#Had to edit the dabble a bit cause i missed a few things in the writing

[constellationmelody]

Beauty and the Guard AU

An AU on Beauty and the beast but there’s no beast unless you want to count belos as one but he’s not the focus character Hunter just refuses to take off his mask the whole time.  

Takes place when luz is trying to save Eda from petrification, Luz strikes a deal with Belos, Giving the portal but manages to destroy it. She’s instead taken captive and warned by Belos that if she escapes, He’ll send an army to capture not just Eda but everyone she ever met and befriended. 

- Has to stay in the Castle as to answer Belos’ questions about the human realm and any other information gathering.

- Hunter is assigned as her chaperone but not all the time. Not when he’s on missions. Steve fills in. 

- Luz agrees with Hunter to not ask about his mask. She says that she doesn’t have a desire to get to get to know him and Considering how the majority of citizens are under the monster category, she understands that he doesn’t want anyone to look. Hunter is not sure if he’s relieve that she will keep her promise not to look under his mask or feel insulted that she basically called him ugly. 

(Long post)

- When not 'helping’ Belos information gathering, She puts to work as a cleaning lady, Luz is furious about it. She can’t believe she has to clean more there than she does at home in a dusty castle. The other cleaning witches can do their job well with magic, meanwhile it’s all manual labor. Not to mention she shares quarters with them and they snore.

- Tries to convince Hunter to let her go out even if its around the castle grounds, of course, He says no and shuts down her attempts.

- While doing her cleaning duties, Luz wanders around the castle to look around any valuable information on Belos for any way to help eda/or whatever without the Golden Guard following her. She finds the forbidden library and is amazed by the goldmine of BI’s forbidden knowledge! She only gets to look through some books before she gets caught by Hunter which he angrily yells at her about being in a place where she’s not supposed to be in. Drags her out and locks the library.

- She tries to run away but often gets stopped by Hunter, the threat of going to the dungeon doesn’t scare her (”I escaped there like twice”). He relents and allows her to go on these ‘adventures’ when he’s not in a mission, He finds it to be fun but would not admit it.

- Luz manages to get the freedom to go back to school but is secretly spied on by Hunter, though he sometimes get caught by the monsters or students roaming around. Hunter picks her up after school. (weak sauce, idk what to put here to make it more interesting)

- When he’s not chaperoning her in the outside world, Hunter gets envious how much fun Steve is having with Luz when they go on an adventure. Detailing their bounty adventures, using the snails to shop and buy things. He can’t really do much about it but when he does go, Steve gets sad; Luz promises him that she’ll get him souvenirs.

- Somehow finds out that Hunter is a magicless witch and Luz shows him that she can do magic through glyphs. Hunter is amazed and they start geeking out about it until he stops himself since it’s a forbidden knowledge.

-  Luz had succeed running away from the castle but its to the beach to stare at the boiling waters. She tells Hunter that the castle life was suffocating her and needed to go out. Hunter stayed with her until they were ready to go back. 

- Hunter secretly takes her to the forbidden library to cheer her up so she can learn more and the boiling isles history. Hunter is happy to have someone with the same interests as him to talk to about wild magic. Gets more comfortable around her and talk in secret more about it. During their time together get bond over varies subjects, the library becoming their sanctuary when its not in use, which is most of the time. They share about each other’s realms constellations, history, what kind of magic is around, creatures and about the titan. Luz scolds him for this, referring back when he got angry at her for being curious when he basically did the same thing in secret.

- After some time getting comfortable and know each other through mutual interest and deep talks. Hunter gets bothered that since she doesn’t know his name, She has no choice but to call him by his title. When they are coming back from doing errands, He tells her his name and she’s allowed to call him by it when they are together/in private. His heart fluttered when he hears her say his name.

- Luz starts to grow feelings for him despite not knowing what he looks like. She had opportunities to see what he looks at the times when he’s asleep during their time in the library or when his mask gets knocked off during a temp job but kept her promise to not look at his face which leads to uncomfortable situation where she accidentally gropes him when she was looking for him to give him his mask back, luckily never below the belt. What she finds is his built felt normal. No hidden spikes, slime or what-have-you to suggests that he’s in the monster/demon category. Hunter obviously flustered. 

- (Following the plot of Hunting palisman w/ some changes to the plot cause obviously Eda)  At school Luz can’t find the palisman that suits her and is upset about it. Hunter, although he still hesitant about his feelings towards wild magic, tries to comfort her. (convo from the Hunting palisman) Luz  talks about What happened at the school, and questions Hunter about how he manages to know what he wanted for his future and How he came to the emperor’s coven, to help her get some guidance from him. He tells her about himself and lack of future and Although she isn’t sure about hers, at least she gets to choose. Luz feels sad for him and hugs him. Hunter melts in her embrace. 

- Just as he’s about to fall asleep in her arms, Rascal pops out of his hiding place and gives Hunter a heart attack. Rascal chooses Hunter to be his palisman. Obviously Luz feels a bit disappointed that hunter got his palisman when he doesn’t want it, the look of uncertainty he has with the palisman makes her determine to get him used to it. She can always be a teacher since she has experience with Owlbert.

- With his new staff that he’s still unsure of, Hunter decides to take Luz out somewhere out of the ordinary routine after school, somewhere special (think like events like the wailing stars but something else) but that turned romantic. At some point he slightly lifts his mask to kiss Luz’s hand. She’s obviously swooned. May have peeked and sees that he has loose strand of medium blond hair sticking out and that his Lips felt like normal. Starts to think he looks like more like human(or witch?) like some of her classmates.

- They become even more friendlier as it becomes a usual thing for them to be seen together in the castle when Luz is or isn’t working, even the coven members are noticing this, especially Kikimora. Coven leaders are just shocked that someone liked him enough to be his a friend. 

- Kikimora start planting seeds of doubts in Luz’s mind about whether Hunter really is being her friend or just fulling his duties as he was told by Belos. What if their talks where his manipulative ways to get her to tell him about her and other information gathering. Was he really talking to her as she clean because he’s really saw her as a friend or just keeping guard to make sure she doesn’t run away. Kiki does this to mess whatever good thing Hunter has since she can’t kill him.  Luz tries her best to ignore her, rationalizing that that’s quite an investment for Hunter to go through to manipulate her.

- Somewhere a long the line, Luz finds out the truth about day of unity and the truth of Kikimora’s words of Hunter’s actions that she assumed was just lies that Kiki told her. She’s hurt to think the guy she grown to love had any knowledge about it and betrayed her. “I though you were a good guy [mentions all the stuff they do together and such] I guess You’re not my friend, you’re just the golden guard.” It kills him when she said that.

- alternatively he finds out that she has the key to the partially fixed portal door. Is conflicted on whether to break their bond for belos or not especially after learning that she’s homesick and wants to see her mom again. Fought with Kikimora over it with lead to Luz finding out their fight and gets heartbroken that Hunter has it, assumes the worst that kikimora was right.  Again, “I though you were a good guy I guess I was wrong. You’re not my friend, you’re just the golden guard.” His feels his heart breaks. 

- Luz gets rescued by Eda, Lilith, king, hooty, her friends. Hunter doesn’t try to stop her but apologizes to her for everything and for what it’s worth, he’s happy to got to know her and that he loved her, whether she feels the same or not. Luz obviously shocked but couldn’t give a response because the gang were fleeing.

- Back in the owl house, Luz is a mess because of the mixed feelings she has for hunter. In one hand, she knew him as this cold person who was very dedicated to his job while the other as an intelligent, funny, (other more things) and is confused on which hunter is the one she grown to love. ( Feels devastated about it because she thinks that he faked his feelings for her to get knowledge on the key or whatever although hunter didn’t really know she had it.)

- Lilith is dumfounded that Luz has feelings for him because she known him to be a brat. Luz argues that He is but much more than that. As she explains why, she gets hits with the epiphany that she does indeed had fallen in love with him. Eda laughs, “Not sure If I approve catching feelings for your nanny, I thought you were being tortured or something but I see now what you have been really doing.” wagging her eyebrows. Luz: “They have me clean the castle from top to bottom! By hand!” “I don’t approve then.” Luz shares her knowledge of wild magic with the group that she learn from the castle’s library.

- Weeks later, Luz tries to sleep but hears small knocking on the window, She opens it and sees Rascal with the key with him and a note from Hunter apologizing again for what happened. Belos doesn’t know about the key. She sends a note back, telling him to meet her. 

- idk how they makeup. (Working on it) Luz walks up to Hunter and asks if she could take off his mask which he agrees to. Luz takes his mask off and smiles, “well look at that, Magenta eyes. You aren’t ugly as I thought to you were!” hunter frowns, “But you’re handsome as I imagined,” leans up and kisses him first. Hunter tosses the mask away for good and hugs her close to kiss her better. Luz pulls back,  “and... I love you too.” Hunter isn’t sure what his new future holds but knows for sure that Luz is a part of it. 

-------------

( Had an idea in an alternative story plot around the part where they went out to a ‘date’. They confessed their love and started to kiss lol imagine them having to use a blindfold to keep her eyes closed. But it was a bit too sensual? Or Sensuous? It just didn’t fit in the flow of the storyline. Why did this became a dabble? )

Hunter, for the first time, gets self conscious about his looks. He tries not look into mirrors, though hard when his mask reflects the face he tries hard to avoid looking at when putting it on, He doesn’t really thought much about his looks, except for the scar that’s plastered over his cheek. The ugly scar that he rather forget he has.

As Hunter looks down at Luz’s face, blindfolded to prevent her from accidently opening her eyes during their ‘make out session’, He’s starting to believe that Luz lied about being magicless. He can’t help but feel enchanted over how beautiful she looked by the way the moonlight cast a heavenly glow over her cute features. He can only imagine how her eyes would look like if she didn’t have the blindfold on. “I wish I can stare into your eyes,”

“Why can’t we?”

“You know why”

“Right, I’m not allowed to look under the mask.” she pouted.

“And... well,” Luz attentively waits for him to continue, “I may not look... pretty as you think I imagine. If that makes any sense.” He sheepishly confessed

As Luz wraps her arms around his shoulders, Hunter feels her hands feeling up up his neck, tenderly cradling his face. Hunter fails to resist the blush spreading across his cheeks and the warm pleasant feeling in his chest

“I have other senses to “see” you,” She says sliding her fingers along his jawline, “Strong jaw, ... No scales, or slime... just soft skin” 

She found one patch on the left of his face in particular that caught her interest but before she could take her time to feel it, Hunter quickly shook her hand away from it. Sensing its something he feels uncomfortable with, she decides to leave it alone. 

She continues, “I can hear your voice; sound hot,” He suddenly felt shy at the comment. He was always self-conscious as he has been told that it was annoying. He felt relieved that it wasn’t the case for her.  “Heh, Thanks”

“I can smell you, " She nuzzles against his neck and scrunches up her nose, “... you need a shower.” Hunter frowns, that was certainly killed the mood a little. She pulls back, “But I like that you smell like pine forest sometimes,” weak save.

 “And,” she hums as grazes her thumb over his lips, licking her own. Hunter subconsciously sucks in his breathe, feeling himself getting hotter by the second.

“I can taste you.” finishing off her sentence by pressing her lips against his; briefly misses his lips by kissing the corner of his mouth before correcting herself. 

Hunter smirks in amusement. 

Alright, He admits that was pretty smooth of her to end it the way she did, even though she fumbled at the end. 

He feels a bit confident on that fateful day where he feels brave enough to show her his face, He just hope it lives up to her expectations despite her reassurance to the contrary. 

Luz, on the other hand, is glad that he’s feels like a normal person underneath the mask, she can’t help but feel a bit disappointed that hunter possess no fangs. 

[des-dabbles]

Check In Tag ✔️

Look at me catching up on tag games and stuff. My sweet friend, @junktrait tagged me in this so let's go...

Why did you choose your URL? -- My current one came about me wanting to pull "sims" out of my user name. I have been feeling me pull away more from the game and finding myself "dabbling" in other activities. Des comes from Desira which comes from my last WoW main character. And now I'm just use to people calling me Des.

Any side blogs? If you have them name them and why you have them? -- I had one that I would reblog some ACNH patterns to but I did not use it for long at all.

How long have you been on tumblr? -- Feb 2019. Feels like forever ago.

Do you have a queue tag? -- I do not. I really didn't even know it was a thing until recently.

Why did you start your blog in the first place? -- I feel like it's the same story that everyone else has. I wanted to share what was happening in my game. I was also really jumping back into sims and reading lots of simblrs, so I wanted a way to comment and like people's posts.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp? -- It was going into Spring and I wanted to do something spring like. Dane & Ray were my newest sim couple and I wish I had the energy/motivation to share their story but instead it lives rent free in my head. So I share random edits instead.

Why did you choose your header? -- To match my icon. At least on the tumblr dash insert thingy. On the actual tumblr page/layout, it's my OC OTP and their alpha glory.

