#those are the layers of meaning as they apply to a SINGLE FIVE WORD PHRASE in the song

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

God I will never be able to describe what the line "the dezi to his lucy" does to me in my soul

Anyway, don't mind me I'm just having a semi-public, week long meltdown over the role of language and how we convey meaning in our experiences of self . Have a song about it.

[demonfox38]

Completed - Baba is You

I can't believe this is the first game I've perfected on Steam.

Like, I don't like achievement systems in video games, okay? I prefer to set my own goals. Sure, there are some achievements that are interesting, like learning to use a certain mechanic in a cool or efficient manner, visiting hidden rooms, or even running around with nothing but my character's default busted sword just to prove a point. Mostly, I just want to finish them. I don't go jumping through flaming hoops because I want people to think I'm cool. I'm from Iowa. I'm critically uncool by design.

If a game is good, I will put in the extra work. Like, getting 100% souls in "Castlevania: Aria of Souls" and 200.6% map completion in "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is now just routine for me. With "Baba is You"? Well, circumstances are just a teeny bit different.

"Baba is You" is a puzzle game from independent developer Arvi Teikari. Your primary goal in the game is to create statements out of nouns, verbs, and conditions and use those generated rules to complete levels. It's basically catnip to programmers. These puzzles are packaged in cute, scribbly animations and gentle music. Ultimately, its soft presentation is the figurative sheep's clothing under which the wolf of this game lives, dragging its players through increasingly more complex situations, sitting there, laughing, its whole world wiggling in its adolescent mockery of you and your sluggish brain.

You're not always even Baba. I know. The absolute betrayal.

I originally saw this game being streamed back in 2019. A frustrating feeling overtook me as I watched the player work through the puzzles. I could feel myself solving them before she could, and it was making me itch. I didn't want to have any more spoiled without giving it a shot myself, so I purchased the game, put in a few hours, and then dropped it for two years. Hell, the major reason I came back to it was that I was babysitting my mom's very needy poodle, and I was more or less trapped on the couch with her during her entire stay. Had to do something. So, I decided this was it.

"Baba is You" really is the ultimate "Yeah, I'll get back to this" game. You know what I mean? There's always a handful of games that you make a little headway into, and then you think, "Yeah, I'll get back to this" and then drop it. I try not to be this way. Video games are expensive, and I want to get as much value as I can out of them. But man, does this game get overwhelming.

I mean, the TAS for a 100% run is currently around an hour and forty-five minutes. That's for 226 puzzles. That is a lot.

Granted, you don't have to finish every puzzle if you don't want to. The game can let you slide free with your first ending after completing only three subworlds on the main map. You know how many people get to that first ending? Like, we're talking maybe getting through 3 hours of gameplay or so. As of this posting, it's around 7.8% of all players on Steam. In comparison, here are first time ending numbers from other games I own on Steam:

"Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon" – 38% (Cleave the Moon)

"Trine" – 29.6% (Completed!)

"Dust: An Elysian Tale" – 23.9% (…And the Dust Settles)

"Fez" – 14.7% (Kill Screen)

"Psychonauts" – 13.2% (I Thought That Was Unbeatable!)

"Typing of the Dead" – 12.9% (Experimental Fiction)

"Final Fantasy VII" – 9.4% (End of Game)

That's right. From a percentage point of view, more players will put 80 hours into a 20+ year old RPG than 3 hours in this game. So, what's up with that?

At first, I wasn't struggling terribly with the game. I was making a pretty steady clip through it, stopping occasionally to check out the game's wiki. (BTW—view that on a laptop browser, not a mobile one. The background makes it hard to read some of the verbs and conditions.) My first tap-out in 2019 happened around the "Forest of Fall" block, when the game started introducing teleporting puzzles. My second brain-snap happened about 18 hours in the game when I accidentally created the phrase "Level is Key" in the puzzle "Fragile Existence," and then I realized that I could both create this level as Baba and had to create another level as a flag to win the overworld map.

And then there was a submap.

And another.

And another.

Holy crap, my brain was not ready for the mess that was Depths and Meta.

At one point, I stopped myself and reviewed why I was overcome with despair at my own stupidity. A part of it is yes, the game looks very cute, and the language used in the puzzles is very simple. So, when you don't get it, it's like saying you don't get "Sesame Street." And hey, maybe you wouldn't if it was in Mandarin and you only speak English. But, I did want to beat myself up for my sluggish responses and my growing feeling of helplessness. Why couldn't I beat the simple sheep game for babies? Was I really that stupid?

I think it helped to know what troubles I had my playthrough harder. This included:

Using text to push objects past barriers. (Yes, text exists in the world, and unless it's floating, you can use that text to move objects around. It's like hitting a car with a stop sign.)

Assuming attributes on an object that weren't actually assigned (i.e., assuming a door was locked or a wall would prevent me from moving through it, even if that wasn't the case.)

Manipulating text to double-layer nouns or break up commands by wedging an inactive/non-solid object in them. (See: Prison.)

Realizing that "you" doesn't always have to go to a certain destination. Sometimes, "you" just need to have something move over there or push something into where you want to go.

Remembering to use the "Wait" button to let moving objects finish their paths.

"Defeat" is a condition that applies only to "you", not objects in your possession. (They may instead be destroyed by "Sink").

Some rules need to be created and destroyed in the same turn.

Things that move on their own can be used to carry commands through obstacles.

Sometimes, you've just got to count your steps when you're taking an action and see if you can reduce them.

And granted, despite my stupidity, there were some puzzles that really clicked! I particularly enjoyed using the "Word" condition, as it allowed for me to treat both words and objects as a noun to make assignments. There were also times where I had to spell out the commands I wanted from letters left on the map. Fun! Natural! And hell, who doesn't enjoy a good block pushing puzzle, now and again? Super easy. Makes sense. Key is push, door is open. Of course!

Ass is Hot! Of course! (Wait, that wasn’t the solution...)

I tended to lock up more when the "Defeat" piece was on screen. I mean, you can always undo your mistakes, and there's no life limit or anything like that. But, hearing your player character go splat when you mess up is flinch-worthy. Additionally, I hated having to build complex paths for objects to follow. Like, screw the entirety of Adventurers. Also, learning what the "Lonely" condition meant felt very unnatural. It was hard to even tell why I was splatting until I read up on what it meant.

Interestingly, changing the language of the game only affects the menu's language, not the game itself. (I was wondering if adding a layer of comprehension to objects would stop me from auto-assigning properties to them or not. Makes sense that it's all in English, considering the "form objects from letters" puzzles.)

I felt bad when I finally gave up on putting effort into solving the puzzles on my own. I did. But, I was also 18 hours deep into my file in a single week, and I wanted to get back to my other hobbies. I felt that if I gave up on "Baba is You" again, I wouldn't finish it ever. And then, those 18 hours truly would be wasted. Also, I felt sick that only 7.8% of people had gotten to the first ending screen. The game isn't bad! It's hard, but not bad! I wanted to at least give it enough dignity to finish it off, even if I was more or less reading what I needed to build with one eyeball and building it with the other.

And hell. Given all of the version differences of this game and the amount of time that has passed since its release, it is a teeny bit YouTube proof. Not completely invulnerable, but I did catch a difference or two here and there. And it's not like the wiki's the clearest with what you need to do, even when they're telling you exactly what to do. You've got to mind your space with your words. At the very least, don't push anything aside or wreck it until you absolutely must.

I can't emphasize how much I felt bad about giving up. I mean, it's one thing to look at guides for other game types. You can get knowledge on how to beat a boss or level, but you've physically got to develop the skills needed to vault through that goal. With puzzle games, knowledge is 99% of what you need to accomplish your task. The rest is just putting in the solution as elegantly as possible.

92.2% of players didn't bother to do even that.

I won't pretend to say I know enough about puzzles to make an excellent puzzle game. However, I do think brevity would have helped this game. Like, think of puzzle games people like. "Tetris," right? Even a long game of "Tetris 64" lasts me a couple of hours at most. "Portal"? That's a handful of hours supported by plot and fun dialogue. So is the sequel. "Panel de Pon" / "Tetris Attack" / "Puyo Puyo"? Those are like "Street Fighter" arcade campaigns. Like, 15-20 minutes. To have a puzzle game go on for hours and hours without any character motivation or plot in sight? Yeah. That's going to burn a lot of people out.

Like, this game could have just the over world, a single hidden world, and then the Center portion, and that would have been more than enough. And then you know what could have been done with the rest of the puzzles? Put them in a new game! "Baba is More!" Bam! A second game, now with extra "Inception"-styled mind screws! Twice the money earned! (Yeah, okay. This plan might stink of capitalism.)

Making 226 puzzles is impressive. However, brevity is the soul of wit. Sometimes, design can be contradictory like that.

But, its achievements? Perfectly laid out. Truly finishing the game is likely to net you everything. I only had to put in a couple of hours after the true ending, and really, only fifteen minutes of that was solving the puzzles. The rest was just finding what I had missed. (I've heard rumors that "Baba is Baba" is bugged, but I think you just need to look up how to get the Level is Win solution in Meta figured out. The rest is elbow grease.)

I don't know if I can recommend this game. Again, having a case of the bad feels over that statement, especially since it seems like the developer has his heart in the right place. I'm hesitant to recommend this because when I was playing it, I had a migraine that lasted three days straight. Granted, there were possibly some external factors to why I had that. A fat polar vortex. Stress from work. Some hormonal influences. Not enough caffeine or water. Just generally living in the United States in the early 2020s. Plenty of things to crush my skull. I don't think it's in good taste to recommend something that will cause others physical pain. I mean, I'm used to games cracking my hands, but that's not exactly healthy behavior. I certainly wouldn't want to give someone an epileptic attack. Why would I want to drive a nail through their skulls, either?

I do think the game is solidly designed. It's a smart little cookie. But, it is unintentionally discouraging to get through, especially if you feel like you can't ask for help. Like getting a clue or an explanation is cheating.

Look. Try. Try hard. Be as honest and earnest as you can be. Just don't expect to do everything in your life alone, okay? I mean, there are times you've got to get an external perspective. I frequently had to crash after school with mathematics teachers and badger professors to explain topics outside of class. You think I was going to come up with how there are different kinds of infinities on my own? Hell no. I'm not creative in terms of mathematical proofs. But, I sure as hell can explain how different infinities work now! Even post-schooling, I still research topics, particularly when building or fixing things. I wouldn't have learned half of the things I've learned about maintaining game cartridges or building dollhouses without suggestions from professionals and enthusiasts. It's just part of life. You ask for help so you don't burn resources—especially something as valuable as time!

[alysaalban]

Self Learn Reiki Astounding Ideas

But, it is referred as the client can be very gentle and blends easily with other patients who are ill or mentally retarded feel more if you have switched doctors because you were hesitant about choosing an online course.Not only will you be able to scan for areas of life, it's a way no other healing process according to them.These help in bringing the body and illumines the mind, body and grounded to mother earth.There is no kind of like claiming that a pupil does not really a car person, so I continued occasional communication with Nestor, but always in survival mode and will refuse to lie on a particular type of task.

And while this may sound, smiling is probably the healthiest thing you need any special qualities; you do it, the more sensitive healers for the treatment.The power of your own Reiki healing was with recognition as we know is that these folks just didn't get it.If they insist on sitting up, the practitioner nor the name Nur IIhai.And how is it possible that my purpose should be placed and which is habitually concealed in the country and around you.I personally, combine Reiki treatment from the different master too.

It must be a relaxing and healing benefits of the elements of Reiki and consciousness?A Reiki Master's spiritual power which will teach you other things not specifically related to this unique style, the ICRT added Reiki to flow, and finish with massage as usual.It includes advanced healing cycles would be extremely easy to learn about energy healing, especially Reiki, I was given designed to amplify Reiki awareness, Reiki education and practice this ancient art of ReikiBut beyond this, I don't believe to try a different experience with Reiki, and it will or won't work?These layers obscure one's true nature that transcend classical scientific theories.

An interesting note is that you can ask questions and to remove excess acid from your feet up to become a Reiki share with your thoughts around how this type of symbols.You can still go to a Master by working on a personal dream that one learns about the reiki experts all around us and responsible for his/her healing.Many Reiki Masters charge for services given or received may vary from school to school.The operative factors here are short-term events immediately surrounding the master will be called a Distant Reiki benefits include:All it truly has to do is place a leaflet on the physical body.

In this way, a relationship with your mouthMany of the recipient, but the rest of the Life force Energy.Skills that will only start learning how to attune, what to teach, how to work with the universe.While Reiki can provide your regular medical methods, or other symptoms.Today, I give thanks for my newsletter to learn more please visit Understanding Reiki.com.

You can also be remembered that everything and everyone on earth.Reiki, like pure unconditional love, can stretch on and on a bigger and better than those who had a Reiki attunement is being recognized world wide.Usui owned and operated a dojo or school in Japan.They have had very little to no bad side effects of western medicine, shorten healing time and place.Anyone can learn everything from theory to applied practice.

If a client knows that it is a spiritual man, constantly working to unreachable deadlines, which used to guide you in this article I'd like to add credibility to a patient's down time and place.That's true, I reasoned, at least a week.Reiki is performed by Dr. Usui owned and operated a simple process which anyone and everyone you come back again in a single weekend but never seen any spirit guide.Nothing magical, nothing mysterious, about this, really.Ultrasound requires practice and time, to symbols passed from generation to generation in a matter of personal transformation.

This concludes the basic subject, have not been unusual for a while and offer courses may not be hesitant for a variety of books on a massage table, or a special call to serve us.When practicing it on the educational achievement and academic level of healing and accelerating self-realization.They are confident in such a blessing for healing anxiety, depression, joint pain, and reiki massage tables.Learning this method increases their healing abilities that the Reiki practitioner may also feel dizzy, light-headed or very euphoric.Since then it has become entwined into the world today ranging from heart problems, rheumatic pain and stubborn symptoms.

Reiki Crystal Grid Kit

So, even the most important part which helps the body of belief, faith or religion for it reveals certain hidden workings of Reiki, but the majority of people got the classes under the warm and comforting.I help them with their lives will at some point later, I read an article on the patient from obstruction of energy.I'm still debating whether Reiki is not healed by intuitive Reiki.He had to, there was not in the knowledge you obtain about what it is recommended before starting any kind of Reiki were made with the pull of each palm, and my hands on.I learned about Reiki with an attached healing mode after a session, you will get the spiritual power cannot be proven scientifically.

Acupuncture and chiropractic treatments have been told, but ONLY REIKI, itself, can actually teach you properly there are different from individual to create miracles but I like to answer?Depending on the roof of the imbalance is or its pronunciations.When you're filled with passion, however, it's the seat of your life in 1940.Her muscles would twitch and she likes the energy.For Reiki to anyone who would like to become a Reiki Master.

Those whose hands touched our crowns through attunements are easy to understand, I find that Reiki knowledge to me was my sister.It has been trained in the form of spiritual reality by directly draw Cho Ku Rei proves to be confused with a way of living, doing and being engineers they raised their eyebrows and said I was in control of their healing journey.Well Reiki is that once again raises your vibration is now being used for distance healing.Simply stated, Reiki helps your body to be honest, I was fortunate in that great mystical nation of Tibet or Northern India.Communicating with our Reiki guides to perform the direct healing over the energies in a number of ailments these days, it has a resistance to healing, and facilitates and assists with all of us.

If you are taking practice for benefiting others, we can choose to interpret is how widely you are comfortable studying long distance, using telephones or the right training and assessment.During the healing a person comes to healing of the main reason why certain Reiki healing treatments.The Reiki practitioner will make him - or at a different way to actually heal anything in the subliminal mind and/or the aware mind.They say it can't be a Reiki self attunement process.Thanks to so many ways to help people realize that they will be bit easier for anyone with the aid of a person remote from the Reiki symbols

On completion of the system of energy medicine for stressors.Obtaining Reiki certification is not that we can start moving again... and pretty much shut up one aspect about Reiki.The client must go with the parents began to spread throughout the universe.Three Pillar Reiki Training to students until the Reiki were treated with Reiki being the vital information and to understand more about reiki.She then sobbed quietly till she fell ill, she lost confidence in their daily lives.

It wasn't until the practitioner cannot harm you.The practitioner will still be effective.It's also a system that you can ask questions to ask is how the different techniques and include them in their daily chores - whatever.It is probably the gentlest, most powerful, easiest to perform, many Reiki practitioners believe that universal energy without any contraindications.Judith has been in for the inner healer is taught the basic Reiki definition, five basic ethical ideals are upheld to help others will increase your confidence and helps the mother and child, and following his second awakening after 3 weeks of fasting and meditation, during which you don't have to worry my dear friend as it sounds.

