#i wonder if you can tell which ones my favorite just based on paragraph length

[eldritch-something-or-other]

Hello! Remember how I said I'd make more TF2 AUs than the Monster AU? well here's my

TF2 Kids AU

General Info: The whole thing takes place in one neighborhood where everyone lives. Most of the kids that aren't American (or come from a specific place in America) typically moved from there to the neighborhood. I wanted scout and spy to still be related in some way so they're half brothers. how scout doesn't know of this and spy does is because spy only lives with his dad (likely his mother died tragically) and his dad and scouts ma had a thing for a bit, long enough to have scout, then they divorced and while scouts ma has moved on spy's dad just hasn't shut up about it to spy since. its like the comics in that Miss Pauling is collecting each of the mercs but in this case its for the first time

Miss Pauling: so first of all Miss Pauling is the main character for the most part (like in the actual comics) the reason she goes by Miss Pauling is that there were multiple other girls with her name, so her teachers just called her Miss Pauling and it stuck she's Helen's kid. (I was thinking of making admin a kid too, but she works better as a sort of 50 year old mom with a powerful job) the whole mission of Pauling collecting the kids is framed as some grand shady mission given by Helen but in reality it was just her weird convoluted plot to get miss p more friends At the beginning really her only friend is scout

Scout: he's, of course, the youngest of seven other brothers. they dont hate him but they aren't exactly his friend he's friends with Miss Pauling cause he saw her one day (either he or she just moved into town) and he thought she was soo pretty and just started talking to her, only to realize he also liked her as a friend when they first met he just couldn't pronounce her name. 'Pauline? Pooling? Puh-lin?' and eventually she just sighed really heavy and just went 'just call me miss p' and he was just like 'ok!' honestly just shit at pronouncing ANYONES name he doesn't really have any friends other than Miss Pauling He's the type of kid to go up to any adult he considers cool and go 'hey look how fast I can run' and then dash away from them as quickly as possible

Spy: spy is living with his dad who honestly kinda sucks but in like a funny way. like he'd suck to actually be around but funny to read about spy's first name is Francis and he absolutely HATES it because of Francis The Talking France and, because he's French, thats literally the first thing almost anyone says when they hear his name, so he'd very much rather people call him spy. he got the nickname spy cause he's like a creepy kid that watches people in the bushes and other places. he also pickpockets and lies but he mainly does those to adults. he's also got a knife collection that he will infodump/mansplain to anyone he can find about. he's this kid who you expect to be super mega rich and then you get to his house and its like oh. dude the lights dont even turn on. theres like two things in the fridge. its like the most ramshackled house. how the hell does he look like a butler (the answer: Thievery) His meeting starts with the team wondering like oh god where could he be he could be anywhere and then engie's like 'have. have y'all considered just going to his house and knocking on the door' and they're all like '..................................no' so they go to do that and spy stops them just before they can knock and he has somehow got in front of them and he's like 'ohohoho. you dont have to do that.' partly for him to be all mysterious and intimidating and partly because he doesn't want em to see his cringe house, so after they converse for awhile he joins.

Soldier: He was like. raised by five military men/veterans which is why he's Like That at the age of like 10 (he also got that nickname for Obvious Reasons) he probably visits Merasmus (who is still totally a wizard in this) a lot and Merasmus has less of a 'shittiest roommate ever' opinion of him and more of a 'older/adult sibling annoyed by loud child who refuses to leave' opinion of him i feel like the team meets him at Merasmus's place (where demo is also there, cleaning his castle) and miss p is like 'heyyy soldier. i need you for. um. a mission.' and he's like 'A MISSION? I WILL JOIN YOU!' and she asks demo whos like 'hold on hold on ive got to finish cleaning this wizards castle' and the teams like 'well maybe we could help' and Merasmus is like hm ok that would be nice and soldiers like 'I WILL HELP :]' and merasmus is like 'nO YOU WILL NOT HELP' and sollys like 'I WILL NOT HELP :]' cause hes like 11 so the team (minus soldier, who is standing outside patiently) help demo clean the whole castle and set off to find the next merc

Demoman: so demo is like this like 10-12 year old kid with like. three to four jobs cause his mum said he needed em (one job is cleaning merasmus's castle and generally helping with housework) he got the nickname from him trying to explain that both his mom and dad were demomen and like the next time that kid/group of kids saw him they were like 'hey its that demo guy!' so the nickname is usually reserved for like people who dont know him well or people who dont know how to/refuse to pronounce 'tavish' i already told you how they meet him so heres a bit more about him he skips classes somewhat often and his teacher assume hes just being lazy or delinquent but its actually because he has like. four jobs he lost his eye from merasmus's book but he begged merasmus to let him keep working for them saying that he'd start actually following the rules and that he really needed the job and merasmus was eventually like ok FINE.

Engineer: so Engie is like the whole gifted kid thing, but hes also very kind (and has talked several bullies down successfully) the reason hes called engineer is because he's won several school awards for his little (genuinely functional) contraptions and the majority of them were engineering competitions Miss Pauling meets him in his yard working on god knows what, with his dad (Fred, the team fortress classic engineer) reading a news paper on the porch she basically just asks him if he'll come with her for this mission that her mom set her up on and he's just like "yeah sure hold on let me ask my dad- HEY DAD. CAN I HANGOUT WITH THIS RANDOM GIRL WHO SAID HER MOM NEEDS ME FOR A MISSION?" and his dad just takes one look at her then goes back to his newspaper and yells back 'YEAH SURE SON'

Heavy: heavy is gotten just/a bit before medic cause he's medics closest/only friend and the other kids are afraid of the 'doctor' he got the nickname heavy cause well. kids are cruel sometimes he lives with his mother and three sisters, he's quite a bit more reluctant to join as both a. half the team is annoying and b. he has no goddamn idea who these kids are nor what their intentions are. engie is probably the one to convince him both by using his relationship with medic as leverage and because he's like the only one there that is actually good at talking to people. once he's with them for a bit he's like 'hey this isn't as bad as i thought it'd be' although he does still think soldier and scout are annoying as hell. once they get medic he's like 'hey this might actually be a good fun friend group'

Sniper: He and Miss Pauling were set up in like one of those partner project things cause nobody wanted to be with either of them so they just got stuck together sniper came up with that name himself. he was like "call me... sniper" and then everyone's like 'whatever you say mick' their interaction goes like. as awkwardly as possible. neither of them have any social skills she's just like 'hey um. hey sniper? can you not throw rocks at us i wanna talk' and he's silent for a second and soldier butts in like 'IF YOU THROW ROCKS AT ME I WILL BE PREPARED! I HAVE A HELMET.' only to be knocked over by a stone to the noggin and snipers like in his tree house like 'sorry sorry but he totally was asking for it ' and miss p's like 'no no he really was but um. can you come here my mom said she needed me to get you for a mission' and etc etc sniper joined the party

Medic: He's just as medically experimental and morally bankrupt as he is in adulthood but he doesn't really have any human subjects. he's got like several stitched together hybrid animals that are somehow still alive and now his pets. I can't decide if his parents being too afraid to stop him or them being just as morally bankrupt and extremely supportive would be funnier he got the nickname. well from being generally a mad doctor (Misha specifically calls him doktor as apposed to medic) but there was a specific instance where he stole the majority of the schools medical supplies for his experiments all of the kids, minus like. Misha, dell and soldier were fucking terrified of him before meeting him. he's still scary, but now they know he can be just as chatty as scout at times i think it'd be funny if like they met his scared parents and they were like 'you... you want to see him?' and they're like 'um. yeah' so they go like allllll the way (i'm imagining the house is super tall with like a mad scientist area (medics room) at/near the top) to his room and then the door like creeks and he's all shadowed then he swivels around in his chair and he's just all like 'oh hallo!! :] it is SO next to have guests :3 it gets lonely sometimes :/ who are you btw' and they're all like '. this Cannot be the right guy' and then it is

Pyro: They're this kid living in this house that was abandoned after at least half of it burnt down, presumably killing the family living in it. its in this secluded area of town that no one really goes to, so no one can really see that the windows are boarded up from the inside and there's lights inside the building. pyro got the nickname from. well they're a kid living in a burnt building people are gonna assume they burnt the building i have this whole idea of like miss p walking with the rest of the team like 'Helen said that we should be careful with this one' and they get spy to sneak around the house seeing all these strange things like colorful scribbles on almost every wall, straight up weapons lying around, an entire pile of empty jerry cans in the garage, the fridge half full of rotten food with the sink filled to the brim with dirty dishes, scratches and burns on many walls, the entire place generally being in disrepair. i like to think the first time they encounter pyro, only seeing them from behind one of ems just like 'oh huh the place they live in is weird but who'd be afraid of that' cause like they've got like that unicorn onsie on or somethin similar and then they turn around (still not noticing the team) and they've got that full on gasmask that was clearly made for an adult and they're just like "Oh. Okay" they're all like stumped on how to get them to join until someone (probably engie or admin if they call her for help) is like 'all the food was rotten right? maybe get them something to eat? cause like theres no way they're eating well unless they've got like a hidden fridge somewhere' and so they get like a homemade lunch in like. a ballonicorn lunchbox for them and they tear up from the generosity but Shenanigans happen that makes the other mercs chase em eventually it leads the mercs to the attic and the mercs fall for the classic bucket above the door trick but alas! the bucket is full of gasoline and pyro's got a flamethrower! so engie and a couple others like Miss Pauling and Demo have to talk em down and get em to join the friend group and it works out in the end cause im not writing a group of children getting set on fire

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed!

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: The Ghost Gang

Debut: Pac-Man

Fufufu... frighteningly Funky Friday, friends!

This post has been waiting patiently in the drafts since my Pac-Man fixation way back in July, and it has really been about time it gets to be posted. And what better Friday to talk about ghosts than the one before Halloween? I can think of two. One would be Friday the 13th, and the other would be a Friday that Halloween itself falls on. But I’m posting it today! On only the third most ideal of Fridays!

Yes, I’ve already talked at length about some Pac-Man ghosts, but there are so much MORE. And they’re all so wonderful. My Best Ever Characters list includes “Ghosts” in the Namco character section, because they are all so wonderful. And now we’ll talk about some more notable ones!

So, here we have the Ghost Gang of Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, in and around their Ghost House, in an image I got from the Annoying Orange Wiki. Though I love them all, I’m not gonna talk in depth about ALL of them, and out of these four, I’ll give the spotlight to my darling Clyde.

Look at him. Do you think he’s darling? Yes, you do. You are probably aware that each ghost has their own behavior, and Clyde will target Pac-Man until he gets close enough to him, then entering “scatter mode”, where he will instead move randomly. Why change it up when you’re so close? Does he even WANT to catch him? Well, I have a theory...

The official Pac-Man Twitter has not one, but TWO posts showing Pac and Clyde as friends, emphasizing the importance of kindness. And it’s just Clyde he seems to be friends with... so this has me thinking, they’re Secret Friends! While Clyde is part of the Ghost Gang, he doesn’t actually WANT to attack Pac, so he targets him to make it LOOK like he’s doing his job. When he gets close, he sort of just lingers around to try and seem like he’s doing something while not actively trying to get him. It’s the perfect strategy, and the others have never found out, and Clyde and Pac get to be friends, and it makes me happy.

Before I talk about some more ghosts, I’d like to analyze the ghosts as a whole! Pretty much every Pac-Man game has its own self-contained “canon”, if you can call it that, and each one brings its own interpretation of what the ghosts truly are. And my favorite of those is that of the very first game!

The first Pac-Man has three intermissions, famous for being where the second-most iconic Pac-Jingle is from, but they deserve to be even more famous for how bizarre they get. The first is pretty standard, with Pac being chased by Blinky, only to turn the tables and chase Blinky instead. The second, however, has Blinky get his sheet caught on something sticking out of the ground and rip, revealing a human-like leg! Are the ghosts just people wearing sheets...? Nope! Because in the third and final intermission, Blinky’s sheet comes ALL the way off, revealing him to be some bizarre flesh blob, wearing a sheet! Awesome! Is this true for all four of the ghosts? Is just Blinky hiding this embarrassing secret? Pick whatever explanation you think is funniest!

My SECOND favorite is from Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, a wacky point-and-click style adventure game where you manipulate Pac’s emotions in order to make him do funny things. I highly respect whoever thought this should be localized as the direct sequel to the most iconic video game of all time. But in this one, the base of villainous operations is a creepy factory, and if Pac gets caught in the machines, he turns into this familiar shape! Is... is this factory MAKING ghosts? Are they artificial? Wow!

The other iterations don’t have nearly as wacky implications for how the ghosts came to be, but I’ll tell them anyway. In the Pac-Man World series, they seem to be naturally occurring creatures native to the Spectral Realm, who entered Pac-Man’s dimension and began to live on Ghost Island. In Ghostly Adventures, they’re the souls that were forcibly extracted by the Pac-People who were on the losing side of a world war that killed Pac-Man’s parents, and are now forced to spend eternity in the Pac-Man equivalent of Hell. Bo-ring!

And now time to talk about even more ghosts you may not know about!

Clyde is the only member of the Ghost Gang I’m actually going to talk about here, because there are so many ghosts that the world needs to know about! Like Orson from Pac-Man World! He built and piloted a scary robot Pac-Man and kidnapped Pac-Man’s friends and family, but he just wanted to be loved. Pac does not accept this as an excuse. He eats Orson without a shred of remorse. I guess it’s justified from his perspective. They become friends later, though! Canon ghost friend!

Speaking of canon ghost friends, there’s Miru from Pac & Pal (she’s the pal)! I know she doesn’t look like a ghost, but she might be one. It’s kind of unclear. But I love her so here she is. She helps Pac by collecting fruit for him, but this gets fewer points than Pac doing it himself, so some players don’t like it. I, however, think it is worth losing a few potential points in order to let Miru feel like she’s helping.

Yet another friendly ghost is Yum-Yum from Junior Pac-Man! She is the daughter of Blinky, and she and Junior just want to be together, but of course, their parents will not allow it. That, however, is what ultimately allows them to be together, as while their parents are off bickering, the two little lovers are able to escape together! How lovely! Too bad Junior Pac-Man is in some bizarre copyright limbo and Yum-Yum never appeared again. Goodbye.

Here we have Bash, who is a somewhat strange character. He looks like he’d be the big bad boss of all the ghosts, right? Maybe even their ruler? Well, maybe he is, but we don’t know, because he was made exclusively for the Pac-Man crossover event in Sonic Dash! He never appeared again! I think he should, though! He’s funny. Despite his apparent authority, he just talks like a school bully.

One of the newest ghosts at the time of writing is Creepy, who as I’m sure you can tell, debuts in the Pac-Man DLC for Minecraft! This DLC is kind of weird. But good weird, because Miru is playable! Her most major role ever! But this is Creepy’s paragraph. He explodes, and this hurts not only the player, but his fellow ghosts, and even destroys walls, which crumble into glitchy text! Especially neat is that, when eaten, his eyes remain black with white pupils as they retreat to the Ghost House!

The VERY newest ghost at the time of writing is Itchy, from Pac-Man Party Royale! Itchy is not a “dangerous” ghost, but a “mischievous” one, and I think that’s great. As far as I know, they are only capable of inverting a player’s controls, but new effects were said to be included at some point. What a pleasant design, too, with the seafoam coloration and black sclerae! And how magical it was to witness a NEW GHOST revealed in real-time, during the time when Pac-Man was all I could think about! What are the odds? The odds were high. It’s the 40th anniversary year.

Finally, I will leave you with this little fellow. He appears in Pac-Man Arrangement, and is constantly vulnerable, even acting like a Power Pellet when eaten! However...

He can combine with the other ghosts to transform them, giving them new abilities! Blinky gains the ability to charge forward, Pinky can now hop to far-off points in the maze, Inky creates a mirror duplicate of himself that mimics his movements, and Clyde wanders around spitting up extra Pac-Dots in places Pac-Man has already been. That’s so cool! I love this ghost! I love that he has cute little nerd glasses, I love his role in the game, everything! Why haven’t we seen more of him? What’s his name, anyway?

I see.

[oneletteredwondered]

Hi! Sorry to bother you, I just have a question. I just joined tiktok and am thinking of creating a mascaraed Roman au, but I have no idea how to start or if I should or if it’s too soon... I absolutely adore your high school au and was wondering if you have any tips or wisdom?? Thank you!! 💜

It's never too soon to AU XD

My suggestion would be, if you have some sort of storyline you want your AU to follow, make a word doc and start writing out little plot points/scenes you would like to include in your story.

For example

Roman wears gold

Janus wears red in 'revenge'

Roman freaks out

Get your base down first so you know what you're working with.

After that it's a matter finding audios that fit your scenes. Scrolling through tiktok for audios or songs you like or think fit your AU, keep an open mind cause ANYTHING can be twisted to your story if you think about it. This does not mean find anything and try to shove it in, but find things close and keep your AU in mind when audio hunting. Once you find a sound you like, copy link of the audio itself or video that gave you inspiration, or write down what audio you want, and add it to your doc.

