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swiftlymoniquesblog · 4 years

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Crossing Parallel Lines- Sam Winchester x Reader: Chapter 11

******WARNING: The following may be a trigger to some readers! Please, read the author’s note and proceed with caution!********

A/N: Hello! Yes, I FINALLY updated this series since April! I know, it’s been a long time but I wanted this to be perfect. This was a hard chapter to write because I wrote about my own diagnosis and battle with anxiety. I wish I actually had Sam to be here for me when the battles get to be too much but I hope this brings comfort to anyone who is fighting mental illness. Please, get some help for yourself. I know it’s hard and it’s scary not knowing exactly what you’re feeling but it will be the best decision you ever make. I don’t like admitting I need help but I’m so glad I did it. This is how I cope, talking about it, but please don’t feel pressured.

Warnings: Angst, anxiety, panic attacks, mentions of medications, scary thoughts, slight mention of sex but no details, protective!Sam, fluff

Word Count: 2,767

Sam’s POV

When I sent y/n back to her universe, I ultimately thought that was the best decision for both of us. I know her life was less than perfect back home, but I knew she had a life. She has a job and a cat and a best friend so I figured she needed to go back to that lifestyle. That we would be able to follow the rules of the spell easily. We would have to wait an entire month until we could use the spell and see one another again and the week would be just enough time to be able to feel satisfied until the next reunion, but I was wrong. God was I wrong. At first, it was easy. Our first spell was magical, literally! Having y/n back in the Bunker was what we both needed; it had been too long. We spent every waking moment together and even when we slept, we were next to each other. But the week went by too fast and we had the agonizing task of having to say goodbye again and wait another month until we could be around each other. After nearly five months of doing this, I concluded that enough is enough!

“Hey, Dean,” I say, walking into his ‘Dean cave’ and interrupting what he was watching.

“Not now Sammy, the good stuff is on,” he says not even bothering to look at me. I turn behind me and see he’s watching porn, again, and I groan in frustration.

“Ah, Dean! Come on man, it’s 10 a.m.!” I roll my eyes as Dean proceeds to fight his point.

“That may be, but this stuff is always on, dude,” Dean argues back but I won’t let this stop my plans. Reaching over to grab the remote from off the armrest of the couch, I press the power button, and the screen went black.”

“Hey! Why did you do that?” Dean whines like a child to me.

“Because I need your help with something,” I start my case but am quickly interrupted.

“Look, Sam, whatever it is, it can wait,” Dean explains and reaches for the remote again.

“It’s about y/n!” I yell, causing my older brother to freeze.

“What about her? Is she okay?” Panic begins to flood Dean’s mind, it’s written all over his face, so I quickly settle his nerves.

“No, yeah, she’s fine, it’s just…I need her here man.”

“But it’s only been two weeks since you saw her last,” adds Dean, but I counter back.

“I know but it’s too long, Dean. I need her here, with me, all the time. I love her way too much to only see her once a month. I worry that she’s hurt or she’s sad and there isn’t anything I can do for her. I cannot physically be there for her and it’s killing me. She needs me, Dean. Especially right now.” I finish my small speech before Dean continues the discussion.

“What do you mean, especially now? Sam, you said she was okay but that doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong with y/n?!”

“It’s her head, Dean.”

“Her head?”

“Yeah, she has anxiety. She was just diagnosed not that long ago and it’s affecting her head. The medicine she takes, it really messes with her head and it causes panic attacks. She hasn’t been able to do much for the last 24 hours because her body is trying to keep up with the meds. And she’s scared, Dean. The meds are going to help her soon but she’s still in the introductory period and it’s being really hard on her. I-I need to be there with her. She needs me, Dean, and I’m no good if I’m stuck here.” I say, telling the truth about what y/n is going through.

“Whoa, I uh, I had no idea she was going through all that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, just as sadden and surprised by the realization too.

“I didn’t either until I talked to her yesterday when she first got the medication. The doctor did a test on her, a survey really, and she rated how she was feeling on a scale of like 1 to 5, and out of twenty points, she scored 14. It’s pretty serious, man,” I say, holding back my tears that threatened to spill over. This was not the time for me to be emotional but to be strong for the woman I love. “She has no one else to help her through this, I need to be there.”

“But you can’t go there now, Sam. The lore specifically said it has to be every month and it’s only been two weeks,” Dean tells me the rules of the spell once more.

“Yeah, I know that Dean, but this is serious! My girlfriend is suffering through mental health issues and literally has no one else she can turn to. Callie went out of town with her family; I’m all y/n has!” I yell and that’s when my tears fled from my eyes. Without uttering a word, Dean walked over and hugged me. He could feel the sobs racking throughout my body and he knew this was important to me.

“Alright man, we’ll talk to Rowena. See if we can’t find another way around this spell. Hey, we found a way for you two to cross between two universes, I’m sure we can find a loophole so you can see her sooner,” Dean told me when I finally settled down.

“You think so?” I ask, sniffling back any more tears, wiping my jacket sleeve over my nose.

“Sure, I do. Come on Sammy, there’s nothing more powerful than love, right? I mean, I haven’t been in love with anyone in a really long time, but I do remember what it was like. And I know for damn sure, nothing would keep me from protecting that girl. So, now that you’re the one in love, and y/n has become like family to both of us, I don’t see why we can’t fight for her.”

“Thanks, Dean,” I say, a small string of hope suddenly washed over me, but it was enough to make me want to do this.

“I’ll call Rowena, you call y/n. Check-in on her and tell her I said hi too,” I nod to Dean as he walks into the next room.

I reach in my back pocket and pull out my phone. Pressing the power button, the screen lights up to show the first picture y/n and I took as a couple. She’s smiling so wide; her little cheekbones look like they might pop. I remember I had starting tickling her after she confessed how ticklish she was.

“No, no, Sam….don't you dare,” Y/N says, looking at my face as she slowly starts backing away from me.

“You know, babe, you really shouldn’t have told me you were ticklish. I am going to take advantage of this newfound information, I hope you know,” I tell her, growing increasingly closer to her.

“Sam, I’m telling you, stay away,” she says, still backing away from me, a devilish grin etched on my face. She was smiling at me too, knowing full well what she was getting into. She turned and began to run from me, but, being significantly taller than her, she didn’t get too far before I caught up to her, scooping her up in my arms and immediately tickling her. She squealed and laughed uncontrollably, as my fingers ran all over her stomach.

“SAM!” She screamed/laughed but I didn’t show any signs of slowing down, that is until she cried out that she couldn’t breathe.

“I told you, you shouldn’t have told me that,” I say as I bring into my side.

“I know but I want us to be fully open with each other. If this relationship is going to work, we have to tell each other everything, even if that means we have to suffer through something,” She threatening raised an eyebrow at me, showing off her attitude.

“What? That was worth it, seeing you laugh that hard was adorable. I mean, you were totally crying!”

She faked being angry with me until I turned her around and forced her to look up at me.

“That is a side of you I hope I always get to see,” I say and lean down to kiss her. When we broke apart, she brought out her phone and wanted to snap a selfie. She smiled her wide, beautiful smile, as I looked at her lovingly, and she took the picture.

I clicked on her name and put the phone to my ear. It began ringing and I held my breath. Come on baby, pick up. Please, pick up.

“Sam.” She spoke my name and I could tell she had just been crying.

“Hi baby, are you okay? You sound like you had been crying,” I spoke in the softest tone I could, knowing just how fragile she was, and she began crying again.

“I h-have been. I-I-I j-just miss you. I-I n-need y-you,” she cried into the phone, my heartbreaking as she did so.

“Oh baby, I’m so sorry I’m not there right now, but I promise, I’m coming, okay? Please baby, be strong for me, okay? Just hold on a little longer. We’re working on a way for me to come see you sooner. My beautiful girl, please hang in there. I’m coming, I will be there with you soon.” I spoke, holding my composure together. I knew that if I didn’t it would only make things harder on her, and I couldn’t do that to her. I needed to help her, not make things worse.

“I-I l-love y-you, Sammy,” she mutters out, and then, I hear the phone drop.

“Y/N?! Baby?! DEAN!” I hear the silence on the other end and knew she wasn’t there. As fast I could, I jump up and run into the kitchen, where Dean was helping Rowena mix up a concoction of God knows what.

“What happened, Sam?” Dean asks, taking in my distraught look.

“It’s y/n, the line dropped. Oh my God, Dean, what if she’s trying to hurt herself or worse, kill herself?” I panic pace around the room.

“Sam, you need to calm down. You don’t know that. It’s y/n, she wouldn’t take her own life. She loves you too much,” Dean says, trying to rationalize with me.

“But that was it, Dean, she told me she loved me and then the line dropped,” I argue back and before Dean could put in a rebuttal, Rowena stepped in.

“Here Samuel, drink this quick. You don’t have a lot of time! You only have a thirty-second window to take this before we’d have to make this again,” I downed the drink before she even finished explaining.

We all sat and waited, time seemingly dragging on, before a blinding light enclosed around me, temporarily knocking me out. When I finally came too, I slowly stood up and saw y/n’s house before me. It worked. I said a thank you to Castiel, not even sure if he was listening, and ran up to the house. Jingling the doorknob, it was locked. Damnit, y/n, you just have to be safe right now. Quick on my feet, I grab my tool and begin picking the lock, soon opening the door. I run inside and back to the far right of the apartment, where y/n’s bedroom was.

“Y/N?! Where are you, baby?!” I yell, scanning the room for any sight of her but it was empty.

“Y/N?!” I yell again and heard an ‘ow!’ followed by some banging coming from the kitchen. I dart out of the room into the living room, where she ended up walking out into. She must’ve been baking; her face and hair were covered in flour.

“Sam!” She yells, and rushes over to me, jumping up and wrapping her smaller frame around me.

“Y/N, you’re okay!” I say, my heart rate beginning to slow when I noticed she wasn’t in immediate danger.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I mean, I’ve been sad a lot lately, but I’m okay,” she had pulled back to look at me.

She probably knew I was a wreck, pushing hair out of my face, and placing her hand on my cheek. I melt into her touch, not realizing just how much I craved it. I looked in her eyes, seeing just how red and swollen they were from crying, but she was smiling now. And without wasting any more time, I push my lips on hers, eagerly showing her just how much I missed her. She kissed me back with as much desperation as I had, surprising me that she had the energy to keep up with me. My lips find their way to her neck, kissing and gently biting the skin there, leaving my mark on her. A little moan escaped past her lips and I took advantage of that, by kissing her lips once more, my tongue pushing its way into her mouth. I could feel and taste every part of her mouth, but that wasn’t enough. Backing up to her room, I push the door open, careful not to break the kiss with her, and guided us to her bed. She falls back and temporarily breaks out kiss so she could lift her shirt over her head. My eyes quickly scan over her half-exposed body before she brings me back into a kiss. My hands roam over her chest as I felt dizzy with each touch. I knew this was something we both have wanted for a long time but I wasn’t sure this was the time for it.

“Wait, are you sure you want to do this tonight? I mean, you’ve been so upset the last two days,” I say as I take in the sight of a sad girl before me.

“Yes, I have, but I need to start feeling better and the only way I can think of, is being with you. You told me in the letter when you sent me back here, that you wanted to make love to me. I want you to make love to me tonight, Sam,” she said without an ounce of doubt in her voice. I attach my lips to hers once again, and I follow through with my promise.

When we settled back down for the night, I brought her as close to me as humanly possible and had her talk to me. She told me about everything she was feeling, why she felt like she needed to be put on medicine, and all the demons she was fighting in her head.

“My sweet girl, I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were fighting this,” I admit, trying to look at her in the darkness.

“How could you? You weren’t here when my symptoms really came to ahead. I mean, as I’ve done more research, I’ve noticed things in me that I used to feel like a kid, too, so I guess I’ve always had it. I just didn’t know what to do about it, or how to express how I was feeling. It wasn’t common when I was growing up but I’m getting help for it. And now, I have you and Dean, and Cas, to talk to, I hope.”

“Of course, you have us to talk to. We don’t want you to fight this alone. Please come and talk to us, whenever you feel yourself going into a panic attack, or even if you just feel sad, come get me. If it’s three in the morning, wake me up. I’ll drop anything and listen to you; you’re not alone,” I say, kissing her forehead, as she snuggled up against me.

“Thank you, Sam. I’m glad you’re with me for this. I don’t know how I’m going to be in the next few weeks, but I’m sorry in advance,” she says.

“You have nothing to be sorry about, y/n. You have an invisible war going on in your head; you just need help dealing with it. I will come right alongside you and will fight your battles with you. I love you so much, baby girl,” I say, taking her hand in mine and encouraging her to try and sleep. I can only imagine she hasn’t been able to get too much rest with all the new things going on with her. But no matter what may happen, I will be committed to helping her through every hard time. She was that important to me.

Crossing Parallel Lines tag list: @fandom-princess-forevermore @lilulo-12 @simpleboox

Additional tag list: @tloveswriting @forever-trapped-in-my-dreams @marvelfansworld @67-chevy-baby @juju-la-tortue @hunting-the-grievers @thinkinghardhardlythinking

Potentially new readers tag list (you can catch up here with my masterlist) @angeredcrow @to-my-beloved-fandoms-2 @deansmyapplepie

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#crossing parallel lines #chapter 11 #Sam Winchester #sam #sam girls #sam girl #Jared Padalecki #anxiety #panic attack #meds #get help #you are not alone #sam x reader #sam x you #sam x y/n #Sam angst

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crimsonbluemoon · 4 years

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Working For Love: A TerrorMoo Story 12/17

....I really need to like, put a reminder on that I need to post these updates on Saturday. I apparently missed last week. I apologize.

If it makes you feel better, Bels and I have like...50% of the second Libahunt book outlined? Hope that makes you smile.

Previous Part

Start from the beginning

Brian didn’t like to keep things. ‘Traditional relationships’ didn’t matter to him, because like every good story, all things had to end.

He didn’t talk to the people he did when he was in high school, though none of the friendships ended in dismay or from fighting. They simply went onto different plot lines, Brian cheering them on all the while. He’d put effort in all of the romantic relationships he’d managed to snag, but never felt a deep sadness when they ran their course. Some were pages of his life story, while others only took a few lines. But they were all important in their own right, and deserved their places in his novel. Brian didn’t see the end of relationships, romantic or platonic, as a failure, but a happy journey that had reached its destination. He was sure not all of his partners saw it in the same light, but he wasn’t responsible for their mental happiness. Brian could only cherish the moments in his memories, and look forward to whatever would come next in his story line.

Maybe he thought the same about Brock at one point. The feelings were forming differently, sure, and Brian’s slow attempts at courting him was a change of pace. They’d been playing their cat and mouse game for seven months, the longest Brian had chased someone for their affection. It was a slow brewed romance that left him room for more smiles, more hand brushes. The rare times he got to scoop Brock into his arms for a hug after their group hung out was worth the wait. There’d been no kissing, no declaration of feelings to one another. Signs were hanging brightly over their heads, to the point that even Nogla could point them out. Nogla didn’t even realize he was dating people half the time until Brian mentioned they’d broken up. Romance was normally blazes of hot fire that sizzled out just as fast, which Brian didn’t mind. Brock’s was a slow burn, warming Brian from the inside long after they separated for the night.

But despite these little signs that pointed to how different Brian treated Brock, he didn’t think much about it. They were simply sailing the same river he’d been down with others before, affectionate waves gently pushing their boat to their final destination. Brock was still healing, Brian wasn’t in a rush, and so he saw no reason to really look at the differences.

One night in October changed all of that.

“This place is dead.” Brian’s head pulled up from its resting spot on the front desk at the familiar tone, not even realizing he’d started to smile at the sight of Brock until the other gave him his own quirk of shy lips. “Hi.”

“Hey handsome.” By now, the pet names that he’d given to Brock were easy to come out, his heart purring at the rosy complexion the popped over Brock’s cheeks each time. Again, a slight variant from his other romantic interests (as pet names were never really his thing), but Brock was just too reactive not to use them. “What a sight for sore eyes. I thought I wouldn’t see you tonight. You had that parent-teacher conference thing, right?”

“It just got out. Most of my parents came earlier in the night, so I was able to clean up my room before the event was over.” Brock’s tie was slightly off-center, though it didn’t matter when he slid a finger into the knot and yanked it loose. The hair that always curled at the ends when he worked out was a little more put together now, though some of the rebellious strands were starting to curve in protest.

“And your first thought was to come to the gym? Not sure if Tyler would be keen on you running in loafers.” Brock’s ‘teacher’ look was a rare form Brian got to see, and he took his time appreciating the image without shame. His mind drifted, but not to the sexual thoughts he was sure he might have with anyone else (teacher-student role play had always been a favorite of his mischievous side). Instead, they settled on how lucky those who Brock had dated were to come home each night to the scene now presented to him. The button up was too loose on Brock’s slimmer form now, no matter how often Brock claimed it was his normal size. The cuffs were yanked open, and Brian knew from previous conversations that they rarely stayed buttoned throughout the work day. Brian’s thumb absentmindedly rubbed along his own wrist, eyes focused on the little cuffs with unexplained fondness. Had anyone ever buttoned Brock’s cuff for him in the morning? Or was that too intimate for him to share with someone else? Brian had never done it with any of his past relationships, whether it was because their jobs lacked a formal attire or they rarely stayed the night. Hell, Brian wasn’t sure he would have offered if they had. It was such a strange thing to focus on, with no sexual pay-off.

Still, Brian couldn’t stop rubbing his wrist, the tips of his fingers itchy with a desire to fix Brock’s cuffs.

“I didn’t come here to work out.” Brock’s laugh was warming, lacking any of the awkward shyness that once graced his voice when speaking with Brian. The development in their friendship had been easier when they started to text outside of the gym, allowing them to learn more than basic fitness facts about the other. They spoke daily, Brian ignoring the kissy faces from Scotty or Anthony’s ‘whip’ noise whenever his phone chimed throughout work. Both had made it their business to point out how different Brian’s treatment of Brock was compared to other relationships. Brian waved off their observations, not sure why their knowing smiles made his pulse race and skin prickle.

“Come to look at my pretty face?” Brian teased, framing his chin in his palms before fluttering his eyelashes. It got another pleasant laugh from Brock before he shook his head.

“Not exactly, though it is about you.” Brock pushed his hand into his pocket to pull out his phone. The smile he gave Brian this time around was charged with a nervous kind of energy before he dropped his gaze, tapping a few things on his screen. “I wanted to share something my students helped me make. You, um-shoot, they said the share button would be- you remember how you were saying your workout playlist was boring now?”

“We just talked about it last week. I’m not a goldfish, sweetheart.” He really liked how red Brock got over that pet name, nearly dropping his phone from his embarrassment. He recovered quickly, but the swallow he needed to take before speaking had Brian’s smile wide with pride. So that was a keeper, for sure.

“Right, er- so I’ve been thinking about that. And, well, I did something. It took a little longer than I wanted, cause the kids said it’d be easier to just share it on the app, but- there. Check your email.” Finally Brock’s head popped up from his nervous fingers to look at Brian, who quirked an eyebrow at the suspicious behavior. But Brian was nothing if not adaptable, so he shrugged and powered up his phone to refresh his email. The loading bar only took a second, and then Brock’s email appeared. It was a pre-set message, one that always came when someone shared from a social media site. This one was from Spotify, the music app both of them used. Curious, he clicked it, and it took a moment to realize what he was looking at. “Half of the songs were recommended by the kids, since I ran out after about ninety. But I listened to all of them before I accepted them on the list!”

Brock’s explanation was almost background noise while Brian scrolled through the selection, stunned at the variations. Brock had made him a work-out playlist. Brock had made him a work-out playlist with over two hundred songs. Some he knew, maybe even told Brock they were his favorites (and Brock remembered them, because that was the kind of guy Brock was) but there were dozens that he’d never heard of before. The selection was endless, and implied that Brock had put in hours of effort to make the playlist. Which made no sense, because Brock was already busy with his job and his working out, so to spend all this time on Brian-

“Brian? Do you like it?” Brown eyes were watching him in concern when Brian lifted his head from the list, that pretty mouth snagged between perfect teeth again. Brian’s eyes drew to the image like a moth to fire, wanting to pull the lip from it’s canine jail and seal it between his own. The fierce desire he had to kiss Brock rocked him, nearly swaying his knees at the force it took not to jump over the counter to do so. Brock had put his time and effort into such a sweet gesture, and he somehow thought Brian wouldn’t like it? That he would possibly dismiss it or even reject it? What kind of selfish prick had stolen Brock’s happiness before that way? Insecurity wasn’t as prevalent in Brock’s words and body language anymore, but here it roared like a wounded bear ensnared in a trap. Brian wanted to yank him close and surround him with affection until the shadows of the past were burnt away.

“I love it.” Except ‘it’ wasn’t the word that had been running through his mind when he answered Brock’s question. Warmth and happiness sprouted up in Brock’s face, hands trembling from joy before he shoved them into his pockets with a bashful shrug of his shoulder.

“I-it was nothing, really.” But this- the chemistry and attraction and emotion between them- it was something. Something Brian had never thought he’d want. His heart pounded hard as realization bloomed through his chest. Stunned, he silently watched Brock’s humble aura, catching the pleased smile he tried to hide when ducking his head. Brock wasn’t like everyone else Brian had ever talked to, because Brian had never felt this with anyone before. Another wave of emotion crashed into him, his knuckles turning white when grabbing the counter to steady himself.

Brian loved Brock, and he hadn’t even gotten to kiss him yet. God, was this what traditional love was? Getting weak-kneed because of a playlist? Having a fuzzy mind from a half-smile? Butterflies when simply being near them? It was terrifying and new, something Brian didn’t know how to deal with. Didn’t understand the process to which someone sorted through the emotions and overwhelming desire to run away and huddle as close as possible at the same time.

“I’m glad you love it.” Brock’s face glowed with affection when looking up at Brian, his smile crooked before his nose wrinkled at the strange expression. It was awkward and quirky, nothing that should have made Brian want to keep the man who owned the silly look. But he did. Oh God, he really did.

Brian wanted to keep Brock for the rest of his story.

Ugh the fluff in this story is going to kill me. But not the next chapter. Mwhahaha. Hope you liked. As always, like, reblog, and let me know what you think!

#Terrormoo #Soft boys #Terroriser #Moo Snuckle #<3 #Crimson drabblez

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brothermouzongaming · 5 years

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E3 2019 overview

I wanted to take the time to look at and talk about some of the games we’re more than likely seeing at the conference. E3 is...dying and it’s misleading trailers don’t help, but despite this, the show is still important and at least gives us a little insight into what may come in games/tech. So let’s cross our fingers and dive in. I’ll be focussing more on main titles and not DLC and updates. Available footage will be linked in the corresponding title.

Avengers project (Crystal Dynamics/ Square Enix)

It feels like ages since the teaser for the Avengers project dropped. Since then I have been trying to keep my hopes high, I even thought it was canceled for a time when we heard literally nothing since that trailer. I know nothing about this game, but I just hope Crystal Dynamics and Square are treating something this big with the care it needs. The last thing Marvel, more importantly Disney, want is another Battlefront 2 situation on their hands. If Square can incorporate their over the top combat style to the Marvel universe, it could be amazing, incredible, invinci- okay I’ll stop.

Borderlands 3

Getting back into Borderlands just before the big press release was very serendipitous. Something about this made me even more excited for some of the additions coming like loot instancing, slide/mantle (finally), secondary fire weapons, more diverse and varied play spaces, and a lot more. So many of BL2 and the Pre-Sequel’s flaws are glaring with me having played them recently and to see the long-awaited title addressing these exact issues so comforting when I get to thinking about this next adventure into the wastes. It isn’t some massive leap forward or anything, it’s more Borderlands and there’s nothing wrong with that to me. Finally, an online optional looter shooter that isn’t some strange mmo lite, long live the king. Randy Pitchford is a weirdo but I’m not gonna hold that against the devs lol.

Cyberpunk 2077

This is more than likely going to be my game of the show. E3 is typically full of surprises and anything can happen but in all honesty, I just can’t see much coming close especially since we aren’t seeing Death Stranding (thattrailertho). I was literally giddy when they released the gameplay trailer that they showed press and influencers and the FPS RPG looked very good but not unrealistic. Recently it’s come out that the game is “pretty different” from that showcase and that statement interests me as much as it gives me pause. Regardless, we are going to be seeing more of this game with CDPR claiming they’ll have an even bigger presence than last year. I just hope that we get solid gameplay footage and not buzzwords and theatrical trailers.

CoD 2019

Black Ops 4 came out guns drawn and it really impressed at first. Since that time Activision has found a way to completely reverse the conversation around BO4 and where the franchise is headed/ is as a whole. Activision needs a win, and with this being their main and essentially only franchise it has to be big. The rumor is that it’s Modern Warfare 4 which would be a “soft reboot” if that is the case. If not this year then next, I’m surprised it’s even taken them this long so hopefully all this time will lead to something good. Honestly, I’m shocked we’re still getting annual releases of this game. I don’t forsee CoD lasting much longer and this tug at our nostalgia may be a sign of that.

Destroy All Humans (THQ Nordic)

I spent so many hours with my friend Walter terrorizing the meat bags between the tools the game devs gave us and some gamer creativity that was a relatively new aspect of gaming compared to nowadays where player creativity is often an aspect of gameplay. THQ has reported something insane like 50+ games in development which...sounds like a stupid choice but if this is one of them it’s definitely going to get people’s heads turning. Can you imagine what they’ll be able to do with today’s tech? They don’t have to go crazy but then again for the sake of a concise vision but...maybe they should?

Dino Crisis (Capcom)

Let’s talk more about old ass games I’m completely shocked could be coming back. So in light of Capcom bringing back past titles and breathing new life into them, it is reported that Capcom is looking to bring back...Dino Crisis? I swear to god if they make Dino Crisis before Viewtiful Joe and Onimusha? POWER STONE ANYONE?? I’m more than willing to suspend my meh-ness because Capcom has proved that not only can they bring back an old game we love, but they can do it damn well. If this is true, then maybe there is hope for some of my favorite Capcom titles from the past but mother of god why Dino Crisis?

Doom Eternal

Doom 2016 was one of the best first-person shooters I’ve ever played. “Smooth as butter” isn’t something I would use to describe most games but god damn if that game wasn’t lubed up before they packaged it because it’s damn slick. So imagine the stiffy I got when that gameplay was dropped and mobility was increased. Can we talk about the grappling hook shotgun? The new demons and takedowns to dispatch said demons? God knows what else is under the hood for us to find out when it releases let alone when they talk about it during the conference. A more open level design in tandem with the conventional “kill room” here and there is gonna really spice up the combat especially if exploration is properly rewarded. Rage 2 was a disappointment but I do have hope this is gonna live up to the hype the way it did the first time.

Gears of War 5

Lawd Microsoft needs a win. This is quite clearly their attempt at a blockbuster event like God of War was for Sony. Everything about the trailer screams “Oscar bait but for games” and I hope they do the damn thing. Make me sad I don’t have an Xbox dammit! This could be a big step for Gears and could even lead it down a more character focussed design. The world of Gears of War is rich for a deeper explanation, and I know that isn’t what Gears is known for but I won’t be told that they can’t do both. It appears to be heavily cinematic though gameplay can be seen in the trailer above. It seems interesting and I hope they really make something worth owning an Xbox for. The fans deserve it.

Halo: Infinite

Did I say Microsoft needs a win from the software perspective? Cause they do. The Xbox One is fine, the One X is a huge step up and is the most powerful console but there are next to no exclusives for this console. Ya know, the reason why you buy a certain console outside of interface and services. What better way than to bring back the most successful franchise Microsoft has associated with. There’s talk of it having an open world which is jarring initially especially when the history of Halo is rich with environments that tell stories alongside the mid-range combat. If they can properly expand that baseline to fit an open world format, it’ll be amazing. Whether or not they can is the question.

Harry Potter: Magic Awakened

Warner Brothers does a great job of shooting themselves square in the foot. They just put on the finest shoes money can buy and BAM queue the red kool-aid fountain. Shadow of War is the pinnacle of such stupidity with the way the monetization completely bankrupted the integrity of the game. The brief footage that was up involved a third-person real-time action reminiscent of the original games. Warner Bros. jumped on the trailer takedown but it’s safe to say the cat is out of the bag and casting spells in the kitchen. This could be a unique adventure involving a custom character, it could involve something more directly related to the books. Anything is possible but if we heard about it this year it wouldn’t entirely surprise me.

My Friend Pedro

A twin stick shooter of a different kind. Imagine stranglehold but cartoony, John Wick but even more comic book like. It looks like the entire game is going to be centered around ballerina jumping through levels and enemies leaving every enemy in your wake riddled with bullets. It seems light, fun, and self-aware in it’s silliness which can lead to the most fun type of games.

Session

Oh boy, SKATE was my jam back in high school and if you’re anything like me you’ve been waiting for the next game/ literally anything like it to come along. Session appears to be that game, we weren’t told a lot when it was revealed so I’m hoping that E3 will lead to some more information on gameplay and ya know, a release date.

Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order

Anthem is in shambles and in my opinion, it’s this year’s No Man’s Sky. Between the games they put out, and the Star Wars games they put out (or don’t put out depending on your perspective); this does not bode well at all. Respawn is working on the project and their track record is very good, but I can’t help but worry about what EA is planning. They always find a way to put their hand directly into a project and do exactly what needs to be done to ruin it. Sometimes that’s on the front end in development and planning or lack thereof, and sometimes it’s on the back end with moving devs to other projects/ not hold their devs to the post-launch promises they tend to make and not fulfill. This story of a padawan in hiding after Order 66 is ripe for gameplay development and storytelling. So long as Respawn has the vision and can execute, all we need is for EA to stay the fuck away and let them work. We’ll see.

honorable mentions: Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Vampire Bloodlines 2, From Soft and George R. R. Martin collab, Fable remake, Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad, Wolfenstein Young Blood, Afterparty, Beyond Good and Evil 2, Bleeding Edge (Ninja Theory’s new game), Last of Us 3 (v hype just not a lot of info)

#Avengers project #Borderlands 3 #Cyberpunk 2077 #Call of Duty #Destroy All Humans #Dino Crisis #Doom Eternal #Gears of War 5 #Halo Infinite #Harry Potter Magic Awakened #My Friend Pedro #Session #Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order #e3 #E3 2019 #video games #gaming

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prorevenge · 6 years

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You mess with my cat, I'll bury you.

Sit back, this ended up kinda long.

TL;DR: Shitty coworkers let my cat live in filth for a week while I'm out of town, I get one demoted and crush the others life into dust.

I like to think I'm a patient man. I'm hard to anger, my coworkers say they haven't seen me angry in the 2 years they've known me. I have firm boundaries and as long as you don't cross any of them I can let anything go.

One of my boundaries is don't fuck with my cat.

This story is about 2 of my coworkers and me, and happened the winter of 2013.

So I worked at a veterinary hospital as a vet tech/kennel attendant, and coworker 1 is a kennel attendant(KA) coworker 2 is the kennel lead(KL). KA is the one who comes in to take care of the animals, KL is in charge of overseeing everything boarding and kennel related. They both crossed that very simple boundary.

I went away over Christmas since I lived in another state from my family, and while I was out I left my cat to board at work(one of the perks is free boarding). I trusted my coworkers would take care of him even if it was a top 2 busiest weekend of the year.

So, I set up his cage the night before I leave. He's a shy boy so i set up a tent with very distinct blankets(one is bright green, the other has rocket ships). I kiss him bye, and am on my way. I enjoy Christmas with family, candy and fudge, and other things unrelated to the story, and come back 6 days after leaving.

It's late when i get back, so the hospital is already closed and everyone has gone home. We all have a key so I swing by because I miss my cat and want to take him home.

What I am greeted by when I get to him is those same blankets, the white rocket ships now slightly tan/yellow damp with urine, old desiccated pieces of shit and smears on the wall, and a very stressed cat that smelled like pee. We're talking 6 days worth of filth. All they did was put in more food and change the litter box as far as I could tell.

I saw red.

KA, the attendant, was scheduled to take care of the animals that holiday. KL, the lead, had been there 3 different days I was gone, including the last 2. Figuring out how to destroy these people became the only thing i thought about.

I'm scheduled to work the day after I get back, and KA is there. I don't look at her all day, as it's the only way I could contol my emotions. My blood is still boiling thinking about my boy who I'd had to bathe the night before(much to his chagrin). The sight of her makes that primal part of my brain reserved for beating the shit out of things starts to burn and makes my muscles tense.

(Now some important backstory here is that KA is kind of terrible at her job. We were kind of friends since she was the only one who wasn't shitty to me when I first started. Whenever I'd find something she messed up, I'd gripe to myself but I'd fix it. She did some write-upable shit on a regular basis. I never did anything because KL was already aware and working on her so I figured 'eh, none my bidness.')

I decided against violence and figured I'd let my manager handle it. At first, I just told him about the condition of my cat and kept the rest to myself. He agreed it was unacceptable and said he'd talk to her. She denied everything, said she'd changed my cats bedding every night, that he didn't get all of it in the litter box(unfortunately true, 12lb cat[not fat] aiming at a box made literally for kittens). Basically said I lied to my manager, to my managers face without batting an eye. I gave her the chance to own up to it because that would've come with punishment enough.

My manager told me what she said, and her blatant bullshittery poked the dragon that was already awake and pissed. I told him she's fucking lying, I work in the kennel too and not to mention I know my cats shit well. He believes me, and I not so subtly point out that if she pulls this shit on an employee pet, what has she been doing with the lot of random boarders? Manager thought it was a good point, and asks me to keep an eye out for mistakes and let him know what I find.

The next day, I was in the kennel alone without her, and I began to document every single thing she did incorrectly. Remember me saying how crap she was at her job? She left me a treasure trove of shit to dig up.

To name a few of these nuggets, every single animals cage was filthy, like multi-day filthy like my cats was, two dogs had had their medications switched for the whole week, there were copious amounts of shit left in the yard(big no-no, spreads parasites and disease), and not even her documentation and charges were entered correctly. It was a trainwreck that took me the whole morning to get back to an acceptable condition.

There was material here to get her enough writeups to lose her job if she had been perfect before, and she had already been disciplined a couple times for other shit she pulled. I gather it all together and bring it to my manager, who is horrified and says he's setting up a meeting with me, KA and KL, and him to discuss it all. He encourages me to hold my temper and call them on their bullshit at the meeting. Until then I hadn't even considered KL's complicity in this bullshit, but I immediately realized there were 2 people on my wrong side. KL was not as horrid at his job as KA, he was old as hell in a demanding physical labor position. I figured what he'd got coming will be enough so I could aim everything I'd got at KA.

What's the human equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel? Because this girl had already dug herself such a hole it was incredible she hadn't been fired already. She didn't do her job, she was stealing clients from the clinic by offering to petsit for cheaper instead of offering boarding(explicitly against our contract, fireable). She had been leaving 30 minutes early leaving the shit condition I'd had to deal with. And I knew all of this.

The day of the meeting rolls around, and KA and KL are blissfully unaware when manager calls us into the office together. We all sit down and manager begins to explain what the meeting is about. He was a fucking boss and we prearranged to give KA one more chance to own up to my face and leave out the rest at first. He had asked me how far I wanted to take it, I told him I had a lot of dirt. Let's let KA dig a deeper hole first so I can use it all.

She denied it all, swore up and down she had taken care of my poor cat properly. I graciously gave her the benefit of the doubt, saying ok I believe you did clean like you say, but then how did you miss this dried up piece of shit? She said my cat must've been dehydrated. I say "oh, well you documented he'd been drinking well all week, why would he be dehydrated?" She says it might have been just from the last day. She wouldn't just admit it... So I give my manager the look, and he tells her "ok so you took care of the cat, what about all of this?" And he pulls out my stack of evidence I'd collected.

KA's face paled. KL had been silent up to this point and starts trying to apologize on KA's behalf, saying it was a busy week and things slip through the cracks. I called their shit, saying I had been able to handle as many animals as she had had to a higher degree of cleanliness than the 2 of them could accomplish, so busy was not a valid excuse.

We went over every single sin KA and KL had committed for the past 3 days, individually and in depth with discussion about each one before moving on. As we worked through the stack, manager wrote up KA for every single offence that warranted it. By the end of it she had 6 writeups(3 to get fired). She was sobbing, saying she couldn't afford her kids daycare if she didn't have that job. My manager very pointedly told her he had never seen someone with such terrible job performance in 30yrs, and if she were worried about her kids she would have done her job better.

KL was written up and removed from his lead position, and KA was given the option to quit before she was fired.

The end.

... hah! No it isn't. This is ProRevenge, not GirlOnlyLostHerJob. Oh no, there's so much more.

Remember how she had been stealing clients from the clinic? She had built up quite a large client base, and had told me some weeks before she was about to quit her job and petsit fulltime since she hates her job sooo much. Plus when she returned her key after quitting, she made sure I knew the crying was fake and she was planning to put in 2 weeks in the next couple days.

At the clinic, we still saw all of those same clients she had skimmed all the time, and plenty of them asked what happened to KA. Manager told everyone we should tell the truth, since we had a petsitter we referred to and KA was not it.

For the next few months, we saw so many faces twisted into expressions of disgust, contempt, betrayal, worry when we told them why KA was no longer there and why they should reconsider letting her watch their pets. Literally dozens of people. Anyone who has tried to petsit or do yardwork for a living before knows how hard it is to build that client base. KA had a decent one, which we absolutely destroyed.

After a while, she texted me saying I was a piece of shit who was destroying her and her kids life and she couldn't afford daycare anymore. She went from 2 or 3 petsitting gigs a week(about 300 dollars a week) to maybe 1 a month. I told her to fuck herself and blocked her number, and haven't heard anything since. Bitch.

Don't fuck with my cat.

Updates:

Edit for those saying I'm a shit human for letting this go as long as it did: KA and KL cleaned sometimes, just not enough for my standards. KA had only been there a few months and it was her first big girl job (yes, kidS at 20yrs old), and there's a small learning curve. I figured it'd be ok for a week and was poor as shit at the time so options were thin. Until that week, i was there constantly cleaning to my standards so didn't know how bad these 2 would really let it get. Protocol said lead is informed of performance issues before manager, and as i mention he was aware and KA had already been written up a couple times. I was done when i realized just how far they'd let it go so i went over KLs head right to manager because they clearly weren't handling the issues at all. Even if my cat wasn't affected, I would've done the same, he was just unfortunately there because i had to go out of town. In hindsight i wish I'd said something sooner, but workplaces have rules and i was young and tender, and didn't know it was that bad until then. But yes I'm a terrible person who abuses animals, gets people SWATted, I'm pompous and arrogant and only care when things personally affect me and my cat. You're right, reddit!

Edit 2: I'll take this opportunity to give some advice on how to pick a good kennel facility. Always, i mean ALWAYS, ask to take a tour before leaving your animal. Dont schedule an appointment, ask to go back randomly. If they try to say no, say you dont feel comfortable leaving your pet without an idea of where they're staying. If they still wont, and even a manager denies a tour, take your business elsewhere as they probably have something to hide.

If you do get a tour, here are some things to look out for. Check water bowls for grime and dirt. Some pets are messy, but if a good number are dirty, it's a big red flag.

If the kennel smells strongly of some kind of air freshener, be wary and look around for messes. A good kennel attendant will smell pee and clean and replace things until they get rid of the smell; a bad one will spray some animal odor eliminator and cover it up.

Make sure everything looks organized, properly labeled, and has some kind of system to it. Cluttered storage and unclear labeling is where so many mistakes come from; make sure they take those little things seriously, or something big may slip through the cracks.

Finding a good clinic and good boarding facility can be difficult, but they do exist. And just like you wouldn't want you or your child going to a shitty doctor or daycare, I don't want anyone taking their pets to a shitty veterinary clinic!

(source) (story by Amesa)

#pro revenge #by Amesa #prorevenge #pro revenge stories #revenge stories #pro #revenge

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checanty · 6 years

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Hi! I studied illustration and graduated this year, now I'm trying to get my foot into the professional illustration and character design world. My work goes more into the spooky and pulp art direction, I'm also quite introverted and have social anxiety and you seem like an introvert too. I just wanted to ask how you deal with interacting (mails, phone calls) with clients and I'll glady take any tip how to find clients in general and to network. I just feel like I don't really know how to start.

Hi there! Yes, I’m an introvert as well. And socially anxious. All that stuff you’re mentioning right there sends a shiver down my spine. So let me tell you about how I deal with it ...

But let me tell you, we are not uncommon in the art community! Back in school I was warned being an artist would be twice as hard because I’m horrible at selling myself (ok my work, but the lines blur nowadays.) and it made me feel terrified of the future. There was safety in knowing I could always work on my craft and get better at it, but I’d never been able to figure out to be that outgoing person I thought I needed to be. (My whole time at school was pretty much people telling me ‘you’re good, but you’re quiet, so you’ll never be good enough. Over. and over. and I never managed to change and it fucked me up good.)But, as I said, lots of illustration folks are introverts and a lot deal with anxiety issues. It’s good if you can find a forum of working pros (facebook groups, etc) that talk openly about problems they face, so you can realize once and for all you’re not the odd one out and a bunch of the people you admire and thought had it all figured out have been hiding and crying in hotel rooms, too, if that one convention that was supposed to be life changing turned out to be too much to handle.Also, praise the internet! There are basically no phone calls to make! Writing e-mails … well, that one gets easier! You end up having to write about similar things a lot of the time and learn some go to phrases (if you are very clever you can write and save some template mails, e.g. for what your quotes are, things people ask you a lot in interviews, etc. to save some time!) and start caring less about every mail to be perfect. It also gets easier to weed out the mails that are worth an afternoon of composing and which are not.When e-mails are especially scary and I have a lot of emotions and feel I need to answer without much delay, I boil my reply down to the essentials. What is the person actually asking? People often write a lot, but really they only ask: Are you interested in this? Are you available?So I just answer something like: Hey XYZ, thank you so much for reaching out! I’d love to be part of the project. Could you please fill me in on the details?I sometimes feel bad basically ignoring 80 % of an e-mail, but often it’s simply not relevant at the time. Just make sure you *do* filter out the important information/questions. (Asking for details when the e-mail is filled with everything you need to know doesn’t make sense. But quite often people try to gauge interest to see if they need to continue looking before they take the time to delve deeper into it.)If people ask you for a quote, feel free to simply ask them for their budget in return. My e-mailing solution is usually keeping it polite and to the point. The simpler the better.I used to not write simple ‘thank you!’ or ‘got it!’ e-mails and write only when I had something I felt was worthy contributing because I didn’t want to disturb the busy people I was working with, but I noticed people did it to me and it’s just nice for them to know the e-mail got through and all. And it really doesn’t disturb most people. So I do it now.Generally, for a lot of e-mailing questions and art business questions in general I can only recommend checking out @dearartdirector where you have a bunch of art directors answering your questions. Make sure to see what they have answered already before asking away! They’ve already covered A LOT. It’s a super valuable resource and I have some of their answers, especially for e-mail communication, saved in my favourites here on Tumblr for reference.Oh and let yourself some slack. There’s a learning curve. Sometimes having WRITTEN that scary e-mail is the most important part. Just get the ball rolling. There’ll be so many mails more … and if you need to do a silly dance after sending a scary email, do it. Nobody’s judging. Unless you have a cat.So, phone calls. They usually don’t happen. If people want to call and it’s for a book cover or something similar tell them no and that you’d rather have all the information in writing. Which is better anyways. For your records and because it’s much harder to misunderstand or forget something typed. Now, I’ve had phone calls happening this year for my tv work. Sometimes it’s quicker to receive feedback and explanations ‘in person’ and people call. They’ll ask up front though and you can set a date/time. Nowadays you can usually opt for Skype, too, which was possible with one team I worked with, which I was very grateful for. Skype is for some reason easier for me than phone calls, probably because I feel more in control having the screen in front of me and being able to see other people’s expressions, gestures.Before the first call I was still incredibly nervous. Chattering teeth nervous. I couldn’t concentrate the whole effing day. But the job paid well enough that I could risk deciding to tackle nothing besides the call that day. (I made other plany for the day, but nothing important and I was fully aware I’d most likely end up not doing it. It was more a gentle … when you feel up to it, draw. But if you need to watch 4 hours of Netflix and then spend an hour writing down your worst fears to get through this that is absolutely FINE.) I know myself by now. Stuff like this will keep me from being functional for the whole day, so I won’t force myself to be it despite it all. Keeping it easy, prepare what I can, most of all deep breathing.The calls got less anxiety inducing with every time and I even started to look forward to them because the team was lovely to work with and I loved the job. (And it felt so professional! Like. Yes, fill me in on the news. I got this covered. Expect sketches in a hour. Expect final on your desk tomorrow.) So know what you can expect of yourself, don’t bring yourself down. You’re good at other stuff. I’m great at working by myself for a long time and it makes me grow fast as an artist. I’m not good at phone calls. One of these things is MUCH more important to find work.Nevertheless, I had to do an actual phone calls with another team. It was horrible. The people were perfectly sweet, but that phone was basically gliding through my sweaty fingers. Make sure to get all the important info in writing even if they’ve explained things to you on the phone. Even if you took notes. even if you’re afraid they’ll think you didn’t listen to them. Or are stupid. Better safe than sorry. I once didn’t catch that other people having a meeting was meant as a deadline for me which ended in one very relaxed evening and one panicked all-nighter to make it in time. So rather than do that write a ‘thanks for the talk, can you confirm this info I noted down, thank you’ e-mail. Especially when you’re like me and a part of your brain just shuts down when on the phone. (On the phone I can forget my name and birthday.)Finding clients … well most clients have found me. I’ve e-mailed some art directors I’d like to work with (find that address, Write ‘Hello, I’m an illustrator, would love to work with you some time, here’s a link to my portfolio. Maybe add 2-3 (low res) jpgs.) and sent out postcards, but I’m not good at doing that regularly and most jobs come from people finding my work on the internet. So submit your work to blogs and magazines (e.g. illustration age), be active on social media. Put your e-mail address somewhere where people can find it easily. I’ve actually had some good job inquiries from people who’ve found my work on Behance. I update that portfolio maybe twice a year, so it doesn’t take as much effort as Facebook or similar sites.Oh this got quite lengthy. There’s a cup of tea getting cold somewhere …Seriously, check out that Dear Art Director blog. It is invaluable info, no matter which part of the industry you want to work in.

#ask #loooong #it's edited now but still not very structured

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sssoto · 7 years

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Happy 200th birthday, Serena!

My dearest baby Serena da Silva has her birthday today, October 17th, and it’s not just any birthday - today marks the day she was born 200 years ago! EEEP how exciting is that? You only get to celebrate an anniversary like that once in your lifetime!

If you’re unfamiliar with Serena, she is my character from my book project series for Amnesia: The Dark Descent, in which she plays a major role. She’s probably the character nearest and dearest to my heart, and she tends to be a fan favourite among readers as well, so I wanted to do something extra special for this particular anniversary.

So here comes: a birthday feature! In which I display all the amazing gifts Serena has received today.

First of all, I want to show the wip of what I had planned to do for Serena, which unfortunately I couldn’t finish in time since my laptop screen broke at the WORST. TIMING. EVER. I meant to have this artwork ready for today, but since I won’t be able to finish it until later, I’ll share a wip of the clean sketch:

I must admit, I’m quite proud of it! It’s the first time I experiment with perspective and interiors for real, and I also usually suck at drawing animals, but Cleo (Serena’s cat) came out quite okay here, so I’m happy! I hope I’ll be able to finish it sooner rather than later.

And now, let’s get into the amazing gifts my baby has received today AAAHHH!

@juliajm15

If you’ve been following me for a while, you might know that @juliajm15 is an art goddess who’s been making amazing beautiful fanart of my characters for the past couple years. She always goes so above and beyond for me, and that can be seen by LOOKING AT THIS GORGEOUS PIECE OF SERANIEL FANART.

IT’S THEIR FIRST KISS. THEY’RE SO YOUNG AND INNOCENT HERE. THAT HEIGHT DIFFERENCE. THAT DRESS. THAT HAIR (BOTH OF THEM). I COULD GO ON GUSHING BUT WE’D BE HERE ALL DAY.

OH YEAH, AND THAT BACKGROUND.

I just had to mention that.

OMG I die over how perfect and cute and romantic this is, it just completely captures the essence and emotion of that scene in my book! I feel so blessed and privileged, how am I ever gonna recover from this perfection?

But not only did she do this amazing gorgeous romantic piece for me, she also did a complete remake of Serena’s character portrait and DAMN SHE LOOKS GORGEOUS.

HOW does she always manage to capture Serena so perfectly? Ugh I honestly just can’t with this perfection, I just can’t. That expression, that hair, those LIPS. Okay, I’m gonna move on because I could literally gush about Serena’s face all day, but then we’d miss out on all the other amazing gifts she received today! Just, thank you so much @juliajm15 my darling, you’re such a generous and ultra skilled human being, thank you so much for being in my life and supporting me always

@shaelinwrites

So meme and aesthetics queen @shaelinwrites totally disarmed me today when she sent me THIS GORGEOUS MOODBOARD FOR SERENA OH MY LORD.

LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS WINTER AESTHETIC. OMG LOOK, CLEO MADE A CAMEO ON THE BOTTOM LEFT. Omg these colours are just too beautiful I CAN’T. The art supplies, the gesture and expression of this girl, it’s all SO Serena. The whole feel of this moodboard is just so romantic and cosy and wintery and ugh, the nightgown, the long dark hair. I’m aware I’m just rambling and gushing throughout this post DEAL WITH IT.

And @shaelinwrites didn’t stop there, no, as any good bae, she knew how important the bae is. HAVE SOME MORE SERANIEL, THIS TIME BLACK AND WHITE SEXY EDITION.

OH MY LORD. HOW WILL I EVER RECOVER FROM ALL OF THIS. I CANNOT DEAL, CAN. NOT. DEAL.

All of this is literally just so accurate. Like, it’s so friggin’ hard to find good stock images that can embody a fictional character, BUT MY BAE DID IT *CRIES*. Thank you so much bae, omg this surprise was such a highlight today!!

@coffeeandcalligraphy

Another dear friend of mine (who’s a total cinnamon roll btw), @coffeeandcalligraphy, also went above and beyond for my character’s birthday because LOOK AT THIS:

I swear, everyone remembers the bae Baeniel. Eeeeeveryone.

Omg I swear, MY BABIES LOOK SO ATTRACTIVE HERE LIKE OH MY LORD. Daniel boooiiiiiii with that Expression of Angst™ and them puffy lips, and SERENA OMG THE HAIR AND THE LIPS AND EYES, HER INDIGENOUS ROOTS ARE SO PRONOUNCED WITH HER EYES AND I LOVE THAT.

I actually can’t??? Like how do I have so many talented af friends??? I must be a talent MAGNET I’m telling ya.

Oh and Rachel had the same idea as Baelin and went the sexy Black and White edition with the OTP as well:

BECAUSE CAN WE EVER HAVE TOO MUCH SEXINESS? I THINK NOT. Thank you so much @coffeeandcalligraphy I swear your art just blows me away, you’re improving at such a rapid pace, slow down, I can’t keep up

@sarahkelsiwrites

Also @sarahkelsiwrites is a close friend of mine, and actually @coffeeandcalligraphy‘s twin sister (gotta collect the whole pack amirite), and as part of her inktober challenge she did THIS GORGEOUS INKED PORTRAIT OF SERENA:

LIKE OMG OKAY SO the Victorian aesthetic is on POINT here, and OMG I love that her Hispanic features are soooo visible here. ALSO DAMN, THE DETAIL ON THE JEWELLERY. THE INKING OF THIS IS ALSO SO GREAT, LIKE, DO YOU SEE THE LINES IN HER HAIR???? I’m sorry, I’m an artist, I have to appreciate it when I see good craft, okay? I also gotta note that I’m living for how everyone always remembers Serena’s choker because girl never goes without one

Ugh HER EYES AND LIPS okay I gotta stop. I mention the eyes and lips every time, when will I switch it up. NEVER. Okay, glad we got that settled.

(Yes, I’m a dork, but only when I’m overwhelmed with this much love and beauty, I swear.)

Also omg THE SONG LYRICS, THOSE ARE SELENA GOMEZ LYRICS, AND IT’S STARS DANCE, AND I LOVE THAT SONG, AND IT’S SO RELEVANT, AND I’M ACTUALLY SHOOK. LORD thank you so much @sarahkelsiwrites god I just can’t believe how friggin’ talented and generous and thoughtful all of you are, I will never get over it.

Constance

So I’ve not mentioned this, but not too long ago I was totally taken by surprise and utterly *shook* when I received a private message on the site where I have Memoirs posted. This long message came from an angel named Constance, who registered a profile just to tell me how much she adored my story, give me fanart, and TELL ME SHE’S TRANSLATING THE ENTIRE THING TO FRENCH BRUH.

So if any of you out there are speaking French and not super comfortable with English, but still interested in reading Memoirs, it’s Constance you wanna hit up. She’s got you covered.

But back to the FANART.

Constance is working on this GORGEOUS Serena fanart for me, and while it’s not all finished yet, she said I could still post it for the birthday feature! (I’m going to update the post with the finished piece once it’s ready)

LOOK HOW CUTE AND PRETTY AND YOUNG MY SERENA IS HERE. THIS DRESS IS SO PRETTY, I DIE. OMG SHE HAS THE LOCKET. I realise like 90% of this post is all caps, but WHO CAN BLAME ME? I’m so #blessedyouknow right.

All I wanted in my life is Serena in a pink pretty dress. Thank you for realising my dreams, Constance *cries* and thank you so much for the endless support and this generosity! Seeing other people getting so invested in my story and characters really moves me so much, it’s all that I could hope for waaahh.

2k17 - Birthday One Shot

Okay, so I know how I said I couldn’t finish my artwork for Serena in time as I had intended, which made me very, very Sad™, BUT. I came up with something else.

So this was actually SUPER spontaneous and I usually NEVER do something like this, but I took a chance, and you know what? It worked out. I just wanna say thank you so much to my bae @shaelinwrites who pushed and motivated me to do this, I dunno what happened, but you must’ve transferred some of your writing machine abilities to me, because I actually managed to finish an entire one shot in JUST ONE DAY. (Are you as shook as I am? Cuz I can never seem to finish a chapter so I’m shook.)

Since I couldn’t finish my artwork for Serena like I planned, I decided to write a short fluffy non-canon one shot for her birthday. It was super spontaneous and unplanned, but it actually came surprisingly easy to write! I’ve not written in first person in many, many years, so this was really a leap of faith LOL, but I like the end result! A major thanks to @shaelinwrites, who encouraged me and critiqued the short before publication, and @coffeeandcalligraphy, @sarahkelsiwrites and @juliajm15 for giving it a read and telling me their thoughts as well! I hope you all enjoy this little piece of fluff; since I’m taking so long to write my book, maybe this can keep y’all entertained meanwhile

Thank you so much to everyone who’s supported me and celebrated Serena’s birthday with me, even just in spirit! It makes the long journey all worth it, knowing there are people out there who care (’:

(short story starts under the cut!)

Roses and Ballerinas

The balcony drapes danced lightly with the gentle morning breeze, a delicate waltz. My existence was comfort, head cushioned by feather pillows and silk sheets swathing my naked form. Sunlight hadn’t woken me; London was always grey, ash brick and fog, and even more so in the rainy days of October. However, for what one might expect, the morning didn’t seem to carry its usual autumn gloom—though I suppose that observation could’ve had more to do with my current disposition.

A smile crept on my lips at remembrance of the night previous, one which, if anyone saw, surely would’ve spoken of scandalous notions unfit for a such young lady to entertain. Fortunately, none had been around to witness what had occurred in this room; tangled limbs, kisses of the sweetest character, ardour’s touch, skin marked with such fierce passion that even I could not have imagined. It didn’t seem right that something so blissful could be immoral. Should a simple seal of matrimony reverse what was once considered debasement? What a frigid, unromantic sentiment. If anyone would’ve cared to ask me, I would sing praise to the levels of delight and unison one could only reach when committing so wholeheartedly to Venus’ embrace. Might my lover treat me to such a lovely experience again tonight? This was after all a special day of mine.

I turned in my silk cocoon to face him, and was met with a disappointing sight. Half my bed was empty, only evidence that anyone had occupied the space a faint outline in the wrinkled sheets where his body had laid. I was accustomed to sharing this queen size with no one. My parents had always been diligent in ensuring that I was endowed much more space than a small person like me required. Somehow, the vastness of this bed, indeed this entire room, seemed pronounced in this moment. I fancied I didn’t really like that much space at all. It only served to remind me of my loneliness.

Rationality grounded me; naturally, he’d gone to his own room before my maid servant would come to knock. It was only sensible. If Lydia came to discover him here, she could not keep such a secret from Mama—though truly I hadn’t much need for concern today, as she was typically inclined to let me sleep in on a day of my celebration. Yes, it was the day itself which heightened my sensitivity, nothing more. Admittedly I’d had hopes for the morning, that he might wake me with another of his sweet kisses, might whisper words of admiration and appreciation in my ears as he’d play with my dark locks—an occupation he liked to take up whenever he visited my private chambers, I’d noted with slight thrill. Indeed, he was a beautiful man—one would be hard-pressed to argue the fact—but more importantly was how knowledgeable he’d proven himself on the treatment of a woman. Had I ever felt so worshipped and adored? If so, I couldn’t recover the memory.

My hand caressed the empty space next to me. He’d always held my fancy, even before either of us could be consciously aware of such implications. As far back as when he’d been a scrawny boy with round green eyes and tufts of brown hair that grew unrestrained, too wild for taming. Such was he when I’d first laid eyes upon him, myself a guileless, wide-eyed girl just six years of age. Our childhood was an innocent one, as most are, and a discordant one, as most aren’t. We’d been too young to fathom the consequences of our relationship. Even so, I could never regret it.

The door clicked open. I sat in surprise, pulling on my duvet to cover me. Why would Lydia not knock? This conduct was so unlike my meek maid, and certainly rude and improper. Under usual circumstances I’d not mind, but in my current exposed state I would’ve preferred for my servant to know her place and knock before entering. Would she not question my state of undress? Would I have answers to offer that wouldn’t further incriminate myself and fuel her suspicions?

But the sight which entered was not Lydia; indeed, this character was too tall, too broad, too much man. The clothes he’d discarded last night was now fitted on him in a most casual manner, shirt tucked carelessly into the waistband of the trousers he’d worn the day before and not fully buttoned. The tension in my body dwindled, and I let a sigh of relief. “You’re awake already? I thought I might make it back before you’d notice my absence.” He wore a crooked smile as he closed the door behind him, though it wasn’t smug but awkward, as if regretful he might’ve troubled me while he was gone.

“Daniel, where did you go? Did you not care to think you could get caught sneaking in and out of my room like that?” I said while he approached. I could not ignore how he moved with an arm behind his back, making his climb back into bed rather clumsy looking.

His smile was amusement now, a hint of a chuckle on the tilt of his lips. He leaned close, and his scent engulfed me, piquant and potent, woodsmoke and seasalt. I savoured the fragrance of him, and his warmth, and those lips, perfect for kissing, as they met mine in a sweet greeting. “Happy birthday, darling,” he muttered against my smile.

He pulled back, much to my dismay—though that sentiment was soon replaced by curiosity as he presented whatever he’d cared so much to hide behind his back. “What is that?” The words escaped me before I’d taken a proper glance at the object; a wooden box, handcrafted. The carving of a rose adorned the top lid and composed the main attraction. Still the rest of the box was as skilfully ornamented, only with less eye-catching swirls and foliage.

“Watch.” He bit his lip in thrill as was his habit—one I found rather endearing, I might add. He produced a small key from his pocket and inserted it into an opening hidden on the side.

I looked on in fascination as three turns of the key set the box in motion. The lid of the case rose all on its own, and as a lovely tune began its play, a small ballerina came to life and emerged from the box. She twirled around in a graceful dance, contentment in her gesture. I brought both hands to my lips, unable to contain my smile; she had long black hair, just like mine. “A music box!”

“Is it to your liking?” Daniel chuckled, and this time his grin was indeed quite self-satisfied.

I took the music box in my own hands and brought it closer to my face. The ballerina spun and spun without a care in the world; she was me, a version of myself I had dreamed of once. Unrestrained, unchained, free of her cage. Her face was simply painted, but the meaning in her dancing form could not escape me. Such I had seen myself, fantasized of another life. That he remembered… “It’s beautiful! How… When did you arrange this?” The inquiry came out more quiet and raspy than I had intended, but he heard.

“Good while ago,” said he with an air of nonchalance, as though it was little trouble. “The actual crafting of the box and ballerina wasn’t too difficult, but I needed some help to have all the parts fitted together. A clockmaker assisted me in getting the thing to actually play; as you know, I’m not much of a musician.”

I audibly gasped and stared up at him, unable to help myself. “You crafted this yourself?”

He seemed amused by my shock—no wonder, as I shouldn’t have been so surprised. He was the son of an artisan after all. The tune of the music box came to a halt at last, its last note fading into silence. “With my own bare hands. Look here,” he pointed to the interior of the lid, “There’s an inscription.”

My eyes followed to where he pointed; the ballerina had indeed stolen attention away from an engraving hidden behind her, on the curved inner side of the rose-adorned lid. Soul free of sorrow, heart light with hope; this be the path I follow, this is the path I chose. My chest swelled, and breath hitched. I wanted to speak, yet couldn’t bring the words to my tongue. Instead I choked on them, and they came caught in my throat.

Daniel tilted his head, understandable question lingering in his expression. Oh, those striking green eyes, this lovely visage. Handsomeness was a term he embodied so utterly; how was it fair for a face like that to completely disarm a woman? I composed myself and swallowed the cry which would’ve escaped me if I’d had just little less self restraint. My one hand cupped the side of my face while the other held the music box, and my smile had no end to it still. Since all else I felt refused to be spoken, I settled on the one feeling I could formulate with ease—amusement. “Some poet you’ve become, huh?” I laughed, shaking my head, yet in an effort to quell the rush inside me.

He grinned and gave my shoulder a gentle shove, an action so very like his behaviour as a boy. “Don’t laugh, I put in a great effort; see, the words rhyme!”

My giggles intensified at his reaction. I placed the music box on the nightstand and spun the key again, thrice; thus the ballerina resumed her carefree dance, light and free. She was magical, twirling such as she did. What a spirit to have, a life to live. To choose your own path to follow, and not the one chosen for you.

I turned towards my company again and pulled on him, locking him between my arms in a tight embrace. “Thank you, Daniel.” I squeezed in hope that the fierceness of my display of appreciation would deliver the message better than words could. “Thank you so much. It’s wonderful.”

“I do consider myself quite the expert on gift giving.” His chuckle was warm against my bare neck. A large hand planted firmly between my shoulder blades and pressed me deeper into his warmth. “I’m sorry if I had you worried, Serena. I only went to fetch my gift for you. I promise I was careful.”

“It’s fine, Daniel.” The words came out in a sigh of contentment. He was indeed so broad and so much bigger than I; his figure wrapped me in amenity, instilling within me an ease I couldn’t hope to discover elsewhere. It was an ease of novel excitement and nostalgic familiarity, all at once. “In truth, what bothered me was the idea that you’d left me to wake by myself.” I pulled away enough to look at him and brushed a strand of his long, brown locks from his face. “Today of all days.”

At those words, Daniel constrained his smile from widening too much, and I blushed by the notion that I’d said something to make him so satisfied with himself. “Well, let me assure you that you needn’t worry of that, my love.” He leaned over me, and I fell back into silk. I had no need for the duvet to cover my naked figure any more; his broad form was quite enough coverage. “You should know that the only instance in which I would leave this bed willingly would be the moment you tire of me and kick me out.”

I bit my lip as a gratifying sensation waved through me, and my fingers found way to the waistband of his trousers, pulling the shirt loose of it. “If that is a challenge,” I laughed, “then go ahead and make your attempt at tiring me.”

By the smirk on his lips, it seemed he accepted. The music box played its last note; it rang into the room and deadened to silence, and so a music of another kind took its place. Lord pray that Lydia would have the thought to let her lady sleep in on her birthday.

So that was all for this century’s anniversary! Thank you so much to all my friends who made these amazing gifts for her, and all of you who participated in celebrating her; it means so much

Until next century, darlings! (I’m kidding, I’m not gonna be inactive on this blog a whole century…)

#amnesia the dark descent #daniel of mayfair #original character #fluff #fanart #fanfiction #birthday #anniversary #gift art for soto #art wip #friends #serena da silva #daniel james wilkinson #seraniel

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chxxry · 4 years

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27072020

I realise I update on July more than other months. Nothing much to update about but maybe just some of my boring writings again, on life, on reality, on me.

Weather check: Rainy, wet. Comfort level check: Hoodie comfy Emotional check: normal, in the mood level Drink check: Coffee, bitter enough

More than half a year in of 2020 and with Covid going on, a lot of things to get use to but it doesn’t mean I wasn’t busy. I was busy, busy with school, busy looking for a more rightful job, busy with keeping my 2 years plans, busy with making sure I’m still enjoying, busy busy busy with so many things in and out of my head.

I read back what I wrote and I see the change in me then and now. They were the journeys that bring me today to who I am. I am not someone who is very well the first person will anyone think of to hang out or consider as someone’s priority in a way besides my parents. And I use to question my worth as a person, before I realise that all of these didn’t matter. The likes on Instagram or Facebook do not prove who I am, the comments on the platform do not tell you how I am as a person and definitely they do not share who I am as me, a human with the tiny crackers. It take me long but definitely with the things happening around me to show and tell myself, my worth and value comes from me. So long I appreciate myself, people will learn to do so. I start asking myself why I have my social media platforms, I use Instagram because I just want to keep my pictures as memories, whether past or present. And there I kept it, updating what I want, do what I feel like doing not to please anyone but myself. I love taking photos, not for anything but memories even if the eye and mind as the best. Then, I kept Facebook though I deleted it so many times but it boils down to memories with some of my friends. Even so, I still ask myself if I should just delete Facebook forever because I still question on how I feel about the platform. I still do not fancy it and the only reason is still the memories and friends and keeping my photos as an album. I just find it toxic for me and my health. Twitter, just updating me on my Love for Motorsports or Seventeen and some of my Japan news.

It’s not just social media that got me under before realising what is more important, then I have the people around me that taught me alot. I used to fear so much on losing out, I used to hate myself for having so much insecurities, I used to get so dark because of the people around me, I used to have so much negative because of everything. From simple knowing that my messages are left read and unreplied to seeing how someone is hanging out with another more, they really killed me inside out. I got so sour and negative till I trash myself up for being useless. It sounded like a social media thing but no, it was way before that when social media doesn’t exist yet or that advance with story functions etc. Like I said, I was never the one on priority mind and was the “leftover” I will call it. From Primary school till now, I still feel that way but just that now I really do not trash myself over it but embrace to love myself with appreciation for me. But when I was like from 7 or 8, I was always bullied in a way but I never understood. Even then the “friends” I believe to have, they were nice but at some point I know I was not the included to the plan if there were any. But just, “oh, you heard it so you want to join” and I would tag along. I was that dense, could never read the situation. I know people outside of school but you do not call them friends, you just call them company for the wrong reasons.

Then when I got to another school from 13 onwards, it was a similar thing but this time was just more add on. Like, more in a hostile way people show you that you will never be part of them and that is when I hopped from people to people, not friends but people. As much as things were like this, I did not entirely trash myself up for it but I thought I should change. Silly I know, but think in my shoes where you had nobody even at 13, and 14 came with people I can call friends but I still decide to “make change” to fit right. Even when I had friends, I was still trying to fit in and not forgetting bullied. I was even if I never knew about it until a friend mentioned years later. I was that dense, which was a good and bad thing. Because if I knew I was bullied then, I believe I would be in tears and fear for what might happened. Then when I finally left the school, I cannot tell you how relief I was with excitement to start life at another campus.

That’s when I hit 17 and enters a more Teenage going Adult life. This is where things become more interesting. I start to be more aware about people, but I still try to “do the fit in”. Now being 26, I think back and laugh at how pathetic I was. But then, I was living like hell. When you wish to be accepted and you sort of “force” yourself in, it sucks. The little affection that the people did were enough to keep my “happy” but they don’t last long. I wasn’t happy, I start asking why did I force myself in just because I want “to be cool” or “clique” like why. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my own friends in the campus who make me happy and till now, I feel like the most blessed soul to have them in my life. No, they are not this “clique” I talk about. But even when they graduated and I graduated, it hasn’t occur to me about the word “granted”

From 7 or 8 till now, I do meet and make new connection outside. Some I call friend and some I just don’t. And for the life of 19 years, I trashed myself up so many times even wrecking myself like a nutcase. I got crazy when I see simple things like “not being included”. I cry myself to sleep, I beat myself up (literally), I start questioning my worth as “value-less”, I make the worst out of myself and victimise myself. Pathetic. It was. Until last year where I start questioning myself. I started asking why am I making myself so effected and pain when these people knew nothing about. Why am I making myself look so sad like a loser when they didn’t bother. Why am I putting them before my own needs just because you fear to lose them. I ask a lot of question to myself on the random day, no idea how or why but I am glad I did. I start to remove my social media platforms and trust me, they ain’t easy but it was a worth it move. I didn’t delete my accounts just keeping away.

And soon, I got the hang of things. I gave myself to reason why I want to keep my accounts and they definitely are not to give me negatives. Until now, these things happens. Like not being asked out, like not being talked to etc. ALL of these, are normal. When there was no social media, we had no issues because we cannot see to get envy or jealous or fear. I started to tell myself to stop viewing the Story unless it is some update from my motorsport or idol or even cats. Then when I see something like maybe A and B hanging out and not asking me or mentioning, I ignore and tell myself “hey, what’s the deal. You prefer your own healing time” and it always works. And when people do not text me or reply me, I heck it too with the only sentence in my head “do not bug me when I don’t text” HAHAHAHAH. I am serious, I mean what? you need your time and to go to your priorities, me too!

But all in all, all these people and social media really cause me a lot of hell. One of the cause to my panic or anxiety attack, i think more on the panic side but at the same time, I never learn a harder lesson than this. A lesson on love yourself, appreciate yourself and pamper yourself before giving to others. Giving is so exhausting but something they can be rewarding if you know “worth it”. I am still giving despite all, I tried to change that but I can’t seem to. Pathetic I know! but it is part of me, the only thing I can do it manage my expectations after. I have so many expectations that were never fulfilled and I learn to put a stop. I stop expecting returns, I stop expecting surprises, I stop expecting bigger love from others. I stopped. Because I start to give myself and reward myself even if I can surprise myself but god surprises me some times.

If you ask me what is on my mind now, I am still thinking to delete my socials and maybe walk away one day. Walk away from the digital world that have been toxic, even now. I am still going through the day and night, but I do not think about people as much as I use to. Now I walk away, find me if you want to but if only you can. We have to learn to live for us before others, even it sounds selfish but everyone around me show me enough. I appreciate some actions and thoughts or help from people, but I don’t think I will say it is enough for me to say oh, I love you so much. No. I am over that.

Maybe to anyone who know me, and wonder. Why not you ask yourself first before asking me if you deserve anything from me. Maybe a friend status. I do not play more than that. And I assure you, you are 90% chance not part of that status.

To everyone, thank you for being a lesson of mine. And to me, to many more journeys we will walk.

Here, I hope for things to be better so I can start.

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soulcastermindset · 4 years

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Quarantine Blog: Entry 1

The life of a small-town introvert during a global pandemic

Let’s start with the basics. I’ve noticed that being stuck in a house with three other people and a cat leaves me rather stir-crazy. I’m not as motivated to do school work as I’d like, there’s a chance I might not have my usual job this summer, and not being able to go grab a milkshake and see a movie kinda sucks. But one of my mottos in life is “enjoy the little things.” And that’s especially true during times like these. So I figured, for the first entry in this series, I should start with the good things that have happened during all this and mention a few favorites.

Favorite things to do during quarantine:

Watch TV: I know a bunch of you are probably thinking “well yeah, no duh,” but ya know what? I’ve got Westworld season three. My dad got Disney Plus for a week so we could watch The Mandalorian. I watched I Am Not Okay With This on Netflix and honestly if the second season’s as good as or better than the first, It might have a shot of being up there with its predecessor, The End of The F-ing World (which is a personal fave, btw, if you want a quick show to binge both seasons of in approximately 5-6 hours, this is my Personal TV Recommendation(TM) for this post). My favorite show is coming back in May for its last season. TV is too important not to mention right now.

Read: I finished one novel and have technically started another (though I’m still on Chapter 1) and I read fanfiction online every day. Also, Webcomics. Webcomics are a fucking blessing and we do not deserve all the amazing ones that are out there. If you want one that’s updated every weekday and has seventeen years-worth of content under its belt, read Questionable Content. It’s my favorite, and honestly, if you read it from the beginning, just watch the art style evolve from 2003 to now. It’s so interesting to see that kind of personal growth while also being told an awesome story. The storylines have only gotten better and better through the years too, so keep an eye out for characters you’ll get invested in. I didn’t mean to turn this section into hype for QC so we’ll move on lol

Write: This one’s been a bit of a challenge. Writing is my favorite thing to do, but working on stories from home has been a bit strange. Maybe I’ll find a better working space and that will help? It’s a bit difficult when there’s four people crammed into one house at all times and one has to work from home. But I’ve done some decent work still, and I’m excited to see what else I can do. When school work dies down I’ll be able to work on my novels again! That’ll be awesome!

Play Flight Rising: So I am, maybe, very slightly, just as a general rule... dragon-obsessed. And the online game Flight Rising is one I’ve been part of for five years as of today (Happy Birthday, Clan Chiaroscuro! Here’s to another five years and more!). I’ve gotten so any projects done, interacted a bit with the community, and written quite a bit of lore, which has helped with my bit of writer’s block I’ve been having in other areas. It’s a great way to spend time when I don’t have anything else to do, and helps give me a sense of accomplishment, which is super nice.

And now, for some general good things that have happened over the past couple of weeks:

- I finally got all my stuff out of my college dorm! I’ll be able to play video games again and keep up with school work better!

- One of my favorite professors called me one of her favorite people and it made my whole day.

- There’s a park in my town so when my mom really needs to get out of the house we go to the park, sit in the car, and read, so we’re still social distancing but at least we’re outside.

- I got to watch Alice In Wonderland (the 1950s version) today and I’m low-key obsessed with anything from those books and movies so that was a real treat.

- I got to eat dinner with a friend at one of my favorite restaurants he’d never been to before news of the pandemic got super crazy.

- The turtle doves that live over my front door are back! It’s always nice to see them around.

- One of my very good friends works at the local McDonalds and I hadn’t seen her since May so when I went through the drive-thru for food and saw her, it was awesome.

- My mom made Spaghetti Bake (which is better than regular spaghetti) just because she knew I was missing it so much.

- I started listening to the Newsies soundtrack more regularly again and I’m remembering how good it is.

Well, folks, that’s all for this post! Be safe out there; wash your hands, stay inside if you can, and make sure to keep finding small things you enjoy! Smile at least once every hour! Get up and dance if you can! Make sure you keep in touch with the people you care about! And above all, know that whatever you’re feeling in the midst of all this is completely valid, and if you need help, there are still people out there who can and will do their best to help you. Goodnight, good humans.

#quarantine thoughts #stay at home #enjoy the little things #stay whelmed #you can do this #alice in wonderland #questionable content #flight rising #i am not okay with this #the end of the f***ing world #introvert thoughts

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a-vast-horizon · 7 years

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The Return - Lion and Lars

Oh gosh, I didn’t realize it had been a month since the last update. This one’s longer and took longer to write too, ha.

This time: Lars spends some time with Steven’s Lion.

Read more of The Return [here].

Read on Fanfiction.net [here]/ Read on AO3 [here]

Lars knocked on the door to Steven’s house a bit nervously. He’d been there before, but that was after Steven had possessed him and walked his body in without his awareness—he had been inside, but never really entered.

“Lars! You’re here!” Steven called, and Lars could see him scrambling to open the door through the screen.

“Sure I am,” Lars said. “You said there was someone you wanted me to meet?”

Lars didn’t have a clue who would be at Steven’s house that he’d need to meet; the Off-Colors were staying here, but he already knew them all, and he’d met the Crystal Gems before.

“I wanted you to meet Lion!” Steven beamed, gesturing up to the loft above them, where sure enough, there was a sleeping lion. A lion in a very familiar shade of pink.

“Steven, is this the lion you were talking about on Homeworld? The one with the-“ Lars gestured at his own hair, still unsure how exactly to describe exactly what it was now.

“Yep!” Steven said cheerfully. “I don’t know anyone else that’s, well, been through the same stuff, and since Lion has, I figured you could learn some things from him!”

Lars looked up at Lion, who was sprawled across the floor at the foot of Steven’s bed, one back leg twitching in his sleep.

“Steven, he’s a lion. He can’t talk, can he?”

“No,” Steven said, obviously growing a bit dejected. “Or at least if he can talk, he hasn’t talked to me yet.”

“So what am I supposed to learn from him if he can’t talk? You know about all his powers and stuff, right? Why don’t you just teach me instead?”

“It’s not that simple,” Steven sighed. “Lion’s always doing things I don’t know he can, and even the stuff I do know about, I don’t know how he does it. If I tried to tell you about it, I’d probably wind up leaving out something I didn’t know was important, or explaining it the wrong way, or something. Lion can’t tell you how he does any of this stuff, but I figured you’d probably have a better chance learning it by watching him do it than listening to me tell you about it.”

Steven might have a point there. He was a great kid, but not always the best at explaining things. Lars took another look at Lion, at the fur the same shade of pink as his own skin, the mane the same candyfloss color. If there really was no one else on Earth the same as the two of them, he had to give it a try, right?

“Steven, he’s asleep,” Lars said. Steven, recognizing it as a concession, perked back up.

“Yeah, he naps a lot, but I’m sure he’s gonna wake up soon! Wait, there’s something we can try, give me a sec!”

Steven pulled away from Lars and ran to the kitchen, and Lars took the chance to walk further into the living room. Lion seemed pretty dead to the world. If he learned nothing else here, at least Lars was pretty sure he’d still be able to sleep if he wanted to. He didn’t need sleep anymore, but sometimes it was nice to just block everything out for a few hours. Nice to know he hadn’t lost the ability to do it.

“Steven!” a third voice called. Lars turned to see the Crystal Gems emerging from a glowing door in the rock wall, and honestly, if he hadn’t seen all kinds of stuff like it on Homeworld already, he’d be freaking out a bit right now.

“Steven are you ready for the mission – oh, hello Lars!” Pearl called, noticing the teen in the living room only at the end of her sentence. Lars nodded in recognition, but didn’t talk – Pearl seemed to be a Gem in a hurry right now.

“Oh shoot!” Steven said, a box of those ridiculous Lion Lickers in his hands. “I just invited Lars over! Can’t it wait like, an hour?”

“Nope,” Garnet said, and Steven sighed. He stuck the box back into the freezer and began walking towards the launch pad.

“Wait, where are you going?” Lars asked, confused.

“On a Gem mission,” Steven sighed. “We gotta stabilize some Gem wreckage in the jungle before it crashes with enough force to cause an earthquake. I’m not sure why we’re doing it right now though, I thought it was safe for another couple days?”

The last question was directed at the Gems more than it was at Lars.

“Yes, well, we may have been a bit less careful disrupting the wreckage to pull the ship out than I thought,” Pearl said. “We were very worried about you, Steven.”

Her voice sounded so much like his mother’s had, when he’d first made it back to Earth. Quiet and achingly full of sadness.

“So should I come back another day?” Lars asked.

“If you want to, I guess, but this should be pretty quick. You can just, um, sit on the couch and wait! We’ll be back really soon.” Steven smiled anxiously and patted Lars’s shoulder on his way to the warp pad. Before Lars could even figure out what to say to that, the Gems were gone.

“Well, that just happened,” Lars said, still trying to figure out how he’d come to be in Steven’s living room when Steven wasn’t there but a lion was.

Speaking of the lion, Lars took another look up to the loft, where sure enough, Lion was lying in the same position.

But his eyes were open now.

In a flash, Lion jumped down from the loft and landed in front of Lars, eying the teen in what seemed like a curious manner.

“Gah! Geez, don’t do that to a guy!” Lars complained. Lion just leaned forward to sniff at him, then sat back on his hind legs and continued eying him.

“Heh, I guess you’re a lot like a cat, huh? I guess technically lions are cats. Dunno what Steven was thinking I’d be able to learn from a big fuzzball like you.”

Lars reached forward to attempt petting Lion, but as he did, Lion moved faster than he thought was possible and quickly grabbed Lars’s shirt collar in his teeth, lifting the teen off the ground as he startled.

“Hey! Put me down!” Lars protested, but Lion swung his head to the side, throwing Lars roughly onto Lion’s own back, where Lars clung for dear life. The second Lars seemed to be getting some balance, Lion roared, and something about the roar struck a nerve deep inside Lars. He couldn’t put it in words, but some part of him was almost resonating with the roar.

Lars was so busy being confused by this that he didn’t notice the glowing pink portal that Lion had opened until the two were already through it.

The place where Lars now found himself was like a place from a kid’s storybook, or a dream. It was an enormous field of strawberry plants—huge strawberry plants. In between the enormous leaves, Lars could see flashes and glints of other colors reflecting the sunlight: swords, spears, an enormous mace.

“What is this place?” Lars asked Lion, who only began running through the field. This time, Lars could tell Lion was about to roar a split second before he did: that strange buzzing, pulling, singing sensation fizzled in his core as Lion roared again, and this time Lars watched as a portal sprang into existence in the direction Lion had roared.

This was the kind of thing Lion could do? Was this a power Lars could learn somehow? And if so, how? There was no noise a human could make with the same power as a lion’s roar.

Lars watched in rapt attention as Lion opened a handful more portals to incredible locations (including the island where he and Steven and Sadie had been ‘stranded’ for some time, where he swore he saw a person made of watermelon), finally portalling the two of them back to Beach City.

Several hundred meters from the shore.

Lars flinched and covered his face with his arms, bracing for the impact of salt water, but it never came. Lion continued running, and Lars opened his eyes to see what the deal was.

They were still far from the shore. And Lion was still running. On top of the water.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Lars cried. “You can freaking walk on water and Steven didn’t think to even mention it?”

With the pace Lion was running, the two reached the shore quickly, and Lion plopped down onto the sand. Lars took the opportunity to slide off Lion’s back and onto the sand before Lion could decide to drag him through another portal and stay there instead, but he didn’t head home yet.

Steven had been right. Lars wanted desperately to learn how to do the incredible things that Lion was able to do. He’d been useful mostly as one end of a doorway so far; he wanted to be able to be helpful even when Steven wasn’t there to access his hair-dimension.

Lion blinked at Lars, looking at the teen expectantly.

“What?” Lars asked.

Lion turned his head to look out at the ocean, in the direction they’d just come from. Where Lion had just run on top of the water.

Did he want Lars to try it, too?

Lars glanced around the beach—old habits die hard, and being self-conscious was a tough one to break. The sun was beginning to set, and there was hardly anyone around. No one seemed to have noticed Lion arriving, either. Even if Lars made a spectacle of himself, there was no one around to gawk.

“Worth a try, I guess,” Lars said, walking nervously toward the edge of the water. He placed one foot forward, as if he was just taking another step, and cautiously brought it down.

His foot slipped below the surface of the water, as anyone else would have expected it to, and Lars stumbled back as seawater soaked through his shoe and into his sock. Homeworld had some nasty things to offer, but wearing a cold, wet sock was still extremely unpleasant.

Lars heard shuffling in the sand beside him, and Lion came to stand next to him. Lion fixed his gaze on Lars for a few moments, and then walked forward to the edge of the water and carefully dipped a paw in. It, too, breached the surface of the water and got wet. Lion backed up and shook the water off of his paw, then took off running without warning, bounding straight for the water, and this time he stayed on the surface. Lion ran in a small circle before coming back into shore, and only a moment after Lion’s feet hit the shore, Lars could feel his nose digging into Lars’s back, pushing him towards the water.

“So, what? I just . . . gotta go fast?” Lars asked. Lion nudged his back again.

“Okay,” Lars said, shifting into a running position. “Let’s try this again.”

Lars took off for the water, taking a few running strides before he reached the waterline again, and he forced himself not to flinch or alter his pace as he reached the water that should have slowed him.

Instead, he was able to keep running, the waves underneath his feet. The feeling of running on water was strange—the ground was constantly shifting, and there was so much give to the surface, like walking on the top of one of those foam pits at a gymnastics studio. It was surreal, and Lars had to force himself to concentrate on keeping his legs moving instead of on the feeling of the surface of the water. He had reached a deeper part of the water, now, and it would be pretty bad if he fell in and had to swim back to shore.

With that thought, Lars turned and started running back towards the shore, carving a wide arc. Back on the beach, Lion was watching him with what he’d call satisfaction, if he had to guess at a lion’s emotions.

He was really doing this. He was running on water.

“LARS!” came a gleeful shout from the beach, and Lars stumbled and splashed into the water—thankfully shallow, only a foot or so deep. He turned to see Steven rushing down to the water from the direction of the Temple, wearing a grin that threatened to split his face in half.

Lars got to his feet and made it to shore by the time Steven reached him and swept him into a practically bone-crushing hug.

“Oh, Lars! I knew you’d be able to learn something!” Steven said, and Lars couldn’t help but smile and feel a little proud of himself. After all, he’d just been able to do something that, as far as he knew, no other human had ever accomplished.

“So what else did he show you? Did you learn anything else?” Steven asked, pulling back to watch Lars’s face, glee clearly spread across his own. Lars nervously ruffled his hair. He could feel the soft heat of a blush spreading across his face, though he wasn’t sure if it was visible given how pink the rest of him already was.

“Well, he did make a whole bunch of portals by roaring,” Lars said. “But I think it’s gonna take me a while to figure that one out.”

“Don’t worry! I know you’ll be able to figure it out!” Steven beamed.

“Yeah,” Lars said. He didn’t doubt the younger boy; this was just the start of what he’d be able to do, he was certain of it.

#lars barriga #pink lars #steven universe #steven universe fanfiction #steven universe lion #zen talks #zen writes #su #su spoilers #wanted #wanted spoilers #lars

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otp-is-at-it-again · 7 years

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11 Questions

Rules: 1. Always post the rules 2. Answer the questions given to you by the person who tagged you 3. Write 11 questions of your own 4. Tag 11 people I was tagged by @crookedlovestory ! Thanks so much for tagging me! I love answering questions aha ♪( ´▽｀) Emily's Questions: 1. what tv show are you currently bingeing? who are your favorite characters? Um I'm not watching anything currently cause I'm on vacation, but the last show I binge watched was the Flash. I'd have to say my fav characters are between Barry, Iris, and Cisco. Barry cause he's cute and dorky at times, Iris because of her determination and friendly nature, and Cisco because of the puns :^) and overall that he can play both the clown and show everyone up with a scientific explanation for happenings 2. what is your guilty pleasure? Russel Stouffer eggs hhhh. I only get them if they go on sale, around the holidays, and even then it's not always easy so get my favorite flavors (because they sell out quick when cheap enough). My favorites are red velvet, truffle, and coconut cream. 3. what’s your biggest character flaw? (just being me in general) Um I'd have to say my depression is probably the biggest flaw I have currently. It comes up when people (my parents) yell at me, because I'm trying my best but even that never seems to be good enough. And when I get into that state I shut down physically, and mentally loop on the negatives on how useless I am as a person. It usually also comes up when I'm in a stressful situation, for ex when I'm overloaded with school and social and home problems at the same time. Though recently I've noticed I get it at random times now too, so idk. I just go along with it at this point. 4. did you have an imaginary friend as a kid? what were they like? what was their name? Ha.. Yeah I had an imaginary friend, when I was a little on the older side of childhood (middle school), though there's kind of a backstory to him. I was ahead of the curve with relationships amongst my friends, starting as early as 5th grade (compared to most who started in 7th or 8th). But the ones I had at the time sucked because the guy got bored or stopped caring or was too far away for anything to happen. I tried to move onto other guys, but when I tried to ask them out (yes I was /that/ kind of person) I always got rejected. Of course to my friends I played it off as no big deal, but each time I got rejected, each time after I asked a guy out he would ignore me like I wasn't even there despite us having classes together, it got to me and wore me down. So to compensate I guess my overactive imagination came up with the "perfect guy" so I wouldn't have to worry about being rejected any more, because he would always be there for me.. His name was Marcus. He's Japanese/White mix, about 6 feet tall with a slight muscular build. I used to have trouble sleeping at night because of the insecurities that built up after the rejections, after seeing my other friends have successful relationships so easily despite how much effort I put into starting my own and being shot down.. But in those times- again my overactive imagination came into play- I felt a presence on me that I manifested into Marcus, so that I could imagine someone being there with me, someone who could comfort me and make me feel like everything would be okay. For a while that helped, but it got out of control pretty quickly. Into high school I stopped imagining things like that, or having dreams about him and I, where I could experience a healthy relationship. At that point I gave up on trying to have a relationship, and figured it would be easier just to fill in that spot on Facebook so people would stop bugging me about finding someone. So I made a Facebook account under his name, Marcus Takahashi (I deleted the actual account, but I made a fictional character page that a lot of people have begun to like recently ?) and made it look like we were in a relationship. What I didn't expect was my mother-like friends to come on and start asking a bunch of questions like 'how did you two meet?' and 'where are you from?' and other informational stuff that I didn't want to answer so suddenly.. so I just knocked it off and told people it was just a joke. After that I ditched the idea of Marcus as my imaginary friend and adopted him more an an original character. So he's still around, it's just the context of his character is different now. 5. if you could tell your past self anything, what would it be? Don't fret so much over relationships. That is by far the most destructive thing you can do so early in life (at least speaking from my past experiences). If you express interest in someone and they don't put as much effort as you do into maintaining the relationship, drop them right then and there. It isn't worth the emotional and mental stress of blaming yourself for things you're not even at fault at. Just focus on the friendships you have and things will work out fine in the end. 6. what’s your favorite flower? why? ohh hmm. I think the plumeria would be one of my favorites. My grandma used to have a yellow plant in her backyard, near her pool, and I always thought it was the prettiest thing.. And as I got older and my family and I took walks around the neighborhood, I noticed a lot of people had them in their yards in a bunch of different colors. I think nowadays my favorite one of that species is the pink plumeria because it looks and smells really nice. 7. recommend one of your favorite books. what is it about? why do you recommend it? Boy oh boy. I have a lot of favorite books, but recently my favorite has been Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. The pov from the main character is nerdy and dorky, but relatable a lot of the time. Plus it has a bunch of old, obscure video game references which is pretty cool. I grew up with the games mentioned in the book, so it's kinda nostalgic reading about them. Totally would suggest others to read it. 8. what is a quote that has resonated with you? why is it important to you? Okay this is going to sound kinda stupid compared to all those inspirational quotes out there, but I really like this quote I found in a fan fiction, where the character says, "my sexual desires can be equated to the thirst of a camel". It was a pretty bad fanfiction (not really bad, just too cheesy even for my taste) but I thought that quote was absolutely perfect. Even after I dropped reading it, I kept a screenshot from that for the last three years because it's pretty accurate for me. I joke about it a lot with my boyfriend (which makes him cry a bit but it's still pretty funny). 9. what’s your favorite emoji? Hm. I think 👌🏼 or ✌🏼 would be my favorite ones because I use it a lot in my twitter posts. Like I'll update with something and be like 'this cool thing happened to me dudes 👌🏼👌🏼' or whatever. And I use the peace sign a lot irl so they're pretty useful. 10. what’s the weirdest dream you’ve ever had? *inhales* boi I have a bunch of weird dreams haha.. Um I think one of the weirder ones was from when I was younger.. It was the tail end of elementary school and I had a crush on these three boys that were best friends. I had a dream where I found them at Soak City, but it was super distorted (because almost all my dream places are). So we stood at the top of the colored slides and instead of being their normal height, they were probably 3-4 times that, and on rickety stilts instead. Of course one of the guys told me is was okay to slide down the red slide, so I made a jump for it (scary af). We went on another ride after that (I forget which) and then I followed the guys to the log ride. The guys went in, but I got sidetracked because I saw a cat in the planters next to the entrance. I went over to pet the cat and next thing I know there's a bunch of them surrounding me and meowing. I thought that was awesome at first cause I love cats, but next thing I know they're all scratching me and I kept flinging them off me because I was freaking out. I ended up backing into this room which turned into a distorted version of Chuck E. Cheese. The cats were gone, and I was at the entrance standing in front of an attendant. She said I was a special customer so I got a bunch of free tokens and some food, but at one point I got sidetracked again when exploring. I guess I found the entrance to the employee lounge, which was a maze, and went in because I wanted to see if I could find the end. Turns out an employee found me and asked what I was doing, so I fibbed and said I was looking for the bathroom. They escorted me out, and I ended up in this place that looked like a gift shop with stuffed animals and random toys on shelves. And I think the dream ended there. Pretty weird lol 11. which planet is your favorite and why? Hmm I think Jupiter is pretty cool because it's gaseous and has a bunch of different swirling colors on its surface, plus since it's so large it has a bunch of moons in its gravitational pull (and I think moons are neat). Though speaking in terms of connection to Roman mythology, I also like Neptune because of its relation to the god of the sea heh. I'm not going to do the questions because I already did them on my other blog ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ My main blog is @turqouiseorange if my other followers here want to check that out. Thank you again Emily for the tag <3 Even though I already did this and tagged you from my main, I answered your questions here because I thought they were really interesting and fun! Nice way to end the day heh ╰(*´︶`*)╯

#about me #kai speaks #I love these asks #I wish people would do this more often with me #on any blog of mine #I always get so happy when people ask me stuff

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austinpanda · 4 years

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Dad Letter 032920

29 March, 2020

Dear Dad--

Another week of pandemic, come and gone. I spent the week attempting to go nowhere and interact with no one, and failed. Social distancing is one thing, and I recognize its importance, but it hasn’t seemed to put a dent in our need for the occasional cheeseburger. So we stay indoors and do the responsible thing, and that lasts about 48 hours, and then someone says, “Okay, fuggit, I want some Wendy’s,” and off we go! I think if the worst-case pandemic scenario plays out, it’s going to be because of intelligent, well-informed people, like Zach and me, who couldn’t resist the smell of french fries. Then again, the news says you don’t have to be afraid to order takeout or go to the store, you just have to be careful about contact and distance and try not to touch your face.

I saw in your email that you’re applying for an Oklahoma marijuana card, is that right? Huzzah! If that’s the case, isn’t it fortunate that you have a relative who’s knowledgeable on the subject! As usual, I have to preface this by saying: Turns out I like the stuff, but everyone experiences it differently, and there’s a lot of pot-related hype and bullshit and snake oil (not to mention a lot of plain ol’ bad feelings about it) out there. I don’t think I mentioned this to you specifically, but not long after we moved here, since Maine has legal medical marijuana, I checked to see if I qualified to get a Maine marijuana card myself. And while I think the primary qualification is the one where they say, “That’ll be $60, please,” you do have to speak with a medical professional at some point and let them know what you think the stuff is going to help you with, medically.

I looked into it. My thinking was simply, I like the stuff, and Maine seems to think it qualifies as medicine, so if Maine thinks I might benefit from it, I can actually do it in a way that’s entirely within the law. And, HELLO, that’s always been the biggest drawback: knowing that, any time I buy some, I’m risking a traffic stop, and having my life irrevocably fucked up by the law. Doing it legally means that you can do it without fear of jail, or that you’ll get something that isn’t what the dealer says it is, or that you’ll get ripped off and have no recourse. Now it’s just...like buying alcohol.

Anyway, I checked to see if I qualified for a Maine marijuana card, and--prepare yourself for an enormous surprise--I do! I applied, and actually got a video call from a nurse practitioner on my cell phone. She asked about what kind of medical stuff I’m dealing with, and I mentioned depression, and pain I experience every day from my excitingly dysfunctional ankles, and that I sometimes can’t fall asleep. She asked what I was doing to treat those things, and I told her all the stuff I’ve done to address those problems, some of which persist, regardless. She granted my request for a marijuana card!

So now, whenever I want, I can drive to Green Alien Cannabis, which is right next to the Best Buy in Bangor, and used to be a Pizza Hut, and get a half ounce of “Afghani Thin Mint Purple Nurple Tooty Frooty Kush” variety, or whatever, and they’ll have suggestions on what different strain is best for what kind of symptoms. On that note, and I beg your pardon if you already knew this, but a brief primer: Marijuana has two “flavors,” if you will, and they act a bit differently. There’s sativa, which gives you energy and creativity and makes you want to paint paintings, and there’s indica, which makes you so relaxed that you melt into the sofa, and helps fall asleep. That second one, indica, is what I’d recommend. It’s gentler and more relaxing. And the places that sell the stuff will be able to tell you if you’re getting a sleepy indica or an energetic sativa, or a hybrid with both, and in what percentages. Another disclaimer: pot is bad for you! Anything you set on fire and inhale is bad for you. It’s not a magical panacea, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

I don’t remember much about your experience with pot, except Mom saying it made you paranoid and y’all had to walk around the block to calm you down. Also Stacy and I found a black bong one time (this would have been in the late 70s, I’m thinking?) only we had no idea what it was. For what it’s worth, when it’s legal, your brain tends not to spend too much time worrying about the police showing up and spoiling your evening.

I suppose I have at least a few non-weed-related things I could update you on! My job is supposed to start a week from Monday, but that seems unlikely with the coronavirus still making life interesting. I’ll call them; we’ll figure it out.

In anticipation of adopting the neighbor’s black stray cat, we’re trying to convince the cat that we’re friendly, and that human touch is a good thing, but she’s very flighty. At this rate, it’s going to take 600 years. I think we need a new strategy.

Our local grocery store has installed clear plastic shields in front of the checkers! It’s just a single big flat piece of clear plastic right in front of each checker, like a sneeze guard at a salad bar.

You’ll be getting $2,400 from the government in the next few weeks. I suggest you blow it all on weed and porn and MAGA hats! I’ll probably throw most of my corona-bucks onto my credit card, to help get that balance down.

I took an online test to find what kind of alcohol I am! According to the test, I’m tequila: wild, unpredictable, loud, and energetic. Truly, the wisdom of the internet is not to be scoffed at.

Someone left most of a pizza on the ground near the front of our trailer, and I took many photographs of seagulls eating it, including one pic of a crow showing up and stealing some pizza.

I’ll be happy when the quarantine is no longer necessary, but for now, we have everything we need, and plenty of stuff to keep us busy. Hope things are looking up for you two. All my love to you both, and wash those hands! :)

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chfaiq5k-blog · 4 years

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The Secret to Social Marketing Using Facebook Fan Pages

Don’t be one of those people who says, “I like pretty much everything. While filling out your profile, be sure to fill in things like your “Favorite Music”. Your musical taste says a lot about who you are, so list your favorite bands in your profile’s “Favorite Music” section.

It’s absolutely fine to use one of the many automation tools out there (such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Social Oomph) that will enable you to manage your different social media accounts in one place. These tools also conveniently allow you to schedule posts in advance to save you time and automatically link your blog to your Facebook business page.

It’s a wise choice to have your community involved in your basic decisions. Have your fans get involved with your various company or brand decisions. Customers love to feel important. If you blog, ask fans what they want to hear about.

Keep your postings fun and interesting but leave sensitive stuff for personal messages or even email. Don’t tell stories about wild weekend trips that you took (you know the one where you can’t remember anything, but there are pictures you’d rather not see).

Facebook doesn’t like bots or other automated services that would bother its 800 million user-base. The platform expects civilized and uninterested human interaction and will not hesitate to chop down heads in some cases.

But be aware that if all your posts and updates are shared via an automation tool, for example from Twitter or via Hootsuite, people will quickly work out that you never personally visit your Facebook profile or business page.

Once you’ve joined a community you can begin making new friends and contacts. Well get over it because the social networking can only start when you belong to a good sized community who know and like you! You’ll also be that much more likely to hear from a random person (or two) that you knew back in grade school who’s looking for exactly the product or service you have to offer.

There’s more than anecdotal evidence showing how powerful Facebook is as a medium and the sheer volume of sales that it can generate. For those who ask if it’s worth it, as mentioned, it truly does depend on the affiliate and/or company. Not everyone can afford software like this nor can they justify it if they aren’t using Facebook specifically for marketing purposes. But that brings up the point, why not.

Facebook suggests friends to you all the time and often you’ll have what is called “mutual friends”. You may not know one another, but because you are both connected to a third party on Facebook, Facebook suggests that you two both connect as well.

So the question isn’t the viability of the market, it’s a matter of time management for the most part because marketing to these social media sites requires more time and more attention than, say, placing a static banner ad somewhere. It’s also impossible to achieve the same level of specificity (or targeting) that these social networks can offer due to their data tracking.

Facebook continues to go from strength to strength. With more than 500 million people having registered a profile, Facebook has quickly become the leading social networking site to be seen and connect with others.

Knowing what to do and, more importantly, what not to do, will help you develop better connections and build lasting relationships with your new found Facebook friends. Unfortunately, this also means not all users know how to properly use the site’s features and can stumble into faux pas.

Have fun with your Facebook marketing. It is, but your tone can’t be too serious. This is a social medium where people gather to have a good time talking. A lot of people approach Facebook marketing as a serious job. This seems like an odd tip, but really it’s very important. If your brand feels like a stick in the mud, you won’t get much traction.

You may want to offer a small discount for those who do share. Ask your followers if they will share any content that you post. You could also promise to share a coupon code with everyone once one or your updates is shared by a certain number of subscribers.

This is made easy by various Facebook applications that pull in content from all over the Web directly to your page. No matter your use (business or personal) it’s always a good idea to add your blog, or Twitter account to your Facebook page if you have one or both.

What do you want to do with Facebook marketing? Regardless of your goals, you’ll find the tips in this article are priceless. Would you like to engage your current customers in conversation? Would you prefer to draw in new customers from around the world? Do you want to create ads which entice people to your website?

Writing on a Facebook wall is one of the easiest and best communication features at your fingertips. Although most of us got into trouble for writing on walls as kids, Facebook wall scribbling is definitely something you need to do (and it’s good etiquette)!Many people Automate Social Media for business purposes as it really pays to, and you must as well. In business and in life, if you’d like extra time for the important things then do not ever forget to automate the little things when possible. In the event you don’t automate, you may find yourself spending a horrible period of time keeping up your social marketing campaigns.

We’re there to be social, so let’s be social! That’s what people want to see when they interact with companies nowadays. Have a sense of humor, make a joke, and show emotion. Don’t sound like a stuffy corporate machine!

Wrong Profile Pic – When you are trying to build a business on Facebook you don’t want to use inappropriate pictures for your profile. Do not wear sunglasses or avert your eyes in any way. Use a photo of yourself looking straight ahead. Do not overdo on make-up or look like you are going to a party. Always smile and just be yourself. A picture can be worth a thousand words. Don’t use a picture of your pet cat or your family get-togethers.

And SocialOomph makes short work of auto-tweeting. Of course it’s okay to schedule certain tweets to go out at a particular time on a particular day, or even have a series of tweets all lined up. Hootsuite is a brilliant tool for that and more.

A lot of hackers use systems that are smart. These plug-ins eliminate the version of WordPress from your source code. They go to a WordPress blog and look at the source code so that they can tell which version of WordPress your blog is running. Hackers try to exploit challenges of your version of WordPress, so by eliminating the version of WordPress from your code, it is extremely difficult for automated attacks to target your blog.

Don’t post on walls in rapid succession Repetitive actions in a relatively short time span are assimilated with bots’ behavior and Facebook doesn’t like alien bots to work on their pages. This kind of activity will earn you a temporary automatic suspension.

You should be able to know what’s offensive and what is not. Offensive content is in any case illegal whether virtually or in real life and in almost every country. Don’t post offensive updates and pictures Politeness and civility are the basic rules of social interaction.

This will lead to suspension and ultimately to a complete ban, along with possible legal and criminal suits. Don’t poke and harass users Relentless poking can be sensed as harassment and lead to people reporting your account.

Once we have that knowledge, we can then invite that targeted group to an event, which will be your Webinar on how to solve their frustration. I will deal with how to set up the actual webinar in another article, at a later date.

Sometimes, you may find inspirational quotes while reading a book or browsing on the internet and feel the need to post it on your Facebook wall and share it with friends. These quotes can be very inspirational for others and generate lovely comments.

By doing this, you can kill 2 birds with one stone: Relax and brainstorm new ideas. What smarter way to open your mind to probabilities than engaging in creative hobbies or activities, visiting museums, or taking up Yoga? Allowing your intelligence to chill and be excited constantly will boost productiveness. Some of our greatest concepts come when our minds are active and ready to get new thoughts. Do not forget to line up a little time for creative activities. Being able to continually accumulate creative ideas is helpful to social networking because it is also consistently changing.

Manage your time both effectively and consistently. The key to correctly using this style of work is to be predictable. After you’ve set up all your social networking accounts, you need to learn how to automate social media so as to release more time, while making profits.

You have to view photos through a Instagram partner, but Facebook might be rolling out an Instagram. com profile where users can share their photos through the web. They were behind the eight ball for developing a robust app so with the purchase of Instagram, Facebook took the lead in this market. In the past, Facebook’s weak spot was mobile. It could be a whole new social network like Pinterest. Instagram is solely a mobile app. It shows the marketplace that Facebook is serious about mobile.

There are 1 or 2 safe methods to automate social media: Link your blog to Facebook and link your blog to LinkedIn. Do not automate the whole campaign, significantly Twitter, because this will lead you to lose your client base. If bum marketing is your thing then you can even link your EzineArticles. You can link them to your auto-responder so that when you post broadcast messages they will mechanically load to your twitter and Facebook. This is because of the fact that social media is all about consistent engagement and connections with folks.

Accounts with names like “Funky Carrot” for instance is very likely to be associated with people having suspicious projects on the network. Even for a parallel profile, try using “normal names”. Don’t have too many accounts that bear the same name Many of Facebook users have more than one account. Don’t create profiles for objects or animals Objects and animals can’t write updates. Don’t use a fake name This is a prime reason to get an account suspended. Facebook says it has the legitimate right to decide upon deleting one of the accounts, relatively to maintenance, for example. Don’t display or promote your affiliation with highly Suspicious Organizations If you decide to publicly claim your affiliation with Al-Qaïda, for example, no doubt that Facebook will down your account. Even if Mark Zuckerberg had a profile for its beloved pet dog, The Beast, Facebook says it wants only humans to interact. Don’t use Credentials that do not match your account details upon payment If Facebook suspects (reasonably or not) a suspicious usage of a stolen credit card to pay for Facebook advertisement, for instance, this may lead to suspension.Listening can be invaluable, as many dissatisfied customers will tweet about their experience and this actually gives organisations the chance to respond and hopefully turn the dissatisfied customer into a satisfied one or, even better, an advocate. And that’s something only a human being can do.

It’s free and works on mobile devices as well. fm: This tool can update your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social networking and social media pages all at once, or any combination you like.

To set your email notification settings, click the “Account menu” and then “Notifications” and you’ll be greeted with a huge list of Facebook events. To turn off email each time you receive a message, switch the radio button to “Off.

The answer really depends on who is asking the question. For smaller operations there may not be a justification unless the intent is to fully utilize the software and commit to more or larger campaigns. In looking at these programs it’s a mixed response as to whether or not they’re effective. For larger businesses and marketers with the budget to justify the cost, then certainly there’s an advantage to automating the process.

EzineArticles – Set it up so that each time you have a new article published it is “auto-tweeted” to Twitter. The title of the article is displayed in your Twitter stream along with the link to your article.

Lengthy Posts – Bite-sized posts are much more likely to get read and responded to than long, flowing text. So try to keep your posts between 100-250 characters for optimum response. Facebook research shows that if your post has over 100 but fewer than 250 characters, it will have a 60% better chance of getting a response.

Try to put up as much real and engaging content as possible. Your fans will know you’re automating and it can seem impersonal and like “spam”. Because Social Media can take a while, automation has become popular. You now have the ability to automatically post your Twitter feed, Blog feed, as well as other peoples’ feeds.

Its very helpful for business owners and entrepreneurs. The feature, which has long been available on the Facebook website, can be activated by typing “@” followed by the name of the friend you want to tag in your comment or status update. The biggest feature that is still missing, however, in the Facebook mobile app is share. You can have access to your page on the fly, post content and quickly reply to comments and moderate them. Facebook page manager is a great way to manage multiple pages. The latest update to the Facebook iOS and Android apps will now let you tag your friends in status posts and comments. You can use this feature on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or any Android device running the latest version of the Facebook app. This means half a billion people per day are not able to share something on their mobile device.

With Facebook going up against Google as far as search engine capabilities, you’ll no doubt see that very soon, if not already, Facebook members are looking to their friends’ patterns for purchasing decisions. It has over 750 million active users, and that’s rapidly expanding every second every day. It’s time to set up a Page! If you’re not already on Facebook, you’re missing the boat. There’s no doubt that Facebook is a powerhouse.

I don’t think the potential of social media marketing is in question; there is enough evidence from studies conducted by experts to verify that the growth is real and inevitable. com wrote that 82% of small businesses reported that social media was effective for generating new leads.

So have your tweets feed into your website, your Facebook page, your blog and LinkedIn. Twitterfeed allows you to do this, saving you a large chunk of time. It makes sense to integrate the various platforms if you’re going to distribute the same content, rather than posting it 3, 4, 5, times or more. Just make sure Twitter doesn’t take over, especially if you tweet a lot, as other content may get lost.

Remember to set your email notification settings so that you don’t become flooded with hundreds of Facebook updates. Social networking is fun but everything in moderation. Now that you’re connected to everyone and everything, it’s important you remember that yes, you do have a day job!

Instead of manually adding your latest blog post into Facebook, automate things (and save time) by setting up an application to share your newest posts whenever they go live on your site/blog. The more you update, the more your friends will keep coming back to your page, which is kind of the essence of social-networking.

Ultimately, Facebook is saying that they are only going to display your content on average to sixteen percent of your fans. Some of the changes include “promoted posts” and it is more difficult to get into the news feed. There are, however, some tools that can increase your visibility on Facebook. There have been a lot of changes with Facebook since it went public. Content passes through the Edgerank filter, and that is how it is determined what content will show in the news feed. Edgerank is the algorithm that all content passes through on Facebook.While software for automation helps, it isn’t necessary. Anyone who does internet marketing and isn’t already actively engaging these social networks should start looking into it for their marketing efforts because I truly believe it is the new battle ground for sales and leads.

Just click the Facebook to Twitter link while you’re logged in and you can link your pages to Twitter and share your content instantly. Facebook to Twitter: This is a tool for Facebook which can be used with any profile or page.

Next to every single post on Facebook, you are given the option to pay for your post to be more visible. Business owners have put an enormous investment into creating a fan base. It can get very pricey to promote a post, sometimes from three hundred to five hundred dollars per post. The large denominator problem is when companies have a huge fan base, so if that person is not regularly interacting with the fan page, they will not see the content. People have expressed concern and frustration resulting from Facebook now requesting more investment to get your content visible to more than sixteen percent.

Well, the whole point of Social Media – and there’s a clue in the word ‘Social’ here – is that it’s about interaction. OK, so having said all of the above, why do I think total automation is dangerous, you may ask. It’s all good and well automating content distribution, but you CANNOT automate the interaction.

Below are some tips to help you navigate through Facebook Page marketing. Aside from the fact that you need to get your “followers” or “likers” in the first place, you must then learn how to continually interact and provide value to the little community you’ve built, as well as attract new friends. But setting up a Page is not the only step in the process, however, in order to have an effective Facebook marketing campaign.

There are a myriad of tools available today to help you automate your social media activity. Whilst I’m a big fan of making things easier and becoming more effective without putting in more effort, I think total automation is dangerous and I will explain why later on in this article.

Having visitors register on your page lets you engage them in ongoing dialogue about your business. Offer something in exchange for signing up on your Facebook page. Offering them something, such as an entry in a sweepstakes, makes them more likely to register on your page and provide your business with valuable leads.

Let me share with you a few tips that will enable you to be able to generate a tremendous amount of sales of products and services in the Facebook market, of what people want. Notice what I said here, “what people want.

The challenge for many markers is how do you find the time to do what you need to do to be effective on each site. Social Marketing is a very powerful way to create massive online visibility, drive traffic and build your list. And to do it in a way that does not take hours a day.

org lets you repost old content which is still relevant to your readers. This plugin for WordPress. Tweet Old Posts: Sometimes you come up with blog posts which have information which is useful whether you publish it now or years from now.

Although you may not find yourself landing any jobs from listing your music, movies or book interests, you must might find someone connecting with you out of similar interests and the possibilities for that are endless.

You can automate the Webinar so that you can run that same webinar over and over again to a different group of Facebook prospects, and guess what? you will not have to be present at those automated webinars, you can be at the beach, or at home with your family at the time your webinar is running! There is much more to cover on various approaches to marketing to Facebook prospects. They run just as if they were live webinars. Stay tuned to my next Post where I’ll expand on more tips for successfully marketing to the biggest markets in the world at this time, which as you know, is Facebook!

This process of taking Facebook (sponsored ad spaces) out of the loop and getting customers to your own site, allows you to then use lead capture forms to build your own customer list and maybe make a sale or bring about brand-awareness, all in one action. With these new programs you’re now able to post promotions and offers on your Fan Pages that don’t look like ads. You can post videos, images or a call to action, and even link directly to your landing page outside of Facebook.

Study it to find out what posts are being responded to, what time of day gets the most response, what days get the most response, and more. Do not ignore this information. This will give you more “insight” into what to post and when to post it. They analyze your page’s traffic, engagement, likes, Friends of Fans, etc. Not Using Facebook Insights – Facebook offers a great feature called Insights.

But in doing so, remember the old adage – Quality, Not Quantity! The idea is to get as many people to “Like” your posts and follow your pages as possible. You want your numbers to consist of targeted and responsive followers.It can be time consuming to update Twitter and Facebook every time I post a new article to one of my blogs, so I decided to automate this process using a few simple tools. Today I’ll show you how I automatically cross-post content to different sites and social networks.

You may very well have some potential followers (business or otherwise) so select a photo that you are comfortable with everyone seeing and that helps you put your best face forward. Facebook will allow you to upload as many pictures as you like, but you’re only allowed one profile photo so be sure to make it a current picture of yourself! As much as you’d like to, refrain from using a picture at that party you just attended that got a bit out of control because although your privacy settings can be engaged, no matter what, everyone sees your profile photo.

If a page has a low number of fans or has plated or a low engagement rate such as less than two percent, you might want to play with promoted posts to see if it is a worthy advantage. If you have a webinar or special event coming up a promoted post could be a good option. You can better reach the mobile users with a promoted post. Some companies have been able to double their reach, increase engagement with promoted posts.

Another site that helps you Automate Social Media easier is Ping. fm is a free service that supports Facebook, NING, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Yammer, and other social marketing websites.

This can be done with a web hosting account through a reputable hosting firm that offers tools such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal content management systems for creating an engaging web presence. So, as a business owner, it is imperative to keep a professional looking website or blog online. If you are like the majority of business owners, you have a website or blog that serves as your ultimate destination for visitors. A facebook lite update version fan page for your business can funnel visitors to your website or blog, where hopefully that visitor will perform the MDA (most desired action) such as joining your e-mail list or purchasing a product. Some people call it their “money site”.

Share the link to your social media profile on your website, on your personal page, on your blog, on your friends’ pages and anywhere else you can think of. Promote your Facebook page all over the place. The more exposure your page gets, the better it is for your business.

If you’re a business owner you probably know that you need to be on Facebook, but you may not know exactly what that means or what to do about it. You do know, though, that you should be tapping into the power of social media. You don’t want to be left behind in the digital revolution!

Adding you as a friend does not give you the right to use that’s persons profile wall as advertising space. Get to know them first and if you wish to share a link, pop it into a message and send it to them that way.

Some people may not even realize they are floundering so go over each fumble carefully to ensure that you are not part of the losing team. Below are ten mistakes many people make when engaging in Facebook’s vast social network.

Post a reply but be sure you do not post negatively as well. Always address positive comments as quickly as possible too. Ignoring the Negative(and Positive) – If you receive negative comments or feedback on any of your posts, Do Not Ignore It. Do not let people’s comments go unnoticed, be they negative or positive. Reply politely while explaining the situation.

Don’t build Apps from untrustworthy sources In case of doubt about apps that do not respond to Facebook’s system integrity standards, the Social Network may as a first step refuse access to the app and ultimately ban the incriminated account.

I’ve seen some marketers who tweet dozens of times a day get their account suspended because of too many tweets or too many similar tweets being sent. Some people set it up to have every tweet sent. Twitter – Your tweets can be automatically sent to Facebook. I recommend using the “Selective Twitter Status” app so that not every tweet is automatically sent.

Do not post copyrighted content without owner’s permission or without giving credit to the owners and their website. This will lead to suspension and ultimately to a complete ban, along with possible legal and criminal suits. Don’t post copyrighted materials This is a universal rule.

Hoot Suite: If your business uses Twitter, this is one automation tool you’ll want. HootSuite allows you to write tweets and schedule them to post later and keep an eye on keywords as well as providing a lot of other useful functions. It can also be integrated with other apps, making it an especially helpful tool to have.

For the longest time, people could setup a check-in deal. Encourage visitors to take a photograph of themselves in your store and post it on Facebook. But if you do not have a place page and can’t setup an offer, you can instead periodically post a status update, for example, “Are you reading this on your mobile phone, come in for a free latte. Offers are only available if you have a place page. It can go a long way and get people excited if they see their friends at the store. Offer a coupon on-the-spot if people check-in. ” Every single member of your staff should know all the ins-and-outs of what your company is doing on social media.yourself and don’t have the money to hire someone to do this full time, there are experts who will look after your online activity, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and other platforms, for you without breaking the bank. If you don’t have the time to tweet, post Facebook updates, update LinkedIn, post video on YouTube, etc.

There are many different submitters available that will help you in building links to your affiliate websites. This could be article submitters or software that automates managing social accounts on networks like Twitter or Facebook.

Including additional links or calls-to-action in your post could cause the reader to become indecisive and just move on. Too Many Links – Any post should contain only one option for your followers to choose.

One problem that often arises when using different services is duplicate content being reposted from multiple locations. Over time, I’ve found a strategy that works well for me and I wanted to share it with you today.

Thanks to software developers there’s now hope for even the smallest marketer. Programs like FB Infiltrator and FB Echo have one purpose, and that is to automate and simplify the process of marketing on Facebook and avoiding the use of sponsored ad spaces from Facebook itself. More specifically, they allow business to place their offers or promotions directly onto Fan Pages rather than the widely ignored sponsored space on the right sidebar. Developers have recognized this new void in social media marketing software and they themselves are hoping to tap into the still emerging market.

This is a great way to get more visitors to your page and perhaps get some additional subscribers for your campaign. Organize a contest and offer a prize to the contestant who gets the most votes. The subscribers who enter your contest will ask their friends to vote on their entry.

Study fan pages that are successful and watch their page to see how these brands are achieving fan engagement. People on Facebook want to know that there is a real human being behind the brand. Fan pages like George Takei (an actor) is a page that has a phenomenal following and has a very high engagement rate. There are some creative ways around this.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is an easy way to aggregate the content you need in one place, saving you the time of going from one site to another or wading through content you don’t need. It works with Google Reader and other RSS feed readers and can also be used with Google Alerts for user specified keywords so you can keep an eye on what people are saying about your business.

Posting periodical promotions and sales can work for you but you must also offer something of substance and value for your followers. Promoting Without Value – Posting blatant sales ads without any other value will just get your posts skipped or cause you to lose fans. For example: if you are advertising a sale on jewelry, offer information on how to choose the right jewelry for different events and outfits.

Don’t just ask questions that are a means to an end for your business. You can be creative with the questions too! Social Media is all about interaction. This isn’t a customer satisfaction survey we’re doing here, it’s trying to strike up a conversation with your real life fans. You’ll need to engage your fans, not just promote, promote, promote.

You may have met somewhere in the past, through a friend or simply know a mutual contact. Take a few extra minutes to create that connection and include a message saying where you know the person from.

If you play this card tactfully they may even entreat you to sign them up without you selling anything to them at all! Once you have developed significant trust and respect from your group, you may safely recommend your business opportunity to them. Sending email blasts and/or broadcasts to your network marketing group and ensuring that only quality content is sent to them will earn you trust from members of your network group as they will implicitly find you to be a knowledgeable leader.

Follow the simple instructions and in a matter of minutes you’ll have your fan page up and running with a wall, where you can post news and announcements and your visitors can comment, and you’ll have a spot at the upper left where you can upload a picture, just like with your personal page. Start by creating a Facebook Business Page, otherwise referred to as a “Fan Page. ” You can do this by going down to the bottom of your own personal profile page and clicking on the “create page” button.

Since Facebook first started in 2004, it seems that all one could successfully do on that platform, was to exchange pictures, talk about whatever, and start up groups that were made up of like minded individuals. I think the group formations of various kinds, was the beginning of the door being opened for marketers to be able to come up with ways to sell their products to that huge market place. Since we are talking about Social Media, we have to be careful when we begin to think about marketing to those 900,000,000 people on the FB platform.For example, look at FB Echo. ” If it delivers that kind of simplicity then most will find it very useful. One SBWire press release of the software quotes the developer as saying that his goal was to create a program that “from start to finish, someone could set it up, configure a few things, push ‘go’ and walk away.

There will be times when you hit a brick wall and aren’t able to keep up with all the work that is involved in building and maintaining your online business. In contrary to common believe, making money online isn’t as easy as it sounds. Then it is high time to bring automation and outsourcing into play. You won’t get rich overnight without doing any work. In fact, you have to work very hard to reach a good income level.

Now, you may not want to post every update, and in that case you may want to consider an application called selectivetweets. When you end tweets with #fb they will be posted to Facebook, otherwise they will not get cross-posted.

So as to link your blog to Facebook, select NetworkedBlogs application on Facebook and fill in acceptable blog details. Next, you’ll have to go through the verification process to ensure it’s your blog.

When you’re on your page, you have the opportunity to check out Facebook as the page itself. Consider surfing Facebook as your company instead of yourself. Do this and like pages which you think have a similar fan base, and then comment on those pages as well to get your name out to an expanded audience.

Use videos whenever possible, especially if you have a new product to showcase. Adding a video to your post is quite easy with Facebook’s current format as well, so there really is no reason not to give it a try. While a picture is great (and it is certainly better than nothing), a video is much more exciting and can give your followers more information than a picture and text alone can.

You know this to be the case, because you first researched the target market to ascertain how to help that group solve some of it’s problems of pains and suffering. You want to invite a particular group of Facebook friends who have a desire for your particular product.

com or the search feature on Facebook. The most common way to delegate in social media is via a virtual assistant, but it’s important to note that it is not recommended that you delegate anything that contains your voice or personality. A specific example of an ideal delegation task would be having someone track and monitor your reputation and brand via search.

With such rapid expansion, it makes sense that many people are jumping in head first without really knowing what they doing, hoping to learn as they become more familiar with navigating their way around Facebook.

You can save many minutes, even hours of daily work and you can concentrate more on your online business. Applications range from simple automatic form fills to more complex task like installing a WordPress blog on your hosting account, including all plugins and wanted settings. Software like iMacros or AutoHotkey are freely available and will help you tremendously in automating the most different tasks.

When people get to see you as a person who is willing to go out of the way to support others they will believe in you and take your recommendations seriously. One key aspect to the success of this front is the maintaining of a selfless disposition.

My Twitter posts used to get fed to my Facebook fan page, but I stopped this because I didn’t like the resulting posts. It’s worth the extra 20 seconds in my opinion to be able to include an image and customize the message, but you can install the Twitter application on Facebook if you do want to do this.

com ( searchengineland. com/prioritizing-seo-strategies-2014-181998 ) wrote that in 2014, “globally, 1 in 4 people use a social media network, and nearly 88% of marketers will use social media marketing this year. How many marketers are turning to social sites?

When used properly for your business, the effect could be quite substantial. With a billion monthly users, Facebook is the most popular social media site. Although Facebook started out as a place for people to meet and share personal thoughts and opinions, it has gained major status as a way to promote your business.

Facebook provides networking dexterity that is indisputably a ‘must have’ for modern enterprising marketers who understand the impact of getting and keeping in touch in the art and science of prospecting. It provides amazing functionalities that you can exploit to drive tons of traffic to your website even when people locate your site through your personal profile page.

Don’t relay too much on automation. You won’t be building any sort of engagement between your audience and your brand. More posts are better, right? That’s not always the case. People can sense an automated post, especially if all you post are links to stories from around the web. It can be very tempting to automate your Facebook posting.One day you wake up and your blog has been hacked and every single article had disappeared. Thank God for backups. SecureWP and WSDSecurity are two plug-ins that can be used collaboratively and they give you increased security for your WordPress blog. It could be absolutely disastrous if someone were able to hack into your WordPress site. Two very cool security plug-ins for bloggers who use WordPress are available. Imagine this scenario.

Gist: Gist is a handy tool which can keep track of all of your social networking, social media and email contacts with one easy to use web based interface; it’s also available for Outlook and Gmail, so you never have to lose an opportunity to connect with the people you need to keep in touch with.

One of the most powerful ways to market on Facebook is to incorporate an automatic viral marketing component. This should include instant visitor notification so that you’ll be notified immediately via email when someone has visited your page. This will allow you to capture their information so you can follow-up and establish an ongoing dialogue with them through Facebook. And with people these days having hundreds and hundreds of friends, this can quickly and significantly expand your audience. In addition, you’ll want your visitors to receive an automated and customized email response from you, as well as a post to their wall, exposing your business to all their friends!

Other tasks would be to do the initial research on ideal people in Facebook to send friend requests to, pre-scheduling tweets as mentioned earlier, researching quality sites, links, and blogs that contain good content for you to share via tweets and Facebook updates, creating events in Facebook, managing your Facebook inbox, adding new business-related applications to your Fan Page and more. When thinking about delegation, stick to administrative, housekeeping or organizational tasks not related to the conversation-for example, approving Facebook friend requests with an established criteria or using criteria to find more people to follow on Twitter.

So it’s very important that you utilize an application, preferably one that resides right inside Facebook, that will allow you to make changes yourself “on-the-fly” with a very simple and straight-forward interface. You don’t want to be reliant on tracking down programmers or developers every time you want to make a change– you’ve got enough on your hands running your business, right?

This is what some bots or automated plug-ins are made to do. The Social Network however will warn you several times before doing so. Don’t send to many friends’ request Trouble starts when you try to make contact with people who you do not know. As soon as you go beyond Facebook’s threshold your account will get automatically suspended.

Integration – Many of the main Social Marketing tools can be set up so that an action (a marketing message) taken on one site will result in an action (other marketing messages) taken on one or more other sites.

Don’t always post the same types of comments, the same links, etc. Try putting up videos, photos, surveys, polls, links to other articles that deal with your industry, online contesting, and more.

* Linking to new posts on your (or someone else’s) blog: The Networked blog tool makes it easy to keep your page updated with new posts and other content. It’s a set it and forget it kind of tool which can save you a lot of time.

While Social marketing can reinforce your business, your productiveness can reduce if you blend your social internet marketing with other promoting work. If long term results are important, and if you do not Automate Social Media, you will need to put in a lot of time into social media marketing. Remember, a particular time should be reserved for working on it everyday.

A brand page, which is also called a fan page, is similar to an actual personal profile. However, one distinct difference is that fans are accumulated instead of friends. On your brand page, you can import your Twitter and blog feeds. One way to build the presence of your business on Facebook is through a brand page. You can also post and collect content, have hosting discussions and collect user reviews.

While this could be helpful at times, do not get into the habit of doing it too often. You need to actually go to your page and participate in conversations and engage in people’s posts. Too Much Automation – There are a lot of services, apps and programs you can use to automate your posting. While automation is a handy tool for helping in certain situations, it cannot replace us as live people!

In the work that I do in social media, overwhelm and time management are always the biggest concerns that I hear–but they don’t have to be. I don’t think I would be anywhere near as productive as I am in social media today without having systems, tools and processes to organize and monitor my expanding network. They really have been the secret to my success, and of my clients’ success.The nature of tweets like these is that they are essentially one-way communication posts and do not depend on you being available when they are posted in order to field some kind of “real time” response. Identifying valuable resources, like websites, blog posts or quotes that you believe would be helpful or valuable to your Twitter followers and pre-scheduling sharing this content would be one example. A tool like Hootsuite. Therefore, this kind of content is ideal for identifying and pre-scheduling in advance. com is great for setting these types of updates up.

After the fans start talking, you can take part as well. You can either start conversations or ask a question to get them going. Speak with others through your Facebook page. Encourage your followers to chit chat. The more you do that, the closer your followers will feel to you and the more likely they are to patronize your business.

They’ll send you a Facebook message laden with sales copy and links to their website or business page. I’ve seen some business owners so eager to sell their products and services they start spruiking their wares before you’ve even connected with them as a friend!

That is bigger than the entire population of the United States. People have Facebook on their smart phone and check Facebook when they are in a line waiting for a coffee, stuck in traffic, and doing it almost everywhere, this makes mobile users very important to Facebook. Close to a billion members take pictures and upload them to Facebook using their smart phone. Half of the nearly billion Facebook users use Facebook through their mobile device and they are actually twice as active than non-mobile users. Additionally, three hundred million pictures are uploaded to Facebook every single day. Four hundred and eighty-eight million people are using Facebook mobile every month.

Ads are coming in through their news feed and users don’t even know that what they are looking at are ads. Facebook’s mobile ad click-through rate is an astounding four times higher than Twitter! The more you as a business owner can get your message in front of those users who are in constant contact with their circle of friends, the better. This is wonderful news for business owners! Marketing has shifted from trying to get your message in front of people during certain times to becoming an intricate part of their social experience. People have a tendency to never leave their house without their mobile device.

In terms of saving time it seems likely that these programs do work well, and that alone may be enough for some. By “working” we’re talking about the developer’s claim of automating tasks that are considered mundane and which consume a large part of a marketer’s time, thereby limiting the number of active campaigns that are able to be managed.

As you probably know, Facebook is a very powerful Social Media platform, and is so huge today that it has surpassed Google in size. Facebook is right at 900,000. 000 subscribers, which makes it the largest site in the world.

You need to be aware of the size of your posts and images in that they will fit and be readable on mobile devices. Mobile Unfriendly – Mobile marketing is making a big splash in the internet world and you need to be prepared. Keep your photos about 600 pixels wide by 400 pixels high and your text should be no more than 100 characters long.

Besides creating a group, you can go an extra mile, albeit to your advantage, to create a weekly plan and post useful content to your group. You can contribute material like articles, blog posts and even videos. You aim here will be to present a value-add opportunity in the line of wooing your acquaintances into your own network marketing newsletter.

The person “working” the room, business cards in hand. You’re mingling and then you spot them. Quickly join a group of others as there’s safety in numbers? They move swiftly, effortlessly from person to person, leaving a trail of bewildered business people in their wake. Then they are upon you, sharing their well rehearsed spiel as you look for an escape route. You’re at a networking event. Now they are headed for you.

It’s very difficult to generate positive results this way. One of the biggest mistakes that people make (especially those new to social media) is that they start to get stuck in a cycle of automating, broadcasting and automating-over and over. However, automating and delegating appropriate activities while still taking the time to engage in regular conversation can be the perfect blend in order to leverage your time–and still maximize your success.

Beyond this limit and automated warnings your activity will be perceived as bot generated and will automatically lead to suspension. Don’t like pages at unreasonable rates There’s a limit as to how many pages one user can like on a daily basis.

These automated systems look for those responses in an attempt to hack your blog. When you try and login to WordPress with the incorrect password, it generates a response. Instead they jingle or blink the login screen so you, as the user, know you have the wrong password, but a machine or a software tool would not know that, therefore, automated hacking attempts are reduced. These plug-ins remove that response completely.When you create an infographic, it is even more likely to be shared by others because the information is valuable. This raises your profile, but it also makes you look like an expert. Infographics are a step up from pictures, and include information and relevant information that can be useful to your target market.

It also provides useful statistics and tracking capabilities so you can keep a closer eye on your social media marketing. TwitterFeed: This cloud based service lets you share your blog content as you post it to Twitter, Facebook and other social media and social networking platforms.

Social internet marketing is one of the finest ways to promote a business. Many of us use social media only for business reasons. If utilized correctly you can also Automate Social Media. In the event you do not yet understand sites like Facebook and Twitter, there’s a lot of information to be found online just by typing “Social Networking” into your browser and spending some time reading manuals about it. Just because there’s more than enough proof that it truly pays to do so.

In configuring the application, I didn’t want every Facebook page update going out to Twitter though, so I didn’t activate this connection. My fan page and Twitter feed are business related, so it makes sense to connect these. This is accomplished by using the Twitter application which can be found here.

* Sharing plugins on your blog or website: You can make it easy for visitors to your blog to share your posts and other content via Facebook with plugins for WordPress and other blogs. You can add links for visitors to share your content on Facebook and a variety of other social networking and social media platforms.

I do turn off posting to my personal page from time to time though. Personally, I run a fan page as well as a personal page on Facebook, and they each have different user base so I setup my particular Twitterfeed campaign to post to both pages. Twitterfeed is free to use and very powerful for syndicating my blog content to these popular social networks, and can be setup to post multiple blogs content to multiple social network accounts. First, I use Twitterfeed to read my blogs rss feeds and post new updates to Twitter and Facebook.

One of the greatest mistakes a marketer can make is attempting to sell a product or service to people who don’t have a desire for it. Therefore, as marketers, we need to find out what the people on Facebook desire to solve their problems, and rid them of pains and frustrations, etc.

However, there will always be one BIG factor that prevents full social media automation from being effective. There are tools that will allow you to dispatch automated tweets all day long on Twitter containing your pre-written messages, or news feeds within your niche. We are all constantly bombarded with the latest automation tools that promise to automate all your tweets on Twitter or get us hundreds of new friends every day on YouTube. Anyone who is marketing online has contemplated the idea of “FULLY AUTOMATING” their social media activities.

Tweet Adder This is a great piece of software for building a list of people within your niche to follow, then set an automation schedule to follow a certain number of them each day. It will also keep track of who you are following and allow you to unfollow those who do not follow you back within a certain amount of time. Tweet Adder can also be used to automate tweets, but as I stated earlier, you should be very careful about doing that.

Now take note of the fact that you are not selling anything directly to the FB community, but rather, you’re inviting that community to come to your event, which is not on Facebook, so that they can be educated comfortably on how to get rid of their pains or frustrations with your product, via your Webinar.

However you should not pick and add friends randomly. The Facebook application affords you the privilege of adding your targeted contacts and prospects to your profile. These clusters are your target market and you should add these people into your sales funnel. The effectiveness of this front lies in enabling you to target friends in a specific group such as network marketing, home business, networking groups and so on. The individuals you add are highly likely to reciprocate your gesture because Facebook automated notify those you have selected that you have added them to your list of friends.

* Simple Facebook Connect: This plugin allows you to post to a Facebook page or profile wall, complete with automatic login capabilities. This plugin takes a little work to install and set up since you’ll need to get an API key to use it, but it is compatible with many WordPress themes and is well worth the effort.

over 750,000,000 people are using Facebook, and most of them log in several times a day. but how will you stand out from the crowd? It’s the World’s biggest social networking site, so there’s no question that you need to be there and to have a business presence there. If it were a country, Facebook would be the 3rd largest behind China and India. The statistics are staggering.Another appropriate use of automation is to use services like OnlyWire to automatically bookmark your content with the social bookmark site. Before automating any task, ask yourself if that task would be more effective with a personal touch. If you do this, be sure to space them out, and vary them so they are not the exact same message. You can also take a “very limited” set of messages to send out over time. So, lets talk about how automation can be a real time saver and actually build a massive downline when utilized appropriately. There are certain tasks like finding and following other like-minded people within your niche where automation is an good alternative.

For example, you can let people in your city see your contact information, while you can give full access to everyone from your company. Adding a network also give you the freedom to you manage your privacy settings on the site. By selecting your networks you’ll then be able to set your profile’s visibility within different networks.

You still need a person to read and respond to any comments and often, looking for relevant tweets or posts that they can comment on and add value to. People don’t just want you to throw lots of content at them anymore. It’s all about LISTENING and then responding accordingly. The most important thing about social media is not so much what you say. They want to be heard and Twitter and Facebook in particular are excellent platforms for this. And this applies to other marketing methods as well, as customers today don’t just want to be broadcast to.

But, Webinars are the most lucrative way to sell to the FB audience. One of the ways to accomplish that is to set up Webinars to inform the Facebook friends about our product. I can’t deal with the Webinar “how to’s” in this article, because of a lack of space and time.

Now boasting over 110 million users, people are flocking to Facebook in droves. When choosing a spot to hang out in cyberspace, no doubt most users will tell you Facebook is the social network of choice. What better place to establish your yourself and your marketing brand than on this potent word of mouth network. Facebook is the only place where you can connect with old friends, colleagues, family members, and business associates.

These plugins help keep your Facebook friends and likes in the loop about new content and let your current and potential customers share content which in turn helps spread the word about your business on Facebook. If you use Facebook to communicate with people along with a blog, these are all plugins which you’ll find very useful – especially if your blog is part of your business.

SocialOomph: This service lets you schedule your social media communications and post it automatically. There are both free and commercial versions available; only the commercial version handles Facebook page and profile posting and scheduling.

It is important that you develop a custom landing page that properly showcases your business – what it is and what you have to offer. As a business, you’re going to want to tell your visitors a lot more about your product or service than you will be able to convey through that little picture at the top left and your “wall” with all of its posts and comments that scroll off the screen.

The users who use Facebook do so and use it almost daily. It’s addictive to most and the numbers of new users are growing fast and furious. You don’t have Bill Gates money to spend or the technical know how to develop a killer application . So as a marketer, you’re probably wondering how to cash in on in this new social web 2. Believe it or not, you don’t have to do anything except run your business as you normally do, while a special automated system does all the work for you.

Unfortunately I don’t have a crystal ball that tells me what the future holds but based on the current infrastructure of the internet, a website (with the exception of the occasional viral leap) needs several thousand tentacles or connections maintained over time to be successful. The Google page rank algorithm is a moving target and a well-kept secret probably stashed somewhere deep within a vault several miles below the surface of Silicon Valley. For that matter will Google still be the place where millions of internet users go to search for their info? Ten years from now will online marketers encourage their web designers to still rely on optimizing their websites for that coveted page rank on Google? These connections need to be relevant and informative for a website to maintain its Google standing. Regardless of what Google is doing here are the top 3 web design things you should be doing now to stay relevant going into the future. Or will Social Media Optimization (SMO) be the main focus of future webmasters?

Try setting quotas for work which must be completed before you log in and setting a timer for your Facebook use; once the timer goes off, you need to log off and get back to work. Once you’ve put plugins in place to help automate some of the work of maintaining your Facebook profile, it’s easy to set rules about how and when you use Facebook. Before long, it will become a habit and you’ll be able to get far more done during your workday.Be sure to fill out every aspect of the information forms. Be forthcoming and give out all pertinent information. Incomplete profile and Business Information – Not filling in all your information suggests that you have something to hide.

One popular tactic is to sort your iTunes according to the “Play Count” or “Last Played” tabs, and then copy down what you find. You’re on Facebook to show people who YOU are so be specific and give artist names and possibly album titles. These tips also apply to your Favorite Movies and Books sections.

In fact, there are some great tools that will absolutely allow you massive time savings. That does not mean that you are not able to leverage automation. You just cannot rely 100% on automation and expect to be effective in sponsoring new distributors online.

You are then sensed as a direct threat to the Facebook servers and platform. Your IP address just gets barred and in some cases your account closed. Don’t log into Facebook if you suspect virus activity on your machine. There is no suspension for this situation.

Why not try some marketing on this site? All of this targeted traffic can come to you just by being a member of Facebook. Just make sure to sign up for a business account instead of a personal one. This will allow more people to read your blog posts. This will also help to enhance your marketing efforts. You can automate the promotion of your brand in Facebook by syndicating your blog website via RSS on Facebook.

2 great examples of these tools are Tweekdeck and Hootsuite. There are numerous social media management tools available that can assist you to automate social media marketing. These help with handling, coordinating, and organising material across multiple social networks.

There are far better, more effective avenues to do this such as sending a personal message. Second, using the chat box to request people to “like” your Facebook business page, promote your event, visit your website, you get the idea, is an absolute no, no.

Always be thinking of how you can push out value through your page to your followers. Run specials, include new happenings within your business, new testimonials, etc. Next you’ll want to make periodic changes to your custom landing page – you need to keep your page content fresh and relevant to keep your fans coming back!

Be aware of any mistakes you might be making and take the necessary steps to correct them. But if you are inadvertently fumbling and cannot make the tackle, you are in danger of doing more harm to your business than good. By doing this, you are sure to score! The power of social media, if used efficiently, could be game-changing.

It therefore goes without say that feasible strategy to build huge network marketing downline will strive to harness the power of Facebook. Facebook is ranked as one of the most visited sites on the planet.

As they wrote at MoneyBlogger, “with social marketing you can target people with similar interests as you or your product line, even if they weren’t looking for you, and repeat over and over. Repetition is the key.

This software is an automated friend management tool that will hook you up with over a hundred million new potential customers. With Facebook Friend Adder Elite you can run your social network marketing efforts completely on autopilot. That system is called Facebook Friend Adder Elite. You’ll be marketing yourself to the biggest, hottest gathering in the virtual world as Facebook Friend Adder Elite automatically generates mass Facebook friend pokes, requests, wall messages and messages. This automation tool is used widely my internet marketers and can help you grow your business and achieve success. No other place can you advertise and market to highly targeted leads on the fastest growing social network.

This is OK for a once in a while tweet, however when I see those who send out 10-30, or even more of these automated news tweets, I simply unfollow them because I find it very annoying. I will give you an example that I am sure you can relate to. I also unfollow those who are obviously using automation to send out the same message, or set of messages repeatedly, and who never interact or respond to anyone. TwitterFeed is an effective service for automatically tweeting news or any other feeds with a specific search criteria. I am on Twitter nearly every day and see people who send out automated tweets all day long using TwitterFeed. I am sure I am not the only one.

) you’ll want to put your best “face” forward for the online world to see. More and more people who have never been online or done any social networking are signing up with Facebook. But whether you’re using Facebook for building a business or you want to stay in touch with people from your past (like you’re high school and grade-school past! Some want to connect with their past and others are looking to connect with their future.

With a graphic-rich, fully interactive landing page you can really showcases your business. These 3 elements combined: the custom landing page, side bar, and gateway page will all work together to build brand awareness, generate more leads, engage your customers and ultimately increase sales revenue by giving your visitors a compelling reason to do business with you as well as a clear call to action. You can include embedded videos, links, even a “buy now” button or a shopping cart. In addition, you’ll need a custom gateway to your page, giving people a reason to come in and check you out, as well as a reason to “Like” your page. It’s a very powerful show and tell so that a visitor truly gets an understanding of what your business is all about. You should also have a custom side bar, which is like a viral business card that you can drop all over Facebook leading back to your site.Please resist the urge to include a message saying “hey, we’ve got umpteen mutual friends, let’s connect”. You need to do better than that and show that you’ve taken the time to at least look at the person’s profile.

This tells the reader whether you are “there” personally or not. When posts appear on Facebook, there is a small line at the end of the post that identifies the source of the post (eg: 9 hours ago via Twitter).

Now that the internet is an ever increasing behemoth of information, a web designer needs to think about automating the process of keeping his info out in front of the pack. However, nowadays there are many companies who get more traffic on their Facebook page than they do at their website. Or more people read company Tweets than visit their website. In this same vane, web designers thought their website was the center of their internet universe. Not too long ago people thought that the earth was the center of the universe. This thinking would have been blasphemy 10 years ago but is now our internet reality. So how do we adapt to this growing internet blob? We automate our process. Automation – A website use to sit all by itself because the playing field was a much smaller venue.

The premise of these types of software is that instead of trying to find customers via traditional, sponsored Facebook advertising (those tiny, teeny little ads on the right side of your Timeline), which typically have very poor conversions or click-throughs because the ads (or at least the ad spaces) are so familiar and almost universally ignored.

There are certain that you shouldn’t automate, e. In fact, it could be even greater than outsourcing it to people in your own country. things like article writing or forum posting. The wages in these countries are generally really low compared to the western world, but that doesn’t mean that the quality that they deliver is bad. Article writing is a good example of outsourcing. But instead of doing all the work by yourself you should consider to outsource these tasks to talented people. You can hire people from different countries like India or the Philippines and save a lot of money.

Ask questions, provide helpful information, get personal and let people know what you are all about. Only then will you build relationships, and that can lead to increased interest in YOU and what YOU are doing, promoting, or selling. An example of this using Twitter would be replying or retweeting other’s tweets that you find helpful or interesting. Nothing can replace real human interaction when it comes to building relationships online. You have to interact and really talk to people. You cannot build relationships by sending out streams of automated messages. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others are specifically designed for building relationships. Another example would be asking questions from your readers.

If you need help there are many websites, including Facebook, that can give you some insight. Use all of the options available to you on Facebook when using it to market your business. There are so many different ways that you can customize your page, the key is knowing exactly what those options are.

Then this list of social media automation tools is for you. Want to stop wasting time on social media and get better results from your social media marketing efforts? One or more of these tools could help you to save time while increasing your marketing ROI:

From your hub you can reach out to Twitter and Facebook when you set it up so that each new blog post is also automatically announced on these two Social Marketing sites. WordPress Blog – In Social Media, your blog is the hub of your system.

Selective Tweets: This is an application for Facebook which allows you to decide which updates you want to share with your Twitter followers rather than sharing all of them. You don’t want everything on your Facebook page out there for the whole world and this tool gives you total control over what to share and what to keep to a smaller audience.

While your “friends” may be there because of your company, they certainly don’t want to hang out at the party and get “sold” all evening. For every 4 posts you put up, make 3 of them content that your readers may find interesting or valuable. Don’t make every post about you and your business.

I send personally very few automated messages and apply automation only to finding, following, unfollowing, and very few automated tweets. In order to be effective at building relationships with social media and using it to build your mlm business it truly does not have to take a lot of time. I personally spend on average less than 60 minutes per day on Facebook and Twitter combined. I could spend less, but I do also enjoy it.

Do you know why a behemoth company like Google or Microsoft would fight tooth and nail for a place within Facebook’s lucrative online world? Before we discuss just how to market to the Facebook community, let’s look a little deeper at exactly what Facebook means to the internet and the people who use it., and that would be as far as it would go. It appears that the primary purpose of Facebook was to provide an environment and vehicle for people to socialize with their friends and relatives and not have to worry about, buying and selling products per se. They would be able to exchange ideas, experiences, and possible frustrations, with each other, etc.

An example is the Facebook Groups which enables you to create your own unique group and gather all the networkers under one roof. The power of Facebook lies in empowering users to manipulate several of its formidable networking facilities. You can call that group an ‘Internet Network Marketing’ or ‘MLM Millionaire” so as to get like minded people to participate.

Social Media Optimization (SMO) – How in the world can your website exist and stay competitive without a Facebook page? SMO requires web designers to incorporate links to all their Web 2. The point here is that your tentacles (I mentioned earlier) need to increase beyond the horizon just to maintain an effective glideslope of a competitive edge. For example, if I post a picture on my main website, I also need to post that same picture on all my social sites to maintain continuity amongst my disseminated content. Effective SMO means having a presence in at least the following: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pintrest, Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. You may be thinking, “Whew, what a never ending task of constantly populating all my sites. The answer is it can’t because the landscape of the internet is increasing in step with Moore’s law of exponential growth. The fact is that I also feel the same way which leads me to my number 3. 0 sites and to keep all these sites up to date with their latest content.

How can you afford not to market your business through Facebook? So take the time to find the right tools to give you the custom branding and interactive advertising as well as the automated notification and response messaging you’ll need so that you can generate traffic while you sleep. This way you’ll rest assured, knowing that your business is being displayed and recommended virally on Facebook the way you want it to be. This viral marketplace is absolutely sky-rocketing!

What better place to get feedback? There’s tons of marketing information to be extracted from your “likers”, but do it strategically and without over-promoting. You can ask people for positive experiences within your company and you can even put up teasers for new products to see what people think.

Just think about your daily routines like logging into your mail or hosting account, installing websites and blogs or submitting articles and feeds to different directories. This all can be automated to almost one hundred percent. Since for the most time you are working at your PC, you can automate so many daily task with the help of software and so called macros.

Put some thought into the information you put there, and also make sure to use a flattering photo of yourself. Pay special attention to your profile on Facebook. Try to use your profile as a part of your branding. There are various marketing and wealth building groups that you can join to connect and interact with more Facebook members. It is also possible to start your own Facebook group. Remember, the better your profile is, the more people will be attracted to it. There are also groups on Facebook you can join to get more exposure for your profile.

Little wonder that online marketers prefer Facebook. You’re probably already aware that joining a social networking website is practically de rigeur for most people who use the Internet. The website has many tools that will help to teach you how to automate Facebook marketing, and allow you to market your products and services as well as the website for your online business. And today, the social networking website of choice is Facebook.

At some point, there will be more mobile phone subscriptions than there are people on the planet. Steve Jobs was a mentor for Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is rumored to come out with their own smart phone. You can check your e-mail, check in with friends, view the news, use apps to do just about anything. It is only going to grow and it is a wonderful thing for connecting people among the world. They could be taking a leaf out of Apple’s book and be working on a whole new market in the smart phone industry. The Facebook mobile app is still relatively limited. The whole world is in your hand with a smart phone. Facebook might very well venture into the hardware market in the near future to further capture market share within the prominently growing mobile marketplace. For example, you can’t share with the app. It would be a whole new developer marketplace that is perfectly feasible. So, many people are using Safari to view Facebook on their smart phone and accessing the social media network that way.

In order to reduce the time sucking effect of Facebook, you may want to consider automating some of the routine things which come along with maintaining a Facebook page, for example: Social networking and social media platforms have a lot of good points, but they can also lead people to waste a lot of time, with productivity suffering as a result. If you use Facebook or other social networking sites yourself, you probably know how easy it is to log on intending to check your page quickly and realize hours later that you’ve wasted half of your day.

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