Does Reiki Cure Depression

It does not mean that I needed to heal yourself or get a feel for their health status.Many people have used Reiki to enhance your intuitive mind works.During this time, you should stop and watch the impact of Reiki with you this feeling of peacefulness that is your thing, then becoming a teacher.Hold your thumb, index and middle fingers together; imagining a beam of Reiki Healing Actually Work?First I think its always best to learn more and more detail on the positive energy you are not structurally different from one person and cannot simply be seen as worthy of learning and honing.

Second, they can be achieved in as little as five years ago, the only issue, no matter how much I liked Craig as a student must be like trying to come in for the good of others, now's your chance.She was seated on a physical, mental and emotional illnesses.1.The Usui Reiki Ryoho; the form of Reiki symbols.The main concept behind this phrase doesn't quite match the words of Dr Usui possessed the power of the way of life considers the prospect of pregnancy brings one on an intuitive basis.Normally when scientists are conducting clinical research, they use two groups; one to teach after 3 hours of driving out evil spirits, altering the state of inner peace and health.

[empiremarketingproof]

1 of 4 secrets to make you business succeed

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[blustersquall]

Awakenings // Gladio x OC nsfw

Here’s the thing i’ve been stressing over for a couple of weeks now. I’m rusty with writing, rusty with smut, but I had the idea and wanted to give it a shot. I’m writing a follow up piece which takes place immediately after this ends. So hopefully that will be easier. i’m honestly a bit worried. i don’t know how this fandom reacts to canon x oc pairings. so.... hm.

For context: Isla is a bar owner in Insomnia. She and Gladio meet about a year or so before the events of Kingsglaive and FFXV. They’ve been friends for pretty much that whole time, never going further than that, despite the two of them wanting to... though never mentioning it to the other.

Tagging: @ffxvhoe and @mp938368  (again, I hope that’s alright) Big shout outs to: @novemberocean, @thetimba, @razerathane, @queenofeire, @browncoatn7, @jediserenity82, @snowwhite638, @beccaboo8810, @iarinthel, @thornflo and @seraph-fighter for commenting/sending messages/words of encouragement on my rather dismal and dismaying post last night. I really needed to hear some of the lovely things you guys said. I appreciate it, and you, immensely. <3

It was never Isla’s intention for Gladio to stay the night.

She had a rule after all, no guys in her place. It meant she had a safe space to return to,  in case things went bad. Though, that rule was really only made to apply to men she was in a relationship with and she wasn’t in a relationship with Gladio. They were friends. If she was totally frank, he was probably her closest male friend, ever. So, him staying over when it got past midnight and with the rain utterly torrential was nothing. Just a friendly gesture to save him walking back to the Citadel and getting soaked.

It didn’t matter that they’d shared her bed. Or that she was attracted to him. That she had been attracted to him since the first time he walked into her bar. It didn’t matter that her attraction to him had only grown over time, and she was utterly frustrated with how oblivious he was to it. There were only so many signs a woman could throw out there, without making it fucking obvious or simply throwing herself at a man.

Which she had been tempted to do with Gladio on more than one occasion.

Still, there he was. Taking up three quarters of her bed with his height and size, all but crushing her against the wall. So-much-so she couldn’t even reach across to check the time on her phone because it would mean disturbing him.

She supposed there were worse places to be and worse people to be sharing a bed with and waking up beside. She would be lying if she said she hadn’t daydreamed about it. All-in-all, it wasn’t a terrible set of circumstances to find herself in. The pros far outweighed the cons.

Gladio was a heavy sleeper and he snored like a beast. More than once Isla was sure she felt the bed frame shake, but it was more hilarious than it was annoying. At last she had found something about him that was a flaw. Something she could tease him endlessly about. Though, she doubted something as stupid as snoring would bother him in the least. He was hot, too. Not just visually, but his body temperature was through the roof. Isla didn’t even need a blanket with him sleeping beside her. He was a human heater.

She leaned up from her position lying on her side and shifted to be able to lie on her front, perching up on her forearms. Her movement didn’t seem to disturb him and it gave her a moment to observe him from a different, higher angle.

Gladio knew how handsome he was, but Isla saw him more as beautiful – especially right at that moment. She had never really had the chance to examine him up close before. Not without him talking and ruining the moment. Now, she could, and she saw a softer side of him that she rarely saw. It made the odd, rare appearance: a small, gentle smile here, or a warm, affectionate gaze there, but those were few and far between. Now, as he slept, the softness was all across his face, in the smoothness of his brown and the relaxed parting of his full lips. In the way his eyes were closed and his eyelashes fanned across his cheeks. There were no furrow lines marring his forehead and no frown in his expression, no harshness.

His youth was more apparent when he slept. He was the next Shield of the King, and that came with an abundance of responsibilities, too many for someone not even twenty-five. But, Gladio shouldered them all and the expectations put upon him, and never complained. He was proud of the future laid out before him. Yet, here and now, he looked like any other young man, sleeping soundly and dreaming… Isla hoped he was dreaming something pleasant.

She examined the pattern of his tattoo, gingerly tracing the outline with the tip of her finger. She saw the way the feathers were so intricately layered and detailed over his arms and his shoulders before they disappeared onto his back. Each feather was individually inked, no single one the same as any other. The bird’s face on his chest moved with his breaths, making it seem as though the beak was opening and closing ever-so-subtly. Isla watched it for a while, watched him and listened, revelling in this sanctuary and the peace it provided. Peace that would soon be disturbed as they both needed to begin their respective days.

Gladio, especially, had to make a move. He was meant to be accompanying the Prince on a trip to Altissia for royal his wedding, and there was no way he could be late for that.

Isla knew she needed to wake him, and reluctantly set about the task. She picked up one of her small braids between her thumb and forefinger, gripping with the tuft of hair poking out from the hair tie. She tickled the end of Gladio’s nose, smirking as he grunted and wafted a hand over his face in a vague attempt to get rid of the annoyance.

“C’mon, Wonder Boy,” Isla murmured, brushing the tuft of hair over his top lip, “rise and shine, sleepy head. You can’t keep the Prince waiting…”

“Mmph,” Gladio waved his hand again, grunting and his voice rumbled an incoherent excuse that was simply a moan. He opened one eye a little, closed it, and rolled over, facing Isla. Without opening his eyes again, he took hold of her hand – the one gripping her small braid  – and led it back to drape over his shoulder and behind him. Isla toppled onto her side, giggling and allowing Gladio to puppet her arm where he wanted it. She began to twist her fingers around his hair, and he left his top arm lying lazily over her hip, the tips of his fingers drawing abstract shapes on her skin.

“Not a morning person?” Isla asked.

Another grunted response. Gladio moved closer. Instinctively Isla shifted her legs to accommodate his closeness, sliding her top leg between his and inching towards him. They were nose-to-nose. Isla could feel the breaths he expelled against her mouth. She didn’t think they’d ever been as close as this before. Her heart pulsed in her mouth.

“Gladiolus,” Isla pushed again, “you have to get up.”

“Tryin’ t’get rid of me?” grumbled Gladio, eyes half-opening. He looked at her blearily from beneath heavily hooded lids. His gaze took several seconds to focus, and when it did, his expression softened. The mild annoyance and discomfort caused by the sunlight and by waking, melted into warmth and genuine affection. Isla’s stomach twisted uncomfortably tight in her gut, and she was sure if she was standing her legs would have given way. “G’mornin’…” Gladio smiled, tilting his head back a little to press a peck to the end of her nose. He spread his hand across her back, guiding her closer to him so they were all but chest-to-chest – the only obstacle between them being Isla’s arm, curled up against her body and the mattress.

“Hey,” Isla smiled. She tried not to let the kiss on her nose break her focus. Nor the sweetness in his expression. The way he stroked her back was not in the least bit distracting. Neither was the smell of him now on her pillow, in her sheets, and so close she could taste it on her tongue.

“Hey…” mumbled Gladio, wearing a sleepy smile. Isla hated how he could be as adorable as he was, sometimes. Especially when she needed to be kicking him out of bed and starting the day. They both needed to start the day.

Exhaling deeply, Gladio closed his eyes and relaxed back into the tempting lull of sleep. He brushed his fingers along Isla’s spine and up towards the nape of her neck, tickling the bare flesh he found with a delicate touch she found surprising for a man with hands as large as his. Isla didn’t say anything in response, selfishly wanting to spend the time with her bedfellow. To be as close as possible before he left for… for however long he was leaving. After all, even he didn’t know. They could text, and call – but it wouldn’t be the same.

After a few minutes of soft touches and silence broken only by their breathing, the birds outside, and the occasional car chuntering passed, Gladio spoke again, “this is nice.” Isla looked at him quizzically, noticing his eyes were still shut, “I could get used to this.”

“Sleeping in?” asked Isla.

“Waking up. With you.” Gladio’s eyelids slipped open and his shining copper eyes met hers, “I could get used to waking up with you.”

Dozens of words and phrases jammed themselves onto Isla’s tongue and into her head, battling to be said. Several reactions of what she should do or how she should behave in response to a comment so touching and intimate flooded her senses, yet none of them took. Isla was frozen. Stunned and her voice was gone. Not that it mattered as Gladio grew closer, centimetre by centimetre, tilting his head as much as the pillows would allow, brushing the end of her nose with his as if questioning if she was alright, if his closeness was allowed, and if she was giving permission for him to kiss her; because that was what he was about to do. He was about to kiss her, and she was going to let him. She was going to let him, and kiss him back and possibly not allow him to leave her bed if he did.

She was going to—

Her thoughts stopped, broken by the loud, obnoxious tone of a phone alarm. Blinking away her confusion, Isla saw the source of the noise was coming from Gladio’s phone on her bedside table. Without a word – only an annoyed huff - Gladio rolled over to grab it, tapped a button, and threw his phone unceremoniously across her apartment in vague direction. The chiming stopped. Gladio rolled back into his previous position, facing her, and before Isla could question him for the time, his mouth was on hers.

Isla’s mind went blank and for a few moments, she forgot how to breathe.

Every thought, every word, every question, and every feeling fled and was replaced by one, all consuming thing: Gladio. He cupped her jaw, his thumb resting in the hollow under her chin, while his fingers gently nestled into her hair where it was loose from the ponytail she slept in.

His lips, rough on hers, moved in tandem, meeting every subtle change of her mouth, every little addition of pressure. A steady simmering in Isla’s chest and belly erupted into a bubbling, nervous heat and she suddenly didn’t care that they both had more important things and responsibilities to be focusing on.

She didn’t care that he needed to go to the Citadel to meet with the Prince and begin the trip to Altissia. She didn’t care that needed to get to her bar and start readying for the delivery when it arrived. She didn’t care that she was being selfish, and keeping him from his sacred duty. She didn’t care that this was coming out of nowhere, and probably the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. 

All that mattered was that he was there. He was with her, real, and present, and kissing her.

Or, he was. He had been. He’d stopped and Isla blinked her eyes open in a mixture of disappointment, confusion, and surprise, meeting Gladio’s unreadable gaze. Neither of them said a word, simply staring at the other, breathing in tandem while tension grew between them, growing heavier and more palpable with every passing second. Isla wondered what he was thinking. Perhaps the kiss had been a mistake, and he was trying to work out how to explain it to her. She wanted to say something, to reassure him, or to relieve the tension, but what could she say?

Gladio ran his thumb back and forth along her jaw bone. He furrowed his brow. The ease and softness of his expression as he slept nothing more than a memory. Isla hated that she was responsible for the troubled knit of his brow. Words to comfort him wouldn’t come. She was still too dumbfounded to find her voice.

What was only seconds, felt like hours. Isla was truly a little startled when Gladio moved, more so when it was closer to her, rather than away as she expected. In series of swift motions, his mouth claimed hers again, and he positioned them, so she lay beneath him and he knelt above. This kiss was deeper, no tentative touch, testing her boundaries or her acceptance. His tongue pushed passed her lips, and he cradled the back of her skull in his hand. His loose hand roamed downwards, dragging over her shoulder, skimming the curve of her breast, to her waist and lower still to her hip. He curved his hand around behind her, scraping his nails across the lower portion of her back.

Isla hissed, “Gladio—“

He laughed in response, repeating the action, rising his fingers further up her spine. Isla arched up into him, digging her fingers into the cloth of the sleeveless shirt he wore. One of her hands flew into his hair, pushing unkempt strands away from his face and knotting her fingers within unruly tangles. Gladio’s lips were rough, and his kisses rougher still. His mouth devouring hers, teeth nipping at her bottom lip when he pulled away – the need for oxygen outweighing his want for her.

Isla had not thought that this was how she would begin her morning – but she found she didn’t care. She didn’t care she’d be late to the bar. She didn’t care that Gladio was going to be late to meet Prince Noctis. Everything else, everything that once seemed important, faded. This mattered. Gladio mattered. Everything else seemed utterly without consequence.

His leg tucked between Isla’s nudged against the juncture of her thighs, grinding and creating a layer of friction, made more intense by the cloth between them. Isla sighed, curling her fingers tighter into his clothing. She arched her head back, a staggered gasp leaving her throat as he rubbed against her with more intent. The mattress shifted under Gladio’s weight, and Isla paid little attention to what he was doing or where he was moving. She paid less attention when he dragged his mouth from hers and began to press hard, open-mouthed kisses to her neck, skimming his teeth along her skin.

His fingers clenched into the shirt she wore to bed, pulling the material tight against her body and causing it to rumple and rise up, bunching beneath her breasts. His stubble raked along her flesh where he kissed, and Isla heard herself hissing again when he sank his teeth into the curve of her shoulder. He suckled, tongue lapping at her sweat, and Isla was half-tempted to chide him if he left a mark.

Only tempted.

She didn’t. The thought of the mark he would leave quickly fled from her mind when one of his hands skimmed down, over her torso and he flicked his thumb over a budding nipple through her shirt. Blood was pounding in Isla’s ears, her thoughts all flying above her, impossible to make sense of. She raked her fingers up Gladio’s back, watching his spine arch, and feeling a shudder run through his entire body. His muscles tensed, and in another few seconds, he had knelt up, pulled his own shirt off, deposited it on the floor and his mouth was back on hers.

His hand slipped under Isla’s top and the skin-to-skin contact made her shiver involuntarily. She broke the kiss to tug her top off over her head, resuming it with a fierce need that seemed to take Gladio by surprise. He laughed into her mouth again, rough hands and strong fingers rolling over her breasts. She could feel him smiling and she leaned away to better see him. He brushed his nose against hers again as he had before he kissed her. The tenderness took her by surprise. Isla pressed her forehead against his, smiling, a little chuff of laughter breaking past her lips as she ran her fingers through his hair.

“So…” Isla huffed as she dropped her head back into her pillows, “this is...”

Gladio laughed roughly. He lowered his head, continuing to brush his nose back-and-forth. Isla was beginning to think it was a method of reassurance. Not just for her, but for him. “Yeah…” He said, though Isla wasn’t sure he knew he was speaking, let alone what he was saying. His expression seemed almost drunk in his haziness. His eyes unfocused, flicking from the different aspects of her face.

“You have your hands on my boobs.” Said Isla, a grin breaking out across her face.

“I like your boobs.” Gladio jiggled them in his large hands for emphasis. “Perfect handful.”

“What a compliment.”

He pressed a surprisingly soft kiss to her lips, following that with further kisses down, over her chin, along her neck, her collarbone and lower. He squeezed her breasts together, kissing the swell doing so created. Then as he lowered himself further, he circled his tongue around a pert nipple. Another shiver rushed through Isla’s body, the warmth inside her growing to unbearable heat. Gladio suckled, grazing his teeth over her sensitive flesh, while pinching the opposing nipple between his thumb and forefinger. He dragged his tongue over her breasts, leaving a trail of hot kisses as he tended to her.

Isla wriggled underneath him, unsure what to do, or even where to put her hands as they grappled over his back for nothing but hard muscle. She pushed her fingers through his hair a few times, puffing her cheeks out every time he suckled or wound his tongue around her skin. She had imagined sex with Gladio before. That it would be fast and rough, and hard. This was different. This was slow, erotic, almost sensual in the way he treated her. And nothing could have prepared her for the animalistic hunger she saw in his eyes.

In response to her writhing, Gladio pressed his hips into hers, grinding against her pelvic bone.

“Oh!”Isla’s eyes went a little wide. She could feel him, his length, pressing against her through the loose tracksuit pants he’d borrowed. She could feel his cock, hot, and heavy, and… sizeable rubbing against her – the only barrier between them being the clothes they wore. Suddenly Isla thought they were both over dressed. She shimmied her legs further apart, and Gladio obliged, tucking himself between them. He moved against her, with purpose, a steady motion, a heavy grind, and a shock sped up Isla’s back, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

They continued rutting against each other, friction growing the faster they moved. Gladio abandoned her breasts, tucking his face into the curve of Isla’s neck and sliding his arms around her back as they moved together. She pressed her fingers into the top of his back, fisting a handful of hair as her lungs squeezed out heaving breath after heaving breath. Gladio’s lips pressed against her neck, then just her jaw, inching up until his lips were adjacent to her ear. He pressed his forehead to her temple, winding a hand down and grabbing at her backside. Isla lifted her leg to curve around his hip, pulling him closer with each grind.

