#just based on vibes not trying to make any statements or implications here

[libidinous-weeb]

i like this! soooo basically u mean….

lucifer: stereotypical cultists/satanists

mammon: the church of scientology/megachurches

levi: people who are fans of the occult/own a ouija board but have never used it and know everything there is to know about ghost stories/cryptids/spend time on horror subreddits

satan: people who believe in historic religions that are seen as occult but aren’t actually and are entertwined with culture and history. like faeworshippers/gaelic religions, egyptian pantheon worshippers, etc.

asmo: modern day witches/new age religions like the crystal/rock based one

beel: the top 1% who throw wild and crazy parties every weekend where only the richest are invited and they aren’t allowed to discuss what happens there but the answer is anything and everything you can think of

belphie: those weird methhead goth kids that claim to be satanists just because it’s edgy and have ‘cultist’ gatherings that are just hanging out at the local mall and buying shit from hot topic

diavolo: serious actual modern day satanists that do believe in satan, like the kind where if you know too much and squeal on them you disappear in an ‘accident’

barbatos: the illuminati/cults that just exist as a “conspiracy theory” until you find out they’re real

The MC Meeting the Brothers' (+Dia & Barbs) Cults

So like. Imagine the Brother's Fanclubs + Witchy Requests. That's this.

Contents: Satanic themes, demon stuff, witchy inspirations

~♡♡♡~

Lucifer

Lucifer's cults take this shit SERIOUSLY. They're not just fooling around with the occult, they live and breathe it.

I'm talking dark robes, goats heads, bonfires, animal blood, ritual dances- You know. The works.

Definitely the sort of occultists who gatekeep other occultists. They want the world to think of THEM, the followers of the mighty Lucifer, as THE quintessential demonic cult to model all others after. He (and by that they mean they) deserves no less.

Oh yes, they are a very prideful and obnoxious bunch... Completely void of self-awareness too. Try to point out how arrogant they're being and they'll call you crazy.

Lucifer openly despises most of them and possesses a quiet distain for the rest. He doesn't think they're nearly as competent and useful as they claim to be and would rather they simply butt out of his affairs.

He doesn't visit them much nor allow them to summon him unless it is a world-ending emergency (so never). A former past leader thought he was beyond those rules and paid for his hubris with his spine...

Lucifer will do all in his power to convince MC that his cult isn't even worth visiting. They'll annoy them to death... And even if they do go, the self-absorbed members won't exactly roll out the red carpet.

Just take down any names of the most irritating ones and Lucifer will take care of it. The dungeon rats could use some company.

Mammon

Mammon's cult kind of feels like a mix between a tech startup and Gambler's Anonymous at times. Money is the goal, babes. Everybody there is some kind of slave to the grind and they hustle like the goddamn NFL.

Funny enough, it usually isn't the already rich and successful who find themselves in Mammon's orbit, but those who are close to, if not in, poverty and looking to turn things around.... in less than stellar ways.

What I'm saying is, most are either casino regulars, scam artists, or buy into crypto.

That said, unlike most of his brothers, Mammon actually has a pretty deep soft spot for his followers. He puts on the "callous demon" act when he's brought out, but generally, he never cruel to them. He may even throw in an extra bit of help for free if he sees someone is struggling.

When they first met the MC, they really went out of their way to be sure MC was safe, pampered, and satisfied. This was Mammon's favorite human, after all! He talks about them constantly...

It's pretty humorous because most of them already know what kind of food MC likes, what their sense of style is, their favorite colors, and the like from just listening to Mammon's rambles. Or because he'll send one of them to fetch him some kind of present when he's visiting.

Admittedly, they're all kinda scummy and insufferable at times. But endearing in the same way Mammon can be so hanging out with them can still be a good time. MC just have to keep an eye on their wallet.

Leviathan

Levi's cult feels like a bunch of teens who read a creepypasta once, tested it out as a joke but found out it was all real. Thankfully, instead of being horrified, they were actually psyched!

They kind of take to devil worship with a DnD-like enthusiasm. They all have code names like, "Grimshadow" or "Evergloom," each owns a black cloak that they MUST wear to all meetings, and they all have incredibly embellished and extensive backstories for their "darkside" personas. Levi is very proud of their commitment to it all.

That being said, they do take to their found family, counterculture thing with a good dash of humor. They once all attended their local aquarium in full robes and linked hands around the jellyfish tank for shits and giggles.

Levi's followers rarely summon him, but he stays in regular contact with the group through chatrooms and messengers. They love to report on the fun "campaigns" they're building on or when they pull some kind of silly stunt to scare the normies.

When MC visits them, they've long since built up this prince/ss persona for them and treat them like the defacto second-in-command. (Partially because they know Levi would flip out if they upset MC in any way).

If MC enjoys a bit of LARPing, they're the most dedicated group they'll ever find! If they're not willing to play act royalty for a few hours...? Steer clear.

Satan

Satan has a ton of cults so they come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. MC will certainly find one for them!

... The catch is that very few of them actually have a good idea of who Satan really is. It's pretty common to mistake him for Lucifer still, to the point that some cults use their names interchangeably, and THOSE cults better not try contact him personally.

If MC manages to uncover more updated following of Satan's, they'll feel like they walked into a "National Treasure"-style bookclub. These guys are looking for the secrets of the universe, never mind anything else.

Meeting with Satan's inner circle usually feature the search, collection, curation of old esoteric tomes or lost artifacts from the distant realms. The majority of the participants are scholars, academics, and the odd cooky conspiracy theorist who just happened to be right.

Also. Cats. Soooo many cats... The cultists are VERY aware of Satan's volatile temper, so they take pains to keep as many cats present as they can whenever they summon him. Their meeting house is just full of them...

Satan's cult gives MC the real VIP treatment because NO ONE wants to the one to tell the Avatar of Wrath that they disrespected his loved one... If MC were walking barefoot, they'd be laying pillows beneath their every step. The only things treated better are the clubhouse cats.

Asmodeus

Asmo's cult is basically one big family. Very enmeshed and a lot of history, but also soooo fascinating to be around.

If MC wanted to keep track of every person in Asmo's following, they would have to make a chart that could expand the length of an entire wall and, in some cases, go back generations if not centuries.

Followers of Asmo have historically ranged everywhere from sex workers to concubines and even members of the aristocracy looking increase their social capital. Being under his cult provided protection and refuge for the most derided of society, no matter orientation or background. A good portion of his modern following are actually members who've been grandfatherd in from parents or siblings who have joined.

And, of course, Asmo maintains a very close and personal relationship with almost all of them. He's always invited to attend baby showers, weddings, graduations, birthdays, what have you and he makes it to a good deal of them, even if only for a few minutes.

Because of its sheer size and unorthodox structure, Asmo's following almost seems like a "cult" in the loosest sense. They have rituals, spells, and meetings but it all looks SO much different than the others. Get-togthers among the adults are practically just parties and maybe you summon some succubi with goat's blood and glitter glue.

Asmo's cult can be kinda catty, but generally very supportive and they LOVE having MC around. Big gossips with a lot of questions. If they love a party, then they can't go wrong!

Beelzebub

Beel's cult takes self-indulgence to a whole new level. These guys LOVE their vices and find a little demonic touch is the best way to keep the indulgence going.

Belphegor

It's amazing that for such a sweet demon, his cult is some of the scummiest people on the planet. We're talking riding yachts on your mega-yacht levels of excess. "Too much of a good thing" taken to the extreme.

The thing is, as long as you have the money to feed Beel then he's really agreeable and kind. So wealthy assholes take advantage of his generosity all the time...

That said, don't feel too bad for Beel just yet because they ARE scumbags, but Beel is in charge and he has his limits.

One old billionaire kept summoning him during his fangol matches. The guy's maids found his nightrobe ripped to shreds and bite marks in the furniture.

Another one made a passing insult about Mammon and Beel came home to give his brother the lady's jewelry... after he washed them off, of course.

He discourages MC from meeting them even harder than Lucifer, and if they insist, he'll go with them and loom over their shoulder like a round-the-clock bodyguard. He doesn't need to tell his followers to treat MC nicely... he'll make them.

Absolutely those edgy kids who dress in all black and SAY that yeah, they've totally met Belphegor. But they really haven't, and it shows.

Remember, Belphie is on the blacklist so most witches who say they've met him are fucking liars. However, that doesn't stop novice covens searching for a little respect from claiming they're in good with the guy.

Since the group doesn't really know what Belphegor is about, they most just use their little club as an excuse to grief others and claim undue superiority. They pull a lot of pranks though, so they at least have some parts right.

Belphie has a vague awareness of their existence, but couldn't be bothered to contact them or set the record straight. What's it matter to him if a bunch of humans want to make a fool of themselves? He doesn't care that much about his reputation.

If MC were actually summon Belphegor themselves in front of them, the entire group would shit their pants immediately then cry and beg for forgiveness. Again, Belphie doesn't care, but he likes toying with fools so he'd play the part of the "Angry Master" long enough to make them run for their lives.

Needless to say, if MC wants there to be no Belphie-cult, no more Belphie cult there will be.

Diavolo

Actually a very small group since it's not super widespread that the Demon King is out of commission. But those who are there are a real who's-who of the witching world.

Dia doesn't actually interact with his cult very much, despite their combined influence, because he finds them very off-putting. Most of them are just "yes men" or social climbers wanting to get in good with royal bloodline, so he doesn't put much stock in what they do or say.

If he does contact them, it's for his "Bring Harmony" plans and they do come in handy as envoys in the human realm. He keeps the interactions brief though.

Several of his number have attempted to get into contact with MC before, but Solomon usually wards them off for much the same reason Dia does. They all just want something from them, so why let them bother his sweet little apprentice?

Those who slip through the cracks get shut down immediately by an impromptu visit from the friendly neighborhood sorcerer who seems to have some of charm in place for just such occasion. It's pretty confusing for MC to watch Solomon drag some big politican out of the house by the scruff of the neck, but it's probably better that they just don't ask and move on.

Barbatos

An even smaller group than Dia's and even more secretive. You basically have to be invited in by Barb's himself so a new member gets added every half century or so...

Nobody is quite sure what spurs Barbs to select someone into his cult... Maybe they make a good first impression when summoning him or he sees that they're important for the future? Sometimes, he'll even induct complete normal humans who weren't even witches to start with so it's anybody's guess.

Due to its small size and, frankly, years of even centuries worth of distance between members there's a lot less meetings and more just doing what Barbs says.

For instance, he may instruct a member to bury a particular message on a hill to then tell a different member to go find 60 years later... Or he'll have another member set into motion a chain of events that won't actually be felt for decades to come.

The cult members don't know about MC unless Barbs NEEDS them to know about MC. He keeps a lot in the dark. If they do, he takes pains to stress that he admires MC quite a bit and to not upset them...

When Barbatos tells you not to do something, you don't fucking do it, so they are VERY kind to MC. Just in that "I feel like there's a gun to my head"- kind of way...

[platonically-loving-alastor]

Aroace Alastor

Hoo boy here we go- This one might make some people mad at me, so I'll preface by saying I do not want to start a fight and as long as you respect my business, I'll respect yours. But let's get this over with-

First off, I genuinely don't understand how some people can see the Ace-In-The-Hole quote and still believe that Alastor is only intended to be asexual and not also aromantic. Yes, the term Rosie used for purpose of the pun was 'ace', but can we look at the context of that moment before jumping to conclusions?

Rosie, motioning to Charlie: "Oh, who's this you brought with you? Come now, Alastor, she's much too young for you! Oh, I'm just kidding. I know you're an ace in the hole!"

Her original statement implies nothing sexual, only that he's involved in a relationship with Charlie, and she follows it up with why she knows that couldn't be because he's an 'ace in the hole'. I don't think you have to read too far between the lines to see that.

I would also like to say that when Vivienne has spoken about his orientation before, I recall her saying that she didn't want to confirm him being aromantic so that she wouldn't 'ruin anyone's fun', which I just feel like is an odd thing to say if she wasn't already explicitly picturing him as aroace. If she thought he had romantic attraction, why wouldn't she just say that? What fun would that ruin? I also feel like keeping things like this ambiguous just to appease the shippers is a little weird, but I digress-

And to those of you who I know are saying "But aromantic people can be in relationships too!!" *deep inhale* yeah I know. I'm not gonna pretend you're not right about that, but there are also aroace people who have exactly 0 interest in romance or sex at all. This is the part of the post that really is based on how I interpret certain moments, but to me he is absolutely one of those people. I don't really know where people get any vibes of him being interested in that stuff. I have never once looked at him and thought "Yeah I could see him in a romantic relationship with *insert character here*". Even aside from attraction in general, since that's what we'd be talking about at this point anyway, he just seems like the kind of guy who'd rather work and live independently instead of relying on anyone, whether practically or emotionally (which is also probably part of the reason he never joined the Vees, but that's another topic entirely). Hell, I'm pretty sure he's in heavy denial about even developing any kind of care or friendship with the people at the hotel (ie. the episode 8 scene with him and Niffty).

The only ships I see him involved in with people he doesn't hate (so ignoring RadioApple, RadioHusk, and StaticRadio. But to be real, maybe the fact all his main ships are enemies to lovers coded says something about the whole situation, but that's just me-) are Charlastor - which I will not even try to discuss here, people aren't gonna like this post as it is - and RadioRose. Rosie and him would at least be fair, if it weren't for one thing (which is also personal opinion on my end), and I don't know exactly how to word it. I'm tempted to say she has wingwoman vibes? But she knows he's aro, so that's not the right word, but there's vibes of like, she probably did act as a wingwoman before she realized that about him or something.. There's also something about her joking around like "Oh this is the girl? You have a girlfriend and I'm only now meeting her?" is almost giving motherly behavior. Idk man they're just besties to me, I could see them in a QPR though (not that they'd probably label it that way, considering the word queerplatonic is likely just complete gibberish to Alastor lmao).

So to summarize: It feels incredibly likely, if not practically canon, that Alastor was written with aromanticism in mind, even if Vivienne refuses to explicitly state it. Subtext and not-that-subtle implications can say just as much about a character as word of God, especially when that God has explicitly told us why she won't confirm or deny this information. Do I think any of this will stop people from shipping him romantically with literally any other character? No ofc it won't, and that's okay, that's just what fandoms do. I do think there's something to say for the fact the one aroace (or even at the very least asexual) character gets constantly shipped with everyone else in the cast, but this post is long enough I think. The only point of posting this is that I wanted to get information out there in one post to say "Hey, let's look a little bit past the surface for a second before saying there's no proof of him being aromantic"

Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you at least took something away from this

[monsterkissed]

You said you liked to share BNGN trivia, so you got any tidbits?

some assorted trivialities (spoilers for a fanfic up to the latest chapter):

the fic was originally envisioned (and partly written) as a series of drabbles! if i had kept that going, it would currently be 5,376 drabbles long.

tiramisu was written into the outline entirely as bait/tribute to my partners, who are big siamese fans. she is now the most popular oc i have ever made for anything. i considered writing an origin story fic for her back when there was a jjba oc zine in the works, but it fell thru and now it only lives in my head. it involves multiple murders : )

bngn is not phf-compliant bc i did not want to read it. to make up for this i promise to find other horrible things for fugo to go through instead <3

probably not news to anyone by this point but here is some explicit confirmation: the first prologue that opens the fic is not about doppio

there are so many cases of foreshadowing in the form of jokes or joke-adjacent statements at this point that i cannot actually remember them all. if you see me make a silly comment in this fic there is at least a 20% chance it's actually a very sneaky mean comment hiding behind the linear progression of time

when i first drafted the outline act 3 was much much shorter and had a few drastic differences. one of these was that polnareff (or at least one of him) would have survived to support the gang much as he does in the original VA, but i could not think of anything fun for him to do that didn't detract from everything else, or at least nothing more fun than the inexplicable spectacle of two dead polnareffs after all of the build-up towards him. rip, rip.

speaking of fun: i wanted to have every major character get at least one really cool moment, regardless of how central they were to the story. i didn't want anyone to feel like you could cut them out completely and it wouldn't matter, i wanted to keep that ensemble feel of VA and give everyone room to affect the story in important ways, even if the fic still obviously has its focusses. of the ones i've published so far, i think i like mista's intervention in the Trish & Dop vs Fugo fight best out of those moments because i just had so much fun writing and visualising it and he felt like a natural fit to provoke fugo's own position in the story as a person fixated on the objective facts (which he was canonically Not Wrong about, in terms of sticking with bruno being a dubious plan for anyone fond of staying alive) to face off against someone who operates more on vibes and rolling the dice.

way back in the depths of drabble-draft the flashbacks were going to occur chronologically, followed by the present day stuff. but as i became aware that this was growing into something i realised that this would be stitching two pretty drastically different fics together back to back, and decided instead to use the current format. in theory this was purely going to allow me to show doppio's relationship with diavolo alongside his absence from him, so we can see simultaneously why he values and misses him so much and what he's becoming without him. in practice it led to a bunch of smaller changes that built up into, among other things, the premise of the entire canon divergence. technically, all of the flashbacks in act 1 and 2 "take place" during ch. 30. there is an implication to this that so far nobody has commented on ;)

i spent an amount of time researching macdonalds in italy that i will never ever get back

speaking of researching things that don't matter to anyone but me: everywhere a major scene happens is based on a specific spot i hand-picked on google maps. i roamed a lot of italian countryside via satellite trying to find the Exact kind of big, ugly, concrete-floored farm i had in mind for the first secco fight

technically this fic (or at least the extended universe around it) has sorbet and gelato VA-style origin stories to go with their fanstands (which i had a lot of fun with, workshopping around ideas for things that would make for excellent and suitably juicy assassination tools but vulnerable in a stand vs stand battle). much like tiramisu, so does my second stand-using oc brodo (who also cameos in 'I Think We're Alone Now', because skulking around trying not to be noticed is his speciality) the third, katarina, is only mostly goncharov-inspired, and Heart of Glass was originally going to be one of the chapter titles for this fic. another song with a very similar title still will be!

i had no intention of narancia being as big a presence in the fic as he was, but the longer i wrote the more i realised that he's just too fun to put in a room with doppio. the scene where he accepts the truth made me feel genuinely like a bit of a horrible person because i'd enjoyed building up their friendship so much and it was one of those chapters where i knew Exactly what the character would want to do and exactly why it would be the thing that would hurt them the most.

when i was hammering out the outline for what would become this fic an artist i had been following released a song that i put on in the background while i wrote, and then stopped writing and went back to listen to it properly twelve or thirteen times because it was eerily vibing perfectly with some of the themes i had been kicking around in my head trying to make something out of. it put a few seeds in my head in the way that some things serendipitously do, so much so that i almost named the whole fic after it. in the end, i decided to affix it to just one chapter where i felt it would best set the tone for the imminent descent to come. that chapter would be chapter thirty-eight.

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

lately i feel taehyung is a straight man and his vibez is much more masculinity i mean not to mention taehyung straightly said to jimin he like him most and no offense for me it's just assurance about something etc and i don't feel like in romantic way but much more because he is best friend for life. i mean before you can assume he is kind of gay but lately i feel like he's more focus on masculine way and much more straight man.

Admin 1: Let’s do a little exercise which I think will help us answer this question, as well as showcase why reading it annoyed me so much, especially as queer person myself. Okay, here are nine different men, all of them athletes (why did I pick them? Because idols are basically just as athletic as them and chances of you knowing all nine are low), and now please try to guess which of them (if any) are gay/queer:

…

Do you have your guesses?

…

Okay, as example, if you guessed only the one first row second from the left then, well, you are partially correct. That man is Johnny Weir, former American figure skater, who is, in fact, gay, yes. But you are wrong in saying that out of all the men in those pictures he’s the only one who is queer. Because all of them are. You can read more about them here if you’re interested.

What does this tell us? Easy. The manner in which someone presents themselves (or the vibe, whatever that’s even supposed to mean, that they give off/give you), traditionally masculine, feminine, more androgynous, or anywhere else on the spectrum, has no correlation whatsoever with their sexuality. A gay man can dress in a way that is traditionally seen as more feminine and that’s fine. He can dress and look more typically masculine, and that is fine as well. He can dress and look however he likes and that doesn’t make him any less or more gay, or any less or more valid.

The main thing I would like for you to take away from this answer is this: please do not buy into stereotypical, basically fetishizing, portrayals and assumptions of what constitutes a “gay man” visually and behavior wise. There is no checklist full of boxes a queer man, or any queer person for that matter, needs to fulfil in order to be queer and valid in their queerness. There is no unified look a gay man has to showcase in order to be gay. It’s the 21st century, the year 2021, can we leave finally lay these things to rest?

As for Tae, if you want to know my thoughts about BTS and the LGBT community, I have an entire post about it which you can read here if that’s something that interests you. If we look at how Tae currently looks like, which you’ve defined as more “masculine” (and therefore straight), I will agree that he has gained muscles, if that is what you think is a necessary checkbox for masculinity, but really, all that really tells us is that Tae is healthy, that he looks great, handsome as ever, and that he is an idol of whom it is expected and required to be in a good physical shape, especially with comeback being quite literally just three days away which means a lot of performances, dancing, and hard Bangtan choreographies.

Your taste in fashion and how you feel most comfortable with your body looking like has no direct correlation with your sexuality, and neither does it with Tae’s.

Lastly, how is Tae saying he likes Jimin most on national TV somehow proof of him being straight? What else was he supposed to say? What would he have to say for you to not question his bond with Jimin? Is there a possibility we’re wrong and they’re just platonic, of course, but at the same time, looking at how Jimin said that Tae is a honest person, how Tae basically wears his heart on his sleeve, and how he’s written a song all about falling in love with his best friend, whom we know is Jimin, and we know Tae writes songs based on his own feelings and experiences, I do have a hard time believing that we are wrong. But, of course, we won’t know for sure until Tae or Jimin, or both, tell us themselves.

You are free to believe whatever you like but at least don’t project gender and LGBT stereotypes (most of which have been created and are perpetuated by straight people) onto Tae, and the other members for that matter. Or any queer person really.

Admin 2: I admit that after what I’ve recently observed on various sns platforms, no question will surprise me anymore. In fact, I'm sure I know where this question came from.

The most annoying thing is that despite so many "steps and demonstrations" on BTS' part, there is still an army trying to put people into individual boxes and number those boxes and give them names.

Do any of us have our sexualities written out on our foreheads? Can you see if we are sexually interested in women, men, or anyone else? And how can you know that?

I think a lot of people know Adam Rippon, for example, who is a former American figure skater and Olympic team bronze medalist. Yes, Adam is gay and has a very handsome partner, fiancé actually, who looks like a young god. He's fit, look at his photos on Instagram, Jussi goes to the gym, runs and is even in the process of builds a house himself, like a "real man", a "typical" man ... but he's gay!

If you look at this example, you can clearly see that there are no stereotypes that would indisputably define the appearance of an LGBTQ+ person! Indeed, in the last century, attempts have been made to give "gay" people the weird appearance of only ever being feminized man who are always sassy and the side kick in movies/shows, the stereotypical "gay best friend". It the past century it was designed as such to portray queer people, and especially gay men, in undesirable ways, as jokes and as something "bad", but I thought we grew out of it a long time ago as modern and tolerant people.

Kim Taehyung has to practice and exercise as a member of BTS. That’s a fact. To meet the requirements of their choreographies, whether you like it or not, you must be in an Olympic physical form. Not just him, the entire team must basically be at a near peak physical condition and health. Tae has to exercise, he has to take care of himself, and he has to look great. I have to admit, I've noticed that "gay" men pay more attention to their looks than a normal, unshaven straight guy! (I'm basing this on a joke Adam Rippon once made where he apologized to his followers for looking like an "unshaved straight guy" after he'd just woken up)

What do I mean by that? I want to express the fact that the way you look and take care of your appearance and physical condition are not an indicator of sexuality!

As for the "I like you the most" statement, I'll admit that I've observed many people in many ways trying to use this statement to twist it into whatever those people wanted it to be, instead of taking it for what it actually was, especially since it appears to be something like a thorn in the sides of those who ship other ML pairings.

I'll be rather blunt here now, instead of beating around the bush.

I think this whole question is another attempt at ripping down the Vmin sails and belittling their bond and its possible implications once again.

If we remember how the scene played out, remember Jimin's reactions, his nervousness, how flustered he was, said that things are getting dangerous, and the fact that Taehyung's letter was only for Jimin's eyes. Is that really how "bros" behave? Just a couples of besties?

I doubt that normal best buddies on national TV would feel the need to write mystery letters just for a friend's eyes and tell each other that they like him the most? I'll say more, "boyfriends" don't force their lover to admit that he is copying him in his dance style, only friends do.

It is strange that this "copy" situation was "perceived" as highly romantic, and yet Taehyung's words to Jimin were relegated to "best friends only, nothing else".

However, it doesn't change the fact that Taehyung said what he said, he wrote 95z is love and Jimin confessed that he would love to spend his life with his lovely Taehyungie. Do "only best friends" (best friends that are straight) behave like this?

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

⭐️!

“Jon said he had friends already.”

“Jonathan does not have friends. He has people who use him, and who he uses in return. They won’t keep him in one piece.”

...

“Oh, you’ll find that contracts here are rather binding. It protects us both.” Elias offers him a bland smile. “I’ll keep my word, and you will have to do the same. There is a… facet of the position that some have found less than pleasant. Once you accept the position, you will be unable to leave it. You won’t be able to quit or be fired, and if you simply do not show up… Well, Jonathan can fill you in on the details. Consider it job security.” 

Let’s talk about the guy who has won Most Desired Pipe Murder for nine chapters running. 

I picked the above lines because it’s pretty good case study of what Elias is like, but honestly this can apply to basically everything that comes out of his mouth. Namely, that he’s a liar, and everything that comes out of his mouth is geared towards deception, even when what he says is true. 

Let’s take the first chunk. When Elias speaks, a good percentage of the time he actually claims things for himself that are true of other people, and he accuses them of things that are actually true of him. This is a good example. Earlier in the scene, Elias framed himself in the position of someone who had friends, or at least allies. In an earlier draft, he actually explicitly used the word “friends” to describe his ties in the community before I cut it for being too heavy-handed. In contrast, he says that Jon doesn’t have friends--he has people he uses. 

Of course, this isn’t true about Jon. He legitimately has friends, or at least the one he mentioned. He also just very plainly doesn’t use people. It’s not true at all. It is, however, true of Elias. Look at a single one of his homoerotic correspondence with all his old “colleagues.” He used Barnabas. He used Albrecht. He used Smirke. And all of them viewed him as a friend. Elias doesn’t have friends; he uses people. Jon doesn’t use people; he has friends. But Elias claims the best parts of other people and accuses them of some of his worst attributes. He’s a crow, stealing the shiniest parts of other people, and I kind of did it to mirror how he steals other people’s lives. He body-hops; he kidnaps; he traps people in his Institute. He steals lives, so now he also steals pieces of personalities too, and there’s just enough truth and reality mixed into it all that it keeps the people he’s lying to from figuring out the truth until it’s too late. 

Another thing I like to do is use strictly true statements that rely on other people connecting the dots in the wrong way. Contracts here are binding--a true statement, sign it and you can’t leave. But he implies that it will also bind him to his promise in turn. But we don’t actually know that yet. What he says is “I’ll keep my word, and you’ll have to do the same.”  Elias will keep his word--strictly true, he will step in if it gets dire and he will devote his resources (which turned out to be Jon) to helping Tim. But Tim is the only one who will have to do the same. Maybe he’s just saying he’ll keep his word, in a way that’s not compelled by magic at all, but Tim will be magically bound. 

So maybe the contract doesn’t bind the promises he made in turn. Maybe it only binds people to the Institute. Or maybe it does bind any promises he makes. Maybe what he said is true in the way Tim took it. After all, he has to sign his approval on all contracts, and it’s not like the promises have a clause that says “you are metaphysically bound to my evil temple and can never quit.” No one would sign then. So maybe the intent and promises at the signing of the contract matters, and Elias is stuck keeping his word because he also signed.

 But they have no way of knowing, because Elias is going to keep his word no matter what--in the absolute strictest, most literal sense--because as long as he does that, the archival crew has no way of testing if binding him to promises is a power of the contract, and they have no way of discovering more about how the contract works. And that’s important, because Jon has been desperately been trying to figure out the exact mechanics of contract binding for years now. If Elias never lies about the contract, but makes it unclear enough that no one can figure out its implications, then Jon has no way of testing the contract’s bindings.

The last thing I like to do with Elias is using names based on what he wants. Specifically Jon’s name. In the conversation with Tim, Elias strictly uses Jonathan. And he does that because he knows that Jon told him he doesn’t like Jonathan. He isn’t looking to isolate Jon--Jon did a good enough job of that on his own. He wants leverage on Jon, and it helps if he has a good relationship with Tim. So giving Tim that subtle bad vibe of using a name Tim knows Jon doesn’t like is one way of positioning Tim to be closer to Jon, and better leverage as a result. 

But when he talks to Martin, a few Jons are tossed in there. And Jon didn’t tell Martin that he didn’t like Jonathan, he just introduced himself as Jon. Elias doesn’t want to position himself as a threat, this time. He wants to keep Martin from going to child services. So by using that mix of Jon and Jonathan, he positions Jon’s name as something that really isn’t a matter of preference. Sometimes people go by more than one thing, and nickname preference is just a matter of who they’re talking to. By using “Jon” at times, he’s positioning himself a little bit closer to Jon as Martin thinks of him--namely, as Jon, and not Jonathan--but by using “Jonathan” as well, he’s keeping it from being weird if Martin hears him call Jon “Jonathan” further down the line. 

With Jon, of course, he only calls him Jonathan, because it’s just one more way that he takes away Jon’s decision and agency from him. Name is a huge part about how people perceive themselves. By refusing to use the name Jon likes, Elias is constantly reminding him that he’s not his own person--he’s Jonathan, the name signed on his contract, and Jonathan is who very much belongs to Elias. Sometimes he’ll use “Jon” in Jon’s presence, but never directly to Jon, and it’s always to remind Jon that he could go along with Jon’s wishes but he actively chooses not to. 

[itsclydebitches]

Hello, everyone! I come bearing a new recap series to fill the void until Volume 8. This came about because a bunch of friends went, “Hey, this book is really bad” and I responded with, “Really? I should check it out!” Now here we are. 

Thrilling tale, I know. 

The rules for this project are simple: 

Each recap will cover a single chapter

Each chapter will be read as time and energy permit 

Each chapter will contain typos because such is life

Recaps are a general response to anything and everything I notice about the text. This includes positives, negatives, and the wishy-washy stuff in between. Despite the summarized conversation above, I’m not going into this with the intention of ripping BtD to shreds, nor am I looking to absolve it simply because it’s ~RWBY~. I’m attempting to be as objective as one human individual can be

However, given that there will be criticisms (a lot of them so far)... any rude messages taking issue with that will unceremoniously be deleted :) 

Onward! 

We open with Sun’s point of view as he wanders the streets of Vacuo in the very late night/early morning. We learn that he’s been back for a month, but it’s “only now that he felt like he was truly home.” Why that is isn’t made clear. There are two actions connected to this thought: getting into a dangerous battle and helping out a stranger. It’s up to the reader to decide which (or both) is what makes Vacuo feel like home to Sun, but either is going to say a lot about his characterization. Is he a Yang, only feeling like things are normal when there’s something exciting going on? Or a Ruby, attaching feelings of self-worth and belonging to his ability to help others? As said, it’s arguably both. 

To clarify this situation: Sun is following a group of three who in turn are following a woman. He says that they were “three goons who were up to no good. At least he’d assumed they were up to no good when he spotted them stalking a woman out of some new nightclub downtown.” Which begs the question, which is it? Do you actually know the three are “stalking” her or is this another “assumption”? Are they up to no good or not? Retroactively, their fight with Sun and the narrative connections to the rest of the plot seem to prove that they are indeed baddies... but Sun didn’t know this at the time. By his own admission he’s drawing very firm conclusions (they’re “goons”) based on circumstantial evidence. I’m torn between praising him for taking action - that woman is presumably safe now thanks to him - and acknowledging that this is a problem with our whole cast. All our heroes jump to conclusions like this and have very confident ideas about who is “good” and who is “bad” based on little to no evidence. Really, I take far less issue with this particular situation and its context (Huntsmen in training sees a woman potentially in danger and takes non-disruptive action to try and prevent a tragedy. That’s good) than I do this trend of characters “assuming” things about others across the series. 

But enough on that. Sun’s plan to keep an eye on the situation fails as they “somehow noticed him” despite taking extra precautions to keep out of sight. From this he deduces that at least one member, Brown, is a faunus because the faunus are much more attuned to their environment. Both due to biology and growing up trying to keep safe from humans. I find the bigotry part of that explanation to be odd. I’ll admit that I might be reading way too much into this. So far there’s a lot in this novel that’s not obviously bad but did make me pause and go, “Ehhh...” Just because this moment draws a line between the racism allegory and (literal) animal traits. Take a second to swap out the fantasy term of “faunus”: Character, as a black man, is more attuned to his environment because he’s learned to protect himself from white people.” There is something to be said for minority groups being more cautious in specific situations, or being wary of how they present themselves to new people, etc. But in this case faunus are supposed to just be more attuned to things 24/7 because of fantasy-racism, which sounds a lot like an evolutionary, animalistic trait that they... already have? Saying that the character with animal eyes and ears can more easily pick up on someone tracking him is one thing. Saying that the discriminated against character can more easily pick up on someone tracking him because he’s just hyper-aware at all times very much like an animal...that’s “Ehhh.” It’s one of those things I doubt I’d be paying any attention to if RWBY had given us better representation overall. It’s reached a point where the way the faunus are handled is so messy that any statement like this invites at least a dollop of suspicion. But I’ll leave that to others to cry “Yea” or “Nay.” 

So Sun is forced to confront these three. They wear masks and “matching silver armbands around their right biceps.” Sun thinks that they’re “just average gas masks” and thus way less scary than the grimm masks the White Fang prefers. All I could think was: 

Gas masks are plenty scary, Sun, you’re just watching the wrong TV shows.

These four start the obligatory pre-fight chit-chat which includes Pink calling Sun “kid.” Every time this happens I feel a tiny bit of my soul wither and die. The protagonists’ ages and the implications attached to them have been a thorn in my side since Volume 5. I mean, heaven forbid we acknowledge that these are teenagers often making immature decisions when the text itself keeps reminding us of how young they are. 

But I digress. 

As the fight begins Sun concentrates to activate his semblance and we’re given a rather strange flashback. Sun, along with his older cousin Starr Sanzang, are moving with their clan after their “previous settlement had become too attractive to Grimm.” Which is its own, massive can of worms labeled with the question “What suddenly makes a home ‘too attractive’?” But we have nothing else to work with there so I’m leaving it alone. The primary takeaway is Sun’s reaction to the move itself. He wants to know why they don’t fight and despite being told that a) not everyone in the clan is as strong as him and b) he has a tendency to be hotheaded (even though that’s presented as familial teasing), he’s not happy with those answers. It’s amazing how much of this characterization makes it feel like Meyers barely read the RWBY wiki, yet he’s simultaneously managing to hit on a lot of the series’ major themes - including the idea that heroes must never, ever retreat. We could easily take Sun’s thoughts and chuck them into any of Team RWBY’s heads during Volume 7 and you’d be good to go. Not standing and fighting when that would likely mean your death? The horror! 

This perspective also (for me) says a lot about his semblance itself. This is the moment where he starts working towards it, so given what we know about semblances, souls, and the circumstances in which they’re developed, I’d say his emotional state is pretty important. Sun wants to stay and fight. He’s told that not everyone is powerful like him. He’d need more people in order to defend his home. Then he literally creates more of himself to help him in battle. Problem solved. 

The strange part is what kick-starts this development. Sun sees a magical (???) tree that appears to him and him alone. It’s “a desert willow, green and flourishing with white, rose, and violet flowers” and it’s what he focuses on whenever he needs to draw on his semblance. It’s unclear what, if anything, this tree is meant to represent. There’s obvious symbolism regarding a “flourishing” plant in an otherwise desolate wasteland, but we are not (as of yet) privy to whether this tree is a real thing with a real, tangible connection to Sun. It would be easy to conclude that Sun just imagined it despite his own insistence otherwise, but in a story where semblances, magic, and gods do exist? Who knows. I hope this is going somewhere because it’s frustrating to drop something ~symbolic~ into a universe that’s supposed to be governed by concrete, magical rules and leave the reader floundering over how to categorize that.  

We come back to the fight where Sun decides that Brown was “both the leader of the group and the most dangerous. Why? Because he was hiding the most.”

Hold up. 

How do you know he’s “hiding the most” when they’re all wearing identical masks and doing the same, shady stuff? 

Why in the world is the concept of hiding things connected to leadership? 

Not going to lie, it feels like a dig at Ozpin. “Oh yes, the most secretive one must be the leader because we all know leaders do nothing but hide things. The two are so intimately linked that I can look at three people who are all acting suspicious, single out the guy who I’m assuming is a faunus based on no evidence, and thus further conclude - since he’s totally hiding that part of his identity - that he’s the leader here. Simple deduction.” 

Sherlock Holmes would be ashamed. 

More importantly, you know who’s also a dangerous leader who hides things? 

Oh, also this guy. 

But instead of acknowledging this we’re offered the simplistic explanation that this is the leader of the bad guys because only bad guys hide stuff. Right. 

I’m already getting the sense that Sun’s characterization - like Ruby’s - is going to suffer in this book. They should absolutely be written better given who they were when we first met them, but both end up being mouth pieces for the weird themes the story keeps insisting on including. To be clear, I’ve got a lot of issues with Sun in this story so far, but they’re issues that I don’t think should exist. It’s not “I dislike this character” but much more “I dislike this character but that’s only because you’re making them do and say really OOC things. Give me back the version of this character we had before.” There are characters I don’t vibe with and then there are characters who should be on my wavelength but the creators went and changed course somewhere. That’s always disappointing. 

(Aside #1: Can we just take a moment to acknowledge how awkward posing and answering your own question is when we’re supposed to be the PoV? That “Why? Because...” is incredibly jarring. I’m focusing on content over prose here, but the prose needs a whole lot of work in places.)

So Brown is apparently a faunus, and the leader, and hiding extra stuff because Sun says so. The two begin fighting in earnest (with Sun’s clones taking on the other two), but don’t worry, Sun has enough confidence to spare: 

“Brown had some kind of martial arts training similar to Sun’s – but he wasn’t nearly as good.” 

Brown proceeds to knock Sun down and disarm him. Easily. 

The fact that Sun can’t land a hit on this guy then causes him legitimate shock.  “‘Oh crap’, Sun thought. ‘I’m losing. How am I actually losing?’” I don’t know, maybe because you’re a second year student going up against an adversary of unknown age, origin, and skill? The confidence of all our characters is astounding to me. Doesn’t anyone ever question whether they can win a fight? Or acknowledge that losing one is expected? Both Sun and RWBYJNR seem to have come out of the Battle of Beacon thinking, “We have survived one (1) battle and therefore we are the best ever. Losing? Never heard of her.” There’s a difference between writing a confident character and writing a deluded one. Sun should not be blindsided by the fact that someone else in the world is more powerful than him. 

(For the record, the eternal exception to this is Toph Beifong. They really let a tiny blind girl say, “I’m the goddamn best” and made it fact. I am, and will always, be here for that.) 

Amidst this shock Sun thinks about Beacon and immediately shies away from those memories. I quite liked that. I wish the web-series did more to acknowledge how traumatizing that battle was (akin to what we got with Yang’s PTSD and Ruby’s nightmares before both were dropped), so I’m pleased to see nods to it here. 

Sun is just acknowledging how he probably should have brought some friends along when a copy of Tri-Hard lands nearby. Huzzah! Velvet is here! Sun should be pleased right, especially since he was just thinking about how much he needs help? 

“Great. Team CFVY (coffee) was here.” 

Ugh. Well this is frustrating to read. What precisely is going on here? Sun is the guy defined by “You should always get friends involved!” Then he ditches said friends to chase after Blake. While working through this decision he finds himself in a situation where he’s alone again largely because his team is mad at him. So he’s coming to terms with how much he misses and needs those friends... only to think a sarcastic “great” when someone actually show up to help him? 

He’s written as an asshole here. Velvet and Yatsuhashi save him - the three baddies use a smoke semblance to run off - but “Sun bristled at the implication that Velvet and Yatsuhashi had rescued him.” Can’t we have one character with a bit of humility? The writing attributes Sun’s attitude to a competitive school where prestige is everything. Team CFVY’s unexpected arrival and their subsequent fame seems to rankle... but we’re really going to ignore that they’re here because, you know, their school was destroyed and their headmaster murdered? I know that people think stupid, selfish things all the time (god knows I do), but it’s a bit much to have Sun be so over confident that he gets himself into serious trouble, get annoyed when he’s offered help, and then insist that he never needed that help in the first place. That kind of behavior rankles and for good reason. It’s fine as a flaw for one or two characters, but we’re seeing this across most of the main cast. Is no one able to look at someone outside their team and just go, “Thanks for the assist”? 

The one redeeming part of this scene is Velvet practicing her quips. I support her attempts to sound like a cheesy action hero. 

(Aside #2: There had to be a better way to deal with the team names other than writing “CFVY (coffee)”...)

As the three chat we learn that the rogue huntsmen Carmine and Bertilak may be involved with these shady characters, the missing people with powerful semblances, and I, who has not read the first book, learns about Gus, someone capable of amplifying negative emotions. There’s... a lot attached to that reveal, but I’ll leave it alone for now. It’s not fair to drag it when I’ve only gotten a passing mention. 

Alongside discussing Very Important Plot Points, the group dives into Sun’s difficulties with his team: 

“Besides, the guys are still a little annoyed with me for ditching them.”

“To chase a girl,” Yatsuhashi added.

“It wasn’t like that.” Not entirely. “Blake needed a friend.”

“And your team needed you,” Velvet said firmly. “After everything we saw at Beacon, with everything going on in Mistral—”

“They were fine.”

“But you’re their leader,” Yatsuhashi said.

“They’ll come around.”

“Maybe you would be able to regain their trust if you didn’t keep running off without them,” Yatsuhashi added, sheathing his great sword.

Sun narrowed his eyes. “I liked you better when you didn’t say much.”

Sun is, again, written as an asshole! It might be understandable that he wants to ignore all his mistakes, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating for those around him - or the reader. Like admitting that he needs help and then getting annoyed when he gets it, here Sun refuses to engage with the actual problems in his behavior. He won’t admit those mistakes. You ditched your team to chase after a girl. No, no, it wasn’t just about chasing her... Your team needed you. No they didn’t! You’re their leader. Pff what does that have to do with anything? It’s deny, deny, deny. On top of a mean quip at Yatsuhashi. I’m just reading this train-wreck like

I want to re-emphasize here (because I keep getting asks with the accusation) that yes, I do understand that stories need conflict and yes, I do want characters to have flaws. It’s just that lately RWBY feels like all flaws all the time, most of which are never even acknowledged as flaws. Which mean the characters aren’t improving. There are very few moments lately where I feel like our heroes are legitimately kind, or wise, or intelligent, or compassionate, and that’s making it hard to connect with them. Knowing what I do of the fountain scene with Yatsuhashi, Fox, and Neptune makes things even worse. Would it be so horrible for Sun to be happy that his friends came to help? Or not sneer at Team CFVY so much? Or admit that he messed up? It’s the amount we’re getting across the whole cast that’s a problem, alongside rejecting other conflicts that would be much more logical for the story and much more emotionally fulfilling (such as Team RWBYJNR disagreeing about anything). I find it exhausting to watch. And now read. 

I did, however, like Sun calling Yatsuhashi out on his own insults: 

“Besides, people have attempted [invading] before,” Sun said. 

“Back when Vacuo had something valuable, like Dust,” Yatsuhashi said. 

Sun whistled low. “Spoken like a true outsider. If you don’t want to turn Vacuans against you, you’ll stop making comments like that.” 

Yatsuhashi looked away. 

It’s a legit thing to call out. Please don’t imply that our city has no value now that we’re not producing this specific commodity. Sun expressed those feelings in a way that didn’t crucify Yatsuhashi, but let him know he’d spoken out of turn and helped him understand why he, as an individual, should care about changing his perspective (“If you don’t want to turn Vacuans against you...”). I’d say this is one of the better exchanges in the prologue, showing us unexpected sides to each character (Sun isn’t just a laughing goof, Yatsuhashi isn’t the wise Asian stereotype) without them feeling OOC. 

We then end the prologue with Sun promising to help CFVY with these investigations. Offering on behalf of his team without asking, that is. I’m sure that will go over splendidly. 

As a final note before I sign off, I apologize if these recaps are... bad? Lol. Yeah, we’ll be blunt and straightforward in that description. While working through this I found myself reiterating so much of what I say in the regular recaps + asks, just because these problems seem to be creeping their way into RWBY’s supplemental material too. Doesn’t mean it makes for engaging reading though. In addition, I found myself struggling to articulate thoughts on this prologue simply because I didn’t know what to make of these writing choices. What’s up with that tree? Why are Sun’s thoughts going around in a contradictory circle? What am I supposed to do with all these lines that grind the story to a halt because my brain goes, “Wait what?” The easy answer to all this is, “It’s not a well written book, Clyde” and yeah. From what I’ve read for myself and heard from others, fair enough. But I feel like there’s just enough here - that potential RWBY is known for - that I want to try and clearly lay out as much as I can... even if it still comes out a bit muddled. 

It’s summer. I just finished another massive project. There’s a pandemic on. My brain is as fried as my eggs this morning. If you’re okay with the outcome of all that, stick around :D

[prorevenge]

Boy meets girl

I often pressed V for information on how she earned income but she would give conflicting answers about grants and scholarships until one day.... About 6 months after our first meeting, she finally tells me and IT. IS. NOT. GOOD. I was interviewing at a professional school when I receive the call, she's in trouble, BIG TROUBLE, and needs my help. She tells me she earns money by doing others' assignments for them. $200 to write a paper and $800 to complete an online class, usually a 100 level introductory course. She describes the method she uses to circumvent the ITs detection of others completing others assignment and how her client wasn't doing his part to copy/paste and submit from his own computer. He is failing the course and blames her. He threatens to turn her in. Her plan is to refund his money and wants me to 'follow him to see if he goes somewhere alone and take his phone' because that has all the evidence of their communications. HOLY SHIT! SHE WANTS ME TO COMMIT STRONG ARMED ROBBERY, a FELONY for her! I'm not going down for this or with her and I know nobody would believe me. ENTER: military experience - if there's no record, it didn't happen. So, I agree to help her, somehow, as soon as I return to town. I go to V's dorm the next night and she shows me EVERYTHING. Her list of clients, their blackboard passwords, how she meets them, how she defends them during honor code violations, etc. So I tell her not to worry, I'll handle everything on the day she refunds his money. Relieved, she goes to bed but before she lays down I ask to use her computer for on assignment and she says "sure do whatever you want". In my state, if you let someone use your electronics, its called "having privilege" and anything you do with their computer which may harm them is legal as if it your own computer. So, I took screenshots of her conversations with her clients, I open google settings and screenshot all the blackboard users and passwords stored on her computer. I go to her messenger and screenshot their conversations. Back home, I compiled our recordings and saved our facebook conversations. A week later, I made up an argument about an upcoming New Years Party and broke up with her. Then sat on the information I had on hand for 2 more weeks thinking about what I should do.

I remembered how she has a history of arrests from high school to freshman year for stealing from outlet malls and selling their loot online. Never formally charged. She, of course, omitted this from her application into professional school. How she admitted "finding a mark" and using them to pass her courses. How she denigrated others who were completing courses through hard work. How she used her position as honor council to get her friends out of trouble while helping to expel others for doing exactly what she was doing. How she cheated on me multiple times, used me, manipulated me, tried to make me commit a felony and ruin my life. SHE HAD TO BE STOPPED.

Knowing she was friends with the faculty on the honor council, they often bought each other gifts, I had to go above their heads. I gave names and descriptions of the events to my program director. He then goes to the honor council, anyway. I was called into the honor council's head office of "Corrupt Administrator" CA. CA tells me I should delete the information I have because it could become a civil matter and I should consider my "self preservation." She schedules another meeting with me a week later. I return and she asks if I want to make a statement about V. Guess what I said, I tell her "no, I deleted everything and I don't remember" because I was in the military and I know how to 'play ball' when superiors tell you to shut your mouth. But the most important reason I decided to not file against V directly was due to the fact I was applying for a military scholarship to pay for professional school. Since I did not follow through, the program director filed an honor code violation complaint against V on a date [suggested by CA]. A month later they tell me their investigation was inconclusive and they will close the case due to the director waiting 1 day too long to file according to the school's academic policy. CA set us up! However, since the director used my name as a source, they must notify V because students have rights to know their accusers. FUCK.MY.LIFE. CA fucked me and ruined any chance for a case against V based on a technicality. Now I fear for my safety because V tried to get me to strong arm rob someone now I just implicated a dozen cheaters who have as much as her to lose. CA schedules a meeting with V and tell her about an ongoing investigation and tells her she will be kept up-to-date. I know the investigation is over and now they are just doing formalities. V requests the information of the investigation and they promise to email it to her. V calls me for support even though we aren't together. She is crying and talking about killing herself. She tells me her dad had been paying for her college this whole time and starts coming clean with other lies. I feel bad and almost regret everything. Maybe she is not a sociopath, maybe she is really sorry. She stays at my house the next few days, I'm watching her trying to keep it together. THEN HER FUCKING CLIENTS START COMING TO MY HOUSE. She is still doing their assignments! She NEVER LEARNS!

Finally she gets the investigation info and there's my name. She calls me 130 times in 3 days, sends her friends to my classes to tell me to come to her house, finally I do. But I don't go into her room because she will trap me. She takes my phone so I can't record. She tries to get me to sign a paper saying I fabricated everything and its all false. I tell V, "They already closed the investigation, you wont get in any trouble why should I implicate myself and get in trouble? It wont solve anything!" And she pleads, "Do you still love me?" I shake my head and walk out. Two days later, police are waiting at my house to serve a 72 hour emergency protective order (EPO) commanding me to stay away from V. I know what she is up to. She is trying to get me to violate the protective order, discredit me, and send me to jail. Its very easy to lie to create one and lie to say it was violated.

NOW ITS NOT JUST REVENGE TIME, ITS WAR

Here's the plot twist: I never really deleted the files as I told CA. TYVM, Google drive.

After the 72 hours EPO expired, another EPO arrives which lasts two years but requires a court appearance. This is a huge problem because I am in the US Army reserves and it requires the handling of firearms which is illegal under an EPO. Her lawyer calls me and threatens me not to "participate in anymore investigations against her" and sends a paper tiger. I get a lawyer, lets name him "Folds like a lawn chair". He tells me "who will they believe: a pretty girl or you?" I fire him. Get a better lawyer, a trial lawyer, called "Miss Badass Esq." and prepare for war. Miss Badass requests a copy of V's EPO from the court. It essentially says I was blackmailing her, threatening to beat her up, and I broke into her room to steal incriminating information against her. All lies. I provide my lawyer the entire history of our relationship: 600 pages of facebook and text messages showing she is the aggressor, the abuser, in the relationship, phone call history, all the recordings and screenshots of her cheating ring. I make a poster sized chart of her room and the events that transpire there the day in question when she tried to trap me into signing a statement taking responsibility for her actions.

Courtdate: We made V and her lawyer look REALLY stupid. They were going with the 'pretty girl' strategy. But the dorm gave us records showing she was signing me in and out of her room, so it discredits the need to break in. The call logs: 130 times in 3 days and aggressive texts showed she wasn't actually afraid of me adn it was her, not me, being aggressive. And when he asked what I had to use to blackmail her, her lawyer said "just some tutoring papers" for which the judge said, "that doesn't sound like anything wrong. What power did that give him over you?" They had no response. My turn to speak, I explain how she tried to get me to rob a guy, how she wanted me to write a letter to take the blame, how she used her position as honor council chair to break state law and violate academic policy. And summarized we were only there because she wanted revenge on me. I watched V and her lawyer stutter and squirm uncomfortably under the judges questioning, case dismissed.

All that information I gathered to defend myself was not going to go to waste. I took it to a newly hired honor council investigator called "Meg" who had no affiliation with V. I told her what CA had done to defend V. A week later, I was told the by Meg there had been a meeting with the school police, the provost, their legal team, then the provost himself decided filed a complaint against V. I had to meet with the police to file a statement about V trying to recruit me to rob someone but other than that I was out of the loop. I later learned the results: V lost her her slot at that school's professional program, her program director yelled at her at the top of his lungs, "YOU WILL NEVER GO TO ********* SCHOOL, I KNOW ADMISSIONS AND I WILL SEE TO IT", she got expelled, her TWO degrees (biomedical engineering and biology with a minor in chemistry) were withheld for 6 years and her transcripts would carry a permanent mention of an honor code violation, her clients who graduated had their degrees retracted with similar mentions on their transcripts, and current clients were also expelled. The school changed its policy on reporting date requirements to like 60 or 90 days. Me? I am in professional school. V had her chance to get away with all of this until she tried to get revenge on me. I reduced this super villain from owning a fleet of beta male minions, being the most connected person in the university, and having a lucrative future in ripping people off in the medical industry to the last time I saw her: riding a fucking scooter.

(source) story by (/u/Apophis1942)

[bittysvalentines]

About a bo(ner)y

For @polaroidpidge

From @fanaste

Pairing: Kent Parson/Jeff Troy

 __________________

Kent flops down on the bed and it collapses beneath his weight.

 Literally.

 Kent flops down on the bed and it collapses beneath his weight.

 Literally.

 There’s a sharp snap half a second after Kent’s back hits the mattress and then the top right corner drops sending him rolling towards the side table at the head.

Both men freeze…well Kent has to stop rolling first but when he does he stares, stiff bodied, up at Jeff who stares back, wide eyed, and red faced.  Both men blink shocked into silence until Jeff burst into peels of laughter.  It bubbles up from his chest like champagne and Kent would enjoy the sound if he wasn’t so busy worrying about not only what they’re going to tell the hotel but what the other guys are gonna say when they find out.

 Of course, in typical Kent fashion he’s not worrying about the right thing.  The right thing being what Jeff’s going to say.

 “Dude.” Jeff gasps bent double now to emphasise that it’s so hilarious it’s physically killing him, “No stop, stop.” He pants as if Kent is doing anything other than lying on the bed, one hand bracing himself so he doesn’t roll and hit his head on the headboard, and the other gripping the rucked-up comforter.  “I can’t breathe.  Stop.” Jeff wheezes.

 Kent tries to roll the other way but the bed creaks dangerously.  He tries it slower this time, but the creak persists.

 “Dude.” He flaps, “Help me up.”

Jeff shakes his head wildly miming that he can’t.

 “Fuck Swoops just help me up already.  Suffocate on your own time.” Kent snaps though he knows it’ll only make Jeff laugh harder.

 “Oh man.” Making a show of how much effort it is Jeff straightens up and wipes honest to god tears from his eyes, “I can just see the headlines now- “

 “Don’t- “Kent moves but there’s an ominous creak from the left side.

 “Kent Parson, glutes so ginormous standard hotel beds just won’t cut it.”

 Kent dares to flip him off.  “Your ass is bigger than mine man.  The bed was obviously broken before we got here.”

 “No one will believe that.” Jeff threatens.

 “It was!” He squeaks.  “Help me up man, before the Aces have to pay for a new bed.”

 “Pretty sure it’s not gonna break the budget.”

 “Dyson will think we were goofing around and won’t let us share again.”

 Jeff hesitates, and for an awful second Kent thinks he’s gonna shrug like it doesn’t matter, like Kent can share with anyone else.  He knows it wouldn’t be Jeff’s fault if he didn’t know how stressful that would be for Kent but at the same time he finds Jeff’s ignorance (entirely assumed and wholly unsubstantiated) irritating.

 Instead of giving him more shit about being a fuss pot Jeff lopes around to the top of the bed and hoists up the right side so Kent can carefully (soooo careful) but quickly roll off.  When his feet make contact with the carpet he feels like a sailor finally finding land after choppy seas.

 No longer horizontal Kent can survey the scene in it’s ridiculous entirety.

 “Shit.”

 “Maybe if you sleep on the end, like across the bottom?” Jeff puts his hand on the base of the bed and the right bottom leg gives out.  They exchange a look.  “Or not.”

 “The fuck were the people before us doing?

 Jeff shoots him a ‘seriously?’ look.  “Fucking probably.”

 Kent makes a sound in the back of his throat.  “It’s always fucking with you.”

 “You don’t break a bed just by sleeping on it.”

 “They could have been jumping on it…” Kent doesn’t know why he’s fighting with Jeff.  It doesn’t change anything.  “I can’t sleep on that.”

 “Then I guess you better get right with the floor.” Jeff sniggers.

 Kent looks at him brows drawn up in an incredulous arch, “I better what?”

 Jeff doesn’t catch the vibe, “You better,” he throws his bag on his bed which mockingly stays sturdy beneath the weight, “start making a palette on the floor.”

 The statement computes about as well as the first time he heard it.  “Oh no.  No, no, no.” Kent whistles, “I am your captain.”

 Miss the hint once, shame on Kent, miss it twice and shame on Jeff.  Jeff doesn’t miss the implication a second time.  “What?” he does a double take, “No way.  I am not sleeping on the floor!”

 “I am your captain.” Kent repeats.

 “You are also younger than me.  Your back is better! Mine can’t take a hard floor.” He almost sounds smug about it like he’s so sure Kent gives a shit about his old man bones.

 “Captain.” Kent points to himself.

 “Older than you.” Jeff points to himself.

 “Captain.” Kent repeats again.

 “Fuck.  Off.”

 “Suicides or you give me the bed.”

 Jeff’s outrage gives way to genuine uncertainty.  “How about you knock it off man you’re starting to sound like a dick.”

 Reluctantly Kent stops.  He looks at the other bed and then at ‘his’ broken one.  His back aches from rolling across the mattress and his butt and shoulder hurt from sitting on the plane for six hours.  He sleeps like shit on planes he always has and a lifetime of being sent across state and country lines to various family members every holiday hockey would permit his mom hasn’t changed that.  Kent sleeps in total silence, in complete blackness and on a bed that doesn’t make him feel like he’s on a tilt-a-whirl.  He looks at the floor and his muscles groan just imagining the hardness of the ground beneath.

 “I’m gonna have to get another room.”

 Jeff’s unzipped his bag and started to shed his clothes in the time Kent’s taken to reflect on his woes.  “All the rooms are booked up.” Jeff says from inside the collar of his shirt.  Kent’s gaze gets caught on Jeff’s abs.  His eyes briefly follow the trail that his navel hair marks all the way to his waistband and down.  When Jeff frees himself from his clothing Kent’s expression betrays nothing.

 “Seriously?”

 “Yeah.  Dyson picked the smallest hotel he could.  He’s filled it with Aces personnel only.  After the Hudson debacle he isn’t taking any chances.”

 Kent stares, “Debacle?”

 Jeff pulls his pyjama top down, “It’s my word of the day.” He says defensively.

 “Word of the day?” Kent repeats.

 “Jas got me an app on my phone.  It gives me a word to use every- don’t look at me like that you’re just jealous.”

 Like Kent Jeff chose the NHL over college.  It’s not a difficult decision.  When scouts come calling, blowing smoke up your eighteen-year-old ass about money and fame, offering a life of eternal hockey everything else loses its appeal.  Kent doesn’t regret it.  College was never going to be for him, but Jeff does.  Get him drunk enough and he’ll confess that against some of their higher educated rookies he feels like a dolt and with every year that passes he fears his lack of education is going to haunt him.  Kent can imagine Jas passing the app off as a joke so that Jeff could easily accept it without having to admit that using these words makes him feel smart.  Jeff would admit it’s silly really.  The kind of education he missed out on can’t be encapsulated in a random word generating app, but Jas knew it would make him smile.  Kent’s mad he didn’t think of it first.  Not that he’s trying to out romance her or anything…

 Of course, Kent doesn’t let on that he knows any of this and instead replies, “Of sounding like a giant nerd? Hardly.”

 Jeff flips him off, “Whatever man.  What if you took the mattress off?”

 “There’s not enough room on the floor.”

 “You could make a bed out of the blanket and duvet I guess…” Jeff says considering.

 Kent scoffs, “Like a dog?”

 Jeff gives him a smart grin “Exactly like a dog.”

 Kent flips him off.  “I’m not sleeping on the floor, so you better not fidget in the night.”

 “You’ll never know.” Jeff replies decisively.

 Just for that Kent gets into the good bed.  He expects Jeff to run out of the bathroom as if he senses what Kent’s done but instead he hears the thunk of the toilet seat raise and then the familiar sound of Jeff peeing (it brings a certain clarity to your life when you realise the sound of your friends urinating is familiar).

 Face pink from a fresh scrub Jeff emerges from the bathroom.  “You’re not seriously suggesting we share?” He gapes.

 Kent’s more than a little offended that Jeff sounds so horrified.  It makes shrugging unapologetically and simply snapping, “Captain,” in answer, easier.

 “This is an abuse of power!” Jeff declares.

 “There’s no official rule book.  How I captain is my prerogative.” He adds with a sniff.

 The other man makes a protesting noise.

 “Get over yourself Troy it’s one night.”

 Jeff glances at the broken bed, then at the floor, then back at ‘their’ bed.  “Move over Parson.”

Twenty minutes later one six feet and one five feet eleven, both two hundred pounds plus, hockey players are still trying to occupy a small double together.

 “Scooch over!”

 “Ugh you’re such a bed hog.  I’m at the edge!”

 “You are not! I’m hanging off the god damn mattress here.”

 “This bed is too small for the both of us.” Jeff snaps.

 “As your captain I demand you.  Move.  The.  Fuck.  Over.”

 “As a tired man I demand you stop.  Fucking.  Trying to boss me.  Around!”

 “Jeff!”

 “Kent!”

 “You’re impossible.”

 “Turn on your side and you’ll have more room.”

 “I sleep best on my back.” Kent argues.

 “I’ve shared a room with you enough times to know you always end up rolling onto your side.  Just skip a few moves and do it now.”

 “Why don’t you?” Kent snaps brattishly.

 “I will but to fit we’re both gonna need to roll over.”

 There’s a pause and then Kent feels compelled to say, “I’m not spooning you.”

Jeff makes a sound in the back of his throat, “Spare me the no homo bullshit Parson everyone knows you’re a cuddler.”

 “The only thing I cuddle is Kit.”

 “Not according to Watty.”

 “He was cuddling me!” Kent squeaks indignant.

 “Now how he tells it.” Jeff sniggers.

 Kent puts his foot on Jeff’s leg.  “Yow! What the hell? Get your ice toes away from me!”

 “Both of us roll over so we’re back to back.”

 The bed groans as both men turn.  Kent has more of his body on the bed now, but he doesn’t have any less of Jeff’s.  He feels Jeff’s not inconsiderable ass against his and it’s weird.  Too familiar and yet…he doesn’t want to call Jeff out in case he moves.  Besides if he moved they’d be back to their original problem and they can’t face each other because then their dicks would be touching.  Not that Kent is averse to that, he reluctantly admits…okay not reluctant in the sense that he doesn’t want to fancy Jeff but in the sense that acknowledging it makes it harder to deny and, eventually, get over.

 “Don’t hog the sheets.” Jeff says tugging the duvet over his side.

 Kent tugs back, “Don’t fidget.”

 - - - - -

 Kent wakes up with a hard on.  This in itself isn’t unusual.  He’s young, he’s fit, he’s healthy and his libido is incorrigible.

 But this hard on isn’t his.  It’s Jeff’s and its pressed into his ass and Kent doesn’t find it unpleasant.  In fact in that brief liquid moment between sleep and wakefulness he almost pushes himself back into it.  He almost revels in the sensation of the hardness between his cheeks.  Kent almost forgets that he and Jeff don’t share a bed.  They don’t cuddle, or kiss, or rub up against each other in the night.

 As the room solidifies around him he freezes with the reminder that he may be nursing a pretty stupid crush but that’s all it is.  That’s all it’ll ever be.

 Kent spends a few moments taking shallow breaths desperately trying not to move.  He wonders if it’ll go away quickly but it feels like times determined to drag this moment out.  He debates his options.  To physical move will land him one of two places, on the floor or further into Jeff’s embrace.  He knows which one he’d prefer but it isn’t going to happen.

 It can’t.

 The only thing left is to try and wake Jeff, so he takes a deep breath and sighs it out making sure to make it long and loud.  He expands his ribs until they hurt and exhales until his belly touches his back.

 Jeff doesn’t stir so Kent tries again.  Except it doesn’t work, again.  He moves his leg a fraction and it takes barely any distance before it slips out from under the covers to be kissed by the icy lips of the air.  He brings his foot back with a gasp.

 “Dude stop.” A voice croaks behind him.

 Kent jumps and his foot jerks back out into the tundra.  “shit.”

 His exclamation is met with silence and then a mumbled “Crap.” From behind him.  “So that’s happened.” Jeff tries to turn but Kent grips the covers.  “I need to turn over.”

 And I need to avoid frostbite, Kent thinks.  “It’s fine.” He says rushing to reassure him even though a minute ago he was begging to have Jeff’s hard on far from him.  “It happens.” He shrugs striving to sound unbothered.

 “Yeah but- “

 “But what?” Kent prompts only he’s met with more silence.  “But what?” He thinks, “But it’s weird to have a boner in bed with your gay best friend? But it’s weird because you know I’ve got a thing for you, that sometimes I’m terrified I might be in love with you? But it’s weird because you don’t think I can control myself?”.  Kent starts to spiral so he forces himself to close his eyes and imagines shutting the poisonous voice behind a steel door.  “But what?” He asks again his belly clenching in anticipation.

 “It’s not exactly cool to wake up pressing your stiffy into your best friends back.” Jeff says, and he sounds like he’s laughing.  “There’s hardly any room in here as it is.” He snickers.

 Kent’s whole body immediately relaxes.  “It’s not that big.”

 “Oh, you’ve had bigger?” Jeff snorts.

 “Fuck off.” He presses his toe into Jeff’s calf.

 “Ow.” He jerks and knees Kent in the ass.  “Asshole.”

 Kent laughs.

 “I am sorry though.” Jeff says after a beat.

 “Don’t be.  It’s a testament to your youth.”

 Jeff makes a doubtful little noise, “Or a sign of my desperation.”

 Kent doesn’t say anything.

 “Shit I didn’t mean – I didn’t mean that how it sounded.”

 Kent scoffs like a part of him isn’t insulted, “You’d be lucky to attract me Troy.”

 “Whatever,” Jeff says after a moment, “you’re still hung up on Zimmermann anyway.”

 Kent feels the air around them start to shift.  Maybe it’s the hour and the orange glow of the street lamps through net curtains that softens not only the edges of their room but also the edges of their walls, or maybe Kent really does hear the faint sound of mournfulness in Jeff’s voice.  Whatever it is it makes him say, “Not really.”

 “Not really?” Jeff sounds sceptical.  “He seemed pretty important at New Year’s.”

 True.  “I was pretty fucked up at New Year’s.”

 “So now you’re over him?”

 Kent considers this before replying.  Zimmermann was Kent’s first everything.  First friend, first crush, first kiss then love.  First everything.  Jack and Kent used to mean something to each other.  They were always together that even when people spoke about them they spoke about them as a pair.  When Jack went to rehab and cut Kent off completely it felt like his heart had been blown up and his arm torn off.  He alternated between frantic worry and numb disbelief that the boy he loved had abandoned him without a word.

 But then he met Jeff and things changed.

 He can’t even put his finger on how it changed but eventually his zombie days stopped and the frantic worry in his mind only ever came out after too many drinks.  Of course, then he watched Jack Kiss Eric on the big screen in front of his whole team and that knocked him for six, but Jeff was there to help him pick up the pieces (read feed him bread in a bath tub until he sobered up).

That night between retches in the toilet Kent promised to really try and live life ‘after’ Jack Zimmermann.

 The only problem was without Jack to moon over Kent had more time to realise that his feelings for Jeff were changing.

 “Kent? You still awake?” Jeff whispers.

 “Yeah.  And…yeah, I think I’m closer to it now.  Getting over him I mean.”

 “Oh.  Cool…I mean…that’s great.”

 “Yeah.”

 He hears Jeff take a big breath behind him.  “So hypothetically.”

 “Hypothetically? Is that another of your words of the day?” Kent teases.

 Jeff pinches him.  “Hypothetically if this boner was…personal what would that mean?”

 Kent blinks, “What?”

 “Do you really need me to repeat it?” Jeff huffs and Kent can imagine his ears growing red.  He can hear the embarrassment he feels.  But he doesn’t care, well he does but Jeff’s just said something that could potentially change everything.  He needs to be sure of what he’s heard.

 “Yeah I do.”

 “It can be personal if you want.  If you’re, like…into it.”

 “Into it?”

 “Fucking Christ Kent do you need me to spell it out?”

 “Jeff all I know right now is that I woke up with your boner trying to poke a hole in my back and now you’re telling me that it might be personal but only if I want.”

 “That about sums it up yeah.”

 Kent considers this a moment.  “If I don’t? Want it to be personal.”

 “Then you’ll hang onto those covers and when I turn over I’ll try not to fall off the bed.  Then in the morning we’ll pretend this never happened.”

 Kent imagines that being about as possible as him going a whole shift without getting checked by the behemoth that the Kings have collared as defence.  “And if I want it to be personal.”

 “Do you?”

 “Do I what?”

 “Fuck Kent.” Jeff sighs.  “Do you want it to be personal?”

 When Kent pauses this time it’s not because he isn’t sure but because he never let himself dwell on it because Jeff’s straight, and Jeff has a girlfriend right now, a girlfriend that Kent loves and would never want to disrespect.  “What about Jas?” He asks.

 “We’ve talked about it.”

 “You have?”

 “All the time.”

 “Wh- why?” Kent stutters.

 “Because she knows what you mean to me.  She knows that I- “he takes a deep breath, “That I want you.  That I have for a while now.”

 Kent wonders if Jeff’s ‘a while’ is the same as Kent’s a while.

 “Same.” Kent whispers.

 Jeff shifts behind him and the mattress rocks as he props himself up on an elbow, “Really?”

 Kent fights not to turn his head, too afraid of rejection to look Jeff in the eye right now.  “Yeah.”

 “Kent?”

 “Yeah?”

 He feels Jeff’s hand on his shoulder and the next thing he knows he’s on his back and Jeff’s leaning over him and they’re kissing.  It only takes Kent half a second to get with the programme but when he does Kent’s whole body feels it.  Their tongues slide sensually together and Kent’s heart thunders beneath the palm Jeff’s laid on it for balance.

 They break apart slowly, in increments, inch by inch until Kent can see the smile on Jeff’s face.  

 “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.” He confesses.

 Kent blushes.  “Yeah?”

 “Yeah.” Jeff laughs softly.

 Kent breathes into the space between them then says, “What about Jas?”

 “She wants me to be happy.  She wants you to be happy.”

 “And she thinks us together will make that happen?”

 “Yeah.  I think so.  Don’t you?”

 Kent wants to say yes.  Honestly, it’s his first instinct to just agree but he knows himself.  Kent knows what he does to the things that make him happy.  He has a predisposition to ruin.  “Is it okay if I say I don’t know yet?” he asks carefully.

 “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.  I know you Kent.  You don’t believe in happiness.”

 Kent pouts childishly, “I do.”

 “Not for yourself.”

 That’s a truth Kent can’t deny.  “So, about this boner.” Kent says instead.

 “Oh, it’s gone now.”

 “That was short lived.”

 Jeff laughs.  “Well it’s game day tomorrow so it’s probably a good thing.”

 “Oh.  Okay.”

 “Relax we’ve got ages.  Tomorrow we’ll get up and hash it out yeah? Right now, I just wanna sleep with you in my arms.  Sound good?”

 Tomorrow the sun will rise, and the first thing Kent will do is worry that this moment never happened, that the spell of the dark will have worn off and Jeff will pretend this never happened.  In the morning Jeff will reassure him with a kiss, with a lot of kisses and after the game he’ll invite Kent home for dinner where they’ll talk the whole thing to death and when it’s all finalised they’ll kiss and fall into bed together and Kent will eventually know what it’s like to be in a healthy relationship.  But the dawn is four hours away and so right now Kent closes his eyes and cherishes the feel of Jeff’s skin beneath him, of his arm around his shoulder and his lips pressed to his forehead.

[ganymedesclock]

I wonder how Shiro took the Garrison's treatment of him in the first episode and especially the lie about him getting the Kerberos crew killed. Even with his tendency to shoulder every burden, that must have stung.

I’ve seen a lot of comments to this nature and I feel like that’s really not getting “pilot error” how Iverson is construing it.

The Garrison isn’t saying that Shiro was like “hoo boy I think I’ll fly the spaceship with my butt”, crashed and killed everyone. Negligence is not remotely what Iverson is accusing him of.

It’s that, they have no idea what happened, don’t have reason to suspect a mechanical failure, so it’s likely the error was on the human side of things. What caused it? What made it happen? They don’t know.

Iverson uses the Kerberos mission as a cautionary tale when Lance, Hunk, and Pidge fail the simulator in the idea of “any amount of friction between you and your team, taking your eyes off the outside for five seconds, goofing off at the wrong time can and has literally killed trained, experienced professionals.”

Shiro isn’t held up as a negligent pilot. Remember, Lance only knew the Garrison’s story until Pidge told him otherwise, and he thought of Shiro as a hero and a legend. This would tell us Shiro wasn’t exactly thrown under the bus by the Garrison. If he was, even if Lance admired him in spite of that, he wouldn’t be bewildered that the Garrison wasn’t listening to Shiro. He’d be much more defensive about his admiration.

Not to mention- that wouldn’t even make sense. Shiro is a decorated officer. The broadcast used to announce the failure of the Kerberos mission uses respectful, formal pictures of all of them. Nobody’s dancing on Shiro’s grave here.

Why it’s “pilot” error rather than implicating one of the others? The other members of the mission would be the mechanic and communications tech. Shiro’s the one with the most likely chance of, if something went wrong on his end, it would take out the entire ship- with whichever was the mechanic, possibly Matt, it’s likely outside stress would have to cause a failure of some kind before he had to repair it, and, again, considering they have no trace of the ship, they don’t have any reason to suspect mechanical failure. 

“Pilot error” is a vague enough catch-all that they can say that until they have more answers. It clearly wasn’t a closed book because the Garrison staff, entirely without Pidge nettling them, pretty clearly still had that on their mind a year later. Iverson using it as a cautionary tale suggests come hell or high water he’s determined not to let that happen again, which would if anything suggest Iverson’s take is that he failed to adequately prepare Shiro and the Holts.

(Which, arguably, he did, but getting attacked by the empire is not anything he could’ve reasonably seen coming, or even given any meaningful preparation for besides “if you see them, run.”)

People act like the Garrison went up on stage and actively mocked Shiro or painted this image of Shiro as like. Local Bumbler Gets Everyone Killed, More At Eleven (I’ve heard people even suggest that Keith’s discipline issue was that Iverson was verbally disparaging Shiro and Keith lashed out at him to make him stop)

Look at actual historical failed missions. Kerberos wouldn’t be treated as an embarrassment or a crime, nor Shiro as careless. The Garrison handpicked these people and judged them fully capable of performing this- again, Shiro is decorated. They judged it pilot error because they had to say something happened and that’s a judgment open to new information. The problem is the Garrison doesn’t have any new information.

As for Shiro’s reception... you have to consider that Shiro is a fairly level, composed person. Strong composure is literally one of his things as the Black Paladin. This is how Iverson would know him, and expect him to act. Iverson uses “Shiro”, not “Shirogane” or “Takeshi” suggesting that he and Shiro are decently close- close enough to use his preferred nickname. 

Shiro in the unit was not composed at all. He was pretty much having a breakdown the likes of which is only matched later in Crystal Venom. (unsurprisingly, as being in a sterile medical environment and restrained to a table is probably a massive trigger for him, but Iverson would have no way of knowing that, because he has no idea where Shiro’s been. Hell, Shiro has no idea where Shiro’s been at that point)

So let’s... put this in perspective. You know someone- someone who is a talented, composed, bright young man, who tends to be levelheaded and have a strong sense of decorum.

That person disappears suddenly without warning, and is presumed dead.

Then he shows up again- scarred, with an unknown piece of technology where one of his limbs used to be- and a complete mess, thrashing and yelling about aliens. When he does answer your questions and talk to you, he says things like he has no idea how long he’s been gone, that you’re all in danger, that people are coming after him. 

One of the people in the unit has to catch Shiro’s head to prevent him from slamming it against the table and hurting himself. He’s not diplomatically putting a good foot forwards here and if anything I’d see it a stronger case for Iverson caring more about Shiro’s wellbeing than he does just plain answers that he isn’t trying to drill Shiro for information while the latter is obviously freaking out. 

The only time Iverson makes the call to put Shiro unconscious is when his attention is drawn specifically to the arm, and Iverson literally says “put him under until we know what that does.”

Because let’s be honest. Considering they’re operating completely blind, the cadets’ response seems much more noble and unambiguously clean cut, doing the Right Thing, but it’s also incredibly reckless. Iverson is actually completely right in that call, because that prosthetic is weaponized and dangerous- it’d be disastrous if Shiro, in a dissociative state, fired that thing up and started swinging.

The whole reason Iverson orders to have Shiro sedated is he has reason to believe that Shiro is a danger to himself and others. The containment unit, Shiro being restrained temporarily- these are cautions, and not unreasonable ones to expect from someone who sees himself responsible for the entire Garrison, which isn’t just a base but is also full of kids.

It’s the cautious behavior of someone who put the Garrison on lockdown as soon as that pod came down- and had his forces secure the area ASAP.

If this wasn’t Voltron- if this was a scenario more out of a horror movie- Iverson’s response would have been the proper reaction and the cadets’ intervention would probably get everyone killed and loose the hypothetical monster.

I’m not saying the cadets were totally wrong, they weren’t- but we have the certainty of knowing that it worked out. Iverson didn’t. He was trying to protect everyone involved, including Shiro, and that necessitated a cold reception. I fully expect that Iverson was hardly planning to remain that cold once Shiro cleared decontamination and was able to get his head together.

Commander Iverson is not supposed to be a villain here. He’s not like Force’s Sky Marshal Wade- there’s a reason one of the central morals of the series is put first in Iverson’s mouth, that he’s given the name of one of the writers of the show.

Is he kind of a prickly guy? Absolutely- real drill sergeant vibe. But in his position, he can’t really afford to drop everything and run on a personal quest of “I know Shiro is a good pilot and he can’t possibly have done that” because- space is vast and dangerous and their technology is limited. All it takes is one slip at the wrong time, wrong place, and even if Iverson thinks very highly of Shiro- this kind of thing can happen to the best and brightest.

People besides Pidge would be pressing him for answers. He’d have to release some kind of statement on the matter. “Pilot error” is not a scathing indictment against Shiro’s memory, it’s a broad, generalized category and the most likely scenario is in there somewhere. (It is pretty dang hard to make a case that someone tampered with a ship that was on the moon of Pluto at the time unless he wants to accuse Shiro or one of the Holts of actively sabotaging the mission)

Clearly, something went wrong. That’s basically the Garrison’s explanation: “Something went wrong and they crashed.”

[ncmagroup]

by Michele McGovern

Cold calling doesn’t have to suck.

Salespeople who practice, embrace and win at cold calling will agree: It pays off.

The best part: You don’t have to repeatedly crash and burn while cold calling to learn how to make it work.

Instead, use this cheat sheet that includes the most-effective cold calling techniques – some gathered from research, some pulled from industry experts, and some found by hardcore salespeople who tried and tried until they perfected them.

To increase your prospecting success, here’s your ultimate cold calling cheat sheet and it can also be used as a checklist:

Plan your approach

Your call may be made cold, but your approach shouldn’t be. To plan your call well and make it feel warm:

Know your purpose – and work exclusively toward it. It could be to set up a meeting, get an invitation accepted, gain agreement to a trial or find right-fit prospects. You can’t make successful cold calls without the result at top of mind.

Plan voicemail scripts. You’re likely to reach more voicemail than voices. Prepare a few scripts geared toward different types of prospects. Even better, track results (number of callbacks) to see which works best and bears repeating the most.

Try this one. It’s a proven voicemail approach: “Hello Shirley. I’ve talked to a lot of (job title) regarding (your company’s value proposition). If this is a concern of yours, please reply to the email I will send after this call. I’m John Jones from Apex Inc. Again, my name is … from … Thanks!”

Think “learn” first, “sell” second. You likely know that most cold calls end in rejection (about 98%, according to one Gong.io study). So approach them with the mindset that you’ll learn more about why prospects don’t need your solution than actually selling.

Check your list. Don’t blindly trust that everyone on the list you have is a good prospect. Check that the company, household or person fits the buying persona you or your bosses created. It shouldn’t take any more than a quick Google or LinkedIn search.

Align the company. Make sure the business on your call list aligns with all or most of these criteria: industry, size, geography, and technology you already work with most.

Align the prospect. Make sure the person you aim to talk to aligns with all or most these criteria, which are similar to those you already work with: title/role, tools they use to do their jobs, people who they report to, people who report to them.

Set the right goal. Try “50 in 150” – 50 calls in 150 minutes. That means three minutes per call. With some going straight to voicemail, some being hang-ups and some being quick rejections, this formula gives enough time for a few quality calls that get to the point.

Smile. Smiling helps you avoid sounding like a robot. A smile projects a voice with a more positive vibe. Plus, a University of Kansas study found that smiling helps people recover more quickly from stressful situations. And cold calling can be stressful.

Be persistent. One, two, three calls? No. Six. That’s how many calls salespeople need to attempt. At that point, salespeople have a 90% chance or reaching their prospects, according to InsideSales researchers.

Open the call

Every second counts. Prospects’ time, patience and interest are short-lived. For a professional and focused open:

Buy time. You need a fantastic five seconds to buy five minutes, according to research by Gong.io. So the first five seconds are critical to success.

Ask “How have you been?” It’s an interrupter, researchers found. It’s an honest question, and it makes prospects pause long enough to wonder, “Do I know you?”

Make it clear. After you say hello, using the prospect’s name and introducing yourself and your company, say, “The reason for my call is …” The reason needs to be something that benefits the customer, not you.

Share your core competencies. Explain in simple terms (no jargon or acronyms) in 15 seconds what your company does and who you’ve done it for.

Talk as much as you listen. In sales, you might have been told that it’s important to listen more you than talk to uncover needs. Cold calls require more talking, though. The Gong.io study found that salespeople talk 54% of the time in a successful cold call.

Get personal. Winning pitches start and continue with statements that prove to prospects you already understand their pain because you work with customers just like them. Keep the focus on them, not you, like this: “I work with technicians for small companies who are typically looking to increase efficiency without spending a ton of money. That sounds like you, right?”

Be an actor, not a robot. Actors use scripts 90% of the time. They tap emotions to sound authentic. They seldom leave the script because the pre-written word is usually more effective than off-the-cuff words. Keep that in mind. Yes, you want a natural conversation. But most of it needs to be within the lines of your scripted explanation and responses.

Know when to let it go. Word-for-word scripts are not relationship builders. The more comfortable salespeople get at cold calling, the more they want to follow conversation outlines – not hard scripts – for consistency.

Qualify the prospect

You don’t want to waste your time or unqualified prospects’ time. To uncover needs and find the right prospects:

Ask big open questions, such as, “What are your top three priorities for (something related to your solution) right now?”

Ask trigger questions that focus on an event or circumstance that caused a bigger change. For instance, “I noticed that you’re going through a restructure. What kind of impact is this having on your department?”

Ask probing questions. Once you’ve uncovered a concern, issue or emotion, ask questions such as, “What does that mean to you and your team?” “Can you tell me more about …?” “What’s an example of that?” Or “What is the implication of that on your time (or employees or work or efficiency)?”

Ask sweeper questions, such as, “What else can you tell me?” Or “What areas haven’t I covered that you want to talk about?”

Uncover three or four issues. The most effective cold calls uncover three or four issues prospects face, researchers found. They all might not be pressing, but they can help make prospects recognize a need. Know several for your ideal prospects and ask about each.

Propose an action

Know an action you want to propose before you call. Once you qualify a prospect, propose it.

Try the CSR Approach. Get prospects to agree to a common Challenge you uncovered with qualifying questions. Tell or remind them about your Solution to the challenge and how it’s different from others. Then show them Results – facts, stats, awards, customer testimonials that prove your solution is right. Say, “Do you see how that lines up?”

Focus on benefits. When you recognize qualified prospects, focus the conversation more on how your solution will benefit them and less on product features. Help them see how your solution will save them time, improve their efficiency or maximize their profits. Then ask, “Does that sound like something you need?”

Be prepared for objections. Have a list of responses for the most common objections. Answers need to focus on the benefit that counters prospects’ objections.

Focus on one. From your questions and prospects’ responses to the three or four problems you mentioned, pick the one that spiked emotions most. Use that as the catalyst for your proposal to action. “You said that … is an issue right now. I think you’d agree that our solution is capable of impacting that in a positive way. I’d like to set up a meeting for us to discuss just how.”

Close to the next step

Successful cold calls close with agreement to an action that is mutually beneficial. Here are proven ways to gain it:

Don’t be afraid to get to the next step sooner rather than later. The Gong.io research found that “next step” questions and agreements account for half the conversation time in successful cold calls. Part of their success is based on keeping prospects engaged with information that hits the mark early in the call.

Offer a try. “Dan, now that you’ve heard how our expertise can help you, would be willing to give us a try?” For customers, a trial close feels a lot more like trying and a lot less like buying.

Ask them to imagine. Say, “Just suppose we could make that customization a reality. Do you see yourself going forward on this?”

Ask to look at the calendar. Say, “Do you have your calendar handy to set up a meeting?” Prospects might be reluctant to immediately agree to meet, but they’re often willing to look at their calendars and the possibilities.

Ask for what you want and shut up. The goal of a cold call is to set up a real call. So ask for it and wait for a response: “I think the best place to start is to schedule a meeting to learn about …. Do you have time Wednesday or Thursday afternoon?” Silence.

  Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

Ultimate cold calling cheat sheet: A checklist that’ll boost sales by Michele McGovern Cold calling doesn’t have to suck. Salespeople who practice, embrace and win at cold calling will agree: It pays off.

[samuelpboswell]

Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?

The all-encompassing digital takeover has completely changed the way we communicate and interact as people. Naturally, in our professional realm we tend to tie this back to marketing, but the reality applies to just about every aspect of human relations.  This includes dating and courtship, of course. The terms of engagement (so to speak) have transformed wildly. Whereas romance still can and does sprout through chance meetings, or encounters at the bar, or mutual college friend circles, it’s increasingly common for these fated connections to take place through online matchmaking sites and dating apps. (I would know — I’m marrying an amazing gal this weekend who I originally met on such an app!) We can tie this trend back to marketing as well. Last year, our Annie Leuman shared integrated content marketing insights drawn from the world of online dating. Today, I’m a little more interested in the content marketing implications of a specific element of this new playing field: ghosting.

What is ‘Ghosting’ and How Does It Relate to Marketing? 

Ghosting is defined as “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.” (Yes, it’s actually in the dictionary now.) Technically this is a behavior that can be traced back decades and centuries, but it has really risen to prominence at a time where achieving radio-silence — via text or messaging app, with fewer mutual acquaintances in play — is easier than ever. 

via GIPHY Here’s the thing about ghosting: it sucks. I’ve been on both sides of it, and I’m sure many people reading this have too. Most often, folks engage in this practice because — when you’re not really feelin’ the vibes — it can feel gentler to simply disappear and move on than to explain your detachment directly. But the truth is that ghosting is actually more cruel than the alternative. As Psychology Today puts it, “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it's indifference.”  “Ghosting gives you no cue for how to react,” adds the PT article. “It creates the ultimate scenario of ambiguity. Should you be worried? What if they are hurt and lying in a hospital bed somewhere? Should you be upset?” As a content marketer, even if you’ve never been ghosted in personal capacity, you probably have experienced the phenomenon in your work. Blog traffic has inexplicably dropped. Your social media accounts have stopped receiving engagement. People aren’t opening your emails anymore. It’s upsetting to see the numbers take a dive, but all the more so when you can’t diagnose the cause. If readers were sending you angry messages about how you’re overloading their inbox with newsletter frequency, or posting totally irrelevant tweets, it might sting a little but at least you know what’s up. For those situations shrouded in paranormal perplexity, let’s pull out our P.K.E. meters and do some ghost-busting.

via GIPHY

Don’t Get Spooked: How to React When Your Audience Ghosts You

A sharp decline in traffic or engagement can be as upsetting any unreturned text message. When you can’t identify the reasons behind such a drop-off, it’s like sitting in limbo. Here’s a look at four common scenarios where your audience may have inexplicably gone quiet, and what to do about it.

Blog Visitors or Comments Have Taken a Dive

Your blog was cruising along. Your analytics dashboard showed a steady flow of visitors, and your content was even compelling a healthy amount of feedback from readers. But lately, the traffic has been consistently down and you’re not getting any comments. What Might Be Happening

Your topical alignment is missing the mark

Your publishing cadence isn’t jibing with your audience

There are technical issues affecting your blog

Your headlines aren’t grabbing attention

You’re aren’t properly promoting your posts

You aren’t optimizing enough for search

What To Do

Consult your analytics to determine which subject matter is gaining the most traction. Then, take a step back and build out topic cluster, or content pillars, around these areas (in a way that also makes sense for your business and objectives).

Audit your posting frequency to find your sweet spot. Do you get more traffic if you post daily? Weekly? Every other week?

Huddle with your SEO specialists to identify content opportunities (widening your topical umbrella) or technical issues (like broken links, missing metadata, or canonical URL problems). Link building is another opportunity to explore.

Test headlines and CTAs with punchier and more interesting words.

Put more effort into promoting new posts (social media, email, employee advocacy, etc.). Don’t fall victim to invisible content syndrome!

Organic Search Traffic Is Trending Down

This is a digital marketing KPI for most companies these days. Whether to your blog, your home page, or other prioritized assets, organic traffic is extremely valuable because it is so cost-efficient — when you have a fruitful strategy in place, you are driving a steady stream of (relatively) targeted inbound visits that you don’t have to pay for directly.  So needless to say, when you see your organic traffic charts declining or stagnating over multiple months, it can set off some alarm bells. What Might Be Happening

Your rankings are dropping for high-volume queries on SERPs

Previously high-performing pages are seeing diminished traction

You’re overly concerned with technical SEO aspects, at the expense of user experience

Searcher behaviors or engine algorithms are shifting

Something is broken or amiss on your site, preventing Google from crawling it properly

Site redesign or migration issues are taking a toll

What To Do

Reassess your keyword strategy to determine where you’re losing steam, and whether you should focus on other terms

Identify specific pages that are seeing a decline in performance and investigate

Explore your site from the perspective of a user, and take a hard honest look at the quality of the experience. (Google increasingly prioritizes sites based on UX signals as opposed to strictly technical ones.)

Research broader trends around your audience and Google’s algorithm to see if changes are potentially affecting your traffic.

Huddle with your web developers and SEO specialists to identify technical issues (like broken links, missing metadata, or canonical URL problems).

Social Media Engagement Is Drying Up

Social media channels present an opportunity to engage with your audience directly and authentically. When the engagement with your brand stops however, this community of more than 3 billion people can start to feel very lonely indeed.  What Might Be Happening

You’re on the wrong channels

Your content isn’t valuable to your audience

Your content isn’t soliciting responses and interaction from your audience

You’re not posting frequently enough

You’re not sharing enough interesting visual content

Social media algorithms are suppressing your reach

You’re not reaching out and building relationships

What To Do

Re-evaluate your channel mix and make sure you’re focusing on social networks where your audience is present and active.

Make sure you’re sharing plenty of content that doesn’t promote your brand or solutions, and is solely intended to inform, interest, or entertain people in your niche.

Create more posts that ask questions or feature polls/surveys. Try running a contest with a fun incentive to encourage participation.

Post more frequently if it makes sense for your audience. On crowded and ephemeral feeds, you’ll want to generate familiarity and recognition with your followers.

Include more visually-centered posts, with images, videos, gifs, etc. 

Algorithms can be tough to overcome, especially when your following is still small. Integrate paid tactics to amplify your content with targeted audiences, and grow your following. Also use appropriate hashtags and encourage your employees to share posts from your accounts in their own networks.

Social media is a two-way conversation. Make sure you’re responsive, and proactive in talking to others. In addition, build genuine relationships with influencers in your industry. This can not only lead to active conversations on social platforms, but also more content collaboration.

Emails Aren’t Getting Opens or Clicks

If someone unsubscribes from your email list, at least they’re making a definitive statement. It’s like receiving a text that says, “I’m not interested anymore.” They might not give a specific reason, but you can look at the timing and circumstances to form your own deductions.  When people just stop opening or clicking, though? That’s more mysterious. What Might Be Happening

Your subject lines aren’t compelling enough

Your email content isn’t displaying properly

Your messages aren’t personalized

Your email list is outdated, unsegmented, or purchased

You’re sending emails too frequently

Your messages are getting stuck in the spam filter

Your sender name isn’t a real person

What To Do

Test punchier subject lines with evocative statements and action-oriented words.

Keep in mind that various email clients won’t display all of your images, emojis, or multimedia. Don’t be afraid to get snazzy, but design your emails with basic accessibility/readability in mind.

Make your emails more personalized. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be speaking individually to each recipient, but you want to make them feel like you are. Apply the full extent of knowledge about your audience personas.

Email lists can be problematic for a variety of reasons. Frequent cleansing is recommended. Remove inactive email addresses. Make sure people are opting in and never being added with their explicit permission. Use segmenting to create more customized messaging for various slices of your audience.

Few people complain about brands emailing them too infrequently. Been when they’re seeing you in their inbox multiple times a week, it can feel clingy. Treat the ability to email your list as a privilege and show restraint.

Spam filters are pesky. Avoid using words that are likely to trigger them (i.e., sale, buy, price, discount, offer). In your initial “Thanks for subscribing message,” it doesn’t hurt to encourage new sign-ups to add your email address to the non-spam list so they don’t miss your great content.

Use the actual name of a marketer or executive at your company in the “From” field. People want messages from people, not faceless businesses.

Reignite the Spark and Engage Your Audience

In dating, getting ghosted is usually an indication that it’s time to take the hint. In content marketing, this is not necessarily the case. As we’ve established, there is a wide variety of reasons why your traffic or engagement might’ve dropped off. They’re not out of reach, nor are the solutions.  Need the resources or expertise to win back your audience? An SEO audit can uncover opportunities to optimize your content marketing efforts. Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for insights from Content Marketing World 2019, where our CEO Lee Odden and Senior Director of Digital Strategy Ashley Zeckman are presenting on boosting your content marketing fitness and scaling influencer marketing, respectively.

The post Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent? appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/09/ghosted-content-marketing/

[ralphlayton]

Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent?

The all-encompassing digital takeover has completely changed the way we communicate and interact as people. Naturally, in our professional realm we tend to tie this back to marketing, but the reality applies to just about every aspect of human relations.  This includes dating and courtship, of course. The terms of engagement (so to speak) have transformed wildly. Whereas romance still can and does sprout through chance meetings, or encounters at the bar, or mutual college friend circles, it’s increasingly common for these fated connections to take place through online matchmaking sites and dating apps. (I would know — I’m marrying an amazing gal this weekend who I originally met on such an app!) We can tie this trend back to marketing as well. Last year, our Annie Leuman shared integrated content marketing insights drawn from the world of online dating. Today, I’m a little more interested in the content marketing implications of a specific element of this new playing field: ghosting.

What is ‘Ghosting’ and How Does It Relate to Marketing? 

Ghosting is defined as “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.” (Yes, it’s actually in the dictionary now.) Technically this is a behavior that can be traced back decades and centuries, but it has really risen to prominence at a time where achieving radio-silence — via text or messaging app, with fewer mutual acquaintances in play — is easier than ever. 

via GIPHY Here’s the thing about ghosting: it sucks. I’ve been on both sides of it, and I’m sure many people reading this have too. Most often, folks engage in this practice because — when you’re not really feelin’ the vibes — it can feel gentler to simply disappear and move on than to explain your detachment directly. But the truth is that ghosting is actually more cruel than the alternative. As Psychology Today puts it, “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it's indifference.”  “Ghosting gives you no cue for how to react,” adds the PT article. “It creates the ultimate scenario of ambiguity. Should you be worried? What if they are hurt and lying in a hospital bed somewhere? Should you be upset?” As a content marketer, even if you’ve never been ghosted in personal capacity, you probably have experienced the phenomenon in your work. Blog traffic has inexplicably dropped. Your social media accounts have stopped receiving engagement. People aren’t opening your emails anymore. It’s upsetting to see the numbers take a dive, but all the more so when you can’t diagnose the cause. If readers were sending you angry messages about how you’re overloading their inbox with newsletter frequency, or posting totally irrelevant tweets, it might sting a little but at least you know what’s up. For those situations shrouded in paranormal perplexity, let’s pull out our P.K.E. meters and do some ghost-busting.

via GIPHY

Don’t Get Spooked: How to React When Your Audience Ghosts You

A sharp decline in traffic or engagement can be as upsetting any unreturned text message. When you can’t identify the reasons behind such a drop-off, it’s like sitting in limbo. Here’s a look at four common scenarios where your audience may have inexplicably gone quiet, and what to do about it.

Blog Visitors or Comments Have Taken a Dive

Your blog was cruising along. Your analytics dashboard showed a steady flow of visitors, and your content was even compelling a healthy amount of feedback from readers. But lately, the traffic has been consistently down and you’re not getting any comments. What Might Be Happening

Your topical alignment is missing the mark

Your publishing cadence isn’t jibing with your audience

There are technical issues affecting your blog

Your headlines aren’t grabbing attention

You’re aren’t properly promoting your posts

You aren’t optimizing enough for search

What To Do

Consult your analytics to determine which subject matter is gaining the most traction. Then, take a step back and build out topic cluster, or content pillars, around these areas (in a way that also makes sense for your business and objectives).

Audit your posting frequency to find your sweet spot. Do you get more traffic if you post daily? Weekly? Every other week?

Huddle with your SEO specialists to identify content opportunities (widening your topical umbrella) or technical issues (like broken links, missing metadata, or canonical URL problems). Link building is another opportunity to explore.

Test headlines and CTAs with punchier and more interesting words.

Put more effort into promoting new posts (social media, email, employee advocacy, etc.). Don’t fall victim to invisible content syndrome!

Organic Search Traffic Is Trending Down

This is a digital marketing KPI for most companies these days. Whether to your blog, your home page, or other prioritized assets, organic traffic is extremely valuable because it is so cost-efficient — when you have a fruitful strategy in place, you are driving a steady stream of (relatively) targeted inbound visits that you don’t have to pay for directly.  So needless to say, when you see your organic traffic charts declining or stagnating over multiple months, it can set off some alarm bells. What Might Be Happening

Your rankings are dropping for high-volume queries on SERPs

Previously high-performing pages are seeing diminished traction

You’re overly concerned with technical SEO aspects, at the expense of user experience

Searcher behaviors or engine algorithms are shifting

Something is broken or amiss on your site, preventing Google from crawling it properly

Site redesign or migration issues are taking a toll

What To Do

Reassess your keyword strategy to determine where you’re losing steam, and whether you should focus on other terms

Identify specific pages that are seeing a decline in performance and investigate

Explore your site from the perspective of a user, and take a hard honest look at the quality of the experience. (Google increasingly prioritizes sites based on UX signals as opposed to strictly technical ones.)

Research broader trends around your audience and Google’s algorithm to see if changes are potentially affecting your traffic.

Huddle with your web developers and SEO specialists to identify technical issues (like broken links, missing metadata, or canonical URL problems).

Social Media Engagement Is Drying Up

Social media channels present an opportunity to engage with your audience directly and authentically. When the engagement with your brand stops however, this community of more than 3 billion people can start to feel very lonely indeed.  What Might Be Happening

You’re on the wrong channels

Your content isn’t valuable to your audience

Your content isn’t soliciting responses and interaction from your audience

You’re not posting frequently enough

You’re not sharing enough interesting visual content

Social media algorithms are suppressing your reach

You’re not reaching out and building relationships

What To Do

Re-evaluate your channel mix and make sure you’re focusing on social networks where your audience is present and active.

Make sure you’re sharing plenty of content that doesn’t promote your brand or solutions, and is solely intended to inform, interest, or entertain people in your niche.

Create more posts that ask questions or feature polls/surveys. Try running a contest with a fun incentive to encourage participation.

Post more frequently if it makes sense for your audience. On crowded and ephemeral feeds, you’ll want to generate familiarity and recognition with your followers.

Include more visually-centered posts, with images, videos, gifs, etc. 

Algorithms can be tough to overcome, especially when your following is still small. Integrate paid tactics to amplify your content with targeted audiences, and grow your following. Also use appropriate hashtags and encourage your employees to share posts from your accounts in their own networks.

Social media is a two-way conversation. Make sure you’re responsive, and proactive in talking to others. In addition, build genuine relationships with influencers in your industry. This can not only lead to active conversations on social platforms, but also more content collaboration.

Emails Aren’t Getting Opens or Clicks

If someone unsubscribes from your email list, at least they’re making a definitive statement. It’s like receiving a text that says, “I’m not interested anymore.” They might not give a specific reason, but you can look at the timing and circumstances to form your own deductions.  When people just stop opening or clicking, though? That’s more mysterious. What Might Be Happening

Your subject lines aren’t compelling enough

Your email content isn’t displaying properly

Your messages aren’t personalized

Your email list is outdated, unsegmented, or purchased

You’re sending emails too frequently

Your messages are getting stuck in the spam filter

Your sender name isn’t a real person

What To Do

Test punchier subject lines with evocative statements and action-oriented words.

Keep in mind that various email clients won’t display all of your images, emojis, or multimedia. Don’t be afraid to get snazzy, but design your emails with basic accessibility/readability in mind.

Make your emails more personalized. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be speaking individually to each recipient, but you want to make them feel like you are. Apply the full extent of knowledge about your audience personas.

Email lists can be problematic for a variety of reasons. Frequent cleansing is recommended. Remove inactive email addresses. Make sure people are opting in and never being added with their explicit permission. Use segmenting to create more customized messaging for various slices of your audience.

Few people complain about brands emailing them too infrequently. Been when they’re seeing you in their inbox multiple times a week, it can feel clingy. Treat the ability to email your list as a privilege and show restraint.

Spam filters are pesky. Avoid using words that are likely to trigger them (i.e., sale, buy, price, discount, offer). In your initial “Thanks for subscribing message,” it doesn’t hurt to encourage new sign-ups to add your email address to the non-spam list so they don’t miss your great content.

Use the actual name of a marketer or executive at your company in the “From” field. People want messages from people, not faceless businesses.

Reignite the Spark and Engage Your Audience

In dating, getting ghosted is usually an indication that it’s time to take the hint. In content marketing, this is not necessarily the case. As we’ve established, there is a wide variety of reasons why your traffic or engagement might’ve dropped off. They’re not out of reach, nor are the solutions.  Need the resources or expertise to win back your audience? An SEO audit can uncover opportunities to optimize your content marketing efforts. Stay tuned to the TopRank Marketing Blog for insights from Content Marketing World 2019, where our CEO Lee Odden and Senior Director of Digital Strategy Ashley Zeckman are presenting on boosting your content marketing fitness and scaling influencer marketing, respectively.

The post Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent? appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Ghosted: What’s a Content Marketer to Do When Your Audience Goes Silent? published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[talhaghafoor2019-blog]

Sony Music Reportedly Concedes They Released Fake Michael Jackson Songs on Posthumous Album

UPDATE (Aug. 24): Sony Music’s lawyer has released a statement denying that they conceded the vocals to be fake. We are constantly working on more proof about the court proceedings.

“No one has conceded that Michael Jackson did not sing on the songs,” said Zia Modabber of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, who is representing both Sony Music and the Jackson estate in this matter. “The hearing Tuesday was about whether the First Amendment protects Sony Music and the Estate and there has been no ruling on the issue of whose voice is on the recordings.”

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Previous Story (Originally published Aug. 23):

Michael Jackson fans around the world will feel a major sense of victory as Sony Music has conceded finally in court that they released three fake tracks sung by an impersonator. These songs, ‘Breaking News’, ‘Keep Your Head Up’ and ‘Monster’ appeared on the late legend’s first posthumous album, Micheal in 2010. It debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 228k.

When Epic Records and Sony Music Entertainment released the album, there was a section of die hard fans that claimed that some of the tracks on the album were not performed by Michael Jackson but by an impostor. MJ’s mother Katherine Jackson believed the same. Here’s a little backstory on the case: In 2014, a fan named Vera Serova, brought a Class Action lawsuit against Jackson’s long time friend Eddie Cascio and his production company, Angelikson Productions LLC, accusing them of creating fake songs and then selling them through Michael Jackson’s estate and Sony Music Entertainment. Jackson had been friends with the Cascios brothers since the 1980s, and often called them his “second family.” James Porte, a supposed co-writer of twelve controversial songs of MJ’s including the three stated above, was also implicated in the case.

Cascio and Porte claimed that these songs were recorded in Cascio’s New Jersey basement in 2007 but failed to provide any concrete evidence to support it. Serova argued in the Los Angeles Superior Court that the songs were fake and performed by an impersonator named Jason Malachi. Serova cited several inconsistencies in the manner these songs came to fruition, which are supported by a 41-page report by forensic audiologist Dr. George Papcun, who concluded by research that the songs were not sung by Jackson. Take a look at the court documents below.

The plaintiff offered several documents of evidence based on concern from Jackson’s family, friends and collaborators, stating that the three songs in particular lacked the legendary singer’s vibe — for example his trademark finger snaps and foot stomps. Also, when Sony tried to defend itself and asked Porte and Cascio to provide alternate vocal takes of these songs, they claimed they had deleted them all from their computers.

Interestingly, Serova also said in the court that Sony Music and the Cascio brothers had been trying to delete evidence of any misdoing and make sure the media didn’t take up the issue on a big level. That’s the reason why this story has hardly been reported so far. As MJ enthusiast Damien Shields reports, on December 7, 2016, lawyers for Sony Music and the estate finally conceded that the songs might actually be forgeries. They said that Sony and the Estate had taken Porte and Cascio at their word and failed to make their own investigation.

The argument was not accepted by the presiding Judge Ann I. Jones of the Los Angeles Superior Court. “What is problematic is that you are ripping people off under your admitted facts,” she said. Zia Modabber, the lawyer for Sony and the Estate, tried to shift the blame on the co-defendants Porte and Cascio by saying that they “failed to disclose to Sony or the Estate that Michael Jackson did not provide the lead vocals.” Judge Jones did not agree with Modabber’s argument: “I think what he is saying here is. ‘We were as duped as the Plaintiffs… We didn’t know you guys were recording stuff in a basement that wasn’t recorded by Michael. You told us it was Michael. We believed it was Michael. And if there is a bad guy here, who was engaging in false commercial speech, it’s not us.’”

Sony and the Estate appealed the adverse ruling, and on August 21, the California Court of Appeal heard the oral argument in the appeal where Sony Music conceded that the three songs ‘Breaking News’, ‘Keep Your Head Up’ and ‘Monster’ featuring 50 Cent were indeed performed by an impersonator and not Michael Jackson. They did this for the purpose of the current argument on appeal. They argued they had the right to sell the songs as Michael Jackson’s even if the iconic artist wasn’t the singer. The three judges in the case have to now decide on the matter, the time limit for which is 90 days.

As expected, for the purposes of the argument, Sony again conceded that the songs were fakes, sung not by Jackson, but by an impersonator. Sony also conceded that the sale of the songs has indeed damaged consumers.#RemoveCascioTracksNOW

— A Truth Untold (@ATruthUntold) August 21, 2018

This stage is just an intermediate appeal of Sony and the Jackson Estate’s First Amendment defense. The Court of Appeal will decide whether they should stay as defendants in the case or should be dismissed and allowed to continue selling the album deceptively. The case against Cascio brothers is very strong but the court has to make an important decision regarding Sony’s involvement in the fraud. If the court decides Sony’s part as “non-commercial speech,” they will be let off as defendants and the case against Cascio brothers will move on further.

Commercial speech is the advertising of a product or service through printed materials, broadcast or the Internet. It is a commercial speech when your competitor blatantly lies in its advertising about the effectiveness of its products. Sony is arguing that the songs were provided to them by the Cascio Brothers and Porte as original MJ songs which they believed in good faith. How much penalty will the judge decide for them? Stay tuned for this important verdict in what’s turning out to be one of the biggest music lawsuits in history.

This story has been updated with a few factual corrections.

This content was originally published here.

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Two possible “Bailey Breakouts”, those damn triplets, Hamming on Hamilton, and more (Oct 15)

Just had my final draft of the year, 28th year in this league but it’s also the most basic – strictly points, 12 best at the end of the year count from your 20-player roster. Keep everyone. One thing about having it a few games into the season is that the owners tended to ignore or move down the players who were off to slow starts. Dahlin was actually grabbed ninth, and Lias Andersson wasn’t drafted at all in the 26 picks. I picked 10th and 23rd and got Ryan Donato and was about to take Max Comtois because I really like him for this season and beyond. He’s really clicking well with Jakob Silfverberg and believe he will stick throughout the year and continue to be reasonably productive. But he was grabbed 22nd and so rather than acquiring help for this season I went with the high upside in Vitali Kravtsov. Yes, he only has six points in the KHL right now, but he’s still only 18 years old and those six points are exactly what Tarasenko and Kuznetsov had at a year older and in the same amount of games (15).

Two weeks ago in my deep keeper league (15-team, 33-player, keep all, 18th year) I didn’t pick until 34th overall and I picked seven times between 34th and 60th and I had the last three picks of the draft. Here are the players I grabbed, in order (points only, positions count): Vinnie Hinostroza, Warren Foegele, Vince Dunn, Tom Wilson (just an hour or two before he went head hunting), Ethan Bear, Auston Czarnik and Alex Formenton. I also burned the one FA pick that we get for the entire season, just a couple of days ago. The player has to be at least 24, and it’s first come first served. I rarely use it so early, but grabbed Chris Tierney.

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It was a real shame seeing Elias Pettersson go down like that on Saturday. As far as players go, and my early impressions so far this season, it’s Pettersson and Auston Matthews. Pettersson is an elite player and I had no idea just how elite until watching two of his games in the NHL. I feel like he’s gonna do what Mathew Barzal did last season, production-wise. It would be a shame if this injury has any long-term implications on his health (i.e. susceptibility to concussion).

Matthews has been on another planet. You don’t need me to tell you that. But it’s as if adding John Tavares on another line has freed things up for Matthews to the point where he’s just toying with the poor suckers that the opposition trots out there to try to stop him. I had always considered him a Patrick-Kane type of talent, but now I wonder if he’s a Sidney-Crosby type of generational talent. I don’t use that label very easily.

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Back to Jakob Silfverberg, I have this “breakout” vibe on him, a la Josh Bailey (last year) or Brad Marchand (three years ago). That’s how good he’s been looking, and I think a big part of that is Comtois. Here:

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That’s why it’s such a shame that he left last night’s contest with an upper-body injury in the third. No word from the Ducks about the seriousness. Back in August I mused that Silfverberg was the perfect Bailey/Marchand situation template: Has more offensive talent than he’s shown, has solidified his production window in around that 50-point range, and it’s now at the point where we don’t expect more (just as it was with Marchand and Bailey). And then “whoa”, he gets 65 points out of the blue. So far Silf has seven points in six games so let’s hope he returns soon. The Ducks play just once (Wednesday) before Saturday so maybe he just misses the one game?

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So far my “triplets” theory from the summer is holding. Alex Pietrangelo is pointless in five games. I will reiterate – you can’t become a new father and have triplets and expect your offseason regimen to remain unaffected.

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San Jose is just two for 22 on the power play so far, after six games. St. Louis is 1-2-2 in their first five games. These are two of the team-based stats that are a little surprising.

But we did know, at least with St. Louis, that there was a risk there with Jake Allen. And sure enough he has allowed 17 goals in four games. In an effort to maximize the odds that Allen will pan out, the Blues put all their eggs into that basket. To give him confidence, and remove any competition for his job. But now we’re seeing the downside to that. Chad Johnson, who started Sunday and was decent, is not going to bail this team out the way Carter Hutton did last year. It’s Allen or bust. Mike Yeo could be the first coach fired this year.

Jaden Schwartz didn’t play Sunday because of an LBI. No further word on that other than it’s his foot or leg. Sammy Blais has taken his spot on the power play and seen a lofty bump in ice time. He didn’t do anything with it, which is discouraging, but it does offer us a glimpse of the coach’s personal preference. Blais got the PP ice time over Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. Keep an eye on that, if Schwartz is out for long.

Ryan O’Reilly was 19-6 at the faceoff circle, Sunday.

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Dougie Hamilton is seeing 2:11 of PP ice time per game, his lowest in four years. His overall ice time is down nearly two minutes from last year with Calgary. Meanwhile, Justin Faulk – he of just seven power play goals in his last 180-odd games – is actually seeing his PP time going up! The only logic for this is that it’s a statement. Why did Calgary want to move Hamilton? And is Carolina (Rod Brind’Amour) trying to stamp out that reason with some tough love?

In the third quarter last year, Hamilton had 21 points in 22 games. He had 23 points total in the other three quarters. Just having him for streaks like that makes him worth pursuing if his owner is starting to panic about the PP situation.

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I like doing the Monday Ramblings, but I especially like it in the first half of the season. Because there are only a couple of games I can usually watch most of them and Ramble the shit out of them here. In the second half, after the NFL season ends, the Sundays start to fill up and the analysis gets spread out!*

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Paul Maurice is shortening his bench and as an owner of several Jets in one of my leagues, I don’t like it. He’s no longer trusting the likes of Mathieu Perreault, though we saw signs last year in the playoffs that this was coming. Perreault’s ice time is now seven or eight minutes a game. The Jets outright waived Marco Dano, so we know where he stands. And Kristian Vesalainen, a kid with tons of potential, has seen about 12 minutes of ice time over the last two games combined. Even Jack Roslovic, a prospect with a reputation for over-achieving and hard-working, is getting eight minutes per game. The top line of Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor are getting 20 or 22 minutes per game now (and even Connor was cut to 15 on Sunday when he went minus-2). He’s not trusting his players the way he did last year and that worries me. Will Roslovic get a chance to snap his funk? Nikolaj Ehlers?

One thing I do like as a guy who does not own Dustin Byfuglien but does on Josh Morrissey in three of my four leagues – Morrissey is getting the sweet ice time with Big Buff out, and he’s taking full advantage. Morrissey picked up two assists Sunday, with one coming on the power play. Buff is listed as day-to-day with a UBI.

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Micheal Ferland was a wrecking ball Sunday, scoring a goal but adding eight hits. He even had four faceoff wins, to help out those leagues that count that. His 18:53 of ice time was a season high for him. Boy was I wrong about this guy. I had him trending the opposite way in the Guide. I should have read it better – the Hurricanes wanted sandpaper, they have a hard-working coach. So of course they would give Ferland top billing. I miffed this one, just a poor read. Seems so obvious now.

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Kyle Palmieri’s game log after three games: two goals, two goals, two goals. He also has a hit and  PPG each game, and has a total of 14 shots on goal. I talked about Silfverberg and the Bailey Breakout, but Palmieri is also a suitable candidate. He’s 27, we have very firm expectations for him and what he can do, as it’s been very stable and reliable in that range. He also plays with Taylor Hall, which can’t hurt.

The big Devils’ line (Palmieri, Hall, Nico Hischier) is also the first PP unit and the trio saw over nine minutes on the power play on Sunday.

Keith Kinkaid is 3-0-0 so far and has allowed just four goals.

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Warren Foegele leads all rookies and is 18th in the league overall in terms of shots on goal with 19. He had another four on Sunday but was pointless.

I noted this last week and I’ll repeat it again here. Hell, I’ll repeat it every week until it stops – because it will stop. Arizona has been shut out of three of four games this year. They’ve only scored two goals. Now is the time to acquire them. Clayton Keller is on pace for 20 points. Keep the Coyotes on your team benched until they wake up, but as far as trades go, the value won’t get any lower. So acquire and stash.

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See you next Monday.

    from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-two-possible-bailey-breakouts-those-damn-triplets-hamming-on-hamilton-and-more-oct-15/