#we're in the post-book extras timeline now

[tdcloud]

The first of the INFAUST supplemental chapters is up on itchio for just $1! If you finished the main story and left it craving more smut, more dark fuckiness, and above all, Piper getting erotically waterboarded... Well, let's just say you'll enjoy this short story!

Read it now: https://tdcloud.itch.io/infaust-extras

[originalaccountname]

Oooooo, which author are you reading? They sound good!

I'm afraid of having oversold the situation with my tags, however you should definitely check out their Chuuya-leaves-with-Dazai AU that's ongoing with 4 chapters (timeline-wise it's currently almost at the end of Entrance Exam) -> The Road Not Taken by TopHat69 (rated E but as of chapter 4 it's at most been non-explicit mentions of people sleeping together off-screen). Yes we're using Storm Bringer yes we're keeping Entrance Exam's story we're thriving

I've had April's Fool on my to-read list for a while so finding out now it was the same author made me extra curious. Yesterday's find that prompted the post though was their 2017 multichapter ABO retell/AU, which I was skimming through all out of order because ABO isn't really my cup of tea but I was curious to see how they wrote skk in the Before™ times (pre-Fifteen and everything else). A chapter mentioned a love hotel stay and of course I went back for it, which turned out to have been apparently booked by Dazai as a joke but was actually used after a job went south and they needed a place to hide while wounded (pretty sure they ended up using it for its intended purpose after though), which, right after the ADA!Chuuya fic ticking so many of my boxes, had me going "same hat" sjdhakja

Read whatever you want anon but again -> ADA!Chuuya fic 👀

[rfaromance]

Rika.

Love her or hate her, no Mystic Messenger player can deny that she is central to the overarching plot of the game.

Depending on your view of her, her major role in Ray (Saeran) After Ending is either intriguing, exciting, frustrating, or infuriating.

Personally, I loved the portrayal, insight, and development in Rika during the RAE. Read below the cut for my Rika thoughts. Spoilers abound for Ray's route, RAE, Rika Behind, and even the Secret Ending. Also, uh, it's a long post. Longcat long.

(If you're interested in opinions on the RAE from a Saeran-loving POV, I'd suggest you consult @marshmallowprotection who pours her heart and soul into her analyses, especially regarding Saeran.)

If you're reading now, I'm assuming you have enough background in the game's lore where I don't need to explain the basics, so I'm going to dive right in.

At the start of Another Story, our well-intentioned but common-sense-challenged MC ends up being personally escorted to Mint Eye. And MC chooses to fixate on Ray and his mysteries and allure, ultimately trusting the not-so-honest rose boy instead of the highly mysterious V, who apparently is not an AI but also should not be anywhere near this cult.

In MC's defense, sometimes it's easier to choose the evil you know versus the evil you don't.

Rika doesn't have a problem with this, initially. She knows that she needs to throw Ray a bone. Allowing him to have a little doll like MC to dress up and pose and control and adore will appease him, and he has a plan to make MC useful for her goals, anyway. It's a win in her book, to keep Ray indebted to his Savior and also the possibility of luring the RFA members to her faster.

But a major distinction exists between Rika in Another Story (AS) and Rika in the original timeline (OS). Much like Saeran's mental state deteriorated further over the extra year and 6 months (give or take) between AS and OS, giving us Unknown, so did Rika's. In the SE, she explicitly tells Unknown that he was a failure and she wanted Saeyoung instead. She no longer valued Saeran's prior contributions to Mint Eye or her mental state--she wanted results now, and she would sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve them.

(Well, almost anyone. Turns out sacrificing V was not what she wanted, after all.)

But her goals are different in Another Story. She's still pursuing her dreams of making people happy by "saving" them from a tainted world of pain, but she's still itching for the personal happiness she has wanted all her life: love.

She wants a loving family. She has never known what it feels like to have a family that loves her, as her earliest memories are in the orphanage, and she was adopted by a vile, hateful woman who cursed her and subjected her to physical and emotional pain, verbal abuse, neglect, humiliation, warped "religious" cult ideas of sin and salvation, and the list goes on.

When she learned of two twin children who needed loving, protective parental figures... she became obsessed. She could save them. Nobody ever saved her, but she could save them.

That delusion of forming a happy family with V and the twins only became worse after Mother Choi's death. (I hesitate to call it a murder, because it was an act of imperfect self-defense, and thus I'd argue it was voluntary manslaughter under USA law. But if we're being technical, under Korean law it's murder under extenuating circumstances. Legal jargon differs across countries.) Having taken Saeran's mother away from him, Rika got the idea that she needed to be his mother now. They would both have a good family now--that's a win-win, right?

This is the Rika we still see in Another Story. That's why she gives him the name Ray, to eliminate his past and all traces of V and Saeyoung, molding him into her obedient, doting son. That's why she dresses him up in layers upon layers and forces him to study hacking, so she can control every aspect of her sweet child. That's why she swipes Ray after she catches wind of his kiss with MC in the garden. She doesn't know or care who instigated the kiss; all she needs to know is that MC poses a risk to her fantasy, her game of house.

So she tortures Ray until he can become her puppet-son again. Except she ends up with Suit Saeran, and for the time being she'll allow that because at least he isn't tripping head over heels for MC.

That backfires too, and when Saeran frees himself of that stuffy suit and allows his body to breathe, once Saeran makes his own decision to abandon those shackles, follow his heart, apologize and atone for his wrongdoing, and break out of his gilded cage with MC... Rika loses it.

She's lost everything. Mint Eye be damned, she's lost her illusion that she will reach a "happily ever after."

So when V blames himself and crawls back to her, not wanting to see her crumble alone, she locks a collar and leash onto him. Honestly, it's the worst possible ending for V. He can't shake his self-hatred and guilt complex, and he feels the need to stand by Rika even as she sends them both on a path of destruction, because he refuses to abandon her like his father abandoned his mother. He didn't even love her anymore, but he wanted to give her the peace that he never could when they were together. This was how he felt he needed to pay for hurting her, even if it meant destroying himself.

Okay, screenshot is a good place to wrap up the backstory and dive into the RAE itself.

I've seen complaints that Rika's character was inconsistent in the RAE, but candidly I think the fluctuations in her goals, emotions, and actions represent her fragile mental state in a phenomenal way. She was highly sensitive and susceptible to emotional influence, whether positive or negative. The seemingly smallest, most trivial events could send her reeling. She clearly has a lot of mental health issues and trauma that have never properly been addressed. Instead she turned to the worst possible coping mechanisms: comphet, making a cult, and brainwashing folks into being your make-believe family.

She didn't team up with Saejoong because she likes the guy. She sees him as a means to an end: getting the twins to live with her in her game of house.

The "he" that Rika refers to in this chat is Saejoong. He's a horrendous parent, but he managed to capture Saeyoung, and therefore Rika sees him as a tool. She also is adamant that the younger twin is "Ray", not Saeran, because the boy she needs for her happy ending is the submissive one with pruned wings, not the independent one who flies away on his wings of love.

If MC tries to inquire into Rika's motivations, she simply says she chooses happiness and to focus on the small joys in life. She's no longer as guarded and high-strung, because she has much less to lose. She doesn't feel the need to be perfect, to be a Savior. She's at peace with herself, instead of constantly seeking approval. Part of that cab be attributed to V's (reluctant) acceptance of Rika for who she is, instead of trying to fix her.

She's trying to be more open and honest, and with that attempt we get a Rika who is less guarded and poised, and rather a Rika whose mask is off and is trying to navigate what it means to simply "exist." She just wants her family of 4 to live "happily" together, and a lot less scheming is required. She almost has the energy of "I'm going to be the fun, cool mom. :)"

I bet she's awful at stacking chairs, though.

Now, many characters AND players have wondered, "Why in the WORLD would Saejoong team up with Rika?" He thinks she's nuts. We know that Rika is using him, and I'd venture that he's doing the same. He knows he's caught between a rock and a hard place, but he also knows that this woman is desperate to take his troublesome bastard sons and disappear with them. She can't exist in public, after all, or she'd risk her secret of being a cult leader getting exposed. It's a weird solution, but he was in no place to refuse her offer. Coerce Saeyoung into making false broadcasts to bolster Saejoong's public image, and then let Rika, V, and the twins run off into the sunset.

A special insight that you only get during the Normal Ending is that Saejoong thought he and Rika were similar, which is likely another reason he was willing to collude with her. And the Normal Ending is the reason that I felt inspired to write this post at all.

On day 3, Rika accuses Saeran of hating her. She's furious that she doesn't have Ray anymore, because Ray needed her and gave her a purpose. Saeran doesn't need her, and that sends her into a panic. But he chooses to be compassionate and to try to sympathize with her.

On day 4, we get this exchange between MC and Rika:

Rika breaks down in MC's arms. She didn't know what love was, and she didn't know how to reach it herself. Her solution was to control, to manipulate, to clutch desperately onto people who showed her even a shred of warmth... but always staying just distant enough where she could withdraw or flee if she felt threatened, or worse, sabotage the connection herself.

She didn't know what love was because she'd never experienced it. Her mother was a malicious, cruel woman. Mika sacrificed and manipulated her. Her priest assaulted her. V did his best, but he kept pushing his ideals and methods onto her instead of listening to her. She kept Saeran through control. She brainwashed and gaslit believers, smooth-talking her way into their minds and pockets. She even kept V bound to her by blinding him; we can only assume he got treatment after his trial.

MC and Saeran showed her what love is. It's about kindness for the sake of kindness, not to curry favor. It's a willingness to step out of your comfort zone to help those you care about. It's being brave when you're terrified. It's communicating in more ways than one, always listening and considering the other's thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions.

For the first time in her life, she saw love. She saw love in Saeran, who'd lured her and V away so that his lover and brother could be free. She saw love in MC, who'd always been gentle but firm with Rika, expressing genuine intrigue and concern for her. She saw people who didn't immediately demonize her for her worst mistake: the death of Mother Choi.

She's being honest with herself, too, acknowledging and understanding that her actions were wrong. And she starts bawling, because she's been repressing herself, her fears, and her needs for so long. She laments that she yearned for love like a child, but her body was too big now... and that made the void feel larger and emptier.

She finally got the answers she'd been trying to find for her entire life: What is love? And is she worthy?

So when the opportunity comes for her to set Saejoong straight, she tears into him. Now, she only does this in the normal ending. In the good ending, Saeran is the one who talks to Saejoong, says his piece, and gets his peace. Clearly that's the best possible ending for Saeran, because it allows him to put his last demon to rest. Now he can focus on healing and finding happiness on his own accord.

But in the normal ending, Rika shows that she's not just a sob story for MC and Saeran to pity. She's taking their lessons and her new convictions to heart and putting them into action.

And Saejoong truly loses his cool when he hears that the investigation team is coming. He knows he's toast, and so he tries to appeal to Rika one last time: "You know that you'll be going down, too."

To which Rika says: "Yes. It's long overdue."

Rika has a long, difficult road ahead of her, but it'll be a surprisingly peaceful one. She wants to heal. She wants to live a better life. She wants to be honest and true, and that means atoning for her crimes.

But then, she's going to devote her life to love.

The RAE Normal Ending is, in a bizarre way, the best outcome for Rika that Mysme canon gives us. (Because seriously, shipping her off to Alaska to GTFO was the laziest and most unsatisfying ending for her that I can imagine.)

[ca-suffit]

Will never forget how when TCA photo shoots dropped and ppl were rightfully wanting to see more Jacob/Assad pairings for the promos, Virginia was getting asks saying that they were glad loumand shippers and those who wanted to see more jassad were “getting humbled” because they were getting “too cocky”, she was very much agreeing and adding on to these asks. It’s just really funny to me how she is always like “you should read the books and listen to the cast and crew, because then you’d know loumand is not the main couple this season!!” followed w that Sam gif she always hilariously misuses when like… the book and the show literally say the opposite… Reading the s2 reviews obviously confirms this lol but it reminded me of that moment and I had to laugh. So crazy, imagine seeing ppl excited for non-white queer rep and being glad they didn’t get what they wanted (and supposedly were never going to get it)… wanting to “humble” them… and saying you’re not racist…

I remembered this and here's the actual post :)

I also found some interesting things I never knew about while looking for this post so let's share those too :) :)

This was happening when I first made this account, so I remember it rly well. I was replying directly to all these ppl as long as I could. They're always saying stuff happens on anon bts so I was making it clear from the start that they could "finally" respond in public. Isn't that what they wanted? lol ig not.

Here's the only direct contact I had with virginia.

I *just* saw she replied to it, but take a wild guess why I wasn't notified of it. cuz u know I'd have responded if I had been. These ppl only get loud when they know there's no real "threat" of an interaction.

do u see how she didn't speak back to the things I was talking about in the post tho? she had to deflect again to "u hate lestat," "read the books," "ur speaking over jacob, A BLACK MAN" (their favorite shit to say like it's such a slam dunk?)

