#weekly is definitely the growing trend so i have hope!!

[crowlixcx]

my biggest dream for good omens S3 is that they release it weekly so that we have lots of time to discuss and play and create and prolong the joy as much as possible

[idkthisisjustforfanfic]

two years too late, chapter o n e 

You were waiting for the subway when you got the text. It was a typical Thursday evening in a wintry New York City. A brown-stained slush seemed to line the floors of the train and too many people were too close beside you when you read the message for the fourteenth time. 

I know it’s last minute and it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other but I have a show in New York tonight. Would love to see you if you’re free. Xx H

That part of your life had long been over. The last time you spoke to Harry was some time in 2015 when he showed up at a Christmas party that your school friends had thrown together. Everyone seemed to fawn all over him like he was some type of God--but not you.

It was shitty, really, the way your friendship ended. You’d been close throughout the classes you’d shared and you had plenty of laughs together at co-ed birthday parties when you were both still awkward and fourteen. 

But by the time you’d realized that he was the type of person you’d actually maybe have feelings for, he’d found his way onto the X-Factor and there were plenty of girls who he’d rather shag than the random girl in his friend group who wasn’t all that funny or all that pretty or all that anything. At least, that was the way you saw it. 

How did he even know you lived here? You tried to trace through your last conversations with him that occurred in Kenny Tilley’s mum’s house. Sure, you’d maybe mentioned that New York was a cool place to live or something--especially if Harry had mentioned all the time he was spending there for work. But you had no idea you’d end up here two whole years ago. So how--in the middle of a snow storm that was taking over the Financial District--did Harry know how to get in touch with you? 

You’d come up with three different answers by the time you walked back into your apartment, ranked from most realistic to least realistic as following:

He’d somehow followed along your life through social media and saw that you often tagged photos in New York.

He asked Bryn or Jessie or even maybe Adam or Jake and one of them had mentioned you lived in New York. 

He googled you. 

Okay, definitely not that one. 

The door to your apartment latched behind you and there was music coming from the kitchen. Alyssa, your roommate, was often home before you, her bra flung onto the couch before she opened a bottle of wine and started cooking. 

Tonight wasn’t any different. She swiveled her head around to see you when she heard you come in. “Hi,” a smile twisted her lips towards the sky as she wiped her hands on the dish towel she held. “How bad is it out there?”

“Terrible,” you said, your fingers finding the metal of your jacket zipper and pulling it towards the  floor. “The subways are crowded and everyone’s acting like it’s Armageddon.” 

She let out a laugh and turned her back to you now, minding whatever was on the stove. “‘S’gonna be bad, I guess. News-4 is saying up to eight inches locally.”

You rolled your eyes and shrugged your jacket onto the ground, letting a groan escape your lips. While the weather might not have been bad for native New Yorkers, it was more than you were used to in Cranage. And besides, when you first moved in, Alyssa told you it never even snowed in December. 

But now she turned her head to eye you suspiciously. She stirred something on the burner but then abandoned it, coming to join you in the  living room as you set your bag down on an armchair and tried to kick off your boots. 

“Okay--you seem miserable. Bad meeting about weekly topics?”

“No,” the word fell out of your mouth as you used your toes to push the leather of your shoe down your ankle. “But it was a stupid meeting.”

She laughed at this, her eyebrows raised as you let your body slump onto the couch. “So what is it?”

“You know Harry?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You mean your high school friend who’s incredibly famous?”

Another roll of your eyes as you let a sharp exhale escape your lips. Alyssa laughed at this. For whatever reason, she found your feelings towards Harry to be remarkably entertaining. She knew the history--or the lack thereof--and she still somehow managed to get a good kick out of any and every (albeit the few) conversations that had anything to do with him. 

“Yes, him.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, sneaking a peek over her shoulder to make sure whatever she was cooking didn’t need her immediate attention. You knew she was growing impatient. 

“He texted me.”

Her eyes grew wide and she moved forward to sit on the couch. “He texted you? I thought you don’t even talk!”

“We don’t,” you shrugged. “He invited me to a concert.”

“His concert?” Her face was excited and her voice was an octave higher than it usually was. 

“I dunno,” you closed your eyes and leaned your head back. If your weekly topics meeting and commute home hadn’t been bad enough, this was definitely the last straw in an already shitty day. 

You’d been writing the List category for the entirety of your 9 month employment at the online pop culture news site, The Scoop. Writing about the top ten fashion trends of the season or the 15 best self-care ideas for a snow day was way better than freelance work that a lot of your uni friends were doing, but you’d long had the itch to contribute to more compelling pieces. 

Some of your coworkers were covering real news. Campus sexual assault cases. Music industry myths. Even the long standing feud between Camila Cabello and her ex-bandmates felt more compelling than the best women’s razors. 

“You don’t know who’s concert he invited you to?”

“Here,” you shoved your phone towards her after reopening the message. “I don’t even know how he has my new number.”

“Oh my god,” she read the words over and then lifted her eyes to settle on your unimpressed glare, reigning in her emotions so as to not piss you off any more. “I mean, do you think you’ll answer?”

“What am I supposed to say? Sure? Be right there? I don’t even know where it is. Could be Long Island City, for all I know. I am not going there with this shit storm,” you pointed out the window at the snowflakes that now seemed to be more like nickels instead of pennies. 

“Okay, I doubt that Harry Styles would be performing in Long Island City, number one. Number two, when was the last time you saw him? Wouldn’t it be fun to reconnect?”

When you didn’t answer immediately, she got up to head back towards the stove, likely answering her own question with the smirk on her face. 

It’s not that seeing him would be miserable. It’s just that you were used to seeing him with other people around and the last time you saw him had been incredibly, well, awkward. 

“You weren’t at Kenny Tilley’s house two Christmases ago, clearly.”

“Clearly not,” she mocked your accent. “Because you’ve never really told me what happened.”

“It was nothing,” you said, reaching for your phone and reading over his words once more. “I was drunk and he was drunk and it was just stupid.”

“Did you hook up with him?!” She asked excitedly, holding up a wooden spoon as she waited for your response. 

“What? No! We didn’t hook up--we’ve never hooked up. But I was drunk enough that I probably would have, which is why I can’t see him!”

“Oh come on,” she chastised as you stood from the couch. You padded towards her, thankful for the warmth of the apartment and the scent of whatever meal she was prepping. “Sounds like you’re being childish.”

“M’not,” you said with a serious face. “It would be so fucking awkward.”

“Or,” she looked back down at what was in the pot--which appeared to be some sort of stew--and tilted her head. “You could totally have a killer comeback and it could be not at all awkward and you’ll undo any embarrassment that occurred that night.”

She reached for a wine glass from the cabinet for you. 

“I dunno,” you said, almost defeated. Alyssa’s words had sparked some type of naive hope in your heart that you could get things sorted. Maybe he didn’t even remember (unlikely). Maybe he didn’t care (somewhat likely). Maybe he was just being nice because you ran in the same circle back home and you were the only one living in New York (very likely).  

Or maybe it wouldn’t be that weird. You lifted your glass for her to pour some wine. When she set the bottle back on the counter, she spoke. 

“Just ask him where it is, Y/N. That’s totally reasonable! We’re not going to Brooklyn or Inwood or even the Upper East Side. But if it’s Midtown or something we could totally make it happen.”

You sighed, eyeing your phone on the counter. 

“Fine. Okay. I’ll just do some information gathering.”

She hummed to herself quietly as she tasted the stew, clearly pleased with her pushing. 

You thumbed out a response.  

Hi, thanks for the invite! Whereabouts is it?

“Whereabouts? How old are you, sixty-three?” Alyssa stifled a laugh when you read it aloud.

“Oh come on! I don’t even want to go or see him or any of it. I’m basically asking to feel like an idiot.”

“Or you--or we, if you get a plus one,” she waved a hand in the air as if she was totally feeling indifferent about going--you knew her well enough to know she was dying to tag along. “We could go and make the best of it and there’d probably be free food and alcohol. And besides, how often do you get to go to a free concert for a hugely popular music act?”

You rolled your eyes at that one. You’d been to four One Direction concerts with your friends whenever they had a show in London. You’d get to be backstage, visit with the rest of the band. It was fun and cool and only made you feel even more stupid for thinking that Harry actually ever saw something in you. 

The truth was this: the more famous he got, the less you saw him. He found new friends and had a new house in a new city and was soon too busy to even reply in the group chat. So you started one without him. 

Your phone buzzed in your hand and Alyssa nearly dropped her spoon.

It’s at Spotify, it’s a live recording thing. No worries if you’re busy, but it’s 8pm.

Another text came through immediately with a red pin on the map. 

150 Greenwich St 62nd Floor, New York, NY 10007. 

“I mean, no worries, like he said. But that’s like a ten minute Uber away. Twenty on the subway, tops.”

“Thirty in this weather,” you corrected.

“So we’re going?” She clapped her hands excitedly and grinned in your direction.

“Relax, will you?” She flinched at this, making some kind of face to let you know you’d offended her somewhat. “This isn’t some chick flick where we’re about to finish this bottle of wine and have a magical night with him.”

“Uh,” she looked around the room, finally landing her eyes on your face. “Sounds like it could be exactly that.”

When Alyssa turned her back to tend to dinner once more, you typed a response and sent it before she could get her hands on it. 

See you then!

**

The snow hadn’t let up. If anything, the wind had gotten worse and the snowflakes had graduated to quarters--wet and heavy as they fell on top of the hat you wore. 

“I thought it never snowed in December?” You questioned her--recalling the day you moved in last April. A year in to your post-grad life had left you bored in London, ready for a change of scenery and a leap of faith. An opening at The Scoop and a wine-induced confidence had you clicking the submit button on your application after Adam had given you a pep-talk via text. 

“It doesn’t usually,” she said, trailing behind you down Cortland Street. The roads were still busy, but the blanket of white on the ground seemed to quiet the ever-present noises of the city. “Global warming’s a thing, you know.”

She was right, but you didn’t reply. You reached for your phone in your pocket and verified that you were heading in the right direction. It was 7:51pm. After dinner and a quick shower, you were both out the door to trudge through the slushy sidewalks and meet up with Erica: the woman Harry said would be waiting for you upon your arrival. 

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m with you?” Alyssa asked, snowflakes turning to water when they made contact with the hood of her jacket. 

“S’fine. I don’t think there’s like--a list or something.”

She’d been upset that you hadn’t asked if she could come. But she was clearly missing the fact that if she wasn’t going, neither were you. You weren’t about to show up to Harry’s gig flying solo and face the impending awkwardness alone. 

You crossed Church Street in the dark and headed for a set of glass doors that seemed subtle for the New York satellite of the biggest music streaming platform. Alyssa pressed the button for the elevator inside and impatiently shook her hands out of the gloves she’d worn for warmth.

She seemed to know you needed a minute, because she kept her eyes glued to her phone as the elevator rose the sixty-two floors until it let out a loud beep to signal your arrival. The doors parted. A neon green wall met--and nearly blinded--you both. 

“Jesus, bit much, don’t you think?” Alyssa complained as she stepped out, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the aggressive color. You looked both ways down the long hall. It was eerily quiet. 

Before you could process the sound of footsteps headed your way, you were greeted by a voice of an excited woman. 

“Y/N?” She called your name, prompting both of you to turn quickly. A woman in a grey cardigan smiled and offered a small wave as she headed your way. “I’m Erica.”

“Hi,” you said, pulling the hat from your head to reveal (what you were sure was) hat hair. You smoothed it quickly, offering her a hand to shake. “This is my roommate, Alyssa.”

You tried to ignore the knot in your stomach and the rise of heat to your face. You were sure you looked stupid. You were sure you sounded stupid. You were sure, suddenly, that nothing good would come of this decision. 

“Nice to meet both of you,” she motioned to follow her back in the direction from which she came. “They’re actually just about to start recording, so we’ll slip in the back and just watch for now.”

Erica was decidedly American. Decidedly a fixture of Harry’s new life. Friendly as she may seem, you couldn’t help but be bothered by her smile and her shade of lipstick and even the bracelet on her wrist. Maybe it was some kind of defense to keep you from making more of a fool out of yourself than you already had. 

“So you’re a friend from back home?” She asked over her shoulder as you slipped out of your jacket. 

“Yeah,” you folded the fabric over your arm as you followed behind her. “Went to school together and all that.”

It’d been a while since you told someone about your knowing Harry, really. Since the day you moved in with Alyssa. You weren’t keeping it a secret, but it certainly wasn’t public knowledge. No one at work knew, and honestly, you feared that it would make people take you less seriously. If anything, you were afraid that knowing him would make coworkers think you were hired for that and that alone. 

That’d be the definition of clickbait: Former pal of One Direction star writes lists about the best boyband songs to ever grace the planet, and yes, 1D is included!

All of your other friends from home knew that you knew him because they did too. Your parents always asked if he’d be joining your make-shift school reunions, but it’d been a while since he had. Which was why it was so strange in the first place that he’d shown up at Kenny Tilley’s house two years ago. 

Erica rounded a corner and then reached for a door--one that was black metal and had a red light above it. Alyssa offered you a smile as Erica pulled it open, urging both of you in before holding a finger up to her mouth to remind you of the noise requirements. 

The room was big--and while you could hear the music and hear the voice of someone you knew quite well, you couldn’t actually see him. At least, not until Erica led you a few steps to the right. 

There was a group of 75 or so people--girls, really--who watched in raised seats as Harry strummed at a guitar. Alyssa, who reached a hand down to grab yours in excitement, couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. You knew the feeling. 

But Alyssa didn’t know that you knew the feeling. She didn’t know that you’d had a massive crush on Harry up until he left for the show. She didn’t know that you stayed in contact for a while, until the travel and the distance and everything became too much. 

It was cool at first. Your friend was finding success and did his best to keep in touch with the five of you he’d left behind. Bryn and Jessie had warned you that he wasn’t coming back, and he never did. 

All Alyssa knew was that you were friends and attended his co-ed birthday parties until you were 16. She knew that you’d see him maybe once or twice a year after the band took off and she knew that you were anything but close now. She knew something ridiculous had happened the last time you saw him and she knew you swore that he’d never want to speak to you again.

You really thought that was the case. Until today. 

So while she clutched your hand and smiled excitedly at you--even jumping up and down every few minutes--you did your best to calm the thumping of your heart that felt like it was strong enough to out-do the bass that walked alongside Harry’s melodic voice. 

Five songs. Applause. You were ushered to a back room with Alyssa and that’s when Erica finally let you have a moment alone, her ponytail swaying as the door shut behind her. 

“Is this where he sat, do you think?” Alyssa spread herself out on the black plush couch that sat on top of a black plush carpet. “How cool is this? How many times have you touched him? A hundred? A thousand?”

You took a deep breath. This is exactly why you didn’t often tell people. She seemed to gather that, though, because she regained her composure and let out a breath, an embarrassed giggle escaping her lips as the door behind you pushed open. 

“Hey Smalls,” Harry’s lips pulled upward as his eyes caught yours. His arms immediately extended forward, wrapping around you before you could even process the use of your embarrassing (and non-consensual) nickname. You stood there, arms by your side as his body enveloped yours. 

“Hi,” you spit out the word, the one syllable sounding a bit short and brash as it left your lips. He was warm up against you, his hand rubbing on your arm as he pulled away. 

Upon noticing Alyssa, he smiled. “I’m Harry. You must be,” he raised his eyebrows at her, reaching forward to make contact as you stood awkwardly between them. 

“Alyssa,” she answered quickly, extending her hand and offering a smile in return. Her eyes were as wide as two moons, her grin toothy and sincere.

You were both back in your coats now--ready to face the grueling storm despite the warm temperature of the room. You’d been hoping that you’d say a quick hello, engage in the dreaded small talk for a matter of minutes, and then be on your way back to your shared apartment. After all, you had work in the morning. 

An awkward pause filled the room as Harry ran a hand through his hair. You shrugged your shoulders absentmindedly, wondering if he felt as uncomfortable as you did. 

“Good to see you,” you forced out, fingers reaching for the zipper on your jacket to occupy your empty hands. “Sounded great out there!”

He smiled at this, crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh, thank you. Yeah, m’glad you could make it, thanks for coming.”

More silence. Alyssa shifted on her feet and smoothed her hair. 

“How long are you in New York for?” You didn’t really care to know. One night was enough to last you the next four decades--or, if you were lucky, until you were dead. 

“Another week, actually. Doing some promo here and there. Heading back for the holidays soon though. Y’gonna be home?”

“Yeah--booked my flight a few days ago actually. Heading to Heathrow on the 20th.”

“Nice,” he nodded, averting his gaze for a minute over to Alyssa. You turned to look back at her, but as soon as she met your gaze, she pulled her phone from her pocket and pretended to be suddenly occupied by something much more interesting. 

“Have you both eaten dinner?” His voice was choppy but it didn’t falter.

While you opted for the truth (yes), Alyssa shook her head (no). Harry furrowed his brows and looked between you, a smirk eventually tugging at his mouth.

“She uh, she means ‘we had a snack.’ You were just saying how hungry you were, Y/N,” Alyssa prompted, her left brow twitching upwards as if to silently communicate that you were to go along with her plan. 

“Uh, we sort of ate.”

He let out a laugh, clearly unperturbed. “Well, I was gonna go to a really seedy place that has the best Pad Thai in the city--if you want to join.”

Alyssa looked to you and seemed to wait for your response. Something about Harry knowing the best Pad Thai on the island made you territorial, almost. As if he’d intruded on a place that was yours, not his.

“Oh,” you opened your mouth to make an excuse, but Alyssa cut you off. 

“You two go, I’ve actually got a lot of stuff to do tonight. I’ll just get a cab home.” She made her way towards the door and offered a smile over her shoulder. “Text me when you’re on your way home, yeah?”

While you could have cursed Alyssa out for all that is holy, you forced a wicked smile and narrowed your eyes. 

“Nice to meet you,” Harry waved over his shoulder, shoving a hand into his pocket as the door shut behind her. He turned back to you and raised his brows again. “Shall we?”

**

It wasn’t like you’d never been alone with Harry. There was the time you were dropped off at his house to catch a ride to the school dance. You ended up in the doorway to his bedroom while he decided between which over-powering teenaged boy-scent to douse himself with. 

There was also the time he got to your house first one Friday for a movie night. You probably had seventeen minutes alone before Adam and Jessie walked in at the same time. 

You’d certainly been left alone with him when you all went shopping, everyone wandering off into different shops and you and Harry often ending up together.

Then there was the conundrum at Kenny’s. 

And it wasn’t like you’d always been this nervous. Actually, you barely used to bat an eye about it. You really only started being nervous at 15 or 16 when you realized that maybe his curly hair was cute and maybe the way he always made people laugh was something you wanted to be around more often. 

But as soon as you realized it, he was gone.

So instead of focusing on the way your heart was in your throat when you rode in the backseat of a black Chevy Suburban, you focused on the fact that you’d done this before. 

You were sober. He was sober. That immediately meant it couldn’t be as tragic as the last time you saw him. 

You’d already done the necessary formalities. He’d asked about your family, you asked about his. You complimented his performance again. He asked how the end of uni was--given that last time you spoke, you were finishing up your degree. 

So you busied yourself with your phone in the car, hiding behind the Yelp app and a plethora of 5 star reviews until you were forced to brave the cold air again. 

A bowl of mints had welcomed you at the front door--the empty restaurant was quiet aside from the distant voices of a woman and a man in the back. Beige stained walls and shabby leather booths promised a good meal. 

“So how’re Jessie and Bryn?” He looked up to see you, using two chopsticks to pull a portion of noodles onto his plate after it’d been set down between you. 

You tore at the paper that shielded your own dining utensils, shrugging your shoulders nonchalantly. When was the last time he’d spoken to them? You’d been sure that he was talking to them more than you--really just based on the fact that neither of them had the same traumatic experience you had. 

“They’re good. Bryn is working in finance at some company I don’t even know the name of,” you recounted, following his move to pull a serving onto your plate. “Jessie’s looking into PhD programmes. Can’t stand the thought of being uneducated.”

He let out a laugh at your joke, carrying a bite of food towards his mouth. His eyes caught yours for a second and your stomach sank, almost sure he was about to bring it up. 

“And you’re…”

“At The Scoop, you’ve probably never heard of it, but we love to write about you.”

You rolled your eyes at the desperation displayed by your own company. The right side of his mouth pulled up as he chewed. 

You tried to backtrack somewhat. “Well, not me, but, like, my coworkers.” 

You’d made it a point to never actually write about Harry. The band was open season, but you’d made a rule on your first day that you weren’t about to blow your cover. Enough of your readers were already suspicious about the fact that he followed you on Instagram and Twitter. Writing about him would be sure to draw more attention to the fact that, buried somewhere on Adam’s instagram feed, was a picture of you and Jessie and Harry lounging on a couch in someone’s basement. 

“I know it, the website,” he nodded. Another bite, words spoken around chunks of chicken. “I’ve read some of your stuff. Didn’t know if you were still there.”

“You’ve read it?” Your eyes must have gone wide because he laughed at that, rolling up the sleeves of his brown sweater so as to not make contact with the broken pieces of noodles on the table. 

“I have. Pretty good, really. People seem to love you.”

You let your head roll to the side, a nonverbal sign that it wasn’t a big deal. You’d amassed a fair about of followers on twitter--but not quite as many on instagram. People seemed to find your dry humor and self-deprecating ways to be entertaining enough to want to see it regularly. It helped gain you some street cred at work and in the journalism field altogether. Apparently people really _were _interested in the best women’s razors. 

“And you like New York,” he nodded, waiting for an answer despite the fact that he’d already made a statement. 

“Love New York,” you nodded. “Excited to go back to London though for the holidays.”

“We’ll have to get everyone together. I know I’ve been,” a lift of his right shoulder out of guilt, “pretty shit at keeping in touch.”

“You’re busy,” you said. 

“Still.”

“S’fine.”

“S’not, but,” he didn’t finish.

You couldn’t take the seriousness or the truth or the authenticity. So you derailed it before it could start. You asked about his album and his tour and tried your best to keep the conversation as far as possible from the night of December 29th, 2015. 

And you’d really thought you’d managed it all beautifully when he paid for the meal and you were, once again, pulling on your jacket to brave the snow that fell from the night sky. 

“Want to walk?”

“Huh?” You looked up at him as he pulled a flat cap over his hair. 

“Walk, Smalls, just for fun. I don’t always see too much of the city.”

You didn’t really know how to reply. Was he trying to guilt you? He had to have known it wouldn’t work, but maybe two years was enough time for him to forget that you’d never been one to fawn all over him. 

“I mean, I have to work in the morning, so.”

“Oh,” his face fell, almost as sad as you’d ever seen it. “Yeah, no, s’fine.”

“I guess, we can walk to my apartment, if you really want. It’s not--it’s like fourteen blocks from here.”

Another sheepish smile from him as he pushed on the door and waited for you to walk under his arm. The snowflakes were smaller when you looked up to see them dance in the flood of street lights. Harry went up to the passenger side window of the car that waited for him, knocked twice before the driver rolled it down. 

He said something about walking you home. You decided that the snowflakes were now more like dimes. 

You fell into step beside him quite seamlessly. Something that you hated and loved all at once, feeling oddly soothed by his presence but still completely unsure of why he’d texted and what he wanted and how on earth he could tolerate you after that night. 

“This is where I get my hair cut, actually,” you pointed to a window with empty barber chairs inside and a barber pole out front. 

“Really?” His head dipped to the side as he slowed down, stealing a glance inside. You caught your reflection in the window, his coat was long and down to his knees, formal and grandpa-like and exactly what you’d expect him to wear. 

“No--that’s like--it’s a place for men,” you laughed, feeling more comfortable once your lungs took in more cold air.

He laughed and turned back to look at you. 

“Don’t say it,” you shook your head quickly, the words tumbling out of your mouth at the same exact moment as he did just that: he said it.

“You’re killing me, Smalls.”

You rolled your eyes. “I hate that nickname.” 

He laughed again, catching up after you’d left him behind--picking up your pace in an attempt to let him know he’d pissed you off. He smirked at you now, though, an undeniable and unmistakable twitch of his lips that soon became a full-face grin. 