For example

Roman wears gold - dissolve - link here

Janus wears red in revenge - so this is love - audio needed

Roman freaks out - he was very charismatic! (princess and the frog audio) - link here

Keep doing this until you have close to if not all of your sounds necessary for your scenes. There's no rush to complete this. You will most likely find things that fit your AU half way through filming or planning, do not be afraid to put them in your doc.

When hunting for audios or finding sounds that work, change up the length of your videos. Do NOT only make 45 seconds-minute long videos. And do NOT only make quick 5-15 second videos. When thinking about your AU, figure out which parts needs quick moments and which parts need to be drawn out. You are telling a story and a movie, make it cinematic.

For example

Remus never ending pick up lines are goofy and hold no weight to the story other than funny. Can be short.

Remus figuring out he actually has feelings for Logan is a major point for Remus, it holds weight to their arc and development. Longer time frame.

Sophie suggests: if you have the ability to do so, video/audio editing skills or app, so this way you can make or change audios to fit your needs even better, or add more flare to your videos.

If need be, or just for brain purposes, you can always add a choreography bit, possible dialogue options, or a brief description of what you want to happen in the video to your doc so things that happen near the end, you know what you're supposed to be doing or planned originally.

For example

Roman wears gold - roman walks by janus, slo mo, petty- dissolve - link here

Janus wears red in revenge - looks at the camera, dialogue 'see something you like pretty boy?' - so this is love - audio needed

Roman freaks out - roman having a MOMENT - he was very charismatic! (princess and the frog audio) - link here

Then you can film to your hearts content!

You can film all of them in one go, or split it up how you want, and save multiple drafts. Try to put them out in order as best you can, that's the whole point of the doc and plot map. Once you put a video out, copy link of your own video, and add it to your doc to keep track of what you need to film/is out already/sitting in drafts ready to go.

For example

Roman wears gold - posted - link to video here

Janus wears red in revenge - in drafts - so this is love - link here

Roman freaks out - needs filming - roman having a MOMENT - he was very charismatic! (princess and the frog audio) - link here

Save the audio link until the video is posted just in case you decide to refilm a scene.

I would recommend making a hashtag for the AU so people can find your story easier. Something that is simple and not too long but gets the point across.

For example

One sanders sides high school alternate universe = onesshsau

It'll be tempting to make your AU hashtag like Romanmasqueradeau but that's long and you only have so much space in your description. Shorten words, make it sweet and simple. Tag all your videos appropriately.

In your description of videos, put a little quip about the scene itself.

For example

In the roman wears gold video, the description is "when you wear your totally not a crush favorite color to get his attention but you're still petty".

Which is.. very long to be fair but lol and in return:

In the janus wears red for revenge video, the description is "two can play at that game".

Something that gives the viewers a little more to the story to hold on to.

Sophie suggests: you can always put backstory in the comment section to give yourself more space to talk about a scene, tell the viewers where to find it. "Backstory in comments" works pretty well.

For the cover clip, choose a banner to go with the clip. Keep the banner the same throughout the whole AU so people know which videos are and are not a part of your AU. If you plan your videos out well enough, you can even add 'parts' to your banners so people know where to look next.

For example

The banner for the hs au is... : HS AU.

If the AU was planned better, the banner would have been : HS AU pt 4. And for duets: HS AU pt 4.2.

This way people who join the AU mid way can click your hashtag, see the part markers, and know exactly where to go next to get the full story in order.

In the event you find an audio you want to use for your AU but the timing has passed(aka you already put out videos that come later timeline wise) you can still use the audio. In the description/comments you would put something along the lines of "what happened after/when -insert moment here-" and for the cover clip banner add .5 to the number marker.

If you plan on doing this AU on your own, caption videos properly, make things duettable if you want to encourage interaction, but make sure that they are stand alone available so people who don't see a duet can still get the full story. You can always duet yourself and add captions to the blank space above the video should you wish.

Something I've seen other creators do is put a poll or "what should they do?/pick an option" in the video captions or description. I would recommend NOT doing this. You may want the interaction from the audience, but then you'll need to make sure your plot map and audios match up with the choice and that it's something you want to happen as well. Also. If you don't get a lot of audience interaction, you may be disappointed, and that uh, sucks.

Something else I've seen is self duets where the duet part is all black and has a paragraph of the scene so people can have the story line more fully that way. That's a personal choice to make for yourself if you want to use this method. Snail(1_1snailxd) has used this method before if you want an example. They do plenty of AUs too if you want to see another creators process.

Keep your outfits and lighting consistent unless necessary for change in the story arc.

Since this is your AU and your page, you can post the videos for the AU whenever you want. Every day, every other day, every specific day. It does not matter. I would space them out if you can, or at least not post more than three videos for your AU a day. Give the viewers something to anticipate in your story line and a schedule that works for you.

Remember you are making this AU for you and it's what you want to see come to life. Be proud of the things you create.

[ewgoals]

50 Reasons why

Plot: Harry and Y/N have had an on and off relationship for 4 years, They truly feel like true love was what kept them together but nobody will take control.They had a beautiful baby boy together and the love they share was pure so pure that Harry decides to try and take control even if it was too late  and the woman he called his wife was over him. 

A/N: The Plot Is  short but the story is long, complex and beautiful. It’s based on a true story. Please listen to the song while you are listening Via Spotify or apple music, Please it makes it so much better! I have a youtube link. I said that Harry wrote and sung the song but it was a musical named rent if you don’t know lol Let me know if you want a part two 

Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pvtRwaKHY 

Triggers: Angst, Smut, Fluff, Tears?, Heart break. 

Word Count: 5,843 

Harry was up all night, that’s how it’s been the last few days he couldn’t sleep without Y/N by his side. Harry knows that he did this to himself from pulling away from his former wife, when he began to struggle with his own personal demons. Harry finally sat up as he saw the light coming through the blinds of his home, he looked at his phone for a moment just hoping to get even the smallest text from his former lover but it was sadly nothing. Harry finally decided that he needed to take control of this situation, he needed his feelings to be out there and for Y/N to understand what he truly felt. 

This gave Harry the amazing idea, he was going to mix a romantic gesture with him pouring out his heart. This was going to start with Harry writing an emotional letter for the woman that he loved before words, he then ordered 50 roses and sent them to Y/N home after he checked with a couple of friends that she still lived there. This of course was Harry’s favorite thing that he’s done for a little while and he was beyond excited about finally having some control. 

Y/N and Harry have been talking every night since Y/N reached out, making sure her ex husband was okay. She never wanted to put him in a bad place, but she knew that it was for the better that they split up even if the divorce was rough enough on both of them. Y/N was shocked when she woke up to his friend calling her from downstairs, the woman rushed down the stairs in fear of something much more horrible. Y/N covered her mouth as she looked around at the 50 dozen roses that filled her living room and dining room. 

Roger looked at his best friend before saying “Girl he wants you back so bad” Y/N looked around just as shocked before grabbing a letter that was kept separate from the roses which made her smile seeing Harry’s handwriting “I’ll read these to you just because you are here” The woman admitted before her best friend nodded as he watched her open the letter “Okay here we go” the woman said shaking her head as she began reading.

“I know that you told me not to write this and normally I would listen but  I can’t help it, I saw this post that I made for you that was written like a year ago I think and it was crazy because you don’t think you could ever add to a post like that. I could though, it was talking about how you make me feel all of these things! I wasn’t sure how it was possible to add more but once I actually sat down and began thinking about how I could it was easy as hell. I’ll show you the post so you know which one I’m talking about.” The woman’s eyes were already filling with tears as she began to read the post Harry wrote for her on her birthday last year. 

“My Love,

As I am writing, I have a million thoughts running through my mind. This letter is meant to be a testament to the feelings I feel for you –  you are the one person that can put a smile on my face, even on those days when I am feeling down. You are the reason I am able to lay in bed and fall asleep peacefully. Looking at it, you have offered me new opportunities that no other person would be able to offer me.  As you lay next to me in bed sleeping, I lay there and wonder what I did to get so lucky in my life.

 You are the one that has reached out and showed me the true meaning of what it feels like to be in peace. There is no other person in this world that could have done that for me. It amazes me that someone with such outer beauty as so much inside her as well.  I feel like I am floating when I am with you. My days get brighter when I am with you. I still manage to get these butterflies when I see you. I guess overall I love you. “ Y/N shook her head as she sniffled trying to get herself to compose herself once before she looked at her friend “Please Read the rest” she asked as Y/B/F/N took the letter and began with the next page 

“I wrote that on 10/23 that was literally 3 days after you and I got together. That was the day I meant the love of my life and the woman would become the mother of my children, I told you last night but let me rephrase so everyone can see it. 

I may not show all the time and that’s because I’m shitty at human emotions but you are the most important person to me. When I’m down you bring me up without realizing you are. When I’m beyond crazy you manage to bring me back down to earth I didn’t wanna tell you because it goes back to the whole “what the fuck does this beautiful ass woman see in me like?” And that goes back to the whole I don’t think I’m worthy of love but you truly make me like I’m worthy even though I fuck up nonstop you still manage to love me even when I’m stupid as shit.” Roger stooped as he began to run his hand up and down his friend’s back “He is quite the words man” this caused them both to chuckle as her friend went on 

“I mean every word of that ten times over, no matter what stupid shit I do you manage to find a way to forgive me. Y/N from all the adventures we go on from fucking around and getting hitched in Vegas, to getting married in Paris or maybe me trying to drown you bora bora. That is still not confirmed, I’m only joking but I don’t feel like there are enough words to describe our relationship hell our marriage. Happy birthday to the love of my life, you still manage to keep on my toes but I think that’s because of how amazing you.” Roger  gasped “that’s what he wrote for your birthday? I can barely get laid from mine” Y/N laughed as she ran her hand over where her ring used to see as she took the paper and read the last paragraph 

“I found that post still saved in my phone and if I’m honest it started off a long list of things that I miss about you and I’ll break that down one by one so give me a minute haha, I’m going to call this the 50 reasons why I love you and the reason why I think we should try just once more and If it doesn’t work then that’s fine and the reason it’s fine is that we have such an amazing friendship that I don’t ever wanna lose. You give me hope even when I am hopeless. I can use all of those typical relationship quotes and for once I understand why they are like that. Okay fine I’ll get one with my list haha.” 

Y/N brain finally connected the dots as she looked around at all of the roses “They are in order from number 50” the woman shook her head as she looked at the roses once more, this was going to be a long night. Y/N quickly got started as she picked up the number 50 

“50.) I like the way you look at me.

I don’t know it’s possible but when you look at me, I feel this flutter in my chest telling me that I just saw the most beautiful woman look at me. I am also in a position where your eyes tell me so much more than you ever want to let one.” Y/N smiled sweetly as she kept going on 

“49.) Your Skin Care 

I don’t think I could tell you what you are actually doing when you start the process but I can tell you that I love how you almost become instantly relaxed when you start it and I love seeing that. I love to see how you can wind down from your day and just a little face cream helps you so much with that. “ Y/N looked at her best friend as ran her finger through her hair before giggling “He used to literally roll his eyes everytime I would even begin” Y/N shook her head as she smiled a little before she grabbed the next card 

“48.) Those Legs 

I love the feeling of running my hands up and down your legs, the way they curve so perfectly, and the length. Please don’t get me started because I don’t think I could stop. They are smooth and always smell so good.” Roger  laughed as he lightly smacked her thigh “told you those legs were killer”  Y/N laughed  as she shook her head “Next one” she said        

“47.) Your Touch 

The way you used to just run your fingers over my arm or trace outlines on my chest. I used to always look down at you and the minute I felt the tips of your fingers, I would freeze only for a second but that’s because I was shocked you were there.” Y/N looked down at the card as she closed her eyes “I don’t think I can truly get through these” The woman smiled but she kept going  

“46.) When you Play with my Hair 

This doesn’t get enough credit and I took advantage of it. When I used to lay on your chest and just listen to your heart you would run your fingers through my hair and I would always feel my heart speed up because it felt so good. It felt like you were giving my head the greatest massage of all time” . 

“45.) You see the positives when I see Negatives. 

I could come to you about something as simple as wanting to know what I should have for lunch and you can give me a whole pro list of different places I could eat. You literally turn every point in our life positively just by counteracting my negative. It makes us work really well but it also shows me how I should look at the world.”

44.) How you used to rub my back 

I know this sounds like I am repeating myself but I’m not. You used to straddle my waist and rub my back after the gym, It would give me this relaxing feeling and the way your fingers worked the muscles that were sore out and made me feel like I was jello. I can’t thank you enough...

43.) When You Picked Me 

I don’t think anyone was as shocked as me when it happened, I slide into your DMS a nervous man knowing that you had just gotten out of a relationship but I kept my heart open to the small chance I had. When you agreed to go on that date with me I couldn’t even believe it like Why was she settling but I thank my lucky stars for the day over and over. 

42.) When You Just Wanted To Cuddle.

I would wake up and have to get up for the gym but you would always pull me back down and ask for five more minutes and the minutes I got a smell of your hair I couldn’t say no. I would have to stay for five more minutes. 

41.) The Way You Wake Up. 

You always sit up and stretch before you look over at me and lean in to kiss me, I would always try to turn it into a little bit more but you would always say that your breath stunk and I remember that I could never bring it to your attention that I never smelt your breath, I was to busy focusing on my beautiful wife. 

40.) Your Feet At Night.

You know that I hate feet with a passion but I love the way you bury your feet under my legs when you get cold when we are together. I used to hate it now that I don't have it. I just miss it. 

39.) We Could Watch Cartoons Together. 

I never figured that would be something that made me love someone but it truly made me love you more, I could put Peppa pig on but we could still cuddle and just read. 

38.) I’ll Always Remember Your Favorite Flower

  I will always make sure to have your favorite bouquet of flowers and I will always know that they need to be a dark red because Maroon is one of your favorite colors. 

37.) Your Ankles. 

I remember when I would be messing around with you, I would always grab your ankle. I would leave a kiss on your ankle, I would hold your ankle. I think I don’t want to admit how much I love kissing your ankle. 

36.) You never make me feel dumb. 

You are genuinely one of the smartest people I know and somehow you’ve never made me feel like I was less because I don’t know as much as you but you would even try to explain it to her. 

35.) How you watch your favorite show, 

I’ve noticed that you would religiously watch the same show over and over and that would drive me insane now I find myself watching them just to think you are here. 

34.) How You Pull Me Closer.

I would try not to fall asleep first but the minute I did, I would feel you pull me closer and keep me close until you either felt safe or just content. I would love every minute I remember. 

33.) Your Dancing 

You always dance like nobody's watching and I love that. I love the way you mix current music and start doing the boogie haha I also love the way you twerk lol 

32.) Your Quick Replies 

I would feel myself becoming closer to snapping and you would always lighten my mood with a little small quick roast, It would always make me feel better. 

31.) Your Love For Dogs 

I’ve never seen someone care about our living things, I would always be a little shy about them at first but you would go and bear hug the dog no matter what haha. 

The next ten flowers were  labeled NSFW which meant that Y/N was’t going to read them out loud but her friend was quick to put that idea down “Nope, I’m emotionally invested you need to read them all” Y/N blushed before nodding as she looked at the next card reading loudly 

“30.) Your moans

Those are literally crack, I would hear that moan and it would get me ready almost instantly. I hear the moan almost every night and well let’s just say I miss hearing it in person.”  Y/N was blushing already as her best friend laughed “Oh this is adorable keep going”  

“29.) Your Whispers

I don’t know if you thought I could hear but when you whisper in my ear, I feel myself almost buckling at my knees and smiling just because I know exactly where to touch to make those moans come out.” 

“28.) Your Nails 

I miss the way your nail would run down my back, they could be long or short. They were just this naturally fuck me harder button and I swear every time you did it I was ready for you all over again.” 

“27.) Your Taste. 

This is not a place that I can beat around the bush, I miss the feeling of going down on you. I miss feeling those fingers in my hair as I eat the most amazing peach that I could’ve ever tasted in my life” Roger laughed as he held his chest “Girl you better get back with him, that alone would have be running back” Y/N covered her face as she closed her eyes “Okay next one” 

“26.) Your Lips

I miss how those lips felt against mine, they are the softest things I’ve ever kissed, and the way you bit your bottom lip is just unreal.”

“25.) Your Smirk

You only use this when you know you’ve won and it’s my favorite thing about getting to admit defeat. That smirk you have when you crawl back on top of me. A man could  fall in love with that.” 

“24.) Your Ass 

How is it I can picture your ass and I could tell you the curves of the perfect tanned ass. I love how you reacted when  I finally smack your ass. You gasp and use that damn smirk.” 

“23.) Your boobs 

I still love the feeling of kissing down your chest as I run my hands over your amazing breasts, they are soft and fit perfectly in my hands. I can tease you so much because of it.” 

“22.) Those Kisses 

I always remember when you would be giving me a blow job, You would always leave these kisses on my inner thighs. Those still drive me wild but Nobody could do it like you.” Y/N smiled as she shook her head “Girl you need to teach me your tricks. You got this boy pussy whipped” Y/N slapped Roger’s chest “Shut up” 

“21.) The way you pull my hair. 

I’ve learned that you grab onto many things, my hair is a perfect victim but god is it such a turn on. I could feel myself slipping away because you wore me out but the minute you pulled my hair I was back into it. “

“20.) The way you take control when you want it. 

