your point," he says, holding out the pill for her to catch.

"What part of me is healthy or a good practice?" Kat asks, taking it with a big gulp of water from her cool bottle after he drops it into her palm. Speaking of cool water, the room is as warm as... a room in winter with a nice fire going, which must mean about ten grades less, thankfully. Then again, it's eight, not ten o'clock, so that's subject to change. Where was she again? Oh, right, health. "I'm a stick figure with zero stamina and atrocious circulation. And god knows what else has been flying under the radar."

Crossing his arms, Law takes a deep breath. "Your circulatory system is... not exactly good, I'll give you that. Blood pressure might as well belong to a corpse, as does the temperature in the end of your limbs because of that. The fact that your joints crack frequently is enhanced by that and insufficient exercise. Get someone to treat them or you'll face quite a few painful problems in a decade or two. Then... ah, yes, the mucous membrane is a little more active than it ought to be, but that's no issue. You also might wanna get -0.5 reading glasses, brush your teeth more often if you don't want to visit the dentist in a few months, and honestly? Stop scratching your neck and shoulders, it's full of scabs and wounds which could get ugly infections in harder to reach places." He sure did just say that without thinking and in one go. Having finished the monologue, he looks back up and considers quick whether he left out something. "I found nothing else when I did the checkup."

"Uh..." She's not sure how to react here. Won't be able to stop the scratching just like that, and she's aware of the toothbrush- god, why the toothbrush again?!,- problem. Now she has motivation to keep it in mind, too. Either way, Law did just spare her a long overdue trip to the local doctor. "Thanks?"

"No need to," he nods.

"What's up with you, though? You are being so... tense. Even more than exactly 24 hours ago." She tries to keep him in sight as she carefully cramp-walks her way to her semi-official bed seat for training.

Hearing that, he... Kat's not sure how to describe the reaction. There's definitely a nervous, if not shameful streak to it, though. "Nothing you should concern yourself about."

Okkkay... he's definitely hiding something. It's likely nothing she has any stakes in, though, so... leave lying dog(tor)s be.

Having settled down with minimal pain at last, the still higher than average heat gets noticeable. She pulls at the shirt to get some air going. Raising the cloth, though... it's almost stuck to her. Gross. Oh bother...

"By the by... I feel... it's time I asked for fresh clothes?" Kat would love to punch herself for feeling bothersome, but it hurts her trapezious muscle just to think about it. It's not as if she also gave half of her wardrobe away, or anything...

"Oh... sure," he responds with a little delay, shaking off the unknown shadow that's been looming over him. "The chest of drawers should have anything you need at the moment, pick what you like," he says then, pointing to her temporal working station.

She sighs... getting up again? Ugh. "Alright..." Will need a bath before changing, though. That will be fun- especially with all this soreness. The pill should start working in about half a hour... until who knows when. Will need to time it all. Or... wait a sec. Can't she just...

"Is something the matter?" asks Law as the epiphany hits her.

"I just realized that I won't have to bother getting up the traditional way," she says, lifting a finger; with that, she rises from the bed, then adjusts the angle and stretches out her legs to meet the floor again. Unfortunately, the wooziness is heightened by the action; she's not doing that again until the crescent roll in her stomach is gone.

"That you did," Law notes with a half-smile.

"It's... kinda different, though," she notes, stepping forward to the piece of furniture. "I moved stuff... relative to myself thus far, I mean." Crouch down... slowly...

"It is really disorienting when you multitask, so generally I just don't bother. Neither with this circus act, nor relocating myself. Though, that one is a useful strategical tool so I'll do it in a pinch." He joins her in front of the messy desk-wannabe, pulling out a small drawer over her head, then drops fresh underwear on latter.

Oooh... "You sayin' there's built-in teleport?" she peeks up to him from beyond the drawer again in wonderment, which is punished by another stab at the shoulder. As is reaching for the piece of clothing. Fuck.

"Yep." With that, he slams the drawer back in and sits onto the corner of the hard wood surface.

"... if I didn't suck at it and risk drowning in the ocean I'd sneak out to my house to shower right now," she sighs turning back more carefully, then picks a fresh t-shirt.