“Oh come on, Y/N, s’not that bad,” he reached over to poke you in the shoulder. You shivered at the touch, hoping he didn’t notice. Or, if he did, hoping he’d chalk it up to just the cold air. 

“Is too,” you nodded, serious eyes on his face. “You lot are the only ones who ever use that and I’ve never given my actual consent!”

He was quiet, a smile on his face as he shoved his hands back into his pockets, his boots brushing against the powder on the concrete.

You walked in silence for a few blocks. The wind blew every once in a while, and when it did, you shrunk into your coat, your lips grazing the zipper as you attempted to shield yourself. Harry’s eyes traced the skyline overhead, taking in the height of the buildings and the snowflakes that seemed to be downgrading to specks of dust in the wind. 

You hated the fact that you liked him. You hated the fact that he gave you butterflies like you were back in Year 9 and you hated the fact that he never hesitated to pull out his signature raised-brow smirk. 

You bit your tongue when you stopped in front of your door, nervous that if you opened your mouth, the truth would spill out, completely uncontrollable. You’d already made that mistake once.

“Thanks for,” he paused, his lips twitching as he searched for the right label. “Hanging out.”

“Yeah, s’good to see you. I’d uh, invite you up--s’pretty messy, though.”

“I don’t mind,” he said quickly, shaking his head as his eyes trailed up the side of the building. It was shorter than some others, only eight stories on the skinny residential street. 

You hadn’t actually meant it as in invite--it was more just a polite way of saying you’re not invited up. 

You shrugged your shoulders, hoping you didn’t have to be more straightforward. “S’late, I know you’re probably busy tomorrow.”

“I have a place a few blocks away. I’ll probably walk home myself, s’a short walk,” he shrugged, looking around to highlight the fact that his car hadn’t followed you. 

“You have an apartment here?” you asked, your voice smaller than it’d been all night. 

He’d lived a few blocks away from you and hadn’t bothered to reach out? Sure, he might not have known just how close he was--but something still triggered a sinking feeling in your stomach.

“M’not here often, really,” he told you, an excuse flying out from between his lips. His eyes dropped to the snowy sidewalk beneath your feet as if he knew just how bad he sounded. “A week or two at a time, few times a year.” He looked up, his voice more cheery and hopeful. “But, I’d love to see your place.”

When his eyes met yours, you couldn’t help it. You were putty in his hand and the world at his feet. “Uh, yeah, okay.”

You fished for your keys in your pocket, wishing you weren’t so childish or spineless or intrigued by the boy who’d outgrown his hometown and left you in the dust. 

He followed you to the lift, climbing in beside you as you told him about your dreadful move in day. Too many boxes, not enough hands. Alyssa was helpful but you barely knew her--you didn’t want to earn the title of bad roommate too soon into your relationship. 

The hallway on your floor was dark, small lamps lined the wall as he followed behind you. It was late and Alyssa was likely asleep. You’d forgotten to text her like she’d requested, so you keyed in as quietly as possible, hopeful that she wasn’t waiting up. 

You pushed the door open and let him walk in first, wondering if you should give him the grand tour--shoebox bedroom and all. 

“S’not much, but it’s home,” you looked around, taking in the sight through the eyes of a stranger. A small couch and armchair in the center of the living room. A modest-sized TV that was the home of Friends reruns and Netflix marathons. Framed posters on the wall of old Parisian magazines. A small kitchen table and two teal chairs by the kitchen in the corner. 

You couldn’t help but wonder what his apartment looked like. Was it an apartment or was it a four story penthouse? Was it professionally decorated by someone from Vogue? Did he have marble counters and marble floors and marble furniture? 

“S’nice,” he smiled, bringing his eyes back to yours. “Feels homey.”

That was his nice way of saying it was messy and small and a place he could _never _spend any time. He was likely used to lounging on sofas that cost more than your yearly salary.

The door to Alyssa’s bedroom creaked, her figure emerging from the light that seeped through the crack. “How’d it--oh, hi!” Her eyes widened when she learned I wasn’t alone. “How was dinner?”

We spoke at the same time. 

“Good,” he said. 

“Fine,” was my response. 

Alyssa crossed her arms over her chest to cover the fact that wasn’t wearing a bra--she never was. That’s apparently what it took for Harry to realize it was time for him to head out. He looked between you both and offered another smile. Smacking his lips together, his eyes scanned the room once more, finally landing on you.

“I’ll see you--yeah? I’m here for another week, we could do dinner or something?”

You hadn’t expected him to initiate something again. You’d actually expected that you wouldn’t hear from him at all--maybe a text to the group chat on Christmas Day saying he missed the lot of you.

“Oh, yeah, sure,” you watched as he headed for the door he’d just entered through. 

“Nice to meet you again, Alyssa.”

“You too,” a dazed look still on her face as she watched him reach for the handle. 

“You can find your way down? And your way home?”

He crossed the threshold back into the hallway, his lip curling up. “I’m good, Smalls.” 

“Okay.”

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. See you later.”

“Bye,” you shut the door, soothed by the sound of the latch as you turned your back to the wood, a long sigh escaping your lips as Alyssa raised her brows for the umpteenth time. 

“Care to explain?”

You bit at your lip. It was late, you were tired. You were emotionally drained. But you knew she wasn’t going to let you get away with it. 

So you sat on the couch and had a cup of tea and told her about the last time you saw Harry. You also told her that despite all of it--the embarrassment, the resentment, the anger, and the jealousy--you hoped he meant it when he said he’d you’d see him again.

read the other parts here

AN: want to be on the tag list or have thoughts, questions, or just want to be friends?! Let me know here! 

taglist: @thurhomish​ @castawaycths​ @harryspirate​

[the-greatest-story-untold]

Dear Dream

I know I am so ridiculously late.

But hey, better late than never...

To NCT Dream,

The baby unit of NCT.

The unit of young souls tasked to bring hope and endurance to the world's youths.

The superior unit.

Your current average age is 19.5 years old… barely an adult.

Yet, you have a career that's gone strong for four years (and definitely still counting).

I am not a veteran of the KPop scene so I do not know if your 'formula' has been tried before i.e. a band comprising of literal teenagers to be the inspiration for an entire generation of youths. Most bands I knew had teenagers that were mostly above 16 when they debut and even so, there will be older members in the band.

When you started off in 2016, your oldest member was only 17 years old, and your youngest was 14!

It must have been surreal to have begun your journey as singers, dancers, performers and artists at such a young age!

The music/entertainment industry is very much an 'adult' world. Yet here you are, barely grazing adulthood but already trusted into the bright lights and blazing life of entertainment.

It must have been scary.

But you've made it.

One of you've graduated and became an adult. 4 of you've grown to become adults. One more has just reached his adulthood milestone. And then there's one left.

You guys have grown so, so much. And you guys have grown up so well. You need all the congratulations the world can offer.

You grew up in the limelight of the Kpop industry, in the new age of social media flurry, and in the unprecedented era of KPop world domination.

You grew up well, so well. You've made it.

Your journey is still long and for all the good things in this world, I hope your journey remains long and prosperous.  

I have to say, I am very surprised for the affection I feel towards you.

I admit I was weary to 'get into' NCT Dream because of your ages. I felt very uncomfortable that you were very young. Jisung sweetheart, you are a decade my junior.

It felt very strange for me to see what I viewed as literal children to be thrown into limelight.

My experience with childhood stardom is very limited to the Hollywood scene. I've heard what exposure to stardom can do to children. Especially as they grow into teenagers and young adults. It's kinda scary.

But I forgot. Though you may be in the same 'industry' i.e. entertainment; your cultures are so vastly different.

Sure, there have been infamous stories too about the KPop entertainment industry. It is as notorious as Hollywood. There have definitely been stories about your company.

When you first debuted in 2016, I've been listening to KPop for about 4 years. I wasn't an avid fan nor that big of a multi stan. I was a fan of your seniors: EXO.

The change of OT12 to OT9 was definitely an experience for me and it was difficult not to see kpop in tainted lenses after that.

So when I found out that a group of 7 with an average age of just 15.7 years (not even 16!) was to be debuted, I was quick to dismiss it.

You were too young in my eyes.

1. It felt like exploitation. 2. Your concept was too bright for me to appreciate.

So I paid you no attention.

And honestly, I had not paid attention to your brother units either when they debuted (NCT U with the 7th Sense and NCT 127 with Firetruck).

My attention in NCT officially started in 2018, when NCT2018 started. I knew of NCT’s general concept and units, so I was aware of the existence of Dream. I saw you guys appear on Weekly Idol with your hyungs. And that's about it.

I remained fairly distant with Dream for some time, focusing mainly on NCT 127 as they gained momentum in their American debut with Regular.

I continued telling myself that you were too young for my taste. Furthermore, Mark and Haechan were the maknaes of 127, so that solidified my thinking of the seven of you as mere 'babies'.

But as the end of 2018 approached, two significant episodes occured that brought more of my attention to you.

First, Mark was graduating.

I still wasn't an avid fan let alone an NCTzen at that time. I did not keep up with your updates and I do not follow you on any social media platforms. My 'news' of NCT only came in the form of recommended videos on YouTube.

Somehow, Mark's graduation became significant enough to manifest as recommended content on my YouTube recommendations. I was aware of Dream's graduation concept and since I've not invested in the unit, it bothered me not.

The Dream Show happened but it is not exactly fully available online, so I wasn't really aware of its occurrence. I only knew that Mark had officially graduated because of the 'farewell' video on NCT's channel.

I still wasn't fazed much by this as I was generally accepting of the graduation concept. We all grow up and graduation is just part of life. Welcome to adulthood, champ.

What caught my attention was how affected fans were because of this. There were so many videos of 'why mark/7Dream will be missed'. I brushed it off, understanding that Dreamzens were teenagers and emotions run high in that life period.

Then the next major event happened: Haechan/Donghyuck's injury.

It was only at this time that I was fully aware of 'MarkHyuck'. I saw a glimpse of it before but I dismissed it. However, with Haechan out of commission, it spiked.

I am not a shipper. I don't really have that much of an interest in wanting the pairing to be together. But one thing I have definitely developed during this period, was the solid support of Mark's and Haechan's Best Friends Forever friendship.

Perhaps I was more open to the two of you compared to the rest of the Dreamies since I see you interact within 127 more. Perhaps I was more attentive because you both were in 127 and I was at that time paying attention to 127.

Either way, when fans started pointing out how sad it was that the BFFs had to split, I had a small 'aww' moment.

Then what made me went absolutely 🥺  was Mark's year end performances with the Dreamies but it was already 6Dream instead of full strength.

There was that one year end event when Dream performed 'We Go Up' and it appeared to be that Renjun seemed to be sniffling. Of course, fans were quick to interpret it as sadness and all started lamenting that it was the last performance of Mark with Dream in year end promotions but Mark's best friend wasn't there.

Wow, fans are dramatic.

I wasn't hooked but I felt the sadness. I know fans were just projecting their own emotions into what happened and we eventually found out that Renjun was sniffling because he had a nosebleed earlier, not because he was crying.

This somehow made me curious about Dream… and I guess that begun my journey in getting to know Dream.

I think partly because 127 was on tour in 2019 and it was their official tour. Partly also because WayV officially debuted in 2019. But NCT content was aplenty. I've also subscribed to the NCT channel at this point so my notifications were dinging all the time.

So naturally, with more exposure to NCT, comes more interest in knowing all of you.

I have never been the 'stan only one unit' type of fan. Remember, I officially got into NCT from NCT2018, when 18 of y'all are actively promoting. I am not afraid of your ‘big ass group’ concept.

So as my interest in NCT grows, I figured it was time to know every unit better then. With 127 busy with tour, they were already releasing the Hit the States series on top of their tour, and planning a comeback mid tour. I know content will be readily available. I just had to wait.

WayV was also new so LABEL V was pumping content heavily to promote them. Again, this means content is easily available.

What was missing, was Dream content. With Mark graduated, Haechan injured and then automatically roped in with 127 for their tour, where does that leave the other members?

So I got curious. I wanted to know more about Dream but there aren't current content. What do I do? Well, dig into past content.

Chewing Gum.

I have come across it before, a long time ago probably in 2016 when it first released. I dismissed it so fast, I did not watch it fully.

I think I was still fairly new to KPop and the 'cutesy' bubblegum pop concept did not sit well with me. So anything remotely adorable was dismissed.

Unfortunately, Chewing Gum was the epitome of cute. You guys were so small. So young! Your voices… 😅

However when I started getting into NCT and because I was eager to really learn about Dream, I sat through it. But barely. I kept cringing. Sorry.

After finishing it, I felt like I had done it injustice. But I still wanted to know more about you guys! So I changed tactics.

I started with We Go Up. At least I was familiar with it. And I didn't watch the videos. I just listened to the song. Slowly, I moved down to Go, We Young, My First and Last, and finally, Chewing Gum.

Honestly, it took me some time to get used to. Obviously Dream was very different from 127. So I really had to focus to listen to Dream.

I don't know what was the turning point. I don't recall what made me suddenly enjoy your content but it happened. I find myself looking forward to listening to your songs. I actually felt genuine unadulterated fun.

Chewing Gum got into my head and I kept hearing 'Ch-ch-ch-ch-chewing Gum' on replay in my head. I eventually succumbed and went to watch the M/V again. And this time, I enjoyed it! I still cringed, lol. But I was able to enjoy the song instead of let the overload of cute affect me.

I also came across the hoverboard version and BAM! I was awed.

I was very much the typical millennial that dismissed hoverboards as 'the new trend' that was too beneath my generation (*scoff* I am such an elitist). 

So I knew it was trending and everywhere. But seeing these 7 teens actually performing synchronized choreography in addition to using a hoverboard without breaking a sweat, I was amazed. Omg, how? The dedication, the training, the effort!

It was then I thought that you guys weren't the usual teenagers I see on the street (whom I am so secretly terrified of btw). You guys are the dedicated hardworking types. The one I'm definitely intimidated by. Only because I never had the same drive when I was that age. (Pssst...There's jealousy in that too...)

I began thinking to myself, I've got to give them credit. I can't be an ageist. Just because I have my own issues and insecurities about being a lazy bum as a teenager, I shouldn't project it on these 7 teens who are already contracted to work and dedicate the rest of the young lives to their art.

That was how I started watching more NCT Dream content on YouTube. Your music videos, fancams, fanmade content etc.

I was slowly but surely falling for your charms.

I must also admit, at that period in time, I was fast becoming a big fan of Haechan.

Maybe due to his temporary break during his injury, I had a lot of 'missing you' content recommended to me. I clicked them all and really, I fell in love with his voice.

I had also then started following alot of NCT content on Twitter and IG. With 127 on tour and Haechan back in business with the North American tour, there were alot of celebratory tweets and IG posts about his comeback.

I knew Haechan was a vocalist but I suddenly saw an influx of his dance on my social media. It got me curious and I admit I watched quite a bit of Haechan fancam.

Then, it was announced NCT127 was coming for a concert to my country. And I went for it. My first concert in my 27 years of life. No regrets. I LOVED IT. Plus, my interest in Haechan soared too.

His dance break? In that one little segment? Was enough to sell me.

Highway to Heaven? Superhuman? YAAS.

And then mere days after the concert, We Boom happened.

And wow. We Boom era was a beautiful awakening for me.

You were all still teenagers, technically. Sure, the 00 liners we adults in Korea, but internationally, y'all haven't reached 20.

Still it didn't stop the multiple outpouring of congratulatory messages for all four of you in reaching adulthood.

So I figured if y'all see yourselves as adults, you're officially adults then.

And I think that was the mental barrier that had been putting me off. As much as I don't want to be one, I am sort of an ageist. It really took you 4 being 'official' adults plus one graduated member, for me to pass my own ageist thoughts before deciding you are more than talented.

Any who, with my increased interest in Haechan and my own moral dilemma out of the way, I started to genuinely enjoy your music.

First and foremost, I loved Haechan's look in We Boom era. Him in the suit, in the denim outfit, his hair up? Yes.

Secondly, Jeno and Jaemin. You are always together and even in your growth you are on par. I see the effort you're putting in your gym sessions…

Last but not least, Renjun. Hello, you turned fine. You had the mullet for a moment and I wasn't a huge fan but you still looked fine.

The 00 liners grew up good. I was barely into Dream but even I saw the differences. I was impressed and honestly, felt proud of you despite knowing none of you. Yet I felt affirmed that you’ve worked hard. And this was solely on your appearance alone.

We Boom was also my first journey in listening to your side tracks. And I loved every single one of them.

Again, the talk about graduation came back up. 4 members are meant to graduate by end 2019. What will become of NCT Dream?

We Boom is the first 6Dream album, will it be the last? It probably is?

We Boom had Best Friend and Dream Run. Somehow, it felt a lot like a goodbye message. A graduation gift in a sense. It made a lot of fans feel nostalgic for Mark. It made a lot of fans wonder the fate of Dream. You've worked hard, every single one of you. What's going to happen to all of that?

Soon, end of the year was approaching. However, there is still no news about Dream's fate.

BUT. SM decided to spring a Dream concert on the fans.

Some theories suggested it was to appease the fans who were getting antsy about the lack of news. Some suggested it was a ruse to give fans false hope before SM pulls the plug altogether on Dream. Some dreamt it was a sign they were continuing and not disbanding… soon there were (louder) chants for Dream to be a fixed unit.

I was never very bothered by the graduation concept as mentioned earlier. To me, even if the 00 liners had to graduate, I was fine. What I wasn't fine with: what is their next step?

The radio silence from SM was starting to err me. Fan worries online were also starting to get under my skin. Will Dream disband? As much as I love Haechan, I do admit it was unfair that only he has the clearest path. He had 127.

What about Jeno and Jaemin?

Jeno who had stepped up as the leader of the sextet. Who have so bravely led his team mates in his strong silent resilience.

Jaemin who is all smiles and love for his Czennies. Who had sat out an entire year of promotions to heal from a back injury and then dived straight back into their intense choreography and keeping up with his mates with smooth ease.

Then there were Renjun and Chenle; at least they had the possibility of WayV. And although that's a possibility that seemed so distant, at least it was possible.

Jisung was a rising dance machine. He raps well enough and has stable enough vocals that he has potential for a solo career if all goes south. Otherwise, he was still young enough to be able to sustain the Dream name, perhaps with a new set of members.

Either way, it was all the same. The future of these young teens were too uncertain.

Dream, you are seven youths with so much potential. This is solely on the pure fact that you are still so young. You've achieved so much but for your futures to be so vague felt extremely unfair.

And that's when I realise I will stand by Dream.

Sure, I used to gripe about our age differences. But  then I realised it was your youth that I should be supporting. It was the idea of everlasting friendship that should be preserved here.

Dream was so very much 7 members that even with Mark graduated, in that whole year of him not promoting with Dream, it still felt like he was there because you guys are literal friends with each other. You are not just colleagues that will part at the end of the day once work is done. You're legitimate friends.

And that is what I want to protect.

Call me nostalgic or old but being in a period of time in my life where my social relationships are starting to change as my friends get married and become attached, or grow more interested in building a family rather than finding a cute boy, I must have projected my own feelings of loss onto Dream.

Aren't y'all suppose to be the embodiment of youth, hope and (pardon the pun) dreams?

The bulk of that was formed during my teenage years for me, in the bonds I've created with my own group of girlfriends. The five of us have been together since 13 years old and although we never had the same intensity of an emotional rollercoaster that comes with stardom, I understand the reluctance to let go of a friendship that has lasted so long.

When I see the Dreamies have fun, joking around and sassing around, I am reminded of my girlfriends when we laze about and sass during our staycation.

When I see the Dreamies tired and exhausted but still so present for each other during practice and rehearsals, I am reminded of my girlfriends and the days we studied together for our national exams.

When I see the Dreamies cry because of an uncertain future, I see my girlfriends worried about the next stage of our lives and the fear of being unprepared.

That homely dependence; the family reliance on one another… these are sentiments that actually my girlfriends and I may not exactly feel. For as much as we've been friends for so long, we've never really had a tumultuous lifestyle.

But the Dreamies, you did. You had to be away from family, practice from dusk till dawn, sacrificed school experiences for idolhood, lose out on a 'normal teenage life'.

Sure, you chose this life. You've made your beds and now you must lie in it. What's inspiring is: you're so willingly diligent in doing so.

That, I feel is your most praiseworthy trait.

And I understand that you were able to do this because you've had each other.

And I feel so proud of that friendship you’ve made with each other.

So Dream, congratulations on your fourth year. Congratulations on all your hard work and sacrifices.

Remember, you are still young. You do not owe the world anything but to live your young lives well.

You've made so many sacrifices and earned scars along the way. But you've become better and stronger with them.

You taught me to treasure the friendship I have made in my youth and perhaps a little lesson or two about mourning the loss of friendship.

I wish you all the best. I want to hug you so much and pat you on your heads. And yet at the same time show you off like a proud parent.

I am sure your parents are all proud of you. Every single one of you.

Keep up your good work. You are doing well.

Remember to rest when you need to. You are only human and doing your best can only be meaningful if you are well and healthy.

Congratulations on becoming 7Dream again, I look forward to your comeback.

Keep at it, keep smiling, keep singing, keep dancing.

To Mark Lee, thank you for being the diligent leader to the Dreamies. You've led them well. Hopefully they don't trouble you too much now that you're back.

To Lee Jeno, thank you for being the pillar and unwavering captain of the ship. You have a strong presence about you but yet so gentle and considerate.

To Huang Renjun, thank you for your wisdom and efforts. You put in so much work in reaching out to your fans and listening to their troubles and worries.

To Lee Haechan, thank you Full Sun. You have been so hard working, haven't you. I know you like being busy and I feel relieved that you know too that you should rest well. Keep shining, love.

To Na Jaemin, ohmygosh you are so precious. You are so loving and so sweet. You deserve all the happiness in the world for the magnitude of kindness and compassion you exude.

To Zhong Chenle, thank you for your hard work. You seem to be so effortless in covering and carrying the vocals of your songs together with Renjun. Yet you are always doing it with your boisterous laugh.

To Park Jisung, thank you for your youth. You've spent your entire childhood in the industry and made many sacrifices, more than peers of your same age. Thankfully you've gotten friendship with your team mates and I hope you'll continue to receive all the love and support.

With love.

[beautifulpaxielreads]

July Wrap Up

Books completed (ratings out of five stars)

Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina* and Ezekiel Kwaymullina* (★★★★1/2), begun in June

Thorn (Dauntless Path #1) by Intisar Khanani (★★★), begun in June

Taking Down Evelyn Tait by Poppy Nwosu* (★★★1/2)

This Mortal Coil (This Mortal Coil #1) by Emily Suvada *(★★★★)

Books currently in progress

Dark of the West (Glass Alliance #1) by Joanna Hathaway

Please Don’t Hug Me by Kay Kerr*

Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss #1) by Stephanie Perkins

Woven in Moonlight (Woven in Moonlight #1) by Isabel Ibañez

*Australian author

Challenges, Games, and other Booklr interactions

Completed Racing to Read tag game, tagged by @storytime-reviews​ (July 26th, link+replies)

Posted photograph for @just0nemorepage​‘s JOMP Book Photography Challenge July, Day 22: Colours (July 22nd)

 Answered @lizziethereader​‘s Weekly Bookish Question #187 (June 28th – July 4th): Do you always rate (and/or review) books, or do you sometimes “just” read them? What determines if you do one or the other? (July 5th)

Reblogged @ceraunos​’ question regarding alternatives to Goodreads with my answer (July 1st)

Posted photograph for @thebookbud​’s July Book Photography Challenge, Day 1: July Goals (July 1st)

Chatted with @idacippolinni​ and @thelivebookproject​ on Tumblr’s PM service

GoodReads/Storygraph 2020 Reading Challenge: 35 books read out of 70. I’ve hit the halfway mark at last! And six books behind…oops. To be honest, though, I’ve started caring less about meeting my target – it’s more important that I enjoy what I’m reading.

