#tried to add links for most things but stuff from before 2017 or so is impossible to find oh well

[concorp]

drop the list?

pht alright here we go

starting with joe since there’s the most there. ive been a member of his patreon community for three years now, and it was a lot smaller when i originally joined to the point that id say pretty much all of us still there who were there back then know him on a personal level now. he’s had me as a guest on four streams (paid btw! since he refuses to accept any volunteer work in a large majority of situations) one of which was made into a hermitcraft episode. all of these are in my streams playlist if you wanna check them out. ive also met him irl twice, both times at pax unplugged in different years.

ive had my art featured by several of the hermits, most notable of which was false using my art for her mayor poster in season 7. keralis also follows me on twitter but i have never once actually interacted with him.

im also the reason the hermits all just looked at tumblr during a meeting one time which caused a whole other cascade of events. (cleo making a tumblr and all that followed, xisuma twitter apology, etc.) i have not and will not learn my lesson about mentioning things in joes vicinity.

im either friends, mutuals, or at least have a direct line of communication with a majority of the members of truly bedrock. i made lyarrah’s profile picture and db’s twitch emotes, designed official merch for tb, and have done some other miscellaneous commissions for current and former members.

i mentioned youcube in the tags of that other post- when i was there i gave some art to antvenom of him and his then gf, which months later he did an irl video that showed he’d hung the art in his office. i posted about it on twitter and he replied saying he knew it’d be excited about it it was so sweet 🥺

i used to be super involved in omgchad’s community. we did weekly events on his twitch subscriber server that he’d play through on stream. i was lead organizer for one and contributed to more of them than i could count. also met him irl once.

likes, retweets and replies from mcyts are legitimately so common for me at this point that it sometimes surprises me when i see other people get excited about them. don’t get me wrong they still make me happy but it’s not like. incredible excitement and i don’t even bother saying anything about them to anyone unless it’s someone really big that id never gotten a notice from before. only one id consider even noteworthy enough to mention specifically here was grian and mumbo both complementing the cosplay of them my brother and i threw together in less than a day. which drives me crazy because shortly before then id spent months working on an animation of them that i still dont think either of them have ever seen 😅

lastly. achievement hunter don’t count as mcyts imo. but steffie (their social media manager) invited a group of us fan artists to tour rooster teeth back in 2018 and that was super cool.

there’s very likely several things im missing here as well but this isn’t something i meticulously keep track of. this took an hour to write hope you enjoyed.

[themadauthorshatter]

Just because Charles is home safe, doesn't mean this series is over😉😁

Super quick recap: While Galeforce's plan kicks into high gear, Henry further chips away at Charles, seemingly becoming succesful in coveting the pilot. Despite his efforts, Charles manages to escape, with help from Galeforce and a hair's width successful plan.

For much more context, and seeing that glorious action, escape scene that was so expertly written it deserved an Oscar (sarcasim), be sure the check the links provided:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4 & extention/revision

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

With all that said and done, let's go check on Charles!!

We find our friend sleeping on a really bed for the first time in forever, resting on his side, the one where he got grazed not the one with broken ribs and gash.

We can finally tell it's morning, too, because the sun is up, the birds are singing, and there's the rustling of trees outside as well.

Just as he starts to get a little fitful, hand reaches out to ruffle Charles's hair. He doesn't know who it is, exactly, but when he thinks he sees Henry, he wakes up INSTANTLY out of sheer panic, jolting off his side to sit up and back away as much as he can.

SYKE!

It's just Galeforce, who sits in a chair and holds up his hands. "Easy, son. Just me. You're alright."

Charles looks around and realizes where they are:

A log cabin in the woods(and not the murder-y kind either) that's cozy AF and is close to a river. There are glass windows, but they're not huge, everything has a very woods-punk to it, like antler lamps a few tapestries, and other stuff like that.

"Where are we?"

"Out of the city. It's better you stay low for a little while, until we know you're safe."

Charles relaxes and rubs his ear, which is bandaged; he has his ear muffs, but they're resting on the bedside table.

"How... How long was I out for?"

"Since we got you out. About two days. Here," Galeforce says as he passes a plate to Charles, as well as some ADD medicine(Turns out Galeforce is a good dad and stays up to date on what Charles needs.)"You look like you could use these."

Charles smiles and accepts his plate, eggs, sausage, and bacon(PROTEIN GAINS!!), and the medicine. "Thanks."

Charles indeed starts eating, and takes his meds, and it gives Galeforce a clear view of Charles's arms, wrists, and other injuries(he's wearing a thin-ish t-shirt), including some burns on his wrists from where he was electrocuted.

He also sees Charles tense up and freeze as he cuts up some eggs. It's only for a second, but Galeforce still catches it.

"Charelie, what'd they do to you?"

Charles is silent for a second before continuing to eat some breakfast. "A lot," he replies under his breath after eating.

"I'm sorry, General."

Galeforce gives Charles a confused look before Charles continues.

"He got the sapphire and the Captain got injured. And-"

Galeforce sets a hand on Charles's shoulder, now giving him a small smile.

"Canterbury's fine, just like everyone else. The sapphire's far away from here. Shipped it off a month ago. Trust me, Henry would have to be out of his mind to try getting it back."

Charles is so surprised to hear this, exhaling shakily, tears in his eyes.

Galeforce's smile remains as he pulls Charles close until the two are hugging, Charles semi-relaxing in the contact.

But there's still one thing on Charles's mind.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

The two pull away, that smile on Galeforce's face now replaced with confusion. "Tell you what?"

Charles has a quick moment of, 'Do I really wnat to do this?' before remembering Henry's smug face and clenching a fist.

"My parents. Why didn't you tell me about them?"

Galeforce pulls Charles close again, but they don't hug this time.

"They didn't get a chance to. Never said I could either," Galeforce explains. "Regardless, Charlie, they loved you more than they loved each other. Hell, they loved you more than me."

Charles stares at Galeforce with wide eyes, on the virge of tears.

"Trust me, son. I would've told you, even if they didn't want me to."

"When?"

Galeforce shrugs and gives a slight chuckle. "Whenever you asked. For the youngest pilot, you're a little..."

Galeforce trails off and gives a 50/50 sigm with his hand, which Charles straightens at.

"Hey!" Charles half-laughs.

Galefirce laughs with him before sighing. "Regardless, once all this is over, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, alright?"

The two hug again for real this time, Galeforce glad to have his son home and Charles glad to be home, relaxing fully now that he's back.

Well, at least until we cut to the orbital station.

Henry is still pissed at the fact that not only did they get duped, but now Charles is somewhere back on Earth.

He knows Charles probably isn't at his house, because Henry has the file that shows his address, at the base, or at The Wall, considering what happened at both locations.

He contemplates it all while holding the bottle of pills he'd taken from Charles so long ago before shouting and throwing the bottle at the cork board.

Oh, yeah, and the file was updated in 2017, and it's 2020 now, in our time-line.

So, yeah, Henry's a little pissed off at the moment, and the glass sapphire prank from the government did not make it any better.

Regardless, Henry groans and plops down in his chair, running a hand through his hair.

He reads through Charles's file again, this time looking for Charles's phone number again, trying to find a way to contact Charles again, find and bring him back by whatever means necessary.

Best way to do that is by going to Charles's home address, but that might be a trap, maybe go to the base, but, again, it might be a trap, so now Henry's caught in a spiral.

He rests his head against his arms, groaning again.

Doesn't know how(yet), but he's going to find Charles.

That's when he gets an idea and remembers a gold mine that just finished mining and putting away some gold.

BACK TO CHARLES!

It's been a couple days now and he's having a lovely time at the cabin, sitting on the porch, which has a top on it to block the sun, and drinking some tea, enjoying the wind, water, sun, and everything he's missed while captuve in the orbital station.

That's when he hears something and races inside, pulling his tea in, as well.

Charles ducks behind the island counter and grabs for a gun under the table, sneaking toward the door and hiding behind the wall.

The door opens and someone walks in, loudly, at first, before slowing down, creeping as well, with two other footsteps following.

Charles swings out, ready to shoot, but is glomped by Calvin and Konrad, who could not care less he was about to shoot them.

"Charles! You're back!"

"We thought you died!"

"He didn't die. Don't be stupid," Calvin snarks at Konrad.

"I know he didn't, but you never know!"

"Alright, you two," Rupert sighs. "Let him breathe for a second."

The twins reluctantly let Charles go and Charles sets his gun down as his gaze good to Rupert, who smirks and holds his arms open.

"What? Forgot your best friend?"

Charles gasps as his eyes widen.

From his perspective Rupert turns into Henry, who lowers his arms to extend a hand to Charles.

Charles backs away from him, muttering, "No. Not here. How did you get here?"

"Charles?"

Calvin puts a hand on Charles's shoulder and Charles jumps out of his skin, snapping back into reality.

Both twins look very confused, but Rupert's confusion turns into solemn understanding and then to barely contained anger.

"They really messed you up out there, didn't they?"

Charles tries to form words, stammering as he turns to the twins and Rupert, but Rupert holds his shoulders.

"Don't worry. You're staying on Earth, from now on."

Charles gulps and nods. "Yeah." That's when Charles takes a look at the twins and Rupert. "What... are you guys doing here, anyway?"

Calvin and Konrad exchange a small smile and pull Charles inside by the hand, not the wrist because Galeforce gave them a heads up.

"Day off! We're babysitting you, for a little while."

Before Charles can fully protest, Rupert cheekily ruffles his hair.

"General's orders, Charlie. Besides, you need to tell us how you got this place, because we got lost the times looking for it."

All three stop their toying around when Charles's shoulders start shaking and his breathing becomes uneven.

"Charles?"

Charles looks up at all three of them, smiling as he cries. "S-sorry. I guess... I really missed you guys."

The twins smile back and Rupert sl8ngs an arm over Charles's shoulders.

"Dammit, don't get me crying, too."

All four walk further inside, Charles going back to lock the door.

That's when he notices the pocket of his coat, the one he'd been captured in, and digs inside it, blood going frigid at what he finds.

There are a bunch of pictures held together by a paperclip, all that are from a security camera in Charles's cell, one of a few. There's a few of Charles sleeping in his restraints, some of him sitting on the floor and staring out the window, some of him right when he's been punched and kicked, electrocuted, wearing the suit from dinner, and, most horrifying, Henry holding and kissing him, even posing with Charles while he's asleep gagged with the duct tape.

Charles's hands tremble as he flips through them, completely unable to breathe.

When did he take these!?

"Yo! Charlie! You coming or what!?" Konrad calls.

Charles quickly hides the pictures away in his pants pocket and rejoins them, pale and trying to hold it together.

Thankfully, Rupert is the one who notices first.

"You alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Charles shakes his head and nods. "Yeah, I... I'm fine."

Silly, Charles. Rupert can tell when he's lying, but won't push him; goodness knows Eupert and the twins have done that enough.

"Relax," Calvin says. "They're not goning to come here. Heard there was a raid going on at some mine a state over."

"Yeah, and if we had a hard time coming here, the toppats might, too," Konrad says as he tries to figure out the coffee machine.

I can think of a few things, Charles thinks as he helps out Konrad.

Good thing Charles is this on edge because we cut to Charles's house as the door opens, the lock having been picked open.

Henry walks inside, alone, and quickly takes his shoes off to hide any evidence he was inside as he looks around.

He moves very carefully, noting how everything is decently organized, not meticulous, but everything is where it should be.

Henry smirks at all of it, but spots the plants Charles has around, both wire and real, said real ones being a little droopy and sad.

He quickly picks up a small pitcher and gives the plants a drink, because he's a nice friend(NOT!!!).

He then continues exploring, checking out the bathroom, the laundry room, and even Charles's room, which he's much more 'thorough' with.

And by thorough, I mean he inspects the bed, the closet and all that freaky stalker stuff that just screams, "WE'RE NOT DEALING WITH GOOD GUY HENRY! THAT'S FOR NEXT TIME!"

Regardless, Henry lies down on Charles's bed, enjoying the scent of Charles(because it's freaky) when a phone rings, one of those wall house phones that connects to everything amd Henry immediately gets up to check it out.

Turns out someone's calling to check on Charles, who is not home at the moment.

Thinking quickly, Henry pickup the phone and punches in a number.

We return to Charles as he sits carefully on the couch with Rupert and the twins as they watch a comedy.

The phone rings and Charles jumps to answer it. "Hello?"

When there's no response, Charles gulps.

"Who is this?"

"Nice to hear from you, Charles. Miss me?"

Charles is dead silent as his eyes go wide as saucers.

He's desperately hoping that what he's hearing is just his mind playing tricks on him, maybe just his mind attacking him while he's listening to someone else, but Henry clears that right up:

"Charles? Can you hear me? Did you gwt the pictures I sent you?"

Charles instantly hangs up the phone, turns it off, and backs away, falling down as it very quickly becomes hard to breathe and he starts hyperventilating.

Thank goodness the twins and Rupert hear this and rush over to him.

"Charles? Hey, take a breath. You're alright," Calvin tries not to yell.

Charles pushes them back and pushes himself against a cabinet that's close to the floor, curling into himself as he holds onto his hair.

"I can't. No. No, no, no, no, no, I can't! I can't go back there! I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't!"

"What do you mean?" Rupert asks. "What's wrong?"

Charles takes a breath and gulps before speaking again. "He knows. He-he knows I'm here! He's going to take me back! He-he'll bring me back, I know he will!" Charles holds his head against his knees and groans loudly. "Why didn't I just shoot him!? I should've shot him, then none of this would've happened! Why didn't I just-"

Rupert holds Charles's shoulders and lightly taps on his shoulders to get his attention. "Charles? Hey, come on, look at me."

Charles's breath hitches before he turns his gaze to Rupert, and gives him a clear view of just how messed up Charles really is after this whole ordeal.

Calvin and Konrad, however, figure out what's up.

"Henry's here? Like, on Earth? Right now?"

Charles nods.

"But isn't the clan heading for the gold mine? That's where... we're waiting for them."

Charles's eyes dart from the twins to Rupert.

"He knows," Charles murmurs to himself. "He knows where-"

"Easy," Rupert says. "You're not going to be alone this time."

Charles nods again and Rupert helps him to his feet.

Charles, however, is wearing his thinking cap.

If Henry wants Charles, so be it.

CUT TO THE MINE!

The Toppats are on their way to get themselves some gold, led by Ellie, but are ambushed by the Government, and a very proud Galeforce.

"Evening, Ellie."

Ellie groans and holds her hands up, gesturing for the rest to do the same.

"You've got us, General. Well done. You arrested a small group of the Toppat Clan."

There's something very off about Ellie's words, and Galeforce catches it instantly, even as Ellie is put in cuffs and pulled away.

"Funny how Henry isn't here. Wonder where he went?" Ellie calls as she's hauled away.

Galeforce watches the Toppat members get put in a truck that is going to be sent to The Wall.

That's when it clicks, and we cut back to Charles, who's tense and trying to sit still until he stands up.

"Where you going?" Rupert asks, ever the lovely best friend.

"Just getting some water, don't worry," Charles replies with a smile.

Rupert eyes him before turnung back to the movie they're watching.

Charles takes this opportunity to pick up his phone and walk outside, dialing the number Henry used to call him with; the creep is probably still at his house.

Good thing I bring up Henry, because he is indeed resting on the couch as the phone rings.

He gets up and answers the phone, smirking at seeing Charles's number.

"You called?"

Charles gulps and clears his throat.

"What... Where do you want to meet?"

Henry's smirk widens. "I knew you missed me."

[make-me-imagine]

⚡13 Days of Halloween: Day 7

Prompt: ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ 

Requested by: @spuffyfan394

Pairing: Castiel x Reader

Gender: Neutral        Words: 1,603

Triggers: None        Genre: Casual + a little fluff

Supernatural Taglist: @kaashi​ 

Note: Halloween Theme - 4/10; based around Halloween, no real strict Halloween theme. I wanted so badly to make this spooky but for the life of me I could not come up with anything. So this is what I got. Why am I so bad at making things Halloween themed? like, is it really that hard? lol

If you’d like to check out 2019 and 2018′s 13 Days of Halloween, as well as my 2017 general Halloween/Fall stuff here are the links: x2017x, x2018x & x2019x

You hummed to yourself as you wandered through the bunker, it was a dark and stormy night, the lights flickered occasionally as lightning struck nearby, thunder rumbling trough the bunker.

Pausing in your step as you stared up towards the bunker roof, the walls and floors seeming to vibrate as the thunder roared, slowly rumbling on, getting quieter and quieter. 

Usually you found storms comforting or even exciting, but tonight it was different. Sam and Dean were gone, and you were alone. The bunker was big, and you kept getting the feeling that you weren’t alone. You figured it was just your own mind tricking you, causing you to exaggerate, like when you are watching a scary movie and you get the feeling someone is in your house when you know there isn’t. 

It certainly didn’t help that you had made the decision to decorate the bunker with Halloween decorations. Various decorations in the corners of the room catching your eye, end up only being fake skeletons or masks. Your overactive brain was simply pumping unwanted adrenaline through you.  

So, trying to ignore it, you focused on the rain, and the fact that Sam and Dean should be back soon. Hopefully. Just as you were sitting down at the kitchen counter, you heard a distant bang. You stopped, staring in the direction of the noise. Was that thunder? No. It sounded like it was in the bunker. Maybe something fell over? You had been rearranging one of the storage rooms earlier. That was probably it. 

Even as you ran through the possibilities that it was nothing, you moved to a nearby case, opening it and taking out one of your guns. Just in case. It is probably nothing after all. 

Hearing another sound within the bunker, your breath hitched in your throat, you realized it wasn’t something falling over, but a door opening and closing. Slowly walking down the hall, your hand gripped around the gun. Peering around a corner you see a shadow quickly disappearing around the end of the hall. 

Silently creeping down the hall, now knowing full well there was someone here, you were prepared to fight. Stopping just at the corner, you hear a door open, you recognized the area as your bedroom door. Hearing footsteps approaching your direction again you quickly round the corner, gun raised, ready to fight. 

Seeing the figure in front of you, you gasped out in surprise, just as the figure did as well. Quickly lowering your gun you audibly sighed out “Cas! Oh my God, you scared the shit out of me”

Castiel lowered his hands, which he had quickly raised in defense when you had rounded the corner. Adjusting his stance, he breathed out in relief as well “I apologize, I should have said something, but I didn’t see anyone here, so I was looking around for you, or Sam and Dean” he seemed to quickly add on Sam and Deans names, which he hoped went unnoticed by you. 

You took a deep breath as you turned to walk back into the living room “Sam and Dean are finishing up a case a couple towns over, they should be back later tonight” Cas nodded, though unseen by you, as he followed you. The sound of thunder echoing through the bunker again. 

As you entered the main room Castiel looked around the bunker at the various decorations “Ah, yes, Halloween is soon isn’t it?” 

You looked back at him, seeing him checking out the decoration “Yup” you watched him for a moment before turning away from him, having realized you were staring. 

You and Castiel had known each other for a few years now, only having grown close in the recent year. You had developed feelings for him, and sometimes you thought he might have for you, but other times he seemed indifferent. 

“Have you ever celebrated?” you asked him

“No, but I have observed various cultures interpretation of the Holiday over the last few hundred years” he commented, as if it was the most normal thing to do.

You smiled “Sounds interesting, I’m sure you’d seen a lot of unique things over the years” 

You fell into a casual conversation with Castiel as he talked about various Halloween traditions he has seen. The storm raging on outside was now pushed to the back of your mind. But as the wind grew much stronger, the trees closer to the bunker began swaying forcefully, the branches smacking into the windows. 

As you tried to ignore it by talking with Cas, there was a sudden crashing down as glass crashed to the floor. You and Cas both jumped in surprise at the sound. Quickly running towards the sound and looking up, you see that a tree branch smacked into one of the old windows upstairs hard enough to break it. 

“Shit!” you yelled as you ran towards the storage room, Castiel following. 

He watched as you pulled an old tarp from the shelf as well as some duct tape, before running past him. Running up the stairs and towards the window, seeing that the broken glass was higher up you cursed under your breath as the rain spattered in through the window. Turning at a clanging sound, you see Castiel approaching with two chairs. Setting them down, you both climbed up on the chairs, hanging the tarp and taping it to the walls. 

Finally managing to do so, even with the tarp flapping in the wind, you and Cas both stepped down from the chair. Looking at each other, you chuckled realizing you were both now soaked from the rain. Cas smiled at your amusement, watching as you looked back up at the window “Dean’s gonna be pissed” 

Cas looked at the window as well “At least he can’t blame you”

You nodded in agreement before turning towards him again, hesitating as you saw Castiel reaching towards you, gently he touched the side of your face, before pulling away a small leaf that must have blown in with the rain “Oh, thanks” ignoring the burning you felt on your face from the interaction you cleared your throat before turning away “Let me get you some dry clothes” Castiel smiled lightly as he watched you rush away, knowing full well what he just did, and seeing how it affected you. 

Now sitting in the main room of the bunker in dry clothes, Castiel took a sip of the cocoa you had made him “Thank you for the hot chocolate” 

You smiled at him, sitting down next to him, now in your own comfy clothes “You’re welcome” as an echoing boom of thunder rang out, you looked up towards the sound before sighing “As much as I love rain, I wish this storm would pass already” 

Cas nodded, also looking up “The thunder is less consistent now, I believe it is beginning to pass” 

Taking a sip of your cocoa, you considered something before looking at Cas, who was already looking at you. Though slightly surprised by that, you continued with your though “Would, uh, would you like to celebrate Halloween with us this year?” you asked somewhat shyly. 

Cas smiled at the invitation “I would be honored” 

You smiled at his choice of words “We are planning a Halloween movie marathon, complete with a sickening amount of candy” 

“Then it will be a new experience to add to my list” 

“Good” you smiled at him before looking down into your cocoa “Oh, I was wondering Cas, you never said what you actually came her for tonight” looking up you met his eyes, which held an unusual emotion behind them. 

He seemed to hesitate for a second, clearing his throat and looking away, suddenly becoming nervous “What is it Cas?” 

Thinking for a second, he met your eyes again “I, already knew Sam and Dean were on a case” seeing your quizzical look he continued “And, I knew it was very stormy here tonight, and, I just, uh, I knew I would feel better knowing you weren’t left alone.”

As you watched him nervously explain his reasoning, a smile formed on your face “So you wanted to make sure I was okay?” 

“Uh, yes” he looked up, and upon seeing the smile on your face, he seemed to relax “I know you can take care of yourself, but, I..worry, about you”

“That’s very sweet Cas. I’m glad you came. Thank you” 

Your eyes met again, something seemed to click in both of you, as you understood where each of you stood. The tension growing between your gazes was broken when the front door to the bunker swung open, causing both you and Cas to jump in surprise. 

“Damn storm!” you heard Dean yell out as he and Sam rushed into the bunker, now wet from the rain. 

As Sam and Dean entered they saw you and Cas resting on the couch “Well don’t you two look comfy” Dean commented as he walked past,

Sam smirking at his annoyed brother. “You guys alright?” you asked.

“I’m fine, but, uh, a tree branch fell and smashed the back window of the impala” he commented.

“Oh. Well. Then he certainly isn’t going to be happy about the window here” you commented, looking over at Cas.

“What window?”

Suddenly from the other side of the bunker Deans voice echoed “Aw, what the hell man!” 

“Same thing happened upstairs” you said to Sam who just sighed out as he turned and walked towards Deans curses. 

Turning you looked at Cas who was smiling fondly at you “Told you he’d be pissed.”

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

Not sure if I like this one or not but whatever lol, hope you guys do.

If you’d like to be added to a taglist, let me know! :)

Please consider reblogging~ :) Comments and Likes are highly appreciated as well!~~

[callboxkat]

Statement of Patton Sanders

Author’s note: Anon, this is probably not what you meant, but, hey! Here you go!