What’s your post with the most notes? --  My most popular was the Meet Contestant post for Dane's BC. My Ghoulish Gal from last year would be my next top post.

How many mutuals do you have? -- I don't know... lol. I don't have a tool/know a way to quickly check and I am too lazy to count. Yes, I embrace my laziness. I do know I have some amazing mutuals.

How many followers do you have? -- [redacted]

How many people do you follow? -- Currently, 130.

Have you ever made a shitpost? --I'm sure I have.

How often do you use tumblr each day? -- Too much. I check it pretty constantly cause I hate missing out on my friends' amazing content.

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won? -- Nooo.... not that I can think of.

Do you like tag games? -- Yeah. They're lots of fun.

Do you like ask games? -- Yup. I kind of wish I had some new things to share in order to participate in them. lol

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? -- IDK. I always feel a bit icky calling people out like this. I will say I do have a few mutuals that get some of those higher notes (and they totally deserve them).

Do you have a crush on a mutual? -- I love my mutuals but no, I'm sorry to say I don't have a crush on any of you. 💖

I'm late and I feel most have done this but I'll tag @fataleromeo and @simscapades

[fe-semi-decent-scenarios]

How they act around their crush: GD edition

[This one’s for @glass-grapes​. I saw your submission and am completely psyched that you love my blog! I know that I’ve only recently had it kick-off with a few posts, but I have been wanting to start one of these since January. Hope this is to your liking! (p.s I didn’t know if I should do pre or post time skip, so I did a little dabbling into both]

Claude:

We all know Claude here is both a go-getter and a tease 

If he finds you interesting then there’s no reason for him to hide it. A  battle of wits never hurt anyone, and boy do you two fight well

He is s a s s y. If you’re chatting with some other students he might stick his nose into the conversation to toy with you. It’s all in good fun, right? Just a little mini-game on his way to achieving bigger things  

That’s what he tells himself 

Some days he finds you a bit too alluring, and can’t help being self conscious of the other people around

Fiddles with his braid when you throw him for a loop

Will pay extra special attention to you in battle, and makes excuses to the prof. for why you should be near him. He really is a snake 

Post-Timeskip he hides his bias even more. Not enough to fool his close comrades, but enough to avoid you receiving any extra attention from the enemy  

Sometimes slips items in your room to distract from the stress. Tea, a new blanket, etc.

During the five year gap he keeps track of your whereabouts. After Garreg Mache fell he decided that his dream would take priority as planned, but also believed that one day you would be at his side 

Wasn’t surprised at all to see you at the reunion, but that familiar urge to tug his hair returned too  

Judith and Nader have already heard about you prior to your meeting. Much to his dismay they view his buried feelings as open range comedy

Lorenz: 

We all know how Lorenz acts when he finds someone of interest. The guy is a huge flirt which causes the professor wayyy too much stress 

He’s not as in-tune with his sense of romance as you would think. In the early stages he’ll treat you the same as all the other ladies: a potential partner for house Gloucester.

Date offerings, frilly words, gifts, acts of kindness. Ah tis but the duty of a noble, yes? 

No. 

One day he lets that stubborn side of his personality slip out, and you come back at him with just as much fire. He becomes so angered after it, but somehow hearing the words from you hurt more than if someone else were to say them

That’s when he knows that he’s in deep, and from then on he treats you more gently. He’ll watch his tongue around other women, and sets his sights on only you. His mannerisms are the same as before, but now he tries to learn more about you as a person vs. just the cold hard statistics

He’s a blusher. He has a naturally light pigmentation so it shows. 

After the time-skip he’ll watch you like a hawke. Do you like his new hair cut? Surly it’s an improvement from before sorry bro it’s not

Sets his dignity aside to request that you be given a hexlock shield during battle, or placed near him. Claude won’t let him live it down

Ignatz: 

He m i g h t avoid you, but please don’t take it the wrong way. That’s just how he is, you know?

Young Ignatz isn’t that confident in himself. You’re...well ‘you’. And he’s...well, ‘him’

Oddly enough he confides in HIlda of all people. It originally began with wanting to see if she was still on stable duty with him, but ended up with him working and her talking

When you’re nearby he chooses not to speak unless spoken to. If you didn’t know his tells he’d come off cold, but one look at his hands wringing together just proves he was nervous 

Byleth puts you two on cooking duty together: que panic. He legit grovels at their feet to pick someone else. They don’t, and that evening he sketches a wonderful picture of you sifting through different seasonings 

On your birthday he struggles to give you the gift he prepared. It ends up with Lionie giving you it while he watches from afar. 

When you’re older he is much more verbal with his opinions 

More often than not he lets those honey-coated words slip out, which usually end up with him excusing himself quickly 

Invites you to join him during downtime at least once a week. Every day could be his last, and goddess forbid yours. He wants to spend time with you even if he isn’t the most graceful companion never mind that he’s a smooth-talking mofo

Raphael: 

If there’s one thing Raphael is good at, it’s showing that he cares 

The boy is a giant muscular teddybear. He will carry your things, he will spar with you, he will eat anything you cook without complaint, and he will hug you; hard. 

Unlike everyone else he’s pretty open with his feelings. Life is short, you know? 

If you make him particularly bashful he’ll laugh loudly. More so to cover up his own embarrassment than because he finds the situation actually humorous

Adopts this habit of constantly asking if you need anything. The guy loves to dote on people, and lookie here you’re the perfect target 

Remembers all important dates like a pro. On your birthday he drops a gift right on your desk first thing in the morning 

Goddess forbid anyone gives you trouble. Without the smile on his face he looks the murder type, and the guy uses it to his advantage. He will happily escort you anywhere you need to go 

Once his sister is settled he might honestly stick with you during that five year gap. He’s made his feelings painfully obvious, and you haven’t chased him off. Why not stick around? 

Hilda: 

Yo she’s clingy 

She knows you have to be a catch and a half to steal her heart, so who knows who else that you’ve smooth talked 

Just like everyone else she’ll still get you to do her bidding...but, maybe a smidge less 

She feels guilty, but won’t show it 

Hilda will do all in her power to not let the news reach her family. The last thing she needs is Holst sending her more letters, or worse: showing up at the monastery

Y’all she will don her best perfume for you. She will push all her work onto Cyril and drag you to have lunch with her. This is normal Hilda behavior so she has no reason to be shy 

Will flirt openly and proudly. If you recuperate she’ll go gossip to Marianne about how you’re ‘totally smitten’ with her

Post-skip she’s not much different. Most of her time is spent doing what she can for the cause, but when you see each other she’s more bold. 

Like always she doesn’t like to have expectations pushed onto her. She does have one for herself though, and it’s to stay by your side. 

Marianne: 

During the academy years she tends to admire from afar 

Her favorite memories are of when the professor signed you both up for choir practice. She loves your voice, and it was a time where there wasn’t any pressure for conversation 

As time passes she’ll become less adverse to talking. Quiet greetings will be whispered when you cross paths, and occasionally you two have lunch together 

Marianne is not as reserved as people assume her to be. She’s just had a rough time, and if you take things slow with her then she’ll gradually have a stronger presence in your life. She hopes that this comes true for you two 

Eye contact hasn’t always been her forte. She does try to maintain it with you though 

Her feelings remain at a stalemate through most of the academy days. Only when she bypass’ some more personal-issues does she let her emotions go free

About halfway through the war period she changes. Her stance is more vertical, and she becomes the one to take initiative in your relationship 

She’ll still blush upon any physical contact, and in some cases she’ll lose her breath when you talk. Don’t take the momentary silence as a bad thing, she’s okay. 

Occasionally she’ll be restless and unable to sleep, worrying about the future she now has in her grasp. You might find her scouring for a cup of chamomile late in the night 

Lysithea: 

She’ll deny herself immediately. For Lysithea the future is an anomaly. One of which that no amount of studying or research can uncover.

It’s painfully obvious that there’s a spark between you two. Anyone can see it, and Hilda has pestered her many times regarding confessing 

If the situation was a bit different, she would. Lysithea is no push over, but she also doesn’t want to invest time into something that will bear no fruition 

She keeps her cool around you for the most part...or at least until you’re out of hearing distance 

Then she completely loses composure. Did someone say clammy hands? Because hers get slicker than lorenz’s hair gel 

Leads to stress eating, not gonna lie. There are many late night trips to the mess hall, and many angry cooks over the missing sweets  

Times are different post-timeskip though. She’s a bit more reluctant to let these feelings go 

Occasionally there’s some open flirting on her part. If you recuperate then it becomes more frequent and less forced. The sassy banter between you two becomes the deer’s free entertainment

Leonie: 

She’s commonly been viewed as ‘one of the guys,’ for her personality. So she’s very insecure about getting friend zoned 

It’s not like she was actively searching for romance. It just happened, you know? One day something just struck a chord 

She never took the time to picture sharing a life with someone. Most of her life has been spent worrying about her village, or working hard to attain some kind of recognition from the Captian 

For a split second she considers going to Byleth for some advice. Now isn’t the time for school-girl crushes. Now is the time to be forging a path to the future

Decides to completely ignore the ache she feels when you’re nearby. Just...lets it go. 

She’ll put hella distance between you two. The only time she’ll initiate contact is during sparring 

After the timeskip she stays this way too. Well, until HIlda calls her out on her bullsh*t (if you haven’t noticed from all these. Hilda is a perceptive little cookie)

Just like anyone she’ll go through the moral dilemma of deciding to confess or not. She instead chooses to just let her feelings do as they please, and if something happens then it happens 

[joon-ipersgirl]

O2 - “airplane”

genre: strangers to lovers!au, angst, fluff

pairing: jimin x reader (f)

word count: 3.5k

warnings: cursing

summary: they say home is where the heart is. you’re convinced yours was taken the day your father died. until you meet jimin.

you believe in love but after watching men cycle through your mother’s arms, rocky relations with ex boyfriends, and broken friendships, you no longer see it in your future. so much so, you never settle in one place long enough to create ties and call it a home, choosing a job where you’re always on the go and on your own. 

a chance encounter on a flight from new york city to bali, indonesia, you meet. flustered by jimin’s flirty advances but enamoured by his understanding and good-natured tendencies, you start to fall. what starts as a work-trip soon blossoms into a budding romance, but will jimin’s secret destroy the relationship before it’s had the chance to truly begin?

a/n: whew! we made it to part two. thanks for sticking with me y’all. we get to see a little more banter with jimin. thank you again for reading and hopefully i’ll get the next part out on time for y’all. leave a comment with some feedback; i love receiving them. have a wonderful rest of your day/evening/night and thank you vi for being my editor in chief as always!

full masterlist // series masterlist // previous // next

You could only thank your sweet Lord and Savior for blessing you to fly on an aircraft that had some semblance of high-speed data. There was only so much one could do with the airplane monitors to keep yourself entertained - if the flight you were on had them. Skimming through your email, you stared skeptically at the most recent one from Michael. Hadn’t you just spoken this morning?

Y/N,

I assume that your meticulous planning has failed you for once in your brilliant life and you were late to catch your flight so you didn’t have time to check your phone as you would not purposely ignore a text from me. Gods be with you during this time - I have taken a moment of silence as I pray for your divinely placed gift to be restored upon you.

Onto more pressing matters, Julia has sent me an updated list of the things they expect to see in this video; please see attached. Because I have so earnestly prayed for your skills to be returned to you, I have full confidence in your ability to work through these minor inconveniences.  

Just because I know you missed my text, I’ll say it again: remember the passion! Enjoy the moment.

Yours eternally,

Michael  

P.S. Garland Sans has an exhibit coming to the MET! We must go!

You snorted. Michael was as ingenious as he was dramatic. One of the best in the management game, Michael was sought after to solve the worst of problems when regular members of his team couldn’t in his own consulting company, Callahan Consulting. His personality was infectious and made one want to strive above and beyond for his approval. It surprised you every time that you were partners and he was your manager as declared by himself. As they say, opposites really do attract.

Clicking on the files attached in the email, you groaned softly as you realized that though the wifi was available, it wasn’t strong enough to access any large multimedia files, the downloading circle on a seemingly never-ending loop. You sank further into the seat, your knees hitting the one in front of you due to the cramped economy design. Your fingers slipped easily through your short locks as you tried to stay calm. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if you couldn’t see what changes you’d made. It’s not like you’d have to potentially rework your entire itinerary for the trip the moment you landed. You scrunched your eyes shut as you tugged on the roots of your hair in an effort to quiet your increasing anxiety. The softest of touches against your knee jerked you upright.

“Are you alright?” You gazed down at the hand splayed across your leg, eyes wide. It squeezed and you finally turned your eyes towards its owner.

“What are you doing?” you asked hurriedly, tugging your headphones off. The weight of his hand, though not physically heavy, metaphysically felt like it was anchoring you to your seat and you wouldn’t be able to move it yourself even if you tried.

