#I just. when the tools we have crafted to understand the world strain under a weight we could never predict

[herearedragons]

I love you detectives wrestling with cosmic horror I love you government agencies in a futile pursuit to contain the supernatural I love you academia and bureaucracy strugging to quantify and codify the otherworldly I love you systems and habits desperately trying to hold the line against the chaotic the unclassifiable and the unfathomable.

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[vimeddiart]

Strangers

Patron-voted fic of my D&D beeflings! Read the previous comic and the first comic for this series for context!

On AO3

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

The zinging cadence of his hammer hitting a new blade usually tempers his fraught emotions and lessens their intensity. The rhythm and beat usually calms him, the heat of the furnace and the steady drip of sweat as well. Except his heart thunders on and his breathing remains irregular and his eyes sting—not from stray embers or errant drops of perspiration—and his agitation grows.

It grows so powerfully that he miscalculates and swings his hammer much too harshly, breaking the blade he was trying to fashion which frustrates him further and he throws down his tools with a clatter, pressing the gloved heels of his hands to his brow.

Lazlo.

Tuhka releases a trembling breath.

Barely a day had passed since he had regurgitated all of the regret and agony of his childhood friend’s death right into said friend’s face before gracelessly fleeing, the bitter taste of tears still on his tongue and Lazlo’s look of resounding disbelief haunting him even here in the safety of his forge.

It wasn’t fair.

Why must he have been forced to carry the burden of grief and guilt for so many years? All those moments of remembrance, thinking of a friend—the only one he ever had— ripped away from the world much too soon, endless nights of pain and suffering, wishing he’d been taken instead...and for what? Lazlo was alive. Had been for perhaps as long as Tuhka had grieved his loss.

How much hatred—or worse, indifference—must Lazlo have harboured to fail in seeking Tuhka out...to reassure him, to reunite with him, to talk with him. They had been family.

Tuhka wrenches off his gloves and tosses them to the side, stalking towards the entrance of his smithy for some air, unable to concentrate anymore on his craft. His hands shake when he grasps the wrought iron gate.

A sound distracts him for a moment, one that carries over on the salty evening breeze that cools the sweat of his brow. Gravel crushed underfoot. It’s gone in an instant and even with his sharp hearing, Tuhka strains to listen for something further, ears swivelling in the hopes to catch it.

It doesn’t take too much investigation to track down the source of the sound once he decides to; a dark figure perched somewhat dejectedly on a boulder that offsets a scenic cliffside path Tuhka often takes to clear his head.

“You didn’t waste your grief, if that’s what you’re bothered about,” the figure says.

Tuhka’s breath leaves him in a rush as he’s met with a familiar blue gaze. He feels pulled forward by some invisible thread and settles himself on the far edge of the same boulder, leaving a bit of distance between them.

Lazlo sighs, drops his head into his hands. “When you left that day and never came back, I...believed you’d abandoned me, that you’d made good on your promise—”

“That was a child’s threat, I never meant to—” Tuhka began, needing to explain despite the betrayal he felt, still very fresh, that had upended years of mourning.

The other tiefling shook his head, dropping his hands away from his face and letting them fall to his lap. “I made a terrible decision, I paid for it,” the spectral left hand twitches and Tuhka notices it properly for the first time, heart squeezing despite everything and mind filling with more questions, “and I...went away for a long time. I didn’t think to look for you...I thought you despised me.”

He releases a mirthless laugh. “I don’t think I would’ve found you anyway. I’d have been looking for someone...quite different.”

Tuhka swallows hard. “I’ve...probably grown a bit since you last saw me.”

This startles a small, but real, laugh out of Lazlo, even if it does sound a little wet.

After a pause, Tuhka gathers strength from the stars and attempts to keep his voice steady. “That day...I went back for you. I did. I wasn’t going to, I was about to start a new life away from those bloody mines and I was so angry with you that I hoped you would stew in them forever...but then I remembered you wanted to get out just as desperately as I did and we swore to do it together so I went back to fetch you.”

Tuhka didn’t dare raise his eyes to Lazlo’s face, staring intently at his own hands grasping his knees even though the image was beginning to waver and blur.

“It was snowing and freezing and I walked through it without stopping, thinking that I would see you soon and whisk us away to a better place, until I saw the smoke from over the hill and I knew you’d gone ahead with our plan without me,” Tuhka let out a shuddering breath, “they said you got crushed in the tunnel along with that bastard foreman. Don’t remember much of what happened after that...just that I’d gone to fetch you and came back empty-handed.”

Tears flowed freely, despite previously believing he had run out of tears to shed. From the corner of his eye he noticed Lazlo wipe his face with a pure, white square of cloth.

“Told you the truth though…” Tuhka continued, after a none-too-discreet sniff, “mourned you like a piece of me had died. Couldn’t think of much else for a good few years,” He runs a forearm over his face roughly and finally turns to Lazlo, raw and exposed, “I would’ve looked for you in a heartbeat if I’d known you were alive. I would’ve.”

Lazlo lets out a sound like an animal in pain, fresh tears rolling down his cheeks that he no longer tries to wipe away. “I didn’t know...I didn’t know— I mucked up my plan and ending up losing everything, I— I was trapped for years without knowing how much time passed, I was...I was isolated from the outside in a way you won’t be able to understand but you must believe me, I never wanted to lose you—”

That final crack in Lazlo’s voice is what forces Tuhka to move closer and wrap an arm around his shoulders, mumbling soothing words until the sobs that wrack Lazlo’s frame subside. It reminds him of when he was younger—and much smaller—when Lazlo would do the same for him after a tumble, a run in with the awful foreman, or when overcome with a sadness he couldn’t understand, much less explain. Lazlo would have been there to comfort him, always.

As if hearing his thoughts, Lazlo lets out a tremulous sigh. “...Tables have turned, hm?”

Tuhka makes a tentatively amused sound in response. There is a whirlwind of emotion to wade through, but he can take this moment just to experience how real and solid Lazlo is. That he’s back.

“A right pair of bellends we turned out to be,” he ends up saying.

“Quite.” Lazlo sniffs, but there’s a small, albeit watery, smile on his lips as he straightens out of Tuhka’s one-armed embrace, and Tuhka tries not to let the empty feeling that remains affect him too much.

Something that has been niggling in the back of Tuhka’s mind takes on more force and the reason finally dawns on him.

“You sound different.”

Lazlo finishes wiping his face with a fresh, white handkerchief and makes a noise, muffled by the fabric.

“Yes, ah...I trained out the accent I used to have and replaced it with a new one.”

Tuhka blinks. “What’s wrong with your old accent? That’s the accent I have! I got it from you!”

“I needed to, ah...move in higher circles of society and I couldn’t very well sound like a common miner, could I?”

Tuhka opens his mouth to argue, a nostalgia for their juvenile arguments filling him in a split second, but Lazlo interrupts, “You know, we don’t have to speak Common if you’d prefer.”

They fall back on Infernal so naturally that Tuhka has to swallow a lump in his throat and keep the waver out of his voice. He never thought he would have this again. He’s a little rusty and out of practice but that doesn’t seem to matter in the moment—it’s like they’re back in the mines, speaking their language out of earshot of the foreman, making plans for the future in a world that was all dreams.

Tuhka tells Lazlo how he adopted Ooria (and not the other way round as she claimed to recall) and how she had helped him find his true self. He tells him about his work, his smithy and how he made a home on this cliff by the ocean. He doesn’t talk about the painful things, like crying himself to sleep every night for years from missing him, or the search for his adoptive mother who was now lost.

Lazlo talks about— what Tuhka suspects is— superficial milestones, his expertise in identifying gemstones, the places he’s visited and the night skies he has lain under and commemorated on his skin. Tuhka notices the glittering constellations peeking out of Lazlo’s clothes and his heart thumps, wanting to ask what made them special enough to wear permanently but he stops himself...still feeling like a stranger. There’s an undercurrent of darkness in Lazlo’s vague statements, of secrets untold, and Tuhka is slightly surprised by a keen disappointment that bubbles within him at not being trusted with them.

There’s a lull in conversation, an impending finality that Tuhka does not appreciate. He refuses to remain a stranger as well, which prompts him to realise that he hasn’t even properly introduced himself yet.

Feeling bold, he holds a hand out in the human way. “Tuhka Turunen.”

Lazlo’s gaze lands on the proffered hand and then flickers up to Tuhka’s face, seeming to weigh his options. He breathes out a laugh and leans forward, ignoring the hand to press his forehead slowly but firmly against Tuhka’s in customary tiefling fashion. An echo of the greeting they shared when they first met as children.

“Lazarus Astrophel,” whispers the tiefling formerly known as Lazlo.

Tuhka smiles. “Nice to meet you, Lazarus.”

They part and Lazlo—Lazarus—clears his throat, “My close acquaintances sometimes call me Laz. You may do so, after all we’re—” a beat of hesitation, “—old friends.”

His vibrant blue eyes are on Tuhka, almost as if expecting him to disagree. Tuhka doesn’t.

“Laz,” he says, smiling, “lot less likely to get mixed up with that.”

The sea breeze sighs around them, ruffling hair and clothing. Tuhka watches as Lazarus gets to his feet.

“It’s late. I should be going.”

Panic flickers through Tuhka. “You’re leaving?”

“I have business in town for a day or two, I’m staying at an inn there...The King’s Cushion?”

Tuhka nods, recognising the name. He gets to his feet as well, unintentionally towering over Lazarus.

“Stars...I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.” Lazarus grimaces.

“You’re welcome to visit,” Tuhka blurts out, trying to keep any semblance of desperation out of his voice and getting the impression that he failed, “you wanted to commission something, we can talk about that whenever you like.”

After a moment of confusion, Lazarus’ expression clears. “Ah, right, yes, that was what got us into this mess in the first place, wasn’t it? Yes,” he smiles, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

This time when he leaves, it’s with a lot less anger than moments after their first confrontation only days ago, and with a promise to come back. They had once shared everything, even their deepest desires. Now, after fifteen years apart, they’ve become completely different people—the fact that Lazarus came here, willing to talk, making promises to return even if there’s a chance he may not keep them...it’s a start. And that will have to be enough for now.

Tuhka sits back down once Lazarus has vanished from sight down the path and gazes up at the same stars he had begged night after night to return his best friend to him.

He thanks them for listening.

[pompompossum]

It was always the quiet days that set Mond’s Cavalry Captain on edge. As a man who makes his living on hushed gossip and drunken secrets, a quiet day was a dangerous day. While Mondays usually set the city square into a frenzy, with the announcement of new bounties for aspiring adventures and the restocking of goods across the various vendors in town, the torrential rain that met the city as the sun rose that morning meant that only those who lacked their daily essentials were left scrambling about, bouncing between buildings in search of shelter. 

That isn’t to say that he was slacking off with the poor weather hanging overhead. No, that would be too easy. Rather, poor weather meant paperwork. And by the Seven, Kaeya swore to himself that Lisa had been hoarding every miscellaneous form she could get her hands on for him to review since he had forgotten to return that one book on Snezhnaya he had borrowed after one of his operatives spotted La Signora in the city. It wasn’t his fault that the tomb had made for the perfect paperweight after he had found it was worthless for his intended purposes. 

The smile she’d worn as she cornered him in the lobby after his lunch break earlier in the afternoon had bordered on sadistic. He was on his fifth hour of administrative work by now and, between the pounding rain howling against his window and the strain reading by candlelight put on his one functioning eye, he scraped his chair against the hardwood away from his desk as he brought a hand up to nurse his aching head. 

He’d probably have to stay in the barracks tonight. The rain showed no signs of stopping and his apartment, tucked snug in the side street near the travelling vendors’ market, was too far to traverse in this weather. Perhaps he could fashion a makeshift cryo umbrella, if only he could reach the end of this damned paperwork. Public relations, damage estimates for recent Abyss encounters, and was that paperwork for the library? Gods, Lisa really hated him right now, huh? The captain was certain he had a nice vintage squirreled away in his wine cabinet at home. A lovely barolo gifted to him by a noble from Fontaine not long after his rise to Cavalry Captain. Though Kaeya had never abstained from alcohol, certainly since he was old enough to legally drink, the thought of wine at the time had driven him to hide it away. He supposed that Lisa would make much better use of it than himself and made a mental note to find it when he got home. 