"... look at that. You just made me feel relieved about sucking badly at the skill we severely need, all because it guarantees that you wouldn't even attempt something foolish like that." Seeing how her body's legs don't reach the floor, he starts swinging them a little. When even was the last time he could sit on a piece of non-giant furniture and do this...?

"At your service," she smiles. Nudging the big drawer in, she slowly works the bottom one out to get the pants (that's what must be down there by rule of elimination, no?) she's missing. "Jokes aside, I've been sweating a lot and everything is sticking to me. On a sidenote, how often do you bathe, just to clear this up?"

Law scratches his head. When will questions like these just... end? Considering the state of affairs which he alone is responsible for, not any time soon. He sure hopes she won't mind him skipping every other day at least. Wouldn't be able to keep up a daily shower system. "I bathe up to four times a week if I need to... When there's nothing happening, it drops down to two."

"Okay... I'll just go for the average and keep up my usual three, then," she says while ascending at a leisure pace, aaand... successfully attained standing position.

"Sounds fair, will do the same," the man remarks. She's not that cleanly, thank god... speaking of which, though: "You might as well use the bathroom down here while this lasts."

"Down here?" she raises an eyebrow at him; the structure is not big enough for two bathrooms... she doesn't put it past him to have a secret door right in his room, though.

"The last door on the engine side, just past my room," he explains, swinging his legs a little more. "Was a random little pocket without function right below the showers, so... I had one installed," he shrugs.

Pff, that's so lazy. She bets noone's ever used it other than him. "Sounds like you're hogging the warm water to me... is that where you sing?" she asks with a sly smile as she leans against the piece of furniture, too.

"Oi," he snaps back, "keep it shut! How did you even notice?!"

Kat shrugs a tiny bit, too. "I sing myself now and then, duh. Was humming a song on the way down here and the staircase echo gave you away." As it happened, to a T.

Law sighs. That's just great; he sure hopes nobody was around to hear. "Either way, please, don't tell anyone. I get nagged about random bullshit all the time already, something like karaoke would be the cherry on the shitcake." Took him long enough to get Bepo, Shachi and Penguin to stay silent...

"... shy, huh?" she cocks her head. Considering her muscle problem, this could have been a terrible idea.

"The word is 'tired'," he corrects her, then leans on a hand all sullen.

Being responsible for a ship full of people would be really stressful, honestly. However... "I'd be inclined to believe you if it weren't for your reaction following my, um... 'entrance,'" she notes with a smaller smile.

Law sighs. "Get the fuck out and don't show yourself till clean," he grumbles while dropping off the dresser.

"Gladly~" Kat sings, making her way out.

She's about to wonder whether it would have been more sensible to sit out the day before, but then... then she sees the object in the back, which fits in no way whatsoever to everything else.

"Good lord, so extra," she snickers. The tap, mirror, towel rack, every object in the room is as puritan as it can get... then there's that fancy tub, which barely fits inside. Not a single millimeter between it and the walls surrounding it. He must have operated it in himself, quite literally. Because there's no way it fit through the entrance... has legs and everything, too.

Yep, there's no way anyone else comes in here, ever.

With a deep sigh, she drops the fresh clothes onto the chair. No time to laugh at him, she's... gotta do what she has to here.

"Wow... this is a tattoo, alright..." she muses once (painfully...) having gotten rid of the brave double-drenched shirt that's served her thus far. A heart... or at least something in the shape of it. Kinda cute, actually. Taking a better look at it in the mirror, she also notices ones on his shoulders. He knows his theme; can't decide if he was trying to be edgy with it, though, because the cartoon shape is everything but threatening. 10 bucks on him having something on his back, too... this was not worth the neck pain, but yep, bullseye in the shape of a jolly roger.

Normally, she would be capable of wasting up to half an hour poking at herself in the mirror before and after taking a long-ass shower, but she can't feel at ease goofing off like this right now. Someone's waiting, she's at a foreign place, in a foreign body... would love to be at home right now. Preferably as her own self. Sigh. The people around here are too sociable, she has no time to recharge. At any rate... she had better pull herself together and just get over with the rest.

#still that lawxoc bullshit don't mind me #Kate writes #KMKY #these chapters are really long geez

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richardmperry88 · 4 years

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What Is User Experience (And How Can You Use It to Build a Site That Suits Your Audience)?

