#unfortunately whenever i draw april she looks different every time

[phewgitoid]

explodes them with my mind

[skylarmoon71]

Donatello x Reader- Fanfiction Oneshot. (TMNT 2014-2016)

"Guys look what I invented!" Raph sighed when he saw you walking on the ceiling with your newest invention.

"She's at it again." he spoke, drawing in the attention of his other brothers. Donatello's eyes widened in amazement. "No way, you made gravity defying boots. "

You grinned from your upside down position, showing him a thumbs up. The beeping on your shoes made your smile drop. "Uh oh." the light changed from blue to red and you were now falling head first. 

"AHHHH!!!" 

Donatello rushed over, doing a flip and catching you mid air. His feet landed on the ground with a harsh thud, and you released a breath, holding unto him. "A-Are you alright!" he was surveying your body. All in all you seemed fine. You stared at him, admiring the beauty of his green eyes.

"I-I'm okay." your reply was said a bit shakily. Whether from the fall, or your slowly increasing heart beat, you couldn't tell. Donatello placed you on your feet, and Leonardo walked over, already preparing a speech. You knew that look on his face, he was about to scold you for your recklessness.

"(Y/N), you need to be careful. You could have gotten really hurt. What if we hadn't come in." You knew he was just concerned. Your head lowered. "I'm sorry Leo, I'll be careful next time." He raised his hand, patting you on the head softly. "It is pretty cool though." you looked up with a wide smile, fist pumping. Michelangelo was at your side in seconds, ready with an onslaught of questions. One of which probably included if he could borrow your boots.

Meeting the turtles was the best thing that happened to you. It was a real eye opener, that was for sure. You were an inventor at heart, testing out one of your creations. At the time you were just studying constellations and solar patterns. One night your panels picked up something strange. Whatever it was had a major energy source because it shorted your computer, as well as Donatello's equipment.

They'd been out on patrol while you were on the roof. And just ended up running into you. If your stuff hadn't overloaded Donnie's, they probably wouldn't have stopped to investigate. That was the first time you'd ever seen something so incredible. Of course when you saw them you fainted, from what you heard April had a similar reaction. But after that, when you came to, your curiosity got the better of you.

The fact that four huge mutant turtles were standing right in front of you seemed like the last thing you cared about. You just started asking questions. Like a scientist, you were inquisitive by nature. It wasn't long after that, you became quick friends with the turtles.

You and Donatello were especially close. He was just like you, always building and altering gear and technology, utilizing it to its maximum capacity. You were always helping him upgrade his inventions, and he'd give you ideas to create others to help the turtles protect the city. 

Being able to explore your interest with someone who loved technology just as much as you did was all you could really ask for. So whenever you weren't working, you were down in the lair, testing out your machinery. Your boots were something you'd been working on for weeks. Unfortunately it still needed a bit of tweaking, because the battery didn't retain as much power as you hoped.

"As soon as I get it up to speed I'll lend it to you Mikey." That was all he needed to hear.

"Boyah!! I got first dibs guys!" he was already running off cheering. You pulled the boots off, studying it. "I may have to alter the size as well."

"So how was patrol?" You asked surveying your equipment.

"Nothing we couldn't handle." Raph said boastful, biting down on the toothpick at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm sure. Well while you guys were gone I ordered pizza." That was all you needed to say because pretty soon they were all headed to the other room to devour their favorite food. You laughed at how quickly the room cleared. Splinter walked out, his tail swishing slowly behind him.

"(Y/N), it's always nice to have you with us. However I'd advised against indulging my sons in that unhealthy food." He probably regretted ever introducing them to it, because it seemed like that was all they ever ate.

"Even if I didn't you know they'll still get their hands on some." he sighed.

"I suppose you're right." He looked at you like there was something else he needed to say.

"Is there something wrong?" He shook his head, a smile gracing his lips.

"I'm just very grateful for you." the statement caught you by surprise.

"T-Thank you Master Splinter." It really did mean a lot to you that he thought so.

"I should be the one thanking you. Not many people are willing to accept my sons. They are extraordinary, but society has a very focused view on what is right and wrong. This world could use more people like you and Ms. O' Neil." you could understand where he was coming from.

"I know what you mean. Growing up I dealt with my fair share of ridicule. I guess to the other kids I was always just weird. " At a young age you'd seen things different. While kids were playing on slides and swings, you were solving mind puzzles and complex math sums. Technology was easier for you to figure out that people.

You glanced at the turtles eating happily from the other room talking among themselves. Your gaze lingered on the purple clad one maybe a little longer than necessary. When you realized you turned back to Splinter, who was wearing a suspicious smile.

"I'll leave you to it then." and with that he was walking away, hands behind his back.

"Hmmm?" 

Sometimes you wished you could read his mind.

"Hey (Y/N), come and get a slice before they devour all." Donatello's words made you run over.

"Save some for me!" You spent a while wrestling to get a slice. Dropping down next to Donatello. her persisted to tell you some of the upgrades he was thinking of making in the lair. His computer set up was pretty impressive already, but just because something worked didn't mean it couldn't be further modified. Donnie was always thinking ahead.

"Just imagine if we made four of those boots of yours!" he sounded excited, letting out a laugh and a cute little snort. You paused for a second, and he pushed up his glasses, a little embarrassed at the sound that left him. You watched him with glowing red cheeks.

"OH MY GOODNESS WHY IS HE SO CUTE!!!"

If you hadn't already swallowed your pizza you would have probably choked on it.  Who knew the nerdy little turtle would have such an effect on you.

~~~~

Mikey was patting his stomach, clearly content. You smiled, gathering the empty boxes of pizza to carry to the trash. Donatello caught you struggling with about seven boxes, still trying to stack more. "Let me help you." you nodded, and he took a couple from your hand, following you out the room. You walked with him, a comfortable silence gathering.

"What were you and Sensei talking about earlier, it looked pretty serious." His question caused you to slow down a little.

"Umm, not much. He was just saying he's glad I'm around. He also said I should stop buying so much pizza for you guys." you gestured to the boxes in your hand, causing a shy smile to rise on Donnie's face.

Upon reaching the trash area, you dumped the boxes in the bin. Donnie did the same.

"Well I am glad you're here." you looked over at Donnie, who suddenly seemed a bit flustered. 

"I-I mean we're all glad you're here." he corrected, fidgeting. You watched him fiddle, your heart giving a slow flutter. Donnie really was the cutest. Maybe it was the glasses, but every time he looked at you, your chest would constrict in the most pleasant way. Hearing him say he enjoyed having you around was another plus. It did give you slight hope. Maybe he reciprocated your feelings. "I'm glad too." you replied, skipping back to the lair. Donnie's eyes followed as you moved through the sewer, a content feeling settling in his chest.

~~~

"Hey Raph, Leo." you waved at both brothers entering. Raph looked up from tying the bandages around his hand, greeting you. "Hey what's up."

"Not much, I just needed to borrow some material for a something I'm thinking about. Where is Donnie?" At the mention of his name, Raph moved closer, dropping a hand on your shoulder as he leaned in. "You know, you always run to Donnie's room whenever you get here. I'm starting to wonder if ya have a little thing for him." you sputtered, backpedaling.

"W-What No! That's No!" you shouted. Your yells earned a look from Leo, who was now very curious.

"If you're looking for Donnie he's in the training room with Mikey." Leo said almost on instinct. Did he know as well that you always gravitated to Donnie. How could you be so obvious? And here you thought you were covering your little crush well. You frowned at the smug look Raph sent you, putting his toothpick back in his mouth as you basically sprinted out the room, cheeks quickly turning red.

"Stupid Raph."

If he figured it out, maybe Donnie did too. What if he knew the entire time and just didn't say anything. 

"That's crazy, stop it stupid brain!" you tried to rid the thoughts. You did like Donnie, but if he found out and things got awkward, you wouldn't be able to deal with that.

When you got to the training room, you froze at the door, just staring. Mikey and Donnie were sparring. You stood watching every move, flip, punch that Donnie delivered. Sometimes you forgot that he wasn't just smart, but also a very skilled fighter. The way he attacked so efficiently, carefully calculating every hit, retaliating with his bo staff. Your heart was definitely pounding now.

"He's incredible."

You weren't sure how long they had been going at it, but after a few more minutes they stopped. Donnie had successfully knocked Mikey off his feet. "I win." Donnie said with a cute little grin.

He held out his hand, and Mikey took it, standing to his feet. They high fived and that's when their focus was drawn to you.

"(Y/N)?" Donnie called in question. You were still standing there gawking. You blinked a couple times, then cleared your throat.

"N-Nice moves." you commended. Mikey puffed out his chest. "Well you know, what can I say, gotta impress the ladies. " At this point he was flexing every muscle on his body, yet all you could see was the thin layer of sweat Donnie was wiping off his forehead. The action made his biceps bulge. A short breath left you. You licked your lips, enjoying the sight of his very muscular body. You swallowed, hoping you weren't being too obvious. Because right now you couldn't help it. Someone so adorably hot shouldn't be allowed to live on the planet.

"This should be a crime."

Somehow Donnie had moved without you realizing, because he was directly in front of you, adjusting his glasses to check your vitals. "(Y/N) do you have a fever!" He sounded worried.

"Your heart rate is elevated as well as your temperature. Not to mention how red your cheeks are. You need to lie down. " he didn't give you a chance to argue, picking you up and carrying you to his room.

When he stepped in he laid you on the bed gently, before turning and searching around his room for medicine. He picked up a packet of tablets, as well as a bottle of water, dropping it on the desk, moving back to get a piece of cloth. When he got back to you he was unscrewing the cork of the bottle to wet the cloth. 

"Just lay down and I'll-" because he'd been bouncing around so quickly you weren't able to stop him. Now that he was sitting right next to you, you took his hand, halting his actions.

"Donnie, I'm fine. I don't have a fever." His head tilted to the side. He pulled back down the goggles to scan you again. When he raised it, he looked confused. "I-It's back to normal. But you were just really warm. How did it go down so quickly. " he put down the bottle, still sitting on the ground before you. He reached over, placing his hand to your neck. He really was a sweetheart.

"The reason I was so warm wasn't because I have a fever."

"Then why?" he asked.

"It's..because of you Donnie.." you breathed.

"Because of me?" As smart as he was, he probably wouldn't figure out what you were trying to say. Your legs dangled off the edge of the bed. With you sitting upright, and Donnie on the floor, you were right about his height from your position. 

Throwing caution to the wind, you leaned forward, hands smoothening over his shoulders. Donnie just sat there, clearly alarmed at how close you were getting. You closed the space between you, eyes shut tightly as you pressed your lips to his. You didn't stay connected long. After a few seconds you pulled back to gauge his reaction. Truth is you weren't sure what type of reaction he would have, but you were tired of hiding how you felt.

"I love you Donatello."

"I said it!"

Donnie was still silent, you sort of expected as much. He just stared at you. When he finally did speak, it came out hesitantly. "Y-You...love me..?" you nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. "I do." you confessed. He was quiet again, and you wished you could read what his eyes were telling you, because it was lost on you. 

Despite that, you reached up slowly, taking off his glasses so you could get a better look at his gorgeous eyes. You placed them on the bed next to you, moving over to sit right between his legs. Now that you had a clearer view of Donnie's eyes, you noticed that they were dilated. That fact just made your heart pick up. You leaned in again, wrapping your hand around his shoulders this time as you kissed him.

This kiss was slower, passionate. You were conveying everything he made you feel since you'd met him. Every time he made your heart beat spike, pulse quicken, breath hitch.

All your emotions combined in one, just for him. When his muscled arms moved around your body, you swooned. You could tell he was cautious, because with his strength he could easily hurt you. Donnie held you softly, earning an appreciative sound from your throat. He finally started to respond, eyes closing, pulling you as close as you could get. Pretty soon you were gripping at his body, kisses hot and heavy.

All your pent up energy was coming out. You were shocked you were able to go so long without oxygen. The way you were kissing him made him lightheaded. It was if he were the air you needed to breathe. Your tongue darted out, hands moving to the back of his head to keep him right where you wanted him. 

You were moaning softly, brows furrowing as you tasted him. So sweet, just like his adorable personality. Your hands ventured over his plastron, and this time Donnie moaned. The sound caused your stomach to coil in anticipation. When you finally pulled away, you were gasping in mouthfuls of air. Donnie did the same, chest heaving in equal pace to yours. As you tried to catch your breath, your eyes stayed trained on his soft lips. Partially wet with saliva from your most recent session.

"I...had no idea that you.." his sentence was incomplete, due to his panting, but you could put the words together. He obviously wasn't aware of your feelings. This entire time he'd been pining after you, and you'd felt the same way. Donnie scolded himself for not saying something earlier. All along he could have been kissing your deliciously plump lips.

"I'm sorry it took so long." you spoke. Now that your breathing returned to normal. You could think a bit clearer. He shook his head.

"It's okay.I-I just thought that because I'm a mutant and you're..you're.." he didn't finish the sentence, eyes moving to the floor.

"I never saw the need to try.." he lamented. His broken tone really made you want to cry. Of course he was insecure. He was a mutant turtle. You guessed he just expected everyone to judge him for what he was. You reached over, lifting his eyes to you.

"I don't care what you are Donnie. In my eyes, you're just.." you paused, looking for the right words. There were way too many to describe him. So you just settled for the first ones to pop into your head.

"Incredibly hot." you whispered. He gulped, obviously noticing the growing need in your eyes. You leaned in, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Intelligent." you pressed another kiss, this time a bit lower. 

"Caring," a kiss to his neck. "Sexy." you were trailing kisses down his neck, and Donnie was having a very difficult time keeping his heart rate under control. Your head lifted, and this time you kissed him firmly on the lips. "Mine." you thought.

You stayed there, safe in his arms, exchanging long overdue kisses. People in this society would probably never accept what he was, but you'd love him, no matter what. And at the moment, that's all he could really care about.

[danyka-fendyr]

Absence of Good - 6

Chapter 6: Take Your Troubles and Double Them

Okay so it’s a long time coming but here it is! I took so long writing this because honestly I was just super burned out and dreading writing it. So a part of this was written in small increments, but then today I actually wanted to write, so I sat down and -imagine this- just wrote it. Now I know I just did a fic where characters get injured but well... If two characters are two halves of a whole, the perfect yin and yang to each other, when the one gets hurt should not the other also get hurt? ...and I needed it for plot reasons because we’re finally to the point in this story where I’m storyboarding. Anyway, I hope it’s up to snuff since I actually edited this time.

Taglist: @dreamwritesimagines @rhabakoli

AoG Taglist: @pancakefancake @prettyboyspenerrr @youreasnack @alioop3818

Wordcount: 

Warnings: Extremely dark themes. Violence against children. Death and murder. Death of children. Torture. 

“Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.”