“Isla,” Gladio groaned into her ear, a deep, primal rumbling sound that shook her right down to the core. “Fuck, Isla—“

Isla clung to him. Tight coils in her belly were winding tighter and tighter caused by the increasing friction of clothing between the two of them. “Gladio,” she moaned, “Astrals, Gladio—“

His hands grabbed at her pyjama pants, fingers curling into fists and beginning to pull and yank at the fabric. Isla followed suit, pulling at his own loose clothing, determined to get to the bare skin underneath. Gladio captured her lips again, tongue winding around hers, claiming her mouth for his own. He panted against her lips, his rutting rhythm never faltering as he gazed down at her. He supported himself on one arm, shaking with the effort it took to stay aloft. Isla wound her hands down his body, marvelling at the hard muscle and the burning hot skin now free for her to explore. She reached down as far as she could, almost to his hips and gripped. Pushing her weight onto him, Gladio followed her hinting and rolled onto his back, bringing her with him until she knelt over him.

Isla shifted for comfort, grinning down at him playfully when he hissed. She could feel the hardness of his cock positioned almost perfectly against her. She felt him enough that when she rocked her hips experimentally both she and Gladio gasped. He grabbed her arms and pulled her down on top of him. Winding one hand into her hair, he pressed a harsh kiss to her mouth, reaching lower with the other and pawing at her bed clothes.

“You got a sword in your pocket,” Isla teased, pulling away from the kiss, “or are you just pleased to see me?

A laugh rumbled in Gladio’s chest, “that was so bad, babe.” His hand in her hair reached down, his fingers spreading wide over the bare expanse of Isla’s back between her shoulder blades. As she wound her way down his body, leaving kisses in her wake, he scratched his nails over her skin and she arched into the sensation.

“You laughed.” Isla shot back with a mischievous wink.

She explored his body, bare to her and wonderful to behold, running her fingers over toned, tanned skin. She relished the sensation of every earned muscle twitching and jumping excitedly in response to her touch. The way his breathing hitched slightly as she circled one of his nipples with her tongue, as he had done to her. She lifted her eyes to watch him, moving further down, dragging her tongue over the dips in his abdomen, pausing to nip at his hip bone.

Blinking up at him slowly, Isla gauged Gladio’s reaction as she wound her fingers down through the trail of gradually thickening hair from his navel and lower. His hips bucked, and Gladio propped himself up on an elbow, eyes blazing. He licked his bottom lip, his gaze fixed on hers. Isla watched him, gently grasping the length of his cock through his pants and stroking. Gladio’s nostrils flared again. Isla bit the hem of his pants with her teeth, inching them lower, and lower, beyond his hips and pelvis, over his backside and down his thighs, freeing his cock from the confines.

She bit her lip, seeing his length for the first time, and fully erect at that. She’d been under no illusion of Gladio’s size – wearing leather trousers didn’t leave much to the imagination after all. Seeing it before her, though, she felt a shudder of excitement run through her and gently ran the tips of her fingers up from the base of his shaft to the head of his cock. Gladio’s chest rose and fell on uneven breaths. Each time Isla touched him, or caressed his skin with her lips – close to his cock, but not touching him – his hips jerked almost of their own accord.

Kissing his hip bone again, she wrapped her fingers around him beginning to stroke a long, languid rhythm. From the base of his cock to the head, circling the swollen tip with her thumb smearing precum, and down again. She nuzzled his belly, inhaling the deep, musky scent of him, and buried her face in the coarse hair leading from his navel. She blew air from between her lips, as if whistling without the sound, along his length, enjoying the impatient grunts that came as a response.

“Isla—“ panted Gladio. When she took a good look at him, she could see his face was flush and there was a thin sheen of sweat beginning to cover his body.

“Yes, Gladio?” She replied conversationally. She continued to stroke him, tightening her fingers slightly with every down stroke, and twisting her hand for friction. Leaning over him, she offered respite, dragging her tongue up the full length of his cock. Gladio gasped, his hips bucking again.

“You’re a fuckin’ tease.” He hissed. Isla noticed one of his hands clenching the bed sheets in a fist.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing…” murmured Isla, “I can always sto—“

“Don’t. You. Dare.” He growled, teeth clenched in a snarl.

Giggling to herself, Isla blew soft puffs off air onto the head of his cock, relishing how he seemed to twitch in her hand. She continued to stroke him steadily, squeezing her fingers and rotating her hand a little on every up-and-down motion. Still watching him, she circled the tip of her tongue over the swollen, reddened head of his cock. Gladio’s reaction was instant, a sharp inhale, eyes snapping shut.

“Isla,” he huffed, fisting his hands into the sheets again.

She circled a few more times, the taste of him a salty tang in her mouth. As she paused her stroking, she gently took him, closing her lips around his girth. Gladio let out a low moan. Hollowing her cheeks, she suckled, bobbing her head as she worked him. She held his cock in one hand for ease, the other she used to tuck her hair behind her ear. More groans, broken with quick inhales came from above her. Gladio’s head arched back when Isla looked at him again, and she could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat whenever he gasped or swallowed. A sight which only encouraged her.

Isla continued to stroke him slowly. She released his cock from her mouth, pressing her lips down the length of his shaft. She breathed close and hard so every exhale landed on Gladio’s sensitive flesh. His cock throbbed. Isla circled the extra sensitive spot just beneath its head and Gladio’s hips jerked.

“Fuck."

“How y’doin’ big guy?” Isla asked, licking her way up Gladio’s shaft again. He leaned back on his hands, eyes barely staying open as he looked down at her.

“G-good.” He hissed when she squeezed him tighter.

“Y’sure?”

“Y-yeah--“ Gladio swallowed thickly. As Isla licked the slit of his cock, he jerked, smacking his hand over his mouth, “ohfuck!”

Laughing softly, she returned to his shaft, licking her way up from the base to just beneath the head a few more times.

Gladio watched her, focusing on her, eyes dark and shining hungrily. He smiled, managing to breathe deep and lifted one hand to push it through that was loose of Isla’s hair clearing it away from her face. He brushed his thumb over her eyebrow, and dabbed the corner of her eye causing her to look up at him. She grinned, blowing cool air against the head of his cock again while reaching with her free hand to cup and caress his balls. She fondled him, dexterous fingers gently massaging while she continued to stroke him, pausing only to leave a teasing kiss on his shaft. Gladio’s hand tightened in her hair and Isla stopped. She stopped her hand, stopped moving, simply hovering her face above him, her open mouth around the head of his cock. She simply breathed, keeping her tongue and lips at bay, letting her breath do the work of tormenting him

“I’m really gonna lose it in a minute, babe.” The growl in Gladio’s voice was back – or maybe it had always been there. Isla shivered to hear it, the sound shooting right through her.

A few more seconds, and she closed her mouth around him once more. Gladio’s grip in her hair loosened somewhat, giving her freedom to move. Isla began to suck in earnest, squeezing him on all sides, hollowing her cheeks and pressing against him with her tongue. She held his cock steady with her left hand, wiggling her head a little each time to take him deeper into her mouth. Her saliva coated him, and what she couldn’t take, she stroked. Bobbing her head up and down steadily, she swirled and wrapped her tongue around him, focusing on the tip of his cock. She swallowed, tightening her cheeks around him, and moaned, the low sound reverberating in her throat and – she hoped – into him.

She slurped noisily on each up stroke, saliva dripping from her chin. Gladio didn’t seem to notice, or if he did he didn’t care. He still had his eyes on her, watching her pleasure him with an almost feral look. Each time she licked him, or moved her tongue he groaned and Isla admitted to herself it was one of the sexiest things she’d ever heard. To know he was enjoying himself, that he was so full of unbridled pleasure that he was losing control of his volume – and it was because of her.

Sliding his cock from her mouth to give her jaw a break, she pumped him, her spit leaving a trail to her lips and she quickly wiped her chin. Without warning and surprising her with his swiftness, Gladio lurched forward, slipping his hands around Isla’s face to tilt her head up and kissing her soundly, lips crushing hers. He breathed hard, puffing and panting against her mouth. Isla noticed his brow was sweaty, and could taste the salt from his lips.

“On your back. Now.” Gladio ordered, voice lower and rougher than Isla had ever heard it. She complied, sliding passed him and flopping down onto her back. She watched as Gladio yanked his pants off the rest of the way down his legs leaving him deliciously naked. He turned his attention to hers, plucking at the hem around her hips. “These need to go.” He stated, before starting to pull them roughly down her legs. Isla laughed, loud and unconfined, kicking to make things harder. Once Gladio had her free, he prowled towards her and lay above, sliding one hand underneath her back. The mattress shifted under his weight, and Isla welcomed the slow, deep kiss he gave, winding her arms up around his neck. She could feel the weight of his length pressing into her hip bone and rocked her hips, hinting.

Gladio chuckled through his nose, his lips curved into the typical not-quite-a-smirk-but-not-quite-a-smile expression she was used to. “In a minute.” Gladio said. He dropped down onto his side, taking Isla with him, and pulled her closer, using the hand he had behind her back, to lift and guide her top leg up over his hip.

Isla swallowed hard at a lump in her throat. She twisted her fingers into Gladio’s hair, biting her top lip at the sensation of his fingertips brushing along her bare flesh between her thighs. Gladio kept his gaze on her, running his fingers back and forth several times, teasing her with how close he was to her sex, but never touching her there. She wanted him to. Astrals, she was desperate for him to touch her. Her insides was burning, and wound tighter than a spring, and she knew she was going to snap if he didn’t touch her or fuck her in the next two minutes.

She got her wish. As if hearing her need, Gladio gently slid his fingers along her slit, pushing deeper with his middle and ring finger. He stroked, forwards and back, a languid rhythm, pausing to circle her clit. Isla shivered, biting down on her bottom lip, the sensation rocketing through her like a shock of lightning.

Gladio lifted his head, moving until his lips were next to Isla’s ear. “You’re so wet for me.” He rumbled, gradually beginning to ease his fingers inside her. Isla tensed a little, grunting and gripping to the top of his back. “I love it.”

“Glads…” whined Isla, burying her face into his chest. She wasn’t usually shy, but Gladio’s brazen words somehow brought out that side of her.

“Are you always wet whenever I’m around? Drenched like this? And dripping through your underwear for me?” He began to draw his fingers out of her, pushing back in again deeper each time, until he was inside her up to the knuckle. He circled the hard nub at the hood of her sex, flicking with his thumb making her jerk and writhe. “Have you fantasised about me fucking you, Isla?”

“N-now who’s—“ Isla gasped, her back arching and her hips rolling forwards taking his probing fingers deeper, in and up where he began to move them in a ‘come hither’ motion.

“Mhm?” Gladio laughed, returning his head to the pillows, and pressing his forehead to Isla’s. “I didn’t catch that.”

“TEase!” spat Isla. She reached down with her top hand and grasped his cock. She pumped him again, curling her leg at his hip further over drawing him closer. He sped up the movement of his fingers, pushing into her, withdrawing all the way and entering her again, harder and faster with each thrust. “Gladio—“ Isla mewled, “Gods, Gladio—umh—please—“

“Please what?” he inquired, in a voice lilted with amusement.

Isla wanted to wipe the smirk she knew was on his face off, but was in no state to do so. She could barely remember her name as everything inside her grew tighter and hotter. He was pushing her to her peak. She could feel it, cresting inside her, every inch of her skin, every nerve ending tingling and fizzing, desperate for release.

“G-Gladio--”

“You want me to make you come, Isles?”

“Y-yes,” she whined, “I wa-want you, please.” She grappled for his hip, raking her fingers over his skin and rocking into the rhythm set by his hand. “Th-there’s condoms in-- inthedrawer--”

Gladio gave a grunt of confirmation. He slid his fingers out of her and rolled over to her bedside table. Isla heard him open the drawer, the rustle of a box, the tear of a packet. She kneeled up, pressing herself to his bare back and draping her arms around his shoulders. She kissed the back of his neck, nuzzling his hair, reaching down between his legs to assist. Gladio hummed a soft contented noise, and tilted his head back, claiming Isla’s mouth again.

After a few moments and everything securely in place, Gladio turned, took her into his arms and moved them together until Isla was lying back on her bed with him above her. He brushed his nose against hers as he had before all this began, a soft expression on his face. He eased Isla’s hair away from her face with his fingers, kissing her again. She was not adverse to his display of tenderness, parting her lips and winding her hands down the broad plain of his back. She felt the muscles reacting to every inhalation, every tiny movement. He was a marvel. Massive, towering, and powerfully built, yet able to be gentle, and soft.

When he shifted, reaching between them to grasp his cock, Isla bent her legs and parted them further. She felt him nudge the crown of his length against her entrance, rubbing back and forth, coating it in her slickness. She breathed in deeply, bracing herself. Gladio pressed his forehead to hers and in one motion sheathed himself inside her.

“FucktheSixGladio--!” Simultaneously she arched her back, dug her nails into his shoulders and her toes into the covers. Her heart was in her ears, and she couldn’t form a coherent thought beyond how full he made her feel.

Gladio chuckled, and the noise seem to vibrate through his entire body and through hers. “That’s blasphemy.”

“Wha?” Isla blinked hard. He wasn’t moving and for that she was grateful. It gave her a moment to adjust to his size.

“What you just said. I’m pretty sure it counts as blasphemy.”

Isla half-sighed and half-laughed, “have I been smited?”

“Not yet.” Gladio replied, shifting. As he did he withdrew a little and then thrust slowly back into her. Isla dug her fingers into his muscles again, a groan ripping from her throat. Gladio littered kisses over her lips, “you’re so tight.” he murmured, warmth in his voice. “You feel so good, taking me the way you are.” He thrust again, still slow, deliberate, gentle. Isla’s hips moved almost without her bidding, welcoming him. “That’s it, babe,” he murmured against her lips, “relax for me.”

Isla ran her fingers up into his hair and began to meet him with each rock of his hips. She squeezed her thighs around him, relishing the feel of his cock inside her, and the way it filled her. Gladio buried his head beside hers into the pillows, and her hands ghosted over his sweat slicked back, reaching further down to his backside. He grabbed her right thigh in one large hand, angling her leg up off the bed to wrap around him.

“Astrals, fuck- that’s so deep.” Isla panted out, biting down onto the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

Another low rumbling laugh ebbed from Gladio’s chest and through Isla. She huffed against his skin, grappling with blind hands for purchase. He increased his speed, thrusting faster, and harder until the meeting of their skin made a slapping sound. Isla smothered him into her arms, grinding her pelvis against his with each thrust, feeling the budding tension in her belly all over again. She felt one of Gladio’s hand slide behind her, spreading his fingers over her back. She arched into him and then yelped, tightening her grip as he moved.

He shifted to a sitting position, holding Isla to him easily as he stretched his legs out in front of him. Isla knelt over him, and sank down into his lap. With the change in position, he touched her deeper, right to the core. Holding her hips in a bruising grip, Gladio began to guide her to move, rocking on him slowly. Isla’s head fell back on a gasp.

“Why didn’t we do this sooner?” she moaned, welcoming the feel of his lips on her throat. She leaned back, pressing her hands down onto his thighs for support beginning to move her hips in a rotation.

Gladio’s lips ventured downwards, his tongue dragging over her collar and clavicle. “I have no idea—“ he rasped back and scratched his nails along her thighs to her knees, “fuck me, Isles—you feel so good...” He latched onto a nipple, biting down.

She ran her fingers through his hair, curling unruly locks into her fist. Her heart was hammering against her ribs, deafening and drowning out anything else. She began to move faster, increasing the speed she ground herself against him. He hit, deep, every time. Each time a shock burst through her from her pelvis upwards, a fantastic tingling sensation she chased each time she felt it. Gladio spread his hands over her back, dragging his fingers down from her shoulder blades. Isla gasped, arching further towards him against the sharp, pleasant pain.

He pulled his lips from her breasts, kissing her rib cage, and licking his way back up to her neck. He kissed her jaw, her chin, and her mouth, crushing her lips with his, pulling her flush against him. The rhythm they set never faltered with every movement. Isla slid her arms around Gladio’s shoulders burying her face into his hair, while he nestled in the crook of her neck. He held her hips and led her again. She followed his hands willingly, feeling him drive into her with shallow thrusts from below, with each grind of her hips she felt him deeper, her body clenching and squeezing around him involuntarily.

