#genuinely why are there 44 people following this blog?

[numberstans]

Yeah

[byizoyas]

congrats on 100 followers love, i'm so happy for you! 🥺

also i was doing some thinking and i'mma be honest with you, i never thought when i first read 4:44 that i'd ever interact with you as often as i did now, i was always too nervous to hit follow on your previous blog but now you're my one of my favourite people on tumblr to spam :") how the times have changed

and i love how much you've grown and how often you post. you're doing great and you deserve so much more growth, i hope it comes over time mwah /p

~ ness ♡

THANK YOU DEAR

you have no idea how much your message made me happy djwkdke like fr i never thought I’d have someone so supportive in here and tbh whenever i get your messages it always makes my day better 😭 also why were you nervous noooo but well at least we’re here now <3

ty so so much for your support it is rlly important to me and i genuinely hope i will also keep on growing and post stuff that can please people!! sending you lots of love <33 and ty again !!

[mc-critical]

(Okay head’s up, I’m going to be on your blog a lot since I absolutely LOVE your takes and analysis’.) Do you think (strictly theatrically speaking, not in the non-fictional and historical sense) Suleyman really loved Hürrem? As I watched the show I found it very silly how other characters of the show would remark how Suleyman “loved Hurrem so much he refused to ever take another concubine again” because..he did? And multiple times from what the viewers have seen too. Majority of the times the concubines/other women in Suleyman’s life (Isabella, Firüze etc) were only removed from his life via Hurrem’s intrigues, not by Suleyman’s decision. What do you think?

Aww, thank you so much for the nice words! 💕 Be here as much as you wish, absolutely no problem! (there are some takes I've had in the past that are quite passive-agressive in retrospect 😅, so I might as well also give you a heads up.)

As for your question, I think yes, SS loves Hürrem, but in his own, sometimes honestly incomprehensible (even outright toxic), way.

The writers perhaps wanted to hint at love at first sight in the beggining, due to the way she fainted in his arms in the first episode and how he kept thinking about her (that Ibrahim had to tell him that where he was supposed to go was the other direction) and the wave of excitement and anticipation he felt while waiting for her. But when they spent two nights together and he truly got to know her, was where it was at. Her uncanny ability to make him laugh, entertain him in a way no one else had before, was what impressed him first. He felt calm, safe in her presence, and wanted to keep this probably forever, along with him doing whatever else he wanted in the meantime regardless.

I feel the point of contention of whether he truly loved her or not comes from the fact that, the show wanted to make their love story integral to their both historically thematic and narratively soapy story - what I mean is, they wanted to make it the central plotline. And as a central plotline, it creates and/or extends on the other plotlines, having to show the other characters' reactions in excessive detail and even center parts of their motivations around it. You see how S01 and S02 of the series played this aspect of Hürrem and Süleiman's story completely straight - it presented it as The Love, this big, (thematically and narratively) unprecedented thing, this vital aspect of the series' DNA, the very tool that moves the story forward, that is only bound to have consistent narrative opposition: and I'm not referring only to Isabella and Firuze and all the other concubine arcs that force love triangles suited for the genre, it all is also about the continuous, frequent attacks on their love, that only stopped when the show made a complete genre shift by the second half of S04 and didn't have much time left. They worked with the idea that the more this love is attacked and antagonized, the stronger it becomes and the more shall people root for it. That's where the problem comes, because in retrospect, you can honestly see that these attacks played a major part in provoking a bunch of stuff SS did for Hürrem. Mahidevran beating her to death and poisoning her? SS gives Hürrem a chamber only for herself. (the other one she shared with Ayşe.) Them accusing her incessantly? Valide complaining about her? The various attacks? He continues to care even more for her. Valide and Ibrahim arranging that attack with the bandits? He married her. And one would wonder: is this even genuine or does the writing simply use her enemies' failings to lead Hürrem to SS? Is that the only reason he actually cares? What does MC want to achieve?

There are people who say that the entire point of SS loving her was that she was so different from everyone else (and that the concubine arcs ruined it), and yes, it was like that, in the very beginning. First impression is important and he truly began to enjoy her a lot since their first two nights, for her bringing him something new. However, both of Hürrem and Süleiman's characters and their relationship overall, drastically evolved throughout the show. When the first impression had passed and Hürrem gained SS's utmost attention and she became pregnant, she very quickly started taking stuff for granted, considering him only hers (the demonstration of the ring in front of Mahi; the twinge of jealousy towards Ibrahim.) and as a parallel, him still being a Sultan, having to follow the customs anyway, and calling Gülnihal in his chambers twice. Both of their ways of living clash, because Hürrem wants a monogamous relationship and takes every sign of care for him at face value, while SS lives in an environment that wants him to do what is expected of him.

SS both loves and hates when Hürrem stands up to his will. There have been times where she acted rashly, making borderline silly accusations (like blaming little Mustafa for the fire in E10), where she made moves out of jealousy (like stealing Isabella's pendant) and where she was complaining to him for something she didn't succeed to get (like Valide's chambers in S03). Süleiman sees her rebellious nature and goes out of his way to do moves to spite her. (this guy invited Isabella on a halvet out. of. sheer. spite and nothing else! smh honestly..) But there are as many times where he simply covers what she did (like killing Isabella) and caves to her demands anyway! Why would he cave to her demands and close his eyes on so much stuff she did, if he doesn't feel at least something for her?

The different treatment she gets also comes into play, because no matter how many times she's attacked and he seemingly stood by and watched aside from more serious cases, all it honestly does, is trigger his protective instincts. Despite of all the bumps on the road, Hürrem always was his darling, his special snowflake, whom he clearly felt something for. If anything, he wouldn't have freed her and this isn't something he would do to just anyone. (as we see how he refused to free Mahidevran when she desperately begged him to in E45.; and what's important, him freeing Hürrem wasn't provoked by someone else attacking her.) And when she makes all these jealousy fits, he listens, because Hürrem's character development represents full adaption to the circumstances of the harem, and by that, getting just like the others and learning their tricks. This has turned him off numerous times and when she shows that rebellious side of hers yet again, he couldn't help, but listen. What he said to Ibrahim after he sent off the Russian concubines, is especially telling: "No. (I don't love Hürrem as much as she loves me.) But now I fell in love with her even more." This summarizes extremely well what he thinks of her at this point, because while he's ready to cut her some slack, he's still helpless to her.

Though, later down the line, it gets very abundantly clear that if he loves her, he doesn't love her because she's different and she's rebellious, but because she's loyal to him. Infinitely loyal. She loves him this much, that she's not only ready to willingly drink poison and kill herself for him anytime, but she doesn't even want to give up his throne. It is all very well highlighted by his infamous line to Fatma: "Hürrem is not an angel, but she has something that none of you have. Loyalty! Absolute loyalty... / "She never saw anyone else on the throne but me." Over the years, SS began to live with the dramatically increased paranoia of betrayal, turning his natural ego from a strength, to an everlooming weakness. It destroyed every single relation of his, except for Hürrem. She's the only person that wasn't targeted by this crippling paranoid fear, he perhaps found piece and tranquil in her presence, because he knew that she wouldn't ever turn her back on him. And all these times he got mad at her, he had halvets to spite her, he caused her to prove to him how much he loved her, it turned out to be not only because his ego was tempered with, he wanted to test her loyalty the entire time. And all the times he prevented her from digging deeper into him and told her to stay out of political matters, now in S04 he no longer does that, since she actively joins every single conversation. Hürrem and Süleiman's relationship was put in a thorough deconstruction in S03 and S04, because after the slow Cerebus Syndrome transition began occurring and Yılmaz Şahin fully took over the script, the narrative stopped playing the love story completely straight and it put in the impression that it isn't focused on as much as it was before. So its more problematic aspects began showing even more down the line and it all lead into this very realization. The last episodes of Hürrem's life, while seeming like a cop-out, are genuine love letters for the fans and for Hürrem, with having Süleiman realize who he will lose and what will happen next, giving her the attention he never did. (I think the best Hürrem and Süleiman scenes we got, were in these episodes, along with the ones in the beginning episodes and right after the wedding, in E43-44.)

[And the episodes after Hürrem's death also make us question whatever he cares for her, because all he did there was straightforwardly betray her dying wish. Still, we should keep in mind that SS was at the peak of his downward spiral and it was Hürrem's death that sealed everything for him - losing the person who loved you dearly and was the most loyal one to you in your book, only caused catastrophic and devastating results, with SS going in her chambers in E136 and begging her to forgive him, right before the big fight between Selim and Beyezid began. There is everything else he did, yes, but losing HER is what caused him the truly neverending misery and what pushed him to such extremes, the loss of her loyalty broke him and finished him.]

Isabella and Firuze and Nazenin also add to these tests of loyalty, as well as being love triangles, added in for the drama. I feel SS did this not only to spite Hürrem, but also because he liked her unpredictability and he truly never expected for her to be this loyal in his eyes. It is possible he thought at some point due to his paranoia that she would give up on him, betray him, knowing that she also has her own ambitions. But seeing that none of that happened... perhaps all these continuous rifts in their relationship strived to show how strongly she loved him after all and maybe he came to appreciate that, even if it were too late. {note: the others said that SS loved Hü not exactly because of him refusing to take in concubines, but rather not taking concubines in for a long time. It illustrates more their hopes and beliefs (Mahidevran in E61: "Did you really think that his majesty couldn't be with other women?") and arguments presented when they need to win someone over for their cause to get rid of her. (like Hatice with Afife in S03) I always considered the Firuze arc more of a thematic tool than a dramatic one: aside from showing an actual continuous rift between Hürrem and SS, it breaks Hürrem's season two finale victory in half, enforcing even further that there isn't just any true long lasting victory that the themes won't condemn in this franchise. Nazenin was more for the parallels (Nurbanu - Nazenin; Hürrem - Gülnihal), while I never fully figured out what Isabella Fortuna was for, tbh.}

{He regarded Isabella as more of a toy, unfortunately, even with him saying that it was all somehow "a political game" with her and we had only him succumbing to his "manliness", protecting her from the snake and inviting her to a halvet only to spite Hürrem. With Firuze it was, admittedly, a bit more complicated, because he sure was infatuated with her to some extent, recited the exact same poetry to her, as well, but then again, we have the poisoning as a factor, and we have no idea to what extent it began to affect his psyche, besides him having to lay in bed in E78. I don't think Hürrem's intrigues had anything to do with the feelings he had for both of them, and I believe he would at some point have let them all go, exactly due to his ego and loyalty complex.}

I don't say that Süleiman's love for Hürrem is a healthy one, because oh noo, IT IS NOT, very far from it, in fact. Especially with the writers still keeping the status-quo with them the exact same even after he freed and married her, and for a while, it never made an actual difference. However, it is something that he didn't feel for anyone else in this harem and I would say that he indeed cherished it a lot.

[jess-rewatches-prodigalson]

It’s All In The Execution (S2, E1)

It happened. We got a second season. I’m living my best life...unfortunately Malcolm isn’t...

*** Content warning: brief mentions/allusions to depression, suicidal ideation, and Malcolm’s general poor mental health ****

SPOILERS AHEAD.

0:00 -  OH HELL YES. I can’t believe we actually got a second season! <3 My heart is so full. 

0:18 – “This ledge is taken.” …..ok so I have lots of feelings about this scene. 1) Malcolm’s lines are iconic in this scene and I love it. 2) WHY THE ACTUAL HELL WOULD JT, DANI, AND EDRISA AGREE TO LET A (LET’S BE HONEST) MAN IN A VERY BAD MENTAL STATE WITH A HISTORY OF DEPRESSION STAND ON A LEDGE FOR A CASE?!? Like seriously, Gil wouldn’t have gone with this shit. 3) As soon as I saw Malcolm on the ledge I believed he was seriously considering jumping. He showed passive suicidality most of last season and after Endicott – well I don’t blame him for being a little depressed. 

0:26 – Damn. Malcolm is really manic in this scene. It’s reminiscent of the pilot episode in the sense that Malcolm really has no filter. 

0:40 – Ok so Tom Payne deserves a freaking Emmy. This performance is gorgeous. Look at his facial expression when he says “It got real dark for me though. Family issues.” The look on his face completely convinces me that Malcolm is riding the struggle bus more than usual right now…..also am I the only one who thinks this ‘penthouse slasher’ is kind of unbelievable? He strikes me as too anxious and jumpy to be a serial killer. 

1:18 – Is Malcolm even trying to hide the fact that he knows what happened to Endicott?!? I mean “I tried to fight it” can’t JT and Dani hear his usual ‘projecting his personal issues on the suspect shtick?’ 

1:30 – Did he really just scream “I am the Surgeon’s son” from a ledge?!? Dude – someone please give this boy a hug and get him to Gabrielle – like last month.

1:40 – Soooo… now Chester isn’t scared of the ledge? He looked like he was going to wet himself from fear a literal minute ago. 

1:49 – OH OF COURSE CHESTER SLIT THEIR THROATS. JUST LIKE AINSLEY SLIT ENDICOTT’S. Chris Fedak really loves to inject Malcolm’s personal issues into the ‘serial killer of the week’.

2:23 – I’m sorry – the team let Malcolm on the ledge without tethering him first?!? No. No. No. I refuse to believe it. Dani, JT, and Edrisa care too much about Malcolm to let him do that.  

2:28 – Why is Edrisa even on this stakeout?!? Did she fill in as the 4th team member while Gil was in the hospital?!? I love Edrisa – she’s hilarious but the fact that she’s in the field like this is absolute nonsense. Hahaha 

2:32 – hahaha OMG. JT is like the big brother forced to hang out with his younger sibling and their weird friends. He’s think’s they’re all crazy but he’d also die for them.  

2:42 – Yikes. Malcolm is questioning his moral code. This boy is headed for a real nasty downward mental spiral if someone doesn’t intervene quickly.  

2:46 – Am I really supposed to believe that a rope tied to a radiator can hold the weight of two grown men dangling off a building?!? I mean – I’ll suspend my disbelief because I know it’s fictional entertainment but I found it really distracting.  

2:48 – JT. Would. Not. Let. Go. Of. That. Rope. I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT. If for no other reason than because he loves GIL too much to let Gil’s surrogate son fall to his death. I understand why this happened – tension and excitement for television in the first scene of a new season but honestly – this whole first scene is wildly unrealistic given what we know about JT, Dani, Edrisa and their respective roles on the team.

2:50 – Can we talk about JT’s facial hair for a sec? I like him with it (and without it). Part of me thinks he grew it because he’s trying to channel Gil while he’s temporarily in charge of the team.  

3:08 – Honestly, the second Malcolm picked up his phone all I could think was “You moron. What if you drop that thing off the side of the building!?!?!”…then I remembered that he’s rich.

3:20 – “Please say it’s cancer.” Hahahahahaha OMG. I have a love/hate relationship for Malcolm with no filter. That’s freaking comedic gold. 

3:57 – “I’m hanging in there.” Tom Payne is freaking incredible. Look at his facial expression here. Malcolm’s emotional pain is etched on that face. Ugh. I’m love. 

4:02 – soooo no updated title screen. Interesting. 

4:08 – Istg the writers only put Ainsley in this scene so she would be in the episode. I mean honestly – what kind of precinct lets reporters with a camera crew INSIDE?!?! 

 4:15 – hahaha I love JT in this scene. I love how he initially looks at Ainsley with a mixture of confusion, resignation, and fear. This is a man who does not like the camera.  

4:16 – Side note: is it just me or is Ainsley acting very manic in this scene? Something about her energy reminds me of Malcolm circa 1x05 when he’s not sleeping and trying to convince everyone that he’s fine.

4:38 – hahahaha OMG. That wink.  

4:48 – Even Malcolm looks surprised that Ainsley and a camera dude were let into the precinct.  

5:00 – Ahhh the hand tremor. <3 Love that they’re still using that. 

5:05 – also Malcolm is heartbreaking in this scene. Someone give him a hug. Look at how hard he’s trying to hide his pain, fear, and trauma. UGH.  

5:33 -  So we finally get to see it. The moments immediately after 1x20. Or do we? I have this crackpot theory (I posted it on my main blog, so you might’ve already seen it – “AllTimeBouvier”) that these flashbacks are only a fraction of the truth. I think Sophie walked followed Malcolm from the vet’s office to the hospital, then home. I think she hid when she heard Endicott’s voice due to fear but came out after Ainsley started screaming and stabbing.  Besides – anyone else notice how the portion of these flashbacks where Malcolm is saying “Ainsley, focus on me. You didn’t do this. I did.” Only his right hand is ever in the frame. So it’s impossible to tell if he’s holding his cell (on the phone with Martin) with his left hand or if he just hung up and put the phone back in his pocket? I think that Martin either phoned Malcolm back or Martin heard Sophie’s voice and demanded to talk to her. I think Sophie disposed of the body while Malcolm took care of Ainsley like a good big brother. I think Sophie went into hiding and Martin is gaslighting Malcolm into believing that he disposed of Endicott’s body.  