Summary: Statement of Patton Sanders regarding a series of accidents. Statement recorded live from subject, February 7th, 2021, by Logan Sanders—no relation—Head Archivist of The Magnus Institute, London.

(Necessary bg info: The Magnus Institute is an organization that takes and investigates statements about paranormal experiences. Jurgen Leitner is a character who collected books with supernatural powers.)

Warnings: This is a The Magnus Archives AU, so if you’ve listened to that you should know what to expect. Body horror (cut off fingers, broken neck), nondescriptive vomiting, blood mention, food mention. Child abuse, sort of. It's in a story in this story. No character death or villain characters.

Word Count: 3289

Original prompt:

Writing Masterpost!

Ao3 Link

@badthingshappenbingo​

...

“Hey, we have the same glasses.”

“Yes, I suppose we do—Do you need help with the chair? Oh, you’ve got it.”

Patton and the other man sat down on opposite sides of a desk. He was a weary-looking, bespectacled man who couldn’t have been much different in age from himself, although slivers of premature gray were visible in his hair.

The man—an archivist, he’d introduced himself as—leaned forward to turn on a tape recorder. It seemed a little old-fashioned, but it certainly did fit in with the overall vibe of the place (recording on a laptop would have probably felt out of place), and Patton didn’t mind. This would be much easier than hand-writing his entire statement.

The archivist cleared his throat. “Statement of Patton Sanders regarding a series of accidents. Statement recorded live from subject, February 6th, 2021, by Logan Sanders—no relation—Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

Patton shifted in his seat. The archivist sat across him, looking at him expectantly. The tape recorder lay innocently on the desk between them, the tape inside slowly turning with a quiet tick. They sat in the basement of the oft-mocked Magnus Institute. They were in an office, but even here the walls were lined with bookcases, stacked with boxes upon boxes, each of them, it appeared, filled to the brim with folders, or with cassette tapes. Other peoples’ statements, presumably. Patton wasn’t sure how he felt about that. His story just being one of hundreds more, maybe thousands, in those boxes.

“Do I just… start?” he asked.

The archivist adjusted his glasses. “Yes, please.”

He nodded, swallowed, and even before he’d fully decided where to begin, he spoke. The words came surprisingly easily.

“I used to work at a library in my home town, back in the US. It’s a little town in Florida, almost at the border with Georgia, pretty near the coast. I don’t… I don’t work there anymore, of course. But at the time—this was about three years ago, back in 2017—I was there most days.

“One day we got this book in the return bin. It was weird. Not one of ours. It didn’t have a title that I could see, but there was a label on the inside cover. It was a bit smudged, but the last name was Leitner. I don’t know if it belonged to them, or if that was the author… I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, I guess.”

He noticed that the archivist suddenly seemed very interested in what he was saying, even leaning forward to hear.

“I was about to move the book over to the donations bin—I figured that’s what it was, you know, just a book somebody didn’t want, and decided to give to us rather than throw away, and got the wrong bin by mistake. But… I don’t know. Something about it just drew me in. I have no idea what; usually I go more for cookbooks, or crafts stuff, or um, lighter fiction. Not… that.”

He tried for a weak smile, but the archivist didn’t seem open to humor. Which Patton have once found awkward, but now it was almost a relief. He wasn’t sure how to make his story funny.

“So I took it out of the return bin, and I put it on my desk, instead. I was busy right then, but when I had a free moment, I sat down to take a look at it. It was old and worn, and like I said, there was no title. But it had this… weird feeling to it. Something off about it. I didn’t like it at all. But it was like I had to open it.

Patton sighed, glancing away. Suddenly, he felt on the edge of tears.

“And I made the biggest mistake of my life, and I opened that book.

“It was a story about a child who keeps refusing to do his chores. His mom would give him things to do, and the kid would say, ‘Yes, I’ll do them!’ but then as soon as the mom leaves, he’d drop the broom or whatever and run off to play with his toys instead. And as time goes on the mom gets more and more tired of this, because she has to do all the chores he doesn’t want to do.

“So, she takes him aside, and tells him sternly that he has to do his chores, or there would be consequences. And of course, he doesn’t listen, because he’s a kid.

“So the next day, takes him aside again, and tells him again to do his chores, and he continues not to. And it continues like that for ten days. But on the tenth day, the mom trips on the broom that the kid left in the middle of the floor, and she hurts herself. Very, um… very badly. She… breaks her neck. But she gets up off the floor, and her neck is all… it’s bent at a 90 degree angle. And there’s blood on the floor. I remember that page very vividly. Most of the book was in black ink, with some—” He made a face, “—illustrations. In the picture on that page, the blood was red.

“So, the mom… she goes to the kid, her neck all wrong, and she tells him, ‘You’re going to clean until your fingers fall off! Which… he does. She makes him clean, and clean, and clean. He has to scrub the floor, and when he finishes, she makes him start all over again, and again, and again. And, one by one, his fingers just… fall off.”

Patton was silent for a moment.

“On the last page of the book, there was a handprint. It wasn’t printed, you know, with ink. It was stuck in with a dark substance. I like to think maybe it was chocolate or something… but I doubt it. The weirdest thing about it, though, was that it had no fingers.

“When I closed that awful thing, I looked up, and it was dark outside. I’d apparently been reading for hours. I want you to understand—this wasn’t a big book. Maybe twenty pages, tops. And I’d found it near the start of my shift. I have no idea where all that time went, or how I didn’t notice it passing. Or why no one came in to disturb me. It’s like no one came to the library that entire day. I lived in a small town, like I said, but it wasn’t that small. We usually had people trickling in and out, even on slow days. Retired people who needed something to do, school kids doing homework, you know. You have a library here, you should understand, even if yours is more, uh… specific. So, it was really strange that no one had come in at all.

“Anyway, it was a horrible, horrible book. It was like someone set out to write a kids’ book about why they should do their chores, but instead of that, it was this nightmare version. I really didn’t want to add it to our library. Where would you even put a book like that? So I didn’t put it in the donation pile like I’d planned. But I also didn’t seem… able to just, like, get rid of it. I couldn’t just throw it away. Not because it was old and weird and maybe worth some money, no, more like… I don’t know. I just couldn’t do it. It’s hard to explain. So I put it in my desk, went home, and tried to forget about it.

“I’ll admit that, at the time, my apartment—my flat, you call ‘em here—wasn’t the cleanest back then. And thinking of that book, I kind of wanted to clean it. But also… I really didn’t. Thinking of that book made me very aware of the mess, but I kept thinking of that kid and the way his fingers just fell off, one by one, with that horrifying mom with her broken neck just watching, and then that handprint in the back of the book.

“I thought maybe whoever owned the book last, that Leitner person or whoever, put the handprint in there as some kind of joke. Just tilted up their fingers so they didn’t touch the page, to make it look like they didn’t have any. But I guess I kinda doubted that, even then.

“I made dinner that night, fed Jim and Pam—they’re my cats—and I left the plates in the sink to clean the next day.

“In the morning, they were stacked on the counter, perfectly clean. I tried to tell myself maybe I’d cleaned them and forgot, or maybe the cats had…. Somehow bumped them, and licked them clean, and it had just coincidentally looked purposeful. I don’t know. Pam liked to jump up on tables.

“I’d almost put it out of my head when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting any visitors, but sometimes a couple of my friends would drop by at random, so I might not have thought much of it, except that my cats suddenly started acting different. Scared. They were hissing, and they ran off to hide. That wasn’t like them at all. …I didn’t answer the door.

“A half hour or so passed, and I figured whoever it was was probably gone, so I went to peek out the front window. Sure enough, whoever it was… if there ever even was anyone out there… was gone. But there was a box sitting on the welcome mat. Plain cardboard, no shipping label or address or anything.

“I should have left it alone. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything, but… who knows.” He let out a heavy sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t leave it alone. I looked around, I wanted to make sure no one was there. No one was, as far as I could tell, so I opened the door.

“The box was small, maybe 6 inches long, a little less tall and wide than that—err, I’m not sure what that is in metric. Maybe like… 15 centimeters?”

The archivist waved him off. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry. So the box was small, and it was very light when I picked it up, which was honestly a bit of a relief at the time. I could practically hear one of my friends, Virgil, screaming at me about mail bombs. He’s a pretty cautious guy. Now I think maybe he had the right idea.

“I thought maybe the box was empty, even, until I stepped over the threshold and… and I uh, felt something rolling around in there.”

He shuddered at the memory.

“I brought it into the kitchen and opened up the box. Inside was… inside was a single, human finger, cut off just below where the joint would have been on the person’s hand.

“I felt sick. I was sick. I barely made it to the trash can. I remember my cats still didn’t come back to see what was going on, which was unusual for them. Normally they were very nosy little guys. It was like they knew something was very, very wrong. I don’t blame them for staying away.

“I called the cops right away, of course. Or, as soon as I’d calmed down enough to dial the number. I mean, course I did. Someone had dropped off a finger at my door.

“The lady on the phone was very nice, but I don’t think she believed me at first. Or maybe she just couldn’t understand what I was saying. I was a little upset, obviously. Eventually, though, the police did show up. They took the box, asked me some questions, and they left.

“That night, I was in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes, trying to forget the whole thing. I was almost done, but then, somehow… the garbage disposal turned itself on. Something wrong with the wiring, they told maybe. I was so surprised that I dropped the plate I was holding, and the stack of dishes shifted, and somehow, my hand ended up… my finger went down the drain. Into the garbage disposal. It all happened so fast. One second I was just washing a plate, humming the intro to Steven Universe, and the next….

“I scrambled to turn it off, but it was too late. I grabbed a dish towel and drove myself to the hospital in a panic. Only remembered later to send someone to look after the cats.

“They couldn’t save my finger, even if they had tried. There wasn’t anything left to save.

“A week later, I got another package. Left at my door, just like the last one. Identical to the first, but this time it was a different finger. Maybe from the same hand, but it wasn’t like I looked at it long enough to know for sure. And I’m not a doctor. I called the cops again, and they came. They weren’t much help. They poked around a bit, talked to the neighbors, and told me to get a security camera. I did do that.

“I was very careful that day, remembering what had happened last time, even though I knew it was ridiculous. What, some crazy person leaves a severed finger on my doorstep, and that somehow makes me lose my own in a freak accident? …But I was careful, anyway. And nothing happened that day. But the next morning, when I went to go to work… I slammed the car door shut on my finger.

“It kept happening. The same plain cardboard boxes left at my door. The camera always seemed to cut out when they were delivered, although once I swear I caught a glimpse of a silhouette. It looked… wrong, though. Maybe it was a tree casting a shadow or something. No one’s head looks like that.

“I stopped calling the police, eventually. They didn’t help. Just asked the same questions, swore they were doing all they could, and left. I stopped opening the boxes, too. I tried throwing them out, burning them, kicking them into the gutter. I went to stay with my friend Virgil, but the box found me there, too. I moved twice. It didn’t seem to matter. Every week, a box would show up, and within a day or two, even if I never even opened my front door or looked at the box, I’d lose another finger. Until….”

Patton looked down at his lap, where his hands sat. Where each finger should be, they instead ended in neat little stubs just after the knuckle. They were remarkably even, considering that he’d lost each one in different ways, in different weeks. One after the other.

“After that, it finally stopped. My hands healed as much as they ever would, and I went back to work—I still don’t know how I kept that job—and I found that book in my desk. I tried to throw it out, but I couldn’t make myself let go of it. I tried to feed it to the paper shredder, but I couldn’t make myself rip out the pages. Eventually I just threw it across the room, and it landed neatly in the pile of donated books. Apparently, it would have let me just… add it to the collection. But I couldn’t let other people read it—What if the same thing happened to them? So I took it home with me.

“I did try to get rid of it on the way there. I stopped by the river, a dumpster… I tried to set it on fire. Imagine trying to get a lighter to work like this. I couldn’t follow through with any of them, though, and not just because of my hands. The book wouldn��t let me. Or I wouldn’t let myself. I don’t know which it was, really. Maybe I was afraid something worse would happen if I managed to destroy it. I don’t know.

“I locked it away. Buried it where I couldn’t see it. Still, it was like it was calling to me, telling it to hold it, to read it, to place my own hand over that awful handprint. It was driving me crazy. The cats wouldn’t go near the room it was in.

“I tried to ignore it. To forget about it. For a while, I thought it was working. I was still constantly aware of where it was, but it got easier to ignore.

“Then, one day, the doorbell rang. It was another box. Inside was a single, severed toe.”

A silence stretched between them, yawning between Patton and the archivist. The tape recorder ticked on. A tear rolled down Patton’s cheek. When he continued, his voice was choked.

“I will never forgive myself for what I did next, but I couldn’t go through that again. Please don’t judge me. I know it’s unforgiveable. But you can’t understand what it was like, not if you’ve never been through something like that.  I knew it was the book by now, that was doing this to me, and I had to be rid of it. I still couldn’t destroy it, but I could… give it away. So I went and I got the book, and I wrapped it up as best I could, and I wrote ‘DO NOT READ’ on the package in capital letters. And I gave it away. I don’t know who I gave it to, and I don’t want to know. I drove across town, stopped at a random house, and stuffed the book in their mailbox. I can only hope they never read it.”

Patton let out a shaky breath. “It worked.”

The archivist’s face was impassive.

“After that was all finally over, I decided I needed to get out of there. Not just out of the town, but as far as I could get. I had family in the UK, and one of my friends studied abroad here and loved it, plus you guys speak English, so it seemed like as good a place to go as any. So I moved. Nothing else has happened since. I don’t have any fingers, but at least I have all my toes, and I’m rid of that awful book. I’ve tried to forget the whole thing, which as you might imagine, is a little difficult, but I try. Still, when one of my coworkers mentioned this place—I work at a shop now, restocking at night, so I don’t have to see the customers—I decided to come. I just want to be rid of this story. So… if you guys can track down that book, stop it from hurting anyone else, please do.” He clenched his hands, as well as he could. “I don’t want its weight on my mind anymore. It’s done enough to me.”

He fell silent.

“Statement ends,” said Logan. The archivist leaned forward and turned off the tape recorder. “Thank you for coming in. You can leave the way you came. Roman, my assistant, will take down your details. We might contact you if we need further information. Do you, by chance, remember the address of the house where you left the book?”

Patton shook his head. “No, I… I didn’t want to know.”

Logan nodded slowly. “Alright. Well… we appreciate your time.”

“I hope my statement… ah, comes in handy,” Patton joked weakly. He almost smiled at the gobsmacked look on the archivist’s face, the most emotion he’d shown the entire time Patton had been there. And then, he got up, and he left his story behind. He’d given it away to someone else, and he was done with it.

[sam-gibbs]

Animated

Now we are moving onto our animated starting point. Here I will be able to go ahead and look at things such as animated films,tv shows,companies and games.

Cuphead:

Cuphead is a game which was made in 2017. The game is an animated run and gun styled game.As you can see the game was inspired by the old styled animation used in the 1930′s, this includes the works of people such as Fleischer Studios and Walt Disney. The visuals and audio of the game were made the same painstakingly way they did in the 1930′s era. By using traditional hand drawn cell animation as well as watercolour backgrounds and original jazz recordings.

Informations taken from:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/268910/Cuphead/

When it comes to Cuphead it must of taken ages to develop and put together the game as everything is drawn and animated through drawings meaning it would of taken a lot more time to animate than it would to animate 3d models. Here is a video I have found which talks about the creators of the game making the game:

In the video it not until you get about 5 minutes in until they are talking about the actual development of the game. For starters they planned for the game to only be a small game.However after all the feedback they got at events such as E3 in 2015 they then went forwards and decided to take the game further and get more serious with it.Secondly they then start to talk about how they had originally joked at the beginning of making the game about doing the 1930′s style. This was mainly due to one of the creators being the only animator they had at the time. However they went forward and decided to try something else as they felt that they could not efficiently pull of the 1930′s style animation. They talk about how they had thought of having the game art being like going through elementary school, Meaning each level would be arts and crafts.For example a kindergarten level would have a turkey that was made like a painted hand print as well as having cotton balls attached to it. Then they planned about doing stop frame animation with them. However they eventually decided to go back to the 1930′s style animation. WHen it came to animations they talk about how most stuff was done classically so it was all hand drawn on paper instead of digitally drawn as well as the backgrounds being watercolor painted.Even the music is live recorded and wasn't digitally made.They talk about once the character is drawn and animated they would then scan it into the computer which is where they would then go ahead and add the colours to the characters.

Fleischer Studios:

Fleischer Studios are famous for there creation of popular characters such as Koko the clown,Betty boop and Popeye the Sailor. Unlike other studios which mainly focused on making there characters anthropomorphic animals, Fleischer studios most famous characters were actually humans. Compared to their competitor company Walt disney, Fleischer studios went for a different cartoon style. Unlike Walt Disney, there animations were more rough than defined as well as more artistic than commercial.However in a unique way there art was expressed through a culmination of arts and sciences. There approach focused more on surrealism, dark humor, adult psychological elements and sexuality. Another thing was that the environments were grittier and more urban compared to Walt Disney. They would often be set in squalid surroundings to reflect the great depression as well as the German Expressionism.

Why do they wear gloves:

One big question that came to surface is why do the cartoon characters in the Fleischer and Disney animations wear gloves.Here is a video where they ask an animation historian this same question and here are the reasons he gives for the characters wearing gloves.

One of the most basic theories as to why the characters wear gloves is in order to save time. Drawing detailed intricate hands aren't very easy and take up a lot more time. By having the characters where basic gloves which are a basic shape saves a lot of time when it comes to drawing and animating the characters.As animations went on they tried to make characters with more basic a circular shapes in order to make them easier to draw as well as more child friendly. This was called the Rubber hose and circle design where characters main features such as there head,stomach and palms of there hands would be circles.The all other parts such as arms,fingers and legs would be more of a rubber hose design which made them more spaghetti looking.Here is an example of this process:

The rubber hose and circle process made it so animators could draw arms,legs and heads without having to spend loads of time on them.Here come the piece where the gloves came into play. Now its a good idea to use the rubber hose and circle method however characters hand were black as well as the rest of their body. This meant it was very hard to distinguish where there hands were and what they were doing.It was only until 1929 for the white gloves to come into play on characters.

One other reason given for the gloves was actually written inside of Walt Disney's 1968 biography “The Disney Version” when he talks about mickey mouse having the gloves , it says:

“We didn't want him to have mouse hands,because he was supposed to be more human like.So we gave him gloves”

Unfortunately there is one more reason about why they wear gloves which isn't as nice.The film the Opry House is where Mickey mouse put on a vaudeville show.This film as well a many of the other animations that came before it were closely linked to vaudeville performances and the blackface minstrel shows of the time. A man called Nicholas Sammonds writes in “Birth of an Industry” that many early animated characters such as felix the cat, Bimbo and mickey mouse “weren't just like minstrels, they were minstrels”. Which by the way the definition of a minstrel is someone who has dressed up in black face for a performance on a show for example the Minstrel show. Characters in the Minstrel show would wear white gloves as well. However even as the Minstrel show started to disappear the gloves on the cartoon characters stayed due to it being part of there animation design.

Cuphead and the Racist Spectre of Fleischer animation:

While doing my research I managed to go ahead and find an online article which I decided to go ahead and look into:

https://unwinnable.com/2017/11/10/cuphead-and-the-racist-spectre-of-fleischer-animation/

In the article it talks about how the creators of cuphead also dredge up the bigotry and prejudice which had a strong influence on early animation.When asked in an interview about how cuphead had an unfortunate associations with the 1930′s era.

 Maja Moldenhauer replies:”Its just visuals and that's about it. Anything else happening in that era we are not versed in it”

It talks about how Studio MDHR goes and ignores the context and history behind the aesthetic in which they tried so hard to recreate.I also think that people aren't happy that they sort of idolise this sort of animation style due to its racist context and history behind it and feel like the studios should of took into consideration the history behind it before choosing it as there art style. They then talk about how in many early cartoons, characters were often tricksters,layabouts and thieves. These archetypes were born from the depiction of the lazy slave minstrel shows specialised in. This is brought up due to the fact that at the start of the cuphead game you meet 2 tricksters (cuphead and mugman) who make a deal with the devil ( another trickster) over a gambling debt, an activity often linked in the 1930s cartoons to implied sinfulness and savagery.

Studio Ghibli:

Now we are moving onto studio ghibli which is an animation company for anime films such as spirited away, Howl's moving castle and my neighbour totoro.Studio ghibli is a japanese animation company which was founded in 1985. Like Fleischer studios Studio Ghibli's animation techniques are all very traditional. All there frames are hand drawn before being put together to create movement.Even Though CGI is very popular now the creator Miyazaki prefers to stay away from this and believes that hand drawing is the fundamental of animation. However he doesn't sometimes make small exceptions and allows small bits of CGI in his art in order to help animations with tricky scenes and to speed up the process.

The process:

Everything Begins With an Idea

From script to screen, the idea is developed into a story.

Then, characters and costumes are designed and created. In doing so, also creates the atmosphere and settings the film is

The story is then turned into a storyboard and is used to illustrate the key frames to produce movements.

After the scenes are drawn out, color is added and painted. Note: the backgrounds and characters are drawn separately.

The characters are placed onto the background, which creates a frame. Each frame is shot individually.

Dialogue & audio is added and then the director ensures that everything syncs together naturally.

After the film is developed, it is ready to debut!

All this information was taken from:

https://commons.marymount.edu/leetopic/creation-process/

Animation types:

Now of course when it comes to animation inside of tv, film and video games there are multiple different types of animation people can choose from. The different types are cel animation,2D animation,3D animation and Stop animation.

Cel animation:

Cel animations is the animation style we have already talked about in this post. Cel animations is when you animate on sheets of transparent plastic called cels.The cels are then placed over a background and photographed in sequence. When the photos are played back at either 12 or 24 frames they create the illusion of movement.When it comes to making a drawing on a cel. The inker will transfer a drawing done on paper onto a cel using black ink. Once dried the colourist will the use cel paint onto the artwork. All informations was gotten from:

https://conceptartempire.com/cel-animation/

2D animation:

2d animation is basically the same as cel animation. However it expands more out into the world of digital art where artists and colourists can do all there work on a computer instead of having to do it on cel sheets.

3D animation:

Now unlike 2d animation 3d animation is far more advanced. Instead of drawing out there models. 3d animation is the art of using motion to bring characters as well as vehicles to life inside tv shows,films and video games. 3d animations uses 3d models instead of 2d drawings. When it comes to animating the models you can either rig the model and do it that way or in some cases map them to a person's body and have them act out the motions they wish the character to do.Here is a nice video I found which shows how the process of it somewhat works when it comes to putting scenes together:

Stop Animation:

Stop motion animation has been around for a very long time and has been used in films such as Coraline,Wallace and gromit and Missing link. The process of stop animation is where they have real life 3d models of their characters, props and vehicles. These models are made out of clay. However although fun to make stop motion is a time staking process. To do stop motion animation the models are moved in small increments frame by frame. Every time the model is moved a picture is taken. Then the film is put together when it goes through the flames at a fast speed in order to make it look like it is moving.Here is a video which talks about how they did the stop motion animation in a film called the missing link.

The video talks us through the process of how they use rigs for scenes where characters are in the air as well as how for some scenes such as underwater scenes they do need to go ahead and use CGI for those parts of the film. It is not only till you see the sets until you realise how much space is needed to create some of these scenes as well and how much time and effort goes into making some characters in the films.

Bugsnax:

Bugsnax is an animated video games which due to the animation style looks like it is targeted towards kids.With a pegi 7 rating you would be surprised to know what the contents of the game really contain.Here is a video which talks about eh lore that someone has theorized about the game.

After watching the video all I can say is that I am quite surprised at what some of the hidden context of the game can be. I believe there are hidden messages about drugs in the game and about how addicted someone can be, as well as the fact that it changes a person's body just like how drugs can affect people.