With a sigh, the captain stretched in his seat until his neglected joints popped, groaning at the release of tension. Given his busy schedule, he had forgotten his plans to stop for supper at Good Hunter. Glancing at his pocket watch, a gift from the Traveller, he noted it was past Sara’s typical business hours. Ah well, a cup of tea would have to suffice. With it being so late, he would have the luxury of the headquarters’ common room to himself. While many of the higher ranking officers of the Ordo took breaks and tea in their own private offices, a common room on the second floor was provided for the knights to avail of. And the last time Kaeya checked, there had been a small kitchen there, one where Miss Noelle was handy to store that lovely chamomile tea she had served him recently. 

Rising from his desk, he made his way from his office and down towards the common area, giving a brief, lazy salute to any knights stuck on nightwatch. He was thankful that Swan seemed to be off this evening, likely on shift at the city gates. Barbatos knows that man took his job far too seriously, and Kaeya was too tired to receive his advice on following the Ordo’s handbook effectively. Instead, the few knights he passed were content to simply share brief “hello”s and well wishes to their captain, and soon Kaeya found himself striking matches in the common room before watching the water slowly rise to temperature, the flames waving faintly in the hearth. As the water came to a boil, he busied himself with finding just where Noelle had hidden her tea that evening when suddenly he heard the floorboards in the common room creak. Hmm, curious. Placing the tea tin on the counter gently and snuffing the flame with a gust of cryo, he crept to the corner of the doorway, curious to see who else might be roaming the halls after hours.

No one, so it would seem. The room hadn’t changed since he entered, with no sign of anyone. Except the door had been jarred and there was a soft sniffling sound coming from behind the chaise lounge on the other side of the room. Light on his feet, the captain came closer, spotting a familiar shade of blonde crouched against the window behind the furniture, tiny legs tucked in tightly, face smooshed into her knees.

“Klee? What are you doing up past your bedtime?” Kaeya softened his features as he watched her jump, making sure to not crowd her in her hiding spot.

“Kaeya!” And oh dear those were tears, weren’t they? “Klee didn’t know you were here…” 

“And I you, my little Spark Knight.” He considered her spot, sitting next to the window overlooking the city, including a clear view of the city gates. Visibility was poor, but Kaeya could see the window’s view of Dawn Winery in his mind. In the daylight, one could almost make out the servants’ outdoor lounge and the vineyard. “Would you mind if I sat with you?”

She gave a small nod, hiding her face in her knees once again. Oh dear Captain Kaeya you’ve found yourself even more trouble tonight, huh? One of the knights had left a plush blanket draped against the arm of the chaise. Given the chill of the glass, surely it would be appreciated. Picking it up, he bent down to sit against the window, his legs bent awkwardly to fit behind the furniture. Gently, he wrapped the blanket around her, tucking the little Spark Knight in with a pat on the head. Then, he sat and he waited. Situations like this called for patience. Slowly, he heard her shift in the blanket as she loosened her posture, coming to rest her head on his arm. 

“Klee doesn’t like it when it rains.” The young pyro wielder whispered, so quiet Kaeya strained to hear her. “It’s cold and I can’t use my vision or play with Razor or Qiqi. And… and it makes me worry about where mommy is.” Ahh, there it was...

It wasn’t long after his promotion that Alice had left Mondstadt. At first, when Alice had arrived at the Varka’s office with a tiny child clinging to her skirts and peeking out to take in the building, it was assumed the situation would be a temporary one. As one of Teyvat’s greatest minds, the alchemist’s research was of great importance to the Ordo. Used by both the Knights and common folk alike, her Teyvat Travel Guides served as crucial tools for any adventurer and her work with the Hexenzirkel provided invaluable data for the study of the Abyss Realm. So, for her to announce her intentions to leave Mond for research purposes was unsurprising. 

But, seasons had passed and letters from the alchemist had been few and far in between. Though Alice spoke of her love for her little Spark and her hopes to see her again soon, each letter shared a common theme. Complications had arisen and research would take longer than expected.  While his web of intel ensured him of her safety, it had been about five months since Kaeya had heard of a letter arriving from her. Alice is a strong woman of course. While visionless, her alchemic abilities, as well as her ability to craft and deploy explosives, made her a formidable opponent in combat. There was no real worry over her safety. But, loneliness was understandable. While Mondstadt’s Chief Alchemist is a highly capable and intelligent man, socialization was something Albedo often neglected. Rather, he was more often than not a phantom within the Ordo Headquarters, appearing from his private laboratory only for resource gathering and the occasional trip to visit Timaeus in the city square. Thus, like many of the children received by the city of freedom, Klee found herself in the protection and care of the entire Ordo. A child of Mondstadt through and through. And that meant she was under Kaeya’s care tonight.

Running a hand through one of her pigtails, tucking a stray lock behind her ear, he looked out into the rain. “Storms like this are sad, aren’t they? Can I share a secret with you?” 

“Big brother Kaeya has a secret? Klee promises not to tell!” The young knight assures him, raising a pudgy little finger to her lips, her voice hushed and earnest. A child’s naivete is something sacred, indeed. Her reaction brings a tiny smile to his face.

“I don’t like the rain either.” Storms bring memories of retreating backs, the biting sting of rejection and the chill of abandonment. When the wind howls, getting caught in the rain is like a kiss from the Tsaritsa against his exposed skin, reminding him of the delicate embrace of her cryo shield that night. It makes his vision thrum and flicker against his hip and causes the skin beneath his eyepatch to ache something fierce. Rain means tragedy and pain, and honesty in a way Kaeya has long since denied himself the pleasure of.

“Klee wonders if mommy has shelter, or if it’s sunny where she is.” 

The rain brings the worst of Kaeya to the surface, melts his shields of mockery and cryo and leaves him stark and defenseless to the storm. But-

“It has to rain sometimes, if the flowers are to grow and the rivers are to last. Without the rain, the world loses a part of itself. And I’m sure that even when it’s cold, Miss Alice is kept warm knowing that you’re safe and sound here.” Klee lets out a soft noise in thought. She’s been slowly worming her way into his lap, pulling her blanket around them both in the process. “Besides, the rain makes us seek shelter and warmth and brings people closer together in doing so. We can appreciate our time in the company of another and look forward to seeing the sun when it’s over. It’s always nice after the rain, isn’t it?”

The young girl tucks the blanket under her chin, leaning her head back against his chest to look up at him.

“Klee likes the rainbows after a storm. And the way the air smells. And Klee’s favourite mushyrooms like the rain, so they grow extra big after!” Her voice grows in her excitement, chattering like a Springvale squirrel. 

“That’s right. It’s not very nice out right now, but we have plenty to look forward to in the morning. After you get some rest.” Klee is a wonderful child, but he was glad to say he had never seen her cranky from lack of sleep. And he was not in the mood to find out what that looked like, especially with the experiments she and Albedo have been concocting lately. The smell of gunpowder and flaming flower stamens emanating from the alchemy wing within the past few weeks had been concerning to say the least.

“But Klee’s not tired yet..” 

“Then how about you join me for some tea and then we’ll see. You caught me just as I was brewing some.” Chamomile would be useful for chasing away any bad dreams, and the sooner the Spark Knight was back in bed, the sooner he could return to his work.

“Okay!” Still so vibrant and loud at such a late hour. Kaeya supposed that their secret sharing time, and its quietness, were over for the night. “Can Klee have honey in her tea? Pleasee?” Sugar might not be a good idea this late at night but what the hell? Kaeya could be the fun brother tonight. Rising to his feet with a bundle of Klee and blanket in his arms, he let out a light chuckle. 

“I’m sure that can be arranged, my dear Spark Knight.”

It didn’t take long for the tea to work its magic. While she may have whined over the prospect of going back to bed, Kaeya found himself moving to protect her head from hitting her tea cup more than once as the pair shared a late night snack. He wasn’t sure who had left a tin of baked goods in the kitchen, but he made note to stop by Good Hunter early tomorrow to replace them. Making their way back to solitary, Kaeya lifted her up to rest against his shoulder as they reached the stairs. Pulling back her bed covers gently, Kaeya laid her down gently, placing Dodoco beside her.

“Okay, firefly, hat and scarf, please.” While she had been dressed for bed, she had kept those on, likely to ward the chill of the building at night. As she passed each of them to him, he hung them on their respective hangers above her desk, each adorned with a different breed of crystalfly. She was asleep before he even turned around. Kneeling down next to her cot, he pulled the thick, red quilt up and over, tucking her in in a familiar motion, making sure Dodoco was tucked in just as tight. Smoothing down her hair, he rose to his feet, moving to snuff out the bedside lantern. 

“Good night, big brother…” It was soft, muffled by pillows and blankets, but Kaeya heard her loud and clear. 

“Good night Klee. Sweetest dreams.” Shutting the door as quietly as possible and sharing a brief greeting with Wood, the Cavalry Captain made his way back to his office. But not long after returning to his desk, sleep caught up with him as well.

---

The wind was too loud, even with his hands over his ears. It was the first storm since Kaeya began living at the manor and it was dredging up sore memories. It made him think of Mama. It was always cold in Khaenri’ah, so if it was cold in Mondstadt it must be freezing there tonight. She had found materials to work on that blanket she had been planning just before his father whisked him away. It had been about six months now since he arrived in Mondstadt. Kaeya wonders if she got to finish it before the weather got colder. Kaeya wishes he had had the chance to help her with it. She always made him tea before he sat and watched her work.

It was past 8 o’clock, the time Master Crepus set for him and the young master to head to bed. The two children shared bedrooms next to one another, their beds sharing the same wall. Kaeya wondered if the person in the bed next door was finding it easier to sleep. Diluc had warmed up to him instantly, even as the adults around them worried over what to do with a lost and scared child, still wrapped in the lord of the house’s rain soaked coat. While Kaeya still struggled with some aspects of Mond’s language and various dialects, Diluc’s running dialogue of funny stories and history lessons of all his favourite places in Mondstadt had made it easier to pick up the language fast. On more than one night, Kaeya found himself lulled to sleep by the boy’s stories of Arundolyn and Rostam, only to find himself safe and snug in his bedroom by morning. 

Curling his fists in his blankets, he wondered if Diluc was still awake. Clutching the lightest of the bed clothes to his chest, a knit chenille blanket Crepus had gifted him his first night in the manor, he crept out of the room and across the hall on the balls of his feet. Diluc’s bedroom door was unlocked, but Kaeya hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. What if Diluc got mad at Kaeya for waking him up? Kaeya was only a year and a half younger, but what if the redhead thought he was a crybaby? Before he could make up his mind, the door, not fully shut when the elder boy had gone to bed, creaked open on unoiled hinges. From the doorway, Kaeya watched as the body laying in bed shifted before letting out a small groan.

“Kaeya..?” Darn it, Kaeya thought, as Diluc sat up, rubbing at his eyes lazily with his fist, “What’s wrong?” Kaeya froze like a deer in the headlights, unsure what to do. At his silence, Diluc perked up, squinting into the darkness to make out the shape in his doorway. “Kaeya? Is everything okay?”

“I can’t sleep…” His cheeks burned with embarrassment, little feet shuffling against the cold hardwood. He wrapped his blanket around himself tighter, tucking in his chilly nose and mouth, as if it would muffle what had already been said. The older boy watched him for a moment, before shifting in bed.

“Wanna sleep here tonight?” To punctuate his question, Diluc patted the empty space next to him. Kaeya gave a small nod before padding into the room, moving fast before the redhead could rescind the offer. Crawling under the blankets, he snuggled into the warmth, savouring the safe space. He hadn’t noticed from the doorway, but Diluc had stuffed animals in the bed with him. Kaeya hadn’t seen them before, but his older brother was adamant that he wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was just shy of 12 years old, after all. So it made sense he would be sensitive about needing plushies to sleep. Kaeya held the paw of a dog-shaped plush as he turned his head to face Diluc.

“What’s keeping you up?” Diluc had a furrow between his brows as he looked at him, having settled back into bed. He had wrapped his arms around his pillow, squishing his cheek into the fabric as he tried to read his brother’s face in the dark. He pouted as he said it, as if he had phrased something wrong. “You don’t need to tell me, but I want to help.”