5:37 – Anyone else want to know what happened to the murder weapon? And Ainsley’s bloody clothes? Just me? 

6:00 – hahahahaha Jessica is so extra. I love it. 

6:29 – Wait. What? Why was Ainsley quarantined with Jessica? Ainsley has her own apartment. If Jessica forced Ainsley to come and live with her during quarantine – why didn’t she also force Malcolm? This doesn’t track for me. 

6:40 – I love that Jessica brought Malcolm food (you can see the grocery bag behind Malcolm in one of the shots) and went so far as to actually lay out the breakfast ingredients for him. <3 I mean. It’s extra but it’s also sweet.  

6:45 – Why is Jessica looking at Malcolm’s pill bottles? Is it just to avoid eye contact with Malcolm while she talks about Gil? Is she noticing that his dosage has changed (she’s extra so I’m assuming she knows exactly what meds he takes and how much of each). Is that part of the reason why she’s suspicious of Malcolm? His dosage has gone up and he’s clearly trying to hide his pain?

 6:52 – I love how Malcolm interacts with Jessica in this scene. It’s so cute. They’re adorable. AND seeing Malcolm in casual clothing is always nice.  

7:44 – “Oh about that.” Damn. Malcolm really can’t catch a break. Poor baby. : ( 

7:50 – hahaha Martin looks like a mountain man here. Completely deranged and un-groomed.  

7:51 – Glad Mr.David isn’t dead or evil. I had fears.  

8:35 – The tension between Dani and Malcolm seems to have lessened since 1x20. The trust seems to have been partially rebuilt. Partially. Dani is still suspicious.  

8:38 – Well at least Malcolm’s still going to therapy.  

8:41 – GREEN SUIT. HELL YES.

9:06 – “The ‘Drise knows.” OMG hahahaha I love this show. Look at how Malcolm looks at her hahaha. 

9:17 – “I can fire these people right?” OMG. 10/10. JT REALLY SHINES IN THIS EPISODE. AND FRANK HARTS IS KILLING IT and the writers gave him so much well deserved screen time and great lines.  

9:53 – Malcolm and Edrisa getting excited about murder is honestly so freaking cute.  

10:34 – OMG. The way Malcolm perks up at the mention of rumours is hilarious. A learned behaviour from Jessica during his childhood? 

10:45 – I’ll say it again. Chris Fedak was wasting Frank Harts in season 1. This dude is shining in this episode. I hope they keep giving him more lines and screen time than they did last season. 

12:00 – I love seeing Malcolm this excited/happy but it’s pretty concerning that his passion is murder weapons.  

12:04 – This scene is really interesting to me for four reasons 1) Where the eff did Dani go? I guess she’s probably on her way to see Gil? 2) Even though Malcolm is getting excited about murder he’s way less manic than he was earlier this episode. 3) I love watching JT deal with Edrisa and Malcolm’s nerdy excitement. I could watch it all day. So fun. 4) I love watching JT and Malcolm in scenes together. Period. I can honestly say that watching their friendship evolve is one of the highlights of this show for me.  

12:30 – Heartbreaking. Malcolm had a few minutes where he forgot about Ainsley, Endicott, Martin, and the various traumas currently haunting him. Then he not only remembered but he saw Martin in himself. The crazy person collecting murder weapons. You can tell he feels embarrassed, ashamed, and sad. I genuinely believe that’s why JT says, “soooo weird.” with a look of sympathy and concern. JT doesn’t suspect that Malcolm has anything to do with Endicott’s murder at this point in time. Mark my words. 

12:55 – Edrisa gets Bright. I will never ship them together but I really hope they get more scenes together this season. Their friendship is beautiful. 

13:00 – Malcolm, baby, no. You don’t have to do this. Ugh. Poor baby. This is just going to make the night terrors worse. 

13:10 – They trimmed Martin’s beard but not his hair between the first scene in this episode and now. I think they just combed his hair? Why?!? Was this a Michael Sheen request? I must know!!! 

13:40 – hahaha OMG. Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how incredible Michael Sheen is?!? This man can go from downright terrifying to hilarious in a split second. Incredible actor.  

13:55 – Sooooo Mr. David doesn’t know about Endicott? Because he’s definitely heard Malcolm and Martin discuss some pretty sketchy stuff over the years. I’m pretty sure he heard about the Sophie stuff last season didn’t he? Why is Martin finally trying to hide something from Mr. David?  

14:03 – Look at Malcolm’s face. Ugh. He looks nauseous and scared. Someone hug him. Or better yet – get him away from Martin.  

14:18 – Sooooo is Jerry going to be a problem later? Martin ‘cures him’ later in this episode so will he be able to tell someone he heard Martin and Malcolm talking about Endicott’s murder? Would anyone believe him?  

14:40 – GO. TO. HELL. MARTIN. You’re not feeling it?!? Haven’t you caused enough emotional damage to your son. Stop. Trying. To. Manipulate. Malcolm.  

14:50 – Question 1000 about how Endicott’s body was disposed of: Where the hell did Malcolm get that yellow jumpsuit on such short notice? And….those gloves – anyone else notice that they’re practically the same as the gloves he puts on in Izzy’s sex dungeon in a few minutes? ALSO – THEY FOUND ENDICOTT’S BODY IN ESTONIA?!? LIKE ALL OF IT OR JUST PARTS OF IT? WOULDN’T IT BE SMARTER TO SCATTER HIS BODY IN MULTIPLE COUNTRIES IF IT’S ALREADY IN PIECES?!? Unless maybe Endicott’s body isn’t in pieces because we all know that Malcolm’s memory of traumatic events is fuzzy at best. 

15:07 – “Don’t. Say. That. Never, say that.” - I’m really proud of Malcolm here. He’s clearly in serious emotional distress throughout this whole conversation. He’s grappling with what he believes he did, what that means about him, his moral code, and his relationship with Martin. But yet – he found the strength to basically tell Martin to eff off.  

15:20 – AMAZING. Right after Martin says “Estonia?” there are a few seconds where it genuinely looks like Malcolm is going to cry. It’s moving as hell, heartbreaking, and some downright kickass acting. 

15:56 – Well, that’s not going to help Malcolm’s night terrors. But we definitely have confirmation that Jerry wasn’t as engrossed in the cartoons as Martin suggested.  

16:20 – I love this scene. Gil is the whole team’s surrogate father – not just Malcolm’s. Sometimes I forget that. Also – the fact that Chris Fedak waited 16 minutes to show us Gil Arroyo alive and well is a crime.  

16:28 – “He wouldn’t dare.” “I know.” How cute is this? Look at Dani’s smile. Ugh. I can’t decide if they know that JT doesn’t want Gil’s job because he loves working with Gil too much or he doesn’t like how much responsibility comes with Gil’s title. Probably a combination of both.  

16:35 – Sooo has Malcolm not been visiting Gil? I guess because of COVID he couldn’t but now he’s just not? I mean – Gil would be able to tell how Malcolm’s doing just by looking at him.  

17:05 – I’m sorry ‘multiple surgeries’?!? I want elaboration on this.  

17:09 – So I googled “British musician Izzy” and the top hit was the guitar player for Guns’n’Roses (who looks kinda like this guy). I have no idea what that means but I found it interesting. 

17:30 – Holy shit. Izzy is a nutcase. I love him. hahaha 

17:55 – Soooo Malcolm keeps a spray bottle of some sort of magic “show me the blood” water? Nah – the writers wrote it into the show for this scene’s convenience.  

18:05 – I love this. Malcolm’s nonchalant approach to his mother and Gil’s budding relationship. He’s like a little kid who doesn’t want to get his hopes up. He’s using the mentality of “If I don’t acknowledge it, it’s not happening. Therefore, if it goes wrong – I won’t get hurt by it.” It’s really sad and I wish he didn’t run away from something that will potentially be good but I also get it. 

18:06 – I also respect Malcolm a lot in this scene and am irritated by Dani. Look – they both adore Gil. They’re both protective of Gil (and in Malcolm’s case Jessica). Here’s where they’re different: Malcolm recognizes and respects that Gil and Jessica are adults who can make their own decisions. Dani doesn’t. Dani is acting like a preteen trying to break up Dad and the new step-mom she isn’t sure of. Dani and Malcolm both have their hearts in the right place but I disagree with Dani’s response to the relationship. I also understand where she’s coming from given what we know about Dani’s bio Dad.  

18:39 – It’s not supposed to be funny but holy hell. Malcolm putting his head on the floor to listen is hilarious.  

19:00 – I’m getting major John Watkins flashbacks. Malcolm breaks down a lot of walls where serial killers once hung out. Is that supposed to be some sort of subtle comment on Malcolm’s character? 

20:33 – Damn. Malcolm’s hair is long this season.  

20:55 – aannnnnd here are the murder gloves from the Endicott flashbacks. 

21:30 – Something about Malcolm dancing to this music in this supremely manic state is really upsetting to me. It just makes me uncomfortable.  

22:13 – I’m so worried about Malcolm right now. Holy hell. Get him to Gabrielle. NOW. 

23:00 – A skil saw. Pretty much a small version of what Malcolm thinks he dismembered Endicott with. Yikes. Fedak really loves making Malcolm project his issues on murder suspects.  

23:27 – Yep. Dani totally thinks Malcolm killed Endicott. She thinks he’s gone dark side and followed Martin’s footsteps. This is not going to be good for their friendship or the trust that they’re rebuilding.

23:50 – One of my favourite things about this show is that it can go from dark and creepy to family sitcom-esque drama in a second. It helps lighten the show’s tone a little. I mean honestly – most of the fans are here for the family drama as opposed to the ‘killer of the week’ storyline anyways. 

24:10 – I love this. Jessica admitting to Malcolm that she and Gil have been discussing him for almost 25 years. You can see that Malcolm is 1) a little freaked out and 2) a little touched. For a moment you can see how badly he wants Gil and his Mom to have a long-lasting romantic relationship.  

24:32 – OMG. Why did Jessica call Ainsley about Malcolm’s mental state before calling Malcolm? Is that standard Whitly family practice? I have questions. 

24:40 – Yep. Dani is Concerned and Scared.  

26:46 – Sooo we all agree that Martin was trying to electrocute Jerry to death right? I mean “You really shouldn’t have done that Jer-bear.”?!?!  And he’s literally a serial killer?! 

27:25 – Mr. David is having none of Martin’s bullshit – so how did Martin get away with it? What does Martin have on Mr. David? 

27:50 – “A miracle.” Omg. Hahahaha. I love this show. So. Much. 

28:09 – “clearing her brother’s name. Not murder.” Seriously, the parallels between this case and Malcolm’s personal issues are more obvious than usual this episode. Almost to the point where I’m annoyed that the other characters aren’t really catching on.  

28:35 – “What happened, his brain break?” I love the way JT can simultaneously tease and be concerned about Malcolm. Ugh. It’s beautiful (and hysterical). 

29:07 – Not again. Please stop putting JT in front of the camera. I’m getting second-hand embarrassment and anxiety on his behalf. It hurts to watch (funny too, but mostly painful). 

29:19 – Look at Gil. Hahaha he’s so amused by JT’s awkwardness in front of the camera – but you can also see how proud he is. <3 I love papa!Gil.  

29:33 – “Police work is patience.” Cute 1x05 callback. And can we all just take a minute to appreciate how much Gil loves Dani. Just look at his proud Dad face!! <3 Warms my cold, dead heart. 

30:00 – Oh yeah, Dani is suspicious.  

30:04 – I love how Gil seems to be the only person who truly understands Malcolm and all his quirks. <3 I love how much Gil loves Malcolm. <3 I just…ugh. <3 <3 <3 • 30:11 – “I’m a good big brother.” That line cut through my heart. He shouldn’t have been put in this position – choosing between his moral code and his brotherly instincts. It’s not fair and the stress of it is literally killing him.  

30:17 – “Messed them up.” Them!?!? I’m sorry Dani, when did you and Gil start talking about Malcolm AND Ainsley?!? Last I checked this was a 100% Malcolm conversation. …she’s not wrong though. 

30:33 – “There’s nothing we haven’t talked about.” I love what that suggests. To me – that means they when Dani has a bad break up, they talk about stupid stuff like what they’re cooking for dinner and songs that make them happy. I love that it suggests that Dani and Gil have talked about Jackie. Malcolm might be Gil’s fake-son but Dani is sooo Gil’s fake-daughter. <3 I can just see him getting all overprotective when she gets a new boyfriend even though he knows damn well that Dani is more than capable of taking care of herself – he can’t help it, Dani is his little girl. <3 <3 <3 

31:00 – Ugh….ok. So this scene. I’ve seen a lot of mixed reactions about it. I have a bit of a mixed reaction myself tbh. On one hand, I love that they have the type of relationship where they can openly discuss this. On the other hand – it feels forced and it really rubs me the wrong way. Dani is just way out of line here. She’s totally attacking Jessica and Gil is kind of letting her? I mean I think it upsets me so much because Gil isn’t even really defending Jessica.  Also, that line about Jackie thinking the Whitly’s are cursed?!? Wtf is that?!? No. No. We know that Jackie loved Malcolm like a son. Jessica has said that Jackie was kind. What is this cursed nonsense?!?!? I refuse to believe it. And the fact that Jessica heard it all breaks my heart. Like – it physically hurts me to watch this scene for all of the above reasons. But I also kind of understand why we got the scene – to further explore the Gil+Dani dynamic and to add some angst to the Jessica/Gil romance.  

33:00 – Oh hell yes. I love this danger. 

34:10 – Amazing how calm Malcolm is while the killer is literally going through his murder weapon collection. Like he hasn’t been this calm all episode? 

35:10 – Ahhhh here’s manic!Malcolm. 

35:25 – “Is it my hair?” Okay so totally hilarious, but Dani is listening to this. Can she tell that Malcolm is clearly (and weakly) deflecting the comment about him being a killer like Martin? 

35:40 – Malcolm is scared. :( Someone please hug him. This is the most honest he’s been all episode. My heart is broken.  

36:20 – Soooo did Malcolm just abstractly tell Dani that he’s a justice killer? Nahhhh I’m totally typing out of my ass.  

37:00 – He was on the Harvard fencing team?!? Why is that adorable? 

37:34 – Malcolm just cut a dude 3x. No remorse. No more fear. He’s calm. I’m terrified. Does he like hurting the killer?  

37:50 – I think Dani suspects that Malcolm killed Endicott. Yep. Definitely. 

38:00 – Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. This scene with JT and the cops is heart-wrenching. The fact that Dani and Malcolm come to his rescue is beautiful. The fact that JT is clearly terrified but not angry is perfect. I hate that this scene had to be made but I love how it was executed.  

38:31 – Look at Malcolm’s confused, white, rich face here. He genuinely can’t believe that cops just racial profiled one of the only good people who ever accepted a serial’s killer’s son as a friend.  

38:40 – I’m crying. JT’s fear (and Frank Harts’ acting) is so believable and completely haunting. I hear the subtext in this scene, “What if those cops killed JT? What would happen to his pregnant wife and unborn child?”, “How is JT going to financially support his family if he loses his job unfairly?”, “How messed up is it that a literal military veteran is terrified of fellow police officers?”. 

38:44 – “You didn’t do anything wrong.” This line gives me hope. Malcolm isn’t too far gone. Malcolm still knows right from wrong and he still has a heart of gold. 

38:55 – Ok. I LOVE that Gil magically shows up in this scene. BUT HOW DID HE KNOW TO COME TO THE PRECINCT?!?! LIKE WTF? Because Malcolm and JT look surprised to see Gil. Dani just looks relieved – did she call Gil?  

39:10 – Gil is an absolute A+ human being. I love him. I will die for him.

39:33 – OMG. JT’s big watery puppy dog eyes have ripped my heart to shreds. <3 :( 

39:45 – When I first saw this I thought Malcolm was hurt by Gil’s “and whatever Bright is”. But upon re-watching it – Malcolm looks surprised and so so touched. I’ll be honest – I don’t think Malcolm’s mental state would be so bad right now if he had had regular contact with Gil throughout COVID. Gil is Malcolm’s rock. His literal example of what a good man looks like – without him during a traumatic time Martin creeps back into Malcolm’s psyche.  

