#btw WHERE is the save button why can I find the load button but not the save button

[vv-ispy]

I kinda love her a lot

[baenyth]

After too much stalling, I finally finished the other half of Miraculous Season 2. Here's my thoughts episode-by-episode:

Zombizou: The episode focused on Ms. Bustier. Honestly I get where she's coming from in that statement to Marinette. This is a world where people can become butt-ugly abominations because they felt upset, although I think Chloe still needs consequences for her actions as well as something like positive reinforcement. She had plenty consequences in season 1. Speaking of Chloe, That Asshole was wrong. There was clear intent for Chloedemption. Also could we at least have seen all that stuff Ms. Bustier does in previous episodes?

Syren: This was an episode the salters talked loads about, and honestly, I get where Adrien's coming from here. On a fundamental level the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculi aren't equals due to the Ladybug's magic reset button, but as one of the first Miraculous users, Adrien should've still been let in on the loop. Kid felt like he was useless, that Ladybug could save the day without his help. At the very least have Master Fu go one-on-one or have both kids show up while transformed or blindfolded. Also the water voices ticked me off, but that's relatively minor.

Frightningale: A fun character-of-the-week episode, especially since I'm fond of Clara Nightingale's constant rhymes and rhythm. She's dedicated to it and I love it. It's also good to see Chloe be an exceptional and talented dancer! It's good to see her having talents and interests that aren't just making people suffer!

Troublemaker: Another episode showing why I think Marinette and Adrien shouldn't date in any of their forms. I don't know enough about stalker shrines but I think Marinette's room is getting close enough to be one for Adrien. Though I'm pretty sure Adrien's seen worse or has been conditioned to not care, based on his reaction at the end. Still a shame that the local TV show had to live-film Marinette's room and beach her privacy in the local city-town of Paris while the real Paris has been converted to an amusement park for tourists. You got any other reasons why the population is so low? One more thing: I'm pretty sure the lack of ladybug-vision was more due to anxiety over losing one of her earrings and the difficulty of the villain more than anything else.

Anansi: I find the new heroes good, personally. They give more screentime to other characters. Also again with Adrien's insecurity about being useful. And I think this episode would've been over sooner if they noticed that Anansi was going to get herself akumatized over the stress and maybe just let her come or something. Or if they got Marinette to arm-wrestle her instead. Marinette has muscles, right?

Sandboy: A lore episode, mostly. The nightmares were funny for a second and I was a bit annoyed by the Akuma's voice, but that's small potatoes. I like how compared to season 1, where we would be given a bunch of development for Sandboy it's just explained to us afterwards while we instead get more time for lore.

Style Queen: Hawkmoth has a contender for the most evil character in the show. Audrey Bourgeois is the kind of person that would be made fun of in those Karen freakout videos. She cheats on her husband, neglects her daughter to the point of not remembering her name, fires people over the most minor inconveniences, and starts G-rated killing people over getting a seat in the second row. She needs to be cancelled, deplatformed, and Chloe needs a therapist and better role models. I really liked the split-second of Adrien looking shocked after Marinette told him he had the catwalk down, btw. Did he think his identity was outed there?

Queen Wasp: This is why teenagers shouldn't get superpowers. I get secondhand embarrassment watching them. Also Marinette What The Fuck why the Hell are you getting Chloe to bond with the Absolute Worst Person For Her

Maledictator: This is what happens when you make Chloe bond with a Chernobyl-level toxic influence, Marinette. In general this episode was funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. Everyone starts celebrating Chloe ditching Paris with her mother except Adrien because Chloe was her only friend even though she was a detriment to everyone else and suddenly Marinette feels bad because she worships Adrien. The first thing the villain of the week does is make Audrey stop being such a horrible person and later he made Chat Noir reach the limit of catboyness. It's like a Smiling Friends episode. Also it was cool to see Chloe's depths and self-loathing. Surely that won't be forgotten and Chloe will be given therapy so she can become a better person, right?

Reverser (Put here so it makes sense timeline-wise): It's Yaoi time. Except that Nathaniel is into Ladybug (who I assume he knows is Marinette) here and Marc is fine with that. Overall a good episode. Some nice humor, and Reverser's probably the best akuma design so far I love the paper stuff. Plus more info on the side characters and a spot of good humor, excellent!

Frozer: Ah, there's the Nathmarc. And explicit Julerose. And Marinette getting some idea that her fantasy of Adrien is unhealthy and shouldn't be followed. And Adrigami, albeit a bit one-sided. Quit pining over someone who doesn't love you and get with someone who does, kid. And a smidgeon of Marigami. And Adrien's bodyguard being his daddy in place of his father. And a pinch of me seeing what the salters were talking about with the girlsquad and them forcing Marinette and Adrien together. Or at least Alya and Mylene. I couldn't hear what Alix, Juleka, and Rose were saying, but they disagreed, right? At least one of them had to disagree, right?

Heroes' Day Two-Parter: Marinette you're being too hotheaded against Lila no you gotta be like Columbo. Also yet another Marinette Costanza moment. Otherwise not much to say here. It's the boss rush episode, it's the series finale, Alya managed to catch onto Nino being Carapace but still can't seem to connect the dots between Ladybug and Marinette, the Peacock Miraculous is introduced, and Natalie is on my suslist.

I might procrastinate again on the first half of season 3. The first episode deserves a post of it's own. It's the salt episode.

[inkmo]

went to report a rammer on forza and i noticed they had a 'feedback and suggestions' option in their support tickets, so i decided "why not? i have thoughts about this game". two and half hours later my partner had to get my attention to remind me we needed lunch and it was already 4 p.m. my last therapist said i don't have ADD. long rant under the cut. I'm 100% correct, btw.

Generally, i think this is a really great game when everything is working right. It's just about the only one i'm playing these days. I came to it from Assetto Corsa and Gran Turismo, so I have some modest sim racing experience that informs my expectations. Anyway, here is a list of features i'd like to see some day, some comments, etc:

the option to auto-sell most cars that are won in wheel spins when racing online (currently the car goes straight to your garage). Perhaps a slider based on value or rarity. removing cars from my garage by hand is a very time consuming experience.

on that note, i feel some utility to easily manage downloaded tunes, paintjobs, and garage cars would be greatly appreciated. even if it's an external program that doesn't run in game. at current, tunes can only be deleted when you are in the car they apply to, and paints and cars have to be deleted one at a time, which is very time consuming with menu lag (my xbox takes a while to do this each time, and I have had a few marathon sessions where I'd spend half the day just deleting and organizing things in my garage). in the my paints menu, thumbnails take a very long time to load, and deleting one sends you back to the front. perhaps a toggle for whether it is currently on a car in my garage or not would help, too. and a way to see what tune i have on my car and who made it. it's necessary to delete tunes at times because of the limited number you can have. if you don't have the tune in your collection to compare against the car, it can be really easy to forget exactly what you have that car for. my workaround for this has been to devise a paint color system (red cars for power, blue for road and street, orange for dirt, green for offroad, black gray or white for purists, chrome for highway pulls. i think i might need another color specification for hotwheels cars and to differentiate between circuit and sprint cars) but this requires a high number of paints to be saved. my workaround for that is to just buy a fresh car and specify the solid color I want there. this seems to not use a paint save slot. maybe there can be an option to click on for each car in your garage so you can remember if a car is for rally or street racing etc…

and on that note, menus take a very very long time to load, and selections are never acknowledged right away. it's been two years and I still find myself pressing the button repeatedly in menus when i select things because i just can't tell if it really registered or not. sometimes when i enter an event, it can take up to twenty seconds for my thumbnails to load on the car select screen, and this can get a little nerve wracking when the timer's counting down. I still have an xbox one, and i think there is a chance this could be more of an xbox one problem than an fh5 problem.

constraints/settings for events for tire choice, drive train, engine swaps, maybe even a locked tune that can be purchased and installed at the event car selection screen for spec racing and club time trials. for instance, i LOVE RWD dirt racing, but RWD cars are not very competitive when AWD cars are in the mix.

the option to race expert, pro, and unbeatable drivatars if you want in the weekly playlist events. i like these events because they enforce some variety in car choices, and i just like getting to check things off a list, but the actual racing tends to be a snooze.

even unbeatable drivatars tend to do mystifylingly stupid things every race. mostly jerking the wheel hard on straightaways for no reason, or parking it on corner apexes needlessly, especially in sweeping turns where i would expect to be able to follow flat out. i realize that they can't actually be that good if you want to have a chance of catching them in only three laps, but single player often feels like i'm just trying to get past 9 or 10 mobile chicanes so i can actually race with the one or two real competitors up front.

i don't always have xbox live gold, and single player freeroam can be a real shitshow at times. mostly it's encountering drivatars just parked in the middle of the road (I guess they're mimicking real players that pause while driving? I do that sometimes), or that there seems to be a few places on the map that spawn loads of drivatars at once. like i'd almost without fail encounter an 8 to 10 car roadblock on the sweeping downhill south of guanajuato leading to the stadium/street scene for instance. i know horizon life and horizon solo can't be the exact same experience, but i came to find driving in freeroam in horizon solo at times infuriating.

head-to-heads ought to punish players for leaving the road. they always devolve into eliminator style as-the-crow-flies racing when they actually happen. that's just not racing, and it's why i guess you see people doing them so rarely. the real freeroam racing seems to mostly be at the drag strips and on the tarmac side of the mountain. (by the way, the tarmac side of the mountain is a masterpiece. chef's kiss. good work.)

backmarkers should be ghosted in online lobbies. I didn't know this was an issue, but I accidentally rear ended a guy pretty hard the other day who i was going to lap, because I expected to just ghost right through him. I don't think i've ever encountered trouble makers hanging around at one point on track to try and ram the leaders when they come through, so i can't comment as to whether this would help with that. wall riding should maybe be punished harder, too. i saw someone wallriding at HMC in the trial last week, and it was good enough to keep him in front of all the unbeatable drivatars. but that's also the only time i've ever seen someone wallride like that in this game, so it's perhaps not a big problem. i didn't even know it was something i could report people for until today.

can it be possible to turn off some particle effects when racing online? it's pretty common to get stuck behind people who can't or won't put the power down right in fast corners. this makes a smoke screen that's impossible to see through. i'm not sure exactly what amount of power and angle starts making big smoke; I don't notice my tires smoking if I'm using slip angle in a turn, though, and i don't recall seeing drivatars do this.

i use the braking line only setting, because there are just too many car and track choices to truly internalize. i've noticed the braking line tends to 'lie' on hotwheels races. it seems like i'm always braking too late in hard braking zones in hotwheels races, but this doesn't seem to be a problem in mexico or badlands. is it just me?

this is just a polish thing, but what if players that use the borrow car option get a random manufacturer color instead of every car being the default color. just to add some variety to the grid.

another polish thing: the Buick GNX has a bump map or UVs problem on its doors. my 3D modeling knowledge is a little lacking, but SOMETHING makes that car look like it has a big dent in its doors on the trailing edge.

i loved the stock car trials you guys were doing for a minute a year or two ago. i remember the one with the porsche desert flyer was really fun, especially when i realized i could set the car up (this car has a very short gearbox, but it's a race gearbox -- and anyone that didn't think to tune theirs was a sitting duck). on the other hand, i also learned i could get away with building those cars to have more power as long as the PI was still the same as the stock option, so maybe that should be fixed). on the other hand, i thought the mini and landrover offroad B class trial the other week was total dogwater. idk what it was.. maybe i just don't like those cars. the mini john cooper works buggy x-raid seems to be particularly underpowered no matter what i use it for. I would love to see more stock car trials in the future.

i wish we could have the oval in freeroam all the time.

i think you guys did nothing wrong with the blower bentley forzathon. it was early in the game for me and i had to grind to just buy the thing, but i didn't think it was that bad…

an option to fire A class boneshaker drivers into the sun. J/k! A class rods and customs tours tend to turn into boneshaker only, and that's kinda fun. boneshaker cup someday perhaps? consider it won't you? ;-)

((i think the meta is a little wonky in general. for instance, drag tires make for some of the best road racing builds in B class. rally tires are hands down some of the best road racing tires in A class and above. Rally tires are almost never used for rallying because offroads handle dirt better, allow some PI for more horsepower, and aren't that much of a hindrance on road (ex: I won every event in the trial yesterday (A class Lexus Road events) on offroads. I accidentally grabbed one of my rally cars instead of the road build I'd made, but that rally car was still good enough to win). muscle cars with whitewalls seem to be one of the choice build types for hotwheels hazard and offroad events. in fact hotwheels open seems to devolve to a small handful of power meta cars that are the only viable competitors, and that's why i guess it seemed so dead when i was still doing it. I guess my thinking is tire and drivetrain constraints could reel the meta game in a bit, and we'd see fewer people griping about "bring clean cars, no forza aero, tires etc" in looking for group posts and on reddit. after my first couple months playing this game, i had to go and do research about the build/tuning meta because i realized i just wasn't fielding competitive cars most of the time. maybe this is actually the correct way to play the game if you care about it. i've raced enough in sims that i knew racecraft wasn't my issue. and i think this might not ever occur to players that don't already have experience with racing games. i'm not sure it's really possible to learn in game what a 'good' car looks and drives like. the game won't teach you and the autoupgrade seems to be nearly useless in this regard. you have to go looking on reddit or youtube for good tuners to follow, and be willing to take notes.))

that's about everything i can think of off the top of my head right now. this seems like a lot, but i love this game and have thought about it a lot the last couple of years. and i know y'all have done quite a bit to fix things. game crashes are fewer now it seems. i'm genuinely surprised these days if i get it to crash, but it was a pretty common occurrence a year or so ago.

p.s. attaching a fan art i drew of the nissan tsuru just because i like you guys. have a good day :)

oh, i just remembered. the existence of 'rivals lines' strikes me as a problem. this is where the checkpoint gates don't adequately constrain the track boundaries and players can cut, or go way off road to carry more speed into an otherwise slow corner. are these by design?

one more thing. and i can't believe i forgot it because this was at the forefront of my mind when i started writing. we really need some sort of car proximity marker or radar in first person views. like in Assetto Corsa or Gran Turismo. i find 3rd person racing kind of disorienting so i'm always in dash or bonnet view. i think most of the time when i make contact, it's turning into cars that are significantly alongside during corner entry. I just don't know that they're there until it's too late.

[ahtsumu]

long shots ; miya osamu

pairing: miya osamu x f!reader

synopsis: miya osamu is the teacher’s assistant for food chemistry i. you can’t stop thinking about him.

tag(s): college!au, slow burn, TA!miya osamu, grad student!reader, fluff, reader is a go-getter!! ; warning(s): profanity, suggestive themes, talk of insecurities and imposter syndrome ; wc: 5.6k

a/n: happy birthday to @starrysamu​! i love u. pls excuse any errors. i’ll weed them out later! btw this fic is not a sugar daddy au LOL

HIS NAME IS Miya Osamu and he always looks like he has it all figured out. Comes in every class with his black hair perfectly tousled, the sleeves of his dark button-up rolled to his elbows, a cup of coffee in one hand and the strap of that black messenger bag in another.

“He drives a BMW, did ya know?” Isla says in your ear one morning. Your only friend in Food Chemistry I gives you a pointed look before sitting back in her chair in the lecture hall with a smirk on her face. “Saw it this morning. Bet he’s loaded.” The two of you watch the subject in question walk across the classroom and settle in his seat at the table in the corner.

“Shut up,” you whisper with wide eyes. A grin–– far from innocent–– makes its way onto your face. “Imagine being Miya Osamu’s sugar baby.”

“He’s not old enough to be a sugar daddy.” Isla looks at her nails disinterestedly. “And that’s too many AUs in one. He’s already the TA, for god’s sake. This isn’t some shitty Wattpad novel.”

A light giggle slips out of your lips. “I can see the title already. My Sugar Daddy is the TA?!”

Now, if anyone had been listening in on your conversation, they would’ve assumed many things about you. The first being that you’re both gold-diggers. This is untrue–– at least, in your case. Isla, you’re not so sure about, given how your friendship only goes back about one month. But she tags you in memes on Instagram so maybe it’s as real as real gets. Their second assumption would be that you have a big fat crush on your TA. That one’s complicated, mostly because it’s true, but only kinda. It all started in the second week of school when Isla caught you staring at Osamu and slipped you a post-it note with both your initials encircled in a heart. And, because you’re shameless with a good sense of humour, you made a show of kissing it while she was looking. And thus began your meaningless but incredibly entertaining, satirical, co-written fantasy about Miya Osamu.

It also didn’t help that on the first essay you got back, Isla’s paper had been marked up with “are you sure?”s and “this is a jump”s, while yours had “excellent reasoning” and “insightful analysis”. You’d even gotten a little comment at the bottom: y/n, fantastic work. you should speak up in class more often. –– OM

But Miya Osamu doesn’t play favourites because the next week you’d gotten another essay back, this time with another comment at the bottom: y/n, not your best work. you could’ve done better by connecting your first paragraph with the second using grant’s reading. conclusion lacked punch, too. all the best. –– OM

Every time you’d read the words scrawled in blue ink, you’d felt a pair of eyes on you. But you chalk it up to Osamu being a careful grader. A good TA. Someone who cares about his students.

Isla calls bullshit on that. You’re not really sure how to feel about her stance.

The classroom door opens and shuts again. You don’t have to look at your phone to know that it’s nine on the dot. Instead, you and Isla straighten your backs, pull out your notebooks, and focus. Your no-nonsense professor says “good morning” in her usual perky manner before jumping right into her keynote presentation.

“Did you all find the reading okay?” Professor Lee asks an hour into the lecture.

A chorus of “yes”s fill the air. You bite your lip, wondering if revealing that you didn’t understand shit will out you as the class idiot. Or maybe your silence is telling enough–– maybe the people in the seats beside you have noticed the grimace on your face and are having thoughts like ‘gee whiz, am I glad I’m not dumb like her’. Heat rushes to your cheeks. Sometimes you really wonder if you’re smart enough to be here. Occurrences like these do nothing to dispel your insecurities.

You vaguely hear her ask something like, “Any thoughts about the reading?” It’s not that you’re actually dumb. It’s just that this class is ridiculously hard for an introductory course, even for a graduate programme. From the start of the semester til now, fifteen people have dropped the class. There’s just twenty of you left. Guess a ridiculously hot TA can’t save a course’s drop-rate.

Before you can make your mind up on what to say, your professor moves on from her question.

As you look off to the side of the room for a break from your thoughts, you find a pair of blue-grey eyes pointed in your direction.

Everything about you, from the expression on your face to the way your muscles tense, makes you look like a deer caught in headlights–– even though he was the one caught staring in the first place. So maybe your shamelessness works on a scale.

Miya Osamu lifts one corner of his mouth.

And as if the exchange hadn’t happened at all, he looks back down at his laptop and continues typing.

The rest of the lecture goes through one ear and out the other.

“Everyone, I believe Osamu has something he wants to say,” Professor Lee says as everyone begins packing their bags.

The raven-haired TA slides out of his seat and sits on top of his desk. “Yeah.” Osamu clears his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. You notice how the muscles in his arms bulge from the movement.

“Whipped,” Isla mutters, grinning mischievously.

“Him for me,” you whisper back, though your eyes do travel back to his face where they should’ve been all along. Osamu catches your gaze and holds it. And then he looks away again.

“Now, I know you’re all Nobel prizewinners in the making,” he begins, garnering a round of snickers and giggles from your classmates. Most people say that cliques dissolve in college. That there’s no such thing as popularity amongst graduate students. That much, you agree with. But no one ever said anything about popular teacher’s assistants. Especially smart, attractive, witty teacher’s assistants like Miya Osamu. “But in case you didn’t understand the reading or would like to develop a deeper understanding of it, don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll try to host a review session all of us can attend.”

Professor Lee smiles appreciatively at Osamu, adding, “That’s a wonderful idea, Osamu. Guys, please take this opportunity if you struggled with the reading. I know eighty pages is a lot, but our next three classes are structured around the concepts in the reading and the mid-term next week will almost exclusively be about it, too.”

Well, shit.

To: m.osamu@hqu.edu

Hi Osamu,

I was wondering if I could get some help with the reading from last class. To be frank, I couldn’t make it past page 15 and I’m lost like a snot-faced five-year-old in a shopping mall on Black Friday. Sorry. Thanks in advance!

Regretfully,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: m.osamu@hqu.edu

no problem. is 5 pm tomorrow at jack’s okay? we start on the concepts from the reading next class so i want to get you up to speed asap. let me know. thanks.

OM

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

It’s five minutes to five when you pull into the parking lot of Jack’s Diner. The shiny, retrofuturistic eatery is a university favourite but the empty parking lot tells you it’s completely deserted right now (and rightfully so–– who eats dinner before six?). The black BMW parked a few spots from your car, however, says that you’re not alone.

Osamu’s figure comes into view as you reach for the handle to the front door of Jack’s. The twenty-six-year-old sits by himself at one of the bright red tables in the back, typing away on his dark grey laptop.

His head lifts up at the sound of the opening door. Osamu calls out your name and waves you over.

“Hi,” you greet with a smile, sitting down across from him.

“Hey.”

You look around before leaning forward on the table. “Is anyone else coming?”

“No.” Osamu sits back in his seat. “I thought about hosting one big group, but then I realised that it’d probably be stressful for the staff here.” He nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. “And I had a hunch that everyone would have different questions. Forcing everyone to review concepts they already know is a waste of time.”

At first, you nod. That makes sense. But then you furrow your brows. “So how long have you been here?”

Osamu blinks. He hadn’t expected you to ask about him. “Hmm? Oh.” He taps his phone to check the time. “Just a while.”

Quirking a brow, you ask, “And how long is ‘a while’ to you?”

“Seven hours,” he admits, chuckling lightly when he sees your jaw drop. “A lot of people had questions. They just don’t act like they do. Anyway, time flies. Really, it does.” Quickly, he clears his throat and sits forward. “So, about your email.” He grins. “Not sure if you meant it to be funny, but it was.”

“I’m glad my distress was entertaining for you. Do you TA just to watch grad students suffer?”

“Perks of the job,” Osamu says. His grin widens when you giggle. He’s never heard you laugh before and he realises at that moment that it’s really nice. And then that same grin falters. Gracefully, of course, and imperceptibly to you. But not to him. Is it okay for him to be… thinking things like that? About a student? But you’re not really his student since he’s just the TA. Right? Osamu ignores the weird feeling that comes over him and clasps his hands together at the edge of his laptop. “Back to your email. Can ya tell me what you’re confused about?”

Three hours and two Impossible Burgers later, you suddenly understand everything about food molecules so well that you wonder why you’d even been confused in the first place. But besides that, you’ve also picked up things about Osamu. As a person and not an idea. Not that you’d been actively searching for fun facts about your TA. But they’d stuck to your brain like gum at the bottom of a desk. He likes to slip sarcastic quips into a conversation every now and then. Eats burgers upside down (“The right way,” as he’d said, smirking). Is friendlier than he looks.

“You’re really good at explaining things,” you comment as Osamu shuts his laptop closed.

“Well, I kinda have to be,” he says. And maybe it’s the mental fatigue catching up on him or the fact that he’s real fond of the reason why he can break big concepts down into morsels but suddenly, the rest of his thoughts spill out his mouth like wine. “I have a twin brother with potato salad for brains.”

“Oh?”

And before he can stop himself, he tells you about Miya Atsumu, the pro-athlete you’ve definitely heard of but never gave too much thought. And then you hold onto the fact that they were both on the volleyball team and you ask of which school, so then he tells you about Inarizaki, the high school he attended, and then his decision not to go pro to go to college, and then––

“Sorry,” he laughs, cheeks turning pink. “You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”

“No, it’s fine,” you say–– and you mean it. “Your life is interesting.”

Osamu leans back in his chair. “Well, I’m sure yours is, too.” He holds your gaze like it’s the key to your presence. It’s an invitation. The kind that comes from people who don’t really know if they want you around but also don’t want you gone.

You take it.

Osamu shouldn’t–– he really shouldn’t–– but he wonders about the things you didn’t tell him the entire drive home.

Isla laughs when you tell her about what happened at Jack’s. You lay in bed with your phone next to you on speaker, your face turned on your pillow so that you’re staring out the window at the city below.

“He wants you,” she sings.

“Or he was just being nice.”

“Methinks not!” Isla giggles. “He’s intrigued, girl! You’re like that cute little new mystery in his life and he just wants to get to know you.”

“I think he was just being polite.”

“Or he’s crushing on you!”

“In your dreams.”

“You mean yours? Boo, you’re no fun today. Usually, you go along with the jokes.” Isla’s tone is playful on the surface but full of implications.

A few silent seconds pass. Yeah, you think, agreeing. I do.

“Girl,” Isla drags out the word in a high pitch, saying it like a scientist says ‘eureka’. “You’re not playing along anymore because it’s real now. You're actually catching feelings!”

“Am not!” you laugh.

“The Y/N I knew would’ve said ‘nah, bitch, he’s catching feelings’ and I think that says all there is to say.”

“Okay, I think he’s cute but it’s not a crush,” you concede, grinning. “And he’s the TA, Isles. It’d never happen.”

“Not while he’s still a TA in a class you take.”

“Isla.”

“Ask him out once this semester ends! Unless you’re chicken.”

“I’m not asking him out.”

“Knew you were––”

“Have you seen me? He’s asking me out.”

Miya Osamu walks through the door at eight-fifty as usual that next morning, dressed in his usual button-up, holding his usual cup of coffee. But this time, as the rest of his tall frame passes through the doorway, Osamu’s eyes subtly scan the faces in the lecture hall, lingering for just a while over yours. The corners of your lips turn up. You hope he saw that.

“Bitch!” Isla whisper-screams. The students sitting around you turn around at the noise and grin at each other when they realise it’s just Isla being… well, Isla. She shoos them away jokingly.

“What?” you whisper back.

“Care to explain why our TA was literally eye-fucking you?”

“That was hardly eye-fucking,” you retort. “Maybe like an eye-handshake.”

“Yeah, a naked eye-handshake where his thang is handshaking your––”

He does it again the next class.

And the next.

And then he doesn’t. Miya Osamu walks through the door to Food Chemistry I at eight-fifty in the morning in a navy blue button-up with a cup of coffee in his hand and looks through the rows of seats in the lecture hall for your face, only to find it missing.

He debates pressing the matter.

To: m.osamu@hqu.edu

hey osamu,

i wasn’t in class today because i’ve been sick with the flu (no big deal, just feel like i’m dying). a classmate sent me pictures of the slides from today so i think i should be fine, but is it okay if i email you with any questions? thank you very much!

miserably,

Y/N

MS Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

From: m.osamu@hqu.edu

y/n,

of course. sorry to hear that you’re sick. let me know if i can do anything to help you. the midterm is next week. get well soon.

OM

PhD Candidate

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Haikyuu University

“You writing that the midterm is next week did not offer me any peace of mind, by the way,” you say, spinning around in your chair as Miya Osamu enters your pod in the library.

He offers you a wry grin. “Hello to ya, too.”

“Was that an accent?” You thought you’d heard one at Jack’s, but you couldn’t be sure because it’d been so spotty.

Osamu slips into the seat beside yours and pulls out the laptop in his messenger bag. You catch a whiff of his cologne–– something spicy and woody, but clean. It suits him. “Nice catch. Yeah, I speak a regional dialect. Took me a while to smooth it over but it still resurfaces every now and then.”

“Why?”

“It just didn’t seem fitting for a PhD candidate, I guess,” Osamu explains, opening the slides from the class you missed. A day after your initial exchange, you’d emailed him again (with a much clearer mind) and asked if he could go over the slides with you in person.

i literally feel like i’ve been given the homework from russian lit, you’d written. except the russian has been translated to hieroglyphs and my task is to choreograph an interpretive dance based on the hieroglyphs.

Osamu had snickered when he saw your email. that doesn’t even make sense. must be the fever talking, he’d been tempted to write. But that strange feeling had come over him again, the one that’d screamed at him to keep it professional, goddamnit, so he’d played it safe instead and sent is eight pm at the main library okay? He hates that you’re getting a watered-down version of his personality. Osamu swears he’s a lot more interesting when he’s not, well, a TA.