“The storm,” Kaeya took a deep breath to calm himself, wrapping himself into the blanket cocoon tighter and pulling the plushie closer. “I want my mama… She always let me sleep with her when it was scary outside.” The smell of fresh linens clinging to the sheets around him was so different from the smell of lavender she carried. The pillows felt nothing like the comfort of his head resting on her chest, her fingers smoothing the knots in his hair. 

“I miss my mom too,” Diluc’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “I didn’t get to know her, but dad has so many stories about her. Whenever I have nightmares, he lets me stay in his room for the night and he tells me stories about her until I fall asleep.” His grip on the pillow tightened. “Our moms aren’t around, but we have each other! We can scare the nightmares away, right?” The young redhead had raised his voice and Kaeya tried his best to stifle his laugh. Laughing would be mean, mama said so. And Diluc’s bed and stuffed animals were more comfy than his cold room with all that wind howling outside his window. So, instead he nodded.

“Mhm!”

---

Sleeping sitting up was never good for the neck or back. And sleeping on a mountain of paperwork and pens wasn’t much better. 

The sunlight had been a rude awakening. The torrential downpour had broken, the clouds parting to reveal the sunniest day Mond had seen in a while, light catching on the puddles as a rainbow stretched lazily across the horizon. It would have been pretty if it hadn’t been so impolite in waking the Quartermaster. Letting out a croaky yawn, Kaeya popped his back as he stretched like a cat across his desk. The paperwork beneath him was a lost cause, so why not. Gods, Lisa was going to have his neck. Better buy a few electro resistance potions before he faced her today. 

Looking over his desk to survey the damage, he noticed a bundle of red cloth complete with a small note written in clunky, childish handwriting.

“Good morning, Kaeya! Klee made fishy toast and skewers with Aether and Paimon for you. Enjoy! :)” 

Kaeya let out a huff of laughter at the doodle she had left at the bottom of the note of them both standing in the sun. The way she had drawn his face told him that Albedo had given her art lessons again. Tucking into his breakfast, Kaeya gazed out the window. The storm had dissipated to reveal a cloudless sky, and from his office he could see the people in the market square milling about, mingling and laughing in the balmy spring air. 

The view told Kaeya that it was going to be a good day today.

[holy-mountaineering]

This spread is for @lesbianfrannyglass

Thanks for the donation and waiting so long, my life is chaos right now.

Tonight you’re getting the full Qabalistic Tree of Life Spread that I do and you I believe are pretty familiar with by now. What I’m going to do is go through and briefly explain each card, its position on the Tree, and then I’ll give you a summary/synopsis of the spread as a whole, that’s where the divination part happens.

Think of this spread as a sort of quantum map, or even the land of a regular map, everything is happening at once, in each place. It’s important to think of yourself as moving “through” the map but you are also simultaneously everywhere at once. For the sake of this specific experiment, think of this as a map. Maybe a human body, we’ll jump around.

Where we’re starting the journey from is Kether, the monad, the first sign of creation. We’ll call this your hometown, since it is where you’re from originally. Here we have the The Knight of Swords, the fiery part of Air or acting on thinking.

This is the breeze blowing the forest fire across a road. Our Knight has a sword in each hand as he dive bombs a fixed point. He has his airy bird friends in tow and his steed is as fixed as the rider.

You understand what you must do. Now, you must gather all available force to throw at your new focus.

In Chokmah, which is like your freeway getting you out onto the road out of  your hometown is the 6 of Cups, Pleasure. 

For reasons I call this the plumbing card. The water is not flowing freely as though it is pouring, it has been pumped through a series of tubes intricately woven together to fill the cups placed in the shape of a hexagram. Emotion and connectedness to life are intentionally being directed by unseen but invited forces. Someone who wasn’t looking closely could see nothing but knots and chaos and even wonder how the damn thing worked in the first place. Those people are squares and should be avoided at all costs. 

Do what gives you pleasure that also instills clarity. Center on the best you can feel even if onlookers can’t appreciate what you’re doing connoisseurs (and you) will dig it.

In Binah, which is ruled by Saturn and for the sake of this reading we will call the first stop on your roadtrip. You haven’t really arrived anywhere but you’re stopping and getting a chance to repack your car in a more efficient way. Sitting in Binah is the fan favorite, the 5 of Disks, Worry. 

Like all of the 5s in Tarot, this is the microcosmic or human number . Don’t believe me? Stand up, stick your arms and legs out and counting your head, congrats, you’re a pentagram. Lord knows people worry like motherfuckers about how they are going to get by in the “normal” world, so there is a stress and strain in this card that everyone late on a bill can understand. This is the worry that you’ll get your intelligence (Mercury) smothered by the laborious strain of Taurus. This is, like all 5s a human limitation issue. 

Well it won’t unless you only see your limitations and make it happen. Be smarter about you material situation so you don’t have to work harder.

In Chesed which is ruled by Jupiter and again for the sake of this experiment we’ll say involves your influence and benevolence in your current trip is the mindfuckery boy, the Prince of Swords, the airy part of Air. 

This is pure mind, “reason run amok.” The entire card is made up of strange and fragmenting geometric shapes like the prince’s world is coming apart at the seams. The humanoid creatures pulling his chariot have no fucking idea what they’re doing and the prince himself is in an awkward pose. 

Don’t think yourself into discord. Sometimes when you look too deep at unnecessary or mundane details you’ll fucking lose your shit. Furtherly, focus on doing one thing, stay with that single thing until it is done. I suggest breath work and controlling breathing specifically.

Across the Tree in Geburah, which is Mars Town, where you find your drive and what you’re trying to accomplish/conquer is the homefront, the 4 of Disks, Power or the Fortress or the island. 

This is “squaring up” with the material world or your everyday normal money/job/school/housing parts of life. The 4 or square is the next shape when the 3 or triangle is expanded. You are now expanding in 2 dimensions, you’ve made it passed the threshold, how do you proceed?  The Fortress is a castle or private physical place of isolation and security/safety. Your private property and you base of operations to expand out in the world must be firmly secured, since most accidents happen at home. From Liber AL it is mentioned that you should “(C)hoose ye an island, fortify it, dung it about with the enginery of war…” That is to say, for our illustration, protect your base of operations in your material world.

There is one entrance and around the fortress is a mote, this is so you may go about the world doing your business but you can return and bring the bridge up when you’re done fucking around with the outside world.

In Tiphareth, the Sun and center of gravity holding all this in place, the heart pumping the blood through this, your heart is the Ace of Cups, the root powers of water which is emotion, connectedness to living things, and intuition. 

 This is the geyser of the aspects of water exploding into existence. The Ace of Cups can be like the yearly floods on the   Nile was to ancient Egyptian/Kemetic people that once a year had their fields simultaneously wiped out and fertilized. There is great danger in unbound Love, it tends to get consuming and people fear being consumed. There is a secret meaning to the joining of two to make none, but this isn’t really the place for that. 

 The uncontrolled waterfall of feeling, it can flow and be a clearing force or flood. If you’re not prepared for such water, you might get washed away, if you are it might wash away the cobwebs and your stagnancy. 

In Netzach, Venus town, where you have the realization about how this is going to change you as a person with a personality is the overflowing 9 of Cups, Happiness. 

I call this ‘mutually beneficial relationships’ or expanding influence (Jupiter) going or being pulled both ways (Pisces). Each cup has its own source but everything is flowing into each other down to the base of the 3x3 structure. There is a lot of water and all it represents and it hasn’t reached its peak yet and is still driving upward and outward.

Cultivate relationships and connective feelings that aren’t lopsided or just giving/taking. Keep building  you’re not done yet.

In Mercury Town Hod-ville, where all the Universities are and everyone has real intellectual shit going on is well, The Guy Himself, Mercury, I The Magus or Magician, Mercury, Beth which is a house, House of God, your body, your perspective, you.

The Magus has 4 tools, physical representations of the Elements which he hand crafted. Think of this as your tools or your skill set in your mind which you use to build your perception of the world.

The Magician also has the naysaying Ape of Thoth who follow him around contradicting everything he says. The is your doubt or “Pit of Because” which if you fall into you’ll “perish with the dogs of reason.”

So, you are in charge of what you are in charge of. You have the skill set to alter your Universe, fashion yourself tangible skills with what you know and your experience. You create your perception and can only influence it.

On the Moon in Yesod, the receptive and reflective place that is alot about the feelings that you’re picking up from all this is the easy does it Princess of Cups, the earthy part of Water. 

We could consider this the substance in water or water hitting substance head on. This is the idea of the canyon wall being ground down over the millennia by moving water. The nutrients and minerals in the earth are transported down river to the fertile delta. This is the natural, “following your feelings” within your daily life. Try not to fool yourself, follow your intuition, not just passing whims. Feel, don’t necessarily react immediately.

Go with what you feel and intuit, let yourself go with the flow, if you will. Allow your situation to move with your emotions and be patient with your progress.

Down here in Malkuth-istan, the everyday life mundane, waking up pooping, and going to work world is the large and in charge Queen of Wands, the watery part of Fire or how you feel about what you do.

This is ideally feeling great about what you do. The perspective on the card shows this Queen 10 feet tall and seemingly bulletproof. Her animal the cheetah, known for being fast and a spazz, is subdued under her calm hand. Her legs are spread and the wand of Bacchus  showing all her passions can be controlled.

If you want to feel good about this and what you do, control your knee jerk lower ego reactions. Choose Will not want.

So, you know what you need to get after, you see it clearly, it makes you very happy in a complicated way that maybe you  haven’t even unraveled yet, but you’re too focused on your limitations and how it all might go wrong for you. Don’t build your world around doubt. 

And Furthermore, don’t think you can influence the world how you need to by over analysing everything to the point where all joy in removed. Get yourself a personal and safe place that is yours to build your world, you need the space to not become mired in your over thinking. And the heart of all of this is that you can do this and WHEN you do, you will explode with the kind of love and joy that only you can tap into for yourself.

Now, I’m not saying it is time to ditch the stuff and ideas that don’t serve you anymore, but do that, that is what I’m saying. Allow yourself those healthy relationships where you’re not going the whole 9 yards for people who won’t get on the field. And your thoughts are your own, they’re awesome thoughts and your skills can take you to the places you need to go if you utilize them how you know. And back to that surrounding yourself with folks and energy that allows you to get what you need while giving what you can and getting to where you need to go. Drop the drama and folks that bring it. Find the substance in the feeling that allows you to move in the ways natural to you.

Ta Da! Hit me up with any questions and sorry for the wait!

[psychodollyuniverse]

Arrival is a stunning science fiction movie with deep implications for today 

Science fiction is never really about the future; it’s always about us. And Arrival, set in the barely distant future, feels like a movie tailor-made for 2016, dropping into theaters mere days after the most explosive election in most of the American electorate’s memory.

But the story Arrival is based on — the award-winning novella Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang — was published in 1998, almost two decades ago, which indicates its central themes were brewing long before this year. Arrival is much more concerned with deep truths about language, imagination, and human relationships than any one political moment.

Not only that, but Arrival is one of the best movies of the year, a moving, gripping film with startling twists and imagery. It deserves serious treatment as a work of art.

The strains of Max Richter’s "On the Nature of Daylight" play over the opening shots of Arrival, which is the first clue for what’s about to unfold: that particular track is ubiquitous in the movies (I can count at least six or seven films that use it, including Shutter Island and this year’s The Innocents) and is, by my reckoning, the saddest song in the world.

The bittersweet feeling instantly settles over the whole film, like the last hour of twilight. Quickly we learn that Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) has suffered an unthinkable loss, and that functions as a prelude to the story: One day, a series of enormous pod-shaped crafts land all over earth, hovering just above the ground in 12 locations around the world. Nobody knows why. And nothing happens.

As world governments struggle to sort out what this means — and as the people of those countries react by looting, joining cults, even conducting mass suicides — Dr. Banks gets a visit from military intelligence, in the form of Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker), requesting her assistance as an expert linguist in investigating and attempting to communicate with whatever intelligence is behind the landing. She arrives at the site with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a leading quantum physicist, to start the mission. With help from a cynical Agent Halpern (Michael Stuhlbarg), they suit up and enter the craft to see if they can make contact.

