#welcome to the exact same tags as the original post because that's where half the joke is:

[redkelpfish]

Belated anniversary to this post. Here's a slightly updated version. Legend says they're still arguing about who gets the Pink ranger to this day. Both of them are losing <3.

[lillambtotheslaughter]

HI HI \(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)/ and welcome to my blog! You may know me from my main blog @lelandmylove but here in this blog I mainly focus on posting about my Tcsm OCs ☀️Cindy Mayfield☀️ and 🪻Jolene Olight🪻!

There will be NO NSFW on this page but light flirting with the OCs here and there won't hurt! If you don't like my page and what I post simply block me or don't interact with my page! Tw for violence, murder, injuries, cannibalism, self harm, being force fed, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse and yeah while I'm not really that confident in my writing this is just a head ups of what will be shown on this page.

Rules for this blog

• Obviously no spreading hate

• Don't use my characters without asking me first or notifying me that you will be using them for something

• DON'T BE WEIRD AND SEXUALIZE MY OC'S

• And most importantly just have fun here!

•THIS IS NOT A SAFE PLACE FOR PEOPLE WHO SHIP ANY OF THE FAMILY MEMBERS TOGETHER GET THE FUCK OFF MY PAGE!

•Basic DNI

I will write (if I'm confident enough) and draw for my OCs here on this page and you are allowed to ask questions about any of them if you want! Now onto my OCs ✧⁠\⁠(⁠>⁠o⁠<⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠✧

☀️ Cynthia (Cindy) Mayfield☀️

🏵️Mood board🏵️

Lore: (I'm sorry the creator himself doesn't even know unfortunately he's just making stuff up as he goes.)

🪻Jolene Olight🪻 (she does not use the swayers last name.)

🍇Mood board🍇

(Sorry the creator doesn't have his shit together so it's still being made😒)

Lore: (surprisingly the creator does have her lore but he's too lazy to fix it up and make it make more sense because he wrote it months ago half asleep) While coming back from a trip into town Nancy stumbled across what she thought to be an empty box abandoned on the side of the road but upon further inspection was surprised when she laid eyes on a few week old baby with the name "Jolene Olight" written on a small piece of paper taped onto the worn out blanket she was wrapped in. Thinking it was another one of "gods blessings" she carefully reached into the box, gently picking up the fragile baby girl and cradling it in her arms with a bright smile on her face deciding that she would keep it and raise it as her own just as she did with her Johnny. Upon taking her home with her Johnny was the first person to find out about the newest addition to the family, and of course being ten years old at the time wasn't all that happy about having a sibling he'd have to help take care of. But all that changed after a few years of having her as a sister, the two grew close during Jolene's childhood and from the moment she could walk Johnny started taking her with him on little hunts, teaching her how to sneak up on prey and capture rabbits and field mice. Even being there when she caught her very first hare and her very first kill when she turned 13. Later on he'd go on to gift her a switch blade he'd found off one of the victims bodies which is the same exact one she uses now in present times. While growing up in the house Jolene would often be left at the house with bubba and nubbins whenever a hunt was going on however instead of staying with them she would sneak off and stay with Grandpa the whole time talking to him about bugs and sometimes even complaining about Nancy and Johnny. Even though he wouldn't respond to her that didn't stop her from continuing to talk his head off all the way until she was picked up by Johnny to go back home where she would give his legs a hug and then run off to go home. While she isn't the strongest family member there or even the smartest her small and lean frame helps with her stamina allowing her to keep up with victims making sure to always give them a good chase. It's like a game of tag to her.

Ability (Savior): SAVIOR CAN ONLY BE ACTIVATED ONCE BLOOD BOTTLE IS FULL AND IF GRANDPA IS STUNNED. ONCE SAVIOR IS ACTIVATED GRANDPA AROMATICALLY GETS OUT OF THE STUNNED STATE NO LONGER HAVING TO WAIT FOR THE COOL DOWN AND BACK TO HIS ORIGINAL LEVEL HE WAS AT BEFORE BEING STUNNED. THIS ABILITY SAVIOR CAN ONLY BE USED TWICE THROUGH THE WHOLE GAME AND MUST BE USED WISELY FOR THOSE STICKY SITUATIONS. WOULDN'T WANT A VICTIM TO GET OFF THIS PROPERTY NOW WOULD WE?

(please be nice to the creator he will cry.)

[supportivecircle]

i dont use tumblr so my formatting might be off cause i don’t know how to do them fancy quote blocks so settle for regular quotes. my apologies. just a humble mostly-lurking circle here. “What exact series are you talking about in this particular sentence? Clarification is needed.“ idw cause the post is majority about idw and its the idw-fan-blog. i don’t mean for that to be read as like condescending if it does. it’s just like that’s the answer. “I’m pretty sure that the same could be said about the people you’re vague-talking about. Just because you don’t see us gush about the things we like 24/7 doesn’t mean we vociferously despise everything, you know.“ doesn’t matter if they once liked it and became disillusioned, which if you say that for yourself than that’s what happened for you personally i don’t know your post history so i’m not going to act like you’re wrong or playing it down. you say disillusioned for yourself which i mean fair enough, that happens, people fall out from stuff they liked. i say toxic and invasive for the people that primarily engage with the community just to be negative in spaces about it where people aren’t. the people i’m talking about are not just disillusioned and would not talk about what they like all the time, they would routinely post negatively in the tag and on other peoples’ posts, some of the original posts would be combative at first, a lot weren’t they were just people posting about enjoying the comic. if you aren’t one of them congrats, you’re not in the group im talking about. no need to use “we” or “us”. it also kind of doesn’t matter what people might gush about in the times they don’t put forward as a representation of themselves on others’ content where people who don’t know them will see them. someone might openly be positive about some parts of something on their own blog, or occasionally in others’ posts, but they can’t have an expectation people won’t see them as toxic when the majority and severity of what they put out in spaces others will see is toxic and greatly outweighs whatever ratio of positivity they have. “Secondly, “they” does not apply here. I was the one who saw the post and wrote a response to it, and I’d like for you to not drag people who wouldn’t have even seen idw-sonic-fan-blog’s post if it wasn’t for my response into this.“ nah i haven’t dragged anyone in specifically. anyone who is willing to self-identify as people potentially in that toxic circle is dragging themselves in by choice. now if you are in that social group i wouldn’t know. again i don’t know you, and i don’t have you blocked. i blocked you for a second when i saw you reblogged with this before going “naaah this isn’t the same kind of behavior or pattern” and decided to engage and not just block and ignore it. i haven’t seen you regularly going onto posts from people just enjoying the comic to correct them on why actually it’s terrible, like the people that are blocked have actively done over the past few years. maybe i just haven’t been as attentive if that is the case, but i wasn’t assuming it to be the case. people generally don’t care about what they have to say, that’s why they make it clear they don’t want to hear it and they shouldn’t clog up other people’s posts with it if it’s not welcome. the problem is that when someone (or someones plural that’s fancy) pisses off enough people, it becomes impossible to ignore and avoid contact with it, because then half the reblogs are the same people just patting each other on the back and driving other people away from engaging without feeling like they’ll be the next target of that crap. which happened here right? you made a response, then the anti’s all circled up and filled up the reblogs. you don’t make them respond that way every time this happens, so don’t take responsibility for them this time. like I hadn’t seen your reblog or response or whatever its called cause it was hidden, so if you were thinking I was talking about you or your response in particular I wasn’t. it was about all the following reblogs being the same 7-8 blocked people who have been doing this circus show for years regardless of who gives them an excuse to, nasty tone in original post or not. it was also about how comedically predictable it is. i mean i don’t disagree with all the points you made in your post having now read it, and i get matching tone to the original post at least, but the circling up im talking about has also happened on posts that did not start in the tone this one did and they would bring it to the table first. “Finally, how is my response “confronting and pushing disdain”, but idw-sonic-fan-blog’s original post isn’t? Their post was written in a pretty confrontational and disdainful tone, which was the main reason I decided to write a response to it. (a response which they hid the instant I posted it. lol)“ i mean it is confronting (indirectly) and pushing disdain, but it isn’t forcing anyone to engage. mine is too, on people who routinely engage in dragging their baggage onto people’ posts that didn’t involve them directly in the first place lol. they weren’t going onto one of the people in that group’s posts to force engagement with them, they made a post on their blog without dragging anyone specifically into it against their will. if they don’t like your response and hide it then... yeah. it’s their blog. they can hide who they want and ignore you. no need for all the anti’s to circle up and rile each other up about it on the post where it’s been made clear they aren’t welcome in the first place. odds are they’ll already just do it on each other’s blogs anyway afterwards. “I (and the IDW critics I know, for that matter) never pretended to be the majority and speak for the whole fandom, so I don’t know what this statistic is supposed to indict or prove.” i mean that’s just to make it clear the small group of people that routinely do this song-and-dance are persistent, vocal, and really lame like my neighbor’s obnoxious chickens lmao. again, if you’re not one of the people that have the specific attitude im talking about then you’re not, but that circle are incredibly lame and despite not being a majority they’ve engaged toxically with enough people and frequently enough over the years to scare more than a few anxious members of the community off from wanting to engage with it publicly. they have been doing it for years instead of just moving on from the comic series’ fandom and tags despite knowing exactly how it goes each time. so like they’re just lame and i point out how small their actual numbers are despite how much impact they have on people who feel like it’s larger than it is. im also just an absolute bastard. “If we’re the insignificant minority and just “the same 7-8 people”, then why do you and people like you even care about the things we have to say? You’re free to simply ignore us.” i already stated why people can’t just ignore it cause of what the knock-on effects are in a community, and how people don’t care about what is said, but im circling back cause i dont think i directly quoted this in that part. people who choose to go for an eye on non-confrontational posts (NOT this original post and yours again to be clear, the more messed up stuff the other blocked people do/did) and then get an eye-for-an-eye treatment afterwards don’t get to complain about getting the eye-for-an-eye treatment from people who have seen what they’ve done. they are free to ignore posts people make rather than willingly engage with them first and then tell people to “just ignore us if its an issue” in the chains of the original post as if they are owed a safe space in the posts of others, but the original posters aren’t owed a safe space away from them in their own posts. the onus is not on them to accommodate toxic people, the toxic people should just not directly engage in the first place, and if they do they don’t get to complain when they are unwelcome by people after years of doing it. again though, you are using “we” assigning yourself as part of that group, but I’m not talking about you because i think you had a misunderstanding about who i was talking about in the first place when i wasn’t aware of your individual existence. unless you do consider yourself part of the people i’m talking about in which case whoops but oh well. as for the incognito mode stuff, i dont believe there is an equal comparison in turning on incognito on the occasional post with a bunch of hidden reblogs to see if they are just private engagement or the same obnoxious group before moving on, to actively searching a tag full of content and beliefs the person hasn’t liked for years and reading through posts to find ones to get into arguments on. if i went into incognito to actively check their blogs’ contents it might be similar, but i don’t cause after like the 6th time of seeing what their pattern was before blocking, i know exactly how their routine is with this.  i stand by my beliefs, which also apply to anyone who goes into that group’s spaces to start fights being lame and anti-tubular by sending mean asks or being hostile in posts they are making on their own blogs that aren’t hostile towards anyone. here have a drawing in any case. i don’t know you or your favs but i think that’s thunderbolt in your blog banner so i drew her. maybe i’m a big wrongo. we stan this crazy chinchilla anyway. hashtag chinchilla gang.

also i apologize to the original poster for playing my part in turning the convo further in this direction. i’m done engaging with it i clarified all my points and i got games to play. cheers. this one is for you idw fan blog account user. god im so glad its joever. like a butterfly emerging from my cocoon i am free.

Sonic Frontiers sold 3 million copies.

For comparison’s sake, Sonic 06 sold 800k, Sonic Unleashed sold under 2.5 million copies, Sonic Colors sold 2.1 million copies, and Sonic Generations sold 1.8 million copies. Sonic Lost World sold 700k and is one of the lowest selling main games in the Franchise and yet the Zeti are prominent in the comic. Sonic Forces sold a pitiful in its first week and we may never know exactly how much Sonic Forces actually sold(and it having 5 million plus on players on PSN+ is not any indication of a sale since it was free.) Yet somehow the comic takes place directly after Forces. Sonic Mania sold just over a million in case those hardcore Sonic classic fans want to open their mouths. While I’m at it, Sonic Adventure sold 1.3 million and SA2 sold 1.7 million. Sonic Rush sold 1.3 million and its sequel,which suffered after 06 tarnished Sonic’s reputation, sold 300k. The first Sonic game sold 15 million copies and before Retro fans start talking shit, note that is the only game in the franchise that sold that amount and it was in the golden age of gaming. You could sell a wet fart in an Nintendo cartridge and it would have made a million easy. Sonic 2? 6 million. Sonic 3? 1.03 million. Sonic and Knuckles? 1.3 million. Sonic CD? 1.5 million. Shadow the Hedgehog? 2 million. And Sonic Heroes and probably the biggest offender as to why Sonic Team stopped giving a shit about quality or effort and more about that Christmas grind? 3.41 million in 2 years.

Sonic Frontiers sold like gang busters in the couple of months it’s been out.

If you think Sage or any Frontiers elements won’t be referenced or be in the comic, you are bugging. Especially given that one of the main writers of the game writes for the comic. If that’s what is keeping you from saying IDW Sonic is on the same canon as the games and not what Iizuka says or what Flynn has stated several times, you are bugging. You are kidding yourselves if you think IDW can’t possibly put in those elements from the game in their comic.

If you don’t consider Tangle or Whisper to be game character in spite of them appearing in two mobile games that have been downloaded and played more than any Sonic game and have been created with the help of Sonic Team’s own character designer, fling yourself into the Nile River and cope and seethe. Tangle and Whisper have merchandise in the Sega Shop.

TailsTube shorts? Written by Flynn. That little Amy Rose Tarot Card set that is coming out soon? Written by Flynn with art created by one of the many IDW comic artists. This comic series has well over 50 issues including 4 different 4 part miniseries. It sold out in Japan! It’s consistently IDW’s top selling comic beating both the Transformers and Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. It has sold over 10,000 copies an issue in a world where comics aren’t widely recognized unless it’s in the Marvel or DC. What they said in the beginning about it being diverged from canon no longer applies. Shit changed. It’s a new goddamn world. IDW Sonic is the only medium that actually uses your beloved obscure characters like Silver and Blaze. Like Cream. I don’t know what Flynn has done to make you turn up your nose at him but get over it. And the days of Sega pimping out Sonic to whatever Western media content creator and not caring what they churn out are over. The only exception to this is the movie verse(and because Iizuka has explicitly said it’s in a different canon)and honestly I have a tougher time trying to grasp how Sonic Prime is canon than I am with IDW. But regardless, it’s a new day. You are in a renaissance of Sonic and for once Sega gives enough of a shit about lore to want to make it all gel together and avoiding SATAM or Sonic Underground or Sonic the Comic or Archie Sonic the Hedgehog. Get the fuck over it.

[girl8890]

Special Nickname

Personal Ballerina (Part 3)

{ Alice in Borderland Master List }

Summary: The Beach group members original goal was to destroy the other groups plans, but this changed into curiosity and a deal is made. Niragi is pissed at Hatter’s decision, but no one cares about the deal when you walk into the room. The longing is clear as day from Niragi, but he’s changed so much you don’t even notice it’s him. 

Warnings: Death Threats.

Notes: I will also be posting this on AO3 if you want to read it there. Here’s the LINK. 

Tags: @starjane312​ @dream-escaper​

AIB ML | Index | Part 4

*·゜ﾟ·*:.。..。.:*·'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'·*:.。. .。.:*·゜ﾟ·*

When everyone walked into the room, only the two out of three top tiers, and their ringleader Aoto, were there.

Aoto had a big smile on his face and he was feeling ecstatic to finally get to meet the fellow group leader Hatter himself. He’s heard a lot about him through ‘someone’ and he just couldn’t wait for the day that The Beach players came here.

Aoto stood up and stretched his arms out.

“Welcome! Come sit, come sit.”

Niragi was hesitant to sit down at first. He really wanted to demand the whereabouts of you, but he didn’t want the others to know he knew you. He hated half the people in his group, so he wasn't going to bring anymore attention to himself then he already did back when he almost shot the guy that was trying to fight you.

He sat down next to Leo and diagonal from Minato. The seat in front of him stayed empty, per Aoto’s request, and Niragi was hoping it was because you would eventually sit in front of him.