“I think it’s fine,” you say, smiling. “I like it. It’s you.” And suddenly, you’re wondering if it’s okay to be complimenting your TA. If it’s okay to say that you like things about him, or if that crosses some grey, unclear line. Is it weird to treat your TAs like they’re your friends? It’s not like TAs are real teachers. Right?

A grin–– wide and genuine and almost excited–– grows on Osamu’s face. He rubs the back of his neck as his eyes flit over to the laptop screen. “Thanks. Really.”

You nod. But you feel like there’s more that he might want to say, so you wait.

“I got a lot of shit for it when I came here for my master’s, y’know. Not to my face, of course, but people would refer to me as ‘the guy with the accent’. A professor once said it made me seem crass. Said it’d hold me back in my career.”

“So you changed.”

“Adapted,” Osamu corrects. “It’s hard to admit but conforming is sometimes all you can do when you don’t have the power to change the system. Can’t really make everyone suddenly respect a dialect.”

“And after you’re finished with your PhD, you’ll go back to speaking in that dialect?”

Osamu looks out the window and smiles, probably imagining the plans he’s already made about the future. “Yeah.”

“What if you have to speak the standard language at your job? Like, your boss is all, ‘hey man, if you don’t speak––”’

“I’ll be the boss.”

“Oh?”

And with a little more prodding, Miya Osamu tells you about the restaurant chain he plans on opening after graduation, the slides about food additives left completely untouched.

The librarian knocks on your pod a few minutes before eleven to tell you they’re closing.

“Shit,” Osamu murmurs, running his hands through his hair. You’re still laughing about something he’d said before the librarian interrupted him–– one of his stories from high school–– and he thinks that you’ve completely forgotten that the reason you came to the library was to catch up on the material you were already behind on. And now you’re behind on that. But you look so carefree right now and, actually, you’re very pretty and you’ve got such a good heart and it’s a lot for him to process but he knows he just wants to see you happy a while longer. So Osamu just slumps back in his chair and laughs along with you.

He says your name as his chuckles grow softer. “It’s pretty late. How’re you getting home?”

“I’ve a bike,” you reply. It’s good for the environment and is a pretty solid form of exercise if you do say so yourself. Sometimes you just don’t feel like driving. 

Osamu presses his lips in a thin line. Would it be too much to offer you a ride? “I can drive you home. It’s really not safe for you to be alone outside, especially near midnight. You can get your bike tomorrow. Or I’ll get it for you.”

He drives fast. Not the unsafe fast that speed demons drive at, but the kind of fast where you know he’s got some edge to his character. You bring it up to him–– especially since it’s nighttime, for god’s sake, he could hit something–– and all he does is remind you how there are lamps as bright as the sun lining the entire road to your dorm. And the fact that you live in the least accessible dorm on campus.

“A twenty-minute drive?” he’d exclaimed when he saw the GPS monitor.

“A bunch of roads are closed for construction. It’s a ten-minute bike-ride because I can cut through campus.” And suddenly feeling a little burdensome, you’d added, “Sorry. I can still bike––”

“No.” He’d held his hand out in front of you, gesturing for you to stay in the passenger’s seat. “It’s not a bother at all.” Because it wasn’t. Osamu was… happy. Not that he’d admit that.

“So this BMW,” you start in a teasing tone.

Osamu smirks. “A gift.”

“Can I guess from who?”

“Sure.”

“Atsumu.”

His brows rise. “Colour me impressed.” He hadn’t expected you to remember anything he’d said about Atsumu. Or maybe he had but told himself otherwise to lower his hopes.

“I’m smart like that.”

He snorts. “Not if you keep distracting me and using your review time to…” hang out with me, get to know me, tell me things about you… “…goof off.”

You grimace. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

Osamu makes a turn down a familiar street. It dawns upon you that you're ten minutes away from your dorm and suddenly you wish he’d just make the wrong turn at the next intersection so that you could talk to him some more. It can even be about the health benefits of fish or the molecular makeup of kale–– you don’t mind. You just want to be around him longer.

“I think you’re really smart,” Osamu says quietly. “I think you’re not processing the readings because you’re distracted, or just not fully applying yourself. Obviously, last class’s slides are a different thing, since you were absent. But you really are smart. I’ve seen your papers.”

You bite your lip to hide your grin, feeling heat rush to your cheeks. “Thank you.” You look out the window, too jacked on dopamine to think straight. “I think I still need you, though.”

And that innocuous little sentence floats right out your mouth into the air, settling between you like a little wedge before either of you even realise it. Neither of you says anything. You marinate in the awkwardness before stuttering out a clarification. “To, um, to explain things. Y’know, since you’re, uh, so good at… explaining things.”

Osamu clears his throat and chuckles stiffly. There’s a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, looking straight ahead. He can’t even look at you. Fuck. It’s so awkward. “I’ll try to keep… explaining things.” Fuck. What does that even mean?

A few uncomfortable minutes pass in silence. The night can’t end like this, you think. It can’t when everything else had gone so well. You still have to see him for a few more months. “Did you know,” you start, catching Osamu’s attention, “that Jack’s Diner has a location in Italy?”

“Oh?” he asks, making the final turn to the street where your dorm is. He actually hadn’t.

“Yeah. I asked the owner about the chain a while back. Have you ever been to Italy?”

Osamu shakes his head. “I’ve been to Paris, though. To see a friend. He’s a chocolatier.”

Now, if Osamu had been your friend, you would’ve said something like well, let’s go to Italy together, except he’s not. He’s your TA and you’ve been reminded that enough tonight. So instead, you say, “When you open that restaurant of yours in Italy, let me know.”

“That’s gonna take a while,” he laughs. He appreciates how you said ‘when’, though. And he tucks that little bit of confidence you have in him somewhere deep in his mind so that it doesn’t get lost.

“Isn’t that just seven hours?” you shrug, grinning. Osamu’s BMW pulls up outside your dorm and parks as he marvels at what you just said. You’re amazing. You unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to face your driver.

“Thank you for driving me,” you say, offering him a smile.

“Yeah,” he replies.

You stretch out your hand. With a puzzled look on his face, Osamu grabs it and shakes it. Firmly. You can’t help but notice how nice his hands are. Calloused for sure, but they feel nice.

“Goodnight, Osamu.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

He watches you jog into the building before driving away. And it’s like you’ve possessed his car or something because the smell of your shampoo and perfume is everywhere and it’s too much but it’s also not enough at the same time and he can feel your palm against his as he spins the steering wheel to make a turn and for the first time in his life he doesn’t turn on the radio to fill the silence in his car. Osamu replays everything you said in his head.

But he especially thinks about that part where you said you need him.

Weeks melt into months. You turn in essays after essays for Food Chemistry I, each coming back with detailed commentary in an all-too-familiar blue scrawl. All your other classes go well–– extremely well, actually. You might just end the semester with a 4.0 if Food Chem doesn’t fuck you over. Isla still tags you in memes on Instagram. You still tell her about everything that happens with Osamu.

Speaking of.

“That’s the wrong equation,” he says behind your ear as he settles in the seat beside you. The sound of his low voice so close to your ear sends a small shiver down your spine. “You gotta switch the hydrogens.” Osamu knocks on your skull lightly. “What’s goin’ on up in there? Ya got somethin’ on your mind?”

You laugh and elbow him in the side. “Shut up, ‘Samu.” He’d told you during one of his office hours that he’d gone by that nickname because he had a teammate with a foreign name in high school. It sounded so cool, he’d said, grinning.

I think Osamu sounds pretty cool already, you’d teased.

And he’d replied, Let’s trade. I like yours, you like mine, why not share?

You teeter on the line between friends and less-than-friends and, oddly enough, more-than-friends. Sometimes you still play it safe. Sometimes he pauses between texts and real-time conversations, no doubt to scrap an instinctive reply for something more “professional”. Sometimes you say things that make him look at you with the ghost of a smile at the corners of his lips. Sometimes he calls Atsumu to scream about you.

“S’not a no,” Osamu points out. He’s dressed in a black sweater and grey trousers today. You’re suddenly reminded of how the weather’s been getting colder when someone opens the door to the university café and lets in a gust of chilly autumn air.

“Okay,” you admit, setting down the pencil. “I just… don’t really feel prepared for this next test.”

Osamu frowns and looks down at your worksheet. “Your process is correct, though.”

“Right, but… I don’t know. I’ve just not been feeling great about myself lately,” you laugh, looking down at your feet. “Food Chem’s the toughest class I’ve ever taken. And remember how I completely embarrassed myself in that class discussion last week? It’s not really making me feel like I belong here.”

“Imposter syndrome,” Osamu remarks.

“Correct-o.”

He says your name softly and puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Maybe you’re not the smartest, but you’re definitely smart. And you belong here. I’ve seen your papers. They’re just as great as anyone else’s and I don’t hand out compliments for nothin’. You’re gonna do some great things but ya can’t improve if you ever give up.” Osamu searches your eyes for a sign of your understanding.

There’re a lot of things you want to say but you don’t know how to put them into words. “Can I hug you?” you finally ask.

Osamu doesn’t even think about it. “Of course.”

He feels you smile against his chest and wonders if you can feel his heart beat faster.

Isla camps out in your dorm as finals come around the corner.

“I don’t understand shit!” she wails, throwing her notebook into the air.

“Isles, it’s okay,” you laugh, slipping out of your chair and walking over to her nest in the corner. “You gotta chill, dude.”

“Not fair! I didn’t have a hunk holding my hand through this course all semester,” she retorts, humour glittering in her dark eyes. “I had the Organic Chemistry Tutor and his accent’s cute enough but, girl, you had Miya Fucking Osamu!”

“You’re literally the worst.” You giggle and sit down beside her. “Tell me what you’re confused about. I’ll try to explain it to you.” The way Osamu does.

You text him that you’d channelled his brains later that night.

His reply comes seconds later. all you, einstein.

From: osamu

good luck on the exam

you’re going to kill it

To: osamu

would u like to divulge any… information about it? 😏 😏 😏

From: osamu

bye

To: osamu

i was kidding :(

From: osamu

fine. tip #1: write your name

To: osamu

not very helpful. 0/10

From: osamu

keep running your mouth and 0/10 is what your score’s going to be

i’m kidding

you got this, y/n

“Holy fuck,” Isla groans as you cross the street to head to lunch at Jack’s. “If you don’t see me next semester it’s because I’ve gotten my grade back and decided to drop out.”

“What would you do?” you ask, amused.

“Maybe move to New Zealand. Raise some sheep. Marry a hot, blond shepherd and fuck off to a cliffside cottage.”

“Solid plan.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“What about me?”

“Remember that conversation we had at the start of the year? About your man?” The two of you reach another red light for pedestrians.

“We’re friends. He’s not my man,” you laugh. Though it pains you to. Something about being Miya Osamu’s friend doesn’t really sit right with you, but you don’t know how to not be his friend. You don’t know how to move out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into.

“But you wish he were! And now you can finally hit him with that ‘Hey, Osamu, I’ve been madly in love with you since the start of the semester, wanna fuck like rabbits and then open that store in Italy?’ and he’ll be all––”

A throat clears behind you. With wide eyes, the two of you turn around.

Holy fuck.

Miya Osamu stands behind you with his hands in his pockets and an enormous smirk on his face.

“He’ll be all what?” he asks, eyes fixed on you.

Isla murmurs an excuse and starts walking on her own to Jack’s.

“Um.” You swallow nervously and shrink in your coat. “You heard all of that, right?”

“Yep.” Osamu grins. He grins. He’s grinning. He’s smiling like he’s won the fucking lottery and you honestly don’t know what to do with that information.

“So, like,” you look down at the sidewalk and kick at a pebble, “what are your thoughts about that?” God, you could die. “‘Cause I know you’re a TA and it’d probably look pretty bad and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you because I like you and it’s cool if we just…”

Osamu interrupts you with a laugh. “My thoughts,” he says, “are that I want to kiss you.” His fingers lift your chin up. “What are your thoughts about that?”

Well, shit. “I think that’s pretty cool, yeah,” you breathe, eyelids fluttering shut as his face comes closer to yours.

He tastes like mint. And his lips move softly, slowly against yours like he’s savouring the moment. And then you feel his hands snake around your waist to pull you closer–– closer because you both are tired of forcing the distance between bodies that want to be near each other, closer because he’s thought about kissing you just like this for so long, closer because you remember the last time he’d touched you was three days ago and it was just a brush of his fingers against your arm and that feeling of wanting more haunted you for the entire night. But holy shit, Miya Osamu is kissing you. He’s kissing you.

And then he pulls away. His dark eyes flit over yours. “I,” he breathes, “I need your course load next semester.”

“What?” you ask, disbelief written all over your features, chest rising and falling as you try to steady your breathing. You just kissed, for God's sake, and he's––

“I need to know which courses not to apply to TA for,” he grins, cupping your face in his hands. “Can’t be teachin’ in a class with my girlfriend as a student.”

“So we’re official?” you ask, beaming.

“If you want,” Osamu replies with a smirk.

You grab the front of his coat and tug him down for another kiss. “Hell yeah, I want to be official.”

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

heated, m | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: An (innocent?) conversation about D/s dynamics accidentally leads to you confessing that you think about your childhood best friend while getting off. To your childhood best friend, Jeon Jungkook. Erm. This is after he told you that you would be “an awful sub”, btw.

warnings: rated M (18+) for language, discussions about adult topics; reader is bisexual; smut (fem reader, dry humping, fingering, [tiny bit] m-receiving oral, penetrative sex); fluffy af; non-idol!AU; F2L; softdom!Jungkook x softbrat!reader; you kind of have a forearm kink and you never let Jungkook have his lovey-dovey moment, whoops

MMA 2020 ‘ON’ Jungkook? Yeah. That one.

--

“I could never be a sub.”

You clicked rapidly as you spoke, mashing the right button on your mouse. It was quite loud, paired with your mechanical keyboard.

“Why not?”

The music coming from Jeon Jungkook’s smartphone was a rhythm game, nearly as loud as you, since he was grunting angrily at it. It was very obvious when he missed a beat.

“I can’t imagine that being me, you know?”

You, on the other hand, were on your computer, playing with the new items in League of Legends from the latest patch. Using the practice tool, you had loaded up your favorite champion, Jhin, the Virtuoso, and messed with various builds, trying to find the best combination. So far, Lethality was feeling pretty good.

“Like why would I ever let my pleasure be handled by someone else?” you mused, reading the high damage numbers of each shot. Oh, the fourth shot felt nice. “That sounds stupid.”

Jungkook rolled over on your bed, growling in his throat as the level ended. He restarted it, trying to get a better score. “Maybe people like to let go sometimes. You know, not always be in control.”

You snorted. “I could never trust someone else with my body.”

“You got an alien body or something?”

“Shut up, Jungkook.”

“No.”

“Fine.”

“Anyway,” Jungkook continued, ignoring your outburst. “I didn’t ask if you could be a sub, I just asked what you thought of domination and submission as a dynamic in general.”

You shrugged, trying to see if you could do Baron alone. Welp, you needed lifesteal, of course. “I mean, I’ve tried it in various situations. I was never the sub.”

“Kinky.”

“Shut up, Jungkook.”

“No.” Jungkook suddenly sat up, excited that he achieved a higher score. “Look, look. I got ninety-eight.”

You craned your head to look at his phone screen. “Why isn’t it one hundred? You’re a disgrace to this family.”

He bopped you on the nose with his phone. “If I was part of your family, your family would be even more dysfunctional than it is now.”

You rubbed your nose and looked up at him. “How much gel did you use in your hair? You look like a wet dog.”

Jungkook’s eyebrows went up and he touched his long black hair. “It’s not crunchy though.” He grabbed your hand and lowered his head, placing your palm on his slicked back hair. “See?”

You pulled your hand back, staring at your palm. “Still feels weird though. I call sorcery.”

He shrugged, creaking the black leather jacket he was wearing. He wore a black t-shirt under it. The black jeans he had been wearing were on your bed, swapped for the black joggers he kept at your place. You weren’t really sure why he left the jacket on. Maybe he was cold or something. It was pretty cold in your apartment. You were wearing fleece green pajamas with Pikachu all over them.

“You want me to turn the heat up?” you said, gesturing to his jacket.

Jungkook looked down at his chest. “Eh. It’s fine. Saves you money.”

You shrugged, getting up from your chair, leaving the League client open. “You’re only staying a little while, right? Party to go to and all that?”

Jungkook followed you as you left your room. “Told you it was cancelled, so I was just going to sleep over. No reason to go back home.”

You turned around, walking backwards. “When did you say it was cancelled?”

Jungkook raised his dark eyebrows. “Literally when I walked in your apartment.”

“Hah.”

You turned back around and went to your fridge, grabbing an aloe juice. Jungkook went to your water kettle, hunting for hot chocolate among your tea packets.

“You’d make an awful sub anyway,” Jungkook said, returning to the original subject as he filled the kettle with water from your filtered sink faucet. “Like, probably the fucking worst.”

You took a large swig and glared at him. “Alright, first of all, you wouldn’t even–”

“You’re terrible with authority.”

You paused. “Okay, true.”

“You’re angry, twenty-four, seven.”

You walked up to him and slapped him in his very hard pecs. He gestured at his chest, as if to indicate, exhibit A.

“And you’re super uptight.”

“I am not uptight.”

“Control freak.”

“That’s–”

Jungkook turned around and placed the kettle on its stand. You swooped in with a Pikachu-themed kitchen towel and wiped the excess water away, scowling. Jungkook raised his eyebrows at you, brown eyes laughing.

“That’s literally a safety hazard!” you exclaimed, waving the towel at him.

Jungkook rolled his eyes and pressed the button to start heating the water. “Haven’t you ever just… not freaked out over every little thing? Done something spontaneous and stupid?”

You placed the kitchen towel back in its proper place. “No, because that would be spontaneous and stupid, Jeon Jungkook.”

He leaned against the counter, watching you perfectly fold the towel into three parts and hang it on the rail. He scratched his nose, shaking his head. “You should be more like me.”

“Having the police called on you because you were standing on a lawn chair tooting a party horn at four in the morning?”

“That was one time! Stop bringing it up,” Jungkook groaned.

You raised your hands in innocence. “Well, I was the one called to pick you up because you literally couldn’t remember any other number and I was very disturbed on New Year’s Eve, where I should have been peacefully sleeping and not hauling your drunk ass across town.”

Jungkook sighed exaggeratedly. “I’m sorry, okay? I won’t drink that much again. Jimin made me do shots–”

“You always blame Park Jimin,” you interjected, smiling. “Jimin’s the kind of guy who only wears clothes to take them off.”

“Well, it gets him laid, so I guess it’s working.”

The kettle whistled noisily, cutting through the conversation. You took a sip from your aloe juice as Jungkook grabbed a mug from your cupboard and poured the hot chocolate powder into it.

“You want some milk?”

He looked up. “You have milk?”

You went to the fridge and took out a small carton. “Because you said you were coming.”

“Aw, what a sweetie.”

“Shut up, Jungkook.”

“No.”

That’s how it was with you two. Growing up together was the same conversation over and over of you constantly saying shut up and Jungkook always replying with no. If both your dads hadn’t been such good friends, you probably wouldn’t have been able to tolerate him. Since they were, you were forced to, which turned out to be okay, since it turned out you had similar interests in games and such. It drifted apart a bit when you two entered high school, but you two reconnected once university started.

The dysfunctionality Jungkook was referring to was your two older sisters, who both got pregnant out of wedlock and thus caused a lot of tension between them, your parents, and you, the one who hadn’t actually done that yet. And you were trying to keep it that way.

Jungkook poured half-water and half-milk, stirring it with a silver spoon he found in your drawer. You lived alone, having gotten a full scholarship to be able to pay for tuition, meals, and part of a small apartment. Your parents paid for the rest – another point of strain between you and your sisters. That’s why you kept your grades up and rarely went out.

“When was the last time you fucked a guy?”

You sucked the inside of your cheek. “Dunno. Maybe two years ago.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows and took a long sip. “So, only girls, huh?”

You tilted your head and sighed. “They don’t get you pregnant.”

“Neither does a condom.”

“That’s a ninety-eight percent chance, not one hundred.”

He licked the excess off his pink lips. He looked like he wanted to say something, but reconsidered, taking another sip before replying. “You don’t miss dick?”

“I mean, a dildo is a dick.”

Jungkook nearly spat out his hot chocolate. You snatched your Pikachu towel again and threatened him with it. He raised a hand, coughing.

“A dildo is not a dick,” he hacked out. “You insult me.”

“Hmph.” You turned back around and placed the Pikachu towel back in its place, making sure the graphic was perfectly centered.

“You tell your parents?”

You narrowed your eyes. ‘Why the fuck would I tell my parents that I fuck girls instead of guys to avoid getting pregnant?”

He shrugged. “Give them peace of mind?”

“You think too highly of the generation before us.”

Jungkook gave you a weird look. “So… you’re just using them?”

“No.” You paused. “Okay, maybe a little, but it’s not because they’re girls. I guess I haven’t found someone who understands me yet.”

He took a long, noisy sip of hot chocolate. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“No one can understand you if you only fuck once and drop them.”

“Wouldn’t you fucking know,” you replied irritably.

“Now, I fuck multiple times before I realize it’s not going to work out,” Jungkook countered.

You shoved your bottle of aloe juice back into your fridge. Suddenly, you weren’t thirsty anymore.

“Is that the only reason?”

You closed the fridge door.

“Reason for what?”

“Is fear of pregnancy the only reason you fuck girls?”

“I don’t know!” you shouted, throwing your hands up. You spun around, blowing hot air. “I don’t fucking know why I do it, Jungkook. I don’t know why I load up dating apps to only hook up with girls, I don’t know why I don’t try to get into relationships with them, I don’t know what is wrong with me and why I can’t give anyone a chance and I don’t know why you pop up in my head every time I try to fucking masturbate! It is annoying and I do not like it, so I try to get off with someone else!”

Your chest was heaving with exertion and annoyance, hand curled onto a fist and planted on your kitchen counter, glaring at the space past Jungkook’s head, muscle twitching in your cheek. Your heart was beating so fast it didn’t feel real.

Silence.

“Fuck you, Jungkook.”

And then you turned around, stalking back to your bedroom.

Or would have, if you didn’t hear the clink of the mug touching the kitchen counter and Jungkook grabbing your upper arm, yanking you back, slamming you against his muscular body. You hissed, staring into his chest.

“Let me go.”

“Hold on a second.” You watched Jungkook take a deep breath, his toned, tan skin rising and falling. The silver necklace on his collarbones flashed as he breathed. “Just hold on a damn second.”

Your eyes were on the low neckline of his black shirt. It felt weird being close to him. Not that you two haven’t been physically close, because you had. But it had never been like this. Since you realized he wouldn’t leave your mind every time you tried to masturbate. Since you started looking to other people to push him out. Since you were sure that it was not just a passing thought, not just your brain playing tricks on you. And being this close to him now, you understood.

And it scared you.

“You cannot dump all that on me and expect me not to react,” Jungkook said quietly.

“Shut up, Jungkook.”

“No,” he snapped. He grabbed both your upper arms and shook you violently, making you jerk your head up to blink at him. Jungkook furrowed his brows, his dark eyes glaring at you, jaw clenched tightly. “I will not shut up. Why should I shut up? I should shut you up.”

And then he kissed you.

Your eyes widened. Jungkook’s pink lips were on you. You. On your lips, pressed firmly against them, gripping you so tight you were losing feeling in your arms. You tore back, stumbling, touching your lips, shoulders shaking, not sure why your heart was beating out of your chest, not sure why your lips tingled and wanted more, not sure why Jungkook slowly opening his eyes and flickering to you made your knees knock together uncomfortably.

“What are you doing?” you sputtered. “You don’t even… what…?”

“I’m kissing you,” he growled, walking up to you and pinning you against the counter. “I’m fucking kissing you because you want me to.”

“I don’t…”

“Just shut up, please.”

And then Jungkook kissed you again, harder this time, pressing you against the kitchen counter, hands coming up and taking you by the waist, pulling you to him and his leather jacket, him and his black shirt, breathing your name into your lips, your hands grabbing his t-shirt and yanking him to you, gasping into his mouth. And you wanted to say, no, no, you weren’t supposed to know, but it was too late because you were shoving his leather jacket off, grasping his shoulders, fingers pressing into his hard muscles, sliding down his biceps.

You yanked your head back and his hand came up to grab it back, kissing you more, more, tongue licking your lips, hissing your name, grinding his hips against yours. Your hand came up in between you two, stopping him, stopping him and his insatiable lips.

“You have to s-say–” You moaned, feeling him harden against your fleece pajamas. “You have to say it.”

“Say what?” Jungkook muttered impatiently, kissing your hand, speaking into your palm.

“Say you’re okay with it,” you gritted out as he rolled his crotch into yours.

“Obviously I’m okay with it,” he grumbled. “Why else am I humping you in your kitchen?”

“You said I’m a c-control freak,” you groaned, throwing your head back as Jungkook slid his hands down to your ass and squeezed it, grinding against you.

“You are,” he grunted. “You can’t let go, you can’t enjoy yourself, you can’t even tell me you like me so I can fucking fuck you already, instead of me cancelling my parties so I can spend time laying on your bed and staring at you playing video games wondering when you’re going to fucking notice that I want to bang you.”

“What?” you replied breathlessly.

Jungkook rolled his eyes. “You’re so busy controlling your own life that you don’t even notice the people around you anymore.”

“What?” you repeated again as Jungkook hoisted you up by your ass and began to walk, forcing you to grab him by the shoulders and stare down his right arm, the fully tattooed one with flowers and script and the tiny circle with angry slits for eyes and a frown on the inside of his elbow, the one Jungkook said was for you and you had slapped him in the chest and told him to shut up.

“Let me take over for once,” he mumbled, placing his chin on your shoulder and nudging you with his head and his non-crispy but still not quite soft dark hair.

“You said I would be an awful sub.”

Jungkook dumped you on the bed, shooing you upwards. You didn’t move, frowning at him. He sighed dramatically.

“You would. You are,” he corrected, planting a hand on your chest and pushing you down, bouncing you against your Pikachu bedsheets. He sandwiched your arms at your sides and straddled your torso. The bed bowed far too low and you almost slid off. Hurriedly, you scooted upwards and Jungkook followed, unbothered.

“You said I’m terrible with authority.”

Jungkook wrestled your arms back down and pinned them with his strong thighs. “You are.”

“You said I’m angry, twenty-four, seven.”

He cocked his head, slowly unbuttoning your pajama shirt. “Still true.”

“And you said I’m uptight,” you added ruefully, pouting.

Jungkook shrugged, reaching in between his legs to unbutton he last few ones. “I’ll fuck it out of you.”

“Jungkook!”

“What?”

He paused, towering above you, eyebrow raised. His black hair curled around his ears, against his silver hoops and base of his neck. His dark eyes pierced down at you, tiny mole under his lips clearly visible from this position. You could see the bottom of his sharp chin, the black t-shirt clinging to his chest, the shape of his tan arms, one tattooed, one not, from below.

“Y-you’re pinching my right arm…”

Jungkook looked down, moving his left leg. “Sorry.”

You winced, pulling out your left arm to rub the other. He tapped your forearm impatiently with his finger.

“You’re ruining the moment,” he scolded.

“You ruined it by bruising me,” you shot back, backing up to your pillows on your elbows, grimacing as you soothed your arm.

“I’m going to bruise you more if you keep being a little brat,” Jungkook growled, following you on hands and knees, the neckline of his t-shirt hanging down, revealing way too much of his skin. Your eyes widened and you slipped, a white plush Poro bonking you in the head. He grabbed it and tossed it aside, the poor guy rolling on the floor.

“That’s very rude,” you muttered, but he was over your body now, breathing hard, staring down your now open shirt and the curve of your breasts into your black bra.

“Why do you get hotter every year?”

You raised an eyebrow. “I… don’t?”

Jungkook shoved the sides of your pajama shirt apart impatiently, reaching under your back and pinching the bra clasp, undoing it with one hand.

“Yes, you do,” he exhaled hotly. “Every year you get prettier and prettier and it pisses me off so much that I have to work out to look half as good as you.”

You felt your ears and cheeks get hot. “Well… you do look very, erm, good.”