She also posted this

she was on a mission then to "prove" the bullying was real because this is the time when nalyra got caught doing all of this and they needed a distraction from that. she reblogged that showmey0urfangs PSA from the previous november too and aimed the fandom at black fans again, saying this was all part of an ongoing bts bullying issue. if it is then why tf can't u all ever have better receipts? why are these PSAs literally untagged shit from ppl's personal accounts or in direct reblogs to u and yet ur claiming it's all happening on anon. which one is it and why aren't u posting those things then? jfc they think we're all stupid.......

what I think is crazy too is the PSA caps reminded me of the timeline of stuff more. there used to be louder white ppl in the fandom about racism (and I remember this even more because showmey0urfangs got so mad about that in this post, trying to defend white fandom by screaming "I'M BLACK AND U HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME" at white ppl who pointed out she was doing racist shit) and it's funny how nalyra and virginia and them didn't start to be more openly racist like this until *after* those ppl weren't here anymore? crazy how u suddenly grew extra racist courage when u felt u wouldn't have as much pushback now. I don't remember them ever going after any users who they *knew* were white and saying this stuff either. if they feel any hint like ur prbly not white *and* not a book reader then look how the big voice comes out. but this isn't motivated by racism right lol?

look at this too

she answered so many asks back then to get sympathy and frame herself as a victim (to again distract from the nalyra shit), which is classic white woman / fandom manipulation.

idek how u write something like this tho and believe it makes sense? ppl speaking up about fandom racism is *always* going to be about fandom racism. u go in any fandom and it's there. it's never a cover up for something else. that's what white fandom *wants* u to think because they want to get as much support as possible. they know if they soothe white feelings about race and say "this isn't a real issue, it's about shipping / it's because I'm being unfairly targeted / it's because they're jealous" then most ppl *will* choose to believe that and defend them because it's the better feeling choice for them. talking about racism sucks. being on the side of loudly talking about racism sucks. you don't get to exist in fandom and "just have fun" when you do this. that's why most ppl stop doing it and either become white fandom themselves or leave public spaces for it.

look at this recent thing too

this is a manipulation attempt. she's aware of fans being upset at amc catering to white ppl for this and this is her way to cover up more for white fandom and say "I'm not an ANGRY BITCH about it (unlike some ppl), come support me, I'm better and nicer and treat ppl fairly."

anyway, fuck this racist bitch and her weird fucking ego over gatekeeping garbage ass anne rice books.

[unseededtoast]

Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Twenty One

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross posted on my Wattpad and AO3, if you prefer those formats. Here is a link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted.

"They want me and the girl."

A few days later, Joel is ready to get back on the road. And I'm ready as well. We all but cleared out the town's ration supply and though the food was bland, I feel the tiny bit of added weight on my hips. My body isn't used to taking it easy and having excess calories, so it clings to the extra. Too bad it'll probably all sweat off as we continue west.

We're at the point in our journey that there's nothing of great interest to be found anywhere. The land is almost completely flat and there's nothing but open fields ahead, save for the few abandoned cars here and there and the occasional hole-in-the-wall-town. And according to the map we've got a long way to travel before we reach the next point of interest. With the blistering summer heat, I'm sure it'll take us at least two weeks to get to Omaha.

To occupy myself as we continue on, I study over the clues we've found so far. By now I've committed them all to memory and I'm eager to see if we can find anything else. If we're following the same path these people took, then we're bound to find something sooner or later, right?

"How did you and the girl pass the time?" I ask, needing to know how they were able to take the long stretch of nothingness. Joel shrugs his shoulders,

"I didn't have to do much of anything. She doesn't know how to shut up." A ghost of a laugh follows his answer.

"What did she talk about?" I inquire, needing something new to stimulate my mind. If I keep pondering the same pieces of information I fear I might actually start sleepwalking. Joel slows his pace to walk next to me and he meets my eyes.

"She collected these joke books whenever she found them. Full of the most awful jokes you've ever heard. But they filled the silence and made her happy." He tells me and I nod, getting a better understanding of who this girl is. I'm curious to know her name, but I feel like that still might be too intimate of a detail for him to tell me. After all, he's very intent on protecting her.

"I'm sure you remember some of them, run 'em by me." My hand comes up to block the sunlight from my eyes so I can get a clear look at his face.

Joel and I had decided to stop travelling at night after the night he got stabbed. While the weather was certainly nicer, we realized that we very well could miss dangerous things like another trap. So we started travelling by daylight again.

"Do you want to hear a joke about pizza? Never mind, it's too cheesy." He grimaces as the words come out of his mouth and I can't help but to smile.

"You're right, that is pretty bad." I agree with his earlier statement and he shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the joke.

"The thing is, she doesn't even know what pizza is. She didn't get it." He chuckles and I join him.

"It's so weird to think that there are kids out there that don't know what pizza is." I say, remembering when pizza was a go-to party food, or Friday dinner.

"Don't I know it. Girl was only three when everything happened." He adds, looking back down to where he's walking so he doesn't trip.

"So she's about thirteen then, right?" I ask, knowing my math is right.

"Yeah." Joel confirms.

"She's right around Lucas' age. That's so weird to think about. What he would be like as a teenager." I think out loud, realizing I never gave much thought into the idea. It's always hard for me to think about things like that, it always seems to reopen the wound that will never truly heal.

"Sometimes I wonder what Sarah would be like. She'd be in her early twenties right now." He shakes his head in disbelief. I sigh, understanding how he feels.

"Well if she took after you any, she'd be a strong woman, sure of herself. She'd probably be someone others counted on." Joel turns his head to look down at me, and I stare right back into his doe eyes, wanting him to know I mean it.

"And I'm sure Lucas would take after you. He'd be caring, compassionate, and not afraid to stand up for himself." Heat tinges my cheeks, and not just from the sun either. I'm sure my face is far too sunburnt for Joel to notice, so I don't look away. I see the truth in his eyes.

"They would've been people we're proud of, I have no doubts about that." I half-smile and rest a hand on Joel's shoulder reassuringly. His eyes look down at my hand and he reaches up to place his larger hand over mine and he squeezes gently.

The rest of the day passes in silence, each of us trying not to pass out from heat exhaustion. Summer should be just about over with, so I'm not quite sure why it's still so hot out here. Our water has been rationed to the best of our ability, but our supply is running low. In the middle of America, there ought to be some body of water nearby.

The sun has faded behind the horizon, leaving the two of us in the middle of nowhere, completely in the open. But at least the air has cooled down. Not that it matters much, my skin exudes heat from where it's been burnt.

"Lemme see that map." Joel says, his voice cracking from dehydration. Lazily, I fish the paper out of my bag and hand it to him. He squints in the moonlight as he tries to see where we're at.

"We're in the middle of nowhere." My voice sounds foreign and scratchy from how dry my throat is.

"Ten more miles and there's a small town." The paper gets folded back on itself and passed back to me.

My feet drag across the deteriorating asphalt and I'm not sure I've got ten more miles left in me tonight. Situations like this make me miss the farm and the place we just left.

The next ten miles feels like fifty, but we make it, eventually. There's not even one stoplight in this place, and things look fairly overgrown. I'm willing to bet there's nothing here. But before we can settle, Joel insists that we clear all four buildings.

"There, took no time at all." He says after checking out the fourth building. Just as I suspected, there are no people and no infected.

My body has no energy to respond to him, and I drop my bag from my shoulders. The muscles in my shoulders are so tense it almost hurts and I try to rub them out as I sit on the ground of the fourth building we cleared. As I hit the ground with a thud, my eyelids feel like they've been glued shut and I decide to just call it a night on the cold concrete.

Turns out, sleeping on concrete at my age is not the wisest decision. Before I even open my eyes I feel my spine pop and crack with each miniscule movement I make. My shoulders still hurt to the point they're borderline cramping and I know it's going to be another long day ahead of us. Taking a few more moments of semi-peace, I brace myself for standing up. When I finally find the motivation within to move, my assessment had been right, everything aches. Just another unfortunate fact of life.

The morning sun brings warm, red light into the building we've used for the night and as I rub my eyes and look around I see Joel is nowhere to be found. Unlike the last time this happened, I simply shrug my backpack on and start looking. He's around here somewhere, I know he wouldn't just leave and if there was an issue, he'd wake me up.

I step out of the building, letting the door creak shut behind me. Thankfully, I don't have to look far for Joel. He's leaning up against an old telephone pole, sharpening his blade with a rock. The sound of the door alerts him to my presence, and he gives me a weak smile.

"Sleep good?" His deep morning voice asks. I contemplate lying to him, but I know he'd see right through it.

"Not at all. You?" I ask, yawning.

"No." It seems neither of us are doing too well this morning.

"Maybe we can find some water today." I offer up, trying to keep the last shred of optimism inside me alive. But I find it hard to buy my own words. Joel shakes his head,

"If we're lucky. But come check this out before we go, think you might want to see this." He turns his head and puts the blade away. Joel walks to the first building we cleared and points to the side of it, the far side we hadn't had to walk past last night.

On the cracked side of the building is a large letter 'T' spraypainted. Just like it was at the Firefly hideout. I step forward and put my fingertips to the painting, noticing that the paint hasn't been here long enough to crack from weathering.

"It's fairly new." I tell Joel, wiping my hand on my pant leg. My eyes meet his as I try to gauge his reaction to it.

"That's what I thought too, and then look at this." He walks to the front of the building and walks in. My eyes grow wide when I enter. It seems our exhaustion made us blind last night.

In front of me sits an old radio transponder with a thin layer of dust on it. Above the transponder on the wall is a montage of various papers and photos. The jagged pieces of paper and polaroid photos are stuck to the wall with thumbtacks. One of the photos catches my eye and I rip it down, tack falling to the floor. The man in the image smiles back at me, a large letter T carved into his chest, revealed by an ill-fitting green muscle shirt.

"This is the one I killed back in Boston, when we went our separate ways." I show Joel the image and he looks at it with analyzing eyes.

"You sure?" He asks and I nod, knowing for sure that it's the same man.

"I know it is. He was wearing that same green shirt, he had the T carved into his chest." I remember the recently-turned man well, for he was the start of this hunt. Joel turns his attention back to the wall, as do I.

I take the rest of the photos down and study them, but I recognize nobody else. Another photo shows the same man in the green shirt surrounded by three others, all who have the letter T carved into their skin somewhere. One of the pictures is of a man with blood dripping down his face and in the white space under the developed image the words 'First Act of Justice' is scrawled.

Three other photos are of dead people. One with her throat slit, one with his abdomen shot out, and the third with her neck broken. All three have the same caption underneath them, 'You too shall be judged'. I pass the photos to Joel and he studies them carefully. Once he shuffled through them, he looks back up to me,

"What else is there?" My attention turns to the other five photos in my hands.

Two of the five are group shots, all men with Ts carved into their skin, their smiles wide and their eyes crazed. One of the others shows a man with a severed head in his hand, the caption reading 'Blessed are they who maintain justice'. Another shows someone hanged from a tree and its caption says, 'Justice without force is powerless'. The last photo is of a young girl and the scratchy handwriting underneath says 'The golden eye of justice sees'.

"What the fuck?" I whisper under my breath as I hand the pictures to Joel. Whoever these people are, they're even more deranged than I could have imagined. My mind begins working overtime and I start focusing on the papers attached to the wall.

I take them down and begin reading through them. Some are radio frequencies and I set them aside, others are full of random quotes and very few seem to be full length letters. My eyes scan over the quotes and see that they're all related to the enactment of justice, what justice means, and why it's important to society.

"The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered. Sometimes to get justice you must take it for yourself." I read some of the quotes out loud as I scan the ripped pieces of paper. Before I read the lengthy letters, I look back to Joel, who is still staring at the photos.

"These people, they're obsessed with justice. Or what they think is justice. But how can their mission from the Fireflies be considered just?" I ask him, failing to see how their mission fits into their narrative about being the enactors of justice. Joel breaks his stare from the photos and looks over to me, eyeing the papers in my hands.

"I don't know." His voice is almost a whisper and it seems like we're both equally lost. I wrack my brain for any sort of clue, and remember the conversation in Trevor's office before we killed everyone.

"Joel." I say, realization making my skin feel cold.

"What?" He asks, tilting his head,

"Back at Trevor's office. He said something about people paying for Marlene and the cure." I let Joel connect the rest of the dots and when he finally realizes how the Fireflies' mission fits into this T group narrative, a murderous scowl plasters itself on his face.

"They want me and the girl." His voice is strained and I turn my focus back to the letters in my hand. I don't know what I can say to make him feel better. Truthfully, I don't believe such words exist.

The first letter in my hand is about a small group of these men venturing off for supplies. It reads more like a diary, or entry log, than a letter, and I let it fall to the ground. The second letter is more interesting, and it lets me know that this place is used as an interim camp when they move around the country. By their words, it seems they have these substations littered throughout the country. This group is growing, multiplying, and moving through the countryside relatively undetected. I pass the letter to Joel to read and go about looking through the rest of the building.

I take care to look for more letters or photos scattered throughout the main portion of the building, but I come up empty handed. Joel and I had only cleared the main rooms of each building last night, deciding that if anything were trapped behind other doors, that wasn't going to be our issue; and so I want to be certain that every square inch is searched because it sure is our problem now. After I'm satisfied with my sweep of the main room, I move to the back.

The first door is a supply closet, full of old, dried up cleaning materials. The second door is a restroom, rendered useless from the lack of plumbing. By the time my fingers grasp the handle of the third door, I smell something rancid. Instead of opening it and being surprised by infected, I knock on the door, but am met with silence. The possibilities of what it is quickly dwindles and I feel sick to my stomach; I've smelled this before.

Taking a deep breath, I swing the door open and gag when I see what awaited me. Flies swarm out of the room and I heave again, my body wanting to expel whatever is in my stomach. Joel's heavy footsteps let me know he's coming to see what the commotion is all about and through watery eyes, I see that he's stopped a few feet away, his sleeve covering his nose.

"My God." He says, eyes trained on the grisly sight before us.

Behind this door lies a dead raccoon along with three dead bodies. All badly decomposed, at least a few weeks old. The flesh has slid off the bones from the heat and turned into a fatty, congealed liquid that's surely rotting the floor underneath. Bits and pieces of skin still clings to some bones and clumps of hair are scattered throughout the puddle of liquid.

Once my eyes have stopped watering, I study the scene, seeing a machete stuck in one of the people's vertebrae. Another has a hunting knife stuck through its temples. The third's skull is twisted unnaturally from the rest of the bones. These people were all murdered. I step back from the doorway, unable to handle the stench any longer, and turn on my heels to return to the main room.

My hands rest on the top of my head as I pace back and forth, trying to bring some semblance of rationality into my mind. I just found three more victims of this group left to rot away in some building. Flashes of the murder scenes in Boston flash behind my eyelids, anger making my blood boil. These people don't get to decide who lives and who dies based on their twisted sense of 'justice'.

Whoever these people are, they can't be left to their own devices. They've proven that they have no respect for life, that they're willing to kill and mutilate anyone under the guise of 'justice'. I see right through their façade, it's obvious to me that these people are using justice as an excuse to do whatever they want, like their actions are excusable and righteous.