Original Posts on Tumblr

Posted photograph of my current reads plus my latest bookshop haul (July 31st)

Posted graphic to celebrate reaching 1K followers (July 24th)

Posted request for book recs (July 16th)

Posted wrap up for June (July 1st)

Reflections on July’s Reading Goals

Reading more books by Indigenous Australians: FAIL!! I did try The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf and Grace Beside Me but neither of them quite clicked with me. I think the latter was written for quite a young audience, so maybe that was why. I still must read Growing Up Aboriginal, although I think with that one it may be the kind of book that you dip into rather than reading it start to finish. I also did buy Top End Girl, a memoir by Indigenous Australian actress Miranda Tapsell, so I’ll get onto that soon. Hopefully, next month will be a better month for this!

 I didn’t finish Richard Fidler and Kári Gíslason’s Saga Land, I just couldn’t get into it. I might try it in the future, though. I did finish Intisar Khanani’s Thorn, even though it frustrated the hell out of me. I kept reading despite this because I felt there definitely some important themes and issues Khanani was trying to explore, but I felt something went wrong in conveying it to the reader. I know others have enjoyed it though, so maybe it’s just me. *shrugs*

Started Marie Rutkoski’s The Midnight Lie, couldn’t get into it.  Yet to begin Colleen McCullough’s Caesar’s Women, at this point in my reading I’ll get to it either later this month or next month, not sure when yet. I have started Joanna Hathaway’s Dark of the West and Kay Kerr’s Please Don’t Hug Me, however, and I’m enjoying them. So I’ll call it a solid 2 out of 4 for this one.

 Only 2 book photography challenges done this month. TBH I’m not too worried about it, I would like to do more but I can’t always find books that fit the prompt. I’ll do them as the mood takes me.

 I reached the halfway point of my goal of 70! Still a long way to go though, but as I said before, I’m not worrying too much about it.

New followers

109!!! Are you all real?

 A lot of the blogs I checked doing my monthly tally had zero content or content that looked suspiciously like spam. A new Tumblr trend? Or are the bots taking over?

In other news, I reached 1K followers this month!! Woot woot! Hope you’re all enjoying my content.

Interesting observations

See my note under new followers.

As I mentioned before, my attitude towards my reading goals is shifting. I don’t mind so much now about not hitting my goal – it’s more about enjoying the actual reading part.

When I check my dash each morning, to find 30+ notes – well, it’s overwhelming. But thank you all for being so attentive. PS. Likes are great, reblogs are better (hint hint).

I’ve noticed I’m buying more books (as opposed to borrowing them from the library) this month, and I’m wondering how much of that is due to the pandemic and a fear of the not-happening-yet-but-I’m-sure-it-will-soon lockdown. It’s like I want to have as many books as possible in case I won’t be allowed out of the house to get them, thereby running out of books to read. I need to get out of this mindset. Just be calm, Ellie! Be calm!

 I’ve stopped reading ebooks almost entirely. The storage management app on my tablet keeps nagging at me to uninstall the books app but I can’t quite let go of it yet. I might get it to it. One day.

I uninstalled Audible and deleted my account with them! I felt bad supporting Amazon and anyway, I never listened to the audiobooks I had purchased.

 Reading (and reading-related) Goals for August

Finish the books I’m currently reading (see above).

Make a start on each of the books on my TBR shelf: Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia (edited by Anita Heiss), Tweet Cute (Emma Lord), Caesar’s Women (Masters of Rome #4) by Colleen McCullough, Top End Girl (Miranda Tapsell), and Stars Like Us by Frances Chapman.

Read more books by authors of colour.

Keep doing my own thing on my blog! Not worry so much about content.

Reread Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1) by Amanda Foody, and continue the series with King of Fools (which I have yet to read) in preparation for the third book Queen of Volts.

That’ll do for this month – whew! See you in September for my August wrap-up.

Until then, happy reading!

[purplesurveys]

777

do you think weird it's for someone to have never tried soda? I’d be surprised that they were never curious enough to try it if they can access soda, but then again I live in a third world country and not everyone gets to try everything. I’ve learned to judge less when it comes to opportunities like this. is there any foreign film you recommend? Portrait of a Lady on Fire was fucking intense and so, so so good. do you have the same religious beliefs as your parents? My dad might also be atheist, but I’ve never known for sure. He once confided in me that he was atheist in college but “it changed” when he met my mom... but honestly we’ve always grunted the same way whenever my mom tells us it’s time to pray or if we have to watch our weekly mass livestream. So idk. I think he just acts Catholic to appease her, but yeah he’s definitely weird about it. which floor of your house/building are you on now? Second floor. It’s my first time to want to hang out in my bedroom in months because IT’S ACTUALLY RAINING and it’s cold enough in my room to wanna stay here. are there any maps hanging in your room? No maps here.

are you often a third wheel? or is someone a third wheel to you? Yep I third wheel pretty often. My girlfriend and I study in different schools and I have friends in my school who are couples, so if Gab isn’t visiting my campus for the day I just tag along with my couple friends. I don’t get bothered or feel insecure by it because I have my own relationship lolol what's the last dvd you bought? Holy shit...DVD? I don’t even remember anymore. It was most likely an Audrey Hepburn film, back in 2013 when I was really into her. That or Beyoncé’s Life Is But A Dream documentary, which was the last thing she ever released on DVD. Also came out in 2013. tell me about your favorite pair of jeans. High-waisted 90s-styled jeans. Nothing much to say other than they fit me well, I got a lot of compliments whenever I have them on, and they match any t-shirt I paired with, which made me like wearing t-shirts again haha. would you ride a motorcycle if given the chance? (or have you?) I would but only if someone super experienced was driving. I haven’t been on one because my parents don’t allow me to, and tbh I don’t mind the rule because I’m mostly scared of motorcycles anyway. is your hair healthy? No. Some hair salon I went to around ten years ago put some cheap products in my hair when I had it rebonded and it never felt 100% healthy again. Until today it gets very stiff when it gets into contact with water and only shampoo, and I always have to pair it with conditioner. if a hotel offered free breakfast in bed, what would you order? Eggs Benedict and some very creamy warm coffee. how often do you take a train? Never. I don’t trust the public transport here and I’m better off driving in my own car. what are your thoughts on reincarnation? (have you ever read up about it?) I don’t think of it at all because I don’t believe in it. I don’t mind others who are into it, just don’t shove it down my throat.  what's your favorite led zeppelin song? I don’t have one. does your home have a balcony/deck/porch? Yeah we have a balcony. We used to have a full balcony, but we transformed 3/4 of it into my brother’s current room a few years ago because he was starting to grow up and he needed his own room. We retained 1/4 of the space so that it can be the place where my dog can still do his business. what does your closet/wardrobe say about you? It says I am a very messy person who can’t keep her closet consistently organized lol. It will also tell you I’m quite girly based on the clothes I own. do you enjoy theatre? I was never a fan. how would you feel about traveling abroad alone? If I was offered the chance to do it I certainly wouldn’t give it up, but I really, really, preferably would travel with at least one companion. Traveling is one of those experiences I’d want to share with someone, and I would hate if I had to go back to my hotel room at the end of the day with no one to talk to. who would you call a lyrical genius? Laura Jane Grace. how do you treat yourself? My go-to gift for myself is giving into my cravings hahaha. Nothing speaks more to me than food, and if I feel like I deserve a reward for a job well done, I’ll go to a slightly more expensive restaurant to celebrate. do you have an interesting passport? Idk, it’s a normal one and I never had it customized or anything. are you going to pursue a career according to what you enjoy? I hope I get to. I really enjoyed my PR internship and I’d love to be headed there. what happens to your old clothes? They go to the very back or the very bottom of my wardrobe for the most part. My mom will make us throw out clothes we don’t like anymore once a year, so that’s the time I get to get rid of them. what's your favorite frozen treat? Cornetto ice cream is one of my faaaaavorite comfort snacks. The end of the cone where they save chocolate chunks is the best part. who supports you financially? My parents. Getting increasingly guiltier about it by the day, too. if you wanted to go to the movie cinema, how would you get there? I would wait for the clock to strike midnight tonight, because in 48 minutes they’ll finally loosen lockdown rules AND I CAN FINALLY GO OUT. Hahaha. After that I’ll jump to my car, drive out of the village, take a u-turn, and I’m there. how many pillows are on your bed? Two big ones. would you pay more for organic food? Only if I had the money for it. Organic food is a thing of the (very) privileged here and is not very accessible to begin with, unless you’re in posher grocieries. have you ever had a crush on a sibling's friend or a friend's sibling? I haven’t. I’d find it weird considering they’re all a bit younger than me. do you have a friend who mooches? what to do about it? (or is it you?) She’s never done it with me but I’ve heard enough horror stories about her to know that she tends to do this, but yeah Mils is apparently quite the moocher. I’m soooo not one; I’d wait for my friends to offer to pay for stuff, but otherwise I’m fighting them over the bill lmao. do you know much about feng shui? (do you use it?) I’m not knowledgeable on it but I’m definitely familiar with it, because we have a rather large Filipino-Chinese community/culture in the country that glorifies feng shui during Chinese New Year season. I don’t really have a choice but have Chinese culture shoved down my throat whether it’s in the news, the media, or my Chinese friends.  how would you make friends in a quiet class? I preferably wouldn’t because I’m only interested in getting good grades and getting that class over with hahaha. But if I was interested in making a friend or two, I’d typically scan the classroom and see who seems to be responsible? Like if they take notes as hard as I do. are you generally a quick learner? No. I take some time, and I especially take long if the thing being taught is more hands-on, like origami. I’ve just never been good at following certain tasks, and I prefer learning from reading instructions. what's your favorite spot to read? Skywalk or the dining table. has anyone given you a nickname you didn't like? (what was it?) Not that I can recall. I’m okay with all of them. did you know that buddha is not considered a god to buddhists? Yes. do you save tickets from movies, etc.? If it’s a significant enough date or event, sure. I’ve kept my 2018 Paramore gig ticket to this day, but like I’ve thrown out my ticket for Knives Out because I hated the movie lol. without looking him up, who was jim morrison? Vocalist for The Doors. when's the last time your bedroom was painted/wallpapered? Idk, 2006 or 2007 when the house was being made? It’s never been repainted. teach me something in another language. (not french/chinese/german/arabic) Why so language-ist lmaooooooo uh “Nakauwi ka na?” means “Did you get home? / Have you gotten home?” what type of body wash did you last use? Idk, I never read the labels on it actually. what type of music do you like and why? Right now I’m into lo-fi because it makes me feel relaxed, but I’m also starting to get into the recent trend where today’s artists put out songs that sound like they’re from the 80s, like Dua Lipa’s Physical or The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights - I think the genre is called synth pop/synthwave. They simply sound cool haha and they’re awesome to listen to while driving. if you randomly want to eat something in the house, do you eat it or wait? I check the time, like if we’re supposed to be having dinner soon, then act accordingly. who knows the most about you (besides yourself)? My girlfriend. do you have a nervous habit? (e.g. biting nails, tapping feet, smoking) Plucking eyebrow or eyelash hair, but that behavior is reserved for extreme cases where I’m incredibly and inconsolably anxious. On a milder day I would vape, sigh a lot, or bite my nails. how's your favorite pro sports team doing lately? I don’t watch sports with teams. would you be/are you a good role model to a younger sibling? I don’t get into trouble but I’m not the best influence either.

[diarrheaofthekeyboard]

Confluence of Updates

7.26.2020

Writing on Writing

In addition to weekly therapy since November, I have been watching School of Life videos on YouTube. The latest video I watched helped confirm for me that I’m on the right path. I’m never going to eliminate my Inner Critic or ever feel completely comfortable with myself. I think if I did, that would be something extra-human. Neither are realistic goals. This particular video’s intent was to get people to write a journal. In a nutshell, you can’t keep it all in. Give yourself a daily mental outlet where you can release your thoughts and you’ll have less mental anguish. Well, here we are! Glad I’m on the right path. 

This may be the reason Sunday nights have recently become the most difficult for me. Brain won’t turn off, but it’s because I haven’t had what I’m trying to turn into my daily routine of walking in the morning and writing at night. The out I’m giving myself is this is all new and it takes some growing pains to get it right. 

Writing on Walking

I try not to spend money these days but any new venture is going to have some startup costs. My sneakers should be good for another month or so if I stick with it. I’ve been keeping my mask in my pocket, but that makes it difficult to pull it out when I actually see people, so I bought some neck gaiters I can pull up to be a mask. But the two big things were new headphones and shirts. 

The headphones are a big deal because of “the thud of footsteps”. As you may have figured out by now, I actually listen to music. It’s not just a beat or a background to keep me going. I’m actually interested in hearing it, reacting to it emotionally, having my own internal dialog about it, and just plain enjoying it. I can’t do that while walking because I hear the thud of my own footsteps with my headphones on. Happens with my Amazon Basics on-ear headphones, which are actually super awesome Monoprice headphones, and it also happens with my Sony earbuds I bought for phone calls. Turns out the Amazon ones are on-ear, closed back. And with the way earbuds have been redesigned, they create a closed back type effect. 

So I made an educated guess and took a chance on some KOSS open air, on ear headphones. Remember the shitty headphones that came with your Walkman? Those were open air, on ear headphones. Those are the ones I used to listen to Megadeth at top volume on in the back seat of my parents’ car so I didn’t have to listen to their shitty lite-fm radio. I found some good ones from KOSS that won’t make my ears hurt after listening to them for 30 minutes and they arrived today. Put them on, took three steps, no thud. Yeah, you can hear the music if you really get close to me. But it’s not like I’m crammed onto a subway around here. Monday will be the real test but so far it seems like $30 in Amazon points well spent. 

Now you may ask yourself, “why are new shirts a big deal?” I think it’s about self worth and there’s a bunch going on here. 

To this point, I’ve been wearing whatever t-shirt I want to walk. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with them. But they’re yer basic men’s printed band shirt or otherwise printed shirt. So they trend kinda heavy and not too comfortable. But you’ll be able to wear them through armageddon. Some of them are 10 to 20 years old. So there’s a lot of personal history and/or bullshit associated with them. Not only because of whatever is printed on them that I obviously liked. But also because of where/when I’ve worn them and how they’ve been associated with certain places. I don’t want to get rid of them or necessarily stop wearing them. But I do kinda just want to put them in a box at the bottom of my closet and start over. 

Then there’s the deserving part. I have more than enough varying degrees of uncomfortable shirts, I should just wear them and be done with it. I’m not good enough for new shirts. Especially some new shirts that are obviously designed for workouts and sports. I’m about 40 pounds overweight. I need to lose half that weight first and really get into a routine before I’m approaching good enough for new shirts. Otherwise, I’m just some pudgy poser. 

And I’ve been listening to this bullshit from my internal dialog for the past month, as I have been walking around my neighborhood. Well, we’re almost at the end of the month and I’m still going. And as I’m putting them in the cart and buying them, a 14 year old memory trying to get me to stop pops up. 

From ‘05 to ‘08 I played guitar in an off-off-off Broadway production of Oedipus. We actually did all three plays during that time. And the best way I can describe the production is “What would happen if George Orwell wrote Oedipus, and it played out on American Idol?” In 2006, we played for a week at the Fringe Festival in Brisbane, Australia. My anxiety nearly fucked me on getting a passport, but I was able to get over that. What really fucked me was the NYC blackout of that year, which hit my area for an extended period of time. 

One of the wonderful things about NYC is the laundromats have drop off service and will do your laundry for you. So I dropped off my laundry a few days before I was going to leave for Australia. Well, the fucking blackout took out the laundromat, with my clothes still inside. So I left for Australia with my guitar equipment and an empty suitcase. For some reason, I had insisted I wanted to fly JetBlue from NYC to LA, which meant I needed to take a cab to LAX. This turned into a blessing in disguise because the driver agreed to stop at Target while I ran around the store and bought whatever I thought might look ok. 

The black shirt I bought to wear onstage was an activewear shirt. It was kinda stretchy, but I figured it would hang loose. And of course it didn’t and we’re about to get onstage and I look like a fucking Ring Ding shoved into a muscle shirt. Everyone in the entire cast laughed at me. Finally, the drummer was nice enough to change shirts with me and he wore it. Later on that trip, he gave me the worst purple nurple ever. So this is what’s going through my mind in fucking Costco, and why I didn’t deserve new shirts. But I bought them anyway as a fuck you to that memory. 

And you know what? I took them out of the package and they smelled like chemicals. So I washed them and the neck gaiters and left them out to dry. Then I changed into one of the shirts to play pickleball with my kid yesterday afternoon. AND IT WAS PERFECTLY FINE. Yeah, I’m probably dumb for buying black shirts and I should have bought the white ones. But that’s toxic “oh black looks harder than white” for you/all band shirts are black/get ripped in a year and wear them onstage too. 

To top it off, we went to the pool this afternoon and after I showered, I put on one of my regular t-shirts. And it kinda felt constricting. I can’t wear the black shirts everywhere because they’ll smell like BO in 30 seconds. But I’m going to wear them a lot, and not be embarrassed about them. It’s ok to be comfortable. 

Whither, Music. 

Unsurprisingly, Bernstein’s lectures have led me to bite off more than I can chew. I haven’t been walking on weekends, so I haven’t been listening to him. But I did find a bunch of books I’ve either read too many times or not read enough, and pulled them out. They are:

Aaron Copland - What to Listen for in Music

Howard Goodall - The Story of Music

Glenn Kurtz - Practicing

Philip Toshio Sudo - Zen Guitar

Pat Pattison - Writing Better Lyrics

I haven’t really read anything other than news for a long time. Or I buy books, read some, and never finish them. This is obviously detrimental to my mental health. So like with walking and with writing, I’m going with what interests me. I’m not trying to be busy all the time, but I definitely want to keep from punishing myself like I have done historically. 

I started on Copland’s book last night. I read 25 pages, and that was only the Forward and Preface. So tonight I’m looking to get into at least the first chapter. 

I’ve also been watching some other YouTube videos, particularly “Now Hear This” which is a PBS show about classical music, and another series I found about “how to listen to classical music” from a channel called Inside the Score. Last night I got my Ford Prefect on, and listened to Beethoven’s 5th. Today, I’m listening to Holst’s “The Planets”, which of course is the Leonard Bernstein version. I gotta say, these new headphones sound pretty good. 

Lastly, I’m waiting on the book to Bernstein’s Harvard Lectures, which I will pick out every last piece he talks about, find it on Apple Music, and create a giant playlist. I hope the runners on the American River trail like classical music. They’re gonna hear a lot of it in passing.

[fortheheavenssake]

PG MM Anon Interpretation Collection- 12

77: Oct. 6

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PG INTERPRETATION OF MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

October 6,2019 1407 hrs CST

MM Anon

MM ANON … the Queen …… “ one can’t choose ones family “…… “ Philip loves me doing Melania” …… “I rather liked Donald “ …… “ l frightening Vlad…… “ on our day together she never stopped yapping “ … “Harry ‘ we all make mistakes “… “ the little one, she’s a fireball “ …… “Camilla says she’s illiterate “ … “ what sort of name was that!!!!!”…” What!! Christmas ‘she’ll be lucky “ … “LG ‘ that’s why it’s called the Queens speech ‘ so f#@ck them!!

Oh this is going to be fun!!😄😁😁😁

the Queen

This is a fun riddle, call it HMTQ Greatest Hits DVD 🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂 An assortment of HMTQ comments!

“ one can’t choose ones family “

The old saying you can choose your friends but you cannot choose your family! In processing, strategizing, meetings etc etc, things have been on overload with madam, Harry, and BOJO, that whole political situation. There has got to be some angry frustrated emotions regarding PA, Harry having been caught up in this mess and how things have dragged on and out! All the hacking, invasion of privacy and just generally very poor choices in life by family members.

“ Philip loves me doing Melania”

I hear HMTQ has a wicked sense of humour and loves riddles and mimicry. I can only imagine her trying to do an impression of Melania Trump, her accent, everything. This is hilarious, PP Is reportedly also having that wicked British wry self deprecating or mimicking others too. Oh how l would LOVE to be a fly on the wall!!😁

“I rather liked Donald “

HMTQ gave President Trump and his huge family a real Royal welcome literally! The time spent the Formal dinner, the dinner apt the U.S. Embassy that PC and Camilla attended. It sounds like she got on well with DT, We know he takes such pride and joy in his Scottish heritage from his mum. We also know that he has great respect for HMTQ, so much so he brought his entire family with him. We also know he brought some intel/evidence with him. Thank you sir! HMTQ enjoyed him and the time they spent together!

“ l frightening Vlad

Vlad is not the vampire, it’s Vladimir Putin. I am a bit confused by this because it seems a word is missing, like l am frightening, or l like frightening, hmmm. I think l will go with, he concerns her greatly.

“ on our day together she never stopped yapping “

This is madam and their train overnight trip together. It was seen as such an honour because HMTQ is rare to invite others along on the train and/or an overnight trip. We know from the videos and photos, how hyper madam was, she cut in front of the Queen and entered the car first. During the performance she looked hypomanic, laughing non-stop yapping according to HMTQ’s words. Poor your Majesty, you were able to endure that trip!

“Harry ‘ we all make mistakes “

As a reassuring loving granny, she took his hand in hers and spoke with him. No one is perfect, yeah he screwed up a few times in life, who hasn’t? He was ensnared in a plot that had done years of planning, reconnaissance, and he had absolutely no idea what he was in, until it was too late. Kind of like quicksand, you slowly get sucked in, and the more you move and wrestle trying to get yourself out the quicker you sink and drown. God bless you, your Majesty!

“ the little one, she’s a fireball “

She is talking about Lottie, our beloved Princess Charlotte! She was trending worldwide with her hairflip her first day of school. She is a real ham for the camera, ham meaning like to have fun when her photo is taken. She has a fantastic personality and watching her grow up will be joyous. I also think Savannah Phillips, Princess Anne’s granddaughter, fits this for sure she and Prince George 🤣🤣🤣😂!

“Camilla says she’s illiterate “

We all know Camilla loathes madam, love the video where she repeatedly asks for help🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂. Sounds like her opinion of madam is in line with many others about madams skills in the writing, reading, and language usage and comprehension!

“ what sort of name was that!!!!!”

Arche🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣😂😂. I cannot believe to this day, that name, amw!! I know some think LG played a trick with this name being the same as the last Duke of Sussex eons ago!

” What!! Christmas ‘she’ll be lucky “

Madam is assuming another Christmas with the family she never had. Also that she will still be free and easy, sounds like HMTQ suggesting if she’s still free at Christmas she will be lucky. Lordy please let the handcuffs come soon, let them have their ducks all in a row and clang clang slam, locked cell, orange jumpsuit!

“LG ‘ that’s why it’s called the Queens speech ‘ so f#@ck them!!”

This whole issue of BOJO manipulating HMTQ, now today’s paper saying he didn’t really apologize he just said regret. He is willing to squat in No. 10 if there is a non-confidence vote and he is ousted as Prime Minister. He said they will have to take him in handcuffs! They are trying to sort out who would be the new PM, Brexit deadline, and if an election it would need at least five weeks. So John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons could be interim PM. It’s all up in the air. The Queens speech to the House is to take place October 14,2019. This is her telling LG in no uncertain terms she is duty bound to do this and refuse to be dragged any further into swaying politics on either side. Her job in weekly meetings with PM , is to be informed what’s happening, offer advice but never ever tell what’s to be done!No one else will be giving her speech except her. In a previous riddle we had something about someone else delivering her speech due to health or stress issues, l can’t recall exactly.

💜💜💜MM ANON💜💜💜 I HAVE HAD AN AWESOME FUN TIME DOING THIS RIDDLE💜💜💜

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

October 6,2019 1445 hrs CST

This is great PG such fun for us all! Love it….and love your personality shining through!😊💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

Oct 6th, 2019

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78: oct. 7

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜

MM Anon

MM ANON … Calapornia Dreem-in…… “ To be ‘ or Not to be…” …… “ I made a bit of a boob”……… “ the real Mc- COY darlings “…… “ artistic lie- sense …… “ not my best work”

October 7, 2019 1305 hrs CST

Well MM ANON , This riddle looks short but very unsweeten, the usual saying is short and sweet!

