#googling how to fix things is a desperate last resort

[hylianengineer]

Why is my approach to new skills always "there are probably lots of great tutorials on how to do this properly, but instead I will read the bare minimum about it and then charge off by myself, inevitably making ten thousand preventable errors in the process"? Not that I don't have fun making my silly errors, but it's certainly... a choice.

[smalltragedy]

* natalia dyer, nonbinary + she/they | you know philomena carmichael, right? they’re twenty-one, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, a day? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to oo-de-lally by roger miller like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole wind whipping around your hair, the gentleness of decomposition, a naked blur dancing around the flames of an everlasting fire thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is april 20th, so they’re a taurus, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( james, 22, est, they/them )

hiii im back ... tentatively .. looks at u all ominously

CANCER, TRAUMA, DEPERSONALIZATION / DEREALIZATION, DEATH, GRAPHIC MENTION OF DECAY, INSECTS MENTION TW.

mini playlist.

oo-de-lally / roger miller, wonderfully bizarre / bendigo fletcher, dust in your pocket / glass animals, gecgecgec / 100 gecs, nantes / beirut, cherry-coloured funk / cocteau twins, not allowed / tv girl, space song / beach house, dog food / 100 gecs.

statistics.

full name: philomena brontë carmichael

nickname(s): philly, phil, mena, etc.

birthday: april 20th, 2000.

zodiac: taurus sun, scorpio moon, aries ascending.

temperament: improvisor / phlegmatic.

label: the halycon.

sexuality: demisexual.

pinterest.

biography.

a middle child belonging to christopher and imogen carmichael - two stanford professors. christopher specialized in british literature whilst imogen specialized in the classics. hence the name.

the order of siblings goes as such: lysander, elektra, juno, philomena, and twins orion & valora. the deal was that everybody had a greek (or in juno’s case, roman) first name and a middle name inspired by a piece of british literature circa 1800s and under. a family of nerds, if you will.

so, clearly - right off the bat, their parents are … eccentric. they’re both in love with their respected topic, and with each other, and with their kids. the carmichael family is a happy family.

they each have their own quirks and whatnot - though philly’s always been particularly dreamy - even as a child, she’d spend hours watching clouds or caterpillars or the leaves blow in the wind rather than play with other kids. she wasn’t a shy kid - she just had her own interests.

hardship doesn’t hit the family until philomena is five and starts having splitting headaches. they’re slow at first - but as soon as she’s seeing spots and unable to walk in a straight line, doctor appointments are made.

cancer tw // it doesn’t take long for them to discover the tumor, though the official diagnosis of malignant ependymoma comes a month later.

it’s grade ii but slow-moving, small enough to not be as much of a threat as worried, but big enough where removal is necessary. philomena earns a scar and brings it in for show-and-tell. for two months afterwards, philly’s at radiotherapy monday through friday.

they’re lucky - philomena’s considered cancer-free by the next year. she’s babied at first - handled delicately, as if she could break if touched - but with five other children … it doesn’t last for too long. end of cancer tw //

and life continues as normal.

her personality doesn’t shift much over the next few years - she’s awfully independent for a kid, and awfully quiet - when she speaks it’s about faeries and bigfoot, about how the sky is so blue and if you listen quietly, you can hear the leaves whisper their secrets to each other. this is not odd.

she’s close to all her siblings, but she idolizes her older sister - elektra. elektra’s six years older and dyes her hair whatever colors she wants. elektra bought a knife off a seedy guy downtown. elektra threw away all of her heels and renounced god. elektra is god. her music is loud but it’s not heavy - it’s florence and the machine.

they’re opposites - elektra’s boisterous and feels loudly, philomena’s softer and feels…less. when elektra sneaks out, philomena keeps watch. they are a duo.

philomena is smart - but she’s fifteen and hates school. hates sitting inside all day. hates the same routine - day after day - it’s all the same. her parents’ routine is the same, philly feels contained and she wants to live.

elektra’s twenty-one and just bought a brand new spanking (used but not falling apart) 19-something volkswagen … van - using her entire savings account. she says she’s tired of routine, she’s leaving the next day.

naturally, philomena stows away in the back and isn’t discovered until they’re two states away and she’s got to pee. elektra nearly crashes the van in shock.

it’s an argument - philomena vs. elektra, then them vs. their parents, then their parents vs. the school, the state - it’s an ordeal. philomena switches to an online program in the end.

it hurts christopher and imogen - lysander’s not having any of their nonsense, juno’s betrayed and alone - the twins are twins. in the end, it’s alright. the carmichael family is a happy family.

philomena and elektra take their time - it’s not a road trip, it’s their new life, permanently on the road. they stop and explore often - they do odd jobs in whatever town they settle in. they dine-n-dash, they shoplift. they survive in their own way.

during particularly desperate times, they two resorted to identity theft & credit fraud - getting away with it only by ditching the cards once they’ve made it out of state.

she drops out of high school officially when she’s seventeen - they have to drive all the way back to california to deal with the wrath of their parents and to deal with paperwork, but it’s done. philomena doesn’t know what path she wants in life - but it’s not that.

depersonalization / derealization tw // it’s during this time that the episodes occur - philomena’s outside her body, philomena’s wrapped in cotton, her memories are not her own. she’s looking in the mirror and she doesn’t recognize herself. they take shelter in a city for six months, long enough for her brand spankin’ new therapist to figure out what’s wrong with her. she’s diagnosed with depersonalization / derealization disorder - they think it’s stress. philomena doesn’t get stressed. they think it’s trauma. she laughs - she never laughs. depersonalization / derealization end of tw //

death, decay. maggots tw // there is trauma though, deep-rooted but somewhere inside - you just have to look for it.

you. just. have. to. look. for. it. look for it. look for it. look for it look for it look -

you were ten and she was thirteen, an off-trail hike in familiar woods in a familiar town, safe and familiar. it was your idea, to stray from the carved out paths, down creeks and up hills and round, and round again. you’re the one who spotted the scarf first, sticking up from the dirt and dancing in the wind like the beginning of reincarnation. it was not reincarnation, it was discovery. it was ruin. with curiosity drawn, you skidded down - with compliance, followed juno, followed your sister - clumsy in her steps and tumbling down quicker than you. you saw the corpse, but juno felt it. decaying flesh and maggot. end of death, decay, maggots tw //

and she left juno, just like that - just five years later, when juno had finally gone to the end of her wits. philly up and left. abandoned her.

philomena and elektra leave the city after that therapy session. they do not return. she’s always been good at hiding her secrets.

after ending up with warrants from their arrest in florida (after running from the law in texas), philly and elektra have wound up at irving <3 partially hiding from the law and partially bcos their trusty van’s broken down and they haven’t got the money to fix her up yet.

personality & facts.

she’s quiet but she’s confident - her voice sounds like rustling leaves, if leaves smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

often underestimated - philly’s petite and looks like she’d fall over if a plastic bag blew too close to her. she’s independent - for the most part. elektra is the only person philly takes orders from.

has always been considered odd - weird, strange. still talks about the trees as if they’re listening, as if they’re old friends. she’s vague and doesn’t elaborate on the things she says.

believes in pretty much any superstition you throw her way. luck is very important to her. if you ask her if the earth is flat, she’ll say probably. believes strongly in bigfoot and the lochness monster. has personally seen aliens, and loves ghosts almost more than herself.

she can be amusing - whether you ‘get’ her or not, her outlook is often bright - she talks about the negatives the same way she talks about the positives. can be seen as naive or gullible, but she’s plenty smart. even if half of her education has come directly from google.

philly doesn’t laugh. a smile, yes - often, in fact - not always reaching her ears, or bearing teeth - but these are not indicators of her happiness. philly is consistently content. she thinks many things are funny - she still will not laugh.

her voice is often monotonous - she doesn’t sound dreary, she sounds far-away. her voice carries. her emotions are often unknown to others.

is apathetic in most situations. she’s hard to bother - she’s incredibly patient and enjoys the company of most - tolerates them at the very least. it’s hard for her to express her emotions, because she feels them so little that it’s very nearly not worth it. her affection is not verbal - it’s small touches and gestures of kindness, love in her own way.

is a fan of knock-knock jokes and bad puns. she won’t crack a smile while telling you them, nor does she expect you to laugh. she just enjoys them.

she owns a motorola razr covered in puffy stickers - hasn’t ever had a smartphone. she’s a fan of emoticons. her favorite is :o)

has a lot of bruises and scratches and scars - she’s often getting herself into pickles. there are always, at the very minimum, three bandaids on each hand.

she has insomnia, so she’s awake often. is often seen wandering town - even when she shouldn’t be, even when it might be dangerous. her intuition is delayed. when she does sleep - her dreams are vivid and fantastical.

keeps a box of memories - sentimental bits and pieces she’s picked up over the last few years. there are a lot of buttons and postcards, but any teeny tiny object will do.

her style changes every week - most, if not all, of her clothes are thrifted. one week she’s baby spice and the next she’s lydia deetz. she combines pieces from different styles often - she looks like a barbie clothed by a child. she feels most comfortable like this.

will either patch-up the clothes that get too worn or reuse them in some way. sometimes donates the clothes she gets tired off - isn’t minimalistic, but she’s learned to keep only a small amount of possessions.

the only consistency is her lucky ribbon - it’s pastel yellow and silky and as thin as a shoelace. she ties it onto her outfit of the day, everyday. if she loses it, she’s lost. elektra has a matching ribbon.

has no problem with minor theft - she only takes bare minimum, puts herself and elektra first and that’s how it’s always been.

currently living in florence, their van, with her sister elektra <3 currently residing in lilac ridge.

they used to live in motels on the occasion, the cheapest room, and more often than not they’d both go home with strangers for a comfier bed and a hotter shower.

it was a common occurrence - she didn’t sleep with them - but somehow, she weaseled her way into their homes anyway. has come out mostly unscathed, on most occasions. this has been a practice ever since they’ve been on the road.

really, truly - has not slept with anybody, had her first kiss at thirteen with a frog. this doesn’t bother her. (smirks at leo)

will consume anything you put in front of her - isn’t picky.

listens to whatever they’ve picked up along the way but she likes instrumentals the best. her second favorite genre is 1990′s and 2000′s top hits. they’re nostalgic for her. third favorites? florence, of course. fleetwood mac. the bird and the bee.

loves storms - will go out in the rain and will risk her life for it.

owns a pair of roller-skates and is often skating rather than walking. unless she’s on grass - then she’s walking barefoot.

has many hobbies, and gets bored of them often. her favorite hobby is welding. she’s not certified.

also, juggling.

also, accordion.

the kind of girl who’ll do any job you give her. odd jobs are her favorite jobs. babysitting is her least favorite - but she does it anyway. has lost children before. have they ever been found? not by philly.

dyes her hair blonde often and cuts her own hair - bangs included - finds it cathartic, likes the itchiness of bleach.

everything she does is often in pursuit of feeling free, alive, and meaningful.

( like her frequent visits to the woods, late at night when the moon is high and full. it’s freeing to dance around a fire, stark naked in the cold. builds immunity )

comes and goes wherever she pleases, nothing & nobody can stop her (besides elektra).

has a certain knack for getting animals to like her. has too many ‘pet’ rats that reside with her, alongside a baby raccoon & a few crow pals. has a new animal companion everyday, but she doesn’t contain them or force them to stay.

wanted plots.

speaking through my third eye ... ;; philly is new in town n shes very strange. constantly lives in a state in which she does not exist (at least on the same plane). this is her harassing the locals. this is her slipping thru their fingertips as they attempt 2 understand her. they get close smtms bt philly jst. whisks herself away.

hollows of our eyelids ... ;; perhaps there is smbdy jst as strange as philly. i’m out here calling fr all the weirdos. lets be friends. lets hv philly n co go on adventures n discover horrible sites n uncover ancient secrets tht lie deep below irving. mayb nt tht. bt im jst saying. this is fr the dreamers. da weirdos. the jugheads. LHKDSHFSADLKGFHLSKADG fr those who also feel as if they r not real.

bills n aches n blues... ;; ya this is my call fr all negative plots. bills (catching philly be a thief and a fraud), aches (mayb heartache? unrecruited feelings or w/e theyre called?), n blues (ooooh so sad... so sad ... angst ...) obviously i am a genius. i wldnt say tht philly is here 2 make enemies bc philly doesnt care much abt ppl bt perhaps tht cld b an issue. tht she doesnt care much abt others. mayb ur muse is jst like. cn u pls care. n philly is like. i am incapable. sry. sucks.

n also ,, ;; like. anything i’ll. take anything. philly is weird lets come up w surreal plots tht verge on the edge of like. nt being correct fr this verse. suddenly theres vampires? or so they think ... smirks. anyways. shes been 2 jail n been in the circus n dances naked in the woods n hoards animals n treasures. we hv a lot to work with here obv.

[ardellian]

I’ve been reading a close friend’s study material (because I will throw myself desperately at anything which is not my study material--ehm--moving on) and since I’ve already ranted about this to everyone I know in person I now have to get it out of my system and resort to shouting into the void of the internet. Anyway, everyone interested in like, interaction with other humans in general and with young neurodivirgent people in particular, should check out Bo Hejlskov Elvén, who works with low arousal strategies for conflict management. Unfourtunately, I can’t find a lot of free material in English. Here’s a 50 minute lecture on youtube, though, which is very good.

Self control and challenging behaviour

!!! Trigger warning: Between 38:30 and 41:30 he talks about the dangers of restraints and the unacceptably high risk of fatalities. It’s very upsetting and especially so in the light of police brutality and recent events. !!!

First off, he starts the lecture by saying this:

We’re going to talk about autism--I’m not going to say people with autism or autistic people, I’m going to say people. Is that okay? Yeah? Because to me it doesn’t matter so much if it’s dementia, or just being angry, or autism--it’s the same behaviour and we need to manage it in the same way.

Which to me is just fundamental if you ever want to do something good for people and not just patologizie them.

Some highlights and thoughts under the cut.

Conflicts

I actually think a lot of challening behaviour and maybe even conflicts is just about problem solving. Has any of you ever been in a conflict? How many has been in a conflict?

[Audience laughs and agrees]

When you think back on that, isn’t like this--that you actually just did your best, didn’t you? It was the other guy who was an idiot.

[Audience laughs]

Often it’s just like that. I have a problem, and I solve it. My solution might become a problem for somebody else, right? And he needs to fix that. And then that solution might become my problem.

[...]

Because often what we consider problematic behaviour, might actually be a good solution. And he might consider our behaviour a little problematic as well.

If I could have gotten this into the heads of some people I used to know, then... Sigh. Anyway, this whole approach to understanding human interaction is based on the idea that people do the best they can in any given situation. And if you understand that, you can actually help them do better instead of making the situation even harder for them.

Self control

Some of us have a lower line [for when we lose self-control] -- we call it affect regulation. Some of us have a worse affect regulation. That means that when we get into difficult situations, we cannot just say, oh, it will work out. We will actually say; this will not work out. In a little while, I will hit my head on the floor, I may even poop my pants--I don’t want to do that; I need to have strategies. And then we do some quite amazing things.

Example: A little while ago, I asked you to stand like this [he does a funny dance]--you did that very nicely, thank you. Then I asked you to take off all your clothes--and then you thought: I might not be able to control that situation. Am I right? I don’t think I can figure out what will happen if I take off all my clothes; I might lose control. I don’t want to lose control.

And then you did something. You acted.

And what you actually did was amazing. What you actually did was that you refused, and then you laughed me right up in the face.

What do you think about behaviour like this? Is that okay?

Of course it is.

He brings up the strategies refusal, lying, violence, running away, threats, self harm, and name calling. He highlights how all of these strategies are actually perfectly rational and almost always solve exactly the problem that people are dealing with.

Affect contagion

Have you ever talked to someone who was depressed? Did you get a little funny feeling? Have you ever been sitting opposite from someone yawing? That’s contagious as well, isn’t it? It’s contagious, and using something we call mirror neurons or mirror neuron systems. [...] This is something everybody in the whole world can do. People with autism can do it, people without autism can do it. Everybody can do it, and we can do it from the day that we are born, actually.

Affect contagion is the whole idea behind the low arousal approach--the higher your affect gets; the closer you are to losing self-control; the more likely you are to resort to behaviours that might cause problems for others, which might even be the cause of the situation to begin with. Thus to solve any tense situation, bringing the affect level up is never a good strategy.

I get angry; you get angry; I get angry; you get angry; and on until someone gets seriously hurt.

When they did the same study [looking at brain activation when thinking about oneself vs Queen Elizabeth] with people with Asperger’s syndrome, [...], actually these people were using the Queen Elizabeth part of the brain when they were thinking about themselves as well. And that means it’s a little bit difficult to figure out--am I me, or am I you? So I need to think about it, to make it work.

That’s difficult for me to understand, I admit that. But I’m seeing it on my grandchildren, when they are below two-years of age; they can’t do it either. I can’t say me, or you, to a one and a half year old--I have to say grandpa. Don’t I? Because otherwise they won’t understand. And people with dementia; it’s the same thing. I can’t say me and you, I have to use names. And a lot of people we normally call autistic, they have this problem. A lot of young people, when they’re really stressed, they have the same problem. Have you ever seen two people fighting, and when you asked them what happened, they don’t know who started? Because they mix things up.

And with that, of course low arousal approaches become especially important. Controlling your affect when someone else is angry is damn difficult for everyone.

I keep thinking about this when it comes to online communication. In a face-to-face interaction, as stressful situation is contained in time very effectively. Online; on social media with its lack of any kind of temporal context, it just isn’t. It’s so easy to read a tweet that was posted a month ago and get affected by the anger from the past in your present. And then you are more likely to deal with it by venting, and suddenly there is no after. Online, we live in constant outrage. Constant high affect.

Mmm, okay first hit on google regarding affect contagion and social media is this:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/facebook-emotions-are-contagious/

The findings suggest that emotional contagion can occur in an online social network, even without face-to-face interaction between two people. "We show that simply failing to 'overhear' a friend’s emotional expression via Facebook is enough to buffer one from its effects," the authors wrote.

I mean, I don’t know what I’m talking about here. And I don’t want to imply that I think social media is bad, because in general I really don’t, I just want to understand what it does to me so that I can deal with it constructively.

Also--I find this funny:

Interestingly, the findings also challenge the idea that seeing the positive posts of others may have a negative impact on people by making them compare themselves against their friends. Instead, the researchers found that seeing positive posts in their feed prompted people to make more positive posts themselves.

Of course seeing that my friends are happy makes me happy.

And finally--

Restraints (TW police brutality)

Even when they restrain children, people think that they’re doing the best--and I think it’s just plain stupid. I’m sorry. Because it’s very, very dangerous. We have more than 150 documented restraint related deaths among children in the last 25 years--850 among adults. 80% of those had autism. 80%--why?

There was a policeman, he said: Uhh, but we do not decide how much force we need to use, it’s the person who does it. I said: How?

We continue until he gives in.

And autism is one of those things where we’re very very bad at giving in, isn’t it?

[screams into a pillow]

If you ever need another argument for why having an institution with a monopoly on violence is a fucking terrible idea--there you go. Everything the police are specially allowed to do (and thus implicitly encouraged to do) that sets them apart from other insitutions is what makes them terrible at their jobs.

[thelarryficrecplace]

Hi love :) do you happen to know of any good protective louis/sensitive harry fics, maybe even any where harry is sad and louis helps him out?