“Are you alright?” stranger-that-causes-you-continuous-embarrassment repeated. “You looked like you were in pain,” he trailed off, finally removing his hand. You slumped over in relief on your exhale.

“Fine,” you replied curtly. You could feel the blood pounding in your ears as you shifted in your seat. His long legs seemed precariously too close to your own in the compact space.

“Are you sure? I can call an attendant -”

“No!”

“What are you doing?” he murmured, eyebrows raised and amused. Looking like any stubby child hanging off of the monkey bars, you were clutching onto his forearm and yanking down with all your might to stop him from pushing the call attendant button above you. The muscles under his forearm flexed as stranger-that-causes-you-continuous-embarrassment lowered his arm against the armrest. You blinked slowly as the realization that you were still holding onto him traveled to your central nervous system and you let go as quickly as you’d clung onto him.

“Nothing!” you inhaled deeply. “Seriously, I’m fine. You don’t need to call anyone,” you told him sternly. You turned back to your laptop and opened your 0618 Bali Itinerary document; adjusting your plans would calm the thumping in your chest. You could handle the anxiety of trying to edit the document blindly, but handling his apparent concern over your physical well-being was another story you weren’t prepared to read. He hummed in acknowledgment and settled back down in his seat, eyes focused on the book in his hand. How he managed to fit in any seat was a miracle.

“What are you doing in Bali?” he asked casually. He didn’t look at you as you turned to him.

“Nosy aren’t we?” you  replied in the same tone, eyes challenging. Your eyes met, a glimmer in his.

“Hmm?”

“How did you know I was going to Bali?” you contested.

“Well, I would hope you didn’t board the wrong flight - though you don’t strike me as the woman to make that kind of mistake,” a soft smirk graced his lips. You bit your lip hard.

“Well, I could have been getting off at the Hong Kong connection,” you said, trying to counter.

‘True, but you confirmed that you were going to Bali when you asked how I knew that. I was just assuming before,” he replied with a shrug and a soft grin. You tongued your cheek in annoyance at his observation.

“Right,” you mumbled. You yanked your headphones back over your ears, cutting off the ability to continue the conversation for both your sakes. Only 13 hours and 25 minutes to go.

Your Fujifilm camera felt light in your hands as you recorded a few minutes of the passing clouds. Capturing the changes in the sun during the duration of the flight seemed like a simple task, but balancing the light and adjusting the colors so they came through as vibrant as what they really were was difficult. These would be the first shots seen and they had to evoke the right feeling - the passion that Michael and Julia were looking for. Your passion for your work, for your art, for your life. You stifled your groan, not wanting to cause panic in your concerned neighbor again. You frowned as you stared down at the short video you’d taken; the focus wasn’t as sharp as it needed to be. Turning to the interior of the plane, you held the camera back up to your eye trying to get it to focus.

“If you wanted me to be your muse, all you had to do was ask,” he said with a chuckle. “I won’t even charge you for taking the shot.” The corners of your mouth turned down further.

“You’re not my muse. I’m trying to refocus my camera. You just so happen to be in the way,” you said matter-of-factly.

“I seem to always be getting in the way huh?” He leaned further back in his seat as he turned his head towards me, the sunlight hitting his face so gently. You bit your lip and fiddled with the AF fine-tune again. “First it was your seat, now with your shot. What are you going to do with me?” he asked with a fake sigh of contriteness. You rolled your eyes at his dramatics and took another test shot, the corner of his face creeping into the frame.

“Absolutely nothing,” you told him, adjusting the calibration once again. He moved closer as you snapped another test shot. His olive skin glowed under the mellow rays of the afternoon sun filtering in and his smile filled the small screen of your camera.

“Would you like some help?” he offered as he noticed the slight tremble in your fingers.

“I don’t need your help,” you mumbled.

“Are you sure?” he asked again. “You’re adjusting your AF fine-tune, but you’re in the wrong AF mode. Any adjustments you make wouldn’t have a significant effect if you’re shooting the inside of the plane.”

Stranger-that-causes-you-continuous-embarrassment slipped your camera out of your hands, his fingers brushing against yours, and flipped modes quite expertly as the blood rushed up your neck and into your face. The sounds of your breathing echoed in your ears as you could not believe you’d made a fool of myself in front of him for the fourth time now. Michael must have been right when he said your previous abilities had left, the stress of this upcoming project getting the better of you. It had to be.

“Are you a photographer?” you asked. He took his own test shots, double-checking his adjustments.

“Here and there,” he replied nonchalantly. “I have a few friends in the industry and I dabble in a little bit of art myself. A hobby really,” he continued, snapping his last one of you before handing the camera back. You nodded your thanks and tucked the camera back into its bag; your nerves were too shot to continue. You could probably edit the footage to be better anyway.

“Excuse me, are you Park Jimin?” An attendant appeared with a tiny cart filled with food, her petite frame barely visible from behind it. Jimin.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Here’s your vegetarian lunch, sir. Please enjoy,” she told him as she set the tray down in front of him. Her reach was far more extended than it needed to be and you internally scoffed at her not so subtle attempt to flirt. He smiled and thanked her before turning his attention to the steaming plastic bowl in front of him.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a vegetarian,” you thought aloud.

“Do you think about pegging often?” Jimin’s smile was innocent but his gaze was not. Your eyes widened comically slow as you realized what he was suggesting.

“No! Not at all! What are you talking about?! I would never -” you spluttered out, hands waving frantically in front of you “- I mean, if you’re into that, then that’s great. I’m not judging you at all!” His laugh cut off your backtracked rambling. It was boisterous and loud and filled up the entire space between us as he tipped his head back, clearly delighted by your discomfort. It hurt your ears but made your heart jump. “Please stop laughing at me, Jimin.”

He hummed an “okay” and filled his mouth with another large bite of what you assumed to be vegetarian lasagna. Your  eyes fell to his plump lips as you watched him, his jaw moving almost rhythmically as you counted each chew to ground yourself into the present moment. 7, before he swallowed. It was only the tiny flicker of his tongue against his bottom lip that reminded you that you were staring at him. Again. You busied myself with the in-flight monitor screen, extremely fascinated by the current flight path.

“So, are you going to tell me your name?” You raised your eyebrows at his question.

“No, I don’t think so,” you said with a smile.

“Why not?” Your smile widened as you felt like you finally had the upper hand, something that he seemed to continuously have.

“Why should I?”

“Well, you know what my name is. I think it’s only fair that I have yours as well. What else would be appropriate to call you other than your name?” He asked thoughtfully as he pointed his fork towards you, the mischievous glint never really leaving his deep brown eyes.

“Are you going to stab me with your fork if I don't tell you?” He lowered it sheepishly. “Besides, you didn’t tell me your name, Mr. Park. That nice flight attendant did,” you said with a shrug. “So technically, fairness isn’t a part of this equation. The odds just so happened to be in my favor.”

“‘May the odds ever be in your favor’, my ass. Alright, fine.” Jimin peered around your seat, leaning over into your space while nearly knocking his food off its tray, trying to find any semblance of a clue to what your name could be. He sat back and directly faced you, almost folding his body underneath the tray table to do so. You ignored the way his knee bumped against the outside of your thigh.

“Give me a hint,” he pouted. You giggled as his lower lip jutted out.

“You’re too big to use the puppy dog face against anyone,” you informed him with a laugh. Even if it was cute. You hauled your beanie off your head and wrenched your hands through your hair.

“Just call me Clifford,” he teased. He perked up, an imaginary lightbulb going off in his head. “Elizabeth! Is that your name?”

“No,” His shoulders slumped. “But it could have an ‘a’ in it,” you commented casually. His shoulders rallied at the small hint.

“Don’t worry Shutterfly, I’m going to figure it out. Promise.” He beamed at you and you offered a half-smile in return, your attention more focused on the attendants bringing the rest of the food to passengers as you pondered over his words. Promises were made to be broken, filling you with disappointment and regret. In fact, they only served as false assists in the game of life and you’d stopped playing a very long time ago.

The cabin became pleasantly quiet after dinner was served, the passengers settling down for the night. It was cold and you were grateful for the hoodie you’d folded into your bag, the thin airplane blanket not doing much to keep you warm. Your Saipan video was pulled up on your laptop again and you longed to be in the warmth of the beach. Adele would always know when you’d been out in the sun for too long, more freckles dancing their way across your cheeks as your tell-tale sign, but it never stopped you. You smiled at the memories of busted knees and skinned elbows from being too adventurous with friends during the summer.

Nursing your cold cup of coffee, you sighed in exasperation as you felt the strong urge to use the bathroom. Of course, it would only be fair that your favorite drink was also a diuretic. You chewed your lip as you contemplated how exactly you were going to make it out of your seat without disturbing Jimin who was comfortably sleeping beside you, his arms folded and face hidden in the confines of his hood. He looked peaceful and you felt guilty for even thinking about waking him up. If you went to sleep now, maybe you could hold it? You squirmed in your seat as your bladder protested profusely at the thought. It was now or never.

“Jimin,” you whispered and gently poked his arm. Nothing. “Jimin,” you whispered a little louder, leaning closer to his face. You whimpered softly as he didn’t stir. “Fuck this,” you muttered and pushed off the blanket wrapped around your shoulders.

Peeking over to the passengers behind you to make sure they were asleep, you carefully maneuvered your laptop into your seat before standing up. Jimin had titled his seat back to get more comfortable and you assumed to give himself more room - though again, you didn’t believe there was any space that could fit his long legs; they still touched the seat in front of him. Bracing yourself between the rows in front and behind you, you placed one leg in between the gap of his two and held your breath. So far so good. You twisted to face him so you could slot your second leg into the gap, bending over his sleeping frame. It was nerve-wracking to be this close to him in such a tight space and you prayed to your Lord and Savior that he wouldn’t wake up now as you’d gotten so far into your poorly concocted plan.

Just as you were slipping your left leg over and into the aisle, Jimin shifted beneath you. You froze. The strings of your hoodie dangled treacherously close to his nose. You pleaded silently that he wouldn’t wake up as you scrunched your eyes shut.

“Shutterfly?” The sound of his deep voice caused you to look down. “What are you doing? If you wanted to sit in my lap, all you had to do was ask,” he murmured as he removed his headphones and sat up straighter. Of course, he couldn’t hear you.

“I have to pee and you weren’t waking up, so,” you trailed off, ignoring his flirtatious comment again. He gave you a lazy smile that barely reached his sleep-heavy eyes. The distance between you was much shorter and you focused on keeping your breathing as even as possible.

“Hmm, you should go pee then,” he replied as he let his hand rest gently on your hip, nudging you into the aisle. You squeaked and darted from under his touch, hitting your knee on the armrest. You grumbled a string of curses and rubbed your knee as you headed to the back of the cabin, his quiet chuckles fading behind you.

The relief was imminent and you sighed in contentment as you washed your hands in the tiny sink. Under the dim fluorescent lighting, your skin looked washed out. Your eyes and cheeks were puffy from the high altitude and you tried to rub the tiredness away. You knew you should get some sleep, but the thought of accidentally cuddling into Jimin’s soft, warm body as you slept was so tempting, it was terrifying. You sighed in annoyance as you thought about your fellow passenger. He would be the bane of your existence with his deep sleepy voice and soft touches and stupid nickname.

You shut the door with enough force that you grimaced at the loud noise. It wasn’t as if you could shut all your thoughts of Jimin into that pint-sized restroom as you’d attempted to do with Tiago those many summers ago. You scowled at his memory as you angrily walked back to your seat, the pain in your knee forgotten. You tapped Elijah harshly on his shoulder but softened your gaze after realizing you’d startled him.

“Sorry, I’m in your way again.”  He stepped out into the aisle to let you through, the subtle waft of his cologne moving with him.

“No, you’re fine,” you told him as you slipped into your seat and rested your laptop onto your open tray table.

“You think I’m fine?” you rolled your eyes at his dumb grin.

“Do you ever stop flirting?”

“Who said I was flirting?”

“Your entire demeanor!” you exclaimed. He hushed you and warned you to keep your voice down as people were sleeping. “Your body language, your tone, your eyes. All of it - all of you,” you finished, gesturing to his body.

“And here I was thinking you weren’t interested,” he said with the same smile. He propped his chin up in his palm as he gazed at you through his long lashes. You scoffed.

“No one is interested in you, Jimin.”

“Mhmm, I love it when you say my name.” You covered your mouth to stop the burst of laughter in your chest. He chuckled quietly and returned to his seat. “You don’t have to lie to me though, Shutterfly.”

“Delusional and dramatic. That’s quite the combination you have going for yourself, Mr. Park,” I commented as you searched for your additional Saipan clips.

“As delusional and dramatic as you are uninteresting and not flustered by me,” he shot back playfully and you struggled to keep the corners of your mouth from turning up as you kept your focus on the screen. “How long does it take you to do that though?”

“Do what?” you asked.

“Edit your videos,” he clarified, closing the distance between you again. It was becoming increasingly obvious that personal space did not matter to him.