-Patrick Rothfuss

           You were sitting in the bullpen, working on not working. Technically you were supposed to be writing up reports, but it was early April and everybody had spring fever. There wasn’t a single member of the BAU who was actually doing what they were supposed to except maybe Hotch.

“Hey, Garcia, I’ve got a fun fact for you,” you said.

“Am I going to like it or is it about serial killers?”

“You’re going to like it.”

“Then fire away!” Garcia beamed at you.

“Did you know that the average human needs at least 8 hugs a day to maintain oxytocin levels?”

Garcia looked like the cat that ate the canary. “So what you’re saying is…it’s actually beneficial for me to declare group hug time!”

Immediately she latched onto you with an enthusiasm that could only be achieved by one Penelope Garcia, and with a glare that dared the rest of the team not to come join in.

Some people might be surprised that Spencer was the first to join, but the people who knew him knew better. While the Doctor might seem stiff and awkward from afar, once he got comfortable with people he could be quite warm and affectionate. It just might take a few months or…years. Either way Spencer had no reservations about snuggling into you, and his head was a surprisingly good fit on your shoulder.

It didn’t take the rest of the team long to join in, cocooning you in an envelope of human warmth.

“Does this count as my eight hugs for the day since there’s like, a dozen people hugging me right now?”

“There are exactly 6 people hugging your right now and no,” Spencer said. “It has to be chest to chest contact to count as a full hug.”

“So this counts as no hugs?” You asked, disappointed.

“Don’t worry sugar plum, I’d be more than happy to provide you with an unlimited supply. Whenever you need a hug you just let me know,” Garcia said, patting you on the head as the group hug disbanded.

Not a moment too soon either as Hotch walked in to announce a new case. Nothing like murder to raise your oxytocin levels.

 Hotch made the briefing short and sweet, as he always did. There was a series of child abductions happening in Pennsylvania, which meant time was of the essence now more than ever.

“This unsub is escalating at a rate we couldn’t have possibly foreseen. He’s quickly getting desperate and has already shown himself to be deeply unpredictable. Amongst his victims is now 22-year-old Alicia, a nanny to one of the children he abducted. This unsub will go through anything or anyone to achieve his goal, and the murder of Alicia Bennet shows no signs of remorse anywhere in the body positioning or methodology. Wheels up in 10.”

You could feel the panic hit you like a shot of whiskey, burning in the pit of your stomach. You tried to control it though. Panic always came with this job, but it was harder with unsubs like this. Fast moving and unpredictable and ruthless. Something in you knew before you ever stepped foot on the jet that this one would haunt your nightmares.

Spence noticed your distress immediately, finding it in the jittery way you grabbed your go-bag and the shaking hands that made you a cup of tea on the plane before you sat down by yourself to think while the rest of the team brainstormed. After giving his contributions, he was quick to join you.

“It’s eating you alive, isn’t it?” He asked.

You looked up at those soft brown eyes and knew there was no use lying to him. He always knew exactly what you were feeling. You communicated in a language you didn’t even know, in the quirk of his mouth and the skim of his fingertips and the curve of your spine and the whispers of your breathing. A tacet tryst all your own.

“I don’t like time crunches.”

He accepts that as an answer and an end to the conversation. Except there is never an end to your conversations anymore. The silence just stretches into a requiem of every word between the two of you, a living, breathing thing still. Which means there is nothing awkward about you interrupting it, because the conversation is still going.

“Do you ever wish you’d just…taken a gap year? Or several gap years? You certainly had the time.” You laugh a little bit.

Spencer’s answer is fast enough that you know already what he will say.

“I thought about it once. After everything with my Mom…I almost did.”

“So what stopped you?”

“Well I brought up the idea to my Mom and her reaction was basically that I would give up what I loved over her dead body.” Spence huffed a smile, looking at you out of the corner of his eye. “What about you? You had the time to take a gap year too. Why not?”

You leaned back against the smooth leather of the jet seat behind you.

“I thought about it. When I was 16 I had this brief ambition to take a gap year to be an occupational therapists assistant.”

“That’s not even a real gap year!” Spencer elbowed you teasingly before going serious again. “So why didn’t you?”

“Well to say my parents thought it was the worst idea I’d ever had would be an understatement. I pitched them the whole scheme, you know? I would go and get my associates degree and then I could use that to get the job and train for a year then help pay my way through college while I was getting my psychology degree. They said that if I stopped for a year though I would never go back to school and get my bachelor’s and then it would all be a waste. So, here I am.”

Spencer was quiet for a moment, thoughtful as he always was. “I’m sorry you weren’t able to go after your dreams.”

“It’s okay. I’m happy to be here, so it all turned out for the best.”

Hesitantly, Spencer’s hand came to rest over yours on the armrest. “I’m happy you’re here too.”

You turned your face away from him, but you were unable to stop your eyes flicking back to him, your breath coming too fast for a different reason now. There were certain lines that coworkers just didn’t cross, and you and Spencer…you had been skirting those lines for quite a while. This was just a new way to push the limits.

 You should have known right away that it would be a bad idea to try to go undercover. There was a reason you didn’t go undercover in your line of work, the reason being it was stupid. But the best way to catch this guy might just be to masquerade as a nanny for a child that you were almost certain he would target. What made you so certain? Well, she was his after all.

Eventually, Garcia had pieced together enough clues to determine that your killer was a Mr. Derek Mayner and that he had a young daughter who had been adopted by an upper middle-class family. Her mother had hid her existence from him, but you could only assume he had found out since the girl’s mother had been killed when she was only two in a way that fit your killer’s style all too well. Unfortunately for Mayner but fortunately for Gina, his daughter, he was put in prison shortly after that for drug possession and a series of other crimes including aggravated assault and a few other more minor charges. Once Garcia discovered that it was easy to draw a connection between the girls who looked eerily like Mayner’s daughter, as well as Alicia Bennet’s resemblance to her mother, the chilling cherry on top of this case.

Gina’s adopted parents had agreed to let you pose as a nanny, as the other option was leaving their daughter almost entirely unguarded against her serial killer father. You had been the obvious pick from the team as you were the only one who was young enough to be a truly believable nanny. And who would suspect sweet little you was hiding a gun inside your purse?

In theory, everything should have gone off without a hitch. The adopted parents would go out for dinner at the same time they always did on Saturday, their standing date, leaving you with Gina. You would be wired, and so when the unsub broke into the house trying to abduct the sweet 4-year-old girl in your care you would speak your codeword and the team would come back you up while you got Gina to safety.

In theory, the unsub didn’t take you by surprise.

In theory, the unsub didn’t come out of nowhere and shove you into a glass coffee table.

In theory, your mic didn’t break.

In theory, you didn’t get abducted with a 4-year-old girl you were supposed to protect.

Everything was better in theory.

 You came to groggily, trying to gain your bearings. Everything hurt but breathing especially. The first thing you realized was that you had probably broken a rib. Well, not you. Derek Mayner had broken your rib. Wait…the unsub. Where was Gina?

You looked around in a panic, causing a sharp, stabbing pain to shoot through your chest before you caught sight of her. She was slumped unconscious just off to your right, and it looked like her tiny little body had been drugged. Something to keep her docile while Daddy dearest kidnapped her.

She stirred slightly, coming out of her drugged haze slowly. She blinked up at you with wide chocolate colored eyes for a moment before quickly bursting into tears. That was bad. That was very bad.

Before she could attract her father’s attention, you quickly pulled her into your lap, holding back a scream from the pain in your ribs.

“There now, it’s alright sweetheart.”

You doubted you looked like it was alright. You could feel the scratches littering your face and body, and you were sure there were some shards of glass stuck through your arms, fibers laced through your face. It didn’t get better when you failed to calm her.

“Take your hands off my daughter.” Mayner growled at you, slamming the door open.

“I’m just trying to calm her do-”

“I said take your hands off her!” He screamed, reaching around her to hit you.

The blow landed weakly, but the pain of it was increased by the injuries you had already sustained. It jarred Gina out of your arms, which only made her cry harder, her distress increasing. Mayner roared, furious.

“Look what you did!”

That was when your pain really began.

He dragged you out to a barn at the edge of the property, an abandoned house he had been keeping you and Gina in. Grabbing chains that implied a sickening amount of premeditation and perhaps more kills than you had given him credit for, he strung you up from the rafters, your toes barely dangling from the floor. With your broken ribs, the agony was unspeakable.

Mayner’s past kills had been fast, more business-like than most of the unsubs you dealt with. His primary focus had been getting his daughter, and his aggressive tendencies took a backseat to that. Now that he had her though, he was free to explore. And explore he did.

It seemed like the pain was never ending, exploding across your body. In the back of your mind you noted that it probably meant something that Mayner’s preferred weapons were knives, and he really liked stabbing. You clung to that, trying to escape to a different mindscape.

In your head, you were on the jet, discussing a case. Your case, since apparently you could only get so far removed from your current situation.

“Impotent, most likely,” Rossi said casually.

“That would explain the stabbing, but not the daughter. You think his impotency happened in the two-year gap where he was in jail?” Morgan asked.

“It’s possible.” Emily leaned forward in your mental rendition of the jet. “That would explain the obsession with his daughter. As far as he knows, she’s the only child he’ll ever have.”

“That makes sense. A man’s children are his legacy, and a man like Mayner would be obsessed with taking control of that.” Hotch nodded.

Mayner dragged the knife up your side, and your mental vision blurred red hot. You tried to focus, tried to bring it back, but it hurt. Gosh, it hurt so bad. You scrambled for any memory you could reach, any happier, higher place. Your brain supplied you with an unexpected one. You remembered Spencer telling you a story of when an old unsub he and Hotch had interrogated in jail tried to kill them. Spencer had talked him out of it by asking one simple question.

You took a jagged breath. “Do you want to know why you did it? Why you killed all those girls?”

Mayner froze, and a wild hope sprang up in you.

“I mean, that’s not like you, right? You’ve committed a lot of crimes, sure, but you’re not a murderer.”

If you could just string him out long enough, the team would come for you. You knew they would. They had to.

“I did it for my daughter. You wouldn’t understand.”

“But I think I do understand Derek. Because you didn’t have to kill all those little girls. But you did it anyway, didn’t you? And you liked it, right? I can tell you why if you just put the knife down.”

“What would you know about me? You’re just a nanny.” He spat in your face.

You tried to hold back your disgust, not to let any weakness show. “I’m a psychologist. I work for the FBI, and I was assigned to go undercover and protect your daughter. And do you know why they picked me? Because they knew, they knew that I would understand you Derek. That I’m the only one who can.”

“What do you know about me?” He demanded, lowering the knife ever so slightly.

“I know that it started with Gina’s mother, right? She was the first person you’d ever really killed. And when you did, there was such a rush, wasn’t there? You would do anything to get that kind of high again. It was better than the drugs, better than anything you’d ever done before. So then you wanted to do it again. But more than that, you wanted your daughter back. So what did you do? You went after your daughter, like any good father. But in the process, you couldn’t control your appetite, could you? You had to kill. But you could have killed anyone, anything. So what do we have to ask ourselves now?”

The barn exploded, and you could have cried with relief.

“FBI! Put the knife down now!” That was Morgan’s voice, strong and authoritative.

Derek didn’t put up much of a fight. Sure, he liked murdering people, but he also liked staying alive. You had broken before he was even cuffed.

Tears poured down your face, the excruciating pain and relief washing over you.

“Get me down,” you begged, a mantra rolling out of you over and over again. “Get me down. Get me down.”

It was Spencer who raced to your side, gently extricating you from your chains. Who caught you as you collapsed, yelping in pain.

“I need a medic here! Now!” Panic laced his voice, and you dimly registered that you had never heard Spencer this afraid before.

“G-Gina, is she?”

“She’s fine. Just breathe, okay? You’re going to be okay.” Spencer’s warm hands cupped your face, and you realized you were freezing.

“I’m, I’m okay Spence,” you tried to say through stuttering breaths. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Medic!” Spencer’s voice was a frantic demand now, but it was getting dimmer.

You vaguely registered Mayner, begging you for an answer as Morgan dragged him away.

“Why?” He asked. “Tell me why.”

You coughed, which hurt, but seemed to come secondary to the hot blood dripping down your chin. Summoning up all of your remaining strength, you looked Mayner in the eye in a last act of bravado.

“I have no idea.”

Then you passed out.

 You came to for the second time in what you guessed was 24 hours, except this time you were in a hospital wing.

“Mmmm,” you murmured quietly, shifting in your bed. “Is that morphine I feel?”

You heard Spencer chuckle to your left. “Actually, it’s fentanyl. They tried to give you morphine, but I convinced them fentanyl would be better.”

“And by that he means he bullied the poor nurse into giving you the good drugs,” Garcia said from your other side.

You laughed weakly, but that definitely still hurt. Guess the drugs could only do so much.

“Okay Penelope, you’re going to have to stop being funny now because that hurt.”

It seemed you had unintentionally caused the blonde distress as tears sprang to her eyes and she leaned forward to give you a very gentle makeshift hug.

“Oh, I’m just so happy you’re okay! Spencer’s been sleeping in hospital chairs for the past two days and we were all so worried! About you, obviously, not him, although we were kind of worried about him too because he already slouches so much and-”

“Spencer!” You frowned over at him. “Go home.”

“No.”

“Yes. You’ve been sleeping here for two days? That’s insane. You’re going home and you’re going to take a bath or shower, whichever you prefer, and then you’re going to eat some real non-hospital food, and then you’re going to sleep for 9 hours in a real bed.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Spencer protested.

“Which was all well and good when I was asleep and flirting with death, but now I’m awake and I feel fine. Which means you need to go take care of yourself.”

“But what if they try to give you morphine instead of fentanyl? Or what if they don’t run the right tests or they miss something that I would have seen or what if-”

You precariously turned so that you were facing him better, wincing slightly as you did so. “Or what if you went home and rested and let Garcia and the rest of the team take good care of me, and then you came back tomorrow?”

“She’s right, boy wonder. In your current state of delusionalness, you wouldn’t be able to catch anything the doctors supposedly missed anyway. Come on, I’m having Morgan drive you home.”

Before he could complain further, Penelope ushered him out of your hospital room, leaving you alone with the strong scent of hand sanitizer and latex gloves, under the bright white lights that were sure to give you a migraine if you kept staring at them. So you turned to the only other option left. You closed your eyes, stopped staring at the cursed lights, and went to sleep.

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”

-Fyodor Dostoevsky

[smkkbert]

Another chance at love (15/15)

Summary:  It’s been almost two years since Oliver lost his fiancée Detective McKenna Hall when she died in the line of duty. He closed his heart to love ever since, unable or unwilling to give love another chance. That changes when he meets Felicity Smoak at the annual gala of the Starling City Police Foundation. Is he ready to give love another chance, though?