Here you go lovely:

After Midnight by zarah5:

Summary: Louis hates how often people forget that Harry is only nineteen.

Word count: 4,432

Shake Me Down by AGreatPerhaps12:

Summary: Harry’s new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

Word count: 208,589

Green Doe Eyes by Snowy38:

Summary: “Can I fix you?” Louis asked as Harry looked over at him, eyes wet and red, tip of his nose pink and cute. He licked his plush lips and nodded.

Louis let out a thankful sigh and reached for Harry’s hand, ignoring the way Harry flinched when they touched.

He stripped off the useless bandage and winced at the re-opened wounds. He noticed the blood under Harry’s fingernails and realised he’d scratched at them until they bled.

“Harry…” He whispered, tears coming to his own eyes as he felt Harry tremble under his touch, eyes averted shamefully as he swallowed his tears away determinedly. “No, don’t be scared, it’s okay,” Louis assured. “I’m not going to judge you…I just need to protect you,” he explained.

Word count: 51,424

Petrichor by spotofpurple:

Summary: Harry is a filthy rich, straight A student that lives in one of the biggest mansions in London with his father. He is also bullied and beaten in school and neglected at home.

Louis is a quirky punk who owns a bookshop and sings in a rock band. He is also providing a cover for the two of the most wanted of London’s criminals, Zayn and Niall.

When Harry has a panic attack in front of Louis’ bookshop and the older boy helps him, a weird friendship is formed. And soon developed into something neither of the boys expected.

Word count: 64,250

It’s A Start by Lavender_Disaster:

Summary: Or, the one where Harry can’t sleep at night, and because of that, neither can Louis. Louis thinks it could be the start of something.

Word count: 10,842

The Ending is Always Better Than the Beginning (and Things Always Turn Out Better in the End) by orphan_account:

Summary: Harry: Hi, Louis. So you’re gay?’

Louis: Yes :)

Harry: Oh, me too… :(

Louis: Is that not a good thing?

Harry frowns, he didn’t necessarily think it was a bad thing before he told anyone. He hadn’t really thought of it as anything. No one ever talked about being gay, but now other people seem to think it’s a disease that they can catch if they look at him the wrong way.

Harry: I didn’t think so, until everyone started to hate me…

or Harry comes out and it doesn’t go so well, he endures a month of harsh bulling and neglect from his mother before he can’t take it any more and decides to kill himself. As a last resort he turns to Google and that’s how he comes across this gay teen help website that has an anonymous chat. He meets Louis and Louis, in a fit of worry for Harry’s safety demands to meet up. Harry agrees, he’s desperate and clings to Louis for support and comfort. Things quickly go in an unexpected direction.

Word count: 44,013

when i wake up i’m afraid by pastelgoth:

Summary: “In and out baby, keep breathing in and out.“ It takes another 15 minutes before Harry even feels slightly better rocking in Louis’ arms. “So strong, you’re so strong.” Louis is whispering - Harry wishes he felt it.

AU. Harry is struggling and Louis just wishes he could help.

Word count: 49,265

[little-owly]

here it is, handful of short fanfics for ya, anon. from warf to googs.

btw this is INCREDIBLY LONG so im hoping the read more works!! please give me any feedback on this, worked on it for a while!! feel free to tell me ur favorite part or if i should do some with jack’s egos!!

* Wilf//ord War//fsta//che

Wilford is not a careful planner when it comes to meetings. He’d never admit how much he’d procrastinate on his notes for every meeting, or how he’s only reminded by said meetings thanks to Google. Much like his own reality bending powers and such, Wilford was a hot mess of a “leader” in their sessions.

Which is no surprise that Wilford found himself here. The very front of the room, explaining another plan for Mar//kip//lier TV, and resisting the urge to run out the room for a break. His bladder screamed in protest as Wilford stood perfectly still.

“So, what do you think? It’s more amazing than the last-”

“Horrible. Disorganized. And more importantly, I did not see my own segment.” Dark replied coldly, glitching in and out.

“Where the Sam Hell was my ad?! I told y'all I wanted at least 3 ad spots!” Ed interrupted, throwing his hat in frustration.

“C'mon, it’s only a-” Wilford bit his lip as he felt himself give in for a second. His knee bending as he quietly groaned.

Thankfully, the rest of the egos continued to argue amongst themselves. The main focus on the egos stayed on the current disagreement between Google and Ed.

For only a mere 15 minutes, he allowed the arguing to continue as he squirmed ��� tapping his foot, crossing his legs to a casual position, anything to hold it. He whimpered quietly as he rested his hands against the table, leaning on it for support. His overfilled bladder ever so slowly winning him over. However, the group continued arguing, paying no mind to the desperate man.

All but one. The Host, himself.

As if on cue, The Host turned his head in Wilford’s direction. Wilford’s blood running cold as he watched The Host take a deep inhale.

“The Host will notice strange behavior from Mr. Warfs//ta//che. Erratic movement and the ever so low groan from his throat. The others will soon notice too as they hear The Host’s description. Are they looking in confusion or merely to see if The Host is correct?”

“Knock it o-off.” Wilford mutters, crossing his legs a bit tighter, a blush creeping up his cheeks.

“All is revealed as Wilford doubles over, huffing out shaky breaths. The sudden hissing and dark spot tells all. The group, all but The Host, stare in bewilderment and confusion. The stream of warm urine running down Mr. Warfs//ta//che’s left leg, puddling below on shame.”

Wilford only gasps as he finishes. Standing alone in his wet pants and puddle. The stares of the others on him.

“Mr. Warfs//ta//che – either for irony or for comedic effect – will rush out the room, calling the meeting to a close for a short bathroom break.” The Host speaks once more.

Wilford had never run faster in his life, trying to avert the gaze of the others.

* Dar//kip//lier

It’s still a hassle to contain his human form together. Dark’s ever glitching body is evident of that. The static surrounding his form is a dead giveaway.

But, nobody really explained to him the /other side/ of being human. Of possessing human form and the needs it comes with it. The need to eat, the need to drink, and the other need.

The need Dark absolutely hated, no, abhorred.

Bodily functions.

Which is why he found himself in Dr. ip//lier’s office. Tapping his foot as he sat atop the soft cushion of the examination chair. His legs crossing back and fourth ever so often. The nagging feeling just below his belly made him feel…outright disgusting. How can humans manage this feeling daily? Why was it so urgent and-

Dark was ripped from his thoughts as Dr. ip//lier opened the door.

“Uh, how did you-”

“No time to explain such useless reasons,” Dark hissed, “I need your help. And. Now.”

“…okay?” Dr. Ip///ler sat down at his own desk. Rolling his eyes, knowing if he didn’t help the ominous ego – he’d pay for it.

“This…thing here is distracting and disgusting.” Dark spat out, pressing his legs together, “It’s of no use to me whatsoever. It throbs with pain and ends with…with /humiliating/ me.”

“Well, what is it?”

“This! Do you not see it?!” Dark shouted, glitching more than usual as he unbuttoned his suit. Revealing the bulge of his bladder against the clean white button up.

“Remove it.”

“I…wait, what?” Dr. Ip//lier squeaked out, “Dark, I can’t just remove a /vital organ/ from you.”

“I said remove it!” Dark yelled. Dr. Ip//lier standing.

“Listen, this organ is needed. Your human form needs it to live – you don’t want to be powerless again without it, would you?”

Dr. Ip///ler laid Dark down on the examination chair. Dark groaning as he did – this “bladder” of his making it harder to fight back against the doctor.

“Let’s just take a look wt what exactly is going on, however. It’s not exactly healthy to have a bladder bulged up to /this/ size,” Dr. Ip//lier replied, gently probing at the spot.

Dark only hissed in desperation, shaking his head.

“Does that pain you?” the doctor asked, poking around the bulge.

“It’s uncomfortable. Maybe a better choice would be to remove it. Not like you’ll be arrested-”

The doctor ignored Dark as he pushed Dark’s legs apart. Dark arching his back as he did. The pressure and need growing stronger by the second.

“I said no,” Dr. Ip///ler huffed, “now, you say uncomfortable…how would you describe it?” He asked, punctuating his question with another push at Dark’s bladder.

“I told you already, you quack, I don’t know! Now, take this dammed thing out of my form before I do it myself-”

Dr. Ip//lier suddenly pressed deep into Dark’s bladder. Dark cursing as he curled up from the pressure. His teeth grit together as the wet warmth travelled down from his legs to the examination chair. Quietly pattering against the floor. The harsh hissing as his urine rushed out of him, completely and utterly soaking his lower half.

The doctor stood back as the puddle grew. His expression cold, watching the other breath heavily. His stream finally ending, growling deep in his throat.

“The bladder.”

Dark turned toward the doctor. Pure anger in his eyes.

“What you’re referring to is the bladder. A simple organ needed to store liquid waste such as urine. It’s located here,” he added, poking the spot once more – now flat again, “it is up to you to know when you must empty this organ through urination.”

Dark grit his teeth. Fighting back the urge to run off. Hide from the shame he felt.

“I can help you control it. But, what do I know, right? I’m just a quack.”

“Help me. I take back what I said in my time of desperation-” Dark lied, “make it /stop/.”

Dr. Ip///lier paused. Smirking to himself. Knowing he’s Dark’s last resort for help. He might as well enjoy the power high while it lasts. It’s not everyday you have a demonic ego at your mercy.

He took out his notepad from his desk, “I prescribe toilet training immediately. I’ll aid in this, but you must understand with it, more accidents like these will occur.”

Seeing the utter humiliation and anger in Dark’s eyes made it all worthwhile.

* Ed Edg//ar

It had to happen to him. It had to happen today of /all days/.

Ed kicked the pavement under him in anger. His beloved pick up truck beside him, it’s red color dark under the dimly lit parking lot. The city noises much quieter as he cursed.

Not only did his car not start, not only was he was still stuck at the office building for their meetings (which ended nearly 30 minutes ago), not only was he the only one around, but – he had to pee.

He fought back the need for more than an hour. Not wanting to excuse himself during the meeting to make his point on why his ad would bring more revenue and publicity for Mar//kip//lier TV. Because who would take him seriously if he did? It didn’t help that the bathroom was out of order.

30 minutes of not squirming or making sudden movements put a bigger strain of his bladder as he settled into his truck. His heart dropping as the engine sputtered.

“Ya gotta be kiddin’ me right now,” he grunted, hand shoved in between his thighs in the privacy of his truck. He rocked back and forth, trying to start the truck. He groaned as he kept a grip on himself, shuffling out the truck to check under it’s hood. Shifting from foot to foot as he attempted to fix the problem.

And that lead him here, crossing his legs as he rested against his truck. The office building before him glowing, mocking him – knowing nobody was there.

Then, he spot the bush, on the far side of the truck, hidden completely from the dim lights of the parking lot.

“Fuck it,” he grunted, “ain’t nobody around to catch me. These city folks do it all the time.”

He hurriedly huddled over to the bush, his tight pants and thick suspenders digging into his bladder more and more, the pressure nearly doubling.

He took his time unzipping himself – maybe a bit too much time. The sudden light and siren made him shout, shoving his hands back to hold himself, knees buckled together.

“Intruder. Reveal yourself before I contact local authorities-” the robot voice stopped, “Ed?”

Ed wheezed, his face turning red as he felt his pee squeeze through his clutched hands. Running down the rough material of his jeans, puddling into his leather boots. The pee running to the seat of his pants, flooding down his thighs and calfs. He grunted as he finished, hands damp and wet warmth surrounded his lower half. His blush unmistakeable as he felt someone grab his shoulder gently from behind. The bright lights still on.

“W-why the hell are y-you ‘ere?” Ed groaned. Looking to his left to see Google.

“Wilford did not want to spend money on security measures – so he updated me with an application to roam and protect the offices.”

Ed rolled his eyes, “cheap bastard,” he sighed, “can ya let me inside to wash up? Please don’t make me stay out 'ere like…/this/.”

Google nodded, the lights emitting from his eyes turning off.

“I just need to send the recording of this incident to Wilford and Dark first – so it may be written off as a false alarm.”

“Wait…Wait! Google no!”

“Sent.”

“…I really hate fancy ass technology,” Ed sighed, following Google.

* Bim Trim//mer

“That’s it for tonight’s 'H//ire My As//s!’ Thank you to our winner Matthias! And thank you, dear viewer for tuning into Mar//kip//lier TV! Bye-bye!” Bim smiled. The audience cheering as he ducked back stage. The constants following from the other side.

“Oh hey,” Matthias smiled as Bim nearly bummed into him. Noticing the way he was breathing slowly, sweat on his forehead, “still on an adrenaline rush? Dude, you need to calm down, the show went awesome.”

“Oh, y-yeah. Just…” he paused to gulp, “excited.”

“Well, I just wanted to stop and say thanks for uh…making the game easier for me, ya know? That tall guy and blue haired dude didn’t stand a chance.”

“R-right, ahaha, I’m glad y-you enjoyed yourself,” Bim chuckled nervously.

“Call me up if you need someone else to fill in for an episode, yeah? See ya around.” Matthias smiled before walking away. Bim waved back with a wide smile. The butterflies in his stomach fluttering about.

He hurriedly closed the door before moaning. Doubling over to grab at his midsection. His heart pounding as he took pleasure in the delicious desperate feeling. Rubbing his thighs together as he waddled to sit in his chair for make up. The fluttering in his stomach still there as he whimpered.

Bim had a pastime that seemed…odd. A pastime that kept him drinking water after water. That left him squirming on set, smiling through the pain and pleasure in front thousands of people. One that resulted in flustered moans and wet suits.

Bim didn’t exactly know where this kink of his started, but was it sure fun to fight back the urge to grab himself on stage. To let in on his own dirty little secret.

“F-fuck,” he moaned, pressing down into his lower belly. A spurt escaping him, damp against his thigh. His knees buckled together, one hand holding himself while the other pressed more. Pressure gradually growing – overworked from holding it on stage.

He could just imagine Matthias here with him. Matthias making Bim kneel on the hardwood of the private room. His laugh loud as Bim begs him to go. To let go all over his floor.

In his fantasy, Matthias would only shove his shoe into Bim’s bladder, listening to him moan. Degrading him dearly, voice low.

“P-please, Matt-I can’t h-hold it-” Bim whispered to nobody. His body shaking. Too wrapped up in his fantasy to change positions.

Matthias would grab him by the hair, 'go ahead. Make a mess of yourself for me, Bim. Show me how much you love this, baby. Show me how desperate everyone’s favorite TV show host can get.’

Bim arched his back, the floodgates breaking as he pissed. Flooding out of him, soaking his hand and chair, spreading warmth unevenly. Absolutely ruining his pants as he wet.

“M-matthias! I…I’m-” he moaned. Rutting against his hand sandwiched between his thighs. Hips working as he pissed and pissed. The black material of his suit clinging to his skin. The piss running down his legs to gather at the edge of the hardwood floor.

He continued to rut against his own hand as he finished. Small spurts being pushed out. Bim cried out all the while, thankful his dressing room was soundproof.

That was, in the midst of pleasuring himself through the material, until the door opened. Bim too far in his fantasy to notice.

Matthias stood in the doorway, smiling down at a piece of paper, “hey, Bim! I realized I forgot to give you my number. Just in case you need-”

Bim stopped, wet pants glistening in the bright lights from the mirror besides him, heavy blush on his cheeks, and teary eyes staring back.

“…I’m…just gonna leave it…here…” Matthias replied, blue eyes wide as he placed the paper on the nearest chair. “Just…call me.” He blushed before running away.

Matthias sat hours later at his kitchen table as texts and calls came by the second.

'MATTHIAS IM SORRY I JUST NEEDED TO GO AND MY BATHROOM WAS BROKEN’

'DON’T SHAME ME I KNOW IT LOOKED WEIRD BUT JUST LISTEN’

'PLEASE DON’T TELL ANYONE IM BEGGING YOU’

'I’LL LET YOU WIN THE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL PLEASE KEEP IT TO YOURSELF’

“He’s lucky I’m so openminded.” Matthias sighed. However…that Christmas special deal /did/ sound pretty good…

* Silver She//pher//d

The office space was a complete disaster. Their meeting room table was broken to pieces, the glass wall shattered. Complete and utter chaos.

All as the two ego fought.

“That all you got?” Yand//ere laughed, wiping the blood off her chin, “some lame boomerangs to throw at me?”

“Yan,” Silver heaved, “your stalking and relentless murder has to end. It goes against every single law in this city.”

“You don’t know why I do it!” Yand//ere screamed, “I have to protect Senpai!”

“I do the protection around here.” Silver stood. Readying himself for further attack, his comically oversized gloves barely hanging on.

“Shut up! Nobody here even knows you! You’re just some guy who happens to stop one criminal a month while wearing skintight suits!”

Silver charged towards Yand//ere, his fist connecting with the other’s chin. Falling back down again as Silver stood above him.

“Your Senpai is another citizen of this city that I vow to protect from criminals like you.” He triumphantly stated. Panting through the small hole for his mouth.

Yand//ere screamed in anger once more before reaching for a shard of broken glass, tackling down Silver.

“So high and mighty with this, huh?” Yand//ere yelled, tugging at the stretchy material hiding Silver’s face, “let’s see why you hide this all the time.”

Silver struggled, trying to push the other off of him. Groaning as he used what little strength he could to hold back Yand//ere’s arm. He wondered how a innocent looking ego as him could be so terrifyingly strong.

Yand//ere laughed madly, the shard of glass closer to Silver’s mask. So close to ripping it apart. So close to ruining his mysterious identity.

It happened so quickly, Silver barely realized what had happened.

The tearing of the material as he lost the fight. Yand//ere panting as the glass shard was thrown away. The air conditioning hitting his face. Silver’s black hair fell in front of his eyes, shaggy and bed-head like. The crescent shaped scar on his right cheek exposed, from the edge of his eye down to his chin.

Yand//ere stood stunned, seeing his face for the first time. Being the only one to /see/ it.

Silver kicked off Yand//ere. The other ego flying off towards the other side of the meeting room, groaning as the smacked against the wall.

“Y-you will not stop m-me from protecting Se-Senpai-”

Silver got back up, throwing his gloves off. Clad in only his silver suit and black, torn, cape.

“I can do this all day.” He coughed, wide stance and fists drawn back.

“What the hell?!” Wilford yelled, turning the corner to see the meeting room. Totally destroyed. The two egos ignoring him.

“You two, again?! Goddamn it, Dark! Doc! Google! Anyone! Yan and Silver and fighting again!” He yelled, running back down the hallway.

Yand//ere giggled. Finally couching to get up. Disheveled red hair hid Yand//ere’s eyes.

“Knock it off! Stop dramatically stalemating!” Wilford screamed again as Google followed behind. The two making their way past what /use/ to be the glass wall of their meeting room.

“Please step aside, I got this criminal-”

Silver didn’t utter another word. Yand//ere yelling as a swift and powerful kick was given to him. Directly into his belly.

Silver fell back, the wind knocked out of him completely. Yand//ere staring him down.

Then, the slow flow started. Not noticeable at first, Silver mistaking it as blood from an unknown wound. It wasn’t until Yand//ere began to laugh madly again did Silver realize.

“Wow, did you just have an accident?! During a fight?!”

Silver groaned, in too much pain to stop. The bottom half of suit turning black, the hissing and steadily growing puddle evidence enough. He dropped his head, not only humiliated by having his mask removed, but wetting himself? After one kick?