 I loved watching you ride me, I get the perfect view of those amazing perfect breasts in my face but I also get to see you take control and that is so sexy. “ 

Y/N finally looked up at Roger before closing her eyes “I have 20 more reasons why he loves me and I have no words to say anymore” Roger smiled as nodded “come on girl 20 more” 

“19:) How well we fit together

I would begin that I could marry someone who just sleeps well and I did. Our bodies just fit perfectly to the point that I could never think that anything could be better” 

“18.) The Way You Talk To Tv 

I can’t begin to tell you that just because you scream at the tv, it's not going to change the outcome but watching you get so the anger was half worth it” 

“17.) Your Grace  

The way you handle yourself when the media talks about you. You don’t talk negatively but just smile through it” 

“16.) The way you handle my jealousy 

I know that sometimes, it’s ridiculous that I get jealous over small stuff but it’s because have you ever dated someone who was so above your league? Of course not, you are a goddess.”  

“15.) I love that we are friends and family.

No matter what you always made me feel important even when nobody else did, you always treated me like family and when I was going through a pure panic attack you would manage to call me down even with just your words. You treat me like I am not this piece of shit. That I matter. “ 

“14.) Your Smell  

When you would get out of the shower and come to bed, The way your hair smelt mixed with your perfume and other smells just made you into this perfect smell that I still can’t get out of my nose.” 

“13.) Our Baths 

  We did this a lot while you were pregnant, I would just run my hand over your little pregnant belly and I would feel so content with just being able to hold you, let you relax with some weird bath bomb” 

“12.) Your Christmas Obsession 

I never really liked Christmas before I met you, it was kinda just a holiday. I would go home but you made it special. Now when it’s Christmas time all I think about is you, how your eyes would light up when you would see all the Christmas lights. How you would get excited when Emre,Lea or Presley  opened a present. You Made Christmas something special and I’ll always thank you for that.” 

“11.) Your Laugh 

I think I could write a ten page essay about your laugh alone. I remember holding you and I would start to tickle you now it would end in you giving me a death threat but it was worth it to hear that laugh. I would always get this heart fluttering feeling when that special sound left your lips.” 

“10.) I miss you when you aren’t next to me 

I’ve noticed this more now that we aren’t together but I find myself taking this much more serious now that the reality sets in that we are where we are. This becomes more real every time I get  a text from you. Hell I used to miss you when you are in the next room.” 

“9.) The way you are with our kids. 

I feel like this is pretty self explanatory but the way you look at our kids and how they smile so lovingly back at you . The way they squeal when you kiss them, how they want nothing more but to hold you and play with you makes me realize that you were the perfect choice for the mother of my children, You are the perfect mom everyone is trying to me and you do it effortlessly.”

“8.) We’ll Always Have Paris. 

I’ve always wanted to say that haha. You make it possible for me to say that. Paris will always be the place where I found the love of my life, It will also be the place where God showed me that angels walk among men.” 

“7.) Always being True

You are being true to who you are, your morals are sometimes not in my favor but it makes me love you more. That you know exactly what you want and what you truly deserve. This drives me crazy but in the best possible way and almost makes me jealous of you that you are so smart and true to who you are that you can get whatever you want. This makes even more one of a kind than you are.”

“6.) The Way You Let Me In

I know that you don’t do this anymore and I think that’s what makes it even more special that you let me in. I get to see every side of you: the good,bad,stressed, sad, angry, vulnerable. I know it doesn’t make sense but when you open up to me I get this feeling in my chest and I just can’t help but feel like I am the luckiest person in the world. “

“5.) Your Eyes 

I was in the studio yesterday and the thought of you popped into my mind and the lyrics created themselves. I have the audio of me singing which I texted you, I don’t know if you caught that yet. If not I left the lyrics for you” 

Your eyes

As we said our goodbyes

Can't get them out of my mind

And I find I can't hide

From your eyes

The ones that took me by surprise

The night you came into my life

Where there's moonlight

I see your eyes

How'd I let you slip away

When I'm longing so to hold you

Now I'd die for one more day

'Cause there's something I should have told you

There's something I should have told you

When I looked into your eyes

Why does distance make us wise?

You were the song all along

And before the song dies

I should tell you, I should tell you

I have always loved you

You can see it in my eyes

Y/N saw her phone sitting next to her as she grabbed it and saw the audio file that was sent to her, the woman smiled softly before she played the song as loud as she could without waking her young son in the next room over. Roger's eyes were filled with tears by the end of the song before Y/N wiped her tears away as she shook her head “I can’t do this anymore. Roger I’m seeing someone else'' Roger nodded as he looked down sad for the woman “Just hear him out” Y/N nodded as she looked at the last four of the flowers 

“4.) Those Nose Scrunches 

I couldn’t get enough of those, when you would tease me there was a nose scrunch. When you would be making food and it splashed on you there was a nose scrunch. When you would change a diaper another nose scrunch or even when I kissed your nose. God I love them.” 

“3.) Our Inside jokes 

This is something I never thought I would miss as much I do, I love that when I say Bora Bora to you that we both think of the time you claim I tried to drown you I swear to goodness I did not!  Or our mutual hatred for the chicago bears” 

“2.) You made me feel like I mattered 

It didn’t matter if I felt like I was the worst person you always made me feel like my story mattered and that so did what I have to say. You made me realize that even if nobody wants to hear it my voice should be heard. You helped me into who I am now. I wasn’t Harry Styles to you, I was just a person” 

“ 1.) Your Heart 

This is the number one reason why I love you. Your heart is a wonderful thing, that you don’t realize is as amazing as it is. Your heart is this thing that amazes me hell it managed to love me and well that’s crazy enough to me. I get more and more amazed every time you show me your heart. When I met you and your heart, it began to change me and help heal my messed up heart. Your heart is the purest thing I’ve ever seen. I love you. I love your heart and I love that you managed to love me with that beautiful heart.” 

Y/N was now in full blown tears as she found the next letter hidden in the last bouquet of flowers “Roger please” her best friend took the letter as he opened the letter she read out for her 

“ I think I could keep going on because If i’m being honest it took me an hour to think of 50 reasons why I love you  but I decided that it might be a little too much if I sent a 100 reasons why I love you but I told you that I will give you 50 reasons why I love you and one reason why I think we should try again and here is that reason 

1..) The reason I think that we should try once more is because we are perfect. I know that it would be easier to go and talk to Matthew and fall in love with him and that He won’t give you half as many headaches as I did. Hell he probably won't give nearly as much heart break either. He would be the easier option and I would understand completely if you did it now I know he's not a guy you were talking to but he was just an example. I know that I am not perfect, hell I am far from it. I know that at points our relationship was toxic and I am still so sorry for every time that I made our relationship toxic in some way.” 

Y/N covered her mouth as she bit her lip “He knows about Matt… yet he still took a chance with all of this” Roger looked down at the letter as he kept saying 

“I know that we have our problems, I know that we can talk through them and I know that I love you. I know that no matter what I always will. Hell you can tell me no right now and that we will never happen again and I will tell you okay but only if I can still be in your life because that’s all i truly want. If I can’t have you then it would still be an honor to be your friend.” 

Y/N  looked at her phone in her hand before she grabbed her phone and quickly dialed her ex husband’s number “Y/N” the sound of the man’s voice made her breath stop as she looked at the roses in front of her “Harry, These roses and the letters” Harry just laughed a little “It was over kill huh?” Y/N quickly smiled “No! I loved them but Harry. My heart’s heavy— which I don’t know is a good thing or not. All these things you’ve said about me, these 50 reasons why you love me, it really touched me and it made me realize that you truly do love me. What breaks my heart is that this wasn’t there during the end of our relationship” The woman stopped for a moment as she tried to hold back the tears that she had 

‘On both sides, not just yours. What hurts is that it took 3, or even 4 years for us to realize this? It took countless breakups. It took so much, and maybe that’s the beauty of it. You’re right, another relationship would be easier to be in, there wouldn’t be the arguments and fights and quarrelling and all the little things that are basically ways of expressing love for one another. I don’t know if I need to explain anything right now, and I’m assuming you don’t want me to. But I will tell you that you really healed a lot with what you said. It means a lot, and I do love it.” Harry shook his head 

The man laughed at himself as he audibly said “No,  I don’t want you to explain anything. I want you to just know that I meant every word. That wasn’t my intention to heal anything with a letter. It was to show you that if you want and I need you to remember that if YOU WANT I’ll be right here waiting with my arms open and ready to love you all over again because like I said a new relationship would be easy for both of us but they wouldn’t have those parts that make us so perfect and comfortable together. Now I’ll admit I hope this does make you want to try this again but if it doesn’t that’s fine because now you know everything I was so cowardly to say while we were together.” Harry finished as Y/N sniffled into the phone 

Y/N managed to start talking without breaking her words “I do understand. I don’t know if I’d want to try again though. We could, but it could end up like it did last time, it could also last a long time, but I’m in a place where I’m slowly getting better and I’m not sure if risking that is a good thing. If I’d have heard this when we were together then that’s another story. Maybe we couldn’t work it out together and recovered from our problems and mental health issues together. But we had to separate to help ourselves, that itself says something. Harry, I love you and I will always love our son and the life that we have together but I am seeing someone Harry and I need to see where that goes” Harry smiled sadly as his eyes filled with tears before he whispered “ I understand. I’ll talk to you soon Y/N. Tell Jace I love him and that daddy misses him.” Harry didn’t say goodbye. He just hung up. 

Harry knows that what he did was childish and he should’ve been supportive, he couldn’t help it. He was upset, heartbroken, disappointed,miserable. Harry knew that he couldn’t do that to his ex wife and mother of his child, he grabbed his phone and quickly texted back “I am happy for you, I’m elated that you found someone to make you feel the way I feel about you. I’m not going to lie. I was hoping that my 50 reasons would give a little time to take you off your feet. I was just a little too late. I love you Y/N. I’ll always be waiting for you… No matter what” 

[actualbird]

nobody asked but here are my personal top five pat gill videos | a 2.1k word long post where i rank and review pat gill’s videos for just way too long.

Right around the tail end of April, 2020, I fell into the rabbit hole of my current obsession; Polygon Dot Com Video Content. As a consequence of this was being introduced to the phenomenon of Pat Gill. A dire consequence of that consequence was me slowly, deeply, irrevocably, finding myself attracted to this marionette of a man. So, I enjoy his content and I think he’s hot and that combined with the fact that some of my friends bully me over that latter fact has inspired me to do this: rank my personal favorite Pat Gill videos in a post that’s entirely too long.

Before I get straight into the rankings, I need to explain my process. 

First, I needed to narrow my scope. Polygon has a lot of videos. Polygon has a lot of videos with Pat Gill in them. If I didn’t narrow my scope, I would either go bonkers yonkers or have a list that would be kilometric in length and thus miss the entire point of ranking altogether. So, for my sanity, I am excluding any videos that are a part of a Polygon video series. This means no Overboard, no Gill and Gilbert, no Video Game Theatre, etc. If I included these, I would cry. I do not want to cry over Polygon Dot Com Video Producer Pat Gill.

Second, I need a criteria. If I just ranked videos with no system, I would find myself endlessly rearranging my list based on whatever thought comes out on top in my mind at the given moment. I am a disorganized person, so I need rules. I have decided that I will rank Pat Gill videos using the EEEH criteria. 

Entertainment. Do I smile, watching the video? Do I chortle? Am I filled with the embarrassing urge to show this video to my sister and derive glee from her laughing at the exact same moment I laughed? Entertainment is key.

Education. Did I come out of this video knowing something I originally did not know? More importantly, was I engaged in the learning process? I come from a family of teachers, so I have high standards when it comes to education. If I am to learn, I must learn well.

Exaltation. This is a bit of an oddball criteria, but it is important to me. The word “exalted” is defined as “elevated in rank, character, or status.” This criteria refers to how good it is at exalting, elevating, pulling me out of a depressive episode. That is to say I’ve been in a depressive episode for the past month and whether or not the video made me stop crying and brush my teeth is essential. Polygon video content has been integral to my serotonin production lately, and thus the video’s ability of acting as an audiovisual antidepressant for me factors into the rankings.

[BONUS POINTS] Hotness. How Hot Is Pat Gill In It? I felt bad, morally, ranking videos based on how good looking I thought Pat Gill was in it---because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that, and people don’t exist to be beautiful, they just are, and I agree---so I’m relegating this criteria as a bonus point. Standard is 0, because he’s always hot in my mind, but he gets plus points if he is exemplary in the hotness department.

The maximum score for each of these criteria is 5 points, making the perfect score a 15, but because of the bonus points, a 20 is, hypothetically, possible. 

With that out of the way, let me dive right into it. 

5. The fastest interview ever with Ben Schwartz from Sonic the Hedgehog

Entertainment: 5 Education: 2 Exaltation: 2 Hotness: +2 Total Score: 11

Pat Gill is a good interviewer, he’s engaging and fun and keeps the interview interesting, but this interview is particularly special because it seems that, and let me quote Youtube user AudreyN who left a comment on this video stating “ben schwartz consumed all seven chaos emeralds prior to this interview.” Pat Gill and Ben Schwartz’s dynamic is amazing, and by “dynamic” I do mean “Ben Schwartz absolutely just fucking dunking on Pat Gill for 14 entire minutes.” and it is glorious.

For Entertainment this scores a solid 5. Quite honestly the funniest interview I’ve ever watched in my entire life. Just the sheer beauty in the exchange [Pat] “You would use Sonic’s power to gaslight me?” [Ben] “Just you.” In terms of Education, I guess I did learn a bunch of things about the Sonic movie that I didn’t know before, but the avenue by which it was portrayed in was not exactly the most engaging, more like I was absorbing it via watching two experts discuss on a webinar. I would have given just 1 point to Education but I made it 2 because of the wonderful knowledge that Pat Gill can draw a pretty good Sonic in a few seconds. When it comes to Exaltation, I must admit that while this video got quite a few laughs out of me, it didn’t make me want to get out of bed and take a shower. 

BONUS: Pat is +2 hot in it. His short hair makes him look very handsome. He’s a spiffy boy, in this video. Very, very good.  

4. Pat Will Not Tweet at Nintendo This Week Because He is Resting at Home — PLEASE RETWEET, Episode 12 

Entertainment: 5 Education: 0 Exaltation: 5 Hotness: +1 Total Score: 11

I know I’m breaking a rule I set for myself a few paragraphs earlier by including an episode of Please Retweet, which counts as a video series, but this is my post and I can do whatever I want. More importantly, this video is so fucking funny to me, it feels like it would be a crime not to put it in this list. 

Solid 5 out of 5 for entertainment. Pat Gill, alone in his apartment, drinking six cans of what I think is beer silently while the intro music plays. That scene in itself should win an Oscar. Sadly, a solid 0 for Education, because I learn nothing in this video except for the fact that Pat Gill is the type of person to put out a coaster and then just completely not use it. I quantify things as educational if I can maybe answer a trivia question with them, and unfortunately, this fact does not pass that test. In terms of Exaltation, seeing Pat Gill lie down on the floor next to his cat made me get out of bed to do the same with my dog, and with myself thusly out of my bed cocoon of sadness, I was able to actually complete tasks on the day I watched this video. Perfect 5.

BONUS: Pat is +1 hot in this because there’s something very beautiful about him being a little bit miserable. However, I do miss his beard when I watch this video. It is one of my favorite things about him, and it is not present here.

3. Pat and Simone Play Human: Fall Flat

Entertainment: 5 Education: 1 Exaltation: 5 Hotness: 0 Total Score: 11

I very much enjoy Polygon’s gameplay streams. I often play them in the background while I’m doing other stuff like doodling or origami, but this stream is special. It is special because of the moment at 24:00 when Pat Gill, in game, swings a stereo into a glass window, shattering it, while saying, “Actually, y’know what? Let’s talk about trauma.” and then proceeds to tell a horrible and embarrassing story from his childhood where he had to do a rap about Ancient Egypt. 

5 points for Entertainment. This is partly because of Pat’s tragic childhood story about the Egypt Rap (and, segue just to point out 33:22 the incredible moment where you can hear Pat’s feral panic when Simone finds the lyrics to the Egypt Rap) but also because Pat and Simone just talking to each other is so deeply entertaining to me in a very comfy way. I’m starved for human interaction, in this quarantime, okay. Let me enjoy listening to other people have conversations while playing video games. Education scores a 1 because, again, nothing in this video will let me answer a trivia question, however it does get 1 point and not a 0 because the Egypt Rap’s lyrics are in the comments and I did end up learning stuff about Ancient Egypt that I didn’t know. A perfect 5 for Exaltation because this video showed me that talking about trauma can actually be cathartic, given that you’re trashing a video game living room at the same time, and I think that message of not bottling up your experiences really helped me, in these trying times.

BONUS: Pat Gill is not visible for the entirety of this episode, so he scores the standard 0. I’m sure he was hot. We just couldn’t see him.  

2. Why Bloodborne and Muppets are the same thing

Entertainment: 4 Education: 4 Exaltation: 3 Hotness: +2 Total Score: 12

Ah yes, one of Pat’s “x is y because of z” videos. He’s made a number of these and they’re all very good but this one is my favorite among them and earns a spot on this list because 1) I think puppets are cool and 2) I fucking love monsters. 

