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thefanficmonster · 4 years ago

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Real Friends

Valkyrae & Reader (Male)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: SMAU, Platonic fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: Following an accidental and not very consensual face reveal, Y/N’s dealing the sudden shift of the spotlight on him even more than it was before. Being the big deal he is on social media, the internet has every right to be freaking out. Luckily, he’s got a friend to help him cope with it all.

Requested by @iawaythrown Hii! Thank you so much for your request! I’m so sorry for how long it has taken me to complete your request and post it but here it finally is. I’ve never written a SMAU before so this isn’t the classic SMAU format but I still hope you’ll enjoy it! Love, Vy ❤

Imagine you end a toxic relationship of almost a year and go to bed feeling like a ton of bricks has been lifted off you, like you can finally breathe properly and like you’re finally getting a taste of freedom. The very freedom you chose to lose by getting in the toxic relationship in the first place. Of course, I didn’t know it was toxic at the time, probably cause it wasn’t, but it gradually turned into a nightmare.

A nightmare that keeps haunting me even after I thought I had put an end to it.

Apparently, that was wishful thinking cause I woke up this morning to find an unbelievable number of notifications and messages from friends, family and my manager and associates. Being in the music industry as a faceless creator, I keep my circle tight and it only consists of people I can trust so to see them all freaking out at me at once, even the most level-headed ones, freaked me out too. Quickly, I opened the first notification I reflexively tapped on and it opened a post in which someone had tagged me.

A picture taken of me while I was asleep, no doubt one taken by my ex. That being said, I think we can all have a guess at who posted it in the first place. I didn’t listen to my manager when he told me to not allow anyone I trust 1000% into my inner circle. I was foolish and at the peak of my career, feeling on top of the world and feeling invincible which was rare for me. I’ve always been insecure about many things in my life, growing up with a lot of judgy people made me be that way. Not to mention that I didn’t want to be the victim of the internet’s racism either. People turn a blind eye most of the time, but it’s still there, it still exists and looms over all social media platforms, disturbing people’s peace left and right. You see, I didn’t want people to have an opinion of my art based on my appearance or associations with other creators. I’m pretty good friends with many content creators, especially in the gaming industry, but I’ve never wanted to be put in a box as one of the many friends of someone famous. I made a name for myself without anyone knowing who I am exactly.

And now they all know because of this photo that my ex sent to float down the rivers of hungry social media:

Damn am I gonna get an earful from my manager or what. It’s still rater early though and I’m really not about to deal with this drama on a caffeine-free brain so if there are any calls, emails or messages that need answering - and yes, there are PLENTY of them - they’ll all have to wait until I feel like dealing with them. I’m glad I don’t have to keep up this unbothered charade at home since I live alone cause I seriously don’t feel ok with this. I mean, I could probably report it, but what use would that be when my brand now has a face and a huge chunk of my privacy has already surfaced against my will.

As I sit in my kitchen, sipping my coffee, I finally gather the nerve to at least scroll through the notifications that I’ve received. Fans reaching out, relatives, friends, pissed off people that are there just to exist and try to disturb my peaceful existence but all they’re gonna get is a hard DELETE from me. I have offers on top of offers for modeling pending, waiting on my response. I’ve never considered it, being a faceless creator and all, but my manager will definitely want to milk some cash from this too. That thought makes me sigh in defeat. I have no one to blame but myself for trusting my ex. No one made me do it, no one made me let them in, but I still did, fucking myself over insanely. Just like they’ve now fucked me over.

Amongst the sea of notifications and yet to be opened messages, one in particular stands out and makes me do a double take. It’s a message from my friend Rae - Valkyrae, as she’s known online. She’s one of those gamer friends I mentioned earlier, probably the one I’m closest with. Her and I talk on the regular so seeing a message from her in my inbox is nothing unusual so I wonder why that was the one that stuck out to me. Regardless, that’s the only one I feel like opening and replying to at the moment.

V ~ Hey Y/N, you doing ok? This all must be really hard on you so don’t feel obligated to reply. Do so when you can or want to. I’m here if you wanna talk

Of course Rae would be the one to know how I truly feel in a situation like this. I can act and cover up all I want but she knows exactly what’s underneath the surface of my façade. That third eye friends have for each other, it’s incredible.

Me ~ Doing ok. Wasn’t expecting to wake up to this but now that millions of people know what I look like it feels oddly bittersweet, you know? Like I don’t have to go out of my way to hide anymore but I’m also gonna miss that privacy I had while I was a phantom

Me ~ On the upside: people want me to be a model now XD

My message goes to Seen almost write away, the Typing icon appearing shortly after the messages were read. I wait for Rae’s reply, sipping my slowly cooling coffee with little interest due to how invested I am in our conversation. If there’s a person who can make light of this situation, it’s Rae, no doubt about it.

V ~ I know what you mean. It’s not gonna be easy to adjust to but you will get used to it eventually. I’m sure you’ll even grow to like it. Promise you, it’s not that scary to be exposed, there’s literal millions of people who support you wholeheartedly :)

V ~ Us, your friends, are here too! Never forget that, we’ve always got your back, Y/N!

V ~ Oh and you really should be a model! Whoever’s saying that has got the right idea. Maybe don’t fear this new change, but embrace it! Take this new turn in your life confidently. Sure, it was out of the blue, but do you really want the person who exposed you to feel the satisfaction of bringing you down? That doesn’t sound like you at all tbh

The epiphany strikes me as soon as Rae’s words sink in as I read them. She’s 100% right. The last thing I want is for my ex to think they’ve won. I refuse to give them the pleasure of tasting victory on the expense of my mental health and career progress. In fact, imma show them just how much they benefited me. But first...

Me ~ Thank you so much, Rae. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this eye-opener

Me ~ I owe you one <3

I sure as hell owe her one, but for now I have other battles to win.

Rifling through my gallery, I find one more recent picture and without a shred of doubt or hesitation, I go straight to Instagram to post it.

~ “Since y’all were curious...And since y’all wanna see me model, you’re welcome” ~

Within seconds likes and comments start flowing in like a riptide, taking over my phone that, despite being charged all night, is already at half of its battery life.

I refresh the page with the post to look at the new comments that have come through, all supportive and complimenting me, some are real thirsty and some are incredibly kind. And even in that sea, her comment still sticks out to me, making me grin like an idiot.

“That’s what I was talking about! Work it, Y/N!“

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mashup-writing · 4 years ago

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Somebody else by 1975 and it is sparkles-✨

It worked out well; Park Chaeyoung (Blackpink)

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Summary: Y/N and Rosé had decided to announce their relationship, but they were gonna be extra about it.

Requested? ☑

"I remember it all too well."

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It was the final part of Y/N's concert and while he's used to the feeling of thousands of eyes on him, what's going to follow was something that made him extremely nervous, which says a lot. Especially when he was counting on the audience for his plan to work.

At the start of his career, he had announced that he was a Transgender man on all of his social media platforms. An action that took a lot of guts, and and an action that drew a lot of attention to him. At the rising point of his career when he was questioned about it in an interview, his answer was something that made him well known figure within the industry.

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"Now Y/N at the very beginning of your career, you told the world that you were a trans man. That must've taken extreme bravery on your part seeing as those people who are against your community- The LGBT community, can be downright nasty and ruthless in 'Expressing' their dislike. What mae you decide to do this so early on in your time in the spotlight?"

Y/N smiles in his seat, switching from a laid back posture to one that elegantly demands attention, his next words being the ones that made him an icon amongst allies and LGBT people alike. "I am an advocate of LGBT rights before I am an artist, at the very start of my career I wanted to make it clear that I didn't want bigots to be a part of my following or an avid listener of my music and while I'm a man who values my privacy, I value honesty and transparency just as much. So if you're someone who believes that transgender people are just 'Confused' or that they're a 'Crime' against nature? Then go ahead and consider me your worst nightmare."

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Y/N had been sitting on a chair for quite a few moments now, holding a Q&A onstage before he stands up and decides to follow through with the first part of his plan. "Alright, now today's intermission, I'm going to do a cover of my most favorite song called 'Somebody Else by The 1975'. Oh and don't worry you guys, the Q&A will still continue after this cover." The stadium fills with loud screams and cheers from the people watching as he places his mic back on its stand and goes to pick up his electric guitar. The lights dim into a sunset red as the opening notes of the music fill out through the speakers, Y/N starts singing and playing his guitar as the crowd claps along to the beat.

At the start of the second verse, Y/N takes off his guitar and takes the mic off of the stand, walking back to the guitar stand, he puts the instrument down before walking back to the front of the stage and hyping the people up to sing along with him in the pre-chorus. The entrance platform that had sunk back down starts rising as a distinctly feminine voice fills the stadium at the start of the chorus. Y/N smiles widely as the stage screens show Rosé walking towards him, offering her hand. He takes it and raises their hands up, leading the Blackpink member into a twirl, the crowd has gone wild at this point and the duo are pretty sure that somebody or multiple people in the audiences are Blinks seeing the way they've started chanting Rosé's name even without Y/N introducing her beforehand.

The bridge part comes along and the two singers alternate their lines. When the instrumental hits, Rosé takes his hands and starts dancing along to the beat, dorkily smiling and roping the man into dancing along. When the final chorus comes, Y/N and Rosé sing together, motioning for the crowd to sing along and the stadium fills with the sounds of music and the combined voices of a chanting crowd.

The song comes to an end with loud cheers for the two vocalists who are now smiling widely while catching their breaths. Y/N offers his hand to Rosé and when she takes it, the two raise their hands and perform a bow. He lets go of her hand once they've come up from the bow, turning to face her before speaking. "May I introduce, Park Chaeyoung of Blackpink everyone."

The woman in question laughs, shaking her head before going to bow once again and waving to the crowd with both hands, Y/N decides to push his luck. "Also known as Rosé of Blackpink, or Rosie, or Foodsé, or Chipm-" He runs as she jokingly tries to swat at his shoulder.

The cheers continue and the two laugh with each other before Rosè speaks to the crowd. "So how did you guys like our cover?" She's answered with loud cheers and Y/N's manager signals at the two from behind the curtain, raising both his hands up. 10 minutes left, Y/N nods at him and smiles while Rosé turns her attention back to the crowd, he gives the singers a thumbs up with a dorky smile before taking his leave. Y/N shakes his head in humor.

"I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for both me and Y/N over here when I say that we're happy to see you guys loved it." Y/N turns to Rosé to agree with her statement. Y/N speaks into the mic saying that he and Rosé will spend the last ten minutes of the concert for the Q&A. The following minutes fly by with questions aimed at Y/N, questions aimed at Rosé as well as questions aimed at both come in droves, until Y/N announce that the next question will be the last one before the event comes to an end and they have to start saying goodbye. Multiple people raise their hand, and he leaves it up to Rosé to pick who gets to ask the final question. She gives her mic to a girl in the front row, and the girl states her question.

"How did you come up with the idea to have Rosé make a special appearance for a cover? Going by your latest Instagram posts before this album dropped, it seemed like you guys were writing songs together. So we were really hyped for a collab." The fan hands the mic back to Rosé who smiles at Y/N as he takes a deep breath, steeling himself for what's to come next. The Western singer brings his mic up to his lips to answer.

"There's a pretty good reason for this cover actually. 'Somebody Else' is a song that holds special meaning for the both of us, besides being our favorite song." Y/N motion for Rosé to take the lead, and she steps closer to him before speaking. "There was a point in me and Y/N's life that we didn't know where we stood. It a point we could sort of compare to the kid's game: Tag." She looks over to the man beside her, silently asking if he wants to back out of it. Instead Y/N takes her hand, interlocks their fingers and squeezes. Go on, I'm ready.

"Long story short is that I was hung up and broken hearted over this person and he was hung up over me." Collective gasps resound through out the stadium. After all, the only thing they know about you and Rosé relationship up until this point was that she was helping you write songs. You bring your mic up to your lips and speak. "The pictures on my Instagram of her looking at the lyrics I wrote? That wasn't Rosé helping me write. That was Chaeyoung reading what I wrote about her." The crowd goes crazy over the newfound information, and Y/N's pretty sure that they miss the way he referred to her using her real name instead of her stage name. But Chaeyoung catches onto it and she smiles softly at the man.

"I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to Y/N by the way. Staying up countless nights and listening to me ramble on about being torn up, being there for me in every single way, helping me heal and doing all of this without expecting anything in return. Such a gentleman really." The crowd collectively 'Awwwwws' and Y/N hangs his head low, hiding his blush from everyone, Rosé laughs as Y/N looks at the ceiling, composing himself before speaking.

"I would never expect anything in return from you and you don't have to thank me either, I was just doing what a friend would've done at a time like that. Anyways, I stuck by her in those times all while all I could think of afterwards was how stupid the person who broke her heart was, all while I wished I was the one she had ended up with instead of them. I never even hinted at how I felt about her in those times, much less actually tell her. I promised myself I wouldn't tell her how I felt until the time was right. I didn't want her to feel guilty or pressured at all by what I had to say." Y/N looks from the crowd infront of him to Rosé before continuing "Time passed and her heartbreak had healed. But she still wasn't ready for a relationship for a while after that whole ordeal, so I kept my promise and I waited."

"When I had told my members and Y/N that I was finally ready for another relationship- That like, I was completely okay. Y/N decided to court me instead of asking me outright to be his girlfriend. Can you believe this sap?" The crowd laughs with Rosé as Y/N's jaw hits the floor, he walks away from Rosé and heads to the other side of the stage. He crouches and points to Rosé "I was being noble, chivalrous and mind you I was trying to prove that I was boyfriend material! Then she goes and calls me a sap?! I can't believe this..." Y/N lowers the mic and shakes his head in mock disbelief. Rosé doubles over in laughter before walking over to him and resting her free hand on his shoulder.

"Yes, I'm calling you a sap because you are one. But it worked out didn't it?" She looks down at Y/N before continuing. "I gladly said yes." The crowd goes crazy, people cheering, some were jumping, and the others were speechless.

Y/N smiles, a full smile from ear to ear as he takes Chaeyoung's hand on his shoulder to bring it to his lips. "Yeah, yeah it worked out well in the end didn't it?"

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A/N: Damn writing in 3rd person is a TASK. I might never do it again, I hope this was good enough? I'm not too sure about the ending but I liked the idea of them announcing their relationship infront of a crowd instead of doing it via a social media post. So yeah.