It’s best not to say much more about the plot, except that it is pure pleasure to feel it unfold. The most visionary film yet from director Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Sicario) and scripted by horror screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Lights Out), its pacing is slower than you’d expect from an alien-invasion film, almost sparse. For a movie with so many complicated ideas, it doesn’t waste any more time on exposition than is absolutely necessary. Arrival is serious and smartly crafted, shifting around like a Rubik’s cube in the hand of a savant, nothing quite making sense until all the pieces suddenly come together. I heard gasps in the theater.

The film’s premise hinges on the idea, shared by many linguists and philosophers of language, that we do not all experience the same reality. The pieces of it are the same — we live on the same planet, breathe the same air — but our perceptions of those pieces shift and change based on the words and grammar we use to describe them to ourselves and each other.

For instance, there is substantial evidence that a person doesn’t really see (or perhaps "perceive") a color until their vocabulary contains a word, attached to meaning, that distinguishes it from other colors. All yellows are not alike, but without the need to distinguish between yellows and the linguistic tools to do so, people just see yellow. A color specialist at a paint manufacturer, however, can distinguish between virtually hundreds of colors of white. (Go check out the paint chip aisle at Home Depot if you’re skeptical.)

Or consider the phenomenon of words in other languages that describe universal feelings, but can only be articulated precisely in some culture. We might intuitively "feel" the emotion, but without the word to describe it we’re inclined to lump the emotion in with another under the same heading. Once we develop the linguistic term for it, though, we can describe it and feel it as distinct from other shades of adjacent emotions.

These are simple examples, and I don’t mean to suggest that the world itself is different for people from different cultures. But I do mean to suggest that reality — what we perceive as comprising the facts of existence — takes on a different shape depending on the linguistic tools we use to describe it.

Adopting this framework doesn’t necessarily mean any of us are more correct than others about the nature of reality (though that certainly may be true). Instead, we are doing our best to describe reality as we see it, as we imagine it to be. This is the challenge of translation, and why literal translations that Google can perform don’t go beyond basic sentences. Learning a new language at first is just about collecting a new vocabulary and an alternate grammar — here is the word for chair, here is the word for love, here’s how to make a sentence — but eventually, as any bilingual person can attest, it becomes about imagining and perceiving the world differently.

This is the basic insight of Arrival: That if we were to encounter a culture so radically different from our own that simple matters we take for granted as part of the world as it is were radically shifted, we could not simply gather data, sort out grammar, and make conclusions. We’d have to either absorb a different way of seeing, despite our fear, or risk everything.

To underline the point, Dr. Banks and the entire operation are constantly experiencing breakdowns in communication within the team and with teams in other parts of the world, who aren’t sure whether the information they glean from their own visits to pods should be kept proprietary or shared.

It’s not hard to see where this is going, I imagine — something about how if we want to empathize with each other we need to talk to one another, and that’s the way the human race will survive.

And, sure.

But Arrival also layers in some important secondary notes that add nuance to that easy takeaway. Because it’s not just deciphering the words that someone else is saying that’s important: It’s the whole framework that determines how those words are being pinned to meaning. We can technically speak the same language, but functionally be miles apart.

n the film, one character notes that if we were to communicate in the language of chess — which operates in the framework of battles and wars — rather than, say, the language of English, which is bent toward the expression of emotions and ideas, then what we actually say and do would shift significantly. That is, the prevailing metaphor for how beings interact with each other and the world is different. (Some philosophers speak of this as "language games.")

This matters for the film’s plot, but more broadly — since this is sci-fi, and therefore actually about us — it has implications. Language isn’t just about understanding how to say things to someone and ascribe meaning to what comes back. Language has consequences. Embedded in words and grammar is action, because the metaphors that we use as we try to make sense of the world tell us what to do next. They act like little roadmaps.

You have empathized with someone not when you hear the words they’re saying, but when you begin to ascertain what metaphors make them tick, and where that conflicts or agrees with your own. I found myself thinking a lot about this reading Arlie Russell Hochschild’s Strangers In Their Own Land, which is up for a National Book Award this year and describes the overarching metaphors (Hochschild calls them "deep stories") that discrete groups of Americans — in this case, West Coast urban liberals and Louisiana rural Tea Partiers — use to make sense of the world. She isn’t trying to explain anything away. She’s trying to figure out what causes people to walk in such drastically different directions and hold views that befuddle their fellow citizens.

Part of the challenge of pluralism is that we’re not just walking around with different ideas in our heads, but with entirely different maps for getting from point A to Z, with different roadblocks on them and different recommendations for which road is the best one. Our A's and Z's don’t even match. We don’t even realize that our own maps are missing pieces that others have.

Presumably one of these maps is better than the others, but we haven’t agreed how we would decide. So we just keep smacking into one another going in opposite directions down the same highway.

Arrival takes off from this insight in an undeniably sci-fi direction that is a little brain-bending, improbable in the best way. But it makes a strong case that communication, not battle or combat, is the only way to avoid destroying ourselves. Communication means not just wrapping our heads around terms we use but the actual framework through which we perceive reality.

And that is really hard. I don’t know how to fix it.

In the meantime, though, good movies are somewhere to start. Luckily Arrival is a tremendously well-designed film, with complicated and unpredictable visuals that embody the main point. Nothing flashy or explosive; in some ways, I found myself thinking of 1970s science-fiction films, or the best parts of Danny Boyle’s 2007 Sunshine, which grounded its humanist story in deep quiet.

The movie concludes on a different note from the linguistic one — one much more related to loss and a wistful question about life and risk. This may be Arrival’s biggest weakness; the emotional punch of the ending is lessened a bit because it feels a little rushed.

But even that conclusion loops back to the possibilities of the reshaped human imagination. And this week, especially, you don’t need to talk to an alien to see why that’s something we need.

from: https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/11

.

[cwl190]

Week 9

DONIKA KELLY: 

In “Writing and Knowing”, Addonizo and Laux make the point that poets began to write “with the simple idea that what they saw and experienced was important to record, and that the modest facts of their lives... could contain the enduring facts and truths of the larger world” (Poet, 23). In my opinion, what I interpreted from this text is that writing poems isn’t only something that is based on what you know, but can also be used to expand on a bigger idea. Anything that may seem mundane on a surface level can be written into a great poem if made into something people can emphasize with, whether that may be through the senses or something common people share.

In Donika Kelly’s poem “Hermit Thrush”, by describing how white girls covering their legs make specifically the narrator feel better about themselves, Kelly is able to use winter to make a commentary on how societal standards on beauty affect poc such as the narrator. The narrator implies through this that by concealing their skin because of winter, it undoes some of the underlying inferiority the narrator faces due to how they are treated due to their ethnicity. 

I think that this is what Addonizo and Laux wanted to express when they state that poetry is about “bringing forth something that’s inside of you... making something, in language, that can be transmitted to others” (Poet, 22). “Hermit Thrush” is the narrator’s own feelings brought to expression by winter, and minorities that face discrimination may be able to connect with this same feeling. 

ROBERT WRIGLEY: 

Addonizio and Laux’s statement about using imagination to compensate for a lack of experience is an effective tool in writing poems. According to the text “The trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we know, own what we know, and then give it away in language” (Poet, 21). Your inspiration comes from what you experience in your life, whether or not they may be happy, confusing or even troubling. You might not know enough about it, but the point they may be trying to make though this is that although that experience is important in making your writing compelling, it’s the emotions and senses tied into the text that will make the audience emphasize with and believe what you write. 

Meanwhile, Percy puts emphasis on researching every single facet of a topic you’re writing about to be believable. He tackles all his stories as research projects that he takes into his real life, where he’d spend “several days working with the employees, eavesdropping on their conversations, taking notes on the peculiar insider lingo I could never have gleaned from Wikipedia” (146). He places emphasis on embodying what you are writing, and through the experiences he had himself will be able to bring what he knows instead of what he read in. By being there in the flesh, he is able to notice things that may have been looked over on paper. 

In Robert Wrigley’s poem “Machinery,” Wright seems to be a blend of both of these perspectives. The narrator doesn’t know machinery to the extent his father did, and his father doesn’t know poetry the way he did. This results in a weird hybrid of knowledge where Wright knows what all the tools his father uses are called, but he doesn’t know how to make them work: “A fine wood plane but not the thickness planer, which I would not know how to use. A variety of clamps I use to clamp things-needing-clamping clamped” (Wright, 2). Imagination plays a huge part in this, as he begins stringing tool functions in with his own writing so that it functions as a representation of his feelings about his father as well as what he remembers of him. 

EMMA DONOGHUE: In “You and Me,” Emma Donoghue says that for her,  “writing is about the basic thrill of making something out of words that never existed before” (236). She shares an example from her own book about how a “scene begins in a pleasant way, everything green and pastoral—and then we watch as she begins realizing that the bumps of the grass under her feet are not clods of soil, but skulls” (Donoghue 236). She says that “if you give the reader a vivid and concrete image, that will hook their attention, making it easier for them to understand and remember the details longer” (Donoghue, 236, italics mine). For this prompt, connect the dots between Donoghue’s thoughts about “vivid and concrete images” and any of the poems for today.

Donoghue puts the most emphasis on using sensory details in order to convey a type of emotion or idea in your poem. She brings up how she herself has trouble grappling with bigger concepts, so by giving her a visual example of what you are trying to describe, that gives her a better understanding of what is trying to be expressed. Donoghue uses the example of a poem that is largely split between locations: “You think you’re moored, then the next thing you’re sailing again, and then you’re rowing instead of sailing” (235). Donoghue emphasizes that through this, we are whiplashed into location and scenario rather than just being told that there’s a sense of turbulence.

This is used in “Hermit Thrush”, where the narrator does not specifically state how they feels in comparison to the white girls, but through them covering themselves up we are able to interpret the narrator’s insecurities.

SHIRA ERLICHMAN: Connect the dots between Shira Erlichman’s poem “The Knife-Flower” and the craft chapters on “Images” and “The Family: Inspiration and Obstacle.”

In “Images”, the strengths of using sensory details are strongly emphasized in this craft chapter. The mental images we derive from our senses are essential not for just the sake of enhancing the description of things, but the significance they hold when tied with emotions and memories. There is no stronger way to evoke a certain feeling than when you give an object association with something distinct. According to the text, “The poet enlivens his images with the use of color: “gold whirlpool,” “gold sea,” “full of the gold that took him.” Brightness, gold, and sunlight are everywhere. Like the love described, the poem won’t let us go- in one long sentence it takes us into that whirling and shining” (Images, 88). Love is a broad feeling, but it manages to be encapsulated by things that are more tangible due to the visualization given to us. 

In “The Family: Inspiration and Obstacle”, there is a discussion on importance of family on our writing. According to the text, “those closest to us still need to be written about, to be memorialized and argued with and resented and loved” (The Family: Inspiration and Obstacle, 36).  All the positives and negative emotions we first experience are because of our families. It doesn’t have to be detrimentally tragic to be a factor to our inspiration, but family is what introduces us to what we know. 

In Shira Erlichman’s “The Knife-Flower”, Erlichman writes a scenario of the narrator receiving a lily with a stem that pointed into a knife created unpassionately for the sake of a project. In this poem, when returning home for Spring Break, the narrator’s father breaks the knife-flower. The craft essay “Images” ties into this knife-flower because of how fragile it is, much like the slightly strained relationship between father and narrator. It’s been delicately made, and because of the father’s lack of caution, is easily broken. The incident is told in a way that is very matter-of-fact, but the way in which the second half of the poem is presented is in a clumsy, awkward matter that gives us the impression of the familial dynamic between the narrator and their father. Fumbling and falling short at times, but well-intended. The narrator doesn’t seem phased: “Immediately my mouth formed “It’s okay,” even though the break looked dooming” (The Knife-Flower). Although the father is extremely guilty, the narrator seems to have accepted the break for what it is despite their feelings about it. I interpreted this as growing up. The narrator has taken hurt and rejection as a part of life, despite how the parent may try to shield them from it.

HAYAN CHARARA (A): Connect the dots between Hayan Charara’s poem “Mother and Daughter,” one of this week’s chapters from Addonizio and Laux’s The Poet’s Companion, and Benjamin Percy’s “Consider the Orange: Meaningful Repetition.” For Percy’s essay, you’ll focus on the third element: manner of speech.