Silver breath through his nose harshly as he heard footsteps approach. Yand//ere being picked up by Wilford.

“H-hey! He started it! He tried to say he protects Senpai, not me!” Yand//ere yelled, voice hoarse.

“I don’t care who started it, but I know damn well who’s going to clean this up.” Wilford spat, dragging Yand//ere by the shirt. Escorting them away from the scene.

“Are you okay?” Asked Google. Silver lifting his head.

“My facial recognition feature does not pick up who you are.”

“Yeah? I don’t expect it to.” Silver groaned. The wet feeling in his suit making him wince. The large puddle around him made him feel ashamed once more.

“It’s me, Google. Silver. I just…don’t have the thing on.”

“Cataloging this under your file, Silver. Would you allow me to call Dr. Ip//lier for medical assistance?”

“P-please…fuck, I think Yand//ere broke my rib.”

“Hello, Doctor.” Google spoke off in the distance, in a call. “Silver needs urgent medical attention. I believe his symptoms are a fracture lower rib, various cuts, a sprained ankle, and a overactive bladder…I’ll bring him shortly.”

Silver groaned before applying his mask back on as much as he could, the mask only hiding his eyes and scare.

Did Google have to add in the accident part? Well…he’d actually prefer that then explaining the scar, he thought as he slowly walked with Google. The cold wetness sticking to his skin.

* Ki//ng Of T//he Squ//irrels

The King sat near the edge of the table sandwiched between Google and Yand//ere. The meeting droned on and on. The peanut butter on his chin dripping as he squirmed.

Oh. /That/ feeling was back.

King bit down on his lip as he struggled to remember what to do when this happened. He remembers the conversation with Dr. Ip//lier well enough until it got to the steps. He only remembers him groaning as King explained again and again – if his subjects use the earth as their bathroom, then why can’t he?

King looked over at Yand//ere’s shoulder. Eyeing the doodles on the paper Yand//ere held. The glittery ink and violent drawings around the word “Senpai” interested him. The only thing closest to a ‘Senpai’ he and his subjects had was 'a mate’. But those come a dime a dozen, why did this one matter so much to the ego?

“Eyes to yourself, baka.” Yand//ere muttered, crushing the paper up.

King backed off, as he should.

The feeling however, didn’t. King squirmed more and more. Hand going down to his lap to hold himself. Biting his lip.

“…p-pervert!” Yand//ere yelled, scooting away from the table. The other egos turning towards King.

“Uh, the hell is he doing?” Ed spoke up.

“I…I need…”

The room fell silent.

“Need what, son?” Ed spoke up again, Dark groaning.

“Isn’t it obvious? He needs to use the toilet.”

“Well how the hell does that make him a pervert? Unless he has a,” Ed coughs, stopping himself from laughing, “some kind of unspoken kink.”

Google pings, “correction. That particular ego would be Bim. Judging by his searches on his personal cell phone and laptop here on the office’s internet – Bim has searched up the term 'omorashi’ several times this week between the hours of 9pm to 12 am-”

“Oh god, Bim…Bim Tri//mer himself, has a piss kink?!” Ed laughed, mustache bouncing as he did. Yand//ere, Wilford, and Silver joined in. Unable to hide it.

King, in utter confusion, laughed along. The action causing him to wince, stopping immediately, spurts wetting the crotch of his pants.

“I…I do not! Google is…is just malfunctioning! His update must be missing!” Bim yelled, voice high as he blushed.

“My functions are running correctly, thank you very much.” Google replied.

“It’s not true! That sounds utterly disgusting and unsanitary!” Bim defended. Ed bumping shoulders with him. Laughing harder.

“Omorashi? Is that pretty girlies pissing everywhere?” Ed laughed. Dark cracking a smirk, fighting back laughter himself.

“The Host will remind everyone King is about to wet himself if the doctor isn’t called in immediately to help.” The Host deadpanned. The other egos turning back to King.

“Better go help 'im, Bim. Sounds like a wet dream for you.” Yand//ere teased. Bim groaning as he hid his face. Embarrassment causing him to hide.

“Hello, Doctor? King is stuck with an overfilled bladder in today’s meeting, along with Bim – the ego we discussed about last night, and the reason why he might like such a kink? I do believe Bim would like to keep holding however.” Google spoke aloud, in a call with Doctor, eyes staring off into space.

The others laughed, Bim gritting his teeth, “you’ll be hearing from my lawyers with this ridiculous slander!” he yelled before leaving the meeting room. The Host rushing to join Bim.

“Of course, I’ll escort him over.” Google said as he ended the call. Helping King stand – as best he could.

“N-no! I don’t think I can qu-quite do that!” King moaned, using his cape to hide himself. “It’s too much p-pressure!”

“Bim left at the worst time. He’d be getting one hell of a show,” Wilford laughed. The room laughing more as Google was left with no other option, simply rolling King out /on/ his chair to the doctor’s.

King squirmed more and more as they approached the office. Moaning as his thighs rubbed together tightly.

“Doctor! It’s us,” Google yelled. Dr. Ip//lier rushing over.

“King,” he tsked, “we talked about this.”

“I…I don’t remember what to do!” King yelled, groaning as he leaked more.

“You were to call me in case you needed assistance. That’s why I sat you with Google.”

King nodded, gasping, “I…I’m sorry! Forgive me!”

“Wha-”

King sprung up from the chair, squatting as he finally released his bladder. The pee going towards the seat of his pants, soaking himself. Tiny droplets falling to the floor as his cape soaked up most of his puddle below. King sighing in relief the entire time.

Dr. Ip//lier held the bridge of his nose in between two fingers in frustration.

“Google, please place him in the same program as Dark for training. I think Dark could benefit from it to.”

“Confirmed.” Google replied, watching as King finished. A goofy smile plastered on his face. His pants a completely darker shade.

“I’m guess you’re only doing what your subjects do?”

“Of course, doctor. It’s much easier than the complicated way.”

“Don’t you usually take your pants off like your subjects?”

“I…uh, couldn’t be bothered to this time…”

“Oh King,” Dr. Ip//lier sighed, helping him stand, “c'mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”

* Host

The Host stayed serious. Listening as Bim ranted on and on, not uttering a word.

“-and, why does Google even have that feature?! The wifi company can do that on their own! Total and utter invasion of privacy!”

The Host sighed, “The Host pats Bim’s shoulder in an act of compassion. He agrees, the egos are immature to tease such a topic – especially if it’s not true. But, he would also like to remind Bim that half of those who laughed did have an embarrassing moment involving that type of waste, so they have no room to laugh.”

Bim wipes away a tear, “thanks, Host. I really do appreciate it.”

“…You’re welcome, Mr. Tr//im//mer. The night sky has turned a dark shade of violet blue, the stars twinkling above us, in their own little world. Is it not time to retire home?”

“…you have a unique way of speaking. I like it,” Bim admitted, standing from his office chair as he stretched, “you’re right. See ya tomorrow buddy. And uh, Host?”

The Host turned before leaving.

“Thank you. For everything. We’re both…kinda the underdogs here. Always forgotten or teased by the others. Its nice to have someone to confide and call a close friend. You’ve just always been there for me. Be careful getting home, yeah?”

“The Host smiles, wishing Bim a good night farewell, and a thank you as well.”

The walk home isn’t as bad as other days. Only three people gasped at his bandages.

He did his nightly routine as usual. Undress to a casual white t-shirt and black sweatpants. Prepare a microwaved dinner. Drink no fluids after 8 pm. Listen to his favorite podcast. And finally, brush his teeth, clocking in at 11 pm. The quiet apartment settling as Host dreaded the night ahead.

“My unsettling thoughts are merely illusions. I…I’m sure tonight will prove to be different. I shall sleep in peace and wake up…” he dared not finish the sentence.

In a quick few minutes, Host fell in a quiet sleep.

The darkness suddenly brightened. His vision recovering to that horrible face. Scrunched up with anger, revenge deep in his eyes. The dock and and the attack stood on creaking. The old house he used as an author behind the man. Quiet forest noises adding to his horror.

“You’re gonna fuckin’ pay, Author.” He said in a rough voice, a punch landing on Host’s chin.

“R-ryan! Please! I was stupid and-”

“Shut the fuck up.” He laughed, pushing Host over. Splashing into the lake below. The water confusing him, disorienting him. He screamed under the water, bubbles forming out his mouth as he attempted to breathe. The water filled him completely, surrounding him. The faint dizziness in his head as his vision slowly faded once more.

And then he was back in his bed, screaming as he sat up. Skin slick with sweat, fear running through him.

The dream. It was that dammed dream again.

“Time?! What’s the time?!” He yelled aloud to his home’s computer system. Thankful Google offered to place such a system for him.

“Hello, Host. It is 4:33 am. You have roughly 2 more hours of sleep left.” It replied back. Host panting as he shifted.

Oh.

Oh no.

Host pulled back the sheets, feeling underneath him. Feeling his wet sheets and sweatpants. Still warm. The strong scent of urine lingered in the room.

Host cried. His tears bloodied as they ran down his face. Curling up on himself.

“I’m a fool. An absolute idiot.” He sniffled. Rocking back and forth as sobs ran through his body. Helpless and humiliated.

“…Please call Bim Trim//mer.”

“Calling Bim…”

Bim’s sleepy voice rang throughout the house. Speaker on throughout his house.

The conversation was short. Host having no problem in explaining his situation. Spilling out his problem to Bim, the same damned problem he’s had for 9 days now. Waking up to humiliation and wet sheets.

“…I’ll be right over. Go take a shower and leave out your dirtied stuff. I’ll take care of it.” Bim said, ending the call.

Host blushed, setting the clothes aside and unlocking his front door. He could hear Bim announce himself. The shuffling of sheets and clothes being tossed into the washing machine.

The Host winced as the reapplied his bandages, knowing Dr. Ip//lier would be angry with him for it tomorrow. But he shrugged, too anxious to care. Too sad to even ask for help.

“Hey, you alright?” Bim asked, standing to Host’s side.

“The Host will walk to the bed with support from Mr. Trim//mer. His hands feeling the new soft material of his bedding. The fresh scent welcoming, save for the hint of baking soda.”

“I thought you’d like the whole thing replaced,” Bim sighed, “you want to go back to sleep or…?”

“…I’m scared, Mr. Trim//mer. I see darkness all around, only to regain vision to a horrible nightmare. It’s a cruel act by the powers above us. I…wish to not be left alone.”

“…I’ll stay. Just, let me sleep in the living room, okay? I’ll call Google and say we’ll be late-”

“Mr. Trim//mer. Please, stop me if I’m overstepping my boundaries – but may you please stay here? I understand from a sanitary point like you’ve made before – how it can be disgusting. But…I’m so scared. I’m terrified of what I’ll see next.”

Bim sighed. Walking to the other side of the bed. Sneaking under the covers with Host. His hand ever so gently reaching out to hold The Host’s.

“Thank you…Bim.”

Bim perked up. Noticing the name change. His face heating up as The Host leaned over to turn his lamp off. The early shade of dawn’s purple seeping through windows.

“You’re welcome, Host. Goodnight.

"I bid you a restful sleep.”

* Dr. Ipl//ier

“Google, please tell me the status of the bathroom repair.”

“50% done. Estimated to be finished by next Friday.”

The doctor rolled his eyes. No wonder it seems like everyone has lost their basic bodily functions – besides the two in his newest program. (Which was really just him checking up on Dark and King and reminding them when to go, rewarding them for each successful try with praise.)

“At least my office bathroom is still working.”

“Actually, our workers accidentally busted a pipe in the walls, which lead to yours. Your restroom is under maintenance until the 4th.” Google replied. Monotone voice glitching.

“…you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I am an android. I do not know how to "kid” around yet.“

Dr. Ip//lier sighed.

The rest of the day went on as normal. The office as normal as it could be. Silver popping in for treatment for a papercut – 20 minutes for comfort and 2 minutes to actually treat him.

It was at the end of the day that proved difficult. His bladder heavy in his gut. Discomforting. Distracting.

It was also at the end of the day did Wilford come in. Complaining of a toothache.

"Open up. I may be a doctor but I gained a bit of knowledge in the mouth area with my college roommate.” He sighed. Wilford opening up without effort.

“Oh, ouch.” the doctor winced, “no wonder why. You got a cavity in your upper left area. With…is this bubblegum?” he questioned, poking the substance out with his tools. Wilford nodding in pain – groaning.

The pain hit him more. His bladder making him bite his bottom lip. Acting as perfectly as he could – especially since this was the same ego who still laughed at the simple mention of urine. He thanked his body for betraying him as he pressed his thighs together, as if standing straighter.

“So, what do I do? Pull it?”

“No. I can work in a filling for you by Thursday. However,” he sighed, preparing himself mentally to walk normally, “you can take…”

He took his first few steps, wobbly as he reached his shelf. Taking down a simple pill bottle before coming back to Wilford.

“These. They’ll help the pain. But, no sugars or bubblegum until then. Try to chew on the other side, yeah?”

Wilford nodded, taking the pill bottle. He snickered as Dr. Ipl//ier wrote on his clipboard.

“Doc? Is it true you’re potty training old edgy boy and animal lover?”

“That’s confidential. What I use to treat patients is of no business to you, Wil.”

Wilford laughed, “c'mon. You can tell me, I’m sure I can tell you even more embarrassing stuff between those two. I have been around the longest.”

“Is there anything else I can treat you for, Wil? Perhaps some manners?”

Wilford grew quiet. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll see you in two days, Doc.” He sheepishly replied.

The doctor waved a goodbye before closing his office, calling for Google. The pain in his bladder intensifying.

“Google? Who has a personal bathroom in their office?”

“That would be Bim.”

“Oh, thank God,” he sighed, “can you open his office for me? I’m sure he won’t mind me-”

“I cannot allow that.”

Dr. Ip//lier’s blood ran cold. Crossing his arms.

“Uh, Google? I really need to get in Bim’s office.”

“I cannot allow that.”

Urgency ran through him. Why won’t Google allow him in? Why is he so aggressive about it? There’s no possible way Google’s free will has been reactivated – right?

His bladder screamed at him to go. The doctor groaning under his breath.

The keycard.

The keycards they had used before Google.

The doctor frantically searched for the card. His calm and collected self now rushing, urgency making him crack under pressure (both literally and figuratively).

Google followed behind as the doctor rushed, keycard in hand. Bim’s office so close. His relief so close. His excitement getting the best of him as he struggled to scan the card.

“Access denied.” Google said. Dr. Ip//lier turning towards him. His hand scanning the card again, again, and again.

Each time punctuated with an “access denied.”

“No, nonono-” the doctor whimpered, feeling himself leak. Hand reaching down to grab himself, “please, please! This is embarrassing, please grant me access.”

“I cannot allow that.”

“Why?! Google, tell me right now why the fuck not.” he whimpered, more leaking. His hips wiggling as he tried to hold it.

“Bim installed an application onto me that locks anyone out of his files, internet history, and office. This application was created to keep anyone out by any means.”

“…Google, please! I’m not going to last-”

“I’m sorry, Doctor.”

Google picked up the squirmy ego, placing him back in his office. Dr. Ip//lier tearing up.

He attempted to find something to use. A bedpan, anything.

It was just as he was leaning down did he finally cry out. His blue scrubs turning a dark shade. The urine pushing out of him at a fast rate. Flooding his scrubs, the splatter of his urine drenching the floor was enough for the doctor to cry. Hot tears running down his face as he finally widened his stance. Shame and guilt running through him.

“…Doctor?” Google asked after a while, the other squatting as he continued to cry.

“A-are you normal, again?”

“I believe so. Do you wish for me to clean up and get you a change of scrubs?”

“Y-yes. Please.”

“I’ll be hailing for your taxi as soon as you are done. Please take your time.” Google said, gently lifting him to his feet. The fresh change of clothes in his hands from the opened cabinet.

The doctor could sense this was his Google. The same one he’s mentored for years. The same one he worked to reprogram. The same one he spent nights fixing up.

His Google. Back to normal.

“T-thank you,” he sobbed, embracing the other. Google quickly returning the gesture. His hands running through the doctor’s jet black hair.

Dr. Ipl//ier rounded the corner to change, hearing Google shout.

“Do you wish for me to add you into the program reserved for Dark and King?”

Doctor chuckled, “haha, very funny,” he sighed, “no, Google! I’ll be fine! Call the taxi in 5 minutes!”

* Yand//erep//lier

“There he is! Senpai!” Yan exclaimed. Watching the green haired boy walk on pass the schoolyard gates. Her eyes twinkling as he waved goodbye to a blonde boy.

Senpai was his to watch now.

Yan quickly followed behind from a distance. Watching as the boy scrolled through his phone (his passcode was 2486, how simple!) and walk on. (Senpai lived exactly 15 minutes away from the school.)

That was, until Yan felt how badly he needed to use the restroom. No surprise, considering he’d had 4 water bottles during P.E. that morning, not bother to use the restroom during class – wanting to see his senpai. No matter what.

Yan was so engrossed in his need, he didn’t notice the boy next to him. Waiting for him as he passed by.

“Hey! Walkin’ the same way?” He asked, accent thick.

Oh.

/Oh./

This /was happening/.

Yan yelped quietly as he looked to his right. The green haired boy smiling wide.

“Y-yeah. I a-am.” He replied shyly. Because of course, after months of careful stalking and murder, Senpai had to notice him now – while he concentrated on not peeing.

“Cool, hey…aren’t you Yan? I think you sit two rows behind me, right?”

Yan nodded, his bladder throbbing. Regretting his choice now, his blush growing heavier.

“Well, uh, I’m Jack,” he smiled once more, “I like your hair. Nice to see someone around who appreciates louder colors.” He motioned to his green hair.

“I…l-like yours too, it f-fits you…” Yan whimpered. Awkwardly trying to shuffle along. Hoping Senpai doesn’t notice.

“Really? Aw, thanks! You’re so sweet! I got it just because, ya know, big fan of green.”

“I l-like red a l-lot, b-but! Green is an amazing color! Don’t get me wrong!”

Jack laughed, “it’s okay, Yan. I’m not gonna kill ya for not liking green. I mean, technically lots of bad things are green. Like puke.”

Yan giggled. His heart thumping, half out of fear and half out of “holy shit, this is happening.”

“Lots of b-bad things are red…like, uh…apples?”

“Apples? Huh, they’re not that special. Thought you’d say something like blood after murdering someone”

Yan stopped in his tracks.

“W-what?!”

“Ya know, like horror movies. The blood they use on screen after murders in 'em is so bright red. But, it looks great on you. Makes ya stand out. Noticable – in a good way!”

Yan practically melted. His heart thumping out of his chest.

Noticable. Senpai, finally, noticed him.

“Thank you…so much.” Yan smiled. Fixing his skirt.

“Welcome! Err…this is my stop. Wanna walk back tomorrow? This place is rough at this time of day.”

“Oh! Y-yeah! Of course! S-see you tomorrow, Jack.”

“Night, Yan!”

He waved as Jack entered his home. Then dashed into a nearby alley. Holding himself through his skirt. Knees buckled and shaking. Holding his book bag to his chest as he looked up at the sky.

“Please, please, please, let me make it.” He shuddered. Squirming against the wall. Hidden from sight as he whined. Bouncing foot to foot. Preparing himself to take his first step away from the wall.