However there is one thing that I think was creative and its the fact that this game really goes off of the phrase we are what we eat.

In summary what I have learnt through my research is that there are of course many different ways to animate in which people can choose from, however each type of animation does come with its pros and cons so depending on how long you have to create a project as well as what sort of scenes you are wanting will affect what sort of animation style will be best to use. other things I have learnt is that animation can have some disturbing history and backstory to them and sometimes aren't always what they seem.

[aharris00britney]

ASKS 19

It’s 6am and Brandon woke me up when he got up to go to work so now... i answer asks bc i cant sleep. 

@mileyzangel said: Can you please make a Harley Quinn hairstyle from both Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey?

I went and watched Birds of Prey the other night and it was really good. Brandon went to sleep I think tfgvhb. But I doubt I’ll try doing her hair from either of the films. @enriques4 is working on one for her Birds of Prey look if you are interested in that <3

Anonymous said: is tiny living worth it? im leaning towards the gameplay although i love cas. is the gameplay as bad as people say?

I honestly don’t think the new beds do anything. They’re... there. Lmao I think the CAS and buy items are very nice. If we get some cc murphy beds then that would make them a lot more usable tbh.  

Anonymous said: how do you and ayoshi keep making some fantastic collabs?? y'all are literally the first people i go to when I make a fresh install and I can't wait to see what you do next

Anonymous said: AxA CC KINGS!!!

Anonymous said: you guys didnt have to snap like that on AxA

Anonymous said: I LOVE EVERY SINGLE PACK U AND AYOSHI DO PLEASE KEEP MAKING MORE

Anonymous said: another iconic ah00b x ayoshi collab YAS LESSGOOOO

We put a bunch of cc ideas (hair and clothes) in a discord server we have together and then work on the stuff together on call usually so each item is the way we both want me. Like for example i’ll be meshing the Ivy top while he works on texturing the ribbed version.  We also only do collabs when they happen, we didn’t plan AxA 2019 or this new set, mainly just made cc starting in May and wrapped it up in July to release in August. Then this time we started making stuff late December and got most of it done by the time I got done with my break. Having a planned collab/deadline makes stuff less stressful and the stuff usually turns out better imo

Anonymous said: hi! ur sims are so prettyyyy what skin texture and eyes do u use?

Anonymous said: hi! wcif the eyes of the sim in the edit that Dogsill edited for you please? thank you!

Anonymous said: Hi! I really love the way your sims looks so, I was what skin and eyes you use?

I actually am changing my default eyes so I need to update my resource page soon ;n; but the skins they use are all listed for each sim on the resource page here

Anonymous said: you always name axa packs by the year but this one was named after a season those that mean.... 👀

We are wanting to do something in the fall, just not sure how our lives will be then ya know? There’s a chance that this will be the AxA 2020. Since we weren’t sure I didn’t want to label it that if 2 AxA’s release this year lmao

Anonymous said: what game is the pokemon thing you're playing!? pls help a guy out i'm in love with the art style

Pokemon Sword and Shield (I have shield) for Nintendo Switch. I’ll prob post more pics once I get some new shinies :P

@kristabunny said: lol is it bad that when I saw your Santana hair I read it as Satan Hair XD

tbhhhhh it was lowkey referencing that lmao. I made the hair in October for a speed meshing video and since it was around Halloween I was like “lemme give her an almost demonic name” also Santana from glee is a queen

Anonymous said: Tbh I absolutely adore your female cc but I LIVE for your male cc!!!

Thank you! lmao the only thing I can take full credit for is the AxA male hairs. I mesh the clothes for packs but ayoshi does the texturing for them.  

Anonymous said: Could you have a go at the updo Dua Lipa has on the cover of her Future Nostalgia? The high bun with a flick in it and the strands of hair down the sides. Thanks if so :)

I’m not the biggest fan of the hairstyle tbh ;n; but we will see. (Physical is a serve, just saying)

Anonymous said: So ive never played pokemon before until my friend gave me a copy of pokemon moon. I love cats so of course my starter was a litten, but i had no clue about evolutions or anything like that. I was heartbroken when my cute litten turned into some big man cat :(

omg noooo ;n; yeah Litten is a cutie... incineroar is... well I got used to him tbh and kind of like him now? I absolutely hate scorbunny’s evolution (and most of the SWSH starters final evolution) so I think that made incineroar slightly better in my eyes. My shiny litten will be staying a kitten however :)

@multifandom-slytherin said: Hello! I love your cc! Would it be possible for you to make the bangs from your Bree Hair a separate accessory that you can put with other hairs (for example the BG low ponytail)? Thank you so much!

Anonymous said: have u considered making or allowing someone to make an acc version of your handmade bangs?

I have thought of doing accessory bangs tbh, I just like... don’t like using accessory bangs myself. So I’m not sure if I’ll end up doing it. I might try it for myself and see how many hairs they work with, and if it is a decent amount I’ll release. 

Anonymous said: First off I want to say how amazing all of your hairs and collabs are! Second I was curious if you ever thought of going back to your old hairs and updating their thumbnails / display indexes so they matched your stuff now?

I really really wanted to have all my 2019 hairs updated by 2020. It was only January 2019-April 2019 that needed updated (thumbnails and display indexes). But I just lost motivation for doing it. I will focus on it next time I have a big break from school. Also planning on updating select stuff from 2018 and 2017. 

Anonymous said: please put Sophia Barker in the gallery. PLEASEEEEE it's the most beautiful sim I EVER seen! >:3 PLEASEEE!!!!!!!!!!

She should be on there? I think? Make sure you have CC enabled and if you can’t find me through the gallery her tray files are here

Anonymous said: Hi! After the recent patch I started having a small issue with Bree hair(without bangs), when I zoom out it looks like a completely different hair, something similar to that one basegame hair that's layered with tips pointed outward but longer. Thought I'd let you know, maybe others have had a similar issue or maybe I need to change a setting or something. Love your work so much!

Really surprised this is the first time someone told me about this lmao. The hair should be updated now on SFS/Patreon <3

Anonymous said: I tried to look around for this on your "Asks" portion before bothering you (so sorry), but do you have a link perhaps for all the lips you use on your models? Are they in game or a cc you create? Thanks so much! Love all of your work! I'm super new to cc stuff and I found yours like 2 days ago and have been going nuts with downloads lol 

like presets? None of my cc models use a lip preset. I do use this slider on some of them though. For lipsticks, that is listed for each model on my resource page <3

Anonymous said: i’ve been looking for a hair like lexi that i actually like forever and now i find it but it’s for paterson peeps and i’m like actually broke and i’m like :/

im sorry ;n; at least it wasn’t too long of a wait? :/ I hope you liked the hair

Anonymous said: I can't find your jisoo ponytails in your downloads?

they’re in my retired section... may they rest in peace. scroll to the bottom of my downloads and youll see ‘RETIRED.’ click that for the retired download page. 

@eclypt-0-sims said: Hi, I recently started making MM hair and I know you're probably an expert at this but; every time I go into CAS to test a hair, all of my accessories clip with the hair. Like the hair texture would cover some glasses if my sim was wearing glasses. I don't know how to fix it, someone told me to delete an eye weight in blender but I don't really understand weight painting that much, any suggestions? love your content btw

this is a late as hell reply i’m sorry. I think that you have texture where the glasses texture would be. Hair texture should only be in hair section or hat section (if you don’t want it hat compatible). Here is a UV map layout that I use for making hair textures. It shouldnt have anything to do with weights

Anonymous said: Do you use reshade when you take previews for your cc? and also is the tropical punch ombre overlay a palette or did you make it?

I do use reshade when I take cc previews. It adds a bit of saturation to my sims and gives them some shadows under their chin/clothes. Nothing major. Also, myself and @imvikai came up with the tropical punch palette together.

@little-eris​ said: You probably have answered this before but who drew your tumblr icon? I’ve seen the same art style with other simmers 👉🏼👈🏼 it’s super cute!

thank you! here is their twitter 

Anonymous said: The male sim in your Tiny Living review looks soo familiar; was there inspiration from anyone IRL? The person he reminds me of isn't even famous so I don't even know! He is very pretty though *-*

He was a gallery sim that I just revamped a bit so I’m honestly not super sure lmao. But he is very attractive yes I agree

that concludes this ask ceremony please collect your things and move to the exit to your left. fvghbjn if you sent something I didn’t answer and it was off anon I’ll get to you soon (person who asked what beards I used for AxA... I see you)

[ramblingguy54]

Lemme Let You All In On Something

Inspired by @beaglelover62‘s post about DuckTales helping (2017) those through rough times. I’ll leave the link here below for all to check out, if you haven’t come across this post yet.

https://beaglelover62.tumblr.com/post/187179198864/ive-been-inspired-by-a-few-shared-stories-as-of

Whatever Happened To Della Duck is a truly beautiful episode to be sure, showcasing a mother’s undying determination in getting back to her family, despite the harsh many factors stacked against this determined duck. It left a serious impact on me emotionally, easily ranking it high up on my list of favorite DuckTales (2017) episodes for introducing Della into the TV’s adaptation franchise with such phenomenal execution. However, what I especially praise about this episode is how inspiring it can be to others who suffer through very tough times. People need role models in fiction like this to look up to, naturally, as another way to better cope in their unfortunate situations in life.

That was basically how it helped me better cope in dealing with not only my depression, which I’ve had for the past several years or so, but it also gave me a new positive perspective when I tackled those awful anxiety tremors at the tail end of 2018. To give a better context to this, besides depression I’ve dealt with having an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) where I can’t relax if I see something that isn’t in order, like say cleaning anything particular for example. It’s hard for me to simply take it easy a great number of times because my mind is hollering saying, “Do this now! You can’t relax until it’s fixed! It has to be perfect!”. Not to mention when I’m analyzing stuff this OCD can cause me to keep re-thinking what I’ve already concluded on in terms of my opinions and it’s beyond freaking obnoxious. I’m no stranger to anxiety attacks either, as they happened quite a great amount in my childhood where I couldn’t control myself because I didn’t obviously understand what was going on internally at the time. Although I’ve had experience before with anxiety attacks, tremors on the other hand I wasn’t prepared to face at all in early December of last year. It was terrifying because I had no control of my mind going a million miles per hour, on top of my body already shaking furiously off and on. My heart felt like it was going to explode outta my chest, considering how insanely fast it was pumping. OCD + Anxiety = One hell of an awful time, being a huge factor in what caused me to have this nervous breakdown where I was consistently panicking. Thankfully, I soon got a medication prescribed which helped me recover from that awful state of mind and have been feeling much better by mid-January of this year ever since.

This story of mine ties back into the massive weight surrounding Della’s situation. She’s in such an highly anxiety inducing situation of having no family, friends, losing one of her legs in the ship crash, going through a Lord knows how awfully painful physical healing/rehabilitation process with her robotic leg, and the cherry on top of all this crap being without social contact toward any living thing. Della Duck suffered without any real social connections for 10 WHOLE YEARS straight. She only has her thoughts to keep herself company in this terrible predicament, which no doubt were looping furiously in Della’s mind all those days spent on rebuilding the Spear Of Selene. It’s honestly amazing Della was able to keep her sanity throughout those many passing hours in that cold painful solitude on the Moon. Many people would’ve been driven to the point of insanity of being alone for that long, but not Della Duck in all of her endearing charm. The thoughts of once again seeing Scrooge, Donald, and reuniting with her triplets was enough determination, of course, to fight back against that severity of her current issues. There’s a lot of symbolism I found here akin to OCD, like say with Della’s thoughts of regret for unintentionally leaving her kids on Earth never leaving her mind, no matter how hard she tried to tune that irrational voice of her’s out on focusing toward the bigger picture of getting back home to make up for all that lost time. Despite putting on a such a cheery headstrong attitude, it’s all of course a facade masking Della’s depression and compulsive thoughts deep down.

Della has a low self-esteem for making the decision to hop onto the Spear of Selene and getting torn away from everyone/everything she loved in life. Anytime I look back on this scene where Della drops the headstrong nature for a split second with tears running down her face, these words just write themselves showing Della’s real inner thoughts.

If I hadn’t made the decision to take that rocket, I could’ve been much happier and better off. I don’t deserve to even call myself a mother. I’m a terrible person for not being by my kids side when they were born and helping them grow up. Della, you’re such an idiot...

Regardless of all that self-hatred and doubt though, Della persevered against it because she knew there’s no sense in crying over spilled milk at this current point. Della knows she deserves to be happy and back at home with her family again, so continues working on rebuilding every piece of the rocket ship.

She put every fiber of her being, mind, and soul into learning the fundamentals of understanding how to properly create a rocket ship. All for the sake of one simple important thing...

Family.

Throughout every day of what seemed like a “solitary confinement” on the Moon Della never once let her mind falter from what she was doing it all for. Even though Della has low self-esteem, struggling with depression among this compulsive internal belittling of herself, she never allows that to break her iron will in accomplishing what needs to be done.

Granted, she sacrifices the key of her gold tooth in poetic fashion to help calm down a Moon Mite mother and her baby, but that is more than rewarded in return by the Moon Landers’ helping her rebuild the rocket once more. After all the years of hardship she had to endure alone, Della finally is able to set out back to Earth instead of just viewing it from afar. 

Not gonna lie, every time I look at this shot of Della breaking out into tears saying, “I’m coming boys! Mom is coming home!”, it always chokes me up. This is an individual who has been to put it bluntly, shit on by life hardcore for the past 10 years straight never being able to catch a break in getting home until now. Della, much like her twin bro Donald, has been dealt an awful unlucky hand with how much she had to endure on her own for so long, getting traumatized in certain emotional aspects from all that experience on the Moon.

You can damn well bet my emotions were overflowing, like a waterfall, when Nothing Can Stop Della Duck premiered back in the May bomb of episodes. I’m surprised by how quickly they brought Della into the fray because I genuinely believed they were going to hold off for awhile, until much later down the road, like say Season 3 or something. However, I’m beyond glad they didn’t because, besides shaking up the chemistry dynamic of the family by removing Donald temporarily, that hug was so amazing to behold on screen. It’s all kinds of wonderful.

Anytime I think back on that rough anxiety tremor stuff I dealt with, during 2018′s tail end into early January, Della’s story of her hard-headed never say die attitude against immeasurable odds is one all generations should take big notes on. This beautiful story made me feel less alone in my struggles with depression, OCD, and anxiety. Seeing Della never give up because her family was always there for her in spirit hit me in the heart real good. Much like how it was for me when my family, most notably my mother, who helped me through those anxiety tremors that hit me like a meteor. Also, knowing Della will still struggle with trying to be a better mother figure adds a real layer of humanity to the story, reminding people that just because you’ve gotten better doesn’t mean you’re outta those woods yet. Della’s story is a perfect representation on life overall because it’s okay to still have problems and not feel weighed down by them too. You’ll always have loved ones there to back you up when you’re feeling like dirt. I still struggle with anxiety, depression, and OCD every day, even though I’m not in that terrible state of mind anymore, but my family has always helped me through this when it counts.

So with all that said, please remember to think of this message when you’re feeling very down on your own self-worth.

If Della Duck can overcome not only her emotional insecurities, but the large void of space and solitude that came with it for a decade, then I should be able to handle my own baggage with this same attitude.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this story of an experience from my life and how DuckTales 2017′s story center around Della inspired a more positive outlook for me in the future. Feel free to share your own perspectives in the comments if you’re feeling up for it!

[dvp95]

don’t complicate it

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: t

warnings: none

tags: magical realism, canon compliant (not anymore! it was canon compliant in 2017), psychic abilities, phil is a psychic and dan is an embarrassment

word count: 11,289

summary: A magical realism au where everything is the same except sometimes, Phil's dreams come true. Featuring YouTuber cameos, existential crises, and a love story. (Or: It's 2017 and Dan Howell's entire universe has been flipped upside down.)

NOTE: this is not a new story! this is my first dnp fic and i’m just transferring it here to have all my shit in one place, basically. i wrote this two years ago and if i were to write it today, i’d change some stuff, but. i’m generally still pretty pleased with it! so i hope y’all get a kick out of old daye’s bad pacing and shaky dialogue 

read on ao3 or here!

If there's one thing Dan knows for sure about his housemate, it's that Phil Lester is weird. He's always been weird - weird to film with, weird to listen to, even weird to look at since he's usually pulling a face for no reason or turning his hand backwards to fit in his pocket - but living with him has made Dan eternally grateful that he is so fond of Phil's weirdness, because otherwise this friendship thing just wouldn't work.

In addition to the general weirdness, Phil has more superstitions than Dan's entire family. Dan has been yelled at for putting a box of new shoes on the table, yanked away from ladders rather violently, and asked if he's angry if he leaves his cutlery crossed on his plate. It would probably be annoying, if Dan ever got seriously annoyed by the things Phil does.

It's funny instead of annoying, like most things about Phil, but Dan has to draw the line somewhere.

"What do you mean, I can't use my laptop today?" he asks Phil slowly, trying very hard not to freak out. "What have you done to it?"

"Nothing!" Phil insists. He holds up his hands like it somehow proves his innocence.

"I don't believe you," says Dan, "and I'm not going to stay off my laptop for an entire day, you absolute donkey. Give it back."

"I can't give it back to you." Phil sounds exasperated, which is the exact wrong emotion for him to be feeling after hiding Dan's laptop at ten in the morning. "If you use your laptop today, it's going to break. We can't afford another iProduct."

Dan narrows his eyes. First of all, he has his own bank account with his own money, and there is no 'we' about buying Dan a new laptop. Secondly - "My baby is perfectly fine, assuming you haven't done something to it and you're planning on replacing it before I notice."

"That would be stupid of me, of course you'd notice."

"Phil."

"Can't you just trust me?"

If it was anything else, Dan would probably let the argument drop and let Phil be weird about this, too. His laptop, though? That's off-limits.

"No, I can't," Dan says, holding out his hand. "Give me back my laptop. Right now."

Phil sighs heavily and leaves the lounge, returning after a few minutes with Dan's laptop in his hands. He hesitates when Dan reaches for it, but passes it over reluctantly.

"Just... don't click anything Felix sends you," says Phil. Dan rolls his eyes and agrees in order to placate his friend, but he has a bad habit of forgetting things Phil has told him - and can he be blamed? He has eight years' worth of Phil-specific information to retain, it can't all stay at the forefront of his mind.

That's his reasoning for clicking the link Felix emails him, despite explicitly being told not to. He inhales sharply when his screen immediately goes black.

Phil turns to look at him from the other end of the sofa, expression already resigned. "I told you not to click it, Dan!"

"What happened?" Dan asks, panicking as he tries every keyboard shortcut he knows.

"I don't know," Phil huffs and pulls out his phone. "I'll ask Felix, I suppose."

It turns out that Felix's email got hacked, because of course it did, and everyone on his contact list got an attachment full of scary computer viruses. Felix gives everyone a heads-up on Twitter, but the damage to Dan's laptop is already done.

When Dan gets back from the Apple store with bad news and a shiny new laptop, he stops in Phil's doorway and frowns. "How did you know Felix got hacked?"

"I didn't," Phil says without looking up from his own laptop. "I just had a feeling you'd break your laptop today."

"No, you told me this morning not to click on anything Felix sent me. That's more than 'a feeling', Phil." Dan struggles not to look or sound sheepish. He isn't the one who needs to explain himself, here.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Dan," says Phil.

"I want you to tell me how you knew about this," Dan insists, pointing at his shopping bag even though Phil isn't looking at him. "Did you and Felix plan this?"

That makes Phil look up. "Of course not!"

Phil is the worst liar Dan has ever met, and the hurt in his voice at being accused of murdering Dan's laptop on purpose is real enough. Dan bites his lip so that he doesn't apologise reflexively. Even if Phil had nothing to do with the death of his laptop, the fact that he knew about it beforehand is suspicious enough to withhold apologies.

"Okay, so tell me the truth," Dan says instead of apologising like his mouth wants to.

"The truth," Phil repeats, looking back down at his laptop to close the lid. "I mean, okay, but you won't believe me."

"Try me," Dan challenges.

"I had a dream about it," says Phil, making careful eye contact with Dan. "That's it, that's all that happened. I dreamed that your laptop died because of an email from Felix, and then it happened, because my dreams come true sometimes."

This is not the first time Phil has made such a claim, but it's definitely the first time he wasn't at least half joking. Dan's scoff dies in his throat at how genuine Phil is acting.

"You're not psychic, Phil," Dan says slowly.

"Of course I'm not." Phil rolls his eyes, and Dan has a moment of relief before Phil adds, "I'm clairvoyant."

"Those are the same thing!"

"They actually aren't, interestingly enough. See -"

"Please stop," Dan groans, holding up a hand. "Stop right there. I don't believe in any of this nonsense, and you know that. I'd sooner believe you became a master hacker overnight and sent me that virus yourself as an expensive and unfunny prank."

Hurt flashes across Phil's face before annoyance takes over, and he shrugs. "Believe whatever you want, Dan. You asked for the truth and I told you."

"Your 'truth'," says Dan, air quotes difficult with a shopping bag but necessary, "is scientifically impossible."

"Fine, I won't tell you about my dreams anymore," Phil huffs, standing up to pointedly start getting ready for bed.

"Well, good," Dan says after a long pause. Phil doesn't deign to reply to his cutting wit, so Dan goes to his own bedroom and starts setting up his new baby. The first thing he does once he can start using it is type in the word 'clairvoyant'.

Google doesn't tell him anything he doesn't already know, so that's a non-starter. He ends up in a Reddit thread about premonitions during sleep, and even though the stories are interesting, they can't be true. That isn't how the universe works.

There's a lot about the universe that Dan doesn't understand. He knows that better than anyone, and it's the cause of many a crisis in his life.

Magic, though? Fortune telling? That's just factually wrong.

Dan decides, when he hears birds start to sing and realises he's spent all night in a Google vortex again, that what Phil experienced was nothing more than a coincidence.

It has to be a coincidence, or a joke, or else Dan is going to lay facedown on the floor for an entire week.

--

Phil is acting weirder than usual.

They're recording for a danisnotonfire video that Dan isn't sure yet if he actually wants to upload, and Phil keeps looking over his shoulder and reacting to every small noise outside their building. After ten minutes of this, Dan tells him to stop the camera for his own sanity.

"I can't use any of that," he says like he wasn't second-guessing the idea already. "You're so jumpy! Did you play spooky games without me?"

"No," says Phil.

He doesn't elaborate, which forces Dan to respond with a slow, "Okay, so why are you acting like a small rodent?"

Phil opens his mouth, probably to bicker about exactly what he's doing, but he's interrupted by the sound of someone banging on their front door. As if this is what he's been expecting, Phil leaps to his feet and bolts out of Dan's bedroom.

"That was weird," Dan tells the camera. It's no longer recording, but he has no one else to commiserate the weirdness of Phil Lester with.

While he waits for Phil to get back, he wonders who's at the door. It's not like they have many friends in the city, and the ones they have tend to text or call before showing up. Louise always says it's so she doesn't 'interrupt anything', which Dan tries not to read too deeply into.

Dan gets bored and follows Phil down the stairs, where he hears a loud and familiar voice drifting up from the entrance.

"- and I'm only trying to get to Dublin, right, but Heathrow decided I was suspicious somehow and I make inappropriate jokes when I'm uncomfortable - stop laughing - so they detained me and I missed my flight!"

"And we're the only people you know in London?" Dan hears Phil ask, and he sounds amused but not at all surprised. Which is weird, because Markiplier being in London without warning is pretty surprising stuff.

"I don't know anyone else's address," Mark admits, sounding good-natured despite an apparently difficult airport adventure. "Yours is in my phone, but I don't remember putting it there."

"Pretty sure I added it at VidCon this year," Phil says, starting to climb the stairs. "I had a feeling you'd need our sofa at some point."

