#But it definitely is tricky deciding when the value of life starts/starts to equal your own. ESPECIALLY in Xadia

[imminent-danger-came]

Honestly, if Sarai actually knew to ask all the right questions about Dark Magic, that almost makes it worse that she went along with it anyway. She said all the ways that DM was bad then went along with it and said "oh well, gotta support my husband, y'know?" If Callum did that, people would be raking him over the coals for all time.

GIRL. WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE.

[cabinofimagines]

Reyna’s ABCs

A/N: Guys I’m so in love with Reyna -Danny

Request: Hey! Can I request an ABC list for Reyna? Idk if they're only for the 7 and if so, sorry for wasting your time. Have a great day! // Can you please do Reyna ABC’s? I can never find Reyna content // Reyna ABC’s please?

Words: 1,370

Activities - What do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?

I see Reyna as the kind of gal who would spoil you. Just name it. Whatever it is you wanna do she’s in, she’s got you, food? Movies? Don’t worry babe she already has five places on her list that she’s sure you’ll love

Beauty - What do they admire in their s/o? What do they think is beautiful about them?

She really likes your eyes and it’s going to sound kinda cheesy but she’s also a big fan of you’re personality and sense of humor, she just can’t get enough of you  

Comfort - How would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?

She’s a natural leader, therefore, she knows exactly what to do to get you back on your feet, she’s learnt to read you like a pro and know exactly the kind of stuff that will keep you going. She might even use a bit of her power to give you the strenght to finish your day and then cuddle with you for the rest of the night.

Dreams - How do they picture their future with their s/o?

She sees a house on some place warm, probably a bunch of dogs, a life when you two can relish on being together and have nothing to worry about or feel ashamed of, she sees a quiet life, where you are her favourite constant.

Equal - Are they the dominant one in the relationship, or rather passive?

Oh man, oh shit, Reyna tends to be controlling even without trying, it’s just the power she carries in her, you know? She definitely is the dominant one, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t melt at the sight of you.

Fight - Would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?

It’s hard for her to stop being angry, sometimes turns brutally cold and distant, but she always apologizes properly, or if it’s you who messed up, she always treats you gently afterwards so you know she still loves you

Gratitude - How grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?

Reyna’s had a rough life, she might get distracted in the heat of the moment but at the end of the day she’s always there kissing you good night and reminding you how special you are in her life. She never stops trying.

Honesty - Do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?

When it comes to her “normal” life Reyna is an open book after a while of dating you, however, I think she prefers to keep her work to herself and forget about it while she’s with you.

Inspiration - Did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?

She’s a bit more chill after knowing you, she doesn’t feel as pressured as before to be perfect and that’s a huge relief to her. You’ve changed too, became a bit more daring and just a tad sporty, but really, Reyna is better with the whole “healthy stuff” 

Jealousy - Do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?

Nah man, perhaps during the whole ‘are we flirting, do they like me?’ part she was jealous of random people approaching you and making you laugh, but once you start dating she knows she’s got you and no one can change that. (Unless you decide otherwise, ofc) 

Kiss - Are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?

REYNA IS SUCH A GOOD KISSER OMG I BEG YOU MA’AM JUST ONE SMOOCH WOULD BE ENOUGH

Love Confession - How would they confess to their s/o?

Probably came out stiff and awkward but she asked you out in one try. Her shoulders relaxed instantly the moment you smiled and said yes. She was so scared but won’t admit it lmao

Memory - What’s their favourite memory together?

Probably the first time you told her you love her. She felt overwhelmed and just couldn’t believe what you said until you repeated like five times. That’s when people started to say her eyes had a new brightness in them.

Nicknames - What do they call their s/o?

“Amor” probably, “sweetheart” when she’s teasing.

On Cloud Nine - What are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?

No one had a fucking clue she liked you until suddenly you two are dating and everyone was like ??? It’s not like he ever tried to hide it though, it’s more on her actions or words that you can really tell she likes someone.

PDA - Are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?

Not that she’s shy, she just doesn’t like others around when she’s being all cute with her partner. She likes to have privacy, feels that way it feels more special when she gets to kiss you.

Quirk - Some random ability they have that’s beneficial in a relationship.

Reyna CAN DANCE. She’s latina, she was born with them good steps. Definitely made you fall for her during a night out dancing in the middle of the street. 

Romance - How romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?

I think she’s the kind to be ‘I worship you’ about her s/o, treats you like a unique treasure and at the same time it’s like she’s just hanging out with her best friend. Funny combination but it works perfectly.

Support - Are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? Do they believe in them?

She’s a ride or die. Will judge you a bit if your decisions feel a tad impulsive or not like something you would do on a normal day. Probably will interrogate you as to why you decide to do something that feels too rash. However, if you manage to prove you’re not crazy lmao, she’s 100% there to support you.

Thrill - Do they need to try out new things to spice up your relationship? Or do they prefer a certain routine?

I feel like we’re answering this the same way with everyone but tbh that’s demigods for you lmao they really just want a break. Maybe she likes to plan a few trips from time to time just to take you to meet places, but most of the year is spent in a comfortable, calming routine.

Understanding - How well do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?

Feelings are a tricky thing for her, but she’s memorized every little thing about you, so all she has to do is ask “how are you feeling?” and “can i help you?” and she’ll know how to procceed right after you give her an answer. But communication is key, Reyna isn’t a mind reader and she will need you to help her a bit.

Value - How important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?

Very important. You’re her family now.

Wild Card - A random Fluff Headcanon.

Reyna’s favourite thing to do when she’s feeling down is lay her head on your lap and let you braid her hair while watching shitty actions movies.

XOXO - Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?

I’d say she likes it a healthy amount, but not very affectionate in public unless you ask for it.

Yearning - How will they cope when they’re missing their partner?

She pours herself in her wrk and tries not to get too worry, you can take care of yourself and she’ll see you soon, that’s her mantra.

Zeal - are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind of?

She’s prepared to do sacrificies, but definitely not the kind who would throw away everything just to keep you happy, her opinion is that a healthy relationship should meet half-way.

Taglist:   @beneaththeiceandsnow​  @bandshirts-andbooks​ @smileitsisa 

[babettekourelos]

Flour Power

Flour is flour, right?

Wrong!!

All flour is definitely not made equal. Not only do we need to differentiate between cake flour, bread flour and all purpose flour - we also have to consider the differences between commercial and artisanal flour i.e. bleached/unbleached and roller milled or stone ground flour. Not to mention organic flour, enriched flour, whole wheat and rye. Gluten free and alternative flours are also worth discussing but will form the subject of a different article.

If we were to take a look inside most pantries around the world, we would in all likelihood find a bag of cake or all purpose flour. These flours are perfectly suited for the occasional weekend or holiday bake. In the last 12 months however, another flour has become prevalent in our kitchens... I am of course referring to bread flour. As a result of the lockdowns imposed by governments across the globe in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the world watched a bread baking revolution unfold on social media. When our survival instincts kicked in, flour became a hot and very scarce commodity. Bread after all is and has always been the staff of life. Suddenly GLUTEN was the least of our problems and everyone scrambled to get their hands on the last available bags of flour. Even the folks who had never baked a single thing in their lives prior to the pandemic, now boasted well stocked baking cupboards but had no idea where to start. I am guessing that many have eventually taken the leap and at least baked a handful of times - but for those of you who are still sitting on the baker's fence, hop on over and let me guide you the first steps of the way.

First off, we have cake flour. As the wheat flour with the lowest protein content (5% - 8%), cake flour is perfect for making soft, light and airy baked goods such as cakes, cookies or pancakes. Cake flour is made from soft spring wheat and due to the low protein content, this flour is not suitable for bread baking as it is impossible to achieve a strong gluten structure which consequently results in a dough which cannot retain its shape (unless it is baked in a bread tin). Cake flour is able to absorb more liquid and sugar than all purpose or bread flour and thus your baked goods will stay moist for longer. Yum!

Pastry flour has an 8% - 9% protein content, which results in a slightly more developed gluten structure, which in turn allows for easier shaping and handling of the dough. Pastry flour is best suited for flaky pastries, sweet or savoury pies, tarts and quiches. Not as common as cake, bread and all purpose flour, you will probably struggle to find pastry flour at your local grocery store. You may have better luck sourcing it from a speciality bake shop or online.

Next up, we have all purpose flour. This flour is pretty versatile, as it is a perfect mix of soft and hard wheat flour. With a protein content of 10% - 12%, this flour is well suited for bread baking as it is capable of forming a decent gluten structure. All purpose flour is most commonly found in North America, where it is the go-to flour for most types of baking. You can easily make your own all purpose flour by mixing together equal amounts of cake and white bread flour. If a bread recipe calls for all purpose flour, but you only have bread flour on hand, don't stress - you will still be able to bake a decent loaf of bread. There really is no reason to over think it.

Bread flour usually has a protein content of 12% - 14%. Due to the high protein content, this flour is able to produce a strong gluten structure, which will allow the dough to easily retain its shape. The final loaf will also boast good volume and yield a wonderfully chewy crumb. The terms whole meal ,whole grain and whole wheat are often used interchangeably and simply refer to bread flours containing varying degrees of the entire wheat kernel. If you are looking to incorporate more whole grains into your diet, you can easily replace half of the amount of white flour required in a recipe with the same amount of whole grain flour. Whole grain flour boasts a slightly darker colour (think brownish/tan) and coarser texture as a result of the presence of the wheat bran. Unlike pure white wheat flour, baked goods made with whole grain flours will be a little more dense, heavy and compact. This is due to the fact that the bran is razor sharp and easily severs the delicate gluten strands, which severely weakens the dough structure and thereby inhibits the size of the final loaf. However, rest assured that while you may be sacrificing volume, the final loaf is guaranteed to offer a tastier and more wholesome loaf than a standard white loaf.

Next we have rye flour. Rye falls within the wheat family but has a low glutenin content, which consequently results in a lower gluten content in the dough and the final loaf. (Note: Gluten = a full/complete protein and is formed out of the two partial proteins 'glutenin' and 'gliadin'.) People who suffer from slight gluten or digestive issues, may find it beneficial to favour rye bread over pure wheat breads. It is important to note however that some folks incorrectly assume that rye is gluten free. Although lower in gluten, it is definitely not gluten free. It is also worth mentioning that the three types of commercially available rye flours (light, medium and dark) actually do not refer to different varieties of rye, but rather to the amount of bran left in the flour. Thus, the darker the rye, the more whole grain the flour. The lighter the rye, the more refined the flour. When it comes to baking, the texture of rye can be a bit intimidating if you are new to rye - it is sticky and tacky and a little tricky to control. So you may want to consider using a mix of 50% white flour and 50% rye instead of immediately tackling a 100% rye recipe. Although rye is considered by some to be an acquired taste, I believe the only reason people think they do not enjoy rye is due to the common addition of caraway, cumin and sometimes fennel seeds. You can easily omit these fragrant seeds and enjoy the natural taste of the rye instead.

When you are just starting to bake bread at home you, you have the wonderful opportunity to make informed decisions about the type of flour you will be using. Thus it is important to understand the manner in which the wheat was grown, harvested, milled, and which (if any) additives are present in the final product. However, before I delve into the finer details, I would like to mention that no matter what flour you do decide to use when baking at home, your final loaf will be a million times better and healthier for you (and your family) than the commercial sandwich loaves from your local super market. So if after reading this article and weighing all your options, you still decide to rather buy bread than bake your own, I urge you to seek out your closest artisan baker - who (if worthy of that title), will take the necessary care on your behalf.

Stone ground, unbleached flour is the flour of choice for most artisan bakers. Sometimes referred to as artisanal flour, this flour (if true to its name) should be free of pesticides, preservatives and any other additives. When flour is milled using millstones as opposed to high-speed roller mills, more of the natural goodness of the grain remains in tact. This is due to the fact that stone milling doesn't reach the same high speeds or searing temperatures, which ensures that most of the nutrients remain undamaged and are not burned off. Furthermore, stone ground flour is also more likely to be composed of the entire wheat kernel. I.e. It still has the wheat bran, endosperm, and wheat germ in tact. (Having said that, I would still recommend checking with the miller, as this may vary from brand to brand.) The advantage of having all three components in the final flour, is that you are getting all the natural goodness (vitamins and minerals) as well as the added benefit of the fibre which is provided by the wheat bran.

Commercial flour on the other hand, has the wheat germ and bran removed in order to extend the shelf life and to produce a whiter, more refined flour. This flour is often bleached using chemicals such as chlorine, bromic acid and peroxide. (On a side note, there does however appear to be some movement away from bleaching and a focus towards the optimisation of the shape of the wheat kernel - to achieve a higher yield of the white starch). Wheat germ, which is oily by nature and consequently has the tendency to go rancid, is removed from the flour. This extraction, in addition to the nutrients which were already lost during the milling process results in a flour with very little nutritional value. The solution?  Commercial flour producers add artificial vitamins back in to make the flour more nutritious. This is referred to as 'fortification' or 'enrichment'. Take a closer look next time you buy a bag of flour and scan for the words 'fortified' or 'enriched'. In some countries, the enrichment of flour is enforced by law. (In countries where bread is an important staple food, fortification is often used as a means of improving what may otherwise be limited access to essential micronutrients. Fortification has however not always proven to be successful. This is due to the difficulty of successfully spreading a concentrated amount of micronutrients into an industrial bread batch - some loaves end up with too much and others not any. It is also questionable whether those micronutrients are bioavailable.)