#Blackpink #Blackpink x Reader #Park Chaeyoung #Park Chaeyoung x Reader #Rosé #rosé x reader #reader!insert #TransMale!Reader #Male!Reader #Park Chaeyoung x Trans male!Reader #Rosé x Trans Male!Reader #Park Chaeyoung x Male!Reader #Rosé x Male!Reader

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omniswords · 5 years ago

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Chronicles of a Parisian Dumbass 10

omni’s on lunch break, quick post a new Chronicles update—

anyway, thank you for continuing to support this fic!!! i hope you enjoy this update and share the love!

from: itsdjbubbles

hey dude! i know you don’t know me or whatever but like, i wanted to tell you that clip you just posted was FIRE. and also i’m pretty sure we’re in the same city? i think i heard you playing this on the champ de mars yesterday. i didn’t have any cash on me but i totally would’ve given you some if i did.

anyway, nice tunes and hope you’re havin a good one

Luka’s only glad this message hasn’t been sitting in his request box for very long. Otherwise, he’d really feel like a total douchebag. And an ungrateful douchebag on top of that, considering the new clip he posted… isn’t doing as well as he’d like. Not even as well as the first version, the thirty seconds he recorded on his phone and slapped on the internet because his soul all but compelled him to. It’s not that he’s comparing himself to other musicians on here; he rarely does this stuff for the numbers, anyway. It’s more that he’s comparing himself to… himself. The thing that he loves doing, puts hours of himself into, versus… these simple, giveaway details of his life that he posts without a second thought, because, well, where else is he going to put them?

Is this the case with every artist? Because if it is, then that’s just… stupid.

It’s half-past midnight, but Luka still pushes himself out of bed and shuffles to the couch, using the light of his phone to guide his path. His mother and Juleka are surprisingly asleep by now—he’s pretty sure at least half of France is, in spite of what this city has to offer—but he’s hardly ever been opposed to the comfort of the quiet and the dark. At least it gives him a chance to read the message a few more times.

It’s not often that people reach out to him privately. In fact, most of his direct messages are from people he’d befriended on other social media platforms, or occasionally someone who, like this Bubbles person, just wanted to let him know they liked his work and hoped he was having a nice day. It’s not that he thinks that he’s better than the people who are brave enough to reach out. He’s just never really known how to answer those kinds of messages beyond a thank you, so he’s tended to leave them be, or worse—never accept them in the first place, so they’d never know he read them at all.

It sort of makes him wonder how people dealt with situations like this a century or two ago. Maybe they just never left their houses, so they could never be called upon. So they never had to be known.

That wouldn’t be so bad, if he didn’t have to make money. Or if he didn’t like the sun so much.

Well. He supposes with technology like this, he’s coming pretty close.

Out of curiosity, Luka taps Bubbles’s icon, just to peek at their profile. He balks at the follower count—it’s well over a thousand—and judging by the content they post, he’s pretty sure almost none of them are those stupid bots looking to make ad revenue or ensure their devices are brimming with viruses. Or worse—argue against human rights, as though they’re something to be argued against. Bubbles’s page is funny, and vibrant, and rife with links to this other website he’s only ever heard of in jokes. It makes him halfway wonder how many of Bubbles’s posts have blown up—and how many they’ve actually responded to with a tip jar link or a peep my Soundcloud.

Whatever this Bubbles person is doing, it’s working. And it’s working right.

They don’t have any pictures of themselves on their page, or even as their profile picture. In fact, the most Luka finds is a silhouette of them from a nightclub, somehow darker than black and highlighted by strobes of bold, bright light. And the most he can make out of that is the rim of a pair of round glasses, and layers of thick dreadlocks.

It probably doesn’t matter. Even if he pulled off some crazed theorist thing with wild hair and enough red yarn to map out every arrondissement, he probably couldn’t have picked out glasses and dreadlocks out of a crowd on the Champ de Mars if he tried and wasn’t distracted by his own work.

But what could it hurt to say hi back?

Luka pops in his headphones, because the music is the only thing that actually lets him concentrate, and starts to type his response in the notes app on his phone. He doesn’t want to accidentally send something he hasn’t read and reread, or hasn’t even finished typing. And if Bubbles just so happens to be checking their messages, he doesn’t want to keep them waiting with all the typing and deleting and re-typing and re-deleting. He’s been on the receiving end of those eerily calm ellipses enough times to never want to subject anyone else to that. Eventually—and eventually is a long time, even for him—he comes up with something he’s actually satisfied with.

to: itsdjbubbles

hey, sorry for replying so late, i didn’t get any notification. but thanks for the compliment. it’s really cool of you to message me in the first place, i appreciate it. sorry about the cash thing, but don’t worry about it. i’d like to do it full-time someday, but it’s more of a side hustle thing for now. maybe i’ll get one of those venmo or cashapp things for people who don’t carry cash. (i mean, you’re right, who does that, anyway? it’s the 21st century.)

With a deep breath and both legs bouncing, Luka taps the SEND button. And then he decides that was an awkward place to end a message, because apparently you can read and reread and edit and re-edit, and you’ll still find every little thing wrong after you post, so he sends a follow-up message as quickly as he can.

anyway, thanks for the message. hope you’re having a good night.

Assuming Bubbles is even awake.

As soon as he puts his phone face-down in his lap, his blood runs cold with relief, and his hands start to tremble and tingle in spite of how the music still blasts in his ears. He tries to calm himself down by placing the color of each song, but after just a few of them he starts feeling that familiar buzz of sensory overload. In the end, he has to lie back and close his eyes and bask in total silence, just to get his head back on straight.

A message.

He sent a message.

His phone buzzes from its place on his stomach, and immediately he scrambles for it, squinting against the bright light of his screen. There’s a single notification.

Bubbles.

He shouldn’t already be this excited to talk to Bubbles.

from: itsdjbubbles

dude, you’re still up? don’t you have work in the morning?

from: itsdjbubbles

no but for real, you should consider sharing on other sites or picking up some other gigs if you haven’t already.

from: itsdjbubbles

like lol i know we just met and all but i know a place i DJ sometimes that’d totally like your vibe. just lmk if you’re interested?

from: itsdjbubbles

anyway, we should probably get some sleep huh. g’night!

It’s… funny. How this is all it takes for opportunity to fall into his lap.

Luka gets to his feet, a tired grin inching its way across his face, and shuffles right back to bed, another message under his thumb. Except this time, he doesn’t bother to open up his notes. If Bubbles knows he’s up, he might as well own it. Just for now.

to: itsdjbubbles

i’m going, i’m going, don’t worry, haha.

to: itsdjbubbles

yeah, i’ll think about it. why don’t you send me their info?

from: itsdjbubbles

you got it, dude.

from: itsdjbubbles

also

from: itsdjbubbles

good luck with CBG and all

from: itsdjbubbles

though from the looks of it, maybe you won’t need it??

Luka’s eyes blow wide open enough to start asking in his head, what does it mean? what does it all mean? Instead, he presses his phone to his face, because asking—and screaming—will definitely wake up his family, and types out one more reply.

to: itsdjbubbles

trust me. vaguely knowing her, i think i will.

#miraculous ladybug #lukanette #luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #fic: chronicles of a parisian dumbass #gee i wonder who this new mysterious character is #I WONDER

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gadunkie · 4 years ago

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Tag Game

I will put this under a "read more" (tagged by @motherfucker-unlimited)

1. Why did you choose your url?

I actually HATE the game: Fossil Fighters Champions SO MUCH that I 100%'d it AND use it as a url.

2. Any side blogs?

No :)

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

I made this account in 2016 which is actually 5 years ago now that I realize it..

4. Do you have a queue tag?

no I dont think that far ahead.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

because I watched a lot of jojos bizarre adventure and this place had a lot of jojo content.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

my old profile picture was that crying cat thats being flipped off but when I changed my url to what it is now, I combined Fossil Fighters Champions' final boss, ZongaZonga, with the image and now it just kind of looks like this:

7. Why did you choose your header?

fossil fightr

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

its definitely that one detective pikachu tweet that I stole.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

I think I have like 10 or something lol

10. How many followers do you have?

306, which is my highest amount of followers on any social media platform, because becoming "internet famous" is a lot harder than what my soundcloud rapper friend said it would be.

11. How many people do you follow?

I think around 400 or something, but only 40-ish are active (ever since the nsfw ban)

12. Have you ever made a shit post?

Nope! :) All of my Posts® are good!

13. How often do you use tumblr a day?

every day, its my main social media website

14. Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog?

the most that I do is block transphobes, other than that I personally curate my online experience so that I dont have to fight online.

15. How do you feel about the ‘you need to reblog’ posts?

its so easy to scroll past them, whos gonna know if I didnt reblog them or not.

16. Do you like tag games?

yea

17. Do you like ask games?

I reblog ask games whenever theyre on my feed, I appreciate those who participate :)

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

personally I dont think tumblr famous can be used as a real term, but my most famous mutual is definitely motherfucker-unlimited, nearly 5k followers.

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Nope, I dont crush on people inside my computer.

Thats all of the questions, thank you for tagging me Mr. Unlimited. I wont be tagging anyone though, because no one comes to mind.

#if youre a mutual and want to be tagged let me know so that I can tag you in the future for this stuff

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thiswasinevitableid · 5 years ago

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Picture Perfect (Indruck)

A friend on discord @morganeashton asked for this meet ugly for Indruck: 09. we’re strangers who meet at a bar, get drunk, and wake up to announcements of our new engagement all over our social media - what did we do???

Duck’s woken up with worse hangovers. He’s also woken up with far worse people in his bed. The man next to him is slim and angular, silvery hair falling across his face as he sleeps. Yep, just as cute today as he was yesterday.

Now if only he could remember if they slept together.

He groans quietly as he climbs out of bed; he’s in a fluffy hotel robe with nothing beneath it. So one point in the “we fucked” category.

Duck tugs the curtains, already mostly closed, all the way shut to block out harsh daylight. The man, Indrid, makes a chirping noise and rolls over, still asleep.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I was not aware this was that kind of bar.”

“It’s, uh, I mean, it ain;t, but, uh, you, uh, you looked kinda lonesome and , uh, well, fuck, nevermind, sorry-”

“It’s alright” the man grins reassuringly, setting a hand with black painted nails on Duck’s arm, “it would be good for me to spend the night with something other than my own thoughts.”

Duck hops onto the stool next to him, signals the bartender for drinks

Padding out into the next room, the suite is just as impressive as last it was last night. Whoever Indrid is, he’s loaded.

“So, uh, what do you do?”

“I’m a photographer.”

“Really? Damn, I, uh, I dabble in it as a hobby, mostly nature stuff, and I’m fuckin’ amazed by anyone who can do it as a job. Shit’s hard.”

“It is rather challenging at times, though I enjoy it. What do you do?”

“I’m a ranger in the national forest. Live in Kepler, that dinky little town by it, came the half hour here for a work conference.”

“That sounds fascinating, tell me everything” Indrid leans closer, grinning.

“Uh, okay. Usually folks are itchin to make some joke about trees. Or Smokey the Bear.”

“I suppose you are bear-like.”

“Heh-”

“I like it.”

“Guh.”

He finds a room service menu on the table by the T.V the size of his first car, reads it over as he wanders back to the bedroom. Peeking into the trash, he doesn’t see any condoms or condom wrappers. One point in the ‘we didn’t fuck” category.

“That was last call, sugar.”

“No, unacceptable, I want to hear the bear-box story you, hic, --excuse me-- promised me.”

“And I wanna tell it, jus’ can’t be here.”

“Come, come back to my room. It’s big, we can talk, please come?”

“Course, darlin, whoa, damn, think we better take the elevator, little drunker than I meant to get.”

“I’ll, hic, admit I was paying more attention to you than my, hic, drink quantity, my sweet.”

He sets the menu down, wanders into the bathroom but finds no pain killers. Settles for filling two glasses with tap water and carrying them to a side table. When he slides back under the blankets and rests against the headboard, Indrid sighs, wiggles closer and snuggles so his nose is bumping Duck’s thigh.

“Morning?”

“Yep.”

“Ugh.”

“Here, this’ll help.” He hands Indrid the water as he blearily sits up. The taller man downs it in one, handing the empty glass back to him with a smile.

“Thank you. Such lovely southern manners.”

“You’re welcome. And, uh, speakin of manners, do you remember if we…”

“No, we did not. There was some kissing, I recall, but we decided we were too drunk. A wise decision all told, though the temptation was great.” Indrid slowly looks him over, smile turning from sleepy to sultry.

“Well uh, this was they day I set aside for sight-seein. Think I could be persuaded to see some sights right here.” His phone buzzes. He ignores it.

“Really now.” Indrid purrs, leaning in to kiss his cheek. On the other nightstand, his phone dings. He ignores it.

“Oughta get some breakfast in us first, fuckin on a hangover stomach ain’t fun.” Another buzz.

“Mmm, very wise. Their breakfast is quite good, you can order whatever you like.” Indrid is nearly in his lap. His phone dings twice more.

“Ain’t you the polite host--for fucks sake.” Duck reaches over and grabs his phone, Indrid sighing and mirroring him when his dings three more times.

He has texts from Juno, Aubrey, and Ned, two calls from Jane, and one from Joe, and all seem to be about…

“Oh no” Indrid covers his mouth with one hand, brown eyes wide, “oh no, oh Duck, oh I’m supremely sorry.”

“Married? What the fuck? We didn’t get married, we cant, there ain’t a spot for it here, what the fuck-”

“Why do they think this, it must be oh, oh dear” he turns his phone. It’s an Instagram profile, at the top of which is a photo of the two of them in their robes in this very bed, lounging together with goofy smiles as Indrid kisses Duck’s cheek. The caption is even worse.

“Best man ever. Internet, say hello to my husband. Isn’t he handsome?” Duck reads aloud, Indrid making a prolonged noise of alarm as the phone continues dinging.

“I’m so sorry, I, I don’t know, I must have been trying to type future husband? Which is still hyperbolic, I was drunk, but it would have been more salvageable.”

“Okay, right, we all done some boneheaded shit havin’ had a few too many, but why the fuck does everyone and their goddamn uncle know?”

“I....I never said my last name last night, did I.”

“No.” Duck’s stomach sours.

“I’m Indrid Cold.”

Duck blinks at him, and even in the midst of the panic he smiles a little.

“I didn’t get the sense you knew of me, which was part of your already considerable charm. I, I am the man you call for your Rolling Stone spread or your Vanity Fair cover, the one magazines fight over to have cover the MET Gala or the Oscars. My social media followers meet the same number as some countries populations, and I am notoriously reclusive and private about my life. Hence the uproar.” He rubs his forehead, “I am fairly certain I just wanted a picture of us; I was having so much fun, you, you made me feel so wonderful and I assumed this would be a fling, and I, I wanted a memento. In my compromised state, I must have misjudged where to put it.”

“Huh.” Duck stares at his phone, still lighting up with new messages. He’s torn between being flattered and being really, really pissed.