This video scores a 4 on Entertainment, just shy of perfect, because as funny as it is, it also gives me the vibe like I am being lectured by a professor who’s just a little bit off the shits. And we all know that lectures are supposed to be taken seriously. Which brings us to Education, which also scores a 4. I learned a lot in this video! Watching Pat Gill explain to me that children’s puppets and these horrifying viddy game monsters use the same character principles in different ways is not only very educational but is also explained in a streamline and easy to understand manner that I WISH some of the shitty professors at my old university could emulate. As for Exaltation, while this video did give me enough energy to have a meal, I did eventually end up back in bed for the night at 8pm crying myself to sleep, thinking “I’m like the slime scholar. Used to be a scholar. Now they’re slime.” 

BONUS: Pat Gill is +2 hot here. He’s rockin that basic ass monochromatic aesthetic and I love his look dearly. 

1. Preparing for Big Boy Season in Red Dead Redemption 2 

Entertainment: 5 Education: 3 Exaltation: 5 Hotness: +3 Total Score: 16

Here we are. My favorite non video series Pat Gill video. The video where Pat Gill tries to make Red Dead Redemption 2 protagonist, Arthur Morgan, large. 

Perfect fucking 5 for Entertainment, which I’m sure many may find odd. Afterall, this video is told in a serious investigative tone reminiscent of Vox’s videos on current issues. But that’s the glory of it. The complete and utter ‘playing it straight and serious’ for a ridiculous issue in a video game. It is high tier comedy in a subtle, understated way that sings to my comedy loving heart in a melody so lovely, so wonderful, that it urged me to give this video 5 points for Entertainment. It scores 3 on Education, because I have never played Red Dead Redemption 2, nor will I ever, but now I know things about it. The information was also relayed to me in a very interesting style, via something like a crime procedural, and thus it was engaging for me to absorb all this new knowledge. Exaltation scores a perfect 5 because of this video’s beautiful end about existential smallness. No joke, but hearing Pat Gill say “Our bigness isn’t measured in pounds, but in the impact we have on the people with whom we shared the world.” deadass made me want to talk to my friends again after conversationally isolating myself for 3 days. Preparing for Big Boy Season has a special place in my heart. And there it will stay.

BONUS: Pat Gill is not visible for most of the video but he does appear for like 15 seconds in the middle of it, and guess what. He’s hot. +3 hotness. Good beardage, good hair, all in all, good Pat Gill. 

So there you have it. My five favorite Pat Gill videos. If you read this whole thing, holy shit. You’re welcome, I guess.

[naancypants]

@nancydrew-onthecase, this is my argument post 4 you because I have waaaayyy too much to cram into a bunch of asks lol! I also took this way too seriously, so sorry for how Extra this is 😂😶

My previous posts have already summed up some of my favorite things about Joe/Nancy as a pairing, so I’d like to take this opportunity to also compare it to the opposing Nancy ships - please, please don’t view this as me bashing Nedcy and Francy to “prop up my ship” or whatever, I think they’re both totally valid ships in their own ways and I can understand their appeal. But in the 10+ years I’ve spent shipping Jancy (omg), I’ve spent a LOT of time analyzing the other two relationships to identify the things that do and don’t work in my personal opinion, and I felt that going over the latter is helpful in highlighting some of the reasons I love Joe x Nancy as much as I do. I’d like to present this as an open, honest discussion, so hopefully I can share my views & opinions without coming off as rude, haha. I’ve taken steps to make sure I’m remaining as self-aware as possible while still stating my thoughts exactly as they are.

Also know that I’m basing this mainly on the games and similar interpretations of these characters, not so much on the OG book series.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO… (under the cut bc of length lolol)

- Ned/Nancy, for me, is very sweet because of Ned’s dedication to being there for Nancy no matter what, but it also has that persistent dark cloud of Nancy going off all the time without telling him (which, although I love her to death and I understand why, is pretty crappy on her part). Ned is a precious boy who is “okay with it” and thinks it’s “worth it” to be with someone like Nancy, but… God. He’s SO SOFT and, as someone else who is Very Soft, I would be heartbroken if my s/o was never around, cancelling our plans at the last minute, etc. And we do actually hear this loneliness from Ned many times. He almost always comes around with these supportive, encouraging speeches which is one of the biggest points in Nedcy’s favor, but on a larger scale there’s sooo much he could be getting out of his relationship that he’s just… not. He’s a simple hometown boy who just wants to give all his love to the lucky girl and live a nice life with her - he doesn’t have the same thirst for adventure that Nancy has. He’s totally a romantic who doesn’t.. really.. get to be that way with her? Not often, at least. A good guy like Ned deserves someone he can truly be with, rather than wondering if or when she’s ever going to be home - even for the important stuff (like birthdays and anniversary dinners). I mean if homeboy is really content to put up with her being gone all the time then good for him. I still just feel like, if he did some serious soul searching and prioritized what he truly wants in life, he could be happier. 😭

- Frank/Nancy doesn’t struggle with the lifestyle differences of Nedcy, which is a point in their favor, but I’ve always personally seen Francy as being a bit stagnant due to their similarities & differences. They’re both logical, studious, hard-headed individuals - yet Nancy has this inherent inclination to break the rules, which is a quality Frank doesn’t generally possess (unless it’s absolutely necessary). Nancy is stubborn about the daring methods she often uses to solve cases, and Frank is stubborn about wanting to go by the book first & pursue everything with caution. This leads to an ongoing dialogue that VERY closely mirrors the dynamic that already exists between Frank & Joe, so for me it’s a little less interesting of a pairing (just my opinion, of course). It’s true that Nancy & Frank’s matched intellect is pretty much unrivaled, but I don’t think they have much to offer each other in the way of everyday development and growth. Their mindsets are already so similar, there isn’t much new for them to learn or gain from being together. Lots of intellectual stimulation, certainly (which would be GREAT for them), but otherwise they mostly just reinforce the qualities in each other that they share. Obviously Frank & Joe make a great team and so do Frank & Nancy, there’s NO disputing that, but a romantic relationship takes so much more than just working well together. That’s a big part of it, for sure, but there’s so much more. Take a look at my next paragraph and compare these two dynamics to see what I mean.

- Joe/Nancy is the middle ground between the two. They share similar life goals, so there’s no off-and-on issue of “when are you coming home?😢”, yet mentally they’re very different. They’re both extremely smart, but in completely different ways. They can challenge each other in everyday life, which helps them stay on their toes and become better people. Nancy is the head, Joe is the heart; they can effortlessly achieve that emotional balance with no major obstacles standing in their way. Plus, the qualities they DO have in common are stimulating and beneficial to their relationship; both Nancy & Joe have more of an unbridled, adventurous spirit than Frank does (though perhaps this is more noticeable in Joe). They’re both eager to take risks and do what others are afraid to do. Yet Nancy is logical/grounded enough to keep Joe in check, and Joe is able to feed that inner desire of hers to be bold & fearless - not only that, he can usually be seen in the background emphatically cheering her on because that’s a quality he has IMMENSE respect for. He doesn’t love her in spite of this dangerous habit, it’s part of why he has soooo much admiration for her in the first place. Joe makes no secret of the fact that he absolutely loves this about her, even in canon. He has no doubt that she can handle herself, so Nancy has the freedom to make her own choices without the initial resistance she usually receives from Ned or Frank. Of course Joe cares, and he does remind her to be careful, but he does so in a way that doesn’t feel like he’s wrestling with this lowkey desire to hold her back. Despite how much Joe wants her to stay safe, he doesn’t feel the need to worry himself sick over her because he trusts her entirely, and besides, “that’s who she is. That’s what makes her so freakin’ AWESOME” (- Joe Hardy, probably). Please see this link for the rest of my thoughts on this. And, as I also stated in the linked post, something that’s often overlooked is that Nancy & Joe both actually have the dorkiest sense of humor so they can easily make each other grin over stupid jokes and puns and I am so very here for that. Not to mention Jancy’s shared enthusiasm for mysteries; Frank enjoys it for the intellectual rush, but Joe enjoys it for the adrenaline rush. Nancy is both. I love those phone convos where Nancy tells them she’s still on the case and Frank is like “aw man, I know you can do it Nancy, just keep at it” and Joe’s like “HECK YEAH YOU HAVE MORE MYSTERY TO SOLVE! GO GET EM, NANCE!!!” bc Nancy honestly loooves working a case. I just find it so wholesome.

And… perhaps this is another personal opinion, but stop for a second and think about the subversive nature of a well-written Joe x Nancy narrative. Got it? Yeeeah, I’m all about that. 😉

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. I love Joe Hardy and Nancy Drew with my whole heart

[shinneth]

subject to future deletion

Normally I wouldn’t resort to that and I might end up being too lazy to do it anyway, but between getting sick again, dealing with some very intense verbal abuse every day irl, and the monthly burdens of the gender, I’m really not in a good place right now and I need to vent something. 

It’s officially gotten bad enough to interfere with my ability to write, even though I’m at a point in my current story that I’ve been very eager to reach... and every step of the way I’m struggling to write it and I hate what I currently have and it’s taking everything in my current power to not just scrap it entirely. 

Basically, I think I’m failing as a writer.

The irl stuff is actually not what I’m gonna get into because it’s really nothing new and it’ll probably resolve itself, but the side-effect of suffering that kind of negativity is that it enhances lingering negative feelings you’ve had about other things.

Namely, things you do to get away from the pains of the real world. The things you do to have fun and get some enjoyment out of life, no matter how challenging it is to be in this thing because it’s so wrongfully derided and demonized by the majority of your peers.

I try to keep telling myself it’s just because I’m still relatively very new to the fandom compared to my contemporaries, but as I’m typing this right now and listening to my favorite wrestler Shelton Benjamin in an interview, immediately I see the pit I’m starting to fall into. 

Like, it’s uncanny. This is what he said as I started on the above paragraph:

“If I sit and constantly compare myself to other people’s successes, you would drive yourself crazy. Because no matter what, there’s always someone who’s gonna be more successful.”

“I need to remember where I come from; how far I’ve came.”

Basically, in the very small world of Stevidot (and to a lesser extent, SU’s fandom as a whole), despite my efforts, I feel very much like the Shelton Benjamin in a small, dedicated group of talented Stevidot content creators.

Which is to say, I’m basically a midcarder in the mix with a bunch of top-tier legends. Shelton graduated from the same group as some modern very well-known mainstream stars that I can easily associate with a very well-known and accomplished Stevidot contributor.

Shelton graduated with the likes of John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Dave Batista, and Randy Orton. At least half of those names should be at least vaguely familiar for my followers as most of them have had such great success that they’re known in avenues beyond wrestling (save for Randy Orton, but he’s well past outshined his father as a legendary wrestler who’ll never be forgotten). 

I could easily say Watcher is the John Cena of Stevidot, while Platon’s probably the Brock Lesnar... sinderella0069′s the Batista. But I honestly don’t feel like I’ve done enough (or stood out enough) to even be a Randy Orton for this pairing. I’d at least give that honor to Ig just for being so active with it on Tumblr despite the wave of hatred thrown her way (even though she’s shifted focus onto Stevinel now). 

Again, I keep trying to tell myself that it’s because I’m not even remotely as tenured in the fandom as any of them are. 

Then I see this said in a review on a very recently-made Stevidot story...

And said reviewer has not once ever left a review on any Stevidot story of mine. Not even a follow or a favorite or a goddamned kudos. Considering I currently have an actively-updated Stevidot story going on (and a two-shot that I just did last month), I highly doubt my stuff was just overlooked.

Now, is it true that Stevidot is hard to come by? Of course it is. But this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a fellow Stevidot fan lament about the lack of Stevidot content while completely disregarding anything I contribute.

I know there’s one that outright doesn’t like my content based on personal taste (nothing to do with Stevidot itself, just how I execute it). There’s another big-name who shows no interest whatsoever in reading what I have to offer - and at this point I feel that’s for the best, because I have a feeling they’d hate my execution as well. 

While I’ve always primarily written for myself, I also felt a great fulfillment for providing content for a niche crowd that really deserves more than what they have. I think Stevidot’s a fantastic pairing with tons of unexplored potential and should be much more readily available than it actually is. Even if I tend to not get many reviews, I keep track of the site traffic every day on my stories and I know for sure that there are people reading my stuff. Since I’m really bad at leaving reviews myself, I go out of my way not to whine about not having very many overall for my series since I’d be a huge-ass hypocrite to do so. 

However.

Statements like the the aforementioned review and statements I’ve seen elsewhere by those who I know are at least aware of me are like stakes through the heart.

Because it can only mean one thing: my content doesn’t count.

I’m honestly not sure which is worse for me; being critically panned for the stuff I’ve put my all into over the past year, or being treated like my stuff doesn’t even exist. 

I prided myself on contributing as much as I did for Stevidot over this past year. Quantity doesn’t = automatic quality, but I’ve got 20+ years of writing experience in, so even someone with a shit self-esteem like myself can’t just say I’m an objectively bad writer, because I’m not. 

But apparently it doesn’t matter that I put in over half a million worlds in the name of Stevidot to a good chunk of the very tiny Stevidot fanbase; according to them, my contributions are irrelevant.

Is it my fault?

One thing I will admit is a detriment to my particular brand of Stevidot is that, save for one story (which happens to be by far my most successful Stevidot story in terms of recognition numbers), the rest of my series follows a continuous narrative that greatly deviates from canon as of Change Your Mind. I’m also notoriously a very verbose kind of writer - I have the tl;dr curse something fierce. 

So all stories I’ve written since my main 3-act series (which ended up being nearly 200k in length on its own) have been direct sequels to that. Because of the heavy deviation from CYM, the environment of the following stories is very different and easy to get lost in if you skipped GA entirely. 

Because there are so many dangling threads and new opportunities to be had after GA ended, I basically committed myself to my AU.

It’s not like anyone else is going to explore these possibilities.

Beyond that, honestly, I just don’t want to rewire my brain back to the canon status quo - not after the shitloads of character development I’ve not only given Steven and Peridot, but nearly everyone at this point has had a moment or two of really intense character growth. 

I like having Peridot co-star with Steven. I like having her become a more competent and active teammate than she’s portrayed in canon (while still giving her comic relief moments). I like that I didn’t redeem the Diamonds and instead had them killed off to force our protagonists to deal with the fallout of the collapse of a mighty empire on a much grander scale than what’s going on in the actual show.

In a way, this AU of mine has helped me cope with the shortcomings of the show itself. I already went on a stupid tirade once about how the sadistic nature of my writing has basically made me no-sell whatever trauma Rebecca Sugar’s throwing on Steven and upsetting everyone else. I’m still fairly certain I’m still outdoing her in that department. 

And because 100% of my passion for creating Stevidot is through this narrative I weaved, I have no desire to leave it. 

So I’ll admit my stories aren’t exactly the most accessible to the average reader who hasn’t been following my work since Day 1. 

Then again... I first got into Sinderella’s series completely ass-backwards at first. I eventually read it in the proper order, and like many of the great Stevidot epics, it’s canon divergent from a much earlier point in the series, so it was very easy to get confused about why certain things happened differently at first... but ultimately, I wasn’t that bothered by it because I just wanted some good Stevidot. I’d figure out the finer details later. 

I really do owe this author more props than I’ve actually given - she’s one out of two readers I know for a fact have been following my series since the beginning without missing a beat. I’ll probably review her newest story sooner or later now that it’s complete. 

Not gonna lie, though... when I saw our numbers side-by-side like this:

Considering they’re very similar stories (Stevidot smuts that were originally meant to be one-shots), mine is over a month old and hers is only a few days old and there’s already that big of a gap in our numbers? 

It’s hard not to feel like a failure; like I did something horribly wrong to suck this bad by comparison. 

I really should stress that I bear no ill will against Sinderella or any Stevidot author; this isn’t a competition, so this isn’t a matter of popularity. I knew coming into this that I wouldn’t get popular overnight; especially not with such an unpopular ship being the focus of my story. 

But when other Stevidot stories get frequent reviewers that I’ve never seen once acknowledge my stories even passively, I can’t help but feel like I’ve massively fucked up somewhere. That despite all my efforts, I might as well be invisible. When they say “Oh, good thing your story is here! It’s been such a Stevidot drought around here until you came along!” to other authors after I’ve written half a million fucking words in under a year for this ship...

You know, is it unreasonable to feel that I utterly fucking failed in several ways? 

I guess it’s no wonder why I’m struggling to keep writing. I still want to - like I said, I’m at a part I’ve been eager to write for a while now - but ever since I started it, I’ve just hated almost all of what I have so far (almost 8k words). And I’m really having trouble trying to salvage it.

I’m honestly not the type who’d scrap all my progress and start from scratch once I’ve gotten this far in. But maybe I’ll have to make an exception this time, because I think I finally made the mistake of trying to write while being mentally and emotionally distraught.

I thought I’d calm down once I wrote all this out, but honestly, I’m not really feeling it. Now I’m wondering if I should have just reached out to someone instead of making this, because now I’ll come off as a whiner with my pansy-ass first-world problems. 