“Oh. It depends on the project and how much material I have to work with. Sometimes I can knock out a video in a couple of hours, but other times I get stuck for inspiration or I can’t figure out this one technical aspect and it stumps me for days before I can finally move on,” you said slowing down as you realized you were rambling. “Sorry, that was a lot,” you apologized.

“No, I get what you mean. The purpose of projects will definitely define what type of style you go for. I’ve been in those spaces. No need to apologize, seriously.” Jimin rested his hand on your forearm in a comforting manner and you smiled softly at the gesture.

“Is that a genuine smile I see?” He shoved his head in front of your face trying to get a better look.

“Way to ruin the mood,” you said with a laugh. You pushed his head away gently.

“Wow, I think it is,” he continued. “Your freckles are beautiful by the way. And don’t worry about the mood, darling. I can create another one for you.” Jimin winked at you and placed a headphone in his ear.

“You’re a fool,” you informed him, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“A fool in love!” he sang. “Don’t stay up too late. Gotta reset your circadian rhythm before we get to Bali,” Jimin warned. You shook your head at his concern; if only sleep was so easy. Even so, it was only 2 am back in New York. Plenty of time to nap and be up by your usual 4 am wake up time.

“Goodnight, Jimin.”

“Goodnight, Shutterfly.”

full masterlist // series masterlist // previous // next

© joon-ipersgirl, 2020

[lovemesomesurveys]

Can you find me space inside your bleeding heart? made by @bitterstardust

1. Have you ever played a Scene It game? What did you think about it? Are you interested in trivia games at all? Yeah, I enjoy those and trivial games like it. 

2. Are you skilled in programs like Photoshop or do you find them difficult to comprehend? What is something you have made using such a program, if anything? I’m dabbled with Photoshop a bit. I learned to make gifs and do some editing, but I’m definitely not skilled in it. It’s been a few years now since I’ve attempted anything.

3. Do you decorate your house outdoors for any holidays? We put up lights and a few little things outside for Christmas. If we had a big yard I’d have a few inflatable decorations as well. 4. Tell me a story about something that a relative / your family has done that might cause someone to think you have a dysfunctional family: Nah.

5. What sort of photographs make you the most emotional, & what kind of emotion do you feel when you see these particular photos? Pictures of people who have passed away and just photos from my childhood cause I get all nostalgic and sad and miss those days.

6. How often do you find yourself dwelling on the past? What is the hardest thing to let go of from your past? I live in the past.

7. Do most of your family / friends refer to you by the same name, or do you have multiple nicknames from different people? Does it ever become confusing? Nah, it’s pretty much Steph or Stephanie across the board with just a few nicknames from my immediate family.

8. If you were to take a movie trivia test, which movie would you know the most about? Hmm. There’s a lot that I’ve seen many times.

9. Are you always logged onto [insert preferred social networking site here], even when you are away or asleep? Do you ever get messages from people that become aggravated from your lack of responses? I stay logged into my social medias. 

10. Is there a spot in your house / room where you plop down all of your stuff when you get home, or do you put everything away promptly? I always go straight to my room and take off my shoes and put away my bag.

11. What would you consider your favorite bird, if any? Would you ever consider [if you don’t already] owning a bird as a pet? I don’t have one, nor would I be interested in having one as a pet.

12. Of all of the animals that are available as pets in pet stores, which would you least likely consider having? I wouldn’t consider having a snake or any kind of insect at all for a pet.

13. Would you be comfortable with your significant owning aforementioned animal, even if it made you uneasy? Nooo.

14. Do you believe that you have a purpose in life? What do you think that purpose is, or have you not found it yet? God has a purpose for everyone. I’m not sure exactly what mine is yet. <<<

15. Would you consider surveys a hobby of yours, or just something you do every now & then when you are bored? Yeah, I’d definitely consider them a hobby.

16. When was the last time you received a balloon as a gift, if ever? Can you recall what was on it? I received balloons on my birthday. 

17. Do you like to shop at dollar stores or do you consider their merchandise to be flimsy & well.. cheap? For some things, sure.

18. What has been the most money you have spent on a book? Oh, outrageous amounts for college textbooks.

19. Where do you go to get prescriptions filled? Or, if you don’t have prescription medication, what is the nearest pharmacy to your house? At the pharmacy near my house.

20. If someone dropped you off five miles from your home, would you know your way back without a map, or are you not very familiar with your location? I’m so bad with direction, but I guess it would depend on which direction I was dropped off at. I probably could. 

21. Are you dreading or looking forward to the coming cold temperatures? Yessss, it’s finally been cold here and I love it. I thought summer was never going to end.

22. Do you know anyone that has such foul breath you can smell it when they are near you & talking? No.

23. When it comes to hard candies, do you prefer sweet, fruity flavors or minty ones? Minty. The butterscotch hard candies are yummy, too, and a classic.

24. Do you ever download fonts? What do you use them for? I used to back in the day when I dabbled with Photoshop.

25. Is there anything on your computer that would upset your significant other if they discovered it. Or, if you don’t have one, is there anything that would upset your parents? No. I honestly don’t have a lot saved on my laptop.

[wannabemerida]

I had so much fun writing my first kid fic with the help of my beta, @heartthrobphilly  and basing it off of @bluevlvvt ’s artwork (the link above!) —— Word count: 2.6k Prompt: Phil offers to drive his friends daughter (lola) to her ballet lesson. he runs into a cute dad with his daughter rosie. he offers to drive lola to her ballet lessons every week after that. (slow plot development lol) Warnings: light cursing, angst —— It’s 3:02pm as Phil waits outside of Brookside Elementary School. According to Ian, Lola usually exits through this door and waits to be retrieved from the playground. So far, there’s no sign of the little blonde girl playing outside.

A shout of “Uncle Phil!” catches his attention and he turns around to the soccer pitch just in time to see the kindergartener running at him, embracing him in a hug when they collide. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m taking care of you tonight, remember? Your dad has a big business dinner, and your mom is in Wolverhampton for her job, yeah?”

“Ohhhhh, I just thought Grandma would be taking care of me again,” the six year old explains, not seeming particularly fussed.

“C’mon, let’s head home.”

Two hours later when Phil suggests they order Chinese to the brick house, Lola quickly shuts his craving down. “Uncle Phil, we can’t have Chinese tonight, Thursdays are always Kraft Dinner nights, dummy!”

“Hey Lola, are you done with your dinner? You have ballet soon and still need to get ready!” Seeing Lola’s face that has a bit of the cheesy noodles left on it from quickly scarfing down her meal, Phil grabs a paper towel from the roll on the kitchen counter.

“Yeah! Do you have my leotard?” Phil grabs the light green leotard out of the overnight bag that Lola had brought along, handing it to her with the napkin, (“Lols, you’re a mess!”) her slippers, and a pair of tights.

The drive to the Portner Ballet Studio takes about 15 minutes, with Phil accidentally hitting every red light possible. This causes Lola some distress, claiming that the five minutes she has before class “isn’t enough to talk to Rosie, and she’s the only nice one there that I like.”

Nevertheless, when the raven-haired man and his favorite “niece” enter the building, a small girl with fluffy brown hair immediately runs up to Lola and hugs her. “Rosie, this is my Uncle Phil!

“Lola! You’re finally here! Daddy said you might not be coming today because you’re normally here before me,” the brunette pauses, “but you’re here now, see, Daddy? I told you she would come!”

Phil is frozen. The man who walks up behind Rosie is the most beautiful person Phil has seen, and that’s saying something, considering that Chris Hemsworth exists. But no, the curly brown fringe, hazel eyes, tall, lanky stature, and his soft face (not to mention his monochrome aesthetic and “best dad in the world” travel mug) easily outrank even the likes of Thor.

“Um, hey?” Phil is snapped out of his trance, needing to be able to respond to the greeting. “You’re Lola’s uncle?”

“Well, um, sort of? I’m really good family friends with Lola’s dad, and so I’m kind of an unofficial uncle to her.” Had he been responding to anything else, Phil probably would’ve stuttered, but the number of times he’s had to explain the title makes it so he can explain perfectly, even in front of someone this stunning.

“I’m- I’m Dan.” The two men glance over at the young girls who are chattering animatedly.

“Oh, yeah, Phil Lester.” Dan holds his hand out for a handshake.

“Rosie’s my daughter,” he says quietly, but there’s no mistaking the fondness he has when he says it.

“I can tell, she looks just like you, without the black and white.”

“Oh, I guess we do? My parents keep saying she looks like, um, Angie-” Dan’s voice decrescendos as he gets further along his sentence.

“Angie … is Rosie’s mom?”

“Oh, um, yeah.” Phil’s heart drops.

“Cool.” Not cool. Dan has a wife. Dan had a kid. With his wife.

“Have you got any kids?” Dan asks, a light blush still visible across his cheeks.

“Ah, no, I didn’t have time to find someone in Uni and now I’m single with 2 masters degrees.” Phil unconsciously plots a way to make himself seem more interesting.

“What are they in?” Dan asks, looking genuinely curious.

“I got my first one in English language and linguistics, and my second in post-production editing.”

“What do you do with those? How do they fit together?”

“I’m a special effects engineer for Disney, and they don’t really fit together to be honest,” Phil pauses, “although I do make YouTube videos and that kind of meshes them together,”

“Wow, um, cool,” Dan stutters.

“So what about you?”

“Huh?”

“What’s your job, besides ‘best dad in the world’?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m stupid.” Phil giggles, thinking of how his father would reply with ‘Hi stupid, I’m dad!’. “But I’m a writer for Vogue and I dabble in fashion photography. It’s mainly just taking photos of Rosie if I’m being honest, but the photographers sometimes get sick and I end up doing the shoot.”

“Vogue? Like, the fashion magazine?” Phil doesn’t know much about fashion, but he’s seen the magazine numerous times in the Tesco checkout lane.

“Yeah, well, technically it’s British Vogue, but…”

“Yeah.”

There’s a calm but slightly awkward silence as the conversation loses direction. The two men avoid eye contact, not wanting to make it worse.

The silence is broken by Dan’s tenor voice. “So what films have you worked on?”

“I got to work a bit on Spiderman: Homecoming, but the Live-action Beauty and the Beast was pretty fun. You know the scene where the gold leaf comes off of the ceiling to go on Belle’s dress?” When Dan nods, Phil breaks out into a grin. “That was me.”

“Wow.” Dan breathes out. “After she saw that, she kept trying to put stickers on her ceiling in the hopes that they would transfer to her shirt. It was a nightmare.”

“Ah, sorry.”

“Nah mate, it was kind of funny as well. I’ve got a few photos that I’ll save for when she graduates.”

“She’ll love that,” Phil chuckles, and the deep, throaty sound makes Dan’s heart stutter. “So you’re into fashion?”

Dan blushes. “Yeah? I mean I can’t really afford any designers, but I’ll turn into a fanboy at times.”

“Why do they charge so much? Like, half of the suits these designers make look identical to something I could buy from a department store for thousands of dollars less.”

“Well, a lot of designers carefully hand-make every piece, whereas the stuff you get in a store has probably been made by a pre-programmed machine and poorly paid workers in a factory. There’s also differences in fabric types, quality, and origins. And, a lot of designers will tailor the suit to perfectly fit you for a slightly higher price. If you go to a department store-”

“I see what you mean when you say you turn into a fanboy, but thank you for the mini lesson on why celebrities are willing to spend so much money on a navy tux. Your insights are amusing.” Phil grins.

“Did you also know that navy suits are better investments than black ones? It’s because the blue fits into so many more settings than a black one.”

While Phil could watch Dan talk about his passions for hours, just watching and memorizing how the lines change across his face, and God, that dimple, Phil supposes his relentless staring would get a bit creepy. “So what are the ballet lessons like? I’ve only been to a few of Lola’s performances.”

“Oh, um, well, they spend the first 20 minutes warming up, and then they move to the barre where they practice a bunch of stuff that’s in French that I can’t remember, and then they start to go over the routine for their next performance.”

“What is it?”

“What?”

“Their next performance?”

“Yeah! Sorry, I’m stupid,” Dan blushes for what must be the fiftieth time since he first met Phil. “The studio is putting on The Firebird.”

“No! Um, I mean, you’re not stupid. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with The Firebird. What is it about?” Phil has heard the name before, but only in the context of movie scores resembling Stravinsky’s composition. “It sounds kind of intense, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, um, I don’t know much, but from what Rosie’s told me, the firebird gets caught by a prince and when he lets her go she helps him defeat the magician to save some princess, but I’m pretty sure I’m missing like half of the plot. I would say to just Google it and not to go by my word,” The nervous laughter emitted by Dan makes Phil instantly worry that he might have made the brunet uncomfortable or misread Dan’s friendliness as a blossoming friendship when it might have been a ploy to gather gossip for the nosy ballet moms.