That's a sufficient enough explanation for Mark, who has moved onto asking what they have in the way of coffee and food, but Dan hurries back up to his room to have a minor mental breakdown. He checks Mark's twitter and Facebook, but there's no mention of a trip, and it wouldn't make sense for Phil and Mark to have planned this to trick Dan, with the way they were talking downstairs.

So how did Phil know that Mark was coming? Why did he have a feeling, months ago, that Mark would need to know the address of someone in London at some point?

It doesn't make any logical sense. This isn't a joke or a coincidence, it's just really fucking weird.

Dan eyes his floor, considering lying down on it, but they have a guest. Existential crises are not proper host etiquette. Still, he waits for Phil to shout his name before getting out of bed and confronting this very strange turn of events.

Maybe the universe doesn't work scientifically at all. Maybe scientists are just people who make shit up and act like it's the truth, because Dan is starting to think that Phil might not have been lying at all.

He doesn't get a chance to say anything to Phil, between getting shot down for an impromptu collab - "No offence, boys, but I'm on vacation, maybe on my way back!" - introducing Mark to their current favourite anime - "Fuck you, I'm not crying." - and setting Mark up on the sofabed in their gaming room - "It's too small for either of us, but you're about a foot shorter, aren't you?" - until they're walking downstairs together in comfortable silence, arms brushing.

"You knew Mark was coming," Dan says, not bothering to make it a question.

"Yeah," says Phil.

Dan appreciates that Phil doesn't try to lie, but it only adds to the paranoia that's been building all day. "And like, you already knew about that? At VidCon?"

"You were listening?" Phil asks with a surprised grin as they reach their main landing.

"Irrelevant," Dan sniffs, crossing his arms.

Phil laughs at him, but it's not mean. Sometimes Dan thinks that Phil doesn't have a mean bone in his entire body.

"Yeah, I had this dream at VidCon," Phil leans against his bedroom doorframe, "and Mark was wandering around London without a travel plan on his phone, trying to find a hotel he could afford. I just thought it would be easier and more fun for him to come here."

"And you had the same dream last night," guesses Dan.

"No, last night I dreamed he ate all my cereal, which only makes sense if he's in our apartment."

"Good, you deserve to have your cereal eaten," Dan says automatically, because that's something he understands. The universe might get turned on its head if Phil is actually magic, but at least Dan can find comfort in the fact that he's still a cereal thief.

"Shut up," Phil laughs and reaches out to push Dan's chest lightly.

His hand lingers, but Dan is far more concerned about the fact that Phil might be psychic.

"I want to hear about your dreams." Dan knows as he says it that this is a mistake, that if magic exists and it isn't being used to his advantage, the world will be a scarier place than it already was.

"All of them?" Phil asks, still smiling. "Or just the clairvoyant ones?"

"You can tell the difference?"

"Sure. I mean, if it's realistic or boring, it's probably going to come true. My regular dreams are frickin' cool."

Dan can feel a grin tugging at his lips. "I suppose if they're so 'frickin' cool', I want to hear about those dreams too."

"Cool," Phil giggles a little and steps away from his doorframe, looking more relaxed than he has in days around Dan. "I'll keep a detailed dream journal just for you."

"You'd better," Dan says faux-sternly.

This entire situation is one of the most unsettling things Dan has ever experienced, but the bright smile on Phil's face when he says goodnight is worth every panic attack Dan is going to have about the makeup of the known universe. He seems so happy to be believed that Dan wonders if Phil has ever told anyone about this in so much detail.

Probably. Phil is basically an open book, after all.

If it makes Dan feel better to pretend as he's falling asleep that Phil has confided something in him that he's never divulged before, nobody has to know.

--

Dan wakes up before noon on his own, for once, and he startles when he sees someone in his kitchen before remembering that they have a guest. Yawning, he opens the kitchen door and greets Mark with a distorted, "Morning."

"Hey," Mark grins, leaning against the counter with a bowl of Phil's cereal. "You think Phil's gonna mind if I finish this?"

"Course not," says Dan, "you're the guest."

They both maintain a straight face for a couple seconds before Mark breaks and causes Dan to start laughing too. It's always comfortable to hang out with Mark, but Dan would be lying if he said he liked having guests spend the night. He doesn't like the feeling of someone being in his apartment while he's asleep.

It's nice, then, to be reminded that Mark is funny, and warm, and leaving in a couple of hours.

"So, you're going to see Jack?" Dan asks, because Phil had elbowed him every time he tried to ask the night before. "Shit, I mean, Sean."

"I fuck that up constantly," Mark admits, rinsing his bowl in the sink. "Yeah, I'm spending the weekend at his place. We're trying not to make a big deal of it, because - well, you know."

"I do?" Dan raises his eyebrows and starts making coffee for three.

"Obviously." Mark points at the mug that Dan pulled out for Phil, the one with Daddy emblazoned across it.

"That's a joke," Dan says automatically.

Mark starts laughing again, far too loud for the subject matter and time of day. "Bro, I know it's a joke. I meant you obviously know why we're keeping it on the down-low because you also have crazy shipper fans who think you guys are going to get married and die in each other's arms."

"I prefer to think of them as 'dedicated'," Dan says, turning away from Mark until the heat in his cheeks settles down. "But yeah, I get it."

"Didn't mean to make it weird, dude," Mark says apologetically. Apparently Dan didn't hide his face fast enough. "I figured you were, like, comfortable joking about it."

"I am." Dan glances at the kitchen door, paranoid that Phil is listening and getting the wrong impression. "For a second I just thought you were saying that you and Jack are together, and then I felt stupid when I realised you just meant the fan speculation."

The ensuing quiet is strange, considering his conversation partner, but Dan doesn't look up from the mugs.

"Wait," Mark touches Dan's shoulder to get his attention. "Wait, hang on, are you saying that you and Phil are in a relationship?"

"No, but I guess we're closer to it than not," Dan half-jokes. "So sometimes I forget we aren't."

It's the truth, but it seems to shock Mark into silence.

The fact of the matter is that Dan knows who he's going to spend the rest of his life with. He knows, despite everything, that Phil is the most important person in his life and probably always will be. Nothing about them has ever been on the down-low, because they have nothing to hide, but there are times when it slips Dan's mind that the fans aren't onto something.

After coffee is poured and Dan has drank half of his own for something to do with his hands, Mark finally speaks. "I don't think Sean and I are thaaaat close, so I get why the joke was weird coming from me. Also, I'm pretty sure you should tell Phil that you want to be with him."

Dan nearly spits coffee onto the floor.

"What?"

"I know it's not my business," Mark says with a shrug, "but it sure seems like you're pining."

"I am not pining," says Dan, affronted.

"You totally are."

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Are - look, I'm not getting into this with you." Mark looks like he's trying very hard not to laugh, and Dan glares at him. "I'm just saying that I'm never going to just randomly forget that Sean and I aren't in a relationship. and it's weird that you do."

"Phil being my platonic life partner is the least weird thing in my life," Dan says dismissively. Mark rolls his eyes.

"Whatever you say, dude," says Mark.

To Dan's relief, he lets the topic drop for the next few hours. They play Mario Kart until their shouting wakes Phil, and then they take turns kicking Phil's ass. Phil is pretty good-natured about the whole thing.

As fun as Mark is to be around, Dan is relieved to see him to the door. He doesn't need any more of the pointed looks Mark keeps sending his way whenever he grabs Phil's arm in excitement or leans in close to psych him out.

"You should come round again sometime," Phil is suggesting as they gather awkwardly in the small bottom landing.

"On purpose next time," Mark agrees, giving each of them a one-armed hug. It's nice - Mark is a champion hugger, even while holding a duffel bag.

"It was good seeing you," Dan says truthfully. "Next time, maybe a heads up?"

"Nah, I think I'll be spontaneous again."

"What if we're not home?"

"That's a good one, Dan."

"You'll miss your flight if you keep bickering," Phil interrupts with a laugh. He squeezes Mark's shoulder and cryptically adds, "Don't eat the sandwiches on the flight. It'll make you sick."

"Okay," Mark says easily, hefting his bag onto his shoulder. "I'll see you boys around."

The ensuing quiet in Mark's wake is welcome, but all Dan can think about is how close together he and Phil have to stand in order to fit on this landing. Thanks to the proximity, he can see uncharacteristic bags under Phil's eyes.

Dan reaches out to press the pads of his fingers gently against Phil's skin there and hums, "Mark being sick kept you up?"

"No," Phil says with an indulgent smile.

"You promised to tell me about your dreams," Dan reminds him when Phil shows no sign of continuing. He's probably been touching Phil's face for too long, so he lets his hand awkwardly drop to his side.

Still smiling, Phil shrugs. "It wasn't that interesting, Dan. Just hard to figure out."

"I can help," says Dan.

He wants Phil to confide in him, even about the weird things. As much as this situation freaks him out, and it's a lot, Dan doesn't like Phil keeping anything from him.

"I just remember being anxious, and I couldn't figure out why," Phil admits at long last, sitting down on the steps. "I wasn't at home or anywhere familiar, which just made it worse."

"Were we travelling?" Dan asks, leaning back against their front door instead of sitting beside Phil on the narrow steps, like he wants to.

Phil grins and shakes his head. "You just assume you were there, huh?"

"Of course I was there," says Dan.

"You were." Phil's grin widens as he looks down at his hands. "Obviously you were there. You kept telling me to calm down, but I couldn't, and then you left the room."

"I left?" Dan asks in disbelief. "I literally left?"

Just another piece of evidence supporting the fact that Phil does not have psychic dreams - Dan wouldn't leave Phil alone when he was in the middle of freaking out, that would never happen. When Phil is freaking out, the only thing that calms him is having someone talk him through the situation.

"Yeah, that's what confused me," Phil hums. "You don't usually leave."

"I never leave," Dan corrects him.

Phil looks up at him with an expression that Dan can only categorize as, well, fond. It's the expression that somehow means 'you're an idiot' and 'I'm glad we're doing this together' at the same time. The internet has probably labelled it as something else, since there's a good chance the expression has been caught on film, but Dan doesn't think anything will describe it quite as well as fond.

The moment is stretching into something harder to laugh off, and Dan has to clear his throat before the quiet becomes suffocating.

"Alright, did you figure out why dream-me left you alone?"

"No, but I'm sure you have a good reason," says Phil in a soft voice. He stands and stretches, purposefully breaking eye contact with Dan. "You fancy a tea?"

Dan shakes his head and watches Phil climb their narrow stairs, wondering if there's something Phil isn't telling him.

--

Phil's smile disappears as soon as Dan turns the camera off, which isn't unusual when their filming takes a long time, but Dan gets worried when Phil sighs and puts his head down on the desk.

"You okay?" Dan asks, resting his fingertips on Phil's shoulder.

"I'm tired," says Phil into the wooden surface, "and I keep having bad dreams whenever I try to rest."

This isn't news to Dan, as Phil has been keeping him in the dream loop for the past couple weeks, but Dan didn't realize it was getting so bad. He feels guilt settle in his stomach for not noticing before Phil faceplanted into their desk.

"Is there anything that usually helps? Like, stops you from dreaming altogether? I think we still have that vanilla vodka from New Year's, that usually conks me out."

Phil tilts his head on the desk to give Dan an indulgent smile. "No, getting drunk doesn't help."

"That's a shame," says Dan.

"I don't know, nothing really stops me from dreaming," Phil says when it's obvious that Dan isn't changing the subject. "Like, I guess there are things that help make the dreams blurry and more fun to be in, but I've never woken up and thought, 'wow, I didn't have a single dream last night'."

"That sounds... exhausting," Dan admits. He has more dreamless nights than not; he thinks that if he had dreams every night and also, some of them might come true, he'd go mad.

Phil doesn't bother to respond to that, because obviously it's exhausting, but he sighs again and closes his eyes.

"You can't sleep here, c'mon," Dan murmurs, squeezing Phil's shoulder before standing up. "I'm sure your bed will be more comfortable than wood."

"Your mum is more comfortable than wood," Phil says, nonsensically.

With a bit more prodding and cajoling, Dan gets Phil to his feet and guides him down the stairs so he doesn't wipe out. Phil wrinkles his nose when he looks at his bedroom, so Dan finds himself saying, "Will it help to sleep in my bed? It's not like I'm using it right now."

"Why would that help?" Phil asks, which isn't a no.

"Change of scenery," Dan suggests, opening his door and gesturing for Phil to go in. "Make yourself at home - within reason, like."

"I'm going to snoop through everything," Phil threatens weakly. Dan rolls his eyes and gives Phil a gentle shove into his room. "Okay, okay. Thanks."

Dan stands in the doorway long enough to make sure that Phil gets to the bed without colliding with anything before turning to leave. He normally stays in his room for a good portion of the day, but he doesn't mind taking up the browsing position in their lounge so Phil can get some actual sleep.

Before he can walk away, though, Phil mumbles something that makes him pause.

"What's that?" Dan asks without turning around - just in case Phil hadn't said anything at all.

"Will you stay?" Phil repeats. His voice is quiet and muffled by Dan's comforter, but the request is unmistakable.

Dan isn't sure how this will help, but he smiles over his shoulder and says, "Sure. Let me grab my laptop from the kitchen, I'll be right back."

Considering the exhaustion, he expects Phil to be asleep by the time he gets back with his baby, but Phil's half-closed eyes watch Dan hesitate and look between the desk and bed uncertainly. He doesn't say anything to guide Dan, which is annoying, and Dan ends up making a frustrated noise before flopping onto the far side of his bed and opening Tumblr.

Phil makes a contented noise and curls around Dan, close enough that Dan can feel his body heat but not quite touching. Dan isn't sure if he should feel relieved or disappointed.

It's easy to get lost in the void of Tumblr, and it isn't until Dan gets a text that he realises actual hours have passed. He doesn't want to disturb Phil, but he thinks it might be worse if Phil's sleeping schedule gets all out of whack, so he shakes Phil awake before checking his phone.

"Huh?" Phil bleats, startling awake and blinking a lot.

He has a half-quiff and his eyes are redder than usual. Maybe he should have taken his contacts out before napping, but Dan refuses to feel guilty about that because Phil is a grown man and has been able to take his contacts out without reminders in the past.

"Your nap was becoming a coma," Dan says, picking up his phone before he forgets to check the text.

"Oh," Phil says around a yawn, curling further into Dan so his head is sort of resting on Dan's tummy. "I'm sorry for taking over your bed."

"It's fine, you doofus," says Dan. He's paying more attention to the fact that his mum actually texted him than this conversation, and that's his excuse for carding his fingers through Phil's weird sleep quiff.

Phil doesn't seem to mind or even find it weird. It would probably be weirder to stop doing it now that he's started, so Dan just keeps absently petting Phil as he reads through the strangely long text from his mother.

"What're you looking at?" Phil asks into Dan's shirt.

"Mum texted."

It's such an unusual occurrence that Phil rearranges his entire body in order to stare at Dan whilst keeping his head on Dan's stomach.

"Your mum or my mum?"

"My mum," says Dan, and when did the word 'mum' turn into something that needed clarification in his life?

This is what he'd meant, when he told Mark that sometimes he and Phil are more like a couple than not. He can't picture any of his other friends in this situation, can't even fathom having his hand in someone's hair and talking about their shared mums in bed if there wasn't a romantic element.

With Phil, though, this is just what their friendship is like. Dan honestly isn't sure if things would be easier with said added romantic element, because things are already so easy.

"Dan?" Phil is saying, his voice slightly raised, and Dan guesses that Phil's been trying to get his attention for a while.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said what does she want?"

"Um," Dan looks back down at his phone, trying to collect his thoughts and hide his flushing face, "my family's going on holiday, so she wanted to let me know."

Phil plucks the phone out of Dan's hand and ignores the squawking protests to sigh, "Dan, she also asked you to water her plants."

"So?"

"So, you have a job in London," Phil says, his lips pursing unhappily. "She always thinks you have free time."

Cheeks burning, Dan snatches his phone back and pushes both Phil and his laptop off of him. He doesn't need to be told that his family doesn't take his job seriously, he knows that already.

"Will you come to Reading with me or not?" Dan asks, swinging his legs out of bed and stretching to avoid looking at Phil's apologetic face.

"Course I will," says Phil. "Are we going for a day or the whole time they're gone?"

The idea of spending an entire week in his childhood home is unappealing to Dan, so he responds that he'd prefer only staying over for one night. With any luck, he won't run into anyone he knows while he's there.

Phil doesn't push the topic. He knows when to stop, when all he'll get from Dan is sullen glances and 'I don't want to talk about it, Phil' if he says one more time that Dan might be happier if he tried building stronger relationships in his family.

It's no wonder that Phil doesn't get it, since the Lesters have basically adopted Dan as one of their own.

That's not who the Howells are, though; they aren't sunny and jokey, they don't watch his videos and text him thumbs up emojis, they don't invite Phil over without prompting.

Dan loves them all the same. Of course he loves them, they're his family.

It's just that - when Dan gets homesick, it isn't for Reading. It isn't for Manchester or this crappy London flat either, really. Sure, he misses his sofa crease and the cracks in his bedroom ceiling when they're on the road, but only until the next moment that Phil catches his eye and grins brighter than the sun.

Dan doesn't get homesick often.

--

"I can't even read your writing." Dan tries very hard to sound exasperated when all he wants to do is laugh.

"My writing is so much better than yours!" Phil says defensively, making grabby hands at his dream journal. "A dramatic reading of my dreams was not included in this deal."

"It should be, that sounds hilarious."

Dan doesn't give the journal back, because he's just winding Phil up. He flips open to the last page, ignoring Phil's annoyed squawk of a noise that he's only capable of making before his morning coffee, and starts reading.

Lots of the dream descriptions are straight-up impossible; Dan notices that there are stars marking the most realistic entries and a fair few with just a giant question mark. He also can't help but notice that there are places where pages have clearly been torn out. Judging by the dates on some of the earlier entries, Phil has had this journal for months longer than Dan expected, and Dan wonders what Phil wanted to keep to himself.

To be fair, he's had plenty of dreams that he would rather Phil never heard about, but he also would have never written them down in the first place.

Phil leaves the lounge to make coffee at one point, returning quietly with two mugs just when Dan thinks he's had enough of reading older dreams that have already come true. He closes the journal and accepts his coffee before mumbling, "Thanks. Did you make some of these up?"

"No," says Phil, rolling his eyes.

"These ones have happened," Dan says unnecessarily. "You should really keep better track of which dreams have passed."

Before Phil can say anything, Dan fishes for a pen between their sofa cushions and puts a checkmark beside a dream about Dil becoming a nightmarish crafts project.

"Oi, don't mark up my journal," Phil says, but he makes no effort to take the journal or pen from Dan.

Dan ignores him to ask, "How do you not live in constant fear?"

"I dunno." Phil is shrugging when Dan looks up with an expression of disbelief. "I mean, I don't usually dream about anything bad, so it's not like I have death and devastation hanging over my head all the time - unlike you. Don't hit me, I have coffee!"

--

The train to Reading isn't long, especially compared to some of the treks Dan has had to do with a caffeinated Phil at his side, but he still hates every second of it.

It makes him feel younger, and he isn't sure if he likes that feeling. Young Dan was embarrassing and judgemental and so, so terrified that he wouldn't be liked by anyone that he made a lot of choices to make other people happy.

Plus, he can't move the whole journey, since Phil has decided to fall asleep on his shoulder.

Phil's steady breaths are normally quite calming, but he keeps mumbling things that Dan can't quite catch, and it’s driving him crazy.

He never used to care this much about dreams, even his own, but he thinks that the paranoia is justified here.

This whole clairvoyance thing has made Dan incredibly anxious. He can't help but wonder what other things in this universe he doesn't understand, if a form of magic is real. Part of him hopes that this is all an elaborate prank - he'd be mad at first, but it would be better for his mental health all around.

When the train finally starts slowing down, Dan gently shakes Phil's shoulder.

"Dan?" Phil mumbles, not sounding fully awake.

"Yeah, 's me."

Something about the moment that Phil blinks up at Dan without moving from his shoulder causes the breath in Dan's throat to catch.

"I had such a weird dream," Phil confides. "Like, an actually weird dream. Tyler Oakley was doing a collab with Leatherface."

"Sounds harrowing," says Dan.

"It was, a bit," Phil says on a yawn, sitting up properly and blinking at the train window. "Oh, I didn't mean to sleep the whole trip! You must have been so bored. I'm really sorry, Dan."

"The quiet was a nice change," Dan says instead of admitting that he was in fact very bored without Phil's chatter, "and you needed the sleep."

"I did," Phil agrees, before pulling out his phone to check his fringe in the camera app.

"Shut up, you look fine."

"Wow, Reading puts you in a bad mood. We haven't even got off the train yet and you're a grumpleton."

Dan doesn't grace that comment with a response, as Phil is right anyway - Reading does put him in a bad mood. He just stands up and nudges a still-sleepy Phil to do the same when the train is stopped completely.

They take a cab to Dan's family home and Phil talks the entire time about absolutely nothing. Dan appreciates it; the chatter helps him tune out his surroundings so he isn't thinking about the time he threw up on that bench over there or when he got caught shoplifting at the nearest corner store.

Walking into his parents' house is always so weird, because Dan half expects it to have stayed the same since the last holiday he visited. Obviously, it never does.

Part of Dan can't help but think of their books, proudly displayed on the Lesters' coffee table, while looking at the cringey graduation photo on the wall of his own parents' lounge.

Somebody else is growing up here now, is the thing. The photos of Dan on the wall have been the same for five years, but Adrian is still going through the motions of becoming a person, and it's weird for Dan to see that happen in chunks.

"He's getting so old, it's weird," Phil voices, looking at the new photos next to Dan's awful ones.

"Tell me about it," says Dan. "We are all dying."

Phil laughs, because that's what he does when Dan makes a joke about death, and carries his bag upstairs. Since he's feeling listless and like a stranger in his own family home, Dan follows.

--

Dan was upset with me? is the latest thing written in the dream journal that Dan sneaks out of Phil's bag when he can't sleep. It doesn't help.

--

When Dan wakes up in his old bed, the afternoon sun filtering through the blinds in an all-too-familiar way, he has a moment of absolute panic that he's gone back in time - honestly, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing in his life right now - but he’s too long for his bed and he can hear Phil singing in the kitchen.

Dan only has a couple of hours before their train leaves, so he pushes himself out of bed and doesn't bother with getting dressed to water his mum's plants. On his way downstairs he calls out, "Good morning."

"Afternoon!" Phil's voice comes back, bright and loud and not suited for Dan's old house at all.

"Can you get me some water?" Dan asks as he ambles into the kitchen.

"For you or the houseplants?"

"Both, I guess."

"I already fed the houseplants," Phil says with a smile, opening wrong cupboards until he finds a cup. "You want lunch?"

Swallowing around the sudden, inexplicable lump in his throat, Dan murmurs an affirmative. There's something about Phil making himself so at home in a place he hasn't been overly welcomed that is making Dan feel some kind of way that he isn't prepared to deal with at this time of day.

His parents like Phil well enough, but they don't really understand him; they don't understand the person he helped Dan become, either.

Even if Phil is feeling weird here, he's going out of his way to make Dan feel comfortable.

"Why was I upset with you?" asks Dan. His voice is almost too quiet, and he watches as Phil's fingers slip on the loaf of bread he's slicing. "In your dream, I mean. I couldn't sleep so I - yeah."

"I'm not mad you looked," Phil says over his shoulder, "since I made it for you and all."

Dan knows that isn't true from the dates and level of detail in the journal, but he isn't about to call Phil out.

"Well, that's good. So?"

With a heavy sigh, Phil starts to spread peanut butter on bread for Dan - the exact amount that Dan prefers, not that he notices.

"I'm really not sure," Phil says slowly, not looking at Dan. "Remember when I had that dream about me freaking out and you leaving? It was like, the exact same, except you were really upset that I was freaking out instead of trying to calm me down."