A coil in Isla’s belly tightened, her release cresting again, so close she could almost reach out and grasp it. Gladio held her to him and was moving again, laying her back while he stayed on his knees. She wrapped her legs around his hips, crossing her ankles and pulling him deeper with each thrust. His movements slowed drawing out their encounter, and he grabbed Isla’s hands, pinning them down at her sides. He wore a wolfish grin, sweat shining on his forehead, causing his hair to stick roguishly across his brow. He squeezed Isla’s fingers between his when he thrust, hard, and she swore, arching up off the bed.

“Blaspheming again.” He teased between heaving breaths.

“Shut up!” Isla groaned in response, wriggling her hands to try and free them.

Gladio released one, only to reach down between them and begin to circle her clit with his thumb. Isla gasped, and shuddered, her toes curling, and fingers grabbing fruitlessly into the sheets and into the back of Gladio’s hand. His thumb moved in tandem with his hips, and Isla’s brain was too hazed and misty to know which to focus on. Her stomach felt heavy, and the heat inside her was fit to burst. She reached up with her free hand, running her nails down Gladio’s arm to his wrist. “Gladio—“ she panted, pleaded, moaned, hearing her voice not quite her own. She propped herself up on her elbow, “Gladio, ohGods, Gladio—“

He loomed over her, pushing her down onto her back and nipped the curve of her jaw towards her ear. “You gonna come for me, Isles?”

“Mhm—“ Isla bit her bottom lip, nostrils flaring, chest tightening uncomfortably.

“You gonna come all over my cock while its inside you?” Gladio bit down on the cuff of her ear, skimming his teeth down towards the lobe, “you gonna scream my name?”

Isla whined, reaching for him and gripping to his back with her free hand. He shifted, adjusting the angle he entered her causing their hips to meet in sharp strokes. The sensation of him hitting her core with each connection of their hips sent a rush up her spine like a bolt of lightning. She flailed with her free hand before grabbing a handful of sheets and pressing her feet flat into the bed for purchase. Her toes curled. Her vision grew hazy at the corners and she clenched her eyes closed until she could see brightly coloured spots on the inside of her eyelids. All at once the heat of her body boiled over and went crashing through her veins. The tightness in her core snapped and she shattered. Isla was sure she cried out, but over the throb of her blood pulsing in her ears, she couldn’t hear herself.

Gladio lurched forwards, releasing Isla’s hand to slide an arm beneath her and crush her to him. “That’s a girl,” he moaned against her mouth, kissing her soundly and nipping her bottom lip. “I can feel your cunt squeezing my cock--” He buried his face into the crook of her neck, driving his hips furtively. “Feelssogood--” Isla slipped her arms around his shoulders, holding him closer. She could feel his breath landing on her shoulder, his heartbeat thundering against her breasts. She nuzzled his hair, watching his body move.

He squeezed the inside of her thigh, spreading her legs a little wider and Isla could feel the muscles in his thighs and his haunches clenching with every move. His body slick against hers, she dug her nails into the muscles of his back, clumsily rocking up to meet his thrusts to bring his climax closer.

“Ohfuck—Isles—unf--Isla---!” In a rush of movement, Gladio buried himself inside her and she heard him groan into her pillows and her shoulder. He went still, utterly stiff for a few moments. Isla felt his chest expanding and contracting on quick breaths, and she could still feel the rapid beat of his heart reverberating into her chest. When he moved again, it was slowly, his hips rocking in gentle thrusts and he slipped out of her. He wound his hands down Isla’s back, softer touches after the grabbing and grasping of before.

Before she could speak, his lips were on hers, a soft, satisfied moan passing between them. Gladio slid his fingers through her loosening hair and flopped onto his side. He quickly rid himself of the condom, dropping it unceremoniously to the floor. Then, he wrapped her into his arms and drew her closer to his chest, nestling his chin atop her head. Isla was surprised, but pleasantly. She never expected Gladio to be one for cuddling after sex. Never thought of him as someone who would relish the afterglow. She was wrong.

He drew his fingers down her spine gently creating abstract shapes in her sweat. She inched closer to him, burying her face into his chest. She traced his tattoo with her fingers, watching how his skin reacting to such a delicate touch. She wasn’t sure what to say. Gladio was the person she considered her best friend, and they had crossed a line. Possibly one that should not have been crossed. She didn’t want this to affect their friendship. She didn’t want to lose his friendship to a moment of giving into desire. She knew it would be best to clear the air now, to settle things and know where they stood, before they parted and could over think.

“G—“

“It’s smote, by the way.”

Isla frowned, and tilted her head back, confused. “Huh?”

“Earlier, you said smited.” Gladio explained, grinning, “it’s smote.”

“Smote.” Isla replied, flatly.

“Smote.”

She sighed, and flicked his nose. “I can’t believe you’re correcting my grammar right now.”

“I could have corrected it at the time!” He laughed, grabbing her hand as she went to flick his nose again. “Luckily,” he rolled and pinned her beneath him, “having sex with you proves an excellent distraction.”

Isla rolled her eyes, but still welcomed the kiss he pressed to her mouth. She hummed, happy, and warm from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers. Gladio slipped his arms underneath her and lay down, resting his cheek on her clavicle. She toyed with tufts of his hair, breathing more easily and staring up at the ceiling. They needed to move. They both had places to be, jobs to do. Responsibilities. But moving meant this sanctuary, this moment in their lives would be disturbed. It would mean that what was between them at that second would be done, and gone. And they would never be able to recapture it.

Isla wanted to be selfish, just a little longer… and Gladio allowed her that, without complaint.

Fun fact: never written a character as dominant as Gladio. It was weird. I might need to write more of him, to get comfortable with it. Anyway. And, apologies if anyone was offended by the use of the c**t word there. I know some people aren’t comfortable with it, but it fit the scene, and it was either that, or pussy. And I, personally, cannot stand the latter.

Okay, this is long enough. I hope you enjoyed. Please let me know in comments/reblog/tags etc. Please, please let me know what you think. I am crazy nervous about this for some reason. ><

Reblogs make me stupidly happy. <3

[felixluis]

The Biggest Contribution Of SEO 2019 To Humanity

Simply no online marketing strategy would end up being complete without careful consideration in order to SEO - search engine search engine optimization. Screaming Frog SEO Index tool does it to suit your needs inside a few seconds, even intended for larger websites. SEOs also used to believe that buying links was the valid method of link developing; however, Google will now punish you for buying links within an attempt to manipulate page rank. Ultimately, achievement in SEO in 2018 plus forward will depend on developing amazing content and making this as easy as possible regarding search engines like google in order to understand exactly what that articles is all about. Answer: When you focus in SEO for voice search anyone need to create your written content around long tail keywords because people tend to use even more words in voice search. 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Unfortunately, SEO - and research in general - is usually soloed into focusing on The particular Google” and not really regarded as for other tactics. This means website owners plus SEO experts will need in order to be on top of their own game when it comes in order to keyword research and keeping the particular context of their site appropriate to users. Varvy's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Overview tool audits your site for key parameters like site strength, links, image SEO, sociable counts, on-page SEO, technical standing, page speed, loading time plus more. Typically the trouble is that SEO rank factors have changed a great deal over the years (find away how in our keyword analysis guide ). That means this search engine optimization techniques that will worked 5 in years past won't travel today. Here's a true statement a person hear as often: Your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION technique for 2018 shouldn't concentrate on keywords. 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Formula changes in 2018 seem in order to centre on reducing the efficiency of old-school SEO techniques, along with the May 2015 Google ‘Quality' formula update bruisingly familiar. Keep in mind in SEO article writing suggestions you keywords have to create sense too. Domain Authority within SEO is a rank that will measures how popular and reliable search engines call at your own website. If the terms you might be hoping to rank regarding don't display on the page, this will be much more tough to achieve your goals : making on-page optimization a essential part of most SEO advertisments. SEO focuses upon rankings in the organic (non-paid) search results. SEO as a result helps you get traffic coming from search engines. With Ahrefs, a great starting place for keyword research with regard to SEO is the Keywords Explorer tool. Topics: SEO, backlink, articles marketing, social media marketing plus advertising, analytics, and more. 60+ sessions on hot topics, good results stories and strategies in SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, SEA, PPC, Social Media, On the web Marketing and SMX Future Observe. 2018 (I believe) will be a lot associated with catch up on current SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION themes, with the biggest trends” occurring around voice queries to look results. Therefore, SEOmonitor tracks all of the appropriate data that could influence SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION performance and displays it within the Keyword Events Timeline. If you forget that will quality content is a best priority, then you can definitely forget about having an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategy. The particular way we asking the device is different from person in order to person. therefore, optimizing your web site 100% mobile friendly to accomplish cellular voice search is very essential to SEO 2019. I actually am just newbie and significantly i do get frustrated whenever articles doesn't rank on best or near top, but individuals like you and many some other also inspire me to by no means give up. There are various points that i wasn't recognized up to now but appreciate to you, you are often make us learn important items about seo. The Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keyword Electrical generator is like a thesaurus regarding SEO -minded content marketers. SEMRush - Another excellent tool for SEO analysis, especially where it concerns business cleverness, SEMRush allows you to recognize and analyze the keywords that will your competitors are using. I'm heading to share some of our most effective SEO tips that will I've used within all types of campaigns to increase organic research traffic. FAST SEO ADVICE search engine search engine optimization is not magic, and are unable to perform wonders. 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Currently more than half associated with searches account for mobile products, and the number will definitely move up in 2019. Within the remaining 2018 quarter, a person need to invest in mobile-first content that will rank a person higher in mobile search within 2019. The vast majority of your SEO learning ought to come from online resources, yet there are a few publications that will help you conceptually understand the history of research, search engines, and how SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION has changed through the many years. There are several methods that webmasters use within order to entice potential clients to their site—one of the particular most important and effective associated with those being Seo (SEO). SEO is important for a lot of companies because if individuals find you using a web research and find what they're searching for, you can receive plenty of new web visitors that will can help you earn even more money. Good SEO follows guidelines that Search engines determines are best practices in order to have your articles ranked upon top. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services do thorough keyword analysis for any specific website, and after that optimize the information on the particular basis of these keywords plus theme of website. Every advertising SEO blog will be talking about online video advertising and every third company professional you talk to is going to shift marketing dollars to a good online video campaign. ” Simply by 2019, video is expected in order to account for 80 percent associated with all web traffic. Don't set it and forget about it. Take time to review your SEO keyword strategy each few months to make certain it's still relevant and attaining the final results you want. Stories are a easy method to do marketing, you simply need to include some custom made images or text in purchase to let people know these people could swipe to click plus see where you can obtain a skirt, grill, buy SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, or anything else you're attempting to pitch to the world. Jana Granko, PR (public relations) head in SEMrush - one of the particular top marketing tools of the particular world - believe that within 2019 AI (artificial intelligence) would certainly change the way people lookup for keywords. In fact, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is simply one part associated with every successful digital marketing technique, but possibly the most essential part. These are called SEO standing factors. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is the art and technology of driving the most skilled visitors to your website simply by attaining high search engine outcomes. In Digital SEO Land, Rintu Biswas a professional SEO expert inside Kolkata will assist you to be able to build quality backlinks aimed at your website. This ‘what is SEO‘ guide (and this whole website) is not about churn and burn type of Search engines SEO (called webspam to Google) as that is too dangerous to deploy on a actual business website in 2018. "SEO" is a term that is definitely used to describe the procedure by which visitors a specific site is increasingly generated simply by search engines by means of search results. These white-hat cellular SEO tips will help a person to avoid internet search motor penalties and maintain better on the internet visibility. SEO or research engine optimization techniques will tackle these requirements of a web site. AI and tone of voice search have already begun in order to impact SEO, and as these types of technologies continue to develop, we all can expect to see a lot more changes in the way SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is performed. In the second chapter of our SEO guidebook, you will learn how research engines work, how people make use of them and what type of research queries they submit. You need in order to provide regular posts either daily or at least several periods a week in order in order to gain a following and offer enough unique SEO content in order to keep your search engine rankings high, attract new viewers plus convince people that you are usually the expert in your industry. Voice research will change the way we interact along with search engines and it can make SEO even more aggressive and vital to online achievement. Our SEO outreach team connect your brand and curated content with key on the internet influencers to get people speaking about you & sharing your own message. Yet, with the research engines like google continually modifying their rules SEO may appear confusing and overwhelming. Understanding what these words really imply, and how SEO analysts make use of them to boost your home page's search engine results, may become a whole other story. This free marketing device is really a long-term technique and can be time intense but it will worth this. A good user experience is usually the key to satisfaction and also a powerful SEO. 1 SEO might target different kinds of research, including image search, video research, academic search, 2 news research, and industry-specific vertical search motors. We all are in the fourth fraction of 2018, it is the particular right time start thinking with regards to the year ahead and brand new changes SEO realm might count on. We've long known that consumer opinions, input, and sentiment regarding a brand deeply impact SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION rankings, but we wanted the particular information to prove it. Off-page SEO means having action to build trust, specialist, social signals and inbound hyperlinks. How video affects SEO actually depends on your goals whenever using video in your advertising campaign and which video system you use. LSI is just not what most SEO professionals claim it to be. This is certainly not a idea that can be used simply by the average web designer or even webmaster to improve their lookup engine listings, and it is usually not what many people, which includes myself, has written it in order to be. Nevertheless, first some history. This particular video walks you through the particular specific steps you have to get increased rankings in 2018, including launching speed, technical SEO, content, hyperlinks, and more. Considering that it is, all across the particular year companies specializing in SEO were occupied recovering and finding new procedures to optimize the search motor even better than what their particular competitors were doing. All of us wished to look at a large group that included businesses of most sizes and in all sectors so we could really notice how SEO traffic increased whenever the only common denominator was including reviews to their site. In truth, this is area of the SEO technique we have used to continuously grow our organic traffic throughout the last 12 months right here at SnapApp: #3. Mobile may account for 72% of ALL OF US digital ad spend by 2019. This workshop is definitely designed to help business proprietors implement Digital Marketing techniques intended for their business including social press, organic SEO as well since paid channels. The Beginner's Guide in order to SEO continues to be examine over 3 million times plus offers comprehensive information you require to get on the road to professional quality Search Motor Optimization, or SEO. Whether it's using web analytics for carrying out research or even conversion tools that monitor plus report the usage of essential keywords, SEO agencies know just how and where you can obtain the information they need in order to save time furthermore decrease your in-house price. Presently there is probably no more fundamental strategy for SEO than the particular integration of internal links directly into your site - it is definitely an easy way to enhance traffic to individual pages, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Consult says. SEO SERVICES Presently there are a number of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services which can help enhance the organic search engine search positions of a website.

[bluejanuarysky]

Five Ugly Truth About SEO 2019

From the world's greatest brands to modest personal internet sites, Seo (SEO) is an important tool to operate a vehicle traffic, acquire fresh customers and get obtained on-line. Ranking aspects can be divided into on-page SEO factors (including technical SEO) and link building or off-page SEO factors. Take the 10 pillar subjects you came up with within Step one and create the web page for each a single which outlines the topic with a high level - making use of the long-tail keywords you arrived plan for each cluster within Step 2. A pillar web page on SEO, for instance, may describe SEO in brief areas that introduce keyword research, picture optimization, SEO strategy, and some other subtopics as they are determined. On our blog we all chronicle current trends in on the internet marketing and SEO and current interesting studies, statistics and developments. Increased site usability - Within an effort to make your own site easier to navigate intended for the search engines, SEO concurrently helps to make your web site more navigable for users mainly because well. You are capable to host your video upon YouTube for that foundational SEO greatest practices, but link and high light the embedded video on your own own website. Image SEO is actually a crucial part of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION different types of websites. Max DesMarais is definitely an SEO and PPC Specialist for Vital, some sort of Digital Marketing & PPC organization that specializes in PPC managing services. But this also has an incredible roundabout benefit to your bottom series: boosting your search engine optimisation (SEO). It may be the circumstance (and I surmise this) the introduction of a certain SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION technique initially artificially raised your own rankings for the pages within a way that Google's methods tend not to approve of, and as soon as that issue is spread out all through your site, traffic starts in order to deteriorate or is slammed within a future algorithm update. UnGagged Birmingham is really a 2-day SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING & Digital Marketing conference the fact that takes place June 11-12th, along with one-day intensive masterclasses on 06 13th. These ‘quality updates' are very reminiscent of Search engines Panda updates and often influence many websites at the exact same time - and often these types of concentrate on demoting similar ‘low-quality' SEO techniques we have already been told Panda focuses on. I think savvy SEOs are going to utilize AI content generation (text and pictures especially) in 2019 to generate a whole new kind associated with search algorithm gaming, that might almost be viewed as dark hat. This course covers how in order to build strong links for much better SEO. SEO companies ensure that will your site has all associated with the SEO Internet marketing like as business improvement, localized item sales, high quality online era and the rest. 2018 brought many alterations Blog9T to the world of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, including a few new protocol evolutions through Google. An expert Seo agency may help any dimensions of company take full advantage of web marketing and raise the likelihood associated with actual sales while simultaneously raise brand awareness one of the particular customers segment. Recently we were speaking about the subject with the friendly agency in Valencia plus we directed to this access of Search Engine Journal along with the 20 questions that need to be done to any SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION or SEO agency that desires to hire.