My pacing comes to a halt as Joel joins me back in the main room and the blood rushing through my veins feels as if it's been electrified. The photos in Joel's hand catch my eye and gruesome fabrications embed themselves in my mind. Instead of strangers being photographed mutilated, it's Joel. It's his head in the person's hand, it's him who's been shot through the abdomen. That thought alone sends a wave of bloodlust through me, knowing very well that it's the intention of these people to find and kill Joel.

Beside me, my hands ball into tight fists and with each flash of twisted imagination, my heartbeat resounds louder and louder in my ears.

My gaze lifts from the photos to Joel's eyes, who looks back at me in confusion. With fresh determination and solid conviction I make a promise to Joel.

"I'm going to find, and I'm going to kill every. Last. One of them."

Part Twenty Two

[dsumpsbluey]

Unofficial Bluey Timeline: Part V

Welcome to another installment of the Unofficial Bluey Timeline. For this week, we'll be covering episodes 21-25 from "Blue Mountains" to "Taxi". As always, if there are any questions regarding the current state of the timeline, leave a comment below. I encourage the reblogging of this and previous posts, as it helps with spreading the project.

Blue Mountains - Episode 21

Debuts and Details:

Bluey plays as the Little Sister, Chilli plays as the Big Sister, Bingo plays as the fairy, and Bandit plays as the sneaky fox/mountains.

Given how the episode is focused directly on the game being played, it could be argued this would take place when Bluey's tooth (or teeth) are being regrown, but as spoken in Part IV, we won't take that into consideration.

Bluey's teeth are shown to be grown back, so that last point doesn't really matter too much. Just imagine that in Bluey's world, the teeth grow back magically in a day.

How they even move their fingers like that?

This is probably my least favorite episode of the series. I feel this episode tells a more basic story but doesn't really make it its own, like other story-based episodes. I did like the exaggerated hand movement, but that's it.

Favorite thing: I oddly smile when Chilli gets her hand stuck in Bandit's mouth, and the scene zooms out to show the reactions. The act is pretty disgusting, but I can't help but see this as a cheerful moment between the couple. Honestly, it reminds me of "Smoochy Kiss", but we're getting too ahead of ourselves.

The Pool - Episode 22

Debuts and Details:

This episode takes place in Stripe's house, well his pool actually.

Chilli is fanning herself with what appears to be the "Takeaway" menu brochure.

During the same scene, Bingo is reading from the green book from "Yoga Ball"

Both Bluey and Bandit talk through the fan in a similar robotic tone, sort of copying each other. (Granted, Chilli sort of teases this)

Stripe and family are currently on vacation to Bali, which is likely the providence of Indonesia. (He's got the money).

Bluey can swim, but Bingo still needs floaties

Bluey also doesn't know how to shake properly.

Dogs need sunscreen

The episode is clearly happening during a hot day, likely during summer. And given that previous episodes also suggested hot temperatures ("Keepy Uppy"), It suggests that season 1 could be taking place during summer. It sort of adds up, since the season ends on a Christmas episode, when Australia has its summer solstice.

Ngl, I giggled at the dad jokes. But to be serious, how do you forget pretty much everything you need to swim? Pretty irresponsible for our daddy role model. Anyways, we now know for sure this season takes place in the summer.

Favorite thing: The scene where Bingo and Bluey grab for Bandit's attention near the end. The way that Bluey says the same thing as her sister, but with a different word that brings more emphasis, while also emphasizing those words in the line delivery, just feels so accurate to actual children. It's those niche details I also enjoy about the show.

Shops - Episode 23

Debuts and Details:

Lilly Pillies are common fruits in Australia and are grown year-round, generally in summer.

Universal Rule #1: Animals can't talk; this is once again violated when Honey says 'Hello" on the 7th attempt of Shops.

They say 'Doot' like 40+ times, I couldn't count them all (i've failed you all)

Rusty ex-machina saves the day.

This episode teaches about the setting up of imaginative games and how overdoing it could lead to confusion. I appreciate how these sorts of conflicts get resolved by way of compromise, as both Bluey and Mackenzie have done their own damage. What I didn't like was how this particular conflict was resolved. Pretty much everything gets resolved the moment Rusty joins in.

Favorite thing: Photo #3

Wagon Ride - Episode 24

Debuts and Details:

There are 3 additional extra characters added at the bus stop: a white granny dog; a tan dog with hat and earphones; and a tan reskin of Bandit lol.

The fridge appears to have changed, with magnet lettering presenting the phrase "TRU E BLU", which could mean "True Blue", which means extremely loyal. "True Blue" is also the name of an Australian folk song in 1982 (the 80s) that was sung by Pat in season 2.

Bluey learns the "Bandit attention" method (couldn't think of a better name)

This episode once again has Bingo do her "Big Girl Bark"

Rocko appears to be listening to the same album as Chilli from "The Weekend"

Bluey mentions hanging upside-down "and be a fruitbat", a reference to the ep "Fruitbat"

Bandit says his iconic "Gotta be done!" line, which Bluey copies at the end of the ep

Beautiful backgrounds throughout, all that there is to say. Top tier Bandit episode without the fluff.

Favorite Part: Bandit's lesson with Bluey

Taxi - Episode 25

Debuts and Details:

Millicent, a dog doll with a crown and blue gown, makes its debut. The concept of SatNav is also introduced, being portrayed by Chilli.

Bluey sits in a red office chair and later a black office chair, so what happened to the green office chair from "Yoga Ball"?

Bandit says like, too many food slurs here (no dignity)

This episode also introduces our first pretend grannies. Granted it's not THOSE grannies yet, but Bingo and Chilli act out as unnamed grannies in the latter half of the ep.

The fridge goes back to what it looked it like previously, with the 3 papers and B-C magnets.

I'd say this is the weaker of what I like to call, "The public transportation trio": episodes focused on a particular transit vehicle ("Taxi", "Trains", "Bus"). Still a fun episode, but they definitely do better in the later season.

Favorite Part: The doodad scene

[ilikeyoshi]

i think what's also interesting about this is that often times, you and your fellow players may not be able to TELL a given character flaw is going to be super annoying if it lasts too long? at the beginning when everything's new and chaotic and nothing's staled yet, a lot of these flaws are REALLY FUN. it's the repetitive, "we're having the exact same conversation/problem again" thing that really starts to grate on people, i think.

one thing i learned in particular, which i touched on before, is you need to be constantly open-minded to and looking for ways your character's belligerent flaws might improve. every new story beat, every new npc, you have to go down a list of "things i intend for my character to change in some way" and see if that new situation can aid you in that process. this is different from like, writing a book, or pretty much any other form of storytelling, because you can't really just decide "THIS is what will fix my character", you have to be open to the possibility of it being anything. it's most important with obtrusive flaws because, again, it gets annoying having literally the exact same problem you had five years ago, even though in-universe the timeline is like six months.

and when i say "belligerent" or "obtrusive", i mean flaws that are prone to Create A Scene™ or grind the plot to a halt until it's resolved or nullified. flaws that make the scene About That Character instead of about the story. these are fun IN MODERATION, even over long periods of irl time, but not so fun if the character flaw is such that it comes up A LOT. because a flaw in moderation only comes up under certain circumstances, so it doesn't saturate the story and become repetitive.

example: jita has pyrophobia. (obviously this isn't what i'd call a character flaw in a real person, but mechanically, this serves as a good example of "something VERY obtrusive and derailing".) this issue has not gotten much better for her over the 6ish years i've been playing her for a couple reasons that are actually just one reason: she doesn't have to deal with fire THAT MUCH. which means a) she doesn't have many opportunities to work on her pyrophobia, and b) the PYROPHOBIA doesn't have many opportunities to DERAIL THE STORY. when it DOES occur, it's usually rare and interesting enough (i hope; i've been told!) to still be fun, even though technically it's still an issue we, as a group, have been dealing with for 5+ years.

compare that to one of her old, mostly defunct character flaws like her extreme self-centeredness. i knew going into the campaign that she only cared about herself, she had no qualms tripping people if it meant a monster would get them and she could run away, she wanted to get rich and ignore the entire world and all its problems, and i ALSO knew this could not be allowed to exist in its beginning-of-the-story, purest, most un-worked-on form for very long, because it was obtrusive to a story and game about working together. it would come up CONSTANTLY, and it would get old FAST. she gets ASTONISHINGLY better about this, what, a month or two into the in-universe timeline? when A Plot Thing Happens and she realizes how deep into some bullshit she is and how much she can't Unknow how bullshit it is and is now one of the only people in the world who DOES know how bullshit it is. that 75-80% turnaround happens MUCH FASTER than it would've if i was writing the story alone, and it happened in a way i wasn't expecting it to, because with long dnd campaigns, there is an extra factor you're contending with: the experience is LIVE and happening to your ENTIRE PARTY + DM. and the flaw cannot go unchallenged, or barely challenged, in a LIVE EXPERIENCE for too long. that 1-2 months ic took AT LEAST 6-12 ooc.

anyway, i don't have a cohesive conclusion to this post, it's just a really interesting and imo fun example of how much more collaborative and cooperative dnd is compared to other storytelling mediums? you have to do things pretty differently because at the same time you're creating the story, you and your friends are experiencing it. it's something i think may not be obvious to many people going into it for the first time; i certainly didn't realize it during my first long-term dnd campaign, and was just lucky i had already decided my character was more intuitive to "a group of world savers" to begin with, so any flaws she had either didn't come up a lot (so they were fun and rare when they did) or were not plot-haltingly bad (so it wasn't an issue if they came up more often).

i think the most interesting thing i've learned about long-term dnd as a medium is how differently you need to approach obtrusive character flaws? namely in how you resolve them, bc it's one of, if maybe the only mediums where you kinda have to abide by a real life timeline instead of a fictional one. bc long campaigns simply take SO LONG that you pretty much HAVE to be trying to resolve these issues with anything you can bend to that favor. it's even different from taking 5-10 years to write a book, bc the actual experience of READING that book won't take that long. it's different from multiple seasons of a tv show bc there's usually lots of huge timeskips or a nebulously linear timeline in those. but dnd takes exactly as long to create as it takes to experience, and you simply can't have a character be that annoyingly belligerent that long.

i've learned this a ton with jita bc she had a lot of qualities that made her non-conducive to being part of a party of world savers, so everything that was a "frequently grinds the plot to a halt" flaw needed to be worked out on a real life time frame (which was still months if not at least a year, but you see what i mean, right? it can't take your pc 5+ years to have a character arc with their obtrusive flaws bc, frankly, it gets super annoying for your party to be having the same issues FIVE YEARS LATER.)

[lukasthemedic]

Property Brothers Fic

Original posting date - 2016 A03 works

Renovation Hell

Chapter 1

Jonathan gently rubs his fingers against his temples, leaning down on the counter above his barely touched chicken and fruit salad. His hands and arms are covered in particles from this current reno, his legs ache to the point he can barely stand it. Actually, all of him aches. He's been working so hard, so many late nights into early mornings. The unbelievable requests of these homeowners, more additions the further into the already crunched timeline they gave him. Barking orders, stalling the installation of most of the lower level of the house still. He is generally pretty calm, easy going. But he can barely continue to take the filming with this couple.

Jonathan's phone rings, a vivid reminder that he isn't off work, even when he is. "Hey, this is Jonathan." He says as professionally as he can manage into the speaker, keeping one hand leaning against his now throbbing head. He already knows who it is before he even gets an answer back on the staticky other end. "Yeah, I know it looks like it's not coming together as quickly as you had wanted it, but I can assure you--" He's cut off by more hasty, obnoxious comments being spewed from the other line of the husband and wife duo.

The door creaks open quickly and Drew is careful to shut it quietly, with ease. He knows how difficult this renovation has been on Jonathan, how much work he has had to put into it. How much work it has been on all of them, the whole crew.

"I understand, and I know that you'll be the ones living in the house, seeing it for the rest of your lives. But I can assure you, I am going to make the deadline and ensure all of your requests have been met. How about I bring over some new options for the kitchen backsplash and countertops tomorrow morning and you can meet me there and take a look." He blankly explains, as calmly as possible. He gently taps his fingers against his fork, regretting the portion of his salad he already consumed. The insults and stabbing remarks about his work make his stomach turn. He's hates this aspect of trying to be a helpful person to everyone. He should have known, this evening like all the rest, wouldn't come without an interrupting, hellish phone call.

Drew takes a sharp, shaky breathe and makes his way towards his twin, careful to keep himself quiet when he grabs wine glasses and pours them both extremely large servings, sitting down across from Jonathan at the kitchen bar.

Jonathan's face turns a deep scarlet, rolling his eyes as he continues to keep himself from snapping under more demands of the clients on the other end. His palms are sweaty, and Drew can tell he is getting more and more frustrated by the way that his brothers hand tenses up under his when he tries to slide it over his while he taps it against his fork, silently pleading with him to keep his cool.

"Yes, I completely understand. I'll be there as early as you need me to get my work out of the way. I'm sorry there have been so many inconvenient steps for you. I appreciate the opportunity to be able to work with you on your dream home."

"Yeah, dream home is an extremely shit description for having to work with your incompetent crew. I can't believe we have to deal with all of this bullshit. You better be there in the morning when I get there!" Drew hears the guy on the other end of the line yelling at his brother, putting no ease into the way he slams into Jonathan's. Drew is thankful when the guy decides to hang up on him, abruptly ending the phone call, allowing Jonathan to put his phone down and rest his hands against his temples again.

"Hey, don't listen to that." Drew quietly offers to his brother, pushing the drink closer to him. "You know you're the best. They always just get a little frustrated when they can't see the bigger picture until it's finished."

"Yeah, a little." Jonathan scoffs, pushing the wine glass away from him. "I'm not in the mood."

Jonathan finally looks up, Drew melts in his deep green eyes glaring across the room. Drew can tell he is hurt, knowing he is looking at everything around them, avoiding the contact of his own eyes.