Yan regretted it exactly 4 seconds later. The pee running down his bare legs, the cold breeze making him whine louder. Letting go of his skirt – saving it from staining. The hissing and speed he was wetting made the slightest bit of tears run down his face. Panting as he wiped them away.

The pitter-pattering of his pee echoed around the alley as he gasped, more tears coming to his eyes. His shoes and knee high socks completely soaked.

“…Yan?”

Yan never ducked faster in his life, hiding behind a dumpster. His shameful wet shoe prints on the ground leading to his hiding spot.

“Yan? That red head?” He heard another voice ask.

“Yeah, we walked home. You know Yan lives out this way, Felix?”

“I thought Yan lived in the apartments a block away from the school.”

“…eh. It doesn’t matter. Anything to walk with someone that cute.”

“Dude! You’re going for Yan?”

“Yeah! Cute smile, bright red hair, sweet and shy. Totally my type.”

“Didn’t Yan have like, 12 knives taken away last year-”

“Ssh, we all have our flaws, Felix.” He said as they walked on. Their voices fading.

Meanwhile, Yan covered his mouth. Crying tears of joy. Not minding the shame he felt 2 minutes ago, not minding the soaked socks and shoes.

Senpai…Senpai liked him too.

And that matters a lot more than wetting himself at his age.

* Goo//glip//lier

The android stood in front of the meeting room. The other egos watching as the doctor explained.

“So, I propose we add in Google here to my segment. I’ve downloaded new software from a credible source to Google so he can assist in more ways!”

“Ya sure this thing follows the law of robotics?” Ed spoke up. Dr. Ipl//ier laughings.

“Has he killed anyone yet?”

“He nearly choked me during a strep throat test.” King spoke up.

“King, you screamed bloody murder and grabbed him first. You’re fine.”

King mumbled, crossing his arms, “my personal army will hear of this betrayal.”

“Anyways! Let’s test it out! Today, Google with preform a simple papercut treatment – with this fake model hand.” The doctor announced, taking a deep breath.

“Okay, Google. Perform procedure 250.”

Google smiled, setting to work. The others watching on. Some bored, some indifferent, some interested greatly.

He stopped.

Bandage ready to use. The area cleaned. But, he stopped.

“What’s going on?” Wilford asked, inching away from the android.

“Uh…Google? Please proceed with the procedure-”

Google stood up, straight as a board. Tall and ominous.

“Error. Error. No input found. No-” he glitched. Head shaking as he slammed his fist against the table. The egos stepping back as Dr. Ipl//ier tried to reach Google’s main switch, located behind his ear.

“Override? O-operati-tion?” He sputtered, the other hand punching the table. Wilford rushed, hiding behind Ed.

“Google?! Google! Shut down! Shit down all apps!”

“N-no input f-found.”

“Fine.” the doctor groaned, flipping the switch.

The egos yelled in fear as Google stood back up. Eyes blinking blue and white.

“Malfunction. Systems rebooting. Releasing coolant tank contents.”

“…what? That’s still working?!” he squeaked, stepping back as Google glitched.

The wet spot started immediately, rushing down Google’s jeans to the floor below. The dark streams running down, glistening under the harsh light of the meeting room.

He stopped after a few seconds. Falling onto the table, legs still spread – if someone didn’t know any better, they’d merely think he was sleeping.

“…well, that function still works. I thought I disconnected it last year.” Dr. Ipl//ier huffed.

“Wow, Google is actually shut down? Like, dead?” Yan asked, leaning over to see Google.

“No, just asleep. He’ll recover and I can delete the app off of him.”

“Ya like the show, Bim?” Ed nudged, laughing. Bim moved away from the table. Annoyed as all hell.

“Knock it off, Edward.” Host said. Standing, “May I inquire about the power? Doesn’t Google keep that running-”

The building was soon plunged into darkness. The whirring of the electricity failing around them.

“You had to ask?” Dark muttered. The doctor pulling out his phone to use.

“Keep calm, everyone! There’s a generator downstairs in the basement. If we all go together we can help find it, connect it, and turn it on, yeah?”

Mutters of 'sure’ and 'why nots’ rung around. The group following the doctor.

“Hey, doc? Where did you download that app?”

“I believe I received it in an email from an old roommate of mine. He said his colleague urged him to have me download it.”

“What was the creator’s name?” Dark spoke up.

“…Anti? I’m sure it’s just a username-”

“Doctor, you idiot.” Wilford and Dark huffed. The group shuffling downstairs. Half fearful of what Google’d do if he woke up before they got back upstairs, the other half ready to fight.

The poor doctor, however? Well, he just wanted his taxi to come and take him home for the day.

[jehanjetaime]

OC Writing Prompt Fills!

I was given three requests by @angelicasylum and used random.org to pick who each was about.

It...worked out.

Female-bodied Prede and Maps - “I think I’ve been holding myself from falling in love with you all over again.”

“You’re back…” Prede whispered, holding a worn blanket to their chest. They had been hanging clean laundry in the backyard, alone as they had been for the past 5 years, since the day their girlfriend had disappeared from their life with no sign of where she had gone.

And now she was back - tall, messy dreads hanging to her hips, looking dangerously skinny and in clothes she never would have picked out for herself. Ordena. Or the name that she had been called by her old crew, Maps...but Prede had never used that name for her. She was always Ordena to them. A sheet that was already hanging on the line flapped in the wind, obscuring her from view. Prede half expected that when it settled, she would be gone again. But she wasn’t. In fact, she was now on this side of the fence, and Prede saw her mismatched shoes.

A great many feelings were surging in them at the moment, but their desperate need to care for anyone in a state of need overrode them all. “...you look hungry.”

-------

She looked like a wild animal in their kitchen, like she was too big for the space. It was funny - their old apartment had been no bigger than the kitchen of Prede’s rented house, but Ordena had fit there like a glove. In their pale green, open kitchen, she seemed like a caged jaguar.

Prede had the feeling she would eat like one too. They made her two cold portabella sandwiches while she sat quietly at the table, looking around the kitchen. “Like you always wanted,” she mused, finally speaking. Her voice was more raw than it had been, and it made Prede want to cry. “Right?”

“...n-not until now,” Prede said, shaking a little. This kitchen had been a dream for Prede - but the real dream was Ordena sitting right there.

But as much as Prede wanted to hound her, question her, yell at her, shake her, they held back in favour of polite conversation. What if she left again? They set the plate in front of her along with a shimmering glass of lemonade. “Here...extra hot sauce on the sandwiches.”

“You remembered,” she said, with a hint of the smile that Prede had fallen for then tried so desperately to forget.

“I did.”

Prede sat across from her, quiet as she ate the sandwiches, but feeling extremely tense. Their pet, a new addition to the house, hopped into the room and stared up at Ordena. The woman looked down at the fluffy ball of softness, then dragged her eyes up to Prede. “Your rabbit, too?”

“Yes. Bianca.”

“Big name for a little girl.”

Things fell quiet again, and Prede didn’t know how to fix it. They let Ordena finish eating, then took her plates. “A...are you tired? You can go take a nap, or...or a shower...o-or…”

A fat tear rolled down their cheek; there was nothing they could do about it.

“Just ask, Prestige.”

“Just ask?” they repeated, dropping a dish into the sink. It clinked against the stainless steel but did not break. “J...just ask where you went? Why you disappeared without a trace? Why this is the first time I have seen or heard from you in FIVE years!?

“I thought you were DEAD, Or! I had to CONVINCE myself you were dead so I would stop checking every newspaper, Googling your name, and looking out the window at every little sound! I STAYED in that crappy little studio just WAITING for you, terrified to leave a dangerous area because...because you MIGHT come back and want to find me! So forgive me if I don’t  know what to DO here...there’s not protocol for this!”

Then they turned the water on, both jets, just to drown out everything. Prede usually didn’t wash their dishes without gloves but at the moment they were too overwhelmed to even think about grabbing them before dousing a new sponge in dish soap and scrubbing the plates as if they had been sitting in the sink for a year instead of a minute.

They didn’t stop until a hand came to rest on their shoulder. “I didn’t want to go.”

“I don’t care,” Prede said, and it came as a realization to them. They wheeled around, hands still soapy and water still going to look Ordena in the eye (which was rather a feet since she had always been much taller than them). “I...I don’t CARE if you didn’t want to go! I missed you! I was alone, and scared, and angry, so ANGRY -”

Ordena pulled them tightly to her chest. “I know, mama, I know it was hard, it was a shitty thing and if you’ll give me a second I can explain everything…”

“I’m not ‘mama’ to you anymore.”

Prede yanked away from her. “A LOT of things have changed, Ordena, least of which is that I have a new identity and new pronouns, and I am VERY single, and I just can’t.,..I just can’t go back to everything how it was, and I...I…”

“I’m gonna go upstairs, Prede,” Ordena said, jaw set. Prede could see that she was angry, but they were angry too, and her anger only served to fuel their own. “I’m gonna see this big house you live in, I’m gonna take that shower, and I’m gonna rest.

“Then later on, we can talk. Alright, ma-” She stopped short. “That alright?”

“Fine,” Prede said, throwing their hands up in the air, very unlike their usual shy, withdrawn self. But Ordena had always been able to pull Prede out of their shell in every way possible. “Fine. I...some of your clothes are in the bottom drawer of the white dresser, still.”

That seemed to stun Ordena. “Alright. You don’t go anywhere while I’m upstairs, and then we can talk.”

It was with only a little spite that Prede ghosted out of the house to hang laundry while she was gone.

-------

Ordena looked perfect on their couch. Even as angry as they were, they had to admit that seeing her back, seeing her sit on their couch like they had always imagine...it was nice. Even if she was tense, too skinny, with a darkness in her eyes.

“I was selling. I think you knew.”

“Of course I knew - those idiots wouldn’t have let you hang around if you weren’t doing something for them.” They sighed. “And I assumed when you left it was...something to do with them. I was scared you had stolen something from them and left, but when no one came by the house I thought that maybe they had already had you k...killed…”

She reached out to take their hand, but they wouldn’t give it to her. “...it was supposed to be a quick run down to Hornbrook, I would have been back before dinner. But the people we were selling to screwed us over, robbed me and beat the crap out of me - I was left tied up in the bed of a truck, didn’t know where. They must have thought I was dead.

“Turns out they had smuggled me across the border and left me to die in Mexico. I had to do a lot of shit to get free, get money to come home, sneak across the border, everything...smuggled a lot more drugs down there than I ever did up here to get back here.

“And when I DID get back home, you were gone. The apartment had someone else in it.”

Prede nodded. “But I told Abuelita where I was going.”

Abuelita was a little old Spanish lady who lived in the building that EVERYONE knew and loved. Ordena smiled. “Yeah. Abuelita told me where to find you.”

“I’m...really. Something. Sorry I yelled, to start with…” They were still reeling.

“Did you really think I would have left you of my own accord?”

Prede didn’t have an answer. They didn’t know what to do. Part of them wanted to scream at her again, part of them wanted her hands under their skirt, and another part of them wanted to just hold onto her and never let go. They had been sad and angry and lonely for five years.

“Baby, what are you thinking?” Ordena asked, brows furrowed, eyes sad and angry and lonely.

“I’m thinking that I’m...I’m done being mad and.” Prede took her hands and smiled. “I don’t want to waste time now that you’re back fighting. We’ve lost a lot of time already again.

“I think I’m ready. I think I’ve been holding myself from falling in love with you all over again, since the moment I saw you over the fence. And I think I’m done holding myself back.”

Ordena let them kiss her, and the way she kissed back was everything they had dreamed of for the past five, long, lonely years.

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

Malachi and Isora - “I might have had a few shots.”

The stereotype of a big Irish family did not always hold true. The stereotype of a family full of redheads from the Emerald Isle was also, sometimes, a falsehood. The stereotype of Irish people being very religious was also, not always fact.

The extended Clarke family was all of those things. They were big, largely red-headed, and very devoted to faith. Even with the...odd Lelah branch and their pagan ways, the Clarke family - and by extension, the Lelahs, the Neils, the O’Tooles, and the Sheas - were a devout family.

But that didn’t mean that when everyone got together, things didn’t get a little crazy. Every five years they held a large family reunion, and Malachi, the second(?) oldest of the Clarke clan, had gotten out of the last family reunion because he was doing missionary work in Haiti.

Now he was a priest working in Chicago and his mother told him “Like fun you’re missing that reunion this time! You get time off, Mac, and you get a lot of it!”

So there he was, at the resort his family had to rent out overlooking a gloomy Irish beach. The kids played out there like it was 85 degrees on a New York beach, while a bunch of the adults set up a big old buffet or played lawn games.

Malachi, however, was hiding upstairs just for a moment, trying to get his bearings before heading down into the throng and the questions. “You’re not still livin’ with that loose girl, are you?” “When you gonna cut your hair boy, if I saw ya walking down the street from behind I’d make ya my girlfriend!” “Uncle Mac, are you really NEVER gonna get married?”

He loved his family to death, but Malachi needed something to get through the day.

“Father Malachi Clarke!” came a familiar voice from behind him. That was someone he definitely wanted to talk to.

He turned and swept his cousin Isora (of the infamous pagan Lelah clan) into his arms. Malachi swung her around a bit, making her squeal to put her down. “Look at you! You even have gams underneath all them skirts!?”

“Should you be lookin’ at ladies’ skirts?” Isora asked, pinching the tip of his nose.

“Oh get over it!”

Malachi let her kiss his cheeks. She pulled away, however, and sniffed his breath. “Well I’ll be - you’re drinking!”

He grinned. “I would never.”

Isora laughed and hit his shoulder. “You’re a priest! You’re not supposed drink, are you!? I didn’t think you were allowed!”

“...I might have had a few shots,” he admitted, gesturing to the little mini bar on the side of the room. “But LOOK at them out there - can ya blame me?”

Isora glanced out the window to their families. One could HEAR then through the second floor window. She looked at him, one eyebrow arched under her headscarf.

“Alright,” she said. “You got me there...now pour me one too so we can get out there before they drag us out by our ears.”

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

Vin and Fiore - “I am not losing you again!”

Three times, Fiore Stillitano had lost his best friend.

The first, a dog hit by a milk truck. Afterwards, the nuns at the orphanage would say, “He was never the same after that day.”

The second, a woman tired of the way he lived. “You’re not a rat,” Luciana had said, packing her girlfriend and all of their belongings into her gold-coloured Cadillac. “Rats got smarts. Good fuckin’ luck to ya.”

The third, a monster of a man that was the only real match for Fiore in all of the world. He had been taken from Fiore in a much different way - jail.

Now, most people could just go visit a pal in jail. But when one was wanted for the same thing his own friend had been arrested for…? Well, he couldn’t really waltz on in for a visit, could he?

Luckily, Vinny was not a man to hold that sorta grudge, and when Fiore met him outside the jail in his orange convertible, Vinny met him with a kiss on both cheeks. His piled into the passenger’s seat, and they tore off to do exactly the sort of things Vinny had been arrested for in the first place.

That first night, they got drunk as hell, and Fiore found Vinny the classiest, most well-endowed date he would find - which was hard when the guy only spoke Italian. Well - Fiore knew he understood English just fine. Just didn’t speak it.

They crashed at Fiore’s place, not ending the night until the sun had been up for a couple hours.Vinny gave a wheezing laugh as he hung up his hat.

“Course I’m gonna give you a night to remember, palsy - I’m not losin’ you again.”

Vinny just whacked him on the shoulder, and Fiore’s laugh echoed all the way down the hall.

[crcnkgameplays-blog]

Hey I'm​ still pretty new to the tumbls so I'm not sure how this works, but I was wondering if i could get a lil' tythan hc? What if Ethan hurt himself because he broke something and freaked out because of surprise and pain so tol bean Tyler came to his rescue? Thx~~

this is so cute not to make a fic iM SORRY I HOPE YOU LIKE IT NONETHELESS (also fun fact: ty and eth actually live together k bye)

Ethan was fixing his tie, fidgeting and figuring out how to loop this mess. It’s been a while since he had gone to a fancy event such as the one he was about to go. It sucked that it was a black tie event but it gave Ethan an excuse to dress up so formally.

Looking at his reflection didn’t help with tying his tie. Neither did WikiHow or YouTube tutorials with old men who did with such skills. He wanted to resort to using a clip-on but he didn’t even have one. 

“Fuck this, fuck you…” He swore under his breath. Taking the unfinished tie off his neck, Ethan tossed it onto his bed and sighed. He sat down next to the tie and looked at it with a newfound disgust. Who knew this would be hard? It seemed so easy! And yet, he attempted so many techniques found online. Nothing. It always came out as a regular knot.

Ethan looked at his bed stand where a beautiful vase with a variety of flowers. Queen Anne’s Lace, lilacs, lilies. All of the white flowers that were accentuated with a pop of purple from the lilacs. Ethan remembered how excited he had been picking out the flowers along with the intricate vase at the local flower shop. He had been with Tyler and most definitely never forgot when they were both mistaken for a couple. Ethan was furiously flustered and Tyler avoided eye contact that lasted for more than two seconds with him for the whole entire day. Though it may have been yesterday, Ethan felt as if that moment was forever ago. For some reason, he wanted to relive it. Feeling how hot his cheeks were. Noticing how Tyler averted his eyes whenever Ethan caught him staring.

That memory put a small smile on Ethan’s face. He went up to his bed stand to look at the flowers along with the vase. It was glass blown, as said by the florist, with wavy features imprinted that made it look like transparent ocean waves. The pops of vivid purple stood out among the pure whites of the flowers. Faint streaks of yellow were on the petals of the lilies. He reached out to touch the petals with such delicacy. They brushed his fingers so gently. 

He smiled again. Something about them was mesmerizing.

Tyler had just gotten home after helping Mark with something, which left him to arrive late to prepare himself for the event. Feeling exhausted, he opened the door to find just the lights to the living room illuminated. It eased Tyler a bit, having a calm environment surrounding him.

“I’m home!” Tyler shouted as he dropped his keys on the kitchen counter. He started to make his way upstairs to get ready right away.

Hearing Tyler’s voice, Ethan jumped a little but later responded, “I’m upstairs!” Ethan let one of the petals slip from his fingers. He quickly went out of his room, leaning on his door frame. “Could you, um, help me with something Ty?” Ethan felt a little embarrassed to ask his best friend but who else could he turn to when they were the only ones in their home at the moment?

As he reached the top stairs, Tyler then made his way to Ethan’s room. He saw his leaning there with a slightly desperate look on his face. “Is there something wrong?” Tyler asked him, leaning on the wall opposite of where Ethan was.

“Lots of things, like how to tie a tie.” Ethan said, feeling the embarrassment creep up on him.

Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you, like, Google that type of stuff?”

“I tried to!” Ethan exasperated. “Nothing! WikiHows, tutorials on YouTube, texting my dad! You’re all I got man.” He paused. “That sounded more desperate than I thought it would be.”

Tyler chuckled and rested a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “No worries, I’ll help.” Ethan smiled widely at his friend. Tyler motioned towards his neck, “So, where’s your tie?”

“Oh,” Ethan perked, “it’s in my room. I’ll go get it.” He went to his bed, retrieving the tie he threw on his bed from before and handed it to Tyler, waiting patiently at his doorway.

“Have at it, my dude,” Ethan casually gave him his mess of a tie to Tyler. Tyler took it from his hands, brushing his fingers against Ethan’s. Ethan tensed up a bit from their contact, which was strange. He put the tie around Ethan’s neck and proceeded to lace his tie. 