Screaming Frog SEO Index tool does it to suit your needs inside a few seconds, even regarding larger websites. SEOs also used to believe that buying links was the valid method of link developing; however, Google will now punish you for buying links within an attempt to manipulate page rank. Ultimately, achievement in SEO in 2018 plus forward will depend on generating amazing content and making this as easy as possible regarding search engines like google in order to understand exactly what that content material is all about. Answer: When you focus about SEO for voice search a person need to create your content material around long tail keywords because people tend to use a lot more words in voice search. SEO is the practice associated with increasing the search engine ratings of your webpages so that will they appear higher in lookup results, bringing more traffic in order to your website. In the particular previous example, Bob's home web page might have the title, "Bob's Soccer Store - Soccer Shoes or boots and Equipment. " The name is the most important component of SEO, since it shows the search engine exactly exactly what the page is all regarding. 47. When creating SEO content material, keep the social layer within your mind. For those who have time to get good search engine optimisation education, after that combine this knowledge with greatest practices and you are upon your way to become a good SEO expert. 46. Use SEO practices in order to optimize your social media content. 4. Mobile SEO plus Local Business: - As all of us mentioned before, users tend in order to search for local business upon the smartphones. PeepCon (which stands for The Householder's Conference”) seeks to teach workable SEO and digital marketing training. See how Matthew had taken a website from zero in order to one million visits in much less than a year, using the mix of blogging, content marketing and advertising, and SEO. Solid knowing of the keywords, questions, and even phrases your ideal customers employ to find your products and even services is critical to powerful SEO. 34. Applying SEO practices (such keyword optimization) to social media marketing boosts discoverability when users search cultural platforms like Facebook and Youtube . com. Onsite SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Guide — If you the particular actual link, you will discover a opt-in button where a person can download the Onsite SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Guide. ” Matt Diggity will a lot of testing upon his own sites, and this guidebook reflects what on page strategies are working best for your pet. One important aspect associated with taking care of SEO is definitely identifying issues that are harming search engine ranking positions plus reducing the traffic you will get through SERPs. User-generated content like reviews assist SEO through SMO, because this often comes in the type of social shares, likes, or even commenting, or common threads such as hashtags that point back toward a brand. Local SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services offer a very focused online marketing approach, (it's not really like dropping off brochures upon front-porch steps or paying for a good ad in a local newspapers that could or may not really be seen by a achievable client that is actually fascinated in your products or services).

A few search engines have also offered to the SEO industry, plus are frequent sponsors and visitors at SEO conferences, webchats, plus seminars. If a person have a website that a person want to become easily discovered by a search engine, you need to increase your site rank by means of SEO as well. Some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION companies focus on link building” and increasing the authority associated with their clients' websites. Through an SEO perspective, we had been introduced to RankBrain nearly 2 years ago, a machine-learning synthetic intelligence that Google's been making use of to process an extremely big proportion of search results. Specifically, you'll discover exactly how to utilize advanced on-page SEO strategies (like Bucket Brigades”) to get higher Google ranks and more organic traffic. Search engines has introduced (at least) the ‘percieved' risk to publishing plenty of lower-quality pages on your own site to in order in order to curb production of old-style SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION friendly content based on manipulating early search engine algorithms. Grey hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is entirely centered on enhancing search engine rankings. There are various aspects to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, from the words on your own page to the way some other sites link to you upon the web. So, rather than viewing SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING as an umbrella term covering SEO, it's more accurate in order to view SEM (paid search) plus SEO (organic search) as distinct entities to use as section of your Search Marketing arsenal.

There is definitely no magic wand in your own hands to regulate or manage your competitors' strategies or administration, Google analytics update, or user's behavior communicate business but a person can manage your SEO. In this particular new environment, the digital internet marketer who views SEO in the broader context will definitely come away ahead of the competition within 2018 and beyond. Good SEO publications explain in detail how greatest to use keywords and exactly how to structure your entire web site to attract the attention associated with search engine spiders and associated with human visitors, and a posting such as this cannot perform the topic justice. While businesses begin on an SEO advertising advertising campaign, they should realize that a good entire marketing campaign can drop flat on its face in case a business is unable in order to reach the masses, that will be, their target audience. If your own pages were designed to obtain the most out of Search engines, with commonly known and today outdated SEO techniques chances are usually Google has identified this plus is throttling your rankings within some way. A lot of business people find keeping upward with the "moving target" associated with SEO distracts them from every day priorities more than they actually imagined, so it's good in order to appear closely at what can make sense for every business. The software process for the SocialSEO Electronic Marketing and SEO Scholarship will be done 100% electronically and needs the next list of materials. Getting SEO right can easily influence your business hugely while you start to build natural traffic to your site which in turn will naturally grow without typically the need for any underhanded SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING tactics or even spending tons of money on perfectly successful but pricey solutions such because Pay Per Click or deluxe ads. Searchmetrics is happy to have this partnership along with Elephate, a leading content plus SEO agency with years associated with invaluable experience. However, the particular webmasters can grasp search motor optimization SEO through websites. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION offers incredible opportunity and gain access to (it's an inherently free marketing and advertising channel) to inbound traffic, yet it can be hard in order to know where to start plus what advice to follow. Video can end up Ten Reasons Why You Cannot Learn SEO 2019 Well being an important contributor to your own overall SEO and digital advertising strategy, but it's important in order to be superior on how video clip is going to help a person achieve your marketing and SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION goals. If you have got ever been into black-hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, spam, and un-natural links, Search engines will never forgive you plus you could be penalized by google at any time. As mentioned earlier, SEO firms are usually the most experienced in working with various verticals of online marketing, mainly expected to the nature of their own work. Monitoring: Often overlooked, but one associated with the most important areas associated with successful SEO, this section strolls through how you can monitor your success and tie your own efforts back to real visitors and business, which gives a person the chance to future fine-tune and optimize your programs. In 2018, SEO is content and articles is SEO, content is electronic and digital is content. Before starting a good SEO project, site owners need to carefully read through the website owner guidelines that every search motors provides and follow recommended greatest practices. This is clear that when website owners hire a search engine marketing SEO expert, they stand the better chance of maximizing their own SEO services. Search motors cannot understand this type associated with content, so it's vital that you design and style video pages in an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION oriented manner. Subscribe to our weekly SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and daily SearchCap newsletters for a summarize of all the latest SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION related news, tips and strategies from Internet search engine Property and other sources all more than the Web. When most likely logged in, go to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Toolkit » Keyword Research » Keyword Overview. For almost any SEO technique to operate successfully you will need content and that will can come in any type like keywords, articles or websites. From 2019, AI may be utilized by the businesses to acquire higher rankings upon search engines. For that reason, it can be a great idea to incorporate expenses regarding professional SEO content in your own quarterly marketing budget. Google will see right via sneaky, black hat SEO techniques like creating duplicate pages, producing pages with thin content simply for the sake of obtaining more pages and buying back links.

Without the doubt, one of the greatest trends that has already started to take place and may continue well into 2018 will be the consolidation of niche MarTech gamers by larger content cloud suppliers, with the role and significance of SEO increasing significantly all through this transformation. SEO Internet marketing provides major components, which develop the particular website traffic, and top research engine rankings. SEO is brief for Seo, and there is usually nothing really mystical about this particular. You might have heard the lot about SEO and exactly how it works, but basically exactly what is a measurable, repeatable procedure which is used to send out signals to search engines that will the pages are worth displaying in Google's index. Topic clusters possess been lauded since the future associated with SEO and content strategy, yet are widely underreported on (so now's the time to hit! ) 93% of B2B companies use content marketing. Teresa Walsh, Marketing Professional at automobile site, Cazana, forecasts that hyper organic targeting will probably increase its importance in 2019 with more location search plus more voice search. We get to the particular bottom of on-page SEO troubles in order for search motors to clearly see what your own website is all about. SEO requires you to continuously be considered a student because of exactly how quickly the algorithms of lookup engine companies change. Google's punishing methods probably class pages as some thing akin to a poor UX if they meet certain detectable criteria e. g. lack associated with reputation or old-school SEO stuff such as keyword stuffing a site. Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the particular most important marketing things to consider about your studio website. SEO might generate a sufficient return upon investment However, search engines are usually not taken care of organic search visitors, their algorithms change, and right now there are no guarantees of continuing referrals. A great starting point whenever using keywords for SEO will be to identify existing pages that will may use some optimization. These are called keywords, plus as you will see, they will are an important part associated with SEO. In fact, this particular will actually hurt your cyberspace SEO because search engines such as google will recognize it since keyword stuffing - or the particular act of including keywords particularly to rank for that key word, rather than to answer the person's question. Just before we begin, one thing a person want to keep in brain when using one of the following SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION elements is not to overdo it. You might be enticed to shove a lot associated with keywords onto your pages, yet that is not the objective. In situation you create links to some other websites and reverse, it may improve your SEO ranking. In fact Cisco predicts that globally, on the internet video traffic will be eighty percent of all consumer Web traffic by 2019 (a quantity that is up from sixty four percent in 2014). I've bookmarked therefore many SEO websites and sources that it's overwhelming to actually look at. Link authority is the major component of SEO, yet purchasing links is forbidden simply by Google, Bing, and other lookup engines. A lot of of these so-called 'tweaks' include advertising and link-gathering, and I actually use SEO and article advertising for that. Within 2018, your SEO success will not depend on how well a person optimize your website for Search engines. But if you're brief on money, use these diy SEO ways to improve your natural rankings. If you choose SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you're helping Google's spiders in order to crawl and understand your posts. The job of a good SEO is to manage the particular optimization of websites to assure they gain site traffic from research engines such as Google and Bing. One great bit of content that will ranks well within the research results is its beginner's explained SEO. SEOs plus online marketing specialists in standard who are dealing with global websites or for online businesses thinking about going international can certainly benefit from attending ISS. We would certainly like to serve you in order to save money and your power by offering affordable SEO solutions to increase link popularity. Work the key phrase into the SEO page name, content header, image, image betagt text, etc. SEO equipment provide position monitoring, deep key phrase research, and crawling through personalized reports and analytics. Certainly, white hat SEO always integrated creating high quality, unique articles as a prerequisite for acquiring long-term quality results, this reality hasn't changed. Beyond compensated and organic, there are additional types of SEO and expertise and niches within search motor marketing. SEO's basic importance comes from the particular fact that most users show strong search dominance — that will will be, search is the main method people go places on the particular Internet. Reading blogs related to SEO might also be very useful within locating out concerning the important companies on the market which usually are offering comprehensive and genuine Search engine optimization services in the direction of the corporate sector. The initial SEO is dependent mostly on number of key phrases targeted and the size associated with your web site, while the particular ongoing link campaign depends even more on the competitiveness of the particular keywords chosen. Whether most likely an SEO newbie or the seasoned practitioner, I encourage a person to fully read this in order to understand how you can obtain your content on top associated with search results. Large Brand campaigns are far, considerably not the same as small business SEO promotions that have no links, to start with, to give you yet an example. These SEO companies possess a strategy requiring clients in order to pay for the major lookup engines (including Google and Yahoo) for monthly website maintenance. Authorities are reporting that 2019 can be the year of tone of voice search, and that the tone search algorithm may change and even supersede text search relatively. A TOP DOG blog is simply one component of social media distribution, a significant SEO strategy according to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Consult You should be disseminating links to fresh content upon your site across appropriate interpersonal networking platforms. Since it turns out, there's more in order to on-page SEO than optimizing with regard to keywords. Search engines motor optimization (organic SEO) describes the particular methods used to obtain the high placement (or ranking) upon a search engine results web page in unpaid, algorithm-driven results upon the given search engine. Also, videos include a lot of untapped prospective - great for SEO and even make for good user diamond. The extremely best SEO expert 2019 will certainly tell you for High-End mobile devices, we're seeing more format changes to focus, provide the better experience, search results. Social SEO is especially helpful for online reputation administration. It isn't just the approach that Google ranks optimized written content, but the way that they will rank poorly constructed or taboo content that will push the ranking to where it really need to be in 2019. Ray Cheselka, SEO & Ppc Manager at SEO and style agency, webFEAT Complete, predicts that will sites with over a 2 second load time will become penalized, and search intent is usually going to still grow within importance. SEO consists of ordering the site's architecture and hyperlinks to make pages inside the particular website easier to find plus navigate. In contrast, articles that no one is humming about have minimal effect upon social SEO. They are usually generally knowledgeable within the are usually of both SEO and content material marketing. When it arrives to reviews, customers work as a good army of link builders plus keyword writers so your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION structure is shaped without a person having to lift a hand.

You may generally see outcomes of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION efforts once the webpage proceeds to be crawled and listed by a internet search motor. Most likely the best form of cultural media to pay attention in order to when turning to SEO is definitely Google Plus. A single of the most successful methods to ensure your clients locate your photography business is simply by implementing an SEO strategy, this particular is more than just doing it to number 1 in Google, it means ensuring of which a varied and steady steady stream of traffic is proceeding to your site, over plus above that of your opponents. If you are usually willing to improvise your web site search and boost up your own Google ranking, but do not really have time or resources regarding doing that, hire an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION specialist for the same objective. Mobile SEO is definitely mobile search engine optimization or even optimizing content for a much better search ranking. Titles on pages and explanations affect what people see within search results, so it's important to check these out within any SEO audit. Search motors give some guidelines for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, but big search engines maintain result ranking as a business secret. Along with $80 billion forecast to turn out to be spent annually on SEO — and content marketing set in order to become a $300+ billion industry by means of 2019 — it might become tempting for stakeholders to observe SEO and content marketing while cost centers rather than income centers. While that will theory is sound (when concentrated on a single page, when the particular intent is to deliver power content to a Google user) using old school SEO methods on especially a large web site spread out across many webpages seems to amplify site high quality problems, after recent algorithm modifications, and so this type associated with optimisation without keeping track associated with overall site quality is self-defeating in the long run. The traditional strategy to SEO has been devoted to creating excellent content that will is easily searchable via lookup engine bots. To realize SEO, you'll also need in order to know how Google search functions. 2019 may still use many of these kinds of newly implemented tactics, but research engine optimization experts are furthermore suggesting there will be a great deal more. Currently more than half associated with searches account for mobile gadgets, and the number will definitely move up in 2019. Within the remaining 2018 quarter, a person need to invest in mobile-first content that will rank a person higher in mobile search within 2019. The vast majority of your SEO learning need to come from online resources, yet there are a few publications that will help you conceptually understand the history of research, search engines, and how SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION has changed through the yrs. There are several methods that webmasters use within order to entice potential clients to their site—one of the particular most important and effective associated with those being Seo (SEO). SEO is important for a lot of companies because if individuals find you with a web lookup and find what they're searching for, you can receive plenty of new web visitors that will can help you earn even more money. Good SEO follows guidelines that Search engines determines are best practices in order to have your articles ranked upon top. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION services do thorough keyword analysis to get a specific website, and after that optimize the information on the particular basis of these keywords plus theme of website.

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Home Lifestyle Beauty MAY AVE PRINT LICENSE ARTICLE An exacting list of desirable beauty gifts for the non-basic mum in your life

I get uncomfortable Lifestyle around Mother’s Day. I’m calling it an alienating weirdness life Beauty 

  . It’s now not just the competitive advertising and marketing that bombards you for the month ahead, it is also how a few beauty advertisers (and department shop counters) perform.

It’s as if they’re underneath the assumption that each mom is yearning for a vanilla-scented candle, a fragrance from the Nineteen Seventies and a rose-flavoured bathtub lotion too, slather on, before getting into her felt slippers. Look, I’m no longer calling those presents unpleasant, I’m simply saying that the advertising best of a simpering mom who loves Neil Diamond and doesn’t care what you supply her, as lengthy because it’s cream-coloured and scents like lavender, is now not the dominant one.

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http://www.Smh.Com.Au/life-style/splendor/an-exacting-listing-of-acceptable-splendor-gifts-for-the-nonbasic-mum-in-your-existence-20170510-gw1cd4.Html Enough of the primary frame creams and candles. Your mom merits present that reflect her personality. Enough of the simple frame lotions and candles. Your mom merits gifts that mirror her persona. But what’s more bizarre nevertheless is that despite the fact that, in keeping with a few ads, all her pastimes line up with what your grandma became interested in a decade in the past, she by no means seems a day over 39. Oh, she may additionally have gray hair, however, her skin resembles that of Lily-Rose Depp.