Aoto signaled for the bartender to bring us all drinks, but Hatter wasn't here to have a drink.

“What gave you the bright idea to create this group? You obviously knew about The Beach, MY Beach, so what is all this?”

Aoto straightened his back and his smile faltered for a second. He wasn’t expecting Hatter to get right to the point. Niragi looked across the table at Aguni. Signaling he’s ready for a fight if ordered.

No one in the opposite group had weapons on them that he saw, and they had no guards there to protect them either, so The Beach players could easily take them.

“Well... let’s just say a little birdie gave me the idea. When I created this place you were around, but not as big as you are now. Even though you may not believe me Hatter, but I envy you.”

“Y-you envy me?”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Niragi rolled his eyes and slumped in his seat. One thing Hatter could never resist, is when people complement his work. The guy gets horny off of compliments.

“Well, yes. I feel it’s hard enough to keep track of the three of them. Don’t let the amount people in the crowd fool you, they all come as they please, but you have hundreds of people doing your bitting. It’s impressive.”

Hatter was taken back by how envies Aoto was being of him. Everyone else in the room, was kinda confused as to where this exact conversation was leading.

“My group is small, but the best of the best. And your group is big, with some great players sprinkled in. With that being said... I was thinking we can do something that would benefit all of us.”

Niragi eyed Aoto suspiciously now. The way he's acting and forming his words are off. He doesn’t know him at all. He just met him not even five minutes ago, but something about making a proposition with these people doesn’t seem right.

“And, what is that exactly?”

Hatter asked cautiously.

“Combine groups and collect all the cards together. You can even still be the first one to leave.”

And there it is. The needle has dropped and Niragi has never wanted to laugh at a proposition more in his life. Hatter would never fall for…

“Done.”

“What!?” Everyone, but Aoto, Leo, and Minato, exclaimed at the same time.

Niragi was looking at Hatter like he just planned to join the game masters. Luckily, everyone else had the same expression. It wasn't Niragi’s place to say anything, but Aguni wasn't going to not say something.

“Hatter - are you mad!? We just met these people... We planned on taking down these people no more than a hour ago. Your just going to give up The Beach-”

Hatter cut him off.

“Not ‘give up’ Aguni, enhance it. We saw what just one of their top tiers can do. Imagine having the three of them in our corner now! We will get all the cards in no time.”

The cards.

That’s all Hatter ever thinks about.

Even when this proposal was so rushed, and not even a negotiation happened, Hatter was blinded by the fact that he could collect all the cards. A theory he found out by ‘someone’ that isn't even full proof.

Leo gives a golf clap to the succession of their plan, and even Minato smiles at Aoto’s accomplishment.

“There’s just one thing I would like to ask you Aoto.”

Aoto raises his eyebrow in question at Hatter. Signaling for him to ask away.

“Where’s your Spades girl?”

This makes Niragi listen more contently. He’s been waiting for someone to ask this question since he's gotten into this room. When he saw how impressed Hatter was with your skills, he thought he would ask where you were right away.

Aoto, Leo, and Minato all looked at each other with concern. Niragi noticed and now he was feeling concerned for your whereabouts too. He knows he shouldn't. He knows he doesn’t have the right to be concerned for you.

But he is - just like he’s always been.

Always going soft for his personal ballerina. He really needs to revaluate this soft spot of his later because right now if anyone looked at him they would know his concern very clearly.

Leo turns back to the group and has that Mira wide, creepy smile on.

“Our Spades Queen is dancing her worries away.”

Excuse a fucking me?

Niragi couldn’t help but look dumbfound at the bitch’s answer. It’s really starting to annoy him on how much these people remind him so much of the people he already hates at The Beach.

Aoto is like Hatter. Leo is like Mira. And Minato, well he hasn't said much to be a copycat of anyone yet. But by the ways Niragi catches Minato eyeing some of them, he has a feeling he’s just like Chishiya.

Mira and Hatter he can tolerate, but a second Chishiya? No thanks! Ones enough, even though he rather none, in Niragi’s world.

A silence fell onto the group after that. Most of them were trying to question Leo’s words, but didn’t voice it out loud.

Then, the door bangs open. It opens so fast it dents the wall next to it.

Someone kicked it open, and that person was none other than Y/n herself.

Niragi’s mouth went automatically dry at the sight of you.

You were wearing a black jacket with the zipper unzipped, and a black tank top underneath. You had ripped up shorts, that weren't like that when you got them, and black boots to conceal some of your knives in.

But it wasn’t your outfit that made Niragi freeze. You walked in with your hair in a pony tail, something you weren’t wearing before, and Niragi had a perfect view of your long neck. This was always his favorite part of you. When you would pull it up before you started your performance for him all those times, all those years ago, he would always have to try super hard to cover up his ‘nose bleed.’

Now, he just wants to lick up your neck and feel you shiver for him.

Niragi wasn't just looking at your neck though. He was looking at your eyes, nose, lips, all the parts of you he adored so many times in his mind. Which, for Niragi, every part of you was perfection.

Your eyes weren’t on him though, and you didn’t look happy to be in that room, unlike Niragi.

After you killed that guy at the field, you were told to come straight here. But you wouldn’t come to this ‘meeting’ before you showered your sadness away, and scrub your skin raw. Crying in the shower is the only place you were able to do this.

You would have gone to your spot in the stadium that no one was allowed to go, but you, but you didn’t want to annoy Aoto and get into a useless fight that the other top tiers wouldn’t be on your side for.

You didn't even look at the people at the center table. You walked right over to the bar in the corner of the room and nudged the bartender out of the way. If anyone else went behind this bar, Tray, the bartender, would have kicked them out or tried to shot him with the gun concealed under the bar. But since it was you, he moved right out of the way.

Everyone knew not to mess with you after a game or after one of Aoto’s personal games. You would shove your knife deep into someone’s eye sockets if they did and worry about the trauma later. Your head was full of so many darks thoughts, and killing that guy today was on a repeated loop in your mind.

You went under the bar and took out the half empty bourbon bottle. You placed it on the bar top then started taking out all your knives from your person because you didn’t need them right now.

The four on your back holster, the two in each pockets, and the big baby in your boot. You were about to reach for the bottle of bourbon, but you remembered one last knife. You shoved your hand into your shirt, and didn’t care if anyone was watching. You took out a pink knife and threw it on top of the pile you made.

Making, unknowingly to you, a certain person in the room grip the table in front of him.

You were about to take your first sip of many of the harsh alcohol for the night, but then an unknown voice to you stopped you.

“Wow! Where did you find a girl like her?”

You looked up from inside of the bottle that was about to touch your lips, and saw there wasn't just the fellow tiers in here. There was a bunch of people you've never seen in your life. You looked at all of them each for a second, until you got to one in particular.

The one with multiple piercings, long hair that’s partly pinned up in a bun, and a face that girls would get instantly wet for. You tilted your head at him because you swore he looked so familiar to you.

Just when you were about to think hard enough to try and remember how he looks familiar, Minato grabbed your attention.

“Starting already? I would of thought you just stayed in that special room of yours all night.”

You roll your eyes at Minato. Don’t let Minato’s height and smartest foul you, he was the biggest slut you'll ever meet. He gets a new girl coming out of his room every night, and he always tries to get in your’s and Leo’s pants. You have too much respect for yourself to do anything with him, and Leo has a husband in the real Tokyo that she would never betray by sleeping with a guy like him.

“I wasn't. But thanks for your concern.”

It was an empty thanks, but you were hoping it would end whatever conversation he was trying to create. Sadly, this didn’t happen.

“No problem, baby. Always got to look after my personal ballerina.”

The bottle broke in your hand and you snapped your eyes at him. No one ever called you that.

Only one person you allowed to give you that nickname. One person, you haven’t talk to in years. And Minato was notthe exception to this special rule of yours you kept sacred to the guy that kept you living throughout your high school years.

You grabbed one of your knives from the pile and ran at him. Minato jumped right out of his seat and started running around the table to get away from you. You just went around Aoto, at the table, when Leo stood up and stopped you.

“Y/n breath.”

You were staring at Aoto across the table. Cowering behind a guy you don’t know that looked to be the same size as Minato himself.

That nickname was the only precious thing you had of your old life. As soon as your friend Suguru Niragi graduated high school, you lied to him and told him you joined the Tokyo ballet. He knew you always wanted to join them one day, but you never could. You never got into your dream ballet, and you didn't want to hold him back from his dreams of escaping his own demons.

So, you lied to him. You lost connection with him over the years, but not because you wanted too. Not because you didn’t want to hear his voice and see him blush by the obvious longing he had for you. But because you didn't want to be a disappointment. You didn’t want the one person you cared about to feel disappointed in you.

So, you never picked up that phone, but you still thought about him every time you danced.

And then you got stuck here.

With a person like Minato that wants to take your special nickname you only ever allowed one person to give you. You weren’t going to allow that. He knew it meant something to you because you’ve had this exact fight before. Leo would always be the one to coax you out of actually killing him.

“Don’t you ever, EVER call me that again! If you do, I'll cut off your tongue and make you eat it. And, you know what? You’ll be my first kill I'll ever enjoy. Don’t fucking test me.”

After you're done with your true threats, you throw the knife onto the center of the table. You glance at everyone in the room, and keep your eyes on the guy you can’t quiet place where you know him from for a few second longer, then head for the door.

You don’t leave before yelling back,

“If you need me, don’t.”

Then you left, and everyone’s faces showed how stunned they were by what just happened. Everyone, but Niragi.

He had the biggest smile on his face.

-

-

-

Ending Notes: Sorry this chapter was short and had really nothing excited to it. I promise the other chapters will be much better :)

(Part 4)

[karaslluthor]

supercorp fanfic masterpost pt.2

this has been in my drafts for over a year so here ya go and hasn't been updated since then but if u haven't read these then ur welcome. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

its literally a big ass list jsyk and i did all the tumblr tags back then so idk if they are still the same users but hopefully lmao. 

original part 1 is here boysss

MULTI FICS

somewhere i have never travelled (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9268886/chapters/21008012)

kara and lena visit all different places lenas lived and then they find a home together and its super cute and fluffy I cry

Paranoia Incarnated - @justmickeyfornow

mickey is my fucking supercorp spiritual guider with the best fucking fic and ive read it about 322934 times and still is sooo good. Also the whole heartbeat thing KILLS me. SO MUCH ANGST but literally its worth the death u go through trust me

Transcendent Interactions 

Kara and lena share this bond thing from birth and can feel each others emotions and they finally meet and its so great like im actually fucking in love with this fic and kara gets herself off all the time thinking lena doesn’t know idk just read it u wont regret I stg

Closer and Closer (Until We Collide) - @hallow777 

Im a slut for bed sharing tropes and this is so CUTE like lenas all freaking out because she keeps waking up cuddling kara and alex is oblivious to everything and its just soooo good

So, This Happened?

Drunk kara leaves drunk alex for a more suitable cuddle buddy aka lena lesbian luthor and lena sleeps in a supergirl t shirt bc of course

Sojourn 

Holy mother of fuck as if this fic didn’t absolutely ruin my fucking life??? Lena has to go to London for a month so she invites kara to come with her and lena has a gay awakening and realises shes in love with kara and its SO FUCKING GOOD

just one wrong move (baby, baby)

lena is having karas baby from this alien tech accidentally! And lena is so loved and its so cute like honestly and obviously they fall in love bc duh

hold me, my dear (and don't let go)

kara is a professional cuddler and lena hires her services bc shes a sad touch starved young lady and deserves to have some hugs in her life hello fluff my old friend discovering the moon 

alex and lena brotp and holy fuck does it deliver!!!! Alex is like a wingwoman we all need and kara and lena just need to communicate tbh but AMAZING

Focus on Something You Love, and Breathe

Lex is a little shit as always and wants to kill lena bc he thinks shes in love with supergirl (which she is) so kara says she can stay with her and obviously the angst is juicy and ruined my life. So. Good. Read. It.

Offstage 

College theatre au but like literally one of the best college aus ive ever read!!!! Lenas just a big lesbian and karas confused and they bang secretly and its glorious

it's a boy!

lena takes in a super powered alien baby that falls from the sky and gets a weird neighbor in the form of kara danvers and theres not many chapters yet so im not sure whats happening with kara yet but im super excited for this!!!

Break My Fall 

Kara dates monel but kisses lena as supergirl and its angsty and smutty and all round a good fucking time

carefulness can be damned 

Post 3x7, literally smut with some plot need I say more??

A Foolish Wit - @seabiscuits-us​

if you haven’t read seabiscuits fics are you even a supercorp fan?? Lena needs a husband and Clark Danvers is positively charming and also actually disguised as a man, I mean.. quality content

In My Veins

im soooo excited for this fic because the lena/alex brotp is written so well!!! Basically lena and alex become really good friends bc they both deal with their issues by drinking obvs and kara thinks they are secretly dating and gets upset and im SO READY FOR THIS ANGST

Would You Catch Me If I Fall For You ('Cause I'm falling) 

This is absolutely amazing and so captivating and I was honestly on edge the whole time kudos to the author!!!!! Kara goes back in time to warn lena about her dying on the venture and lena falls in love with her but she disappears and then when real kara and lena meet, kara doesn’t remember knowing lena and ughsalkdhsla its so good.

We Need a New Song

Oh my good golly gosh this fic ruined my life. Ballet au that has barely any ballet and an abundance of GAY and I had to take a moment after reading this to collect myself tbh

and stick it into someone else's heart 

Rhea infected lenas boobs in a cage dress with some weird alien stuff and her and kara have to bang or THEY’LL DIE pretty much but they love each other

The Laws of Fate 

soulmate au where everyone has a red string and lenas points to the sky and shes confused af but it’s a gay slow burn and the angst is good for ur soul

My Sun 

Lena gets into a car accident and kara thinks she died but lex is a maniac and wants lenas help and fdjsaklfs it’s a rollercoaster let me tell you

Mercy on Me 

lena falls under black mercy and in order to bring her back karas has to break her poor little gay heart bc lena thinks her and kara are in looooove AWWW heart shatters

Be your own Hero 

Collection of supercorp one shots!!!!!! Quality content lemme tell yaaaa

pick a blossom and hold it to your breast (honey, you know that’s my love bursting loud from inside) 

kara and lena rely on their late night phone calls with each other and get the feels and go on a date and they are just cute adorable dorks that are nervous  

your voice is pretty, baby (but i’d rather have your pretty skin instead) 

part 2 of pick a blossom ^^^ still adorably cute and a smut chapter I mean come on, treat yoself

Firsts 

kara and lenas first told in the cutest wayyyyyyyy

Whispers 

lena works with lillian to save supergirl and its oh so angsty and kara always believes her girl bc that’s canon

My personal Santa in heels 

Kara loves Christmas almost as much as she loves lena, almost

Timer 

Soulmate AU where everyone can have a device installed to tell them the time until they meet their soulmate, kara and lena love each other but kara cant have a timer installed obvs kryptonian skin and its so cute and soft and angsty

The Fatal Flaw 

Super cool and different fic and keen to see more chapters from this!! Kara doesn’t have her powers (yet) and she meets lena at a party at college and then clark tells her shes actually an alien ooooo im keen

Stay the night 

Lena inherits the national city womens basketball team and star player kara danvers is a muscly babe and they try not to fall in love BUT ITS JUST TOO HARD BECAUSE THEY ARE SOULMATES also I love jack in this such a wingman

1865 

MATTTTTTTTEEEE lena is the daughter of the governor and shes a little rebel. She falls in love with kara but her family has arranged her marriage to monel BUT LIKE THEY JUST LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH btw they are aliens but like in 1865 so cool. Pls update I love this so much

All Our Bodies in the Grass - @seabiscuits-us​

fuckkkkk this fic honestly, amish au and lena knows nothing but kara is down to help her out while also sharing lovely girl mags ;)

B.F.F.W.E.B

Kara and lena are friends with benefits but feels get involveddddd, lenas a useless lesbian

All the little lies 

Kara comes to earth and falls in love with lena but she has to go back to krypton and breaks lenas heart in the process, but she comes back and its only been like 7 months but its been like 3 years for lena!!! (I cant remember exact dates don’t judge me)

half melted m&m's 

lena needs a fake wife to stay in the country so kara is ever so helpful and agrees to be her wife, oh I do love a fake wife trope and this delivers!!!!