Ethan realized how unusually close Tyler was to his face. He looked at Tyler out of curiosity and felt the flustered feeling once more. This moment seemed to drag more. Much like what happened at the flower shop. As Tyler finished, he looked up at Ethan with a warm smile. And right into his eyes.

‘You know, your hair looks so much blue when I’m closer to you like this.” Tyler stated.

Ethan blinked in disbelief.

Tyler realized what he had done to Ethan’s state of mind. Tyler stuttered, “Oh, um. I should…get ready.” He swiftly left Ethan alone in the hallway as he went into his room to change.

He was a blushing mess, unlike his tie now.

“Shit!” Ethan yelled. The vase that Ethan had been carrying downstairs had completely shattered into pieces. “Oh my fucking-!” He dashed down the bottom of the stairs, careful to avoid the large shards of the vase. It was completely scattered on the floor and water was puddling the flowers. They were probably soaked by now. 

“This can’t be happening. Oh my god, oh my god.” Ethan started to freak out.

Tyler heard the loud crash from upstairs and got out of his room, halfway buttoning his shirt. He buttoned it up as fast as he could and yelled back at Ethan. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you what happened! My fucking precious vase broke! The flowers are soaked and there’s glass all over the bottom of the stairs!” Ethan gave a loud and sharp cry to Tyler.

Leaving his black tuxedo jacket behind, Tyler made his way down the stairs to see exactly what Ethan had been screeching about. Ethan looked like he was about to burst from what unfurled. He wasn’t kidding. It really was a mess.

“You should be quick and pick up the flowers and place them on the kitchen counter,” Tyler directed Ethan. “I’ll go pick up the bigger pieces of glass.”

Sighing, Ethan did as Tyler had told him to do. “I’m an idiot,” he muttered under his breath. Picking up the flowers in one hand, he accidentally pricked himself on the finger on a fragment of glass. Hissing at the contact, he whipped his hand away.

“I’m an even bigger idiot than before,” Ethan said much louder. He clutched his bleeding finger close to himself

“Don’t bring yourself down. It isn’t your fault you dropped it,” Tyler reassured him. It hurt to hear his best friend take about himself like that. He made his way around the jagged pieces of glass to examine Ethan’s small wound. “Besides, I believe there’s an extra vase around this house somewhere. I’ll try and check the cabinets as soon as I help you.”

“I’m not a baby, Ty,” Ethan suggested.

“I know,” Tyler stated, “It’s just, you’re so down tonight. I don’t want you to bring that attitude to the party and I really don’t know how to handle you like that.” It was a true confession. Ever since yesterday’s “incident”, the two had been nothing but awkward tension. He knelt next to Ethan, taking his hand into his without even asking what he was going to do.

Ethan rolled his eyes. This guy couldn’t help but to treat him like a child. “It’s just been a hectic night, all right?” He laughed it off to put Tyler at ease, but that didn’t work.

Tyler looked at Ethan quizzically, still holding onto his hand. “If this is about me, then you better speak up about it or else I’ll be shaming you with that turkey costume we still have.”

Oh god, his face was close just like when he was tying his tie. Acting cool, Ethan laughed slightly, recalling the videos they did with Mark, and took his hand away from Tyler. “Okay. Fine. But first, can we please get a ban-aid for my finger? And pick up these things,” Ethan gestured towards the disarray on the floor, “and then we’ll talk about it.”

“All right,” Tyler sighed. “Be glad that cut isn’t deep. I’ll be searching for that vase if you need me.”

‘I’ll always be needing you,’ Ethan thought to himself. He had to admit it. Ethan wouldn’t be able to do anything without the support of Tyler by his side. Everything about the guy was amazing. His unkempt curls, contagious laughter, that smirk.

Was it even possible he was falling for his best friend?

Ethan picked up the flowers from the ground, the thought of falling in love swarming his head. Getting up from the ground, Ethan made his way towards the kitchen counter. Placing the messy bouquet with a thud, he made the other way around the the drawers where the bandages were held. Ethan glanced at Tyler, who was very much occupied with finding that vase he was talking about earlier. He bit his lip, trying to repress a smile. There most definitely was a chance he had feelings for this guy.

He perused around the drawer. Screwdriver, bolts, Chapstick, mints, and finally- the band-aids. Ethan opened the top of the box, avoiding the stinging finger from touching the edges. Placing the band-aid onto his finger, Ethan put away everything.

“Found it!” Tyler exclaimed. “Behold, the primary color vase our very own Amy gave me.”

Ethan turned around to see it. It was mosaic-styled rectangular vase, with blocked of red, yellow, and blue. The vase wouldn’t seem fitting for the flowers Ethan had chosen but at this point in time, he was desperate.

“It’s so…Amy of her.” Ethan admitted, still gawking at it.

“It may not be ‘flower shop’ worthy, but it’s a vase nonetheless.”Tyler waved the thing around but Ethan took it out of his hand. “I don’t want you to break it.” Ethan stated.

“Says the guy who broke down on the floor about a vase he broke himself.” Tyler rebutted, hints of sarcasm traced everywhere.

Rolling his eyes, Ethan made sure to hold on tightly to this one. “For the record, I did not break down. I was simply shook at the sight of my masterpiece in ruins.”

“Okay, blue boy,” Tyler scoffed, “I need to get going with cleaning those shards.” And made his way to the stairwell.

Ethan most definitely needed that guy in his life.

[littlethingwithfeathers]

Whole 30: A Retrospective.

So here we are... Day 31. I made it! Sugar in my coffee has never tasted so good... even if it is an eighth of what I used to use.

Here’s a brief rundown of my month, and then I’ll get to my more detailed thoughts.

Plan: Whole30 diet, which meant for 30 days I consumed basically only fresh veggies and fruit, some nuts, and meat. No dairy of any kind. No grain of any kind (this includes quinoa and such). No soy of any kind. No preservatives of any kind (save a few that were given a pass). No sugar or artificial sweeteners beyond what occurs naturally in food. No beans (save anything where I also eat the pod, like snow peas or green beans.). No alcohol (cries forever).  It’s a hard reset, basically.

Status: I’m amazed at how much better I feel. While inflammation was never a huge problem for me, I can tell that getting my hormones in order has helped clear my skin and given me a better sleep schedule.

Weight lost: 15 pounds! I was hoping for at least ten (that was how much my mom lost)! Wow. Down to 184.2 from 199.2! Hopefully, adding more serious exercise will continue this trend.

Pros of this diet: 

It’s actually not that hard, if you are really proactive and take care of yourself. All the restrictions seem really scary, and before the age of the internet and Google, it would have seemed nigh impossible. 

I did lose weight! 

Better sleep. Clearer skin. A lot of people report lessening of joint and muscle pain.

No calorie counting, point system, or any similar ridiculousness. And within the bounds of the rules, eat all you want. Eat until you are full. If you’re hungry, you’re doing this diet wrong. And that leads me to...

Hungry feels different. It’s not this sudden, desperate, oh-god-must-consume-food panic. It’s more just...  yeah I need to eat something. And would you look at that, it’s noon.

Cons of this diet:

You have to cook. There’s almost no getting around this unless you want to live on vinegar dressed salad for a month.This was not a con for me but it might be for some people.

You have to become a label reading maniac. It gets tiresome for the first couple of weeks, but you learn quickly what to watch for where, and stop having to think about it so hard. But there is a learning curve and you have to be diligent. Like did you know there’s sugar in a lot of commercial beef broth? Neither did I.

There are actual, honest to God, side effects early on as you detox from the sugar rollercoaster. Mood swings. Headaches. But it doesn’t last forever. It’s just annoying for a week or two depending on how addicted to sugar you are.

Unless you live in NYC or California, kiss eating out at most restaurants goodbye for the duration. Seriously... there’s maybe two places in my sizeable city where I can eat something other than a salad, and one of them is Whole Foods. It really bites.

Here are some more detailed thoughts under the cut.

Attitude:

You should to come to something like this with an attitude of discovery. It really helps keep you from cheating if you’re constantly wondering, “I wonder how I’ll feel tomorrow?” Experiment. Be aware of your body and what it’s saying and how it changes. For me the differences were pretty marked, and that made the first couple of weeks (which are the hardest by far) worth it.

Cooking:

I really feel like being able to cook for yourself is essential to success on this diet. I never slipped, but the times that I came closest were when I found myself stuck with unappealing options for food (usually something cold like a salad) because I didn’t plan ahead. Warm, filling meals are key to ensuring you stay on track and aren’t tempted to stray. 

If you don’t know how to cook, do one of two things. If you’re someone easily derailed by excuse-making or roadblock-finding, learn to cook before you do this. You don’t have to be Julia Child, but get comfy making a few things like soup, stuff in a crock pot... the basics. Look back through my #whole30 and #recipes and you’ll find some recipes to try. They’re all pretty easy. 

Or if you’re one who takes things like that as more of a challenge, use this opportunity to learn how to cook. I tried cooking lots of new things while on this diet, and some things are definitely keepers even after the 30 days is up.

Either way, I really feel like being able to cook is -almost- a requirement here, unless you live in some alien hippie-scape like California or NYC that’s full of hipsters and free-range vegans. The food culture in this country on the whole is such that you will largely be on your own to supply yourself with good things to eat. No stopping somewhere on the way home from work. No picking up something between rehearsals. Trust me. I’ve been there. You will have to take care of yourself. And apples and almond butter will only take you so far.

Water:

Holy sweet Cheezits. Get ready to drink all the water ever on this diet. I’m serious. It’s insane, and it actually freaked me out a little. But, I did some reading and apparently this is a pretty common problem that can be attributed to several factors. 

One being that if you depended on sugary off-diet drinks for your fluid intake, you are probably drinking far less fluid than you realize (this was me for sure). But even actually calculating how much water I should drink per day, and sticking to it, I was still thirsty a lot of the time. Which leads me to...

Another factor is that if you’re eating less processed/fast food, you’re likely taking in a lot less salt than you usually do. And salt helps your body retain water. Make sure when you’re cooking, you salt your food well enough. 

There’s also the possibility that shaking up the amount and type of carbs and fats you’re eating is causing a change in how much water you’re retaining. The book recommended making sure you’re eating a lot of “wet” fruits and veggies. 

According to the book, this should largely sort itself out over time. It never really did for me until the very end, despite my awareness of the issue and best efforts to solve it. But drinking more water never hurt anyone. Just be ready to haul a big jug around.

Unhappy guts, headaches, cravings, and mood swings:

This is one of the first diets I’ve ever seen that comes with a list of side-effects. And they aren’t lying. If you’ve got time to read the book, it actually lists out when you should expect these symptoms and for how long... they’ve got it down to a science. But anyway, here’s my experience...

If you’re like me and you are not terribly keen on rabbit food, this diet is going to throw your guts for a loop. So just... be ready. There’s not really much to do to help with it that I’ve seen. It’s just part of the process. For most people it clears up in the first week or two if it’s a problem at all... it lasted me most of the whole month. If you’re worried about this, it might be worth your time to eat some probiotic stuff like Activia or whatever in the run up to your start date. But I can’t vouch for whether or not it helps.

Headaches have been a thing too, at least for the first couple of weeks as my body got used to the severe lack of sugar. Ibuprofen and doing a little light exercise like going for a walk helped.

The first couple of weeks were also pretty tough on the bloodsugar swings, but I got through it. It seriously felt like mild drug withdrawals, which was sort of scary to think about. The book offers some excellent advice for telling the difference between “hungry” and “sugar craving.” When you find yourself “hungry” think to yourself, “Well, I could have some roasted carrots, grilled chicken and green beans.” or whatever the equivalent meal will be for you. If that doesn’t sound appealing, it’s sugar you’re craving. My best fix was to have a tall glass of water, a small palmful of almonds, and go for a walk. It would usually sort itself out. But it took discipline. 

The toughest part of this diet for me in a lot of ways was the mood swings early on. Cutting out sugar sends your hormones into a state of eternal WTF and there’s really not a fix for it other than isolation and time. Thankfully, I work from home, and my husband and roommate don’t, so I had lots of alone time to deal with it without casualties. And it helps to be aware that the moodswings are a thing. So, just know you’re not going crazy. Like everything else, it passes.

Cooking Fats:

This diet makes a huge deal about cooking fat. They give you all sorts of choices to keep you away from butter and peanut/soybean oils, like coconut oil, ghee, and so forth. And many of the recipes call for these ingredients.

Personally, I just kept to good old fashioned olive oil and rendered animal fat (like from beef and sausage that’s been browned) for the majority of my cooking. And I got some sesame oil for making stirfried veggies. All the other options seemed too expensive, and even before I went on the Whole30 diet, olive oil has always been my fat of choice for cooking. So don’t feel obliged, is what I’m saying.

Some serious saviors:

Here are some products and ingredients that saved my tail during these 30 days.

- whole raw unsalted almonds. I wouldn’t have made it without these to snack on when I got a sugar crash. It doesn’t take many to kill a craving... just 6 or 8 or so at most. Do yourself a favor and get a good sized tub and just keep them in your kitchen. My mom also likes olives for this as well. Just check your ingredients. 

- dried fruit bars. “That’s It” and “Pressed by Kind” are my favorites, though I like the former best because they’re cheaper. They’re exactly what they say on the tin... just dried fruit that’s been ground and pressed into bars. No preservatives or sweeteners. They aren’t something you should eat every day, but they are a lifesaver for when you get caught somewhere and didn’t bring your lunch/dinner. It’s a good idea to bring almonds with you too, just to get a little protein in your snack.

- sesame oil. I know... sounds crazy. But let me tell you, I spent most of this diet willing to sell my kidney for a decent stirfry, and vegetables sauteed in sesame oil with a little garlic and ginger kept me from having to resort to backalley surgery.

- Califia Farms brand Black and White coffee drink. It’s almond milk and cold brewed coffee with a little coconut cream. It’s amazing and much better than just plain black coffee or coffee without sugar.

[smalltragedy]

* natalia dyer, nonbinary + she/they | you know philomena carmichael, right? they’re twenty, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, a day? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to the leanover by life without buildings like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole wind whipping around your hair, the gentleness of decomposition, a naked blur dancing around the flames of an everlasting fire thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is april 20th, so they’re a taurus, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( james, 22, est, they/them )

hi thank u all fr being so patient w me as i rapidly switch out muses n figure out wht the fuck im doing atm <3 also sry fr my rare presence work hs been kicking my ass like lets jst say i deserve 2 b smbdy’s housewife (misogny wins this time sry) so i nvr hv to work in my life <3 DFSLKSDHKGLFSHLKAGHLKAHLKSG this is a joke 2 clarify. anyways. this is philly she’s old bt she’s one of my very favorites ever. this intro is also old sry its nt in my usual. style. LKDFKHGLKGF

CANCER, TRAUMA, DEPERSONALIZATION / DEREALIZATION, DEATH, GRAPHIC MENTION OF DECAY, INSECTS MENTION TW.

mini playlist.

the girl who stole my tamagotchi ;; hot sugar / i dropped out ;; and the kids / pork soda ;; glass animals / wonderfully bizarre ;; bendigo fletcher / (dream) ;; salvia palth / alien blues ;; yundabar / dust in your pocket ;; glass animals / warm honey ;; willow / bela lugosi’s dead ;; bauhaus / gecgecgec ;; 100 gecs / blinding ;; florence and the machine / nantes ;; beirut / cherry-coloured funk ;; cocteau twins / not allowed ;; tv girl / oblivion ;; grimes / space song ;; beach house / dog food ;; 100 gecs / the leanover life ;; life without buildings.

statistics.

full name: philomena brontë carmichael

nickname(s): philly, phil, mena, etc.

birthday: april 20th, 2000. 

zodiac: taurus sun, scorpio moon, aries ascending.

mbti & temperament: infp & improvisor / phlegmatic. 

label: the halycon.

sexuality: demisexual.

pinterest.

biography.

a middle child belonging to christopher and imogen carmichael - two stanford professors. christopher specialized in british literature whilst imogen specialized in the classics. hence the name.

the order of siblings goes as such: lysander, elektra, juno, philomena, and twins orion & valora. the deal was that everybody had a greek (or in juno’s case, roman) first name and a middle name inspired by a piece of british literature circa 1800s and under. a family of nerds, if you will.

so, clearly - right off the bat, their parents are … eccentric. they’re both in love with their respected topic, and with each other, and with their kids. the carmichael family is a happy family.

they each have their own quirks and whatnot - though philly’s always been particularly dreamy - even as a child, she’d spend hours watching clouds or caterpillars or the leaves blow in the wind rather than play with other kids. she wasn’t a shy kid - she just had her own interests.

hardship doesn’t hit the family until philomena is five and starts having splitting headaches. they’re slow at first - but as soon as she’s seeing spots and unable to walk in a straight line, doctor appointments are made.

cancer tw // it doesn’t take long for them to discover the tumor, though the official diagnosis of malignant ependymoma comes a month later.

it’s grade ii but slow-moving, small enough to not be as much of a threat as worried, but big enough where removal is necessary. philomena earns a scar and brings it in for show-and-tell. for two months afterwards, philly’s at radiotherapy monday through friday.

they’re lucky - philomena’s considered cancer-free by the next year. she’s babied at first - handled delicately, as if she could break if touched - but with five other children … it doesn’t last for too long. end of cancer tw //

and life continues as normal.

her personality doesn’t shift much over the next few years - she’s awfully independent for a kid, and awfully quiet - when she speaks it’s about faeries and bigfoot, about how the sky is so blue and if you listen quietly, you can hear the leaves whisper their secrets to each other. this is not odd.

she’s close to all her siblings, but she idolizes her older sister - elektra. elektra’s six years older and dyes her hair whatever colors she wants. elektra bought a knife off a seedy guy downtown. elektra threw away all of her heels and renounced god. elektra is god. her music is loud but it’s not heavy - it’s florence and the machine.

they’re opposites - elektra’s boisterous and feels loudly, philomena’s softer and feels…less. when elektra sneaks out, philomena keeps watch. they are a duo.

philomena is smart - but she’s fifteen and hates school. hates sitting inside all day. hates the same routine - day after day - it’s all the same. her parents’ routine is the same, philly feels contained and she wants to live.

elektra’s twenty-one and just bought a brand new spanking (used but not falling apart) 19-something volkswagen … van - using her entire savings account. she says she’s tired of routine, she’s leaving the next day.

naturally, philomena stows away in the back and isn’t discovered until they’re two states away and she’s got to pee. elektra nearly crashes the van in shock.

it’s an argument - philomena vs. elektra, then them vs. their parents, then their parents vs. the school, the state - it’s an ordeal. philomena switches to an online program in the end.

it hurts christopher and imogen - lysander’s not having any of their nonsense, juno’s betrayed and alone - the twins are twins. in the end, it’s alright. the carmichael family is a happy family.

philomena and elektra take their time - it’s not a road trip, it’s their new life, permanently on the road. they stop and explore often - they do odd jobs in whatever town they settle in. they dine-n-dash, they shoplift. they survive in their own way.

during particularly desperate times, they two resorted to identity theft & credit fraud - getting away with it only by ditching the cards once they’ve made it out of state.

she drops out of high school officially when she’s seventeen - they have to drive all the way back to california to deal with the wrath of their parents and to deal with paperwork, but it’s done. philomena doesn’t know what path she wants in life - but it’s not that.