“You’re very convincing,” Jungkook chuckled darkly, pushing your bra up and sucking in his lower lip as he revealed your hard, quivering nipples.

Your eyes shifted away from his hungry eyes. “I, uh… am very wet.”

A single, perfectly shaped eyebrow ticked. “Show me.”

“Um…”

He lifted himself off you, pointing down.

“Show me,” Jungkook commanded.

You tried to move your arms and found them tangled in your clothes. You frowned and shrugged out of your pajama shirt, chucking it and your bra aside, before gripping the waistband of your green fleece pants. You hesitated and looked back at Jungkook, who just flapped his hand downwards, giving you a neutral expression.

You puffed your cheeks and raised your hips, yanking your pants and panties down your thighs. You had to bend your legs a bit to fully take them off since Jungkook’s knees were on the outside of your thighs.

Now you were fully naked in front of your childhood best friend. And he was still fully clothed.

“Er, aren’t you going to–”

Jungkook cut you off. “You still haven’t shown me.”

You blinked at him. “What do you want me to do, become a fucking pretzel?”

Jungkook shrugged. “Any way you can prove to me you’re wet.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Fucking…” You bent your right leg and slid it up between his thighs, brushing against his sweatpants and feeling his hard-on for a hot second before you jammed your leg into your chest and lifted it out, pressing your thigh against your torso and raising your calf into the air. You turned your head to the left, letting out an exasperated huff.

“There. You see it?”

Shit, this position was embarrassing for some reason. You could feel cold air on your dripping pussy. Maybe he couldn’t see or something. You lifted your right arm to wrap around your thigh, pressing it down against your breasts since Jungkook wasn’t saying anything.

“That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Jungkook breathed.

“Okay, going to put my leg do–”

You gasped, suddenly feeling Jungkook’s fingertips touch your heated core, smearing your juices around the lips, his hot breath against your ear as he touched you. You shuddered as he stroked your folds, your name on his lips, his lips kissing your ear.

“Had to touch you,” he whispered against your neck, tone desperate. “I’m sorry, I just had to touch that beautiful pussy, all wet and slopping for me.”

Your eyelids fluttered as his middle finger found your clit, pressing on it. “J-Jungkook… That’s my…”

He chuckled deep in his throat. “Yeah? That’s your what?”

Slow, lazy circles, pushing it around, moan leaving your lips. “My c-clit…”

“Want me to touch it?” Jungkook purred. “Want me to handle your pleasure?”

But he as already touching it, nursing the sensitive bundle of nerves and rousing your lust, igniting it and setting it on fire.

“Y-yes…”

He kissed down your neck, whispering softly, licking your collarbones. “You trust me? You trust me with this pretty, perfect, hot, sexy, fuckable body?”

You arched your neck, giving him more access as he ran his pink lips all over, rubbing your clit, mouth on your throat. Your whole body shook, hips rolling into his finger.

“Y-yes…”

His breath so electrifying that you could barely focus, barely speak as Jungkook’s other hand came up behind your head, long fingers burying into your hair, holding tight, so tight it almost hurt, teeth nipping at your skin.

“Want to mark you,” he mumbled. “Want to give you a big fat hickey you can’t explain, want to bruise you so bad you’ll be staring at it for weeks, thinking about my lips on you, remembering my teeth gave you that.”

He pressed another finger to your clit, increasing the pace, and all you could do was hiss out a yes, a burning yes, a pleading yes, please, Jungkook, whining as his teeth sank into the spot where your shoulder and neck connected, sucking hard, his tongue licking away the prickling pain. His hips rolled into your thigh, his hard cock pressing against you, straining against his pants.

Jungkook moaned into your skin, so hot, so intense, rubbing your aching clit faster, harder, more urgently. Sucking and humping your leg as the feeling of his teeth and his fingers overwhelmed you, one hand clutching his shirt and one hand curled into your sheets as your thighs shook, trying to close but unable to because Jungkook was so strong, so there, so overpowering that you could only lay there and take it, take it as his name poured out of you in a breathless wail, throwing your head back as you felt your pussy clench around nothing, your juices becoming slicker, thicker, the scent of your orgasm staining the air.

He shoved the two fingers inside you and unlatched his mouth, moaning with you as he felt you squeeze his fingers, pumping you in long, slow strokes, all the way to his knuckles. You whimpered, tightening your core and Jungkook moaned again, eyes closed, his hair in disarray as you fucked his hand, clamping your hands on his right forearm, gasping at the feel of his muscle. Pussy throbbing around his fingers, hips meeting his knuckles over and over.

His eyes opened, watching your fuck yourself with his hand, an almost bored expression on his features, but you didn’t care because you felt him flex his fingers and his arm, telling you to continue, telling you he liked it.

“I thought you were going to let me do it.” Jungkook’s voice was low, trying to stay even despite his shallow breathing. “Have to control everything, don’t you?”

You caught your lower lip in your teeth, eyes moving to his face, his handsome, angular face with his black hair curled around his forehead and his cocked eyebrow, smirk on his lips.

“I’m not in control,” you panted. “Your forearm is…”

Jungkook flexed it under your hand and you moaned pathetically, breath hitching.

His smirk grew wider.

“It’s getting you off touching it.”

You swallowed, close, so close and Jungkook was taunting you and for some reason you couldn’t tell him to shut up, because he kept tensing his arm and it was so fucking hot that you really were going to orgasm.

“Say it,” he purred, breathing your name. “Tell me you like my forearm.”

Your eyes shifted down to his arm in your hands, the tiny angry face tattoo in his inner elbow frowning at you.

“I fucking love it, Jungkook,” you gasped. “Fuck, I love your delicious, sexy-as-fuck forearms.”

He grinned and began to thrust his fingers into you, fast, so fast you couldn’t even fathom how he could be that fast like a fucking vibrator, sending torrents of pleasure through you and his arm was so hard and his skin so soft that your eyes rolled back into your head, moaning his name far too loud. Jungkook placed a hand over your mouth and you screamed into it, liquid gushing down your thighs, but he didn’t stop, he kept going until you felt it again, pussy throbbing, back-to-back, eyelids fluttering, nails digging into his arm as the crescendo slammed into you, taking your breath and senses away, lost only in the feeling of Jungkook’s secure presence above you.

He slowed, breathing hard. Gently, carefully pulling his fingers out of your pulsating pussy, gasping as he removed his hand. You vaguely heard Jungkook place his fingers in his mouth, sighing wantonly at your taste.

“You taste so good,” he whispered around his fingers. “Fuck, so sweet and thick and delicious.”

Your brain could not compute what the fuck was happening. Did Jungkook just give you three mind-blowing orgasms in a row after you exploded at him and admitted to thinking about him while masturbating?

Holy shit.

He pressed his face into your hair, inhaling your scent.

You swallowed thickly.

“Jungkook, do you, ah… want something too?” you asked quietly.

You heard him snicker. “If I take my clothes off, I’m going to want to put my dick in you.”

“… I’m cool with that.”

“I thought a dildo was the same as a dick?”

You cleared your throat. “Ah… Well, I didn’t think you’d want to put a dick in me.”

Jungkook laughed. “If I had five dicks, I’d put them all in you.”

“Erm… mathematically speaking, that doesn’t really work…”

“Shut up.”

Jungkook sat up, looking down at you with a smile. The same smile he always had, but a little different now, because he didn’t have to hide his attraction to you anymore.

“You really let me put it in you?”

You narrowed your eyes. “With a ninety-eight percent chance, only.”

His smile became mischievous. “That’s not one hundred percent.”

You puffed your cheeks.

“I’ll take the two percent chance for you and only you, Jungkook.”

He grinned and turned around, throwing himself to the end of the bed where his jeans were barely holding on. Fishing through the pockets, retrieving the foil packet from the back pocket. You blinked at him.

“How long has that been–”

Jungkook gave you a silencing look. “I bring a new one every time I come over, in hopes you become drunk enough to sit on my dick.”

You blinked at him. “What.” Not a question, just you stating it.

“Because you’re paranoid.”

You frowned. “I’m not–”

He launched himself over the bed and silenced you with a kiss, deep and longing. You leaned into it, breathing softly, tongue against his, pressing back against him. Jungkook drew back slowly, thumb on your cheek. Eyes looking into yours, careful and tender.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he said against your lips. “I’ll do anything you want. I know it’s not easy for you. I know you’re not ready for the million babies I want from you.”

“I can’t have a million babies. It’s not scientifically possible,” you interjected.

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. “Can you just let me have one romantic moment?”

“Erm, sorry.”

“You want me to have a damn vasectomy or something? Because I’ll fucking do it. That shit’s reversible.”

“No, that kind of requires more time and I’m pretty horny for your dick right now. Condom will do.”

He sighed, rolling his eyes. “You are a shitty sub.”

“I will do better after I’ve had the dick.”

Jungkook straightened and yanked his black t-shirt over his head. “No, you won’t.”

Your eyes roamed over his toned chest. Damn, he was ripped. Maybe he was insecure about you being hot or something, but you were certainly benefiting. “You never know?”

Jungkook sent you a pained look and pressed a hand to your chest, shoving you back into your bed. “I’ve known you way too long to believe those words coming out of your mouth.”

You were going to reply, but he ran his hand over your chest, inhaling sharply as he brushed against your nipples. He ran his fingers over them, squeezing a little. You whined, trying to get more, but Jungkook pressed his palm down on your breast, breathing hard.

“Listen, woman, I’m about to explode in my damn underwear. Stop sounding so sexy this instant.”

Your eyes found his, pupils blown wide, lips pursed, and jaw tight. Your lips parted a little, tongue peeking out, a soft moan of his name emitting from your throat. You saw a muscle in his eyebrow twitch. He looked like he wanted to throttle you, at least a little bit.

You grinned.

Jungkook narrowed his eyes.

“You are lucky you’re cute,” he muttered. “And lucky I want to be in this pussy more than I want to be alive.”

“Don’t you ne–”

Jungkook planted his hand on your mouth. “The only words I want to hear out of you are, “Fuck me harder” or my own name, you got that?” he snarled, pressing his hand into your face for emphasis.

You nodded quickly.

He sighed, almost in relief, and yanked his pants and underwear down, wincing. There was a large wet spot on his boxer briefs, strings of pre-cum clinging as he pushed it down his muscular thighs.

“You made me a giant mess,” he muttered, eyes flickering up to you. “What do you have to say?”

You blinked at him and gave him a thumbs up.

He grinned. “You do know how to listen.”

In truth, you couldn’t say anything because you were breathlessly staring at Jungkook’s thick cock, red head glistening with pre-cum, dripping everywhere. You slid down quickly, startling him, and wrapped your lips around the head, moaning as his strong taste invaded your mouth. He hissed, gritting his teeth as your tongue swiped around, licking his length all over, feeling the veins and contours, memorizing them.

“F-fuck,” he gasped. “You wanted to clean me up that bad?”

Your eyes traveled up his abs, his pecs, his neck, to his face, giving him your best imploring look. He smirked, placing a hand on your forehead, and gradually, with great effort, pulled out of your tight mouth. Tight because you sucked in your cheeks, not wanting to let him go, but Jungkook was stronger than you. You frowned, but he shooed you away.

“I allowed it this one time. Now back to your spot.”

You backed up, tsking as you watched him roll down the condom, groaning as it covered him.

“I’m actually glad I have this fucking condom,” Jungkook muttered, glaring at you.

You couldn’t say anything, so you spread your legs. His eyes dropped down and he bit his lower lip, crawling to you, grabbing your thighs. Placing himself right in front of your soaked entrance, staring down at your pussy as he guided himself, sinking into you.

“Holy fuck,” he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut.

You moaned, feeling Jungkook’s cock stretch you out, so different from a silicone dildo or multiple fingers, because it was Jeon Jungkook praying for air as you clenched around his length, his cries of pleasure as he rocked his hips into you. Those long nights with your vibrator and his Instagram open on your phone were incomparable to his cock molding to your walls, his hard hips finally hitting your thighs, all the way in, and it was so good that you throbbed around him, shuddering.

“J-Jungkook…” you pleaded.

“I know,” he panted, hands gripping your knees tight. “I know, but give me a second to appreciate this pussy, holy fuck.”

He jerked his cock inside you and you cried out, definitely crushing your sheets, but Pikachu had seen a lot by now and there was only going to be more.

Jungkook finally began to slide out and push back in, groaning, starting slow and deep because quite frankly he needed to last more than five seconds and your pussy was not letting up. You had too much control over your vaginal muscles and he was too into you to not be hugely turned on by it, shoving your legs up higher so he could go deeper, feel more of you surround him and massage his length.

“H-harder…” you whimpered. “Please, Jungkook, fuck me harder…”

And how could Jungkook say no to that? Begging so perfectly, with just the right amount of desperation, and you didn’t even know it was driving him insane, because he knew normally you were so wound up, always worrying about being perfect, always worrying about doing the right thing, but now you were unraveling on his cock as he bent down and put more force into it, pounded you harder, watching the ecstasy in your eyes, your mouth opening and tongue peeking out, hot breath in his face. Knuckles white as you clutched the sheets, pleasure radiating up his length as you came with a cry, his name, his name on those perfect lips, lips he always watched with envy, wondering who had them, wondering who was so lucky to capture them.

And now it was just him, just him and you, and his hips slapping into your hips, pussy nearly choking his cock, but it felt so good, so fucking euphoric as you fucked him back, raising your hips to meet his, loud, wet, and lewd, probably causing a ruckus next door. But neither of you cared, your names mixing together, your eyes staring to Jungkook’s piercing brown ones, hot pleasure radiating up your stomach, your chest, to your head and there was no one else.

No one else but Jungkook’s name tumbling out of your mouth as the wave soared into you, pussy spasming as you came again, unsure at what number it was, but it was the one Jungkook wasn’t prepared for and he groaned, smacking into you one last time before you felt his cock throb and pulse against your walls, spilling into the condom. You gasped at the feeling, clenching around him, his right hand reaching over to grasp yours and hold it tightly, intertwining your fingers.

“W-wow…” you whispered breathlessly. “Nice cock.”

Jungkook burst out laughing. “You’re unbelievable.” He reached down and gingerly felt around in your dripping folds, finding the end of the condom and pulling out carefully.

“Fuck. It’s so much,” he gulped, brows knitted in worry.

You waved a hand. “It’s fine. I finished my period yesterday. Likelihood of you getting me pregnant is pretty low.”

Jungkook jerked his head towards you.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say that sooner?” he roared, slapping your leg. “I was scared shitless over here!”

You placed your hands over your ears. “So loud. Shut up, Jungkook.”

“No!”

--

masterpost

[littlemix-styleblog]

Requested Jade Thirlwall Inspired Baker Boy Outfits

Casual Outfit No.1

Shein Mock Neck Tweed Jumpsuit: £14.99. Who remembers when Zara brought out a collection full of tweed pinafores, co ords and dresses? Inspired by Chanel`s collection at the time they blew everyone's minds away with cheaper alternatives to the designer. These were all the rage back then, and the best thing is they still are. Unfortunately, None of the Zara pieces are available anymore but we did know that Shein had a couple of tweed items on their website. That included this pinafore, It looks designer doesn`t it? It looks like it`s off the high street when in fact it`s only £14.99. Shein is a trusted site to purchase from, Many have and do recommend it so don`t be scared to purchase from them. Continuing reading to see where I`m going with this outfit.

ASOS DESIGN fuller bust long sleeve long sleeve shirt in stretch cotton: £18. Jade loves a white shirt, she loves a shirt in general actually. Her style is very laid back, casual and tomboyish. On the rare occasion does she dress up. So I follow a blogger who I know wore one of those tweed dresses recently and that inspired me to make this outfit. Putting a shirt under the pinafore gives it that modern feeling, that chic and sophisticated young lady coming out in you. Who else is getting Gossip Girl vibes? I understand you might think theirs no Jade inspiration from here but their was a time when she performed on GMA wearing this pinafore dress from Topshop with a pussy bow blouse underneath that is a very similar look to this. But what you can also do is experiment, You don`t have to have a plain boring sleeve..In the summer months you can opt for a bell sleeve top like this one, Or this one, 

Collar Bib. Finally, If you wanted to add a bit more glamour or glam to the outfit  you can add a bib, No not a babies bib. Collared bibs are collars which you have on shirts but they come separately. Basically you can add a collar to any shirt you want. They used to be all the rage a few years ago but have unfortunately died out. You can get lots of different collars in all sorts of styles and colours with sequins and embellishment. In case your wondering too you don`t have to wear the collared bib on the outside of your top, Simply place it on top of a existing shirt and then add a jumper and no one will even know your wearing a bib.

River Island Black quilted embellished cross body bag: £30. If this outfit hasn`t got Gossip Girls vibes, then it has now. Jade loves a shoulder bag and it wouldn`t be a inspired without one. We decided to go for a shoulder bag because we don`t think a tote bag, or a backpack will go with it, the outfit would lose it`s chicness. So we went for this bag from River Island, Which by the way you can also get in white and pink. This bag gives off Chanel vibes doesn`t it? With it`s quilted black material, gold studs and gold chain. What`s more is that you can get it so much cheaper then a Chanel bag for only £30.

ASOS RAID Dolley Black Patent Heeled Ankle Boots: £34.99. To be honest any boots in this post would go with this outfit. I would also recommend black over the knee boots to go with this outfit as well. Also if you was looking for black boots, I would advise to stay away from sock boots as they are not great support on your feet or ankles and you could topple over and sprain your ankle. So opt for more of the ones that look wider.

Casual Outfit No.2

Stradivarius shirt dress in gingham print: £19.99. Back in 2014 I think Jade was obsessed with this print, This print has slightly died off over the years but it still remains today and now it`s in our post. So as I have stated before Jade`s style is very tomboyish and laid back. Sometimes she also goes for the grunge look as well and we feel as though this dress gives off this vibe. The dress isn't synched in or hasn`t got any fasteners or a belt added to it to make it look neat and perfect, instead it`s just left to hang by itself which is ok, nothing wrong with that. Not everyone wants the world to see a bloated belly. Leaving it free gives it a more casual look, grunge look. Nevertheless you could add a belt, But that would make the dress more shorter, more creased and more cutesy rather then laid back. 

Dr Martens Modern Classics Smooth 1460 8-Eye Boots: £130. If this outfit wasn`t grunge enough, it is now. Jade loves her Dr Martens, And so does 90% of the planet I believe. These are expensive but you can get cheaper alternatives on the market.

Casual Wear/Night Outfit No.1

H&M Pleated skirt: £19.99. This skirt is what I think makes this outfit, I took inspiration from Jade`s times she has worn skirts like these like in Australia and during a occasion once a couple of years ago. If you didn`t want the bother of squeezing into something tight like jeans and just wanted to feel comfortable and free then this is for you. As I state above this can either be worn casually or for a night out, you don`t have to dress up to the nines for a night out with friends..What is the point of going on a night out and ruining your £90 dress anyway? If you wanted too you could add a belt for safe measures to make sure you don`t have any mishaps. What`s more is that this skirt comes in a variety of colours and is quite cheap. I`m giving a lot of Gossip Girl vibes in this post arent I? That wasn`t intentional btw.

Zara ALICE IN WONDERLAND ©DISNEY T-SHIRT: £15.99. What`s that I hear? You did not know Zara did such amazing Disney clothes? Oh boy have you been missing out. Not only do Zara do Disney clothes for kids but they do them for adults as well. This Alice In Wonderland shirt is apart of their collection too along with Daffy Duck, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. We decided to add this shirt to this outfit not only because Jade is a massive lover of Disney but because it`s simply amazing and we can`t get enough of it. Dress it up or dress it down, It`s a staple piece of the outfit. I will no doubt reckon you will get loads of compliments on this shirt. So go on ahead and let out your inner child out.

PrettyLittleThing BLACK SATIN BUTTON FRONT SHIRT: £22. We decided to add a alternative shirt to this outfit in case you thought the top was too casual or you rather saved Alice for a tea party. So we opted for a black satin shirt, These particular ones from PLT are popular, Every blogger loves them they are a staple piece and go with everything and anything. They are so popular that PLT have to keep getting them back in stock - You can dress the top up and down, so leave a few buttons unbuttoned or you can button it up. So why be left out, Go on ahead and purchase yourself one. I must not forget too they come in a variety of colours for only £22!.

Topshop Taz Diamante Frame Pouch: £25. We love this purse and we think Jade would love it too? Jade loves a shoulder bag as we stated before, She has a whole array of shoulder bags to choose from for a day/night out. We think she would love this one too because it screams her name, It`s cute and dainty just like herself. Out of all the bags I have on offer in this post today this is the one she would wear the most, 100% guaranteed.

Casual Outfit/Night Out No.1

 ASOS DESIGN Endless suede heeled boots: £65. In life today we push boundaries, we push ourselves out of our comfort zone and that includes fashion. This outfit is exactly that - We are pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and trying something new and fresh, Something we wouldn`t wear on a daily basis, We are bringing the fire back into our lives and making it more interesting. I decided to add these boots to the look because why not? Why be like everyone else and dress the same? You want to feel comfortable but look chic at the same time - This outfit does exactly that. You can also opt for any other boots in this post and pair it with this outfit.

Casua/Night Out Outfit No.2

ASOS Only denim shirt: £26. A couple of weeks ago Jade was seen on a night out wearing denim on denim and this is where my inspiration for this outfit came from. So we was unable to find Jade`s outfit from that night, So here are some alternatives. Now, Again you can either dress this up casually or for a night out. You can dress it like Jade did with some buttons undone, tucked into your jeans with brown accessories

.ASOS Weekday mile bootcut jeans in mid blue: £40. Just like Jade we paired the look with flared jeans, Now I know what most young people think when they see flared jeans that arent modern, They would think they would look their dad in the 70s/80s. That`s not the case because I wouldn`t do that either and I tried to find the most subtle flared jeans I could and I came across these. Bare in mind their is flared jeans that are longer and more sexier and attractive on the leg out in the world but I don`t have a lot of time so these will make do. I`m not sure if these are the correct colour to match with the shirt, But a lot of places do denim co-ords like Topshop.

ASOS DESIGN Ridley high waist skinny jeans in dark stone wash with raw hem detail: £25. In case you wasn`t interested in the flared jeans or they arent your thing, Then we also went and got some skinny jeans for you. Whether it`s skinny or flared they will make the outfit look good, So don`t worry if you think it`s starting to look old fashioned.

New Look block heel boot in snake print: £19.99. What Jade did with her outfit is team it with some ankle boots, So that`s what we did too albeit it`s not the same ones. She teamed hers with red/brown boots, We did try and find some similar boots but the brown boots on offer wasn`t tickling our pickle. So we opted for some snake skin ones from New Look, She has worn snake skin before so don`t worry this is nothing new. What Jade did with her denim look was have blue clothes and brown accessories. People say sometimes that people over do it with the accessories, Not if you do it Miss Thirlwalls way you don`t. Simply adding accessories to a outfit in the same colour gives it a vibe of you over did it but you didn`t. 

H&M Leather belt: £12.99 Going off from what I said previously she added a brown belt to her look. You can also choose from a variety of colours on the H&M website of this belt too.

PrettyLittleThing beaded mini bag with resin handle in brown: £28. Last but not least, You need something to put all of your bits and bobs in now don`t we? Or otherwise will never see them again. So we opted for this brown beaded bag from PLT. These bags, If you have been taking a look on the catwalks and HS shops lately you will find these bags everywhere, They are very popular at the moment. The beaded design is on trend and so is the tortoiseshell design, Which you can not only find on bags but on belts, buttons and shoes as well. They mixed those two together and produced this baby. Places like Zara and Mango are known for these bags, but they sometimes cost a arm and a leg and we all haven`t got the money to fork out, So we found this cheaper alternative.

Casual/Night Out Outfit No.3

Boohoo Ruched Waist Maxi Duster Jacket: £13.50. Again, This outfit is inspired by one of Jade`s recent nights out. She wore a black cardigan with a Fiorucci crop top, belt and some ripped jeans with some boots. This look is you have a event at 8pm and then dinner at 9pm vibe to it. You can dress it up or down, wear it casually or for a night out it`s your choice. The cardigan would be ideal for the summer months, or when it`s transitioning into summer like it is now and you can`t decide whether it`s cold or hot. 

PrettyLittleThing OVERSIZED CROP T SHIRT: £8. So like Jade I also opted for a crop top. Advice on crop tops if your not keen on your waist/hips and your jeans arent high waisted. I would go for a crop top like this one, They are what I call box/boxy tops even though PLT doesn`t state that. Box tops are longer and are in the style of a box, So if you wanted to show a little tummy you would opt for this, Alas if you didn`t like your arms you would also go for something like this. These are a much better alternative to a high cut crop top, We all have the same problems...You want to wear a crop top but you don`t like your stomach or your hips or waist, So what can I do? These are the best and I couldn`t praise that enough, Even I have some of these stashed away. What`s even better is that they are versatile and you can wear these for lounging around, too quickly throw on or for a night out. They also come in a variety of colours.

Topshop Bleach Flap Rip Mom Jeans: £42. Jade`s ripped jeans were from Topshop but are no longer available, these are not the same ones but they are great alternatives. 

Office Azul Sock Boots Black: £72. We quite literally took everything Jade was wearing and used it too, She went for boots and so are we. I love these boots, I think these are my favourite. They may be a bit expensive but if you think about how much wear your going to get out of them and how much they will change and add to your outfits then they are worth it. However, If you wanted to opt for something different then keep on reading to the post below.

White trainers: I guess this is where the casual part of the outfit comes in, White low trainers are on trend at the moment, So on trend that we couldn`t decide which trainer/brand to show you. So we added a link to a whole range of white trainers you can add to this look. Again think about how versatile they would be, How much use you would get out of them. I added these because they would look great with the jeans and a belt and a crop top and again we`re going back to feeling comfortable and fresh.

H&M Narrow belt: £6.99. On the night Jade had a belt that had zebra print and yellow in it, We didn`t want that. So we opted for this black belt with gold hardware. These belts are really popular at the moment, especially the ones with the gold hardware rings. They are all inspired by Gucci`s famous GG belts which of course the girls love to wear, But none of us are rich and we`re all poor AF. So this is a great alternative. Edit: I did realise I added the wrong belt, But here is the actual belt from Topshop

Topshop Tara Soft PU Tote Bag: £15. Again, These bags are becoming popular. They call it a tote bag but I see it more of as a pouch bag, it has the silver hardware handles with the black leather material and slouch design. It`s sort of like a paper bag really isnt it? I don`t know why these are becoming popular but if you have a look on sites like Topshop and ASOS they are everywhere, So why not get in on the trend?

This post contains a affiliated link, This means we make commission if a purchase is made through this link. You will not be charged any extra. We add these links to keep the blog running.

[kookyjin]

avisynth alternatives: potplayer/kmplayer tutorial (giffing performances + 60 fps)

hi! my name is ju, and this is a tutorial post on using avisynth alternatives to gif performance files, but you can also just do the same method for any file really. above are the type of gifs we are looking to achieve by the end of this!

before anything else, if you have any questions about avisynth or what it is, please check out @nochuie's amazing (she's the absolute best for making this) avisynth tutorial here first before you continue. avisynth is the recommended option for gif-making. it features an easier, lossless debilinear resizer and far less tedious in regards to cropping/extracting once you get a hang for it. 