“Thanks, I think I’ll trust you on that.” Dan offers a small smile at Phil’s response, letting the two men fall into silence as they watch the group of young girls and 3 boys practice their pliés and dégagés. An hour and a half later, the children exit the studio and find their guardians to go home.

“It was nice meeting you, Phil,’’ Dan admits as Rosie and Lola exchange a goodbye hug. The six words send Phil’s heart into overdrive and he feels his cheeks heating up.

“Yeah, you too, Dan,” Phil replies, proud of himself for not tripping over his words. Looking back, Phil’s whole interaction was impressive, considering his track record of ending up injured in some way.

Last time, Phil wound up with a broken ankle, having paid more attention to the cute digital renderer than the set of stairs they were walking down. It wasn’t all for nothing, though, Phil having gained the cute man’s phone number. Not that that did much for his love life, finding out two days that the boy he had his eyes on was dating the very female gaffer of their most recent movie, but that’s not the point.

This time, nothing will happen, because a) Phil dropping Lola off at ballet was a one time thing, so most likely, he’ll never see Dan again, and b) Dan has a daughter, who is his genetically, which means he has (or had) a wife, all summarizing that no matter how cute the brunet is, Dan is straight.

Not that Phil’s brain will accept that Dan is off-limits as a possible partner. Over the next few days, the image of soft brown eyes, curly fringes, and lanky limbs continuously make appearances in the back of Phil’s head. The very effective distractions cause Phil’s co-workers to worry, and PJ’s repetitive “have you been sleeping okay?”s have driven Phil to the point of insanity.

The answer to PJ’s question is quite easily “no”, Phil having only slept well once that week (he refused to admit it but that was the night that he got off to the image of a faceless figure who looked suspiciously like the boy who wouldn’t leave his head.)

By Wednesday, Phil was fed up with his brain’s reaction to not having seen Dan since the previous Thursday. Pulling out his phone, he does the only thing he can think of to satisfy his hungry mind. He calls Ian.

“Phil? Do you need something?” is the answer he gets when Ian finally picks up.

“No, um, I was just wondering, would you like me to take Lola to ballet again tomorrow?” Phil looks at the lines he had written down on a notepad, an effort to keep himself from going into a 20-minute rant about how in love with Dan he is.

“Sure, I guess? Why are you offering?”

“Just thought that you and Pam could use a break,”

“Oh, okay then, thanks! Same as last week?”

“Sure! Talk to you later!”

Phil’s convinced that his squeal of excitement was the reason that the people who lived across the street turned their lights on and not the fact that their smoke detector went off. He probably set that off too, in hindsight. And caused the stove fire.

23 hours later, Phil finds himself standing inside the dance studio again, surrounded by shrieking kids, chattering parents, and the faint sound of the top 20 radio playing in the background.

“Mister Phil! Where’s Lola?” Rosie pulls on Phil’s sleeve, stopping when she sees her best friend walk out of the bathroom.

“Why, Miss Rosie, she’s right there!” Rosie giggles, pulling out of a hug with Lola.

“I know that now, silly.” She and Lola run into the studio, eager to get to do the optional partner stretches before class starts.

“Are you Lola’s father?” A woman dressed in a skirt suit and heels walks up behind Phil.

“Oh, no, I’m just a family friend. I occasionally take Lola to ballet to give her parents some alone time.”

“Ah.” The woman sticks her hand out for a handshake. “I’m Angela Wright, Rosie’s mom.”

Had there been a small creature under it, Phil’s heart would have killed it from the speed at which it fell. He knew that Rosie had a mom, that Dan had a wife, that Dan wasn’t available. So why did it still hurt so much?

“Oh, cool,” Phil responds a moment later, his voice considerably deflated.

Phil’s unspoken question is answered right as it pops into is head. “Dan contracted the flu, and is stuck at home in bed, which is why I’m here this week. I’m normally responsible for taking Rosie to taekwondo while he takes care of ballet lessons, but that evidently won’t work this week. Honestly, it’s just like Dan to get a winter disease in the middle of summer.”

“I was going to ask about setting up a playdate between Rosie and Lola, but…” Angie trails off.

“Yeah,” Phil nods in understanding, not liking this woman any more than he did a minute ago. “I’m gonna go sit down.” No response comes from the woman, but Phil’s not particularly bothered.

Maybe he should be nicer to the wife of the man he’s stupidly trying to woo, but he just can’t. How is he supposed to be nice to his competition, who’s already clearly won?

When he vaguely notices the ballet instructor make a big motion with her arms, Phil decides that watching a group of five and six year olds is an adequate distraction from the turmoil in his brain. After 10 minutes of watching the kids do various tasks, jumping and prancing around the room, he zones off.

“Uncle Phillll, come onnnnnnn!” wakes Phil from his trance, no longer seeing the ballet students in the studio but now milling around the lobby and leaving. “Class ended like, forever ago! Can we leave? I wanna go get ice cream!”

A quick look at the clock told Phil that class had only ended 5 minutes ago, but to an antsy six-year-old, he supposed that could feel like an eternity.

“Lola, we aren’t getting ice cream. I’d rather not have your parents be mad at me for loading you up on sugar, right?” The small girl pouts but grabs Phil’s hand, dragging him to the car.

While it was easy getting Lola into her car seat, getting her out was a whole other task. It took Phil, Ian, Pamela, a blanket, 2 stuffed animals, and a lullaby to successfully remove the sleeping child out of the carseat, into the house, and onto her bed where she could sleep without interruption.

Once he was back in his car, Phil sat in the driveway, resting his head on the steering wheel, regretting ever offering to take Lola to dance lessons at all. Remember back in college when all those crushes were single? You fucked up, bud.

[knowyourincantations]

Femslash February 2019 Masterpost

All works are collected in this series on AO3 and under this tag on tumblr.

I didn’t really plan on doing every single day but I’m a bit of a completionist so once I started...I was pretty much locked in to write and post a fic every day XD But my main goal was really just to push myself to make them each longer than the much shorter drabbles I wrote for Sapphic September 2018:

Avg words per fic: Sapphic Sept: 665 Femslash Feb: 1,178

Total word count at the end: Sapphic Sept: 19,960 Femslash Feb: 33,044

I think I definitely achieved my goal of outdoing my Sapphic September efforts =)

I also started dabbling in edits around halfway through, so some fics have edits as well, I also cross-posted all edits to my instagram =)

If you enjoy any of these, I’d love to hear about it in a comment on AO3 if you have the time =)

Ships written are: Pansmione, Delachang, Linny, Parvansy, Ginsy, Ginny/Tonks, Ginmione, Flonks, Daphne/Pansy, Lunsy

Anyway, here’s all the summaries and links:

Week 1:

Day 1: ‘Opposites’ Hermione/Pansy (Pansmione) Opposites Day (921 words, Teen) Summary: “It’s opposites day,” Pansy said, settling onto her back on the grass and looking up at the sky. “We’re all supposed to act in contradiction to ourselves. There’s supposed to be a lesson in there somewhere, I’m sure.”

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 2: ‘Pink’ Cho/Fleur (Delachang) Better Than Any Boy (577 words, Teen) Summary: The Yule Ball is approaching, and Cho and her friends are lamenting the rudeness of boys when Fleur suggests a solution.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 3: ‘Lost’ Ginny/Luna (Linny) What’s Missing Is Not Lost (1,269 words, Teen) Summary: Unable to see what it is she truly wants, Ginny keeps looking in all the wrong places, finding nothing but hurt feelings along the way. But it's okay, Luna's always there to pick up the pieces and give her hope for the future. If only Ginny could understand what her advice means.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 4: ‘Cafe’ Hermione/Pansy Cafe Reunion (1,265 words, Teen) Summary: After parting just as the war fully broke out, Hermione hasn't seen Pansy for over a year before getting a letter with a time and place to meet as Pansy returns to England.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 5: ‘Sharp’ Pansy/Parvati (Parvansy) The Things We Don’t Know About Each Other (1,379 words, Explicit) Summary: Parvati finds out Pansy cheated but the confrontation reveals only more lies.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 6: ‘The Moon’ Ginny/Pansy (Ginsy) Minding the Wolf (1,043 words, G rated) Summary: Before her, Pansy had been forced to lock herself inside and pine for the full moon. With Ginny, she could go out, secure in the knowledge Ginny would watch over her and keep her from revealing herself to anyone. Or if she couldn’t go out, would at least stay with her so she wasn’t alone.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 7: ‘Disaster’ Hermione/Pansy Less like a Joke and More like the Truth (But She’ll Worry About That Later) (1,286, Mature) Summary: Hermione is working from home when Pansy barges in to rant about the latest disaster to befall a Charity Ball she's trying to host. Like most of Pansy's rants, it's short lived but leaves her with plenty of steam to blow off.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Week 2:

Day 8: ‘Silent’ Ginny/Pansy Love Waits (2,154 words, Teen) Summary: Pansy took a vow of silence after the war but never told anyone why, near the end of eighth year, and after dating her for several months, Ginny is determined to try and find out why Pansy is still not talking. But the answer she gets is nowhere near what she could have expected.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 9: ‘Lavender’ Ginny/Tonks Better Naked and Cold Than Covered in Lavender (1,035 words, Teen) Summary: When Ginny wakes up without Tonks beside her, she panics at first. A quick check of the house shows her alive an well, jut suffering from another of her mission mishaps. But Ginny's not putting up with this one.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 10: ‘Waiting’ Pansy/Parvati Third Time Lucky (1,511 words, Teen) Summary: The waiting really was torture. “Maybe I should floo the office and see what the delay is,” she said slowly. “It really would be better to know now instead of continuing to wait like this.” But she’d barely thought of actually moving when the fireplace chimed. Parvati went rigid against her and Pansy scrambled for her wand to open the gate.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 11: ‘Rest Day’ Ginny/Luna Fast or Slow? (1,099 words, Mature) Summary: Ginny has plans to read all day on the sofa on her one rest day from training. Luna has other plans for her.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 12: ‘Balloons’ Ginny/Hermione (Ginmione) One Step at a Time (370 words, G-rated) Summary: Hermione is determined to rid herself of her fear of heights and flying and asks Ginny to help her along. Ginny tries a more muggle route.  

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 13: ‘The Sun’ Fleur/Tonks (Flonks) For the Sake of Concerned Muggles (496 words, G-rated) Summary: Fleur and Tonks are on holiday and Fleur is determined to return to England with a tan. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 14: ‘White’ Cho/Fleur A Perfect Picnic (1,557 words, Teen) Summary: On a rare sunny and warm day between the second and third tasks of the Triwizard Tournament, Fleur sneaks Cho away for a picnic. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Week 3:

Day 15: ‘Umbrellas’ Hermione/Pansy Sharing Is Caring (982 words, Teen) Summary: When Hermione is ready to head back to Hogwarts from Hogsmeade, long after Harry and Ron left, she stumbles across Pansy stranded in the rain without umbrella or wand. Fic + Edit    

(AO3 | Tumblr) 

Day 16: ‘Blue’ Fleur/Tonks Why so Blue? (809 words, Teen) Summary: Curse-Breaker Fleur has been assigned a job out of the country for a few months. The morning before she leaves, Tonks is feeling a little blue about it. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 17: ‘Damned’ Daphne/Pansy Damned on Our Own Terms (1,300 words, Mature) Summary: There was a low mutter and Pansy clenched her hands into fists by her sides.“This castle is our home too,” she said. “A better home for more of us than we’d like to admit. We have to fight.”She could see some people nodding, but many more were shaking their heads. It was a lost cause. And she wasn’t brave enough to go up there on her own. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 18: ‘Safe’ Hermione/Pansy Anything to Make Her Feel Safe Again (922 words, Teen) Summary: After the war, Hermione suffers from terrible nightmares. But Pansy is always there to bring her back from the dark spaces in her mind. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 19: ‘Vanilla’ Hermione/Pansy More Familiar Than You Think (676 words, Teen) Summary: Hermione finds herself puzzled by the scent profile of her Amortentia as they brew it again in their special Eighth Year. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 20: ‘Hate’ Hermione/Pansy Loss of Surety (770 words, Mature) Summary: Over the years she’d come to believe Hermione was utter pants at hiding anything she thought. It turned out that couldn’t be further from the truth. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 21: ‘Wings’ Cho/Fleur Collecting Feathers and Finding Wings (5,055 words, Teen) Summary: Or 'Five times Cho found feathers she couldn't explain, and one time she finally saw the wings they came from'. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Week 4:

Day 22: ‘Shopping’ Hermione/Pansy Shopping with Hermione (438 words, Teen) Summary: She loved a good second hand book sale herself, and had a tidy stack next to her too, but she had a sense of restraint, unlike her idiot wife. She knew when to stop. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 23: ‘Gold’ Hermione/Pansy Live a Little (1,521 words, Mature) Summary: Hermione encounters Pansy Parkinson in a hotel bar. It doesn't go as she might have expected. Fic + Edit

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 24: ‘Blessed’ Fleur/Tonks Daydreaming at the Wrong Moment (1,232 words, Teen) Summary: “Did we...did we just get Veela-married?”