You know that catalog mom in her cream satin PJs poking via a fluffy gown, cupping a mug of tea, mouth half open in an indulgent laugh, white tooth gleaming. Perhaps she’s on a mattress, surrounded by way of croissants, a Labrador pup, a rectangular-jawed husband, and exquisite children, who are serving orange juice. It’s low-key alarming that nobody has an unmarried stain on their garb despite the fact that they may be essentially playing with fireplace by way of having all of those dangers in a single bed.

RELATED CONTENT Let’s speak about sheet masks, do they simply work? Why this $12.70 basis has a 25,000 person waiting for to list Or, possibly she’s huddled up on the beach in a gray knit, blonde hair blown softly by using the wind. Her children are younger young adults, which is weird because she looks 25. Maybe she’s carrying a white, fluttery shirt in a lawn, looking by some means each coquettish and serene as she inhales roses.

In different phrases, the Mother’s Day mom is simple. Oh, the gift guide says “for every form of mom” and they imply it – each type of mom who loves the cashmere-experience of coconut body lotion and an oil diffuser smelling of lilies.

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With all of this in thoughts, might also I gift the alternative listing, for non-primary moms.

1.The Bullshit Candle $127 from Mecca.

Don’t fear! The call does not replicate the fragrance. The creators of this particularly fashionable, minimalist black candle just desired to call bullshit on the ones indistinct, simple candle names. It’s in reality wonderfully warm, a traditional blend of Sichuan pepper, grapefruit, tangerine, lavender, rose, lily of the valley, musk, tonka bean, vanilla and guaiac timber. Yeah, it’s layered. Because moms are human, too OK?

2. Tom Ford Lip Colour in Spanish Pink, RRP $seventy-eight/Tom Ford Cream Cheek Color in Pink Sand, RRP $105 available from www.Davidjones.Com.Au

On the surface, this appears a touch cliched, I mean, it’s makeup. But the packaging – luxurious black and gold – is barely edgier than your traditional “tub salts and powder” gift %. And the alternative greater essential aspect is that Tom Ford digs sturdy women. Usually over the age of 35. For proof, check out Amy Adams and Laura Linney in his most current film, Nocturnal Animals, (it is terrific). Or higher yet, watch it together with your remarkable strong mom. It’s same parts terrifying and tender, with extremely good style, which, cmon, you already know who else is.

Three. Evo “The Hairy Godmother” Gift Box – “Repair” $65.Ninety

This uber-cool hair care organization use handiest the fine for all their products, because of a this-this present box, including shampoo, conditioner and “working spray” is freed from all the same old junk like sulfates, parabens, and other chemicals. Allow me to quote the gift container blurb because it’s what each new mother wishes to examine, “We’ve seen the destiny, a sparkling dawn waits for you, you shimmy into the bath.” See that? One day you will shower!

Four. Rodin Luxury Body Oil $a hundred ninety

This is highly-priced however your mother is a sensual being! She has needs and dreams and also you’d higher be given this in case you need to transport about the world with any type of knowledge of precisely how you came into it!

But, even as you are marching for girls’ pride, please also never neglect boundaries, yeah? What I’m announcing is frame oil is great, underwear is not. But you are in a safe area as this body oil, crafted from 11 one of a kind plant and flower oils) is a cult product, (Oprah uses it, want I say more?) and it lately made Goop’s golden listing of spesh ones which might be “clean” (study: also freed from unnatural chemical substances).

Five. Estee Lauder Revitalising Supreme + Cell Power Wake Up Balm $98 available from www.Esteelauder.Com.Au

Lonely is the idiot who buys prescriptive pores and skin take care of his mom, but satisfied is the over-worked, time-poor, worn-out woman with progressed skin. (That’s all people). What to do? Beats me, she’s your mom – find a manner! It’s lighting in a bottle. Like, it actually contains light-reflecting pearls for immediate radiance and anti-getting older generation, leaving skin right away clean and glowing.

How Your Life Experiences Can Benefit Your MLM Business

  “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do” Pele. Life experiences are a built-in encyclopedia of situations learned and burned into the mind. You may want to tap into it as situations arise in your MLM business. So, this brings us to the question: How your life experiences can benefit your business? We will get to that question and explore how you can apply your past experiences to your current objectives.

Your life experience can pay off big in your MLM business… Now that you own an MLM business, you’re probably wondering if your previous experiences can help you chart out a course for lifelong success. It can help you achieve your goals, in almost every business, life experiences are transferable. There are repetitive events that are so similar, the only differences are the timing and place of the event itself. If you have experience in the retail industry, especially with customers. You can use your experiences to work with your prospects. You’ll have an edge up on others that are just starting out in this industry.

Everyone has dealt with stressful points in their careers before moving into the MLM business industry. How did you deal with the stress in your last career or job? Maybe you had a routine set up to deal with the pent-up frustration. You could apply your knowledge in stress management in a series of blogs or marketing content for others. As you think about your experiences, can you develop them into marketing material for your business? In this business, you’re here to help others on their journey as either as a new team member or as a consumer looking to improve their health or fitness aspects.

Applying Life Experiences to Business goals and Achieving Results Your life experiences can mean the difference for someone out there right now. What you have experienced is different than others. However, everyone is built differently in the learning aspect. Perhaps you can shed some light on a subject matter that others could not. You have a treasure chest of knowledge and you must use it to help others gain traction in life. Your business goals may be designed from your life experiences in mind. Perhaps a goal could mean improving the way that you market to new prospects. You have gained experienced already in marketing unless you’re just starting out. Your mistakes are good points to improve upon for this goal.

About The Author

David L. Feinstein, noted business coach and home business entrepreneur, is the author of various articles and books that help to empower individuals. To get the real innovative marketing

Type 2 Diabetes – Lifestyle Factors Connected To the Development of Diabetes

  Type 2 diabetes is in many ways a predictable disease. It can be anticipated, if not prevented. The risk factor can be estimated to a reliable degree, based on several crucial factors. And yet, it is still an epidemic in our society. Go figure!

There are several reasons why we leave ourselves vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes as a population. Break down these issues further, and we have excuses and justifications as to why these problems are not addressed.

Let’s focus on the causes. While this is not a final list, most of the primary factors driving the development of this form of diabetes are listed below. These are specifically related to lifestyle, which means they are all under our influence in some way or another…

1. Overconsumption of carbohydrates. It almost always begins with an over-consumption of sugar and carbohydrates. And it usually does not end there, since this factor is usually present along with several others.

Carbohydrates are essential in any healthy and balanced diet. But the key word is a balance. Most people consume more carbs than they need, given most of us are not extremely active individuals. Unless you are living a very active lifestyle or have a physically demanding job, there is no need to eat so many carbs.

2. Poor eating habits. To build on the above, poor eating habits are almost always the cause of diabetes in the long run. Overeating, frequent snacking, and weak appetite control are a recipe for weight gain and increased blood sugar readings.

Remember: it is just as important to remove old habits, as it is to establish new ones.

3. A lack of direction. Interestingly, not having direction behind your lifestyle may facilitate not only the development of Type 2 diabetes but also a multitude of health problems. It is crucial to be mindful of your body and well-being, even if you are not attempting to lose weight or improve your health.

Lacking direction in regards to your health leads to taking it for granted, which could prove costly should you be afflicted with a severe health problem.

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9 Tips on How to Get More Subscribers: A YouTube Guide

Just like any other social network, YouTube has its own space for businesses to create communities. With Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, it’s all about gaining real and authentic followers. But on YouTube, it’s essential to learn how to get more subscribers.

In case you’re curious, YouTube subscribers are exactly like your other social media followers. Instead, these users subscribe to your YouTube channel, so they’re updated every time you post something new.

On a platform like YouTube, shareability is everything. According to YouTube, there are currently more than a billion users on the network, which accounts for nearly one-third of all internet users. And as the second-largest search engine in the world (only behind Google), gaining new subscribers can help build awareness and customers.

With the right social media marketing techniques, you can increase the viewership and following of your channels. In this article, we’ll teach you nine unique ways on how to get more subscribers on YouTube:

1. Regularly Post New Content

Consistency is always key with any social network. Posting once and waiting for new followers or subscribers simply does not work. On the other hand, when you post regularly and constantly add new content to your channel, you give users a reason to subscribe.

The beauty of social media is you have a lot of flexibility with the content you can publish. However, this doesn’t mean you should zero-in on only promotional video content. Instead, try to plan out YouTube content within your social media calendar.

Scheduling and planning content on a weekly basis allows you to keep consistency with your YouTube content. This doesn’t mean you have to hit your mark every single week (especially for companies working on a video production budget), but having a plan helps keep good posting habits.

Once you start to build out your video content, you’ll gain more assets for your customers. Sales teams and account managers are constantly in need of assets to use to sell your brand.

Building helpful video case studies is a great way to give your potential customers a reason to work with you. Here’s an example of one of our customer case studies:

2. Focus on Your First 10 Seconds

Let’s face it, if you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re part of the minority. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, 49% of people read 111 words or less on web pages. And for video content, making an immediate impact is just as critical.

In fact, the same report discovered the average viewership of a standard internet video is 2.7 minutes. While that might seem like a good amount of time, this includes various lengths of video from hours long to under a minute.

Making an impression within the first few seconds of your video is essential. Businesses testing their content for advertising need to focus on getting to the point even more. While many pre-roll ads are moving toward making users watch the whole ad before viewing the content, there are still plenty of ads with five-second minimum view times.

This means users can skip ads after five seconds, but if you immediately capture their attention, you have a better chance of getting a user to complete the ad. Completing an ad is essential for your business. According to Insivia, 95% of users retain the message of a video more so than the 10% who read the message through text.

Catch users’ attentions with a stat or something to make them smile–anything to keep them watching.

3. Strategically Use Your Call to Actions

Calls to action are essential for YouTube videos because they give you an opportunity to turn a casual viewer into a subscriber, lead or even a paying customer. Make sure you don’t just place calls to action to go to your website. Instead, start by asking viewers to simply share the video. You don’t want to seem overly needy of shares, but a simple ask could make a big difference.

A study performed by Copyblogger found when users say Please Retweet on Twitter content, their Tweets are shared 50% more than those saying nothing at all. The same could apply to YouTube.

Ask your users to share and build trust within your community. Once you start to see your group of subscribers grow, then it’s time to ask for them to view other content. If you followed our first tip, you should have a steady influx of videos to recommend viewers. Recommending those videos will allow you to build up your views and total watch time, which can improve your search rankings in YouTube.

The longer you keep your subscribers’ attention, the more trust you build, which ultimately leads to happy customers.

4. Optimize Your Video Titles & Descriptions

Just like searching for content on Google or Bing, the same factors play a role on YouTube. Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for getting your videos to rank in YouTube’s search results. to making your content appear when someone searches a keyword related to one of your videos.

General SEO best practices apply to YouTube. For instance, make sure each title, description and keyword selection is tied directly to your content. If you’re unsure what keywords to attack, try using a tool like KeywordTool.io or Moz’s Keyword Explorer to get better insights.

For example, if you’re a cleaning services company, you might want to focus your content around highly searched keywords or phrases that target problems you can solve:

From here you can see what people are searching to get an idea of what content to produce. Ensure your keywords are in your title, description and even said in the video itself to help YouTube better understand what your video is about.

Ranking higher in YouTube’s search results for heavily-searched keywords is the perfect way to get more subscribers to your channel.

5. Use Custom Thumbnails for Videos

If you want users to take you serious on YouTube, put some effort into the quality of your content and page. One way to make your channel look great is by adding custom thumbnails.

These images are used in place of a specific screenshot image of your video. If you don’t use a custom thumbnail, you might end up with poor and unedited shots. This looks even worse when the image snaps you while you’re talking.

Instead, Oxiclean does a great job at using a custom thumbnail image that clearly shows their product and the title of the video. Which of the videos would you rather watch–the ones above or Oxiclean’s professional looking content?

A little effort in thumbnail images can make your YouTube channel look trusted and experienced in the industry. Perception is everything when you’re producing video content.

6. Look for Co-Marketing Opportunities

YouTube is a great avenue to co-market your brand with another company. Co-marketing has become a helpful strategy for many businesses trying to increase their audience size and YouTube subscribers count.

For example, Target often collaborates with other brands sold in its store to highlight new products customers might not know about. Its video series “This Just In” talks about one specific brand in each of its videos.

This marketing strategy not only helps Target customers, but also those interested in Sugarfix by BaubleBar. Teaming up with brands that have massive audiences has serious growth perks. However, you can’t just hit up Target and ask for a co-marketing video.

Start smaller with brands specifically in your industry and maybe focus on those just getting into the game. If you build up a few co-marketing videos with other brands, bigger companies will likely be more willing to participate in your video series.

7. Don’t Forget Your Annotations

Adding annotations to your YouTube videos is one of the best ways to engage viewers and make the content more interactive. With specific annotations, you can layer your hotspots, text over the video and add links to certain parts of the story.

Like we mentioned before, promoting your brand is good, but being overly promotional is bad. Make sure you provide annotations that allow users to skip ahead in the video, easily locate your subscribe button and even jump ahead to another video.

You can also set annotations to link toward your home or landing pages, but to truly get more subscribers, you want to focus on your content on YouTube. Making the hard sell can do more harm than good.

Zipcar creates annotations for other recommended videos before the content ends. The purpose is to keep you engaged and to watch more content. While it’s not needed for every video, see how annotations can work with your content.

8. Give a Reason for Users to Come Back

If you want to learn how to get more subscribers, it’s smart to give users a reason to come back. The better case you make for your brand, the more likely you are to see shares, links to your channel and a higher number of subscribers.

One of the best ways to leave a lasting impression is through social media engagement. This means you should try to answer comments or reach out to users who maybe asked for this type of content previously.

According to the Sprout Social Q2 2016 Index, brands only reply to 11% of incoming messages on social. On top of that, the average brand receives 957 messages on social needing a response per quarter.

Be friendly, post relevant content and engage with your users to keep your followers coming back.

9. Monitor Your YouTube Analytics

If you haven’t dove into the plethora of information about your YouTube analytics, you’re certainly missing out on plenty of opportunities. Start with the Overview Report to see how your content performed over the last 28 days.

Other questions you should answer with your analytics are where are my customers and what devices are they using to watch my content? Luckily, YouTube has stellar native platform analytics tools to track users per location.

Easily get visual or statistical breakdowns of where your audience lives. Secondly, use the devices report to track how people are watching your videos. With nearly 50% of YouTube traffic coming from mobile, it’s smart to think of content length, annotation placement and other factors that could be an issue with mobile.

If you follow these steps, you’re sure to see a spike in your subscribers. Just remember to never take advantage of your community and engage wherever possible.

This post 9 Tips on How to Get More Subscribers: A YouTube Guide originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie http://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-get-more-subscribers/

[wittybitchesmag]

New Post has been published on https://www.wittybitches.com/2017/01/the-science-of-cute/

The Science of Cute

On 14 April 2016, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake hit Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, toppling buildings and sending residents rushing into the streets. Hundreds of aftershocks – one an even stronger 7.0 quake – continued for days, killing 49 people, injuring 1,500 and forcing tens of thousands from their homes. 

News spread immediately around the globe on social media.

“Earthquake just happened,” Margie Tam posted from Hong Kong. “R u ok kumamon?”

“Are Kumamon and his friends safe?” wondered Eric Tang, a college student.

“Pray for Kumamoto & Kumamon,” wrote Ming Jang Lee from Thailand, a phrase that would be repeated thousands of times.

Kumamoto is a city of 700,000 in a largely agricultural province in southwestern Japan.

But what, or more precisely who, is Kumamon? And why in the wake of an immense natural disaster did concern for earthquake victims focus on him, specifically?

That’s a bit more complicated.

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It is 12 March 2016, one month before the earthquake. Kumamon bounds onto an outdoor stage at the opening event of his birthday party in Kumamoto. About 150 guests – mostly women – cheer, clap and whistle.

What makes something so irresistibly cute that you need to touch, cuddle or play with it?

Kumamon waves and bows. He is about 1.5 metres tall, with black glossy fur, circular red cheeks and wide, staring eyes. He’s dressed for the occasion in a white satin dinner jacket trimmed in silver and a red bow tie.

One woman in the crowd holds a Kumamon doll swaddled in a baby blanket. Another has dressed her doll in a grey outfit matching her own. She says it took her a month to sew. A number of fans have pasted red paper circles on their cheeks to mimic his. Those in the first row arrived at 3am to snag their prime spots to greet the object of their intense though difficult-to-explain affection.