In Benjamin Percy’s “Consider the Orange: Meaningful Repetition”, Percy describes the significance in repetition isn’t necessarily in the repetition itself, but how it ties into certain themes: “I’m talking about aligning the narrative, creating a sense of structural and thematic cohesion, satisfying the emotional arcs of characters” (159). Repetition can be given a double meaning, used to convey something with more nuance and causing the reader to analyze the text on a deeper level. 

Hayan Charara’s poem “Mother and Daughter” takes this repetition and transforms it into an exploration between the relationship between a mother and daughter. The repetition becomes a mimicry of how daughters adapt behaviors from their maternal figure, then a window into their innermost thoughts and feelings about each other due to the car sinking. I thought the escalation in this was done really well because rather than the daughter remaining as a static mime of her mom, we can see their relationship wasn’t perfect despite the daughter’s admiration of her mother, and yet they still deeply love each other. Addonizio and Laux’s “The Family: Inspirational and Obstacle” is reflected in this work, because the relationship between mother and daughter is the central focal point of this story.

[parabellum-rpg-archive]

Congratulations, Isa! You’ve been accepted to play Priya Sinclair. Your request to change her FC to Eleanor Tomlinson, has also been accepted. Please make your page and send it in within 24 hours.

Admin note: Isa, I’m so excited you auditioned for Priya and I loved your details for her, I agree with the vibe that Priya is very warm. I look forward to seeing you develop her even more! - Admin J

IC INFORMATION —

CHARACTER DESIRED

Priya Sinclair

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN WORDS

When I read her biography, I saw this young woman who has a mind older than her years, a smile that lights up and is as warm as a child’s, expressive eyes, eloquently strung phrases leave her lips like a warm breeze and a heart that is tender and feels more than she may let on. Priya is an individual who knows the importance and the power that comes from the public’s perception of her and her family. Perhaps in another life she would be a highly acclaimed publicist or PR for a major corporation. Like Rumpelstiltskin, she can spin wheat into gold. She turned perception and image is a tool into her greatest strength.

While she is strong (her work ethic, business knowledge, brains, cunning, etc) there is a vulnerability to her that she has buried deep down under Tobacco Vanille by Tom Ford perfume, succulent lips, bright eyes, fine jewelry and clothes. Priya’s strained relationship with her mother is one that cuts deeper than most but she has learned to bury the initial pain and use it to push herself into the family business and focus on what she is good at rather than what her mother disapproves of. Priya has this memory from when she was a little girl that lingers in the back of her mind and resurfaces when she hears her mother’s disapproving tone, whether that tone is directed at her or someone else. When Priya was little she had more exuberance for life. She would feverishly talk with her hands that her father would joke that they in themselves were their own person. The best way to describe the former movement of her hands is like that of a conductor’s, they guided the music that flowed through her.  Her movements can be frantic, graceful, slow, and sharp. It is a masterpiece in itself when her hands take on a life of their own. She use to try and convey what she felt and saw. Those fluid hand movements became a nuisance to her mother who had once believed Priya would be in every way her shadow. Penelope grew tired of the way Priya’s eyes lit up and her voice rang as clear as the church bells. Penelope would grab her daughter’s wrists and tell her that such wild actions have no place in their home. Moving hands should only be reserved for a puppet, not a Sinclair. Her mother would hold on to her hands until her eyes either watered or Priya nodded in agreement. She had to, for so long, keep her hands clasped together in her lap when she sat, in front of her as she stood or behind her back that she often wondered if they would ever have life in them again. Her hands never fully regained the life they once had. Like her temper, her excitement became restrained. While one was natural and part of her disposition the other was forced and practiced. While her sisters were born in their mother’s image, she was molding a part of herself to fit into some part of her mother’s world, no matter how small that part was.

Passions: learning languages / different countries cultures /  the study of acting (what techniques to actors learn to change how they hold themselves, how they change the inflections and tone of their voice/movements/embody roles/etc) / theatre. Theatre and Priya upon initial analysis of her biography may not seem like the two would go hand in hand but when you think about how her natural disposition is too keep her temper low, have a level head, access a situation, read a room and watch others it makes sense. As an actor you need to know or at least have an understanding of the inner workings of how a certain posture can change a performance. How a slight change of tone or inflection changes the meaning of what you are saying. I truly believe Priya is someone who admires the craft and would try to learn from it and even tried out for a school production. She is no Peter O’Toole, Kenneth Branaugh or Dame Judi Dench but she connects with it.

Known for: Her confidence, her walk (long strides, perfect posture, confident steps and eyes always forward), red hair, her disposition.

traits: resourceful, confident, driven, enigmatic, charisma, intelligent, adaptability, clever

Quotes that resonate with Priya:

“if you raised your voice - you’ve already lost the argument."– anonymous

"i will never change myself to be easier for someone to deal with."– anonymous

"she’s dangerous because she knows what she wants. she knows what she wants, and even better, she’s not intimated by these desires. she is not reckless with words, nor feelings. she’s dangerous because she’s in control.” — adriannesolida

Aesthetic: Deep red lips,  fresh brewed coffee, monochromatic colors, locks of hair that remind you of a copper penny with the face facing up, it is warm and it tumbles over her shoulders like rusty water.  

She is a woman. She is a human. She is someone who never backs down from the challenges that life throws at her. She is the type of person who removes the figurative pieces of the puzzle from her own story. She doesn’t want someone to finish her puzzle and claim they finally conquered her. She wants to finish her own story. She the little girl who grew up dreaming to become a storm rather than a damsel. She is the woman who puts more backing in I trust you than I love you. If you have her trust you have her for all eternity. If you have her love it can fade like bruises and change like the wind. If you have her heart you have her protection and unconditional love; it means you are connected in a deeper way than any I love you. She is a question never to be answered. She is Priya Sinclair.. She is the one who chooses to be not what someone deems her to be.

WRITING SAMPLE

She has thought of it, the wedding. The day her sister joins in happy, no, civil matrimony with the Castello boy. Shakespeare said it best, “Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” Two crossed starred lovers without the lovers part would be joined at the altar, bringing together a union far greater than that of fair Juliet and her Romeo. Her mind recounts the Shakesperian work, it is crudges, deaths, love and deceit. She maps it out in her mind and makes the conclusion how her family and the Castellos are different than the Capulets and Montagues. There will be a public I do.

When will her sister and the Castello boy know when their lives are going to change? Is it like in the stories sung by the dimming light of the fire? When the music becomes more somber or joyous it means the hero’s path has changed. Was it just that simple? One beat everything is one way and the next it is not? When she was a child she stared up at the man and woman and believed that one day she could have such a fate. She would find a man and everything would turn out with a happy ending. She’d have a husband, a home, and children of her own. What more could she possibly want? That is what everyone told her and her sisters she would have. Drilled it into her thoughts before she could say her first word. She’s beautiful. She’ll catch the eye of many. Her beauty will give her a happy life.

Such a narrow minded way of thinking that many had unfortunately believed. Once upon a time she may have believed that such things were true that when she found a man and love she thought that marriage would happen and then a child. Turns out the love did not mean marriage and a child could be conceived before I do. The man never had to stay. Love, like the seasons, change.  Those idyllic views are still on her mind now as she sits in solace. She pictures her family, her little sister, standing at the altar with the Castellos to her right.

In the church, she makes her sign of the cross as she faces the altar and says a silent prayer to the Virgin Mary. Pray for happiness, my sister. Pray for a treaty. Pray that your family remains. Everyone tells her to pray, but her lips just make the movements. She never really committed to such things anymore. Once beauty meant marriage and marriage meant love and love meant happiness. Now it all meant cease fire. A reconciliation. An ending.

[laurelkrugerr]

Can we trust automation in a time of crisis?

It’s a challenging time to be a marketer. Consumers are distracted, financial futures uncertain and volatility all but a guarantee. It’s a time when self awareness, realism and tact are crucial for success. We need to move fast, but controlled. Tomorrow is going to be different from yesterday, and two days from now different from today.

Can we trust automation in a crisis? When everything is different depending on the hour, can we trust machine learning? Will our automation move fast enough and provide the insights we need? Should we revert to the good ol’ days of staring at the screen for 24 hours a day, watching metrics change in real time?

Yes, automation can keep up with appropriate inputs. No, you should not revert to the stone age of SEM (even though my beard indicates otherwise). Each situation is different, so you must evaluate your own business under your own lens. Below are eight core elements to watch and adjust to ensure success for your search campaigns in a time of crisis extreme volatility.

Bid modifiers must adjust along with behavior

First things first, your time of day bid modifiers are (likely) broken. Or rather, they need a reassessment. COVID-19 has thrust much of the world into hibernation, working from home with a disrupted family life to boot.

Normal demand curves don’t look normal anymore. I took a look through one of our “normal” clients to see how search volume changed pre and post crisis.

Weekends are adjusting, the lunch break and the “getting to work” spikes have flattened. We remember volume taking a nosedive Friday + Saturday nights. We saw a slight rise Sunday evening as people got back to their computers. The current state is… well, different. I suspect it will be different for your accounts as well.

Odds are your curves have changed – you should check to see if your assumptions hold true.

We can expect geographic volume to shift dramatically as well. People aren’t commuting anymore, so we can expect a change in searcher behavior around cities. Crises (especially COVID) affect different cities, states and regions in different ways. As regulations around social distancing have shifted, so too can you expect regional search behavior to shift. Double-check your geographic bid modifiers and budget allocations – does performance pre-crisis still hold true in crisis?

I won’t go in depth to the shifts in device performance (as many already have at length), but device behavior shifts dramatically in a crisis as well. Particularly in times of COVID, if consumers are immobile there’s less of a need for a mobile device. Adjust accordingly. 

Inventory and news cycle will likely influence each other

Humans are inherently irrational creatures. We make decisions based on what we observe and react to what we see, rather than trusting a clear course of action. In times of crisis, it’s amplified a kabillion-fold. As such, inventory will often dictate demand and vice versa. If a news report shows is about a given product (all but guaranteed during a crisis), odds are the masses will take to search engines to hunt them down.

This can yield false positives and false negatives, impacting both long and short term performance. As the mad dash arrives for a given product, you’ll see a huge spike in conversion rate (while inventory remains). Following the rush will be a near immediate cooldown. Ensure your inventory tracking is tip top and tied to bid modifications to ensure you’re not spending money to take in orders you can’t fulfill.

While a crisis can represent unprecedented times, there are precedents you can review in your history to see how you react. Was your product ever cited on a reality show? Spotted on a celebrity? Touted as a miracle cure, if even for a few minutes? Each scenario will resemble the short term spike and tail-off of volume. Review how your bidding tools and inventory management system reacted. That will give you a good idea of how to react both now, AND when the crisis concludes.

Smart bidding

I’m going to address these en masse, as the answer for each is similar. Look at your most volatile times. Every crisis is unique, volatile and requires different tactics to address. Algorithms can’t necessarily differentiate between an unprecedented crisis and a really good Black Friday sale.

You can generally assume that most bidding algorithms will favor the last 30 or so days worth of data. Take a look and see how long the last volatile period affected your campaigns. If it’s a spike then drop (or a valley then climb), make sure the tool is making the right decisions.

A safe way to predict the future is by looking at the past. Find your best day/week and your worst – did Smart Bidding keep up and make the correct decisions? Did it lag behind, and leave spend on the table? Did it react too quickly, or assume the good period would last longer than it did? The answer isn’t simple for any of these questions.

Expect slower creative approval and adjust your automation

When a crisis strikes, everyone affected reacts. In the case of COVID where the world is affected… well, you get the point. That means that Search Engines’ resources will be strained to the brink. You can safely expect a delay in reaction time. Google and Bing both have 48 hour ad approval windows, but rarely stretch beyond… instantaneous. In this particular crisis where support teams are affected, that time can be extended. Yes, that means your new promo ad may not go live while the promo is live.

Adjust your automated rules for any and all creative swaps coming up. Many advertisers have a rule to pause evergreen ads when launching a new set of promotional ads. In a time of crisis, wait until you have absolute confirmation that the new ads are live before pausing the others.