depersonalization / derealization tw // it’s during this time that the episodes occur - philomena’s outside her body, philomena’s wrapped in cotton, her memories are not her own. she’s looking in the mirror and she doesn’t recognize herself. they take shelter in a city for six months, long enough for her brand spankin’ new therapist to figure out what’s wrong with her. she’s diagnosed with depersonalization / derealization disorder - they think it’s stress. philomena doesn’t get stressed. they think it’s trauma. she laughs - she never laughs. depersonalization / derealization end of tw //

death, decay. maggots tw // there is trauma though, deep-rooted but somewhere inside - you just have to look for it.

you. just. have. to. look. for. it. look for it. look for it. look for it look for it look -

you were ten and she was thirteen, an off-trail hike in familiar woods in a familiar town, safe and familiar. it was your idea, to stray from the carved out paths, down creeks and up hills and round, and round again. you’re the one who spotted the scarf first, sticking up from the dirt and dancing in the wind like the beginning of reincarnation. it was not reincarnation, it was discovery. it was ruin. with curiosity drawn, you skidded down - with compliance, followed juno, followed your sister - clumsy in her steps and tumbling down quicker than you. you saw the corpse, but juno felt it. decaying flesh and maggot. end of death, decay, maggots tw //

and she left juno, just like that - just five years later, when juno had finally gone to the end of her wits. philly up and left. abandoned her.

philomena and elektra leave the city after that therapy session. they do not return. she’s always been good at hiding her secrets.

after ending up with warrants from their arrest in florida (after running from the law in texas), philly and elektra have wound up at irving <3 partially hiding from the law and partially bcos their trusty van’s broken down and they haven’t got the money to fix her up yet. 

personality & facts.

she’s quiet but she’s confident - her voice sounds like rustling leaves, if leaves smoked a pack of cigarettes a day.

often underestimated - philly’s petite and looks like she’d fall over if a plastic bag blew too close to her. she’s independent - for the most part. elektra is the only person philly takes orders from.

has always been considered odd - weird, strange. still talks about the trees as if they’re listening, as if they’re old friends. she’s vague and doesn’t elaborate on the things she says.

believes in pretty much any superstition you throw her way. luck is very important to her. if you ask her if the earth is flat, she’ll say probably. believes strongly in bigfoot and the lochness monster. has personally seen aliens, and loves ghosts almost more than herself.

she can be amusing - whether you ‘get’ her or not, her outlook is often bright - she talks about the negatives the same way she talks about the positives. can be seen as naive or gullible, but she’s plenty smart. even if half of her education has come directly from google.

philly doesn’t laugh. a smile, yes - often, in fact - not always reaching her ears, or bearing teeth - but these are not indicators of her happiness. philly is consistently content. she thinks many things are funny - she still will not laugh.

her voice is often monotonous - she doesn’t sound dreary, she sounds far-away. her voice carries. her emotions are often unknown to others.

is apathetic in most situations. she’s hard to bother - she’s incredibly patient and enjoys the company of most - tolerates them at the very least. it’s hard for her to express her emotions, because she feels them so little that it’s very nearly not worth it. her affection is not verbal - it’s small touches and gestures of kindness, love in her own way.

is a fan of knock-knock jokes and bad puns. she won’t crack a smile while telling you them, nor does she expect you to laugh. she just enjoys them.

she owns a motorola razr covered in puffy stickers - hasn’t ever had a smartphone. she’s a fan of emoticons. her favorite is :o)

has a lot of bruises and scratches and scars - she’s often getting herself into pickles. there are always, at the very minimum, three bandaids on each hand.

she has insomnia, so she’s awake often. is often seen wandering town - even when she shouldn’t be, even when it might be dangerous. her intuition is delayed. when she does sleep - her dreams are vivid and fantastical.

keeps a box of memories - sentimental bits and pieces she’s picked up over the last few years. there are a lot of buttons and postcards, but any teeny tiny object will do.

her style changes every week - most, if not all, of her clothes are thrifted. one week she’s baby spice and the next she’s lydia deetz. she combines pieces from different styles often - she looks like a barbie clothed by a child. she feels most comfortable like this.

will either patch-up the clothes that get too worn or reuse them in some way. sometimes donates the clothes she gets tired off - isn’t minimalistic, but she’s learned to keep only a small amount of possessions.

the only consistency is her lucky ribbon - it’s pastel yellow and silky and as thin as a shoelace. she ties it onto her outfit of the day, everyday. if she loses it, she’s lost. elektra has a matching ribbon.

has no problem with minor theft - she only takes bare minimum, puts herself and elektra first and that’s how it’s always been.

currently living in florence, their van, with her sister elektra <3 currently residing in lilac ridge.

they used to live in motels on the occasion, the cheapest room, and more often than not they’d both go home with strangers for a comfier bed and a hotter shower.

it was a common occurrence - she didn’t sleep with them - but somehow, she weaseled her way into their homes anyway. has come out mostly unscathed, on most occasions. this has been a practice ever since they’ve been on the road.

really, truly - has not slept with anybody, had her first kiss at thirteen with a frog. this doesn’t bother her. (smirks at leo)

will consume anything you put in front of her - isn’t picky.

listens to whatever they’ve picked up along the way but she likes instrumentals the best. her second favorite genre is 1990′s and 2000′s top hits. they’re nostalgic for her. third favorites? florence, of course. fleetwood mac. the bird and the bee.

loves storms - will go out in the rain and will risk her life for it.

owns a pair of roller-skates and is often skating rather than walking. unless she’s on grass - then she’s walking barefoot.

has many hobbies, and gets bored of them often. her favorite hobby is welding. she’s not certified.

also, juggling.

also, accordion.

the kind of girl who’ll do any job you give her. odd jobs are her favorite jobs. babysitting is her least favorite - but she does it anyway. has lost children before. have they ever been found? not by philly.

dyes her hair blonde often and cuts her own hair - bangs included - finds it cathartic, likes the itchiness of bleach.

everything she does is often in pursuit of feeling free, alive, and meaningful.

( like her frequent visits to the woods, late at night when the moon is high and full. it’s freeing to dance around a fire, stark naked in the cold. builds immunity )

comes and goes wherever she pleases, nothing & nobody can stop her (besides elektra).

has a certain knack for getting animals to like her. has too many ‘pet’ rats that reside with her, alongside a baby raccoon & a few crow pals. has a new animal companion everyday, but she doesn’t contain them or force them to stay.

wanted plots.

speaking through my third eye ... ;; philly is new in town n shes very strange. constantly lives in a state in which she does not exist (at least on the same plane). this is her harassing the locals. this is her slipping thru their fingertips as they attempt 2 understand her. they get close smtms bt philly jst. whisks herself away.

hollows of our eyelids ... ;; perhaps there is smbdy jst as strange as philly. i’m out here calling fr all the weirdos. lets be friends. lets hv philly n co go on adventures n discover horrible sites n uncover ancient secrets tht lie deep below irving. mayb nt tht. bt im jst saying. this is fr the dreamers. da weirdos. the jugheads. LHKDSHFSADLKGFHLSKADG fr those who also feel as if they r not real.

bills n aches n blues... ;; ya this is my call fr all negative plots. bills (catching philly be a thief and a fraud), aches (mayb heartache? unrecruited feelings or w/e theyre called?), n blues (ooooh so sad... so sad ... angst ...) obviously i am a genius. i wldnt say tht philly is here 2 make enemies bc philly doesnt care much abt ppl bt perhaps tht cld b an issue. tht she doesnt care much abt others. mayb ur muse is jst like. cn u pls care. n philly is like. i am incapable. sry. sucks.

n also ,, ;; like. anything i’ll. take anything. philly is weird lets come up w surreal plots tht verge on the edge of like. nt being correct fr this verse. suddenly theres vampires? or so they think ... smirks. anyways. shes been 2 jail n been in the circus (shoutout 2 kirby) n dances naked in the woods n hoards animals n treasures. we hv a lot to work with here obv. 

[fapangel]

"Trump's approval rating is at 37%, the lowest at this point in the presidency of any president since Gallup began tracking it in 1945. Correspondingly, his disapproval rating has hit 58%." (From ABC) Have you stopped drinking the flavour-aid yet?

So it’s improved since the election, then: 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx?g_source=scalometer&g_medium=search&g_campaign=tiles

Trump had the highest unfavorable score in “presidential polling history,” challenged only by... Hillary herself, only 9 points behind. And remember that this is skewed towards older voters by the realities of modern polling (cell phone polls being very expensive, and most people under 30 don’t have a landline at all anymore.)

And yet, he still won the election! Magic!? 

See, this is the problem with you shitheads - the endless self-affirming back-patting ego-stroking circlejerk. Fuck the blatant facts of reality, such as, you know, who won the election. All you need is one tidbit snatched out of context to lube up with and away you go, wanking into my inbox. Recent example - one day I pulled out my phone, checked Google News, and found (as I often do) several papers running the same headline on the same week:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/20/donald-trump-will-start-his-presidency-with-the-smallest-confirmed-cabinet-in-decades/?utm_term=.fce37216561a (Feb. 2nd) 

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170219/trumps-cabinet-pick-confirmations-are-taking-longer-than-obamas-did (Feb. 19th)

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/blame-trump-not-democrats-the-administrations-empty-offices (Feb. 20th)

http://ktla.com/2017/02/25/nearly-2000-positions-remain-vacant-in-president-trumps-cabinet-data-shows/ (Feb. 25th)

SECOND VERSE FAKE AS THE FIRST A WHOLE LOT LOUDER AND A WHOLE LOT WORSE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/03/trump-is-blaming-the-democrats-for-cabinet-delays-that-are-normal-and-his-own-fault/?utm_term=.9be258c12465 (March 3rd) 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/25/politics/donald-trump-cabinet-vacancies/ (March 25th) 

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/24/trumps-cabinet-waiting-for-confirmation.html (March 24th)

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/trump-still-hasnt-done-very-much-214932 (March 20th)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445709/trumps-skeletal-crew-sub-cabinet-positions-unfilled (March 12th) 

Endless circlejerking over how many empty cabinet seats Trump has - despite it being entirely the fault of dogged, deliberate and bullheaded Democratic obstructionism, as these same media outlets reported: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/confirmation-no-votes/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/23/democrats-insatiable-opposition-to-donald-trump/?utm_term=.1728575c1eef

http://a.abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/democrats-delay-fight-trump-cabinet-picks-45187865

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-boycott-committee-votes-trumps-picks-treasury-health/story?id=45168280

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/inside-dncs-war-room-trump-cabinet-confirmation-hearings/story?id=44718051 (”WAR ROOM”.) 

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-s-cabinet-nominees-slog-through-messy-confirmation-process-n716166

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/how-senate-democrats-have-voted-each-donald-trump-s-cabinet-n715561

Oh, fuck son, I’m not done. You know how the media has kept putting the OMG RUSSIA thing on their front pages by openly reporting lies, slanders and “leaks” from “~sources~ we can’t name teehee?” Here’s them all circlejerking over it, as if they had nothing to do with it: 

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-11-02/questions-linger-about-trumps-relationship-with-russia (reprinted AP wire story)

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/2016/11/questions_linger_about_trumps_relationship_with_russia

http://buffalonews.com/2017/01/11/despite-decent-news-conference-questions-linger-trumps-readiness/

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/trump-russia-issues/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38966846

So, back to Gallup polls: 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx

Do you understand what I’m telling you, here? We’re used to this. We’re used to you smug fucks calling us “idiots that voted against our own self-interest” and sneering that we’ll soon be wallowing in regret. This is typically followed by increasing desperation and passive-aggressive nastiness (they’re not wallowing yet why won’t they fucking wallow!?) followed by a shift to exploring why Republicans are all fucking sheep led by the nose and/or how is the love child of the Pied Piper and Robspierre. This is the definition of the smug style. There you are, sneering in my inbox, wondering if I’m tasting the bitter fruits of not following the correct opinions yet. 

As usual the WaPo provides many reliable examples: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-supporters-see-a-successful-president--and-are-frustrated-with-critics-who-dont/2017/02/19/496cb4b4-f6ca-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html?utm_term=.4a027830df89

Their audience literally needs it explained to them that supporters of a President think he’s successful and are frustrated with those that don’t. This isn’t common sense or even “the most basic of human psychology” to them, they need this explained. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/24/meet-5-people-who-think-president-trump-is-off-to-a-great-start/?utm_term=.50bf801b67f4

“Inside the minds of Trump supporters.” Like they put out a MAGA hat and an American flag on a lawn, and when a Trump supporter approaches Chris Hansen steps out and asks them to take a seat so we may probe the mysterious recesses of their warped minds. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/02/23/trump-will-likely-sell-out-his-working-class-white-base-heres-how/?utm_term=.70cc66e2f614

“H-HE’LL BETRAY THEM, ANY DAY NOW!” 

In case you haven’t realized yet - Trump won the election. Not only that, but Republicans swept Congress, too. The media was smugging over the candidates who tried to distance themselves from Trump during the campaign, only for those candidates to do worse, on average, then ones that embraced him. Your party has been repudiated in the most final and meaningful way possible, in large part by the very people you claim to represent and champion, in states that haven’t voted Republican since Reagan - or Reagan’s VP, Bush Sr.  A lot of the people you’re sneering at as beguiled, misled fools are union guys who’ve voted Democrat most, if not all their lives. 

And you can’t comprehend it. Instead, you - of the party that reviled, slandered and ultimately destroyed McCarthy, you, of the party who’s last President smugly sniped at his opponent for indulging in outdated cold-war paranoia of Russians - now see evil Russkies under every couch cushion as a way to rationalize your defeat. You use hashtag #RESIST like you’re hiding in the woods fighting fucking Nazis, you call us Nazis, you make lurid and increasingly demented predictions of Trump’s impending impeachment for the high crime of not agreeing with you, and in the most extreme cases, you resort to complete and total fantasy without any veneer of reality left: 

http://www.hillarybeattrump.org/

This is a site full of “news articles” from an alternate reality where Hillary won. It’s literal fantasy. Here’s another splendid dose of utter bugfuck insanity from a published YA author on his twitter: 

https://twitter.com/TimFederle/status/831540537467469824

Hillary the Druid, living in the wilderness as she becomes One with Gaia and prepares to take the fight to the HALLS OF THE TRUMPEN KING. You cannot make this shit up. Scott Adams was 100% right when he called this “hallucinating.” There is no other word for it. Everything else falls far short of the level of total delusion and disconnect from reality required. 

So yeah, before you go asking me about kool-aid, y’might wanna yank the hose out of your mouth. 

[isearchgoood]

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address

Posted by David_Farkas

In link building, few things are more frustrating than finding the perfect link opportunity but being completely unable to find a contact email address.

It’s probably happened to you — if you’re trying to build links or do any sort of outreach, it almost always entails sending out a fairly significant amount of emails. There are plenty of good articles out there about building relationships within the context of link building, but it’s hard to build relationships when you can’t even find a contact email address.

So, for today, I want to focus on how you can become better at finding those important email addresses.

Link builders spend a lot of time just trying to find contact info, and it’s often a frustrating process, just because sussing out email addresses can indeed be quite difficult. The site you’re targeting might not even have a contact page in the first place. Or, if the site does have a contact page, it might only display a generic email address. And, sometimes, the site may list too many email addresses. There are eight different people with similar-sounding job titles — should you reach out to the PR person, the marketing director, or the webmaster? It’s not clear.

Whatever the case may be, finding the right email address is absolutely imperative to any successful outreach campaign. In our industry, the numbers around outreach and replies aren’t great. Frankly, it’s shocking to hear the industry standard — only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response.

I can’t help but wonder how many mistakes are made along the way to such a low response rate.

While there are certainly instances where there is simply no clear and obvious contact method, that should be the exception — not the rule! An experienced link builder understands that finding relevant contact information is essential to their success.

That’s why I’ve put together a quick list of tips and tools that will help you to find the email addresses and contact information you need when you’re building links.

And, if you follow my advice, here is a glimpse of the results you could expect:

We don’t track clicks, in case you were wondering ;)

ALWAYS start by looking around!

First, let’s start with my golden rule: Before you fire up any tool, you should always manually look for the correct contact email yourself.

Based on my experience, tools and automation are a last resort. If you rely solely upon tools and automated solutions, you’ll end up with many more misfired emails than if you were to go the manual route. There’s a simple reason for this: the email address listed on your target website may, surprisingly, belong to the right person you should contact!

Now, if you are using a tool, they may generate dozens of email addresses, and you’ll never end up actually emailing the correct individual. Another reason I advocate manually looking for emails is because many email finding tools are limited and can only find email addresses that are associated with a domain name. So, if there is a webmaster that happens to have a @gmail.com email address, the email finding tool will not find it.

It’s also important to only reach out to people you strongly believe will have an interest in your email in order to stay GDPR compliant.

So, always start your manual search by looking around the site. Usually, there will be a link to the contact page in the header, footer, or sidebar. If there’s not a page explicitly named “contact,” or if the contact page only has generic email addresses, that’s when I would recommend jumping to an “About Us” page, should there be one. 

You always want to find a personal email, not a generic one or a contact form. Outreach is more effective when you can address a specific individual, not whoever who is checking info@domain.com that day.

If you encounter too many emails and aren’t sure who the best person to contact is, I suggest sending an email to your best hunch that goes something like this:

And who knows, you may even get a reply like this:

If you weren’t able to locate an email address at this point, I’d move on to the next section.

Ask search engines for help

Perhaps the contact page you were looking for was well-hidden; maybe they don’t want to be contacted that much or they're in desperate need of a new UX person.

You can turn to search engines for help.

My go-to search engine lately is Startpage. Dubbed as the world's most private search engine, they display Google SERPs in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you just stepped into Times Square. They also have a cool option to browse the search results anonymously with "Anonymous View."

For our purposes, I would use the site: search operator just like this:

If there is in fact a contact page or email somewhere on their website that you were not able to find, any competent search engine will find it for you. If the above site query doesn't return any results, then I’d start expanding my search to other corners of the web.

Use the search bar and type:

If you’re looking for the email of a specific person, type their name before or after the quotation marks.

With this query you can find non-domain email addresses:

If that person’s email address is publicly available somewhere, you will likely be able to find it within the search results.

Email-finding tools

There are many, many excellent email finding tools to choose from. The first one I want to talk about is Hunter.

Hunter has a Chrome extension that’s really easy to use. After you’ve downloaded the extension, there’s not much more that needs to be done.

Go to the site which you are thinking about sending an email to, click on the extension in the top right corner of your screen, and Hunter, well, hunts.

It returns every email address it can find associated with that domain. And also allows you to filter the results based on categories.

Did I say “email address?” I meant to say email address, name, job title, etc. Essentially, it’s a one-click fix to get everything you need to send outreach.

Because I use Hunter regularly (and for good reason, as you can see), it’s the one I’m most familiar with. You can also use Hunter’s online app to look up emails in bulk.

The major downside of working in bulk is coming up with an effective formula to sift through all the emails. Hunter may generate dozens of emails for one site, leaving you to essentially guess which email address is best for outreach. And if you’re relying on guess-work, chances are pretty high you’re leaving perfectly good prospects on the table.

There are several other email finding tools to pick from and I would be remiss to not mention them. Here are 5 alternative email-finding tools:

Sonvio

Clearbit Connect

Finder Expert

Find That Email

Voila Norbert

Even though I personally try not to be too dependent on tools, the fact of the matter is that they provide the easiest, most convenient route in many cases.