40:15 – Sooo Martin is still definitely lying to Malcolm.  

40:20 – Stupid little thing – there never used to be a toilet on Jerry’s side of the room. And what happened to all of Martin’s books and stuff? Did Claremont put it in storage? I mean he’s a serial killer? Jessica certainly didn’t store it for him. 

40:37 – Amazing. As soon as Malcolm physically sees Gil he comes to Martin with a renewed faith in his moral code. (“I stop killers. I don’t help them.”) 

41:30 – “Please don’t torture yourself for that.” Martin is right BUT that’s also why I hate him. Martin is manipulating Malcolm right now. He’s trying to convince Malcolm that he genuinely cares and loves his children. Thus destabilizing further Malcolm’s mental state.  

41:36 – Also – both Tom Payne and Michael Sheen are acting their asses off here. *chef’s kiss* 10/10. I love to see it.  

41:45 – Aaaannnnd there’s Martin the asshole. Completely screwing with Malcolm’s mind. Again. What a dick. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.  

42:00 – Look at how scared Malcolm is. I genuinely think Malcolm (whether or not he actually dismembered Endicott, I suspect he didn’t) feels good when he remembers doing it. This is BAD for Malcolm’s mental health. Yikes. : ( Poor baby.  

Ok. So that’s the first episode of season 2. I really liked it. It wasn’t perfect but I’m excited for what this season might bring. Be back next week.  

[tyrannuspitch]

tagged by @kidrat (ty!!)

Why did you choose your url? in honour of richard campbell gansey iii, ya fantasy autistic icon of prophesied doom (i have a brand and i'm sticking to it)

Any sideblogs? If you have anyway, name them and say why you have them. technically yes but i haven't used it in at least year. it's basically a pinterest for story ideas but i've abandoned most of them

How long have you been on tumblr? since 2013, but this blog is from late 2015

Do you have a queue tag? i have never queued a post and i never will

Why did you start your blog in the first place? i migrated here from the nanowrimo young writer's programme forums... i haven't done nanowrimo since i was 12 but it was my first exposure to a queer community so uh. thanks for that i guess

Why did you choose your icon/pfp? in honour of tyrannus basilton pitch iii, ya fantasy autistic icon of prophesied doom. (what can i say.) it's by @aellae if they're still on tumblr?

Why did you choose your header? it's the same fanart zoomed out, which gives you the full context and effect. smthn about this painting particularly rlly captures the combination of nostalgia/whimsy with genuine threat/angst/melancholia that this story thrives on

What's your post with the most notes? i wrote a pretty basic mental health psa thing in like 2016 that somehow got like. 60k notes. i've deleted it now and it was a weight of my chest

How many followers do you have? like 65. rip to everyone i soft- and hardblocked to keep it that way but this is an invitation only event

How many people do you follow? about 80. a lot of them only post once or twice a day so it's manageable. (edit: i was wrong it's 44. idk why i just said this without checking)

Have you have made a shitpost? yes, and like many geniuses, i have gone unappreciated in my time :'(

How often do you use Tumblr daily? too often

Have you ever had a fight/argument with a blog? yeah but i hated it. i used to get into fights on nanowrimo (i know) all the time and then after that i was involved in ace discourseTM but i just can't do it anymore.

How do you feel about people saying “you need to reblog this post?” i have unfollowed and probably even hardblocked ppl for it in the past

Do you like tag games? yes i love to ramble aimlessly. love to be enabled

Do you like ask games? ask games feel a little more risky bc with tag games someone tags *you* and it's a fun surprise, but with ask games you're *asking* ppl to engage. but mostly yes

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? uhhh. no one afaik

Do you have a crush on a mutual? no i don't think i've ever had a crush on someone i haven't met irl and idek what half of you guys even look like sorry

tagging @sol1loqu1st @solderlessbreadbird @aro-caduceus (no pressure ofc)

[redisriding]

Tell us about yourself!

Yikes! So I didn't really know where to begin with this one, Well I was born on the banks of the river... Nah! So I googled “fun get to know me questions” and the resulting questionnaire had 371 questions. I decided to answer the first 100!

Strap yourself in, because HERE WE GO! 

1. What is your full name?

Red is Riding ;)

2. What does your name mean?

Funny story, so I actually created this alias to partake in some underground hedonistic activities. When I went to start my Tumblr I just decided to use the same one because I’m not very creative and didn’t want to make up a new one. I never thought that this blog would become as popular as it has, and now I couldn’t be bothered changing the name. It does make me laugh though, if only you people knew what I used to get up to under this alias. 

3. Are you named after anyone?

Little Red Riding Hood?

4. Does your name make any interesting anagrams?

I don’t think so, but maybe someone smarter than me could figure it out. 

5. If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to?

I would probably change my real first name if I could as unfortunately I share it with a reasonably well known facist.

6. Where are you from?

A small European country. 

7. Where were you born?

In the capital city of that small European country. 

8. Where did you grow up?

In the suburbs of the capital of that small European country. 

9. Who did you look like growing up?

A member of the band Hanson, if they had red hair and wore those terrible 2000’s wire rimmed glasses. 

10.What are your best characteristics?

Oh gosh, isn’t it embarrassing to talk about your good traits? Especially when the way you see yourself is often so different from the way others see you. 

11.What are your favorite things about yourself?

Honestly, I’ve great boobs.

12.Which of your parents are you closest to?

Depends on my mood.

13.Which of your parents are you more like?

I think physically I’m more like my mother, but my character is closer to my father. 

14.Are your grandparents still married?

Yep, on one side. On the other side my grandad is dead and has been for a very long time. 

15.What relative was important to you growing up & why?

I guess my grandparents, they are the only members of the extended family I ever really saw growing up. I was never close to my uncles, and my aunts and cousins all live in different countries. 

16.What is one thing that you’ve never revealed to your parents?

Anything about my love life, we just don’t talk about it. Ever!

17.What would your parents have named you if you were the opposite gender?

I’m actually not sure. I know they had lots of other traditionally female names picked out, but I don’t know any male names they had for me. I’m not sure if they knew early on if I was going to be a girl, would make sense though.

18.What do you call your grandparents?

I call one of my grandmother’s by her first name, and my grandad, grandad. 

19.What is your best physical feature?

My boobs!…I have pretty eyes too.

20.What is your biggest accomplishment?

Probably getting into University and graduating top of my class.

21.What is your biggest fear?

Having all my joints simultaneously dislocate. 

22.What is your biggest regret?

The way I’ve treated certain people over the years.

23.What is your eye colour?

Blue.

24.What inspires you?

Hope that tomorrow can be better.

25.What is the most important thing in your life?

My family, and my future. 

26.What has required the most courage of you in your life so far?

Hummm, I’m really not sure about this one. 

27.Who is your favourite actor?

I truly could not name a single actor.

28.Who is your favourite actress?

As above. 

29.Who is your favourite celebrity?

I genuinely have no idea.

30.Who is your favourite musician?

Lorde has been getting me through this quarantine, but my favourite singer/band is/are Florence + the Machine. Maybe that dates me. 

31.Who’s your favourite person in the world?

I can’t choose just one! 

32.What is your favourite childhood memory?

I’m very lucky, I had a really marvellous childhood. I guess I have some great memories of playing with my brother as a child, but I’m not sure I have a favourite memory. 

33.What is your favourite colour?

Teal. 

34.What is your favourite cultural activity?

I love going to the theatre.

35.What is your favourite drink?

Water is the thing I drink most often. I don’t like tea or coffee, and I only drink alcohol in social settings not alone of an evening.

36.What is your favourite fairytale?

I’m actually not sure. I know it’s not quite the same but I was never allowed to watch the Disney princess films growing up (a lot of which are based on fairytales) so I can’t say I am particularly attached on any. Although, in answering this question I have remembered by blog name so I probably should say Little Red Riding Hood. 

37.What is your favourite food?

Potatoes, they are so wonderfully versatile, I will never get bored eating them.

38.What is your favourite holiday destination?

There is so much of the world I have not yet seen and I cannot wait until we’re allowed to travel again. The last big trip I was on was to Canada, Vancouver, and it was amazing. 

39.What is your favourite ice-cream flavour?

Ice cream does not agree with me at all, I always thought I was lactose intolerant because of it (I’m not), but I did love a pistachio ice cream as a kid. 

40.What is your favourite music genre?

According to Spotify my most listened to genre is “alternative” whatever that means.

41.What is your favourite physical activity?

Hiking. 

42.What is your favourite quote?

I don’t believe I have one. I do know someone who has “live laugh love” tattooed on their foot. Take from that what you will.

43.What is your favourite snack?

Tbh I don't really snack (am I coming across as awfully boring in these questions?) I love three big meals a day. I will eat an apple or something if I need something pre dinner. 

44.What is your favourite song?

Either Fascination by Alphabeat, Prayer in C by Lily Wood and the Prick, and Robin Schulz, or Brimful of Asha by Cornershop, the Fat Boy Slim Remix. Those songs never fail to put me in a good mood when I need it. 

45.What is your favourite sport?

To watch? Rugby. But I am OBSESSED with the Olympics, especially the winter olympics.

46.What is your favourite time of the day?

Early evening. 

47.What is your favourite type of clothing?

Dresses…with pockets! Or jumpers, I love a big wooly jumper. 

48.What is your favourite way to pass time?

Read.

49.What is the name of your favourite restaurant?

My favourite restaurant is called Dishoom, but unfortunately it has yet to make it to my little European country, so it’s a real treat if I get to eat there. 

50.What is your all-time favourite town or city? Why?

I don’t have one.

51.What is your favourite candle scent?

Probably a classic vanilla, but not an overpowering one. The vanilla candle from IKEA is the NICEST. 

52.What is your favourite social media channel?

Probably Twitter, although Tumblr is my place for escape. 

53.Where’s your favourite place to take an out-of-town guest?

Ugh I hate being the one to choose where we go. I think it’s because I’m a Libra. 

54.What was your favourite subject in High School?

Okay now this is a fun fact, I didn’t actually go to school. I was “Home Educated” which is ideologically different form being Home Schooled. There was no curriculum for me to follow so I could basically dick about doing whatever I wanted during the day. I did study Law which I really enjoyed, and I went onto study it at University. 

55.What was your least favourite subject in High School?

Again see above. Although I do remember crying every time my father tried to teach me maths. To this day, I’m still not sure how to work out a percentage, let alone anything more advanced than that. 

56.What was your favourite TV show when you were a child?

Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the Melissa Joan Heart version) or anything with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in it (have I dated myself again?)

57.What do you love about your favourite TV Show?

They were fun. I wanted to be them!

58.Are you scared of heights?

Nope, but I’m scared of falling and shattering all the bones in my legs.

59.Are you high maintenance?

Definitely not.

60.Are you more inclined to “build your own empire” or unleash the potential of others?

I don’t know what this means, but fuck imperialism. 

61.Are you more likely to avoid conflict or engage it head-on?

Ugh, I hate conflict, like I go all trembly, but if there is something amiss I can’t not confront it.

62.Are you a dog person or cat person?

I really adore animals, I had hoped to get a cat during this long and lonely lockdown but my landlord wasn’t keen. If I had more time and space I would love to get a dog, it’s just not feasible in my life at the moment. 

63.Are you a fan of any sports team?

Just my national team no matter what the sport.

64.Are you a good cook?

I like to think so.

65.Are you an early adopter or late-adopter?

Depends. I don’t always love change.

66.If you had more courage what would you do differently in your life now?

I don’t think having more courage would change anything in my life right now. 

67.What is good about how you are living your life right now?

Oh gosh, I’m so incredibly lucky to have the like that I am living right now. Truly blessed, but at the same time, I have got here because of all my hard work and determination. 

68.If you could eliminate one weakness or limitation in your life, what would it be?

I’m not sure if this strictly answers the question, but I wish I could be kinder and more sympathetic to people. I can be harsh on people I care about because I want to see them do well in life and get frustrated when they are doing things that so obviously curtails their ability. I’ve lost friends because of it. 

69.Who has left the most impact on your life?

I don’t think I can name just one person.

70.What aspect of your life needs tremendous improvement?

My love life. It’s not existent. Truly. I don’t even have a far away crush on anyone at the moment. I desperately want to experience romantic love, but it’s scary and you have to allow yourself to be soft and vulnerable which is not something that I am very good at. I also have a lot of negative thoughts/self doubts about whether I am good enough to be in a relationship, or worthy enough for love. It’s stupid, obviously, everyone, flaws and all is worthy of love, but because of things that have happened/been said to me I do kind of have this negative chatter of “who could ever love me” or fear people thinking “god love the poor guy who ends up with her.” All that said, I have never actually met anyone who I’ve really liked, let alone anyone who has liked me back. The closest I’ve got, is I’ve been in lust twice in my life with guys, who objectively speaking, I would never think I would be attracted to.

71.What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen in your life?

I’ve see a lot of weird things tbh, but the first one that springs to mind is that every year we used to go to these big gatherings of families who home educate their children. Now, there are two groups of people that tend to home educate their children 1) EXTREMELY religious families who don’t want their children going to secular schools, and 2) new age hippies who don’t want their children to have to conform to the rigours of school. When these two groups meet…it is interesting. The religious families usually have a lot of children (10+ in many cases), while the hippy families wander around semi-nude and breast feed their children until their grown (7+ years in many cases). So at these home education conferences, the hippy parents would be wandering around, leaky boobs out, and the religious babies would be wandering around because their parents have too many children to keep track of. Whenever one of these babies wandered within range of the hippy parents, they’d take them, and latch them onto their breasts. Absolutely bizarre stuff.

72.Who is the best teacher you’ve ever had?

Myself. 

73.Who is the biggest pack rat you know?

I don’t know what this means. 

74.Who is the first person you call when something exciting happens?

If it’s a big enough deal to call someone, I’ll call my parents, but usually if something exciting happens I’ll just message my friend group.

75.Who is the first person you call when something horrible happens?

Same as above. 

76.Who is the worst boss you’ve ever had?

I had to sue her to get her and her husband to pay me for the work I did. 

77.Can you close your eyes and raise your eyebrows?

Yep? Can you not?

78.Can you do a split?

No, but I want to learn! I have really tight hamstrings so that would be good to stretch them.

79.Can you touch your nose with your tongue?

No. Can you?

80.Can you whistle?

Yeah.

81.Can you dance?

Everyone can dance, the question is whether you can dance well or not! I have no rhythm or style, but get me on a dance floor and I’ll bop my socks off.

82.Do you remember your dreams?

Sometimes. 

83.Do you save old greeting cards and letters? Throw them away?

I save them for a while, but I’m not overly sentimental. 

84.Do you sing in the shower?

Never. 

85.Do you sleep with the lights on or off?

Off. 

86.Do you spell the colour as grey or gray?

Grey you weirdo! 

87.Do you take any pills or medication daily?

Never.

88.Do you prefer kissing or cuddling?

I like kissing because it’s hot and fiery and I think I’m reasonably good at it. Cuddling is the best but it’s something I struggle with as I find it far too intimate. See my answer to Q70.

89.Do you prefer that people shoot straight with you or temper their words? Why?

Hit me between the eyeballs with the truth, please! I just like people who are clear and direct about their intentions, it means everyone knows where they stand. 

90.Do you prefer Titanic or The Notebook?

I saw a black and white documentary about the Titanic when I was a very small child (maybe about 5 or 6) and for a long time I thought that was the movie Titanic! I have seen neither the real film Titanic nor the Notebook, although from what I know of the latter I don’t think it would be my thing.

91.Do you have a catchphrase?

I don’t think so, but maybe people in my life would be better at answering this question. What is it that I say a lot?

92.Do you have a garden?

I wish!

93.Do you have a hidden dream that you’ve never shared with anyone?

I’m taking this to mean a goal or aspiration, and not something that I have subconsciously dreamed and been too embarrassed to share? I would love to write a book one day. I’m work on something periodically but I’m not sure if anything will ever come from it, a gal can dream though!

94.Do you have a tattoo?

None! I’m kind of a commitment-phobe, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed?

95.Do you have a whole lot of acquaintances or just a few very close friends? Why?

Both! I know lots of people in passing, but the people I consider actual friends, who know what is going on in my life at any given time, I could count on my fingers.

96.Do you have any allergies?

Not that I’m aware of…

97.Do you have any birthmarks? If so, where?

I used to have one on my back, but it’s faded as I’ve aged.