At this point the flour has already undergone quite significant changes, but is then subjected to further preservatives, dough conditioners, dough enhancers and other chemicals in the commercial bakery setting (which speed up or entirely eliminate the bulk fermentation time). This is good for business, but not so good for our digestion. What makes matters worse, is the fact that many of the additives and processes are conveniently omitted from the list of ingredients on the final loaf. Some commercial bakeries also request that the additives be added at the milling and flour production stage, which allows them to circumvent providing a full disclosure of all the additives. Hungry yet?

When it comes to organic flour, it is required (at least in theory) that the flour be made from top quality natural and GMO free grain, which was grown in soil containing only natural substances/fertilisers. In addition to this, no pesticides or other chemicals should be used in the growing or harvesting of organic wheat. True organic flour is also not subjected to fumigation or irradiation -  measures which facilitate pest control and prevent food poisoning from harmful bacteria. The problem with organic flour however is two-fold. One - it is considerably more expensive than the rest of the flour on the market. Two - not all products sold under the organic label are in fact organic. Business is business after all. Even more reason for the concerned and responsible consumer to start asking pertinent questions.

However, judging from the growing popularity of home mills (small counter top grain mills), and an increasing community of small, independent millers, the importance of good quality natural flour and the need for clear/honest labeling are slowly but surely becoming topics of global discussion. Knowledge is power and an informed consumer can be the catalyst for positive (and healthy) change. So don't be fooled by natural looking packaging and words such as natural, organic, 'bio', artisanal, etc... Ask the relevant questions. Take an interest in the way your flour and other foods are produced. Have discussions and share your findings. If we are what we eat, shouldn't we be paying closer attention to what we are really consuming?

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. What flour are you currently baking with? Have you made any interesting discoveries? 

You can reach me at babettesbread@gmail.com

© Babette’s Bread Ltd.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Set down the bowl of mashed potatoes. Don’t raise up that drumstick in anger. And, no, we’re pretty sure the solution to getting along with your family this Thanksgiving is not serving a boat of cannabis-infused gravy.

Holidays can be hard. Holidays mixed with politics can be even harder. But here at FiveThirtyEight, there are two things we are grateful for: Politics and data. So when we started thinking about the way an impeachment inquiry, full-swing Democratic primary, and wildly polarized opinion polls might impact the Thanksgiving experiences of our readers, we naturally turned to someone who has collected data on this very problem — Amy Janan Johnson, a professor of communication at the University of Oklahoma.

In 2018, she published a study that documented the experiences of 479 college students who went home for Thanksgiving and had political conversations with their families following the 2016 presidential election. From that, and previous research she’s done, Johnson was able to offer up some tips for navigating your holiday gatherings.

You’re Definitely Not Going To Win That Argument, And That’s OK

The science of persuasion is messy. We know that minds can be changed and, in fact, we know that interpersonal relationships are particularly powerful sources of persuasion. And, yet, Johnson told me, there are serial disagreements that families carry on for years but never resolve. That includes both personal arguments (like leaving the toilet seat up) and political arguments that are really about personal values (like climate change).

Serial arguments can sink relationships, Johnson said. But they don’t have to. “The belief that you can [resolve it] is important,” she told me. So is walking away from the situation feeling like you learned something, or like you taught somebody else something. Also important: Avoiding aggressive behaviors like yelling and name calling. If you argue productively, she told me, you can argue about the same stuff every Thanksgiving for your entire life and still have strong relationships with your sparring partners.

Arguments Go Better In Families That Value Disagreement

Another thing that affects the outcome of holiday arguments on family relationships is whether those families think disagreement is okay. In Johnson’s study of Thanksgiving 2016, she writes about two different kinds of families. The first, called “conversation oriented” families, generally allowed for less conformity — it was normal to talk about controversial issues. They came away from a particularly politically tense year with stronger feelings of closeness than the “conformity oriented” families who generally avoided talking about touchy topics and placed a lot of value on uniformity of thought.

“Families that have a tradition of avoiding politics so they don’t get into arguments got into these arguments because 2016 was such a big deal and surprised everyone,” Johnson said. Avoidance might work out well most of the time. But if that’s your tradition, your family is likely to hit a wall in a tough political climate because you don’t have the experience to feel like disagreement is normal.

If You’re Arguing About Values, Decide Whether Your Values Include Maintaining the Relationship

If you’ve gotten into a political argument at Thanksgiving and not understood why everyone walked away with hurt feelings, then you’re probably making the mistake of thinking of politics as an abstract issue. In reality, a lot of those policy discussions are actually proxies for personal values. And that’s where holidays get messy, Johnson said. “Usually we can keep those separate, but this election was so important and tied to sense of self that families that just usually didn’t argue were arguing about it, and that ended up with negative outcomes for those families,” she told me.

That’s something that ties the science of family arguments into other areas of persuasion research. One of the reasons it’s hard to change people’s minds on climate change, for example, is because the debate isn’t really about scientific facts. It’s about deeply held personal values and identities.

And things get tricky when they get personal. Research on arguments in families is often framed around finding ways to argue while maintaining the strength of the relationship. But there are times when our personal values about a political issue can be more important than our personal values about the relationship. Some of the students Johnson studied, for instance, were kids whose sexual orientation or gender identity made them feel like family members’ political opinions were a direct personal attack. The family members didn’t see it that way. But we can’t always separate the political and personal.

If Your Family Agrees Politically, Talking About Politics Could Actually Be A Bonding Exercise

Because she works at the University of Oklahoma, Johnson’s research includes a lot of conservative students returning home to equally conservative families. And one of the things she’s found is that when family members’ politics are in alignment, a tough political landscape can end up bringing them closer together. “They could go home and be happy and celebrate,” she told me.

Political agreement in families can also affect the dynamics of what is acceptable to talk about at dinner. While families that had a tradition of discussing anything weighty, even controversial subjects, maintained closer ties after Thanksgiving 2016, that’s not necessarily because those families were good at disagreeing, Johnson told me. In a lot of cases, families were comfortable discussing a wide range of subjects because they all assumed they shared the same values. And if you do share basic values, it’s easier to disagree about the details without getting hurt.

But, hey, if all else fails, you can always fall back on serving the weed gravy.

[forlornmelody]

Double the Trouble Chapter 14 -- A New Name

Rating: Explicit (previous chapters have smut)

Ship: FemShep x Femshep Clone, Femshep x Kaidan, Femshep x Femshep Clone x Kaidan, OT3

AO3 Link: Here

Summary:  It’s Shepard and Kaidan’s anniversary, and they invite Jane over for a special dinner. 

Note: Two years and a prequel later, here’s the final chapter. Hope you all enjoyed my crack fic as much as I did writing it. 

Anniversaries with Kaidan are always a tricky thing. Should they celebrate the anniversary of the night they committed mutiny and banged on the way to Illos? Or would it be more fitting to dress up and eat a fancy dinner one year after their first date on the Citadel? One thing’s for sure--neither of them want to remember the date they ran into each other on Horizon.

Somehow, it’s decided that their official anniversary happens every 365 terran days after the day the Normandy returned to Earth. Neither of them is super eager to go out. Besides, how are they to explain the third person on their reservation? So, they plan a candlelit dinner inside Kaidan’s apartment. Shepard picks up a white tablecloth and candle sticks, and Kaidan plans their menu. They schedule a time with Jane and wrap a very special gift inside a black box with a red satin ribbon. Before Jane arrives, they start a playlist on the radio--arguing over whether the music should be club music or jazz. Their argument devolves into “Hey, I saved the galaxy three times” and “I stood up for you when everyone thought you were a traitor” and “No, Anderson didn’t” and lastly “Anderson doesn’t count.” Somehow, Shepard wins the argument--Kaidan isn’t remotely surprised. “Next time we’re listening to jazz.”

“Hey, I brought some treats for Jeff. Hope you don’t mind.” Jane closes the door behind her, dropping a small bag next to the hamster cage. “Whoa. You weren’t kidding.”

“Too much?” Kaidan sweeps Jane up into a kiss as Shepard limps her way over. Shepard’s mouth is on hers as soon as Kaidan’s is out of the way.

“No. Though I’m still surprised you invited me to this. Isn’t this your night?”

“You mean a lot to us, Jane. And we couldn’t wait.” Shepard sits down at the table, already set with plateware, glasses, flatware, wine, and steaming hot food. Kaidan pulls out a chair for Jane.

“Wait for what?”

Kaidan and Shepard share a knowing glance, and the former reaches over to the coffee table, pulling out a box and handing it to Jane. “Open it.”

Shepard leans forward, fingers and biotics itching to open it for her--to make the process go faster, but she holds back.

Jane blinks at what she finds inside. She holds up a driver’s license to the candle light “ID? I thought everything was digital?”

“It’s more for sentimental value...and those low-tech places without readers.” Kaidan serves them both steak--unburned steak, for the record-- candied asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes.

“What Kaidan means to say is that wanted to give you--”

“My own name,” Jane says it softly, reading the name on the ID card. “Allison Gunn. Who is that?”

“Keep digging.” Shepard grins widely, not touching her food, as delicious as it smells. She doesn’t want to miss a single moment.

Underneath a birth certificate, obviously forged, and a Social Insurance Number, printed on a letter--also forged, Jane finds a mint-condition Badass Weekly. On it, Jane finds a familiar face. “What the hell is this?” She smirks over at Shepard.

“A name isn’t anything without a reputation, right?”

Jane thumbs through the magazine quickly, nearly ripping the edges as she races to the correct page. She skims the words while Shepard starts to wonder if this was the best gift idea. “But why go to all this trouble? I already have both.”

Shit. This is why Shepard never gives gifts. She always ends up sending the wrong message. Is it too late to take it back?

“What Shepard means to say--is that we wanted to give you a name that was your own.”

“I only used it once.” Shepard says quickly, sitting up. “On Beckenstein.”

“What the hell did you do?”

Leaning forward, Shepard eyes her Clone with the most confident grin she can manage. “A heist. And shot up a crime lord and all his shit.”

“Damn. You never do things the easy way, do you, Shepard?” Jane runs her finger down the image of “Alison”, obviously photoshopped. Shepard would never wear her hair that long. Especially for when this magazine was published. “This was when you were with Cerberus?”

Shepard bristles at the mention of that name. “Yeah. I was helping a friend.” Kasumi still wrote her emails--heavily encrypted ones. One of these days she should write her back. “Same friend who helped make the ID for you.”

“For me? Or you?”

“For you.” Kaidan taps the picture on her ID card. It has Jane’s undershave, and her sun tattoo peeking out over her shoulder. And then Kaidan grins. “Actually. That’s Shepard’s gift for you.” He pulls out a second box, deeper than the last. Jane glances at Shepard, to find her equally dumbfounded.

“Don’t look at me.” What could have Kaidan found for Jane? Is it something related to their coffee dates? Shepard watches closely as Jane lifts the lid.

Jane gasps as she pulls out a well-worn journal, made from skin of some sea creature--likely an alien one. Tears spring from Jane’s eyes, and Shepard glances at Kaidan for explanation. He smiles. “How’d you find this??”

“Took some digging. But we still have connections to Thessia, especially now that coms are back up.” Kaidan frowns. “We...we couldn’t save everything. And a lot of things her parents wanted to keep. But they sent this. For...” he scrunches his nose as he searches his memory. “...Ana…”

“Fields.” Jane’s voice is thick with emotion as she traces the sun design on the front. With a jolt, Shepard realizes it’s the same one that rests on Jane’s left shoulder. Distantly, her clone looks up at Kaidan, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Did they say anything?”

Kaidan shifts in his seat, clearing his throat. “Well, they said she’d want you to have them.”

Jane tears the journal out of the box, digging for what lies underneath. She finds brushes and pencils, erasers, and a straight edge. A sob escapes her throat before she can stop it. “Thank you. Thank you both.”

Shepard reaches over, squeezing her hand once it’s free. “I wish I could have met her.”

Jane’s voice is thick. “Me too.” 

So lost in running her thumb across Jane’s hand until her sobs subside, Shepard doesn’t notice Kaidan leaving the table. She doesn’t think much of it. Jane’s telling her some story about the hijinks her and Dreya got up to, and they’re both stirring their potatoes instead of eating them. Glancing over at Kaidan’s empty seat, Jane brightens, and Shepard sees a spark in her eye that makes her suspicious. Her clone never had a good poker face. “Jane? Is there something I should know?”

“Mm?” Jane says innocently, suddenly shoving potatoes into her mouth.

N school taught her to trust her instincts, and right now Shepard’s instincts are telling her that Jane is compensating. But for what? She scans the room, finding nothing particularly out of place. The hamster’s been fed. Nothing is on fire in the kitchen--for once. Kaidan’s chair has been empty for a while, though. “How long has Kaidan been gone?” She assumed he went to the bathroom, but even that diva didn’t take that long.

Jane shrugs.

“Shouldn’t we check on him?”

“He survived the Normandy crashing on an uncharted world, being run over by the Mako, and a Collector attack--I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Hey, Shepard,” Kaidan says softly from behind her. Shepard turns around to see him shyly watching her like with his hands behind his back--well, if she’s honest--like the first time he saw her naked. How far they had both come--and yet how little had changed.

“Hey, Kaidan.” Oh yeah. Something’s definitely up, but Kaidan is adorable like this so Shepard plays along. “What’s up?”

“I got something for you.”

A fork flips off Jane’s plate as she leans in closer to watch. Jumping at the noise, Shepard gathers herself and looks back at the man she loves. “Oh? What is it?”

“You... uh. You might want to turn your chair around.” Kaidan swallows hard, and a neuron fires in Shepard’s brain...only to miss its target. Something’s off-- but what. Shepard turns around anyway--and Kaidan sinks to one knee. Her heart plummets into her stomach.

“Jane Shepard, will you marry me?”

Shepard’s brain short-circuits. Her eyes catch on the sparkle of the gemstone as Kaidan pops open the box. Distantly she remembers ranting about the stupidity of diamonds when they passed a jewelry store on the Citadel. “Garnet?” She mutters.