The guessing game

I know there's no word in the digital marketing world that produces more shudders than “guessing.” However, there are times when guessing is easier.

Let’s be real: there aren’t too many different ways that companies both large and small format their email addresses. It’s usually going to be something like:

david@domain.com

davidfarkas@domain.com

dfarkas@domain.com

If you’ve ever worked for a living, you know most of the variations. But, in case you need some help, there’s a tool for that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you just pick any one of these random addresses, send your email, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Far from it. There are actually tools that you can use that will indicate when you’ve selected the right one.

Sales Navigator is such a tool. Sales Navigator is a Gmail extension that is easy to use. Simply enter the name of the person you’re looking for, and it will return all of the possible standard variations that they may use for their email address. Then, you can actually test the address from your Gmail account. When you type in the address into the proper line, a sidebar will appear on your screen. If there no is no information in that sidebar, you have the wrong address. If, however, you get a return that looks like this:

Congratulations! You’ve found the right email address.

Obviously, this method only works if you know the name of the person you want to email, but just don’t have their email address. Still, in those scenarios, Sales Navigator works like a charm.

Trust, but verify

There’s nothing more annoying than when you think you’ve finally struck gold, but the gold turned out to be pyrite. Getting an email that bounces back because it wasn’t the correct address is frustrating. And even worse, if it happens too often, your email can end up on email blacklists and destroy your email deliverability.

There are ways to verify, however. At my company, we use Neverbounce. It’s effective and incredibly easy to use. With Neverbounce, you can enter in either individual email addresses or bulk lists, and voila!

It will let you know if that email address is currently Valid, Invalid, or Unknown. It’s that easy. Here are some other email verifiers:

Zero Bounce

Mail Floss

The Checker

Proofy

Subscribe to their newsletter

Here’s one final out-of-the-box approach. This approach works more often with sites where one person clearly does most, if not all, of the work. A site where someone’s name is the domain name, for example.

If you come across a site like davidfarkas.com and you see a newsletter that can be subscribed to, hit that subscribe button. Once that’s done, you can simply reply to one iteration of the newsletter.

This method has an added benefit. An effective way of building links is building relationships, just like I said in the opening. When you can demonstrate that you're already subscribing to a webmaster’s newsletter, you'll be currying favor with that webmaster.

Conclusion

When you send a link building outreach email, you want to make sure it’s going to a real person and, even more importantly, ending up in the right hands. Sending an email to an incorrect contact periodically may seem like a negligible waste of time, but when you send emails at the volume a link builder should, the waste adds up very quickly. In fact, enough waste can kill everything else that you’re trying to accomplish.

It’s well worth your time to make sure you’re getting it right by putting in the effort to finding the right email address. Be a picky link builder. Don’t just choose the first email that comes your way and never rely solely on tools. If you email the wrong person, it will look to them like that you didn’t care enough to spend time on their site, and in return, they will ignore you and your pitch.

With the tips outlined above, you'll avoid these issues and be on your way to more successful outreach.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

via Blogger https://ift.tt/2XPhPp3 #blogger #bloggingtips #bloggerlife #bloggersgetsocial #ontheblog #writersofinstagram #writingprompt #instapoetry #writerscommunity #writersofig #writersblock #writerlife #writtenword #instawriters #spilledink #wordgasm #creativewriting #poetsofinstagram #blackoutpoetry #poetsofig

[thelarryficrecplace]

any protective louis fics?

Hi lovely! Take a look here, but here’s some more:

Shake Me Down by AGreatPerhaps12:

Summary: Harry’s new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

Word count: 208,590

If Tomorrow Never Comes (We Had Last Night) by FallingLikeThis, Rearviewdreamer:

Summary: Louis accepts the call without bothering to look at the caller ID. Only Zayn would be a big enough asshole to call him at two in the morning. This fucking better be important.

“This fucking better be important,” Louis greets.

On the other end of the line comes a soft giggle.“Li, you don’t usually curse. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I like it.”

Yeah, that’s not Zayn. Louis sighs, his anger melting into resignation when he realizes that it’s some poor bastard probably drunk dialing his ex or something. “Sorry, mate. Think you’ve got the wrong number.” 

Word count: 14,722

After Midnight by zarah5:

Summary: Louis hates how often people forget that Harry is only nineteen.

Word count: 4,432

Green Doe Eyes by Snowy38:

Summary: “Can I fix you?” Louis asked as Harry looked over at him, eyes wet and red, tip of his nose pink and cute. He licked his plush lips and nodded.

Louis let out a thankful sigh and reached for Harry’s hand, ignoring the way Harry flinched when they touched.

He stripped off the useless bandage and winced at the re-opened wounds. He noticed the blood under Harry’s fingernails and realised he’d scratched at them until they bled.

“Harry…” He whispered, tears coming to his own eyes as he felt Harry tremble under his touch, eyes averted shamefully as he swallowed his tears away determinedly. “No, don’t be scared, it’s okay,” Louis assured. “I’m not going to judge you…I just need to protect you,” he explained.

Word count: 51,424

everything comes back to you by amory:

Summary: Louis and Harry, best friends since before either of them can remember, broke up four years ago. Louis has achieved his dreams of becoming the next big thing while Harry has stayed back, dedicating himself to his studies. Both are content to forget what they had together, until a tragedy brings them right back into each other’s lives.

Word count: 29,763

The Ending is Always Better Than the Beginning (and Things Always Turn Out Better in the End) by orphan_account:

Summary: Harry comes out and it doesn’t go so well, he endures a month of harsh bulling and neglect from his mother before he can’t take it any more and decides to kill himself. As a last resort he turns to Google and that’s how he comes across this gay teen help website that has an anonymous chat. He meets Louis and Louis, in a fit of worry for Harry’s safety demands to meet up. Harry agrees, he’s desperate and clings to Louis for support and comfort. Things quickly go in an unexpected direction.

Word count: 44,013

Petrichor by spotofpurple:

Summary: Harry is a filthy rich, straight A student that lives in one of the biggest mansions in London with his father. He is also bullied and beaten in school and neglected at home.

Louis is a quirky punk who owns a bookshop and sings in a rock band. He is also providing a cover for the two of the most wanted of London’s criminals, Zayn and Niall.

When Harry has a panic attack in front of Louis’ bookshop and the older boy helps him, a weird friendship is formed. And soon developed into something neither of the boys expected.

Word count: 64,250

It’s A Start by Lavender_Disaster:

Summary: Or, the one where Harry can’t sleep at night, and because of that, neither can Louis. Louis thinks it could be the start of something.

Word count: 10,842

[lyhuynhoanh]

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address

Posted by David_Farkas

In link building, few things are more frustrating than finding the perfect link opportunity but being completely unable to find a contact email address.

It’s probably happened to you — if you’re trying to build links or do any sort of outreach, it almost always entails sending out a fairly significant amount of emails. There are plenty of good articles out there about building relationships within the context of link building, but it’s hard to build relationships when you can’t even find a contact email address.

So, for today, I want to focus on how you can become better at finding those important email addresses.

Link builders spend a lot of time just trying to find contact info, and it’s often a frustrating process, just because sussing out email addresses can indeed be quite difficult. The site you’re targeting might not even have a contact page in the first place. Or, if the site does have a contact page, it might only display a generic email address. And, sometimes, the site may list too many email addresses. There are eight different people with similar-sounding job titles — should you reach out to the PR person, the marketing director, or the webmaster? It’s not clear.

Whatever the case may be, finding the right email address is absolutely imperative to any successful outreach campaign. In our industry, the numbers around outreach and replies aren’t great. Frankly, it’s shocking to hear the industry standard — only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response.

I can’t help but wonder how many mistakes are made along the way to such a low response rate.

While there are certainly instances where there is simply no clear and obvious contact method, that should be the exception — not the rule! An experienced link builder understands that finding relevant contact information is essential to their success.

That’s why I’ve put together a quick list of tips and tools that will help you to find the email addresses and contact information you need when you’re building links.

And, if you follow my advice, here is a glimpse of the results you could expect:

We don’t track clicks, in case you were wondering ;)

ALWAYS start by looking around!

First, let’s start with my golden rule: Before you fire up any tool, you should always manually look for the correct contact email yourself.

Based on my experience, tools and automation are a last resort. If you rely solely upon tools and automated solutions, you’ll end up with many more misfired emails than if you were to go the manual route. There’s a simple reason for this: the email address listed on your target website may, surprisingly, belong to the right person you should contact!

Now, if you are using a tool, they may generate dozens of email addresses, and you’ll never end up actually emailing the correct individual. Another reason I advocate manually looking for emails is because many email finding tools are limited and can only find email addresses that are associated with a domain name. So, if there is a webmaster that happens to have a @gmail.com email address, the email finding tool will not find it.

It’s also important to only reach out to people you strongly believe will have an interest in your email in order to stay GDPR compliant.

So, always start your manual search by looking around the site. Usually, there will be a link to the contact page in the header, footer, or sidebar. If there’s not a page explicitly named “contact,” or if the contact page only has generic email addresses, that’s when I would recommend jumping to an “About Us” page, should there be one. 

You always want to find a personal email, not a generic one or a contact form. Outreach is more effective when you can address a specific individual, not whoever who is checking info@domain.com that day.

If you encounter too many emails and aren’t sure who the best person to contact is, I suggest sending an email to your best hunch that goes something like this:

And who knows, you may even get a reply like this:

If you weren’t able to locate an email address at this point, I’d move on to the next section.

Ask search engines for help

Perhaps the contact page you were looking for was well-hidden; maybe they don’t want to be contacted that much or they're in desperate need of a new UX person.

You can turn to search engines for help.

My go-to search engine lately is Startpage. Dubbed as the world's most private search engine, they display Google SERPs in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you just stepped into Times Square. They also have a cool option to browse the search results anonymously with "Anonymous View."

For our purposes, I would use the site: search operator just like this:

If there is in fact a contact page or email somewhere on their website that you were not able to find, any competent search engine will find it for you. If the above site query doesn't return any results, then I’d start expanding my search to other corners of the web.

Use the search bar and type:

If you’re looking for the email of a specific person, type their name before or after the quotation marks.

With this query you can find non-domain email addresses:

If that person’s email address is publicly available somewhere, you will likely be able to find it within the search results.

Email-finding tools

There are many, many excellent email finding tools to choose from. The first one I want to talk about is Hunter.

Hunter has a Chrome extension that’s really easy to use. After you’ve downloaded the extension, there’s not much more that needs to be done.

Go to the site which you are thinking about sending an email to, click on the extension in the top right corner of your screen, and Hunter, well, hunts.

It returns every email address it can find associated with that domain. And also allows you to filter the results based on categories.

Did I say “email address?” I meant to say email address, name, job title, etc. Essentially, it’s a one-click fix to get everything you need to send outreach.

Because I use Hunter regularly (and for good reason, as you can see), it’s the one I’m most familiar with. You can also use Hunter’s online app to look up emails in bulk.

The major downside of working in bulk is coming up with an effective formula to sift through all the emails. Hunter may generate dozens of emails for one site, leaving you to essentially guess which email address is best for outreach. And if you’re relying on guess-work, chances are pretty high you’re leaving perfectly good prospects on the table.

There are several other email finding tools to pick from and I would be remiss to not mention them. Here are 5 alternative email-finding tools:

Sonvio

Clearbit Connect

Finder Expert

Find That Email

Voila Norbert

Even though I personally try not to be too dependent on tools, the fact of the matter is that they provide the easiest, most convenient route in many cases.

The guessing game

I know there's no word in the digital marketing world that produces more shudders than “guessing.” However, there are times when guessing is easier.

Let’s be real: there aren’t too many different ways that companies both large and small format their email addresses. It’s usually going to be something like:

david@domain.com

davidfarkas@domain.com

dfarkas@domain.com

If you’ve ever worked for a living, you know most of the variations. But, in case you need some help, there’s a tool for that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you just pick any one of these random addresses, send your email, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Far from it. There are actually tools that you can use that will indicate when you’ve selected the right one.

Sales Navigator is such a tool. Sales Navigator is a Gmail extension that is easy to use. Simply enter the name of the person you’re looking for, and it will return all of the possible standard variations that they may use for their email address. Then, you can actually test the address from your Gmail account. When you type in the address into the proper line, a sidebar will appear on your screen. If there no is no information in that sidebar, you have the wrong address. If, however, you get a return that looks like this:

Congratulations! You’ve found the right email address.

Obviously, this method only works if you know the name of the person you want to email, but just don’t have their email address. Still, in those scenarios, Sales Navigator works like a charm.

Trust, but verify

There’s nothing more annoying than when you think you’ve finally struck gold, but the gold turned out to be pyrite. Getting an email that bounces back because it wasn’t the correct address is frustrating. And even worse, if it happens too often, your email can end up on email blacklists and destroy your email deliverability.

There are ways to verify, however. At my company, we use Neverbounce. It’s effective and incredibly easy to use. With Neverbounce, you can enter in either individual email addresses or bulk lists, and voila!

It will let you know if that email address is currently Valid, Invalid, or Unknown. It’s that easy. Here are some other email verifiers:

Zero Bounce

Mail Floss

The Checker

Proofy

Subscribe to their newsletter

Here’s one final out-of-the-box approach. This approach works more often with sites where one person clearly does most, if not all, of the work. A site where someone’s name is the domain name, for example.

If you come across a site like davidfarkas.com and you see a newsletter that can be subscribed to, hit that subscribe button. Once that’s done, you can simply reply to one iteration of the newsletter.

This method has an added benefit. An effective way of building links is building relationships, just like I said in the opening. When you can demonstrate that you're already subscribing to a webmaster’s newsletter, you'll be currying favor with that webmaster.

Conclusion

When you send a link building outreach email, you want to make sure it’s going to a real person and, even more importantly, ending up in the right hands. Sending an email to an incorrect contact periodically may seem like a negligible waste of time, but when you send emails at the volume a link builder should, the waste adds up very quickly. In fact, enough waste can kill everything else that you’re trying to accomplish.

It’s well worth your time to make sure you’re getting it right by putting in the effort to finding the right email address. Be a picky link builder. Don’t just choose the first email that comes your way and never rely solely on tools. If you email the wrong person, it will look to them like that you didn’t care enough to spend time on their site, and in return, they will ignore you and your pitch.

With the tips outlined above, you'll avoid these issues and be on your way to more successful outreach.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address Theo dõi các thông tin khác tại: https://foogleseo.blogspot.com The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address bài đăng bởi foogleseo.blogspot.com from Lý Huỳnh Oanh https://lyhuynhoanh.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-practical-guide-to-finding-anyones.html

[chauhuongtran]

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address

Posted by David_Farkas

In link building, few things are more frustrating than finding the perfect link opportunity but being completely unable to find a contact email address.

It’s probably happened to you — if you’re trying to build links or do any sort of outreach, it almost always entails sending out a fairly significant amount of emails. There are plenty of good articles out there about building relationships within the context of link building, but it’s hard to build relationships when you can’t even find a contact email address.

So, for today, I want to focus on how you can become better at finding those important email addresses.

Link builders spend a lot of time just trying to find contact info, and it’s often a frustrating process, just because sussing out email addresses can indeed be quite difficult. The site you’re targeting might not even have a contact page in the first place. Or, if the site does have a contact page, it might only display a generic email address. And, sometimes, the site may list too many email addresses. There are eight different people with similar-sounding job titles — should you reach out to the PR person, the marketing director, or the webmaster? It’s not clear.

Whatever the case may be, finding the right email address is absolutely imperative to any successful outreach campaign. In our industry, the numbers around outreach and replies aren’t great. Frankly, it’s shocking to hear the industry standard — only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response.

I can’t help but wonder how many mistakes are made along the way to such a low response rate.

While there are certainly instances where there is simply no clear and obvious contact method, that should be the exception — not the rule! An experienced link builder understands that finding relevant contact information is essential to their success.

That’s why I’ve put together a quick list of tips and tools that will help you to find the email addresses and contact information you need when you’re building links.

And, if you follow my advice, here is a glimpse of the results you could expect:

We don’t track clicks, in case you were wondering ;)

ALWAYS start by looking around!

First, let’s start with my golden rule: Before you fire up any tool, you should always manually look for the correct contact email yourself.

Based on my experience, tools and automation are a last resort. If you rely solely upon tools and automated solutions, you’ll end up with many more misfired emails than if you were to go the manual route. There’s a simple reason for this: the email address listed on your target website may, surprisingly, belong to the right person you should contact!

Now, if you are using a tool, they may generate dozens of email addresses, and you’ll never end up actually emailing the correct individual. Another reason I advocate manually looking for emails is because many email finding tools are limited and can only find email addresses that are associated with a domain name. So, if there is a webmaster that happens to have a @gmail.com email address, the email finding tool will not find it.

It’s also important to only reach out to people you strongly believe will have an interest in your email in order to stay GDPR compliant.

So, always start your manual search by looking around the site. Usually, there will be a link to the contact page in the header, footer, or sidebar. If there’s not a page explicitly named “contact,” or if the contact page only has generic email addresses, that’s when I would recommend jumping to an “About Us” page, should there be one. 

You always want to find a personal email, not a generic one or a contact form. Outreach is more effective when you can address a specific individual, not whoever who is checking info@domain.com that day.

If you encounter too many emails and aren’t sure who the best person to contact is, I suggest sending an email to your best hunch that goes something like this:

And who knows, you may even get a reply like this:

If you weren’t able to locate an email address at this point, I’d move on to the next section.

Ask search engines for help

Perhaps the contact page you were looking for was well-hidden; maybe they don’t want to be contacted that much or they're in desperate need of a new UX person.

You can turn to search engines for help.

My go-to search engine lately is Startpage. Dubbed as the world's most private search engine, they display Google SERPs in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you just stepped into Times Square. They also have a cool option to browse the search results anonymously with "Anonymous View."

For our purposes, I would use the site: search operator just like this:

If there is in fact a contact page or email somewhere on their website that you were not able to find, any competent search engine will find it for you. If the above site query doesn't return any results, then I’d start expanding my search to other corners of the web.

Use the search bar and type:

If you’re looking for the email of a specific person, type their name before or after the quotation marks.

With this query you can find non-domain email addresses:

If that person’s email address is publicly available somewhere, you will likely be able to find it within the search results.

Email-finding tools

There are many, many excellent email finding tools to choose from. The first one I want to talk about is Hunter.

Hunter has a Chrome extension that’s really easy to use. After you’ve downloaded the extension, there’s not much more that needs to be done.

Go to the site which you are thinking about sending an email to, click on the extension in the top right corner of your screen, and Hunter, well, hunts.

It returns every email address it can find associated with that domain. And also allows you to filter the results based on categories.

Did I say “email address?” I meant to say email address, name, job title, etc. Essentially, it’s a one-click fix to get everything you need to send outreach.

Because I use Hunter regularly (and for good reason, as you can see), it’s the one I’m most familiar with. You can also use Hunter’s online app to look up emails in bulk.

The major downside of working in bulk is coming up with an effective formula to sift through all the emails. Hunter may generate dozens of emails for one site, leaving you to essentially guess which email address is best for outreach. And if you’re relying on guess-work, chances are pretty high you’re leaving perfectly good prospects on the table.