“I, ah, I will call my publicist and sort things out now. Excuse me.”

Duck watches Indrid leave. His phone is buzzing with unfamiliar numbers now, and when he answers one it’s a reporter from a fashion site he’s never heard of.

Indrid is handsome, and intriguing, and Duck desperately wants to see as much of him as he can. But there’s no way in hell he can handle this kind of attention, even if it’s misplaced. So while Indrid speaks, hurried and hushed, in the other room, he slips on yesterday’s clothes and disappears out the door.

---------------------------------------------------

He almost doesn’t look at the phone when it buzzes. For starters, he’s at work, but also the last two weeks have made him never want to speak to another living human again. When he pulls it from his pocket and looks at the message a half-dozen emotions hit him at once.

Indrid: I’m fairly certain we exchanged numbers, so I hope this is the right one. Duck, if this is you, I hope you’re well. And if you’re interested, I was wondering if you’d like to meet again.

Duck: Yeah, it’s me. And my answer might be different if I hadn’t spent the last two weeks being hounded by fucking reporters.

Indrid: So my clarification did nothing.

Duck: convinced them there’d been some kind of drama, so now they all want to know if it was a money grab or I’m an escort or some shit like that.

Indrid: I’m sorry, Duck. I’ll make things right, somehow.

Duck: Don’t do it thinking it’ll get you a second date. Because the thought of that much attention all at once again give me fucking hives.

There’s no response, so Duck jams the phone back into his pocket and trudges up the trail.

------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, maybe following Indrid’s Instagram was a bad idea. Because, unlike any other celeb on the platform, he never posts pictures of himself. Duck just wants to see his face again.

He looks down, notices four new notifications; an account with only five posts and an icon that’s just two red circles followed him a few days ago, and whoever it belongs to really likes his photos.

Refreshing the app brings a new post from Indrid, black background with red text.

Mr. Cold invites members of the press to learn how they can gain access to exclusive images and information.

“Good for him.” Duck mutters, before rolling over and shutting off the light.

---------------------------------------------

Duck sits on the pebbled shore by the lake, skipping stones without counting their jumps. He’s off shift, could go home, but some evenings what he likes best is sitting here, watching the world change from afternoon to dusk.

Someone is coming up the trail and he sighs; hardly anyone comes to this lake, and yet someone has to at the exact same time he’s trying to decompress.

“It’s even lovelier in person.”

Pebbles scatter as he spins.

“Indrid, what the fuck are you doing here? Uh, I mean” he scrambles for his words when he sees Indrid wince at the tone, “not that I ain’t happy to see you but...why?”

“I wanted to ask you if you were still being bothered.” The lilt is shy, nearly drowned out by the cicadas.

“Nope. Stopped about a week ago.”

“Ah good. That means my plan worked. You see I, ah, I offered every large press and small freelancer the chance to access never before seen pieces of my work, all for free. In exchange, they signed a contract that they would leave you alone indefinitely, regardless of your relationship to me, and that any writing on me and a partner would only be done with permission from both myself and them. Anyone who violated those clauses would face a very painful lawsuit.”

“You realize that didn’t do much to make people think I meant nothin to you.”

Indrid shrugs, “That was not the point. I wanted them to leave you alone.”

“Oh.” He looks back across the water, watches an Osprey skim the surface, “how’d you know I’d be here?”

“It’s a spot you shoot often, so I showed your friend at the station the photos and she pointed me the right way.”

“...You’re the person who’s been likin all my pictures, ain’t you?”

“Yes. I, ah, you post plenty of yourself, or your friend the Lady Flame tags you, and I, ah, I missed you, I thought about you so much that I wanted to see you. Perhaps that’s, ah, creepy. I thought it better than constantly trying to contact you.”

“Yeah, good call.”

Indrid shifts, awkwardly, “may I sit?”

Duck nods, and Indrid sinks onto the ground next to him.

“You really ain’t dressed for hikin, are you?”

“No. It’s not something I do often, though you make it sound very appealing.”

“We oughta go together then.” He sets his hand, upturned, on the warm rocks in between them.

“I would like that.” Indrid takes it, “perhaps we could go to lunch afterwards.”

“Sounds real nice.” Duck scoots closer, setting their joined hands on his thigh and resting his head on Indrid’s shoulder.

“To be certain I do not make a fool of myself again; are you saying you would like to try dating me?”

“That I would. But you gotta promise one thing.”

“Anything.”

“No pictures until the third date.” He grins and Indrid chuckles, leaning in for a kiss as warm and slow as the setting sun.

#indruck #prompt fills #meet ugly #indrid cold/duck newton #photographer AU

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calumance · 5 years ago

Text

LA Devotee - Part XI

Warnings: cussing, the end get’s a little hot and heavy, no details, it’s a bit angsty

Word Count: 4.5k

Summary: Emily stays with Calum for a while, but soon returns to her own apartment, only to be met with the biggest challenge of dating someone famous. Calum receives some news, and drops a new bomb on Emily’s life.

A/N: Oof, okay. I rewrote this part many times, which is why it took me so long to update. 😂 I hope you all like it! Feedback and requests always welcomed!!! (want to be tagged? Let me know!)

Masterlist

I stayed at Calum’s until Tuesday, I would’ve stayed longer, but I ran out of clothes. Calum insisted on letting me use his washer and dryer, but I declined, telling him I needed to go home. He groaned into the crook of my neck pulling me closer to him before kissing me goodbye as I walked out the door to head to work. When I got home after work, I kicked my shoes off and went to my bedroom, which was still a mess from trying to find stuff to take to Calum’s. I picked up a little and found the hoodie Calum let me borrow the night we met. When I put my nose to it, it still smelled like him. So I changed into it and made my way to the couch. After spending four nights with him, it was weird to not be with him now.

After turning on the tv, I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through some social media. As I was about to move onto the next platform, Mikayla started to call me. I held the phone to my ear, and without saying a word, she starts spewing her words, “Emily, where are you right now? Were you on twitter, please do not get on twitter. For the love of god, please stay off twitter.” My eyebrows stitched together and before I could get any words out, my phone starts beeping telling me I have another call coming in. This time it was Calum.

I put my phone back to my ear, “Calum’s calling me, I’ll call you back.” As I pulled the phone away from my ear, all I could hear was her telling me to stay off twitter. My finger tapped to end Mikayla’s call and answer Calum’s. The speaker pressed to my ear, and a smile stretched across my face, “Hey there.” My back pressed against the back of the couch as my knees pulled toward my chest.

“Emily, are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay. I’ll come right over if I need to.” My eyebrows pulled together again and my knees fell. I dropped my hand into my lap and my mouth formed into an ‘O’ trying to figure out what was happening.

My heartbeat picked up and I managed to find some words in my throat, “I’m fine. What is happening? Why is everyone freaking out?” A creeping urge to check twitter suddenly nudges its way into my chest.

Calum sighed into the phone, obviously exacerbated, “Listen, some pictures of us are circulating the internet, and not all the comments are nice. If you need me to say something, I definitely will, you are the most amazing person I’ve ever met.” His voice broke and I suddenly looked at my phone, my eyebrows pulling together so hard, my head started to hurt.

With Calum still on the phone, I went to my home page and touched the twitter icon. I could hear Calum calling my name, I told him to hang on. That’s when I found it, a whole stream of pictures and a whole hashtag built around pictures of Calum and I walking around on Sunday afternoon. Not a single picture of us showed PDA, not even a hand hold. We always stayed a few feet away from each other, and Michael and his girlfriend were with us. For all anyone knew I was Crystal’s friend. Which, admittedly, we did hit it off, but that was the first time we met. I scrolled through the comments, the internet is not as dumb as I wish they were. Even though we never touched each other, the way Calum and I looked at each other gave everything away. None of the comments were exactly accepting of us, and they were not too thrilled with how I looked on Sunday. I scoffed, who are they to judge me based off twenty pictures of us? And for god’s sake, it was Sunday, I don’t try to look at all decent on the weekends. So, I started laughing, even if deep down it did hurt.

I swallowed down the hurt and continued to laugh as I put the phone to my ear, “That’s all they’ve got? Shit, I might just kiss you the next time we’re in public to see what reaction we get.” The tears welled in my eyes and Calum fell silent. “Baby, I’ve been through way too much shit in my life to let negative comments from people who are not involved in our relationship bother me.” That was literally the opposite of how I actually felt. As much as I can put on a touch exterior, I could literally feel my self-esteem crushing under the weight of negative comments from thousands of people I didn’t know.

Calum let out a half chuckle, half sigh, “You’re sure you’re okay? Do you want me to come over?” His voice sounded so caring that a tear escaped from my eye.

My fingers swiped across my face as I cleared the tear off my face. “I’m fine. Hey, I’m going to head to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” My voice hitched in my throat and I swallowed it down before Calum could hear it. Of course I wanted him to come over, but after spending so much time with him, maybe asking him to come over was too clingy. From what I could tell, he wasn’t super convinced, but he said okay and we hung up. I played with my bottom lip before bringing up the message thread between Mikayla and me. “I should’ve stayed off twitter, and I just lied to Calum. Oh god, who am I?” Within just a few seconds, Mikayla called me, where I then cried to her on the phone for a half an hour. After I had composed myself, and shut off my phone, I curled into a ball on the couch and pulled Calum’s hoodie over my nose. As the scent of his cologne filled my nose, I closed my eyes, feeling like I was back in his arms, lulling me to sleep.

It wasn’t a good sleep, which was alright because I definitely forgot to turn my phone back on. My eyes were nearly glued shut from the amount of tears that I shed before I fell asleep on my couch. As I sat up on my couch, I ran a hand through my hair. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes as I reached for my phone and turned it on. As my phone powered on, the picture Calum and I took over the weekend appeared on the screen. I closed my eyes and rubbed my hand across my forehead before typing out a message to him. “Good morning, sorry for texting you so early, slept like shit last night. I just wanted to text you and tell you that I hope you have a great day. Xx” The message sent and I set my phone on the couch as I went into the bathroom to take my morning shower.

When I got out of the shower, I left my phone on the couch and walked straight to my room to get dressed. I decided to put a soft wave in my hair and put on a pair of flared, rose colored dress pants with a white satin button up tucked in with a pair of nude heels that were just tall enough that my pants didn’t drag on the ground. After I finished putting on my makeup, I made my way to my kitchen and started the coffee maker. My phone lit up on the couch, catching my attention. My heels clacked on the floor as I made my way over to the couch and picked up my phone, seeing Calum’s name sitting on my screen. “I can’t sleep for shit either. I miss you, have a great day at work. Xx Cal” A smile stretched across, my lips but faded when I remembered everything that I read last night. Instead of letting it bother me anymore than it has, I shake my head and make my coffee and leave my apartment.

When I got to the office, I sat at my desk and sighed. Mikayla wheeled her chair out and held her coffee cup to her lips. “You look amazing, but the dark circles under your eyes tell me you didn’t sleep again. Are you sure you’re okay? Did you have Calum come over last night.” She sipped at her coffee making that annoying slurping noise.

My eyes narrowed, and she immediately stopped, knowing that was one of those sounds that set me off. “No.” I said as I roughly tap the space bar on my keyboard to wake my computer up. “I felt like having him come over was clingy after spending so many nights with him.” After I logged into my computer, I leaned back in my chair and took a drink of my coffee and shrugged, “I just feel like it’s too early in our relationship to spend every night together.”

Mikayla nodded, pouting her bottom lip in thought as she rocked in her chair. “Trevor and I spent the night together in the first month of being together.” My eyes shot towards her and narrowed in confusion. “I spent the night at his house after he asked me to be his girlfriend and it was like we got addicted to each other. After that night, either I slept at his house, or he slept at mine.” She raised her eyebrows and took a sip from her coffee again, “It was only a month later that we decided it would be easier to move in together.” She set her cup down on her desk and shrugged.

My fingers adjusted on my mug, gripping it tighter as I thought about what she just said to me. It’s not that I hated the idea of moving in with him, especially since I had spent more time at his house than I have at my own apartment since we met. Thinking about living with him makes my stomach flip, and I run a hand through my hair to hide my flustered thoughts. I lick my lips and look at my keyboard before leaning forward as if Mikayla would hear me better, even though our desks were still too far apart for us to whisper. “Wouldn’t it be too early for us to move in together?” I wasn’t sure if I was asking her or myself.

Mikayla shrugged, her eyes focused on her computer, “That’s up to you guys.” I jumped when she responded, proving that I was more asking myself than I was her. “There is no set amount of time that a couple should wait before living together, at least not in my mind. You just have to talk to him about that idea.” Mikayla took another drink of her coffee then started typing so furiously that I raised my eyebrows.

I leaned back in my chair and then rolled the chair so that I could see her, “But how do you bring that up? ‘Hey, babe, I think we should move in together even though we’ve only been seeing each other for a month?’”

Mikayla moved her eyes from side to side then finally landed on me. “Yeah, that’s exactly how you bring it up, actually.” He eyebrows furrowed and she lifted her fingers off her keyboard, “Why do you think everything in your guys’ relationship is so hard? Just let it happen. If you’re happy, then it shouldn’t be a big deal.” She raised her eyebrows matter-of-factly and went back to her work.

Even though I went to her with every problem I had, I hated that she was right every time. I wheeled my chair back in front of my desk as I grabbed my phone. My nail tapped on the screen as I chewed on my bottom lip thinking about what I wanted to send to him. My phone vibrated in my hand making me jump half way out of my skin. It was almost as if he knew I was thinking about sending him a message, “What time do you usually have lunch? I wanted to stop by, need to tell you something. Xx Cal.”

My throat worked and my stomach tightened, that didn’t sound very good. My fingers tapped away, “Around noon, is everything okay? If you want, you can meet me in the lobby, there’s a café down there that has some really good food.” The message sent and I stared at the screen as I waited for him to respond.

The grey bubble appeared and I waited anxiously for his message. It disappeared and reappeared a few times before a message finally came through. “Everything’s fine, sunshine. I’ll see you in a few hours. Xx Cal.” I set my phone back on my desk and dropped my face into my hands. After a second, I flicked my hair out of my face and focused on my work.

When it came to lunch time, Mikayla and I walked into the lobby together. Calum was waiting by the front doors, and when he caught sight of me, a smile stretched across his face, and he met me half way. As the space closed between us, his fingers walked across my waist before he fully wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a kiss. “You look beautiful today.” He sighed after pulling his lips away from mine.

My cheeks burned as I blushed. I tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled. “Thank you. Do you want to get some food?” I grabbed Calum’s hand and tried to pull him towards the café.