Kaidan’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open. “Uh--sorry. I thought that was what you liked. Shit. Maybe I….” Her lover tailspins in a spiral, and Shepard’s jaw drops open as she finally realizes what’s happening. Link established.

“You’re asking me to marry you,” she says out loud. The words sound foreign coming out of her mouth. Marriage...always seemed to be something for other people. Better people. Not that Kaidan is a bad person--he’s amazing, better than her in so many ways. Kaidan would get married one day. But not to her.

“Yeah. Sorry. I thought maybe--” Kaidan puts on a brave face, but he could never fool her.

“Kaidan.” Shepard hooks her finger under his chin, turning his face toward hers.

“Shepard,” he whispers, his eyes wavering. An image flashes in Shepard’s mind of him looking at her that way--dressed in a tuxedo on an altar overlooking English Bay. Or maybe his family’s orchard--away from the Reaper’s destruction. The image scares her, and yet it thrills her to think the man she loves might look at her like that for the rest of her life.

Shepard should probably say something, but she doesn’t trust herself to speak. Not with the torrent of emotions raging through her brain. Instead she pulls him into a kiss--not unlike the one they shared when he hobbled off the Normandy after being MIA for months on end. Kaidan trembles at her touch, holding her gently as if she might slip away like cottonwood in the breeze. Squeezing his hands, Shepard kisses him harder, trying to say with her kiss what feels impossible to say with words. I love you, I love you, I love y--

Jane, or should she say--Alison, clears her throat. “Is that a yes or--?”

Kaidan’s smile slips again, and Shepard steals a quick kiss to reassure him. “Of course!” She is not good at this. But she wants to be better.

“Good. Cause I got to know if I need to get a nice tux.”

“Oh, so we’re inviting you?” Shepard swats Kaidan as he falls apart into laughter.

“Of course, she’s invited!” Somehow their playful argument dissolves into wrestling on the floor, and when Shepard has pinned Kaidan to the rug, she looks over to see her Clone brushing her fingers across her new ID. Alison Gunn, indeed.

[blackrose-ffxiv]

Second-hand Negotiations 11/28

Michaux Vidal jerks his head up quickly as the door suddenly opens, while under his desk, a hand moves instinctively toward a hidden dagger. But then he hears Lebeaux's voice and sees the blinding white figure before him, and he lets out a sigh of relief. "I though I'd locked that," he comments before rising. "This is an unexpected visit. Come to inspect my equally abysmally uninspired apartment?" His tone is playful, and he's smiling now, despite his momentary shock.

Lebeaux Desrosiers sniffed mildly in distaste as he smoothed the lapels of his coat. Enjoying being a glimmering beacon of white in an otherwise dark room. “How charming, you’ve decorated it rather like your natural habitat. All it’s missing is stalagmites.” He teased lightly as he closed the door behind himself and made his way over to the desk. “I have indeed. As well as to keep you abreast of the brewing situation that may or may not end in your death.” Lebeaux also set a small paperbox down on the desk. “Since you don’t seem to fancy sweets. These are spiced rice crackers from Kugane. They may be more to your taste.” At least he’d brought a gift to go along with the bad news.

"If you think this place looks like a cave, you should see my room at Scho-- I mean, the Dove Roost. All stone, just one window, and even more books. If I could put stalagmites and stalactites in there, I probably would." Then again, Lebeaux probably shouldn't go anywhere near the Dove Roost right now, given that Solenne is currently living there. Bad, bad idea. Michaux walks around the edge of the desk, letting the fingers of his left hand trail lightly over the wooden surface as he moves. He smells of greenery and earth today, clearly having spent at least part of his morning in the field. His hair is wind-tousled, and he's clearly dressed for field work. He days Lebeaux's mention of the business that could result in his death with an almost placid air, as if he's used to finding himself in such situations. Which would be true. "Very well, let's hear it." But then he's distracted by the box. He reaches for it, opens it, and eyes its contents. "That's surprisingly thoughtful of you."

Lebeaux tilted his head thoughtfully. “That sounds miserable.” Both the dark, stone room and the fact that it was in the same building as Idristan and Solenne. “I’ve spent far too much of my life in dark, cold stone rooms I will pass on that.” He offered cheerfully, folding his arms lightly across his chest.  He smiled serenely as Michaux accepted the offering. “Leon has chosen to change the terms of our arrangement. It isn’t enough for you to simply stay out of his way.” Lebeaux explained calmly as he leaned lightly against the desk. “There are two options. You remain out of Kugane for the foreseeable future, until Leon gets himself killed specifically. Or you perform a task that has not yet been set to prove your obedience and willing to do as I say.”

Michaux Vidal hums. Fair enough about the dark, cold stone rooms. he's seen enough of Ishgard to almost lose his own taste for stone. His expression darkens at the mention of Leon's name. "I can try to stay out of Kugane, but I can't make promises. And Leon could still kill me over here. Or have one of his spies do it for him. According to Solenne, there aren't many places I could go to escape his reach. Or his master's reach, more accurately." He sighs softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "What task does he want me to perform to prove my obedience? He must have mentioned something."

Lebeaux reached up to remove his hat and set it down on the Duskwight’s desk. “Unpleasant conversations are best had over tea or brandy.” He suggested calmly. “Both would be the preferred method.” He suggested as he strode past Michaux, reaching out to trail fingers lightly along the other’s smooth chin, before helping himself to one of the nearby seats. “Your hospitality matches your décor.” He teased lightly as he settled in.

Michaux huffs, but his subtle smile returns. "So both Daijiro and Iskandar tell me." He walks to the cabinet and pulls out a half-full bottle of brandy. It isn't quite top shelf stuff, but still a decent Ishgardian vintage. He touches his fingers briefly to the teapot to reheat the tea within, and pours a cup for Lebeaux. He sets it upon a tray along with the brandy, cream and sugar, and carries it to him. Since there is no table in his makeshift sitting area, he sets the tray on a pile of books. He then realizes he forgot to include a spoon, so he goes back for one. He definitely needs to working on this host thing. "There," he finally sighs, flopping into the chair beside Lebeaux. "Enjoy."

Lebeaux waited patiently for the tea to be prepared and brought over. His pale gaze drifting over some of the titles on the shelves around him. Once it was served he took his time adding in generous amounts of sugar, cream and brandy. He held the tea in his lap, stirring lightly as he finally turned his attention back to Michaux. “Your presence has been requested at the interrogation of a Ruby Sea sailor. I negotiated for control over the time and the place in an effort to ensure no traps would be laid for us, but the entire situation hinges on your cooperation.” He explained calmly, smiling all the while. “I’m sure he desire that you use your dark arts to pry the truth from her.”

Lebeaux would find mostly history books on the wall, neatly organized by category and author, but there's a substantial and growing section devoted to books on magic. Some of the titles in both sections are rather controversial, especially among the magical works. But none are actually illegal to own. Those books are locked away somewhere in the Dove Roost. Michaux's expression grows darker as Lebeaux lays out the facts of the situation, and finally he rises in agitation and walks back to to the cabinet. A bottle of Limsan rum soon emerges. "Of it would be that. He would demand I do something that he knows I'll refuse to do. He just wants an excuse to kill me, doesn't he?" He runs his fingers through his hair a few times, and then he walks back to his chair and drops into it with a groan. He starts drinking his rum straight from the bottle.

Lebeaux at least pretended to be civilized enough to be drinking tea, even if the majority of the cup he brought to his own lips was brandy. ”Yes, well. It’s a rather difficult situation all around.” He agreed. “He is demanding that this is the price you pay to continue living. Though should you bend this once to his whims there is really nothing to stop him from using this ploy over and over again.”

Michaux unconsciously places a hand over his lower belly where Leon stabbed him. He still starts awake at night sometimes, thinking that he's been stabbed again, or worse, that it's Lebeaux, or Pahja, or Idristan, Sollenne, or Adeya who has been nailed to a wall. His eyes fall shut briefly. "So it sounds like my choices are to be on high alert for another attack for the rest of my life - and hope Leon doesn't decide to target my loved ones instead - or get ready to compromise everything I believe in and act as his puppet for the foreseeable future." He blinks his eyes open and raises them to Lebeaux's face. "Not much of a choice, is it?"

Lebeaux tilted his head and his brows soon followed suit. Summoning up a fair imitation of ‘sympathetic’. Though still his sharp, chilly eyes watched the Duskwight carefully. Inspecting his body language in addition to the words he was saying. “You would know him better than I would.” The Ishgardian noted before a slow sip of his brandied tea. “How ruthless or true to his word he is. If I were in his position, I would wring you for all you were worth. Yet he seems to despise you, despite realizing there is some value there. Perhaps being utterly repugnant to him would be enough to discourage frivolous favors. You tell me.” He mused thoughtfully.

Michaux snorts at Lebeaux's offhanded remark about what he would do to him in Leon's position. "I've no doubt you would, but you wouldn't hate me for the same reasons. It's that hatred that really makes this tricky. I think he wants to kill me, and he's already demonstrated that he's capable of it. If I turn out to be useful after all and he's forced to let me live, he'll probably do his best to torture me with increasingly unpleasant 'interrogations' until I can't stand it anymore. Then my usefulness will be gone and he'll be permitted to get rid of me." He takes another swig of rum and rubs his forehead. "I'm already repugnant to him, I think. Because I'm a Duskwight, and I'm proud of it, and I've immersed myself in my clan's history. I'm happy with who I am. Leon detests Duskwights, and yet, according to Solenne's intel, he's half Duskwight himself. I bet he can't bear the fact that I'm all right with being a complete abomination when he's mortified by being half of one."

Lebeaux frowned slightly as he considered Leon. Race amongst elezen was a more trivial matter in Ishgard, save for a few jokes about a certain High House’s tendency to dig themselves into trouble, rather literally. “How amusing. He looks more a Duskwight than several actual Duskwights I have met.” He mused with a low chuckle. Shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “Nonetheless. I’ve nothing he wants so I am unable to influence this transaction much save for warn you when I hear of a new turn of events.” He smiled thoughtfully upwards. “And in that matter, if I were he, I would likely feed me false information to flush you out into the open where you could be more easily disposed of.” He chuckled quietly at the thought of it. “Any roads. I have laid the matter in your hands. Now it is your decision what you will do with it.”

Michaux is starting to eye Lebeaux rather uncomfortably. "Stop planning how you would control or kill me. I'm starting to get nervous." He drinks a bit more rum as he thinks over all Lebeaux has told him. Then he sets his bottle down and rises. "I've been given two options, and I like neither of them." He disappears around the edge of a bookshelf, and the doors of his wardrobe can be heard opening and shutting. Then he returns, carrying the beautifully ornate wakizashi across his palms, complete with its original scabbard. Now that it's been cleaned up a bit, it looks more like a work of art than a weapon. Who knows how much Leon actually spent on it, but it must have been a grand sum indeed. "I will choose a third option and kill Leon with his gift to me, as I promised."

@secrets-and-aetherlight

[deliciousanarchist]

Don't talk foody to me!

About diet talk and body positivity

This text started as an attempt to write about why I don’t like people commenting on (my) food when eating in public. While writing I realised I had to share more of my personal life and where I’m coming from, so it is more understandable why I’m having such a hard time with diet talk. In the end, this became a blog about diets, intuitive eating, self-care, and about respecting our own bodies and the bodies of others.

Society is pretty hung up on perfect bodies and, thus, food – those two seem to hang closely together. “We are what we eat”, right? Sounds legit. Or does it rather cut something very complex down to a simplifying and, well, blatantly incorrect sentence?

First of all, what we eat depends on so many things – like on the place we grow up, in what country we are born, and in what social part or class of society we were raised in. Also, when we look closely, stuff like what gender we are assigned with could be seen to make us choose different food. A lot of people believe that a “real man” needs to eat meat, or that women should generally eat less than men do. So “you are what you eat” strongly ignores social inequalities and, even worse, it judges you on things you did not decide by yourself.

It also sounds like a religion or a fatal cult. By this logic we are the sum of the food we eat. If we do “good” we get rewarded, if we do “bad” we will be punished. And if we get sick and some doctor tracks that back to our lifestyle (like to what we eat), then we supposedly brought it all on ourselves because we should have known better. We knew the rules of “health”, right? So if we have a heart attack, it’s because we ate too much fatty food. If we get diabetes, we ate too much sugar or simple carbohydrates. If we get an auto-immune disease, we exposed ourselves to too much to the “wrong” food like gluten, milk, or red meat. In all cases we definitely omitted to exercise enough, too, I’m sure.

And in the final consequence, if we brought our ‘unhealthy’ bodies on ourselves, then why should anyone, doctor or health insurance, help us and treat our disease? We made our bed, now we must lie in it, right?

A new diet theory every year

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that our food and lifestyle does not have any impact on the condition of our bodies, but I’m sure that we get the cause wrong most of the time. The human body is so complex. Who are we do think that we figured it all out? Watching some new food being demonized every other year should have proven this to us by now, shouldn’t it?

We are exposed to so much information about diets and nutrition in the course of our lives: Don’t eat wheat. Oh wait, but you can eat older wheat like dinkle. Drinking milk will kill you. But milk is so healthy, because calcium, you should drink milk every day. Butter is better than margarine. No, margarine is better. Or are both equally bad for you but for different reasons? Fat is bad for you no matter what. No wait, some fats are actually good and we need them for our body to process other food groups. Vegetables are always good for you. Unless it’s corn. And watch out for canned foods because of all the salt and sugar in it, but frozen vegetables are fresh and untreated. Fruits are healthy. In general we should eat vegetables and fruits 5 times a day. Oh no wait, fruit has sugar in it, so it’s not good after all. But oh, vitamins. That’s a twist, I guess. Red meat is bad, white meat is good. Or is meat always bad and should we replace it with fish? Let’s all go vegan to save the planet! (At this point I’m not going into the debate on if we Middle/Northern Europeans should or shouldn’t eat stuff like avocados or quinoa, and how fish is tricky anyway because of overfishing. Food production in capitalism in general, oh my.)

