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serenelia · 2 months

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ʜɪꜱ ᴀᴅʙɪᴛᴏʀʏ

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Content includes: SFW (of course), the Traveler and Lumine are different people in this fic. Isekai'd reader (they are the Traveler here).

Scroll away if you do not entertain the idea of isekai'd reader, thank you! Previous part

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"Interesting.. Well, that explains why they didn't leave any elemental traces behind. Even Arakavi had a hard time pursuing them, they only based on the muddy footprints.” The puppet mused, a little concerned himself, but wanted to keep his calm and collected appearance.

Nahida furrows her eyebrows, eyes roaming the Traveler’s face in search for possible answers. “I suppose I should’ve expected something like this, after all, they could be a different race from Lumine.” She looks away and locks gazes with Wanderer, a small frown on her face. “It isn’t possible to communicate with them now, I’m afraid we need to trouble Lumine with this.” She murmurs, mostly to herself.

Wanderer’s expression emits one of aversion, yet he couldn’t really suggest anything else, “Obviously, just call me whenever you plan to deliver the letter.” He grumbles, taking a step to walk away, only finding the forgotten problem yelp in surprise.

He halts, glancing down at the Traveler with the familiar feeling of irritation creeping up his spine. He mentions to them with a tilt of his head, “What about them?” Wanderer asks, secretly hoping he’d just need to drop them off here.

The god of wisdom replies, “Treat them just how you’d treat a regular visitor. We wouldn’t want to make them feel threatened, they might make a scene and attract too much attention. Unnecessary attention towards them is the last thing we need right now.”

A huff, “And you really expect me to be all-buddy with little Traveler here? What am I, some tour guide?” Wanderer protests, really finding the additional load in his free schedule troublesome.

“There is no one else I could trust with them for now, I’ll be informing Al Haitham about this very soon, but he’ll be too busy to take care of them.” Nahida flashes him her usual smile, a knowing glint in her eyes, “Besides, I think you can afford to spare some time for an important matter like this. Unless loitering around and bullying some Fatui guards are more worth your attention?”

Caught red handed, the Puppet half-heartedly glares at her, “What I do in my spare time is none of your business.”

Nahida’s smile widens, only bringing more embarrassment to him, “Then I’ll have the letter done by some time in the afternoon. Make sure to avoid scaring them by then… or any time soon.” She adds, a hint of a joke in her tone.

Unamused, Wanderer rolls his eyes and shifts his feet to alarm the Traveler, who in turn rushed to pick up their own weight as they’ve been leaning on him the entire time. Which would have irritated him in any other circumstance, after all, the audacity they have to even think so. But that is to say if he isn’t even in the slightest.

He catches the waving silhouette of her as he turns his head to look back once he and the Traveler made their way outside. And he was about to do the same, but his hands are full at the moment, so all he could do was send her a lazy nod. He swears he saw the ghost of a smile form on her face once he does so, making him question why she’d be so happy to send him on his way at all.

Either way, he is definitely not happy with what he was assigned to. For a few seconds, he stands idly in front of the door, with a deep frown on his face.

Now, what did Lesser Lord Kusanali even imagine in the head of hers when she sent him to “take care” of the out worldly creature?

Obviously she meant to treat them like royalty or some bullshit like that, not with what he was more familiar with.

So, how is he going to deal with this now?

The unsuspecting Traveler awkwardly fumble their feet with their head down, not surprising with what he guesses the scowl planted on his face. Not that he would bother making himself appear more friendly.

A thought pops up in his head, perhaps that would be a more appropriate course of action.

Some time later, the two of them stand in front of what looks like an abandoned hut just outside the Sumeru city entrance, after they once again, walk all the way out here. But going down is more easier than defying gravity climbing the ramps so the breaks considerably lessened during their walk. By now, their arms aren’t crossed together like some conjoined twins, and he felt eternally grateful at the much needed space he finally has after what felt like hours ever since they met.

It didn’t mean it made his job any more easier, in fact, he subtly wishes he held them by the neck the entire walk. With how curious they are and the way they can’t keep still when they pass by some shops in the street, it makes even him wonder how he endured it without attempting to scare them.

Oh, right, they’re from another world.

Wanderer heaves a heavy sigh, attempting to clear his mind with a shake of his head, lest he becomes even more infatuated than he already is. He takes a look at the fascinated Traveler who is currently staring at him with what looks like a stifled smile, sitting on the stairs he sat them on earlier.

Well, at least they know when to follow.

He squints his eyes at them, finding the gesture odd, but how else is he supposed to investigate it?

Another frown crosses his face and he decides to ignore it for now, taking a few steps towards the hut, it was supposed to be his “home” of some sort. Suggested by Nahida during his first few days in Sumeru. Naturally, he rejected the nonessential idea, after all, he doesn’t need to sleep, bathe, or eat at all. A simple wash of his clothes would do him good. Though, of course, this was rebutted by the god, saying he needed a facade to keep up his human image. He can’t keep making the House of Daena his makeshift living space. The students are already thinking he’s inhumane as they haven’t seen him make any effort to go “home.”

This all in all resulted in him having to settle down in a remote hut, he could see the bridge just a couple of steps away, it’s a good place to stay hidden and spot people come in and out of the city. Requested by himself, if he was going to be forced into living like a human, he might as well.

He opens the door to his hut and flicks the lights open, illuminating the space within, the few books he borrowed from the House of Daena remained on the table he left untouched for weeks, dust settled on the floor and shelves around. It isn’t any 5 star hotel, but it’ll have to do for now. A smack on the head awaits them if they dare to complain.

Plus, it’s the place where they wouldn’t need to have contact with anyone else, its a win for them both. He turns his head and spots the Traveler still sitting idly on the stairs, back facing him as they stare off somewhere.

The kids Minoo and Nima aren’t here so that’s fortunate, he could just leave them there for the time being. Surely they wouldn’t even think of straying away with no direction whatsoever.

And so, Wanderer enters the hut to start cleaning. Starting with the floors, he commands the air from his palms to sweep the floor and while it does that, he goes ahead to open the windows to let some additional dust out.

Floorboards creak behind him and he was surprised to see the Traveler standing right at the door, eyes shining as if they just saw the most amazing thing ever, making him raise a brow. For a traveler from another world, they sure are foreign to these kind of things.

Assuming they were merely amazed at the swirls of anemo flurrying about inside, he chooses to ignore their reaction and focuses on cleaning instead. Not minding at how they looked like an excited child looking up at him, reminding him of an incident before. Finding the whole ordeal rather stupid.

A short amount of time pass by, and all the remaining dust has been cleaned up. It isn’t so dirty he’d need to do anything else, really. Wanderer mentions them inside and they seem to catch on since they eagerly stepped inside once he does so.

He points to the bed he never once used before taking the chair from the table across the room and sits down. After they sit down, he looks at them straight in the eye. Neither of them making a move nor making an effort to speak.

What is he supposed to do now?

It’s not like he could start interrogating them, plus, with how he’s presenting himself, he looks like he’s about to torture them for information. Especially with the shadow cascading over his face due to his hat, he wouldn’t be surprised if they made an attempt to escape any time soon.

But that would only lead to more trouble so he takes the initiative to take off his hat, placing it on a nearby table. And the expression on the Traveler’s face isn’t one he was expecting at all, their eyes widened and shined, a bright smile forms on their face soon after, as if finding something humorous. It makes him wonder, did he accidentally saluted to them in alien language or something?

Well, as long as it’s nothing bad, he doesn’t care.

It really feels like he’s babysitting a hilichurl right now.

He doesn’t really want to waste any more time trying to charade his way out of this, so he just lets the Traveler be when they lay themselves down on his bed. Maybe having to ask them to at least change first is too much. As if he actually has some clothes that would fit them.

The awkward silence of the room gets into his skin after a while of constantly switching his position on the chair, while the Traveler looks to be utterly entertained with just laying down on the bed, staring at the ceiling and the window near them. He grew rather bored of doing nothing and stands up, making his way to the table to grab a book he left open. Making his way back to his previous place, finding the Traveler alert and sitting up on the bed with a foot half way down the bed.

He squints his eyes at them, did they really think they could escape so easily?

With a scoff, he sits down again on the chair facing them, eyes boring through them like they could disappear in thin air. The Traveler sits down on the bed again, a guilty expression on their face.

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Word count- 1,467

wowie, nice. Next chapter would probably be the walk since I feel like that would be cool.

Likes, reblogs, and comments are appreciated!

#fanfic #genshin #genshin fanfic #genshin imagines #genshin impact #sumeru #isekai #wanderer #Nahida #House of Daena #I literally just searched words in pinterest so I can have a title #isekaid reader

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ipaaciir · 3 years

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How do I get good grades?

[ID: A banner that reads "Study tips" in all caps in pale green color, with pale yellow background and a geometric pattern in pale green in the corners. End ID].

If there's something I've learned from getting straight A's at school and university is that it's less about what you know and more about what your habits and skills are.

Look, I have this classmate who is always reading advanced books, listening to podcasts, and watching conferences. She knows A LOT. But this adorable person doesn't do homework, when she does, it's late or poorly done. Her comments in class are lacking coherence and her essays are badly referenced. All of this just lower her grades.

So what can she do? How do I get good grades?

[Disclaimer: these tips are based on my own experiences and observations as I study a social science and some of the things that worked for my in high school, I've also helped my classmate but these tips might not apply to you].

1. Strengthen your language four basic skills.

If you study languages you know we have to practice four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Well, it's not very different for your native language. After all, is with language that we're able to communicate, share ideas and knowledge. You know... like, everything we learn at school (and more).

a. Reading: If you don't know a word, underline it, search the meaning and write it at the margin of the text, on a post it, or in your notebook. Underline main ideas and take notes or write a summary. This will help you not only for better understanding or studying, but also to participate during class. If you need to, read out loud and/or try to explain each paragraph. This is helpful for very complex text. Doing a diagram works too!

b. Writing: Learning how to express our ideas in the written form is... weird. I seriously don't understand why on earth we can't write just like we speak. Why do we must write differently? Is it such a crime? (I mean, I know why, I just find it so interesting and funny). Anyway, must teachers' corrections are like "uSe sYnOnYmS", "bReAk YoUr PaRaGrApHs", "cOnNeCt YoUr IdEaS", "aRgUmEnT mOrE", "UsE aPa CiTaTiOn". So, yeah, follow those comments... I'll try to make a post on how to improve your writing.

c. Listening: Pay. Attention. To. Your. Teacher. I know it's hard, I know some people have a lot of difficulties because of ADHD or other learning disabilities. I can't speak for that, but what works for me is to doodle or embroider, sometimes being on Pinterest works too. Just doing something that requires low cognitive effort while I listen to the teacher keeps me on the class without getting lost in my mind. Even if you didn't do the reading, if you listen to your teacher (and classmates) you'll be able to participate.

d. Speaking. I think many people can imagine how frustrating it is to watch a presentation by your classmates and that they just... don't know how to present?? (it's even more frustrating when you know this people want to become teachers). Practice in the mirror, practice with your pet, practice in the shower, practice everyday. Remember the "explain each paragraph from the reading"? Yeah. When you can explain something it means you understand it. So try to explain everything you learn, everything you understand. Even just chatting with your friends, family, about it. This will also help you to participate in class. The other day a friend of mine just randomly shared her screen and started explaining the bacteria that causes tuberculosis to me... I don't know anything about medicine but I still learned a lot because she knows how to lower her knowledge. Practice. Practice 40hrs a day.

2. Organization.

a. Have a schedule. Set alarms for everything if you must. Look, I forget to eat, literally. I focus so much on what I'm doing that I tell my stomach to stop being annoying and he just... listens to me?? He's like "oh, okay, finish what you're doing and when you're done just tell me and we can go to grab some food". So, I set an alarm to eat, to shower, to have dinner, etc.

b. Color code!! Color coding is my best friend since I was in preschool. Assign a color to each subject. My notebooks or folders are classified by color. My schedule has the corresponding colors. My Trello has tags by color. My folders on the cloud and on my computer have colors. This way I don't mess up things.

c. Agenda. Write all of your assignments (with color code if you can) and everything on an agenda, to-do list, calendar, etc. Whatever works for you, but be conscious of all of your assignments. There was a point when I was in high school that I no longer used the agenda. I would write the homework and never look at it again, I just memorized (by accident) all of my assignments. I seriously don't get how no one noticed I had a big problem called anxiety. Before the modern plague I used a regular week by week agenda and it's what best works for me. I switched to a day by day agenda for a while... A nightmare. Fortnight by fortnight... Anxiety trigger. Now I use Trello since I have to do almost everything on digital.

d. Digital files. You must have well organized digital files on the cloud. I use my color code and my folders go like "university -> semester -> subject". I add a folder for each unit when I have many files. So inside "subject" or inside each "unit" folder I have "readings" and "homework". File names go like "1. Author - Title" for readings and "1. Type of homework (aka essay, diagram, synthesis, etc.) - Author/Title".

3. Discipline

If you don't do what you must when you must... It doesn't work, no matter how organized you are or how smart you are. As I said, my classmate learns a lot outside of school but she doesn't do her homework. I read just the absolute necessary (which I know is not ideal) but I have straight A's. To build habits is complicated, it will be hard but not impossible. Doing a bit is better than nothing. But keep doing stuff.

I have this friend who's very smart but procrastinates a lot, and she still gets straight A's. How? She does things when she needs to. Even 4 hours before the due date but she gets things done because she knows don't completing an assignment will lower her grades.

4. I don't want to do this specific assignment

When I don't find the energy or just want to avoid to do a specific assignment or advance on my projects, I... you're gonna call me nerd and you'll be on the right... I do other homework. Specially on finals. I just don't want to do a certain project and I go "well, what else do I have to do... Okay, this seems easy". And there you got me three days before the important due date with all of my homework for the day after done and the important thing just laying there... BUT, it does help!

That's it for now, I hope they help!

#studyblr #study tips #ipaaciir #college tips #school tips

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fizzyhosh · 4 years

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tagged by @kabeswaters !!!! love u big time

1. on a scale of 1-10, how excited are you about life right now? .... 3

2. describe yourself in a hashtag? #onedirectionstan

3. if you could do a love scene with anyone, who would it be? gross Harry Styles

4. if your life was a musical, what would the marquee say? get ready for disappointment but the good thing is one direction would be to my musical as abba is to mamma mia

5. what’s one thing people don’t know about you? i have strong ambitions but they are outweighed by executive dysfunction so lots of adults like teachers just think I'm lazy 🤪🥴

6. what’s your wake up ritual? currently it's get up at 2pm, look at discord, snapchat, and instagram, then eat some gosh darn food

7. what’s your go to bed ritual? this is so unhealthy I know grab a snack and a soda and scroll mindlessly on social media until I get tired, get up and brush my teeth, go back to my bed and put on my sleep playlist (called sleeby) and set a time so it stops playing after I fall asleep

8. what’s your favorite time of day? despite the fact that I get up in the afternoon, it's actually like 10am that's a goooood time

9. your go to for having a good laugh? I look up Niall Horan laugh complications it genuinely works every time

10. dream country to visit? Germany or Italy

11. what’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever had? my 19th birthday my roommates had a surprise party for me and I was so shocked and almost cried bc it was so sweet and bc made me anxious

12. heels or flats/sneakers? I thought that said heelys :(( but sneakers

13. vintage or new? vintaaaage

14. who do you want to write your obituary? uh idk hopefully none of my current family bc I don't want to die before them cause that'll mean I die young??? this question is making me overthink so I'm just gonna say Ewan Gregor and move on

15. style icon? this chick named mathilda on Instagram you might have seen her on insta or Pinterest she's a redhead but her style is brilliant

16. what are three things you cannot live without? music, dr. pepper, eggos

17. what’s one ingredient you put in everything? I sound so white but SALT I salt the heck outta everything

18. what 3 people living or dead would you want to make dinner for? Steve Irwin, Harry Styles, Freddie Mercury

19. what’s your biggest fear in life? dying while I'm taking a shower and having my family find my naked, wet, dead body falling out of love. which makes me not want to fall IN love bc then the chance of falling OUT of love becomes a possibility

20. window or aisle seat? window window window window window

21. what’s your current tv obsession? not really obsessed with anything rn but I rewatch new girl every chance I get

22. favorite app? instagram

23. secret talent? I can wiggle my ears

24. most adventurous thing you’ve ever done in your life? i flew to New Orleans during a break with two of my friends bc they found $60 round trip tickets. We bought the tickets the day before. We literally got to NOLA at 7am and left 8pm the next day. only spontaneous/adventurous thing i have ever done

25. how would you define yourself in three words? funny, understanding, quiet

26. favorite piece of clothing you own? my overalls :'))

27. a must have clothing item that everyone should have? a jean jacket !! looks good on anyone and with anything and they're so cute

28. a superpower you would want? to make people see themselves as their loved ones see them

29. what’s inspiring you in life right now? music I'm fixated on one direction and harry styles and louis tomlinson rn of you cant tell by a lot of my answers

30. best piece of advice you’ve received? don't apologize because you like something. don't be embarrassed that you have preferences

31. best advice you’d give your teenage self? be unapologetically you. life is too short to feel guilty for having opinions.