Characters: Oliver Queen, Felicity Smoak, Thea Queen, Sara Lance, Quentin Lance, Dinah Drake, John Diggle & others are mentioned or make short appearances

Rating: Teen

Previous chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 or read the entire story on Ao3

Two years later

Looking at the cloudless night sky, Felicity puckered her lips. When she had been a kid, she had always wished that she could find the constellations. She had spent hours studying them in books during the day, and even more hours trying to locate in the sky at night when her mother had been working the nightshift. She had thought it would be a good idea to become friends with the stars since they were there every night when she was alone and couldn’t sleep. Unfortunately, Felicity just didn’t have a talent for that. She could still name and draw all eighty-eight constellations that had been in her book. She had never found a single one in the sky, though.

With a sigh, Felicity lifted her glass of champagne to her lips and took a few sips. She may not be able to recognize a single constellation, but it was still a great night. The sky was clear. There was no wind, but still chilly on this early April night. It made her long for summer. Winter had felt like it had drug on.

“Looking for shooting stars?”

Felicity jumped at the closeness of his voice and quickly turned around. Just like so many times before, it caused her to spill the rest of her champagne on his white shirt. Pressing her lips together and rolling them into her mouth, she lifted her gaze to Oliver’s face. He looked at her reproachfully, but amusement was sparkling in his eyes and gave away that he didn’t really mean it.

“The day is never really over until Felicity Smoak spills  her drink on me.”

“Well, usually I’d suggest you should take off your shirt, so I can lick what is left of my drink off your skin, but,” Felicity looked past him through the windows into the loft that was crowded with people, “I don’t think our guests would enjoy that. I mean they would enjoy it  if you took your shirt off, at least the ladies would, but not so much watching us getting caught up in foreplay.”

Oliver hummed, shooting a look back over his shoulder to where their guests were drinking, eating and chatting too. Felicity smiled at him briefly before she turned back around and looked over the city. A moment later, Oliver’s chest was pressed against her back and his strong arms came to wrap around her waist. Felicity smiled and leaned back against him, resting her head against his shoulder.

She kept her eyes closed for a few more seconds before opening them to look at Oliver’s face. He was looking at the sky like she had before. Even in the dark of the night, the deep blue color of his eyes seemed to shine. With the way his head was angled back, the line of his jaw looked even stronger. He was handsome, incredibly handsome. Felicity couldn’t say it had ever stopped to amaze her how handsome he was without even trying. It was kind of unfair the amount of sex appeal he had been blessed with.

Oliver sighed before meeting her eyes. When he didn’t speak, Felicity arched her eyebrow, wordlessly asking what was going on. Oliver grinned.

“I wanted to boast a little and show you a constellation,” Oliver admitted and kissed the tip of her nose, “but it’s been so long since I needed that romantic stuff to try and impress a girl. I think I need to refresh my skills before I am ready to use that again.”

“Good thing that you don’t actually have to impress me.”

“Because you are already unbelievably impressed by me?”

“Of course. Why else?”

Smiling brightly, he kissed the tip of Felicity’s nose once more and made her chuckle as his stubble tickled her sensitive skin. Felicity snuggled back into his arms and the warmth his body offered. Oliver took her left hand and lifted it to his lips. He kissed the back of her hand, swiping his thumb over the ring on her finger. He looked at his for a moment, smiling softly, before he kissed it too.

There was a bigger diamond that was framed by two smaller ones. It was a simple yet beautiful ring, something Felicity would have actually chosen for herself. After she had seen the ring Moira had received from Robert when they had gotten engaged, she had teased Oliver that she could never wear a ring like that since the diamond stone was too big and she would feel like she was lifting dumbbells whenever she lifted her hand. It had been meant as a joke back then, but she had still been more than happy when she had seen the simpler ring he had presented her.

Felicity’s eyes met Oliver’s, and they smiled at each other. Though neither of them said a word, Felicity was sure that he remembered the same moment Felicity did, the moment when he had knelt in front of her, during their latest vacation in Bali, to propose. It had been perfect. They had taken a late night walk on the beach, letting the water cool their bare feet as they had walked along the ocean. Oliver had stopped her eventually, telling her that he had wanted to wait until the next when they were hiking, but he couldn’t wait any longer. He had knelt in front of her then, telling her how much he loved her and how his heart was all hers. He hadn’t even needed to ask the question before Felicity had said yes. He had, just for the sake of completeness, asked her after sliding the ring on her finger anyway.

Seeing the ring on her finger still felt surreal. She had come to Starling City to connect with the family her mother had left her with. She had indeed made Quentin, Sara and Laurel her family. She couldn’t imagine going through the rest of her life without them. She had gained even more people, though, because she had also found her own family, a man she loved and who loved her back, a man she was sure would never leave her. When she had been a kid, left by her father, she had never dared to dream that this could be her future.

“What are you doing out here?” Oliver whispered, snuggling his cheek against hers. “In need of a little break from the party?”

“No.” Felicity smiled. “I am actually having a lot of fun. I am happy your mother and Walter came. We don’t see them often enough. It’s nice that they made the time to come for a week. Your mom and I also agreed that she is going to visit us more often as we getting closer to the wedding.”

“Though she is already trying to tell you how to plan it?”

“I appreciate her advice,” Felicity replied honestly, shrugging her shoulders. “We might have completely different tastes in dresses, flowers, menus and everything else weddings are about, but she knows what’s important in planning a wedding. It’s going to be helpful to have her help with the preparations. It’s just good to have a motherly perspective. ”

Oliver’s arms tightened around her. “Is that why you are out here? Are you thinking about your mother?”

“Kind of. Do you think-“ Felicity stopped and bit down on her bottom lip, shaking her head. “Never mind.”

“Do I think what?”

Felicity just shook her head again. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

“Well, to quote you, we don’t do stupid, so…”

Felicity smiled amusedly. She had indeed said something like that to him a while back. She couldn’t remember what they had talked about. All she remembered was that Oliver had the same thought back then, maybe a little sad even, and her comment had made him smile. Just like it made her smile now. Over the years, they had learned how to make each other happy or get at least a smile from the other no matter how little they were feeling like smiling. Oliver stayed quiet, not urging her to reply. He just held her, peppering chaste kisses to the side of her face and neck.

“Do you think my mother is watching us from up there somewhere?”

She looked at the sky again as if it would suddenly open and her mother would smile at her from a cloud. As a child, she had always liked the thought that the people who died were living on a cloud that they could move wherever they wanted, so they could watch all over the earth and visit the other loved ones that were in heaven. Growing up, she had given up on that thought, but it did comfort her thinking about it now.

“What I think is that your mom, my dad and McKenna are together up there and partying with us or at least for us.”

Felicity smiled. She could almost imagine the scene. Her mother would decorate everything in pink and glitter, driving both Robert and McKenna insane. During the party, she would try encouraging them to dance. McKenna would give in eventually and end up having a lot more fun than she had thought she would, while Robert would stay where he was and just watch them. From what Felicity knew, Robert had never been much of a dancer.

Closing her eyes, Felicity let the scene play in her head for a while. She wanted to memorize the moment. That way she would know for the rest of her life that these three people, who had been ripped from her and Oliver’s lives too early, had been there with them.

“I think they’d all be really happy for us.”

Felicity opened her eyes and turned around in Oliver’s arms. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she rested her chin on his chest and looked at him.

“You think?” she asked.

Oliver smiled. “Absolutely. If they were here, they’d be celebrating with us.”

“Oh, really?” Felicity chuckled. “I actually think McKenna would pull me away by my hair and say, Get your hands off my man, bitch.”

“Okay, I cannot argue against that.” Oliver chuckled. “With the way things are, she would be happy for us, though.”

“Yes, I think the same.”

Oliver lowered his lips and kissed Felicity. Their lips touched gently. Felicity sighed, and Oliver used the opportunity to stroke his tongue into her mouth. Felicity pressed herself closer to him, feeling all the little butterflies in her stomach trying to dance with the ones in his. Her body always reacted intensely to his. It would probably melt together with his if it were possible.

The last two years had been an exciting time, not only for her job but for them. Felicity had never had a serious relationship like this. Her relationships had never lasted long, most of them had barely deserved the name. With Oliver and her, it was different, though. It was better. Of course there had been some bumps in the road, but every good story had some, right? Nothing worthwhile ever came easy as Oliver had said once. They were something worthwhile. She could feel it in every fiber of her being. All the trouble was worth it because they had each other. That was worth all the trouble they had gone through to come here.

Figuring that it wasn’t the night for deep thoughts, Felicity sighed.

“Why are you out here?” she asked.

He frowned. “Carter said something that angered me. Then I saw you standing here and thought sneaking away from everyone to enjoy a moment with you was exactly what I needed. I know we have invited friends and family, but it’s still our night. Screw Carter. Nothing is going to ruin this evening for us.”

Felicity smiled. She knew Oliver hadn’t wanted to invite Carter, a former classmate. They had run into him last weekend, and somehow Oliver had felt forced to invite him nonetheless.

“What did he say?”

“Nothing that we should allow to ruin this day for us.”

Felicity considered insisting on an answer, but she chose against it. She knew that Carter and Oliver had been compared to one another a lot during their youth, and Oliver had come out on the shorter end most of the time. Even his mother had always been delighted by Carter, the golden son. According to Oliver, the praise had made Carter only grow more smug over the years. She doubted that he had anything meaningful to say.

Besides, Felicity knew a lot about the criticism people who didn’t know them held against them. When Oliver had announced their engagement to the press, quite a few tabloid magazines had written articles wondering if Felicity was just a stopgap and Oliver was marrying her out of gratitude rather than love. For media that earned most of their money from scandalous headlines, that story probably sold a lot better than the truth. Oliver had been angry and upset for at least three days, cursing reporters for trying to find tragic  reasons for stories where they were none, but Felicity had managed to calm him down. They knew the truth. They knew that they loved each other. That was all that mattered.

Felicity leaned forward and snuggled her cheek against Oliver’s chest, listening to the beat of his heart. With closed eyes, she stayed in his arms where she felt safe and cozy. She had never felt as loved by anyone as she did by him.

Oliver kissed the crown of her head with a sigh. “I think it’s time to go back in. I doubt that it’s a sign of playing a good host when the couple whose engagement is being celebrated is spending most of the party outside on the balcony.”

Felicity groaned and snuggled herself even closer to Oliver’s chest. “Can’t we stay here?”

Oliver tightened his arms around her. “I wished we could.”

“But we have guests,” Felicity agreed with a sigh. She rested her chin on Oliver’s chest and looked at him, scrunching up her nose. “Fine. Let’s go.”

Oliver pecked her lips before he let go of her and tugged at her hand to pull her back inside with him. “Come on, Mrs. Queen.”

“Mrs. Queen?” Felicity chuckled, standing still. “Not yet.”

Oliver turned back around to her and pulled her back against him. “But someday soon.”

Felicity smiled. “Someday soon.”

“Maybe in July.”

“I’d like a winter wedding more.”

“Okay, then in December or January maybe.”

“Sounds good.” Felicity smiled. “After that you can call me Mrs. Queen as long and as often as you want to.”

“Maybe I am going to be Mr. Smoak, though,” Oliver said. He puckered his lips. “Oliver Jonas Smoak. I would like that.”

“Feel free to take my name. I like it.”

“I could also continue telling you that you are smoaking hot.” Oliver grinned, letting his hands travel down her back to her butt and squeezing it playfully. “I don’t know why, but I do have a weakness for that wordplay.”

Felicity chuckled. “Really? I wouldn’t have noticed after you called me smoaking hot at least once a week these last two years.”

“I like to write it even more because you can see the spelling then.”

“I know.”

“Of course you do.” Oliver smiled and kissed her lips. He kept her close when their lips parted, holding her against him tightly. “I love you, you know that?”

“We wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t.” Felicity straightened up onto the tip of her toes and brushed her lips against his once more. “I love you, too.”

Oliver puckered his lips and looked inside at their guests. He scrunched up his nose as he looked back at her again, admitting, “Now I don’t want to go back inside, either.”

Felicity chuckled. “What do you want to do instead?”

When Oliver grinned, Felicity rolled her eyes with another chuckle. Of course he would want that instead.

“Do you think there is a way we can sneak out and… have some private time? It’s our night after all.”

“I doubt it,” Felicity replied, patting his chest sympathetically. “It’s the downside of living in a loft.”

Oliver pursed his lips. “We need to find a new place to live, something with more rooms where we can sneak away without attracting attention. It’s now on the top of my list of things to do in the near future. It has priority over everything else now.”

Felicity chuckled. “Don’t worry, Honey. I doubt we’ll be throwing  lots of parties in the near future, so there is no need to panic over a new place just yet.”

“That doesn’t help us for tonight, though.”

Again, Felicity chuckled. “A new apartment doesn’t either. We’d still have to find one.”

“That’s true.”

Oliver kissed her lips once more before letting go of her with a sigh and turning to the sliding doors once more. Felicity held him back by tugging at his hand, though. Oliver chuckled as he turned back to her.

“We are never going to make it back inside if we continue like this.”

“And that would be so bad?” Felicity asked.

“No,” Oliver chuckled.

He lowered his head and captured her lips in a kiss, smiling into it. Way too soon, he pulled away and started another attempt to turn towards the door, but Felicity held him back.

“Just one second.” Felicity kept holding onto his hand, stopping him from leaving. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

Oliver smiled gently “Shoot.”

“You know, my first day in Starling City, there was that gala?”

His smile widened, and he nodded his head. “It’s where we met.”

“Exactly.” Felicity stepped closer to Oliver and wrapped her arms around his middle once more. “That night, I really regretted accompanying Sara.”

“I remember. Neither of us was particularly pleased to be there.”

“Right.” Felicity leaned against him with a sigh. “Looking back, I am really glad I went.”

“I am really glad you went, too.”

They smiled at each other amorously for a moment before their lips met in a gentle kiss. While their tongues were dancing together, Felicity repeated the words in her head, feeling them sink into her heart even more. That gala had been the perfect start of their life together, so she really owed Sara one for urging her to go.

Author’s note: Hi, Lovelies! 

That was the story of two people falling in love after losing someone in their life. I know it was a sensitive topic, so I knew not everyone would like it. I have to say I was a little surprised by how many people thought Oliver needed to forget about McKenna and shouldn’t talk about her or keep any memories of her.

This is about people being very black-and-white about this, not about those who criticized the details of how this played out in the story. I accept criticism (if voiced with respect). It’s just the general attitude that someone who lost his fiancée is supposed to forget about her and the memories he shared with her that bothers me.

Oliver and McKenna shared a life. During the time he was with McKenna, inspired by her, Oliver turned into a new person. This is important for his personality. Even if that wasn’t the case, there are years of memory for him that include McKenna. Forgetting about her and never talking about her would mean leaving out a complete part of his life. That was my reason to make Oliver and Felicity deal with this elephant in the room (or that other woman in Oliver’s heart) openly.

McKenna will always be Oliver’s first great love, but Felicity is his forever. Talking about what would have happened if McKenna had survived or Oliver had met Felicity first makes no sense. There is no answer to that, so why bother putting too much energy in the thought?