98.Do you have pets?

Not at the moment.

99.Do you hold any convictions that you would be willing to die for?

That is a big question. I think however, if there was a guarantee, that sacrificing my life would make the lives of others immeasurably better, I would be scarified. I have plenty of convictions that I’m willing to protest/riot/go to prison for.

100.Do you carry a donor card?

Bit ominous after Q99 but yes I do, and my driver’s licence states that I’m a donor.

I’m not sure if this is at all what you were hoping for in asking this, but I honestly had the best fun answering these questions! :)

[upsidedowninmyworld]

All of them? :$

I can’t sleep. Why not

1: How tall or short do you wish you were? The height I am now

2: What’s your dream pet? (Real or not) Hmm...Gizmo

3: Do you have a favorite clothing style? Anything comfortable really

4: What was your favorite video game growing up? Sonic

5: What three things/people do you think of most each day: My partner, my future, and what it all holds

6: If you had a warning label, what would yours say? Very quiet, slow to anger but proceed with caution

7: What is your opinion on [insert person/thing here]? 🤷🏻‍♀️

8: What is your Greek personality type? [Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Choleric, or Melancholic] uhh when I took this test in high school, I was melancholic

9: Are you ticklish? Yes

10: Are you allergic to anything? Loads

11: What’s your sexuality? Bisexual

12: Do you prefer tea, coffee, or cocoa? Cocoa

13: Are you a cat or dog person? Cat

14: Would you rather be a vampire, elf, or merperson? Hmm vampire

15: Do you have a favorite Youtuber? I did

16: How tall are you? 5’2”

17: If you had to change your name, what would you change it to? I like mine

18: How much do you weigh? [Only ask this if you know the user doesn’t mind!] too much for me to be comfortable

19: Do you believe in ghosts/spirits? Yes

20: Do you like space or the ocean more? Uhh I like both equally

21: Are you religious? Kind of

22: Pet peeves? When people touch my stuff without asking. Bad breath

23: Would you rather be nocturnal or diurnal [opposite of nocturnal]? Nocturnal

24: Favorite constellation? Not sure

25: Favorite star? Not sure

26: Do you like ball-jointed dolls? No?

27: Any phobias or fears? Not saying

28: Do you think global warming is real? Yes

29: Do you believe in reincarnation? Not really

30: Favorite movie? Forrest Gump

31: Do you get scared easily? No lol

32: How many pets have you own in your lifetime? 5?

33: Blog rate? [You’ll rate the blog of the one who’s asking.] what?

34: What is a color that calms you? Blue

35: Where would you like to travel and/or live? Australia, London

36: Where were you born? LA

37: What is your eye color? Brown

38: Introvert or extrovert? Intro

39: Do you believe in horoscopes and zodiacs? No lol

40: Hugs or kisses? Kisses

41: Who is someone you would like to see/visit right now? Cody

42: Who is someone you love deeply? Cody

43: Any piercings you want? Second ear piercings

44: Do you like tattoos and piercings? Yes

45: Do you smoke or have you eiver done so? Before

46: Talk about your crush, if you have one! He’s pretty great. Been with them for almost 4 years :)

47: What is a sound you really hate? A certain person’s voice

48: A sound you really love? The ocean

49: Can you do a backflip? Not anymore

50: Can you do the splits? If I stretch, yes

51: Favorite actor and/or actress? Natalie Dorner and Ed skrein atm

52: Favorite movie? I already answers this

53: How are you feeling right now? Tired

54: What color would you like your hair to be right now? Half white half Black

55: When did you feel happiest? I think it’s been a while

56: Something that calms you down? Writing or drawing

57: Have any mental disorders? [Only ask this if you know the user doesn’t mind!] nothing diagnosed

58: What does your URL mean? My world is odd

59: What three words describe you the most? Quiet, contemplative weird

60: Do you believe in evolution? Yes

61: What makes you unfollow a blog? Posting things I don’t like

62: What makes you follow a blog? Posting things I like

63: Favorite kind of person: a genuinely nice person that is honest

64: Favorite animal(s): pandas, otters

65: Name three of your favorite blogs. 🤷🏻‍♀️

66: Favorite emoticon: 😻

67: Favorite meme: I have too many

68: What is your MBTI personality type? I can’t remember

69: What is your star sign? Uhhh Pisces...?

70: Can your dog roll over on command, if you have a dog? Yes

71: What outfit out of all your clothes do you like to wear the most? A black shirt and jeans with converse

72: Post a selfie or two? No thank you

73: Do you have platform shoes? I do!

74: What is one random but interesting fact about yourself? I can bend my thumb all the way to my arm

75: Can you do a front flip? Not anymore

76: Do you like birds? Sure

77: Do you like to swim? Love it

78: Is swimming or ice skating more fun to you? Swimming for sure

79: Something you wish didn’t exist: not saying

80: Some thing you wish did exist: someone that is no longer here

81: Piercings you have? Just my ears for now

82: Something you really enjoy doing: reading

83: Favorite person to talk to: Cody

84: What was your first impression of Tumblr? I like this site

85: How many followers do you have? Uhh I haven’t looked in a while

86: Can you run a mile within ten minutes? I use. To lol

87: Do your socks always match? Yes

88: Can you touch your toes and keep your legs straight completely? Yes

89: What are your birthstones? Aquamarine

90: If you were an animal, which one would you be? Panda or a cat

91: If a flower could aesthetically represent you, what kind would it be? A rose

92: A store you hate? Hmmm not sure

93: How many cups of coffee can you drink in one day? I don’t

94: Would you rather be able to fly or read minds? Read minds

95: Do you like to wear camo? On occasion

96: Winter or summer? Winter

97: How long can you hold your breath for? About 30-45 seconds

98: Least favorite person? HAHA

99: Someone you look up to: my dad

100: A store you love? Any bookstore lol

101: Favorite type of shoes. Converse

102: Where do you live? In LA

103: Are you a vegetarian or vegan? If so, why? Nope

104: What is your favorite mineral or gem? I don’t have one?

105: Do you drink milk? Yes

106: Do you like bugs? No

107: Do you like spiders? Yes

108: Something you get paranoid about? The future

109: Can you draw: kind of

110: Nosiest question you have ever been asked? How sex was with a person I slept with or how I could stand sleeping next to ex because he snores really loudly. Like freight train loud

111: A question you hate being asked? Who’s the smarter or prettier twin. I usually get that I’m smarter

112: Ever been bitten by a spider? Yes

113: Do you like the sound of waves at the beach? I do

114: Do you prefer cloudy or sunny days? Cloudy

115: Someone you’d like to kiss or cuddle right now: codes

116: Favorite cloud type: what

117: What color do you wish the sky was? Purple

118: Do you have freckles? No

119: Favorite thing about a person: clean hands

120: Fruits or vegetables? Fruits

121: Something you want to do right now: see someone

122: Is the ocean or sky prettier? Ocean

123: Sweet or sour foods? Sour

124: Bright or dim lights? Bright

125: Do you believe in a certain magical creature? Sure

126: Something you hate about Tumblr: 🤷🏻‍♀️

127: Something you love about Tumblr: 🤷🏻‍♀️

128: What do you think about the least? Work

129: What would you want written on your tombstone? 🤷🏻‍♀️

130: Who would you like to punch in the face right now? HA

131: What is something you love but also hate about yourself? My mind

132: Do you smile with your teeth showing for pictures? Yes

133: Computer or TV? Computer

134: Do you like roller coasters? Yes

135: Do you get motion sickness or seasickness? It depends

136: Are your ears lobed or attached? Attached

137: Do you believe in karma? Sure

138: On a scale of 1-10, how attractive would you say you are? Like an 8 on a good day

139: What nicknames do you have/have had? Quite a few

140: Did you have any pretend or imaginary friends? Yes

141: Have you ever seen a therapist/shrink? Yes

142: Would you say you are a good or bad influence to others? Good

143: Do you prefer giving or receiving gifts/help? Both

144: What makes you angry. A lot

145: How many languages do you speak fluently? One

146: Do you prefer boys, girls, and/or non-binaries? I’m bi soooo

147: Are you androgynous? No

148: Favorite physical thing about yourself: my butt lol

149: Favorite thing about your personality: my ability to see the good in everyone even when they’re shitty. Also my least favorite thing about myself

150: Name three people you would like to talk to right now in person. Well my dad, Cody, my grandma

151: If you could go back into time and live in one era, which would you choose? The one rn because I am a minority

152: Do you like BuzzFeed? Sure

153: How did you meet your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/partner? [If you have one.] uhh dating app. Technically a football game.

154: Do you like to kiss others’ foreheads or hands for platonic reasons? No

155: Do you like to play with others’ hair? Just codys

156: What embarrasses you? Not a lot

157: Something that makes you nervous/anxious: the future because I can’t really talk about it with anyone without stressing people out. But it helps me feel less anxious so I’m kind of stuck

158: Biggest lie you have ever told: oof

159: How many people are you following? 🤷🏻‍♀️

160: How many posts do you have on your blog(s)? 🤷🏻‍♀️

161: How many drafts do you have on your blog(s)?🤷🏻‍♀️

162: How many likes do you have on your blog(s)?🤷🏻‍♀️

163: Last time you cried and why: ooh like a few days ago

164: Do you have long or short hair? Short

165: Longest your hair has ever been: to my butt

166: Why do you like, dislike, or have neutral feelings about religon? I don’t want to answer this

167: Do you really care how the universe and world was created? Yes

168: Do you like to wear makeup? Yes

169: Can you stand on your hands or head for more than thirty seconds? No

170: Did you answer the questions you were asked truthfully? Yes

[imagine-loki]

Pride and Prejudice

TITLE: Pride and Prejudice CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 44 AUTHOR: wolfpawn

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki was raised on Jotunheim as Laufey’s son after the war, but an agreement was then made that he would wed Odin’s daughter so Odin could secure the alliance of Jotunheim through the marriage. Loki, in turn, was raised to be king of Jotunheim, but how he views Asgard is far different from how Odin’s daughter is raised leading to a clash of cultures as well as uncertainty between the pair of betrothed youths.     RATING: Mature   NOTES/WARNINGS: Forced Marriage, not all fun and games. My first real step back into the Loki scene in over a year.

Tags - @skulliebythesea @asimovethroughthisworld @blackcherry26-blog @we-shadowhunter2901

Loki rushed through the halls. He finally grasped what Ella had stated. Her rounded stomach that he had failed to notice the night before in the steamy bathroom and with her sitting on him as they coupled in the dark had not revealed her condition to him. He knew there was something different about her, her breasts were different, but he had not realised why. He had sired a child. The mere thought of such made him feel like shaking. A child, he was a father. Ella tried to tell him before he fell asleep but he was so tired he did not hear. He then thought of her actions in the throne room moments before. Defending her honour as his mate, using calm logic to pull apart the statements made against her and her defence of him and his parentage. She took personal offence to how Kristoff referenced their potential children, and the child she was carrying been seen as being lesser beings for not being full Jotnar. He still could not fully grasp that she was with child. It explained his protectiveness of her, how he could not stop himself fretting about her not being close to him. He instinctually was protecting the child. He knew that sires were always protective of their mate when they were carrying, but ones that had only one mate tended to be more so. It explained a lot but he was not overly concerned about that right away, his focus was on her mentioning that the child was coming in only eight months, he could not figure out how it would arrive so soon. When he got to their rooms, he rushed through the doors, startling her.

“Eight months?” That was all that left his mouth.

“It will arrive in eight months, yes.” She confirmed, watching his demeanour carefully.

“How?”

“Well, I will be in considerable pain for some hours as my body…” The expression on his face ceased her sarcastic answer. “You impregnated me ten months ago, so according to the healers here and on Asgard that I have consulted at length with, even with a quarter Jotnar lineage, which is, of course, far longer than Aesir gestational times, I seem to be growing on target to give birth then. Again, I told you this last night but I think you were too tired to remember.”

“So….when I left…? You did not think to tell me?”

“I had only discovered less than a week before. With a first pregnancy, it is not recommended to notify even the father….”

“No, no Asgardian tripe, this is Jotunheim and on Jotunheim, you tell a sire as soon as you know,” Loki growled. “I could have died not knowing I was a sire.”

“I would not know that, would I? You never told me, and I tried to tell you before you left,” Loki frowned. “Just as Arden interrupted us to tell you to leave, I was going to tell you then but he stopped me from being able to. Trust me, I felt uneasy about it and had tried a few times to think of a manner to tell you.”

Loki inhaled deeply. Ella always endeavoured to be truthful and declared time and again that in their marriage, especially in the earliest stages after the incident with her health, honesty was all they had. “With how sick you were, will it affect…?”

“No, everything is perfectly fine. Your heir is safe and growing well.”

“You cannot know it is an heir, the Allfather only knew you to be female because of this Soul Forge I have heard so much of.” Loki’s tone was far softer after the initial shock ceased.

Ella only smiled before walking forward, taking his hand and placing it to her stomach where the child grew. Using her seidr, she was able to check the child fully and showing him the image her seidr was relaying to her, including the child’s genitalia. She looked at him and smiled again. “That is one of the two required for the agreement in place.”

Loki could not help but feel incredible pride at having sired a son. Had he sired a daughter, he knew it would be equally joyous, but thinking of what would occur as the child grew, sitting on the throne, his son on his lap, learning how to be King of Jotunheim, how to best tend to the needs of the people, that made his chest swell with pride. Ella’s seidr had been so accurate in showing their child, he could see his markings begin to form. He had never known that they grow in the womb, but they were starting to show already and were quite identical to his own, which made sense, as his dam did not have any to add to the genes. He knew Ella would never be unfaithful, the moment Arden mentioned the rumours of court, he knew them to be false. The genuine look of relieved happiness on her face when he had arrived back, the willing manner in which she allowed their coupling, knowing she did not have to since she was already carrying, he knew it to be lies. Her reaction when he mentioned the rumours to her was not one of someone with something to hide but a woman angered that someone would dare suggest she would discard her own moral code for something so ridiculous. “It doesn’t matter that it’s a boy, if it were a girl…that agreement, my father should never have made that part of the agreement.”

“On Asgard, every man wants sons. I even hear here that they are more coveted. There are more females than males, for a realm to be at full strength, it requires a lot of males.”

Loki shook his head. “I don’t care. I genuinely could not care less what gender the child is. I will not lie, I am elated at what I will do with my son when he is older, the moments we will share as I did with my own father, but if you were carrying a daughter...I would dote on her no end.” He looked her in the eye as he spoke, hoping to convey that he was being genuine. “I know it is not the normal response, but I remember telling you that Helbindi is adamant to have daughters.”

“I would love to know how he plans to do that purposely,” Ella laughed. “And in case he asks you to ask me, no, I do not know a spell for that.”

“Is there one?”

“Some very very shady ones I would not trust that supposedly assist in giving a higher chance of sons, but my studying of apothecary and other such things would suggest there is little credibility to their claims.”

“Why did you study them?” Loki asked worriedly.

“Curiosity. I know all men want sons and I assumed when I was younger, so would you as a high standing Jotnar. I did not know then that you were to be king after your father and that you are not inclined to care for such things, but I was not to know then of course. I wanted to see if I could do my duty...to not…” She silenced and swallowed before she could not look him in the eye and went to walk away.

Loki realised immediately that she would not complete the sentence. He thought to touch her arm but decided against it and instead deliberately followed after her. “Please, finish that sentence.” She said nothing. “You always endeavour to be honest, silence is not the same.”

“It is not dishonest though, is it?” She challenged. “It does not matter.”

“Did you use a spell to ensure you carried a boy?” Ella’s look of appalled shock told him the answer. “But you feared carrying a girl?” Again, her face told the answer, a resounding yes and a slight look of shame before he realised something. “You did not want a daughter to be put through this, did you? That is what you tried to avoid.”

With her head hanging slightly, Ella gave a slight nod. “I know this was difficult at the beginning but I am very fortunate that you are the sort of man you are, and I know my parents love each other dearly, but so many are not so lucky, I don’t…”

Loki’s throat tightened at such a thought. “My father only agreed to this to stop the war, to guarantee the Casket’s return. Going forward, there will be no such agreements for my children, especially my daughters.”

“Your daughters?” Ella eyed him challengingly. “I am not some mere vessel for your children, you know?”

Loki, worried that he had angered her, something he knew some females were prone to doing through carrying but her eyes did not have anger in them. “You know what I mean.” He chuckled.

“Using me for my uterus.”