Brand safety and messaging need to be front of mind

It’s challenging to understand and react to brand safety in tumultuous times. Keep your brand principles and voice front of mind and you’ll know exactly how to act. If you’ve planted your flag of “we go where customers go,” then you’ll want to keep doing that. If you’ve planned on excluding any and all controversial content, the answer is simple as well.

Where it gets challenging is for those who tread the middle ground. We’re fine being on news sites, but only if it’s not controversial. This is much more difficult in modern times of crisis, as quite literally every news outlet will, in some way or another, refer to the crisis.

The other challenge to watch is what you say in your ads. Shipping times shift. The ability to make in person appointments, not so much. 24/7 call center? No way. With the advent of responsive search ads, odds are you have some value proposition laying around in there that may be invalid in crisis.

Worse yet, this could extrapolate with panic buying. If a customer sees same day delivery, they will buy from you. If automated tools see your eCTR and conversion rate spike, they’ll prioritize the ad unit. If you can’t fulfill the promise you set, that customer isn’t coming back. It’s a dangerous cycle. The best way to get ahead is to ensure your ads communicate reality with your customers, even if it’s cloudy news.

Take a look at every part of your ads (yes, even those lil ol’ structured snippets) to see what’s still valid.

Watch queries closely, especially Dynamic Search Ads

This is similar to the inventory issue noted above. If there’s something on site that people are searching for, DSA’s and close variants will find it. There’s nothing like a pandemic to be a casual reminder that yes, your promotional swag company DOES sell custom hand sanitizer.

Many companies are placing alerts on their site to address how they’re reacting to a crisis. This can throw a wrench into search queries generated by DSA’s or broader match types.

Pay close attention to queries as they arise. If you’ve actively decided you don’t want to show around any crisis-related queries, add those negatives right away! Exclude any crisis-related pages from your DSA campaigns as a failsafe, and your campaigns should still run smoothly.

Last but DEFINITELY not least – craft volatility alerts

I’ve not been shy about recommending “pops and drops” alerts. They’re crucial at all times for all accounts to ensure we address performance swings with haste without staring at the computer all day and night. In an era of crisis, things move FAST. Waiting until tomorrow isn’t an option anymore.

Instead, think of the metrics you care about where you need an alert. Make the swings something you truly care about (e.g. spend quadruples hour over hour) and consider running your scripts on a more frequent basis.

We’re in the midst of a crisis today. To us humans, these are unprecedented times. To machines, these are periods of extreme volatility. They’re unprecedented times, just like the last unprecedented time. Review what happened during your last rollercoaster ride. Evaluate how your automation performed and adjust for the current period and beyond. 

Remember, the time of crisis is a time to cement your brand voice, a time to speak 1:1 to your customers. It’s a challenging time to be a marketer, but that doesn’t mean you should stop being one.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Aaron has been in the industry for the better part of a decade, leading paid media campaigns with clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to startups and local businesses. He’s the Group Director of SEM at Tinuiti, a full-service digital agency with offices across the US. Aaron’s role is to support a growing SEM team across the US, looking years ahead so his team can look days ahead. In addition to his day to day, Aaron’s a frequent industry speaker and instructor at Drexel and University of Vermont, working to grow the next generation of great marketers. He moonlights as a brewer, hockey player, slow cyclist and claims to be the industry’s top chef.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/can-we-trust-automation-in-a-time-of-crisis/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/04/can-we-trust-automation-in-time-of.html

[riichardwilson]

Can we trust automation in a time of crisis?

It’s a challenging time to be a marketer. Consumers are distracted, financial futures uncertain and volatility all but a guarantee. It’s a time when self awareness, realism and tact are crucial for success. We need to move fast, but controlled. Tomorrow is going to be different from yesterday, and two days from now different from today.

Can we trust automation in a crisis? When everything is different depending on the hour, can we trust machine learning? Will our automation move fast enough and provide the insights we need? Should we revert to the good ol’ days of staring at the screen for 24 hours a day, watching metrics change in real time?

Yes, automation can keep up with appropriate inputs. No, you should not revert to the stone age of SEM (even though my beard indicates otherwise). Each situation is different, so you must evaluate your own business under your own lens. Below are eight core elements to watch and adjust to ensure success for your search campaigns in a time of crisis extreme volatility.

Bid modifiers must adjust along with behavior

First things first, your time of day bid modifiers are (likely) broken. Or rather, they need a reassessment. COVID-19 has thrust much of the world into hibernation, working from home with a disrupted family life to boot.

Normal demand curves don’t look normal anymore. I took a look through one of our “normal” clients to see how search volume changed pre and post crisis.

Weekends are adjusting, the lunch break and the “getting to work” spikes have flattened. We remember volume taking a nosedive Friday + Saturday nights. We saw a slight rise Sunday evening as people got back to their computers. The current state is… well, different. I suspect it will be different for your accounts as well.

Odds are your curves have changed – you should check to see if your assumptions hold true.

We can expect geographic volume to shift dramatically as well. People aren’t commuting anymore, so we can expect a change in searcher behavior around cities. Crises (especially COVID) affect different cities, states and regions in different ways. As regulations around social distancing have shifted, so too can you expect regional search behavior to shift. Double-check your geographic bid modifiers and budget allocations – does performance pre-crisis still hold true in crisis?

I won’t go in depth to the shifts in device performance (as many already have at length), but device behavior shifts dramatically in a crisis as well. Particularly in times of COVID, if consumers are immobile there’s less of a need for a mobile device. Adjust accordingly. 

Inventory and news cycle will likely influence each other

Humans are inherently irrational creatures. We make decisions based on what we observe and react to what we see, rather than trusting a clear course of action. In times of crisis, it’s amplified a kabillion-fold. As such, inventory will often dictate demand and vice versa. If a news report shows is about a given product (all but guaranteed during a crisis), odds are the masses will take to search engines to hunt them down.

This can yield false positives and false negatives, impacting both long and short term performance. As the mad dash arrives for a given product, you’ll see a huge spike in conversion rate (while inventory remains). Following the rush will be a near immediate cooldown. Ensure your inventory tracking is tip top and tied to bid modifications to ensure you’re not spending money to take in orders you can’t fulfill.

While a crisis can represent unprecedented times, there are precedents you can review in your history to see how you react. Was your product ever cited on a reality show? Spotted on a celebrity? Touted as a miracle cure, if even for a few minutes? Each scenario will resemble the short term spike and tail-off of volume. Review how your bidding tools and inventory management system reacted. That will give you a good idea of how to react both now, AND when the crisis concludes.

Smart bidding

I’m going to address these en masse, as the answer for each is similar. Look at your most volatile times. Every crisis is unique, volatile and requires different tactics to address. Algorithms can’t necessarily differentiate between an unprecedented crisis and a really good Black Friday sale.

You can generally assume that most bidding algorithms will favor the last 30 or so days worth of data. Take a look and see how long the last volatile period affected your campaigns. If it’s a spike then drop (or a valley then climb), make sure the tool is making the right decisions.

A safe way to predict the future is by looking at the past. Find your best day/week and your worst – did Smart Bidding keep up and make the correct decisions? Did it lag behind, and leave spend on the table? Did it react too quickly, or assume the good period would last longer than it did? The answer isn’t simple for any of these questions.

Expect slower creative approval and adjust your automation

When a crisis strikes, everyone affected reacts. In the case of COVID where the world is affected… well, you get the point. That means that Search Engines’ resources will be strained to the brink. You can safely expect a delay in reaction time. Google and Bing both have 48 hour ad approval windows, but rarely stretch beyond… instantaneous. In this particular crisis where support teams are affected, that time can be extended. Yes, that means your new promo ad may not go live while the promo is live.

Adjust your automated rules for any and all creative swaps coming up. Many advertisers have a rule to pause evergreen ads when launching a new set of promotional ads. In a time of crisis, wait until you have absolute confirmation that the new ads are live before pausing the others.

Brand safety and messaging need to be front of mind

It’s challenging to understand and react to brand safety in tumultuous times. Keep your brand principles and voice front of mind and you’ll know exactly how to act. If you’ve planted your flag of “we go where customers go,” then you’ll want to keep doing that. If you’ve planned on excluding any and all controversial content, the answer is simple as well.

Where it gets challenging is for those who tread the middle ground. We’re fine being on news sites, but only if it’s not controversial. This is much more difficult in modern times of crisis, as quite literally every news outlet will, in some way or another, refer to the crisis.

The other challenge to watch is what you say in your ads. Shipping times shift. The ability to make in person appointments, not so much. 24/7 call center? No way. With the advent of responsive search ads, odds are you have some value proposition laying around in there that may be invalid in crisis.

Worse yet, this could extrapolate with panic buying. If a customer sees same day delivery, they will buy from you. If automated tools see your eCTR and conversion rate spike, they’ll prioritize the ad unit. If you can’t fulfill the promise you set, that customer isn’t coming back. It’s a dangerous cycle. The best way to get ahead is to ensure your ads communicate reality with your customers, even if it’s cloudy news.

Take a look at every part of your ads (yes, even those lil ol’ structured snippets) to see what’s still valid.

Watch queries closely, especially Dynamic Search Ads

This is similar to the inventory issue noted above. If there’s something on site that people are searching for, DSA’s and close variants will find it. There’s nothing like a pandemic to be a casual reminder that yes, your promotional swag company DOES sell custom hand sanitizer.

Many companies are placing alerts on their site to address how they’re reacting to a crisis. This can throw a wrench into search queries generated by DSA’s or broader match types.

Pay close attention to queries as they arise. If you’ve actively decided you don’t want to show around any crisis-related queries, add those negatives right away! Exclude any crisis-related pages from your DSA campaigns as a failsafe, and your campaigns should still run smoothly.

Last but DEFINITELY not least – craft volatility alerts

I’ve not been shy about recommending “pops and drops” alerts. They’re crucial at all times for all accounts to ensure we address performance swings with haste without staring at the computer all day and night. In an era of crisis, things move FAST. Waiting until tomorrow isn’t an option anymore.

Instead, think of the metrics you care about where you need an alert. Make the swings something you truly care about (e.g. spend quadruples hour over hour) and consider running your scripts on a more frequent basis.

We’re in the midst of a crisis today. To us humans, these are unprecedented times. To machines, these are periods of extreme volatility. They’re unprecedented times, just like the last unprecedented time. Review what happened during your last rollercoaster ride. Evaluate how your automation performed and adjust for the current period and beyond. 

Remember, the time of crisis is a time to cement your brand voice, a time to speak 1:1 to your customers. It’s a challenging time to be a marketer, but that doesn’t mean you should stop being one.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Aaron has been in the industry for the better part of a decade, leading paid media campaigns with clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to startups and local businesses. He’s the Group Director of SEM at Tinuiti, a full-service digital agency with offices across the US. Aaron’s role is to support a growing SEM team across the US, looking years ahead so his team can look days ahead. In addition to his day to day, Aaron’s a frequent industry speaker and instructor at Drexel and University of Vermont, working to grow the next generation of great marketers. He moonlights as a brewer, hockey player, slow cyclist and claims to be the industry’s top chef.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/can-we-trust-automation-in-a-time-of-crisis/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/614407520592822272

[douglassmiith]

Can we trust automation in a time of crisis?

It’s a challenging time to be a marketer. Consumers are distracted, financial futures uncertain and volatility all but a guarantee. It’s a time when self awareness, realism and tact are crucial for success. We need to move fast, but controlled. Tomorrow is going to be different from yesterday, and two days from now different from today.

Can we trust automation in a crisis? When everything is different depending on the hour, can we trust machine learning? Will our automation move fast enough and provide the insights we need? Should we revert to the good ol’ days of staring at the screen for 24 hours a day, watching metrics change in real time?

Yes, automation can keep up with appropriate inputs. No, you should not revert to the stone age of SEM (even though my beard indicates otherwise). Each situation is different, so you must evaluate your own business under your own lens. Below are eight core elements to watch and adjust to ensure success for your search campaigns in a time of crisis extreme volatility.

Bid modifiers must adjust along with behavior

First things first, your time of day bid modifiers are (likely) broken. Or rather, they need a reassessment. COVID-19 has thrust much of the world into hibernation, working from home with a disrupted family life to boot.