Like I said, I knew a lot wouldn’t agree with this story. It was a challenging thing to write for me too since I usually avoid exes and past lovers. The reason this story felt important to me (apart from the fact that this is very real for a lot of people) is a story my sister told me in her first year as a nurse:

She was taking care of a patient, a woman in her mid-thirties, who had been in a vigil coma for over five years by then. We don’t know how much exactly a person in that state realizes of her surroundings, but at least that patient wasn’t responsive. The reason she was in this state was that she fell down the stairs in the framing of the house she was building with her husband. They had just gotten married when this happened.

By now, the man had gotten married again. He had a wife and two children. Still, he was visiting his first wife at least every other week if possible. He also talked to her before getting divorced instead of just , saying he felt it was the respectful way to handle that. He wanted to live on, but he wanted her and his memory of her to be a part of his life.

Now, I know this is not the exact same thing because a) the new wife was a good friend of the coma patient (which felt weird to me, so I didn’t write it into the story) and b) the first wife didn’t die (though, in a lot of ways, the woman that man fell in love with, probably didn’t exist anymore and we don’t know how much the coma patient really realized).

Still, this was the story Another chance at love was inspired by. Oliver found a way to move on without pretending that those years with McKenna never happened. Felicity was the key to that realization because she didn’t feel threatened by McKenna which I think takes a lot of courage.

Anyway, I just wanted to add that for you to know!

My next story, 10 Rules of Rebounding, will take a couple of weeks or even months to be published. It’s an E-rated rebounding AU, very smutty and light. If this was too heavy for you, I am sure that story will be more fun. 

xoxo Kathi

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[weekendwarriorblog]

THE WEEKEND WARRIOR 4/2/21: GODZILLA VS. KONG, THE UNHOLY, OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL

I’m really not sure how I feel about doing the Weekend Warrior at quite the level I was doing last year. Even though the box office is slowly coming back, it’s still very frustrating to write about, and honestly, the Disney announcement last week about all the movies being delayed or dumped to Disney+ kinda brought me down. It just tells me that many studios are giving up on theatrical just as people have gotten so used to watching stuff at home, they don’t care about going out and being in rooms with other people, especially strangers. I guess I can understand that, but all the negativity that pervaded the narrative in 2020 is finally doing its damage as theaters reopen and some may have trouble even filling 25% capacity for some movies.

Then again, I’ve just come back from a weekend at the Oxford Film Festival, which became one of the first American film festivals to go in-person, although it is doing a bit of a hybrid in-person with virtual, so locals and a few out-of-of-towners (mainly me) were able to see all of this year’s great programming at one of the outdoor (and then indoor due to weather) venues. I was on the feature doc jury and got to see 11 terrific documentaries, some of which hopefully will get distribution and get out there, but why wait? While most of the movies are geoblocked to the United States (and some to Mississippi), there’s so much great programming to check out over the next month, and you can do so via OxFilm’s virtual cinema, which includes many great features and shorts. As far as the juries, I can highly recommend the Jury Prize winners, In a DIfferent Key, a fantastic film about autism directed by Caren Zucker & John Donvan, and the runner-up, Patrick O’Connor’s Look Away, Look Away, an amazing bi-partisan look at the fight to keep the Confederate-created flag of MIssissippi or change it, depending on your side of the fight. It’s a doc that really needs to be seen in other parts of the country. (Unfortunately, those are both geoblocked to Mississippi, as is Chelsea Christie’s Bleeding Audio, which tells the tragic story of the rise and fall of San Francisco’s The Matches and won for Music Documentary.) There are movies available everywhere in the United States though, and you can check out the full line-up of movies here.

Anyway, OxFilm gives me hope that there’s a future for theatrical moviegoing and as far as the box office, that hope comes in the form of the first holiday weekend since NYC and L.A. reopened as the Good Friday day off for most schools and Easter Monday that continues the vacation for others might persuade people to check out what’s happening in theaters, and fortunately, it’s a movie that’s so easy to market based on the fact that it has two of the biggest movie monsters facing off for the first time since 1963.

That’s right -- opening on Wednesday is the anticipated GODZILLA VS. KING KONG, starring… well, does it really matter who it stars other than Zilla and Kong? Probably not. The fourth movie in the Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Monsterverse takes the star of 2017’s Kong: Skull Island ($168 million at domestic box office) and pits him against the title character of 2014’s Godzilla ($200 million) and 2019’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters ($110.5 million). MInd you, I just include those domestic grosses for reference, because even if we take into account that scary dip from Godzilla and its direct sequel, it won’t really matter when you take into consideration a little thing called…. COVID! We’ve already seen movies gross more than $50 million since everything shutdown

I already reviewed this over at Below the Line, so I don’t have much more to say in that regard. It’s good if you like giant monster fights but isn’t much beyond its amazing monster battles, which is why I won’t even mention the actors that appear in it or any of the characters.

Godzilla vs. Kong is probably going to be the widest release since COVID hit with 2,600 theaters on Wednesday and then expanded to 3,000 on Friday when Regal reopens many (but not all) of its theaters. While I expect it to do fine on Weds and Thursday, making probably $4 or 5 million, it should really explode on Good Friday, which should allow it to make somewhere between $18 and 20 million over the three-day holiday weekend, so let’s say $25 to 26 million before Monday.

Also opening theatrically, this one on Friday is the Screen Gems horror movie THE UNHOLY from Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, the directorial debut by Evan Spiliotopoulos (writer of Disney’s mega-blockbuster Beauty and the Beast live action movie and the Rock’s Hercules ), who adapted the story from James Herbert’s novel “Shrine.” The movie stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as disgrace journalist Gerry Fenn who is trying to get stories for a supernatural tabloid when he comes upon a deaf teenager named Alice (Cricket Brown) seemingly praying at an oak tree in a rural community in Massachusetts. When she seemingly gets her hearing back and is able to talk, word quickly spreads that she’s able to communicate with a benevolent Virgin Mary-like spirit that gives her the powers to heal. Since this is a horror movie, you can probably guess that things quickly get ugly and scary. THe movie also stars the wonderful Katie Aselton as a local doctor, who doesn’t do very many doctor-y things.

Before we get to my review -- and I’ll blame the review embargo on it for this week’s column being so late -- let’s talk about the movie’s box office potential, because religious horror-thrillers have quite a significant draw over a certain audience going straight back to the ‘70s with movies like The Exorcist and The Omen (the latter one of my all-time favorites) and The Unholy does dip into the toe of both of those. It’s been a long since there’s been one of those which might make this a draw for audiences into theaters, especially over Easter weekend -- that may be meant as irony -- but there’s also a little movie called Godzilla vs. Kong, which is just way more of a draw even with it being on HBO Max, but also because it’s likely to get better reviews. I’m not sure how many theaters Sony is getting this into, but I expect it’s somewhere around 2,000 or so, and that might be enough for the movie to make around $4 to 5 million this weekend, but probably VERY frontloaded to Friday.

Now let’s get to that review…

The Unholy begins with a flashback scene to “February 31, 1845” with a scene right out of the Salem Witch Trials of a woman being mutilated and strung up to a tree. This plays a very important role in a story that involves a fairly ludicrous premise that mostly involves Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character finding something called a Kern Baby, essentially a porcelain doll wrapped in chains that he decides to smash in order to create a fake supernatural story about how smashing the doll causes crops to fail. In fact, smashing it releases the spirit of the woman we saw in that opening scene possessing a deaf teen girl named Alice who starts to heal everyone in her rural community, while also releasing the evil that had that woman’s spirit bound into the doll in the first place.

There isn’t that much more to say about the plot to a stupid horror premise so full of religious hokum as more characters get involved with trying to figure out if Alice is actually healing people or not. This includes the benevolent local priest Father Hagan, played by William Sadler, and a Bishop (really) played by Cary Elwes, who is using such a bizarre accent, kind of like a cross between the Bronx and a heavy Irish brogue, that it’s impossible to take his character very seriously.

Just knowing what studio garbage Spiliotopoulos has written did not make me very hopeful for his directorial debut, which is just all over the place in terms of tone and pacing, dragging at times and then throwing the type of cheap jump scares and schlocky CG horror creatures at the viewer with very little of it actually being very scary. " (The creature version of "Mary" just looks silly.) Besides being highly derivative, ripping off almost every religious horror movie, both bad and good, some aspects of the movie are so laughably bad that it’s hard to take much of it seriously. Worst of all, it ends with just a really horrible climax that reverses any good will the movie might have created with the casual young horror fans that usually like this thing. Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s another one of those unrare “F” CinemaScores we see whenever a studio horror film doesn’t bother matching up to the quality of something like The Witch or Hereditary. Horror fans definitely want more than the usual these days, and The Unholy just seems like a lazy waste of time.

A movie that I’ve been looking forward to seeing and just haven't had time to watch is Emma Seligman’s SHIVA BABY (Utopia) that stars Rachel Sennott as 20-something Danielle who runs into her sugar daddy (Danny Deferrari) at a shiva with his wife (Dianna Agron) and their baby, as well as her parents (Fred Melamed and Pollyw Draper) and Molly Gordon as Danielle’s ex-girlfriend. It’s actually playing at the newly reopened Quad Cinema, so who knows? Actually I did watch Shiva Baby and was kind of disappointed. It seemed very twee and precious, and Sennott's character seems like the type of spoiled Millennial white girl that I hate in indie movies like this. I also just didn't find it particularly funny. Oh, well.

Streaming Friday on Netflix is Ricky Staub’s CONCRETE COWBOY, starring Idris Elba, Caleb McLaughlin and Lorraine Toussiant with McLaughlin being a teenager who moves in with his estranged father (Elba) in North Philadelphia where he learns about his passion for urban horseback riding.

Opening in New York (at the Angelika and Village East) on Friday and in L.A.and other cities on April 9 is the Oscar-nominated International Feature THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SKIN (Samuel Goldwyn Films), written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, and starring Yahya Mahyni, Dea Liane, Koen De Bouw and Monica Bellucci. Tunisia’s submission is the story of Sam Ali, a Syrian who leaves his country for Lebanon to escape the war with hopes of travelling to Europe to be with the love of his life. To fulfill that dream, he allows his back to be tattooed by a contemporary artist that actually brings more trouble to the poor young man.

Hulu will debut the doc WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (Hulu), which I still haven’t gotten around to watching but seems like an interesting subject for a doc.

A little closer to home at the still-closed Metrograph, they’re playing Claire Dennis’ 2004 film L’Intrus through April 8, and on Friday will open Sky Hopinka’s experimental debut maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Grasshopper Films) which follows Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier as they wander around the Pacific Northwest, mostly speaking in the Chinuk Wawa language. The latter is free to digital members ($5/month, $50 a year!) and $12 for non-members… pretty easy decision there, huh? Ms. Dennis’ film is also available to members.

Not only that, but New York’s Film Forum is also reopening this Friday with the double feature of Almodovar’s remastered Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and his new short The Human Voice, starring Tilda Swinton; the fantastic doc The Truffle Hunters; as well as his Fellini’s masterful Oscar winner La Strada (Janus Films, 1954), starring Anthony Queen and the wonderful Giulietta Masina! (That’s what I’ll be seeing this Sunday!) On top of that, Film Forum will continue its fantastic Virtual Cinema programming, which will launch Eric Roehmer’s A Tale of Winter (1992) this Friday with Roehmer’s A Tale of Summer (1996) joining the Virtual Cinema starting Friday April 9.

Got exciting news that Film at Lincoln Center will be reopening on April 16, but this week, they’ll be launching the latest edition of Neighboring Scenes, its annual series of Latin American films done in conjunction with Cinema Tropical. It’s 10 films that you can watch with an all-access pass for the low price of $80, and it usually has some good movies in the program.

A couple others out this week, including Funny Face and Every Breath You Take (Vertical), which I don’t even have time to look up what they’re about. Sorry!

That’s it for this week. Next week, Neil Burger’s sci-fi coming-of-age thriller, VOYAGERS, will hit theaters.

[gonnabesyk]

October 23rd, 2018 6:05pm

I’ve been very busy lately and haven’t had much time to update this blog! Let’s talk about what’s been going on:

My nephews got their report cards last Wednesday. Alex did great - Ben.. not so much! But Ben is somewhat mentally impaired (that’s the truth! I’m not saying it to be mean), so he did alright too, considering. Months ago I told them I’d let them play the Nintendo Switch if they did well in school, and I made good on that promise!

I arranged for them to spend most of the day with me Saturday; got some Halloween snacks, made up a couple of little treat bags, got them some Minecraft socks, and picked up a couple of pumpkins to carve with them. They played Mario Party & Mario Kart for a little bit, and just as we were getting ready to carve pumpkins, my mom (who was out with my sister) called me up panicking and shouting not to carve pumpkins with the boys, then hung up. I was… baffled. She sent me a text a few minutes later saying my sister had apparently made plans to carve pumpkins with the kids that evening and would probably have a meltdown if she found out they’d already carved pumpkins with me. I was ‘stealing her thunder’ :T So we played Mario Oddyssy until they got home. I was a little sad - my sister gets insanely jealous whenever anyone else spends time with the kids, but we had a fun day regardless, and I think it meant a lot to them.

Later that afternoon, Jim and I went to Petco to get more cat food and on our way out stopped to see the ferrets. They had 2 kits - a dark sable and a blaze. Welp, I absolutely fell head-over-heels for the blaze. I asked an employee if I could see her and she told me no…! Not unless I was going to buy her. She looked so helpless and sad.. I just couldn’t leave her there. It was a very impulsive purchase on my part, but sometimes an animal just captures your heart and you can’t walk away! Unfortunately, she is a Marshall Farms baby. They wouldn’t let me hold her until we got to the check-out, but as soon as I took her out of the box I saw the tattoos :( I’m disappointed to know I supported a company with such poor breeding practices once again. I would be thrilled to see them shut down permanently. At the same time, I’m grateful for the opportunity to raise another ferret kit. So many conflicting emotions. I’m considering this a rescue since there’s a very good chance she might have been adopted by a child/young adult who would have neglected her.

On the way home, she climbed up my jacket and gave me a kiss on the lips. Then, about 10 minutes later, she suddenly became very aggressive and latched onto my finger! She’s the first ferret to ever draw blood. Hoooly moly, did that hurt! I tried to pry her mouth open and she latched onto the thumb on my opposite hand, drawing blood again. That was three days ago - I’ve since learned these aggressive episodes are triggered by certain fabrics. She likes to chew (teething, maybe?) and if you interrupt her, she’ll attack. She was chewing on my jacket on the way home and when I reached down to pet her she must have thought I was gonna try to stop her. Luckily, I grew up trying to tame feral cats, so I’m not afraid of being bitten or scratched! I’m glad she drew blood on me and not a kid - their parents may have taken her back to the store or worse..