UPDATE 05/29/2018: AS OF KMP’S NEW UPDATE, AND POTPLAYER BEING WINDOWS ONLY, THIS METHOD DOESN’T WORK WITH MAC. MAC USERS PLEASE REFER TO VAPOURSYNTH AS AN ALTERNATIVE.

but for those stuck with a mac like i did, or those who cannot get avisynth to work/download for some reason, this is for you! my ask is open if something isn't properly clarified. before i ramble on any longer, everything will be below the cut. good luck to anyone reading this and happy giffing!

you will need a basic knowledge of photoshop and frame animation in order to do this. if you'd like, i can make an in-depth screencaps to frames tutorial in another post. please let me know if anything should be added and i hope this is useful.

before we start, i’d like to clarify what performance files are. performance files are either .ts (transport stream) or .tp type, and will be far larger in size than your regular mp4 that you download from youtube. a single song’s length of a video is usually 400-500 MB, and those end of year award shows with several songs can extend to 2 GB. performance files are not fancams, and are taken from the actual broadcasts of shows such as sbs inkigayo, mbc music core, kbs music bank, mnet m countdown, etc.

they usually have closer, smooth, continuous zoom-ins or shots, almost always have 60 fps (frames per second! what makes movement smoother) and that’s why they’re worth the attention! ts files can’t, however, be opened by photoshop alone. quicktime for mac definitely does not open these files without converting to a different file type, and it just gets really messy. the built in windows media player also may have trouble playing these as well.

so what avisynth does is not only a resize and crop, but also turn a 17-second cut into an .avi file that photoshop can open. but with avisynth out as an option for mac users, we instead rely on potplayer/kmplayer for their deinterlacing and ability to not only play, but extract frames from .ts files.

the first step is downloading and installing either potplayer or kmplayer. if you have windows 7 or 8, get kmplayer. the process for kmplayer is simpler and it’s much more easy to set up. if you have windows 10, you’re going to need to use potplayer instead.

after downloading and installing, (you can decline kmplayer’s “offers” btw. they’re basically just ads for bing and yahoo haha) which should be fairly easy clicking through the download wizard, go to your .ts file and open it up with the program you installed. 

KMPLAYER EXTRACT

if you have kmplayer, there is no preparing needed. simply play the video, and find the section you want to gif. say i want to gif a video at the 01:13 second mark. pause the video at that point, then right click on the video. you’ll see a menu appear. 

from here, hover over “capture” and then click “frames: extract”. (this looks a little different on my computer since i have windows 10 now and it doesn’t work on windows 10. also don’t mind me doing hw in the bg!)

now, after that, this little window will pop up, and it will look exactly like this at default:

okay, so we’re going to change a few things. you’re going to change:

Image Format > Format: JPEG (middle) Numbers to extract > Continuously Frames to extract > in 1 sec [1] frame(s)

after that’s done, you can change the number in the [ ] brackets to whatever you want. extract either 60 fps or 30 fps, it’s your choice. however, japanese and singapore/overseas in general ts files won’t work with 60 fps in kmplayer. you’ll be able to play the video, but not extract the 60 fps frames. fair warning!)

when you’ve set it up, press “start”. now click the play button on your video. your video will play, and kmplayer will capture the frames as you play. when the part you want is over, pause the video.

right click again, reclick on capture > frame: extract and the window will pop up again. you’ll see that a time duration is running, and it will have #Frame and Captured in the previously empty Information box. 

simply click the stop button (where the start button previously was). the window will close and you’ll see “Captured: [insert number] times flash up in the corner of the video player in yellow. 

now, your frames are all captured and kmplayer has done its job! the next part isn’t kmplayer but in fact photoshop, so we’ll go through that after i run through potplayer.

POTPLAYER EXTRACT

okay, this is the hard part. but don’t fret, i’ve gone through the messy three-hour troubleshooting for you! 

after you’ve downloaded potplayer, open up your file and find the section you want to gif. now pause the video, and before we do any capturing, we have to go in and alter some of potplayer’s defaults. lots of screenshots are coming, don’t worry!

after you’ve paused the video, right click on the video (like literally anywhere on the video) and a menu will show up. 

click on preferences. a window will pop up. mine will have already been altered, so sorry, as i really didn’t want to go through the hassle of reinstalling for this tutorial.

on the left hand bar, click on “Source/Splitter”

A splitter basically will make your 60 fps interlaced frames into 30 fps frames. we don’t want that, so we’re going to delete it. First, after you’ve clicked on Source/Splitter, you will see that all the settings are set to “Built-in” source splitters. leave everything alone except for the one that says MPEG2 TS:

use the drop down arrow and change it to what i have above! the FFmpeg MPEG2 TS Source/Splitter. then, click “Apply” at the bottom right of the window.

after that’s done, click on the button near the bottom of the window above Apply that says “Filter management”, and when the window pops up, you’ll see that there are 3 lists and one blank column on the left.

on the list that’s titled “Source/Splitter,” click the check mark for “MPEG2 TS.” now, click the “Scan” button just below that list. you’ll see a bunch of stuff appear under “DirectShow Filter List.” select the one that is “MPEG-2 Splitter.” Make sure it’s the only one you’re selecting!

then, click the “Delete” button right under the scan button. MPEG-2 Splitter should be gone from the list.

see how it’s missing from the left most column? now we’re all set up! click “OK,” and the window will close. then click “Apply” again, then click “OK” for that window. both windows will have closed now and you’re ready to extract!

don’t worry, the settings will save since you clicked the “Apply,” so you don’t have to do this every time. make sure you’re still paused on the right time you want to gif, and then press Ctrl (or Command on mac) + G. a window that looks similar to kmplayer’s window will pop up like this:

the first thing you should do is set up the “Storage” designation. click on the ellipses, make a folder where you want your frames to end up, and click “Select Folder.” you can see mine is set up in a folder i made called “potplayer.” the default setting is just “Pictures” i think!

next, increase the Numbers/Frames to Capture > Number (s): [ ] to however many you want. it really doesn’t matter unless you want exactly 50 frames or what not, because you can manually stop extraction like kmplayer can.

instead of Every # frame, select Every # ms and input how many frames per second you want. then, click “Start” and play your video! 

after the part you want to gif is over, pause the video, press Ctrl + G again, and the window will re-open. click on “Stop” and your frames will be all extracted and ready for you in your designated location!

FRAMES INTO PHOTOSHOP

okay, you may already know how to do this. open up photoshop, then go to file > scripts > load files into stack.

the window below should pop up. now click on “Browse” 

and then find your folder with the frames in them. if you used potplayer, you should know where it is, and if you used kmplayer, go to your Local Disk (c drive) > KMPlayer > Capture and your frames should be there. 

select the frames you want to import (for future reference, you can simply click the dropdown on Files in the window above and select Folder instead to just load the whole folder.)

wait for all the images to load into the empty box and press OK. the images will start to load layer by layer into photoshop. when they’ve finished loading, click on “create video timeline” on your timeline window. if your timeline isn’t there, go to Window > Timeline. then, convert to frame animation.

then, make frames from layers.

change your frame delay to 0.03 or a closeby number, so that we can play through the gif. for me, the frames always load backwards so i will have to reverse my frames before i will play my gif.

after that’s done, play through and delete any unnecessary frames. then crop, resize using some form of photoshop’s resample (bicubic sharper or bicubic depending on how grainy the file is) and apply adjustments/topaz!

i hope this was helpful, and i hope for the anon that requested this, that it helped you! it’s a lot of work, and avisynth is much better, but it’s worth the hassle if you don’t have avisynth. hopefully by the end you can achieve something like this:

love, ju <3

[queenerdloser]

okay i just need to rant about this & hopefully that will let me let it go bc i’ve been mad all day at work and it’s starting to make me annoyed at myself

so i work in hospital registration and in the department i’m in, there’s someone who’s a greeter and directs pts to booths to sit at or gets them to where they need to be and there’s people in the booths who actually register people and get them checked in. this morning it’s me (greeter) and a coworker (register). my coworker comes up and tells me that she thinks she checked in someone who’s supposed to be in a different department by accident and can i check it for her. (tangent: fucking stupid i was even asked to do this! very easy to see the mistakes made in the chart, she should have been able to figure that one out for herself, she’s been working there longer than me.) i say sure, she gives me just the pt last name and no other info, forcing me to look them up in the system (we have medical record numbers that are attached to specific pts which is a way easier way to search them).

as i’m in the process of trying to find this chart so i can check it, a pt comes up. as is my job, i find out she’s supposed to be in this department and send her over to get reg’d before going back to figure out this supposed mistake. as i’m trying to find the pt in the list of people in our department, which is how i generally find people i don’t have a record number for, up comes my coworker. she’s standing at my shoulder, yelling in my ear about how i should use a system that lets us see every pt in the hospital to look the pt up - something i know how to do, but usually don’t bc the system takes literally five whole minutes to load & it’s not worth it when i can find pts fairly easily without it. the pt i sent to her two seconds ago is still sitting in her booth, abandoned for, as far as i can tell, literally no reason - my coworker could have sent me this as a message in teams (she could have sent me the fucking mrn!!! which would have made this whole moot!!! she could have been able to self-check her own damn mistakes!!!). i in no way asked for her help to find this chart or told her i needed help - i was in the middle of doing what she had asked when she came over to tell me to do it this other, slower way instead. 

so i snapped!! i was super brusque & told her to go back to her desk and finish with the patient she has now - like she’s fucking supposed to. i had to snap at her bc she didn’t listen to me the first time when i tried to let her know i was fine. and i like!!! do NOT snap at people. i’ve had plenty of coworkers i don’t like but i keep a lid on that bc i don’t want to start drama in the workplace and i don’t like it when people don’t me. but holy shit this was so irritating and she was basically hitting Every Single coworker pet peeve button (1. telling me how to do something i already know how to do 2. standing over me and telling me to do something 3. telling me a worse way to do something 4. not doing your job to micromanage how i do my job and 5. abandoning your post for no actual reason) so i snapped. and honestly!!! she deserved it!!!! like you wanted me to look into this - the mistake YOU made!!! - then instead of letting me just do that you got up in my grill all while abandoning your patient - who, btw, arrived late so needed to be checked in immediately so they would’ve give her spot away!!!! - to... fucking tell me something i didn’t need to be told but if i had could have been sent in teams and saved you and me the trouble!!!!!!

and then she had the gall to get mad at me snapping at her and come up (interrupting a conversation me and another coworker were having about covering breaks) to yell (yes yell!!!!) about i had ‘no right’ to talk to her like that and how her actions were completely justified bc she ‘told’ the pt she had made a mistake and would be right back and how she was so focused on fixing her mistake she wanted to make sure it was done blah blah blah. and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it (repeated it over and over) bc i wasn’t saying i was sorry (i wasn’t and i’m still not!!!) and she clearly wanted me to apologize. eventually i just told her i wouldn’t speak to her like that next time (secretly meaning: i will be MEANER to you if you do that shit again) and she finally stopped. 

and then. THEN after ALL OF THAT. she finally fucking said thank you for the help. 

i’m steaming about this still and it happened at 8am this morning. like this coworker has been getting on my last nerve for the past two weeks so maybe that was just a breaking point for me but i very much don’t feel like i’m in the wrong for snapping at her. i obviously could have been more diplomatic & avoided... hurting her feelings i guess??? but tbf i don’t think my tone was even that bad. i mean, i think i was obviously annoyed but i didn’t like... scream at her or even raise my voice in any way? nothing i said was all too terrible (i think my verbatim words were s/t like “i’ve got this, can you go back and help the patient you’ve got right now / can you finish the patient you’ve got now” s/t along those lines). and if she hadn’t had a patient to help who she just fucking abandoned to do fuck-all, then maybe i would have had more patience to respond in a more diplomatic way. or maybe.... if she was able to handle her own shit and not need me to check literally everything she does despite the fact that she’s been there longer and should, theoretically, know how to do her job without hand-holding, then this wouldn’t have happened at all. or if she had sent me the information so that i could have skipped our the irritation of trying to find a patient i had no interaction with and only knew the last name for. in fact!!!!!! there’s a number of things she could have done to make the situation less irritating (none of which SHE apologized for btw!!!! even when i told her point-blank about why i snapped at her!!!!) but somehow my annoyed tone of voice is the worst thing about the whole thing.

[deep sigh] she’s also the type to complain to management so i have a bad feeling this might come up in my monthly meeting with my manager next week. and i don’t particularly enjoy feeling angry at coworkers, esp when i’m stuck with them for the next few weeks in pretty close quarters. but ooooooooh. god it’s been a while since i’ve been this annoyed at work at a coworker. 

[kotsume]

here’s an updated tutorial on how i make my gifs!

featuring: oikawa tooru from haikyuu!!

warning: picture heavy

what i will be using:

- photoshop CC 2017 - handbrake (x) - a media player (i use vlc and that’s what i will be referring to)

note: i’m on windows 10 so if you have a mac, the interface may look different.

1. i would like to thank sue for introducing me to handbreak bc it makes my life a whole lot easier :)

2.  this may contain grammatical errors as i made this tutorial  at 12am (if you added me on snapchat you’d know). i have no idea why 12am out of all times…

okay, now on to the tutorial :)

STEP 1: ISOLATING THE SCENE

using: vlc media player and handbrake

so here i have my video in vlc media player (haikyuu!! - s2 ep 6)

i’m just going to the exact scene that i want, making note of the timestamp near the play button.

after i’ve found my scene, i open up handbrake and choose “file” as my source selection. you want to pick the same video file you used for vlc media player.

now that i have my file selected and it’s the right one, i can insert the time of the start of the scene and the time at the end of the scene here:

tip: record a few seconds before and after the scene you want to isolate. this ensures the you have the full scene intact and you aren’t missing any frames.

tip: make sure the scene is under 5 minutes or else it will take a while to download. i think that 30 seconds is enough to completely capture a scene.

when you are saving a file in handbrake, you need to create a destination path. mine is just located in my kmplayer capture folder (bc that’s where all my old psds are), but you can determine where you want to put yours on your own. make sure to give the file a name as you are saving. 

you can also do that in the destination bar.

now we are at the output settings. here are my settings that i use:

you want to save all your files as an mp4 file because that will definitely work on photoshop as i will be using convert video frames to layers (photoshop is not compatible with mkv files, a format that is abundant among anime)

you want the quality to be lossless because that produces the highest quality video.

i know there is a subtitle tab, but i’ve never had any issues with my videos (with subtitles) having subs after it’s been encoded, so i wouldn’t bother messing with it.

even if your video is already in an mp4 format, you want to use this to get the scene you want. if you go into photoshop with a 24 minute long episode, you will find it harder to get the exact scenes you want with photoshop’s crappy sliders.

i know there is another way of getting clips via vlc media player’s record function, but i tried to do it and couldn’t get it to work. for me, handbrake is the easiest way to isolate scenes.

okay! we can finally download our video file!

up at the top, there is a bar highlighted in blue.

start encode: begins to convert/process your new video file. if there is nothing in the queue, press this button.

add to queue: when you’re currently encoding something, “start encode” will transform into a “stop encode” so you use “add to queue”  when there are more scenes you want to encode. once the preceding file is done being encoded, the next one will start.

show queue: displays everything that needs to be encoded or is currently being encoded

when your file is done, go to where you saved the video and it will be there!

STEP 2: MAKING THE GIF

using: photoshop

go to file > import > video frames to layers.

then load the video file you created in handbrake.

as i said before, you want to have bit of the scene before and after the actual scene you want to gif.

if photoshop brings you this pop-up:

do not click continue. press cancel and use the 2 trim controls to condense the range. remember to include frames from before and after the scene you want to gif. you can also limit it to every 2 frames as this will get rid of duplicates and reduce the frame count.

btw: this is from kimi no na wa. the haikyuu video wasn’t long enough lol.

after clicking okay, photoshop will look something like this:

basically, you will have a frame animation with the timing already set for you.

now i will just delete excess frames, layers, and crop my gif to be 540px.

i know it’s not important to delete layers you aren’t using, but it makes file saving so much faster, which is why i highly suggest you delete anything you wont be using.

here is what i have now:

please please PLEASE make sure to save your files!!! especially if it’s something you know you’ll be working on later. this just allows for reediting and if you accidentally mess something up, you can always go back into the psd and fix it.

so that’s basically it for making the gif! now i’m just going to

color my gif

add my watermark

convert my frames to a timeline animation

select all my layers and convert them to a smart object (select them, then right-click for convert to smart object)

apply my sharpening and blur filters

save for web

i always group my adjustment layers so that my layers panel looks neater.

now it’s time to save the file as a gif by going to file > save for web.

sometimes i use diffusion, other times i use pattern; it really depends on what the gif looks like. if there’s a noticeable gradient in the gif (x), then i will use pattern over diffusion as the banding will not be as noticeable and everything will look smooth. 

if you want a comparison between the 2, in this tutorial, the very first gif is saved with diffusion while the very last gif is saved with pattern. there’s truly not much of a difference (the pattern gif may be a little darker) except this:

the file size is wayyy lower. this won’t always be the case in using pattern over diffusion so don’t automatically choose pattern over diffusion.

always go preview your gif in save for web to see what it would look like after it’s saved if you’re unsure about the timing of the gif. just go to save for web and click on the preview option. that will give you a good idea of how your gif will run when it’s finished. i recommend doing this after you’ve converted the frame animation to a timeline animation.

and now you’re done :)

i would highly recommend you make actions out of processes you do often (like cropping) and give them a keyboard shortcut.

keep your gifs under 3mb

always crop to tumblr’s current width dimensions (x). height is not a big deal, but if you find that your gif is over 3mb, cropping the height will lessen the file size.

if you have a very long scene, or one with lots of movement, consider limiting the frame capturing to every 2 frames. this just gets rid of duplicates and lessens the amount of frames you have, thereby reducing the gif’s file size (i’m sure i said it up there somewhere).

keep in mind that blurring reduces a file size and sharpening increases a file size. you may want to change your settings if you are just over the size limit.

have fun making gifs!! i’m hoping that i didn’t forget anything and if you have any questions or want more tutorials, feel free to send me an ask :)

if you found this helpful, please give it a like/reblog <3

[courtneymill]

kmplayer gif tutorial

hello all! i’m gonna show you how i make my gifs! I use kmplayer and avisynth to make gifs, but I’m going to focus on kmplayer for this one. This tutorial is long and quite in depth so if you’re a beginner, this should be good for you!

also! this is purely just a gif tutorial and not a coloring tutorial lol

what you will need:

photoshop (im using cs5)

kmplayer

any video downloader (I use 4k download or savieo)

Screencapping

Okay first find a video and/or a scene that you want to gif. You’ll want to get the highest quality video possible. Don’t download anything under 720p or else your gif will look grainy. Try to get 1080p as much as possible.

Once you get that downloaded, open your video in kmplayer and go to the scene you want. I like to go a few seconds beforehand to make sure i don’t miss any frames. Now on your keyboard press Ctrl + G to open up the screen cap menu.

I don’t remember the default settings but here are the settings you’ll want:

Extract to: you’ll want to create a folder to hold your screen caps and then direct that folder here

Format: JPEG and Bitmap are both good options. Bitmap (i believe) is going to be a higher quality image

Numbers to extract: continuously

Size to extract: original size. You want the full size image

Frames to extract: every frame. This ensures that you’re getting every frame and helps your gif look smoother

also the “prefix” is just going to be the first part of the image name, so put whatever you want for this! :)

Once this is done, press Start in the menu and play the video. When the scene is done, press pause on the video. Open the menu again (Ctrl + G) and stop that as well. Now all you want to do is go into the folder with your screen caps and delete the ones you don’t want.

Frame timing and converting to smart objects

Open photoshop: we are now going to start the giffing process! Before you start, make sure you have the animation window and the layers window open. To do this, go to Window > Animation and Layers, if it’s not already showing.

Now, click on File > Scripts > Load multiple DICOM files. Find your screen caps folder and load them in. You’ll see in your animation bar that it only has one image showing. 

In order to pull your screen caps from this, go to the top right hand corner of the animation bar and click this button. Click “Make frames from layers”.

This is so your gif actually plays all the frames and not just the one showing. Next, change the timing of the gif. Personal preference is a big thing in giffing so you’ll want to play around with what works for you. The average timing used by a lot of people is either 0.04 or 0.05 (for screencaps i should say). I find that 0.04 can be a little fast for my liking, so 0.05 is good. To do this, click the “0 sec” and then “Other...” and type in your timing. Make sure you select all the frames before doing this, unless you want to change each frame individually ^.^

P.S. if you ever want to delete a frame in your gif, you can delete the layer in the layer window but in the animation bar, you’ll have to click on the frame and click the tiny trash can next to the bottom scroll bar.

The next step is to click the button in the bottom right hand corner of the animation bar. It looks like it has two sliders on it. It will change your animation from frames to timeline. 

Next, right click on a frame in your layers window and select “similar layers”. Then right click again and select “convert to smart object”. This may take a moment btw.

If you see that your animation timeline shortened into one line instead of multiple lines, you’re on the right track! Next thing to do is to crop the part of the scene you want.

Image size, sharpening and canvas size.

Image size will change the photo size without cropping anything out. Canvas size will change the size without transforming the image. What I like to do is to change the image size to about 5 or so pixels larger than what I actually want for either the width or height. In this case, I want my gif to be 268 x 150. So my cropped photo is going to make my height much larger than I’m going to want it, if that makes sense.

P.S. For sizing, make sure your width is either 177px for 3 panel gifs, 268px for 2 panels, or 540px for a single panel. If you want a 3 panel gifset, make the middle gifs 178 px (i know, it’s a little dumb but if you don’t, it’ll make the middle gif slightly blurry)

(This is what I’m going to resize my cropped image to)

You can just make the width or height automatically what you want (268 in the width for my case), but I find that after sharpening, a line can form around your image. I prevent this by making the image slightly larger than what I want and then cutting that part out later.

Now I want to sharpen my gif! Again, this is about personal preference, but I think this is what a lot of people use as well. Right click on your smart object in the layers window and select “New Smart Object via Copy”. I’ve seen people select “Duplicate layer” instead but I honestly don’t know what the difference is lkasndfllanslk.

Set the top layer’s opacity to 50% and leave the bottom layer at 100%. To actually sharpen the gif, go to Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen. 

For the top layer:

1. Smart sharpen: Amount 500%, Radius 0.4

2. Gaussian blur: 0.3 (its also under filter)

For the bottom layer:

1. Smart sharpen: Amount 500%, Radius 0.4, no gaussian blur

After this, go to canvas size and change it to your actual gif size. For my gif, it will take my 272 x 190 to my desired 268 x 150. Then combine your two smart objects by selecting both of them and clicking “Convert to Smart Object”.

Gif without sharpening vs gif with sharpening

Now you’ll want to edit it to your liking, just make it sure it’s under 3mb for tumblr’s image limits.

I’m not going to get too much into coloring bc it can be a real pain sometimes but! I will say that selective coloring is your best friend, just don’t saturate/over color or the gif will look more grainy. 

After coloring and such, this is what I get:

We’re almost there! Save your new gif under “Save for web & devices” and not for “Save as”. When it opens, it’ll look really confusing, but all you need to worry about is that the “Looping options” says forever and not once, or else your gif will stop after it plays the first time. 

The last step that I didn’t even learn until recently is that you’ll have to open up your gif again in photoshop. When you do this, you’ll find that the timing has changed from 0.05 to 0.07. Idk why it does this, but your gif will look smoother if you change it back. (It might only be for screencap gifs but idk)

Here’s a comparison of the gif as is vs the gif when i changed the timing again:

And then you go through the process again if you’re making other gifs! I wrote a lot but it really isn’t that hard once you practice a couple times. I’m still learning too! (as you can see since my gifs are still grainy and such) but i hope this was helpful for people who don’t know where to start! Happy giffing!

[theriversarebroken]

OCs in a video game

This post is inspired by @chickypoodoodloos brilliant one, which you can go look at here!

The setting of the game would probably be in space. Sci-fi to the max with multiple planets you can travel to, some that it’s recommended you don’t since it’s dangerous (need to be a higher level) but still can if you want to. I don’t know about the storyline, but I know your character would be a type of rebel/pirate/mercenary type. I love it :D. I’m tempted to write a story about all this from a second person perspective.

Rei: the first NPC you meet and she cannot stand you, but you can’t help but love her yet at the same time want to strangle her. She helps you learn how to play, telling you to press certain buttons and if you press the wrong one/do the wrong thing/walk where you’re not supposed, she groans so loud and says “C’mon dumbass! It’s not that hard. We need to get this down before we report in.”. She’s one of the main characters of the game, goes with you on your first mission. As the game progresses, she opens up to you and you grow to be good friends. Men and women can romance her but she isn’t a complete romance. She’s one of those almost romances that ends up pulling away. The rest of the game’s dialogue with her is horribly awkward if you attempted to romance her (unless it has to do with the plot). If you try to bring it up, she recoils and says, “I don’t want to talk about it. Forget it.”. She’s the one who would teach you to run stealth missions, always has extra blades on her person. Her idle animations would be her impatiently drumming her fingers on her thigh, rolling her eyes, and crossing/uncrossing her arms.

Loyalty mission - she won’t tell you exactly what she wants but you break into one of the galaxy’s most dangerous mercenary homebase. At the end you learn it’s a rare ingredient for a cake she wants to make (which tastes amazing, btw). You can choose to yell at her or just… just deal with her idiocy and eat delicious cake.

Nami: the space pirate who you meet on a mission at the start of the game, puts a gun to your head, a split second from pulling the trigger. She stops once she hears her baby sister shouting her name, which is the other woman you brought on this mission. After a bunch of dramatic confrontation, and proper decision making, Nami will assist and join your team (if the right decisions are made i.e not yelling at her sister, showing your a decent human being). She’s the bonafide badass. The first impression of her would be the “heartless raider” but it turns out she only releases slaves, saves towns, and does good. Should she not join you, you can speak to her whenever you want to for advice, usually hanging out in bars around the areas you can travel to on various planets. She is romanceable, though. Only women can romance her and if you do, she’s a bit… out of practice. She’s clumsy, but genuinely loves you. Her idle animations would be her cracking her knuckles, pulling out a flask, and having a sideways grin.

Loyalty mission - going after a slaver who is stealing young women and young men from unprotected settlements. Turns out this slaver is the one who stole Rei and Nami from their home. Nami goes into a blind rage and after she kills the slaver, and most of the gang, she’s a boss fight for you and your team, to which she never stops apologizing for.

Juno: the blind woman you meet on the Federated planet. She’s a high ranking politician although it seems like she’s pretty much done with working for the Government she’s with. She’s Rei’s inside informant as to where there are jobs for you and your friends to pick up. Eventually, she sends you on a job that ties you into the plot (the new species, and villains, nearly blowing you and your crew to bits). After that mission, she joins you, abandoning her position and taking all the information she can get her hands on with her. She is a skilled fighter and sniper, which you learn the hard way should you choose to say something about blind people or politicians not knowing how to fight. She hits the bullseye about ten times in a row with her sniper rifle She will join you on missions, though hangs back and higher up to get rid of enemies without them knowing. Women can romance her and at first it seems pretty easy to romance her since Juno is kind, loving, and just a great person but hooooly shit does she hide so much shit from you. It can cause a big rift in the relationship if you let it slide, or take the wrong route while trying to talk to her about opening up. Her idle animations would be her pulling the rifle’s sights up to her eye, fixing a braid in her hair, and seeming to pause as she listens for something.

Loyalty mission - Juno received a lead from Lavinia on the creatures, a possible home base. But once you arrive, you find out it’s a trap and the information wasn’t from Lavinia. Juno gets poisoned by the creatures, and you have to fight your way out, nearly dying in the process. Lavinia joins your team and works with Liz to keep an eye on Juno, since she is growing weaker from the poison.

Damien: Juno’s brother and also the pilot of your ship. He’s a rebel pilot, learned how to fly outside of the Federate planet’s classes and was only kept secret due to Juno’s political status. And once Juno’s on board you can’t help but ask why he never bothered to mention it?? He is a ridiculously talented flyer and fighter, though can get a little too risky at times. You seem to need to remind him that the goal is to live. Not die in a fiery wreck. Damien also seems to have a shit load of contacts for you to meet, which are all from being a pilot his entire life. Lots of planets, lots of friends. Men can romance him, and Damien is just so surprised when you express interest. “I’m just the pilot… and now I’m the pilot of your heart too.”. Whoops, regret it already. He seems to be more careful in flying after you begin to romance him. His idle animation would be looking up puns that he shouts over the loudspeaker.

Loyalty mission - Damien seems to be distracted while flying and, once you ask, explains how it’s about a distress call he got. It’s from his fellow rebel pilots. Their home. You go to find it wiped out, Damien in a terribly distressed state. With more investigation, you find the flyers who did this and wipe them out, though Damien doesn’t know if it helps him feel any better. After a talk, he admits he’s still heartbroken.