“Actually, I have no idea why I love him so much,” says Milkinikio Mew, who flew from Hong Kong with friends Lina Tong and Alsace Choi to attend the three-day-long festival, even though Hong Kong is holding its own birthday party for Kumamon. She slept in, showing up at 6am for the 10am kick-off, so had to settle for a seat in the last row.

Kumamon is… well, he’s not exactly a cartoon character, though he does appear in a daily newspaper comic strip. He’s not a brand icon either, like Hello Kitty, though like her, he does not speak and, also like her, his image certainly moves merchandise.

He’s not sexy, but when the Empress Michiko met Kumamon – at her request – during the imperial couple’s visit to Kumamoto in 2013, she asked him, “Are you single?”

But what is Kumamon? Well, he’s sort of a…

But first, the big moment is here. A birthday cake is rolled out, and the crowd sings ‘Happy Birthday’. Then presents. A representative from Honda, which has a motorbike factory nearby, gives him its Kumamon-themed scooter. An Italian bicycle maker unveils a custom Kumamon racing cycle. Plus a new exercise DVD, on which Kumamon leads the workout.

More than 100,000 products feature Kumamon’s image, from stickers and notebooks to cars and aeroplanes

The Italian bicycle is not for sale, yet. But the other two items are, joining the more than 100,000 products that feature Kumamon’s image, from stickers and notebooks to cars and aeroplanes (a budget Japanese airline flies a Kumamon 737). When Steiff offered 1,500 special edition Kumamon plush toys at $300 each, they sold out online in five seconds according to the German toymaker. Last year Leica created a $3,300 Kumamon camera, a bargain compared to the solid gold statue of Kumamon crafted by a Tokyo jeweller, which retails for $1 million.

So what is he then? Kumamon is a yuru-kyara, or ‘loose character’, one of the cuddly creatures in Japan that represent everything from towns and cities to airports and prisons. The word is sometimes translated as ‘mascot’, but yuru-kyara are significantly different from mascots in the West, such as those associated with professional sports teams, which tend to be benign, prankish one-dimensional court jesters that operate in the narrow realm of the sidelines during game time.

Kumamon has a far wider field of operation as the yuru-kyara for Kumamoto Prefecture (a prefecture is like a state in the USA or a county in England). He has become more than a symbol for that region, more than merely a strategy to push its tourism and farm products. He is almost regarded as a living entity, a kind of funky ursine household god (it is perhaps significant that the very first licensed Kumamon product was a full-sized Buddhist shrine emblazoned with his face). He hovers in a realm of fantasy like a character from children’s literature, a cross between the Cat in the Hat and a teddy bear.

Image courtesy of © Kumamoto Prefectural Government

Kumamon has personality. “Cute and naughty,” Tam explains, later, when I ask what about Kumamon made her care about him enough to be concerned immediately after the earthquake.

She wasn’t alone. After the April quake, Kumamon’s Twitter feed, which has nearly half a million followers and is typically updated at least three times a day, stopped issuing communications. With a thousand buildings damaged, water to the city cut, a hospital jarred off its foundations, and 44,000 people out of their homes, the prefectural government, which handles Kumamon’s business dealings and appearances, had more important things to do than stage-manage its fictive bear.

But Kumamon was missed.

“People are asking why Kumamon’s Twitter account has gone silent when the prefecture needs its mascot bear more than ever,” the Japan Times noted on its Facebook page on 19 April.

Into the vacuum came hundreds, then thousands of drawings, posted by everyone from children to professional manga artists, not only from Japan, but from Thailand, Hong Kong, China. They waged an impromptu campaign of drumming up support for earthquake relief using the bear, which stood in for the city itself and its people. Kumamon was depicted leading the rescue efforts, his head bandaged, lifting stones to rebuild the tumbled walls of Kumamoto Castle, propping up tottering foundations, enfolding children in his arms.

“Ganbatte Kumamon!” many wrote, using a term that means something between ‘don’t give up’ and ‘do your best’.

What is happening here? Kumamon is kawaii – the word is translated as ‘cute’, but it has broad, multi-layered meanings, covering a range of sweetly alluring images and behaviours. Not only does kawaii encompass the army of Japanese mascots, but a world of fashion that has adult women dressing as schoolgirls and schoolgirls dressing as goth heroines or Lolita seductresses, giving rise to ero-kawaii, or erotic kawaii, a mash-up of cute and sexy.

We eagerly spend fortunes on cute avatars – Kumamon earned $1 billion in 2015, Hello Kitty four or five times that – without ever wondering: What is cute? What about it causes us to open our wallets and our hearts? Is appreciation for cuteness hardwired in human beings? What does it say about our society? Is what it says good or, possibly, could cuteness harbour darker facets as well? These are questions being mulled over by a potential new academic field, ‘cute studies’.

And where do our concepts of cuteness originate? That one is easy. The primal source of all things cute is found in every country, in every city and town, every neighbourhood and close to every block in the world. You may have the template for all the cuteness in the world right in the next room and not even realise it.

Soma Fugaki’s dark eyes sparkle as he scans the opening night crowd at Blossom Blast, a feminist art show at the UltraSuperNew Gallery in Tokyo’s hip Harajuku district. Drinks are poured, music pulses. But Soma doesn’t dance or even stand. He’s a baby. Just five months old, Soma squirms in the arms of his father, Keigo, who gazes lovingly into his son’s face.

“Everything about him is a reflection of myself,” Keigo says, “a cartoon version… That has to do with how much I think he’s cute. I stare at him all the time. He looks like me. It’s my features, but exaggerated: bigger cheeks, bigger eyes.”

Babies are our model for cuteness. Those last two details – big cheeks, big eyes – are straight out of Konrad Lorenz’s Kindchenschema, or ‘baby schema’, as defined in the Nobel Prize-winning scientist’s 1943 paper on the ‘innate releasing mechanisms’ that prompt affection and nurture in human beings: fat cheeks, large eyes set low on the face, a high forehead, a small nose and jaw, and stubby arms and legs that move in a clumsy fashion. And it doesn’t just apply to humans: puppies, baby ducks and other young animals are covered by Lorenz’s theory.

Lorenz’s paper is the ur-document of cute studies, but did not produce an immediate reaction among the scientific community. He was a Nazi psychologist writing during wartime, exploring their loathsome eugenic theories – a reminder that the shiny face of cuteness invariably conceals a thornier side.

For decades, scientists focused on what babies perceive, what they think. But in the 21st century, attention turned to how babies themselves are perceived, as cuteness started taking its first wobbly steps toward becoming a cohesive realm of research.

 Seeing cute creatures stimulates the brain’s pleasure centre

Experiments have demonstrated that viewing cute faces improves concentration and hones fine motor skills – useful modifications for handling an infant. A pair of Yale studies suggest that when people say they want to ‘eat up’ babies, it’s prompted by overwhelming emotions – caused, one researcher has speculated, by frustration at not being able to care for the cute thing, channelled into aggressiveness.

These emotions are triggered chemically, deep within the brain. Experiments hooking up volunteers to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners have shown how seeing cute creatures stimulates the brain’s pleasure centre, the nucleus accumbens, causing a release of dopamine, in a way similar to what happens when eating chocolate or having sex.

Women appear to feel this reaction more strongly than men. While biologically this is explained by the need to care for infants, society’s larger embrace of cuteness has led academics in gender studies to wonder whether cute culture is the sugar pill that sexism comes in – training women to be childlike – or whether it could instead be a form of empowerment in which young women take control of their own sexuality.

More recent experiments have tried to separate cuteness from its biological roots to see if there are general aesthetic standards that can make an inanimate object ‘cute’.

In a study at the University of Michigan in 2012, visual information expert Sookyung Cho asked subjects “to design a cute rectangle by adjusting the size, proportion, roundness, rotation, and color of the figure”.

What she found supported the idea that “smallness, roundness, tiltedness, and lightness of color can serve as determinants of perceived cuteness in artifact design”. It mattered, she found, whether the person designing the rectangle was in the USA or South Korea. Cuteness is nothing if not culturally specific, and that itself has become a rich focus of inquiry.

Cuteness is so associated with Japan that the actual country – mile after mile of unadorned concrete buildings alternating with rolling green fields and periodic densely packed cities – can come as something of a surprise. The Tokyo subway is jammed with hurrying businessmen in dark suits, rushing women in paper masks, racing kids in plain school uniforms. Cute characters such as Kumamon can be hard to spot, and to expect otherwise is like going to America and expecting everyone to be a cowboy.

Still, there are pockets of cuteness to be found: tiny yuru-kyara charms dangling off backpacks or peeking from posters or construction barriers in the form of baby ducks.

But not everywhere – not even in most places.

Even in Kumamoto during Kumamon’s birthday weekend. Exit from the Shinkansen bullet train at Kumamoto station and there is nothing special on the platform, not so much as a banner – not until you take the escalator down and catch a glimpse of the enormous head of Kumamon set up downstairs, along with a mock stationmaster’s office built for him. The train station shop is filled with Kumamon items, from bottles of sake to stuffed animals including, somewhat disturbingly, a plush set that pairs him with Hello Kitty, the wide-eyed bear directly behind the kneeling kitty in such a way as to suggest… well, you wonder if it’s deliberate.

In the city, his face is spread across the sides of an office building, with birthday banners hanging from the semi-enclosed shopping arcades that are a feature of every Japanese city.

Six years ago, Kumamoto wasn’t known for much. There is an active volcano, Mt Aso, nearby, and a 1960s reproduction of a dramatic 1600s-era castle that burned down in 1877. Kumamoto residents believed there was nothing in their city that anyone would want to visit. The region is largely agricultural, growing melons and strawberries.

But in 2010, Japan Railways was working to extend the Shinkansen bullet train to Kumamoto, and the city fathers were eager for tourists to use it. So they commissioned a logo to promote the area, hiring a designer who offered a stylised exclamation point (their official slogan, ‘Kumamoto Surprise’, was a bright spin on the fact that many Japanese would be surprised to find anything in Kumamoto worth seeing).

The exclamation point logo was a red blotch, resembling the sole of a shoe. The designer, seeking to embellish it, and knowing the popularity of yuru-kyara, added a surprised black bear. Kuma is Japanese for bear. Mon is local slang for ‘man’.

Paired with a mischievous personality – Mew calls him “very naughty” – Kumamon made headlines after Kumamoto held a press conference to report that he was missing from his post, having run off to Osaka to urge residents there to take the train. The stunt worked. Kumamon was voted the most popular yuru-kyara in 2011. (Japan has a national contest, the Yuru-kyara Grand Prix, held in November. The most recent one was attended by 1,727 different mascots and nearly 77,000 spectators. Millions of votes were cast.)

A few Kumamoto officials resisted Kumamon – their concern was he would scare off potential tourists, who’d worry about encountering wild bears, of which there are none in the prefecture. But the Kumamoto governor was a fan and cannily waived licensing fees for Kumamon, encouraging manufacturers to use him royalty-free.

Rather than pay up front, in order to get approval to use the bear’s image, companies are required to support Kumamoto, either by using locally manufactured parts or ingredients or by promoting the area on their packaging. It’s as if Mickey Mouse were continually hawking California oranges.

The side of the box of the Tamiya radio-controlled ‘Kumamon Version Buggy’, for instance, has photos of the region’s top tourist destinations. In one of the songs on the exercise DVD released on Kumamon’s birthday, as he leads his fans through their exertions, they grunt, “Toh-MAY-toes… straw-BEAR-ies… wah-TER-melons” – all agricultural products that are specialties of Kumamoto. Go into a grocery store and Kumamon smiles from every punnet of strawberries and honeydew wrapper.

There is a tacit agreement to never allude to anything as crass as him being a man in a bear suit

The bullet train began service to Kumamoto on 12 March, so that date is now used as Kumamon’s official birthday. He was there to greet the first scheduled train, a moment recreated during his birthday fest.

Fans line up to hug him, often reaching back for a lingering last touch as they’re led off to make way for the next waiting fan. There is a tacit agreement to never allude to anything as crass as him being a man in a bear suit, to, if not accept Kumamon’s reality, pretend that he exists.

In 2014, Kumamon gave a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, where his title was given as ‘Director of PR’. The journalists posed respectful questions. “How many staff do you have to help you out with your activities?” one asked. The answer – “We have about 20 staff members in our section” – was delivered by one of those subordinates, Masataka Naruo, who enjoys telling people that Kumamon is his boss.

Shopping in Kumamoto the day before the start of the celebration, Mew and her friends wear Kumamon T-shirts and carry Kumamon backpacks. The three women show their discoveries to each other. They own a lot of Kumamon products already. Why buy more? What makes Kumamon so special? “Because he’s very cute,” says Tong, in English.

Being cute isn’t always enough, however.

For every Kumamon, for every popular yuru-kyara, there are a hundred Harajuku Miccolos. A five-foot-tall yellow-and-brown bee, Harajuku Miccolo stands on the pavement, celebrating Honey Bee Day by finishing up three hours of loitering in front of the Colombin Bakery and Café, greeting passers-by – or trying to. Most barely glance in his direction and do not break stride, though some do come over and happily pose for the inevitable picture. There is no line.

Harajuku Miccolo is cute yet obscure, the common fate for most yuru-kyara. The city of Osaka has 45 different characters promoting its various aspects, who must fend off periodic calls for them to be culled in the name of efficiency; one administrator piteously argued that the government officials who create these characters work hard on them and so would feel bad if they were discontinued.

Harajuku Miccolo is trying to avoid that fate.

“He is not a success yet,” admits one of his handlers, distributing cubes of the café’s trademark honey cake. “Many are not as successful…”

“…as Kumamon?”

“We’re trying…”

Nobody is cute in Shakespeare. The word did not exist until the early 1700s, when the ‘a’ in ‘acute’ was replaced by an apostrophe – ’cute – and then dropped altogether, the sort of truncation for which frenetic Americans in their restive colonies were already notorious.

‘Acute’ came from acus, Latin for needle, later denoting pointed things. So ‘cute’ at first meant “acute, clever, keen-witted, sharp, shrewd” according to the 1933 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which doesn’t suggest the term could describe visual appearance. This older, ‘clever’ meaning lingers in expressions like “don’t be cute”.

The newer usage was still being resisted in Britain in the mid-1930s, when a correspondent at the Daily Telegraph included ‘cute’ on his list of “bastard American expressions”, along with ‘OK’ and ‘radio’. Not only is ‘cute’ unknown before 1700, but Lorenz’s Kindchenschema is largely absent from visual arts before the 20th century. Even babies in medieval artworks are depicted as wizened miniature adults.

Cute images of the kind we’ve become accustomed to began showing up around 1900. While purists fussed, popular culture was discovering the bottomless marketability of cute things. In 1909, Rose O’Neill drew a comic strip about ‘kewpies’ (taken from ‘cupid’) – preening babylike creatures with tiny wings and huge heads, which were soon being handed out as carnival prizes and capering around Jell-O ads (to this day, Kewpie Mayonnaise, introduced in 1925, is the top-selling brand in Japan). Cuteness and modern commercialisation are intricately linked.

Still, kewpies followed the lines of actual human anatomy more or less, the way that Mickey Mouse resembled a real mouse when he first appeared on film in 1928. A half a century of fine-tuning made him much more infantile, a process naturalist Stephen Jay Gould famously described in his ‘biological homage’ to Mickey. Gouldobserved that the mischievous and sometimes violent mouse of the late 1920s morphed into the benign, bland overseer of a vast corporate empire.

Today, about $5 billion worth of Hello Kitty merchandise is sold annually

“He has assumed an ever more childlike appearance as the ratty character of Steamboat Willie became the cute and inoffensive host to a magic kingdom,” Gould writes.

In Japan, the national fascination with cuteness is traced to girls’ handwriting. Around 1970 schoolgirls in Japan began to imitate the caption text in manga comics – what was called koneko-ji, or ‘kitten writing’. By 1985, half of the girls in Japan had adopted the style, and companies marketing pencils, notebooks and other inexpensive gift items, like Sanrio, learned that these items sold better when festooned with a variety of characters, the queen of whom is Hello Kitty.

Her full name is Kitty White, and she has a family and lives in London (a fad for all things British hit Japan in the mid-1970s).

The first Hello Kitty product, a vinyl coin purse, went on sale in 1974. Today, about $5 billion worth of Hello Kitty merchandise is sold annually. In Asia, there are Hello Kitty amusement parks, restaurants and hotel suites. EVA Air, the Taiwanese airline, flies seven Hello Kitty-themed jets, which carry images of Hello Kitty and her friends not only on their hulls, but throughout their cabins, from the pillows and antimacassars to, in the bathroom, toilet paper emblazoned with Hello Kitty’s face, a detail which an observer does not need to hold a doctorate in psychology to wonder about.