He gripped my hand tighter and pulled me back towards him. “Baby, I can’t stay, I have a meeting I need to go to. Will you come out to my car with me real fast?” With a nod, Calum took my hand and walked me out to his car. He opened the passenger door and pulled out a bouquet of roses. “I was at the store earlier and I saw those and thought of you, so I bought them. It really has nothing to do with why I wanted to stop by, but I thought it would be a nice gesture.” He laughed, closing the door and then leaning against it.

As I smelled the flowers and smiled, he put his sunglasses on his nose, “Thank you, Calum, they’re beautiful.” A smirk twitched at the corner of his lips, I couldn’t help but blush, and a soft shade of pink washed over his cheeks.

Calum nodded, then shoved his hands into his pockets, his smirk fading. “I found out this morning we’re going on a promotional tour for our new album, and then shortly after that we are going on an actual tour.” My heart sank, I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn’t ready. “We leave in three weeks, and I’m going to guess that in the next three weeks, I am going to be insanely busy.” His eyebrows pulled together and he pulled his lips into his mouth.

I continued to hold the flowers up to my nose, but my eyes were connected to his. I faked a smile so he wouldn’t feel as though I was upset. “That’s great that you’re going on tour, you should be excited.” I dropped the flowers and held them at my side.

“I am,” His eyebrows lifted above his sunglasses and his hand rested on his chest. “Don’t get me wrong, I love touring, but we’re just starting to enjoy our relationship, and I’m about to leave. You’ll still be here when I get back, right?” My chest felt heavy.

“Of course I will, are you crazy, I’ll even come visit you. We can FaceTime every night and day, you leaving to do your job is not going to ruin what we have.” I reached up and ran the back of my fingers along his cheek.

A soft smile stretched across his lips. “Can I ask you something, Emily, and you can tell me if I sound absolutely insane.” I nodded and leaned against him, wrapping my free arm around his neck. He responded by wrapping his arms around my waist and looking down before looking up. “I think you should move out of your apartment and come live with me.”

Even though it was a topic Mikayla and I were talking about only mere hours ago, it still took me back. My mind raced and my fingers balled on the back of his neck into a fist. “Baby, I’m not sure if that’s the best idea.” I whispered and looked through his sunglasses.

He looked away from me and pulled a key out of his pocket and shook it between his fingers for a second. “You don’t have to give me an answer right now, but I do want you to have a key so if you want to come over, you can just let yourself in.” My fingers gripped the key as I leaned my body against his and pressed a hard kiss to his lips. “Will you come over tonight after you leave work?” He asked me once our lips parted. Of course I would, even if I wasn’t sure if I wanted to move in with him yet, I was not going to let they key go to waste.

Calum and I bid each other goodbye as I headed back into the building and he headed off to his meeting. When I met sat down next to Mikayla, she eyed the flowers in my hand. She asked me what happened and I held up they key he gave me. “He asked me to move in with him.” Mikayla smiled and I dropped my hands, “I told him I didn’t know if it was the best idea.” I shrugged and dropped my hands to the table. “He also told me that he’s leaving for tour in three weeks. What do you think I should do?”

Mikayla chewed for a second and then looked down and shrugged before sticking her fork in her lunch. “I think you should figure out what you want.” She lifted her fork and put her elbow on the table. “Not just if you want to move in with him, you need to figure out what you want out of him. If you think you’re ready for another commitment, then sure move in with him.” She eyed her fork before shoving it in her mouth, “But if you’re not, then don’t do it.” She mumbled through her food.

Mikayla’s words resonated with me the rest of the day. Every time I would look at the flowers sitting on my desk, I would wince. As I walked to my car, I spun the key to his house around in my fingers. I dropped it in my cupholder and drove to my apartment. Once I got to my apartment, I grabbed a few days of clothes and somethings out of my bathroom and headed to Calum’s. When I got to Calum’s, I used the key to let myself in. “Cal?” I called out, still feeling a bit weird walking into his house without him with me. He didn’t answer immediately, but I took a few steps into the house and heard him call from his music room. I walk down the hallway and dropped my bag in his bedroom. At the end of the hallway, the door to his music room was closed. On the other side, I heard the soft sound of music. I knock once and he tells me to come in. I quietly open the door, not to interrupt just in case he was doing something important.

“Hey, baby. How was the rest of your day?” He pulled the headphones off his ears and he smiled. He looked comfortable in his white “sensation” shirt, dark gray sweat pants, and a light gray beanie. He had a purple bass in his lap and a guitar strap slung over his shoulder. My heart swelled, maybe coming home to this every day wouldn’t be so bad.

“It was okay, I’m not interrupting anything am I?” I pointed to his bass and the camera set up in front of him.

He shook his head, “No, I’m just messing around. Are you hungry? I can fix us some dinner real fast.” I accepted his offer and he put his bass on the stand next to him before moving towards me, pressing a gentle peck to my forehead. We walked together to his kitchen and he told me to sit down. I sat on the barstool and watched him cook. We talked, and I couldn’t believe how much he smiles, and every time he smiles, my stomach flips.

He sat at the barstool next to me as he sat down both plates. As I grabbed my fork, I looked at him, “Why did you ask me to move in?” I asked him twisting the fork in my hand. Something inside me telling me that if he gave me a good reason, I’d want to do it.?

He paused from taking a bite of his food and looked at me, “So that I could have this every day.” I raised my eyebrows, edging him to tell me why he really asked me. He sets his fork on his plate and smirks, “Okay, and because I think you deserve more than that tiny apartment. I was going to pay for a new apartment for you, but I think moving in with me will save us both some money.” He laughed, but I didn’t. He’s always wanting to spend all this money on me, money that I can never pay back. My head spins and I nod slowly, “Is everything okay, Emily?”

“Yeah.” I said completely unconvincing as my thoughts ran around my head. My eyes closed as I dropped my fork onto my plate, “I need to ask you something.” I finally blurted out. Calum raised his eyebrows and swallowed, his Adam’s Apple bobbing. “Are we just together for fun, or are we together to actually try and build a life together?” The words came out of my mouth harsher than I wanted them to, so I didn’t bother to look at him. “I’m afraid that if I move in with you and you do all of these things for me, that we’re going to break up and I’m going to be right back where I was four months ago. I’m not afraid of commitment, I’m afraid of being destroyed a second time.” My voice became shaky towards the end, and I dropped my head to hide the tears that were forming on the rims of my eyes.

Calum dropped his fork and placed his hand on my knee. His hand reached around my face so he could gently guide my face to be looking at him. His eyes sparkled in the light, my stomach filled with butterflies and I blinked away the tears. “I’m scared too, okay? You know that my past relationships were great either. I’m not with you just to pass time. Before I met you, I had completely sworn off relationships and anything to do with them. You’re different, you’re worth it.” He ran his thumb under my eye as a smile twitched over his lips.

My heart skipped a beat after the last words fell from his lips. My head spun as the thoughts raced through. If I was worth it to him, then he was worth it to me. Even if I was scared, maybe he was worth it too. My fingers pressed against the back of his neck as I pulled him towards me, pressing my lips against his. “I’ll do it,” I whispered, “I’ll move in with you.” Calum let out a soft, happy laugh and pressed his lips to mine again. Our lips smiling against each other’s.

We finished dinner and Calum took our plates back into the kitchen and started washing the dishes. My eyes wandered around the house for a minute until I stepped off my chair and walked into the kitchen. My hand grazed his lower back as I stepped around him and started grabbing dishes to put away. He smiled, but pulled his eyebrows together in confusion “If this is going to be my house now, too, I might as well help out.” I shot him a look as he pushed his button lip out in agreement. After he shut off the water, he reached for the towel and dried his hands, his biceps flexing in a devilish way with each movement. My teeth dug into my bottom lip the more I stared at him. To take my mind off him, I look up and my eyes catch sight of the swimming pool, softly lit by the lights under the water. My lips turn upward into a smirk as an idea pops into my head.

Keeping my shit-eating smirk on my face, I turned towards Calum, causing him to stop all of his motions. He raised an eyebrow and draped the kitchen towel over the oven handle. “Have you ever gone skinny dipping in your own pool?” He placed one hand on the edge of the counter and the other on his hip. For a moment, he paused, but then he frowned and shook his head. My devilish smirk turned into a devilish smile before I reached down, holding onto the counter for support and took off my shoes. I skipped towards the backdoor and dropped my shoes off to the side. Without missing a beat, I opened the backdoor and ran outside. Once I was standing at the edge of the pool, I stripped my clothes off and jumped in. When I came up out of the water, I saw Calum standing at the edge of the pool, his hands in his pockets, laughing. “Come on, Cal, just do it.” He didn’t protest, instead he stripped off his clothes and jumped in.

After he resurfaced I swam over to him and locked my arms around his neck. He ran his hands down his face, wiping the water away and then wrapped his arms around my waist. I leaned forward and pecked his lips, suddenly feeling the need for more after the tingling danced across my lips. My lips connected with his again in a needy kiss. As his grip tighten, he let out a quiet groan, no way to hide what was going on under the water. I nipped at his bottom lip and smirked, “Want to continue this inside?”

He shook his head, “I have a better idea.” He reached for my legs, forcing me to wrap them around his waist. He connected his lips to mine while he made his way to the stairs of the pool. His hands held their grip under my thighs as he carried me over to a padded patio couch, laying me on my back. Before I could protest, I was lost in his touch and his body.

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perfectirishgifts · 4 years ago

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8 Leading Women In The Field Of AI

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/8-leading-women-in-the-field-of-ai/

8 Leading Women In The Field Of AI

These eight women are at the forefront of the field of artificial intelligence today. They hail from … [] academia, startups, large technology companies, venture capital and beyond.

It is a simple truth: the field of artificial intelligence is far too male-dominated. According to a 2018 study from Wired and Element AI, just 12% of AI researchers globally are female.

Artificial intelligence will reshape every corner of our lives in the coming years—from healthcare to finance, from education to government. It is therefore troubling that those building this technology do not fully represent the society they are poised to transform.

Yet there are many brilliant women at the forefront of AI today. As entrepreneurs, academic researchers, industry executives, venture capitalists and more, these women are shaping the future of artificial intelligence. They also serve as role models for the next generation of AI leaders, reflecting what a more inclusive AI community can and should look like.

Featured below are eight of the leading women in the field of artificial intelligence today.

Joy Buolamwini: Founder, Algorithmic Justice League

Joy Buolamwini has aptly been described as “the conscience of the A.I. revolution.”

Her pioneering work on algorithmic bias as a graduate student at MIT opened the world’s eyes to the racial and gender prejudices embedded in facial recognition systems. Amazon, Microsoft and IBM each suspended their facial recognition offerings this year as a result of Buolamwini’s research, acknowledging that the technology was not yet fit for public use. Buolamwini’s work is powerfully profiled in the new documentary Coded Bias.

Buolamwini stands at the forefront of a burgeoning movement to identify and address the social consequences of artificial intelligence technology, a movement she advances through her nonprofit Algorithmic Justice League.

Buolamwini on the battle against algorithmic bias: “When I started talking about this, in 2016, it was such a foreign concept. Today, I can’t go online without seeing some news article or story about a biased AI system. People are just now waking up to the fact that there is a problem. Awareness is good—and then that awareness needs to lead to action. That is the phase that we’re in.”

Claire Delaunay: VP Engineering, NVIDIA

From SRI to Google to Uber to NVIDIA, Claire Delaunay has held technical leadership roles at many of Silicon Valley’s most iconic organizations. She was also co-founder and engineering head at Otto, the pedigreed but ill-fated autonomous trucking startup helmed by Anthony Levandowski.

In her current role at NVIDIA, Delaunay is focused on building tools and platforms to enable the deployment of autonomous machines at scale.

Delaunay on the tradeoffs between working at a big company and a startup: “Some kinds of breakthroughs can only be accomplished at a big company, and other kinds of breakthroughs can only be accomplished at a startup. Startups are very good at deconstructing things and generating discontinuous big leaps forward. Big companies are very good at consolidating breakthroughs and building out robust technology foundations that enable future innovation.”

Rana el Kaliouby: CEO & Co-Founder, Affectiva

Rana el Kaliouby has dedicated her career to making AI more emotionally intelligent.

Kaliouby is credited with pioneering the field of Emotion AI. In 2009, she co-founded the startup Affectiva as a spinout from MIT to develop machine learning systems capable of understanding human emotions. Today, the company’s technology is used by 25% of the Fortune 500, including for media analytics, consumer behavioral research and automotive use cases.

Kaliouby on her big-picture vision: “My life’s work is about humanizing technology before it dehumanizes us.”

Daphne Koller: CEO & Founder, insitro

Daphne Koller’s wide-ranging career illustrates the symbiosis between academia and industry that is a defining characteristic of the field of artificial intelligence.

Koller has been a professor at Stanford since 1995, focused on machine learning. In 2012 she co-founded education technology startup Coursera with fellow Stanford professor and AI leader Andrew Ng. Coursera is today a $2.6 billion ed tech juggernaut.

Koller’s most recent undertaking may be her most ambitious yet. She is the founding CEO at insitro, a startup applying machine learning to transform pharmaceutical drug discovery and development. Insitro has raised roughly $250 million from Andreessen Horowitz and others and recently announced a major commercial partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb.

Koller on advice for those just starting out in the field of AI: “Pick an application of AI that really matters, that is really societally worthwhile—not all AI applications are—and then put in the hard work to truly understand that domain. I am able to build insitro today only because I spent 20 years learning biology. An area I might suggest to young people today is energy and the environment.”

Fei-Fei Li: Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University

Few individuals have left more of a mark on the world of AI in the twenty-first century than Fei-Fei Li.

As a young Princeton professor in 2007, Li conceived of and spearheaded the ImageNet project, a database of millions of labeled images that has changed the entire trajectory of AI. The prescient insight behind ImageNet was that massive datasets—more than particular algorithms—would be the key to unleashing AI’s potential. When Geoff Hinton and team debuted their neural network-based model trained on ImageNet at the 2012 ImageNet competition, the modern era of deep learning was born.

Li has since become a tenured professor at Stanford, served as Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud, headed Stanford’s AI lab, joined the Board of Directors at Twitter, cofounded the prominent nonprofit AI4ALL, and launched Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute (HAI). Across her many leadership positions, Li has tirelessly advocated for a more inclusive, equitable and human approach to AI.

Li on why diversity in AI is so important: “Our technology is not independent of human values. It represents the values of the humans that are behind the design, development and application of the technology. So, if we’re worried about killer robots, we should really be worried about the creators of the technology. We want the creators of this technology to represent our values and represent our shared humanity.”

Anna Patterson: Founder & Managing Partner, Gradient Ventures

Anna Patterson has led a distinguished career developing and deploying AI products, both at large technology companies and at startups.