"That doesn't sound like me," says Dan.

Phil shrugs and holds out Dan's finished sandwich in response. Dan has to stop himself from squeezing Phil's hip in thanks like he usually does, because Dan is half naked and they're in his old house and he thinks it might be weirder here and now. Then he thinks maybe it's weirder if he doesn't do it, but Phil has started moving towards the lounge before he decides.

Around a mouthful of peanut butter, Dan asks, "How many times have you had this dream?"

"A few," Phil says as he flops his whole body onto the sofa. He leaves enough room for Dan to sit near his feet, which is considerate of him.

"Have you considered that it might just be... a dream?"

"I have done," says Phil, "but it just feels so real, you know? And it's been the same weird room, not on like Jupiter or something."

"I'm not sure what we'd have to argue about on Jupiter," Dan muses out loud. If Dan is honest with himself, he can't think of anything in the entire universe that would make him angry at Phil during what sounds like a panic attack.

"Maybe I stole your space cereal," Phil jokes, poking Dan's thigh with his toes.

Dan wants to say that he wouldn't be legitimately angry over cereal, that he's never been more than irritated by it, that he plays his reaction up for his own entertainment, that almost anything he buys is for Phil too, but all that seems too serious for the moment.

Instead, he cracks a joke and changes the subject so he can make Phil smile for a little while longer.

--

It happens so slowly that Dan doesn't even notice until it's already out of hand.

They've been back from Reading for a week, and Phil has been acting weirder than usual the entire time. Dan didn't see this as a reason for concern, because sometimes Phil is weird for no reason, but when he catches Phil eating his cereal and the first thing out of Phil's mouth is a frantic "sorry!" instead of his usual squawk of "don't look at me!", Dan gets concerned.

"Phil," he says slowly, running a hand through his bedhead and trying to act more awake than he is, "I don't actually give a fuck if you eat my cereal."

"You don't?" Phil immediately puts his hand back into the box, the little shit.

"I mean, it's annoying, but you looked like a startled deer just now," Dan says around a yawn. "I'm not going to yell at you."

An emotion passes over Phil's face too fast for Dan's tired brain to categorize it. Phil shrugs a shoulder and looks back at the box of Crunchy Nut like he's deciding whether or not he wants to eat more.

He's been like this all week, careful and anxious and avoidant, and Dan doesn't know what to do. If he confronts Phil about it, Phil will just deny everything and try too hard to be normal - Dan remembers 2012 vividly - but he doesn't want to encourage this behaviour either.

"Are you alright?" he asks, hoping the simple question won't spook Phil.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean... you're being weird."

"I'm always weird, Dan."

Dan decides to drop it for the time being. The last thing he wants to do is push Phil further into this weirdness by interrogating him.

"How did you sleep?" he asks instead, noticing the way Phil's shoulders relax when he changes the subject.

"Pretty good, thanks," says Phil, "my dreams were boring but, like, peaceful."

It only takes a bit of prompting from Dan before Phil gives him a play-by-play of his dreams, and since they're as boring as advertised, Dan lets himself zone out and worry about Phil on his own time.

Phil doesn't get any less weird after that, but he tries harder to cover it. Since Dan is a good friend, he pretends like he doesn't know that Phil is still jumpy and anxious underneath the bad jokes.

Honestly, it sucks. Dan wishes that Phil would just open up and say what's on his mind so they can both move on.

That is, until Phil freaks the fuck out.

See, they've been looking at bigger places to live for a few months now, but they have time until their lease is up so they're in no rush.

Dan gets a notification for an available duplex a few weeks after he tried getting an answer out of Phil, and it looks confusingly laid out but otherwise a good fit. It's exciting, but he hesitates before texting Phil about it - does he really want to play the 'everything is normal' game while meeting a potential landlord? For all he knows, Phil is going to come across as a serial killer.

Instead, he texts Louise. She responds with more emojis than characters, but agrees to check the place out with Dan.

The duplex has so much room that Dan has a startled moment of bewilderment. Does he own enough furniture to fill this place? Before he can voice the concern, Louise waves him off with an easy, "Stop worrying, you dingleberry."

"I'm not worried," Dan lies.

Louise rolls her eyes and starts snooping in the closets. "Oh, blimey, can I keep some of my things here?"

"No," says Dan, although he's sure that at least one of his closets will be taken over by Darcy's old toys and Louise's heels. "Me and Phil need the storage for all our miscellaneous shit."

"You could always, I don't know, get rid of some," Louise suggests.

"Maybe during the move we will," Dan allows, gently guiding her out of the closet before the landlord gets concerned.

Aside from a few awkward moments - inevitable, with Louise at his side - Dan thinks that the tour goes really well. He likes the space, the road is blissfully free of loud noises, and the landlord doesn't immediately think he's in adult films when he mentions where lights could go.

Dan likes it so much that he's reluctant to leave, but Louise reminds him that he isn't the only person whose opinion on the house matters.

"You know Phil has to live here too, right?" she says with a laugh when Dan starts asking pointed questions about when the place will be empty. Dan makes an exaggerated huff of a noise.

"He'll take what I bring home and he'll like it."

The landlord gives them an indulgent smile. "We can arrange another day for you to bring your boyfriend by, see if he likes it here?"

"Sure," Dan says automatically, trying to ignore his heart beating faster and Louise staring a hole into the side of his head. He knows that a Talk is coming. "I'll talk to him about it tonight. Thanks for, y'know, having us."

Dan hopes that ignoring Louise on the way to the tube will delay the Talk, but Louise is not easily deterred.

"Boyfriend, eh?" she asks in a lilting voice, elbowing Dan in the side.

"Shut up, it was easier than explaining."

"I actually think that it wouldn't be hard to say 'Phil's my friend and roommate'." Louise, he thinks, sounds far too amused by this situation. "Now if you get the place, your landlord will think you're a couple the whole time!"

"Would that be so weird?" Dan asks. "I mean. It's what people already think when they meet us, and sometimes I forget that we aren't."

Months ago, Dan had said the same thing to Mark; he doesn't expect Louise to react much differently.

"Well, duh," Louise says matter-of-factly, "because you love him."

Dan almost walks into a telephone pole. "Excuse me?"

"Don't be daft, you light up every time he comes in the room," says Louise. "Plus, I can feel your heart rate speed up."

"You can... feel that?"

Wrinkling her nose, Louise shakes her head. "Maybe sense is a better word, but your emotions are so much louder when Phil's around. It's given me migraines in the past, you know."

"Exactly how many of my friends have magic powers and why don't I?" Dan exclaims. He resists throwing his arms in the air dramatically, but only just.

"Ooh, who else?"

"That isn't the point! What the ever-living fuck, Louise? You can sense emotions?"

"Only really strong ones," Louise says with a shrug, like that isn't a big fucking deal. "That's how I know when you do something awkward that makes you want to die - honestly, I thought I already told you this!"

"If you did tell me," says Dan, "I would have assumed you were joking."

Louise rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone as if Dan is boring her. "That sounds like a you problem, then."

She changes the subject when they get to busier streets, chattering about her new boyfriend while Dan, once again, re-evaluates his entire worldview.

--

So, Phil freaking the fuck out.

It takes Dan by surprise, because Phil seems excited by the prospect of more storage and less drilling, but he tenses up as soon as they walk inside the duplex. The landlord doesn't notice, busy repeating the same things that Dan has already heard and gesturing at all the closet space.

Dan doesn't want to draw attention to Phil's weird stiffness, so he makes idle conversation until the landlord leaves to take a phone call.

"Are you okay?" he asks, reaching for Phil's arm.

It's one of the most bewildering moments Dan has ever experienced - and that includes recent magical discoveries - when Phil jerks away from his hand like he's going to be burned.

"I don't - I don't -" Phil stammers, his eyes wide as saucers, "- I mean, it's that - I know this place."

Dan feels useless with his hands at his sides. "Did you see it online?"

"No, I - in my dreams, I -"

It clicks.

"Phil, are you panicking because you had dreams about panicking here?" Dan asks slowly. He doesn't want to laugh or show any irritation in case it makes Phil's hands start to tremble even more, but this is a little funny and a lot annoying. "You know that's such a catch-22, right?"

The look of absolute distress that Phil gives him says that yes, he knows that very well, but he doesn't seem to be able to stop hyperventilating.

Dan sighs and runs a hand through his own hair, letting his fringe do whatever it wants when he does.

"Okay, mate? I'm going to tell the landlord that you aren't feeling well and that we're leaving so that you can have a panic attack in peace. I'm not in any way leaving you alone because I'm mad or because I hate you, alright?"

Phil gives him a shaky thumbs up before covering his face with both hands and making audible attempts to breathe deeply.

The last thing Dan wants to do is leave Phil alone like this, but he does. He doesn't want a potential landlord thinking that they're batshit, after all, so he relays the not-feeling-well lie and comes back to lead Phil outside by the elbow. Instant relief washes over Dan when Phil allows the physical contact.

"You're so weird," says Dan.

He means it to come out as exasperated yet still fond, keeping grip on Phil's elbow for his own peace of mind, but something about Phil struggling to breathe evenly has Dan sounding unexpectedly soft.

To his surprise, Phil huffs a breathy laugh. "Thanks, I think? And thanks for, um, not leaving me alone for long."

"I told you that didn't sound like me," Dan says, squeezing Phil's arm, "you've been trying to avoid a fight that was never going to happen, you absolute knob."

Phil laughs again, loud and genuine. He's starting to sound more like his regular self, so Dan lets go of him to hail down a taxi. It would be silly to put his hand back immediately, Dan thinks, because if Phil's panic attack is over, he has no real excuse to continue touching him. He opens the taxi door for Phil and clamps down on every instinct that wants to help him in - Phil is thirty years old and capable of getting into a car on his own, thanks ever so - and folds his own hands on his lap once they're both buckled in.

"I quite liked that place, actually," Phil admits. He's twiddling his thumbs, and Dan is proud of himself for not putting his hand atop both of Phil's to make him stop. "Do you think they'll let us come back?"

"They seemed to like me," Dan says, because making a good first impression is a point of pride.

"Maybe they'll only rent to you, then," Phil says in the cadence of a joke.

Even though Phil is finally himself again, Dan can hear the uncertain edge to his words. After all, neither of them need a roommate anymore.

Dan looks out the taxi window so it doesn't feel like an admission when he says, "No, we're a package deal. The landlord knows. Honestly, I'm pretty sure everyone knows."

There's an eerie silence from Phil beside him, but Dan focuses completely on the scenery changing to more familiar buildings. The cabbie isn't paying attention, thank the lord, so Dan isn't completely mortified by having this conversation in front of a stranger.

He's still slightly mortified.

It feels like an honest-to-God jumpscare when Phil puts his hand on Dan's knee and squeezes - Dan is pretty sure the noise that startles out of him isn't human.

Phil laughs, not unkindly, and leaves his hand there. "Yeah, I suppose we are."

--

"You're not acting weird anymore," Dan observes later that week as they wait for a Sims lot to load.

"No, you were right about that dream," Phil says with a sheepish smile. "You didn't get mad like I kept expecting you to, but be honest - you were definitely annoyed."

"Of course I was annoyed, you made yourself panic," Dan says with a fond roll of his eyes. He hates when the fantastic is logical, but the evolution of Phil's dream makes a lot of sense; at first, Dream-Dan was worried, and then got angrier as Real-Dan learned about the dream.

Phil elbows him in the side. "Shut up."

The game loads, then, so they stop discussing it and lose themselves in Dil's world for a while. It isn't until Dil becomes 'VERY ANGRY' that Dan remembers he wanted to share some information with Phil.

"Right, you've been acting so weird that I completely forgot to tell you," Dan says, pausing the game. "Did you know that you aren't the only person with weird powers?"

"It would be pretty egotistical for me to think I'm the only one, Dan."

"Shut up," says Dan, "Louise can feel other people's emotions."

The look on Phil's face is totally worth springing this on him. He goes through a whole face journey, starting on pure shock and ending in something that looks strangely nervous.

He looks away before Dan can analyze the expression further, pointing at the computer scene. "Like - like, she can see when people are focused or inspired, like we’re all Sims? Dan. Dan, that's terrifying."

"She said it only worked with strong emotions," Dan laughs, batting Phil's hand away from his monitor so he doesn't leave finger smudges.

"Do you believe her?" asks Phil.

Do you believe me now?

Dan gives a noncommittal shrug, his first instinct to being asked an opinion, and adds, "Yeah. You've both made a pretty compelling case for magic being, like, a thing."

"What did she feel off of you?" Phil asks curiously, and Dan accidentally-on-purpose presses the pause shortcut so their attention can be consumed by their odd little virtual family again.

--

Dan assumes that if Phil asks Louise anything personal, Louise will keep her mouth shut. He has a lot of blackmail material on her, after all, and friends don't tell people that a friend is feeling Things without consulting that friend.

As the month comes to a close, though, Phil starts pretending he can't find his dream journal and gives Dan looks when he thinks Dan isn't paying attention. It's nerve-wracking.

Luckily, Phil is his regular self aside from that. Dan lets himself revel in how good it feels to have his best friend in top form and cracking decent bants again.

He wants to ask Louise if she's spilled the beans on what are certainly misunderstood feelings, but he's a little scared of the answer. If he doesn't ask either of them, Dan can pretend that everything is back to normal and that he isn't hyperaware of his own body every time Phil touches him.

To make a joke of it all, Dan texts Markiplier without context that he finally understands how Schrödinger felt, because Mark and Louise are the only ones who have an inkling about this situation.

From Mark: Dude, it's 5am here. Shut the fuck up and tell Phil how you feel.

To Mark: that's not what i'm talking about

From Mark: Ohhh, so you ACTUALLY have a maybe-dead cat in your apartment? That's so weird. Maybe you should call someone for that.

To Mark: you're enjoying this too much

Mark, the twat, leaves Dan on read - presumably to go to sleep - and Dan hovers over Louise's contact photo before groaning and opening Tumblr instead.

It's best if he doesn't know. He's pretty sure a cat inside a box is eventually going to die.

--

I should examine this, probably, Dan thinks as another casual brush of Phil's fingers causes his heart to jump into his throat. He doesn't particularly want to end up facedown on the floor, so he decides he'd rather play Mario Kart.

--

Unlike their brief attempt to buy a house, which went sideways in the worst way, signing a lease at the new flat is deceptively easy.

Phil is talking the landlord's ear off while Dan reads the paperwork over and tries to look like he knows what he's doing. He has uni flashbacks at the legal buzzwords, but he tries to focus instead of interjecting in all of Phil's stories and questions. It's working relatively well until Phil has to ask, "Are we allowed a dog?"

"No," Dan answers before the landlord can, tapping a line in the lease. "Sorry, Phil, a dog will have to be got when a house is bought."

He notices that Phil looks a little disappointed but not surprised, and he wonders if that's because Phil anticipated this downside of renting or if he had a dream involving their lack of pets.

"Fair enough," Phil acquiesces, squeezing the back of Dan's neck casually.

Their new landlord smiles at them and Dan is feeling quite good about this whole situation until they ask, "So, how long have the two of you been together?"

"Excuse me?"

Phil doesn't sound offended or even bewildered, just curious. It makes sense; they get mistaken for a couple quite a lot. For his part, Dan is trying to become invisible by melting into the sofa, because he knows that their landlord's assumption isn't coming from nowhere.

"Sorry to pry," they say politely, "Daniel mentioned that the two of you have lived together a while, and I do enjoy a good love story."

Dan hopes that the floor is going to open up and swallow him whole. He feels Phil's gaze but refuses to meet it, face burning.

After a couple of seconds - during which Dan contemplates death or, at the very least, running away to Tokyo - Phil returns his hand to Dan's neck and easily says, "Eight years."

With a mortified noise, Dan hides his face in his hands and tries to ignore the heavy thumping of his heart. Their landlord is saying something else, probably asking what the fuck is wrong with Phil's boyfriend, but all Dan can pay attention to is the weight of Phil's hand and the sound of his genuine laugh in response to whatever question he's asked.

"He's just embarrassed because he hates telling people how we met," Phil stage-whispers. "He basically stalked me online until I noticed him."

"Oh my God, I hate you," Dan groans into his palms.

"No, you don't," says Phil cheerfully.

New landlord chuckles before a phone rings and they have to leave the flat to take the call, murmuring an "excuse me". The silence left in their wake is horrible, and Dan thinks that he's never going to come out of the safety of his hands again.

It takes a few minutes for Phil to move his hand from Dan's neck; honestly, Dan is expecting him to laugh or ask questions that Dan doesn't have answers to, but Phil just takes Dan's hands in both of his and gently pulls them away from Dan's face.

"Did you tell our landlord that we're a couple?" Phil asks, his voice lilting strangely on the last word.

Dan nods, biting his lip. He can feel the heat of an ugly blush radiating off his face, and he has genuinely no idea how he's going to explain this away.

"Why?"

It's a simple question, and certainly a fair one - anyone would want to know the answer - but it stumps Dan. He'd done it because the landlord had assumed, but seeing as most of the people they meet have the same assumption, the logic doesn't really hold up. He could say he'd done it ironically, which he thinks that Phil might accept as an answer, or a joke, which he thinks Phil would disapprove of.

He could say a lot of things, but they all feel like lies. Dan looks down at where Phil is holding his wrists between them on the sofa so he doesn't have to make eye contact when he answers, "Sometimes it feels more like the truth than saying we aren't."

"I guess I can see that," says Phil. To Dan's absolute bewilderment, his voice is calm and his hands aren't shaking. Dan's are. "Tell me something else, then? What do you want to be the truth?"

That... is a less simple question.

"Dunno," Dan shrugs, because he can feel Phil watching him and he doesn't want to take too long to answer. "I never really thought it would be a relevant question."

"Well, do you still want to live with me?" asks Phil. The question is filled with such genuine concern that it startles Dan into looking up to shoot Phil an incredulous expression. He's not prepared for how close Phil is, even though personal space has long been a myth between them.

"Of course I do, you fucking buffoon."

A corner of Phil's mouth curves upwards and Dan tries not to show how nervous he is, because Phil is still weirdly calm.

"Okay, okay," says Phil, squeezing Dan's wrists before letting go, "we should sign, then."

Dan had completely forgotten what they were doing before Phil asked if he wanted to be in a relationship, so he's grateful for the reminder. He skims the rest of the lease as thoroughly as he can with Phil watching him.

There aren't any surprises in the paperwork, which Dan is grateful for - he isn't sure he'd be able to debate with the landlord in his current state. He signs quickly and hands the pen to Phil as their new landlord walks in, pocketing a phone.

"You're all set?" the landlord asks with a smile.

"We are," Phil answers for them both. He stands up and shakes the landlord's hand, making small talk while Dan forcibly drags his gaze away from Phil.

He doesn't know what he wants. It should be easy, sorting through his feelings and deciding yeah, that's how I want things to be, but there are serious downsides to any decision Dan makes right now.

Ruining their friendship would be unacceptable, but honestly, Dan doesn't think anything he says will make Phil stop being his best friend. It would just be awkward if Dan wanted something Phil doesn't - and why didn't Phil say what he wants, so Dan isn't freaking the fuck out and wondering? - it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Dan thinks it would be pretty damn close to the end of the world if they tried, failed, and had to dance around each other as awkward exes. That's the darkest timeline, right there.

Or maybe it's not.

Phil is gesturing for Dan to leave with him, smiling widely, and Dan considers what would happen if nothing changed between them. It's certainly the path of least resistance, but as Dan stands up and Phil leans into his space out of sheer instinct, Dan has to admit that not addressing the way his heart reacts to Phil is the worst option on the table.

The landlord says things and Phil says things back, but Dan isn't listening. He's too busy forcing himself to imagine Phil moving out, Phil getting a dog without him, Phil finding someone else to share his life with, because that's what best friends do.

By the time they hail a cab to their terrible current flat, all Dan can say for sure is that he really, really doesn't want to do nothing.

Phil is quiet for once, looking out the taxi window and letting Dan have space to think, and Dan is so fond and so sure, at this moment, that he reaches out and puts his hand over Phil's.

It only takes a moment before Phil registers what he's doing. He grins so damn brightly that Dan hates himself for not considering his options before this.

"Is this your final answer?" Phil asks, affecting a silly announcer voice to lighten the moment.

Dan snorts and says, "Yeah, alright."

It's all he can manage out loud right now, but Phil beams at him and turns his hand over so they can wind their fingers together properly. It's not the first time they've held hands, but it's the first time it's meant something so important.

Things could still go so wrong. This might not work, and things will be awkward, possibly forever.

Dan, well. He chooses to hope for the best here.

--

"Did you dream about this?" Dan thinks to ask during a commercial break. Phil is curled into his side, lanky giraffe legs thrown over Dan’s lap. It should be weird, since they've never cuddled quite like this before, but Dan feels warm to the core. "Us, I mean. Is that why you hid your journal?"

"I didn't hide it," Phil lies, "I lost it."

Dan huffs his disbelief and pinches Phil’s thigh. "You can tell me. In case you didn't notice, I'm not going to mind."

The grin Phil shoots him is almost shy, which tugs at Dan's heartstrings. He smiles back and runs his fingers through Phil's hair, because he can.

"Does it really matter what I dreamed?" Phil hums, leaning into Dan's hand like a cat. "I've had dreams about us for years, to be honest, but I could never figure out if they were premonitions or just, like, wishful thinking."

"You weirdo."

"Your weirdo," counters Phil. The words are a bit stilted, like he isn't sure if Dan wants to hear them, and Dan can't help himself - he presses his lips to Phil's, quick and chaste and easy as breathing. He'd worried that maybe it would take a while for them to be comfortable with kissing, but honestly, it feels like the natural progression of their relationship.

Phil grins and chases Dan's mouth as he leans back, pressing light kisses all over the bottom half of Dan's face until Dan is laughing breathlessly.

"Okay, fine, you're my weirdo," Dan says as Phil smooches the tip of his nose. "Now shhh, the show is back on."

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, early October 2019

Welcome to my latest summary of recent news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & ecommerce! This covers articles I came across in the first part of October, although some may be older than that.

[I am out of town for nearly a week in late October, so don’t expect another update until the end of the month at the earliest.]

Just a reminder - you don’t need to read everything here! I try to organize the material by topic and provide a brief summary so that you can easily skip things you don’t need to read. 

I’ve tried to improve the layout for better readability, by bolding key words in each paragraph - do you find that helpful, or too hard on the eyes?  Leave a comment below, email me through my website, or send me a message on Twitter.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

14 elements that will help your product pages get sales. Trust badges & reviews can really make a difference. Also, here’s a really simple explanation of how your descriptions should try to sell the product: “Bridge the gap between features and benefits: A feature is essentially a fact about your product or offer. The benefit mainly answers how a feature is useful for your customer. Tell them exactly “how” a particular feature is useful for them, and “why” they should make this purchase. Product descriptions that bridge the gap between features and benefits can lessen buyer’s guilt and ease the buying decision.” 

It’s time for holiday season forecasts! Halloween spending is expected to be steady. While some are predicting up to a 4-5% increase in US November-December retail spending this year, others are worried about consumer debt. There is still “a stubborn wealth gap in the United States that appears to be once again worsening and in fact is "the biggest it’s ever been." The Gini index, a standard economic measure of income inequality, for the U.S. in 2018 was "significantly higher" than 2017, after widening steadily for the last 50 years, according to a Sept. 26 report from the U.S. Census Bureau.” Note that online retailers are finding that the holiday season is less crucial than it used to be, since people shop online all year now. “...the holiday season accounted for almost 24% of all retailers’ sales in the late 1990s, but is closer to 21% today.” Finally, “A late Thanksgiving this year, falling on Nov. 28, means there are six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than in 2018. In fact, 2019 is the shortest possible holiday calendar scenario”.[emphasis added by me]

Kansas state tax collection on online sales is in question after the lack of a minimum on revenue or orders is criticized. The dictate kicked in October 1st, requiring any business selling anything in the state to register, which didn’t exempt small businesses as other states have done. This is important - if they manage to apply this tax to even the smallest businesses, and win any court challenges, other states are likely to follow suit. 