The Wrong Superhero 

Lena gets saved by batwoman and supergirl thinks she is super jealous because of superhero-related reasons but shes just in love with lena

We'll Take on the World 

College au, just useless fools in love that need to communicate and make out more

And they call me from beyond the stars 

Omg I LOVE THIS FIC SO MUCH ok so kara is a ghost (still from krypton and stuff) but no one can see her except lena so lena works on trying to get her back into the physical plane of existence so she can find alex but they FIND LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER oh my god so angsty let me tell ya be warned

Wait for me to come home 

https://lostariels.tumblr.com/

idk where to even start on this fic honestly, im pretty sure most people have read this bc it’s a rite of passage but fuck it gets me everytime!!!! Army au and there is so much angst and I love it

An Unexpected Surprise 

supercorp baby au!!! Kara and lena bang and kara ends up preggers. Iconic  

Days in a Lifetime 

Kara and lena grow up together, massive slowburn but worth the wait!!!!! ACTUALLY GO AND READ ALL OF STENS BECAUSE I JUST REALISED HOW MANY I PUT IN HERE AND THEY ARE ALL FUCKING GREAT

Do you wanna (like you know I do) - @seabiscuits-us​

another seabiscuit, I couldn’t not put this in!!! CAPE COD and sharing of bunk beds!!! Pls update this my soul is withering away

Purple and Black are my Favorite Colours 

Kara gets in contact with kryptonite that makes her gp! And her and lena b a n g    

ONE SHOTS

danishes and other sweet treats 

oh my fuck this is so cute and its like a long one shot so I mean get on it because kara and lena go to a conference and share a hotel room need I say more  

Sun Kissed 

Kara takes lena on a roadtrip to the science museum for her birthday and my good golly gosh its so cute I could ascend to heaven

Only Human 

A one shot with two chapters in different POV but lenas jealous of monel and then supercorp bang and its all angsty and lena protects kara and tbh they need to communicate but happy endings and love all round

The Right Thing 

Lena freaks out because lex knows her and supergirl are dating and does the most dramatic thing (of course) by distancing herself from kara and did I say angst???/ also I cried multiple times in this

funny how the stars crossed right 

Kara and lena keep meeting at parties and have super dorky costumes and fall in love (literally love anything written by you btw, im going to go ahead and say I would have all yours bookmarked so everyone just check them ALL out)

Accidental Text

kara accidentally sends a love confession to lena and its short and cute!      

Unspoken Promises

supergirl and reign battle and lena finds out about kara being supergirl and supercorp are just obliviously in love

Green (Kara loves it and hates it in equal measure)

Im a sucker for a jealous trope and boy does this deliverrrr. Karas hella jealous of lena having other friends but realises its because shes super in love with her

Crush

Karas jealous because lena is flirting with supergirl but lena knows kara is supergirl so shes actually flirting with kara, nice!

My Donuts

Karas really jealous of sam and lena spending heaps of time together and then kara walks in on them having donuts and she fucking loses it because its their thing duh.

when we get there 

Lena invites kara to her beach house to chill and they obvs fall in love because they are cute af

Have a Break 

Lena is determined to work out how to use a vending machine to get kara her candy and kara and winn are watching it all unfold via cameras in catco, basically lena vs. the machine (himym singing voice)

Self doubt and comforting talks 

Drunk kara, comforting lena fluff and adorableness

Shopping carts and a beautiful girl 

Kara crashes into lenas car in a shopping cart and they go on a date and its SO CUTE

Distractions 

lenas oblivious to kara being supergirl even though kara slips up all the time!!! #nicehalloweencostumekara

Lip Bites & Long Gazes 

lenas a big gay flirt and kara gets frustrated and flustered and calls her out and they make out

Off the Record 

kara spots lena at a gay club and they dance and make out *lizzie mcguire voice this is what dreams are made of*

Not so secret 

the superfriends take a weekend away and kara and lena bang pretty much smut but its cute

come be my lover, be my getaway car 

How many amazing tropes can you fit into one fic (aka the fic that made me lose my fucking mind oh my god its so good, had it include)

A one time thing

Kara and lena end up banging in a motel and kara has an internal meltdown its great

This is Home 

Listen here, this is the most adorable thing my two eyes have ever witnessed. Lena doesn’t really have a home kara the sweet soul she assists her in finding a home with her (aka its kara, kara is her home get it)

Her Biggest Fan 

lena is apart of the supergirl fandom, aka shes me

Drunk Puppy

kara being a drunk gay mess wanting to hunt seashells with lena

Act Natural

kara and lena have hickies and try to hide them on a beach trip with the gang  

Like a date, date 

kara asks lena on a date and lena has a gay panic attack pretty much

Datable 

everyone thinks kara and lena are dating so they just start dating? Amazing

Stop following me, creep 

Please clarify 

Lena tries to tell kara she loves her and wants to date but karas an alien and just doesn’t get it, so cuteeeee

Fate is Written in the Ink (part 1) 

Fate is Written in the Ink (part 2)

Soulmate au!!!! Any ink on your skin appears on your soulmates and omg its so cute like kara draws all this art on herself and lena gets to see it too!!!!!

Muddle my heart (then add a dash of lime) 

Kara keeps going to the bar because punk/bartender Lena is a babe and she has a big lesbian crush on her

be hopeful, don't get broken (stay caught up in the moment) 

angsty dog au and I mean PUPPIEs and SUPERCORP need I say more?

The makings of a family 

Clark is the one who arrives after being stuck in the phantom zone and kara has to look after him and lena helps her out and wow new baby for supercorp

Let Your Guard Down 

Lena in a DEO uniform sparring with kara and its so angsty because lenas mad at kara for not telling her the supergirl secret and then they bang and did I already mention lena in a DEO uniform???  

Do you not like the service here?

Thirsty kara and waitress lena, lenas jealous of alex l o l

here is where time is on our side (part 1) 

our corner of the universe (part 2) 

long oneshot but fuck me its so good. Post daxamite invasion/mon-el coming back and both are healing from everything and go on a roadtrip just wherever the map takes them and oh my fuck its so cute and everything u want in a fic. Part two is the follow up

The Uncanny Valley 

cadmus replaces real lena with a robot version and kara didn’t know but then kara finds lena and its cute  

put these battered bones to rest 

soulmate au (you should know by now im a sucker for a good soulmate au), lena has a foreign name on her hip (its kara btw)

pain

another soulmate au hhehehe soulmates feel each others pain obvs both these babies have a lot of paiiiiiin in their lives

Love is Garbage 

Literally a garbage truck au, im not even going to say more

i know you're out there somewhere waiting (i know the stars can hear us praying) 

Whats this??? Another soulmate au!!! Classic lover one arm, enemy on the other, honestly lena deserves more and just waits for kara to love her and I love this fic, also they help sam!!  

Monster in the Mirror 

Supercorp reveal in the middle of the lena/edge poisoning children episode oooooooh so angsty but happy love ending

Safety 

Supercorp first ever sleepover!!! This is so cute stop

Please Clarify 

Lena tries to ask kara out in every single way possible and kara is an oblivious alien

love is a flower, you gotta let it grow 

Unrequited love makes u grow flower petals in your lungs but when ur love is returned it clears up, this was dope and I love ur work

where our hands hurt from healing - @seabiscuits-us​

its seabiscuit do I need to say more?????? I will tho. Alex and lena match on tinder and become besties and I live for alex/lena brotp so….

blessed be (the mystery of love) - @seabiscuits-us​ 

*dj Khaled voice* ANOTHER ONE, look I love every single fic this one does not disappoint and nothing like a good light hearted first date fisting hahahahahaha

The Luthor and the Super That Saved the World 

Fit it fic for the season three finale where there is more supercorp and less shit writing, LOVE STENS WORK

Kara Danvers and the Brown Belt of Lesbianism 

Karas gay brown belt that she always wears that makes her look like a big ol lesbian drives lena mental bc she so gay

SIN

ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING BY JAZZFORDSHIRE IM NOT FUCKING JOKING LET YOURSELF FALL INTO THIS SMUTFEST AND LIVE UR BEST FUCKING LIFE AND IF YOU HAVENT READ THE CAMPING AU UR NOT EVEN A SUPERCORP STAN

Pleasure 

like sweat dripping down our dirty laundry 

What Happens in the K Room Doesn't Stay in the K Room 

green-eyed monster

Kara shows Lena what makes her Super 

Supergirl, Kara, and a Luthor walk into a bar... 

Late Night Heroics 

Good Vibrations 

Two Lena Luthors and a blonde walk into a bedroom... 

Her perfect match 

Girls' Night 

Happy Halloween, Supergirl 

What She Wants 

make the rules then break them 

an animal within an animal 

THE WILDEST THING IVE EVER READ, STRAP THE FUCK IN (youll understand my pun when you’ve read it)

[same-side]

I just finished DBH and Im seriously so in love with it! But when I came on Tumblr, all I could find is all this content around Gavin, and Im just so confused, because he seemed like such a jerk in the game. Why are people so into Gavin? Did I miss something?

Hi there!

First off, allow me to welcome you to the fandom!

In regards to Gavin: you literally did not miss anything; he is absolutely a one dimensional jerk in game!

Its important we make a distinction here between fanon Gavin and canon Gavin. You’ll find the fandom is incredibly divided - a lot of people adore him, a lot of people hate him. The reason for disliking him is understandable, of course - there’s a slew of incredible and well rounded characters in dbh (North, Luther, Kara…) that are swept under the rug in favour of a veritable avalanche of content for rat man reed. He has 14 minutes of screen time in which literally all he does is antagonize and threaten the player. But people have to understand, when someone says they love Gavin, they mean fanon Gavin. I don’t think theres a single person that is actually a canon Gavin stan. 

Keeping that in mind, you also have to take into account the drop off - at this point, the only people still left/creating content in the fandom are generally the ones that are balls deep and clinging to the headcanons, au’s, etc. that they’ve built with friends. This applies heavily to Gavin for reasons discussed below. Additionally, the algorithms for sites like tumblr and instagram won’t recommend old posts; old posts don’t show up in tags. Artists with a lot of clout that have since moved on from the fandom’s work have basically disappeared into the void (rebelflet, for example). So it may seem like there’s only content of Gavin / Gavin ships, but in reality there’s a ton of jericrew and Kara crew out there from when the fandom was still new / bigger - you just have to know where to look.

So… why do people like Gavin… I mean, it helps that canonically he has beefy tiddies, a cool bad boy jacket, and a pretty face at certain angles.

That being said, I think one of the biggest reasons Gavin (and RK900, by extension) are so popular is that they aren’t well rounded, fleshed out characters. Because we don’t really know anything about them and they have minimal screen time, they’re easy to project on or to add onto, and no one can tell you that you’re wrong because there’s no evidence against it. It’s almost like a universally shared OC that the fandom has developed together. Since they have no canon backstory, and in rk900’s case, no canon personality, it allows for a lot of creative freedom and the ability to explore character interactions, foils, and growth within the dbh universe. The growth aspect, I think, in conjunction with the projection aspect, is key point for the popularity. It tends to be fairly formulaic. Take the canonical asshole Gavin, stick him with an android - whether its RK900 as his partner or Connor as a coworker. Have him come to care for the RK model, and deal with his own insecurities (and usually a traumatic past, the flavor of which might depend on the creator’s own life struggles). Repent, redeem, grow. This redemption arc is the same exact vein of growth and change that makes Hank and Connor such an appealing partnership for players as well - only, in Gavin’s case, it allows for complete freedom in how to get from point a to point b. People like a character they can relate to - and when you can smack your own possible trauma (being an illegitimate child, having an abusive lover, abusive parents, abandonment fears, body insecurity, whatever it may be) on a character because they’re a blank slate, you relate to them and vent through them. Even little “silly” projections or projections that aren’t necessarily traumatic can make someone love a character even more - for example, “Gavin loves Hello Kitty,” “Gavin can’t handle spicy food,” “Gavin is Latino.” Even when the creator isn’t projecting, adding these kinds of headcanons make him a fleshed out, three dimensional character that people can relate to or empathize with, especially when giving his actions an explanation besides just fear of losing his job.

I came into the dbh fandom a little late; by the time I knew what it was, the hype had died down and reed900 was already a firmly cemented, heavily present part of the content. Given that, I’m not sure what its exact origins were, or if it seemingly popped up overnight. It could have been crack. My best guess is that people saw the positive change between Hank and Connor, and thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be rad if we stuck the other Connor with the other dysfunctional DPD bastard?” . I admit, it makes a nice parallel, which may be part of the appeal in additional to the previous reasons. Speaking of those kinds of interpersonal relationships, there’s also a popular headcanon (that’s been mentioned/liked by d*vid c*ge himself) that Kamski and Gavin are siblings/half siblings/cousins. This stems from the fact that Kamski and Gavin are both mo-capped/voiced by the same actor. By taking this headcanon into account, it adds depth to Gavin’s hatred of androids and allows for interesting backstory exploration, growth, and reconciliation.

Another reason is the enemies-to-lovers trope. For a lot of people that trope really jimmies their neutrons, and what could be better than an android hater and an android to fit that cliche? Once again, analogous to hankcon. The angst potential is also incredible when you take convin or hankvin into account instead of reed900 - reading into Hank and Gavin’s interactions it would seem there’s a tumultuous past between them. And in Connor’s case, Gavin can actually kill him or he can KO Gavin, which allows for a good deal of enemies-to-lovers and angsty regret material. Besides, a lot of people are really into hate s*x.

That…. makes a good segway. I may as well mention the elephant in the room for Gavin’s popularity. There’s a culture of fetishizing abuse in fandoms and Gavin is a prime target for this because “”he’s asking for it.”” It’s also easy to make one character a psychopath when they don’t even have a canon personality. This shows up a lot, whether because of writers treating it as a kink in fanfic or artists using it as a gag because its “funny”. I… won’t really go into detail on this, but it is a phenomenon that adds to the slew of Gavin content. This is another reason for why a lot of people hate Gavin / hate reed900. I started out feeling this way as well. Their perception of it is coloured by the abusive stuff or the mishandled stuff that seems to be prominent. I just have to say that this blog is a safe, sane, and consensual zone.

Sorry, that was a really long breakdown but I hope that gives some insight into the Gavin phenomenon. Last point. He winks like a dumbass. How can you not love that face.

[whatamonsterousau]

Welcome to the Monster Au!

Hi, and welcome to the Valve Monster AU (work in progress). This au takes place in a different universe and setting than what the characters are familiar with, but I’m trying to keep the core elements of said stories in line. Currently, these games are L4D, L4D2, Half-Life, and all other canon story games that come with it (besides Portal and Portal 2, I figure that the game should be in the universe but I haven’t thought too deeply about it yet). This AU has a story to it, but in a way in which the story is flexible. I’ll give more information under the cut, but here’s the intro to this mess! ^^

Something I think is important to note right off the bat is: the exact genre is not carrying over. This is not a zombie apocalypse nor alien invasion story, it’s more urban fantasy. In this universe, mythical monsters exist, but through some means, people are still in charge of everything. This isn’t a hidden world, the average citizen is aware nonhuman humanoid entities exist and intermingle with society. It’s more that many people are ill-informed on some monsters and what they stand for or how much of a danger they are. Anyways, long story short; just about everyone in every aforementioned game has been ~Monsterified~ for this universe. Honestly, this is mostly just for the sake of it, but that applies to the whole AU.

The Half-Life and L4D(s) stories have completely different plot lines, but can and may intermingle. The L4D and L4D2 stories are somewhat the same plots just with different outcomes, and they all have to exist in the same general area. (Basic summary, Half-Life is Ghostbusters but also with a pinch of fuck the government, L4D(s) are road trips chock full of character development and danger.)

I do want to mention this because L4D(s) and Half-Life already has monsters; there may be some changes for the sake of them maintaining an antagonistic role. Aka: there’s gonna be Original Characters based on the og games antagonists (there’s others, the antagonists just feel like a necessity to mention). If OCs aren’t your thing, really sorry! If it makes it any better most of it is just characterizing minor characters or names listed in canon. This includes characterizing the AI (the Director), Church Guy, The Screamer, the friends Ellis mentions in his stories (he mentions two other people aside from Keith), and all the special infected (all from L4D so far, but as I work more on the Half Life story you can probably expect this same treatment for characters like Laszlo, Griggs and Sheckley, and Cubbage’s cut son from Half-Life. No promises, just possible examples.)