What a time to be alive!

Beginners with no coding experience can now build a website with minimal effort and expense. Even better, the options are limitless: You’ve got an entire arsenal of colors, fonts, images, and buttons at your disposal. But with so many design elements to play with, it can be tempting to go a bit wild.

“A sprinkle of animation here! A dash of cheetah print there!”

But, as is often the case with things that glitter, it’s easy to go overboard — especially if your creativity is reducing the functionality of your site.

Whether you want to sell a product or share some blog posts, you’re not really building the website for you. It’s your site’s visitors that need to be happy with the design and user interface. That’s where User Experience (UX) comes into play. Keeping a strong focus on UX while building your site should pay off in higher conversions and lower bounce rates.

In this article, I’ll give you a crash course in UX and explain what a UX designer does. Then we’ll go over some tips on recognizing good UX design when you encounter it. Finally, I’ll show you how to use UX to create a better website for your audience. Feel free to jump ahead to the section that’s most beneficial to you!

What is user experience?

What does a UX professional do?

What makes a good UX design?

How can you create a positive user experience on your site?

List of the best UX resources

Ready to talk UX strategy? Let’s get started!

An Introduction to User Experience (UX) and Why It Matters

Simply put, User Experience (UX) is how interacting with technology makes a user feel. UX applies to any technology, from an app to a game console.

When it comes to websites, UX design is about optimizing the interaction between the human user and the page. A site built with solid UX principles should leave the user feeling like they accomplished what they came to do without frustration.

That may make you think of going all out with the website’s visual design. That might include flashy animations and gigantic image carousels. If you remember MySpace, you probably still have nightmares about animated glitter and MIDI versions of Blink-182 songs . . . yikes.

But UX design has a lot less to do with how a site looks than how it’s used. To be effective, your website should be a complete experience — not just words and images on a page.

Users will forget data, such as how much they paid for the products they ordered. However, the experience of ordering should be pleasant and effortless. That experience will stay with them, increasing the odds that they’ll buy from you time and again.

If your site delivers a poor UX, you may see the opposite result. Users who become stressed out or angry when using your site will likely head to one of your competitors’ sites. They have many options and no reason to return to a website that’s difficult to use.

If you’re still not convinced that UX matters to your website, here are a few key statistics:

17% of users will not return after a single bad experience.

Better UX design can raise your conversion rates by up to 200%.

48% of users are annoyed by sites that aren’t mobile-friendly.

All of this serves to illustrate the importance of good UX design when building a website.

Related: The Great Pop-Up Debate (and Other Dark UX Problems)

The Role of the UX Designer

UX is so vital there’s an entire profession dedicated to optimizing it. A UX designer’s day-to-day tasks will vary based on what kinds of projects they’re tackling. However, the goal is usually the same. The UX designer’s job is to optimize the user’s experience when interacting with digital technology while also keeping in mind the well-being of the business.

To achieve this balancing act, the UX designer follows a process that results in multiple deliverables.

Before any actual designing starts, there’s a lot of UX research to do. Therefore, the designer may first create one or more audience personas. This enables the designer to understand the user’s needs.

Next, the UX designer may present a potential user flow diagram to help explore possible ways that a user may interact with the website. They can then translate that information into a prototype. Prototypes may be as basic as a wireframe, a rough blueprint for what a final web page could look like. The designer may also create a more visually-robust prototype or even one that can be interacted with.

A basic wireframe.

The UX designer’s responsibilities don’t end with the final design. Once the site is launched, they may conduct usability testing or look into usage analytics to identify and fix potential problems.

In other words, they’re involved with all stages of a website’s creation and launch.

Related: How to Start User Testing on Your Website

How to Recognize Good UX Design

If you’re handling your own UX design, it’s your responsibility to advocate for your audience while ensuring that you’re still getting what you want from your site. To do that, the first step is to learn how to recognize robust UX design.

With that in mind, let’s look at some examples of UX in the wild. There are four key elements you’ll want to pay close attention to.

1. Navigation

Poor navigational design can render any website useless. Moving through a site should be smooth and intuitive. The navigation menu should also be accessible no matter what device a visitor is using.