Calapornia Dreem-in

We had Calipornia in a riddle the other day. Today it’s Cala pornia .It seems that alleged tape has risen like a Phoenix from the ashes, online, but lots of disagreement on who the female is. I have ABSOLUTELY NO INTENTION of exposing myself to that. Reminds me of my old Sunday school song, be careful little eyes what you see, ears what you hear, mouth what you say..does anyone else remember that song? Dreem -in, a play on the song California Dreaming by The Mamas and The Papas, it was redone by Wilson Phillips, daughter of Michelle Phillips, Carnie Wilson daughter of Brian Wilson, l cannot recall the third member. They were great, remember Hold On! Great music. Anyhow, l digressed, Dreem,from wiki , is a sleep device that monitors, analyzes, and claims to enhance quality of sleep. It’s a miniaturized and autonomous headband that monitors the quality of sleep and then uses sound to help fall asleep faster, get deeper sleep, and wake up at the optimal time through smart alarm. End wiki.

So we have Calapornia Dreem-in, note California is spelt Cala, either way, the sirens currently flashing loudly is this alleged sex tape online. As l speculated the meaning the other day, is she doing a runner to Cali or Cala?? There are definite spelling alterations to confuse, MM ANON🤨🧐🤔.

Is someone having great difficulty sleeping from hobbies, stress, being picked on by the big bad royal reporters? Might the sleep aid device Dreem being in use, hence the addition of in after the hyphen? To clarify a hyphen is the sign here. - It is used to connect words together so they combine their meanings.

Alternatively perhaps Harry is using this sleep aid to help him sleep. We know all the things we have noticed, weight loss, scruffy clothes/shoes, look very sleep deprived, l am sure he is suffering tremendously as he serves this tour of duty for HMTQ.

“ To be ‘ or Not to be…”

MM ANON is taking us back to Shakespeare, Hamlet’s soliloquy on suicide to deal with all that has happened in his life. Has there been suicidal ideation on part of madam or Harry? Madam l highly doubt, a narcissist never goes there except by accident. We have see a slow descent in our Harry over the last two years, Wright loss, hair loss, scruffy clothes, looks sleep deprived etc etc, adding to that, the pain he appeared to be in, stepping onto that stage in SA and her grinning like a Cheshire Cat, sorry Cheshire, at his agony. I have said numerous times now but l hope upon immediate return to London he was given medical assessment and care, as well as emotional assessment and care. I pray to God l am wrong on this, but l have been concerned. He has been under stress like l have never seen, for over two years!

“ I made a bit of a boob”

A boob, slang wise has had different meanings over the generations. A boob can be a dopey goofy person, it can be a blunder or a boo boo, meaning error or mistake, it can be a term for breast. So who made a bit of a boob? I see the usage here being an error or mistake. I would say the first boob was a bootycall and then underestimating who the attacker was.

I think this could also be a cheeky reference to an alleged video online.

“ the real Mc- COY darlings

The saying the Real McCoy, goes back, at least for me, in the old western movies, not sure if McCoy was a brand of saddle, shotgun, something anyhow. So when someone says, it’s the real McCoy it means it’s 100% real or accurate. Here MM ANON has hyphenated the word McCoy, and elevated the word COY. Coys definition is, according to google, especially with reference to a woman) making a pretense of shyness or modesty that is intended to be alluring. Ok, interpretation, MM ANON is clearly telling us that any alleged sex/porn video is 109% accurate, correct and the actress in it, is her acting role, is acting very coyly. Yuck, l need a shower!🤮🤮🤮🤮

“ artistic lie- sense

To take artistic license is a common phrase meaning , again l will use google, as l want everyone to be able to understand who may not be familiar, “Artistic license (also known as poetic license, historical license, dramatic license, narrative license, or creative license) refers to deviation from fact or form for artistic purposes. It can include alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or the rewording of pre-existing text.”

I have had a number of comments of appreciation from anons for being more elaborative as we have readers from all around the 🌎 🌍 world.

So example, a movie about Invention of the light bulb, let’s say, they add a romance to it, or drama , l hope l am explaining this clearly.

So here MM ANON says Artistic lie-sense, another hyphenated word. So madam as we well know has exaggerated EVERYTHING about herself, some may say lies. Her age, her number of marriages, not knowing anything about the BRF, fake pregnancy etc etc etc.

So , since this alleged sex video is the hot topic, l am thinking the acting would be very fake over dramatic moaning groaning etc etc, likely a person would, to cover past sins, would be inclined to lie about it, say it never happened or the great song by Shaggy, It Wasn’t Me!

“ not my best work”

Again another commonly used phrase especially, like me, l am so self-critical about how I type my interpretations of the riddles, typing, thinking of something after l have submitted it, or just having a bad day at it , l think l might have even wrote this here, this is not my best work.

Artists, musicians, creative people, common phrase!

So if there were an alleged tape, that proved real, one might use that phrase. A tv show might have been the pinnacle or the height of greatest work!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

October 7,2019 1355 hrs CST

Fantastic, thank you so much PG! You make it seem so easy, yet we know there is nothing easy in doing these interpretations! Hats off to you! 😁💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

gstqaobc

Thank you MM ANON 💜💜🙏🏻💜💜 This was quite challenging, l find it’s extremely important to me, as this blog of our dear 🐼, has a worldwide readership and l am trying very hard to explain phrases, words, slang etc, as l take this work very seriously, and l want everyone to be able to understand! Also l am, by character, a very verbally elaborative individual 🤣🤣🤣😂😂. Thank you dear 💜🐼💜 for posting this. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Source: skippyv20

12 notes

Oct 7th, 2019

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79: Oct. 7

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON, THE FIRST ONE WAS TOUGH ENOUGH, THE SECOND RIDDLE IN ONE DAY MEANS SOMETHING BUG🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON … lets move on!!!!…… fab unfore-tunate…… pre tour panic… …a fleet-ing vengeance …… “ don’t take this personally”…… “ you have TWO choices”…… “ get your bloody head out the sand”…… “it’s crumbling around your feet”……… “ baby ‘ what baby?”…… “we’re gonna need a bigger Bank”…… 🎼” if I was a rich man”🎼

Riddle Number Two on October 7, 2019 1735 CST

lets move on!!!!

Time to move on and restart life. Put this information out, let the chips fall where they may. I am certain, based on the FIRST riddle today, that Harry is done, he can take no more. Oh my , how will this be handled, l for one would NOT want to , after several years of being a horrible person, want to be on the receiving end of Fleet streets vengeance! How will details , hundreds of them be told or explained to the public, all the things that have been kept secret, the public will perceive being lied to and paying for that wedding, her clothes etc etc etc. Never mind that, the bigger picture of the plot, the backers!

fab unfore-tunate

Fab Four, the original was the Beatles. When madam came on the scene, and video of them, working on a Heads Together, the media, not sure which, dubbed them the Fab Four. As we know their offices have separated as well as their charities also.Rumours of dodgy money being missing from the charity. They are completely separate in every way now, at least publicly, this has caused an uproar because of madam spending and the varied rumours surrounding merching, and hobbies, and other things that have been on fire today! So much beloved was Harry , everyone wanted him to have the dream of family come true. His madam is loathed, that’s putting it mildly. There is so much public distress at seeing the boys, l will forever call them the boys, break up, fight and publicly sever ties.

pre tour panic

Have unexpected security issues arisen on the upcoming tour to Pakistan of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge scheduled for October 14-18/2019?

We know security is a major issue, as in the memo it stated this is their most complex Royal tour to date. I will keep them in prayer. This tour is essential in continuing relationships building.

a fleet-ing vengeance

Remember Fleet Street, how l explained that in a riddle the other day. MM ANON, l take this as the sh** is going to hit the fan imminently, l have felt an agitation inside for several days. Will they lay bare, pun intended, EVERYTHING they have in the dossier. OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PULL THE HANDLE LET IT ALL SPILL OUT!! It’s time! Harry is at the end of what he can take! SO ARE WE! How this will all be done and handled l have no clue but it’s going to be earth shattering across the U.K., the Commonwealth, the EU, whilstBrexit is so precarious, and the world too. I cannot fathom how HMTQ is feeling and how and when to proceed!

“ don’t take this personally”

So who is not to take this personally? This clue mystifies me. My head is so full, is this relating to BOJO non-apology, in that he regrets what happened with Parliament? That HMTQ being tricked, she shouldn’t take that personally because he was trying to get his own agenda through, the Courts over-ruled him. Of course she is going to take this personally! She needs to be able to trust the PM! BOJO , according to the paper, if there is a noncon vote and he is ousted as PM, he will refuse to leave No. 10 unless in handcuffs. So, yes, BOJO HMTQ is taking it bloody personally!

“ you have TWO choices”…

Two choices, go quietly or a fight will ensue. l remember professionally saying this many times. Cooperate or things will be enforced. In this case confess, plead guilty or not guilty. Is arrest imminent, are these two choices?? Oh please , make it so, to quote Captain Jean-Luc Picard! Are the choices, leave the U.K. of face charges. I can’t see that totally but then again a lot of money laundering trials have brought down mob bosses.That song should l stay or should l go now? Is blaring through my head!!

“ get your bloody head out the sand”

Whose got their head in the sand on this? This is definitely PP, might he be taking a stern tone with HMTQ? Action needs to be taken imminently, the press are on the precipice of unloading a ton of very very bad things. It would be easier, although none of this will be easier, but it would be easier if HMTQ gave a public video, like Christmas Day, and as she did with Diana. If they can publicly get ahead of the media, might soften the blow. Perhaps announce a separation, then the press can go hog wild. Either way it’s going to be Annus Horibilus on steroids!!!

“it’s crumbling around your feet”…

The love and loyalty towards Harry is doing exactly that, crumbling around him. If things continue and madam resumes appearances in the U.K. or joint appearances , PARDON THE PUN🤣🤣🤣😂 joint🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂 sorry, l need a laugh, this is a tough riddle and the second one of the day!the reception will be vile, also possibly dangerous, such is the loathing at this point. This is having an effect on the entire BRF . The continuing question, why doesn’t HMTQ do something. Thank God for the Cambridges.

“ baby ‘ what baby?”

Oh are we going to play ignorant know?use those fabulous acting skills. I never had a baby, never was pregnant what are you talking about all innocent? Whose baby was that in SA? His or her photo will go down in history as being passed off as a royal baby.This could also be read, as to a lover, baby( name for lover), what baby? Many many people knew it was a fake pregnancy, surrogate used but whose egg and whose male DNA was used? Was it done in SA. Or was that a rent-a-baby? This is all so seedy makes my skin crawl with disgust!

“we’re gonna need a bigger Bank”

Again with the Jaws reference🤨. MM ANON DO I GET A TREAT FIR WORKING OVERTIME DIING TWO RIDDLES IN ONE DAY?🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂This hacking lawsuit is going to cost tens of millions, however it may well possibly reveal the identities, the length of time, what they did with the information they gathered,and was it a bad actor or actors who did this. Now when l use the term bad actor, it has nothing to do with movies or tv. A bad actor has become the term used when talking about individuals who betray their country, spy, commit crimes etc, it cal also be a foreign national also. . Has that decision been rescinded, just to pay her off, she can leave go back to U.S. I don’t know, there are alleged crimes, the British people and Commonwealth who haven’t taken the time to look below for the facts still loathe her. How this will all play out without totally destroying the Monarchy l do not know.

As far as paying madam to go, there was a one time deal offered before the wedding, it was allegedly accepted but changed her mind and went ahead with the unhappy day. Is there a chance they have decided to offer again just to leave, the legal case she filed is her problem. Any potential legal problems, or illegal acts that may have been committed and money owed on taxes, all her problem. I can hardly think after all this they would cave in, I HOPE NOT!

… 🎼” if I was a rich man”🎼

I have been singing since l saw this clue. This is from the musical Fiddler on The Roof! The entire song, sang and performed by a poor beggar man living on the slums but he had a fiddle AKA a violin. The whole entirety of the lyrics are him imagining being a man of fantastic wealth and the houses he would build, the life he would live, endless time to do whatever you want, buy whatever you want, just completely unencumbered. This is how many see the royals. Harry especially has taken unbelievable backlash for his spouses extravagant clothes spending, repeated use of private jet, the perception of being preached at regarding climate change . The last straw for the media was that blasting furiously letter , that accompanied the information that he had filed in court, directed at the media after what had by and part, in comparison with the other behaviour was a positively reported visit to various countries in Africa! The last snap though, was his perceived treatment of Rhiannon Mills of Sky News when he scolded her, as some saw things, watch the video, decide for yourself!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

October 7,2019 1850 hrs

Great job PG! Wow! If I could, one scenario has been they let MM go, and she is taken care of back in the US….so that might be the reference to two choices…she will NOT walk…she will face justice..in UK or in US! Thank you for doing these riddles today! So appreciated!😊💜💜💜💜💜💜

gstqaobc

It could be any, l am exhausted after two riddles, the last one being extremely difficult in how to word things without opening oneself up to legal issues and to not offend etc etc etc. As for Fiddler on the Roof, l deliberately not bring up his ethnicity because sometimes people do not like that, l bend over backwards, metaphorically, TO NOT UPSET ANYONE or be perceived as judgemental etc. My brain 🧠 is tired, my words aren’t flowing right. GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦 I do my best, give my all, we all work together. 💜💜🐼🙏🏻🙏🏻🐼💜💜 Thank you 🐼 for creating this wonderful place💜💜💜🐼🙏🏻🙏🏻🐼💜💜🐼😊😊🐼👋🐼💜

Source: skippyv20

——————

80: oct 9

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

skippyv20

MM ANON … fab two ‘ future Queen……future king …… also rans …… three weddings and a refusal …… Archie-bargy …… a dog with no name …… silent screaming past…… 🎼” there may be trouble ahead “🎼…… “ if I tell you ‘ I’d have to…… “…… everyone is scarfing …… (another private flight)…… Branson island … Mail on payday… … “ please boo the buggers”

October 9/2019 0105 hrs CST

SORRY l am so late, l had a rest day😊💜

fab two ‘ future Queen

Well who on earth could this possibly be referencing 🤣🤣🤣? Of course it is our beloved Cambridge’s, Their HRH Duke and Duchess! Who needs a Fab Four, when we have the FAB TWO? They are brilliant. The Royal tour to Pakistan (unless something happened whilst l slept the day away, haven’t read the news) will be a Master Class in how a Royal, representing HMTQ, conducts oneself. Catherine, HRH The Duchess of Cambridge has fully come into her own, in this role and it’s been marvellous to watch her bloom. I think some of us kind of took her for granted until we saw the horrors of the other one. She will make a brilliant Queen Consort, once the time comes.

future king

This could be referencing Prince Charles, Prince William or Prince George. Are we not blessed to live in a time with three future kings? Amazing! Given the pending Royal tour representing HMTQ in Pakistan 🇵🇰, l believe this is referencing HRH Prince William. He too, has come into his own, fabulous, loving supportive wife, they have a beautiful healthy family. Their minds are sound and are raising well rounded children. We will se William, on this tour, conducting himself above reproach, and can envision him well in his penultimate role as His Majesty, when the time comes.

also rans

Let’s head to our favourite friend google for a few definitions, a loser in a race or other contest, especially by a large margin, OR, PAY ATTENTION KIDS😁an undistinguished or unsuccessful person or thing. Now let’s just skip past the first one and jump on the second definition. Undistinguished person, BOJO fits, only because he manipulated HMTQ, but we’re not political. I know without a lot of explaining or elaboration because you have all been passengers on the Skipoy🐼 train, you know of many undistinguished deeds that are public, just you wait Henry Higgins, just you wait, sorry l jumped into a My Fair Lady song 🤣🤣😂😂, can’t help myself!

three weddings and a refusal

Three wedding and a Funeral, the write of that film, Richard Curtis, is working with Catherine on a mental health campaign, l can’t recall what it’s called just now. Anyhow this is three weddings and a refusal. William and Catherine, Harry and her, Eugene’s and Jack, whose the refusal? Are we referencing CD? She goes way back, but …..but…..but…… l am saying no more!

Archie-bargy

Is this boss Prince Louis’ name for Archie or the other Cambridge children? We know twitter calls a baby bubs 🤮🤮Or is it LG? Not joking at all about a real child but at the persona created for this infamous fauxmegnancy, fauxmegbirth, fauxmegworld, etc etc etc etc.

a dog with no name

I know , my friend, rescued greyhounds from the racetracks in America where they were , can’t say it, but used and abused, and brought them to Canada. This is a well known animal/humanitarian organization that rescues a variety of animals. The title literally, it means they want no dog to not have a name. When an animal has a name, it gives them meaning, they’re smart they know what their name is and respond to it, maybe not always the way we want🤣🤣😂😂, but they do? So who is the dog with no name in the human form , is it the victims of JE? The ones that have come forth have a name. I know there has to be many more, unnamed to us at this time. Or worse will never be known. When you see and hear VRG speak and tell of her experience it adds the real humanity factor, it takes it from words on paper or hidden abstract to literal, in your face truth! I pray for all the victims of human trafficking known and unknown 🙏🏻.

silent screaming past

Does anyone recall the documentary The Silent Scream? I most certainly do, its about abortion. I wonder who this might be about? I have long suspected there might have been several of those in the past of someone.

🎼” there may be trouble ahead “🎼

But music and dancing, MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE PAUR , THANK YOU MM ANON FOR THIS CLUE. Memories, Fred Estaire singing this, dancing with the unbelievablly gorgeous Ginger Rogers. Fred used to say, or was it Ginger, no, matter, he was talented, but she was amazing because she had to do everything backwards and in heels🤣🤣😂😂.Now interpretation, let’s face the music, it means face your reward but more often it’s face your punishment and own up to what you have done wrong. Here we have it, PA, it’s time for him to not dance but face the music. Sounding like an order from up top has been given, he must comply with authorities, be interviewed, be truthful! Face the music!

“ if I tell you ‘ I’d have to…… “

This is an old saying, does anyone remember the spoof spy show Get Smart? Hilarious, l grew up watching that, about spy who goofed up, had a phone in the sole of his shoe?🤣🤣😂😂 Anyone, the saying is, if l tell you, I will have to kill you. My oh my oh my, what secrets are held, l certainly wouldn’t want to be in this position! But who is!

everyone is scarfing

William adjusting his scarf to avoid interacting with madam, has taken on a life of its own online🤣🤣🤣😂😂. We know, the entire BRF, to the public, is scarfing, the Harry, and her, l believe 100% behind the scenes, there is plenty of love and support for Harry to get through this horror!

(another private flight)

Have they taken another private flight? And to where? Necker Island?? Or points beyond? I think they any public appearance in the U.K. now would be disastrous especially for a narcissist. I wonder how Prince Harry’s appearances on the 10th for International Mental Health Day will go? I do so hope that he is well received 🙏🏻🙏🏻.

Branson island

Sir Kenneth Branson owns his own island as well in the Caribbean, he calls it Necker Island. Do you recall the horrible fire that occurred there a few years back? Kate Winslett, the actress literally went in and rescued either his mum or grandmother. No matter, this island has been a getaway for many celebrities and royals for years. Is there a connection with JE and his island?

Mail on payday

Ha ha, when the storms blows in, they will get a massive payday, of that l am certain. In public opinion, the DM comments are full of loathing and anger, they sometimes have comments that things are not appearing ie comments or they vanish. When the story(or stories, truth) are published ad revenues and sales will skyrocket!!

“ please boo the buggers”

PP voicing his approval for this to happen when a certain couple or individual appears in an official capacity or not, just do as he said!!! Now that would be above Camilla’s video begging help! Help! 🙃🤣🤣🤣

Submitted October 9/2019 0204 hrs CST

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG! This again looks interesting…oh what fun lies ahead! Thank you, much appreciated!😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

—————-

81: Oct. 9

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

October 9/2019 1500 hrs CST

MM Anon

MM ANON …… “ sorry, not today thank you “…… never EVER explain …… “what happens in house, stays in-house”. ……a special briefing …… another cover-up?…… … glowing anticipation …… special forces …… “unprecedented care”…… a very tired PR …… public appearance nerves …… “we’ll pay you handsomely”…… “she’ll do it or suffer the consequences”

“ sorry, not today thank you “

Jeremy Corbyn, Labour leader, has said today, that the Queen should appoint him as PM if BOJO loses a non-confidence vote. Firstly HMTQ does not appoint leaders, they are elected by the public. So sorry, Mr. Corbyn, not today, thank you.

never EVER explain

Since the Queen mum was Queen, it has been the motto of the way the Royal family has dealt with any rumours or gossip about themselves or their work. Never complain, never explain. This has an extra ever, all caps. So MM ANON is telling us , when this happen, as things unfold legally or with the marriage, there will be a considerable amount of things that will not ever EVER be explained to us. We must prepare for that. They have been playing this game a long time and are champions, the Crown never loses. So we ask ourselves how will things come out, what will happen to madam or Archie, lots of things will remain classified, this is a big thump warning us!

“what happens in house, stays in-house”.

The saying what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. In other words, confidentiality and discretion are key. So whatever may be observed or noted by staff they cannot talk about outside of the house they work in, be it KP, BP, Windsor Castle etc etc. I think LG is running a tight ship, we are nearing the destination of an endpoint in this masquerade and he wants no leaks out , no warning at all of their plans, lest their attackers use that information. Perhaps in reference to Richard Palmer?

a special briefing

Did the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge receive a special briefing regarding their upcoming Royal tour? It would be very important that they be aware of exactly everything that is planned, possible changes and security issues.

another cover-up?

What on earth could this be referencing? Is this related to PA and his connection with JE? There are some conflicting facts that l have read in different articles. The latest l read, was that New York visit, when he was at JE mansion, the purpose of that visit was to end his friendship due to JE arrests and crimes/pedophelia in Florida. Now one would think a simple phone call would suffice. At the time this first arose he denied having been intimate with VRG, the Palace statement reflected that, Met case closed. Many people feel that was washed away. Now it’s come back, he is still denying having been intimate, VRG is sticking firm with her story. And then there is that pesky photograph!!! Is there something else being cleverly hidden? I surely hope not and for HMTQ sake, l wish PA would do the right thing and cooperate. He will drag his feet l am sure, he’s done so thus far.

glowing anticipation

They say women who are pregnant have a special glow about them. Are we anticipating an announcement?? Who could it be? Princess Eugenie, to me, is the most likely candidate. That would be simply marvellous news!

special forces

Is this related to the Pakistan 🇵🇰 Royal tour? I very well think it might be, the security risk is high, we have high ranking royals, and ongoing assessment, along with tightly kept destinations and places they will visit. Safety first!

“unprecedented care”

Is this medical/emotional care for Harry after returning from Africa? Is that the type of care meant here? Or is there unprecedented care and concern expressed for HMTQ and PP through this incredibly stressful time, adding Her Speech to the House this Monday, October 14/2019. Or more concerning yet is this regarding HMTQ or PP health? I think ultimately this means, the Pakistan 🇵🇰 tour, they are undertaking their most complex tour, as per statement on the tour stated, and security and their staff are taking unprecedented care and implementing measures to ensure safety, security and a very successful Royal tour and relationship building.

a very tired PR

I am sure the Palace PR staff are beyond exhausted as madams numerous PR firms are at it, and being well paid. Tired can also mean blah, sedate, uninteresting, repetitive, and that’s what her PR is, the same fantastical stories, fabricated and dull.

public appearance nerves …

Harry will make his first official day of events tomorrow, to recognize October 10/2019 International Mental Health Day. I imagine he is a bundle of nerves given all that has happened on and since his last day in Africa. Not scheduled but l wonder if madam will gatecrash or attempt to.

“we’ll pay you handsomely”

Are they purchasing a video, l thought certain they already had it. Perhaps there is more information from past or lost years on offer, l am certain there would be no doubt if it was authentic and verifiable it would be purchased. Usually when the term pay you handsomely is used, it’s kind of like someone keeps your secret or in tv/film, it’s a private detective digging up dirt and gets rewarded handsomely for his work. MM ANON, l would love to know where some of these clues come from,,they can go many ways and some l can’t figure out!!