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 25: ‘Split’ Pansy/Parvati Unexpected Gratitude (851 words, Teen) Summary: Pansy has a split lip, Parvati is determined to help.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 26: ‘Comfort’ Ginny/Hermione Midnight Serenade (708 words, G-rated) Summary: When Ginny has to go overseas for the International Quidditch season, Hermione fixes Harry's broken two way mirror and gets her hands on its counterpart.

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 27: ‘Space’ Luna/Pansy (Lunsy) No Such Thing as Too Close (1,010 words, Teen)

(AO3 | Tumblr)

Day 28: ‘Princess’ Hermione/Pansy Work and Reward (808 words, Teen) Summary: Pansy has a pet name for Hermione. Hermione doesn't like it but she might have found a way to make it work for her.

(AO3 | Tumblr) 

[welovelofi]

Tales Of Murder And Dust: Fragile Absolutes. We Feature, We Love.

https://open.spotify.com/album/6DMVg3nHhAadARNNw1dfpl?si=iuFBfCgKQhGEiYq-M2alqw

Århus based, Tales Of Murder And Dust are freshly out with their 3rd full-length LP, Fragile Absolutes. It’s the result of a long gestation and steady evolution of both the line-up and context of the group.

“It’s been the most difficult process we’ve ever had” is bandied around like a mantra in the organization. Why though? Tomad seems to have at times in their 12-year career, everything going for them in spades, but if you pull up specific moments of dormancy – a heck of a lot of forces working against them. Like plate tectonics or glacial migration – slow building pressures ripping them apart that the human sensory array could only detect with seemingly topographic charts. 

After 2016’s “The Flow In Between” saw the band signing to English neo-psych magnate, Fuzzclub Records, they parted ways with founding member Kristoffer Vilsgaard, who shared lead vocal and songwriting duties with Christian Sinding Soendergaard. Vilsgaard left the operation amicably and still remains active in their now extensive ‘extended family’. Around the same time, TOMAD saw a drastic line-up shift in virtually every position except drums. Fellow ZRN (formerly Zeroine, a ‘side’ collab between Ess Beck and Soendergaard) and real-life partner, Ess Beck moved in on keys and auxiliary guitar, Rasmus Aaen Jensen entered on bass, and the slimmer, leaner line-up headed to USA for their very chaotic inaugural tour – plagued by missed connections, transportation break-downs and hellish drive times.

    “It was our first time in the states, and instead of being able to soak it all in, we got into a van and drove 35 hours straight to a gig” remarks Jakob Korsgaard (drums). “I kinda feel like it doesn’t even count, that tour – it was just so chaotic at times”.  

The Flow In Between sold well internationally for them, and the EU bookings were steady, yet it seemed always to this writer that it was getting increasingly difficult to see them here in Aarhus or let-alone find their records in one of the many physical shops. In fact, I ordered my copy of “Fuzz Club Sessions” from England (the 2018 Ltd edition live-in-studio EP, first to feature the re-vamped TOMAD line-up), and it took weeks to get here (You can fly direct from AAR to Stanstead though for less than the price of a beer and be wheels down in 1.5 hours). Something was rotten somewhere.

The difference between The Flow In Between and Fragile Absolutes is significant in almost every way. All plusses though if you’ve gotten this far. WHEN one was able to catch TOMAD in this constellation between records, I always had the feeling there was something über-special about their sound. It was like something was gestating, brewing…fermenting even. ZRN seemingly would cycle through a period as well, ESS and Christian seemed to dichotomize the sound picture. TOMAD at times would be more punky or gothic, while ZRN would move into territory that was more ambient, improvisatory and even post-modernist ‘classical’. It seemed like the two groups had a significant impact on each other – which makes sense with the personnel being partly the same, but yet able to morph under a different moniker and (for lack of a better term) ‘power dynamic shift’. At any rate – TOMAD was evolving and peeling away from the “Psych” or “Shoegaze” pigeonholes that seemed to be applied by the lesser astute of my colleagues over the decade.  

With the departure Of Vilsgaard as co-lead, That left Soendergaard in full creative control of the group. This is one of the important dynamic shifts that lead to the content and feel of “Fragile Absolutes”. Far from being a 3-legged cat however – Soendergaards growth as an atmospheric composer and arranger in a more widescreen cinematic format was amplified. With the departure of Vilsgaard, also left the final leanings of TOMAD being justifiably a “Psych” outfit. The darker hues of something weightier and more substantial began covering the band like strangler vines around the once verdant trees of the woods.

“Fragile Absolutes” was recorded in several different locations – initial basic tracking began a few years ago in Aarhus’s Tapetown studios. Tapetown’s penchant for recording “Alternative” and “Indie” genres served as a template for a slightly more bombastic base coat to several of the numbers. For whatever reason, TOMAD decided to complete the recording in various settings where they could hack away at it. A cabin on the west coast of Jutland is mentioned (the closest thing Denmark has to an artic desert), and various bits and pieces here and there. I’m sure all of this adds to the mystery surrounding the record, but the end result and finished ‘product’ is a record that is produced by the band with an air of achieving perfection in whatever it is they first set out to do.

Knowing the genesis and long gestation of the record – I see this as a re-birth for the band. They might not notice it. A heap of things in the band’s own personal life have also necessitated the change. Some members became parents themselves, geographical and logistical strife caused periods of inactivity and even as I write, a global pandemic has altered the way the band has to plan live bookings. I hate to say something as pedestrian as: “you gotta roll with the punches”, but this record existing at all, let alone being the masterpiece that I truly deem it to be, is no small feat. 

The Review

In my 2016 review of “The Flow In Between” I ended up calling it “Probably the greatest record to come out of Jutland”. Before we get going on the breakdown – I’ll have to amend that bold statement from 4 years ago and relegate “TFIB” to “Probably the best record to come out of Jutland as of 2015”. Fragile Absolutes has frogged its way into #1 for me. Shucks – I’m even going to have to one-up myself here. It’s my favorite Danish album, ever. There’s a LOT of great albums out of my adopted home country too. Laban 4 comes to mind….

“Fragile Absolutes” kicks off with the wallop of the monastic meets Viking cinema “Distances”. It’s evident that they are picking up in context where some of “The Flow In Between” leaves off (see: “Sisters”). There’s a heavier texture of orchestration underneath which basically weaves it way through the record. There are shimmering jangly bits layered with piano, synths and whatever the hell else they used bathed in subtle sustained feedback. This continues into the slightly dirgy title track “Fragile Absolutes”. The monotonic guitar lines giving way to almost plainsong layered choirs underpinned by some subtle tinkling on the ivories and a chugging and building rhythm section that leads into orchestral stabs at a climax and finally a resolution.

“Crippled Figurines” treads on more familiar territory in a sense. The Percussion is sidelined, instead being inferred by a gently strummed acoustic guitar set in counterpoint by the ever- present drone and simple right-handed synth melody, comfortingly recalling something that wouldn’t be out of place on a late 80s Depeche Mode album. All this mood is closer in reality to say, an early Fever Ray track rather than a gothic synth-pop piece and retaining the best integral bits of each.

With “Flawed Beliefs” we’re back to the structure of the opening gambit of the record – the ever-present drone met by delicate flights of neatly layered butterfly kisses from unidentified hands. “Flawed Beliefs” builds again upon a simple but effective passage, subtly and organically changing shape to a cacophony of doom until disappearing.

“Wear Your Skin” again pairs the dulcet tones of fluttering sprinkles of what sounds like hammer dulcimer with a tightly layered cauldron of foreboding flares in the lower register. You wouldn’t be wrong for hearing traces of Cocteau Twins or even “Pornography”-era Cure, hence why some folks can’t resist attaching a “Goth” accreditation to TOMAD on this album cycle. I’m not sure Goth is such a dirty word anymore – I’ve dabbled myself and in these Isolation times – I don’t think anyone should blame me. “Deconstructed and Dissolved” follows this mood perfectly, plunging the listener further down the k-hole of the world in flames while simultaneously being frozen in the wasteland that our collective esoterism has created.

“Entropy” and “Consoling Words” again bring us back to the now familiar overall vibe of the record. Infinite layers of aurally pleasing yet disturbing symphonic drones paired with a slowly plodding and ever-present funeral march of backbone.

You’d be forgiven for being lulled into a sense of not knowing where the album begins or ends at this point in the record – but the whole affair is masterfully shuttered with the somewhat surprisingly delicate and bare “Remnants” – where for the first time, a simple piano and vocal are to the fore of the mix. There is something heartbreakingly haunting about Soendergaard’s vocals on the closing number – finally pushed into the theoretical spotlight, yet still fragile and nearly incomprehensible. It’s a perfect ending to the constant wash of dark matter and symphonic pummeling of the previous 8 tracks.

“Fragile Absolutes” as a whole, is damaging in its epic-ness. I know “epic” is thrown around a lot in somewhat ironic terms by suited frat boys on TV, but I honestly can’t think of another term for what this LP puts you through. From the invocational wallop of the opening numbers and the adagios and lulls of the moodier tracks, it’s quite an emotional roller coaster. Everyone I know who has heard any of these tracks all drop references to “Soundtrack”, “Nordic” and “Dark”. I’m happy to agree, even if I can’t offer up a pigeonhole of a mini-sub sub- genre to attach to it. The remnants of Shoegaze and Neo-Psych are still evident, these are the kind of bands that TOMAD will always be billed with – but “Fragile Absolutes” is their most powerful and complete work to date. While the bulk of the writing may be Christian Soendergaard’s singular vision now, What the rest of the band add to the mix is staggeringly appropriate and serve the material with a reverence and aplomb that is rarely found in a band that have been through this massive of a personnel shift since their last record. My only wish on several of the songs is that there were more dynamic builds and decrescendos – adding to the romantic and cinematic appeal of some of the “louder” cuts on the LP. This only means that it can evolve and grow live in my book – and for my dollar, I can’t wait to see what TOMAD can do in full flight with this material and line-up at a proper concert whenever that is possible. That will have to occur in 2021 though. Thanks Corona virus.  

Words - Bobby McBride

Order Vinyl/CD direct from band: https://talesofmurderanddust.bandcamp.com/

Follow FB: https://www.facebook.com/talesonline/

Follow Insta: @talesofmurderanddust

[victimofthemusic]

Music, Cars and Pizza, Of Course (With M&M’s)-A Princess Diaries Fic

Hi guys! It’s been so long since I’ve posted anything on here and for that, I’m sorry. My life has been hectic and I’ve been taking some time off from writing, but I’m slowly getting back into again. I’ve got a few things in the works, but I decided to take a detour from my usual and I’ve become OBSESSED with the Princess Diaries and I’ve been marathoning the movie and now I’m reading the series, which is great by the way! Hopefully you guys like this and let me know what you think! :)

Summary:

"Like a date?"

"No, not a date, just music, cars-"

"Will it include pizza?"

"Of course, pizza's a given."

"With M&M's?'

"Of course."

"Well, then I'm in."

A simple 'what if' Mia had realized her mistake of ditching Michael for Josh and that apology pizza came a little sooner.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mia fluttered nervously around her room, digging through her dressers, flipping through her closet, trying to find something, anything to wear that wouldn't make her look like an asparagus like the current fashion faux pas she was wearing. Which, she supposed, was a shame considering she always liked this top on her. Now, however, all she’d see when she looked at it was a gangly green vegetable. 

Her mother was watching her, with thinly veiled amusement, from her position on the love seat, pretending to sketch. However, Mia hadn't heard the scratching of her pencil across the page of her sketch book in last fifteen minutes. 

She pretended not to notice. 

“I guess I’ll just wear my blue suit.” Mia sighed, digging said swim suit out from underneath a pile of clothes that had been flung haphazardly from her dresser not five minutes ago, in her haste to find something that didn’t remind her of one of the main food groups. 

“Are you nervous about the beach party?” Her mother asked after a beat of silence. 

Mia opened her mouth to answer, when her eyes landed on a picture taped to her dresser mirror. It was taken last year, at her fifteenth birthday party. Her mom had been away for the weekend, an art dealer that had just opened a new museum in LA had fallen in love with a line of her mother’s paintings and had begged her to come out for opening night of the new exhibit that now housed Helen’s paintings. Helen had initially refused, but Mia knew how much her mother’s art meant to her and after much persuading and an offer for Mia to stay at the Moscovitz’s for the weekend, Helen took the offered trip to LA, but not after promising Mia something special for her birthday. 

Mia was just expecting a quiet weekend with Lilly, helping her edit her TV show or make flyers to plaster around school concerning her passion about a new cause. And when she got tired of that, she’d wander down to Michael’s room, and help him write a new song for his band or watch an old black and white film with him, the only person, beside her mother, who shared her affection for old films. 