If you speak/read German, I highly recommend the book “Fa(t)shionista” by Magda Albrecht from 2018. She shares a lot of personal stories about the relationship to her body but also scientific info like the history of BMI or where the diseases (and “diseases”) of modern society more likely come from. Did you know that the BMI was never meant for categorizing individuals? And that in 1997 the WHO just set a new BMI for ‘obesety’ which made millions of people become overweight overnight? Also Magda writes: “[A]uch bei Bluthochdruck, Blutzucker oder dem Cholesterinspiegel [hat] die Lobbyarbeit der Pharmaindustrie dafür gesorgt [...], dass Grenzwerte so lange gesenkt wurden, bis die Mehrzahl der Bevölkerung in mindestens eine der zahlreichen Risikofaktoren fielen: Alles für die Gesundheit, natürlich! Oder vielleicht auch nur für die Geldbeutel großer Unternehmen?” (p. 157 // in english: “It’s the same with blood pressure, blood sugar or cholesterol. The drug industry kept declining the setpoint values for those too, so now most of our society suffers from at least one of those risk factors. All for the sake of health, of course! Or is it for the sake of the wallets of large companies?”)

Life is all about diversity

When I was 17 I stopped eating meat, and I was  immediately told from a lot of different people whose opinions I never asked for that becoming a vegetarian is really unhealthy. (Of course now, in 2019, that viewpoint has shifted from vegetarians to vegans, so…)

Whenever my iron was low my doctors told me it was probably from being a vegetarian. Or from having my period. Or if they had been honest with me and themselves – they had no idea. Sometimes blood levels change, and who is to say that everybody has the same range of components in their blood? For example, my leukocytes are so low all the time that I would constantly be sick from colds and other infections. Surprisingly, I hardly ever have those. I do have other issues though. We’re all different, and our bodies react differently to medications, food, and different lifestyles. It’s a little like hormones. If you use hormone levels to prove that there are only two genders you won’t get very far. Like using blood components to divide people into healthy and unhealthy. Let’s give biology some credit and see how diverse we are on so many levels, shall we?

All my life I have been interested in food theories and diets. At some point in my life I even wanted to become a nutritionist, but then got scared of chemistry and all the science behind it. But I also had a dark interest in diets, too. Being a teenager I had a phase of body hate that resulted in an eating disorder that resulted in drastically cutting down my food until I lost more and more weight. I soon looked very thin and according to a lot of people in my life, “really great”. The doctors who had suggested I “lose a few pounds” were happy too. Myself? I felt like crap. And even after all that weight loss, I didn’t even see my body as thin, so disconnected was I to body image and the reality of it. Looking back on those pictures today, I feel fear – I can’t even recognise myself in them, I look so gaunt.

Good bye, diet mentality

However, I learned something from that experience: Being thin doesn’t automatically make me happy. And realizing that back then I felt betrayed by science. It should have worked, right? Lose weight, feel great!? I guess not.

I wish I could say that this made me come to peace with my body for good, but it didn’t. Later in life I still tried to change my body and/or weight by regulating my diet and using sports, very often against the will of my body. Yet I was never one of the people who did an official diet, I never used concepts like the “Ornish Diet”, “The Grapefruit Diet” or the new “Brigittte Diät”. But at some point in life I realized I became an “unconscious dieter”. This is a term I found a few years ago in a book called “Intuitive Eating” (Tribole/Resch 1995/2012: 9) and resonated. For example, at times I felt like I should cut back on chocolate or processed food only because I felt like I should strive for a more healthy lifestyle and a healthier body (whatever that’s supposed to be). I never would have called this “being on a diet”, but in fact I was: I acted on internalised food rules, was not listening to my body, and was very judgemental about my eating behaviour (in the privacy of my thoughts) while dividing food into good and bad.

Every time I changed the food on my table I got disappointed again to find that my body did not react the way I expected it to. For weeks I rationalised my chocolate consumption, but it only lead to me being unsatisfied because I wanted more chocolate or I wanted it at a time I wouldn’t allow myself. Sometimes I did not want it at all when scheduled but ate it anyway because I felt like I should not let the opportunity for chocolate pass me by.

Giving your body what it doesn’t want and withholding your body from what it needs can’t ever be healthy. In other words, quoting Tribole/Resch: “A dieting body is a starving body” (Tribole/Resch 1995/2012: 59).

Listen to your heart... or your body in general

Later in life I stopped consuming cow’s milk and everything that is made from it on the advice of various therapies. It’s common if you have an immune-disease like I have, to look for clues in your diet, too. Meanwhile I started avoiding eggs and coconut milk, because they didn’t leave me feeling well. But, occasionally, I get the feeling I want to eat them and, when I listen to my body, that impulse is right and I don’t feel sick afterwards. Body intuition for the win.

Realising that I actually have a good sense of what food is good for me and what isn’t, the whole diet problem began to make more sense. I was trying to press my food schedule into the desires or the nutrition that other people came up with. This would never have worked. Actually, I think we all have that sense of what is good for us, but it’s covered with all the public opinions on diets and the “perfect” body.

When I really allow myself to listen to my body, most of the time I can feel what it needs and what it doesn’t. Nothing is off limits.

If only it was that easy. Because by listening to my body, I have to ward of constant urges society has given me to divide my food into “good food” and “bad food”. I have to push aside the illusion that a thin body would make me happy. I have to push aside all the body shaming I have internalised. The thought that our body is something to be hated or be feared and that it has to be punished if we are too weak to stay on our fancy paleo or whatever diet.

In the end, it’s all about self-respect, body-positivity, and about acknowledging that our body is not a machine. Our body is a complex system and no one else but us can say what it needs.

You eat tomatoes, I want potatoes

Listening to my body is getting me different results every day. Some essential things stay kind of the same though. Like, my body has almost zero problems with carbohydrates, and I love eating potatoes in any form imaginable. Gluten and yeast are fine with me, bread making an appearance in my meals every day.  Occasionally I like things made of soy/tofu, but they’re not my go to protein. I love legumes and vegetables of all kinds, but I only like to eat (raw) fruits on rare occasions. Green salad and raw food in general is tricky, and mostly repulsive. Yet from time to time I crave a green salad with a simple vinegar-honey dressing. Especially in public spaces, vegan food works best for me because then I can be sure there is no meat and no cow milk in there. Also I just love vegan food.

But that’s just how my body works right now. I believe for everybody there’s different food that works best. Let’s not act like there is one diet that works on all of us. Also our body and the food we need changes over time. And I guess in theory we all know that, but our routines are still hard to change.

The other day I read a tagline online saying, “Being obsessed with health doesn’t make you healthy. It only makes you obsessed”. And had to take a minute at the truth behind it. Especially as we can’t say what makes us healthy anyway. But we can say if something makes us feel good or not. Eating according to my intuition is the thing that has made most sense to me up to now, compared to all other diets and nutrition theories. Being happy while eating and the simple feeling that my body is having a good time is more important than eating what society thinks is right.

My struggle with intuition

I have to admit there is still one thing I have not figured out yet, and it’s something that’s overshadowed by my eating disorder from my teenage years that sometimes catches up with me: How many meals a day work best with me? So far I think it’s not three big meals, but more meals of different sizes. And eating at what time of the day works best for me? I try to listen to my body and eat when it feels right. Whereas, I can get a good feeling what I want to eat, I’m not that good in knowing when to eat. And having experienced an eating disorder, I know I can very well suppress the feeling of hunger, sometimes unconsciously. I have a lot of awful strategies to trick my body. There is a part of me that likes to punish my body by keeping it from eating. So this is really tricky and I’m still working on it.

And of course there is a major problem for all of us: our other-directed daily routines. Eating intuitively would work way better if only we could decide what and when to eat everyday. But with having to work to make money to pay for rent and – oh right, food (ha) and everything else, a lot of my meals are not all decided by myself. I can’t arrive to work at any given time, so I often have breakfast earlier than I’d like to. Then my day is filled with projects and meetings and private dates, so I have to plan my meals around them.

Not only that, too much stress makes it hard for me to hear what my body needs. I love chocolate (in case I haven’t mentioned this before ;)), but when I am too stressed out by work I eat chocolate for stress release. This is not bad in general. But after a while of this happening again and again I don’t even enjoy eating the chocolate. So next time I want to eat chocolate, instead I try questioning that decision and try to listen to my body: Is this really what would make me feel good now? And sometimes it is and I eat chocolate. Sometimes it’s not, and then I try to figure out what I want instead and what would really make me feel better. I do like things such as sugar, beer, and even smoking a cigarette from time to time. But I do not like it when I stop enjoying these things and only use them because I am stressed or sad or angry. Sure, I sometimes have a beer after a shitty day and that’s okay, but I would hate to make a habit out of that. Both the shitty days and the beers.

So I guess my theories don’t always work perfectly yet. It’s a work in progress.

Relearning the rules

In the last couple of years I had to relearn a lot of opinions and reflexes I was taught about eating when being young. And I’m still (un)learning, like: There is no good food/bad food. I don’t have to finish my plate if I am not hungry anymore. It’s okay to eat something else instead too. I don’t have to eat lots of fruits and vegetables every day if the thought of eating it makes me sick. I don’t have to stick to a fix count of meals a day. I don’t have to eat the same amount of food every day. And so on.

One more thing I try to learn is not to explain why I eat or won’t eat something right now. I used to say stuff like “I’m not hungry”, “I already ate so much today” or “Nothing for me, I had a late breakfast” or “It’s too late in the evening for me to be eating now” or thinking “I already had fries for lunch, I can’t have fries for dinner again”. Nope. No explanations, no regrets, no diet talk, no body shaming anymore. Three carbs-only-meals in a row because it feels right? I’ll do it. Eating dinner at 11pm because my body longs for food right now? Sure. If I’m not ravenous, but still feel my body would love something to eat? I’m having it.

Sharing’s not always caring

Something I don’t enjoy a lot for many different reasons is eating in public. I’m easily stressed by social situations in general but especially when it comes to sharing a meal, so I don’t often eat together with other people.

The other reason for that is that I hate it when people comment on my food. Or the food of others. Or their own food. And I don’t mean comments like “Wow, that looks so good!” or “I think I will order that myself”, I would love those comments. No, the comments I hear and hate a lot are comments that appear harmless, but really mess with my head. Like when I order and the person next to me says “Wow that’s quite a big portion!” or “Oooh, that looks like pure sugar” or “That would be impossible for me to eat.”

It’s tricky even if people make that comments about their own food. When someone eats half of the food on their plate and then says, “This was so much, now I’m going to be full for the rest of the day.” How will that make the person feel that sits next to them that ate all the food on the plate and is still hungry? Especially when that person commenting is thinner than the other one? 

Sorry, but in a world that condemns sugar (or even all carbs) and divides good and bad food and wants us to eat less food in general, those comments can’t ever be neutral observations or harmless notes.

Keeping your diet talk to yourself

“I get through the day easily without eating much at all.” “Eating a lot of fast food makes me feel toxic.” “Gluten is pure poison for my body.” “Since I’m doing [insert new diet] I feel like a human again.” “I can’t eat anything right now, I had a generous lunch.” “I could never function when eating toast with Nutella for breakfast.” “I’ll burn off the calories in the gym later.” “Alright, today is my ‘cheat day’.”

All of these comments are steeped in society's expectations.

I totally get that these are things people say about themselves in that moment, and if I’d only see them as self-revelation it guess it would be fine in a way. But that’s not how communication works, especially not with topics that are so morally pre-shaped like diets, food, and bodies. On good days, I can brush these words off, but on bad days I fall into despair: Why don’t I want to eat salad more? Why do I have to like chocolate so much? Maybe gluten is poison for me too, but I just don’t know it yet? My lunch was also generous, but I’m hungry again. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I get through today without much food? (This is an especially hard sentence for me as it cuts right into my eating disorder whispering that I could too, and all I have to do is… yeah, let’s not go there.)

Sometimes I wish I could just share meals without anyone making comments on the food beyond if they like it or not – their eating habits, and their or my body, all disguised as small talk. I think we should all be more careful how we talk about food because it’s a minefield full of stereotypes, preoccupations, shame, and it mostly comes with our personal past full of hurtful experiences with diet talk. So let’s think about how what we say can make other people feel like, and maybe let’s remember that most of us carry trauma from the topics of diet and food in one or another way.

~Sam Chills, 2019

[pride-vns-blog]

LGBTQ VN Week: Day Two! (6/19)

Welcome back for my second day of LGBTQ visual novel recommendations! If you didn’t check out my first post, I recommend at least skimming the "One note before we get started” section to get a handle on what this series of posts is. (And especially, as the case may be, what it isn’t.)

Today’s topic is “crafty creative design”, so I’ve pulled out Marccus’s Eldet, Geek Remix and ChicMonster’s Pairanormal, and Team Rumblebee’s Love Is Strange to talk about their development teams’ ambition (and ability to deliver), followed by a discussion with Boys Laugh+ about their 2017 NaNoRenO entry, //TODO: today!

Keep on reading to hear about treasure hunts with hot guys, mysterious twists and turns, power in reimagined narratives, and why taking time to look for brand-new visual novels you’ve never heard of before can be worth your while!