Breadcrumb navigation is one way designers prevent users from getting lost, especially if a website has many pages.

It’s also important to pay attention to links. Web designers who employ strong UX make sure you can identify links when you see them. This often means underlining them and using a different text color. They’ll also use meaningful anchor text, so you know where the link is taking you before clicking on it.

Related: 12 Tips for Optimizing Your Blog’s Structure

2. Content

A significant part of successful UX is understanding how people interact with different parts of a website. For example, most people don’t read web page content normally. They scan it and then stop to read if they’ve found something interesting.

Content is scannable if a user can quickly browse through a blog post or sales page and come away with a clear idea of what it’s communicating.

Keeping paragraphs short is one way to create scan-friendly content. Those paragraphs should be broken up frequently with headings, lists, and images. Designers may also make use of pull-quotes, bolded text, and similar elements.

Related: How to Create a Content Strategy for Your Website

3. Animation

Animation is an effective way to stand out from a sea of websites and grab a user’s attention. It adds an element of fun and can contribute to creating a memorable experience for the user.

However, there’s a right and a wrong way to go about implementing it.

Subtle animation can provide feedback while you wait for a transaction to complete. An animation can also loop endlessly while you struggle to focus on reading a product description. These approaches create two very different experiences. The overuse of animation can also affect UX on mobile devices.

4. Responsiveness

Optimizing a website for mobile users is a must. If you’re like most people, you usually use your phone to access the internet. If you come across a site that you have to struggle to use on your device, you’re likely to simply abandon it.

Beyond choosing a responsive theme, you can take additional steps to ensure that your site works well on all screens. For example, you can run your website through Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool.

This tool will alert you to issues that are keeping your site from being mobile-friendly. You may find that a particular font is too difficult to read on a tiny screen, for instance, or that buttons are too small to tap easily.

Related: How to Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rate with Typography

How to Use UX to Design a Site for Your Audience

Now that you know what good UX is, how do you apply it to your site?

You probably won’t be doing intensive market research or prototyping with high-fidelity wireframes. Still, putting on your UX designer hat can help you create a site that both you and your audience will love.

First, it’s important to be clear about why you have a website and what you want it to do. For example, are you:

Selling a product on an e-commerce site?

Creating content to generate revenue (for example, blogging about food or fitness)?

Running an affiliate website?

Trying to get hired for freelance work?

Promoting your services with an online portfolio?

Building an online presence for your brick-and-mortar business?

Next, get to know your ideal user or potential customer. Creating a user persona will help you imagine how your target audience may interact with your website. This persona can be as simple as who the person is, what they want, and what keeps them from getting it. Crucially, you must identify what the user needs to be successful on your site.

Remember that accessibility is an integral part of UX. You may have visitors who use assistive technology, so consider making accessibility a priority when building your site.

You can also check out your competitors’ sites to see what’s working for them. Is the shopping cart icon always in the upper-right corner? Maybe yours should be, too. You can be creative without reinventing the wheel; users shouldn’t have to figure out how your site works to accomplish their goals.

Finally, website performance matters for UX. Slow pages will cause visitors to leave before the site has a chance to load. There are many ways to speed up your site, although your best bet is to start with quality hosting.

Building a Better User Experience?

Partner with DreamHost. We’ll make sure your website is fast, secure, and always up so your visitors trust you. Plans start at $2.59/mo.

Choose Your Plan

UX Resources

At this point, you’ve likely figured out that UX design isn’t something you optimize in one shot. There’s a lot more to this field than we can cover in one article.

Fortunately, there are many quality UX resources you can refer to as you continue to improve your website:

Awwwards is where you can find inspiration. Grab some coffee; you’ll probably be scrolling for a while.

UXmatters covers just about everything related to design. There’s content for everyone — from the seasoned UX strategist, UX researcher, UI designer, or graphic designer to brand-new UX enthusiasts.

UX Magazine publishes the latest news, timely insights, and UX research for anyone interested in improving their visitors’ digital experience.

Stack Overflow is the place for all your burning questions. It’s an open community of helpful, knowledgeable people.

Website and Digital Marketing Help is a Facebook group powered by DreamHost where website owners of all levels can share best practices and ideas.

If you combine these resources with research and practice, you should find yourself implementing good user experience practices in no time.