Loki could not help but smile at her playfulness. “I apologise for not listening last night,” he stated coyly before wincing slightly. “And for my bursting in now and merely saying ’eight months’ and not something more befitting the situation. How has it been for you? Have you been ill with the child?”

“Mostly tired really, not very ill, nauseous more than anything. All I wished for was sleep. I spent more time sending a clone to court than going myself. I just wished to sleep.”

“Would they not have noticed that the clone was not you, considering they are not solid in form?” Loki questioned. Ella smirked and rose a brow. “You did not do it to full strength in the throneroom a moment ago, did you?”

“Not even in the realms of strong.” She performed that same spell again and Loki was facing another clone of himself, this time, completely solid-looking, his nuances entirely perfect.

“You could create great issues with that if you chose.”

“I could, but I have yet to see fit to do so.” She waved her hand and his clone disappeared.

“Have you used that before to impersonate me?” Loki asked worriedly.

“Not in public, no. I have practised doing it in here when you were gone and I had no company. Well, I had Greta for company when I wished for it but overall, I’ve just tried to stay here when possible. With you not here, it has not felt right, your presence or even the pretence of it has been comforting.” She confessed, toying with her hands as she admitted it.

Somewhere under everything, Loki felt a surge of pride. Subliminally Ella, or perhaps the baby itself knew that he should be there with them that he was required for them for their comfort. “It makes sense, in its own manner.” She frowned slightly. “Since my return, I have felt a peculiar urge to protect you, before I could not explain but now that you have mentioned the child, it makes perfect sense. Of course, I would feel the need to protect the child and you as the dam.” She nodded slightly, though, in her features, he could see something akin to hurt. “I am not saying that I would simply feel protective of you because of that but…am I reading too much into this?”

“I think you have been previously warned of insulting females that are carrying and as a result, you think everything you say has a risk of being perceived as an insult and with my abilities...”

“I have spent time in the presence of beings that you have unleashed Hel on previously. You are incredibly terrifying. And don’t think Byleistr did not mention your actions in his presence and those who came after us told of your actions in court.” He explained though he did not mention the surge of pride he had when he heard it. Seeing the smug smile on her face as she recalled such events. Thinking of her snapping at those who thought her inferior to them, such as the filthy Kristoff and his previous bedpartner, he could not even remember her name as that had been their agreement at the time, some fun, she had been a distraction for a short time but she had been boring and silly, nothing more. Ella was intelligent, she never spoke for the sake of speaking, everything had a purpose and the rest of the time, she sat, politely listening but always keenly in case something of note was being said. Everything she did was for a purpose, it was something about her that he respected deeply and had tried to emulate in himself. The manner she dealt with the situation regarding court was captivating, she would not let Kristoff try to alter the conversation, she focused fully on his comments and did not stop until she revealed his motives entirely and commanded the room whilst she occupied it, it was something he could not help finding alluring. His mate fought for them ardently and took pride in carrying their child and dressing to show her allegiance to him. He found his gaze going to her again before realising she was looking at his with slight concern on her face as to why he had gone silent. His eyes for their way over her body, her slightly larger breasts and stomach becoming his focus.

“Like something?”

He looked at Ella’s face to see her smirking and indicating to his loincloth which was clearly tenting. He could only shrug at her. “It was a long eight months.”

“Evidentally.” She turned and walked towards the bedroom. “For both of us.”

Loki did not wait for further instruction and rushed after her, knowing that if she wished to be left alone, she would be vocal about it.

[thisiskatsblog]

Hi Kat, I often come to seek your wisdom and thoughts on matters such as these because you were the first Larry blog I ever found and the last time I did, you really seemed to understand me and my conflicting emotions and messiness haha. So. My question is what are your thoughts on the Ray and SBB twitter accounts? I found them a few months back when I found a thread explaining a theory of why it's L&H and go back now and again to see what is being posted. I am the darkest Larrie there is, yet

contd: I always prefer to be a cynic because I know just how devastating it is when you put your hope in something only to have it crumbled. And in this fandom, you can't trust anything or anyone unless there is hardcore evidence and proof (aka every millisecond of footage of fetus Larry). There is talk about clues, numbers, iphone/androids and these cryptic riddles and hidden meanings. People do admit in the comments it feels like they're clowning yet I also see thousands resting their hopes contd: on these obscure tweets. I will admit the proof thread I originally read made it seem believable but I then I thought 'who am I kidding, there's no way it could genuinely by H&L'. It doesn't seem like something they would risk, nor something either of them would actually do. It seems like two people baiting Larries and giving us false hope (because in this era where we never get public interaction, many have become far more gullible and willing to believe anything, no matter how far

fetched. Ahh I don't know. It just seems far too good to be true that the two of them are communicating with us through cryptic pictures and riddles and messages. Yes I do believe they both have always found ways to communicate with us, whether it is through songs or body language, because we opened our eyes, we were by their sides and stay strong for them because this is a fight they will win, but I really don't know. It's very cruel if someone is indeed baiting us. Thanks x

 (^^^ March 23rd) 

2.       Anonymous said:

March 25th 2020, 7:06:01 am · a month ago

okay so I just read some master posts explaining RBB and SBB in detail (I didn't get why people were hanging onto every word of Ray and Seymour's tweets like that) and my mind is literally going INSANE trying to process it all. As usual their reactions when asked about it directly on that christmas sweater interview told me all I needed to know back when I watched it but had no idea the sheer significance of these bears until now. It's crazy all the ways L&H showed us the truth all along, to

this day it's just mind-blowing to me. Like they were screaming in the midst of drowning (cough cough Director's Cut), desperate for us to listen and thank God so many of us weren't blind. Sometimes I do feel like maybe I am going crazy or I am delusional for believing in this, as FIMQ said, the cognitive dissonance is real. My mind spirals catastrophically and I doubt my own sanity, and then my mind plays all these touches and glances, slipped words and monumental actions on a loop, far too

much evidence to dispute, and I know I can never go back, how can I, when I've never in my whole life witnessed such magnificent, almost otherworldly love, never cared about any celebrity's love life yet this is far more than that, it is fighting for their love, because they should have never had to be that strong, to endure so much pain, so so young, but they weren't that strong for us to be weak. And I can't wait for the day they are free. No one on this earth deserves it more than L&H.

 3.        Anonymous said:

March 26th 2020, 12:44:47 pm · a month ago

Even I am the darkest Larrie (and yes there is no going back, ever) sometimes I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Loving and supporting and fighting so fucking hard for a love that is as tragic and excruciating as it is the most beautiful, magnificent thing I have ever witnessed. I wonder, did I get it all wrong and what if they don't find their way back to each other, my waking moments are haunted by memories of them, so young, so clearly smitten, like who the fuck finds their soulmate at

that age? What if even if it is 'always going to be h for Lou', even if they were 'too young to know they had everything' but h doesn't forgive him or remember that yes, their love is worth it? Sometimes I feel I am teetering on the brink of insanity, what if Lou actually has a kid? And Harry's album was about a horrible woman who never deserved him? I think I'll be strong for them, even if I have to wait ten or twenty years but I also feel so much pain thinking about it all. I have never

doubted my own sanity in my life, but lately I wonder so often if I am delusional for having faith in the love of two boys who we're fated to meet and fall in love. I can't even watch them in their baby boyfriends stage or watch edits anymore because I feel physical pain because they never deserved that. I feel pain thinking about their pain, no one should have to face that so young. To be that strong. I want to be strong yet and I try so hard but i also feel I am going mad. I don't even know.

______________________________

Three anons that I suspect are the same person (and maybe even the same one I just answered). Big hugs to you dear anonymous person! And thanks for the compliment. And the patience. I’m so sorry it took me so long to answer. Not sure if I have anything helpful to say, still, except: the fact that you’ve started doubting your sanity, that cognitive dissonance you feel, that dizzy head nauseous gut feeling you get when what you see and what you hear and what you read, just doesn’t match up but you haven’t been able to rationally unravel it yet. That feeling is probably your best proof that something is very amiss, and that Louis’ and Harry’s relationship is very real. We all know that feeling, and it tends to get worse the more caught up in fandom you get.

Your sanity is worth preserving though, so - in my view - it’s better to leave the fandom for a while, however short, to take care of yourself, and be strong for yourself when you feel like it’s draining you too much. You can do that by physically leaving social media, or by taking emotional, and mental distance on a regular basis.

I always remind myself that I have no influence over whether Louis and Harry eventually make it together. And next to no influence over their careers, management, label. I can decide what I do, and have a wee tiny bit of influence on the modest amount of followers of this blog, and then a wee little bit more through the other one - but all in all, my actions, the person they matter most to, the person they influence most, is me. So I try to do, in life, and in this fandom, the things that make me happy. Worrying, does not make me happy. Arguing with hets rads antis and all the other new abbreviations i don’t really get, doesnt make me happy either - I only do it when I’m having one of those days or one of them really sets me off like the other day. But in general, what makes me happy is focusing on the positive. What this fandom has brought me. And has brought other LGBTQ+ people. What are we learning here, what stories do we tell eachother, how are we making eachother better here. 

All of that said: Louis, and Harry, have both sung, in this past year, that they “made it”, and referenced eachother’s music videos in important ways. So I honestly don’t think there’s much to worry about. I think that, whatever was causing them difficulties, they already “found their way back”. I think they are allright.

And I want us to be allright to. That’s something we can influence, that we can do for eachother. So I’m sorry it took me so long to get back to you

I enjoyed reading your SBB post, talking about the sweater interview. That part of it was wonderful, and everything we needed to know. I took RBB and SBB with a big grain of salt in the beginning, but I have reason to believe it was them, or someone very close to them, and that interview did confirm that.

With or without permission, that’s difficult to say. Was it queerbaiting? I’ve been asked that question so many times. In a sense noo, because they are LGBTQ+ themselves - but there is the fact that RBB & SSB very deliberately engaged with LGBTQ+ fans and kept them here while they must have known, at least after bullshit 2.0 happened, that they were going to stay closeted. 

I don’t know exactly how I feel about that. It was a crazy ride, and some of it was enjoyable, and I think the support is important to them, so I do want to stay around. But I also  think it’s shit that LGBTQ+ fans in this fandom have done SO much to support them, and are getting so much shit in return, still, not from them, not at all, but in this environment - and no one is stopping it. 

And that’s not just the case in Louis’ fandom, where we’re definitely experiencing enormous amounts of cognitive dissonance with the bearding and babygate. But also in Harry’s. When LGBTQ+ fans bring rainbows night after night, but it’s constantly portrayed as if Harry is the one bringing them, and when it’s LGBTQ+ fans organising to light up arena’s night after night across Europe, but the only time that gets featured is when it’s two straight girls organising it, insisting they are not doing it for queer fans but because we should be one happy family inclusiveness all around.. I can understand the frustration, the impression of queerbaiting, the feeling of being taken for granted, that made some people leave Harry’s fandom. I will stay, I think he’s amazing, and I think he needs and is grateful for the support, but as an LGBTQ+ fan, I still feel like I am in a hostile environment - knowing he is with Louis, and that he cannot speak about it, has never spoken about any concrete relationship with a man. That’s... - that still tells LGBTQ+ people they are not 100% legit. 

And that’s probably not a lot better for the straight fans who see what we see: a beautiful relationship they can’t speak about and that’s denied all the time. That, too, tells you your thoughts are not legit, and therefore you are not legit. The gaslighting... it’s probably the most poisonous, detrimental aspect of this fandom. Coming back after more than a year off, I was shocked, at how clear things seemed to me again, compared to how doubtful I had been about my own opinions when I left. Taking time off is not abandoning them. Remember that. For me, it made me stronger, and it allows me to support them now. 

So I hope this gets better. Soon. I am still convinced they want that too. And when I start doubting, I listen to Only The Brave... 

[forexcrypt-blog]

Mike Watkins (Mike Indigo)

Who?

Mike Watkins / Michael Watkins / Mike Indigo. Michael Watkins Director of Indigo Digital Asset Management Limited Company number 12156748. Michael Watkins Director of Blocktraders Limited Company number 11731915. Website: Theholistictrader.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/HolisticTrader

Mike Watkins Background

Firstly - have a watch of this video - I am now facing the same situation from Mike Watkins - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=kGFuz1As-mQ&feature=emb_logo Here are the comments from that video...

Youtube comments https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=kGFuz1As-mQ&feature=emb_logo This is then further backed up by the same person who made that video https://www.publish0x.com/cryptocurrency-educationblock-traders/my-crazy-crypto-story-4-months-of-slander-defamation-modifie-xdrzrn It is exactly what I am now going through with Mike Watkins. This is an insane situation - how has he been allowed to get away with all of this? What can I say... Tonight 14/04/2020 Mike Watkins has sent me multiple emails telling me he is going to sue me - I can only think it is in relation to putting him in the Scam list - for good reason - Mike Watkins has stated that he is FCA regulated - so everyone can see for themselves - have a look at these two screenshots...

Theholistictrader.com - "First FCA regulated Crypto fund in the UK"

Mike Watkins Twitter HolisticTrader - "CEO of an FCA Regulated Hedge Fund" Just to avoid any claims of impropriety here is the Google page results..

FCA REGISTER Now if you check the FCA register Mike Watkins / Michael Watkins nor the two companies he is a director of are FCA authorised/regulated for Financial Services Activity. - Mike Watkins is not FCA authorised nor regulated for financial trading activities. - Indigo Digital Asset Management Limited Company number 12156748 is not FCA authorised nor regulated for financial trading activities. - Blocktraders Limited Company number 11731915 is not FCA authorised nor regulated for financial trading activities. Stating you are FCA regulated when you are in fact not, is fraud. He has even tried to backtrack on these claims after I have exposed him, I have taken a copy of his website and his Twitter page for the FCA.

Abuse, harassment and stalking begins...

Tonights nonsense - 14/04/2020 Tonight I got a series of emails from Mike Watkins - I am posting them here for you all to see. Mike Watkins has fraudulently claimed he is FCA regulated and claimed A* J***** Limited are suing me. As you can read below as the evening progressed - he has then backtracked on both claims. EMAIL 1

EMAIL 1 EMAIL 2

EMAIL 2 - this came in after - note the timestamps - my email server must be rubbish... "We are now pursuing". Plus the GDPR stuff is nonsense - his name and address are already online. EMAIL 3 In this email he attached a document he thinks covers him for his FCA claim - it doesn't. It only mentions the Cayman Islands - as you will read in "email 4".

EMAIL 3 EMAIL 4

EMAIL 4 EMAIL 5

EMAIL 5 EMAIL 6

EMAIL 6 - backtracking on his FCA claim. EMAIL 7

EMAIL 7 EMAIL 8

EMAIL 8 EMAIL 9

EMAIL 9 - Now he sends this nonsense - classic behaviour. SUMMARY This shouldn't need much commentary - you can make your own assumptions up. This is almost a carbon copy of behaviour I get online in forums - almost word for word - I have seen it over and over again when I expose stuff - they genuinely lose it. When I say I get nothing for doing this I mean it, this chews up a stupid amount of time. Oh well maybe I will be rewarded in the after life or something.

UPDATE 1 15/04/2020 12:54pm

A* J***** Limited have responded to an email I wrote them this morning verifying Mike Watkins claims - I will not be sharing that email for confidential reasons (this mornings email is in addition to the one I copied them in on last night as above in EMAIL 3).

A* J***** confirm Michael Watkins is lying As you can read here above A* J***** is not suing me. As you can read above in EMAIL 1, Mike Watkins said, "Myself and my Fund Managers, A* J***** are formally launching Libel and Slander Legal proceeding for extensive damages due to your post" - it is a lie.

UPDATE 2 15/04/2020 14:00PM

Mike Watkins has now sent this and a bunch of emails claiming he has sent a writ to my address and that North Wales Cyber Crime Unit are investigating off the back of a "Fraud UK" report - its all bullshit. EMAIL 10

EMAIL 10 - claiming he has lodged a complaint with Action Fraud.

UPDATE 3 16/04/2020 08:36am

Site has been DDOS'd since this post went up. Note the spurious request used by the attacker? "GET /?s=fraud".