I will be receiving asks for this blog, and if you have any questions about the au or whats happening in it, feel free to ask! @medicalmysteries helped out with this too, so the AU is technically a group effort and some answers may take some time. I’ll be listing characters in another link on the page, but if you want more information again: asks are open and feel free to ask whatever you want! ^^

I’m going to try to keep the posts on the main tags to a minimum, so it’s probably just going to be this one so I can catch a bit of attention.

TLDR: VALVE GAMES AU WHERE SOME PEOPLE ARE MONSTERS, WILL BE VEERING FAR FROM CANON BUT TRYING TO MAINTAIN ORIGINAL INTEGRITY, ASKS ARE OPEN IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE FEEL FREE!

[theeverlastingshade]

Heaven Or Las Vegas- Cocteau Twins: 30th Anniversary

Of all the bands who couldn’t be better primed for a comeback from a cultural standpoint while being highly unlikely to ever reunite in any sort of compacity whosever, Cocteau Twins occupy a peculiar place within the musical landscape of 2020. Even if all touring wasn’t completely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cocteau Twins (the predominant trio being vocalist Elizabeth Fraser, guitarist/synth programmer Robin Guthrie, and bassist Simon Raymonde) seem unlikely to ever reunite for the kind of festival comebacks that have brought back many a legacy act due to the implosion of Fraser and Guthrie’s marriage. And yet while they were largely unheard of up until their 1990 sixth LP and masterwork, Heaven or Las Vegas, their run from their highly promising 1982 debut Garlands through HoLV has continues to prove incredibly influential with each passing year on a multitude of underground and mainstream acts alike, influencing acts as diverse as SIgur Ros, Arca and so many more. While Cocteau Twins have never released a record that’s less than good, HoLV still stands as the pinnacle of their creative output, and the defining landmark statement of the increasingly ubiquitous sub-genre widely tagged as dream pop.

Since emerging as a gothic rock band at the beginning of the 80s, Cocteau Twins have cultivated a singular stain of pop/rock informed by the contemporary gothic rock and post-punk of the last several preceding years like The Birthday Party and Siouxsie and the Banshees of and the transcendent vocal harmonies of The Beach Boys and Kate Bush. Emerging originally as a three piece for Garlands, Cocteau Twins then stripped things back to just the two piece of Fraser and Guthrie for their great sophomore LP, Head Over Heels, before landing on Raymonde to lock down the low-end on their spectacular third LP, Treasure, solidifying their lineup for all future output. By the time that Cocteau Twins were gearing up to record HoLV, the band was simultaneously on the precipice of legitimate international success and complete implosion. Raymond had just gotten married, and he lost his father in the midst of recording the record, while Fraser and Guthrie had just had a daughter named Lucy Belle, and their marriage remained teetering on the brink of dissolution due to Guthrie’s frequent mood swings and paranoia as a result of his increased drug use. They had also just signed to the revered indie label 4AD after Victorialand, and following the lukewarm reception of their great fifth LP, Blue Bell Knoll, the stakes had been heightened for them to release a record that hit. There had been obvious populist sensibilities coursing throughout the music of Cocteau Twins as early as HOH, but Treasure was the last time that they sounded completely unabashed about their undeniable populist sensibilities until HoLV.

 The records that followed the glossy, populist propulsion of Treasure scaled back the immediacy while doubling down on the overall sense of immersion. Victorialand and Blue Bell Knoll, the two records between Treasure and HoLV, are positively meek with respect to the stratospheric heights reached on the former and latter, but they’re far from underwhelming, and showcase the inimitable trio refining their approach to melody while demonstrating a heightened sense of suspending tension. On HoLV, the band draw from everything that they attempted prior onto their largest canvass yet, and as soon as opener “Cherry-Coloured Funk” kicks off in earnest you can hear the warm immediacy of Treasure rushing forth in even greater force. Victorialand is their most insular, ambient-adjacent record, defined primarily by Fraser’s voice being mixed into the greater wall of sound instead of high in front leading the arrangements. The guitar work is some of their most gorgeous to date, but it lacked the immediacy that made Treasure pop. The same is true for BBK, but that record marks a notable shift in their trajectory towards more conventionally structured songs, even though there’s a sense of restraint that keeps a lot of the songs here from truly soaring. Regardless, BBK is still a great record from start to finish, and the highlights like life-affirming “Carolyn’s Fingers” and the exhilarating title track set the stage for where they were about to go with HoLV.

On HoLV, Cocteau Twins shift their gears from the ambient-leaning direction of Victorialand and BBK back to the ethereal pop of Treasure, but with a much tighter focus. On HoLV, songs barely dip past the 3 and a half minute mark, and not a second is wasted on anything other the absolute barest arrangements necessary to convey each song’s emotional heft. As is the case with pretty much every Cocteau Twins record, it’s Elizabeth Fraser who really steals the show throughout the course of HoLV. Her wildly acrobatic vocal runs shift from ecstatic, to wistful, to seductive, to empathetic on a dime, and while always a remarkably expressive vocalist she had never gone for broke with her vocal runs quite the way she does on HoLV. The instrumentation consists of lush, kaleidoscopic guitar/synth arrangements richer, and more melodic than anything that Guthrie had previously recorded. While Raymonde has always been a bit of the band’s secret weapon, there’s no mistaking this sublime basslines as the major grounding force that keeps everything tight throughout the course of the record. Raymonde’s bass lines are immediate yet forceful, providing a sharp sense of momentum even at the music’s most cathartic.

 Cocteau Twins aren’t a band that are generally regarded first and foremost because of their lyrics, but on HoLV Fraser pens the band’s most heartfelt, and urgent writing of her career, focused primarily around the birth of her daughter. While some of the songs are more literal in their depictions of her newfound love (“Laughing on our bed/Pretending us newly wed/Especially when/Our angel unleashed that head” from “Wolf in the Breast” comes to mind), some of the songs like “Fifty-Fifty Clown” present more cryptic allusions to the exact nature of her feelings “And is this safe flowing, love, soul, and light/Motions in all motion, emotions all”. Throughout the chorus of the title track, one of the most spellbinding moments of the band’s career, Fraser delivers what seems to scan as the album’s thesis “Singing on the most famous street/I want to love, I’ve all the wrong glory/Am I just in Heaven or Las Vegas?”, proclaiming her desire for love above all else, and questioning whether the band’s success has brought them closer to bliss or oblivion. The vocal melody is her the strongest on any Cocteau Twins song, and her examination of success rings universal for anyone with the self-awareness to question why and how they got where they are, and where the path that they’re can lead if they get too caught up in the thralls of success. And the closer “Frou-Frou Foxes in Midsummer Fire” has lyrics that seem sung in tribute to Ramonde’s father “And day from night take all/Bad thoughts and soothe/All he was/Knows you” effectively ending the record with the cycle of life and death.

In spite of the immense cohesion that holds it together in its intended sequencing, HoLV almost plays like a greatest hits record thanks to the filler free, 10 tight compositions that make up its runtime. Although each of their first five records are great in their own right, most have a few songs that overstay their welcome. Each song holds its own within the greater whole, with strong dynamics, hooks, melodies, infectious rhythms, and guitar/synth arrangements that are taut and immediate, but never dull or simplistic. The songs are bursting with color, but there’s never a sense of indulgence on display, and none of the songs waste anytime not building towards something or delivering some kind of release, all the more impressive given the brevity of each song. Highlights like the one-two punch of intro “Cherry-Coloured Funk” and “Pitch the Baby” are downright disarming in their succinct, yet dense arrangements coupled the wide-screen scale of the production which had never before sounded so rich and clear on any of their prior records. The title track and “Fotzepolitic” are the two strongest songs that the band have ever released, and propel HoLV to heights greater than it being just a spectacular pop record. The title track is propelled by funky basslines, a minimal electronic drum beat, radiant synths, and an squealing electric guitar lead that congeal into a sublime carnival that Fraser gets terrific mileage out of by belting out with more urgency than she ever had before, or has since. And on “Fotzepolitic” the band gradually build up a jangly, galloping guitar lead over a strutting bassline and those ever present gleaming synths. Fraser’s delivery is at her most playful, built throughout the last bridge she teases a palpable sense of flight and then her voice drops out of the mix as Guthrie delivers a solo that spirals into stratospheric, euphoric release. It's the grand culmination of everything that the band had done up to that point, and still exudes a legitimate sense of catharsis that very few other songs I’ve listened to have achieved,

Despite the fact that Cocteau Twins were almost completely unknown outside of the UK until the release of HoLV you can hear the angelic undertones of their singular strain of pop in a myriad of underground and mainstream music throughout the 90s up to the present. Any musician playing music that vaguely falls into the broader realm of dream pop likely owes Cocteau Twins an immense debt, as well as chamber pop luminaries like Julia Holter and Grouper, and shoegaze and post-rock legends like Slowdive and Sigur Ros. In addition to informing the aforementioned outre acts, the gloomy, sensual sensibilities of Cocteau Twins also went on to inform a great deal of down-tempo pop music. They’ve been namechecked by Radiohead, sampled by both Arca and The Weeknd, and you can hear their gothic stylings informing pop stars as diverse as Lorde and Billie Eilish. As poptism has completely shifted the critical music discourse towards accessibility above all else, HoLV occupies a peculiar position as a classic record. The stunning melodicism, sublime chemistry, rich instrumentation, and expansive production rendered HoLV an immediately recognized classic upon arrival, but not only has it gotten better with age, but it’s seemed to have become a notably more influential sounding record on far more than just indie music throughout the last decade. And yet for all of the attempts at reverb-addled bliss, no other musician has released a dream pop record before or since the release of HoLV that come close to matching its singular beauty.

 Although Cocteau Twins only remained active to release two good but not great records following HoLV before disbanding, the mark they left on music on the whole is indisputable. Their rich discography set a new standard for melodically rich, adventurous pop music unbeholden to the commercial realities of the music industry in a way that ever diluted their idiosyncratic sound. Although Elizabeth Fraser has played live since their split, most recently with Massive Attack while touring the 20th anniversary of their opus, Mezzanine, the possibility of a legitimate Cocteau Twins reunion has always seemed live a stretch. The creative and romantic partnership that disintegrated between Fraser and Guthrie, coupled with the lingering memories of the immense tension that bore the bulk, if not entirety of their output may always prove a barrier to great to justify reconciliation. But even in the likelihood of that sealed finality, the records that the Cocteau Twins made during their golden years of 1983-1990 sound crisper, and more refined with each passing year. With each successive act trying their hand at dreamy sounding, reverb smeared pop music propelled by thick, groovy basslines and lush choral harmonies, the potency of the music that the Cocteau Twins made during those years becomes that much more pronounced. It’s been 27 years since their last LP, and yet the sound that they helped to cultivate and then crystalize on HoLV continues to grow in relevance with each passing year.

Essentials: “Fotzepolitic”, “Heaven or Las Vegas”, “Wolfe in the Breast

[dreamingformuses]

my iron dad bingo! i requested it before i saw endgame, so the original one was really whumpy, so i changed some of the prompts myself ;) @irondadbingo i hope thats alright!
my first prompt is ‘nightmares’ 
read on ao3
@penis-parkerrr @ur-a-lizard-hairy @agib-2002
let me know if you like to be added to the tag list! (if i forgot you, i’m very sorry)

to set the stage: this is set post-endgame, but when tony did his thanos-killing snap, carol came in to help him because she is Super Powerful, and they kinda had a moment like in gotg 1. neither of them died, and all the dusted characters are back. “Hey, Peter?” Tony called. He could see him hunched over whatever he was working on across the table. 
“Hmm?” Peter answered, not even bothering to lift his head. 
“It’s getting late. And it’s a Friday, so if you want, you’re welcome to stay here for the night. As long as Aunt Hottie’s okay with it, of course.” 
“I thought we promised never to use Aunt Hottie again.” Peter put down his pencil and raised his eyebrow. “And where are Pepper and Morgan?” 
“Whatever. But text her, will you?” Tony said, and mimed typing on a phone. “There’s no rush to get to bed, of course. You know I’ll be here until at least two or three. And the lovely ladies are out of town, visiting Pep’s parents. So you don’t have to worry about wrangling Morgan to bed again.” Peter laughed ruefully. That was an experience he’d not soon forget. He then whipped out his phone and sent a quick message to May. She replied not long after. 
“She said yeah!” Peter shouted over the whirr of Tony’s drill. Tony flashed the okay sign, and they both continued on their projects. The webshooters’ release mechanism had gotten clogged up, so Peter was hard at work on a new formula that hopefully wouldn’t harden while it was still sitting in the holding chamber. Tony was busy banging out sheets of titanium alloy for his new and improved rocket boots. 
They stayed in the lab until well past the sun had set. FRIDAY had spoken up at around eleven, reminding Peter that it might be in his best interests to get to bed sooner rather than later. Peter just laughed, and said that he was too far into his equations to back out now. Nobody argued with him. It wasn’t until half past twelve that Peter had actually fallen asleep with his cheek on the lab table. Tony made the executive decision to carry him to bed, rather than have to listen to Peter complaining about how sore his neck was tomorrow. When they got into the elevator, Peter went from completely dead to the world, to consciousness enough to stumble the rest of the way to his room. 
Tony helped Peter maneuver his way onto his bed, and pulled the covers over him as he fell asleep again. “Buona notte, Peter.” he whispered, and shut the door behind him. Now that Peter was in bed, he didn’t particularly feel like going back down to the lab again. Maybe he’d actually read the thousands of emails forwarded to him. Might as well make Pepper proud. He grabbed a StarkPad and flopped onto the couch. He turned on the fireplace, and propped a pillow under his feet. There would be no reason to leave, and if it came to it, it would be a pretty okay place to sleep. 
There were emails from the Board of Directors. There were emails from the President. There were emails from Pepper. A lot of emails from Pepper, actually. He trashed the unimportant ones, responded to pressing matters, and arranged meetings, all in the wee hours of the morning. It was the first time he’d felt like an actual business owner in a while. Take that, Pepper. You see, I can be productive on things that actually matter. Tony asked FRIDAY to put on some music. Something quiet, though, so he could relax and Peter could sleep. It ended up being Erik Satie, which surprised Tony. He never thought he’d like ambient piano music, but, there he was. 
On the same point, however, he never thought he would be putting a teenager to bed, either. Guess it was a night of firsts all around. He glanced at the clock in the upper right hand corner of the tablet. 2:23. It was probably time to pack it up and hit the hay. He put the tablet on the coffee table, and moved the pillow from under his feet to under his head. He closed his eyes, and tried to let himself drift off. It was hard. Whenever one of his waking moments wasn’t being occupied by some sort of task, his thoughts would always circle around to the same horrible thoughts. 
The first Snap. 
The Snap that brought everyone back. 
Seeing Peter again for the first time in five years. 
His Snap. 
Almost dying in front of the son he just got back. 
Almost dying in front of his wife. 
Almost not being able to make it home to his daughter. 
 Tony was able to push those thoughts aside, though. Unfortunately, Peter wasn’t as lucky. Tony woke up to the sound of FRIDAY’s voice, not even an hour later. It was at a much higher volume than normal, almost like FRIDAY was trying to shout at him. 
“Boss! Boss! Please, wake up. Peter needs help.” FRIDAY said. 
“Wha-” Tony rubbed his bleary eyes open. 
“Peter needs help.” FRIDAY repeated. Tony shot up from the couch, and activated his watch gauntlet. It was definitely paranoid that he wore it all the time, but damn if it didn’t come in handy sometimes. He sprinted barefoot down the hallway, and fumbled to get the door handle open. He stormed in, gauntlet extended, and repulsor fully charged. There was nobody else in the room. Just Peter, curled up in a ball on the bed, and… was he shaking? Upon closer inspection, he definitely was. He was sweaty, and his fists were balled tightly around the sheets. It was a nightmare. Tony was sure of it. He’d done the exact same thing just one too many times before. 
Tony pulled the gauntlet back into his watch face, and rushed over to the side of Peter’s bed. He placed a tentative hand on Peter’s shoulder, and squatted down so they were at the same eye level. Peter was breathing hard, and Tony could see the faint glisten of drying tear tracks on his cheeks. “Hey, Pete?” Tony asked softly, his voice thick with emotion. “You’ve gotta wake up. You’re safe, here, in the tower, not… wherever you are.” He brushed the damp curls out of Peter’s face. “Come on, buddy. You gotta get up.” 
Peter was trembling even harder. He was whimpering. They were little keening sounds like an animal in pain. Tony tried to shake Peter gently. “Peter, come on. Get up, kid. You’ve gotta-” Tony shook him a little bit harder, trying to coax him out of his fitful sleep. He moved his hand in soothing circles on Peter’s back. “Get up. Come on, Peter get up-” 
Peter woke up. He flew into a sitting position, and started to sob. He looked around blindly, and reached out, not expecting to touch anything. He groped for Tony’s arm, and as soon as he found it, held onto it like it was a lifeline. Peter’s eyes were wide open, but judging by the glassiness of them, Tony was sure he wasn’t really registering anything. 
“Mister- Mr. Stark… Mr. Stark-” Peter panted, and tried to scoot closer. Tony pulled him the rest of the way and into a tight hug. 
‘Hey… I’ve got you. You’re here, with me, and you’re safe. You’re not hurt- nobody’s gonna hurt you. You’re okay, I’m okay, we’re safe. You’re in the Tower, it’s nighttime, and it’s 2023.” 
Peter looked up at Tony, his eyes wide and wet. “I- I’m okay?” he asked carefully. “You’re not dead?” he flinched. 
“It was just a dream.” Tony said soothingly. 
“It didn’t feel like just a dream. It- it was so real.” 
“You promise? You were…” Peter’s breathing got faster, harder. “No, no… no. You can’t- you can’t be here. You were dead, and just… you can’t.” Peter ran a hand through his hair and used it to pull his chin closer to his chest. Tony reached out for Peter’s other hand. 
“I know, bambino. I know it feels real, but I promise, it’s not. Another promise? I’m here. I’m warm and alive and breathing.” Peter shifted himself to be able to look more at Tony’s face. He tentatively reached up and brushed the side of Tony’s cheek with his fingertips. 
“You’re here?” 
“I’m here.” Tony reassured. 
“We- were on Titan.” Peter managed to get out between sobs. “I was gone- and then I came back… just in time…” he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Just in time to watch you die. You were gone, and I- nobody knew what to do. I didn’t know what to do.” 
“It’s okay. I’m here, I’m safe, I’m alive. I’m here with you. Pepper and Morgan are safe. You’re safe. Thanos is gone. It’s- It’s all okay.” Tony pressed a small kiss into the crown of Peter’s head. 
Tony shifted a bit, so he was fully sitting on the bed. Peter’s head shot up, his eyes wide and pleading. ‘No! Please- please don’t leave me. Not again.” 
“I’m not leaving. Just getting a bit more comfortable. My old man body wouldn’t last much longer with only one cheek on the mattress.” Tony shushed, and managed to get a small laugh from Peter. 
“You are kinda old.” Peter mumbled. 
“So you must be feeling a bit better.” 
“Better now that you’re here.” Peter said sheepishly, and untangled himself from his position against Tony’s chest. “FRIDAY? Lights to thirty percent.” The room was filled with a dim light. Tony could see the dark bags under Peter’s eyes. 
“Have you been sleeping? I mean- is this a common occurrence? The whole nightmare thing?” Tony asked. 
“Uh… kinda. Kinda sleeping, but it’s hard. After… everything. I get these dreams a lot, but there not usually this bad.” 
“Me too.” They sat in a comfortable silence for a minute. “Do you want to…” Tony continued. “I don’t know, come sit with me? Before you woke me up, I was just answering emails. You can come sit on the couch with me, and I’ll get you some hot chocolate or something, and you can watch your dumb show.” 
“Catching up on five years of Brooklyn Nine-Nine that I’ve missed is not dumb.” 
“If you insist. Are you coming?” Tony got up, and offered a hand to Peter to help him off the bed. Peter took it gratefully, and followed Tony down to the kitchen.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, December 2019