Design a Great User Experience

You don’t need to be a professional UX designer to build a website your audience will love interacting with. All it takes is some understanding of what will make life easier for your visitors and a willingness to build a site that provides that experience.

UX describes what the experience of interacting with your website is like for users. Optimizing your site’s UX means ensuring that it has clear navigation, creating content that’s easy to scan, testing it for responsiveness, and more. There’s a lot to learn, but there are also plenty of useful resources and knowledgeable designers who can help.

After that, you’ll be ready to conquer the internet with your UX-optimized website! You can check some of the performance-related tasks off your list early with our high-quality shared website hosting plans.

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douglassmiith · 4 years

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The Beginners Guide to Local Marketing

Local marketing agency can be simply described as any marketing agency activity which puts your business in front of consumers within a certain radius of your location. While that’s straightforward enough, there are lots of different types of activity that fall under this neat umbrella.

Local marketing agency is especially important for small and medium businesses which rely on clients physically visiting a brick-and-mortar location to make a sale or access a service: dentists, physiotherapists, and chiropractors for example or retail stores without an e-commerce presence, bars, and restaurants, locksmiths, plumbers, a builder’s yard or car dealership. Our research confirms that within the last 12 months, 90% of consumers have used the internet to find a local business. Local marketing agency is therefore vital to connect your offering with those in need of a local service provider or retailer.

By its nature, local marketing agency is highly geographically specific. This means it’s important to carefully consider your strategy as you need to be sure that all of your efforts are being directed at exactly the right person within what could well be a small geographic area. The danger with local marketing agency is that you think too big and waste budget on incorrect location and consumer targeting.

Casting too wide a net means your precious funds (and time) will likely be spent trying to gain the attention of people who are too far away to ever convert – 93% of consumers say they won’t travel more than 20 minutes from home to make an everyday purchase, so if you are targeting too big an area with any of your local marketing agency tactics, anything outside of that 20-minute radius represents a waste of time and money. Likewise, it’s also pointless targeting absolutely everyone within your locality because some just won’t need or want your products or services.

As mentioned, local marketing agency can take multiple different forms. We’ve outlined the main categories for you, and broken each down into its own individual tactics. You’ll find a clear example of each action and an outline of how it can benefit your local business. Feel free to use the jump links below to head straight to a section that interests you!

Local SEO

Build citations for your business

Optimize your Google My Business listing

Monitor local search rankings

Monitor and grow business reviews

Optimize your website for mobile

Advertising

Run a pay-per-click ad campaign in the local 3-pack

Run Google Local Services ads

Local print advertising

Sponsor local events and charities

Hyperlocal Facebook advertising

Get listed on lead generation sites

Content Marketing

Email marketing

Social media marketing

Build links to your websites

Create relevant local content

Local SEO

Build citations for your business

The mention of the word ‘citation’ may bring back nightmares of essays and term papers but in local SEO Company terms, it simply means that your business name, address, and phone number is referenced online.

Citations are beneficial to your local marketing in a number of ways. First and foremost, they provide a local SEO Company boost which means, if you build enough citations, you could start to see an increase in local search visibility. This in turn means that you’re more prominent when local consumers take to their chosen search engine to find a specific product or service.

Citations can also help consumers to find your business on other websites, aiding discovery. If you create a directory listing for example in order to create a new citation, users of that directory could easily come across your business address or website and then proceed to your store or website. In this way, they function as new pathways to your actual or virtual door.

Finally, citations can be used to confirm a key detail about your business, such as your address, before the local consumer jumps in their car and sets out to visit you. If they come across the same name and address in a few different locations, they can feel confident that the information is accurate and trust that they’ll end up in the right place.

Optimize your Google My Business listing

Google My Business feeds information about local businesses to the search engine results pages and search engine users – optimizing this listing means confirming your information is up to date, the correct category selected and that all settings and data fields are accurate and relevant.

The information that you provide in your Google My Business listing is known to impact on where your website ranks for appropriate keywords. The actions that you perform during optimization determine what information is presented to search users and how your business is perceived. Creating an optimized description for example gives Google a clue as to what to rank you for, and can entice search users to visit your store or give you a call.

Selecting a main category and sub-category is also part and parcel of optimization and is known to strongly influence where your site ranks in Google search. That alone can impact your overall local visibility and generate more traffic.

The process of optimizing your listing also includes uploading appropriate images to your profile, which can immediately make your business stand out and capture the eye of local consumers.

Generating reviews and responding to them naturally comes under Google My Business optimization activity. Online reviews strongly influence the consumer decision-making process and can actively determine whether a local consumer chooses your business or a competitor.

Monitor local search rankings

Monitoring local search rankings as part of your local SEO campaign is as straightforward as it sounds; it’s simply the process of tracking where your keywords appear in the search engine results pages. This doesn’t have to be done manually and there are lots of affordable tools available that automate this process for you.

While monitoring changes in your ranking position can be hands-off, the insight that this data offers is invaluable. The most obvious advantage of tracking any changes in your search position is that you can determine whether your local SEO Company activity is generating ranking improvements or causing positions to stagnate or worse, decline. In the latter two scenarios, just having that data to hand gives you concrete proof that you need to revisit your strategy. In turn, this means you aren’t wasting precious time and resources on actions that aren’t working.

Ranking data can also help you to decide if you need to assign funds to other areas such as advertising to be visible to your target audience.

If you use a rank monitoring tool, you may additionally be able to add in competitor domains to keep an eye on how your rivals are performing. This should give you a clear picture of where your business stands in comparison with others in the local area.

Monitor and grow business reviews

Reputation is everything in business so you’ll want to ensure you’re proactive about monitoring what people are saying about you, and encouraging customers to share their experiences of working with or buying from you online for others to see.

One of the key benefits of monitoring your reviews as part of your local marketing agency activity is that they are a huge source of valuable customer feedback. Each review you read is an opportunity to pinpoint what customers appreciate about your product or service and identify any recurring issues that need to be addressed.

While no one likes to read a bad review about their businesses, monitoring means you know sooner rather than later when something negative appears. This gives you a chance to react quickly, respond to the reviewer, and take steps to put things right.

Many businesses hesitate to be proactive about growing reviews but, if you make this a regular part of your local marketing agency routine, you’ll be rewarded with better search engine rankings and increased consumer trust. The number of reviews you have along with how often new reviews are published all influence your search position therefore, the more you can grow your review profile, the better your local SEO Company visibility is likely to be.

Online reviews have replaced traditional word-of-mouth recommendations for modern consumers. They expect to see plenty of recent reviews, make a habit of reading around 10 reviews before developing a sense of trust, and tend to discount older reviews. You’ll, therefore, need a steady stream of fresh reviews to generate inquiries and sales.

Optimize your website for mobile

Given the popularity of mobile browsing and Google’s much-publicized mobile-first indexing, ensuring your website is quick to load and highly functional for visitors from a smartphone or other mobile device is a must in any local marketing agency strategy.

As with all optimization, making sure your site is optimized for mobile is no small undertaking but this investment does unlock a wealth of advantages for your business. It’s no secret that the majority of search users now go online from a mobile device. Traditional websites are optimized for desktop computers, often connected to high-speed broadband. The smaller size screen and often slower internet connection make navigating a desktop site frustrating and awkward. A site optimized for mobile gives the mobile user a seamless experience. Pages are quick to load and forms and shopping carts designed for ease of use by someone wanting to input information or checkout using the smaller screen of their phone.

Consumers expect a slick mobile experience as standard. If you fail to meet that expectation, in all likelihood that potential client will leave and go to a competitor who has taken the time to make their products and services accessible from a mobile device.

To put this into financial terms, last year’s Black Friday saw more than $2.9 billion of sales originating from mobile devices. Shoppers are spending money like never before on their smartphones and tablets – but you can only get in the running for that if your site is optimized to work well on a mobile device.

Keep in mind too that mobile optimization (ensuring pages are quick to load, that forms are easy to complete, that information is easily navigated, etc.) is also a core requirement for local search visibility. Google’s primary index is mobile-first, meaning your position in the local rankings is dependent on mobile optimization.

Advertising

Run a pay-per-click ad campaign in the local 3-pack

If your local marketing agency strategy calls for immediate visibility, a pay-per-click ad campaign allows you to buy advertising space within the organic search results.