Jonathan downs the glass of wine he slid across from himself earlier and stands up, cleaning off his plate and putting it away.

Drew carefully watches him, finally seeing his brother relax a little, and hopes that the rest of the evening can be less tense. Jonathan grabs a bottle of whiskey from their bar and downs a good amount, nearly finishing off what they have left of it. "Do you remember what you said in that interview yesterday." Jonathan asks his brother, not allowing it as a question, rather as a cold statement. He puts the whiskey back, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and facing back to stand with his brother, now face to face with him.

"What do you mean?" Drew sighs, trying to plead with his twin to turn his mood around, not wanting to focus on anything else that could come between them at this point.

Jonathan scoffs, " you don't remember when you gave a tour of the house and told the reporter about how we sleep in separate rooms. How we're not even allowed to come in one another's." Jonathan says coldly, looking back at Drew with daggers in his warm eyes. Drew can see the hurt and confusion on his brothers face, realising just how much he's already had to deal with today, and then bring this back up.

"Jonathan, you know I didn't mean that. She was suspicious. I had to redirect her, you know how much all of this means, for our personal life to stay private and separate from our shows." Drew takes a step closer to his brother, trying to grab for his hips and slide him closer in. "I can only imagine what will be said at the Google interview this weekend for our book." He whispers into Jonathan's ear. "Fanfiction, if we're lucky." He gently kisses his jawline and laughs into his neck.

The master bed room wasn't shown in the tour of their house. In fact, the two rooms that were staged as their own are two of the guests rooms. They have a lot of traffic during shows that are shot in the area, generally having enough rooms in the house and space for the crew to stay, either with them or their parents.

"I'm sorry I'm snapping at you. This renovation is just really difficult. I'm so tired of everyone else feeling like they're the contractors here and not me. Telling me how to do my job, all the extra steps." Jonathan sighs, letting Drew pull him closer. "I missed you today. I didn't see you." He mumbles, hoping Drew will want to stay up for awhile and relax with him even though they have a long day of shooting tomorrow. Two shows, and an interview in the evening. Plus they have an early flight at the end of the week for their Google interviews, which means nights spent in uncomfortable hotel rooms and very little sleep, if any. They always get things booked so tight together when they have to leave the state, so they can accomplish so much in such a little time.

Drew leans in, pulling him as close as their bodies will allow, sculpting to one another. He runs his hands down the sides of his brothers body and bites on his lip, leaving Jonathan shivering with the release of finally having his twin there with him.

Jonathan pulls Drew closer, almost falling into him, completely exhausted and enveloped into his brothers arms, "let's go take a shower and find something to watch." Drew pulls Jonathan's chin up to plant another quick kiss on his lips, pulling his brother along with him up the stairs to the bathroom.

Every stair is another painful reminder to Jonathan that he has so much to finish tomorrow and each step he takes towards the bathroom puts another step in his head about the project. "That guy is such an asshole." He mutters, following suit of his brother towards the bathroom at the end of the hall.

"I know, but don't let it bother you. Soon this reno will be over and we will be on to bigger and better things. Surely with nicer people." He calmly says, hopeful that he is right, because he knows that Jonathan can't take much more. He always has the bulk of the work, and the weight of the projects on him. No wonder he is always at his end.

Jonathan sits on the edge of the bed, plopping his head back and resting his arms under his neck. He could fall asleep so easily right now if he wanted to. But he really needs to stay up and work on some designs for the house, some of the "finishing touches" that the couple has emailed him, adding to the list. "Are you good?" Drew questions, placing an uneasy hand on his brothers thigh, leaning down, towering over his face.

"Yeah." Jonathan sighs. "I just have so much to catch up on now. I'll have to stay up all night toying with these new designs and have to be there really early in the morning. I'm just worn out. I do this for a living. I shouldn't feel this way." He mumbles, arching his back and tossing his hands over his eyes, shielding them from his brothers wondering looks.

Jonathan is a little bit tipsy from the drinks he had earlier, but not enough to feel any better about the situation.

He feels his brothers warm hands travel closer into his thighs, hearing the bed creak as he uses it to get on his knees and feels him rest his head between his legs, face planted in the comforter. "This reno sucks." Drew mumbles, muffled by the bed. He takes a deep breath and brings his head back up to rest on his twins warm legs

Chapter 2

"I know just what you need." Drew says with a sly smirk on his face, peering up at his twin from between his thighs, eyes traveling up his chest. Drew pulls himself up to hover over his brother and adjusts his legs on either side of his twin's hips, gazing down at him. "How bad do you want me?" He mercilessly grins, grabbing a fistful of Jonathan's drywall covered flannel, drawing his lips closer to his face.

Jonathan can't help but melt under the dark stare that Drew is giving him, peering down, grasping his shirt so tightly that his knuckles are beginning to turn white. Just when Jonathan thought that this day was a definite drag down. He knows his brother is always going to be there for him, in more ways than he ever imagined. "Bad, please." Jonathan whines from under his grasp, from the weight of his body grinding down on him. He can't help it when Drew plays him like this, because his brother knows that when he can't have what he wants, he desires it more. Drew loves making his brother beg for him, and Jonathan grows evermore excitedly every time he has to wait for what is coming. "Please, Drew. I want you so ba-" Jonathan is cut off from his twin's mouth, grabbing down and biting hard on his lip, moaning into his brother's mouth. He runs his mouth, slowly along his lips, giving deep tender kisses, careful to keep watching. He loves when Jonathan squirms under him from his touch, head arching back against the bed, eyes closed with anticipation building. "God, yes. Mhmm." Jonathan groans, his brother tracing his lips down his cheek, his jawline. He runs his hands down his sides, pulling his shirt up to expose his bare skin. Jonathan's muscles ache even more from the cool air hitting his exhausted body and he grinds his teeth together, letting out a slow roll of breath between his locked jaws. "Give it to me, Drew." He begs as his brother continues to run his hands and mouth over his chest, looking up to meet his brother's glare only for a second before he continues to trail his mouth down his stomach to his jeans.

"You have to be patient, haven't you learned anything?" Drew chuckles, reaching to unbutton his jeans and slide them carefully down to his ankles, so Jonathan can successfully kick them off onto the floor where his wrinkled and dirty shirt is already piled and waiting. Jonathan knows that Drew will wash him carefully and slowly in the shower, cuddle with him in bed and watch Chopped, or something ridiculous that he loves watching and Drew can't stand, just to make him happy. He knows that even after he's asleep and warm and content, that Drew will grab all of his dirty clothes and wash them before coming to bed. He knows that he will go back and clean up the mess in the kitchen that Jonathan makes when he's so exhausted from coming home and working that all he can think about is something quick enough and a drink to dull the previous hours pain so that he can crawl into bed and manage to get an hour or two of sleep before he hauls back to the renovation site. Jonathan knows that his brother will do this for him, because he loves him.

So, Jonathan is patient, with his brother's touch and his games. Because he knows how Drew enjoys their evenings together. It is rare when they have time together during renovations, shows, flights, etc. He knows that being at home with his twin's touch and his full attention is something he should be patient with. He knows that this game of head now will follow with a blissful shower. That Drew will come back upstairs after cleaning and making some late business calls to producers and emails to interviews and hopeful homebuyers for the show, to cuddle into his brother's warmth while he sleeps and carefully weave himself into his body, trying to wake him and get his attention. That he will want to make him wake up, aroused, and begging to have sex from the touch of Drew. That he will fall back asleep in the arms of his finally equally exhausted brother and they will sleep until the morning draws them up for a quick shower before being dragged back into the hell of this renovation. Jonathan remembers how much he dreads going to the site in the morning and his face becomes less relaxed and content with his brother's touch and he feels Drew stop moving over him.

"I know that look." Drew sighs, pulling himself back up to look into Jonathan's eyes. Drew's eyebrows furrow and he leans down closer to his brother so their mouths are almost touching, Jonathan works at cramming the thoughts back because he hates to think of anything else besides Drew when he is this intimate with him. "Just relax." Drew mumbles, placing one quick sloppy kiss on his twin's lips and travels back down to his briefs. Drew pulls at the tight band with his teeth, grabbing Jonathan's hard cock over the fabric separating them from touching. Drew moans, a deep and intense feeling of pleasure washes over him as he feels his brother throb under his grip. "Please, touch me. I want more." Jonathan begs, grabbing for his underwear. He feels his hand restrained to his side, Drew grinning down at him. "You don't get to decide when it's time. Don't threaten me to make you wait longer." He chuckles, releasing his brothers hand, and going back to his work. He kisses Jonathan over the fabric and shivers, hearing the moans work out from his brother's mouth. Deep growls starting at the back of his throat and escaping every time Drew breathes more hot air onto Jonathan's hard cock. He can barely contain himself any longer, and Drew must know that he is getting more and more restless, because he swiftly pulls his briefs off and tosses them down into the pile with the rest of the clothes.

"I've been waiting all day for you." Drew smirks, slowly drawing his eyes up to meet his brother's desperate stare. He gently kisses his twin on either side of his warm thighs, gently grabbing his balls with one cupped hand, and holding the other under his thigh, careful to be too rough. He knows that Jonathan likes it when he's rough, but after today he just wants to give him something to relax to. Drew finally slides his brother's twitching hot cock in his mouth, already feeling the precum on his tongue as he lets it dance against his brother's skin. He gently slides his fingers against Jonathan's thigh and back to his ass, feeling him arch against his touch, watching his body beg for more. He carefully inserts a finger into him, running his mouth hot down the full length of his cock over and over, making sure Jonathan is getting what he wants. He works his finger against his brother's grinding, begging and ready for more. "God, fuck, please. Yes, Drew, yes." Jonathan is barely able to get the words out of his mouth at the expense of the work his brother's mouth is doing on him. Jonathan places his hands in either side of Drew's head and pushes him downwards onto himself more. Drew loves it when Jonathan has to force him to be more rough. He knows that his brother can barely contain himself without his touch. Drew adds a second finger, slipping his mouth off of his cock and biting down on his thigh. Drew can feel his own skin brushing up tight against his slacks, his cock throbbing so hard he can barely keep the pulsing in his head drowned out, making his eyes weak and his body hungry for more.

Drew carefully laughs, nervously, looking up at his brother. He keeps his hands moving so that his fingers are in sync with Jonathan's grinding body. "I can't wait. I was going to wait, but I can't do it." Drew exclaims, pulling his fingers out from his prepared twin. He is met with the same running thoughts from his brother, when Jonathan quickly leans up, unbuttoning the dress shirt his brother is in, throwing tie, shirt and undershirt all on the floor as hastily as he can. "If you're too tired, we can wait. I don't have to." Drew suggests, facing his brother.

"Shut up." Jonathan rolls his eyes, pulling Drew closer in for a kiss. "I'm never too tired for my time with you." He mumbles into his mouth, grabbing for his slacks and popping the button undone and quickly sliding them off. Drew topples over his brother again, grinding his briefs against Jonathan's hot bare skin, his cock begging to release from all the pressure and teasing. Drew can't say he already doesn't feel the same tension in his own body.

Drew quickly pulls off his own briefs, leaning down for one more quick kiss on Jonathan's neck, hot air makes Jonathan shiver again against his brothers touch. "I love you so much. You know that right." Jonathan's face becomes a deep red, shying away from his brothers fleeting glance as he waits for his comment. Drew pulls Jonathan's face up to look at his by the chin, cupping his jaw. "It's okay." Drew smiles, placing another kiss on his lips. Drew knows how Jonathan feels about talking about love with his brother. He knows that he loves him just as much, but he's always so hesitant to say it when they're having sex. He always assumed that it's connected to the act and not his real emotions, so most of the time Drew just assumed he knows he's being honest and takes the fact alone that he knows Jonathan loves him even if he doesn't say it back often during these times. Jonathan is much more reserved about showing his emotions, especially after how rough it was for Jonathan in his childhood. He's never came right out and said it, but Drew knows. Regardless, Drew can feel his brothers love radiate from him, and that's enough.

"Spit." Drew demands, holding his hand out for Jonathan to take, and he does as he's told. Drew grabs his hard, throbbing cock, running his hand with Jonathan's saliva down it and gently thrusts into Jonathan. "Goddamnit, you feel so fucking good." Jonathan groans, pumping his body to meet the rhythm of his twin, begging for more. Drew continues to thrust harder and harder as Jonathan moans with pleasure while he grinds his body back against Drew's. Drew slides his free hand that isn't helping to balance between his brothers legs and smoothly runs his hand against Jonathan's hard needy cock. He can feel the anticipation building, knowing that Jonathan has had so much foreplay that he can barely contain himself. Drew's thrusting with his hand sliding against Jonathan won't let the him last much longer under the pressure. Drew doesn't think he can last much longer himself at how tight and perfect Jonathan feels under him.

"God Drew, harder, please. Make me come, I'm so close." Jonathan pants, his brother sliding his hand against his shaft quicker and quicker, pounding harder into him. His own eyes are becoming steadily more heavier with the weight of his own orgasm quick approaching. "Fuck Drew, I'm gonna come, I'm coming." Jonathan grabs the comforter around him, gripping fists of whatever he can reach. He throws his head back, spilling warm all down his brothers quick moving hand, down onto his stomach. Drew can barely continue to thrust after watching the pleasure he entertained on his brother, working in harder and harder each time he slams into Jonathan. "Fuck, fuck, Jonathan." He moans, slamming into him a final time, thighs shaking hard from the instant release he feels, soaking up the bliss from the orgasm. Drew slowly pulls out from his brother and lazily hovers over him, licking what Jonathan left for him on his stomach snd twitching cock. "You're always so good." Drew exclaims, sheepishly biting down on his lip, giving his brother a look of lust and hunger. Jonathan pulls his brother down for a sloppy, exhausted kiss before Drew slides off the side of the bed and drags Jonathan behind him towards the shower.