A long-time executive at Google, which she first joined in 2004, Patterson led artificial intelligence efforts for years as the company’s VP of Engineering. In 2017 she launched Google’s AI venture capital fund Gradient Ventures, where today she invests in early-stage AI startups.

Patterson serves on the board of a number of promising AI startups including Algorithmia, Labelbox and test.ai. She is also a board director at publicly-traded Square.

Patterson on one question she asks herself before investing in any AI startup: “Do I find myself constantly thinking about their vision and mission?”

Daniela Rus: Director, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)

Daniela Rus is one of the world’s leading roboticists.

She is an MIT professor and the first female head of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), one of the largest and most prestigious AI research labs in the world. This makes her part of a storied lineage: previous directors of CSAIL (and its predecessor labs) over the decades have included AI legends Marvin Minsky, J.C.R. Licklider and Rodney Brooks.

Rus’ groundbreaking research has advanced the state of the art in networked collaborative robots (robots that can work together and communicate with one another), self-reconfigurable robots (robots that can autonomously change their structure to adapt to their environment), and soft robots (robots without rigid bodies).

Rus on a common misconception about AI: “It is important for people to understand that AI is nothing more than a tool. Like any other tool, it is neither intrinsically good nor bad. It is solely what we choose to do with it. I believe that we can do extraordinarily positive things with AI—but it is not a given that that will happen.”

Shivon Zilis: Board Member, OpenAI; Project Director, Neuralink

Shivon Zilis has spent time on the leadership teams of several companies at AI’s bleeding edge: OpenAI, Neuralink, Tesla, Bloomberg Beta.

She is the youngest board member at OpenAI, the influential research lab behind breakthroughs like GPT-3. At Neuralink—Elon Musk’s mind-bending effort to meld the human brain with digital machines—Zilis works on high-priority strategic initiatives in the office of the CEO.

Zilis on her attitude toward new technology development: “I’m astounded by how often the concept of ‘building moats’ comes up. If you think the technology you’re building is good for the world, why not laser focus on expanding your tech tree as quickly as possible versus slowing down and dividing resources to impede the progress of others?”

From AI in Perfectirishgifts

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boratanical · 5 years ago

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graphics guide

a guide filled with basic info, tips, and answers to common questions that i hope helps people who want to start making graphics

*this was made based on my experiences of making graphics and is what i thought was important to cover but everyone has different ways and approaches so dont feel the need to follow everything on here

what is a graphic?

a graphic (also known as ‘gfx’) is a image edit that incorporates various elements (textures, filters, text, etc) in order to visualize a idea or to create a aesthetic composition

unlike making gifs, there is no right or proper way to make a graphic so dont get too caught up in the idea that a graphic should look a certain way - just stick with your style and what you think looks good

anatomy

image/subject

usually the main focus of the whole graphic

you should always try to use a sharp hd picture - getting it from the original source is always the best option

make sure the source of the picture allows editing - pictures from public sources like a company or the news can be edited while fansite pics and scans need to have permission asked (and if they give you permission make sure you link them when you post your graphic!)

coloring

often referred as ‘psd’ because that is the format they are in (i.e. pink psd pack)

comprise of multiple layers that can alter the images look

a lot of people make their own colorings since the outcome of the look also depends on the image’s original coloring

textures

smaller cut out images that are often used to decorate the graphic

can also refer to a image that can be use as a background of a graphic

can be found in the form of a png (copy + paste into graphic) or a brush (”painted” on to the graphic)

avoid using any textures that does not state the original poster made them - you could unintentionally be using someone’s work that was not made to be used [read more about it here + resources that you can actually use]

text

text can be used to tell information or just for decoration

try to choose fonts and colors that are legible

faq

what software can i use to make graphics

most people use some version of photoshop (i currently use photoshop cc 2018) and a lot people have it cracked but if you cant afford photoshop, find a cracked version or a patcher (i used adobe zii 3.0.4 for mac), or are uncomfortable with getting a cracked version then there are other softwares that are just as good!

i can only vouch for gimp since i used it when i first started making gfxs. it is very similar to photoshop and shares most of the same tools and has a similar look to photoshop. it is also probably the most popular photoshop alternative and would totally recommend it if you cant get photoshop!

[visit + download gimp here]

where do you get your pictures from

official sources such as teasers companies release, photos released by press, photos from idol’s instagram - basically photos that are made for the public to see are whats best to use for a gfx. you should download the photos straight from the source so you get it at its highest quality

some phrases you can use to search for pictures on google: - [group name] photoshoot - [idol name] press - [group name] showcase - [idol name] teaser

remember the more specific you are in your search the better! also when you search through google make sure you check your source!

avoid getting photos from reposting websites like we heart it and pinterest avoid using fansite pictures and scans unless you are granted permission

i don’t know where to start/i’m overwhelmed and i don’t know what to do/ where should i begin

figure out what you want to make or a theme you want to follow - do you want to make a simple graphic or a infographic? do you want it to center around a certain theme like a comeback or a photoshoot? once you determine what you want to do it becomes easier getting ideas and finding stuff you will need for the gfx

example thought process: “i want to make a loona graphic” → do you want it to be the whole group or a certain member or unit? will it just be a simple gfx or a AU gfx or based on a event that the group is doing? “i’ve decided on doing a kim lip one” → do you want it to have a certain theme like kim lip smiling or kim lip with blonde hair? is there a certain frame of time in which you want the graphic to represent like during eclipse era or hi high era? “i want it to be from max and match era with her teasers” → from here you can start finding pictures to use and thinking of colors and textures that would fit your theme

where do you get ideas/inspiration from

i mean it’s different for everyone but for me i literally just think of stuff and i’m like wow i want to make that happen asdfsdfj but mostly when i see pictures or watch something thats where i suddenly get a idea

but tumblr is full of graphic makers!!! ive seen so many amazing graphics from various fandoms like kpop, anime, marvel, etc.

some amazing graphic editors i know myself include: primirene, ireone, nctjaemin, celo-mar, 1hyungseo, jeongahn, haechxnie, sonxiumin, syua, lulumelody, dinomite, lovelyeo, joohys, whatchatalkabout, yveu, maerinah, mihyon, lorbits, cherryjennie, thatporcelain, monoka, ifbin, 7ww

some other places you can look at are behance (dont go on behance if you have a cracked ver of ps - it might trigger a ingenue software alert that is a huge pain to deal with), pinterest, deviantart, dribble, and probably any social media platform if you just look up #graphicdesign

remember if you take inspiration from someone’s work then you should cite them in your caption - if you are afraid that you might’ve accidentally copied someone when you were trying to take inspiration from them its best to either try to remake the gfx again or just to ask the creator permission if its fine if certain details are similar/same

my stuff sucks how do i get better

literally just keep on making stuff aka practice. you can’t improve if you don’t bother putting effort.

ways i’ve forced myself into practicing making gfxs is by: 1) starting a gfxs series - its self paced and is based on what you want to make (i.e. introducing my biases gfx series, my favorite outfits gfx series, etc) 2) taking in requests - people who would request from you probably like your stuff so its a win win situation (i.e. send me a idol + era, send me your bias + palette, send me a group and i’ll make a gfx of my fav member, etc)

tips

only sharpen your pictures after you are done resizing them, if you sharpen and then resize it might result in a more blurry or grainy picture

always save your graphic every 5-10 mins in case photoshop crashes

have two copies of your image cutout: one will be the original and the other one will be the one you edit with - in case you mess up like over erasing or over sharpening your image you have a back up you can use

stick with a color palette so you don’t get overwhelmed when having to color everything and it makes all the graphic panels you have look more cohesive

on photoshop you can favorite fonts!!! take advantage of it!!! your computer has a lot of fonts saved on it and it takes forever to look through a whole list of fonts so by favoring fonts you can see all of the fonts that you like to use for graphics

combine a png pack to one psd → when you open a png pack you will probably get a lot of png files and it gets annoying having a lot of tabs open in photoshop when most of them are just textures so by putting all of those pngs into one psd you can cut down the files you open and can easily see all of your options

make folders dedicated to colorings and textures that way you can easily access them instead of looking through your computer for a certain file

name your layers... i dont do it because its easy for me to tell what layer is what but when you are working with a lot of layers its best just to name them it’ll make life easier

lock your main image/subject so that when you play with texts’ and textures’ location you don’t accidentally move your main image

use curves to help get a photo back to its original coloring! like if you have a photo that has a weird filter on it just use curves and it’ll help the picture look more natural! [tutorial]

try warping your text to make it stand out more! you can access it by pressing the icon on the top text bar that has a T with a curved line under it. i use flag and wave the most

alter a particular color by using a selective color layer

rather than changing the actual color of an image/texture you can: create new layer → select the image/texture and color it on the new layer instead of on top of the image/texture → change the opacity or the mode of the layer so that the color is put on the image/texture while keeping its detailing and not affecting the actual image/texture

resources

colorings: can be found on deviantart or tumblr just look up ‘psd coloring’ or ‘[color] psd’

textures: can be found on deviantart (check to see if its og content or stolen) simply just search what you are trying to find or ‘png pack’ or ‘texture pack’ common textures you can try to find: vintage flowers, memphis shapes, organic shapes, doodles other wesbites: pngtree, creative market, lost and taken, spoongraphics

fonts: if you are looking for a certain font then you can just do a google search but if you are browsing then dafont and font squirrel are really good websites too some of my favorite fonts: abril fatface, agfatumc, antonellie calligraphy, arcadeclassic, bebas neue, century gothic, couture, daily news 1915, dark larch, hondurhas, kotori rose, krinkles, risingstar, sant joan despi, studly, zing rust

color palettes: i made one myself which you can find here, color hunt, and honestly a quick google search will give you tons of options

if you have any questions, other stuff you want me to cover, or want to add more resources and tips then please dm or send an ask! i hope this helps!

#i really hope this helps someone and that it makes sense #i literally woudlve been so happy if i saw this when i first started it took me so long to figure things out and im still learning #also i basically told where i got everything so like please dont take advantage of this and end up copying my gfxs... its happened to me a #lot #idk what to properly tag this alfkjasd #ps help

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lionela993343246-blog · 6 years ago

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How Finest To Rip 1,500 Music CDs? Your Tech Questions Answered

If you happen to're an audiophile, you may be a fan of excessive resolution music and lossless audio codecs. Convert FLAC audio files to MP3. We convert from over 40 supply audio codecs. Convert MP3 to FLAC, OGG to FLAC, M4A to FLAC, WAV to FLAC, WMA to FLAC, AAC to FLAC, AIFF to FLAC, MOV to FLAC, MKV to FLAC, AVI to FLAC, janessa561425.wordpress.com MP4 to FLAC, FLV to FLAC and so many more codecs! Just strive it out, your format will in all probability work, if it would not let us know on social media. Whereas Neutron might make loads of broad claims and fancy audiophile-buzzwords, it undoubtedly is without doubt one of the strongest Android music player apps price checking out. I am really trying to playflac on iTunes to see if it wil help multichannel rips from DTS or DVD-A. I know that you could play multichannel DTS rips ->alac on your ATV4 but I really want this to work with iTunes however I think the issue is not simply with the format, however a limitation with iTunes. Contemplating that it helps other surround formats passthrough like PCM it doesn't make sense to pay the licensing for use on AppleTV but totally neglect iTunes for almost two decades now. Equally, it is absurd that Apple nonetheless wont supportflac, a free format, presumably because they want people usingalac becaus thats so bloody vital…flac is nice as a result of it is a totally taggable format that plays on all platforms- besides iTunes! Apple's deliberate solely recreation in town" schtick is de facto getting previous. The results of this experiment are proven in Fig four, and several conclusions may be gleaned from these information. In the beginning, removing of metadata alone eliminates the hyperbolic decline in sound quality, not solely in WAV but additionally in FLAC format, when the memory playback characteristic of the JRMC software was engaged (as was finished in this experiment). This end result replicates the Fig 3 findings the place all metadata was eliminated. This happens regardless of whether or not the original unconverted metadata is added again (as shown here) or not added again (knowledge not shown) and indicates that the metadata is the major (if not the only) contributor to the degradation of height and sound quality FLAC files (and also WAV information when performed again with out JRMS reminiscence playback).

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jacksficrecs · 6 years ago

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In Hopes That You Remember Me - Chapter One

PROMPT: Tony in the Hospital + Steve being guilty

A/N: This is one of my first attempts to learn how to write a decent story again. Enjoy.

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS: [for the rest of the story] Depression, Trauma, Amnesia, Comatose

STATUS: Ongoing, Unedited

---

Steve has never felt this nervous before.

He stared at himself in the mirror, water dripping from his chin. Tonight was the night.

He remembered the day his relationship with Tony was revealed to the public. Tony had decided it was a good time to sneak a kiss on the taller man's cheek while they looked around a quaint little bookstore just some blocks away from the tower. They could have bought books online, but you know, going outside every once in a while is never a bad thing. Of course, someone had spotted them, took several pictures of him pulling the brunette into a hug and offering a kiss on the forehead before stepping back to take another book of the shelf, he presumed. The next thing they new, it was all over the web. It was posted on any social media platform you can name, and unsurprisingly enough, it gained a lot of attention. Steve wasn't ready to 'come out of the closet' yet, as they say, but he didn't have much of a choice. The public already found out, so he might as well confirm their speculations.

'Steve Rogers and Tony Stark: The Most Iconic Power Couple of the Month'

The two read the article together. It was amusing, to say the least. Very amusing to see the media go crazy over a gay superhero couple. Kind of upsetting to see the close-minded people rant over how they're setting a bad example for the younger generation that looked up to them. Homophobia could never be erased, he supposed.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. "Knock, knock, Capsicle. You done putting on your makeup yet?" Tony hums from the other side. Steve simply smiled at that, shaking his head. "Hang on, Tony. I'll be out in a second." He responded, taking the towel he had hanging on the towel rack installed into the tiled wall and drying himself off. "You better be. I'm about to fall off what you're telling me to hang onto." Steve only chuckled quietly. This was the man he loved. This sarcastic little son of a bitch.

"Cap! Come on, snap out of it! We need you-" A voice calls from the distance, though he couldn't quite place who or where it was coming from.

"Ready for our first date?" The Stark smiled warmly when the blonde finally exits the bathroom, fully dressed in the blue suit Tony's picked out for him. "Ready as I'll ever be." Steve replied easily, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Still not going to tell me where we're going for tonight?" "No. Don't you know what a surprise is, Rogers?"

"Steve!" The same voice. Louder this time. What was happening?

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's go." Steve laughed, rolling his eyes as the shorter man led him towards the door with a big, content smile.