James:  the guy you meet on the ship that’s been stalking your own for days. You finally manage to confront him (after shooting some warning shots at his ship), and meet an all too cheerful gentleman with blue hair and a blue beard. He admits to following you since his sister is one of the people you are chasing. He’s annoying. Or adorable. Depending on how you view people who are still smiling after a bloody nose. He joins your team and, damn, he is a brilliant strategist when it comes to bringing him on missions. Saves your ass more times you can count, but never holds it over you. He also makes it easier to track the villains of the game since, again, one of them is his sister. Men and women can romance him and it’s super simple because he already likes you so much. He’s super supportive of you no matter what, romance or no. He’ll be your bff. His idle animations would be “nonchalantly” flexing his muscles, rubbing the scruff on his face and rubbing his fingers over the scars on his knuckles while sort of staring off into space (haha puns).

Loyalty mission - his sister reached out to him and he asks you to come as back up. She beats him within an inch of his life. You can choose to pursue her (does nothing, but James is grateful you went after her) or stay with him (relationship building argument on why you didn’t go get her). James is off your team for a while in the infirmary.

Liz: the crazy scientist you meet on a “junk” planet. You recruit her onto your ship to help with the oddities and researching the strange new species you’re fighting against. She cannot be a part of the team you bring on your missions, but she is simultaneously running samples on all the new species you encounter and trying to care for the crew (until you find a Doctor). Hahahah overworked much? Plus, if you enter into a conversation with her it… never… seems… to end. But she always seems to talk about interesting and important things so win-win. Occasionally she’ll drag you into her lab immediately after a mission to get some goop off your armor, or clean your wounds, or whatever she can get her hands on to experiment with. There’s only one instance where she’ll go on a mission with you and she asks you to knock out a “space beast” and she crawls into its body… while it’s still alive. It’s at that moment you realize she’s either completely lost it, or completely brilliant. Men and women can try to romance her but she’s so oblivious to it all. It just never works. Her idle animations would be her rifling through her lab coat, basically spinning in circles to look for something, and staring at a tablet, pushing her glasses onto the top of her head then back down.

Loyalty mission - helping her with the space beast, which has a possible antidote against the new, dangerous species. She almost gets digested so, on a timer, you have to figure out how to help her out. She explains it as the greatest experience EVER and gains a good amount of info on how to combat.

Sorina:  the crazy, robotic armed woman who blows a hole in the side of your ship like it’s no big deal. It wasn’t to any parts that will kill everyone inside but… still. It’s a hole. After the confrontation, she says she thought of it as an audition to join your crew, since James was taken on after doing a terrible job of stalking you. You can choose to tell her to go away, but bringing her on your team is loads more fun. Plus, she’s friends with Liz, who vouches for her. She repairs the hole in a matter of hours (which is faster than most mechanics can do). You have your mechanic/explosives expert now and it miiight be a better idea to leave her behind on some missions… since her explosions can sometimes be bigger than she thought they’d be. And maybe you’ll lose your eyebrows more than you’d care to. Women can romance her but she’ll really only hop on you if you’re smart. She just likes to have talks where she doesn’t have to explain every big word to you. It might come across as bitchy but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Should something go wrong in the romance, she’ll delete the romantic memories of you from her brain and act like it never happened because, to her, it didn’t. Her idle animations would be her pulling images through her arm and typing notes and trying to pulls knots out of her hair.

Loyalty mission - going to get special parts as her memory component seems to have been hacked. The one hacking her is a salvager she used to run with and isn’t happy that she stopped sending part. Sorina forgets who you are for a bit after the mission, which is frustrating.

Cadi:  The character you meet on a run through a tough level of thick woods on a far off planet. The level is easy to get lost in, and you only meet her if you explore every inch. She’s a hidden teammate that a lot of players miss. She’s found in an abandoned shack and she seems to have been surviving off of what little food she could find. She doesn’t know how to speak any languages and she’s your silent teammate. She’s never seen the advanced technology you have, so it’s pretty funny the first time she’s brought on the ship. As the game progresses, she seems to get more protective of all the teammates, and there’s a certain scene (if you bring her on the mission) where a teammate is grabbed at a bar and she breaks their arm in two for that. Very, very protective. She’s not someone who fights with guns, she’ll sneak around the battle and literally shred her enemies apart. You can romance her and it seems like there’s a whole different side to her once there’s a deeper love between you two. Her idle animations would be her anxiously looking around, and growling at what she thinks is moving.

Loyalty mission - Cadi just… leaves while on “shore leave”. There’s no explanation, but you can follow her trail which leads to bodies, which leads to you finding Cadi in a fight. She’s very badly injured, which causes you to intervene. Turns out the people she killed/fought turned her into a weapon, forcing her to destroy her planet and people. You can allow her to kill the last few (Cadi will seem conflicted afterwards because she realized she was doing what they designed her to) or call the law enforcement and get them arrested (she lashes out but you can talk to her and help her realize why killing them won’t help).

Lavinia:  a “friend” of Juno’s who still lives on the Federated planet, feeding you information after Juno joins you. She is not a party member, but you can visit her whenever you’d like on that planet for information. She does not have the same level of clearance of Juno but still gives you good information. Plus, she’s pretty medically savvy so if you try hard enough, later in the game (after Juno’s loyalty mission) you recruit her as your ship’s Doctor. Men and women can romance her but once she’s recruited as your Doctor, she breaks it off since patient/doctor relationships are super unhealthy. She’ll flirt, but the relationship won’t move past that until after the game, and that’s only if you don’t want her as your ship’s Doctor. Her idle animations would be shuffling through papers on the desk in her lab/office, checking the medical inventory, and wave as you pass (romance only). Should you run past multiple times she’ll roll her eyes and laugh.

Loyalty mission - she’s conflicted coming to you for help, but she brings bad news. She and Juno have been declared enemies of the Federate planets for abandoning their jobs. As you go to clear her name (Juno doesn’t care anymore), you find out someone has been dirtying it and chase them and fight until they decide to tell the truth.

Hadley:  one of Damien’s many contacts know as the Web. She has information on everyone and everything. Every city, every citizen, even you. And that’s the only reason why she joins you. You’re the only one who actually sees the threat and is actively fighting against it. She’s the Federated planet’s public enemy number one, so she rarely, if ever, leaves the ship. And if she does it’s with the most ridiculous disguise. She joins your team and hacks into the enemy's’ armor, guns, whatever she can get her hands on. Men and women can romance her, though Hadley is a tough cookie. She’s very reclusive, as if loving you would hurt her too much. And she questions how healthy would it be since she knows everything and you know nothing. Have patience. Her idle animations would be (if she’s around Sorina) hacking Sorina’s arm, changing the color of the lights, and tucking her pant leg into her boots.

Loyalty mission - Hadley isn’t someone who gets scared but you find her… shaken. And when asked what’s wrong, she shows you a video of someone showing everything they have on her. Which is impossible she doesn’t even exist. After tracking this person down, you find a bit more about Hadley’s past and have to make a decision: Hand her in to the Federated planets (Hadley vows to get revenge), or make yourself an even bigger target and keep her safe (She explains why she did what she did).

Helene:  she was working with the villains of the game, and basically fucked with you for most of the game but comes to you bloodied and bleeding and asking for help. She gives you all the information on those she was working for and does whatever she can to get you to try and trust her. It’s up to you whether or not to and what you decide will cause some issues with you and your crew. But Helene is genuine in her change of sides and information. Although, you might catch yourself second guessing everything once you find out she’s super into substance abuse. She can join you on your missions and usually gains the enemy’s’ trust and information before killing them (you can let them live but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ they’re bad people). Men and women can romance her but she seems very manipulative and only interested in sex at first. She’ll try to keep her distance and let it be a fling, but if you pursue the relationship, you’ll find out how broken Helene actually is and all the villains did to her. Her idle animations are kicking at the ground, dropping her head back from boredom, and winking at you.

Loyalty mission - Lavinia calls you to the infirmary where you find Helene, doped out of her mind, looking nearly dead. Helene asks you for help with her addiction, telling you there’s a plant on a far off planet that can help stop her addiction without the withdrawal. You go there and find a gang has taken over the planet, manufacturing the plant as a highly addictive drug, which causes the argument of Helene only wanting this for a better high. All-in-all it’s being manufactured for the wrong reason, you take out the gang, and Helene is clean. 

[sleepymarmot]

MEA liveblog #7

Spoilers!

Multiplayer

This interface is a mess. I move my mouse onto "exit lobby" and it turns into "kick player". Buttons just jump around and transform all the time.

And the APEX mission shit needs to be fixed. When you select a mission to play, don't direct me to lobbies who play the same enemy/map/difficulty but not as the mission! Join lobby, see "custom", exit lobby, select "custom game", re-select mission, join, end up in the same lobby, rinse, repeat...

At least I can end up second when I join on wave 5 as a human vanguard lol

F Human Vanguard card!

Tempest

Non-custom weapons of different rank shouldn't exist as separate items in the inventory! Unlocking a higher rank should upgrade the old item like in ME3! This stupid inventory system exists solely because of crafting! If you need inventory limits so much, let them apply only to the crafted items! I've already complained about rewards being lost with no warning if the inventory is full and it's still bullshit! 

I crafted the N7 chestpiece! 25% shield on kill (of course), 5% damage resistance, 2% shield restoration, 2% health&shield regen speed, 2% max shield. I called it "N7 Slayer X". And turns out, it was dad's armor...

Oh right, it needs a new color scheme!

Havarl

I like this ex-STG, he's talking properly.

I don't like the sound effect from Annihilation -- it's like water in my ears!

Hey Peebs, how do you immediately know where the next piece is as soon as we pick the current one?

Kadara

Here's the bar fight. Animation is not bad but has no energy.

Told the asari dancer that I'm done here and she needs to talk to the dude herself, but the quest still sends me back to him -_-

Tempest

So, Kesh was adopted?

Okay, Kalinda is 100% Marjolaine. Peebee's personal storyline is even more copy-pasted from Leliana than Drack's is copypasted from Wrex.

Aya

So many sidequests again!

The Moshae's words about the definition of victory! That's the smartest thing I've heard in this game in hours.

It's really weird to hear her talk so sweetly to me... When we first met she didn’t seem to like me.

When Vetra said people were staring at her, I couldn't resist suggesting they're just all in love...

I suggested taking people who sold their Aya slots onto the Nexus. That's not even charity -- the same ambassador gave me a task to convince angara to come there anyway! So this would kill two birds with one stone.

For the visitor who wanted contact with his family, I had to reload. The options didn't even seem too different... Got it right for the other two: gave an honest professional answer about health issues, and a confident casual answer about finding work.

Great, now I have to head back into the city to buy stuff... This is literally a fetch quest lol

Eos

Omg, the Architect is in orbit now!

The Roekaar fight in an old settlement was very chaotic and fun with Flamethrower/ED/Lance, though it'd probably be easier to just charge

Tempest

Aaaand Jaal gives me his loyalty mission. It's funny that I'm going to do my own love interest's mission last...

Jaal's LM

I continue to be unimpressed with the Roekaar being pure antagonists. :/

Didn't shoot the guy, told Jaal he was badass.

Why are loyalty missions so short?

BTW Ryder just looks wrong in N7 armor... She's not Shepard, that's not her allegiance or her story.

Tempest

Jaal, just as we're leaving Havarl you decided to invite me for a visit down there?

Turian ark

Avitus has very stylish armor

For fuck's sake, Bioware, why do you hate gay men so much?

I convinced Avitus to take the mantle. It was a very sentimental decision for Ryder -- because her situation is very similar. Her SAM and the connection he had with her father are unique, but she didn't think of that in that moment.

Nexus

"Better to find your wings as you fly" Easy for you to say, Sarissa, your predecessor wasn't a loved one

Tempest

I'd agree with Peebee about relationship and baggage, but of course I felt obligated to take the romantic option

(I don’t think there’s an option to agree with her, though, so it’s only for the best)

Voeld

Liam, Vetra, don't fight!

Whoops, sorry for leaving you to die in the purification field, Vetra

...I liked the old color scheme better. Green light looks more alien, but less pretty.

Nexus

Final memory -- here we go!

My theory was that the Archon was somehow Ellen, but that made so little sense I didn't even write it down :D This is simpler.

BTW there's finally Shepard's gender we had to select in the beginning -- in translated subtitles :D Didn't hear it even once in the audio -- could it be Bioware actually took their foreign audience into consideration? :O

Honestly, it's weird that the Reapers info is so secret... From the OT I got the impression that Shepard was yelling about it to everyone at every opportunity...

Fine, fine, you made me emotional with Liara's message.

Shit, I was expecting this decision...

I feel pretty sad now. That's all?

Peebee's LM

Oh, so that's why she lives in an escape pod :D I thought this was only a characterization thing, not a Chekhov's gun!

I said I wasn't mad, though I was a bit. But I mean Ryder *is* mad but also having the time of her life so...

Shit I just shot Kalinda instinctively lmao

Ok I replayed the entire sequence and Idk. This is really the hardest choice in the game...

I'm tempted to say "Yes, literally" :D

Since it's so hard to reaload, it's fair game to watch videos before deciding for myself. Okay, "Yes, literally" is way too harsh.

Alright, this Ryder is not going to make Peebee sad, but I've already planned a Renegade-ish playthrough with a Ryder who values knowledge over everything, so... :D

(Btw, I love that MEA's brand of a more ruthless protagonist is not "uncontrollable brute" but "intellectual snob". As tedious as this game is, I'm already super eager to play character who has those values & takes urgency of tasks seriously.)

This mission is enjoyable and the choice feels maybe the most meaningful... But it has all the classic Mass Effect problems. Kalinda sends a shitload of people to murder us, we murder them, but when she's helpless and we have a finger on the trigger all of that suddenly doesn't matter. Sidonis all over again. Sure, murdering people begging for help is bad in a lot of ways, but she did just try to kill us, a lot of times... Plus, why the fuck can't Ryder jump over and catch the Remnant thing?! That needed to be a second, Paragon interrupt after the Renegade "shoot her." And Ryder is a goddamn biotic, as is Peebee, as is Kalinda! Peebee, Pull is your first goddamn skill! It'd actually be completely plausible if the artifact had shields and/or armor and therefore immune to Pull or Singularity -- but not giving the characters even an idea to try is just stupid!

Tempest

Inviting Peebee to live with together made me revisit my room and inspired me to make some changes. You know what, I'm going to play music in my quarters and change into the short-sleeved pajamas. It's my own ship, why do I walk around it in street clothes? The jacket is stylish but too much to wear at home. I wish we had a "formal" outift for Nexus/Aya/other hubs in addition to the "casual" clothes we wear on the ship.

Shit I went to read someone's post about Peebee's LM and caught a spoilers about the romance post-LM

Addison is right, getting pregnant in that situation was irresponsible

Ah the continuity in this game. "Found more outposts"? I have every possible outpost and all planets at 100%!

"On hold: Place an outpost" bitch where

Voeld

What, there's still a cold hazard?! What was the point of the vault, then?!

Whoa, so the angara believe exaltation not just kills their people but destroys their immortal souls? Wow! That should have been said by a major character during the main story, not by an easily missed NPC!

Oh great, I died and the game refuses to load the last autosave

Dear game. Why did you create four autosaves for the same second. All glitched. Half hour of gameplay lost... God please let the last manual save work. I was sure I saved in between, but just now my PC decided that we still have daylight savings clock change when we do not, and the timestamps on all recent saves are messed up. This especially sucks because I'm trying to rush Peebee's romance because I don't know when the sex scene comes up but I want to make sure it's not when my mom is home while I play it on her PC lol

Tempest

Fuck, that was cute! And Peebee did tackle Ryder, as promised! :D I wonder what she says through Zap in the platonic version...

Addison please don't say the baby screams "like a banshee". I fucking jumped.

"Before you say anything: no PDAs" :D

Level 50! Time to craft myself a powerful new Dhan. I've been running with rank three all this time...

I love that whenever you ask about Kalinda and then return to the general dialogue tree you say "Let's talk about something else" and Peebee responds "YES. Please."

Voeld

Alright, so: the kett leaders are dissatisfied with the Archon because he hasn't reported to them recently, the communication with the kett homeworld(?) might be disrupted in general and the Scourge might be to blame.

Tempest

Damn, SAM has a pretty insightful speech about death! The only thing that can't be rationalized after experiencing it, which is why it fascinates. I actually haven't heard it explained this way before.

My movie night quest hasn't progressed since I brought Jaal his device...

Eos

Ryder watching and playing football with two giant guns floating near her hips... omg

Elaaden/Kadara

What? I'm completely confused by all these identical salarians.

I don't understand this choice. He promises to give us the intel if we let him go... what proof do we have besides his word? And how would arresting him stop us from getting intel from his computer etc?

Reloaded to see both options, chose to arrest him

Havarl

I'm not hugging Jaal's mother wtf

Ryder has surprisingly good facial animation when Jaal shows his mementos

In theory Ryder should like Jaal for being such a nerd but the only thing he makes me feel is mild irritation. His interest in "taking things apart" is an informed quality just like his supposed emotional openness. It's not reflected in his dialogue or storyline at all.

And now I'm finished with all quests in the ally category. I wanted to finish the game asap, but now that we know the patch is coming on Thursday, I'll wait for it.

Multiplayer

Extracted from Silver for the first time as Human Vanguard (level 8, rank IV)! It was against Remnant, so Observers and Destroyers were the only problem. Nullifiers are ridiculously easy for a melee character -- like Ravagers, but without acid.

Got Krogan Vanguard from a pack. Will I have to tolerate the Rage overlay?

The first game with Kroguard was going well, he's got a stong melee even though he's slow... and then wave 6/upload/Kett killed us all :(

Completely unrelated to anything, but I just realized that if you pick the romantic option in the escape pod with Peebee, they don't actually have sex. Call me stupid because that's what Peebee's initial condition is, but I thought Ryder's response changed her mind! When Ryder said "Let's not rush things" I interpreted and meant it in the emotional sense, as "It'd be dishonest to hide that I have a crush on you, but you don't owe me anything, and if you don't ready for a Serious Relationship and Grand Romance yet that's fine because I'm not either, so let's just hook up and leave reflection for later" -- which I thought was pretty sweet and interesting? Because this whole relationship to me was built on the fascinating contrast between Peebee's emotional reservations and casual/flirty attitude, and conversely, on Ryder very consciously respecting Peebee's emotional space. Maybe I just fundamentally don't understand sex and romance lmao. But if character A propositions character B, character B says they have feelings for character A, and the scene promptly fades to black, I assume they do the do because that's how these things are filmed? Only in comparison with the other option, which is actually pretty explicit, it became obvious to me that's not what the director meant. I'm pretty disappointed because I thought it was a good subversion of Jack's "either sex or romance" thing in ME2. And it messes with my headcanon/characterization... I guess I'll have to retcon it into one of the two options. I'll probably go with casual, not romantic in that case. But I just read that Peebee will tell you she's glad you said no, so... :/

Multiplayer

Failed a Silver APEX mission agains the Remnant as a human vanguard :(

Got an asari sentinel!

The patch is here, but I can't launch the game now :( This needs some work.

Ugh, I stop playing for two days and have no motivation to pick the game up again...

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

Quite honestly the bullet-point draft version of Too Aro Ace For This is better than the actual version, just because it’s so ridiculous, I mean I wrote most of it at 3 in the morning one night while crying so I feel like I should share it:

(if you are on mobile apologies, this was under a cut but yeah. Scroll through the nonsense at leisure.) (tumblr mobile glitches 90% of the time anyway)

TOO ARO ACE FOR THIS

(^idk if I'm gonna call it that or not that's just a working title)

(Anyway there was no way I was gonna be able to go without at least making a start on this thing which is essentially just three weird dreams I've had smushed together into a mess)

(I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELS ABOUT MY ARO ACE DAUGHTER OKAY AND I'M SO SORRY FOR MAKING HER SUFFER)

So anyway here is the meme format version of this story which first tricks you into thinking it's about Alix's watch but then tricks you into thinking it's rarepair hell but then tricks you into thinking it's about heartrate but then tricks you into thinking it's rarepair hell again and then tricks you into thinking it's about the love square but really, it's about this poor child figuring out she's hella aromantic asexual and finding her platonic soulmate

First it's a normal school Friday but Alix is in a really bad mood bc in the evening she will have to go to the opening event for her dad's new exhibit at the museum and it's gonna be posh and boring and also he basically guilt-tripped her into wearing a dress for it bc he commissioned Marinette to make the dress specially for her so now she has to wear it and she's LIVID

Kim is an idiot and challenges her to an arm wrestle and she says yes but then she's sure she's gonna lose bc she's not actually that strong, but then again she's filled with rage so maybe

Anyway she does win and everyone's like "whoa" *highkey terrified of her* and Kim's red in the face and demanding a rematch and she's like "don't be a sore loser you jerk"

Then in the evening when her family's getting ready to go to the Louvre her dad's like "k you're not allowed to take your phone bc otherwise you'll just be using it all the time, you're 15 now so you can't just mess around, also don't go gorging yourself at the snack table with Jalil the whole time in fact Jalil since you wanna be a museum curator person too you should stay by my side and see how it's done"

Jalil's like "I HAVE SO MUCH UNI HOMEWORK SAVE ME" but he agrees to come along anyway

Alix is like "well would you look at that, this dress is too long for me :) I would just trip over :) what a shame :) looks like I'll have to just wear a suit instead :) in fact I don't even have a suit so I'll have to wear like a hoodie and jeans :) isn't it just too bad :)"

The dad's like "actually I got Marinette to get you matching heels so if you wear them then you will be tall enough" and Alix is like "WHAT NO I'M NOT WEARING THOSE" *throws a temper tantrum*

Her dad's like "bleh you 15 year olds and your teenage hormonal mood swings" *checkmate* and Alix is seething but wears the heels (though she refuses POINT BLANK to wear makeup and anyway no one in the house knows how to do it lol) (also she's literally me lol)

But then she's like "I'll only come along if you let me bring my watch" and he's like "fine but don't spend the whole evening fiddling with it or I'll confiscate it"

Anyway Marinette was a Good Child who sewed pockets into the dress bc all dresses have a dire need of pockets so Alix puts the watch in there and then tries not to fall over in the heels (like she can balance easily on skates but just not heels... pal trust me I used to ice skate fine but I could never wear heels and still can't so it's a thing okay)

Who needs HEELS when ya got HEELYS amirite

(Listen Alix totally wears Heelys all the time okay it's canon)

So they're at the thing at the Louvre and it's boring as hell (like remember that one scene in RWBY where Weiss Schnee is at that thing with her family and she hates it with every fibre of her being, in fact I'm guessing that episode probably inspired the dream that I lowkey based this part of the thing on lol)

Then at one point Alix feels that the watch in her pocket is getting really warm for some reason and she's like "????" bc it doesn't even run on electricity or anything

I mean I'm guessing it doesn't, idk how it works, looks like magic to me mate

So she's like "pssst Jalil come over here I need to show you something" so they sneak off to a room on the side and she opens the watch

It's really hot and the blue light from the hologram is pulsing like a beacon thing and it's really bright

She's like "do you have any idea what's going on with this thing" and he's like "idk sis it's your watch not mine" and she's like "but you're the history nerd" and he takes a closer look at it and says "nah I still have no idea why it's doing that, anyway I should get back now bc if dad notices I'm missing he'll be mad"

So they go back but it turns out their dad already noticed they were gone and he's like "frick's sake Alix I told you not to go goofing off and especially not to distract your brother, now go make yourself useful while I tell off Jalil, go say hello to Henri Duparc over there"

She's like "oh god no please I hate him" and her dad's like "just do it and don't make a scene okay"

(Henri Duparc is totally Jean Duparc's snobby nasty older cousin and I already hate his guts, I feel sorry for Jean for having to deal with him)

(But he's really rich and influential so everyone tries to stay on his good side bc he can literally make or break a person with his influence)

So she wobbles over on those heels (poor thing, how did she survive the Reflekta episode honestly) and is like "Good evening" *trying not to sound bored out of her mind/in a very bad mood*

Henri's like *snooty rich person voice* "Oh hello there Miss Kubdel, I didn't even realize you were here today because you're so ridiculously tiny even in your heels, which btw I am glad to see you wearing bc you finally look respectable for once"

She's like *clenches fist* "what's that supposed to mean" and he's like "well usually you're a complete mess and it's so unprofessional and lower class, but I'm glad to see you've finally outgrown your stupid childish tomboy phase and are actually behaving yourself for once, I hope you've put your rollerskating and aggressiveness behind you for good"

She's like "excuse me? What the hell is wrong with rollerskating or being a tomboy like how is that childish???" and he's like "well you're a girl so you should act like one" and Alix is like *trying so hard not to just punch him bc she's already had a bad day and her patience is ending* "so you think it's better for me to force myself to be whatever your idea of a girl is, rather than just being myself?"

He's like "ugh you may be wearing a dress but it sounds like you haven't changed at all, you shouldn't be talking back to me with that tone of voice young lady, you have a lot to learn about the world"

She's at the end of her tether but remembers her dad told her not to make a scene so she's like "scuse me gotta go" and hecks off to some empty corridor somewhere

She's had such a bad day and hates that everyone's always trying to get her to be someone she's not for no relevant reason at all and she's feeling restricted etc (and okay also she's 15 so her mood may not quite be on balance) so she starts crying angry tears a lil bit

She storms into one of the side rooms and suddenly runs head first into Chat Noir of all people

He's all like "omg Alix is that you??? Whoa you look-" and she's all like "I KNOW I LOOK GREAT I DON'T CARE JUST BE QUIET" and he's like "k k sorry... um... what's wrong? Are you crying?"

She's like "who cares, you won't understand" and he's like "lemme guess, events like this are stifling and boring as heck? And you gotta try so hard to fit in and be the Perfect Child and make your family proud and it's stressful and you can't be yourself? Is it something like that? Cause I know how it feels..."

She nods and starts crying into his chest (height difference amirite) in a semi-hug and he's internally like "frick she's cute" and externally like "well it's okay, you can talk to me about it if you want..."

She's about to say something but suddenly remembers that one time she killed him and feels really guilty so she just wipes her eyes and says "nah it's okay I'm fine now, anyway I should probably get back soon, maybe I'll get told off less that way... anyway what are you even doing here?"

He's like "well I was messing around with my baton and I seem to have accidentally unlocked a new setting thing and it's some kind of tracker? Idk it was leading me to this location so I decided to see what it was"

He pulls out his baton and presses some buttons and then he frowns like "huh that's weird... the thing the baton is tracking is in this very room but like... this is just an office, what could possibly be in here that's connected to my miraculous"

Alix takes the watch out of her pocket and opens it and it's glowing super brightly now so she's like "omg do you think it was tracking my watch? Bc this thing is behaving very weirdly this evening and idk why"

Chat's like "omg yeah it's the watch, that's really weird, I wonder why that's happening? Maybe I'll ask Plagg about it..." and Alix is like "who's Plagg?" and Chat's like "...nvm it's a long story"

Alix is like "well I should probably go back now but let me know if you find out anything important about my watch k" and she puts it back in her pocket and leaves quickly

When she gets back to the main room her dad's about to tell her off again for ditching again but he sees her red eyes so he's like "k fine just go to the snack table and eat lots of chocolate if you want, tho don't blame me if you get loads of spots" so she spends the rest of the evening binge-eating chocolate and feeling rather confused about the watch and also rather sorry for herself while also feeling guilty about feeling sorry for herself

(Hoo boy that's just gonna get worse...)

I mean we're not even up to the aro bits)

(And holy heck don't even get me started on the ace bits)

(my poor daughter has a very long way to go... earn your happy ending indeed... poor kid...)

When they get home that night her dad's like "are you okay" and she's like *already feeling guilty about literally everything she has ever done in her life ever even though she's perfect and has never done anything wrong* "I'm fine dw, I'm rly tired now goodnight" and goes straight to bed

The next day the family gets an invite to the Agreste mansion next weekend for a posh event thing bc of some new clothing line and they're like "huh how did that happen... probs bc Adrien is in your class???"