Jonathan is so exhausted, he could fall asleep right now, but Drew turns the steaming water on and Jonathan is instantly enveloped with the warm droplets of water hitting him as his brother adjusts the shower temperature just right. "Come on, I'll wash you." Drew motions for his twin to step into the shower, under the hot stream of water and Jonathan is instantly in heaven. He keeps his eyes closed and focuses on staying awake as Drew hums, massaging shampoo and working it into his hair. He is concerned when Drew stops, but is again relieved when he runs the sponge all over his body with soap, careful to relax every sore muscle that had to deal with the crazy couple on the renovation today.

After Drew finishes washing Jonathan off, he washes himself and dries them both off, padding warm and clean feet towards the bedroom again so he can find them something comfortable to get into. Though they haven't ever discussed it, neither one of them is particular to sleeping without clothes on, even together. Drew slides on some warm flannel sleeping pants and a shirt and hands Jonathan some shorts and a t-shirt as well to throw on while Drew searches the channels to find the chopped marathon Jonathan is so obsessed with every night they get together. Drew is the cold blooded one, it seems, and Jonathan is always so hot when he sleeps, so he can barely keep shorts on, let alone flannel pants to keep him warmer. Drew secretly thinks that Jonathan assumes he will pick up more recipes to make for him, since Drew is the cook of the two, and thinks about teasing him about it, but doesn't. He sees how's relaxed and calm Jonathan finally is, heading towards the bed to greet Drew who has successful found the right channel and pulled back the comforter enough for Jonathan to cuddle up close to him.

Jonathan snuggles up next to his brother, Drew throwing an arm over him. He knows he should be working on the stuff he needs to take to the site tomorrow, but he just wants to relax and enjoy his brother's presence while he falls asleep. He knows that Drew will get up after he falls asleep and work on some stuff for him while he's checking emails and whatnot. Drew is always there to catch the remainder of what Jonathan doesn't get done in a day, and he is so thankful that his brother is there for him when he can't be there for himself. Jonathan tries to stay awake while they're starting the dessert round on this episode, because he doesn't think he has seen it before, but Drew's hand rubbing circles in his hair softly is becoming too much to keep his heavy eyes open. "I do love you, Drew. More than you could ever imagine." Jonathan mumbles into his brother's side, quickly drifting off between powdered sugar, raw shrimp, and the quiet chuckle of his brother as he realizes that he was finally answering him back from earlier. And no; Drew thinks, as he begins to open his laptop to work on emailing, you don't love me more than I could ever imagine, because my love for you is unmeasurable.

[themadauthorshatter]

This is EVERYTHING WRONG WITH/GREAT ABOUT RED SCHOOL BY SOMAN CHAINANI AND VICTORIA AVEYARD PART 2!!!!!!

If you haven't read part 1, the link is here:

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR RED SCHOOL PART 2!!!! We're hopping right into part 2 of the comic, so LET'S GO!!!

Picking up where we left off⚡

Exposition about the storian towards people who don't have magic⚡

Tedros and Cal look like they're standing the same way and it looks confusing. If this was a movie, Tedros is standing with his right side facing the camera. Either his foot his elevated or his foot is turned towards the camera. Either way, this stance is extra and is too dramatic for thiis situation.🖤

Uhm... If Tedros, Agatha, and Sophie mogrify into any animal at all, shouldn't they be able to turn into animals like phoenixes or dragons and CARRY Cal, Mare, and Maven? That way the Red Queen crew can safely get to the tower safely and they have more numbers.🖤

😑. Either the silvers are broadcasting this ball back to Norta for all to see or this blimp showed up out of nowhere. I want to say the former, but I did not see a camera crew and twenty Evergirls and Everboys crowding around the camera and waving because they want to be famous in the ballroom.🖤

The argument between Mare and Agatha is a great way to build tension. No one's really gpimg to be paying attention because they're going to try and form a plan so everyone gets from point A to point B. Plus, you try talking or expressing your ideas when two people are arguing. My mom and my aunt are damn near impossible to talk over or calm in a fight⚡

Is that RED blood coming off Evangeline's lip? Did she bite someone or did someone forget she's a slperson with SILVER BLOOD?⚡/🖤

Self sacrifice. Seriously, this part hurt more than it should have, and I read this AFTER reading War Storm while we could go to school.⚡

I don't know whether or not Cal and Tedros would have survived this fall, but the fog takes them over so they could be fine. I say I don't know because the fall isn't TOO far down, but in another panel, the blimp is TOO high to survive, but that can be perspective. Either way, these two SOMEHOW survive this fall🖤

The scene of Mare revealing her blood to Agatha and Agatha's response is... underwhelming. Really, the main plot of Red Queen is that Mare needs to hide in plain sight or she, her family, and anyone else suspicious will die. The only discrimination or segregation Agatha has to deal with is bring an outcast, or a witch as everyone likes to call her, and being picked on for "being in the wrong school," which is not the case. Don't get me wrong, bullying and being ostracized are not okay, all the same that is not the same as being pushed down by a higher class or forced to work or go fight a war that shouldn't be your problem in the first place.🖤

Even the STYMPHS are taken over? IS THERE NO MERCY FOR ANYONE!?⚡

That'll teach you to be careful with your words⚡

Sophie: Best driver ever. 10/10⚡

Super hero pose⚡ +2 for the SGE trio and Red Queen trio going toe to toe with the SGE trio.⚡⚡

Going back to the points of the who our baddy is, once you really break it down, it's not that hard to figure out. Some characters disappear and then reappear somewhere else, either as fodder, background characters, or zombies. We saw Elara once when she was normal, and then she disappeared. Here she is now in the School Master's tower with the storian.🖤

I will admit that it was a great idea to have Elara be our villain. She was one of the main villains in Mare's story and only wanted the throne, even when she was a king's wife and close enough to the crown in order to manipulate the person WEARING the crown.⚡

The emotion in Maven when he sees his mother IS the reason for the fog is just sad. Anyone who's read the Red Queen series will know how Elara treated Maven and what kind of scars she left on him, taking out what wasn't "perfect" in her eyes and replacing those pieces with whatever helped him to surpass Cal. Their relationship was extremely problematic, to say the least, but there is some serious sorrow on his face at the thought of hurting or potentially killing her. There's pain and maybe some hate in abuse, but there is still love for the abuser FROM THE ABUSEE. My sister's boyfriend came from an abusive relationship with his mother and he still talks to her because he loves her.⚡

Okay. Evil Dovey is kind of scary.⚡

Credit where credit's due. Dovey does not stay down, even after that hit from Agatha⚡

Self sacrifice ⚡

Elara's fast for a possessed woman⚡

Oooh, the whispers controlling Agatha. Tragedy points because Mare can't just HURT Agatha⚡

OKAY. Maybe it's because her whispers aren't as strong because she's not herself. Maybe it's Agatha's will power, but her self esteem and self worth are questionable. All the same, it was TOO damn easy fpr Mare to pull Agatha out of those whispers!!🖤

ALSO, why is there always a stomp on the fingers or hand when a character's hanging or on the ground? This is a legit question, why is that a trope in everything I see!? Is it like salt on the wound? Insult to injury!? Idk, someone PLEASE tell me because I'm confused and it's driving me barking mad!!!!🖤

I will admit I did not see Mare grabbing the storian and saving herself. Clever, Mare. Clever⚡

Hugging⚡

The red spirit/fog that leaves Elara is so telling. Thw School Master WE'VE been seeing is not the same School Master as the SGE series. Way to make this seriously deviate from the original books⚡

Well. Earned. Comeuppance. I will never forget Chapter 21 of Red Queen or the chapters prior.⚡

I am so glad to see everyone go back to normal. Really, just helps me breathe now.⚡

Not joking: this was me during this scene with Elara facing the king and School Master⚡/🖤:

>LAUGHTER<😂 I'm so sorry!!! I keep hearing Edna from The Incredibles saying, "EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" and Elara responds in Vincent Price's voice from narrating Tim Burton's Vincent, "I'm being possessed." ⚡

Also, Tibe, KEEP THOSE MANACLES ON HER. DO NOT LET HER TAKE THEM OFF. YOU WILL LIVE LONGER IF YOU DO.⚡/🖤

Okay. So we saw RAFAL in spirit and the School Master we've been following is his brother Rhian. This is technically a timeline where either Evil has a winning streak or bith sides are equal. ... 😑I want a series of THAT now. Same characters, same events, but both schools now more competitive than ever to see who gets to next win in their fairytale.🖤

I'm on the fence now with the resolution of this situation. True Elara is getting off with nothing but a scolding and a slap on the wrist(especially for what she does in the Red Queen series), but at the same time, SHE WAS POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT. She probably didn't have a lot of control over her actions. There's a debate that's going to happen now, and I don't know if I can participate because I'm on the fence. ... I hate fence sitting😑 ⚡/🖤

Love. Granted it's probably going to toxic and they're going to fight a lot, but who knows? Maven can teach Sophie how to be Good AND Evil, and Sophie can TRY to help Maven. ⚡

I know it's technically an AU, but I'm still mad good boy Maven is not with Mare.🖤

If Tedros was a little bit older, his and Cal's ship name would be/is either Gold Blood or Fire and Gold. ⚡

Again, IF TEDROS WAS OLDER🖤

This isn't tied up with a neat and tidy bow. There's a chance Rafal can come back. The world and school are still in danger. THE LAST PAGE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A "THE END." JUST "THE EN." 🖤

... Oh, well. I still had fun reading this. Thank you so much to Soman Chainani and Victoria Aveyard for doing this for your fans!!!😃😁😃😁😃😁😃😁😃😁⚡⚡⚡💛💛💛❤💛❤💛❤💛❤💛

MAN, I had fun with this!! A little on the nose, but hey, this is a tumblr post, not a video.

I really hope you guys liked this, I had a great time writing it!! I know some of the sins are harsh, but I still really like this comic and what it had to offer.

It came out while I was in a really bad place, both physically and mentally, and it was one of the things that got me through it. Sorry if that sounds bad, I promise there's more I value and look forward to in life than some books😅

Thank you again for reading, wtay safe durimg this time, AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!

[echoheart0324]

*deep sigh* So...uh...about the November story update...*deep breath*. Damnitallholyshitwhatthefuckisallofthisinformation. I’ll provide my insight into this topic, along with the traitor talk once more (featuring ‘Darkness’ and their bullshit). I’ve been putting this off for so long, so...RIP I suppose.

Warning: Heavy KHUX spoilers will be discussed, featuring my thoughts and speculation. You have been warned. (Also there’s a lot of stretches and lousy evidence, but I wanted to bring this into light...)

Here’s my general opinion right now:

*yells loudly* I don’t think Lauriam’s on our suspect list!!!

Before y’all get a pitchfork and stab me to death until I bleed out or something (I dunno either), hear me out.

I’ll lend you what I got gathered here. It’s a mess, but it’s something, better than nothing.

()()()

For the KHUX story update that occurred during October, a mysterious figure approached the scenes, going by the name ‘Darkness’ (which is stupid. Who thought that name would be a great addition to the game???).

Although I have no experience with the Japanese language, a few Twitter accounts who I was able to stumble across by, were able to provide valuable information. I won’t be providing names, just in case the info’s false.

Anyways, ’Darkness’ has a specific speech pattern that is apparent, exclusively to the JP version. The figure uses the pronoun of ‘ore’, which Marluxia/Lauriam don’t seem to use, where instead they use ‘boku’? Though I think the other guys use ‘ore’. (So in all honesty, I had Lauriam crossed off my list for a while now, but today let it rest to bed.)

Even though I probably look like a Blaine stan (...I never thought I’d say that out loud...I’m never going to say that again...), I’m going to point the finger of blame, as the traitor and murderer of Strelitzia, at...*looks at smudged hand*...Brain. (Wow, what sort of timeline is this where I use his ‘official name’...oh well one step a time to sever bonds I suppose to spare myself the pain) It’s odd, I know, but hear me out.

()()()

*lifts up glasses* So, this is where I get into the nitty gritty, what-the-fuck are you on Echo, speculation things. This is more of a personal-level thing and I know Nomura’s going to do something to catch us off guard with the element of surprise. That’s why we’re going to think like him for a minute.

In all honesty, it could be Ven as the traitor right? I know a lot of people jumped onto this, as soon as Lauriam brought up the whole ‘sister’ thing (with the translations being all iffy. Maybe in a year we’ll find out, who knows). I can definitely see this happening, but I find it quite odd...

I’m aware of the fact that Ven didn’t seem to know what ‘Shift Pride’ was (and his reaction to it was kinda...unnerving). I’ve also already brought this up in the past, but:

(The Union Leaders all come in order, except for Brain and Ven.)

I don’t understand why they’d have everyone else in order, but huh. Something's off.

However, Ven does bring up meeting Master Ava (and I really hope it isn't him) and he was against 'Shift Pride', so I trust him.

()()()

Next up on our list, we have Lauriam. Since the story update for November introduced Elrena/Erlena (oh gosh it’s the Blaine/Brain situation all over again. I dunno what the official team’s gonna go for, but I have a bad habit of sticking with the ‘l’ names, so fuck y’all), we have...quite a batch here. Since the script was being vague and everything, we don’t know exactly who Strelitzia’s older sibling is.

I mean...if it was his own sibling, then Lauriam has to go to the time-out corner for murdering your own family member (if he did do it). If it was Elrena’s relation to Strelitzia, then that’s a different story.

Based off the subtle interactions we got, Lauriam seems to have some sort of relationship to Strelitzia, going to the extent of interacting with another fellow Keyblade wielder for the sake of it. I know it’s probably a far too gap to reach for, but I want to believe that these two are partners working behind the scenes to crack down who the traitor/murderer is.

()()()

This is where I bring up the official art (y’know, like an idiot who analyzes everything).

Interestingly, Ephemera (if you flip the image, he’s leaning to their direction and his eyes are focused over to their direction so shhh it counts), Skuld, Ven, and Lauriam are all looking the same way to the left! Meanwhile, Brain and the hooded figure (which I assume is Elrena) are facing the opposite direction. (I dunno how Chirithy fits in this honestly...so uh...)