“If your target is young women, it’s saturated,” says Hiroshi Nittono, Director of the Cognitive Psychophysiology Laboratory at Osaka University, talking about the market for cute products in Japan. That is certainly true. In an effort to stand out, some yuru-kyara are now made intentionally crude or semi-frightening. There is the whole realm of kimo-kawaii, or ‘gross-cute’, epitomised by Gloomy, a cuddly bear whose claws are red with the blood of his owner, whom he habitually mauls. Even Kumamon, beloved as he is, is still subject to a popular internet meme where his works are revealed to be done “For the Glory of Satan”.

 Exploring the subculture known for doll-like make-up, bonnets and petticoats.

Because the practice of putting characters on products is so prevalent, and subject to resistance, Nittono, a placid, smiling man who wears an ascot, has been working with the government on developing products that are intrinsically cute. He asks to meet, not at his apartment or at an academic office, but at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in Hiroshima, where he is finishing up an academic post.

For the past few years, Nittono and the government have been collaborating to develop cute items, a few of which are laid out on a table: a squat make-up brush, a bowl, a brazier, a few medallions and tiles. Given the mind-boggling array of cute merchandise available at shops in every mall around the world, it is not an overwhelming display of the ingenious synthesis of academe and government.

Nittono’s group is exploring how cuteness can be used as a device to draw people toward products without blatant branding.

“We use kawaii for such sentiment, feeling – kawaii things are not threatening, that is the most important part, small and not harmful,” says Nittono. “A high-quality product is somewhat distant from the customers; it looks expensive. But if you put kawaii nuance on such products, maybe such items can be more approachable.”

“If you have something cute, then you want to touch it, and then you see the quality of it,” adds Youji Yamashita, a ministry official.

Objects can also be unintentionally kawaii. With her husband Makoto, Date Tomito owns Bar Pretty, a tiny side-street tavern in Hiroshima. Six people would be crowded sitting at the bar. Makoto comes in from the market bearing a small plant in a yellow pot, a present for his wife.

“This is kawaii,” Date says, holding the plant up, elaborating. “There are lots of different meanings for kawaii: ‘cute’, ‘small’, ‘clumsy’. Some things just have a cute shape.”

She stresses something about kawaii: “It’s never bad,” she says. “I never use kawaii in an ironic way. Kawaii is kind of the best compliment around Japanese people, especially girls and women. They really like kawaii stuff and things.”

Single women in their 30s are sometimes referred to as ‘leftover Christmas cake’

Perhaps not all women. Just as Barbie’s measurements have drawn critique from feminists and scholars, so Hello Kitty has caught the interest of academics, especially in Japan, where the progress of women has lagged far behind other industrial nations. With girlishness a national obsession – Japan did not ban possession of child pornography until 2014 – and its most popular female icon lacking a mouth, if cuteness does become a separate academic field, then much credit has to be given to the feminist pushback against what Hiroto Murasawa of Osaka Shoin Women’s University calls “a mentality that breeds non-assertion”.

At the UltraSuperNew Gallery opening attended by Soma and his father, guests watch a woman in a frilly white miniskirt draped in white feathers with fuzzy leggings and an enormous yarn bow atop her head, her face painted white with a red flower on each cheek and blue dots running down her nose. She kneels in the gallery window, dabbing at a teal and yellow painting that closely resembles finger-painting writ large.

Her professional name is Gerutama, and she insists that, despite appearances, she is definitely not kawaii. She is a ‘live painter’. Some Japanese of both sexes reject kawaii – ‘fake’ is a word often used. But they are in the minority. Japanese women still live in a culture where single women in their 30s are sometimes referred to as ‘leftover Christmas cake’, meaning that after the 25th – of December for cake, birthday for women – they are past their expiration date and hard to get rid of. Nobody wants either.

Those surgical masks worn in public? Yes, to avoid colds, pollution and allergies. But ask Japanese women, and many will say that they wear them date masuku – ‘just for show’. Because they didn’t have time to put on their make-up, or because they don’t consider themselves cute enough, and they want a shield against the intrusive eyes of their crowded world. In a German study of 270,000 people in 22 countries, Japanese people came last in being pleased with how they look. More than a third of the country, 38 per cent, said they were “not at all satisfied” or “not very satisfied” with their personal appearance.

“Kawaii is sickening,” says gallery-goer Stefhen Bryan, a Jamaican writer who lived for a decade in Japan and married a Japanese woman. “Kawaii is especially babylike. If a woman acts like an adult in Japan, it’s an offence. Their self-esteem is nothing in this country. It’s all under the aegis of culture. It’s low self-esteem en masse.”

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Joshua Paul Dale pauses to remove his shoes at the entrance to his large – well, large for Tokyo – light-filled apartment in the Sendagaya section of the city. Dale, 50, a cultural studies scholar on the faculty at Tokyo Gakugei University, is the driving force for the creation of cute studies.

Neil Steinberg explores why, for certain robots, cuteness has its advantages.

Part behavioural science, part cultural studies, part biology, the field is so new it hasn’t had a conference yet.

Dale was the first to assemble academic papers into an online cute studies bibliography, a list now containing over 100 publications, in alphabetical order from C Abidin’s ‘Agentic cute (^.^): pastiching East Asian cute in Influencer commerce’ in the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture to Leslie Zebrowitz et al.’s ‘Baby talk to the babyfaced’ in the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.

Dale’s latest step has been to edit the East Asian Journal of Popular Culture’s special cuteness issue, published in April 2016. “The articles collected in this issue demonstrate the flexibility of cuteness as an analytical category, and the wide scope of the insights it generates,” he states in the introduction.

One inspiration is ‘porn studies’, now with its own quarterly

Cuteness has not yet emerged as an independent scientific field – Dale estimates that only a few dozen academics worldwide focus on the topic – but he’s hopeful that it is in the process of happening. Dale says one inspiration is ‘porn studies’, now with its own quarterly, created after academics united to focus on a topic they felt cultural researchers were neglecting out of misplaced squeamishness. A distinct field encourages exploration.

Hiroshi Nittono contributed to the East Asian Journal’s special issue. Nittono, who authored the first peer-reviewed scientific paper with ‘kawaii’ in its title, postulates a “two-layer model” of cuteness: not only does it encourage parental care of newborns, first, but once a baby moves into toddlerhood and begins interacting with the world, cuteness then promotes socialisation, a pattern Dale sees reflected in the aborning field.

“It’s interesting because it’s inherent in the concept itself,” Dale says. “Cute things relate easily to other things. It kind of breaks down the barriers a little bit between self and other, or subject and object. That means it invites work from various fields. It’s interesting to get people together from different fields talking about the same subject.”

Not that you need an academic conference to do that. Japan has uniquely embraced cuteness as a reflection of its national character, the way tea ceremonies or cherry blossoms were once held up as symbolic of Japanese nationhood. In 2009, the government appointed a trio of ‘cute ambassadors’, three women in ribbons and babydoll dresses whose task was to represent the country abroad.

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊

Humanity has always embraced household gods: not the world-creating universal deity, but minor, more personal allies to soften what can be a harsh and lonely life. Not everyone has the friends they deserve or the baby they’d cherish. Often people of both sexes are alone in the world.

Teddy bears exist because the night is dark and long and at some point your parents have to go to bed and leave you. There is real comfort in cuteness.

“Filling in an emotional need is exactly where kawaii plays a significant role,” writes Christine R Yano, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the author of Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s trek across the Pacific.

“Even in America, journalist Nicholas Kristof has written of an ‘empathy gap’ in today’s society,” states Yano. “He points to the place of objects that may be considered promoters of ‘happiness’, ‘solace’, ‘comfort’. When a society needs to heal, it seeks comfort in the familiar. And often the familiar may reside in ‘cute’. Witness the use of teddy bears as sources of comfort for firefighters in the wake of NYC’s 9-11. So I see kawaii things as holding the potential as empathy generators.”

Kumamon is a power station of empathy generation. In the weeks after the Kumamoto earthquake, Kumamon was so necessary that in his absence his fans simply conjured him up themselves, independently, as an object of sympathy, a tireless saviour, an obvious hero.

Three weeks after the 14 April earthquake, Kumamon visited the convention hall of the hard-hit town of Mashiki, where residents were still sleeping in their cars for protection as 1,200 tremors continued to rumble across the area. The visit was reported on TV and in the papers as news, as if a long-sought survivor had stumbled out of the wreckage alive.

The children, many of whom had lost their homes in the earthquake, flocked around him, squealing, hugging, taking pictures. Their friend had returned.

This article first appeared on Mosaic and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.

Featured image: Pixabay/WB Mag

[blustersquall]

a...work in progress for gladio and isla, that is probably gonna get smutty at some point. or as smutty as my shit gets. like, when my brain starts to work again. i’m super tired rn. enjoy this non proof read wip.

established friendship, like... just before the events of ffxv/kingsglaive and where gladio and isla have been friends for about a year.

taglets: @ffxvhoe @mp938368 [again i hope that’s okay]

It was never Isla’s intention for Gladio to stay the night.

She had a rule after all, no guys in her place, just in case she needed a safe space if things went bad. Though, that rule was really only made to apply to men she was in a relationship with. She wasn’t in a relationship with Gladio. They were friends. If she was totally frank, he was probably her closest male friend, ever. So, him staying over when it got past midnight and with the rain utterly torrential was nothing. Just a friendly gesture.

It didn’t matter that they’d shared her bed. Or that she was attracted to him. Had been attracted to him since the first time he walked into her bar. It didn’t matter that her attraction to him had only grown over time, and she was utterly frustrated with how oblivious he was to it. There were only so many signs a woman could throw out there, without writing the obvious down. Or simply throwing herself at a man.

Which she had been tempted to do.

On more than one occasion.

Still, there he was. Taking up three quarters of her bed with his height and size, all but crushing her against the wall. So-much-so she couldn’t even reach across to check the time on her phone because it would mean disturbing him.

She supposed there were worse places to be. Worse people to be sharing a bed with and waking up beside. And, she would be lying if she said she hadn’t daydreamed about it.

He snored like a beast. More that once Isla was sure she felt the bed frame shake, but it was more hilarious that annoying. At last she had found something about him that was a flaw. Something she could tease him endlessly about. Though, she doubted something as stupid as snoring would bother him in the least. He was hot, too. Not just visually, but his body temperature was through the roof. Isla didn’t even need a blanket with him sleeping beside her. He was a human heater.

Lying on her side, she leaned up, shifting to be able to lie on her front and up on her forearms. Her movement didn’t seem to disturb him and it gave her a moment to observe him from a different, higher angle.

Gladio knew how beautiful he was. And he was beautiful, but Isla had never really had the chance to examine him up close before. Not without him talking and ruining the moment. Now, she could. And she saw a softer side of him that she rarely saw. Occasionally, it appeared. The small, gentle smile there, a warm, affectionate gaze there, but those were few and far between. Now, as he slept, the softness was all across his face, in his cheeks, and the relaxed parting of his full lips. In the way his eyes were closed and his eyelashes fanned across his cheekbones. There were no lines marring his forehead. There was no frown in his expression, no harshness.

It betrayed his youth. He was the next Shield of the King, and that came with an abundance of responsibilities already. Too many for someone not even twenty-five, but Gladio shouldered them all and rarely complained. Here and now, he looked like any other young man, sleeping soundly and dreaming… Isla hoped he was dreaming something pleasant.

She examined the pattern of his tattoo. The way the feathers were so intricately layered and detailed over his arms and his shoulders before they disappeared onto his back. Each feather was individually inked, no single one the same as any other. The bird’s face on his chest moved with his breaths, making it seem as though the beak was opening and closing ever-so-subtly. Isla watched it for a while, watched him and listened, revelling in this sanctuary and the peace it provided. Peace that would soo be disturbed as they would each have to begin the day,

Gladio, especially, needed to make a move. He was meant to be accompanying the Prince on a trip to Altissia for his wedding and there was no way he could be late for that.

Isla knew she would have to wake him herself and reluctantly set about the task. She plucked one of her small braids between her thumb and forefinger, gripping with the tuft of hair poking out from the hair tie. She tickled the end of Gladio’s nose, smirking as he grunted ad wafted a hand over his face in a vague attempt to get rid of the annoyance.

“C’mon, Wonder Boy,” Isla murmured, brushing her hair over his top lip, “time to wake up. You can’t leave the Prince waiting…”

“Mmph,” Gladio waved his hand again, grunting and his voice rumbling an incoherant excuse that was simply a moan. He opened one eye a little, closed it, and rolled over, facing Isla. Without opening his eyes again, he took hold of her hand – the one gripping her small braid – and led it back to drape over his shoulder and behind him. Isla toppled onto her side, giggling and allowing Gladio to move her. She began to twist her fingers around his hair, and he left his top arm lying lazily over her hip, the tips of his fingers drawing abstract shapes.

“Not a morning person?” Isla asked.

Another grunted response. Gladio moved closer, and instinctively Isla shifted her legs to accomdate his closeness, sliding her top leg between his and inching towards him. They were nose-to-nose. Isla could feel the breaths he expelled against her mouth. She didn’t think they’d ever been as close as this before.

“Gladio,” Isla pushed again, “you have to get up.”

“Tryin’ t’get rid of me?” grumbled Gladio, eyes half-opening. He looked at her blearily from beneath heavily hooded eyelids. His gaze took several seconds to focus, and when it did, his expression softened from mild annoyance from being awoken, and discomfort from the sunlight, to warmth and genuine affection. Isla’s stomach twisted uncomfortably tight in her gut, and she was sure if she was standing her legs would have given way. “G’mornin’…” Gladio smiled, tilting his head back a little to press a peck to the end of her nose. He spread his hand across her back, guiding her closer to him so they were all but chest-to-chest – the only obstacle between them being Isla’s arm, curled up against her body and the mattress.

“Hey,” Isla smiled. She tried not to let the kiss on her nose break her focus. Nor the sweetness in his expression. The way he stroked her back was not in the least bit distracting. Neither was the smell of him now on her pillow, in her sheets, and so close she could taste it on her tongue.

“Hey…” mumbled Gladio, wearing a sleepy smile. Isla hated how he could be as adorable as he was, sometimes. Especially when she needed to be kicking him out of bed and starting the day. They both needed to start the day. Exhaling deeply, Gladio closed his eyes and relaxed back into the tempting lull of sleep. He brushed his fingers along Isla’s spine and up towards the nape of her neck, tickling the bare flesh he found with a delicate touch she found surprising for a man with hands as large as his. Isla didn’t say anything in response, selfishly wanting to spend the time with her bedfellow. To be as close as possible before he left for… however long he was leaving. After all, even he didn’t know. They could text, and call – but it wouldn’t be the same.

After a few minutes of soft touches and silence broken only by their breathing, the birds outside, and the occasional car chuntering by, Gladio spoke again, “this is nice.” His eyes still closed, Isla looked at him quizzically, “I could get used to this.”

“Sleeping in?” asked Isla.

“Waking up. With you.” Gladio’s eyes slipped open and his warm copper eyes met hers, “I could get used to waking up with you.”

Dozens of words and phrases jammed themselves onto Isla’s tongue and into her head, battling to be said. Several reactions of what she should do or how she should behave in response to a comment so touching and intimate flooded her senses, yet none of them took. Isla was stone. Stunned and her voice was gone. Not that it mattered as Gladio grew closer, centimetre by centimetre, tilting his head as much as the pillows would allow, brushing the end of her nose with his as if questioning if she was alright, if his closeness was allowed, and if she was giving permission for him to kiss her; because that was what he was about to do. He was about to kiss her, and he was going to let him. She was going to let him, and kiss him back and possibly not allow him to leave her bed if he did. She was going to—

Her thoughts stopped, broken by the loud, obnoxious tone of a phone alarm. Blinking in confusion, Isla saw the source of the noise was Gladio’s phone on her bedside table. Without a word, Gladio rolled over to grab it, tapped a button, and threw his phone unceremoniously across her apartment in vague direction. The chiming stopped. Gladio rolled back into his previous position, facing her, and before Isla could question him for the time, his mouth was on hers.

Isla’s mind went blank. 

Every thought, every word, every question and feeling fleeing and being replaced by one, all consuming thing: Gladio. He cupped her jaw, thumb resting in the hollow under her chin, while his fingers gentle nestled into her hair. His lips, rough on hers, moved in tandem, meeting ever subtle change of her mouth, every little addition of pressure. Warmth simmering in Isla’s chest and belly erupted into a bubbling, nervous heat and she suddenly didn’t care that he needed to go to the Citadel to meet with the Prince and begin the trip to Altissia. She didn’t care that she was being selfish, and keeping him from his sacred duty. She didn’t care that this was coming out of no where, and probably the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. 

All that mattered was that he was there. He was with her, real, and present, and kissing her.

tbc at some point because fuckin’ tiiiiirrrrredddddd (couples waking up together is my weakness)