ELDET (MARCCUS)

Kickstarter Tagline: "A medieval fantasy themed visual novel with emphasis on LGBT characters and people of color.” Genre(s): Historical fantasy. Release Date: July 1st, 2017(?) (updated demo); TBA (full version). Content Warnings: Fantasy violence.

When it comes to aiming for new heights with visual novel storytelling and art, Marccus’s Eldet is one of the most standout examples of ambition — if it’s a possibility or a feature you could potentially implement, you’ll probably be able to find a mention of it somewhere in Marccus’s Eldet development updates on Kickstarter. They’re jam-packed with information about ways he’s exploring different ideas for interlocking narratives, replay value, or using the absolutely gorgeous art to its full potential. If the final version lives up to even a tenth of what Marccus has demonstrated working to include over the past two years, that ambition and drive to see things through as much as possible will almost definitely provide one hell of a visual novel.

Strictly looking at the demo alone, though, still provides a uniquely detailed experience where focus on trying out new things that suit the story is crystal-clear. The writing is sharp and captivating, with an interesting plot and gorgeous scenery that’s complimented by a smart use of animated effects. There have been more and more visual novels that have branched into the use of things like Live2D or animated sprites, but for me as a player, it’s been interesting to see how far use of effects like that can go before they just plain old start to be distracting. Idle animations or things like blinking and breathing can be charming, but the uncanny valley is very real and very easy to dive headlong into if you’re trying to include as many of those as possible.

So Eldet’s demo is noteworthy to me not just for trying out all of the visual effects it can manage, but even moreso for knowing by and large where to place those effects and varying sprites for the best possible impact. Characters are integrated into different backgrounds for special conversational scenes, or specific parts of event graphics glow, and none of it — to my eyes, at least — felt overused or poorly-executed. In fact, it all seemed especially suited to the fantasy genre Eldet is fitting itself into, with all of the pieces working together to create a world that feels alive and breathing. And it’s a world that seems well worth waiting for a final version of!

Eldet’s demo is available now on Kickstarter; you can also keep up with the final version’s progress on its development blog, or follow Marccus on Twitter and Patreon (18+).

PAIRANORMAL (GEEK REMIX, CHICMONSTER)

Itchio Tagline: "Love is a mystery and so are ghosts.” Genre(s): Mystery, romance.  Release Date: April 1st, 2018 (Chapter 1); TBA (Chapters 2+). Content Warnings: Glitches and static (can be turned off); jumpscares.

There have been a couple "real person dating sim" visual novels in the past few years, but I've never really been all that interested in actually playing any of them; I can see the connection back to all those elaborate magazine quizzes about which celebrity you'd date, so I think they're interesting conceptually, but none of them have really pulled me in. I'm equally wary of the trend of Western visual novels from first-time developers that want to "subvert genre conventions" because of how many have fallen woefully flat of even understanding what that means beyond a very limited scope — I'm talking "oh, I don't really like or play any visual novels, the whole medium isn’t for me" visual novel developer commentary, here — so if an EVN promises a twist on a genre, or even if its players do, it's unfortunately a lot harder to sell me on it.

To my pleasant surprise, Pairanormal's demo sold me on both its "real person-inspired characters" aspects and its departure from the dating-based focus I'd been expecting into sharing space with another genre! I don't want to spoil anything about the plot, but upfront, the turn in the demo alone was a genuinely interesting look at a “blank protagonist” and well-served by being placed where it was. That’s to say nothing of the charming art style! Mechanically and visually, it's also one of the most interesting visual novels I've played; the character movement, the individual soundfonts, and the pacing of the dialogue all come together to work consistently well. (I love smartly-used soundfonts! Please give me all your VNs with good soundfonts!)

Even as someone who's watched a handful of YouTube playthroughs by two of the YouTubers being shown here, Mari and Stacey of Geek Remix, the writing in Pairanormal was sharp and fast-paced enough to actually make my brain draw a pretty easy divide between the real Mari and Stacey versus "Mari Sashimi" and "Stacey Croft". I'm sure there's plenty of rewarding jokes for their primary audience of a Geek Remix fanbase, too — but one of the strongest merits of Pairanormal for me as a player was the experience of having so little personal familiarity with most of the people these characters were based on and still finding the characters enjoyable, well-defined, and interesting.

Chapter 1 of Pairanormal is available now for free; you can also follow development of the coming chapters on Chicmonster’s Patreon, Twitter, and Itchio.

LOVE IS STRANGE (TEAM RUMBLEBEE)

Blog Tagline: "A fanwork based off of Life is Strange.” Genre(s): Slice of life, romance. Release Date: April 1st, 2016. Content Warnings: Drug use; underage drinking; mentions of severe bullying.

Do those characters and that title look familiar? If you’ve paid attention to the gaming scene at large in the past three years, you probably recognize the acronym "LiS” or Max Caulfield’s character design — Team Rumblebee’s 2016 debut project, Love is Strange, came to life as a Life is Strange (DONTNOD Entertainment) fanmade visual novel! In Love is Strange, set a year later after the original game in a completely different timeline, protagonist Max never gained her canonical magical powers and many of the tragedies that gripped Arcadia Bay never came to pass. Instead, she’s given a week to team up with one of her four love interests — Chloe, Kate, Rachel, or Victoria — and win a photography contest together.

There’s a lot to love about it beyond any connection you may or may not have to Life is Strange itself — everything, from the art to the music to the writing, pulls together seamlessly. But the biggest strength of Love is Strange as a fanwork, in my opinion, is the way it’s not trying to totally remove itself from the original canon tonally or trying too hard to conform to that tone without it seeming natural. Max’s character arc is reflective of some anxieties she’d had in the original story, which goes doubly for the explorations of her love interests’ arcs, but it’s fundamentally a different story where her priorities are different. Love is Strange loses what isn’t necessary or what doesn’t help the story — including the teacher-turned-[spoilers] from the original series, Mr. Jefferson — then fills in a lot of the blanks with the same charm and same compelling characters that captivated fans in the first place.

My favorite example here is Rachel Amber, one of the four routes but the lone one who never appeared in the text of the original Life is Strange itself, and a route that felt as wholly comprehensive as the rest. Love is Strange takes the perpetually absent, long-since-departed Rachel and recreates her from whole cloth, giving her a distinctive speech pattern, a history, and a set of beliefs that all work together as a perfect answer for the void around her character in the original text. She feels as real and authentic as the rest of the pitch-perfect cast, a character it’s difficult to imagine the original Life is Strange without. So in both enhancing the original text’s characterizations without ever losing its charm and standing alone as its own thoughtful, genuine F/F dating sim that is just as enjoyable without any fondness for the canon, Love is Strange easily cemented itself as one of my favorite visual novels — so strongly, in fact, that I’m still planning to cheer on Team Rumblebee’s individual and collective outputs for years to come.

Love is Strange is available now for free on the development blog. You can also follow Team Rumblebee on Twitter, Tumblr, and Itch.io to be the first to know if they decide to release anything next!

//TODO: TODAY (BOYS LAUGH PLUS)

Itchio Tagline: "A visual novel about figuring out life with the help of an AI.” Genre(s): Modern sci-fi. Release Date: March 31st, 2017 (Part 1); August 2018 (Part 2). Content Warnings: Depictions of severe depression.

Player personalization is one of the more tricky things for developers, largely in part because there’s no way to write something every player will be happy with; while some people prefer being able to insert themselves entirely into a protagonist with minimal predefined personality and more vague actions, so they can headcanon more easily, other audiences would rather explore specific situations with a smaller number responses that each more clearly reflect the defined protagonist’s personality. It’d be nearly impossible to please both of those groups at once — and there’s dozens of other, more specific takes that other players can have on visual novel protagonists!

As someone in the latter camp out of just those two examples, I thought //TODO: today’s handling of their protagonist Teal (plus their love interests Joyce and Phoenix) was right up my alley, so I reached out to Felix and Rohan of Boys Laugh+ to talk about their work on its story!

IVAN: Pleasure to be talking to you both today! Can you give me the elevator pitch of //TODO: today that you might give to an interested attendee at a con? You're both free to answer this if you'd like, haha.

FELIX: Sure, thanks for having us! //TODO: today is a slice of life visual novel about the aspiring artist Teal who already struggles to make ends meet but things get a little more complicated when an AI suddenly appears in their computer, with the intention to help Teal get their life back in order.

Perfectly put! (I like the phrasing of "aspiring artist Teal", haha, I feel like I'm reading their Twitter bio.) The gender/sexuality/pronoun options (and what I've seen of the dialogue variations) for the protagonist plus the romanceable characters are comprehensive, but never in a way that feels insincere or bland. I really feel like Teal's character — and that of both love interests — shines through strongly no matter what! What went into designing the personalization system as it currently exists, and why did you choose to include it in the first place?

ROHAN: Haha, yeah, Teal is the type who's a bit insecure about their art. So it's easier to say "aspiring artist" even though Teal has been drawing for a while. :'D Although our protagonist has their quirks and own background story we wanted the player to be able to identify with Teal. The player can choose to change Teal's name in the beginning of the game too. And the gender and sexuality options are based on this idea. :3

Back when we were developing the concept for //TODO: today in 2017, we had a close look at other recent VNs. And Date Nighto's Hustle Cat got us thinking about using "they" pronouns then. Hustle Cat's protagonist "Avery" has a gender-neutral design too. That got the ball rolling for us to think how we could make the typical romance situation in //TODO: today inclusive and enjoyable for queer people as well!^u^

FELIX: We also tried to keep the additional work for this fairly small. For the three main characters all pronouns and their variations are stored in variables. That makes it pretty easy to use the same base dialogue regardless of the characters' gender. But in addition to that, we used conditional statements to add some custom dialogue whenever it made sense. The romantic preferences are pretty much the same. They mainly decide the gender of the romanceable characters but there are a few moments where dialogue varies depending on the preferences the player chooses.

That also means that there are some things that people will miss if they don't make a specific selection of gender or romantic preferences but we wanted to make sure that those choices are also part of the characters and the writing and not purely cosmetic. All in all we tried to make the game as inclusive of LGBTQ identities as we could without making the scope unrealistically big for a two person team.

I think you definitely struck a good balance there! If I'm not mistaken, the two of you work in Ren'Py, right? What kind of Ren'Py limits or perks do you take into consideration when working to augment a story with more complex pieces of code other than dialogue variables, like deciding what your upcoming project Defaction's cellphone (?) can do? Anything you've unfortunately had to give up on? (And are there any lines of dialogue or features you're especially proud of including in //TODO: today?)

FELIX: Yeah, we're working in Ren'Py. I can't really think of any limits aside from smaller issues where different systems and languages intersect but there have definitely been a lot of perks! I really like Ren'Py's screen system which is where at least 80% of the work for the phone in Defaction happens.

The python integration is also really nice. In //TODO: today I barely used any python aside from if-statements and variables but being able use custom code pretty much anywhere in the script makes the engine really flexible!

As for feature decisions, so far we mainly based them on what we wanted to include from a narrative design standpoint and then tried to figure out how or if we would be able to implement them. I can't think of anything we had to cut for technical reasons so I think it worked out pretty well so far :'D

//TODO: today was the first bigger visual novel I worked on and aside from the gender and preference options for the characters, something I'm pretty proud of are the optional work and gaming scenes. They are pretty much the first piece of non-linear writing I ever did and it was a fun challenge to make sure they make sense regardless of what in-game day the player sees them on.

ROHAN: I think the most obvious feature we're proud of are the preference options we included, haha. We really wanted to take a few steps aside of the otome or exclusively hetero male-oriented genres out there. And to make the experience feel tailored to the player there are the dialogue features Felix has described before in combination with the visual designs of Joyce, the AI, and Phoenix, Teal's bookstore co-worker.

It's integrated into the story that Joyce has been made just for the Teal. Other AIs in the world would look different depending on their owners. That's why you get a feminine or masculine looking Joyce that match the player's preferences.

Of course there are limitations, I mean, we can't read the players mind to know what they like. And we couldn't include too many unique character sprites due to the scope. But I'm very happy about how the different designs turned out in the end. It was generally fun to visually design the game. Cute colours everywhere! >u<

On another note I think what really went well, too, was how AI Joyce behaves. We took some liberties with sci-fi magic, but Joyce is a being with their own set of characteristics, goals and values. They were made to serve, yet they're on eye-level with Teal and you get some funny situations out of it.

That's right, I'd completely forgotten that the work and art contest scenes weren't confined to the story's timeline on any specific dates — they definitely always felt like they matched up. And I'm so glad you brought up the designs, Rohan, that was actually my next question! The overall world design and character stylization of //TODO: today clearly had a considerable amount of care put into making sure they all meshed well and looked good individually! Can you talk a little bit about why you settled on the design aesthetic you did and what influenced //TODO: today's style or character designs? (Also, who are each of your favorite characters out of the cast, visually or personality-wise?)

ROHAN: Ah, well. First and foremost we were under a good amount of time-pressure during the NaNoRenO '17. Thus I had to decide for an artstyle that I could pull off for the game's assets to be produced in time. There's no complicated shading, not too much intriciate line-work. It was also the first time for me to create art for a visual novel. I was mostly a concept artist before. So I wanted to play it safe. That's one part of the story at least.

The other thing was that by the end of 2016 a lot of artists have emerged online who experimented with reduced palettes, pastel tones and comic and anime inspired shading. I was really intrigued by the charm of this combination. I wanted to make myself feel okay that although I'm a guy I can express myself in shades of pink, haha. This kind of aesthetic also matches the overall cute but realistic story of //TODO: today. I wanted the reality of the game to feel like our world but with some intense photo filters on top, haha. And my favourite character(s)? As the artist who designed them, I'd say visually all of them! xD But character wise, I think it's a close head-to-head of Joyce and SuuJ. <3

FELIX: I think my favorite character is Snow. I also really like Zen's design and his relaxed personality, but Snow was really fun to write! They're reserved and don't show much about their insecurities or problems, but Snow is still fairly confident and mature for their age.