This is the stretch of the century (and I’m 99.99% sure I’m wrong), but notice how the hooded figure is slightly looking downwards, their chin down. We can’t see what their eyes are focusing on too well (and I might as well be blind), but it’s possible that Elrena is looking down upon Brain (damn it. Or onto the flower...eh...). Maybe she knows that Brain has something to do with her/Lauriam’s sister’s ‘disappearance’.

To add onto the above further, it’s possible that the others do learn of a traitor in their midst. However, they’re all blinded by their own doubts and beliefs, making them face the wrong culprit. Meanwhile Brain faces the other direction and smiles widely (...I just noticed he's the only one with his mouth open), knowing they’ll assume it’s someone other than himself. (And then Elrena kicks his ass. I dunno.)

()()()

And just for fun, the other day (sometime back in filler hell) I scrambled up Brain’s name and got ‘Binar’. I was curious so I looked it up to see if it meant anything or if there was anything at least related. Well, *slides in* it’s possible that it could also mean ‘binary’ (just remove the ‘y’, just like Ephemer with the word ‘ephemeral’). ‘What the fuck does binary have to do with anything???’ you may ask. Heh...so it was recently confirmed that the Keykids are all linked to the data world, and y’all know what codes for data? Binary numbers...binary code to be more precise! (Maybe he has some sort of extra knowledge of the data in the worlds??? Or he could just be in complete control???)

I really dunno what else to add here, since it’s odd, but it may as well be a coincidence that I picked up on by mistake. Maybe we’ll bring this up again another day, once we have more information at our disposal.

()()()

Read up on this.

If you already read my little mess of speculation on nobility at the bottom of that post, then we’re good!

Anyways, if we follow the idea that Brain is the traitor, then what were his motives in the first place? For crying out loud, he really doesn't seem like he gives a shit about the meetings (as seen below).

Books, huh? Based off of this phrase alone, it's possible that he's looking for something, something related to information and possibly exclusive to the chambers. He's also seen being impatient and hurries to leave once he believes the case is settled, only to be stopped. (Or he just wants to read and avoid social interaction...mood.)

Maybe he wants something more than that. So what is 'nobility'? By definition it's: "the quality of being noble in character, mind, birth, or rank."

I already went over this in the previous post and I brought up that he could be of noble blood, but something most likely went wrong, horribly. Adding to the fact, that his name also means 'son of the judge' and/or 'high/noble'. So why would he have killed Strelitzia off? What could he have gained from that???

*tips hat* I...I'm not too sure either. There's countless possibilities (and we're dealing with Nomura for crying out loud). Besides information, I really don't see what else he can gain.

So how does 'Darkness' fit into this? I'm also not sure either, since we know barely anything of them in the first place. Maybe some undercover...

(I'm too tired and I keep forgetting where I'm trying to go with this...it's driving me nuts.)

()()()

Feel free to add anything, I was kinda in a rush while writing this, so I'm all over the place!

[rayssyscourse]

this was a very fascinating read, it's cool to hear from you guys on this!! here's our take (traumagenic sys of 6 more or less)

1. Does your experience of plurality feel inherently disordered to you?

so, this is complicated because of our current medical recognition status. our doctors acknowledge that we are plural, have dissociation issues both related and unrelated to our plurality, and are traumagenic. on the surface this would make it seem like we're disordered, but we actually aren't considered disordered medically. several years ago, when we were going through a traumatic period and our dissociation and plurality was causing us intense distress, I believe we would have qualified as disordered. but now that we're not in that period anymore, we don't qualify for a diagnosis of a disorder, nor do I really feel like we are disordered. I think our system existing as it is feels inherently disordered, because at times it has caused a lot of confusion and cognitive dissonance. but right now, as we've been doing better, and not only does it feel like we're not inherently disordered, but I feel like being plural is helping us more than harming us. so I guess the answer is yes and no--i think our system is inherently disordered, but that doesn't mean that that's true all or even most of the time. hopefully that makes sense lol

2. How do you think about personhood and identity?

This is another complicated one, lol. I think we're somewhere in between being totally separate people and being parts of the same person. I think that in terms of functionality, any of us could exist as a singlet and be fine. but I think something would be lost if that were the case. the best way I can think of to explain this is with a writing metaphor. most of the time when I'm working on a book or a worldbuilding project, I outline each section/chapter, and I write them out of order. so I'll work on a couple scenes from chapter 12, then write the ending to chapter 3, then skip over to starting chapter 26 or something. it sounds overly complicated but that's just how my brain makes sense of it, lol. once I finish each chapter, I know exactly where they go in the timeline and how they need to build up and connect, what needs to be a reoccurring theme and when, etc. when I'm finished, each chapter is it's own coherent text, and you could read it with no context and it would make sense. but it only really fully fits in when it's within the context of every other chapter. you could read chapter 12 and be able to summarize it just fine, but if you hadn't read chapter 3, you would miss the underlying theme or the context or the lore that makes it make full sense. you could read chapter 12 and it would be fine, it's not like it would be utterly incomprehensible, but it would gain much more meaning and layers when put within the context of the rest of the book. each headmate can function just fine on their own, they won't like collapse and be incapable of functioning, but we work better when existing in the context of each other. it's like everyone else just adds the extra dimension to us that make us feel fully... whole? there? I hope this isn't too confusing lmao.

aaaaanyways, these are some very good questions, so thanks for posting them!!! always good to learn more about people I interact with on here, and hearing from other people w different experiences helps me humanize everyone and empathize more with other people in this weird little corner of the internet we exist in, lol :)

From @rayssyscourse (this post), two questions for general conversation: 1- Does your experience of plurality feel inherently disordered to you or not, independent of whether or not you have a CDD? 2- How do you think about personhood and identity, collectively and individually? (our answers under the cut)

Plurality and Disorderedness: We actually sort of have two different answers to this! The distinction between the two of us (e.g. me/L vs S), to us, doesn't feel inherently disordered at all. Sure, it's complicated, and there are aspects of the situation we'd change if we could (it would really be nice if S could have his own body back, for example), but the mere fact of us-being-two-of-us, of having two senses of self in one head instead of just one, feels no more or less disordered than being a singlet. It doesn't feel like the only reason we're separate is lingering trauma/emotional baggage pushing us apart, and there's no sense of wrongness in the feeling of each other being different--we're just different, and that's actually really neat in a lot of ways. However, for S's median facet subsystem thing, the answer is a little different. (Trying to paraphrase his emotions/wording for it secondhand here) To some extent, some of the ways in which his facets can get pushed apart/lose "collective cohesion" does feel inherently disordered to him. It's less that "having facets" feels inherently disordered, exactly, and more that the degree of estrangement and conflict between his facets (which fluctuates!) feels directly related to his mental health at the time, and whatever issues he's wrestling with. Being able to go in and single out and work with a facet that's having a hard time feels like a useful processing strategy, but needing to do it a lot, or having a facet get stuck 'out in the cold for too long' feels bad, and reflective of something Wrong. Personhood and Identity: Again, two different answers for our two different 'versions' of plurality! S and I feel like two different, closely connected people. Either of us could be a singlet alone, without the other--and in fact I was a singlet for a long time, at least as far as we know--although we do like each other a lot (<3) and like being able to be a team together. Calling either of us just "a part of the other" feels reductive and even a little demeaning--not to mention just...incorrect, at the base of it? One of the metaphors we like to use is "it's not that he has half the box of crayons and I have the other half; we each get to use the whole box of crayons, we just draw different things with them". With S's median facets, though, he/(they) very persistently and vehemently feel like they're all...part of the same overarching identity? They're all him even when they disagree or have differences (there's a line from a song he likes that he often points to for it: "We are the warriors who learned to love the pain/We come from different places but have the same name"), there's a core, unifying sense of self they all share even when their 'cohesion' gets disrupted by something difficult to process that he can't quite seamlessly internally reconcile. We have some internal nicknames for some facets/'themes' that show up a lot (because the number and nature of his facets isn't static, too), and internal headspace appearances can vary, but they don't have different names because, in his words, "I'm still me, there's just....sometimes a lot of me, who don't all agree".

(Several of our friends have joked that we're the actual IRL version of the system joke "I don't have DID, but my headmate does!", and honestly that's not a bad way to describe it X'D)

[princehcmlet]

Hi Guppy! We're a newly re-vamped HP rp taking place in an AU where Voldemort wasn't defeated in 1998 and the war's still raging on in 1999. We were wondering if we could please get an opinion from you? Thank you! - Lay and Sam

Hey there, Lay and Sam! So, I will tell you right now that I’m probably not the best to ask for an opinion on an HP roleplay (I’ve never read the books and only watched the first two movies - I know I’m a sin to humanity), but I will give you the best opinion I possibly can! Remember this is just my opinion and it is not meant to bring you down or give just rude criticism, but I want to help you with constructive criticism. Let’s start with the icon, I really like the text work you did with it, but I would definitely make the image of the girl in the background (I think it’s Katherine McNamara) a lot lighter, so you can make out her features against the black background. It was hard for me to make her out at first, so that might be something you look out for. Now, let me tell you, your theme is gorgeous. I love the aesthetic of dark red - and that’s saying a lot because I usually hate the color red and think it looks tacky. But, you’ve picked a gorgeous theme, color scheme, and sidebar graphics; the chatbox, which I have always loved when rps use them, makes for another great addition on the part of the admin team. Still, I’m a little unsure as to what the header has to do with the whole Harry Potter universe (even though it is very pretty). My suggestion on the header would be to add some sort of text/texture in the dark black areas, that will make up for a lot of the dark, empty space it leaves, and perhaps tie it into the Harry Potter universe a bit more.

Now I will speak on the navigation page, which seems all good to me. I would honestly switch the navigation link on the top bar from being the last to the first, because it would be the first place to catch someone’s eye when they need to navigate to a specific place. Having it as the last link in the top bar distracts me from it a little bit, and at first my dumb self missed it as being one of the links. As for the page itself, it is pretty organized. I always like it when rps have a “before” and “after” distinguishing title, so that I can separate the categories easily when I’m going through an rp, but it’s not absolutely necessary. Especially since the page you chose has no way to add headers like that. I don’t think you need the “Return Home” link, because there is already one at the top, right corner of the page, so there really is no need for it. I would also suggest putting the post acceptance link after all the information that you’d handle before applying, like plot, rules, characters, etc. The final thing that bothers me a bit is that there are some pop outs and some links that lead to other pages. I think that you could consolidate a lot of the links into one. Like, put the tags that you need to track on the “post acceptance” pop up. Add the links to the affiliations to the end of the plot page. The “extras” section could also go at the end of the plot page, but it’s also fine just being its own link of popups. Add the F.A.Q. onto an askbox, so that you don’t have to refer to the pop up each time you want to see on it. That’s just a personal preference, though. And it would, to me, make the navigation a lot more organized from start to finish. That’s all that I have to say on that, but I’ll keep going with the plot. From what I know about Harry Potter the plot was very interesting and pretty in depth for being an easy/shorter read. I noticed a few spelling errors that took me out of the plot immersion though. Those examples are, “... brances tend to operate in different locations and safe houses,” (should be branches), and “It’s been two years since the death of Albus Dumbledore. Lord Voldemorts one greatest fear --- and now that fear is dead. Naturaly now that his army was built,” (should be a comma, Voldemort’s, and Naturally). Otherwise, to me the plot is fine and should draw in those who are interested in the HP universe and series. I think that it’s one of the most unique HP rps that I’ve seen. I’ll leave it at that and move onto the characters. Which, are nice skeletons. It might be nice to include some descriptions of how you think their personalities should be portrayed (since they are canonically book characters), but the layout you have for skeletons is very nice and easy to absorb. I like how you show the taken characters with the grey strike over their face, it makes it easy to distinguish and know what’s what. Even a HP novice like myself can recognize most of the characters and their role in the story. I like the graphics and like the traits given, not much else to say.

Now for the rules, which I think are very straightforward for future players. I think that the activity rule for one week is a little bit too lenient, but it may work for this specific type of roleplay! Especially if you’ve got dedicated players who you know will post in that week timeline. Other rule I would focus on is the multiple character rule. I think that you should put a cap on the amount of characters someone can have, that way in the case that someone has five characters and another has one or two characters it does not feel imbalanced and like one person has more plots/strings to pull in the roleplay. I might change this rule after you see if there are any patterns in what happens with the people who do take up multiple characters. Your rules are otherwise pretty standard. For the application, I’m a little confused why you have a slot for the faceclaim of the character if it’s already set on the skeleton? I might change the name of the section to “alternative faceclaim” to make it less confusing on an applicant to put down the faceclaim a second time for the admins. I think the application is fine. I’ll go over the other pages really quickly. I like the continuous aesthetic throughout the pages, but for some reason some of the pages are really weirdly centered on my screen. For example, the locations are way low to the page with lots of black space in the center of the page. I do like the locations page, and the graphics are very lovely again. I also like how you give description of the affiliations. I like your post acceptance link, I think that it’s very detailed and feels personalized to your style. My suggestion for this is just to add links to the other pages that they’ll need (the masterlist, the tracked tags - like a suggested above with just adding them onto this popup).

So, what are my final thoughts you might be wondering? I can clearly see that you as admins, and also Jessie - who is created in your plot, have created a world beyond the original HP story. You’ve given things a unique twist, added flare with your playlists, trailers, graphics, and immersion. I think that the roleplay itself is very interesting and unique. My main point I made throughout this opinion is that the organization might need some upping, just so that it is easier to understand the flow of the roleplay. That’s all, you guys! Good luck.

[elenaturnerge1]

3 SEO quick wins to implement right now

We’re all ready for a new year of increasing sales, lifting engagement and giving our website the best effort possible. It only seems right to give you a three-step rocket of SEO quick wins, to kick-start your website for 2018. In this post, I will show you three things you can do right now to improve your website for your visitors, and for Google in the process. Let’s dive right in with number one.

#1 Optimize speed

No matter if you want to improve your mobile website or your desktop website, speed is something you want to monitor and improve all the time. These are fast times, and speed is definitely what you want to optimize for.