For many businesses, the major benefit of running a local search PPC campaign is the speed with which you can get your products and services to the top of the search results pages. It is possible to set up a small ad campaign and see your adverts live in a matter of hours – in comparison with local SEO Company activity which could take several months to bear fruit.

Local pack search ads also give you targeted exposure which can lead to a rise in in-store visits and calls. If someone searches for ‘mechanic near me’ for example, they could see your advert at the very top of the search results just when they needed you most.

Local search ads can feature your business locations, which can lead to more foot traffic. They can also provide directions and offer call options.

Run Google Local Services ads

If your business is a service provider, you can run a Local Services ad that displays your business details at the top of the search results. The ad will show when a consumer in the local area searches for a service you offer.

There are several business benefits to running a Local Services ad campaign as part of your local marketing agency strategy. These ads immediately give you the opportunity to be found right at the top of Google search results, meaning local consumers don’t have to search too hard to find and book your services.

With these ads, you can also earn a Google Guarantee or Google Screened verification on your advert. This tells consumers that Google has verified your business licenses, insurance policies, and carried out employee background checks. This is an easy way to build trust and showcase the authenticity and quality of your service offering to win new business. Becoming Google Guaranteed also opens up the possibility of a free listing on voice search as a service provider.

Local Service advertisers can use an app to communicate with clients so you can reply to messages on the go, track the progress of leads, and manage bookings.

Local print advertising

You may decide to add an offline element to your local marketing agency efforts and if that’s the case, placing an advert in a print outlet such as a local newspaper is a tried-and-tested strategy.

Print advertising has been overlooked in the last few years as digital options have taken off but that’s not to say that investing some of your local marketing agency budget in a targeted ad campaign with a local newspaper or magazine should be discounted. In fact, adding a physical print dimension can bring you additional benefits.

One clear advantage of local print advertising is that your business is assured of visibility within a specific, relevant geographical area. Local print media is naturally highly targeted, meaning they often serve as important local hubs of information for households within that town or city.

Competition for local ad space is arguably less in print than online, with many businesses having migrated to digital options. This gives you a great chance to stand out, without as much competition as you may find on social media for example.

Because of their physical nature, your print ad may also endure longer than a digital equivalent. Whereas a PPC ad will disappear when your budget runs out, older copies of the local newspaper or magazine may stick around for weeks in the doctor’s surgery, library or nail salon.

Sponsor local events and charities

If you have the budget for it, you could make a positive contribution to your local community while ticking off some of your local marketing agency tasks by signing up to sponsor a local event such as a high school football game or a charity like your nearby non-profit animal shelter.

There are a number of compelling arguments for sponsoring local events or charities. Being a shirt sponsor of a local youth team for example brings both brand recognition and a higher profile within the community – each time that team hits the field, all spectators can’t help but see your business represented.

Sponsorship of a local worthy cause or organization could also help to bolster your local SEO Company efforts by earning you a backlink (or several) in recognition of your donation. You can build on this further by creating press releases to announce your sponsorship and commemorate key events – such as reaching the playoffs in the case of the youth team of holding a family fundraiser in the case of the animal shelter. This adds to your local profile, can result in favorable local media coverage and earn you even more backlinks to propel your local SEO efforts.

Hyperlocal Facebook advertising

Just as the name suggests, hyperlocal Facebook advertising is a Facebook advert which is targeted at a small, specific local area. This could be as hyper-targeted as specifying your ads only be shown to people within a certain zip code.

Being able to narrowly define who sees your ads can make your budget go further and work harder – as you can be sure you aren’t wasting cash showing adverts to people who are outside of your catchment area. By the same token, hyperlocal ads are laser-focused on consumers within your immediate vicinity, which is ideal if you want to drive foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store.

Get listed on lead generation sites

Depending on your service or trade, it may be possible to get your business listed on lead generation sites such as HomeAdvisor or Angie’s List. This is often as simple as registering, creating a profile, listing your specialisms and then waiting for people interested in those services to get in touch to request a quote.

Adding a lead generation presence to your local marketing agency is a smart move as it puts you in a prime position in front of credible buyers and those actively looking for your specific service. Lead generation sites are attractive to consumers as they remove the need to research, contact and request quotes from dozens of different service providers. The consumer simply inputs details of their project, which is then sent to relevant service providers to quote. You have access to leads which you wouldn’t otherwise know about.