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy released a new stats page last week, which like most things they do these days, isn’t finished yet. You can read the announcement here, and a more detailed explanation here, including a discussion of the conversion rate numbers now provided. [I don’t find those very useful on Etsy, as I find I get a lot of visits that are not from buyers, such as people checking out my SEO.] Also note that there will be a Q & A thread this week in the forum, starting October 14th at 10 am EDT. 

When a listing is clicked from any search, there is now a link at the top saying “Back to search results” which only goes to page one of the search on Etsy, not the page you were on. It even does this when someone clicks on your item from a search of your shop. 

They made some recent improvements to the buyer app, including integrating shop names into the regular search. No need to tag with your exact shop name! (Mobile & desktop search also work the same way; the app was the last hold out.)

More holiday marketing tips continue to roll out, including this one on merchandising. It includes a list of holidays at the end (although Canadian Thanksgiving was just 5 days away on the date of publication, so that seems to have been a waste of space). Potentially more useful to some of us is the transcript of the podcast on shopper behaviour during the holidays. [includes links to the podcast if you would rather listen] “9% of our buyers do the bulk of their shopping in late December right before the holidays” and “On Etsy specifically, searches around the holidays spike for gifts in conjunction with a descriptor of the recipient. We see searches like “gifts for grandma,” “gifts for boyfriend,” and “unique gift for a friend” spike.” Finally, “In terms of uniqueness, 90% of Etsy buyers would rather give a unique or one-of-a-kind gift.” They also cover some specific research on holiday shopping patterns in the UK & Germany, compared to the US. 

There is a new help file on search called Beginner’s Guide to Etsy Search, and while it is up to date, I am not sure why it is needed, when they already have a page (they even link to it) called “How Etsy Search Works”, which isn’t as up to date. If they are planning on releasing new instructions, as they told me months ago, they are going about it really, really slowly. 

Etsy Ireland lost money last year, apparently due to the DaWanda deal. “Etsy, whose mission is to “keep commerce human”, faced a wave of criticism from users after designating its business in Ireland as an unlimited liability company in 2015 so that it didn’t have to publicly disclose financial information about the unit. The company has, however, published annual accounts for the subsidiary for both 2017 and last year.”

Meanwhile, free shipping & Etsy Ads have produced quite a stock boost for the main company. “KeyBanc’s comments were echoed by Canaccord Genuity, which earlier this week wrote that the company’s initiatives were driving “robust growth and improving profitability.” Analyst Maria Ripps called free shipping “an important step in bringing Etsy’s platform closer to par” with other e-commerce leaders like Amazon.com Not only will free shipping improve “consumer perception around the platform,” but she estimated that it could add upside of 3%-5% upside to 2020 estimates for both revenue and adjusted Ebitda. The company’s Etsy Ads initiative, she added, “should ultimately attract high affinity customers with strong repeat purchase behavior.”  Also, they noted that no major analysts no recommend selling the stock - most say “buy”, with a few saying “hold”. 

Etsy partnered with Blackrock Emergency Savings Initiative to help US sellers deal with the financial pressures of self-employment. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google’s advice on how to get your category pages to rank well is worth reading: among other things, you shouldn’t keyword stuff. 

If you want your content to get the featured “0” position at the top of Google search, you should check out this article on featured snippets, or this Whiteboard Friday from Moz. [video & transcript]

More analysis of Google’s September core update shows that it may not have been as dramatic as the June update, but “your money, your life” (YMYL) sites still seem the most affected. SEMRush said the biggest winners were “DailyMail, eBackPage.com, lasd.org and marionschool.net. The biggest losers were TheFourMusic.com, Monks.org, BraidingClub.com, PascoLibraries.org and RoyalCaribbean.com.au.” Other case studies saw a lot of change in health and medical sites. 

Another study states that websites still get most of their traffic from organic search. 

If your own website isn’t ranking on Google, there are numerous fixable reasons, although some are more difficult than others. 

Google says that HTML sitemaps aren’t necessary to good SEO. 

If you are getting less organic traffic to your Patreon page recently, that could be because their SEO team accidentally de-indexed the entire site. It’s been fixed, but it could affect some pages for the next few weeks, if Google doesn’t recrawl you right away. 

YouTube is the 4th most visited website, so improving your YouTube SEO can provide a huge boost in traffic. 

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

Facebook’s experiment on hiding like counts has rolled out in Australia. (Articles looks at the sociological studies behind this)

Instagram launched an account posting tips for “creators”, which the author notes does not focus on making money off of that content. 

They have also expanded their Shopping part of the app, however, which is about making money. 

And IG has released a Snapchat challenger called Threads, a standalone app run by Facebook. Techcrunch did a more detailed review & analysis. Right now, it doesn’t have any ads & they say they have no plans to add them. 

Hubspot uses their own Snapchat account experience as a case study in how to make Snap work for business. (includes video & step-by-step instructions, if you are new to Snapchat.)

Twitter and Tweetdeck had a bad outage for several hours October 1-2, and it still isn't clear what happened. 

If you use Twitter for your business, you should also be using Twitter lists. (I use Tweetdeck to organize mine.)

Now that it is working again, here are the best-performing hashtags on Twitter over the past few years. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Hubspot’s comprehensive guide to Google Ads is completely up to date for all new developments, and covers search ads as well as ads across Google’s network. [video and text]

They also put out a Facebook ad checklist, with video, text & screenshots. 

And they also did a guide to YouTube advertising. [video and text]

Research and ad placement are key to getting better conversion from Facebook ads. 

Gen Z (younger than millennials) don’t yet have full purchase strength as a cohort, but they influence buying in their households after seeing ads on Snapchat. Since Gen Z shows the least brand loyalty of any generation, it's necessary to reach them in new ways.

Shopify now has an integration with Microsoft Ads, which include all Verizon properties (Yahoo, AOL). More than 116 million Americans use Bing searches each month in some way. 

LinkedIn has improved its ad tools, including audience forecasting. 

Quora has improved ad targeting; they say they have over 300 million monthly users. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

Advanced tips for site search in Google Analytics can get more out of the data than you thought was there.  

Facebook will likely be paying out $40 million to settle a lawsuit for grossly overreporting video watching stats, including video ads. 

Google Search Console is now reporting a lot fewer links for websites than in the past; it’s not clear if this is a bug or not. 

The Console is now reporting on your videos.

Everything you need to know about Pinterest Analytics. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

If you use abandoned cart emails on your website, make sure they are optimized for conversions. 

Ecommerce fraud rates are definitely increasing. “... digital goods have seen such an increase in fraud because they often have a streamlined purchase process that requires less information than other items.”

Google launched its new Shopping pages, which is not the same as Google Shopping but is connected to it, and allows buyers to check out on Google rather than retailer websites. 

Amazon apparently surveyed Handmade sellers recently asking how they felt about Amazon Handmade.

Will Amazon face consequences in the US for its competitive activities? It’s looking more likely now. “Bloomberg reported in August that Amazon was dropping sellers' products in searches on its site if they priced a product cheaper on rival sites, behavior the news service noted could draw antitrust scrutiny.”

BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

We all have difficult customers occasionally - here are 9 tips on how to deal with them. 

While most web browsing happens on mobile, desktop users are still way more likely to buy. They also spend more than mobile buyers. 

Gen Z members plan on doing most of their holiday shopping in physical shops this year (just like baby boomers), but many will do research online first. Also, “Forty-two percent of shoppers said that low prices are the top motivator for making purchases and 31% said free shipping was also a shopping incentive.”

Offering fewer options can lead to more sales. (The article has great suggestions on different ways to use this info.)

MISCELLANEOUS 

Vimeo app Magisto is facing a class-action lawsuit over holding biometric data without the owners’ permission.

Haven’t heard much about the EU privacy law lately? It turns out that businesses that are GDPR-compliant are more successful than those that are not. The shocker is that only 28% of the companies surveyed were actually completely compliant, so this may be correlation and not causation. Also, the results were self-reported, so maybe not that accurate. 

Here’s a decent list of free website builders, but I strongly suggest doing your own research on any that sound good, as the writeup isn’t very detailed. (The Etsy forum is a very good place for some of this research, as you can ask very specific questions of people who probably have similar needs to yours.)

Chrome is going to block embedded content that isn’t from an https site, beginning in December. [if your website isn’t yet https, get on that right away - it is going to become more & more crucial for being seen.]

[dearnamjoonwithlove]

Cannabis Use Disorder: The Genetic Component

By Chris Johnston, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Pinnacle Treatment Centers

Marijuana use is not uncommon.

Everyone knows that. And where marijuana is concerned, this common knowledge is not simply an aggregate of anecdotes repeated so often they become accepted as fact. There’s solid evidence backed up by statistics to support the common perception.

In fact, reliable data indicates it’s the most widely used psychoactive substance in the world, with research showing about 9% of users become dependent. Recent studies in the U.S. reveal marijuana use is on the rise among both adolescents and adults. Results from the 2017 Monitoring the Future Survey (MTF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) paint a clear picture of current marijuana use in the U.S.:

45% of high school seniors said they’ve tried marijuana

9.5% of adults said they use marijuana

30% of adults who use marijuana meet the criteria for Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD)

Only 2.9% of those who meet CUD criteria receive a diagnosis from a mental health professional

All of that seems logical to most adults in the U.S. In high school, we all knew people who tried marijuana. Some tried it and enjoyed it – they started smoking sometimes. Some tried it and hated it – they never touched the stuff again. And some tried it, loved it, started smoking all the time, and never looked back – they may still be regular marijuana users to this day.

All of this – the evidence-based facts and the anecdotal observations – begs the question: why do some people develop a cannabis use disorder (CUD) while others don’t?

A series of recent studies conducted by researchers in Denmark offer a new insight that may help answer this question: there may be a genetic component to marijuana addiction.

New Study: A Gene Correlated with Cannabis Use Disorder

First, we need to take a brief side trip to the land of statistics. No, we won’t go back to the most hated class in mathematics. We’ll just make sure we’re on the same page with regards to the terms correlation and causation.

This is what they mean:

Correlation describes the relationship between two or more variables. Correlation between variables does not mean a change in one variable causes the change in the other variable.

Causation indicates that one variable or event is the result of the other variable or event. This is simple cause and effect.

Here’s a basic example of cause and effect: eating too much sugary food causes an increased risk of diabetes. And here’s a basic example of correlation: people who eat a lot of sugary foods are more likely to lead a sedentary lifestyle. In the first example, the sugary food causes the diabetes. In the second, the sugary food does not cause the sedentary lifestyle.

Make sense?

It’s an important distinction to understand, not only for this article, but for reading any type of scientific paper or news articles based on scientific papers.

Now that we have that cleared up, let’s move on to this study. It’s a big deal for two reasons:

The size of the study: 2,387 cases and 301,041 controls.

They replicated the study, the second time with higher numbers: 5,501 cases and 301,041 controls.

That means in the first study, they compared the genetic information from 2,387 people with CUD against 301,041 without CUD, while in the second, they compared the genetic information from 5,501 people with CUD against 301,041 without CUD.

What did they find?

They found a specific genetic mutation present in all the people with CUD, and absent in the people without CUD.

CHRA2: The Gene Involved in CUD

There’s a third reason this study is significant, related to the high numbers of individuals the study analyzed. The study is/was what’s known as a Genome-Wide Association Survey (GWAS). Here’s the NIH definition of GWAS:

“A GWAS (genome-wide association survey) is a way for scientists to identify inherited genetic variants associated with risk of disease or a particular trait. This method surveys the entire genome for genetic [patterns] that occur more frequently in cases (people with the disease or trait being assessed) than in controls (people without the disease or trait). Also called genome-wide association study.”

In this GWAS, researchers identified a mutation in a gene – called CHRA2 – that holds the code for a specific class of nicotine receptors. They found that the people diagnosed with CUD had lower levels of the nicotine receptor than people not diagnosed with CUD. Researchers did not identify the mechanism by which the decreased expression of this causes CUD, but nevertheless, this is a major step forward in the research effort to link genetic factors and addiction.

So, why does identifying this gene matter?

Identifying genes associated with specific diseases is important for many reasons, the primary three being:

Awareness

Once scientists identify a gene associated with a disease, they can test individuals for its presence, absence, or any abnormalities. If doctors know an individual carries a gene or genetic mutation associated with any disease, it prepares both doctor and patient for the next item on our list.

Prevention

An individual with a gene or mutation associated disease may or may not develop that disease. However, they can take steps that increase their chances of avoiding the condition or mitigating its effects if it develops.

Treatment

While gene therapy is a new development in science and medicine, it has the potential to radically alter the medical landscape. The goal of gene therapy – and this is grossly oversimplified – is to change mutated genes or genes associated with disease to their non-mutated, non-health threatening variations. It’s a complicated process, but in a nutshell, the idea is that when they replace an atypical gene with a typical gene, the associated disease or condition improves or disappears entirely.

It’s easy to see how this may work with regards to Cannabis Use Disorder. At its most basic level, a genetic screening could identify those who have the CHRA2 mutation and those who don’t. That’s the awareness aspect. Those who have the mutation will understand they’re at increased risk of developing a CUD compared to those who don’t and will ideally avoid using marijuana. That’s the prevention aspect. Finally, a successful gene therapy approach to CUD would involve replacing the mutated CHRA2 gene with a typical CHRA2 gene, thereby – theoretically – decreasing risk of developing a CUD.

Gene Therapy: A New Direction for Medication-Assisted Treatment?

In the addiction treatment world, we welcome all three aspects of gene therapy – the awareness, the prevention, and the treatment. We also welcome any new scientific knowledge about the genetic component of addiction, because – for one thing – we believe the more we can identify the precise physiological causes and mechanisms of addiction, the more we can reduce the stigma around addiction. Finally, gene therapy has the potential to add a brand-new component to Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT): the current mode of MAT happens after someone develops a substance use disorder, but gene-therapy for addiction could happen before someone develops a substance use disorder.

Therefore, gene therapy has the potential to dramatically reduce the number of people who struggle with addiction. This, in turn, would reduce the amount of pain, suffering, heartache, and loss caused by addiction. We see the damage addiction causes every day, first-hand. That’s why this recent discovery of the gene associated with Cannabis Use Disorder gives us hope: we’re committed to using every evidence-based tool at our disposal to heal, restore balance, and help people struggling with addiction live a healthy, productive life, free from the destructive cycles of alcohol and substance use.

The post Cannabis Use Disorder: The Genetic Component appeared first on Pinnacle Treatment Centers.

source https://pinnacletreatment.com/blog/cannabis-use-disorder-the-genetic-component/

[maiji]

@logicheartsoul Thank you so much for the kind words ^^ And certainly - thank you for your interest and for asking! I love working with ink so I’m happy to talk about it :D

How I got into it

It's only been in the last maybe five or so years that I've actually started to pay more attention to art supplies. In the case of ink, it really started with fountain pens. Long story short, one of my professors was really into them and let me try one of his vintage pens, and I was vaguely interested. Then my best friend really got into them, and I tagged along to a fountain pen show (shoutout to Scriptus Toronto!!). From there it was a slow burn over a period of months from “this is neat” to “WOWWW OKAY I GUESS I’M REALLY INTO THIS NOW”. It was a (relatively, for me) quick entry once I discovered the online fountain pen community. These people are incredibly passionate, highly articulate, and best of all, document EVERYTHING. I found the ink reviews especially spectacular and that’s probably what hooked me the most.

A few other things that helped in the appeal factor:

I have a tendency to grip writing implements excessively hard and exert a lot of unnecessary pressure when writing or drawing with more conventional pens (ballpoints etc.) A number of people mentioned that fountain pens helped them to alleviate this because generally you don’t need/want to apply pressure when using them. I’ve found it has helped.

I've always been interested in forms that combine words and images, and this merges literary and artistic worlds in a very clear way.

I’ve been on a long personal journey of wanting to incorporate much more Chinese/Taiwanese/East Asian heritage and cultural traditions into my work. Thus, I've been gravitating towards things emphasizing brush, ink, water, elements of calligraphy and... not sure if spontaneity is the word I want, but things that help me overthink less when I draw, and get better at letting go. 

How I work with ink

My (main) tools

Fude de mannen: This is basically a fountain pen that mimics a brush for Asian calligraphy. It has a bent nib that enables you to change stroke thickness by varying your hand angle. I love this pen so much I got a second one so I could have a different colour; the washi tape helps me tell which one it is. You can see more of it in the video interview I did with PindotPress.

Brush pen: A pen that is a brush. lol. A number of companies make them; I use the Pentel Pocket Brush because it's the first one I tried and I liked it a lot. It's smooth, has great line variation, and the tip has yet to fail me. (Although the cap started falling apart, hence all the tape on my first one lol.) I currently have three: one for permanent black, one for permanent red, and one because I couldn’t resist buying a coloured version of the pen (I have Diamine Earl Grey in it right now).

Glass dip pen: These dip pens are pretty but what is super awesome is that they are super easy and fast to clean. I can quickly switch between multiple colours of bottled inks. The grooves in the nib hold ink, so you need to slightly turn the pen as you go to access all the ink. You can also get a wider stroke by slanting the pen and using the side of the glass nib. It's not that easy to control your lines, but I actually like this because it creates a lot of happy accidents. And “oops well damn" accidents, but like I said I’m trying to cultivate the whole “learn to let go" mindset.

Waterbrush: Basically a brush that carries its own water reservoir. I’ve used a few different brands but I find I like the Pentel Aquash small the best. Some people fill them with ink like a brush pen, but I’ve not really done that. (I did it once with a different brand that was harder to open/refill and I got mad.) I use it to paint with the inks.

Pencil I got for free: Unless I really am just doodling, I usually draw base pencils of some sort, even if it’s just a very rough, light sketch or a quick thumbnail on another sheet of paper. Every so often I get an inquiry asking what special kind of pencil I use, but I’m afraid they’re just normal pencils rolled with recycled newsprint. I got free samples like a million years ago and I have been using them forever. (I think I’m finally down to my last three.)

Eraser: I’ve been trying a few different ones but it takes me forever to work through an eraser. You want it to be able to pick up the lines without requiring you to scrub and take the ink too or destroying the fibres of your paper. This one actually works pretty well. If you’re really curious you can see the non-destroyed packaging here! lol

Toilet or tissue paper: Something to pick up the water. This is my "undo button” in real life when I’m painting/using the waterbrush. Also I drown everything with water so it’s very important.

Ink swatches: Every time I get a new ink I make a sample and add it here. It’s great for colour palettes and when I’m looking at other inks and trying to decide whether to get it or not (e.g., is it different from everything I already have? My definition of “different” is very generous...). I don’t actually have all these inks; some were samples from friends. I’ve found I tend to gravitate towards very complex, nuanced neutrals. (This sounds so sophisticated but when you see them all it once it's like. Oh. Apparently I like shades of grey, brown, and other hard to classify "muddy" or in-between colours lmao. But more on that in a bit.) Lately I've been getting glittery inks because they're fun and they add a magical dimension to the physical piece.

Here is my current selection of inks - on the shelf to the immediate left of my laptop and my head as I am typing this right now. The box at the bottom left is all the samples. 

My approach

In my mind, I broadly classify my approach into two categories: “dry” and “wet”.

"Dry" - ink only, no water. I have pretty unsteady hands and hate "inking" - if we think of inking as an exercise in achieving a "clean", controlled line drawing with consistent line width/stroke thickness, neatness, etc. So I love pens that support me in what I think of as controlled loss of control - wide variations in brush width and stroke character. Brush pens and fude de mannen pens are perfect for this. They have lines that offer a wide range of dynamic, organic, and textural opportunity.  My Inktober illustrations fall into this category. A few examples below, followed by links to the full set.

Inktober 2017 - fude de mannen

Inktober 2018 - brush pen

"Wet" - Basically I blob water around. Depending on when I do it (before, with/during, after the application of the ink), you can get different results. The water causes the ink to bleed, semi-watercolour-like, and can be used for shading, environmental effects etc. For obvious reasons, this works best with non-waterproof inks (which the vast majority of fountain pen inks are), but you can do this even with waterproof inks. Just let the ink hit water before it has a chance to soak into the paper and you can get cool effects :D. And you can also do it with other pens too, not just fountain pen inks. Examples:

Tiles of Toronto urban sketch series

Raizen and Hokushin doodles

Arikoto from Ooku

As you might imagine, this is really great for on-the-go drawings, because you just need a pen (or a couple of pens) and a waterbrush.

The “wet” approach is also where the very complex inks that look "boring" (greys, taupes etc.) are just complete magic. When the dye elements separate, other colours emerge, and you get really wonderful textural effects and rings of colour where the ink pools and dries. Diamine Earl Grey is a colour I've mentioned several times that I LOOOVE because it separates into blues, browns, purples, even pinkish tones. It's a gorgeous ink. You can see some examples and closeups here.

Another colour that does this really powerfully is Sailor Rikyucha. It’s a dark tea brown-green that separates very easily into pale blue-greens and more and has amazing tonal and textural qualities. The Tendril Wreath illustration here really shows this.

For the most part I look at things I like and then experiment to figure out what happens. After working with the same tools for a while, you get a sense of how the different elements might react and respond naturally.  The Genjimonogatari series employs both dry and wet extensively and is an example of the experimenting and playing I’m doing - I keep finding new aspects to the inks I thought I knew, and making “interesting” mistakes. And trying to fix them as I go with varying levels of success, haha. But I’m always learning!

One more thing about this hobby

I feel compelled to finish with some talk about the pure aesthetic appeal, or the MULTIPLE LEVELS OF FUN I get out of these inks. Not just the colour, not just how the ink behaves, but... the name of the ink as well! Some inks do this more effectively than others. Similar to how the presentation of a dish is part of the experience, the name of an ink adds so much to my enjoyment of it. My least favourite ink names are [standard adjective]+[standard colour name]. My favourite ones are really convoluted with literary and poetic references, I just love them hahaha. Asian fountain pen inks I find tend to do this especially well - partly because of how much you can pack into how few syllables, I suppose. It makes me sad that a lot of sites don’t include the original names, often referencing them with just a number, though I understand it is difficult to translate. But I learn a lot with these names as a starting point! For example, Zhenjing, which I mentioned recently in the Kurama “Light” illustration, took a bit of back and forth with my parents to look up the source and then to interpret the complex line of poetry. It was a fun and fascinating exercise. 

A great name can’t save an ink I don’t like, but a good name elevates an ink I do like even more, and it can be really inspiring for making stuff. For example, take Pen BBS Mirrorflower Watermoon. I adore the colour of this ink - it's a very subtle grey-pale green with silver flakes. I used it heavily in the Hokushin fanart “Northern Deity” (you can see it here with photos of the sparkly).

The name is actually highly recognizable if you're familiar with classic East Asian literature/poetry. I read it out loud to my parents with no context other than "this is the name of one of my favourite ink colours" while they were eating dinner and they both said at the same time, "I know this! DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER!" lmao. It's a very Buddhist idiom or phrase referring to the illusory nature of things, likening it to the reflection of a flower in a mirror or the reflection of the moon in water.

I hope this was interesting and helpful! ^^

[chronically-illustrated]

Ego Activity Timeline

(July 10, 2016 - May 15, 2018)

EDITED: May 15, 2018

Since I’ve only been here a short time, I’ve had to do a lot of research to get up to speed on previous ego appearances and Antipocalypse hints. So, I thought I would put together a timeline to help out other people in the community who are in the same situation, especially since a lot of you have finals going on and you don’t have time to go digging through all of this stuff. It may also help jog theorists’ memories with things that could be linked to the current Seánanigans. I’ve spent a lot of time gathering all this, but it’s not comprehensive, so please feel free to add on!