In a simple breakdown of speed optimization, we have images, browser caching, and script optimization. Google PageSpeed will tell you that, Pingdom will tell you that. Gzip Compression is the fourth one, but that should be enabled by default in my book. More on compression here. Let’s look at the other three.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info File size optimization

Optimizing your file size is an important part of image SEO, so let’s start there. There are a few ways to approach this:

Optimize the image file size in Photoshop (or any other image edit program you use). Usually, just exporting the image in a lower quality will already do the trick. I usually check whether reducing the quality to around 80% of the original still gives me a crisp image.

Download an application like ImageOptim or any of these applications and further optimize your file size before uploading.

Last but not least, make sure that the image dimensions of the image you use, fit the image ‘space’ that you reserved for it on the webpage. Don’t display a 1200×400 pixels photo as a 300×100 pixels image by adding CSS or whatever.

Browser caching

Browser caching is the way your browser stores files of a website, for instance the logo you see at the top of our website, so it doesn’t have to load them from the internet every time you visit another page of our website. This obviously saves time. There are many ways to go about this, but the easiest is probably (if you are using a WordPress site) using a plugin. Most speed optimization plugins support this browser caching and most set them right time for you. Among some of my favorite speed plugins are WP SuperCache, which is free, and WP Rocket, which is a premium plugin. For more on browser caching, visit this page.

Optimize script handling

You can load a gazillion JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) files to enhance your website, but in the end all these extra files just slow your website down. Please focus on these steps to optimize your script handling:

Are you sure you need that enhancement? JS and CSS usually target design and user experience. In some cases, you just don’t need that enhancement. Like JS and CSS loaded for sliders, for instance. There are alternatives to sliders that work better and don’t require extra files.

Is there a way to reduce the file size of these scripts / styles? We call this process ‘minifying’. We have an Ask Yoast about it. Google has some great pointers on how to approach this. Simple scripts and handy websites can help you minify your files, for instance by stripping comments. Most platforms have plugins or extensions that help with this. For instance, Magento has the Fooman Speedster (free and paid) for that.

Is it possible to combine a number of these scripts into one file? That way, there only has to be one call to the server to retrieve all the scripts. Again, there are plugins for that, but if you have small pieces of JS, you might as well combine these yourself. Of course, the advent of HTTP/2 changes some of these optimization practices. Test this!

#2 Mobile optimization

It’s tempting to copy our ultimate guide to mobile SEO here, but let’s focus on the quick wins. You need to focus on mobile SEO these days, to be ready for Google’s mobile-first index. Google will start to determine rankings based on the quality of the mobile version of a site, only taking your desktop site into account after that. So, let’s get that mobile version up and running, right?

Become a technical SEO expert with our Technical SEO 1 training! »

$199 - Buy now »

Info Task-based design

Open your mobile website. Imagine you are a fresh, new user of your website. What would that person want to do here and is your site ready for that? Focus on a task-based design. If we are on a mobile website, we might need opening hours or an address. Just the other day, I purchased tickets for the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum on my mobile phone. Saved a buck and didn’t have to get in line for tickets. I did this, walking from my car to the entrance. One needs to be able to do these basic tasks without any problem. Ask yourself what the four, perhaps five main goals of a visitor on your website are and make sure these can be done on your mobile website.

Performance-based design

Are you loading any huge images on your site? Do people have to scroll for ages to read the good stuff you offer them? On a mobile website, we want to get in and get out as fast as possible – unless it’s, for instance, a news website. Loading time is a factor on a mobile site, especially with mobile connections usually being slower than most desktop connections. Make sure your design and content don’t depend on large images too much. And yes, there are exceptions to that rule. If I visit a photographer’s website, I know beforehand that I am in for longer loading times. I want crisp images and that is the price I pay. Optimize to an acceptable level for your target audience.

Write great content

This goes for mobile and desktop versions of your site: they need great content. A quick win for mobile content is to add a to-the-point first paragraph. If you tell your visitor what’s on your page, they can decide for themselves if they want to scroll down or not. It helps user experience to do this.

And of course, you’ll need to write awesome content after that paragraph as well. You still need to do keyword research, set up a great site structure and decide on cornerstone content. But you can imagine that to be a slightly lengthier process, and we’re talking quick wins here :)

#3 Serve your content in the right format

There are so many ways to serve your content to Google, Facebook and your visitors. Your task for 2018 is definitely to investigate which formats you should invest in. Some take a bit more time to implement; others can be added to your website by the push of a button, like with a plugin. Let’s go over a few important ones.

Want rich snippets for your site? Try our Structured data training »

$149 - Buy now »

Info Better social sharing: Open Graph

Forget about Twitter Cards for now, as Twitter has a fallback to Open Graph. So add Open Graph to your website if you haven’t done this already. It’s like a social summary of your website. For our homepage, it reads among other things:

<meta property="og:title" content="SEO for everyone • Yoast" /> <meta property="og:description" content="Yoast helps you with your website optimization, whether it be through our widely used SEO software or our online SEO courses: we're here to help." /> <meta property="og:url" content="https://yoast.com/" /> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Yoast" />

There’s a page / site title and summary plus link, which tells Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter all they need to know to create a great post on your visitor’s timeline. You can add an og:image to create a richer experience. Be sure to add this. Again, use a plugin like Yoast SEO for TYPO3 to automate the process (and add these Twitter Cards along with Open Graph in no time).

Quick reads on other platforms: AMP

Facebook links to your AMP article if possible. Ever found yourself reading an article in Google? Might be AMP as well. Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP, aim to strip your website to the bare necessities to deliver your reader the best mobile experience they can get. If they want to read your article, AMP will give ’em just your article in a basic design. If you want to check a certain product, AMP will strip the store to deliver a focused design. A bad thing? I think not. Every way you can help your visitor get a better experience, increases the chance of them coming back to your content / site. It might increase sales, because it’s so focused. Go read up on AMP and get your site ready. Again: plugins.

Tell Google what your page is about: Schema.org

I will end this list of quick SEO wins with something we have been telling you about quite often in the past year: add schema.org to your website. Structured data, like Open Graph and schema, create a convenient summary of your website for every other site that wants to use your content. Schema.org data is one of the main types of structured data. JSON-LD gives us a convenient way of adding it to our website. Our Local SEO plugin adds the right schema.org so that Google can add your company to Google Maps as well, for instance. Add schema.org data to your website and see your company in the knowledge graph as well.

Serving your content in the right format is essential to deliver it to other ‘places’ on the website. Be sure to use it. And if you are not sure what structured data you should use to optimize your pages, be sure to enroll in our Structured Data Training. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution? Good luck optimizing!

Read more: ‘Search and SEO in 2018’ »

http://ift.tt/2CMdEPE

[mariaajamesol]

3 SEO quick wins to implement right now

We’re all ready for a new year of increasing sales, lifting engagement and giving our website the best effort possible. It only seems right to give you a three-step rocket of SEO quick wins, to kick-start your website for 2018. In this post, I will show you three things you can do right now to improve your website for your visitors, and for Google in the process. Let’s dive right in with number one.

#1 Optimize speed

No matter if you want to improve your mobile website or your desktop website, speed is something you want to monitor and improve all the time. These are fast times, and speed is definitely what you want to optimize for.

In a simple breakdown of speed optimization, we have images, browser caching, and script optimization. Google PageSpeed will tell you that, Pingdom will tell you that. Gzip Compression is the fourth one, but that should be enabled by default in my book. More on compression here. Let’s look at the other three.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info File size optimization

Optimizing your file size is an important part of image SEO, so let’s start there. There are a few ways to approach this:

Optimize the image file size in Photoshop (or any other image edit program you use). Usually, just exporting the image in a lower quality will already do the trick. I usually check whether reducing the quality to around 80% of the original still gives me a crisp image.

Download an application like ImageOptim or any of these applications and further optimize your file size before uploading.

Last but not least, make sure that the image dimensions of the image you use, fit the image ‘space’ that you reserved for it on the webpage. Don’t display a 1200×400 pixels photo as a 300×100 pixels image by adding CSS or whatever.

Browser caching

Browser caching is the way your browser stores files of a website, for instance the logo you see at the top of our website, so it doesn’t have to load them from the internet every time you visit another page of our website. This obviously saves time. There are many ways to go about this, but the easiest is probably (if you are using a WordPress site) using a plugin. Most speed optimization plugins support this browser caching and most set them right time for you. Among some of my favorite speed plugins are WP SuperCache, which is free, and WP Rocket, which is a premium plugin. For more on browser caching, visit this page.

Optimize script handling

You can load a gazillion JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) files to enhance your website, but in the end all these extra files just slow your website down. Please focus on these steps to optimize your script handling:

Are you sure you need that enhancement? JS and CSS usually target design and user experience. In some cases, you just don’t need that enhancement. Like JS and CSS loaded for sliders, for instance. There are alternatives to sliders that work better and don’t require extra files.

Is there a way to reduce the file size of these scripts / styles? We call this process ‘minifying’. We have an Ask Yoast about it. Google has some great pointers on how to approach this. Simple scripts and handy websites can help you minify your files, for instance by stripping comments. Most platforms have plugins or extensions that help with this. For instance, Magento has the Fooman Speedster (free and paid) for that.

Is it possible to combine a number of these scripts into one file? That way, there only has to be one call to the server to retrieve all the scripts. Again, there are plugins for that, but if you have small pieces of JS, you might as well combine these yourself. Of course, the advent of HTTP/2 changes some of these optimization practices. Test this!

#2 Mobile optimization

It’s tempting to copy our ultimate guide to mobile SEO here, but let’s focus on the quick wins. You need to focus on mobile SEO these days, to be ready for Google’s mobile-first index. Google will start to determine rankings based on the quality of the mobile version of a site, only taking your desktop site into account after that. So, let’s get that mobile version up and running, right?

Become a technical SEO expert with our Technical SEO 1 training! »

$199 - Buy now »

Info Task-based design

Open your mobile website. Imagine you are a fresh, new user of your website. What would that person want to do here and is your site ready for that? Focus on a task-based design. If we are on a mobile website, we might need opening hours or an address. Just the other day, I purchased tickets for the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum on my mobile phone. Saved a buck and didn’t have to get in line for tickets. I did this, walking from my car to the entrance. One needs to be able to do these basic tasks without any problem. Ask yourself what the four, perhaps five main goals of a visitor on your website are and make sure these can be done on your mobile website.

Performance-based design

Are you loading any huge images on your site? Do people have to scroll for ages to read the good stuff you offer them? On a mobile website, we want to get in and get out as fast as possible – unless it’s, for instance, a news website. Loading time is a factor on a mobile site, especially with mobile connections usually being slower than most desktop connections. Make sure your design and content don’t depend on large images too much. And yes, there are exceptions to that rule. If I visit a photographer’s website, I know beforehand that I am in for longer loading times. I want crisp images and that is the price I pay. Optimize to an acceptable level for your target audience.

Write great content

This goes for mobile and desktop versions of your site: they need great content. A quick win for mobile content is to add a to-the-point first paragraph. If you tell your visitor what’s on your page, they can decide for themselves if they want to scroll down or not. It helps user experience to do this.

And of course, you’ll need to write awesome content after that paragraph as well. You still need to do keyword research, set up a great site structure and decide on cornerstone content. But you can imagine that to be a slightly lengthier process, and we’re talking quick wins here :)

#3 Serve your content in the right format

There are so many ways to serve your content to Google, Facebook and your visitors. Your task for 2018 is definitely to investigate which formats you should invest in. Some take a bit more time to implement; others can be added to your website by the push of a button, like with a plugin. Let’s go over a few important ones.

Want rich snippets for your site? Try our Structured data training »

$149 - Buy now »

Info Better social sharing: Open Graph

Forget about Twitter Cards for now, as Twitter has a fallback to Open Graph. So add Open Graph to your website if you haven’t done this already. It’s like a social summary of your website. For our homepage, it reads among other things:

<meta property="og:title" content="SEO for everyone • Yoast" /> <meta property="og:description" content="Yoast helps you with your website optimization, whether it be through our widely used SEO software or our online SEO courses: we're here to help." /> <meta property="og:url" content="https://yoast.com/" /> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Yoast" />

There’s a page / site title and summary plus link, which tells Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter all they need to know to create a great post on your visitor’s timeline. You can add an og:image to create a richer experience. Be sure to add this. Again, use a plugin like Yoast SEO for TYPO3 to automate the process (and add these Twitter Cards along with Open Graph in no time).

Quick reads on other platforms: AMP

Facebook links to your AMP article if possible. Ever found yourself reading an article in Google? Might be AMP as well. Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP, aim to strip your website to the bare necessities to deliver your reader the best mobile experience they can get. If they want to read your article, AMP will give ’em just your article in a basic design. If you want to check a certain product, AMP will strip the store to deliver a focused design. A bad thing? I think not. Every way you can help your visitor get a better experience, increases the chance of them coming back to your content / site. It might increase sales, because it’s so focused. Go read up on AMP and get your site ready. Again: plugins.

Tell Google what your page is about: Schema.org

I will end this list of quick SEO wins with something we have been telling you about quite often in the past year: add schema.org to your website. Structured data, like Open Graph and schema, create a convenient summary of your website for every other site that wants to use your content. Schema.org data is one of the main types of structured data. JSON-LD gives us a convenient way of adding it to our website. Our Local SEO plugin adds the right schema.org so that Google can add your company to Google Maps as well, for instance. Add schema.org data to your website and see your company in the knowledge graph as well.

Serving your content in the right format is essential to deliver it to other ‘places’ on the website. Be sure to use it. And if you are not sure what structured data you should use to optimize your pages, be sure to enroll in our Structured Data Training. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution? Good luck optimizing!

Read more: ‘Search and SEO in 2018’ »

http://ift.tt/2CMdEPE

[evanstheodoredqe]

3 SEO quick wins to implement right now

We’re all ready for a new year of increasing sales, lifting engagement and giving our website the best effort possible. It only seems right to give you a three-step rocket of SEO quick wins, to kick-start your website for 2018. In this post, I will show you three things you can do right now to improve your website for your visitors, and for Google in the process. Let’s dive right in with number one.