However, when she crossed over the threshold of the Moscovitz’s townhouse that Friday evening, she was greeted with streamers and balloons and a ‘Happy Birthday Mia!’ banner strung across the fireplace in the living room. Lilly was standing next to a smirking Michael and had rushed over to give Mia a hug, guiding Mia further into the living room. The lights had been dimmed, music was playing from the state of the art stereo system and the kitchen had been transformed into a small buffet with a small birthday cake nestled in the middle amidst all the snacks and soda. 

Michael had invited his band and Lilly had invited their friends from choir and Mia had found herself at a loss for words, incredibly touched by her friends kindness. 

Lilly, who among her many other hobbies, dabbled in photography and had snapped a picture of Mia and Michael, nestled together on the couch while Michael was trying (without much success) to teach Mia how to play guitar. Neither one of them had been paying much attention to anyone, let alone a sleuthing Lilly armed with a camera. It was taken a few minutes before Michael had given Mia her birthday present, a silver chain bracelet with a dainty silver charm in the shape of a guitar pick on it. He said he’d found in the antique store next to the garage and when he’d saw it, he thought of her. Mia, incredibly touched, had never taken the bracelet off. 

Lilly had given her a copy of the picture the week after and Mia had shifted a few pictures around on her dresser and it now hung proudly in the center of all of her photos, where she could see it every day. Usually, when she looked at Michael’s warm smile, the smile he always wore before he started that slow, deep laugh that only occurred when he was genuinely amused by something—and Mia attempting a G Chord on the guitar? Definitely cause for such laugher—filled her with such a warmth that sometimes, she forget that she was invisible. 

Now, when she remembered the look of disappointment in Michael’s eyes when she told him she was going to the beach party with Josh instead of spending time with Michael on their date that wasn't a date—with just music, cars and of course, pizza (with M&M’s) that was a complete given—she was filled with nothing but guilt. 

Her mother cleared her throat and Mia remembered that her mother had asked her a question and usually, when one asks you a question, you generally have to respond with an answer. 

“No,” She found herself saying, “I’m not nervous, more excited, I think.”

Mia bit her lip, smiling shyly at her mom, “I think I might actually get my first, real kiss tonight.”

Her mother raised an eyebrow, her eyes glinting in a way that made Mia suddenly nervous, “Oh? Who from?”

Mia shifted, her cheeks turning a bright red, “Josh Bryant.”

Her mother’s eyes hardened, narrowing into slits, “That Backstreet Boy clone who you’ve had a crush on forever?” she demanded, pursing her lips. 

It was never a good sign, when Helen Thermopolis pursed her lips. 

“He’s not a Backstreet Boy clone,” Mia sniffed defensively, “he’s a…a sailor.” she added lamely. 

“I thought he was never nice to you.” Helen added, her eyes suddenly filling with concern. Mia shifted, suddenly very uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. Instead of meeting her mother’s eyes, she pretended to be looking for something amongst the mess on her dresser. 

“Well, I don’t know, he is now.” Mia said softly, but the answer sounded weak, unsure, even to her own ears. 

After Mia had floated back down from Cloud 9 and after Josh’s voice had faded from her mind, where it had been playing him asking her to the beach party on a constant loop, Mia’s insecurities had reared their ugly head. The truth was, Josh had never been nice to her. He’d never even spared her a second glance before her whole Extreme Princess Makeover, unless it was to join in on the teasing that was often lead by his equally as snotty girlfriend, Lana. 

So she had been curious where the sudden change of heart had come from, especially when just the day before, he’d been swapping spit with Lana and ignoring her very existence. She had wondered, for a brief moment, if all of this wasn't just some publicity stunt, to be linked with the newly discovered princess. 

She had dismissed those thoughts, thinking that she was just being insecure, that it was okay Josh had a change of heart and that maybe, her little makeover had just made him realize what he’d been missing out all along. 

Doubt, once again, filled her mind and eyeing the bracelet that Michael had given her that, for the first time she had been given it, was laying innocently in her jewelry box, the silver glinting in the fading after noon sun, she wondered, not for the first time in the last few days, if she was making the right choice. 

“Mia? Honey, you better hurry up and change if you want to make it in time for your bus, Joe should be here in a few minutes to take you to school.”

Her mother’s voice brought Mia out of her thoughts and nodding absentmindedly, she hurried into the bathroom and changed into her blue bathing suit, that, once Mia had looked into the mirror to make sure she looked okay, deiced that it didn’t make her look like one of the major food groups. 

It made her look like a Smurf. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Josh, Mia had decided, was one of the most boring people she had ever met. 

She had been in his presence for all of an hour and the only topics of conversation Josh seemed to be well versed in was boating, hair gel and talking about his ex-girlfriend, Lana. 

Mia was miserable, to say the least and had never wanted an evening to come to an end quicker more than this one. She didn’t think she could last another five minutes in his company, let alone anther three or four hours or until Josh decided he wanted to leave. 

And to make matters worse, whenever Josh or one of his buddies cracked some lame joke, all she could picture was what Michael would say to such asinine comments and thinking of Michael only made the guilt weigh heavier in her stomach. She wondered what he was doing right now, if he had continued with band practice, if he was working on her ‘Stang with all the concentration and careful preciseness he gave to his music or if he was at home, writing or watching a movie. 

Or maybe, he found someone else to spend his Saturday night with, maybe the pretty blonde band groupie that was always hanging around the garage, flirting with Michael in between songs or cornering him after practice, when he’d start to work on her ‘Stang. 

The thought made Mia hurt in a way that she had never felt before. Her heart physically ached at the thought of Michael being with someone else, of sharing his new music with somebody else. That had always been their thing and the thought of it not being their thing anymore, made tears spring to her eyes and her guilt worsen. 

And it was in that moment, when she was slow dancing on a beach, underneath the moon light with sound of the waves crashing in the distance with Josh Bryant, something she’d only dreamed of doing for the last year, that she was with the wrong guy. 

The thought made her stop so suddenly that Josh ended up stepping on her foot, but she didn’t even feel it. Her sudden stop interrupted Josh’s story of Lana and the first Christmas they had spent together and while it was such a riveting story, it was one Mia didn’t care to stick around for. 

“Mia? What—“

“I have to go.” Mia said abruptly and that was all the explanation she gave a rather confused and annoyed Josh Bryant before she made a mad dash to her bag, digging through her belongings until she found the slim silver cellphone that Joe had given her before letting her board the bus. 

“I don’t trust this over-gelled Backstreet Boy clone,” he explained gruffly when he handed it to her. 

Mia, too stunned that Joe even knew who the Backstreet Boys were, didn’t even protest when he pressed it into her hand and through her shock, she heard him tell her to press one and it would dial his number and to call him if she needed him. 

Pressing one, the phone automatically dialed Joe’s number and he answered on the first ring. 