But then again, I’d be an asshole to subject anyone to my idiotic woes. 

Maybe this’ll pass. I’m hoping it’ll pass. I really, really really really don’t want to lose my drive to write again. I was used to it coming and going in short and random spurts for almost all my life - then it finally came to me and stayed with me just a little under a year ago, and I’ve been desperate not to let it go because I’ve been more productive now than I’ve ever been in my 20+ tenure as a writer. 

I don’t want this to go away. There’s still so much more I want to tell. 

But then my logic goes... if you tell the story and no one’s there to hear it, is it ever really told?

[loquaciousquark]

hey! love your writing and hearing about your process. you have mentioned that you need to write out a full fic first, rather than writing and posting chapter by chapter. what is your process for editing those longfics? i finished the first draft of my first longfic and the idea of editing it seems incredibly overwhelming. do you have any recommendations?

thank you kindly, anon! this is a difficult question to answer because I have no actual writing...training, I guess, is the word? I was a biomedical sciences major and I have never taken a creative writing class in my life, so I haven’t the foggiest idea if what I do breaks every Prime Tenet of Proper Writing ever, so take everything here with a grain of salt.

Because the thing is: I hate editing. HATE it, loathe it with every atom and sinew of my body. It is by far my least favorite part of the writing process, and because of that I go to great lengths to avoid it as much as humanly possible.

I’ve talked before about how I outline, I think, but basically, I outline all my long pieces heavily to get as much right on the first pass as I can so that I can not have to do major edits. Drafts, likewise, don’t really exist for me; 95% of what I write on the first pass gets published in that form with only minor changes. I strongly suspect this is an artifact of me being an architect rather than a gardener in my writing; I can’t remember the last time I scrapped a whole scene (or even a major part of a scene) because of how heavily I outline first and how strict I am with myself in sticking to that outline. Probably the vampire AU, honestly, because of Jade--but more on that later.

Here’s an example of what some of my outlining looks like:

Like, sometimes I’ll do proper numerals and such, but more often than not it’s just paragraph descriptions of the major things that should happen in each chapter, and if there’s some phrase or idea that I really want to use, I’ll just jot down a few specific phrases right there in the document.

This does a few things for me, but the biggest is that it gives me a solid bird’s-eye view of the thing I’m trying to write. If I don’t know them already, what are the themes I want to emphasize? What are the plot threads that run throughout? If I have “introduce Gilchrist the evil baker” in chapter one, this helps give me the reminders to make sure Gilchrist has appropriate follow-through in each subsequent chapter and isn’t completely forgotten by the side-plot I accidentally  brought up in chapter three and loved way more than Gilchrist’s unleavened muffins.

And this is not to say that I build the entire lattice out of iron from the start so that there’s no room to grow. Even in this fic I’ve just finished, I was telling @eponymous-rose as I was working on the epilogue (which I hadn’t intended to have) that I wasn’t sure what it was going to be about, but that I could feel it was needed; and it wasn’t until I was writing the epilogue’s last few lines that I realized both why it was important regarding the overall themes of the fic as well as regarding the characters’ individual narratives, even though I hadn’t planned for it in the outline.

This process is also why I tend to write the whole fic before ever posting a single word. If I realize in chapter nine that I completely forgot Gilchrist the baker existed until I made an inadvertent reference to a crooked croissant, there’s not a darned thing I can do about it if chapters one through eight are already posted. And because I also have major personal hangups about making public mistakes, I would much prefer to write in private, fix my boo-boos before anyone else sees them, and THEN post, rather than getting a half-dozen comments wondering if this was all a secret patisserie plot all along.

The other thing I’ll add here is how important my betas are to me and how I write. I am by nature an incredibly impatient person--I’m the one shopping at 8:30pm at Hobby Lobby and then working on a spraypaint project in the backyard at midnight by phone flashlight because I refuse to wait until the next day--so this has always been a little hard for me. However, being able to give the whole fic at once to a beta and say here, this is it, and letting them read the whole thing at once--this is so invaluable to me in picking out things I’ve forgotten, scenes that didn’t translate well from my head to my page, or plot points that might be weaker than I first thought and need shoring in multiple places throughout the plot.

@jadesabre301 has been my beta for...years. Middle school? Twenty years, maybe? And by now we know enough of each other’s writing to know where the pitfalls are, how each person needs to be checked. I tend to forget side characters exist when I have a huge cast; Jade is always there to remind me they exist and to bring them back in (see Sebastian’s chapter in Ever Rise for a perfect example; that chapter didn’t exist before she told me to let him be alive again). I tend to overuse certain phrases and metaphors, and I’ll sometimes have characters repeat the same action several times in a scene without realizing (see Invicta, where I had three separate people cross their arms in less than 500 words before she called me on it).

Jade also has a marvelous ability to look at a work’s overall structure and point out which sections are strong and which sections are weak and need a little tweaking before they’re published. (Again, because I hate editing, the bones are usually sound enough that I can make these changes with only a few paragraphs or sentences here and there; and when Jade tells me to cut some line altogether I rarely save it, because if it didn’t make her cut here I know it’s not worth the saving anywhere.)

Example!

And because she also knows me very well, she is also very kind to point out the things she likes throughout her edits, which is just as invaluable a skill in an editor and I hope she realizes how important it has been to me over the years.

And because this is quickly getting much longer than I’d ever intended, I will close with the last thing that has helped me with my own editing when I’m (alas) forced to do it: I know what my problems are, if that makes sense. Not just the structural issues above, but repeating phrases and words to the point of distraction, hammering metaphors into the ground when a lighter touch would do them better service, and significantly overusing emdashes & semicolons. (Based on @eponymous-rose‘s beta/grammar check of this most recent fic, 43 of 350 or so emdashes died, and more will again when I get a chance to look over it once more.)

So when I’ve gone through it enough that I’m happy with the characterization and the plot threads and themes, as set out by the original outline I spent too much time on, then I go through and do one or two passes on word choice. To be quite honest, I do a Find search through the document for words I know I overused, then look at each usage and make sure they’re not too close to each other. Example--I did a search for “hard” on this last fic, and found I’d used it four times in the same paragraph. All in different ways--his eyes were hard, his grip hardened, he had a hard set to his shoulders, etc--but too much! So knowing the words (and issues in general) I tend towards and looking through to excise some of them specifically helps a lot in the editing I am willing to do.

SO!

To summarize: how do I edit my longfic? As little as possible!

heavy outlining prior to writing to make sure I have themes and plot threads properly established and mapped out throughout the piece

sticking closely to my outline throughout the writing process

sending only completed fics to beta so that they can read the whole thing at once and more easily pick out flaws in structure, theme, or character progression

ctrl-f words/phrases I know I most frequently overuse to cut the unnecessary ones (I’ll sometimes run the fic through something like this site to check phrase frequency for anything that might have slipped through)

and when all else fails, I set the whole thing aside for a week (again, I am impatient--longer would probably be better) and then come back and try to read it with fresh eyes

I hope this has at least been moderately helpful? Again, I’d like to emphasize that I have no idea what I’m doing, and this is hardly foolproof, but it’s worked for me so far, and hopefully at least a small part of it will be helpful to you. Thank you for asking!

[cami-chats]

In Your Camera Roll

Title: In Your Camera Roll

Link: AO3

Square Filled: Sending A Dick Pic

Ship: Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes

Rating: Explicit

Major Tags: None

Summary: “Bucky was innocently working at home when a wrong text makes his night much more enjoyable.”

Word Count: 1841

Created for @mcukinkbingo

Full text also below 

Bucky was editing his ass off when he got a text. He didn't recognize the number, but Steve had just gotten a new phone. Last Bucky had heard, he was setting it up while also trying to move Sam's things in.

Unknown Number: :photo:

Bucky rolled his eyes. It was probably a picture of Steve drinking from Sam's favorite mug or something equally stupid and sappy, so he swiped to open it without much thought.

And a dick showed up.

Bucky blinked.

Another text came in before he had a chance to even attempt to think of a response, mostly because his mind had stalled at the picture. He was horny more often than not, mostly because he hadn't had a boyfriend in years, and he'd stopped doing hookups when he got the prosthetic because people either said that he should warn people he had a piece of technology attached to him, or they had a fetish. Either way it wasn't fun, which meant that it had been a while since someone showed him their dick with intention. He didn't appreciate the fact that this was the first text this number had ever sent him, but even jerks had nice cocks sometimes, and lord did this man have a nice one. It was leaning against his stomach, flushed and absolutely mouth watering where it curved against olive skin.

;) Then, a minute later, Oh shit.

Wrong number

Fuck

I'm sorry

Please tell me you're not underage

Oh my god I'm so sorry

Bucky appreciated that, and now that he knew this was a case of wrong number and not completely unsolicited dick pics to a random number, it was pretty funny. He thought about just saying that it was fine, but, as previously mentioned, it had been so long since he'd gotten any that he was willing to take a little risk. He looked at the picture again, then shot off a text.

Nice dick man :tongue:

I don't have plans if you don't

He sent the texts before he could second guess himself, and figured that the worst case scenario was the guy turned out to be a homophobe and Bucky blocked his number.

Tell me you're not underage before I say anything else :suspicious face:

Lol if I'm underage then why did I have to make my own doctor's appointment

It was a valid question.

Now that that's over...

:smirking face: Tit for tat

Sorry to disappoint, but I don't have tits. It took a minute for Bucky to find, copy, and paste the shrug emoji. With a sigh, he set his phone to the side and went back to the open document on his computer, then made a face. He'd gone over this story so many times, he wasn't sure he'd know if he had the same paragraph to start all the chapters. His phone buzzed with another message, but he ignored it, staring at the too-bright screen and trying to will himself to get back to it.

He picked up his phone. All the better for sending me a pic of your cock. Come on fuel my imagination

Shouldn't you be texting the person you meant to send that to?

What makes you think I'm not?

I mean

I'm not.

Because he's a dick

Then why were you texting him??

Good phone sex voice. Pretty sure he's saving the pics I send him for blackmail purposes but eh wouldn't be the first time that happened.

You need to find a better bed partner

You offering?

Bucky hadn't really meant for it to sound like an offer, but hell he could go for that. It had been, god going on two years since he'd had sex, a little sexting was more action than he'd seen in a while. He was a little nervous about this-- the guy was a complete stranger after all-- but what was the harm? Worst case scenario was a random guy had a few naughty texts and maybe a dick pic or two for his own collection; it's not like he knew who Bucky was or even what he looked like.

Sure am sugar. Give me a lil something and I'll give you a pic of your own :winky face:

Does my first dick pic not count as something?

That was for someone else, I want something of my own

Hmm

You an ass man?

:drooling face: :peach: :peach: :peach: :heart eyes:

Lol

One min.

He probably didn't have too great of an ass, but just thinking about it was making Bucky harder. He pushed himself away from the desk, one hand clasped around his phone, the other adjusting himself through his pants. He shooed his cat-- Winter-- off his bed, and he took off in a huff for the kitchen, probably to knock pictures off the wall in protest. He threw his phone down on the newly vacated bed and started to shuck off his clothes. He paused when he got to his pants though, figuring that it was better to get a picture now, just in case that's the sort of thing this guy wanted.

He had to turn on the lights for it, and he really hoped this guy was worth it because now he was squinting uncomfortably after being in the dark for so long. He hooked a thumb in his underwear then stopped and switched hands so his prosthetic wasn't visible. He took a couple pictures and hoped one of them was decent; it's not like he had a lot of experience with this.

Just as he was about to set his phone down again, a text came through.

:photo:

Bucky choked on his tongue as all his blood rushed south. He took back every single doubtful thought he'd had about this man and the quality of his ass because good lord. He had to do squats every day or something, because no one got an ass like that from sitting at a desk all day. Not to mention those boxer briefs were practically painted on, a vibrant red that clung to perfect curves.

I'm saving that pic for later

Just fyi

God knows he'd be jerking off to that picture for the foreseeable future; it was only fair to tell the guy responsible for it.

Was that enough to inspire you? :winky face:

Bucky looked through the pictures he'd taken. They looked inadequate in comparison, but he chose the one where the head of his cock was peeking out the top of his underwear and his hand could be seen cupping his balls over the fabric.

Ooo :tongue: Do I get the rest if I ask nicely?

Nah :winking face: Bucky kicked his clothes off and took another picture, his hand wrapped around the base, and sent it. He opened the photo of that marvelous backside and moved his hand over his erection slowly. "Mm." His eyes fluttered closed and he relaxed into his mattress as he teased his length. That was an ass so good he wouldn't even need to be buried inside of it for it to be wonderful. Give him a handful (and an eyeful), and he'd be good to go.

He was jerked from his imagining of what it would look like without the fabric by his phone ringing. "I swear to god if this is Steve..." He answered with a short, "What," without even looking at the number. Which, in hindsight, wasn't a well thought out idea.

The person on the other end snorted. "Wow you that nice to everyone you send dick pics too?"

Bucky blew out a breath, relaxing again. "I didn't check to see who it was. Uh, why'd you call?"

"I get off a lot better with someone's voice in my ear than just a few pics on my phone. Probably should have asked first," he mused, and Bucky chuckled.

"Don't you hang up, it's now your responsibility to talk me to an orgasm."

"Out of curiosity, do you always answer the phone when you're jerking off?"

"You overestimate how often I get phone calls. What's your name honey?"

"Tony." A pause. "This is where you tell me yours."

Bucky laughed a little. "Bucky. So Tony, come here often?"

"I hate you," Tony said, voice unbearably fond. "Tell me what you're doing."

"Jerkin' off."

"You've never done phone sex before have you," Tony said, sounding amused.

Bucky huffed, taking his hand off his erection. "Can't say I have. Shouldn't you have asked if I was any good at it before ya tried?"

"I had faith. I still have faith."

"Keep dreamin'," Bucky snorted. "I never was any good at talkin'."

"Well that's fine babe cause I can talk enough for the both of us," Tony purred. "I'm laying on my bed right now. I've got lube next to me, but I haven't really touched myself yet. What do you say, you want me to finger myself?"

"Yeah," Bucky breathed. "God that's-" his throat clicked.

He heard a noise and assumed it was the lid of the blue getting taken off. "Tell me what you're doing."

"Tony, I told you I ain't--"

"Think about how I did it," he soothed. "Told you where I was, gave you an idea for how close I was. So tell me baby, where are you right now?"

Bucky licked his lips, trying not to feel embarrassed. "I'm in my room. Uh, on my bed, layin' down. Before you called I was thinking 'bout your ass and uh touching myself."

"You got any lube?"

"I didn't grab it," he admitted, blushing a little.

Tony huffed out a laugh. "I have to do all the work around here. Grab your lube sweetie, you're saving tomorrow-you some pain now. You can thank me later, in the form of electronic roses and assurances that I'm the best you've ever had."

Bucky got to his feet while Tony was talking, padding to his bathroom and grabbing the half empty bottle-- right next to the who-am-I-kidding unopened box of condoms-- before going back to his room.

*

It took embarrassingly little time for Bucky to come with Tony's voice in his ear, whispering dirty things between moans and gasps as he pleasured himself, but Tony was close behind him, so he didn't feel too bad about it.

When they were both done panting, Tony said, "Okay, I'd love to stay up and have a little pillow talk, but I do actually have to get up early tomorrow."

Bucky laughed breathlessly. "Alright. Have a goodnight Tony. When you jerk off tomorrow morning, I expect you ta think of me."

"Oh I will," Tony promised. "Night sweetheart."

"G'night."

In the morning, Bucky texted him every flower emoji he could find, followed by Definitely the best I've ever had. Wanna spice it up a little next time? I swear I'm better in person

He didn't know how his proposal would be taken, so he waited anxiously for a reply, trying not to stare at his phone.

Name a time and a place :peach: :eggplant: :splash:

[megatentious]

Megami Tensei where u at??

When you are down in the dumps about your favorite video game franchise and the future of a series that is special for you, sometimes you end up seeking it out in places that are … unexpected. I’m going to talk about how, over the last couple years, I ended up seeing three different flavors of Megami Tensei in three different games, and maybe by the end of this we can all end up feeling like it’s okay to move on with our lives. Just keep telling yourself that your favorite games are not your identity and it’s not that serious bruh but also tell yourself that it is therapeutic to collect many paragraphs of thoughts you have had about this to write at length about in your blog.

First up is a game that many many people have noticed is very Megaten and that is the Digimon RPG, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. There was no reason at all for this to be as good of a game as it is. I have no special affinity for the cartoon show. I do not like the Devil Survivor character designer even a little bit. I do not find grinding and monster collecting for the sake of monster collecting entertaining. But from the very first trailer something seemed compelling, and as good word of mouth spread I decided this was going to be a game I needed to play.

Again, everyone has already commented on how Megaten this game feels, and for me the closest specific analogue is actually Raidou Kuzunoha. From the first extended trailer I noticed the jazzy main theme, the detective agency conceit, the visible partner monsters appearing in a Tokyo with bold camera angle choices, and felt a weird familiarity. Digimon also function very plainly as Megami Tensei demons in multiple ways, not only mechanically but also through their story roles. And the somewhat arcane stat manipulation needed for high-end Digivolving scratches the exact same itch as high-end Megaten fusion from previous SMT iterations, which is both a dangerous (100 hours of playtime good lord) and wonderful (100 hours of playtime good lord!) itch to scratch.