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

I am also missing a lot here, but pared it down somewhat to make more readable. The lead up to the holiday shopping season was a lot crazier than I expected 🙃

Given the time of year, please do not expect another report until January. However, I will do brief posts of important news/blog posts in the interim as needed.

There are going to be big changes to this report coming in 2020. Have any suggestions or feedback?  Leave a comment below, email me through my website, or send me a message on Twitter.

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES

You are going to need to add Etsy’s tax ID to customs forms on New Zealand orders as of Dec. 1. Etsy’s ID is: 122-669-18.

FTC issues huge fines for selling fake likes & followers on social media, and for posting fake reviews online. “The [likes and followers] case could pave the way for further legal action on the same grounds, using the Devumi case as precedent. Indeed, shortly after the initial finding by the NY Attorney General, Facebook announced that it was moving ahead with legal action against several providers which it had found to be dealing in fake social media engagement.”

Everyone should read this article, if only to learn what not to do: Using “priming” to convert more buyers/users is a crucial marketing tactic.”Priming works by using associations made in our subconscious, and are almost always unnoticeable to the subject.” Example: “During a study, researchers approached customers in an electronics store, who’d entered to buy a new laptop.Half of the customers were asked what their memory needs were, and the other half were asked what their processor needs were...The group who were asked about memory, bought computers with higher memory and the group who were asked about processor speed, bought computers with much higher processor speeds.”

Etsy removed the word “Bugs” from the Bugs forum, & admits they will only will be monitoring it from 9-5 Etsy time (ET) Monday to Friday. They won’t be replying, but expect “hundreds of sellers” to do that job for them, unpaid. If you have an issue, you will now need to email through the Contact page, use the new 24 hour live chat, or phone them. [Note the parts they aren’t mentioning - Support is taking over a week to reply to emails right now, live chat will only be able to help with the simplest of questions (e.g., how do I change my email address?) & it is possible to spend over an hour on hold when you phone. You could spend quite a bit of money on long distance fees, especially if you are in a country that doesn’t have its own phone number, all for something you used to be able to get for free in the forum, sometimes on the same day. This is Etsy’s definition of “major improvements”.]

Check out this proposed US legislation, which wants large internet companies [yes, Etsy fits their definition] to reveal their algorithms & offer visitors a version with no “filter bubble.” You might not like Etsy search now, but I can guarantee it would become impossible if they removed all of the algorithm factors. [This editorial is a bit over the top, but does cover some of the key questions.]

ETSY NEWS

Items have been disappearing from a small number of Etsy searches since July, & Etsy still won’t tell us what is going on. If you discover you are affected, please let me know.

There have been a few threads on Etsy sending threatening emails about shops being below Etsy’s customer service expectations, often for just a few bad feedbacks or cases, which has shocked many long time sellers (even though they have been sending them for years; it appears they have decreased the number of “problems” you need to have to get an email.) Without announcing anything, Etsy released a page of “seller service level standards” that can help explain what they are looking for, namely cases & 1-2 star reviews, as well as the exact formula they use. I started a discussion thread here, & in case Etsy deletes comments in the thread, here is the dashboard showing your score. (Some people cannot make that link work; Etsy says only shops that received a warning can see it.) My blog post is here.

I summarized the 3rd quarter report here, and Etsy summarized it here. The stock market is not happy with management at the moment, with Morgan Stanley this past week stating that they expected Etsy’s 4th quarter to be worse than originally predicted, due to state sales tax laws and Etsy’s reduction in its Google Shopping ad buying. Note Etsy removed the “priority placement” for US free shipping about a week after the 3rd Q report, without any announcement, probably due to the blowback about it reducing first page conversions. (They didn’t announce anything; it just disappeared.)

Cyber Week traffic on Etsy was more than double what they saw on the average summer day.

They did a Q & A thread on the new stats, which wasn’t particularly useful. They admitted they intentionally removed the keyword & other data prior to November 2017 because “older data periods are less comparable to current stats”. [I believe that is code for “we’re too cheap to pay for the storage; investors need their payouts.”] They did finally add YOY comparisons back in a few weeks ago.

Etsy has again changed a few category & attribute options, including more baby stuff.

They did a holiday gift shopping promotion where people could call Etsy & get suggestions for gifts on Nov. 5. All gifts shipped free, so non-free shipping shops were not included. “It could also be a case study for personalization efforts to come from the long-running handmade marketplace.”

You’ve probably already noticed that Convos are now called Messages, but here is the announcement with the details just in case.

Etsy ran an Etsy search critique thread on November 13; the thread wasn't particularly useful, as almost all the staff who do the critiques aren’t experts in search. Basically, they say to use all of your tags, avoid repeating words in tags & titles, have 3-4 short phrases in your title, use commas in your titles (”Buyer research shows that using commas instead of dashes helps titles appear more clean and readable”), offer free shipping, and use all of your photos. The big takeaway for me was - they think we all have unlimited photography budgets, models, and time to do different modelled photos for every listing (including at the beach! LOL), photos of each of our different pieces in progress, photos of us working, & photos of each type of packaging. Needless to say, none of those things are bad if you have gobs of time or the money to pay someone to do all of that. But if you are like me and are a one-person business, live in a small condo, don’t have the strength to take photos all day, don’t have an abundance of people to model when I am taking photos (i.e., people I know have real jobs & aren’t around when I work on photos), and don’t have anyone to take photos of me making things, then this is pretty laughable. I wouldn't even consider doing all of this for my 5 best selling listings, never mind all 430+. YMMV. [The repeated mentions of process photos makes me worry they will be requiring those for everyone at some point …but I am sure I am just being paranoid.] One notable error was telling someone to use “color” (the US spelling) instead of “colour” (the proper English spelling) because the shop’s language settings were US English - Etsy currently treats these both the same, so there is no issue at the moment. Are they trying to give us a hint about something?

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Introducing BERT: Google’s new technology to help organic search process natural language better. This isn’t likely a change you can optimize for, but it should help searchers get more relevant results for complicated queries. “Here is an example of Google showing a more relevant featured snippet for the query “Parking on a hill with no curb”. In the past, a query like this would confuse Google’s systems. Google said, “We placed too much importance on the word “curb” and ignored the word “no”, not understanding how critical that word was to appropriately responding to this query. So we’d return results for parking on a hill with a curb.” Moz’s Whiteborad Friday covered the basics. [warning - some bits are advanced. Just skip those if you need to.] A study said BERT still isn’t very good at understanding “not” and other negatives. The NY Times may be one of the sites that is affected.

If you were disappointed when keyword research tool Keywords Everywhere became a paid tool, a new alternative has been released. Note that Keyword Surfer is still in beta. I’m going to try it for a bit and write up a short report if I think it is worth using. (The traffic estimates are way off, as in almost 10 times too low, for the sites I have info on.)  If you try it, let me know what you think!

While we are on the topic, here’s 13 keyword research errors you don’t want to make. Short takeaways - not every high volume keyword phrase will work for your specific product, don't ignore long tail, and make sure you look at the search results for any keyword before you decide to use it.

Here’s another keyword and topic research tool that compiles questions people search along with a relationship tree so you can see how ideas are connected.

More common SEO problems with ecommerce sites.

If you code your own website, check out the new Google instructions on writing your organic search snippets. Note this is supposedly only about display & not about ranking.

Improve your Instagram traffic with 8 SEO tips for your profile and posts.

Which is better for SEO - Squarespace or WordPress? The results are likely skewed by the fact that “platforms like Wix and Squarespace tend to attract less SEO-savvy people than WordPress.” They agree with what I have been saying for a while: if you know what you're doing, Squarespace sites can rank just fine.

Excellent tips on how good SEO also helps you comply with US disability access laws.

The latest on Google updates - there was apparently one around November 7. This one may have hit affiliate websites more than other types.

The Wall Street Journal wrote an article claiming Google manipulated search results to favour its interests & those of its advertisers, including eBay. [The original article is behind a paywall; the link is in that news coverage.] However, many in the SEO community - most of whom are not usually reluctant to criticize Google when they are behaving poorly - feel the article is way off base, & demonstrates a fundamental lack of knowledge of how Google works. Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Land & Search Engine Roundtable even did interviews with t WSJ staff for the article, and was amazed at how much they got wrong. “Even a basic understanding of the difference between organic listings (the free search results) and the paid listings (the ads in the search results) eluded them…[Glenn] Gabe told us that not only were his conversations with the paper off-the-record but also that he was misquoted”

CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails)

Here’s something I don’t see discussed much: using templates (& other consistent branding) in your social media, blog and website posts.

Content hubs are a very useful way to increase your search engine traffic for a core topic while providing a landing page for social media, ads etc.

Good primer here for beginning social media marketing for your business. You’ll need to do more research depending on your target market and what platform/s you choose, but it is definitely a good overview of getting started.

If you think influencer marketing is right for your business, here are 10 places you can find influencers to work with.

Your email subject lines can change the open rates; here are 19 tips to make them more clickable.

Instagram started testing hiding “likes” on posts in the US as of November 11th, & then announced plans to try it out globally. A study on previous tests showed that there may be some effect on influencer engagement.

Facebook has introduced its own payment system, currently in the US only, for limited situations only at the moment.

Reddit is an often overlooked social media platform to use for business but the traffic is strong, so check out these tips on asking it work for your business. [infographic]

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

Pay for online ads (outside of Etsy) but don’t know what negative keywords are? Here’s how to use them with Google.

Hubspot continues their massive rush of “ultimate guides” with everything you wanted to know about Amazon ads.

Facebook now allows you to have different text in the same ads, which can be adjusted for different groups of users.

Amazon is predicted to continue cutting into Google’s online ad dominance through 2021; Google currently has 73% of money spent on online ads in the US.

If you are interested in long term brand building in your advertising, you might be interested in this article, where Adidas admits it was ignoring brand ads & pushing instant returns for too long.

Just in time for the holidays, Google Merchant Center rolled out a bunch of upgrades.

Buying TV ad time is losing popularity; it will be less than 25% of all advertising spend in just a few years, while digital spending is now over 50%.

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING

Facebook changed how they count page impressions.

Everything you want to know about the Google Search Console. Oh, and also everything you want to know about the Google Search Console. Which one do you like best? [If you have your own website or freestanding blog and are not using the Console, you probably should be reading both of those. Seriously, just set the darn thing up, then learn how to use it later.]

Also, the Console now features a speed report, and has changed how they send you messages.

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS

Trend alert: many struggling or failed retailers sell clothing. “This sector is saturated with supply and is arguably over-stored.” … “For younger shoppers, as they choose which apparel brands do get their attention, sustainability and other cultural issues are often at the forefront.”

US sellers can now get discounted UPS rates through Shippo.

A bug is keeping suspended Amazon sellers from being reinstated.

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

Don’t use these common customer service lines. ...“there are studies that support the use of positive language in customer service. Instead of focusing on what you can’t do for a customer, focus on what you can do. No one likes to be told no.”

Another article on the psychology of colour; beware that some of this is a bit simplistic, as there are always exceptions.

Holiday shopping will push further into December this year, with half starting around Cyber Monday (Dec. 2). 62% of “high spenders” (over $2100 spent on the holidays) will shop on their smart phones. 25% of respondents to this survey said they already started shopping in September. It turns out most people want gift cards, among other stats. Nearly half of US shoppers are more likely to shop with companies that are socially responsible. Mobile shopping is expected to beat desktop shopping for the first time this season. And yes, most Americans expect to add to their credit card debt before January, men more than women.

US retail sales fell 0.3% in September; online sales fell the same amount.  

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour)

Trend alert - apparently Generation Z is not big on makeup, and it is affecting large companies’ profits.

Google’s co-founders hand the parent company Alphabet over to the current CEO. They still work for Google and will focus most of their time there.

Google Webmaster spokesperson John Mueller tackles the controversial question - is a hot dog a sandwich? [humour]

[thelastblueheart]

I love you like rlb

THIS IS NOT MINE!!! This was originally posted by tolieawake but has since been deleted. I was able to get my hands on it and have shared it since it is a fandom classic. Please credit them as the writer!

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I love you like rlb has become a well-known, accepted and valuable component of American vernacular. The meaning of the letters ‘rlb’ is unknown, but is uniformly considered to be a statement of a great romantic love, commitment and sacrifice.

In which Tony goes insane trying to figure out why that phrase affects the Cap so much, Bucky teases the press, and Steve and Bucky love each other like rlb.