There are several other email finding tools to pick from and I would be remiss to not mention them. Here are 5 alternative email-finding tools:

Sonvio

Clearbit Connect

Finder Expert

Find That Email

Voila Norbert

Even though I personally try not to be too dependent on tools, the fact of the matter is that they provide the easiest, most convenient route in many cases.

The guessing game

I know there's no word in the digital marketing world that produces more shudders than “guessing.” However, there are times when guessing is easier.

Let’s be real: there aren’t too many different ways that companies both large and small format their email addresses. It’s usually going to be something like:

david@domain.com

davidfarkas@domain.com

dfarkas@domain.com

If you’ve ever worked for a living, you know most of the variations. But, in case you need some help, there’s a tool for that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you just pick any one of these random addresses, send your email, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Far from it. There are actually tools that you can use that will indicate when you’ve selected the right one.

Sales Navigator is such a tool. Sales Navigator is a Gmail extension that is easy to use. Simply enter the name of the person you’re looking for, and it will return all of the possible standard variations that they may use for their email address. Then, you can actually test the address from your Gmail account. When you type in the address into the proper line, a sidebar will appear on your screen. If there no is no information in that sidebar, you have the wrong address. If, however, you get a return that looks like this:

Congratulations! You’ve found the right email address.

Obviously, this method only works if you know the name of the person you want to email, but just don’t have their email address. Still, in those scenarios, Sales Navigator works like a charm.

Trust, but verify

There’s nothing more annoying than when you think you’ve finally struck gold, but the gold turned out to be pyrite. Getting an email that bounces back because it wasn’t the correct address is frustrating. And even worse, if it happens too often, your email can end up on email blacklists and destroy your email deliverability.

There are ways to verify, however. At my company, we use Neverbounce. It’s effective and incredibly easy to use. With Neverbounce, you can enter in either individual email addresses or bulk lists, and voila!

It will let you know if that email address is currently Valid, Invalid, or Unknown. It’s that easy. Here are some other email verifiers:

Zero Bounce

Mail Floss

The Checker

Proofy

Subscribe to their newsletter

Here’s one final out-of-the-box approach. This approach works more often with sites where one person clearly does most, if not all, of the work. A site where someone’s name is the domain name, for example.

If you come across a site like davidfarkas.com and you see a newsletter that can be subscribed to, hit that subscribe button. Once that’s done, you can simply reply to one iteration of the newsletter.

This method has an added benefit. An effective way of building links is building relationships, just like I said in the opening. When you can demonstrate that you're already subscribing to a webmaster’s newsletter, you'll be currying favor with that webmaster.

Conclusion

When you send a link building outreach email, you want to make sure it’s going to a real person and, even more importantly, ending up in the right hands. Sending an email to an incorrect contact periodically may seem like a negligible waste of time, but when you send emails at the volume a link builder should, the waste adds up very quickly. In fact, enough waste can kill everything else that you’re trying to accomplish.

It’s well worth your time to make sure you’re getting it right by putting in the effort to finding the right email address. Be a picky link builder. Don’t just choose the first email that comes your way and never rely solely on tools. If you email the wrong person, it will look to them like that you didn’t care enough to spend time on their site, and in return, they will ignore you and your pitch.

With the tips outlined above, you'll avoid these issues and be on your way to more successful outreach.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address Theo dõi các thông tin khác tại: https://foogleseo.blogspot.com The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address posted first on foogleseo.blogspot.com from https://chauhuongtran.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-practical-guide-to-finding-anyones.html

[luongthuyvy]

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address

Posted by David_Farkas

In link building, few things are more frustrating than finding the perfect link opportunity but being completely unable to find a contact email address.

It’s probably happened to you — if you’re trying to build links or do any sort of outreach, it almost always entails sending out a fairly significant amount of emails. There are plenty of good articles out there about building relationships within the context of link building, but it’s hard to build relationships when you can’t even find a contact email address.

So, for today, I want to focus on how you can become better at finding those important email addresses.

Link builders spend a lot of time just trying to find contact info, and it’s often a frustrating process, just because sussing out email addresses can indeed be quite difficult. The site you’re targeting might not even have a contact page in the first place. Or, if the site does have a contact page, it might only display a generic email address. And, sometimes, the site may list too many email addresses. There are eight different people with similar-sounding job titles — should you reach out to the PR person, the marketing director, or the webmaster? It’s not clear.

Whatever the case may be, finding the right email address is absolutely imperative to any successful outreach campaign. In our industry, the numbers around outreach and replies aren’t great. Frankly, it’s shocking to hear the industry standard — only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response.

I can’t help but wonder how many mistakes are made along the way to such a low response rate.

While there are certainly instances where there is simply no clear and obvious contact method, that should be the exception — not the rule! An experienced link builder understands that finding relevant contact information is essential to their success.

That’s why I’ve put together a quick list of tips and tools that will help you to find the email addresses and contact information you need when you’re building links.

And, if you follow my advice, here is a glimpse of the results you could expect:

We don’t track clicks, in case you were wondering ;)

ALWAYS start by looking around!

First, let’s start with my golden rule: Before you fire up any tool, you should always manually look for the correct contact email yourself.

Based on my experience, tools and automation are a last resort. If you rely solely upon tools and automated solutions, you’ll end up with many more misfired emails than if you were to go the manual route. There’s a simple reason for this: the email address listed on your target website may, surprisingly, belong to the right person you should contact!

Now, if you are using a tool, they may generate dozens of email addresses, and you’ll never end up actually emailing the correct individual. Another reason I advocate manually looking for emails is because many email finding tools are limited and can only find email addresses that are associated with a domain name. So, if there is a webmaster that happens to have a @gmail.com email address, the email finding tool will not find it.

It’s also important to only reach out to people you strongly believe will have an interest in your email in order to stay GDPR compliant.

So, always start your manual search by looking around the site. Usually, there will be a link to the contact page in the header, footer, or sidebar. If there’s not a page explicitly named “contact,” or if the contact page only has generic email addresses, that’s when I would recommend jumping to an “About Us” page, should there be one. 

You always want to find a personal email, not a generic one or a contact form. Outreach is more effective when you can address a specific individual, not whoever who is checking info@domain.com that day.

If you encounter too many emails and aren’t sure who the best person to contact is, I suggest sending an email to your best hunch that goes something like this:

And who knows, you may even get a reply like this:

If you weren’t able to locate an email address at this point, I’d move on to the next section.

Ask search engines for help

Perhaps the contact page you were looking for was well-hidden; maybe they don’t want to be contacted that much or they're in desperate need of a new UX person.

You can turn to search engines for help.

My go-to search engine lately is Startpage. Dubbed as the world's most private search engine, they display Google SERPs in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you just stepped into Times Square. They also have a cool option to browse the search results anonymously with "Anonymous View."

For our purposes, I would use the site: search operator just like this:

If there is in fact a contact page or email somewhere on their website that you were not able to find, any competent search engine will find it for you. If the above site query doesn't return any results, then I’d start expanding my search to other corners of the web.

Use the search bar and type:

If you’re looking for the email of a specific person, type their name before or after the quotation marks.

With this query you can find non-domain email addresses:

If that person’s email address is publicly available somewhere, you will likely be able to find it within the search results.

Email-finding tools

There are many, many excellent email finding tools to choose from. The first one I want to talk about is Hunter.

Hunter has a Chrome extension that’s really easy to use. After you’ve downloaded the extension, there’s not much more that needs to be done.

Go to the site which you are thinking about sending an email to, click on the extension in the top right corner of your screen, and Hunter, well, hunts.

It returns every email address it can find associated with that domain. And also allows you to filter the results based on categories.

Did I say “email address?” I meant to say email address, name, job title, etc. Essentially, it’s a one-click fix to get everything you need to send outreach.

Because I use Hunter regularly (and for good reason, as you can see), it’s the one I’m most familiar with. You can also use Hunter’s online app to look up emails in bulk.

The major downside of working in bulk is coming up with an effective formula to sift through all the emails. Hunter may generate dozens of emails for one site, leaving you to essentially guess which email address is best for outreach. And if you’re relying on guess-work, chances are pretty high you’re leaving perfectly good prospects on the table.

There are several other email finding tools to pick from and I would be remiss to not mention them. Here are 5 alternative email-finding tools:

Sonvio

Clearbit Connect

Finder Expert

Find That Email

Voila Norbert

Even though I personally try not to be too dependent on tools, the fact of the matter is that they provide the easiest, most convenient route in many cases.

The guessing game

I know there's no word in the digital marketing world that produces more shudders than “guessing.” However, there are times when guessing is easier.

Let’s be real: there aren’t too many different ways that companies both large and small format their email addresses. It’s usually going to be something like:

david@domain.com

davidfarkas@domain.com

dfarkas@domain.com

If you’ve ever worked for a living, you know most of the variations. But, in case you need some help, there’s a tool for that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you just pick any one of these random addresses, send your email, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Far from it. There are actually tools that you can use that will indicate when you’ve selected the right one.

Sales Navigator is such a tool. Sales Navigator is a Gmail extension that is easy to use. Simply enter the name of the person you’re looking for, and it will return all of the possible standard variations that they may use for their email address. Then, you can actually test the address from your Gmail account. When you type in the address into the proper line, a sidebar will appear on your screen. If there no is no information in that sidebar, you have the wrong address. If, however, you get a return that looks like this:

Congratulations! You’ve found the right email address.

Obviously, this method only works if you know the name of the person you want to email, but just don’t have their email address. Still, in those scenarios, Sales Navigator works like a charm.

Trust, but verify

There’s nothing more annoying than when you think you’ve finally struck gold, but the gold turned out to be pyrite. Getting an email that bounces back because it wasn’t the correct address is frustrating. And even worse, if it happens too often, your email can end up on email blacklists and destroy your email deliverability.

There are ways to verify, however. At my company, we use Neverbounce. It’s effective and incredibly easy to use. With Neverbounce, you can enter in either individual email addresses or bulk lists, and voila!

It will let you know if that email address is currently Valid, Invalid, or Unknown. It’s that easy. Here are some other email verifiers:

Zero Bounce

Mail Floss

The Checker

Proofy

Subscribe to their newsletter

Here’s one final out-of-the-box approach. This approach works more often with sites where one person clearly does most, if not all, of the work. A site where someone’s name is the domain name, for example.

If you come across a site like davidfarkas.com and you see a newsletter that can be subscribed to, hit that subscribe button. Once that’s done, you can simply reply to one iteration of the newsletter.

This method has an added benefit. An effective way of building links is building relationships, just like I said in the opening. When you can demonstrate that you're already subscribing to a webmaster’s newsletter, you'll be currying favor with that webmaster.

Conclusion

When you send a link building outreach email, you want to make sure it’s going to a real person and, even more importantly, ending up in the right hands. Sending an email to an incorrect contact periodically may seem like a negligible waste of time, but when you send emails at the volume a link builder should, the waste adds up very quickly. In fact, enough waste can kill everything else that you’re trying to accomplish.

It’s well worth your time to make sure you’re getting it right by putting in the effort to finding the right email address. Be a picky link builder. Don’t just choose the first email that comes your way and never rely solely on tools. If you email the wrong person, it will look to them like that you didn’t care enough to spend time on their site, and in return, they will ignore you and your pitch.

With the tips outlined above, you'll avoid these issues and be on your way to more successful outreach.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address Theo dõi các thông tin khác tại: https://foogleseo.blogspot.com The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address posted first on https://foogleseo.blogspot.com/ #FoogleSEO #luongthuyvy Nguồn: http://bit.ly/2DmfFDP #luongthuyvy

[theinjectlikes2]

The Practical Guide to Finding Anyone's Email Address

Posted by David_Farkas

In link building, few things are more frustrating than finding the perfect link opportunity but being completely unable to find a contact email address.

It’s probably happened to you — if you’re trying to build links or do any sort of outreach, it almost always entails sending out a fairly significant amount of emails. There are plenty of good articles out there about building relationships within the context of link building, but it’s hard to build relationships when you can’t even find a contact email address.

So, for today, I want to focus on how you can become better at finding those important email addresses.

Link builders spend a lot of time just trying to find contact info, and it’s often a frustrating process, just because sussing out email addresses can indeed be quite difficult. The site you’re targeting might not even have a contact page in the first place. Or, if the site does have a contact page, it might only display a generic email address. And, sometimes, the site may list too many email addresses. There are eight different people with similar-sounding job titles — should you reach out to the PR person, the marketing director, or the webmaster? It’s not clear.

Whatever the case may be, finding the right email address is absolutely imperative to any successful outreach campaign. In our industry, the numbers around outreach and replies aren’t great. Frankly, it’s shocking to hear the industry standard — only 8.5% of outreach emails receive a response.

I can’t help but wonder how many mistakes are made along the way to such a low response rate.

While there are certainly instances where there is simply no clear and obvious contact method, that should be the exception — not the rule! An experienced link builder understands that finding relevant contact information is essential to their success.

That’s why I’ve put together a quick list of tips and tools that will help you to find the email addresses and contact information you need when you’re building links.

And, if you follow my advice, here is a glimpse of the results you could expect:

We don’t track clicks, in case you were wondering ;)

ALWAYS start by looking around!

First, let’s start with my golden rule: Before you fire up any tool, you should always manually look for the correct contact email yourself.

Based on my experience, tools and automation are a last resort. If you rely solely upon tools and automated solutions, you’ll end up with many more misfired emails than if you were to go the manual route. There’s a simple reason for this: the email address listed on your target website may, surprisingly, belong to the right person you should contact!

Now, if you are using a tool, they may generate dozens of email addresses, and you’ll never end up actually emailing the correct individual. Another reason I advocate manually looking for emails is because many email finding tools are limited and can only find email addresses that are associated with a domain name. So, if there is a webmaster that happens to have a @gmail.com email address, the email finding tool will not find it.

It’s also important to only reach out to people you strongly believe will have an interest in your email in order to stay GDPR compliant.

So, always start your manual search by looking around the site. Usually, there will be a link to the contact page in the header, footer, or sidebar. If there’s not a page explicitly named “contact,” or if the contact page only has generic email addresses, that’s when I would recommend jumping to an “About Us” page, should there be one. 

You always want to find a personal email, not a generic one or a contact form. Outreach is more effective when you can address a specific individual, not whoever who is checking info@domain.com that day.

If you encounter too many emails and aren’t sure who the best person to contact is, I suggest sending an email to your best hunch that goes something like this:

And who knows, you may even get a reply like this:

If you weren’t able to locate an email address at this point, I’d move on to the next section.

Ask search engines for help

Perhaps the contact page you were looking for was well-hidden; maybe they don’t want to be contacted that much or they're in desperate need of a new UX person.

You can turn to search engines for help.

My go-to search engine lately is Startpage. Dubbed as the world's most private search engine, they display Google SERPs in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you just stepped into Times Square. They also have a cool option to browse the search results anonymously with "Anonymous View."

For our purposes, I would use the site: search operator just like this:

If there is in fact a contact page or email somewhere on their website that you were not able to find, any competent search engine will find it for you. If the above site query doesn't return any results, then I’d start expanding my search to other corners of the web.

Use the search bar and type:

If you’re looking for the email of a specific person, type their name before or after the quotation marks.

With this query you can find non-domain email addresses:

If that person’s email address is publicly available somewhere, you will likely be able to find it within the search results.

Email-finding tools

There are many, many excellent email finding tools to choose from. The first one I want to talk about is Hunter.

Hunter has a Chrome extension that’s really easy to use. After you’ve downloaded the extension, there’s not much more that needs to be done.

Go to the site which you are thinking about sending an email to, click on the extension in the top right corner of your screen, and Hunter, well, hunts.

It returns every email address it can find associated with that domain. And also allows you to filter the results based on categories.

Did I say “email address?” I meant to say email address, name, job title, etc. Essentially, it’s a one-click fix to get everything you need to send outreach.

Because I use Hunter regularly (and for good reason, as you can see), it’s the one I’m most familiar with. You can also use Hunter’s online app to look up emails in bulk.

The major downside of working in bulk is coming up with an effective formula to sift through all the emails. Hunter may generate dozens of emails for one site, leaving you to essentially guess which email address is best for outreach. And if you’re relying on guess-work, chances are pretty high you’re leaving perfectly good prospects on the table.

There are several other email finding tools to pick from and I would be remiss to not mention them. Here are 5 alternative email-finding tools:

Sonvio

Clearbit Connect

Finder Expert

Find That Email

Voila Norbert

Even though I personally try not to be too dependent on tools, the fact of the matter is that they provide the easiest, most convenient route in many cases.

The guessing game

I know there's no word in the digital marketing world that produces more shudders than “guessing.” However, there are times when guessing is easier.

Let’s be real: there aren’t too many different ways that companies both large and small format their email addresses. It’s usually going to be something like:

david@domain.com

davidfarkas@domain.com

dfarkas@domain.com

If you’ve ever worked for a living, you know most of the variations. But, in case you need some help, there’s a tool for that.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you just pick any one of these random addresses, send your email, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Far from it. There are actually tools that you can use that will indicate when you’ve selected the right one.

Sales Navigator is such a tool. Sales Navigator is a Gmail extension that is easy to use. Simply enter the name of the person you’re looking for, and it will return all of the possible standard variations that they may use for their email address. Then, you can actually test the address from your Gmail account. When you type in the address into the proper line, a sidebar will appear on your screen. If there no is no information in that sidebar, you have the wrong address. If, however, you get a return that looks like this:

Congratulations! You’ve found the right email address.

Obviously, this method only works if you know the name of the person you want to email, but just don’t have their email address. Still, in those scenarios, Sales Navigator works like a charm.

Trust, but verify

There’s nothing more annoying than when you think you’ve finally struck gold, but the gold turned out to be pyrite. Getting an email that bounces back because it wasn’t the correct address is frustrating. And even worse, if it happens too often, your email can end up on email blacklists and destroy your email deliverability.

There are ways to verify, however. At my company, we use Neverbounce. It’s effective and incredibly easy to use. With Neverbounce, you can enter in either individual email addresses or bulk lists, and voila!

It will let you know if that email address is currently Valid, Invalid, or Unknown. It’s that easy. Here are some other email verifiers:

Zero Bounce

Mail Floss

The Checker

Proofy

Subscribe to their newsletter

Here’s one final out-of-the-box approach. This approach works more often with sites where one person clearly does most, if not all, of the work. A site where someone’s name is the domain name, for example.

If you come across a site like davidfarkas.com and you see a newsletter that can be subscribed to, hit that subscribe button. Once that’s done, you can simply reply to one iteration of the newsletter.

This method has an added benefit. An effective way of building links is building relationships, just like I said in the opening. When you can demonstrate that you're already subscribing to a webmaster’s newsletter, you'll be currying favor with that webmaster.

Conclusion

When you send a link building outreach email, you want to make sure it’s going to a real person and, even more importantly, ending up in the right hands. Sending an email to an incorrect contact periodically may seem like a negligible waste of time, but when you send emails at the volume a link builder should, the waste adds up very quickly. In fact, enough waste can kill everything else that you’re trying to accomplish.

It’s well worth your time to make sure you’re getting it right by putting in the effort to finding the right email address. Be a picky link builder. Don’t just choose the first email that comes your way and never rely solely on tools. If you email the wrong person, it will look to them like that you didn’t care enough to spend time on their site, and in return, they will ignore you and your pitch.

With the tips outlined above, you'll avoid these issues and be on your way to more successful outreach.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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