DDOS attack from 1400 16/04/2020 onwards. We finally got the site stable around 0200 16/04/2020. Since posting & sorting the DDOS, Mike Watkins has sent in a stream of emails. EMAIL 11

EMAIL 11 - "I will see you in Court". EMAIL 12

EMAIL 12 EMAIL 13

EMAIL 13 EMAIL 14

EMAIL 14 - claiming he is suing me... EMAIL 15

EMAIL 15 EMAIL 16 & 17

EMAIL 16 & 17 EMAIL 18

EMAIL 18 EMAIL 19

EMAIL 19 - Mike Watkins again tries to change tack and cover himself - it is still fraud. He knew what he was doing and has not changed his Twitter nor his Website - its fraudulent use of the FCA Authorisation/Regulation title. EMAIL 20

EMAIL 20 - Mike Watkins still claiming civil disputes are criminal offences and claiming North Wales Cyber Unit are involved. EMAIL 21

EMAIL 21 EMAIL 22

EMAIL 22

UPDATE 4 16/04/2020 11:49am

To say Mike Watkins is obsessed is an understatement. I cannot log into Facebook as it has been temporarily removed. See what Mike Watkins posted on Twitter...

Mike Watkins knows my Facebook page has been temporarily removed in the last few hours - why? Is this an admission from Mike Watkins? EMAIL 23

EMAIL 23 - more harassment from Mike Watkins.

UPDATE 5 16/04/2020 14:09pm

Now Mike Watkins has started following the backup page and sent me an abusive message with it. He has also been sending bizarre tweets, more emails - Totally Obsessive (Harassing) / Stalker behaviour.

Mike Watkins now following back up site as we had to copy data over whilst being DDOS'd.

UPDATE 6 17/04/2020 15:30pm

Mike Watkins has just sent in 20 emails in 47 minutes - More harassment and stalking - it all just gets added to the list. Note - Mike Watkins has already confirmed he lied above that he was FCA regulated. EMAIL 24

EMAIL 24 EMAIL 24 - 44

EMAIL 24 -44 - There are more above this up to 14:27 pm today

UPDATE 7 17/04/2020 - Twitter abuse and harassment

Screenshot of Twitter 17/04/2020 - abuse and harassment from Mike Watkins

UPDATE 8 17/04/2020 17:48pm - confirmation Mike Watkins lied about speaking to police

Here we have confirmation that Mike Watkins hadn't spoken to North Wales Police Cyber Unit - as I pointed out in "EMAIL 4" it was bogus, here you have confirmation that Mike Watkins has lied (again)...

UPDATE 9 17/04/2020 18:12pm

More harassment from Mike Watkins

RECAP 17/04/2020 17:00pm

Just to recap - since 14th April; -Mike Watkins has sent me abuse, harassment and is stalking me for posting that he is not FCA authorised/regulated. -After Mike being exposed ((and "A* J***** telling him") he is not FCA regulated) - he has now admitted that he is indeed not FCA authorised/regulated. - Mike Watkins has made false claims A* J***** were suing me. A* J***** confirmed they are not suing me, it was all made up by Mike Watkins. - Mike Watkins has made false claims he had spoken to North Wales Police Cyber Crime Unit. You can see the evidence above, where he has contradicted himself and clearly hasn't. - Mike Watkins says he has logged an online complaint with North Wales Police Cyber Unit. - Mike Watkins says he has logged an online complaint with London Metropolitan Police. - Mike Watkins has repeatedly made false allegations about me and/or what is on this website - you (including law enforcement) can all read what I have written - no laws have been broken by me. - This website has been DDOS'd twice - amazing coincidence. - My Facebook page was taken down - amazing coincidence. - Mike Watkins has spammed my email and Twitter with streams of abuse and harassment. As you can read from the Youtube video comments above - this is not an isolated incident by Mike Watkins. This is not my first rodeo - this is exactly the same behaviour I have encountered from people like this. The ones at the lower end of the scale are the most volatile. The false claims of Police involvement etc are a carbon copy of a case I faced 2 years ago. It should be abundantly clear to anyone now why I remain anonymous. You can see how dangerous it is if Mike Watkins finds out who I am - Mike Watkins is desperate to get my name and address. As I have pointed out in other posts; - I have nothing to sell. - Nothing I do is malicious - I am simply blogging about scammers committing fraud. All of Mike's actions are simply desperate attempt to get me to take the factually correct information down - that he is not FCA regulated when he has been selling & advertising on the basis he is. All the information is being collated and stored securely - the website is currently stable.

UPDATE 10 17/04/2020 18:32pm

Further lies and harassment from Mike Watkins - You have to make a report to your local police force first. In both cases (Met Police & North Wales Cyber Unit) - Mike Watkins hasn't done this.

Mike Watkins lying - you have to contact your local Police to file a crime. Also note the threat. Mike Watkins also posted this... and subsequently deleted it when I posted that he is the one fraudulently claiming he is FCA regulated.

My Twitter reply... Mike Watkins also posted this below - its just further lies. The Police have to investigate to see if a crime has been committed - Mike Watkins will have to supply evidence - of course there has been no crime committed by me. Mike Watkins is simply desperate to get my name and address - he is hell bent on a "court date" - obviously that's not how things work.

Tweet from Mike Watkins A stream of abuse/spam/harassment Tweets on Twitter. There is pages and pages of it. He has spammed my Twitter and my email with this - it is clear who did the DDOS.

Tweets from Mike Watkins

Tweets from Mike Watkins

Tweets from Mike Watkins

More abuse from Mike Watkins

Also in the tweets... In the Tweet in the left, Mike Watkins says he is in Cornwall - yet if you look on the right, the very same day 16/04/2020, the IP address he sent that abuse via Wordpress.com is his home IP in the North Wales area. So yet another lie - this lie is that he doesn't have access to computers.

UPDATE 11 17/04/2020 19:35pm

Alleged Fraud? Huh?????? So far Mike Watkins "says" he has contacted; - Action Fraud (Police Fraud Intelligence Bureau) - London Metropolitan Police. He should contact his local Police force. - North Wales Cyber Crime Unit. He lied about having spoken to them the same day, Action Fraud will not have redirected him that quickly (he said he reported me to Action Fraud - for what I do not know) - this is now confirmed by the above. Now, after never having spoken to North Wales Cyber Crime Unit, apparently North Wales Police have redirected him to the Financial Investigation Unit. - and now he says he has contacted North Wales Police - as you can see here they have re-directed him to the Financial Investigation Unit. Note the bit above about "Alleged Fraud" and having to log a case to Action Fraud - huh, what fraud, by whom? himself? Are these all photoshop or what? Remember so far - all I have done is said, "Mike Watkins has lied - he is not regulated by the FCA". Everything you read above is a result of that. I welcome any Police investigation so they can see the facts. I had already spoken to North Wales Cyber Crime Unit 15/04/2020 & 16/04/2020 via their social media channels to make them aware of the situation - I gave them the blog. Remember - all Mike Watkins wants is my name and address.

UPDATE 12 18/04/2020 11:00am

Mike Watkins has DDOS'd the site after posting this https://forexcrypt.com/mike-watkins-harassment-update-18-04-2020/ He also posted this to his Twitter - I was correct - it was him that had my Facebook page down - look how many reports he made. Further harassment. Mike Watkins shared this on Twitter - he is not very bright, he is sharing evidence of targeted harassment.

UPDATE 13 18/04/2020 16:50pm

More nonsense from Mike Watkins via twitter (and he's deleted all the abusive tweets he sent - I have a copy of the page for Law enforcement).

Tweets from Mike Watkins EMAIL 45

EMAIL 45

UPDATE 14 18/04/2020 17:53pm

Admission from Mike Watkins it is him DDOS'ing this website. (It was blatantly obvious with the request signature and timing).

UPDATE 15 19/04/2020 14:50pm

Here is evidence of him DDOS'ing the website

DDOS stats from cloudflare

DDOS stats from cloudflare

DDOS stats from cloudflare Mike Watkins is using bots/paid for reviews & followers for his social media - the further I investigate the worse it gets. Mike Watkins has been caught falsifying Police reports.Mike Watkins has been caught falsifying claims of a company called A* J***** Limited suing me.In the video above from Youtube you can see he doctored Thailand SEC emails. You can watch it here - https://www.publish0x.com/cryptocurrency-educationblock-traders/my-crazy-crypto-story-4-months-of-slander-defamation-modifie-xdrzrn I don't believe anything Mike says or publishes to be true. The Police reports are all vexatious/lies - he has been logging them from burner accounts and just posting the screenshots. Hence he deleted the FCA email - it showed his burner account. He is simply posting Vexatious Police reports as a scare tactic. I got an email to say look at Mike Watkins Youtube and Twitter followers rising by hundreds per day - its not possible if you search for him online - you can find little about him, there is no way its real traffic. To confirm this - have a look at this below - this is his Youtube - all fake likes. You don't get 4 likes per comment like that - this is all paid for/bots doing this.

You tube with fake likes striped uniformly across his page There is absolutely nothing real to this guy is there? I suspect this goes a lot deeper than we can see. He sits at home watching his CCTV of his front driveway from his back bedroom - if it wasn't already obvious from his behaviour above - there is something very, very wrong here. To be clear - I have done nothing wrong, no law broken. All I did was post correctly, Mike Watkins was fraudulently using the FCA Regulated title as a sales tactic - look what has happened since. I welcome any Police investigation from any country/agency. I will gladly help put this guy away - this is obscene. I have sent pdf copies and/or links to this page and the harassement page on Mike Watkins to; North Wales Police Cyber Unit 16/04/2020North Wales Police 18/04/2020London Metropolitan Police 18/04/2020

UPDATE 16 19/04/2020 15:27pm

Mike Watkins has just spammed my account with harassment - sending 24 tweets in under 5 minutes. He is also doxxing (sharing personal information - address & phone number) for the purpose of harassment.

Twitter harassment I have contacted Twitter support.

UPDATE 17 22/04/2020 14:19pm

I am keeping a tally of harassment here https://forexcrypt.com/mike-watkins-harassment-update-18-04-2020/

UPDATE 18 22/04/2020 16:51pm

Further harassment via email from Michael Watkins with yet MORE vexatious reports to the Police. EMAIL 46

EMAIL 46 What fraud?What theft?What lies?What harassment? Of course there is zero evidence - its all lies by Michael Watkins as a scare tactic. Everything on this page is presented as 100% fact by me. Its in the screenshots - you cannot contest it. If anyone wants to, we can have a third party forensically verify everything on here is 100% fact? North Wales Police have been sent this blog and have a copy of it in pdf format. I have been transparent with them and welcome any investigation so they can see the facts - Michael Watkins is a harasser, a stalker, and a fraud - It is explicitly clear to anyone reading this blog. This yet another vexatious report by Michael Watkins full of lies. Why would anyone share (Crime Reference Numbers) CRN's over the internet? - They wouldn't unless they are used as a scare tactic. Further, he is still desperate to get my address in the belief the Police will hand over someones address for civil dispute. He keeps talking about court... Michael Watkins has now stated he has lodged reports with; – Action Fraud UK (UK Police Fraud Intelligence Bureau)– North Wales Police UK– North Wales Police Cyber Unit UK– Australian Cyber Security Service (Australian Govt)– Queensland Police (Australia)- The Financial Conduct Authority UK All bogus/Vexatious reports. I am keeping a tally of harassment here https://forexcrypt.com/mike-watkins-harassment-update-18-04-2020/ EMAIL 47

EMAIL 47

UPDATE 19 22/04/2020 20:46pm

Mike Watkins' Twitter account @holistictrader is in the sin bin for sending harassment (should be permanently banned but there we go). Tonight Mike Watkins has sent abuse from fake account @ken_williams012 I checked the profile picture... The profile picture is stolen from Blockchain Bob (@riskfreeswinger) an actual trader with real signals. After uncovering Mike Watkins he blocked me on the @ken_williams012 account. Note Mike Watkins has now changed the picture on @ken_williams012 Mike Watkins is a proven Fraud. To top it off - he then sends tweets to himself from @holistictrader to @ken_williams012

Mike Watkins under fake burner account @Ken_Williams012

Blockchain Bob the original photo

showing that Mike Watkins changed the profile picture - he stole it from blockchain bob.

Sending tweets to himself from @holistictrader to @ken_williams012

CONCLUSION 23/04/2020

Pending any more harassment... This is the final post on this nonsense - what the fucking hell did I get into here????? 8 days of sustained harassment for writing the truth, Michael Watkins was listed on the scam warning page for fraudulently using the title, "FCA Regulated" - when he wasn't. I was 100% correct, everything stated is 100% fact. It has been confirmed by his "fund managers" - They are simply a third party fund setup vehicle who would setup a Cayman Islands Limited company for him (AKA the fund). Here is his email 19 again - I have pointed out issues with it;

Email 19 with my notation. In the contract he signed (yes he signed it, so cannot plead ignorance/misunderstanding) it explicitly states;

Phase 5 in contract he sent me in email 2 "Infrastructure Proposal"

Michael Watkins signed the above where it explicitly states formation at phase 5. Now, I checked the Cayman Islands company register for 'Indigo Digital Discretionary Limited' - it doesn't exist. His fund setup vehicle partners confirm here below he never got to phase 2 as he had stalled on them. READ THAT AGAIN. MICHAEL WATKINS NEVER EVEN GOT TO PHASE 2 out of an 8 PHASE PROCESS to onboard clients as a Cayman Islands registered Limited Company (AKA the 'fund') under CIMA regulation.

email back to Michael Watkins from his fund setup vehicle partner A* J***** So there you go, Michael Watkins is a fraud. Michael Watkins stated he was an "FCA Regulated Hedge Fund Manager" - that is a total lie - its actually 2 lies. - No Fund. - No FCA regulation. It isn't an oversight, it isn't a misunderstanding - he has sent me the contract (Infrastructure Proposal) in email 2 to 'prove' he had a "UK Hedge Fund"...

Email 2 - lies yet again. Even better - he has lied in the email he says he sent North Wales Police - email 13. (note wasting Police time for a civil dispute...)

email 13 where Michael Watkins lied to Police - his company was not managed by any Fund Manager - he never set up Indigo Digital Discretionary Limited! Fraudulently using the title of FCA Regulated when you are not, as part of a sales tactic is a scam, it is fraud. Not only is he a fraud - he is a serial liar, a harasser, a stalker, a cyber bully and misuses computers by spamming and sending DDOS attacks. Everything here is 100% fact & independently/forensically verifiable. North Wales Police have been sent this blog - I will not tolerate any harassment/bullying from Michael Watkins.

UPDATE 20 26/04/2020 15:49pm

The abuse and harassment has not stopped. Today I have caught Michael Watkins holistictrader faking positive reviews of himself in an interview on Youtube with New Kids on the Blockchain. He has used exactly the same accounts - I have created an article here and asked New Kids on the Blockchain for comment. https://forexcrypt.com/michael-watkins-holistictrader-featured-on-new-kids-on-the-blockchain-caught-faking-positive-reviews/

Request for Information if you have been scammed

People are sending me information that they have on Mike Watkins - if you have more please send it in - I will keep this page updated and hopefully we can all collate something for the regulators/agencies to see and put this to bed - No one should have to endure abuse, harassment, stalking or threats from scammers like this - this is obscene - the agencies/regulators are failing us if they cannot get a grip on people like this. If you have been scammed you need to contact the local financial regulator and Police Fraud department in your area. Read the full article

[plantcore-posterboy]

75 reasons we love you

Here ya go, baby. @your-friendly-neighborhood-enby

(Credits to Me for these)

1. You're kind, its something I love about you, even on your darkest days, you can make someone else happy.

2. Your interests. You can go on rants about things, and honestly, it's amazing, because once you're interested in something, you're interested in it.

3. You let me rant to you. You can be having a really bad day, but you'll always listen to me.

4. You're an amazing writer. I've read your work for a long time, and you never cease to amaze me.

5. You're adorable. I love your smile, and no matter how much you disagree, you really are adorable.

6. You may not always know how to respond to something, but you always respond, so I know that you're still there.

7. You are a good singer. Your voice is calming and easy to listen too.

8. No matter what you see about yourself as a flaw, you can always see the good things about people.

9. You put others before yourself no matter what it does to you, you just genuinely care about other people.

10. You've managed to survive, yeah it gets rough sometimes. But guess what? You've made it.

11. Nicknames. You're just really good at using nicknames, which is honestly a skill.

12. Common interests! We have quite a few, which honestly I find amazing.

13. You deal with me no matter what stupid crap I do, and I admire you for that.

14. You're accepting, you've never judged me, and I appreciate that.

15. You always know how to calm me down. A skill I both admire and adore about you.

16. You put effort into everything you do.

17. You are always willing to fight people with love.

18. You mean what you say, as far as I can tell. Honesty is good.

19. You've always been nice, which is why I got along with you so easily in the beginning, there's so much more now.

20. You have the ability to easily make friends. I mean, so many people on here love and adore you, including me.

21. You've always been there for me when I've needed it.

22. Your personality is amazing, you're sweet and loyal and I love it.

23. Your smile. Its adorable and I wish I could see it more.

(Credit to @thelonelycreature for the next ones)

24. SMOL SOFT CHILD!

25. SUPPORTIVE!

(Credits to @ihavenoclueanymore for these ones)

26. They are smart

27. They are themselves and unique (which is a good thing because they aren't fake! Which happens a lot)

28. They are very into musicals

29. They are are very easy to fluster and make blush

30. They have great writing

31. They are super adorable no matter how much they think they aren't

32. They have a very great dream and is good at musicals (and singing)

33. We have a bunch of stuff in common (we will probably find more as we get to know each other better!)

34. They have a cute smile

35. They are very cool person who deserves lots of love

36. They are an amazing arospec and enby who cares for others and isn't mean.

TOP 10 REASONS @nonbinaryroyaltylove LOVES LO!!!