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I love you like rlb The first time he saw it, Steve stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Tony, who was walking and talking and gesticulating wildly all at the same time (the way that Tony does), didn't notice at first. When he did, he frowned, spun on his heel and headed back to where Steve was standing. “You okay, Cap?” he asked, tugging his sunglasses just far enough down his nose that he could peer at Steve over them. “Fine,” Steve mumbled, but he couldn't quite tear his eyes away. He was staring at the large glass window of the shop beside him or, rather, he was staring through the window at the brightly coloured t-shirt hanging on the mannequin. It was a vivid shade of blue, with yellow swirls crossing it, and white text proudly displayed across the chest. I love you like rlb it proclaimed proudly. “What?” Tony asked, “you never seen that saying before?” Steve swallowed, but didn't answer. Behind the mannequin was a rack of t-shirts, in various colours and patterns, all proclaiming the same thing – I love you like rlb. “I -” Steve started, before stopping to clear his throat. “Do you know what it means?” he asked. “Uh, it's just a saying, Cap,” Tony replied. “You know, like LOL or Got Milk? Roses are red. A prominent part of our popular culture that people use without really thinking about it.” He shrugged. “I don't think anyone knows where it comes from, or what the 'rlb' means – but everyone just takes it to mean, you know, like a declaration of love or something. Lots of love. Lots and lots of love.” He frowned. “I gave Pepper an I love you like rlb bracelet once. Real fancy, solid gold, she wears it occasionally.” He paused his rapid-fire rambling long enough to stare at Steve. “You sure you okay, Cap? 'Cos you look like you seen a ghost or something.” Tony paused. “You haven't seen a ghost, have you?” “No, no, it's just...” Steve let his voice trail off, hands tilted out to the side as he shrugged helplessly. How could he possibly explain it. “I don't know if it's related,” he said, “but some of the guys used to say that, during the war.” “Huh,” Tony said. He turned to look in the window at the t-shirts. “I mean, I know the saying's been around for a long time. One of those things that no-one is quite sure where it started or who said it first.” “Dernier,” Steve muttered. “What?” Shaking his head, Steve took a step away from the display, visibly pulling himself together. “Nothing,” he said. Shoving his hands into his pockets (to stop the shaking he wouldn't admit to), he turned and headed back down the street. “Don't we have somewhere to be?” he asked. - “JARVIS,” Steve said, standing in the middle of his floor of Avengers Tower (because Tony was ridiculous like that about giving them all things), “can you do some research for me, please?” “Certainly, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS replied smoothly. “What would you like me to research?” “I... I saw something today,” Steve said, “while I was out with Tony. He said that it was just a common saying, but...” letting his voice trail off he sighed, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “Sorry, I'm not explaining this right.” “Perhaps you could start with the saying?” JARVIS suggested. “Right, yes, of course.” Taking a deep breath, Steve forced the words – words he'd thought he'd never hear again, through his lips. “I love you like rlb,” he said. His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. There was a stinging in the backs of his eyes, but he resolutely ignored it. “That is a common saying,” JARVIS informed him with a thoughtful hum. “What is it that you would like to know about it?” “Does anyone know where it comes from?” Steve asked. “Tony said no, but, well, I thought maybe it's just not well-known? Or, does anyone know when it started? What it means?” “One moment, please,” JARVIS requested, before making another humming sound. Steve knew it was the sound JARVIS made to let him know he was thinking – or rather, running searches and collating information. Stumbling backwards, Steve let himself fall down onto his couch, grabbing the nearest cushion and almost ripping it apart as he held it tightly, hands clenching in the fabric. “While there does not appear to be any documented origin for the saying,” JARVIS said calmly, his smoothly modulated voice helping to calm Steve, “it is generally attributed as a saying which emerged among American troops during World War II. Returning soldiers brought the saying back to American soil with them. This origin in the War leant a certain romantic slant to the saying, which has persisted to this day. “Interestingly, french troops also carried the saying home to France after the war, which suggests that it was well-known enough that it transferred between Allied troops. Or was known to the resistance. It is also used fairly extensively in all Allied countries, but most prominently in America. “In 1951, it made its first appearance on merchandising – as a small engraving on pendants, which were sold by the Goldman Jewelry company. Stark Industries was involved in the design of the pendants.” Steve sucked a sharp breath in. “Since then,” JARVIS continued, “the phrase has appeared on various items of merchandise continually through the years; although the merchandise itself has changed, the phrase has never fallen out of use. It has been accepted as part of the current American and French vernacular, and appears in numerous romantic comedies, romance novels, and cards, as well as on items of clothing, jewelry, plaques and also tattoos. “The meaning of the letters 'rlb' is unknown, but is uniformly considered to be a statement of a great romantic love, commitment and sacrifice.” Pushing his fist against his mouth, Steve bit at his knuckles, trying to choke down the sob rising in his throat. “In the 1980s,” JARVIS continued, “the phrase was picked up by a number of gay rights campaigners and has since been used proudly by the community. However, evidence suggests that even before that time, and certainly since, it has been used as a phrase to express love between partners, without reference to their sexual orientation. “As there has never been a documented point of origin for the phrase, companies have been able to create merchandise freely, and therefore, at this current time, there is a proliferation of merchandising available. “Despite its unknown origins, and the lack of clarity around its exact meaning, I love you like rlb has become a well-known, accepted and valuable component of American vernacular. I am sorry that I am unable to provide you with the exact meaning of the letters rlb or of a more precise origin.” Sucking in a deep breath, Steve leant back against the couch, blinking rapidly. “It's okay,” he said, ignoring the way his voice cracked once more. “Thanks, JARVIS.” “You are welcome, Captain. If I may, you appear to be experiencing some distress. Would you like me to alert Mr Stark? Or perhaps one of the other inhabitants of the Tower? Miss Potts is currently upstairs and has finished work for the day.” “No,” Steve said, shaking his head. “No, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just -” Getting up, he stumbled towards his bedroom, shaking lightly and half-tripping over his feet. JARVIS made a concerned sound before falling silent. - The next day, Steve pulled out some jeans, a baseball cap, hoodie and sunglasses, and braved the craziness of 21st century shopping in order to buy a few things. The watch with the engraving on the back went on his wrist. The sweatpants and t-shirt were shoved into a bag, to become his sleeping clothes. The fake dog-tags – well, he got them to add one with a simple string of numbers on it (32557) – and then slung them around his neck, letting them fall down beside his own, real, dog-tags. It wasn't much, wasn't nearly enough, but somehow, it made him feel better. - The fight with the Winter Soldier was nothing like anything Steve had encountered so far in this new century. The Soldier fought hard and fast and with an edge to his movements, despite the precision and grace and obvious training, that made Steve think of back alleys in Brooklyn. His team were yelling on the comm, Hawkeye hissing because neither Steve nor the Soldier would stand still long enough for him to safely take a shot. Iron Man was circling overhead, the Hulk standing nearby and looking ready to smash given half a chance. Widow was racing towards their position, ready to enter the fray. Thor cheered them both on as brave warriors. Then the Soldier grabbed at Steve, and somehow, during the fight, his helmet had been knocked off and the top of his uniform torn just enough that the Soldier's fingers closed over the chain around his neck, tugging and twisting. Steve ducked and rolled to prevent strangulation, even as he snapped his arm out, desperate to grab his dog-tags back. The Soldier froze, gaze fixated on the tags dangling from his hand, eyes widening and punching the breath from Steve's lungs even as his brain scrabbled to find a reason for his reaction. “Cap?” Hawkeye called. “I have a shot.” “Wait,” Steve said. He glanced down at the tags, noticing that the Soldier had grabbed his fake ones, and his eyes were fixed on that phrase. The saying. I love you like rlb Slowly, the Soldier raised his eyes to Steve's. “What?” he asked. His voice was muffled beneath his mask, and Steve found himself stepping forward, reaching out to gently remove the mask. His heart was pounding in his chest and he lost his breath as soon as the mask came away. There were tears in his eyes (he ignored them), and his heart was pounding (faster than he ever remembered it being since the serum). “Bucky,” he whispered. Slowly Bucky (because those were Bucky's eyes, even as they struggled against confusion and the blank stare of the Soldier) formed the words. “I love you like rlb,” he said. - “I'm just saying,” Tony said, “it's a little strange. First, Cap freaks out about the saying when he sees it on some t-shirts, and now the Winter Soldier – the Winter Soldier! - uses it to somehow break the insane amounts of brainwashing he was under.” Clint shrugged. “They say it originated in the war somewhere,” he said. “Maybe Cap was there when it first started.” “And the Soldier?” Tony asked. “We were.” The team turned to see Steve step into the room. His hair was still wet from his shower, and his eyes were suspiciously red and bright. There was a cautious hope in his eyes that made them realise just how withdrawn he'd been. Steve nodded towards the observation window they were all arrayed in front of. On the other side, the Winter Soldier sat at a table, staring down at the dog-tags still clutched in his fist. His hair hung over his face, so they couldn't see it clearly, but he'd been suspiciously quiet and compliant since he had been taken into custody. “We?” Bruce asked, eyes darting over Steve, assessing him. Steve gave him a tight smile. “We,” he repeated. He nodded towards the Soldier. “His name is James Buchanan Barnes. He's my best friend. He -” Steve cut himself off, taking a breath and swallowing. Then he shrugged. “We were there the first time Dernier said it – I don't think he meant for us to hear, but we did.” His gaze turned un-focused, looking off somewhere they couldn't see. - “Are you insane?” Dum Dum hissed, staring at Dernier through the rain. He scowled. “You know what you're risking.” Dernier shrugged, glancing over his own shoulder at where Gabe was sitting under the flap of their tent. “I know,” he agreed. “And I wouldn't risk it for just anything, but I love him like rlb.” “Rlb?” Bucky asked, stepping up beside Steve and frowning through the rain. “What are they talking about?” Steve shrugged, shaking his head. “I'm not sure,” he said, brow furrowed. - Shoving his meager supplies into a pack, Steve slung it up onto his shoulder, turning to face his men. “I don't expect you to follow me,” he said, “but I do ask that you don't try to stop me.” “What's going on?” Falsworth asked, stepping into the tent and glancing around at them. “What do you think?” Morita asked, “we got another rlb situation.” Steve blinked. “What?” he asked, before shaking his head. “Never mind. The rendezvous is in two hours, north-east from here. Get to the pick-up point and -” “No offense, Cap,” Falsworth interrupted, “but we're not going to the rendezvous.” “No chance,” Dum Dum agreed. “You're going after Barnes. So are we.” Steve shook his head. “I can't ask you to -” “You're not asking, we're offering,” Gabe said, pushing himself to his feet. Around them, the others nodded. - They trooped into base camp six days later, covered in mud, tired, hungry, but with Barnes by their sides (well, by Steve's side). Phillips took one look at them, before shaking his head. “Rlb?” he asked. “Rlb,” Falsworth agreed with a nod. - “You got a girl back home?” Steve paused, glancing over at the small huddle of soldiers, grouped around a fire and sharing stories. “Yeah,” one of the others replied. He pulled a worn photo out of his pocket, holding it out to show the others. “This here is my gal,” he replied. “Prettiest gal around.” “Nice sweetheart,” another soldier commented. He shook his head. “Nah, not just a sweetheart,” he said. “This is the gal I'm gonna marry, I love her like rlb.” The others nodded, smiling understandingly. - “Hey Steve,” Bucky murmured, shifting so that his face was smushed against Steve's neck, where they lay in their tent. “Mmm,” Steve agreed. A wicked smile curved Bucky's lips against Steve's skin. “I love you like rlb,” he said. Rolling his eyes – and his body – Steve turned so that he could look at Bucky. “Really, Buck?” he asked. Bucky just grinned back at him. “What?” he asked. “Haven't you figured out what it stands for yet?” “'Course I have,” Steve replied. “They're not as subtle as they think.” Bucky huffed a laugh. “But you coulda just said 'I love you',” Steve continued. “Coulda,” Bucky agreed. “But I like this better. You know, I heard some soldiers use it earlier today, like it's something special, something more than just 'I love you'. I like that.” “You would,” Steve agreed. Reaching out, he traced his hand over Bucky's forehead, his nose, his cheek. Bucky turned his head, pressing a kiss against Steve's palm. “I love you like rlb, Buck,” Steve said. - “And this is the common floor,” Tony proclaimed, spreading his arms wide and spinning around as he indicated the area they had just stepped into. Behind him, Bucky (because he was all Bucky now, no more Winter Soldier), stared around and gave a low whistle. “Would you look at that,” he said, turning to grin at Steve. “You've been hanging with the rich kids.” Smiling (he hadn't stopped smiling since Bucky had first hugged him, pulling Steve close in the tiny cell they had him in, pressing his lips to Steve's neck and mouthing those words against his skin I love you like rlb), Steve gave a small shrug. “Just one rich kid,” he said. “But a very rich one.” “That's right,” Tony agreed. “So, if you need anything, just let me know. If I don't have it already, I'm pretty sure I can get it for you.” “Got any I love you like rlb t-shirts?” Bucky asked, casting a sly grin at Steve. Tony gaped at him. “What?” he asked, before stopping and shaking his head. “No, don't tell me, I don't want to know,” he said (even though he did really want to know). “JARVIS, please order Barnes some t-shirts.” “Certainly, Sir,” JARVIS agreed easily. - Bucky tended to wear his I love you like rlb t-shirts around the Tower – whenever he wasn't in uniform, he could be found lounging around in one of the shirts. Steve would always give him a soft smile when he saw the shirts, and Tony was fairly sure that was at least half the reason they had basically become Barnes' signature wardrobe. So it wasn't that surprising when he wore one to his first press interview. At least, it wasn't surprising to the Avengers (even if it was driving Tony crazy that Barnes refused to tell him just why he liked the shirts so much), even if it did surprise the press. “Sergeant Barnes,” a reporter asked. “I notice you're wearing a t-shirt with the popular phrase I love you like rlb emblazoned across it. I was just wondering, was this a particular choice? Does it have any significant meaning for you?” Bucky blinked, staring back at the reporter, before turning to look at Steve. “They don't know?” he asked, sounding slightly incredulous (but with that underlying hint of humour that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing and that his incredulity was all part of some crazy plan he had – Tony still couldn't quite believe the things that guy could talk Cap into when his voice took on that edge). “Bucky,” Steve sighed, with a roll of his eyes, but he made no move to stop him. Turning back to the reporters, Bucky smiled sweetly at them. “Sure it means something to me,” he said. “I mean, I was surprised that anyone even remembered this crazy saying.” He gave a small shrug. “I think it was Gabe as first used it,” he said. “Dernier,” Steve softly corrected him. “Right,” Bucky agreed with a laugh, “Dernier.” “Are you telling us,” the reporter asked, eyes wide, “that you know of the first instance of this iconic phrase being used?” “Sure,” Bucky said. “At least, I know it was the guys as first started using it. Not sure if I heard the very first time they said it – it wasn't something they used to say in front of Steve or I, at first.” “Why not?” Bucky laughed again. “Because it was about us,” he replied with a grin. “They didn't want us to know they'd caught on.” Another shrug. “Thought they were being so clever, so subtle.” He shook his head with a fond smile. “Dernier said it about Gabe.” “Jacques Dernier and Gabe Jones,” a reporter asked, “who, years after the war, confirmed that they had been in a romantic relationship since the war?” “And during,” Bucky agreed easily. “And yeah, Dernier said he loved Gabe 'like rlb'. They used it all the time – well, not necessarily the whole 'I love you like rlb', but 'rlb'. Like it was some super secret code they'd made up. Steve's about to do something stupid 'cos I got cut off from the guys again, it's an 'rlb situation'. Explaining to Phillips why we were late to a rendezvous, 'sorry General, but rlb, you know?'” Next to them, Tony was gaping – he was a genius, okay, so he'd figured it out. “And the rlb,” the first reporter asked, leaning forward, “what does that stand for?” Bucky laughed. “Rogers loves Barnes, of course,” he said. - There was a violent and prolific reaction to Bucky's statement. Tony claimed they'd broken the Internet (Steve was fairly sure that was impossible, but he let Tony think he'd convinced them of it), and for a while, none of the reporters were interested in anything else. But, when it came down to it, things were no different. Bucky wore his t-shirts around the Tower, and would lie next to Steve at night, mouthing the words into his skin. Somehow, the fact that this, of everything they'd done and said, of all the history that had been written about them, that this was the thing that lasted and thrived the most – it made Bucky grin. “I always said we had a love like one of those epic romances,” he told Steve fondly. Steve snorted. “You did not,” he replied, “you said I was a punk and that you'd better stick by me 'cos otherwise I'd get myself killed.” Bucky shrugged. “That, too,” he agreed easily. Then he grinned, bright and brilliant, the kind of grin that chased away the lingering shadows of his pain and guilt for a moment. “Still, we're like, the definition of romantic love in this century,” he said. “That's gotta count for something.” “I don't know about that,” Steve replied, “but I do know I love you.” “Like rlb?” Bucky asked. “Sure,” Steve agreed with a laugh, “I love you like rlb. Now sit still, Jerk, I'm trying to draw you.”