---

"Steve." His eyes opened. He was back in the real world. Gunshots were heard. Explosions. The familiar whine of the Iron Man suit's repulsors powering itself up into the air. "Wh- What-" The blonde started questioning the events, eyes bleary as he tried to process who he was talking to. Natasha. "Steve. You're alright." The redhead sighed in relief, eyes scanning the blonde for any serious issues. "Nat-" He mumbles, swallowing the knot in his throat. It's all coming back to him now. He was in the middle of a battle. He was supposed to be fighting off his HYDRA twin. Speaking of the guy, where was he?

And what did he do to him?

"Steve. I need you to tell me what he did." Her green eyes were full of worry. "What did you see?" "First date with Tony." He answered quickly, grunting as he pushed himself up onto his elbows. He needs to get back into the fight. The others needed him. They needed his help. "Reenaction." The blonde added, forcing himself to stand, using his shield to assist him. God, everything hurt. "Steve, wait," She places a hand on his arm. Steve's attention shifts back towards the spy accompanying him. The earth shakes, and the hulk's yells were heard from a distance. "Nat, we need to get back to-" "Steve. What do you remember him doing? What was the last thing you remember him doing to trigger... Whatever happened to you?" She questioned. It really did seem like an important question. He stood silent for a moment, eyebrows knitting together as he dug through his scattered thoughts and memories, trying to pull something out. "I-"

"Steve?" He turns his head. Natasha. But Natasha was right there, right beside him. He looks back at the redhead that still had her hand resting on his arm. She didn't have the scar from the last fight on her collarbone. He reacted immediately.

Nat's double landed a hard hit on his temple.

All went black.

---

There was a painful ringing in his ears.

Dazed, Steve opens his eyes, finding himself on the ground, in the middle of a battlefield, with large pieces of debris scattered around him. Since when did he get there? Was the fight over? Head pounding and ears still ringing, he struggles to prop himself up on his elbows to get a clearer view of his surroundings. How long has he been lying there? There was a fire in the distance, or at least, he assumed there was judging by the smoke rising up into the sky. A quinjet had crashed nearby and was a total wreck, leaving several of its pieces everywhere. There wasn't really a lot happening by this point. A couple of tree branches were scattered here and there, and glass and concrete from the few buildings (that were very tall, mind you) decorated the ground. Clint was on the other side of the field, helping Natasha back on her feet. The Hulk was nowhere to be seen, probably off to calm himself down, and Thor was somewhere in the sky, as indicated by the low rumble of thunder off in the distance. Why he was still up there, he didn't know. All he knew was that the battle was over. Thank God. Everything seemed okay.

And then, the realization hits him.

Tony. He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere to be seen.

With a quiet huff, he pushed himself off the ground a bit too quickly, resulting in a bad headache and a brief moment of vertigo, but he really couldn't care enough. All he could think of was Tony's whereabouts and his well-being. God, what if he's hurt? Disregarding the pain he felt in almost every part of his body and the fact that breathing was just painful, he immediately went to approach both the Black Widow and her good friend, Hawkeye with a bit of a grimace. "Barton, Romanoff." The blonde greets the two, his voice sounding rather hoarse. "Captain." The two spies nod, casually brushing themselves off as if they'd done nothing but trip. "Any of you know where Iron Man's gone?" He asked, his gloved hands finding their way to the belt strapped around his waist. "Nope," Natasha replied simply. "Last time I saw him he was up in the air dancing with his evil twin." Steve's heart dropped. Where could they have gone then?

Once HYDRA got their hands on Tony, they were in big trouble. That man stores a lot of important information in his head. If they ever got it out of him, the team (and probably the entire human race) will be royally fucked. The Avengers will no longer be seen as heroes. Their reputations will drop like a boulder in water as soon as HYDRA released their 'new and improved' creations. Their counterparts. Hell, they might even be stronger than the actual Avengers. IF they got everything out of Tony. But Steve doubts that'll ever happen. Tony was a strong man. And painfully stubborn, might he add. But HYDRA had their ways to get someone to comply. Mind-Control, Brainwash, Torture, you name it. Tony might be strong, but one of their methods could potentially break him. He ran a hand through the tousled nest of hair resting on top of his head, releasing a heavy, painful sigh as his gaze shifts to the ground. "Right. Okay, Thank you. Um... Go contact SHIELD for me, will you? I have a feeling we weren't the only ones here when our 'friends' came for a visit." The Captain says, letting a bit of a commanding tone lace into his voice, trying to maintain the 'Leader' image he was supposed to have even though he knew it was useless. Clint and Natasha knew just how scared he was. He was fucking terrified. Worried. Hell, he was panicking. He just had to find Tony. He had to.

Both spies replied with simple 'Alright's and 'Okay's, sharing a look before going off to deliver his commands while checking around to see if there were any poor souls that needed their assistance. Steve's gone off to look for that one brunette that always seemed to be getting in trouble. With a throbbing headache and hell-giving rib, he goes on to search for his lovely idiot.

---

"Steve!" Natasha's voice crackled through the earpiece. "Yeah?" "It's Tony. We found him." She sounded almost breathless as if she just ran a marathon. Three, actually. "What? Where?" He asks, his heart suddenly picking up the speed as he leaves the injured man he pulled out from under some rubble in the care of the parademics, turning to take another scan of the field where a major clean-up process organized by SHIELD was taking place. "Your three o'clock. Parademics are taking care of him. He's breathing, but..." Her worry was palpable by the way she speaks, and at that, Steve suddenly felt like he wasn't going to like what he was about to discover. Was it bad? What happened to him? "I think you should see for yourself. It's not that horrible, but it's... Something." She didn't know how to say it. She didn't want to be the one to deliver the bad news. "Yeah, okay. I'm coming." Comes his simple reply, voice breaking, spotting the redhead near a group of uniformed parademics who offered a small wave at the captain. The blonde jogs his way over, worry and fear becoming more and more noticeable as he got closer. The Iron Man suit lies near a pile of rubble, lifeless, the blue in its eyes, reactor and repulsors non-existent. A large chunk of the titanium-alloy armor was missing, probably shot off. In other words, it was in pretty bad shape. And then there was Tony himself, eyes closed, breathing slow and not so steady, blood staining the ripped clothes he barely managed to throw on before the battle was called, red staining the side of his head, seeping out onto the ground where he lay. There was quite a lot of bustle as they worked to track the brunette's wounds and give them attention, which they did in record time. Steve's heart practically broke. In all the battles they've fought together, he's never seen Tony in this state, and that was beyond terrifying. Natasha appeared beside the taller blonde, smiling rather sadly. "I'm sorry, Steve. He'll be alright. He'll be back to himself in no time, alright?" She says, in a fruitless effort to comfort him. The supersoldier couldn't speak, so he simply nodded, eyes still set on the brunette in the parademics' care.

The next few hours were a blur of activity. The EMTs taking Tony into an ambulance, requesting a teammate to tag along (Steve did just that, telling the others to still report to Fury on their behalf, asked them to tell the director what had happened, that he would get in touch as soon as news comes available), the brunette being taken to the OR, leaving the Captain to wait anxiously. He was seated on one of the armchairs set against the wall, bothered by the fact that he was still wearing his uniform, not as clean as he'd like to be. He received some treatment for his own minor wounds (well, as minor as a broken rib can go), and he was very much thankful for that despite knowing they would be gone in a few hours. The blonde's shield rests against the wall, occupying the empty space behind him as he fiddles with the pages of those magazines the hospital provided, trying his best to reassure himself that Tony would walk away from this just fine. Occasionally, a child and an adult would enter the room, with the kid eyeing the supersoldier curiously, probably wondering why he was here, of all places. At least, that's what he assumed. He did hear about some children talking about how superheroes didn't need anyone to give them medical attention because they were so 'cool' and 'strong'. It didn't make much sense, but he let them believe what they want to believe.

Time went on, and Steve spent it suffering quietly with everyone that went in and out of the waiting room. He was growing restless, but he refused to leave Tony. He will wait as long as he needed to for Tony's reappearance.

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identybeautynet · 3 years ago

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The Brains Behind Billion-Dollar Brow Brand Anastasia And The Company’s Next Generation Of Beauty

The Brains Behind Billion-Dollar Brow Brand Anastasia And The Company’s Next Generation Of Beauty Anastasia Soare, known by her first name only, is the founder and CEO of her eponymous beauty brand ... she built from the ground up into a billion-dollar business. Anastasia Beverly Hils Like many of the most famous people in history, brow guru and beauty industry icon, Anastasia, is known by her first name only. It seems warranted given she single-handedly shaped the way people do their brows over the past three decades and built a beauty empire in the process. I hardly use the word empire lightly here; Anastasia’s success has placed her firmly on Forbes’s list of top Self-Made Women and also on Forbes’s ranking of billionaires in 2019. It started in the year 1989, when Anastasia Soare was a Romanian immigrant working at a beauty salon in Los Angeles where she was thinking about brows in a way most people didn’t. Brows were an afterthought, groomed as the last part of a facial or created within the confines of poorly-lit bathrooms through the inaccuracies of magnifying mirrors, tweezers, and the faultiness of human hands. There were no road maps for brows, only trends and perhaps lessons from mother on how to keep them smart and tidy. There certainly was no thought-out philosophy of how brows should be kept and their importance to the overall beauty of a face. “Before I started the business, people would come to me with pictures of celebrities and show me the sort of eyebrows they wanted,” Anastasia says on a zoom interview from her home in California. “It just wouldn't work. Everyone had a different eyebrow, skin tone, and bone structure and I wanted to give people the best version of themselves.” An image of the Goldmannian snail line which depicts he golden section of the snail's shape which is ... considered the basis of the Golden Ratio, which is Anastasia's base concept towards beauty and brow shape. Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Anastasia, who had taken classes in art in her homeland, learned through her teacher about the Golden Ratio used by Renaissance artists to map out their work. The artists would employ this mathematical concept to help their work achieve maximum beauty based on the spatial geometry of this ratio. Anastasia was inspired to explore its application to the use of cosmetics, specifically to the shaping of the brows, and began to experiment with the Golden Ratio on the human face, using her existing clients as subjects. “Slowly, I started building this process and how to create the perfect eyebrow based on bone structure,” she explains. Around the same time, Kevyn Aucoin, the most influential makeup artist of the early 90s, would pluck out supermodel Kate Moss’s brows to a razor thin state which caught like wildfire and resulted in the 90s trend of the extreme pencil brow. It was everywhere. Aucoin even plucked out Cindy Crawford’s famous bushy brows, and slowly but surely, every influential female had done the same. Angelina Jolie, Gwen Stefani, Drew Barrymore—all their brows were nothing more than arched lines above their eyes, and the public followed suit. While this trend was ablaze around the world (and in complete opposition to Anastasia’s own philosophy), the brow expert steadily plowed forward on her theory and knew there couldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach to eyebrows, or that a woman’s brow shape shouldn’t be the result of a global trend. So Anastasia opened her own small salon in 1992 where the cult following she developed based on this Golden Ratio treatment would go for this new approach to brows which resulted in an instant facial uplift. In the early days, Anastasia had a small salon which served the cult following that swore by her ... Golden Ratio brow concept. Soon, A-list celebrities flocked there to have their brows done like Jennifer Lopez and Cindy Crawford Anastasia Beverly Hills Word of this secret brow technician and her novel philosophy began to travel in rarefied Los Angeles circles, and soon the celebrities followed. Naomi Campbell, Jennifer Lopez, Michelle Pfeiffer only ever went to Anastasia to have their brows shaped. Even Cindy Crawford overcame Aucoin’s brows to become a loyal Anastasia client. Then, the influencer of all influencers of the time changed the game, not only for Anastasia, but for anyone in the world with eyebrows. In 1998, the talk show host and loyal Anastasia client, Oprah Winfrey, had the brow expert on her show and the appearance catapulted Anastasia into a household name. People were all but breaking the door down for an appointment with her while everyone else around the globe was learning to apply the Golden Ratio to their brows. THE BILLION DOLLAR EQUATION The early ABH products were the blueprint for the product identity and includes brow shaping tools ... such as tweezers, stencils, brow powder and brushes. Anastasia Beverly Hills It’s been twenty years since Anastasia launched her brand, Anastasia Beverly Hills (ABH), in 2000 and she says, “It was not easy when I launched.” Social media, which is a massive vehicle for the ABH brand due to the ease of dissemination of education on these platforms, was not around. The entrepreneur recalls, “I would personally travel around to places like Nordstrom and teach women how to put on the products, because doing eyebrows was new so education was the basis of selling. Everyone knows how to use mascara, everyone knows how to put on blush. No one knew how to put on eyebrows.” Even now, education is still the basis of the brand. “When we got on Instagram in around 2012, we desperately wanted to have a way to talk to consumers all the time,” says Anastasia’s daughter, Claudia Soares, who is also the company’s President. “Here we are, launching products all the time but we don’t get to talk to the world all the time. That’s when I saw social media as an opportunity to talk to our consumers.” Anastasia's daughter, Claudia Soare, is the President of Anastasia Beverly Hills who worked her way ... up from the salon floor to now helping to run the company. Anastasia Beverly Hills When speaking to both the mother and daughter, the elder Soare is keen to emphasize the younger Soare hardly landed a cushy job in the family business. Anastasia put her daughter to task and made her start from the ground up. “She earned it because she started at the bottom and I was harder on her than other employees, if I may be honest,” explains Anastasia. “Her work with me started from the guilt that I was never able to spend time with my daughter because I was working such long hours. So she started to help me in the salon in her free time. It was a way of showing her how passionate I am about my work and also to spend time with her. She was so good at whatever she did, and from the salon she started to take different positions in the company and learned every single department in the business until she got to where she is now.” “Working with family can have its challenges, obviously,” shares Claudia.�� “But I think a lot of time has spanned and we’ve ironed out any issues that have risen. In the process of butting heads and having to keep peace we were able to carve out each other’s strengths. Now that’s all we focus on.” Part of Claudia’s strengths are not only the business acumen she acquired by working her way up the ranks at ABH, but also her love of dramatic and colorful makeup. While her mother, and the Anastasia Beverly Hills brand, focuses on a natural palette and timeless style (“For people who want to look pretty but not done,” is the way Claudia describes ABH), Claudia’s own beauty lives at the opposite end of the spectrum and is animated, expressive, and full of vibrant color. This was an opportunity for the company to expand their offerings through Claudia’s taste in cosmetics and so Norvina, a makeup brand focused on electric colors and a dramatic concepts, was born through Claudia’s leadership and under the Anastasia Beverly Hills umbrella. “It’s our little sister brand that we carved out where we’re really getting a little wild for the crowd that’s looking for that,” Claudia says. Claudia Soare brought her own sense of aesthetics and love of vibrant color to the cosmetics brand ... she spearheaded, Norvina. Anastasia Beverly Hills SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC For all the accolades, growth, and success, like any business, there have been ups and downs and the pandemic has had its impact on the Anastasia Beverly Hills brand. “Let’s be clear, business was terrible. Anyone who says they had a great business, except Amazon, is talking trash. What do you do when people are not buying impulsively, or don’t have a lot of disposable income?” Anastasia questions. “But it was a good pressure test. We had to re-learn what the customer wants, whether they have disposable income or not.” “We had to really think about the brand long term and to be able to think about makeup that is necessary,” adds Claudia. “It forced us to think what was the next trend as a brand, and what are the products people are going to buy over and over again.” The company got through the pandemic by rethinking what they offered to the consumers. Again, they came back to one of the core values of the brand—education. For them, it was the realization that once everything shut down, everyone was always on Zoom, always looking at themselves, always with others looking at their faces, and only the face. “And masks!” Anastasia enthuses. “Everyone uses masks so all of a sudden there was a huge emphasis on eyes.” So they launched AR tool, The Brow App, as a way to connect and educate consumers in her trademarked Golden Ratio method and also as a vehicle for engagement and sales (consumers can have consultations, receive makeup tips, and also buy products on the platform). The highlight of the app is The Mirror tool which uses the front-facing camera on a smartphone to show an outline of a user’s ideal brow shape according the Golden Ratio which then is used as a guide for shaping brows at home. The AR-driven The Brow App provides tips, tools and recommendations by bringing Anastasia's ... real-life methods to the digital experience. Anastasia Beverly Hills “Also, I have done more masterclasses on how to do eyebrows because of zoom, and we have seen incredible results doing these masterclasses,” Anastasia says about this other shift to her business during the pandemic. “And our field team was still taking the personalized consultations during this time.” While the mother and daughter duo were working to rebalance the business during the pandemic, the social justice movements of 2020 were taking place all over the country and the world. Anastasia Beverly Hills had always employed a philanthropic mindset—they’ve consistently partnered with marginalized communities in various ways through the years, including providing higher education grants—although 2020 made the founder and company rethink what philanthropy means to the brand. During the height of the pandemic, Anastasia Beverly Hills pledged $1m to fight institutional racism, oppression, and injustice which started with an immediate combined $550,000 donation to organizations like The Innocence Project and The NAACP Legal Defense Fund as well as mental health organizations and social initiatives like community restoration within, and for, black communities. The most important part of the pledge is the $450,000 in grants given in support to 8 black, female entrepreneurs (who were selected through an application and judging process) which Anastasia believes is the most effective way to support a community—by supporting a community’s thinkers and leaders financially. “We’re very proud of everything we do, because everything we do represents who we are as people and what we believe in,” says Anastasia. “We don’t work for ourselves. It’s our people, our community, our clients. We work for them.” Anastasia worked at the salon as recently as 7 years ago, because working with clients is her ... greatest passion. Anastasia Beverly Hills beauty tips :The Brains Behind Billion-Dollar ,Brow Brand Anastasia And, The Company’s Next Generation Of Beauty Read the full article