Chewing is a huge concern for ferrets! They’re prone to deadly GI blockages because their digestive tracts are so short and narrow. The other morning I woke up to find Maple happily grazing on her bed. I took it away immediately and now have to watch her closely. She was romping around while I was folding laundry last night - I’m sure you can imagine what a disaster that was! I’d pry her off one article of clothing only for her to latch on to another. She threw a fit each time I scruffed her, haha. I told her I was sorry to ruin her fun, but if she ever wants to sleep in the big ferrets’ cage, we have to break her of this habit ASAP! She was hissing and screeching (a sound I’ve never heard before!). I know it’s terrible, but I couldn’t stop laughing.. I’m trying to teach her to chew on hard plastic teething rings instead of blankets; she’s not happy about it.

Anyway, Mae-Mae is the cutest and I can’t wait to get to know her better! She takes up most of my time now - something I’m thankful for, because I have less time to mope about other junk.

Attached is a photo of the weather for this week. Lovely, lovely! Every time I go outside I fill my lungs with that beautiful, crisp, fall air. I feel like a completely different person now that summer has officially ended! It’s as if the past several months were all just a bad dream and I’m actually awake now - every time an acorn bounces off the roof or I hear a crow cackling, I feel a surge of positive emotions. Many people associate fall with death, and I suppose I do too since my dad passed in the fall… But it doesn’t depress me the way it might others! I experience a sort of rebirth each year around this time. Life is exciting and new, I want to kick leaves around, stick my hands in pumpkin guts, and drink giant mugs of chai tea. My inner child emerges each October and withdraws the following year in April. I’m happy right now. That’s all I need.

[thaicatsoup]

There's Beauty in the Breakdown

It’s been 7 months since I said goodbye to everyone and everything I know and love in America to embark on this Peace Corps journey in Thailand. As I sit in my hospital bed in Bangkok, reflecting on the last 7 months, I’m at a loss for words. Where to begin… I’ve avoided writing any blog posts for awhile, trying to process, not knowing exactly what to say. I hesitate to talk about my struggles, not wanting to invite pity; and I refrain from writing only about the victories for fear of telling half truths and seeming fake. I’ve allowed myself to be paralyzed into silence by worrying about what other people think. Realizing that simple fact, has me questioning who I am. In America, I never worried about what others thought before speaking my mind. But here… There’s something about being outside of your comfort zone that causes you to question everything. But now, it’s time to peel back the curtain. This is my blog, after all. I’m the only one who can speak my truth.

Since the beginning of 2017, I’ve experienced an exceptional amount of loss and grief. In November, I met my soulmate, Avery, only to turn around in January and leave him behind while I embark on my new journey. It hurt to leave, but this is my dream, and after many discussions, we decided that our love is strong enough to make it through the 27 months apart. The good part is that I already know who my other half is. I found him. How many people can say that?

After about two months of training, I found out from a friend back home that one of our friends died from an overdose. I made excuses to distance myself from feeling pain. “We weren’t that close.” “I knew he had a problem.” “He’s at peace now.” But it still had an impact on me. He was at my going away party and now I’ll never see him again, which is surreal to me. He was 36 years old.

During PST (Pre-Service Training), I had various health issues. Twice I had stomach infections so bad I had to be put on antibiotics to stop the diarrhea, stomach cramps, and fevers. Throughout the three months I had severe back pain that made it difficult to bike long distances, sleep at night, and even concentrate in language classes. This also made me pretty unpopular with a couple of the volunteers at the time. As much as they resented me for my physical disability, I resented myself for it as well.

On the day we were given our site placements, I was disappointed. Nothing I’d hoped for worked out. I hoped to be near Liz, my “sister from another mister” who lived in the house next to mine during PST. That didn’t happen. I hoped to be near anyone I was close with. That didn’t happen. I hoped to be near the beach or the mountains, somewhere beautiful. That didn’t happen. I got Angthong - a site about 40 minutes from the Golden Dragon Hotel where we were staying in Central Thailand. All of the reasoning made sense - to be near Bangkok in case I needed physical therapy for my back, etc. But I was still disappointed. I took the day to feel it and the next day I chose optimism. I would wait to judge until I got there.

When I did get there, it seemed that I was the only one waiting to judge. My host family was extremely overbearing. The kind of people who just want to love the life right out of you, and teach you and learn from you every single day from dawn til dusk. The only person who I felt loved me unconditionally was my little 5 year old brother, Pu. He would take my hand and kiss the back of it and look up at me and smile. I’d lay in the hammock and he’d come lay across my belly and stay there while I rubbed his back. We would dance and play Spot It and color together. He was my favorite.

From March 22nd until April 8th, I thought this would be my home in Thailand for the next two years. On April 8th, all of that changed. An incident with one of the family members made it unsafe for me to stay in Angthong and complete my service there. So on April 9th, Peace Corps officials removed me from my site and I went to Bangkok for ten days before being granted leave to go home to the U.S. for 14 days to recover with friends and family. The worst part about leaving Angthong was that I had to leave without saying goodbye to Pu. I left him a drawing and my Spot It cards. The silver lining to this very dark cloud was an unexpected reunion with my love, Avery, and my family and friends. It was difficult working through my feelings, but I’m not sure I could have continued to serve and complete two years here without that break.

My return to Thailand was timed so that I came back during Maycation, a vacation in May on an island called Koh Mak, planned by the 128s (the group before us - we’re 129s). This was the perfect way to come back - relaxing on an island with all my PCV friends. The following Monday at 8am, I was off to my new site in Lamthap, Krabi in a Peace Corps van with my favorite driver, Arun. It was a 13.5 hour drive. We would be taking a break in Surathani, about 2.5 hours from Lamthap.

On May 8th, about an hour into the drive, I got a message from my mom that she had to put down our cat, Lucy. This was unexpected. We had no idea Lucy was sick and just like that, she was gone. I cried for a couple minutes in the van, but it was so quiet, I started to feel awkward, so I stopped. I thought, I’ll wait for a more appropriate time, when I’m alone, to grieve for my cat… but I never really did. After that, there was so much newness, so much anxiety to deal with, that grieving for my cat was no longer a priority.

Things went fine for awhile. I really liked my new site. Even though school started when I arrived in Lamthap, everyone was very nice and gave me plenty of time and space to get adjusted. I couldn’t have asked for a better site or a better counterpart. I had more time, so I was talking to Avery on the phone every day, thankful for the reliable WiFi in my room. I loved my new host family, so kind and funny. My host sister speaks English and is relatable since she’s closer in age (20).

Then came the storm again. An annual burn I go to, Wickerman, came and all my friends back home went, including Avery. I knew they’d have fun and I wanted them to, but with no reception on the mountain, it made for a lonely 4-5 days for me. When the burn was over, I was happy to talk to Avery again. The next day, I woke up to some not so happy messages. My friend Ken had died over the weekend. He was 65 and very sick, but that did not make it any easier. He was one of my best friends and I would never see him again.

Unfortunately, the same week, my host grandfather (who is 94 years old) got very ill and was admitted to the hospital. It became a very lonely week for me because everyone was either working or sitting with Dtaa at the hospital to make sure he wasn’t mistreated or robbed. The following week, my host cousin, Model (age 14), was hit by a car while walking home from school and sustained a serious head injury. The good I decided to take from this, was that I was thankful to be living with my host family. If I had to live alone and be in an empty house all the time like I was for that one week while Dtaa and Model were in the hospital, I’d be depressed for most of my service.

At this point, I felt the emotional burdens were too great. I decided to call PCMO (our doctor) and ask to speak with a counselor. I was able to make some parallels that helped explain why everything was hitting so hard. My friend Ken who died reminded me of my dad. Ken’s death allowed some feelings from my dad’s death to resurface which amplified my sorrow. Model’s head injury mirrored my own head injury that I sustained at the age of 10, and made me worried for him. Mostly the counselor just listened to me without judgment and gave me a safe space to share my feelings, which I desperately needed. It was good and I felt better after the call was over. I told her that Reconnect was coming up and then I’d be able to see my friends and get lots of hugs and I’d be fine after that.

So I went on a beach trip with some friends, which was great for me. Then to Reconnect. Then my friend, Lauren and I traveled to Singburi together to visit our old host families from PST. All of that was great fun. Then, on the way back to Bangkok, I started to feel sick. Well, Friday I felt a little sick, but you get diarrhea here a couple times and it’s really NBD. Saturday, I got progressively worse, until at 1am I was calling PCMO from my hostel saying something was very wrong. Luckily, I ran into my sweet friend, Olivia who put me in a cab in the middle of the night to the hospital. I was admitted. They ran tests. The next thing I know, I’m missing my flight back to Krabi but I don’t care because my insides are coming out. Four agonizing days later, we get the results back. Salmonella and Campylobacter. Two different kinds of bacteria. That explains it.

From my hospital bed, on the phone with my host sister, Sym, I find out that Dtaa’s caretaker, Pa La, quit her job, moved out of her room next to mine, and changed her phone number. I am devastated. She and Sym are my only two friends at site. Were my only two friends. Yet another person I didn’t get to say goodbye to that I’ll never see again.

So what is the meaning of all of this pain and grief? During Reconnect, my friend Libby was kind enough to give me a tarot card reading. My cards were: Guilt, Letting Go, Friendliness, Trust, and Maturity - in that order. During this reading I realized that I felt a lot of guilt around my feelings of grief. I’m always so caught up in trying to be positive, trying to be okay, that whenever I’m not okay (which is a lot lately), I shame myself for it. I realized that I haven’t been allowing myself to feel my negative feelings which only makes things worse. The truth will come out one way or another. If I don’t let myself grieve, I can’t let go. I can’t be friendly. I won’t let myself trust. I’ll never mature past this point.

Grief comes in waves. Huge crashing waves that you can’t go around. You have to let them wash over you. It’s ok to look on the bright side. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. But when the waves of grief come, it’s ok to feel the sorrow too. Letting go is a part of life, and it’s the hardest lesson I’m still learning every day.

[channelstandstill]

I originally started this post on April 23rd, 2017. It has been a clear month and a half since then. I wanted this post to be some sort of significant marking of a new phase of my life, for the next three years, at least. The following day was going to my first day of school, where I would be studying filmmaking.

A lot has changed since then. I met new people who soon became new friends; I took modules, which, admittedly has made me realise that I’m not that great of a story teller- nor am I that great in coming up with a story.  I’ve also never had to draw so much in my life. Though it has only been a short six weeks since school has started, I won’t hesitate to say that I have enjoyed it overall.

As I opened up the saved draft of this post, the existing words seemed foreign to me. So foreign, in fact, that I felt almost intrusive to scrutinise every word and recall my exact though process when they were written. It’s a weird, hard-to-explain form of recycled, self imposed nostalgia- almost as if you’re looking back on your past self and comparing that to how you are now.

I discovered something as of late. I don’t know if many people will understand since it’s something of a personal phenomenon. Most people will probably say that they are mere coincidences, but my question is, how far do coincidences dictate and/or influence our lives?

I met a few people recently- befriended them, actually. As the weeks go by and I learn more about them, I started to feel a strong sense of deja vu whenever I’m around them. I won’t mention names, but they possess personality traits that are so distinct to my past friends; friends that I no longer talk to or haven’t in months. I feel as if they are separate extensions of friends that I used to know; embodiments of their personalities. Almost like a reincarnation. I don’t quite know how to articulate it. I’ve been thinking of it quite a lot. I feel like the pattern of the social relationships that have impacted my life are on the route of repeat- where I would meet the same personalities, reincarnated into a different body, crossing my path at a different yet significant time of my life (so far), just like they have in the past.

I talk about nostalgia a lot. Maybe it’s because there’s not a single day where I don’t think of the past, no matter how far back it was. The past could’ve been two days ago, it could’ve been two months or even years ago. It just so happens that I always daydream of the past and forget that I’m in the present sometimes, if not most of the time. I’m not necessarily saying that I’m sad about it- just well, nostalgic, to put it in simplest forms.

Anyway.

I feel as if the title no longer suits the theme of this post now, since its so overdue. Nonetheless, there’s an obligation to remain the same title because it’s supposed to be a continuation of Part 1. Here are some pictures that I captured about a month before school started.

this is a photo that we stopped to take when you walked me home. i don’t know how else to put it other than the plain fact that i’m no longer the person that i was in the photo; not the one who took it, not the one in the reflection (that turned out to be covered by the flash). i don’t know what else to say other than i’m sorry. i never meant to hurt you but i did anyway. i’m still learning to prioritise and i shut people out so easily, maybe too easily. thank you for everything, though. i did enjoy the time that we spent together. 

this is teejay. she has been featured and talked about multiple times in this blog. teejay, if you’re reading this, i love ya babe. please continue to do what you do. 

teejay, in her natural apparel consisting of a tote bag and a bottle of vitamin water in hand. we were looking for directions to get to the art science museum, I think. 

possibly the oldest friend that i have. we’ve known each other since primary one. we were in the same class together. fast forward to more than a decade later, we end up in the same polytechnic. 

to be honest, i can’t quite remember when or where this was taken. my closest yet vaguest guess is probably our visit to the grand park hotel. 

my friend Dee! this is her doing revision before we had dinner together. 

  dinner at the chop house

are you okay firi?

this is taken on the same night as the two previous photos. this was also the night that i vaguely remember getting drunk and ended up hugging the toilet bowl. fun times. i miss them. 

ian came back to visit from oxford in mid march! we decided to go to mount faber park. this is him caught candid when we hiked up the stairs. 

we spent the hours talking- i was mostly looking up logic questions and paradoxes for him to answer and explain. if you’re reading this ian, i miss you! i hope you’re doing well. 

we also ate a sickening amount of gummies. 

fast forward to the first of april. the day of our coldplay concert. look at them!!! excited!!! the stadium was a few minutes walk away! good times, good times. 

i’ve been trying to figure out what the white lines are and i have concluded that strands of my hair got in the way of the photo when i looked down to take a photo of our shoes. 

the line at Cheers/7-11/i can’t remember filled the tiny space. all were concert goers, buying their provisions before heading to the show. 

this was taken before heading into the stadium. 

minutes into the concert. i took a number of photos, most which turned out extremely grainy, unfortunately. 

mother dear. you do so much for us. nothing, no amount of material, love, or words will ever equate the unconditional love that you provide every day. 

Until the next strike of inspiration, I suppose? Thanks for reading. x

See you soon.

      63. Before The Storm (pt. 2) I originally started this post on April 23rd, 2017. It has been a clear month and a half since then.

[foxcroft-rpg-blog]

Congratulations, Emily! Honestly, your application was just beautiful. You really understand all the things that drive Nina. You see that she may be bruised, but she is by no means broken. I’m really happy you applied, and I’m happier to accept you. Can’t wait to see what you do with Nina!

Thanks again for applying! Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the masterlist as soon as you can. Welcome to Foxcroft!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name: Emily

Age: Twenty

Preferred pronouns: she/her

Time zone: GMT.