[yvesdot]

I'm going to give blogs like this the benefit of the doubt, especially since this one seems new, and explain something about Tumblr. When you hit "reblog," the entirety of a post shows up on your blog (excluding tags-- you're welcome to add them as text, or as your own tags), and by default it links back to every single user in the chain.

When you screenshot a Tumblr exchange and repost it, not only do you break the credit, but the exchange gets harder to read. Screen readers have no hope, but this image in particular (as with many on this blog) are super crunchy. It's a worse reading experience, objectively.

It's also not hard to find the sources of posts. Don't try Tumblr if you have; asking this website to search for posts is like asking a dead rat to shine your shoes. Use Google, where a search in quotes for "the house where clio fell in love with him" immediately brought up a reblog of this post as the top result. If that hadn't found you the exchange with the last reblog here, though, you could always continnue by adding "my favorite example of this is dragon age" to that same search, ensuring you'd only see results containing both of those exact lines.

You can also run a blog of "writing advice" solely by reblogging others' posts with the tags "#writing advice." Many people follow me because they like my writing advice and memey reblogs, not just my original content. I'm sure half my followers have never read my writing, but appreciate the tips I occasionally throw at them, and that's alright!

While likely unintentional, the only thing this repost says is "This post is good enough to give me attention, but not good enough to allow you credit." Because there is no benefit to the "original poster" of the screenshot here other than breaking credit to the last several people in the chain, who made the contributions they liked so much they wanted to save them. Each person in this thread also likely never got so much as a peep from OP letting them know their words were valued.

Speaking as somebody who makes silly writing advice posts on the Internet, I work full time. I write on the side instead of getting a full night's sleep. I post many, many free writing advice posts on the Internet, and all I get from them is the hope that they have helped someone and the linkback credit, which might lead to someone appreciating my work enough to subscribe to my Patreon. There was a point a few months ago where my insurance refused to cover HRT and I was only affording it because of the amount my Patrons were contributing; even now I would have no savings without them. Each reblog and linkback is a potential reader who might like to buy my book, order it for their library, give word of mouth recs to their friends, drop me a ko-fi, etc. The only thing a repost like this does is take that possibility away. Far fewer people will open a new tab (or completely move out of a blog) to search up a URL as opposed to those who will follow a link.

I'm actually fairly certain the original blog knows this, because, again, I would be shocked if they were asking permission before reposting this stuff. With that said, it does hurt to see someone racking up a few thousand notes off the backs of random Tumblr users who used their own free time to help other people.

EDIT: Honestly? why not. My city now:

Support the author: all posted writing | ko-fi | Patreon

Try this acronym tip to help with world building

[wrestlinghasmelike-blog]

Monday Night Raw-April 30th, 2018: First Hour

Hey what’s up, fam? Happy Monday to y’all. I had a stressful and anxious, but productive day. I hope you guys had a better day than I did, and I hope that we’re all ready for Raw!

Also, this week is going to be a busy week for me, so I don’t know when I’ll have my G.R.R thoughts up, or when I’ll get a chance to watch it. When I do, you’ll know!

Please let me know what you thought of the show! What was your favorite match? Favorite segment? Leave some comments, I’d love to hear from you! Please share the posts if you have a moment!

Opening- Roman Reigns

Wow, what a not warm welcome at all for Roman tonight. That was a massive amount of boos for Roman. I’m a little shocked, to be honest. I mean he’s not my favorite, but with all the shit he’s been going through with Brock and the company lately, I think he deserves at least some appreciation.

...when are we going to get our full-time champion? I’m not waiting another year for a new champion. 

Canada really does not like Roman oh dear. This is what happens when you force a guy to be the face of the company when no one wants him.

Samoa Joe came on the screen so suddenly it scared me honestly. He and Roman will be facing off at Backlash this Sunday, one-on-one. I’m predicting that Roman will walk away with a win. WWE needs to build him up again, make him a strong force again.

Jinder is now confronting Roman, claiming that he will beat Roman tonight? Are they fighting? Can they not? 

SAMI ZAYN IS OUT AND THAT POP HE GOT HAS WARMED MY HEART I ADORE THIS MAN

AND NOW KEVIN OWENS IS OUT AHHH THIS IS ALSO ANOTHER AMAZING CROWD REACTION AHHH

I live for Kevin and Sami speaking French to the crowd and them chanting French back to them.

They’re all fighting about who’s gonna face Roman, but I know as well as everyone else that this will somehow turn into a tag match.

Bobby Lashley has come to the aid of Roman, as well as Braun Strowman.

...I smell a 6-man tag, don’t you...

Elias vs. Bobby Roode

Apparently, the newest rumor surrounding Elias is that he is on his way to being the newest boy to get a push. I have mixed feelings on that, honestly. He can get behind all the other guys who deserve the push more than he does. Like Finn, as I keep saying. Where’s his push dammit?

Roode is doing okay on Raw thus far. He’s pretty much won every match he’s been a part of, except the loss to Elias last Monday, but he is a title-picture guy, not a mid-card competitor. WWE needs to treat Bobby appropriately, or they’re going to lose a great athlete.

Bobby just landed a picture perfect dropkick to the jaw of Elias. Bobby is so goddamned calculated with his moves. Dropkicks, blockbusters, Bobby will nail them every time. I think he’s being paired with Elias right now so Bobby can rub some of his veteran skills off on Elias. Elias is coming into his own as a wrestler, if he could only move away from the guitar a little bit.

Elias has taken the momentum away from Bobby in the match now, literally chucking Bobby all the way across the ring. Elias’ aggressive personality and in-ring work could help him if he gets a push, but I don’t know if he’s ready for the Universal Title push. Like he could beat Brock anyway, but still.

These guys are putting on a better match than I anticipated. Bobby and Elias were given time to fight, they’ve used it well, and this is a great match. Bobby is bringing the fight, but he can’t get too frustrated, or Elias is going to take that control back, like he just did.

A small package sequence led to Bobby being thrown into the ring post neck first by Elias, and he just bounced off the post and flew onto the floor, clutching his neck and chest in agony. I hope that this is not a true injury to Bobby, because he’s honestly selling it so well I cannot tell. The ref never really counted out Bobby, but Elias took a microphone anyway and announced himself as the winner. Elias is a good heel and all, but let’s actually finish a match for once, shall we?

Authors of Pain vs. Local Talent (Jean-Paul and Francois?)

Ugh, alright.

Stop with the local talent, and give AoP the tag titles now.

AoP slammed these guys. Next!

Seth Rollins

Well, in what I heard was a pretty good match last Friday, Seth retained the title and Finn was very upset and got a really bad cut on his eye. My brother texted me that Finn was bleeding really badly and I was ready to lose my shit at work. But congrats to Seth anyway, if Finn can’t get the title, then I’m glad Seth can.

It’ll be Seth vs. Miz, who is on Smackdown now, this Sunday. I can’t help but wonder if Finn will insert himself in that match at all. If he isn’t, he won’t have anything for this Sunday, and I absolutely hate that.

Seth is hyped up tonight. He is the true champion of Raw, and the greatest one we have right now. The crowd is so behind him, it’s insane. The crowd is truly amazing tonight, I wish I was there in person, but I’m feeling the emotion through my screen, and it’s amazing. As much shit as the WWE gives us, these are the best moments.

Finn is out now, sporting a black eye that just breaks my heart. And he spoke French! I’m dead!

FINN CHALLENGED SETH FOR THE TITLE TONIGHT GODDDDD

FINN JUST FUCKING SAID I LIKE THAT BUTT BUT HE MEANT BUT OH MY GOODNESS THIS SHOW

The title match is set!

The Miztourage is out now, presenting Seth and Finn with a new “business opportunity” to become the new four horsemen of the WWE. 

OH MY GOD FINN SNEAK ATTACKED SETH IS THIS PRINCE DEVITT WE’RE SEEING PLEASE GODDD PLEASE

I can’t wait for the title match now.

Sasha Banks vs. Ruby Riott

I am very exhausted with Sasha Banks. She was never a favorite of mine, and currently, I think she’s losing her pull with the fans. She’s got to step up her game somehow and win the crowd back, or at least turn heel and rewrite the character a bit.

I’m also feeling a little exhausted with the Riott Squad and Absolution alike. They bring the exact same things to the table, and they show no originality in their respective groups. I get excited with these women factions for a good while, but when they become stagnant like this, I lose interest. They cannot do the same things every week.

The crowd seems more into the match after a commercial break, and it looks like Ruby brought out some aggressiveness to bring Sasha down a bit. 

This match has a lot of false finishes, it’s...getting to be too long. 

Ruby just did this awesome backwards cannonball jump off of the top rope it was so cool! Sasha also kicked out of that how in theeee helllllll

With the help of Sarah Logan and Liv Morgan, Ruby was able to overwhelm Sasha and kick her off the top rope and pin her. 

That wraps up the first half of Raw. An interesting show for the time being, and that Finn/Seth segment oof my heart. The crowd is awesome tonight. I’m excited for that title match later!

[rocknrollsalad-moved]

Day eight of the December Prompt List: Penny for your thoughts I’m honestly not even sure what this is other than an idea that popped in and wouldn’t go away. it’s really fun though. At least I think so. Also. I jumped about seven days and some of the others are written (some I’m far too stuck on but my friends aren’t really into discussions it seems xP). It’s not about the order though, right? The new content. 

Just off where the labs were sat a few conference rooms, one had been claimed by Bruce and it was where he worked when he needed silence. Or space. Or any number of other excuses he gave to go work alone. Old habits died hard and sometimes it was difficult to participate in the team sport science had become but everyone allowed him his space. It worked out about as well as it could and what amounted to a private office was a help. 

The room nearest the labs, though, they dubbed the “Brainstorm Bunker” and (unfortunately) the name stuck. It was where the team went to hash things out without the lure of other projects. Whether the team was just Tony or it involved any combination of the brilliant minds that wandered through.

Bruce hated the room as much as the lab on the days where he felt science was to be a quiet activity. He always felt little was accomplished in there. As entertaining and strange as it was to watch Rhodes and Tony argue over the weight of weapons on armor or what toppings to put on pizza, it didn’t get any work done.

Occasionally, there were magical times that helped Bruce see the rooms worth. When everyone synced together. The blueprint covered table no longer full of discarded ideas and the squeak of markers writing on every available surface was only barely drown out by the constant chatter.

There’d been a transition in the Brainstorm Bunker as of late, though. With Peter running around the building now it’d become the home of the world’s strangest mentorship. Bruce and Tony routinely found themselves sitting in there with take-out rather than blueprints, answering an endless stream of questions.

Valuable to the kid, Bruce was sure, but it didn’t change his feelings on the room and often he retreated long before curfew. Which didn’t mean there weren’t times when Bruce found himself wrapped up in a discussion on particles or the quickest way to travel through space.

As time passed, the room eased back to a place to brainstorm with the added atmosphere of encouragement. Tony gave up his space to work things out free of distractions and interruptions to nurture Peter’s intelligence.

It was hard not admire it, Bruce wasn’t one for praise and never said anything to Tony but he admired the man for what he was doing. That admiration bought Tony and Peter ten days of Bruce agreeing to stick around and offer input without complaint.

Now he drifted in and out as he wanted, offering help and frustrating the crowd by easily correcting their work. The latter Bruce handled with smug smiles and a quick exit, never admitting how much he loved the banter and the playful way they dealt with it.

Bruce wasn’t just asked to adjust to it either. Tony brought in a few of Bruce’s comforts and did things like consistently provide decaf coffee. Even if it went untouched most days and he always insisted it was for Peter because the child didn’t need any stimulants. Peter kept a little quieter these, less like a constant stream of thoughts and tried to select his words with care. They kept the lights a little dimmer than either liked and never ate the last donut. 

Each thing was a small gesture but Bruce never felt so welcome.

The drop in peer pressure was appreciated the most, though. That feeling they chased when working with Helen Cho and Pepper, or with a few of Rhodes’ coworkers, trying to force too many minds on the same page. It was always a rare moment, the sort that had Bruce wondering if the sky parted and allowed the sun to shine on only the compound. There was a constant want to achieve that feeling everytime anyone gathered. Pressure the find greatness but rarely making it there. 

Now seemed a constant but they weren’t forcing it, they just clicked. As cosmic as that sounded, which Bruce hated, there was no other way to say it. The three of them fell into the same rhythm and created something beautiful. Something that had Bruce leaning on explanations outside of the scientific.  

When they stopped asking too much of Bruce and when he started giving them more, the Brainstorm Bunker never slept. A constant flurry of accomplishment. And a small sampling of the world’s brightest minds got together to improve everything. There was no stopping them.

The more time they spent together, the more they uncovered. Not in physics or engineering but about each other. Learning that Tony chewed with his mouth open far too often or that Bruce snored loud enough to knock down walls (though everyone knew that one, it was hard to miss). It was all par for the course, they were spending hours a day with each other in close quarters.

Some things were handled easy, Tony already had a handful of tricks to wake Bruce without turning things green, but others were handled with a touch of fun. Like the money jar, the first of many.

Peter showed up with it after a night of joking, something he claimed was once a jar of pickles but seemed bigger than any jar of pickles Bruce had seen. Complete with a well-written sign, something Peter swore up and down his aunt made but no one believed him. The whole thing led to a night of jokes at Peter’s expense. Between his handwriting and his use of glitter glue, they had enough to mock him for weeks.

Much like a swear jar, the point was to stop a behavior by having to put money in each time something happened. This was an original Parker idea and flawed as it was, it became a decent source of laughter. 

For this one, a dollar was to go in the jar every time Tony took a work call when they were all invested or on a roll. Tony instantly took the wind out of Peter’s sails as he dropped a hundred dollar bill in the jar and proclaimed it should at least get him through the week. 

Later that night, once Peter had gone home, Bruce found himself explaining the faults with that. It was painful for watch the sixteen-year-old deflate (and then try and pretend he didn’t). Peter took all their jokes about scrapbooking and crafting without flinching but when his joke didn’t succeed it was crushing. Bruce hated how much of himself he saw in that moment.

The jar sat on a side table among their discarded coffee cups and carafes of water for weeks as a reminder to all of them. It took half that time to get Peter back to himself and to stop holding back as he tried to bond with his mentors.

Almost two months after the first jar’s arrival, Tony added a second. It was small and took Bruce a few minutes to recognize as the bath salts jar from the back of the tub. A post-it note was duct taped over the peeled off label, in Sharpie Tony had written ‘derailing us by geeking out over physics $5’

Bruce instantly prompted Peter to add some ridiculous stickers to it and the boy didn’t let Bruce down. The next time he seen the jar it was covered in unicorns and sloths, as well as a smattering of emjois. Without a word to Tony as to why Bruce high fived Peter as they were grabbing sodas before sitting down to work.

Peter sat a little straighter that day and for the first time in a long time Bruce felt some pride. It was hard for him to not grin as he sat there talking about new tactical suits. At this point, Bruce wasn’t even trying to hide out in other spaces and this was the exact reason why.

They’d gone beyond just getting along, no one was tolerating anyone or tagging along. Things had moved to a point of comradery where they were developing their own in-jokes and secret languages. Albeit small, it was their tribe.

The hundred in the first jar had doubled and the newer physics-talk jar had twenty dollars in it. No one touched the money but they all were eager to hold the room accountable for them. Which was why the third jar appeared.

Much like the others, it was a comical suggestion based on a real flaw. Bruce and Tony had gone in together on it and as much as Tony wanted to bring down a punch bowl or fish tank, he was forced to settle on an old, unused decanter.

On the front was a typed note “Blurting out each thought in your head $1” but in the time between creating the label and it’s arrival in their bunker the dollar price had been crossed out three times. Fifty cents, down to twenty-five, and finally settling on a dime for each time Peter just spewed out whatever was in his head.

If these jars were serious, this one would have negated the need for the conversations about physics derailing everything. The trait was part of Peter’s character, it wasn’t as bad as either of them made it out to be, but as their comfort levels with each other had hit this synchronized point they were learning too much about one member of this tribe.

Bruce was sure if he heard one more story start with ‘So I had this dream the other night’ he was going to pack his bags and move out.

Rather than let the kid notice on his own, Tony was pointing it out before he was all the way in the room and it had Bruce shaking his head. Wondering if he should have Tony toss any spare change the very jar he was pointing out.

Peter reacted with less than the expected embarrassment, Bruce was thankful. And the joke given about wishing he had a hundred dollars to throw in there made for an easy transition into their work.

For the first week, this jar remained in the middle of the table they spent most of their time at. After that, it lived with the others in the sea of beverages. Peter kept a roll of dimes in his backpack, Bruce stashed one in a pencil cup, and Tony argued with anyone who dared say he needed to contribute.

Six weeks into it, Bruce came in to find the price had been slashed to five cents. Peter was clearly the culprit but Bruce didn’t say anything. Passing off his half a roll of dimes, replacing it a few days later with nickels, Bruce played along.

Jars kept appearing on the table for various faults and quirks though none were better than the jar Pepper placed to shame them all for the number of jars laying about. It served as a perfect reminder, for Bruce, how connected she was with the team despite not being there every day.

Not ending her involvement there, Pepper came and took the money out of all the jars and then wrote a note on the board with what charity the money went to. Instantly after she did this, Tony went through and dropped money into certain ones, repurchasing his free pass.

For months this carried on. New jars appeared some were mystically broken, others filled up so fast they needed two. Peter was still paying into the jar for blurting out every thought in his mind more than all the other jars combined. Yet this time it wasn’t saving his allowance that prompted the red pen edit to the price.

With only one increment of money left, the jar now bore the price of one cent for oversharing. A change Tony noticed surprisingly quick. Without addressing it, waving a few bills in the air, Tony hollered out for no other reason than to draw everyone’s attention to him.

“Peter! Be a dear and go put this in the terrible pun jar for me.”

Bruce looked at Tony with confusion, watching as the man waited for the money to drop in with a smug smile on his face. Petr dropped the money in with a look matching Bruce’s, both staring at Tony knowing he hadn’t made a terrible pun. There hadn’t been much talking at all up to this point.

Looking through the equations, Bruce looked for any hidden jokes but his brain wasn’t fast enough. Tony had purchased the right for this and he wasn’t about to wait.

A laser pointer danced on the jar that caught Tony’s eye as he laughed at his own joke before telling it.

“Penny for your thoughts, Parker!”

[saeranlover]

Saeranlover’s  Mystic Messenger writing masterlist (19th July ver.)

So, I do have an AO3 masterlist, but I thought it would be a good idea to get all of my AO3 and tumblr writing in one post. Plus, the tag I use for my mysme writing is a bit of a mess, so I thought I’d neaten it out a bit in this post. Fic previews will not be included in the list!

If a multi-chapter fic is also posted on tumblr and AO3, I will just post the AO3 link. If it is just on tumblr, there will be numbers indicating each chapter.

General/Teen audiences:

[V x MC ask prompt] - “We need to talk about what happened last night.”, “I still remember the way you taste.”

[Branching Path to Happiness (Tumblr) (AO3)] - AU where Rika and MC are sisters, trying to achieve happiness for everyone in their own ways.

[Zen x MC request] - Zen encourages a disheartened MC who is filled with doubt.

[Vanderwood’s origins] - Vanderwood’s beginnings within the agency, and the start of a companionship with 707.

[Beckoning of a Siren] - AU where the RFA go on holiday to a town supposedly home to a siren known as ‘ZEN’.

[Twin Princes (1)] - AU where Saeyoung are Saeran are princes, and are meant to be finding brides to provide an heir... And then they find MC, a commoner who lost everything, lying face-down in the mud...

[Mint Eye/RFA Rival Gangs AU (1)] - Mint Eye end up capturing ‘The Angel’, somebody of great importance to the RFA... MC.

[MC’s daycare (Tumblr) (AO3)] - MC is in charge of a nursery, where she has to look after the child!RFA.

[Little Hana Kim] - Yoosung and MC as parents!

[Masked Rivals (1)] - 707 x MC, where MC is a secret agent of a rival agency...

[Kiss in the Shower] - Just a Saeran x MC self-indulgent fic that I wrote for myself...

[Papa’s Girl] - Saeran and MC doing their best at raising their daughter, Iseul Choi.

[A Guy in Glasses] - Saeran gets into trouble with his contacts, so he wears a pair of glasses instead.

[The World in Reverse] - Role Swap AU

[Fear of Biting (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeyoung has been scared of going near MC, because he is a vampire, and she is a human....

[VFA - Vampire Fundraising Association] - MC is bitten during an RFA Party, before making a shocking discovery that the entire RFA are... vampires.

[Saeran x Vanderwood Request] - Saeran trips over a Doctor Pepper can when he is trying to get Vanderwood to eat something.

[707 x MC Request] - MC is kidnapped by Saeyoung’s former agency...

[Exhaustion] - Jumin passes out through exhaustion at work, and it’s down to his wife, MC, to help him rest and recover.

[Valentine’s Day gifts] - Saeran gets MC some kittens.

[Blanket Burrito Request] - Seven and MC fall asleep watching the Lego Movie, and Saeran just wants to get in with the hugging.

[Chores (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran and MC are doing chores together.

[Critical Hit] - MC is doing her best to support Saeyoung and Saeran after the Mint Eye incident.

[Caring (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran was a bit rough with MC the night before, so he does his best to look after her.

[True Happiness] - Unknown attempts to cheer MC up, because she had been down in the dumps ever since being brought to Paradise. (Note: this fic is on permanent hiatus.)

[For Your Safety (Tumblr) (AO3)] - It was only for your safety, of course it was… He kept you with him so that you remained safe. And you trusted him on that. He said that he would protect you, and make sure that nobody hurt you.

[Welcome] - The events leading up to MC being taken to Mint Eye...

[A Hacker’s Investigation] - Zen saves MC from being kidnapped by the hacker, but when Seven tries to do some investigating...

[The Drawing] - All that Saeran wants to do is see the drawing she was working on...

[Bad Party Ending] - MC doesn’t feel that she fits in after 11 days in the RFA...

[No Use Crying over Spilled Ice Cream...? (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran takes you out for ice cream.

[The Art of Saeran Choi] - Saeran doesn’t understand why you make art for a living, until he inspires one of your pieces.

[“I don’t know!” (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran ends up having a panic attack.

[Blanket Fort] - MC teaches Saeran the joys of a blanket fort.

Mature/Explicit:

[Mistress (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Fic based upon ‘Seductive Butler Seven’, brought on by MC finding an unused butler costume in Seven’s costume closet...

[Jealous Streak (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran gets jealous when he finds you in a compromising position with his twin brother, who is already taken by MC...

[The Agent’s Protection] - MC is in danger because of her association with 707, so she is put under the protection of Vanderwood.

[Forget the Cake] - Demon!Saeran x MC. It was a gift for a friend’s birthday~

[Punishment for escape (Tumblr) (AO3)] - MC tries to escape from Mint Eye and Saeran. Alternate description: Kinkiness and my intense regret at writing it.

[Fangs Aren’t Just for Biting (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran invites MC around for the day, and ends up revealing that he and the RFA are vampires...

[Together] - Saeran and MC have been together for years, after being brought to Mint Eye together... But were they living there on lies?

[Bitten By Twins (Tumblr) (AO3)] - MC lived with the Choi twins, her rent basically being her blood once a month. But when the twins get a different supply of blood... They end up biting her.

[Turning Them] - Saeran and MC are kidnapped by the vampires of Mint Eye to blackmail the RFA, and all because Saeran still isn’t a fully-fledged vampire, and MC is a human...

[Taken, and losing the will for freedom] - After a hectic night out, you just wanted to find a way home when a stranger asks you for directions. But when you get a message, asking for you to find somebody at the exact same address...

[Ignorance Isn’t Bliss] - After being ignored by Saeyoung over and over, MC has enough, and asks Saeran for support by taking her back to Rika’s apartment.

[Providing Support] - When Saeyoung ends up in a near-fatal car crash trying to recover MC’s stolen phone, Saeran has to become the shoulder for MC to lean on.

[Provoke Him] - You going with the hacker of your own accord broke Luciel. He was willing to do ANYTHING to bring you back to the RFA and society as a whole. Unknown, however, decides to use you to provoke him, and results in a drastic change in affiliations...

[Senses] - You had began to become close friends with V... But then he turned completely blind.

[Saeran x MC request] - Saeyoung walks in on the two of them having sex.

[A Snowy Angel] - Jumin x MC, based on after the Christmas DLC.

[Sleepless Night (Tumblr) (AO3)] - Saeran has trouble sleeping, and goes to MC because of it.

[Recovery] - You remembered a man who used to go to therapy, just as you do... Saeran was his name. But why did he stop going?

[Absence] - You were scared when heading home on your own, so your classmate, Yoosung, accompanies you.

[Somebody New] - Jumin’s half-sister attends the RFA party, and ends up falling for none other than the musical actor Zen.

[To Finish His Work...] - Vanderwood kidnaps MC to blackmail Seven into finishing his work.

[Companions] - Falling for your kidnapper-turned-friend whilst being his assistant may not be such a bad thing after all.

[Confessions] - V ends up escorting you back to Rika’s apartment after the party... And quite a lot happens that night.

Other:

[Rika Character Analysis]

[Yoosung Character Analysis]

[Saeran/Unknown Character Analysis]

[ganocompagnon]

Migonis Home Kitchen Reveal

Migonis Home’s white kitchen reveal with new hardwood floors, quartz counters, paneled fridge, two dishwashers and a farmhouse sink in a 12.5 foot island and pro style range… and our largest giveaway ever of a Kitchen Aid Mixer!

When we bought the house the cabinets were solid and all the appliances worked well but ascetically it wasn’t at all our style. We knew we could add some serious value to the home if we made the kitchen a light and bright entertaining spot that really worked well. We invested in both a 48 inch range and fridge and added a giant 12.5 foot island that seats six (I love when all the kids are up there drinking hot chocolate and talking!).

Even though I’ve shared our kitchen during all the stages this is the official reveal with all the sources. Keep in mind this space is still in progress, so even though it’s the official reveal that doesn’t mean that it’s 100% done. I wanted to share the whole space with you now because it’s 95% done and we are still being indecisive about other areas (like the area on the left of the fridge… we have some options we are throwing around to finish that space off).

Cabinets

AJ is our big picture guy and I’m the detail girl. He brainstormed the layout of the large island on the two levels to make sense of the step down into the long skinny part of the kitchen and the prep island to work with the distance between the range and the sink. Even before I went to the store to pick out cabinets I mapped out what I needed cabinets for based off what I was using in our former kitchen. The only thing that I was struggling with were the small appliances like the pressure cooker, crockpot or things of those size. I cleaned out a long skinny closet in the mudroom (that I hadn’t cleaned since we moved in and dumped stuff there four years ago!) and that’s my appliance garage (you can see it in the very first photo in this post, it’s the door to the far left).

I would love to add either something that mirrors the coffee bar by the kitchen table or a floor to ceiling pantry over there for Costco storage. Anyone else want to buy things in bulk but have no place to store the enormous containers they come in??? That’s a project down the road once we figure out the French doors into the dining room and the resulting step we need to build.

Counters

In our last home we had marble counters and I don’t for a second regret going with quartz (Mara Blanca from Q Design) in this home. I have never had to worry about stains or water marks (although I still do because I have PTSD from the marble where if we looked at it there would be a stain or water mark). I worried they would look like a cheap knock off of marble but I don’t think they do at all. It is startlingly similar to the marble we had in our last house!

You can read about our marble subway tile back splash with North Shore Marble & Granite here, it was our first time installing individual tiles (as opposed to 12 inch sheets).

Capiz Light

This light was a steal for the size and how it looks. I’m in LOVE with it. I wanted something that gave a little beachy flair while still working with a very classic kitchen and this fixture did the trick. It’s like a piece of art in the kitchen!

I have my eye set on two of these gorgeous chandeliers for above our dining room table but they are in a different price point… I view those as like buying a piece of art and would take them with me if we ever moved! Something like this capiz chandelier is perfect for the space and would stay here.

We started this project mid-December and were able to live in the kitchen with running water and counters by the February but it’s taken us FOREVER to finish detail work. If you’ve followed along at all you know that our fridge was the biggest source of headache for us which really prolonged things but I wouldn’t go back and do it over… it’s perfect for the space and it’s been great to have something larger than we previously had because #fourkids.

We bought six affordable bar stools for the space but they are too short (every single one was too short because the island is a strange height) so we need to put cushions and castors on them. It’s great to be able to fit the whole family in the space!

Faucets and Sinks

This deserves a whole category to it self. I wanted a bridge faucet from the moment I started planning but a lot of them are so ridiculously expensive. This one is a keeper… I am in absolute love with it. The black plastic piece looked cheap to me when I was looking at it online but now I completely understand why it’s not chrome… you wouldn’t be able to hold the sprayer with super hot water for any length of time if it was chrome. The price is unbeatable and it feels SO quality… the faucet is super heavy!

We have two bar sinks in the prep island and coffee bar and used this faucet on them. The sinks are a great price and the faucet coordinates really well with the bridge faucet and feels quality and heavy weight.

Another must have with this project was a farmhouse sink and this one is one of the cheaper ones out there. The price is about half the price of Kohler’s. We haven’t had a single scratch to the inside of the sink despite all the dish washing that happens every since meal. The stainless steel piece that comes with the sink is a LIFESAVER.

Floors

The previous owners had carpet everywhere except in the actual kitchen, which was a laminate checkerboard pattern. The rugs were getting stained repeatedly under the kitchen table and it looked so dingy (it’s looked really good when we bought the house but kids were rough on a light rug where we eat!).

We decided to install the same kind of wood that is in the rest of the house, red oak. Once the wood was in waffled on whether we wanted it darker like, what we  originally planned on to flow into the rest of the downstairs or go lighter and brighter. Obviously we decided on lighter and did a pickled oak stain with poly over it. If you were to just poly it the floors would turn even more yellow / orangy than the they are.

Eating Area

I love the table and the chairs but it’s too much wood in this area and the table is too orangy. After my last table painting experience that kept chipping (even with primer and poly!) AJ put his foot down and would rather buy an eight person table but we are still looking for that piece. I have in mind the whole look for this space, I just have to get AJ on board.

The windows on the far left were part of the original house before the former owners added on this room in the last 70s / early 80s. I would LOVE to get French doors into the dining room, I think it would make the house flow beautifully and really allow us to have larger gatherings because we could just open the door to use both tables comfortably. We had the quote for the work but need to remove a portion of a heater to make it happen (that room becomes sweltering in seconds so we aren’t worried about it from a practicality standpoint) so it isn’t as simple as just removing the windows.

Coffee Bar Area

We wanted an area visible from the mudroom door that looked welcoming as soon as someone walked into the house. We set it up with four chairs (they are really affordable!) and a little rug. It’s the perfect spot while I’m getting dinner ready for people to relax in!

Before and Afters

Sources Tile and Counters: North Shore Marble & Granite  (back splash tile was sponsored)

Range: ILVE (given to us at cost)

Cabinets: Building Supply Outlet, Peabody, MA

Dish Towel: Home Goods (similar here and here and the exact one here in red)

Tea Pot and Serving Board: Home Goods (exact one here and similar here in color)

Champagne Bucket: Pottery Barn (similar here)

Glass Pumpkin: Marshalls (similar here or here)

Serving Tray on Range: Mariposa (gifted)

Flowers: Alice’s Table, Magnolia Blooms

Faucets: Single Faucet: Amazon but it’s now out of stock (it was under $50 I think!) but here is a similar one

Bridge Faucet: Amazon

Chandelier: Amazon (similar here)

Hardwood Floors: NTP Hardwood

Rug in coffee bar area: Amazon

Chairs in coffee bar area: Wayfair

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO…

We are so grateful for you following along with us! As a thank you we are giving away a Kitchen Aid Mixer. I use ours multiple times every week and it’s been going strong since my parents gave it to me about 15 years ago! Every penny you spend on one of these is worth it!

Giveaway Terms

Winner is able to choose one of these mixers: silver mixer black or white

Giveaway ends on October 31.

Mixer can be sent anywhere that Amazon Prime will ship for free.

Six ways to get an entry (you can do any or all of them):

Comment here (I’d love any questions about our kitchen reno so I can answer everything in another post!)

Like and Comment on my Instagram and / or Facebook post

Pin one or more of the images from our kitchen

Share one or more of the images, tagging me, on Facebook and / or Instagram

The post Migonis Home Kitchen Reveal appeared first on Migonis Home.

Migonis Home Kitchen Reveal published first on https://unscratch.blogspot.com/