And the dad's like "Alix you don't have to go to this one if you don't want to" and she's like "thank you thank you thank you!!!" and then goes off rollerskating or something idk

On Monday at school Marinette's screeching like a fricking pterodactyl waving her phone around like "OMG ALIX YOU LOOKED SO STUNNING IN THAT DRESS OF MINE YOU WORE OMG AAAAAAAAA WHO KNEW YOU WERE THAT PRETTY YOU'RE MAKING ME FEEL SO GAY I'M GONNA CRY EVERYONE LOOK AT THESE PICTURES"

Poor Alix is sinking into her seat like "kill me" while everyone's looking at the pictures like "ahhhh I never knew you were so gorgeous??? Why don't you put more effort into your appearance usually???"

Marinette's all like "Kim what do you think" and he's like "pffffft I totally definitely don't think she's cute or anything bc she's definitely not cute" and Marinette's like *shove* "oh come on admit she looked amazing" and Kim's like *blushing* "fine, if you say so!"

And then Marinette's like *stuttering* "h-hey Adrien, w-what do you think of the d-dress I made, did she l-look pretty in it?"

Adrien, being Chat Noir, already knows Alix was totally uncomfortable in that dress so he's like "well the dress is beautiful Marinette and you're really talented but like... she doesn't need a dress to look great? She looks fine how she is? Idk I like her normal aesthetic I think it suits her and she can dress how she wants"

Alix is internally like "oh thank god one person gets it at least, bless Adrien Agreste he's the only kid in this class I don't hate right now"

So later on she goes and finds him in the library like "thank you for appreciating my normal self" and he's like "oh no problem! I mean I totally get it... my father's always making me model his clothing line for him and people are always praising it but I don't feel like it's the real me"

She's like "omg that's exactly it! I literally only went to that thing bc I was forced to and I didn't even know Marinette was making that dress for me until it was already done so I had to wear it and I just hated every second of it, so to have people telling me I should be like that more often just feels awful"

 Adrien's like "ikr #richpeopleproblems... and this Sunday is the gala at my house and it's gonna suck bc the only person there I know is Chloé and you know what she's like... and I'll just have to be my dad's puppet the whole time... I mean I persuaded him to invite your family too and he did bc you're rich but like... I know you hate stuff like that so you probably won't go..."

Alix can tell he's trying to get her to feel sorry enough for him that she'll agree to come along but she just says "well yeah sorry I'm busy on Sunday, anyway I gotta go" and leaves

When she gets home she sees that there are like 5 new dresses in her room and apparently they're gifts from the Gabriel fashion line so that she can promote them whenever she goes to any museum events in the future or whatever and she realizes that's why Adrien's father agreed to inviting her family to the thing, it was all for business

And she's super annoyed bc DRESSES ARE SO IMPRACTICAL WHEN YOU WANNA SIT LIKE A COWBOY OR GO ROLLERSKATING OR CLIMBING TREES OR DOING ANYTHING EVER

That night she's supposed to be asleep but is probably playing 3DS Smash Bros or something when there's a tap on her window

She looks outside to see Chat Noir there and she opens it like "it's like 11PM wth are you doing here" and he's like "I really need to talk to you about your watch and I can't let anyone see or hear, can we go up to the roof of your house and you bring your watch"

She's like "I'm in my pyjamas" and he's like "that's literally an oversized tshirt and shorts" and she's like "well it's comfortable okay! But fine k tell me whatever it is" so she takes the watch and he uses his baton to take her to the roof

Then he's like "k well as you know I'm a magical superhero and I get my powers from this ring, well my kwami is the one who gives my ring the power to turn me into Chat Noir - basically a tiny little god that looks like a lil flying cat, his name is Plagg and he eats too much cheese. Well he thinks he has some details on your watch and why it's connected to my baton but he has to have a look at it to be sure. And to do that I'm gonna have to detransform and show you my civilian self. But you have to promise to keep it a secret bc I'm not really supposed to tell anyone (but I trust you...)"

She's like "uh okay sure"

Chat's like "Plagg, detransform me" and then he turns back into Adrien

 Alix is like "omg ADRIEN???????????" and he's like "haha yup it's me..." and she's like "but you're... you're in my class how could you possibly be Chat Noir??????" and he's like "well I've never been akumatized and I'm never around during akuma attacks and I'm always turning up late to class and..."

She's like "ok... whoa.... well um... that was very unexpected... wait a second, is that why you were being so nice to me at school today? Bc you saw me at the Louvre on Friday and you knew how upset I was??" and he's like "kinda... I mean I probably would have guessed you were upset about it anyway bc I do know how it feels..."

Then Plagg darts out of Adrien's shirt-jacket thing like "can I either get a look at that watch now or gimme cheese either is fine" and Alix is like "omg is this the kwami thing you were talking about? Omg this is hella rad actually"

She opens the watch and Plagg has a close look at it, then he's like "yup that's what I thought, this is Rania's watch" and Alix is like "Rania? Who's Rania? Omg is she one of my ancestors?"

Plagg's like "yeah probably. Basically Rania was a previous owner of the cat miraculous - a Chat Noire in the late 19th and early 20th century. She was the youngest kid in a huge watchmaking family and wasn't set to inherit anything at all so she raised a storm about it and then when she turned 15 her father gave her this watch he made specially for her. Since she had a pretty active lifestyle for a young lady back then she did a bit of tinkering and linked this watch up to the baton so that she always had a way of tracking it down in case she lost it."

Alix is like "aaaahhh omg that's so cool??? My ancestor was an actual Chat Noire??? And my own classmate is the current Chat Noir??? Okay I was having a bad week but I think you just changed that bc this is so fricking awesome holy moly thank you"

Plagg's like "k can I have cheese now" and Adrien's like "fine" *gives him Camembert* (I love Camembert too btw it tastes so flipping good)

Then Alix is like "wait but Adrien doesn't your schedule keep you hella busy all the time? How do you have time for saving Paris too??" and he's like "idk honestly, it's a nightmare sometimes... at least being Chat Noir is fun and I get to hang out with Ladybug a lot so that makes it worth it"

Alix is like "you know what... I'll go to your gala thing on Sunday" and Adrien's like "srsly you don't have to if you don't want to!" and she's like "I'm not just leaving you to the mercy of Chloé on what should be your day off when you're always having to deal with akumas she causes all the time, I'm gonna go and that's final" and he's like "thank"

Then she's like *looking at watch* "I guess the youngest child rule makes sense now, if Rania was the first to get the watch and she was salty about being the youngest and not inheriting anything..."

Plagg's like *stops suddenly in the middle of eating cheese* "what youngest child rule?" and Alix is like "the rule that the watch passes to the youngest child on their 15th birthday"

Plagg's like "huh I don't remember that being a rule... I mean it was a long time ago but I THINK Rania gave the watch to Leila... her OLDEST child..." and Alix is like "that can't be right bc my dad told me that..." *suddenly remembers her dad seems to think Jalil's an idiot* "wait... are you SURE she gave the watch to her oldest child"

Plagg's like "nah I'm not sure and I was put in stasis not long after that but I think she did, anyway there'll be some record of it somewhere bc she used to keep a diary, and if your family is as historical as Adrien says it is then maybe they'll still have her diaries somewhere"

Alix is like "well Jalil's the person I'll have to ask about that... thank you anyway... I should probably actually get to sleep now but uh good luck with the superhero stuff and I'll see you at school tomorrow"

 Adrien transforms back into Chat Noir and puts her back in her room and then leaves

The next morning before school she's like "Jalil can you pls help me out with something?" and he's like "I would love to but I have a project due at the end of this week and I'm already behind, I haven't slept all night and I'm on my 6th cup of coffee so uh can this wait til next week" and she's like "sure omg get some sleep you nerd"

She also tells her dad she'll go to the gala on Sunday and he's like "what brought about this sudden change of heart?" and she's like "well my friend Adrien's gonna be there so..." and he's like "ohhhh I see, well, if you like him then..." and she's like "NO NOT LIKE THAT" *the aro ace-ness begins*

Anyway at school that week she's usually never really had friends and mostly kept herself to herself but she finds herself hanging out with Adrien a lot bc obviously she knows his secret now so they just kinda end up friends automatically (BROTP AMIRITE)

And Adrien is glad for someone he can confide in about superhero stuff (bc as much as Nino is A PURE AND AMAZING CINNAMON ROLL WHO IS TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD, he doesn't know his pal is Chat Noir) but he's also remembering her standing on the roof barefoot in her "pyjamas" with her messy hair and arms crossed and that smirk on her face and he can't stop thinking about it bc he's a sap

 And he tries to just convince himself he's just intrigued to find out more about her family drama about the watch and whether the youngest child rule is true or not... yeah it's totally that, definitely not anything else, and the fact that he really really likes hanging out with her now has absolutely nothing to do with it

He's even tempted to go visit her again as Chat Noir in the night but he doesn't do that bc he knows it would be weird (this ain't no Marichat fic okay) (well alright Adrienette does happen later but like... on the side)

On Friday Chloé practically drapes herself over his desk like "Adri-chouuuuuu, I can't wait for Sunday it's gonna be so fun, just the two of us amirite" and he's like "well actually the Kubdels are invited too so Alix will be there" and Chloé's like "........" *undrapes herself and then whispers in his ear* "Adrien, remember it's not too long now until your 16th birthday... only a few months... you have a decision to make... and yes I know about it..."

And he's like suddenly drenched in cold sweat and nervous for the rest of the day and no one knows why except Chloé, and he's just thinking "HOW DOES SHE KNOW ABOUT THE THING WHICH I HAVE TO DECIDE BY MY 16TH BIRTHDAY OMG"

 And meanwhile Chloé's internally like "well if everything goes according to plan then no one will ever find out I'm a lesbian, perfect"

(She's my problematic lesbian daughter and I love her)

Sunday arrives and the dad's like "Jalil you can stay at home bc you've had like 5 total hours of sleep this week, and Alix you should wear one of the dresses that was specifically sent for you, and if you don't want to then of course you could just not go"

And she's very seriously contemplating not going but she promised Adrien she would so she just puts on the least flashy dress and the smallest possible heels and then they go to the Agreste mansion

Chloé was already there and like clinging onto Adrien's arm but as soon as he sees Alix he pushes Chloé off and goes to say hi

He's immediately like "omg Alix do you want me to show you round my house bc you've only ever seen the dining room (that one time at Christmas)" and she's like k and her dad's like "that's a good idea but don't take too long"

Gabriel's like "Adrien you can just stay here we have people to show the guests round if they really want to see anything" and Adrien's like "that would be weird bc Alix is my classmate, it's fine I'll do it myself" so he takes her upstairs to show her his room

Also Chloé's like *raises eyebrow* *goes and stands outside the door of his room with a glass of juice waiting*

Anyway Alix is immediately like "dude wth you have a skate ramp in your room omg I would kill a person for one of those and omg a rock climbing wall I would kill 2 maybe 3 people for one of those and if I wasn't wearing a dress I would have already climbed it"

Adrien's like "haha yeah those are pretty fun... anyway if you really wanna see the house I'll show you but honestly that was just an excuse for us to get away from Chloé and all the boringness so we can hang out without anyone bothering us or having to pretend to be stuck up rich people"

Alix is like "ahh omg that was a good plan thank you... though I probably shouldn't stay here too long bc my dad gets annoyed when I goof off too much bc I do it all the time and I'm apparently supposed to start trying to behave like a responsible adult now"

And they talk for a while more about #richkidproblems but then they hear Nathalie knocking on the door like "Adrien??? Are you there???"

Adrien's like *whispering* "frick if she finds out I've just been slacking in here the whole time I'm gonna be in so much trouble, quick hide before she comes in" and he pulls her into The Ladrien Bathroom (yeah I call it that... for obvious reasons...) and shuts the door just as Nathalie opens the bedroom door to look inside

Those two hide behind the shower section (lol I'm laughing bc... remember the Shower Scene in Jackady... jeez Ladybug control ur thirst) in the corner against the wall completely silent

Nathalie opens the bathroom door to look but doesn't see anyone so she closes it and goes away again

Anyway bc they're super close to each other and there is a pretty adorable height difference Adrien's internally like "FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK" and probably blushing too and his brain is screaming at him to move closer to her while also telling him not to and basically Adrien.exe has stopped working

And then she's like "uh... dude... are you gonna like... move or what..." *being obliviously aro ace like the darling she is* and Adrien.exe is still not responding so she just kinda awkwardly shoves him off her like "are you okay?"

He's like ".............uh-huh" and she's like "well you look like you've just eaten a chili or something" and he's like "nah it's just... is it me or is it hot in here?... hehe..."

She's like *still aro ace as heck like always* "it's just you. Anyway did you want anything else or should we head back now? I mean I've already been here long enough that I'm probably in trouble so..." and he's like "okay yeah let's head back..."

And internally he's realizing he's fallen for her and is highkey freaking out

They open the bathroom door to see Chloé standing there in the bedroom with an empty glass of juice and smirking evilly

She's like "well well well what do we have here..." and Adrien's like "I was totally just showing her round the house" and Chloé's like "that's funny bc I've been waiting outside your bedroom door since the second you went in, and you never left... must be really taking your time..."

Adrien's like "fine we were just bored okay? So we were hanging out in here instead... it's not a big deal... don't tell my dad..."

Chloé's like "oh don't worry I won't tell your dad you came in here bc you were bored... I think it'll be much more interesting if I tell both your parents - and everyone else while I'm at it - that you two are a couple, since I'm sure it's true anyway, ohohohohoho" *evil rich lady laugh* (I think it's called the noblewoman's laugh or something) and she runs off quickly

Adrien's like "welp I'm dead... are you dead???" and Alix is like "I think I'm partially dead... like I'm gonna be in so much trouble for messing around but then again my dad already thinks I was here just to hit on you... which I wasn't, btw, so don't worry" and Adrien's heart sinks just a tad

He's like "well my father was highkey hoping I would end up with Chloé, and I don't think he'd approve of me goofing off, and I just... yeah I'm definitely dead... idk how I'm gonna convince him Chloé's lying... well let's just get this over with..."

They go back to the atrium place or wherever and Gabriel's immediately like "Adrien can I talk to you" so he's like @himself "RIP Adrien" and goes off to talk to his father

And then Alix goes to her dad like "whatever Chloé told you was a lie okay you know what she's like" and her dad's like "hey it's okay if you're with Adrien, I was thinking it's about time you had a boyfriend I mean you'll be 16 soon right? But this is not the time nor the place to-" and she's like "Adrien is not my boyfriend omg!! He's just my friend! Chloé made that up bc she's a liar who likes messing with people's lives!"

Her dad's like "Fine I'll believe you but honestly if there's someone you like you can tell me, I'm not gonna be annoyed, but also stop going and hiding at the social events okay I know you hate it but if you want to hang out with your friend then just do it some other time" and she's like "k I'm sorry"

Meanwhile Adrien's talking to his dad and thinking "I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die..."

He first quickly says "Father I don't know exactly what Chloé told you but she might have been mistaken about..." and Gabriel's like "It doesn't matter what Chloé told me. Next time during one of these events you are staying by my side and are not allowed away without either Nathalie or your bodyguard accompanying you."

Adrien's like *le sigh* "yes father"

Then Gabriel's like "However... your 16th birthday is only a few months away. If you have not made a decision by the summer holidays then you know that Chloé Bourgeois will become the default choice. But... if you are wishing to explore other options before then, I will not be opposed to it. You know the guidelines."

Adrien's like *breaks out in a cold sweat again bc he was reminded of the thing* "yes, I see, thank you father..."

Gabriel's like "now let's get back to the gala, and this time you stay by my side. If you wish to talk to your friend... or girlfriend, if that's how it is... then you will do it in my presence until the event is over."

Adrien's like "well she's not my girlfriend but okay..." and they go back to the main room thing

Anyway Alix doesn't bother talking to him again for the rest of the thing except waving at him when she leaves later

When she gets home and into comfortable clothes she checks her phone and it's blown up with messages bc frickin Chloé really did tell everyone and they're all like "OMG IS THIS TRUE???" and Alix has to reply to a million people like "NO IT'S NOT TRUE CHLOÉ WAS JUST BEING A LYING JERK AS ALWAYS OKAY" and she doesn't even know if anyone believes her and she is NOT looking forward to school tomorrow

And sure enough the next day at school everyone keeps asking her about it and she's like "CHLOÉ'S A LIAR EVERYONE KNOWS THIS I MEAN OKAY SHE DOESN'T LIE AS MUCH AS LILA BUT STILL" and eventually most people believe her bc she's kinda scary lol

Adrien keeps sorta avoiding her bc he's trying super hard to not be crushing on her and she's like "????" about it and wondering why her friend won't talk to her today

She also starts feeling bad bc she knows she's bad at making friends so she wonders if she's done something wrong

At the end of the day he leaves the locker room super fast (even Nino's like "wut") and Alix gathers her stuff and quickly runs after him like "Adrien wait where are you going???" but when she gets to the street outside his limo is already leaving

She turns around and walks straight into Kim who's like "so tell me again how you and Adrien aren't a couple"

She's like "we're not, he's just my friend okay" and Kim's like "oh come on don't think I haven't noticed you two hanging out with each other all the time lately and always talking to each other, and you even went to his thing on the weekend with him even though you hate stuff like that, and now he's not talking to you for some reason"

Alix is like "yh idk why he's not talking to me but seriously he's just my friend okay!" and Kim's like "do you seriously actually promise he's just your friend and that you're not into him" and Alix is like *grabs the front of his hoodie and pulls him down to her level to yell at him and not noticing he's blushing* "yes for frick's sake that's what I told you, and anyway whether or not it's true, what does it mean to you? It's nothing to do with you so why do you even care so much??"

Kim is an idiot and just kisses her and then says "cause I like you" and runs off, meanwhile Alix is in shock and wondering whether or not she is justified in murdering him

Then on her way home she starts thinking about it like (yes finally here is where it starts getting obvious she's aro ace) she's thinking it's actually kinda flattering that Kim likes her? And she thinks that maybe if she dates him then she might end up liking him since that's what happens right? And he's considered conventionally hot right?

When she's at home she gets a phone call from him and he's like "aack I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that I'm an idiot and can we just pretend that never happened" and she's like "whatever it's no big deal just ask me next time k"

He's like "...next time?" and she's like "well since you said you like me I'm assuming that means you probably wanna kiss me again right?" (Internally "that's a normal people thing right?") and he's like "omg well... I mean... I don't really mind but like... I guess if you're okay with it then like... idk you could be my girlfriend or something idk just saying..."

She's like "sure why not" and he's like "omg really? I didn't actually expect you to say yes omg well okay should I like take you out to dinner or something?" and she's like "k sure"

When she gets back from dinner her father's back from work like "where were you" and she tells him and he immediately becomes #1 heartrate stan

Also she checks her phone and sees that Chloé has already told everyone that Alix and Kim are a couple bc she saw them kiss (bc it was like... out in the road it wasn't exactly easy to miss...) and this time she's like @everyone "yes Chloé's actually telling the truth this time lol"

And she tells Jalil about needing to find Rania's diaries and he says that all their old family items are in storage in the museum and he has the next two weeks off so he'll look for them once he gets back to work and Alix is like fine but she's impatient bc she cares more about finding out about that watch than anything else

The next day Chat Noir and Ladybug are patrolling at night and she's like "kitty you seem kinda off today, what's up"

Chat's like "oh it's nothing much, it's just this girl I like got with someone else, dw I'll get over it" and Ladybug's like *flirtily* "I thought you liked me" and he's like "yeah of course lol" and he remembers how much he does love Ladybug

He feels conflicted bc he knows he can never be with her bc of the Decision but he wishes he could at least have a chance

Since he isn't doing that great Ladybug tells him to go home early and she'll carry on by herself tonight

So he leaves and he detransforms into Adrien and he's walking back home when Ladybug drops down in front of him upside-down and is like *blushing* "h-hi Adrien what's up"

He (being oblivious and not realizing this is literally how Marinette talks to him) is like "lol nothing much haha..." and wonders why she treats him differently to how she treats Chat Noir

She asks if he needs her to accompany him home or something bc it's quite late and dark and he shouldn't be out alone and he's like "nah it's okay but thanks, I love you" and then he CAN'T BELIEVE HE JUST SAID THAT IT JUST SLIPPED OUT BC HE WAS TIRED

AND LADYBUG IS TAKEN ABACK

AND THEY'RE LOOKING AT EACH OTHER WITH THEIR FACES SUPER CLOSE

AND THEN LADRIEN SPIDERMAN KISS HELL YEAH

AND THEN LADYBUG'S LIKE "I LOVE YOU TOO" AND LEAVES

Meanwhile the next few weeks Alix is still wondering why Adrien won't talk to her that much but she tries to just forget about it

And she's always confused about why Kim wants to spend so much time with her??? Like yes they're dating but like doesn't he have a life of his own??? And no one else seems to think it's weird???

And she has a habit of zoning out when he's talking about mushy stuff and he eventually catches on (he was like "since you're so ridiculously smol you'd have to like stand on a chair to make out it'd be hilarious...") and says "you're not listening are you?" and she's like "yh of course I was!... okay fine I was thinking about my watch sorry"

And now you finally see her proper (very aro ace) internal thoughts about stuff - she's still confused bc she's just never been interested in people like everyone else? And she used to think maybe she was a lesbian but she had never been interested in girls either? And since she's 15 her hormones should be all over the place and they are but only in a mood swing way and not in a horny way? So she's thinking... why can't she fall in love like everyone else does?? Is she missing out on something?? Bc Kim seems to be happy...

Also at some point mention that she tells Kim her first kiss wasn't actually him (it was Juleka but she doesn't say bc she doesn't want to out her) and Kim is annoyed bc he was sure it would have been him lol

After some weeks Jalil gets back to work experience at the museum and he finds Rania's diaries but there's a heck ton to sort through so he says it might still take some time (basically I just need a buffer period... there needs to be time...)

And then on Friday afternoon he tells Alix to come to the museum after school bc he's found the relevant part of the diaries so she comes along (and so does Kim bc he's just kinda there lol)

Meanwhile their dad's in a meeting so they can look at it without him knowing

Basically it says that yes Rania gave the watch to Leila who was her oldest child, but that's because she wanted to make something special by herself for her younger daughter Anna so she made a cool engraved pen thing and decided she would give that to Anna on her 15th birthday instead

Also there's an old timey photograph of the pen and it looks really familiar for some reason

Anyway now Alix knows the youngest child rule is fake so she feels like she should confront her dad about it or at least ask him or whatever

Jalil's staying late at the museum today bc he has to catch up on the work he missed while he was looking for Rania's diaries so Alix takes Kim back to her house and she has like 2 hours to kill before her dad gets back

And she wants to do something cool like rollerskating but Kim suggests making out and she's like fine even though she finds it pretty boring (I told you she's aro ace)

Anyway when her dad gets back Kim leaves like "btw you can come over to mine later today if you want ;)"

Then Alix is like @her dad "can I ask you about something" and he's like "sure but why are you standing on a chair" and she's like "NO REASON" and quickly steps down

Then she's like "why did you give the watch to me instead of Jalil?" and he's like "bc it's passed down to the youngest child" and she's like "...but that's not true, is it..."

He's like "k fine but like... Jalil will probably inherit stuff anyway right? So why not give you something too?" and she's like "but he loves historical stuff, he would have loved the watch just as much as I do and would have had more to research with it"

He's like "well... I just thought... since the watch has to be passed down through the family, that... well... you would be more likely to actually have kids to pass it onto... because..."

She's just like "is this because Jalil is gay?" and her dad's like "wth how do you know???" and she's like "he told me when I was like 9... So you're saying you didn't give him the watch bc he's gay so he won't have kids... and what makes you so sure I'm not gay too??"

He's like "well I just took a chance that you wouldn't be and I was right bc you have a boyfriend! So yeah I'm relieved, the bloodline is unbroken and the watch can still be passed down for generations"

She's like "dad... are you disappointed in Jalil" and the dad's like *FRICKIN HESITATES FOR A SECOND* "no of course not"

Alix is like "........ I'm going to Kim's house" and her dad's like "k well don't get back too late, call Jalil to pick you up if you need a lift back bc I have to go for another meeting tonight also be responsible and have fun etc"

As she's on the way to Kim's house she's starting to feel ever so slightly broken bc she knows she's not straight and she doesn't love Kim but she doesn't know what she is or why she can't feel anything

And now that there's more pressure than ever on her to be straight so she can have kids to pass the watch onto since that was enough of a reason for her dad to not give the watch to Jalil... she hadn't even realized it was such a big deal and she feels guilty even though it's not her fault

She also knows her dad's probably somewhat disappointed in her already bc she's so temperamental and reckless etc and not really what you'd expect from a daughter and yet he still trusted her with the watch and she feels like she should at least manage to do something to make him proud since she feels like she's just an ungrateful burden who has never really done anything

So she decides she's gonna try her hardest to be straight now even though like the idea of doing stuff like getting married and having kids actually suffocates her

She gets to Kim's house and tells him what happened with the watch drama and then says she'd rather forget about it for now so why don't they like put on a movie or something (bc that way she doesn't have to put any effort into pretending to be romantic)

So Kim's like "k yeah I've got netflix so like... we could put on netflix ... and... yknow... chill..."

(this is why I wanted like 5 weeks inbetween bc he's not gonna just ask something like that after only 2 weeks no matter how much of a reckless idiot he is)

And Alix catches the euphemism and her first thought is "THAT'S GROSS EW" but then she remembers her earlier promise to herself and figures that if other people want to do it and think it's fun then surely there must be some appeal? And maybe it'll flip a switch and make her normal? So she's like "yeah sure"

But then afterwards she goes to the bathroom and throws up so like ... uh... yeah, poor aro ace child who is also sex-repulsed

She vows never to do that again in her life

And then Kim's like "you okay?" and she's like "yup gotta go" and he's like "but it's a hailstorm outside you could always wait til like after dinner or something" and she's like "NOPE I'M LEAVING" and gets outta there asap

Walking through the hail she knows she should probably call Jalil to pick her up but she doesn't feel like talking to anyone so she just trudges along feeling VERY broken and VERY sorry for herself

She knows it didn't fix her and if anything it just made her more averse to the idea of ever being with anyone and she can't figure out why she's so heartless and prudish and she just highkey wants to die bc she feels like she'll never live up to anything she's supposed to be

Ladybug suddenly sees her like "omg Alix what are you doing in this hailstorm?? You should get to shelter!" and Alix is like "idc..."

Ladybug uses her yoyo to make a shield to block the hail like an umbrella and asks "yo what's wrong" and Alix is like "I did something really stupid and I regret it and I really hate myself right now" and Ladybug's like "aw it's okay, here, I'll take you home" and she picks her up and yoyos her back to her house

Alix goes in and Jalil sees her there drenched and shivering and he's like "omg Alix you could have asked me to pick you up??" and she just starts crying so he wraps her in a warm towel and makes soup for her

He's like "what happened?" and she's like "I don't wanna talk about it"

He's like "did Kim break up with you or something?" and she's like "no nothing like that he did nothing wrong it's something else but seriously I don't wanna talk about it, just let it go" and instead she tells him about the real reason their dad didn't give the watch to him

Jalil's like "k that makes sense thanks for telling me..."

The whole of the next day Alix spends in her room being emo and ignoring any messages Kim sends her bc she doesn't want to think about anything even though she knows she probably should talk to him at least once

Then on Sunday Max calls her up like "oi why are you ignoring Kim omg just go talk to him!!" and she's like "k fine... I was totally just busy haha... yeah... busy..." and Max is like "he went out for a run to that padlock bridge place so why don't you just go meet him there" so Alix is like k and skates there

Kim sees her and he's like "omg there you are! Are you okay??" and she's like (lying) "yeah I'm fine dw I was just busy and stuff"

He's like "k I'm glad to hear that... anyway uh actually I was gonna say that like... honestly it seems like you're always bored or not interested and stuff so like idk maybe we should just be friends instead if that makes you happier bc seriously you just seem like you're not interested in me so..."

She's like *remembers her dad is #1 heartrate stan* "wait what no! Haha of course I'm totally like head over heels for you... definitely..." and he's like "you're not a very good liar"

She's like "okay fine... fine I don't like you like that, I think you're cool but I'd rather be your friend... it's just..." *deep breath bc she's never told anyone before* "I figured out lately that I'm not exactly... straight... and idk what I am but like... I thought maybe dating you would kinda... idk... fix it? And bc I also found out that thing I told you about the watch, so if I'm not straight then I'll let my family down... and I'm sorry for like... using you I guess? Idk... I'm just really confused right now about myself..."