Activity: I would say that my activity is firmly a 6/7. I am in my final year of university, so that obviously has to take priority, but my semester finishes at the end of March. I do have essay deadlines and exams coming up across April/May, but they’re definitely manageable. So I’d say I’ll be pretty active – definitely on to do replies every other day or so and I’m pretty much always available to plot!

Anything else?: Nope! Just to thank you for looking over my app.

IN CHARACTER

(TW: Miscarriage)

Full name: Nina Florencia Delgado.

NINA: The name Nina may originate from the old Slavic word Ninati, meaning "dreamer" or “dream”. Nina had so many dreams. She would write them out on a notepad each day before she went to sleep, stick them up on the wall she shared with one of her siblings, memorise them and whisper them underneath her breath until they could become true. Willing them to be. It wasn’t much. She didn’t dream of grandeur, no aspirations to touch the ceiling of the world, or to be somebody. She only wanted happiness, to dedicate her life to the service of others and one day teach Spanish to her children and plait their hair. Unfortunately, that dream – the most longed for dream of all, if she’s being honest – was stolen from her in a cruel twist of fate. Many would have given up dreaming all together, curled up in a ball and allowed the pain to consume them. But not Nina. True to her nature, she allowed that dream to fade away, focusing on the others instead. Those will come true – even if she has to peel parts of herself off to make it so.

FLORENCIA: In Spanish the meaning of the name Florencia is: Flowering. Blooming. Nina doesn’t fit the conventional description of a flower. Her petals aren’t so easily torn. She isn’t something temporary, lasting for a moment. If anything, she’s the stable oak, roots plunging underground, stoic when the gale howls. But, in many ways, she is the bloom of summer, the inward beauty you cannot help but stop and admire. She’s an individual full of potential, someone capable of everything and anything, someone who continues to fight even when struck down, who continues to see the good and beautiful in the world, in spite of everything she’s endured. Through the winter frost, she comes out the other side – ready to grow again, ready to bloom.

DELGADO: Spanish and Portuguese: nickname for a thin person, from Spanish, Portuguese delgado ‘slender’ (Latin delicatus 'dainty’, 'exquisite’, a derivative of deliciae 'delight’, 'joy’). Although most people wear the names of their father, Nina chose a long time ago to don that of her mothers. Her father ran away without so much as a goodbye, a permanent hole in her life. So why would she want his name? No, instead, she chose her mothers. She chose to wear the mark of a woman who gave everything she had to her children, who loved in buckets, who has always been there for Nina whenever she needed it. Even when engaged, Nina was adamant about double barrelling her surname, wanting to carry that important part of her life – a part of her family – with her even in a life started far far away. However, it’s more than just the love she has for her family. It’s a mark of her heritage too – designating her as coming from Latina heritage, something she is immensely proud of. Even when far from their roots, Nina was raised to have pride in and to embrace their traditions – for example, they’ve always spoken Spanish at home and they’ve always maintained ties with the local Latin American community within Foxcroft, few as they may be. Names are important – and Nina is proud of hers.

Date of birth: July 7th, 1992

Cancer: Deeply intuitive and sentimental, Cancer can be one of the most challenging zodiac signs to get to know. They are very emotional and sensitive, and care deeply about matters of the family and their home. Cancer is sympathetic and attached to people they keep close. Those born with their Sun in Cancer are very loyal and able to empathize with other people’s pain and suffering. The sign of Cancer belongs to the element of Water, just like Scorpio and Pisces. Guided by emotion and their heart, they could have a hard time blending into the world around them. Being ruled by the Moon, phases of the lunar cycle deepen their internal mysteries and create fleeting emotional patterns that are beyond their control. As children, they don’t have enough coping and defensive mechanisms for the outer world, and have to be approached with care and understanding, for that is what they give in return. Lack of patience or even love will manifest through mood swings later in life, and even selfishness, self-pity or manipulation. They are quick to help others, just as they are quick to avoid conflict, and rarely benefit from close combat of any kind, always choosing to hit someone stronger, bigger, or more powerful than they imagined. When at peace with their life choices, Cancer representatives will be happy and content to be surrounded by a loving family and harmony in their home.

How long have they been in Foxcroft: Nina has lived in Foxcroft on and off for her entire life – mostly on. Born and raised there, it has always been – and probably always will be – her home. It’s the place where she grew up and as such, contains a thousand different memories, many of them positive, most of them centering upon her family. That, however, wasn’t enough to stop her ambition. It wasn’t so much for a hatred of Foxcroft than it was a desire and determination for more that spurred her to leave it once she graduated. Indeed, she could have stayed on at Foxcroft community college – and was initally tempted to, wanting to stay close to her family - but it was her mother who persuaded her to stay on. You’ve dedicated your life to us, now go live it. With her blessing, Nina moved on, attending a college within state, but several hours away from Foxcroft. In truth, she never thought she’d be back – especially once she met her future fiancé. There was simply no need return for anything more than visits, especially as her siblings grew themselves. As soon as she found out she was pregnant – and with their wedding looming – they put a deposit down on a house, far far away from the place she once called home. Now, they would build their own lives – and she would be free for good. It all seemed so permanent then. It was only with tragedy and heartbreak that she found herself calling up the real estate agent and asking them to find her an apartment back in Foxcroft. Nothing short of the total loss she had experienced could have brought her back. She wanted to find both solace and security in a familiar place and people. Now, she thinks she’ll probably be in Foxcroft forever – and it’s something she’s coming to terms with.

Sexuality: Labels aren’t something Nina’s ever been particularly enthusiastic about. You can diagnose an illness, you can prescribe antibiotics, but you can’t pigeon hole love. When it strikes, it strikes – and you have no control over that. Although she’s only ever been in a relationship with men (a man, in fact, someone she once considered to be the love of her life), she likes to consider herself open to the possibility of engaging in a same-sex relationship, even if it’s not anything she’s ever actively pursued. In fact, since breaking up with her fiancé, she hasn’t been on any dates. There’s a small part of her that thinks no one will ever want her now, that she’s a bit broken – no good to anyone. So she pulls away, reluctant to engage in such intimacy, where she knows that one day, she’ll have to confess – and break her heart all over again. So, if pressed on the subject, she’d probably describe herself as heterosexual, just because it avoids questions and because based off previous experiences, that seems to be the best designation, but she considers herself to be more flexible than that. Based on the kinsey scale, she’d put herself at a 3.

FC change: N/A. I couldn’t change Lindsey…I just…I can’t.

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How do you interpret this character’s personality? How will you portray them? Include two weaknesses and two strengths.

Description:

Brave girl, they whisper under their breath when they see her. The girl who shot for the stars, but fell towards earth. Many people would like to define Nina in terms of not who she is, but what she failed to be. They would like to call her phoenix – and talk about how she crawled out from underneath the ashes. They would like to pigeon hole her because of her loss, dictate the terms of it, and pinpoint exactly how it changed her. To a trained eye, it can be done, because it has.  But that isn’t the truth – not the whole truth anyway. The loss of her baby changed her, it burdened her with a grief she’s only just coming to terms with, rubbed away her soft edges. But it would be false to say that everything she is can be derived from that one moment. Nina isn’t a summary of one experience. She’s a product of her entire life – the good and the bad. The difference is, she’s always been drawn towards the former – and that’s all she’s ever allowed to shine.

Someone who has always been a beacon, a steady anchor to root yourself around, a permanent presence, Nina was made to be an Angel, a saviour of sorts. She would be fundamentally good. Self-sacrificing before she even knew what the term meant, she’s always been happy to put others before herself, drawing her strength from their happiness. At first, it was her family – the siblings she nurtured and protected, the brothers and sisters she orientated her life around – and the mother she counted as her best friend and closest confidante. Now, it’s her students, the young minds of tomorrow she so desperately wants to shield. She’s always been a little bit like that – an unseen shield, someone you may not even know is there. The ultimate mother figure and mom friend, she was constructed from concepts of kindness and compassion – and has always allowed them to shine through, being driven by their ideals. It is, after all, why she became a nurse.

And yet, despite that, you would be a fool for thinking that it made her delicate. She was never gentle, porcelain or easily shattered. She’s always been stronger than that. Hardworking and determined, she’s always known who she is and what it is she wants, confident in her identity. Even now, she isn’t some broken shell of a girl. She continues to be who she’s always been (that is, after all, why she had to break up with her fiancé, who treated her as if she were made of cotton wool), or at least, she’s trying to be. She’s not here for pity. That’s why she continued to follow the only dream she had left, determined to grasp something – even if it was the shortest of straws. Like a bird, she always wished to fly free, to escape Foxcroft and build something for herself, a life worth having, even if it was nothing more than simple pleasures, the most humane of human experiences. Nina has become a dreamer with her wings clipped, grounded to the dusty earth. But even then, she’s making the best of a bad situation, resilient in her force of mind.

Despite her efforts, despite gritting her teeth and burying her grief, she continues to be scarred by her experiences – albeit a mute one. Unable to speak out about what has happened to her, she feels a little trapped – rooted only by her singular desire to help others. Her pain has become a constant companion – one she’s learning to live with, one she’s trying not to let consume her. Never complaining, never wiltering, never faulting, she tries not to be haunted by the loss of her child – and the loss of the life she had wanted for herself. That will not be her story. She has more to give and offer to the world – and so she does, even if it is all of herself. Fundamentally, Nina is human. (Technically, no, but in who she is? Yes. ). She embodies the best of humanity, the versatility, the courage, the desire to better oneself, the care that is needed to rear another generation, the desire to put others first, to dedicate your life in their service. After all, what’s more human than that?

Character traits:

COURAGEOUS: not deterred by danger or pain; brave. Life is tough, but so is she. Even in the face of adversity, Nina has remained true to who she is, her goals and her morals, determined to remain who she is at that core. Doing that requires bravery and strength that isn’t found in every person, a characteristic that makes Nina truly Nina. She has always been strong, but now, there’s a newfound iron in her blood and manner to which she holds herself accountable.

ALTRUISTIC: showing a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others; unselfish. Some people struggle to put others first – but not Nina. It’s been a defining characteristic throughout her entire life, beginning the moment her first sibling was born – and never fading, even until this day. Her choice of lifestyle and career means her concern spans far wider than blood – to close and weak bonds, to those she hardly knows. Pure-hearted and led with good intentions, every action is spurred forward by this desire – one she will never allow to fade.

STEADFAST: resolutely or dutifully firm and unwavering. Faithful and loyal, Nina isn’t the type to give up on a person, on herself or something she’s put her mind to. Determined and resilient, she remains an ever constant, refusing to let her experiences shift her away from the person she knows she has to be. It takes all of herself that she has to give, but she’s immensely proud of herself for doing so.

PRIVATE: not willingly revealing ones feelings. Although she encourages people to trust and confide in her, she finds it incredibly hard to do the same. Always used to being the strong one for everyone else, she’s all but forgotten how to confess in others. Keeping her pain and her secrets pressed close to her heart, she’s somewhat of a closed book. She doesn’t intend to be – but it’s simply the way the world has made her – and she’s not sure if it’ll change anytime soon.

MELANCHOLIC: feeling or expressing pensive sadness. She wasn’t always this way. Even if she wasn’t the peppy cheerleader, she always had a ready smile to give her siblings, feeding off of their happiness and love. But that changed when her baby died and she was told that she could never bear children of her own. In that moment, her heart was twisted, perhaps beyond repair. Now, although she tries not to be and does her best to remain cheerful, she is plagued by a sorrow she cannot shake, a grief that penetrates down to the deepest parts of her soul.

STRONG-WILLED: determined to do as one wants even if other people advise against it. Steel-minded, Nina is not so easily distracted or dissuaded once she’s put her mind to something, even if that decision could be costly. As selfless as she is, that’s usually a price paid by herself. Whilst it’s admirable that she’s so willing to sacrifice herself or her happiness, it’s dangerous – especially in the wake of her newfound abilities. If she isn’t careful, that resolution of hers is going to get her into more trouble than she can cope with.

Personality analysis: X

How did this character react to the death of Hazel Abrams? Adam Foxcroft?

As someone who’s call in life is to patch and mend, any loss of life is tragic. The death of anyone, stranger of otherwise, gives her cause to pause, a moment to lament, to pay her respects and wish them a peaceful transition. But a death in such a violent manner? In many ways, that might be worse than slowly wasting away. Nina couldn’t claim to know either individual well. Despite them being of a similar age to her, they were nothing more than familiar faces glimpsed in the hallways at school, the figure at the back of her class, a facebook friend you accept and don’t think twice about again. Thus, their deaths did little to touch her personally. She couldn’t claim to truly grieve them, to be devastated, or forced to string the pieces of herself back together.

Hazel’s death happened soon after her return, within weeks in fact. Dutifully, she turned out for the memorial, lit a candle in the square, gave her condolences to Hazel’s family and did her best to honour her own dead child. It did, however, touch her life in different ways. She was suddenly a lot more aware of the town, the people in it and the potential for darkness it possessed. She sat down her siblings and explained to them about travelling in pairs. She herself kept her keys between her knuckles as she walked to her car at night. When her students came to see her, she would ask after their mental health, not just their physical bodies. With Hazel’s death, something in Foxcroft had changed. She was afraid, to think that someone so violent could live among them – that they would escape justice. When the case went cold, a chill ran through her spine. Over time, however, a new normality settled in. And then Adam Foxcroft died.

Whereas some were less chilled by his death, almost shrugging it off with explanations of Well, he’s a Foxcroft or he ran in bad crowds, Nina was determined to honour him the same, seeing only the loss of human life, not the caveats that came with it. Once again, she felt her heartbreak as her thoughts inevitably turned to her baby, lost before its time. And then, she went through the motions again – the funeral, the memorial, the warmest of touches whenever she saw anyone who she knew had cared for Adam. Their deaths have certainly increased her awareness – and she now founds herself being slightly bound to them by her encounter with Neil – and his status as the primary suspect. But, more than anything else, it’s made her more determined. With all this death and destruction, what Foxcroft needs, more than anything else, is someone to heal.

How do they see the town and its people? Think about the different groups of people and prejudices the town holds about them.

Nina’s never truly been one to divide the town up into its factors and cliques. She sees them as individual people – not the groups that they might belong to. There’s no bad guy group for her, or the good kids – they’re just people. That perspective comes from her own experiences more than anything else. Absorbed with caring for her siblings as a teenager, she mainly skipped out on the typical high school experiences, which included the part where everyone became typecast into their factions. Thus, uninvolved in it all, she never learnt to see people like that, in terms of the prejudices Foxcroft holds against them. And, as someone who considers herself to be not judgy at all, she likes to think that she never would. In terms of how people perceive her, many people might ask who? Slipping under the radar during high school and mostly keeping to herself, her profile was low – and Nina didn’t care about making a statement for herself. Too many things were important. These days, a few might know her as the girl who didn’t get away, or by her job description as the nurse. Nina definitely isn’t someone who has much of a reputation in Foxcroft, which allows her to stay above the in-fighting and drama – exactly how she likes it.