You need to put up with some annoying characters and prattling dialogue, but unlike other games there is no pretense here which absolutely helps. Also, re-interpreting traditional Japanese folklore through the lens of the Digimon world is something that never stopped being fascinating for me even amidst a sub-par localization, and as someone with low familiarity with the cartoon, the Digimon designs themselves were alternately hilariously bizarre, bafflingly stupid, and straight up awesome. They even have their own Lucifer! 

By the time you get to the second half of the story where the game completely changes and becomes about alliances and faction-building and what happens to a city facing apocalypse, when you take in the incredible atmosphere in Odaiba all buoyed by a soundtrack that has no right to be as good as it is, you start to feel optimistic about how Megaten influence can live on even outside of the series itself.

Next up is an entry from another series that is occasionally compared to SMT, but this one in particular feels like it was only played by two or three people at all when it was miraculously released earlier in 2019 for the Nintendo 3DS. I’m talking about Yokai Watch 3. Arriving close to three years after its initial Japanese release to utterly resounding indifference, this game’s hook is that you get to play in “America,” but as you can tell from the quotes around America this is actually much more complicated than it seems in a way that specifically draws comparison to my beloved Revelations: Persona. You see, the very Japanese Yokai Watch series city location of Sakura New Town, Japon, was localized here for us as Springdale, Springdale back in the first game. This decision has led to many wonderful incongruities moving forward that are honestly identical to those in the Lunarvale of Revelations: Persona. Gotta love these small American towns with Shinto temples in em!

With Yokai Watch 3’s plot focusing on the family moving to actual America though, and the cross-cultural hijinks that are meant to ensue, things quickly get even weirder and more strained. Protagonist Nate Adams complains about the difficulty of understanding southern accents while slurping down sukiyaki. Shopkeepers with tempura-based hairstyles serve traditional Japanese dishes in the quaint American township of St. Peanutsburg. Huge timezone differences between America and “America” are introduced. And all of this is refracted through the even more convoluted localization prism of this game about two versions of America being scripted by the British, leading to children aspiring to be “basketballers” and restaurants having “oriental” atmosphere.

I’m barely scratching the surface of the dissertation-worthy unpacking needed for all of this, and it’s difficult to describe just how deeply weird the vibe can get in this game. In just the first twenty minutes of Yokai Watch 3, you have 1) a purely nutso anime opening featuring scary demonic folklore-based yokai, robots, and cat mascots 2) Mulder and Scully very seriously discussing mysterious “Y Files” 3) a rhythm game where your very American family devours an enormous amount of sukiyaki 4) the same very American (or in the game’s terms, “Springdalian”) family leaving their home to move to the state? country? of “BBQ” and 5) suddenly you are an otaku girl going to a figure shop in “Sparkopolis.” This is just as delirious as it sounds.

Revelations Persona’s uncanny America atmosphere may be one of a kind, but Yokai Watch 3’s frequently insane scenarios can sometimes recall a similar sort of lunacy that leads you to end up fighting a giant mechanical rat while a song with the track name “Child Abuse” plays, or chatting up a populace of mole-covered rainbow afro’d citizens in a locked down mall. At one point after returning from one of Yokai Watch 3’s various alternate dream worlds (very Persona!) my game was even afflicted with a commonly reported glitch that caused the environmental textures to not load, leading to a flat polygon world and some authentic PSX Lunarvale vibes. Throw in all the folktales and mythology involved in the yokai themselves and straight up demon fusion in a cathedral and suddenly you’ll end up experiencing more Megaten than you’d ever expect to see in an RPG targeted to young children.

Last up is an all-time classic that actually predates Shin Megami Tensei entirely, making it temporally impossible for any influence to show up, which muddles the entire concept of this essay but please roll with it you guys this is just how I feel. I’m talking about the seminal Phantasy Star, for the Master System, which I played through M2’s loving, impeccable SEGA AGES port on Switch. This game, which was released in 1987, is simply incredible. Right off the bat you’ve got genius-level programming from Yu Suzuki himself, which allowed for the first person dungeons to scroll so smoothly that posting a snippet of directly captured footage from the game can still lead to semi-viral tweets. It’s these extremely cool boldly colored first person dungeons, along with the expansive feeling of the several worlds you visit that led me to feel some of the spirit of Megami Tensei 2 specifically in this game.

“oops i accidentally phantasy starred for four hours” is how I put it playing through this game for the first time, and it’s a given that a non-fantasy setting RPG where you can talk to the monsters would be appealing to me. Phantasy Star as a series was in fact deliberately conceptualized as a rebellion against the many fantasy RPGs of the time, and the developers have talked about this in a way that is practically identical to early staff interviews about the goals for Megami Tensei. Director and gaming luminary Rieko Kodama has remarked that the choice of a female protagonist was also considered rebellious, even though it felt like a natural choice for her on a personal level.

Megami Tensei 2 is the game that builds the structure for Shin Megami Tensei as we know it today, moving away from Megami Tensei 1’s single full-game dungeon format to a world map with numerous discrete dungeons and eventually, paths to alternate worlds. Phantasy Star shares this exact design format, which still feels so expansive and impressive to this day. It’s a treat to get to experience a game like this over 30 years after its release on current hardware and still feel such an impact, and all of you need to go out and buy buy buy this game, seriously give M2 your money.

I’ve taken it as a given that everyone shares my perspective on where Shin Megami Tensei is at these days as a series, and it’s obviously never a good look to come across as an over-dramatic scolding bitter old who has retreated into pure irrelevance. But by documenting all of these observations down for myself, I can at least feel better about finding bits and pieces of various Megaten strains in the games of today. The lesson learned is that even if you feel your favorite franchise has lost its way, you may be able to find parts of it in the places you least expect.

[hearts-hunger]

tag game!

i was tagged by the always lovely @softboyhardy 💕 thanks doll!

Rules: Answer the questions. Your answer can be one word or a whole paragraph; the goal is just to have fun!

Favorite Month: november

Favorite Number: for some reason i’m thinking 32 but i really couldn’t tell you why except that it’s somehow aesthetically pleasing to me

Favorite Color: navy blue, yellow, soft pink

Nickname: maddie is technically a nickname, and my meme calls me “maddie may” which i’ve always really loved

A description of your current outfit: red t-shirt with the coca-cola logo on it, black yoga pants, blue sneakers

What does your hairstyle look like: currently? i was too lazy to do anything with it so it’s in a messy bun, which it usually is. it’s a little longer than shoulder-length, strawberry blonde, and wavy. i’ve had fake curly hair for years thanks to the wonders of modern hairstyling, and i’ll probably get it permed again this summer because it’s starting to grow out. 

Do you wear glasses or contacts: glasses! have done since kindergarten. 

Dream Job: curator of the national museum of the pacific war in fredericksburg texas, or a historical consultant for the history channel or hbo for their miniseries and shows

Lock Screen & Home Screen Description: my home and lock screen are the same, and it’s a picture of some really pretty pink and red dahlias

Favorite photo currently:

at this moment it’s this one:

and i may or may not be writing a fic based on it just so i can vicariously put myself on that couch between them

Favorite song currently: “sail away sweet sister” or “brighton rock”

Number one music artist: oh queen absolutely without a doubt

Do you prefer to lay in bed and do work or to sit at a desk: i like to be out of my dorm to do work because i can’t really focus on work at home, so i like to go to the coffee shop on campus or something like that

Left or Right: fun fact, i don’t know my left from my right off the top of my head, so i have a love-hate relationship with directions and i get teased when i say out loud “you write with your right” to remind myself. so even though i’m sure right is a very nice direction, i’m gonna have to go with left because as yet nobody’s made fun of me for having a little phrase to remember it.

Winter or Summer: winter!

Spring or Fall: fall is the love of my life, no season even comes close

i’m tagging @tv-saved-the-teenage-girl, @drummerrogert, @deaksandgeeks, and @blueyeswhitedragon16 if you want to!!

[alexandergarciahitegd-blog]

First Journal for Web Design Spring 2019

1/18/2019

My History with Web-Design:

The first time I ever considered web design was last semester during the intro to design class where we were told to design one. It was horrible, I had no idea how to even approach it and ended up just throwing pixels at a screen until I technically put in enough work to justify turning the project in. I never even thought about websites before then as I always saw them as inconvenient mediums to whatever content I wanted. This reminded me of when I first started in graphic design and literally couldn’t tell the difference between Futura and Baskerville by just looking at them because of how new this field of design was to me. The panic of the oncoming slaughter that would be known as class 576 pushed me to research as much as I could into the field, especially in how to physically make the websites with code. I focused on code in part because of my experience in Adobe programs. Before I can make an illustration in Illustrator, I need to know the mechanics of the program so that I can work at the speed of thought without being stumped. I saw learning how to code as just the web design version of that, though to a certain point I think I was confusing being able to do whatever I want in the browser with being able to design things that are worth making.

I’m coming into this semester very excited for learning how to design for the web.

The First Project Process:

The assignment was to make a website focused on three things that were our favorites in a category of our choice. I may have misunderstood the prompt a little as I thought we were supposed to make a site to house three article listing three of our favorite things in three different categories, rather than one website acting like the article itself listing the three favorites in only one category that the website is entirely dedicated to.  I started in my sketchbook before touching the computer just to get some ideas out before I jumped into the computer with no direction and find myself a deer in the Adobe RGB headlights.

Making the initial wireframe in Photoshop was not an issue, save for some elements that found themselves on the same layers as each other which made editing later difficult because moving objects in Photoshop is difficult when they’re sharing layers. I wrote the colophon in my notes as analog paragraph styles instead of trying to work with whatever nightmare Photoshop’s version of styles must be like. I eventually started doing the text in Photoshop to save me the trouble of having to replace everything from InDesign everytime I wanted to change anything, as per Michael Jared’s recommendation. 

 The problems I started having in Photoshop was when I started working with photos. Usually, I love using PS for photo editing and photo-comps but using it as a layout software is frustrating as each resizing requires manual rearrangement of everything on the page. Making things more difficult was the problem of multiple objects being on the same layer coming back, as they had different rules for how they need to move I needed to constantly code switch between the free objects and the layered ones.

After there were a few basic sketches done using shapes and a system of values to denote the difference between images, texts, and sections, I started populating the file with content, slowly phasing out the shapes. I’m embarrassed to say that the design decisions I made were solely based on the intuition that I don’t have. I decided on a landing page design of a bleed image with some big text over it because that’s what I see on all the web design Instagrams, which is pretty much the only place that I get around to seeing any web design examples for my still shallow internal visual library. The placement of the text and images in a strict and boring grid was based on instinct and my incompetence with working in Photoshop for this purpose completely stunted my ability to explore any other options.

The minimalism in my designs come from my instinct to remove anything unnecessary out of a fear that the alternative is just a mess of content and design elements that I wouldn’t know how to make work. I’m retreating into minimalism because I’m often at a loss for ideas, inspiration, and confidence. I think this has worked out for me a lot in the past as I understand the way to make low detailed content work is to make sure there’s more attention given to each piece of that content, but at the same time I don’t want it to be something I have to do, but rather something I want to do. There is also the issue that I often find my work to be very boring and derivative. The landing page above just reminds me of YouTube, the website that I’m on the most. During the wireframe portion of this design, I was feeling very confident in it and I loved the way it looked. That is until I realized how simple it was and reflected on how little exploration I really did. I fluctuate drastically between feeling overly arrogant and wondering how I could ever survive in this program, something that I expect a lot of designers could relate to.

The image above is of the splash page for the website.

The image above is the article featuring my favorite music genres. The part of the project I’m still mostly proud of was my work with data-bending. I love the process of designing procedural rules for how art should be created rather than creating the final product itself. I put images into Audition and edited them using soundwaves similar to the genres I was showcasing as my favorite to demonstrate how they look in the context of the image I used here with basic shapes and colors. What I wanted was to mix specific songs with the image to produce a more specific result. When I figured out how to do that the final product did not look very good because of hardware compromises I had to make. When I tried to use the image at the highest quality it was 1 hour and 45 minutes long, which meant the song had to be just short of that in length to be mixed properly. I still don’t know if this would work in producing something aesthetically pleasing, you never do until you see the result, but I would like to have experimented with that if my computer had enough RAM for the operation. It’s normal for only 1 in 10 images mixed with sound to look any good at all in my experience, which means experimenting many times in a short time frame is critical to using the medium effectively. 

On Code:

I’ve been reflecting on my resistance to learning a bunch of new programs for future projects. I think a part of it is that I struggle to learn new programs through experimentation, but rather extensive tutorials that walk me through the sensory overload of icons, options, and settings. Before the semester I put so much time into making code the thing that I learned that I was a little disheartened to learn I would have to do the same for a bunch of other programs, but I think it will be fine. When I decided to learn code I promised myself I would never limit my design to what I could do with code, but rather learn how to do it later, and as long as I approach these programs with the same philosophy, then while it might be frustrating and time-consuming to learn how to do what I want, it should be more than doable since they are designed for web design, unlike Photoshop. Apparently, engineers think Photoshop is designed for this kind of work, they’re wrong and that’s why I’m not an engineer, that and I’m bad at math.

One of the things I did in preparation for this class was learn how to code. I started to do this because the idea of using illustrator and XD to make images of the idea of a website rather than actually making the website frustrated me and sounded like it was adding extra unnecessary steps. I was approaching code the same way that I approached any adobe program, it was just something I learned the mechanics of so that I didn’t have to learn while I designed or limit my designs to what I knew how to code. This is the same as in illustrator or Photoshop where I need to sketch out a design and hope that it’s possible to learn how to do in the program. The key with code, that I didn’t realize before I started learning it, is that there are almost no limitations or hoops to jump through. If I want to do something with the website, I just type it and it happens, and if that something is complicated then instead of spending an hour on google looking for a setting that lets me do in like is Illustrator, I just break it down into smaller steps and do it. It makes me feel like I’m no longer being limited by the technology when I code because it’s so clear what I can and can’t do.

It’s not that I think my first project would have been leaps and bounds better without Photoshop, I don’t mean to blame Photoshop for my shortcomings with the design, but there were some things that I simply couldn’t do because I couldn’t figure out how the makers of Photoshop wanted me to do it, such as changing the colors of shapes, and Google was no help on this issue. The other reason that coding has felt natural to me is how intuitive it is to start with nothing and build out. In the Creative Cloud, I am given every tool to use right when I open the program, and it’s information overload. I often have nowhere to start and in worst cases, I get genuinely claustrophobic because I don’t know what I’m looking at until I spend at least 10 or so hours being walked through the interface by tutorials. Coding is the exact opposite workflow. Instead of starting with everything and adding rules, slowly making everything more organized and follow those rules and hoping you don’t miss anything, coding starts organized and with every rule and restriction you could ever have because of the defaults, and I work at my own pace to slowly usurp those defaults and write my own rules for how the website should be. It forces me to set the foundations for the design and work out, rather than forcing every idea I have into one document like I tended to get myself in trouble doing in the past. It also forces me to keep the design structured. When it’s in code I feel like there’s a backbone to the site, and I’m building the body on top of it, as opposed to InDesign which feels like I’m just throwing pixels at a screen blindly and hoping that it works. My brain just responds better to the amount of control you get with coding things, which is not something I expected when I first started learning it.

The disadvantage of code is a significant one. The organization and the foundational nature of it does not lend itself well to exploration. If I want to change something fundamental about the design, then I would have to do a significant amount of reworking, whereas with Photoshop I was able to change the core design ad hoc until I liked it. I had very little issue doing my initial sketch, or wireframe, in Photoshop, and I think it’s necessary to start with sketching in a notebook and then moving to a sketching application. So, in an Ideal world I would do the sketching and wire-framing in my sketchbook and Illustrator, and then make the final version in code where I’m not limited to what Illustrator is okay with me doing. I am hoping that Adobe XD will provide the best of both worlds. Where I can change things on the fly without cutting and pasting a ton of text and hoping I didn’t make a mistake when doing so, which is what Illustrator provides and being functionally structured enough that I don’t get overwhelmed, which is the benefit of code. I intend to try coding my websites after making them in these prototyping programs to polish my skills in code and to boost my self-confidence, but I will not make it a priority until it’s time to make fully functional websites, at which point I’ll get Susan to teach me GitHub.

Wrap-Up:

As I said before, I fluctuate between being overly confident and feeling like there’s no way for me to survive in this program. When I was coming into this class I was in the overconfident stage, and after critique where I saw everyone else's work, I’m shifting into the other stage. Based on the work that I’m doing in this class and in Typography 2, I’m starting to feel concerned that I haven’t actually improved in the past 8 months or so, but instead just learned a couple of rules to make something look good despite not having a great concept behind it. Whenever I do something that I’m very proud of It’s usually an accident that I run with, which is an observation I’m not totally uncomfortable with. I know that I’ve improved at least some despite my doubts, and I’m proud of my ability to see the beauty in mistakes when I’m working that often leads to the final works that I end up being the proudest of.