#1 Optimize speed

No matter if you want to improve your mobile website or your desktop website, speed is something you want to monitor and improve all the time. These are fast times, and speed is definitely what you want to optimize for.

In a simple breakdown of speed optimization, we have images, browser caching, and script optimization. Google PageSpeed will tell you that, Pingdom will tell you that. Gzip Compression is the fourth one, but that should be enabled by default in my book. More on compression here. Let’s look at the other three.

Optimize your site for search & social media and keep it optimized with Yoast SEO Premium »

$89 - Buy now »

Info File size optimization

Optimizing your file size is an important part of image SEO, so let’s start there. There are a few ways to approach this:

Optimize the image file size in Photoshop (or any other image edit program you use). Usually, just exporting the image in a lower quality will already do the trick. I usually check whether reducing the quality to around 80% of the original still gives me a crisp image.

Download an application like ImageOptim or any of these applications and further optimize your file size before uploading.

Last but not least, make sure that the image dimensions of the image you use, fit the image ‘space’ that you reserved for it on the webpage. Don’t display a 1200×400 pixels photo as a 300×100 pixels image by adding CSS or whatever.

Browser caching

Browser caching is the way your browser stores files of a website, for instance the logo you see at the top of our website, so it doesn’t have to load them from the internet every time you visit another page of our website. This obviously saves time. There are many ways to go about this, but the easiest is probably (if you are using a WordPress site) using a plugin. Most speed optimization plugins support this browser caching and most set them right time for you. Among some of my favorite speed plugins are WP SuperCache, which is free, and WP Rocket, which is a premium plugin. For more on browser caching, visit this page.

Optimize script handling

You can load a gazillion JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) files to enhance your website, but in the end all these extra files just slow your website down. Please focus on these steps to optimize your script handling:

Are you sure you need that enhancement? JS and CSS usually target design and user experience. In some cases, you just don’t need that enhancement. Like JS and CSS loaded for sliders, for instance. There are alternatives to sliders that work better and don’t require extra files.

Is there a way to reduce the file size of these scripts / styles? We call this process ‘minifying’. We have an Ask Yoast about it. Google has some great pointers on how to approach this. Simple scripts and handy websites can help you minify your files, for instance by stripping comments. Most platforms have plugins or extensions that help with this. For instance, Magento has the Fooman Speedster (free and paid) for that.

Is it possible to combine a number of these scripts into one file? That way, there only has to be one call to the server to retrieve all the scripts. Again, there are plugins for that, but if you have small pieces of JS, you might as well combine these yourself. Of course, the advent of HTTP/2 changes some of these optimization practices. Test this!

#2 Mobile optimization

It’s tempting to copy our ultimate guide to mobile SEO here, but let’s focus on the quick wins. You need to focus on mobile SEO these days, to be ready for Google’s mobile-first index. Google will start to determine rankings based on the quality of the mobile version of a site, only taking your desktop site into account after that. So, let’s get that mobile version up and running, right?

Become a technical SEO expert with our Technical SEO 1 training! »

$199 - Buy now »

Info Task-based design

Open your mobile website. Imagine you are a fresh, new user of your website. What would that person want to do here and is your site ready for that? Focus on a task-based design. If we are on a mobile website, we might need opening hours or an address. Just the other day, I purchased tickets for the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum on my mobile phone. Saved a buck and didn’t have to get in line for tickets. I did this, walking from my car to the entrance. One needs to be able to do these basic tasks without any problem. Ask yourself what the four, perhaps five main goals of a visitor on your website are and make sure these can be done on your mobile website.

Performance-based design

Are you loading any huge images on your site? Do people have to scroll for ages to read the good stuff you offer them? On a mobile website, we want to get in and get out as fast as possible – unless it’s, for instance, a news website. Loading time is a factor on a mobile site, especially with mobile connections usually being slower than most desktop connections. Make sure your design and content don’t depend on large images too much. And yes, there are exceptions to that rule. If I visit a photographer’s website, I know beforehand that I am in for longer loading times. I want crisp images and that is the price I pay. Optimize to an acceptable level for your target audience.

Write great content

This goes for mobile and desktop versions of your site: they need great content. A quick win for mobile content is to add a to-the-point first paragraph. If you tell your visitor what’s on your page, they can decide for themselves if they want to scroll down or not. It helps user experience to do this.

And of course, you’ll need to write awesome content after that paragraph as well. You still need to do keyword research, set up a great site structure and decide on cornerstone content. But you can imagine that to be a slightly lengthier process, and we’re talking quick wins here :)

#3 Serve your content in the right format

There are so many ways to serve your content to Google, Facebook and your visitors. Your task for 2018 is definitely to investigate which formats you should invest in. Some take a bit more time to implement; others can be added to your website by the push of a button, like with a plugin. Let’s go over a few important ones.

Want rich snippets for your site? Try our Structured data training »

$149 - Buy now »

Info Better social sharing: Open Graph

Forget about Twitter Cards for now, as Twitter has a fallback to Open Graph. So add Open Graph to your website if you haven’t done this already. It’s like a social summary of your website. For our homepage, it reads among other things:

<meta property="og:title" content="SEO for everyone • Yoast" /> <meta property="og:description" content="Yoast helps you with your website optimization, whether it be through our widely used SEO software or our online SEO courses: we're here to help." /> <meta property="og:url" content="https://yoast.com/" /> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Yoast" />

There’s a page / site title and summary plus link, which tells Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter all they need to know to create a great post on your visitor’s timeline. You can add an og:image to create a richer experience. Be sure to add this. Again, use a plugin like Yoast SEO for TYPO3 to automate the process (and add these Twitter Cards along with Open Graph in no time).

Quick reads on other platforms: AMP

Facebook links to your AMP article if possible. Ever found yourself reading an article in Google? Might be AMP as well. Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP, aim to strip your website to the bare necessities to deliver your reader the best mobile experience they can get. If they want to read your article, AMP will give ’em just your article in a basic design. If you want to check a certain product, AMP will strip the store to deliver a focused design. A bad thing? I think not. Every way you can help your visitor get a better experience, increases the chance of them coming back to your content / site. It might increase sales, because it’s so focused. Go read up on AMP and get your site ready. Again: plugins.

Tell Google what your page is about: Schema.org

I will end this list of quick SEO wins with something we have been telling you about quite often in the past year: add schema.org to your website. Structured data, like Open Graph and schema, create a convenient summary of your website for every other site that wants to use your content. Schema.org data is one of the main types of structured data. JSON-LD gives us a convenient way of adding it to our website. Our Local SEO plugin adds the right schema.org so that Google can add your company to Google Maps as well, for instance. Add schema.org data to your website and see your company in the knowledge graph as well.

Serving your content in the right format is essential to deliver it to other ‘places’ on the website. Be sure to use it. And if you are not sure what structured data you should use to optimize your pages, be sure to enroll in our Structured Data Training. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution? Good luck optimizing!

Read more: ‘Search and SEO in 2018’ »

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3 SEO quick wins to implement right now

We’re all ready for a new year of increasing sales, lifting engagement and giving our website the best effort possible. It only seems right to give you a three-step rocket of SEO quick wins, to kick-start your website for 2018. In this post, I will show you three things you can do right now to improve your website for your visitors, and for Google in the process. Let’s dive right in with number one.

#1 Optimize speed

No matter if you want to improve your mobile website or your desktop website, speed is something you want to monitor and improve all the time. These are fast times, and speed is definitely what you want to optimize for.

In a simple breakdown of speed optimization, we have images, browser caching, and script optimization. Google PageSpeed will tell you that, Pingdom will tell you that. Gzip Compression is the fourth one, but that should be enabled by default in my book. More on compression here. Let’s look at the other three.

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Info File size optimization

Optimizing your file size is an important part of image SEO, so let’s start there. There are a few ways to approach this:

Optimize the image file size in Photoshop (or any other image edit program you use). Usually, just exporting the image in a lower quality will already do the trick. I usually check whether reducing the quality to around 80% of the original still gives me a crisp image.

Download an application like ImageOptim or any of these applications and further optimize your file size before uploading.

Last but not least, make sure that the image dimensions of the image you use, fit the image ‘space’ that you reserved for it on the webpage. Don’t display a 1200×400 pixels photo as a 300×100 pixels image by adding CSS or whatever.

Browser caching

Browser caching is the way your browser stores files of a website, for instance the logo you see at the top of our website, so it doesn’t have to load them from the internet every time you visit another page of our website. This obviously saves time. There are many ways to go about this, but the easiest is probably (if you are using a WordPress site) using a plugin. Most speed optimization plugins support this browser caching and most set them right time for you. Among some of my favorite speed plugins are WP SuperCache, which is free, and WP Rocket, which is a premium plugin. For more on browser caching, visit this page.

Optimize script handling

You can load a gazillion JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) files to enhance your website, but in the end all these extra files just slow your website down. Please focus on these steps to optimize your script handling:

Are you sure you need that enhancement? JS and CSS usually target design and user experience. In some cases, you just don’t need that enhancement. Like JS and CSS loaded for sliders, for instance. There are alternatives to sliders that work better and don’t require extra files.

Is there a way to reduce the file size of these scripts / styles? We call this process ‘minifying’. We have an Ask Yoast about it. Google has some great pointers on how to approach this. Simple scripts and handy websites can help you minify your files, for instance by stripping comments. Most platforms have plugins or extensions that help with this. For instance, Magento has the Fooman Speedster (free and paid) for that.

Is it possible to combine a number of these scripts into one file? That way, there only has to be one call to the server to retrieve all the scripts. Again, there are plugins for that, but if you have small pieces of JS, you might as well combine these yourself. Of course, the advent of HTTP/2 changes some of these optimization practices. Test this!

#2 Mobile optimization

It’s tempting to copy our ultimate guide to mobile SEO here, but let’s focus on the quick wins. You need to focus on mobile SEO these days, to be ready for Google’s mobile-first index. Google will start to determine rankings based on the quality of the mobile version of a site, only taking your desktop site into account after that. So, let’s get that mobile version up and running, right?

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Info Task-based design

Open your mobile website. Imagine you are a fresh, new user of your website. What would that person want to do here and is your site ready for that? Focus on a task-based design. If we are on a mobile website, we might need opening hours or an address. Just the other day, I purchased tickets for the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum on my mobile phone. Saved a buck and didn’t have to get in line for tickets. I did this, walking from my car to the entrance. One needs to be able to do these basic tasks without any problem. Ask yourself what the four, perhaps five main goals of a visitor on your website are and make sure these can be done on your mobile website.

Performance-based design

Are you loading any huge images on your site? Do people have to scroll for ages to read the good stuff you offer them? On a mobile website, we want to get in and get out as fast as possible – unless it’s, for instance, a news website. Loading time is a factor on a mobile site, especially with mobile connections usually being slower than most desktop connections. Make sure your design and content don’t depend on large images too much. And yes, there are exceptions to that rule. If I visit a photographer’s website, I know beforehand that I am in for longer loading times. I want crisp images and that is the price I pay. Optimize to an acceptable level for your target audience.

Write great content

This goes for mobile and desktop versions of your site: they need great content. A quick win for mobile content is to add a to-the-point first paragraph. If you tell your visitor what’s on your page, they can decide for themselves if they want to scroll down or not. It helps user experience to do this.

And of course, you’ll need to write awesome content after that paragraph as well. You still need to do keyword research, set up a great site structure and decide on cornerstone content. But you can imagine that to be a slightly lengthier process, and we’re talking quick wins here :)

#3 Serve your content in the right format

There are so many ways to serve your content to Google, Facebook and your visitors. Your task for 2018 is definitely to investigate which formats you should invest in. Some take a bit more time to implement; others can be added to your website by the push of a button, like with a plugin. Let’s go over a few important ones.

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Info Better social sharing: Open Graph

Forget about Twitter Cards for now, as Twitter has a fallback to Open Graph. So add Open Graph to your website if you haven’t done this already. It’s like a social summary of your website. For our homepage, it reads among other things:

<meta property="og:title" content="SEO for everyone • Yoast" /> <meta property="og:description" content="Yoast helps you with your website optimization, whether it be through our widely used SEO software or our online SEO courses: we're here to help." /> <meta property="og:url" content="https://yoast.com/" /> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Yoast" />

There’s a page / site title and summary plus link, which tells Facebook, Pinterest or Twitter all they need to know to create a great post on your visitor’s timeline. You can add an og:image to create a richer experience. Be sure to add this. Again, use a plugin like Yoast SEO for TYPO3 to automate the process (and add these Twitter Cards along with Open Graph in no time).

Quick reads on other platforms: AMP

Facebook links to your AMP article if possible. Ever found yourself reading an article in Google? Might be AMP as well. Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP, aim to strip your website to the bare necessities to deliver your reader the best mobile experience they can get. If they want to read your article, AMP will give ’em just your article in a basic design. If you want to check a certain product, AMP will strip the store to deliver a focused design. A bad thing? I think not. Every way you can help your visitor get a better experience, increases the chance of them coming back to your content / site. It might increase sales, because it’s so focused. Go read up on AMP and get your site ready. Again: plugins.

Tell Google what your page is about: Schema.org

I will end this list of quick SEO wins with something we have been telling you about quite often in the past year: add schema.org to your website. Structured data, like Open Graph and schema, create a convenient summary of your website for every other site that wants to use your content. Schema.org data is one of the main types of structured data. JSON-LD gives us a convenient way of adding it to our website. Our Local SEO plugin adds the right schema.org so that Google can add your company to Google Maps as well, for instance. Add schema.org data to your website and see your company in the knowledge graph as well.

Serving your content in the right format is essential to deliver it to other ‘places’ on the website. Be sure to use it. And if you are not sure what structured data you should use to optimize your pages, be sure to enroll in our Structured Data Training. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution? Good luck optimizing!

Read more: ‘Search and SEO in 2018’ »

http://ift.tt/2CMdEPE