Kim hugs her and he's like "It's okay dw, I'll support you no matter what and we can still be great friends okay? In fact tbh I'm... I'm actually bisexual but I've only ever told Max... but yeah you're awesome and if you ever need anything then just ask me okay" and she's like "thanks, yeah let's just be friends that's better"

(lol you can tell this is my brotp can't you)

Anyway when Alix tells her dad she broke up with Kim he's like "but heartrate is my otp..." lol

And yeah next week at school everyone finds out idk it doesn't matter that much tbh

Then at some point Adrien is called to talk to his father about something important and he's thinking "ack what have I done now..."

Gabriel's like "son it's not long til your 16th birthday and we have to start making preparations for stuff which means I need you to make your decision soon. As you know it's family tradition that sons must be betrothed to someone by their 16th birthday, and since our family is wealthy you would do well to choose another wealthy suitor which is why the default choice has been Chloé Bourgeois since you were a young child. Now in order to make proper preparations you will need to make your final decision by the end of the school year."

Adrien's internally like "why can't we have cool family traditions like passing down a frickin hologram watch..." and externally like "but I don't want to marry Chloé, please father just let me have more time" and Gabriel's like "sorry son but there is nothing I can do, this is what your mother would have wanted"

Adrien knows he hasn't talked to his friend in a while but he suddenly remembers that she's single now so he's like "wait father... you said it has to be someone wealthy right? Would Alix Kubdel count?" and Gabriel's like "yes but she and her family must agree to it"

So Adrien decides he'll ask her bc he kinda still likes her and it's better than Chloé

Mostly he wishes he knew who Ladybug was and that she was rich and loved him back so he could just marry her

Meanwhile Kim asked out Max and they got together (bc kimax is life and also this story was seeming a little too straight for my liking so far... despite the title...) and Alix is starting to feel lonely again bc now she feels like a third wheel when hanging out with them so she doesn't

And she's back to having no real friends and it kinda hurts bc she thinks maybe she's just doomed to be bad at dealing with people in general

Also she's still feeling like something is very, very wrong with her since she just CAN'T fall in love with anyone even though everyone else seems to and now even when she makes new friends they leave her and she just feels alone and unhappy and doesn't know what to do

Jalil brought Rania's diaries home so she starts reading through them and at least it's some consolation for her to discover that Rania was very similar to her - fiery, impulsive, sporty, etc

But she still feels broken bc she knows that at least Rania got married and had kids so at least she must have been normal...

K so on some weekend or something Adrien calls up Alix like "uh can we meet up? I need to talk to you about something" and she's like "yeah sure" *glad that her old friend is back*

They go for a walk and stop by at Marinette's bakery for snacks (#letadrieneat2k16) (2k17??) and Marinette's all like stuttering and blushing and dropping stuff bc ADRIEN EEP

And then they go hang out in the park or something

Alix is like "it's weird how Marinette's always like that around you but no one else" and Adrien's like "yeah that's been confusing me too, idk why she does that" and Alix is like "maybe Chat Noir should ask her about it, hint hint" and Adrien's like "huh that's a good idea"

Then Adrien's like *deep breath* "okay and also I have to ask you about something... and it's really weird and awkward but um... basically my family has a family tradition too except my one is stupid, it's that the sons have to be betrothed to someone by the time they turn 16, I know it's really old-fashioned and stupid, but my mum wanted me to and I should honour her memory... Anyway my father says it has to be someone from a rich family, and ever since I was little Chloé has been the default choice and I don't really want to get engaged to her for obvious reasons haha... so I need to choose someone else and soon... so I was thinking... um..."

Alix is like "you want me to help you find a cute rich girl before you turn 16? Sure" (god she's so aro ace I'm going to cry)

Adrien's like "well actually... to tell the truth I've kinda liked you for a while... and you're rich... and I asked my father and he's fine with it... so I was wondering... if I could choose you instead?"

And it takes like 10 seconds to sink in and she's like "wait are you basically asking me to marry you?" and he's like "...well yeah I guess"

She suddenly feels incredibly guilty bc she knows if she says no then that'll doom Adrien to a life with Chloé but she CAN'T say yes bc the idea of being with someone like that for the rest of her life makes her feel sick to her stomach and she doesn't know if that makes her selfish but she's also upset bc she thought her friend was properly back but he just wanted to talk to her about this and it's ruined everything

And she knows saying yes would be what she'd do if she was perfect etc bc that would make Adrien and his family happy and her own family would be happy but she JUST CAN'T BECAUSE IT MAKES HER WANT TO KILL HERSELF

Adrien's like "btw you don't have to decide now I've still got like 2 weeks" but she says "I'm sorry Adrien BUT I JUST CAN'T OKAY, I JUST WANTED TO HAVE A FRIEND, I'M SORRY BUT I DON'T LIKE YOU LIKE THAT AND I KNOW I NEVER WILL" and leaves and goes back home and locks herself in her room and has a breakdown

Later Adrien's wishing he wasn't rich and he wishes his mother was still here and he wishes life was easier for him etc

He remembers Alix's suggestion about going to see Marinette as Chat Noir so even though it's late night now he transforms and goes to see her

(bet you weren't expecting a Marichat balcony scene, huh? Surprise!)

He knocks on the roof thing and Marinette opens it like "omg Chat Noir? What are you doing here? Is an akuma after me or something?"

He's like *surprised bc it's true she treats him differently to Adrien* "no I just wanted to talk to you about something, someone asked me to" so she's like k and they go out on the balcony to have a chat

He's like "so you know Adrien Agreste right? I believe he's a classmate of yours... Anyway he talked to me bc he's worried that he's doing something wrong. You still seem to treat him differently from how you treat everyone else, and he's wondering if you're still upset about the gum incident, or..."

Marinette's like "oh no, nothing like that! I forgave him for that a long time ago! It's actually, well, it's kinda stupid haha... I actually have a MASSIVE crush on him and I'm just really bad at talking to him bc I get flustered around him, that's all!"

Chat Noir's like "omg wait... you have a crush on Adrien??? Really???" and she's like "yeah!!" and he's like *suddenly realizing how cute Marinette is when she laughs* "well... I think you should ask him out..." and she's like "haha I'm trying..."

Then he's like "um I gotta go" and quickly leaves

He's hanging around the rooftops just thinking to himself that he never even let himself consider Marinette as someone to fall in love with bc he always thought maybe she didn't really like him so he always considered her out of his league

And now that he knows she likes him he suddenly can't get her out of his head and he just wishes she was rich bc that would be perfect but since she isn't rich he probably shouldn't get his hopes up bc how could he have a chance with her now...

He bumps into Ladybug who's like "hey kitty kat what's up" and he's immediately like "I just found out that there's this girl who has a crush on my civilian self and I think I'm starting to fall for her so yeah, that's what's up"

And he notices the colour draining from Ladybug's face and he's like "omg are you okay?? What happened??"

She grabs his shoulders and looks him in the eye like "is the girl you're talking about Marinette Dupain-Cheng???" and he's like "yeah how did you know?"

She's like "omg ADRIEN??? IT'S YOU??? YOU'RE CHAT NOIR??????????????" and he's like "wait what?? How did you figure that out?? I mean I am but..." *suddenly dawns on him* "omg... wait... don't tell me that YOU'RE MARINETTE??????????????"

They both stand there staring at each other in complete shock for several long seconds

Finally Chat suddenly smiles and he's like "I'm so glad that out of everyone it could be, it's you... Marinette..."

He detransforms and stands there in front of her as Adrien and she's still staring at him in shock

Then she very softly says "Tikki, detransform me" and turns into Marinette and still stands there staring

Then she jumps forward and wraps him in a huge hug

Also Tikki and Plagg are like "yoooooooooooo I haven't see you in years!!!!!!!" and totally hanging out too

That very night even though it's really late Adrien goes to his father and asks him "please I have something really important to ask... for my decision... what about Marinette Dupain-Cheng?? I know she isn't rich, but... PLEASE consider it..."

Gabriel's like "oh yes of course she'll do, she is an EXCELLENT fashion designer you know, she has a lot of talent and I would be glad to have someone like her to be a part of the family and run the company after me"

Adrien can barely believe his ears and he runs into his room and screams into his pillow bc finally he feels like he actually has a chance to have a good life that isn't always restricted all the time

The next day he meets up with her at the bakery and he gets down on one knee like "will you marry me" and she's like "um ily Adrien but I'm 15 and so are you... I don't even think we CAN legally get married yet..."

He explains the betrothal thing and that he doesn't have much time left but he'll understand if she says no bc it's a lot of pressure but she's like "well of course I say yes but I'll have to ask my parents haha"

She asks them and they talk to Gabriel Agreste and everything gets sorted out and the engagement party is planned for Adrien's birthday

At school they tell everyone while handing out the invitations and Adrien was worried Chloé was gonna be upset but she's like "Adrien I'm so happy you're gonna get to marry someone you really care about!" Then she whispers at him "btw I'm a lesbian so don't worry about having broken my heart or anything hehe" and he's like "whoa... okay... I didn't see that coming..."

Also Alix is like "I thought you said you had to marry someone rich" and he's like "my father made an exception for Marinette bc she's a fashion designer like him" and Alix is like "well I'm super happy for you... and SUPER relieved..."

But she knows now she's probably never getting her friend back properly, ever

Months later at the engagement party all the classmates are there and super happy to support Adrienette becoming canon (same omgggg it's my otp couldn't you tell)

The wedding won't be for years yet at least bc they're way too young lol but Gabriel's already started planning it

And Marinette designed outfits for all her classmates to wear today so they're all wearing those

Poor Alix is in a dress again, save her, anyway she's trying to feel happy but she really can't help feeling rotten bc at this point she has no friends and seeing Adrienette happen just reminds her of how she's not normal or whatever and she can't figure it out

Also by this time other class couples are together too like djwifi and Julerose and everyone's using this occasion as a celebration of romance etc kinda like Valentine's Day except on a different day (idk when Adrien's birthday is but I'm guessing some point later in the year) so that pretty much just makes her feel extra broken bc she can't get away from any of it

She goes to the bar like "gimme an entire bottle of the strongest stuff you have" and the person's like "uh how old are you??" and she's like "... 25" and puts a giant wad of banknotes on the table so the person's like "... okaaaay, here" and gives her a big bottle of something idk

He's like "you should probably dilute it with water though" and she's like "don't tell me what to do" and takes it and starts to walk off

Then Nathaniel sees her and he's like "uh I don't think you should drink that..." and she's like "I don't give a crap" and heads outside by herself

It's dark and quiet out here bc atmosphere lol

Anyway she takes a sip but it tastes disgusting like bleach mixed with rotted grape juice and she's so annoyed she just smashes the entire thing on the ground and then just sits there highkey wanting to die

Nathaniel comes along like "whoa what happened here" and she's like "WHAT DO YOU WANT" and he's like "I just wanna know what's wrong..." and sits down beside her

She's like "fine... it's just I think there's something wrong with me - no actually I KNOW there is, I can just never do anything right, I can't be normal like I'm supposed to and I just keep letting everyone down. My dad already hates that his daughter isn't exactly a Rose-type airy fairy princess and I just never fit in and I'm terrible at doing what I'm told and maybe I'm just being selfish and I should try to change? But I have tried and it doesn't work, I just can't be who I'm supposed to... and... even worse... I'm just completely heartless..." *starts crying* "Everyone around me always seems to be in love with someone all the time and they make it sound so nice and happy and I don't know what I'm missing out on bc I've never felt that way about anyone! And I really have tried but I just can't, it just never works and idk why, maybe I'm just broken or something, there's something wrong with me. I mean I can't even make friends properly and I don't want to be lonely but idk what to do... Something is very, very wrong with me, Nath, and I've tried so hard to fix it but I can't, I just can't do anything right, and I'm a 15 year old I should have liked at least someone by now, my hormones are supposed to be all over the place! But I just don't! I'm a failure! And don't try to tell me I'm not!"

Nath's like "... maybe you're just... aromantic" and she's like "aromantic???" and he's like "yeah, it just means you don't get romantically attracted to people. It's uncommon, sure, but there's nothing wrong with it, being aro just means you're different that's all, and it doesn't mean you can't care about people in other ways"

She's like "... there's a word for that??? Aromantic??? It's a real thing???" and he's like "yeah you should look it up, there's a pride flag for it and everything"

She's like "omg... so there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just... aromantic... omg... wait are you aromantic too?"

He's like "nah I get crushes on people... I am asexual though" and she's like "isn't that a biology thing??" and he's like "yeah but also it means I don't get sexually attracted to people... sounds kinda gross if you ask me though I won't judge anyone for wanting to do it..."

She's like "omg there's a word for that too??? I just thought my hormones were way off whack or something..." and he's like "nah there's nothing wrong with being ace too, or aro ace, if that's what you are, I promise you aren't broken for not wanting romance or sex, you're just different that's all, and there ARE other people like you out there"

She's like "but can you still be ace if you've had sex with someone?" and he's like "yeah of course..." and she's like "omg so this whole time, I thought something was wrong with me, but I was just aro ace... and it's a real thing... whoa... omg thank you so so so much Nath" and she suddenly hugs him

He's like "no problem, it took me a while to come to terms with it too hehe. Anyway I brought you some of the engagement cake, do you want it? Cake is apparently the symbolic ace food" and she's like "omg thanks" and starts eating the cake

And he's like "btw... I get the whole not being able to make friends thing. I can't either. I'm just... idk I'm too shy I guess... I've never really had a close friend before... especially not in this class..." and she's like "well you've just made a new friend, and she's wondering why she never tried to make friends with you before" and he's like "omg ahh really? Thanks"

They sit there eating cake for a while and then Nath's like "I feel like drawing... sorry I draw all the time lol..." and he pulls a sketchpad and pen out of his pocket

Alix sees the pen and she's like "wait a second, that looks really familiar... omg it's Anna's pen??? From that picture I saw in Rania's diary???" and he's like "what?"

She's like "do you have a really old ancestor called Anna by any chance" and he's like "oh idk... I think when I was younger I remember going to the funeral of my great-grandma Anna..." and she's like "where did you get that pen from??" and he's like "it was a birthday present from my dad when I turned 15, apparently it's an antique, my grandad used to own it too but it somehow still works"

She's like "omg I found the other descendant of Rania??? This is SO COOL! Omg dude we are really distantly related!!!" and she explains and shows him the watch

He's like "omg what are the odds of that?? That's awesome!!"

And yeah for the first time in a while, she actually feels pretty good

It's an unspecified amount of time later and she's on the roof again with Adrien and Plagg

Adrien's like "so you're aro ace... I'm really happy for you that you know now"

Plagg's like "I didn't know the term existed but I can tell you with complete certainty that Rania was aro ace too, she hated stuff like that"

Alix is like "I know, I've finished reading her diaries now. She got married to her friend bc she was expected to but she refused to let it go anything beyond friendship, and then when there was pressure to have kids she adopted Leila and Anna, saying that there were too many poor orphans in the world who need taking care of to have more kids. Which means that I'm not even biologically descended from Rania, which means that my dad's point about the watch having to stay in the bloodline is completely null and he could totally have given the watch to Jalil. But anyway I don't care what my dad says, in the future I'll give it to some cool kid on their 15th birthday - maybe yours and Marinette's, if you ever have kids lol"

Adrien's like "we probably will... She's so awesome I love her so much... I don't know how I never realized it before, Marinette's just absolute perfection, she's so sweet and wonderful and pretty and just everything I ever wanted..."

He goes on and on being all lovey dovey and Alix just grins and grabs a bit of Camembert and mutters "I'm too aro ace for this"

[ohwowbabee]

Affiliate Funnels by JP Schoeffel Bonus

Affiliate Funnels by JP Schoeffel Bonus

Affiliate Funnels Review and Bonus by JP Schoeffel – Best New Affiliate Marketing Platform Developed To Build Your Lists And Generate MASSIVE Commissions

Affiliate Funnels by JP Schoeffel bonus

Affiliate Funnels by JP Schoeffel venx is the best, it will save your time and money.

This platform is so simple and so effective, even my kids can use it. So I won’t waste your time with boring salesy pitch, just check our unprecedented set of features. We’ve packed everything we know in SaaS and Digital marketing into the easiest and most effective Affiliate Solution ever created. It’s not just that we’ve done all the work for you, we’ve done the work that probably 99.99% of marketers using this platform could not have ever done on their own. And the following is what happens when you combine the power of Technology with Digital Marketing expertise to help you succeed in Affiliate Marketing. However simple this SaaS is to use, we still want to deliver the best onboarding experience. When you join today, you’ll get access to our Live* kickstart webinar. We will cover everything you need to know to start using Affiliate Funnels right away. If you can’t make it, you’ll get access to the replay. And you can always access our training center or ask our success agents to help you right from within the platform (no email or old school help desk, but onsite support widget).

But although the features list is amazing, the platform is so simple to use, it’s even ridiculous. You pick an offer, pick the list you want to add your leads to, click “Get Funnel Link” and you’re done in less than 30 seconds! You just need to share your funnel link to start building your lists and generating commissions. Oh and btw, they also provide affiliate funnels promoting physical products and free + shipping offers! This package has never been released and I can tell you this – you’ll be surprised and amazed at just how good this is! With the click of a button, you will configure your funnel with your affiliate link, connect it to your list (optional but recommended) and that’s it! And these are not some quickly thrown together landing pages. You get audio, video funnels. You get conversion boosting features such as triggered optin, 1-click optin, you also get Messenger based funnel… and the list goes on. Still it’s dead easy to use, and I strongly suggest you check their demo video and what’s included in this amazing affiliate marketing solution.

Affiliate marketing is the easiest digital business model out there. You pick an offer, get your affiliate link and share it, and you expect to make some commissions. It’s that easy anymore. It used to be, but not anymore. You need to stand out of the crowd to succeed as an affiliate marketer. You need to build your lists to succeed as an affiliate marketer. You need to provide a positive and enjoyable experience to succeed as an affiliate marketer. You need to build rapport with your visitors to succeed as an affiliate marketer. Now the big question, is how do you do all of this, it’s not easy to setup, especially when you want to promote many different products!

Affiliate Funnels Review and Bonus by JP Schoeffel – Best New Affiliate Marketing Platform Developed To Build Your Lists And Generate MASSIVE Commissions is the best. You will be like a professional.

Get Now Affiliate Funnels :

Affiliate Funnels Review and Bonus by JP Schoeffel – Best New Affiliate Marketing Platform Developed To Build Your Lists And Generate MASSIVE Commissions

Affiliate Funnels OTO / Upsell :

MAIN OFFER: AFFILIATE FUNNELS STARTER PACK (30 FUNNELS)

UPSELL 1: AFFILIATE FUNNELS ELITE PACK (50 MORE FUNNELS)

UPSELL 2: AFFILIATE FUNNELS PERFORMANCE PACK (Monthly pack + Funnel Builder)

Affiliate Funnels Benefits :

Multi-Media Funnels All our funnels are designed and produced using multi-media technologies. You will get funnels using text, images, audio or video based on the products and your traffic source (scroll down for some demos). This gives you the flexibility to match the funnel to your traffic and make sure it always converts well!

Multi-Channel Funnels As you know, you can’t rely on just 1 touch point to convert people. Our funnels have multi-channel capabilities (if this sounds like greek to you, we’ll show you examples below) so your visitors can use email (of course), but also sms / text messages, Messengers to get in touch with you.

Multi-Angles Funnels An offer can solve different problems for different group of people. Our funnels are behavioral based and were designed to offer solutions to different problems. You will find some of our funnels have multiple variations to offer a different solution to your prospects! It’s the secret sauce 6-figures CPA marketers use each and every day!

Affiliate Funnels Features :

30 Ready Made Affiliate Funnels! When you join today, you’ll get 30 Affiliate Funnels and Campaigns loaded into your account. All promoting digital or physical products from the following affiliate networks: Clickbank, JVZoo, Paykickstart, Zaxaa, WarriorPlus, Amazon…

Plug-N-Play Nothing to download, nothing to install. You just enter your affiliate IDs (from JVZoo for example) in the Settings. You then pick a funnel / an offer you want to promote and our engine will customize it with your affiliate link in just a few seconds. You click “Get Funnel Link” and you’re ready to go. And on top of that our engine will send the leads to your autoresponder (see below)!

Build Your Lists With the click of a button, you connect AffiliateFunnels to your autoresponder and you start collecting leads instantly. All your leads are also stored in your account if you want to export them later  (in case you don’t have an autoresponder yet). We natively work with the best email marketing systems, and we keep adding more. We also integrate with Zapier so you can connect with all the tools on the market. Of course you can associate each Funnel you create with a different lists.

Messenger Ready 1.3 bn messenger users can’t be wrong. 65% of FB users use Messenger on a monthly basis. You can’t ignore it, and you must use it in your funnels. Which is why we provide funnels with a direct integration to your page Messenger so that you can remove all friction and use the channel your prospects are already using. They’re waiting for you in there and with Affiliate Funnels, you have direct access to them! And it’s all automated (your visitors will automatically receive the link to your offer! (we’ll show you how of course)

Unlimited Traffic Whether you’re new to affiliate marketing or a 6-figure affiliate veteran, we will match your needs. You can send unlimited traffic to your Affiliate Funnels. There’s no limit or monthly quota. We’re using world class cloud servers on Amazon that can scale on demand so you never have to worry about anything technical. We just have a fair use policy and we do not accept bot clicks, or similar high volume useless traffic sources

Many Niches We provide ready made funnels in many different niches so you can diversify your income streams and find real winners. Internet Marketing is great, but there’s also so much potential in niches such as: Survivalism, Health & Fitness, Finance, Real Estate, Hobbies, Photography, Self Improvement, Personal Development, Woodworking…whatever you’re into or want to promote, we got you covered!

Best Selling Digital Products We hand pick the best selling digital products on different affiliate networks so you don’t have to guess what to promote. Our funnels are optimized to promote these offers with the push of a button.

Free Plus Shipping Offers Physical products are selling like hot cakes, especially those using the Free + Shipping business model. You promote a product people can get for free (they only pay for shipping) and you make money on all the upsells! And you also make money on the shipping. We’ve created some amazing video funnels for this purpose to boost your conversion rates on these physical products.

Video Landing Pages People love to watch videos. Is it any wonder why Youtube and Facebook are competing for your videos? We’ve designed fully based video funnels to engage with your audience and drive conversions through the roof. Our videos are not salesly, they frame the problem and what kind of solutions can be found. They then ask for the click or the optin based on the landing page objective (redirect or collect leads, your choice)

Audio Landing Pages What if you could greet your visitors with a nice audio message that will play when they reach your funnel? It creates rapport, sets the stage instantly and put them in good mood. Why is it useful? Well, don’t you prefer hanging out with someone friendly, polite and caring, or with someone rude asking you to buy his stuff right away?

Conversion Boosting: Delayed Call-To-Action In some cases, you only want people to watch the video or read the copy and not be distracted by the call-to-action asking them to click or signup. We’ve designed funnels where the call-to-action and optin forms are hidden and only appear when your visitors are ready to take action! It’s another behavioral conversion boosting feature Affiliate Funnels offer, right off the bat! Click the button below to see a demo (for the sake of this demo, button appears after 5 seconds)

Conversion Boosting: Triggered Optin Forms Do you know that even a small commitment can make a huge difference to your bottom line. If you ask too much right away (a name and an email), sometimes, it can put people off and they will leave. The smallest commitment could be as simple and easy for your visitor as clicking on a button (Learn more for example). With our technology, when someone clicks on this button, it will then display the optin form. And since they already commited to a click, most of the time, they will fill the optin form!

Multi-Steps Pre-Selling Funnels The warmer your visitors are, the more likely they are to convert on the offer you’re promoting. Sometimes, they need more time and more attention. That’s the purpose of a Multi-Step Pre-Selling funnel. You’re not just sending people to your optin page. Once they join your list, they are redirected to a 2nd page, delivering more content, educating them on the offer and thus pre-selling it for you! This is a highly effective weapon that can 3x your sales.

SSL Hosting Included We host all your funnels on our highly secured servers (powered by Amazon AWS Cloud Solutions), and they come with an SSL certificate as well. It gives credibility to your funnels and makes you look like a super hero in the eyes of your prospects.

Legal Pages It’s always a good practice to add a privacy page to your optin page, especially when using Facebook or Google to get traffic. Your funnels all come loaded with a privacy page so you don’t have to worry about any issue when asking and collecting information from your visitors

Advanced Tracking By default, you can add those famous utm tracking parameters to your funnel links and our engines will track your traffic sources, which content generated clicks, which ads converted the best, which medium or channel is your best performing, and you don’t have to setup any external tracking, not even Google Analytics. It’s all in there, included for your convenience for those of you who are data driven.

Comprehensive And Extensive Reporting We track the performance of each one of your Affiliate Funnels the number of visitors, click-through rates, conversion rates. But we don’t stop there. We tell you which country converts the best, what are your best traffic sources, your best ads and channels so you don’t have to guess and you can focus on  making more money.

Traffic Regeneration Your funnels have a traffic regeneration engine built-in to make sure people do not leave your funnels before they take action. We re-target them instantly when we detect they want to leave your page with an offer they can’t refuse carrying your affiliate links. A great way to improve your bottom line and to earn more from your funnels.

Automated Conversion Optimization When we re-target your visitors we show them an automatically optimized offer based on what is converting the best in our network in the niche you’re promoting. This is a HUGE feature as we do all the optimization for you picking the right offer to put in front of your audience at the right time, and based on what we know converts. This is what our machine learning Recommendation Engine can do for you and on autopilot. More hands free conversions and sales for you.

COMING SOON…March 2018

Offer Flexibility Although we handpick the best selling offers in different niches for you, you still have the freedom to pick a different offer (we do suggest many alternatives as well to eliminate some of the grunt work on your end), and promote it using your Affiliate Funnels. Or you might want to redirect your prospects to your Bonus page. We know some want this flexibility and we’re happy to help you as much as we can to achieve your goals.

Multi-Routing Technology Say you want to add leads to your autoresponder AND also subscribe them to your Gotowebinar or Everwebinar session. You can do so without any extra work. Our multi-routing technology allows you to send your leads to multiple services at once. Up to 8 routes can be combined (as of writing)!

Increase Optin Rate & End Bogus Emails Let’s face it, the average conversion rate on an optin form is in the 25-45% range. We’ve developed a 1-click Optin technology that pre-populates your optin form with your visitors’ email address, increases the conversion rate by up to 70-75% and end the bogus / fake email syndrom forever. All your funnels are equipped with this technology and we will show you how to make the best use of it. (when you click the demo button below, the optin form will already be pre-populated)

Export Your Funnels Although we provide a 1-click complete process and we host, maintain and optimize the funnels for you, you may want to download the funnel to install them on your own server or domain. Well you can do so easily, simply click the “Export” icon and you will receive your funnel ready to be uploaded. And all the tracking and amazing features we have will still be working!

Unlimited Instances Of Any Funnel Your account comes with 30 ready-made funnels. Each funnel will suggest an offer to promote. But what if you want to test the same funnel with a different offer? It’s simple. We allow you to create unlimited instances of any funnel available in your account. So you can re-use the same funnel over and over as you see fit.

Perkzilla Integration (Coming Soon) Build viral campaigns and let your subscribers drive all the traffic for you and generate even more passive commissions. This integration is currently under development and will be included in your account when it’s ready

Switch From Optin Funnel To Click-Through Funnel Sometimes, you don’t want to collect leads and have an optin form on your landing page. With Affiliate Funnels, we’ve made it easy to switch from Optin Funnel to what we call Click-Through Funnel where your visitors just have to click on the call-to-action link to go to the next step of the funnel. Each funnel comes with this handy and powerful feature. Since you have unlimited Funnel Instances, you can play with this feature as much as you want!