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dgsagasblog · 4 years ago

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Twitter: A Digital Landscape of Opportunities!

Introduction

Your idea or business needs to be seen and heard in order to grow. If you find Social media more lucrative than the conventional form of advertising, then Twitter is probably the best place to be. With more than 80% of Twitter users mentioning a brand in a Tweet and the average Twitter user following five businesses, Twitter marketing is a growing place for brands to engage and build an active community.

I would like to call myself a curious explorer , an innovator, and a digital storyteller, who likes to connect with people and that is exactly how I began my journey on Twitter. It may sound clichéd, but Twitter opened a world full of opportunities for me. It became a virtual window through which I could learn, share ideas, and reach out to people – not just locally, but from all over the world. For me, Twitter is an effective digital landscape that connects like-minded people and accelerates learning and individual growth.

In fact, the world of Twitter is so vast that whichever niche of business you pursue, marketing on Twitter, or simply building your personal presence on Twitter will guarantee an audience who can eventually turn into customers!

Why Take My Word for It?

Read the below statistics and watch out for yourself how Twitter can play a pivotal role in your marketing mix.

Data says that there are 340 million monthly active users on Twitter

Total number of Tweets sent per day 500 million

Twitter is used by 22% of all online US adults

It is equally popular with men and women (24% and 21% of online Americans respectively)

77% of Americans who earn $75,000 or more use Twitter

27% of B2B content marketers used Twitter ads in the last 12 months

Twitter ranked 4th globally for web traffic in October 2020

66% of brands with over 100 employees use Twitter for marketing purposes

Twitter’s user base is predicted to grow by at least 2.4% in 2021

Twitter is currently valued at $36.48 billion

Twitter is the number #1 social networking platform in Japan

Twitter ads can reach 5.8% of the world’s population over the age of 13

(source: @omnicoreagency.com, / @similarweb / @eMarketer )

So, before you Jump on to the Twitter Bandwagon and try Twitter for Marketing here are few tips that can help your business gain credibility:

Use Powerful Content: Grab eyeballs with powerful content. Sell your business’s credibility with interesting and powerful ideas. Do not deviate from the truth but make things as interesting as possible. Try to avoid the beaten track and use the information to tell a story that captures the attention. For instance, a video about robotics and how it aids our daily lives will surely stop you in your tracks.

Ensure Visibility: The age-old adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ cannot be more apt while marketing your brand or business on Twitter. Twitter marketing is all about staying alive and in action. The more you tweet and engage with your followers, the more visibility you stand to gain. The’ tweets’ do not necessarily have to be related to your business or brand promotion all the time. Build interest, by sharing interesting content and when you have your audience engaged, then divulge your service or merchandise. Research says you can post, tweet, or re-tweet up to 15 times a day.

Building Twitter Community: As much as broadcasting your thoughts and ideas about your brand or business, marketing on Twitter is important. Twitter marketing is also about establishing personal connections with an individual or prospective customers. Earlier it may have only been about servicing or networking in response to a particular tweet or request from a customer, but now you can connect with anyone with your line of interest. You can literally track down tweets, post an interesting response and consequently expand your network. Building trust by delivering services, maintaining transparency, and connecting with prospective customers can surely take your brand credibility a few notches higher.

Use Twitter Hashtags and Trends: Blend in with the Twitterati! As important it is to make your voice heard it is equally important to be in sync with the ongoing trends and hashtags. To comment on important topics and trends and engage with fellow followers, trendsetters and influencers is an absolute must. Sharing your point-of-view across, will help you gain visibility and connect with prospective customers, influencers, who in turn can further propagate your brand’s message. Keep an eye out for the important days and events on Twitter- which garners phenomenon traffic and action, in-process giving marketing on Twitter a shot in the arm.

Influencers can make all the difference: Every social media has its band of influencers. In Twitter, you can find influencers ranging from top-shot world figures to micro-influencers specific to industries like food, fashion, travel, technology, and so forth. Influencers with their millions of followers- set trends, break news, endorse brands, and support causes. If you can share your proposition with an influencer who relates to your brand or product or is an industry thought leader, it can open a world of opportunities for your business. Including Twitter as part of your marketing will enable you to reach out to people who will be interested in your product or brand.

Ad on Twitter: Posting paid advertisements on Twitter may be a good Twitter marketing strategy for newcomers to promote brands or businesses. Your profile is promoted by Twitter and can even be seen and found by people who do not follow your brand, business, or hashtags. This is a great way to create visibility with people who show interest in some type of products or services. For a monthly fee, you can get a lot of exposure that organic Twitter marketing may not reap!

All set to start your Twitter Journey? Here is how you can build a noticeable business account on Twitter:

Once you have signed up for a Twitter for Business account, you need to organize it and put your best foot or in case of personnel branding like @curieuxexplorer, don the best image forward to establish your brand.

Profile image: The profile image should ideally be your brand logo, make sure it is clear and fits well into the small circular space designated for the profile image. Remember this will feature as an icon every time you post a tweet!

Profile Picture/ Banner: The banner image is the best visual representation of your company. You can put up your most recent activity here, a product launch or show you have hosted or the image of any up-coming product- anything that you think deserves to be known as part of your brand promotion. Make sure you upload photos that are clear and high quality.

Your Display Name and Account @ Name: Your account name is what comes after the @. The Twitter world will recognize you by this name. Everything you do on Twitter, your tweets, re-tweets, follows- will be linked to this name. This name also appears in your profile URL. It may contain up to 15 characters and should be directly associated with the name of your business. The display name appears right above the account name and can be changed at any time, unlike the account name. Ideally, this name should contain your brand or business name.

Your Twitter BIO: This is your introduction to the world. In about 160 characters you will have to put forward your pitch and ideally pack in a punch about your brand or business. Your business ideals, values, and what you have on offer are ideally the things that should feature in the bio. Additionally, you should put in your website URL, location, and the business hours if you have a shop or a store.

Your Pinned Tweet: The pinned tweet is the first thing a visitor will when they visit your tweet stream. This should be the focal point, the biggest piece of news you wish to display on the Twitter platform. This could be an upcoming product launch, a seminar you are going to conduct or even a charity you are raising money for- your pinned tweet should reflect your pivotal business interest. You can post interesting images or videos in your tweets, even post important links- also make sure your pinned tweet does not stay stagnant for a long time- schedule your posts accordingly to capture maximum interest.

Conclusion

To sum it all up- if you are a small business or a start-up struggling to find your footing in the world of business or an established brand impacted by the COVID -19 situation re-thinking your business strategy – Twitter is the place to be. Twitter marketing is one of the most authentic ways to build your business presence and connect with a world full of customers. It may not be easy or a one of a task, but it is hardly rocket science. Moreover, Twitter marketing is inexpensive and mostly organic. A little bit of patience, consistency, and well-thought-out Twitter marketing strategy can translate into phenomenal business success in the long run. Twitter is perhaps the only place that allows you to go from Micro to Macro. Connect with your customers or followers on an individual level, deliver appropriate solutions and grow your follower base to move on to the next level!

Source — https://dgsaga.com/blog-twitter-a-digital-landscape-of-opportunities/

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moreracquetball · 8 years ago

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Youtuber AU Headcanons

(Lowkey inspired by a post by @whizzerbrowne who brought the idea to my attention and it has since dominated my brain). Let’s just get started:

(This got way too long, yikes. I had to include a read more line)

~ Three Youtubers: Jason, Cordelia, and Whizzer.

Jason

Type: He’s one of those younger, newer youtubers. He started when he was nine, and he talked frankly about stuff like divorce (bc his parents were going through a divorce at the time) and being an introvert and being autistic and being Jewish and dealing with a difficult relationship with his parents. He has trouble really talking to people so it was like really easy to just sit in front of a camera and start talking at them. Side note: this was totally Mendel’s idea as a therapy exercise that actually worked, okay? And (as we’ve seen in the musical), Jason has this raw honesty and wit to him that is very funny and real to watch. As he’s gotten older, he’s started talking about other things - like not such heavy topics. He talks about the things that he’s hyperfixated on (baseball, chess, the emoji movie, etc), and though his content is pretty erratic and all over the place, people just love his commentary and he’s amassed millions of followers in just a few years??

He also vlogs /a lot/, which is how his audience got to know Trina, Mendel, and Marvin.

Trina - Everyone literally adores her. She is v nervous and awkward in her cameos in Jason’s videos, but she is also very honest and vocal about her opinions and calls herself the Cool Mom even though Jason’s like “Mom, you don’t let me stay up past ten even when it’s not a school night” and Trina’s just “A Cool Mom can’t still care about your healthy and well-being??”

Mendel - As a one-off, Jason asked his followers to submit questions to Mendel the Psychiatrist for a collab idea with his stepdad, and his pieces of advice were kinda off the wall and funny and it quickly became a series and one of Jason’s most popular series ever. Some people are convinced Mendel is just playing a character so Jason has to be like “no he is actually like this. You have to believe me.” Also: Mendel gets a snapchat that everyone follows. He uploads grainy pictures of like trees and makes puns and constantly spams his story with pictures of Trina with captions like “look at how pretty she is” and “how did i get so lucky” and “rare photo of an actual goddess.”

Marvin - Tbh, the audience’s reaction to Marvin is a little more mixed, esp at first. Jason had talked a lot about his difficult relationship with Marvin and his “Draw My Life” video did stir up some contempt for Marvin’s selfishness. But like, over the years and through small snippets of cameos, it is generally believed that Marvin has changed and grown up a lot and is like an amazing (but dorky) dad. His cameos in Jason’s videos are the best bc it shows how eerily alike those two are and at one point Marvin briefly talks about internalized homophobia and toxic masculinity and hints at the stuff that he is’t proud of, and everyone - no matter their outward opinion of him - has like a little crush on him. Also, the videos with Marvin and Mendel both?? Their petty arguing gets like millions of hits every time.

Jason also totally does all the trend/tag videos but also has like that sarcastic, almost ironic vibe at first but he ends up really sincerely liking it.

Jason also does like monologues of his thoughts and opinions while also doing mini skits in between and he is iconic and a jack of all trades really.

He is very articulate and seems so mature but like any hate whatsoever does get to him a lot. He’s learned how to deal with his self-doubt and ignoring the trolls better than he had when he first started, but every once in awhile it still gets to him.

Also??? Remember that Roast Yourself Challenge trend??? Jason did that, and it was on the top page for like a solid week. He went too hard and too real.

Cordelia

Type: Totally like Hannah Hart’s Drunk Kitchen, are you even kidding me?? That it totally Cordelia. She drinks and talks about current events and makes really bad food puns and it is Everything. She also branches out after awhile and starts doing like satirical how-to videos. Lowkey once she tried to make a wry, parody version of a beauty vlogger how-to and she ended up having so much fun with it and her after make-up looked ballin, so she starts doing make-up tutorials, too.

She’s also very very proudly gay and out. Like, her username is literally lesbiancaterer. But she still gets like comments on her videos saying “are you straight?” or “her boyfriend must be a lucky guy” and it just makes her go “????? How could I ever make this clearer?” (once, in a collab with Marvin, one comment said “ahh, her and her bf are such #relationship goals” which then launched a very satirical, very deadpan boyfriend tag video with her and Marvin that made it abundantly clear just how fucking gay those two are).

Charotte first got introduced very very early in her videos bc once during a drunk kitchen, Cordelia cut her finger with a knife and called for her girlfriend and Charlotte went into complete Doctor Mode and started treating her immediately. Cordelia is a little tipsy at that point and starts blatantly flirting with her and calling her “my doctor” and that video’s comment section is just keysmashing and the phrase “my doctor.”

Cordelia does not try to hide her relationship in any way. She and Charlotte have done all those cute couples tags and Charlotte is the star of Cordelia’s social media and vlogs. Now they are #relationship goals.