While you’ll typically have to pay a membership fee or commission to the lead generation platform, it’s a great way to get quick access to projects to quote on and build your local reputation and reviews.

Content Marketing

Email marketing

Email marketing involves sending an email (often with a special offer or deal) to a list of email contacts. This places your deal or news directly in the inbox of everyone who has opted in to hear from you, typically previous clients and leads.

Email marketing agency is a highly effective medium, loaded with business benefits. Studies show that for every $1 spent on email marketing agency, you can expect to generate $38. That’s a ROI of 3800%.

Email is especially effective for small businesses because it provides a fast, cost-effective way to communicate with customers and prospects. At the same time, it can directly generate visits to your website, calls, and foot traffic.

You can additionally use email marketing agency to deliver useful, informative content to your pipeline, which helps to cement your reputation as a trusted authority in your field.

Today’s email marketing agency platforms are very advanced and most offer automation. This makes light work of time-intensive sales tasks that you may not always be able to do yourself, such as emailing someone who has added items to their cart on your website but left without completing the order or, contacting someone who has enquired about your service but then never picked up the phone to your customer service team following up.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing agency is the practice of using social media networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to build your profile, engage with your audience, and drive traffic to your site or brick-and-mortar location.

When leveraged properly, social media marketing is a very effective local marketing tactic. Social media usage is prolific and today’s consumers, from baby boomers to millennials, are accustomed to using their preferred networks to look for deals, find businesses, source recommendations, and increasingly, shop.

No matter the size of your team, social media provides an accessible real-time forum to engage and communicate with prospects. You can use platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn to have meaningful discussions with your audience, bring them closer to your brand, answer questions, and share local promotions.

If your local marketing agency budget is a little tight, social media marketing agency is also low-cost and at its most basic level, requires no investment at all. For those who want to go further, you can use the many paid advertising options offered by social networks to raise your visibility while also specifically targeting local consumers thanks to the wealth of demographic information social networks hold on their users.

Build links to your websites

Think of links as roads into your website – the greater the number of links you can convince third parties to share back to your site, the easier it is for consumers to find you online.

By their very nature, building links creates greater visibility for your site. If you write a press release for example about an award you’ve won and this is published on a local blog, all of the readers to that blog could click the link to be transported directly to your website.

If you partner with a local influencer and they offer a link back to your site within their post, you not only get the benefit of exposure to that influencer’s audience, you also get a direct way to draw that audience to your site.

Links remain a key currency for SEO Company because, in addition to aiding discoverability, they are also a signal of trust. Someone willing to share a link to your site is essentially giving your domain a vote of confidence. The more relevant links you have, the more traffic your site is likely to see and the better your search engine rankings.

Create relevant local content

Writing and sharing relevant local content is a targeted form of content marketing agency that can bring a range of benefits as part of your local marketing agency campaign.

As with the other tactics on this list, it is a tried-and-tested way to reach, engage with, and hopefully convert local consumers into confirmed clients. Focusing on community or local topics is a smart way to attract local readers and simultaneously reinforce your expertise or authority in a particular area. To ensure that your content really hits the mark, you can use tools such as Google Trends to research what people in your area are most commonly searching for on Google within your niche.

Creating original, useful content also adds a great deal of value to your own site. It provides optimization benefits to aid in search rankings but it can also make your website a destination in its own right and give visitors a reason to remain long after they may otherwise have flicked back to the search results. Marketers often refer to this as making the site ‘sticky’.

Over and above giving local consumers a reason to visit your website regularly, good quality local content is highly shareable, which can lead to more links (again helping SEO Company and overall visibility), an elevated social media profile and peer-to-peer recommendations.

Conclusion

Local marketing agency is a broad field and, as a local business owner, you have a wide and varied range of tactics at your disposal. Broadly speaking, the three core pillars of a local marketing agency campaign are local SEO Company, advertising and content and social media but, within those three categories, you’ll find multiple tactics and approaches which can be mixed, matched, and adapted to suit your budget, your objectives, and your audience.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Local Marketing appeared first on BrightLocal.

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