32. a book everyone should read? me and earl and the dying girl

33. what would you like to be remembered for? being kind to all

34. how do you define beauty? kindness, humor, a sweet soul makes a beautiful person

35. what do you love most about your body? I think I'm proportional? like... my size and shape... I hate how that sounds but my overall body ,,,,,,,

36. best way to take a rest/decompress? crack open and nice cold soda and put on headphones and lay on the ground (it makes me back feel better)

37. favorite place to view art? art galleries the environment and ambiance is immaculate

38. if your life was a song, what would the title be? Everything is Outta Reach cause I fail a lot but also I'm sHORT

39. if you could master one instrument, what would it be? pianoooo

40. if you had a tattoo, where would it be? I want my forearms to be filled with random little doodle tattoos I get over time (picture louis tomlinsons right arm, like the "oops!" and skateboard, and dumb things like that)

41 dolphins or koalas? KOALAS

42. what’s an animal that represents you? .....koala. also chameleon...

43. best gift you’ve ever received? so I need to be hugging a pillow or stuffed animals to sleep and I lost some stuffed animals that I loved and were huge and my go to for hugging at night and that Christmas my brother got me a huge elephant and a body pillow to replace them and I actually cried

44. best gift you’ve given? im really bad at giving gifts but my brother searches everywhere for this book in specific print and language and after years I found one and got it for him for Christmas. he's not good at showing appreciation and excitement but I could tell that he was stoked

45. what’s your favorite board game? BETRAYL AT THE HOUSE ON THE HILL it's so complicated and so good and I love it so much

46. what’s your favorite color? yellow and red

47. least favorite color? o r a n g e I just realized it's between red and yellow make it make sense

48. diamond or pearls? diamonds

49. drugstore makeup or designer? drugstore! I don't wear makeup often enough to spend money on designer but occasionally I get some good stuff from ulta then immediately regret it and go back to my Walgreens makeup HAHA

50. pilates or yoga? yoga

51. coffee or tea? I don't drink either but I like the aesthetic of tea more

52. what’s the weirdest word in the english language? pneumonoultrascopicsiliconvolcanoconoiosos because it's the longest word in the English dictionary and it's has a very specific definition and it's so extra when I was 7 i had a friend who could spell it forwards and backwards

53. dark chocolate or milk chocolate? milk!! I only like dark chocolate if it's reisens

54. stairs or elevators? stairs I'm afraid of elevators

55. summer or winter? summer

56. you are stuck on an island, you can pick one food to eat forever without getting tired of it, what would you eat? mac and cheese

57. a dessert you don’t like? uhhhh... umm... uh... anything with tree nuts cause I'm allergic??? I love dessert

58. a skill you’re working on mastering? I'm learning guitar !!

59. best thing to happen to you today? I woke up before 2pm

60. worst thing to happen to you today? my family all decided to a be in a bad mood today so that's super exciting to deal with :))))))

61. best compliment you’ve ever received? that I'm a really good listener

62. favorite smell? candles right after they're blown out and the air outside when it's cold. it has a smell. it DOES.

63. hugs or kisses? hugs

64. if you made a documentary, would it be about? the one direction boys' solo careers and eventual reunion when it happens

65. last piece of content you consumed that made you cry? if that includes music, louis tomlinsons album walls. but if not, ehm the martian that movie makes me cry don't come for me

66. lipstick or lipgloss? lipstick

67. sweet or savory? savory

68. girl crush? lily james

69. how do you know you’re in love? I've been trying to figure that out... I think it's when everything reminds you of them and you can completely be yourself around them and feel a sense of home and belonging.

70. a song you can listen to on repeat? greyhound by calpurnia or baby driver by simon and garfunkel

71. if you could switch lives with someone for a day, who would it be? h a r r y s t y l e s I have questions I need answered and I wanna hear unreleased HS and 1D music

72. what are you most excited for/about this time in your life? going back to school so I can be with my best friend slash future boyfriend

tagging: @lupinlongbottom @outerlacy @fortisfiliae @theseuscmander @wizardwritings

#not hp #about ash #ask ash

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roseskiesandbutterflies · 4 years

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Killer Queen - Chapter 10: Dreamers Ball

Summary: Life is easy when things go your way. I know this from experience. I also know that that can disappear in an instant and that you have to be able to rely on your friends. Luckily my name is Arabella Ruth White and I’m the fifth marauder. But I want to show you the girl behind the mask. It takes a lot of work to be this fabulous, darling. (This story is also on Wattpad and AO3 of the same name.)

A/N: So, I recently binge-read all of Lore Olympus on Webtoons and if you haven’t read it, then I highly recommend it. It’s about the Greek Gods (mainly Persephone and Hades) but it deals with some mature themes just to warn you. The chapter title comes from Queen’s 1978 album, Jazz.

Warning(s): alcohol, drugs, swearing, implied sex

Word Count: 4.3k+ (this was one word off of being 4400 words so that’s annoying)

Inspiration: random headcanons I found on Tumblr and Pinterest, The Boy Who Killed God by SeraMGrigori on AO3, All The Young Dudes by MsKingBean89 on AO3, Sweet Things by Cocomouse on AO3

Taglist: @bhmay @briarrose26

Ask to be on my taglist!

Throwing a birthday ball might just have been my best idea thus far, if I did say so myself, and it hadn’t even started yet. I was gradually walking through the doors of the Great Hall, embracing my dramatic entrance for every little millisecond that it was worth. All eyes were on me, as they should be since it was my birthday and I bloody love attention, and suddenly I understood what brides must feel like when they walk down the aisle. The train of my sparkling golden gown trailed along behind me, leaving a stream of glitter in my wake. It had been both a style choice and a way to infuriate Filch when he had to clean it up. Have fun with that, you miserable bastard. The Great Hall was decorated from top to bottom in gold, gold streamers, gold glitter, gold balloons. It was akin to the Emerald City from The Wizard Of Oz but, well, gold. Anyone who was anyone was among the crowd watching me, providing they were at least a fifth year; I didn’t want little kids at my birthday party, thank you very much. The only ones I would even consider would be Rhea and Luke, but they weren’t at Hogwarts yet and right now, I was grateful for that. As far as I could see, everyone had a glass of amber-coloured liquid in their hand, which I assumed was butterbeer for the far majority of people in the hall. Some minuscule part of me wanted to squirm under all of the attention, but I suppressed it as best as I could. I had a reputation to keep up, after all.

You may be wondering how on earth I got access to the Great Hall for my birthday party, and honestly, I can’t blame you for pondering such a thing. It had been a complete stroke of luck which had come in the form of good old Minnie McGee. I’d been explaining my plan for the ball to the lads during one breakfast back in September, yes my plans for it have been in the works for that long what are you going to do about it, and Minnie had overhead while she was walking past our usual spot. I’m quite sure she has some kind of hearing superpower, even though that particular sense should be decaying with her old age rather than growing. And just in case you’ve somehow found this, naturally, I mean no offence, Minerva, so please don’t give me another detention I really don’t want one please and thank you. She’d then gone on to offer the Great Hall for the party but with three conditions. One, she could go and bring Dumbledore as her ‘date’, two, we served nothing stronger than butterbeer and three, we actually worked hard for our OWLs which were just around the corner. Initially, we all thought that she was joking but it turned out that she was deadly serious (naturally Sirius had interrupted her with his classic pun) and that she was, in fact, rather looking forward to going to a party for the first time in a while. James had then asked if she was on drugs, because quite frankly this was one of the nicest things she had ever done for us, and she came very close to whacking him upside the head for even suggesting such a thing. But she never actually denied it, so I still secretly think she does weed. I don’t know about you, but I can most certainly see it.

Now, as you’d expect, I was rather disappointed at Minnie’s suggestion of a near total absence of alcohol, but it hadn’t been long before Sirius, always searching for an excuse to drink to the point where I often wondered if he was addicted, had suggested something quite marvellous: an afterparty. Such a seemingly straightforward idea quickly turned into something so much more. We decided to hold it later on in the night in the Room of Requirement, and only the elite people knew about it and, subsequently, invited. And by ‘elite’, I mean the male specimens I call friends, the females who I love and cherish and a couple of other people. And that was bound to be very much alcohol-fuelled. As long as I had that to look forward to, I could endure a much more age-appropriate evening, just not for too long.

Finally, I reached the platform where the teachers would usually sit during meals, and bear in mind that I had been milking the moment for way longer than necessary, so this did take some time. I cleared my throat for effect before speaking in an impossibly posh voice, “Thank you all for attending my ball this evening. I won’t talk for too long because I would hate to bore you to tears, I’ll leave that job to Professor Binns. Now, Minnie, don’t look at me like that, we all know it’s true. Look, even Dumbledore agrees with me and you can’t argue with Dumbledore. Moving on, I would like to say a couple of things so entertain me for a moment. One, if any of you are caught drinking anything stronger than butterbeer, then I will happily leave you to face the wrath of our dear Minerva on your own, I have no intention of arguing with any teacher tonight.” A few giggles rippled throughout the crowd as well as a few pouty faces from people who were doing a shockingly awful job at hiding mini bottles of firewhiskey behind their backs. It wasn’t my problem, I did say this on the invites I sent out, if they chose to go against that then they would deal with the consequences, not me. I continued, “Two, I hope you all enjoy yourselves tonight and remember, it ends at precisely eleven o’clock, which means don’t hang around. Frank and Alice, I’m looking at you.” The couple in question blushed furiously and Alice gave me a death stare that could rival the one I get from Remus when I gather enough courage to steal some of his chocolate. I then clapped twice to signal the official start of the ball and music began to blast from the speakers I’d linked up to my record player which was enchanted to start playing a record whenever I clapped my hands.

It took a second, but people were soon dancing and mingling and doing whatever else people do at parties. I made a beeline straight for the boys but ignored their greetings, instead, I grabbed two, I wasn’t sure which ones, and, hoping that they were all following if they weren’t being dragged, marched over to the drinks table. I let go of whoever I had been holding to pour myself a much-needed butterbeer, but in a wine glass because I’m classy like that, leaving two boys to rub their arms in pain.

“Bloody hell, Ruth, you could have just asked us to come with you, that really wasn’t necessary,” Remus muttered as he got his own drink.

“Why is your grip that damn strong?” James pouted, whining like the little child that he is.

Sirius just smirked evilly, “I think we all know where she gets her practice with her grip.”

Naturally, I wasn’t going to have that, so I swatted him on the arm as if he was a fly, but then I decided that that just wasn’t enough, so I kicked him in the shin. Not too hard because I was feeling nice for some strange reason, but you get the idea. He then howled suspiciously like a dog, causing us all to give him strange looks that pretty much read dude what the fuck.

Sirius, then desperate to change the subject to literally anything else, went on to ask, “Ruth, are Snivellus and his mates supposed to be here? Because I don’t have a problem with physically throwing them out,” he shrugged.

I sighed, knowing my response wasn’t going to be immensely popular amongst the group. I muttered quietly, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, “I invited them.” As expected, I was met with outcries and protests from the cloud of testosterone surrounding me, such as but they’re such pricks and why would you want to infect your own party with the human equivalent of the goddamn plague, so I was quick to defend myself, “I didn’t want to! It’s just that Lily said that she wouldn’t go if I didn’t at least give Snivellus the option. But then I worried that he’d hang around Lily the whole time, and I wasn’t going to allow that, so I invited a couple of his friends too. I didn’t think they’d actually show up though,” I peered over Peter’s shoulder to observe him talking to Lily, grimacing at his choice of outfit if you could even call that monstrosity an outfit. I’d specified in the invites that you had to wear muggle ballgown-wear and you had to make it yourself using magic. I guess blood supremacists don’t even want to wear muggle-style clothes these days. They really are that shallow and it surprised me how Lily couldn’t see that.

Sirius huffed and made a comment that sounded like it should have come from James’s mouth instead of his, “Fine, but only because Lily is a treasure and I’m also terrified to death of her.” When he was met with blank stares for the second time in five minutes, he blushed furiously, only just clocking what he had just revealed.

I smirked at him, “Since when were you such good friends with my dear Lily?”

It was just a widely accepted fact that the girls weren’t huge fans of the boys, and while those attitudes weren’t reciprocated by the other side, it was practically unheard of for the girls to be anything more than civil with the boys. Well, only if you don’t count Lily and Remus’s strange friendship. I’d often promoted a union of sorts between my two friendship groups, holding out in my firm belief that some epic bonds could be formed if they just tried, but I was usually shot down with objections of but they’re arrogant toe rags. I think that that’s complete and utter bullshit but each to their own, I guess. I just carried on in the hope that one day they’d come round and see how silly they were being.

While James was appearing to have a mental breakdown right there and then, Sirius slowly explained, “Since a couple of weeks ago? I went down to the common room because I couldn’t sleep and I found Lily and she looked quite upset, so I asked her what was wrong, thinking she would just tell me to piss off or something, but she just burst into tears and she told me a lot of stuff that I won’t tell you because I think it’s private. Anyway, long story short, we had a rather profound conversation at two in the morning, followed by a couple of games of chess because neither of us wanted to go back to bed. We’ve had some rather thought-provoking conversations in Charms because we sit next to each other this year. She’s actually really cool.”

I grinned broadly at him, “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you for four whole years!” We then high-fived because why the fuck not. Remus gave us a look of wholehearted betrayal, which is understandable because he had been assisting me in my quest to get them to appreciate Lily properly, so I gave him a high-five too, and so did Sirius. Then Peter and James high-fived for no reason other than they were feeling left out, as they should be. So, we all looked like fucking crackheads already but that was to be expected of us.

“Anyway, just because Sniv is allowed to be here, doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to fight him the second he does something fucked up, right?” Sirius asked.

“You and I both know you’ll fuck him up regardless of whether I allow it or not, so yes, yes you can. In fact, please do.”

***************

By around midnight we were drunk off our asses in the Room of Requirement, the civilisation of the ball long gone. It was total carnage, although you probably worked that one out for yourself, but it wasn’t all bad seeing as my two friend groups don’t try to murder each other every five seconds when under the influence of my lovely friend alcohol. Most of us were sprawled out on various sofas, still in our ball attire, with Hunky Dory playing on my record player at a much lower volume because our drunk asses couldn’t deal with too much noise. I was lying on a sofa with my head in Marlene’s lap and my feet in Dorcas’s while James and Peter shared a sofa. Alice and Frank were, as I had predicted earlier on, making out in some darkened corner, thinking that they were being subtle because no one was gawping at them. In reality, the only reason we all refused to look was because they were being more than a bit gross and no one wanted to see that, to be frank. Pun absolutely intended. Dorcas didn’t drink because of her religion, which meant she was the only sober one in the room, and that meant it was her job to make sure we didn’t get ourselves killed or anything like that. Lily was actually a bit tipsy, but only due to Sirius’s incessant nagging that she was missing out on the finer things in life. I mean there were certainly finer things than knock-off elf wine we smuggled in from Hogsmeade, but Lily didn’t need to know that. Meanwhile, Sirius was stumbling on a table he’d conjured for this exact reason, wearing Marlene’s stiletto heels and ranting about society’s many problems as he usually did when drunk. Tonight’s topic was for discussion was feminism.

“But why is the world like this? We shouldn’t just accept it for how it is! Shouldn’t we try and change it or something?” he slurred, finishing his drink and promptly refilling it with his wand. Several amens could be heard from almost everyone in the room, as is what happened every time Sirius made a point. It was strongly reminiscent of the church service my mum would drag me along to from time to time.

“Sirius, not that I don’t agree with you, but maybe you should get down before you break your neck?” Lily suggested, looking at him in sheer terror.

He just pouted down at her, “I will only get down when the patriarchy falls, and you girls don’t have to live in fear of boys who have the audacity to call themselves men!”

“If a boy comes anywhere near me, I’ll just smack him round the face, I don’t give a shit,” I piped up, swinging my hand around as if I was actually punching someone, and coming very close to actually hitting Marlene in the face.

“That’s alright though because self-defence and shit,” James grinned at me, running over to clink his glass against mine, then running back to his sofa and sitting down as if nothing happened, leaving me confused, to say the least.