Cordelia actually got into Youtube bc of Jason and everyone was like lowkey shocked when it turned out that these two popular but different youtubers knew each other and cameo in one another’s videos a lot and Cordelia is like “he is literally my godson, guys. Ofc I’m gonna be around him and support him.”

Whizzer

Type: Ohhh boy!! Whizzer is def the kind of youtuber that has been around on the platform since circa 2007 - are you even gonna try to fight me on that??? He is a fashion channel (also has like a series of the youtube version of fashion police) but also like a major storytime channel bc he’s been around and tells the craziest but realest stories of all time. He is also quickly considered The Gay Icon^tm of Youtube.

He is definitely one of the biggest youtubers on the platform but he also lowkey feels too old to still be on here and has that like Shane Dawson kinda feel of like keeping it real about youtube drama and rebranding himself and learning from stupid old videos when he was still like a shit 20-something that was lowkey problematic.

He stans so hard for Britney Spears and Carly Rae Jepsen and he got Carly in one of his collabs and he could not stop smiling and fangirling and he is literally all of us.

He is very, very vocal and honest about his sexuality and sexual history. He has a lot of Body and Sex Positivity videos and speaks very bluntly about the importance of self-esteem and body image and safe sex.

(One of his most popular videos is the one with him candidly speaking about having HIV and he talks about his mistake with unsafe sex and all the terrible stigmas around the topic. He talks about how it’s both a physical and emotional struggle, and he also talks about treatment and awareness and prevention and seeking emotional help to combat depression).

He arranges a collab with Jason bc they are alike in that they always speak candidly about issues and struggles and have like the exact same sense of dry, almost scathing humor. Whizzer meets Marvin bc Marvin is like “Jason, there is no way you’re meeting a strange man who you met over the internet. I am definitely going to be the one that goes with you.”

(Awkward moment when Marvin and Jason get to Whizzer’s apartment, and Marvin and Whizzer’s profiles light up with one another from one of those websites like Grindr). Whizzer has like lowkey commented on Jason’s videos before with lewd comments about his hot dad, but like this is so not what Whizzer had been expecting?? Yeah, at the end of Whizzer and Jason’s collab video, Whizzer puts like a small blooper reel and it’s him continually flirting with Jason’s dad (who’s behind the camera) and the Internet suddenly has a new fave ship.

(Marvin and Whizzer totally messaged each other and hooked up like the next day).

But like, they keep the budding relationship very underwraps bc they both really don’t want it to affect Jason’s channel and neither really think at first that their whole arrangement will go anywhere close to serious because Whizzer has never been in love or had a steady boyfriend and Marvin cannot hold a relationship either even after his divorce.

But of course they fall in love, and of course the internet knows something’s up. Whizzer keeps vaguing on Twitter about the new man in his life with weird tweets like “I can’t believe I’m deliberately sleeping with a man who UNIRONICALLY knows every word to Allstar” and “get you a man who always sends that courtesy ‘thank you.’ text after you send him a dick pic.” And when Whizzer vlogs, he always makes sure to keep the camera trained on himself but you can see that his eyes are always looking away as he’s like smiling at someone who does not want to be on camera. Also, Jason’s weekend vlogs have cameos of Whizzer in them now.

They mess up when in one of aforementioned Jason’s vlogs, there’s a grainy clip of Marvin and Whizzer in the background and Marvin kisses Whizzer’s cheek. The internet loses their minds

(After nine/ten months of dating, Whizzer and Marvin abruptly break up and neither really acknowledges it. However, weeks after their break up, Whizzer decides to make a story-time video about this fucking asshole boyfriend that broke up with him over a chess game. He wanted it to be like both petty but also very funny because that is such a ridiculous story, but like when he’s editing it, he notices himself being like on the verge of tears in some parts and being overly bitter and tense, and he never uploads it and he realizes that he isn’t over Marvin like he had said he was).

(However, Whizzer does end up making a story-time video later about how Jason’s baseball game brought him and Marvin back together).

After they get back together, they’ve worked out their issues and are couples goals now and they do not hide their relationship and Marvin makes cameos in both Whizzer and Jason’s videos/younows and it is incredible.

Through Jason and Marvin, Whizzer and Cordelia meet and they become best friends. They collab all the time and they complain about queer struggles and they talk about their relationships and get drunk on camera and be weird, loud idiots and those videos get tons of views.

And Whizzer gets candid about how he’s always felt like alone in the world and hasn’t really had the opportunity to rely on anyone but himself but through Jason and Marvin, he meets Cordelia and Charlotte and Mendel and Trina, and even though they might not get along all the time and some people are closer to other people, they’re all his family and he never thought that he’d really have one that close before. It’s one of his most vulnerable videos.

The most successful videos on all three’s channels are the collabs of the three of them together: Jason and Cordelia and Whizzer. And they become like one of those Youtube cliques that collab all the time and tweet about each other’s videos constantly and always hang out with one another at all the events like Vidcon and Playlist Live.

#omg this became way way too long #and it won't get a lot of notes but I just had a lot of feelings #i needed to get there #this is the au ive been assembling in my head for days now #help me please #these have haunted me #falsettos #falsettos revival #Whizzer Brown #cordelia falsettos #jason falsettos #falsettos au

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marrincostello · 5 years ago

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How to Make Videos People Will Watch on Social Media : Social Media Examiner

Want your videos to make a bigger impact on social platforms? Wondering how to create videos that grab and hold people’s attention?

In this article, you’ll discover three techniques to produce video people will watch on social media.

Note: This article assumes you have the basics in place for filming and producing social media video. To learn more about looking better on camera, improving production quality, and more, click here.

#1: Hook Social Media Video Viewers and Incite a Shopper’s Pivot

There are all kinds of stats online about how long viewers will stick around to watch a video on social media. Some claim 15 seconds, some claim 3 seconds, and others 5 seconds.

I don’t like these stats. They fill video creators with fear and dread. Viewers won’t sit with a stopwatch in hand waiting for you to impress them and then leave after 5 seconds if you haven’t.

What’s important is to hook them as quickly as you can and then unpack that hook. This introduction could take 60 seconds, but if you get the hook right at the very start, it’ll be impossible for them to look away.

Script Social Media Videos for a Shopper’s Pivot

Imagine you’re walking through a busy shopping center exhausted from a long day, and as you push through the crowd of people in your way, you notice something out of the corner of your eye inside a shop. You walk past it, stop, do a double-take, and then walk back toward it and check it out.

That’s a shopper’s pivot.

In video, you can achieve a similar effect to pull people into your content.

The majority of films you’ve seen start like this: You begin watching and think to yourself, “What’s going on here?” Then a few minutes into the film, things start to make sense. The very fact that you’re thinking about the point of the intro makes the content more engaging and leads you to want to know more. The rest of the film unfolds from there.

It’s almost like you missed the first part of the story so you scramble to keep up and try to work out what’s going on. This in turn creates the engagement required to keep viewers engrossed.

The good news is that several techniques will help you mimic this effect in your social media videos.

To start, you need to give people context. This happens in the thumbnail image and the written post. People don’t tend to click play on a video if they have no idea what it’s about so this is where you set up your video’s content.

Tell a story. Stories create engagement and pull people in. People can’t help but picture what’s being described. In my earlier story about walking past a shop window, you probably pictured the shopping center in your mind, which made you pay attention. Then I unpacked the point I was trying to make. Intros like this are attention gold.

Use metaphors. A metaphor is a figure of speech that implies a comparison. You take information someone might not understand and relate it to something they’ve likely experienced. Again, this forces people to engage. I used this technique earlier when talking about the shop window.

Get straight to it. Lots of videos start with introductions. The person on the screen says who they are and what they plan to talk about. But viewers are selfish; they only want the information they came for—what was promised to them in the post.

If your video is called “5 Tips to Sell More Shoes” and you start with, “Number one: Price” and then hit viewers with your best point to start with, they’ll be shocked by your efficiency and hang on longer. You might even get comments thanking you for not wasting their time.

Remember, people don’t want to get to know you online at first; that comes over time and through multiple videos.

Share a surprising stat. Stats get thrown around all the time but if you have one that will surprise people, lead with it and let the rest of the video go on from there.

The key to all of this is to remember you’re not just competing against other people in your niche for attention on social media; you’re competing with everyone. A creative and well-planned intro is a must.

When you’ve hooked your viewer, the battle isn’t won, although you’ve made a better start than most. There’s one thing that can (even with an amazing shopper’s pivot) destroy your engagement, and that’s delivery.

#2: Captivate Social Media Video Viewers With Panto Mode and Chunking

You could have the best video content in the world but if it’s delivered in a dull, nervous, monotonous tone, you’ll lose the viewer’s attention, and worse, damage your credibility. People are attracted to confidence and charisma. Even if you don’t have either (although I’m sure you do), here’s how you can fake it.

How to Use Panto Mode for a More Engaging Presentation

The moment you stand in front of a camera, something strange will happen to you. Even if you’re a professional who’s used to public speaking, you’ll struggle to think, let alone talk, and you’ll lose a ton of energy. This means the social connection you need on camera will sink.

In fact, the camera alone will suck out about 20% of your energy. This means you need to overcompensate and put it back. Here’s how.

Start by filming a line or two as a test; 20 seconds or so should work.

Then watch it back. You won’t like the sound of your voice and you’ll probably think you look awkward and wonder what you should be doing with your hands. Don’t worry; that’s normal.

Now film the same section again, but this time, use an over-the-top delivery like a pantomime performer. (In the UK, these are theatrical events for children and the performers in them are always very over the top.) Your delivery needs to be ridiculous. Remember, no one is going to see it so have fun!

That’s panto mode.

When you’re done, watch it back and compare it to your original take. You should find that the version of you with 120% energy works!

If you think your delivery is too over the top, dial it down and try again. Not enough energy? Add some.

It will feel uncomfortable to start. However, once you see how confident and credible you appear on camera when you find the right level of energy, presenting on camera will become an enjoyable experience for you and your viewers.

How to Shoot and Edit With Video Chunks

Trying to create a video in one long take is difficult and you want to make the process as easy as possible to ensure your content works. This is where chunking comes in. It’s a technique that makes presenting easier and video content more visually stimulating. It involves recording your video in segments (or chunks) and then piecing those segments together.

Start by filming a few sentences. Stop when there’s a natural pause or change in information. You might want to do a few versions of this take. Or if you think you nailed it, move on to the next chunk.

Before you start recording the next section of content, zoom in or move the camera a little closer so you appear about 20% larger on the screen. Film the next few sentences and stop. Then move the camera back and shoot again.

Become the Social Media Marketing Rockstar for Your Business

Meet your secret team that makes you look like a social media genius and empowers you to embrace change! We’re a genuine community of marketers from your friends at Social Media Examiner. And we’re here to support you. Think of us as your career insurance policy. We keep you focused on what matters. We make sure you won’t be left behind as the changes keep coming. Join the Social Media Marketing Society. Get access to monthly online training, expert support, and a thriving community of marketers who will empower you to succeed.

Pro Tip: Make sure you move the camera rather than yourself; otherwise, the background will stay the same size and it’ll look odd. It would take another article to explain why so you’ll have to trust me on this one.

See how the frame size changes in these images each time we cut and move the camera?

When you finish filming your video, put each chunk into your editing timeline and piece them together.

Every time the viewer sees one of these cuts, it’s another visual prod that keeps their attention focused on you. It also gives your video more energy and instills confidence. The viewer won’t even notice it’s happening.

#3: Publish Social Media Video With a Scroll-Stopping Thumbnail

If you film a video and nobody hits play on it, did you even make a video? Getting your video noticed and clicked is the initial battle on social media. Forget the content right now; this is all about first impressions and sticking out on timelines.

No matter what social media platform you’re using, the written post with your video plays an important role in persuading your audience to watch (as we discussed earlier). But the image or thumbnail that comes with that post is what people will notice and it needs to grab their attention.

This is an example of a bad thumbnail image:

Here’s why it doesn’t work:

Now let’s look at an example of a good thumbnail image:

Here’s why it works:

Prada doesn’t cover their store windows with cheap stickers. Instead, their window displays convey pure quality to potential shoppers. Your video thumbnail needs to do the same.

If you can include a person’s face (preferably conveying emotion) and some text in your thumbnail, you’re more likely to get clicks (based on findings from YouTube). It makes sense—people love interacting with human beings, especially on social media.

If you’re not able to include an image of a person on your thumbnail, make sure you use quality stock images. Tell a story that hints at what the video is about.

Once you have an eye-catching image, here’s how to share it when posting your video.

Load Thumbnail Images to LinkedIn, Facebook, and IGTV

To choose the thumbnail for your LinkedIn video post, click Start a Post and select the Video icon.

Navigate to the video you want to share and then click Edit.

Now click Select File and choose your image.

To upload a thumbnail with your Facebook video post, click Create Post and select Photo/Video.

Click Thumbnail on the right side of the screen and then click Add Image on the left. Now select the image you want to use.

To select a thumbnail for an IGTV post, upload your video to Instagram and select IGTV.

Then tap Add From Gallery and choose your image.

Embed a Thumbnail Image in Your Video

Alternatively, you can add the thumbnail image you want to show up on social feeds as the first frame in your video. It will then display as the video starts to autoplay.

When someone hits play, they won’t notice it flash for a split second if the video starts from the beginning again.

Note: For Instagram videos, this is the best way to show a thumbnail image because you can only choose a frame from the video.

Video Thumbnails for Paid Ads on Social Media

If you’re creating thumbnails for paid ads on Facebook and Instagram, avoid using too much text in them to ensure optimum reach and results. The text should not take up more than 20% of your image. Otherwise, it will either be rejected or the reach will be impacted significantly.

Here’s an example of a thumbnail for a YouTube video that contains too much text for Facebook.

To reuse this thumbnail in a Facebook ad, you’d have to simplify it with less text, as in the example below.

Pro Tip: If you’re not a designer, Canva has some high-quality free and paid templates you can use to create thumbnails for your social media videos or you can turn to a platform like Fiverr or OnlineJobs.Ph to hire a designer to do it for you.

For too long, video has been touted as the answer to all of a marketer’s problems. It’s not. While video once had a novelty factor, now it’s expected as part of your regular communication.

But it’s not something you’ll be good at right away. You’ll often hear people say “done is better than perfect.” While that’s generally correct, “done” still needs to be good. If you review your video and don’t think it’s any good, you’ll need to put in some more work.

I’ve used all of the techniques above on thousands of occasions and I’m confident that if you trust in the system, you’ll make highly engaging videos you’ll be proud of.

What do you think? Are you inspired to try any of these techniques to improve your next video? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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This content was originally published here.

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