Normal demand curves don’t look normal anymore. I took a look through one of our “normal” clients to see how search volume changed pre and post crisis.

Weekends are adjusting, the lunch break and the “getting to work” spikes have flattened. We remember volume taking a nosedive Friday + Saturday nights. We saw a slight rise Sunday evening as people got back to their computers. The current state is… well, different. I suspect it will be different for your accounts as well.

Odds are your curves have changed – you should check to see if your assumptions hold true.

We can expect geographic volume to shift dramatically as well. People aren’t commuting anymore, so we can expect a change in searcher behavior around cities. Crises (especially COVID) affect different cities, states and regions in different ways. As regulations around social distancing have shifted, so too can you expect regional search behavior to shift. Double-check your geographic bid modifiers and budget allocations – does performance pre-crisis still hold true in crisis?

I won’t go in depth to the shifts in device performance (as many already have at length), but device behavior shifts dramatically in a crisis as well. Particularly in times of COVID, if consumers are immobile there’s less of a need for a mobile device. Adjust accordingly. 

Inventory and news cycle will likely influence each other

Humans are inherently irrational creatures. We make decisions based on what we observe and react to what we see, rather than trusting a clear course of action. In times of crisis, it’s amplified a kabillion-fold. As such, inventory will often dictate demand and vice versa. If a news report shows is about a given product (all but guaranteed during a crisis), odds are the masses will take to search engines to hunt them down.

This can yield false positives and false negatives, impacting both long and short term performance. As the mad dash arrives for a given product, you’ll see a huge spike in conversion rate (while inventory remains). Following the rush will be a near immediate cooldown. Ensure your inventory tracking is tip top and tied to bid modifications to ensure you’re not spending money to take in orders you can’t fulfill.

While a crisis can represent unprecedented times, there are precedents you can review in your history to see how you react. Was your product ever cited on a reality show? Spotted on a celebrity? Touted as a miracle cure, if even for a few minutes? Each scenario will resemble the short term spike and tail-off of volume. Review how your bidding tools and inventory management system reacted. That will give you a good idea of how to react both now, AND when the crisis concludes.

Smart bidding

I’m going to address these en masse, as the answer for each is similar. Look at your most volatile times. Every crisis is unique, volatile and requires different tactics to address. Algorithms can’t necessarily differentiate between an unprecedented crisis and a really good Black Friday sale.

You can generally assume that most bidding algorithms will favor the last 30 or so days worth of data. Take a look and see how long the last volatile period affected your campaigns. If it’s a spike then drop (or a valley then climb), make sure the tool is making the right decisions.

A safe way to predict the future is by looking at the past. Find your best day/week and your worst – did Smart Bidding keep up and make the correct decisions? Did it lag behind, and leave spend on the table? Did it react too quickly, or assume the good period would last longer than it did? The answer isn’t simple for any of these questions.

Expect slower creative approval and adjust your automation

When a crisis strikes, everyone affected reacts. In the case of COVID where the world is affected… well, you get the point. That means that Search Engines’ resources will be strained to the brink. You can safely expect a delay in reaction time. Google and Bing both have 48 hour ad approval windows, but rarely stretch beyond… instantaneous. In this particular crisis where support teams are affected, that time can be extended. Yes, that means your new promo ad may not go live while the promo is live.

Adjust your automated rules for any and all creative swaps coming up. Many advertisers have a rule to pause evergreen ads when launching a new set of promotional ads. In a time of crisis, wait until you have absolute confirmation that the new ads are live before pausing the others.

Brand safety and messaging need to be front of mind

It’s challenging to understand and react to brand safety in tumultuous times. Keep your brand principles and voice front of mind and you’ll know exactly how to act. If you’ve planted your flag of “we go where customers go,” then you’ll want to keep doing that. If you’ve planned on excluding any and all controversial content, the answer is simple as well.

Where it gets challenging is for those who tread the middle ground. We’re fine being on news sites, but only if it’s not controversial. This is much more difficult in modern times of crisis, as quite literally every news outlet will, in some way or another, refer to the crisis.

The other challenge to watch is what you say in your ads. Shipping times shift. The ability to make in person appointments, not so much. 24/7 call center? No way. With the advent of responsive search ads, odds are you have some value proposition laying around in there that may be invalid in crisis.

Worse yet, this could extrapolate with panic buying. If a customer sees same day delivery, they will buy from you. If automated tools see your eCTR and conversion rate spike, they’ll prioritize the ad unit. If you can’t fulfill the promise you set, that customer isn’t coming back. It’s a dangerous cycle. The best way to get ahead is to ensure your ads communicate reality with your customers, even if it’s cloudy news.

Take a look at every part of your ads (yes, even those lil ol’ structured snippets) to see what’s still valid.

Watch queries closely, especially Dynamic Search Ads

This is similar to the inventory issue noted above. If there’s something on site that people are searching for, DSA’s and close variants will find it. There’s nothing like a pandemic to be a casual reminder that yes, your promotional swag company DOES sell custom hand sanitizer.

Many companies are placing alerts on their site to address how they’re reacting to a crisis. This can throw a wrench into search queries generated by DSA’s or broader match types.

Pay close attention to queries as they arise. If you’ve actively decided you don’t want to show around any crisis-related queries, add those negatives right away! Exclude any crisis-related pages from your DSA campaigns as a failsafe, and your campaigns should still run smoothly.

Last but DEFINITELY not least – craft volatility alerts

I’ve not been shy about recommending “pops and drops” alerts. They’re crucial at all times for all accounts to ensure we address performance swings with haste without staring at the computer all day and night. In an era of crisis, things move FAST. Waiting until tomorrow isn’t an option anymore.

Instead, think of the metrics you care about where you need an alert. Make the swings something you truly care about (e.g. spend quadruples hour over hour) and consider running your scripts on a more frequent basis.

We’re in the midst of a crisis today. To us humans, these are unprecedented times. To machines, these are periods of extreme volatility. They’re unprecedented times, just like the last unprecedented time. Review what happened during your last rollercoaster ride. Evaluate how your automation performed and adjust for the current period and beyond. 

Remember, the time of crisis is a time to cement your brand voice, a time to speak 1:1 to your customers. It’s a challenging time to be a marketer, but that doesn’t mean you should stop being one.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Aaron has been in the industry for the better part of a decade, leading paid media campaigns with clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to startups and local businesses. He’s the Group Director of SEM at Tinuiti, a full-service digital agency with offices across the US. Aaron’s role is to support a growing SEM team across the US, looking years ahead so his team can look days ahead. In addition to his day to day, Aaron’s a frequent industry speaker and instructor at Drexel and University of Vermont, working to grow the next generation of great marketers. He moonlights as a brewer, hockey player, slow cyclist and claims to be the industry’s top chef.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

Via http://www.scpie.org/can-we-trust-automation-in-a-time-of-crisis/

source https://scpie.weebly.com/blog/can-we-trust-automation-in-a-time-of-crisis

[scpie]

Can we trust automation in a time of crisis?

It’s a challenging time to be a marketer. Consumers are distracted, financial futures uncertain and volatility all but a guarantee. It’s a time when self awareness, realism and tact are crucial for success. We need to move fast, but controlled. Tomorrow is going to be different from yesterday, and two days from now different from today.

Can we trust automation in a crisis? When everything is different depending on the hour, can we trust machine learning? Will our automation move fast enough and provide the insights we need? Should we revert to the good ol’ days of staring at the screen for 24 hours a day, watching metrics change in real time?

Yes, automation can keep up with appropriate inputs. No, you should not revert to the stone age of SEM (even though my beard indicates otherwise). Each situation is different, so you must evaluate your own business under your own lens. Below are eight core elements to watch and adjust to ensure success for your search campaigns in a time of crisis extreme volatility.

Bid modifiers must adjust along with behavior

First things first, your time of day bid modifiers are (likely) broken. Or rather, they need a reassessment. COVID-19 has thrust much of the world into hibernation, working from home with a disrupted family life to boot.

Normal demand curves don’t look normal anymore. I took a look through one of our “normal” clients to see how search volume changed pre and post crisis.

Weekends are adjusting, the lunch break and the “getting to work” spikes have flattened. We remember volume taking a nosedive Friday + Saturday nights. We saw a slight rise Sunday evening as people got back to their computers. The current state is… well, different. I suspect it will be different for your accounts as well.

Odds are your curves have changed – you should check to see if your assumptions hold true.

We can expect geographic volume to shift dramatically as well. People aren’t commuting anymore, so we can expect a change in searcher behavior around cities. Crises (especially COVID) affect different cities, states and regions in different ways. As regulations around social distancing have shifted, so too can you expect regional search behavior to shift. Double-check your geographic bid modifiers and budget allocations – does performance pre-crisis still hold true in crisis?

I won’t go in depth to the shifts in device performance (as many already have at length), but device behavior shifts dramatically in a crisis as well. Particularly in times of COVID, if consumers are immobile there’s less of a need for a mobile device. Adjust accordingly. 

Inventory and news cycle will likely influence each other

Humans are inherently irrational creatures. We make decisions based on what we observe and react to what we see, rather than trusting a clear course of action. In times of crisis, it’s amplified a kabillion-fold. As such, inventory will often dictate demand and vice versa. If a news report shows is about a given product (all but guaranteed during a crisis), odds are the masses will take to search engines to hunt them down.

This can yield false positives and false negatives, impacting both long and short term performance. As the mad dash arrives for a given product, you’ll see a huge spike in conversion rate (while inventory remains). Following the rush will be a near immediate cooldown. Ensure your inventory tracking is tip top and tied to bid modifications to ensure you’re not spending money to take in orders you can’t fulfill.

While a crisis can represent unprecedented times, there are precedents you can review in your history to see how you react. Was your product ever cited on a reality show? Spotted on a celebrity? Touted as a miracle cure, if even for a few minutes? Each scenario will resemble the short term spike and tail-off of volume. Review how your bidding tools and inventory management system reacted. That will give you a good idea of how to react both now, AND when the crisis concludes.

Smart bidding

I’m going to address these en masse, as the answer for each is similar. Look at your most volatile times. Every crisis is unique, volatile and requires different tactics to address. Algorithms can’t necessarily differentiate between an unprecedented crisis and a really good Black Friday sale.

You can generally assume that most bidding algorithms will favor the last 30 or so days worth of data. Take a look and see how long the last volatile period affected your campaigns. If it’s a spike then drop (or a valley then climb), make sure the tool is making the right decisions.

A safe way to predict the future is by looking at the past. Find your best day/week and your worst – did Smart Bidding keep up and make the correct decisions? Did it lag behind, and leave spend on the table? Did it react too quickly, or assume the good period would last longer than it did? The answer isn’t simple for any of these questions.

Expect slower creative approval and adjust your automation

When a crisis strikes, everyone affected reacts. In the case of COVID where the world is affected… well, you get the point. That means that Search Engines’ resources will be strained to the brink. You can safely expect a delay in reaction time. Google and Bing both have 48 hour ad approval windows, but rarely stretch beyond… instantaneous. In this particular crisis where support teams are affected, that time can be extended. Yes, that means your new promo ad may not go live while the promo is live.

Adjust your automated rules for any and all creative swaps coming up. Many advertisers have a rule to pause evergreen ads when launching a new set of promotional ads. In a time of crisis, wait until you have absolute confirmation that the new ads are live before pausing the others.

Brand safety and messaging need to be front of mind

It’s challenging to understand and react to brand safety in tumultuous times. Keep your brand principles and voice front of mind and you’ll know exactly how to act. If you’ve planted your flag of “we go where customers go,” then you’ll want to keep doing that. If you’ve planned on excluding any and all controversial content, the answer is simple as well.

Where it gets challenging is for those who tread the middle ground. We’re fine being on news sites, but only if it’s not controversial. This is much more difficult in modern times of crisis, as quite literally every news outlet will, in some way or another, refer to the crisis.

The other challenge to watch is what you say in your ads. Shipping times shift. The ability to make in person appointments, not so much. 24/7 call center? No way. With the advent of responsive search ads, odds are you have some value proposition laying around in there that may be invalid in crisis.