“Joe? It’s Mia, can you pick me up? There’s some place I need to be.”

~~~~~

Mia shifted nervously outside Doc’s garage, the warm pizza box tipping precariously in her grasp and with quick reflexes she didn’t know she possessed, she saved her peace offering/apology pizza from becoming a new welcome mat. 

The bay doors were closed, which she expected this late at night and if it wasn’t for the faint guitar strumming she could hear coming from the inside, she would've thought that no one was here. 

She knocked on the metal doors and cringed at the loud sound breaking the silence of the neighborhood around her. When the clanging died down, she could hear a pause in the guitar strumming and a beat of silence, then the metal door rose slowly, squeaking loudly on the tracks and if it wasn't for the pizza box in Mia’s hand, she would've covered her ears. 

They stopped about half way, enough for someone to duck under and Mia didn’t have enough time to work herself up into a proper panic before a familiar head of dark hair popped out from underneath the door and then Michael was standing in front of her, arms crossed and unwavering stare in place. 

“Hi,” Mia said, giving him a small, unsure smile. 

Michael didn’t reply, so Mia took that as a sign to continue. 

“Look, I’m probably the last person you wanna see right now,” she began quietly, “but I came here to apologize for choosing to go to the beach party with Josh instead of being here, with you,” she looked down at the pizza box, suddenly feeling very exposed underneath Michael’s gaze, “Josh is, well, Josh is a total idiot and the shallow end of a kiddie pool has more depth than he does and it wasn't until after his sixth story about Lana, that I realized that I had made a mistake. If I’m being honest, I knew I made a mistake the minute I accepted his offer. I got so caught up in the fact that Josh Bryant wanted to take me on a date, that Josh Bryant might want to kiss me—“

Had Mia paid attention, she would've noticed the way Michael’s jaw clenched at the latter admission, but she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of the pizza in her hands. 

“—and I chose to ignore the fact that up until two days ago, the only reason Josh Bryant even knew I existed was because his girlfriend loves to make me the butt end of her jokes.” Mia scoffed, rolling her eyes, but Michael didn’t miss the hurt in her voice and not for the first time, anger rose at the thought of anyone teasing her. 

“I know I hurt you,” Mia said, risking a glance up at him from underneath her lashes, “but I’m hoping, that even though I showed up late and it took me longer than it should have, your offer for music, cars and pizza still stands,” glancing down at her still full hands, she offered the pizza box out to Michael, “I brought the pizza.” she said lamely, giving him a sheepish smile. 

“You forgot the M&M’s.” He said after a minute of silence, before turning and ducking underneath the garage door. 

Mia’s shoulders sagged in relief and she waved Joe away, who was waiting patiently by the limo and with a simple nod, he got into the driver’s seat and drove away, but not before Mia caught the little smile on his face. 

Mia took Michael’s statement as an offer for her to follow him and being very, very careful, she ducked underneath the garage doors and offered the pizza to a waiting Micael, who set the pizza on an oil drum so he could close the bay doors with a loud clang that made Mia jump. 

“Sorry,” he said, giving her an apologetic smile before he grabbed the pizza and made his way over to one of the couches where he set up camp, his acoustic guitar leaning up against the couch and an open notebook laying out on the coffee table. He closed it before she could see what was in it, shoving it off to the side before setting the pizza down where his notebook had been. 

He opened the box and huffed out a laugh at the Sorry that was written out on top of the otherwise plain cheese pizza in different colored M&M’s.

“I didn’t forget.” Mia said softly, giving him a small smile. 

Michael smiled back, shaking his head, “You’re something else, Thermopolis.”

Mia flushed bright red, but there was no denying the small smile on her lips or the flutter her heart gave when he gave her a smile like that. 

Michael managed to scrounge up some paper plates and napkins and, after snagging a couple of sodas out of the fridge Doc kept just outside of his office for his employees, he sat back down on the couch next to Mia. He offered her one of the sodas and a plate, which she accepted with a grateful smile. She didn’t hesitate to open up the pizza box and after a few seconds of deliberation on what slice she wanted, Michael watching in fond amusement, she picked one and took a bite, not even bothering to scrape off the M&M’s, she was that hungry.

“What, Josh didn’t feed you?” Michael asked, picking his own piece and taking a bite. The question came out innocent enough, but Mia could hear the mocking underneath the attempted casualness of his tone.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, setting her slice of pizza down on her plate, shaking her head, she said, “No, um, I took the bus with everyone else and I wasn’t there long enough to hit the snack table.”

Michael hmm’d, chewing his pizza thoughtfully, but didn’t add anything else to the conversation. 

They sat in silence and Mia couldn't help but feel a little awkward. She wasn’t sure if Michael had completely forgiven her yet and if she was being honest with herself, she wasn't sure if he would. And Mia could understand, really, if she was in his shoes and Michael had canceled their date that wasn’t a date, to hang out with someone else, she’d be a little hurt too. 

He deserves better, she thought to herself.

Because, if Mia was also being honest with herself, she had always cared about Michael a little more than just a ‘he’s-my-best-friends-older-brother-so-by-extention-I-have-to-care-about-him’ sort of way. She’d known Michael as long as she’d known Lilly and while Mia loved Lilly dearly—really, she did, there wasn't a thing on this earth Mia wouldn’t do for her best friend—she could be a bit, well, much sometimes. Lilly was Mia’s opposite in every way and sometimes, Lilly could be a bit harsh with her criticism of Mia. Mia knew that she meant well, she was always trying to protect Mia from the cruelty of some of their classmates and encourage her to stand up to other people and not be so concerned about what other people think of her. But still, sometimes, her critiques hurt. 

And Michael, bless him, never hesitated to come to Mia’s defense where Lilly was concerned. Michael was a lot like Mia, quiet and reserved and it wasn’t unusual for Michael to stay locked up in his room all day, working on his music or reading or down in the Moscovitzs’ garage, music blasting and tinkering around with his parent’s cars.  When Lilly got too much to handle, Mia wouldn't hesitate to wander down to the garage and hangout with Michael. Michael, quiet and reserved Michael, had a way of making shy, awkward Mia, open up and feel normal, for once in her life. He never rolled his eyes in annoyance when Mia went off on one of her rants when she got excited over a new book she’d read or a new movie she’d watched with her mother. They shared common interests in music and books and movies and Michael always had this way of making her laugh, with his quick wit and dry and sarcastic remarks that could render even Lilly speechless. He always exuded a calm and collected demeanor and it always soothed Mia’s often frazzled nerves and one look or one smile from him and it could make Mia forget about whatever hurtful remark one of her fellow classmates said about her. 

He’s always been more than just her best friend’s older brother to her and maybe it was selfish, knowing she’d hurt him so badly, but she didn’t want to lose him. 

“I can practically hear you thinking from over here, princess,” Michael said, his tone teasing. She looked up from her pizza—which other than the one bite she’d taken almost ten minutes prior, had remained untouched—to see Michael gazing at her from underneath his dark fringe. Behind the teasing, she could see genuine concern swimming in those unfathomably dark brown eyes. After all she had done to him, he was concerned about her. 

Her 

He really, really deserves better. 

“Michael, I—“She started, but stopped. She wasn't sure what she wanted to say, but looking down at her pizza, she suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. 

“Didn’t you promise me music?” Mia asked instead, standing up so abruptly she almost knocked over her soda and if it wasn't for Michael’s quick reflexes, it would've ended up all over the half eaten pizza. She blushed bright red, hurrying over to the stereo system in the corner of the room, flipping through the stacks of CD’s Doc’s had to offer. She chose a CD at random and put it in the CD player, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers filling the silent garage. She pretended to be engrossed in the back of Def Leppard’s Greatest Hits album when she heard Michael get up from the couch and make his way over to her. 

He plucked the CD out of her hands, setting it down on the table where the other ones were scattered, ignoring Mia’s protest. 

“You hate Def Leppard.” He said in response to her protests, leaning casually against the table, crossing his arms across his chest. 

“You don’t know that.” Mia sniffed, picking the CD back up. 

Michael rolled his eyes, taking it away from her, again, “I do, because every time Felix puts this CD in when you’re here, you scrunch your nose up and start rubbing your temples, like you have a headache.”

“And here I thought you were supposed to be working on my car, not studying me.” Mia quipped, giving him a teasing smile. 

If Mia didn’t know any better, she would've swore Michael’s cheeks turned a soft shade of pink, but it was hard to tell in the shadowed lighting of the garage. 

“Speaking of your car, I uh, finished it for you.” Michael said, changing the subject, pushing himself off of the table and walking over to where her ‘Stang was parked. Mia followed, excitement building in her stomach at the  thought of driving the beautiful car her mother had worked so hard to get for her. Two of her best paintings, which Mia knew she could sell for a pretty penny, had been traded in order for Mia to have the car of dreams.

Michael lifted the hood and began explaining what all he’d done, things Mia had absolutely no grasp or concept of, but she listened with rapt attention, following his finger as he pointed out each section of the car that had been either rebuilt, repaired or tweaked in order for her car to purr like Fat Louie when you scratched at a spot just behind his ears. 

She was at a loss for words and once again, she was struck by just how perfect Michael Moscovitz was. And how stupid she was not realize it sooner. 

“—and when I test drove it, I noticed it was slipping a bit in third, so I had to take the transmission out and dig around with a flash light in order to find what was wrong and it turns out it was just something loose—“

He glanced up during his explanation, dark eyes glittering with pride and excitement and that’s when Mia knew. Like really knew. 

She was in love with Michael Moscovitz. 

And it was there, in the middle of Doc’s garage, bent under the hood of her ‘Stang, that she kissed Michael Moscovitz. 

The guy she loved

It didn’t last longer than five seconds, maybe, but in those five seconds, she felt it. The warmth of his lips, slightly chapped from biting them when he was really concentrating, the stubble on his cheek from not shaving recently and the way her heart fluttered at all of these sensations hitting her at once. 

She pulled away, looking anywhere but at him, surprised at her actions and mortified that she practically assaulted him, because her actions couldn’t of been wanted. This was Michael, Lilly’s older brother, her best friend. 

SHE JUST KISSED HER BEST FRIEND’S OLDER BROTH—

“Mia.” Michael breathed, bringing her out of her momentary panic and when she glanced up at him shyly, he simply stared at her, dumbfounded before his expression melted into something else. His eyes, dark with something Mia couldn't name, glanced down to her lips and before Mia could even blink, let alone think, Michael was kissing her. 

Kissing. 

 Her. 

His lips were warm and pressed firmly to hers, his hands coming up to cradle her cheeks, tilting her head slightly to the left and oh. Gently, his lips began to move against hers, encouraging Mia to follow his lead and she did, chasing his lips with a fervor that warmed her from the inside out. Fireworks exploded behind her eyelids, igniting a heat that settled low in her belly, her cheeks flushing and just like in the old movies, she felt her foot slowly rise and this was it, her first, real, foot popping kiss. 

Michael pulled away slowly, thumbs brushing against her cheeks and when Mia opened her eyes, slightly dazed, Michael was staring down at her with a look of wonder on his face, that if her cheeks could, they’d be flushing redder than they already were. 

“Why me?” he murmured, brushing back a stray tendril of her newly straightened hair, tucking it behind her ear. 

There were so many ways she could answer that question, but none of them felt right. This was Michael, who she’d known forever, who stood up for her against his own sister when she thought she was out of line, who helped Mia forget about her tormentors with a well timed joke, who let her escape his sister wrath and hang out in his room or the garage with him, who took time out of his day, every day, to get her dream car running for her. Michael, who never treated her any differently after the whole princess thing came to light. Michael, who cared about her, even when she was just plain old Mia, with frizzy curls and glasses and clumsy beyond belief. 

“Because you saw me when I was invisible.” She answered softly, truthfully. 

“You’re the only one who hasn't treated me any differently because of the whole princess thing. You liked me before the hair and the makeup and the contacts, before I was, well, y’know, pretty.” 

“You’ve always been pretty.” Michael whispered, dark eyes earnest.

Mia blushed, looking down at Michael’s t-shirt, playing absentmindedly with a loose thread. 

“I know this whole princess thing is intimidating,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “but it doesn't have to change anything. I’m still clumsy and awkward Mia. I’m still me. Except, now I have balls to attend and a country to rule.” 

Michael smiled, “Josh looks better in a tux, maybe you should reconsider before it’s took late.”

Mia shook her head, giving him a soft smile, “I don’t know, I think my boyfriend might have an issue with that.”

“Boyfriend, huh?” Michael asked, raising a teasing eyebrow. 

Mia’s cheeks went up in flames, “Is that okay?”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” Michael murmured, his dark eyes flickering over her face, settling on her lips, “will there be pizza at these balls?”

Mia smiled, “Of course, pizza’s a given.”

Michael grinned back, pulling her closer to him so she was cradled in his arms, “Then I guess you have yourself a date, princess.”

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And he sealed it with a kiss. 

~~~~~

I hope you guys liked it and as always, if you have any suggestions for future stories, want to give me feedback or just come say hi, my inbox is always open! I promise to return soon with something new! Much love :)

[mariaajamesol]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

http://ift.tt/2vXVPJH

[samiaedithg]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

http://ift.tt/2vXVPJH

[lindasharonbn]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

http://ift.tt/2vXVPJH

[miettawilliemk]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

http://ift.tt/2vXVPJH

[mariaajameso]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

http://ift.tt/2vXVPJH

[elenaturnerge1]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

http://ift.tt/2vXVPJH

[evanstheodoredqe]

5 questions: Alain Schlesser – WordPress Core Contributor

Alain Schlesser – aka Schlessera – is a prolific WordPress Core Contributor and he is on a mission: “I want to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it”. Yoast supports him in reaching those goals. Find out more about Alain and his work in the WordPress community.

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

$89 - Buy now »

Info

A couple of weeks ago, Yoast hired you as a freelancer to expand the work you do on WordPress core. Can you explain this move and what it enables you to do? And what do you hope to get out of it personally?

For some time now, I have been working on WordPress core in my spare time. I have also invested a lot of time into creating educational material like blog posts and WordCamp talks. I had to do all this besides the client work I am getting paid for. As a freelancer, this causes a constant struggle where you’re trying to balance the work you think is important with the work that pays the bills. It causes a lot of stress, and you even miss many important opportunities because the financial pressure grows too big.

I was always able to produce a lot of open source work as a side-effect of my client work. However, working on the important issues of WordPress core is a different beast. I didn’t find a way to integrate these concerns into any client projects.

Being paid for working on WordPress core means that I can afford to spend the time on critical topics. I can now seize opportunities as they come. It means I can work on the areas of the core that do not provide an immediate ROI, but are necessary for a long-term improvement.

One of my overarching personal goals is to make WordPress future-proof enough to withstand the next few online revolutions without drowning in technical debt, and as a direct consequence, ensure the longevity of the community that’s surrounding it.

You are a very active member of the WordPress community and even a core-contributor to the latest couple of releases. What is it that attracts you to this community and how did you start off?

When I started delving more deeply into WordPress, I quickly noticed that the code did not exactly follow common best practices. Some parts of the code were well-built, but very generally, it all seemed as though people were constantly trying to reinvent the wheel, instead of reading up on accepted solutions for their problems.

That led me to frequently share best practices and tips whenever I found an opportunity to do so. A lot of the jobs and the traction I initially got came directly or indirectly from freely sharing my own knowledge and experience. But I was mostly working in isolation, except for the few Slack teams I was a member of.

This all changed after I attended my first WordCamp. It was WordCamp Europe in Vienna, and it was a wonderful experience. I was already wondering for a few months whether WordPress was the right platform for me. It felt like making several steps backwards as a developer, instead of progressing. But the first WordCamp changed everything for me.

Although I went to Vienna for professional reasons, it enriched my personal life as well. It made me aware of how much I truly appreciate the community that has gathered around the WordPress project. All of a sudden, all the technical drawbacks of the WordPress platform were secondary to the feeling of personal growth in the welcoming and inspiring community.

That’s why I now work hard on helping make WordPress the best platform it can be (… according to my own benchmarks and agenda, of course). I always try to be as positive and constructive as I can manage. There’s more than enough people that are more than willing to tell you all that is bad about the WordPress codebase. However, not many will be able to point you towards a possible path to improvement that will still meet all given requirements of such an old project. I, however, am working on moving from the former to the latter group.

Could you tell us a bit about the work that’s going on in WordPress at the moment? What key issues need to be worked on?

A lot of the effort is currently being focused on Gutenberg. This is the new editing experience that should launch with WordPress 5.0. However, there are many smaller groups still working fervently on other areas of the core that are just as important.

Right now, I am mostly focusing on the PHP/backend side of things. I want to work on the architectural problems that are plaguing WordPress. I also started a feature project to analyze and redesign the bootstrap process. In addition, I am helping prepare a bump of the minimum PHP version and try to fix the major performance issues of a normal request.

More generally, I think that WordPress needs more experienced developers with outside experience, that can help teach and enforce better practices. That’s why I also want to work on eliminating the hurdles that these developers face.

We need helping hands if we want to improve WordPress, right? Basically, anyone working with or on WordPress could make major or minor contributions to improve the CMS. Let’s say someone is interested in taking part in the project, what steps should he/she take?

An obvious first step is to head over to make.wordpress.org and read through the list of teams to see whether something catches your interest. There’s lots of documentation for most teams that take you through the initial steps of contributing for the first time.

Apart from that, just meet other people at the next Meetup or WordCamp in your region. Most WordCamps have a “Contributor Day” that is ideal for getting a feel for the project. There are also team leads present that will help you with the initial onboarding.

Finally, for the people who don’t know you yet, could you give us a little background on yourself and your work?

I started dabbling in software development as a child on a Commodore C-64. I learned to develop in Basic, and mostly tried to build text adventures, which was an early form of natural language processing. Later on, I moved through several other languages, covering C, C++, Assembler, Pascal and a lot of more obscure dialects.

I always saw game development as the most interesting area for myself. In this area, you not only needed to make everything work, it also needed to work as fast as possible. You always try to get around the then very crippling performance limits. This led me down several rabbit holes at once, learning about data structures and algorithms, artificial intelligence, graphics and sound driver development, etc.

When I later thought about what professional path to follow, I always tried to avoid the IT space though, as I associated it with frustrating technical support work, more than anything else. That’s why I ended up working as a government agent in the administration of a prison.

I ended up dealing a lot with IT anyway. Since then, I worked on a very diverse set of projects. I even accumulated some certifications along the way, such as for Oracle PL/SQL or Microsoft Sharepoint development.

As I was never truly satisfied with the work I did for the government (mostly because of the long delays and the nonsensical budget allocations), I read a lot about freelancing, remote work, and lifestyle design.

Then, about three years ago, my wife and I made the jump. We both quit our jobs, moved from Luxembourg to Germany and started a new life. I opted to freelance as a PHP and WordPress developer, as these made up the biggest part of the market. I just assumed it would be easy to find work for that reason.

Read more: ‘Why there’s only one model: the open source model’ »

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