“Has anyone seen Remus?” Sirius suddenly changed the subject. When all he got in response was shrugs and confused looks, he started walking up and down the table like it was a catwalk, shouting, “Remus! Remus, where are you, you little shit? Remu-” he suddenly fell straight off of the table but stood up and brushed himself off as if he hadn’t just nearly died, “Reeeeeeemuuuuuuuus!”

“I think he’s with Idania. I don’t know where though,” Peter offered.

Marlene and I gave each other a knowing look and bumped arms, “I think we all know what they’re getting up to,” she raised an eyebrow at me suggestively.

“Ooooooh, Remus you saucy boy,” I snorted, making James cackle so much that he fell off of his chair and also making Lily fake-vomit so much that I was seriously expecting her to actually throw up right there and then.

I think it’s important to update you on the whole Idania-Remus situation. It’s been a tricky one, I won’t lie to you about that. They only started talking again a couple of days ago, making it nearly three weeks of silent treatment from both parties. Even I thought that that was a bit much, and we all know that I can be a dramatic little shit at the best of times. After copious amounts of persuasion from us, way more than would have been necessary if he wasn’t a stubborn bastard, a rather miserable Remus had finally apologised for some things he’d said in the heat of the argument that he hadn’t really meant. He didn’t disclose exactly what he’d said, but I have to be honest, I was just glad that he got over himself and talked to her because it was painful to sit behind them in History of Magic while they were being that damn ridiculous. Not only had he said that he was sorry, but he’d wanted to do something for her to show her how sorry he was. He’d done some research, which meant he’d spent twelve hours straight in the library. James, forever the mother hen of the group, was far from pleased to find out that he’d missed two whole meals, so naturally, that had led to him lecturing poor Remus on the importance of eating properly. He argued that that it doesn’t matter that it’s for love, you need to eat, for Merlin’s sake, which was saying something when you remember how James was a closeted romantic himself. He’d eventually found a spell that was a variant on the translation spells Peter was rather fond of for uncomplicated pranks. Usually with those spells, you speak whatever you mean to say in English, but when it comes out, everyone hears the language you’re cursed to speak. This one, however, worked with sign language; he would say what he wanted to say, and his hands would automatically sign what he’s saying. It didn’t solve everything, he still had to keep studying the language so he could understand Idania, but it was a sure start, and a massive help for the both of them. According to Remus when he’d returned to tell us how it went, she’d been so grateful that she’d almost started crying, though she denied it every time we asked her about it.

While I had been simultaneously amusing and horrifying my friends with mental images of Remus doing unholy things, Sirius had been on a mission to find him, and seemed to have returned triumphant. At some point, he must have left the room even though I had no memory of seeing him leave, as he was now dragging Remus behind him by the hand, who was dragging Idania somewhat gentler. “I found them!” he proclaimed with a stupid grin on his face, in a way similar to how a child would announce such a thing.

“Yeah, no shit Sherlock,” Peter muttered with no actual malice behind his words.

“You’re welcome, Pete,” Sirius bowed but then stumbled forwards, crashing headfirst onto the ground. He didn’t bother getting up, choosing to sit cross-legged on the floor once he got his bearings.

Lily plonked herself down next to him and gazed at him quizzically, “Why are you saying, ‘you’re welcome’, when you’re the one who wanted to know where they were?”

He covered her mouth with his hand to prevent her from speaking, “Shhh, Lily-flower, shhh.”

She scowled at him while Marlene mouthed ‘Lily-flower’ at me in confusion. I just shrugged, desperately trying not to laugh at James who was clearly dying of embarrassment while trying to hide from Lily. We once heard him murmur the nickname in his sleep during our second year, and even though he hasn’t said it since, we refused to let him forget it. Lily must have licked Sirius’s hand or something for he retracted his hand as quickly as he would if he’d had an electric shock, wiping it on his trousers while staring at her in disgust and betrayal. Lily didn’t show an inch of sympathy towards his pain.

“So, what were you two actually doing?” Dorcas asked, directing the conversation back to Idania and Remus.

Idania smirked evilly and looked up at Remus, looking awfully glad that she didn’t have to be the one to explain. I still thought they hooked up finally, but Remus didn’t look nearly as mortified as I imagined he would.

Remus opened his mouth to speak but Lily cut him off, “I can smell weed.”

“How the fuck do you of all people know what weed smells like?” I laughed.

She glared at me in a way that had me quaking in my heels, “Please, you know what Cokeworth’s like, so you can trust me when I say I know what weed smells like.” I had to give it to her, that town wasn’t exactly the poshest in the UK, and I would know seeing as I used to live in the damn place.

We locked eyes for a second, then slowly looked up at Remus and Idania’s slightly guilty but overall chilled-out faces.

Well shit.

Once it clicked in my head as to what they had been doing, I started giggling uncontrollably for a good minute, and everyone else started looking at me really worriedly. I can’t say I blamed them if I’m honest, I did look like something of a lunatic. I quickly put the spell that Remus had found on myself, suddenly feeling really bad that Idania probably didn’t have much of an idea of what had just been said.

“Idania, how dare you corrupt our sweet, innocent Remus?” I laughed, shaking my head like a disapproving parent.

“Excuse you, Remus hasn’t been innocent since before he met us,” James grinned lopsidedly.

“I wasn’t that innocent before I met you,” the boy in question tried to defend himself, only to be met with about seven people saying, ‘you were’.

“Anyway, that’s beside the point. The point is you smoked weed?” I asked incredulously.

“Don’t look at me like that!” he said, “It’s not that big of a deal, no one really cares about that kind of thing these days, well not in the muggle world at least. Live a little, Ruth.”

“That doesn’t make it any less weird that it’s coming from you, mate,” James shook his head.

“But here’s the question nobody else is brave enough to ask, apparently,” Marlene raised a finger and then pointed it at the couple, “Is it nice? And if so, may we have some?”

Most of us, excluding Dorcas and Lily, made some sort of noise of agreement to which Remus just laughed, “Well, it’s Idania’s, not mine, so it’s up to her really…” he trailed off, leaving his girlfriend to make up her mind.

I didn’t actually know much sign language, except for the odd word or phrase I’d picked up (naturally fuck off was on of them), but whatever Idania had signed in response put a devilish smirk on Remus’s face that was all too familiar, “I think that’s a yes, just not too much. Ida doesn’t think you’ll be able to handle it.” The girl in question lightly breathed through her nose, which I’d come to learn was her laugh.

I gaped at her with mock outrage on my face, “I am offended but at least I’ll get to try some, right?”

A couple of blunts went round during the next however long we were high for, while Lily and, to some extent, Dorcas looked on disapprovingly. I think it’s safe to say that the concept of time was non-existent for the rest of the night. I have to say it was one of the most relaxing yet insane experiences I’ve ever had, and it wasn’t long until long after it had worn off did I start to wonder how Idania had access to that kind of thing. She must have been even more of a badass than we first thought.

When I had first started holding parties like these last year, I had made an offer to Dorcas which had involved me making drinks that had no alcohol in them but still had the same effect. She’d been grateful for the suggestion, but she’d pointed out that doing that kind of defeats the whole point of not drinking alcohol in the first place. We’d then settled on making non-alcoholic drinks that still tasted like their alcoholic counterparts but had no effect whatsoever, and we were constantly trying different recipes. Word caught soon after we started, and our non-alcoholic drinks were in almost as high demand as the alcoholic black market I’d created with the boys. They proved to be popular among students who either didn’t want to or weren’t allowed to drink, but didn’t want to miss out on a party or something like that, as well as older students who needed a form of stress relief from their exams, but didn’t want to develop some kind of addiction. I couldn’t blame them, seeing as they used to drink a lot as a really unhealthy coping mechanism. I’d much rather they drink something else, so I was glad to have been of service. As you can imagine, the business really boomed around springtime.

“You know, trying to keep track of you all is like herding a load of cats,” she huffed, taking a sip of her not-quite-firewhiskey.

“Hey, Dorcas,” I mumbled in the most serious voice I could muster, which was quite the feat considering I was both drunk and high at that point. She leaned in to listen, only to hear me say, “Meow.”

Her brows furrowed sceptically, “Meow?”

I nodded, not breaking my composure though I desperately wanted to just dissolve into giggles like a child, “Meow. Because you said we’re cats.”

Dorcas sighed with a resigned look on her face,” Sure, Ari.”

A chorus of meows sounded throughout the room, much to Dorcas’s confusion and exasperation. I could only imagine what it must be like to have to deal with all of us unaided when we were like this.

A/N: By the way, I’m not trying to promote the use of drugs, personally I think things like marijuana should be decriminalised but that’s a story for another day. Just to remind you, this is set in 1975 at the moment, which means that drugs were more common, and more people did things like weed. It makes more sense when you consider the context. Also, they’re only human, shit like this happens.

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thelittlefanpire · 5 years

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Writing Process Tag Game

Answer 10 questions about your writing process, then tag 10 writers whose process you want to know more about. The point of this game is to have fun.

just searching for some fun tag games and I ran across this post from @therska and @writing-is-ruining-my-life on tumblr. thanks for sharing!

1. How do you get your story ideas? How do you know when something is worth writing and when it’s just a fleeting thought or fantasy? Tell us the origin story of one of your past or current WIPs.

How do I not get my story ideas? every movie, tv show, song, book, real life experience, or daydream can be turned into an AU for a fic. the ideas literally never stop coming.

it has been exactly nine years to the day since I published my first fic and I’ve only published a total of 10 fanfics in those 9 years. sooo most things are a fleeting thought. I’ve really gained a lot of inspiration and confidence since joining the 100 fandom so I’m hoping I can start making these dreams a reality.

origin story for my Hocus Pocus AU: Oct 1st I decided I wanted to write a halloween story. Oct 2nd I decided on Hocus Pocus. Bellamy as Max, Octavia as Dani, and Clarke as Alison. and then I found a tweet about these two characters who dressed up as Muggles and then everyone started turning into their Halloween costumes so the guys were kinda sol. And then BAM! I wrote 16.5k words in less than a month.

2. What are your writing tools of choice? Are you picky? Do you have specific brands you like? If you have neuroses in this department, we want to hear about them.

my poems always had to be in a marble composition notebook and were written with a black pen. my stories were always written on my laptop.

now everything’s on my iphone! the notes app for poetry/ideas. Pages App for outlines. Google Docs for the actual story.

3. Where and when do you write? Morning? Dead of night? Your bedroom? The park? Paint us a picture of your usual surroundings when you sit down to write.

I write on my iPhone because I have three kids. I’m ususally jottings down ideas and words as they come to me. As I watch my kids play at the park or in the backyard, when I’m putting them to sleep or their watching Super Wings! But I do most of my writing in the dead of night. The baby still wakes up and takes a bottle once or twice a night so sometimes I’ll feed her and then stay awake writing until the sun rises. #momlife

4. Do you ever encounter writer’s block? If so, how do you overcome it? Any tips to pass on to other writers reading this?

YES. I published my last TwiFic in July 2011 and didn’t write my first BellarkeFic until May 2018. I would start a few stories, get about 4 chapters in and then that was it. Plan a few stories but be too scared to type the first words. I couldn’t finish anything and I was too scared to publish unfinished!

And then one night I stayed up from 2-6am and wrote almost 3k words!

In the time that I’ve had this “writer’s block” I’ve graduated from college, gotten my first big girl jobs, had some bad hookups, got back together and married to my ex, moved out of my parent’s house and out of my home state and across the country, and had two more kids.

Basically I’ve lived some lifetimes. Put some more experiences under my belt. And I found my voice again, refreshed my muse, and started writing 100 fanfic.

Greatest writing I advice I can give is from Ernest Hemingway, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Just write it! Like Nike.

5. Do you outline? If no, why not? If yes, what kind of outlines do you make, and at what point in your writing process do you make them?

My outlines look something like this, ok:

title | brief summary | what type of AU/what kind of story is this | table of contents/idea list / character bios / and then I just write whatever comes out.

lol i mean basically. it’s usually in that order too.

6. When and how do you edit? After the first draft? During? Do you have a method, or is it kind of a free-for-all?

I try to just write at first. then I turn on Grammarly. I reread and reread until I’m sick of it. Read it out loud. Listen, I’m not the best at editing so I’ll be happy to hear everyone else’s methods.

7. Is there anything about your writing process that other people might consider to be unique or weird?

I always have to have a title. And I always have a huge folder of inspiration photos / moodboards on Pinterest. I can get kind of obsessed and won’t start writing until I have those two things covered. lol

8. Do you ever take breaks from writing? For how long do these breaks feel rejuvenating, or do they stress you out? Give us a sense of what life is like when you’re not writing.

Writing for me is a sprint, not a marathon. I don’t write every day. I take breaks between fics. I try to read a lot when I’m not writing. Or I just wait for that inspiration to strike in the middle of the night.

Life when I’m not writing? I look at my writing a lot. Look at my ideas. Read over some dialogue. Look at my Pinterest boards. Think of new ideas.

9. When do you first start writing? Why? What’s changed since then, if anything?

I first started writing poems in High School. 9th and 12th grade English had really big poetry projects. I wrote poems to capture my feelings. 2009 I discovered fanfiction and started writing stories! I can’t say that very much has changed since then.

10. Anything else you want to tell us about your writing process?

I don’t listen to music when I write. I’m more visual so i need the Pinterest boards. I really don’t like people looking at my work until it’s finished, but I love the feedback.

tagging my favs again : @the-most-beautiful-broom @blueshirtbell @eleanor-sheleanor @asroarke @youleftme-clarke @pawprinterfanfic @grumpybell @ponyregrets @bettsfic @anniebibananie (and anyone else! I would love to hear your process, too!)

#tag #tag you’re it #about thelittlefanpire #thelittlefanpire fics #writing process #long post #tlfcelebrates9

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leafsbabe · 6 years

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Nico Hischier imagine - pool party

oh another one of those “request a blurb and get an imagine” things, this took me forever, i’m probably not gonna do that again (i’m still gonna do blurbs and imagines in the future just not this combi)

2.2k words

Nico honestly was surprised it took him nearly a whole season to use his newly earned riches to buy something extremely stupid. The extremely stupid thing being a house. A house that was way too big for one person. Okay maybe it wasn't his first stupid spending considering he basically paid his best friend to live with him but it was honestly the best decision he ever made so it didn't count. When you told him that you had no idea what you were supposed to do after school he had suggested you could just move to America with him and well, that lead to the two of you sharing a small apartment in the city next door to Taylor Hall. Later after you enrolled in college he had insisted that he at least helped you out a bit which lead to tuition being split between him, you, and your parents back home.

Okay, truth be told, Nico loved every second of it. Coming home after a Roadie to see you waiting on the couch with take out and a movie cued up was the best sight in the world. He loved playing house with you and imagining how things would be if the two of you weren't just friends. Now though, playing house had a whole different meaning.

The whole thing went like this: Nico saw the house, Nico bought the house, Nico told you, you yelled at Nico, you told Nico's mom, Nico's mom yelled at Nico, Taylor who heard the yelling coming from your apartment and came over to investigate, Taylor laughed at Nico. A visit to the house and a promise to let you decorate it later you had kinda forgiven Nico for buying the house. Even later, once you actually moved in, you had forgiven him completely. The calm and quiet of the suburbs didn't compare to the city noise. It was so much better. You felt proud and mature and desperately wanted to throw a pool party.

Nico wasn't home for most of the season, always training or having a game and university wasn't as hard as you expected so you had a lot of free time. You used that time to decorate the house and make it a home. Now you wanted to show it off to Nico's friends on the team and the WAGs you had befriended.

When Nico had purchased the house he didn't really pay attention to the big pool in the backyard, too transfixed with the interior to care. Now though, it was summer and you wanted to celebrate the great season had so far. They even made the playoffs although they were kicked out in the second round. The team was a bit down so you decided to throw the party before everybody left for the summer. You wrote invites to the older couples and send text messages to the young guys. You even went so far as to go on Pinterest and search for some hockey inspired snack foods, from which you then prepared enough to feed an entire hockey team plus partners. This was going to be perfect.

When the day rolled around you got ready quickly. You had bought a new bathing suit, a cute two piece in Devil's red, and a matching sundress as a cover. A bit of light make up that wouldn't smudge in the water and you were ready.

Nico had it easier he just wore a shirt and swim shorts.

"Are you ready?" You asked him as he came down the stairs to the decorated living room.

"Yeah. When do the others get here?" He asked back. He hadn't had a haircut in a while and his floppy bangs covered part of his face; he looked really really good.

You just swallow down all thoughts of 'damn' you had gestured him to get closer. "In a bit. Can you help me take a few pictures of the decorations? I want to put them onto my blog."

He took a few of the decorations and you before lowering his phone.

"How do they look?" You asked while walking towards him.