July 10, 2016

Welcome to the Game #2

- Jackieboy Man's origin

August 11, 2016

Jacksepticeye Power Hour #1

- Marvin's origin, though he is not yet an official ego at this time

September 15, 2016

Jacksepticeye Power Hour #2

- Dr. Schneeplestein's origin

[Hints leading to first Antipocalypse – I wasn't here for this, so I don't know all the places to look, but I think the ones in Sister Location are particularly significant]

October 31, 2016

Say Goodbye

- Antisepticeye's first official appearance

December 24, 2016

Amateur Surgeon Christmas Edition

- Dr. Schneeplestein’s second appearance

March 10, 2017

Antisepticeye takeover at PAX East

April 11, 2017

Bro Average

- Chase Brody's origin

June 18, 2017

Bio Inc. Redemption #2

- Jack kills Chase Brody

- References Dr. Schneeplestein at 16:45

- In-game Chase Brody dies June 18, 2018

- Jack acts as if Chase is not an established character, but a random name he came up with

June 24, 2017

Bio Inc. Redemption #4

- Dr. Schneeplestein's third appearance

August 3, 2017

Kill Jacksepticeye

- Jack feels nauseous, leaves the room, and Dr. Schneeplestein comes in

- Antisepticeye takes over Dr. Schneeplestein while the doctor tries to save in-game Jack

- In-game Jack dies on March 5, 2018

October 23, 2017

South Park: The Fractured But Whole Part 2

- Jackieboy Man’s second appearance

October 31, 2017

Jacksepticeye The Silent Movie

- Jameson Jackson's origin, though he is not yet an official ego at this time

- Anti attempts to take over when Jameson cuts his hand

- “Still here,” “Puppets,” “Run,” and “Still watching” flash onscreen

- Jameson appears to regain control of his body and finishes the video, doing Jack's usual outro

December 5, 2017

Doki Doki Literature Club Part 5

- “imtalkingtoyou” and “irememberwhathapened” are in the tags in zalgo text; these tags are later removed

December 15, 2017

Overnight Watch

[I don't know much about Overnight Watch, but I’ve been told it involved showing previously-used footage of Anti during the night of the holiday stream]

March 14, 2018

Giant Smelly Feet

- Usual intro is missing

- At the end of the video, instead of the usual outro, the camera moves into the bathroom where Jack sits hunched with his feet in the tub, muttering in a Gollum-like voice. When he realizes he's being watched, he slowly turns his head, then lunges toward the camera screaming, “Get out!” The video cuts to black and there is no outro.

April 6, 2018

During his PAX East panel, Jack says he wants to do a story involving all the egos later this year, and confirms Jameson Jackson as an official ego

April 11, 2018

Jack posts a picture on Instagram for Chase's birthday

April 18, 2018

Postcard Incident on Tumblr

- Jack posts what appears to be a postcard that says “Wish You Were Here.” Community members determine the background picture is from a beach in Germany. As the hours pass, the picture changes several times, getting more blood-spattered and glitched with each update. The image is then deleted from Jack's blog less than 12 hours after it was posted.

[I believe it's around this time that Jack answers a question about which egos are canon during a stream and makes it clear that the six official egos are Anti, Jackieboy Man, Dr. Schneeplestein, Marvin, Chase Brody, and Jameson Jackson]

May 1, 2018

Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter 4

- “I’m hearing something. Maybe it was the sound of my own brain eating itself alive inside my head.” (5:28)

May 2, 2018

Monster Prom

- “I thought white noise was taking over my brain and I was about to die.” (4:12)

- “There was that sound again. I thought I was going deaf.” (6:09)

- “Sorry, my brain switched off there for a second.” (7:28)

(credit to @videogames-and-stardust​ for writing this info down)

May 3, 2018

Jack posts a picture of Dr. Schneeplestein on Instagram with the caption, “Vacation's over!”

Jack renames Bro Average and The Silent Movie as Power Hour videos with the egos' names

May 4, 2018

100% REAL DOCTOR l Gastric Bypass, Liposuction Surgery

- “Dr. Jacksepticeye” parodies Dr. Schneeplestein's intro from Power Hour #2

- Dr. Schneeplestein returns, but his “good friend” Jack doesn't seem to recognize him and asks, “Who are you?” Instead of greeting Jack like a friend who's been gone for a while, Schneep responds, “I am the good doctor, and that is my chair!” It has been noted that his expression shows both anger and fear, and that Jack's face displays not confusion, but a startled look as if he's been caught doing something he shouldn't by someone he didn't expect to see.

May 5, 2018

Welcome to the Game 2

- Jack asks, “Where is Jackieboy Man when you need him?”

Stories Untold Chapter 1

- The usual intro is missing. While doing the outro, “Jack” stops and says, “What was that? Did you hear that? It sounded like somebody…” He tenses up as we hear the sound of the door handle turning, and looks over his shoulder as the door creaks open behind him. After a flash of lighting and crack of thunder, we see the desk from the game, and a staticky black-and-white image of Jack appears on the computer screen.

May 6, 2018

Barry Has a Secret

- Jack gets through part of his intro, then goes into a super creepy voice and Anti-like grin.

- At the end of the video, Jack is talking about having nothing to hide, then the video starts to fade to black as he shouts, “Hey, where are you going?” This is followed by a found-footage-style skit similar to that at the end of Giant Smelly Feet. The person holding the camera goes into the bathroom; the video glitches, speeds up and rewinds intermittently as the person reaches out to open a cupboard and finds a small plastic hand inside. Off-camera, we hear Jack's voice say, “Hey, what are you doing?” The camera turns and he is standing very close by, grinning and saying, “Hey. You weren't supposed to find that.” There are more glitches during this part as well. Just like in Giant Smelly Feet, there is no outro after Jack reaches for the camera and the video cuts to black.

Stories Untold Chapter 2

- The usual intro is missing, replaced by the SU-specific intro

- Jack's outro is interrupted as the screen starts to flash white and the facecam video appears to speed up, showing him going limp just before the screen goes white and then cuts to the image of the floating, glowing machines from the game

May 7, 2018

Stories Untold Chapter 3

- The usual intro and outro are missing

- At the end of the video, the screen goes dark and we hear, “Jack. Jack! This is Chase. You need to wake up.” We then get Morse code saying, “Where am I?”

Jack posts a picture on Instagram of him wearing Chase's shirt with Marvin's mask partially visible in the background. The photo is deleted less than 24 hours later.

May 8, 2018

Check Please

- Jack says the word “magic” several times and pretends to do a magic trick with the candle

- Jack talks a lot about his dad leaving the family and being a dad with kids

Stories Untold Chapter 4

- At the end of the video, Jack tosses and turns in bed, and we hear whispers saying, “Close the door.” Jake wakes up, looks directly into the camera, and says, “I remember what he did to me.”

Fortnite Stream

- Marvin's mask is hanging on the whiteboard in the background; Jack takes a “pee break” and removes it after viewers post about it in the chat

May 9, 2018

Try to Fall Asleep

- In the static after “Flee,” we see Marvin several times, Jameson once, and the words “You need to” appear above “Flee”

- More references to magic tricks

Colourblind Test

- Marvin's mask is hanging on the whiteboard in the background

May 10, 2018

Thanos Infinity Gauntlet Mode | Fortnite Battle Royale

- Marvin's mask is hanging on the whiteboard in the background

- Footage from before the stream on the 8th

Jack is out of town this day filming something he can't talk about but is excited to show us

May 11, 2018

Community members notice an emoji in a social media post. Jack usually uses :D, :P, etc., so it was strange to see him use an actual emoji. @viostormcaller was able to predict Chase's appearance on this day from this clue.

Tie – A Game About Depression

- This is Chase playing. We get absolutely indisputable confirmation at the end that we’re seeing Chase. He talks about one of his best friends being in a coma, which is most like Jack, hence hearing him say, “Jack. Jack! This is Chase. You need to wake up.” There is a distinct transition at 11:03 where the shirt he’s wearing changes - it goes from a black shirt to Chase’s shirt. Even before this, he’s talking about being a single dad with two kids and struggling with depression. At the end of the video, we see Chase drinking while looking at a photo of the family he’s lost. He sets his hat down next to the bottle of alcohol at the very end.

- Here is a transcript from @21antisepticeye of all the ego-related statements made in this video.

May 14, 2018

Dark Silence

- The light in the recording room flickers and Jack looks up, saying, “Oh, god” as it appears to shatter and the lighting turns red.

- Toward the end of the video, the in-game character is wandering a hospital with a flashlight when the overhead lights in the hallway start turning off one by one, the darkness coming closer and closer. Jack says, “I know where this is going” just before the last light goes out; we hear the character scream as the screen goes dark, including the facecam.

- We cut to Jack (possibly Chase) flicking on a lighter. He wanders a dark hallway, and we hear children’s cries and whispers similar to those in Stories Untold Chapter 4. A red glow washes over him, and we see Antisepticeye, silhouetted by red light in a doorway. Jack/Chase asks, “Who’s there?” and Anti turns his head, grinning, and a bright green light ignites in his right eye (left to the viewer). Jack/Chase asks, “Where are they? What do you want from me?” Anti stalks toward the camera, glitching, and the video cuts to black.

May 15, 2018

Baldi’s Basics

- The video appears normal except for the skit at the end, in which Jack has changed into Chase’s shirt. He scribbles on a piece of paper and pleads with the teacher, hunching up in fear before the cut to the Sam animation. After the animation, he sits up and smiles, which is very reminiscent of the ending scene from Bro Average/The Jacksepticeye Power Hour - Chase Brody.

Here is a recap from @lum1natrix detailing the events of May 2018 up to May 11.

Here is a playlist of all the videos with ego appearances up to Dark Silence.

To be continued!

[darkarm66]

Further thoughts on Xenoblade 2

When reviewing Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I tried my best to avoid mentioning Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles X. Mainly because directly comparing sequels is always unfair. Any game should stand (or fall) on its own merits. Plus sequels aren't always the same game or mechanics, so any expectation of familiarity should fall only on the player (unless the devs explicity say 'this game is a direct sequel').

However, playing XC2 just really had me wishing I was playing the first or second game instead. And like I wrote in the review, XC2 lacked a lot of cohesion between its systems. Cohesion the past games nailed. One thing, the previous Xenoblade games had, in terms of cohesion, was a great environmental design. Xenoblade had the gimmick of living on the body of dormant mechgods, but the actual impressive part was how every area was interconnected. This lead to feelings that if the player wanted to push beyond the boundaries and see what they can explore or discover, only a gamer's patience (and some overleveled monsters) would stop them. Xenoblade X added verticality with the mechs, which always meant exploration had some surprises. Xenoblade 2....dispenses with most of that. In fact, much of the hidden stuff comes from warp gates locked by field skills, which may or may not be at the right level by the time. This leads to a lot of fetch questing and cat herding just to possibly level up that skill...which you need to access by increasing trust levels. By the time you have enough skill to unlock that warp gate, the player has to go back by fast traveling. I'm split on fast traveling as a game mechanic because I do love saving the player time but the disconnected nature of all the worlds take some of the joy of traveling away. It makes what should be a vibrant and unique world feel like an inefficient menu option with random bits of interactivity. It robs some of the worlds from having any lasting impact.

Another aspect was the handling of side quests because....let's face it, there's a shit ton of sidequests in all three games. And all three had a way to make it feel grueling. However, the first Xenoblade had the advantage of completing quests if you already had the stuff in your inventory...and you didnt have to go back to the quest giver. So much time saved. So much back tracking erased. This design advancement, all the way from 2010, is just missing in 2017. Xenoblade Chronicles X had this to some degree but this was mitigated due to many of the tougher quests being in the online portion and the post-story game turned into challenging grind for parts to unlock better Skells. In XC2, it just feels like a way to stretch out something a bit longer to pad for time. XC1 and XCX's quests didn't feel like chores to do because both games felt like they encouraged players to truly, truly play to their own style so players can unintentionally complete quests without needing to activate it. 

The amount of backtracking saved in the first two games had the bonus of the game world to truly feel unique and warm, as opposed to Xenoblade 2's worlds just feeling like checkmarks to add on a map and the problem, at least for me, is that when you no longer have to be in a place any more, it doesn't need to exist. This waste the environmental design and robs it of being a world and is not just: a game. While a game being a game feels like a weird criticism, but games that are collections of exhaustive chores are usually not the best games.

One thing to keep in mind between all three games is the Affinity System. It shows up differently in between all three games, but their functionality is essentially the same: nurture a link between the party and the game world. In the first game, it gated some quests and side stories by incentivizing the player to actually do things within an area to increase affinity. But the first Xenoblade gave better payouts, gameplay wise, for the player's time. Talking to NPCs and creating good links between them allowed players to obtain items that may have been needed for quests or better: the affinity between the party members. This is where Xenoblade actually justified its long, long playtime. Not only does the party members receive the character development the cutscenes don't, it allows the players to have specific passive bonuses in gameplay. And its not just for the specific member in combat, but it benefits the entire party. And for the combat, performing certain actions for members allowed a boost in critical hits and buffed other effects. This made pay attention to which relationships were truly worth developing as the talking during combat mattered and determined how well an effect could take hold. Best of all, the affinity helped mitigate what could've been a super grindy affair.

This is the case for XCX as well, as the combat got tweaked to build on top of the combat chatter as performing a specifically called for Art, increased Affinity between party members, but was also the way to keep stacking attacks and effects on enemies, especially important as the game started doling out tougher enemies. 

For Xenoblade 2, the Affinity system is the only thing that gets leveled up through quest completion, allowing the Driver to get specific bonuses and building the Trust between the equipped Blade. It's the interaction between Blade and Driver where the Affinity system gets smashed with sledgehammer. For the most part, it's similar to the first game where trust has to be built to unlock a skill node. Then, unlocking a specific skill requires specific tasks, tasks the player may have already done. Now add the fact that Rare Blades have specific unlock nodes and quests and they have to be present (or use the dreadful Merc Mission system) to keep unlocking. I could be misremembering the first two games, but Xenoblade 2 just made it feel like double the work for the same payoff. Stretched out for over 200 Blades. 

The only thing that's consistent between all three games: there's a lot in the mechanics they won't even bother to tell you how to get it working. In the first game, it's never clear how much affinity is being added from each action but there is a number that levels it up. In XCX, you need several online guides to find out where to find the parts for the high end Skells and the fact there's a specific scheme to connecting probes. XC2 does this a little better in certain aspects but the overall vagueness to collecting is still present.

So, I this isn't a 'for the next Xeno game, they should' article because the Shulk, Fiora and Elma showing up in Challenge Mode felt like a hint that Monolith Soft may be moving away from the franchise for the next upcoming games and probably wanted to give the fans a bit of fan service before moving on. Plus, there's no guarantee that circumstances of Monolith Soft losing half their staff to a different Nintendo franchise will repeat, which I believe benefited Breath of the Wild at the expense of a better Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Hopefully, whatever the next game from Monolith Soft becomes and hopefully it's an amazing RPG, that it retains all the great parts from the Xenoblade franchise.

[sleemo]

Daisy Ridley: How to survive Star Wars

— The Telegraph | Dec 8, 2017

Almost two years ago to the day, Daisy Ridley was propelled into the stratosphere via the Millennium Falcon. One minute she was a little-known actress from London who had had a bit part in Casualty and the dubious honour of being cut from an Inbetweeners movie, the next action figures were being created in her likeness.

As Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ridley wowed audiences with her punchy portrayal of a scavenger who discovers that she in fact has mighty powers – the force is strong with her, if you will.

The film ended with her seeking out Luke Skywalker and presenting him with his father’s lightsaber. Are the two related? Is Rey Darth Vader’s granddaughter? So many questions, so little chance of anyone being able to answer them before Christmas 2019, when the last of the current crop of Star Wars movies is due to be released. 

So we come to The Last Jedi, episode eight of the franchise and the reason that we find ourselves in a galaxy far, far away – or at the very least, a hotel room in Los Angeles. When we meet, Ridley can’t tell me anything about it – partly because then, she’d probably have to kill me, partly because she hasn’t actually seen it herself.

It has been directed by Rian Johnson, who worked on Breaking Bad and, Ridley says, ‘is far more secretive than JJ Abrams, who directed episode seven. But what I can tell you is that [the film] picks up right where we left off, and what Rian and I were discussing is that it’s not always a good idea to meet your heroes, because occasionally it doesn’t work out. And it may do. I’m not saying that it’s all awful between Luke and Rey. But Luke is not expecting Rey, and his reception is perhaps not what she thought it would be. She looks at him like a myth, but they actually have to communicate – and it’s not this mystical thing that’s away from her and up in the clouds, it’s this thing that is happening right here. There’s a threat, obviously, but also there’s room for both of them to grow. So now she actually gets a chance to ask herself questions like, “Why is it that I’m here, what is it that I’m doing, and where am I going to end up?’”   

These are questions that most of us ask ourselves at some point in our lives. For Ridley, who is just 25, they came up a little sooner than usual due to the avalanche of exposure that comes with being in a film franchise so huge that it has spawned its own religion (people are now allowed to choose ‘Jedi’ when asked their faith on the census). She had therapy for six months last year, once filming had wrapped on The Last Jedi.

‘I have always suffered with anxiety since I was a teenager, I should have done it way before, but I suddenly realised how good it is to talk about this stuff. Going through the whole thing with the same group of people is wonderful, but also occasionally it’s really good to step away [from the cast and crew of Star Wars] and actually really process what went on, and how I felt in it all.’

Ridley made the decision to leave Instagram last year, after posting a picture of herself at the 2016 Teen Choice Awards, accompanied by a caption in tribute to people lost to gun violence. She was targeted by trolls; a shame, given that she had previously shared honest posts about her battle with endometriosis (which has had since she was 15) and the acne she suffers as a result.

‘[After the Teen Choice Awards post] suddenly people were not very nice. I had put on weight after finishing filming, and I thought, why do I have to be slender to have the views I have? For three days I was shell-shocked. It was the most rude awakening to what the internet could be. So I came off, because I just thought my soul was more important. As I’m in more films and everything gets more public, I savour the private stuff more.’

She tells me that she also read a report linking teenage anxiety with Instagram. ‘I suddenly thought, what world are we living in, where we are affected by things that are edited online? I’m pretty solid in myself, but my confidence was ruined. It was really unhealthy. I’ve felt so much happier since I came off [social media].’

Ridley worries about the need for online validation. ‘Everything is for someone else now. How we look on our holiday has become for someone else. It’s really nice to have stuff that’s just for you, that you can do and go home and say, “Hey Mum, this, this and this happened, I still have pictures to show you, but I can also tell you the story and it will be a wonderful, personal thing I’m sharing with you.”’

She describes 2016 as a ‘total head-f—’. Why? ‘The film coming out and seeing people’s reactions and freaking out a bit and hearing people talking about whether you did a good job in it.’ But she got great reviews, I say. ‘But I didn’t see that, so it’s also sort of reconciling what other people are seeing and you’re not, and then realising that it’s OK not to see that.’

Ridley says that her sudden fame was hard for others, too. ‘I know it was really difficult for my mum. I mean, it’s difficult for someone’s youngest child to suddenly be this thing that people are claiming parts of. Sometimes I’ve felt like I was limiting myself in [talking about] the good or bad things, because I never wanted to seem ungrateful – what I am getting to do is extraordinary. But it’s also not easy all the time.’  

Daisy Ridley was born in London in April 1992, the youngest of three daughters. Her mother works in communications for a bank, while her father is a photographer; Daisy attended the Tring Park School for Performing Arts in Hertfordshire, where she specialised in musical theatre, but she has said that she never had a burning desire to act.

She credits  a drama teacher with being the first person who made her think she could do it as a profession; after leaving school, she started a degree in classical civilisation at Birkbeck, University of London but dropped out to pursue acting.

There were small TV roles in Silent Witness, Toast of London and Mr Selfridge, but when Ridley heard that JJ Abrams was seeing unknowns for the next episode of Star Wars, she lobbied her agent to get her an audition – the films have a rich history of turning nobodies into somebodies (not least Harrison Ford), and Abrams was keen to stick with that tradition.

Five meetings with Abrams later, she landed the role of the girl from nowhere thrust into the centre of the Star Wars universe. Ridley says that in Rey, there is a lot she can relate to.  She remembers meeting the late Carrie Fisher for the first time at a dinner before shooting started on The Force Awakens.

‘All the men were on one side of the table, and she said to me, “Come and join the oestro-fest!” And she was wonderful. The Leia thing… I mean, yes I did look up to [that]. But, to me, it was much more that Carrie didn’t shrink from everything that she was and everything that this is too. She owned it. She knew what Star Wars was in her life, and what it had done for her. She was just incredible.’

Fisher advised Ridley to ‘fight against being the slave girl’, in reference to the gold bikini Leia famously wore in Return of the Jedi. ‘But what is amazing is that I didn’t have to fight against anything. I thought it was a super-cool role because Rey wasn’t making choices because she was a girl, she was just making choices because that’s what people have to do.’

When we meet, Ridley is wearing a Roland Mouret dress with Jimmy Choo heels. ‘I’m so scruffy usually,’ she says. ‘My goal in life is to be really elegant and smart. My sister says, “Dais! Stop buying men’s jumpers then!” But I love a man’s jumper.’

How much has life changed since Star Wars? ‘Well that’s the thing. I don’t know if it has.’ She is aware how ridiculous this sounds; what she means is that she tries not to let success go to her head. ‘Career-wise it’s changed everything. There’s no way I would have recorded with Barbra Streisand [on her album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway] had I not met her through JJ.’

She has recently been in cinemas as Mary Debenham in Murder on the Orient Express, ‘and there’s no way I would have been able to do that because Ken [Sir Kenneth Branagh, who directed the film] may not have seen me. So that stuff is different. But life stuff is… I don’t know. I hope I’m smarter than I was and make better decisions, but I think it’s pretty similar.’  

She catches the cynical look on my face.

‘Obviously I am living a different [life] to the one I was before, but I still live in the same place [London], my family are still my favourite people, my friends are the same, I still go on the Tube.’ Does she get recognised? ‘Not really. Everyone has their own stuff going on, they’re going to work, they’re living their lives.’

Ridley adds that she’s not sure what it is that everyone assumes she should be doing – perhaps living in a gold palace, I suggest?

‘Yeah. I don’t think people necessarily actually think that, it’s just a thing that once you get into conversation with someone, they realise that you still have to buy friggin’ tampons. My friend texted me the other day to say that her sister had seen me getting my eyebrows threaded in Superdrug for £3.50. And you know how they do it in the middle of the shop. She was like “Dais! Go somewhere else!” But I won’t because Superdrug is the best place.’

Today Ridley’s modus operandi is to look after herself and try to stay as calm as possible. ‘Reading a book or running  a bath – that to me is self-care, because you get a moment to be tranquil and listen to your own music.’

She recently finished playing the title role of Ophelia in a new film that tells the story of Hamlet through the eyes of the tragic heroine, also starring Naomi Watts and Clive Owen, due for release next year. She says, ‘I worked pretty much every day for eight weeks. What I needed to do was go home and sleep. And that is self-care too, deciding what I need right now.’

In her spare time, Ridley does Pilates and then she likes to ‘sit on the sofa. I don’t drink very much, but last week I was back for three days so I went to the pub with a smattering of my friends and my parents and sisters and we had a little drink and made merry. Also, I love washing. People take the piss out of me – on a day off I’m like “leave me alone with my detergent”.  Nothing is sweeter to me than being in my flat and hearing the washing machine go.’ She laughs.

After Ophelia, there’s Chaos Walking, an adaptation of  the young adult novel by Patrick Ness. She has just been signed by Netflix to star in a superhero comedy alongside Josh Gad, and of course there is the ninth (and final, for now) instalment of Star Wars.