(37) Reason #1: Lo is the most caring person on this planet and will listen to me rant my little heart out about something that they don’t even know about but they will make an effort to understand it anyway.

(38) Reason#2: Lo makes me smile whenever im down and they always know the right thing to say when im angry or sad.

(39) Reason #3: Lo is so so so so so so so so smart, they always come up with little jokes on the spot or things in their stories that i love.

Reason#4: speaking of Lo’s stories, don’t even get me started!!! Weather it’s late at night or early morning or anytime, I love reading their one shots and all their stories. They are so creative with their content and they are so friendly to their followers. (No wonder everyone wants to be their friend)

(40) Reason #5 Lo is really good at listening and when i say really good i mean REALLY GOOD. When I feel really down i know that they will always be there with a virtual hug and some yeeted love in my direction. The best part is, even if your an anon and they don’t know you they will still give you all the love in the world.

(41) Reason #6: you can count on Lo to never tell anyone your secrets and insecurities. Lo knows a lot of things in my life and only one other person i know knows as much about me as they do. If you tell Lo something they will take it to their grave.

(42) Reason #7: they deal with all the sap juice that we all give each other everyday and even through the shitty times they help others and honestly they handle the sap so well and its great.

(43) Reason #8 Lo is really good at just being a friend no matter what you need they will provide it. If you need love they will yeet it at your face and if you ask for space they will respect it, they are very patient always.

(44) Reason #10: lastly is that Lo will make sure you are ok. I was recently in a very dark place and Lo helped take me off the edge I was standing on. Lo will rant to you and make sure you eat and sleep even if it means sacrificing their own. (Which we will all rant back to them that they need)

(45) Reason #11 Lo is the actual fucking imbodyment of a hufflepuff!!!!!!!!! That in its self should be reason enough to love them

(Credits to @lovelylogicality for these)

(46) 1. They inspire me to write, and actually help me feel proud of my work

(47) 2. They make me feel important, like something really special instead of just boring.

(48) 3. Lo makes me feel better about myself (especially my weird eyes)

(49) 4. They’re kind and sweet and always try to make me feel better.

(50) 5. Always there with encouragement

(51) 6. Lo writes amazing little fics and I always love seeing their stunning work on my dashboard

(52) 7. THEYRE JUST AS SAPPY AS US

(Credits to me, again, for these)

53. You always know how to make me smile, whether its intentional or not.

54. Honestly, I smile anytime I see something that reminds me of you.

(Credits to @ihavenoclueanymore , again)

(55) 1. calls everyone a sap even tho we are all just telling truths

(56) 2. knows (with me telling) just what pet names to use to make me heart completely melt and my brain short circuit

(57) 3. very loveable human!

(58) 4. prefers to read the book (best type of human)

(59) 5. is poly! (Us polys need to stand together!)

(60) 6. makes nonhuman noises when flustered (need to hear these)

(61) 7. is very precious baby (in a non weird way)

(62) 8. very kind to everyone!

(63) 9. introvert (we also have this in common and need to stan together!)

(64) 10. favorite side is virgil (best side besides patton)

(65) 11. is legit the only human I've seen use greetings and salutations and it's awesome

(Credits to @lovesupportandcookies for these)

(66) 1. Heccin adorable

(67) 2. Does their best to be nice even in hardship

(68) 3. Incredibly sweet in general (all the sap)

(69) 4. Oh! And very trustworthy!

(Credits, again, to @nonbinaryroyaltylove )

(70) Reason #12: when Lo send out ask requests on their blog they actually do them and answer everything with the upmost importance. Lo puts their people before everything and will take time out of their precious day to care for them. Weather it be answering a simple and silly ask or responding to a more personal problem and he treats them all with importance.

(71) Reason #13: Lo is so accepting, you could tell them anything and no matter how messed up or strange you might think it is, they will embrace it and love you for you, which in my book makes them of the best people I have met.

(72) Reason #14: They know musical theater just like any lord should, you can talk to them about any and all musical theater and on the rare occasion that they dont know what it is they will make an effort to listen to and/or watch it so they talk about it with you.

(73) Reason #15 Lo is the most adorable lord you will ever see on earth, their smile is infectious and whenever they look at you, or if they are online, text they have the ability to make you feel safe and its like they are giving you a huge hug in a blanket of safety and trust. So yeah Lo will instantly make you feel safe and loved whenever they talk to you.

(Credits to @marshmallowmischief for this one)

(74) they're so valid in everything they do

(Credits to me for this last one)

(75) You give the absolute best virtual hugs.

Lo, this is for you. We thought you could use some love, so I asked some people to help and we put this together. Sorry it's a bit of a mess, but it's made with love

Overall credits to:

Me

@thelonelycreature

@marshmallowmischief

@lovesupportandcookies

@ihavenoclueanymore

@nonbinaryroyaltylove

@lovelylogicality

[yuhoht-t]

For the ask thing do 1 through 50 please because you're cool

OH my god. WHO ARE YOU because i Hate you now omg

but okay here we go:

1. What’s your sexual orientation?

BI! i am bi bi bi :)

2. What are you obsessed with right now?

right now? here in the year of our lord 2020? at 9:25 am?? march 11th? nothing, my brain is a little preoccupied atm with the absolute stupidity of the american college system 

3. Ever done any drugs?

i have not, sometimes i want to, but then simply do not

4. What piercings do you want?

i kinda want snake bites? or maybe a second ear piercing. but im not really sure

 5. How many people have you kissed?

uno 

and honestly? it kinda sucked?

6. Describe your dream home.

a cottage situated in a nice little cliff-side meadow, a beautiful forest to one side and the ocean to the other. I have a small little garden for herbs and easier to grow staples. Maybe a couple of chickens. There’s a whole room, maybe even a whole other structure, dedicated to just being my art studio. It almost definitely smells like oil paint and graphite. There also has to be a large bay window with a seat, two floor to ceiling bookcases on either side. 

There’s a lot more I could say, but basically look up cottagecore/goblincore/dark academia and that’s basically it

7. Who are you jealous of?

anyone who gets to go to art school

8. What’s your favorite show to binge?

usually it’s a mix between parks n rec and the office

9. Do you watch porn?

i am an adult

10. Do you have a secret sideblog?

oohohohohahahahaaaaaa, yes. many actually

11. If you could teleport anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

question. am i immune to any diseases in the region? if yes. can i just take the teleporter and go wherever? there are too many places i want to go

but really i suppose, Ireland? I mean it is March

12. What’s one of your fantasies?

that someone likes me

13. Do you have/would you get your nipples pierced?

no i don’t think so. it just kinda sounds a little uncomfortable. but it is pretty hot i won’t lie

14. How would you spend a million dollars?

art school. i mean i’d have to see if i get in first! but then after that i’d give the rest to my mom. i owe her and if i ever get the chance i will be paying her back.

15. Are you in a relationship?

bitch? who do you think i am? what do you think i look like? of course fucking not. 

16. Do you follow porn blogs?

[this image violates tumblrs guidelines]

17. Are you angry with anyone right now?

yes. is it petty? also yes. but it’s affecting my sleep and how comfortable i am in my environment so i think actually kind of justified. 

18. What tattoos do you want?

i want a design with poppies and lavender and maybe my mountain, and i’d like to have it, well, let me see if i can find a picture 

like this

but it’s kind of a pipe dream since tattoos are expensive and hurt lol

or this:

AHAAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAAAA 

19. If you could change your name, would you? What would you change it to?

so, heres the thing, i don’t technically mind my name. it’s a good name. it’s gender neutral both in long form and my preferred nickname. BUT. it is very common and i certainly don’t actually love it all that much. However, i have no fucking clue what i’d change it to.  

20. What is something you’re obsessed with?

internet culture. i don’t usually talk about it, but i absolutely love culture and specifically the cultures that have been cultivated from the internet. it’s so cool!

21. Describe your best friend.

okay, so, she’s amazing. extremely talented and smart. and honestly has the coolest style of anyone i’ve ever met. the biggest gemini bitch you’ve ever met and i love her for it. she knows so much about horror and movies and is just really informed about so many interesting things. And she’s not afraid to get into politics and religion and all that “taboo” stuff. she’s actually taught me so many things! she’s great n i don’t get to gush often about the people i genuinely like in this world so yeah. also, she HOT AS SHIT N EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS DUMB IF THEY DON AGREEEEEE

22. Tag someone you think is hot.

ahahhhahahhahahahhaaaaa no. 

23. Who are five of your favorite bands/musical artists?

- Ghost

- Gorillaz 

- Phoebe Bridgers

- Orville Peck

- FIDLAR

(okay, so I was doing this and really there are too many, this is not a great list but I think it covers the range of taste???)

24. What are three places you want to travel?

Japan, Italy (for the art), and ummm, probably Iceland (for the continental divide)

 25. Describe your perfect Friday night.

this gonna sound so sad but, literally, all of my roommates leave and i get to spend it in solitude doing whatever the fuck i want without having to worry about being watched (that’s what we call paranoia kids!)

26. What’s your favorite season?

it depends. but right now i’m jonesin’ for some good ol’ fashioned summer thunderstorms. 

27. What’s your pet peeve?

people

28. Who is the funniest person you know?

me bitch, next question

nah i’m kidding, maybe my little brother? or maybe my friend Shareeza? there is somethin about that girl that just makes me die every time she talks

29. What’s the most overrated movie?

maybe because it’s been a long time, but like, Frozen? idk. it’s what my intuition is telling me so ima go with that.

30. Tag someone you want to talk to but have been too shy to message.

you know i’m not really sure at this moment, but straight up, this is now an open call for anyone who wants to message me, shy or not, i promise i’ll answer lol ^-^

31. Do you like paper books or ebooks better?

paper, obviously. who do you think i am?

32. If you could live in a fictional world, what world would you pick?

maybe Spiderwick Chronicles? I love the idea of being able to actually see the fey. or really any world where there’s a hint of me possibly being able to actually have magic or a magical experience. 

 33. If money was no object, what would your wardrobe be like?

ALL

34. What’s your coffee order?

carmel mocha, if i’m paying for coffee i want it to taste like pure caffeinated sugar

35. Do you have a crush on anyone?

maybe? i have a hard time deciphering those types of feelings 

36. Do you still have feelings for any of your exes?

don’t got none. for past crushes tho? i’m not really sure. 

37. Have any tattoos?

no 

38. Do you drink?

no

39. Are you a virgin?

i don’t have to answer this, do i? 

(that basically is an answer)

40. Do you have a crush on any of your mutuals?

again, hard time with understanding romantic feelings. 

41. How many followers do you have?

642

42. Describe the hottest person you know.

i feel a liiitlel uncomfortable with this question. and on those grounds i don’t think i’m gonna answer it. 

43. What’s your guilty pleasure?

not killing myself :)

44. Do you read erotica?

no

45. What’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?

too fresh bro, mmmm can’t open up those wounds quite yet

46. How many people do you follow?

293

47. If you could marry any celebrity, who would you pick?

maybe Jameela Jamil? she’s just so pretty and smart

or maybe David Tennant cause like. i’ve had a crush on him since my doctor who days so really, why not

48. Describe your ideal partner.

willing to go to battle for and with me. and against me. 

also it’s important that they’re understanding of me and my struggles, as well as accepting my points of view as my truth and not belittle me for having them. And be willing to give there all in these aspects because I will give my all in these ways for them. That’s just how i work. 

49. Who do you text the most?

oh idk, maybe my mom? 

50. What’s your favorite kind of weather?

clouds. and wind. i like to feel like i’m gonna blow away

okay, jeezus, this was a lot. I hope one of you fuckers actually reads this

[elle-christine]

Lovey Dovey Questions:

Reverting to my happy little Tumblr days; blogging away with my 16 year-old wistful intentions but now I’m married and all kinds of in lurrrrv.  How did you meet? 
My roommate and I got invited to a Young Adults Potluck/game night at our Church. We only knew one person there, but before we got there my roommate kept telling me “you’re about to meet your husband. I can’t believe we’re going to go to this tonight and you’re going to meet your husband.” But the majority of the night we sat in the corner with our one friend a bunch of girls and were planning on leaving to go to get food. I thought “I’m not meeting my husband here...”. But then we played a group game and I noticed him from across the room, and he noticed me. And the rest is history. How did he ask you to be his?

 We met up at the union on campus to talk, we had just told each other the night before that we had feelings for one another. We walked to the parking garage together and he kept making comments about “us”. So I asked him in the garage--what exactly is “us”. And then we made a logical and rational decision to date. Your first memory with them: Going to a restaurant after the game night, thinking he was cute but so serious and probably too cool for me. And thinking that he would make a good husband to someone someday. Why is your relationship different from others you have had? I was ready, he was ready. We had both taken a few years off from dating to determine what we should be looking for in a partner and to grow as humans on our own. We have a strong dedication to communication and intentionality. Ten things you like about them.
 1. His passionate pursuit of Jesus. 2. His intentional pursuit of our marriage. 3. His ability to be goofy, relaxed, and silly with me but be mature, serious, and polished in public. 4. He’s a great listener and a strong conversationalist. 5. His depth and intelligence. 6. His love of black coffee, the sun and water, minimalism, sustainability. 7. His gentleness and emotional availability. 8. His tender heart and natural kindness. 9. His respect for me. 10. His ability to lead well. How often do you see each other?
 In the morning when we wake up and at night before we go to bed. No matter how crazy and busy our lives get, getting to do that is such a blessing. 

1: Do you have a crush at the moment? on someone who can’t ghost me; 10/10 recommend.  2: Have you ever been deeply in love? currently a deeply in love lady. 3: Longest relationship you’ve ever been in? 23 months tomorrow.  4: Have you ever changed for someone? Ironically, I changed more for the ones I didn’t actually date; tried to change to get them and clearly it didn’t work. 0/10 not recommended.  5: How is your relationship with your ex? One is friendly and two are non-existent.  6: Have you ever been cheated on? I don’t have proof but I believe there was a little somethin somethin going down behind my back. 7: Have you ever cheated? No. 8: Would you date someone who’s well known for cheating? no longer an option, but I think I would really struggle with that.  9: What’s the most important parts of a relationship? An ability to communicate, to be partners and to balance one another out, to complement each others strengths and weaknesses.   10: Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings? I like being married. 11: When you are dating someone do you believe in going on “breaks”? Nahhhhhhhh 13: What’s one thing you regret saying/doing in a previous relationship? Being in relationships before I was confident/comfortable with who I was, and having relationships that were not Christ-centered and wondering why they weren’t working. 14: What age do you think is appropriate for kids to start having sex? I think the fact that this says “kids” is clear that the answer is never.  15: Do you believe in the phrase “age is just a number”? In some sense, yes. But cultural/generational things will play an impact.  16: Do you believe in “love at first sight”? No; I think love is a choice and something to work at.  17: Do you believe it’s possible to fall in love on the internet? In some situations, sure; however again I think it takes communication and work.  18: What do you consider a deal breaker? Not knowing and following the Lord. Unequally yoked is a thing.  19: How do you know it’s time to end a relationship? If there are clear signs that a future is not going to happen, it’s likely that it will be more painful later on.  20: Are you currently in a relationship? Indeed.  21: Do you think people who have dated can stay friends? Honestly, no. I think you can remain cordial and friendly, but I don’t think it’s healthy or fair to continue a close friendship.  22: Do you think people should date their friends? Yes; I think friendship can have a solid foundation for a strong relationship.  23: How many relationships have you had? truthfully one that matters.  24: Do you think love can last forever? yes 25: Do you believe love can conquer all things? love and the Lord.  26: Would you break up with someone your parents didn’t approve of? It would depend on the basis for disapproval. If there were genuine concern for safety, red flags I wasn’t seeing, if I was in danger, than yes. Thankfully, my mom more than approves of Alex.  27: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice about dating what would it be? Wait wait wait; be patient and focus more on yourself, guard your heart more.  28: Do you think long distance relationships can work? They can, but they take a LOT of intentionality and work; and need to have a resolution in sight.  29: What do you notice first about another person? Probably height, and overall demeanor (calm, loud, etc.) 30: Are you straight, bi, gay or pansexual? straight. 31: Would it bother you if your partner suffered from any mental illness? no, but I am thankful that he doesn’t because I do, and I appreciate the balance.  32: Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? in some sense.  33: Do you want to get married one day? I am! 34: What do you think about getting your partner’s name tattooed? That’s a no from me dawg. 35: Could you be in a relationship without sex? I’m thankful that I’m not, but till death do us part and if sex was no longer an option for us--we would be just fine.  36: Are you still a virgin? I am a married lady.  37: What’s more important: Looks or personality? looks will not last forever. Personality and a desire to be a good steward of your body.  38: Do you enjoy love films? I’m not a big movie person tbh  39: Have you ever given anyone/received roses? Alex occasionally surprises me with them which is rad.  40: Have you ever had a valentine? Only one that counts! 41: What’s your imagination of a “perfect date”? Going to the beach, eating sushi, watching the sunset (or rise; but switch the sushi for coffee), worship music and reading together.  43: What’s more important: Your partner or your friends? Husband is first.  44: Would you consider yourself “romantic”? I like ironic romance; cute gestures that purposely meant to be cheesy.  45: Could you imagine to date one of your current friends? I am married to my favorite friend. 46: Have you ever been “friendzoned”? honestly...no.  48: What’s your favorite love song? oh gosh, want me to make a whole damn list About Him.