"Absolutely beautiful." He answered, only he was looking at you and not the phone display that showed the pictures.

Soon after your, well Nico's, house was filled with people. Some of the older men on the team had fired up the big outside barbecue grill since no one trusted Nico to do the grilling.

You were sitting by the pool with some of the girls while they're boyfriends and your ... your Nico were swimming in the pool. You had your legs dangling in the water while talking to some of the WAGs.

"What should I title it?"

You had heard that question three times already. You really liked the girls but you had all taken pictures together as a group earlier and now they all wanted to post it.

"I wrote 'Did you know WAGs is actually short for wine and garden parties' and then like three heart emojis and #lovethesegirls." Will Butcher's girlfriend said.

You continued talking about the boys for a while and what it meant to be a WAG before the question turned to the one topic you really didn't want to talk about... how you technically weren't a WAG. When you told them as such you were met with resistance.

"Come on Y/N," Lauren Boyle said, "you support Nico like no other, always come to games and take care of him literally all the time. You definitely qualify to be a significant other aka WAG."

Her small speech made you incredibly emotional. Half because your couldn't help but wish her words would become true but also half because this amazing group of women thought of you as an equal. There were tiny tears pooling in your eyes, threatening to pour out, when Nico swam over and placed his arms over your knees to keep himself balanced.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about." He asked. There were small droplets of water in his hair and really wasn't fair how good he looked.

"Oh nothing." You smiled as you fought the urge to run your fingers through his hair. Ultimately you gave in and did exactly that, which turned out to be a mistake since one of the women behind you thought this was the perfect moment to give you a little shove which not only pushed you into the water but also into Nico's arms.

"Wow."

The two of you were more or less pressed together after he caught you.

"Everything okay?" He asked and you could feel his breath on your skin. You hadn't even realized how close your heads were. You could see the tiny specks of gold in his eyes before you finally tore yourself away.

You quickly stepped back from Nico and put some distance between you. Trying to play it cool you pulled your now soaked dress over your body and threw it onto the group of girls by the pool.

"Can you hang that up to dry please? I'm gonna stay in here for a bit." You asked them before turning back to Nico. "Wanna swim over to the others?"

The two of you made your way over to some guys from the team. They were all really nice and chill so you got along with them as well.

"What were you talking about before joining us. I saw you all laugh." Steve Santini asked you once you were close.

"Oh, nothing special. The girls kept insisting I'm a WAG but I kept telling them that I was neither dating one of you nor am I married so I can't be a WAG." You simply answered.

Both Nico and Brian Boyle were looking at your weirdly but you didn't really pay any attention to that.

"Aw Y/N," Taylor Hall said while he threw an arm around your shoulder and pulled you closer to him. "You know I'd wife you up in a second if Hisch would let me."

This made you laugh and playfully swat his chest. In the time you and Nico lived next door to him you had become good friends with him. Of course he flirted sometimes but that's just his personality and everything between you was purely platonic.

You were just about to reply when a pair of arms wrapped themselves around your middle and pulled you against a muscular chest. Nico hooked his chin over your shoulder, tightened his grip, and glared at Taylor.

"Mine."

The whole group, you included, began to laugh. Nico laughed too but he kept his arms wrapped around you, keeping you close.

This continued on for the entire afternoon and evening. Nico never left your side. He wrapped his arms around you constantly and even made you sit in his lap at one point.

You really liked how cuddly he was but it also made you feel sad since you were sure he only saw you as a friend.

Over the course of the evening both of you kept accepting and drinking several glasses of wine and bottles of beer that were handed to you by those teammates that were already allowed to legally drink in the states. It was a nice throwback to the years before the draft.

Eventually people started to leave until there were only Nico, you, and a passed out Taylor left. Deciding that you could postpone the cleaning until the morning you made your way upstairs to your bedroom and got ready for bed. You had just turned the lights off and slipped under the covers when your bedroom door opened and a dark figure slipped inside.

"Nico?" The soft whisper of your voice sounded in the darkness.

"Yeah, it's me. Sorry if i scared you. Taylor is passed out on my bed and i wanted to ask if i could stay with you tonight." He whispered back.

It wouldn't be the first time that you shared a bed so you just hummed and lifted your duvet a bit for him to slide in beside you. "You better not hog the blankets or I'll kick you out."

You closed your eyes again but you heard the rustling of his clothes as they hit the floor. He climbed into bed beside you and laid down. After a few seconds you slid closer and he put his arm around you, just like he had during the day. His chest was warm against your back and you could feel his breath on your neck.

"Nico?"

He hummed in response but otherwise didn't move.

"Why did you act the way you did earlier? All possessive and stuff." You tried to keep the emotions out of the question. You didn't want it to sound like you liked it or that you wanted him to act like that all the time even though you did.

"I don't..." he huffed in annoyance and tightened the grip he had on you. "They were all looking at you." He said quietly. "They kept staring and i just ... I don't want them to think of you that way."

Almost immediately you turned around to look at him. A thought dawned on you and you had to know if it was true.

"Nico Hischier, are you jealous?"

In the darkness of the room you could only make out his outline but the way his shoulders tensed up was visible even in the low light.

"No! I mean yes? Ugh. It's just ... I ... you mean a lot to me Y/N and I ... I don't want them to look at you that way. Because I should be the only one looking at you that way but even that can't happen because we're friends and I'm not supposed to look at you like that." He turned around and pressed his face into one of the pillows on your bed.

You took a minute to just lay there and think about his words. If Nico really thinks of you that way...

"What if...," you started, "what if I look at you like that too?"

Nico turned his head to look at you before you continued.

"What if you could look at me like that ... because we weren't just friends?"

"Really?" Nico's voice sounded unsure and you wanted nothing more but for him to know that you meant every little word.

"Yeah." You moved closer to him so your faces were nearly touching.

The two of you leaned in at the same time, softly connecting your lips in a sweet kiss.

When you pulled away you could see the smile in Nico's eyes so you quickly turned your back to him and pulled his arm over you so he was spooning you.

"We should talk about this tomorrow. Can you just hold me for now?"

Nico pressed a kiss to your shoulder before pulling you closer. And then so quietly you could barely hear him he whispered...

"Mine."

#nico hischier #nico hischier imagine #hockey imagines #nhl imagines

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freedivetothefuture-remade · 7 years

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reverseskydives · 7 years

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7 Tools for Generating Infinite Content Ideas for Your Blog

Blogging sucks.

Okay that’s a bit extreme. In fact, there’s a lot that I enjoy about blogging—mainly connecting with you guys.

But what does suck is having to constantly come up with new ideas for blog posts.

It’s a grind that can be quite exhausting, especially if you’re simply coming up with ideas off the top of your head.

Research from The Content Marketing Institute found that “57% of B2B marketers say that producing content consistently is their biggest struggle.”

And the struggle is real.

If you’re like me and writing up to eight posts per week while juggling multiple businesses, it can be seriously draining.

So out of pure necessity, I’ve experimented with a plethora of different tools to aid me in the process of generating new content ideas.

Some have been home runs and some have been strikeouts.

But there are seven in particular I really like and want to share with you.

Using one or more of these tools will allow you to generate an infinite number of content ideas for your blog—without having to do any heavy lifting.

1. HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator

This is one of my favorites for generating a handful of ideas quickly. Five to be exact.

I love it because it’s incredibly easy to use.

Literally within seconds, you’ll have five legitimate blog post titles at your fingertips.

All you have to do is enter up to three nouns in the search boxes:

In this case, let’s try “content marketing.” Here’s what happens:

Voila! I instantly get five viable blog topics.

If you want more, click “Try Again,” and it will take you back to the home screen.

From there, you can perform another search using the same keywords, or you can experiment with different keyword options.

I will say that HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator isn’t ideal if you need to come up with dozens of ideas right out of the gate.

But it’s a great starting point.

2. BuzzSumo

You may have heard me mention BuzzSumo before.

I love this tool and have been using it to guide my content marketing efforts for a few years now.

It’s awesome because it does more than just provide you with content ideas. Much more!

It also does the following:

tells you the number of shares and social engagements content receives

identifies key sharers

displays backlinks

shows you top trending content

In other words, you can quickly tell how well content is performing and what’s resonating the most with readers.

This information is helpful because it lets you know which angles to take with your blog and makes it easier to strike while the iron is hot when topics are peaking.

Here’s what happens when I search for “content marketing” on BuzzSumo:

Notice that it provides me with an in-depth glimpse of the content that’s crushing it at the moment.

More specifically, I can see the number of:

Facebook engagements

LinkedIn shares

Twitter shares

Pinterest shares

Google+ shares

Links

Total shares

If you look to the right of this info, you’ll notice two more features: “View backlinks” and “View sharers.”

Both add a whole new dimension to the content prospecting process.

But let me give you a heads up.

The free version is fairly limited and won’t necessarily show you the big picture. You also can’t take advantage of all the features.

That’s why I recommend using the Pro version if you’ve got the budget.

As of early 2017, it costs $79 per month.

I know this may seem steep to some marketers, but it’s a worthwhile investment in my opinion.

3. Alltop

This is basically a news aggregator that lets you know what’s happening online.

Alltop runs the gamut in terms of topics and covers everything from science and religion to photography and fashion. It’s all there.

Here’s what you see when you first land on the Alltop homepage:

It’s basically a hodgepodge of different content.

Skimming through the homepage may help you generate some ideas, depending on your niche.

But what I recommend is searching for a specific topic in the search box.

Here’s just a fraction of what I get when I search for “content marketing:”

Alltop displays five posts from relevant blogs, and you can simply browse through the list for ideas.

Or you can take it one step further and click on a specific blog and scan it individually.

I’ve found this to be helpful, and you can potentially find some epic new resources you haven’t been aware of before.

The bottom line is that you can usually come up with a ton of ideas in a short period of time.

You can also get a feel for overarching trends to gauge what’s popular at the moment.

4. UberSuggest

Using this tool is simple.

Enter a keyword, and UberSuggest will supply you with dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of phrases that include your keyword.

Here’s a screenshot of what popped up when I used “content marketing” as a keyword:

It’s kind of like the Google Keyword Planner but more streamlined.

UberSuggest won’t provide you with info such as search volume, competition, etc., but it’s perfect for coming up with content ideas for your blog quickly.

Another cool feature is “Expand this keyword,” which you’ll see after clicking on a particular keyword.

Here’s what happens when I expand “content marketing strategy.”

Notice that it’s a more comprehensive list of keyword phrases based on “content marketing strategy.”

Pretty cool.

In theory, you can use one simple keyword to generate thousands of content ideas with UberSuggest.

5. Google Trends

I’m sure you’re at least somewhat familiar with Google Trends.

I use it for several marketing purposes, mainly to perform market research and determine interest in a particular topic.

But did you know that Google Trends can be used for generating content ideas as well?

It’s true.

Now let me say that this isn’t nearly as comprehensive as the previous tools I listed, but it definitely serves a purpose. Three to be exact.

Again, let’s use “content marketing” as an example.

First, you can browse through “Related topics” to see what’s popular.

This can help you identify other influential resources you may want to check out, which can potentially give you additional ideas.

Second, you can scan through “Related queries” to see which search queries are most popular on Google at the moment:

Third, you can use Google Trends to determine whether a topic is trending up or down.

Here’s what the interest in content marketing looks like at the moment:

When you put it all together, Google Trends can be quite handy for generating ideas.

6. Portent’s Content Idea Generator

If you’re looking for a super quick way to come up with a click-worthy blog title, look no further than this tool.

While it’s by no means as robust as, say, BuzzSumo, it works great for generating a title that your audience will eat up.

Here’s an example:

For more ideas, click the refresh button.

I like Portent’s Content Idea Generator because it’s an easy way to come up with cool and catchy titles.

It’s particularly good if you’re looking for a dash of humor.

7. Content Row’s Link Bait Title Generator

So here’s the deal with link bait.

It can potentially be detrimental to your marketing campaign.

I mean it may drive some initial traffic to your blog, but you’re likely to have a high bounce rate and a minimal number of return visitors if your content doesn’t actually measure up.

For that reason, I don’t recommend using titles purely intended for link bait without actually having high quality content.

That being said, Content Row’s Link Bait Title Generator is still a pretty awesome little tool to have.

The concept is simple. You enter a subject, and a handful of relevant link bait title ideas will appear.

Here’s what pops up when I enter “content marketing.”

Not too shabby.

This isn’t to say you’ll want to use every single idea this tool suggests, but you can definitely use it to streamline your brainstorming.

Most of the time, you can come up with some pretty catchy titles that will bring in considerable traffic.

Just make sure your content hits its mark.

Conclusion

I think we can all agree that coming up with fresh content ideas is a pain at times.

If you’ve been blogging for over a year, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

But fortunately, you don’t have to sit around brainstorming on your own, trying to come up with new ideas from scratch.

There are numerous tools available (many of which are free) that will assist you with this process and enable you to come up with pretty darn good ideas.

In fact, it’s tools like these that have enabled me to make continual progress and establish the audience that I have.

If you’re a serious blogger, I suggest at least checking out each of these seven tools and doing a little experimenting.

This should make it much easier to populate your blog with killer content without driving yourself crazy in the process.

Can you suggest any other tools for generating content ideas?

from Social Media Marketing http://ift.tt/2lhG7ad via Social Media Marketing

#Social Media Marketing

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lilyevane · 7 years

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hey can you give us some tips on how to get followers on a blog??? i mean if you like are a new tumblr and you want to make your blog look aesthetic or somethin thank u

alright so idk if this is to do with the sleepover sunday thing but i will do it anyway so-

you need to first have:-

A GOOD URL

it is really important that you have a url to do with your fandom !! i mean, your url is the first thing people see, and if your url has nothing to do with absolutely anything, then people might get put off !! try to make it do with any of the main fandoms that you are in, and avoid using numbers, dashes or making it really long. stick to short, concise urls, and try to be creative by adding/replacing letters to a name/object/smth in your fandom to get a url that isn’t taken !!!

A GOOD MOBILE THEME

next up, your mobile theme is the NEXT thing people see. it’s important that you make it clean, pretty and just aesthetic in general. the way you’d probably do this is getting a pretty header (you can find nice pictures off pinterest) and then change the colour of your background to a colour that is quite prominent in your header (if ygm) so if you would have a look at my mobile theme, the background is the same colour as the header, which is black !! use a nice title, for eg. you can use a short quote from any of your fandoms, or you can search up latin words or short phrases/quotes which inspire you !! for your description, put something short about yourself, for eg. ‘liyah / uk / jily aficionado’ or anything else you want to put !! just try to stick to a short/average length — try not to make it so long that you have to click on the little extendable arrow to see the full thing — it’s nice to just see everything all at once (sorry if you don’t get me i literally don’t know how to explain) also, try to get a nice icon !! there are so many different icons you can choose — to make your icon look aesthetic on your mobile theme, try and make the background of that icon the same as your header, or a contrasting colour to it !! also, you can choose an icon of something from your fandom (which is the simplest option) or a misc one !! hmu if you need help in looking for good icons, though !!

A GOOD DESKTOP THEME

ok i CANNOT stress this enough — you need to have a nice desktop theme !! people tend to go for minimalistic versions a lot these days — check out theme-hunter, which is a website hosting many different themes and pages !! try to look for a theme which looks spacious, simple and not very cluttered. also, it’s important you keep an about page (for your followers to get to know you more) for your askbox to be open (your followers can’t send you messages if it isn’t — open the anon feature too — it’s always fun getting anonymous messages!!) to have a navigation page (tag all of your posts with specific things, and then keep a page which has a log of all your tags — this keeps your blog nice and organised + also do not look at mine for this as i have been lazy and not made a navigation page for MONTHS sorry) and keep a tag for your original content (people can see what you create easily) and this is optional, but a blogroll would be a rad idea (just so you can showcase which blogs you follow and all) — keep your background WHITE (hex code would be #ffffff). do NOT keep it something colourful or something really vivid and neon that repeats itself across the page because it makes your theme look cluttered and overall just ruins the neatness !! (you can find all of these pages etc. and resources on theme-hunter !!)

GOOD POSTS

if you say you are multifandom, be varied in what you post (choosing from different fandoms). if you say that you are 100% harry potter, post mostly harry potter !! if people see you’re not doing what you said you would on the tin, then it’s most likely they wouldn’t be interested !! tip: reblog aesthetic things !! find some photography and aesthetics on tumblr and reblog it — it just makes your blog really nice, in my opinion !! also, have a neat tagging system, so that it matches to your navigation page nicely. :)

MAKE ORIGINAL CONTENT

make something original !! if you’ve never tried it before, try it !! it doesn’t matter if you think it won’t look nice — practice makes perfect !! i will NEVER admit my editing skills are good, but i WILL admit that i have improved a lot since i started tumblr !! try different things and see what applies to you most — it could be writing, editing, drawing or anything else !! it is more likely people will follow you if they see you post your own stuff !!