Affiliate Funnels Testimony

“I can only say good things…super easy to setup, intuitive interface…Everything is setup with a click of a button. Thanks for this great product. Keep up the good work!” – Stephen Fenech, Digital Marketing

“The best and easiest affiliate package I’ve ever seen that was offered on the Internet and by anyone” – James Ellison, Retired Military (US ARMY)

“Thank you for the incredible system you put together. I can see how much you guys have invested into the system and the level of care you have for your customers.” – Harry L., Digital Marketer

“How to Make Easy Money. Are you looking to make money with little to no work, and as quick as possible? Have no fear – doing so is easy! Look here.” – Mike Geary, Internet Marketer

“You guys Rock! No questions yet, just wanted say thanks for such a powerful tool!” – William M, Internet Entrepreneur

“It’s a wonderful program to start Internet business..!!” – Gary Singh, US Army Retired

“The perfect way to begin and learn how to begin your own business in affiliate marketing” – Borbely Kenderesi Andrea, Customer Service Representative

“A real Done for You money making website! Can’t get better than this.” – Eric Artiles, Swimming with dolphins

“Thses are the best looking and easiest affiliate sites ever!” – Emary Van Merlin, Lives in Hawaii

Affiliate Funnels Bonuses :

Bonus #1: Intensive 3-Week Traffic Generation Training Program (official retail) 5 Workshops, over 4 hours of training teaching you how to easily generate FREE  traffic to your funnels on demand

Bonus #2: Affiliate Funnels Campaign (or how to easily promote Affiliate Funnels with a ready made campaign) Access our exclusive campaign promoting Affiliate Funnels (with our high pre-selling video included)

Bonus #3: “Lead Pro Systems” Funnel (4-step video course & case study funnel) Promote this best selling SaaS Platform (Lead & ROI generation platform) using a Video Course / Case Study 4-step funnel (optin page, 2 training videos, offer page) all automated for you. Simply enter your JVZoo Id and your traffic will be tracked through this 4-step funnel guaranteed (your links are hardcoded throughout the whole funnel)

Bonus #4: Stay Fresh – 1 New Funnel Every Week During 10 Weeks! Yep, even if this offer is a one time low payment of $27, our team will make sure you remember this purchase for the rest of your life Joke aside, we’ll add a new Affiliate Funnel to your account each and every week during the next 10 weeks . We will pick a best selling product during that week and create a new funnel just for you…that’s how cool we are!

Bonus #5: 1 Access To The Affiliate Funnels Facebook Group! Share ideas, strategies and tactics to generate more leads and earn more commissions using Affiliate Funnels. Suggest new features and interact with like minded affiliate marketers

Try Affiliate Funnels Now For 30 Days 100% Risk Free!

We’re 100% confident you’re going to love building your lists and earning commissions with Affiliate Funnels. But if you don’t…We’re offering you a full 30 day, no questions asked 100% money back guarantee. Simply drop us a message in the live chat box within 30 days of your purchase and we’ll send you your money back, no questions asked, just a thanks for giving it a shot!

forget about wasted time end payment high price,. Affiliate Funnels is something I’ve been waiting for, I had seen these kinds on many sites before but didn’t now of any tool that could create like Affiliate Funnels. My advice don’t wait around, jump in! Affiliate Funnels will pay for itself as soon as you start using it.

Affiliate Funnels is the best software on the market right now (as far as I know). Affiliate Funnels comes with easy to follow instructions. You don’t need any technical experience to make these improvements. is good news for online bussiness. Affiliate Funnels by JP Schoeffel Bonus

Get Now Affiliate Funnels :

related Affiliate Funnels

Affiliate Funnels review bonus, Affiliate Funnels bonus review, Affiliate Funnels bonuses, Affiliate Funnels discount, Affiliate Funnels discount coupon, Affiliate Funnels huge discount, Affiliate Funnels

Affiliate Funnels by JP Schoeffel Bonus

[brandynette]

The night i reinstalles a w98 over the phone.

I was a techie at a really small firm in Paraguay S.A., only 3+ supervisors. We were open until 20. We sold computers and repaired hardware but not operating systems. Pre-installed, what is that? Please refer to Microsoft. Google? LOL!

It was a long time ago, so please imagine the small details. Paraguay has a humidity of 80% and 32°C in the shadows at 10 in summer. Air-conditioning is a luxury and we have stand ventilators. But one summer night, around 18-19 or so...

|J:caller B:me

Call comes in

J: My name is "J", I'm this old and have a problem.

B: Hello, you are talking to "B". How can I be of assistance?

J: My computer is giving me an error. I bought it last year at your firm.

B: Please describe me the error or tell me the color of the screen?

J: The screen goes blue with an error code. This is the code

Ohh crap ... blue screen of death! Either reboot or call Microsoft, if it isn't a hardware error

B: this error code refers to an OS error. I'm sorry but you must call Microsoft to fix this!

J: I know, I called. They closed at 18.

Supervisor comes up cause we need to have our meeting. Bah, we live in Paraguay. He wants to close early, since no one ever needed anything after 18. The only reason why we closed at 20 was because it was the owners idea to be special.

B: The only thing I can do is pick up the pc and reinstall as a service. We will fix it in 2 days.

(Rant in 3... 2... 1...!!!) J was actually clear, calm and serious.

J: I really need this computer to work today because of a serious reason...

(can't remember, if it was work or family but it was the best reason one could have given me at that time)

B: I am not really sure how I could help you since it's an OS error. This is normal, we've had several complaints about this version

Supervisior yells my name...

mute mic

yell back give me 10 min, I'll close up!

J: To be honest you are my last hope, I need it to work! Could you help me reinstall it?

J: I have never done it and I'm afraid, besides they said that an idiot could install it. I'm not an idiot, they are idiots for making a crappy product.

Triggered my revolutionary anti-Microsoft, open source spark... lel I have never had a support call like this, I'm intrigued.

B: Ok, to reinstall it, you will need a copy, do you have one?

J: yes

B: Place it into the CD-drive and reboot.

J: Nothing happens and it goes back to the blue screen of death...

Cd-rom is not selected as first boot device... gotta get into the bios.

B: Ok, stay calm, this is going to be tricky. Once you reboot, immediately start pressing DEL repeatedly. A hidden menu will appear. That is called the bios.*

J repeats instructions... bip... keyboard hitting sounds

J: it is back at the BSoD

B: Then you missed it, start hitting and then reboot!

J keybord hitting... bip... keyboard hitting...

J:There is a green screen menu*

Supervisior comes and tells me to stop the call, since it's over the time...

B: overtime my ass, we're open until 20!

(boss knows me and I'm safe!)

I just showed a noob the first secret of them all! I'm not ending this now besides I already have the key, since I'm the one who is going to open! Corrupt bastard, admin type who once in his life reinstalled something, your fat wife is the bosses sister SOB... is what I wanted to say... However, J is still waiting at the entrance to the Matrix!

B: With the key buttons, move to the last tab of the menu. There will be a boot option. This boot option has to say CD-Rom.

J: Yeah, I figured out that by reading. What else is here, what can I do with this menu??? WOW!

B: J, seriously please don't touch anything else here or we could damage your pc and then we WILL need to get it fixed at our service!

(Yep, overclock that thing and bye bye, no safety rom in a class C electronics of S.A.)

J: OK, understood. Now what...???? (J exited the bios, I could tell)

B: go to the last tab, save and exit. enter

J: BIP... it is loading something at the top

B: EXCELLENT! Now it is a step by step easy setup, Win98 will guide you through the rest...

J: no it wont, I have this x version.

B: OMG! Why did they sell a normal user that version, that version is for someone like me or a programmer???

J: Microsoft, you know....

B: i knooowww!!!

J: Could you help me step by step?*

I'm like I can but seriously don't want to, this would take 3 hours at least. Maaaaaann universe you had to pick me today? out of my head

B: ok but you owe me dinner! laugh

J: laughs! DEAL!

B: ok but you gotta give me a little time to get the manual for this.

Couldn't find it, someone must be using it at home... crap. Only option is to install it by guiding J step by step... Im using linux, no pc at the firm has an W... Linux + Windows. AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHA, one has to die! Google? LOL. Couldn't find his version of Win98, but I do have a similar one... it'll have to do. Time to unearth another pc to use. search mainboard + proc ... harddrive... mem... video card (cus GPUs were something new, rofl) hotwire that thing to a keyboard a mouse and a screen all in 20min or less...

J: plays elevator music

B: WTF? J ARE YOU THERE???

J: Yeah I'm here, I just felt it was appropriate while I waited...

OMG, who the fuck is this guy??? Is he trolling me???? BIP... Mine boots up and loads...

B: Are you still waiting at the first Win98 install screen?

J: Of course.

B: great... Do this... and that

J: Ok ok ok ok ok

*and so on and so forth, UNTIL!!! until I realized I fucked up! There was one different setting and yeah the universe praised me with a second try! J was cool about it, he said we are human we make mistakes, hence Microsoft... we realized we were of similar minds and even as we had a hard battle with our machines, we had a strange but fun game night.

While I was still there the in morning, the lovely supervisor cames in again.

Eventually, it worked out J was out of his mind, couldn't believe he managed to do it, neither was I! I was expecting a third or fourth try, ending in me marrying his sister in law... hahaha

call ends

Supervisor asked me WTH is going on... phone rings! Not me, I dont care, not my call, I'm done for the week!

X: I want to talk to the supervisor... I have something to report

HEAVY RANTING!!! one could hear her screaming

S: Yes ma'am, what can I help you with? HEAVY RANTING!!! one could hear her screaming even louder

10 min pass, supervisor hangs up.

Cheese white, silently talks to me. Come with me, I'll drive you to get you some breakfast. Where would you like to go? It was the brother in law of the sister in law... or some other strange "conexión familiar", that is the norm in paraguay I never took his job, but the supervisor became my B****

Had 2 great years until the company shut down, I would have loved to own that place! SNAP! I'm still friends with J!

Btw, the key word to the error puzzle is "MILENIUM"

Thank you very much for reading this very very very long call. Want a techie potato? Google it! hahahaha

Kudos from Brandynette

4 Users have helped me to edit and update! Thank you very much <3

$TDLR Customer wanted a step by step walk trough of an OS installation.

[ormlacom]

The State of Searcher Behavior Revealed Through 23 Remarkable Statistics

Something every woman should know - WHY MEN LIE!

Posted by randfish

One of the marketing world's greatest frustrations has long been the lack of data from Google and other search engines about the behavior of users on their platforms. Occasionally, Google will divulge a nugget of bland, hard-to-interpret information about how they process more than X billion queries, or how many videos were uploaded to YouTube, or how many people have found travel information on Google in the last year. But these numbers aren't specific enough, well-sourced enough, nor do they provide enough detail to be truly useful for all the applications we have.

Marketers need to know things like: How many searches happen each month across various platforms? Is Google losing market share to Amazon? Are people really starting more searches on YouTube than Bing? Is Google Images more or less popular than Google News? What percent of queries are phrased as questions? How many words are in the average query? Is it more or less on mobile?

These kinds of specifics help us know where to put our efforts, how to sell our managers, teams, and clients on SEO investments, and, when we have this data over time, we can truly understand how this industry that shapes our livelihoods is changing. Until now, this data has been somewhere between hard and impossible to estimate. But, thanks to clickstream data providers like Jumpshot (which helps power Moz's Keyword Explorer and many of our keyword-based metrics in Pro), we can get around Google's secrecy and see the data for ourselves!

Over the last 6 months, Russ Jones and I have been working with Jumpshot's Randy Antin, who's been absolutely amazing — answering our questions late at night, digging in with his team to get the numbers, and patiently waiting while Russ runs fancy T-Distributions on large datasets to make sure our estimates are as accurate as possible. If you need clickstream data of any kind, I can't recommend them enough.

If you're wondering, "Wait... I think I know what clickstream data is, but you should probably tell me, Rand, just so I know that you know," OK. :-) Clickstream monitoring means Jumpshot (and other companies like them — SimilarWeb, Clickstre.am, etc.) have software on the device that records all the pages visited in a browser session. They anonymize and aggregate this data (don't worry, your searches and visits are not tied to you or to your device), then make parts of it available for research or use in products or through APIs. They're not crawling Google or any other sites, but rather seeing the precise behavior of devices as people use them to surf or search the Internet.

Clickstream data is awesomely powerful, but when it comes to estimating searcher behavior, we need scale. Thankfully, Jumpshot can deliver here, too. Their US panel of Internet users is in the millions (they don't disclose exact size, but it's between 2–10) so we can trust these numbers to reliably paint a representative picture. That said, there may still be biases in the data — it could be that certain demographics of Internet users are more or less likely to be in Jumpshot's panel, their mobile data is limited to Android (no iOS), and we know that some alternative kinds of searches aren't captured by their methodology**. Still, there's amazing stuff here, and it's vastly more than we've been able to get any other way, so let's dive in.

23 Search Behavior Stats

Methodology: All of the data was collected from Jumpshot's multi-million user panel in October 2016. T-distribution scaling was applied to validate the estimates of overall searches across platforms. All other data is expressed as percentages. Jumpshot's panel includes mobile and desktop devices in similar proportions, though no devices are iOS, so users on Macs, iPhones, and iPads are not included.

#1: How many searches are *really* performed on Google.com each month?

On the devices and types of queries Jumpshot can analyze, there were an average of 3.4 searches/day/searcher. Using the T-Distribution scaling analysis on various sample set sizes of Jumpshot's data, Russ estimated that the most likely reality is that between 40–60 billion searches happen on Google.com in the US each month.

Here's more detail from Russ himself:

"...All of the graphs are non-linear in shape, which indicates that as the samples get bigger we are approaching correct numbers but not in a simple % relationship... I have given 3 variations based on the estimated number of searches you think happen in the US annually. I have seen wildly different estimates from 20 billion to 100 billion, so I gave a couple of options. My gut is to go with the 40 billion numbers, especially since once we reach the 100MM line for 40 and 60B, there is little to no increase for 1 billion keywords, which would indicate we have reached a point where each new keyword is searched just 1 time."

How does that compare to numbers Google's given? Well, in May of 2016, Google told Search Engine Land they "processed at least 2 trillion searches per year." Using our Jumpshot-based estimates, and assuming October of 2016 was a reasonably average month for search demand, we'd get to 480–720 billion annual searches. That's less than half of what Google claims, but Google's number is WORLDWIDE! Jumpshot's data here is only for the US. This suggests that, as Danny Sullivan pointed out in the SELand article, Google could well be handling much, much more than 2 trillion annual searches.

Note that we believe our 40–60 billion/month number is actually too low. Why? Voice searches, searches in the Google app and Google Home, higher search use on iOS (all four of which Jumpshot can't measure), October could be a lower-than-average month, some kinds of search partnerships, and automated searches that aren't coming from human beings on their devices could all mean our numbers are undercounting Google's actual US search traffic. In the future, we'll be able to measure interesting things like growth or shrinkage of search demand as we compare October 2016 vs other months.

#2: How long is the average Google search session?

Form the time of the initial query to the loading of the search results page and the selection of any results, plus any back button clicks to those SERPs and selection of new results, the all-in average was just under 1 minute. If that seems long, remember that some search sessions may be upwards of an hour (like when I research all the best ryokans in Japan before planning a trip — I probably clicked 7 pages deep into the SERPs and opened 30 or more individual pages). Those long sessions are dragging up that average.

#3: What percent of users perform one or more searches on a given day?

This one blew my mind! Of the millions of active, US web users Jumpshot monitored in October 2016, only 15% performed at least one or more searches in a day. 45% performed at least one query in a week, and 68% performed one or more queries that month. To me, that says there's still a massive amount of search growth opportunity for Google. If they can make people more addicted to and more reliant on search, as well as shape the flow of information and the needs of people toward search engines, they are likely to have a lot more room to expand searches/searcher.

#4: What percent of Google searches result in a click?

Google is answering a lot of queries themselves. From searches like "Seattle Weather," to more complicated ones like "books by Kurt Vonnegut" or "how to remove raspberry stains?", Google is trying to save you that click — and it looks like they're succeeding.

66% of distinct search queries resulted in one or more clicks on Google's results. That means 34% of searches get no clicks at all. If we look at all search queries (not just distinct ones), those numbers shift to a straight 60%/40% split. I wouldn't be surprised to find that over time, we get closer and closer to Google solving half of search queries without a click. BTW — this is the all-in average, but I've broken down clicks vs. no-clicks on mobile vs. desktop in #19 below.

#5: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to AdWords/paid listings?

It's less than I thought, but perhaps not surprising given how aggressive Google's had to be with ad subtlety over the last few years. Of distinct search queries in Google, only 3.4% resulted in a click on an AdWords (paid) ad. If we expand that to all search queries, the number drops to 2.6%. Google's making a massive amount of money on a small fraction of the searches that come into their engine. No wonder they need to get creative (or, perhaps more accurately, sneaky) with hiding the ad indicator in the SERPs.

#6: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to Maps/local listings?

This is not measuring searches and clicks that start directly from maps.google.com or from the Google Maps app on a mobile device. We're talking here only about Google.com searches that result in a click on Google Maps. That number is 0.9% of Google search clicks, just under 1 in 100. We know from MozCast that local packs show up in ~15% of queries (though that may be biased by MozCast's keyword corpus).

#7: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to links in the Knowledge Graph?

Knowledge panels are hugely popular in Google's results — they show up in ~38% of MozCast's dataset. But they're not nearly as popular for search click activity, earning only ~0.5% of clicks.

I'm not totally surprised by that. Knowledge panels are, IMO, more about providing quick answers and details to searchers than they are about drawing the click themselves. If you see Knowledge Panels in your SERPs, don't panic too much that they're taking away your CTR opportunity. This made me realize that Keyword Explorer is probably overestimating the degree to which Knowledge Panels remove organic CTR (e.g. Alice Springs, which has only a Knowledge Panel next to 10 blue links, has a CTR opportunity of 64).

#8: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to image blocks?

Images are one of the big shockers of this report overall (more on that later). While MozCast has image blocks in ~11% of Google results, Jumpshot's data shows images earn 3% of all Google search clicks.

I think this happens because people are naturally drawn to images and because Google uses click data to specifically show images that earn the most engagement. If you're wondering why your perfectly optimized image isn't ranking as well in Google Images as you hoped, we've got strong suspicions and some case studies suggesting it might be because your visual doesn't draw the eye and the click the way others do.

If Google only shows compelling images and only shows the image block in search results when they know there's high demand for images (i.e. people search the web, then click the "image" tab at the top), then little wonder images earn strong clicks in Google's results.

#9: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to News/Top Stories results?

Gah! We don't know for now. This one was frustrating and couldn't be gathered due to Google's untimely switch from "News Results" to "Top Stories," some of which happened during the data collection period. We hope to have this in the summer, when we'll be collecting and comparing results again.

#10: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to Twitter block results?

I was expecting this one to be relatively small, and it is, though it slightly exceeded my expectations. MozCast has tweet blocks showing in ~7% of SERPs, and Jumpshot shows those tweets earning ~0.23% of all clicks.

My guess is that the tweets do very well for a small set of search queries, and tend to be shown less (or shown lower in the results) over time if they don't draw the click. As an example, search results for my name show the tweet block between organic position #1 and #2 (either my tweets are exciting or the rest of my results aren't). Compare that to David Mihm, who tweeted very seldomly for a long while and has only recently been more active — his tweets sit between positions #4 and #5. Or contrast with Dr. Pete, whose tweets are above the #1 spot!

#11: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to YouTube?

Technically, there are rare occasions when a video from another provider (usually Vimeo) can appear in Google's SERPs directly. But more than 99% of videos in Google come from YouTube (which violates anti-competitive laws IMO, but since Google pays off so many elected representatives, it's likely not an issue for them). Thus, we chose to study only YouTube rather than all video results.

MozCast shows videos in 6.3% of results, just below tweets. In Jumpshot's data, YouTube's engagement massively over-performed its raw visibility, drawing 1.8% of all search clicks. Clearly, for those searches with video intent behind them, YouTube is delivering well.

#12: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to personalized Gmail/Google Mail results?

I had no guess at all on this one, and it's rarely discussed in the SEO world because it's so relatively difficult to influence and obscure. We don't have tracking data via MozCast because these only show in personalized results for folks logged in to their Gmail accounts when searching, and Google chooses to only show them for certain kinds of queries.

Jumpshot, however, thanks to clickstream tracking, can see that 0.16% of search clicks go to Gmail or Google Mail following a query, only a little under the number of clicks to tweets.

#13: What percent of clicks on Google search results go to Google Shopping results?

The Google Shopping ads have become pretty compelling — the visuals are solid, the advertisers are clearly spending lots of effort on CTR optimization, and the results, not surprisingly, reflect this.

MozCast has Shopping results in 9% of queries, while clickstream data shows those results earning 0.55% of all search clicks.

#14: What percent of Google searches result in a click on a Google property?

Google has earned a reputation over the last few years of taking an immense amount of search traffic for themselves — from YouTube to Google Maps to Gmail to Google Books and the Google App Store on mobile, and even Google+, there's a strong case to be made that Google's eating into opportunity for 3rd parties with bets of their own that don't have to play by the rules.

Honestly, I'd have estimated this in the 20–30 percent range, so it surprised me to see that, from Jumpshot's data, all Google properties earned only 11.8% of clicks from distinct searches (only 8.4% across all searches). That's still significant, of course, and certainly bigger than it was 5 years ago, but given that we know Google's search volume has more than doubled in the last 5 years, we have to be intellectually honest and say that there's vastly more opportunity in the crowded-with-Google's-own-properties results today than there was in the cleaner-but-lower-demand SERPs of 5 years ago.

#15: What percent of all searches happen on any major search property in the US?

I asked Jumpshot to compare 10 distinct web properties, add together all the searches they receive combined, and share the percent distribution. The results are FASCINATING!

Here they are in order:

Google.com 59.30%

Google Images 26.79%

YouTube.com 3.71%

Yahoo! 2.47%

Bing 2.25%

Google Maps 2.09%

Amazon.com 1.85%

Facebook.com 0.69%

DuckDuckGo 0.56%

Google News 0.28%

I've also created a pie chart to help illustrate the breakdown:

If the Google Images data shocks you, you're not alone. I was blown away by the popularity of image search. Part of me wonders if Halloween could be responsible. We should know more when we re-collect and re-analyze this data for the summer.

Images wasn't the only surprise, though. Bing and Yahoo! combine for not even 1/10th of Google.com's search volume. DuckDuckGo, despite their tiny footprint compared to Facebook, have almost as many searches as the social media giant. Amazon has almost as many searches as Bing. And YouTube.com's searches are nearly twice the size of Bing's (on web browsers only — remember that Jumpshot won't capture searches in the YouTube app on mobile, tablet, or TV devices).

For the future, I also want to look at data for Google Shopping, MSN, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, Yandex, Baidu, and Reddit. My suspicion is that none of those have as many searches as those above, but I'd love to be surprised.

BTW — if you're questioning this data compared to Comscore or Nielsen, I'd just point out that Jumpshot's panel is vastly larger, and their methodology is much cleaner and more accurate, too (at least, IMO). They don't do things like group site searches on Microsoft-owned properties into Bing's search share or try to statistically sample and merge methodologies, and whereas Comscore has a *global* panel of 2 million, Jumpshot's *US-only* panel of devices is considerably larger.

#16: What's the distribution of search demand across keywords?

Let's go back to looking only at keyword searches on Google. Based on October's searches, the top 1MM queries accounts for about 25% of all searches with the top 10MM queries accounting for about 45% and the top 1BB queries accounting for close to 90%. Jumpshot's kindly illustrated this for us:

The long tail is still very long indeed, with a huge amount of search volume taking place in keywords outside the top 10 million most-searched-for queries. In fact, almost 25% of all search volume happens outside the top 100 million keywords!

I illustrated this last summer with data from Russ' analysis based on Clickstre.am data, and it matches up fairly well (though not exactly; Jumpshot's panel is far larger).

#17: How many words does the average desktop vs. mobile searcher use in their queries?

According to Jumpshot, a typical searcher uses about 3 words in their search query. Desktop users have a slightly higher query length due to having a slightly higher share of queries of 6 words or more than mobile (16% for desktop vs. 14% for mobile).

I was actually surprised to see how close desktop and mobile are. Clearly, there's not as much separation in query formation as some folks in our space have estimated (myself included).

#18: What percent of queries are phrased as questions?

For this data, Jumpshot used any queries that started with the typical "Who," "What," "Where," "When," "Why," and "How," as well as "Am" (e.g. Am I registered to vote?) and "Is" (e.g. Is it going to rain tomorrow?). The data showed that ~8% of search queries are phrased as questions .

#19: What is the difference in paid vs. organic CTR on mobile compared to desktop?

This is one of those data points I've been longing for over many years. We've always suspected CTR on mobile is lower than on desktop, and now it's confirmed.

For mobile devices, 40.9% of Google searches result in an organic click, 2% in a paid click, and 57.1% in no click at all. For desktop devices, 62.2% of Google searches result in an organic click, 2.8% in a paid click, and 35% in no click. That's a pretty big delta, and one that illustrates how much more opportunity there still is in SEO vs. PPC. SEO has ~20X more traffic opportunity than PPC on both mobile and desktop. If you've been arguing that mobile has killed SEO or that SERP features have killed SEO or, really, that anything at all has killed SEO, you should probably change that tune.

#20: What percent of queries on Google result in the searcher changing their search terms without clicking any results?

You search. You don't find what you're seeking. So, you change your search terms, or maybe you click on one of Google's "Searches related to..." at the bottom of the page.

I've long wondered how often this pattern occurs, and what percent of search queries lead not to an answer, but to another search altogether. The answer is shockingly big: a full 18% of searches lead to a change in the search query!

No wonder Google has made related searches and "people also ask" such a big part of the search results in recent years.

#21: What percent of Google queries lead to more than one click on the results?

Some of us use ctrl+click to open up multiple tabs when searching. Others click one result, then click back and click another. Taken together, all the search behaviors that result in more than one click following a single search query in a session combine for 21%. That's 21% of searches that lead to more than one click on Google's results.

#22: What percent of Google queries result in pogo-sticking (i.e. the searcher clicks a result, then bounces back to the search results page and chooses a different result)?

As SEOs, we know pogo-sticking is a bad thing for our sites, and that Google is likely using this data to reward pages that don't get many pogo-stickers and nudge down those who do. Altogether, Jumpshot's October data saw 8% of searches that followed this pattern of search > click > back to search > click a different result.

Over time, if Google's successful at their mission of successfully satisfying more searchers, we'd expect this to go down. We'll watch that the next time we collect results and see what happens.

#23: What percent of clicks on non-Google properties in the search results go to a domain in the top 100?

Many of us in the search and web marketing world have been worried about whether search and SEO are becoming "winner-take-all" markets. Thus, we asked Jumpshot to look at the distribution of clicks to the 100 domains that received the most Google search traffic (excluding Google itself) vs. those outside the top 100.

The results are somewhat relieving: 12.6% of all Google clicks go to the top 100 search-traffic-receiving domains. The other 87.4% are to sites in the chunky middle and long tail of the search-traffic curve.

Phew! That's an immense load of powerful data, and over time, as we measure and report on this with our Jumpshot partners, we're looking forward to sharing trends and additional numbers, too.

If you've got a question about searcher behavior or search/click patterns, please feel free to leave it in the comments. I'll work with Russ and Randy to prioritize those requests and make the data available. It's my goal to have updated numbers to share at this year's MozCon in July.

** The following questions and responses from Jumpshot can illustrate some of the data and methodology's limitations:

Rand: What search sources, if any, might be missed by Jumpshot's methodology? Jumpshot: We only looked at Google.com, except for the one question that asked specifically about Amazon, YouTube, DuckDuckGo, etc.

Rand: Do you, for example, capture searches performed in all Google apps (maps, search app, Google phone native queries that go to the web, etc)? Jumpshot: Nothing in-app, but anything that opens a mobile browser — yes.

Rand: Do you capture all voice searches? Jumpshot: If it triggers a web browser either on desktop or on mobile, then yes.

Rand: Is Google Home included? Jumpshot: No.

Rand: Are searches on incognito windows included? Jumpshot: Yes, should be since the plug-in is at the device level, we track any URL regardless.

Rand: Would searches in certain types of browsers (desktop or mobile) not get counted? Jumpshot: From a browser perspective, no. But remember we have no iOS data so any browser being used on that platform will not be recorded.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Reverse Phone - People Search - Email Search - Public Records - Criminal Records. Best Data, Conversions, And Customer Suppor