As for Foxcroft itself, it isn’t so much the small-town life she’s opposed to than the small town she found herself in. When pregnant, diamond ring on her finger, she had planned to move to a small-ish town, to raise her child somewhere safe, where there would be good schools. There is a certain appeal to the life of a small town, in its comfort and security – if you find the right place. Foxcroft was never that – and she recognised that, practically from birth. There was never anything particularly wrong with Foxcroft. After all, her upbringing was not damaged by the place she inhabited. Despite that, she dreamed of making it out, escaping and setting up home somewhere else. She knew, from a young age, that she had a future to be claimed – prospects far far away from Foxcroft. In an ideal world, her dreams would have whisked her away – and she never would have had a reason to return other than for Christmas and Birthdays. But life is cruel – and she finds herself back where it all began. She’s trying not to feel bitter about that, to not resent being pulled back into its clutches, attempting to make something of herself in the town, in her job and new-found state. But it’s harder than it seems. And Foxcroft, with all its mystery and murder? It certainly isn’t making her aspirations any easier.

For non-human characters: What does this character know about what they’ve become? Have they had any experiences that made them aware that weren’t exactly human?

She had never believed in ghost stories. Sure enough, she would dutifully take her siblings trick-or-treating on Halloween each year and celebrated The Day of the Dead with enthusiasm, but the idea that there was something else out there? Please. Her world was centered on what was either real or could be achieved. Her dreams were not plucked from the world of fairy tales, but concrete desires she knew she could make reality. After all, she always worked for everything she achieved – so the idea that there was something supernatural was, well, a little laughable. She liked to believe that there was something beyond death, perhaps a heaven, or a place she would see her child once again, but that was an afterlife – something beyond death, not something beyond humanity. So, needless to say, she was more than surprised at what happened the moment she saw Neil Monroe lying at the side of the road.

It was easy to initially write it off as a dream. It was late at night – she was tired, she couldn’t be sure that what was happened to her was real. One moment he was injured – the next, he wasn’t. That seemed like a figment of imagination to her. And yet, the moment she woke up the next morning, her back aching and scars etched into her skin, she knew, definitively, that it hadn’t been a dream. It was a living sort of nightmare. She studied her marks in the mirror for the longest of times, dressing them with cream to soothe and bandages to heal – grateful that she at least knew how to treat her injuries. (All the while not knowing that what had drawn her towards her profession in the first place was the very reason she could do such things). Trying to make sense of it all, she wrote down everything she had experienced in the grief journal her therapist gave her.

Neil Monroe was injured.

I touched him. I tried to help him.

Now he is fine – and it is I who is injured.

Those three facts seem crazy (and she can’t confide them in anyone), but they are true. That is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all.

Yet, even then, she wasn’t quite willing to admit the truth until she saw the headline news. Neil Monroe: found safe and sound. It was then that she finally admitted to herself that something had happened the night before – and that she had a part in it. Watching him leave Police questioning that day, without scratch nor bruise (whilst she herself was in agonising pain), she knew that she had healed him.

That night, she added a fourth fact.

4. I healed Neil Monroe by touching him. His injures became mine.

Then, she locked the journal in her top drawer.

She could never name what it is that she is, or fully admit that she might not be human yet (because what is more human than wanting to help people?), but she does have a running theory: that she can heal people by touching them – and that she herself will take on their injuries. Right now, she can’t be sure whether it was a fluke, whether it was Neil who did something (and not her) or whether it will ever happen again. She wants to test her theory, but she doesn’t know what it was she did or how to trigger that part of herself, so she’s a little wary of doing so. But, one thing she does know for certain is that if she can control it, if she can, indeed, heal people with one touch – then she will. She wants to help people, happy to offer up all parts of herself to do so. This allows her to do so. This is perhaps a gift. And such gifts should be used.

Please include 1-2 possible plots your see for this character

THE HEART OF A HEALER: Nina is only just beginning to scratch the surface of who she is and what it is she can do. She’s always been a healer, yes, but she placed her trust in medicine and science, knowing that faith enough is not enough to sow a wound back together. Now however, she can do that. Her hands are more than just the tools to wield instruments. They possess power in themselves. Over the course of this roleplay, I’d love for Nina’s arc to concern her exploring her powers. She needs to work out what she can do and what it means for her to do. The first step of this is probably going to be trying to talk to Neil about what happened that night and then having the experience repeated. Once she does work out what she is (even if she can never place a label on it) then the path forward becomes clear. She’s going to help people. In a town as bloody and broken as Foxcroft, there’s a lot of damage – and she can begin to salve the wounds. It won’t be plain sailing. These abilities will push her to the brink of possibility and force her to grapple with the fundamental question – can I heal without breaking myself? Where Nina is concerned, she’s happy to give herself up in order to help others. The question then becomes – will she pay the ultimate price for that?

THE TIES THAT BIND: Relationships are important to Nina – and play an instrumental part in defining who she is and her priorities. Therefore, I’m equally as excited to explore the different relationships in this roleplay, for Nina to interact not just with predetermined connections, but with everyone. I will say that in particular, I’m looking forward to exploring both Nina and Summer and Nina and Wells. I’m a sucker for familial relationships, so Nina having Summer is just so important. Each of them has been through so much – and they both need a shoulder to lean on, someone to talk to at the end of a long day, to express themselves without fear of judgement. Summer is her closest friend – and she fulfils such an important role. Where Wells is concerned, they are one and the same. There are so many parallels between the pair of them, not to mention their status as Wyrths. Is there truly anyone that can understand the other like the two of them? They’ve both been through so much, lost people they love and can count grief as an old friend. Now, as they come to terms with who they are, they’re going to need the other as a shoulder to lean on, someone to confide in and perhaps – the truest of friends. In a sense, they’re almost like twinned souls, complementing each other. Exploring that – and watching it unfold – is one of the things I am most excited for.

WRITING SAMPLE

“This is a safe space. Anything you say here will remain confidential. You don’t need to be afraid. Look at the people around you – everyone is going through exactly the same thing.”

The group’s leader, their words calming and measured, did little to soothe her anxieties. Almost by instinct, Nina pressed her lips shut, burying her confessions where no one might ever find them. Eyes flickered from side to side, each person looking for the person who would speak up, who would break the tension that had fallen, who would bear open their soul. It was Nina’s fifth session – and she had done little more than state her name, occupation and bring doughnuts when it was her turn. I don’t mean to be so…useless, she once admitted, but I can’t give a voice to what happened either. Not yet. Grief takes time Nina. You are healing, bit by bit. So why didn’t it ever feel that way? Everyone said that time eased things and that the ticking of the clock was supposed to lift you up. But her heart felt as heavy as ever. Often, she blinked it away, forced the storm from her mind. As she worked, things would even feel normal (from time to time, when she didn’t see her baby’s still-closed, never-opened, blue eyes on a student, when she didn’t see the pregnant teacher walk down the hallway, blossoming). But then came the sorrow. Then came the remembrance. Nothing will ever be normal again.

“Nina?”

Firmly, she shook her head from side to side, offering an apologetic smile. She had never liked disappointing people, always happy to chisel off pieces of herself to put the world at ease. Until now, that was. “I’m sorry – I – not today. It’s been a long week.” Longer than usual. For whilst the touch of the grim reaper would so often blemish a smile, that wasn’t the only thing weighing down on her mind. When she closed her eyes at the dead of night, it wasn’t just a still not-wholly-formed body she saw, but a flash of rain and the blood of Neil Monroe. Sitting straighter in her chair, a shot of pain sent ripple waves through her body. Three days – and she hadn’t yet become accustomed to her new marks, the signal of change, of something new. Impossible to untangle, unable to make sense of it all, she prayed for them to heal. Perhaps then she could forget about it all. Somehow, she doubted it. It felt as if she lay on the cusp of the beginning – as if it was all only just about to begin. Absentmindedly, she wondered if they would scar – and if her body would come to resemble what her soul had become.

“Is everything alright?” A pause. “Other than the obvious, of course.”

She didn’t want to lie. That wasn’t who she was. Deceit and ill-intentions had never mixed well with her. She was far too simple for that, or so she had been. Just a girl who had wanted three simple things in the world – and who had the most important of them all stolen away. My life should have been so different from this. Even as she thought the words, she knew it was useless to wistfully wish for something that could not be. Never the sort of person to lose themselves in their mind, in hopelessness or in grief, she exhaled heavily, steeling herself for a response that would not appear to be so transparent. “It’s been a long week at work – that’s all.” People could always sympathise with that – assuming she might despise her job. For Nina, it was the opposite. She sometimes felt as if her job was the only thing keeping her anchored to the ground and hoped that by healing others, she might one day be able to heal herself. It was an idle, wistful thought, but she wasn’t sure what else to hold onto, other than that. Some people asked her if it was strange, to walk the same halls again. She would always laugh. I’m there more now than I ever was back then. How long ago her own high school days seemed, a time packed to the brim with family and hard work, with chasing dreams and endless possibilities.

“Of course. We understand.”

They did. Each person in this room had felt death’s touch one way or another. They all knew what it was to feel a piece of your soul torn away, to wake up and know that the person you loved was no longer in the land of the living. They lived in two worlds – the real one – and the one inside of their minds. “My daughter worked too hard as well.” A man to her side said that, his eyes wistfully turning over memories, smiling a little as he did. She wished she could reach that point, where she could think of her baby (someone she had been unable to name) and smile. But somehow, she doubted she ever could. For whilst these people had something to cling onto, an object, memories, something real – all she had ever had was potential. There had been her baby’s heartbeat at the first scan – how steady it had sounded. There was the first time they had kicked, just two weeks before they were lost all together. There was the time she had requested they (or, she supposes, he) be placed in her arms, wrapped in a blanket so you couldn’t feel how cold they were. But did that even count as a memory, if her child had been dead at the time? She had no wish to deprive the people around her of their memories. She only wished she had a few more of her own.

Ah, wishes, they’ll break your heart. Her mother had said that to her once, stroking her hair. Nina had never really believed in them, not really. She had never wished on shooting stars or when it turned 11:11 – and even donated her birthday cake wish to a sibling each year. I don’t need wishes to make my dreams come true. As it turned out, she would need a miracle.

Wasn’t that the worst, the most bitter of things? Whilst losing a person was bad enough, a child even worse – Nina had lost a part of her identity. Biology would deny her children to call her own, stolen her youth and all she had ever wanted.

No point feeling sorry for yourself. After all, you won’t let anyone. The pity of it all had been the worst. If at first she had crumbled, confined to her bed for days after the incident, she had quickly risen, biting her lip to prevent the pain, trying to restore normality to her life. I still have my two feet. I can stand on them. Her fiancé hadn’t understood that. At times, she wonders if he liked her weak. She asked as much the day she returned his ring. I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you. I can’t marry someone who looks at me as if I might break every time they touch me – because I won’t. I suffered a great loss – but I won’t let this be the story of my life. I still have more to offer, things to do.

And wasn’t that why she was in Foxcroft?

Maybe that’s what happened with Neil. It was a strange little voice that spoke, one that sought to question science and logic, that believed in the possibility of fate and destiny, that there might be a greater divine force. Maybe you healed him for a reason. It was the most human response of all, to search for clarity, for a why whenever uncertainty struck.

Nina wasn’t human. But she couldn’t have known that in that moment, nor might she ever. But in that moment, she certainly felt like one.

EXTRA:

How would you feel about this character dying?: I’m game for it. As much as I’d love to see Nina happy, I think that the true testament to her character is her willingness to put others first and in time, perhaps her readiness to sacrifice herself for them. Part of being a wyrth is grappling with the balance of saving others and saving yourself. I can definitely see Nina going too far one day, taking on an injury that ends up being fatal, or simply exhausting herself in the process. I’d love to know ahead of time – and perhaps collaborate on the circumstances of her death – but it’s definitely a yes from me.

Why did you choose this character?: I was torn between quite a few characters for quite a chunk of time – which is why I didn’t get this app in for the initial round of acceptances! But I think, for me, what really sold me was Nina’s strength. Fortified in the face of adversity, Nina is someone who has endured heartbreak and the weight of the world. She knows what it is to hope and dream – to come so close – but, in the end, to lose. And yet, despite that, she hasn’t given up. She remains who she always has been, a beacon of strength, an anchor, someone who is willing to dedicate everything about themselves to the service of others. I’m such a sucker for characters who have had the world thrown at them and who emerge stronger on the other side, the phoenix type characters, if you will.

Extras:

Mockblog: X

Headcanons:

Signing up for private therapy a few months ago, her therapist made several suggestions. One was to attend a grief group session – which she’s done, remaining silent in each one. The second was to find several coping mechanisms, ways to honour the past without truly letting go, in a way that would help her to define her future. Taking on their advice, she’s done this in two different ways. The first is through a tattoo. Inked in the space between her chest and her shoulder, where few will ever glimpse, there’s a single bird, a dove – small, childlike, standing with its wings open, as if it could take off at any moment. One bird for one child, a way of ensuring that her baby would be there at all times, even if it isn’t in the way she wanted. The second is through a headstone. Miscarrying at nearly six months, her child was more than a bundle of cells. They had limbs, a heart, fingers and toes. They had a form. It only seemed right to honour that human life, even in death. Thus, one of the last things Nina and her fiancé did was to bury their child, in a graveyard not far from where they both attended college. Although it’s a several hour round trip, Nina tries to visit the site and lay flowers every three months. She’s not sure if these two methods help her cope – she supposes that she won’t know until they do help.

Coming back to Foxcroft in a fragile and emotional state, Nina clung to the familairty to help her through it. Although she knew she couldn’t move back into the old family home (she loved her family, but both parties needed their space), she moved as close as possible, in an apartment just a ten minute walk from their home. She spends as much time as she can in her families presence – helping in whatever way she can, with group projects, cooking, telling stories – anything that makes her feel close to them. In a weekly tradition, Nina spends every Sunday with them. Now that her siblings are slightly older, they take turns with the cooking. One week it’s her mother, the next it’s Nina and the third all three siblings band together and make something edible. After stuffing themselves, they spend most Sunday afternoons playing old banged up card or board games, or watching re-runs of the same films on TV. Having always adored her family, she’s happy to spend time with them, glad to be close to them once again – even if it came about in the worst of circumstances.

How did you find us?: My friend Jade recommended you to me!

[josephkchoi]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are. An Essay on Popups.

Today I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market. You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I do great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Awareness Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. If you’d like to know what an Unbounce Popup or Sticky Bar looks like on your website, you can use this live preview mode to see it in context.

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are. An Essay on Popups. published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

[itsjessicaisreal]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples

It’s Day 5 of Product Marketing Month. Today I get to bash some really bad popup examples. Yuss! — Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner

But before I bring the heat, I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a product marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market.