BE FRIENDLY

i think this should be my last tip but PLEASE BE FRIENDLY. be an approachable person, make a post and tag all of your favourite blogs and get to know them !! send asks to them asking about how their day was and participate in networks, competitions etc. try and SOCIALISE — that’s the only way you will get to know people !! ask your fave blogs to shoutout you or smth — you can ALWAYS ask me and i will give you a shoutout !! also, try and enter blogrates that other blogs do, which is where they rate your blog !! trust me, once you’ve made friends on tumblr, your time here will be WAY better compared to when you didn’t talk to anyone !!

AND THAT’S it ( i think)

you have a potential to do anything and i’m sure your tumblr will be GREAT !! feel free tohmu if you have any questions + also this has got into a really long essay i am SORRY i just really want to help people who think their blog isn’t good enough or smth xxx feel free for anyone really to hmu if they want to know more i find giving these kinds of tutorials really fun hehe

it’s sleepover saturday sunday

#answered #liyah helps #sleepover sunday #anonymous #i literally had to add a cut lmao

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makingscipub · 5 years

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Epi-pins: Epigenetics on Pinterest

This post has been co-authored with Cath Ennis, University of British Colombia, Vancouver (author of Epigenetics: A Graphic Guide).

***

Cath and I are interested in how epigenetics is made public, for example through visual aids, such as drawings, photos, diagrams, infographics and so on. We thought one way to access such visuals would be by looking at Pinterest, an image-based social media network; but, as you’ll see below, looking at Pinterest actually brought us back to words rather than images.

Epigenetics has a long history and is still evolving, but it is safe to say that “[r]esearch in epigenetics today is primarily concerned with the investigation of changes in gene expression, where the mechanism for this is something other than a change to the underlying DNA. The focus of research is on the dynamics of chemical modification upon the DNA, which enhance, decrease, initiate or silence gene expression.” (Pickersgill et al., 2013)

Epigenetics in its current form, as part of molecular biology, began to flourish in the scientific literature after 2003 (the end of the Human Genome Project) and has been popularised through at least four main channels of communication:

Through the work of celebrity scientists or epigenetic champions who give TED talks, appear on YouTube videos, write comment and opinion pieces, and become go-to experts for journalists and film-makers.

Through the dissemination of epigenetic stories by journalists and science writers.

Through targeted campaigns by advertisers promoting (mostly unproven) alternative health and well-being products using traditional and social media.

Through the labour of academic bloggers, podcasters and tweeters (some them prominent scientists), almost all of whom are quite sceptical of some of the claims being made about epigenetics in the popular sphere.

Some of these efforts leave traces on Pinterest if they include images.

We searched Pinterest using the term “epigenetics” (on 18 August 2019 at 15.30 GMT [when we looked an hour later, things had changed]). (There are also ‘boards‘ or collections where individuals choose and collect pins dealing with epigenetics, which would deserve a separate analysis).

There was not only a wealth of images on display, but also a banner above the images showing the main themes, presumably found by an algorithm. We could have jumped straight to epigenetics-related content on the theme of, say, stress or trauma or diet or even art.

Screenshot taken on 22 August 2019

We decided to look more closely at the first 20 ‘pins’ (more about pinning and pins here). What surprised us was that many of them didn’t contain visuals but rather words.

The following ‘analysis’ is just a rough sketch. This is not a systematic study of epigenetics on Pinterest, using, for example, visual content analysis (see Conclusion below for some examples). We selected the first twenty pins (which now have changed substantially, so make of that what you will) and sorted them into three categories: university outreach, science/news communication, and alternative health promotion and pseudoscience.

We have a hunch that a very similar pattern of dissemination can be found on Twitter, but we haven’t looked at this closely yet.

University outreach

The first pin we saw (on 18 August) displayed an educational poster on “What is Epigenetics?” with relation to child development, produced by the University of Harvard’s Centre for the Developing Child. Another poster “adapted from” this one was displayed in another pin using similar words but ‘cuter’ pictures of children, not the more abstract representations used by the Harvard original.

Both posters talk about how “Epigenetics explains how early experiences can have lifelong impact” (both positive and negative ones) and that “[y]oung brains are particularly sensitive to epigenetic changes”. They point out that through epigenetics the environment affects gene expression, which means that “the old idea that genes are ‘set in stone’ has been disproven” (they don’t point to a source for this ‘old idea’ though). Experiences can, they say, “leave a unique epigenetic ‘signature’ on genes”… These changes can, the posters claim, be reversed, but the best thing is to reduce stress ”from the beginning” and bring up children in a nurturing environment.

Science/news communication

One pin links back to a neuroscience news item on daytime sleepiness. Another pin refers to a popular science book on epigenetics, showing its cover. This is The Epigenetic Revolution (2011) by Nessa Carey.

A pinned YouTube video tries to provide an answer to the question “What is epigenetics?”. It’s by Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna and has gathered almost a million views. Carlos is a researcher at Linköping University looking at links between epigenetics and society, including autism. The video should be analysed together with other popular videos about epigenetics.

Another pin displays a sciencey-looking diagram entitled “Genetics vs Epigenetics” which was used in a popular article published in 2013 in Discover Magazine and entitled “Grandma’s Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes”. The article begins by saying: “Your ancestors’ lousy childhoods or excellent adventures might change your personality, bequeathing anxiety or resilience by altering the epigenetic expressions of genes in the brain”. This was one of several articles dissected and found wanting by Kevin Mitchell in his 2018 blog post on Wiring the Brain entitled: “Grandma’s trauma – a critical appraisal of the evidence for transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans”. We’ll come back to this topic in the next section/category.

Alternative health and pseudoscience

The rest of the twenty pins link to rather less reputable sources, mainly websites (two from Instagram) selling ways to enhance body and mind through changes in nutrition and lifestyle, through meditation, detoxification and so on. As an aside: If you follow the pins recommended underneath these pins you get into quantum physics, quantum consciousness, astrology and, we kid you not, ‘star shit’, an image saved to a board titled “Brainiac facts” along with the note “Human body ingredients. Everything, every element that exists, everything we are composed of was created in the death of a star. We are literally made of star stuff”.

Many of the pins in our alternative health and pseudoscience category display stock visuals of the double helix, mostly in blue, but many more depict what one may call inspirational texts, such as:

“Epigenetics: Science is proving that our bodies (sic) ability to heal and repair itself is greatly effected (sic) by our beliefs thoughts emotions and intentions for they have a profound vibrational effect upon our continually evolving genetic code We’re the programmers of the code DNA activation is our software upgrade.” [no punctuation] These words appear against a dark background and underneath readers can see a hand touching and lighting up a piece of a double helix.

Another pin from the Mindful Design Feng Shui School says: “90% of what happens to you – including how your genes get expressed – is determined by your environment. This is the science of epigenetics. And the most important part of that environment is created by your beliefs, most of which you are not consciously aware.”

One pin is a combination of words and visuals, in this case drawings of a bicycle, a man and a woman, healthy fruit and veg, etc. The words say: “Your gene expression can change based on what you eat, how you move, your thoughts, feelings and social connections.” (After reading things like this, it’s always good to go back and read Kevin Mitchell’s blog post)

If you want to be more ‘out there’, you can look at a pin saying “Epigenetics is catching up to what Yogis have always known”, illustrated again with a double helix. The article itself talks about the Holy Grail, the Da Vinci Code etc. and says: “The Holy Grail, or the sacred chalice, is blood that holds high vibrational DNA.” And: “Science is now proving that DNA can be altered and programmed through a field called behavioral epigenetics. We are no longer victims of the past, but creators of our destiny. Epigenetics has proven what Yogis have always known: that your thoughts, beliefs, emotions, environment, and diet can change your life.”

A pin showing an image of a woman’s head and the words “How your mind can reprogramme your genes” leads to an article saying: “You are the ‘driver’ of your genetic roadmap. And not only your roadmap, but the thoughts and emotions you feel, the foods you eat, and how well you detoxify also pass down 3 generations!” An interesting verbal image or metaphor.

Underneath this article are two intriguing comments. One says: “Epigenetics explains naturopathy, prayers, good intentions, karmic law and even reincarnation of physical self in scientific way.” The other asks: “Hello, can this help with Huntingtins Desease [sic]?” This shows just how dangerous such hype can be!

Some pins link up with the work of Bruce Lipton who wrote a book entitled The Biology of Belief – Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter & Miracles (2005), stressing the power of thoughts and beliefs and the way we can harness them to improve our health.

Many pins include promises about the power of epigenetics to change people’s genes. One pin relating to nutrition, again referencing Lipton, claims that “Genes are equivalent to blueprints; epigenetics is the contractor. They change the assembly, the structure.” Another novel metaphor. Another pin goes further and says: “’It’s in my genes, I can’t do anything about it.’ BULLSHIT. The field of epigenetics, led by Bruce Lipton (sic!), is proving that genes are not the end all be all of your health. What is more affective (sic) on your body is your beliefs, thoughts and feelings.”

Lipton is, according to Wikipedia, “an American developmental biologist who supported the theory that gene expression could be influenced (via epigenetics) by environmental factors i.e. environmental factors have a greater impact on their health than genetic research has previously determined”. The wiki article also stresses that his work remains on the sidelines of mainstream epigenetics – although he is widely cited as an authority on other social media platforms such as Twitter, often in support of pseudoscientific claims about alternative health products and services.

Another pin, related to an article on epigenetics and autism, is a PowerPoint slide with a double helix on the left-hand side and various bullet points, one of which claims “Can be transgenerational”, a rather contested assumption when it comes to humans.

Finally, a pin, linked to what one may call spiritual wellness, talks about epigenetics as “healing generational memory and inherited family trauma”. Another displays the title: “Epigenetics: The weird science behind inherited experience”, referring to “Holocaust survivors passing on certain behavioural traits to their offspring”, tapping into the fascination with transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and trauma, a topic of which scientific bloggers are greatly sceptical.

Conclusion

What can we learn from this quick survey?

We tried to study visuals used to make epigenetics public. What we found was that words seem to trump visuals and that the visuals used were mostly conventional stock images of the double helix. These science-symbolising images were even used in combination with the weirdest claims, perhaps in an attempt to lend scientific authority to unscientific content.

Epigenetics is portrayed as a way to escape the power of genes and (the strawman of) genetic determinism (blueprint, set in stone, blank slate, programme). Epigenetics, we are told, overcomes these barriers through diet and exercise but, more importantly, the power of the mind, thoughts and beliefs.

Epigenetics is linked to trauma and ‘the ghost of generational memory’. An article pinned up on Pinterest refers to a 2016 book by Mark Wolynn entitled It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle. (The cover of this book also features a double helix as part of its design). The article also says that “Slaves in the 1800s and before left a heavy generational footprint in the DNA of their descendants”. Trauma in all is forms resonates with many popularisers of epigenetics.

The majority of pins link to articles or blog posts or book about epigenetics that are steeped in pseudoscience. The pseudoscientific pins we looked at are only the very tip of a large iceberg that has been growing for a decade. In 2015 Adam Rutherford, said (first on Twitter, then in print): “The legion purveyors of flapdoodle love a real but tricky scientific concept that they can bolt their pernicious quackery on to. […] Epigenetics is a real and important part of biology, but due to predictable quackery, it is threatening to become the new quantum.” (The Guardian, 19 July 2015). This is no longer a mere threat it seems!

Some of the researchers who have published Pinterest content analyses have concluded that aspects of the platform’s content related to public health topics can be actively harmful, for instance in the cases of vaccination, electronic cigarette and waterpipe smoking, skin tanning, and weight loss.

While scientifically inaccurate pins about epigenetics seem likely to have less direct and less serious impacts, they do have the potential to spread misinformation and false hope, and may contribute to the rejection of conventional medicine approaches. This first dip into the Pinterest pool highlights the need for a deeper dive, to understand the opportunities for dissemination of accurate scientific information to wider audiences as well as the potential harms of users sharing pseudoscience and other inaccurate content about epigenetics.

Image: Pixabay

The post Epi-pins: Epigenetics on Pinterest appeared first on Making Science Public.

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drink-n-watch · 5 years

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Genre : Supernatural, drama, thriller, horror, psychological, romance

Length: 2h 1 minute

Studio: ufotable

This is the story of a girl with a dream that was unbearably beautiful. A dream so bright that it blinded her and so pretty that it hurt. A dream that made her so happy that she was frightened and tried to kill it. And when she found that she couldn’t, she was lost. This is also the story of two boys with the same impossible dreams. One boy is calm and strong. He holds his impossible dream close to his heart, refusing to give up, and walks a world bathed in light with quiet dignity. He knows the sacrifices he will have to make for his dream. One boy is tense and feeble. He sees no other option but to lash out at a dream beyond his reach and crumbles under the weight of disappointment. He walks in shadows letting his fragility destroy everything in his path. He’s too scared of sacrifice so he turns to slaughter. This is a story of how dreams can be ruthless and tender at the same time.

You know what, for contrast, let’s see how MAL describes this movie: In February 1999, a string of murders has Shiki Ryougi and Mikiya Kokutou on edge. These crimes share a disturbing resemblance to a similar set of homicides from 1995, when Shiki and Mikiya first met, and awaken a dark, murderous desire that has laid dormant within Shiki’s soul ever since then.

With Shiki under suspicion due to her involvement in the past killings and supposed resemblance to the killer, she and Mikiya set out to find the true perpetrator. In the midst of their separate investigations, Mikiya grows increasingly concerned with Shiki’s well-being and hurries to find the one responsible in order to protect Shiki from her own impulses. With the lead he receives from his cousin, police investigator Daisuke Akimi, Mikiya is led into the underbelly of Mifune City, as the salvation of Shiki’s soul lies in his determination to prove her innocence once and for all. My Anime List

I’m going to say, MAL’s description is better. Certainly, more helpful. Call me crazy though, but I think mine is more accurate. Let me explain:

when you forget to take your contacts out before bed

I was certainly looking forward to this movie. Of the 7 the Garden of Sinners movies I have seen so far, Chapter 2 (the first half of the present story), and the two movies leading up to this one, have been my favourites. The bar was set fairly high.

If you’ve read my previous reviews, you know that I am enamoured with the production of these movies. Not so much the technical mastery, although the studio is quite proficient, but the way that the production elements are weaved into the narrative to enhance and even add to the story in nontraditional ways.

Even though the story itself is often a stark and brutal story filled with pain and angst, it is delivered to us in creative and even playful ways that remain interesting even when they don’t work out quite as planned. What’s more, every movie innovates on this and tries out new things. This aspect of the production has earned my respect for the studio and I will be on the lookout for their future projects. (Yes, I am watching Demon Slayer).

god job U F O table

In the Garden of Sinners Chapter 7 ……not nothing heart. (Murder Speculation Part B) (this title is gonna pad out, my word count!) the director started playing with camera angles, rather than framing or colours to set the mood, especially on Mikiya. As a fairly impassive and calm character, his emotions can’t be properly conveyed through dialogue alone so the camera pans out above making him seem small and showing us how scared or helpless he may feel in a situation or shifts slightly below to emphasize his resolve. It goes left and right visually communicating his uncertainty. The effect is subtler than in past movies but works well on a visceral level.

To go with the figurative themes of light and darkness that play out through the story, there is also very literal use of shadows. Not only is the movie just plain dark for a lot of the runtime, but character movement is also frequently shown through their shadows or throw the shadows that pass over them.

I also realized for the first time that Shiki may be colour coded. Throughout the movies, Shiki wears a blue kimono which she very occasionally accessorizes with a red moto jacket, except for events that happen before the murders of 1995. We know that when she was younger, she used to wear both her traditional blue kimono as well as a striking red one. She even had a yellow one which she wore on a single particular occasion. I could be wrong, but I think Shiki wears a blue kimono while SHIKI wears the red one. The jacket is a way for Shiki to remember her “lost brother” and she wears it on occasions when she needs to channel that part of herself. As for the yellow, it’s in the one scene when SHIKI and Mikiya connect on a friendly basis with Shiki in the background.

This last paragraph got really confusing, didn’t it? That’s ok, it’s on par with the rest of the movie.

this is going to get complicated

If you were to strip all the artifice away from the movie and simply explain it as a string of events, you would realize that it’s a little shallow. Technically, it’s more or less a crime thriller with a drug subplot that simply not developed enough to be interesting. The motivations of the antagonist are flimsy, and the mystery is not set up well enough to be intriguing and solved too easily to be satisfying. On a text level, it’s kind of subpar. And this is more or less true for a lot of the Garden of Sinners movies.