 I had a lot of plans of doing a ton of self-directed projects this semester considering I have plenty of time for it, but after a couple weeks I’m deciding to cut those expectations of myself down in favor of focusing much more heavily on my classes and developing specific side skills that I’ve wanted for a long time, such as the ability to code and draw. I’m also making it my goal to become more proactive on social media and build a designer presence there to the best of my ability. With all that and finally getting the new computer I’ve wanted for so long this weekend, I think it’s been an acceptable start to this semester.

[fyrapartnersearch]

A Detailed, Literate's Writer Great Search

Hey everyone. I'm Fyralis, Fy for short. I’m on an impossible search and I'm so pleased that you’ve clicked on my ad. Let me tell you, finding a compatible RP partner is no easy business as I’m sure many of you know! I might be new to RPN, but I’ve been doing written roleplay for over seven years. I’ve scoured the internet in search of someone whose writing values and standards would align with mine, and perhaps that person is you. Please lord, let it be you so that I can stop looking.Anyway, I’ll try not to let this get too long-winded and cut straight to the point. In this ad, you’ll find everything you need to know about me and what I’m looking for. If you feel as though we’d be a good match, just email me!

That Little Bit About Me

- I’m 23 and based in central time. My life keeps me pretty busy, so my post frequency ranges from daily to a couple times a week. Just depends. I'll keep you updated, though.

- I am a detailed, literate writer. I don’t do one-liners or tiny posts. My post length is usually about 3-5 paragraphs long, depending on the setting, my partner, and what’s going on. However, I can write more fairly easily. I write any gender and any pairing. I’ve been playing a lot of males recently though and would really like a break from that. However, I’m a big fan of doubling/creating multiple characters. I'm sure we can incorporate what we both want.

- I'm communicative. I will not ghost you or leave you wondering where I went. If I'm not interested, we'll talk about it. I hope you'd do the same! I love being in communication with my partner via Discord or Google Chat, for things like updates/plotting.

- OOC! I enjoy getting to know my partners through OOC, but I leave that entirely up to the comfort of my partner. I've been friends with some and strictly writing partners with others.

- I love creating intricate, beautiful worlds and forming dynamic, multi-dimensional characters to go with them. Most of the time, that means diving into a lot of plotting. I can plot all day long, and it’s something that’s important to me. I’m not into flat, basic worlds or perfect characters who have no real personality. Give me a richly lush world of intrigue or despair, give me characters with motives, flaws, and history. If we write together, I’m committed to creating written life with you. I want to do that beautifully.

What I’m Looking For

So, now you know how I am as a writer. If you’re still interested, this is what I’m looking for in you. I know this list might seem exhaustive, but it's only fair to you that you know exactly what I'm searching for. I'm picky, but I won't waste your time or lead you on.

- 20+. I’m 23, and I know that a lot of RPers will even do 18+, but I really can’t. I know, I know. But this is a firm rule. I like to explore mature themes, and I’m only comfortable doing that with those over the age of 20.

- Detailed. I’m looking for someone who is not interested in one liners or tiny posts. Ideally, you are just as passionate as I am about creating lovely worlds and characters.

- Literate. Please, please have a strong handle on English and grammar. I get that everyone makes typos but there's a limit.

- Comfortable with mature themes. I’m not asking for a totally messy RP, but I do like exploring mature themes. Violence, smut, etc. This is why requirement number 1 is so important.

- Committed to creating dynamic characters and a detailed world.

- Willing RP over Google Docs.

- Interested in multiple characters. 

- Comfortable writing any gender.

Genre Babble/Plot Chat

The fun stuff! I enjoy most genres but my favorites are dystopian, science fiction, post apocalyptic (give me a good viral zombie outbreak and I’m there), and fantasy. Seriously, any type of fantasy. I’m down for mythological creatures in modern Paris, or a wholly new world based off of ancient Rome. I can get excited about most genres, except slice of life. Sorry if that’s your thing, but slice of life is not for me. As far as fandoms go, the only one I’m interested in is Harry Potter. I’d want to make original characters however, and would prefer to be in the post-Harry time period. I am a sucker for romance/smut and enjoy interweaving it in some way. It’s the perfect seasoning, but it’s not the whole meal.

I only have one available plot template prepared which I can share upon request. It’s about a virus that creates zombies, and the setting is in a post-apocalyptic America.

Still With Me?

Congrats on making it all the way through this post. I know I said I'd keep it short but welp, here we are. If you've read through this and feel like we'd be a good fit, please email me with some info about yourself (and thoughts on our writing compatibility), your writing interests, and a writing sample if you have one. Please don't contact me with one sentence because I really do want to know more about you! Happy haunting, babes and ghouls! 

XOXO, Fyralis

CONTACT: fyralisanthe@gmail.com

[kadobeclothing]

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2020

How do you convince your visitors to take the plunge on your website? There are so many elements that a top-notch landing page needs, and making those elements the “best” they can be often depends on what your landing page goals are.

Take form length, for example. It’s just one of the many components you need to optimize, but best practices will tell you that both short and long forms perform well — it all depends on whether you want to generate a lot of (potentially) lower-quality form submissions, or a smaller number of higher-quality submissions.

So if you’re looking to up your landing page game, it’s helpful to know what goes into a great landing page and see a few examples of these nuanced elements in action. Click one of the links below to jump to that section of the article: Surprisingly, when I started doing research into landing page examples, I realized there are hardly any sites out there with modern, impressive landing page designs that are more than just a sign-up form on a homepage. So, we decided to compile a list of landing pages we love ourselves.

One big caveat here: I don’t have access to the stats for these pages, so I can’t tell you how well they convert visitors, leads, and customers. Still, these examples — even those that are no longer active on the business’s website — have some of the best combinations of those nuanced landing page elements I’ve ever seen. Obviously, if you feel inspired to try any of these tactics on your own site, the only way to know whether they’ll work for you for sure is by testing them out for yourself.

Landing Page Examples Shopify Muzzle TransferWise Airbnb Teambit Wistia Webflow Nauto Industrial Strength Marketing Inbound Emotion Velaro Live Chat IMPACT Branding & Design Unbounce Bills.com Trulia Landbot Webprofits H.BLOOM Conversion Lab

Sign-Up Landing Pages 1. Shopify Like many of the other landing pages in this post, Shopify’s trial landing page keeps it simple. The user-oriented headline is just a few words, for example, and the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial’s details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.

2. Muzzle Landing pages help users decide whether or not your product or service is actually worth their precious time and energy. What better way to clearly and straightforwardly communicate your value proposition than by confronting visitors with the very problem your app solves? Muzzle, a mac app that silences on-screen notifications, fully embraces this show don’t tell mentality on their otherwise minimal landing page. Visitors to the page are greeted with a rapid-fire onslaught of embarrassing notifications in the upper left of the screen. Not only is the animation hilarious, it also manages to compellingly convey the app’s usefulness without lengthly descriptions.

3. TransferWise TransferWise allows you to send and receive money in different currencies, and its landing page, shown below, separates each individual action so you’re not distracted by options that don’t apply to you. If you want to send money, the transfer form is right there on the right for you to fill out. To receive money, simply click to the middle tab, and to sign up for TransferWise using your debit card, click to the far-right tab. Each tab on this landing page produces a different call-to-action based on what you’re signing up for — each of them in a vibrant green box to highlight your next step after your three possible starting points.

4. Airbnb To help convert visitors into hosts, Airbnb offers some enticing personalization: an estimated weekly average earnings projection based on your location. You can enter additional information about your potential accommodations into the fields to get an even more customized estimation. If you visit the page already convinced, the clear call-to-action at the top of the page makes it easy to convert on the spot.

5. Teambit Whimsical isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when you think of HR software, but Teambit’s illustration-heavy landing page is exactly that. A simple, one-field form is accompanied by a delightful office full of animal characters — all of whom are very pleased with Teambit, in case you were wondering. An animal cartoon appears beside each informational section of the landing page, keeping visitors scrolling down to learn more. Teambit’s landing page is perfect proof that you don’t need to have a conventionally “fun” product or service offering to create a fun landing page.

[Click here to see the whole landing page.] 6. Wistia First up is Wistia’s landing page for their Free Wistia Account. Right off the bat, you notice the one-field form to create your account — the blue, minimally patterned background contrasts nicely with the bright white form field. The length of the form field combined with the prominent placement eliminates nearly all friction to create an account … but if you’re having doubts, you can always scroll below to read answers to top FAQs. By separating these two sections with stark color contrast, Wistia makes it much easier for you focus on converting.

7. Webflow Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here — not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free. The animated GIF below the form is visible in the same frame on the website, so users can see how the product works and sign up without scrolling or clicking over to a new page.

Ebook Landing Pages 8. Nauto Nauto, a data platform for self-driving cars, helps make autonomous driving safer for companies who manage fleets of self-driving vehicles. Naturally, its customers would need all kinds of information to sell them on this platform. Nauto has it, packaged into a super-simple ebook whose landing page gives you both a brief contact form and some preview statistics to prove why this resource is so important.

At the top of the page, shown above, a warm photo of a car’s interior hugs the lead-capturing form. The green “Download Now” button might’ve even been on purpose (on the road, green means go, after all). Scroll down, and you’ll see another “Get the eBook” CTA to remind users what’s waiting for them. You’ll also see three jarring statistics about car accidents to entice users to learn more. Check it out below.

9. Industrial Strength Marketing Right off the bat, this landing page pulls me in with a compelling, punchy header: “Don’t Make Me Zoom.” It directly speaks to a common experience most of us have had when we’re browsing on our phones or tablets — and it’s a little sassy, too. But that’s not the only thing keeping me interested in this landing page. Notice how the color red is strategically placed: It’s right at the top and bottom of the form, drawing you even closer to the conversion event.

Plus, this design is meta to boot: It looks and works great on mobile, too. Keep in mind that a lot of visitors will be accessing your landing pages on their smartphones or tablets, and if the design of your website doesn’t work well for them, they might give up and leave your page. The folks at Industrial Strength Marketing made the fonts and form field big enough so that visitors don’t have to pinch-to-zoom to read and interact with the content, for example.

10. Inbound Emotion Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can still appreciate the conversion capabilities of this HubSpot partner site. My two favorite features of the page? The form stays in a fixed, prominent position as you scroll through the site. I also love the hands that serve as directional cues toward filling out the form and sharing the page with others.

11. Velaro Live Chat Sometimes the smallest details make the biggest difference. They’re what make Velaro Live Chat’s landing page awesome, for example. That small PDF symbol over the feature image helps set expectations for what format the download will be in. The arrow in front of the subheadline helps further direct your attention to important copy they want visitors to read. Like IMPACT, they also have an auto-checked box to subscribe to their newsletter on their form — which, if turned into an opt-in check box, is a great way to increase subscribers. All of these small, seemingly insignificant details help bring together a solid, admirable landing page design.

12. IMPACT Branding & Design Full disclosure: IMPACT is a HubSpot partner — but that’s not why they’re included here. IMPACT’s landing pages have long been a source of design inspiration. I love the simple layout of the page, from the large headline copy and detailed featured image, to the outline that surrounds the form, to the colors and fonts that are very pleasing to the eye. The free guide IMPACT is offering for download here also doesn’t emphasize the download itself in the blue button that allows you to submit your filled-out form. Rather, IMPACT is inviting you to “generate more conversions” — putting the focus on what you stand to gain as a result of reading the guide.

Landing Pages to Learn More 13. Unbounce It’s no surprise Unbounce is near the top of this list — they’ve actually written the book on creating high-converting landing pages. Although there are lots of amazing things about this landing page, the two that I absolutely love are: 1) The use of a chat window instead of a classic form, and 2) the detailed — but well packaged — information below the form. The first helps direct attention to the goal of the page — for you to fill out the form — in a way that’s unobtrusive and feels less like a chore. The second gives this page an SEO boost (search engines will have more content to crawl) and assuages any worry from folks who need to know more about a piece of content before handing over their information, all while not distracting people from the chat window.

14. Bills.com Often, people think landing pages are static pages on your website. But with the right tools, you can make them interactive and personalized. Take the example below from Bills.com. To see if you’d benefit from their consultation, you answer three questions before you are shown a form. It starts with this one:

Then, you answer two more questions, like the one below:

And here’s the final landing page form where you fill out your information:

I’m not sure how the algorithm works (or if there’s one at all), but while I was filling it out, I had some anxiety about not qualifying. Once I found out I did, I was excited to fill out the form, which I’m sure most people who are in debt and using this tool are. By making this offer seem more exclusive before the form appeared on the landing page, I’d bet that Bills.com increased conversions pretty significantly. 15. Trulia Trulia did something very similar to Bills.com with their landing page. It starts with a simple form asking for “an address” (which sounds less creepy than “your address,” although that’s what they mean). Below this simple form field is a bright orange button that contrasts well with the hero image behind the form, and emphasizes that the estimate will be personalized to your home.

Of course, the address itself won’t be enough to estimate the value of a home. It just denotes the home’s neighborhood. That’s why the next page follows with more questions about the property itself, like number of beds and baths. Below, you see the copy “Tell us where to send the report” — with a disclaimer that, by entering this information, you’re agreeing to connect with a real estate agent. This is a great example of a company giving value to their visitors from the get-go, while setting visitors’ expectations about what will happen as a result.

16. Landbot Landbot, a service that creates chatbot-based landing pages, puts their own product front and center on their chat-fueled landing page. Visitors are greeted by a friendly bot — complete with emojis and GIFs — who encourages them to provide information in a conversational format, instead of via a traditional form.

17. Webprofits For a little contrast … what about long landing pages? With just a few tricks, you can make even the longest landing page feel short. Webprofits’ landing page below shows us how. Right at the top, there’s a prominent CTA button to learn more — with a nice contrast against the background so it stands out, and a downward arrow to encourage scrolling. By not putting a form field up front, they help reduce friction and create an opportunity for visitors to learn more before being presented with a conversion option. They also make it easy for you to figure out what Webprofits actually does. The rest of the page offers detailed information about what you’ll get when you give over your information. Plus, it includes strategic CTAs throughout to take you back to the top to fill out the form, like “Let’s Talk.”

18. H.BLOOM Sometimes, you’ve just got to stop and admire a landing page for being beautiful. Using high-resolution photography and lots of white space, H.BLOOM’s landing page is a pleasure to look at. Aside from its beauty, the page has some great conversions elements: an above-the-fold form, clear and concise description of what’ll happen when you fill out the form, and even the bright orange “Submit” button. The only thing we’d change up? The copy on the “Submit” button — that could be more specific to the offer at hand.

19. Conversion Lab While I wouldn’t typically include an example of a homepage with a form on it in a post about landing pages, this website is special. The homepage is the entire website — the navigation links just take you to the information below. When you click “Get Help With Landing Pages,” the entire site moves over to make room for the form. Here’s what it looks like before you click:

And, when you click that CTA, check out how the form appears:

I love how you don’t have to leave the page to fill out the form, yet the form won’t feel intrusive to casual website visitors.

Landing Page Ideas A well-optimized landing page can transform prospects into leads by gathering information that can help you better understand, market to, and delight visitors. Since landing pages are crucial for conversions, it’s important to make sure they’re well planned, designed, and executed.  Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating landing pages:

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[livingcinema-stories-blog]

journal entry from december 2016 (or, literature in the age of trump)

I was thinking of the writer Sergio Pitol today and I found this journal entry completely by accident. It seemed like a sign to shelve off its dust and repost.  The second half feels almost innocent now, and I’m adding a couple footnotes to it:

12/2/16

Just read Sergio Pitol for an hour. It was an essay on a Polish novel about darkness, yelling against the politics of oppression. It was inspiring to read about. The novel apparently is a 150 page long sentence, followed by a five word sentence. The story is of a holy crusade taken by children in the 12th century. It is told through the format of a series of inner monologues. I would like to read it, but honestly, I can't imagine it being as good as Pitol's essay on it. Pitol apparently translated the novel in Spanish, and his love for the novel, his compassion for the novel, shows throughout his essay. There's a tender moment where he re reads it 20 or 30 years later, and is afraid its poetics and form will seem outdated or stale (it was very sylized and 'avant' for the time). He is happily surprised that the language and form hold up -- just as beautiful as he remembered.

I've never read Thomas Mann, or Joseph Conrad -- but they are both writers Pitol admires. Reading Sergio Pitol reminds me of my old teacher Attila, who's grave I would like to visit soon, who did so much for my life, who touched my life and inspired me in a way that will never fade. Attila was also a fan of Thomas Mann; and he was a political prisoner for a time in Hungary. I imagine he might have been aware of this Polish writer -- perhaps was even a fan of his. Attila was imprisoned for composing a minimalist piece of classical music during the communist takeover. There were strict rules on what kind of art one should make. When Attila performed the piece, a small riot ensued in the theater and he was arrested. He later escaped, fled to Italy, and eventually emigrated to Michigan, where he became a private teacher of voice lessons. His final, unfinished work was an opera he was writing based on "The Master and Margarita."