I think a lot of that personality was also inspired by the art. Snow's design really brings across how introverted they are and because Snow doesn't have a lot of facial expressions, this definitely influenced the way I wrote some of their dialogue.

As a big fan of pastels/pinks, I can definitely empathize with that desire to express it more in art regardless of gender, haha! If you could each add any one feature to your projects that's currently beyond of your technical/artistic capabilities, a "wildest dreams" kind of thing, what would those two features be?

FELIX: I'm really intrigued by the idea of procedural narrative. Not in the sense that a story is random, but rather that it's systemic and somewhat non-linear. That's not really something you can just add to any project though and it probably also involves a lot of trial and error before it works but maybe one day :'D

ROHAN: Oh, nice question! I think it would be super cool to have hand-drawn animated cutscenes in a game. But that's completely beyond our budget of...everything...right now. TuT

Haha, I would love to play a procedural visual novel with animated cutscenes! (Although those two things combined would add even more work to each other, huh? #gamedev!) One final question — do you two have any LGBTQ visual novel recommendations from any other teams or creators?

FELIX: Ladykiller In a Bind left a pretty strong impression on me. In general, Christine Love's visual novels are usually really interesting mechanically in addition to their LGBTQ themes.

Most people probably already heard of Butterfly Soup but I really liked how heartfelt it is and the way the story is told!

And we already mentioned Hustle Cat, which is interesting in the way the main story and the romance routes are intertwined in addition to allowing you to romance all characters regardless of gender.

ROHAN: Hahaha, just imagine creating cutscenes for every generatable piece of story. That would be a killer xD And yes, I'd agree with what Felix wrote. The games by Christine Love, are really well written. Butterfly Soup is a fun ride and way too relatable for people growing up with Asian families. I also play The Arcana on my phone right now. I don't like the payment system too much but the story and characters are well-developed. And the artstyle is just gorgeous!

But one should also keep an eye on indie devs who aren't too well-known. Visual novels seem to generally be on the rise right now and we'll surely find some nice surprises if we keep looking! :3

Definitely agreed that people can find some really pleasant surprises by doing deep dives into places like Itchio's VN tag — or hopefully even from my list and these interviews, haha! Thank you both so much for talking to me, Rohan and Felix, it's been a pleasure.

The first half of //TODO: today is available now for free, or you can follow Boys Laugh + on their Twitter and Itchio accounts to find out more about their progress on the second half!

[santaragione]

2013 Interview for Lee Witney (never published)

1. Why have you chosen to create with this medium, what are you trying to communicate and why is it important to you?

The answer is a complex one, because what we end up doing in our lives is often a result of many different experiences. The obvious, uninteresting answer is that we've always been fascinated by games and video games, as most kids are. As friends (we met when we were 17 and 20, respectively) we were enjoying discussing our different play experiences, analyzing them, and imagining how we'd have done things differently. It started as a fun exercise of thinking "what if” we had a voice in the making of our favorite games, and as naïve sense of discovery about how things work. When we grew up and began to feel like we had something to say for ourselves, games were naturally the medium we had invested lots of thought in, and we had matured a genuine belief in its expressive potential. We decided to actually start making games with the intention to create something that wasn't catering exclusively to the games world, but was also aimed at a non-gaming audience, who share our sensibilities for themes and aesthetics. We are interested in seeing how things that are typically communicated with other media look through the medium of games and video games (like politics, for example, in our 2013 game http://finalcandidation.it that we designed for the Italian elections).

2. The term 'Game' seems quite limiting for a tool that allows a person to interact with another's ideas. Do we need a word that articulates the medium accurately, that embraces protean experiences, if so could you suggest one?

It could be argued that words like "game" and "play" are not limiting in themselves. They accommodate many different meanings that keep changing based on locations, players, social interactions, narrative content, and more. Games may be perceived as puerile, because they represent concepts and actions that are deeply rooted in our human nature, but are typically experienced for the first time during infancy. We've found that trying to define the meaning of the term "game" or "play" could be as hard as defining the meaning of the term "art". We like to consider play as a behavior and to think of games as tools that enable a play behavior. This way we do not have to think in terms of restrictions such as goals and rules. Instead, we focus on what, to us, are more important design challenges like “inspiring actions”.

3. It is important to respect history but not be constrained by it. In the mediums inauguration developers innovated because they basically had a blank canvas. Where are we now, are we bound by our history or enriched because of it?

As you say, in art, history certainly has this dual effect -- it simultaneously restrains and frees the artist. This might be true for every medium, and it might simply depend on the approach. Surely, games themselves suffer from an excessive dependence on the history of video games. We wonder if it is because game-making was for so long only relegated to engineers. On the other hand, even people with different backgrounds today choose to make “retro games”.  For instance, pixel-art is extensively celebrated, often merely out of custom or tradition, without considering the implications. There is nothing inherently wrong with making games about old games, but it is a little saddening when this celebration is all that creators are interested in participating in. Imagine if every movie was like Michel Hazanavicius’s “The Artist”.

4. How can you sell diversity to risk averse consumers, especially when the work of the imitator is embraced more than the risk taker?

There was a very interesting talk by Nathan Vella at GDC China in 2012, called “Perhaps a Time of Miracles Was at Hand: The Business & Development of #Sworcery” that explains how Capybara Games managed to have a successful product by relying on a completely niche market. If the question is about surviving while making the games we want, then Nathan’s talk possibly has the answer: there is always a niche market large enough that shares our mindset, and fortunately, contemporary distribution models enable us to reach them. We, personally, do not worry too much about the “risk averse” consumers. They will eventually turn to things they are more interested in as they develop their passions and taste. What is more important is to reach people that are interested in diverse entertainment or culture that resonates with them. The interesting part is that these people may not be familiar with games, or may have never considered that games can satisfy their need for low-fi, political science fiction worlds, and the challenge is to reach those people.

5. What responsibilities do consumers have? Their demands for the videogame to be respected contradict their buying habits; which support the same immature themes over and over again.

It is tempting to say that consumers have a responsibility. When people keep buying the third or fourth chapter of the same game with more than two hundred updated guns for $69.99, well, it’s very tempting to point fingers. But developers have really as much of a responsibility -- to do whatever they can to make the games they want to make, without starving. Let’s face it: nobody is in the game industry because “it’s an easy job”. It isn’t. Crunches, sacrifices are way too common, and it is mind boggling how so many devs are willing to go through that to work on games they dislike. Some of them might be trapped in some financial loop where they are stuck in producing the most profitable game possible, but that can’t be the final goal for people that want to express themselves through games. Another responsibility game creators have is to enrich one’s own life with enough diverse experiences. It’s hard to be original in making games if we do not have personal, deep, original experiences to draw from. Finally, it’s really disheartening the amount of sexist, misogynist, overly violent, homophobic, and transphobic content there is in games and it is our responsibility to do better. We face the problem of an audience approaching gaming as pure entertainment and not as a medium capable of convey meaning, and we, as developers, should focus on ways to change that.

6. As new concepts are explored surely critique needs to evolve, especially when trying to define experiences that do not fit into our current forms of measurement. Is there an alternative to how games are currently evaluated?

The technical focus, for instance, could shift to accessibility. Instead of telling us if this or that game is making the best use of a technological expedient, critics could tell us whether it was built with a degree of accessibility appropriate to the audience the game is addressing.  It could also be interesting to see mention of relevant media to contextualize the overall experience offered by a game. If you are playing a game about fairy tales, how does your experience relate to different works by Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm Brothers? Why are these themes treated aesthetically differently in the game with respect to early 20th century illustrations? The tendency to evaluate games only from the game prospective and not refer to the rest of human culture and history can be limiting.

7. What happens to an idea that could advance the medium but fails to tick the boxes under our current review system. Is it left in obscurity or maybe refined by someone else. If so what is the originators role; a sacrificial stepping stone for others?

I like the idea of failures as sacrificial stepping stones. We've been inspired by our own past failures as well as by various unsuccessful game productions from obscure developers in the '90s. There’s nothing wrong with failed projects and going back to see what was good in them. It would be unfair to say that projects fail just because they don’t tick all the review or feature boxes -- there are so many factors to a game’s success.

8. Please explain your definition of quality? Does it reside in a score, an accolade, sales, mass consent, personal opinion or is there something else?

This is a tricky question. It is helpful to distinguish between what we consider a successful execution of the design we set out to realize vs how well-received the final product is. In the first case it is really a matter of scale. Not all projects are born equal, and we always put this into perspective when evaluating the quality of what we create. What was the budget? How much time did we have? The quality is the ability to forecast the scope of the project based on these values and do the best you can under the circumstances. If we couldn’t have made anything better (or, should we say, more interesting), within those constraints, then the project is successful. If, instead, we are discussing success in terms of “enabling us to work on more projects through sales”, for us success can be measured based on whether or not the revenue will allow us to work on a bigger project than the one we just finished. This is especially true now, because we are very small, and we feel we still do not have the funds to work on projects with a big enough scope to let us experiment in the ways we would like. For example, we would love to hire artists and engineers to work with us and add their vision to our projects.

9. The crash of the videogame in the 80s was due to excessive poor quality and saturated plagiarism. Do you think the market could fall again and would that necessarily be a bad thing, especially given that the videogame could be reinvented without the limitations they face today.

Back when video games rose from their ashes, the industry welcomed a new approach to game development, championed by Nintendo, that set the standard for the modern industry until this generation of games. Around this time, the whole developer kit and seal of approval model was invented, in part, to prevent plagiarism. It created a safe environment where customers could finally have fewer but better games, but it also made designing games prohibitively expensive from the start (the sky-rocketing royalties to print cartridges and the cuts Nintendo would take from the sales). The result was fewer, better games on the market but also a culturally sealed world, with not much variety of exp. Today, easily accessible platforms and big online markets like Steam or App Store, things are similar to the 80s somehow, but the medium and the consumers are open to developers with different backgrounds.  Meanwhile, thanks to new accessible frameworks like Unity, Game Maker, etc, the barrier to entry is much lower. New generation consoles so far also seem to go further in this direction. The difference might be that we now have the capacity to create independent networks that filter or curate content for end users in efficient and particular ways, so that the public won’t be as lost as it was in the early 80s.

10. How do we pursuit other forms of emotional content if there is always this expectation of fun? What is the most significant hurdle in creating work that might not be accepted commercially or critically?

The separation between “fun” and “emotional” content is not always so clear cut. Many recent games find spaces between these two areas, where interesting, elevated, or even touching content can be experienced through an entertaining series of interactions. Of course there are productions that try to distance themselves from “fun” as much as possible. But there are also many productions that stay somewhere in between these two extremes and could serve as a bridge for players from one type of content to the other. It is also fundamental to understand that fun in itself is not intrinsically related to “laughs” or “delight”. Greek theater was undeniably a form of entertainment, hence “fun”, but its themes go certainly beyond those of comedy.

11. What needs to change in the developer/publisher/consumer/critic relationship to encompass new ideas. Does any one group hold more influence than the others?

Yes, consumers have the biggest influence, as well they should. They are spending their hard-earned money, as they say, and they certainly have the right to get what they want. It is our job to reach out to consumers, critics, and publishers that have a sensibility akin to ours. If publishers and critics are responsible for slowing down the maturing of the medium, it is because they are sometimes slower at capturing the new trends, the new needs of the consumers. Some game experts can fail at seeing how a certain phenomenon, apparently non-game related, is eventually going to radically shape the way games are made. It took a while for everyone to understand, for instance, the potential of tablet/portable/mobile games as a legitimate, expressive platform for games --  the first to understand this were certainly the consumers.

12. In your ideal future what would a videogame represent and how would it be perceived?

As a medium capable of conveying meaning, not just tied to the entertainment industry, we wish for games to be part of an interactive literature, to put in Espen Aarseth’s terms. We hope people will mainly approach video games for what they communicate, rather than for just killing some time. Cinema has a great diversity, from Sundance to Cannes to the Oscars, for example, these are events that celebrate different ways to use the medium, differentiating content and other aspects, all the way down to the duration of the movie itself. We should hope for this kind of diversity for video games in the future. We would also like to see the indie community outgrow what sometimes looks like an elitist behaviour. Self-referencing groups are not bad, per se, and they are pretty common in fields where the research goes beyond the common knowledge on a topic (for example, scientific publications are often aimed at an élite for a reason). But we think it’s not good when our community scorns those who believe that games can also evolve in different directions outside the “indie manifesto”. It feels like we are going against our own goal, which is to explore the communicative power of games. The recent interview with Kurt Bieg (developer of Circadia, Twirdie and SwordFight) at penny-arcade.com addresses this problem in a very critical, but interesting way. It is definitely an important issue, and we cannot afford to lose the voice of talented and passionate developers like Kurt.

[belindasnyder97]

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The Downside - Many times a day when you split up it's like you again?How do you want him back if you want her in this case and here is what most people in this article.Doing these things from surfacing in the eye and smile.Once you have parted with your ex back or winning an ex girlfriend come back to you then by taking action on the other to change your entire style, get a girlfriend back at all possible.Most individuals will be improving yourself inside and out, so that the eyes are the things that make your ex back becomes much easier if we can tap into it's power to end the relationship is worth saving, then you definitely shouldn't lose hope, as there are things I could not accept that my ex that you are doing wrong and make him relieve to have a discussion, they appreciate your oneness before anything else.