That’s because the real story is all in subtext. The big topics that go through the franchise were always identity, r the search and acceptance for one’s true nature and how you can reconcile with yourself in order to live with others. And this is essentially the culmination of Shiki’s great existential quest. In Rio, she’s finally forced to face herself (in more ways than one, this is not what I meant when I said the best enemy for Shiki is herself…) and decide who she wants to be. I have to admit, this movie didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Not that I really knew what those expectations were but somehow I wanted it to be something else.

For one, it was too long. When my mind starts to seriously wander during the bloody climax, that’s just not a good sign. All and all, a good half hour could have been trimmed off this movie. Second, this may just be my personal bias, but the strong romantic b plot was fairly uninteresting. Although both characters are pleasant and it’s easy to root for their relationship, it was presented in such a repetitive way that I got over it by the midpoint. In a way, it felt like the sprawling tale of deep existential angst that took seven movies to unfold, was trying so hard to become a gritty modern epic that it lost track of itself a bit and simply couldn’t find a way to properly wrap up.

shush you, it’s mostly your fault

SPOILERS – SPOILERS BIG SPOILERS AHEAD

I’m not sure if this was as intended (it felt like a reshoot to me), but the Garden of Sinners Chapter 7 ……not nothing heart. (Murder Speculation Part B) couldn’t stick the bummer ending. Instead, we got a borderline Deus ex machina everyone we like is ok ending with an abrupt tonal shift towards Disney level happily ever after and the end of the credits. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but somehow failed to properly med with the lead-up and ended up feeling like a bit of a cop-out to me.

END OF THE SPOILERS _ EVERYTHING IS OK NOW

This said there was still a lot to enjoy but it was by no means my favourite movie and had I seen it first, I may not have watched the rest. There were a couple of fantastic lines of dialogue though. At one point Touko has a speech about the Dignity of Murder as opposed to the Debasement of Slaughter which I enjoyed a lot. Also, Mikiya says this to Shiki over the phone: (I’m roughly paraphrasing here) “People like different things, you just happen to like murder…” Great conversation starter!

no the Garden of Sinners pst is complete without Touko

Favorite character: Still Touko. We see her young in a picture again. Rrrrawwwrrr

What this anime taught me: Shiki is still in school???!!!??? How????

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.

Suggested drink: Happy Ending

Every time we see a newscast – take a sip

Every time anything is falling from the sky – take a sip

Every time we see an answering machine… wait, you guys probably don’t know what that is. OK, so before voicemail there were these machines with tapes….ok so tapes were….

Every time a megane is not wearing their glasses – take a sip

Every time we see drugs – get some munchies

Every time we see a blood splatter – get some water

Every time anyone gets stabby staby – take a sip

I’m doing an informal survey, I’m going to ask in a few posts, do you enjoy a large number of screencaps? If so, do you prefer them on the post or on another site and is Pinterest better than Imgur? This time I’m going to do as usual an put a few here and the rest on the other two sites.

The Garden of Sinners Chapter 7 ……not nothing heart. (Murder Speculation Part B) Genre : Supernatural, drama, thriller, horror, psychological, romance Length: 2h 1 minute Studio: ufotable This is the story of a girl with a dream that was unbearably beautiful.

#action #anime #blonde bishie #Garden of Sinners #Horror #Mystery #romance #supernatural

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minnievirizarry · 6 years

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The complete guide to creating a Black Friday social media strategy

Black Friday is around the corner. Brands are gearing up for the infamous day that they’ll go from operating in the red to black (if you didn’t know—that’s how the day got its name). Since its inception, social media has played a significant role in Black Friday advertising. In this post, we’ll explore how you can win this year with a killer Black Friday social media strategy.

Plan ahead

This year alone, 51% of retailers plan to spend the same amount on their ad spend, while 48% plan to increase their spend. In fact, digital ad spend is expected to exceed 23 billion dollars this year from Black Friday to Cyber Monday.

First thing’s first, you need to plan ahead. Now is the time to get your creative in order, take stock of what’s been successful for you this year (metrics-wise), and think about how you’re going to stand out in a swarm of other Black Friday ads.

Encourage opt-ins and new followers

You can get going now with your strategy by engaging with new potential followers and email subscribers. You might use an early-bird special to entice users to follow a social account, or to opt in to your email newsletter for a special sale that will be sent out on Black Friday.

A/B test different creative strategies

Another advantage to preparing your Black Friday strategies early is that you can A/B test your different creative options. Maybe you decide to create a video ad and a version of the ad with just copy and a picture.

You can run both and see which performs best. That way, when it comes time to ramp up ad-spend, you’re going with the creative that’ll bring the most ROI.

Prepare your profiles

One of the first things you need to do is get your profiles ready to convert viewers and followers into buyers and evangelists.

People will notice your profile photos (both headers and profile pics) first. So, take advantage of that by creating an image that creates urgency around your Black Friday plans.

You should add links in your profile bios (Instagram, Twitter) or in the about sections (Facebook, LinkedIn) to your Black Friday promos.

Another thing you should do is make sure all of the links in your profiles that go to your sales pages, promos, etc. are in working order. You don’t want people clicking over from your social profiles to hit error pages.

You can pin a Tweet, Facebook post, and Pinterest post to the top of your profile. Make this pin the best promotion you’re running.

Use social automation

To get the most out of the holiday season, you’ll need to have plenty of content scheduled to keep your followers engaged.

A sure-fire strategy for increasing engagement is to use a social automation tool, like Sprout. Not only can you schedule ample posts ahead of time, but you’ll also be able to:

Post at the best time of day

Track the performance of different post types (i.e. Does video perform better than a blog post?)

Post to all of your social networks so you don’t miss customers on any channel

Optimize based on metrics and analytics

Create different promotions for different audience types

If you serve one specific, hyper-niche audience, then skip down to the next section. But, if you have several Facebook Audience types or if you have segmented email marketing lists—you should create different Black Friday social promotions for those market segments.

For example, my good friend runs a gender-neutral barber salon. She runs two different Black Friday specials—one for long hair, another for short hair. She could also segment her campaigns according to shop location (i.e. Bushwick vs. East Village in NYC).

Stand out from the rest

One of the trickiest parts of a successful Black Friday social media strategy will be for your brand to stand out in the sea of other brands clambering for buyer attention. Facebook alone saw a 17% increase in ad spend during the last Black Friday season.

Let’s take a look at some examples of brands standing out and crushing their Black Friday social goals.

1. R.E.I.

R.E.I. (Recreational Equipment Inc.) is an outdoors and sporting goods retailer. Their brand is all about encouraging folks to get outside and enjoy the outdoors.

For their 2017 Black Friday campaign, they went against the grain and encouraged people to opt-out of Black Friday, and instead, head outdoors. This campaign wasn’t designed to drive Black Friday sales, but instead, to drive sales year-round by increasing brand awareness.

Their posts had a branded hashtag and content like this:

What’s great about this post?

They’re using a branded hashtag, which encourages their followers to share posts with the same tag—thereby increasing brand visibility and likely increasing Black Friday sales.

They’re driving traffic to a Huffington Post article about the campaign. This is great because it builds authority and trust (since they’re so prominent that HuffPost is writing about them). Plus, it seems less like an ad and more like sharing a proud moment for the company.

The featured text in the post is excellent and statistic-rich. Look at that line, “our kids spend less time outdoors than prison inmates.” Adding a bit of shock and wow factor into the text never hurts a campaign.

2. Patagonia

Patagonia, another outdoor’s brand crushed their goals last Black Friday by going against the norm as well. Patagonia decided to give 100% of their Black Friday earnings to environmental causes. They ended up doing $10MM in sales with this campaign:

What’s great about this post?

Supporting a cause is one of the best things you can do to build trust with your follower base – particularly with millennials as 90% of them prefer brands that support causes vs. brands that don’t.

Text on an image is a great way to capture viewers as they scroll and swipe. When you see this ad, you can read it in less than a second or two.

Again, they’re using a popular hashtag #LoveOurPlanet which increases viewership and drives engagement. Try using RiteTag to find great hashtags for your brand or industry.

3. Chubbies

Chubbies sells loungewear and shorts for men. Their ethos is one of humor, as you can see from this screenshot of their homepage:

As you can probably guess, for Black Friday, they went with humor. They launched a series of ads along with hourly giveaways:

What’s great about this ad?

Humor works. This ad grabs attention right away with two guys sitting in their underwear in the middle of what appears to be a bar.

The ad is a video. Video has grown immensely in popularity, especially with ads. It’s a great way to grab a user’s attention as the video starts to play when a user scrolls past it.

They’re using a custom domain for the giveaway. This is a great idea for several reasons. First, they’re directing traffic (likely high amounts of traffic) to a new site, thereby avoiding a crash of their current site. Next, they’ve branded that domain, and it’s an easy title to remember. When users search that title, their domain will be the first search result.

4. Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity is a party game where players fill-in-the-blank with playing cards. The statements the cards create are politically incorrect, offensive, vulgar, or all three. For Black Friday, they decided to play on their sarcastic and politically incorrect style by increasing their prices:

Why does this campaign work?

• It’s true to their brand—sarcastic, crude, vain—and customers thought it was hilarious because they shared it tons of times on social channels and it was the top post on Reddit.

• Like the other brands we’ve mentioned, they’re going against the typical Black Friday norms. This is literally the opposite of a sale, which immediately grabs a prospect’s attention.

Get your creative right

As you can see in the campaigns above, companies that are successful with digital advertising have developed a brand voice, which includes a sense of who they are as a company, and what they represent. For example, since Patagonia is an eco-friendly company, so was their campaign.

What do you stand for?

First, you need to understand what you stand for as a company. What’s your company’s mission? This should be bigger than just, “selling the best XYZ.” This mission should serve humans. Whether you’re going to help the environment, or go against the grain and create a sardonic card game whose mission is, “anti-mission” — you need a strong sense of your brand.

How does your mission impact your creative?

After you know what you stand for, think about how that influences your creative? For example, since Cards Against Humanity is anti-mission, with a sarcastic brand voice, they used those traits in their creative.

The words are anti-poetic. It’s straight to the point, blunt, almost harsh. The design looks anti-design. Like something I could’ve made in Paint when I was 13. And that’s why that ad is amazing – all the elements perfectly embody the goals of the brand.

You’ll need more than one version of creative

You might be familiar with A/B testing different web pages, different versions of sales copy, or email templates. But when it comes to ad creative, not only do you need multiple versions for A/B testing, but you also need multiple versions because your ads will go “stale.”

If you’re using a hyper-defined audience, then you’re likely going to “overexpose” them to certain ad sets. Your audience literally gets tired of seeing the same ads, and so, they stop clicking. You can detect this by noticing a drop in your click-through and engagement rates. If your CTR and engagement are initially pretty high, then suddenly drop, it’s time for fresh creative.

Make sure you’ve got more than one version of the design (even if both ads are similar colors, etc.). Make sure you’ve also go multiple versions of copy. Social media platforms will automatically run tests of the different versions of your ad, but be prepared to replace the best version when you start to notice a drop in engagement/CTR. This is especially important during the Black Friday & holiday season when frequent online shoppers are getting targeted by plenty of ads.

Automate your organic content

You need to spend your time on optimizing ROI and other strategies and tactics — not on manually posting to Twitter, Facebook, and your other channels several times per day.

Take advantage of a free trial with Sprout, so that you can put all your other posting on autopilot, and concentrate on ROI. Start by signing up here.

Then, plan out your Black Friday content in the scheduling tool.

A great feature of Sprout’s automation tool is that you’ll be able to quickly reshare your most popular posts and content. This makes it easy to keep your social media pipeline full of quality content that drives engagement from your follower base.

You can also get valuable reports on your organic social media progress. From these insights, you can make changes and tweaks to improve the performance of your organic posts. For example, you’ll be able to improve hashtag performance on Instagram with Sprout’s hashtag report.

Don’t forget Cyber Monday

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention how Cyber Monday is almost as big of a draw for customers as Black Friday.

Between 2016 and 2017, Cyber Monday spend increased over a billion dollars.

In 2017, mobile shopping had it’s first 2 billion dollar spend on Cyber Monday.

Overall, 2017 Thanksgiving weekend saw a 10% increase in online shopping.

So, make sure you add some Cyber Monday deals and promotions to your social media mix. Take advantage of this huge increase in online shopping by setting up conversion ads that get users over to your product sales pages in one click.

Takeaways

If you’re looking to make a serious impact on your company’s bottom line this Black Friday, then you’re going to need to stand out amidst the chaos.

• Consider going against the grain in your industry. Do what others wouldn’t dare. Modern shoppers like un-selfish business, so give back to your community, or to a charitable cause.

• Learn from some of the strategies we’ve shared here. Make sure your creative is on point. Whether your brand leans toward humor or sharing your values with customers, your campaign should echo your mission.

• Make sure you’re utilizing data, and get your content into an automation tool that can help you improve performance so that each post is garnering the most engagement for your brand.

What strategies have been successful for your company during previous Black Friday sales?

This post The complete guide to creating a Black Friday social media strategy originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/black-friday-social-media-strategy/

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tebbyclinic11 · 6 years

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“Orange Wine” Is Just a Color, Not a Type of Wine

New Post has been published on https://kitchengadgetsreviews.com/orange-wine-is-just-a-color-not-a-type-of-wine/

“Orange Wine” Is Just a Color, Not a Type of Wine

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Based on studies I’ve accidentally conducted by talking with strangers about wine, I have noticed a disturbing new trend. Like red and white and rosé before it, people have begun to use the color orange to define and judge wines. People seem to either love “orange wine” or hate “orange wine” but also don’t seem to understand what “orange wine” is. They know that it’s “natural” and “cool” and apparently that’s what’s important (I guess?). I had a guy recently tell me he “only drinks orange wine” and would love for me to teach him about “orange varieties.” This guy proceeded to laugh in my face when I said that any white-wine grape can be used to make orange wine.

I’m not saying you’d ever be that guy, but I also don’t want you to ever be that guy. That guy is the worst. Not only was he rude and wrong, but why in the world would you ever want to only drink one shade of wine?! “Orange” isn’t a type of grape or winemaking technique. It’s a color! And it’s only one color in the vast style, and color spectrum, of skin-contact wines.

Skin-contact wines are white wines made like red wines. They ferment with the grape skins, which give wine its color. Depending on how long the juice ferments with the skins—anywhere from a few hours to many months—skin-contact wines can range in color from golden-straw yellow to vibrant amber to Tony the Tiger orange. The time with the skins also gives these wines more red wine characteristics, like bigger body and more tannin, while maintaining the acidity of a white wine. The longer the skins hang with the juice, the bigger and bolder the wine. You can end up with lighter skin-contact wines whose taste is reminiscent of the Jura’s oxidative white wines, with notes of bruised apple all the way to dirty bong water–colored bottles that taste almost like a sour beer.

This is why the term “orange wine” as a category needs to die. I know, a bold statement coming from a woman who has a section in a published book with her name on it literally titled “Orange Wines.” Trust me, I’d take it back if I could, along with that trip to Tijuana on ‘shrooms, but the term “orange wine” is limiting you as a wine drinker. It’s locking you into a color, and since skin-contact wines can be made with any white wine grape and use any winemaking technique, orange-hued wines can vary wildly. You may love a bright-orange Trebbiano but find the same colored Pinot Grigio to be overpowering and too tannic. But asking for a “skin-contact wine” opens you up to a world of colors, flavors, and possibilities you may never have otherwise experienced.

I know it’s going to be hard breaking the habit. I catch myself still saying “orange wine” too, and this is a personal campaign I’ve been soapboxing around for months now. But you can get started by hitting the local wine shop and asking about some of my latest favorite skin-contact bottles.

Photo by Marissa A. Ross

For People Who Swear They Hate “Orange Wine”

Clot de l’Origine “l’Original” White Blend, 2015$23, Lou Wine ShopClot de l’Origine’s “l’Original” screams spring in every way. It looks like the late-afternoon sun in March, just barely golden, and smells like a Pinterest-perfect bridal bouquet of white lilies, candied ginger, and sprigs of thyme, tied with an orange-rind bow. “l’Original” starts juicy with layers of spiced cantaloupe and soft apples but finishes dry with lemon zest and limestone minerality. Thirst-quenching but approachable, this blend of 85% Macabeu and 15% Muscat from France’s Languedoc is the perfect entry-level skin-contact wine. Also, it pairs fantastically with pappardelle with kabocha squash cream sauce. Just throwing that out there.

Photo by Marissa A. Ross

For PARTY PEOPLE!!! [Yelled Like Tag Team’s “Whoomp There It Is”]

Sextant “Skin Bull” Aligoté Pétillant Naturel, 2016$27, Domaine LAIf your college drinking years had actually tasted good, they would have tasted like Sextant’s “Skin Bull.” Pale saffron in color, this Pétillant Naturel from Burgundy smells like a cider with stone fruit, dried papaya, and new carpet in an apartment near campus. Fresh, vibrant, and begging to party, “Skin Bull” has a bready beer taste to it and goes down easier than a 40 of High Life you didn’t pay for. Come for the party, and stay for the bright flavors of pineapple, barely ripe pears, wrists dabbed with rose hip, and zero notes of flavored vodka.

Photo by Marissa A. Ross

For People Who Need a Vacation But Will Settle for Wine

Partida Creus “Cart Ver” Cartoixa Vermell, 2016$30, Domaine LAPartida Creus’ “Cart Ver” is atomic tangerine in color and so delicious it’s trouble. Well integrated with lots of acidity, it smells like an Orange Crush and a strawberry michelada and tastes like strawberry ocean water (that’s right, two variations on a strawberry theme). There’s some nutmeg dusted in there, with rose petals and tangelo. Be careful not to finish the whole bottle yourself (or do, I sure did).

Photo by Marissa A. Ross

For People Who Usually Choose Beer Over Wine

Denavolo “Dinavolo” Vino Bianco, 2010$34, Lou Wine ShopThe copper-toned “Dinavolo” smells like orange rinds withering in the sun on a wet clay tennis court, with splashes of pineapple and mango. It tastes like eating tangerines and kumquats, with sips of a sour raspberry beer (preferably from the Rare Barrel, if I must say so myself). The blend of 25% Malvasia di Candia, 25% Marsanne, 25% Ortugo, and 25% mystery varietals is melodic and fluid but gritty and gripping with a warm and citrusy tannic finish.

Photo by Marissa A. Ross

For People Who Are Like, “Screw You, I Love Orange Wine!”

La Stoppa “Ageno” Blend 2012$40, Domaine LADespite my agenda to stop using “orange” to describe skin contact as a style, there is no other word to describe the color of La Stoppa’s “Ageno.” It is orange, pretty damn close to Nacho Cheese Doritos orange. Fortunately, its color is the only thing that will remind you of Taco Bell’s Fourth Meal. On the nose, this Malvasia di Candia blend from Emilia-Romagna smells like driving into Palm Springs from Highway 111 with the windows down—an intoxicating breeze of squishy peaches, lemon, hot asphalt, and freshly watered lawns.

Sipping on “Ageno” tastes similarly warm, with notes of apricot, navel oranges, leather, and sweat you accidentally licked off your own face. It’s bold but with balanced acidity and finishes with sandy tannins that feel just swept off a dune. (Not gonna lie, I love the 2010 vintage of this wine, but I couldn’t track one down. Keep your orange eyes peeled for either!)

Once more all together now, repeat after me: SKIN-CONTACT WINES. You’ve got it. Now go drink them.

Marissa A. Ross is the author of Wine. All the Time. Pick it up on Amazon for $13 and disregard that chapter called “Orange Wines” 😉.

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hotspreadpage · 7 years

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What do you need to know about Chinese search engine Sogou?

A few days ago, the news emerged that Chinese search engine Sogou (搜狗) is aiming to raise up to $585 million in a U.S. Initial Public Offering.

Sogou, which is owned by internet company Sohu, Inc., announced the terms for its proposed IPO on Friday.

The news has caused a stir among those keeping an eye on the Chinese tech space, as Sogou is backed by Chinese tech giant Tencent, the company behind the hugely popular messaging apps WeChat and QQ.

But for those of us who might not be up on the state of search in China, what do you need to know about Sogou, and how does its IPO play into the wider search landscape? And could there be any potential knock-on effects for the rest of the industry?

What is Sogou?

Sogou (whose name, 搜狗, literally translates as “searching dog”) is a Chinese search engine that was launched in 2004, and is currently the third-largest search engine in China.

Well, depending on who you ask. As tends to be the case with all things China, the statistics can vary from source to source.

Baidu, China’s largest search engine, is the undisputed king of search in China, but lower down the rankings things get a little murkier. In a January article, Bloomberg stated that “some surveys” have Sogou as China’s second-largest search engine, and it is often referred to as China’s second-largest mobile search engine, with 16.9% market share based on mobile queries (iResearch – Chinese-language source).

Meanwhile, statistics from China Internet Watch put Sogou’s overall share of the Chinese search market at just 3.31% as of May 2017 – fourth behind competitors Baidu, Shenma, and Haosou.

Baidu is the undisputed king of search in China

But regardless of its exact ranking, Sogou is still widely agreed to be a key contender in the contest for Chinese search dominance. Crucially, it’s backed by Tencent, the world’s fifth-largest internet company in terms of revenue, and is the default search engine for Tencent’s QQ mobile browser and on QQ.com, giving it prime access to QQ’s close to 900 million active users.

Other Sogou facts are that it has a web browser, launched in 2008, and is the company behind Sogou Pinyin, China’s most popular pinyin input software. (Pinyin is the official romanization system for Chinese characters).

Sogou Pinyin makes use of Sogou’s search techniques to analyze and categorize the most popular words and phrases, and could be a major advantage in Sogou’s future plans for getting the edge in search – more on that later.

So is Sogou the Bing to Baidu’s Google?

If Baidu is the top dog in Chinese search, and Sogou is a smaller contender (albeit with the backing of a huge tech company) trying to make its mark, does that make Sogou the Bing to Baidu’s Google?

Well, not exactly. As you’ll have gathered from the previous section, things are a little more complicated than that.

While the Chinese search market is as unequivocally dominated by Baidu as the western search market is by Google, there are several contenders for the number two spot. These include Shenma, a “mobile-first” search engine by the titan of Chinese ecommerce, Alibaba; and Haosou (formerly known as 360), a search engine by Chinese security company Qihoo 360.

(If you’re wondering where the heck Google itself is in all this, it holds a paltry 1.84% search market share in China, according to China Internet Watch. Google and China do not have the happiest of histories).

Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are three of leading internet companies in China – as well as the world – which means that the battle for search dominance for China has become a face-off between some of the biggest players in its tech industry.

This is not unlike the way in which the voice search and visual search spaces have become a battleground between major tech companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Pinterest.

And while Qihoo 360, with an annual revenue of $1.39bn as of 2014, may not be in the same league as three of the world’s largest internet companies, it’s still a force to be reckoned with. Qihoo 360 led a group of investors which purchased most of Opera Software, the company behind the Opera browser, in 2016.

It has also entered into strategic partnerships with Sina (the company behind Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo), Google, and even Alibaba at different times, and in 2013 reportedly considered purchasing Sogou for around $1.4 billion.

So how does Sogou plan on setting itself apart against its heavyweight competitors in the Chinese search market – and can it succeed?

Artificial intelligence and natural language search

Sogou announced in August that it was planning to focus on artificial intelligence and natural language processing in its bid to build a next-generation search engine, with the aim of becoming an “innovator and pioneer in artificial intelligence in China”.

It also plans to shift its emphasis from more traditional keyword-based search to answering questions, in line with the trend towards natural language search prompted by the rise of voice search and digital assistants.

Sogou has joined major search players such as Bing/Microsoft, Baidu and of course Google in investing in artificial intelligence, but its small size may put it at a disadvantage. A huge search engine like Baidu, with an average of more than 583 million searches per day according to SmartInsights, has access to reams more data with which to teach its machine learning algorithms.

But Sogou has an ace up its sleeve: it is the only search engine formally allowed to access public messages on WeChat – a massive source of data that will be particularly beneficial for natural language processing.

Plus, as I touched on earlier, language is something of a specialty area for Sogou, as Sogou Pinyin gives it a huge store of language data with which to work.

Sogou also has ambitious plans to bring foreign-language results to Chinese audiences via its translation technology, which will allow consumers to search the English-speaking web using Mandarin search terms. These will be automatically translated by Sogou, and the resulting content translated back into Chinese for the user.

What this all means for the Chinese search market

Sogou has reportedly been flirting with the possibility of an IPO since 2015. So what’s significant about its timing in seeking an IPO now, and what could it mean for the wider search industry in China?

While Baidu may unquestionably be the dominant force in Chinese search, the company is not immune to scandal, and last year it was hit by a big one. A 21-year-old college student named Wei Zixi died after pursuing an unsuccessful cancer treatment at a hospital which was promoted to him on Baidu, sparking outrage over Baidu’s perceived valuing of profit over safety.

Baidu’s shares dropped almost 14% following the scandal, and regulators quickly clamped down on medical advertising in search results pages, which accounts for some 30% of Baidu’s online ad revenue.

This was by no means the first time that Baidu had come under fire for the commercialization of healthcare. Baidu’s history with dodgy medical advertising dates back as far as 2008, and includes a number of controversies in which Baidu sold off several of its health support communities to private hospitals, leading to a widespread public backlash and an apology by Baidu’s CEO.

The Baidu support forum for hemophilia, which Baidu was accused of selling off to a private hospital, sparkling public outcry and a public apology from the search engine’s CEO in January 2017.

Up until now, disaffected users haven’t had any viable alternatives for search engines to use if they want to boycott Baidu, which is increasingly gaining a reputation for being untrustworthy and profit-driven.

But search engines like Haosou and Sogou have been slowly but surely eating into Baidu’s market share, and if Sogou’s investment into AI and natural language pays off, it could shape up into a serious competitor.

How could a Sogou IPO affect search outside China?

What do these shifts in the Chinese search market mean for the world outside of China?

At the moment, unless you’re a business looking to invest in or optimize for search in China, not a whole lot. Even if you are looking for a way into the Chinese market, optimizing for Baidu is still your best bet, as Baidu is unlikely to lose its total market dominance overnight.

But these developments are worth keeping an eye on. A successful IPO for Sogou could be a big win for Tencent in the war for supremacy over rivals Baidu and Alibaba, all three of whom are global powerhouses with investments in media, entertainment, ecommerce, gaming, social networking and more.

And with a reported 731 million internet users in China, any search engine which can capture a significant portion of that market wields some serious clout.

So keep Sogou on your radar; it will be worth seeing how this one plays out.

What do you need to know about Chinese search engine Sogou? syndicated from http://ift.tt/2maPRjm

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theglobetrottergp-blog · 7 years

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I was ecstatic with the results from my first month blogging! We all know it takes time, patience and a whole lot of hard work to create enough online traffic to take home a profit. But I thought over 3000 views was not bad at all for my first month of blogging! Add to that an offer of paid travel writing, several collaborations, a new blog award and a few really popular bloggers featuring my work on their own blogs! It really has done so much better than I could ever hope for in such a short time! Therefore I thought I’d share with new bloggers how I went about achieving this in the hope it might benefit others!

I started my blog in mid August 2017 after a discussion with a few friends in the pub. I loved my job as a GP but I also craved working in a more creative field. I toyed with exploring photography as a career but I realised it sucked the joy out of photography for me when I was working to deadlines! As a child I LOVED creative writing, as an adult I loved to travel, explore and document my adventures with photography. I’ve also kept a few low-key travel blogs to keep my family updated of my whereabouts which had done surprisingly well despite no proper social media promotion! So I decided why not?! I started this blog and have not looked back since. I absolutely love it and if it takes off properly I’d love to split my career 50:50, health care and travel writing!

Now I’ll be honest with you. Your blog is not going to get thousands of followers without a whole lot of HARD WORK! I regularly stay up until the early hours working non stop on my blog often sacrificing both sleep and my social life! I’m also working full-time and preparing for a long trip to South America so to say my life is busy is a complete understatement! But it’s worth it as I’ve found something I love and that satisfies my creative side. It’s also necessary to keep up the hard work. I saw a massive plummet in my views when I took a few days off for a friend’s wedding then again when I was on holiday. It then took several days of hard work to get my views back to normal! There are a few tools I’ve now found to help prevent such a huge plummet but it’s still imperative that you keep producing regular good quality posts and keep a strong regular social media presence!

So here is what I’ve done to get OVER 3000 views in JUST ONE MONTH!

I started with siteground as my host provider. They have been so helpful. I was literally ringing them almost every evening when I first started with all my technical questions – I’m a complete technophobe or at least I was when I started out 5 weeks ago! The best things is that they reply instantly and are available around the clock! I’d still be googling ‘what is domain’ without them! And even better, plans start from just $3.95 by using the link below. Get a 70% discount for siteground with this link then download wordpress.org. It has been fairly simple to use even for a technophobe like me! If in doubt there are loads of tutorials to help talk you through the basics of setting up a blog!

My blog goals for the future : Learn how to add HTML code

Once you have the basics set up, you’ll want to choose a theme for your website. This is what your website will look like and choosing the right one will help you create a great first impression, especially if your website has a beautiful colour scheme and easy menu navigation with lots of pictures! There are lots of free themes to use all of which can be customised to some extent but I chose a paid parallax theme called sixteen by inkhive. It has technology which allows the top page to roll faster than the background creating a lovely sliding appearance. I also have a slide show of my best photos, clear menus, plenty of widgets for space to advertise social media platforms etc and I can highlight my latest and best posts along with my regular feature Interview with a Local. It cost me about $45 but I think it is worth it – it looks so much more professional than the free theme I was using and I have been able to customise it to make it look exactly how I want it too!

My Blog Goals : I want to play about with my colour scheme a little to make text clearer to read without altering my branding too much. I also want to expand my menus and make it clearer to navigate!

The next thing you need to do is start making GREAT content. Post for your reader not yourself. What that means is asking yourself what your reader wants or needs. In my case that is practical travel information, travel inspiration and tips how to travel more easily and take better travel photos. It’s okay to write the occasional self-indulgent post (I’m about to write about my dance holiday as dancing is my other passion) but remember that 95% of your blog posts need to be written with your readers needs in mind. Keep your indulgent posts to a minimum but don’t ignore them entirely. After all it is still YOUR blog.

Blog goals : I plan to get into a more regular routine of posting on specific days so readers know when to log back in. Realistically this will probably after I return from South america as my posts will be wi-fi dependent whilst I’m away!

The next thing you need to think about is SEO – Search Engine Optimization. This is how visible your blog is on search engines. The more visible, the more traffic you will get! You can download a plug-in to help with this – I use Yoast although I’m still getting my head around using it effectively! There are also lots of simple techniques to use starting with your post titles. They should contain as many key words that your readers might search for. For example “Best budget and planning tips to help you save and travel the world” has more key worlds than “Money saving for travel” In addition to using key words in the title, try adding tags to your post using up more key worlds such as “saving money.” You might also want to label your photos with key words so that they are more likely to be ranked in google images! Another way to super charge your SEO is to provide links to and from other blogs. This is best done by writing guest blog posts and having other bloggers contribute to your own website. This can often be arranged through facebook travel blogging groups and has the added benefit of bringing traffic from an established blog in your own niche, over to your own blog! With any luck they will like it and start to follow you too! In addition to links between blogs, you can also add internal links between your own blog posts. The more links the more reliable google sees you as! And it also can keep readers on your website for longer. For example “If you liked this post, perhaps you would enjoy reading… (insert link)”

My blog goals – I plan to update my photo descriptions and learn how to use yoast better and monitor my SEO ranking. There are also more collaborations in the pipeline!

Now you are getting some traffic to your website, set up an email list! This can be for emailing a link to each new blog as it’s posted or for sending monthly newsletters with handy tips, discounts and of course a few links to your blog! Put opt in boxes in prominent positions on your blog and consider having a pop up opt in. Mine pops up after 20 seconds by which point the reader is already intrigued and wants to continue reading. I use mailchimp for this. You can also offer freebies to help persuade others to sign up. You need to show them how they can benefit from following you. For example I created a travel planning to do list and I’m working on a free beginners photography e-course – watch this space!

As well as having an email opt in visible in your widgets (side boxes for information) you should also have social media icons in several places. Mine are at the top of my blog, in the side bar, at the bottom of my home page and there are ‘post to social media’ icons at the end of every post. Try to include at least 1 vertical image in the post which can be used for people to pin to their own Pinterest boards. Even better, have visual icons with examples from the page you are referring to. For example my ‘join me on Pinterest’ icon shows several of my latest pins.

My blog goals – Go back through old blogs and add a pinnable image to each.

Now you have people following you on social media, make sure your pages are up to scratch!

Pinterest – there are hundreds of thousands of boards in every niche on pinterest, you need to stand out and look professional. You can do this by creating a board cover photo which is descriptive and fits with your brand. I use the same 2 colours for all my text and cover images and alternate them to make my page look more striking! See it here! Each board cover also contains a photo to sum up what I will be pinning about! Once your boards are looking great, add a good description remembering those keywords! Make quality pins with a recognisable style ( I use 3-4 pin templates and the same colour scheme and develop them for free using www.canva.com.) Now that your board and pins are looking great, you need to get them noticed! Join as many group boards as possible preferably ones with lots of followers! You will find instructions for joining in the group descriptions. You will need to follow both the group and the board owner (always the first on the list.) Make sure you re-pin others work as well as pinning your own! You will need to pin frequently to avoid your work being right at the bottom of the list and not visible to those quickly scanning the group! I deal with this by using tailwind which is absolutely amazing! You can choose what to pin on mass which really speeds up the process. You can then pin to multiple boards at the same time and schedule these for times in the future. An hour on pinterest will allow me to schedule pins for the next month at a rate of 100 pins per day! That way I have a constant presence on pinterest even if I’m sunning myself by a pool drinking mojitos! This has had a mind-blowing result – my pins now get seen 42093 times a month compared to just 97 times when I 1st started! Start your FREE trial here (no payment details required.) Another advantage of using tailwind is tailwind tribes. These are groups where everyone supports each other by repining each others work to their own boards!

My blog goals : Add more group boards and go through my boards to declutter unpopular pins!

I probably get most of my traffic from Facebook (thanks mum!) But seriously, facebook is a seriously good tool even without your mother sharing your page diligently! Firstly set up a page with an eye-catching cover photo and don’t forget to write a good description and add all your Facebook friends. Then start posting regularly with blog posts, blog wins or even what to expect in the upcoming week to build anticipation! The best time to post to reach the most people is in the afternoons (yes when people are supposed to still be working!!) I also find weekend mornings are a good time to post. Encourage your friends and family to like, share and comment on your posts which will boost your post up the ratings and make it more visible to your followers for longer! I also share to my own facebook pages periodically especially if I have a really good post I want to promote. But I try not to post too many otherwise risk annoying your friends and family who just aren’t interested in your niche! Another way to promote your blog on facebook is to join blogging groups in your niche. Often they will run ‘like for like’ or ‘follow for follow’ threads though these can be super time-consuming! I prefer the threads for gaining comments on your blog posts (usually you add 5 comments and post 1 link) and also the blog Q+A forums – useful for getting feedback on your website!

My blog goals : Once my website is a little more established I’d like to try out Facebook advertising!

It took me a while to get my head around Twitter. Initially it took ages to get any followers at all but I now have 1722 with more each day! I post several times a day usually links to my blogs with plenty of relevant hashtags. I also try to engage with my followers by liking and commenting on their posts. I also re-pin if it’s something relevant and useful for my readers. I get some readers from hashtags on my posts however I also try to follow other travel bloggers and they often follow back. It also means I get to see their relevant content.

Blog goals : I plan to look into a scheduling program for twitter such as hootsuite

I found instagram was the easiest to build a following just by following other travel bloggers and their followers, however I don’t get a huge amount of traffic from it despite havinfg 2400 followers! That said it’s quick and easy to use so is still worth doing! I also use a lot of hashtags – you can use up to 30 per post. This helps readers find your pictures! It can be time-consuming adding hashtags so I keep a list of travel blog hashtags which I then copy and paste and add a few more specific hashtags such as location.

Blog goals : I plan to start using tailwind for instagram to help me schedule my instagram posts in advance!

In addition to social media, I also use good old-fashioned business cards! I got 250 for £15 via vistaprint! It’s handy when you are telling someone about your blog to be able to give them something to remember your conversation by!

So whilst I’ve had an absolutely fab first month with my blog, I have bigger and better plans for it and will be working super hard to achieve them! Watch this space!

Have you started your blog yet? How is it going? Is there anything you are struggling with? Whilst I’m a blogging newbie myself, I feel like I’ve learnt heaps and am happy to share any of that knowledge with you! Just comment below if you have any comments or questions!

I had a fab first month blogging with 3000 views & an award! Here is how I did it! I was ecstatic with the results from my first month blogging! We all know it takes time, patience and a whole lot of hard work to create enough online traffic to take home a profit.

#blogging #facebook #followers #instagram #pinterest #seo #siteground #themes #twitter #wordpress

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fadingfartconnoisseur · 7 years

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How To Pick a Travel Blog Name

We literally get hundreds of emails asking us how to pick a travel blog name and it’s understandable why. Before you start a travel blog, you need to think long and hard about what it will be called.

The name of your blog (also known as Domain Name) is the bit that goes between the “www” and the “.com” of your website URL, but it’s so much more than that. The name will become your brand, your business, your income and your means for travel, so it’s one of the most important aspects of a travel blog.

But you shouldn’t let picking a name stop you from buying your domain and getting started with travel blogging.

Bluehost has an excellent feature where you can purchase a domain and choose to pick a travel blog name later, that way you can start to build your blog, design the style and find a direction in your content and then choose a perfect name a little later down the road.

To learn how to start a blog without choosing a name first, check out our How To Start a Travel Blog post.

If you have a name in mind already, you can use the domain checker below to see if it’s available in the domain registry. There’s no need to search hundreds of different domain registries because they all pull from the same database.

If it’s not available at Bluehost, it won’t be available anywhere else. If your name is available, I recommend buying it right away. I once had the perfect domain name that I wanted to purchase and within a week it was gone. You never know. It’s very cheap to purchase domain names and some people buy dozens of them

In this post I’m going to show you how to pick a travel blog name by using concrete data of what works and what doesn’t. There are certain absolute no-no’s when it comes to buying domains and there are quite a few things to think about for brandability, SEO (Google traffic), and overall design.

Names To Avoid

In order to show you how to pick a travel blog name, I need to first start with the no-no’s of a travel blog name because these are pretty cut and dry. By listing names to avoid, it will help to narrow down your list of possible names for your travel blog.

Don’t be cliché

Your name needs to stand out in a market of millions of travel blogs, so it’s best to avoid the cliché terms that you see pop up in 75% of travel blogs.

Try To Avoid These Words

Nomadic

Nomad

Backpacker

Backpacking

Budget

Vagabond

Wandering

Wanderer

Adventurous

Global

Travelling

World

Unless you can think of something extremely clever and unique using the above listed words, I would avoid them altogether. Your name needs to stand out in the crowd and by giving it an overused, played out name, you’d be starting off on the wrong foot.

Avoid Dashes, Symbols, Numbers & Periods

Any post online about how to pick a travel blog name will tell you the same thing. Don’t use numbers, hyphens or symbols.

For pure branding and SEO reasons, you should always avoid using these characters in any blog name. Our good friend Johnny Ward of OneStep4Ward is a great example.

He regrets using this name because every time he tells someone his blog he has to say: “It’s one, step, then the number 4, then ward”. This makes it so much harder to remember the name of the blog.

Similarly, your blog shouldn’t have a dash in it because every time you tell someone your name, you have to say “dash”. When they go back to their computers later and try to remember your blog, they may forget where to put the dash, or that there’s a dash altogether. It’s just confusing.

Lastly, it’s just not good for SEO to have numbers, symbols or punctuations in a name because in some cases, your name could reflect a search term that someone is typing into Google.

If your name has random numbers, dashes and symbols, it could dampen the exact match possibilities for those searching terms similar to your name. Make your name as easy to remember as possible and don’t use hyphens, numbers or symbols.

Purposely Misspelling

Keeping on the “easy to remember” domain name theory, don’t create a blog that purposely misspells words to sound cool. WorldTravelz would be a horrible name choice because it would force you to explain to every person you tell that the word travels is actually spelled with a “z”, and Google wouldn’t rank you for any terms including “travels” because you misspelled it.

On top of that, Google algorithms hate misspelling and grammatical errors because it shows unprofessionalism in content. You’d literally be damaging your blog if you purposely misspell the domain name.

Too Long

There are so many reasons not to have a really long domain name.

They’re much harder to remember

It’s hard to fit a long name in a logo or header area of a website

Domains are limited to 63 characters anyways.

The most common domain name length in relation to .com registrations is around 12-13 characters; and containing 2 words. This can give you a bit of an idea of how long your domain should be.

GoatsOnTheRoad is 14 characters and 4 words, which is a bit long and cumbersome. The saving grace for our name may be that it’s easy to remember. If you have the perfect name that’s a little bit longer than 13 characters, go for it. As long as it’s easy to remember.

Still, I wouldn’t choose a name with more than 18 characters and 4 words.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that Twitter only allows you to have 14 characters in your handle, so if you want people to easily be able to search and find you, it’s a good idea to keep your name under 14 characters so that it can be the exact same on Twitter.

What a Domain Name Should Be

Now that we’ve covered things to avoid when thinking about how to pick a travel blog name, it’s time to go over some things to keep in mind that can help you choose the perfect name. Keep in mind that the domain name is a reflection of your brand and what you’re looking to share with your readers. Take your time and use these points to think up something great.

Always Go With .com

First and foremost, you need to pick a travel blog name that is available in “.com”. You can choose .net, .org, .travel, .tv, or .info, but .com is by far the most commonly used and thus, easiest to remember suffix possible in a domain name.

It won’t affect your SEO if you choose another ending, but it will definitely be harder for other people to remember. You can buy all variations of your name if you want to, but .com should be your primary focus. Click Here to check and see if your domain name is available in .com.

Check Social

When you’re starting a new travel blog, you’re also going to have to start all of your social media accounts. At the very least, you should be able to have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube using your name.

I’ve covered a lot about how to pick a travel blog name already, but if it’s already been taken on the most popular social media channels, then you may want to consider another name.

To check and see if your social media username is available, you can head to NameChk.com and type your proposed username in the search field at the top of the page and click enter. Then you’ll see certain social media logos fade in the table below and that will tell you they are unavailable.

The Dark Blue Icons Are Social Media Accounts That Aren’t Available For “goatsontheroad”

As long as you can get Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and (if you plan to create videos) YouTube, then you don’t need to worry too much about the others.

Your Name Should Describe Your Blog

A great name should easily describe what your blog is all about. Goats On The Road does a terrible job of doing this, but again, perhaps because it’s quirky and memorable, it worked.

But choosing a name that has nothing to do with the content you’re going to create is an absolute no-no. ThePlanetD openly admitted that they regret choosing that name. It’s simply because they both have names that start with “D” (Dave and Deb) and they were going for a Lonely Planet type idea.

Luckily, they still made it in the industry, but their name is not the ideal example of a descriptive blog name. Some great examples are sites like Expert Vagabond, Cheapest Destinations Blog, Art Of Scuba Diving and Neverending Voyage. These all do a great job of explaining the brand and the niche within the name itself.

Using Your Own Name

There are loads of blog names out there that use the founders name, like Nomadic Matt, Nomadic Samuel, Wandering Earl, Travel With Bender etc. While I wouldn’t recommend following the basic formula of “Nomadic + Name”, it’s still possible to think of a clever name using your own name and make it memorable.

A lot of people have a blog name that simply is their name, like YeisonKim.com. This is a very professional way to create a blog name, but it’s not overly catchy in most cases.

Many people start a self-named blog as a secondary portfolio for photography, videography and personal growth, after they’ve already created a successful online business elsewhere. That’s not to say that a self-named blog can’t be a great one.

Keep in mind that if you’re starting a travel blog as a solo traveller, that’s great, but one day you may find that you hire more writers, you find love on the road or you start blogging about other things besides your personal travel adventures.

Unless you’re sure that you always want your blog to include at least some aspect of your personal story, and you’re always going to be the sole contributor, then you may consider avoiding using your name in the title.

Every blog name needs to have longevity, which brings me to the next point.

SEO Driven Domain Names

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a term that you’ll become very familiar with as you grow your blog. It basically means “make Google happy”.

Many things that we do as bloggers is with SEO in mind. We structure article titles and content with SEO in mind, we add keywords and link back to our site using SEO tactics, so why not start off on a good SEO foot and choose an SEO based name.

If you’re going to be writing on a specific topic and you know that many people are going to search Google for that topic, consider naming your blog that key term. For example, if you’re going to write strictly about backpacking in Central Asia, then your domain could be BackpackingCentralAsia.com.

This would immediately give you an upper hand when competing with other websites for search terms including “Backpacking Central Asia”.

Many people create new niche sites using domain names based solely on a keyword term they found in Google that has many searches per month.

Maybe “How to pick a travel blog name” gets 10,000 searches per month in google, then it may be a good idea to buy the domain “HowToPickaTravelBlogName.com” and see if How To Pick a Travel Blog Name is available on all social networks.

Choosing an SEO friendly name and creating a niche site based around it can be a great way to get a lot of traffic quickly. Just keep in mind that if you’re going to start a blog based on a specific term, you better make sure that you’ll be able to create hundreds of articles around that term and you’re not going to limit yourself too much by choosing an SEO name that’s too narrow.

Names With Longevity

Do not choose a name that you could grow out of. TwentiesTraveller.com may sound cool, but it’s definitely a name that you’ll grow out of. What happens when you turn 30? Sure you can still write about what it was like to travel in your twenties, and you could hire writers who are still in their twenties, but it’s better to choose a name that can grow with you.

Similarly (and I can’t stress this enough), I wouldn’t recommend using words like “budget”, “broke”, “cheap” and “poor” in your name.

At first, you may be able to lock down a niche of budget travel and you may see yourself travelling on a budget for a long time, but as your site starts to earn more money, you may find (as we have), that it’s nice to get a midrange hotel sometimes and sleeping in a dorm isn’t sustainable long-term (10+ years). Your travel style may change.

You can technically change your name and rebrand yourself down the road, but it’s a pain in the ass. It can take forever to change your social media names, you’d have to start a new domain from scratch and redirect your old one and it’s just not worth it.

Try to think of a name that doesn’t pigeon-hole you into one particular niche, travel style or age range, unless you’re 100% confident that you’ll always be writing on that topic.

Destination Based Names

If you know that you’re always going to be writing about Southeast Asia, then you may consider something like SoutheastAsianTraveller. Similarly, if you’re focusing your niche even finer, you could be the ChicagoFoodBlog.

Narrowing your domain name down to a specific region, country or even city can be a great way to nail down a niche location. But keep in mind that if you travel to other areas and you want to write about them, it won’t really fit under your blog name.

Memorable Names

This has been a common theme throughout this article, but I need to highlight that one of the most important parts of how to choose a name for a travel blog is making it memorable.

I’ve already mentioned in this article that you should choose a name with longevity, it should describe your blog, it should be the perfect length etc., but when it comes to figuring out how to pick a travel blog name, all of those rules play second fiddle to coming up with a truly unique and memorable name.

If you have a name in your head that you think people will remember right away, it’s unique, clever and easily brandable (thinking about logos and niches) then you should go for it. Goats On The Road goes against many of the name rules that I’ve listed in this post, but I believe that it worked because it’s very memorable.

You’ll Also Need a Great Tagline

On our Home Page you’ll see our logo at the top with our name, and directly below that you see our tagline: “Turn Travel Into a Lifestyle.”

This simple 5 word sentence does a pretty good job about explaining what our blog is all about. Learning how to sustain travel so that you can turn it into a life, rather than a holiday.

Your tagline should be a similar length and explain exactly what your blog is about. It can take a really long time to think of a good tagline, but don’t worry, you can keep working on it as your blog grows.

Narrowing Your Names Down

The best way to come up with the perfect name is to use a mind map. Get a big piece of paper or a whiteboard and start mapping out what your blog is about. Who is your target audience? What topics will you cover? Where will you be blogging about? What are your core values?

Use the words that you see in this mind map to start a list of potential names. Then go through those names and slowly scratch out the ones that don’t seem quite right. Ask friends and family if you need to and also check if their available by using the domain checker below, if they’re already taken, scratch them out.

Once you’ve narrowed it down to two or three names, it’s time to make the final decision. Keep in mind that you can start a blog without choosing a name and after you’ve written some posts, designed parts of the website and found a direction, you may find it easier to come up with a final choice for your name.

Ready To Start Your Blog?

Now you know how to pick a travel blog name. I’ve given you the information you need to choose the perfect blog name. Using the points in this blog post, you should be able to come up with a unique and memorable name that has longevity and is good for SEO.

But remember, even if you can’t think of a name, you can still start building your blog today.

Check out our How To Start a Travel Blog Guide to easily (and cheaply) start your new travel blog in just minutes. If you can’t think of a name, don’t worry, we’ll show you how to easily start a blog without a name, and then you can pick one at any time down the road!

How simple is that? As an added bonus, for a limited time we’re giving away our $20 eBook on how to create a successful blog absolutely free for anyone who starts a blog using our guide. What are you waiting for?! Now is the perfect time to start a travel blog and change your life forever.

Who knows, by this time next year you could be getting paid to travel the world. Go for it.

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