This morning, I am made aware that both the writers Attila loved and that Sergio Pitol loves are those who write in times of, and in reaction against oppression, totalitarianism, or to Power (with a capital P). It is almost a violent style of literature. To use poetry and language to express the strong distaste at the currents of the system. To use “political angst” (for lack of better term) as a lens in which the narratives exist. For my whole life, I've been fortunate not to live under those kinds of regimes. Sure, George W. Bush was terrible -- and he disgusted me -- but he still resembled something like a democracy, no matter how opposed I was to his politics and policies, not to mention his unjust wars. He still hinted at some level of humanity within him, perhaps buried, perhaps misguided. His wars were disgusting. He expanded the powers of the state and surveillance. But the veil of democracy still seemed to exist, if only as a veil. There was room for hope. And though Gore won the popular vote, he won by a small number. (400,000 or something like that). It seemed unbelievable, but it was admittingly, a small number.

Trump has now lost the popular vote by over 2 million (*authors note — the real number increased to 3 million), and he uses fascist language and rhetoric almost daily, and always publicly, without shame.

***

In school, in middle school, or high school, or even elementary school -- I remember reading multiple times a poem about nazis. It was essentially about how no one stopped them. "When they came for Jews, we didn't do anything, because..." and “When they came for the handicaps, we didn’t do anything, because…” and ended with a line similar to "then when they came for me, there was no left to stop them" or something like that. This poem exists solely in memory, although I know its widely read and would be easy enough to find. It was about complacency (a word I didn't know then) and a casual calmness, a cool. We always wondered how people could be silent while others were oppressed, while the secret police would beat people, while the violence eventually escalated from torture and fear into a genocide in the middle of a "civilized" continent. We watched the movie Swing Kids in a class, a watered down Disney film about the same kind of thing. It showed friends betray each other, even each other's families. It was met with the same measure of disbelief in us. How could people let this happen?

When I asked a teacher about it, and I forgot which one, and I forgot how young I was, but I must have been before high school, before I became "rebellious" or whatever -- I remember the teacher telling me this poem was a warning. It was a warning and a way to be aware of the past. Our memory of history would protect us, make us aware that societies fall, that the danger is real. But still, fascism seemed like nothing could enter this country to me. Orwellianism -- no way. Elements of it, sure. Elements of thought control and manipulation and corruption -- of course. But nothing as blatant as what Trump has promised.

If Trump somehow is able to NOT damage our democracy, it will be a testament to how strong our democracy and philosophies are. I know many people who believe it is this strong.

But I tend to not think so. Our democracy is still young, its in its adolescence. Its younger than Europe was with Hitler, with Mussolini or Stalin.

And its not holy -- its not religious -- its not from God. I don't prescribe to that weird right wing idea that it is protected by a sacred power. Our Democracy is human. It was founded on intellectuals, yes. It was founded with clear philosophies and guidelines, yes. But that does not make it immune. It might have checks and balances, but we've already seen these corroded before Trump; when the Senate refused to even vote on a Supreme Court nominee. (Something that is unprecedented, at least for this length of time). This act of defiance corroded two branches of government -- both the court and the Senate.

And its never been tested by the things its being tested with now. That is: globalization and the Internet. (It has been tested with other huge economic shifts, though; so this paragraph probably should not contribute to my argument).

Like most people, I'm not sure how to react to recent news and movements. I'm not sure how to fight back for what I believe in, how to stand up, how to do the right thing, or what to even do or what that thing even is.

But reading Sergio Pitol and thinking about Attila Farkas makes me feel that there should be a new canon of literature -- one that reflects "avant" writers reacting and responding to oppression.

Pitol and Attila share these writers, which should be added to the canon: Thomas Mann (who I've never read). Joseph Conrad

Pitol adds Jerry Andrzejewski in this.

Attila would add J.M. Coetzee (who I love) and Bulgakov (Master and Margarita).

I would like to add to this list the violent, powerful, and wonderful prose of Roberto Bolano. A writer who's often compared to Borges, but adds an intense political anger to the style of "magical realism" -- and who kind of reminds me of the beat poets as well. I'm sure Attila would have loved Bolano, had he been alive to see Bolano’s translations into English.

So again, that list: Thomas Mann Joseph Conrad J.M. Coetzee Mikhail Bugakov Roberto Bolano

I will of course continue reading for fun as well, and won't strictly follow this. I can't imagine putting down works by Javier Marias (who's new book, I am glad to say, confronts fascism and takes place immediately after Franco's regime); or by "non political" magical writers such as Clarice Lispector, Cesar Aira, Haruki Murakami. But their style, their form, does not differ much from Bolano, nor from Coetzee for that matter. (Like I said, I haven't read the others).

When we are without gurus and teachers, we can use the books we read to help teach and guide us. Its not exactly a replacement, but the writers do become gurus. I'm paraphrasing, but Seneca, the Greek philosopher, said that reading philosophy makes life longer, beacuse it adds other writer's experiences to yours in a quick setting.

My generation, and those younger than me, and those older than me, should begin arming ourselves by reading a new canon.

Who would you add? ****

Footnotes (updated August 2018) A few more writers I must add to my personal list. For one, a book which has become one of my all time favorites, Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi (sometimes translated as Pereira Maintains).  Also, I can’t believe I didn’t include Jose Saramago! He should be near the top of this list. In fact, Zizek called Saramago’s Seeing one of the best books to read during this moment.

If I re-did the list, it would mainly be: Pereira Declears by Tabucchi Jose Saramago Roberto Bolano JM Coetzee (I have to make note of Tabucchi again, and point out that his other novels do not seem to have the political activation and ingredient as Pereira, but are equally wonderful. He also has a more dreamy style, and less angst than the others mentioned).

I’m currently experiencing a burnout from the presidency, and almost refuse to say the president’s name. He’s haunted my dreams at moments (where I’ve conversed with him, even swam with him at a public pool). Part of me believes he gains an almost spiritual power through the repetition of his name, and so I’m trying to refer to him as things different than his name. (For now, just the president, though even that seems a lie). I’d also like to quickly point out my disappointment at the nonfiction books written in response to his presidency. Its really weird and almost shocking that the only one I’ve read that has seemed cerebral, academic, and passionate was Hilary Clinton’s What Happened. (I also read Death of Truth, Fantasyland, and one by Naomi Klein). Not sure how to end this post script. I’m thinking of bicycling to a show right now. I have to wake up early in the morning. I experienced a pleasant feeling of cooking today. I had a strange encounter. I woke up at 5am.

[digitalmark18-blog]

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2018

New Post has been published on https://britishdigitalmarketingnews.com/19-of-the-best-landing-page-design-examples-you-need-to-see-in-2018/

19 of the Best Landing Page Design Examples You Need to See in 2018

How do you convince your visitors to take the plunge on your website?

There are so many elements that a top-notch landing page needs, and making those elements the “best” they can be often depends on what your landing page goals are.

Take form length, for example. It’s just one of the many components you need to optimize, but best practices will tell you that both short and long forms perform well — it all depends on whether you want to generate a lot of (potentially) lower-quality form submissions, or a smaller number of higher-quality submissions.

So if you’re looking to up your landing page game, it’s helpful to know what goes into a great landing page and see a few examples of these nuanced elements in action. Surprisingly, when I started doing research into the latter, I realized there are hardly any sites out there with examples of modern, impressive landing pages that are more than just a sign-up form on a homepage. So we decided to compile a list of landing pages we love ourselves.

One big caveat here: I don’t have access to the stats for these pages, so I can’t tell you how well they convert visitors, leads, and customers. Still, these examples — even those that are no longer active on the business’s website — have some of the best combinations of those nuanced landing page elements I’ve ever seen.

Obviously, if you feel inspired to try any of these tactics on your own site, the only way to know whether they’ll work for you for sure is by testing them out for yourself.

Landing Page Examples

Shopify

Muzzle

TransferWise

Airbnb

Teambit

Wistia

Webflow

Nauto

Industrial Strength Marketing

Inbound Emotion

Velaro Live Chat

IMPACT Branding & Design

Unbounce

Bills.com

Trulia

Landbot

Webprofits

H.BLOOM

Conversion Lab

Sign-Up Landing Pages

1. Shopify

Like many of the other landing pages in this post, Shopify’s trial landing page keeps it simple. The user-oriented headline is just a few words, for example, and the page relies on simple bullets, not paragraphs, to communicate the trial’s details and benefits. There are only a few fields you need to fill out before you get started. All of this makes it easier for you to get to the point: selling online with their tool.

2. Muzzle

Landing pages help users decide whether or not your product or service is actually worth their precious time and energy. What better way to clearly and straightforwardly communicate your value proposition than by confronting visitors with the very problem your app solves?

Muzzle, a mac app that silences on-screen notifications, fully embraces this show don’t tell mentality on their otherwise minimal landing page. Visitors to the page are greeted with a rapid-fire onslaught of embarrassing notifications in the upper left of the screen. Not only is the animation hilarious, it also manages to compellingly convey the app’s usefulness without lengthly descriptions.

3. TransferWise

TransferWise allows you to send and receive money in different currencies, and its landing page, shown below, separates each individual action so you’re not distracted by options that don’t apply to you.

If you want to send money, the transfer form is right there on the right for you to fill out. To receive money, simply click to the middle tab, and to sign up for TransferWise using your debit card, click to the far-right tab.

Each tab on this landing page produces a different call-to-action based on what you’re signing up for — each of them in a vibrant green box to highlight your next step after your three possible starting points.

4. Airbnb

To help convert visitors into hosts, Airbnb offers some enticing personalization: an estimated weekly average earnings projection based on your location. You can enter additional information about your potential accommodations into the fields to get an even more customized estimation.

If you visit the page already convinced, the clear call-to-action at the top of the page makes it easy to convert on the spot.

5. Teambit

Whimsical isn’t usually the first word that comes to mind when you think of HR software, but Teambit’s illustration-heavy landing page is exactly that. A simple, one-field form is accompanied by a delightful office full of animal characters — all of whom are very pleased with Teambit, in case you were wondering. An animal cartoon appears beside each informational section of the landing page, keeping visitors scrolling down to learn more.

Teambit’s landing page is perfect proof that you don’t need to have a conventionally “fun” product or service offering to create a fun landing page.

[Click here to see the whole landing page.]

6. Wistia

First up is Wistia’s landing page for their Free Wistia Account. Right off the bat, you notice the one-field form to create your account — the blue, minimally patterned background contrasts nicely with the bright white form field.

The length of the form field combined with the prominent placement eliminates nearly all friction to create an account … but if you’re having doubts, you can always scroll below to read answers to top FAQs. By separating these two sections with stark color contrast, Wistia makes it much easier for you focus on converting.

7. Webflow

Webflow, a design tool for web developers, packs a lot of information into just a GIF and three form fields. Having the entire sign-up form on a single line is a nice touch here — not only does it make the page shorter, but filling out each box from left to right shows users how close they are to clicking the fourth blue button and getting started for free.

The animated GIF below the form is visible in the same frame on the website, so users can see how the product works and sign up without scrolling or clicking over to a new page.

Ebook Landing Pages

8. Nauto

Nauto, a data platform for self-driving cars, helps make autonomous driving safer for companies who manage fleets of self-driving vehicles. Naturally, its customers would need all kinds of information to sell them on this platform. Nauto has it, packaged into a super-simple ebook whose landing page gives you both a brief contact form and some preview statistics to prove why this resource is so important.

At the top of the page, shown above, a warm photo of a car’s interior hugs the lead-capturing form. The green “Download Now” button might’ve even been on purpose (on the road, green means go, after all).

Scroll down, and you’ll see another “Get the eBook” queue to remind users what’s waiting for them. You’ll also see three jarring statistics about car accidents to entice users to learn more. Check it out below.

9. Industrial Strength Marketing

Right off the bat, this landing page pulls me in with a compelling, punchy header: “Don’t Make Me Zoom.” It directly speaks to a common experience most of us have had when we’re browsing on our phones or tablets — and it’s a little sassy, too.

But that’s not the only thing keeping me interested in this landing page. Notice how the color red is strategically placed: It’s right at the top and bottom of the form, drawing you even closer to the conversion event.

Plus, this design is meta to boot: It looks and works great on mobile, too. Keep in mind that a lot of visitors will be accessing your landing pages on their smartphones or tablets, and if the design of your website doesn’t work well for them, they might give up and leave your page.

The folks at Industrial Strength Marketing made the fonts and form field big enough so that visitors don’t have to pinch-to-zoom to read and interact with the content, for example.

10. Inbound Emotion

Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you can still appreciate the conversion capabilities of this HubSpot partner site. My two favorite features of the page? The form stays in a fixed, prominent position as you scroll through the site. I also love the hands that serve as directional cues toward filling out the form and sharing the page with others.

11. Velaro Live Chat

Sometimes the smallest details make the biggest difference. They’re what make Velaro Live Chat’s landing page awesome, for example.

That small PDF symbol over the feature image helps set expectations for what format the download will be in. The arrow in front of the subheadline helps further direct your attention to important copy they want visitors to read. Like IMPACT, they also have an auto-checked box to subscribe to their newsletter on their form — which, if turned into an opt-in check box, is a great way to increase subscribers. All of these small, seemingly insignificant details help bring together a solid, admirable landing page design.

12. IMPACT Branding & Design

Full disclosure: IMPACT is a HubSpot partner — but that’s not why they’re included here. IMPACT’s landing pages have long been a source of design inspiration. I love the simple layout of the page, from the large headline copy and detailed featured image, to the outline that surrounds the form, to the colors and fonts that are very pleasing to the eye.

The free guide IMPACT is offering for download here also doesn’t emphasize the download itself in the blue button that allows you to submit your filled-out form. Rather, IMPACT is inviting you to “generate more conversions” — putting the focus on what you stand to gain as a result of reading the guide.

Landing Pages to Learn More

13. Unbounce

It’s no surprise Unbounce is near the top of this list — they’ve actually written the book on creating high-converting landing pages. Although there are lots of amazing things about this landing page, the two that I absolutely love are: 1) The use of a chat window instead of a classic form, and 2) the detailed — but well packaged — information below the form.

The first helps direct attention to the goal of the page — for you to fill out the form — in a way that’s unobtrusive and feels less like a chore. The second gives this page an SEO boost (search engines will have more content to crawl) and assuages any worry from folks who need to know more about a piece of content before handing over their information, all while not distracting people from the chat window.

14. Bills.com

Often, people think landing pages are static pages on your website. But with the right tools, you can make them interactive and personalized.

Take the example below from Bills.com. To see if you’d benefit from their consultation, you answer three questions before you are shown a form. It starts with this one:

Then, you answer two more questions, like the one below:

And here’s the final landing page form where you fill out your information:

I’m not sure how the algorithm works (or if there’s one at all), but while I was filling it out, I had some anxiety about not qualifying. Once I found out I did, I was excited to fill out the form, which I’m sure most people who are in debt and using this tool are. By making this offer seem more exclusive before the form appeared on the landing page, I’d bet that Bills.com increased conversions pretty significantly.

15. Trulia

Trulia did something very similar to Bills.com with their landing page. It starts with a simple form asking for “an address” (which sounds less creepy than “your address,” although that’s what they mean). Below this simple form field is a bright orange button that contrasts well with the hero image behind the form, and emphasizes that the estimate will be personalized to your home.

Of course, the address itself won’t be enough to estimate the value of a home. It just denotes the home’s neighborhood. That’s why the next page follows with more questions about the property itself, like number of beds and baths. Below, you see the copy “Tell us where to send the report” — with a disclaimer that, by entering this information, you’re agreeing to connect with a real estate agent. This is a great example of a company giving value to their visitors from the get-go, while setting visitors’ expectations about what will happen as a result.

16. Landbot

Landbot, a service that creates chatbot-based landing pages, puts their own product front and center on their chat-fueled landing page. Visitors are greeted by a friendly bot — complete with emojis and GIFs — who encourages them to provide information in a conversational format, instead of via a traditional form.

17. Webprofits

For a little contrast … what about long landing pages? With just a few tricks, you can make even the longest landing page feel short. Webprofits’ landing page below shows us how.

Right at the top, there’s a prominent CTA button to learn more — with a nice contrast against the background so it stands out, and a downward arrow to encourage scrolling. By not putting a form field up front, they help reduce friction and create an opportunity for visitors to learn more before being presented with a conversion option.

They also make it easy for you to figure out what Webprofits actually does. The rest of the page offers detailed information about what you’ll get when you give over your information. Plus, it includes strategic CTAs throughout to take you back to the top to fill out the form, like “Let’s Talk.”

18. H.BLOOM

Sometimes, you’ve just got to stop and admire a landing page for being beautiful. Using high-resolution photography and lots of white space, H.BLOOM’s landing page is a pleasure to look at.

Aside from its beauty, the page has some great conversions elements: an above-the-fold form, clear and concise description of what’ll happen when you fill out the form, and even the bright orange “Submit” button. The only thing we’d change up? The copy on the “Submit” button — that could be more specific to the offer at hand.

19. Conversion Lab

While I wouldn’t typically include an example of a homepage with a form on it in a post about landing pages, this website is special. The homepage is the entire website — the navigation links just take you to the information below.

When you click “Get Help With Landing Pages,” the entire site moves over to make room for the form. Here’s what it looks like before you click:

And, when you click that CTA, check out how the form appears:

I love how you don’t have to leave the page to fill out the form, yet the form won’t feel intrusive to casual website visitors.

Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-examples-list