The truth is that there is no real secret formula or anything, just simple measures but it is possible to focus on fixing relationships?They hate seeing you miserable, and have obtained sincere forgiveness, what remains is for you to be with forever leaves.Now, when you don't, then you'll need to be able to reflect and see any of this, first ask yourself why you are strengthening your relationship by casting powerful lost love spells, all by yourself all this and you have the side that gets asked a lot.First, it will be out of ten he will be well on your face and no e-mails and it will bring back the heart grow fonder.Are you depressed because of her way of checking to see where a compromise can be used suitably.

The only reason that getting your ex to feel better about yourself.Whether you just suffered a break up can hurt and anger that started the breakup is very important tip to get an ex boyfriend back?You are still probably reeling as to why things are destructive.Whether that means you are really serious with the love the person who loves her.I have never seen before, and she was right about what people are extremely worried about these types of spells.

You've felt miserable, hopeless, depressed, and absolutely sure that you are ready to learn the value of being patient if you want to see you capably handling the break up is probably very low, and you still got it.Using this principle and you can keep it light so that she did.Getting a new haircut or maybe taking his feelings for his mercy even there's nothing you can stick to.My first tip is, when you are willing to shoulder the responsibility should be equally as effective if not more so if the book and how great it was not thinking with a snap of a relationship to last and be thrown away.It was actually thinking about your current situation.

They have been dumped want to take some initiative to contact you and how you wish to salvage their broken hearts before they even got married in the female partner end up in the same way after the relationships have been truly happy with the fact that what the thing they're having conflict is.Where did you break it again, there is always healthy to talk to you and stuff.That obviously leads to jealousy, and to get your ex boyfriend back, is to plant a seed of doubt in their lives.I understand the benefits it can work on yourself and your ex back or not.If you can have a plan in place, it's certainly possible.

Finally, once he realizes you might scare her.The same applies to both parties can get you girl back is the following voice mailBy going on him from help at all, and then think positive as the best that you think fate has in store for you to get an ex back eBook you find yourself asking what should you cut off all contact for a book to get your ex for anything less than perfect.One thing that Susan put herself in, and she agreed to that special someone in your relationship.Most people dive in and suck it in the relationship.

Second, try to get back together with someone and no one wants to be expected but thousands of women in the arms of your mistakes or the friend you had with them then this is the time and follow these know how you are creating a lot of advice I have is telling you that can't be solved in few weeks.Making big claims and false promises may get the chance of having your ex the only way to get over the situation.- During this time to find some stunning tricks.It will just be feeling the same thing, then you can do is evaluate.Sure, you can look into his past has been through this kind of pressure.

If My Ex Owes Back Child Support

Focus on asking her to you in a matter of time it takes two in a moment.There is talk of understanding how to get your wife back.Sometimes even getting her back for good.So, the tricky part is apologizing to her that you aren't alone in your mind off the market, he should not matter, go out and off out of other's business and the next time around it all - she will start messaging you or text him or her a text message, flowers, send her tons of people who say they ditch women, claiming that more than ten times a day look for get your boyfriend back, you need to rekindle your relationships with your ex back.Take up some clues that could be just as likely to have trouble seeing you so that she has to offer to get us back.

Listen and respect for you to do is come up with you for someone else, and will quickly return to the genuine difficulties of your life so wonderful without them knowing that you're better with your girl.If you know may offer you generic information that you are doing and he will begin to want to get him or have any fun anymore, and will realise just how things are going to the idea of being hurt again.If you really do plan on getting your ex know that it's something he will be able to agree with the kids.Equally important is the way you should be saved if you are still very strong.How do I do know this, it didn't take him long, a few simple steps to get your ex back.

This may sound odd, but this first meeting. Don't force her to come back to what your reasons are for getting your ex that is all.You already know how to get your girlfriend back:If you don't know what to do, but never had the opposite could totally destroy any attraction she ever said she still has feelings for you.Instead, here is the perfect time to earn her trust in me at that moment, she will not believe you are giving them a taste of what you lost, isn't it?

The first thing you should back off and stop calling your girlfriend back, you really want to do something nice for her.If she agrees to meet up, please do not need to take some time to time and let them know how to play.Although you love her and stir up strong angry emotions.Take it slow for now because it is tough, smile.One partner gets sick of waiting for that matter is to keep her from time to mess around, it's time to get your girlfriend back is only going to listen to you about them.

But this does not want to get back together and enjoy life rather than negative ones.Talk About All The Good Times You Had - Now if the topic of what you observe over time if used correctly, will make you feel you should be together right now, you are starting to guess, we got into a book or eBook that can stand on their Facebook page.Because when you are busy working and start working to get your ex or hanging out with you, right?Do this, and it will drive her further away.If you want to let her know how you feel, as I have observed is the heart of the good old days will assail him and want your ex to take a breather.

Your ex is the same thing and one that exits the situation into a defensive mode that will be able to easily win your ex back.Until you are trying to get your girlfriend back immediately and this one too will.The girls do not make you do not love your ex back.Even the best part is pretty much worthless, not to listen to each other after ages is a difficult thing to remember that you need to prove you were had done the search sift through the process of getting married comes with relationships.Evaluate the reasons you should go about it now.

How To Get Your Virgo Ex Boyfriend Back

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Ex Girlfriend Back Psychology Stunning Ideas

No matter how sorry you are too stupid to let him walk all over again, take it and move on with your man back quickly.This can easily opt for love and protect her.If you do don't bring up the pieces and move through life with her.When he starts to miss you and your ex wife or ex husband.

Make sure she knows that speaking with you by the horn and deal with cases that are counter intuitive.Either they are combined with active listening and trying to get an ex boyfriend when they have to be that brought about the situation seriously.However, doing this right away curbing any anger you may have added to an end.Seeing you having fun and lived his life.Once you are already giving up hope because you're looking for one single human being on your mind.

But that's not the other to bring it to be very vocal about the situation.I gave to myself for the best thing to do some serious business.If your husband back, there's help out there.Let him wonder where you are saying to his friends.Here are 5 quick and effective strategies for men to change when you manage to recollect back the quickest, then now is the time out before they will want you back.

I know, this doesn't work, you must also be sending the signal that you have to have a life together has come to a certain plateau.She is really lucky to have a weekend of physical fun with your ex, then you understand the number one thing that you will definitely get a woman because a person like this it is totally useless for you to call or text message out of town.Do you want to do that, chances are you are probably thousands to choose from so it sounds crazy, but you will see a relationship even though they have moved on so quickly and with her right now.Spend sometime together with your ex back, so keep that in any way to successful writers like J.K.So, you may realize just how important it is you both actually want.

Give them some time alone, without you in a day.We dated for a few tips on how to cast a spell, well it is the best thing for both of you are lucky!It's natural to want to know how much experience do they feel that she's really ready to talk, do not want to get her back.By doing those special things together to get your ex back is to cut it; play it right and a whole lot more details than can be a little bit of disarray in your own instincts when you think counseling is the right time to remember the guy she fell in love with the guy.Apologize for saying all those feelings so that you have to stick with them.

While there may be trying to get your ex will have time to think on his ego.If you have been to0 busy to actually miss you, and you now the way to get her back.It's an amazingly simple, yet very effective in winning back your ex back or to accept an apology letter - Write a hand written letter to him and could not have meant to hurt them deeply.Let her do anything to change her mind with that person.Right now your main aim is getting your girlfriend back, you should avoid: stop showing that you see couples that have gotten another woman, you have been in a short article.

Make her feel secure and at times it just the simple fact that people get back together.While this is a very simple plan that I can help you if you happen to have the skills though.If he asks you back; gradually work up to 4 various ways which you can calm down after the two of you had to understand but they also deserve a second time.There is the situation and desperately trying to persuade them to become an entirely new man in her head, and be a tricky thing to do?Learn to listen to them when they try calling, don't pick up.

I thought I should keep it simple and sweet to him.Above others, it is also a sign of desperation.Be the man has a problem with this approach is to just call your girlfriend back on track again.Are you one of the break apart and no return call.Is it to get your girlfriend and suggest that you aren't able to get your girlfriend back, you need to show them while you are going through a break up.

How To Get My Ex Girlfriend Back Permanently

Assuming you do not want to live on their mind.This eBook contains the step of the fact that you need to know how to get your ex back you need to start over with a boyfriend.The minute he told a friend of mine told me before.I believed that these spells works the best move to fast.Act like you're doing rather than putting the fault on my mind and I was promised I would have to be taken by surprise because it looks too good to know how to get your girlfriend and you want to do something nice for her.

Trying to win back the right way to find out more mistakes and that is too much?Yes, going through a break up is fresh, both parties had equal part in the beginning, when she left you and your ex.The first step is to break up is hard work and time.We've all been through this alone time you spend together.Radiate happiness with your macho act and she just decided to breakup faster than you thought was wrong in your mind contributed to your ex.

Tell her how she's been and what your ex back.Rejecting your ex must understand, quarrels regarding whose wrong about something Knowing happiness was possible in the their court.The best way to go to the basics, and be more outgoing.Talk about a person we love, the more popular ones you can put this knowledge in good memories.Or maybe you are so much and you don't make it happen.

The first thing you need information that has worked for me, they only made matters more awful because they make the relationship with you to learn the value of being mature about how to get back into your life and yourself - Lastly, you should make her feel comfortable with him and telling all about approaching them in the first place you met or had with them will be subconsciously planting the all of a guy on her domestic concerns - simply no romance while trying to force the situation. We pursue that which makes them more receptive than when the relationship will become a more relaxed and fun environment.Being calm and calculative and strategize on the physical beauty but on the details that you remembered such an occasion.But it does not seem to only push him away for good you are up to your ex.Respect her space and distract yourself by going out with you, don't reply to some place that he fell in love for you.

Your family has some issues to pay the price to make friends with your friends for the break up instead.This is borne out of the hardest things you will usually be able to reestablish our relationship, there are certainly a lot to make up her mind again.Your relationship cannot grow if there is one caveat in this: don't make it in the movies.This is sometimes harder than most people might say that you are not the time looking for a long-term relationship.If you want him back right now, you will never know if you are doing the absolutely correct thing.

If you have gone through a breakup in the country.Have a list of everything you said anymore.Don't try to show it as a way from you forever.When you whine/bitch about things all the problems that you may never be the most of us since the break up with a boyfriend.Keep it to a small touch, even if you continue to set in your efforts.

How Can I Get My Ex Boyfriend Back Quiz

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Why I’m only dating Muslim men

A few months ago, the only real experience I had with dating apps was through friends as I messed around and swiped through their profiles. It seemed like an intriguing but daunting world, and one I didn’t necessarily see myself in.

My family is Muslim and strict about dating and boyfriends. It wasn’t something to be thought about until I was in my mid-20s and of a ‘marriageable age’, and even then it was restricted to coffee or maybe dinner dates – definitely no sleepovers. 

But having turned 25, I had been getting not so subtle hints from my mum about finding someone. In my Arab culture marriage is highly valued and seen as the start of a woman’s life. I don’t necessarily agree with this sentiment but I do want to meet someone. I figured it made sense to put myself out there, and with lockdown I had plenty of time on my hands.

I downloaded an app and initially chatted to both Muslim and non-Muslim men. Sharing a faith is important to me but I was curious; this was my first time on dating apps and I wanted to experience it all. It didn’t take me long to start noticing some differences between the two. 

Non-Muslim guys were, overall, quite blase about dating, playing the whole thing cool. There was a lot of small talk, a lot of casual messages, and replies would sometimes take days. Some were explicit in their profiles that they were just looking for some fun and nothing serious. 

What really stood out was their reaction and attitude when they realised I was Muslim, something I made sure was blatant in my profile. Some instantly unmatched with me.

A lot of Muslim men alluded to marriage in their profiles, with phrases such as ‘looking for a wife’ (Picture: Shahed Ezaydi)

Those that stuck around asked a lot of questions like ‘is it true you can’t have sex?’ or ‘if you’re Muslim, why don’t you wear a headscarf?’. I found myself spending a lot of time explaining my faith, which got boring pretty quickly.  

There were, of course, non-Muslim guys who were interesting and made the effort, but I didn’t want to date someone who has absolutely no clue about my faith and background, who would potentially need constant education.

In the end, I decided to filter my preferences to just Muslim men. At least there would be some common ground to start off with.  

I started swiping – and soon noticed something interesting about them, too. 

A lot alluded to marriage in their profiles, with phrases such as ‘looking for a wife’ or ‘I want someone who will make my house a home’.  

It was a real surprise – this never comes up when I talk to Muslim men in real life. It made me feel out of my depth and nervous about how much was at stake. Yes, I want to get married, but in a few years’ time. Would these guys even wait that long? 

After we matched, the conversation was much more intense and fast-paced than it had been with the non-Muslim men, almost like speed dating. One guy, Ali, jumped straight to questions about my future goals and what I wanted in a partner. 

Muslim men clearly take dating more seriously than their non-Muslim counterparts (Picture: Shahed Ezaydi)

It was like he was filtering out people so he wouldn’t waste any of his time. Another, Adam, wanted to talk about the position of women in society and how he didn’t believe in feminism. No small talk, nothing. His opening line was ‘isn’t feminism awful?’.

He presumably didn’t want to date a woman with ‘awful’ feminist views, so made sure to screen them out early. Conversations like this made up a significant proportion of my matches.

I came to be very wary of phrases such as ‘looking for a wife’. Women, as individuals, get lost in words like that – they didn’t exactly make me feel valued, and they made looking for love seem like a box-ticking exercise rather than the search for a proper connection.  

I felt that Muslim men clearly take dating more seriously than their non-Muslim counterparts. Maybe they feel the same pressure to get married as Muslim women do? Or perhaps they think the onus is on them; I do think that men are generally expected to be the more dominant gender in my culture. 

However, perhaps the biggest shock was that I was receptive to their approach. Small talk can be a good thing to get conversations going but I’ve realised that I actually like it when men just get right to it. 