“she’ll do it or suffer the consequences”

They need madam to do something or appear at some royal event, but she’s terrified of the crowd, if there is a crowd, of whomever is there, what their response will be. There is to be no discussion, she must do this! I just wish l had a clue what ‘this’ was!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Submitted October 9/2019 1605 hrs CST

Thank you dear PG! Things are sure getting interesting. Again…in awe of your riddle skills! So appreciated😊💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

Oct 9th, 2019

—————-

82: Oct. 10

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻PLEASE PRAY I HAVE NO MORE POWER OUTAGES!

It’s Thanksgiving weekend, we have a massive snowstorm that is supposed to go until Saturday 🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

💜💜🙏🏻🙏🏻THANK YOU MM ANON🙏🏻🙏🏻💜💜

MM Anon

MM ANON ……corespondents under the radar …… “MA to MM”…… 🎼” gimme a ticket for an aeroplane”🎼…… “ my baby wrote me a letter” “ I’ve seen the contents of several”…… ‘ thank you LG.”…… “were in need of another f#@ing hole”…… Sheeran a common problem ……” drag her along ‘ your joking”… not seen’ not heard, GOOD!!!!…… Christmas 🧣 scarfs …… 🎼Back in the USA”🎼…… “friends thou hast and their adoption tried ”…(very trying!!!)

October 10/2019

1430 hrs CST

corespondents under the radar

Oh dear oh my, madam, and creepy eyes guy have kept in touch. I can only imagine the level of filth, schemings and depravity in those conversations, emails, snail mails, after all she is a calligrapher, roll eyes now. Well this is very interesting!

“MA to MM”

Hmmmm sound abbreviated, oh they’re so clever those kids, surely no one would recognize those initials and connect them back to those two!! I truly wonder what he has been up to, was he the last guest at Misha NoNoo wedding who arrived in big car, huge hat and coat, immediately surrounded by guards protecting him. Where has he been? Good gracious l have a zillion questions needing answered!!

🎼” gimme a ticket for an aeroplane”🎼

Old song, l know the song, looked on google for the performer, never heard before but they are called the Box Tops. The lyrics are all about someone desperately longing to be with their baby again, because a letter was received. l think baby is lover, not a baby baby🤣🤣. I think she’s begging him to send her a ticket to leave London !! Anyway anyhow before next week!! To avoid that public appearance? Running scare are we Rachel?

“ my baby wrote me a letter” “ I’ve seen the contents of several”

It’s lyrics from the same song as previous clue . Letters, plural, the plot thickens. I shall, out of respect for LG, assume that all of their contacts and interactions in every way shape or form, have been well monitored and documented. LG, were l wearing a 🎩 hat, l would take it off to you sir! You played her brilliantly!!

‘ thank you LG.”

Just what l was thinking and just typed. I am sure many have been thanking him, he has played the long game and has won. The timer isn’t out yet, but there is no way for her to win. I think this may be HMTQ speaking to LG. He has returned to serve HMTQ, serving her until the end!

“were in need of another f#@ing hole”

Oh dear, oh dear, how much more horrible trash about madam are they having to bury because it’s so extreme? I know there is so much that will need to be kept classified , buried if you like, for the BRF to recover. What on earth is all going on? There is so much unknown and the British people, all of us who care, are at the end.

Sheeran a common problem

Ed Sheehan, who has massive problems with his neighbors and his building things, that’s a whole other topic. Ed Sheehan , the musician, did a clever bit of humour, GINGERS UNITE🤣🤣😂😂. But in all seriousness, today is International Mental Health Day, Sheehan is a play on the word sharing a common problem. They both have experienced times of depression and feel the strong need to destigmatize it. Whilst here it’s a massive winter storm, as l type this, my power has been out for a good hour, good thing l saved the riddle and charged the iPad. BUT I AM FREEZING 🥶!

I just called the power, they said so many outages they have no idea when it will return😩😩😫😫😖😖I AM 🥶 COLD!!!

” drag her along ‘ your joking”

Prince Harry and madam are due to attend the Well Child benefit October 15/2019. I assume madam has zero or less than zero, great film by the way, l digress, interest in doing anything remotely public for fear of what could happen. Booing, throwing rotten tomatoes? This was referred to in yesterday’s riddle. Harry has been told to drag her along if she refuses to go. He is being given firm order on what he is to do. In no way, shape or form, will she be allowed to NOT attend!

not seen’ not heard, GOOD!!!!

There is an old saying, children should be seen and not heard. With madam, who doesn’t posses a gram of maternal instinct, this is her delight, she can do whatever she wants, a doll can be ignored. However l truly believe this is how the British people and people around the Commonwealth and the world are elated not to see or hear her word salad speeches. Hence the all caps, exclamation marks GOOD!!!

Christmas 🧣 scarfs

I wonder if this is going to be a gag gift, l know it has taken a life of its own online! This truly, l believe means, if madam is still around at Christmas, she will be “scarfed” from any Royal family Christmas dinners etc. A general, familywide scarfing, the ultimate! 🧣

🎼Back in the USA”🎼

Old song, classic Chuck Berry, fabulous when no computers for instruments, guitars were needed. This song is entirely about someone returning home to America, describing the sites and sounds of various places. Madam is deeply homesick and wants to go home. Yet she wants a massive celebrity life and fame. She has become infamous, history will tell of this. I think l have said this before but she may just end up in a massive, massive very expensive fully staffed home. However, the home may have locks but she gets no key to it!

“friends thou hast and their adoption tried ”

Shakespeare again MM ANON , again to my favourite , Hamlet. I will share the entire piece.

“Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.”

Loyal friends, keep them as close as you can. Hold onto them, deeply in your very soul. This can be healthy or a very sick relationship. This is mm and ma, they are interwoven in each other, evil purpose, money, lust, filth, disgust. The hoops of steel MM ANON has challenged us with this before. My, my, my , are these two, who have been bound by this sick relationship going to be bound by hoops of steel aka handcuffs at the end of the day?? Oh l hope so. I want all this filth gone!! Banished!

(very trying!!!)

INDEED, DISGUSTINGLY SO!!!

October 10/2019 1700 hrs CST

SORRY SO LATE WE HAD A TWO HOUR POWER OUTAGE!

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦

Thank you dear PG….so sorry about the power outage….the west suffer through these often…….Then again so does the east! The joys of Canada fall/winter. I’m just sorry you are so cold. We too have snow. This riddle is now tying the connection to MA and MM….as is our new Anon…Emails, sexting, and videos. So, we can expect more on the pair! Thank you dear PG, I know it’s been a battle for you today, so much appreciated!🙏🏻💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Ask Skippy submission

————-

[musicgoonmail]

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Walnut Notes: Trusting God with Endora Pan

Endora Pan is a worship leader and small group leader at our church, FCBC Walnut. We talked bout her exhortation from our online worship service, recording her vocals for video worship, and small groups during the time of COVID-19. This episode was recorded LIVE on IGTV and you can watch the video on YouTube.

Endora and I have been about the music ministry since the first day we met, so it was good to see her on screen during our online worship service. We talked about how she was still raising her hands in a recorded video, and I was honestly very encouraged. I have been trying to grow in my physical expressiveness during musical worship, and maybe COVID-19 is what it's going to take to make me go all-in when we get back to church.

Walnut Notes: Remembering God in All Things with Jon Ng

Jon Ng is a Sunday School teacher at FCBC Walnut. Due to COVID-19, we moved our Sunday School class online. We shared a devotion with our students and I saved it to share with the rest of our church. We recorded LIVE on Zoom and you can watch the video on YouTube. Here's his main point: Keeping God at the forefront of all actions and thoughts is wise, but when we forget about God, everything is worthless.

I think recording these videos works well for my Sunday School class, and I am happy to share them with the rest of the church. I teach the 11th and 12th grade class, but we also invited the 9th and 10th grades to join us when we have the live class session. Over on Facebook, I've been playing with adding captions - and the 10-15 minute video length is perfect for me to get the job done.

Dive In Dig Deep: IGTV Guide

I have been recording unboxing videos of the books I receive to review over on Instagram. I wanted an easy way to keep track of them, so I created an IGTV Guide. I group my episodes into different seasons, and they are rather arbitrary, but in my mind they are based off of the waves of books that I get in a certain time period.

What I hope to do is introduce more video content. Of course I still plan to be book-based. But experimenting with live interviews and sharing some music on my stories has seemed to work well. In my feeds, it seems like the LIVE trend is starting to wind down. But I still see more and more people - and Christian ministries for that matter - trying to make an impact. This Twitter thread from NYT Styles reporter Taylor Lorenz has some great insights into what's currently going on in influencer culture.

Book Reviews

This week I reviewed two sets of books from The Good Book Company. These books read like a commentary but feel like a devotional. Check out my reviews of Luke 1-12 For You by Mike McKinley, Luke 12-24 For You by Mike McKinley, John 1-12 For You by Josh Moody, and John 13-21 For You by Josh Moody.

Reading has been difficult for me during quarantine, so this week I made it my goal to read and review one book per day. They were shorter books, so I made sure to pick them up instead of surfing on my phone. Writing reviews came easily sine the books were still fresh in my mind. I should be able to take it easier next week, and I'm looking forward to having a clearer calendar.

Playlists

I kept playing the HSMTMTS soundtrack, and it's been growing on me. There's a lot of filler tracks from the movie, and I think only a few of the tracks can stand on their own outside of the context of the movie - but that's okay. Unlike the original HSM, I don't quite care to revisit the actual film. In this case, the songs will suffice.

MUSICGOON: 10 songs I enjoyed this week.

SVRGNLA: Jess and I love these songs.

ETJ: Music that inspires my band.

DIDD: A crowd-sourced worship playlist.

TGIF: Crowd-sourced for SOLA Network.

This is FCBC Walnut: Sunday setlists.

Extended Play

Speaking of Disney, we watched all episodes of The Imagineering Story on Disney+ and I highly recommend it for any fan of Disneyland. As a child of the 90s, the series started picking up for me at Episode 3 where former CEO Michael Eisner came into the picture. Before we had kids, Jess and I were blessed to go to every Disney Park in the world, so it was nice to revisit them and see the story behind them.

The article that impacted me the most this week was Churches, You Don’t Have to Compete with Disney+ by Vermon Pierre for The Gospel Coalition. As the social media officer for FCBC Walnut, I can give my input, but the pastors are the ones controlling the big pieces of content. Overall, I think we're doing a good job. We need to be wise, adjust for our church context, and be flexible to change. This Twitter thread from DesiringGod's Tony Reinke offers some great advice regarding content strategies for pastors during the COVID-19 crisis. I don't agree with everything, but it's definitely a good place to start.

Throwback: They Do All Their Deeds to be Seen by Others: 4 Resolutions for Creative Christians

Movie: The Imagineering Story

TV: HSMTMTS

Article: Churches, You Don’t Have to Compete with Disney+ by Vermon Pierre

Book: Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

Song: Out of the Old by Olivia Rodrigo for HSMTMTS

Coming Soon

I'll be recording my friend Joyce Ho's Sunday School devotion this weekend, and I'm scheduled to give the next one. I'm a bit nervous about being recorded, but if my Sunday School teachers are open to doing it then I should be willing to join them. I've actually been thinking about how I can better pivot to video across different platforms, and after next Sunday I'll be carefully considering my options.

I have book reviews lined up and ready to go for next week. I've been shying away from hosting my own book giveaways, but I'm working with IVP right now to try a partnership for something fun soon.

Weekly Review

SOLA: How Chinese Pastors Developed Their Theology for Suffering / The Sanctifying Grace of Inefficiency / Goodnight Chinatown.

Thank God it’s Friday: The new issue of Themelios / A new hymn from Jane Kang and Heidi Tai / God does the magic in disciplemaking / What sins disqualify a pastor for life?

Book Review: John 13-21 For You by Josh Moody

Book Review: John 1-12 For You by Josh Moody

Book Review: Luke 12-24 For You by Mike McKinley

Book Review: Luke 1-12 For You by Mike McKinley

Dive In Dig Deep: IGTV Guide

Walnut Notes: Trusting God with Endora Pan

Walnut Notes: Remembering God in All Things with Jon Ng

Recommended Reading: The Sanctifying Grace of Inefficiency / Four Ways to Build and Sustain a Healthy Worship Ministry / Goodnight Chinatown / Jeremy Lin on the Coronavirus, Hate, and What he is Doing about It

[yourrahadkhan-blog]

1 Best 26 Free Android apps For 2019

We can say for our phone “everything in the little” like hand-sized supercomputers, high definition display and battery of days, but you can’t take their full advantage if you are away from best android apps.

The variety of Android apps is continuously growing. There are apps for almost everything, about more than 1 million apps are available on Google Play Store today!

It has been 10 years since the Android system was first released by Google and now it’s gone higher than ever, but quantity doesn’t mean quality. You can go as further as you can while searching for some good apps but the list will never end probably. So here are some best android apps and the best android games for 2019.  

Best Social Apps 2019:

You can get in touch with the world through stunning social media trends. However, people have always been looking for some ways to connect with each other, Which is now easily possible with numerous social apps that have ways to make you socially active and happy with family, friends, and with social trends!

Twitter

‘Tweets’ are now ruling the social media for most. The stack twitter is much good for posting your opinions and thoughts on which the whole world can react.

Facebook

The most easily accessible app you will ever found to keep yourself entertained as well as connected. Everyone is easy here so you can enjoy here with friends and family or you can see funny memes and gifs.

Messenger

This app is related to Facebook and used for chatting. You can just enter into with your Facebook account and start with emoji’s, video calling and better notification system. This great app will also work with Snapchat and Instagram soon, so get ready for all in the package.

Instagram

When it comes to beauty and quality of social apps, Instagram is always hitting hard. It is popular for stories and beauty filters you must try!

Snapchat

It includes a range of different task, you can share short videos “snaps”, do message, live video chatting, epic, and funny face filters and the story option will definitely impress you. It also offers you store your media to private storage so it’s hard not to say about its uniqueness.

Best Android Games 2019:

The best way to entertain yourself and increase your problem-solving skills is to play games. You can get active with improved multitasking ability to make you refresh and happy. The gaming list is too wide, but the below-mentioned games are addictive and comfortable with players.

Clash Of Clans

One of the widely supported and played a game of 2019 is Clash of Clans. Against millions of online players, you can create your own territory and set your rule for friends and foe. You should try it once for getting stuck into it.

PUBG Mobile

PUBG mobile is gone too strong for the year 2018 and still going stunning in early 2019. The variety of maps and team-leading can make you a warrior so be careful, it’s gameplay is highly addicting.

Asphalt 8: Airborne

Unleash your speeding spirit and go for the best ever racing game. Fill up your nitro bottles and go for ahead. This all-time favorite game is Eight versions of Asphalt racing games which is showing great performance even after, Asphalt 9: Overdrive is released.

NFL Kicker

Choose your favorite team there and be a legend NFL kicker! It’s casual for playing yet very enjoyable. You can pass even hours of playing this game for beating the high scores.

Trivia Crack

Well versed in old fashion and the award-winning game always fits great to battle with your friends. You can connect it from Facebook and enjoy it with your friends for hours.

Subway Surfers

To get away from the police inspector, you have to keep jumping, rolling and running. Subway Surfers has many characters to be unlocked and play with. You can set your high score and share it to the game server and be a lifetime runner.

Best Online Stores 2019:

We all don’t want to mess with bazaar and crowd for searching what looks good to us. The online shopping store is a quick and easy option now. You can make your whole kind of shopping done with ease through the mentioned apps. Wide and trusted names are always available and ready for us to be delivered.

Amazon

Amazon is now ruling the online store industry and is one of the biggest and most trusted selections around. You can probably spend hours there while shopping, it has special discounts and other offers to keep the people interested in it. However, It is best and fast.

eBay

It has plenty of stuff for that you can use it. It facilitates customer to customer relationship for being used. Their selling options are good so you should check it out now!

CPro for Craiglist

It is popular and mostly used wide for shipping. But be careful with scams and caution provided, you should always meet your seller or buyer at a safe and well-known place. Just go with it and deal with variety.

Paypal

While you are using these all online markets, you may need to focus on your balances for purchase. You can check all incoming and outgoing payments for various projects. So PayPal is basically holding your all records including receipts for PayPal debit card purchases and others.

Meh Notifier

This app works great with the mobile version and lets you always bought from here. You can use it easily yet effectively.

Recommended Android Apps for 2019:

There are thousands of other excellent apps other than I mentioned above, but here are some apps that we recommend you to install them in your mobile and have a great experience with the Android apps army.

Google Play Music

If you are a music lover and can’t stop listening to your favorite song then Google Play Music makes it easy to choose your themed playlists for moods, genres and weekly highlights of new tunes. It can store thousands of your own songs, that are always ready to play with All-access subscription. Start using it now! I really hope you will like it.

Netflix

Netflix has over 148 million total subscriptions including free trials from the whole world. So you can that such a big audience is only here because they are doing good and working for real entertainment. You can spend hours watching thousands of TV series, movies and much more using Netflix.

Instagram

You may fall in love with Instagram after using it because of its the environment. You can see your followed friends stories and upload yours for once who follow you. Another cause is that you can meet the celebrities you like and follow them to see what they are doing in their real lives.  

Whatsapp

The fun messaging app is free and with multiple options of chatting like, there are bundles of all types of emoji. You can do chatting, voice messaging, video calling and so on with its status feature. Just upload picture or video you like and know what your all saved contacts are thinking about it.

Youtube

Completely free and most easy to use website is Youtube I would say. It never fails to amaze me with their creative content creators and official music brands. You can just sign up using your Gmail account to enter and start surfing.

Dropbox

Still the most usable and easy to run cloud storage you will ever find. You can upload your file to their servers and take it whenever and where ever you want. It works fast and secured so it’s a must-have for now. You will be attached to it after using it just once because I’m sure you will find it useable and important.

Google Maps

Google has everything you need! Even if you need directions to your place, navigation instructions or just finding something specific then Google Maps app is familiar with your all routes. Just choose your destination and directly reach there.

Zedge

Zedge has the biggest and chosen collection of wallpapers, backgrounds, text alerts, ringtones and so on. Just install the Zedge app, choose your required things and make your mobile better.

So, You may check all Best Android Apps for 2019, They are selected from a broad list of best apps so you can choose quickly choose from our list and be ready for best ever Android experience.

[tonguetiedmag]

music: weekly roundup (our favorite song submissions of the week)

Eden Warsaw - Pink California

Eden Warsaw has truly brought the game to another level with the track "Pink California". The vocals are the kind that just won’t leave your head. They're seductive yet haunting and keep the listener fully captivated with every lyric. The beat feels electric and intense, making it hard not to groove to. Towards the end of the track, he sings "I will show you amazing." We think, that with this track, he did.

Jack Gray - My Hands

If you were to ask an Amazon Alexa to define the phrase “catchy song”, this track would be the first on the list. The inspiration behind this track was given to the artist when his friend opened up to him about his partner at the time and how he was confused about his feelings for her. The beat of the song has a nice blend of 90’s pop with modern indie pop and it's the combination we never knew we needed. It’s a song you just can’t help but dance to and that’s why it’s a part of our weekly recommendations for you.

Elias Boussnina - Candy

It's safe to say “Candy” by Elias Boussnina should be included in the category “songs that get better and better with repeated play” and we’re definitely not complaining. The track talks about “that feeling you get when you’re insecure in your relationship”, as Boussnina says himself. The beat is very catchy and easy to groove to, making it impossible not to fall in love with. The catchy chorus and danceable beat makes this track a must.

Alignments - Paige

Pretty vocals and gentle guitar chords are the way to go when creating a sentimental track. The lyrics talk about the struggles the artist has gone through but she “won’t blame the alignments for this one.” It’s hard to make yourself vulnerable to the world, but the all-too-real lyrics only make us love the song even more. She does end on a positive note, though, saying “eventually the good days come.”

Adam Wendler - All or Nothing

The artist opens up the song with the lyrics “we’re cold and we’re broken. Lost in the wide open; so far from the way we used to be” accompanied by a hopeless-sounding guitar. Based off those lyrics, it’s safe to assume the track will summarize how lost the artist is in the world, however, he does the complete opposite. Accompanied by rich harmonies, the artist sings “it’s been a long time coming and I’ve had my doubts. Gotta keep on running. It’s all or nothing now.” He continues to talk about how he makes-do with what he has and how “there’s no place” he’d “rather be.” It’s a song that will reassure and restore hope in any listener in the form of a catchy tune.

MONOWHALES - Let It Go

‘Let It Go’ by MONOWHALES makes it physically impossible not to rock out to the guitar riffs. The beat of the song gives off a rock and roll vibe mixed with a little pop. The vocals sound sweet and pretty but, just like the beat, have a bit of rock in them and it’s the combination we were looking for, without knowing it. If highly energetic beats and bold yet pretty vocals are your thing, this track is definitely a worthy listen.

Noah Kahan - False Confidence

Noah Kahan has truly outdone himself with his new single ‘False Confidence’. The lyrics seem to talk about the artist’s struggles with keeping his self-esteem high and how it’s easy for him to gain and lose it. He delves into this all-too-real issue to the tune of a folk-pop beat and accompanies it with rough yet smooth vocals. The message behind the song is definitely one this generation can relate to and that’s why it’s our weekly recommendation for you.

Bulow - Two Punks in Love

For all the hopeless romantics out there searching for new love songs, ‘Two Punks in Love’ is the way to go. The track tells a story of “two punks in love” and how they continuously work to keep their love alive, even through the rough patches. The gentle guitar chords make the experience all the more sentimental and emotional for the listener. The intimate lyrics accompanied by the soft vocals of this track has captured the hearts of many listeners, including ours.

Layer Cake - Keep Me Awake

With this song up for streaming, the indie-rock genre only seems to be getting better and better. The electric guitar courses through the listener’s body, persuading them to move along to the beat. The mellow vocals only enhance the listener’s experience by providing a sweet-sounding escape. The energetic beat accompanied by the relaxed vocals makes this song number one in our “chilled out” playlist.

SYML - Clean Eyes

It seems the trend these days is singing about issues to a catchy beat and this track might just be our favorite one yet. The song is about how the artist is a cynic but has found someone who loves him regardless and shows him “the world through her beautiful and honest lens,” as Fennell said himself. He does this to the beat of an indie-pop tune accompanied by a melody that will seep into your brain in the best way possible. The intimate lyrics paired with the danceable beat is guaranteed to make this track a number one hit.

HOAX - Grow

The 70’s sounding beat draws the listener in however the rich vocals are what makes them stay. From the pretty high notes all the way down to the subtle harmonies, the vocals have a way of making the listener feel like all their problems have been washed away. It’s almost like the song courses through the listener and frees their soul from any worries. Overall, the tracks feels like tons of effort was put into it, and it definitely paid off.

Listen to all the tracks from this week’s roundup on our playlist! 

Article by: Evelyn Hernandez

[thotyssey]

On Point With: Magenta

A Brooklyn Nightlife Award nominee as Best Scene Kid for the second year running, this queen actually began her NYC drag career in the Manhattan weekly competitions. Now she’s turning it in BK with stunning “high fashion hoe” looks and fierce, energetic performances. Thotyssey paints your life with a shade of Magenta!

Thotyssey: Magenta, hello! Thanks for chatting today! How was the Janelle Monae party / show at the Rosemont which you performed in last night? Magenta: It was fucking cute, gorl! But honestly, Rosebud is always a good-ass time every time I do it, so I can never complain.

How are you liking Janelle's new music?

I'm kinda like super into it; there's so many good songs on Dirty Computer. It's definitely an important work with some bops! I think the Rosemont drag shows (and maybe most of the newer BK shows in general) are interesting, because instead of one queen performing for an hour and a half with a guest or two, it's now a whole bunch of queens coming up and turning it for a number or two each. Do you think that makes a better show, or just a different experience? I think it's a different yet fun experience, cuz when you get a couple girls, you really have a show. Not everyone could be feeling the same way, and not everyone is the same performer, so shows throughout the night are so different with each performer.