Name? Alex Age? 31 When did you two begin dating? March 2018

What do you think of him? He’s okay...I guess. What does he think of you? Probably that I’m weird and kind of smell. Who asked who out first? I believe he did after some strong hinting from me. Did you like him before he asked you? I was intrigued but also guarded.  How old were you two? 25 and 29 What did you think of it at first? After about 5 minutes I was concerned he was “like, actually weird”. But by the end of the night I felt like I had just met a future best friend. Has it been a good relationship so far? Indeed.  Cutest thing he’s ever done? Goodness; surprising me with the cheesiest gift set-up when I woke up on Valentines Day morning. Bringing me a rose with the medicine he picked up for me when I was sick. Making me a handmade birthday card. Setting up a table with our pictures and couples Christmas gifts for when I came back from the holidays.  Do you have a “song”? “God Be” By Chris Renzema What was your most memorable experience? Getting married. And all that went into that decision, proces, etc.  When is your actual anniversary? Well...3/24/18, but also 7/14/19, and 11/12/19, and maybe 8/8/2020.  Do you guys tell each other everything? every.thing. Probably too much. Marriage.  What’s your favorite thing to do together? read and pray. drink coffee. go for hikes/walks. Find tiny cabins in the middle of nowhere and hole up for a weekend doing married people things.  Most fun date you two have been on? This past valentines we ate too much sushi and had a movie night with wine and donuts. Last summer we went to a leadership conference, the zoo, walked around Royal Oak, and got dinner with my family. Or our mini-honeymoon; the beach, staying at a B&B, sushi for dinner, wine and exchanging vows alone. How did ya’ll first kiss? We had planned on not kissing for a month but we were eating hummus and watching Miracle and decided to make it happen.  What does he call you? We’re pretty exclusively on “babe” Has anyone ever seriously proposed to you? And it worked. 

[nononsenseincome]

How We Grew Blog Traffic by 650% in Two Years — Organically

As a digital content marketer, your job is to grow traffic that converts into leads and sales. Some of us in this field are lucky to work with companies that sell sexy products. It makes it a little easier. But that’s not always the case. This post is for the other marketers that work in the not-so-sexy fields. I can speak to this audience because up until the spring of this year, I was the Digital Content and Marketing Manager at a synthetic oil company. I won’t fault you if you don’t know what that is — we’ll get to it shortly.

Grow blog traffic, stat

In 2016, I joined a company that sold synthetic oil (the stuff in your engine that you change once every couple of months). One of my tasks was to grow website traffic, and the best channel I landed on was the company blog. The corporate e-commerce website (yep, we sold engine oil online at a premium) was a political minefield, so I had very limited sway. The blog was not. A group of three contributors would meet weekly and throw spur-of-the-moment posts together. It had a sporadic publishing schedule. The topics were dry (it was a blog about motor oil, after all) and blog traffic was correspondingly sluggish. The blog at the time had averaged under 5,000 sessions a month. Within a year, we doubled it. Within two years, we scaled it up seven times. By the time I left, we had surpassed 100,000 sessions within a month threshold.

How we operationalized our blog for triple-digit growth

Within a few months of assuming leadership of the blog, we overhauled the entire publishing process, doubled the team of volunteer contributors, implemented a quarterly editorial calendar, and search-optimized the heck out of our blog posts. These are the tactics I used to increase our sessions, search visibility, and subscribers in two years. 1. No man is an island — neither is your blog Our company had a communications team of great writers. Correction: great-but-swamped writers. So we had to look elsewhere. I reached out to departments across the company in hopes of finding people that liked writing enough to publish something once or twice a month. The writer assigned to help manage the blog would proof and edit posts before they were published, so that these contributors wouldn’t have to worry about writing perfectly. Our efforts paid off; we grew the team from three contributors to a group of eight. 2. Build a flexible calendar, yo We cut back on the spur-of-the-moment publishing process and focused on getting content out three times a week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays were our days, initially. I created a shared doc where contributors could add post topics. Each quarter, we went through the ideas and picked topics that we would publish. Then I ran each idea through keyword research (via Moz Keyword Explorer and Keyword Planner) and social research (Buzzsumo). This process gave us direction on which messaging resonated with different audiences and how we would distribute our content. Sometimes we wrote posts to answer search queries. Other times, we had a customer group in mind, or an event our marketing team was sponsoring. One of the events we sponsored was the Sturgis Rally. In this case, the post we created was purely for our social media and events support. Luckily, the rally promoted it, which brought an influx of their fans to our blog. An audience we were targeting with our event sponsorship, because they were likely to know and care about which brand of oil they used on their bikes.

3. Ditch the corporate speak — write like you We weren’t corporate mouthpieces. We were a team of individuals, each with our own personalities. One contributor was a handyman and liked to fix things; I encouraged him to write from that perspective. Another writer, Andy, was known for his colorful commentary (“Quaker, it takes more than one goose flying north to make a summer!”) so he infused his posts with some of it, as well. Our racing and events writer became a mom, and her son made an appearance in some of her posts. Our approach did not always align with our brand’s masculine tone. Not a best practice (shrug) but it made our posts a lot more genuine. Each piece we wrote had a distinct voice. Did this have a direct correlation to traffic growth? Probably not. However, it did encourage people to write more often, because the writing was a more natural process. This helped us churn out new content several times a week, which did have an impact. 4. Not all posts shall be optimized equally — that’s ok Despite our best efforts, the blog was a volunteer project slated among a slew of tasks we all had. Thus, not all posts were created equal. Some posts pulled more than their fair share of traffic. We focused on on-page optimization for those each summer with the help of our interns. On a given blog post, we might have: Tweaked the blog post titleAdded a table of contents (with anchor links and bonus points for voice search phrases)Changed the URL (with a redirect, of course)Implemented alt tagsAdded crawl/human/voice search-friendly sub-headsAdded videos (where relevant)Lengthened the post with relevant additional content By implementing these tactics, several of our posts were able to gain Position 0 or 1 and garnered pretty significant spikes in traffic. An example of a post that benefitted from some extra love was our engine flush blog post. It became our hallmark for how we could optimize good writing on a relevant topic into a high-ranking and ultra-SERP-friendly post.

5. Invest in AMP (if you haven’t already) Not judging. Sometimes it takes months for larger organizations to adapt to changes that are for their benefit. When we implemented Accelerated Mobile Pages, it blew our search traffic through the roof.

But driving AMP traffic is not enough. We learned through the process that the standard AMP implementation strips out most aspects of the blog interface. As a result, we lost links to sign up for our blog emails or shop our e-commerce website (egad!). Even though our mobile traffic was up considerably, traffic to the website suffered or lagged. Unfortunately, we had a custom-built design. Changes would have to be manual, and we didn’t have a budget or the resources for that. So we focused on doing a better job of highlighting our website and products within our posts. 6. Use social media to gather ideas Yes, we promoted our posts on social, but we also used social media to curate ideas. Some ideas were published. As a thank you, we embedded shout-outs in the post and on social media to the source. It was a way of making our posts feel personal to our audience.

7. Add more pep to your blog email newsletter Consistency is cool, but we tried to throw an element of surprise and delight into our blog emails. This meant taking time to create a clear and compelling reason why the recipient should open the email — not just listing new posts. Since there isn’t a lot of change month-to-month in the industry, we got creative. Each week I played with subject lines that were timely, relevant, fun, or attention-grabbing. I backed those up with a standard pre-header/teaser for consistency. Some subject lines we used included: Spit into this tube, we'll build a car for you.Remember this classic SNL skit?Cruisers, Firearms, and CashCan your truck go 500,000 miles? I also used the blog newsletter as a channel to curate and promote older, evergreen posts when relevant, which helped bring fresh eyes to existing material. 8. Do one thing at a time We split our goals into our top priorities each year, and focused on that. Once we achieved the first goal, we shifted focus to the next priority. Year one, our focus was growing traffic from search engine results pages and social. To drive traffic, we created search-optimized, evergreen posts and chose relevant topics with significant search volume. We also held team sessions on beginner SEO where we went over best practices and gave the team access to easy keywording tools (I used Spyfu). We propelled our organic search traffic after a year of consistently following this protocol.

In year two, our goal was driving sign-ups. We created premium content and leveraged social to capture some of our fans through lead ads tied to blog content. These tactics drove our blog subscriber list up by 44%. The third year, we focused on increasing the blog’s contribution to sales. We put our efforts into highlighting products in the blog email, publishing product-centric posts, and including very clear and compelling calls-to-action to shop our e-commerce website. We gamified our team’s participation by establishing a blogger leaderboard and highlighting up-and-coming creators, or those whose posts were doing well across different metrics. Could we have done this all concurrently? Probably. But that would have required more time and resources than what we had.

“Sexy” is what you make of it

For us, creating blog posts was something a team of volunteers contributed to between a myriad of other tasks that were actually on our job descriptions. But we grew the channel into a source of considerable traffic for the company. We rallied around an unsexy topic — synthetic oil — and turned it into a creative outlet that moved product. The project also sparked a team of empowered creators, stakeholders, and in-house champions across departments who were fired up by the results of a motley crew of writers, DIY-ers, and tinkerers. Source link Internet Marketing Read the full article

[unfoldingmoments]

Scaling From Zero—A guide on how to jumpstart your creative business.

1. Don't quit your job

2. Do a good job, but don't give it everything you have

3. Save something for yourself

4. Live as frugally as possible

5. Cancel every recurring, non-essential subscription

(cont) 1/11

6. Consolidate credit card debt to low interest card

7. Pay this down

8. Do PVP exercise (Personal fulfillment, Value to market, Profitability) ← Google it

9. Select top 3 ideas

10. Test your idea & convince someone to buy it

11. Reduce price until you get a Yes

(cont) 2/11

12. Prepare to answer objections

13. Exchange your time/effort for: experience, case study, measurable KPI, testimonial

14. Ask for a referral

15. Document your journey

16. Share process work as sequential posts

17. Invite clients to comment for more info

(cont) 3/11

18. DM those that give you permission

19. Establish a client need in DM

20. Schedule call

21. Discuss price/scope early

22. Land client

23. Raise your rates as your confidence/skills grow

24. Target is $1500–$3000 per project

25. Get 2 projects per month

(cont) 4/11

26. Repeat as necessary

27. Build 3 months of runway

28. Buy a domain name

29. Set up sales page (@danmall Love Letter)

30. Include case studies w/ measurable KPIs

31. Add testimonials

32. Add client list

33. Enter work to award shows

34. Submit to blogs

(cont) 5/11

35. Resign from job on good terms

36. Thank your employer

37. Ask for referral/overflow work

38. Announce the launching of your business

39. Be specific about what you do, why this matters

40. Reach out to friends/family network

(cont) 6/11

36. Target 3 content creators you admire

37. Follow, sub, engage w/ all of their content

38. Build rapport for 30 days

39. Offer a specific way to help them (for free)

40. Build a genuine relationship

41. Trade your time for their help

42. Ask business questions

(cont) 7/11

43. Read 5 books on one topic

44. Start journaling in public (pick 1 platform)

45. Share key insights/learning

46. Tie stories back to what you've experienced

47. Experiment w/ diff content types

48. Ignore metrics for 30 days

49. Spot patterns of engagement

(cont) 8/11

50. Which post performed the best?

51. Can you devise a formula?

52. Can you repeat it?

53. Keep posting (day 31-60)

54. Day 61, determine your top 3 post types

55. Create a template & scale content

56. "Check in" w/ old clients

57. Attend industry conference

(cont) 9/11

58. Prepare a simplified elevator pitch

59. Target 5 people you want to connect with

60. Make it your mission to meet them

61. Follow up afterwards

62. When work is slow…

63. Who else could benefit from your services?

64. Make a list

65. Do your homework

(cont) 10/11

66. Be specific when reaching out

67. Have a "no-brainer" offer

68. Bring up top 3 objections

69. Land clients

70. Work on your craft

Do quarterly financial audits. Are you on track? Goal is to hit $3k/mo in revenue with 35% profit margins.

–fin 11/11

— Chris Do

[lesamis]

tagged by @kazimirov to answer thirty questions, then tag blogs you would like to know better! the original said tag twenty blogs but like. who's even interested in that many people

1. Nicknames? lil if you’re mieke, lilleken if you’re my dad & lilie if you’re my mum

2. Gender? does that like........even exist my guy

3. Star sign? aries / pisces depending on what school u wanna go with

4. Height? 1.70m

5. Time? 11:44

6. Birthday? april 10th!

7. Favorite bands? of monsters and men, bastille

8. Favorite solo artists? sleeping at last, florence + the machine. lately also moses sumney

9. Song stuck in my head? that cover of hallelujah in yiddish it’s so good

10. Last movie watched? i. genuinely don’t know D: actually that might have been when liz was still here? gotg 2? 

11. Last show watched? queer eye!

12. When did I create my blog this one? late 2015 i think 

13. What do I post? pretentious quotes & pretty pictures w some les mis and romanticism interspersed :D

14. Last thing I googled? "it seems like you were the one offended my good bitch” (i just wanted to look at the tweet bc it makes me happy)

15. Do you have other blogs? yeah! never rly use any of them but technically i have like four

16. Do you get asks now and then!

17. Why did you choose your url? bc i'm petty as shit over those “the novel isn’t abt les amis and those Silly Fangirls are too stupid to read” posts that happen sometimes bc it miraculously wasn’t taken

18. Following? 152

19. Followers? had those hidden since day 1 :D 

20. Favorite colours? light blue + soft pink. pastels 4 life

21. Average hours of sleep? 7 ish? i try to go for eight but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

22. Lucky number? 4!

23. Instruments? tiny bit of guitar + piano, the only thing i technically have training in is vocals but like what does that even mean u know

24. What am I wearing? warm sweater & skirt & tights bc it is FIFTEEN DEGREES and FALL IS HERE (shhh the weather’s totally gonna stay this way i can dream)

25. How many blankets I sleep with? just this. massive comforter and i used to add a blanket in the winter when i was still in an uhhhh badly heated house

26. Dream job? librarian or archivist in a place with old things & good people. alternatively assistant or secretary at a place that does good. basically just give me little responsibility no capitalism and a clear conscience

27. Dream trip? i rly wanna go to boston this winter to hang out at harvard with two Best People In The World, fingers crossed!

28. Favorite food? every pasta dish that also involves tomatoes and cheese

29. Nationality? german

30. Favorite song now? the ukulele cover of valerie the bff did the other day where he replaced every “valerie” with “lilli.” the absurdity was delightful & it was my first time being serenaded thanks again bro

tagging @hero-ofcanton​, @williamvapespeare, @longingonthewind annnd that’s just about all i can think of rn :D no pressure of course!