Worse yet, this could extrapolate with panic buying. If a customer sees same day delivery, they will buy from you. If automated tools see your eCTR and conversion rate spike, they’ll prioritize the ad unit. If you can’t fulfill the promise you set, that customer isn’t coming back. It’s a dangerous cycle. The best way to get ahead is to ensure your ads communicate reality with your customers, even if it’s cloudy news.

Take a look at every part of your ads (yes, even those lil ol’ structured snippets) to see what’s still valid.

Watch queries closely, especially Dynamic Search Ads

This is similar to the inventory issue noted above. If there’s something on site that people are searching for, DSA’s and close variants will find it. There’s nothing like a pandemic to be a casual reminder that yes, your promotional swag company DOES sell custom hand sanitizer.

Many companies are placing alerts on their site to address how they’re reacting to a crisis. This can throw a wrench into search queries generated by DSA’s or broader match types.

Pay close attention to queries as they arise. If you’ve actively decided you don’t want to show around any crisis-related queries, add those negatives right away! Exclude any crisis-related pages from your DSA campaigns as a failsafe, and your campaigns should still run smoothly.

Last but DEFINITELY not least – craft volatility alerts

I’ve not been shy about recommending “pops and drops” alerts. They’re crucial at all times for all accounts to ensure we address performance swings with haste without staring at the computer all day and night. In an era of crisis, things move FAST. Waiting until tomorrow isn’t an option anymore.

Instead, think of the metrics you care about where you need an alert. Make the swings something you truly care about (e.g. spend quadruples hour over hour) and consider running your scripts on a more frequent basis.

We’re in the midst of a crisis today. To us humans, these are unprecedented times. To machines, these are periods of extreme volatility. They’re unprecedented times, just like the last unprecedented time. Review what happened during your last rollercoaster ride. Evaluate how your automation performed and adjust for the current period and beyond. 

Remember, the time of crisis is a time to cement your brand voice, a time to speak 1:1 to your customers. It’s a challenging time to be a marketer, but that doesn’t mean you should stop being one.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Aaron has been in the industry for the better part of a decade, leading paid media campaigns with clients ranging from Fortune 50 companies to startups and local businesses. He’s the Group Director of SEM at Tinuiti, a full-service digital agency with offices across the US. Aaron’s role is to support a growing SEM team across the US, looking years ahead so his team can look days ahead. In addition to his day to day, Aaron’s a frequent industry speaker and instructor at Drexel and University of Vermont, working to grow the next generation of great marketers. He moonlights as a brewer, hockey player, slow cyclist and claims to be the industry’s top chef.

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source http://www.scpie.org/can-we-trust-automation-in-a-time-of-crisis/

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What Makes a Sour Beer Taste Sour?

Craftbeer.com

July 19, 2017

It’s in the back of a dingy old storage basement. The floor is made of dirt and there is the faintest, rhythmic trickle of water dripping somewhere nearby. The stale scent of must fills the air. In the depths of a fermentation cellar lies one lonely little bottle that looks so dusty that it’s near the point of being reclaimed by Mother Nature herself.

Yet within this bottle, for some time now, a war has been waging. It’s a microscopic war with bacteria and yeast as the pawns and a certain delicate flavor profile as the objective.

(READ: What is the Independent Craft Brewer Seal?)

There was a time when the products of these molecular battles were almost as minute and marginalized as the battles themselves. But recently, that is all changing. Sour beers, the very draft of history that they are, are on the rise! They might not be the crisp, straight-laced lagers that we used to know. In fact, some of them are approaching the very antithesis of that. They are deep, complex and mysterious.

With more and more bottles of this esoteric elixir being pulled out of the depths of various fermentation cellars all around the world, sour beers are exploding onto the American craft scene. But, many know so little about them. How do these beers tempt the tentative novice or prompt the IPA loving consumer to deviate down the delicious rabbit hole? It’s simple. They wait for you to talk to someone who knows, like a brewer or bartender.

What Makes a Sour Beer Sour?

First, it’s important to understand that sour beers are ambiguous. We’ve previously written about how “sour beers” are uniquely difficult to categorize. They are equally difficult to make.

They comprise numerous styles crossing multiple regions of the globe and vary in alcohol and color. Their lone unifying characteristic: some offbeat flavor. A subjective variation of taste which exists on a spectrum from some-kind-of-odd funk, to an outright acid-like, vinegar flavor. However, it is there that we must focus on the notion of what makes a sour beer sour, because it is in the production process that you make the beer sour.

After that complex and nebulous introduction, I want to inject some simplicity. To make a beer (any beer) sour, brewers inoculate it. What does that mean? Simply, they ferment the beer by introducing one (or a combination) of fermenting agents: a genus of yeast called Brettanomyces, acid producing bacteria, and/or any type of conventional and non-conventional yeast.

(LEARN: Beer 101 Online Course)

When you make beer, you ferment the wort (brewed, but unfermented beer) with any one of a number of different species of Saccharomyces yeast. These yeast consume the available sugars in wort to produce alcohol and carbon dioxide, along with a range of flavor characteristics.

Conventional beer yeasts, like those in your favorite stout or IPA, have been isolated to yield a controlled fermentation so the beer has a consistent taste. But that’s not true when it comes to so-called sour beers that are primarily or partially fermented with acid producing bacteria and wild yeast such as Brettanomyces.

Brettanomyces Lends Complex Flavors

Often referred to as a wild yeast genus, Brettanomyces (or Brett for short) is often incorporated in combination with a traditional Saccharomyces species during the fermentation of the beer intentionally, (though Brett is quite prolific and able to find a food source simply by catching a breeze or a ride on improperly cleaned equipment. It can wreak havoc on a brewhouse.)

While often mischaracterized as a souring organism, Brettanomyces is an acid producing genus which, in the presence of oxygen, can metabolize alcohol into the vinegary acidity known as acetic acid.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com’s Beer Glossary)

Along with that acidity, Brett lends a complex array of flavor components. These flavors range from earthy and funky to tropical fruit. They can develop throughout the fermentation process, anywhere from primary fermentation to secondary barrel-aging to tertiary bottle conditioning.

When using wild yeast like Brett, some brewers will leave wort in open vats known as “coolships” to allow them to pick up wild yeast and bacteria from the environment to initiate fermentation. Brewers then move the wort into oak barrels, where it will slowly change over time, yielding some of the most complex beers in existence.

Understand Lactobacillus and Pediococcus

Sour producing bacteria play a tandem role in the creation of sour beer with Brett. The primary bacteria strains responsible for making sour beers sour lies with Lactobacillus and Pediococcus. These organisms can be introduced to the brewing process in a variety of ways. Like yeast, the bacteria consume the available food and produce acid as a byproduct. Both produce lactic acid, a bright lemony-tart character found in yogurt or Berliner Weisse.

Another acid common in sour beers is acetic acid. Acetic acid is another yeast derived by-product and is the acid responsible for the character in vinegar. Acetic acid is also produced through acetobacter, a spoilage bacteria which works to consume oxidized alcohol.

Risk Comes with Brewing Sour Beers

This is a good chance to offer insight into another bonus question: Why don’t more breweries do sours?

It’s a fair question.

Well, if your intent is to inoculate the beer with these wild and unwieldy microbes, understand that they can be tough to kill, and they are tenacious if you don’t kill all of them. Basically, not a lot of breweries do it because there’s an inherent risk of infecting more than just the one intended beer and having an infection spread like sepsis throughout the brewhouse.

(COOK WITH BEER: Find Hundreds of Recipes)

Are There Different Types of Sours?

Of course there’s some manner or organization to this — we’re not animals. That said, it’s not extremely cut and dry. In fact, it is constantly evolving.

Thanks to innovative breweries all over the world and mad scientist homebrewers that forever strive to push the boundaries, the number of specific categories of sour beer is forever growing and shifting. The Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) style guidelines is always a good place to start. It is even helpful to see how things have developed over time. In the 2008 edition of the BJCP style guide sour beers were categorized under a single category (number 17 to be specific) and that contained six subcategories of specific sour beer styles.

More: CraftBeer.com’s Beer 101 Course

Currently, the BJCP style guide recognizes two different complete categories for a total of nine different styles, and have one other beer now, more appropriately, listed in the “Historical Beer” category for a grand total of 10 different beer styles that are all agreed upon to be sour.

It should also go without saying that the dark alchemists of alcohol are far from finished expanding upon this list of style categories. With one of the 10 styles simply being “Wild Specialty Beer,” such a vague category simply begs to be broken up and clarified. But all in good time.

For now, we might be satisfied with the likes of lambic, fruit lambic, gueze, Flanders red, oud bruin, gose, Berliner Weisse, Brett beer, mixed-fermentation sour and wild specialty beer.

How Do I Know What to Pick or Where to Start?

These funky and sour beers are an acquired taste. No two ways about it. But if you never try it, the only thing you’ll guarantee is that you’ll never possibly come to appreciate it.

The best bet is to do your homework and look for a beer style that’s close to your favorite style. It’s fair to assume that if you don’t like red ales normally, a Flemish red might not be the best place to start. If you like a wheat beer, then try a gose. If you like German beers, try a Berliner Weisse. Don’t have a favorite? You’re perfect! Go ahead and dive in, see what happens.

(LEARN: CraftBeer.com’s Beer Style Guide)

Speaking a moment to popularity, from personal experience, the light and tart wheat beers, the Berliner Weisse and the gose are easily among most popular sour beers breweries produce. This makes some good sense as these are similar to each other in many ways and their high lactic acid content makes them tart and refreshing.

Regardless of what you choose, the most important thing to remember when experiencing a new beer is that brewing is a labor of love. If you don’t like a beer, that’s certainly your prerogative, but it’s best to acknowledge that doesn’t necessarily make it bad — just perhaps not the one for you.

What Can I Pair with a Sour Beer?

Sour beers are delicious and their tart nature can make them palate cleansing. However, their tart nature also makes them overpowering at times. Consequently, anything you are looking to pair with sours needs to be able to stand up for itself at the plate so as not to be overwhelmed.

At this point, you are sure that I will suggest some grossly elaborate dish that you’d be hard pressed to find outside of a 5-star restaurant. However, oddly, good old-fashioned barbecue does a decent job.

As a general summary, for the acidic, tart beers, strong grilled meats, fish, shellfish (crabs and mussels), light salads and plums all go together extremely well.

(PAIRING TOOLS: Beer and Food Pairing Guide)

If the funky Brett beers are more to your liking then you’ll find that earthy flavors work well with these beers. Look for classic dishes with flavors like potatoes and mushrooms.

It wouldn’t be a very fair assessment of the power of the sour if I didn’t offer a personal pairing from my own experience. A personal favorite pairing is a Berliner Weisse with a chicken curry and rice dish. I feel the acidity helps cut through the spice and the light, citrusy flavors play nicely off the strong, pungent curry.

Even beyond food, you can pair these beers with a lot of different things. The variance of the sour only increases its versatility and it can be equally enjoyed at a ritzy dinner table, in the middle of a sandy sun-drenched beach or on a creaky back porch amidst fresh grass clippings.

Future of Sour Beer

One word: control. And that’s a pretty powerful concept.

One of the words rarely spoken by a new brewer is reproducibility. This is because as someone starts on their adventure to brewing their own recipes, reproducibility will be very challenging.

We only very delicately harness the awesome power of fermentation. It can be difficult to make those little microbial soldiers do the same thing again and again. This can be particularly true for wild yeast and spontaneous fermentation.

Science is removing some of the mystery to allow brewers a greater understanding of the flavor profiles that they are producing. In short, sours are going nowhere but up.

Sour beers may be our doorway to taste the ancient days, but they may also be our window to the future. It’s an exciting time for an exciting class of beer. Ask your bartender or brewer and give one try.

Drink in the past and toast the future of America’s independent craft brewers.

Andrew Jockers

Andrew Jockers is a dental student in the real world, but he works for Voodoo Brewing Company as a bartender in their Homestead taproom to help maintain his sanity. He also works as an events representative for Voodoo in the Pittsburgh area, raises his newborn son with his beautiful wife and enjoys writing freelance when there’s a moment to breathe. In whatever spare time he doesn’t have, Andrew also loves music, homebrewing, rugby, hiking and rafting. Read more by this author

The post What Makes a Sour Beer Taste Sour? appeared first on Miami Beer Scene.

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