You've already had an interesting career, as you kinda started out as a Manhattan girl, doing those weekly competition shows like Star Search and Drag Wars. Are you now a Brooklyn Gurl all the way?

I did start in the comps. But after a while you start to look for your group of people, and Brooklyn is just where I believe I fit in. And yeah, if anyone asks me I say Ima BK Gorl.

Where are you actually from?

Okay, so I'm a very proud Bronx bitch. But like, race-wise, I'm Puerto Rican.

Before drag, what were you into?

My creative interest have been art, fashion and performance since I was a kid... which probably isn't hard to believe, lol.

Definitely not! Was RuPaul’s Drag Race you're first exposure to drag?

It was! Season 4, and it was before I had came out and my Mom was like, “lol, look at this show,” and I was like omg yasssss.

What was your first in-drag experience like, out on the town?

I was 15 back in high school on Halloween, with a Party City wig on that one of my friends managed to pull into a high pony. And I woke up at, like, 6 for my mom to paint me for the day ..BUT I WAS FISH.

It’s amazing that your mom was so supportive of you at that young age! 

Yeah, she's super supportive. She was even in my Mr(s) BK finale performance.

It must make you happy to see all these pre-teen queens with their own supportive parents that are in the mix these days. 

Yeah, the younger girls doing drag and being supported makes me happy because it just shows that throughout all the shit we go through as a world, we still are growing as people and becoming more accepting to all things... and not just what we think is "normal."

Amen! By the way, is magenta your favorite color, or was it just a cool sounding name to you?

Well, originally magenta was an ugly color to me. But like, having it as a name really kinda changes your opinion. Also, it's an important ass-color when it comes to computers and shit. So I guess now it's my fave.

How would you describe yourself as a queen to the initiated, as far as how you perform and your aesthetic?

I think look-wise, I'm very on-trend: fashion forward, but make it “hoe.” And performance, I'd say “high-energy dance moments.”

And berets are your Thing?

Berets are, like, my fave accessory.

Is it fair to say that your drag comes from the same universe as The Haus of Aja?

What they do is similar to what I do. But I'm the best drag ever, so no one's like me, lol!

You and Dove had a show at the Gateway for a bit, “Game Ovahh.” What was that experience like, and what are your thoughts on the venue's recent closing?

Well, Dove is probably my closest friend in the world, so being able to do that with her was honestly so great. We always had a great time, plus we were and remain sickening AF, so it was altogether a fun time. And towards the end of “Game Ovahh,” me and the Gateway’s relationship got a little shaky. But it is still very unfortunate, and I hope they get on their feet again soon.

[Ed. note: it seems that the Gateway management has recently and quickly settled its eviction issues, and the venue has reopened.]

You mentioned Mr(s) BK earlier; how did you enjoy that pageant experience?

It was magical, honestly. It was hands down the best show I’ve ever been a part of, and Brooklyn has so much fucking fierce-ass talent.

And you'll be back in a Brooklyn pageant soon enough! Round 1 of the very first ever Mx. Mont Rose comedy drag pageant is this Thursday at the Rosemont! 

I think it's gonna be a really fun time. [Host] Crystal Mesh put it together, and shes got some funny-ass people. It's gonna be a shit show, but a good shit show.

Congrats on your Brooklyn Nightlife Award nomination for Best Scene Kid! That is quite an honor!

Thank you! I'm very happy with it! But this is also the second year in a row I'm nominated, so I want that shit, lmao!

Get it gurl! Okay, so last question: What is the Song of the Moment for Magenta?

I'm fucking living for “I Like That” and "Screwed" by Janelle; those are my bops!

Thanks, Magenta!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for Magenta’s scheduled appearances, and follow her on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Vote Magenta for Best Scene Kid in the BNAs (and vote for Thotyssey & Jim Silvestri!) here.

On Point Archives

[adieka]

How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO?

(1) How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO? (2) Does Social Media affect SEO? Search Engine Optimization? (3) Do Social Signals Work for SEO? (4) How Important Are Social Signals to Rank? (5) Some Value of Displaying Social Share Numbers in SEO (6) Social Shares Help You Rank Higher in Google Is a Myth! (7) Can You Rank a Blog Post Purely on Social Signals With No Backlinks? (8) Do You Do Buying Social Links From Any Influencer Else? (9) A Social Media Content Strategy for a Niche of Maternity (10) Is Instagram Good for Backlinking? (1) How Much Effectiveness is Social Media for SEO? Christine I’m looking for information on link building using social media and how I can effectively use social media to grow our Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is for a legit online business and I’m focused primarily on a North American and European audience. Anyone willing to point me to some useful reading? Anything from beginning to expert. 2 👍🏽 2 [filtered from 12 💬🗨]📰👈

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Peter Try “The Art of Social Media” by Guy Kawasaki. It’s not written from an SEO perspective, of course. It’s really about optimizing your social media channels and getting the most out of them, but it’s got useful tips on engagement on social. If you can be engaging on social, you can influence your rankings indirectly through all the traffic you send to your site from social posts.

Christine ✍️ Great! Thank you!

Jay You can't link build with social media, but you can have strategies for awareness and brand mentions which does help Search Engine Optimization (SEO) somewhat but only for your brand. If you don't have a brand and just have a generic web site… social media is not going to get you long lasting results.

Christine ✍️ Thanks for the reply and info. We are hoping to use social media to better establish and grow our brand. We have a number of things that we’d like to roll out over the next couple of months, so I’m trying to learn as much as possible so I don’t waste any opportunities. Do mentions have any direct effect or does that solely help awareness and traffic? Jay It's not direct, but I believe Google keeps an awareness of brand mention across the major social platforms. There's no way to know absolutely how their algorithm takes it into account, but from what I understand it does help. The problem with social media is that there's no link permanence and individual account values can't be corroborated easily by Google. However, it is a good way to both jump-start awareness as well as garnering opportunities for attracting web links that do matter in the long term. If you focus on social, your primary efforts will be: Page creation & maintenance on Facebook. Don't focus on post volume at first, focus on post quality and engagement. Make sure your posts are both attractive and interesting and trigger engagement from anyone seeing the post. This will fuel Facebook to show your page posts to more people more often. Facebook's algorithms are based primarily on engagement. If your brand/business has a visual angle to it take advantage of Instagram. Again, quality over quantity. Make people stop scrolling to want to look at your photos & like them. Pinterest is OK but doesn't usually drive social value. Twitter is good if you have truly interesting and unique things to say. All of these social platforms require regular attention, especially early on as you build up a following. Create a blog and add 2-3 posts to it weekly. Interesting topics, nothing bland. If you Google the topic you want to talk about and 8,000 other sites already have the same article with basically the same information you plan to post - write about something else. Or, if you have a truly distinct spin on a topic then go ahead, but you really need links to it to out-rank those who already have a foothold on the search terms related to the topic. As you build your main web site, also make sure to always focus on best practices. You don't need an SEO company to tell you what those best practices are, just Google for advice and you will find a million articles. SEO companies are good for helping you determine why you may not be ranking for specific terms, or how to lift your Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) a little higher, or to review your site to see if you are doing something wrong, or to look at technical stuff that you may not have familiarity with - like sitemap files, micro tagging, link building (the legit kind, don't fall for the mass backlink scams), HTML mark-up, etc. Christine ✍️ Thank you for such a thorough response. This is helpful info!

Chris Social media signals (e.g shares, comments likes on posts that mention your brand/on your page) directly help with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but it's not a HUGE ranking factor. There's nothing amazing or special that you can genuinely read about. Getting specific ideas to help would be optimal, your business has a lot of viral potential, think voice over (VO) competitions, posting VO work/parodies , I remember the EA sports guy going viral a while back, stuff like that will help you get a lot of mentions and grow your brand. It's all about the content you produce and how normal people will interact with it. There's a lot of reading you can do out there, but ultimately doing actual SEO would probably help you a lot more, especially if you are targeting business owners.

Christine ✍️ Thanks for the response and info. We’ve been tossing around some viral video ideas, but you sparked a few new thoughts from my partner.

Doug Social media, at the moment, helps with traffic and branding if you have a large enough audience and/or wallet. Besides improving dwell rate, it does nothing to “help” with rankings on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Christine ✍️ So it sounds like rolling out a well planned social strategy going for brand awareness and traffic is what we should focus on. Thank you!

📰👈

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(2) Does Social Media affect SEO? Search Engine Optimization? Horia created a poll. Cheers, everyone! Here's an interesting thought experiment: Does social media affect Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? More specifically, do your social media efforts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et. al.) have any impact on organic rankings? Would love to get everyone's verdict in the poll and your opinions in the comments. Thank you! 66 votes 15 votes 10 votes

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Marty Marion🎓 » Horia From my viewpoint, if one objective is to generate more searches for keywords or phrases that are important to you, then social media can have a massive impact on stimulating searches… and searches result in clicks… which definitely impact Search Engine Optimization (SEO)… so I would think social media CAN affect SEO, not that it DOES all the time… I always like to look at social media strategies as PART of a comprehensive SEO plan. 💟👍🏽4

Horia That's a great argument, Marty! So I take it you see the benefits of social media from a "social engineering" point of view, where you create momentum for phrases, which in turn stimulate queries. 💟👍🏽2 Marty Marion🎓 » Horia Yes, stimulate intrigue, questions, etc that make people search for the specific subjects (phrases) that are most important to you and make sure your pages are super optimized… 👍🏽2 Lees » Marty Marion Can you give us an example from the past in which you used this technique? Or is this just a theory? 👍🏽1 Marty Marion🎓 » Lees Sure. Have used it often. For a big ecommerce lingerie company we did social posts asking men to post their favorite "sexy celebrities" from the 1950s through 1980s. Searches for "sexy + lingerie type" etc went up and so did sales through organic. For a jeans company we asked "how skinny are skinny jeans for men?". Same results. Questions seem to provoke searches. 👍🏽3

Petter I do believe that some signals are included, but not to the extent that SEO users in general should have a great understanding on how to engage the public etc. there. I believe that SEO users should work with SoMe consultants, but Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a large enough field in itself, so for my part I'm happy to let SoMe consultants take the lead there, and just see how SEO can benefit from it in the ways Marty described above (open to any venue where my clients make more money). As I see it, there are two main issues with some of the "myths" going around on how social signals has an effect on Search Engine Optimization (SEO): 1: Engagement metrics is not a direct ranking impact. If it was, then the webpages that exists to spin shareable content would win in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), but they don't. 2: Monitoring social media is possible, but it requires a lot of resources - and Google is already tasked with monitoring everything that can be monitored - so dedicating the amount of resources needed to be on top of this makes very little sense when there are so many other signals that aren't as "fleeting" and temporary. BUT: Google does tie in Facebook business profiles to businesses, so this might in some way somewhere feed into the algorithm, but from the little research I have done - I have yet to see any correlation between rankings and active, inactive or no business profiles on ie. FB - so if there is a signal there, then as of now it cannot be a strong one. The link from your business profile on FB is nofollow - so after march 1 2020, social media profile link might start to add value. However - visible links (written URL's that goes via redirects with nofollow) may count towards a mention when/if Google picks it up. Hashtag trends is fairly available, which could make sense for Google to tie into on queries that are fresh (I believe that at least their machine learning algorithm focusing on obtaining meaning to queries ties into this in some form or way - ie. "planking" made no sense before, but then suddenly became a trend - and I believe Google wants to be relevant on such queries and the only way to be that is to stay on top of what queries might mean). And again, like Marty stated above, Social Media has the ability to provide impact on amount of brand queries as well as other queries. So it is a valuable channel for the client to pursue. But again, I believe that our clients are better off if they have someone who solely focuses on these channels helping there, leaving us SEO users to cooperate with them but at the same time keep our focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). 📰👈

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(3) Do Social Signals Work for SEO? John Do Social Signals Work For SEO, Whats Your Opinion? 📰👈

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Kumar Yes...do work...do it on proper way.. After publishing new page or post...share it on social media..and do social signals on it.. Also after doing any guest post...do the same...👍3

John ✍️ Great Advice. Kobi » Kumar what do you mean by social signals? Kumar » Kobi most powerful social media's... Twitter - Retweets. Facebook - Shares. Pinterest.. - Repins. Share on all these platforms and do social signals...

Blair Yes they do work but for me best be Twitter signals overall if they come from popular accounts. John ✍️ Really? Do you think Twitter is better, why?

Kumar » John most powerful social media's... Twitter - Retweets. Facebook - Shares. Pinterest.. - Repins. Share on all and do social signals... You will see the positive response..👍2

Mike They only work in making your link building look less fake. No direct impact on rankings and I say this after buying 10’s of thousands of signals for numerous web pages.👍3

John ✍️ I Agree and Disagree......I seen someresults but nothing major.👍1 Tiwari » Mike It is all about quality and not the quantity. These 5 dollars bot-generated Fiverr social signal gigs are just worthless. Mike I’ve compared urls that I built links to with, and without social signals, never saw 1 case where a kw rank improved due to signals. Even on less competitive branded terms. If you know a vendor who can provide a better experience I’m all ears! Mike Nah, Ive used providers “recommended” by notable people in this group and others, never Fiverr...but I might as well have used Fiverr for the results.👍1 John ✍️ » Tiwari 👍.

Hays I've seen it work in for time-sensitive queries like events. I had a site ranking in the top 3 positions for a few top keywords after an event/raffle we had got shared a few hundred times and we had over 10,000 post engagements, that brought 7,000 visitors to the page in 3 days from Facebook. So within 24 hours from the post we were ranking for these keywords. 3 years later, after the event we still rank number 1 for our focus keyword which was the item we raffled. This last year's event ranks number 2 for same keyword and similar item.👍1📰👈

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(4) How Important Are Social Signals to Rank? ArtRos How important are social signals to rank? 3 👍🏽 3 [filtered from 25 💬🗨]📰👈

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Roland They can help in some areas but not a requirement for success. One very useful return from posting on social media is quicker indexing of the site promoted. Keith Webpages with a significant amounts of social engagement are likely quality pieces of content that have generated a number of other Google related signals that convinces Google to rank them higher. Doubting the causation to social signals impacting ranking that much as they are so easy to manipulate. Maggie it's part of trust and authority within your niche - but Google can tell fake social signals from true engagement. It won't affect your rank negatively if you don't have them, but they help to some extent. Peter You can indirectly influence your rankings through traffic to your site from social, so I’d say put out great content on social (or post links to good website content from social) that gets people wanting to visit your site. Steve Hi, it depends on what you mean by social signals, but as long as you mean getting likes/shares/etc for your content then I think it's definitely a positive factor. Here's a screenshot of a page of mine in the fitness niche: As you can see it has gathered over 2000 Fb shares and engagements over the years (I think 10k or more but Buzzsome has a 1 year limit to show, anyway… ) and this page ranks rather well in Google for its target keyword. Granted, I also managed to build a lot of white hat backlinks to it with outreach strategies and the Skyscraper Technique, but 1, even before I started link building to it I saw a nice little upward movement for it in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) after I started getting so many FB shares for it, so I think all those shares definitely sent a positive message to Google. 2, the social shares helped in one more way with Search Engine Optimization (SEO): I displayed a big Social Share Counter box on this page so that when I asked other people to link to it (you know with the outreach Skyscraper link building technique I mentioned earlier) it helped me get a "yes" from more people because they saw how popular the page was already. So I'd say bottom line: yes, social signals do help a lot with SEO both directly and indirectly. Steve P.s.: Unfortunately I got all those thousands of shares back when my site was http and not https, and since I switched to https the social signal counter doesn't really work, that's why I had to rely on Buzzsumo data as proof that you can see for yourself.📰👈

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(5) Some Value of Displaying Social Share Numbers in SEO Neil Is there 'value' in displaying social share numbers - yes or no? (and why) 3 👍🏽 3 [filtered from 30 💬🗨]📰👈

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Fleming No not for SEO purposes. It's more to show users that your website gets engagement and has value its more to create user engagement.. Imagine walking past 2 shops one has customers queuing even outside, while the other has no customers whatsoever, which one are you likely to want to go in? Now some people will go to the empty one to avoid the queue however most will want to know what that shop has the other doesn't. Hope that makes sense Neil it did in my head as I wrote it lol Its also worth noting that a lot of those plugins you can change the number of likes retweets so it doesn't even reflect the real shares etc half the time. 💟👍🏽5 Neil ✍️ On my own website I do display the shares which may look great on some urls that get shared a lot 1000+ shares etc BUT - some urls don't get shared and then potentially have the oppositive effect - 'this url has little value' (maybe it has). Also, I do wonder whether displaying what is your website's popular pages - is this giving valuable data to competitors… all this, without the effect of slowing down the load time (albeit hopefully minimally). Fleming I just see it as a vanity metric who cares if it was shared 1200 times if only 5 read the whole thing and got anything from it? Its kind of like when people go yeah my video was view 10k times but only 4 got past the 30 seconds. Daine » Christopher is right, it is a vanity metric to a degree. But, here’s the thing. It has value because: 1. Social Proof: It encourages other people to share it, thus expanding your reach, audience, and traffic. 2. It builds authority and credibility. It shows that the piece is popular. 3. It has a hidden SEO benefit, because when conducting link outreach, posts that have been shared a lot convey popularity, and value, in turn helping to increase the chances of gaining a link. People are more inclined to link to popular content. 4. It encourages people to read it more, due to social proof. Social proof is very powerful, psychologically. 5. Social signals MAY play a small part in ranking. 💟👍🏽12

Neil ✍️ THAT is my gut feeling - and why I have stuck with it… Hazi Social proof. Fleming Does it hold much value though? when social proof can be easily manipulated as most plugins you can add the share counts etc? Daine It’s more ‘perceived’ value, rather than real value. Fleming » Daine yeah more a trust signal kind of thing. Daine » Christopher , yeah, exactly. Lancaster Perception is reality and the only reality is the one your visitor chooses to believe when they are on your website.

Micha » Daine I’d go with on this one, with these additions: 6: each share is a potential batch of new readers, therefore, possible links 7: BuzzSumo recently did a study of over a million datapoints and discovered sharing on social media is half of what it used to be. Whether that’s an ongoing trend or not, FOMO, likeability, credibility and the “follow the herd” effects are all indisputable market persuaders.📰👈

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(6) Social Shares Help You Rank Higher in Google Is a Myth! Martin This guy disappointed me. Are social shares really unimportant in ranking? Myth #5 Social shares help you rank higher in Google [38 💬🗨]

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Janka You're disappointed by the truth? 👍🏽9

Shubham » Janka ✔️ Ronald » Janka lol, thats society in general though 👍🏽1

Fouad Why being disappointed? I think he explained it very well. 👍🏽1 Doug At the moment, there is no evidence to suggest that social shares directly help improve the ranking of a website. To my understanding, it might help with User engagement if it’s compelling content... which would likely help with rankings. (Arguably if it’s compelling content it would likely rank well anyway outside of social shares). Also, it might help get a page indexed that is currently not. Social Likes and Shares are too easy to spam and manipulate. The only thing I could see Google doing in the future is assigning authority or credibility to individuals who share content based on their voice within a certain community/industry... that might be an interesting (albeit somewhat concerning) progression on this topic. 👍🏽6 Bhati I have site which get traffic from Google and only links it has are from facebook shares. 👍🏽3

Owais » Bhati What type content the website shares? Bhati » Owais viral articles, political, national news. I have multiple sites. 👍🏽1

Farhat yup, social share is very important, it helps your URL to indexed and make engagement with the audience, which helps Google bot to understand your content is useful to users. 💟1

Carl » Farhat agreed i have a 50k sku ecommerce store we get lots of social shares

Kevin To explain it simply : Bot shares won't help SEO, because it won't drive traffic. But real human share will benefit to SEO BECAUSE it will drive traffric in the end. But this is not the number of shares / likes that matters but rather the fact that it drives traffic or no. In others words, you would better have a 1K shared post that drive 50% traffic than a 20k shared post driving 2% traffic. 👍🏽4 Smith There's no evidence that there's SEO traffic because of the social shares. He is right. It's the other way. You get more social shares because of your SEO traffic. And that makes sense. 👍🏽4 Suraj Only believe on your experience, there are share only there review. Toth They're an indirect factor. Way too easily gamed to be a direct factor, for Google anyhow. 👍🏽4 Hazra It certainly doesn't have any impact for info post. Social shares helps to gain more visibility which indirectly increases the chance of getting natural back links. That's it.. 👍🏽2 Homer He's wrong. Social shares are social signals, and will affect both indexing and ranking. It won't get you to page one alone, but it will make a difference. 👍🏽1

Hamid but you can't say that they are impacting directly to your rankings. 👍🏽1 Homer » Hamid Yes, because I have had sites move up from page 10 to page 5. They are. 👍🏽1 Hamid » Homer Great, so how do you monitor that really due to socials this happened? Homer » Hamid On the sites that this happened on, I only had social signals going to them. The content was also old and had quite jumping around in the SERPS. The site also had no real traffic going to it. I always start link building with social signals only, meaning that there was no other factor.

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(7) Can You Rank a Blog Post Purely on Social Signals With No Backlinks? Lyon Can you rank a blog post purely on social signals with no backlinks? [filtered from 22 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Nabil It depends on how hard to rank for the keyword yet how powerful and specific your website, last but not the least how's your website's technical Search Engine Optimization (SEO) status. Arif If you're not an instant-lover, or you're not in rush, well... yes you can. but if you are, well this method doesn't suit you. Roger You can rank an article with just dummy text and no backlist but, for that to happen, there are certain variables that need to occur and, one of the most important is keyword difficulty/competition. Oliver There is absolutely NO evidence that social signals are being used by Google as a direct ranking factor. 👍🏽1 Tanvir I think yes .. it depends on the content you have ... like if you have good content and people visit your site from the social site ... and then they create backlink ... then yes you can rank 😃 Joe Ive been doing this for 20 years and love the variety of opinions here. In various ways there is a tiny bit of truth to many of them, but Oliver states the truth. That being said other items on the page will affect the ranking. Social signals alone will do nothing for you. Social signals combined with other things like a great description in the social post or key technical aspects of the page will get additional people to click and visit so while you may think you did it with social signals, it is misleading. No one strategy is good all by itself. That is something Google frowns upon. you need multiple strategies and techniques. Above all you need kickass content which drives traffic and engagement. you might have zero backlinks and crappy technical but if your content rocks, you have people visiting, staying and engaging, Google will still rank you. their priority is the searcher and giving them the best results for their query 👍🏽1 Jim Ranked for this, no backlinks bro

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Oliver The website has 130 do-follow referring domains (according to Ahrefs), only ONE internal link (with a keyword-rich anchor text) from the homepage would be more than enough to rank #1 for that keyword, Google still uses PageRank internally. Your website looks awesome and from what I'm seeing you have a lot of useful content, reviews, case studies, and etc.. 👍🏽1 Jim » Oliver yeah but in terms of referring domains pointing directly to this page, there's none, so yeah.

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(8) Do You Do Buying Social Links From Any Influencer Else? Olga Hello! How often do you buy social links or blog posts for your projects? [filtered from 28 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Mike I never buy social links... at least not from an SEO perspective. I might approach someone with a significant following about advertising with them, but that is for the traffic, not any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit. Not sure what you mean by buying blog posts. If you mean posts for your own site, I regularly pay writers to create content. If you mean guest posts on other sites, I pay for those frequently, but never through anyone selling them as a service. 👍🏽8

Wren » Mike wow so interesting. How do you go about advertising with someone with a significant following, do you get them to share your product and do they have to declare that it's a paid promotion? Mike » Wren Depends on the situation and what we are promoting. Sometimes, I might have a client willing to sponsor a YouTube video in exchange for the content creator doing one of those typical 15-30 second pitches you see on a lot of videos. In those cases, a sample of the product or a few products will be sent to them to use in the video. Stuff like that. It's never a video 100% devoted just to the product or service. Instead we sponsor one of their videos they are already doing. Wren » Mike ok, so does that mean they don't to say they have been paid for it. Mike » Wren They will say something like, "this video is sponsored by...." Wren » Mike ok cool. Cheers for sharing this with me. 👍🏽1

Singh It is not a good idea to buy a social link....in a long run it can affect your website very badly 👍🏽3

Olga ✍️ » Singh how's that? Singh The purchased social links are likely bots or inactive accounts, so they won't engage with your posts. This means your posts won't show up on Explore Pages, or on your real audience's newsfeeds. It will also make it hard to measure metrics. 👍🏽1 Olga ✍️ mm I see. That's true. Thank you! 👍🏽1 Singh Thanks for sharing

Laura Never. I share my links to my website's own social accounts. If pay-per-lead (ppl) wanna link to my pages or projects they can go ahead, I don't do any "link building" and don't find it necessary. 📰👈

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(9) A Social Media Content Strategy for a Niche of Maternity Ammar Hey SEO Pro's.. I've got a brand with a niche of maternity products.. I'm. regularly posting content on its social media platforms but I don't know why I'm unable to achieve any engagements or likes.. Could any of you experts please let me know what I'm doing wrong if possible please? Facebook link: https:/facebook.com/mamanmeofficial Instagram: instagram.com/mamanmeofficial Any type of help is appreciated, thanks a lot! 1 👍🏽 1 [filtered from 17 💬🗨]📰👈

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Shetty You do have a decent number of followers. What about your insights? How many people are you reaching and how many are taking action? Website clicks?

Ammar ✍️ Its not very good atm even after paid marketing as well..

Dielan Could be due to the fact you are only targeting consumers in Qatar? It’s not a very large country

Ammar ✍️ Tried removing Qatar, same results no effects :S

Lowry Try to engage your followers. Ask questions, post to articles & ask peoples opinion about them. Post a small fb survey about what baby merch products they want to see on the market. Eva You’re posting too much about your brand and products. Try posting 20% brand/product posts and 80% other. Who is your target audience? What are their challenges and interests? Share posts that solve a problem for them, that they can relate to, that they find useful. Particularly on Facebook, it’s about being social, not selling.

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Ammar ✍️ Tried posting tips - quotes- and stuffs like that but still no effect :s Eva » Ammar yes, you’ve posted tips and quotes but in the caption you’re selling. It’s the first thing Mums read as they scroll through their feed and they won’t even read the quote or tip in the image. You don’t have to sell in every post. Also, because you have small numbers, try sharing viral posts from similar parenting pages Ammar ✍️ Noted, What are your thoughts on post styling? are they good or do i need to change anything? Eva » Ammar I think the styling of the image is good. Just a couple of things. 1. This post, for example, [product image] I recommend that instead of writing about the business, you explain what this product actually is and how it can help a mum. 2. On Facebook don't use hashtags. 3. Try to limit the posts you have with links to an external website. Facebook likes to keep people on Facebook, not clicking out somewhere else. This one, for example, [quote image] Instead of writing about the business, write something that resonates with a mother, 'Do you feel like you need to keep your eyes open with matchsticks at the moment? Don't worry, babies start to figure out night and day by 3 weeks so (hopefully) you can get a little more sleep. Remember too, you'll have a different audience on Facebook and Instagram so try to share different content on each. Try and find a parenting group and ask mums with newborns what their challenges are and craft content around that. For each product you promote, relate it to the mother. What problem can it fix? How can it help them get more sleep? How can it help their baby sleep more? How can it fix their sore back? How can it help with breastfeeding and helping them get more milk? But also, share humor, Facebook users love humor that relates to their situation. With Instagram hashtags, look at what your competitors or similar businesses are using. Click into the hashtags, have a look at the content that is being shared and what's getting the best engagement. Ammar ✍️ These info's are gem, thanks a lot!

🔗🏹 Gergo My opinion: There are different tactics to use for different platform. Niche website built for organic traffic-turns into product selling, or other monetization methods. IG is not a platform for niche site-building, it is for entertainment! My point is, try to look for user intent perspective. People generally not using IG for finding any product to buy… imo. Another key issue is IG is full of bots, my friend tested and built 6000 followers in 3 months on a personal account with a simple code… yes it got banned, but we just wanted to see how far it goes… I assume your follower base probably full of those bots, commenting, like-ing anything, but its not a real audience with intent to buy. Haven't looked for deeper atm, but there is a huge different building a site and getting 2k traffic and converting into sales, as having as IG account and 2k followers… Sebastian Very interested. One very quickly look at the account. What comes first is mind. Is have your content made up by mother's. Join some library mother and baby groups and survey them for what are interested. Than post those on Instagram.📰👈

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(10) Is Instagram Good for Backlinking? Mikkel Is Instagram a good or necessary Backlink? [filtered from 24 💬🗨] 📰👈

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Andrei No, social media links are nofollow and do not pass link juice. Useless for SEO. 👍1

Ethan » Andrei that's not entirely true.The main argument being that social media doesn't directly affect your SEO. However, it does have an impact on the factors that do affect rankings such as traffic, meaning it indirectly affects your rankings. So, it may not directly increase your seo or provide backlinks but it definitely please a role in your seo ranking and should be utilized for best practices. 👍5 Andrei » Ethan sure, but that kind of argument can be made for any type of marketing, including paid ads. You gotta draw the line somewhere and say this is an SEO job and that is something else. Back to the question at hand, having a genuine, well maintained social media profile is a must for most businesses and will marginally contribute to your search performance. Having a backlinked social media account sitting idle is not going to contribute to your seo. 👍1 Ethan » Andrei true and I see your point there. However, social media plays a massive role indirectly with your SEO. I mean social platforms have there own search engines after all so this plays as another way to provide your company with more traffic to increase SEO. We all know how important local seo is and you might as well forget about it unless you have a social media presence. Social profiles will also ranking on Google so if you want to draw a line, then technically your now creating seo for your social profile and ranking on Google with it. Don't forget about how much content is shared through social media as well 👍2 Andrei » Ethan all good points! Although I think social media is not exactly critical for local seo. Is it? There is GMB and schema and some local directories. Never seen social media on this list. 👍1 Andrei » Ethan I feel like we are arguing, so I wanted to stress that I'm not, this is how I express curiosity. It might come off arguing-ish since my first language is russian 🙂 👍1 Ethan » Andrei I am not arguing either but I am glad that your clarified. I hate how facebook is used so much for that 🙄. I am curious as well and want to always better my skill and knowledge with SEO. I enjoy general conversations about it. True, but most if not all of those that rank without social media have been around since the dawn of google. If you take a new company and try to start ranking, it would be much much harder without social media platforms. If you were to take the same company and start with social media from day one, they are much more likely to start ranking on google faster and higher. 👍1 Swanson » Andrei I treat social media as another directory to update for locations. Will I manage your profile and post for you? No. But I want to make sure that your locations are listed correctly, that the descriptions and contact info is consistent with the rest of your web presence. I tell clients it’s just another channel you can use to present content they are adding for their site. 👍1

Ryan Let's say you are a taxidermist in a city of 1,000 people. You have one competitor.. All else being the same, your competitor has a website of the same quality as yours. If you have optimized Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and let's say you posted 50 posts, my guess is you would be ranking ahead of your competitor. It's not like an Instagram account will rank you, but in most cases it's common sense to have one, probably worth the 5 mins it takes to set it up. You're establishing your brand online. Could you go without it, of course. 👍2 Russ I just don't get why Instagram is so popular lol… You cannot put links in posts, which just seems daft and pointless… So if someone posts something that looks interesting, no way to find out more, you have to Google it for more info. So no backlink SEO benefit either. you cannot even share/re-post other people's posts from the app, you have to get another 3rd party app to do that. 📰👈

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This may satisfy you: Do You Reveal Yourself on Social Media that You are a Site Owner/Founder? Any Risk About it from Competitors, Haters?

[cryptocoinguides]

The ONLY Crypto That Could Make You A MILLIONAIRE!

Guys, there’s so much happening around the XRPcommunity that I can’t wait to share all this information. I’ve been telling you that this is the only solid crypto that could make you a millionaire, now the reality is so close. The crypto market is so volatile that you can only invest in coins set to head straight to the moon. Otherwise, you risk losing every single currency. Now, buckle up, and let’s get down to business. What’s up, guys! Welcome to Money Side, where we let money do the talking.

If you haven’t already, hit that subscribe button, and let’s make this money together. As always, please share your thoughts down below in the comment section, and let’s have a conversation. I saw a content made by the infamous Andrei Jikhwhere he highlights why he thinks Pro TheDogecoin Millionaire should sell his Doge. In the content, they also continue to say that the probability of Doge hitting one cent is the same as the chances of it hitting one dollar.

That’s a pretty extensive range that could instantly wipe you out of the market. And yes, as much as I’m a supporter of Doge, you should be cautious when investing in this coin. That’s because, if it’s not for the hype around this meme coin, there’s nothing else driving its sales through the roof.

And that’s not an excellent way to invest in crypto. I’m sure, deep down Pro TheDogecoin Millionaire is regretting why he didn’t sell all his coins when he had the chance. On the other hand, XRP has solid support both in the real and crypto world. And Rippleisn’t sleeping on its opportunity to make XRP great. In fact, the company recently made a huge deal that could potentially lead the coin’s price to the moon. An article published recently onu. Today states that Ripple took part in $13 million Series A funding forNFT product: Details.

The article reads, ‘Mintable, a platform designed for creating and trading of non-fungible tokens, is among the pioneers of the NFT segment. It started operations in 2018 and drew the attention of VC majors to the digital collectibles sphere. According to the official announcement by Mintable, its Series A funding round has concluded successfully with notable oversubscription. A total of $13,000,000was raised from top blockchain-focused VCs. The Ripple digital payments giant was one of the most notable contributors to the round.

Also, Animoca Brands, and the first-ever NFL-oriented fund Metapurse by Metakovansupported Mintable with their investments. Ex-Bill Clinton’s advisor Doug Band and Shutterstock’s founder Jon Oringer participated in the Series A round as individual investors.

Expedia Group, Double Peak, 7 O’Clock Capital,640 Oxford Ventures, Digital Finance Group, Spark Digital Capital, Reimagined Ventures, and 840 Venture Partners also took a part in this monstrous raise. Zach Burks, CEO, and Founder of Mintable claimed that this success is a sign of increased maturity of the non-fungible tokens market:.’ That shows the company is interested in NFTs, which is currently the hottest feature of the cryptocurrency world.

I’m assuming Ripple is creating its own NFT platform, which will likely push the coin’s price up. They also recently announced that they are looking for vacancies for anyone with NFT experience.@RippleXrpie also shared a tweet saying, ‘BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!! SBI, Hamamatsu Iwata Bank to Use RippleNet for remittance. #XRP The partners are trying to tap into the growing remittance demand inJapan.’ That’s excellent news considering the Asian market recently ‘rejected mining of BTC’in their country.

Imagine, a market that doesn’t want anything to do with BTC is now entertaining the thought of XRP? I kept telling you guys that the US government should seize this opportunity to be on top of their game and all they have to do is adopt RippleNet. The Asian market will be a few steps ahead, again while the SEC is still trying to force regulation misconduct onRipple. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ripple moves their headquarters to Japan or China if they lose the case.

That means the US traders will suffer, but the rest of the world will continue to reap the fruits of this cross-border payment crypto. The article that was published on financeamagnates.com reads, ‘SBI Remit, a subsidiary of the larger SBIGroup, is collaborating with Hamamatsu Iwata, a major Japanese lender, to ease the process of outward remittances using RippleNet’sblockchain infrastructure.

Announced earlier this week, SBI Remit’s role in the partnership is to expand the overseas market reach of the already existing international remittance platform of Hamamatsu Iwata Credit Bank. The deal was inked in the wake of increasing demand in cross-border transactions originating from Japan that has been fueled by the rise in the foreign workforce in the country.

The announcement pointed out that Japan’sgrowing older population has made the country rely heavily on the foreign workforce. Workers traveling to Japan from other countries increased significantly over the years, and the figure is anticipated to grow further.

This has generated a massive demand for awkward remittances from Japan. Our mission is to provide financial services centered on remittances to foreign residents, and we use Ripple’s distributed ledger technology, which is characterized by speed of deposit and low fees,” SBI stated. SBI is a long-standing partner of the Americanblockchain company Ripple. The two are running a joint venture to promote Ripple’s products in the Asian markets.

Now, the giant is trying to capture Japan’s growing remittance market early by pushing blockchain technology in it, thus making the services faster and cheaper. Furthermore, Ripple’s strong ties in Asia helped the company while it is facing US regulatory woes over the status of the XRP token, whether it can be categorized as unregistered security or not.

Meanwhile, SBI promoted the use of RippleNetto to establish other remittance corridors. In late 2019, SBI Remit and SBI Ripple Asia joined hands to initiate money transfer services between Japan and Vietnam using blockchain technology.’ Guys, you must be blind not to see what is happening here.

Japan recognizes the potential that RippleNet holds and is willing to partner with this crypto. That should solidify the future of XRP no matter what happens with the SEC. Now, that means heading to the moon will not be a problem for XRP. This coin could very well easily hit the $10,000mark and continue to soar even higher. Anyone who tells you anything contrary to the fact that this coin is headed to the moon and beyond is outright wrong.

There’s no way so many investors can believe in a flawed system. I genuinely believe the only issue the SEC has against XRP is that it’s doing something they’ve been thinking of doing for many years. But XRP was in it first and will likely continue to solidify partnerships in the field.

Let’s head straight to the lawcourts so we can see what’s happening. But even before we get started, I can already tell you for a fact the SEC is still trying to stall Ripple hoping that they can launch Fedcoin in time to compete with XRP.@JohnEDeaton1 shares his opinion on the lawsuit by tweeting, ‘My blog is definitely timely today considering that we learned the #SEC is asking the Judge to quash the deposition of Bill Hinman.

Clayton went to One River’s $1 billion crypto fund, and now Hinman goes to Andreesen Horowitz’s$2.2.Billion Crypto fund.’ I went on to find out more about the current situation in the law court and landed on ambcrypto.com, where they published a recent article speaking in-depth about what is happening in the court. The article reads SEC v.

Ripple Lab’s lawsuit has gained a lot of traction of late, with news of former SEC official William Hinman’s entanglement spurring a lot of interest in the case. Instead of being reticent about their own perspectives, however, the involved parties, by and large, have been quite vocal about these developments. A week ago, the SEC filed its motion to quash William Hinman’s deposition by claiming that the former exec did not have any personal or first-hand knowledge of Ripple’s offers and sales of XRP.

In what is the latest development in the same, the individual defendants and ripple Labs have now filed their opposition to the plaintiff’s aforementioned motion. According to the defendants, Hinman was”never” a high-ranking government official entitled to special discovery protection.

Ripple Labs also argued that since Hinmanis now a former employee, they [defendants]do not bear the burden to explicitly show that the exec possesses unique, first-hand knowledge about the happenings relevant to the case. At this stage in the lawsuit, Hinman’s”Ether is not a security” public speech has undoubtedly become an indispensable part of the lawsuit.

In fact, the defendants were also quick to point out that right after the said speech, the exec attended a meeting with the there um Foundation and ConsenSys.’Now let’s take a look at the technical analysis to see what is happening with XRP’s price action. We are looking at 1 weekly time frame to see the bigger picture. Last week the 1W MA50 (blue trend-line) held and that was enough to give XRPa respectable push to the upside.

Whether that can be sustainable or not, it remains to be seen, but the last time the 1Weekly MA50 has been holding for that long was during XRP’s last Bull Cycle and more specifically in its 2017 Mania Phase. As you see the similarities are uncanny. BothBear Cycles have ended on a -16o Lower Highs angle and once the Mania Phase started, the 1W MA50has been supporting. The mid-phase pull-back on both was around -70%.

Right now the CCI is on the same level (-70.00) as it was in the mid-2017 low. The question is are we in a new 1 year Mania Phase and if so is the bounce on the 1W MA50 enough to make Ripple resume it? Please let me know in the comment section below guys! Trade safely! Please keep in mind, We are not licensed, financial advisors.

Read More: SECs Shockwaves over Ripple

The post The ONLY Crypto That Could Make You A MILLIONAIRE! appeared first on Crypto Coin Guides.

via The ONLY Crypto That Could Make You A MILLIONAIRE!

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

May 16, 2021

My weekly rundown of things I am up to. Topics include density and mass transit, telecommunications and travel, saving San Francisco, and Bill Clinton.

Density and Mass Transit

A basic question: what level of population density is required for mass transit to be viable? Of course, there are many factors other than density that come into play, but density is a good starting point.

This 1994 estimate by Holtzclaw is frequently cited. He finds that municipal buses are economically viable is there are at least 30 people per hectare in the vicinity of the bus line. The thresholds are 35 pa/ha for light rail and 50 pa/ha for metro service. There are quite a few other studies, like this one from the Kinder Institute, Guerra and Cervero, the Twin Cities Metro Council, and a few others. They all give roughly the same results, though some of them, like the Twin Cities on BRT, get close to 100 pa/ha.

By way of comparison, the average population-weighted density in the US (weighting by population is a mathematical operation that basically refers to what most people see, rather than the naive population/area calculation) is about 21 pa/ha, and if single family family homes are built with the median lot size for the US, the overall density is about 14 pa/ha.

The above estimates are not hard and fast figures, but some rules of thumb that are given for transit viability. A lot depends on the precise definition of “viability”, which I am keeping vague for now, and at what range the given population density figures should hold (typically 1/4 miles to a full mile).

But the bottom line is that most of the US is not dense enough for mass transit to be a good investment. Not only are density figures too low, but it is my understanding that the long-term trend has been downward. Either urban populations would have to grow considerably, and/or cities would have to contract, to change the picture. Demographic trends make the former look especially unlikely. Another hope for mass transit is that reforms in the construction process could lower costs and thus the density threshold for viability, which isn’t too outlandish given that construction costs in the US tend to be much higher than the rest of the world.

Transit advocates often attack the problem from the opposite direction. They argue that building transit will cause denser development to occur, so it makes sense to build now even where thresholds are not met. It sounds good in theory, but transit in and of itself doesn’t appear to raise density.

Do telecommunications lead to more travel?

A good question. One could make plausible arguments either way, and indeed there are results that show that telecommunications could be a substitute for travel. But on balance they are complements, meaning that as IT technology advances, we are likely to travel more, not less, as a result. Telecommuting in particular does tend to reduce travel, even though there is a rebound in non-work travel, it is not enough to make up for the decrease in work travel. But for IT in general, more travel is to be expected.

This general topic has been well studied, but I don’t think is as well known among urbanists as it should be. For a reader on the subject, I would recommend this 2009 paper by Patricia Mokhtarian. It is a good survey of how IT and travel relate to each other, with some coverage of more general subjects of the rebound effect. Both theoretical results and on-the-ground facts of the past 12 years have only reinforced the general conclusions.

I don’t see anything on the horizon that is likely to change this basic fact.

Saving San Francisco

The always-good Palladium Magazine has a new article, this one by Lea Degen, on the imperative of building a political movement to solve San Francisco’s problems and how to do so. She argues that SF, as a capitol of the US tech industry, is an important test case of national significance. There is a lot of interest here worth reading. She focuses on two problems in particular: the high cost of living and high crime.

She makes reference to Alexei Yurchak’s concept of hypernormalization in how the city’s problems are perceived, in that is is clear to almost all observers that there are problems, but no one can conceive of a workable alternative. The term was coined to describe the dysfunction of the Brezhnev Era of the Soviet Union and is also the name and theme of a recent Adam Curtis film.

When I lived in San Francisco from 2016-18, I had gotten involved with the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) movement, whose primary goal is to deregulate zoning rules and improve housing affordability, hoping that it could be the kind of reform movement that Lea advocates. For a variety of reasons, it can’t, and now the YIMBY movement does some marginal good but acts as one of a great many other Democratic interest groups in the Bay Area, a crowded space if there ever was one.

In the 1960s and 70s, there was CHECC (CHoose an Effective City Council) in Seattle. That movement was primarily a youth-driven movement, formed from an alliance of reform-minded Democrats and Republicans to turn out long-time, ineffective incumbents in city hall. It was largely successful. It would be hard to replicate the bipartisan nature of the movement in today’s much more polarized environment. Indeed, in San Francisco and elsewhere, fear of the other party is one of the tricks incumbents use to stay in power. But I do think that an effective reformist movement could not be anchored in Democratic politics, or else it would fall into the same culture war gutters as most other movements do.

It is tempting to see the solution as packing up and leaving. Moving to Austin or Miami seems to be the trendy thing now. From an individual level, I can’t argue with the logic here. I left too, because I was fed up and after getting married had no reason to stay. But the city itself and its problems are not going to go away.

Bill Clinton

I got a book on Bill Clinton recently entitled Bill Clinton: New Gilded Age President by Patrick Maney.

The book is not part of the University Press of Kansas’s Presidents series, though it is by the same publisher and seems to be formatted the same way. I’ve read two chapters so far: the first on Clinton’s pre-1992 life, and the second on the cabinet, staff, and work style. It looks like the next seven chapters are about events of the administration, followed by an epilogue on the post-presidency. I’m also a bit confused because the previous link has a date of April 2021, while the book itself is copyrighted 2016.

Anyway, the series is quite good, so I am excited to get a book that is at least closely related to it. There are a bunch of things to say so far, but I’ll keep comments limited.

Shortly before Clinton became head of the Democratic Leadership Council, they did a post-mortem of the 1980, 1984, and 1988 elections. They found three myths that contributed to Democratic failures during that time: the myth of liberal fundamentalism (that victory follows adherence to party orthodoxy), the myth of mobilization (that victory is a matter of getting nonvoters to vote, rather than finding a more appealing message), and the myth of the Congressional bastion (that strength in Congress and other down-ticket races means that the message is sound). The latter point is particular prescient in light of the 1994 midterms.

The DLC may be gone, but the contest between moderates and progressives continues. After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, there was again some hand-wringing among Democrats about whether they are out of touch. That lasted for about three days before the pussy hats came out. It is not clear which faction is coming out ahead in the Biden administration, but clearly the progressives have momentum now.

I’m enjoying the book and will probably say much more about it later, especially when I’m done. George W. Bush will be available later this year too.

[theokotrain]

Vestige - Chapter 2: As If You Know The Story

Wattpad Version

Well I have known you for just a little while

But I feel I've known you, I feel I've seen you when the Earth was split in fives

And in your words, I should let it out, I would see it die

But I'm a watcher, I see it watch her, it's in your afterlife

---

I stood by the pickup counter, lightly tapping my foot as I waited for the employee to ring the bell on the counter and shout my name. The café was surprisingly busy, much more so than I remembered it usually being. I had ordered two egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, along with two coffees for Liam and I. There weren't many tables to sit at, so they were all taken. Thankfully, we weren't planning on eating in here anyway. While I was getting our breakfast, Liam went to the store a few doors down so we could get some groceries to last us the trip. He never really learned how to cook much, with the exception of instant ramen or microwave dinners, so I thought of this as a good idea to fix that. I wouldn't call myself a good cook or anything, but I used the shared kitchen in the dorms pretty damn frequently because I never signed up for the university meal plan.

I never really know what to do with my hands when I'm just standing around like this. I switched between checking my phone for notifications and then just putting my hands in my coat pockets repeatedly. I keep my eyesight generally trending towards the floor, trying to avoid making awkward eye contact with the other customers. While looking at my phone again, someone new walks up to the till right next to the order pick-up area. I don't look to see who it is, but I vaguely recognize the voice, a feminine one. I keep looking down at my phone, not wanting to say anything and risk it being a complete stranger. I hear her handing cash over the counter, thanking the employee a bit loudly. I guess she noticed my ears perking up from her voice, because she walks over to me as I pretend to remain ignorant of her presence.

"Jake!" She says, mildly surprised. "It's been a while! What are you doing back in Vestige?" I instantly recognize her. Ms. Addams, the therapist I started seeing in grade eleven. I didn't really think I needed to see a therapist back then, but my parents made me choose between that or weekly visits to the school guidance counselor who was notorious for preaching confidentiality and then telling the parents basically everything anyway. She turned out to actually be pretty cool, at least to sixteen-year-old me, and I kept seeing her up until I left for university, although pretty infrequently.

"Oh, Allison! I'm in town visiting everybody for spring break." I replied, in the most sincere voice I could conjure.

Her eyes widened, "Everybody? As in everybody everybody?"

"Yeah, everybody." I said, a smile of acceptance on my face.

"That's good to hear!"

"I probably wouldn't have done it if Liam didn't insist." I say, quickly realising that she has no idea who that is.

"Liam? Is that-"

"Friend from university. I asked him to come with me, probably against my better judgement." I say, jokingly.

"Ah, 'friend', right," She said, laughing. Allison was the one who helped me make the apparently obvious discovery that was my sexuality, so I was usually pretty comfortable talking about that stuff with her.

"Ms. Addams making a joke at my expense? That's definitely something new," I reply sarcastically.

"You aren't my client anymore, so there's no obligation to be entirely respectful, at least to some extent," She jokes, pausing for a moment. "So, is he here?" She says, subtly scanning the occupied tables. I always failed to understand how she manages to act so professionally when she needs to. That was a huge insecurity of mine back in high school when I wanted to be seen as an adult who could make his own decisions, to no avail.

"Nah, I'm just grabbing us breakfast." I said, realising that the food I had ordered was taking a weirdly long time to be ready. "But..." I grab my phone from my pocket, opening the photos app and scrolling, trying to find a specific picture. There aren't a lot of them since he's really picky about how he looks and makes me delete the bad pictures. After a bit, I found the photo I'm looking for, "Here," I say, turning the phone over to her. The picture was from back in October, when we went to an outdoor concert with Liam's friend, Nathan. October was always hit or miss when it came to warmth, and we definitely got a miss that day. Liam and I spent the last half hour or so of the concert in the back of Nathan's pick up truck with blankets, listening to the performance. The last song the band performed was pretty dramatic, and they set off fireworks during a really crazy guitar solo. So, I obviously had to seize the moment and get a picture of Liam with the fireworks in the background, even if it was just with my phone camera. That was probably one of the best photos I had ever taken, to the point that he actually asked me if he could post it online, which was pretty flattering.

"Aw, he looks really sweet!" She says with the kind of tone you'd use to talk to an eight-year-old.

"Yeah! It's too bad you can't meet him right now, I don't think he's gonna come in here, we're heading straight back to our place after this," I sigh, making an effort to have it sound mildly disappointed.

"I have an order for Jake?" The café employee calls out. I grab the bag with the breakfast sandwiches in one hand, and do my best to hold both coffee cups at the same time and thank the employee, turning back to Ms. Addams.

She looks off for a moment, thinking about something. "...You know, you should come to my office one of these days while you're in town! It'd be nice to see how you've been doing since you left." She says, smiling.

"I'd have to see what days would work, but that'd be cool!" I didn't really want to, but it would be nice to just talk to her, even if I didn't really need therapy anymore.

"Great! Well, my contact info hasn't changed, so just let me know!" She replies. My phone loudly pings, but I don't have a free hand to grab it from my pocket.

"Oh! That's probably him," I say, nudging my head down towards my pocket. "I should probably get going, but it was nice to see you again!"

"You too, Jake! I hope the rest of your trip goes well!" I nod in return and push the door open with my shoulder, trying not to spill any coffee.

I can see my car a bit further down the parking lot with Liam sitting in the passenger seat. It's a bit hotter out today than it was yesterday. At least, hot enough to actually start melting the small amount of ice still on the ground. Hopefully that means we could actually go outside during the trip without having to wear multiple layers. It was mildly busy, though for a town like this it's a pretty low bar to be considered such. When I get to the car, I have to set the coffees on the roof so I can open the driver's seat door.

"Hey! Run into any problems at the store?" I asked, handing him his coffee.

"Nope! Pretty sure I got everything you said." He replies. I grab my coffee off of the car roof and hop in the car. I put my keys in the ignition and start the car before taking a sip.

"Man, I ran into my old therapist in there, definitely not a conversation I was expecting to have today," I said, chuckling as I shifted into reverse, ready to pull out of the parking lot.

"You had a therapist? Like, in high school?" Liam asked. Yeah, I guess there's a lot I still haven't told him about myself.

"Yeah, parents thought I was depressed, didn't think so but it wasn't really up to me."

"...Were you?"

"Uh- I don't really know- probably? I never had to go on antidepressants or anything but it definitely helped with the teen angst."

"Oh my god, please tell me you had a rebellious phase, that's hilarious," Liam put his hand on his forehead as he laughed.

"Incredibly regretfully, but yeah," I replied, sighing, Liam still laughing. "What, you weren't also embarrassing in high school?"

"Of course I was! I was the nerd that no one wanted to be friends with!"

"Ohhhhh, so you were a walking high-school-movie stereotype?" I remarked, laughing.

"Jake, I didn't even go to high school with you and it is so clear to me that you were the misunderstood kid that desperately wanted to be different. Literal stereotype!" He retorted jokingly.

I paused for a second, "...Ok, that might actually be pretty accurate but you are literally a psychology major so it's not like it was totally obvious!"

"...So are you!"

"Yeah! But I mean, like- a good one! Important distinction."

"A 'good one'? Have you seen my assignments?" Liam laughed.

"You specifically don't let me look at them like half the time, so no." I said, smirking.

"Exactly! Cause they're garbage!" He exclaimed.

"I think we both know that's bullshit," I replied, looking over at Liam, his ears subtly twitch in response. For the relatively short amount of time I've known him for, it was very clear from the beginning how insecure he was about anything he did that was remotely creative. Although, he's definitely started opening up more recently.

As we drive down the highway towards the cabin, the morning sunlight reflects off of the lake. I've always hated posting pictures of myself online, so my social media pages were typically just taken up by landscape photos, and the lake was a huge subject for me. I thought I wanted to be a professional photographer growing up, and I took basically any photography course that I could find at high school. But for a small town school photography department, they were definitely limited in the availability of equipment that wasn't twenty years old. I eventually moved on to music as my main hobby- I mean, I didn't really think I was ever gonna do anything actually important with music, but I looked up basically any guitar lesson video I could find, and I've kinda kept with it ever since. Plus I got the benefit of being the annoying asshole with a guitar at any campfire or social event whenever I wanted. And I'd be lying if I said it didn't impress Ty back then, along with Liam now.

"Hold on- weren't we talking about your therapist? How did we get that off-topic?"

"Oh, right! There's not really much to say, I saw her monthly for most of high school, found out I was kinda depressed, probably fixed it - but who really knows - anyways this is not important because we have plans that need to be put in motion!" I say as I reach down for my phone and unlock it, handing it over to Liam while trying to keep my eyes on the road. "Can you go to the group chat I have with everybody? Ask them if they'd be free tonight to come over and we'd like make food and shit - you should probably word it better than that but you get the idea."

"Ah, a truly upper class vocabulary," He laughed, the soft clicking sound of the phone keyboard playing as he typed the message.

"I think they have to have gotten used to my inane word choice at this point," I said. I could tell we were nearing the cabin. "You could probably add your number to that group chat too, if ya want," I offered.

"Oh, uh, sure!" He responded, his tone faltering somewhat.

"...You don't have to if you don't want to?"

"No, it's cool! I just barely know them still, though" He said, ending with an awkward chuckle.

"I thought you and Elliot actually hit it off last night? Plus Alex really seemed to like you, too," I said, trying to reassure him.

"Well, yeah... probably just me being irrational anyway," He paused for a moment. "I don't think Ty directly spoke to me at all last night, either."

"Oh... yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to that. Sounds about right, though," I sighed, "Don't worry. He'll definitely warm up to you eventually, he's always like that around new people." I say as I turn into the cabin driveway. A soft silence continues on as I drive through the dirt and gravel up to the front of the cabin and shift into park. I hear the message send sound effect from my phone.

"Well, I sent the text and added myself." He exclaims, handing the phone over to me.

I grab the phone from his hand and give him a kiss on the side of his muzzle, "Well, we just need to go put all this away and we can head down to the water!" I said, attempting to change the mood.

"Is the beach, like, sand? I don't think I've actually paid attention to that anytime we've been on the highway," He asked, chuckling. I got out of the car and opened the backseat door to grab some grocery bags.

"Kind of, close to the water. Mostly grass, though, which is arguably better for sitting on," I answered.

"I think any sane person would probably agree with that, sand gets literally everywhere and you still end up finding it months later," He complained. I grabbed the bag with our breakfast sandwiches as well and headed to the front door.

"Oh definitely, that's the one thing I hated about going to the beach in Vancouver."

"Yeahhh, but I appreciate the ocean, so it kinda makes up for that."

"Really, a cat likes the ocean? I never would've expected that," I said, smirking.

"That's a stereotype!" Liam exclaimed. I looked over at him, sarcastically incredulous.

I have to set a few of the bags on the ground so I can grab the key out of my pocket. unlock the front door and swing it open. I head inside after picking up the bags, Liam following closing behind with the rest of them. "Did Shae go somewhere?" He asked.

"Yeah, pretty sure her parents needed her to do some stuff since she's in town," I replied. She didn't get specific about the details, she never liked talking about family stuff anyway so I was used to it.

"Ohhhh, right! I think she mentioned that yesterday," He acknowledged.

I set the bags on the kitchen counter and took another sip of my coffee. After making sure we got everything out of the car, we started unloading the food into the fridge and cupboards. I was planning on making a tofu stir fry for everybody tonight, hoping they were even gonna be able to come, given the kinda short notice. Which reminds me...

I pull my phone out of my pocket and check the group chat.

Jake: Hey! Planning on making dinner tonight, would you guys wanna come over?

Yeah, he definitely worded that a lot better than what I said.

Shae: If I can get out of here in time to actually be there, then sure

Shae: if not ill just eat all the leftovers lol

Nobody else had replied yet, which made it obvious that Shae was bored out of her mind and probably just scrolling on her phone. Though the only one in the group who had a sporadic work schedule was Ty, so it was usually pretty typical to assume they were available back in high school, and Ty used to always tell me his schedule anyway so it wasn't a problem.

I then came to the very apparent realization that I had left Liam to finish putting away everything. And, not wanting to be an asshole, I go back and help him with the last few bags, an apologetic grin on my face. Although, he doesn't seem phased by it, so I don't mention it. Once everything's put away, I put my hands on my hips and look around the room, "So, we good to go?" I ask.

"I think so, let me go grab my jacket," He answered, and went to our room. I check the time on my phone, 11:43 AM.

"I should probably get a head start on that research paper today too, as much as I'd like to procrastinate it until the last second." I lightly shouted towards our bedroom.

"Oh! Right, ugh, thanks for reminding me," He shouted in return, clearly not excited about spending spring break writing on his laptop.

A few more moments pass as I drink my coffee, waiting for Liam. It tastes nowhere near as good as the coffee at the campus café, but I appreciate the nostalgia. Eventually, he comes back to the kitchen with his coat in his arms. I take our sandwiches and one of the blankets off of the couch and we head out the door. I stick close to Liam, leading a bit in front as we walk down the patio steps and down the driveway. Even if it's not necessarily summer weather, we should be good for an hour or two, especially with our jackets. The forest surrounding us is pretty thick, and is mostly pine trees so you can't see too deeply into it at all. The only thing on this highway past Vestige are houses, a campground, and a boat launch area for the lake. Most of which don't get any real use until the summertime, so cars were an uncommon sight out here.

"So, where is this place?" Liam asked, his voice somewhat faint from behind me. I turn around and he glances past me towards the highway. There's a small forest there blocking the potential view of the lake.

"It's a little path, kinda hidden. The owner of the cabin told me about it, you just follow it down and it goes to a little clearing by the water." I said, trying to point towards the path with the hand holding our food. The path is definitely not too noticeable to someone driving down the highway, but I can see it pretty easily from here. It's a small clearing between a few trees, with a visible lack of grass forming a pathway. The gravel driveway is not enjoyable to walk on, being a bit slushy from the melting ice.

"I'm starting to think I didn't need my jacket." Liam said. He was definitely right, the sun was beating down now, negating the effect of any wind-chill.

"It'll probably get colder by the water, so I wouldn't rule out a jacket so fast."

Liam quickens his pace, trying to walk next to me. We stop for a moment when we reach the road, making sure we don't get run over by some truck driver going thirty over the speed limit. The wind seems to pick up significantly here, ruffling my jacket sporadically. Standing at the entrance of the pathway, I can tell it's a bit of a bumpy walk down to the spot. I grab Liam's hand, leading him behind me down the small path. The ground is fairly uneven, and I almost trip a few times, trying my hardest not to take Liam down with me. I can see a bit of the water through the trees, and it doesn't look like the path goes on for long at all. There isn't much of any ice on the path, but the dirt is somewhat wet.

After a minute or two, we reach the clearing on the side of the lake. It's the exact same lake I've been so familiar with for about sixteen years, but I've never actually been to this part before. The sun is shining across the lake onto the nearby mountains, and the water is crystal clear. I had absolutely zero interest in swimming in a freezing cold lake, but it was a nice scene to sit next to. Liam made some comments about how adorable this place is, and I had to agree, at least for this specific area. The rest of the town? I might be a bit more inclined to object, but if he liked it, that was good enough for me. I hand Liam our sandwiches and take the blanket out from under my arm, unfolding it out onto the grass.

"You know, this is pretty cliché for a date idea." He says, I'm assuming jokingly from his laugh afterwards. We both sit down on the blanket as I grab the sandwiches out of the bag.

"Well- I wasn't really thinking of it as a date... Just like, I don't know, something fun to do I guess?" I said, my usual ability to construct proper sentences lacking. I hand him one of the sandwiches.

"I mean, that's literally what a date is."

"If you prefer to consider this a date then I am happy to oblige, but I usually put more effort into that stuff,"

"More effort? This is like, par for the course for the kinda dates I plan,"

"But there's so many variables! I can't just say 'Hey let's go here'" There's a light breeze rustling the trees around us as I take a bite of my breakfast sandwich. Just as good as I remember it.

"Can't you? We're doing that right now." He remarked.

"Yeah, but I didn't consider this anything special. And even then, I got the idea like three days ago and still had to do some planning," Liam laughed under his breath, "What?" I ask.

"It's just funny to me that you're the one putting all this effort into our dates," He says, smiling genuinely.

"...What do you mean?" I asked, taking another bite. We never really had actual plans for when we would spend time together, we would usually just suggest whatever came to mind. But I would still plan them a few days in advance. I don't really know why, I've just always liked having any potential issues accounted for, which would always kind of freak me out when I couldn't do that for spur of the moment plans.

Liam didn't say anything for a few moments, "...You remember yesterday, when you told Elliot how we met?"

"...Yeah?" I replied, not really knowing where this was going.

"That wasn't the first time we met." Liam said.

"What? Before the party? ...I honestly don't remember ever talking to you earlier than that." Hopefully this wasn't significant enough that I would actually be an asshole for not knowing the real first time we met.

"Yeah! I don't really blame you, it was like the beginning of our first year at university." He said.

"Really?"

"It was a group project for... I think it was the introduction to cognitive psychology course? I don't even remember what the project was about, but I made a couple friends in the class, and you ended up joining our group since we needed one more! And we obviously only really talked through the project group chat so I didn't know anything about you, other than I thought you were cute. I think I asked for your social media at one point? And you gave it and said you'd follow me back."

"And I obviously didn't." I said, kinda mad at myself.

"Yeah!" Liam exclaimed, laughing. "I didn't know you were gay at the time, so I didn't wanna embarrass myself, plus we didn't talk after that anyway so I only knew you through your online posts and from seeing you in lectures. Fast forward a year and a half, I went to that party with a few friends and you know the rest." He said as he put one of his arms around my shoulder, pulling me in for a side hug.

"Wow... How do I not remember that? I feel like I should remember that."

"It was almost two years ago, I don't remember at least ninety percent of the shit that happened that year, other than the usual stress about being a new student and having no clue what I was doing." He reassured.

"That entire year was basically one big blur, all I really did was go to classes and cower in my dorm room."

"Was Eric your dorm mate yet?"

"Yeah he was, I mostly just avoided talking to him until the second semester though, so I just huddled up in the dorm half the time while he actually had a social life," I joked, my self-deprecating humor in full-force.

"Well hey, now you got me to drag you places against your will!"

I didn't really know what to follow up with after that, so I opted to stew in my own mild embarrassment for a while as we finished eating our breakfast. I went to check my phone again, seeing if anybody else had replied to the plans we were making. To my surprise, everyone else was also able to come, which I wasn't expecting to be honest. I let Liam know and set my phone on the blanket. A fair amount of time passed as we sat there, enjoying the moment.

Before I got here, I made it a personal goal to use my phone, and technology in general, a bit less. I didn't tell anybody about that, just cause I thought it was kinda stupid, but I spent way too much time at university on my laptop - most of the time not even doing anything productive. So, I thought of this return to my hometown where they had barely started getting rid of dial up internet at the start of the decade as a good opportunity. Of course, there was no escaping the assignments we had to submit when the break ended, but I was still gonna try.

"Thanks for bringing me here, by the way." Liam said, suddenly taking me out of my head.

"...To the lake?" I replied, mildly confused.

"No! Well, that too- I mean on the trip! I know you were kinda iffy about bringing me to see basically your entire childhood." He said. I've started noticing recently that his voice gets a bit higher pitched when he's being sappy. I usually try to avoid being over-sentimental simply out of embarrassment.

"...well, this is only the second day! Believe me, you'll have plenty of time to start to regret ever thinking coming here was a good idea." I joked.

"I'm sure!"

As I finish the last few bites of my breakfast sandwich, I can hear Liam's phone going off in his pocket. He sets his sandwich back in the wrapper and grabs his phone. I can't see who's calling from the angle I'm looking at, and he answers it before I can move over.

"Hey! ...A few minutes away, why? Oh! Yeah! Yeah, just gimme a minute. Okay, we'll just be a minute!" He hangs up the phone, putting it back in his pants, "Did you lock the door to the cabin?"

"...Yeah?" I replied, thinking nothing of it.

He sighed, "Shae can't get in."

I groaned, dramatically, "I didn't think she'd get back until tonight!" I quickly stood up, "Wait here. I'll go let her in and come back."

"Hurry back!" He laughed, probably at how I locked the door of one of the most remote cabins within a fifty mile radius. Locking my door had become second nature at university anyway due to a couple guys breaking into my dorm and stealing some of my roommate and I's stuff, and breaking my TV. It happened early on in my first year, so I'm over it, but I still kept the habit of locking the door. Besides, Eric had his own key so it was never a problem.

Walking back into the forest brought the noticeable lack of noise to the forefront of my mind. All I could hear once again was the crunch of the leaves and ice underneath my shoes along with the occasional car driving down the highway. It's noticeably darker from the trees blocking any sunlight from reaching the forest floor. When I make it to the highway, I am greeted by fog, and lots of it. There's no way this much fog showed up here while Liam and I were down by the lake. Although, fog wasn't exactly uncommon around here, especially at this elevation near a mountain range. I start heading up the driveway, trying to see if I can spot Shae at the door. As the cabin comes into view, the only car I see out front is my own, and Shae doesn't appear to be outside. Maybe she found a way in? I step up the stairs onto the porch, the wood creaking under me. The whistle of the wind is high pitched, swerving throughout the nearby trees, rustling the leaves. I try the front door, seeing if Shae unlocked it, but it seems to be locked still. I grab the keys out of my pocket and insert them, unlocking the door.

As I go to open the door, my ears perk as I hear the sound of footsteps on the gravel near my car. I silently hope that it's just Shae, but my irrational fears seem to be taking hold. I walk over to the patio fence, looking to see if someone's down there, but there seems to be nothing, at least that I can see.

Fuckin- god.

I turn around and head inside, not wanting to deal with whatever bullshit is currently happening. I figure I'll just call Shae and see what's up.

"there's nothing for you in there."

[covid19updater]

COVID19 Updates: 01/03/2021

California:  43 staffers infected at Kaiser emergency room in San Jose, and inflatable Christmas costume could be to blame LINK

World:  The new coronavirus variant that emerged in the U.K. is more transmissible and appears to affect a higher proportion of people under 20, according to a report from Imperial College London and other science groups. LINK

UK:  "I honestly don't think there's an answer to this" Tony Blair says "it's going to be extremely difficult to keep schools open" and calls for the rollout of vaccines to be "radically accelerated"

World:  US NSA claims to have 'growing body of evidence' that #COVID19 originated in #Wuhan lab, report says LINK

World:  Disease X warning as doctor who helped discover Ebola fears new deadly viruses LINK

RUMINT (US):  Just got to the airport in Charlotte. Absolutely packed. People lined up by the dozens at every eatery. Several others sitting on the floor, mask off, stuffing their faces. Others mask off talking on the phone. I plan on starving myself for the next 12 hours until I get where I'm going...this n95 is staying glued to my face. Half the people are just wearing bandannas tied to their head. No wonder we had nearly 300,000 new cases yesterday. It's like people are oblivious. The only responsible people I've seen so far was a military family traveling on orders sitting next to me. Surgical mask over their n95 and safety glasses with side eye protection for all members of the family. Looks like they got the memo.

UK:  UK reports more than 50,000 coronavirus cases for 6th day in a row. UK: +54,990

Virginia: reports more than 5,000 new cases for the third day in the last 4 days this week. Statewide average positivity rate is now above 15%, above 20% in some regions. The 20 to 29 years of age range is the most affected in the recent days.

UK:  The military will be drafted in to help run London’s Nightingale hospital which is due to open within days to help relieve pressure on the capital’s struggling wards. Emails seen by The Independent reveal the military is preparing to call up dozens of army reservists to help run the hospital alongside NHS staff. LINK

World:  The prevalence of long COVID symptoms and COVID-19 complications LINK

RUMINT (UK):  I live in the South East of the UK , where the new variant is said to have originated.Today I have found out that a friends husband has Covid and was taken to hospital , he is home now but still poorly ,(he is early 30's) she is taking him food/drinks wearing a mask and he is in a separate part of the house to her as they have kids and one of them has an underlying health condition Also a girl that my son went to school with has fallen ill and has tested positive , she is 18 - so its hitting the younger generations. Where I live has been Tier 4 since before Xmas , luckily my Mum is in my 'bubble' so I was able to have her at mine for Xmas Day - she has severe osteo-arthritis and is housebound , can barely walk. But health-wise she is OK , no underlying conditions. I am a carer for my son so I am home pretty much al the time apart from walking the dog and the weekly shop , I drive to Mum's to drop off shopping/check her. People definitely steering clear of each other around here , shops quite empty and roads quiet. Its semi-rural here - seaside town - non-essential shops all closed , barbers , dog groomers etc.....its like a ghost town, New Year's Eve I walked the dog just as it was starting to get dark , around 5 ish and was quite surreal as all the pubs were shut , streets empty and the whole place was quiet.......That's a little update from my corner of the world

Australia:  Australia's COVID-19 cases on the rise as masks made compulsory LINK

UK:  Sunday update of UK Covid data. I’ll keep it short, but it’s not good. Test positivity in London has now hit 27%. The climb from 17% to 27% has taken 5 days. In March it took 6.

US:  A top official of Operation Warp Speed on Sunday floated the idea of halving the dose of each shot of Moderna's vaccine to potentially double the number of people who could receive it and gain some immunity.

UK:  Today’s hospital data for England could not be more stark: 25k patients now hospitalised with Covid That’s a 6% increase in 24hrs And a 41% increase since Christmas Day

California:  A worrying trend: an increasing percentage of people dying from COVID in LA County don't have underlying conditions. Earlier in the pandemic, about 92% of people who died had preexisting health conditions; that number has now dropped to about 86%, officials say.

US: COVID update: - New cases: 204,805 - Positivity rate: 14.4% (+1) - In hospital: 125,544 (+1,905) - In ICU: 23,231 (+79) - New deaths: 1,431 - Vaccinated: 4.3M (+44,171)

US:  CDC hopes to double the number of coronavirus samples checked for new mutations LINK

World:  South African coronavirus mutation may BEAT current vaccines, expert on team behind the Oxford jab warns - but insists: 'Stay calm, everything is going to be fine' LINK (Wait, what?)