What then? ‘Well, I just want to keep working with people who give me as much joy as the people I’ve got to work with so far. Just that. That is what I want.’ She pauses, smiles. ‘And also to be able to continue to have a voice. To be able to take a month off if nothing right comes along. That would be wonderful.’

Star Wars:  The Last Jedi is released on 14 December.

— The Telegraph

[drop-pop-review]

Drop & Pop Review – Generates Affiliate Income While Simultaneously Building You An Ethical, Evergreen Business

Have you failed to make any real money online? Don’t worry – I did too… I kept failing and failing & I grew tired of all the BS theory shared around.

The amount of FALSE information floating around back then was incredible & it still is. That’s when I decided to stop following poor, long-winded & outdated advice and do things differently…

Sick of Failing?

It’s all Pie in the Sky… none of it actually works. I’m sure you’ve tried this and you’ve tried that only to find out the whole thing was nothing more than a whole lot of ‘Pie in the Sky’ Theory.

You keep buying and hoping…

Trying and failing…

Over and over again

Does that sound about right… Yes?

Well, let’s fix that today… First things first, Let’s check all the details in my Drop & Pop Review below!

WHAT IS DROP & POP?

The method I’m about to reveal; is designed to enable an ordinary person with zero tech skills, zero experience and just the change in their pocket to easily make hundreds of dollars every week from a simple ‘But Unique’ little Carrot & Stick approach to marketing.

And if you like what I show you, you too can *make money with this method before the end of this week.

In a nutshell, Drop & Pop is a complete and detailed system for generating consistent income from affiliate products without actually promoting specific affiliate products and one which can be easily adopted by anyone. That means it is totally Newbie Friendly.

Drop & Pop is NOT Based on Theory. You can actually implement this simple system TODAY in just 1 – 2 hour (even if you’re a complete Newbie)… And make money in 12-24 hours… While simultaneously building a a real business which will generate income passively. You’ll kick yourself for not figuring this out for yourself.

Unlike so many other systems and so called training; Drop & Pop is a formula that will work for anyone (Even Newbies). It is easy to understand and apply, and it’s a system I personally use every week… so absolutely no theory.

It consists of: 5 Short ‘Basics’ Videos (Provided to help Newbies / set up basics)

Overview Full Copy [Training]

Details Page [Training]

Pre-Sell Post [Training]

Magnet – including 6 Magnet Sources [Training]

Traffic [Training]

Fast Start – Reference Guide

Once you have a Drop & Pop Project up and running your work is done and you can expect to make money as early as tomorrow, and then potentially for months, even years to come (Passively).

In fact, each time you do this not only will you make money, but you will also build an Evergreen business I.E your Drop & Pop posts will begin to rank automatically on Google, Bing and Yahoo… this happens on autopilot, you don’t have to do any additional work for this to happen.

Drop & Pop has nothing to do with SEO or ranking sites. What you see in this Drop & Pop Review is simply a Bi-Product of the DROP & POP method. I.E. Many Drop & Pop posts quickly find their way onto Page 1 of Google Bing and Yahoo on Autopilot (You don’t have to do any additional work)

I can categorically state that Drop & Pop is very real. I have been using the very same process myself since November 2017 with astonishing results. So don’t hesitate to check the next parts of this Drop & Pop Review as I’ll show you how powerful it is!

DROP & POP REVIEW OVERVIEW

Vendor Brendan Mace

Product Drop & Pop

Launch Date 2021-Aug-04

Launch Time 09:00 EST

Front-End Price $17

Bonuses >> CHECK MY ULTIMATE HUGE BONUSES <<

Refund YES, 30 Days Money-Back Guarantee

Product Type Traffic

Support Effective Response

Discount >> GET THE BEST DISCOUNT HERE <<

Recommended Highly Recommended

Skill Level Needed All Levels

ABOUT CREATOR

Drop & Pop has been created and developed by Brendan Mace. In my opinion, I would strongly recommend that Brendan’s products to online marketers who are looking for support.

He has been in this field for more than ten years, so he knows what it takes to be successful. There are many trending applications released by Brendan. Some of which have been favored by thousands of users such as Shotoku System, Set & Forget, You Gen Bots, etc.

Now, let’s look at the next part of this Drop & Pop Review and find out its features!

KEY FEATURES

Here are what you will get inside:

Full access to the Drop & Pop member area

Complete Drop & Pop Overview – Outlining the only system that enables anyone to profit from affiliate products without actually promoting them.

Copy the Free Organic Traffic we used to get 100s of views in hours… Sending this traffic also boosts site authority and engagement.

Developing & sourcing Magnets: Including using other people’s products freely and ethically (Yes it’s legal)… Follow this and find products to use in seconds.

Full Step-by-Step Process suitable for Newbies and seasoned Marketers alike.

The Secret Page: 20 – 30% of everyone who sees this page will result in you receiving commission from any affiliate product you like

Orientation Training Call

Drop & Pop Traffic… multi (newbie friendly) FREE traffic sources included so you can get started instantly without cost.

Access to the Facebook Mastermind Group

The Pre-Sell System: add this content to your blog (as detailed) and you WILL Make Money and build an evergreen business at the same time.

6 Videos covering the basic set up (designed for Newbies)

Let’s take a minute to recap the benefits come up with this training:

Drop & Pop is the only system available that enables anyone to generate income from affiliate products without actually promoting affiliate products… this is a unique system they developed for their own business.

This is system generates Pro-Active & Passive income once setup

Highly targeted, risk free traffic is the key to profiting online. Start with a budget of only $5 and you’re set… That’s it!

Can 100% be run part time (in fact, most people do just that!)

Many Drop & Pop Posts will also hit Google, Bing and Yahoo Page #1 without any additional work!

This is a tried-and-tested easy way to make money if done the right way!

Anyone can do this (even complete Newbies) and get awesome results, so it might as well be you!

It has the potential to make you money and build growing authority assets which generate income for years almost on autopilot.

No technical skills required at all, Drop & Pop is designed to be stupidly simple… All is laid out in an easy to follow system.

Very easily scalable and only invest more after you earn.

VISIT SALE PAGE

HONEST DROP & POP REVIEW – MY OPINION: IS IT REALLY PROFITABLE?

The Drop & Pop system will take you 1-2 hours per project (once your blog is set up)… Traffic is INSTANT (costing under 5 Cents per view). Do this Once, Twice, Three times per week… do it as often as you like. The more you do it the more money you will make both in the short term and Evergreen (Passively).

Drop & Pop is not about ranking in search engines, SEO or any of that boring, time consuming stuff. However based on phrase competition, popularity and engagement on your Drop & Pop posts some will rise to page #1 of Google, Bing and Yahoo on Autopilot… There is no additional work involved.

I can categorically state that Drop & Pop is very real. I have been using the very same process myself since January 2018 with astonishing results from earlybird acess of testing version.

Inside Drop & Pop you will find details on multiple traffic sources, all of which are simple and to the point. For Instant Impact I recommend combining the FREE methods with the $0.04 per view paid traffic source.

Experience is not a requirement. We’ve seen “green” beginners that have never tried to do anything else on the internet, and they still made substantial income with this method.

Drop & Pop is designed specifically to be ‘Low-Tech’ easy to understand and apply. The creators put Drop & Pop together for themselves in order to generate affiliate income without having to promote product after product. Once your Blog is set up (Training Included) each DROP & POP project will take 1-2 Hours.

Is this another Loophole?

Absolutely not… loopholes and quick fixes come and go on a monthly basis, and when they get closed down (which the do) you will have wasted time and probably money. Drop & Pop is a real ‘Ethical’ and Evergreen business model… Follow this system and your online business and income will grow bigger and bigger… and it will still work in 5 years’ time

The only downside I have found is that Drop & Pop is a business… and all business requires some investment. n this case, we are really minimizing the total amount of investment you will have to make here. There is no additional costs you need other than to activate the Drop & Pop system.

Traffic: I recommend you use the paid traffic option in combination with the free methods for instant traction… this traffic option can be started for $5 per project.

This is NOT another Empty Promise. Every day yet another product hits the market… It promises to make you $100 per day, you’ve seen them right?

They all promise to be unique, but in reality they are not and nearly always amount to the same thing – and you’re left disappointed. Drop & Pop is different, it’s unique… but most importantly; it works.

You will be getting my ultimate huge bonuses at the last section of this Drop & Pop Review!

HOW DROP & POP WORKS

Step 1: DROP a campaign into the software,

There’s over 100,000 to choose from. Remember: With Drop & Pop you never pre-sell or promote an affiliate product).

Step 2: POP your monetization.

All you have to do in this part is activate your monetization by adding your affiliate links. Drop & Pop works with ANY affiliate product. Monetize on the platform you prefer (we show you how to do this in less than a minute)

Step 3: Relax & Wait for Commissions.

We’ve seen real people from all over the world join and get results within TEN MINUTES of activating their first campaign. Now it’s YOUR TURN to give this a try.

WHO IS DROP & POP FOR?

This Newbie Friendly “No Experience Needed” 4-Step Income System Quickly And Easily Generates affiliate Income While Simultaneously building you an ethical, evergreen business which will continue to pay you passively… Each Drop & Pop Project will take you 1-2 hours.

Drop & Pop is designed for anyone who doesn’t have a PHD in computer science, & can’t get to grips with even more complicated software and so called systems. It’s for you if you simply want to build something uncomplicated which grows… and makes you more and more as it does.

It’s for you if you’re sick and tired of buying loophole after loophole only to find they stop working the minute you start.

Drop & Pop is designed for you, me and anyone else who thinks making money online has just become way too complicated. It’s Not Techy… it’s Not based around some shaky loophole which could stop working in the next 30 seconds… It’s Simple… It’s Evergreen… And It’s both Pro-Active & Passive at the same time.

DROP & POP OTOS AND PRICE

For a limited time, you can grab Drop & Pop OTOs with early bird discount price in these options below. Let’s pick the best suited options for you before this special offer gone!

Front-end: Drop & Pop PRO $16.41

OTO 1: Premium Edition $37.00

OTO 2: Done For You $97.00

OTO 3: Unlimited Leads $97.00

OTO 4: Unlimited Traffic Add-on $97.00

OTO 5: License Rights to EVERYTHING $67.00

DROP & POP REVIEW CONCLUSION AND ULTIMATE HUGE BONUSES

Thank you so much for reading my Drop & Pop Review! I really hope it did help you with your buying decision. This system is coming out with many bonuses for the early bird. Take your action ASAP for the best deal.

REMEMBER! If you buy this product through my link, you can also get these huge bonuses (Please remember that these bonuses are not for the TRIAL or FREE versions):

VISIT SALE PAGE

You can have an opportunity to receive extra bonuses if you finish 2 steps below:

♦ Step 1: Order the product by Clicking here.

♦ Step 2: After your purchase goes through, email your receipt to me at alexhuynh.1110@gmail.com so I can confirm your purchase and email you information about how to access to your bonus material.

»»Theme Bonus Package««

»»Plugin Bonus Package««

»»General Bonus Package««

[aharris00britney]

                                                                                                                                ASKS 14

Ok so 24 hours after I planned to do this but... last time I answered stuff was January(5 months ago). There is a lot under the cut ;n; sims, nonsims, other games, all kinds of stuff ya know

Anonymous said: Hi! Wcif the shirt you used on your Belle hair post? (Btw, that hair is GORGEOUS.)

I have the cc I use in my previews linked on Patreon. Makeup/skin and all that will be on my resource page once I get around to updating it for my 2 new models (who will be up for download soon hopefully). Also ty <3

Anonymous said: What make-up do you use for most of your posts?

The only eyeshadows I use are by @crypticsim or @catplnt. The makeup I use on Macie/Taylor are listed on my resource page. The other two models makeup will be added once I get them added on there but I know they both use similar stuff to Macie/Taylor.

@thatsimmergirl91​ said: Just wanted to take a moment out and say how amazing you are ! I love all your stuff and your blog. Never forget how awesome you are 💗💗💗💗🙌🏻🙌🏻

Thank you so much. Like I know I am going to be typing a lot of thank yous in this post, but I truly mean them. Playing Sims/Making cc is something I did not think would be such a big thing in my life but god is it and I love doing it. Thank you again <3

Anonymous said: You're incredible and I love all your hairs! In fact, you're my favorite cc hair creator. My question is are you planning on making any hairs with the Island Living meshes anytime soon?

Thank you! I am glad you enjoy my hairs <3 I am planning some stuff with the island living meshes. Probably just a conversion to toddlers if I am able and I might do something simple with the adult meshes to release outside of my Patreon stuff. We shall see though! Ty again

@ayoshi​ said: When are you opening an Onlyfans?

idk babe when are you posting your birthmarks? ;)

Anonymous said: Heya! Love your cc! You're real talented

thank you! <3 It isn’t so much talent, more or less just a lot of practice and time. I appreciate the compliment though

Anonymous said: any tips to get high quality sims screenshots??

I have 2 methods I use. When I am taking CC previews I rotate my screen using Ctrl + Alt + the ◄ key. For my lookbooks/upcoming Sim downloads I use a method by foursims who deactivated?? This is the method/video <3

@verdeclaroangels​ said: What skin do you use??💕PS i love u

I use @luumia​ newest vanilla default, alongside his Smooth Butts overlay, and my own fruitpunch overlay. All are linked over on my resource page <3

@vhlori​ said: Austin queen of pop!

q king of edits! <3

Anonymous said: i love your creations and i appreciate the time you put into your cc, i wish i could support you 💕

Thank you!! Sometimes the time crunches can be stressful but I put them on myself so I survive haha. Don’t feel the need to support me please <3 I make sure everything is public eventually so that people dont feel like they are missing out on anything by deciding not to pledge. Thank you for wanting to though, I appreciate that a ton.

Anonymous said: Just a rant here. I'm annoyed that there are no rings in the glove category or some other category. The reason I want this is because I use eyelashes that are in the skin detail section and rings don't work and I don't want to use the accessory eyelashes because my sim wears glasses. It annoys me but that's all.

i... rant away luv i feel u

Anonymous said: What do you do besides sims? That is all you post about and I was curious if that is all you play?

I play Roblox with @ayoshi sometimes, cause that is about all my computer can handle lmao. I have a switch so I play some Nintendo titles on there like Zelda, Splatoon 2, and other stuff. I also have been plying Fortnite recently with @imvikai @greenllamas and @pinealexple. That is about all I play right now lmao. I play Animal Crossing Pocket Camp and Pokemon Go on my phone.

Anonymous said: Hi there ! Just wanted to say I've also been experiencing that problem with your 'downloads' page. I don't have a Tumblr account so I had to tell you this way. Perhaps it's a MacBook issue ? I'm not sure, but I'm using a MacBook Pro. Anyways, thank you for all the beautiful cc you provide us with, you're the best.

Yeah I got another ask about them using a Mac for it. That seems to be the problem. I am not a coder, nor do I know a single thing about coding. All I can suggest doing is going to http://aharris00britney.tumblr.com/tagged/s4cc and using that which sucks to page through I know :( I am sorry

Anonymous said: This is really random, but I love your Sims! I normally don't like Sims with Clay hair, but GIRL, you make them work. Just want to say to keep it up, and if I had money I would support you <3

Thank you lmao <3 stan clay hairs

Anonymous said: Literally im in this sims discord nd they were DRAGGING how you make the same sim in different skin colors and how you make such cookie cutter sims and honestly i felt bad

Meanwhile me in CAS:

Anonymous said: This may be a strange request but what does that one alien toddler you've used on multiple occasions to model hair look like when he's older?

He uuh... idk where they are in my library tbh I can’t find them cause I was going to age him up and show ya but.. yeah idk what happened RIP alien toddler

@amorimlulu said: Hi! I love your creations, they're incredible! I'm completely in love with two of your sims: the asian woman from the patreon 06-16 post and the woman from the ava hair post. Could you, pretty please, upload them on the gallery? I'm dying to play with them. Thank you ^^

I am planning to in the next month! I have the photos taken I just need to get the CC list together and plan it around Island Living posts, CC posts, all that jazzzzzz

Anonymous said: Hello Austin! I really like the way your sims look, so I was wondering if you can tell me where to get the skins and lashes, please? I am new to the Sims 4 and searching for some cute looks :)

Hey! I have this stuff listed on my resource page, and I have over 100 WCIF’s I have answered along with my lookbooks for some clothes. My cc finds blog is @aharris00finds​ if you want to look there :D

Anonymous said: can i just ask? how do you remove the shadows on hair with S4S? im a complete noob at s4s and i was wondering how you would do it?

You just need to click shadow, then make blank :) pic below

Anonymous said: Hi, just a quick message to say THANK YOU for all those beautiful creations. You are so talented and I want you to know that. Thank you so much for making my sims look way more beautiful !

thank you so much <3 I have said it before and idk if anyone will be able to convince me, but I am not talented lmao it just is experience :)

Anonymous said: hey, could u pls make a tutorial abt how u make ur mesh?? i love ur hair meshes so much

I have tried filming a tutorial before and I will just have to wait til I get a good mic lmao. My speed meshing videos are somewhat useful for learning but they are sped up and without instructions so take it with a grain of salt

Anonymous said: would you ever try to recreate lydia martins hair in 3.04? sorry, but you're the only teen wolf fan thats a simblr that i know and i desperately need that lovely hair in my game. thanks!         

tbh I never finished Teen Wolf XD I stopped at the end of season 5 I think. Idk I just lost interest as I grew up :(  Also I have no idea what hair that is sdfgfvb and google isnt telling me either. If you can send a link to a picture or DM me a picture I can see if I can make it <3

Anonymous said: Hi, could you please please upload this sim post/183989453251/e41 ! She's just too pretty

Anonymous said: please upload this sim from your post/183989453251/e41 for download? Thanks   

Idk if I still have her saved but if I do I might upload her. I will check and see later tonight lmao                    

Anonymous said: Is there any way to put everything you make into a .zip file. I really like what you make and I wish there was a way to mass download it. It sounds dumb but really I enjoy your content

Tbh since I post hairs 3 times a month it would be hard for me to keep everything up to date. I might do something like all my CC from 2017 in one zip, and all my cc from 2018 in another? and then make one for 2019 at the end of the year. I’m not sure though.

Anonymous said: Wheres the hair in yo profile pic? And will you upload that sim? AND can you make more clothes ur amazing at it!!! (Also, asking 4 my bff <3 r u boy or girl?)

the hair in my current profile pic is Maddie Hair, the sim is already for download, and I will have some clothes coming next month :) I am a boy :P

Anonymous said: hello! is the model sim in your eve hair valentines special downloadable? I find her really pretty. I really enjoy all of your cc!! I love all of them soooo much.. :)

I will check if I saved her to my library, if so I will add it to the list of stuff I wanna try and do <3 also thank you

Anonymous said: Hey! Love your hairs! Can I request a Riley hair without the hairclip?

the riley hair doesn’t have a clip so I am going to assume you mean the Peyton hair since it was released in the same month. It wouldn’t really be possible to do Peyton without the clip since it has a part of the hair going up into the clip. Without it there would be a hole and if the hole was filled in it would still look weird since the hair would be going up into nothing. I’m sorry <3

@lacr1mation23​ said: Kinda not a question. But, i'm gonna fangirl all over you. You ROCK!!! I LOVE your CCs. BEST. HAIRS. EVAR.   Impressed like woah from Florida. 

thank you so much ;n; this made me smile lmao I appreciate stuff like this a ton

Anonymous said: Hey I think there's something wrong w/ your Lydia hair.. could u fix it?

I’m not sure what the glitch is, so if you could send me a photo or an explanation of what it is then I could help.

Anonymous said: I'm sorry you're having a bad day! I want to let you know your CC is lovely and I hope you have a better day tomorrow! Lots of love and if you like chocolate then I'm sending you plenty of virtual chocolate to help you feel better!

lmao idk what ‘bad day’ I was happening when this was sent but thank you!! I had a rough semester but I am doing a lot better now I think :)

@simsloverlilian​ said: Hi lol I just think this is really funny, my friend asked me where do you get your cc? and I was like: "oh.. ahoob's WCIF place xDDDDDD" and we both died laughing.. at your place you can get amazing hairs, accs, shirts! (lol love your cc keep it up! ;))

thank you so much! I love that yall use my blog for finding cc :)

@raha-plays-the-sims​ said: Okay... I actually want to take a screenshot of my Sim with your new Riley hair on to my hair dresser and tell her to cut my hair that way XD I love it so much! Thank you for continuing to make amazing content!

lmao i have wanted to do this before with a male hair i found for my game. I never went through with it though XD thank you for the compliment <3

Anonymous said: Everyone!!! Stan LOONA for clear skin and good health...

stan red velvet and WJSN

Anonymous said: I just want to say that "EVERYTHING" about your blog/cc/sims is absolutely immaculate. Your CC is like renaissance to Sims 4 modding(I ain't even kidding).Thank you for sharing/uploading them here on tumblr.  Would you be uploading any video on how you create your sims on youtube anytime soon? And what sliders do you usually use in creating sims if there are some?

thank you so much!!! I have tried recording my game before and the footage just comes out super lag. Hopefully later this year I will be able to get a computer and I could record something then. Also I don’t use any sliders or presets on my main Sims :)

@lllac-lady786​ said: This isn’t a question, but your sims are just so pretty and you are so talented 🤩

thank you <3

Anonymous said: Did something happen to your Lydia hair?

I don’t think so? It seems to be fine for me

Anonymous said: How are you able to edit the new game pack when sims4studio hasn't been updated yet? I am itching to edit some stuff but I can't yet :(

I use CAS Tools! I might make a tutorial this week depending on how busy I am. Not sure though <3

Anonymous said: How likely would you be to recommend the new pack to another simmer out of 10?

(this was sent during Strangerville) I would say 8/10 recommendation. But I love storylines and stuff in games so my opinion is very based on that.

Anonymous said: Would you ever make male hair or recolour some of ea's so they work with your ombre accessory?

I am thinking of doing some ombre accessories for the new Island Living pack for the two ombre hairs. I am not sure if I will be able to or not but I will see :)

@milugameplay​ said: Hello sweetheart, I just like to say that I love the hairs that you create. Thank you for sharing them with us.            

thank you <3 i appreciate the compliment

Anonymous said:Hi! When you uploaded peach earrings, the blonde sim had a braided hairstyle. Was it cc or a maxis one?     

hey! It is from outdoor retreat GP :)     

Anonymous said: Have nothing to ask. Just want to tell you that you are amazingly talented. ❤ I have been playing the sims since its original Sims 1 release, and have always been a heavy CC user. (Upwards of 50GB in sims 3). Never have I ever felt the need to download EVERYTHING a creator has ever made, until I found you.  So, in short, you are amazeballs. Keep it up.

this is so sweet lmao. Even I don’t have all my own CC in my game <3 I appreciate this so so much. Thank you for this

Anonymous said: How did you learn to create custom content??Did you see any video tutorial? I'm trying to create a hair but I can not get it :(((( help me please

most of the stuff I have learned from trial and error, or help from S4S fourms and friends :) Feel free to message me with questions on tumblr or discord

Anonymous said: I know Sims 5 is still so far away, but I still have a question! With the release of Sims 4 so many awesome creators for Sims 3 just stopped creating from one day to another. So my question is: Could you imagine yourself creating Custom Content for Sims 5? I'm asking because I seriously love every single piece you create for Sims 4, and I really wish the glory era of Ah00b won't end with the release of Sims 5. Ily! <3

it depends on the style that TS5 goes for tbh. I love Sims 4 style and I don’t know much of anything about creating alpha hairs so if TS5 goes that direction I doubt I would be able to create for it. also thank you for calling it the glory era of ah00b lmao

Anonymous said: You have hairs named after all the girls in black pink except Rosé. Is there a reason for this?

Well I named a hair Rosanne thinking it was close enough to her name lmao. I might name a hair coming in July Rosie. We shall see when it gets to July XD