You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Marketing Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

Alright, before I get to the really bad website popup examples, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Follow our Product Marketing Month journey >> click here to launch a popup with a subscribe form (it uses our on-click trigger feature).

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

What does a bad popup actually look like? Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text.

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Trainwreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post, keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Coming Up Tomorrow – Good Popups, YAY!!!

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed of late is that there is a shift in quality happening in the popup world. When the team rallied to find the bad popup examples above, we found at least 10x as many good ones as bad. That’s something to feel pretty good about. Perhaps the positive energy we’re helping to spread is having an impact.

So get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from Marketing http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/bad-website-popup-examples/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[roypstickney]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples

It’s Day 5 of Product Marketing Month. Today I get to bash some really bad popup examples. Yuss! — Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner

But before I bring the heat, I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a product marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market.

You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Marketing Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

Alright, before I get to the really bad website popup examples, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Follow our Product Marketing Month journey >> click here to launch a popup with a subscribe form (it uses our on-click trigger feature).

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

What does a bad popup actually look like? Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text.

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Trainwreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post, keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Coming Up Tomorrow – Good Popups, YAY!!!

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed of late is that there is a shift in quality happening in the popup world. When the team rallied to find the bad popup examples above, we found at least 10x as many good ones as bad. That’s something to feel pretty good about. Perhaps the positive energy we’re helping to spread is having an impact.

So get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

[kennethmontiveros]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples

It’s Day 5 of Product Marketing Month. Today I get to bash some really bad popup examples. Yuss! — Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner

But before I bring the heat, I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a product marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market.

You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Marketing Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

Alright, before I get to the really bad website popup examples, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Follow our Product Marketing Month journey >> click here to launch a popup with a subscribe form (it uses our on-click trigger feature).

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

What does a bad popup actually look like? Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text.

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Trainwreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post, keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Coming Up Tomorrow – Good Popups, YAY!!!

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed of late is that there is a shift in quality happening in the popup world. When the team rallied to find the bad popup examples above, we found at least 10x as many good ones as bad. That’s something to feel pretty good about. Perhaps the positive energy we’re helping to spread is having an impact.

So get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

[zacdhaenkeau]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples

It’s Day 5 of Product Marketing Month. Today I get to bash some really bad popup examples. Yuss! — Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner

But before I bring the heat, I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a product marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market.

You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Marketing Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

Alright, before I get to the really bad website popup examples, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Follow our Product Marketing Month journey >> click here to launch a popup with a subscribe form (it uses our on-click trigger feature).

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

What does a bad popup actually look like? Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text.

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Trainwreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post, keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Coming Up Tomorrow – Good Popups, YAY!!!

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed of late is that there is a shift in quality happening in the popup world. When the team rallied to find the bad popup examples above, we found at least 10x as many good ones as bad. That’s something to feel pretty good about. Perhaps the positive energy we’re helping to spread is having an impact.

So get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/bad-website-popup-examples/

[archiebwoollard]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples

It’s Day 5 of Product Marketing Month. Today I get to bash some really bad popup examples. Yuss! — Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner

But before I bring the heat, I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a product marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market.

You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Marketing Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

Alright, before I get to the really bad website popup examples, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Follow our Product Marketing Month journey >> click here to launch a popup with a subscribe form (it uses our on-click trigger feature).

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

What does a bad popup actually look like? Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text.

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Trainwreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post, keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Coming Up Tomorrow – Good Popups, YAY!!!

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed of late is that there is a shift in quality happening in the popup world. When the team rallied to find the bad popup examples above, we found at least 10x as many good ones as bad. That’s something to feel pretty good about. Perhaps the positive energy we’re helping to spread is having an impact.

So get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/bad-website-popup-examples/

[racheltgibsau]

Technology isn’t the Problem, We Are: 5 Horrific Website Popup Examples

It’s Day 5 of Product Marketing Month. Today I get to bash some really bad popup examples. Yuss! — Unbounce co-founder Oli Gardner

But before I bring the heat, I want to talk a bit about what it’s like, as a product marketer, to be marketing something that’s difficult to market.

You see, there’s a common problem that many marketers face, and it’s also one of the most asked questions I hear when I’m on the road, as a speaker:

“How do I great marketing for a boring product or service?”

That’s a tough challenge for sure, although the good news is that if you can inject some originality you’ll be a clear winner, as all of your competitors are also boring. However, I think I can one-up that problem:

“How do I do great marketing for something that’s universally hated, like popups?”

We knew we had a big challenge ahead of us when we decided to release the popups product because of the long legacy of manipulative abuse it carries with it.

In fact, as the discussion about product direction began in the office, there were some visceral (negative) reactions from some folks on the engineering team. They feared that we were switching over to the dark side.

It makes sense to me that this sentiment would come from developers. In my experience, really good software developers have one thing in common. They want to make a difference in the world. Developers are makers by design, and part of building something is wanting it to have a positive impact on those who use it.

To quell those types of fears requires a few things;

Education about the positive use cases for the technology,

Evidence in the form of good popup examples, showcasing how to use them in a delightful and responsible manner,

Features such as advanced triggers & targeting to empower marketers to deliver greater relevance to visitors,

And most important of all – it requires us to take a stance. We can’t change the past unless we lead by example.

It’s been my goal since we started down this path, to make it clear that we are drawing a line in the sand between the negative past, and a positive future.

Which is why we initially launched with the name “Overlays” instead of popups.

Overlays vs. Popups – The End of an Era

It made a lot of sense at the time, from a branding perspective. Through podcast interviews and public speaking gigs, I was trying to change the narrative around popups. Whenever I was talking about a bad experience, I would call it a popup. When it was a positive (and additive) experience, I’d call it an overlay. It was a really good way to create a clear separation.

I even started to notice more and more people calling them overlays. Progress.

Unfortunately, it would still require a lot of continued education to make a dent in the global perception of the terminology, that with the search volume for “overlays” being tiny compared to popups, factored heavily into our decision to pivot back to calling a popup a popup.

Positioning is part of a product marketer’s job – our VP of Product Marketing, Ryan Engley recently completed our most recent positioning document for the new products. Just as the umbrella term “Convertables” we had been using to include popups and sticky bars had created confusion, “Overlays” was again making the job harder than it should have been. You can tell, just from reading this paragraph alone that it’s a complex problem, and we’re moving in the right direction by re-simplifying.

The biggest challenge developing our positioning was the number of important strategic questions that we needed to answer first. The market problems we solve, for who, how our product fits today with our vision for the future, who we see ourselves competing with, whether we position ourselves as a comprehensive platform that solves a unique problem, or whether we go to market with individual products and tools etc. It’s a beast of an undertaking.

My biggest lightbulb moment was working with April Dunford who pushed me to get away from competing tool-to-tool with other products. She said in order to win that way, you’d have to be market leading in every tool, and that won’t happen. So what’s the unique value that only you offer and why is it important?

— Ryan Engley, VP Product Marketing at Unbounce

You can read more about our initial product adoption woes, and how our naming conventions hurt us, in the first post in the series – Product Marketing Month: Why I’m Writing 30 Blog Posts in 30 Days.

Let’s get back to the subject of popups. I think it’s important to look back at the history of this device to better understand how they came about, and why they have always caused such a stir.

Browser Interaction Models & the History of the Popup

The talk I was doing much of last year was called Data-Driven Design. As part of the talk, I get into interaction design trends. I’ve included the “Trendline” slide below.

You can see that the first occurrence of a popup was back in 1998. Also, note that I included Overlays in late 2016 when we first started that discussion.

Like many bad trends, popups began as web developers started trying to hack browser behavior to create different interruptive interaction modes. I know I made a lot of them back in the day, but I was always doing it to try to create a cool experience. For example, I was building a company Intranet and wanted to open up content in a new window, resize it, and stick it to the side of the screen as a sidebar navigation for the main window. That was all good stuff.

Tabbed browsers have done a lot to help clean up the mess of multiple windows, and if you couple that with popup blockers, there’s a clear evolution in how this type of behavior is being dealt with.

Then came the pop-under, often connected to Malware virus schemes where malicious scripts could be running in the background and you wouldn’t even know.

And then the always fun “Are you sure you want to do that?” Inception-like looping exit dialogs.

Developers/hackers took the simple Javascript modal “Ok” “Cancel” and abused it to the point where there was no real way out of the page. If you tried to leave the page one modal would lead to another, and another, and you couldn’t actually close the browser window/tab unless you could do it within the split second between one dialog closing and the next opening. It was awful.

So we have a legacy of abuse that’s killed the perception of popups.

What if Popups Had Been Built Into Browsers?

Imagine for a moment that a popup was simply one of many available interaction models available in the browsing experience. They could have had a specification from the W3C, with a set of acceptable criteria for display modes. It would be an entirely different experience. Sure, there would still be abuse, but it’s an interesting thought.

This is why it’s important that we (Unbounce and other like-minded marketers and Martech software providers) take a stance, and build the right functionality into this type of tool so that it can be used responsibly.

Furthermore, we need to keep the dialog going, to educate the current and future generations of marketers that to be original, be delightful, be a business that represents themselves as professionals, means taking responsibility for our actions and doing everything we can to take the high road in our marketing.

Alright, before I get to the really bad website popup examples, I’ll leave you with this thought:

Technology is NOT the problem, We Are.

It’s the disrespectful and irresponsible marketers who use manipulative pop-psychology tactics for the sake of a few more leads, who are the problem. We need to stop blaming popups for bad experiences, and instead, call out the malicious marketers who are ruining it for those trying to do good work.

It’s a tough challenge to reverse years of negative perception, but that’s okay. It’s okay because we know the value the product brings to our customers, how much extra success they’re having, and because we’ve built a solution that can be configured in precise ways that make it simple to use in a responsible manner (if you’re a good person).

Follow our Product Marketing Month journey >> click here to launch a popup with a subscribe form (it uses our on-click trigger feature).

5 Really Bad Website Popup Examples

What does a bad popup actually look like? Well, it depends on your judging criteria, and for the examples below, I was considering these seven things, among others:

Clarity: Is it easy to figure out the offer really quickly?

Relevance: Is it related to the content of the current page?

Manipulation: Does it use psychological trickery in the copy?

Design: Is it butt ugly?

Control: Is it clear what all options will do?

Escape: Can you get rid of it easily?

Value: Is the reward worth more than the perceived (or actual) effort?

#1 – Mashable Shmashable

What’s so bad about it?

If you peer into the background behind the popup, you’ll see a news story headline that begins with “Nightmare Alert”. I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what’s happening here.

Design: Bad. The first thing I saw looks like a big mistake. The Green line with the button hanging off the bottom looks like the designer fell asleep with their head on the mouse.

Clarity: Bad. And what on earth does the headline mean? click.click.click. Upon deeper exploration, it’s the name of the newsletter, but that’s not apparent at all on first load.

Clarity: worse. Then we get the classic “Clear vs. Clever” headline treatment. Why are you talking about the pronunciation of the word “Gif”? Tell me what this is, and why I should care to give you my email.

Design: Bad. Also, that background is gnarly.

#2 – KAM Motorsports Revolution!

What’s so bad about it?

It’s motorsports. It’s not a revolution. Unless they’re talking about wheels going round in circles.

Clarity: Bad. The headline doesn’t say what it is, or what I’ll get by subscribing. I have to read the fine print to figure that out.

Copy: Bad. Just reading the phrase “abuse your email” is a big turn off. Just like the word spam, I wasn’t thinking that you were going to abuse me, but now it’s on my mind.

Relevance: Bad. Newsletter subscription popups are great, they have a strong sense of utility and can give people exactly what they want. But I don’t like them as entry popups. They’re much better when they use an exit trigger, or a scroll trigger. Using a “Scroll Up” trigger is smart because it means they’ve read some of your content, and they are scrolling back up vs. leaving directly, which is another micro-signal that they are interested.

#3 – Utterly Confused

(Source unknown – I found it on confirmshaming.tumblr.com)

What’s so bad about it?

I have no earthly clue what’s going on here.

Clarity: Bad. I had to re-read it five times before I figured out what was going on.

Control: Bad. After reading it, I didn’t know whether I would be agreeing with what they’re going to give me, or with the statement. It’s like an affirmation or something. But I have no way of knowing what will happen if I click either button. My best guess after spending this much time writing about it is that it’s a poll. But a really meaningless one if it is. Click here to find out how many people agreed with “doing better”…

It ends with “Do Better”. I agree. They need to do a lot better.

#4 – Purple Nurple

What’s so bad about it?

Manipulation: Bad. Our first “Confirm Shaming” example. Otherwise known as “Good Cop / Bad Cop”. Forcing people to click a button that says “Detest” on it is so incongruent with the concept of a mattress company that I think they’re just being cheap. There’s no need to speak to people that way.

I found a second popup example by Purple (below), and have to give them credit. The copy on this one is significantly more persuasive. Get this. If you look at the section I circled (in purple), it says that if you subscribe, they’ll keep you up to date with SHIPPING TIMES!!! Seriously? If you’re going to email me and say “Hey Oli, great news! We can ship you a mattress in 2 weeks!”, I’ll go to Leesa, or Endy, or one of a million other Casper copycats.

#5 – Hello BC

What’s so bad about it?

Context: This is an entry popup, and I have never been to this site before.

Relevance: Bad. The site is Hellobc.com, the title says “Supernatural British Columbia”, and the content on the page is about skydiving. So what list is this for? And nobody wants to be on a “list”, stop saying “list”. It’s like saying email blast. Blast your list. If you read the first sentence it gets even more confusing, as you’ll be receiving updates from Destination BC. That’s 4 different concepts at play here.

Design: Bad. It’s legitimately butt ugly. I mean, come on. This is for Beautiful Supernatural British Columbia ffs. It’s stunning here. Show some scenery to entice me in.

Value: Bad. Seeing that form when I arrive on the page is like a giant eff you. Why do they think it’s okay to ask for that much info, with that much text.

Control: Bad. And there’s not any error handling. However, the submit button remains inactive until you magically click the right amount of options to trigger it’s hungry hungry hippo mouth to open.

Trainwreck.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. You might be wondering why there were so few popup examples in this post, keep reading and I’ll explain why.

Coming Up Tomorrow – Good Popups, YAY!!!

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed of late is that there is a shift in quality happening in the popup world. When the team rallied to find the bad popup examples above, we found at least 10x as many good ones as bad. That’s something to feel pretty good about. Perhaps the positive energy we’re helping to spread is having an impact.

So get your butt back here tomorrow to see 20+ delightful website popup examples. More importantly, I’ll also be sharing “The Delight Equation”, my latest formula for measuring quantifying how good your popups really are.

See you then!

Cheers Oli

p.s. Don’t forget to subscribe to the weekly updates.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://unbounce.com/product-marketing/bad-website-popup-examples/