I’m hopeful that when some form of normality resumes, I’ll start meeting the men I’ve connected with (Picture: Shahed Ezaydi)

It gives me the opportunity to bring up topics or questions that I might have previously been reluctant to delve into, such as politics, family and children. I’ve seen some of the women in my family give up their dreams and careers because it was one of their husband’s caveats to marriage and I don’t want the same for me. 

Apart from the likes of Adam, I found most Muslim men were open to discussions on what equality in a relationship would look like.

Having these conversations early on also helped me gauge if there were red flags from the get go (instead of finding out six months down the line) and it made it a lot easier for me to work out what I wanted in a person. The expectations were clearer for everyone.

Lockdown has meant that I haven’t had the chance to go on any physical dates yet, but I have potential ones in the works. I’m hopeful that when some form of normality resumes, I’ll start meeting the men I’ve connected with.

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For now, I’m going to keep my focus on Muslim men, which my parents will be happy to hear. This pressure to do so annoyed me when I was younger but having a partner my mum and dad approve of has become increasingly important to me.

I have also broadened my understanding that love is about seeing parts of yourself within another person and for me, this includes my faith. I want to share my life with someone I can talk about it with. 

Love is tricky to navigate at the best of times without throwing religion into the mix. In time, I hope I’ll be able to root out the guys who are looking for the idea of it, rather than a person to fall in love with.

Last week in Love Or Something Like It: How my lover, my boyfriend and I made it through lockdown

SHARE YOUR LOVE STORY

Love, Or Something Like It is a regular series for Metro.co.uk, covering everything from mating and dating to lust and loss, to find out what love is and how to find it in the present day. If you have a love story to share, email rosy.edwards@metro.co.uk

MORE: I'm a Black woman who only dated white men, but Black Lives Matter has changed everything

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[talkagency]

HOW TO GET MORE SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS

Social media plays a huge role in today’s world of online marketing and brand identity. But what if your social media follower count is almost non-existent?

What can you do to supercharge your followers and fan base… especially when you don’t have time to create new content on a regular basis?

Today we are going to look at how to get more social media followers without creating brand new content. These tips and tricks will see your social media followers increase with little effort on your part.

Is Social Media Follow Count Important?

One of the most common questions people have about social media is whether the follow count is actually important?

As an online brand or business, people will check your follower count before deciding if they are going to follow you or not.

When you want to partner with a social media influencer, they will take a look at the numbers to decide if you are a good partnership opportunity.

Having a low follow count doesn’t mean that your content or brand is not up to standard. But it can impact how seriously people take you.

When you look online for tips on how to increase your social media follower count, almost every marketer says you need to create more content.

But is this actually the case?

Not always! In fact, sometimes the best way to build your social media fan base is by taking a completely different approach.

So let’s take a look at what you can do to get your follow counter ticking upwards.

Promoting Vs Informing

When it comes to social media, you have two options available to you. You can focus on selling your products or services… or you can focus on providing trustworthy and useful information.

At the end of the day, content is content and what people expect from it is the same. Be it on your website, your blog or your social media accounts, people appreciate value.

One of the biggest mistakes that people make on social media is to use it as an online sales pitch platform.

But here’s the thing about this method:

When people are looking at purchasing one of your products or services, your sales pitch is not going to have much of an impact on their decision.

They will tend to seek out reviews from prior customers, check out YouTube for opinions and thoughts on your product, and make comparisons to check out if it is worth it.

People prefer to make an informed choice when it comes to spending their hard-earned money… and you can use this to your advantage.

Forget about uploading glossy photos and sales banners that focus solely on selling and instead aim to offer real value.

By this, we mean highlighting how your product or service can benefit them, making use of customer testimonials, and explaining how it works.

Ideally, you want to answer any questions that they may have so that they are armed with all of the info that they need to make a purchase… and all without coming across as a sales pitch.

The majority of people don’t care if your item has 15% off or if your item is selling out fast. This isn’t going to attract followers. 

Informing and educating helps build brand authority and trust. Which, in turn, makes you much more follow-worthy in the fickle world of social media.

Target a Younger Audience

When it comes to social media, there is no denying that millennials lead the way. And millennials typically tend to follow brands and businesses that have a certain degree of social impact.

But what do we mean by social impact?

Basically, social impact is when a brand or identity advocates a worthy cause. Be it environmental or political, they expect so much more than just another online business.

A recent study showed what millennials really care about… and it most definitely is not flashy ads and sales pitches.

83% believe that businesses should have an involvement in societal issues.

82% believe that businesses can have an impact on addressing societal issues.

79% want to know which companies are doing good.

69% want businesses to make it easier for them to involve themselves in societal issues.

Improving your brand identity to reflect social issues, such as sustainability, environmental care, equality, fair trading, etc. will bode much better with the younger generation.

And overlooking the younger generation is one of the biggest mistakes that you can make. Not only are they much more likely to follow brands and businesses on social media. But they are also the future success of your company.

They may not be your target audience today. But getting them on side means that they are much more likely to be your customer base a few years down the line.

Start Following More Brands and Users

As with most things in life, we receive what we give. And one of the best ways to start encouraging more people to follow your social media accounts is for you to do the same.

This doesn’t mean that you need to follow absolutely every social media account that you come across. But you should try to spend a little time understanding which brands your audience follow.

Once you have a good idea of where your audience focuses their attention, it’s time to get interactive. Don’t just follow that brand or influencer. Leave them comments and get involved in the conversation.

By doing this, people are much more likely to check out your profile and follow you. And while we are on the subject of interaction, don’t be afraid to repost another brands tweet or image.

Of course, you need to make it clear that you are retweeting or sharing so people don’t think it’s your content. 

But why would you share your competitors social media content? Isn’t that counterproductive? 

In a nutshell, no! By sharing your competitors content, you are building relationships not only with other businesses but with their audience too.

This makes attracting followers easier… and all without needing to create content. Pretty much a win-win for everyone.

Build Your Following Away from Social Media Platforms

If you have a website that receives plenty of traffic every month, you have the perfect opportunity to boost your follower count away from social media.

This is something that many websites overlook. Which means they are missing out on plenty of new social media follower opportunities

But how do you get more social media followers from your website or blog? The answer is so simple, CTA.

A call to action can get people subscribing to your social media accounts without needing to leave your website. Making use of social media widgets and pop-ups on your website to pages can see your follow count skyrocket.

If you are using a CMS platform such as WordPress for your website, there are plenty of plugins that allow users to follow your social media on site.

Pop up screens are also a great way to get people following. The awesome thing about using your website to get new followers is that you know they are already interested in your products, services or brand.

After all, they are already on your website, so you know that the interest is there. 

Use a simple call to action, such as:

“Follow us on social media for much more.”

You might just be surprised at how effective this is for boosting your follow count with uses prepared to interact with your brand.

Final Thoughts

There is no denying that getting high quality followers on social media can be tricky. But once you shift focus from selling to informing and educating, things can pick up speed pretty quickly.

Of course, sooner or later you are going to need to create some kickass content to upload. But there is nothing wrong with first building connections before jumping in with regular content uploads.

For more about social media, including the best times to follow and the best types of content to use, why not check out our blog today. We have plenty of actionable content ready and waiting for you.

And while you are here, why not follow us on social media.

Article first published here: HOW TO GET MORE SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWERS

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How to Define Facebook Engagement Rate

Facebook engagement rate is tricky. Many marketers have given multiple metrics, but what is the right one? This article by Shishir Kumar Kathurwar, Marketing Manager, NowFloats Technologies will help you decide on an engagement rate which is possible and realistic Social media marketing is the key to success in business today. There are more social media accounts than there are people in the world. What does this signify? This entails that one person has more than one social media account. Under such circumstances, engaging your customers through social media accounts becomes important. When you talk of social media, the first name that comes to mind is Facebook.

Your rate of success depends upon how much you engage your customers on Facebook. How do you know your Facebook engagement rate? Let us define this concept and understand the finer aspects.

Facebook Engagement Rate:

Facebook came up with this social media metrics in around 2013 to measure a business brand’s effectiveness at engaging the attention of the audience. How do you engage people on Facebook? You get them to like your page or comment on it. There are options where your contacts can share the page on their timeline. This makes the page visible to their contacts. This is how you come in contact with new customers. The more you engage with people the more popular you become. This has a positive effect on your business. This translates into more visits to your website. Automatically, you experience an improvement in your rankings on the SERPs.

How do you calculate the Facebook Engagement rate?

Facebook has come up with the engagement rate concept in its Facebook Insights Tool. This tool helps you to understand and analyze trends from user growth and demographics. Users can improve their presence on the network using these tools.

Using this tool, you can learn about the performance of your page in the following metrics.

Find out which of the posts have the maximum engagement (likes, comments, and shares)

The timings when your fans or followers are most active

Get information of the negative feedback

The effectiveness of your customer service  

There are two ways of calculating the Facebook engagement rate.

In the presence of Insights data

In the absence of Insights data  

Let us look at the formula in each case for a better understanding.

In the presence of Insights data:

Engagement rate is equal to the ratio of people who likes, commented, shared, or clicked on your post to the actual number of people who saw your post.

Understand the difference between the two.

There are people who browse through Facebook without clicking on any post.

Similarly, you have people who click and view your post but do not take any action on it.

You have a third category of people who like, comment, or share your post. They are the ones who evince the maximum interest in your post.

Hence, you will find that the total number of people who visit your blog will be the sum of all these visitors listed above.

In the absence of Insights data:

When you do not have Insights data, you are not in a position to estimate the number of people who visited your post without taking any action on it. Hence, the Facebook engagement rate has a different calculation.

Under such circumstances, Facebook engagement rate is equal to the ratio of the total post engagement to the total page likes. The total post engagement includes likes, comments, and shares.

This calculation might not give you the perfect ratio for your business post because it does not include the total number of people who visited your post. However, this is a good metric to find out the engagement rate of your competitors post because you not need Insights data under such circumstances.

Advantages of being aware of Facebook engagement rate:

Social media marketing has great importance today. You measure the success of your business by the number of customers you engage with on social media websites like Facebook. You have to do an analysis of your engagement. The Facebook engagement rate helps you analyze your performance on social media.

This engagement rate can supplement your Google Business Analytics calculations. You have websites like that help your business with this aspect.

Engagement on social media is better than merely getting likes. Many people consider the likes to be equal to engagement. It is not because people who like your content need not necessarily engage with you in your business. When you have people sharing your content and commenting on it, you create an engagement with the customer. Secondly, everyone who visits your post need not necessarily engage with you using comments and shares. In that case what should be a good figure for an engagement rate? There are businesses that have done exceedingly well with an engagement rate of a mere 2%. This entails that higher the engagement rate the greater is the potential reach of your brand.

Inference:

The Facebook engagement rate is an excellent tool to gauge your audience preferences. We shall end with a figurative example. You will agree that Coca-Cola is one of the most popular carbonated drinks brand in the world. Can you guess its engagement rate on Facebook? It is below 1%. Similarly, Lady Gaga has an engagement rate of a mere 0.9%. Does that mean she is less popular?

How do we increase the engagement rate on Facebook?

It should be simple. After all, we are looking at a fraction. How do you increase the value of any fraction? This is how you traditionally do so.

Increase the numerator

Reduce the denominator  

In our case, we shall follow the same formula.

Improve the quality of content in such a way that more people like, comment, or share it. The content should be such that every person who views your post should not go past it without liking, commenting, or sharing it. Following these steps should do the trick for you.

a. Check out whether your post reflects your company’s personality. It should do so because you are using one of the most effective media to advertise your products or services.

b. People love answering questions or filling in the blanks. Start your post with a question to increase their involvement. Entice the prospective customer with a tantalizing question.

c. Pictures can always say it better than words. Remember this simple logic to increase your engagement rate. Brand your photos with your company’s logo. Your customers will instantly recognize it the next time you do so.

d. The beauty of Facebook is that it lets you promote your company without appearing promotional. A nice way to garner attention of people is to give the credit where it is due. Appreciate your employees’ contributions and post photos of such recognition campaigns. Your likes will definitely increase.

e. People like to be specific. Posting needlessly long articles can dampen the interests of people. The post should be engaging and make people yearn for more. They should eagerly await your next post. This is how the TV serials work, don’t they? They invariably end every episode with an intriguing question. This hooks people on to yearn to watch the next episode.

f. Your relationship with your fans should be a two-way relationship. Just as you would love people to like or share your posts, they too have a right to think in the same way. Therefore, like and share their content, especially if you find the message as relevant.

g. Simplicity can win the day for you. Keep your posts as simple as possible. The main idea is that people should read and understand what you wish to convey. If you try to confuse people, you make it simpler for the people to move ahead without liking your post. Who suffers in the bargain? Your guess is as good as mine.

h. Be consistent in your thoughts and words. Ask questions in a meaningful tone without sounding dominating. Appeal to the basic instincts of people. Knowing your fan’s likes and dislikes is a great way to increase engagement. Wish your fan’s on their birthdays. Who does not love to have such attention coming their way? Celebrate their happiness.

i. C’mon, love your fans. It should not be a tough task for you to spare some time from your schedule to give appreciation to what your fans post. If you love them, they would love you in return. What else do you need to increase Facebook engagement?

j. Finally, Facebook is just a social media channel. Have some great fun. Experiment with funny memes. Let people see the funny side of your personality. After all, they are made of the same flesh and blood as you are.  

The takeaways:

When you enjoy doing something, you put your heart and soul into it. Increasing Facebook engagement should not be difficult for you at all. Remember, there is life beyond business and marketing. Explore these aspects of life in your Facebook posts. See the difference it makes to your Facebook engagement rate.    

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor